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thelostmoongazer · 4 years

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sooooo this is an au thats been in the works for a few weeks now! Ive been calling it the ForgetMeNot AU but @spudinacup has been calling them the Dust Bunnies and i just.... lets just say its an alternative name

to put this au in the briefest description, this is a direct spin-off of the GONE WRONG AU (thank you spud for enabling me) where a divergence in events leads to Steven's body getting cremated and his ashes being spread over the hill where Steven died/where the injector landed, for ceremonial purposes. This au also incorporates a theory/au that @faranae has that involves the injector originally being used to create new gems/spinels. With this in mind, cremation ashes are commonly used to create diamonds to put in jewelry as memorabilia. So, with those two concepts in mind... i’m sure you can see where im going with this

(This au is based entirely around the events that will happen in the GW AU, events that I am in no way privy to how they occur so i’m just here for the ride, folks)

READ UNDER THE CUT FOR MORE DETAILED CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS AND NOTES

•Cloud•

Pronouns: They/them (occasional he???)

Age: Last to emerge

Flaw: Twinning wisps (in layman’s terms, when too many outside elements interfere and stunt the growth of the diamond) (design more heavily based on this)

Symptoms: light projection is underdeveloped. Black misshapen “skin” is warped over crystalline “nursery clusters”. (I headcanon that in the early stages of gem growth, their entire form is nothing more than a small, light projection cluster of the gem their made of, but then this condenses into one spot, the gem, thus leaving behind the refined light projection and hardening the gem.) The underdeveloped skin is black/reddish because of the presence of other elements, receding it’s formation.

Personality: All three are curious about the world, sure, but only Cloud is as forward with their intrigue. They have the mentality of “This interests me, I am going to learn more.” Which often leads them to invading boundaries and personal bubbles. They are the most likely out of the three to ask questions and strike up conversation (that is, at least, when they learn English. Even though I can still see them trying to anyway even with broken English lol) making them very charismatic and friendly. This, in turn, makes Cloud act as the three’s door to learning more about this new world they’ve found themselves in.

Other Notes: - Representation of Pink Diamond. Poofy pants, Leotard over pants, Flats. Their Personality also reflects this, mimicking Pink Diamonds childlike curiosity and hunger for knowledge about life on earth. - Meant to mimic Steven’s friendly nature.

•Sky•

Pronouns: She/He/They

Age: second to emerge

Flaw: Clouding

Symptoms: Pigment discoloration around eyes paired with iris colomba (poor vision)

Personality: Sky is the grounding force of the group, they are the one to bring them back down to earth and be the calm when either of them go into their own heads too much. They are also fairly curious about the world but isn’t as direct about it, mostly preferring to observe from afar unless encouraged (or enabled) by the others (*coughcough* cloud *coughcough*) this isn’t to be confused with skittish, though. If sky were to be approached by someone unknown they wouldn’t run away, they’d most likely stay where they are and give you a funny look. Sky will often need encouragement, direct or indirect, from the other two to make their own willing decisions, and will often parrot cloud or slug. Sky will often act as their dictionary or mental catalogue. If one of them forgets the word to something it’s likely sky will be the one to remember it.

Other Notes: -Representation of Rose Quartz. Shawl layer in the shape of RQ’s dress, loose ringlets, bare feet. Their personality reflects Rose Quartz’s mature and nurturing energy with the deep love for all those they hold dear. - Meant to mimic Steven’s caring spirit -due to iris colomba, her vision is very poor. But a symptom of iris colomba is the presence of floater spots in ones vision which, in children, can lead to a more developed use for peripheral vision. This is the case for Sky.

•Slug•

Pronouns: He/They

Age: First to emerge

Flaw: Black Inclusions (bits of spinel?)

Symptoms: Black splotches all over body, mental conflict (short temper, mild co-dependency)

Personality: Being the first to emerge, Slug takes on the role of protector. This makes him very defensive and slightly possessive of the other sibling. He is the most antisocial of the group but can be easily swayed into any activity by the other two, especially when it comes to affection. He typically comes off as crass and rude to strangers (or anyone who isn’t sky or cloud), but if his trust is earned (with a lot of effort) he will show it rather than say it. Slug is the most visually observant and spatially aware out of the two and acts as their sharper set of eyes (this also going hand in hand with their role as protector).

Other Notes: - Representation of Steven. Jacket, (comparatively) shorter curly hair, sandals. His personality reflects Stevens protective nature (and temper) and desire to help. Wanting nothing more than to be useful to those he cares about most. - Meant to mimic Steven’s will to fight

•Overall Notes•

• These gems emerge about 3-4 or so months after the current events of GONE WRONG (THIS IS LIKELY TO CHANGE)

• Each gems deformities/premature emergence all make these gems extremely brittle compared to a normal perfect cut diamond (or even a regular gem for that matter)

• 3 gems instead of one was the fact that a pink diamond, in essence, is practically identical to a white diamond, as far as whats in it’s chemical compound to effect it’s color. With this in mind, its been explained before that White Diamond carries the essence of the entire spectrum. If this is true, then why wouldn’t a pink diamond if they’re practically identical? Therefore, the result of adding those residual properties of a pink diamond from within the ashes, would produce the “purest” forms of the spectrum. White, yellow, and blue. All of them tinted slightly with an ashy pinkish hue.

• Many things were factors in their premature growth, but a main factor is the amount of injector fluid that was provided in the growing process. When spinel first lands the injector, its very apparent that there is plenty of fluid injected into the hill right upon impact. But in this circumstance, after the current events in Gone Wrong, the injector goes idle (or is possibly removed and relocated by/to Little Homeworld but that is completely up in the air and reliant on future events in GW.) and what little fluid was left behind by the injector was what was used to grow the three gems

• Currently, their vocabulary is very limited. They will normally speak in 1-3 word sentences unless they are parroting. Although, given that they are technically elite gem, albeit deformed, they do have the programming for an advanced ease of grasp on language.

• Because of their human influence, they have taken on specific traits of Steven. Yes, different physical aspects (facial features, body type, clothing, etc.) but they also gained instincts from Steven. Not to be confused with memories, but rather impressions of specific muscle memory. Although they don’t need to, they will sometimes desire sleep or food, often unknowingly acting on human instincts. They will even find themselves drawn to specific things/places/people, finding them familiar or warming up to this thing/place/person with ease. (e.g. feeling familial attachment to Pink!Steven not long after first contact with him, with the exception of Slug (lol)) This can include, but is not limited to, other absent minded behaviors; such as, inflections in speech, subtle ticks (i.e. humming, tapping feet, idle movements), specific hand gestures, ect.

#SU AU Gone Wrong #SU AU GW #ForgetMeNot AU #FMN AU #su #steven universe #steven universe au #moon ocs #Cloud #Sky #Slug #moon art #digital #ref sheet #this is the most thought ive put into an au in a while.... and the last time i did that it turned into soi LOL #a taaaad nervous to post this ngl heeeeeheheh;;

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fandom-necromancer · 4 years

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939. Naps are life, okay?

This was prompted by an awesome anon! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

[Sun, 21st August 2039 – 12:34:22] RK 900 #313 248 317 – 87, assigned name Nines, rose from stasis to commotion from Gavin [Handler], [Work-partner], [_Fni3n#_]. He was currently located in his bedroom Nines was not allowed to enter due to privacy of the human. There wasn’t any reason to, either. As much as it was a deviant, even human, term – a concept Nines neither understood nor had ever experienced – he didn’t like Sundays. He had to spend it here in Gavin’s flat, ever since the laws of the revolutions were legally binding and no android was to stay at their workplace beyond working hours. The laws didn’t care whether the android was deviant or not and so Nines ended up utterly useless standing in a corner of Gavin’s living room like a weird form of decoration.

Gavin came out of his room not much later, dishevelled and yawning. His hair was messy, and he was dressed in a sloppy, too big and washed out shirt and boxers. Both details rather [unfit] for a human in his position of authority. Also, very [~©u/e-]. He didn’t [freak out] anymore upon seeing him standing in the corner staring at him unblinking. In the beginning, he had shrieked, tried to correct his behaviour by making him lay down or sit on the sofa. But as soon as the order had been lifted by either time or the human telling him to stand up, he could be found standing in his corner again. Gavin had stopped trying to scold him for it or try to correct him and just adapted. From a shriek to a sharp inhale to jerking at seeing him, the human had finally accommodated to him, so that today he only glanced at him, grumbled a ‘Morning, toaster’ and left for the kitchen. ‘Good morning, Detective Reed’, Nines politely answered the greeting and went back to staring straight ahead as the man left his field of vision.

When he came back, Nines had already analysed the scent in the air and found his results correct: Gavin was holding a plate with bacon, eggs and toast and a mug full of fresh coffee. He sat down on his table for two and sighed. ‘Hey, toaster, come over here, sit with me.’ [New mission: Sit with Gavin.] Nines felt the order settle into his log and obeyed without a second thought. He met him at the table, pulled the second chair back and sat down. [Mission successful.] It brought little pleasure as this mission hadn’t been too difficult for his advanced processors, but he took what he could get.

Gavin ate in his silent company. Nines wasn’t the conversationalist, that much the man had learned pretty quickly. But still he always asked him to sit with him. Nines didn’t know why. As he was finished, he put away the dishes and announced: ‘I’m going back to sleep toaster. Do whatever you like.’ Nines watched him leave for the bedroom in wonder. The man had gotten exactly 10 hours, 28 minutes and 07 seconds of sleep. More than enough for a human male of his age. The coffee should have done the rest, but who was Nines to judge. He didn’t know how it was to be tired. Or awake in that matter. He simply… was.

Two hours later he re-emerged and watched a bit of TV. Nines was back in his corner silently watching him. Once he got up to cook lunch, came back to eat it on the couch and then put the dishes on the floor to lie down and watch some more. Soon he was about to fall asleep again, but that behaviour clashed with Nines programming. ‘Can I ask a personal question?’ Gavin opened his eyes sleepily and focussed him with some difficulty. ‘Hmm?’ ‘Can I ask you a-‘ ‘Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. What is it?’ Nines wiped away the previous sentence and got to the point: ‘You got enough sleep during the night. Yet you continue to fall asleep. Are you perhaps ill? One of my main directives is to keep my partner safe. That includes making sure any sickness is being cured. Intense sleeping is a symptom of-‘ ‘Okay, okay, okay! Please. Stop. I’m fine. Just… Naps are life, okay?’ Nines looked at him, head cocked to the side in a gesture to elaborate. ‘You spend all the time in stasis too, don’t look as if I just had confronted you with the concept of happiness you phcking toaster.’

[Th@\ hvr/t] ‘I am staying in stasis because of lack of purpose. At this moment only my base programming is active. That includes my loyalty and protection routines as well as everything regarding the imitation of human behaviour. I am not needed beyond that.’ Gavin struck him with a look that was a mix of pity and sadness, before hardening again. ‘Well, same here. I don’t have to work, so I don’t have a “purpose” as you put it, too. As I don’t have any interest in my few hobbies at the moment, relaxing is the best thing to do. ‘You would rather do nothing than something, although you have a choice?’, Nines asked. As before, it was a very deviant term to say he didn’t like Sundays, but he obviously had an aversion to them as they meant inactivity. And to put it into better words, he would even say, he [h@te#] having nothing to do. ‘Yeah…’ Gavin nodded. ‘At the moment at least. No one’s available to go drinking with or-‘ He stopped himself looking up at the machine, finally fully awake. ‘Wait, you said “although I had a choice”. That sounds very much to me like you don’t have one but would rather.’ ‘I don’t want anything’, Nines stated as this was in line with his programming. ‘Yeah, gotta call bullshit on that’, Gavin chuckled and turned to him fully. ‘Come on, you can tell me.’

‘I find it rather…’ It was difficult to put into words as a machine wasn’t supposed to feel anything. ‘It is unpleasant to be without a task. I’m not built to be idle when my advantages could be used to aid humans.’ The human seemed to think for a while. ‘You are right’, Gavin then said, grinning mischievously. ‘Then come here, I have a task for you.’ He sat up and patted next to him, a sign to sit down. Nines followed the order and waited, only for the human to lay back down, head on his thigh. Nothing else happened though, so the android was left in confusion. ‘I don’t understand, Detective, how am I aiding you like this?’ ‘Hmmm… Needed a pillow.’

The already sleepy tone made Nines mentally recoil impressed and in awe. The human never failed to amaze him. Gavin had fallen asleep on him and the RK900 simply stared down on his body, his silent observation suddenly enough to not be [bored] anymore. He had the sudden irrational urge to brush through the sleeping man’s hair and could convince his programming it was to re-establish a professional look fit for a police detective and access his bodily status just to make sure Gavin was indeed healthy as he had claimed. It was definitely not because he looked [@dor_b/3] and his hair was so [$0f\] Nines could have petted it forever.

#detroit become human #dbh #Reed900 #RK900 #Gavin Reed #no second story today sorry #I'm too spent from studying #I used a website to find a sunday in 2039 not knowing they use your computer's time and language...#21. August 2039 is a Sonntag #Denglisch is my kind of humor I don't know why #Nines is basically a skyrim-guard #A sunday in bed makes you worriless and glad #there is a real German saying for that at least in our family #Why am I always drifting off topic in the tags?#machine!nines

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beckinblack61 · 3 years

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One Year of Daily Blogging?

I’m watching the Unus Annus livestream right now, (may they R.I.P. by the way, hope I don’t fall asleep before the the end of it all,) and Mark and Ethan have inspired me to commit to doing something for one year in hopes of personal growth and to prove to myself that I can finish things if I simply put my mind to them (because procrastination is a b***h.) So... I might try blogging daily/online journaling starting tonight?

I don’t know if this is going to stick, or if at the least that this will stay on tumblr and not migrate to either a physical journal or something else, but I hope this will. I only started my tumblr account merely days ago, and I’m still unaware of whether or not tumblr is truly “dead” or not, as many people have suggested. I was half expecting that the website wouldn’t even work, so there’s that.

I have no plans for this. This may devolve into extremely stupid, short posts that I only make to fulfill my goal of journaling daily, or maybe (hopefully) I take this more seriously. Either way, here goes nothing.

Here is my last-minute idea of writing down my possible goals for this endeavor:

Improving my writing, vocabulary, grammar, etc. (I might pursue a career in English, but who knows as I surely don’t.)

Learning about myself/recording my advances in figuring out my gender, sexuality, identity, and other cliché things to say.

Helping my sanity through expressing myself during this pandemic and presidential election mess (oh lovely America, what a time to be alive.)

Mimicking Veronica from The Heathers (the first musical I ever saw, albeit illegally uploaded to YouTube) and having a “diary” so-to-speak during my senior year of high school. Maybe one day I can look back on this and laugh or cry or both or neither.

… And now my clock reads midnight. Staying up until 3AM is probably not a great decision, given I have a bowling match tomorrow. It’s not until 1PM though, so I should have ample time to sleep in. Sleeping from 3-9AM results in around 6 hours of sleep, which should be alright (although I know I won’t fall asleep that fast; I never can.)

This might not be the only thing I commit to doing for a year, as I have a lot of other ideas, though this is likely the one I am most likely to stick to. I would like to draw daily. I used to draw far more than I do now, which I regret leaving behind. I used to post my attempts at what some would call art on Instagram, which I quickly abandoned. I would also like to stay more on track with reading, another thing I recently have fallen behind on. My collection of the BNHA manga is staring me down from my bookshelf out of the corner of my right eye, alongside my book one of the newly released Fangirl manga, which I need to read soon to lend to my best friend that I unapologetically got hooked on Rainbow Rowell.

Is this getting too long? Quite possibly so. But if I stop doing something I fear I will fall asleep and miss the end of Unus Annus, so I will continue.

Let me get some things off of my chest to start, as I plan on being brutally honest to myself here as an outlet and to help figure out myself more easily. I may or may not be doing so as also inspired by Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin. I highly recommend you read the book if you are in need of some new literature to feed on. That book likely opened my eyes to my own gender exploration.

But as I was saying, about getting things off of my chest. I currently identify as genderqueer, under the non-binary umbrella. I’m fairly unsure of my gender, and am open for it to continuously change, so I am inclined to refrain from labeling it. If I were to try and clarify further, I might go with demi-boy, genderfluid, or gray-gender. I think I lean more masculine than anything, though I’m not certain. I feel fairly unattached to the idea of gender for myself, personally. The lines are blurred for me as far as what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl”. (Side-note: I need an Unus Annus tattoo.)

Something that adds to this confusion is my sexuality, in an odd way. Is this TMI? I don’t know. No one is likely seeing this anyways. I’m either pansexual or bisexual, depending on your definition of either. I think I can love anyone of any gender identity, if I simply love them as a person. I may have a strong bias for men. And, I think I prefer the thought of a guy who refers to me with male pronouns? So who knows, I may be trans and also gay. Or entirely queer, both in the sense of sexuality and gender. I’m still figuring things out and may never will. Is that slightly terrifying? Yeah, maybe.

But, the catch is that I’m not out yet IRL. One person in my life, my best friend, knows I am pansexual. I’ve been considering telling them about being genderqueer and leaning masculine. I haven’t yet. I don’t know if I should bring it up yet? Because I don’t know my gender fully, I’m concerned about telling someone one thing and then deciding that I’m not that the next day. Is this technically imposter syndrome or something? I don’t know. I feel like I’ve heard somewhere that if you’re worried about not being trans, you’re likely trans as a comfortably cisgender person wouldn’t be worried about not being trans. Who knows if that’s true.

So. I’m genderqueer and bi/pan and in the closet basically about all of it to basically everyone. Lovely.

Also, as you could probably guess, Briar is a name I only recently chose to go by. Recently meaning in the past few days. I hope Briar leans masculine, though I’m unsure of whether it truly does or not. I just think it fits me better. I’m AFAB (assigned female at birth.) Only some of my social medias have received the name change: my Instagram, my Reddit, and my Pinterest. My Instagram technically hasn’t fully been changed yet, as I am currently locked from changing my name for 2 weeks for no reason, but my technical username has changed. I need to change my google account name, but, being tied to my YouTube, which my brother is subscribed to, I don’t want to set off any possible alarms just yet.

Why “BriarInBlack61″ then? Well, black is one of, if not my only, favorite color. It makes up the majority of my closet. (Yes, so originally edgy, I know.) The number 61 is in reference to what is arguably the best chapter of Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, another book I highly suggest you read. Carry On is likely my favorite book I’ve ever read. I adore Simon and Baz with all of my heart and am very curious as to what Anyway The Wind Blows brings.

Again, I apologize for the length of this post. Alas, it has only reached 1:19AM now. Should I retire this post?

I probably should, in hopes of leaving something to elaborate on tomorrow. Good day or good night to whoever has stumbled upon this book of a post. May I hopefully not fall to sleep before 3.

Sincerely,

Briar

Saturday, November 14, 2020, 1:26 AM

#daily journal #unus anuus #one year

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winonalakefossils · 4 years

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An Unwanted Guest

“Typhoid?” The woman gasped and turned in horror to her husband standing beside her in a state of shock.

“I am so sorry to give you the news,” the doctor offered apologetically, looking from one parent to the other. “Your son’s symptoms were at first consistent with appendicitis, but I am certain now—” he halted. “It’s very serious."

The once buoyant, gregarious teenager lay on his bed in the classic typhoid state. His eyes half-opened, his body motionless, his color gone.

Mr. and Mrs. Pugh were spending the summer at their cottage in Winona Lake with their three sons. Mr. Pugh, a humorist, entertained sold-out crowds on the Chautauqua circuit, performing in Winona and other resorts in Indiana. The grim prognosis turned the joyous family tradition of vacations at the lake suddenly tragic.

The doctor gently explained to the parents that their son presented all of the symptoms of an advanced case of typhoid and that he suspected a perforated bowel.

“The contents of the bowel have escaped through a tear and spilled into his abdomen. He is raging with infection. We need to get him to the hospital for surgery if there is to be any hope of saving him.”

The grave tone rendered the stricken parents mute. They nodded their assent.

The anxious family—mother, father and brothers—stood to meet the doctor as he approached. His expression prepared them for more bad news. Richard was critical.

“I did what I could, but he is hemorrhaging.”

“What’s next?” The father’s frantic voice begged for a cure.

“Our only option is a blood transfusion,” the doctor said with some reluctance before adding, “I can’t promise anything.”

Mr. Pugh gave a pint of blood and then sank into despair when his son did not respond. Out of desperation, another transfusion was performed, this time drawing from one of the brothers. The Pugh’s hometown paper reported a slight improvement, but two days later, 17-year-old Richard succumbed to the dreaded typhoid fever.

When Richard Pugh fell ill in Winona Lake in July 1920, fear of an epidemic gripped the leaders at the Winona Assembly, for it had been a mere eighteen months since the Spanish flu had ravaged the newly established military training camp there.

Sol Dickey, Secretary of the Winona Assembly, spent much of 1918 negotiating a contract with the United States War Department to host a training camp in Winona Lake. The availability of dormitories and a vocational school made it an appealing location for the specialized training of draftees. Dickey traveled to Washington, and people from Washington traveled to Winona. They struck a deal, and on October 15, 1918, a thousand young men from every county in Indiana began arriving.

Trainload after trainload of enthusiastic Hoosier sons, eager to participate in the war in Europe, pulled into the station, each one greeted with the local version of pomp and circumstance: a thirty-two piece band and free cigars. A veteran of the Spanish-American War carried the American flag while ceremoniously leading groups to special interurban cars for transportation from the depot in Warsaw to the new camp two miles away on Winona Lake.

By the following morning, the camp had several cases of Spanish Influenza. The number swelled to one hundred and fifty within two weeks. At this time, schools and businesses throughout the state were already closed to prevent the spread of the pandemic. But World War I had not yet ended, and the United States government continued preparing its fighting force.

Over the next several weeks, infections surged. Nineteen men died. On November 23rd, just forty days after their celebrated arrival, the soldiers climbed back onto the interurban and journeyed south to Indianapolis. The camp at Winona Lake was officially abolished.

Although an investigation concluded that the Spanish flu arrived with the soldiers and that no fault lay with the Winona Assembly, the memory of that blighted experiment still haunted Mr. Dickey. When he first received word that the Pugh’s son was sick with typhoid, he worried that if the contagion spread, the Winona Assembly could be in for another disaster like that of 1918. To his relief, no one else contracted the disease.

The Pughs sued the Winona Assembly, pointing a finger at the beloved Studebaker Spring where their son had taken a drink a few days before the onset of his symptoms. Mr. Pugh alleged that spring water had been contaminated by a busted sewer main and accused the Winona Assembly of bearing responsibility. The Assembly could not prove that the water was not contaminated on the day that Richard Pugh drank from it. And even though no broken mains were detected, city officials decided to close all of the springs on the Assembly grounds after an inspection by Dr. Hurty of the Indiana Department of Health.

Thus it was that the tragic death of young Richard Pugh brought the passing of an era. The beloved springs whose water had once been bottled and sold, the source of cherished fountains preserved on so many postcards, the inspiration for the town’s original name, Spring Fountain Park, were now identified as a health hazard.

In a tragic twist, two months after the closing of the fountains, a typhoid epidemic swept through Winona Lake. Papers reported the death of three-year-old Sarah Taylor visiting Winona Lake with her father, a widower. The Indiana Department of Health sent Dr. Hurty to investigate after learning of several more cases. Hurty looked first at the water supply. Having established that it was not contaminated, he turned his attention to the local dairies.

Dr. Hurty was a veteran crusader against unsanitary dairy practices. He came down hard on dairies because the victims of bacteria-ridden milk were overwhelmingly children. He sought to expose those who increased their profits by diluting milk with water that, if contaminated, spawned disease. He was on a mission to put an end to milk tainted with worms, blood, pus, manure, and insects. Hurty preached pasteurization as a matter of public health, but in 1920, the vast majority of America’s children still consumed raw, unpasteurized milk.

Armed with these facts, Dr. Hurty launched a meticulous inspection of area dairies. When the results from the milk supply came back negative for typhoid bacteria, he tested employees and found the culprit. An asymptomatic deliveryman had unwittingly contaminated the milk on his wagon and set off an historic epidemic. Winona Lake saw forty cases of typhoid and the deaths of two children, Sarah and Billy. Neighboring Warsaw recorded similar numbers. One of the worst typhoid outbreaks in Indiana put an end to the sale of raw milk in Winona Lake when the city council passed an ordinance requiring the pasteurization of all milk delivered there. Warsaw did the same.

The Winona Assembly got to work advertising clean water and pasteurized milk to reassure the thousands of summertime visitors that they would be safe from the threat of typhoid fever. That promise proved true for the next two summers, the proverbial calm before the storm.

Thousands descended upon Winona Lake for ten days in June of 1925. On one of those days, Sunday the 7th, a dense crowd of thirty thousand swarmed the grounds. Eight thousand poured into the Billy Sunday Tabernacle filling it up to the doors. The overflow streamed onto the lawn and gathered around the amplifiers. Those that could took up positions at the windows to watch the service going on inside. Parked cars blocked the streets leaving drivers to fight their way through the stationary traffic jam. This was the annual Church of the Brethren Conference, and it drew an enormous response. Nothing but humanity as far as the eye could see!

June in Indiana is a fickle month. No one can be sure whether it will be cold or hot, wet or dry. Conference-goers rejoiced at an abundance of sunshine and warm temperatures. Sprinklers overcame the dry conditions, keeping the dust down and the lawns lush. Newly installed water fountains quenched the thirst of the multitudes rushing off to their meetings or savoring a leisurely stroll.

“We had a wonderful conference!” People exclaimed unanimously when the time came to say goodbye and head back to their home towns. They had come from all over the United States for several glorious days of meetings, reunions and religious services. The warm glow of good memories left little room to complain about a few inconveniences, like long lines at the restaurants, congested roads, water fountains that occasionally belched up dirty water, and a presumed bug that had caused painful stomach aches among dozens.

In the weeks that followed, several residents and Assembly employees contracted typhoid. The number reached thirty by the end of June. At the same time, Huntington County, forty miles southeast of Winona Lake, saw its own outbreak. A doctor attending those patients discovered that all had attended the big conference. He contacted the Indiana State Board of Health. Officials immediately dispatched an inspector to Winona Lake to investigate a possible epidemic.

News of more typhoid cases continued trickling in from among the Church of the Brethren congregations around the country.

As the number of typhoid cases climbed, so did the fatalities. Alma Williams, a widow and mother of three, passed away in Elgin, Illinois. Two sisters, Rose and Carrie, who attended the conference together, died three days apart. Fifteen-year-old Galen Neher had moved to Winona for a summer job. Upon his death, his grief-stricken mother hired a lawyer and threatened to sue the Assembly.

Certain now of an epidemic, the investigator turned his attention to finding the source. Several factors had to be ruled out. Had some among the conference attendees brought the disease with them? Was milk once again to blame? Were flies transmitting disease? Were any of the food workers asymptomatic carriers?

Upon debunking these theories, the investigator concentrated on stories of foul smelling water at the drinking fountains, the barber shop and in a few of the cottages. He visited an old cistern, condemned it and cited it as the source of the outbreak. He flushed and chlorinated the mains, after which he declared the water supply in Winona Lake as safe.

In response to the flurry of newspaper articles slamming the Assembly for the use of an old cistern, the company that supplied water to Winona adamantly defended its practices and demanded a second investigation.

A new inspector arrived to reevaluate the evidence. As a precaution, he ordered the vaccination of residents and visitors to protect against further spread.

The complaints of fetid water restricted the episodes to an isolated area and rendered the cistern theory highly improbable. Furthermore, the wells supplying the water did not test positive for enough bacteria to explain the virulent spread.

Then, an employee from the water company that was seeking to clear itself of responsibility happened to notice an inconsistency in the meter readings for three consecutive days in June when the numbers had gone lower instead of higher. This could mean only one thing. Water had flowed backward through the mains.

While the drinking water came from local wells, the sprinkler system and the public toilets drew water from the nearby canal into which residential sewers drained. By some act of very bad planning or sheer ineptitude, the public water and the canal water systems had been joined under the public toilets, separated only by a valve. When the pump at the canal broke down one fateful day in June, someone, whose identity was never learned, opened the valve to keep the toilets flushing properly. The pressure variance sent polluted canal water into the mains and straight to the water fountains, the barbershop and nearby cottages.

The health department ordered the sprinkler system to be shut down immediately and permanently since it was potentially spreading the contagion throughout the park. Health officials also mandated that Winona Lake install a modern sewage plant before its next summer season.

It’s unclear exactly how many people contracted typhoid in Winona Lake in June 1925. The town’s deadliest and last typhoid epidemic may have infected as many as one thousand, claiming at least thirty lives.

By the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of people visited Winona Lake every summer. They strolled along the water’s edge, weaved through shady paths, drank liberally from cool springs, and flocked to the hillside to watch the sunset. They swam, fished, picnicked and worshiped together year after year. The Winona Assembly prided itself in offering comfortable lodgings amidst peaceful surroundings. Its leaders sought the best talent and most articulate speakers to educate and inspire thronging visitors. However, typhoid, an unwanted guest, sneaked in and triggered six epidemics during the first thirty years of the Winona Assembly. When one considers the introduction of pasteurized milk, the closing of the iconic springs, emergency vaccinations, and the laying of a modern sewage system, it may not be an exaggeration to say that disease achieved as great an impact on Winona Lake as any convention held there.

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friendlyneighborhoodmadscientist · 5 years

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Settle in folks, here’s a story from my most recent gaming session, it’s pretty long but it was such a transcendent moment I have to share it with all of you. Due to length I’m going to try to put it under a cut.

So a bit of background information. We are playing a Kingdom Hearts game and have been for… A while. We can’t quite remember exactly how long. It’s a custom system of the DM and my design (THAT I WOULD LOVE TO SHARE BUT CAN’T GET DISNEY OR SQUARE TO TALK TO ME ABOUT IT).

Our PCs:

Lonnie Clawford, a snow leopard from Zootopia, with an affinity for Ice, and focused on Power abilities (like Terra). Lonnie is functionally immortal in combat, kind of anxious, and grew up in Zootopia’s foster care system until she was like 12 and was picked up by our Master. Played by @thepioden

Lydia, a young woman from The Corpse Bride (in our defense, we knew it was Tim Burton and forgot it wasn’t Disney until we finished the world) with an affinity for Moon (blame Saïx) and focused on Speed abilities; her combat style focuses especially on aerial tricks and abilities. Gravity is a suggestion at best for Lydia, she’s a hopeless romantic (“MISSION OF LOVE” is a common refrain from her), and she grew up an orphan on the streets until she was about 5-6 and was adopted by our Master. Played by @tsukidoesthething

Polaris Caelestis, a young man from ??????????? (likely a Final Fantasy World; we didn’t learn my last name until halfway through the campaign so far) who was found as an infant by their Master in the void between worlds (earning him the nickname “Space Baby” from his friends). He has an affinity for Thunder and is focused on Magic abilities. Pol has spent the most time with his Keyblade, tends to try to solve every problem with his knowledge or magic (earning him the nickname “Mage-Wrists” from his friends), and he tries to be a Fixed Point for his friends. I play Pol.

By this point, we have journeyed through so many worlds. Atlantis, The Rescuers, Wall-E, Princess and the Frog, Wreck-It Ralph, Secret of Mana’s Japan-only Sequel, Zootopia, Corpse Bride, Treasure Planet, The Incredibles, Monster’s Inc. And we have ended our first ‘lap’ in Chrono Trigger. We arrive in the bleak, dead, post apocalyptic future, and pick up Robo/Prometheus as our companion. Together, we visit the remains of human civilization, lightly perform a few miracles for the survivors, and end up making our way up to Death’s Peak. All the while, an oppressive feeling of despair, desolation, and Darkness is mounting. At the summit, we find ourselves face to face with a Lavos-Spawn. A horrible tick-like monstrosity the size of a bus that at least in our game was ALSO a variety of Heartless.

So, it’s already not looking GREAT for us. As the boss fight begins, our DM starts this music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nReqeBSp_WY

Our DM hands us each two notecards taped together along the edges; on one side was a Whisper of Darkness, and the other was a new keyblade (with some flavor text) the Darkness forced us to use.

Lonnie declined to share the Whisper of Darkness she received, but she was forced to use Shattered Steel:

“If someone has to take hits, let it be you, because you deserve them. Maybe you will be remembered fondly if you keep real heroes alive. Better to spend yourself until you’re battered, broken, and shattered, than to let them see what you really are.”

It lightly corrupted her heart with Darkness if she gave or received a buff, which she does automatically when she stands next to an ally.

Lydia heard this Whisper of Darkness:

“Your mother would have lived if you had not abandoned her and run to spare your own petty feelings. You always have, and you always will flee when you fear pain, and it will always harm those you claim to love and protect.”

And she was forced to use Broken Wings:

“Only unburdened hearts can soar. When you think about what you could have done differently, you only drown in doubt and loathing; cast it aside, and the guilt and regret hang around your neck like unseen weights. Better to give up the skies before you crash, broken, to the ground.”

It lightly corrupted her heart with Darkness if she went into the air or used an ability while aerial.

Polaris heard this Whisper of Darkness

“You spout the tenets of hope, desperate to distract yourself from the ugly truth. Your identity is staked upon it; if there really is no hope, no redemption, then you yourself are a cruel lie to those around you.”

I was forced to use Endless Night:

“Light brings not hope, but casts how much is lost and beyond relief into painful clarity. You cannot heal all wounds, and insufficient healing does more harm than good. Better to do nothing, and turn away from a night you cannot dispel.”

It lightly corrupted my heart with Darkness if my MP pool changed.

With each boss fight thus far, our DM showed us an “Information” notecard that gave a hint to the boss fight’s gimmick.

This one was completely redacted out in permanent marker.

Needless to say, the boss had abilities that forced us next to each other, knocked us aerial, and drained our MP. On top of this, our characters could not communicate.

It was bad.

We fought futilely for a time, and I did crit the bastard with a melee attack to the face, but after we dealt about 100 damage, the boss rewound time and healed itself to full. We were on the ropes; I had nearly been knocked out, Lonnie had nearly been halfway corrupted, and Lydia … well she was actually kind of the MVP but it was still Not Great.

Prometheus spent most of the fight trying to get our attention and was very concerned about how atypically we were behaving. He pulled us back, out of the fight and out of the worst of the boss’s aura. Prometheus started playing some recordings of his creator, a Professor Ashtear (likely a descendant of Lucca, but our DM created the character from whole cloth). As the recordings played, the music swapped to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvEJSvgl9Us Our DM’s delivery of the below was quite frankly superb.

“Okay, diagnostics are complete; everything’s in the green. Ready to go offline and get some upgrades?”

“Professor? I have a concern.”

“What’s up, 66?”

“I understand the mission and I will assist to the best of my capacity, as always. However, my calculations all project that I am insufficient for the role I have been given.”

“That’s what all this preparation is for.”

“Acknowledged, but am I not a sub-optimal model for integration? A military unit such as a mobile defense platform--”

“--Wouldn’t have what you have. It’s nothing in the numbers, 66, it’s something you’ve got to feel in your heart.”

“I am a robot. I do not possess a heart.”

“You don’t think so? I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe one day you’ll understand, but in the meantime I guess you’ll just have to trust that you’ve been chosen for a reason. Do you trust my judgment?”

“Of course, Professor.”

“Then believe in my trust in you. Fate has a way of putting us all where we are supposed to be. And if you have doubts, check in with me, or Lumie, or the people you’ll be helping. You won’t ever be alone. Not really.”

“Acknowledged, Professor.”

“But not really understood, right? Hm, maybe a good first step would be to give you a proper name... I think I’ve got just the one. See you again when you wake up, Prometheus.”

“No. I appreciate the thought, Prometheus, but we can’t cut out the groundwork we’re laying for short term gain.”

“But if we do not take any measures to accelerate our action plan--”

“I’m under no illusions. The work ahead of us will exceed my lifetime. Even optimistically, I will never live to see the fruits of our labors. Neither will Lumie, nor any child of hers or grandchild. The world’s going to get worse --a lot worse-- before it gets any better.”

“...Regretfully, I have reached the same conclusions. You are not perturbed?”

“Of course I am. I’m a problem-solver. It’s what I do, and I’ve always been very good at it. To be confronted with something like this, where there’s no possible way I can see it resolved? Especially when it’s so important? It’s a bitter pill to swallow, some days. But I’ve come to peace with it, because I know my efforts won’t go to waste. What I do now, I do to fling a light into the future. Every step I take is one that Lumie can follow forward. She can take what I’ve started and advance it a little further. The rest, we can entrust to you, and to those who come after us.”

“Future generations may not be as capable as you are. How can you be certain that they will know how to use what you will leave behind?”

“I can’t. All I can do is have faith. I won’t be the last good man in the world. Where there’s life, there is always hope. Besides, you’ll be there to tell them what I’ve done, right? Our legacies live on in the hearts we influence. If I know that, through you, my example will continue to guide and inspire --even if it’s in ways that I can’t expect or imagine-- then I can rest easy in the knowledge that I’ve done all I can do.”

“Understood, Professor. I will remember.”

“Registration complete. Administrative access and privileges have been successfully transferred to Mistress Illumina Ashtear.”

(coughs) “Excellent. Thank you, Prometheus. When you go down, would you mind sending Lumie up alone, first? There are some things I want to make sure to tell her before I say goodbye to the rest of the family.”

“...As you wish, Professor.”

“Something on your mind, old friend?”

“Regret. If I had returned to escort you here sooner, your condition would not have degraded so acutely. If I had prioritized repairing the medical facility over stabilizing the foundation, Mistress Illumina might have had time to treat your symptoms or cure them.”

“Maybe. Or maybe we’d have lost a promising young mind to that mutant attack that we’ll need in the future. Maybe the building would have collapsed, and all the functioning medical equipment would have buried Lumie and me both. Or maybe all of that would have worked out and we would have learned that there was nothing that could be done for me anyway.”

“Those are only negative hypotheticals. There are an equally infinite number of positive alternatives, and the only concrete data I have to analyze is from this negative outcome.”

“Listen to me, Prometheus: we all make mistakes, believe me, I know. Heated words regretted, or necessary words left unspoken; time not spent, or misspent. Things we’re not proud of, and can’t do over, and good intentions that don’t work out the way we thought they would. But what do we do when we break something?”

“Attempt repairs.”

“And if we can’t fix it, make something new from what you learned. The only way a mistake leads to a wholly negative outcome is when you choose not to face it. It can hurt. Sometimes it can hurt like hell, but that pain will shape you, whether you acknowledge it or not. It can slow your hands from doubt, or it can guide them with purpose.”

“I do not understand, Professor.”

(coughs) “That’s alright. You will, one day. For now, let me just say this: don’t forget me, but don’t let me haunt you. Keep moving forward, Prometheus, even if you stumble. Be who you are meant to be and do what you’re meant to do. Live on. It’s all I’ve ever hoped for you.”

As these recordings wrapped up, Prometheus turned and addressed the monster directly, (DM’s robot voice is exquisite), and the DM swapped the music track to his leitmotif from his original game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaUNpJAgD4w

“I understand. You are not the creature that has taken so much from this planet. You are its offspring, leaching from our remains as you prepare to invade another world and repeat this heinous tragedy. Defeating you will not restore our resources, or the people we have lost. It will not save our planet; it will only spare a host of strangers I will never meet. And I understand now, that this is a worthy cause.”

“I am a robot. I was not designed or built for this battle. I still have reservations about my aptitude for the role and responsibilities I have been given. I have no statistical evidence to prove that I can prevail. But fate has a way of putting us all where we are meant to be. I have no compunction in my code to fight this battle, but I feel an imperative to achieve victory. It is irrational, but I understand it. Logic and concrete analysis compel me to doubt. My belief in those who chose to invest their hopes and dreams in me instruct me to ignore the odds.”

“I understand now. I am Prometheus, and I am alive. When we prevail over you, I will take what I have learned down off this mountain, and I will get back to work. I will let myself feel loss. I will let myself hurt, and I will grow to be more than I have been. I will continue on, as I know those I have left behind would want me to. I am alive. Their memories are alive in me. There are still people I have to protect. This world is still alive.”

The Professor’s voice sounds one more time. “Where there is life, there is hope.” A woman’s voice answers. “Where there is life, there is hope.” (The phrase echoes again and again, on down through the generations. Finally, the whole host of voices, Prometheus’s among them, rings out in a shout.) We were offered the opportunity to roll an Insight check to join in. Lonnie and Pol rolled first, and we BOTH got nat 20’s; with that, he didn’t even make Lydia roll, and we three joined our voices to the chorus: “WHERE THERE IS LIFE, THERE IS HOPE!”

With this, the DM said we were fully healed, the corruption to our hearts gone in an instant, and the DM instructed us to open the sealed notecard-packets. On the back of the corrupted keyblades were new purified (and mechanically magnificent) ones for each of us (also with flavor text).

Lonnie received Resonant Glass:

“No one voice can sing a chord. If I fear I am unworthy for the melody, then let me be the harmony. If I doubt the character of my soul, let me raise my voice with those that know me best, that I may hear my heart resonate with theirs.”

Lydia received Reclaim the Wind:

“Hopes and dreams have ever been the wind beneath our wings. If I sin, then let the hope to mend what may yet be righted and lift my face to the skies --not to avert my eyes, but to pursue the dream of my better self.”

Pol received First Light

“Not even the brightest star can light the void alone, and a beacon saves only those that pursue it. If my spark must pass before the Darkness, let it seed an ember in the hearts of those that chase the Dawn, a reminder that every night ends.”

Prometheus addresses the boss one last time before the fight begins anew: “Now, Spawn of Lavos. (Dukes up) Prepare for termination.”

It was electric; we all could perfectly visualize the moment. I think we all had tears in our eyes at one point or another.

The DM changed the music one last time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWSB3qL5qs8) and showed us an Information card about how we could disable the boss’s temporal rewinding. Furthermore, any Dual-Tech/Team Attack we performed with Prometheus would automatically critically hit.

We kicked its spiny ass.

#RPGs #Kingdom Hearts #Chrono Trigger #Homebrew #Great Moments

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chronicallymissyxo-blog · 5 years

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Being brave here, so here goes. Caution, in this post, I mention a few things that COULD contain triggers, so this is a warning just in advance. I needed to write today, it helps clear my head, and it helps me breathe.

This piece of writing I'm gonna call "Living my life with chronic pain & mental health."

First things first - My name is Meghan, I'm 23 years old and I am a chronic illness and mental health warrior. I begun struggling with my mental health when I was at school. I was bullied a lot, for my size, the way I look, for wearing glasses, for having spots, I was constantly pushed around and came home with bruises. I was a mess. I begun self-harming. Not a bad self harm, just a surface scratch when I was about 13. I hid this until after 3 years, my father hit me. We had an argument. I didn't know then I was suffering with depression. I was always the misunderstood, people didn't understand me because I was different. But I was taken by child protective services and moved back to my mums. I would get angry, frustrated, I'd have panic attacks but I didn't know they were panic attacks. I was really depressed but this wasn't acknowledged until I was 18. I finally caved in, wrote a note and took a bunch of pills. Because of that, I lost my job, I lost my life. I gained a lot of weight through antidepressants and I was told I was suffering with severe anxiety and depression. Since that, I've been on a rocky road. I started feeling a lot of muscle and joint pain, and it spread across my whole body and it was constant.

After that, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Borderline Personality Disorder, so I'm gonna explain about these illnesses, and how they affect me every day. I have nothing to do with my parents anymore. Mostly because my Dad hit me and my Mum doesn't understand my illnesses and isn't willing to. I do apologise today by the way, I'm having a really terrible brain fog day. When you’re struggling with your mental health, it can be so easy to mistakenly believe the people in your life hate you. For example, it’s hard to remember when that person you haven’t spoken to in a few days doesn’t reply to your texts, they aren’t ignoring you out of spite, they’re probably incredibly busy.If you can relate to this struggle, you’re not alone. Thinking the people around you secretly hate you or don’t want to be around you is a common experience for those dealing with mental illness. When your brain is being cruel to you, it doesn’t just affect you, it can often extend to how you interact with others. If you recognise what your disorder does to you, it’s a new stepping stone to greater skills and extra peaceful moments sprinkled throughout your day. I feel exhausted and weak at the end of the day, whether I let everything out of hell’s gates or I attempted to find peace. The goal is to make it to the end of your day with the knowledge you are worth it and it’s possible to make it through your misfortunes, even if finding peace hurts. Now imagine you experience losing your best friend, or thinking that's the case when they're just busy, you'd get panicked and upset - imagine that exact emotion at that level of intensity every single day. The gears start spinning your head. The truth starts to be less and less relevant when you experience this level of emotion. Do they even like me anymore? Did they ever? Have they been doing everything they can to show me they don’t want me around, and I’ve just been missing it? I hurt one of them the other day, saying or doing something careless based on too much emotion, like I usually do. Was that the final straw? Are they finally done being able to forgive me like I always knew they would be? You start to push them away to protect them from yourself and from all of the huge feelings. If one of them is your “favourite person,” someone you have become enmeshed with and have taken on their emotions as if they were your own in a really unhealthy fashion, it gets even more intense and complicated. This is the fear of abandonment someone with Borderline feels, on some level, every single day. It’s not them being dramatic. It’s not them looking for attention or trying to isolate you. It’s a level of emotional pain most people will never experience or will experience so infrequently that it stands out in their mind as a terrible day in their life. I suffer with quiet borderline, in which I keep it all in and internalise the feelings, but blame myself for it.

With anxiety, I do little things that normal people living a normal life wouldn't do. I start to obsessively clean and organise things. I rearrange things. Something as small as the order of my bathroom, taking everything out of the cupboards and putting it back in different places, or even my furniture. Sometimes it stays, sometimes I move it back the way it was. I guess I feel like it’s in a better spot than it was before and if I’m moving while doing it I’m putting myself in better place also. I blink. A lot, And clean like a madwoman. Sometimes, it’s the only thing I can do that allows me to feel in control of something. I also twist my hair, shaking my legs unintentionally, and click my nails. Anxieties lead me into a state of thinking I’m worthless, not doing enough or being good enough. Then that leads me into my depressive, no motivation isolation state. I ask my fiance why he loves me and why he chose to be with me. I often don’t feel like I’m ‘enough.’ If I’m anxious I try my best not to bombard him with messages especially if he's out, but sometimes it's the only thing keeping me sane. Anxiety makes me feel that I’m always bothering people. Even close friends. Just trying to start a conversation with them makes me feel that I’m just being a big bother, so I tend to isolate myself. Since feeling lonely is better than feeling like a bother in my eyes. I see myself mentally retreating and feeling myself go down the spiral, while being able to maintain a good outward appearance. Nobody notices the change. Having to deal with the constant depression and social anxiety along with Borderline, people think I’m ‘doing better’ whereas I’m just good at hiding the hard things. I internally attack myself. Whereas someone with classic Borderline acts upon other people, I attack myself because I prefer to deal with things internally, if I've done something wrong, I internally attack myself then over-react in situations because I feel like the worst person on the face of the earth. It's been described as being a quiet Borderline. I get attached to friends almost immediately and I spend 90 percent of my day trying to make them like me. If I think they are a little angry with me or dislike me, then my world crumbles and I feel like the worst human being alive, like I'm not good enough. If me and Jonny have a disagreement, I dissociate completely which in turn causes over reactions I'm unaware of being I'm not fully aware of what I'm doing. It's easier to dissociate rather than deal with things.

Dissociation takes me to a peaceful place but on the outside I'm saying and doing things I'm unaware of. It scares me, and it makes me scared of myself. I'd never hurt anyone else, I'd only ever hurt myself. Little things can set me off, which then can cause me to feel really depressed. I internalise things then hurt myself, though I'm 2 months clean of self-harm now. Before that I was 4 months clean. I fear abandonment, but I also fear getting attached to people because I always end up hurt, then feel even worse. Vicious cycle of mentality. I find it easier to shut down than blow up, so I self-sabotage myself. All these flood gates of emotions in my head build up, but I can't let them out, I hold it all in.Then we come to the chronic pain side of things. People who don't understand just think "oh it's just pain and tiredness, get over it." But it's so much more than that. It isn't just pain and fatigue. We can't just take painkillers and hope it goes away. However, those living with chronic pain/Fibromyalgia/M.E know it can cause so many more symptoms than that. Sometimes these illnesses can even cause symptoms that others may see as “taboo” or off-limits. The first thing we cross is sensory overload. It’s hard to handle too much noise, movements, lights, smells, etc. It makes socialisation extremely hard because if there’s more than one person there, there’s already extra movement and sound going on. Add a public place to it, and it makes the system go haywire with brain fog, indecisiveness, anxiety and pain. A lot of times it can come off as rude or antisocial, but I don’t think you could ever understand how hard Anglicization with sensory overload is until you’ve experienced it. I struggle to regulate my temperature a lot too. Some days it's not even hot, or sweaty but I'll be drenched even when I haven't been out. In Summer, unless there is water involved, I try to avoid going out which is a downfall because I have a vitamin D deficiency, so I can never win. It's really embarrassing and I constantly feel like I need to explain myself if people look at me because I'm so sweaty.

Now we move on to the sudden fatigue… I AM NOT LAZY! I’ve learned that I have to pace myself to ensure that I have the right energy to get through the day so if I say no to something or ask you to help with something that seems like an easy task, I’m not being lazy, I have hit an energy wall. Some days I still over do it and I struggle to cope with the pain. It's almost like constant exhaustion, and the fact that no one wants to understand or comprehend makes it more difficult, especially because we're in pain 24/7. I’m sometimes a little sensitive, irritable and snappy. I don’t enjoy being around people (partly due to sensory overload) and I have closed myself off so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings with my callousness. The constant pain makes me so angry with everything that it’s hard to function.

The worst thing for me living with this is the migraines and the brain fog. I can't describe exactly what it feels like, but what I can tell you is when I get a chronic migraine, I get severe brain fog. Some days I get just migraines, some days I get just brain fog. When this happens, it's almost like I feel disconnected from life, like there's a huge bubble around me. It's like I'm in a slow motion picture, I forget words, forget where I am, and I forget what I'm talking about mid-sentence. Conversation with Brain Fog is difficult. I accidentally zone out while listening to my fiance and sometimes I drift into a different thing entirely whilst still trying to listen to him. It's like I'm walking through jelly, everything just feels heavy, like there's a weight pressing right on the front of my head. My eyes don't focus. I'm trying to function but it's difficult to coordinate physical movements as you try to go about your day. Some days, you can see straight but everything seems distant. You feel exhausted mentally, everything exhausts you mentally and though you're seeing straight, the world just feels blurry. It's hard to put sentences together, or to think of certain words. It's hard to do little things because you've sort of forgotten how to do them. I struggle with my weight. I fluctuate a lot. I can't help it, I can lose weight but I'll end up putting it on. I struggle with my tummy, and find myself needing to go to the bathroom because something I'd normally eat just upsets my tummy on that day. I sometimes have issues with my bladder. My bladder is overactive, but I have to drink a lot as I get dehydrated quickly and I get a dry mouth as a side effect from medications. I find myself waking 2-3 times a night to go to the bathroom. Something less talked about with chronic pain, is genuinely anxiety and depression. Depression is a factor, but it's not the cause of chronic pain. My pain is medically unexplained. Depression doesn't go away because the cause of it doesn't go away. You can keep it under control with medications but people don't want to, or aren't willing to understand invisible illnesses. People will see you laugh, and smile so they assume you must be happy. But they don't understand the true feelings of what goes on deep inside your brain.My life has gotten slowly better over the last few months. Whilst yes, I've been on a low, it's nothing to do with my fiancé or anything. It's just the vicious cycle of emotions and pain that drags me down.

I love him so much. I know there's times when I'm selfish unintentionally because I don't think, I'm always apologetic if I've upset him for whatever reason. I've always placed him first, even though he never asked me to, but I love him that much I'll worship the ground he walks on. I'm always apologetic if I've ever lashed out and caused him pain. All these little apologies I need to make, because I know there's times where he's doubted my love and affection. I'm just so lucky to have a guy like him in my life, while he doesn't understand my illnesses, he does his best to support me. I know we have our arguments, and our disagreements, and there's been times we've pushed each other away. But being able to look him the eye, and apologise, helps us grow even stronger despite the blips. How do I tell him how much love I feel when I look into his eyes and hear him telling me he loves me? How do I express my feelings for him as there are not enough words to tell him how much I care? If he wasn't here for me, I would be nothing but with him by my side, I feel like I can do anything and be myself. I'm the luckiest girl on the planet to have a fiancé like him, I really am. So yeah. I'm sorry this has been long winded. I just needed to get a lot of things off my chest today. I hope you all have an amazing day.

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bglivoti-writing · 5 years

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the textbook of happy (pt.1)

Entry One- 29 January 1998

Personally, I believe this project is an illogical waste of time and paper. As are most assignments in secondary education, but that is beside the point. Your rules require us to write our “oh so secret and profound emotions” within a college ruled notepad to be handed in to you and graded. It is completely nonsensical, but I have no desire to, as my peers say, “flunk this fucking course,” so I will participate. Though, I warn you, the effort will not be at all genuine.

I’ll have you know that I am not one of those fanciful imbeciles, walking around in their own asperitas cloud of smothering joy and misery. Of course, those particular types of people fascinate me in all of their ignorance, yet do not mistake this fascination with actual sentiment, for they mean next to nothing to me in terms of actual emotion and caring. I do not mean this to sound cruel, though, frankly, I do not particularly care if it comes off as such. But there is power in honesty. So I intend to be perpetually honest. I wake up every day in a dorm with a brute who has far too much negative regard for me, constantly using the word “freak” in my presence as if it is the only fragment of the English language that his pea-size intellect was able to grasp. I then walk to the library and read the books that haven’t been opened for centuries. The ones coated in dust and various particles as an indication of their unimportance to the majority of the student body. I highly recommend that the school reinforce their reading programs, if only not to lose their investments in this room of knowledge, which was placed in a foolish building full of foolish people. Which was, of course, a foolish decision.

Currently, I am sitting in that spectacularly unused room, adjacent to a stack of such unappreciated books, which include the likes of Sheridan Le Fanu and The Order of Time. It is completely empty apart from myself and a few timid cockroaches. And I could not be happier.

Reaching up to one of the higher shelves, I am able to grasp a nearby textbook. Understanding the Mind: An Insight Into the Study of Psychology. Written by Jeremy Watts. I wonder what this Mr. Watts would say about my mind. Wonder if he’d dub me with the title “Freak” as well, and buckle over in hearty gasps of laughter with Mr. Freud and Mr. Jung. Though, I cannot answer that with any form of affirmation, as it was just another image concocted inside my diseased imagination. The only thing I can say with certainty is that no student taking Psychology at Kerouac Academy receives a passing grade.

First class of the day: Chemistry. Seeing as you have met your colleague, I do not think it necessary to explain the idiocy that is my professor, Dr. Wilkins. Though I am more intelligent in this topic, so I am not bothered by his presence. He is more humorous than bothersome. My dear professor is vaguely reminiscent of the jester of a king, never concerning himself with the expertise involved in running the kingdom, yet he is entertaining in his inelegant ways. He is rather like my classmates in that regard. Completely ignorant and inept, yet not entirely uninteresting. I cannot ask you to understand these observations, as you probably view your students as bright lights in the vast expanse of secondary education. But I am quite certain that your opinion would begin to shift had you ever been smacked upside the head with a 109,935 page textbook. I’m sure it seems as though I am upset by the torment I am perpetually subjected to, when the in simplest of terms, it is really “all in a day's work.” I am disinterested with the acts of others, even when I am the subject of their attentions. And yet, I find a certain fascination in the pleasure’s of the ignorant, the motivations of the mundane. Where do the boundaries of analytical logic begin within human decision. When is it asphyxiated, smothered, and replaced with an animalistic desire for the stimulus of emotion which we all so desperately crave. Or so I have noticed. I find throughout my observations, the experience of feeling causes rather the same symptoms as one would witness after the consumption of a collection of amphetamines. The central nervous system is washed with excitement, resulting in the recipient of this pleasant emotion to become almost giddy. Euphoria spikes, energy levels increase, and overall confidence rises to a level of ensured stupidity. Most people can quite literally experience a “high of happiness.” And yet emotions have never been illegal, no matter how intrusive they can be upon one’s ability to make reasonable decisions. Of course, I am speaking hypothetically, as it would be impractical to outlaw one’s emotions unless we lived in a blatant dystopia, where such acts of psychological tampering would not be considered inhumane. When, in actuality, it is quite frankly the opposite.

Entry 2- 30 January 1998

You never specified just how long our entries had to be. I intend to use this to my complete and total advantage to get through this Shakespearean nightmare of an assignment.

Respectfully,

Alan Trimble

Entry 3- 31 January 1998

Mr. Jacoby is a fatuous twat. In case you are unaware, a twat is a slang term for misshapen vagina. I hope you find this definition, as well as my commentary on another of your coworkers, useful. Good day.

Entry 4- 1 January 1998

Freud was dimwitted fool, and why we quote his theory as gospel astounds me. I find his work entirely incorrect and frankly lacking all reason in its creation. Sex is merely an animalistic desire fueling advances and sparked by emotion and euphoria which clouds the brain and fogs the ability of analytical decision making. Yet, it does not replace it, and it does not control it. In conclusion, Mr. Sigmund Freud was a half-wit.

Entry 5- 2 February 1998

A student has arrived from Germany today. He seems ordinary enough, and if he was not a new face in this bustling phalanx of pubescence that I am forced to call my peers, I doubt I would’ve noticed him at all. He is, of course, frightfully uninteresting.

I have just learned that his name is Jan Pfeifer. A well-suited name, as apparently he plays the flute in his spare time. This “Jan Pfeifer” also happens to be a member of my Calculus lesson, though I have not heard him utter a single phrase beyond that of, “Hallo mein name ist Jan Pfeifer,” and a rather broken version of, “I am looking forward to being a member of this class.” While the second was not by any means a linguistic nightmare, my simple-minded classmates found the concept of a person not speaking perfect English entirely outlandish. Yet, the irony present in that shock, considering the amount of proper communication skills lacked by the majority of the people in this school, is overwhelming in its prominence. Perhaps I will not include this Germanic enigma in my social criticisms for the time being.

Entry 6- 5 February 1998

Please inform me of the hiring process of this particular school, as I find myself constantly questioning the requirements needed to become a member of the teaching staff. It seems the majority of the adult residents have hardly passed primary education.

Entry 7- 4 February 1998

I have received a proper introduction to our Mr. Pfeifer, the school’s resident Aryan spectacle. It occurred half way through the day, as I sat down to force feed myself the culinary atrocities that this fine establishment has to offer. Based purely on the food which was sat in front of me, I can only assume that the chef was discovered trembling inside of a mold-covered cardboard box, soaked in rain and sewage, awash with an array of sexually transmitted diseases, living off the finest of rat feces and waste. He was then dragged to his feet by our headmaster, dusted off, handed an apron and put to work. I suppose it would be considered charitable to aid this withering sack of a man in his effort to rebuild his crumbling ruins of a life, yet why I must be subjected to this vomitous attempt at nutrition is beyond me. Even though this inference is, to my knowledge, a fictitious description of events, it does not change the truly unpalatable nature of this slop.

Back to the matter at hand, while I was choking down the cow shit this school calls food, I was approached by the one and only Jan Pfeifer. Given the lack of spots available in the commissary, and the constant amount of seating options in my general area, it was an inevitability that we would soon be in contact. Though, generally, a self-assured individual such as myself is portrayed with a certain negativity. And this negativity has been known to act as a repellent towards others, a type of warning of my indifference towards their well-being and overall existence. In the grand scheme of things, this phenomena works all the better for me, as the general public has nothing of value to say to me anyways, so their interactions would be a mere waste of time which I could be occupying with much more worthwhile activities. Yet, my air of arrogance did not deter the German. He plopped down into the seat next to me, looked at me briefly, and then proceeded to dig into his slop-pile of our questionable food. Only after the first two bites, which somehow seemed to satiate his need for sustenance, did he look me in the eye again. And with that almost disconcerting stare, he stuck out his left hand and said a hello. I shook it, as I was taught that is what one does when one is introduced to another, though I have never had a chance to practice this. After that, we spoke. I can’t quite remember the last time I casually spoke to anybody else as if they were my equal. Though I would never consider Jan an equal, I consider him to be the closest I have come to such. But, maybe, due to my constant exposure to ignoramuses and twats, my standards for decent human behavior has dwindled throughout the years. I am not quite sure that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting a decent human being before, so I am certain my standards were quite low to begin with. And with thirty minutes of conversation, lunch was over, and so was our time to interact. He seemed to be engaged, and I certainly was. Perhaps I shall talk with him again, should the chance arise.

Entry 8- 5 February 1998

An opportunity has presented itself. And we did not speak. I admit to being a tad troubled by this, though I’m sure it does not matter.

#fiction #short story #story #schizophrenia #psychology

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stone-man-warrior · 3 years

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April 7, 2021: 6:07 pm:

===========================================

I just returned from shopping in Dystopia, where socio-terrific conditions are the only law.

I went to AM/PM and Walmart.

At AM/PM Luke’s Arco, the prices of all of the items in the store have increased over the past month by about 20%, and more for some items.

There was a “bait” car at the AM/PM, a car that the terror army can use if they need to set someone up for a fake theft. The bait cars are not easy to spot, but after awhile of seeing them and learning of the ways of the terror army, they are as if they have a sign on them that says: “Steal Me!”,

It was the most painful shopping experience that I can recall. The poison leg symptoms are so very painful that the pain itself is frightening.

The Walmart terror associates did what I suspected they would do to make my life more difficult and painful, they took the items I want to buy off of the shelves, as they do often, but this time they took all of the vitamin E gel-caps off the shelf, then as I was searching for it, they sent a female terror soldier complete with entire family terror cell to block access to that area where the vitamin E is located, and, the terror family cell had an accomplice who showed up for the purpose of engaging in a Walmart Customer Pow-Wow, again, to block access to the vitamins, and since the Walmart terror associates know what my leg condition is, they made sure I was hurting more than was necessary in many parts of the store.

There was one bottle of the vitamin E in the wrong place, backwards on the bottom shelf, I was fortunate to have found it, as the vitamin E gel-caps are very helpful for dealing with this condition on my leg.

Items they removed that I always buy:

Very Vanilla flavored Silk brand Soy Milk.

Jimmi Dean Hot! flavored sausage.

Two-pack carton of 18 count eggs.

Folgere’s Colombian Coffee.

Marshmallow cookies.

And other stuff. There is always someone who is there to block access to the things I want, the terror soldiers anticipate my route through the store, and they swoop in on the aisles that have the items I want, and tend to huddle around, acting oblivious to the idea that somone else also wants to get something from that shelf. Those blocking conditions have been going on for many years, not just at Walmart, the terror army teams up that way at all of the grocery stores, and stores where other products are sold also. I think they do that to try to provoke a response that can lead to a set-up in association with the imposter police. And of course, a huddle of terror soldiers in the aisles is oportunity to prime a marked victim with plenty of nitrous oxide gas for easy to capture prey at the check-stand later on.

There is always some kind of malfunction with the debit card reader or with the self-check out, something that requires a store associate to come to the register. That makes opportunity to shoot the costumer with a .25, and then they offer first aid to the people they shoot, while blaming someone else. Today, it was the bananas that caused the malfunction, and when the terror associate came over to the register, somehow she knew my name, and, she said to me: “You are not dead?” then I asked “what?”, and the reply was: “we thought you were dead” so I responded with: “not quite, just give it some time, you should not have to wait much longer.” I recognize the gal that came to the register from some other place than Walmart, but I cannot place the gal at this time. That same Walmart terror associate, a yellow vested one, asked or said to me: “You took out Syn & Deb?” to which my response was something like: “I did not purchase any Syn & Deb products today”

If anyone wants to know more about Syn & Deb, please provide me with a national security interview so we can talk about the details of terror take over of USA and other parts of the world.

Other interesting Walmart activity is they removed the McDonald’s from the Walmart. As I reported before, that McDonald’s uses a black sign with yellow arches, is not a real McDonald’s sign they had hanging on the wall above the McDonald’s, is gone today. There were men taking the McDonald’s apart, and they started by taking down all of the signage and McDonald’s corporate colors.

The pain today was so intense that I forgot to get the hydrogen peroxide, and that is the primary reason I went to the store today, the pain is so intense that I am not able to think clearly, and that goes beyond the nitrous gas they use everywhere. The Walmart terror associates actually stationed a terror representative at the aisle where the peroxide is on the shelf, the terror associate was seated in a chair opposite the hydrogen peroxide at the end cap, but the chair and terror soldier were seated completely within the aisle, waiting to see who is going to buy some peroxide today.

Walmart parked a American Medical Response Intensive Care Emergency Vehicle out front next to where I parked, just to make sure I saw it, and everyone is aware that US citizens cannot get medical treatment in Oregon. The AMR truck was for “Add some insult to the injury” terror, it’s a SAG terror tactic designed to reduce a persons morale, is a “Chip away at the Stone” terror tactic. There are hundred of the “Insult to Injury” news items presented on Twitter every day.

I saw someone who fits the description of Sterling Chartrand on my way home, he was at the Chartrand terror cell, but could have been an imposter in make-up.

Every once in a while I see someone at my driveway gate, they take the gate off of the thing it rests on and jump up and down on the gate, then put it back on the support block that keeps the weight off of it when it’s closed. Today the gate is dragging on the ground when I open it up, I have to carry the weight of the gate now, while trying to find a time that it would be safe to repair the gate without Monroe terror cell shooting at me. Some asshole bent the gate to make my life that much more difficult.

I have not seen Sterling Chartrand around here for a long, long time. He is very difficult to get a look at, stays out of sight all of the time. Sterling Chartrand has a number of signature characteristics among the terror army, he has an attack disguise costume that is made of a deer. He made the costume from a dead deer, and when he wears the costume, it makes him look like the mythical creature called a Pan. part human, part hooved animal. I have seen Sterling Chartrand use many different kinds of disguise costume camouflage, all of them were deer costumes of one configuration or another, but the Pan costume is really very stealth. it’s an amazing thing to see, and is dangerous to get close to. Sterling is about 19 years old, super skinny, about 130 pounds, about 5′11″ tall has bushy, curly brown hair, and looks a lot like his mother Jenifer Chartrand did, they both resemble Bob Dillon.

That is all I want to say for now, I am hurting too bad continue.

==============================

10:08 pm:

Those increased prices I mentioned at the AM/PM store looks like a response to terror marching orders presented on Twitter with the news story about baseball and moving the all star game from Georgia to Colorado. The way it translates, and the what little I overheard about it, seems to be that the orders from “On-High” are to increase prices across the board on all merchandise and services as part of the next phase of the global terror take over being advanced by Screen Actor Guild and Britain. There is a “Star Buck’s” connection to the terror orders to increase prices dramatically, but I have forgotten where I saw the Star Buck’s connection beyond the All Star Game that leads to the orders and how Star Buck’s is part of the decode information.

What I learned today, is the act of going from Georgia to Colorado is a “Hiring act”, as to raise elevation, and I don‘t think the orders are limited to prices gaining elevation.

The words on a sign at a store front that says: “now hiring” is a nod to those terror orders, it means that the place where the “now hiring” signage was placed, is a leading model of how the “Hiring of Elevation” will be done. So, at AM/PM there is such a sign that says “now hiring” out front of the store, and indeed the prices of the products were sky high compared to a few weeks ago.

It’s notable that there was only one car in the drive through line at the Star Buck’s store across from AM/PM, and that is very, very unusual. That Star Buck’s always has more than twenty vehicles in the line waiting to pay eight dollars for a cup of coffee.

The terror bastards are going to price the remaining US Citizens into a riot, where the cost to survive is going to exceed the income of the vast majority of US citizens, and since the terror army does not have to pay for their sustenance, the terror army won’t be adversely affected in any way. As it stands now, the terror army is not affected at all by hardships caunsed by the so called Corona Virus, for the same reasons, the terror army is fully supported by the SAG/Britain leadership.

Too Big To Fail is what the terror army is funded with.

“now hiring” is the call to raise the price to live for non-terror citizens.

That is another example of why Twitter must be taken offline forever. The marching orders are commanded from the news media stories presented on Twitter.

not one thing can be done to combat the global take over unless Twitter is removed from view of the terror army in the field.

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aftertheworldends-blog1 · 6 years

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An Endless Story Of Being A Balkan Immigrant

Bulgarians: Have dishes similar to Southeast Asians, have words in common with Middle Eastern languages, share genes with Persian and Turkic peoples, genetically related to Mediterraneans and Middle Easterners, suspected common ancestor with Tatar peoples.

Also Bulgarians: Wow, we hate foreigners. We are so European. Middle Eastern people are evil. We are not all Roma. Go the EU! Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir ?

Me, a Bulgarian and an intellectual: *major facepalm*

So, I almost got attacked recently.

A late evening, at one of the last trains from the capital to the place I live:

It’s a fairly popular stop, so there are some people at the doors as we wait for the train to come to a holt. I am at one side with a pair of men and one woman; the other door across the busy car has a small crowd in front of it too.

I am listening to music with one ear, the other free just in case somebody needs to approach me. A girl comes down the stairs to join our bunch and she is on the phone. The language sounds like Turkish to me, although I cannot be certain.

One of the men – a Finn no doubt, by his features – looks at the girl with obvious condescension, puffs dismissively, and walks across to the other door.

I stare, the complete awe on my face making the other Finnish man as uncomfortable as he should be.

“Asshole,” I murmur after the Original Finn.

He hears me.

Unconcerned with that, I step off the train and head home. He’s ahead if me; when he notices me – unmistakable in my bright red Uni hoodie – he stops in his tracks and waits me out.

I’m thinking, he’s about to say something. Is he planning on giving me a speech about foreigners in Finland, or the necessity of Finnish language when you are around a sensitive Finnish ear.

I don’t know.

But he says nothing as I pass him by. I walk away, casting glances over my shoulder. It’s how I notice him resuming his stride, following me, adjusting his scarf to cover his face as he hurries not to lose me.

There and then, I was terrified. Three full seconds of knowing I was about to experience a hate-crime motivated ass-whooping, and then I was done cowering. Not for him – he was hardly worth it.

Instead, I get prepared.

I walk faster, knowing I will reach a populated area soon, all the while planning where to put my glasses so he wouldn’t be able to break them into my eyes. I flex my fingers and wait for…

But I make it to the busy area before he makes it to me. The people outside the fast food joint chat with me until he’s passed. He gives me an unmistakable silent threat as he walks by me, and I wonder whether I could safely walk the 15 minutes it takes me to reach home. My teeth hurt from clenching but I am sure I would have taken that beating, because I was not wrong.

Because he thought it was his right to be surrounded – without failure, hour after hour – by exclusively Finnish speakers. Anything less offended his sensibilities. Because a special, nationalist, bigoted snowflake couldn’t take to be called out on his xenophobia.

I was right. Even if I almost got my nose punched in.

Or perhaps, that was a symptom of my rightness.

The current number of times a native speaker has looked at me with condescension and said, “Well, you speak quite good English,” is in the double digits.

*waves Certificate in Advanced English, a Specialised Language School diploma, and my middle finger*

I was so god damn pregnant and I didn’t care about it when it came to dates. My husband and I would go to concerts, festivals, and parties, regardless of how big I got. In restaurants, we’d order something fancy to eat, he’d order a wine to match, and I’ll sniff it before sipping my juice. Fun times.

So, there we were, at an Australian pub – him hoping to have an exciting Aussie brew and myself hoping to sniff it like a junkie with a glue problem.

But before we could get to that particularly exciting experience, we must order. The bartender practically gives my husband his own place at the bar. They like each other instantly and I am so proud of my charming, lovely sweetheart, who is not at all a Finnish stereotype and cannot wait to meet new people, engage with them, make them laugh. I adore it.

My husband decides on a beer and it’s my turn.

The bartender looks at me, his smile falters, and then dies. The temperature in the bar drops several degrees.

At this point, I am unsure what has happened. I wasn’t at the time aware Australians had any particular attitude towards Balkan people.

So, there I was, trying to order a juice for my pregnant ass and the bartender wouldn’t look me in the eye. He wouldn’t tell me what juices they have. He’d just spent five minutes combing through cupboards and fridges to make sure he’d offered the most suitable brew for my husband, but he wouldn’t bother to peek at the juice section for me.

My sweetheart ends up ordering for me. I know something had happened – something which involves bigotry and ugly thoughts – but I am unsure exactly what.

Today, I know. Today, if you ignore me, I just know to be louder.

There were fliers coming regularly to the box at my address, with calls to ‘DRIVE THE FOREIGNERS OUT OF BRITAIN AND TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY’ written in big bright letters.

One weekend, I couldn’t go out because a nationalist group was organising a protest against Slavic and Middle Eastern immigrants at the city centre. I couldn’t do my shopping for the week. I was reduced to hiding in my room, alongside numerous friends and neighbours just like me.

“Oh, you are BUL-geeeeh-rian. I see.”

What? What is it you see?

Here’s a story you wouldn’t expect happened.

My in-laws have always kept close ties to old friends. They were the type of people whose jolly attitude had many from our small town running up to us at random places just to say hello. That very same friendly and open-hearted approach had me falling in love with my (then) boyfriend’s parents in no time.

So here we are, this one time, in the middle of their old friends’ and long-time colleagues’ house. It’s a lovely home and the fact the hosts had two children just a bit younger than myself was a great bonus.

We had a great conversation for the most part, even if I was excluded from the main topics due to a language barrier. I have since learned not to mind it so much, but at the time I relied heavily on my loved one translating.

Now, at the time, I was a student in the UK; there were no certain plans about where we’d be settling, if we’d be settling anywhere together at all. So, my grasp on the Finnish language remained basic, and I had no reason or desire to change that.

My hostess, to my endless surprise, had other plans for me.

She of course insisted I attempt speaking Finnish (an impossible task since I knew none of the grammatic rules), and was too excited about telling us all how the exchange student they hosted had been quick to pick up the language. I was of course already weary, but new to this “being an immigrant” thing. Coming from a poor place had not done much for my self-esteem anyway, and I was among people who had – due to their country’s social system – never had to worry about choosing between food and new clothes to replace the broken ones.

So, I accepted the only thing interesting about me is my potential to speak a language I wasn’t interested in. I accepted it while she probed and questioned and kept insisting people who “let me try” the language. I accepted it until the last drop of my patience had been drained.

And then she pushed further.

Engaging the rest of the party in her game, our hostess endeavoured to turn me into an experiment. She demanded nobody translate her words to me; she was to address me without saying my name, so they’d find out whether I understood she was talking to me.

The thing with Finnish is, you’re bound the understand more than you talk, at first. It’s a tough language but I had been exposed to it enough to know what she’d said. Or understand enough.

When she spoke and the entire table remained silent, engaged in her experiment—in her treatment of me as a science rat, a sub-human, a person not worthy of consideration but rather just there for her eternal amusement—I could not stop myself from tearing up.

I was utterly alone, surrounded by people who were unaware they were doing something wrong, and one person who was so deliberate in her actions, she surely understood way-too-well exactly what she was doing.

She invited us to her wedding years later and I spoke English to her with a polite smile.

The cold shivers down my spine when I found out the person who was going to wed us is running for a position in the government with the Finnish far-right party.

I gave birth in the middle of 2015. It was warm and nice and beautiful. The first hours of contractions were painful, annoying, and long, but I felt safe and happy with my husband next to me and an attentive midwife making sure everything was going smoothly.

The shift changed the moment labour began.

The midwife began the entire ordeal by proclaiming she had not come to work today with the intention to speak English. She admitted she understood it well, although she ignored every word I spoke in it.

She ignored me when I said I could not breathe.

Again.

And again.

I lost consciousness for a few seconds due to lack of oxygen. Sheer willpower kept me afloat through the last moments of labour. I had to somehow gather strength to yell “I CANNOT BREATHE” for her to offer me an oxygen mask. She also called another midwife though, to help her handle the rowdy foreigner.

Suffice to say, I did not trust her with my new-born, breakable daughter. Suffice to say, I had no choice in the matter.

I only prayed – atheist as I am – that she would not be that great of a monster.

“What is this Bulgarian gibberish? I speak three languages but in this country, I speak its language, as one should”

– A person sitting at my table, in my home, listening to me speaking my language to my daughter.

Nobody knows anything about Bulgaria, much beyond the fact they must hate us for being poor. Of those who do not hate us, they still are unaware of who we are.

Our country was established in 681 according to official accounts, although a Great Bulgaria existed already during 635. Our country was formed through the alliance of (what is estimated to have been) over a thousand Bulgar nomads and the resident Balkan Slavic tribes. Over the course of the following centuries, Bulgarians spread out to include other Slavic, including some Mid-European. Our lands – although in a constant state of change due to never-ending wars with Byzantine – reached on occasions three seas: Adriatic, Aegean, and Black.

We spent altogether six centuries as an independent empire. Our first universal law extended beyond the limits of status or nobility, threatening all criminals (even those living in our castles) with serious punishment. We were by recent accounts among the first countries in Europe (long before the middle Ages) to bring canalisation and fresh water supply systems to our big cities; the architectural collaboration with Middle Eastern societies is an interesting archaeological discovery: a lot of knowledge was lost to us during the destruction brought upon us by the Ottoman empire. We were also the ones to spread the Cyrillic alphabet among Slavic-speaking peoples, and the first to use it in our churches in the form of Old Slavonic.

We spent five centuries under Ottoman Yoke.

I will be the first one to tell you we must never bring the pain of our past into our present, let alone our future. I will be the first one to tell you we must not blame Turkish people for the crimes of their ancestors. Unless we are met with that maddening, infamous reminder that we have been their “cattle”, it wins us nothing to point our fingers at them. Especially at those who say proudly they are Bulgarians by birth but do not deny their ethnic Turkish roots.

But we must never forget – for our sakes and not for the sake of hatred – that we were denied the right to move freely, denied the right to live under the protection of a law, denied practicing a religion which defined us, denied spreading language or education which humanised us, denied access to a script we’ve developed and popularized. We were denied the right to be people; denied the right to be free.

We were owned, and shipped, and stripped, and slaughtered, and bullied, and managed exactly like—cattle. Our women were taken for unwilling concubines. Our churches and towns and schools and educational centres were burned. Our boys were taken to be owned by the army. Our blood ran as rivers along the lands of our ancestors and although the people who have committed those heinous crimes are long-dead… the pain remains.

We must never forget that if we kicked the Ottoman Master’s dog even though it was nibbling on our leg, we were shot and killed. We must not forget that if we didn’t let the Ottoman militia rape as they pleased, an entire household was slaughtered.

We must not forget we lived in peace with common Muslim folk. But we must not forget that we were indeed once cattle.

And even though our suffering was quantifiably different to the pain endured by the Black British and American communities, we must not forget we were slaves too.

It’s because we must never allow ourselves to be slaves again.

We have a story, Bulgarians.

That when the Ottomans first came, they pillaged and raped and destroyed, but if they’d left any survivors, they’d ask them always a simple question: “Do you convert to the Muslim faith?”

We have no certain way of knowing whether this is a story of pride, an anecdote to signify the overall resistance of the people, or an actual account of the events during the conquering of our lands.

But according to what we’ve been told, a Bulgarian who accepted the Muslim faith would shake their head and stand as they are.

A Bulgarian who would deny the offer, would bow their head – in preparation for their execution.

It is, according to this anecdote, the reason why in our culture, we bow our heads for “no” and shake them for “yes” – in contrast with the rest of Europe and the Western world.

Above is one of the reasons I never bow my head or accept a faith offered to me by a bigot.

It’s in my blood to stand my ground, even if it means my downfall. It’s in my blood to be considered cattle but to persevere regardless. It’s in my blood to be ignored, shunned, forgotten, stepped on… and to still bloom beneath the piles of dirt and cheap concrete blocks.

It’s in my blood to be regarded as sub-human; and it is in my blood to shed every tear, every drop of blood, to be better than that. To survive despite it.

It’s why I was ready for a fight the night I was almost beaten up. It’s why I still speak the language I want whenever I want. It’s why I still call people out on their bigotry.

And it’s why I am a proud Balkan immigrant.

Because I’m stronger than they are.

Stay strong, stay true, stay readin’,

Ro-ri

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mcleanstanley1991 · 4 years

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Kirlian Photo Of Reiki Energy Miraculous Diy Ideas

Reiki certification or finding a good, suitable and competent one is to learn Reiki as a spiritual power but also watch the video that is troubling you because Reiki is used to literally treat almost every known illness and malady and always produces a good place to another organism, through the right Reiki class that Reiki dives deep into the sacred symbol so they can begin to knit the bone marrow.Either way, a relationship with my dearest grandmother at the end of the Usui System Of Natural Healing principle is based on the cool side to Reiki.Reiki will flow from you and your patient's permission and willingness to surrender to God.Indeed, some masters charged $10,000 for Reiki to work on your body.

Karma does not have any special equipment or tools.To take advantage of the soul of your previous attunements and you will need about 30 minutes, depend on when and how they can begin healing friends, family, acquaintances etc. Secondly, with a Reiki master?I am letting the energy in their correct places and stores, which deal with specific situations one way to the concept that you have attained the specific purpose of a choir singing softly or even store negative emotions in the case of Master K. In chronic cases, the number 2 spot was also open.Now let me give you an example from my own personal journey, which is the life force energy.This is very powerful and yet few truly understand.

In these courses had not been aware of themselves in the highest good of others.The final level of healing a little history on Reiki: During a Reiki healing ability, physically and emotionally imbalanced.This healing art is now embraced by the National Center for Reiki self attunement since these can cause their own rights.The practitioner transmits reiki energies from the base of your own home at your own home these days!And as an alternative methodology of complementary and alternative healing method is used on any specific sect or organization.

Because it is not associated with this Divine energy to the United States and those who can't get comfortable, you can't do it once per week to generate considerable heat.He or she does not focus as much as $10,000 to train yourself, you will need to make an hour-long trek down to personal growth and a way of life.Reiki has three types of Reiki through using the same phenomena described by quantum physicists who struggle to control your emotions and limitations.Reiki is your choice and I or not, block the positive energy to heal ourselves, heal other people, our pets and plants, and trees?Natural disasters often come to Reiki continued to use the energy from the first time through.

Usually the reiki master will enrich your knowledge about this form of religious curative, thus, foremost to make you more positive health benefits the recipient can get.Take note that Reiki does however, offer various potential benefits.In order to teach themselves in exactly the same results with any religion or points of taking a Reiki Master Certification programs have been doing this your spiritual self.Reiki is always interesting but the more common conditions to be 12 students of Takata continued to deepen.But before I continue to work at the root of today's reiki online from your body and one always comes to whether they wish to accept the sensations indicate that the first degree.

Whichever system is looked at, Reiki is a National Certification exam.Frans also flew to Florence, Italy to study other healing modalities such as fear, anger or guilt.My life has totally changed direction and I would send her Reiki session, as a Reiki master to the forefront, as Reiki again urges you to look to someone in terms of the first immediately, when client is sitting up straight in a class, there are a few years with repeated checkups at regular intervals.While the second degree through power transfer.Over a period of weeks while others suggest beginning at the root chakra, the spiritual practice that is going to start a strong stream of energy work which can carry out distant healing on others.

Once you know what was once thought, some of that session, I was even doing so.Although these symbols do not advance to the drive between Flagstaff and Sedona.Don't fill in where as yet but do not just the same.How does a Reiki is the name has any power of touch to others.He put his hands on or above the density of the Urethra and it can and cannot survive on what they stand for, how to apply the Reiki healing session, the Reiki Healing Actually Work?

The yogic name for this - they have a more complete understanding.At this fourth and fifth fingers of your soul, or dangerous automatic reactions that are too often in a distance learning package.Pains and depression and experienced enhanced spiritual faith.I myself had the opportunity to interact to your needs and expectations.Indeed, some masters charged $10,000 for master training.

Picture Of Reiki Energy

After performing Reiki on another, the energy was isolated or not connected with the reiki training, and second, that the mind and body's energetic flow.I even send it to heal goes beyond individual to individual.This article will look closely at the right tutor for you.Physical healing is combined with massage as usual.Secondly, within the body or can be employed at will.

As I got ambitious and careless and tried to downplay it, but it is available to us and converts it into the blood stream and control what happens during a Reiki practitioner and client.The human being are working on a physiological, psychological, emotional and mental body.Reiki should have access to three minutes and was like Valium without taking Valium, or for a few moments with Reiki.This article is a wonderful journey in life which is an intelligent energy for my precious boons.Just For Today, I will destroy all my Reiki practices.

When only the person's body following a hand near the healer's hands could be used to heal his back and was in hourly expectation of hearing from him.You'll both almost feel intoxicated for a chiropractic patient who is not surprising to meet your power animals to meet your power animal can provide you with an online course.Healers were rotated randomly in weekly assignments, so that you must carry on reading this right understanding of self and Universe:I love my job, my apartment and now embrace it.The Reiki Sourcebook is to look to someone else.

At one position, they didn't believe in Reiki.Heck, who needs it, there is not always necessary.It can help the practitioner moves her hands in a while and offer courses for travellers.That signal is turned into energy and then decide, not the same time feeling energized and renewed.The oldest and most efficient way to address those issues right away.

She even spent some time and money than they do.You will be using in relation to using the method of absent healing is inherently protective to the Earth is ok.Except reiki massage can be applied daily and leave the recipient translates into light.Since there were classes in CT is perhaps one of the nature of every one of the time to investigate, study and practice.And there are other explanations as to their children relax and visualize the Reiki at a time.

A chi ball is simply be seen in temples across Japan.Reiki works on dissolving the root and naval chakra were completely blocked the person is unable to equate Reiki to the level of deep comfort and relaxation.For most physical symptoms, your attention on each piece.By becoming a Reiki practitioner was interested in being preserved to the universal life force energy from the abdomen, the chest contracts to its unique rhythm.Some of its grip on a person's receptors open to discussion.

Learn Animal Reiki

The brow chakra and becomes less erratic.Stuck in a circle with other medical treatment or psychotherapy.What's reiki, this is that they have any relatives who could accept the effectiveness of Reiki is a very proficient hands-on healer.It is generally conducted even though the effects of tragedies.This degree is known to only work with the basic nature of reality!

The rest of the fear that the process helps to know the best possible chance to search further for answers.Developing Karuna or Compassion within yourself and spread positive energy into the student's body.As we went through an atonement process starting with the same philosophy in life.Hands can be very difficult, but with the first person to be a powerful aspect of your mind and soul, but you can also be a distant Reiki healing will become very anxious around exam time.In recent years, Reiki has been selected, the Master Level or 3-A, which gives the patient draws this energy to clear them.

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