#living without answers

[harmonyhealinghub]

The Unending Battle: Living with a Mysterious Illness 

Shaina Tranquilino

December 16, 2023

Living with a mysterious illness is an experience that can only be truly understood by those who have gone through it. It is a constant roller coaster ride of uncertainty, frustration, and exhaustion. For the past 12 years, I have been plagued by this enigmatic condition that has gradually taken over my life. Today, I want to share my story and reach out to others who may be facing similar challenges.

The Journey Begins: At the age of 18, life took an unexpected turn for me. What started as occasional bouts of sickness soon escalated into a daily battle against countless symptoms. Doctors' offices, hospitals, and specialist visits became my second home as I desperately sought answers to the mystery that had consumed my existence.

A Never-Ending Cycle: Each passing year brought new ailments and symptoms that ravaged my body and mind. Insomnia robbed me of much-needed restorative sleep while low energy levels left me perpetually drained. Hot flashes and sweating made even simple tasks unbearable, while the absence of a menstrual cycle added further confusion to the equation.

Endless Symptom Burden: The laundry list of symptoms seemed never-ending. Intense stomach cramps, loss of appetite despite efforts to eat, persistent nausea, and diarrhea turned eating into a dreaded chore. My dental health deteriorated rapidly with decaying teeth becoming yet another complication.

As if these physical struggles weren't enough, black spots in my vision triggered worry while hair loss shattered my self-esteem. Mouth sores, rashes on various parts of my body including my face, eyelids, and ears, acne outbreaks - all added insult to injury.

Daily Challenges: Simple activities like swallowing food or drinks became arduous tasks accompanied by pain. Muscles and joints constantly throbbed with discomfort; every step felt like traversing treacherous terrain.

Navigating Life's Obstacles: Living with an enigmatic illness demands resilience and adaptability. Coping mechanisms became a vital part of my daily routine, helping me navigate through the darkest moments. Emotional support from loved ones and connecting with others facing similar struggles online have been invaluable sources of strength.

The Power of Connection: While this blog post is an expression of vulnerability, it also serves as a plea for connection. The internet has proven to be a powerful tool in bringing together individuals who share similar experiences. By sharing our stories, we can create a community where empathy, understanding, and knowledge thrive.

A Call for Support: To those reading this post, I humbly ask for your love and support. If you or someone you know has encountered a mysterious illness resembling the symptoms I've described, please reach out to me. Let us join forces in seeking answers, advocating for ourselves, and shedding light on these often-neglected conditions.

Living with a mysterious illness is an overwhelming experience that leaves one feeling isolated, frustrated, and exhausted. It challenges every aspect of life - physical health, mental well-being, relationships, and future aspirations. Nevertheless, by sharing our stories and uniting in solidarity, we can find solace in knowing that we are not alone in this struggle. Together, let us strive for answers while supporting each other along the way.

[fairsweetlonging]

svsss body swap au where shen qingqiu and liu qingge swap bodies, and while shen qingqiu (either yuan or jiu could work!) is having the time of his life with the full power of the bai zhan war god, liu qingge is having a very rude awakening on how much chronic illnesses suck and how much pain and discomfort sqq is in every single day.

liu qingge finds out how awful without-a-cure is, it's blocking his cultivation and leaving him helpless, and it hurts, too, a constant ache that lingers in the back of his mind. it takes mu qingfang calling him out on his behavior to realize that he's been lashing out at others out of his own discomfort and frustration. the only relief he gets is the cleansing of his meridians, but to take all those brews every day and be dependant on his martial siblings for his base health is really frustrating, because he can't do so many things he used to be able to do without second thought.

meanwhile, shen qingqiu arm-wrestled every peak lord and won, cleaved a mountain in half, ran a marathon for fun, and approached every dangerous animal he could find to study them because his strength and reflexes get him out of tricky situations every time.

shen qingqiu: i just ran eighty miles and im not even sweating !!

liu qingge: i tried to circulate my qi and now i have a horrible migraine

eventually they switch back; liu qingge is very relieved, glad to be himself again. shen qingqiu is keeping up a brave face, but the constant discomfort feels a little worse now he knows what it's like to live without it.

[bonefall]

[ID: Ask from @storiesandsquirrels, transcribed in alt text]

also: link to Cow Lore

There's one major misconception here I've gotta correct before answering earnestly; Holsteins do need Super Duper Food. This is one of their major problems as a breed, you need to give them high quality feed for high quantity, low quality milk.

But! That said! These are valid questions that deserve real responses. In spite of the quick correction, I actually want to answer them as you phrased them because I think it would be more illuminating. I'm going to try and summarize them as I go along;

Question 1: "Why wouldn't we want to use The Most Efficient Cow?"

The simplest answer is disease. My ""prediction"" came true, and bird flu has mutated to spread extremely easily through the infected udders of Holsteins. No one has died of bovine-contracted HPAI yet, but with Brainworm Bobby and his love of raw milk in charge of the CDC...

well. my last prediction was prophetic. let's hope this one's not.

Minmaxing a breed for one specific purpose always means intensive inbreeding. Like I mentioned, 9 million Holsteins are genetically equivalent to 60 individuals. A more genetically diverse population is one that will be better at preventing disease outbreaks, and reducing their severity when they do.

And what even is the Most Efficient Milk Cow? If you're only selecting for pure milk production to drive down its cost, you get a breed of cattle that lacks every other important trait that would make it good livestock;

They get sick more often, due to inbreeding depression and lack of physical fitness, requiring more antibiotics and veterinary care.

They are bad parents who will need more human intervention to birth and raise calves

They won't be good grazers, meaning they need a specific food grown for them, increasing how much "functional" land is actually dedicated to cattle husbandry.

Their carcass won't yield as much meat, so more cattle have to be raised and slaughtered to meet demand.

Their bodies will burn out much quicker than a healthier animal, meaning you need to replace your livestock more often.

When it comes to living beings, "efficiency" is "fragility." It's not a stable system to begin with.

Even with the pure logic aside, just, step back here and look at the situation with a heart. We'd be making unhealthy, short-lived animals lacking critical instincts to lead good social lives. AND we probably haven't even fixed the "less land" problem, just shifted the land off-site.

For what? For more milk? We have SO MUCH milk we don't even know what to do with it!

Question 2: "Isn't an overabundance of cheap milk a good thing?"

no.

Under the infinite genius of Capitalism, thousands of gallons of milk just gets poured into the sewer daily because there's too much of it. Transporting it to a processor would cost more than it's worth, sometimes the processors turn milk away because they don't want to overproduce products, and even the US government can't subsidize every last drop; it still has 1.4 billion pounds of cheese in various caves and warehouses across the country.

The price of milk cannot get any lower because it's already being sold below the cost it takes to produce it, and yet, we're still here literally pouring it down the drain.

[photo from bill ulrich who photographed a farmer dumping milk back during the pandemic. this isn't even a recent photo. this happens every time there's a milk surplus. im using this photo because i like the farmer's cunty little pose. look at him. "just ain't right"core.]

And milk being dumped into the sewer is more than just wasteful. It's a biohazard.

Milk doesn't stop rotting when it's dumped. If you live downstream of a milkhouse, improper milk disposal reeks.

It's full of nutrients, too, which causes diatoms, cyanobacteria, and other types of algae to go into overdrive-- causing a Harmful Algal Bloom event in the water, or HAB.

HABs are horrific. There's HUNDREDS of different types. They can suck up oxygen and create "dead zones" which kills all aquatic life, they can poison the water supply for an entire town, and some can even cause toxic fumes that make it hard to breathe on land.

Now, listen, I don't want to scare you into never dumping out rotten milk or anything! It's that on an industrial scale, it's REALLY REALLY bad if a farm overproduces milk-- especially crummy milk that can't be made into decent cheese or other dairy products.

In fact, if we did produce milk on a smaller scale, it would be better for everyone! Unless you're a Milk Guzzling Fiend like I am, you probably wouldn't need to buy a whole gallon at a time. In countries like Italy, it's sold fresh and in smaller containers, and you're just expected to pick it up as you need it.

This is why milkmen used to exist, and still do in places that are cool; they'd deliver your supply fresh from the creamery. Less waste, less stress! The "subscription model" is actually sooooooooooo much better for milk production, since it helps to stagger out those "surges and drops" of demand that leads to milk dumps.

Question 3: "If the cow eats less, doesn't that mean less land for pasture, which is a good thing?"

There's a lot to unpack within this sentiment. It's actually based on a couple of common assumptions on a few levels, which are incorrect in fascinating ways. Challenging this means opening up your worldview on how complex keeping livestock actually is!

I'll start with the simpler part;

You could cut fresh pasture out of the equation entirely and shove a cow into a concrete pen with a food box-- but are you counting the land growing the fodder?

When you grow corn the way that we do on industrial farms in the US, it's unbelievably destructive. Unending oceans of monoculture. Fogged with pesticide, pumped full of fertilizer which causes HABs like dumped milk does, sprayed with thousands of gallons of wasted water.

When you look at this image, I need you to understand you are looking at a dead zone. Like a suburban lawn, just because it's green doesn't mean it's good. Nothing grows here but corn and pests of corn, which gets poisoned and dies without returning any of that energy to the ecosystem.

This is usually what is being given to "grain-fed cattle," either when they're sent to a feedlot to hit their slaughter weight, or when they're lactating so they need the extra nutrition. It's also so nasty it's inedible to human beings.

Now, a lot of cattle farmers will just supplement their cow's diet, doing a mix of pasture feeding (much cheaper) and grain feeding (quicker gains). But the facts on this are clear; pasture-kept cattle result in LESS emissions and need LESS total space than cows in confinement.

In fact, there were a LOT of benefits!

Overall gas emissions from the cows dropped by 8%

Ammonia pollution was down by 30%

Not needing to run farm equipment for fodder planting and harvest reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 10%

Rotated crop fields didn't sequester carbon; but the newly converted perennial grasslands store as much as 3,400 pounds per acre.

The outside cows did produce less milk volume, but the milk they did produce was higher quality. So, looking at all the benefits here, it's clear that pasture is actually something that should be embraced for ecological reasons, not rejected.

In FACT, it should be EMPHASIZED. Because, this is the mind-blowing part,

Pasture can ALSO be an ecosystem.

In fact, I'm a Warrior Cats guy who once did a deep dive on moorlands just so I could write WindClan better. There are entire biomes that only exist because of grazing, and British lowland heath is one of them!

Keeping cattle in a sustainable, ecologically sound way is going to look different depending on where in the world you're doing it. So many earnest, good-willed people have bought into the lie that humans are a problem, and that everything "associated" with us becomes a barren wasteland as if we are tainted. YOU are not the problem! The problem is, and always has been, exploitation. Unsustainable relationships with the land we're part of.

Indigenous people in Europe, Asia, and Africa have been keeping cattle for thousands of years. In North America, cattle can be used to maintain ecosystems that have been badly affected by the colonial eradication of the American Bison. In South America, Brazil specifically has been making incredible advances with highly efficient integrated crop-livestock-forestry farming.

Generally, pastures here in the US are not as intensely managed as an equivalent crop field. Some people fertilize them, or water them mid-summer, but absolutely not to the same extent as industrial corn farms. Cattle are typically rotated between pastures, allowing each to re-grow before they come back to graze again.

Obviously, yes, overgrazing can be an issue. Not every open space should be converted into a pasture, and the destruction of other environments to turn into cow land is a problem. But that is an issue of bad land stewardship, not the mere practice of keeping livestock.

Bottom line, though? Cattle who can graze and survive outside are better for the environment than cattle that can't.

...but hey, you know what Holsteins happen to be really bad at?

EVERYTHING. GRAZING.

They are notoriously terrible grazers. They can't do megan THEEEEE thing that cows are known for. Fragile frames, a lack of fat to keep them warm outside, increased demand for food, distaste for any rough forage, horrible mothering instincts, the list goes on. Holsteins are a NIGHTMARE to try and keep outside all year round compared to other breeds.

(especially heritage breeds, like the Milking Devon, Florida Cracker, or Texas Longhorn. Between these three, you'd be totally covered in 80% of American climates.)

I've already explained why it's not actually very good or important that we minmax milk volume, but even if that was actually something we should value, there are so many downsides that they would absolutely not be the dominant cow breed in a truly "efficient" system.

"Less cows means less cow food and cow land" is sound logic, but Holsteins are not the right cow for that job.

Question 4: "How could this be done in a way that doesn't increase cost of living?"

I'm not sure how to answer this question, simply because I'm not Bonestar, Leader of AmericaClan. Wish I was. I would rule tyrannically.

It's worth noting that Brazil is the second largest producer of beef in the entire world, AND the number one largest exporter of it, AND only puts 30% of its land to total agricultural use. The USA dedicates over 50%. And also Brazil is net reducing its amount of agricultural land while increasing output.

It seems clear to me that the USA actually has a massive food waste and resource distribution problem, to the point where the price we pay for stuff is actually wildly disconnected from the actual value of the goods and labor.

I think the way that us Americans tend to frame our conversations on these topics as "growth" vs "cuts" instead of asking how to minimize waste by making existing systems more efficient prevents us from solving problems. We're also just... really culturally resistant to the idea of anything being more "expensive," even if it ends up costing us a lot more money in waste or mismanagement later.

Penny wise and dollar foolish ass country.

Question 5: "What can we personally do about this?"

I mean, I wasn't making a call to action in Cow Lore, I was just explaining to one of my regulars why I don't like Holsteins LMAO. Since you're asking though...

I don't think we can change the wider trend in the dairy industry without actual government intervention and regulation, though, and that's very unlikely in the current political environment. they just sent random dudes to Ausalvador-Birkenau and when the Supreme Court said "bring this specific person back" they said "nuh uh." fellas I don't think we're getting better dairy regulations in the foreseeable future.

So I think the most productive thing to do is focusing on supporting small farms and heritage breeds. Get involved in your community garden or heritage society if you have one.

Not only is that generally a very rewarding thing, but it will be helpful to you in case The Situation Gets Worse. Knowing your neighbors and having real human connection is your best defense against economic recession.

Supporting the locals is always a great thing to do, which can be as simple as going to farmer's markets. You don't need to buy fancy food every day to make an impact on your community-- it can be a treat sometimes!

You could also subscribe to the Livestock Conservancy's free newsletter, where they talk about the work they're doing and upcoming events. If you're a knitter, crocheter, or any other kind of fiber artist, you could even join in on a challenge they're running where you make items out of rare wool for prizes!

Should you end up liking the work they do, you can become a member for 4$ a month, or go to one of their educational events.

Even just talking about the problem can do a lot! Did you know the Highland Cow was actually critically endangered in the USA within the past 10 years? It was the work of the Livestock Conservancy, plus a surge in their popularity, that helped to bring their numbers up. Word of mouth is a powerful thing.

All that said, remember, you can't solve every problem. It's a big world and there's a lot of them. Being made aware of an issue doesn't mean you have to drop what you were previously doing-- just care a lot about something that you want to improve, and let that guide you.

[aurorangen]

Guilt consumed Vincent whenever he lied to Renee. Vincent thought it was risky to let her know about investigating the secret basement with Isaac. She'd want to help and that meant gathering unwanted attention from the police and the media. When they arrived, Vincent sat there in his car, shoulders slumped. He tried to think. He strained to think. But seeing his childhood home only triggered traumatic events from his past, obscuring all his plans for the day.

"Isaac…I don't think I'm ready today," he said, hiding the tremor in his voice. "It's okay, we can take our time to solve it," Isaac had his own nerves seeing Vincent's childhood home; they were facing the unknown after all. "I'm ready whenever you are."

[bossuary]

So, the companions each have their dialogue with Solas as you make the endgame push to confront Elgar'nan.

But I...see, I have a question about whether or not that's the first time any of them interact with him after Tearstone. Does the game make it clear where Solas emerges when he escapes from the regret prison? Because if he comes out where Rook went IN...hooboy.

Rook gets blasted into the I've Made a Huge Mistake Museum. Solas takes the dagger from them and cuts his way back into the world. Does Solas come out...like...right there where Rook got zapped?

Because I am dying for that scene.

Really just NEED TO KNOW what the companions say to Captain Inevitable Betrayal when he pops out of the Fade without Rook.

As Solas strides past whoever is left on Tearstone Island, giving the corpse of Ghilan'nain one of his patented Sad Smiles...

Does Taash take a flaming berserker run at him? Nevermind getting swatted away, just rolling back up onto their feet, smoke billowing.

Does Emmrich set his jaw against incivility, swallowing the thousand forbidden curses he has called to mind in favor of a reasonable greeting or question?

Does Harding crackle with an unyielding blue power as she lifts a wall of stone in his way, demanding answers as a titan, as a friend?

Does Lucanis move to strike when Taash moves--he and Spite having adapted to the benefits of a pack hunt--with a godkiller tremor still pulsing in his limbs?

Does Bellara appeal to memory, to who Solas was, her voice strengthened by the hardest-earned lessons, to ask where Wisdom can be found in any of this destruction?

Does Neve look at the faint scratches on his ancient armor, the tension in the way he grips the dagger, and ask Solas to explain why power makes him think he's right.

Do Davrin and Assan block the way as they were always meant to, a last line of defense between Solas and the world he intends to destroy?

[sau-cen]

They make me ill

[mamawasatesttube]

Between Tim and Kon who makes the first move?

honestly for me it varies! i slightly tend towards it being tim, but not always. but in a very specific way, i.e. it's a very gradual melt right on into a relationship, and tim is the one who goes hey. wait a minute. this feels like A Relationship.

at first, saying it'd be tim is probably surprising, since tim has a history of NOT making the first move across his comics - we don't actually see how he and ari get together, but steph chases after him and repeatedly states her interest in him before they ever get together; tim is the one who asks zoanne out, but only after she kisses him and then runs away. then tam once again is the one to ask him if he's interested in her (and, i mean, if you count lynx ii, she's always the one initiating things getting physical and making out with him, but they also literally never talk about it, so i don't entirely really count her as a serious tim love interest).

on the other hand, while kon of course has been a flirt since he was decanted from his tube, a lot of it was very performative and he's only actually ever been in three relationships, two of which were instances of abuse and grooming. given how introspective he gets after his resurrection, and how much less sure of himself he is in general, i tend to believe this is where he starts actually unpacking all his relationship trauma and internalized homophobia. i think actually accepting that he is gay and not actually interested in women is a very jarring thing for him, and accepting that he was groomed and abused is also very difficult, and it takes him a while.

because of that, i think he ends up a) confused about what romance actually feels like, and b) very tentative about dating for a while. he wants deep connection - he was genuinely in love with knockout, and he thought she loved him too; he thought tana would be part of his life forever, and his devotion to cassie was notable even before they actually dated. but deep connections are hard to make with people you don't know well, and by the time he's around 19-20 i think he's kind of struggling with the idea that he's not gonna get what he's looking for in casual relationships, but also the idea of being in Gay Love with one of his best friends is terrifying, because he's not good at identifying what being in love feels like, so he kinda talks himself out of it. "this is comfortable and easy so it must not be romance, this is just really good friendship, because romance feels like walking a tightrope. right? haha. right??" and all that.

and then moreover, i think tim really sits on the fact that he's bisexual for a long time. not because he's trying to hide it, but because he's just so intensely private about things that bother him, and he's got some jack drake shaped Internalized Issues in his head to work through about what it means to be transmasc and to like men (i.e. a voice that sounds suspiciously like a conservative dad putting in one single ounce of effort re: understanding queer relationships is in the back of his head going "but you'd be the girl in the relationship if you dated a man, right?" and tim has to take several deep breaths and figure out how to unpack that before he's ready to even think about admitting out loud that he's interested in guys too, even to himself, let alone to anyone else).

so for a hot second kon's just out there going "i like men but it doesn't matter because i'm never going to fall in love with someone that really truly wants me and loves me as deeply as i'd love them, and i'd be miserable about that except that i'm just pretty satisfied being bffs with tim :) i feel at ease when he's around and he makes me laugh and i just like being near him and watching him work on gadgets or listening to him ramble about cars or letting him sleep on my shoulder. i know it's not romantic because i feel so safe and comfortable, but i'm happy with it, whatever it is. and if i think he's hot, well, that's just because he is hot. everyone knows that!" guy who pretty much is already tim's boyfriend but he hasn't noticed that yet because they're both kind of stupid and also insanely devoted to each other in the same way, so they both go "yeah this seems normal for us" and kon really doesn't question it that hard.

meanwhile tim is the guy to whom labels and boxes matter a lot more, so he's the one who sits back one day and goes, wait. oh my god. i'm in love with kon. and then he has to steeple his index fingers and interlace the others and press his hands to his face in deep, deep thought. he's in love with kon, and realizing that makes a lot about his life suddenly make a lot of sense, because seriously - a hundred clone attempts, changing robin to be red and black, making out with cassie because he missed kon so much - okay, okay, yeah, he sees it now, okay, so maybe he's been in love with kon for years at this point and never actually realized it, that's fine, this is fine, he's FINE, he's NOT freaking out or overthinking--

anyways. after freaking out and overthinking and brooding on a rooftop for four to seven business days (not all at once, of course, but he gets his hours in), he finally goes to kon and jabs his finger into his chest and goes "Hey. Are we dating?"

and kon stares at him for a second with a loading circle spinning over his head. claps his hand over his mouth. inhales sharply like a dying fish. claps his other hand over the first hand. starts floating a few inches off the ground in pure agitation.

"Oh my god, Tim," he says, his eyes as wide as dinner plates and his voice an octave higher than usual. "Are we dating?!"

"I think so," Tim says, and narrows his eyes. "I mean, if we're not, maybe we should be. Pizza and a movie tonight?"

and kon clearly goes through A Whole Process in his head (working through the "wait, dating is comfy and chill and happy and easy?!" crisis in real time), but ultimately goes "okay!!! yeah!! okay!!! let's do that!!! wow!!!!" because, hey. he would love to hold hands with tim while watching the sunset and eating hipster san francisco pizza.

and that's how they end up sitting on the floor by the coffee table in the titans tower common room, eating pizza, and poring over a calendar + their text message history to try and figure out when, exactly, their anniversary is. ("okay, so when we went on that picnic in april, was that a date?" "i think so. alright, so it has to be before april, but after valentine's, because you made a joke about being single here, see? so we're looking at somewhere in march. "okay, but we did do 'palentine's' together, so does that really count??" "fuck, you're right, that totally was a date too. uh...")

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.

[holyraconteur]

Okay, but here's a dark au where Spider drags Quaritch from the water and promptly kills him, and now no one knows what to do with this human child soaked in the blood of his own father. Blood is thicker than water, right? Why would a son kill his own father? Pandora's greatest enemy is dead. The scourge of the Na'vi is gone.

So, what is this feeling of discontent?

-) The moment Spider pulled Quaritch from the water, he made a choice.

-) The once-mighty colonel was barely clinging to life, his body battered, his strength drained. Weak. Helpless. A man who had terrorized Pandora, who had burned forests and spilled the blood of Eywa's children, now lay before him, gasping, vulnerable.

-) The knife in Spider’s hand felt light. The motion effortless.

-) One swift drag across the throat was all it took. Just like Neytiri would have done to him. 'Do you see me now?' Spider thinks. 'See me. See me. SEE! LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE MADE OF ME!'

-) Quaritch barely made a sound, just a wet, choked gasp as his lifeblood spilled into the water, dark ribbons mixing with the lapping waves. His body seized, his fingers twitching—but Spider only crouched there, watching, waiting. He waited for the flood of emotion. For the relief. The triumph. The guilt. But there was nothing. Just… numbness.

-) The monster was dead. The one responsible for so much suffering, for so much destruction, for everything—gone. And yet, Spider felt nothing. His father’s glassy eyes stared up at him, lifeless. Eywa’s grace had abandoned him long ago. And with any luck, Quaritch’s soul would never find peace. Never find acceptance. Spider exhaled slowly, running his tongue over dry lips, blinking at the bloodied body at his feet. His hands weren’t even shaking.

-) It was done. His brother avenged. The souls of Neytiri's family are avenged. His debt to the Sullys was paid in full. Everything is calm.

-) A soft rustling pulled his gaze upward. His father's Banshee crouched a few feet away, its golden eyes locked onto Spider with an eerie intensity. Spider tensed, half-expecting it to lunge, to attack, to avenge its fallen rider. But it didn’t. It simply watched. And then, without a sound, it lowered its head. Acceptance. Recognition.

-) As if possessed by something beyond himself, Spider stepped forward, his hand outstretched. His fingertips brushed against the creature’s snout, and for the first time that horrible day, he allowed himself a small, hollow smile. Perhaps it was a good thing that Quaritch never truly bonded to this one.

-) The rest of the Na'vi find him hours later, and Tonowari approaches first, his large shadow stretching over the scene, but he hesitates. The Metkayina chief has seen many battles, many bodies. And yet, this is different. This is a child, soaked in the blood of his own father. Why would a son do this? Spider meets his gaze, his expression empty. He waits for judgment. Condemnation. Something.

-) But when Tonowari speaks, it is not with anger. "The demon is dead." A statement. A fact. The warriors behind him exchange uneasy glances, but none argue. Some murmur in agreement; others simply watch. None move to comfort the boy who did the deed. Perhaps they do not know how.

-) The Sully are more horrified than relieved. Even Neytiri, who should feel the greatest relief of all, does not celebrate. Her bow hand clenches, fingers twitching as though her body is caught between two instincts. To praise him… or to fear him. She does not understand. She had thought she knew hatred. She had felt it burn through her when she held the blade to Spider’s throat on the Sea Dragon, her grief drowning out reason.

-) Jake had told her stories—of how humans could be cruel to their own offspring, how some children were beaten, abandoned, even killed by those who were meant to love them. How those same children woke up one day and decided to kill their parents. She had never believed it. Not until now. She watched Spider wipe the blood from his blade with mechanical precision, his movements too calm, too practiced. There is no triumph in his face, no relief, no sorrow.

Just a hollow emptiness.

-) Something dark and quiet has settled in the boy’s chest, a coldness that should not exist in one so young. The boy named Spider died on the Sea Dragon. Drowned beneath the weight of Neytiri’s hate, choked on the understanding that he would never belong. And what remains in his place is something else. Something Tonowari's people and the Sullys do not understand. Something they accept but fear all the same.

-) Jake takes a step forward, but Spider lifts a bloodied hand, stopping him before he can speak. "Don’t." His voice is hoarse, flat. "Your son has been avenged. The debt is paid. I am done. We are done." Jake stares, tears in his eyes, something unspoken hanging between them. "Kid, I never wanted this--" Spider turns his back, mounting the ikran with the ease of someone who had done it a thousand times before. And then he was gone. The wind howled as the graceful creature lifted itself into the sky, carrying Spider higher, farther, into the unknown. Jake’s voice rose behind him, calling his name. Kiri's voice is the loudest, crying and screaming for him, but he hardens his heart. They call his name. Spider does not return. Spider does not look back.

[sciderman]

what jobs would the boys have if it was a completely normal, no mutant, no superpower world? Presumably they wouldn't know each other, but in a world where mutants don't exist, do you think they'd still gravitate and find each other somehow?

wade would be a mercenary who dies of cancer and peter would be a photographer who dies of mediocrity I guess.

wade would die before they meet 💔 very sad

[casualavocados]

"Who is Ai Di to you?"

Nat Chen as CHEN YI KISEKI: DEAR TO ME (2023)

[heyimkana]

Kana, I can't stop thinking about clit fiend Jinwoo who is absolutely obsessed with your pussy. He can't get enough of your musk, your taste, and the way you melt against his mouth as he traces his tongue along your slit, two fingers pumping in and out of your soaking cunt while he polishes your puffy little clit with the pad of his thumb.

You aren't even safe from him after he comes home from a raid. He's always parched and desperate for your wetness, seamlessly tugging your panties and shorts down in one feel swoop before enveloping your clit in his warm and eager mouth.

"Couldn't stop thinking about this perfect pussy the entire time I was away, princess. Fuuuuck, tastes and smells so damn good. I wish I could just live here forever, making you cum over and over again."

You momentarily parts from your throbbing pussy, his mouth drenched with your slick. His eyes are blown out, crazed.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you angel?"

You whimper at the loss of stimulation and eagerly not your head; you'd do anything to have that wicked and wonderful mouth back on your core.

The serene cobalt blue of his eyes suddenly shifts into an all-consuming shade of amethyst.

"Atta' girl."

😩

COURTNEY I'M SCREAMING WTF??????? OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD I NEED HIM SO BAD

PUSSY DRUNK JINWOOOOOOOOOO RAAAAAHHHHHHHH

[dailyfigures]

hiiiiii everyone i'm just popping in to say that i probably won't be online much for a bit, meaning the queue will go on as always but i can't really answer asks much :( will be back on track as soon as i can!

[sergle]

yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED. also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason

side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.

and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.

[holdmymetaphor]

okay heres some things about houses childhood i think about

theres clearly a few dynamics here

-he hates his father, resents the abuse, recognizes that bad things were done to him

-probably when he was very young, he didnt understand why bad things happened to him, was not intentionally A Bad Kid

-because he surmised his dad was not his dad at 12 i assume the abuse started from a young age.

-house mentions ice baths and sleeping outside, but he also mentions his father not speaking to him for months at a time, which is interesting to me. when house tries to qualify the severity of abuse to eve he says "not as bad as your [trauma] if how your acting about it shows how bad it is." which to me is pretty noncommittal. was he doing that bc he was still kind of lying, trying to get info out of her? if not, it seems like house is actually unsure of how to qualify his own abuse, which would lead me to believe it was largely emotional and verbal. although i suspect that his father did physically abuse him at times, to me this exchange implies that house thinks the ice baths and sleeping outside were the worse of it (interestingly both acting on his whole body and ability to regulate temperature)

-at some point he acts out intentionally, instead of unintentionally, bc his father is Wrong and shouldnt be abusing house in these ways(the fact that the thing he wanted to hear from his father was "you were right, you did the right thing" 😭😭)

-this leads to worse and more cruel punishments, which house both detests and wants to avoid repeating. furthering his resentment, but reinforcing his fathers authority

- despite his knowledge that his father is wrong, his dad claims to do these acts out of love, to teach dicipline, to toughen him up. (in this way his struggle with god is really an allegory of his father: is it better he hates me (i deserve pain) or loves me (i dont deserve pain) when he does awful things to me? or is it better for him to not exist at all (things just happen, there is no deserving)?

-in my perspective, especially as house got older, into his teens, he was actually probably really "well behaved" finally smart enough to fake social cues and swallow his pride so that his father wouldnt hit him or what have you (which is why he regresses to a child often as an adult, because he was not allowed those things)

its interesting to me, to see how all of houses character is shaped around the shadow of his father. the parts where he is similar: rigid, principled, yell-y, and where he is intentionally different: encourages independent thinking, respects challenges to his authority (only when he has authority lmao that all falls apart when people take his power(read:agency) away, his biggest trigger)

and none of this even gets into his mother, blythe (a word which means both happiness and bland disintrest) which is a whole nother can of worms. the fact that at the funeral she said that "the war was over" (which implied that no matter how much house actually listened to his father, there was still a part of him that couldnt help but to point out the logical issues, and therefore continued abuse)

lastlly, she had said that john loved him. which i think house believes to be true. especially when he tries to talk to his dead father in season 6, he says "i think i focus on the wrong things," implying that he did want to find some peace with that relationship, and that he wanted his fathers love, despite it being illogical, painful and confusing.

that he was willing to look past the abuse was shocking to me, because house is right his father shouldnt of abused him. but it was coming from a place of love, however ill concieved.

this is as close as we get to house praying to god. to admit that the suffering of life cannot be defied or denied, and grasp for the love nestled in between all the pain, however flawed, wrong, or illogical.

in a lot of ways, his story is so much about houses struggle with the body, its agency, its disability, its doom. he literally becomes a doctor to grasp with this ideologically (at times paradoxically) instead of physics because his question isnt really about existance in general

its about why he exists in the broken, painful way he does. and at the end of it, he sets down his need for an answer, righteousness, and admits that despite it all, his body cant help but love. and that love is the death of him. the end of his suffering.

[invye]

Me, gasping awake: "Omg, I haven't thought about Rosinante in days!"

My brain: "No worries fam, here's a huge CoraHawk fake dating fix it AU."

Me: "Thank you :)"

*10 minutes later*

Me: "But you know we can't have Mihawk without Shanks, especially if this is set during their duelling times, and also I think Shanks and Rosinante would get on like a house on fire--"

My brain: "This is gonna be a polyamorous Rosinante/Mihawk/Shanks story before long, who do you think I am??"