#injury mention

[prokopetz]

If you've seen trivia posts going around, may have seen ones about the baculum, a bone in the penis whose purpose is to help support erections which is present in most placental mammals, including non-human apes, but which is conspicuously absent in humans.

Those posts typically don't go into why this is the case, which is fair enough, since the question is far from settled. However, there are a lot of hypotheses about it, and some of them are pretty fucking wild.

I think my personal favourite is the recently proposed idea that, since soft tissue injuries tend to heal more rapidly and completely than broken bones, a flexible and resilient boneless penis constitutes a reproductive advantage in situations where genital trauma is common, possibly as a result of the development of upright posture rendering the penis more prone to blunt encounters.

Like, imagine humanity's proto-hominid ancestors going "actually, bipedalism is great" and promptly getting whacked in the ding so much that it exerted evolutionary pressure on the morphology of the penis.

#science #biology #evolution #history #penis mention #violence mention #injury mention #genital trauma mention #swearing

[nerdpoe]

Freak of the week

Danny, in his human form, can take one hell of a punch.

Online he's a well known stuntman, doing absolutely batshit insane stunts that would 100% kill anyone else. He makes a point of flaunting the lack of a meta gene in his genetic tests he took for his audience, and is generally known to be juuuuuust slightly unhinged.

So he's in Metropolis, getting ready to do a stupidly dangerous stunt, when a mind-controlled Superman lands in front of him.

In front of a live stream.

So he can't go Ghost like he wants.

Instead, he turns to the camera and grins, all teeth and feral.

"Who wants to watch me eat a punch from Superman and live?"

#dcxdp #dpxdc #dp x dc #dc x dp #story prompt #phanfic #ficlet #honestly it is 5am and i should go to sleep #but i revisited the Freak of the Week music video from Freak Kitchen #and this cropped up #death mention #injury mention

[gallusrostromegalus]

You don't think matcha is tea????

Matcha isn't a Tea in my humble Opinion.

Matcha is an experience.

The year is 2009, the place is the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in Honolulu, and I am recovering from a still-undiagnosed disease that left me with a 100+ degree for over three weeks, extreme weight loss and permanent Brain Damage.  I have signed up for an introductory Art History class because I need an additional Humanities credit.

It's called "The History and Philosophy of the Japanese Tea Ceremony", and for a class I can only sort of remember, it stands out.

So I'm in professor Roberts' Japanese Tea Ceremony  class, looking and feeling like death warmed over, but I'm genuinely interested in the subject matter and show up to every class because I have nothing better to do, and ask questions and turn in my homework, even if neither are particularly coherent at times, and rapidly become his favorite student.  The thing I learned in public school was how to show up to events even if I don't want to, analyze tests and other written materials for patterns and charm educators by holding up my end of a conversation, skills that have served me in the modern world far more than learning actual course content would have.

The Tea Ceremony, historically, takes a good month to prepare and the entire evening to carry out- the guest list is curated to create social bonds and intellectual stimulation alike, a poem is composed for the season, and a seasonal flower arrangement created to decorate the space. When the guests arrive, they must all crawl through a small door to enter the tea garden, regardless of profession or rank.  Hands are ritually washed in spring water, and there is a slow processional walk through the garden, to admire the artistry of the landscaping, and the composition of seasonal elements to create this particular night of beauty.  The entire ceremony is about appreciating both the joy of existing right now, in this time and place, and the unification of the self and the universe and the endless cycles of nature. 

The guests arrive at the tea house and meet the Tea Master, who will be making the Matcha that evening. The guests are seated in particular order, the Most Revered Guest- sometimes a high-ranking official, sometimes a visiting scholar or artist- is seated closest to the Tea Master.  The Poem is read aloud.  The Flowers are admired.  The tools for making the Matcha are taken out, examined as objects of art, and their history told.  The matcha powder itself is taken out- the case examined, the cultivation of the tea discussed, and only then does the Tea Master make the Tea. 

Matcha is not brewed- it's a fine powder made of crushed green tea leaves, and the powder is whisked together with not-quite-boiling water in a bowl to create a much more substantial and flavorful drink.  This drink is presented to the Most Revered Guest first, who is expected to take a sip and, in a moment of Zen spiritual clarity, comment on its flavor and how all the elements of the tea, art, garden and season all complement each other, and perhaps offer some sort of philosophical statement.

At least,

That's how it's supposed to go.

About a month before the spring semester is over, Professor Roberts announces that he has a surprise for his class- a good friend of his, a Professional Tea Master, will be visiting Hawai'i, and has agreed to perform a Tea Ceremony for our class!  I am very excited. The other 10 people in class are varying levels of amiably confused to distressed by having to go to An Event (TM) for a grade, but agree. One of my classmates, an astrology hoe named Jessica, pointed out that with the 11 students, Professor Roberts, and the Tea Master, there will be 13 people present, which is basically inviting disaster.

"Jessica." Sighed Professor Roberts. "It's a Tea Ceremony. What disaster could happen?"

Despite Jessica's misgivings, Preparations for the ceremony went on.  We learned about Ikebana while deciding on the Ceremonial Bouquet and tried our hands at it with what Professor Robert could get at the grocery store for $12. We learned about calligraphy and different types of poetic compositions while making the Seasonal Poem, and stain the hell out of the classroom carpet learning the brush strokes.  We learn about different types of Matcha Bowl sculpting and glazing and we are not allowed to touch the demonstration bowls or the kiln because Professor Roberts was beginning to suspect that some of his students (me)  were suffering from coordination issues. I apply myself with zeal, if not necessarily talent.  I was, at the time, an Art Major, but my professors in the art department had been grading me on a secret "this bitch almost died last semester and is re-learning how to hold a pencil" curve, and boy howdy did I stumble and break leaves and splatter ink like it.

Despite my ongoing unmonitored recovery, Professor Roberts viewed my enthusiastic class participation with rose-colored glasses, and about a week before the ceremony we had a class where he brought out the used Kimonos and Obi and other forms of japanese dress he'd borrowed from the theater department so that we would be traditionally dressed(ish) and experience the ceremony authentically(ish).  While people were trying on clothes to see what would fit, he took me aside and told me he wanted me to be in the position of Most Revered Guest, the person who makes the zen statement upon which the entire event hinges.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I asked.

"You're the only person who doesn't fall asleep in class and you talked about how the flowers stagger their blooms to not compete for the bees- you're perfectly engaged and conscious of the seasons!" He said, blindly. "You will need different shoes though."  He indicated my flip-flops.  "I won't make you learn how to walk in Geta, but nothing with Heels. Ballet flats are fine."

"...These are the only shoes I own." I said.

Professor Roberts stared at me.

"-I used to have a pair of sneakers but I think a homeless guy stole them while I was at the beach last month."

"What?" Roberts blinked.

"He probably needed them more than I do. I'll see if I can borrow some flats."

"...I don't think I've ever met a woman with less than 10 pairs of shoes."  Said Roberts.

"I'm not a woman, I'm and undergrad." I said, still three years away from learning the term 'Nonbinary'.  "Those are Jordan's only pair of shorts, you know." I pointed at my classmate, who had been wearing the one (1) pair of basketball shorts for the entire semester.

"I WASH THEM." Jordan shouted defensively, wearing the longest Men's Kinmo the theater department had, which barely came down to the top of his calves.

"Oh God." Said Roberts, a horrifying new world opening up to him like a tub of Expired sour cream.

*

It was the day of the Ceremony.

The Seasonal Theme we'd worked on was "The Turn Of Summer", and the weather was complying maliciously. 

Normally, Tea Ceremonies are scheduled for the more temperate evening, but due to the school needing to host something in the adjoining cultural center later, we could only use the Tea Garden in the middle of the afternoon, and the summer sun was a sweltering 98 degrees and a similar level of Humidity.  The Camelias were melting.

Where Jordan had difficulty finding a Kimono that suited his ent-like proportions, I'd had the opposite problem and the only Kimono short enough to not trip my Hobbit-sized self was a Child’s size.  My roommate had helped me get into the Kimono and Obi before the ceremony, and leant me a pair of her Ballet Flats, but we discovered an issue- this Kimono was designed for a flat-chested prepubescent youth, and even though I barely scraped 5'0", I had the robust proportions of an Irish Peasant, and the only way to avoid displaying a frankly offensive amount of cleavage was to use the widest Obi we could find and sort of tuck my boobs into it. 

"Hm" I said. "Kind of hard to breathe."

"Yeah, but you're sitting for most of it, right?  It can't last more than an hour, so just like, shuffle and don't talk much?"  She suggested.

To her credit, the first forty-five minutes of the ceremony only involved shuffling through the gardens and not talking while the Tea Master lectured us on some of the finer points of the garden's design. 

But then we got to the Tea House- a small structure only barely able to accommodate the 13 of us, which was in the shade but hotter than the outside because of the roaring fire in the middle of the room, where the water for the Matcha was boiling.  The room was surrounded by a narrow sort of porch, part of which hung over the Koi pond, where several massively overfed carp blurbled expectantly for treats at the arrival of humans. I sat down, legs folded under me like Professor Roberts had insisted, and realized that this pushed the Obi UP, and now my rib cage was being compressed in all directions.

I tried to pay attention to the rest of the ceremony, but two and a half hours is an awfully long time to listen about lecturers you've already heard when your body is undergoing a sort of internal horserace to see if the heatstroke, sciatica pain and numbness, allergies or suffocation-by-compression will cause you to pass out first.  My legs had gone numb below the knee by the time we were done with the flower arrangement.  My entire legs were numb before we were done with the Poem.  By the time the Tea Utensils came out, I was seeing spots of colored light in my vision and could only breathe if I focused on it very, very hard.

But! The ceremony was genuinely interesting! and Professor Roberts was counting on me!  So I did my best not to sway or throw up from watching the Tea Master whisk the Matcha, and dutifully took the bowl with a pair of hands that felt like slabs of ham that I was attempting to puppet from another dimension, and took a sip.

They say that Smell and Taste are far more closely connected to the emotional centers of the brain than any other sense, and I believe it because the instant I inhaled both the grassy, powdery smell, and tasted the moderately viscous bubbly liquid, I experienced an intense flashbulb memory back to a previous late May-

The Year was '98, the place was my elementary school art room, and we'd been using the seasonal hot weather to paint on a massive scale as the art dried quickly- each third-grader had been given a roll of butcher paper, a cheap brush, squirts of non-toxic paint and a water cup, and allowed to go hog-wild on our murals, and the rush of creative energy and the imminent sense of freedom as the semester drew to a close truly embodied the summer of youth, carefree but with an almost psychotic fervor, where lack of care was both freeing and dangerous as you lost track of your surroundings in the act of creation-

Which isn't a bad seasonal-philosophical connection statement to make, but the actual words that came out of my mouth were:



"Wow. This tastes exactly like paint."



The first sound I heard after the moment of silence was the cartoonishly loud gasp of horror from Professor Roberts, which was almost immediately drowned out by the thunderclap of laughter from the Tea Master, slapping his thighs and wiping tears from his face, unable to stop. I desperately tried to explain the connection between the fact I might be dying of heat stroke right now, and how I ended up drinking my paint water back in Mrs. Krantz's art class because back then I was also dying of heat stroke, but mostly ended up wheezing half-formed sentences as the rest of the class took sips and offered opinions varying between "Wow, that's thick. Like a Hot smoothie." and "Oh yeah, it tastes like summer. Like how a freshly-mowed lawn smells like summer." Professor Roberts slowly melted into a pile of shame, and the Tea Master slapped him on the back, still howling with laughter.

"They're honest! Nobody else will be honest!  This is magnificent!"  he wheezed.

Eventually, everyone had their taste, and the ceremony was concluded.  The second the Tea Master had packed up his tools and stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, Professor Roberts was in my face.

"HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?" he hissed, grabbing my arm and pulling me up. "GO APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW!"  he shoved me out onto the porch where the Tea Master was looking at the Koi, who had started bubble-begging aggressively again.

Except that my legs felt like blocks of wood that my pelvis was renting from another planet where legs hadn’t been invented yet, my vision was entirely static between the dehydration and lack of oxygen, and my vestibuar system had fucked off an hour ago, leaving me to stay upright by purely by the virtue of the over-tightened Obi.  So instead of bowing and apologizing profusely like my professor expected, what I actually did was stumble out of the room, say something like "Hsdfkf" and topple head-first into the koi pond.

Fortunately, the impact of the bottom of the pond with the top of my skull activated a sort of last-resort emergency self preservation system and I inhaled with enough force to break the Obi-Jime and probably a couple ribs from the pain that hit both my sides like lightning.  Unfortunately, the thing I was inhaling was fish-shit riddled Pond Water, so my emergency self-preservation system ordered an even harder Exhale. 

The Tea Master, to his immense credit, had immediately jumped in after me, and pulled me upright just in time for me to forcibly exhale half a gallon of rancid pond water directly into his face, then start screaming.  Screaming is an extremely appropriate reaction to have when injured, because it alerts everyone that you require medical attention, but is very unpleasant to experience from four inches away, which is probably why he then immediately dropped me.

Fortunately the pond wasn't very deep and this time I sat there, scream-gasping as my lungs reinflated, Koi fish burbling and sucking at me with tremendous excitement, until the EMT from the campus clinic arrived, a vanguard before the actual ambulance.

"Okay uh. You're bleeding." he said, cautiously wading into the pond.

I opened my eyes to find that I had apparently acquired a large and profusely bleeding head wound, which had activated some long-suppressed Shark Instincts in the Koi, which were eagerly gumming at the streams of blood and trying to suck on my forehead. "Good thing they don’t have teeth." I said in the distant bliss that only zen masters and people with serious head injuries get to experience.

"Do you want a towel?" he asked, helping me up.

"No, this is rather refreshing, actually." I said, still absolutely smashed on endorphins, Koi still enthusiastically swarming at my kneecaps.

"I mean like for your-"  the EMT Gestured Vaguely at my torso.

I looked down and realized that not only had I broken the Obi-jime, the entire Obi had come undone and was floating several feet away, and I was only wearing the Kimono, fallen completely off my shoulders and was only being prevented from performing a full Lady Godiva by the valiant efforts of the safety pin my roommate had put in to keep it folded correctly while we figured out the Obi.

"Professor Roberts?" I stood up all the way, soaking wet, bleeding from my forehead with such force as to create actual streams of blood down my face, neck and chest, tits out, and addressed the poor man standing, white-faced on the deck above the pond.  "I don't think I'm going to be in class on Monday-" I paused to fish a small Koi that had gotten trapped in the remains of the now-ruined Kimono, and tossed it back into the pond. "-Can I schedule a make-up exam for the Final?"

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET IN THE AMBULANCE!" He screamed.

I was x-rayed for a skull fracture, but my lifelong membership to the Lactose Tolerance Club had protected me, and I happily texted my roommate to come pick me up as "They x-rayed my head and found nothing" while the doctor stitched part of my scalp back together.

The following morning, I discovered that Professor Roberts had graded my exam before I took it.  100%. Truly, the best way to get a good grade on your finals is to get a serious head injury.



So, Matcha is not a Tea, in my humble opinion.

Matcha is an Experience.

And sometimes that experience is drinking something almost exactly like paint, ruining an important cultural ceremony, traumatizing your professor,  and introducing a bunch of fish to the taste of human flesh.



***

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#Family Lore #Tea Ceremony #Matcha #injury mention #blood mention

[thetoadcrow]

heavier music is hilarious cuz you can listen to a song about satan eating your limbs off and then having you go on a murder spree with knives in your amputated elbows and then this is the guy who wrote it

#ramblings of a crow #punk #rock #metal #music #injury mention #murder mention

[yardsards]

concept: grizzled badass action hero with a missing body body part

for a long time it's never explained how they lost that body part. maybe everyone's too intimidated to ask them. or maybe people do ask and they tell different, increasingly outlandish story every time. sword fight. rescuing a baby from a burning building. tortured for information. caught in a bear trap and had to gnaw it off.

eventually it's revealed that nah, there was no accident, it's congenital

#eliot posts #posts written by congenital amputee gang #my fav hobby as a kid was making up bullshit stories when ppl asked me what happened to me #and seeing how long i could go before they called my bluff #now that i'm an adult folks don't ask me so much anymore #injury mention #limb loss mention #torture mention

[feeblescholarmyass]

An Awful Apology

In which Osamu Dazai does an awful job at consoling you after he got hurt. Alternatively, you give Dazai a bath and it makes you cry.

tags: non-sexual nudity, injuries, bathing together, helping Dazai rewrap his bandages as a sign of affection, Dazai is bad at handling emotions, Dazai uses humor to try to lighten the mood (it doesn't work), scar mention, bittersweet undertones, not really fluff not really angst, angst with comfort maybe?, Dazai x reader

a/n: this originally was going to be multiple characters but then I changed my mind

masterlist

All of the jokes he'd made about seeing you without your clothes had simply been that: jokes. It had served as something to fill the silence that had long accompanied your shared moments of solitude, a way to search for your laughter and make you both forget what you were thinking about.

He would be lying if he told you he'd never thought of you that way, but he would never act in a way that would result in your beautiful humanity being shattered. The light that shined in your eyes was more precious to him than his own life, and he promised himself that he would never do anything to make it go out.

He had never imagined it would happen like this. It was his fault. He'd gotten reckless, even though he knew how you felt about it. He got the job done, and that was what mattered.

But he had gotten hurt. Yosano had wanted to heal him, but after you insisted he should go through the healing process as punishment and had practically threatened to hurt him again yourself if you had to, she relented. So technically it was your fault.

He'd fully expected to have to deal with his injuries himself, but when you followed him home and sat beside him in silence, he began to suspect that you wouldn't be leaving him alone for some time.

He let you sit and stare at him, as uncomfortable as it was. He had tried to tease you about it. "Afraid I'm going to disappear, darling?" He asked, grinning at you playfully.

You hadn't responded. Instead, your grip on your chair tightened and a shaky breath escaped your lips. Oh, he thought.

So he let the silence surround you, a weight that he would bear so you wouldn't cry. That would be the worst possible outcome.

"You smell really bad. You haven't showered in a long time, have you?" You finally spoke, still refusing to look him in the eyes.

He laughed. It sounded hollow, but he didn't know how else to respond.

"The hospital gave me instructions on how to change your bandages after they get wet." You looked away. You knew it was a sore subject. "If you would allow me," you added softly, that look in your eyes spearing through his heart.

"I suppose it might be difficult to do on my own," he said. Strangely, it didn't terrify him as much as he thought it would. Everyone had scars. You would see his. He hadn't expected for you to show him yours.

It wasn't awkward. You removed his clothes, and there were no heated touches or flushed cheeks. It was tender, so much so it almost hurt more that way. He would've preferred it if you had stumbled, showing some sort of hesitation. He would've had something to deflect with that way.

His eyes, as accustomed to wandering as they were, were glued to your hands. They shook with the emotions you wouldn't voice. Even as you gently raised your shirt above your head, it was your hands he noticed. They weren't delicate by any means, he knew that well, but they seemed fragile now. You seemed fragile.

Together, you were seconds away from shattering. You were suspended in mid air the moment before the crash, aware of the impending breakdown you would surely endure, but taking the moment of calm before the storm.

The water was warm, but you felt warmer. Your fingers running through his hair and the sound of your breathing was almost enough to lull him to sleep. The wonderful smell of your shampoo, stronger at the source, wrapped him in a blanket of comfort as you washed away blood and grime from his skin and hair.

"Don't you ever try that again," you whispered. Your voice shook as you spoke. It made him feel guilty.

"I'm sorry," he responded. You both knew he couldn't promise that.

So you took the apology. It wasn't the first time he'd done something so idiotic. For someone who was so intelligent, he made the stupidest mistakes. It definitely wouldn't be the last.

"For once, I get why you hoard bandages," you muttered as you followed the instructions Yosano had given you, along with Dazai's little comments on how tight it was, what felt strange, or how to layer the bandage properly so it didn't come off.

He'd made another joke after that. You had huffed out a little laugh, but it brightened his mood considerably. You were starting to feel better.

Instead of talking about his scars, he asked about yours. "That one on your shoulder, how did you get it? And the one on your arm, wasn't that from a job he'd been on with you? What about this, here?" He asked. It distracted him and got you talking. He cherished each word and listened to each story.

Finally, you finished reapplying his bandages, and he'd run out of questions to ask. You sat on your knees in front of him, and he realized he hadn't stopped your fall.

A tear fell down your cheek, then another. You bit your lip, trying to force the sobs back down. You shook, the force of your own emotions too strong to deny.

He hesitated to reach for you. You'd never cried in front of him before. Even with the years you'd spend at his side, he'd never seen what happened once you reached the safety of your bedroom and allowed yourself to not have to be strong.

His fingers brushed against your cheek. His arm wrapped around your shoulders. He pulled you close and buried his face into your hair. He wouldn't watch, he promised. He was here.

You choked out insult after insult, your words catching in your throat. They hardly stinged with the usual harshness you threw at him. They rolled off his back like water droplets as he hugged you tight.

"I'm sorry," he said again. This time it held more than the apology. You wrapped your arms around him in return. He let you cry until you had nothing left in you.

He accompanied you to your kitchen, where you downed a glass of water and fed him a meal. He'd always liked it when you cooked for him, but this felt more special than usual. There was more heart in it.

He laid beside you as you fell asleep. Your eyes were still puffy and your face still red, but something about you was irresistible. He meant it when he called you beautiful.

"I love you too," you whispered as exhaustion pulled you under. He hadn't said it explicitly, but you'd heard. He loved you for that.

by @feeblescholarmyass on tumblr

comments and reblogs are much appreciated!

#🪻ash writes #dazai x reader #x reader #bsd x reader #dazai osamu #osamu dazai #bsd #dazai osamu bsd #dazai osamu x reader #osamu dazai bsd #osamu dazai x reader #scar mention #injury mention #bathing together

[cemeterything]

one of the things i don't understand about myself is that i'm completely fine with gore but i struggle to handle even the smallest broken bone or fracture. like blood and guts and viscera doesn't even make me blink, if anything it makes me lean in to take a closer look because it's fascinating to see things that don't usually see daylight exposed like that, but the skeleton is just too much. if a bone is positioned in a way bones are not supposed to be then it always makes me vaguely nauseous. i can still deal with it if i have to because it's just the body and i can rationalize that with myself, but i flinch first. what the fuck is up with that.

#🐉 #like for most people its like eurgh blood and meat. and im scared of fucking BONES?????? #specifically when theyre injured too because people bending their joints or cracking their knuckles or whatever is no big deal #but if someones leg makes a cracking noise and sticks out at an anatomically impossible angle and they start screaming i go eep! #then immediately calm down and feel silly #gore mention #injury mention

[redfagdiver]

#polls #injury mention #death mention

[grosslyoversimplifiedpolitics]

[ID: Screenshot of an Ao3 tag that reads, "Minor Injuries, except for one, Major Character Injury" /End ID]

#Minor Injuries #except for one #Major Character Injury #ao3 #ao3 tags #injury mention

[pianokantzart]

Bet you can't guess what wip I'm working on

#injury mention #at least I know that if I get anything seriously wrong I can just claim that #the science-magic mix in The Mushroom Kingdom medical system makes for a different healing/treatment process

[the-meme-monarch]

hey I’m sorry but they declawed your boyfriend. yeah no it’s not just the claws it’s really fucked up it’s like removing the tips of a person’s fingers at the knuckle. yeah no he’s gonna be in pain for the rest of his life. and easily irritable because he can’t climb or defend himself, yeah. sorry

#words from the monarch #not sure where this came from but anyway yeah don’t declaw your cats #injury mention #mutilation mention #jic

[prokopetz]

Serialised Sherlock Holmes adaptation which meticulously reproduces all of Arthur Conan Doyle's continuity fuckups, at first seemingly out of excessive concern for fidelity to the source material. Eventually, it's revealed that we're actually looking at a pair of extremely similar parallel universes, each with its own almost-but-not-quite-identical Holmes and Watson duo, played by the same actors.

In the back half of the series, a plot by Time-Travelling Omni-Moriarty threatens both universes, obliging the Holmeses and Watsons of each universe to team up with their counterparts to stop him; the particulars of this portion of the story are such that understanding what the hell is going on critically hinges on the audience's ability to keep track of which nearly-identical Holmes or Watson is which.

The ultimate resolution involves outsmarting Moriarty by having the Watson with the war wound in his leg and the Watson with the war wound in his shoulder secretly switch places, deliberately framed in such a way that, as far as the audience can tell, there was no conceivable opportunity for them to have done so.

#concepts #media #literature #sherlock holmes #arthur conan doyle #adaptations #metatextual wankery #injury mention #swearing

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! Weird question time again! Do you have any advice for dealing with muscle cramps/muscle knots* in muscles that don't have bones right behind them? I mean, if you have any advice for dealing with muscle knots or cramps in general, I'll happily take that advice too, but I'm specifically looking for advice about the ones you can't really massage More details about my specific weird health situation behind the read more, but it's not necessary to read to answer the question *I'm kind of unsure of the difference between the two things?

I am like three different electrolyte disorders in a trenchcoat and that's mostly under control these days, but sometimes I have a perfect storm of "too much physical activity" and "various endocrine issues managed to sync up with each other" and "oops I'm allergic to Thin Mints" and end up pretty badly dehydrated**, which means a few days down the line I get pretty vicious muscle cramps and end up with a series of knots in my muscles that stretch from my jaw to mid-calf on one side. Then a few days later as they start to relax the other side tenses up, and it usually goes back and forth that way, less severe each cycle, like two or three times before it's fixed. This time, though, I ended up with a knot (cramp? again, not sure) in the muscle just under my rib cage bad enough to be visible from a distance, and I can't massage that one away. Like, the bad cramps in my legs I can massage and maybe it'll bruise but that's it, but the ones with no bones behind them or right on my spine I have to be more careful about and I am running out of ideas. **I don't know what the technical term is, but I call it salt-dehydrated instead of water-dehydrated. Like, I have to drink water to improve, but water alone won't fix the issue. I have to have ridiculous amounts of salt (and other electrolytes but mostly salt)

#the person behind the yarn #medical mention #injury mention #kind of? it's not super detailed and idk if it even really counts as an injury #but if you don't want to read more specifics on muscle cramps don't click the read more #short version: I am sodium Georg and it means I am prone to really bad muscle cramps #even though I have like four or five medications meant specifically to stop me being sodium Georg #or at least make me less of a sodium outlier

[gallusrostromegalus]

Speaking of public health. What was the soul society reaction to the eradication of small pox like?

"You notice there's a lot less dead babies these days?" Iba asked in the middle of one morning's office work.

"Fewer dead babies." Komamura corrected without thinking. "Less is for things you measure by volume, fewer for things you count. We do not measure dead babies by volume."

"Oh. right." Iba nodded. "Yeah, that wouldn't be right."

After a moment, what his lieutenant actually said caught up with him. "Sorry- force of habit from living with a Librarian." Komamura shook his head and looked up from the monthly intake statistics analysis report, peering at Tetsuzaemon Iba through the narrow gap of his helmet. "What do you mean, fewer dead babies?"

"I dunno, it just occurred to me. When I started the academy in the 40's- right after the catastrophe- we did a student tour of the 7th division's recently deceased souls intake queue, remember?" Iba waved his hand leaning back in his chair, apparently uncertain of where he was going with this either, but articulating his thoughts.

"I believe so. I had just taken over from Captain Kotsubaki." Komamura nodded, patient. Chikane Iba was an excellent shinigami and had done a magnificent job running the third division, but she had a tendency to talk over and bulldoze her son, so Komamura had learned to be patient when the young man when he felt like he should share a thought.

"Yeah, yeah- Not gonna lie Boss, you scared the crap out of me back then." Tetsuzaemon laughed. "-But the thing that stuck out to me that day was just. The sheer number of Infants and little kids in the line. the guy giving us the tour- I think it was Old Ito, actually- He said that one in five babies in the living world didn't live to see their fifth birthday."

"An improvement even back then- it was one in three children when back when I started in the 1840s." Komamura nodded. "It's funny that I frightened you- Captain Aikawa apparently headhunted me for the 7th because Kaname told him about how the children at the library used to use me as playground equipment."

"Good grief." Iba blanched. "So, what, he threw you in the deep end with all the dead kids?"

"In Captain Aikawa's defense, I did volunteer to handle children's cases. As sad as a frightened infant is, it's infinitely preferable than dealing with the deceased who are angry."

Iba frowned, opened his mouth like he was about to object, reconsidered, closed it, considered further, rocking his head from side to side, and then nodded. "I- yeah, Yeah, that tracks."

"You were saying though?" Komamura laced his fingers in front of him, leaning forward to listen.

"Oh! Well- not as much these days but back then, every family had like seven and eight kids, you know? And I realized that, well- almost everyone I know has a dead sibling or two? Almost every mother lost a child- Gods know my mother's a basket case but even getting a cold could send her into fits. If something had happened to me when I was a tyke- I don't think she would have pulled through."

Komamura nodded enough for Iba to see his helmet tilt to indicate he as still listening.

"I- I don't actually know where I was going with this, but I was reading that report earlier and there's a note from Shita-san at the end that this is the first month we haven't had a kid under the age of five in the intake queue. Ever."

Komamura flipped though the pages of the report to read the hand-written note at the end. "That is excellent news!"

"Oh! Yeah! It's great!" Iba nodded enthusiastically. "It just- I don't know, I guess it just snuck up on me and I'm so used to hearing something went wrong I guess I don't quite know what to do with good news?" he shrugged.

Komamura pondered this for a moment. "Hm. Well. Take heart, to start. But I see what you mean- it's a tremendous achievement, but not one we contributed to, and a "No Dead Babies This Month" office party feels in poor taste at best."

"Oof, yeah- especially if next month there's an accident or something and there's a whole bunch in the queue." Iba nodded. He considered things for a moment.

"-What happened that there are le- fewer dead babies, actually?" Iba frowned. "-Whoever it is, it would be appropriate to toast them and make an offering in their name to the Gods of Good Fortune, I think. Also do more of whatever they did."

"That IS a good idea!" Komamura smiled under his helmet. Perhaps it was his training as a priest, but he did enjoy an offering of goodwill ceremony. Also, nobody would ask him to drink- just pour any alcohol he was offered on the statue of the relevant deity. "I think- It's probably in our statistics, if the tenth division doesn't have an idea already. Can you collect the cause of death data for young children for the last-"

He was interrupted by the thunderous footsteps of someone sprinting towards the office, immediately followed by a tall young woman with short white hair throwing the door open, red-faced and winded.

"THEY DID IT! THE MAD BASTARDS THEY DID IT!" She shouted with wild excitement.

"Isane-? Uh, Miss Kotetsu?" Iba flustered.

"Please keep your voice down-" Komamura said through gritted teeth, trying not to growl at being suddenly shouted at. "Who has-?"

He was interrupted by Miss Kotetsu bolting right up to his desk and shoving a newspaper into his face hard enough to actually wrap around his helmet in excitement.

"SMALLPOX! IT'S GONE!!" She shrieked with joy.

"-gone?" Iba asked, bewildered as Komamura gently took the newspaper from her and pulled it back to actually read it. It was a newspaper from the living world, dated that morning- someone had gone through some pains to get it back to the Seireitei at speed, but the news was worth it:

SMALLPOX IS DEAD!

"TOTALLY ERADICATED! EXTINCT! KAPUT! IT HAS CEASED TO BE!" She bounced excitedly. "IT IS AN EX-PANDEMIC!"

"So like. Nobody has it this year?" Iba tried.

"Nobody has it this year, or will ever have it again, if I'm reading this right." Komamura muttered in awe. "Thanks to an aggressive worldwide vaccination and disease protocol program, there have been no human cases of the disease for several years. Since there are no people infected, there is no way for the disease to come back..."

Both men stared into space, the news almost unbelievable.

"Well. That does explain the Less Dead Babies thing." Iba nodded.

"Fewer Dead Babies." Komamura and Isane corrected in unison.

"I mean yeah that sure is part of it because Smallpox was the number one killer of infants in the living world for a long time there, but there's a whole bunch of stuff that's really cut down on infant mortality in the last few decades in particular." Isane nodded.

"We were JUST Talking about that!" Iba said, excitedly. "-Good to know you guys in the fourth are keeping track of that, It was gonna take forever to pull out that data..."

"Oh, could you pull it out anyway Tetsu-kun?" She asked. "-That's most of why I came over- I mean, to share the good news first, but Unohana-Taicho is planning on using this to really push a widespread vaccination program in the Rukongai and having the numbers to back us up would be really helpful!"

"Oh! Uh, sure!" Iba blushed.

"...You know this young lady, Tetsu-Kun?" Komamura lightly teased.

Both of the young people twitched and bowed to him, pointing at each other and speaking at once.

"Oh! I'm sorry Sir, I'm fourth division third seat Isane Kotetsu, i just know Iba because we were in the same class at the academy-" She babbled.

"-this is Isane Kotetsu, she's the smartest person I know and she saved my life from a lizard one time!" He waved excitedly.

"...That lizard was not going to kill you." She sighed, covering her face in embarrassment. "-I mean, if you developed a sepsis infection from the contaminated wound it might have made you very ill but that would take weeks and we have antibiotics for that, the lizard itself wasn't all that dangerous."

"It was INSIDE my LEG!" Iba gestured to his right thigh.

Komamura slowly tilted his whole torso sideways at Iba, hoping that sentence might make more sense at a forty-five degree angle. "...How?"

"I. Uh." Iba stopped, realizing his story was maybe not one he should be telling his boss. "I was. um. Out camping with the lads back when I was in the 11th, and a lizard climbed into my cot and I was. not totally awake and thought someone was trying to cop a feel and well you know, that's behavior you respond to with force so I rolled over and tried to stab the intruder's hand and. Uh. Missed."

Komamura continued to stare at him blankly.

"There was. screaming. lotta flailing, blood, general mayhem sort of thing. And in the confusion the Lizard.... climbed. inside the hole. In my leg. Sir." Iba explained, slowly crumpling behind his desk.

Komamura sighed deeply.

"-but Miss Isane was right there and actually kicked Ikkaku halfway across the camp because he was trying to lure it out with a Banana and generally being useless and she just grabbed that sucker and ripped him right outta there and had the wound packed and sealed in less than a minute and I even got to finish doing boot camp!" He rallied, cheerfully waving at Isane in hopes of distracting his captain with how cool she was.

"...What happened to the lizard?" Komamura asked, warily eyeing her through the gap in his helmet.

"Oh! He was really, really human acclimated and sneaked into my medkit rather than go back into the wild, so Harry lives a very spoiled lizard life in a terrarium in my room at home! Though it's actually my sister's room now but he still gets all the mango and smashed beetles he can eat!" Isane nodded cheerfully.

"You named a lizard. Harry?" Komamura asked slowly.

"...Iba-san named him, actually." She blushed.

"Ironically!" Iba protested. "I'm only mostly stupid, sir."

Komamura sighed deeply and once again regretted that his disguise would not let him rub his face as needed. "Alright. Thank you for the announcement, Miss Kotetsu. We will get that data to you in a timely manner- was there anything else you needed"

"Oh gosh, there was something else, what was it-?" She tapped her chin, trying to remember.

There was the distant sound of explosives, and all three of them turned to see what looked like midday fireworks going off at the 4th.

"Oh Right! Unohana-taicho requests your presence at the 4th as. Um. 'Designated Non-Drinker and Unarmed Combat Specialist' because the party was getting kind of wild when I left actually-"

Komamura sighed, and picked up Tenken from his stand and started tying the zanpaktou to his belt anyway.

---

The following morning, a small party arrived at the local shrines to The Gods Of Good Fortune, bearing offerings on behalf of the living world's World Health Organization and the handful of names they'd been able to glean from the living world newspapers, and nursing varying degrees of of hangover.

Komamura lead the party, having gotten them up at a slightly malicious 5AM to be there first thing in the morning. Tetsuzaemon and his friends from the 11th he insisted come along and 'suffer with me, as my sworn brothers' were quite pained but doing their best to hold it together.

Shunsui was a veteran of this nonsense and was hiding the pain very well behind his longtime party companions, Ukitake and Unohana, who seemed so extraordinarily cheerful that Komamura had to conclude that they were both still significantly chemically altered. He couldn't fault Unohana- they were faint and only visible on the rare occasions she let her hair down, but just below her left ear there was still the faint divot scars from surviving her own infection.

Isane had celebrated just as hard as the 11th Division lads, but had also had the good sense to alternate beer and water and take both aspirin and some sort of horrible pink goop that apparently relieved nausea before passing out under a table and had woken up only slightly groggy.

Komamura's new friend Harry the Lizard- a remarkably loquacious and quick-witted reptile -had taken up residence inside his helmet, lightly intoxicated on the cocktail fruits people had kept feeding him, and was politely nestled in the thick fur of his neck to ward off the morning cold.

The rituals of gratitude for this miracle, and asking the Gods to bless those who had worked so hard went smoothly, and Komamura couldn't help but notice when he turned around that Miss Kotetsu had opted to lean on the shoulder of 'Tetsu-kun'.

It was not often Komamura started the day with the feeling that everything would turn out alright, but as he watched Tetsuzaemon cautiously but gracelessly take Isane's hand and her squeeze it back on the way back down from the shrine, he felt like the feeling might stay this time.

#AEIWAM #an elephant is warm and mushy #bleach fanfiction #bleach #sajin komamura #tetsuzaemon iba #isane kotetsu #long post #infant death mention #disease mention #injury mention #it's funny I promise

[vivitheanimaxen]

Jimmy perked up when he heard familiar voices. They were back!! Scott and Martyn were back! He hauled himself out of the water to sit on the edge of their covered outdoor pool, neck craned for any glimpse of his pod.

They'd left only hours before, but Jimmy always got worried whenever they went on their little 'extraction missions'. He wasn't sure if the fact that this one was so close to their little home base was a good or a bad thing. But they'd both reassured him that this was only some marine rescue, and not the Evo.

Thank the moon and tides it wasn't the Evo.

Martyn was first to enter, the mer they'd gone to get slung over his shoulder.

Jimmy couldn't take his eyes away from the new mer.

He'd been young, when Evo had snatched him from the ocean, so Jimmy had never had the luxury of meeting many other mer. It never ceased to take his breath away, each new glimpse of one of his own.

This mer was particularly pretty, and as Jimmy helped Martyn and Scott lower him into the pool, he couldn't help but drink in the bright red scales and the blonde hair-- just like his own!

Jimmy was sure that Scott and Martyn were probably talking, but he'd thoroughly tuned them out while he studied the new mer. The moment that he hit the water, his fins unfurled from along his tail, and Jimmy couldn't help but compare him to fire.

Jimmy knew that couldn't be it, not really, because fire was a human thing and no mer (except for him, probably) was familiar with what it looked like. Hopefully. But he couldn't help but thinking about the new mer that way. Each of his scales was edged in gold, and every fin was translucent, yellow to red and layered along his tail. There were a similar line of fins trailing down his back, each one their own little tongue of flame. His hands were webbed, the black creeping up his forearms and another set of fins trailing from them, almost like Scott's.

He didn't look like a fighter, lacking any spines that would act as weapons, but Jimmy could tell by the shape of his fins that he was built for both speed and tight, quick maneuvers, with how tightly his fins laid to his scales.

He was also covered in scars. Most of them looked fresh-- thin, silvery and wrapped around his arms and body and neck. Those would probably fade with time. But some of his fins were shredded in places they probably shouldn't be, and that would take much longer to completely heal, if it did at all. There was also splint on his wrist, which looked like Martyn's handywork.

Had they broken his wrist??

Jimmy certainly hoped not.

It took Scott grabbing one of his sails and tugging to tear his attention away from the mer.

"Jimmy, leave him. He's gonna be out for another hour at least, you can stare at him as long as you want in a minute. We need to talk." Scott pointed up to the surface where Martyn was still by the edge of the pool.

"Fine, fine." Jimmy stole one last glance at the fiery mer where he was laying on the bottom, before floating back up to the surface to talk with Scott and Martyn.

He'd be able to chat with their new friend once he woke up. Jimmy would have to be here anyway, Mer tended to trust their fellow mer over the strange half-human and human who hauled them to an unfamiliar place. And Jimmy would hate for any misunderstandings to happen and get anyone hurt.

#jimmy solidarity #team rancher #scott smajor #martyn itlw #tangotek #dont mind me #viviwrites #emberfish au #team rancher au #team rancher fanfiction #threadfic #injury mention #yall get to eat good today #i simply have brainrot #whoops #and once again i beg for asks about this au

[spectrumgarden]

When I was a kid, up until I was maybe 11 years old my sister would purposely trigger my meltdowns. They usually made me violent but she would just quickly run to her room and hold the door closed, or alternatively just overpower me and hold me down and hit me instead. One time I ended up needing to go to the hospital because I cut my hand open on a window I was punching. while my parents would sometimes tell her she shouldn't try to "push my buttons so much" I was still the one being punished for having a meltdown. I literally could not exist in my own home without someone purposely making me go through something incredibly painful, overwhelming and exhausting again and again for years.

I've seen others talk about similar things and it pains me so much to know I'm not the only one who experienced this. And no authority figure ever takes it seriously because what the other person is doing on purpose to set you off seems minor to them, so obviously you're the problem. Ugh.

#actually autistic #autistic adult #autistic community #autistic meltdown #hospital mention #injury mention