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ffredmujkic · 4 months

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wonderfully bizarre by bendigo fletcher is such a fish and chips song.

"And if I were to win for you the skin of a timbered snake - Would you consider me your comfort in danger?" it shows so much of gillions thinking that he could only be loved if hes earned it if hes able to show himself as someone useful.

"you could wear me like a ring" something something abt gil being status symbol. (the whole line in his, if u give fish a family, abt being adored but alone) going back to had habits (even if aware of their harm)

"You'd be the mercy under my cruelty- My revelation, bloodshed free" gillion's journery through out the campaign, his biggest change is being kinder. gentler. early campaign gil always chose violence, he saw that the only responsible action to take against a villian was to cut off their head. hes soften so much over the campaign. hes always been caring yet through his friendships with chip (and jay this just isnt abt them) he learns different methods to handling problems.

"Do you wanna get married at the Cherokee Cemetery?" he just wants to get married. hes unlearned at lot a LOT of toxic unhealthy things. but he clearly upholds marriage as still an important and loving act. i think that while their relationship is very anarchic, gil would still love a wedding. (purely my own headcannon tho)

"Where the blue grass creeps over deep decades of devotion. Warm underneath the frost" come on.

in the context of gillion though this can be further, hes incredible loyal to the undersea though it never cared for him in return. A country that made him harsh and serious despite his real personality when allowed to relax. the frost can be a strong yet harmful loyalty to the undersea. (it reminds me of that even if im stretching) his friendship with chip and jay allowing him to feel a genuine devotion which is beneficial too him, that is reciprocated.

"We can build a home in a bush of azaleas- Dress it up in true morale paraphernalia- You'll never be alone in your bad dreams- Because together we could never be lost"

gillion was taken away from his family at an early age. chip was an orphan with no memory of even his name, to than get his adopted family ripped away from him. his attempts to form a new one forcing him into a gang. the two of them have been alone for a very very long time with no family or even friends, no home of their own. gillion constantly failed in his training. chip is implied to have done things he didnt always want to do to make price happy. yet despite earlier bumps in the relationship, them clashing each disagreement helps to deepen their bond as they figure out whats okay with with each other. and they really are never alone after finding each other

"your eyes prescribe a meaning for everything I do. I even find myself believing most of the words I say as true" the most impactful moment for chip what enable him to grow into the person he becomes over the course of the campaign is the fight in epsiode 15. it forced chip to address his actions have hurt hurt someone he was growing to care abt. chip said he wouldn't lie to gil anymore and he meant it. theres times where he tries to lie and cuts himself off. they built a home with trust and communication

"We can build a home in a bush of azaleas" since the line is repeating ill only say, they feel so comfortable around each other. all three captains are each others home. but especially chip and gil the way they are always seeking each other, their friend's name always on the tip of their toungue.

"We can be defined by the things we want"

a major theme in the show (or at least grizzly is trying to make it into one) is desire. gillion while having a lot of autonomy, driving a lot of the plot. he is also honor bound to a internal law where he must always protect others. gillion never acts out of a true selflessness, his actions are born from being taught that this is simply how he should operate. Because he is inherently worthless than all those around him, he has been assigned to protect. Never does gil think abt himseld if it concerns another life. gillion must be selfless, he is never allowed to want for himself. which is wonderfully contrasted by chip who is always seen as a selfish bastard despite not behaving like it in a while.

"I'll be a life full of free haircuts from the one that I love" chip in his happiet dream imagines himself with all his crew and arlin hanging out happily on the albatross. chip always pictures himself doing this pirate thing forever, but he is only 19. and with the trauma that its brought him, the constant risking your life. i think its fair to say that what he actually wants is just a simple life with his friends

#jrwi riptide #rambles #jrwi chip #gillion tidestrider #jrwi fnc #if u read this i am amazed #and we are shooting beams into each others brains bc u must have the same rot as i do

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toc-the-elder · 3 months

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The NHS has just changed its rules, and is now banning the prescribing hormone blockers to children. Children who will suffer unimaginable mental distress without them. As someone who was denied gender affirming care as a child, I can attest to the lifelong mental health problems that have come with experiencing a puberty I did not consent to and did not sign up for that will forever mark me as visibly and audibly trans. I couldn't think of anything so cruel as to force someone to go through that.

This decision flies in the face of plenty of documented medical research in multiple nations that providing gender affirming care to young people universally has better longterm outcomes for those that undertake it. To claim, as the NHS has, that there is "no evidence" of such benefits is willfully ignorant. They also state there is no evidence of any harm done, but it's strange how they default to the position that fucks over trans people, isn't it? Puberty blockers have been in use for literally decades, I think if they had any significant health concerns, you better believe the TERFs and transphobes wouldn't shut the fuck up about it, but weirdly, the best they can come up with is that there are "no benefits."

No benefits, you say? This might be a radical thought, but I think having less dead kids is a benefit, no? Less kids self harming, feeling ashamed of their bodies as they change in ways they barely understand? This isn't just run of the mill teenager body issues. From my own experience, my body is covered in scars because I couldn't deal with my body becoming something I didn't choose. Even if prescribing hormone blockers prevented just one child from doing the same, I would consider that a net positive. But the NHS wants dead kids, apparently.

I also find it fascinating that even centrist rags like The Guardian give endless mic time to TERFs like Maya Forstater (who is not a doctor) and chose to close their article on her words, and offered to take the words of one(?) opposing viewpoint. Gee, it's almost like centrists aren't centrists at all.

This change is grotesque, targeted, and dangerous.

To cap it off, I would like to remind you that there are currently less than 100 young people in the UK being prescribed hormone blockers.

The NHS fundamentally changed its rules all in the name of fucking over less than 100 vulnerable children from a minority group.

This country means to kill us all.

#trans #transgender #cw transphobia #cw gender dysphoria #trans rights #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia

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cheerfullycatholic · 2 months

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The Church wishes, first of all, “to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence.”[101] For this reason, it should be denounced as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.

At the same time, the Church highlights the definite critical issues present in gendertheory. On this point, Pope Francis has reminded us that “the path to peace calls for respect for human rights, in accordance with the simple yet clear formulation contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose seventy-fifth anniversary we recently celebrated. These principles are self-evident and commonly accepted. Regrettably, in recent decades, attempts have been made to introduce new rights that are neither fully consistent with those originally defined nor always acceptable. They have led to instances of ideological colonization, in which gender theory plays a central role; the latter is extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.”[102]

Regarding gender theory, whose scientific coherence is the subject of considerable debate among experts, the Church recalls that human life in all its dimensions, both physical and spiritual, is a gift from God. This gift is to be accepted with gratitude and placed at the service of the good. Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel.

Another prominent aspect of gender theory is that it intends to deny the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings: sexual difference. This foundational difference is not only the greatest imaginable difference but is also the most beautiful and most powerful of them. In the male-female couple, this difference achieves the most marvelous of reciprocities. It thus becomes the source of that miracle that never ceases to surprise us: the arrival of new human beings in the world.

In this sense, respect for both one’s own body and that of others is crucial in light of the proliferation of claims to new rights advanced by gender theory. This ideology “envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”[103] It thus becomes unacceptable that “some ideologies of this sort, which seek to respond to what are at times understandable aspirations, manage to assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised. It needs to be emphasized that ‘biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated.’”[104] Therefore, all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected: “We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.”[105] Only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity.

Dignitas Infinita, paragraphs 55, 56, 57 ,58 and 59

#catholicism #catholic church #church document #dignitas infinita #pope francis #gender theory

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sophisticatedjunkieslut · 1 year

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Welcome to my slice of heroin induced hell

well, I wish it were heroin fueled instead, but I seem to have found myself in the worst possible place for someone who wants to self destruct and get high; my mothers house. I went to bed wanting to use, and woke up in the same mindset. I decided maybe if I remind myself how bad I was, it would help the craving go away. I really should know better by now. I opened the "reddit" app, if you want a bunch of ex drug addicts to praise you for just barely surviving the day/week/year/decade, its a great place to go. I pulled up my go to "before" picture of me in the mirror of my gross apartment bathroom. I had taken the picture about two years prior one morning after doing lines of dope all night. I wanted to see if I looked sober enough for work.. of course I did! pinned, red eyes paired with a skinny sunken face and birkins under my eyes, who would ever know!

okay enough with the sarcasm cause this shit does get dark and I like to deflect. I typed out the typical "thankful for a year sober" which is SUCH a reach. I guess my post was honest, I just left out the part where I slept with a disgusting man twice my age in the recent past. I think the worst part of it all was he didn't even force or pressure me. I completely willingly slept with this disgusting man because I was so freaking happy that he had brought me dope. I don't know why but my trauma only seems to make me want to cause myself more. 3 months ago I took alittle too much Xanax. Benzos were the only thing keeping me off opiates, and I was prescribed a small dose of klonopin so I didn't have to worry about drug screens. Well one night I took an un regulated, pressed Xanax bar and my inhibitions disappeared and were replaced by a slight floaty, happy feeling, along with slight leg cramps that always seem to come with my benzo high (has anyone else experienced this?). Everything was going okay, good even. I was high, had found a new boy/dealer to hangout with (lets call him W), and on top of it all I seemed to actually be functioning.. maybe I could just be a functional user. the ridiculousness of that statement, while apparent, will absolutely not stop me from trying. I could tell the third day when I woke up at Ws house that he was sick of me. im usually painfully self aware, however without any inhibitions, that's a hard act to keep up. I had taken more bars than I could count and drank a few glasses of wine. If I was with my normal breed of scumbag, it wouldn't have mattered. W, however, was the most functioning addict I had ever met. I know he took me somewhere nice, and I know I embarrassed myself as usual, but I was thankful my brain had decided I didn't need to know exactly how. I didn't push myself to stay the night, he seemed to want me to. I didn't have sex with him though, I had been trying to be less trashy. maybe the reason nothing was working out for me was because I was sleeping with them too soon... it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that I preferred to live in a state of numb, ignorant drug induced bliss.

W was over me and It was obvious. nothing like the look of someone regretting being with you to make you feel like shit. I had seen this too many times before. He drove me home as soon as he could without being rude, at this point I just wanted to get away from the awkward tension and when he said "bye", I knew I had screwed it up. Maybe that was a trigger for me, its funny how the most obvious concepts usually take the longest for me to grasp. I immediately knew who id call; someone so infatuated with me that I couldn't possibly feel unwanted, plus, he was one of my few remaining friends who I knew would bring me heroin. I texted him and asked him to get a ride over, I wasn't worried about my mom finding out. I had snuck W over a few nights prior, and I was sure I had it down.

In order to finish this, im going to cry alittle.alot of this is very traumatic for me. I have BPD as well as severe anxiety and possible cptsd im not going to do that right now because my audience is 0. on the off chance someone comes across this, thank you for reading. this is as honest an account of heroin addiction that you can find. trying to heal means admitting this stuff.

everything in this post is ALLEGED

#drug blog #drugs tw #drug abuse #iv drugs #dope #addiction #drug stories #perscription #love and other drugs

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imfuckingdepressedman · 1 year

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Yeah ok this is going to get 2 notes tops but I had a fucking year. I continued working nights in a medical warehouse during this never ending pandemic, it was bad, I had a long commute, the hours were killing me, it was one one the most unsafe places I ever worked and I was convinced I was going to die because I'd fall asleep at the wheel on my way home. I didn't even care anymore, no matter where I looked the only people who weren't miserable were the ones born lucky enough not to have to take jobs like mine. Then I crushed my hand under a pallet while loading a truck. It was easily one of the top 3 most painful things I've experienced so far, I lifted the pallet off with my other hand and because I couldn't use my machine (which I later learned couldn't anyway because the pallet also smashed the controls) I walked back to the shipping office holding my hand above my head because that's all I knew how to do. I stood in the door of my manager's office until he got off the phone because I didn't want to interrupt his call and wasn't thinking 100% clearly. He asked what happened and I said Hospital. Hospital Now. He walked me to the front office, stopped to get another person to finish the truck and asked me how much was left. Got to the office sat me down and left me to go look for someone to drive me to the urgent care. I finally started crying. The only thing I have ever liked about my physical appearance was my hands. My hobbies were sewing and video games and that was about it. At this point I was convinced I had broken all my fingers. I'd have to drive home, my car was here, who'd come get me? Nobody. Eventually they came back and I got to the urgent care, they asked me to fill out paperwork I told them I couldn't. I sat for hours waiting for an xray, someone had lacerated their hand at a different warehouse earlier than me and I had to wait my turn. 12 stitches, no broken bones (not kicked out of the subreddit) and they wouldn't prescribe me anything for the pain. I had to go back to the warehouse and dictate for someone to fill out an accident report, I was just relieved I was getting paid for the whole day. I drove myself to a pharmacy to pick up my antibiotics and drove an hour home. Cried when I couldn't get the door open while carrying the bag.

Ultimately, this experience was the most important thing to happen to me this year. It reminded me that getting killed in a warehouse accident is not the worst case scenario, losing the few things I enjoyed in life and still having to keep living is. At this point I have nearly full function of my hand back and it doesn't impair my day to day life at all. The scars aren't too noticeable and don't bother me nearly as much as I thought it would. But most importantly, I quit my job with nothing concrete lined up to replace it. I got a temporary job at a factory which was also bad but then, I finally got the job I had gone to college for but kept getting passed over for in favor of people with experience. I got a simple desk job as accounts payable coordinator. A monotonous job that pays the same as the factory job had. And its the best job I've ever had. It has heat in the winter and air in the summer, we get an unpaid full hour for lunch and instead of forcing us to come to work no matter the road conditions we work from home on snowy days. No mandatory overtime wasn't a lie for the first time in my life. They don't time me for every minute on the clock and give me numbers to hit. I leave work and my body isn't in pain. I drive home without fear I'll fall asleep at the wheel. Nobody has yelled at me even once.

I saw a post saying, someday you'll have a home as comfortable and as beautiful as mine and I stopped. Because for the past five years I could only conceive of things getting worse and I'd been constantly and consistently proven right. Until now. Half a decade of abject misery is over. Even though it feels like a horrible act of hubris and tempting fate to say even now.

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.” ― Vincent van Gogh

#happy new year #tw depression #tw hand injury #tw injury #positive

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las-cercanias · 7 months

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Prologue: a letter

My beloved Lola,

Unsuspectingly, analog horror became a bedside suppressant for my occasional anxious spirals.

I have a compulsion to telepathically ruin my life a thousand times and have too much pride to ask for people’s help, so I turned to find a homoeopathic means to save myself. Unbeknownst to me, the effect of these stories lasts much longer than any responsible dosage of ethanol, caffeine, or nicotine. Old school radio box encases the pulses from some higher beings you can’t risk imagining. Cosmic beings brute-force their way into my subconscious corridors. My third eye stares at the hellish mockery, so intensely that it lets go of all trivial fallen leaves.

What I had yet to recognize is that: fear, parallel to sadness, is also cathartic. The neighbouring side of the internet gave me a pseudo-scientific name— said these could be cognito-hazards. That makes sense, I suppose. After all, among various impending dooms, you survive the world by hours, by the minute… even by the halves of it. Inside, there is no way out. At the eventual point of the storyline, you face death squarely but never fairly. We witnessed the revived Goliaths, but how do space monkeys like us stand beside the great young shepherd?

To the north end of our land, there is something crawling out of the dense woods. That something was once ordinary people, that were us, but now they helmet skulls with fungus protruding from empty sockets where a person’s cornea and blood vessels had been. They parrot our hello-s and can-you-hear-me-s, and then politely knock on doors in an entitled manner as kids do on Halloweens. Before the sun reaches the county highways, pickup truck drivers oversteer at the same time farm animals’ heads are ripped apart from their spines. Even further in the north, every season a newly recruited lighthouse keeper settles in to replace the former caretaker, who conveniently had walked out of his job and presumably into the ocean. Most lighthouse keepers are smart enough to not question what is in the ocean except the foolish few, who would take their scrapbooks to make cartographic notes and decipher messages periodically surface from the sea beneath. They have one-sided conversations with the sea until something hears them speak, afterward, never again are they seen.

At this point, obviously, I shall remind you, my love, that you simply should not take this beyond its intended stage. When prescribed properly, none of these lovecraftian plays would harm me more than my questionable collection of spirits. Rest assured that otherwise those silly, tiny, little deaths in each iteration of universe reciprocate my decadal struggle with existential dreads.

The next time we see each other, perhaps I can interpret the tales from the deep sea for you.

Descending, Guillermo figuratively, from la calle de don quijote, 28th October 2023

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careworksblog · 1 year

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CareWorks: Providing Exceptional Senior Care Services in Houston, TX

When it comes to ensuring the well-being and happiness of our beloved seniors, finding reliable and compassionate care is of paramount importance. In Houston, Texas, one name stands out in the field of senior care services: CareWorks. Established in 2006, CareWorks is a customer-focused, state-licensed elderly care agency dedicated to providing exceptional non-medical senior care services. With a team of highly trained caregivers and a commitment to personalized care, CareWorks has become a trusted partner for families seeking reliable support for their loved ones.

Compassionate Caregivers:

At the heart of CareWorks' success is its team of compassionate caregivers. Each caregiver undergoes a rigorous selection process, including background checks and extensive training, to ensure they possess the skills, experience, and attitude required to provide the highest quality care. Caregivers at CareWorks are not only proficient in various aspects of senior care but also deeply committed to treating each senior with respect, dignity, and kindness.

Comprehensive Non-Medical Services:

CareWorks offers a wide range of non-medical senior care services tailored to meet the unique needs and preferences of each individual. These services include:

Companionship: Loneliness can be a significant challenge for seniors. CareWorks caregivers provide friendly companionship, engage in meaningful conversations, and participate in activities to enhance social interaction and emotional well-being.

Personal Care: Assistance with daily activities such as bathing, grooming, dressing, and medication reminders is provided with utmost sensitivity, preserving seniors' dignity and independence.

Meal Preparation: Caregivers ensure that seniors receive nutritious and delicious meals tailored to their dietary needs and preferences. They also assist with feeding if required.

Light Housekeeping: CareWorks caregivers help maintain a clean and organized living space by providing light housekeeping tasks such as dusting, vacuuming, laundry, and changing linens.

Transportation: Whether it's a doctor's appointment, social outing, or grocery shopping, CareWorks caregivers offer safe and reliable transportation, ensuring seniors can maintain their active lifestyles.

Medication Reminders: Caregivers assist seniors in adhering to their medication schedules, ensuring medications are taken as prescribed and reducing the risk of medication errors.

Customized Care Plans:

CareWorks understands that every senior has unique needs and preferences. To ensure personalized care, they work closely with families to develop customized care plans that address specific requirements. The care plans are flexible and can be modified as the needs of seniors change over time.

Trusted and Reliable Services:

CareWorks is a state-licensed senior care agency, adhering to the highest standards of care in Houston, TX. Families can have peace of mind knowing that their loved ones are in the hands of dedicated professionals who are trained to handle various situations with expertise and compassion. The agency's commitment to excellence has earned them a reputation for reliability and trustworthiness.

Conclusion:

For over a decade, CareWorks has been serving the Houston community by providing exceptional non-medical senior care services. With a team of compassionate caregivers, comprehensive services, and personalized care plans, CareWorks has become a trusted partner for families seeking support for their loved ones. If you are in Houston, TX, and looking for reliable, customer-focused senior care services, CareWorks is here to provide the care and support your loved one deserves. Contact CareWorks today to discuss your needs and take the first step towards ensuring a happier and healthier life for your senior family member.

Senior Care Services Houston TX: CareWorks is a customer-focused, state-licensed elderly care agency of trained caregivers providing non-medical senior care service in Houston, TX since 2006"

#home care agency in houston tx #senior care services houston tx

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wordedge · 1 year

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Death

When I was nine, I watched a friend get hit by a car and die. It was a particularly gruesome death, witnessed from 10 feet away and my world changed forever. One moment before, for me, death was seeing my Grandmother lying in her casket. The next moment, Death was staring at me from my friend’s destroyed face, his mangled body lying on the hot asphalt with a pool of blood growing beneath him.

Recurring nightmares, I could hardly eat, traffic frightened me, I stopped riding my bike and my grades in school took a serious dive into negative land. I overheard my parents talking about me and they were concerned. In 1963 child counselors were few and far between but they found one that agreed to take me. He was a good man but when I look back, it seems he was struggling to reach a 9 year old with a fear of death and a too-young sense of mortality.

He prescribed some pills that blanketed my brain in a hazy/fuzzy fog. Not sure but I think they were zombie pills. I stopped taking them after three days. I would just flush them so my parents would think I was still taking them. I slowly emerged from the gray realm of shock and despair, only to discover that I was living in a tunnel. It was as if I was standing inside a culvert, 10 feet from the opening. So, I adjusted to it and went on with being a nine year old.

I lived inside that tunnel for decades, never knowing the impact it had on my life. I was kicked out of the Marines because they said, “You are not suited to military life.” I fought; I would steal the OD’s jeep at 2 in the morning and go joy-riding and just became a general screw-up that didn’t care what the punishment was. If it wasn't Death, I wasn't afraid of it. That’s when I started to ‘Court Death’.

I bought a motorcycle and rode it like a wild man, started going into biker bars and starting fights, harassing cops while on my bike and then outrunning them and I dabbled in hard drugs. Anything to bring the grinning skull of Death close to me and flip it the bird. I've been shot three different times, stabbed in the gut and beaten so badly I still ache from it sometimes. I hit a bridge abutment at 80 miles an hour, in a car full of friends; we were drunk as Lords and I was the only survivor because I was in the passenger seat with my seatbelt on.

I have been in several high speed motorcycle wrecks, numerous horrendous car crashes, terrible job-site accidents that some didn't survive and I have stared down the barrel of several firearms… a few that I was holding. Every time I faced Death, it would stare at me from those empty black hollows and grin, and would whisper “Not yet.” So I upped the ante and started shooting heroin and meth. After five years, I had OD’d twice and never went to the hospital. I would just wake up with the needle dangling from my arm, faint laughter echoing in my mind.

At a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, I told my sponsor the ‘life-story’ and he thought for a moment, then wrote down a number on his business card. All he said was “If you want to get better, call this number… tomorrow.” It was the number of his psychologist and it was the start of my long journey out of the tunnel. PTSD, she said. Not an easy fix, she said. Well that was quite the understatement and no, I’m not ‘fixed’. I’m better than I was and that’s a good place to be.

I’m 60 now, the dreams of Death still come by like some unwanted visitor and I know the feeling of mortality much more intimately. Friends have died by their own hand, from bad choices and accidents. All of my birth family and adopted family have died; co-workers have been killed on the job and by other various methods.

I still ride a motorcycle; I retreat into the tunnel occasionally when Life has overwhelmed me, my anger has receded to a manageable level, I kicked hard drugs in ’89 and I now find myself surrounded with reminders of Death. I have an animal skull collection, a (legal) human skull and numerous glass and ceramic skulls. I wear 5 different skull rings, many of my shirts have skulls and even my PJ pants have small skulls on them.

“What, you got a death wish or something, with all these skulls floating around?” a friend asked me once. I just smiled and thought about the question for a moment.

“No, my friend, I don’t. I neither seek out, nor fear Death. I have stared square into its eyes and laughed. I have felt its hand upon my shoulder and felt its breath on my neck. When I die, I will greet it as an old friend. Death is just another path, one we all must take.” I lifted my beer and said “To Life!”

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truthshield · 2 years

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Smart technology can halve the risk of asthma attacks prevent deaths study finds

Smart technology could halve asthma patients’ risk of suffering attacks and being admitted to hospital, preventing deaths, University of Auckland research has found. During a decade-long study involving almost 15,000 patients, University of Auckland school of pharmacy senior clinical research fellow Dr Amy Chan, alongside researchers from University College London and Queen Mary University of London examined 50 years of research on asthma care. They determined smart technologies, including automated text messages and electronic prompts, made a significant difference in asthma control. Chan said about 80 Kiwis died from “highly preventable” asthma attacks each year and smart technology could work to stop those unnecessary deaths. About 80 Kiwis die from asthma attacks each year. (File photo) “Digital technologies that aim to improve medication-taking can increase people taking their medication in way it has been prescribed by 15% and improve asthma control and quality of life,” she said. “Most people with asthma are hospitalised because of poor control, by having regular medication taking, it will reduce the risk.” The smart technologies send reminders to asthma sufferers through text messages or electronic adherence monitors attached to the inhaler, prompting them to take the medication. Supplied University of Auckland senior clinical research fellow Dr Amy Chan led the study alongside London researchers. With one in eight Kiwi adults and one in seven children taking medication for asthma, the technologies were “life-changing” for many, she said. “Not only does medication taking everyday make a difference, it can save lives. The key message to digital technologies, they need to integrate it, because it does work and helps with control.” Chan was also researching and developing an app that would operate as a risk prediction tool for asthma attacks. “Asthma attacks are still the main cause of loss of life from asthma and loss of quality of life. “At the moment, we don’t have any good tools that can predict when someone will have an attack.” The tool would identify changes in the body before an attack, like increased heart rate, that people could not pick up by themselves. It was thought that information could possibly identify the risks up to a week before an attack. https://ift.tt/JO103NV https://ift.tt/wsoBJu7

#Saas #softwaresystems #productdevelopment #software #practice #optimization #accuracy #efficiency #productivity #softwareprojects #cracksthecode

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transformers-fan-continuities · 3 years

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Spotlight: Ties That Bind

This one’s a doozy folks! If you missed the last spotlight you can go read it here, but strap in for The Ties That Bind, an absolutely brilliant take on humanformers. It’s hosted here at @tiesthatbind-tf created by @artsy-hobbitses!

Q) Give us a run down of your cont! What's it about, what's it called, what's it like?

Ties That Bind is a humanformers-based original continuity which is part Science Fiction and part Alternate History where the invasion of Quintessons and introduction of their technology to Earth in 1920 sets the world and humankind on a completely different trajectory. The active narrative spans a period from 1920 to 2070, covering the First and Second Quintesson Wars, the interplanetary Antillan War (leading to the creation of Unicron on Mars) and the Great War which involves the Autobots, Decepticons and Functionist stalwarts, and how it affects the characters.

The cast is pretty sprawling and the narrative is mostly centred around human drama with bits of humor interspaced and a dash of horror (mostly centred around how the previous government often chose to utilize the technology left behind from the Quintesson Wars to create new systems of oppression, which affected many of the characters, in the name of worldwide rebuilding efforts).

Q) What characters take the lead here? Any personal favorites?

I will admit to this continuity being very much heavy on the relationship between Old Bastards Optimus Prime and Megatron, which is given considerable weight as they were best friends who had known each other since childhood and were deeply intrinsic to each other’s growths as individuals, which makes it all the worse when guilt and betrayal enter the party. Despite being captains in two corners of this battle, there’s a part of them that just cannot let go of their pasts together and they need to reconcile with how this will affect their agenda (Megatron) and how they lead their team (Optimus) who don’t necessarily share their history.

Other characters with significant development include:

Starscream, a Cold Construct in a toxic working relationship with Megatron with whom he is hiding a dark secret, who struggles to balance the underhanded viciousness he believes he needs to gain power and his innate desire from his Senate days to make the world a better place.

Windblade, a Camien native who fights her government’s apathy concerning the situation on Earth which they see as unsalvageable compared to their more Utopian society.

Prowl, a Cold Construct raised from childhood to be a cop in a police state, who finds out that he was brainwashed several times to ensure his obedience and efficacy as a government asset and is now working to reclaim some semblance of the humanity he was never allowed to feel and figure out how much of him is who he really is and how much is programming.

Hound, a sheltered Beastman who joined the fight to ensure that Beastmen the world over would have the same rights he did in his homeland of Shetland Isle, but is forcefully stripped of his humanity and faced with his animal side during the war and has to relearn what personhood means amid his trauma.

Q) Is there a bigger point to this, like a theme or some catharsis? Or is it just fluffy fun?

God with the amount of time I spent sleepless trying to figure out how the logistics of this or the semantics of that were supposed to work in universe, I cannot for the life of me say it’s fluffy fun, but I can’t exactly say it hasn’t been pretty engaging either!

There’s elements of war being messy for everyone involved where there doesn’t seem to be a clear line between friend and foe at times, but I think for most part it prescribes to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s belief that people are inherently good, but are corrupted by the evils of society. Despite its dark themes (Including but not limited to child abuse, torture, illegal experimenation and brainwashing), love and friendships do prevail, kindness does beget kindness, found families are made, even the smallest actions matter, and things do get better because there are people on both sides who genuinely want to, and strive to make it better.

With Cold Constructs and Beastmen, it also delves heavily into what it means to be human; to have agency and personhood.

There’s also a strong undercurrent of taking responsibility for one’s actions, even if they were made with the best of intentions (Avoidance of this is what eats up Starscream and Megatron from the inside, and what Starscream eventually embraces).

Q) How long have you been working on it?

There’s two answers to this!

I’ve had a Humanformers-related universe going all the way back to 2007 around the time the first Bayformers came out---basically I had a choice between learning to draw cars or draw people (I was an anthro artist back then) and I immediately chose people.

The 2007 draft however had no worldbuilding or connective storylines and was mostly a fun little venture into character design and practice which were actually instrumental to me experimenting and learning how to draw humans properly.

I left the fandom for about a decade and when I came back to it in late 2020 around September via the War for Cybertron series on Netflix, I immediately got hooked on the 2005 IDW comics I missed out on and wanted to get around to updating my old designs as well find a way to translate several of the concepts I wanted to explore in a human sense, so the 2020 update became its own full-fledged original continuity with detailed worldbuilding and history.

You can see the artistic evolution of several characters from their original incarnation below!

Q) It’s incredible to see your artistic improvement too! Give us a behind-the-scenes look! Show us a secret ;))

Say hello to my workspace! I’ve been working exclusively on the Ipad Pro since late 2016, which is fantastic because I can basically whip up concepts and sketches on the go anywhere. Nowhere is too out of bounds to work on TTB!

Also, do enjoy this sneak peek at true!form Rung, whose synthezoid human body took years to perfect.

Q) YESSSSS alright I must admit this is one of my favorite Rungs, and certainly my fave within TTB. Amazing. Phew, anyway. Where did you draw inspiration from? What canons, what other fiction, what parts of real life?

TTB was initially conceived as a faithful retelling of the IDW 2005 narrative before it was transformed into its own continuity and as such, it borrows heavily from concepts and mirrored plot lines introduced in that run! I chose to have the series inspired off it specifically for the amount of history and worldbuilding it introduced to the franchise.

Anime like Gunslinger Girl and Beastars inspired the depictions of Cold Constructs, especially the more harrowing aspects of their upbringing as government assets instead of children, and Beastmen (Beastformers) in TTB.

I haven’t depicted the world itself in my art all too much, but the architecture from Tiger and Bunny, which has sort of a futuristic Art Deco feel to it, is what you’d usually see in major cities. There is an in-universe reason for that---with a Point Of Divergence set in 1920 followed by 25 years (an entire generation) of progress basically being kicked to the curb due to the Quintesson wars, mankind was basically in a time-locked bubble until the end of the wars, and by then their heroes were 1920s-style rebellion leaders, which lead to 1920s fashion (especially among the Manual Working Class---Megatron, Jazz and Optimus all rock 1920s fashion at some point of their lives) and architecture being celebrated and retained as sort of a reminder of how things were before The Invasion. This anime’s background design is also where I adopted the tiered system TTB’s major metropolises are often built on (with each tier being designated to a different working class) from.

The main artistic style itself is a love letter to 90s cartoons, in particular Gargoyles’ deep and drama-driven character narratives and designs as well as The Centurions’ take on body armor logistics.

I also take inspiration, especially armor-wise, from the characters’ given heritage and background. As an example, Hotrod who is depicted as Irish has the flames on his armor done up with Celtic knots. Welsh aristocrat Mirage’s armor bears olden knight-style filigree and has his Autobot logo designed as a coat of arms. Indonesian Soundwave’s armor and Decepticon logo takes cues from Batik and Wayang Kulit while their mask is based off the Barong.

Q) They are absolutely gorgeous! Show off something you're really proud of, a particular favorite part of your cont.

The worldbuilding in general! Most Humanformers I’ve seen tend to treat it like a fun exercise which it is and is definitely valid, but I found myself wanting a full-fledged world to lose myself in and I sought to try and make that world myself by drafting a detailed history and timeline of events which would affect ongoing narratives, having indepth worldbuilding to include almost all societal aspects of the universe and expanding on the concept of Beastmen and Cold Constructs existing in a human setting.

I’m not so secretly proud of the research and diversity included to make the cast look like the multicultural, globally-based team that they were meant to be instead of being locked to a single region! My original draft from 2007 was, to put it simply, quite culturally monolithic and I wanted to improve on that aspect with TTB.

I’m also proud that I’ve kept to it this far! I’m a notoriously flaky person jumping from one idea/fandom to another and to have kept at this continuity for the better part of ten months is honestly a personal feat.

Art-wise, this scene depicting a young Megatron working alongside Terminus and Impactor (cameo by @weapon-up-wallflower‘s OC Missit!) is definitely one of my favorites since it helps build up the world they live in and plays to familial bonds and comfort found in one another despite their less than ideal circumstances.

Q) Everything has come together so beautifully, you absolutely should be proud. What other fan canons do you love and why? Would you like to see them interviewed?

I am dying to hear more from @iscaredspider’s Sparkpulse continuity! Her designs are MIND-BLOWINGLY GORGEOUS and I want to hear more about what inspired her to work on it!

Also YOU. Yes YOU BLURRITO. LET ME HEAR MORE ABOUT SNAP.

Q) [wails and squirms away in the mortifying ordeal of being known but in a very flattered way] I WILL SOMEDAY I PROMISE aflghsdjg thank you QwQ

Well that was fantastic, Oni, thank you muchly! A magnificent continuity with so much to look forward to! Coming up next is another personal fave of mine, the first inspiration for SNAP, so stick around...

#long post #gore #ties that bind #spotlight #transformers #HUMANFORMERS #transformers au #tf original continuity #transformers fan continuity #transformers redesign #maccadam #i said id post this on sunday but i realize thats a holiday for lots of folks on this site :/

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bshmatthews · 2 years

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Saw Everything Everywhere All At Once yesterday. I didn't know what it was about, just heard that it was a good and my friends wanted to see it. But it really wrecked me, in a way that I wasn't expecting, because of some other stuff that happened this weekend.

I was first diagnosed with depression when I was 12 and I've been struggling with it and ADHD for decades now. I have had maybe a couple years at a time when it was under control and the rest of the time... chaos. And the past few years, partially bc of the pandemic, have been really bad. It's really hard to figure out treatment for depression when you're really depressed and also really disorganized and really broke, but I've spent the past few months trying to dig myself out of the hole.

On Friday I had a seemingly minor setback that sent me into a bit of a spiral. I would usually try to handle it on my own, but because it was related to my physical health and my mom's a doctor, I called my mom. And I told her what was going on and she convinced me to tell her all the depression stuff and she was straight up like, "do you need to be admitted?"

And I hadn't even considered that. I kept telling myself "it's not that bad". But my mom was like "no this is really that bad". And she convinced me to go with her to urgent care. I told her that they wouldn't do anything, but she thought she might be able to convince them to prescribe me something so I wouldn't have to wait the weeks it would take to find a primary care doctor or the months it would take to get in with a psych in this area.

So I went with my mom to urgent care, which couldn't do anything and they sent us to the ER, and then the ER couldn't prescribe anything. They asked if I wanted to be admitted and I said no. BUT the ER was able to refer me to a primary care who is required to see me in the next week or so. And mom knows the doctor and says that he's good and will definitely prescribe me some antidepressants.

And then my mom went home with me and we cleaned the house where I live with my sister. And I just felt so much better after. I'm still probably a long way off before really getting relief from the depression bc I've typically had to try 2-3 different meds every time I have an episode. :/ But it reminded me that I have a mom who loves me and wants to help me and that's a lot...

And then, like an hour after my mom left, my friend asked if I still wanted to see Everything Everywhere All At Once. And I thought about saying no because I was exhausted at that point. But I said yes and we went to see the movie.

And not to spoil anything, but it's all about mothers and daughters and depression and suicide and love. I was already primed with all this emotion and then I'm seeing this extremely strange and amplified reflection of all this stuff I'm going through THIS WEEKEND (right down to the parts about taxes -_-). I was sobbing like a little baby by the end... and I also laughed a lot.

Anyway, It's a very very good movie and I highly recommend it. Just maybe heads up on the suicide themes.

#depression #suicide #mental health #movies #everything everywhere all at once #long post #moms

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klavebies · 3 years

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After being ill for several days with no end in sight, a sleep deprived (and very pregnant) Klaus Hargreeves went to the doctor.

Nothing out of the ordinary, his doctor assured him. Just your typical nausea due to pregnancy, a perfectly common occurrence. And sleep deprivation from difficulty finding comfort—also normal, when you have a watermelon strapped to your midsection!

Good.

He was glad to hear he wasn’t actually sick, at least that meant the little bean growing in his tummy would be just fine. His doctor prescribed him anti nausea medication, told him to catch up on some well deserved sleep and sent him on his way.

He knew he looked like shit. Of course he did. He felt like it, too. But the last thing he expected nor needed was to have paparazzi snap photos of him when he was already feeling his worst.

They didn’t know the truth. Hell, they certainly didn’t care, either. Especially when they posted those photos of him holding his prescription with the most blasphemous caption.

“Ex-Hero turned Zero Klaus Hargreeves: Strung out and pregnant!”

He was appalled. And while he knew he shouldn’t be, he couldn’t help the fact that he was ashamed. Yes, he’d been there before.

But not now.

He’d been sober for months prior to their little one even coming into existence, and the idea of anyone placing such blame on him; shaming him for harming his unborn baby when he would never do such a thing?

Well, it hurt.

And Dave? Well, it went without saying that Dave was pissed.

But he had an idea. While he knew Klaus wanted nothing to do with the spotlight; and he certainly couldn’t blame him, especially when shit like this would happen, but he wondered if they made a public statement—clear the air and his good name with their own words and on their own terms if it would be worth it?

Hell, if it would maybe even help?

After a lengthy discussion with Klaus they decided it would be worth a try

So, they contacted the magazine. Firstly to demand they remove those slanderous hateful lies from the shelves before they offered a proposition: the first interview with one of the famed (and easily most removed) members of the once world renowned “The Umbrella Academy” in over a decade.

The magazine agreed to their terms. They removed all copies of the absurd zine they’d published of him and set up an interview and photo op.

Klaus was nervous—understandably so. It had been so long since he’d done anything like this. To talk to them was one thing. He knew how to speak and could use his words to clear things up, but he couldn’t help but wonder if the photo shoot was entirely necessary?

He was 34 weeks pregnant with their first child. Couldn’t they see that he felt like a bloated whale?

He felt like shit and certainly wasn’t feeling up to having his photo taken, let alone being on the cover of Iconic magazine. Especially when nothing about him felt Iconic at all.

But Dave assured him that he was beautiful. Even going as far as to promise him that he’d always been, and he always would be.

He laid his palm over the swell of his belly, reminding him that he was crating a life.

“What you’re doing, right here,” he said with conviction, his strong hands so gentle against the delicate bundle squirming around inside of his tummy. “There is nothing in this world that is more beautiful than this.”

So, with Dave’s steady reassurance and love, Klaus did the interview. Then with his husband’s unwavering support, he finished off their busy day with the photo shoot.

He may have been exhausted, a little nauseous, and he definitely felt uncomfortable in his own skin, but Dave’s proud grin made the experience worth it to him in the end.

And when the magazine got published—they were proud to learn that their efforts had worked.

Klaus’s name had been cleared.

And wouldn’t you know it, Dave was right—even with their little peanut growing inside of him, Klaus really was beautiful.

***

If this is not something you enjoy—you are absolutely valid, and I respect your choice! All that I ask is that if you don’t like this, please respect mine and move along and keep any unsavory or unkind/judgmental opinions to yourself.

I’m not doing this for any “kink” stuff, I just think that there is something so soft and sweet about pregnant Klave! I’ve never been into mpreg until this pair. Don’t ask me how they work, they just do!

If you liked this I would love if you’d like and reblog! But if you do:

***PLEASE ONLY TAG THE CHARACTERS AND NOT THE ACTORS***

Please and thank you!! :)

#klaus hargreeves #mpreg #Klaus Hargreeves mpreg #dave katz #klave #Klave mpreg #Klave mpreg ficlet #pregnant Klaus fanart #pregnant Klaus Hargreeves fanart #Klave mpreg fanart #mpreg Klaus fanart #mpreg Klaus Hargreeves fanart #Klavebies

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scripttorture · 3 years

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You likely don't follow Dream Smp but there was just a reveal that one person (Character A) is torturing another (Character B, former villain, now in prison) for info on necromancy while the warden of the prison gave CA the equipment to do it and is ignoring CB's screams for help. And half the fandom is trying to justify it with "oh, CB deserves it for threatening to kill a child, killing (1/2)

another child (who he then revived, not justifying /that/ though) and manipulating/abusing the latter." Not only that, but so many people are telling off anyone who pointing out how messed up it is (and don't worry, the story itself so far is showing that it's messed up and won't work) with "it's just fiction, get over it." Like I am legit concerned over how many people are claiming it's cathartic and the character deserves it for their actions. Rant over I guess (2/2) (Dream smp anon) And I forgot to add that this character was /already/ being tortured; he has been in complete solitary confinement for upwards of 2 months and is being starved) and was actively self-harming and destroying items in his cell in a bid to get the warden to come replace them (looking for social interactions, even if it was negative) and people STILL thought that wasn't "enough of a punishment"

I have no idea what this show? Comic? Piece of media is but I’m happy to give my opinion on the general situation and use of violence in fiction*.

But I’m not here to take sides in fandom wars and the aim of this blog is not to tell people they can’t write about violence or abuse. It’s to make people think about how it’s used in stories and hopefully create something that’s more realistic and respectful to real survivors.

At the end of the day the reason I’m interested in fiction is because it effects our perception of real survivors. When so much of our popular media is unrealistic in ways that demean survivors that has an effect. I want to remind people that while the violent acts we write about are fiction, similar acts are happening to real people today.

Torture survivors are real. They’re human and they deserve respect.

Here’s the thing Anon, the people you’re mad at are real too. And the characters that sparked this are not.

There’s nothing wrong with having a strong emotional respond to fiction. There’s nothing wrong with getting frustrated with how pigheaded or outright bigoted fandom can be. But it is worth questioning whether responding to this kind of thing is worth it.

Arguments over fictional characters can become extremely heated and result in real world harm. And so long as you’re engaging with stuff in a purely fictional context… well I think the chances of being dismissed, belittled etc are significantly higher. (Note however that being dismissed and belittled still happens when you’re dealing with torture in the real world.)

This is not fair. That does not change other people’s responses or the cultural climate.

I will be blunt; if you are writing and reading in English the majority of fans you deal with will be Western and white. I have personally found this intersection very likely to treat violence as something purely fictional. I have found them unlikely to consider torture as a reality unless they are prompted to.

And from my side of things that prompting is often like dropping an anvil on someone’s foot during the conversation.

Believe me I get it. It is infuriating to see real, deadly torture techniques interpreted as harmless. It is hurtful seeing torture victims blamed for their own suffering. This happens on the news as often as it does in fandom so the fact these feelings are being set off by something fictional doesn’t make a lot of difference. Because these arguments are used in the real world against real people.

Seeing torture apologia touted as this weeks hot take is something you are allowed to be mad about. I’d be a hypocrite if I said otherwise.

But educating other people is hard work and you are talking about a piece of media aimed at children. You are probably talking to children. If you’re a teenager yourself it might be hard to hear it put like that.

It’s still true.

If you really want to have these conversations in your fandom then you need to centre the reality. Underestimating or dismissing the damage solitary confinement and starvation do to people is serious because it props up real world systems of abuse. Because it justifies ‘tough’ sentences to level of isolation that leave people mutilated by their own hand, or unable to function in society. Or dead. Because it leads to doctors ‘prescribing’ diets used in death camps.

Here’s the thing, talking about that reality to children is a fraught process. Especially when they’re children who don’t have any experience of seeing this stuff. And unless you’re their parent or teacher educating them is not your job.

Sending them down an internet rabbit hole that leads to photos of real injuries, real torture, real mass graves… I think that has the potential to go very badly.

Enjoying something and then discovering that the fandom is toxic is unpleasant. But my impression is that’s the problem here: the fandom interactions are leaving you feeling like shit.

Disengage.

You do not need the fandom to enjoy uh… whatever Dream smp is. You do not need their permission and if the fandom is a negative space for you, you are allowed to leave.

If some of these people are your friends then by all means try to privately explain why their words hurt you and use this blog as a resource. But ask yourself how much you want to be friends first because that is a long painful process that might not work.

Torture apologia is everywhere and fixing it is going to take decades.

Accept that you can not control other people’s actions. Accept that some people will always be assholes.

If seeing torture apologia hurts you then… you probably need to find a piece of media without torture to enjoy. Because apologia is so present that I think that’s the only way to completely avoid coming across it in fandom.

Once again I understand. I’ve volunteered to be bombarded with this stuff every day. It is upsetting. It is also embedded our global culture and the popular media exported to every single nation on the planet.

Constantly being confronted with it and stewing in that anger and hurt is unhealthy.

Step back. Do something else for a while. Take a look at this post I made last week. You might find some of the advice on dealing with these feelings helpful.

You can not make people care. Hopefully most of the people you’re talking to will grow and learn and become more compassionate people. But you can’t force that process.

And you don’t have to deal with their bullshit while they’re still growing.

Shouting at other people isn’t always helpful and it isn’t activism. If you want to do something constructive there are a lot of organisations that would gladly accept your money and your time.

Here’s a couple that seem relevant:

Just Detention

Solitary Watch

The World Food Programme

Amnesty International

I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*I asked a friend to explain what Dream Smp is and I’ll be honest I still don’t understand it. But hey I got an idea of the target audience which helps. Please don’t explain Minecraft to me any more let me rest.

#writing advice #tw torture #tw starvation #torture apologia #tackling torture apologia #fandom #solitary confinement #starvation #torture in fiction

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spectrumed · 3 years

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5. sleep

It hardly gets dark in the Swedish summers. Between dusk to dawn, you’ve got about an hour to fall asleep before the sun rises again. If you struggle to fall asleep that fast, you can invest in some good window blinds. Or you can do as I do and place one big pillow over your face. Then the birds start singing around three o’clock in the morning. You can practically hear the sounds of Edvard Grieg’s Morning Mood playing at around four o’clock in the morning. Around five o’clock in the morning, it is as bright as midday. Did you have a good time sleeping? Or did you pace around in a circle having one hell of a panic attack? I thought you took some of those sleeping pills you got prescribed, they should have helped you fall asleep… wait, you did take them? They didn’t work? Oh, they did work, you just felt your body falling asleep while your mind stayed awake? That sounds terrible, real terrible. Very well. It’s morning now. Want some coffee?

You could form a religion out of sleeping. Let’s have sermons where we fill a whole auditorium full of beds and have our congregates take a big collective nap. Sleep for the sleep god! Pillows for the pillow throne! Sleep is a billion-dollar industry, there’s a plethora of handy products you can buy that promise to send you on a luxury liner to dreamland. Pills, mattresses, dreamcatchers, whatever your snoozy heart desires. You can go to a proper doctor and they might help you, or you can settle for the placebo effect and go to some fraudulent quack, instead. He might make you swallow some pills that contain arsenic, but hey, arsenic is a naturally occurring element. It can’t be all that bad for you if it is natural. And you do want to sleep, don’t you? If you take this pill in your mouth and swallow it with a glass of water, I promise you, you will sleep for a very long time.

The esteemed former president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, claims that he only needs four to five hours of sleep every night. While Mr. Trump is well-known to be a paragon of honesty, I do doubt he’s telling the truth. No, I actually do believe him when says that he only gets about four or five hours of sleep each night, I just don’t believe him when he says that is all he needs. He doesn’t look very well-rested, does he? And Margaret Thatcher, the similarly adored former prime minister of the United Kingdom, claimed that she also only needed about four hours of sleep every night. Yes, while researching the sleeping habits of famous monsters, I’ve come to the conclusion that amongst powerful individuals, not getting enough sleep has become a proper badge of honour. The belief is that if you don’t get enough sleep, that must be because you are living such a vibrantly successful life, and are so career-driven, that you simply haven’t got enough time to sleep for the full eight hours. People who sleep for more than four hours are lazy liberals. Go-getters like Trump has got to be out there, working, making decisions, raping women, and showing daddy what a good boy he is. Sleep is for the weak. But maybe I am weak. I sure like sleeping.

It’s the cultural hangover our society has had since the 80’s. Back when the yuppies wearing jackets with obscenely padded shoulders would happily chuck down eight to ten espressos in one go while A Flock of Seagulls was playing on the radio encouraging everyone to go running. And to be fair to them, with the constant fear of the doomsday clock hitting midnight, they really had no reason to think that they’d survive the decade. The new millennia, it seemed, would have no cities, no nature, no humans, only radiated mutants scouring the rubble that remains of civilization for cans of preserved something edible. Self-destructive behaviour was in. It was fashionable. Doubt people got enough sleep back then, between snorting coke and wondering if the next pandemic that hits the night clubs would start killing as many straight folks as gay folks. Well, here we are in the new 20’s, and we’ve got a pandemic that does appear to kill people regardless of sexual orientation. Sure, the looming threat of nuclear obliteration has been lessened dramatically, but we’ve largely come to exchange that anxiety for the fear of total environmental collapse, instead. No wonder 80’s nostalgia is a big thing right now. History doesn't repeat itself, but It often rhymes, said Mark Twain (supposedly.) I wonder how much coke Mark Twain would snort if he lived in the 80’s.

I notice a palpable difference in my mood and mental state when I’ve been getting good amounts of sleep. Lack of sleep results in lack of clear thinking. Caffeine, though it is something I am chronically addicted to, does not help fix a sleep-deprived mind. There are no tricks of revolutionary “life hacks” one can employ to get out of sleeping. To recover from depression, one has to sleep. Sleep often and sleep well. I cannot understate the importance of being well-rested. You cannot process information if you are tired. I am reminded of my teenage years seeing friends of mine who’d stay up all night, then come into school shuffling like agonised zombies. They got so frustrated when the teachers reprimanded them for snoozing in class. Well, dummies, it is your fault for drinking several dozen cans of Red Bull every day! I know that sleep does not always come easy. I know the terror of insomnia. But, c’mon! At some point, you’ve got to realise that sleep is essential. Maybe most of your problems stem from the fact that you refuse to get enough of it? Here’s where the tough love comes in. If you wanna get better, kiddo, then listen to me. It’s bedtime. Yes, I know you’d rather stay up late playing monopoly with your friends, but I’m confiscating your dice and I’ll only give it back to you when you’ve gotten some good sleep. Okay? You hear me, missy? You listen to your daddy now, and go to bed. No ifs or buts about it, princess, I’ve made myself clear. I know what is best for you, and you know that I am right. I’m your daddy.

But what if I can’t seem to fall asleep? Normally, it takes a long time for me to fall asleep. It is not uncommon for me to stay awake for two hours, maybe more, before I finally begin to sleep. Fearing that I won’t fall asleep gives me anxiety. That anxiety keeps me awake. I turn my body. I try lying on my side. First my left side, then my right side. I then try to lie on my back. I’ve got a song stuck playing in my head. Not even the whole song, just a ten-second segment of it. It’s playing over and over. I’m worried about the future, will I ever find security, will I ever find a wife, will I get to grow old? I worry about death. I keep hearing the music playing, it’s grating. I rearrange the pillows, in hopes that will make me feel more comfortable. But no, I keep tossing and turning like a fish caught on land. I’m getting frustrated. If only I could shut off my brain. I’m constantly thinking. I turn to my side again, but now I notice I’ve moved arounds so much that now the bed has shifted away from its position next to the wall. There’s now a gap between the bed and the wall. I almost fall down that gap. I get up and I push the bed back against the wall. I lay down in bed. The song is still playing.

How am I ever going to become a successful businessman if I am wasting so many hours just trying to get to sleep? This is the time I should be spending on the phone, yelling at people and making inappropriate sexual comments to my female employees. That is what good executives do. I need to get my life in order. I need to exercise more. I should practice mindfulness. I should get a life coach, a personal trainer, a stylist, an accountant, an assistant, a trophy wife, and a mistress. I need people in my life to take care of me. It’s funny how rich people create the sort of environment around them where people will take care of all their needs, effectively infantilising them. These people don’t even get to decide how to dress themselves. They’ve got fancy apartments, but they don’t choose any of the furniture. They’ve got art on the walls that they don’t like, but the art looks expensive, and that is all that matters. They’ve got kids, but they don’t raise them. Their spouses are cheating on them, but in fairness, they are cheating on their spouses. They don’t really even know what their jobs entails, as they’ve gotten promoted so many times that they’ve ended up in a position that is totally outside their realm of expertise. But they’re so powerful that no-one is able to fire them over their pretty blatant incompetence. They’re successful. They’ve made it. But they still can’t sleep at night. They only manage to successfully fall asleep at night after swallowing a fistful of pills along with a swig of vodka.

It must be easy being a self-help guru. Well, what I mean to say is that all you really need is charisma, which is something you need to be born with. But you don’t need to do any actual studying, any real research, or any kind of soul-searching or deliberation. All you need is to state what is obvious. You go on stage in front of an anxious audience, mostly composed of middle-class salesmen and miscellaneous white collar ghosts. You smile, show off your eerily bright teeth, and they clap. You tell them to go take care of themselves, to eat more healthily, to take walks, or go swimming, and love their partners. You tell them to drink less, or maybe, if they feel like it, they could drink more. I am sure you could spin alcohol as a positive or a negative, depending on what crowd you’re talking to. Tell them to appreciate family. Tell them to appreciate others. Live, laugh, but most of all, love. Tell them to go clean their rooms. Tell them to remember that if they’re on an airplane that is about to crash land, they need to put their own oxygen mask on before they can help others put theirs on. If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? Now, go to bed!

You know all this stuff. Me telling you that you should sleep more doesn’t really help you. You know that you should sleep more. It’s not like as if you’re too dumb to realise that. And it’s not like as if you’re too dumb to realise that it is better to drink in moderation, and that you should smoke less weed. There are many small little things you can do to improve your life, to stop being a terminally unemployed slacker. It’s like your grandpa who tells you stories about life after the war when you could walk into the biggest building in town, slam your fist against the table and demand to be given a job and a house and a wife and a couple of kids, and that was all you needed to do. He can’t comprehend the fact that society doesn’t work like that, any more. Most people my generation have given up hope of ever owning a home, at least if they happen to live in the vicinity of a larger city. It seems that, no matter where you live, the cost of homes has risen to an impenetrable degree. It seems just as likely that you will be able to afford your very own genetically-engineered pet dragon before you will get to be a house-owner. It’s the fault of those damn boomers, why bother changing your ways, when the boomers are still in charge? Others may accuse you of wallowing in your own depression, but you are perfectly aware that this is exactly what you are doing. You are self-aware. But self-awareness on its own is not enough to motivate anyone. You still can’t see the point in doing anything constructive with your life. Life just feels so aimless. It’s easier to sit, smoke weed, and watch cartoons.

Pop psychology is problematic. To say the least. Take all those self-help gurus suffering from their messiah complexes and put them through the shredder. Don’t buy books thinking that they’ll offer you the kind of treatment you would get from an actual psychiatrist. I know that, depending on where you are in the world, treatment can get very expensive, but you’re not going to get better reading the book of some self-aggrandising narcissist’s collection of wishy-washy platitudes. Dr. Phil has done great evil pretending to be a therapist on the TV, and Jordan Peterson (despite having once been an esteemed scholar) has turned a generation of young internet-savvy zoomers into proto-fascists obsessed with the monogamy of lobsters. Pop psychology has become a guise for cult leaders to reap new followers. Getting treatment should not feel like joining a new religious movement. Maybe I’m just one of those annoying atheists, but I dare say, psychiatry works at its best when it's secular. You should not look at your psychiatrist as a prophet speaking to God. They’re just a doctor, and you need treatment.

I do not aspire to create a self-help blog. I do not promise that reading this blog will help you in any way. I would be overjoyed if someone came up to me and told me that I had inspired them to seek help. You may tell me that reading my words have made you feel less alone, knowing that others have gone through all these things that you are going through. When I felt at my worst, I remember reading the memoirs of people I admired who had similarly struggled in their lives, and I felt less alone. But none of those books pretended to exist principally to help others. Those books did help me, through the candid descriptions of struggles that I thought I was alone in experiencing. Knowing that some people had pulled through, managed to find a light at the end of the tunnel, it made me think I could one day be like them. The books didn’t seek to fix me, but they offered me a perspective that came to be very valuable later on, when I started going to therapy, and when I later started taking medication. Sometimes that is all you need. Not someone standing over you and telling you to go to bed, or to clean your room, or to stop drinking. You know all that, already. What you really need is the reassurance that things can indeed get better. Sleep will come.

#neurodiversity #neurodivergent #autism spectrum disorder #autism #aspergers #mental health

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anakinisvaderisanakin · 4 years

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When Conviction Fails - Darth Vader POV post ESB Fic

Vader was a man of conviction, as far as he saw it. As was expected of any successful Sith Lord; letting the emotions rule and take full control without ever truly allowing them to conquer you. Using fear to his advantage, using rage to gain power, and pain to enhance said power. It had taken two decades to come to this point. Wavering was expected early on; during the initiation towards the Rule of Two. Vader himself had started out with an unquenchable fury in his soul, and a fresh open wound where heart used to be.

When She died, She had taken his compassion with her. She had grasped at the hand of his spirit, and all that he stood for as The Jedi. As Her life withered away, so did all that was good inside him. Left was only an empty shell of suffering; of agony. What was left, he had deplored. In the remnants of the man that had once been; all that he loathed came to light.

And with the passing years, while the pain never faded completely; it had shifted. From a sharp, searing red hot poker constantly burrowing its way deeper into his side; to a dull, distant ache only there to make its presence known. To make sure it was never forgotten, as a cruel reminder. But no longer at the forefront of his mind.

Eventually, it became enough to numb any other emotion. The remorse over the way in which he had, directly or not, caused Her death was enough to daze and desensitize any other reprehensible act he may commit himself to. The slaughter of innocents, of civilians, of women, of children. All in the name of justice, all in the name of the Empire. It weighed little on his conscience. Why should the blood on his hands matter? If he could kill the person he loved the most, and still go on albeit as an empty shadow of his former self - what did it matter who else joined Her beyond the grave?

Except, he hadn't killed Her.

It had been the first thing Palpatine revealed to him; as his severely burnt and scorched flesh still stung and charred within the fresh confines of its haphazardly crafted life support system. As he was still confounded regarding what was real, and what was a waking nightmare. Trapped within the suit that would become the prison of his own making.

“You killed her,” Palpatine had rasped.

Those were his Master’s words. His only explanation. Insinuating that Vader had for one crucial moment lost control, lost his mind; and subsequently ended the one person he'd fallen so far from grace to save. The one soul he had been so desperate to salvage that he had willingly sacrificed his morals, and his very identity, if only to reach for that tiny sliver of hope Palpatine had dangled in front of his nose.

‘But I didn't kill Her.’

If he had killed Her, there would be no child. His son - their son - would have died with Her, still in the womb. Would have been buried alongside his mother in the Naberrie family tomb on Naboo. Would have never seen the light of day, never grown into the bright, promising young man who had destroyed the first Death Star. Would never have been named, never have been hidden away, never have been living life peacefully unaware of his heritage in the shadows of the Empire for nearly twenty years.

But he was alive.

Luke had changed everything.

The discovery of his existence had been like a slap to the face, like a stupefying wakeup call. Like Vader had found himself dunked beneath the icy cold waters of truth, forced to realize the bleak reality. Forced to realize that the one person he’d been blindly clinging to in this world, was even cruel than he could ever have anticipated.

Palpatine had lied to him.

Perhaps, Vader had indeed inadvertently caused Her demise - but She had lived long enough to birth their son. She had not died on Mustafar, She had not been strangled to death by the invisible hand of his Force choke. She had survived long enough to set their only child to the world. Long enough to name him Luke; granting him the name She had picked out for their child if it were a boy from the very beginning of Her pregnancy.

She had been right.

The Jedi had been convinced that their child would be a daughter, She had been adamant it was a son. Their son. Luke Skywalker. Named by his mother, bearing the stark reminder of who had fathered him.

‘Luke.’

Dark, shaggy blonde hair and deep blue eyes. The same hard, defiant conviction in his eyes as his mother’s hazel ones had carried. He'd inherited The Jedi's facial features; the same angular boyish face, the same dimpled chin; the same complex. But his spirit was that of his mother's. Burning like a furnace flame, fighting for what he believed was right with a conviction only death could steal away from him. Vader had hoped Luke would be more like himself; easier to break, easier to manipulate, easier to steer in the direction he'd have liked. He had wished he himself could mislead, and pull the strings as well as Palpatine had, some twenty years ago when The Jedi had become tangled in the Emperor's web of lies. Trapped like a fly, to be feasted upon by the ravenous spider.

But Luke was different.

Luke was sensitive, emotional, vulnerable and desperately searching for a way to bond with his long lost father. The Jedi would have recognized himself in those qualities; would have appreciated the similarities. Luke had been deluding himself into expecting a heroic fantasy, envisioning his absent father as one of the men who had singlehandedly led the opposition of what would become the Empire. A as beacon of hope. Instead, he had found himself saddled with the knowledge of what had truly become of The Jedi who had sired him.

Vader clenched his gloved hands into tight fists; the visual memory of Luke's hard set, intent expression as he let go of the ledge still etched into his mind. Blue eyes cold as ice; denying their familiar relations despite knowing very well how the Force did not lie. His Force signature bursting with mistrust, and contempt.

But Luke had lived.

For a short moment, as he watched Luke fall; Vader had been unexpectedly reliving the pain of that moment he came to his senses while still strapped to the operation table, as he broke free from his makeshift shackles.

Crippled; less than half the man he'd used to be. More cybernetics and machine, than flesh and blood. Reaching for Force powers he could no longer tap into; taunting him by remaining just out of reach. He was reminded of crumbling to the harsh floor, beneath the load of his own reconstructed body’s weight; of the searing pain as his respirator attempted to match his sobs with its own periodically synchronized breath cycles.

The physical torment, while a menace in its own right; bearing no likeness to the mental anguish of his breakdown. It had stabbed viciously at his already blackened heart, until nothing but a mangled piece of malformed meat remained; the pang in his chest as he watched the last link to Her fall to his doom bringing it back as a distant echo. He was choosing death over his own father, just as She had chosen death over him and the Empire.

But Luke had survived, by some miraculous whim of the fates. The will of the Force, perhaps. Still in denial; still battered, bruised and disabled. Doomed by his own father to experience the same loss of a limb that Count Dooku had once bestowed upon The Jedi.

The Jedi had been bereft of a right arm; Luke merely of his right hand. It had been a selfish, wicked way of attempting to have his son experience the same indescribable humiliation. Stripped of a part of himself; at the hand of an enemy he had been rushing unprepared to face. Overconfident; in over his head. With this, Luke had learnt never to throw himself head first into a battle he was not equipped to win.

But at what cost?

Vader found himself glaring out into the vast black void ahead of the Executor; clutching at the distant mental link humming between them for a brief moment - like a flicker of light before going out in an instant. Luke was too far away to read; as his signature disappeared along with his ragtag crew of rebels. The Princess no doubt on-board; Vader could tell. Ironic, how it had been her saving his skin this time around.

Still, he felt the frustration bubble up inside. Felt it mingle with the fury; with the disappointment. Despite the carefully calculated trap he'd set, the way it had played out all in his favour until that last moment where Luke broke protocol. His reaction had aligned with none of the scenarios Vader had prescribed beforehand. It had failed; he had failed - and Luke was gone. Just like his mother.

Vader knew he shouldn't be surprised.

Everyone had left him for dead. Whenever he’d dared to love, dared to trust, dared to open up and be vulnerable and sincere - it had been for naught.

Mother, watching with glassy dark eyes when he turned to peer at her over his shoulder one final time; ever the terrified little boy as he left Tatooine behind. The boy who believed the Jedi order would help him free her. Instead; it had kept him from saving her. The last time he’d seen her before her demise; he was only nine years old. She’d been all he knew. Albeit without intention of hurting him, and beyond her own control; Shmi Skywalker had passed away in his arms to leave him alone. Had torn the first hole in The Jedi's heart; had triggered the first act of rampant, blind revenge. His first step towards his dark fate.

“I’m so proud of you, Ani,” she had breathed; as the life left her eyes.

Ahsoka had followed; abandoning him for her own selfish reasons. Walking away from him, dismissing his importance in her life and the value of the lessons he had taught her; the value of their bond. She had made it clear he was never going to be enough; had turned him down despite his pleading, his admission that he understood her feelings better than anyone. The Jedi had failed his padawan, the only one to believe in her innocence and to what end? Ahsoka had still turned him down.

“..And without you,” she had whispered.

Obi Wan was next in line; siding with the maniacal teachings of the Jedi order. Fighting to avenge them - all the while outright lying to his face, trying to trick him into believing he could still return to him. Trying to make The Jedi believe that his former master had ever considered him a brother. That they were ever more than merely master and apprentice; that The Jedi was never the burden or a disappointment he’d felt he was. That he was important to Obi Wan, too, in a way he had never outwardly expressed. That Obi Wan, who never formed attachments after what happened to the Duchess of Mandalore; had been so overtly attached to him.

“I loved you,” he had sobbed.

And then Her; who had turned down his offer of keeping Her by his side. Turned down the offer to become untouchable, as his Empress. Betrayed him, in spite of all he had sacrificed for Her. He had killed younglings for her. His brothers and sisters; his entire life slaughtered in the crumbling ashes of the burning Jedi Temple. To learn the ways of the Dark Side, to join the Sith - to keep Her from dying. And She had thanked him by rejecting him; by claiming She could not follow him anymore.

“I love you,” she had cried; and for the first time in his life - he didn’t believe her.

Now, Luke had chosen to stride the same path. Selfish, like Ahsoka. He too believing in the lies Obi Wan had fed him. Believing himself too virtuous, too pure just like Her. Believing that any lives he had taken in the name of the Rebellion - and his misplaced sense of civil justice - to be easier to explain away, than those his father had claimed. But in a way, Vader supposed it was no surprise Luke took after his mother. His son’s intentions were fair, his sacrifices rational. She had been pure, and good; though She was not fully innocent in the wake of the war, either; she had known where She stood.

Luke had inherited the same sense of morality, the same hunch for standing up for the weak. Standing up against the Empire, as a way of breaking free; of fighting back against the leading elite. Although, his desperation to make a difference and be of importance mirrored that of The Jedi.

Vader had sworn before the battle at Bespin that Luke would be turned. But could he?

Luke was still but a youth; still naive and starry eyed - despite some of that innocence being ripped away in the very moment Vader had revealed to him the truth. But he was secure; he was so steadfast in himself and who he perceived himself to be. The Jedi had been going astray when he was the same age; his fears and insecurities eating him alive. Luke was already an adult; had already defeated his demons.

“I am your father,” Vader had said to him.

The response he’d received was that of Luke crying out in agony, in begrudging despair. All the while knowing that the grim revelation was nothing but the truth. Perhaps Luke would now see that the line between good and evil; right and wrong was not as straight as he had supposed. It was a blurry, tangled mess; the road to hell paved with good intentions. Vader's own road to hell surely had been. But Luke was paving his very own road elsewhere, it seemed.

Still, it stung Vader’s damaged eyes. The rage swelling in his chest; filling the empty void of broken, shredded pieces of what was once his heart. For a second, the shade of glowing amber that coloured his eyes a sickly, Sith yellow faded. Gave way for a pale, tired blue. Bleached by the scorching flames of Mustafar’s lava streams. The same blue eyes The Jedi had once sported. The same blue eyes his son now possessed. Vader shook his head in frustration, and in an instant the shift was reversed. The embers of his fiery stare bleeding through, devouring the remnants of The Jedi resurfacing.

Or, so he would have hoped.

But the pulsating ache inside; dull and sharp as a blade all at once, remained. Vader knew the feeling; recognized the emotion he’d thought long gone. One that had been numbed and buried deep for so many years; underneath the heaps and drones of twisted, lifeless bodies of his victims.

Remorse.

Regret.

Guilt.

Remorse, for the way in which he had handled his first meeting face to face with his son after he had learned the truth of their connection. Regret, for the way in which he had physically, and mentally, snuffed out some of the light of hope previously clear in Luke's bright blue eyes. Guilt, over the fact that he had purposely driven a wedge between them himself; much like he had done between himself and Her. He found he knew no other way.

Vader pursed what was left of his charred lips behind the face plate. He glared at the distant stars, sparkling like burning orbs against the inky sky behind them. Spanning eons of light years ahead. Filling the distance between himself and Luke, making it palpable. Tangible.

He despised Obi Wan for lying to his son. Despised the way in which he had deluded Luke into believing in a childish fairytale. Despised him for telling Luke that his father was dead, that his father was now unreachable.

‘But is that not what you tell yourself?’

Vader turned his head to the side, as if to deny the suggestion. Still, the quiet voice nagging at the back of his head would not be silenced.

‘Do you not constantly tell everybody that Anakin Skywalker is dead? That you destroyed him? Is that not what you tell yourself? Luke is not your son; he's The Jedi’s son.’

‘Luke is my son. My flesh and blood. Mine alone,’ Vader shot back silently; his inwardly projected diction a sharp hiss of a threat; angled towards the defiant part of his own psyche.

‘Then, you must also admit that you are Anakin Skywalker.’

‘His name means nothing to me.’

‘Then, Luke Skywalker cannot be your son.’

‘He is.’

‘Then, you are indeed Anakin, and you accept that as the only truth.’

‘I am not The Jedi; he was weak and foolish. I destroyed him and his pathetic legacy, he is nobody now. He is nothing.’

‘You cannot claim Skywalker as kin, if you do not acknowledge your own identity.’

‘Silence!’

‘Silence will accomplish nothing. It is too late to undo what you have revealed to yourself.’

Vader forcefully ignored his own intrusive thoughts; locking them back away inside the darkness of his past where they could not bother him.

But weren’t they right?

If Luke was indeed his son; did that not mean that The Jedi had never fully died? How could he be a different man, a separate entity, if he recognized The Jedi's son as his son?

‘And Luke is my son. My son, and he belongs to me. With me.’

He could feel it in his bones; could feel it as deeply as he felt the tendrils of the Dark Side surging through him. As deeply as he felt the connection to his own Force sensitivity, to his own memories of Her. Vader had loved Her - loved Her still - and She had been but the wife of The Jedi. If he thought of Her as his beloved, as his everything; did that not mean he must recognize himself as unchanged? A broken shell, a faded shadow of who he had once been. But the same nonetheless.

A fleeting image of Her passed before Vader’s inner vision. Her kind hazel eyes, full of mournful sorrow. Her silky brown hair, falling in springy curls over Her pale shoulders. His betrayal had destroyed Her; had ripped Her from him. How could he ever repent for that? His eyes prickling; Vader snarled silently to himself - deformed face contorting into a visage of hollow, yet overwhelming anguish.

The Jedi had known that what he had done was wrong; as soon as he stopped to think about it. Had known the lives he'd taken could never be accounted for, could never be justified. That, much as he liked to think killing the younglings had set them free from a cruel fate of being twisted by the unkind religion of the Jedi Order; he had been ridden with the burden of their murder. He had locked that knowledge away; had forced himself to deny its meaning.

Still, now, he was not as sure anymore. He found himself wavering; suddenly not as certain of his future as he had once been. Not as convinced of his purpose to suffer for eternity, while bringing upon others the same torment. Vader didn't even take note of the wetness pooling at the corners of his bloodshot yellow eyes until one lone tear broke free to trail down the grooves of his wretched face.

Only then, did the shock seep in.

When had he last cried? Had it been on Mustafar, after he had slayed the Separatists and the realization of what he had just committed himself to came crashing down on him? Had it been when he learnt of Her demise seconds hand after the brutal life saving ordeal, merging the bodily torture with the psychological agony? Had it been when Ahsoka swore to him that she would not leave his side this time, despite knowing what he had done as Vader? Had it been when he found Obi Wan's tattered robes were all that remained of the old man he had struck down, thinking it would bring him peace but finding himself stricken only by grief? Had it been the last time he was reminded that everything he felt, everything he stood for - everything he believed - came from The Jedi?

Luke knew who his father was.

Knew who he was; knew what he was. Despite having his world toppled over and turned on its head; despite trying to deny it. Vader had denied the same fact for so long, that he had almost forgotten where the line he'd forged between what he considered to be The Jedi and himself was drawn. All he knew for certain, was that Luke was his son. And if he wanted to cling to that one scrap of light; there were so many horrendous actions he needed to take responsibility for as well.

The Jedi had never truly died. The Jedi had only ever evolved, had only ever changed as life itself changed and formed him into a dark dealer of vengeance. Had been molded by the path he chose, and by the people he’d loved and lost. Had been hollowed out; until only the carcass remained.

It was The Jedi that had killed Her; he had stolen Her will to live, he had snuffed out Her longing for peace.

It was The Jedi that killed Ahsoka; having zero quells with beheading her as soon as she denied him what he wished for; denied him her allegiance.

It was The Jedi that had killed Obi Wan; striking him down after convincing himself that the blame was all on him, and that it would diminish with the death of his former Jedi Master.

Now, they remained lingering in his peripheral like translucent specters. Like a haunting reminder of how he may never escape. May never forget. May never be able to fully buy into his own lies. May never be forgiven.

The Jedi - Anakin - was still very much alive. Not thriving, but crumbled to the bare bones of a forsaken human being. Beaten down by life, enslaved by one person after the other. But he had a son.

As another tear trailed lazily down his cheek; Vader flinched. The sensation overwhelming him, a mixture of heavenly relief and excruciating devastation. It seemed one may never appear without the other in its tow. The name of The Jedi was supposed to mean nothing to him; was supposed to be an empty callback to a past long since abandoned and overcome. Was supposed to be a distant remnant of a man that no longer breathed. In itself, that was true from a certain point view.

But if it had truly meant nothing, it would never have stung the way it did whenever uttered for Vader to hear. When She said it. When Ahsoka said it. When Obi Wan said it. Whenever it was uttered, it would bring forth all the suffering The Jedi had caused. And all the contempt The Jedi harboured towards his own visage. Therein lay the answer.

‘I am Luke’s father. Luke is my son. I am Darth Vader.’

‘And Anakin Skywalker,’ the pestering murmur of his inner voice whispered.

Anakin no longer had the strength to suppress, or deny that statement.

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Can be found on my Ao3 below, repost from my original acc.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048643

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