#you’ve never seen so many variations of eating disorders
Text
ed tw
prev tags on that post mentions intermittent fasting being normalized
Deadass i’ve been to inpatient ED treatment before, yet a couple years later my dad thought it was a good and normal idea to ask me if i had ever tried intermittent fasting and suggested i try it.
all i said to him was “Yes, i’ve tried it before and i do fast intermittently”
like lmfao.
Also i know he suggested it to me because when I came to visit him that time i had put on weight because i had gotten sober in another city.
It was so insane when he said that to be because the whole time i was staying at his house during my visit i only ate lunch if he did, and we would eat from the same place. except for one day i got a burrito from my favorite burrito place because i always do that when i visit my home town. and i remember wanting to get a slice of pizza at a local pizza place that i had been missing since i moved away, and he tried to manipulate me into not going. I can’t remember if i went and got a slice or not but i remember him continuously pressuring me not to. and i never ate breakfast. and i never ate dinner unless he did. And he wanted takeout every night i was in town. So he bought us takeout every night, we ate from the same place, we even had the same meal some nights and we split and appetizer on a few nights.
So i was still eating less than him since he often eats breakfasts.
But out of the blue towards the end of my visit in town, he suggested i try intermittent fasting as if i hadn’t been doing that the whole time i was there. and the whole time i’ve been alive since i was 4 years old.
Hello?
#don’t even get me started on the deep seeded eating issues on both sides of my family#it’s so insane#you’ve never seen so many variations of eating disorders#diet culture has rotted all their brains#including mine#we love generational ED’s lmao woohoo
0 notes
Note
Hello I just finished the Pacific and I'm dying. So it's time for me to delve into the fandom and try and fulfil my poor sledgefu heart. Have any recommendations on who's blog to look at or tags? Other than yourself because I most certainly will spend a solid 5 hours going through your tags. I've already seen a lot of your art and I think it's beautiful, just an FYI.
Oh boy do I ever have recs! It was only about a year ago that I was new to the fandom myself and slowly going through @aboutthatmelancholystorm and @persipneiwrites tumblr sledgefu tags every night, reading all of it, and being totally sucked in! ^_^ (I especially suggest Persipnei’s 3:16 AU where Sledge and Snafu are rock stars!) As for art, I think the biggest collection I know of is the blog @marines-r-gay. Some of my favorite sledgefu artist blogs include @skelesocks (Ace Eugene will hold a special place in my heart forever!) @badgerms and my old favorite the-heebiejeebies who sadly disappeared and deleted their blog :( but you can still find their old art in my ‘sledgefu’ tag on my blog like here. There’s no really ‘exculsively’ sledgefu artists out there right now, but there is a LOT of amazing older stuff to be found mixed into people’s blogs! My own art/writing sledgefu masterlist can be found here.
More specific fanfic recs under the cut! I’m focusing on oldies, because I think it’s fairly easy to find the newer ones on AO3 that are still being updated ^_^
Not Quite Home by Seabright - A fix it fic that really fixes things. Post war set in New Orleans with Eugene showing up on Snafu’s doorstep. Snafu is cantankerous and very in character and he /claims/ he can’t ‘fix’ Sledge, but let’s face it that’s why they need to fix each other. Snafu has a lot of walls up and Eugene breaks all of them down in his steadfast way. This fic captures Snafu perfectly - even in little things like in the way he fidgets and moves. Also the last kiss is just...SO good.
Canon Compliant
Roadverse by Seabright - There are a few authors exclusively on AO3 that like...if you haven’t read their entire sledgefu collection yet, you gotta! Seabright is one of them. Roadverse is set after the war and Snafu takes Eugene on a roadtrip to Florida, there’s a lot of introspection, they fall in love, definitely a happy ending! The writing here is what really shines.
After The Happy Ending by Handdaddyhoosier - Another author it’s worth reading their entire sledgefu collection. This one is also set after the war and is more domestic. A lot of fluff, a lot of slice of life, a lot of Sledge and Snafu dealing with homophobia and overcoming it (!!). Through it all Snafu and Eugene remain sooooo much in love that they’re stronger together and...yeah...it’s good.
Christmas Even Will Find Me by SOMETHINREAL - My favorite canon compliant Sledgefu Christmas fic! It’s just perfect! Everybody is all together again after the war for Christmas and Eugene and Snafu are playing their own little dance between each other in the corner...they’re adorable. Plus there’s a happy ending!
Maybe You’ll Think Of Me When You’re All Alone by SOMETHINREAL - A very very good fix it fic for after the war. They’re both broken but they’re together and falling in love all over again, yay! I live for first pining and emotional kiss scenes and this is one of the best!
These Foolish Things Remind Me of You by Spoondragon - Merriell is quirky and weird and collects things and his last line in the fic is gOLD. Basically them being cute, with a first kiss. I highly rec ALL of spoondragon’s sledgefu fics!
To Make Much of Time by Hueligan - FIX THE TRAIN SCENE. I will read almost any variation of that train scene where Snafu makes it right, and this one does! AND THEN RUINS IT. So fair warning, you will fall in love with this fic but then it will break your heart. Kinda like Snafu. But it’s ok cause then you can go read one of the OTHER many fix it fics and mend it again.
Tilled Earth by Killerqueenie - Okay, this is one of my absolute FAVORITES. Snafu finds Eugene playing farmer boy in a small town outside of Mobile ten years after the war and Snafu signs himself on as a ranch hand. This one ACTUALLY fixes the train scene. Eugene is prickly and untrusting and Snafu has to earn his right to waltz back into his life. And oh gosh the love each other so so much!
The Magic Helmet by jspringsteen - Cute adorable and totally in character, canon compliant and not actually sledgefu except for some delightful hints that they are into each other more than they let on. It’s just such a great moment for Snafu’s character that I’ve reread this on multiple occasions.
All You Got by ssstrychnine - Another fix it fic (I know, I love these). This follows canon so well it’s seamless and only adds subtle touches of love between Gene and Snafu - so very believable as a part of the actual show. This author has four fics on AO3 for sledgefu and I suggest reading them all!
The Jazz Lights of New Orleans by Gracefully - Yet ANOTHER fix it fic! Give me them all!!!
AU
Like It’s Only You And Me by SJTrinity - Snafu is an artist in this so of course I’m going to biased, but this is one of my absolute favorite college AU’s. All our favorite characters are there, including Bill, Burgie, Andy, and Eddie (and even Pops! as a fatherly figure to Snafu though he’s only referenced). Snafu is as chaotic as ever. The romance is hot! There are parts where I almost bust a gut laughing. Also anytime Eugene gets all haughty and bossy with his little furrowed brow over Snafu that’s like A+ for me.
Learning Curve by Seabright - ok THIS fic defines ultimate pining over Gene for me. I have never related to Snafu more. There’s a description of Eugene swimming in a pool that just..yeah...I have feelings. Anyway, it’s a college AU that is tragically UNFINISHED and will rip your heart out, BUT the same author also has a whole bunch of more canon related fic where the two of them do get together, so that eases the sting a little.
F.M.L by @badgerms - I maybe have a thing for swimmers, but I love this swimming college AU especially because it’s in Gene’s POV but done so well that it feels real. This fic also delves into mental illness and mental self flagellation (there are some moments that hit REAL hard if you’ve ever had eating disorders). But on top of all that, I feel like lollki really captured what is so magnetic about Snafu, and by having Gene put him on this impossible pedestal it kinda reflects what a lot of us in the fandom do with his character. Snafu makes his existence look effortless and thoughtless, Gene is incredibly jealous of how Snafu just lives, their competition is ENTHRALLING.
The Kind Of Stuff That Only Prince Would Sing About by @stolperzunge A coffee shop AU that has Sledge and Snafu just slowly and sweetly falling in love. This one is from Snaf’s pov and since I identify with him more you know I’m gonna love it lol! There are some GREAT funny lines, Snafu has personality in spades. Eugene is a grandad hipster type who also writes erotica....I dunno it’s all amazing go read it.
There Will Be Better Days by SydneyCarton - High school AU. As someone who had a fairly shitty high school experience and many bad holidays, this is...cathartic. Gene is definitely more the caretaker here, he saves Snafu in a way that’s just as strong as when he picked him up on the battlefield. But it’s all emotional, and Snafu is this scared prickly kid. And Gene is the honor roll kid who has to play the role of best friend secretly in love with the one person who matters most to them. This author never wrote anything else for Sledgefu and I wish they had!
Okay, that’s a whole bunch! There’s even more in my aO3 bookmarks! This list is just me going through my bookmarks and selecting the ones that I especially remembered and is by no means exhaustive of all my favorites in this fandom. Joining the Pacific train late means there’s a whole lot to choose from and explore...but it also means the list of active blogs is short and not a lot of new content gets posted every day :( I think the Sledgefu community is still going pretty strong, though! Welcome!
15 notes
·
View notes
Link
"You know, he's only mean to you because he likes you!"
Cast your mind back to the playground. Aaron and the other boys are playing tag, and he won't let you join in. The louder he insists, the harder you try to insert yourself, the situation escalating until Aaron sticks his leg out and you go flying. If he was trying especially hard to embody a cliche, he might even pull your pigtails. So far, so normal. Kids are cruel and weird. As a kid yourself, you're doing a pretty weird/normal job of processing the exclusionary nastiness ... until you hear from Mom that sometimes being treated badly is actually a good thing. "You know, he only does that because he likes you!" she says, spinning the meanness as a compliment.
Even worse, you're at that age when you can detect that "He likes you" means something different here, even if you're not quite sure what. There's an implicit idea -- perhaps in part because you don't understand -- that it's a special condition of feeling. As such, it entitles its "feeler" to a whole different criteria for good and bad behavior.
Mom is trying to prepare you for something she knows you won't understand, that soon boys are going to start acting strangely, that you're about to spend the rest of your life misinterpreting each others' motives. But "He's mean because he likes you" is such a tragic and bizarre introduction to the idea. It's like having your driving instructor begin the first lesson with "Remember, sometimes pedestrians scream because they're happy!"
Even if it seems harmless on the playground, wait until high school, the workplace, cohabiting relationships, and marriage, hoo boy. He's calling every three minutes because he loves me. He hits me because I drive him to it, his passion overflowing as violence. Even if it's true that the boy on the playground acts badly because he has a crush and this is his weird preteen way of processing it, that doesn't need any reinforcing.
"Why don't you have the party here? I'll pick up some snacks!"
You're somewhere between 13 and 18 and you are going to have A Party. It's been weeks in the planning stages. Someone's big sister has been coerced into doing the booze run. Someone's parents have been stupid enough to OK a get-together and leave their house at your collective mercy. The stars have aligned, the fates are in your favor, and this is the most excited you've probably ever been. A whole evening of unsupervised, uncomfortable, elated nonsense!
The prospect has practically had your teeth chattering. What do you wear? He'll be there. Which song will be playing when your sparkly hair clips convince him to kiss you instead of Charlotte? What is the right ratio of soda to vodka?
Of course, hearing your mom's cheerful "Why don't you have the party here?" is nothing compared to the obviously life-ruining "You're going to that party over my dead body" or even "Be home by 11." But therein lies its stealthy power. You could justify a teenage tantrum over your attendance being vetoed altogether, or even a curfew, but how to rebuff the thinly veiled bid to oversee proceedings disguised as an innocent offer to host? You are suddenly playing a subtle, deadly game.
How to articulate that any amount of meddling would crash the imaginary ecosystem of this social event, where everyone likes your shoes and laughs at your jokes? Or that you're both too old andtoo young for the kind of party where snacks play even a supporting role? How to refuse categorically without letting on that homey safety is kryptonite to a Successful Evening? You wriggle quickly and smilingly away. "Oh, Lila's parents will be home. They've already taken care of everything." Now you can only pray that she doesn't call to verify this.
"I'll leave you lovebirds to it!"
This one is said when a young girl is about to be left alone with a young boy, regardless of relationship or circumstances. Maybe he's the weird son of Mom's friend from work. No! Don't leave us to it! He breathes through his mouth!
At that age, it seems incredible that she can't pick up on how much you don't want this to happen. The intensity with which adolescent feelings are felt (I've never hated anyone as much as I hated my math teacher) would lead you to believe that they can be felt by anyone in their orbit. A teenager in love is one thing, and should be as legible as Times New Roman to anyone paying attention. A teenager seething with disgust, though, is strong as a poltergeist. How can she not know?
So while you can't believe that your mother would think you're enjoying the way her boyfriend's nephew is eyeballing your braces, she's only thinking of you when she suggests the two of you take a joint trip to the corner shop. You walk as far away from him as the pavement will permit. You shudder when the heavy breathing intensifies after bumping into each other, fumbling by the till. This will happen again and again. "Oh, here's the offspring of my roommate from college. When's the wedding, amirite?" How to break it to her that you're more interested in his sister?
"You know you can always talk to me about your sex life! I remember when your father and I first got together ..."
This invitation to spill your beans probably crops up before you even have any to spill. Sure, there's a whiff of something. Maybe she's caught you gazing at a classmate at school pickup. Maybe you tell too many stories about Amy's brother when you come back from her house. "Amy's brother doesn't listen to that band." "Amy's brother said he liked my jeans." "Amy's brother, Amy's brother, Amy's brother Amy's- brother, Amy's brother."
Anyway, someone told your mother that it's important to be open about these things. She wouldn't want you to develop a complex, would she? What better way to ease your discomfort than "I remember when your father and I first got together." WELL I REMEMBER WHEN I DIDN'T HAVE TO PICTURE MY PARENTS HAVING SEX.
"You can always talk to me about your sex life" just serves to highlight your lack of one, which is especially bruising when sex is all you think about -- tinging the corners of your heavy-breathing dreams, chronically manifest in your peripheral vision, but just out of reach. Knowing too much about it will recontextualize innocent fantasy into something scary and dirty. Hey, you've seen people making out in films. That lingerie ad. Then there was that video clip Paul sent round the class. You got through 12 seconds before switching it off like a scary movie.
Of course, these scraps and gaps have generated so many questions that it's hard to know where to start. And your mother would be more than happy to explain "why people make those noises" and that no, you don't "stand on your head to stop getting pregnant." But you will refuse these invaluable pointers. The final nail in your pre-adolescent coffin would be to hear that your parents were at it more than you are (not hard, but still unfair). Sex isn't sex yet, but what it is belongs to people your age -- fumbling, yearning, et al.
You'll get over this, but it's a hard pill to swallow that is offered A) when it is most crucially needed and B) when you couldn't be less receptive to it. Give it ten years, and you'll be calling her after every bad date.
"Are you sure you're happy? By the time I was your age ..."
You're cleaning up together -- look how responsible you are! -- after a family dinner. Back in the home you grew up in, and moved out of, just for the evening, or maybe the weekend. Either way, this is you as a proto-adult: feckless as ever, but somehow funding a life beyond the cocoon. Conversations like this are sprung when handwork is available. You don't have to look at each other, there's a time limit imposed by the activity, and silences can be filled with industrious scrubbing, etc. Variations include "How's the novel coming along?" and "Why don't you call Childhood-Friend-With-Whom-Your-Relationship-Ruptured-Very-Painfully-Somewhere-Along-The-Way?"
"Are you happy?" is the killer, though. Amidst a lifetime (or at least an adolescence) of cringing every time your poor mother tries to join in or make your life easier, this is the splinter beneath a thin nail built from half-truths and self-trickery. The end of that WMD of sentences is some version of "by the time I was your age, I had you and your sister," "I'd met your father," or "I'd already started working at [place she'll be working at until retirement]."
She asks because she worries about you, but that just means that managing her worries is another thing you've failed at. Answering in a way that will ease her fears isn't easy when the truth is you're not single out of some concerted effort to make peace with yourself before launching into a relationship, or renting because you "like the flexibility." That you are, in reality, lonely and poor.
On the one hand, maybe Mom doesn't know what a digital marketing account manager is. On the other hand, maybe that is not a job anyone sensible wants in any sincere way. Maybe she just doesn't recognize how, even though your boyfriend is always hungover at family lunch and doesn't pick up when you call on a long weekend, he's actually really artistic and authentically himself. Maybe your latest diet looks like an eating disorder, your latest phase a personal crisis -- and then again, maybe it is. God, Mom, you've sent me down a spiral! "I'm doing fine!" you'll say. And some day, you'll probably get that same answer from your own kid.
ladies, thoughts?
31 notes
·
View notes
Text
Lots of people assume that experiencing depression is unmanageable. This could be the simple truth, but only in the event you give it time to be. If you would like be successful in working with major depression and its signs, you have to become informed on the subject, which happens to be what the goal of these report is.
Know that major depression does not always mean that you will be insane. Depressive disorders transpires with hundreds and hundreds of people and for hundreds and hundreds of different factors. Depressive disorders can often seem like an incredibly difficult thing to start to get out from. The thing about despression symptoms is that you must start someplace, and you're undertaking that when you are in this posting. When it comes to major depression you have to get those small and large techniques which can help you obtain your brain in the right place, so take a moment to read through and break down the details in this post that will help you throughout your depression. is a signal that you have hit a point the place you may struggle to take care of issues by yourself. Consider that indication being a gift idea and search for support.
Basic variations in life-style can deal with despression symptoms. A great way to create a dent with your depression is usually to workout every day. Major depression can force you to not have significantly energy, but simply a brief move down the prevent and rear will help you commence more and more stimulated. The road to recovering from depression requires consuming professional-productive steps.
To assist you conquer your despression symptoms it is important that you just learn to develop a beneficial perspective and alter how you think. Research shows that unfavorable pondering has a vital role in depressive disorders. Depressed people minimize their achievements and triumphs and, alternatively, center on their failures and sorrows. The important thing to pleasure is adoring life inside the encounter of battling.
If you are stressed out, it might be good for you never to suspend all around other discouraged men and women. Because the saying will go, misery adores firm. The final thing you will need is a person rationalizing and promoting your unhappiness. Should you spend time with many other frustrated folks, you will end up lower within the dumps eternally, barring any type of recovery.
If you suffer from depressive disorders, it is vital that you do not miss meals. Not ingesting If you feel like you've come across a slump and therefore are beginning to truly feel discouraged then you're in the best place. Despression symptoms will often slip up on you once you least think it, so it's excellent to know methods for getting around simply being depressed, even though you get over it. This short article offers some very nice ways to acquiring around major depression. at all can force you to become cranky and exhausted, which could, therefore,trigger your major depression symptoms to flare up. Try to eat 3 meals each day, and area these dishes about 4 to 6 hours away from each other.
An easy go walking around your prevent might be a great frame of mind elevator and ways to get all those pleased hormones operating in your favor. In case you have forgotten the joy of walking, then get your pet (or obtain one from the next door neighbor) and focus on his delight and antics for a couple of minutes. Getting out in your town will keep you in contact with what is going on near you helping you practice the main focus away on your own for awhile.
Make a positive expression that one could repeat to oneself if you learn to feel depressed. You must combat the negative thoughts by drowning them out with optimistic thoughts. Even if you do not think your motto, it will nevertheless help. You have to steer clear of permitting the negativity take control of. Say your expression through the day, and eventually your mind will begin to believe that it is real.
If you think that you or someone you know may be suffering from depression there is a thing you have to remember. This can be that we now have many degrees of major depression ranging from just general sadness for an almost excruciating degree of concern that could practically cease life in its monitors.
Receiving enough sleep at night - and the right kind of sleeping - ought to be a critical emphasis for a person trying to defeat major depression. Quotes are more and more than 80Per cent of people with despression symptoms have trouble acquiring adequate sleep. Typically, sleeping disorders or a sleep disorder can be the reason right behind the beginning of despression symptoms when a affected individual will not be having the restorative stages of deeply sleep required to sense restored and stimulated. Rehearsing great rest hygiene will help turn around many sleep at night concerns, such as likely to bed furniture at a established time, steering clear of caffeinated drinks and alcoholic drinks inside the nights, and taking out the tv along with other disruptions from the room. But when self-help methods don't resolve long lasting sleep at night problems, then seek out assistance from a rest professional or sleep medical center.
A good way to get rid of some major depression is to hear motivational speaker systems. Don't consider to do it all yourself, pay attention to others who might help stimulate you and explain to you various ways to consider favorably. If you can involve yourself in enjoyable feelings of other folks or read about their outstanding testimonies and inspiring activities, this could only help help you feel a lot less depressed.
Build and exercise effective rest workout routines or techniques. Whether or not being untruthful in the bath tub that is filled with fragrant beads or employing Yoga and fitness to relax your mind, you want to keep a clear brain and stay away from irritation to prevent a discouraged frame of mind. With pleasure will come enlightenment and a more healthy frame of mind.
With regards to working with despression symptoms, you may decide to take into account chinese medicine. This will be significant due to the fact when as a non-regular way of coping with pressure and major depression it will job for many people. No matter if you possess been recently diagnosed as having despression symptoms or simply know someone within your group of family people that is combating the problem, the info seen in these handpicked tips will definitely lose some light in the unexplainable and quite often misinterpreted character of scientific major depression. soothing nature with this method will help you to clear your mind and discover peacefulness.
It is very important offer an knowledge of what exactly major depression is. Depressive disorders affects your body in physical and mental methods. When you have seasoned anxiety and tension to have an expanded time, your brain's serotonin degrees could be depleted. When serotonin is reduced, the signs of depressive disorders boost. Drugs that really help to generate more serotonin are usually great at decreasing the signs and symptoms of depressive disorders. You may enhance your serotonin ranges normally several ways. Be sure you keep yourself healthier by obtaining sufficient relaxation, steering clear of stimulant drugs, and maintaining a good diet.
Whenever you can make use of the details that had been offered in the following paragraphs and make up a difference for you or somebody you know, then that is wonderful. Major depression can be a difficult factor to cope with, but remember that there is absolutely no humiliation in looking for specialized help if possible.
1 note
·
View note
Note
Coldwave AU, where Len was burgling STAR Labs when the accelerator blew up - and thus he ended up merged with Stein as Firestorm
Fic: In What Furnace Was Thy Brain? (Ao3 Link)Fandom: The FlashPairing: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, Clarissa Stein/Martin Stein
Summary: Yes, this time Len will admit his plan had been really stupid.
———————————————————————————————–
Len’s bored, and being bored, he looks for something to do.
Mick would call this the Most Dangerous of moods, comparing it to his own impulses towards pyromania, the point where the itching under his skin has gotten to the point where something needs to be on fire and anything will do. This is when Mick starts trying to distract Len, keep him busy, so that his brain won’t seize on the first, worst thing to do.
But Mick’s not here right now.
That’s presumably why he picks up a newspaper at the newstand about the Particle Accelerator being opened up and goes “I’m going to rob that.”
After all, when everyone’s eyes are going to be fixed on Wells, Wells’ eyes aren’t going to be fixed on all the interesting tech prototypes he keeps in the back parts of his labs.
Unsurprisingly, like all of Len’s absolute worst ideas, it goes sideways almost immediately.
Breaking in is easy enough: service entrance to the gigantic ring of the Accelerator itself, a forgotten worker’s tunnel that wasn’t closed all the way, and from there into the back part of the lab. Len’s figuring on staying there while they turn the Accelerator on, stowing the take somewhere, then sneaking out with the gigantic crowd up front before coming back after everyone’s already discovered the theft and stopped looking for it.
He’s gotten inside, no problem, and he’s even made it to the labs with the prototypes – so many prototypes, many with helpful labels in someone called CR’s handwriting – to start looking for the goods, but there’s a noise. Just a whisper.
Len didn’t get to be this good a thief by ignoring his instincts, so he hides himself in one of the labs.
A hand mirror shows him the main hallway without revealing the whites of his eyes.
There’s a faint crackle of sound and the scent of – ozone? Like lightning? – and a man appears at the other end of the hallway. Len didn’t see him approach.
Must be the angle of the mirror.
The guy walks over and hits wall, which slides open. He ducks inside. Maybe five minutes later, he walks back out, door sliding shut again.
Secret doorway. That’s got to have some cool tech stuff hidden away.
Len grins, but he doesn’t head out immediately. The guy – tall, dark hair, Caucasian, probably works here – did appear out of basically nowhere, after all; and if there’s one secret door there may be secret passages.
He waits about ten minutes to be sure the coast is clear. The roaring of the crowd outside is helpful as a guide: the presentation has definitely started.
Len’s barely started to head back to the lab’s tech stash when the alarms start blaring.
Top volume, too; that doesn’t sound promising. He was pretty sure there were, like, ten variations of “don’t worry, it’s 100% safe” in the newspaper.
Looks like someone miscalculated.
Abruptly, some guy – tall, kinda muscular – runs into the hallway at full speed, passing right by Len without so much as a glance at him, heading inside the Accelerator and yelling something along the lines of “if I don’t get out, you’ve got to close the door! Promise me, Cisco!” over his shoulder.
Well, that’s some serious Apollo 13 stuff right there.
Len plays a hunch and follows him into the actual Accelerator. If there are alarms going off, his plan of stealing things from the labs isn’t going anywhere anyway, so he may as well figure out what’s gone wrong.
“What are you doing?” Len asks the guy.
“How’d you get in – no, I don’t care, hold this,” the guy says. “There’s something wrong with the Accelerator. It’s about to blow.”
“Blow as in –”
“Blow.”
“Shit,” Len says. This is why Mick vetoes his dumber ideas.
He should go now.
“I’m going to try to adjust the inside to make it explode upwards,” the guy says. “It’ll still be bad, dark matter’s going to go everywhere, but we won’t – it won’t decimate the surrounding area.”
“I don’t want this city decimated, even in part,” Len says, because that’s just no. “What can I do to help?”
“Like this –”
About four minutes in, the guy says, “My name’s Ronnie. Ronnie Raymond. You?”
“Leonard Snart,” Len says, too focused on rewiring the relevant sequence to think of one of his alibis. “Like this?”
“Yes! Just like that, perfect!”
“Great,” Len says. “Now let’s get out of here before we blow up.”
Ronnie checks his watch. “It’s too late,” he says grimly. “By the time we get there, Cisco will be locking the door –”
“Screw the door,” Len says, and drags him towards the worker’s exit.
The Accelerator is starting up.
This is the stupidest plan Len’s ever made, and he’s glad, perversely, that Mick isn’t here, even if every single day since the fire he’s woken up willing to give his liver in exchange for seeing him again, because at least if Mick’s angry at him somewhere, Mick’s not here. Mick’s not going to die with him.
Because Ronnie has a fiancée he’s mentioned like three times now, and he’s going to get married and be happy and have a purpose in life that isn’t just aimlessly chasing adrenaline high after adrenaline high as if it can make up for the gaping hole in his side where he left his husband and partner behind.
Len glances behind him.
The sparks are starting.
“Hey, Ronnie,” he says as they get to the door.
“What?” Ronnie gasps, prying the door open. The whistling is so loud that it’s hard to hear him. There’s something whirling above their head and it’s coming down towards them at full blast.
“Good luck with your girl,” Len says, and shoves him through.
The next wave hits Len dead in the chest, and Len has just enough time to think, “I guess that’s all she wrote –” before he’s gone.
And then he’s gone.
Gone.
Not gone?
The first few months are –
He’s not sure.
He’s not entirely there.
He walks and he falls and sometimes he flies and he doesn’t entirely know what’s going on; everything’s confused, he just gets flashes of strange things –
Math formulas he never learned –
Heists he barely recalled that he remembered –
Technology that he was sure died out before his time –
Mick –
Clarissa –
He doesn’t even know a Clarissa –
He doesn’t know how long it is before his brain starts actually recording what’s going on around him instead of just experiencing it.
He wakes up in a bed made of boxes.
He lifts his head.
“Hey, hey,” a woman’s voice says, sounding calming. He looks at her. She’s thirty, homeless. Unclean hair, circles under her eyes, puffy cheeks, several layers of coats. There’s a blanket over her legs from where she’s been sleeping not far from him.
Who is that girl?
That’s not his voice.
He opens his mouth, but he can’t speak. The thoughts are gone, the words are garbled.
It’s like two sets of words are trying to come out of his mouth at once.
“Relax, babe, it’s cool,” she says.
It’s not cool, it’s Cold, he thinks.
That one was him. Cold’s his prison nickname, Hot and Cold for Mick and him; he’d developed a fondness for temperature-themed puns since then.
“You want some food?” she asks. “Or some more sleep?”
I demand you tell me where I am at once! And – good lord, what am I wearing –
I need to know where I am and how long and –
His hand is on fire.
Is his hand on fire?
My hands are on fire! My head is on fire!
No.
Not fire.
Fire is Mick, the fire took Mick, the fire took him and tried to eat him and Mick stayed with the fire instead of coming with him –
I don’t know a Mick.
Of course you know Mick! What sort of universe would it be if he didn’t know Mick, if he –
Oh.
Oh, oh, oh, wait.
He knows this.
He knows –
Damnit, if he could only think; this is something to do with Mick, some diagnosis someone had suggested which had been wrong, wrong, wrong, but he remembers reading up on the symptoms just in case, the symptoms, something with the brain, something –
If he could only think –
He forces his mind to be quiet, just closes his eyes, rocking back and forth a bit, focusing on blank-blank-blank, white sheet of paper – formulas – no, white, white snow, white empty snow like in the mountains they went once – skiing is delightful this time of year – he’s never been skiing, skiing is for yuppies – I beg your pardon – goddamnit, think of the white snow, just the snow, nothing but the snow –
His mind slowly stills, and the words finally can come.
“Psychotic,” he forces through numb lips. “First break. Late –”
The buzz in the back of his mind gets louder; he ignores it.
“Late onset,” he manages to say. “Late onset – schizophrenia. Hearing voices. Disordered thinking.”
Actually, I must admit, that makes a certain amount of sense.
“Man, that sucks,” the woman says. “But still, you’ve been, like, catatonic for ages; this has got to be a step forward, right? You take some bad shit or something?”
I don’t do drugs.
That was weirdly in chorus or something.
“No,” he finally says aloud. It’s weirdly easier when the voices and the memories and everything drowning him seem to be in agreement. And then – “How long?”
“No idea, man,” the woman tells him regretfully. Her name’s Jaz; he remembers her telling him that over soup. They had soup yesterday; she fed him. Jaz and Rashid and Josh and Aryeh and Fatima; they were all homeless and they’d seen him with his vacant eyes and starving cheeks and sleeping where he fell, and they saw kin – they’d brought him to their boxes and let him sleep there with them, and they fed him when they had something to spare. “Fatima found you first, but you already looked pretty ragged. You know where you were when it started?”
He can’t even remember his own name.
He knows that there’s a Mick somewhere, or maybe he doesn’t; he knows there’s a Clarissa who’s worried, or maybe he doesn’t, but damnit, his brain just isn’t responding.
Disordered thinking is quite common in untreated schizophrenia. Hallucinations, too – that explains how he’d felt certain that his hands and his head were on fire.
He needs a way to tell time that doesn’t involve a stop or a finish.
In physics –
Fuck physics.
He raises his hand up to his head.
Shit, his hair’s nearly an inch and a half long, maybe two inches; he can feel it starting to curl like a crazy person. It does that every time, so he normally keeps it clipped – that’s half an inch – and the average person grows half an inch of hair every month.
So, two months, maybe three.
That was quite clever.
Yeah, it really was, wasn’t it?
That’s why he’s won all those awards.
…he’s never won an award in his life.
Great, the delusions have started.
He needs to get treatment.
Most definitely.
There are pills for this. Cognitive therapy. Plenty of things.
That would be helpful. And we need to get away from these homeless people – they’re certainly not going to help, and they might be a danger. Or in danger from me, for that matter.
They’re homeless people. They don’t have to help, but they did; they helped keep me alive. They’re perfectly capable of determining the level of danger they’re comfortable with here.
If that were true, they wouldn’t be homeless.
No need to be fucking classist about it. There are so many reasons you can become homeless.
…perhaps it was a bit of a hasty judgment.
Besides, I’m pretty damn white-passing, at least until my hair starts going crazy. What sort of moron helps a mentally ill white man? That’s the most dangerous creature on earth. Look at the statistics.
I beg your pardon! That’s hardly true!
Great. So now I’m an idiot. No one ever said anything about spontaneously developing narrow-minded privilege when you got sick.
I am – good lord, I’m arguing to myself about identity politics. I must be –
Don’t say ‘crazy’.
Fine. Schizophrenic. That seems like a reasonable explanation; it’s supposed to come on rather abruptly, isn’t it?
Yeah, but there’s treatment.
I should obtain treatment as quickly as possible.
Right, so treatment. Number one on the To Do list.
And finding Clarissa.
Who the hell is Clarissa?
Images swim sickeningly before his face: a woman, young, vivacious, smiling; eyes glowing under her veil on their wedding day, lips curled up like she had a secret smile; hair tossed over her shoulder as she laughs, bringing in dinner and kissing him on the cheek as he worked on the whiteboard –
None of that has ever happened to him. For fucks’ sake, he might appreciate the occasional woman or two, he might even accept that somewhere lost in his memory he might marry one – green card, maybe? A dare? At threat of a gun? – but a whiteboard? That’s just right out.
Jaz puts a bottle of water in front of his lips and he drinks gratefully. He’s sat back down sometime; he’s not sure where.
Right, right. He needs to think about getting treatment. A shrink.
I do not need a shrink!
Yes, you really do. I really do. Whatever.
…I will concede in this situation it appears to be reasonable to consult with one.
Geez, thanks muchly. When did I become such an arrogant snot?
That’s rude.
I’m rude!
I don’t want to get involuntarily committed.
I’ll use a fake name and break out if they do. Sheesh, stop worrying.
I can break out of places?
I’ve broken out of plenty before. It’s like breaking in, but less tedious.
I don’t remember being able to do that.
Well, you don’t remember Mick, so you’re clearly from the damaged part of my brain.
I beg your pardon! You don’t remember Clarissa; you cannot possibly be the symptoms of a sane mind –
“Hey, buddy, you good?” Jaz asks. Fatima and Josh have returned and the three of them are crowding around him. His head’s on fire again, but his hands aren’t, so he pushes himself up.
“Thanks for your help,” he says, because that’s nice and polite, and they have taken care of him. “I need to find –”
Help.
Clarissa.
Mick.
“– something.”
“You do you, man,” Josh says, but his eyes are worried.
“We’ll be here to take you in if you need to,” Fatima says. “It’s getting cold again.”
“There’s a house on Maple Street that’s always empty, the third one down from the stoplight,” he says. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he’s sure it’s true. “You could stay there, if it snows.”
They look surprised, but pleased. “It ain’t Family, is it?” Josh asks.
“No,” he says. He’s sure of that much. “No, not Family. Freelance.”
Freelance what?
I don’t know.
I miss Mick. He’d know.
Who is Mick?
We need to find him.
We need to find Clarissa. She’ll be worried.
Mick first.
Mick doesn’t even want to see you. Clarissa wants to see me.
Fuck you.
Please. I just want to see her.
Fuck, I’m a bleeding heart. Just stick a shiv in my heart, will you?
Shiv? Good lord, is that prison slang?
He has no idea what else it would be if not prison slang.
Oh, shit, his head’s on fire again.
Maybe it’s some sort of metaphor?
It could be a metaphor. But for what?
Fuck if I know. Leaving Mick to the flames?
That sounds like a bad thing.
It was. He needed me and I left him behind because he picked the flames over me, and now he hates me and doesn’t want to see me and it’s terrible because I feel empty, like a vat that’s been all poured out.
I don’t think I did anything like that.
What about Clarissa? You didn’t tell her where you were going. She probably thinks you’re dead.
Maybe I did do something terrible, then. But why the fire? I’m Jewish; I don’t buy into Christian symbolism.
Yeah, I know. Never have, even if I’m not the most religious Jew. Hard to avoid the Christian imagery everywhere, though, ain’t it? And there was Hannukah. I remember Hannukah was coming up.
Yes, Hannukah. We were going to celebrate, Clarissa and I, but I left because – I don’t remember any more.
I wasn’t celebrating, I don’t think.
Are you my past self? Some younger equivalent of me?
Shit, maybe. Is schizophrenia associated with amnesia? Am I actually super old? Did Mick die and I replaced him with someone called Clarissa?
No, I don’t think I ever knew a Mick. Maybe I’ve forgotten him?
That’s unlikely. You don’t forget someone like Mick.
“Hey! Buddy! Hey!” Fatima is shouting in his face.
“Sorry,” he says automatically.
“You wanna come with us?” Jaz asks. “We’re going to try to find that place on Maple; we’d be happy to have you, you can point it out.”
“No,” he says. “I need to go. Thank you for your help.”
“If you’re sure,” Josh says.
“You took care of me,” he says firmly. “Thanks.”
“No need for thanks,” Fatima says. “You kept us warm.”
He nods. Not sure why they’d need the extra body heat, but sure. In the winter, the more the merrier, he guesses.
Is it still winter? No – gotta be March, sometime. Last burst of winter before spring.
Clarissa will be celebrating Purim. It was always her favorite.
They end up on a street somewhere in the suburbs. There’s an older woman in there, still beautiful in her way.
He’s never seen her before.
No.
That’s not right, he has. They’ve been here before, looking from a distance, catatonic and blank, but still watching.
Have they –
A memory rips out of the back of his mind, drifts to the surface.
Mick kept turning around to try to see him, but he’d kept back, kept to the dark. He’d looked – not good, he was burned all over, but it looked like they’d mostly healed up, and he had mobility. His eyes were bright and clear. He still looked like Mick. That was good.
He’d been loading a truck. Grunt work. No one ever appreciated Mick’s qualities, no one but him; they all underestimated Mick, either because Mick wanted them to or because they just didn’t understand how good he was, how skilled, how clever, all because he was sick and because he was violent and because he didn’t have smarts the way they thought of them –
He seems like quite a brute.
You take that fucking back!
He punches himself in the face a few times, hard as he can make himself do it, just to make the point stick, until even the voice in his head is yowling for mercy.
His nose is bleeding, his eye is swelling, but the voice says, I won’t say it again, and that’s worth anything.
They back away from Clarissa’s window.
We should probably go to temple for Purim.
We should get drunk for Purim. Religious requirement.
Maybe not in our current state.
Yeah, that’s a good point. Good one, hallucination.
I am not the hallucination! You are!
Pssht. I bet that’s what all the hallucinations say.
I am not a hallucination.
Let’s go find Mick again.
We don’t know where he is.
We tracked him the first few times, and we were catatonic. Also, stop saying ‘we’, it’s I. Just me in this body. I’m not suffering from dissociated identity disorder.
Wait, am I?
Damned if I know. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of the softer sciences, but then again, I never imagined it would be relevant to my life. It’s not called multiple personalities anymore?
No, they updated the book. I think.
Oh, that’s helpful! Now we know exactly what type of insane we are!
We’re not insane. I. I’m not insane. Schziophrenia’s nothing more than a mental disorder, which can be handled with appropriate treatment; you shouldn’t make value judgments –
Huh, look at that, his hands and head are on fire again. They seem to do that a lot.
We – sorry, I – should keep track of the pattern. Perhaps it is associated with some emotion?
They – he, damnit, even though it’s increasingly easier to think as a ‘they’ – walk through the streets. The fire seemed associated with anger or other strong emotions, but they could force it in or out. They couldn’t keep the illusion for that long, though.
Oddly, that seemed to be the only visual hallucination.
Neither of them wanted to look in a mirror, because one of them was right – forty but strong, salt-and-pepper hair and blue-eyes, or old and white-haired, brown-eyed and glasses – and the other one didn’t want to know if they were the delusion, as they were both pretty sure they were the right one.
“Hey!” someone calls. “Wait!”
Oh, great, it’s the guy that’s been chasing them.
Neither of them remember exactly, but the memory floods forth clear as lightning: the man who’s been looking for him, looking everywhere, following their traces, and they’ve been avoiding him, even while mostly catatonic and running on instinct. Well, no reason to change now.
They duck into an alley, but he follows. They fly to the roof and hide there.
Did we just fly?
We totally just flew. How did we do that?
I don’t know!
You’re the delusion! You tell me!
Don’t start that again. Perhaps it was part of the delusion, that we flew?
No, I think we’re really on this rooftop right now. The fire just came out of our hands, Iron Man style, and we…flew. That was pretty cool. Maybe we actually just climbed the side of the building and thought that we flew?
We should try it again.
What, and risk having it shut off halfway through?
Good point. Perhaps we should try again, but once we are closer to the ground. Who is the young man following us, anyway?
Not sure. He’s not Mick.
No, we’ve established Mick. Isn’t there anyone else for you?
Lisa.
Who’s Lisa?
My sister, you dumbass!
Oh. My brother died in a car accident when I was a child.
I don’t – you know what, let’s not get into that again.
I most fervently agree.
So who’s this guy? He looks familiar.
Distantly, yes. An employee, perhaps?
Nah, he’s not a criminal.
I worry when you say things like that. No, he’s not one of mine – someone else’s. Wells.
Wells?
Yes, the name is familiar – I was going to see him –
Wait. I remember – the Particle Accelerator. Harrison Wells.
That’s the one!
I saw him there. And in the newspaper, right before.
Yes.
And this guy – I saw him, too. He was in the Accelerator. I pushed him out.
So it’s your fault he’s hunting us down.
How’s it my fault?
No doubt he wishes to thank you.
That’s dumb. You don’t thank people for shit like that, certainly not by stalking them through the city; you pay it forward, somehow.
So you have some philosophy after all.
Yeah, yeah. It’s just common sense.
Hmm. I think he’s gone.
I wanna go see Mick again.
Let’s do that, then. After we eat something.
I’ll break into the local bodega.
Couldn’t we have something more substantive than chips today?
I’ll grab some Ramen. Stop whining.
Words cannot express the depth of my joy at the thought of eating microwaved noodles in a cheap Styrofoam cup. Which I’ve stolen, let me not forget.
I’ll break into a Family-owned Italian restaurant and have some pasta next to the bags of cocaine, how about I do that instead, huh?
Ramen is fine.
Time passes in fits and starts.
They watch Clarissa, who cries, sometimes, alone in her living room where she thinks no one is looking, late at night.
They hunt Mick, who is becoming increasingly more paranoid that someone is following him. He works shit jobs, dumb muscle, intimidation; he deserves better. At least he doesn’t get arrested.
Clarissa goes to work and pretends to smile.
Mick lights a house on fire and stays to watch it far too long, but they call the fire department before he burns with it, and he runs when he hears the sirens. They run, too.
Fly, actually. They keep thinking they can do that.
Visual hallucination number two.
He clips his hair again, so they have a way of keeping time, but sometimes he blinks and finds that he doesn’t know where the last few weeks have gone. He sometimes goes to stay with Jaz and Fatima and Josh and the others in the house on Maple, which they’ve turned into an informal artist’s collective-slash-shelter.
They debate visiting Mick’s shrink, and finally do. The pills just make him sick, really sick, and they don’t seem to help at all, so after a month they stop taking them.
After some debate.
He’s never debated himself this much in his life.
They avoid Ronnie and his concerned wife, Caitlin, who works at STAR Labs and who he talks to on the phone a lot; Ronnie is very earnest and very enthusiastic and he believes that his life was saved by the mysterious man he is hunting.
He’d say that he doesn’t know who in their right mind thinks that stalking someone down is a good way to thank them for their life, but in view of his visits to Clarissa’s home and Mick’s safehouses, maybe they don’t have room to judge.
He’s still not sure where he came up with Clarissa. He only knows she means a lot to him.
The fire hallucinations continue ceaselessly. Hand, head, sometimes the soles of his feet.
Sometimes he touches things and they become other things. He literally turns water into wine once, which is just funny, though the fact that he can even taste the wine when he drains the water bottle stinks of a worsening mental state.
Their second attempts to get pills for their problem doesn’t work any better than the first.
They start experimenting with their hallucinations, which are at least very consistent. Sure, they’re mentally unbalanced, but as the voice in his head puts it, that doesn’t mean they can’t be scientific about it. After all, when else would they get such an opportunity to explore it from the inside?
It’s interesting, though it’s not entirely enough to erase the sense of loss of their real life.
He wishes he could go to Clarissa, or to Mick, to explain, to ask for help, but he knows how dangerous untreated schizophrenics can be. He knows how dangerous he can be.
I don’t remember killing quite so many people. Or – anyone at all, actually.
It gets easier after the first one.
Does it really?
No.
Oh.
My first one, I was nine. My dad told me to shoot a man, execution style. I stood too close and the blood and brains got all over me. I threw up afterwards, snotted up crying like a baby.
I’m…terribly sorry.
Dad nearly broke my wrist kicking my ass after that. He said I shouldn’t have cried.
Your father is awful.
Yeah, I know, right? You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to accept that.
The worst my father ever did was make me go to rabbinical school before finally permitting me to focus on physics and chemistry.
I never even graduated high school.
One of us is a startling well-developed delusion.
No kidding. I always thought it was exaggerated in the movies, how it was basically two totally different people, personalities, histories, that sort of thing.
For me as well! It always seemed so absurd; surely it wasn’t actually like that. I suppose my karma has repaid my hubris several times over by giving me you.
At least there’s only two of us.
Don’t frighten me. I can only handle one of you.
Back at you. I wish I weren’t schizophrenic. Assuming this is schizophrenia, which I’m starting to doubt.
I wish for many things.
Yeah. Clarissa.
Mick.
I don’t think I appreciated Clarissa enough, assuming your version of my life is correct. She’s so funny and smart, and she always seems to know how to get me back on track.
Yes, she is. You’re right. I should have appreciated her more when I had the chance. And assuming you were correct, there was Mick –
I didn’t appreciate him enough.
No, you did. I did. I really did. I loved him, and I saved him just as he saved me. But I – you – whichever one of us. We should have gone back to him, after the fire. He wanted you to.
He hated me.
He still loves you.
He’s not missing me the way Clarissa’s missing you.
He doesn’t know you’re missing.
No, he does. I think Lisa told him. I always check in with her, even if I’m in prison.
Why didn’t you this year?
Same reason as with Mick. She’d be in danger from me.
Memories drift up to them, memories of Lisa, of their childhood. Not good memories.
You’re not your father, you know.
No. But I’m not taking the chance, either.
Yes. I suppose not.
They watch as Central starts to become…strange.
“A streak?” he asks, frowning at Jaz who waves the blog page she printed out from the library in his face. “Fighting a – multiple man? Is this a joke?”
Or a tabloid.
“Or a tabloid?”
“No!” she says. “It’s real. I swear. I saw the streak myself, just the other day; moved faster than you could see, but definitely there. Bright red, lightning, the whole works.”
Out of morbid curiosity, he uses Aryeh’s computer – he’s the only one who has one, a used one he fished out a dumpster and repaired and now leeches wifi where he can – to hack into the traffic cameras.
“I didn’t know you could do that. Can you do that? Is that legal?” Aryeh asks Rashid.
“No. Definitely not,” Rashid says. “That is very illegal. Buddy, what are you even doing?”
He hushes them both.
“You can’t find the Streak like that,” Jaz says archly. She has the same nasal drawl as the rest of them: Central City slums, the accent that sneaks in to everyone’s voice eventually if they spend enough time in the bad parts of town. He suspects that’s one of the reasons they accepted him into their group, in the beginning: what few words he stuttered out identified him as part of the extend family of slum-dwellers. “It’s too fast.”
“He,” he says.
“What?”
“He. The Streak is a man,” he tells them, his eyes still fixed on the screen, where’s he’s paused the streak just enough to identify a hand, an arm.
A man who can move at super-speed. He could stop him, with a little technical help - something cold to slow him down – he could –
He could spasm and flail because his movements have stopped responding to him again, that’s what he could do. It always felt incredibly bizarre when that happened – as if his brain were sending two sets of instructions at the same time, one moving one way, the other another, but it never worked.
He can’t fight a speedster this way.
He sighs in regret.
Why would you want to fight him? He’s done nothing to you, and I must say, you’ve already fought plenty of people.
Listen, when people first found Mount Everest, do you think they said ‘oh, I’ve already climbed plenty of mountains, and this one’s done nothing to me’? That’s not how it works.
Adrenaline junkie.
Stop sounding so dismissive about yourself.
I never knew I was so brave before you.
Trust your subconscious.
Hah! Not in a million years. Regardless of which one of us is the ‘right’ one, I think we’ve both learned a very important lesson about not trusting our subconscious.
Yeah, well, my subconscious is apparently manifested in a stubborn, snobby old physic professor with an occasional daredevil streak.
I do not have a daredevil streak.
I wasn’t the one who threw us off a building to see if we could learn to fly faster that way.
It worked!
It was still stupid.
Well, yes…
Turns out they’re not the only ones watching the Streak. Not the only ones thinking.
Mick’s been tearing through all the safehouses they’ve both had for the last few months, almost as if he’s looking for something –
He’s looking for you.
Well, he can’t find me. I won’t let him.
– and Mick knows him too well. Too well, too well. He looks at the Streak and he goes: I know who would like to fight that.
I know who would stand at the foot of Mount Everest and say, “Hell yes, I’m going to climb that.”
“Someone’s fighting the Streak!” Jaz exclaims. “And he’s got a gun that shoots fire and someone’s already called the media, says the guy’s name is Heatwave!”
“Heatwave?” he asks, frowning, and goes to look at the television.
That’s Mick.
That’s Mick.
Shit!
You have to stop him. Fire is a useful weapon against a speedster, based on our assumptions regarding cell regrowth and enhanced metabolism –
But you need to be slow and cold if you really want to fight a speedster, I know, I know! He’s going to lose, and thus far, no one’s ever seen the people the Streak fights ever again. We need to find something – there’s no way to get liquid nitrogen on such a short time frame –
They rifle through their memory together, physics and crime and academia and street-slang all meshing together in a horrific mess which they both bemoaned as the destruction of their carefully ordered minds.
The cold gun – STAR Labs! You saw it when you were snooping, right before the Accelerator exploded –
It wasn’t finalized.
With a speedster on the loose? I’m certain STAR Labs would have finalized it by now.
On my way now. Please don’t – whatever you do.
I’ll do my best not to interfere.
Mick snarls on the television, the speedster having hit him quick as lightning, and they grab one of the illegal guns they bought for the artist’s collective when the Family started knocking and they run to the window and they leap and they fly.
He remembers studying the blueprints of STAR Labs.
It has roof access.
He’s not even questioning if this is a hallucination or not; he doesn’t care. He needs to get to the cold gun.
No one’s guarding anything at STAR Labs anymore, and the cold gun is easy to find. He grabs it and heads back up. He’s not going to let the Streak hurt Mick, he’s not, he’s not, he’s not – no more than he could let anyone hurt Clarissa –
He hears the sound of a fight from the other room, coming as if through a speaker, then a loud whoosh.
“I have him,” a young man’s voice says proudly. “I mean, ouch on the burns, but they’re already healing. Sorry about the suit, Cisco.”
“Why do you keep hurting my baby like this?” another young man, presumably ‘Cisco’ asks plaintively, then his tone changes. “But still: Heatwave! Our very first non-meta villain!”
“What do we do with him?” an anxious-sounding young woman says. “Should we put him in the Accelerator with the others? Or do we just drop him off at the police?”
“He’s discovered Barry’s identity, or at least that Barry is the Flash,” a low, mellow voice, male, older than the rest, says. “That’s the nickname you prefer, right, Barry?”
“Yeah,” the first young man says. “The Flash is so much better than the Streak. So you think we should keep him?”
“At least for now,” the older man says smoothly. “We can work out some sort of transfer system one the threat of metahumans isn’t looming over the city.”
That’s illegal.
No kidding, that’s illegal. That’s illegal imprisonment, failure to obey due process, keeping vital information from the masses, which don’t even know that metahumans are definitely a thing –
“Rory’s dangerous,” another voice, also older, also male, cuts in. “I agree with Dr. Wells in this case. He’s escaped Iron Heights before. I’m not sure we can risk him getting out again and telling everyone about you guys here.”
“Let me go,” Mick slurs. He’s been knocked out, but he’s reviving; it’s evident from his voice.
“Shit, he’s waking up,” Cisco yelps. “Put him in the Accelerator, Barry; I’ll open up another tube –”
You ready?
I supposed I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Go get them.
He takes a deep breath and pulls the fire inside his skin. He won’t be able to keep it that way long, but maybe long enough.
Then he marches into the room and fires the cold gun right at the one dressed in red.
He gets them by surprise, all of them, and the one in red, whose cowl is pulled back and who is just a young man after all, the speedster himself, is covered from toe to torso. He memorizes the face – he’ll hack Facebook and find him if he has to after this, for leverage – and he snarls, “Get your hands off of my partner.”
A black man pulls out his gun. “Stop!” he shouts. “Police.”
He turns the cold gun on him.
“Joe! Don’t let it touch you!” the Flash calls in a panic, and the policeman dives behind a table when the bolt of blue flame comes towards him.
“It’s Leonard Snart!” the policeman shouts. “Rory’s old partner!”
“I thought you said they didn’t work together anymore!” Cisco yells from where he’s dived behind a desk. The young woman has grabbed the other man in the room, an older man in a wheelchair, and carted him behind a glass door.
The older man’s eyes glitter in anger, though. Not fear.
He’s unable to use his legs, but he’s not afraid, not at all. That’s strange; the Wells I knew was a reasonable man, and quite cautious with his life. He’s hiding something.
Possibly a weapon. Keep an eye on him.
Right.
“I’m stuck!” Barry shouts.
“Vibrate fast enough to melt it!” the man in the wheelchair calls.
He ices the kid’s feet again. “Do that,” he says icily – Really, must you? I’m stuck in here with you, you know – “and the next time I’ll hit your face, and then I’ll hit your face with my goddamn fist until you crack into a thousand pieces, and see if your speed helps you heal from that.”
“Joe, wait! Don’t shoot him!” another voice calls out.
He turns his head, just a little, and he sees the man at the door.
It’s him. Ronnie Raymond, the one who’s been hunting him.
“Why the hell not?!” Joe shouts angrily. “He’s hurting Barry.”
“He saved my life!” Ronnie exclaims, throwing himself in front of them, grabbing Joe and grappling his gun. “He saved my life, and he helped save the city, and I’m sure he has a good reason to do what he’s doing.”
“Ronnie!” the young woman shouts, sounding distressed.
“He’s a goddamn criminal,” Joe shouts, fighting to pull the gun back. “There’s not an ounce of good in him.”
I think, loath as I am to admit it, you might be the real one between us.
Then where the hell is Clarissa from? Or, hell, the science?
I don’t know. I thought I was real, I really did…
“Len?” Mick says, his eyes wide and abruptly worried. He rises to his knees. “Lenny, is that you? What happened to you?”
He’s abruptly aware of how dirty he is, how his hair has grown out another few inches, just short of starting to curl; how he hasn’t really paid much attention to baths because he keeps losing time.
The man in the wheelchair is still watching. His eyes are still glittering. He is still unafraid.
He is still unafraid – except when he glances at Barry.
Len bites his lip, and plays a hunch.
He takes three steps forward and presses the gun against the Streak’s – Barry’s – head, and he looks him in the eyes and winks with the eye that isn’t facing the man in the wheelchair, and then he says, “Sorry, kid. End of the road.”
Ronnie and Joe look up from their fight, eyes wide in horror. The young woman shrieks. Cisco shouts, “No!” Even Mick’s mouth gapes open, not in negation, but in a silent question of ‘why.’
Barry, looking straight at Len, frowns a little, clearly wondering what he’s up to.
He doesn’t think he’s going to die, the Flash; he trusts in Len’s little wink and Ronnie’s vouch for him.
Len’s not sure if it’s youthful bravado or hope and trust and optimism in the goodness of strangers or perhaps in fate.
Len makes as though he’s going to push the trigger.
There’s lightning in the room.
And a blur of yellow.
Len was already turning to aim at him, finger pressing the trigger for real.
“The man in yellow!” Barry bellows.
“Doctor Wells!” the young woman screams, hands clenching futilely on the empty wheelchair.
Cisco scrambles to the desk. “I’m activating the therma-threading!” he shouts. “That’ll melt the ice!”
“You ruined my plans,” the vibrating man hisses, his voice dark and dangerous and Len’s gun is somewhere else and he’s being held up by his throat and his fingers are scrabbling there.
Mick scrambles to get his heat gun from where it’s on the desk, shouting, “Lenny! Lenny!” in a voice that sounds like his heart is breaking, but the vibrating man kicks him back, knocking him on the floor.
The Streak is shouting, frantic, vibrating at speed, his suit glowing, the ice melting, but it won’t be fast enough.
Ronnie gets the cold gun, but the second speedster knocks out of his hands, throwing it against the wall, carrying Len with him as if Len weighs only a feather.
I think - I’m afraid - that this is ‘it’ for us.
Yeah. Me too.
And then their hands are on fire again, and their head, too, just like always when they’re panicking, that stupid hallucination back again, except the speedster – a second speedster, he wasn’t expecting that, he thought he’d have a gun or something – is shouting in pain and letting go for some reason –
“Len,” Mick gasps, and his voice has changed. It’s still scared, still broken, but now there’s something else there.
Awe.
Adoration.
Worship.
“Len,” he says again. “Len, you’re on fire.”
It’s not a hallucination?
Wait. If that’s not a hallucination –
Maybe the pills didn’t work because we weren’t schizophrenic.
And perhaps we’re not the same person at all. Perhaps I really am me, and you are you. Perhaps the Particle Accelerator merged us or something – my Firestorm matrix mixing with the dark matter –
That’s nice. Let’s discuss later.
Len lights his hands on fire and throws it at the speedster.
Mick has grabbed his gun now, crawled over, and he shoots it at him as well, and the speedster howls and runs forward and knocks them all back, but by that point the Streak is free.
But the Streak doesn’t run straight for the yellow speedster.
He runs for the cold gun.
The ice covers the second speedster from head to toe.
“I think I got him,” Barry pants.
“Ya think?” Cisco says. “Caitlin, will that kill – him?”
“If he’s a speedster like Barry,” the young woman, Caitlin, says briskly, clearly forcefully ignoring her horror, “then no; it’s just slowing him down.”
Len ignores them. “Mick,” he says, staring at his partner, who’s picking himself off from the floor and sliding his head gun into a very attractive thigh holster. Len misses him so much.
Mick reaches for him, and Len draws away. “No,” he says. “If the fire is real, then it’ll hurt you.”
He hesitates. “You all see the fire, right? It’s not just in my head?”
“Yeah,” Joe says. “We all see the fire.” He looks deeply shaken. “That was – that was the man in yellow.”
“Yeah,” Barry says grimly. “Yeah, it was.”
“Barry, your dad –”
“Is innocent,” Barry says. “Just like I always said.”
Man in yellow? Dad, Iron Heights, innocent –
“Wait,” Len says. “You’re Doc Allen’s kid? Really?”
Barry turns and gapes at him.
“What?” Len says defensively. “We were cellies, way back when. I used to read his mail, what he got from his kid.”
“You read my dad’s mail?!”
“There wasn’t anything else to read!”
“You’re a dick!” Barry says, but his eyes are starting to tear up. “Oh man. Oh man. If I’ve caught him –”
“Doc Allen can finally go free,” Mick says. “Good for him.”
“Leonard Snart?” Ronnie says hesitantly.
“Yeah, stalker-boy?” Len says.
Ronnie flushes and Caitlin barks a laugh, which she immediately covers her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispers.
“I just wanted to ask,” he says. “Is, uh – is Professor Martin Stein in there?”
Yes. Yes! That’s me!
“Oh, great,” Len says. “You gave him a name.”
We already knew my name.
Only because we stalked Clarissa’s mailbox. And we didn’t know it was your name for sure. We couldn’t trust you about it.
Well, it clearly is, so there.
Very mature.
“So he is?” Ronnie says, looking excited. “I knew it! I knew the Firestorm matrix must have merged into your systems – I’ve been working on a way to get the two of you apart –”
Apart?
Apart?
Holy shit, apart.
Yes. Absolutely yes. We should try out whatever this clearly intelligent young man has planned immediately.
So quick to get rid of me, huh?
I suspect that you’re about to have a reunion with your husband, and I don’t want to be here for that.
Yeah, good point.
“Can you separate us?” he asks Ronnie.
Ronnie looks at Cisco.
“Uh, I mean, I have the device, we can give it a try,” Cisco says. “But first, can we discuss how Doctor Wells is secretly evil?”
“He’s not Wells,” Joe says.
Everyone looks at him.
“Wells has an iron-clad alibi for the time of the death of Barry’s mother,” Joe says. “I’ve been – suspicious. For a while. Because of just how interested he is in Barry. But his story all checked out.”
“But, then – how?”
“I don’t know,” Joe says. “But conversations with numerous individuals who knew Harrison Wells before and after the accident that killed his wife all agree on one thing: the Harrison Wells from afterwards wasn’t the same man as before, and in ways that even grief has trouble explaining.”
“Have you searched the building?” Len asks Barry. “You have superspeed. You could do it.”
“What for?” Barry asks blankly. “You think he has some sort of secret hideway? Here?”
“I saw him walk into a wall downstairs,” Len offers. “When I broke into the building during the Accelerator explosion.”
“You did what?!” Mick says, looking horrified and pissed off the way he always does when he’s discovered one of Len’s stupid-crazy plans.
And, yes, this time Len will admit his plan had been really stupid.
“Let’s put him in the Accelerator,” Barry says firmly. “And find the room.”
The room is –
This is absolutely fascinating!
I’m glad at least one of us is enjoying this.
“Wells is from the future?!” Cisco yowls.
“Speedsters can travel through time?!” Barry yelps.
“You and Iris are married?!” Joe shouts.
“You know you’re still on fire?” Mick asks Len in a low tone. His eyes are a little glazed over. “It’s, uh. It’s really nice. Very pretty.”
Your partner is a pyromaniac.
Did I not mention that?
You did; it’s different being confronted with it directly like this. He also appears to have pyrophilia.
I think he just likes the idea of me not being able to burn.
Mr. Snart. Look into your husband’s face. That is definitely pyrophilia.
Len looks.
Hmm.
Okay, maybe the voice – maybe Martin Stein – had a point.
Of course I have a point. And just Stein is fine; I prefer it. Only my wife calls me Martin.
That’d be Clarissa, I take it.
Yes. You know, I think we’re adjusting to the merger; our thoughts have increasingly untangled, yours to yours and mine to mine, and we haven’t had any movement issues in a while.
And we haven’t been able to do the memory sharing so much anymore.
No, indeed. I think we’ll slowly be able to fade into a simple psychic bond.
Simple?!
Well. Compared to before…
Compared to the bit where we thought we had schizophrenia, you mean.
“Mick,” he says warningly when Mick reaches out to try to touch him.
“Oh, please,” Mick says. “Just a little.”
We can try to make the fire lack heat.
Can we do that?
I said we could try, not that we would necessarily succeed.
Len focuses, and Stein focuses, and when they feel like they’ve got something, Len gently reaches out and takes Mick’s hand in his.
The flame beats against Mick’s fingers harmlessly.
Mick swallows, hard, and stares. “Lenny,” he marvels. “Lenny, look at you. You’re the Burning Man.”
Uh, Stein, I don’t suppose –
First let’s figure out if I can block out my awareness of what’s going on first, thank you.
Right. And separate, too, if we can.
That would be even better.
Len clears his throat. “Can we talk about getting me and Stein separated?”
“Uh, sure,” Barry says. “Thanks for your help, uncovering Wells and all.”
“Happy to help,” Len drawls.
“Did you have to frost Barry for it to work?” Cisco asks.
“I was trying to rescue my partner,” Len says reasonably. “I didn’t realize about your Wells.”
“Wait,” Barry says. “But you winked at me!”
“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” Len explains. “No reason; I don’t kill unless it’s necessary – I never liked the heat. Besides, Stein’s squeamish –”
If it means you don’t kill people, then yes, I’m squeamish!
“Anyway, I just saw that he was really, really calm for a guy in a wheelchair, is all,” Len continues. “The only thing that worried him were threats to Barry.”
“Because he needed Barry for his evil plan to return to the future,” Cisco says. “And I can’t believe that was a sentence that came out of my mouth.”
“Is that necessarily an evil plan?” Caitlin asks, gnawing on her lip. “If he just wanted to go home…”
“He came to the past to try to wipe Barry out of existence,” Cisco points out. “His notes indicate that he thought that succeeding could mean that he cause a miniature quasi-black hole – not a real one, or we’d all really be screwed - to be formed here, destroying Central City and everyone in it –”
“Say,” Len interrupts before Cisco can go into too much detail. “While you’re looking up anti-speedster tech ideas, can we pause for a second and see if there’s anything in that doohickey about me?”
“About you?”
“About me and Stein, I mean,” he says. “Us separating.”
“Yes, Mr. Snart,” the AI they’ve managed to access chirps. “You and Professor Stein are called Firestorm when joined together. Your power set includes –”
They listen.
“Hold up,” Joe says. “What was that about nuclear power?”
I’m more concerned about the part that said that we will deteriorate into an explosive material when separated for too long.
Guess you’re not rid of me yet.
To be perfectly honest, Mr. Snart, I don’t know what I’d do without you by now.
Go back to your normal life.
What, and give up flying and minor criminal activity?
Hey! It’ll be major criminal activity, now that I know we aren’t schizophrenic and inclined to break down while on a job.
Then I must object –
“So you’re going to help us, right?” Barry says anxiously.
What?
“Huh?” Len says aloud.
“If we put Wells in prison,” Barry says, looking at them with big wide puppy eyes. “And if we get the thing to separate and stabilize you to work, then, maybe, could you stay and help? We need a main scientist - plus, you know, extra firepower - to help us fight the metas. They’ll destroy Central City if we don’t stop them.”
“Actually,” Len says, putting aside Barry’s absolutely ridiculous suggestion for the time being – and judging by Joe’s face, he agrees that it’s ridiculous, “let’s talk about your definition of ‘prison’ first. And about a few things I’d like to call, in order: the Geneva Convention, the Constitution, and Missouri state law. Do you know what all those things have in common?”
“Uh,” Cisco says. “No?”
“You’re violating all of them!”
Mick laughs.
It takes two days for the separator to be finished.
Two very long days, given that Stein absolutely refuses to let Len and Mick get on with their reunion until he’s out of there.
(He’s left the door open on potentially joining up and then shutting away his mind to let Mick enjoy the flames, but only if Len will agree to Barry’s ridiculous plan of becoming Team Flash’s new mentors. Mick – who had initially objected to the idea of becoming ‘heroes’ – suddenly changed sides on the debate when he heard the offer. He’s such a pyrophiliac.)
Not being able to screw did mean that they actually had to talk about it.
“I shouldn’t have left,” Len tells Mick without looking at him.
“I shouldn’t have gotten distracted,” Mick says, also not looking at Len.
“Not your fault,” Len says. “It happened so suddenly. It just went up. I know the risks, with you; I shouldn’t have taken you in there at all. I don’t hold it against you at all.”
“And I don’t hold you leaving against you,” Mick says. “Well, not anymore. You got scared, and you ran. You were trying to defend yourself.”
“Still –”
Oh for God’s sake, just forgive each other already.
Len snorts.
“What’d our guest say?” Mick says, turning to look at Len for the first time in this conversation.
“That we should forgive each other already,” Len says.
“I can do that,” Mick says.
“No more feelings talk for at least another few years,” Len agrees, and then Mick is there, right there, right in front of him, back again, partners again –
I take it back! Go back to being angry at each other!
Len snorts against Mick’s lips.
“Lemme guess,” Mick says, pulling back a little from where he’s holding Len close. “He’s complaining.”
Len hums in agreement and kisses Mick again – ignoring Stein’s theatrical groan – and then pulls away. “Soon,” he says.
“I’m going to go encourage Cisco and Ronnie to work faster,” Mick says.
“You do that,” Len says, and goes for check-up number a thousand from Caitlin.
(Wells is still defrosting. Caitlin estimates a full defrost will take three days, the countdown to which restarted yesterday because Len was feeling grumpy and didn’t want everyone’s attention to go away from fixing him.)
Oh, and Lisa shows up to yell at Len, but he was expecting that. He wasn’t expecting her and Cisco to hit it off quite so well, but hey, if she’s happy, he’s happy.
If the device works and he’s not schizophrenic and not joined together with Stein anymore, everyone’s going to be happy.
They put on the device.
Something just clicks into place.
Pulling apart is –
It’s easy. They just step apart, as if they’ve always known how to do it. And then they step together, hand in hand, and they’re one again. Then apart.
“So we just have to do that regularly, huh?” Len says to Stein, studying the older man’s features even as Stein studies his.
“Yes,” Stein says. “It appears so.”
“Guess we might as well stick around here, then,” Len says. “Wouldn’t want these idiots to get into trouble without us.”
Stein smiles. “I think we’ll be able to find enough adrenaline to keep even you interested,” he says.
“Len,” Mick says from the door.
“I’m going to go find Clarissa,” Stein says hastily, and heads out.
Len takes a step closer to his partner, then another. Mick’s eyes are fixed on him, his pupils already blown, and it doesn’t matter that Len can’t light on fire without Stein, not at all, because Mick wants him just the way he is right now.
The only question, really, is if they’re going to make it to the safehouse – any but the one on Maple, for which he’s already handed the lease over to the artist’s collective and pre-paid their taxes for a few years – or if they’re just going to fall down right here on the floor of the lab –
Judging by Mick’s face and Len’s quickening breath, they’re not going to make it to the safehouse –
“Uh, guys?” Cisco’s voice pipes up through the intercom. “I think we have a problem. A…monkey problem.”
“Technically,” Catilin chimes in, “I think he’s a gorilla.”
“I think he has mind control powers,” Barry says.
Len and Mick look at each other.
“Safehouse,” they say at the same time.
Team Flash’s emergencies can wait until tomorrow.
Ronnie ends up in charge of the cold gun. He mostly uses it against speedsters and as a high powered fire extinguisher when Len and Mick get too fire-happy. When accompanied by Caitlin’s later development of frost powers, they’re officially the chillest couple on the block.
(Cisco and Len high-five while everyone else groans.)
40 notes
·
View notes
Text
12 Dangerous Signs to look out for while Grocery Shopping
12 Dangerous Signs To Look Out For While Grocery Shopping.
Grocery stores are a breeding ground for many different dangers to your health and wallet. Not all grocery stores are created and maintained equally, but anywhere that hundreds of humans regularly intermingle at once is bound to be germy. The grocery store is no exception. Among the abundance of germs, there are a number of items that you should 100% avoid, in the name of good health and financial literacy.
What foods and processes are putting you at the most risk? The following list will show you which dangers are easily avoidable.
Anything From The Deli Section
No in-house cut meat, no soups, no salads, literally NOTHING. Without proper sanitation, the blades used to slice meats can be a threshold for bacteria. The USDA does not require expiration dates, it just recommends certain guidelines. Therefore, not all grocery stores honor expiration dates when it comes to processed meats. These meats can be re-wrapped and sold, or even be cut up and used in vats of deli soup! Not to mention the glass covered cases they keep the meats and salads in. How many times have you seen flies or other insects that accidentally get trapped inside? You are far better off purchasing your meats from a local butcher and produce from locally owned farmer’s markets.
Broken Eggs
If you’re not already checking your carton of eggs before purchasing, you might want to get in the habit! Broken or cracked egg shells create an entryway for bacteria and pathogens. While cooking does reduce the amount of most contaminants, it does not remove them completely. Inspect eggs before buying them to make sure you and your family aren’t exposed to food-borne illnesses because of cracked egg shells.
Pre-Shredded Cheese
Don’t fret #TacoTuesday lovers, there’s a bit a good news here. A few years back, it was rumored that manufacturers were cutting corners and supplementing their product with wood pulp. While this rumor was deemed moderately false, it is true that most pre-shredded cheeses contain fillers and additives. The main culprit it cellulose. Here’s the tricky part, cellulose is often considered “wood pulp” because manufacturers grind up wood to extract cellulose from. Wood is from trees, trees are plants, plants have cellulose. While all of this may seem confusing, wouldn’t it be easier to skip out on the risk of ingesting questionable additives and just take the extra two minutes to grate your own cheese?
Non-dairy milk
While fortified almond milk contains as much vitamin A and vitamin D as regular cow’s milk, it is also loaded with sugar and lacking in protein. If you’re unable to drink dairy and are concerned about protein, non-dairy milk made with soy or pea protein would serve as a good option. There are also unsweetened variations that are far less invasive on your health. Additionally, cow’s milk is a natural source of calcium but almond milk must be fortified. As a rule of thumb, always read the nutrition facts panel on the side to confirm it’s been fortified with calcium and vitamin D.
Pre-made Guac, Salsa, And Hummus
If you buy manufactured brands, you’re likely getting a ton of chemical additives and extra calories. Due to this, the calorie count and amount of chemicals to keep it fresh is also extremely high. The same thing about the deli meats being repurposed for soups holds true for “fresh” store-made guac. The semi-old tomatoes, avocado, and onions are chopped up and used in their “made fresh daily” recipes. So again, why not take the extra 10 minutes to make your own truly fresh guac? You can find the best and easiest way to make homemade guac here.
Exotic Fruits And Veggies
Unless you are purchasing your favorite exotic fruits from a foreign grocer, it is fair to assume that these items are poor quality. Think of the time it takes to get to your favorite grocer. Can we honestly say that these items are shipped in a manner that ensure’s freshness?
White Lines In Chicken
Healthy chicken is pink in color. If you see white stripes on your chicken, it could be a sign of a muscle disorder. According to the studies conducted by the Italian Journal of Animal Science, this condition has a big impact on the nutrition and flavor of your meat.
Those little white lines running alongside the muscle in your chicken breast don’t present a safety risk to you or your family, but they affect the quality of the food you feed your family. Chicken breasts with white stripes are higher in fat and lower in protein. This not only has an impact on the nutritional value of the chicken breast, but on taste and even the tenderness of your meat.
Salad Dressing
Most store bought dressing ingredient lists include around 15 or more ingredients and 100 to 300 calories to your green goodness! “Healthy” dressing ramp up additives and other unhealthy ingredients. Most “fat-free” dressings often have sugar to make up for the fat removal; and most of us don’t need more added sugar. Claims of ‘sugar-free’ on dressing bottles are misleading. This often means artificial sweeteners have been added. [ article recipe deleted].
Anything That’s Not Food
Somehow a trip to get groceries always turns into a trip for paper towels, light bulbs, picture frames, air freshener, and batteries. As hard as it is to resist. YOU MUST! These large chains are fully aware of our tendencies and try their best to make unnecessary purchases at marked up prices as convenient as possible. Make a list, and stick to the list!
Germ-Infested Shopping Carts
Dozens of hands push shopping carts around the grocery store each week, so it’s hardly surprising that most are coated in germs. However, you might be surprised just how dangerous this bacteria can be. Keep yourself safe by diligently washing your hands before and after coming into contact with a shopping cart and always place your produce in a bag to prevent them from touching the cart. Also, be extra cautious before using grocery carts that are parked outside, as they can be coated in animal droppings.
Grungy Fridge Doors & Credit Card Machines
What are the two other things in a grocery store that 90% of shoppers are guaranteed to touch? The credit card pad and refrigerator doors. We all like opening the doors in the freezer department to look inside, and their bacteria levels are proof of the practice. Then, just think about when you’ve gotten your bacteria-ridden cart, opened the grungy refrigerator door, grabbed all of your packaged, yet germ infested items, and are ready to check out. When you settle your bill, you’re putting your fingers in contact with everyone else’s flu germs, potentially putting yourself at risk of illness. Thankfully, washing your hands before and after will dramatically reduce your risk of contracting anything. I personally keep hand sanitizer with me at all times!
From the hands of dozens of supply chain employees, and hundreds of shoppers traveling through them each day means that the standard grocery store is a pretty disgusting place to be. Grocery shopping without question could put your health at risk, but practicing some common sense will go a long ways towards protecting your health! Make sure to inspect all packages before buying, never touch your face or eat samples with your hand coming into contact with germ-infested surfaces. Lastly, always remember to wash your hands and produce once you leave the store.
By following these techniques, you’ll drastically reduce the amount of unsafe bacteria you come into contact with on your next trip to the store!
source: https://www.oola.com/day-to-day-life/2472393/grocery-store-dangers?utm_source=aolc#page=1
© 2019 US Food Safety Corporation. No copyright claim is made for portions of this blog and linked items that are works of the United States Government, state governments or third parties.
from US Food Safety https://ift.tt/2YnE9Jc
12 Dangerous Signs to look out for while Grocery Shopping
US Food Safety
via 1best recipe https://ift.tt/2Y0mc3L
0 notes
Text
My Yoga Story
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance yoga has played in my physical and spiritual well-being. Besides my relationships with my family, yoga has been one of my longest and most empowering relationships in my life. It has seen me through the ups and the downs of high school, the stress of college, the intensity of my eating disorder and my recovery and rediscovery of a more balanced lifestyle.
It has provided the mat upon which I’ve cried, sweat, screamed, laughed and have pretty much experienced every emotion under the sun. It has been my friend, my confidante and my spiritual healer. It has, quite simply, changed my life.
But let’s back up to the beginning to where my yoga story began…
Wearing: Stash Pocket Salutation Tights | Fully Focused Bra
I took my first yoga class in my sophomore year of high school. I had recently gotten a gym membership and decided to try out some of their classes. Having never been an athlete (in the conventional sense), I was drawn to the flexibility of yoga (a gift I’ve been blessed with) and its emphasis on balance. I pretended it wasn’t my first class and just played along when Cindy – my first ever yoga instructor- said things like “warrior one” and “down dog”. I winged my way through the whole class until I found myself laying on my back during shavasana and experiencing what had to have been the most euphoric sensation DURING a fitness class. I was sold.
Every Saturday morning I attended Cindy’s class and began what would turn out to be a very long and tumultuous relationship with yoga.
Up until college I had only ever done Hatha Yoga, which emphasizes holding poses for longer rather than flowing quickly through each.
But when I joined my college gym in my freshman year, I got cocky and signed up for a 16-week, twice-a-week Vinyasa Flow class. I went in thinking I’d be totally fine having done yoga for 2.5 years, but I was definitely in for a rude awakening. After the first week I couldn’t move my arms. I’d never done so many sun salutations in an hour. But my body quickly adapted and before I knew it, Vinyasa Yoga was totally my thing.
I continued to do this type of yoga throughout my college years. To be honest, I viewed yoga solely within the frame of exercise, but anyone whose been practicing for a long time knows that it is so much more. At this point in my life, faster, harder, stronger was my main goal. Pushing my body to its limits, doing the highest intensity of each pose was the name of the game for me. I truly did not understand why anyone would sign-up for a restorative yoga class. Wasn’t yoga supposed to make you sweat?
Then everything changed.
A few years after college I badly injured my knee (and subsequently my leg and back) while running on a treadmill. This was the height of my exercise addiction and at this point was using yoga as an “active rest day”. Keep in mind my active rest day meant doing a 90 minute vinyasa flow in the heat. But as with anyone who has ever injured themselves knows, discovering that your body is not superhuman is an incredibly humbling experience.
While tackling my injuries in PT, my therapist suggested I try out yoga to help heal my body and reduce my physical and mental stress. I tried to explain to her that my body couldn’t handle it when she reminded me that yoga doesn’t always have to be extreme. She suggested I try a gentle hatha class or restorative class to increase mobility without overburdening my body.
This is when I discovered the world of online yoga. I started rolling out my mat at home and letting my body guide my practice. If I couldn’t perform something, I took a variation. I slowed down, I listened and in the process really connected to the spiritual side of yoga that in turn helped soothe my body and soul.
Fast forward to now, and yoga remains a constant in my life. I know it sounds so cliche but I always feel safe when I’m on the mat. Yoga was my entry into the intuitive living movement. Rolling out my mat gave me permission to listen to my body, and subsequently I began listening to it even when I wasn’t doing yoga.
I discovered what it meant to be in-tune with how you are feeling instead of pushing it further down into the depths of your head and your heart. I forgave myself for the things I couldn’t do and accepted that it isn’t always the time and place to do the things that you can. Sometimes the greatest challenge is slowing down and listening.
I occasionally like going to classes to pick up on the energy of the room, but more often than not, I practice at home or outside. Sometimes I follow a youtube video or podcast and other times I just put on my yoga playlist and flow. Sometimes it’s fast, sometimes its slow. Sometimes it’s vinyasa and sometimes it’s restorative.
But each time I step on the mat I’m reminded of where I started and where I am now. I still can’t do a handstand or fully extend my legs in boat pose, but I know how to listen to my body which is not something I could have said or done when I first walked into Cindy’s class in 2005. My yoga story has many chapters and like most things in life, it will continue to take many twists and turns as I figure out its place in my future. I can’t wait to see what the next chapter brings!
One of my pet peeves when it comes to yoga is clothing that looks cute but isn’t functional. I’m so happy to be teaming up with Athleta on this post as their clothing is not only cute but also comfortable. There’s nothing worse than going into a down dog and worrying that your crack is hanging out (you know you’ve all been there…)! I love their Powervita fabric line, which allows me to move my body in whatever way it wants while keeping everything in place, but also transition into other areas of my life where I want to be comfortable. I’ve been wearing Athleta for years and I honestly cannot recommend their workout wear enough for whatever activity you choose – yoga and beyond!
Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Athleta. All opinions expressed are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that help make THM possible!
What’s your yoga story? What’s your movement of choice?
The post My Yoga Story appeared first on The Healthy Maven.
from News About Health https://www.thehealthymaven.com/2017/10/my-yoga-story.html
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
pommancy
pommancy
ciroc313
消したり足したり
ciroc313
消したり足したり
gtarm
gtarm
obstinatecondolement
Like a dandelion up through the pavement, I persist