#it's just science! it's just chemicals in my brain! there's nothing i can do!!!

[zaritarazi]

oh age gap hawkmates from rachel? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

i mean like. like. look at these rudimentary aesthetics i put way too much time making. look at them.

you can't look at this and tell me it's not making chemical reactions occur in your brain. you simply cannot look at this and not feel the worms take hold

so yeah uhhh agegap hawkmates academia adjacent set i guess in whatever is happening in the dcu or my best guess (my best guess will be better than canon) coming soon to a screen near you i fucking guess

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[nhl-stories]

. – Quinn Hughes

Summary: Ignoring the pain of a break up is a lot easier when you're not best friend's with your ex's brother

Author’s Note: A song title being a period is very annoying for writing, prepare for angst below

Word Count: 4.4k​

Album Series Masterlist

It's been so hard Ever since you broke my heart But I'll never tell Honey, I'm not doing so well

It’s like a rite of passage to get a crush on your friend’s older sibling. There’s some sort of forbidden love chemical that goes off in your brain and you just can’t help it.

You never expect anything to happen with it, maybe some embarrassing moments of staring or a few ridiculous confessions in a diary, but nothing more.

Lux wishes her crush could have been more aptly named, and the puppy love had been squashed before anything actually happened.

“Can I get into my house and wash the car off of me before you start bothering me,” Lux tries to sidestep Jack who’s sitting on her porch.

After a five-hour drive, the last thing she needs is to deal with a needy Jack. She’s physically exhausted and doesn’t feel like becoming emotionally exhausted on top of it.

“No, you ignored my texts.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” she rolls her eyes.

She tries using her suitcase to box him out and make it to the door, but of course he’s faster than her and grabs her ankle pulling her down onto the porch into a heap. She sits up with a huff, but can’t help but notice how serious Jack looks.

“Are you gonna ignore me all summer? Because you graduate next year and you may never get a summer off again!”

“You can’t expect me to just happily go hang out at the lake all summer.”

“She’s only gonna be there for like two weeks, she has a job to go back to,” he says it like it’s a selling point.

“You know it’s not just about her, but since I can already see you’re not going to stop unless I say yes, I’ll see you in two weeks,” she tries to escape again, but Jack grabs her wrist.

“Luxy, please come to the party this weekend, my mom would love to see you,” she wants to kick him for playing the mom card, “and I’ll even drive you home so you don’t have to spend the night.”

She narrows her eyes, “Yeah right, you’ll get drunk and then I’ll be held captive in the house of testosterone.”

Jack’s eyes dart around because he can’t deny the possibility of that happening.

“Don’t let Quinn ruin our summer fun,” he settles on that dagger.

“Fine,” she caves and Jack does a fist pump in response, “but you have to stay here for dinner because my mom keeps peeking through the curtain and she’ll be pissed if you leave.”

Lux wouldn’t be in the position if she had never befriended Jack in the first place. Or as she usually referred to it, Jack begrudgingly endeared himself to her.

It had started in middle school, when Jack had chosen drama class as his art elective and of course Lux had gotten assigned as his scene partner for the semester. It was the classic partnering of the ‘class disruption’ with the ‘class delight’ in hopes they’d balance each other out.

Jack was loud and brash and loved to rile up Lux, making fun of the way her cheeks would burn red in exasperation. Lux was the quiet girl in class, but one on one she could hold her own with an acid tongue that could easily rattle Jack’s demeanor. Their teacher thought she couldn’t have made a better pair.

The first time Lux went to Hughes’ house to practice lines, she fell in love.

Quinn was only a couple years older but with her tween brain rotting with hormones; Lux thought she was seeing a man for the first time, when she was always surrounded by mere boys.

Lux decided being Jack’s friend was something she needed in her life, if only for the proximity to her new crush. And when Ellen learned Lux was good in science, she recruited her to tutor Jack and the girl became ingrained in the family’s life.

For Lux and Jack their friendship grew to be a nice escape from usual social circles; a comfortable space where there were no expectations to act or talk or think a certain way.

And Lux got the extra benefit of secretly glancing at Quinn. Sure, her mouth turned to sand when he would merely say hi, or her face cherry red when she had even the slightest physical contact with him. Even if was just ruffling her hair in an older brother sort of way. But it all felt worth it for those miniscule interactions.

It was the one thing Jack never made fun of her for, maybe he thought it would fade away over time, like all of his crushes. But it never fully disappeared, even when she dated boys in her own grade, her heart held a special place for Quinn.

And against the odds something happened.

Lux went to Michigan for a college visit and Quinn offered to show her around a little.

“I can even give you a non-parent approved tour,” he had joked.

It was the first time they had spent any time alone, and something just clicked. They laughed at the same jokes, especially at Jack’s expense, talked about their futures even when Quinn’s was clearly more set in stone than Lux’s. By the end of the visit, they didn’t want to stop talking. So, they didn’t.

Texting went from occasionally, to daily. Texting turned to phone calls. Phone calls turned into visits to Quinn’s dorm to hang out and help him study.

Neither made a move for a long time. Lux, because she was worried that she might be reading too much into it. Quinn because she was still in high school and one of Jack’s friends.

Nothing happened until Jack’s graduation party. Jack was preoccupied with his other friends from hockey as they talked about the upcoming draft. And Lux was about to duck out to go to another friend’s party after she finished a piece of cake.

“Congrats valedictorian,” Quinn says, of course, while Lux has a mouthful of cake.

“Congrats on dropping out of college,” she laughs, hoping her wit covers up her nerves.

“Ouch.”

“Sorry, I spend too much time with Jack and that means keeping his ego in check.”

“The world thanks you for that,” they both laugh.

There’s a long silence, Lux fills it with finishing her cake before she gathers some courage.

“I was going to head out to another party, want to come with?”

They never made it to the party; they ended up pulling into a parking lot and making out. It was a start of a summer romance, something to enjoy before Quinn went to Vancouver and Lux to Northwestern. It was a bonus making Jack constantly annoyed by their PDA.

The summer ended and they didn’t, a long distant relationship tided over by games in Chicago, spring breaks, and summers off.

Things were great. And then they weren’t. And then they were over.

It’s been months since the breakup, but the wound is still fresh for Lux. Her grades started slipping in the last semester, she began losing weight in the bad kind of way, she stopped going out with her friends as much.

Lux wishes she was doing better. Not to show Quinn, who already had a new girlfriend, up.  Rather, to prove to him (or maybe herself) that her world didn’t end when he ended things. Most days it felt like it had.

She checks her rearview mirror for the thousandth time to make sure she looks well-rested and her eyes aren’t puffy and red from crying on the way over.

“You can do this, there will be other people and you don’t have to talk to him more than hello,” she gives herself a pep talk.

After another deep breath she gets out of her car, grabbing her overnight bag because deep down she knows she’ll end up staying.

She lets herself into the house like normal, and is surprised by how quiet it is. She walks further into the house and finds Ellen in the kitchen chopping fruit.

“Lux, it’s so good to see you!” She puts down the knife and engulfs the girl in hug, “I’m glad someone’s here to help keep them out of trouble.”

Lux follows her eyes to where a group of man-children are outside.

“That’s a lot to ask of one person,” she chuckles before meandering around the kitchen island to avoid going outside, “do you need any help?”

Ellen’s eyes soften giving Lux a sad smile before pulling her into another hug.

“I know it’s hard sweetie, but it’s going to be okay,” she squeezes her once more, “and there’s some veggies you can cut.”

Lux can’t help but notice how at home she feels here, she knows where everything is like it’s her own place, which last summer it sort of had been. She had helped the boys move in and decorate and organize.

“How’s school? Your mom tells me you’re taking the MCATs next?”

“I’m taking them, but I don’t know if I want medical school or grad school or what,” she doesn’t mention that her breakup with Quinn has her second guessing every life choice.

 “My dad thinks I should take a year off to figure it out."

"That’s not a terrible idea, you work too hard.”

“Luxy!”

“Lukey!” She laughs at the lanky teen and pulls him into a hug, “Do they feed not feed you at college? You’re all bones.”

She thinks she hears Luke mumble under his breath, “I could say the same about you,” but Ellen speaks up before she can dwell.

“He’s like a bottomless pit, we’re banishing him to Jack and Quinn’s cause he’s eating us out of house and home,” Ellen laughs from the counter.

“Good call, they got that NHL money now.”

“Why didn’t you come out and say hi?” Jack calls out when he and the boys start entering the house.

“Because I’m a polite house guest and I'm helping your mom with food,” she stabs the knife in the air to make her point.

Jack comes over and gives her a hug and a spin.

“Glad you actually came,” he whispers as he sets her down.

Some of the other boys from the National program come and give her hugs, they were never close friends but friends by proximity.

The back door opens again and Quinn comes in, hair wet from the lake and leading an equally wet girl by the waist. She knew she would see them but it doesn’t stop her heart from deflating a bit.

Lux can already picture how Quinn picked her up and jumped in the lake with her, then kissing her when they resurfaced until she wasn't mad anymore. Maybe they'd gotten more handsy under the water, until one of the guys called them out and they separated a little flustered but not enough to completely detach.

Lux knows from experience.

She feels a pinch on her side removing her from conjuring her own nightmares, “Lux, I said why didn’t I see you at my last game in Chicago?”

She looks over and blushes, embarrassed she’s been caught, she tries to pull it together before she gets any sad eyes. She’s sick of the pity everyone has been giving her.

“I had finals Z,” she rolls her eyes at Trevor.

Lux knows Z only invites her with hopes she’ll bring a cute friend with her.

“And this goes for all of you stop giving me tickets to Chicago games, I don’t care about hockey or you guys enough to go every time. I barely want to go see Jack and he only plays the Hawks like twice a year.”

She tries to ignore the fact that Quinn is standing by the island now, wrapping a towel around the new girl's shoulders while looking towards Lux.

“What about me? We went to prom together!” Cole says with fake offense.

“You only asked me because I make you look tall!”

She hates how comfortable she feels, laughing with the boys and making fun of them. Then she makes the mistake of making eye contact with Quinn’s new girl.

“Hi we haven’t met, I’m Samantha. I’m Quinn’s girlfriend,” she gives a shy wave.

To everyone’s credit they act remarkably chill about the moment, pretending there’s nothing out of the ordinary.

“I’m Lux.”

“Oh, you’re Jack’s girlfriend, he won’t shut up about you,” she smiles brightly.

Lux and Jack can’t help but let out loud, awkward laughs at the same time. Nothing has ever sounded more ridiculous.

“Jack and Lux no way,” Trevor starts to open his big mouth, “it’s Lux and–“

Lux elbows him in the ribs.

“It’s Lux and me all the way,” he puts an arm around her shoulder, “Or at least it will be when she moves to LA.”

“LA?” Quinn speaks up for the first time.

“I looked at some schools down there, it’s a maybe.”

She shrugs like it’s no big deal but feels a little smug that Quinn is so curious.

“I’m still lobbying for Princeton or Columbia,” Jack says.

“Just what Lux needs, you within driving distance all year round,” Ellen chides her middle son, “Quinn why don’t you start grilling the hamburgers.”

Quinn and Ellen head outside carrying some food supplies. Samantha thinks about staying for a second but everyone else must have a weird fake smile like Lux, because she mirrors the smile before following her boyfriend outside.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Lux pinches Trevor on the shoulder where she can tell a sunburn is coming in.

“Ow fuck!”

“What the hell was that?”

“I wanted to help out, make Quinny jealous,” Lux furrows her brows at him, “It was working for a bit.”

“Did I ask for your help?”

“No, but you looked like you could use a win,” he shrugs.

She looks around at the other guys, they aren’t really making eye contact. She realizes she doesn’t just feel like a pathetic loser, she must look like one too.

She picks up the vegetables she sliced and carries them outside, determined to show them that she’s not broken. Even if that’s not true.

People start trickling in and it starts to become a real party. She mingles with some girls she’s met in previous summers who live in cabins nearby. She even talks to Samantha when she looks a little lost as people start interrogating Quinn about hockey.

In another life Lux and Samantha would be great friends. Lux hates her a little for that. And she drinks a little too much in response.

A haze fills her peripherals, she’s wobbly on her feet but not quite to the level of falling over or getting sick.

“Quinny!” Lux and Samantha say in the same tone when he comes by with a cup of water handing it over to his girlfriend like he used to do for Lux.

“Why didn’t you tell me how great Lux was?” Samantha says a bit too loud and too fast, “I would have made my plans to overlap with her more.”

Quinn awkwardly laughs and raises an eyebrow to Lux.

“What can I say? I’m very lovable. You know that Q,” she feels herself try to wink, but it’s not quite right.

“Luxy come be my pong partner, I need someone to drink for me,” Luke helps the girl out of the chair, he’s not allowed to heavily drink while his parents are around.

“I don’t think she needs to drink more,” Quinn warns.

“That’s none of your business anymore Quinn,” Lux says with a sharper tone than she realizes she’s capable of.

Luke is extra good at pong because he’s practically sober, while their opponents are on par with Lux. Which means there’s not much drinking to be done on Lux’s part. She can feel herself sobering up and she hates it. She hates it even more when she sees Quinn and Samantha making out by the fire pit.

“I don’t feel well,” she mumbles but Luke hears her.

“Want me to take you home?”

She looks over to see Jack didn’t hold up his end of the bargain and is too drunk to drive her home. She’s probably good to drive herself but she thinks she might drive herself into the lake on purpose.

“Um– no. I drove so it will be a whole thing with my car. I’m– I’ll just– I’ll find somewhere to lie down.”

“You can sleep in my room if you want.”

She’s silent for too long thinking about what to do, she should just go home. Ask Ellen for a ride. Anything to get away from here. She could just sleep in her car.

Instead of doing anything she pulls Luke into a hug, he wraps his arms around her. It’s like he’s holding her together.

“Whoa, are you trying to collect Hughes brothers?” Jack says loudly from across the lawn, he’s too drunk to realize it’s not exactly a funny joke.

Everyone knows what he means, Lux whips her head towards Quinn and Samantha.  She looks thoroughly clueless, but Quinn is fuming.

Lux runs into the house, she doesn’t care if she cockblocks Jack or makes him sleep on the couch, she takes his room and buries herself under the covers and sobs.

She didn’t prove to anyone that she’s doing well.

The next morning her head hurts and she can’t tell if it’s from drinking or crying too much. Jack is snoring in a makeshift bed he made on the floor, she thinks about kicking him in the ribs on her way out.

No one is up when she makes her getaway.

The next time she goes to the lake house is by accident.

She’s out with some friends from high school who go to Michigan. They start out with brunch and it spirals out of control from there.

They’re out getting pizza, all on wobbly, baby deer legs, and deciding where to go next when her friend Kylie’s fiancé comes to pick her up.

“Refueling for round two?” He laughs at the group and tries to gather Kylie.

“More like round three,” Kylie giggles and tries to plant a kiss and misses leaving a sloppy, wet kiss on his neck.

Lux and her other friends ‘aww’ at that even though it’s definitely not cute and more embarrassing.

“And you’re you sure you guys want to continue on?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” Lux gives him a thumbs up.

She isn’t entirely wrong, they make it to the next bar with little issue, though maybe the bartender shouldn’t serve them at this point.

They’re talking about planning Kylie’s bachelorette party in the way drunk girls do, too elaborate to actually be executed.

The conversation switches to their current love lives, which is not exactly the topic Lux wants to broach. At least when it comes to herself. She tries to keep the spotlight off her and that works for the most part, it’s nice to hear about her friends falling in love and their bad hookups.

“What the fuck Lux? I’ve been waiting outside for 10 minutes.”

Jack is standing over the table trying his best to look mad, but having a hard time with the four girls staring up at him in a drunken stupor.

“This a is girls’ night, you’re not invited!” Lux slurs and takes a sip through her straw, going back to her friends.

“You texted me an SOS,” he thinks for a second, “or it seemed like it cause you texted me gibberish followed by your location pin, so I thought you needed rescuing.”

“Well, you can see I’m fine so see you later,” she waves him off and her friends laugh.

“Not happening, I haven’t seen you in weeks and I drove all the way here, you’re coming with me.”

He leans forward to grab her arm only to be assaulted by a chorus of ‘nos,’ so he backs off for a bit, reaching for his wallet and taking out a few bills.

“Next round is on me.”

“She’s all yours Jacky boy,” her friend Ashley winks and grabs the cash.

“Traitor,” Lux sticks out her tongue as Jack helps her out of the booth.

“If a Hughes is gonna take you home, we’re glad it’s him,” Ashley makes a stern face, “tell Q he sucks for us.”

“Quinn doesn’t suck,” Lux says protectively, like he’s hers to protect.

“I’ll happily tell him Ash,” Jack cuts in before anyone picks at that scab anymore, “C’mon Luxy I’ll buy you some pizza.”

She reluctantly goes, blowing kisses to her friends. Jack helps her get into the car and she splays out in her seat.

And that’s how she accidentally ends up at the lake house.

“This isn’t my house?” She mumbles through a mouthful of pizza that she snuck during the drive.

“Obviously, if I have to kidnap you to hang out,so be it.”

Lux rolls her eyes, she’s too hungry and getting too sleepy to argue so she just gets out of the car, carefully because she can’t lose any precious pizza.

“Pizza delivery!” Lux yells out and makes a beeline to the fridge taking out a drink.

“Should you really be drinking more?”

“My knight and shining armor brought me to safety,” she ungracefully rubs a hand across Jack’s face, “so I might as well stay this drunk until I fall asleep.”

Jack jokingly puts a hand on her face and grabs the drink out of her hand, “then let me catch up with you a bit first.”

That’s when Quinn and Luke come into the kitchen, with Jack and Lux awkwardly holding each other’s faces.

“Girls’ night?” Quinn smirks, having been on the other side of that hand many times.

“Oh, I thought Lux was settling for the worst Hughes brother,” Luke laughs and Quinn kicks his shin.

“Lux would be so lucky,” Jack grabs a piece of pizza.

“And there would be a murder-suicide,” Quinn rolls his eyes.

If Lux was sober, she would be able to appreciate the normalcy of this moment.

“Lux can hear you and Lux,” she forgets her point for a moment, ”Lux is drunk and over Hughes brothers. Do the Tkachuks need a new friend? They even have a sister it’d be a better fit.”

“I can put a good word in for you with Brady,” Quinn snickers at the drunken rambling.

Lux grins at him and even through her drunken haze her heart does a little flip, this is what it feels like to be with her Quinn.

“Let’s get you to bed before you really embarrass yourself.”

Jack hooks an arm around her shoulder. Lux is smart enough to know what he’s implying, that’s not her Quinn anymore and she’s inebriated enough to say something she regrets. Jack won’t let that happen on his watch.

“There’s even a guest room with your name on it.”

Jack gives her some clothes to wear and tucks her into her bed.

“I know I’m your favorite Hughes,” he kisses her forehead.

“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone, it’s really embarrassing.”

Lux wakes up an hour later desperately needing to pee, she scrambles out of bed only to realize she’s still heavily under the influence. She tries to wanders the hallway in the dark, pretty sure she’s familiar enough with the layout to find her way.

She’s wrong.

Opening a door she walks into Quinn’s room, who’s just walking out of his ensuite bathroom toweling his hair, naked.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” she slaps a hand over her eyes, “I was looking for the bathroom and this is the one I’ve used the most.”

He lightly chuckles, “it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“That’s true,” she opens a crack between her fingers and peeks through.

“That wasn’t an invitation to look Lux,” he tinges pink before thumbing towards the open door, “bathroom’s free.”

“Oh right, I’ll be a second then out of your hair.”

When she comes back out, Quinn is sitting on his bed, the side that used to be hers. She can feel hot tears boiling in her eyes and tries to make a quick exit.

She trips over nothing, her faculties still not her own, and finds herself flopping her legs out and leaning against his dresser. Admitting defeat and letting herself cry.

“You okay?” Quinn gets up and takes a seat on the floor next to her.

“I’m sorry.”

“For falling down?”

“No for us. I’m sorry I cut you out and didn’t tell you how I felt and was just a shitty girlfriend.”

“You weren’t a shitty girlfriend.”

He wraps an arm around her shoulder, Lux flinches at the contact before relaxing into the familiar warmth.

“I didn’t know what I wanted and I let get in the way of a good thing,” she kicks her legs like a kid having a tantrum.

“You’re 21, unlike the weirdo Hughes brothers it’s pretty normal to not know what you want Lux.”

He gives her a little squeeze, “I also think us not being in the same city or even country for almost our whole relationship didn’t really help either.”

They sit in silence after that, they’ve always been good at reveling in a quiet moment.

But his hand is so warm on her arm and Lux can’t revel, she can’t hope, she can’t pretend that there’s more to this than just Quinn being nice. And that means fighting her drunken thoughts that are telling her to kiss him or tell him she loves him.

“Samantha seems nice.”

“Yeah?” He looks towards her, trying to hold back a smile as they make eye contact for the first time.

“And it’s nice to see you so happy, I like happy Quinn.”

“I like happy Lux; I have a feeling she hasn’t been around much.”

“No,” she squeaks out, trying to keep the dam of tears together, it doesn’t work for long.

“I’m not dealing with the breakup as well as you.”

“It’s okay,” he pulls her into his chest and lets her cry.

“I’m dealing with it a lot better than I thought I would, and I’m the one who broke up with you,” his voice sounds pinched but Lux doesn’t dare look, “and you’re gonna be okay, I’m not that great.”

Lux gives him a little slap at that comment.

“When you do finally figure out what you want, there’s going to be no stopping you.”

Lux pulls back and kisses the corner of his mouth. There’s no romance in it; it’s a goodbye to what they were.

“I wish we could have worked out, but I guess I’m dodging a bullet by not becoming a Hughes,” she lets out a laugh.

“There’s the Lux, I know,” they’re both grinning like idiots.

He gives her hand one last squeeze as she leaves, hands slowly parting until they’re too far away to touch. It doesn’t fix everything, her heart isn’t completely welded back together, but it’s a start.

[swamp-spirit]

Not a doctor, but trying to use my experience as a long term Anxiety Disorder Haver to figure out what could have happened to Jason in Gotham War. Listen, I know comic book science is made up, but let me have my 'fun'.

This is also a lot about how trauma and anxiety chemically works and Jason and Trauma in general.

(Discussing my own anxiety disorder a lot here, so don't click if that might be upsetting. Also please minimize the Bruce discourse here. I wanna talk about Jason.)

EDITS because I wrote this in a fugue state and replaced all words with homonyms

So there's two main elements to anxiety. There's the emotional element, the kind you can deal with in therapy, and the physical element, the kind you can deal with via medication.

I related a lot to Jason in Gotham War, because I have very physical anxiety. Even when I can calmly reason through a situation, my nervous system is very physically reactive to the point where I'll be holding a conversation and cracking jokes while seizing. Unmedicated, like Jason, I couldn't do light exercise without triggering a panic attack.

What Jason seems to be experiencing is an issue with his nervous system. To massively oversimplify, because I'm not a doctor, let's say the sympathetic nervous system is the gas, the parasympathetic system is the brakes, and triggers are the foot that decides when to push the pedals down.

When you're in a situation where you need to be amped up, your body hits the gas. You get adrenaline, faster heart rate, fight or flight, but this state isn't sustainable. First, it's very resource intensive. Second, it's a state designed to Do Something, and is very emotionally stressful if there's nothing to Do. This is why people with anxiety disorders can often function in actual danger, because that's what those reactions are designed for.

PTSD is pretty much 'your body hits the gas because your brain has misidentified a safe situation as a dangerous one due to previous experience'. Jason pretty consistently shows signs of PTSD, which makes sense. He has pretty much never been in a safe situation. Even before he was a vigilante and brutally murdered, being homeless, especially as a kid, requires constant vigilance. Most people of any age develop a level of PTSD after living homeless. Witnessing the death of a parent, (depending on the canon) growing up in an abusive home, and being homeless again while brain damaged and vulnerable could all cause PTSD on their own.

We see Jason be triggered a number of times. We also see him trying to self sooth and manage, to 'hit the brakes'. The 'breath deep' on his door in the new Boy Wonder, his stack of books on trauma and chronic pain management in Three Jokers, ect.

So Jason's already got his foot on the mental pedal. He's already scared, and for good reason. His world has always, always been violent. His behavior in Gotham War looks a lot less like ZEA!Bruce turned up the engine and a lot more like he cut the brakes.

As somebody who's experienced the 'lightly jog, and you have a panic attack', it's pretty much a failure of the parasympathetic side of things. You want some adrenaline for a light run. You need to take in more oxygen, but, when your nervous system isn't regulating, it goes out of control. It keeps amping up until you're breathing so fast that you aren't actually processing the oxygen you're taking in. These heightened states are rough on your whole body. When your body is running danger mode, it's not supporting things like sleep, digestion, and wound-healing.

What makes this more horrifying is ZEA!Bruce seemed to feel this would be permanent, even if Jason tried to reverse it, which means it wasn't just an injection the system would flush. To me, the most logical conclusion would be that the injection would have done permanent damage to the parts of his brain that kick in the parasympathetic nervous system.

This also... wouldn't keep him from killing. Jason is usually a calm killer, not a passion killer. Physical excitement is what the body is supposed to do in violent situations. It's much more likely to cause a panic attack in a safe situation where there's no physical outlet. He can take a shot without nervous system excitement. It would keep him from, or at least interfere with things like: -Jogging -Having sex -Watching emotionally intense media -Handling triggers Like, he definitely wouldn't be able to operate as Red Hood because RH does intel work, extended battles, etc, but he could very much kill.

SSRI's probably would not be that helpful, a serotonin tends to help more with stopping anxiety at the 'thought spiral' part than dealing with the nervous system. SNRI's and beta blockers would be a better bet, though Bruce clearly didn't think those would be enough to let him operate at Red Hood.

So... how is he better? Well, the actual answer is 'comic are bullshit', but let's try and roll with it. The given reason is Joker Gas, which is odd because Joker Gas seems to function like... a neurotoxin? A stimulant? My best guess would be that dying or brain damage in general is kicking in some sort of residual Lazarus healing factor and repairing the physical structure that controls the parasympathetic system.

[thebardostate]

Where Does Consciousness Come From?

(This is Part 2 of a three part series on consciousness. Part 1 is here. Part 3 is here.

A 25 year bet was settled last week when two rival scientific explanations for consciousness - Global Workspace Theory (GWT) and Integrated Information Theory (IIT) - both failed to discover any neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC) in the human brain. Neuroscientist Cristof Koch and philosopher David Chalmers agreed that neuroscience can't yet explain how our brains produce consciousness.

I say "yet" because it is an article of faith among the disciples of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett that consciousness (if it exists at all) will eventually be shown to be a mere illusion or "epiphenomenon" generated by biochemical activity in our brains. They argue that the mind is only what the brain does, so consciousness ceases when the brain dies. They dismiss as pseudoscientific "woo" fantasy any notion that consciousness might survive the physical death of the brain.

Source: @myjetpack

Materialist neo-Darwinism appears to enjoy broad support across the physical and biological sciences, in medicine, and from science popularizers like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan. It can fairly be called the orthodox scientific view.

And yet, we see from the results of the wager that the origins of consciousness remain an open question. It is considered one of the greatest unsolved problems in science. Thus far, scientific orthodoxy has gotten us exactly...nowhere.

What is it Like to be a Bat?

Enter Thomas Nagel, a marquee name in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In 1974 Nagel published the widely influential essay "What is it Like to be a Bat?" in which he argued that there's a lot more to being a bat than just hanging around upside down in the dark. Bats perceive their world thru echo location. Nothing in human experience prepares us for what that must be like: bats don't "see" their homes because they're in pitch darkness, nor do they "feel" their way along in the dark because they're flying thru the air. We can speculate, but we humans don't have a clue what it feels like to be a bat. And yet, science knows a great deal about bat brains.

In his 2012 book Mind and Cosmos Nagel argues that the materialist neo-Darwinist conception of reality is almost certainly false, with far-reaching implications for evolution and quantum physics. He is incredulous at the just-so story that Dawkins, Dennett, et. al. are expecting us to swallow:

It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are expected to abandon this naive response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.

However, Nagel is no sock puppet for religion, as some of his materialist critics have insinuated. In fact, he is an atheist:

I do not find theism any more credible than materialism as a comprehensive world view. My interest is in the territory between them. I believe that these two radically opposed conceptions cannot exhaust the possibilities.

Back to the Drawing Board

So if consciousness doesn't come from the brain, then where does it come from?

In Nagel's estimation it's high time science started looking for alternative explanations instead of continuing to double down on materialist neo-Darwinism, which by now has had ample time to put up or shut up (Karl Popper called these breezy we'll-solve-it-someday assurances "promissory materialism".) Nagel critiques the three basic approaches that materialists have pursued thus far:

Treat consciousness as a black box, and infer what might lurk inside the box by carefully observing its behavior from the outside. This is the behaviorist approach, whose sterility was so evident by the late 1960s that it sparked the cognitive revolution in psychology.

Systematically trace all mental events to physical counterparts "somewhere" in the brain. This is the approach that GWT and IIT take, using medical techniques like functional MRI to observe the brain as we carry out various activities. One of the problems with this approach is brain plasticity, the ability of the brain to rewire itself (e.g., after a stroke); plasticity makes it difficult to pin down exactly where in the brain mental events occur (to say nothing about how the brain pulls off the plasticity trick in the first place.) Another problem is that mental activities can interact and overlap, such as when we drive a car and talk on the phone at the same time. Sometimes we can multitask, and sometimes we can't. Where do those complex interactions play out in the brain? What about things produced by the brain itself but not experienced by the senses like imagination, the placebo effect and hallucinations? And finally, there is a world of difference between images from fMRI and the actual, subjective, first-person experiences we have when performing those tasks. They're just not the same. I'll have much more to say about this approach to consciousness research in Part 3 of this series.

Deny that there is any such thing as consciousness - this is eliminative materialism aka illusionism, whose most prominent proponent is Dennett. But if we buy into this, why should we stop at questioning our own consciousness? Why don't we just deny that anything exists at all, and go full-on nihilist atheist? Philosopher Galen Strawson called illusionism "the silliest claim ever made" while philosopher John Searle called it an "intellectual pathology." (Plus which, when you get down into the weeds of eliminative materialism, you find that it's just reheated behaviorism anyway.)

Nagel believes these materialist accounts are all incomplete because each in its own way fails to explain the familiar first-person experience of being alive and conscious. But even setting that aside, he points out a further problem for the neo-Darwinists.

Why Did Consciousness Evolve?

In its own way, materialist Neo-Darwinism is a "theory of everything" in so far as biology goes. As such, it must be able to explain why consciousness evolved in the first place.

It's quite plausible that natural selection could have produced organisms that adapt and reproduce without being conscious. We can imagine robot-like zombies that carry out a series of evolved instructions and reproduce without ever having experiencing first-person subjective consciousness, like little automatons. And yet, we are conscious. Why? What evolutionary purpose could first-person awareness have served?

A standard materialist explanation is that consciousness emerged as a byproduct of evolution (a "spandrel" as Steven Jay Gould called it) rather like junk DNA. If we are not satisfied with the just-so story that the mental comes as a free bonus to the physical, then we will have to look for our answers elsewhere.

Opening the Window on Consciousness

We landed in this situation because science has sought to explain nature entirely in physical terms, without invoking theism. It has been spectacularly successful - particularly in the physical sciences - but the cost has been excluding consciousness along with the gods. Eventually this exclusion was bound to be challenged. We cannot have a complete picture of the world without understanding our own consciousness that makes that picture possible. If consciousness isn't generated by the brain, the implications for evolution and quantum physics will be far-reaching. (Nagel, 2012)

In the concluding part of this series we'll take a fresh look at the medical evidence for certain so-called 'paranormal' phenomena. These have been systematically excluded from mainstream scientific consideration because, if they proved true, they would undercut materialist explanations of consciousness. What do medical anomalies like Near-Death Experiences and Terminal Lucidity imply about the nature of consciousness?

[rd0265667]

Rei x Reader: Tingles

Permanent Taglist: @cwpiqwon@justme-idle

"For the last time, please tell me what is the definition of photoelectric effect." Rei massaged her temples "Umm, The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons." You squeezed your eyes shut, trying your hardest to remember the definition(A/N:Fuck Quantum Physics) "Good Job. How about we take a break? Jihyo's café is near by isn't it?" Rei offered, as you giggled, nodding. "Oh my god I love you so much Rei, YES!" You exclaimed, Rei trying to hide a not so subtle blush as she too nodded.

Rei wasn't what you would call someone who was open to love. She never let anyone steal her heart, come close to it, but you stole it when she saw you from a far. Rei couldn't believe it. While she had never been hurt romantically, she had always thought of love as a weird, foreign feeling. As a stout believer of science, to her, love was just a bunch of chemical reactions in the brain that makes someone think they're in love. All that changed when she saw you, that once stout belief in her idea of love shattered when she first laid her eyes on you. How someone could seem so perfect, ethereal, magical, it evaded her, irked her even. She found it hard to approach you, especially out of nowhere. She was sure you'd peg her as some creepy girl and brush her aside, but as fate would have it, the door opened for Rei, an overheard conversation between you and your lecturer about your rather uncharacteristic poor performance in Physics. Rei left you a note in your locker, offering Physics help. Needing all the help you can get, and also wanting to get close to the enigmatic girl who would appear and disappear with the bell. As the days went by, and the tutoring sessions increased in frequency and length, the two of you began what some might call a rather unlikely friendship. Both of you were introverts, and to an outsider, watching the two of you hang out might seem awkward, the two of you seating together silently, no words exchanged. Knowledge that was only privy to the both of you, however, was that the two of you found the comfort in each other's silence, Rei resting her head on your shoulder, desperately trying to quell her thumping heart as you hummed a soft tune to let her rest.

"Unnie! Can I get two Frappuccinos?" You shouted across the counter, Jihyo rolling her eyes as she worked the register "What did I do to deserve a freeloader for a sister?" She chuckled as you pouted, hands on your hips as you turned to Rei, hearing her laugh at Jihyo's comment. "Whatever Thomas." You smirked, seeing Jihyo's face morph into one of mild disgust "Jeong! One Frappuccino, and another one with a dose of Cyanide!"  "Hey Y/N!" Jeongyeon shouted from the kitchen as you chuckled, heading back to the table with Rei "So, how's things been going Rei? I heard someone from S26 is interested in asking you out." You smiled, hiding an ugly bubbling feeling in your chest "Ugh, I don't know, seems like these rumours pop up every other week now." Rei rolled her eyes, well aware of these rumors, Gauel had her ears to the walls like that. It frustrated her, but not in the way one would assume. Rei had been irked by these rumours, fearing that you would think she was actually interested in someone else, or would ask someone out, even go as far as to set her up with someone. All she wanted was the nerve to ask you out, but it seemed to escape her. Rei's train of thought was interrupted by the ringing of your phone, as you excused yourself to receive the call. Three cups in hand, Jihyo walked over, Rei clearing the table for her to set the beverages down. "So which one of these has the cyanide on it?" Rei quipped, Jihyo chuckling as she handed you a cup, pointing to the other. "So, Y/N's pretty slow huh?" Jihyo asked, sipping the cup still in her hand "Nothing to worry about Jihyo-unnie, Y/N's doing fine, progressing pretty well. Y/N's grade is going to improve, I promise." Rei reassured Jihyo "Well first of all, just Jihyo is fine. Secondly, and more importantly, I'm not talking about Y/N's grades." Jihyo chuckled "Then what do you mean?"  "I'm talking about your little crush on Y/N." Jihyo said with a smirk, Rei spitting her coffee out "What-What I don't...don't know what you're talking about" Rei muttered out, averting her gaze "Oh please Rei, Y/N might be dense, but I'm not. I'm observant like that you know? That's how I see the way you look at Y/N, the way you light up when Y/N smiles, or laughs. And I'm observant enough to know that Y/N feels the same." Jihyo continued sipping her coffee, a smirk on her face as she watched Rei go through about 32 stages of confusion.  "Ask Y/N out dummy, I promise you it'll work out fine." Jihyo smiled reassuringly, resting her hand on Rei's shoulder, a small smile on her face. "Aish, stop bothering my bestie Unnie, shoo!" You quickly rushed Jihyo away, Rei turning to compose herself, hiding her blush from you. For the next hour, you and Rei engaged in casual conversation. Well, you did, Rei mostly smiled and nodded, trying her best to hide her turbulent thoughts as you talked, as she found her thoughts lingering on you, your smile, your eyes, your lips, you. It took all of Rei's willpower to hide the blush on her face. You had noticed Rei's sudden silence, cursing yourself internally for rambling on for so long and probably seeming weird to the Japanese girl. "Rei, it's getting dark, how about I send you home?" You offered, as Rei nodded, the two of you saying goodbye to Jihyo. With a thumbs up and a reassuring nod, Jihyo gestured toward you, Rei nodding, Jihyo's smile beginning to touch her eyes.

"Wait, Rei, where are you going? Your house is that way." You asked, confused as Rei turned. "I want to ask you something, come on!" Rei said with a smile, grabbing your hand as she pulled you along with her, your body in shock at Rei holding your hand. You smiled as you saw Rei smiling like a child, rushing to two empty swings as she began to swing gently, gesturing to the other swing. Sneaking a quick picture of her, you sat next to her, watching as her face lit up, smiling with affection. "So, what did you say you wanted to talk about?" You asked, as Rei slowed her swing, closing her eyes as she not only appreciated the tranquility of the silence at the swings, but also coming to terms with the weight of what she was about to do. "Look at the stars. They're so pretty tonight." Rei said, her eyes traced onto the stars in the sky, you followed suit, smiling. Rei was right. The stars were pretty, but not as pretty as her. "Yeh." Was all you could mutter out, as you cursed yourself for your inability to speak. The universe gave you the best opportunity to confess, and you squandered it. Good going... "Some people say stars hold the key to our future. So at night, whenever I look in the night sky, I look at the stars, and think about the future, and what it holds for me. And you." Rei said, reaching over to hold your hand in hers. "And me and you." Rei smiled as she looked at you with both love and fear. "And-And that means what?" You shook your head, confused about what Rei was trying to say. "It means, I want us to have a future. Together. As more than best friends."   Rei chuckled a little as she looked at you sitting there, slack jawed, stunned as you tried your best to process what Rei just said. Rei could have sworn she saw smoke coming from your ears. After a while, however, Rei began doubting what she had just done. Had she just messed up everything? "And if the feeling isn't reciprocated, I understand, I just wanted to get this off my chest, and I understand if you don't like me back and..." Rei began rambling, before finally being stopped by your hands on her cheeks, holding her gently "You talk too much sometimes Rei." You smiled gently, Rei smiling back, before a look of uncertainty flashed across her face once again. "So...do you?" Rei asked, before feeling your lips on hers, as the two of you shared a romantic kiss. "I do." You whispered, Rei still blushing as she tried to comprehend that she had just kissed her long time crush "I do? We're not married yet you know?" Rei quipped, chuckling before recoiling in shock as you got down on one knee. "No time like the present right? Naoi Rei, Will y-" You were about to finish, before you heard a loud shout from behind you. "No No No, the two of you are much too young for this!" Jihyo shouted as she ran towards the two of you. "Aish, Unnie, I was just joking around, and, wait, were you spying on us?" You questioned, as Jihyo had a goofy grin on her face. "Well, who do you think gave Rei the push to finally confess? Well, it had to be one of you confessing, and you were too much of a loser to do it, so I had to ask Rei." Jihyo said, slinking her arm around Rei's shoulder as the two of them high fived. "Well, I guess you did good this time Thomas." You said, as Jihyo glared at you, turning to Rei. "If my dumbass sibling ever does anything, just come to me, I'll always take your side over that idiot's." She whispered, but making sure it was loud enough for you to hear. "Hey!" You shouted in jest, as Jihyo chuckled, before heading off. "So, where were we?" Rei asked, holding your hand in hers. "Well, since I am a sucker for making things official, Naoi Rei, will you be my girlfriend?" "I do."

"Yujin Unnie, can we switch spots, I'm about to throw up." Leeseo groaned as she gestured to the two lovebirds she was forced to sit next to, Yujin chuckling as she looked at both you and Rei resting your heads on each other. "Umm, love birds, you can just put your hands on the table, it's pretty obvious." Gaeul chimed in as Rei giggled, pulling your two intertwined hands from below the table, resting it on the table. "Jagi, could we head out for a while? I want to do something that Leeseo is too young to see." You whispered, but Leeseo still overheard, mock throwing up as the two of you ran off, hiding in a little cubby. Holding Rei, the two of you swayed to the tune played in the store nearby, before you pulled her in close, leaving a light kiss on her forehead. "Have I told you how much I loved you?" "Only 12 times today." "Well, make it 13."

[owlbelly]

man i can't stop thinking about that antidepressant post going around (this is really long & not happy)

the one that started out as someone comparing taking their SSRI to taking insulin or thyroid medication, & turned into other people linking all the studies showing that the serotonin deficiency / "chemical imbalance" theory of depression has been pretty well debunked & that doctors/scientists don't really understand how a lot of psych medication works, particularly SSRIs, so you can't really compare taking a medication for something your body actually physically lacks or that's correcting a chemically measurable problem to taking a psych med that isn't doing either of those things (no one is measuring your brain chemicals & there's no agreed upon baseline for something like seratonin - a re-uptake inhibitor isn't making you make any more of it either it's just prolonging its effects in your system)

like. idk. i understand that the science is demonstrably faulty & that advertising campaigns for medications are the reason the popular conception of innate "chemical imbalance" persists even among doctors! this is not new information to me & it's obviously critical to talk about it & continue to do research.

but i also feel like there has got to be a way to talk about it that doesn't implicitly shame or, idk, outright deny the experience of people for whom taking SSRIs has been life-improving or even life-saving? "this stuff doesn't work the way they tell you it does" is one thing, but it so quickly seems to turn into "this stuff doesn't do anything at all (except hurt you)" which is...literally just not true. we can question whether or not medication is the best choice for someone, we can criticize the intersection of capitalism & medicine that's resulted in poorly understood medication with serious side effects being pushed through to sales, we can talk about how structural/societal change would help most of us MUCH more, etc. etc.

but for some people nothing else works, or nothing else works without an additional boost, or nothing else is accessible (which is fucked). these are shit circumstances. idk i think the wording on that post was like "it's fine if you feel like they help you but don't spread this misinformation about depression as a chemical imbalance" & i guess "it's fine if you feel like they help you" always reads to me as "okay sweetie, you have the right to enjoy your poison placebo." clearly they fucking do help sometimes. we don't know how exactly & we should be concerned about lying corporations & shitty institutions, but like...some people are clearly getting results from them. not all of them good results! but good enough that we can function & live, otherwise we wouldn't take them.

lmao maybe i just don't know how to not feel like shit about any discussion of SSRIs, since i have taken them longer than almost anyone i know (almost 25 years) & from a young enough age that they've possibly shaped the development of my brain in ways that no one really understands & the side effects have definitely shaped my life & i have never been able to function without them! maybe i never will be able to now. was it wrong for them to be prescribed to me in the first place? idk i was pretty set on being dead at that point. maybe i would have been okay, maybe not. i've tried to taper off them multiple times, both with doctor supervision & without. it fucking sucks & i stop feeling like living. should i do it again & stick it out to the point of wanting to die because "depression isn't actually a chemical imbalance" & i am just a duped pawn of big pharma?

or am i SSRIs Georg now, who has been taking Prozac for a quarter of a century & does have a resulting "chemical imbalance" & is an outlier, should not have been counted

sorry i hate this i hate being both critical of & also dependent on psych meds, i hate the way everyone talks about it. people who are pro-meds always act like no one is ever forced to take them or stigmatized for not taking them & that the science around them is clear-cut, people who are anti-meds always talk like there's no stigma around taking psych medication (lmao! even antidepressants!) & also like they're just shit placebos for idiots.

i super hate not knowing what 25 years of SSRIs has done to my body & also being pants-shittingly terrified of trying to remove them from my life. it all fucking blows i just want to see a little more compassion for all of us trying to survive here in whatever way we can

[mooifyourecows]

do you ever feel guilty when you’re feeling half despite all the issues you may have? like especially when talking to people or listening to music by people having really tough times, do you feel like “i shouldn’t get to feel like this when i’m going through something because look at how these people feel going through something”

i was raised catholic so there's nothing I can't feel guilty about tbh

but i think our emotions are the first thing we should work hard to stop feeling guilt about. there's always going to be someone who has it worse than you or who is more positive and courageous despite going through something worse than you, so there's no point in comparing your situation with anybody else's. like, maybe your favorite shirt got ruined in the wash but your brother's dog died but his friend's mom died but their neighbor's entire family died but their coworker grew up in a box on the street with no family to begin with and now has terminal cancer but their friend had to flee from their home country because war wiped out everyone they knew and etc etc etc, it goes on and on and on until finally we find the ONE single person who has had the absolute WORST life possible and what... they're the only one allowed to feel bad about it? and what if they're super upbeat and positive about it? that's it. emotions are canceled for everyone else?

no, that's crazy, you know?

you're allowed to feel how you feel because you literally can't control that. and that's alright. emotions aren't the things that affect others, it's how you respond to them that affects others. and it's only your inconsiderate and cruel actions that you should feel guilty about. be aware of your privilege and be conscientious about other people who may be having a worse time than you. Don't compare your situation to someone's much worse situation as if they are equal, but for god's sake, feel your emotions and don't beat yourself up about it.

The best way to move past the bad emotions is to let yourself feel them. That's proven science, baby. When you feel yourself hit with a wave of emotion, whether it's a tightening in your chest or the urge to cry or the need to yell or punch a pillow or just stare blankly at a wall listening to sad music for some time, do it. Allow yourself that moment of weakness. Welcome it. Feel your emotion for as long as it needs to be felt and I promise it will pass and you can go about your day, business as usual. Some emotion will linger, especially the big stuff. The dead dog stuff. the dead mom stuff. the fear for the future stuff. But they'll be a whole lot worse if you try to stuff them down and lock them away because of some bullshit about not earning the right to feel them.

maybe it's totally stupid, too! as someone who has anxiety, i know that there are plenty of times that i feel emotions for entirely stupid reasons, but hey, who cares? your body and all the chemicals and electricity that makes it work have decided that THIS IS IMPORTANT, and you should respect its wisdom. the sooner you learn to respect yourself and all your little and big feelings, the happier you will be.

and anybody that tells you that you shouldn't feel a certain way is an idiot and i'll punch them in the face so send them my way, okay?

cut yourself some slack, you're doing great! and your body and brain will be so grateful if you just give them some kindness and grace 🌈🖤

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

I've my isc chem board exam tomorrow (today?) at 2PM I'm panicking and this is the only thing that I can think to do

Advice? Help? Thoughts? Prayers?

Hey anon maggot I've got you. First, breathe, okay?

My (CBSE) chem board exam was on my birthday when it happened. And I hadn't prepared properly at all due to various health things. I was stressed out and miserable. But guess what. It went fine.

I promise you, the boards aren't the life-changing, life-defining, be-all-and-end-all exams that the Indian system keeps making us believe. I know it's hard to agree with me right now. Everyone told me the same thing and I was still so stressed about it.

Remember these things, okay?

These exams are not competitive exams. They're not trying to weed out people. They're made so even the students who barely grasped the material can still score enough to pass. You will get marks. It's inevitable.

Also, try and write the answers in the way those buggers want it, such as adding steps to calculations, ensuring the format with chemical reactions, including formulae and keywords. It's less about how right you are and more how you are right about it.

These exams are really not going to affect a lot. If you're in the science stream, odds are you're more relying on some kind of competitive exam for entrance to whatever course you're studying. These courses usually just have a minimum percentage needed in the boards.

Even if you are using the boards for entrance into colleges, remember that you have studied, and they're easier than people make them out to be. I swear they are.

Now, I know worst case scenarios might crop up in your brain, and in that case look. Even if you fail, there are retakes. Even if you can't do the retakes, there's a provision to write them again the next year.

Again, these exams are going to be really easy compared to your internal assessments. Schools structure them that way so that their students do well in the boards and their own credibility increases. What's going to be more important than your preparation is that you sit there calm enough to write down what you know, check for mistakes if you have time, don't short-circuit your brain with panic and make avoidable errors, and most importantly, leave feeling okay. Yeah?

There's nothing wrong with being worried, but don't let it get out of hand. You're worth so much more than one stupid exam. Please take my word for this, I've learned the hard way. The next three paragraphs are my personal story, and if you don't have time to read it, feel free to skip it, I'll make my point after.

That chem board exam of mine? I got 99%. And guess what, I still took a gap year because the exam stress of NEET and the boards landed me in the fucking hospital with steroidal injections the week before the NEET and I couldn't take the exam.

I spent the drop year studying myself to literal breakdown for the NEET. And then I realised the week before NEET that fuck, I didn't actually want to do science anymore. The NEET exam was on my birthday, again. I wrote it, because the exams had nearly killed me and I wanted to just write it to get closure. The next week, I got into a design school.

And three months into design school, I dropped out. Because of intense bullying, harassment and isolation by every single student in the small college including the dean because of my mental health and queerness. I loved the course and the material, and I'd been performing well, but I had to drop out anyway. A month later, I got admission into a much more well-known design school for next year. But now I'm not sure I want to do on-campus education anymore, because of how every aspect of my identity will have to be hidden to survive.

The point? There are so, so many factors that they don't tell you about on how life will go and where you'll end up, what you'll study and who you'll be. The boards are a very, very tiny part of that. Honestly, all exams are just one part of that. An important part, sometimes. But not by any means the only. I did extremely well in my exams, even with health issues, and look at my college dropout ass two years after the boards. And yet I'm still really happy, and my career is not doomed.

This may be more than you wanted. But I think it's something students need to hear. I don't want people to be driven to the brink, landed in a hospital like I was, because of a few fucking scores.

As for your exam, well, again: stay calm, and then you'll remember everything. Neuroscience proves that, by the way. It also proves that all the information you consciously or unconsciously absorbed throughout the year will spring up unexpectedly and help you.

It'll go well. I promise. It'll all go well for you.

All the best, my maggot. Take all the love and wishes. I'm rooting for you, always. And I'm so proud of you already. Yeah? Good :")

Love, Asmi

[cozy-possum]

I have so much love for the way you've written these headcanons! I couldn't help but notice that the abilities more closely connected with the environment (squallers, tidemakers, inferni) tend to be…less consequential? than your thoughts around the talents we'd otherwise consider to be more dangerous like heartrenders or shadow summoners. do you think that their 'horrors' would generally *be* less "horrific" because of how people generally see these elements as less threatening, and therefore the grisha controlling them likely appear less threatening overall??

i am just in love with the idea that the fear of other nations (fjerda, shu han, novyi zem, etc) of grisha and their talents could be built on how devastating or horrific the byproducts of their talents are!

Thank you so much!!!

Support My Writing?

OG Post (Here)

This got long again; not sorry.

I don't think non-grisha would see them as less threatening, but the fact that to a degree, non-grisha can control those elements. People can create fire, and channel it into weapons or compressed engines. People can control wind and water to a degree, and non-grisha can create things like fabrikators. Is it easier when a person can control it to exact needs, yeah but it can still be done in a way by non-grisha. I could see in universe them not being views as much of a threat.

Grisha who control the elements are controlled natural disasters waiting to be pointed to the target. Everyone would do well to remember but sometimes reminders are needed.

When it comes to actual threats it depends how much control the Grisha have, so; (This goes like way more into torture than just danger tbh)

Tidemakers, and their ability to control water, can they control blood? Or is it only the chemical make-up of H2O, would they be able to control water within every cell, spinal fluid even? Make someone sick or hallucinate by altering the fluid around and in their brain? Make people think they've had meetings, had arguments, that they've won a victory when everyone around them is dead? Could they puppeteer people if they could control blood? What about snot or vomit? Could they take someone with a disease and spread the infection through manipulation of infected fluids? Beyond the obvious of manipulating infected water, beyond spreading sickness, with enough of them, could you cause a drought? Flood whole cities or towns? Drown villages that oppose your reign? Could they create diseases that spread through livestock? Could they manipulate the water/blood in the livestock and make them leave the area? Could they gather people to safety, or to be used as sacrifices? Body's for canon fodder or to pad out an armies number? And of course, they can only control the physical movement, so all those people can still scream, still cry, still shout warnings but they can't move.

Squallers , could with enough training pull the air out of your lungs. Could they, with enough force rip limbs off? Level entire cities? Could they bring up or down skiffs, houses, pushing the air under and around these things to rip them from their foundations. Using the air pressure could they burst your cells from inside? Could they raise and lower it so fast there's nothing for your body to do to pass out? Could they change it just enough to give you oxygen deprivation? Give you altitude sickness? Can they alter the air pressure to spy? To hear battle plans from cities away? Could they make it so someone hears what they want them to, altering the air so another solider speaks wrong plans into their ear and they think it the truth? Can they puppeteer people by manipulating the air pressure around someone, keeping them in a bubble? If someone is kept in a bubble, how much can the squaller deprive them of, enough wind for them to shut their eyes, to be unable to hear? Can they use their science to strip skin, to 'windblast' someone's clothes to shreds, their skin? Dry out their eyes so they cannot see? If the wind makes in into the body can they dry out your internal organs, wind whipping around and pulling stomach acid till it burns through your throat?

Inferni, they deal with fire, heat, raising the body temperature to create burns or rashes on major joints, so movement becomes uncomfortable, it becomes unsafe but not as obvious as burning someone alive so they could hide in plain sight. They can manipulate combustible elements/particles, so could they neutralize them? Bombs never going off, soldier's checking what's wrong and getting blown to bits. Changing the make-up of things so something benign becomes dangerous if tilted or moved too fast. Adding combustible materials to clothes, to food, so the more the soldiers use, if they're too close a spark will set up the entire camp. Taking those elements away, some of them have to be important to life, like a vitamin deficency but far more deadly. If it's heat focused; raising or taking the temperature to give people heat stroke, destroy livestock or farms with the heat. Could they raise it just slightly, so people thing it's the weather, could they raise it enough in winter for people to forgo fire or heat, so they freeze to death in the night? Increasing heat so people sweat and look sick when they're talking so someone thinks they're a traitor. Heating the air so everything is muffled, or it's so muggy and hot no one can focus.

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[chipped-chimera]

FOR THE TIRED PEOPLE: Some new research about Chronic + ADHD(inattentive) related fatigue, and BCAAs

[DISCLAIMER // I AM NOT A DOCTOR. I AM NOT A MEDICAL PRACTITIONER. I AM NOT A DIETICIAN. I'm just a big tired nerd with way too much time on my hands who likes science. I am however, sharing this because this could potentially help others and BCAAs are already safe for human consumption, widely used and easily accessible. If you are uncertain about adding BCAAs to your diet please talk to your doctor first. There are also some medications which interact negatively with BCAA's. Do your research. Also generally be careful about taking medical advice from the internet! ]

I was going to post about something else but I went down the rabbit hole of explaining this study I read and decided that no, this needed it's own thing or it's gonna be a mile long.

So in one of my usual weekly fatigue breakdowns where I was scraping the internet for any kind of information that might point out something I've SURELY missed to explain why I feel the way I do, I stumbled across this study published last year (2022) -

[ The relationship between central fatigue and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder of the inattentive type ]

The TL;DR on the paper - our previous assumptions about the tryptophan-serotonin system might be wrong (tryptophan being the precursor for a bunch of stuff, including melatonin which is the sleepy chemical - aka why people say drink warm milk before bed to help sleep, that's tryptophan) what was previously assumed was reducing tryptophan = bad because it could affect serotonin production.

Testing in rats (so grain of salt here) indicated that higher levels of tryptophan =/= higher levels of serotonin and when reducing the level of free tryptophan in the bloodstream it returned to baseline. High levels of tryptophan were associated with fatigue and inattention, and rats on a tryptophan deficient diet by contrast took longer to reach a state of exhaustion. I'm skipping over a bunch of stuff but basically - research is now pointing to both Chronic Fatigue and ADHD related fatigue being related to Central Nervous System Fatigue which up until now, has only really been associated with the fatigue athletes experience when exercising really hard (now just picture me doing jack shit and feeling like that every day. Yeah). I've only just stared to see bits and pieces pop up about this recently but nothing in relation to this tryptophan study.

Anyway, the thing about BCAAs: BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acids) are currently used to reduce the uptake of tryptophan in the brain for better performance in athletes, help with reduction of exercise fatigue (CNS fatigue) and muscle building. You can pretty easily find BCAA's added to protein-shakes or in it's own kind of supplement. It also occurs naturally in some foods (Beef, Chicken, Eggs, Lentils, Chickpeas, Brown Rice etc.) so it is absolutely safe to consume. It's also generally fairly affordable (especially compared to the lengthy process of treatment + medications that might not even work and you have to keep changing them, yes I am talking from personal experience).

Again, this is all very new and absolutely needs so much more research because up until now, no one has really been sure what causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but tests have shown that those suffering CFS demonstrate similar activation of their muscles as fatigued athletes - as in they could activate them but not to their full capacity. This connection is only considered 'possible' and it might take a good few years before we can say anything with certainty.

But as an extremely tired bitch who is extremely tired of being extremely fucking tired, I am sharing this because it's easy to get, safe, and affordable and if you're like me you're about ready to try anything. And it's not another goddamn pill (I'm on 14 a day).

Also for the ADHDers specifically: protein rich diets are usually advised for us because it helps with the metabolism of stimulants, and can help with softening medication crashes when they wear off. So adding a protein shake with BCAAs to your morning routine might be a good idea. Or just any protein shake in general.

There can be side effects to taking BCAAs, but it is considered rare and this depends entirely on the person. Cross check existing medications, talk to your doc etc. if you are not 100% certain adding BCAAs to your diet is possible. Stay safe peeps.

[transenbyconfessions]

I dunno if I'm delusional or got superpowers or what but I'm absolutely giddy so I wanted to share. CW for possible validation of delusions (?) including supernatural experiences and bodily control. I genuinely do believe that all of this is true but it is a bit of a wild tale, so if you are sensitive to unreality you may want to skip this confession.

So I'm afab transmasculine. Specifically, I'm a non-binary man. My dad is a bit of a "mad scientist" type (he works as a research scientist professionally, but he doesn't execute any of his ideas there because like...regulations and safety laws) so he gets a lot of his wild theoretical ideas out through creative science fiction writing. In his work of fiction, there is a long-lost group of humans that were able to evolve (consciously alter their genetics) within a single generation. He has biological and chemical reasons to explain this in the story, but it's mostly just fictional conjecture.

Also...my dad and best friend both have experienced some Very Supernatural Stuff and frankly, I believe them. Their stories align too much and they've never spoken to each other. So I am kind of in a place where I believe there's a lot we don't know. I believe in the supernatural, just not in any specific representation of it (god, ghosts, vampires, etc.). As a Weird Scientist, my dad will frequently talk about the edges of science that he thinks people haven't looked into yet—one of which is the placebo effect. The fact that just through someone believing they're being medicated, sugar pills can suddenly make a significant, well-known enough change in someone's health that it needs to be accounted for in medical studies?

So.... Shortly after realizing I had a gender (I realized I was trans in my teens, but I thought I was agender until a little over a year ago (2021 may, I believe, was the first time I tried he/him pronouns)) I decided well, why not? I took that concept from my dad's fictional story, and decided that I believed humans had a dormant ability to alter their biological functioning on a conscious level. I also decided that I believe very strongly in the placebo effect; therefore, I believe that if I believe something will affect my body in a certain way, it will within reason. So I kind of just... sent a conscious signal to my brain that I'm a man now and I'd like to generate testosterone. I tried to believe it as hard as I could, but I also tried to keep my hopes pretty low because... well, it would sound insane to anyone else, this would be commonly understood to be a fools' errand. But I

Several months after I made this decision I started noticing like, wisps of hair along my belly button and chest? And I kind of got really excited, like maybe it's working, but maybe it's a fluke, who knows. Since then there have been a lot of small details about my body that have made me euphoric that I feel like weren't there before. And I guess the most likely explanation is that conceptualizing myself as a man and my friends respecting my identity eases my overall dysphoria.

But yesterday I came out of a shower and I noticed little wisps of a mustache? And I know even pre-T that's possible, but it made me insanely euphoric and made it all feel way more real. Like it's still really really thin, the same texture as my arm hairs, but like, almost a centimeter long. And I'm also noticing straggling hairs on my thighs and I swear my waist looks boxier. My arms feel more muscular. I dunno, maybe I'm just feeding delusions, but I want it to be true so badly and it feels like it isn't hurting anyone to believe in it. And it makes me so happy, and if nothing else, helps me to highlight things about my body that I love.

[viridianv0id]

please tell me more about the science class stuff

Oh i would LOVE to!! ill put this under a cut but some warnings first: Mentions of: eating gross things, illegal activities and animal death/ unpleasant pest control methods

So, this is not in order and is probably over the course of my science class and marine biology class because memory is a BITCH but the teacher was the same for both

of course, there was the gunpowder incident which i already talked about, that was really fun at the time

we also had set off a expired boat flare, which seems innocent at first as our teacher was just showing us how it worked - but setting off a flare when you aren't in an emergency is VERY illegal here in Australia and he was at genuine risk of getting in trouble if we were caught

the amount of times we did chemical experiments with lighting highly flammable metals ( i dont remember the name rn) without any safety equipment (yes i looked at the light and burned my eyes)

also doing that one experiment with a metal that explodes in water at a larger size that was ever actually allowed

we ate things like sheep brain, crocodile tail, fish eggs fresh from a dissected fish we did that class

EDIT: i should mention I DID NOT EAT THE SHEEP BRAIN OR FISH EGGS i did eat the croc though and it was nice! tasted like chicken with a nice texture

we cared for over a hundred rainbow trout, thats nothing crazy it was just cool and i loved feeding them

our school had its own mini farm that held actual animals, sheep, llamas we even had cows at some point

sorta fun story about the cows but its not fun at all actually and upset quite a few kids we had the class a couple times a week and one day when we came to class the cows were just suddenly gone, not too unusual sometimes they just weren't at the school, but on this day our teacher decided to have a bbq and what did he bring to this bbq? beef. fucking. sausages.

we all thought it was the cows, looking back now it wasnt the cows, it was too soon after they were gone for it to be that but it still upset us kids

there was this one time i broke a cinder block! literally split it in two we had a small rat infestation in the fish shed and to take care of it our teacher threw the rats out to us for us to kill (we had to, couldn't release them or keep them) so a few of us took some turns throwing the cinder block and when it got to me and i threw it down the damn concrete thing just snapped in two. yeah.

thats all i can remember right now at least, science/marine bio class was a fun time and the teacher was honestly great and if it wasn't for the fact i was poor i would of had my boating license at the age of 16

[lingchung]

When Seemingly Unrelated Fields Connect

My friend Steve shared the following except. I find this way of linking seemingly unrelated fields fascinating.

Reactions: An Illustrated Exploration of Elements, Molecules, and Change in the Universe - Theodore Gray

YOU ARE MADE OF chemical reactions. From digestion to death, it's all chemistry. But is that really a useful way of thinking about it? I could just as well say that you are made of elements, or that you are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Or that you are made of quarks and gluons or whatever those things are made of. All these things are true. So to understand life, should we study physics, chemistry, biochemistry, medicine, or what? It comes down to this: What kind of language is the most helpful for understanding the particular phenomenon you're interested in? lf you want to figure out why a certain sport is popular, it's probably not useful to talk about the chemical reactions that move the athlete's muscles. You'd want to use the language of psychology or sociology or politics to understand how that sport got popular and how its managers use the media to trick people into thinking they care about a certain team and giving them money. Every field of study is useful at its own level, and there is a definite order in which these fields build on each other. Political science and sociology are useful for understanding the actions of people acting (often badly) in large groups. To do that, you need to know something about how individual people behave, which is covered by the field of psychology. Psychology is useful for understanding the thinking of one or two people at a time. People's thoughts are influenced, but not fully explained, by the mechanics of what's going on in their brains, so to understand thoughts you want to know something about medicine. Medicine is the study of how people's bodies work as whole systems, with all their interacting parts influencing each other. To do that, you need to know how those individual parts work, which is explained mostly by biochemistry. Biochemistry is about chemical reactions - often involving proteins. DNA, and other very large molecules - that go on in living systems. To understand these very complicated reactions, you need to know how reactions work in general. Chemistry is the study of how atoms and molecules interact with each other at the atomic level. Individual bonds being made or broken, one atom knocking out another, and so on. To study that, you first need to know how atoms and subatomic particles work, which is physics. Physics is the study of the fundamental forces of nature. It used to be about big things like planets and gravity (and it still is) but much of it is now about things happening at scales far smaller even than an atom. This is the world of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is a set of theories, expressed in mathematical formulas, that describe all known phenomena in the world to an extraordinary degree of precision. But only if the phenomenon is incredibly small, or carefully set up to magnify quantum phenomenon into the macroscopic world. Fundamentally, quantum mechanics is all mathematics. Mathematics is the end of the line. It is the field that transcends all individual, specific issues and speaks only in universal and absolute truths. As such, mathematics is about everything and nothing. It is the root answer to all questions, but the actual answer to hardly any of them. These fields build on each other, and each level adds new ideas. What I find fascinating is that sometimes you can stab a needle through the stack, connecting a phenomenon at a very high level with something happening at a much lower level. That's how we ended up with dancers wearing gas masks.

[transqueeneli]

What is Love?

Hello, all you lovelies out there. Welcome to technically the second rambling of yours truly.

What is love? This is a question most people have an answer to. Some may quote from the dictionary or Google answer to this. Many others may decide to site religion. Science? They have an answer, too, blaming the feel-good chemicals in the brain. I feel those who give these answers have never sat and pondered it much, seeking a solution. I'm not going to say these are wrong or right. In many ways, there are collective opinions from many sources over literal millennia, and so all are valid.

So what do you think I believe? You may wonder, as I'm posting this? I believe love is a drug, an addiction. It can make you hit the highest of highs but also make it so you can have the lowest of lows. Not satisfied with the answer? Well, think of this then. Remember the first moment you realized your feelings for your significant other. Something about the way they looked, the cadence of their voice. Maybe it took time, and it was their spirit, their drive after talking to them. At that moment, you get the first shot. Your stomach becomes uneasy, butterflies. You are not the only one, either. When that feeling hits them and the connection forms, they will have the butterflies, too.

From here on, it starts the cycle though. When you are with them, you feel a new surge. You are happy, and sometimes it feels drunkenly so. Your thoughts burst with inspiration this person or persons gives you. When you part, going your separate ways at first, nothing, especially after having a wonderful time. As time goes on, though, you start to feel bad. Loneliness, inspiration draining or drained. At some points, just moving around seems like a hassle if you are not meeting them, and all you can do is think of them.

There are records, of course, of poets, playwrights, and performers where they speak of how powerful love is and equally of the pain or lack of desire for life being away from that your love causes. In our modern times, contact with one another is as simple as having a phone or computer and an internet connection. This allows for minor hits, so you don't enter 'withdraw.' Today, the only time complete withdrawal happens is in a breakup. While eventually you will get better, there will be days that despair and sadness will well up again.

Do you want to know the best part? You can't overdose on love. Online, Offline, through letters, or even word of mouth, anyone can show you love. The affection you can get from people is addicting, and since it has no upper limit, you can have it all. That is why the like button is shaped like a heart, a symbol used for love. The more you get, the better you feel.

There you go, my thoughts on love. It is how I feel about it. Please tell me. I'd like to know your thoughts now that I've shared mine.

Thank you all who read to the end of this rambling thought of mine. Please let me know with the "Ask me anything" button if you want more of something like this or something else. Or if enough questions build-up, I'll do a Q&A. I hope to hear back from all of you lovelies.

Your Rambling Trans Queen, Elizabeth

P.S. For those wanting a continuation of what was posted yesterday, I'm doing these daily, and I never know where my brain is gonna focus. I can't promise when another story time will be, but I will try to do another once a week for those wanting more.

[sudrien-scratched011]

"'The Pinnacle of Evolution.' What is that. What Is that." "Um. Nothing ever dies?" "I think its just a writer who doesn't even know their own theories." "So. A few days ago I saw a video that claimed... uh. Larval thing. Tiny thing with lots of legs." "So not a snake." "'Pillar' something. Anyways, builds its own damn containment matrix out of local materials and comes out with wings." "Oh - so not very large then." "Shut. Listen. Whatever made the video claimed it rewrote its own genetic structure." There was the muffles sound of at least three heads slapped. There were no dedicated biologists among the bridge crew. "Ok, we have proof someone on that planet knows what DNA is." "Apparently they're not sharing the facts very well." "Wait, I...." "No offense.... or not much"

"Moths. Butterfiles. Uh..."

"She didn't finish her education, don't blame her if she's confused. Again."

"Hey, I took the survey science course. Business is about different things." "Do you think Peyde knows what DNA is?" "Oh, that's a loaded question." "Ok, DNA is?" "Cell. Instructions. For building things." "On both macro and micro levels - the proteins, and the shapes it will be arranged in." "And they don't change." "Oh ho - they change. But never by intent. Radiation, errors in copying - if the result can live with out throwing any body alarms, it will live. But one of these mis-copies doesn't spread to other cells in the body - though descendant cells themselves may end up relocating." "Is now a good time to ask about my room reassig-" "No." "However, just because a cell has a full set of DNA, that doesn't mean it has to act on the whole instruction set. SO certain sets of DNA are enabled and disabled based on ... a whole lot of things." "...what" "A whole lot of things" "Ah... expression based on hormones." "Local environment and stress, mostly. Anyways. Pillar to Moth" "CATERPILLAR. THAT'S WHAT oh sorry." "Caterpillar to Moth is not at all from the DNA changing, but a chemical signal while it's in its matrix leading to wildly different expression of that DNA - switch flip, wings get." "Unless they die in the process." "Right. Most of the time it's just an expression switch getting flipped, but very rarely those copying errors actually lead to something different happening. And the larger organisim somehow gets a better grip of it's environment that the others bedey-bey po-" "Hey, Nine Plus in front of the guest." "The other ninety-nine. point nine percent without the new gene - getting more in that next generation, killing off, dying less, however it does it, the number with that gene expression increases." "Which is why it doesn't end. Generations keep happening, the environment changes, the situation changes. You don't win Evolution. There is no peak unless there is no Environment." "How. Do they expect not to have an Environment." "There was some mentions of brains in computers." "Of course they'd think they only need the main mass of neurons. It's got to be a fetish." "Isn't that..." "Oh no, hun. We could give you a run of the ships computer and it'd just be like staring out of a window at best." "Yeah, the so-called brain in a jar model needs constant stimulus, which is why again, no peak." "Everything alive need constant stimulus even if it isn't sentient. It's not life without it.