#lets_ramble

Our subject of ramble today is one Lenore Edwards. 

So I have some of the background to the world and a bit on Lenore’s family in this post here (that I totally didn’t write just so I could post about Lenore). 

Lenore is a first generation Edwards alongside her twin sister Eleanor, born a few years after their older sister Freya, and a few years before their younger brother Elliot. After Freya, Lenore and Eleanor started to gain a name while still children, their parents really took off with having more kids. Lenore and Eleanor are identical twins, short of Lenore’s habit of dying her hair, Eleanor’s far more colorful personality, and the birthmarks they have at the edge of their mouths, which is mirrored on each twin. In half the pictures I draw of Lenore, I completely forget to draw the birthmark.

Lenore’s specialty is adaptive technology, though often this comes in the form of “a wide variety of ways to kill someone.” Later, it became clear her skills at multitasking, having a tool for every job, and a plan for everyone she met, stemmed from a deep rooted, unhealthy and severe paranoia. She also became well known for one particular feature that is missing from the picture above: her visor. 

Which I would have more pictures of if it wasn’t a pain in the butt to draw (and yes her eyes are the wrong color). Inside her visor is a screen split between several camera views all provided by small, marble sized spiders she commands, seen in the picture above held by the one on the right:

In the original roleplay she got called creepy more than a few times, as she had the ability to be all-seeing. She is rarely seen without this visor, which sits like a slab of metal across her eyes. This, plus her often flat method of vocal delivery, has also resulted in people confusing her for a robot. 

In her late teens she worked for the military as a hidden operative whose job was to get in to hard to breach places. From there, she was either to gather information, open a door behind her, or simply make the place stop existing. When one mission however turned out to be a trap laid by Elliot in exchange for some favors from a rather unscrupulous scientist and the shadow organization she worked for, this career came to a swift end.

Lenore’s team went dark, only to resurface over a week later when Lenore made contact with her older sister. A mangled, disjointed message that led Freya to a burning hole in the ground, courtesy of Lenore, deep in a state of psychosis. Something done there had cracked her brain, and Freya resulted to extreme measures to fix it, opting to block her memories of the last month of time to bury whatever had happened deep. 

Freya called in some favors and had Lenore transferred to the eponymous Demond’s, to act as an assistant principal alongside its leadership, Dietrich Tacitus. There, she would hopefully remain secure and stable, unaware of what had happened to her mind, until Freya might, eventually, find a way to fix it permanently. Eventually. Some day. Maybe twenty years from now, dunno.

In the picture above, we actually have three different versions of Lenore. 

On the far right we have her as she first looked when she appeared at Demond’s, barely 20 years old. The green hair was in part an act of spite against Freya, who more than once impressed upon her that she needed to present herself more ‘professionally’. Her relationship with Freya was tense even without the “so you wiped my memories and left me on a mental teeter-totter for two decades of my life without doing anything about it” part.

 In the center is her version after a flash-forward later in the story, at about 35 years of age, having decided blue was much more her color. Older, more paranoid, grumpy, and still entirely clueless to the things Freya had wiped from her mind.

On the left, however, is an entirely different Lenore. This is in fact a part of a larger, unfinished piece that illustrated the fact that Lenore is the character in Demond’s with the most different ‘versions’ of herself, three of which are from alternate dimensions. One apocalyptic, one where a god gifts her a power and she goes a bit nutty with it, and this version, which Lenore herself calls “Altdeux” as she’s the second alternate that Lenore has met. 

Altdeux was separated from her family at birth and grew up separately, instead taking on a mercenary lifestyle. She crossed paths with the same shadow organization that messed up Central Lenore’s head, and decides to wage a personal war against them. During an event sort of referred to as the dimension cascade (cause I haven’t given it a better name yet), Altdeux gets jettisoned into the central dimension by an explosion intent to kill her. 

Seeing that the organization has more power in the central dimension than her own, she wreaks havoc for a bit before being chased down by her own self in one scene that I am still proud of myself for having written. It was fun.

So I felt like posting a picture of a character and babbling about her, but realized I had to establish too much context, so let’s just talk about the world first! The length of this should be a clue as to why I felt the need to do this first, and this is the tip of the iceberg.

Demond’s is my largest story project to date. It started as a play-by-post roleplay way back when I was sixteen which took place in a world where it is more common to have a super power of some form than not. Somewhere in the range of 75-80% of the world has powers, and often more than one at a time. 

I have a handful of story projects which include “a world where most people have powers”, but each typically functions differently. In Demond’s, the way powers function is as such: Souls are a real, proven entity. The human body is in fact more in essence a ‘shell’, to which the soul is contained. Through a combination of the body and soul, energy is generated which is then converted into a variety of effects. 

For some, it’s the ability to connect to the bodies of others in unique ways, such as reading minds. For others, they can conjure and control fire, or even just the latter. Others can even access and mold that energy in a more raw form, to direct it and simulate effects like other powers. You see, it’s kind of like pores in your skin, metaphorically. When the energy channels through one pour, you can tap into your own muscles and become stronger. Through a different pour, and you can levitate an object. For most people their energy only flows through specific ‘pores’, but the rare individual can switch them around one at a time. 

In other posts I’ll go over the ancient history of the world a bit, but effectively: Demond’s itself is the name of a school where the roleplay started. To put it simple, it’s super-powered juvie, for teens who either have a variety of emotional/mental problems that make them a danger to others, or those who have powers that are particularly difficult to control. The former means that Demond’s is well equipped to deal with the latter. 

As the story went on, it started to involve things such as space travel, travel across alternate and entirely unrelated dimensions, god-beings, literally Hell, and fae. It got rather big for its britches. However, it all started with a school in an nondescript corner of Canada. 

Another important element to mention about the world is one particular family: The Edward’s family. You see, the Edwards family is in fact a family of over ten siblings born to one Ann-Marie Edwards and her husband James. See, the Edwards siblings had a very consistent set of genetics: every single one of them was red-haired, green eyed, and had two powers, super intelligence and technopathy. This combination of powers meant that even as children they had an effect on the world around them, and were the source of a great deal of technological advancement across the world.

Their parents quickly learned it was profitable to just have more kids, and hand them over to programs with the US government. Each one found a niche in a field and a specialty to call their own, and spread out across the world. The oldest of the siblings as far as is known is Freya at 50 years of age at the latest point in the timeline, acting as a well-respected military general. The youngest of the siblings is in their early twenties. The siblings themselves refer to their differences in age by saying there are “three generations” of Edwards, though they are all of the same parents. 

Update: My back is not entirely better, but it’s not as continuous an issue anymore. More at the end.

See, I still have not heard back from my doctor’s office. At all. In fact, I found that I could view my appointment requests and the likes on their website and they are marked as “not yet read by staff”. Cool. Cool beans. Chilled Legumes. 

I tried calling but after being on hold for forty minutes, I gave up.

Well, I went to the grocery store last week to pick up a handful of things. Quite literally a couple cans, some tortillas and a pepper. Within five minutes of arriving, I could barely move without feeling dizzy and nauseous from the pain ratcheting its way up my back. I focused as best I could on the task and got out of there as quickly as possible because I had a serious suspicion I was going to pass out if I stood still for too long.

I sat in my car for twenty minutes reclined in the seat a bit until I felt like I could drive safely. Still, part way through the drive, I realized I still felt like I was going to throw up from the pain, and so I diverted paths. I went to an urgent care near my home that has repeatedly been an issue for me, but it was all I could think to do.

Thankfully it was fairly empty for the day and after about twenty minutes in the waiting room I was brought back to an exam room, my vitals were taken and the nurse?assistant? asked me some questions and left to get the doctor. I think I was visibly out of it, I was having trouble focusing because of the pain in my neck, my vision kept blurring and I was having trouble finding words or explaining myself. I was able to at least communicate clearly where the pain was, for how long it had been going on, that I did not remember any injury or activity that could have caused it.

I sat in the room alone for a while. I don't know how long because I couldn't keep track of much of anything at that point. The doctor finally came in and at first my stomach dropped a bit, because I knew this doctor.

Last Time!

I came in months ago because I was having spells of being suddenly intensely dizzy and nauseous to the point that my partner asked me repeatedly to convince him as to why he shouldn't take me to the ER then and there. After explaining those symptoms to her, she looked me over in under a minute, told me I had allergies and that I was overweight. She then added three pages onto my discharge papers about how I was overweight and needed to lose weight immediately.

For reference, I am about 5' 4'', and weigh about 150lbs. This is maybe, at best, 20lbs too high for a healthy BMI. The issues I was experiencing had absolutely nothing to do with my weight, nor did her presentation of the matter seem remotely appropriate.

I had to return later in the same week to this same doctor for some blood tests which ignored a couple things that would have been great to know, such as not testing for Vitamin D when I live in a state with chronic Vitamin D deficiency. This time I got asked questions about how I marked myself as suffering from anxiety and depression. The doctor softened her tone a bit when going through these questions and when she told me how I had shown some concerning severity and offered resources on getting help. At the end of the appointment she reiterated that I am overweight and attached the same three pages about my weight to my discharge papers. 

Oh, and also, I did get my Vitamin D tested eventually. As you can see, I scored  great. 

Back to the present!

To my utter relief, the doctor spoke softly this time, though she was still very quick with her exam. She ran through testing the strength in my arms and hands in a flash, touched my back for maybe ten seconds (in which she declared 'oh wow, yeah those muscles are tight'), and prescribed me some muscle relaxers, higher dose ibuprofren and opioid painkillers, as well as a one-time injection of an anti-inflammatory on site. She warned me if I started losing strength in my arms or the pain spread into my left arm (most of the pain focused on my left side) to come back immediately or go to an ER.

She then left. The whole appointment lasted maybe five minutes after waiting nearly an hour-ish overall, but at least this time I got the impression more that she was just harried rather than uncaring. I got the anti-inflammatory injected into my ass- a great experience, truly, and then had to truck myself across the street to the pharmacy. Thankfully because I'm on my state's semi-decent medicare, my medication was covered.

The night the anti-inflammatory cleared up the majority of the pain. Since then the muscle relaxers have kept it from flaring back up too badly, and I haven't needed any of the painkillers. Right now I can still feel some pain in my neck and down my spine and may need to take another muscle relaxer before I go to bed. Who knows if I'll ever hear from my doctor's office about this.

So, I’m having a moment, and feel like writing down what’s going on in case this continues to be stupid and awful. I’d prefer I’m wrong, but heck if I’m not scared.

So I sit like an idiot. One person specifically described it as my having the posture of a pretzel. This has caused me some pain in the past, but usually this is resolved with a hot shower or a heating pad, at worst my parents own a hot tub I can sneak into from time to time. 

This time though, no such luck. Since mid-way through last week I have been experiencing some of the worst pain I have ever consistently felt in my life. It radiates through my neck, shoulders and back, in particular (and I just googled this to figure it out), it appears my trapezius? muscles are stiff and hurt like a bitch, to put it lightly. 

This pain is distracting the worse it gets through the day, to the point that it’s hard for me to stand or move around without pain in my neck making me dizzy, sometimes I even feel nauseous from it. The only relief I’ve gotten was when my partner helped apply a lidocane cream to my back and neck, and for a couple days I thought I was getting better. That was until I went home, couldn’t apply it the same without help, and bam, all the pain is back full force.

Right now I’m sitting here wrapped in a heated blanket because the two old and cheap heating pads I have can’t cover all the space that hurts. The blanket is helping, a little, but I feel knocked out by how badly this hurts. 

So I’ve been trying to get ahold of my doctor’s office. I have no job right now and live in Oregon, so I’m on OHP, and was assigned to a specific office at the start of the year. I had a new patient visit with them at the start of last month where we learned that I am rather drastically low on Vitamin D. I can apparently ‘schedule’ an appointment with the office by filling out a short form on their MyChart webpage and then someone is supposed to get back to me by phone to schedule a time...

Well I submitted this form last Saturday, and have so far heard nothing from the office. I got a call from a number yesterday that said nothing and then hung up on me so, ya know, that was strange, but so far I have no idea if that was at all related. When I tried to call the office in the past I sat there on the phone for thirty minutes with some choppy hold music. 

The reviews for the clinic online tell a story of “care you can expect from a place that deals with mostly medicare patients”, which reviews suggested meant that the receptionists were rude or never picked up, and some of the patients felt ignored by the doctors. So far my experience directly with the nurse, doctor and the dentist associated with the same office have all been positive, but I am increasingly paranoid that I won’t get the care I need. 

Also Voi. Never actually finished finalizing this concept. I scribbled it at 3am in a minute before I forgot what I was picturing. It’s a garbage picture but I haven’t had the energy to finish it up. 

The Juultah can be anywhere from twelve-ish feet to sixteen or so. Their arms are very long and particularly heavy in the forearm, movement of the arms is aided by a series of thick external tendons. Due to the Juultah’s lanky form and heavy arms, they tend to walk in a slouched position leaned onto their knuckles. 

Otherwise, they are sort of reptilian in the face. Their bodies are covered in scales of a wide variety of colors, with beak-like point to their faces around their mouths. These mouths can open very wide to accommodate their carnivorous diet. Their eyes move in a large concave space in the skull. 

Fun fact: Voi is a shapeshifter, and parts of her anatomy are very off considering what she started with. This means she’s *very* heavy, aaaaand it means that when her grasp on her form gets a little shaky, you can get a lovely reminder that her real mouth is in a very different place than it appears. 

So I mentioned in my first post that I have a smattering of umbrellas I operate under, and many of my future posts will feature tags specifying which umbrella any given post falls under. So let’s take advantage of talking about some of those tags to give y’all a little snippet as to what they’re about! Starting off with the ones that aren’t my primary projects!

#lets_ramble Anything titled like this where I’m just going on an unplanned ramble about junk. Might cross with other tags.

#dnd This one I’m sure a lot of people on this website will be familiar with. I have played DnD on and off most of my life and quite a bit more in the last year. I’ll likely make a few posts about some of my characters soon for funsies and simplicity. 

#tysaria This is a sub-tag of DnD. I’ve been working on my own setting for a while, because I can’t do simple things I guess. #fanfiction I’m not sure how much I’ll use this tag while I build my confidence, but yeah, I dabble in fanfiction here and there. Some of the OCs I’ve made through my fanfiction work have actually become characters in my primary projects, so you might see that tag alongside some of my other projects.

Now for my actual primary projects! Also, yes, I write about super powers a LOT... Let’s list in order of age, I suppose: 

#rus In the world of Rus, Mages are those born with natural powers over the magical elements of the world (fire, water, electricity, etc.). As far as the public at large is concerned, Mages are the subject of public ridicule, superstition and paranoia, as their powers often come with too great a risk to reward ratio. It is not uncommon for natural disasters to follow in their wake, and every storm or forest fire is often underlined with whispers blaming Mages. The recent rise of a growing faction of Hunters, fed by these superstitious beliefs, has thrown the kingdom of Nal into a quiet but tumultuous war.  Originally from a forum roleplay I made with I was, like, eleven, and revamped last year to be a little less edgelord-y and cringey. 

#demonds An alternate Earth sees more than 80% of the society featuring a variety of powers, anywhere from control of elemental forces to communication with technology, psionic gifts to feats of superhuman strength and speed. The story focuses around the school of Demonds’, one of many schools focusing on the control of more extreme powers... and in this case, temperaments. Think of Demond’s as the juvenile detention of superhuman teens, though since it’s original creation Demond’s has massively expanded to encompass far more settings all the way to space travel.

#rowen All who live are connected by the River of Souls by the Threads of Power. The river flows into the world through the Source Gate, represented as a living god in the form of the Source. As it passes into the world, each thread separates from the river and passes into the Source’s closest council, known as the Marked, before passing into the rest of humanity. The Source, always a woman, and the Marked, are born on the cusp of their predecessor’s deaths, and are normally the subject of worship- until the last Source brewed the world into a two-decade long war. Her death has torn holes in not just society, but the basic rules of the universe, starting when the next Source turns out not to be a babe as is the usual... but an unfortunate girl torn back from the edge of death, Rowen Bray.

#kaiser Kaiser Haggens is the leading scientist on the God Particle. The Particle that might couple with a child in utero and grant them powers beyond belief (well not really, as the rules of science still apply, a fact Kaiser holds dear), or if it comes in contact with adults or another Particle... might just shred you apart at an anatomical level. Certain experimentation with the Particle is outlawed, considering its destructive potential- but Kaiser believes this is a discredit to the scientific community.