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a-froger-epic · 3 years

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About the Interview

Since I posted the interview with J - a woman who has described herself to me as one of Queen’s first “groupies” - there has naturally been a lot of discussion about the veracity of the interview, the source, and my own motivations in posting it. I fully expected that, and I will say once more that nobody (apart from a small handful of anonymous trolls) has behaved inappropriately in these discussions. I have not received any “hate” because of this. There is no “drama”. Nobody is wrong, or a party-pooper, or attacking me by expressing their doubts. I have seen some awful bile spat at people anonymously recently, and that kind of behaviour has got to stop.

Now, if you don't think I am genuine, there is obviously nothing I can do about that.

However, what I am hoping to do here is add as much transparency as I can in regard to how and why the interview happened, and also share my own full thoughts on it with you.

First things first. No unverified, anonymous source can be seen as definitive proof of anything, ever. That is my stance. I have myself been criticised for so much as suggesting that other anonymous sources tied in with Freddie’s history are not 100% proof of one thing or another. But for me, an anonymous source can never mean more than at best: this seems very likely, but we can’t be 100% certain.

Perhaps I was naive to think that what I considered to be enough of a disclaimer at the beginning of the interview, was enough. My intention was to express that while I, personally, believe J to be a) the person she says she is and b) genuine about what she remembers, that does not mean I believe everything she has told me is fact or happened in that exact way. I thought this was obvious. Perhaps I was unclear, and I apologise for that.

So let me be clear. There is nobody in the world who has perfect, factual recollections of what happened to them almost 50 years ago. Not even J herself claims for one moment that this is the case. She mentions several times that these are old memories from when she was very young, that she indulged in recreational drugs at the time, and that her views - of course - carry a personal bias. All this, I thought, would be enough for readers to know not to take everything they read at face value.

All of the above is why I kept my own thoughts and notes to a minimum within the interview, why I didn’t correct or point out obvious mistakes. I simply assumed that everybody would go away and read the interview against all the sources and information they already have, as I have done myself.

But maybe that was somewhat irresponsible of me, and I should have been the first person to dig into how J’s memories fit in (or don’t) with the information which is already out there, and how to put the two together. While I refrained from sharing all my thoughts alongside the interview (although I have fragmentally done so in response to other people since), others like @quirkysubject (here), @iwilltrytobereasonable (here), @emmaandorlando (here), @sarinataylor and @talkingismylifewrites (here) all had some very good things to say. All of them make excellent points. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SEND THEM NASTY MESSAGES. I frankly can’t believe I have to say this at all.

I found myself in a difficult position, because as the person who had spoken to J and asked her all these questions, I did not feel as though I could dissect her words as freely as anybody else. She has put a lot of trust in me, and I do not want her to think that I question her honesty and intentions. Because I don’t. If I hadn’t felt as sure as I reasonably can be that she is the person she says she is, and that her story is genuine from her perspective, if I had been in any doubt about that, I would not have made it public.

Here's the thing:

Even if you don't believe J knew the boys, her recollections of the time period alone are still valuable and incredibly interesting, giving us a glimpse of early 1970s London.

But I do believe J. Why?

Before I answer that, let me just say: I fully realise that of course the fact that it was my story J happened across, and me she decided to speak to because of it, makes me more inclined to want to believe her. However, other authors I'm friends with, as well as myself, have received messages from older people several times before. It does trigger nostalgia when a story is very strongly rooted in a time somebody has lived through. There are older people in the fandom. (I recently ran a poll and all age groups were represented even here on Tumblr.)

Now, on to the reasons why my communication with J has felt nothing but authentic to me.

1. She was never in any rush to get in touch with me or relate information to me. It took her a few days to email me after she first spoke to me in the comment section, where I begged her to please get in touch. She then sent me the same email five times, over two days, because she couldn’t quite work my email address out at first.

I ended up asking several questions more than once to get an answer because they were overlooked. The conversation went off on tangents, and we chatted about her weekend at her friend’s house (and I was presented with a beautiful snapshot of the beach), the memory box her daughter made for her, her work and other things. There were stretches of days at a time when J simply didn’t find the time to get back to me. And I may have badgered her with a few too many emails asking her to please remember to answer my questions when she has a moment. In short, it was the opposite of somebody rushing to share their story. I was doing all the rushing. (I realise that I am asking you to take my word for this, but this did not all happen in a vacuum. @plainxte, @quirkysubject, @fingersfallingupwards, @onegoldenglance and @freddieofhearts witnessed the process first-hand, as well as my excitement and some of J’s original emails.)

2. J was very trusting. I know her full name, where she lives and her place of work. She sent me current pictures of herself and her husband unprompted. At no point did she ask me not to reveal her identity, that is a call I made because I did not want to expose her to any possible harassment.

3. There were a few things in her account of what she remembered which were so obviously at odds with what we know to be true - it’s well-known John is a bit taller than Roger, for example, but J remembered him shorter, Queen went to Sydney in ‘85, J remember it as ‘84 - that I couldn’t help but think, if I was somebody who was trying to convince others of a made up story, the first thing I would surely do is make absolutely certain to get the facts which are easily findable right. Instead, J always lead with: this was all a long time ago, I’m sorry, I’m doing my best trying to remember.

I realise that a very clever hoaxer could do all this and convince me. But here the question has to be, to what end? This would be quite an act for someone to arrange, to make it seem quite so naturalistic. Nobody would go through the trouble of doing that for nothing. There’s no monetary gain. Scandal? There is nothing scandalous in the interview. Attention? J is barely an active member of the fandom. She has managed to create a Tumblr though: @since72. There is one post currently.

It also took her a couple of days to get back to me after I posted the interview.

In brief, I have no logical explanation for why somebody would go to these lengths and fool me so cleverly, with such attention to detail, when there seems to be nothing in it for them. Why then did J bother to talk to me at all? What was her motivation? Well, after I thanked her profusely for doing this, she simply said that she felt she owed me as reading my story had brought back so many memories for her.

All of the above is why I strongly feel that J is very much real and genuine. But I completely understand that it all hinges on the fact that in order to believe everything I say is true, you would have to trust me. And I know that as I am just another person on the internet, you have no reason to do that. But I’ll get to me in a moment.

Here are a few more doubts which I have seen come up with regard to J.

Why would she be reading fanfiction about people she knew? That’s weird.

To be perfectly honest, exactly that was my first reaction, too. But then I thought about it and talked to friends about it.

Firstly, J says herself that she was never a close friend. I agree that it would be far weirder to read fanfiction about somebody you knew very well. Having said that, John Deacon’s son has been known to read Queen fanfic about his father (and read it out on his YouTube channel). But I think given that it’s been half a century and J has been watching Queen in the public eye ever since, it isn’t really all that strange to read about fictional versions of them.

Secondly, a friend of mine noticed that it seems as though older people in the fandom find J overall more credible than younger people. I’m 35, and it is true that the older we get, the more we look for the things which remind us of our younger years. There is an urge to remember and re-live. You can trust me on this, or you can ask anyone over the age of 30 or 40. Nostalgia is real, and it only comes to you with age. Why would somebody who had briefly brushed shoulders with people who later became celebrities not take an interest in them later? It seems natural that she would. As J says, she never stopped being a fan of Queen’s music and came across fanfic when she looked up Adam Lambert. Is it really so strange that she would find fanfic about them entertaining? Having given it all this thought, I really don’t think so.

It’s unrealistic that she was so young.

This is something I have to disagree with. Times were different. Pete Townshend entered Ealing Art School at age 16, according to Wikipedia. My mother (currently 62) moved 600km away from home at the age of 15 to study piano at music college. I myself moved out from home at 17 (no tragic reasons whatsoever), but that’s beside the point. I have seen it framed in a way where it was said that “It isn’t realistic that a 16-year-old was hanging out with Queen who were all in their 20s”. I agree, it would be a little strange if the story was that one 16-year-old girl was hanging out with Queen by herself as their good buddy. But that is not the story. (Even though it is well-known that during the 60s and 70s, young teenaged groupies did in fact hang out with rock groups very frequently. Of course, J was not that kind of groupie.) She was simply part of a large circle of friends, by her own admission not a close friend of the band. Personally, I struggle to see how this is unrealistic in any way.

It seems super suspicious that she lost her photos in a flood.

Yes, it does. I agree. J realises that, too.

Like @quirkysubject said in her post, I don’t blame anyone who is too sceptical at this point. But there actually was a pretty bad flood in Australia in 1988.

There are mistakes in J’s story!

Yes, there are! Let me point them out to you. I already mentioned John’s height and Queen being in Australia in ‘85, not ‘84. I also think that her perception that Freddie was taller than Roger in ‘72, but no longer in the 80s, had everything to do with platform shoes. I have to say that I did ask J some questions which I knew were things which are almost impossible to remember about people you weren’t particularly close to. I knew there was no way she would be able to accurately recall their heights, but I still wanted to know what the impression was which she had come away with. I don’t for one moment think she could possibly know why and if Freddie’s nickname was really ‘Freddie Baby’ at EAS well before she went there. But I still wanted to hear what she thought of that. This is why I stated specifically that this entire interview consists of one woman’s subjective opinions and memories. That alone means you can absolutely not take any of it as definitive fact. That just isn’t how memory works.

Kensington Market and the stall:

J’s answers on this one thoroughly confused me. Not only did she say that while she saw Freddie at the market a lot, Roger was hardly ever there, but there was also some Indian man working at the stall during the week (who I don’t think could have been Freddie’s father). She saw Freddie at multiple stalls, a girl named Jill also worked at the stall… and J was under the impression that Roger and Freddie hadn’t even started the stall. None of this made a whole lot of sense to me, until somebody pointed out that the original stall owned by Roger and Freddie must have closed in the second half of 1971. (Sources: Queen in Cornwall & Queen: As it Began)

It is confirmed (same sources as above) that Freddie worked at the market until as late as 1974. I think it is therefore entirely possible that J would have seen him working at Alan’s stall, or helping out at other stalls, and the likelihood that Roger would have come to hang out with him on a weekend is fairly high, in my opinion. Later, reading about Freddie and Roger running a stall, J would have had no reason to think that this wasn’t the same stall she had seen them at. And yes, this is of course only a theory.

The gay pride march:

@rushingheadlong, who has recently done a lot of fantastic research about Tim, confirms that there’s no chance (as far as we know) that Tim could have been at the march. Did any of them really go? Is J misremembering entirely? Could it be that one of them or two of them went, and looking back, J remembers it as all of them (minus John, however) because she was used to mostly seeing them all together? Does she remember them from another protest march and got it mixed up with the gay rights march? I can’t say. The march and who exactly went is a big question mark. Even J herself is only “pretty sure” that they were all there, and I have to say, I can’t tell you who was where exactly when I think back to when I was 16. Certainly not when there was a big group of people around. And that was only 20 years ago for me.

Lastly, I’m going to try and use the guide our awesome local historian @emmaandorlando provided on how to analyse new sources. Of course, I’m not a historian (and I’m also partly the source by being the interviewer, so I can perhaps only do this impertectly), but let’s give it a go.

1. Who wrote this document?

‘Written historical records were created by individuals in a specific historical setting for a particular purpose. Until you know who created the document you have read, you cannot know why it was created or what meanings its author intended to impart by creating it’.

In this case, the answer is two-fold because essentially I wrote the interview, in as far as that I asked the questions, I gave it shape and presented it in the form in which it came, but the answers are J’s. I completely understand that this is already a big stumbling block for many, because not only am I presenting her as an anonymous source, but many of you don’t know anything about me. If you follow me on Tumblr, you will know that I have shared more with the internet than is probably wise. But still, I am somebody you know little about, presenting to you a person you know even less about. Whether you trust me or not is entirely down to your own judgement and instinct, and that will be different for everybody.

(I’ve seen it said that I’m plugging my own work through this interview. If that was my plan, I’m afraid it’s failed miserably. I looked, and DoA has gained a whopping 2 or 3 kudos.)

2. Who is the intended audience?

‘The relationship between author and audience is one of the most basic elements of communication and one that will tell you much about the purpose of the document. Think of the difference between the audience for a novel and that for a diary, or for a law and for a secret treaty. Knowing the audience allows you to begin to ask important questions, such as; “Should I believe what I am being told?”’

The intended audience is the Queen fandom on Tumblr and AO3. I have no interest in sharing this anywhere else because I’m not familiar with the other fan communities (Facebook? Instagram?) and wouldn’t know how to go about it. For J, the intended audience was mostly me, an author she likes who was very interested in her memories.

3. Why was this document written?

‘Everything is written for a reason. Understanding the purpose of a historical document is critical to analysing the strategies that the author employs within it. A document intended to convince will employ logic; a document intended to entertain will employ fancy; a document attempting to motivate will employ emotional appeals. In order to find these strategies, you must know what purpose the document was intended to serve.’

I got really, really excited. That is the reason. When J got in touch with me, I had a decision to make. I could ask her all the questions I wanted privately and share her answers only with my "inner circle” of fandom friends, or I could share everything with the fandom spaces where I’ve been very active in the last two years. I wanted to share the excitement and decided to do the latter.

I also wanted to present the interview in a way where it would be an engaging, well-structured read and not simply all of her emails to me dumped here with a quick ‘there you go’. So I tried to wrap it in a beautiful “package”, which is why I asked her for her art, for example.

4. What type of document is this?

‘The form of a document is vital to its purpose. The form or genre in which a document appears is always carefully chosen. Genre contains its own conventions, which fulfil the expectations of author and audience.’

An interview, written by somebody who has never interviewed anyone before.

5. Can I believe this document?

‘To be successful, a document designed to persuade, to recount events, or to motivate people to action must be believable to its audience. For the critical historical reader, it is that very believability that must be examined. Every author has a point of view, and exposing the assumptions of the document is an essential task for the reader.

You must treat all claims sceptically (even while admiring audacity, rhetorical tricks, and clever comparisons). One question you certainly want to ask is, “is this a likely story?” Testing the credibility of a document means looking at it from the other side.’

This is for all of you to decide for yourselves, and that was always the case. Far be it from me to be upset with anyone who straight up doesn’t believe a word I say, doesn’t believe J is real or any other scepticism. I’ll say it again, DO NOT harass anyone for expressing their opinions on this! It is NOT WRONG to discuss a new source! It’s wonderful that people are doing it!

And so, we come to that last question: Is this a likely story?

Personally, I can firmly answer that with: Yes. In my personal opinion, it is. I find J’s story very likely and there is close to nothing that makes me question that these are indeed her real memories. But given the nature of human memory, they are just as imperfect as anybody else’s and do not, and should not, supersede any factual, verified information we already have.

With that, I hope to have provided a bit more clarity and transparency, and leave you - as before - to make up your own minds.

#the interview #my thoughts #others have had their say so here is mine #in detail #long post

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comicaurora · 4 years

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Hi Red! Me again. Your magic system is the coolest thing ever, and it's by far my favourite from any fictional universe! Do you have any advice on coming up with a magic system that works for me? I'm building a world where I have the races divided based on the liquid they subsist on (blood, water, nectar or tree sap) and I'm having trouble. I know I want it steampunky in urban areas, and I want sap-drinker druids in some places, but I can't seem to codify what magic is or how it works.

Ah, man. Magic systems are a real pain in the butt. Fundamentally, they’re the one part of worldbuilding where you really have no real-world basis to play with.

In general, magic systems are subcategorized as “Soft” or “Hard” magic systems depending on how ironclad the rules are. I personally prefer hard magic systems because they let me define a few axioms and build out the rest of the system from first principles.

Example: Alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist is a hard magic system where the axiomatic first principle is “equivalent exchange” (to create something, something of equal value must be lost) and the way this is explored in-story is by examining and expanding on the concept of “value” central to that principle. All characters can rearrange or transmute one mass of matter into an equivalent mass of matter, which is the simple application of the first principle. But things get messy when people start transmuting souls, because while it’s possible to do that in this magic system, the “value” of a soul can’t be quantified, so the transmutation always goes funky and the alchemist pays a hefty personal price. Then this exploration of the magic system gets reversed with the Philosopher’s Stone - described as being able to break the laws of alchemy, what it actually does is perform the soul equivalent exchange in reverse, burning human souls for alchemic power and creating the illusion of making matter or energy from nothing. Nothing in-story ever breaks the law of equivalent exchange, because that’s the sole principle that defines this hard magic system.

In contrast, Lord of the Rings has a very soft magic system. This magic system doesn’t have ironclad rules, exactly - the world itself is just intensely magical. Elves can see forever because the world is physically flat from their perspective. A magic ring can corrupt the intentions of everyone who possesses it because it contains a tiny fragment of a corrupt being of pure evil. Gandalf can just do vague wizardy things like messing with shadows and fires, but he can’t just wave his hand and make the bad guys go away because… reasons. The world was sung into existence.

Tolkien based his world and his magic system off of Norse mythology and folklore, where magic was similarly everywhere and didn’t particularly make much sense. Folklore doesn’t usually get cohesive worldbuilding. The entire universe was contained in the branches of a really big tree, there were magical spirits in the mountains who could create magic artifacts and weapons that could do basically anything, there were dragons under every other hill and valkyries sometimes fell in love with mortal men. Soft magic systems tend to permeate the world with a vague haze of magic and the sense that anything is possible, but at the same time not everything is possible. This can be frustrating if, like me, you reflexively pick at these systems to try and figure out how they work, and “magic~*” is not considered an acceptable answer.

Star Wars also has a semi-soft magic system because it’s basically just a classic sword-and-sorcery fantasy story reskinned to be in space. The Force is a vague magical ambience that surrounds and binds everyone and everything and some people are more tapped into it than others. On a basic level it lets its users do stuff like telekinesis, on a more advanced level it lets them sense and manipulate the minds of others, most users have a small amount of precognition, etc - but the actual parameters and limitations of The Force are unclear. Can only Dark Side users do the force lightning thing? Do you have to keep your emotions in check to stay balanced, or were the Jedi just being uptight? Does the Dark Side actually make you more powerful, or are you just paying the price little by little and physically deteriorating the more you use it? The rules are never clearly established, which lets every movie come up with their own nonsense (eg “a dyad in the force~”) without having to justify much.

Our buddy Hello Future Me did a video about soft and hard magic systems a couple years back, it might be helpful to check it out.

Building the right magic system for your world is tricky. Ultimately, it’s informed by what kind of story you want to tell. Soft magic systems compliment worlds where the rules are vague and ethereal and magic Stuff can just happen sometimes. Hard magic systems produce worlds where magic is essentially another field of science - maybe not a hundred percent understood, but still working by quantifiable rules and studied in that capacity. You also get hybrid systems, like D&D, which essentially have several magic systems - gameplay-wise, everyone works by Hard magic rules (a finite number of spell slots, having to learn new spells, a spell always has the same required components and time, etc etc) but the lore is more of a Soft system (some people are just magical, random plants and animals can have all kinds of ethereal powers, magic bloodlines, wild magic, etc). The gameplay being Hard allows the game to actually be played with rules, but the setting being Soft allows the GM and players a lot of creative freedom when it comes to setting up interesting settings, scenarios and characters.

I guess the first question to consider is: do you want your magic to feel like magic or science?

#aurora #asks

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spookyold-saintjm · 4 years

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Confession

[gif: @h0rr0rpancake]

Mandalorian x female reader

Part of the Pilot series [Masterlist]

Warnings: Cursing, alcohol consumption/intoxication, canon-typical violence, it’s steamy but it’s not smut (yet) so chill.

Word Count: 3,808

Surprise! I was able to finish this one (number SIX?!) sooner than I thought, so here you go!

If you’re seeing my work for the first time: hi! You don't necessarily have to read the other parts of this series for this one to make sense; I write each new installment as something that can be enjoyed as a stand-alone or as part of the whole. Reading the others will give you bits and pieces of context that (hopefully) make each new part more impactful, but there’s no need to do so if you don’t want.

This is my longest work yet so...phew. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it! A lil ol’ reblog would mean the world to me, if you want. x

—

You had never thought it was something you’d see again. At least, not if it were done by your own hands.

Fragments of a one-man ship crumbled and burned and drifted down and out through infinite space. Your hands trembled like leaves against the Crest’s controls, and a cold sweat trickled down the side of your head as you stared numbly at the destruction you had just created. The life you had taken.

You heard the familiar footsteps of the Mandalorian approaching from behind you, and snapped back into survival mode. This wasn’t just about you.

You shakily turned toward the panel on your left, typing in codes to redirect your flight path to the nearest safe planet you could think of. The ship needed repairs; you needed to land as soon as possible. Mando was behind you just as you swerved the ship to a hard right and away from the sight of the debris. Away from choice you’d had to make to ensure your safety. And theirs.

You vaguely remembered him going to get the child immediately after you’d fired the fatal shot; somehow, despite the rocking and frantic turning of the ship, that sound had been what had awoken and startled the tiny being that had been resting in his carrier in another part of the ship. He was now tucked into Mando’s arm, ears perked in curiosity.

The amount of time that had passed up to that point was unclear to you; you’d kept a clear mind, focused, each move intentional and calculated as you attempted to get the attacking ship off your tail. It was when you realized that they weren’t going to give up on their pursuit, that they were intent to take you down, that you knew what you had to do. And you’d done it, but not without the dull, numbing feeling of acknowledging death quickly beginning to set in, despite the countless hours of training you’d once been through to teach your mind otherwise.

You had told yourself you weren’t going to do it again. And yet, here you were.

“I’ve changed our course.” You spoke quietly, quickly, before Mando could ask if you were okay. It was a question you didn’t want to answer. “We need to land soon. Damage.”

Mando said nothing, only watched your still-trembling hands attempt to restore the ship to full operation so that you could more quickly reach your new destination.

“S-sorry,” you added, immediately wishing you could take back the words that were already spilling from your lips. “I—I wasn’t—it’s been a long time."

He listened, letting you speak the words that were making your stomach turn the longer you held them inside. He didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to tell you to calm down. Only listened. It was something that you found yourself to silently appreciate as you started to steady yourself, your breaths regulating, your hands still.

He had seated himself in the co-pilot chair behind you, the child quiet in his lap. “Thank you.” he finally spoke. It was the only thing he could think to say, but it was enough.

Without turning away from the viewport, you nodded slowly in grateful acknowledgment.

“They were after him, weren’t they?” you asked, your voice low. You already knew the answer, but to assure yourself that what you’d done was worth it…

“I think so. Yes.” Mando replied simply.

“Not Guild. Not now.” You added.

“No. Someone else.”

You had a feeling you both had the same suspicions, that word had spread about the Mandalorian taking down Moff Gideon and escaping with a bounty he’d very intensely sought after. A very valuable one.

Neither one of you said it aloud, but you knew. The running wasn’t over.

—

Hot. Why did this planet have to be so kriffing hot?

You reached to wipe sweat from your forehead as you meticulously worked away on the wiring you pulled from out of a panel near the bottom of the ship. The repairs weren’t necessarily difficult, but time-consuming. And costly. Maybe it was the heat on this planet getting to you, but you’d snapped at Mando at his slightest hesitation of the full repairs.

“This ship is a ticking bomb. I don’t fix her, I don’t fly her. She’s all yours."

You could have sworn you’d heard his teeth grinding beneath this helmet when he’d handed over the credits for the necessary parts.

You were still coming down from your mood when the Mandalorian returned to the hangar where you’d been permitted to leave the ship a couple hours later. The child was following, happily toddling along behind him, but nearly thudded straight into his boot when Mando abruptly halted in his tracks.

He saw as you stood from your crouched position by the ship, muttering light curses under your breath as you stepped over to search through the crate of tools provided in the hangar for the repairs you were currently addressing. A stray hair drifted down into your eyes from where you had tied it atop your head, desperate for any means to cool down, and you blew it away as you continued to dig through the crate. Your long-sleeved shirt was tied at your waist, leaving you in your sleeveless undershirt that, thanks to the heat causing everything to stick to your skin, wasn’t leaving much to anyone’s imagination...

Not that…not that he would imagine anything. No, the heat was just getting to him, too.

Probably.

You finally noticed his presence and looked up, shielding your eyes with a hand to look at him through the light of the setting suns glinting off his armor.

“Hey, shiny. Step out of the light. I’m going blind here.”

Once he remembered how to walk, Mando was standing by the open hatch of the Crest, telling the child to head inside out of the heat. He obeyed, but not before letting a long stare glide between the two of you.

You were faced the opposite direction from him, but you didn’t hesitate to whip your head around your shoulder to send him a hard glare of warning before he quickened his pace inside with a small giggle.

“What does he say to you?” Mando asked as he approached you. You shook your head as you pulled the tool you’d been looking for from the crate with a low hum. He knew well enough by now how you communicated with the child, although maybe he didn’t quite understand the process of it. Some things were better to just silently accept. And this seemed to be one of them.

“You know…kid stuff,” you shrugged, though the fluttering in your stomach when Mando reached your side easily betrayed that. You walked over to the panel you’d been working on, and used the tool you’d retrieved to finish connecting and securing the last couple wires before locking and screwing the panel back into place.

“Well, we’re getting there.” You announced as you came from underneath the ship again. You dusted off your hands onto your thighs, and looked to Mando with a sigh. “Stabilizer still needs some work, and I have to re-align the left thruster. Need to double check the fuel driver. Might as well knock out the cosmetic work too if we’re going to be here for a few days.” You leaned to rub at a deep scratch in the thick metal of the Crest as you spoke. “Any luck on your end?”

“We found lodging. Doesn’t seem like we’ll be bothered.” Mando replied, already giving up on trying to make sense of the information you’d just given him. You knew that the mechanical side of things wasn’t really his area, so you weren’t at all surprised at his lack of questioning. Laughable as it may have been to you.

“Good,” you replied. “I hate being bothered.”

Mando folded his arms over his chest as he watched you type some final information regarding the repairs into the datapad before looking to him with a faint grin.

“Alright, then. If everything’s settled…I need a drink.”

—

With one arm propped against the bar, you knocked back the next shot of glowing orange liquid passed your way.

You weren’t quite sure what it was, but Maker, did it burn in the best way.

You swiped a slightly larger glass of dark brown liquid you’d requested off of the counter and turned to look for your companion for maybe the twentieth time that night.

You finally saw him, the rough silhouette of the Mandalorian making his way toward you.

Taking deliberate steps, you wandered over to meet him, the music in the room so gods-damned fantastic that you nearly forgot what you were doing until you nearly bumped into him.

You grinned up at him and shoved the glass in his direction. “Got you something!”

“I’m alright.” He knew you were beyond the point of him trying to explain to you that even if he did want a drink, he couldn’t drink it. For obvious reasons.

“Fine. Suit yourself.” Mando stared blankly at you as you pressed the glass to your lips and tipped back your head, finishing the entire thing in one go. You let out a heavy sigh of contentment as you placed the glass, now empty, down onto the nearest table.

He had agreed to stay back with the child as you’d gone to have a couple drinks at a nearby to unwind. When an hour and a half had passed and you hadn’t returned, he put the kid down to sleep and came to check in on you, a dull surge of worry rushing through him. It wasn’t entirely impossible that you’d all been followed onto this planet...

But instead he found you perfectly content, clearly more than a “couple” drinks in.

A tall, dark haired human female had wandered over, wrapping her arm low around your waist as they gazed eagerly at Mando.

“Oh! This your boyfriend or something?” The woman winked at him with a wide grin before she turned back to curiously tilt her head at you with her blue-painted, pursed lips. “Didn’t see you as the...boyfriend type, too.”

She turned back to Mando and reached a hand upward, a thin finger lazily reaching to trace the visor of his helmet. “What’s he look like under—"

Before she got the chance, you had her pressed face-first onto a table, that same hand pinned behind her back.

“Don’t. Touch. The helmet.” You spat down at her, before sending her off back in the direction she’d come from when you’d decided to let her go.

The Mandalorian wasn’t sure he was breathing.

“Handsy-ass bitch,” you muttered, turning back towards Mando with a shrug. “Sorry.”

He was still internally reeling from everything he’d just had to process in that matter of seconds, but shook himself out of it once he saw you faintly sway on your feet.

“We need to get back.” He said, his tone bordering that of an order. “I left the kid."

Your head snapped back upward toward him. “You left the—what the fuck is wrong with you?!” you gasped, and frantically tapped on the beskar covering his shoulders, urging him to turn around to the door. “We have to go.”

You both made it roughly five steps when he had to catch you from nearly stumbling to the floor. You walked the remainder of the way with hands clasped onto Mando’s arm to keep you steady.

You didn’t really need to, though. At least, that’s what you’d muttered under your breath on the walk back to where you were staying for the night. You were just being nice and accepting his help.

Mando let out a long sigh as you followed him inside.

Fortunately for the three of you, there were small rooms available for travelers to stay near the hangar, whether it be for time to make repairs to ships or to find temporary work until one could get off-world again. Mando, with the child tucked in his arm, had to quickly clarify that he would need two beds—in fact, two separate bedrooms—when he’d explained the requirements for a place to stay. Much to the owner’s amusement.

“Eh, don’t worry about it, guy. She’ll get over whatever you did to piss her off. They always do,” he had stated when he’d handed over the access card for the door.

Mando was silently thankful you hadn’t been there to hear the exchange, because even with you nowhere around he felt the distinct urge to throw himself into a sarlacc pit.

Your first instinct once you were inside, despite the haziness in your mind, was to check on the kid. He wore a peaceful contentment on his face as his slept in the carrier. Perhaps he, too, was relieved to be staying the night somewhere other than in an old bucket of a ship. Mando followed behind, a dull relief washing over him when he too saw that the child had been undisturbed during his short absence.

You spun around and glared up at him. “Do not leave him alone again.” You said, keeping your voice low. "For two hours or five minutes, I don’t care.”

He could have easily argued that maybe you were the reason he’d left him alone to begin with…but he was fairly certain that it wouldn’t be the best idea.

You had closed the door to the room you’d designated as yours seemingly before he could blink, coming out a while later, freshly showered in a new set of clothes. You still had that vague floating feeling as the effects alcohol continue to pulse steadily through your body, but you were at least coherent enough to walk on your own now.

The lighting in the room was dim, so as not to disturb the sleeping child, when you walked over to where Mando was tweaking the blaster he always carried with him at the small table in the room.

You plopped down in the seat across from him, hands rested under your chin, dark circles already formed under your eyes.

“Can I tell you something?” You asked, after watching him in silence for a while.

If it hadn’t been for all the other ways you’d surprised him that evening, the question might have given him pause. “Go ahead."

You tilted your head. “I want to kiss you, Din Djarin.”

And his entire world froze.

“I know, I can’t.” You waved a hand dismissively toward him, your words still slightly slurring. “It’s the Way, or whatever. I get it. But stars, if I don’t just want to kiss you sometimes.”

“Stop.” His voice came out far quieter than he’d meant as he began to earnestly wipe away a spot on his blaster that didn’t exist. “You’re drunk.”

You shrugged. “It's when I’m the most honest.”

He practically dropped the blaster onto the table, much louder than he’d meant. Both of you immediately jerked your heads toward the sleeping child, who thankfully hadn’t stirred.

Mando lifted his head, finally looking back at you. It almost felt like some strange stand-off, this long, silent exchange between the two of you. What was he supposed to say to that? His thoughts weren’t lining up right in his head, not only because of your confession, but the fact that you’d used his name when he said it. You hadn’t dared to speak it again since the night you’d left Navarro. Not until now. And then, there was the matter of what exactly you had said...

You were torture. Absolute torture.

“Um,” You slowly rose from your seat, muttering curses to yourself in your head when you realized he wasn’t going to give you a reply. You pressed your palms flat against the table until the shadows of the room and Mando’s silhouette stopped wavering around you. “I’m gonna go."

You had turned to walk back to your private space for the night when the single light in the room switched off.

You nearly tripped over your feet as you halted, slowly turning back to what you guessed was Mando’s general direction.

“Hey, wait I can’t see anythi—"

You felt his presence in front of you just as your mind fully processed the thought.

You couldn’t see.

Your breathing suddenly felt heavy, dizziness threatening to overtake you again the longer you were stripped of your sight. The quiet in the room was nearly deafening.

Mando was moving, a familiar sound of shifting beskar finally breaking the silence. Your feet were heavy weights, holding you in place while you heard him set something onto the table behind him.

Another silence passed, and breathing became nearly impossible as the walls closed in around you. “Mando, I—“

“Okay.”

Every nerve in your body threatened to short-circuit at the sound of his voice. His voice.

He’d taken off his helmet. He was standing in front of you and he’d taken off his helmet.

“Is that really what you want?” he asked.

Oh, Maker, if he kept speaking you were going to pass out.

Little did you know, he wasn’t feeling all that different. It took his every last ounce of pure willpower to keep himself from wavering, from putting back on the helmet and turning around and hoping he could convince you that you’d been dreaming if you asked in the morning.

But you wouldn’t, couldn't forget this if you tried.

He took a step forward, a step closer to you, awaiting an answer. “Well?"

“T—to kiss you?" you nodded once, slowly, despite knowing he couldn’t see you. “I…yes.” You swallowed thickly, an attempt to raise your voice above a whisper. “Do…do you? Want to, I mean.” Stop talking stop talking stop talking...

Another rustling, and you felt his touch, his fingers rested beneath your chin. “Yes.”

You stood unmoving, other than the heavy rise and fall of your chest. His forehead rested against your own, the first contact of his bare skin to yours enough to send you through the roof. You could hear his own uneven breathing now as he leaned in, his pace achingly slow. The tip of his nose brushed against yours, and your reflexively parted your lips in your wound-up anticipation…

And he kissed you.

His lips were feather-light and hesitant against yours, testing your acceptance to what was happening. You leaned into it, fully capturing his mouth with yours.

He tasted every bit the warrior, like blood and dirt mixed with something sweet and uniquely him, something that you could get drunk on, if you hadn’t been already.

The kiss was long, heavy. What had started out as something so light and timid quickly deepened into something else entirely, the instinctual need for contact that you’d both been deprived of for far too long rapidly taking over. What was once slow and steady soon turned messy, desperate, his teeth grazing against your bottom lip as you opened for him.

You’d snapped out of your shock and your hands were quick to press into his back to urge him closer to you before they wandered immediately up to his head.

Curls. The tiniest curls of hair sat atop his head and you wrapped one set of fingers in them while your other hand rubbed against the rough stubble on his face and slid along his neck and back up again. You wanted to remember every last inch of his face, how it felt. The sight of it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

At some point, you noticed your back was now pressed against a wall, the realization that he’d moved you there causing you to impulsively tug at his hair.

Some faint, low noise erupted from him and his fingers curled deeper into your waist in direct response and it set a fire deep within you that threatened to erupt at any moment.

More. You wanted more.

But he…was he trying to pull away from you?

You chased him, your lips reconnecting once he’d hardly leaned back. He indulged it a moment longer.

He, too, wanted more. Wanted it more than he knew he could possibly want anything.

But still he pulled back again, his hands moving to instead wrap around your arms to blindly pin you against the wall.

“Din—” you slurred, almost a plea. You reached up to move your hair away from your half-open eyes in a way that would have sent him to the floor if he’d been able to see it.

“I know,” he answered, his breath coming out in short bursts as he again rested his forehead against yours. “But not...like this. You’re still…"

He felt you nod against him before he could finish, despite the frustrated hum that crept from your lips.

“Okay,” you breathed. Your rested your palms against his chest, fingers curling against the armor there in a silent wish.

Mando leaned to press a soft, final kiss to your swollen lips before releasing his hold on you, both of you attempting to catch your breath as the room grew silent.

He was across the room again before you fully had the chance to miss his touch.

“You should sleep.” he stated, his voice again altered by the modulators of his helmet. There was now enough light for you to see rough shapes in the room, and despite how badly you wanted to turn away, you were looking back at him, standing, watching you.

You couldn’t help but sigh. Just like that, it was over. As if it had never happened at all.

“Yeah,” you muttered, the only answer you could pull from your throat as you turned back toward the room you had claimed as your own.You wandered inside, shut the door behind you with the blind press of a button, and immediately collapsed onto the bed. A real bed, but in that moment it felt as hard and unforgiving as if you were lying on the ground outside.

The knot in your chest and the fire set low in your stomach had yet to cease. Your eyes were wide open, but you were seeing nothing. You laid there, for several minutes or maybe hours, before eventually your exhausted body and the alcohol still drifting through your veins lulled you into a deep sleep.

And in the room beside you, Mando laid on his back, the beskar long stripped away. His hands rested at his sides, his eyes stuck to the low ceiling with no other thought than that of the choice he had just decided upon, the unspoken promise he made to himself, to you, as he, too, waited for sleep to overtake him.

—

tag list: @nadia-rosea @capsironunderoos @electricprincess888 @jamesdeerest @smolashie @iwatobiswimbros @backontheolebullshit @100kindsofblake @pandacookieowo @biolo-tea @baby-yodas-cool-aunt @heyitsjaybird @krtslxx @edgy-hufflepuff-bro @dirty-dancefl00r5 @fastidious-and-a-mess @officiallydeceased @sunkissed-winter @crushingonmando @ah-callie @wrinkled-daydream @holamor @din-and-juice @cosmo-bear @c0recl0wn @tedpicklez @miartian @disn3yfreak (please inbox me if you’d like to be added!)

#maybe this will tide my fellow mando hoes over for a bit #the pilot #mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #mandalorian x female reader #din djarin x female reader #the mandalorian #din djarin #mando x reader #mandalorian #din djarin says CONSENT #please let me know your thoughts!

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hollowandmerciless · 4 years

Text

Defending Eren

Thoughts after chapter 126

The thing that has been bugging me since chapter 100 hasn’t gone away since, and is still bugging me. It still makes no sense to me for Eren to accept the role of the the devil and take the blame for everything going wrong in the world, unless he has a reason to do so.

I think, despite not being given Eren’s POV in years, Isayama did leave us hints to what is driving him:

He’s seen something in the future that’s all worth it.

However, no matter what he’s planning, this leaves us with the role of the other characters we’re so fond of: The Survey Corps, the Warriors. I feel like chapter 126 is finally giving us a hint of where the story might be going.

I have been struggling with a couple of fragmented theories in my mind since months, and was unable to connect them or provide enough evidence to make them sound credible, until someone on Reddit came up with this brilliant theory, which provided me with the glue to combine those shards of theories.

It’s still not coherent and might be incomplete since I feel there’s a whole lot of development ahead of us (instead of closure, as would be expected in a story that’s about to end within a year).

Let me start with summing up my incomplete theories:

Eren does not intend to destroy the entire world.

I say this because everything we’ve seen in this story so far, has told us how Eren is learning that people are basically the same. It’s their history, wars and propaganda that makes them feel different. But his talk with Reiner in chapter 99

or his meeting with the Middle Eastern people in chapter 123

showed us he’s very aware that there’s no true difference between Eldians and other races. They’re all people.

All of them were born into this world.

And we all know that means a lot to Eren.

Another thing speaking in favour of this theory is his depressed speech during the ocean scene:

Although it’s a rhetorical question, many readers seemed to have interpreted this as one where the answer should be “Yes!” and thus evidence for Eren to want to destroy the entire world.

However, what if the answer is that Eren at this point in the story realises that killing everyone else has no use, and will not set them free? He realises something else has to be done, and by touching Historia and receiving some unexpected memories, he’s been shown what to do and why only he can do it.

While in chapter 123 we are being shown his Eldian Broadcast...

...we have to go back to chapter 122 to see what he’s really up to. He doesn’t tell Ymir he wants to destroy THE world, he tells her he wants to destroy THIS world and that, to me, makes all the difference.

He means to end this world, where people’s freedom is taken away by wars, racism, greed, and such, either by Eldians (during their 1700-year reign) or Marleyans (currently). He wants to END THIS and that’s why I simply don’t believe he’s going to commit genocide, and let his colossals trample over the entire world, leaving it flattened with only the Paradisians alive.

Eren will not be stopped

It simply makes no sense for Eren to be stopped.

First of all; what’s the entire value of this Chekhov’s Gun, basically starting at the Stohess events, when we’re showed the walls are made of colossal titans? What’s the value of the entire timeskip-Eren storyline, if he’s going to be stopped anyway?

Why go through all this trouble to collect Zeke from Liberio, narratively speaking, when the results of all this are to be stopped anyway?

And how, most of all, is stopping Eren going to solve anything? The colossal titans might either stop or keep walking, with no one to control them. There is no reason for world peace to suddenly occur when Eren is stopped. (Indeed, I’m no fan of the Lelouch ending).

Just imagine Eren being stopped. Someone (preferably Mikasa, Reiner or Levi, according to general consensus) kills him. Then what? All those colossals still flattening the earth. Eldians still able to turn into titans. The Attack, Founding and Warhammer titan likely to be reborn in random children among Eldians all over the world. And the rest of the world suddenly praising Paradisians for killing the monster that threatened them all, and leaving the island alone? Will the Eldians suddenly be seen as normal people and no longer discriminated? More importantly: will the cycle of hate end with Eren killed?

While I won’t be surprised (just utterly sad) if Eren doesn’t survive the end of the story, I don’t see any advantages of him dying at this point of the story. “He cannot be stopped” doesn’t necessarily mean “But wait, the other characters in the story will figure something out to stop him anyway”, because it’s useless to stop him – at this point in the story, anyway.

I’ve had these theories in my mind for a while but hesitated to share them here because they were too random, too little backed up with valid arguments, and too generic.

Then, last week, briefly after chapter 126 came out, I read that sharp observation about Hanji on Reddit, and I figured we’re finally shown what the course of the rest of the story might be.

I think – and this is all still very generic, lacks detail and might be busted within a chapter or two – that the goal of chapter 126 was creating the alliance between Marley and Paradis, because Eren has asked these people (or, more specifically, the Survey Corps) to cooperate with him, in order to fulfil his plan.

Hanji seems to have received a message from Eren during the night, Levi woke up directly after,

Jean came to his opinion about what to do during the night,

we saw Mikasa suddenly startled awake during the night.

(Why else did she suddenly want her scarf back? If not from sudden regained trust in Eren again?)

The man behind the window

is most likely Keith Shadis (what’s in a name), who is also informed of the plan, he’s is likely to have had contact with Jean overnight (look at the shadow on the ground and in the window behind Jean on the image above).

Unless it’s a continuity mistake from Isayama, it’s plausible that Eren sent the members of the Survey Corps a different message.

Why then send the rest of the Eldians the other message, about destroying the world? The scene with Mr. Leonhard in chapter 125 showed us why: rebellion among the ghettoed Eldians.

He needs chaos in order to fulfil his plan.

What that plan exactly is, is still unclear but I feel I sort of know where it’s going. A huge threat to the world (the colossals), Eldians rising up everywhere, and Marley left with no choice but to take the Eldians (including Paradisians) serious as people. This display of power, of course, is far from the best way to achieve world peace, though, and this is where I think Armin comes in. Armin, who, according to Eren is going to be the one who saves the world.

Armin, our pacifist, who keeps insisting “negotiating” is the best way to achieve peace.

I think Eren is currently placing the pieces on the chessboard so, that Armin can negotiate his way to peace.

And why shouldn’t he succeed? It’s happened before, this miracle.

Only after achieving peace (I believe the threat of the colossal should remain until Armin has achieved this goal) I expect Eren/the Founding Titan to change the structure of the bodies of the subjects of Ymir, so that they cannot become titans anymore (and maybe even turn all the existing titans back into humans) finally putting an end to 2000 years of Titan rule.

He might die in the process, since he seems to be fused with his dinosaur, but this is mere speculation.

I don’t expect Eren to live to the end of the story, but I do think the baby we see on the final panel, is the Paths-girl Ymir reborn in a free world.

#snk #snk meta #snk spoilers #shingeki no kyojin #snk 126 #snk 126 spoilers #attack on titan #aot #eren yaeger #eren yeager #eren #eren jaeger

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trishmishtree · 4 years

Photo

[Current as of March 13, 2020]

Dr. Shahed (screenshot above) is an emergency department physician in Ohio who shared this post on Facebook. It’s an account of COVID-19 from the perspective of an ICU doc working on the frontlines in Seattle. Some of my laypeople-friends were sharing it around (and I’ve seen it floating around on twitter and various internet forums], but I noticed that it’s really dense and contains a lot of medical abbreviations and jargon, like it was meant more for other physicians and isn’t really useful for the average reader. So I thought I’d provide a translation for my non-medblr followers who are looking to stay informed. (If you want further clarification, feel free to drop me an ask)

***

This is from a front-line ICU physician in a Seattle hospital

This is his personal account:

We have 21 patients and 11 deaths since 2/28.

We are seeing patients who are young (20s), fit, no comorbidities, critically ill. It does happen.

US has been past containment since January

Currently, all of ICU is for critically ill COVID patients, all of med-surg [medical-surgical] floors are for stable COVID patients and end-of-life care, half of PCU [progressive care unit], half of ER. New Pulmonary Clinic offshoot is open for patients with respiratory symptoms

CDC is no longer imposing home quarantine on providers who were wearing only droplet-isolation PPE when intubating, suctioning, bronching, and in one case doing bloody neurosurgery. Expect when it comes to your place you may initially have staff home-quarantined. Plan for this NOW. Consider wearing airborne-isolation PPE for aerosol-generating procedures in ANY patient in whom you suspect COVID, just to prevent the mass quarantines.

We ran out of N95s (thanks, Costco hoarders) and are bleaching and re-using PAPRs [powered air purifying respirators], which is not the manufacturer’s recommendation. Not surprised on N95s as we use mostly CAPRs [controlled air purifying respirators] anyway, but still.

Terminal cleans (including UV light) for ER COVID rooms are taking forever, Environmental Services is overwhelmed. This is bad, as patients are stuck coughing in the waiting room. Recommend planning now for Environmental Service upstaffing, or having a plan for sick patients to wait in their cars (that is not legal here, sadly).

CLINICAL INFO (based on our cases and info from CDC conference call today with other COVID providers in US):

The Chinese data on 80% mildly ill, 14% hospital-ill, 6-8% critically ill are generally on the mark. Data [in the US] very skewed by late and very limited testing, and the number of our elderly patients going to comfort care.

Being young & healthy (zero medical problems) does not rule out becoming vented or dead

Probably the time course to developing significant lower respiratory symptoms is about a week or longer (which also fits with timing of sick cases we started seeing here, after we all assumed it was endemic as of late Jan/early Feb).

Based on our hospitalized cases (including the not-formally-diagnosed ones who are obviously COVID – it is quite clinically unique), about 1/3 of patients have mild lower respiratory symptoms and need 1-5L NC [1-5 liters of oxygen per minute, via nasal cannula]. 1/3 are sicker, need face mask or non-rebreather. 1/3 are intubated with ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome].

Thus far, everyone is seeing:

normal WBC [white blood cell] count. Almost always lymphopenic, occasionally poly [neutrophil]-predominant but with normal total WBC count. Doesn’t change, even 10 days in.

Bronchoalveolar lavage: lymphocytic despite blood being lymphopenic. (Try not to bronch these patients; this data is from pre-testing time when we had several idiopathic ARDS cases)

Fevers, often high, may be intermittent; persistently febrile, often for >10 days. It isn’t the dexmed, it’s the SARS2.

Low procalcitonin; may be useful to check initially for later trending if you are concerned later for VAP [ventilator-associated pneumonia], etc.

Elevated AST/ALT, sometimes alkaline phosphatase. Usually in 70-100 range. No fulminant hepatitis. Notably, in our small sample, higher transaminitis [elevated AST/ALT] (150-200) on admission correlates with clinical deterioration and progression to ARDS. LFTs [liver function tests] typically begin to bump in 2nd week of clinical course.

Mild AKI [acute kidney injury] (creatinine <2). Uncertain if direct viral effect, but notably SARS2 RNA fragments have been identified in liver, kidneys, heart, and blood.</li>

Characteristic chest x-ray: always bilateral patchy or reticular infiltrates, sometimes peri-hilar despite normal ejection fraction and volume down at presentation. At time of presentation may be subtle, but always present, even in our patients on chronic high dose steroids. NO effusions.

CT is as expected, rarely mild mediastinal lymphadenopathy, occasional small effusions late in course, which might be related to volume status/cap leak.

Note - China is CT'ing everyone, even outpatients, as a primarily diagnostic modality. However, in US/Europe, CT is rare, since findings are nonspecific, would not change management, and the ENTIRE scanner and room have to be terminal-cleaned, which is just impossible in a busy hospital. Also, transport in PAPRs, etc.

2 of our patients had CTs for idiopathic ARDS in the pre-test era; they looked like the CTs in the journal articles. Not more helpful than chest x-ray.

When respiratory failure occurs, it is RAPID (likely 7-10 days out from symptom onset, but rapid progression from hospital admission). Common scenario for our patients is: admit on 1L/min oxygen via nasal cannula. Next 12 hrs escalate to NPPV [non-invasive positive pressure ventilation]. Next 12-24 hrs → vent/proned/Flolan.

Interestingly, despite some needing Flolan, the hypoxia is not as refractory as with H1N1. Quite different, and quite unique. Odd enough that you’d notice and say hmmm.

Thus far many are dying of cardiac arrest rather than inability to ventilate/oxygenate.

Given the inevitable rapid progression to ETT [endotracheal tube, aka intubation] once respiratory decompensation begins, we and other hospitals, including Wuhan, are doing early intubation. Face mask is fine, but if patients are needing HFNC [high-flow nasal cannula] or NPPV [non-invasive positive pressure ventilation], just tube them. They definitely will need a tube anyway, and no point risking the aerosols.

No MOSF [multi-organ system failure]. There’s the mild AST/ALT elevation, maybe a small creatinine bump, but no florid failure. Exception is cardiomyopathy.

Multiple patients here have had normal EF [ejection fraction] on formal Echo or POCUS [point-of-care ultrasound] at time of admission (or in a couple of cases, EF 40ish, chronically). Also normal troponins from emergency department. Then they get the horrible respiratory failure, sans sepsis or shock. Then they turn the corner, come off Flolan, supined, vent weaning, looking good, never any pressor requirement. Then over 12 hrs, newly cold, clamped, multiple-pressor shock that looks cardiogenic, EF 10% or less. Then either VT [ventricular tachycardia, aka V-tach] → VF [ventricular fibrillation, aka V-fib] → dead, or PEA [pulseless electrical activity] → asystole in less than a day. Needless to say, this is awful for families who had started to have hope.

We have actually had more asystole than VT. Other facilities report more VT/VF, but same time course, a few days or a week after admission, around the time they’re turning the corner. This occurs on med-surg patients too. One today, who is elderly and chronically ill but with baseline EF preserved, became newly hypotensive overnight, EF <10. Already no escalation, has since passed. So presumably there is a viral cardiomyopathy aspect, which presents later in the course of disease.

Of note, no wall motion abnormalities on Echo, right ventricular function preserved, troponins don’t bump. Could be unrelated, but I’ve never seen anything like it before, especially in a patient who had been hemodynamically stable without sepsis.

TREATMENT:

Remdesivir might work, some hospitals have seen improvement with it quite rapidly, marked improvement in 1-3 days. ARDS trajectory is impressive with it, patients improve much more rapidly than expected in usual ARDS.

Recommended course is 10 days, but due to scarcity, all hospitals have stopped it when the patient is clinically out of the woods. None have continued >5 days. It might cause LFT bump, but interestingly seem to bump (200s-ish) for a day or 2 after starting, then rapidly back to normal, suggests this is not a primary toxic hepatitis.

Unfortunately, the Gilead compassionate use and trial programs require AST/ALT <5x normal, which is pretty much almost no actual COVID patients. Also CrCl [creatinine clearance] >30, which is fine. CDC is working with Gilead to get LFT requirements changed now that we know this is a mild viral hepatitis.

Currently the Gilead trial is wrapping up, NIH trial still enrolling, some new trial soon to begin, can’t remember where.

Steroids are up in the air. In China, usual clinical practice for all ARDS is high dose methylprednisolone. Thus, ALL of their patients have had high dose methylprednisolone. Some question whether this practice increases mortality.

It is likely that it increases secondary VAP/HAP [ventilator-associated pneumonia/hospital-acquired pneumonia]. China has had a high rate of drug-resistant GNR [Gram-negative rod] HAP/VAP and fungal pneumonia in these patients, with resulting increases in mortality. We have seen none, even in the earlier patients who were vented for >10 days before being bronch’ed (prior to test availability. Again, it is not a great idea to bronch these patients now).

Unclear whether VAP-prevention strategies are also different [in China vs US], but wouldn’t think so?

Hong Kong is currently running an uncontrolled trial of HC 100IV Q8 [hydrocortisone 100 mg IV every 8 hours].

General consensus here (in US among doctors who have cared for COVID patients) is that steroids will do more harm than good, unless needed for other indications.

Many of our patients have COPD on ICS [inhaled corticosteroids]. Current consensus at Evergreen, after some observation & some clinical judgment, is to stop ICS if able, based on known data with other viral pneumonias and increased susceptibility to HAP. Thus far patients are tolerating that, no major issues with ventilating them that can’t be managed with vent changes. We also have quite a few on AE-COPD [acute exacerbation of COPD]/asthma doses of methylprednisolone, so will be interesting to see how they do.

#medblr #covid-19 #long post

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lucalicatteart · 6 years

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Despite the modern day tensions between demons (jhevona) and elves (irithoas), there is some historical evidence to suggest that the relationship between the two species was once fairly intertwined in some way, or at least that they existed peacefully alongside one another. Most of this evidence is in the form of vague artwork or symbols that can be found in certain ancient ruins, which despite the art usually being in horrific condition even in the most well preserved areas, is still on occasion at least vaguely decipherable. Given that all of these seem to come from the period before modern recorded history in Nanyevimi**, it’s lucky that any of them still exist at all. It is also noted that there likely were originally more of these portrayals in existence, but they have been frequently destroyed by various societies of elves during certain periods of history in order to further a political (or moreso, religious) agenda. It’s unknown what may have been shown in some of the destroyed artifacts, as the elves (primarily the Fanyiniri, since.. of course it’s the Fanyiniri) only kept record of the fact they had been 'disposed of’, but made no mention of the actual content or details about the objects.

Though some believe that it’s not useful to read personalized meaning into the paintings (solely trying to interpret them literally rather than letting groups apply their custom worldview to it), it can still be interesting to see both involved groups’ ideas of the images, since it can provide an additional perspective regarding their creation myths or popular beliefs about the origins/working of the world. For example, in the image labeled ‘#14′....

(interpretation of images, further elaborations (like the explanations of the ** marked sentences), and extra info on the nature and beliefs of elven/jhevona religions/world philosophies/etc. and other additional context under the read more lol, since I’ve edited the post to be a bit shorter )

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The common jhevona interpretation of the image is that this supports the concepts that appear in many of their traditional/older religions about there being realms existent outside of Nanyevimi that are no longer accessible as the magic has been lost to time***. They believe this may represent ancient jhevona utilizing the (now forgotten) ability to cross into other realms, and that the hand reaching through the “hole” is a “higher being”, or a creature from a different layer of reality that exists slightly above our own. Though they don’t have a decided explanation for why the elves are there, answers range from stuff like “the magic in Nanyevimi comes from an outside realm, and as the jhevona were one of the only ancient groups rumored to have other-realm access, perhaps they helped teach the elves certain forms of magic in the first place by connecting them to other realms, this shows them being lead to an area of higher magic” to “idk maybe elves are actually just babby demons and you gotta throw em in a portal to transform em dude”.

The elves take a more practical view, stating that it’s merely a representation of a demon doing reality magics, which wouldn’t have been uncommon or odd at all back then, and that since elves are not capable of doing such forms of magic, the jhevona in question is kind of just showing them a small pocket realm they’ve created (like “hey guys, can y’all do this? check this shint out”). Basically, it has no special implications or meaning, they’re just doing some basic spell which is no different than the same type of magic that can be used by powerful jhevona mages today. Some other more, ~politically motivated~, elven interpretations of this image usually involve stuff like “elves used to be more magically capable than demons but the jhevona slowly stole away our powers, which is the only reason they’re inherently more magical than us in current times, and this is a representation of one of them leading an innocent group of elves into a trap where their souls could be harvested for power” or “here’s a jhevona using the DANGEROUS and horrible practice of reality magics, this image is just the first of a five part series which tells a story of them opening a portal to a horrible realm and letting a terrifying beast loose, which doomed the world for a time and killed many of the most powerful elven mages from history (who sacrificed themselves nobly), crumbling our best societies and forcing us to start over..We know this because we uh... totally saw the other 4 images.. we like, destroyed them and can’t prove they existed but.. that’s absolutely what it originally portrayed so....uhh.. ANYWAY, jhevona always end up causing chaos with their foolishness (let’s get rid of those guys) and reality magic should be illegal (lets kill folks who practice it), thanks for coming to my ELFtalk”)....

The image labeled ‘#5′ is much more perplexing, and neither jhevona nor elven groups have much of a concrete idea on what it could represent. The main complications come from the figures in the background, one supposedly a jhevona with one horn shorter than the other (perhaps broken off??) grasping their head or something, and then two figures on the other side with seemingly no horns or ears at all, a representation that is not seen in any form anywhere in any other known artifact from this ancient culture. Some people guess it may be a depiction of a transformation process (maybe the featureless figures are being turned into elves by the jhevona), or that it may be a representation of the aftermath of a conflict (the jhevona is saying goodbye to the elf, presumably once closely allied, before joining their (injured??) friend in the distance, and perhaps the featureless beings had something to do with the conflict/why the jhevona had to leave), but ultimately this is one of the most confusing images to yet be recovered.

Some think that if they were to all be found and put together, the pictures would tell a sort of story, or that there is an order they are supposed to be in. A majority of scholars disagree with this however, and find it absurd based on the nature of the content and other details such as they locations they’re found. Though they do certainly depict specific concepts and ‘tell a story’ in the sense of giving valuable information on events that may have occurred or have been important to note for whatever culture created them, there is little to imply them being a grand series who’s true meaning can only be revealed by piecing them all together in some linear way. But, since it makes the idea more interesting, there are still plenty of wild theories and speculations (none supported by any evidence) about like, them all lining up into one big mural if you put them together, or that it’s actually a secret puzzle and certain symbols on each one can align to create a map to an ancient treasure (or a lost city, that’s another popular one) or reveal some sort of coded message that explains secrets or methods of ancient lost magic, etc. etc.

There are currently only 16 of these images discovered at this point (though 43 have technically been found, most of them are just broken fragments, or are so worn it’s impossible to make anything out. This doesn’t include the ones destroyed by the Fanyiniri, of which the number is not known.), though there are thought to have been hundreds if not thousands of them created in ancient times, as with the way they were created (on cheap clay tiles with basic materials, using simple shapes and made in a somewhat uniform style but clearly by many different artists, often amateurs, etc. so it’s not like, grand elaborate wall murals crafted by specific expert artists out of the finest materials, or anything that would give any indication of them being in some way very valuable or sacred), it seems like they were used casually, similar to how people commonly decorate their homes with pictures on the wall. Which is at least a fitting representation of how much that time period has truly been lost, that out of an entire culture spanning possibly millions of years, all that’s left is like, some faint piles of almost entirely disintegrated building stones in random areas across Nanyevimi, a vase or two, and 16 crumbling art pieces (out of possible thousands) that nobody really understands.

Scholars have had difficulty in attempting to make sense of most of the images, since they’re often very vague with unclear implication, the style is simple with many features up to interpretation, and they also must be very cautious about their modern viewpoints causing them to see meanings which are not actually present (though like usual, they still do,, interpretation can vary a lot depending on who’s doing the research and if they have an interest in not being banished by the elven government or something lol (I mention the elves acting in this way more than jhevona since, modern day elven societies at least, hold significantly more social/political/financial/etc power on a global scale than jhevona do. Even if a group of demons disagreed with a group of scholars, they’d be unlikely to have the ability to start much of a conflict over it, whereas many elven societies, especially certain prominent ones (Fanyiniri, Yarairi, Lishleiri, etc.) could issue actual consequence on a broad scale, etc.). Though luckily most all of these artifacts now exist on neutral ground, and are held by neither elf nor jhevona aligned parties).

Even detached from any political or religious significance (which is where most of the contention arises), the images still interestingly call into question certain historical assumptions (that the elves and jhevona have always been fairly separate, for one), and give at least a tiny scrap of much desired insight into what may have been considered relevant to one of the many lost societies of the past.

There is also some disagreement over whether these images even portray elves or demons in the first place, as obviously these representations look a bit different from the modern versions of the species you’ll find today, so some have thought it may be a different species entirely (this is made worse by the fact that the ruins these are found in are usually barely identifiable, nobody is sure whether they were made by ancient jhevona, ancient elves, or perhaps another group entirely who merely had an interest in/contact with the other two, etc. They’re found in scattered seemingly random locations with not enough identifying information left to really trace them well). But most everyone in modern times agrees with and is aware of the fact that the ancient species had a slightly different appearance though are still considered the same (especially elves.. jhevona haven’t changed all that much, they still hardly have noses lol and the shape/style of horns portrayed in old images are still possible in modern demons, though much rarer now. But modern elves look quite different from ancient elves, you never see the entirely rounded noses (like a side profile that just looks like a “ ) “ kind of ) and massive upturned ears in elves today, those traits are essentially nonexistent now (aside from a similar nose style and the strong cheekbones occasionally coming up in Avirre’thel/vampire genetics even now and then), but this is thought to be due to the difference in lifespans (jhevona can live thousands of years, whereas elves live usually just 130 - 300, so they reproduce and die more quickly and their genes are being passed on and changing at a faster rate)). But anyway, this argument used to be popular in the past, but is slowly dying out as people learn more about what historical versions of themselves look like and more information is found about species and evolution, though some small groups of elves still claim the images are unrelated and don’t portray elves at all but rather some other species (how dare they be portrayed interacting with the jhevona in any sort of non-hostile, even positive, way,, even millions of years ago, it must be false lol).

Also the images are thought to have been colored, perhaps vibrantly, but none of it really shows up anymore. You can see that like, some areas are lighter and some are maybe a little darker, suggesting that maybe originally there was some attempt to shade elements of the paintings, but in their current state, the originally intended appearance is lost. The example images given are deliberately made higher in contrast and the original lines darkened to be more visible (obviously not on the actual artifact, but like in exact replications (which can be made fairly easily with magic) things are often traced or re-outlined to be clearer), but some of them in their natural state can hardly even be made out at first without some modification and closer examination. There are many different recreations where the images are colored in different ways or have details added to them or etc., which can be interesting to see the variety of interpretations, even if they’re all just wild guesses, and it can never truly be known what the paintings on clay actually looked like.

------ “ * “ marked section elaborations -

(**other than one strange thousand year gap in some areas of the world, historical record has been “mostly” in tact for about 2 million years (meaning, there is some form of continuous recording of at least most significant world events since that time), seemingly starting with some of the early societies of that period. It’s pretty nonexistent before that point, as if everyone began writing everything down all at once, or more likely, as if something happened around that time which somehow destroyed all records, ruins, and relics across the entire realm prior to that point (yet was never mentioned in these future writings. You’d think if there were some worldwide disaster, even if the past were entirely eradicated, those who survived would write about their experience of the disaster event, but there’s hardly any indication of anything like this. The lack of any records or evidence of earlier civilizations almost seems supernatural in nature, as so much about it doesn’t make any sense if you were trying to think of ways it would happen naturally, leading some to believe it may be due to magic or something.)

It is known that advanced humanoid species (practically no different than those today) have existed in some form for far longer than 2 million years, and scholars occasionally find things that date back to that time, however for the most part any knowledge or understanding of that world is absurdly sparse and basically anything that occurred before the ~Magical Point Where Recorded Nanyevimi History Began~ has been entirely lost. Along with certain questions about the nature of magic, the whole “we know for a fact people have existed for much longer than we have record of but for some reason it seems like there was a mass memory wipe or some shit about 2 million years ago for whatever reason” thing is another one of the most widely known curiosities surrounding Nanyevimi, one of those things scholars are always debating and trying to understand.)

(*** This view is kind of like a multiple universe theory, except if they were to all exist at once rather than on separate timelines. Many jhevona religions reference the belief that there are countless realities stacked on top of one another, as if in layers, difficult or often impossible to access due to the entire nature of reality being different between them (so like if beings from another “layer” were to try to visit the one under theirs, they may be nearly imperceptible to the beings of the under layer, etc.)

And if there are too many layers between you (say someone on the 8th layer trying to make contact with the 2nd), it would be completely impossible for either of the beings to make sense of one another or exist in the same space without it destroying both of them or altering something dramatically. Especially since some also believe that magic systems work differently in every realm. Thus, just because you can use magic in one place doesn’t mean you’ll be able to in another, to the point of most beings being incapacitated entirely/having their magic or even their very soul (depending on how serious you believe the link between magic and souls to be) stop functioning completely upon entering a realm in which the magic is too foreign.

Though it’s usually thought that stuff like visiting the layers closest to yours is still possible (layer 7 beings are able to access layer 7.2, 7.9, 6.8, 8.1, but not 10.5, 3.4, 5.6, etc.), the opinion varies on how much is too far apart, and a lot of it can get into complex theorizing about magic systems and souls and various ways to classify realms/layers by certain criteria in order to determine who would be able to visit who, and how, and what the consequences would be, what an alternate magic system would even look like, etc.etc.)

[ [ sidenote within a sidenote: this is why a lot of people who didn’t grow up in Jhevona culture tend to hate studying their religions/philosophies (like for school projects or anything), since there’s never simplifications or any clear answers, on day one you jump straight into

“Alright, lets call into question the very nature of magic itself, and consider the the potential implications and functioning of infinite multiple universes..” ‘wow that sounds complicated.. can’t you just... tell us about some gods you worship or something and call it a day?’ “..Gods?? we have no gods but ourselves, everyone simultaneously is and isn’t a god, depending on the perspective you’re viewing them from. you see, it’s all about varying layers of reality and power levels and whether you’re looking up or looking down, now if someone from the 40th realm were to...” *student instantly regrets asking* Also, you can imagine all the debates over different schools of thought, usually different clans or groups of jhevona will have their own unique perspective on this and how it fits into other elements of their custom culture and worldview. Though they’re not the type to start fights over it (remember, everything in jhevona philosophy is infinite possibilities, who are we (insignificant creatures in a vast incomprehensible world) to ever say what is truly correct or incorrect, it’d be antithetical to enforce your views on others harshly), there are still a lot of passionate debate circles where 30 people all show up and present their theories and everyone discusses them and etc. etc., usually made into elaborate parties or events, ways for local groups to make connections and bond with each other, or promote unity (through.. good natured argument lol) between neighboring clans of jhevona ] ]

Despite travel between ‘’layers’’ being seen as difficult, there are still many myths about beings from other realms visiting Nanyevimi in ancient times, sometimes even under the claim that perhaps these people created the realm. Since reality magics are a known thing, some jhevona belief systems theorize that the entire realm itself could simply be a larger form of that, created by beings with magic so powerful it’s on a scale we couldn’t imagine, able to craft entire worlds rather than just small pockets of realty. Just like the reality magic used in Nanyevimi except on a much larger scale. Though other jhevona legends disagree with this idea and still hold on to the belief that such a form of travel between realms is too impossible.

This is usually part of their explanation for why ‘’higher layer’’ beings can exist, but also never noticeably interact with the world (why there isn’t any solid proof of a realm creator/god/gods/etc), since it only makes sense that the world a being creates must be lower level than they are (you can’t make something with more power than you have, input must match output somehow), meaning likely any realm that a higher being creates must be significantly lower in order than their own.. Thus, they can craft realms, but then lack the ability to influence or visit them in any way, as their layer and the layer they create are too far apart for either of them to even be perceivable or conceptualizable to the other (like if you’re a layer 18 being, you could maybe make a realm, and it’d end up somewhere on the level scale of layer 2, which means you're so far apart you couldn’t interact with them in any way, as likely your entire foundation of reality and the magic in your world and the functioning of your very being is just so incomprehensibly different from theirs, you would be mutually unfathomable to one another).

This is also what leads to some beliefs that creation of realms is accidental, since why would someone knowingly create something they can never perceive or interact with? In some jhevona belief systems, creating realms is seen as an accidental side effect of some unknown natural process, rather than the deliberate act that most believe it to be (which also implies most, if not all, realm creators are wholly unaware of their creations, and additionally that people in Nanyevimi may be participating in similar mundane processes that create distant realms as a side effect, and we would never know it).

( Basically: we are all simultaneously gods, and also not gods, we may all create realms, yet have also had our realm created by someone else, we are simultaneously both higher and lower beings, all creators are likely entirely unaware of their creations, just as it would be impossible for their creations to perceive or become aware of them, etc. Everything is a system of layered realms, and everything in the universe entirely depends on your perspective in that system, whether you’re looking at layers above, or below you (in the layers above you, you’ll find ‘higher beings’, possibly the creators of your own realm (though you could never truly interact with them), in the layers below you, YOU are now the higher being from THEIR perspective, and you may also find realms you’ve accidentally created without even knowing, part of natural processes you’re unaware of))

These concepts also lead to some interesting tales of like, multi-reality games of telephone, where since a higher being can’t directly influence their crafted realm (yet for some reason is able to be aware of it), they just continuously send a chain of messengers downward (guy from layer 8 contacts layer 7, layer 7 contacts layer 6, etc. etc.) until finally the information, in some form (though usually the humor or irony in the myth is that it’s of course been horribly misinterpreted at this point) eventually reaches the target realm lol.

Even though largely the jhevona don’t believe in the concept of gods necessarily (as divine untouchables to be worshiped), they do believe in contact from other realms, and that beings from other areas have influenced the world and etc. So despite not really having clearly defined gods or anything, they do still have plenty of myths and tales, they’re just usually about vague creatures or unspecific adventurers traveling realms, rather than a permanent set of gods. Their tales are more like ‘hey what if somewhere in the universe some weird shit like this happened one time’ rather than ‘our specific god definitely did this one thing in our own realm this one time’. Which I guess is pretty expected that a group notoriously focused on the vastness of the world and how unimportant we are in the scheme of things, would further emphasize that by having most of their traditional myths and tales taking place in other worlds, often having nothing to actually do with themselves or Nanyevimi in general (”we’re SO unimportant and insignificant, we’re not even PRESENT in 75% of our traditional stories!” ) ..

BUT ANYWAY, the whole ‘multiple realms’ thing is a massive concept in their culture and etc. so that’s what I’m referencing when I speak about it.

Also for contrast to explain part of why elves and jhevona disagree so much:

Many traditional elven belief systems state that there are not infinite realms in existence, only one: Nanyevimi. Some groups of elves will occasionally seek a middle ground by saying that there MAY be one or two other realms, but that those were obviously just experimental landscapes used by the elven gods to try out certain concepts before solidifying them and adding magic to them, as they wanted to make sure that beings functioned well and that the order of things operated properly before bestowing creatures such a form of power. Any “evidence” of another realm (which is usually debatable/doesn’t really prove either side) is just an example of a place the gods used as proof of concept to test things before they made everything magical, since things always get more wacky once you add magic.

Another middle ground elves may occasionally entertain is that, MAYBE there COULD be what SEEMS like other realms (still very unlikely), but these realms are not SEPARATE, necessarily. They usually would more take the belief that EVERYTHING is only ever ONE realm, but just with occasional branching layers off of it and a thin barrier between them. What Jhevona may interpret as an entirely new “layer” realm, a totally separate universe existing above or below Nanyevimi,, an elf would likely just see as a branching path off of the main realm. Maybe it appears to be some new place, but it’s no different than when people use reality magics to make small pockets within our own realm. Nothing is EVER a genuinely separate realm, it’s just the occasional stronger-than-usual branches off of the main realm that sometimes give the illusion of being separate.

This is part of why elves often also hold the belief that the pursuit of realm travel or attempting to unlock the ability to do so (which Jhevona feel is a long lost skill of theirs or something) should be illegal or at least extremely discouraged, since even if other realms DID exist, they clearly were intended to be discarded and left to their own devices once the gods were done testing things there, NOT to be returned to and disturbed, as the gods never intended for it to have any meaning. Nanyevimi is their ONLY true creation and focus.

Basically, the supernatural realm is the primary realm of the world, the one lovingly crafted by the gods, where magic is strongest, and where the gods placed their best creations (especially elves) on display. Nothing else exists, and even if it WERE to exist, it would be irrelevant, since if the gods intended for our focus to be on other realms, they would have made us aware of them and given us (or at least the elves) access to them.

This whole concept that the supernatural realm is the only realm that matters/actually exists/etc. is similar to other themes in the traditional elven religion, which in most branches of belief also asserts that elves were the true original species, and the original holders of magic (though the myths vary, generally they state that magic was given directly to them by the ancient elven gods, as they were the most favored by the gods and thus were chosen to start the original magic bloodline, and elves were the ones who then gave magic to all other species out of their kindness (or had it stolen from them... the oldest elven tales speak nothing of this though, so it’s thought to be a more modern invention, but some versions of tales will include some form of ‘and X group took magic from us’ or etc., particularly if someone stands to benefit from things being told that way.), which is why they’ve usually considered magic and the use of magic so deeply sacred, as in many ways they see themselves as the originators of it, and feel they should protect it from corruption as, even though they have graciously allowed others to have magic as well, ultimately it is their god-given domain, and they reserve the right to make the rules about it.

Even though, especially in older tales, there are very prominent themes of always maintaining peace, beauty, unity, togetherness, and etc in the main elven religion, it has often been at odds with a vague underlying element of entitlement, likely coming from continuous reinforcement that they’re the special ones, the only group that matters, the only realm that matters, the original #1 awesome god-chosen species, etc. etc., So despite this focus on protecting the realm and it’s inhabitants, and holding everything sacred (as it was created by the gods, thus is important), it can still get a bit out of hand sometimes.

To their credit, sometimes it doesn’t manifest harmfully at all, like in theory, taking on a role as a peace-keeping protector species who feels it’s their duty to keep order and unity in the world is not always a bad thing, and in many ways it can be really positive when it works well, and it has on occasion in certain elven societies over the years....It’s just that it’s always a very delicate balance, and far too often in practice, there’s the tendency for groups of elves to take this focus a bit too far, spending more energy on relishing in their god-given positions of power, than actually using that power how it was originally intended, and over time increasingly adopting a focus on proving their importance and reinforcing their right to be in the place they are.. Which is obviously where most of the antagonism and resentment of jhevona societies comes from (as jhevona are kind of unintentionally a living breathing reminder to the elves that they’re not as special as they think they are, and that there’s likely more to the story) .

Mainly :

Jhevona are just as old as them (both species go back before written history, which causes doubts about the “elves are the oldest and most original species, the god’s first important creations” thing)

Jhevona are significantly more inherently magical than elves with access to abilities and types of magic which elves couldn’t even dream of using (which casts doubt onto the whole “we’re the most magical and the original bringers of magic” thing (which is why they’ve come to claim Jhevona stole the magic from them, or that some other group in history caused a catastrophic event which robbed them of magic,, and also why they like to ban any type of magic that they’re incapable of doing)),

and on top of all that, the Jhevona constantly make claims about the vastness of the universe and how unimportant everyone is, that Nanyevimi is just one realm among many, and not even that significant at that, that there are beings unfathomably more powerful than we could even conceptualize (which goes directly against the whole “Nanyevimi is the most important, where all magic begins and ends” thing. And also calls the elven gods into question as nothing more than like “Well maybe they do exist, maybe they did even create this realm, but they’re not gods, not anymore than WE would be considered gods when walking into a realm below us. Godhood is just a way to describe vast power, and by that definition the elven gods likely have gods as well, and those gods have gods, and so on.. It all depends on how many layers up you go”, which to anyone of traditional elven thinking, this is an utterly infuriating philosophy lmao).

This is also why sometimes the aggression between elves and jhevona can seem overly one sided, because it almost kind of is?? At least in the sense that, the traditional elven worldview/religion/belief-system is inherently incompatible with that of the jhevona, but it doesn’t work the other way around.

Within the jhevona framework, the elven gods can still exist (they’re just not really “gods” per say), the elves can still be the same as always, the realms are the same (there’s more than one of them, but hey, whatever), etc. There’s nothing really all that incompatible about elven beliefs in the context of how the jhevona view the creation of and nature of the world and etc.

The jhevona view of elven philosophies is more just a: “Well, that’s kind of half wrong and there’s more to the story than that, things are way wider and more vast and complicated than you realize, but technically most of what you believe is plausible other than that.. like yeah, maybe your ‘gods’ totally created this realm, maybe they did give you magic first, who knows. We never took anything from you and we’re not dangerous or out to get you or etc. but sure, totally, maybe there is an original magic bloodline, you never know, there’s a lot of higher beings and complicated realm layer stuff out there that nobody really understands, it could be plausible, especially when we’re confident that there’s types of magic at work out there that aren’t even fathomable to us, we can never have any true idea of the framework we may exist within. Anything is possible really.”.

Whereas like with elves viewing the jhevona belief system, it’s more like “NO, that actually can’t be possible, there CAN’T be more realms, because we are the only one that matters. And there CAN’T be other gods because these are the only ones (also how dare you insinuate that our gods aren’t actually true gods). You CAN’T exist the way you do because you being powerful and ancient the way you are contradicts with US being the most powerful and ancient. We actually CAN understand everything about the framework of the universe, because this reality is all there is, and to imply otherwise is to deny the natural order of how gods intended the world to be.” etc.

It’s basically just a very very typical “everything is broad and unknowable and we’re just an insignificant part of the vastness” VS. “everything is definite and well defined and we are the most significant part of this world, which is made for us and very clear in nature” philosophy clash. Traditional elven beliefs are literally incompatible with Jhevona ideas, but Jhevona ideas can easily adapt to accept elven belief, so it often seems like one side disagrees with the other WAY more than the other does with it.

Which this isn’t to say that jhevona haven’t had plenty of problems with the elves before, they can definitely be the one that initially takes issue with the other as well, but more just that, this is why OFTEN (but not always), it seems like the elves have more of a problem with the demons/jhevona than the jhevona have with elves, since generally the elven worldview has more basis of things to take issue with (since it’s more narrow in focus and inherently exclusive of certain things) than jhevona beliefs usually do (since if anything it’s more about not excluding anything and naturally focused on how many possibilities exist).

Jhevona focus on how insignificant they are and how there’s no way to know everything, so if they’re told or shown that they’re wrong about something, the reaction is more likely to just be “Ah, well that’s unsurprising. Good to know”, whereas a lot of the elven beliefs center on their place of importance in the world and them having the main correct view of things, so when anything implies they may be wrong, it’s only natural that it is more upsetting or jarring to them. If all of that makes sense (I can’t think of a good way to explain it concisely so I’m just repeating myself 40 times with different phrasing bghbb)

AND of course this is all simplified, especially in modern times, there are like, a shit ton of different variations of the elven and jhevona belief systems.. Though they’re all thought to have branched from a “main” religion/philosophy which may have been centralized to each group at some point (since even really obscure offshoots of the respective belief systems usually still have some of these main ideas in common, even if the details or specifics of how it works are changed), there’s still a lot of variety out there in terms of what each group believes, especially due to them both being very ancient and widespread groups.

A group of elves in Fanyin (a well populated and modern northern city, political and economic focus point for modern elves) is going to be entirely different than some rogue group of elves who have been hanging out in the southern mountains for 10,000 years and etc. And even with the main criteria described, there’s a lot of specifics left out and details I didn’t go into (like the full creation story of each group and specific mythological figures and etc.), the above is just the bare bones general philosophy, AND is only the parts of said philosophy that are relevant to their conflict (leaving out other details that may be just as important to each group, but just weren’t specific to mention in this context). But still, in general this elaboration hopefully helped explain why the conflict is there in the first place, since very broadly and simplified-ly speaking, this worldview clash is where most of the issue between the two groups is thought to have originated.

Even though, as history indicates, they likely haven’t always not gotten along, it’s a complete mystery what changed, and when. For all of recorded history they have clashed slightly, but it’s clear that there was some period prior to this where things may have been different (obviously, as this is the main premise of the art above and etc. lol, that they once had some sort of alliance or relationship close enough to constantly appear in art together and have crafted symbols representative of their unity and etc.), but since there are no records it’s hard to say whether or not there was like, some inciting event that occurred, or some belief change (maybe one of the groups didn’t always have the philosophy they do now), or whether it was just a natural and gradual series of small disagreements overtime, etc.

So like, in CURRENT history, we know the main source of their disagreement seems to be religious/philosophical, but obviously something must have changed, implying that maybe at some point their philosophies were not as different, or that there was an entirely different way of thinking back then and both of their current worldviews are more modern inventions, or etc. etc.

Also , there are of course other worldviews out there, all cultures and species have their own custom creation myths and ideas about the nature of ancient society and etc. etc. Other groups may have interpretations of these images and conflicts and etc. as well, it just made the most sense to focus on exclusively Jhevona and Elves, since they’re the ones in the images, the main parties involved.

Additionally, they are still the two oldest known currently living species, who’s origins are untraceable and who have both been around since before the current era of society even started, so their myths and ideas have had considerable influence on most current species and cultures as well. Even to the point that you can often classify most other group’s myths into seeming either more elven inspired or more jhevona inspired, as these two conceptualizations of the world have been around in some form before most current myth itself.

Like for example, the beliefs of the Ythrili generally fall more in line with what elves claim (there’s only one realm, magic exists here solely, etc.), whereas this random species I never gave a name to lol (link) tends to fall more in line with jhevona influence (there are infinite worlds, the limits of magic are unknowable, etc.). Then there’s groups like the Avirre’thel/vampires who have a mix of both (which makes sense considering vampires are technically the closest living descendants of ancient elves, yet also historically have been closely allied with jhevona (since their split from elves literally occurred with demonic interference lol)), though the Avirre’thel of course notoriously reject all myth/religion anyway and could be considered more of a neutral party in terms of which philosophy is right, their pop culture and “religious” traditions still have heavy influence from both worldviews. And again, this too is also WAYY more complicated, even if influence can be seen, there are plenty of systems that exist entirely outside of the jhevona/elven framework, and also likely species and cultures and beliefs that are older than they are (’oldest KNOWN currently living species’, implies there may be plenty of unknowns out there as well) , etc. etc. etc.

But just in a short brief post like this where I’m not going to extensively detail every main living species and culture and religion and compare and contrast them and etc. etc., especially since the main focus is just on elves and demons anyway, I felt the over-simplification to be reasonably applicable lol.. Like.. be aware, that... things are more complicated than I’m describing them, but also,, this is all that needs to be known for the context of this post in particular lmao, so I’m not going to actually get into the other detail.

and with that, I suppose I’m done with the extra context stuff. There’s always more I could elaborate on but I should have been in bed like 3 hours ago bhbbbb. I always try to start out these posts nice and organized and as clean as I’m capable of but then by the end I’m usually just, late at night rambling repeating myself over and over again and not using proper punctuation or grammar or etc ghhh, sometimes... it’s just.. Like That...I hope the single one of you who has read this far enjoyed hearing my endless nonsense about some groups in Nanyevimi lol,, thanks for reading ~

#jhevona #elves #worldbuilding #idk what other tags i use on here bhbhb i post so rarely i forget the way i categorize things on me own damnsed blog #long post

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degreeprojectjg · 4 years

Text

Mini Interview

To get better insight and to really explore the project through the means of asking myself questions and my motivation towards the project can be therapeutic yet informative. I have made some sets of questions for myself which can been seen as ways to talk more about the work and talk about things that I have been doing unconsciously, this is where I confront these topics and answer genuinely.

Background of ‘Mero Pahichaan’ Project

I want to explore my personal experience in relation to my Nepalese identity. My work is quite personal as I explore various themes of identity, isolation and belonging, my wok is simple a response to that. I re-examine this notion of having an Asian identity and the feeling of being distant in terms of linking to your heritage.

Photography is a universal language to me that I want to access and to talk back to the world.

-Title of the project, what does it mean?

‘Mero Pahichaan’

It translates to ‘my identity’, the title is Nepalse which is romanized in English, this is something that I play around with my captions as well. I wanted the title to be informative yet informative. The title hints at a familiarity yet is not English, it refers to completely different language and meaning which is a representative theme of my project.

Also in the captions and the work, not only the photographs are autobiographical in the sense of interpreting a sense of own experiences in the pictorial narrative sense but they are also accompanied by autobiographical titles and paratexts by myself.

-What is the project about? / Project synopsis

This project focuses on my fading Nepalese identity. I'm a British Citizen who has lived in the UK for nearly 14 years now. Despite having lived in the UK more than I have in Nepal, I still feel a strong sense of belonging in Nepal. This underlying theme urges me to rekindle my relationship with Nepal and it’s rich culture. Using my camera as a tool that functions as part anthropological enquiry and part personal story from my depleting Nepalese identity to explore intimacy, distance and often tensions between my torn identity. The project attempts to manifest a sense of attachment to my Nepalese identity but also comprehends my separation from it.

-What do you want to say?

I simply explore my family and how our relationship, memories and bodies are intertwined. The project is very intimate, in which it underscores the closeness and the bond of my family as well as my vulnerable identity. Although deeply personal, the work welcomes you into it's confused world, evoking a sense of understanding and vulnerability. This is fuelled by my own experience of seeing which is in this peculiar mix of both eastern and western culture.

- Why do I want to tell this story?

This project is a very personal story, it's my journey so far as I confront my identity and heritage. The overarching feeling is of an outsider yet an insider, who's a queer mixture of the east and the west, out of place everywhere. Photography for me, contributes to a collective space that creates conditions of citizenship and participation. Through this, an ongoing dialogue opens between the project and the audience where their own experiences of growing up and dwelling within the region are introduced. Although, it's a personal story, there are some universal themes of having a sense of belonging and questioning of identity that resonates with everyone.

- What is my emotional connection to this project?

At the core, the photographs are my recollection of my memories regarding my childhood experiences and my sense of attachment to a place, to Nepal and UK. In a way, the project is much about nostalgia. The photographs within the project don't document the way things really were but instead, they communicate my selective, romantic memories of growing up in a specific place and time, coloured by my present circumstances. The images are felt as warm and familiar by many, because they stimulate embodied memories of some common experiences of place. The work evokes a kind of playful nostalgia.

-Project promotional PDF & industry audience

UK is home to one of the largest Nepalese diasporic communities in the world which is supported by the past ongoing relationship between the two countries. This project reflects this movement as I attempt to tell a story about a sense of place. The images express my personal nostalgia for a period of my life and the places of my childhood. Thus, 'Mero Pahichaan' are my experiences of a deeply felt identity of a place. I believe that they also inspire feelings of nostalgia in many of the people who view them.

It's an ode to my childhood, our Nepalese British childhood and personal experiences.

-What will your colour schemes/tones be? How will you create a unifying visual consistency to your images?

The project embraces an experimental approach with it's uses of experimental medium such as polaroid and film to investigate the personal and cultural topics around memories, migration and displacement within my Nepalese identity. The variety of the medium and the different look of the images represent the diversity of people and the differences. The photographs are imperfect, they're not always well composed or properly exposed. A wonderful analogy is created of me and my memory. We understand a historical document intellectually, but we understand a human document emotionally.

The photographs in the project has an underlying warm tone, it welcomes you with the soft of pastel colours which evoke a feeling of warmth and understanding.

Key Words

Identity, exploration, lost, confusion, intimacy, vulnerability, relationship, isolation, nostalgia, attachment, separation, culture, citizen, sentimental, memory, heritage,

A little foolishness mixed with an introspective thought.

-Talk about your technical mishaps in the project / Stylistic choices

There are some 'technical mishaps' such as colour cast, wonky film borders, inaccurate exposures, crop factor, etc. All of these 'mishaps' works with the project. You are reminded almost every time that you are looking at a photograph, each photograph has their own character. You are looking at an experience, my experience. Those experiences might be hazy, unclear or inaccurate, but they embody my fading identity.

- Fragments of Nepal in UK

Initially, I photographed remnants of the Nepalese culture in my home at UK. Personally, I don’t have much personal objects that links to my cultural heritage, but my parents do. My house at UK has lots of personal objects and strong attachment to Nepal such as the cultural clothing, food, religion, etc. Coming back to my family's house almost feels like I'm in Nepal where I am surrounded by the Nepalese culture and people constantly. With this surrounding, I explore the environment, using my camera as a tool that functions as part anthropological enquiry and part personal story from my depleting Nepalese identity.

As well as with objects, I photographed lots of my close family members here in the UK. Some of them are staged and some were in the heat of the moment. The photographs was a result of conversations that I would normally have with my parents regarding my fading Nepalese identity. Sometimes, I photographed my parents in a cultural attire or sometimes, I photographed them in everyday situations in order to get this contrast between their own British & Nepalese identity as they differ to create a strong juxtaposition.

-You feature your family a lot in this project. Was this a conscious decision?

Photographing my family became a way of confronting my confusion about being identity. My parents has always guided and supported me throughout my life, they made me who I am. It made sense to trace back my idea of my identity back to my parents. In this project, I focus on my family and how our relationship, memories and bodies are intertwined.

-Your photographs vary from still life, portraiture and landscapes. What was the reason behind it?

The photographs vary from still life, portraits & landscapes, the series of them are interconnected in terms of their subject matter, a deeper layer of meaning is created in their being set in relation to one another. The work represents the whole experience, the ideas of my Nepalese identity. It's this strong urge to preserve my Nepalese identity that drives me as I attempt to rekindle my relationship. The whole project has been a way of creating a sense of attachment to my Nepalese identity but also my separation from them.

Personal Intake

Answering these questions have been rather challenging, yet it was therapeutic to write. I realised that I wrote some things that I genuinely wouldn’t known if I haven’t asked myself those questions. It’s a great way to get your reasoning behind your work and your motivating behind it. It feels diaristic in the sense that I become quite open and revealing in my answers. I want to explore more of this in the future as this is quite convenient and informative to some people who might not ‘get’ my photographs, the writing can help shape them an understanding of the project and the reasoning behind it. In the future, I wish to use this alongside my photographs to share amongst my peers and tutors to further introduce them to my project as well as to communicate my own personal insight to the project. Writing this has certainly helped me to feel closer and connected to the project.

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shardclan · 7 years

Photo

Dawn had come and gone over the Promenade, but the inside of the room was darkened by the stormy expressions of its occupants. The strange tundra was sprawled out on a bed of roc down in one of the spacious back rooms of Promenade Medical where full-form dragons could be treated.

Telos hadn't left him. Not even when Zo had returned with Junior and Abaddon. Not when Lutia had shown up in surprisingly cool temper only to be followed by Safiri in a fit of fury the likes of which none of them had ever seen. Telos might have been pressed to control her if Hart had not also made an appearance. His anger was silent, but the pressure of it left little room for anyone else's. Rather it seemed to absorb them, binding them together into a united force with only one target worth striking at.

So they sat in deep silence, waiting for the tundra to awaken.

From further down the hall, a commotion was heard--a series of breathless 'scuse me, pardon me's that finally arrived at their door in the form of yet another stranger. Tall with the horns of an imperial, Arcane eyes, and fine sea green hair well down to his waist.

"Oh gods," he wheezed. "Is he alright?"

Every eye in the room turned on him, prickly and aggressive. "Who the hell are you?"

Perilous pushed past the strange imperial, and put her arm in front of him protectively. "I'm sorry, your Majesty. This is Floe--my grandson."

Most eyes dropped to his neck, where sure enough a collar of ice threw off its own haze, and the room relaxed slightly. Floe had insisted on staying with Hibernas out on the edges of the old territory. Hibernas was a minor deity of winter in service to the Icewarden, and similarly Floe was in service to Hibernas. It was unclear if the Arcanist simply had no power over them or if they were exempt from exile like the coven was. Either way, Floe had never come to Aphaster. So this was the first time any of them had seen how he looked when he was shifted.

"You came through the portal," Telos mused, turning the ring in her fingers. "It should have reached you that I expressly forbid passage without my approval."

Floe quickly dropped his head. "I did, and I'm sorry. But it was important! That dragon is one of Icewarden's Chosen, Renat; if Hibernas is the like Warden's eyes in the Isles, Renat is the chains. He watches over the things in the ice, in the crystalspines, sometimes even in the waters--makes sure they sleep. I must take him back!"

Hart laid a hand on Floe's shoulder, commanding his complete attention. "This Chosen Renat... He had the ring that belonged to the last of the old Dynasty."

Floe's lips pressed together, and his already near-transparent skin went even whiter. "I see."

"Fragment always had this ring. Always. It had to have been on his person when he went to exaltation." Telos' finger closed tight, creaking around the offending item. "So I would like to know how Renat came to possess it."

"I understand. If," Floe groped for the right words. Ones that wouldn't ignite the subdued anger filling the room. "If you're worried he somehow retrieved the ring by means related to de-exaltation, I can promise you that wasn't it."

"Can you."

"I can. Chosen Renat would never dabble with the affairs of the gods. The Chosen are only allowed in the Isles because of an old pact. Something about the receding and relinquishing of the Northern Icefield. Any Chosen who profanes the Arcanist is destroyed. That is Law."

Telos stared into Floe's nervous but sincere eyes, and leaned back with a sigh. She didn't know him or Hibernas, but she knew about Law among dragons who were true servants of the Icewarden. If he said that Renat would die by Law if he blasphemed, then the mere fact that he still breathed was proof he hadn't come across the ring by foul means.

"So he just...found it? Why would he be carrying the ring around? He wasn't even wearing it."

Hart sighed. "He is a tundra as well as being a born one of Icewarden's Chosen. He probably thought it an interesting artifact and sought to preserve it."

"That's exactly what I did," came a gravelly growl.

Renat sat up in his bed with clearly foul temper undaunted by his unfamiliar and hostile company. A flash of silver runes shone cold through his fur, and his massive fangs bared themselves as he flexed his aching body.

"What were you even doing up there," Safiri hissed. "That's sacred ground."

Renat stared at her, completely unmoved. "I've noted no less than forty-four completely unaffiliated Arcanites stand where I stood to study the aether. How sacred is it?"

"What she means to say," Telos said sternly, before it boiled into a fight. "Is that a lot of bad things happened to our clan up there. And we'd like to know why and for how long you've had this ring."

"Bad things happen everywhere," Renat said flatly. "The importance you place on that particular patch of dirt has nothing to do with me. Same for that ring. I found it half-buried in the dirt a few eons ago. I preserved it in dry ice."

His eye happened on Junior. He snorted, but did not appear to bear a grudge. "With Flameforger's so close, it's been hard to keep ice magic functioning properly without melt. It was merely a bit frosty when that lad apparently found it familiar and lost his composure."

Telos immediately got out of her chair to keep Abaddon and Zo in check, but that left no one to keep the lid on Lutia.

In spite of the difference in their size, Lutia showed no fear in grabbing Renat by a tuft of his mane and yanking him down to her eye level. "You've been up there often. I can smell the ozone and the cold in your fur. And I know if you think very hard, you will recognize my scent. Big breath now--"

"Yes," she snarled as she saw recognition in his eyes. "That's exactly right, that was me. That 'lad'? What you picked up is his brother and their father's ring. He found the source of their scent, which he hasn’t experienced in seven eons, in a stranger's claws at the place he last saw them. I think he’s owed a loss of composure. So if you demean him again, I will lose my composure."

Renat shifted his jaw around. Certainly it was humbling to come face to face with the source of that excessive Arcane energy from several eons ago, but something more important ate at him.

"You..." He leaned in, his nostrils flaring invasively against her tiny shape. His eyes narrowed. "You were the one who shook the crystalspines, weren't you?"

"I haven't done any magic in the Isles recently," Lutia growled.

"He means the moving of the Seat," Floe squeaked. "As the celestine shattered, so were other things damaged. Many Outsiders have been roused or released."

Renat finally noticed Floe, and immediately rose from the bed. "You. You knew about this? This is your home clan?"

"Yes. You've been busy. You never asked myself or Hibernas for information. You haven't had the time."

"And now I find out who is responsible. Gods, your Arcanist could not have chosen a worse time to stir the Outsiders." He grabbed his hood and staff from the corner of the room and pointed Floe toward the door. "You will debrief me in full on our journey back."

"It's gonna be a lot shorter than you think; I really think you should see Hibernas."

For the first time, Renat's hackles rose. "I think my duty can be done without intruding on the little love nest you keep trying to build with your kidnapper."

Perilous gripped at her sword even as Floe went bright red with both embarrassment and anger. It was technically true that Hibernas had kidnapped Floe. But it was Floe who chose to stay even when his mothers had come to rescue him. It was Floe who loved Hibernas and insisted on staying, not the other way around. Hibernas was lacking in a dragon's common sense, but he was not cruel and he had never once prevented Floe from going home.

"Don't talk about him like that,” he muttered with quivering shoulders. “You don't know either of us."

"It's better that way."

Telos's grip on the ring tightened until veins stood out stark on her hand. "Enough. I can't detain you if you're god-chosen, but I can make your escort out of my territory very rude. Floe hasn't lived among us, but I consider him as my own. Mind your tongue, be about your business, and get the hell out of here."

Floe grabbed Renat and dragged him out, eager to be off before the situation soured even further. Perilous went after them, and could be heard hissing and cussing on her grandchild’s behalf until her voice faded out.

Telos sagged in her seat. Only a little had really happened but it all felt so jumbled. Was the business with the Outsiders something she needed to be concerned with? Renat seemed to have it under control, and it was a problem older than the Seat or any of their woes. Older than the current age for that matter.

Godsdammit. All she'd wanted was to go to the mountain top and get some things of her chest. She felt angry, but Renat had encountered the ring completely by coincidence. And relinquished it so easily. Aside from his complete disregard for others' feelings he really hadn't done anything wrong. But it all still felt wrong somehow, like she should have punished Renat. Like she should have been able to have more control over the situation that she did and his walking out was...anti-climactic. She couldn't even really let herself be happy or grateful to have a memento of her husband for how irrationally vexed she was.

Of course, she might have just been a bit high-strung given she hadn't slept in a full day now. When she finally spoke, it was with a weary finality that plainly said the loose ends of the situation would have to be dealt with another time.

"I'm going to bed.”

#Flight Rising #New Days Dawn #C: Renat #C: Floe #In which Aunt Lutia will show you a gotdamn outburst if you talk bad about Junior

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fivewrites · 7 years

Text

5557 Reviews Your Fanfic #3: Soul of a New Machine by StygianLotus

Hello, friends, I am 5557 on Ao3 and I review your fanfiction if you want me to.

Soul of a New Machine by @stygianlotus

Summary:

Lance had been living the same cycle of events over and over since he got captured by the Galra. After seven months with Haggar, the other Paladins finally manage to save him. However, they soon realize that Lance's wounds run much deeper than they had hoped.

Rating: M

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence

Tags: Psychological Torture, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Coran helps Lance, Langst, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Angst, Post-Defeat of Zarkon, Post Season 2, Flashbacks, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, poor lance

Optional info:

Is English your first language? Yes How long have you been writing for? 4 years Are you 18+? No Do you want publish / write professionally one day? Maybe

Technical Style / Formatting: Paragraphs are of a good size.

Quotes and dialogue are all correct, punctuation is used correctly.

I find parenthesis to be unnecessary in fiction, but they are still used correctly.

Could use a bit of dialogue attribution switch-ups (Lance said vs. said Lance) here and there, but that’s a very small thing.

The second chapter’s flashback doesn’t need to be entirely in italics, but it’s ok.

Pace: The pace is affected by the problem of the mixed-omniscient narrator.

The biggest core problem in the story, and one that is at the root of all others like the confusing sentence structure is: Who is our narrator and what does our narrator know?

In some paragraphs, is seems like we have an unreliable, deep-pov narrator that keeps us well inside of Lance’s head. In other paragraphs, the narrator informs us in a more omniscient way of information that Lance himself does not know. And inconsistence narrator can lead to plot and characterization problems, as well and issues with general prose flow and how the story progresses.

We need to establish solidly who the narrator is (is it a detached voice of lance, or an outside figure?) and what exactly they know. Do they know A) everything about everyone, all the time? (omniscient) B) Everything about lance and only Lance (Limited omniscient) or C) Some things about Lance, but not everything (Unreliable non-omniscient)

Establishing this will help with the confusing sentence structure and set the pace and tone of the story so the reader can understand what’s going on (even with limited information) and progress.

Dialogue: The dialogue is fairly good, and I appreciate the fact that the team care about Lance and want him to feel safe and welcome back on the team.

Once we solve the narration problem, the dialogue will fit the story that much better.

Characterization: So far, characterization isn’t too much of a problem, but with huge, personality-changing events such as capture and torture, it’s really important to research trauma and how is can affect a person. It’s up to you to decide how lance’s behaviour deals with his trauma, whether he chooses to smile through it and pretend nothing is wrong, or like in your story actually show that he has been deeply affected.

It’s not wrong for Lance’s personality to change from an extreme situation. I think it would be wrong to write him as the exact same person he was before his capture, but I also want to stress that he is not 100% a new person. There are and will always be fragments of the old person there, and they will have good days where they are able to laugh and joke and have a good time. It’s about finding the balance of depth.

For research, I would really recommend watching the movie Room (2016) about the 5-year-old child who grew up in captivity with his mother. This movie does an amazing job of showing that even in a dire situation, they are able to be sane and smart. It also shows that they are not immune to breaking down and falling apart. Both are true, and that is what makes the story so powerful.

Flow / Prose Style:

Try to find and remove extraneous filler words like was and had. As well, look for text written in the passive voice, and try to edit it to become more active.

“The cup was picked up by Lance.” - Passive “Lance picked up the cup.” - Active

I think I understand what you’re going for in the beginning, so I’m going to make a few assumptions.

The opening fades in like a person coming into consciousness after being knocked out- blurry, unclear, unable to pin facts and details and people. This is an appropriate way to open a thriller / angst story, no problems there.

My advice for a choice like this is that as an author you need to be very careful and specific about what you make clear and what you make hazy.

Too clear, and you don’t get the desired effect.

Too hazy and your readers are confused and bored because they can’t understand enough

So when you’re doing a style like this, be very careful about who knows what, and who is being mentioned. If you turn too many names into epithets or pronouns (he or she) we very easily lose track of what the narrator is referring to.

“He remembered Allura ordering for them to attack him, remembered Hunk being the one to do it while Lance was still restrained.”

This sentences contains two “he’s” and the second one is unclear as to who it’s referring to. We could use clarity by saying “Lance remembered Allura ordering for them to attack him, remembered Hunk being the one to do it while he was still restrained.”

“How could they still act like they were best friends after everything that had happened?”

And here, it’s slightly unclear as to who the “they” is referring to. Lance and Hunk? Lance and the rest of the paladins? Hunk and the rest of the paladins? etc.

For someone who is english as first language, some of the phrasing is… odd. It’s not exactly passive voice, nor is it grammatically incorrect, but it attributes action and intention to the wrong symbol of importance.

Like PutTING the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble. It’s not incorrect, but it it is jarring.

““Hey, Lance?” The sudden voice jerked Lance out of his thoughts, looking up quickly like he had gotten used to doing.”

The second part of the sentence says that it’s the voice, not lance, that looked up quickly.

“Keith’s face made Lance take an involuntary step back, watching him cautiously.”

This is also odd phrasing that leads to odd mental image. It’s like Keith is pressing Lance around physically… with his face. Keith’s face doesn’t really make anyone do anything unless he’s physically using it. The way it’s described currently gives keith’s face, and not keith himself the agency and importance.

At the very end of the sentence, it’s unclear whether it’s Keith’s face or Lance that is doing the watching cautiously.

I get the idea of the scene, but the phrases used to describe the action are odd. So when the common thread of concern is confusing sentence structure, it’s often a good time to go back to the basics and start from the bottom. try to rewrite sentences three times and pick the best one you like. this can also help stimulate new ideas and new ways of phrasing.

Parenthesis tend to be aside thoughts. Find a way to integrate them into their own sentence or paragraph. Also, things said in parenthesis tend to come across as comedic, so it helps the tone of the serious story to try to minimize them.

The same goes for but / although additions to sentences. Decide if they deserve their own new sentence or paragraph or if that information really needs to be told to the reader at all.

Beware when using epithets. “The blue paladin” sounds cold and unsympathetic. If you want readers to attach themselves, use names.

Story:

There’s a lack of impact in the initial chapter because we are told snippets of Lance’s experiences, but rather than holding it as a mystery, or exploring it in more depth, these things come across like an informative list rather than a story.

Each event and experience that lance has faced, while impactful on its own, loses impact when strung together with the other pieces that come across as list-like.

There are two options of exploring lance’s experiences, and this will come down to how you choose to narrate the story, and it’s this: Do you want Lance to be the POV character or not?

If you make lance the poc character, you can explore all of his thoughts and memories of the events of his capture. It would be an internal tale, and explore him learning to communicate with his team once again.

Or, you could make Keith the POV character, and write more of a “medical mystery / crime procedural” type story, where the team slowly learns of the events that happened to Lance and how deep they go. (this does not have to be a klance fic or romantic at all if you choose to make keith the POV. He’s just the narrator who cares about his friend)

The flaws in the first couple of chapters are a little counterintuitive. The story seems a bit rushed, and one would assume that it’s under explained. I think the opposite is true. It’s over explained, trying to catch us up as quickly as possible to everything that has happened to Lance.

What would make the story more interesting would be to let each event breathe a bit, and explore more of Lance’s sensory reactions and his dialogue with his team than simply stating what happened to him and what went wrong. Show us Lance’s flightiness and mistrust instead of telling us about his torture.

The first chapter could use a bit more environmental description. Where do they go in the lions? How far? When?

The second chapter where Keith is rescuing Lance is fairly straightforward a good, we just need to decide on a main narrator and stick to them.

“Keith wished that he knew how to help, really – it was frustrating to all of them. They wanted to be able to help, but Lance wouldn’t let them in. He still kept everything inside, as he usually did, they’d learned. Lance was the type to bottle up his emotions because he was worried they’d hold someone back.”

This would be a great opportunity to show us Lance’s mistrust instead of telling us. What are his actions? His reactions? What does he do, specifically?

“Coran wished that he could see what was going on inside of Lance’s head so that he could help him.”

This comes across as odd and weak because we as readers can see inside of lance’s head. We were told lots of things by the story, so there’s no surprise or mystery. We feel smarter than Coran, rather than on his level.

The story really starts to take shape in the third chapter, and I really like that Coran is both a main part of the story and well-characterized. But the POV / narration problems are of prime concern. Once we figure these out, it will start to flow much more smoothly and be much more engaging to read!

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