Random writing.

I’d love it if they specified what “disabled people who qualify” means when they’re talking about various programs in different cities, because anyone who’s had to sign up for any kind of program where you have to be “Disabled Enough” in some way knows people can fall through the cracks.

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In a ridiculously short amount of time, the Boov determined that humans were unwilling to mix peacefully into their culture. They pointed out all the people who fled instead of welcoming their new neighbors, even those whose homes had been taken outright. Captain Smek himself appeared on television for an official speech to humankind. (He didn't call us humankind, of course. He called us Noble Savages of Earth. Apparently we were all still living on Earth at this point.) "Noble Savages of Earth," he said. "Long time have we tried to live together in peace." (It had been five months.) "Long time have the Boov suffered under the hostileness and intolerableness of you people. With sad hearts I now concede that Boov and humans will never to exist as one." I remember being really excited at this point. Could I possibly be hearing right? Were the Boov about to leave? I was so stupid. "And so now I generously grant you Human Preserves—gifts of land that will be for humans forever, never to be taken away again, now." I stared at the TV, mouth agape. "But we were here first," I said pathetically.

The tent was strung with white Christmas lights and packed with people, all facing a stage on one end. And on the stage stood a redheaded man in a wifebeater with a Viking tattooed on his chest. People were booing him. "Shut up!" the redhead was saying. "I have the stage! All I'm saying is, now that we've all had to leave our real homes, we got a chance to get America right! There can be a place for the Saxon Americans, and a place for the coloreds, and a place for—shut up!"

"So every place has some kind of leader?" I asked. It had all happened so fast. "Sure. Most of them are former state governors, or senators, or whatever. The president runs a little town called Rye." "Just a little town?" "Yes..." said Mitch. "He's not very popular anymore, because of the invasion. People assume it was his fault somehow. But we have to have leaders. We have to have government." "I guess," I said. "Daniel Landry's district is far south of here," he said, "on some former Indian land." "Indian land? Like a reservation?" "That's right." "Is this Dan guy an Indian?" "I don't think so, no. I'm pretty sure he's white. He wasn't a governor or anything before, but he's really rich, so I imagine he's a good leader." "Uh-huh. But he's white," I said. "The Indians elected a white guy?" "Well...I don't know. I imagine all the other people elected him. It's mostly white folks living on the reservation now." I frowned. "And the Indians are okay with this?" "What do you mean?" "Well...it was a reservation," I said. "It was land we promised to the Native Americans. Forever." Mitch looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. "But...we needed it," he said.

"Mr. Hinkel," said the Chief, jerking his head toward the sleeping man. "He thinks Indians like me ought to live somewhere else. Likes to tell me about it a lot." I didn't really want to talk about Mr. Hinkel. "Well, maybe they'll let him go soon." "Doubt it," said the Chief. "Got beat up pretty good by someone who thinks gay people like him ought to live somewhere else."

The last excerpt from the book is in comic format, divided into four main panels. The first is captioned, "2,000 (two thousand) years ago - Many schools closed by the HighBoov, because Money is Needed Elsewhere. Boov are told not to worry about learning unimportant things. Boov are told to learn one useful thing that may be done over and over again and give their life meaning. HighBoov devise clever tests to find which Boov should be taught more, and which Boov should not be taught because Money is Needed Elsewhere." Boov are shown doing things like guarding, serving food, and taking care of children.

The second panel is captioned, "1,150 (one thousand, one hundred and fifty) years ago - Certain Boov who were taught many things announce that industry is polluting the waters of Boovworld." Boov in uniforms point to a chart of their world and gesture to something outside a window, presenting this information to other Boov in fancy outfits. "These scientist predict that the oceans soon will no longer be able to sustain life, unless things are changed."

The third panel is captioned, "1,149 (one thousand, one hundred and forty-nine) years ago - HighBoov declare that these warnings of pollution cannot be proven, so therefore nothing should be changed. The scientist Boov who gave these warnings are declared evil-evil that they should call our God unclean. These Boov are named the Forgotten and sent onto land into exile forever. Some of them die of asphyxiation. Most don't." A line of Boov trudge out of water onto land.

The fourth panel is captioned, "1,003 (one thousand and three) years ago - God dies of asphyxiation." There are many skeletons with lots of darkness in the background.

art: 10/10

Tweet reads:

"it's 33 degrees out and i saw a man fan himself and then fan the little bird on the ground next to him like this ⬇️ (arrow down emoji)"

Image attached shows a stick figure drawing of a man standing beside a bird. The figure is shown fanning the bird next to him.

And then she has dinner and it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten and even her little green brain is able to put together “If I knife this guy so I can take his stuff he can’t cook more of this” so when he asks her to stay the night she’s just like “Fuck yeah breakfast”.

And all the other Hobbits in the area are staring at this new arrival who starts begrudgingly working in the garden (she can pull out the weeds they’d normally have to hitch livestock to) and they’re all thinking “Uhhhhh that’s a fucking Goblin there, chief” except if they actually acknowledge that she’s a goblin then it’s a huge to-do and a lot of excitement and possibly there would be adventure involved in chasing her off. So they just sort of silently, collectively decide they’re going to ignore it and all go “Oh, Blinko finally found himself a lady, how nice, she must be one of the Glumbrushes from over the far side of West Farthing, I always did hear they were on the homely side, not much hair on their feet you know.”

And eventually in due time along comes Korbo Tumbrush and decently cute Hobbit baby but the biggest fucking ears you ever saw on a Hobbit and he’s a bit green and everyone is thinking “That’s a fucking half-Goblin you’ve got there, chief, you fucked a fucking Goblin, you made a baby with a damn Goblin my guy” but this would be an immensely rude thing to say to someone so they’re just like “Oh how nice, Blinko, he looks just like you, has those Glumbrush eyes though.”

Does Korbo know!? Like is the Gobit aware his momma is a goblin? Or does he just grow up like

“yup us Glumbrushes sure do look different”

He leaves home on an adventure and stumbles n a hoard of goblins marches right up like

Once.

The Tumbrushes are, as a family trade, purveyors of fine pieces of wood. Not of large amounts of lumber, for which Hobbits don’t have a particular lot of call save occasionally, but rather of particularly nice pieces suitable for the making of fine window trimmings, floors, or the occasional carved bit of artwork to be given at a fancy event. Obviously for this one doesn’t go cutting down any tree willy-nilly, and Korbo had spent most of the day out and about looking for suitable trees.

(Korbo also personally assisted in cutting them down, being rather well known as on the strong side for a Hobbit, wink wink, nudge nudge.)

Having put in a genuine hard day’s work and rather pleased with himself, Korbo retired to the local bar to have a few beers and a smoke and to partake in good company, all of whom had gotten so used to pretending there was nothing odd about him that it was almost as if there was genuinely nothing odd about him.

Until along comes Humdil Thumbletoe.

Now the Thumbletoes were what was known in the Shire as “experts on genealogy”. This might sound like quite a good thing when you consider how well-versed most Hobbits are in their family lines, until you consider that most Hobbits are already well-versed in their family lines. A Hobbit being thoroughly knowledgeable of their family tree is not much to be remarked upon, so when it is remarked upon it is more to mean that the Hobbits in question are such tremendous mooches that they have had to dive far more deeply into their bloodlines looking for more relatives to leech off of than any Hobbit would generally consider polite.

Humdil was fairly brawny as Hobbits go, which was about all you could say for him. In fact Humdil had realized that was really all that could be said for him and had become a bit of a bully. And so it was he entered the bar that night with a very put-upon third cousin twice removed (by marriage) and caught sight of Korbo for the first time.

“Why, look at that one!” he bellowed, guffawing. “He’s so ugly his mother had to have been a Goblin, ey!”

The whole bar goes quiet. Aside from the obvious abominable rudeness of this, Humdil has said the thing that is never supposed to be said, and is clearly too stupid to realize he’s right. All heads slowly turn to Korbo.

Now, it is well known that Korbo has inherited his father’s tendency to never give a single solitary hairy-toed fuck about anything. He has currently been in the running to be at least the second most chill dude to ever be born in the Shire. And indeed, right now he’s still looking perfectly calm, puffing on his pipe. He sets the pipe aside, finishes off the last of his beer, and stands up.

“Sir, we’ll be needing to step outside.”

Now Hobbits are mostly a peaceable lot, not given to wars or fighting for any old thing, but a bit of fisticuffs outside the bar is hardly unheard of. Mostly everyone is kind of nervous about this because they’re still not sure how Korbo is reacting to this whole Goblin thing. So someone takes Korbo’s jacket and Humdil’s third cousin twice removed (by marriage) grudgingly takes his, and the two square off.

Now, Humdil was a big Hobbit, it was true, but there were a few things that, being a moron who didn’t realize he was right, and who had never been outside the Shire or seen a Goblin anyway, he could not possibly know.

For one, Goblins have long, spindly arms, giving them a surprisingly good reach for their size… not abominably long, certainly not in the case of a half-Goblin, and certainly not above being concealed by the cut of a well-tailored shirt. Second, they are compact, wiry creatures, with dense muscle over their otherwise lanky forms, and given to that a Hobbit’s already greater mass and the anchoring benefit of large, wide feet, well.

The moment Humdil stepped forward and started to swing, Korbo’s fist shot out like one of Gandalf’s better rockets and struck him directly in the nose. His flight was also, for some weeks after, compared to one of Gandalf’s rockets, though not quite as far and the explosion at the end was mostly him laying on the ground cursing wetly due to all the blood streaming from his nose.

Korbo apologizes profusely to all and sundry for the disturbance, collected his jacket, and goes home. Honey is out picking mushrooms (still being of the more nocturnal persuasion after all these years), but Blinko’s sitting by the fire reading a book. Korbo sees that there’s a newspaper (full of lots of extremely important things like how the pipeweed was growing and which barrels of beer were going to be uncasked that month), so picks it up and sits down to read.

“Evening, Da.”

“Evening, son. Pleasant evening out?”

“Oh, fine. Save for I broke Humdil Thumbletoes’s nose for him.”

“Hm, hm, I see. Why did you feel the need to do that?”

“Well, he called Ma a Goblin, you see.”

Blinko slowly lowers his book, and slowly raises his head. Looks at Korbo for long moments. Raises one eyebrow a little.

“Son. You know full well your mother is a Goblin.”

“Well, yes, but he didn’t know that, and he said it as an insult anyway so it being true or not doesn’t really matter that much, does it?“

“Hm, hm. I suppose that’s true at the end of the day, isn’t it?”

Blinko goes back to reading his book. Korbo continues reading the paper.

“You could have stabbed him,” Blinko eventually notes.

“Aye, could have stabbed him,” Korbo agrees easily enough. “But it’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?”

“True, true, probably would have been a bit of a mess in the road, not very thoughtful to the community,” Blinko allows.

“Sir, we’ll be needing to step outside.”

But he runs into Hilda Greebrook one day in town, and she’s lost her favorite pipe, which is of course a tragedy of the highest order. It’s not unheard of for a lady to smoke, but it isn’t particularly encouraged, either, and so the general reaction is “you poor dear, perhaps it’ll turn up, hadn’t you best be getting home for luncheon?”

Korbo, however, stops to help her look for the pipe, and when it’s nowhere to be found he offers to make her another just like it, if she can tell him what precisely made it so special that it was a favorite, for after all a favorite must be distinguishable by something.

Unfortunately the thing that distinguishes it is that she got it from Gandalf and it’s quite unlike most pipes in the Shire, so recreating it is quite the task. But Korbo sets himself to it anyway, working a bit each night and handing it to Hilda daily to see if it feels quite right, and six months later he’s done it—recreated a pipe that came from the world of men, or perhaps elves, but certainly not that of hobbits.

Hilda for her part discovers Korbo quite likes to read, and though he’s from a reasonably well-to-do family—for hobbits are always in need of new toys and fancy party decorations after all—can’t get his hands on books fast enough to satisfy himself, and, well, her da’s a transcriber, someone’s got to write out the papers after all, and she’s got access to practically every book in the Shire, and ways to make copies besides.

At first people think it’s odd, a hobbit who can’t see asking to borrow books, but then they find out Korbo is involved and asking questions could lead to excitement and so they absolutely do not ask and simply offer up their histories and books of poetry and hobbit folklore (for even without want for excitement there are things it’s good to remember, and things every hobbit child should know so they, too, can grow up properly plump and staying well away from adventure), and resign themselves to never seeing their books again.

And then they find that far from their books quite disappearing, they return in fine form—albeit usually in a timeframe rather too long to be polite—but oddly quite a lot seem to have tiny bits of wood shavings in, although one wouldn’t expect it in a hobbit home? And THEN Hoptus Redbranch finds Korbo one day in his workshop, he’s just stopped by for the wood to repair a door after an unfortunate incident with attempting to remove a colony of bees and rather too much smoke for the moving of bees, and Korbo is simply. Pressing small pieces of hot iron into a very thin piece of wood, making small triangle patterns like no hobbit decoration Hoptus has ever seen, and he’s quite frequently checking into a book on his left that turns out to be one of Hoptus’ own books, and very carefully turning the pages with a cloth so as to not get oil from the hot iron all over the pages—

—and THEN, not long after the news of Korbo’s strange woodburning activities have spread across most of the Shire (and caused no small amount of consternation, because goblins are clever but so often the things they make are cruel and the cause of ever so much unpleasantness), Hilda is seen in her own garden with Korbo with a stack of these thin pieces of wood all carefully hinged together, running her fingers over carefully sanded and varnished pieces and feeling the triangles and reciting a hobbit tale.

For all those months of strangely disappeared books, Korbo has been translating Westron into an alphabet that can be read with one’s fingers, and making Hilda books, and teaching her to read them.

Were anyone from the outside to visit the Shire, they’d find a small colony of goblins thoroughly intermarried and also avoiding the usual goblin tendencies towards stabbing, so long as no one is so gauche as to insult them for being goblins.

And yet there’s a difference between “well to do” and “scandalously wealthy.”

So when, when Blinko Tumbrush recieved a letter inviting them to the Baggins residence for tea, he of course brought his wife and son along.

Now, Korbo had crossed paths with Bilbo Baggins a time or two in the market, never for much longer than the time required for Polite Conversation, and so wasn’t expecting much. Sure, everyone knew Bilbo was odd, and were willing to talk about it, since Bilbo made no effort to hide his adventures and had, on numerous occasions, commented on visiting the elves or poking around the mountains, but they were in the Shire, no adventure in sight, and so this should be a normal, proper visit between client and craftsman.

And then Bilbo opened the door, pipe in hand, took the three of them in, and said, quite out of nowhere, “Ah, Shoebiter clan.”

Honey Tumbrush, late of the Shoebiter clan of the Misty Mountains, smiled with all her teeth and replied “Dragon thief!”

Bilbo guffawed and waved them inside, offering them hospitality in the goblin tongue, with the guarantee of safety and threat of violence that implied. They had arrived in time for second breakfast, and didn’t leave until past dinner, having hammered out a contract and shared many a story.

(Photo by Kevin Sonney)

When Kevin and I were in New Orleans a month or so ago, we were out birding and encountered this killdeer in a parking lot. It immediately set about convincing Kevin that its wing was broken. Really broken. SO BROKEN YOU GUYS.

Killdeer are, of course, justly famous for this trick. They do it to lure predators away from the nest. Kevin ambled after the bird with a camera and I watched them do a slow motion chase scene across the parking lot.

Eventually, having taken about a million photos, Kevin stopped. But the killdeer did not. There were four of us, but Kevin, rescuer of kittens, was clearly the menace. It was practically charging him waving its “broken” wing.

Kevin: No, I’m done, it’s okay.

Killdeer: MY WING IS SUPER BROKEN

Kevin: I have no interest in your nest.

Killdeer: THIS WING, RIGHT HERE? I BROKE IT IN THE WAR. TWO WARS. SEVEN WARS. SO MANY WARS.

Kevin: I’m starting to feel weird about this, bird.

Killdeer: AAUGH LOOK NOW MY OTHER WING IS BROKEN TOO

Kevin: …

Killdeer: I WILL RUN A LITTLE WAY AND FALL OVER WAVING MY BROKEN WINGS THE PAIN THE PAIN

Kevin: I’m not going to chase you.

Killdeer: YOU HAVE TO CHASE ME MY WINGS ARE BROKEN ALSO I BELIEVE MY LEGS ARE GOING

Kevin: This is just sad.

Killdeer: I BELIEVE I AM ALSO ON FIRE

Kevin: You’re still going.

Killdeer: THERE IS NO PAIN LIKE THIS PAIN PLEASE STEP A LITTLE FARTHER THIS WAY I AM SURELY ABOUT TO BE CAUGHT AT ANY MOMENT

Kevin: Fine, if it’ll make you happy.

(Kevin ambles after Killdeer)

Killdeer: JUST A LITTLE FARTHER…A LITTLE BIT FARTHER AND SURELY I WILL STOP RUNNING AWAY DID I MENTION THAT MY WINGS ARE SUPER-BROKEN?!

(Kevin, camera in hand, stumbles onto a group of King Rail chicks in the ditch)

Rail Chicks: AAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGHHHHMONSTER

Kildeer: AHAHA DEVOUR THEM, MY ENEMY, WHILE I FLEE BACK TO MY CHILDREN ON MY MAGICALLY HEALED WINGS

I mean, the heroes do, of course they do, kids who want to meet Spiderman or Superman or get to be carried by the Flash as he runs through Central City for just thirty seconds.

Like, the first time it happens, no one actually thinks it’s possible, but one of the newbies volunteers to at least try. They get lucky, the kid wants to meet one of the villains who is well known to have a personal code of ethics (eg one of the rogues), and it takes them weeks to track the villain down to this one bar they’ve been seen at a few times, plus a week of staking out said bar, but they finally find them.

So they approach the villain, very politely introduce themselves and explain the situation, finishing with an assurance that, should the villain agree, no law enforcement or heroes will be informed of the meeting.

The villain, assuming it’s a joke, laughs in their face.

At this point, the poor volunteer, who has giving up weeks of their time and no small amount of effort to track down this villain, all so a sweet little girl can meet the person who somehow inspired them, well, at this point the employee sees red.

They explode, yelling at this villain about the little girl who, for some unknown reason, absolutely loved them, had a hand-made stuffed toy of them and was inspired by their struggle to keeping fighting her own and wasn’t the villain supposed to have ethics? The entire bar is witness to this big bad villain getting scolded by some bookish nobody a foot shorter than them.

When the volunteer is done, the villain calmly knocks back their drink, grips the volunteers shoulder and drags them outside. The bar’s patrons assume that person will never be seen again, the volunteer included. But once they’re outside, the villain apologises for their assumption, asks for the kid’s details so they can drop by in the near future, not saying when for obvious reasons. They also give the very relieved volunteer a phone number to call if someone asks for them again.

A week later, the little girl’s room is covered in villain merchandise, several expensive and clearly stolen gifts and she is happily clutching a stack of signed polaroids of her and the villain.

The next time a kid asks to meet a villain, guess who gets that assignment?

Turns out, the first villain was quite touched by the experience of meeting their little fan, and word has gotten around. The second villain happily agrees when they realise it’s the same volunteer who asked the other guy. Unfortunately, one of the heroes sees the villain entering the kid’s hospital and obviously assumes the worst. They rush in, ready to drag the villain out, but the volunteer stands in their way. The hero spends five minutes getting scolded for trying to stop the villain from actually doing a good thing and almost ruining the kid’s wish. The volunteer gets a reputation among villains as someone who can not only be trusted with personal contact numbers but who will do everything they can to keep law enforcement away during their visits.

The volunteer has a phonebook written in cypher of all the villain’s phone numbers, with asterixes next to the ones to call if any other villains give them trouble.

Heroes: “Can’t you, just, give us their contact details? They’ll never even have to know it was you.”

The Villain Wrangler: “Yeah sure, <rollseyes> because all these evil geniuses could never possibly figure out that it’s me who happens to be the common thread in the sudden mass arrests. Look man, even if it wouldn’t get me killed, it would disappoint the kids. You wouldn’t want to disappoint the kids would you?”

Heroes: “… no~ but…”

The Villain Wrangler: “Exactly.”

Eventually, one of the anti-hero types gets frustrated, and decides to take a stand. They kidnap the Villain Wrangler and demand that they give up the contents of the little black book of Villains, or suffer the consequences. It’s For the Greater Good, the anti-hero insists as they tie the Villain Wrangler to a pillar.

The Villain Wrangler: “You complete idiot, put me back before someone figures out that I’m missing.”

Anti-hero: “…excuse me?”

The Villain Wrangler: “Ugh, do I have to spell this out for you? Do you actually want your secret base to be wiped off the map? With us in it? Sugarsticks, how long has it been? If they get suspicious, they check in, and then if I miss a check-in, they tend to come barging into wherever I am just to prove that they can, even if they figure out that they’re not being threatened by proxy. Suffice to say, Auntie Muriel really regretted throwing my phone into the pool when she strenuously objected to me answering it during family time. If they think for even one moment that I’ve given them up, they won’t hesitate to obliterate both of us from their potential misery. You do know some of the people in my book have like missiles and djinni and elemental forces at their disposal, right?”

Anti-hero: “Wait, what? I thought they trusted you?!”

The Villain Wrangler: “Trust is such a strong word!”

Villain: “Indeed.”

Anti-hero: “Wait, wha-” <slumps over, dart sticking out of neck>

The Villain Wrangler: “Thanks. I thought they were going to hurt me.”

Villain: “You did well. You kept them distracted, and gave us time to follow your signal.” <cuts Villain Wrangler free>

The Villain Wrangler: <rubbing circulation back into limbs> “Yeah well, you know me, I do whatever I have to. So I’ll see you Wednesday at four at St Martha’s? I’ve got an 8yo burns unit patient recovering from her latest batch of skin grafts who could really use a pep talk.”

Villain: “… of course. Yes… I… yes.”

The Villain Wrangler: “I just think you could really reach her, you know?”

Villain: <unconsciously runs fingers over mask> “I… yes, but, what should I say?”

The Villain Wrangler: “Whatever advice you think you could have used the most just after.”

Villain: <hoists Anti-hero over shoulder almost absently> “….yes.”

The Villain Wrangler wasn’t lying to the Anti-hero. They know that the more ruthless villains would not hesitate if they thought for one second that the Anti-hero would betray them.

But this is not the first time the Villain Wrangler has gone to extreme lengths to protect their identities.

Also, imagine one of the kids gets better, and a few years down the line becomes a villain themself, except their crimes are things like smuggling chemo drugs across the border for families that can’t afford treatment, or stealing from corrupt businessmen to make donations to underfunded hospitals (idk this turned into a Leverage AU or something) and every time the heroes encounter her, they’re like “oh no. she’s getting away. curses. welp, nothing we can do.” Though it isn’t that she can’t take them on; bc of course once the villain from way back when found out what she was up to, he started helping/training her. 

“I thought they just hired someone to dress up and pretend to be you,” she says, amazed, when he reveals himself. “I didn’t think they actually got the real you!”

they are fierce with grieving families assuring them that their child will not be forgotten, and they don’t balk at negative emotions, they don’t tell people to be strong or “celebrate their child’s life,” because these parents have every right to their grief and anger

Another, who created their own exosuit, talks to a young fan and suddenly understands how much the technology that they have built for themselves could revolutionise quality of life for people with muscular dystrophy, or paraplegia, or other disorders that confine people to wheelchairs with little mobility.

A third thinks of a way that their nanobots could be used to detect and remove cancer cells when their fan, who had been in remission, writes to say that the doctors have found a new metastasizing tumour.

Then shortly after, an evil genius specialising in cloning is contacted by an old colleague asking if a suitable heart couldn’t be grown for their young fan with a congenital heart condition who needs a donor.

Suddenly, a pattern of villains offering (and marketing) their insights and resources to improve medical science starts to arise. Many who had previously been operating on society’s fringes are shocked to receive public accolades, research grants and job offers from major companies because of their work.

A grassroots movement arises advocating for imprisoned villains with appropriate qualifications and/or experience to have access to resources to conduct research for the public good. The Second Chance Rehabilitation Project launches.

(It is an open secret that only people who have been vetted by the Villain Wrangler are allowed to join, because the Villain Wrangler has by now a meticulously set up method and intelligence network to run background checks and character references through ensure that none of the children wishing to meet their role models get hurt.)

Being able to say that one is involved with the Project begins to look really good in parole hearings. The Villains involved perform their own quality checks on one another, because if one of their kids got hurt, then all of their kids could potentially lose out, and the ones that are serious about the Project are not having that. (Also, the ability to collaborate with other geniuses is the most interesting thing to happen to most of them since losing to various heroes, and most consider the intellectual stimulation to be worth putting up with the ridiculous egoes and inevitable personality clashes that arise.)

Reformed Villains come out of the woodwork to advocate about better mental healthcare, and support systems. Savvy universities and private labs quietly take their advice, setting up better mental health supports and laboratory safety standards to prevent the Brain Drain caused by losing their less stable scientists to the Costumes.

The Villain Wrangler watches all of this develop with a smile.

It just feels so incredibly wrong to try to force my breaths to be a certain length. Usually, when I've tried them, it gives me the sense that I'm not getting enough air or I'm starting to suffocate, which slowly increases the longer I do the breathing exercises, and it's a very stressful feeling.

Last time I tried doing breathing exercises to relax, my back and torso became slowly more and more and more tense and locked up and tight until my back was very painful. It was like I was clenching down with all the muscles of my body to try to make the breaths start and end when they were supposed to.

It sucks because therapists usually think "breathing exercises" are the gold standard for anxiety coping skills, and I had one therapist tell me that it was impossible that they didn't work because scientifically, you Cannot have a fear/stress response if you're doing breathing exercises. Lady, if it was that easy no one would need therapy. Also I guess I'm some kind of alien or something.

In yoga class, I think I finally "got" some of the benefits of what breathing exercises were supposed to do from paying attention to breathing in different poses and feeling how that biological cycle affects the parts of the body that are holding the pose. That isn't trying to control the breathing though.

Also, it's engaging the whole body: trying to focus on my breathing while not doing anything else I think causes that tension to build in my muscles.

I'm just thinking like. I notice that my breaths become faster and shallower when I'm stressed or afraid, but when I try to force myself to breathe slowly, it's like my body is wrestling against me.

I think it's much easier and less pain- and panic-inducing to do breathing exercises when I'm already calm?

what do you mean breathing exercises arent supposed to make you feel out of breath???? what???

also why the fuck did i need to be told the feel better exercise is supposed to make me. feel better? what went wrong here. genuinely asking.

There's a few reasons why breath control is considered a gold standard in calming people down: 1) requires no additional tools or outside intervention, 2) a practice prevalent in many cultures and thus something most patients are already familiar with the idea, and 3) a solidly-proven and well-researched quickest method to regain homeostasis.

It is not supposed to make you feel worse, emotionally or physically, because it's acting directly upon your nervous system to change feedback patterns - I'm going to link as reference the following Wikipedia articles for anyone to read at their leisure:

Conscious breathing

Control of ventilation

Hyperventilation syndrome

I have no idea what anyone is telling a patient to make this literally painful for them, but you're supposed to slowly ease into a completely controlled state of breathing - not a single person is able to go from panicking to calm by ordering themselves to do so, regardless of general mental health. If that were the case then it would not be a state of panic.

Secondly, sometimes therapists are far too by the book, and I'm not sure if it's been recommending to purposefully tense your muscles from head to toe before attempting to regulate your breathing. This helps some people but does not help others; try it out and see if it helps you, because then at least you'll know.

okay. pausing in typing this to sit up straight and do the breathing exercise thing for a few cycles so I can vividly describe what happens.

Breathing in deeply feels like I'm filling up my lungs too much, like I'm trying to engage the wall of my abdomen to get my breath to deepen but it feels wrong. I'm trying to feel that expansion in my stomach, but it just does not feel right. Sometimes there's a "locking up" that happens in my shoulders here.

Holding my breath is just against what my body instinctively wants to do. I feel myself tense up trying to stop from breathing out too soon, and sometimes there's this kind of locking-up feeling in my throat and it's like I almost swallow air trying to stop the exhale from happening. I keep accidentally skipping the hold breath part because the urge to exhale is too strong.

Breathing out for longer than my inhale makes me feel like I'm just trying to wheeze air out of my already airless lungs at the tail end of the breath, which also tenses up my body. It feels wrong to try to empty out all the air from my lungs to that extent, and there's kind of a "gulping" feeling or a spasm in my throat. Like I'm trying to actually flatten all the air out of my chest.

Then of course it seems like the problem is I need to exhale more slowly, but trying to control the length of my breaths more consciously makes the muscles of my back, stomach, ribs etc. lock up because I'm trying to stop it from going too fast and my whole body tenses.

Like, at every part it feels like I'm fighting and wrestling with my body against what it wants to do, and it increases more and more because it feels like I'm not even absorbing oxygen from my breath, like my brain has this panicked feeling of "not enough air" and I have this increasing, reflex-like urge to gasp that I also have to fight against.

You're not required to do a longer exhale, if I'm being really honest - the goal is to extend the length of your inhales (and not even necessarily breathing deeply, just regularly and more smoothly).

Speaking partly from research and partly from personal experience, you can experiment a bit and see what helps you best. Some inhale-hold-exhale patterns that I've seen helping people are 7-5-4 (i.e. seven seconds inhale, five seconds hold, four seconds exhale), or 4-5-4, or similar ratios.

Personally, sometimes doing a long exhale as a start is often more helpful, because it's a good way to trick the brain, but any method works so long as you're slowly increasing how long it takes you to inhale (this is the main part of it). However long that takes you to accomplish, that's how long it takes.

If it hurts to immediately do a large inhale, then uh. Don't do that? You don't have to? If someone's telling you to, they might be more concerned with following their education than looking at the person in front of them.

One thing I would say is that you don't have to correspondingly increase how long you hold your breath with how long it takes you to inhale. A rhythm of, for example, 2-1-3 can be good to start off with, but only if you find it helpful.

It doesn't hurt to do a large inhale, it just feels weird and wrong. The hurting comes in as I struggle more and more to breathe slowly enough and my body tenses up.

The pattern I learned was 6 seconds inhale, 7 seconds hold, 8 seconds exhale. When I learned about "box breathing" it was 4-4-4. There isn't much consistently. Box breathing feels really bad to me too though.

So, I'm hearing that people count out seconds in a certain pattern. I'm also hearing that you're supposed to slowly lengthen your breaths more and more. If that were the case, the cycles would get longer, right? So counting would only make it confusing? It seems really hard to mentally keep track of 3 different counters as they increment upwards.

For context, hi, we're actively studying psychology, specifically because we intend to go into psychiatry. This is very much within our area of expertise.

Breathing exercises are something of an exploit in your autonomic nervous system. You're effectively attempting to forcibly tell your body that things are okay by forcing your breathing to mimic how it would be if things were okay. For a large chunk of people, doing that works just fine, because their autonomic nervous system doesn't FIGHT THEM at every step of the process.

couple thoughts: 1. A No-Fish tank would not have to do water changes to get rid of nitrates, but you might have to add ammonia and play a really complicated game with artificial fertilizers because you don't have fish poop for your plants to eat. like land plants, aquatic plants need manure. 2. A tank with a SHITLOAD of plants and not that many fish may only need to have it's water changed 2 or 3 times per year because it's 1000% percent possible to zero out your nitrates with enough plants. I'm basically there with my 20 gallon long, I think I've only changed its water when I was dosing the tank with antibiotics. There are some people with walstad tanks they haven't changed the water in years, just topped it off.

3. I'm going to recommend reading up on the Walstad Method in general because it's really interesting and the principles there are applicable to all types of tanks, because it gives you a better understanding of how small freshwater ecosystems work. But walstad tanks have lights, maybe a heater, and no other tech, just a shitload of plants. They take a long, long time to cycle but once they do they're for-real no-tech tanks.

4. A tank without fish is not a tank without animals. healthy plants will have microfauna hitchikers like copepods, daphnia, snails, scuds etc. Those are all good and healthy and fascinating in their own right, and will have a (net positive) effect on your tank ecosystem, so you need to take them into account.