#it happens to a lot of mental illness of course but everything else pales compared to how people think schizophrenia is

[cynicjovial]

people talk about schizophrenic ppl as they are psycho killers locked away and not actual people that go on the internet and read their shit. Get a fucking clue idiot lmao

[theodora3022]

Once upon a (fever) Dream

Relationship: Scaramouche x Reader (Gender neutral)

Summary: Scaramouche is unwell with a fever, it's your responsiblity to take care of your superior. Little did you know, overhearing his fever sleep talk would turn your life upside down.

Author's notes: I'm trying to get back into the writing groove! Scaramouche has been on my mind a lot ever since the lore of the pale flame set was datamined. If you are interested in the theory I based my fic on, one of my dear mutuals made this informative post. This is pretty tame and more of a psychological analysis more than a fic tbh.

I will not take any criticism on the theory.

Warnings: SFW, Character study-ish, abundance of internal monologues, use of swear words, hints of speculation on Scaramouche's backstory/identity, power imbalance, possessive and obsessive behaviour, trust issues(??)

"Another day Feelin' like no one really knows me It's okay At least I'm used to being lonely"

-Jake Daniels "The Show"

Scaramouche is having trouble distinguishing the dream realm and the waking world. Tch, this always happens when he falls ill.

Dreams. Stupid, meaningless things he cannot control. Scaramouche is never a fan of them. Sleeping is just a way to recharge one's energy for the following day, so why is this petty factor even a possibility? Memories mixed with random shit. Fever dreams are even worse, because he cannot force himself to wake up, and they might even allow forbidden information to be exposed.

The Balladeer seldom falls ill. But when he does...he needs some subordinates to look after him. Not that he got any other option.

Unpleasant to work with? Talks way too much? Eh, not that he cares. Scaramouche does not see the need to present himself as likeable. Like is a temporary, fragile concept compared to fear.

There was a time in his long life, he thought he was loved...the love he received turned out to be nothing more than one of his past naive self’s delusions in the end. No, it is meaningless in being nostalgic over that.

Damn this Moronic fever, stirring his mind all messy...

Fear is a better alternative, more secure and firm.

"Sir, it's time for your medicine." You knock, hesitating when there is no granting of entry from his end.

This unfortunate task: taking care of the bedridden harbinger has fallen onto you as of late. Being the newest recruit in his sector, of course, your seniors would throw this troublesome work to a rookie like you.

The optimal approach is: Do what you are supposed to do as a subordinate, sprint through the doorway once you complete your tasks. Being in his room longer than needed will only result in harsh insults. That foul mouth does not seem to know any mercy.

"Sir?" You ask again, mentally preparing yourself for the possible scolding before turning the doorknob. Letting yourself in is not a wise idea, however, this is your obligation. Lord Balladeer would be even more upset if you had brought in the medicine at the right time.

"No...Please don't...I promise I'll be-" Is that, sleep talking? Oh archons, why?

Those facial expressions are not pleasant ones. A nightmare, great.

Is there a way to unhear things? You sure wish there is. Scaramouche's life before his service has always been a popular topic of break time gossip among the Fatui. Some say he is of noble birth from that arrogant attitude, some say he comes from a peasant family, there are even absurd speculation about him being a fisherman before. However, his subordinates know better than to gossip in his presence. No rumours were ever confirmed or denied.

Who knows what he would do if the Harbinger catches you "eavesdropping". The mutterings have quiet down now, but you still have paperwork to attend to after this(that he assigned you).

"How much of that did you hear?" Just when you are contemplating whether to poke the sleeping bear or not, that menacing violet gaze has already fixated at you. Did he sleep talk? Scaramouche is uncertain. Still, it is always better to be safe than to be sorry.

At least he’s awake now, no need to wake him anymore. You said to yourself quietly. “Not much, my lord. I will forget everything as soon as possible. Now, time for your medicine.”

That scent makes Scaramouche’s stomach churns. A pot of dark goo and a plate of sugared plums, just like yesterday and the day prior. Wait, wasn’t he-

“How do I know that you don’t go whisper to your friends?”

Efficiency and resilience. Those are the two essential qualities one must possess if one wishes to remain in Scaramouche’s service. He may be a difficult superior, but his sector gets a relatively decent chunk of field missions, therefore it is easier to move up the ranks for new recruits. Who knows when you would get a promotion if you just deal with financial transactions in banks under Pantalone.

Perhaps it is sight of the oh so mighty man in such a fragile state, you are feeling...braver than usual. “My lord, what do I have to gain from gossiping?” Do you focus on unscrewing the cap of the pot, sounding somewhat amused? That unnoticeable curl did not escape his eyes.

When was the last time a recruit dared to look him straight in the eye like this? Scaramouche has no recollection. That immense headache is not helping either. Whatever, what matters now is making sure you do not go slipping off what you heard to others.

After handing the utensils and the pot to your superior, you head outside, prepared to stand in the hallway until he finishes the pot.

“Did I give you permission to leave?”

Aren’t you curious about what he is hiding? Humans love to pry by nature, right? It’s not the first time he had to dispose of those who know too much after all.

“Do you need anything else, my lord?” Of course, he’s not gonna let you off the bat that easily. What were you thinking? Deep breathes, (y/n). It’s not like he is going to electrocute you in this state.

“I wish to keep this head on my shoulders.” In an organization like the Fatui, new recruits are seen as resources that can be disposed of if needed. No one would blink an eye if you were to die of “accidental” death.

“You say that, but your eyes tell a different story.” Since when does he care about what is going in the minds of his subordinates?

“Sir, you can deal with me once you are fully recovered. Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa needs you in top condition as soon as possible.”

Gulping down the thick porridge, the little man then lied down, trying to sleep the fever away. The sensation of the quilt moving almost made him jump, he thought you had left the room already? What do you think you are doing?

Did you pull the quilt up to his chin? It’s not like he needs that cloth, but...this notion.

He’s so adorable when he’s sleeping. You thought as you walked through the door.

Did you just… tuck him in?? That is what’s that called right? Arranging the covers for someone?

You really should know better than treating your superior like some infant. However, that is not a mocking gesture. Scaramouche supposes he’ll let this one slide.

As the door shuts behind you, you hummed a cheerful melody, trying to not think about what would happen once he’s back on his feet. Hopefully, he will let you live on if you try hard enough to prove your usefulness.

You are reckless. You have no idea what you got yourself into.

He just had the perfect way to make sure his secrets remained in safe hands.

Someone else would take care of your current position. What would that leave you? Hmm, a personal assistant would be fitting for someone as caring as you. Personal, somehow he likes the sound of that already. Scaramouche had loathed the idea of having someone tend to his daily life, complete independence is a goal he always strives to achieve. Now...that idea does not seem that horrible after all. Do you even know how to brew tea? You’ll have to learn if not, and quickly too.

His past must remain a secret until the situation calls for it, that much is certain. Unstable variables should be placed under constant surveillance, and Scaramouche can only rely on himself to guard something as important as this.

(A/N: Thank you for reading this character study fic!! Relogs and comments will be greatly appreciated!)

[iimuchakk]

Seven seas babies AU - The Journey

Hinahoho’s babies xxx

The five little beans and their father are so excited to go back to Sindria to see Kikiriku and the other’s it’s not even funny

If it wasn’t for all the commotion Hinahoho could of sworn he saw Ahanu smile...

Catori is already getting together her favorite clothes and weapons, whilst Aponi’s already packed

She’s desperate to get a tan

poor babies so pale

Of course Bodaway and Badzill are super duper excited!

People back in Sindria aren't use to their pranks and mischief

they’re pretty sure big bro Ja’far will appreciate the break from work to deal with them

unless he decides the break from work grants him permission to break their necks

wouldn’t be surprising

Turns out, Hinahoho didn’t realize how hard it was going to be keeping himself and five children all together on one ship despite its gigantic size

“Give me back my hair brush Catori!” 

“No Aponi this is mine!”

“DADDY!”

Too much drama for the poor Imuchakk man!

The twin boys are no better

Every second he looks away he has a new note attached to his back

At least Ahanu is being calm at least

Actually, where is Ahanu?

“OH MY SOLOMON STOP WRESTLING SHARKS!”

He’s pretty sure if Rurumu was alive they’d be to scared to pull this crap

How long is the journey over seas again?

A few months?

oh great.

how fun.

Meanwhile, Kikiriku just drinks all the alcohol he can get his hands on

Knowing family time is not always fun time

but annoying time

Ja’far’s babies xxx

Rabi has never looked so hyperactive

and that’s bad

because he is usually hyperactive anyways

has only ever met Hinahoho’s family once when they were very young

not including Kikiriku, who he is rather close with

and that’s about it

Ja’far is just as excited but shows it in smaller doses 

he’s told Rabi a bit about his old friends

though most of Rabi’s information comes from uncle sin and Drakon, who are less busy then his dad

Ja’far has to actually organize everyone's arrivals and their journeys through letter’s and magic circles, so it’s no surprise he’s tired

“No need to threat dad. I’m sure some magic trick’s will cheer you up!”

They don’t

they really don’t Rabi

So Rabi moves on

Trying to decide what color looks best on him since he’s pretty sure ginger hair is hard to match with

decide’s to go with pink, he feels it brings out his eyes

Sinbad applaud’s him on his extravagant choice

Kikiriku, Spyro and Sadiq don’t want to break his little heart and tell him he looks terrible so they just...smile(?)

Ja’far and wife-co decide an awkward thumbs up is probably best in this situation

At least the other’s arriving are all excepting...

Sinbad’s babies xxx

Does not care

Sadiq has no interest with meeting these people

From the stories he’s been hearing they’re all

tiny, flat chested

over grown

cocky, big headed

spineless, overly religious

boring, emotionless

crazy wizard people!

He already has enough of that with Rabi

boi needs no more of that craziness in his life

Sinbad’s been trying to get him excited

offering him Sharrkan’s guidance as a sword fighting teacher because -

“Your foot work really need’s work. Perhaps when you learn to control yourself better in battle, you can be as good as me~?”

g l a r e

nothing else really changes

goes about his day as usual

mentally curses the fact his dad is more clingy then usual

spends a lot of him time in the garden hiding in the bushes whilst everyone else’s happily awaits the arrival of the others

angrily chews on some near by leaves

Where’s Spyro when you need him?

Drakon’s babies xxx

Is really scared about meeting everyone

His parents speak really fondly of the old generals, and he’s worried his appearance might scare them

Tries to find something nice to wear that hide’s most of him away whilst still looking approachable

Saher laughs at him

points to Drakon

“If they can put up with his face then your looks will be easy to cope with.”

“Jee thanks mom.”

If you couldn’t tell that was sarcastic

Spyro also wants to show of a little

just a little...

and decides to make the training ground look nice and civilized so he can invite someone back to spar with

wants to show everyone he’s strong

since it’s the only quality he really like’s about himself

Is dragged to Rabi’s room to watch the boy practically cat walk his outfits

“Yes Rabi you look beautiful. CanIPleaseLeave?”

Can’t find Sadiq anywhere and is very worried

Until Kikiriku tell’s him he saw him chewing on plants that he’s fine

Spartos babies xxx

Very casual journey

wifu stays at home to keep everything in order

Spartos is practically pining after her as soon as the boat leaves the harbor

Elizabeth and Junior have never been more ashamed of their father’s pathetic display of sniveling affection. 

He’s smitten.

“Why is he so insistent about wanting to hold her...?”

“Because Liz, he was a virgin so long before he met her it probably feels weird to know he’s going to have to wait at least a year before any more shenanigans.”

“THATS NOT TRUE I JUST REALLY LOVE YOUR MOTHER “ ;((((

Whole way there is basically cheering up Spartos instead of enjoying the journey to Sindria

Elizabeth will sing for her father from time to time and brings him food, and Spartos appreciates that she tries

Junior’s attempts are less subtle...

Tries to get his dad to do stupid thing’s to get his mind off his mother like:

A: Will dad appreciate rain dancing on a boat? Possibly causing a storm

B: Fishing in shark infested waters?

C: Drowning themselves so they don’t have to deal with his whining?

Junior is very excited to meet the people in his dad’s past life

really wants to spar with someone

oh please say someone wants to spar

Elizabeth is less excited, more curious then anything.

Shes desperate to meet the king of Sindria

Not for him himself, but rather his jewelry

Masrur’s babies xxx

Wives Razol and Rehema decided they don’t want to go

For them it’s basically a holiday

Masrur has the kids with him for a month or two whilst they get to do whatever they like?

See you Masrur

Have fun~

Sadi’s only ever met Ja’far and Sinbad

likes them a lot

would appreciate it if they would arm wrestle with her

how else would she prove shes better?

Very keen to show off

In-fact Masrur want’s her too

Something about showing two people swords and magic suck compared to the fanalis race? Whatever that means.

Angelou kind of just shrugs

He’s a lot like his dad after all

You think meeting some strangers is gonna excite him? Nah

Poor Angelou just wants to rest

Knows it’s basically going to be him baby sitting Ruby

His little sister is defiantly going to be trying to prove herself?

Ever seen a fanalis punch someone in the face?!

Yes?

Ever had a fanalis punch you in the face?!

No?

Stand still!!

Masrur should probably warn the generals about her...

And Dominic. Well Dominic’s just worried

Dosent want to let his father down

He’s in touch with his feminine side

Nervous that the generals will make fun of Masrur for it

Thinking of ways to make himself seem more manly

Sharrkans babies xxx

There is no easy way to put this

Ozymandias is a little brat

On the ship he’s constantly crying

Defiantly not a sea baby

It’s okay though

Sharrkan just loves listening to crying babies when HES TRYING TO SLEEP ITS GREAT HONESTLY HES SO NOT DYING INSIDE

Always checking constantly to make sure Ozymandias isn’t sick

He remembers when his mother grew ill and Ozymandias’ mother

He can’t let that happen

Every time he walks into a room his son throws a toy snake at him

9/10 it hits him in the face

He loves his son really...

In-fact, ever since he’s had Ozymandias he’s been compeltly ignoring women

Actually now that he thinks about it he wasn’t had...you know what in a long time

Has it changed!?

Is he even doing it right!?

Que baby crying

“SOMEONE HELP ME!”

Yamraiha’s babies xxx

Dosent want to travel through a magic circle incase she hurts the baby in her belly

Boat ride it is

Ever been stuck on a month boat ride with a pregnant woman?

No

LUCKY YOU!

If she’s craving a food that isn’t there, someone is about to have a broken neck

LET HER EAT DAMMIT!

Can’t get comfortable in any position and the rocking of the boat just makes her morning sickness worst

Accidentally threw up on someone’s shoes...

Lays in bed thinking about possible baby names but can’t come up with any she likes so proceeds to cry into her pillow.

Looks fat in everything

The generals are going to think she looks fat

Sharrkan is 100% going to laugh at her being fat

Que power nap

This trip better be worth it...

Pisti’s babies xxx

Tir is ready for take off

Pisti has already decked him out in feathers galore and won’t he stop trying to climb up on every single bird he sees

She can’t help but laugh at him

He’s such a bundle of energy

No trouble at all

“HES GONNA GET HIS EYES PECKED OUT SOMEONE STOP HIM!”

Okay maybe a bit of trouble

But nothing auntie Pisti can’t solve right!

Right?...

Pisti decides to fly over to Sindria because why not? It’s a lot quicker

To stop Tir from falling off she makes a harness that she straps around the chest of the bird so Tir is facing her the whole time

BIG MISTAKE

The whole way there he’s just gargling at her and poking her boobs

Then he cries when he realises how small they are

IF HE DOSENT WATCH HIS ATTITUDE SHE WILL THROW HIM OFF THE BIRD!

Debates if it’s even worth drinking in sindria because Tir is a full time job

Pisti? Not drinking?

She joins in with Tir’s cries

It’s a painful journey with a peacock coloured Tir alright...

[personaconcept]

Persona 6 Concept Part 8

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Good news, everyone! The votes are in, and the name of the Velvet Room Attendant has been decided! From henceforth, he will be known as Gilbert! Yay! It’s not that surprising, but a lot of people compared the name Lucius to Lucius Malfoy. I know many characters named Lucius, which is why I could distance myself from the name (I love you, Lucius from Phantom Paradise, my baby, mwah, go read it, please, I beg you. You can find it on Webtoon)

Plot/Playthrough

Before we continue, I should point out that Sayaka is the only character whose social link you can complete before her Palace. Is this a thing in other games? Me dunno. Much like the others, her Palace will only skim the surface of her problems, and her social link will be what really goes in depth and helps her through them. If you choose to not do Sayaka’s social link at all, you don’t have to worry about being super confused. The Palace will explain her mental illness and problems just fine.

September 30: Shinju confronts you about her virus and your connection to those who have survived it. She’ll go with you to her Palace and summon her Persona.

October 1 - 22: Save Shinju.

October 24: Shinju returns home. Begin hotsprings trips.

October 25: End hotsprings trip.

October 26: Return to school.

October 27 - November 1: Cultural Festival prep.

November 2 - 6: Cultural Festival.

November 7 - 8: Free days.

November 9: Sayaka goes to the hospital.

We begin our story again on November 9. 

Immediately upon hearing that Sayaka has been hospitalized, you and the rest of the team will go to her. She’ll be in the hospital room, looking pale but otherwise fine. The virus had acted up, like it had done since the beginning, before the MC ever came to the town. She admits that she’s been corrupted. Her core, at least. 

And then she explains something no one ever thought they’d hear; she can’t feel her Persona. It’s like a gaping hole in her chest. It’s not gone, just inaccessible. No one knows what to do, and honestly, they’re all a little scared. Sayaka reassures everyone that she’s fine, and sends you all home.

That night, you will go back to the Velvet Room. Igor and Gilbert will greet you. They have seen many things regarding Personas, many ways to awaken them, they have even seen the power of a Persona transferred from a Wild Card to another. But they have not seen something quite like this before.

They explain it like this; The lack of Persona was what made Sayaka susceptible to the Corruption. Personas act as barriers to prevent the Corruption. If you are already corrupted, then it does nothing, but having a Persona will give you a deeper understanding of yourself, and will usually not allow the Corruption to take shape, or a Palace for it to form in.

Igor explains that Sayaka does indeed have a Palace, though it is incredibly guarded and almost entirely unessesable because of The Plague. Gilbert suggests that because it is Sayaka’s Palace, she might be able to garner entry to it. She, and she alone. 

With this new information, you wake up. 

Later in the day, you go to visit Sayaka before meeting up with the rest of the team. Baby Avis confirms that Sayaka’s Palace is behind the gold door, but it’s too covered in thorns and roses to access. A couple members will manage to get the thorns moved, but even putting the keys in their proper holes won’t work.

You’ll have to leave, discouraged. 

There will be no more than six days of trying to find a way to get into Sayaka’s Palace. All tries will end in failure, and eventually you’ll go to Sayaka, telling her of your findings and the theory of her being the only one who can make it into the Palace.

She’ll become quiet. When, if questioned, she’ll just laugh it off and say she’s become lethargic because of how long she’s been forced to stay in bed. And of course, they’ve put her on medicine to keep her mellow so her heart rate doesn’t go up and spike the virus, and obviously that’s going to make her tired no matter how much it’s helping her, so she’s probably gonna go to sleep now, but she’ll talk to you later, alright?

You take it as your cue to leave. 

You’ll find out the next day Sayaka is almost as reckless as Miyako. Almost. She checked herself out of the hospital instead of running away from it, but no one knows where she is. (You and your friends will check all over the town, but she’ll be nowhere)

Baby Avis will eventually be able to tell you she can sense Sayaka’s aura on the other side. So your team will go to the waterfall, and the door will remain securely closed… for everyone but you. As soon as anyone else tries to get close, it immediately closes. 

“Go save Sayaka,” someone tells you, very likely Yūdai. “Bring her back safely, leader.”

Your first step into Sayaka’s Palace will be alone. It won’t be threatening, at all. There won’t be a Shadows for quite some time. And it’s… beautiful. A mashup of the bright beautiful of Yūdai’s Palace and the mystical, fairytale allure of Miyako’s, though not so creepy or threatening. 

Everything looks magical, shimmering, glistening. The colors are vibrant and saturated. It’s a beautiful place. This is… Sayaka’s world. Sayaka is different in so many ways from the others. The only one who embraced his illness was Yūdai, and even his Palace was obviously hostile. Everyone else had been drowning in their illnesses, allowing for their Corruption to take control and try to hasten their death. Their Palaces had mirrored this pain they were going through, replacing their view of the world, but Sayaka’s is beautiful.

You’ll wander through this magical, fairytale forest in a cutscene for a few moments. When you find Sayaka, she’ll be sitting at the edge of a fountain. But she seems… different. She’ll be acting off when you go and talk to her, and pretty quickly you’ll be able to tell that it’s not actually Sayaka. 

What happens next will be a one on one with the fake Sayaka, and you’ll have to be careful, because it’ll be powerful and use Sayaka’s attacks. During the fight, it’ll taunt you about how it has Sayaka trapped deep within the dungeon, and how she will die there. You will lose this fight and have to run back with your tail between your legs. Being too tired from your excursion, you’ll have to return the next day.

Baby Avis will lead you through The Endless Forest and help you find basically a back entrance to Sayaka’s Palace. Once you go through, you’ll immediately start your dungeon crawl. November 18 - December 2 will be your allotted time to save Sayaka. Sayaka will be unable to fight at your side during this dungeon crawl.

Sayaka’s dungeon will be different from previous ones in that there won’t be different Shadows as minibosses, it’ll all be Sayaka’s Corruption. Each time you face it, it’ll take the form of each of your teammates and use their attacks. It’s an imposter. (We’ll have to figure something out for Masahiko too, as he’ll also be a miniboss) The forms of your friends that the Corruption takes will likely be the forms their Shadows took in their own dungeons. 

The final form Sayaka’s Corrupted Imposter Syndrome and boss battle will be of the MC, though this one will be in their winter weekend outfit. They’ll use copies of the same weapons you have equipped and will summon several Shadows at once, though only those seen in Sayaka’s Palace. 

You’ll win, you have to, because there’s really no other option. Winning will see Sayaka’s Corruption defeated, and you’ll be able to find Sayaka. She looks nearly identical to her Shadow, unconscious and looking dead to the world. The only way you can tell the real from the fake is the Greek Theater mask her Shadow wears. 

You won’t be able to cure Sayaka’s Corruption, not fully. The outer edge of her core will remain black, no matter how much you try. And you’ll try until it almost kills you. The Plague will appear, get pissed, and expel you all from Sayaka’s Palace, Sayaka included. 

Sayaka will go to the hospital and remain there until December 5. She’ll apologize for being reckless, and thank the MC for trying to save her. She’ll explain that no where she goes, no matter what she does, it’s always felt wrong, like she was living a lie, taking someone else’s place. The only place she’s ever fit in is with the rest of the team. 

Sayaka’s release party will double as a holiday party/fancy dinner, Everyone will bring their families to Masahiko’s house (re:mansion) and dress up all fancy, and yes, it’s totally an excuse for them to wear formal outfits and get dressed up pretty. During the party, you’ll be able to sneak away with a special someone or hang out with your family.

Enjoy this happy, fluffy time, because it wouldn’t be a Persona game without a tragic betrayal. And it will be brought into light next time. 

{First} {Previous} {Next} {Last}

[ibroughtthisonmyselfpixels]

Intermission 2 Replies

I don’t think I’m gonna be getting any more replies on the intermission, and there’s only so long i can leave this until i do, so here’s the reply-to-existing-replies batch now. but first:

@bountifulberries replied to your photoset “So because I have no restraint, I made a very smol tiny Sim called...”

I think a paid surrogate mother would be a very interesting contestant / sim in general!

It’d certainly put a new stamp on the 100bc, that’s for sure

@sevenleafsimblr replied to your photo

“FORMER BC ORGANISER FOUND DEAD IN HOME A once-prominent figure in the...”

��

he died before his prime

sevenleafsimblr replied to your photo “A sweet or agreeable succession or arrangement of sounds.”

it completely flew over my head during the Melody Reveal that "melody" is also a music term and im mad @ myself

Un Der Standable

@jackssims replied to your photoset “Deacon: “…spinning?” ”

It looks like she’s t-posing to asset her dominance

Lissa said by PM:

This is a little silly to mention but -- I think it's kind of cool how you're incorporating old stuff again? Like, between the Wilkersons and a tie to Charlie and stuff. I know that old stuff can be hard for you sometimes, so I Just Think It's Neat ^^

i said at the time that it’s more out of necessity some of it than anything else to flesh out the neighbourhood, but you know what? i change my answer. it’s not that the old stuff isn’t hard for me, it’s that the new stuff is just as hard. i want my being good back

@tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “But back then, when I didn’t have to hide… the Wilkersons and I - we...”

I am terrified of what comes next but I am actually so happy that she has a good support network

without that system in place who knows where she would be. somewhere you wouldn’t wanna read, i’ll bet

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “At first I liked Jase best, just because he was so quiet and strange...”

They must be very good friends. They survived using the blue shell on one another

Cid is a good dad and won’t ground Lauro for that. Now if he’d used that lightning on him, he might’ve thought about it - that fucking lightning bolt’s the fucking worst

jackssims replied to your photoset “¦it wasn’t always good. Not those times. But that wasn’t because of...”

Those blondes... �� (unless of course I’m reading too much into this, then I redact my eyes emoji, but I’ll wait and see)

That’s true; we never did get a real answer for that, did we?

tosimornottosim replied to the same:

B I t c h e s

Well, yes, that applies regardless

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “Lynn: “You’ve got it riiiight here! BLEH!!” Melody: “U-under my eyes?...”

Lynn is such a good person..............................;;;;;;

Lynn makes you cry from all six of your eyes. strexgnome

jackssims replied to your photoset “And t- then there was the one that worried everyone… the - I got a,...”

��

tosimornottosim replied to the same:

:eyes:

sevenleafsimblr replied to the same:

uh oh.....

I will only say this: it’s fortunate that the girlfriend didn’t make everything totally and utterly worse for her

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “Lavandar: *wide-eyed* “Y-you - you dated your own bully?!”...”

I don't trust you Blonde Scarlet and Viola

O KA y whether they’re who you think they are or not that description is fucking hilarious

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “Estelle: “…Oh god, Melody. Are you okay?”  Melody: *shaking* “Please…”...”

Don’t touch her you fucker. Don’t touch her

‘Limp’ is very specific and deliberate consistently-abused-child language, at least to me. If you don’t put up a fight, it doesn’t hurt as much.

jackssims replied to your photoset “Estelle: “…Melody? Melody, can you look at Mommy please?” Melody: “…”...”

Fuck Estelle

tosimornottosim replied to the same:

I want her to die

sevenleafsimblr replied to the same:

estelle can you be a good girl and get some sleep and not wake up

It isn’t wrong, but it is interesting that ‘can you be a good girl’ is what a lot of you replied to throughout this. is it because it’s the most convenient place, being at the end; because it feels weird commenting on the actual violence; or because the emotional manipulation is the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “Lavandar: “Noooope! No no no no, no. It doesn’t work that way,...”

PREACH IT LAV IM SO FUCKING PROUD OF YOU LAV

As you well know, this is something I have to work hard to convince myself, hence the soapbox. (Can it be a soapbox if you have trouble holding the soapbox’s beliefs?) It doesn’t help that I do charity work at a bookstore, and Torey Hayden / Cathy Glass / other trauma-porn books come in on the regular - it’s hard to be confident in the legitimacy of how Mum’s affected me when stories that feature kids who’ve been utterly decimated and forgotten over the years are in my line of sight that often.

Incidentally, I hope I haven’t crossed the line to trauma-porn here. This is intended to be an explanation for part of Lorelei’s backstory and why she has a lot of the mannerisms she does (plus a few hints for down the road, but that first thing first and foremost) - obviously making you sad is a goal too, but not to an exploitative extent, you know? 

@cafesimming replied to your photoset “Lorelei: “I… I’m sorry. I won’t say it again, I’m sor–”...”

i havent been replying but i just got s chance to read sll this and i love lorelei and i love lavandar and i love this story and im quite literally on the verge of tears reading all this rn and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa love

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

bountifulberries replied to your photoset “Lavandar: *shrinks back, curling up onto herself, breathing shakily* ...”

All of this is making me so sad but it’s so well done!! I literally didn’t wanna go to bed last night bc I wanted to keep waiting for updates to post

get some sleep Kasey. if you’re going back to school you need all the sleep you can get. i can be awake for you and get in trouble for it

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “I really am sorry, you know. Lavandar. That I’m p- that I’m putting...”

It wasn’t a lack of bravery. You were so brave

there’s two kinds of bravery: to confront, and to endure. Lyra has the confrontational bravery covered. Lorelei is the endurance. 

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “He looked at my arm. He looked at me. H-he… looked at me, like Lyra...”

Zeus bless Jase. In all truthfulness

give him the happiest of marriages and the least of links to that box with the finger in it...

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “¦He didn’t say a word… to me.” Jase: “…” Pal: “Poor fucking Melody....”

is. is he gonna make himself talk to help her. is. is he gonna do that. because if he does i'm fucking gonna cry

He!! Did that!!

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “But I’ll… even with everything… I’ll forever be grateful that he...”

god what a hero

the hero we need but we don’t deserve

jackssims replied to the same: 

Good. This is good (I hope)

It was a mixed blessing

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “I didn’t put two and two together until Jase told me later… but Mom...”

You weren't bad. You weren't bad

Lorelei knows that. Melody does not.

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “¦what happened after that, Lorelei? Did she–?” “She was held for a...”

oh colby...

I’m not sure where else to put this yet, but designing Estelle was almost as much - not necessarily fun, but it took about as much thought as designing Amelia did back in the day. I think she’s quite handsome, but it’s ruined by her looking almost perpetually sour/disgruntled. I even employed another Enid Blyton trick: her eyes are closer together compared to my other Sims, and a pale blue, much like Prudence from another St Clare’s book. Until they (Prudence’s) turned brown in a later scene in one of the few legitimate continuity errors I’ve seen from Enid but that’s neither here nor there 

I’d also like to emphasise an actually salient point: if it wasn’t clear, Estelle isn’t mentally ill in any way that I know of. There may be neuroses there that never got diagnosed, but they're not the root of her behaviour even if there are. She’s reprehensible enough without chemical imbalances there to influence it. 

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “We tried to be safe. She tried to… let us be a normal family. A happy...”

I understand rationally that Colby is a victim of abuse but /damn/ does he make my blood boil rn

I in turn understand why you’d be angry at him - he allowed a very volatile influence back into Lorelei’s life - but honestly I mostly feel pity for him. He’s a bit like, um... what’s a good comparison...? Charlie Swan feels like the closest analogue, though the circumstances are different there. He can try to lay down some rules and speak the truth of it, but when the largest female influence in the house is this dominant, this domineering, and cares more about what he can do for her than what he chooses to do for himself, what chance does he have? 

It doesn’t help that being willing to please and put his own neck on the line to keep other people happy is kind of a core part of his personality - he’s the person from whom Lorelei inherited the Good trait (much like Amelia got Perfectionist from Maus), but his manifestation of Good leans more towards Doormat than Empathetic, if you see what I mean. It becomes especially clear if I reveal and then you consider he dropped out of college at twenty halfway through a tech degree specifically to marry Estelle so that she could have someone to keep her company at medical school. Self sabotage for the boosting of others.

(Estelle’s two years and a few months Colby’s senior, by the way)

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “I was a wreck at home, and a - even worse, at school. I kept my mouth...”

I wish there was a word for like, SHSL Mom. Because that's what Lynn is. She's like a Double Mom

maxi extreme ultra Mom

Vid incidentally got very upset at around the Jase Pal break-up post, for good reason: these people are just kids. this stuff is much too big for them, they didn’t deserve this.

@geezsims liked your photoset “¦to Bridgeport.” “God. All by yourself? No one-?”  â€œThe journey, y-...”

Han. Han. I admire the like, Han, but I feel like you’ve missed, like, nine tenths of the story here

tosimornottosim replied to the same:

See Colby /this/ is how you Dad

by dying your hair, or sending your kid to a safe place? i’m not sure the intended message here

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “¦Lorelei Kessler.”

My hero

I need a Lorelei; I’m holding out for a Lorelei til the end of the etc

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “Lorelei: “I trust you, Lavandar. I trust you. I trust you. N- no...”

Lavender: *a gentleman's guide to love and murder playing* I've decided to marry you! I've decided to marry you!

Blessed Image

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “Lorelei: “Lyra?! Uh- um -” *clambers up* “You’re - you’re back?” ...”

Man I’m happy you’re going to be here, Ly, but what a buzzkill We almost had a confession!

Like I said in the end credits, we almost had a lot of things ;)

tosimornottosim replied to your photoset “¦ *crunch* *click* *crunch*  â€¦ Lyra: “…okay, and - open.” – End of...”

Now you’re the cockblock, Dub

bountifulberries replied to the same:

RUDE

jackssims replied to your photoset “¦ *crunch* *click* *crunch*  â€¦ Lyra: “…okay, and - open.” – End of...”

Ending it with a tease, eh?

Okay y’all I understand but like y’all, y’all. y’all. this part of SoS is ultimately Lorelei’s story. If I’d ended it with the full Lyra reveal, it would become Lyra’s story again too much, and a lot of the impact of what Lor’s been talking about would’ve been lost. I felt like I was pushing it as it is

jackssims replied to your post “Intermission 2: Melody End Credits”

This interlude-update was amazing. It made me feel stuff like never before, and I was always refreshing my dash for it. Great job!

holy hell thank!!!! I’ll try to maintain that quality, or at least a small fraction of it, into the rest of the project going forward! 

[sincerelycreek]

some writing tips bc i love y’all

━ side note: this doesn’t apply to every writer, it’s just tips i thought could be helpful! and i’m not a professional telling you what to not do or do by any means, i just do it as a hobby and i’m just attempting to help.

when someone else speaks, start a new paragraph! it looks bunched up in one paragraph and it’s difficult to tell who is speaking.

‘said’ is good to use, but look up other alternatives, especially if they’re showing emotion behind their sentence. (example)

there is no such thing as cringe writing. everyone grows on their own, everyone perfects what they enjoy. i mean, i used to write HARDCORE one direction fanfiction and now i’m writing both original stories and fanfiction i enjoy for pairings because i LIKE to do so. do what you like. ignore the assholes that tell you different.

there is also no such thing as to many commas (ok there might be but if you use less than 5 in a sentence you’re fine but also consider semi-colon) 

not so much a writing tip, but be prepared to not get endless comments. a lot of readers don’t understand the work you go through, and leave a like or kudo. it happens, and it definitely is not you or your writing.

writers block is a bitch. i’ve sometimes mapped out an ENTIRE idea and was so excited to write it, but could only stare at a blank document. do something to help motivate you - listen to music, go for a quick walk, eat a subway sandwich. breaks are FINE, no matter how long. don’t strain yourself.

SMASH THAT ENTER KEY. THERE IS ALSO NO SUCH THING AS TOO MANY PARAGRAPHS. 

i would recommend hiring a beta or having a friend read over what you wrote for any mistakes. i myself do that (shoutout to my pal) because when i read over my own writing i want to change everything and think it’s awful because i wrote it. if you need any help, i wouldn’t mind!

google docs is a lifesaver, it’s free, USE IT! i used to write on word document and i’d forget to save what i’d written and want to punch myself in the face if my computer died or something. google docs saves everything you type automatically. it’s also really good at pointing out misspellings, and when to use their/there/they’re, to/too/two, and you’re/your.

do research if needed. if you are writing a poc, disabled, lgbt+, mentally ill character, then you have a responsibility to portray them right. obviously not everyone is a doctor, but showing an effort in researching and being open to hearing of other’s experiences is important.

read others stories!!! of course don’t steal anyone’s ideas because that’s terrible, but reading and getting a feel of people’s style can come in handy when building your own whether from fanfiction or novels. (i hate novels and i’m a writer; i’ve read fanfiction better than books i read)

when describing someone, what makes them stand out? usually, people go for the “dylan was a blonde with blue eyes and kinda pale”, mix it up! add more description! does dylan have many freckles? does dylan have a scar on his cheek? does dylan have a lopsided haircut cause his hairdresser fucked up?

compare! use ‘like’ and ‘as’ when you can by describing something. “dylan had hair as green as seaweed but he bleached it blonde.” (that was a terrible example but you get me.)

always be realistic. if your character is mean cause they had a bad past, that’s who they are. they don’t quickly warm up to their love interest. no one leaves the hospital the day after being shot or the day after a coma. OH and i watched a movie when i was in high school where a guy RAN through lava. yeah. be realistic.

summaries are a huge deal. even if it’s just a sentence, i’m more likely to click on it then to click on one that says “i’m bad at descriptions just read it.” or “read to find out!”

match personalities to actions. if dylan is an asshole, he’s not gonna greet this new stranger with a happy smile and a handshake. if morgan is kind, sweet and mellow she’s not gonna flip someone off for apologizing.

have a PLOT. no shit, what story doesn’t have a plot? honestly: a whole LOT. like i said, there’s no such thing as cringe writing, but you can’t have your characters dancing around someone cause eventually it gets boring and difficult to continue. every story, whether fanfiction or not, should have a plot that includes a start, a climax, and a solution.

that’s all i have at the moment, but if you guys have any questions just message me! i might try to make another long post like this sometime in the future :)

[witchywildfire]

How to strengthen your Aura

So you guys seemed to like the aura posts I have done in the past and as I haven’t posted in a while I thought I would delve further into the world of the aura.

What do you mean strengthen?

So your aura is both a representation of your energies and emotions and is directly affected by them. To put it simly your aura can be anywhere between weak and pale to strong and vibrant. This is directly affected by your general mood and health; mental, physical and spiritual. If you were to compare the aura of a healthy person who eats well, does plenty of excersise and keeps a wel balanced life wih that of a person who is physically unwell, eats unhealthily and is stressed you will find the healthier person to have an aura that is both easier to see and more vibrant and positive. This is a stronger aura.

How do I know my auras strength?

Well there are many ways to test the strength of an aura. The easiest is to simply look at your aura or get anoether to but if this is not a possiblility for you there are other signs. The aura acts as an energy barrier, protecting you from negative energies, illness and even the energies other give off. If you find yourself prone to stress, illness or a general unwell feeling recently then chances are your aura is weak. You can also evaluate what you do or eat on a daily basis to guess the strength of your aura as eating healthily strengthens it.

Ok, so get on with it Lia, how do I fix it?

so there are really simple ways to strengthen your aura, you don’t need to rush to the health shop and buy seven types of medicinal herbs, all you need to do is to look at how your living. Its like shifting through all the layers of your life, you ned to take a serious look at your lifestyle choices and say “do I relly need that? Is it even good for me?(this goes for people too)” Now I don’t want to sound like your doctor lecturing you on the amount of times you head over to McDonalds but this stuff does matter.

Lets start with eating habits:

so eating helthy has an affect on your physical well being, we all know that. But what most people don’t realise is that it affects the rest of your life aswell including your aura. Lets think of it as to groups, the good and the bad. The good things that are definitely good for you such as salad and pasta. The bad is this that we all know is bad for you like take aways or that amazing burger with three types of cheese you had the other day. I’m not saying cut that out of your life completely, everyone loves chips and you should always consider what you personally like, just moderate it a little more.

But where does chocolate and apples come in? well most of you would say its obvious. But is it? When it comes down to it, everything is bad for you when you eat a lot of it, the sugar levels in fruit can be as bad as chocolate and the oil and fats in a portion of deep fried chips can rival that of a block of cheese sometimes. its all about how much of it you eat.

So of course I’m not saying go vegitaian (unless you want to then go ahead) because their eating habits can be bad too, all I’m saying is do your research, everyone has different eating habits, if you don’t like it or you feel negative after eating it don’t eat it again!

Next you need to watch the people around you:

People are a massive part of our lives. As social creatures, humans surround themselves with other humans. But this is a pretty simple one honestly. Look at how you feel when you are with people, do you feel happy or annoyed, excited or upset? Always make sure the people you surround yourself with treat you well and care about your wellbeing. I had to cut some ties with people when it comes to this one so believe me when I say its 100% worth it.

So now you need to find a balance:

Now this one is pretty difficult and longer to do and explain but put simply its something that needs to be done and its different for everyone. You don’t need to find happiness or even contemplation, you just need to be able to say this is how far I’ve come, this is how far I need to go to become who and where I want to be but I’m okay with where I am for now because I’m getting there.

The whole dress for who you want to be thing definitely works, even if you don’t know who that is yet. Just keep trying till you get what you want and remember that this will change on a regular basis if not daily.

You have to find a balance between your work, social and personal lives as well as factoring in time for yourself to just be alone. I know from experience its really very easy to let one take over the others but if this happens stop, look at yourself in the mirror and breath. You need to clear your head and calm the one track mind you will find yourself on. Now I’m not saying quit your job or start skipping school but don’t spend your time alone in you room focusing on homework or on Tumblr, go out, take a breath, spend time with your friends, but also remember that you are allowed to be alone sometimes (although this alone time should probably not be the biggest aspect of your life and definitely shouldn’t overtake everything else) you are also allowed to focus on what makes you happy and decide against going to that family brunch thing next weekend. Just make sure you are never feeling crappy or overwhelmed. These priorities will change for each person for example my friend cant handle being social for very long but i cant be alone for long times. And that’s all okay.

Relaxation techniques like meditation and listening to music can also help find a balance as they can be shown to even out the energies in yourself that will all be jostling for importance. Just take a moment to do what you feel is right in that second. Even if its going for a drive in the middle of the night with your best mates.

Wow, that’s a lot to take in. so what does it all do?

Hopefully you will feel motivated, ready and healthy. Everyone is different though so it might take you a while to find that balance. All you need to know is once your aura is strengthened it will reflect on you directly and you will be healthier and stronger on day to day life.

I hope this helps some of you and remember you can always message me if you want any more advice, help or just wanna chat, I’m always wanting to met new people.

[jinjikook]

House of Cards: An Ace (M)

word count: 4.8k

genre: super angst + references to smut; non-idol AU ; set in i need u + run mv universe, references to other mvs

pairing: ot7/reader (includes all pairings but enforced yoonseok, vhope, jikook, yoontaeseok, sugamon, yoonmin, jinkookmin)

summary: all eight of you were just trying to live life, go with the flow. unfortunately, fate had much more awful plans for you all.

warning(s): lots of angst, plenty of major character death, suicide, self-harm, depressing thoughts, cursing, sex (straight and gay), murder, violence, eating disorders, codependency, drugs, smoking, verbal, physical and mental abuse, sexual situations, use of the word slut and whore (both used only once), promiscuity, mentions of being arrested

a/n: this is suuuuper angsty so please read the warnings beforehand because it has a million things that could trigger someone. this was inspired by the song listed, along with a video edit that i’d love to link but unfortunately, the one link i had seen it from was a repost with no luck in finding it so if anyone recognizes the edit to go with the song, please let me know!

music: dynasty - miia

masterlist

There was no definition for you all.

Lost.

Distant.

Drifting.

Just following your hearts until it inevitably led you over the edge; into the unknown, the deep dark abyss of which you never thought you’d welcome so familiarly, like a distant cousin or old friend from kindergarten. Like someone you’d lost touch with and barely remembered their name but you still had shards and fragments of their memory, burned and etched into your mind in a million insignificant, nonspecific ways—from how the bitter taste of your coffee was like the candies from their mom’s purse or the hollow sound of your desk drawer reminded you of someone’s hollow eyes, empty smile full of promises you knew neither of you would keep.

You couldn’t say you all hadn’t tried to stay together, amongst it all.

When Taehyung’s dad would beat him to a pulp, you all vowed to make it the glue to hold you closer. When Yoongi’s music went nowhere, it just solidified your need to stay united. When Jimin’s love rejected him, it just made you all codependent on each other, saying how no one’s love could compare to the bond you all had.

Even when Hoseok swallowed a bottle of pills, you all realized that it made the group tighter, as you huddled around the too-stark-white hospital bed, stench of chemicals and medicine in the air; with the boy who used to breathe life in everything he did, his sunshine warm skin now pale in comparison to the milky sheets he was laden in. All your knuckles matching the empty color along the bars of the bed, gripped tight and the fabric below just darkened with tears as they soaked into them, only making Hoseok look that much more devoid of life.

But sometimes, life had its limits.

As much as your little ragtag gang liked to test them, push past them and tease Mother Nature by screaming in that bitch’s face with as much malice as you could muster, at the end of the day there were things that you all just weren’t capable of withstanding, holding up like a weak twig on an already bare tree, trying to weather the hurricane that came rushing at millions of miles an hour, determined to break you off and sweep you into the whirlwind until you’re forever forgotten, spread across acres as only bits and pieces of who you used to be.

Soon all would remain are those stale, empty, hollow memories.

Like how a strip of aluminum foil just made you think of the burrito joint Taehyung danced on a table at, how a candle’s gentle flicker would remind you of Jeongguk’s birthdays, his favorite thing to do being blowing out them out and waiting with his eyes scrunched shut and wish being plotted for his friends to smash his face with frosting and bits of cake.

The smell of fresh strawberries made you retch, only able to recall the sweet taste you used to savor, Seokjin’s chapstick melding with your own countless nights, only for you to be torn away and forced to mash lips with Yoongi right after, just because he was always the one to taste you last, to leave with your tongue on his.

Some called you a slut, a whore.

For what? Just letting things run their course?

You weren’t sure if you’d ever end up with any one of the guys, feeling like all it would ever be is whirlwind romances, quick fucks in closets and stairwells with palms muffling sounds until you reached your high, going lax in their grip and smiling contentedly at your inner beast being satiated, while whoever was with you finished quickly. It was never a chore but it was something done daily, just another aspect of humanity you all indulged in.

Sometimes it was with one of the guys, sometimes they did it with each other and sometimes you just took care of it yourselves.

Not that big of a deal you always told yourself, because it really wasn’t. You loved them, and you always hoped the feeling was mutual amongst them as well.

“Hey Y/N, wanna blow me?” Jeongguk asked one night and all you could do was shrug and tug his zipper down, wetting your lips because you knew he liked things sloppy. Not once did you doubt their intentions, fear that they’d speak ill of you or treat you like some object because your friendships ran deeper than that.

Hoseok and Yoongi were close, Taehyung somewhere sandwiched in the middle there. Jimin was fond of Jeongguk and the latter was protective of Jimin, Seokjin being the Taehyung in their pairing. Namjoon and yourselves just slotted in the cracks in-between, being something along the lines of rubber cement in the shredded wallpaper lining your friendships.

Somewhere along the line, the rain began to trickle in and soften your hold, the boys slipping from your grip one by one.

Taehyung was the first to go.

He had always been a rebellious guy, loved to go tagging with Namjoon and mock fast food workers for giving into society’s ploys. Never one to back down from a challenge, he’d participated in more orgies than you could count on your fingers and toes and you’re sure he’s never said no to a dare—having slept with a teacher, gone streaking past a police station and even slipping in a tab of ecstasy on his tongue, just for shits and giggles. You swore he’d be the one to go kicking and screaming if anyone even thought about threatening your groups bond.

But one day, it was just too much.

Too many bruises on his skin, too many harsh words spat at him and his sister, too many days where he wasn’t sure if the sun would rise and he’d be alive long enough to see it.

So he made sure one day he would see it, but his father wouldn’t.

He ran for days after it happened, after someone called about screams and wails of anguish; after his apartment was littered with cops, each inspecting the spatters of blood along the floor and window of the small room, swabs in clear cases turned purple to indeed confirm it was exactly that, blood. Tests were ran to show the fingerprints on the broken beer bottle indeed were the dead man’s son’s, the boy with a record for graffiti and public indecency. The boy with a boxy smile that charmed all the female officers whenever he’d be brought in, the boy who you felt inside you too many times to forget.

It wasn’t like any of you hadn’t tried to find him, countless days of searching and shouting and hoping he’d turn up like a lost dog, ears perked and stomach receded until you finally brought him in to have a big meal and a warm bath.

But he never came.

Someone spoke of a boy with pretty eyelashes and dead eyes standing by the ocean, muttering about how sorry he was, how he wished things could’ve been different but he wouldn’t have changed a damn thing because every small, seemingly insignificant detail in his life led him to you, to your friends. To his lovers and exes and all the in-between that you couldn’t name or define. That same someone said they watched as he took a deep breath and jumped over the railing, taking a plunge and never emerging from the dark waters of the stormy shores.

The hurricane powered on.

It took ages to even sort of recover, Yoongi went back to smoking and as many times as Jeongguk would blow out his fire to keep him alive a little longer, it only served to double his cigarette count. Namjoon always kept a journal on hand, writing the most obscure details of the days in it because he was worried one day, something else would happen to another one of them and he didn’t want anyone’s memories to die with them, for their days to be meaningless and forever lost in the wind. He had a black hair tie always on his right wrist, a running joke that he just wanted to give it to a pretty lady one day just to make her life easier but you knew what it was for. You at least commended him for taking the tamer route in hurting himself, unlike Jimin who—no matter how many sweaters he’d wear even on the hottest of days—couldn’t hide how he befriended a razor, the dotted lines of scabbing and scarring flesh being his only lifeline, as ironic as that was.

Hoseok lied and said the orange bottle in the trash wasn’t his and Seokjin would just keep dealing out cards on game nights, as if nothing happened, as if he wasn’t putting out stacks for eight players when there were only seven of you seated. As if Taehyung’s cologne wasn’t still sitting there in Jeongguk’s gym bag right where he forgot to grab it. As if the scratch marks from when Yoongi fucked him too hard on the table you were sitting at weren’t prominent still, the grooves dipping under where your dug your nails into, hoping to cover them up with your own tracks.

You want to say it was unexpected, that you all had no idea it was coming.

But really, it was just a matter of time before someone else came crumbling down, an unfortunate victim to the Domino Effect.

Jeongguk was covered in bruises, supposedly not from the car that carelessly drove straight into him. The medical examiner said he was in a fight, two different assailants with big fists and a drive to kill but the stake in his coffin, the final nail, were the headlights that he stared into before it barreled into him, splattering him onto the pavement.

It was poetic, how his blood looked so similar to Taehyung’s father’s, to Jimin’s when his wrists began to leak down his arm. It was just blood, it flowed in everyone and despite the fact that when you donate it, you have to be so specific when you scribble it down on paperwork, it all looked the same on the ground.

“Kiss me.” Yoongi looked at you with disgust, his lighter a constant flicker in his fidgety fingers.

“What is it with you people? Two of us are dead and we’re supposed to act like it never happened? Like we can all go through the motions without their presence around?” It was the first time someone had verbalized it, made it real by saying it out loud. The room was pin-drop quiet—not like it wasn’t already—but now everyone’s eyes were on Yoongi.

“We’re not forgetting about them, Yoongi,” Namjoon corrected. His pen already blindly scratching down the date and time of this incident to forever keep in his records.

“Just because you put a few things in your little dream diary doesn’t make them alive, Namjoon. They’re fucking dead, in the ground and lost at sea forever. At least with Jeongguk, we got some fucking closure but Taehyung… he’s still out there, floating like trash or sunken like…”

“Like treasure.” Hoseok finished.

Taehyung was always closest with Hoseok and Yoongi. Jeongguk also but…. he wasn’t around to speak his mind right now.

“Maybe we just need to be with them then. They’re waiting for us, probably. God knows Jeongguk can’t do anything without one of us to hold his hands anyways.” Jimin mumbled, fingers toying with what laid under his striped sleeves, his skin marred in a similar pattern. You don’t even know why he even bothers with the sweaters anymore, it was no secret what he did to himself.

“Jimin. Never say that.” Seokjin chastised, fingers wringing out excess water from the sponge he was using to clean up the drink Namjoon has spilled on the table. The table that still has sticky sweet liquor inside the grooves that Taehyung left behind.

“It’s not like we aren’t already headed that way anyways. Hobi has tried and so have I. Pretty sure Y/N attempted to too, after Jeonggukkie died.”

“Don’t call him that.” It was Yoongi’s turn to chastise the younger, eyes shutting as he tried to push the rotten, beautiful memories of Jeon Jeongguk in his prime, chasing after butterflies and having the stars in his eyes.

“So what if we’ve tried? Clearly, God doesn’t want us, that’s why we haven’t succeeded.” You picked at the stray tweed from the sofa, knowing you were not only unraveling the lining of the cushion but also in the patched layer of your friends. “He wants the good kids, it’s why he took Tae and Guk. God is a selfish prick, he can suck me.” You seethed.

“Or you could.” Yoongi looked at you with his dead eyes, and you knew he probably couldn’t get it up if he had swallowed as many Viagras as Hoseok took pretty white pills in unmarked bottles. But it didn’t stop you from getting up and tugging his belt off.

The calendar marked today as some off-brand holiday, something that a store somewhere would profit off of. It marked that it’d been a week since you choked on Yoongi’s limp dick in front the rest of your numb friends. The red circle on the date, however, was because today was yet another tragedy.

In your dreams, you pictured Jimin to die in the tub, the water murky with his blood and something poetic inscribed in his forearm, a picture or something of equal significance burned into scorched soot by the clawed feet of the porcelain bath.

You didn’t think it’d be Seokjin found like that instead.

Namjoon wrote in his journal, tore out the page and burned it the minute he finished with it. The hair tie on his wrist was replaced with something sturdier, more industrial. The colored rubber band snapped harder, louder and left a bigger welt. He tried to take pride in the fact that he still hadn’t resorted to pills or fire or the end of a blade but honestly, this was so much worse. He lived a lie, a façade that he was alright just because his choice of pain wasn’t that of vulgar taste. He lived among the common faces of the world, blurred in the crowds but nothing would make the bright green on his wrist blend into the bland, colorless world.

Jimin tried to cry, the tears burning at his retinas but nothing ever came to fruition, his fingers scratching at the scars he chose to keep visible to the world today.

Of-fucking-course Kim Seokjin would ask to be cremated, to be turned into soil for trees. It was such a “him” thing to do, something he probably read on FaceBook or saw on Pinterest. You honestly thought if he was to be reincarnated into anything, he’d ask to be a pressed into a diamond, so he could always be has beautiful as he said he was. As he really was. No one was as beautiful as Seokjin, both inside and out.

The screen of your phone was shattered and you couldn’t bring yourself to get it fixed, the constant swiping on the glass leaving shards in your thumbs and making you smile whenever another cut embedded itself into your skin. You were just as weak as Jimin, though you hoped that you looked a little more civil since at least you didn’t have to wear jackets in ninety degree weather.

“What are we ordering for takeout?” Hoseok flickered through the several menus in his hand, mind caught between Chinese and pizza. Namjoon just shrugged and Yoongi pointed his chin at the one in Hoseok’s right hand, the Chinese menu. He scanned the options and asked what meats and sides for everyone. When he reached dumplings, Seokjin’s favorite, Jimin ran to the bathroom and left the door wide open as he puked into the toilet.

It was a resounding no for dumplings that night.

“Do you ever think… we’re being punished?” Namjoon started one night, his journal long forgotten as he inhaled deep, passing the joint to Yoongi before puffing out a big cloud of dragon-like smoke.

“For what? Fucking a lot and tagging some abandoned buildings?” Yoongi bitterly spat, Jimin next to him flinching with every venomous syllable. His body was constantly trembling, fingers unable to stay steady unless they were gripping something, anything. This time, it was Yoongi’s own shaking hand.

Hoseok took his own inhale of the drug before giving you the rolled up papers, the joint looking more and more displeasing to you as you stared at it.

“Maybe this is why we get out every time we’re put in a cell, because our ultimate justice will come from a higher power.” Hoseok drawled; weed always made his tongue slow and his eyelids heavy. He’d probably pass out on your shoulder any minute now.

“I think we’re just bad people getting what’s coming to us.” Jimin whispered, eyes still stuck on the break in the floorboards where Jeongguk drunkenly fell, his ass breaking the wood but no one caring because Jimin was on top of him, making out heavily mid-party. You all cheered for the two of them, watching their sexual tension unfold and you yearned for those days back, when you’d skip school and come to this little shack of a home, broken and frayed at the edges but still home. Just like you and your friends; your family.

“Stop repeating what your deadbeat alcoholic of a mother says to you, Jimin. She’s more worthless than any one of us.” Yoongi tightened his grip on Jimin, his squeak of pain doing nothing to ease the tension in his fingers. He didn’t want to lose him too, to watch him slip through the cracks.

Hoseok began to sing, slightly off-key but still melodious, somber in the empty house with broken furniture and too many memories to stay sober near. Namjoon couldn’t sing to save his life but his voice joined, a low murmur along Hoseok’s. Soon, the scratch of Yoongi’s voice intertwined like the threads in Jimin’s crocheted sweater before he too, began to sing. He harmonized with them, a missing link tying the bridge to the chorus. When you finally gave in, it was when you’d all reached Jeongguk’s name, singing Happy Birthday to him one last time.

 “Did you know the Song dynasty ended in 1279 but it coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties as well?”

“Who gives a fuck, Namjoon?” Yoongi pulled off Namjoon’s dick long enough to try and shut him up, hoping he’d just be quiet for once and take the damn blowjob without making a damn lesson out of it.

Hoseok was asleep on the couch, Jimin and you in a heated battle of black jack, currently you had 20 and you could chance it and hope you’d pull an ace and win all the graham crackers you’d put in the pool or you could play it safe and hope Jimin had less than you. He wasn’t a great card player but lately, all his expressions look the same so his bluffing was the same as his genuinely sad face, making you lose your cookies too many times in a row.

You used to use real money when you played, back when you had a reason to want to win. Back when you’d cheer for taking all of Taehyung’s money and you and Seokjin would go out to spend it on stupid shit that you’d regret a day later but in the moment, it just looked so useful and convenient.

When Jeongguk would win it back the next day just to see Taehyung smile again, to have him underneath him that night to repay him for his chivalry.

“Hobi, did you want me to suck you off too?”

Silence.

“Hobi?” You murmured, looking over in his direction. Jimin’s sad eyes followed.

Namjoon tucked himself back in, not zipping up the rusted metal in his tattered jeans.

You put down the card in your hand, moving from where you hovered over the deck to turn and watch as Yoongi crossed the room to shake Hoseok, his voice incomparable to the ringing in your ears as he screamed for Hoseok to wake up, to just wake the fuck up.

Jimin didn’t look away, Namjoon frozen in place as Yoongi continued to slap and shake his best friend, his lover, his confidant, hoping he’d wake up from some deep slumber. You turned back to your game, hand back on the deck as you decided it was time to give fate a chance. You pulled a card, the black butterfly in the middle telling you what you never hoped for.

An ace.

You won.

It used to be “us against the world” with you eight, a force not to be reckoned with whenever you all banded together. When you originally met, it was through friends of friends, mutual interests and one through a really interesting Tinder profile. You all had sworn fate brought you together for a reason, happiness meant to be share amongst the lot of you.

You wish you’d never met them, not a single one.

“Jimin? Could you let go?” You touched his shoulder, his body no longer jerky with anxiety. He was desensitized, no longer feeling anything. His eyes stayed on the cascading waves as he released the urn he had clutched against his chest, as if Hoseok still radiated his warmth through the pretty patterns and decorative top.

He wanted to be spread into the ocean, to find Taehyung. He didn’t want to leave him alone out there, knowing that Yoongi could be strong and handle him being gone. His note read:

“Just because I was weak, doesn’t mean you have to be. Let us live on in your hearts, let them beat for the rest of us. Taehyung was a tragedy, Jeongguk an accident, Seokjin an unfortunate chain of events and I, an outlier. Don’t make us into martyrs, something we’re not. We’re just kids, dealt a bad hand. But you all still have your game faces on, so come on Yoongi, pull an Ace for the rest of us.”

Yoongi set fire to his bedroom instead; with the lighter Jeongguk used to blow out, the very one Seokjin used to light his birthday candles, the one Taehyung bought at the gas station at the corner of where you lived. Namjoon threw the remainder of his journal pages in there, Jimin tossed his sweaters inside the flames. You stood by and warmed your hands by the fire, feeling your tears dry from the heat until the firetrucks came screaming and the hoses put out the fire that was in Yoongi’s heart. They killed him. Right before your eyes.

  And then there were three.

Jimin never ate, walking bones that creaked and cracked whenever he moved. Namjoon refused to give up his rubber band, switching to a thick red one that turned white when he stretched it beyond his limit, matching the color of Hoseok’s pills, the mayo that globbed out of Seokjin’s burger, the come that Jeongguk would get on the bed after round two, the boxy grin Taehyung used to get everyone in more trouble than it ever did help. The same color that burned when the ignited fire got to its hottest, right in the core. The color of Yoongi’s skin when he found his friends dead, one by one.

“Should I take up the flute?” Jimin shook his head and told Namjoon his fingers weren’t dexterous enough, that he’d never manage the fine skill it took to play such an instrument. You nodded, knowing the damn thing would break the minute it slipped between his grimy fingers.

“Taehyung liked the sax, maybe you should try that instead.” At the sound of his name passing your chapped lips—lip balm no longer appealing to you because every flavor reminded you of someone different, someone dead—Namjoon stiffened, Jimin motionless like always. You’re sure any sort of use of energy from the younger male would cause him to pass out, the hunger in him always there but food never enticing enough for him to give into the temptation and give his body the energy it so desperately needs.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Another tack on the wall as Namjoon robbed a music store and let the cops gun him down. You never thought Namjoon would be the kind to go out in a blaze of glory, let alone one to own a gun. He was a pacifist, but when the crime scene investigator told you that the initials M. Y. were on the handle, messily scratched with probably some house tool, you knew what he’d done.

  Jimin stopped holding hands, not having the nutrition in him to making his fingers tighten around yours, the bones probably seconds away from turning into dust. Your throat was dry, like the days you used to love. The days where the sun burned something serious and the boys only wanted to run around outside, despite your protests. Those were the days that everything seemed so simple, so cut and dry. So… easy.

You really hoped that Jimin would be stronger than you, that you’d finally give in and join the others so you wouldn’t have to deal with the pain of yet another piece of your soul, your very being, shot dead right in front of you. So you wouldn’t have to go to another funeral or service or spread another’s ashes or read another’s will; so you wouldn’t ever have to hear crying wails or heartfelt apologies, hushed murmurs about how tragic it all was and how you all slipped through the cracks, the school system and your parents all failing you. So you wouldn’t have to etch a seventh mark, as you found Jimin, strung up from the ceiling fan.

The bedsheets were Jeongguk’s, the bandana Taehyung’s, the dishtowel Seokjin’s, the rubber bands Namjoon’s, the shoelaces Yoongi’s, the scarf Hoseok’s, and the sweater Jimin’s.

All knotted together to create a perfect noose, just like you all were meant to come together as. Only good for bringing the worst, death hovering over you all like an ominous storm, threatening to rain on the parade you’d created for yourselves.

All that was missing from Jimin’s perfect noose was yourself.

So you made sure to remedy that.

Putting yourself next to him with the aid of a rickety dining table chair; your hands wrapped around his throat to create a vice, to wrench the last breaths from his body, knowing that his heart was weak but his eyes weren’t; finally there was a spark inside his irises, something more than fear and dismay. You felt his body go limp before you finally checked his pulse, confirming that he indeed, was gone.

You sat down on the ratty couch, the same one you’d had sex with each and every one of them on; the same one that hosted countless movie nights and had popcorn tossed all over it whenever Hoseok got scared or Taehyung too excited. The couch that cradled Jimin when he cried at night and when Jeongguk would hold him for hours, promising to never leave him. The same couch that Yoongi would always fall asleep on, Seokjin covering him because he knew he’d catch a cold if he wasn’t kept warm. The couch that sat Namjoon when he’d heard the news on the phone:

“Kim Taehyung has committed murder.”

It felt like weeks, months, years scrawled by before you heard the front door open, slowly and then suddenly. The creaking something similar to Jimin’s bones, his body still hanging from where he killed himself; where you killed him.

Taehyung walked in, eyes on Jimin then you.

“How’s Hell?” You murmured, knowing damn well he could hear you clear as day.

“I just got back.”

You smiled and let death sweep you up, leaving just one. The first, the domino that started this terrible chain of events. The butterfly on your card, the Ace you needed.

Taehyung took one small breath before taking your life, making sure he followed right after.

Maybe you’d all meet up again, in some maze of chain link fences and pristine white ribbons like the bedsheets of Hoseok’s hospital bed, the suds in the sink where Seokjin scrubbed, the wax of Jeongguk’s birthday candles, the hoodie Taehyung always wore, the blond of Yoongi’s hair, the pages in Namjoon’s journal, the nailbeds on Jimin’s small hands. The white on the back of your playing cards, the ones built to be a steady house but instead crumpled in on itself.

But for now, you just welcomed the white and hoped that no one else would follow in this Butterfly Effect.

[tortuga-aak]

A handful of clinics is embracing a 'party drug' that could be a rapid-fire depression treatment — we got a look inside

Shutterstock

Ketamine — widely used legally as an anesthetic and illegally in club settings — is emerging as a potential new treatment for some types of depression.

Researchers have called it "the most important discovery in half a century."

We visited a ketamine clinic that offers 45-minute infusions of the therapy in San Francisco.

After a 45-minute infusion of ketamine, clients at a clinic in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood are not partying.

Instead, they're in a state of quiet contemplation — reclining on cushioned chairs, listening to music, or occasionally striking a tranquil yoga pose.

These clients are patients at one of ten ketamine clinics operated by Actify Neurotherapies, a network that offers the treatments to people diagnosed with severe forms of anxiety and depression. Ketamine is best known for its illegal recreational uses — it is a powerful dissociative that can induce feelings of being separated from one's own body. But it is also one of the safest and most widely used legal anesthetics. And ketamine's utility as an antidepressant has recently started to gain attention. 

A spate of studies over the past several years suggests ketamine may provide swift and powerful relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression — an illness that is the leading disability worldwide. Those findings have been so promising, in fact, that some researchers are calling it “the most important discovery in half a century." However, the US Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved ketamine for the treatment of anxiety or depression. 

Actify Neurotherapies' San Francisco facility is currently offering treatments to thousands of patients anyway, and is one of an estimated 50 to 100 such clinics operating across the US. Here's what it's like.

Inside a ketamine clinic

Like Actify Neurotherapies' other nine locations, the San Francisco office is a cross between clinical and therapeutic. In each treatment room, a reclining clinical chair sits facing a large window. In the corner is a chair decorated with a colorful crocheted blanket.

Erin Brodwin / Business Insider"We're striking a balance between a clinical setting and a home setting," Steve Levine, a psychiatrist and the CEO of Actify Neurotherapies, told Business Insider.

Each two-hour visit includes 45 minutes of ketamine infusion, 45 minutes of a saline drip, and a consultation with Alison McInnes, a physician who founded a regional ketamine therapy program with Kaiser Permanente.

"Therapy and ketamine go together like peanut butter and chocolate," Levine said. "And with our approach, you have someone with an extensive background in mental health and therapy always present, and talk therapy happens before and after the infusion." 

At Actify, most patients receive 10 infusions over the course of 10 weeks — three in the first week, two in the second, and one infusion in the third, fourth, and fifth weeks. The last two infusions are spread between weeks seven and 10. Doctors who track patient progress, and people to fill out a standard depression and anxiety questionnaire before each treatment and the following day.

A single infusion costs $650, and insurance doesn't officially cover any of that, but Levine said his team can typically get providers to reimburse "a lot of it."

However, as with any treatment approach — especially one involving drugs — there are drawbacks. Most studies on ketamine use in people with depression have been limited to about two weeks, so it remains unclear how long the benefits last. And not all clinics offering ketamine infusions are like Levine's network, which always has a psychiatrist or mental health professional on staff. Furthermore, such treatments often range from $400 to $1,000 per infusion around the US, a price tag that can leave vulnerable patients paying out of pocket and not getting reimbursed at all. Plus there's the fact that the FDA has only approved ketamine for use as an anesthetic. 

Existing treatments for depression are very limited, however.

'Why the heck aren't we using this?'

Levine said that when he first saw a study about ketamine's impact on people with severe depression, it "spun his head around."

ShutterstockOther treatments for depression, like talk therapy and antidepressants, mostly haven't improved since they were introduced in the 1950s. Decades of research suggest that those existing treatments don't work that well for everyone, and may not work at all for some. Yet physicians and psychiatrists have been doling out the same medications to clients for 70 years.

Some scientists seeking a new approach have looked to psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms, which appear to reduce depressive symptoms by increasing the connectivity between certain parts of the brain. So it's not a complete surprise that they're also exploring the depression-reducing qualities of ketamine, Levine said.

But research has suggested that ketamine might stand out as conferring seemingly fast, widespread benefits to people with the condition. A 2012 review of four preliminary studies in patients with severe depression concluded that approximately 65-70% of patients responded well to ketamine. The other 35-30% either did not have a significant response, or their relief from depression was only short-lived.

"The findings were unanticipated, especially the robustness and rapidity of benefit," the authors wrote in their review. "Ketamine appeared to directly target core depressive symptoms such as sad mood, suicidality, helplessness and worthlessness, rather than inducing a nonspecific mood-elevating effect."

Levine read everything he could on the treatment while maintaining his private psychiatry practice.

"Here's an incredibly safe medicine that works within hours," he said. "So my immediate question was, 'Why the heck aren't we using this?'"

He eventually decided to start his own clinics — the first treatment center opened in 2011 in Princeton, New Jersey, and the other nine followed between 2015 and 2017.

New findings on ketamine

AP Photo/Victoria ArochoA study published in the journal Scientific Reports in May was the first large, non-preliminary study to show that ketamine appears to provide significant relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression. The finding did not go unnoticed amongst pharmaceutical companies — Allergan and Johnson and Johnson are currently exploring the idea of a ketamine-like drug as an antidepressant.

For the most recent study, researchers at the University of California in San Diego turned to an FDA database with records from more than 8 million patients. Using this data, the researchers homed in on patients who'd been given ketamine as a treatment for their chronic pain. Then they looked at how their depression symptoms compared to the depression symptoms in people who received other pain medications.

The findings were striking. The patients who took ketamine reported symptoms of depression 50% less frequently than patients who were given any other combination of drugs for pain.

"This reduction in depression is specific to ketamine and is known to be much more rapid than current antidepressants," the researchers wrote in their paper, adding that their observations were "very promising" for people with serious depression or thoughts of suicide.

"These patients cannot afford to wait up to six weeks for reductions in their depressive symptoms," they wrote.

Beyond a reduction in their symptoms of depression, the patients on ketamine also reported significantly less pain than those given the other drugs. They were also less likely to experience the unpleasant side-effects that frequently come with other pain medications like constipation, vomiting, and nausea.

Still, the ketamine had its own negative side effects, including kidney failure and low blood pressure.

For Levine, however, those negatives pale in comparison to the host of downsides that can accompany most treatments for depression.

"When you're treating very very ill people, you will have side effects. That's a reality," Levine said, adding, "these are people who've been sick for decades and heard from multiple doctors that there's nothing else they can do. We're enabling them to get back to their normal lives."

NOW WATCH: Public policy expert: Here's how you can deregulate LSD and other hallucinogens safely

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[ramialkarmi]

We visited a clinic that offers infusions of a 'party drug' for people with depression — here's what it was like

Ketamine — widely used legally as an anesthetic and illegally in club settings — is emerging as a potential new treatment for some types of depression.

Researchers have called it "the most important discovery in half a century."

We visited a ketamine clinic that offers 45-minute infusions of the therapy in San Francisco.

After a 45-minute infusion of ketamine, clients at a clinic in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood are not partying.

Instead, they're in a state of quiet contemplation — reclining on cushioned chairs, listening to music, or occasionally striking a tranquil yoga pose.

These clients are patients at one of ten ketamine clinics operated by Actify Neurotherapies, a network that offers the treatments to people diagnosed with severe forms of anxiety and depression. Ketamine is best known for its illegal recreational uses — it is a powerful dissociative that can induce feelings of being separated from one's own body. But it is also one of the safest and most widely used legal anesthetics. And ketamine's utility as an antidepressant has recently started to gain attention. 

A spate of studies over the past several years suggests ketamine may provide swift and powerful relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression — an illness that is the leading disability worldwide. Those findings have been so promising, in fact, that some researchers are calling it “the most important discovery in half a century." However, the US Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved ketamine for the treatment of anxiety or depression. 

Actify Neurotherapies' San Francisco facility is currently offering treatments to thousands of patients anyway, and is one of an estimated 50 to 100 such clinics operating across the US. Here's what it's like.

Inside a ketamine clinic

Like Actify Neurotherapies' other nine locations, the San Francisco office is a cross between clinical and therapeutic. In each treatment room, a reclining clinical chair sits facing a large window. In the corner is a chair decorated with a colorful crocheted blanket.

"We're striking a balance between a clinical setting and a home setting," Steve Levine, a psychiatrist and the CEO of Actify Neurotherapies, told Business Insider.

Each two-hour visit includes 45 minutes of ketamine infusion, 45 minutes of a saline drip, and a consultation with Alison McInnes, a physician who founded a regional ketamine therapy program with Kaiser Permanente.

"Therapy and ketamine go together like peanut butter and chocolate," Levine said. "And with our approach, you have someone with an extensive background in mental health and therapy always present, and talk therapy happens before and after the infusion." 

At Actify, most patients receive 10 infusions over the course of 10 weeks — three in the first week, two in the second, and one infusion in the third, fourth, and fifth weeks. The last two infusions are spread between weeks seven and 10. Doctors who track patient progress, and people to fill out a standard depression and anxiety questionnaire before each treatment and the following day.

A single infusion costs $650, and insurance doesn't officially cover any of that, but Levine said his team can typically get providers to reimburse "a lot of it."

However, as with any treatment approach — especially one involving drugs — there are drawbacks. Most studies on ketamine use in people with depression have been limited to about two weeks, so it remains unclear how long the benefits last. And not all clinics offering ketamine infusions are like Levine's network, which always has a psychiatrist or mental health professional on staff. Furthermore, such treatments often range from $400 to $1,000 per infusion around the US, a price tag that can leave vulnerable patients paying out of pocket and not getting reimbursed at all. Plus there's the fact that the FDA has only approved ketamine for use as an anesthetic. 

Existing treatments for depression are very limited, however.

'Why the heck aren't we using this?'

Levine said that when he first saw a study about ketamine's impact on people with severe depression, it "spun his head around."

Other treatments for depression, like talk therapy and antidepressants, mostly haven't improved since they were introduced in the 1950s. Decades of research suggest that those existing treatments don't work that well for everyone, and may not work at all for some. Yet physicians and psychiatrists have been doling out the same medications to clients for 70 years.

Some scientists seeking a new approach have looked to psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms, which appear to reduce depressive symptoms by increasing the connectivity between certain parts of the brain. So it's not a complete surprise that they're also exploring the depression-reducing qualities of ketamine, Levine said.

But research has suggested that ketamine might stand out as conferring seemingly fast, widespread benefits to people with the condition. A 2012 review of four preliminary studies in patients with severe depression concluded that approximately 65-70% of patients responded well to ketamine. The other 35-30% either did not have a significant response, or their relief from depression was only short-lived.

"The findings were unanticipated, especially the robustness and rapidity of benefit," the authors wrote in their review. "Ketamine appeared to directly target core depressive symptoms such as sad mood, suicidality, helplessness and worthlessness, rather than inducing a nonspecific mood-elevating effect."

Levine read everything he could on the treatment while maintaining his private psychiatry practice.

"Here's an incredibly safe medicine that works within hours," he said. "So my immediate question was, 'Why the heck aren't we using this?'"

He eventually decided to start his own clinics — the first treatment center opened in 2011 in Princeton, New Jersey, and the other nine followed between 2015 and 2017.

New findings on ketamine

A study published in the journal Scientific Reports in May was the first large, non-preliminary study to show that ketamine appears to provide significant relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression. The finding did not go unnoticed amongst pharmaceutical companies — Allergan and Johnson and Johnson are currently exploring the idea of a ketamine-like drug as an antidepressant.

For the most recent study, researchers at the University of California in San Diego turned to an FDA database with records from more than 8 million patients. Using this data, the researchers homed in on patients who'd been given ketamine as a treatment for their chronic pain. Then they looked at how their depression symptoms compared to the depression symptoms in people who received other pain medications.

The findings were striking. The patients who took ketamine reported symptoms of depression 50% less frequently than patients who were given any other combination of drugs for pain.

"This reduction in depression is specific to ketamine and is known to be much more rapid than current antidepressants," the researchers wrote in their paper, adding that their observations were "very promising" for people with serious depression or thoughts of suicide.

"These patients cannot afford to wait up to six weeks for reductions in their depressive symptoms," they wrote.

Beyond a reduction in their symptoms of depression, the patients on ketamine also reported significantly less pain than those given the other drugs. They were also less likely to experience the unpleasant side-effects that frequently come with other pain medications like constipation, vomiting, and nausea.

Still, the ketamine had its own negative side effects, including kidney failure and low blood pressure.

For Levine, however, those negatives pale in comparison to the host of downsides that can accompany most treatments for depression.

"When you're treating very very ill people, you will have side effects. That's a reality," Levine said, adding, "these are people who've been sick for decades and heard from multiple doctors that there's nothing else they can do. We're enabling them to get back to their normal lives."

SEE ALSO: There's new evidence that a 'party drug' is a rapid-fire treatment for depression

DON'T MISS: What marijuana really does to your body and brain

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Public policy expert: Here's how you can deregulate LSD and other hallucinogens safely

[tortuga-aak]

We visited a clinic that delivers 45-minute ketamine infusions for depression — here's what it was like

Shutterstock

Ketamine — widely used legally as an anesthetic and illegally in club settings — is emerging as a potential new treatment for some types of depression.

Researchers have called it "the most important discovery in half a century."

We visited a ketamine clinic that offers 45-minute infusions of the therapy in San Francisco.

After a 45-minute infusion of ketamine, clients at a clinic in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood are not partying.

Instead, they're in a state of quiet contemplation — reclining on cushioned chairs, listening to music, or occasionally striking a tranquil yoga pose.

These clients are patients at one of ten ketamine clinics operated by Actify Neurotherapies, a network that offers the treatments to people diagnosed with severe forms of anxiety and depression. Ketamine is best known for its illegal recreational uses — it is a powerful dissociative that can induce feelings of being separated from one's own body. But it is also one of the safest and most widely used legal anesthetics. And ketamine's utility as an antidepressant has recently started to gain attention. 

A spate of studies over the past several years suggests ketamine may provide swift and powerful relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression — an illness that is the leading disability worldwide. Those findings have been so promising, in fact, that some researchers are calling it “the most important discovery in half a century." However, the US Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved ketamine for the treatment of anxiety or depression. 

Actify Neurotherapies' San Francisco facility is currently offering treatments to thousands of patients anyway, and is one of an estimated 50 to 100 such clinics operating across the US. Here's what it's like.

Inside a ketamine clinic

Like Actify Neurotherapies' other nine locations, the San Francisco office is a cross between clinical and therapeutic. In each treatment room, a reclining clinical chair sits facing a large window. In the corner is a chair decorated with a colorful crocheted blanket.

Erin Brodwin / Business Insider"We're striking a balance between a clinical setting and a home setting," Steve Levine, a psychiatrist and the CEO of Actify Neurotherapies, told Business Insider.

Each two-hour visit includes 45 minutes of ketamine infusion, 45 minutes of a saline drip, and a consultation with Alison McInnes, a physician who founded a regional ketamine therapy program with Kaiser Permanente.

"Therapy and ketamine go together like peanut butter and chocolate," Levine said. "And with our approach, you have someone with an extensive background in mental health and therapy always present, and talk therapy happens before and after the infusion." 

At Actify, most patients receive 10 infusions over the course of 10 weeks — three in the first week, two in the second, and one infusion in the third, fourth, and fifth weeks. The last two infusions are spread between weeks seven and 10. Doctors who track patient progress, and people to fill out a standard depression and anxiety questionnaire before each treatment and the following day.

A single infusion costs $650, and insurance doesn't officially cover any of that, but Levine said his team can typically get providers to reimburse "a lot of it."

However, as with any treatment approach — especially one involving drugs — there are drawbacks. Most studies on ketamine use in people with depression have been limited to about two weeks, so it remains unclear how long the benefits last. And not all clinics offering ketamine infusions are like Levine's network, which always has a psychiatrist or mental health professional on staff. Furthermore, such treatments often range from $400 to $1,000 per infusion around the US, a price tag that can leave vulnerable patients paying out of pocket and not getting reimbursed at all. Plus there's the fact that the FDA has only approved ketamine for use as an anesthetic. 

Existing treatments for depression are very limited, however.

'Why the heck aren't we using this?'

Levine said that when he first saw a study about ketamine's impact on people with severe depression, it "spun his head around."

Other treatments for depression, like talk therapy and antidepressants, mostly haven't improved since they were introduced in the 1950s. Decades of research suggest that those existing treatments don't work that well for everyone, and may not work at all for some. Yet physicians and psychiatrists have been doling out the same medications to clients for 70 years.

Some scientists seeking a new approach have looked to psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms, which appear to reduce depressive symptoms by increasing the connectivity between certain parts of the brain. So it's not a complete surprise that they're also exploring the depression-reducing qualities of ketamine, Levine said.

But research has suggested that ketamine might stand out as conferring seemingly fast, widespread benefits to people with the condition. A 2012 review of four preliminary studies in patients with severe depression concluded that approximately 65-70% of patients responded well to ketamine. The other 35-30% either did not have a significant response, or their relief from depression was only short-lived.

"The findings were unanticipated, especially the robustness and rapidity of benefit," the authors wrote in their review. "Ketamine appeared to directly target core depressive symptoms such as sad mood, suicidality, helplessness and worthlessness, rather than inducing a nonspecific mood-elevating effect."

Levine read everything he could on the treatment while maintaining his private psychiatry practice.

"Here's an incredibly safe medicine that works within hours," he said. "So my immediate question was, 'Why the heck aren't we using this?'"

He eventually decided to start his own clinics — the first treatment center opened in 2011 in Princeton, New Jersey, and the other nine followed between 2015 and 2017.

New findings on ketamine

AP Photo/Victoria ArochoA study published in the journal Scientific Reports in May was the first large, non-preliminary study to show that ketamine appears to provide significant relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression. The finding did not go unnoticed amongst pharmaceutical companies — Allergan and Johnson and Johnson are currently exploring the idea of a ketamine-like drug as an antidepressant.

For the most recent study, researchers at the University of California in San Diego turned to an FDA database with records from more than 8 million patients. Using this data, the researchers homed in on patients who'd been given ketamine as a treatment for their chronic pain. Then they looked at how their depression symptoms compared to the depression symptoms in people who received other pain medications.

The findings were striking. The patients who took ketamine reported symptoms of depression 50% less frequently than patients who were given any other combination of drugs for pain.

"This reduction in depression is specific to ketamine and is known to be much more rapid than current antidepressants," the researchers wrote in their paper, adding that their observations were "very promising" for people with serious depression or thoughts of suicide.

"These patients cannot afford to wait up to six weeks for reductions in their depressive symptoms," they wrote.

Beyond a reduction in their symptoms of depression, the patients on ketamine also reported significantly less pain than those given the other drugs. They were also less likely to experience the unpleasant side-effects that frequently come with other pain medications like constipation, vomiting, and nausea.

Still, the ketamine had its own negative side effects, including kidney failure and low blood pressure.

For Levine, however, those negatives pale in comparison to the host of downsides that can accompany most treatments for depression.

"When you're treating very very ill people, you will have side effects. That's a reality," Levine said, adding, "these are people who've been sick for decades and heard from multiple doctors that there's nothing else they can do. We're enabling them to get back to their normal lives."

NOW WATCH: Public policy expert: Here's how you can deregulate LSD and other hallucinogens safely

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[tortuga-aak]

We visited a clinic that offers infusions of a 'party drug' for people with depression — here's what it was like

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Ketamine — widely used legally as an anesthetic and illegally in club settings — is emerging as a potential new treatment for some types of depression.

Researchers have called it "the most important discovery in half a century."

We visited a ketamine clinic that offers 45-minute infusions of the therapy in San Francisco.

After a 45-minute infusion of ketamine, clients at a clinic in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood are not partying.

Instead, they're in a state of quiet contemplation — reclining on cushioned chairs, listening to music, or occasionally striking a tranquil yoga pose.

These clients are patients at one of ten ketamine clinics operated by Actify Neurotherapies, a network that offers the treatments to people diagnosed with severe forms of anxiety and depression. Ketamine is best known for its illegal recreational uses — it is a powerful dissociative that can induce feelings of being separated from one's own body. But it is also one of the safest and most widely used legal anesthetics. And ketamine's utility as an antidepressant has recently started to gain attention. 

A spate of studies over the past several years suggests ketamine may provide swift and powerful relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression — an illness that is the leading disability worldwide. Those findings have been so promising, in fact, that some researchers are calling it “the most important discovery in half a century." However, the US Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved ketamine for the treatment of anxiety or depression. 

Actify Neurotherapies' San Francisco facility is currently offering treatments to thousands of patients anyway, and is one of an estimated 50 to 100 such clinics operating across the US. Here's what it's like.

Inside a ketamine clinic

Like Actify Neurotherapies' other nine locations, the San Francisco office is a cross between clinical and therapeutic. In each treatment room, a reclining clinical chair sits facing a large window. In the corner is a chair decorated with a colorful crocheted blanket.

Erin Brodwin / Business Insider"We're striking a balance between a clinical setting and a home setting," Steve Levine, a psychiatrist and the CEO of Actify Neurotherapies, told Business Insider.

Each two-hour visit includes 45 minutes of ketamine infusion, 45 minutes of a saline drip, and a consultation with Alison McInnes, a physician who founded a regional ketamine therapy program with Kaiser Permanente.

"Therapy and ketamine go together like peanut butter and chocolate," Levine said. "And with our approach, you have someone with an extensive background in mental health and therapy always present, and talk therapy happens before and after the infusion." 

At Actify, most patients receive 10 infusions over the course of 10 weeks — three in the first week, two in the second, and one infusion in the third, fourth, and fifth weeks. The last two infusions are spread between weeks seven and 10. Doctors who track patient progress, and people to fill out a standard depression and anxiety questionnaire before each treatment and the following day.

A single infusion costs $650, and insurance doesn't officially cover any of that, but Levine said his team can typically get providers to reimburse "a lot of it."

However, as with any treatment approach — especially one involving drugs — there are drawbacks. Most studies on ketamine use in people with depression have been limited to about two weeks, so it remains unclear how long the benefits last. And not all clinics offering ketamine infusions are like Levine's network, which always has a psychiatrist or mental health professional on staff. Furthermore, such treatments often range from $400 to $1,000 per infusion around the US, a price tag that can leave vulnerable patients paying out of pocket and not getting reimbursed at all. Plus there's the fact that the FDA has only approved ketamine for use as an anesthetic. 

Existing treatments for depression are very limited, however.

'Why the heck aren't we using this?'

Levine said that when he first saw a study about ketamine's impact on people with severe depression, it "spun his head around."

Other treatments for depression, like talk therapy and antidepressants, mostly haven't improved since they were introduced in the 1950s. Decades of research suggest that those existing treatments don't work that well for everyone, and may not work at all for some. Yet physicians and psychiatrists have been doling out the same medications to clients for 70 years.

Some scientists seeking a new approach have looked to psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms, which appear to reduce depressive symptoms by increasing the connectivity between certain parts of the brain. So it's not a complete surprise that they're also exploring the depression-reducing qualities of ketamine, Levine said.

But research has suggested that ketamine might stand out as conferring seemingly fast, widespread benefits to people with the condition. A 2012 review of four preliminary studies in patients with severe depression concluded that approximately 65-70% of patients responded well to ketamine. The other 35-30% either did not have a significant response, or their relief from depression was only short-lived.

"The findings were unanticipated, especially the robustness and rapidity of benefit," the authors wrote in their review. "Ketamine appeared to directly target core depressive symptoms such as sad mood, suicidality, helplessness and worthlessness, rather than inducing a nonspecific mood-elevating effect."

Levine read everything he could on the treatment while maintaining his private psychiatry practice.

"Here's an incredibly safe medicine that works within hours," he said. "So my immediate question was, 'Why the heck aren't we using this?'"

He eventually decided to start his own clinics — the first treatment center opened in 2011 in Princeton, New Jersey, and the other nine followed between 2015 and 2017.

New findings on ketamine

AP Photo/Victoria ArochoA study published in the journal Scientific Reports in May was the first large, non-preliminary study to show that ketamine appears to provide significant relief to people suffering from some of the hardest-to-treat forms of depression. The finding did not go unnoticed amongst pharmaceutical companies — Allergan and Johnson and Johnson are currently exploring the idea of a ketamine-like drug as an antidepressant.

For the most recent study, researchers at the University of California in San Diego turned to an FDA database with records from more than 8 million patients. Using this data, the researchers homed in on patients who'd been given ketamine as a treatment for their chronic pain. Then they looked at how their depression symptoms compared to the depression symptoms in people who received other pain medications.

The findings were striking. The patients who took ketamine reported symptoms of depression 50% less frequently than patients who were given any other combination of drugs for pain.

"This reduction in depression is specific to ketamine and is known to be much more rapid than current antidepressants," the researchers wrote in their paper, adding that their observations were "very promising" for people with serious depression or thoughts of suicide.

"These patients cannot afford to wait up to six weeks for reductions in their depressive symptoms," they wrote.

Beyond a reduction in their symptoms of depression, the patients on ketamine also reported significantly less pain than those given the other drugs. They were also less likely to experience the unpleasant side-effects that frequently come with other pain medications like constipation, vomiting, and nausea.

Still, the ketamine had its own negative side effects, including kidney failure and low blood pressure.

For Levine, however, those negatives pale in comparison to the host of downsides that can accompany most treatments for depression.

"When you're treating very very ill people, you will have side effects. That's a reality," Levine said, adding, "these are people who've been sick for decades and heard from multiple doctors that there's nothing else they can do. We're enabling them to get back to their normal lives."

NOW WATCH: Public policy expert: Here's how you can deregulate LSD and other hallucinogens safely

from Feedburner http://ift.tt/2zlfVCE