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bubonickitten · 4 years

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Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Chapter 17 full text & content warnings below the cut.

CWs for Chapter 17: panic/anxiety symptoms; brief mention of past self-harm (from last chapter); mention of past (canonical) blood/injury; brief allusion to past passive suicidal ideation; brief claustrophobia/Buried themes (in the context of a nightmare); some blink-and-you'll-miss-it internalized ableism re: ADHD (not explicitly stated as such); Jon-typical self-loathing, internalized victim blaming/dehumanization, etc.; discussion of low self-worth, fear of abandonment/rejection, and other Lonely themes; extensive discussion of Jon's statement consumption (so, general warning for restrictive behaviors re: 'eating' and self-hate re: addiction/compulsions); swears. SPOILERS through Season 5.

Chapter 17: Intervention

Even asleep, Jon is a flurry of movement. The muscles in his jaw tense repeatedly as he grinds his teeth; his limbs twitch and jerk and tremble; his fingers curl into his palms, fists clenching and relaxing at random intervals. The quick, erratic motions beneath his closed eyelids are accompanied by gasps and the occasional whimper. Impossibly, he looks even frailer than usual – folded in on himself and shivering despite the thick, oversized jumper engulfing his slight frame.

Martin sits on the floor with his side pressed up against the cot, his arm resting on top of it and his eyes riveted on the few inches of space between Jon and himself. Part of him wants to reach out, to soothe away the varying shades of distress flitting their way across Jon’s face; another part of him, quieter but nonetheless insistent on making its existence known, tugs him in the opposite direction, urging him to widen that handspan of distance between them into a chasm. Something about Jon’s ragged breathing keeps Martin rooted in place, his heart skipping a beat any time the pauses between breaths stretch just a little too long for comfort.

At least he’s breathing at all, Martin thinks with a pang. His hand twitches in an unconscious desire to check for a pulse – some secondary sign to reassure him that Jon really is just sleeping.

At the gentle knock-knock on the doorframe, Martin jumps. The door to Document Storage, already cracked an inch or so, creaks as it swings wider.

“Jon?” Georgie calls softly, peeking through the gap. “You in here? I was just – oh,” she says when she sees Martin. An instant later she notices Jon, tossing and turning on the cot behind him. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“He… well, he’s fine now. I think. Just… sleeping.”

“Wait,” she says, fully entering the room and approaching to watch Jon with genuine astonishment, “you actually got him to sleep?”

“Not really? He was having trouble staying vertical, so I told him he should lie down until the vertigo passed, and…” Martin shrugs. He’s still taken aback by the fact that Jon complied without argument. “I don’t think he was planning on falling asleep, but he was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.” Jon’s fingers spasm, brow wrinkling as he cringes and curls into a tighter ball. Martin sighs. “Doesn’t look very restful, though.”

“Oh, he’s always been a fitful sleeper. Even back in uni. He didn’t used to be that bad, though. Or – he was, but in short bursts. Not… drawn out like this. He’d usually wake himself up after a minute or so of…” She frowns as Jon goes taut in a full-body spasm. “That.”

“I guess the Eye doesn’t want the dream to end,” Martin says quietly. Jon twists his fingers against the sheets, gathering the fabric in a death grip. Martin’s hand twitches again, inching just a bit closer to Jon’s. He resists the urge to uncurl Jon’s fingers, to give him a hand to hold instead.

“Last I checked, the nightmares weren’t as nightmarish anymore,” Georgie says. “I mean, by his own admission, he treated mine and Naomi’s dreams like social calls.”

Martin tears his eyes away from Jon to glance at Georgie, a puzzled expression on his face. “Naomi?”

“Naomi Herne. He said hers was the first statement he took in person.”

“Yeah, back when he was still putting on the skeptic act. And she filed a complaint against him for being…” Martin smiles and shakes his head. “Well, Jon.”

“I’m not surprised,” Georgie says with an amused snort. “They seem pretty friendly now, though.”

“What, seriously?”

“Yeah. They do have a similar sense of humor. She doesn’t seem to scare easy, which probably helps. And she has a cat, so…”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Jon… has trouble initiating when it comes to having a social life,” Georgie says slowly. “Just wanting to talk doesn’t strike him as a good enough reason to start a conversation. He worries he’ll just be an annoyance. It’s like he needs to come up with some concrete justification for reaching out. But Naomi is always excited to talk about the Duchess – that’s her cat – which means Jon is less likely to feel like he’s bothering her. Which also makes him less likely to talk himself out of sending a text. Plus, it’s a safe, normal thing to talk about, and he loves cats, so…” She shrugs. “It’s good for him.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Gives her an excuse to stay in touch, too, I think.” Georgie gives Martin a significant look. “Lonely, you know?”

“I…” Martin rubs the back of his neck, not meeting her eye. “Yeah.”

“Anyway, I thought… well, he said the nightmares weren’t as bad as they used to be.” Georgie frowns as she watches Jon’s lips twist, his teeth bared as he sucks in a sharp breath. “I don’t know. At least he’s actually sleeping. I don’t think he’s slept for more than forty minutes at a time since he got out of the hospital.”

“That was nearly a month ago.” Martin gapes at her, horrified. “How has he even been able to function with that level of sleep deprivation?”

“The same way he survived for six months without a heartbeat. And why he has to consciously remind himself to breathe sometimes, and has a tendency to forget to blink, and doesn’t have much of an appetite for normal food anymore. He’s not fully human –”

Georgie must sense Martin preparing to go on the offensive, because she holds up both hands palms-out, placating.

“I’m not saying that he’s inhuman, either. He might be convinced that he’s more monster than human, but he’s still a person. He’s just… different now, and he’s resigned to that, but he hasn’t yet gotten it through his head that there are people who will accept him regardless.” She sighs. “My original point was that he doesn’t have the same physiological needs that most people do. But he still does need to sleep from time to time. Sleep deprivation clearly takes a toll on him.”

“Figures,” Martin huffs, blowing hair out of his eyes. “He’s always treated sleep as optional.”

“Yeah,” Georgie says with a laugh. “He’s operated on a bare minimum of sleep for as long as I’ve known him. Part casual self-neglect, part allergy to the general concept of resting, and part legitimate insomnia. I told him more than once he should get evaluated for a sleep disorder, but… well, you know Jon. And now that he really does need less sleep than the average person, of course he’s pushing the limits even further.”

Martin looks down at Jon and thinks, as he has countless times before: He really does make it so damn difficult to take care of him.

It’s simultaneously heartbreaking and frustrating, even irritating at times – but somehow, whenever Jon doubles down, it only makes Martin do the same. It’s become such a familiar dance, a challenge even, and more often than not, Martin wins those contests of will: badger Jon persistently enough, strike just the right balance between expressing worry and wagging a finger, and eventually he’ll agree to take care of himself. In the beginning, he would grump and roll his eyes and drag his feet; as time went on, though, he became more receptive to it. Some days, he even seemed to enjoy – albeit in a guarded, almost shy way – being cajoled into sharing lunch or tea or conversation.

Unthinkingly, Martin brushes a lock of hair away from Jon’s forehead, damp with cold sweat. Wishes he could smooth the tension away as easily.

“Did you two talk about things?” Georgie asks.

“Some of it.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I…” Martin bites his lip. “I feel like I shouldn’t want to, but I – I sort of do?”

“Well. I have some time to listen.” Georgie takes a seat towards the foot of the cot. “How’d it go? Bearing in mind this isn’t the tunnels.”

“It’s… a lot.”

“Mm. I can imagine.”

“I mean, he…” Martin runs a hand through his hair with a disbelieving, nervous chuckle. “He told me he wants to grow old with me?”

“He said that?” Georgie laughs outright. “God, he’s gotten even more saccharine than I thought.”

“It’s just – not something I would have ever imagined him saying? To anyone, let alone me.” Martin can feel his palms sweating now; he rubs them on his trousers, hoping to dispel some of the clamminess. “He just seems so… changed.”

“He is, but… maybe not as drastically as it might seem. Rather, this is him, just – without all the walls.” Georgie chuckles, shaking her head. “And less of a filter, apparently. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Martin repeats, perplexed.

“He’s dumping a lot on you all at once. I can talk to him, if you want. Tell him to slow down, give you some space to process it all.”

“I… I don’t…” Martin pauses, coming up against an invisible wall between a daunting realization and the explicit acknowledgment thereof. He makes several abortive attempts at speech before he manages to voice the confession: “I don’t think I want him to?”

Left to himself for too long, Martin can feel himself start to come unmoored. The truth the Lonely is so loathe to have him accept, let alone speak aloud, is this: he doesn’t want that to happen. Not anymore. Being in the presence of others, actively taking part in a conversation, seeking comfort in touch – all of these things still feel grating, unnatural even, but a return to solitude frightens him in a way it hasn’t for months. It’s an old terror, one that he had become numb to since accepting the Lonely’s embrace. Now, it seems to have returned with a vengeance. The lingering, ambient discomfort that comes with human connection is quickly becoming preferable to that looming fear of absence.

Still, though…

“It feels like – going against my nature, every minute I spend talking to him, to you, to… anyone, really. I think I just… forgot how not to be alone?”

On some level, Martin wonders whether he ever knew in the first place. He’s had friends, certainly, but every relationship, no matter how ostensibly reciprocal, has been laced with an undercurrent of insecurity: a loud, nagging voice in the back of his mind, reminding him of the consequences should he allow himself to be too much or not enough. Always primed for rejection, he strove to make himself pleasant, to make himself useful, to make himself accommodating and unobtrusive and easy. Sometimes, he felt like an impostor, fooling people into believing that he was worth keeping around. He was always counting down the moments until someone would see through the façade to the inadequacy within, realize he wasn’t worth the trouble, and leave him behind.

“The Lonely… I don’t think I want it anymore,” he says, “but it feels – wrong, to leave it behind. Not me, somehow.”

“Hmm.” Georgie drums her fingers against her chin. “I can understand that. Isolation can become so habitual that it starts to feel like home, and anything trying to break through feels like an invasion. You start to feel safer alone, and you deny those moments when you catch yourself wishing things were different, because loneliness has become such a part of you that you don’t know who you would be without it.”

“I… yeah,” Martin says, taken aback by having it laid out so succinctly.

“In my experience, it helps to remind yourself that your brain is lying to you when it tells you you’d be better off alone. In your case, I guess it’s your brain and a supernatural fear god or whatever, but… unless you’re keen to fight a god, it might be best to start with your brain. That’s something you actually can exert some control over, with enough practice. And I think it might make it harder for the fear to get to you if you’re not trapped in the kind of mindset it thrives on.”

“I guess,” Martin says, looking off to the side. Once again, he rests his arm on the cot, his hand mere inches away from Jon’s, sheet still clenched tightly in his fist.

“But you don’t have to take it on all at once,” Georgie says. “If you have to set boundaries, Jon will understand. And even if he didn’t, you still have a right to enforce them. Not to sound cliché, but you shouldn’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”

The problem is, of course, that the concept of putting himself first is as alien to Martin as the idea of being… well, not lonely.

“I can hear the cogs turning,” Georgie says with a gentle smile. “Look, it’s easier to accept a concept intellectually than it is to actually apply it to yourself. There’s a learning curve. But it’s a lesson worth learning. Took me way too long to learn it myself. If it helps, start with – to use another cliché – ‘put your own oxygen mask on before helping others with theirs.’ Then you can move onto practicing self-care without feeling guilty.”

“What are you, a therapist?”

“Nope. I’ve just had several years of experience being on the receiving end.”

“O-oh. Uh, sorry –”

“Don’t be. It’s not something to be ashamed of. Anyway, at this point, I could probably fill out CBT worksheets in my sleep. With enough practice, it does start to become intuitive.” She shrugs. “Anyway, you can’t fix Jon, and I don’t think he expects you to. You can support him, you can care about him, but you can’t make him better. That’s true in any relationship, but… well, obviously it’s – a bit more complicated in this case.”

“I just… I want him to be okay, and I don’t know how to help –” Martin startles when Jon kicks one leg out violently, entangling himself in the sheets as he pulls it back and curls into himself again. Martin lowers his voice. “He – he was so starving he passed out, Georgie, he wasn’t breathing and it was like the hospital all over again and – and I don’t think I have any other stories I can tell that would count as statements –”

“Wait, you gave him a statement?”

“Y-yeah.”

“I thought he didn’t want –”

“I don’t know if he would have agreed if he was conscious, but he… he wasn’t waking up, and I didn’t know what else to do,” Martin says pleadingly, watching Georgie carefully to gauge her reaction. “He needed a fresh statement. Old statements aren’t enough, and he said new ones cause nightmares regardless of whether he takes them in person or not, so we can’t just give him new written statements that come in, and I – I don’t know what we’re going to do if he gets that bad again.”

Martin remembers the look in Jon’s eyes: glossy, glazed and almost luminous with an alien sort of hunger, but shot through with a terror more devastating than Martin had ever seen from him. The unflinching intent with which he hurt himself; the erratic rhythm of his breathing; the way his dilated pupils swallowed the irises just before he fell unconscious. He was lost to the world in those moments, alert but unresponsive, seemingly unable to hear a word Martin was saying.

And the abject horror on his face when he commanded Martin to stay away…

“He was… he was so scared. Of himself. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he – he can’t think straight when he’s like that.”

“Shit,” Georgie says, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I think working in the archives gives some immunity? I’ve given a few statements, before we knew how all this works, and he never showed up in my nightmares. Tim’s or Sasha’s, either, as far as I know. And I actually… well, I don’t actually mind giving him statements, to be honest? It’s – hard, to relive it, but it’s… cathartic, too. To get it all out, to be able to actually – describe it in words. Maybe I’d feel differently if I came in off the street – or was approached – and I didn’t know him, and wasn’t protected from the side effects, but – as it is, I would be fine giving him statements when he needs them, and that’s not – that’s not a huge sacrifice on my part, is what I’m saying. But I don’t… I don’t think I have any more stories to give.”

“Okay,” Georgie mutters to herself, rubbing her temples. “Okay. We… we’ll figure something out. Obviously, Jon needs to be part of that conversation. Maybe Daisy, too – Jon seems to trust her.”

“Why would he trust her?” Martin asks, incredulous, almost incensed. “She kidnapped him. She – she slit his throat, she was going to –”

“I know. I don’t really understand it either. But supposedly she’s changed a lot, and she’s an Avatar like he is. I get the feeling he might want her there.”

“Fine,” Martin says in a clipped voice, even though fine seems like a wildly inaccurate descriptor to him. “What about Basira? And Melanie?”

“Melanie… with Jon’s permission, I’ll invite her, just so she’s not out of the loop, but I doubt she’ll take us up on it.” Georgie frowns, rubbing her jaw absently. “As for Basira… I don’t know. Something Jon said…”

“What?”

“I’m…” Georgie pauses, tilting her head from side to side as she deliberates. “Concerned. About how Basira might approach the situation.”

It takes a few seconds for Martin to work out the implication. When he does, he pales, mouth going slack.

“You – you don’t think she’d hurt him?”

“I don’t think so,” Georgie says haltingly, “but there’s a chance she might put the option back on the table if she thinks he’s too dangerous. She wouldn’t like it, but… well, she seems utilitarian. I think she’ll do whatever she thinks she needs to do. And even if she doesn’t threaten him directly, I still…” She sighs. “Jon’s not in a good place right now, mentally. Frankly, I worry about exposing him to anything that might encourage a better-off-dead mindset, even if it’s just… perceived condemnation.”

“God, this…” Martin laughs, high and stressed. “This entire situation is…”

“I know. But we’ll figure something out. And in the meantime, make sure to take care of yourself too, alright?”

“Yeah,” Martin says, only half-listening.

“I mean it. Jon cares about you. He wouldn’t want you to run yourself into the ground on his behalf.”

Before Martin can respond, Jon jumps in his sleep again with a strangled gasp. Flinging one arm out, his hand brushes against Martin and seizes a fistful of his sleeve. Tightening his grip, he tugs on Martin’s arm to bring it closer, practically hugging it in a vice grip. Almost instantly Jon calms, tense muscles relaxing, pained expression going slack, a relieved sigh shuddering out of him as he nuzzles into the crook of Martin’s elbow.

Martin can feel his cheeks burning. He shoots a preemptive glower in Georgie’s direction, daring her to laugh – but she only smiles.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” she says, rising to her feet. “Text me when he’s awake, will you?”

“Y-y-yeah,” Martin stammers. “I’ll – I’ll see you later.”

He barely notices her departure, instead staring down at Jon with a vague sense of wonder. Jon holds fast to him like he’s a lifeline, and Martin can feel him breathing warm and steady through the fabric of his sleeve. The cold sweat on his brow seems to be evaporating now. Martin shifts his position to more fully face the cot. As he reaches up with his free hand to brush away the hair clinging to Jon’s forehead, a slow, shy smile begins to spread across Martin’s face.

It won’t be long before Jon succumbs to another fit of tossing and turning, but in the meantime, Martin simply watches him with faint awe and renewed affection. He’s never seen Jon look so at peace, and he takes the opportunity to memorize the sight.

When another shard of the Lonely shatters and crumbles away, Martin is too preoccupied to note its passing.

With a startled yelp, Jon sits bolt upright. Gulping down air in deep, ragged breaths, he looks wildly around the room, not taking anything in: it’s all visual noise, smudges of loud colors and sinister shadows, all of it closing in and bearing down on him.

Something next to him – close too close too close – moves abruptly, rising up and looming over and settling down beside him. Jon cringes away, only to find that his legs are pinned together by something, restricting his movement, and there’s dirt in his mouth, and dirt in his throat, and dirt in his lungs, and he cannot breathe, cannot breathe, cannot breathe, cannot breathe –

“Jon,” comes a voice – somehow both close and far away. “Listen, you’re – you’re okay, you’re safe.”

Trapped in that liminal twilight haze between sleep and waking, Jon gropes blindly for a handhold, an anchor, something real and solid and –

His hand collides with something soft, warm – wool, his mind supplies, and then:

…wool is able to absorb nearly one-third of its weight in water…

He shakes his head to chase away the stray scrap of trivia, digging his fingers into the fabric to ground himself.

“It was just a dream,” says the voice again – a kind voice, a safe voice – and Jon takes a shuddering breath, like a drowning man clawing for air.

Then a hand closes over his, and that light pressure is enough plunge Jon right back below the surface. He thrashes violently, desperate to break away from the throbbing litany of too close cannot move trapped held pinned in place screeching metal crushing in and down and down and down and Karolina beholds her encroaching fate with tranquil acceptance and the Archivist feels her skull crack and her chest cave in and her lungs collapse and still she smiles and she watches as the Archivist flails uselessly for an escape that does not will not cannot exist and the door bulges and splinters and explodes inward and the deluge rushes in and the Archivist is drowning, drowning, drowning –

The hand draws back, the pressure lifts, the train car finally collapses, and the last remnants of hazy sleep begin to disintegrate.

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to – it’s – it’s just me, Jon.”

“Martin?” Jon chokes out, tightening his grasp on Martin’s jumper – wool, warm, soft, safe – still bunched in one hand. He reaches out his other arm to find a second handhold.

“Yeah. I – I won’t hurt you.”

Safe.

“I know,” Jon says groggily. The tension drains away and he sags against Martin’s side, breathing in slow, deliberate swallows. “’M sorry. Dream.”

The first time he’s slept, truly slept since leaving the hospital, and of course it had to be while Karolina Górka was dreaming. Of course.

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

“Buried,” Jon mumbles, face partially burrowed in Martin’s shoulder. Self-explanatory, he figures.

“Oh,” Martin says in a broken whisper. Jon opens one eye to see an expression of helpless pity on Martin’s face. “That’s…”

“’S okay,” Jon assures. “I’m okay.”

Reluctantly, he releases his hold on Martin and leans away. When he stretches – partly out of habit, partly to reassure himself that he can – there’s still something pinioning his legs. A spark of panic tears through him before he realizes that it’s just the sheets, tangled hopelessly around his lower half. With some difficulty, he manages to extricate himself and kick the blankets away.

“How long was I out?”

“Couple hours.”

“Have you just been sitting here the whole time?” Jon frowns apologetically. “You could’ve woken me.”

“Wake you when you were actually sleeping for once? Uh, no. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Jon says simply. “I’d like to know how you’re doing.”

“I’m – fine,” Martin says. Jon raises an eyebrow. “Really, I – I am. I’m more worried about –”

“Me, I know. And I’m worried about you. I… don’t think you’re just ‘fine.’” Martin gives a noncommittal grunt. “I really would like to know where you are in all this. How you’re faring. How I can help.”

Martin remains silent, lips pressed tightly together as if to seal them.

“I know I was – distracted, earlier, but I… I really do want to help,” Jon tries again. “Please let me help?”

Something finally gives and Martin slouches with a sigh.

“I’m… still trying to figure it all out,” he says slowly. “I don’t know what I’m feeling most of the time, besides… worried, and…”

“Lonely.”

“Yeah,” Martin says with a wistful smile.

“You don’t have to be,” Jon says quietly.

“I know.”

“I’m not – I’m not trying to –” Jon sighs. “I just… I need you to know.”

“I know,” Martin says again.

Jon bites back the nagging impulse to ask all the questions itching on his tongue: Have you decided what to do about Peter? How Lonely are you now? Do you need closeness or distance? What should I be doing, or not doing? What can I do to take care of you? Where do we stand?

What do you see, when you look at me?

Jon looks away and shuts his eyes.

“I’m sorry you had to see me like that, by the way. It wasn’t my intention to frighten you. Or to…” He swallows, fighting back the nausea rising in him. “To compel you.”

“It’s alright –”

“It’s not,” Jon says brusquely. He makes a conscious effort to soften his tone before he continues. “I don’t want to be the thing that frightens you.”

“You’re not,” Martin says with a bemused frown. “I know you didn’t mean to use your powers on me.”

“You were afraid. I could…” Jon closes his eyes again and forces himself to say the words. “I could taste it.”

And the Archivist in him savored it.

“I wasn’t afraid of you, Jon. I was afraid for you. You looked terrified, and in pain, and you were hurting yourself, and I didn’t know how to help, and then I didn’t know if you were going to wake up, and… that’s what scared me.” Jon’s skepticism must show on his face, because there’s an intensity to the words when Martin reiterates: “Not you. Never you.”

“Never say never,” Jon says with a brittle, self-deprecating smile.

“I’m serious, Jon.”

So am I.

“I… I think we need to talk about where to go from here,” Martin says after a moment, averting his eyes.

“I agree.”

“You do?” Martin looks back to him, blinking in surprise.

“Yes,” Jon says, adjusting his position to sit cross-legged and pivoting to face Martin fully. “The others need to know what happened. I can’t be trusted not to hurt anyone –”

“No, that’s not what I –” Martin sighs. “I’m worried about what could happen if things get that bad again.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I came dangerously close to – to relapsing. We need some plan in place, some way to keep me contained so that I don’t –”

“Stop, stop, stop,” Martin says, holding up a hand. Jon tilts his head, bewildered. “I’m not – I’m not talking about keeping you contained, Jon. I’m worried about you. This goes beyond a compulsion you can beat with enough willpower. You were starving. You… you could have died.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Exactly! We don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”

“Well, yes, but –”

“No ‘but.’ There has to be some way to keep you fed without hurting anyone. We just need to –”

“Martin, terror and suffering is the entire point. That’s what sustains it. Mine, my victim’s, doesn’t matter as long as it hurts.” Jon laughs, hollow and bitter. “It’s not like there’s an ethical way to – to harvest trauma –”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Martin says fiercely, “and I’m not ready to just give up. I would hope you aren’t, either.”

“I…” Jon busies himself with tucking a flyaway lock of hair behind his ear, using it as an excuse to break eye contact.

“Please, Jon.”

Martin takes his hand, prompting Jon to look up again. A familiar guilt rises up in him, shame at always being the one to put that expression of desperate worry on Martin’s face.

It’s enough to make him agree, albeit in a whisper, “Okay.”

“Right,” Martin says, giving Jon’s hand a brief squeeze. “Georgie and I were talking while you were asleep. She wants to be part of the discussion, so long as you’re alright with it.”

“Of course. We should probably tell Daisy and Basira as well.”

Martin appears to hesitate.

“I was thinking the three of us can meet first,” he says carefully, “and then we can open up the discussion after.”

“Why?” Jon observes the slight concavity that forms as Martin chews the inside of his cheek. “Martin?”

“Georgie’s worried about Basira’s reaction,” Martin says abruptly, “and honestly, so am I.”

“She needs to know.”

“I – I know, it’s just…”

“We have so few allies; we can’t afford secrecy and mistrust. And…”

And of all of them, Basira is the one Jon can trust to do what must be done if things go wrong. If he goes wrong.

“Basira is a strategist,” he says. “She’s good at viewing a problem from multiple angles, considering all the variables, predicting potential solutions and outcomes and then weighing them with a… pragmatic eye.”

“The pragmatism is what worries me.”

“I want her there,” Jon says simply.

“Okay,” Martin says, but Jon can tell he’s not thrilled about it. “What about Daisy?”

“Yes,” Jon says, not missing a beat. At that, Martin somehow manages to look even less thrilled.

“And Melanie?”

“I… I’m alright with her being there, but I don’t want her to feel pressured. She’s dealing with enough as it is.”

“Okay. I can let everyone know, but I think you should get some more rest before –”

“No.”

“Jon –”

“I need to confront this now. While I’m still… in my right mind,” Jon says, plucking absently at his sleeve with his free hand. “Sober.”

For a brief second, Martin looks ready to argue, but then he capitulates with a sigh.

“Okay,” he says, releasing Jon’s hand and standing up. “I’ll… round everyone up, I suppose.”

“Thank you,” Jon murmurs.

Martin glances back several times as he leaves the room. Jon waits until he’s out of sight before he puts his face in his hands, sighs, and tries to brace himself for a conversation he dreads almost as much as the Coffin.

A short time later, the group – minus Melanie – convenes in the tunnels, five chairs arranged in a loose circle with a sixth left empty off to the side. Sitting almost directly across from Jon, Basira watches him with eyes narrowed, arms folded, and mouth pressed into a firm line.

“What do you mean you ‘almost’ relapsed?”

“Martin suggested reading a new statement that came in earlier this evening,” Jon tells her in a straightforward near-monotone. Pushing through the discomfort it brings, he forces himself to meet her eyes when he speaks. “I agreed, without informing him that reading a fresh written statement has the same repercussions that taking a live statement in person does. I was going to feed, knowing that it would hurt an innocent person.”

“But you didn’t,” Martin says emphatically. “You stopped yourself.”

“Only because Helen pointed out the cognitive dissonance. Took a monster to remind me not to be a monster.” Jon scoffs. “Even then, I almost did it anyway.”

“But you didn’t,” Martin repeats.

“What about next time?” Basira asks, unimpressed. “When you get hungry again, what then?”

“That’s what we’re here to discuss,” Georgie says, assuming the role of mediator the moment she notices Martin’s scowl deepen. “We need to find some way to keep things from getting that bad in the first place.”

Thoroughly unnerved, Jon squirms in his seat. Basira has had him pinned under her stare for several minutes now, and she seems unlikely to cut him free any time soon. But what right does he have to object to scrutiny, given what he is?

“What did you do with the statement?” Basira demands. “The one you were going to read?”

“I… asked Martin to burn it.”

Her eyes flick to Martin. “And did you?”

“N-not yet –”

“Burn it. As soon as we’re done here.” She shifts her attention back to Jon. “Is there an alternative to new statements?”

Jon doesn’t miss a beat when he answers, matter-of-fact: “No.”

“Jon,” Martin and Georgie say simultaneously, with the tenor of a reprimand.

“I’m not – I’m not trying to be difficult,” he replies, finally breaking eye contact with Basira to look down at his hands. “It’s just… reality. I’m an Archive dedicated the curation of statements – of fear.”

“You never actually explained what that means,” Basira says. “You being the Archive.”

“It’s… hard to put into words.”

“Try.”

Jon sighs, taking a moment to collect his thoughts.

“The Archive is more than – paper and files and tapes. The reason it needs to be housed in a living mind rather than a mere building is because the statements themselves have a living quality to them.” He crosses his arms, brow furrowing as he struggles with his phrasing. “They need to be immersed in a steady supply of fear. A shelving unit, a filing cabinet, a hard drive, a cassette tape – those can’t provide the ideal habitat that they need to thrive. The Archivist is –”

“– simply a battery, a ready source of constant terror –”

He cuts the Archive off with a frustrated snarl, digging his fingernails into his arms.

“Hey,” Georgie says gently, “you’re alright. Take your time.”

Jon has to spend a few minutes counting breaths before he feels ready to try again.

“What I was –” He cuts himself off preemptively, half-expecting the Archive to intrude again. Once he realizes the words are his own, he clears his throat to recover from the false start. “What I was trying to say is – without a living consciousness to contextualize them, the statements are just… stories. When I consume a statement – read it, hear it, doesn’t matter – I See the events play out through the victim’s eyes. My lived experience of it is essential to the recording and preservation of the story. I need to be able to recall how it feels, not just summarize the major points of interest.” He sighs again. “And… that’s also the point of reliving the events in the nightmares. All of it is to keep the memory fresh. To keep the story – the fear – alive.”

When he looks up to see all four of them staring at him, he begins to rub his arms absently, increasingly self-conscious. He can feel the semicircle grooves leftover from where his fingernails cut into the skin.

“So… yeah,” he finishes awkwardly. “The Archive is defined by the statements and the fear that embodies them. The Beholding always hungers for more, and the Archive is a… a receptacle for all of its knowledge. The continual curation of new statements is what sustains it. Without that, it withers.”

“And dies?” Basira asks.

The question isn’t unkind, per se, simply businesslike: an eagerness to discover an answer heedless of whatever messy emotions it might elicit. Jon understands that impulse all too well. Not for the first time, he wonders whether Jonah had a secondary, hidden motive for recruiting Basira: a backup Archivist, in the event that his first choice be unable to endure the process.

“I still don’t know if it would physically kill me,” he replies, “but the hungrier I get, the more I forget myself. I’m liable to do things that I wouldn’t normally do, monstrous things.” He huffs. “And at the same time, giving in to that hunger will also make me more monstrous over time. It seems like… either way, I – I can’t avoid losing sight of… well, me. The human part of me. Whatever’s left of it.”

And wouldn’t losing himself be a death of sorts?

In a way, Daisy died the moment the Hunt recaptured her. What she became was her, undoubtedly, but only a small piece of her. The creature that Basira eventually killed… it was an echo of all the hated, feared parts of herself that Daisy had tried so hard to starve out. The rest of her – all the things that altogether made her Daisy – had long since been burned away.

If Jon didn’t manage to find a way out of that doomed future, he suspects that his ultimate fate may have been similar: all the fragile scraps of himself that still belonged to him, every sliver of personal identity, every shred of humanity crushed and buried beneath an ever-swelling ocean of dispassionate knowledge. The Archive would have carried on expanding and curating until, one day, it would have either collapsed under its own weight or simply run out of things to catalogue, then to waste away – but by then, it would have borne no resemblance to the original owner of its ravaged vessel.

Some endings play out in merciless increments. Jon has witnessed – has caused – more than his fair share of pointless, drawn out suffering. It would have been only fitting for his end to follow a similar path.

“Well, shit,” Basira mutters.

“What about statements given consensually?” Martin asks tentatively. “The one I gave you seemed to satisfy the Archive, or – or however you want to call it. And in the past when I’ve given you statements, they never gave me nightmares, so…”

“Anyone aligned with the Eye has a measure of protection from the Archivist,” Jon answers. “I was never privy to Tim’s or Sasha’s nightmares, either. Once Melanie and Basira started working here, their dreams were cut off from me as well. And… last time, Daisy ended up signing an employment contract after returning from the Buried. Same result.”

“Is it just the archival staff, or any Institute employee?” Basira asks.

“I… don’t know,” Jon says thoughtfully. “If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s restricted to those most strongly connected with the Eye. Archival assistants, primarily. Possibly the research department, or at least those individuals who are the most… compatible with the Beholding, so to speak, though I’m not positive.”

Now that the question has been posed, Jon craves an answer.

“But – but experimenting isn’t worth the risk,” he says, mostly in an attempt to dissuade himself from pursuing the matter any further. He’s pleasantly surprised to hear the confidence in his own voice.

As if satisfied with that answer, Basira gives a tiny nod. Jon doubts it’s meant as a vote of confidence or as approval, but her posture does relax somewhat. He doubts that she trusts him by any stretch of the imagination, but for the moment she seems to have decided that he isn’t an imminent threat, at least.

It feels remarkably, disconcertingly like passing a test he didn’t realize was in progress.

Georgie’s eyes are fixed on the floor, her chin propped in her hand and a contemplative pout on her face. Martin has his lips pressed together, as if biting back an objection. Daisy is the only one looking directly at Jon. She hasn’t said a word since Jon gave his confession, but now her head cocked slightly to the side, as if she's weighing her words.

“I have a lot of stories from my Sectioned days,” she muses. “I could –”

“What would you say if I told you that you should go hunt a few monsters?” Jon says immediately.

“I…” Daisy stalls for a moment, and then gives a resigned sigh, understanding. “I would be worried that I wouldn’t be able to stop at a few,” she says grudgingly. Her shoulders slump as she adds, “Or at monsters.”

“Exactly.”

“But wouldn’t it be different?” she asks, perking up again. “The prey doesn’t consent to the hunt. The fear is taken, not freely given. But a statement – that can be consensual.”

“The Hunt cares about the terror of the prey in the moment. The Eye cares about the terror of the victim in the retelling. The consent aspect is only relevant in terms of whether and how it influences the fear. The fear is all they care about, and I doubt anything benign can come of consuming the fear our patrons want, consensual or no.”

“Do you remember what I said about harm reduction?” Georgie has been sitting quietly with her thoughts for so long, Jon startles at the sound of her voice when she rejoins the conversation. “We need to keep you from getting so hungry that it changes who you are, and new statements are the only way to satisfy that hunger. Correct?”

“Well, yes, but –”

“No ‘but.’ According to you, right now your options are statements or starvation.”

Struck with a fleeting impulse for petulance, Jon has to swallow a biting retort. It’s an old habit, hackles rising at having his own words turned against him – something for which Georgie has always had an aptitude. Between an impressive memory, an analytical nature, and a tolerance for confrontation, she’s never been shy to speculate on what’s really going on in Jon’s head at any given moment. That ability to dissect his motivations and insecurities and cognitive distortions – it used to feel like being flayed alive, all the vulnerable bits of him exposed and shoved under a spotlight.

It’s probably fair to say that his inability to weather that level of scrutiny was a big factor contributing to their eventual breakup: his guarded nature was incompatible with her more straightforward approach to relationships.

“I realize it’s not ideal,” she’s saying now, “but taking statements given with informed consent seems like the most ethical choice.”

“It isn’t just unideal, it’s – it’s –” Jon puts one hand over his eyes, rubbing his forehead and fighting back the urge to shout. “This isn’t a solution.”

It’s still feeding the Eye. It’s still capitalizing on other people’s trauma. And the stories Daisy has to offer… Jon has to wonder how many of them feature Daisy as a victim or a bystander, and whether those outnumber the ones where she herself is the object of fear. He’s taken statements from Avatars before. Some of them were indeed stories of experiencing fear firsthand. Others, though… the fear threaded through the statement came not from the teller, but from their victims.

Jon isn’t keen on siphoning off the secondhand terror of Daisy’s prey. Maybe he can’t afford to be picky, but if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that lines have to be drawn somewhere.

“We can keep looking for a better alternative,” Georgie says, “but for now… think of it as a stopgap measure.” Sensing Jon’s continued aversion to the idea, she continues: “If your own wellbeing isn’t enough to convince you, consider how you starving would affect other people.”

“It might make me more dangerous,” Jon says quietly.

“I mean – maybe, I guess? But that’s not what I meant.” At Jon’s blank expression, Georgie sighs. “When you suffer, it hurts more than just you. You have people who care about you. They’re sitting with you right now.”

“Still, I – I can’t ask that of –”

“Oh, come off it, Sims,” Daisy says, rolling her eyes. “You crawled into hell to drag me out when all I’d done was treat you like prey. And even after seeing what it was like, you went back in and brought me back a second time.”

“Yes, but –”

“If I sign a contract to work in the archives, it’ll stop you showing up in my dreams, right?”

“Yes. I’m – I’m sorry, again, about –”

“And it’ll keep new nightmares from cropping up if I give you more statements?”

“Well, yes –”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Jon opens and closes his mouth soundlessly several times.

“I – I – I don’t want you to sign yourself over to the Beholding just so I can – treat your memories like a – like a snack” – Jon flings one arm out in a sweeping gesture, supplementing the disgust with which he says the word – “without facing any consequences!”

He looks around at the others, arm still outstretched in the air, waiting for someone to back him up on this. When no one does, he huffs a bewildered chuckle and withdraws his arm to comb his fingers through his hair instead. Why is he the only one making a fuss about this? He thought he could count on Basira at least to raise an objection, but she’s just staring off to the side, apparently lost in thought.

“I was already considering signing a contract anyway,” Daisy says. “Basira said you had a theory that the Slaughter’s effects on Melanie were slowed by her connection to the Eye, yeah?”

“Yes,” he admits cautiously.

“We were thinking – maybe it’ll do the same for me with the Hunt.”

“Did it help last time?” Basira cuts in, as if she’d never tapped out of the discussion.

“I’m not positive,” Jon hedges. “It was a theory we’d considered, yes, but it’s not like we had much of a sample size to test that hypothesis.”

He wishes he’d thought to ask these kinds of questions after the world ended, when he actually had a chance of getting the answers. In his defense, he had a lot on his mind – and it’s not like he considered the possibility of coming back in time to actually make use of that information.

“And it didn’t entirely silence the call of the Hunt,” he adds, looking back to Daisy. “You still deteriorated the longer you refused to answer it.”

“Hm.” Basira’s contemplative expression returns as she withdraws to commune with her own thoughts again.

“Well, it’s not like I’m going anywhere anyway,” Daisy says with a shrug. “Basira’s trapped here. So are you. And I don’t think I can be trusted to leave here without giving in to the Hunt again. I have nothing to lose by signing a contract, and…”

Her eyes gravitate towards Jon’s throat. Mechanically, he reaches up to adjust the scarf around his neck, to ensure the scar there is covered. At the guilty expression on Daisy’s face, Jon has to look away.

“If it can help,” Daisy continues, “then I think telling some stories is the absolute least I can do after… everything.”

“How many do you have, do you think?” Georgie asks, once again settling into problem-solving mode.

“Don’t know. Several. A couple dozen? Maybe more, depending on how far we can stretch the definition of a statement.”

“I have a handful as well,” Basira says, her tone wholly unreadable. “Not many, but… a few of the things that happened while you were dead should count as statements, I think.”

“I – I couldn’t ask you to –”

“I’m not offering; I’m just inventorying all the options on the table,” Basira says with an air of finality.

Curiously, Martin seems to tense at Basira’s words, shifting restively in his seat and looking askance at her.

“How much time does that buy us, do you think?” he asks, throwing brief, surreptitious glances in Basira’s direction. “How long would a few dozen statements last you?”

“I… I don’t know,” Jon says, still altogether uncomfortable with the idea. “If I ration myself, then – a while, hopefully? Hypothetically? But…”

He’s loathe to elaborate, but when did keeping secrets and denying reality ever help?

“Last time, it kept getting progressively worse. I needed to feed more and more frequently in order to stave off the hunger. The side effects of abstaining grew more severe. I want to hope that it will be different this time. Maybe giving in to the hunger in the first place only encouraged the Archivist’s… evolution. Whet my appetite. It’s possible that refraining from hunting will… I don’t know, slow the process? Maybe? B-but at the same time…”

He trails off, lips parted, unable to say the words.

“Jon?” Martin prompts gently.

“It’s… I’m sorry, but I – I have trouble being optimistic about it. Coming back didn’t… it didn’t reset the Archivist’s progress. I’m the product of what I’ve done up to this point, even if I’m the only one who remembers any of it. I still have all the marks. And… the Archive fledged and thrived in the apocalypse.”

“Meaning?” Basira leans forward, watching him intently.

“The Archive is accustomed to a feast, not a famine. Millions of statements filtering through every moment without pause. Even when humanity started dying off – when there was less and less fear to go around, when even the monsters started to decay in that place – the Archive was still sated, because I could See everything. No matter how few and far between those pockets of terror became, as long as fear was being suffered somewhere, the Archive had a steady source of sustenance.”

It wouldn’t have lasted forever, of course. Everything has an ending. But that had still been a ways off when Jon left that place.

“I probably would have been one of the last things standing, by the end,” he says softly.

“And you think the hunger will be worse this time because you aren’t used to being hungry,” Basira says.

“More or less,” Jon mumbles, shamefaced. “Coming back to the past, to now… there was no transition between plenty and want. I – the Archive – was just… dropped into a – a habitat it was never adapted to survive in. It’s like a… like a non-native species, as far as this reality is concerned. Like taking a fish out of water and expecting it to evolve lungs on the spot.”

“Hm.” Basira cups her chin in one hand, running a thumb slowly over her lips as she thinks.

“I plan to ration myself as strictly as possible, of course. I just want to establish the possibility that things might – escalate, at some point.”

“If it comes to that, we can deal with it then,” Georgie says. “In the meantime, we should just…”

“Take things one crisis at a time?” Jon tries to temper his bitterness with a weak smile, without much success.

“I mean, yeah, basically,” Georgie says. “But in order for this to work, you need to be honest with us.”

“I – I am, I –”

“I’m not accusing you of lying, Jon. I just mean… well, you have a long history of ignoring your own limitations, and –”

“You’re not good at taking care of yourself,” Martin interjects. His cheeks go pink and he tosses an apologetic glance in Georgie’s direction. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No worries,” Georgie says. Martin looks uncertain until she grins and, still making eye contact with him, jerks her chin in Jon’s direction. “By all means, go on.”

Emboldened, Martin turns his attention back to Jon, who meets his eyes with no small amount of apprehension. If Martin is intent on compiling a laundry list of examples of Jon’s poor self-care – and judging from that worryingly familiar look on his face, he is – then he has ample material to choose from. Jon barely has time to brace himself before Martin launches into his lecture.

“You used to forget to eat. You never took lunch unless I hassled you. I had to nag you to go home at night.” He’s counting off on his fingers now, Jon notes with dismay. “You went through most days fueled by a maximum of four hours of sleep and frankly alarming amounts of caffeine. You insisted on coming back to work, against medical advice, immediately after almost being eaten alive by worms.”

Jon opens his mouth to speak – and promptly shuts it again when Martin gives him what Jon can (with equal amounts of affection and dread) only refer to as that look.

“You could barely walk. I had to threaten to forcibly remove you from the building before you agreed to go home. You spent the next several weeks sneaking – hell, limping around down here” – Martin makes a sweeping gesture with his arm – “where we found your predecessor’s murdered body, and –”

“Yes, yes, okay,” Jon interrupts, hands flapping anxiously. “I get your point.”

“I also had to threaten to withhold the Admiral from you in order to get you to go to the clinic to have your third-degree burn treated,” Georgie chimes back in. Jon glares at her; she looks far too entertained by the proceedings.

“I was – I was on the lam,” he protests. “I couldn’t exactly go waltzing about in public.”

“But you were perfectly willing to go chasing down Avatars, apparently.”

“I…”

“Oh,” she adds, “and today was the first time you actually slept since you woke up from a coma.”

“I was asleep for six months,” Jon mutters, arms crossed, bouncing one heel against the floor. “I think that more than makes up for –”

“You tried to pass off a stab wound that required five – five!” – Martin holds up five fingers for added (and unnecessary, in Jon’s opinion) emphasis – “stitches as an accident with a – with a bread knife.”

Somehow, Martin manages to sound as indignant now as he did on the day it happened.

“That was several lifetimes ago,” Jon says primly. “At some point you have to let me live it down.”

“It hasn’t even been two years!”

“Seriously, Jon?” Daisy, who has been hiding a smirk behind her hand throughout the entire exchange, finally fails to contain her stifled laughter. “A bread knife?”

“I – I panicked,” Jon says weakly, cheeks burning. “Martin cornered me in the breakroom and it was the first thing I saw, and I just –”

Martin starts in again. “You were actively exsanguinating –”

“Th-that – that’s an exaggeration,” Jon sputters, watching Georgie out of the corner of his eye to gauge her reaction. She’s shaking her head with a faint smile, and Jon… well, Jon supposes that playful scorn is preferable to actual scorn.

“– and you refused to let me take you to the clinic until I threatened to call an ambulance,” Martin finishes.

“I was –” Jon twists a lock of hair around his fingers as he scrambles for some way to save face. “I would have been –”

“I think it’s safe to say you have no sense of self-preservation,” Basira says, and even she has a hint of amusement in her tone now.

“They have a point, Sims.”

“Et tu, Daisy?” Jon says, hoping to garner a laugh – or, failing that, at least halt the relentless bombardment of admonishments. Daisy simply raises her eyebrows and folds her arms, unmoved.

“Do I need to revisit some of the things we discussed in the Coffin?”

“No,” he says sullenly. When no one else speaks, he continues, somewhat irately: “Are we quite finished with the roast session?”

“For now,” Georgie says. “The point is, don’t run yourself into the ground just to test the limits of what you can endure.”

“And don’t let rationing statements turn into just another way to punish yourself,” Martin says sternly. Then he bites his lip, speaking gently now: “You… you deserve better than that.”

I really, really don’t, Jon thinks. Having no desire to unleash another lecture, though, he keeps the contrary comment to himself.

“Besides, letting yourself get that bad probably makes things worse in the long run,” Georgie says. “Like walking on a sprained ankle. Maybe you can endure the pain, but the longer you ignore it, the more likely you are to cause even more damage, and recovery takes longer than it would have if you’d just attended to it in the first place.”

“Speaking from personal experience, are we?” Jon allows a hint of retaliatory smugness slip into his voice.

“Yes,” Georgie says, rolling her eyes. “That ankle is still weak. Which is why you should listen to me. Just… try to care about yourself even a fraction of how much others care about you, alright?

Jon sighs. “Point taken.”

“You can trust us,” Martin says.

“I – I know that. I do trust you. I’m just…” Afraid. “I don’t want you to –”

“– mark me out as something other –”

“– getting used to people making polite excuses not to look at me –”

“– it wears you down to be someone whom nobody wants to see – I called out again and again but nobody came –”

Frantic, he covers his mouth with his hand to halt the recitation; the words continue to pour forth undeterred, albeit muffled and likely – hopefully – too indistinct for the others to understand.

“– I remember shouting, recriminations, and I was abandoned –”

“– no one to blame but my own stupid self – blundering in where I had no right to go –”

A flash flood of restless energy breaks through the dam and then it’s racing through his veins, filling his mouth and his mind with white noise. He kicks one foot out and brings it stomping back down to the ground in a burst of sheer infuriation and near-panic. A crawling sensation travels up and down the length of his spine, a parade of feather-light pinpricks reminiscent of thousands of scuttling spider legs.

The slight whimper that works its way up his throat is thankfully stifled by the hand still pressed to his lips.

“Breathe through it,” Basira tells him.

Irritation flares to life at the reminder, but Jon forcibly snuffs it out before the spark can catch. Basira is only trying to help – and in a way she knows has helped before.

He breathes.

A frustrated noise – something between a snarl and a whine – spills out on his exhale, and he presses another hand atop the first as if it can render him entirely soundless. Before another wave of self-directed fury can take him, Jon coaxes himself to take another breath in through his nose. And another. And another, counting up until the pressure behind his eyes lets up and the static clears from his thoughts – at which point, he’s forced to confront the four pairs of eyes playing patient audience to his outburst.

Like a toddler’s tantrum, he thinks acidly, burning with humiliation.

“Sorry.” Although the scathing edge to the word is reserved solely for himself, he takes another breath before speaking again, lest the others assume the ire is directed at them. “Sorry. I’ll try to control it better.”

“It’s fine, Jon,” Martin says. “We know you aren’t doing it on purpose.”

“Anyway,” Basira says, her peremptory tone indicating a return to the subject at hand, “can we all agree that this is the best strategy for now?”

Jon looks down, tracing the weave of his scarf, focusing wholly on the texture of fabric against fingertips in a vain attempt to distract from the pins and needles still skittering across his skin. It takes a moment before he registers the silence. When he looks up, the others are staring at him. Basira raises an eyebrow, clearly waiting for his response.

“Even if I do agree to this,” Jon says warily, “I still – I know it’s a lot to ask, but I still need to be monitored for any signs of…” Although the question is meant for all of them, Jon shifts his gaze to make direct eye contact with Basira as he asks it. “Can you let me know, truthfully, if I – if it looks like I might… if you think I’m a danger?”

“Jon,” Martin sighs, “you’re not –”

“Yes,” Basira says decisively.

Martin glares at her, his mouth falling open with a combination of shock and protective outrage. Jon recognizes that expression, and he jumps in before Martin can get a word out.

“Thank you, Basira.”

Now Jon is the target of Martin’s glower. He looks offended, betrayed almost, as if Jon took Basira’s side in a dispute between the two of them. Again, though, Martin doesn’t get the chance to scold.

“Alright then,” Daisy says, stretching. “It’s settled. You” – her eyes swivel to Jon, their piercing intensity prompting him to sit up at attention – “come to me when you’re hungry.”

“Before you cross the boundary into ‘starving,’” Martin says, carving out an opportunity to chastise despite the interruption.

“Consider me a vending machine of horror stories,” Daisy quips.

Jon grimaces and rubs the back of his neck. “Do you have to describe it that way?”

“Oh, quit grousing.” With a flash of teeth, a wolfish grin spreads across her face. “What, would you prefer I write up a menu?”

Her expression turns solemn when Jon winces and looks away.

“Sore nerve?” she asks, suddenly and uncharacteristically delicate.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” The question is nearly inaudible, Jon’s eyes fixed on the floor.

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”

Fearing his voice might crack if he tries to speak, Jon bites down on his lip and tucks his chin to his chest, letting his hair fall to hide the others from view. He shuts his eyes for good measure and swallows hard, determined to head off the tears threatening to gather.

“Hey.” Daisy stretches out a leg and kicks his foot gently. It’s enough to make him raise his head cautiously. “I was just teasing. Really.”

“I –” It comes out as a croak. Jon clears his throat and blinks several times to dispel the stinging pressure in the corners of his eyes. “I know.”

“It is… so weird to see you two like this,” Basira says with an air of baffled wonder.

Jon notices Martin fidgeting restively out of the corner of his eye. When he looks directly at him, he sees Martin glaring at Daisy with a mixture of worry, suspicion, and resentment.

It isn’t surprising; he never really did forgive Daisy for what she did to Jon. Neither did Jon, for that matter, but… Daisy was so changed after the Buried, it was difficult to see her as the same person who dragged him into the woods. She was, undoubtedly – she was the first to admit that – but she was remorseful and wholly dedicated to changing her behavior, even knowing it might well kill her. She never asked for forgiveness, never denied the harm she’d caused, never tried to justify or shirk responsibility for her actions.

What she later became… there was nothing left of the Daisy who he’d come to see as a friend. For that Daisy, being reclaimed by the Hunt was a fate worse than death. Worse than the Coffin, even. She would have preferred to die as herself, and on her own terms – and the Hunt stole even that ounce of humanity from her. It made her forget that she didn't want to be a Hunter.

Jon dreads watching her waste away again, but not nearly as much as he fears the Hunt devouring her whole.

“People change,” he says, looking from Martin to Basira, hoping those two words can convey all the things he cannot say. They both look unconvinced, albeit in slightly different ways.

The silence drags on uncomfortably long until Georgie claps her hands on her knees.

“You never answered the question, Jon. Are you alright taking statements from Daisy? At least until we can find a better solution?”

“I…”

He glances around the circle, looking at each face in turn, trying to discern their opinions on the matter. Daisy gives him a reassuring nod. Martin has an almost pleading expression on his face, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth and wringing his hands in his lap.

Basira is… entirely inscrutable, much to Jon’s dismay. He didn’t expect otherwise, but he still wishes he could get a read on her, determine exactly how she categorizes him now. Probably not as a trustworthy ally. At best, perhaps she sees him as human enough to be suffered to live, but on thin ice and under probation. At worst, she sees him as an irredeemable monster and is simply keeping her opinion to herself for the time being.

Or – no, the worst might be what he was to her last time. She saw him as a monster, yes, and was fully prepared to put him down – like a rabid animal, he thought when confronted with that wording – if he became too much of a danger. It was comforting to know that Basira wouldn’t let sentiment get in the way if he had to be stopped. Less comforting was how she saw him as an asset: a dangerous tool to be used and then locked away once he’d fulfilled his purpose.

Granted, he gave Basira permission to use him – asked her to, in fact. It would be unfair to resent her for taking him up on an offer that he himself put on the table. If his powers could be used to help for once, he was fully willing to sacrifice his humanity to do so. After all, he was already too far gone, he figured – and everyone else seemed to agree.

Georgie certainly seemed to think so. Melanie told him outright that he came back wrong. He had likewise interpreted Martin’s avoidance as a comment on his having changed for the worst, at least initially. And he knew from the moment he woke up that Basira saw him as something other, as something more akin to the monsters they were fighting rather than an ally. He understood why they all felt that way, agreed with their assessments even, but it was soul-crushing nonetheless.

But even if he couldn’t have – didn’t deserve – trust or companionship, he still needed a reason, something to justify choosing not to die. If being wanted wasn’t an option, the least he could do is avoid being a burden. An annoyance. If approval wasn’t on the table, at least he could convince people that he was worth keeping around. And hadn’t that approach always been second nature to him? In a way, he didn’t tend to seek affection so much as try to avoid rejection.

Ultimately, though, pursuing that strategy started to feel sickeningly familiar. It wasn’t until much later that he realized why: between Jonah and the Beholding – and in all likelihood the Web as well – he’d grown accustomed to being seen as a means to an end, and that made it all the more difficult to see himself as a who rather than as a what. It’s a distinction he still struggles with – particularly during those times when the Archive makes its presence known.

He might not have much right to ask for trust or approval, but that doesn’t change the fact that he craves it – perhaps from Basira most of all. If even her opinion of him can change… well, it would go a long way in helping him to believe that he really does have a chance.

“Jon,” Basira says, snapping him back to attention.

Shit. How long has he been staring?

“We need an answer,” she continues.

Jon can’t help but wonder if this is another test. If he agrees, will she see it as further proof of his inhumanity, as evidence that he isn’t trying to resist? If he refuses, will it make her suspicious, lead her to believe he plans on going hunting instead? He’s never been skilled at reading between the lines, at interpreting social cues, at deconstructing the unspoken. The best he can do is ask questions and guess blindly as to the right way to respond – and agonize over the repercussions should he get it wrong. Basira has a way of making that already difficult process even more intimidating.

“Jon,” Basira repeats herself, growing impatient now.

“O-okay,” he says quietly. “It’s… worth a try, I suppose.”

She gives a curt nod. As always, it gives him no insight into her thoughts. He has no time resume brooding, though, as Martin draws his attention with an audible sigh of relief. When Jon glances at him, Martin graces him with a smile – small, almost shy, but genuine. Jon tries and fails to mirror it.

Apparently finished with Jon for the moment, Basira turns her attention to Daisy.

“Come on,” she says, rising to her feet and tapping Daisy on the shoulder. “It’s time for your exercises.”

Obediently, Daisy starts to stand, only for her knees to buckle beneath her. Basira is there to catch her.

“Been sitting too long,” Daisy grunts, embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

“Can you manage the ladder?” Daisy shakes her head, flushing darker. “That’s fine,” Basira says, though Jon thinks he can detect a hint of fear – maybe even melancholy – in her tone now. “Let’s just… walk for now. Wake your legs up.”

The two of them start off down the tunnel, Basira supporting half of Daisy’s weight as she staggers forward.

“Jon?” Georgie says softly.

“Hm.”

“Try to cut yourself some slack, yeah?”

Jon really can’t afford to do that, but saying so will only start them talking in circles again. Martin leans closer and places a hand on Jon’s knee.

“Hey,” he says, looking Jon in the eye with overwhelming sincerity. “We’ve got this, alright?”

“Alright,” Jon responds, and wills himself to believe it.

The three of them exit the tunnel in silence. It isn’t until Jon hoists himself through the trapdoor – Martin assisting in pulling him to his feet – that one of them speaks.

“Oh,” Georgie says, looking at Jon, “by the way…”

“Yes?” Jon says, apprehensive.

“Melanie asked me to tell you that she’s ready to talk, whenever you are.”

“O-oh.”

“I know it's not a great time –”

“No, I – I think I…” Jon nods. “I think I’m ready, too.”

“It doesn’t have to be tonight,” Georgie says hurriedly.

“I really am okay to –”

Martin looks ready to object, but Georgie gets there first.

“Okay, correction: it won’t be tonight,” she interrupts, fixing him with a stern look now. “You’ve had hardly any rest since coming out of the Coffin. I think you should get some actual sleep tonight. If – if – you’re feeling up to it tomorrow, we can arrange something then.”

“Fine,” Jon sighs. He knows better than to argue with the combined tenacity of Georgie and Martin.

And he has to admit, he is rather tired.

A little over a half-hour later, Martin and Jon are back in Document Storage.

When he suggests Jon go to bed, Martin is prepared for a protracted argument. Jon acquiesces surprisingly quickly, though, his only condition being that Martin get some sleep as well. It takes slightly longer to convince Jon to take the cot. Martin pulls up a chair and sits at the bedside, refusing to budge as Jon makes his counterarguments. Eventually, though, Jon starts nodding off mid-protest. It’s only a matter of time before he begrudgingly gives in – but not before demanding that Martin take the better blanket. With an amused shake of his head, Martin agrees to the compromise.

Jon slips between the sheets, Martin leans back in his chair, and for a long moment the two of them watch each other in silence. Jon’s hand rests near the pillow, fingers crooked loosely, palm turned up like an invitation. Martin has the sudden urge to reach out and take it.

Another minute passes before Martin realizes that… well, that’s a thing he can do now, isn’t it? What’s stopping him?

Slowly, tentatively, he extends his hand, lets it hover uncertainly above Jon’s, fingertips barely brushing. He applies the slightest pressure, giving Jon every opportunity to pull back. He doesn’t. Jon interlocks their fingers, curling them over in a firm grasp, and peers up at Martin through his lashes with mingled uncertainty and hope.

“Is this okay?” Martin asks quietly.

As answer, Jon lets out a contented sigh, eyelids fluttering closed as a sleepy smile spreads across his face.

“'Course,” he mumbles, already drifting off. “Always will.”

Martin will follow not long after, slumping precariously to the side, head lolling onto his shoulder, and hand still held fast in a warm, sure grip. It’s a posture that will undoubtedly leave him sore by the time he wakes up, but that discomfort will be overshadowed by the way he feels in these shared, quiet moments: seen, accepted, wanted, embraced.

Anchored, he thinks – and for the first time in months, no thoughts of Loneliness shadow him as he falls to sleep.

End Notes:

Jon: *feels safe for the first time in a literally unmeasurable amount of time and promptly passes right back tf out* Martin: oh no he’s cute

Jon's gotten a SNACK and a NAP now. I hope you're all happy. :P (Just kidding. Every time someone tells me to let Jon have a nap, I am also @ing myself - and Jonny Sims - with the exact same demand.)

(On that note, I find it funny that as I was writing this chapter and finally giving Jon the nap he deserves, he was ALSO finally getting the nap he deserves in canon.)

Citations for Jon’s Archive-speak are as follows: MAG 135; 130/067/066; 032/037.

Next chapter: Melanie gets some actual screentime again!!

#tma #tma fic #long post #the magnus archives

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mitigatedchaos · 3 years

Text

Review: SAC_2045

(~3,700 words, 15 minutes)

This post will contain some minor spoilers for SAC_2045.

Summary: You may have thought SAC_2045 was a poor entry in the Ghost in the Shell franchise - actually, it's just intended for younger audiences.

Previously: Standalone Complex 202045:1-4 (superseded)

-☆☆☆-

And what did you think of the remaining episodes of GitS:SAC_2045?

[ @irradiate-space ]

Standalone Complex

There's a certain indescribable feeling associated with Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex as a work, an artistic touch related to the director associated with it, independent of other considerations. SAC_2045 has it, which isn't too surprising since Kenji Kamiyama is back.

SAC_2045 is Standalone Complex. For a brief moment, while watching it, I inhabited my pre-2016 personality and outlook. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Since the arrival of streaming I've tended to bingewatch series, but on the first run-through I decided not to bingewatch this one.

If you approach this show as season 4 of Standalone Complex (Solid State Society being season 3), it's underwhelming. Now, viewing it again, it's become obvious that a conventional season 4 of Standalone Complex was never the intent of SAC_2045 to begin with.

For those of you who have delayed until now, the English dub has been uploaded - it released without one due to the pandemic. They bring back a number of the voice actors from the excellent Standalone Complex dub, though having already watched it with subtitles, I didn't feel the need to confirm the dub's quality.

Sustainable War

To properly describe a new theory of war is the same thing as to invent it. While the idea of war as a for-profit industry has been kicked around for some time, it's generally assumed that this is a kind of parasitic relationship on the part of the war-making industry.

As time goes on, warfare becomes more abstract (partly because warfare happens where it can happen), much like society itself is becoming more abstract as information moves more quickly and humanity gains access to more energy.[1] In SAC_2045, "Sustainable War" is part of the context of the world and its current issues, but we aren't really told how it works - if it's similar to contemporary information warfare and a blurring of the lines between state and non-state actors, it's bound to be quite confusing.

I believe my earlier assessment of "Sustainable War" is correct. The key feature of sustainable war, the reason they say it's safe if you leave it to the experts, is likely that it involves AIs constantly forecasting against each other and moving units around with few direct confrontations. The goal would be to lock in a victory without having to fire a shot, except for small skirmishes that don't escalate to major incidents (due to the AI forecasting).

The presence of armed separatist movements even in Japan may also indicate that the ruling institutional bodies are engaged in a kind of Post-International Politics,[2] which treats all international relations as fundamentally existing between subnational entities - however, I believe that later information suggests this wasn't their original intent.

What makes it "sustainable"? Since if done correctly, very little is actually physically destroyed, the cost is less than conventional warfare, and thus the war can continue indefinitely. Why does it threaten humanity with destruction? Because there's an awful lot of military hardware waiting for someone to actually pull the trigger.

Season 1: Ep. 2

So what is the intent of the series' creators? I think they may be telling us through this dialogue between Togusa and Section Chief Daisuke Aramaki in episode 2.

Aramaki: Seems time has toughened you up. Togusa: Is that supposed to be a compliment? Aramaki: It is if you want it to be. Togusa: Then thanks for the kind words. “I made the right decision by choosing this line of work over my marriage.” That’s what you’re saying? Aramaki: Perhaps. [...] Togusa: They're bringing back Section 9? [...] Aramaki: But my takeaway from the proposal is this: The PM's reason for the urgent reforming of Section 9 takes priority over his personal motives. I believe his true objective is meeting the Americans' demands for the dispatch of special resources. Togusa: So it's as the Liberals feared? An American-born Prime Minister would be no more than an American puppet? Aramaki: I've yet to meet him in person, so I can't really say. But this is an opportunity to have the Major and the rest of you undertake a major operation for me once more. Togusa: What sort of op? Aramaki: Over the past few years, I have searched for an answer on how to deal with a society in turmoil. I'd like you people to lay the groundwork that will help the next generation find that answer. Togusa: I don't know what a man in my position can contribute, but I'll humbly offer whatever assistance I can.

Those of us who cried, Kamiyama, tell us the future once more! based on Standalone Complex's prophetic analysis of a memetic crime wave were bound to be disappointed. SAC_2045 is less rooted in the near future than in the now - cyberbullying, endless war amidst historic prosperity, employment suppressed by automation, savings eaten up by the complex machinations of finance, and a breakdown of national borders? That's today.

Those of us who hoped for a Ghost in the Shell: Unicorn, a psychically overpowering work that synthesizes the full body of Ghost in the Shell into a single coherent form to elevate us to a higher level of understanding, should have tempered our expectations. To reach each new philosophical level is more difficult than the last - to achieve that with Ghost in the Shell of all things would have required a multidisciplinary genius near the limits of current understanding.

Kenji Kamiyama is just an anime director. And anyhow, Gundam Unicorn was a book before it was an animated series. And who among us even knew we'd have to write a book before 2015? Ghost in the Shell was well-understood enough, so I instead wrote 25,000 words worth of hypothetical country and became a blogger, like the infamous Scott Alexander.[3]

If we approach SAC_2045 from the lens that it's a humbler work designed for younger audiences, however, some of the creative decisions make more sense.

Purin

Just how old is Purin, the MIT grad who joins the team later on? If I had to guess, that's '23歳' on that profile she provides, and Ishikawa notes that she 'skipped a few grades' on her way to a PhD. But she acts like someone a lot younger. She's enthusiastic and we're assured she's intelligent, but seems to be lacking social training. For example, she makes the mistake of assembling an era-accurate music player for Batou combined with a playlist after consulting the Tachikomas to find out what he listens to. There are two ways to take this.

The first is that she's intended as a relateable character for someone who would make this class of mistake. It's the sort of mistake I might have made at age 13-14, meaning that the show would probably be aimed at someone that age or lower. Overly enthusiastic, doesn't understand romantic relationships, impulsive, poor reading of boundaries / poor modelling of others outside of certain domains, impulsive in a way that causes social screw-ups? Yeah that could certainly apply to an ADHD kid of about that age.

And all of a sudden the tone of the first five episodes with the gun-fighting, the literal Agent Smith, the decision to place the focus in America, and even the mystery of the series being much simpler than Standalone Complex 2nd Gig's plot regarding Asian refugees in Japan make a lot more sense. This is Ghost in the Shell for kids!

Wow, I didn't think that could be done!

...is what I should say, except that around the time I acquired the ability to futurist shitpost, and I used that ability to predict that it would.

Purin II

The second reading is that the youth of the future are fucked up. She probably has some tricked out modifications, both cybernetic and genetic. Now usually you would tell someone to try to become a well-rounded human being. But...

The global economy has crashed. Batou mistakes her for a robot - creatures that look like pretty young women are a dime a dozen. In the dating market, she would be competing with full sensory immersion VR pornography on the one hand, and at the upper end of society where cybernetics are more widely available, likely women with a similar appearance but decades more experience and professional standing.

Note that in the original Standalone Complex, the team take down an 80-year-old Russian spy with the full prosthetic body of a 20-year-old. Full cyborgs aren't common then, nor are they in SAC_2045 (though cyberbrains are ubiquitous), but if the economy recovers that may change, and the sector she's trying to get in to (full-time salaried government rather than marginal private employment it would seem) is going to be very tough to enter either way.

So Purin may have to be over-optimized even to just appear on the screen. In fact, she says,

"Just so I could work at Section 9, I moved most of my sentimental memories to external storage."

Youch! It's no wonder she's socially maladjusted. Just how much of her social learning (in particular key events necessary to rebuild logical inferences on the boundaries of behavior on the fly) has she locked away?

Purin III

But you know who Purin looks like? Notorious internet personality, Gamer Girl Bath Water seller, and IRL video game character Belle Delphine.[4]

Or rather, it's the other way around - 2D animation compresses real detail into suggestive abstraction, letting your mind fill in the rest. Going from those impossible 2D shapes to 3 dimensions creates strange results, like training your machine learning algorithm on the salient features of a cat's face, applying it to human shape, and putting pink hair on the result. Belle Delphine adopts that otherworldly kind of appearance as part of her act.

Technically, this a stylistic choice. Within the framework of SAC_2045, this is what "a 23-year-old female" looks like.

Purin is in fact so non-threatening that her big red coat obscures her figure. I'm gonna go with younger audience. Now if only I could remember what pronoun she uses.[5/☆]

Motoko

With a full prosthetic body, outward signs of human-like aging are almost an artistic expression, much like in a world with cheap tissue engineering, visible scars are a choice.

When she was first introduced in the original Ghost in the Shell manga, we don't know how old Motoko Kusanagi is. It was once said that her name is analogous to "Jane Excalibur," which in English would be an obvious alias. In the first movie (from 1995), she's cool, almost cold and robotic.

In the original Standalone Complex, Motoko has a more mature personality than in the manga, but she has a clearly adult look by the standards of anime. Seriously, check out this fantastic character design (combat suit), although admittedly the better-known "leather jacket and bathing suit" design is more ridiculous, fashion-wise.[6] (Fortunately, she gets pants in her much more stylish second season outfit.)

ARISE starts off with a young Motoko Kusanagi in a chaotic post-war period before the Section 9 we know was assembled. This shows in her character design, but it really shows in her personality. This was actually why I had joked about an even earlier Ghost in the Shell.

There is a sense in which the 2017 live-action movie's Motoko is even younger. Scarlett Johansson is a killer cyborg with amnesia. She doesn't even have one day of formal combat training.

Motoko 2045

Ilya Kuvshinov designed SAC_2045's Motoko Kusanagi.

Yes, that Ilya Kuvshinov. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a teenager that hardboiled assassins Saitou and Ishikawa in the background have been hired to bodyguard.

Despite this, Atsuko Tanaka has resumed her role as Motoko's voice actress. Standalone Complex's Motoko looked 25 and felt mid-30s. SAC_2045's Motoko looks 16 and has the voice and attitude of 40.

This may make more sense than you might think.

Through Whose Eyes?

Throughout much of Ghost in the Shell as a franchise, Togusa, the only non-cyborg on the team, who is pulled from a police department instead of a military background, tends to be character used to help the people of our time relate to the future. He's the guy that doesn't know the things we also don't know, so in explaining concepts to Togusa they're explained to the audience.

In SAC_2045, most of the team are off doing cool cyborg things in America. Aramaki (whose in-world function is to create the bureaucratic environment within which Section 9 operates) tasks Togusa with finding them. The original Standalone Complex first aired in 2003. It's been 17 years since it was created - a similar situation to finding someone that reached adulthood who was born after 9/11. And during this time, Togusa's life has changed - the family man is now separated from his wife. And the world has changed - Togusa is now working for a private security firm. Togusa's role in the first five episodes isn't to guide the new viewers.

His purpose is to guide or stand-in for the old viewers.

The New Viewers

"Do you still hold a grudge against the Major and the others for leaving you behind?"

For the original viewers, SAC_2045 is your world, too. Togusa is there. Togusa is you.

The new viewers are Purin. Enthusiastic and smart but awkward and not confident in their skills. How could they measure up to these much more talented and experienced characters? (Also consider who is going to watch any sort of Ghost in the Shell - it's probably going to be a moderately bright and introverted kid, who is the kind of person that may be more comfortable socializing with people outside of their age band.)

But Motoko is visually separated from the rest of Section 9. Batou, Saitou, Ishikawa, Boma... they all have a much more adult look in keeping with their appearance in previous versions of Ghost in the Shell. What gives?

Batou is sort of a cool adult male figure - this is actually a pretty natural use of the character and his sense of humor as previously established in other Ghost in the Shell properties. We especially see this come through in 「PIE IN THE SKY - First Bank Robbery」 episode, with the old folks and the 21st century bank robbery.

Motoko's difference in appearance is because she's acting as a bridge between the two. The new viewer (as represented by Purin) is supposed to grow into being like Motoko as they gain confidence and experience. (The characters aren't each limited to a single role, of course.)

But SAC_2045 is still a work that's shared between two groups, similar to how the excellent Into the Spiderverse features both the teenage Miles Morales and an older Peter Parker that has lost his way, with the loss of the vibrant young adult Peter Parker being what starts the plot going.

The Last Quarter

With this framework, the rest of the work should express its nature as targeted at a younger audience itself. Watch the last few episodes through this lens and you'll see how much sense it makes. One takes place at a school. Even the bizarre 3D style that resembles recent video games makes more sense. If we take Togusa's earlier conversation with Aramaki as a discussion of SAC_2045 itself, later on there's even a sort of acknowledgement that Ghost in the Shell is a difficult work for someone of a young age.

So with that context in mind, does it work?

Standalone Complex

If I remember correctly, years ago, when I was perhaps 15 or 16, I was watching a tiny CRT television some time after midnight, and I saw the thirteenth episode of the original Standalone Complex - NOT EQUAL. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I was immediately taken by it. And, from what I remember, I immediately understood it.

It was as though it were made just for me.[7]

To me, Ghost in the Shell is like a textbook. I thought that as a creator who has reached a place where I am able to be involved in that kind of work, I'm in a position where I have to convey its contents to a younger audience. Well, I knew it would be a lot of work, but I figured it would be my way of giving back to Ghost in the Shell. I thought that I needed to accept the baton and offer Ghost in the Shell to a young audience, to the same degree that Ghost in the Shell raised me to be who I am.

- Tow Ubukata, in a 2015 interview, regarding ARISE

For many people, Ghost in the Shell is a profound influence. I felt that it lifted me to a new level of understanding.

SAC_2045

But what about SAC_2045?

I can't view Ghost in the Shell with new eyes. When I first saw it, I wasn't the kind of person that casually memes futuristic ethical dilemmas as a means of practicing politics.

Compared to the anime I watched back when I was 13, would I have watched SAC_2045? Yes. Is it more philosophically and politically sophisticated? Yes. Would I have found it memorable? I think so.

Would a 13-year these days watch it? That's difficult to assess. I bet someone who does data science for Netflix could tell us, if they wanted. I'm sure Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki are considering the same thing.

2017

How does it stack up compared to the rest of the franchise?

For most enthusiasts it's going to be one of the weaker entries, though it certainly does a better job explaining itself than ARISE.

Compare it to 2017's live action movie, however, and I think we'll find it isn't the weakest. The reason is that the writers of Ghost in the Shell (2017) decided to tell a story about bodily consent in which becoming a cyborg is a form of trauma. On some level this may have been a reasonable decision, but they didn't commit to the concept sufficiently fully to execute it well enough to carry the movie - and simultaneously, they dumbed down parts of the regular Ghost in the Shell material for American audiences. As a result the movie flopped both financially and artistically - except for the visuals.

In fact, I wrote a sequence of posts (1, 2, 3, 4) on how to rewrite the live action movie as an actual Ghost in the Shell property. I feel no need to do so for SAC_2045 - and I can't even think of what changes would need to be made.

I look forward to the second season.

-☆☆☆-

[1] It's short, but that's a concept in this post. "Advanced by Left-Wing theorists, Ninth Generation warfare sees all acts as existing on a spectrum of political violence. Most acts of ninth generation warfare consist of extreme pranks."

[2] If we accept the idea of "Fifth-Generation Warfare" as motivated by a desire to prevent the enemy from using their conventional military assets, then a corresponding theory of international politics would involve preventing enemy factions within foreign governments from taking control of those governments' institutions - effectively treating all countries as in continuous level of conflict analogous to a soft civil war.

[3] There is a kind of technique to this, but in my case I substituted ADHD for raw IQ and conscientiousness, which is part of why my posts are so much shorter than, for instance, Moldbug's. In any case, technically, Scott's blog posts on the matter amount to roughly a mere 11,600 words, and the book of the black forest amounts to approximately 26,000 words (which I'm told is entertaining reading), but I'm sure if we go looking we can find an additional 15,000 words worth of worldbuilding from a man known for writing 16,000 word blog posts.

[4] Would it be more of a legal liability to sell regular water with GGBW branding, or actual GGBW that could prove to be a potential health hazard?

[5/☆] There's some future strand lurking beneath the surface here that I can't quite put into words; a culturally divergent moe meltdown where an appearance this ridiculous becomes normalized among some sub-population. To quote the Funko Pop Hatred post,

There are questions about the anatomy of anime people and their internal organs, and particularly about what sort of impact-dampening alien meta-material their softer bits are made out of, but at least homo sapiens gokuensis looks like it’s a branch off a similar starting hominid! Whatever transhuman engineering company was responsible for manufacturing the creatures in the typical harem anime has some weird ideas about human beings, but we’re clearly in their ancient lineage somewhere.

Under Late Safetyism, everyone is a declawed catgirl.

Anyhow, I don't want to alarm you, but I can't guarantee that this won't be the future somewhere. Both Purin and Belle Delphine resemble Xiaoice, "The AI Girlfriend Seducing China's Lonely Men." (2020)

[6] Motoko's ridiculous outfits are a major flex on the non-cyborgs, who aren't indifferent to ambient temperature and whose natural bodies may have unflattering features. Similarly wild fashions can exist in places like Second Life, a 3D digital platform with mostly user-uploaded content. Presumably they're also a flex on every Japanese salaryman who still has to dress like a normal guy.

[7] "It's as though it were made just for me" is also how I feel about the original game Mirror's Edge. Its follow-up, Catalyst, is also a personal favorite of mine.

#miti does media #longpost #flagpost #ghost in the shell #sac_2045 #standalone complex #review

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bluemoon-writer · 4 years

Text

Childhood Friends AU: The Dupain/Cheng/Le families

This is some background on how Marinette and Kim’s parents became friends

Part 1 and Part 2 the Childhood Friends AU: MariKim

-their mothers are best friends, Tom, Sabine, and Kim’s mom, Apinya (I don’t think she has a canon name yet, so this is what I’m naming her for now) all went to DuPont as kids

-Tom was the friendly, everyone’s best-friend, guy who never said no to anything, not because of peer pressure but bc he loves being around people and literally wanted to do everything. Sports to Art to Student Council, Tom did it all. (not that he was good at all of it tho)

-Sabine was a shy quiet kid bc she was afraid of being judged. She’s was super athletic, does martial arts outside of school, and absolutely whip smart, best grades in the class. Despite being shy, she is competitive AF. She had a massive crush on Tom, partly bc she admired how he could put himself constantly, and brush off losses. She started to come more out of her shell when Apinya was moved from class B to class A with her.

-they start an IMMEDIATE rivalry

-in class B, students were given extra credit for participation, and Apinya was the top student. When she switches to class A she is constantly raising her hand and shouting out answers out of habit. Since she was the number 1 student in class B, Sabine thinks she’s trying to show off, and is implicitly saying “haha I’m going to take the number 1 spot from you”

-so Sabine starts raising her hand in class and soon they have a full on competition to see who can get the best grades. They tie at nearly everything.

-When the class is split into two teams for a fun game a jeopardy both teams tie bc of Sabine and Apinya

-When group projects are assigned the two best groups are Sabine’s group and Apinya’s group

-Apinya doesn’t think they’re rivals, she interprets their ‘competition’ as a form of friendship. While she likes to win, and values having good grades, she is not competitive like Sabine (Kim’s sense of competitiveness actually comes from his dad). Apinya is really more a jokester, in her opinion. Really, she’s creative as hell, but doesn’t think her parents will approve of her pursuing artistic avenues so she focuses her artistic energy into jokes. She loud and fidgety (ADHD af) so she tricks herself into thinking she’s the class clown.

-their ‘rivalry’ ends when both of them realize that they can be getting even better grades if they team up.

-this realization happens when their teacher pairs them up for a city wide science fair competition, and easily take the first spot

-they hit it off and Sabine realizes that Apinya isn’t trying to maliciously steal her top spot and Apinya realizes that Sabine’s quick wit is great for improv and math.

-soon they’re best friends and partner up on every project. Apinya convinces Sabine to join the debate team, and Sabine pushes Apinya to join the art club.

-Now Tom has been admiring Sabine for a while. Ever since she started raising her hand in class. Now she’s joined the debate team with him.

-Tom is, admittedly, not good at debate. He’s a very straight forward guy, and isn’t good with what he calls “word-trickery” but he admires those who are good at it, and he likes doing it bc it keeps him up to date on current events.

-Sabine joins debate and is AMAZING at it. Her genius mind and competitive nature combine for maximum skills. And Tom’s admiration of her turns into a full blown crush. He starts baking treats to bring to the ‘debate team’ aka Sabine.

-and Sabine is dying bc she gets to spend practically every day with her crush and he’s even nicer/stronger/sweeter than she thought

-and eventually, they both confess to each other but they don’t date.

-Tom’s father refuses to let him date and when he thinks that his son and the pretty girl from the debate club might be a thing he gives him more hours in the bakery to prevent it from happening.

-Apinya starts a game night at her house, as an excuse for Sabine and Tom to spend time together outside of school

-Tom tells his dad that he’s giving Apinya cooking lessons

-When the girls find out the name sticks

-Eventually, they graduate and Toms father can’t stop them from dating.

-Sabine and Apinya go to university, Sabine for accounting and Apinya for art, specifically sculpting.

-Tom goes to culinary school, he’s been arguing with his dad about bread and has dreams of opening his own bakery. His programs lasts two years and when he graduates he proposes to Sabine. (She said yes, of course)

-Apinya doesn’t date in school out of solidarity for her friend. But once in university she is whisked off her feet.

-they meet when she’s 20. He’s older by 7 years and a fairly successful business man following in his fathers footsteps. Meet Lê Sinh Chi.

-He’s in Paris on a business trip when he meets Apinya. It’s love at first sight for both of them and by the time he leaves Paris they’re dating.

-He immigrates to France for her. His father is pissed bc he is suppose to take over the company. Chi wants to expand the company more internationally and tries to convince his father to build a headquarters in Paris, but his father refuses and instead threatens to disinherit him.

-Chi calls his bluff and moves to Paris anyway. His father kicks him out of the company but doesn’t disinherit him or remove him from his will.

-In Paris, Chi has a lot of business contacts. He’d been planning to take his father’s company international for a while and had spent several years making contacts with businessmen around the globe.

-he briefly works at the company of one his contacts before splitting off to start his own. Within a year, it’s booming.

-Within a year he proposes to Apinya

-He’s extremely competitive. He was the third of four children and fought hard to distinguish himself from his older siblings. He graduated university at age 19 and got his MBA by 21 and immediately went into business.

-he gets along great with Tom and Sabine. Despite having many contacts in France, visiting for business and permanently moving somewhere are very different and he’s glad to have some friends

-all it takes is one “cooking lesson” and the rest is history

-Chi is offended at first when Apinya tells him to come to cooking lessons with her, but quickly realizes that it’s a game night

-some nights turn out very...interesting. Many end after Sabine and Chi lose their voices from yelling so much.

-Chi almost murders them all in monopoly, but Sabine had been secretly embezzling from the bank so she managed to pull out on top. Apinya and Tom were so scarred from the experience that they swore to never play it again at game night.

-That works until Marinette and Kim come along

-Chi gives Tom the loan he needs to start his bakery. Tom had a respectable amount saved up, enough for a shop actually, but not enough for his dream shop. With, Chi’s loan Tom is able to get the perfect location.

-After Sabine and Apinya graduate they both get married within six months of each other.

-They joked about a joint wedding, but if they did that then they wouldn’t be able to be each other’s bridesmaids

-Sabine helps Tom craft the plan for his bakery. They’re a dream team, with his culinary skills and knowledge of the baking industry and her accounting skills and knowledge of business they create the perfect design.

-Apinya starts working on a sculpture collection based on themes of, oddly enough, creation and destruction

-Sabine and Apinya both end up getting pregnant around the same time which they love (ages 25/26 or so)

-they swear they didn’t plan it

-Tom and Chi aren’t so sure

-They go to baby classes together, and occasionally pretend to be lesbian lovers when people ask about their husbands

-Just before Kim is born, Chi Switches from a his position as CEO to chairman so that he can have more time with his family

-Tom actually closes the bakery for two weeks after Sabine gives birth so that he can take care of both her and baby Marinette

-when he opens back up, his mom actually comes and works the register for him until Sabine is ready to come to work

-Sabine is not the type to like to just sit around. Even though she’s not working in the bakery, she’s still doing the books every night. She actually feels like she doesn’t have enough to do and begins doing personal financing for Chi as his company is getting large and he doesn’t trust a stranger to handle his accounts

-Apinya and Tom teamed up and designed Kim and Marinette’s nurseries together. Apinya designed and built the furniture and Tom decided on decorations and the color palette.

-Kim was born a month before Marinette, a fact that he uses against her for the rest of her life

-Kim and Mari start having playdates before they can even crawl

-Sabine and Apinya put them in little baby swings next to each other

-Tom and Sabine had been using their attic space as a weird office/guest room/storage area but when Marinette and Kim got older they decided to transform it into a playroom for the kids

-Marinette loved the room so much, and had so many fond memories there, that she eventually made it her bedroom

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #tom dupain #sabine dupain cheng #le chien kim #ml #mlb #ladybug and chat noir #marikim #childhood friends au #ml headcanon #miraculous ladybug au

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tthael · 3 years

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hi, i love your writing! i’m afraid this might be a little too personal so if so i apologise! but i know you kind of covered this in some other questions, but i was just curious if you incorporated any of your own experience with adhd into richie’s characterisation in indelicate?

Hi! Not too personal. I know we’d see more of this if the story were from Richie’s perspective (and one of the things I regret about writing Things That Happen After Eddie Lives is that I didn’t think more about Richie’s ADHD when writing his point of view), but I have thought of some things that Eddie might pick up on.

I think that the most obvious things we’ll see (since we’re not in Richie’s head, we’re watching Eddie watch him) is that Richie has some auditory processing issues. It takes Richie a moment or two to run back the tapes and translate the noises Eddie’s making into words, especially because an Eddie without any depressants in his system (like painkillers) speaks very quickly; which means there are moments where Eddie speaks, Richie stares blankly at him, and then Richie responds to what he said. I can’t recall any specific instances where that’s happened, but I know it’s something that I’m currently making note of in the draft, and I have to decide whether it’s going to go into Richie’s outtake or Eddie’s perspective. Eddie and Richie know each other well enough now that Richie has stopped saying “Huh?” to buy himself processing time because it makes Eddie insane when Richie says “huh?” and Eddie starts to repeat himself and Richie interrupts him to respond to the question; but Eddie also gives Richie a little bit of time to play back the audio when Richie stalls out.

(This is based on interactions between me and my brother. We’re both extremely fast-talkers, and we can talk and listen at the same time and don’t understand why other people can’t, which makes us very annoying to talk to in person. But it makes my brother crazy when I mishear him and go “huh?” so instead I’ve started repeating what I heard him say and giving him the opportunity to clarify. Example: “I saw two Japanese nuns at the airport.” “You slapped two Japanese nuns at the airport?!” “I SAW two Japanese nuns at the airport.” “Oh...”

(Unfortunately, in a written medium, those little slipups are more difficult to convey. Realistic dialogue reads very unrealistically, and while I try to be authentic about putting in vocal tics, verbal pauses, and dialogue repetition, the joke just doesn’t come off the same when I’ve typed it out.)

Since Richie is the man of a thousand voices, I also gave him a little bit of echolalia. I’m honestly not sure if this is a typical ADHD symptom or an autism spectrum symptom, but even now Richie talks to himself, does voices, and plays with every sound like it’s a new toy (Animorphs quote). I figure that’s part of his creative process when he’s writing his own material, but him singing to himself, pulling voices without being aware of it--Richie is almost never quiet. Even when he’s in Eddie’s hospital room, choosing to be quiet so Eddie can sleep, he’s still talking to himself. He just doesn’t do it out loud, but when Eddie wakes up he sees Richie talking with his hands.

The other big thing is that Indelicate!Richie is on his phone basically all the time. Eddie doesn’t know to what degree Richie’s currently avoiding his professional responsibilities (answer: to an absolute degree, meaning almost entirely, because I’ve given Richie my avoidant personality), but Richie is basically constantly on his phone, even when the television is on, because Eddie is very sleepy as he recovers and Richie has a dopamine-producing little machine in his pocket at all times and he’s addicted to phone games. I know recently I’ve written a lot of Eddie being sleepy and cuddly, but Richie just cannot sit still for that long even when he’s charmed by how cute and cuddly sleepy Eddie is. I know someone made lovely fanart of one of the cuddling scenes, where Eddie’s pressed up to Richie’s chest and Richie has his phone behind Eddie’s head so he doesn’t crawl out of his skin while Eddie’s sleeping.

I know that I mentioned some of the rejection-sensitive dysphoria in the content warnings for one of the chapters (because my god my rejection-sensitive dysphoria was crippling when I was younger). Otherwise I don’t really want to take credit for things that haven’t made it onto the page (and I know that the auditory processing thing is one of them we might not see much of, but I promise it’s something I’m thinking about as I write all of this talking back and forth). Otherwise I have Richie have an inverse response to caffeine, which is why he’s constantly self-medicating and still manages to take long naps with Eddie, and I think I mentioned the first time Richie had coffee as a teenager and fell asleep on Ben’s floor, which is something that I did with my best friend back in high school. And I also think that Richie, being intelligent and self-loathing, is extremely prone to ruminating, and he has ample opportunity to do that while Eddie is either off-screen or unconscious, so that’s aggravating his communication issues with Eddie--but we don’t really see much of his thought spirals in Indelicate.

I also think that Richie has mellowed out significantly now that he’s in his forties; I noticed distinct shifts in my behavior once I turned thirteen and then again once I went to college and was given more autonomy and less regulation, and now a lot of people don’t know I have ADHD unless I’m living with them. I did mention Eddie being made to sit through the Amazing Ricardo’s performances, though, and Richie coping very badly when his performance started to go downhill; for like the first twelve years of my life whenever things didn’t go my way (i.e., I was eight and didn’t have the dexterity for origami, or I dropped a pen into the crack between a wall and a piece of furniture at a restaurant) I really handled things very poorly, and it was just as awkward for all witnesses as it was for Eddie, Stan, and Bill in Richie’s audience.

I have another fic in the drafting stage where established-relationship married Richie and Eddie have had to negotiate careful storage systems for things like keys because Richie has clutter blindness but he does get background stress from interrupted fields of vision and then he’ll melt down when trying to do something mundane like go the airport or find the air mattress--which has been a lot of my quarantine year so far, to be honest--but because Richie’s in an unfamiliar space and Ben’s space is just so weird I think some of the background information is still novel enough that he’s still seeing it.

Again, I don’t want to take credit for things that aren’t really on the page, and since this is an Eddie-focused story Eddie isn’t necessarily aware of everything that’s happening on Richie’s end, but I promise that Richie with ADHD is near and dear to my heart and it definitely informs his characterization.

#my fic #now what i'm gonna say may sound indelicate #nwigsmsi #indelicate #indelicate spoilers #actuallyadhd

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eyeslikefoxglove · 4 years

Text

Episode 4 - Meng Yao has a crush & Foxglove likes to babble

Hello everybody, welcome to episode 4. I slept like a baby last night, but I have a migraine so I may sound a bit incoherent. (Post episode Foxglove here, I’m not incoherent in this, I’m just ranty)

Poor WWX. Funny story, during my first? Second? Year of Med School I fell aspleep on my biophysics notes during exam period, woke up at 9pm when my alarm for my meds started ringing, realised what I’d done and called my mum (who was on a 24h shift at the hospital) crying. In hindsight is hilarious because I had something like two weeks until the exam so I lost no more than a few hours but oh well.

Full disclosure here: I don’t like the Lan sect, LXC, LWJ and the Ducklings excluded I think they’re a bunch of hypocrites. You can’t call yourself righteous and boast about your almost 4000 rules and then shrug when people decide to commit genocide.

Also, 4000-ish rules? Fuck that noise, there’s a post floating around here where some amazing soul translated what they could see of the Wall of Rules and yeah, some of them are in the “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others” vein which, absolutely fair. But things like “dress properly” who are you to tell me what and how I cover my body with? “Don’t be promiscuous” wow thanks for the slut shaming my dudes. “Don’t smile foolishly/don’t smile too much”, “sit properly”, “don’t be too sad”, “don’t be too happy”. You’re telling me these are rules, not guidelines, not common sense stuff. RULES. You’re telling me people get punished for grinning or crying. Fuck off mate.

And we can’t forget the golden example of hypocrisy “Don’t talk to Wei Wuxian” so much for “don’t speak ill of others”.

Is my Western Girl showing? I’m sorry, I’m from Spain and I was raised by the guidelines “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others, don’t take anyone’s bullshit, live and let live, have courage and be kind, we will always love and support you” so some stuff in here is very very grating. I don’t have enough knowledge about the culture to discern if it is because of my modern sensibilities or because my culture is so different.

Oooooohhh I don’t like birds. I mean, I love crows, ravens and birds of prey to an unhealthy degree, but they keep their distance. The other day a pigeon flew into my building and decided that my (very dark) doorstep was the place to have a rest. I screamed like a banshee.

Hey, those two assholes at the back, get the fuck out of here.

LXC protective mode activated.

You will never convince me Meng Yao did not develop a monster crush right then and there.

Oh no. It’s this asshole.

Oh WangJi about to cut a bitch.

Drag him WWX.

MY’s protective mode activated.

And LXC is too done with this shit. Yep, NHS also thinks MY got a massive crush.

WQ aka Qishan Wen’s only braincell.

It’s the One Braincell Trio!

Notice me sempai! Omg JC’s faces.

This is where I dump all my canon-divergence AUs:

Meng Yao stays in Cloud Recesses. He and LXC keep gazing longingly into each other’s eyes.

NHS introduces him to the other two from the One Braincell Trio. WWX takes one look at him and goes “yep, you’re my friend now, I’m kneecapping anybody who fucks with you.” Because there’s no way he wouldn’t be sympathetic to MY after his own childhood (omg, both of them drunk, making terrible gallows’ humour jokes about living poor and mostly homeless while JC and NHS just listen horrified). JC goes into overprotective bro mode with MY. I mean, he still can’t emote for shit but he’s made very very sure that he will cut a bitch for MY and at least he knows MY has a brain, not like someone else he knows.

Shijie makes friends with MY because Shijie is a goddess and MY is so confused because how the hell does someone so kind exist? And she wants to be friends? And she doesn’t care at all about his past? What? MY.exe has stopped working.

Maybe JZX gets his head out of his ass and goes to talk to MY and warn him about what an asshole JGS is, because I refuse to think JZX doesn’t know it. Maybe MY hears him disparaging Shijie and decides that nope, the Jins can fuck right off every single one of them is a rude idiot; it’s ok with him because of his parentage (it’s not ok) but no one touches Shijie. The Yunmeng sibs is where it is at.

And that’s when he unleashes his full Slytherin powers on behalf of his new family. Because he does indeed have a fully functioning brain and shit is going to get really ugly really fast for all the people he loves if he doesn’t try and mitigate the damage somehow.

(A lot of mutual XiYao pinning is going on in the background because I live for the angst ok. LWJ fully approves of him as a brother-in-law tho)

A lot of terrible shit still happens because this is my AU and I want pain, but not only does JGS not have MY’s enormous brain on his side when he tries to seize power, he’s actively working against him (you can’t tell me MY wouldn’t get the kick of his life publicly bringing down and exposing his terrible father).

I’m sorry, back to the commentary.

This two idiots omg.

It’s WQ! Drag him WQ (gently)

I’m going to channel my ballet teacher here for a second: put your hair up! (You bunch of spider crabs, as she would call us)

I mean, JC’s hair is clearly in his face when he’s doing drills and, while the visual of all that dark hair whipping in the wind with the robes (another beef I have, they look like they’d catch on everything) is very dramatic I can assure you it’s fucking annoying. Plus it limits your visual field a lot. Again, I know jack about the culture and people can fly on swords here so why am I complaining about hair but let me live.

I used to have that much hair (then I got a pixie, now I’m growing it back out) and smacking yourself on the face with your own braid hurts.

Shijie knows what’s up with Jiang “I can only show anger” Cheng.

My one track mind when I saw the fish: Anisakis!

I think I would absolutely become a vegetarian if I got dropped in the past tbh. Not only is there no quality control of animal products (hello Trichinella), there’s also no way to do a proper cold storage (hello Salmonella). I’ve read and seen to many horror stories due to contaminated animal byproducts and, while vegetables pose their own risk (hello E. Coli) usually you only have to be thorough at washing and peeling to not have trouble.

5am wake up call without coffee. Fuck that noise.

Wei “I’m a petty gremlin” Wuxian.

I once called WWX a “mad scientist with ADHD” on an AO3 comment and I stand by that assessment.

Ok, but why the turtle caricature? It’s because turtles are “old and wise” like LQR? Is that the joke? Or are they laughing at WWX’s balls?

AW NO PAPERMAN.

“Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood? // Where, would you look if I asked you to get me a bezoar? // And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?” It’s pretty much the same energy. LQR is Ancient magic China’s version is Severus Snape down to the pettiness. He tries to catch WWX in a mistake, and when he can’t he dismisses his knowledge (look at Shijie’s face when he says WWX should not be proud to know what he does). He keeps pushing until WWX’s runs into a wall, then uses LWJ to “show him how it’s done” I mean, look how smug he looks and how uncomfortable everyone else is.

“Pity... clearly, fame isn't everything.”

(No, I don’t like LQR and I don’t like Severus Snape either; tragic past and sacrifices do not give you a pass to abuse children don’t @ me, I’m not interested in changing my mind)

And here is where all my “mad scientist with ADHD” hc stem from.

“No screaming in Cloud Recesses.” Screams LQR (yes, I’m 100% that bitch)

WEN NING IS HERE HI WN YOURE SO PRECIOUS.

But intercepting an arrow mid flight is some Geralt of Rivia Witcher bullshit right there.

Detective Wei strikes again.

The scenery is gorgeous my god.

Can we talk again about how this 16-year-old boy reacted to someone sneaking up on him by drawing his sword and attacking? That’s not fucking normal, that’s a common reflex in soldiers or people with PTSD.

(The Netflix translation has him calling LWJ “WangJi” and I die)

Thanks for reading!

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #mdzs live action #foxglove watches cql #foxglove watches the untamed #commentary #Foxglove rants #foxglove babbles #wei wuxian #wangxian #lan wangji #meng yao #lan xichen #jin guanyao #xiyao #episode 4

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fiddlepickdouglas · 4 years

Text

This is a personal rant so you can scroll on if you like.

I'm an old college kid. Like, I could be done with grad school by now, but life just didn't go that way - I still have about 2 years as an undergrad. I know it looks ~meh~ to the outside world, no matter how often people say "life isn't a race, don't worry what they think!" Well, it also doesn't help that I had to move in with my parents at the start of quarantine and had trouble finding a good job until literally this past week (which I don't start until November). I'm the almost-30 year old mooch in my parent's basement right now, literally, and I know it's not a flattering position.

Things are improving: getting a job as a bank teller that has consistent hours, opportunities to move up, and I can easily plan a class schedule around it is a blessing and a miracle.

But I wish my family in general would acknowledge one particular thing and respect it, instead of treating it like they do. I've been unofficially aware that I have something that *looks a lot like* ADHD for at least the past two years. Like, I'm positive that's it, I just haven't been able to afford seeing a doctor to get an official diagnosis. Even if I'm wrong, it's clear that I'm neurodivergent - I've always been that way. I was definitely one of those "gifted" students when I was young who later had lots of academic problems later, but I can pinpoint those problems showing up as early as the second grade.

It isn't that my parents didn't really try, but they waited until I was in middle school, when puberty hit, to finally do something and everyone including the doctors just called it depression. The medication did a little work to make me seem normal, but I discovered quickly that my parents were only happy with the results if it seemed like I was an obedient child who didn't argue or question things and I spent less time in isolation.

This made me reluctant to go to doctors because I was afraid the meds were just another control tactic and not a real solution. So we stopped. I recently asked my mom why she didn't keep looking for answers, because I continued to struggle academically (among other things). She blamed it on my stubbornness. For her, it wasn't worth understanding how my brain functioned. She preferred to decide that I was just too hard for her to understand and the only way for me to please her was to force me to conform to her as much as she could.

As a neurodivergent person who lost their job and got displaced at the peak of COVID-19, living with an undertone of shame for being the adult child in my parent's home, and all the weight of things happening this year, needless to say I'm a bit of a mess and I have barely managed it.

So, to setup what's got me bothered today: I use an app to sell slightly used clothes, but I have a small mountain of clothes (organized, but it's still kind of a lot) that I need to sell and it's been taking up space. My parents have a whole freaking house plus other storage space on top of that, and they're getting bugged about these clothes not being sold fast enough. They're not just lying around the house, they're in an out-of-the way closet except for a few that I pulled out to take pictures of.

My mom goes through them - first mistake, since I've already told her several times to keep her paws off my things because she has a track record of just getting rid my stuff and disrespecting my privacy - and picks out all the things that still had tags on them and thinks the rest can just be donated. I'm glad she only got that far before I could tell her PLEASE DON'T. And then she offered to buy some of them off me and then donate them anyway because she doesn't want me to end up like my "packrat" grandmother.

She keeps acting like I'm attached to these clothes and that's why they don't sell fast enough. That's not even it! I've just collected junk over the years, or friends have dumped their old stuff and told me to do as I wish, and I want to make money off of them! I know how stingy my mom is with certain things, and I know she wouldn't pay me what I know some of those items are worth.

And then she says she thinks it'll just take up less space in my mind, as if she's being conscious of my ADHD (which she refuses to properly acknowledge and chooses to think I'm actually somewhere on the autism spectrum although she has no idea how to handle someone with autism either).

The amount of disrespect in this makes me want to scream. I'm not being given the chance to handle my own things and being treated like a child, my personal property is not safe, and I'm being mocked in such a backhanded way it's truly astounding.

And the whole thing about my grandma? I know she is an imperfect human like everyone else but she is the sweetest and most hard-working person I know and hearing her be reduced to a "packrat" is so insulting. No need to imagine why my grandma keeps things on hand even if it's too much? Her lifestyle is giving and creating - she always cooks 5x more than necessary because she hates to see people starve, she made me and my siblings pajamas for Christmas each year until her hands couldn't do it anymore, she made her home a beautiful place for us to go to whenever we could visit and it wasn't about looks, it was about warmth. When I'm old I want to be so much like her, and yeah I'm pissed that my mom, her daughter in law, thinks of her that way.

I grew up being controlled and subdued and pressured into a mere shadow of my potential and I won't tolerate having both myself and my hero being disrespected over something that to any other rational being wouldn't even be an annoyance. And I'm tired of having to constantly guard my things in fear that they will suddenly disappear one day with only a "oops" and a shrugs from my mother.

🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

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unfortunate-stranger-losers · 4 years

Photo

It’s the Hard-Knock Life - an ATWQ Modern AU [tumblr] [ao3]

TWO - EVERYONE HAS STORIES (or, how Drumstick joins a Gang)

“You’re gonna hate school.” Kit assured the new kids, skipping along the sidewalk and pulling her braid onto her shoulder.

“Always did.” Ellington shrugged, staring down at her shoes.

Drumstick nervously clung to Jacques’s arm as he showed him the way, and said, “Is it that bad?”

“Everyone sucks and the teachers are stupid.” Lemony said, not looking up from his phone.

“Lemony just means the teachers won’t let him mouth off.” Jacques said. Lemony, still without looking up, flipped him off.

“Well…” Drumstick stuttered. “At least you have friends, right?”

“All our cool friends are homeschooled.” Lemony sighed.

“Shut up, Lem. You chill with Ornette and Kellar all day.” Kit sighed. “Be a dear and make Drum hang out with them, too.”

“Make him hang out with your- actually, shit, bad idea, Olaf’ll be a bad influence.”

“Excuse you,” Ellington said, “I’m the worst influence.”

“No, Lemony’s right.” Jacques said. “Kit, if you don’t stop hanging out with him, I’m telling Theodora.”

“Theodora can’t nor won’t do shit, brother dear.”

Lemony sighed. “Kit, listen to me. You can do whatever you want-”

“And I do,” Kit said, “But also I feel like you’re about to say something that’ll make me slap you.”

“If he gets you pregnant, I am not accepting my responsibilities as uncle.”

Kit immediately slapped him, as did Jacques. And Ellington, who wasn’t offended but thought it might be fun.

Drumstick was bored throughout most of school. He sat beside Lemony, awkwardly introduced himself to the class, and then let the teacher drone on about the lesson, taking hasty notes. Lemony usually tossed looks towards a girl in a backwards baseball cap, rapidly folding paper, or a boy with spiky hair. If neither of them was in a class, Lemony would be on his phone under the desk. Drumstick kept getting nervous that the teachers would notice, but none of them ever did. He wondered if he could slip a few extra books in his bag; he had a phone, sure, but he’d gotten used to not using it, his Dad used to dislike it when he was distracted by a screen…

When school finally ended, Drumstick waited outside the building of Stain’d Secondary, waiting for Kit and Jacques to get out. Lemony was chatting with Ornette and Kellar, waving some books around and laughing, and Drumstick was a bit nervous about inserting himself into the friend group. Ellington wasn’t out yet, and honestly, Drumstick expected that she’d probably ditched class by second period and made her way to the train station. Course, she’d probably be brought back soon, but it meant they probably didn’t have to wait up for her.

He wandered over to a bench, sitting on the edge and kicking his feet, reaching in his bag to see if he could get a head start on homework.

Then he heard a door slam open, and a girl yell, “Go, go, go!”

Drumstick’s head shot up, as he saw two kids, about his age, race out from the side of the building, each holding a large, covered container in their arms. The girl raced past the bench, but the boy stopped a second, smiled at Drumstick, and said, “Hey, new kid! We’re fugitives!” And took off again.

Drumstick froze, mouth agape, watching the kids run off. Then, without thinking, he slung his bag over his shoulder, shot a glance at Lemony, and ran off after them.

He wasn’t entirely sure why, he just knew that he wanted to know what the hell was going on. And if they were running from someone, presumably an authority, he’d rather not be questioned. Besides, he knew good places to hide if these kids needed it.

The two kids ducked between two buildings, and Drumstick hurried in, saying, “Hey, wha-”

“Shh!” the girl slapped a hand over his mouth, her other arm still holding the container that seemed to be moving a bit. She pulled him against the wall, which the boy was pressed against as well. “Stay here. They won’t spot us.”

Drumstick glanced around the alley, and then shook his head. He pulled the girl’s hand from his mouth and said, “Too dangerous. That window’s ajar. Looks like it can be pulled open. Go in.”

“Someone could be in there.” the boy said.

“Well, the building’s a shop,” Drumstick said, gesturing to a hanging sign, “So if there were people in there we’d hear noises from the open window. Just get in.”

The boy and girl shared an impressed look, and then nodded. The boy ran to the window, pulled it open, and gestured. The girl leapt in without looking, and the boy said, “Come on, new kid.”

Drumstick followed quickly, as he started to hear footsteps follow. Once he jumped in, he glanced around quickly to see they were in a back storage room. He opened his mouth to say something, only to see that the boy and girl were already pushing boxes under the window so they’d be able to climb back out again.

“Nice move, kid.” the girl said, before nodding at their handiwork and picking up her container again. “Kev, wait by the window to see when they pass by. Then we’ll head to the river.”

“The river?” Drumstick asked.

The girl glanced at him, as if sizing him up. “You just moved here, right?”

Drumstick felt his face go a bit red. “Um, sort of. I- um- my-”

“He’s the Snickets’ new foster bro, Flo.” the boy said, scrambling up the boxes.

“Ah.” the girl nodded. “Wish I was in foster care. My mom sucks.”

Drumstick stared at her, half-shocked, half-unsure whether or not he should be offended. “What?”

“Yeah.” the girl said, leaning against the boxes that her friend was perched on, uncaring if they jostled or not. She hugged the container to her, and said, “My sisters say I’m overreacting, but they’re just little bitches who get to be in College and not around this bumfuck town.”

“Oh.” Drumstick said, still confused.

“Two just passed by.” the boy muttered, glancing down at them. “There should be a third in a second, considering what happened last time.”

“Last time?” Drumstick asked, concerned.

“Yeah, last time we kicked Stew Mitchum down the stairs.”

“You kicked someone down the stairs?”

“Well, not today.”

“Third just passed. We’re free to run.” the boy said, before hoisting himself back up out the window.

“Come on.” the girl gestured, before racing up the creaky boxes.

Drumstick looked cautiously at the pile, before saying, “I dunno. Is it safe.”

“Sure. We got up.” the boy said.

Drumstick still paused, and the boy sighed, before holding out his hand. “Come on, I’ll catch you if they topple. You trust me?”

Drumstick really didn’t know, there were very few people he trusted. Ellington, for starters, and… shit, that was it. Just her. But even though this boy was apparently a fugitive, he seemed… nice. And quite honest. Honest people were generally trustworthy, he found.

“Sure.” he muttered, before jumping onto a box. It creaked, and he could feel piles of something small inside- books, likely, which made for unstable standing. So he jumped to the next one, and the next, until he reached the window. Though he didn’t need help, the boy grabbed his hands and helped him back out onto the ground.

“Thanks for the tip. That’ll be much more useful than hoping they don’t use peripheral vision.” the girl said. She grinned, hugged the container to her chest, and then said, “Now! Onwards! We must abscond from this shitshow and make our way to the rivers of the free!”

“What the fuck did you just say?” the boy said.

“I said we’re absconding out of here. Come on, before they catch us and take the captives!”

“The what?” Drumstick asked.

Without responding, the girl took off, and the boy followed. He still had a hold on one of Drumstick’s hands, though it was loose enough that Drumstick could probably escape his grip if he wanted. But instead, Drumstick just shrugged off his confusion and followed the two.

The girl seemed to know her path quite well, leaping over bushes and ducking under branches, skidding across sidewalks and stopping just before a green light flickered on for the cars. The boy followed her lead, grinning a little and occasionally flashing a smile at Drumstick. She finally led them behind a group of small houses and over a grassy lawn, where there was a stream. It was much bluer than Drumstick expected- city rivers usually were quite polluted, but this one looked nice- and there was a small wooden bridge going over it. The girl settled to a stop underneath a tree overlooking the river, and she slid down its trunk, sitting and putting the container in her lap. The boy stopped beside her, sitting down as well, so Drumstick joined them.

“So… what’s going on?” he asked.

“Oh, shit, we didn’t tell him!” the girl slapped her forehead. “We’re so fucking dumb.”

“It’s just the ADHD, Flo.”

“You’re the one with ADHD. Autism’s got attention problems, too, but that’s not the issue, the issue is we’re idiots. We don’t even know who this is!”

“Uh, yeah, we do! He’s the Snickets’ foster brother.”

“I’m Drumstick.” he introduced.

“Well, I’m Florence Smith.” the girl said, grinning.

“Kevin Old.” the boy waved. “You’re in some of our classes.”

Drumstick blushed. He sucked at remembering faces. “Oh?”

“Yeah. We’ll throw you notes.” Kevin said. “But right now, Flo, let’s set the prisoners free.”

“Right.” Florence set the container down, and then pulled off the lid and carefully titled it to its side. “Be free, you little shits!”

Drumstick watched, wide-eyed, as out of the box hopped a frog. And then another, and another, and soon several frogs were hopping around in the grass. Florence pulled the box back up after a minute, sighed, and reached in, lifting the final frog in her hands. “Come on, sir, ‘twas not your destiny to die today.” She set it down on the grass and waved as it hopped off, before flapping her hands to get a bit of mucus off, and then flapping them a bit more for good measure.

Drumstick watched the frogs go- most heading to the water, though some poked around the grass and rocks, and one hopped onto the roots of a tree. “Frogs?”

“Frogs held prisoner by Doctor Flammarion the Science Teacher.” Kevin scoffed. “To be experimented on and ripped apart.”

“You mean,” Drumstick said, understanding finally, “Those were the frogs we were supposed to dissect tomorrow.”

“And now they’re free.” Florence nodded. “To live and die and- is it mating season? Cause they could go off and have an overjoyed orgy.”

“Ew, gross.” Kevin punched her shoulder. “Shut up.”

“All animals do it, Kev.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to talk about it in front of the new kid.”

“Drumstick.” Drumstick reminded them.

“That’s your actual name, huh?” Florence said. “Can see why you’re in foster care.”

“Flo.”

“It’s fine.” Drumstick sighed. “Ellington’s about as blunt.”

“So, what’s your story, then?” Florence leaned over.

“Flo, seriously-”

“Everyone’s got a story, Kev. And sometimes it’s fun to talk about it.”

“Not really.” Drumstick said.

“I like talking about stories.” Florence said. “Especially in books. I want to be a writer. My mom wants me to go into the flower business but she’s just a-”

“Drumstick fucking Read!”

Drumstick jumped and turned, to see Kit racing across the lawn to him, waving with one hand and gripping Ellington’s forearm with the other; Ellington looked glum, and Drumstick guessed she’d made an attempt to bolt and gotten caught quite quickly. Behind them were Jacques and Lemony; once Lemony saw Kevin and Florence, he stopped, threw his head back, and let out a groan.

“Bro, what the fuck?” Kit slid next to them, as Drumstick jumped to his feet, and Kevin and Florence carefully clambored to theirs. “If Lemony hadn’t seen which direction you bolted- we already had to catch- where did you go, Theodora woulda killed us, almost losing two of you in one day!”

“Sorry.” Drumstick suddenly felt a rush of guilt and anxiety. “I was-”

“It’s our fault, Kitkat.” Kevin said, throwing an arm around Drumstick. “We were showing him the bridge.”

“The kissing bridge? Come on, Kev, he’s only been in town one day.”

“Not in that way.”

Jacques and Lemony caught up, and Lemony said, “You freed the frogs, didn’t you?”

“Viva la revolución.” Florence nodded.

“Goddamnit.” Jacques facepalmed.

“Well, we better get going anyway.” Kit sighed. “Come on, Drum, we don’t wanna be late home.”

“Uh, yeah.” Drumstick nodded. He turned to Florence and Kevin, and said, “I’ll see you-”

“Real quick.” Kevin held up a hand. “Zodiac sign?”

Drumstick paused. “What?”

Kit and Lemony groaned, and Ellington said, “Drumstick, you’re a Libra. I’m Scorpio.”

Kevin and Florence exchanged a look, and then Kevin pointed at Drumstick. “Good.” He pointed to Ellington and said. “You’re under watch.”

Ellington shared an incredulous look with Kit, and then said, “Fair.”

“See ya later, kid.” Kevin said, giving him a gentle punch on the shoulder, and then he immediately ran to the tree they’d been sitting under and grabbed a branch with both hands, swinging himself up into the leaves.

“Hey, wait up, jackass!” Florence called, racing after him.

“Those two are trouble, Drumstick, how did you run into them first?” Jacques said.

“Trouble?” Drumstick asked.

“They called themselves the Big Bad Brick Gang last year,” Lemony explained, “Because I caught them tossing bricks through shop windows to steal swords.”

“Cool.” Ellington smirked, and then held out a hand for Drumstick to high-five. “Nice work.”

“That’s it. Home, now.” Jacques said. He moved to the back of the group and pushed them to get them to start walking.

Drumstick glanced over his shoulder and saw Kevin and Florence, resting on a tree branch and waving at him. He smiled and waved back.

“First Ellington tries to climb out a window, then Drumstick runs off with two juvenile delinquents-” Jacques began.

“Juvenile delinquents?” Lemony giggled.

“-and on top of that, Kit and her stupid fucking friends-”

“Do I make fun of your friends?”

“Your friends tried to set the dumpster on fire.”

“Yeah, that’s why they rock.”

“So, we’ve all got shit friends.” Ellington muttered to Drumstick, and then she smiled. “Good to know we’re all gonna have some fun while we’re stuck here.”

#atwq #all the wrong questions #asoue #a series of unfortunate events #drumstick read #hard knock life fic #hard knock life au #mine #my fanfic

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thesupergamercorpus · 5 years

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Keywords and ideas

Cocktail party effect → being able to listen to someone while ignoring all the other sounds;

Early selection models → filter is located and pre-programmed in the beginning of the process;

Late selection models → filter is programmed at the end of the process;

Broadbent’s filter → eliminates all unattended messages;

Attenuation model of attention → early selection → intensifies attended messages and weakens unattended messages;

Memory selection model of attention → late selection → intensifies attended messages and weakens unattended messages;

Multimode model of attention → a model that proposes one can shift between early and physical selection to late and semantic selection, and vice versa;

Physical selection → selection based on pitch, loudness, color, direction etc.;

Semantic selection → selection based on personal significance and memory.

Abstract

This article is mostly meant as self-reflection, namely to enhance my own learning, which explains the unoriginality. I don’t, however, see any negatives from sharing my own learning.

In this article, I will talk about the various selection theories of attention, most of them built upon Broadbent’s filter model of attention. The models try to explain what is called the cocktail party effect.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect — Cocktail party effect, Wikipedia

The cocktail party effect is the phenomenon of the brain’s ability to focus one’s auditory attention (an effect of selective attention in the brain) on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, as when a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room.

Early selection models of attention

These models are based upon the idea that the filter of stimuli is located at the “front” of the whole process i.e. “early”.

The filter of stimuli, as the name says, filters out unattended messages i.e. irrelevant stimuli while allowing attended messages i.e. relevant stimuli to pass. There are different theories proposing how this filter works, but we will get to them later on in this article.

Once the attended messages pass the filter, they enter what is called the preattentive memory store i.e. a temporal memory storage that happens before conscious attention is directed toward the source delivering those attended messages. The fact that certain specific neurons tend to get activated before conscious attention has been directed toward the source, supports the existence of a preattentive memory store.

Finally, the attended messages are processed via higher-order thinking and have the possibility to enter our consciousness via the working-memory (both our consciousness and working-memory are located in the prefrontal cortex, hence higher-order thinking can happen subconsciously).

Preattentive memory store

The existence of this system allows preattentive stimuli to work in a serial manner such as shown in the images of this article.

Late selection models of attention

These models are based upon the idea that the filter of stimuli isn’t “set-up” until higher-order processing such as semantic encoding has taken place.

Once semantic encoding has taken place, the filter will be programmed to attenuate unattended messages i.e. weaken them (not remove them). The filter will also be programmed to intensify attended messages.

In other words, all messages are attended to until semantic encoding has taken place, which will decide what messages will become attended and unattended further on. This, as opposed to early selection where not all messages are attended, or at least in the beginning of the process.

Physical selection

Physical selection means that information is selected upon their “physical” features such as loudness, color, pitch, and direction.

Semantic selection

Semantic selection means that information is selected upon their meaning, which can be determined by things like personal significance and memory.

Tradeoff between physical and semantic selection

The general tradeoff between physical and semantic selection, is that physical selection requires less attentional resources because of their simplicity, while semantic selection requires more attentional resources because of the added complexity caused by the linkage to personal significance derived from memory.

Tradeoff between early and late selection

The general tradeoff between early and late selection, is that early selection requires less attentional resources because of more physical selection while decreasing the breadth of attention because the filter is placed much earlier on i.e. less attended messages.

Late selection, on the other hand, requires more attentional resources because of more semantic selection while increasing the breath of attention because the filter is placed much later on i.e. more attended message.

Second, because early selection decreases the breadth of attention, this will reduce the amount of messages that will be attended. This, however, allows one to allocate more attentional resources per attended message.

Late selection has exactly the opposite, it increases the breadth of attention, which increases the amount of attended message, and therefore causing the same amount of attentional resources to be less allocated per attended message.

One can see it as somewhat similar to a flashlight with an adjustable light cone:

Modified early selection model: attenuation model of attention

The original early selection model by Broadbent says that its filter allows only attended messages to pass. Anne Treisman wasn’t so keen on that idea and proposed an alternative, namely how the filter attenuates unattended messages i.e. weakens them while intensifying attended messages.

This model further proposes that unattended messages can become attended when surpassing a certain threshold. This threshold is relativistic, meaning that things like your own name have a lower threshold, and are therefore more quickly to become attended messages, while things like unknown names have a higher threshold, and are therefore more likely to remain unattended messages.

Memory selection model of attention

This model is somewhat similar to the attenuation model of attention, but the difference is that this model is based upon late selection rather than early selection. In other words, all messages are attended to until semantic encoding has taken place, which will decide what messages become attended and unattended based upon memory and personal significance. This, as opposed to the attenuation model of attention, where not all messages are attended in the beginning.

Again, unattended messages can still become attended later on when surpassing a certain threshold.

Multimode model of attention

This is the most advanced model of attention, which really combines all elements. The model proposes that one is able to shift between early selection and late selection as well as between either more dominant physical or semantic selection.

The shift can happen in two main ways: When the stimulus is simple, early and physical selection will be applied. When the stimulus gets more complex, however, a shift is made to late and semantic selection.

The other way a shift can happen is somewhat the other way around: When perceptual load is low, late selection will be applied as there are enough attentional resources left to allow this. As perceptual load increases, however, a shift is made to early selection, decreasing the breadth of attention in order to increase the efficiency of allocating attentional resources to relevant stimuli.

See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19843262 — Selective attention and perceptual load in autism spectrum disorder

Practice questions

What are the differences between early and late selection?

What are the differences between physical and semantic selection?

What is the difference between attended and unattended messages?

How would things develop without a preattentive memory store?

How does an attenuator filter work?

Bonus question: how do these models apply to people with autism, sensory processing sensitivity, ADHD, etc.?

Afterword

In part two, I will try to combine the concepts presented in part one with autism, so stayed tuned for more by subscribing: https://mailchi.mp/261ae9e13883/autibiography

10/29/2019 — Autism + A Lack of Theory Of Mind = More Confidence? — How a lack of theory of mind reduces mismatches between cortical representations of the environment and incoming sensory information

10/21/2019 — Chapter One: Cognitive Load Theory and Autism — How high extraneous cognitive load affects people with autism

10/09/2019 — Psychological Entropy, Summary — Why we seek certainty and avoid uncertainty

#autobiography #biography #2019 #November #Wednesday

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elegantdelusionparadise-blog · 4 years

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Start today thus you can feel better in the near future.

#vitamins #minerals #health

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malemblogs · 7 years

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A quick rewind to the summer

While my blog might have been inactive this summer, I certainly wasn’t. With ‘Festival Season’ in our sites this May, I started working with a company called PTL who have standing contracts with a number of festivals around the country supplying the toilets for both arenas and campsites, as well as providing luxury toilets and showers at certain festivals, I began working, alongside my sister Tamara, with the festival site crew as a supervisor for the crew, affectionately known as ‘the penguins’ on the festival grounds. While I didn’t spend a lot of time onsite around production or during build and breaks, I still had my eyes opened and my mind blown seeing how much has to happen for a festival to happen, I’d compare it to a town being built easily. The toilets are a small part of what goes on, but an essential part of it, everything from the water, to the power to the roads and walkways have to be added to the site before anything can happen.

The first two festivals I worked at were both no camping events, which were the easier of the two, we had between 100 and 300 toilets on each site and were over seeing seven crew only, which for the most part was relatively easy, the crew had been split into groups and assigned toilet blocks to cover, and it was our job to ensure they had everything they needed, ensuring they got lunch and most importantly making sure the job was being done. In that group of seven we had a group of three lads (for lack of a better word), who tested and tried our patience every day for these two festivals, trying to find three young men in a crowd of 10,000+ was not an easy thing to do, especially when they’d taken their high vis off, we made it to the end of day having tracked them down and sniffing out their hiding spot, and got the job done. I learned really quickly that some people don’t care if they have toilet roll or not towards the end of the night, I mean some people don’t even care if they have a toilet or not! Towards the end of the night at Field Day, we were severely understaffed, so it was one of those days I had to get stuck in and deal with the toilets myself, I have found condoms, knickers, used tampons, a portaloo where they’d managed to shit on the floor, a toilet that was wall to wall covered in shit, let me say, those units aren’t big, there’s about enough room to go in, sort yourself out, and leave again, you have to go a long way out of your way before you can poop on the floor. Field Day opened my eyes to just how disgusting people can be, and over the rest of the summer they didn’t let me down.

The first real festival I ever saw through from start to finish was Download festival at Donnington Park, while I have worked at festivals in the past, it was always as part of a backline crew and a matter of in that morning, set up, do the show, pack down and get back on the bus. This was a new kind of monster. From the get go I knew that this wasn’t going to be anything like Common People or Field Day, we would be here for 8 nights, camping in tents, if it wasn’t for the fact the company also provided luxury showers and toilets for this festival alongside the portaloos, I’d have been a wreck by day 3.

This time round, we probably had the hardest crew to deal with out of all of the festivals but definitely also one of the most fun, jumping from seven to twenty-one, among them, the most difficult man I’ve ever known to work with, Rusty, a 32 year old kleptomaniac, ADHD suffering, manic depressive with tendencies to lie, who can’t be left on his own by recommendation of a doctor, who refuses to do what he’s told or asked unless he is watched and followed like a hawk all day, above and beyond everything he put us through that weekend, was the hour he vanished and when I did finally find him, he’d spent the hour helping a random punter get a large amount of drugs out of his body, I can’t fathom any reason a grown man would want to help anyone do that, never mind a stranger. Between Rusty and the rest of his friends, managing the staff at Download was one of the most stressful experiences I’ve ever had, but the rest of the summer felt like a breeze in comparison. After Download, my boss said to myself and my sister, ‘If you can manage Rusty, as effectively as Rusty can be managed, you can manage anybody.’ I haven’t yet found that to be untrue.

While I thought that Download was a new kind of beast when I got there, being blessed with luxury showers and only having to cover campsite toilets, honestly was a gentle introduction to the big beasty a festival site really is, the following festivals we worked at required our company to look after toilets in the Main Arena, Camp Bestival saw us covering the entire festival site, including staff toilets, and had us managing up to 30 staff at one time, most of which were between 17 and 21, surprisingly enough, while the younger crew did tend to sneak off more for a cheeky wee song here and there, I had the most trouble at one of these festivals with a middle aged couple called John and Theresa. They started off by sneaking their dog onto the festival site, and continued to be late very morning and then refuse to wear shoes while working in and around the toilets and who tried at every opportunity to tell you stories of their glory days. You go to any festival site and you look at the punters, you see festivals and the people there operate on a different set of rules, it’s almost like all normal social constructs go out the window, people really just do whatever they want, people like John and Theresa live their life by festival rules all the time I reckon.

Latitude was one of the most beautiful festivals I had the pleasure of working at this year, the woodland entertainment areas, the pink sheep and just the general atmosphere was lovely, however professionally Latitude was a bit of head melt for us, the toilets were just eating stock and on one occasion an hour passed before we were able to get stock to the blocks that required it, also because it’s such a big site, even on a buggy, getting from where our stock was to the blocks that needed them could take between 10 and 20 minutes depending on traffic. Speaking of traffic, on a stock run toward the end of the first working night here, going over a bump in the road, my phone fell out of my hands and proceeded get run over by one of the big gulpers, you know the truck ith the septic tank on it, and it crushed it to bits, even apple couldn’t fix it. Despite the problems we faced, people seemed to think the toilets were well looked after and relatively clean, and two of the penguins ended up getting a £30 tip. It ended up being a fun festival and to top it off we also got a cheeky photo in with Dick from Dick and Dom.

It was also at latitude I gained a newfound respect for the portaloo, after a few drinks I thought it would be okay to brave the long drops, if you don’t know what these are, it is essentially a hole in the ground with, in this case, a long plank of wood with holes cut out, with a metal cage plonked on top like cubicles, I didn’t know there was no toilet roll provided, it was the last night of a 3 day festival and I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. If you’ve never used one, try and keep it that way.

Camp Bestival was one of the more interesting festivals I worked at production wise, it takes place just kind of in and around a village, and I often was on a main road on the buggy to get from A to B, not that I minded, because the festival was laid out like this, on the last night a friend of mine who lives fairly locally was able to make it onto our campsite and with the help of twenty-something penguins shrouding her from security, we smuggled her into the festival site itself, that night is a whole other story in itself.

At this point, it’s been a long summer, I’ve packed and unpacked my suitcase more times than I’d have liked to, and I was getting really sick of seeing it, it’s not the same as just living out of a suitcase, those little teasers of home and living like a regular person make it harder. And it’s feeling like this I leave for V Fest, the end of festival season is near and I can feel my bed. I didn’t like V Fest, it was a lot like Field Day, only younger, the number of children at this event was insane, I spoke with some of the security and drug dog handlers about the measures in place dealing with the punters and drugs, and all in all it was very lax, the general idea was they’re predominantly after dealers, but if they are alerted to a punter with a small amount of drugs, of any age, they confiscate it and it goes no further than that. After possession, it’s out of their hands. V Fest also cut the number of staff they wanted from us by 50, but didn’t cut out the corresponding number of toilets, so we were all stretched very thin, and didn’t have access to the buggy, meaning in a crowded site full of drunken teenagers, me and Tamara had to carry stock around, and also try to track down wandering staff. The women’s toilets at V Fest were beyond foul, women are a special kind of disgusting after spending a few days drunk in a field, I have been physically attacked by a grown woman over a roll of toilet paper, there was used sanitary items thrown around the cubicles, women opening the storage unit and throwing toilet roll around the main arena, I could go on but I feel as though the rest of the stories are too graphic for this kind of a blog, but I’ve seen more stranger bodily fluids at this festival than I ever wanted to, ever. The only thing I will say for working at the toilets on a festival like this, people feel sorry for you, we got free rides on the carnival rides, and as soon as people see the penguin logo, there’s discounts too.

Straight from V Fest we had 7 hours at home then onto Leeds, which was an absolute dream, as there were no portaloos involved, just the Seat of Luxury toilets, and the worst thing we had to face was the occasional chancer trying to get in without paying and the smell of the long drops next door. I got to see Eminem, who I spent my childhood listening to, we had the luxury toilets, got some free food, danced, sang, drank and generally was merry, of course though, as is my luck, after having such a great week, once it came to our journey home, we ended up stuck in Leeds for 4 more hours than we were meant to, at this point in the village all the food traders were gone, the water points had been disconnected, everything is dead and none of us had any food left, no more bottled water, not even any beer! It’s amazing how quickly a festival site managed to rip itself down, after weeks of building and work going into it, as soon as possible, it comes apart again.

Looking back on this summer, I notice now that because our bosses trusted us, we spent most of the summer left to our own devices for the most part, and personally the only other time I’ve been left to my own devices on a job is when I’m not responsible for anything else, being put in a management position without much previous experiences, especially as someone who struggles with anxiety, was one of the hardest things in the world I thought going into it, but it came so naturally once I was there and knew what I was going. Initially our boss said they were going to go with different candidates, people who’d worked for the company before and knew the festivals and what was expected, but just has a gut feeling about Tamara and I, and took a chance on us, and I think I can say it’s mutual that we’re glad they did. At each of these festivals, the head of the company and her son who acts as Sales Director as well as the Site Project Manager visited to ensure the job was being done up to standard, he ended up posting about myself and Tamara on his LinkedIn he was so impressed with how we were doing, especially as we were just students, myself without any experience of a festival beginning to end, and having never managed people before. Another thing I didn’t really think about before I starting doing this was how to go about motivating people, it’s a hard thing to do, motivating a group of tired people at the end of a festival to perk up and make sure they’re feeling good about it and making sure they’re coping well, especially those who’ve over indulged the night before, and being able to motivate them and help encourage them to work better is hard after they’ve spent several days in a field dealing with strangers shit all day, pun not intended. It wasn’t something I saw myself being good at but I ended up getting along really well with the penguins, while still managing to get them to respect me.

I know you’re not meant to pat yourself on the back, but I spent a summer completely out of my comfort zone, spent for the most part, in and around the waste of strangers, I can safely say if I never manage to smell another festival toilet block it will be too soon. Even after the many, many, many sleepless nights shivering, and being cold, and wet, and tired, and stressed out, I wouldn’t trade my shitty summer for anything, I learned a lot more about festivals than I thought I would doing this job, but even doing the toilets, if you use your eyes it’s crazy how much you notice going on at any one given time. While I might not have gotten to see and be a part of the same side of the festival as my colleagues got to, when I do actually get to I’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing I started from the bottom, and I’ll always be nicer to the people working the toilets.

(You’ll be pleased to know there are no photos of the aforementioned toilets)

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petty-revenge-stories · 7 years

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Clean up after your dog.

warning: very long story with 4 updates for your satisfaction.

I live in a very nice condominium complex in a pretty decently sized city in the South. I managed to buy a unit at the ripe age of 23, after making a pretty penny in the stock market - making me easily the youngest person in the complex.

The units are one building with 4 condos per unit, each is two stories with a balcony for each bedroom and for the downstairs area. Not very important, but I want to paint a mental picture here.

The outside of my condo, when it comes to lawn space, is VERY small. I'm talking like a patch of grass no larger than most individual blocks of sidewalk.

About a couple of months ago, this woman moved in a few units over with a large boxer. Having two large dogs myself, I was happy to see more big dogs in the area (most the people around here have little foofy dogs).

One day, I walked outside to see a large pile of dog shit and this lady hastily walking away. I called out kindly - "excuse me ma'am, please clean up after your dog". She looked back, gave me a sour look, and continued walking away.

Okay, whatever, no big deal. I'll give her a freebie this time so I cleaned up after her and threw it away trying to be a good neighbor.

I want to mention now that I've REALLY tried to go above and beyond the neighborly call of duty - as I said earlier, in the youngest here and I want to make it clear to my neighbors that I'm not just some spoiled little bastard that is going to make their lives hell. I sweep my older neighbors porches, swap recipes and have even babysat one of their grandchildren. I do my best to be a good neighbor, it's just how I was raised.

However, this lady hit a sore spot. I let the first one slide, but this happened FIVE MORE TIMES IN THE SAME WEEK. Finally I confronted her and said "ma'am, I'm sick of cleaning your dogs shit and stepping around it every day. Please clean it up."

I shit you not, and I wish I was exaggerating. She looked me right in the eye and said "I paid for a condo too, I'll leave my shit wherever I want". She then briskly walked off while I stood in shock.

Finally, I snapped. So I began to save every piece of shit that dumb bitch left in front of my house for around two straight months. I had a HEFTY GARBAGE BAG FULL OF IT (imagine what you use to clean leaves up in, it was that big). I won't lie, I threw quite a bit of my own dog's excrement in there for good measure. I mean come on, just her dog wasn't going to cover the amount needed. That bag was F*CKING. HEAVY.

(where I stored it: Great question actually. All the condo units have individual cellars for storage. I stored it down there until I was ready to make my move. I probably should have mentioned that so you all wouldn't think I'm some psycho dog-shit hoarder who has a closet full of feces.)

Yes, it smelled like shit every time I opened the damn door to add to the pile. It took an immense amount of patience and gagging to pull this off - but it was well worth it.

I waited until 4 am on Monday morning before I walked up to her condo and dumped that bag right on her small tiny condo lawn. It was worth every second of patience.

Sure enough, come 7 am there's a bang on my door - and it's my lovely neighbor.

"You need to come f*cking clean this shit up RIGHT NOW!" - she screamed in my face.

I smiled "sorry ma'am, I paid for a condo here too. I'll leave my shit wherever I want."

In short - Lady kept leaving dog poop on my lawn, so I saved it all and dumped about 2 months worth on hers.

UPDATE #1 - she attempted to tell my next door neighbors that I "vandalized her property".

Unfortunately for her, her dog had also shit on their lawns a few times as well. They told her to clean up after herself and one of my older neighbors gave me a high five today when I explained the entire situation! Turns out being a good neighbor has paid off!

UPDATE #2: Got a call from the head of the Condo Association around 10 am regarding the incident, I just finished having her over for lunch (Baked tilapia with mango salsa, if anyone cares). The sour woman called her and apparently flipped shit, claiming I "vandalized her property and should be arrested".

Not only did I get away with this with no penalties, the woman who initially refused to pick up poop is getting FINED on top of having to clean all that poop up by herself! This ended up being some super sweet revenge!

The woman in charge of the association also informed me that a lot of my neighbors had called her to attempt to back me up in this entire ordeal. Apparently they also had issues with this woman and never said anything about it!

UPDATE #3: The entire association is now aware of the multiple complaints against this woman. Apparently, I was the push that got the stone rolling - so to speak. Since the incident occurred, multiple people in the complex have called to report this woman being extremely rude and not cleaning up after herself.

I've had FIVE neighbors ring my doorbell in the last few hours (I work from home, so I'm always around). One brought me a bottle of some nice Pinot Grigio, of which I am drinking as I'm typing this update (pretty good, and I'm not a big wine guy).

Luckily this woman (the sour lady) lives on an end unit, so the neighbors next to her were not at all bothered by the behemoth sized pile of dog excrement outside her house (none on the sidewalk, I might add). In fact, one of HER condo neighbors (unit connected) stopped by to thank me for, and I quote "teaching that bitch next door a goddamn lesson".

I am no longer worried about a war, as I have procured a vast amount of allies in this battle, including her neighbors in the same unit.

Checkmate, motherf*cker.

UPDATE #4: Well, guys, I appreciate all the love and support. Warms my heart to know so many people got a kick out of this situation. I'm now finishing up studying for a certification test I have on Thursday (wish me luck). I've been up for almost 28 straight hours now on my ADHD medication, so forgive me if typing is spotty and all over the place or if I leave something out. I'm half-dead typing this, and this will be my final UPDATE for you all besides individual comments (I'll do my best to get to each one, just give me some time).

I learned that that woman is going to receive multiple fines instead of just one because of the amount of complaints that have emerged today. I am unaware of the total amount or the fines individual cost, but I've seen speculations online and here that it can be anywhere from $50-$300. Anyone that knows something about this - i would LOVE to know the estimated total fine. I also was told to contact the head of the association if I had any inkling she was still committing the act - apparently everyone is watching this bitch now so I'm not too worried about retaliation.

As if some form of higher power is now fully behind my cause, it is now 68 F*CKING DEGREES OUTSIDE IN JANUARY. I bet the heat is going to make cleaning that up fantastic.

I took my dogs out for a walk, and had to make one last lap before I called it a day and die in my recliner. There is still shit on her lawn, guys....I mean she got most of it but realize here that most of it gone still leaves a very decent amount of crap. As if to drive the nail in the coffin, someone (not me, but I wish it was) left a BOX OF DOG POO BAGGIES on her f*cking porch. I swear to you all, I almost pissed myself laughing. I f*cking love this neighborhood so much right now.

Thanks again for reading, I appreciate the support. If you're going to get anything out of this story - make sure it's this:

Be a good neighbor, and clean your f*cking shit up.

(source) (story by deleted)

#petty revenge #by ThisShitIsNotFunMan #pettyrevenge #revenge stories #petty revenge stories #revenge #petty

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coal-the-shiba · 7 years

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Resource Guarding

So hours of reading and observing, and I finally know: it is definitely resource guarding. Without a doubt. There is little information on this behavior because it is not well studied. All we know for certain is that it is a natural inclination for dogs due to their heritage. They may be domesticated, but few breeders check for temperament (especially in purebreds) AND it is really hard to breed out as well. Resource guarding is an survival instinct. It can hit any and all dogs at any time. Young or old, the star of obedience or the not-so-great. Doesn't matter. Some dogs are so docile that they may never experience it. Or, like us, you just don't realize that what you are seeing is resource guarding.

Ever since Rudolph Schenkel wrote up about wolves and dogs and the "alpha" theory, it screwed everything up for dogs. Resource guarding was lumped into all sorts of behaviors that are actually non-existent in dogs or at least completely misunderstood. Even Schenkel himself said his own theory was bunk and that he was wrong. Dogs and wolves don't "get dominance" (that isn't even correct grammar as far as I am concerned! Should be "get dominant", but I digress) Their pack units are family units and roles are very fluid based on the skills and personalities of other wolves. The larger the "pack" then the more rankings you will find, but this will more often be in artificial packs than family units.

But because of this completely wrong course in behavioral science, there is little information about the behavioral problems in our pets because it all came down to "who was dominant". We humans tend to have an inability to look at things in all their complexities. We try to make it as simple as possible. We did the same thing with our own children when teaching them. Wrong answer? Slap on the wrist. Misbehave? Slap on the wrist. We as a species are horrible for taking one label and applying everything---including corrective and interactive measures--to under that label.

But here is the thing. Resource guarding is not a dominance issue. It is a natural thing that would be most appropriate in a survival situation. What we, as the "smarter" species has to do is counter condition it. That makes perfect sense. It is just like when we finally realized that those kids in school weren't trying to cause trouble on purpose---they had something in them they couldn't control and needed help in learning to work with it. Same thing here. It's like ADHD for dogs or something along those lines. Another thing people misunderstand about resource guarding is that it is NOT about plentiful versus scarce. Even free-fed dogs guard, despite the abundance (or maybe because of it!)

Now, the reason we weren't sure if he was resource guarding was because it didn't "look" like resource guarding. That is a biggy, too. There is an image of what resource guarding is and how it should look. You don't hear about the sporadic guarder who leaps at you with almost no warning. You don't see stuff on the dogs who don't technically hover over what they are guarding. All the videos show the classic tense-body, growl, snap, and hovering. The text-book cases.

Coal was nothing like that. Every time I showed my videos to various people, things ranged from "anxious/stressed" to "wants to play". The tension in his body was minimal, he wasn't growling or snapping, and it didn't happen all the time--so people like us, the lay people, have a tough time figuring out what it is.

Still, his biting was strong--enough to leave bruises, though he never punctured (two times he grazed with his teeth that caused scratches, but regardless of clothing, it was only bruises: jeans, sweat pants, flimsy pajama pants, loose shirt/skirts, didn't matter). What most people don't realize is that bite inhibition has no correlation to resource guarding (Jean Donaldson, thank you for writing that because it had me worried!).

We had tried everything with Coal. Increased playtime, changing bowls, ignoring him, adding more food. Some things seemed to work briefly while others had no affect. In desperation, and to prove a point, I even did a nose-tap when he bit at my arm (catching only sleep...which I am positive was on purpose). Nothing really worked and I was at my wits end. I read so many things, so many possibilities...but what could it be? What made things even more confusing is the knowledge that we do everything "right". I never ever used physical correction before nor since that one nose swat. We do the NILF (nothing in life is free) program--he sits or gets a cue for everything before he gets it. He waits at the door before going out (and his house and his pen, everything). He sit-stays for his food and doesn't get it until we say. We even took preventative measures when he was a puppy---hand feeding, cues during meals, touching and petting, trading up for his food bowl, etc. We took away his puzzle ball for after meals because we thought it was getting him too excited---then we gave it back because maybe it was his "dessert". We worked on bite inhibition and everything. Yet this still happened. What made it even more confusing was how he zoned in on a specific part of the leg--the upper thigh. However we moved or shifted, he would keep his eyes fixated on that target as if it greatly offended him. Surprisingly, we found that we could redirect his gaze if we had our red water bottle carrier.

We didn't see anything serious until around 5 months of age--so we naturally thought that maybe it was the hormones. Well, it wasn't. We got him neutered about two weeks ago and we still haven't seen a change in that part of his behavior.

It wasn't until this morning, that I realized it was truly resource guarding, and the only reason I understood that was because he started showing more classic behaviors. Hubby had put him into a sit-stay and was about to trade the bowl for the ball when Coal came streaking out. We have always been on guard for this, so hubby was able to get back and out of the way. Coal went ballistic, and hubby was tired and cranky, so he got mad, too. The escalation between the two is something I am not proud to witness, but it really drove home the point that aversive and "dominance" does jack squat. Coal is strong willed, he didn't back down and he just became more aroused the angrier my husband got. But this--this was when he showed the true issue. I think that if my husband hadn't gotten so frustrated, I wouldn't have finally seen what I was looking for: the aggressive mouth, the tense face---all the signs in all the videos minus the snarling. He was hovering around his bowl, too, in a much more obvious. (as a quick note, hubby did not hit or physically abuse Coal in any way--he did kick at the pen and start posturing, which was enough to drive home the point)

Looking back, I think the signs were more obvious. It was usually at meal times (he recently started the same behavior after last walks, but that might be something different) and he was focused on the feeder. He didn't care about other people for the most part. Now, this last part threw us off because--again--case studies usually go to anyone. But Coal is a bit bright. He learned quickly that the person who fed him took his bowl away, so that person became his primary focus. Still, I didn't realize this could still be resource guarding until I read Jean Donaldson's book "Mine!" Another thing that should have tipped me off was one time, I had picked up his bowl from the storage and walked by after cleaning it. His eyes got wide as saucers when he saw it. I found that holding the bowl in a non-food way was less likely to draw his attention, but he still watched.

Okay, so he is resource guarding. My next step was to convince my husband that it was not personal. I also had to convince my husband this was not, technically a "choice" he was making, that it wasn't about dominance, and that getting angry back would do nothing. This is hard because my husband is old-school. He defers to me in dog decisions for two reasons: 1, it is my dog. And 2, I am really studying up and getting to the point of "pro" haha. Anyway, he understands, but he has a temper and it is hard for him to think logically when he gets angry. Ironic, since this is exactly the thing that happens in dogs during resource guarding. They get emotional and it clouds their thinking.

Now that all THAT is out of the way, I went back to the book "Mine!" to the book- marked food bowl guarding and started reading the steps. At first, it was a little confusing, but I was able to find several videos of trainers and owners who somewhat demonstrated the steps. It took a while. It feels like a closely guarded secret that no one wants to share as they are working through the process, but I figured it out. The first thing I wanted to do was test it.

So, out comes the food bowl and my hand full of nummer treats. I opted for a combo of just walking back and forth as in the book, and sometimes asking for a cue (stay/house). It was a remarkable observation. I sent him to his house and set down the food bowl. I watching him like a hawk, his eyes, his tail, and his mouth (those are the three things that are easiest to see). I released him as we always do and watched. He went up to the bowl and sniffed around, then gave me this confused look---what? Where's the food!?

I again asked for his house, walked up and dropped a treat in, released and walked away. It was like a bungee-stay without the stay. Walked toward him, drop and treat, and go back. Sit, drop treat, back. I varied if I asked him to stay or not, and I came from different places around the room. we don't have the space to go a full ten feet except if we go out in the hall, but it was enough. Sometimes I just came near him and didn't give anything.

Here is where things get remarkable. After about four bungees, I noticed his body posture changing ever so slightly. He was watching me very closely. Yes, he was walking with me---he went left if I went left, etc. but when I came close to drop in a treat, he sat. Immediately. No prompting. The tension was not quite as strong in him, either. There was a definite change, but I am not sure how big yet.

When I was done, I took an extra treat and tossed it in his house while I whisked away the bowl. It seemed better than having to fight or leave it, as we needed it for dinner time anyways.

According to Jean Donaldson, the first level is with treats only until you can pick up the bowl. After that, kibble is introduced and the sessions go to meal times. At this point, since I am in treat-level, I am trying to determine how many times a day I should do it. We have already figured his treat/meal calories, so that is no problem.

Outside of that, I am also reinforcing our management plan. Our management plan was pretty much what everyone suggests (you get a bit intuitive after all that studying). We feed him and no one bothers him. We keep the family from moving past his pen during that time. After feeding, he gets a ten minute cool down time, then a check to see if he is back in his right mind. The sticker comes with the trade up for the puzzle ball. It is, by far, his favorite thing in the world after meals. We fill it with kibble and trade the ball for the bowl. However, if he is like this morning, he gets no ball and we ignore/leave him. We may also have to crate him--something that I get the honor of doing as he sees me most as the "leader" so to speak (IE Mommy is better than Daddy haha)

As for the modification plan. I am going to be the one to go through the heirarchies recommended by Jean Donaldson. When I complete them all, it will be hubbies turn. Unfortunately, we have no tether or fake hand--all we have is our little home-made play pen. It seems to keep him at bay--he has never tried to escape it, though he could easily. Managing threshold is important, but difficult since it is so sporadic. We don't know why he does it some days and not others. I used to think lack of exercise---but considering how dog-tired he was yesterday (I ran him ragged) and his ability to rev up after a few hours sleep, I don't think that will make a difference. Everyone has bad days---even dogs. Anyway, after both hubby and I are succesful, I am thinking of doing it with the family. True, they never feed or interact during feeding times, but it may help to because they do have to go past his cage and I don't want him to suddenly decided they are a threat to his resources. Besides, the more experiences, the better.

There is a certain weight off of my shoulders, now that I have a path. Uncertainty is like fear. It is the mind killer. It is harder to embrace because you have no course of action, but once you can embrace and let it move past you, you are set. It vanishes far more quickly than fear. (brownie points for anyone who gets the reference out of that)

Primary recommended resource if you have the same issue: https://www.amazon.com/Mine-Practical-Guide-Resource-Guarding/dp/0970562942

#resource guarding #food aggression #shibainu #shiba inu #shiba #inu

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thevampyrelibrary · 6 years

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A Feeding Guide for the Non-Sanguinary

Written by Masticina Akicta (Source)

Introduction

Not all vampires feed through blood yet allot of emphasis is put on the feeding habits and safety of the sanguary. Itâ€™s true that they need such Information but there is many shared concerns that also non blood feeders have. All vampires need energy, clean and without disturbing factors.

Also every vampire has different energy needs. So what might be fine for one might simple be insufficient for another vampire. In all cases, the individual needs need to be defined. The most common need and this is shared by all vampires is Life Energy, no matter by what name we call this energy, and it has many names. It is the vital energy that makes us life and makes everything life. And through time even science is picking up that there is more to things then just the matter and what seems to be electricity.

Our ways of feeding differ as they are vehicles of gaining the energy. Indeed life energy is strong in blood but also can be found in many other things. Like nature, indeed plants also carry the energy, animals and our human society! This little article will show you many ways of finding that energy. First though a little though about why we feed and how it might have become, don't take it as law though. Just take it up in your overthinkings!

Equilibrium

In nature all goes in balances, we humans tend to disrupt balances and then all hell breaks loose. For instance we shoot wolves and remove them from areas just because we don't like them there. Even though we nowadays know that wolves rather kill wild then livestock Many areas in America still are devoid of them. Areas now with a raising number of prey wildlife, that else would be eaten but now due to the imbalance is starving and walking on our roads. And this is only one example of what happens if we think to know it better. In the world of energy there is also equilibrium, see it as a huge, multi layered and pointed scale on what many balances rest. Nothing is black or white though here, as a scale its never full down one side or the other. It balances all the things in our world.

Eliquibrium works on many levels, from huge ones to small ones, even we humans have our own internal Eliquibrium and here is where I go further. What makes up our energy pattern are many different types and vibrations of energy. Emotions for instance are vibrations on their own and like a sun flare can carry much energy.

There are some humans who have allot of energy, they are like huge suns compared to many others. Sending out waves of energy and if itâ€™s channeled they can use it to heal others, protect others and of course do also other things with it. As Eliquibrium says there is the counterpart, and that is where the vampires come in. Some call vampires â€œblack holesâ€ and they have a point, as vampires are naturally takers. This is not a bad thing though as I will show.

Vampires

Here we are, our role seemingly in the story. Vampires need energy, and to be precise Life Energy, but it isn't as if you can buy it in the store. Truth told the energy generally is bound to other types of energy, like the vibrations of emotion or the faint "radiation" of our auras. Just as blood is a vehicle for the Life Energy, those other types of vibrations are for the psi vampire the vehicle. And this is why we have defined ourselves as emotional, psi or other type of vampires!

Emotional Energy Feeders.

Let's begin with the emotional feeders, with that I mean the ones that have learned to intake Life Force through emotions. And letâ€™s begin with that "bad word" to be said "negative energy feeder".

A negative energy feeder takes from Jealousy, Hate, Fight and any emotion like such that gives huge flares of energy coming out. As only the most dent person on the world can't pick up is the huge raise of energy if someone is in a pissed off mood. At times you even can feel it through how someone types and acts over email or in a chatroom. These emotions are very easy to pick up, and indeed for a vampire it does contains life energy.

Such vampires seem to always find ways to be around fights, this isn't bad. But some find it easier to just cause the fight and that is where the bad name comes in. Happily not every vampire does this and those that do that mostly do not know that they are vampire; they just know they always are around fights and feel better after it. This makes it important for vampires and definitely for negative energy vampires to know what they are. And adjust their behavior to a more peaceful role.

But of course, there are more emotions to feed from, every outburst of emotion after all puts energy out in the environment. A pub will, after a full, night be full of simmering energy, dirty indeed but with filtering and cleaning it will be the thing a vampire survives on.

For emotional energy feeders that are many ways to get their energy and any heavy used public place, like a train station or a shopping mall will be like an "all you can eat" dinner for them.

Psi Vampires

Another way is to get closer to the source, humans. As said every living thing has an energy being, the outside of it being the aura. And psi vampire can feed from a personâ€™s aura, mostly itâ€™s done by an innocent touch, sitting next to the person and where the two aura's meet the vampires aura can feed. But also if trained a psi vampire can extend his energy form to reach for others, by things that can be seen like "tendrils". By desire a trained psi vampire can form part of his energy form into a tentacle and move it closer to another. And feed through it.

It doesn't matters how it happens but psi vampires can unseen feed of the vital life energy. And many will make decent choices, at least if they know that they are vampire. Another point why they should be awakened indeed is because of the choices who to feed upon. Remember my talk about Eliquibrium? Well not everybody is right to take from. Children for instance are a moral no-no to feed upon as they need all their energy to grow. Sick people precisely the same, they need all their energy to get healthy again. But on the other hand there are some with too much energy and too much of anything can be just as bad as having to less.

A psi vampire can help to balance out someoneâ€™s energy by taking what it so much, itâ€™s like the special scissor the hairdresser has, and it doesn't cuts everything off but only part. It â€œthinsâ€ thick hair and this is a bit as a psi vampire can act, to take away only that what is too much and in such way to equalize a person.

Sexual Vampirism

Itâ€™s a form of psi vampirism within all probabilities, during sex all barriers are open and the physical contact, the sharing of body fluids, it all opens up possibilities to feed from. Good sex is like a highly enjoyable work out and for the Sexual Vampire a perfect venue to regain Life Energy. Both the emotional and the psi vampire part will be of interest for a Sexual Vampire.

Feeding Ethics for Vampires

As said, you shouldn't just feed from children, the sick and elderly. But itâ€™s a guideline, not a law, there are always certain exceptions. You wouldn't be the first one having to balance out a child with ADHD. Indeed, I shall talk about â€œvampiric healingâ€ later, though it is not part of the feeding scheme.

Vampires that take from non-human sources

Some vampires are able to take from nature and other non human sources, being that I don't have experience with such I can't write about it.

Psi and Emotional Vampire Feeding Tips

You are what you eat and for a psi vampire or an emotional vampire it's even more important. What matters is the life energy, not the vehicle, nor the method of feeding but Life Energy. I don't write law but have some tips for you. I have written down here a cleansing method I myself use a lot, I pre-process much of the energy in a specialized "part" of my energy body. It has as effect that you only get your "feed" after a second or 20 or so, it can feel like ages but its clean energy. And it means your body has to deal less with "dirty" energy.

The Cleansing Method

Intake the energy, like every process its raw energy and should be kept outside of you for now. Store what you can and process it slow enough for the other steps to work out. Filter the energy; remove the most easily to take out elements of the raw energy. There are always certain things you don't want inside of your body and how more you can "process" outside how better. Things like certain emotions are easy enough to filter out and helps allot with in taking the energy without "side effects". Best it to use storage for the raw energy and to filter it as slow as is needed for a good filtering. Store the filtered energy for the second step and cleanse your filters before taking up another "chunk" to filter out.

Next step and if you are trained you can do it while filtering the second "chunk" is to take the energy, now almost elastic and sticky due to losing â€œfluidsâ€ needs to be treated rather roughly. Think a bit like putting it in a dry tumbler with spikes inside, move it violently and you'll see that a kind of gas like fluid escapes. Now this is important, funnel and store this gassy fluidly stuff for the second around and once the melees doesn't gives away much more throw it out; it will dissolve in nature in time. The Stored gassy fluid contains allot of Life Force but we aren't there yet.

There is one last step in the process, now we are going to shift it on quality. In a process of boiling of fluidly gas. Using a four staged chamber boiling it will break it up in the different qualities and components. The gas on the top of the chamber is the lightest and the most pure Life Force, this is what you worked hard for. The second upper chamber is like a good but common wine, its Life Force and you can feed from it but itâ€™s not as perfect as the top chamber. Both the upper as this one are great for feeding The third chamber is like a house wine, use it to pour through the outer parts of your energy body. The fourth is not useful; itâ€™s the crap that didn't come out yet during the other stages. Don't feed from it but use it to clean this industrial like feeding process. Step six would be pretty simple, after you fed..release all that is left in the system and clean the system out. You have through this process broken down dirty raw energy into less than 1/10th of useable and feedable energy, but free of anything that might hurt you!

You are what you eat!

I found that this method works for me, might be too hard for others and might not be useful or applicable for everybody. I personally don't mind having to wait half a minute before first of the energy is available to me. Itâ€™s the cleanest and purest energy I fed upon.

Chunk = Chop sized amount of energy, to easy the filtering process Fluids = Things that makes the energy fluid

Afterwards

I hope that this document can shed some light on things that haven't been really written that much about yet. As said before not many would write about the non sanguine vampires as it is a a harder to grab issue. There seem so any different ways to feed and factors for non sanguary vampries that even if the most senior of the community would write a book together it wouldn't fullfill the need for information.

I know this article is only a snowflake on an Iceberg of information that could be written. But I hoped it gave you insight and maybe it started you on your way or reaching better ways to feed and survive. The idea about equilibrium is something that has grown unto me due to my workings in the magical realm. But it took "The Psychic Vampire Codex" to really bind the connection between vampirism and magical realities. I guess I have to thank Michelle Belanger for that, so here itâ€™s done. Thank you Michelle Belanger!

I accredit this article to my years in the vampire community, most ideas are freely available and itâ€™s just the combination of things that make this article. And that is good, shared resources in an open vampire community. I can only hope to be off positive influence myself, within the limits this life has given me.

#psychic #psi #The Vampire Church

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stayfitadultsandkidz-blog1 · 7 years

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Nutrition

It is time to take control of our physical and mental health. Diseases in our children continue to rise. Did you know that there are more than 7 million over weight/obese children in the USA.

This means our children are not eating properly and not exercising enough, which absolutely leads to childhood and adulthood diseases and low self esteem.

How many more antibiotics and vaccines are we going to create to fight off childhood diseases. 93 % of our healthcare dollars are spent on treatment and only 7 % is spent on the prevention. My 27 years of being a Pediatrician has made it very clear to me how important it is to fuel our body with the correct nutrients (proper diet, vitamins and supplements) along with proper exercise in order to live a life that is full and one of quality.

What is a vitamin/mineral?

They are key nutrients in specific concentration based on age that are essential for our bodies, organs and immune system to function properly, especially our brains. Children, adolescents and adults do not get enough of these in their diets. There are so many vitamins that one can choose, but after years of research I recommend the ones produced by Nutrametrix (a 17 yr old company). Because of its unique isotonic delivering system, these liquid vitamins/minerals rapidly bypass the stomach, which results in 95%-98% absorption by the small intestine. There are no other products that I know of that have this ability. There are ones made for children, adolescents and adults.

What is an antioxidant (IE: OPC)?

Throughout the day our body regretfully produces substances called free radicals. If not eliminated by the body these free radicals over time (starting in childhood) cause severe damage to our blood vessels, skin and body organs resulting in diabetes, heart disease, cancer, childhood/adult asthma/allergies, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, visual disturbance, premature aging and arthritis this is just to name a few. Antioxidants are critical in controlling and preventing these diseases. Our bodies do not produce enough antioxidants to control these free radicals. I strongly believe everyone should be on an antioxidant starting from the age of 2. This will give our body the best chance of preventing many of the above diseases and promotes optimal health.

What is Omega 3?

These are essential fatty acids. (good fats: poly and monounsaturated fats) that promote overall cardiovascular health, healthy blood pressure levels, healthy cholesterol levels, bone and joint flexibility, enhance ones mood, control allergy and asthma symptoms and most importantly enhances weight loss efforts.

Foods high in Omega 3 are wild salmon, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, herring, flaxseed, walnuts, olive and canola oils.

Most Americans cannot eat enough of the necessary foods to maintain adequate levels of Omega 3. The most effective way to achieve optimal levels of Omega 3 is through supplementation with high quality fish oil/Omega 3.

When choosing an Omega 3 supplement it is important to contain the proper levels of EPA/DHA. We should be getting between 1.5 – 3 grams EPA/DHA a day from our high quality oil.

For more information on the above or other important natural supplements like a natural sleep medication, green vegetables in a powder form, vitamin C, digestive enzyme supplement for children with bowel issues and special vitamins for children with ADHD and Autism, please either speak to one of our Doctor’s or ask our staff for written material . These products are available for purchase through our offices or you can order them from the web site and they will be shipped directly to your home.

What is a Calorie?

What is a calorie? This question is far to overlooked. If you do not know what a calorie is it is going to be extremely difficult to lose weight so let’s first define it. A calorie is simply a unit of energy. Yes, when you are eating a fruit containing 100 calories you are consuming 100 units of energy. If you eat two slices of pizza containing 1200 calories you are consuming 1200 units of energy. So, lets say on a given day you consumed 3200 calories or units of energy and through your daily activities and exercise ( and you better be exercising) you burned 2700 calories or units of energy. That will leave you with a difference of 500 calories, agreed? Good! Note: Energy cannot be created nor destroyed it can only be transformed from one form to another. Knowing this, what do you think happens to the excess 500 calories that you consumed for that day. It is plain and simple people-It gets stored as fat. Note: One pound of fat is made up of 3500 calories. Knowing this –if you are in excess of 500 calories everyday for an entire week what did you just do? You just gained a pound of fat. (500 excess calories per day multiplied by 7 days in a week equals 3500 calories equals a pound of fat). Are you getting the idea yet? Let me break it down in more of a long term scenario. Let’s say, you on average are in excess of 100 calories per day. Which is extremely easy thing to do. Over the course of a year that amounts to an excess of 36,500 calories (100 calories per day multiplied by 365 days in a year). Divide that number 36,500 by 3500 calories contained in each pound of fat and you just gained 10 and ½ pounds of fat simply by going over your recommended calorie allotment 100 calories per day. That is how sensitive the human body is! 100 calories a day-that’s 10 ounces of soda, an apple, or a low fat yogurt. That is how simple it is to gain fat. And it does not matter where that excess 100 calories come from. It can come from any of the macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, and fats) once you go over calorie allotment for the day those excess calories will be stored as fat!!! In addition, trying to eat healthy and watch what you eat isn’t always easy. Labels are misleading and confusing. Some foods labels with health claims like reduced fat, and reduce sodium, or good source of fiber may actually be unhealthy for you. Next time you are in the canned food isle look at a can of reduce sodium chicken noodle soup, the amount of sodium may shock you. And now about those 100 calorie packs snacks? If it is only a 100 calories of crackers, or cookies how could it be bad for me? Many times these 100 calorie packs are empty calories and contain high amounts of sugar and processed white flower. Not all calories and carbohydrates are created equally.

What are carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates are caloric nutrients containing four calories per gram. They are the body’s # 1 source of energy, especially during exercise. They also help regulate digestion and utilization of proteins and fats. Good Carbohydrates versus bad Carbohydrates. Stay away from white flour (donuts, wonder bread, pastas, and white rice), processed foods (Kraft Mac and Cheese, kid’s t TV dinners, Twinkies, and foods without an expiration date), white sugar, high fructose corn syrup (which used to be only found in soft drinks and now is everywhere). Since processed grain (i.e.: wonder bread) and sugars are refined they are absorbed by the body very quickly and tend to spike blood sugar levels, resulting in weight gain and likely energy crashes. Instead, look for natural unprocessed foods with high amounts of fiber. For example, dark green leafy veggies, kidney beans, apples, pecans, blueberry, barley, whole oats, whole grains are high in fiber. If you enjoy oatmeal in the mornings make sure it’s steel cut whole oats (from a can) and not the instant stuff you find in a bag. If you are eating grains, remember whole grains are usually better than white, but be careful that your whole grains don’t have added sugars or high fructose corn syrup (you will be surprised how many do). Whole grains, vegetables, lean meats and many kinds of fruits have low to moderate impact on blood sugar levels. These types of food are low on the Glycemic index.

Glycemic Index and Its Importance

The Glycemic Index is a number rating between 1 and 100 that measures the impact of food on blood sugar levels. The Glycemic index measures how long it takes for the body to convert carbohydrates into glucose. The quicker the food is converted into glucose the higher the ranking on the Glycemic index. The impact on blood sugar levels is defined by the time and duration of the foods increase on blood sugar. The foods you choose will directly impact your health and weight. Choosing foods that are low on the Glycemic index will provide your body with a steady of energy, increase mental focus, and a healthy weight. Some examples of foods that are low Glycemic are dark green leafy vegetables, yams, sweet potatoes, oranges, berries, grapefruit, whole grains, whole oats, lentils, beans and natural almonds just to name a few.

On the other hand, when you consume a food that is considered high Glycemic, glucose enters the blood stream very quickly triggering the production of insulin. Define Insulin. Insulin escorts glucose and protein to the cell where it can be used to produce energy. Over time, when insulin has to continually be produced quickly in large amounts, the quality of the insulin produced decreases. The lower quality insulin and the glucose it is carrying is rejected by the muscle and is not used as energy. Instead the glucose is stored as fat. The high blood glucose levels are directly correlated to what is considered “fat storage mode” where the body stores the energy as fat.

What are proteins?

Protein is a calorie nutrient containing= 4 calories per gram.

Protein contains the major building blocks of the body, amino acids. There are two types of amino acids, essential and non essential amino acids. Essential elements, in this case amino acids, cannot be produced by the body and must be consumed through the diet. Being the building blocks of the body protein is necessary for building and maintaining cell membranes, muscles and other tissues. Proteins provide energy and help maintain a quality immune system. There are many different sources of food that contain protein, the most common source in the typical American diets are meats. Other sources to consider are nuts, lentils and beans. Animal proteins should be eaten in moderation because of their tendency to cause inflammation and the presence of saturated fats. When choosing your animal proteins avoid boxed luncheon meats, processed meats, such as salami, pepperoni, and bacon. One should also eat red meats in moderation (less than 1-2 times a week). For healthier sources of proteins consider some nuts, lentils, beans, tuna, salmon, lean meats (turkey and skinless chicken breast). Make sure you get your protein from lean sources, (remove visible fat).

What is fat?

Fat is a caloric nutrient containing nine calories per gram as opposed to carbohydrates and proteins which yield only four. Fats get a lot of bad press and most people are unsure as to why. They are blamed for being the main contributor to excess weight gain and much of the negative publicity should be directed at certain types of fats. The truth of the matter is that fats, also called lipids, play a vital role for maintaining healthy skin, hair, insulating organs, maintaining body temperature and promoting healthy functioning of cells. Fats also act as a transport vehicle for important vitamins, such as vitamins A, D, E and k.

Fats contain essential fatty acids that perform a variety of the functions mentioned earlier. When considering the dietary sources of fat it is important to note the four different types of fats. The four different types of fates are saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and trans fats. Both saturated and trans fats are the ones that should be avoided. Your diet should contain 0 grams of trans fats also known as hydrogenated oil. Trans fats or hydrogenated oil as its found in the ingredient label, are chemically manufactured by food producers to keep foods moist and fresh as they sit on the shelves and do not occur in nature. Much of the research conducted on trans fatty acids concluded they contribute to cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and hypertension by lowering HDL (good cholesterol levels) and block a very important anti-inflammatory pathway. The amount of saturated fats in ones diets should also be limited. Less that 33% of fat in your diet should be from saturated fats. Saturated fats are found in meats, dairy and processed foods. Saturated fats are fats that are solid at room temperature. These types of fats raise blood cholesterol and have been linked to increase your risk for both heart disease and stroke.

That leaves us with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats that are both liquid at room temperature and are found in vegetable oils, avocado and nuts. These sources should be where the majority of your fats come from. Some fish such as salmon, sardines, and anchovies also contain good essential fatty acids called Omega 3’s. Omega 3’s will be discussed further in the next section. Both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats can lower LDL (bad cholesterol). However, while monounsaturated fats maintain good HDL cholesterol too many polyunsaturated fats can actually lower the protective HDL cholesterol. Sources of unsaturated fats include olive oil, soybean, canola, sunflower, sesame, cottonseed and soybean oils.

Overeating any of these macronutrients will result in weight gain. They all play a huge role in human body functions that is why they are called MACRO nutrients. Macro meaning large, of large importance to the body. You need them all and a good place to start is 60% of food coming from carbohydrates, 25% coming from protein and 15% coming from fat.

Fundamental of healthy eating/weight reduction:

Low Glycemic index (GI) foods which maintain optimal blood glucose levels.

Balance of healthy carbs (65%), proteins (25%) and fats (15%)

Choosing the right fats. (i.e.: fish, nuts, oils)

Eating more frequently; 4-6 smaller healthy meals

Plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, berries and other natural foods.

Decrease consumption of junk foods, candy, processed foods, white breads, rice, potatoes.

20-30 grams of fiber per day

A reasonable amount of weight to lose is 1 pound per week.

No more than 16 ounces of skim milk per day.

No more than 8 ounces of fruit juices a day.(Berry Juices with no added sugars)

Baked, broiled or steam your foods.

Salad dressings: olive oil mixed with herbs and spices.

Snacks: raw vegetables, fruits, butter free popcorn

IS DIET SODA SAFE JUST BECAUSE IT IS CALORIE FREE?

Its summer time the temperature is rising and you just got done mowing the lawn. As you walk into the house to get a drink, you open up the refrigerator door, and there you have, Diet Soda, Soda, and Gatorade.

Which one should you drink?

Diet Soda and Soda are loaded with sodium, which will make you even thirstier. So you will have to drink more to quench your thirst. Soda and Diet Soda also contains Phosphoric Acid. Phosphoric Acid has a sour taste. To combat the sour taste, a lot of sugar is added, or sugar substitute. The Phosphoric Acid strips the body calcium and eats away the enamel on your teeth. So when your parent use to tell you that candy (liquid candy) rots your teeth they were right. In some U.S State, the police carry around 2 gallons of Soda with them. They use Soda to clean blood off the road after deadly car accidents. Why? The Phosphoric Acid in the Soda is safe to the touch, but will eat a way the blood over 2-3 day period. Another good use of Soda is it can clean the corrosion from a car battery. Thirsty yet!!!!

So you tell me you Drink Diet Soda because it is better, or calorie free. Diet Soda does have fewer calories, but still contains sodium and sodium helps your body hold on to water. Any easy way to drop a few pounds is to stop drinking diet Soda. The reduction of sodium will help get rid of a few unwanted water weight pounds. Now, drinking Diet Soda may just be worst then the real thing.

More Diet Drinks, More Weight Gain

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese is:

26% for up to 1/2 can each day

30.4% for ½ to one can each day

32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day

47.2% for more than 2 cans each day

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

36.5% for up to ½ can each day

37.5% for ½ to one can each day

54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day

57.1% for more than 2 cans each day

The reasons behind, the higher percentages, is with Soda you are getting calories that are satisfying a craving. With Diet Soda you are having something that is sweet but without the calories. Your body is still looking for those calories, so you will still feel the need to fulfill the craving (eating food).

The Diet in Diet Soda

The word “diet” means what constitutes the usual food and drink of a person. The most important part of that sentence is “usual” – not “diet.” To sustain a healthy weight and a healthy body, you need to support your body’s natural balance. Chemicals and caffeine don’t do this, no matter what the soda manufacturers tell you.

“Gatorade- is it in you”

Says the ads on TV. On doing research for this article I found nothing that will tell you that Gatorade is bad for you. I will tell you that Gatorade is not great for you. If I ran 10 miles a day or bike 30 miles a day Gatorade is good for you. You need to replace all that was lost during the time of extreme exercising. Gatorade is an easy way to do that. On the other hand if I’m a couch potato Gatorade is the devil, all those extra calories you’re putting into your body that you don’t need. If you’re watching what you eat and trying to follow a healthy meal plan Gatorade will not be in there simply because of the extra calories. Giving your children Gatorade while watching TV will only help to increase there waist line. Am I saying not to drink Gatorade, no Gatorade is a sports drink and should only be taken when a person has been active.

Water just rocks and nothing can beat water. Water is a giver and will take nothing away from you. So if you want to live a healthier better life try to increase your water intake, make sure you’re getting 6-8 glasses a day, especially before meals.

PRACTICE OF MINDFUL EATING

Appreciate the food

Engage all six senses

Serve in Modest Portions

Savor small bites and chew thoroughly (goal: 20 chews/swallow)

Eat slowly

Don’t skip meals

Eat foods that are healthy for your body and the planet

Eat till 80% full

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