#tw mortality

The price of misdiagnoses and permanent damage

"I respond to grief with action" - JTP and friends

Between 2015 and 2025, I've had four misdiagnoses

Usually always taking at least 2 years at a time for it

Both hips (torn labrum + avascular necrosis)

And back, twice (spinal infarctions + coccyx injury)

it's important because it happened, it's not reduced to nothing because it's temporary. relationships and people and pets and everything in life is temporary, as transient as the seasons, doesn't make the beauty of spring any less vibrant because it'll eventually turn to winter.

everyone will live it on a mortal scale with pets, childhood friends, short flings, you'll outlive that part of your life and it will be behind you, that doesn't mean it didn't matter, or that it makes any further attempt at love or friendship meaningless

immortality isn't much different from a normal life, really, it just doesn't have the finish line. you'll love, you'll lose, you'll live and love again, whether you live till 80 and a thousand, it's just part of being a person.

// sorry about the essay in your inbox I just have alot of feelings about this

What if someone doesn't want to live forever? What if someone doesn't want to live in a life, outliving their loved ones? What if someone wanted a choice in that matter?

I don't want someone to take that choice away from me, or others.

Maybe if I was offered immortality instead of it being insisted upon me, I would be more comfortable with the idea. Maybe I'd be more comfortable with it if I had a better fucking life.

it follows someone with a terminal illness who travels the world and enjoys the food and art of various cultures, experiencing the beauty of the human experience before he runs out of time.

I'd imagine it to be a deeply personal show. Maybe he visits some lonely grandma, her grandkids don't talk to her, lives alone, and gives her an opportunity to just talk to someone, talk about her life, her story. She could even share her recipies with someone before she dies, so her knowledge isn't lost to time.

There's a cooking segment at the end, where he applies what the lessons he learns about life and food to make some unique dish.

Mortician - A headmate who helps the system cope with death, whether it be fronting during times of grieving or helping comfort during mortality spirals.

Coined for my own system!

Day Seven: Bandaged

@ninjago-angst-week

Tws: thoughts about mortality, mentions of death, mentions of abandonment

Zane pulls out another roll of bandages. Turning back to face Cole, he can barely muffle a wince at the injuries littered across his torso.

The black ninja had insisted on being the last to receive medical attention, claiming that his injuries weren’t as bad as the others’. But now that the top of his gi is off, it only takes a quick look to confirm that that statement was false.

“It’s not that bad,” he tries, but Zane shakes his head, setting the bandages aside in favor of grabbing the alcohol wipes.

“Perhaps not, but it’s still much worse than you made it out to be.” He looks over the worst wound- a large scrape on his arm from the asphalt he was launched across- and then back at Cole’s face.

“Brace yourself,” he warns, “this is going to hurt.”

Cole grimaces, but nods, hands coming down to grip the edges of the table. “Right.” He breathes out for a moment before closing his eyes and nodding again. “Ready when you are.”

Cleaning out the wound is easy.

Ignoring the pained reactions that it causes isn’t.

Still, he manages, working as efficiently as possible in order to minimize the time Cole spends in pain.

Finally, after what feels like a much longer time frame than it was, he’s able to pull away. “Done,” he states. “I just need to wrap it, now.”

Cole nods, relaxing some as he opens his eyes. “Right. Thanks, Frosty.”

Zane forces a smile in response. “Of course,” he returns, picking up the bandages again. He drops his gaze back to the injury, carefully wrapping it in the gauze.

He hates the way he’s so familiar with the process.

But he’s the team medic, now. Unofficially, yes, but it is still one of his assigned roles. After a large battle, he’s typically the one the least injured.

There are pros to being a nindroid, he supposes.

He finishes wrapping the wound before taking a step back. Scanning over the other injuries, he’s thankful for the fact that the most that any of the wounds would need is a bandaid or two.

“And that’s all. You may go join the others, if you wish.”

Nodding, Cole gets up from the table. “Cool. Thanks again, Zee.”

Just as before, Zane has to put effort into his smile. He adds a nod of acknowledgement, too, and Cole seems to take it as an adequate enough response.

When the earth ninja leaves, he lets the smile drop, a sigh escaping him.

Silently, he starts to put away the medical supplies, taking mental notes on what they may need to restock in the near future.

But his thoughts drift back to the thought of these injuries, and how easily his teammates get them.

They’re human. Fragile, compared to him. They bleed and bruise, their skin tears and their bones break so easily.

And as time goes on, they will only grow more susceptible to these kinds of injuries. They will grow weak as they age.

But… Zane won’t. Titanium doesn’t rip as easily as flesh. Oil doesn’t contain blood vessels to be broken. There are no bones to be damaged.

When his gears and circuits become dated and dysfunction with age, they can simply be replaced. Unlike his teammates, he will not age.

It’s morbid, thinking about it. The fact that while they grow weak and age together, he will not. Lloyd may live longer than the others, due to his heritage, but he, too, is part human, and will eventually become a victim to age.

Perhaps it would have been better for Zane to have avoided making such easily injured friends, ones with such short lifespans. He has Pixal, doesn’t he? Maybe it would be best if he stuck with his own kind.

But he would never be able to bring himself to leave now. For better or worse, he’s attached, he cares for them, and even when they’re long gone, he always will.

And if he were to die, would he even go to where they will? He’s a machine, after all. Is there an afterlife waiting for him? If he were to somehow be destroyed beyond repair, will he see them again? Or is he simply destined to live a long, empty life, with no light at the end of the tunnel?

Honestly, it’s quite ironic. There are so many people who would kill to be immortal- people who have killed just for a chance at it. And yet Zane wants nothing more than to not be.

You always want what you haven’t got.

The saying has never sounded more true.

A low breath escapes him as he turns back to look at where he knows his injured friends are, just a few rooms away. Softly, he shakes his head.

“I don’t want to outlive you,” he murmurs, a dark, churning feeling beginning to settle in his gut.

His family bleeds and hurts. They bend and break. And even as he knows that they’re in pain a few rooms away, bloodied and bandaged, he only has one selfish thought in his head.

So he's got some kind of medicine for use as needed, and it needs to be refrigerated. There's quite a number of bottles in there, so that implies he either needs to take or keep on hand a decent quantity at whatever time it might be needed, or else there's multiple prescriptions acting together.

This is where I need your help, fellow nerds of WWDITS Tumblr (do we have a name? We need a name but that's a separate post). With my relatively limited knowledge of non-neuropsychiatric medical conditions or any that might be classified as something other than neurodivergence--basically, something more strictly physical than brain-related--the first two conditions that come to my mind are diabetes or HIV/AIDS.

Now both of these could get dark to discuss, and I'd argue in this particular case, diabetes could be as foreboding for Guillermo as HIV/AIDS. Because our boy is presently nailed inside a coffin somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean for at least two weeks, and I don't think Laszlo put those bottles in there with him. Putting a diabetic human in a coffin on a cargo ship with Oreos, Pedialyte, and no insulin is not gonna work, so I think this theory is kaput.

At the same time, I would think Guillermo's dream of one day being a vampire would be squashed by being HIV-positive; I feel like both conditions would be noticeable by a vampire drinking his blood, but whereas diabetic blood might just have a different taste to it or have more or less of whatever nutrients a vampire gets by on than non-diabetic blood, HIV, whether it has progressed to the point of AIDS or not, is liable to infect the drinker. This is a small enough leap to assume Guillermo would make this realization on his own easily and that he'd know that vampirizing him would infect whatever vampire is doing the job for him, rendering his dream of being made a hemophagic immortal himself out of reach. So I don't think the medicine is either for diabetes or HIV/AIDS because narratively, neither one works. But we know he uses some kind of medicine--possibly regularly, possibly as needed--that he needs to keep on hand and keep refrigerated. There are medicines that need to be refrigerated other than insulin or prescriptions to manage HIV/AIDS, but I'm not sure what specific ones. And it is interesting to note, if Guillermo has some kind of chronic health condition, that puts his lifelong desire to be a vampire in a new light. Yeah, we've all surmised he wants to be powerful and sexy, but what if that's coming from some skewed perception of himself as frail? What if what draws him to being undead is that he's afraid of death, and mortality is more pressing an issue for him? He's stayed adamant about wanting to be a vampire for 12 years, which means both that he's been able to wait 12 years--his health didn't start deteriorating around year 5 or something, which would make the issue more urgent--but he also hasn't given up on this goal either after all this time of watching other familiars die quickly after being hired or cycle out once they get older. He watches how miserable Nandor is with being immortal and how Laszlo and Nadja have to keep chasing new thrills to stave off the boredom of not being able to die, and he still wants this. He wants this bad.