#I have so many tabs open for research rn

[pupilofbast]

Bwuh. I've felt a call to Lord Ganesh and I will try to see where it goes, but working with another pantheon means I am back to being brand new somewhere and I feel afraid of fucking up 😭

[pcktknife]

megumi mizutani really actually never misses bc in addition to designing mimikyu and the tinkatink/h.growlithe/tandemaus lines (as well as unmentioned others) I just found out she's the one who did the art for ingo and emmet's full art team up card

[becausebuckley]

michelle's buddie fic recs: week 33

i've been reading so many brilliant fics lately and decided i wanted to share some of my favourites in a little rec list! i'm hoping to make this a weekly thing to share some extra love for the amazing authors of the 911 fandom <3

this is a mix of fics with all ratings, so some include NSFW content. please take a look at both the ratings and the fic tags before reading!

if you come across something you like in this list, remember to show some love to the author by leaving kudos and a comment! and with that, here's a small peek at my ao3 history this week <3

it hurts to hope for more | 42hrb/@exhuastedpigeon | 15.7k | M

Buck wants to be a dad, it takes a couple break-ups and a major non-romantic heartbreak for him to figure out that maybe he already is. definitely take a peek at the tags before reading but this is the most beautiful exploration of buck's desire to be a father + his relationship with eddie and chris!!

kindred spirits | Inell/@inell | 52.1k, ongoing | E

Eddie has been a member of Paranormal Research Group for nearly four years after being recruited during one of their investigations. During that time, he’s found a job he enjoys, created a family that cares about him, become an unwilling reality TV star, and fallen in love with his best friend and partner, Buck. okay so admittedly i am a chapter behind on this one but i'm so excited to read it like literally the tab is open i am ready!! i'm so intrigued by the paranormal research part of this fic and the buddie is just brilliant!

meet me where the tide comes in | iinryer/@iinryer | 4.2k | GA

a 3+1 fic about eddie getting kissed on the head i will never not love a head kiss fic tbh it's one of my biggest weaknesses, and this is no exception!

pivot tables | rainbowninja167/@rainbowtitania | 10.2k, ongoing | E

Buck learns that Eddie's never had a prostate orgasm. Clipboard sex ensues. this is funny and hot and sweet and so very them. it's ongoing and the two chapters that are up rn are absolute gems! the google form bit is my favourite <3

something to hold onto | foxwatson/@eddiediazes | 5.2k | T

the one where frank tells eddie he should work on letting himself want things, and eddie starts by cuddling with buck the absolute softest fluffiest cuddling fic. an immediate favourite!!

somewhere to stand and stay | teaspoon/@standback | 8.3k | E

in which buck accidentally passes his eddie-mentionitis to jee-yun, eddie grows a mustache, and buck realizes he wants to have eddie's babies. there's the cutest jee-yun ever, eddie's stache, a feelings realisation, and a breeding kink?? literally what else could i ask for. it's nothing the answer is nothing this fic is everything

waking the witch | lesbianrobin/@lesbianrobin | 7.8k | T

According to historians, seiðr was a traditionally feminine religious practice among the Old Norse. According to Eddie’s mother, seiðr is the birthright of a woman and a woman only, and Eddie is an aberration. i am such a sucker for magical realism fics it's honestly not even funny. but can you really blame me when the magic elements are incorporated as brilliantly as it's done here? just. the floating <3

[flowers-for-em]

currently dying rn

i had shut my computer down while i was away and so i opened it to start it back up again and usually the browser i have has this thing that says 'restore tabs' and i accidentally clicked no

so now i've lost like... sooooo many tabs of research and studying

im so dumb 😭

[thee-morrigan]

now that I've had a couple of days to go through SEVERAL stages of mental illness about book 3, I have…Some Thoughts. about the book in general and specifically about N's route, as so far that's the only one in which I've gone through most (if not all) of the interaction variations (yes, I have approximately 83253 tabs open rn. I told y'all I'm being very unwell about this). I've played through M's route several times so far too, but there were fewer standout "wait, what?" moments for me in that route tbh 🥴

below the cut: the peer review nobody asked for! (and my sincerest apologies lmao)

I really need Mishka to hire professional copy editors for these books, y'all. There are grammar/syntax errors that just. shouldn't be there. (and I don't even mean the nitpicky ones that I'm super anal about! I mean ones like using 'stationary' when you mean 'stationery'.)

somewhat related to the above bullet, I hope the testing period for book 4 is a lot longer than it was for book 3. there are some inconsistencies in the narrative that I suspect would have been caught if there'd been more time between the beta testing and the book being sent to HG.

for example, if you trigger the sex scene options in N's combat route, there is at least one errant reference to the feel of denim when like. you're both in workout clothes (and there is significant time spent describing both N's and the MC's outfits!). ALSO, when you go back inside for the debriefing with UB, F & M tease N about their jeans being unzipped when, again: there were no jeans or zippers involved. It's a funny scene after the equivalent research options, but it makes no sense post-combat ones without editing for attire differences.

while I'm thinking about the research scene on N's route, the fact that the MC can confess their love and N flat out says NOTHING in response??? just immediately jumps to gettin' busy despite the MC explicitly asking them to say something in response??? what will probably be Holland's canon route is fine, because the combat path has a "scared by own feelings" choice and you know homegirl immediately tried to yeet herself out of that potential conversation bc they've been dating for all of 30 seconds at this point. BUT knowing that that path was fine bc it happened to fit my OC honestly just made me more annoyed for anyone playing with a different/more emotionally mature/open detective. because going through the "i love you" options in the research scene especially were disappointing.

again, related to the above, the narrative inconsistencies (and the bulky plot) made the pacing often feel inconsistent. there were so many moving pieces and story beats that a lot of scenes felt either rushed (without seeming like that pace was tonally/narratively appropriate) or unnecessarily truncated. I also felt like there were a lot of points of abrupt info-dumping that was clearly meant to give background info on UB/other characters/plotpoints but ended up feeling inorganic/unnatural in terms of actual relationship-building. or, alternatively, like it was meant to build to a resolution point later in the book that just never happened.

for example: the whole post-Unit Victor scene where your LI shares some of their past with you. It didn't feel quite as abrupt/odd in my M route playthroughs, but the flow was JARRING for me in N's. And the abrupt end to that scene is never revisited. like, I understand the conversation maybe not coming up again, but for neither of them to even linger on what were presumably heavy emotional topics or think about it again at what could have been relevant points throughout the book seemed to dilute what I assume was meant to be an important scene.

speaking of things that are basically not revisited when they really should be, if N's overprotectiveness is going to continue to be a defining trait and the MC can continue to be explicitly bothered by it, I am begging for book 4 to let them have an uninterrupted, private conversation about it - particularly after the whole "I don't know how this is going to work" scene after the auction. because if this is how it already is and there are 4 more books, their relationship is going to be so (much more) unhealthy.

a more positive note! I did think it was ~interesting to see the juxtaposition of N's constant over-the-top "romantic gestures/sentiments" schtick against the responses you can get when you invite them to dinner but choose either the "you don't have to go if you would be uncomfortable" or "I'll call it off if you're not feeling it" option. with the former, N's response is that relationships are doing things for the other person/doing things they want to do, and they seem genuinely baffled when the detective immediately disagrees. with the latter, they seem equally surprised at the detective's willingness to ditch dinner for them. it's a brief thing, but both of their potential responses give the impression that N's perception of those statements is disproportionate to their actual significance. I mean. it's a dinner party that the detective almost forgot about entirely. clearly they don't give a shit about rescheduling/going alone. moreover, towards the end of the book, N explicitly worries about not "being enough" for the MC. for whatever reason, N clearly seems to think they're like, constantly on the verge of losing the detective in a different way than they worry about losing them to the neverending string of external threats, and I do hope it's meant to be the foreshadowing I think it is.

[portraitperpetuity]

I think you already talked about it before, but what are the countries where your OCs are from? Do you have any brazilIan OC? 👀

Hello hello!

Pretty much all of my OC stuff happens in fictional worlds with fictional countries, though WAAAAYYYYY too many of my OCs have German names (though my fave OC Gerlach's name is extremely medieval, think 1300s, and many of their names may sound old or inaccurate in one way or another). I'll have to post about the worlds my characters come from sometime soon, and I'll definitely have to diversify my name choices more going forward lol

I'd also love to write a story that actually is set on Earth at some point, maybe somewhere in New York bc that's my state and bc so many people from so many backgrounds live around here, especially in the city :)

I don't currently have any Brazilian OCs, but I'm sure it would be very fun to create one from there at some point!! I defo want to do some research on Brazilian history and culture either way. I actually have a tab open about Santos Dumont rn since seeing this ask from you reminded me that you posted about him! As an American, I only ever heard about the Wright brothers when it came to early aviation, so it's been very cool having my eyes opened to a more global perspective 😎

[commaclear]

Okay I think enough time has passed where I can ask this question

How the hell did htid! Wilbur know how to suck dick??? Was this mf looking at articles or smth like how was he a natural first try?? Middle age yaoi magic??

/nsfw warning

I am so glad you asked because I have answers

This motherfucker was ABSOLUTELY researching this shit, like wayyyy too much too. I'm exposing him rn: he has so many private tabs open (and Tommy knows about all of them rip)

I'm gonna try to figure out how to say this without being extremely explicit.... when you have *ahem* a very vocal bed buddy, it's not exactly rocket science to figure out what works/is most effective through trial and error

Wilbur is a musician in everything he does, and he certainly figured out how to make Quackity make noise. But fr he's got them musician hands/tongue AKA an extremely delicate and precise touch

Q was so horny it would've taken deliberate effort to NOT get him off, like it could've been the most pathetic blowjob ever and he still would have had a great time bc he had been waiting like three or four months for it

The magic of Christmas AND yaoi /hj

[brakingpoint]

I can't look up the exact passage rn, but the part in the hotel where devon is on the balcony thinking while aiden is sleeping!! (My favourite part)

Also the perfume scene!!!! (Clearly the entire holiday sequence lives rent free in my mind)

YES!!

starting off with the balcony scene -

He slips out of bed, panicked, and Aiden, half asleep, does not stir. in general this is also probably one of my favourite scenes in terms of atmosphere etc but this bit slipped through my proofreading and it DOES make me mad every time i read it. girl what do you mean he's half asleep and he also doesn't stir 😭

Devon makes his way out onto the terrace and watches the sea glistening ink-black before him i definitely borrowed the description of the sea as "ink-black" from somewhere but i don't remember where. i love how forboding and void-like the sea becomes at night; it's just an endless dark expanse and i really liked the image of devon looking out at the horizon for comfort and distraction and instead feeling like he was being pulled into a black hole.

He wonders, as he turns and crawls back into bed, if this is how it would feel to drive a race you know would kill you, watching the lap count tick down and knowing, every time you skim past the same barrier, that one of these times it will catch you in your tracks, crushing your organs together and forcing the air from your lungs in one final, strangled cry. in all my writing i tend to lean towards very drawn out and specific similes but i also exclusively write in the most limited first person ever so i really enjoy the challenge of trying to find comparisons that fit within the viewpoint character's frame of reference. not only is racing pretty much everything for devon but he's already proven himself, in my fic, as a chronic overthinker on track who really gets drawn into toxic patterns of thought lap after lap. i think he's definitely somebody who's ruminated over this exact scenario in the past just as its own thing - this is the first time he's specifically drawn a parallel between the idea of crashing and his anxiety over what he feels is the inevitable deadline on what he's got going on with aiden. of course it's also foreshadowing for his actual crash a few chapters later >:)

On Wednesday, they visit the butterfly museum. this was honestly a classic bit of english class playing around with sentence lengths for pace & emotional effect and i'm really proud of it. i also want to shout out st tropez for actually having a butterfly museum because it gave me a really fun double meaning to play with - on the surface the butterfly is a lovely pretty image in stark contrast to the violent crash imagery of the previous paragraph, but it also brings to mind this idea of ephemerality that again plays into the deadline that's been imposed on the devaiden relationship. and, of course, all the butterflies in the museum are dead and pinned, so despite the apparent contrast in sentence structure & subject matter the undercurrent of morbidity very much remains. (you could probably also say something about the artificial preservation of something so fragile and beautiful but that wasn't consciously in my thoughts at the time of writing!)

i have less to say in detail about the perfume scene but oh my god was it a nightmare to research - devon is canonically established as being really interested in fragrances & working on his own and it was such a fun (and gay coded) characterisation nugget that i really wanted to include it. the issue is i know sweet fuck all about perfumes so i literally opened so many fragrantica tabs that the website actually blocked me from accessing it because it thought i was a bot. all in pursuit of finding a couple of notes that would work for a masculine (with an androgynous twist) perfume for summer nights. the idea of the sensual perfume spritzing actually came from my fragrantica browsing because oh my god, the descriptions on that website are SO sexual and borderline vulgar at times that i thought you know what, if i don't make this at least a little bit horny i am doing the entire fragrance community a massive disservice.

btw, me dragging the perfume name was entirely a self drag. because i also could not think of anything better than "71 by devon butler"

[set-phasers-to-whump]

strychnine

X=done

Prompt: poison/venom

Whumpee: Neal Caffrey

Fandom: White Collar

For: anon

you would think getting to pick any character i wanted for this would have made it easier to write but my stupidass brain took forever anyway lol. sorry this took me awhile, but i hope it’s ok!!

As far as white collar crimes went, embezzlement was by no means the most interesting one. Especially not this particular embezzlement case, Neal thought. One of the board members of a nonprofit charity dedicated to the arts in schools had been suspected of the crime-several employees had accused him of funnelling thousands of dollars in donations into his own personal accounts. So far, however, no one had been able to prove it. 

This was, of course, where the FBI, and Neal by extension, came in. He’d been sent to work at the nonprofit and instructed to use his knowledge and skills in art as a way to get close to the suspect and hopefully learn his secrets.

At first glance, this had seemed fairly exciting-getting to show off his artistic prowess was always a good time-but the reality of the situation was, he was stuck behind a desk taking calls for most of the day, except on the rare occasions that he was invited to speak with a member of the board. 

Still, little by little, he’d made progress with the suspect, and now, in his third week on the job, he was having lunch with their suspect, Jason Reynolds, nearly every day, discussing things that began with favorite artists and slowly moved toward Mike’s-Neal’s alias’-openness to a little crime. He was so close to drawing Reynolds out into the open-he’d confessed to a few small things already, nothing big enough to land him in serious trouble, but Neal was sure he’d reveal his guilt in the embezzlement case before the end of the week.

He wasn’t wrong with this assumption-though if he knew exactly how Reynolds’ guilt would come to light, he might’ve gone about things a little differently.

The day had started off like every other one for the past few weeks-he arrived at work at eight in the morning, was debriefed by Peter, swapped his tracking anklet for a watch, put in his earpiece, grabbed some breakfast, and made his way to ‘work.’

He’d just gotten settled at his desk when the secretary for the board of directors, Catherine, walked up to him, a cup of coffee in each hand. She set one cup on his desk and told him that Reynolds had sent it for him-apparently, he had something important to talk to Neal about, and would be calling on him within the hour. 

There was a bit of excited chatter in his ear as this information was received by Peter and his team. This had to be it, Reynolds was going to be taken down today!

Neal drummed his fingers on his desk as he worked, answering phone calls with perhaps a little less professionalism than he usually afforded the task-today was his last day, after all. He absentmindedly sipped at his coffee, which, somehow, had been made exactly the way he liked it, though it was a little bitter.

After perhaps ten minutes, Neal's coffee and work were entirely forgotten-he knew he should have been working, keeping his cover until the last second, but he was so excited that he found it impossible to keep still. He bounced his leg, continued tapping on the desk, fiddled with his pens, his watch…

Another few minutes went by, and Neal began to wonder if something was wrong with him. The muscles in his arms and legs were getting sore, but he hadn’t done anything to strain them recently. He decided to get up and stretch them out, maybe take a quick walk around the room, but the second he stood up, his heart began to pound and his breathing quickened and he realized that he was afraid-but of what? His mind refused to give him that information, insisting only that something, somewhere, was scary. Which made no sense, some rational pet of his mind told him, but there he was, at his desk surrounded by nothing but other workers, terrified. Something had to be wrong…

He was just working out how to convey this thought to Peter and his team when he was startled out of his thinking by a tap on his shoulder from the secretary, and once again jumped out of his chair. 

“Sorry, Mike,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

He took a second to get himself under control-it was just a tap to the shoulder, no reason to be so startled. “It’s alright, Catherine. The boss wants to see me now, I take it?”

She nodded. “He says it’s something that’s really going to pique your interest.”

Neal nodded back, and gave her what he hoped passed as a friendly smile-not only were his arms and legs sore, but now, his jaw had decided to tighten up, and he could barely tell if it moved at all. Yeah, something was really wrong. But he was so close to getting the information they needed...whatever this was could wait a few minutes. 

He made it to Reynolds’ office somehow, and had scarcely closed the door behind him when his legs went stiff and he collapsed to the floor. There was a quick, “What was that?” in his ear, which he ignored in favor of attempting to stand up. He didn’t get very far before he was pushed back to the ground by a sharp arching in his back that wouldn’t stop, and he groaned weakly and muttered, “wha’s happening?”

There was a rush of questions through this earpiece, which his brain processed only as garbled words which were entirely too loud. He tried to ignore the voices and focus on Reynolds instead. 

He looked up, as much as his body would allow, and saw Reynolds standing over him, without any sort of concern on his face and-oh god, Reynolds had poisoned him. 

As if to confirm this thought, Reynolds smiled, a sharp and dangerous smile, and said, “you thought you were so clever, didn’t you, Mike? Thought you could waltz in here and get all buddy-buddy with me, like you deserved to get in on my payoff?”

No, no, no, this was bad, this was very bad. He had to do something...but his mind was blank. The voices in his ear were fairly shouting now, and he felt his body begin to spasm painfully and realized he could barely breathe and he needed...he needed…

“Peter…”

If anyone could help him, Peter could. Peter could save him. 

He didn’t hear Peter. Or maybe he did. The voices coming through his earpiece had long since melted into one thing. But Peter had to come, right? Peter could help him, Peter could always help him, and he was so scared and everything hurt so much and he couldn’t control anything and Peter, please...

He wasn’t aware of much else for quite some time. He heard Reynolds laugh, and then there was a crash, and a bunch of people surrounding him, and someone had a soft hand on his face and was telling him he was going to be okay, and then some people picked him up, and then everything really started to blur together, and the next thing he knew, he was slowly opening his eyes to the sound of steady beeping and something mildly scratchy covering him. 

The hospital. 

He looked around, not expecting much. A couple machines, maybe. 

There were a few machines in the room, but there was also a chair, with a plasticky and uncomfortable looking cushion, and seated in it, a book open across his lap, eyes closed and snoring softly, was Peter. 

Peter had come for him. Peter had saved him. He smiled at that thought, and quietly whispered Peter's name to wake him up.

Peter jerked out of his doze and looked around confusedly for a second until his eyes landed on Neal. 

“How you feeling?”

Neal experimentally moved an arm. “Better.” Vaguely sore, but his mind was clear and his body felt more or less like it should have. “He poisoned me. Reynolds.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, worry still etched into his face. “Strychnine.”

Neal was far less concerned with the means of his poisoning than the outcome of the case. “Did we get him?”

“We sure did,” Peter said, smiling a bit at his CI’s focus on the case rather than on what had happened to him. “Embezzlement and attempted manslaughter.”

“Oh.” He had almost died, hadn’t he? This wasn’t the first time he’d almost died, of course. And nor was it the first time Peter had been the one to stop him dying. 

“Thank you. For saving me, I mean.”

Peter, whose thoughts had evidently been in the same direction, said, “wouldn’t be the first time.” But he smiled when he said it, and patted Neal on the arm. “I’d say don’t make a habit of it, but I think we’re past that point.”

Neal nodded absentmindedly. He was tired. But there was still work to be done, right? “How was the arrest? What...what happened?”

“You can go back to sleep, Neal. I’ll fill you in on the details of the arrest later.” 

He nodded again, gratefully. “Thanks, Peter.”

Peter clapped him on the shoulder in a poor but kind and almost fatherly attempt at affection. “Of course.”

Neal slept. 

hope you liked this!!!! i did a lot of research on this particular poison so hopefully the symptoms are as they should be! thank you for reading!!

[bonesandthebees]

1. My favorite fic of yours

I LOVED clinic, tied for second are 17 hours and the stars and their children!

3. The best character you've written for

it's been said before but Wilbur is your brand! also I love the way you write Techno

6. Something I remember vividly from reading one of your fics

your "quick easy breakfast" thing from the authors notes of clinic KEKW - i now have rice with egg and soy sauce regularly (which actually helps me remember to eat - undiagnosed ADHD pog?)

8. What I like the most about your writing

I love the specific voice you use, and your choice of adjectives and grammar! A lot of fics are really good but the authors don't quite have the same linguistic skill you do!

9. A fic i'm excited for you updating/posting

I'm super excited for the rest of stars! I love the political tension and the fact that this is a very new concept (space royalty pog)

11. Something I wish/hope you write

I don't know how much expertise you have in this area or if you're willing to research it but I would love a ballet au, or other dance au! I feel like there's a lot of potential in a modern setting dance studio au, whether it's just the setting for the plot or the plot is centered around dance itself :3

12. A fic of yours that i've re-read

I've read clinic like three times! I love it so much :DDD

13. If i've ever shared/talked about your fic to someone else

OH BOY HAVE I EVER! Every fic I read that I particularly love I talk about to my sibling (the one who finally caved and read 17 hours kekw) and i'll ramble for ages but never do it justice because it's my dodgy memory versus your amazing writing :)

:>

hi crow anon!!!

wow I'm surprised how many people say 17 hours is their favorite fic of mine. I loved it of course because of how cool the concept was and how wonderfully mine and roxy's writing played off of each other, but still never expected so many people to think of it as a favorite so that makes me so happy to hear!!

omg a compliment on how I write techno... tysm I literally am always so unsure in my characterization of c!techno that's why he's my least favorite to write bc I'm just always so worried if I'm doing him justice or not

LMAOOO totally forgot about that time I talked about breakfast in the notes of clinic. tbh I should start making goofy authors notes like that again. also I haven't actually eaten eggs with rice and soy sauce for breakfast in a LONG time. lately my breakfast has been lighter stuff like fruits and cheese, but I kinda miss the rice and eggs so might get back into it (also ADHD pog!!)

that means so much aaa I've worked very hard over the years to develop a specific voice in my writing so I'm really glad it shines through. I know my writing isn't super flowery which is a personal preference of mine, but I'm happy it's distinctive all the same. it takes a lot of years to develop a rhythm with the words and grammar you use when writing, so it just makes me happy to hear someone notices it :)

hehe i'm so excited to update stars. gonna finish the next chapter tomorrow hopefully so maybe it'll be out on monday??

fun fact i literally watch vlogs from ballerinas on youtube all the time (have one open in another tab rn) and I've watched a lot of documentaries on ballet dancing as well (also, I took ballet as a kid but only when I was little and not for very long). I LOVE learning about ballet, but I've always been unsure about making a ballet au solely bc I obviously write crimeboys, but the part of ballet i'm most interested in is dancing en pointe, and men don't usually dance en pointe. I'm still considering researching more into the men's side of ballet, but there's just such a limited number of women on the dsmp that it would be a bit tricky for sure

god rereading clinic 3 times?? that's so long I have so much respect

awww it makes me smile to hear that people talk about my fics to each other :D

ty for this crow anon!!!

ask game!

[strangetrashpatrol]

Story

Does anyone else do a lot of research for stories?

My search history consists of so many things about pregnancy, weddings and animal as well as issues on abuse, racism and homophobia over the years. 

If someone looked through my search history right now, it’d be about a bunch of serious issues and then BAM “what did lingerie look like over the years” and “what was the BDSM community like over the years?” (how did I even get there???)

and half the time, you don’t use any of the research you did and now your brain is filled with useless knowledge like the fact that The Game of Life is 161 years old and was made in the 1860s. 

Also, holy shit how is my laptop working rn i have 63 tabs open and my bed is covered in papers

[morphogenetic]

Ask you anything: 4, 31, 50, 70, 93 - but just count that last one as "Are you keeping a secret from someone?" without the value judgement.

4: What’s something you really want right now?the summer research that i wont shut the hell up about. that is......mostly it rn tbh31: Have you ever had the feeling something bad was going to happen and you were right?i probably have but i can’t remember anything specific so50: Top 3 web-pages?not counting the tabs i have open literally all the time for email, proooobably tumbl and some combination of my class webpages. chrome says fb but i barely open fb on my computer so?? who knows70: How many windows are open on your computer?9 in different programs, 3 in chrome. this question would be a lot different if it was about tabs in my browser ghhf(for sake of honesty: 27 tabs.)93: Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth?uhhh sorta but in an obtuse way? like they Know but not the Full Extent. if that makes any sensei keep shit from my parents all the time but im not sure if it counts as a secret if i talk to them like once every two weeks tops...

[arialis]

i’m researching smth for a story i’m writing and this has lead to two things:

1) i have way too many tabs open and it lowkey distresses me but i can’t finish researching rn b/c i have stuff i need to do so open they stay

2) i really want to ask someone (more informed than myself obvs) directly about this topic but i worry it’ll come out wrong so probs not gonna happen

[cm-sheridan-writes]

Chat Window

However it happens, it starts with putting yourself out there and hitting the Enter key. Leading up, there are several little moments on the forum, and out of the sea of usernames, a few start to stick in your memory. Eventually, you begin to keep track of their posts.

It takes months, but you realize that you’re forming a picture of a few of the users. One usually shows up in the middle of the night, active for a few hours before disappearing again. You wonder if they have insomnia, or if they live out of the country. Curious one night, you search for other posts they’ve made, digging for clues, cultural references, anything that could give you an answer. It occurs to you that someone could be researching you at that very moment, and your fingers pause above the keys. Is this creepy? Are you crossing a line? You’re ten pages deep in their old posts, though, so any wisdom from this realization is too little, too late.

You start edging into the conversation around them. It’s a fine line that you’re completely anxious of: you want them to notice you, but you don’t want to be a bother. You play with the idea of a direct message, but without any sort of context or post to reference, it feels way too vulnerable. Better not. Besides, what if they turn out to be a completely obnoxious person, or a bigot, or they reveal that they love Ayn Rand, like, on a deep and cellular level? Can you deal with that? (Memories of reading The Fountainhead for a lit class in high school may scar you a little more than you want to admit. Your instructor clearly had some sort of expectation about that book when he assigned it, but whatever it was, you cannot imagine.)

(You post something about this lit class, and Ayn Rand, and spend a few hours commiserating with most of the replies. One Rand supporter sneaks in and questions if you really absorbed the piece, and you find yourself disabling comments because the ensuing brawl is cluttering up your inbox.)

A few weeks pass, and suddenly there’s a note in your inbox, and that familiar username is behind it:

One new message from snaplolcat01:

    saw ur post on ayn rand.. the comments were a trip and i read every single one. really glad no one made ME read anything by her

There’s a little flutter of validation in your chest, and you eagerly type back a response:

    Haha, yeah, the comments got way out of hand, I should have known what I was doing when I posted that. Yah, your lucky. There are a couple scenes I just CANNOT unread. If you want my advice, stay FAR AWAY from those books.     *you’re (ugh, first impressions, and that happens)

A few minutes pass without a response, and you shrug it off and click away from your inbox. As you scroll and tap and read and respond, you have a little, vague smile on your face. Being noticed is always nice. Communication is slow but constant over the next few days, whenever you find yourself near your computer and with some free time. They never seem to be on at the same time you are, but usually, you find a new response from them. You tiptoe around each other, keeping the talk to whatever latest drama is happening in some section of the forums, but you carefully reveal small pieces of yourself, and the conversation branches to news and politics, movies, and one day, when your schedules seem suddenly to overlap, favorite childhood cereals.

It’s been months, you realize, since that first introduction, and your talks would fill several dozens of pages at this point. For the most part, they still respond while you’re asleep, and one day, you say, “You’re always up so late, you must be on a different timezone than me.”

You’re up late that night, working on an essay, when one of your open tabs chimes at you. You glance up and click through, and in your inbox find:

��   haha, well idk what ur schedule is but im only able to get on after school and work     i usually read stuff here til i fall asleep

The essay can wait.

    Oh, gotcha     What are you studying

The picture in your head starts to flesh out just a bit more. You find out that you two have a mutual interest in biology, though you’re in a pre-med track and intending to go into law school, while they’re doubling with computer science and interested in how this all ties in with genetics. They’re balancing a few restaurant jobs as well as a position grading for one of the professors in their department. You can sympathize with the lack of available time; you’re supposed to be writing an essay right now, after all.

    oh dude i dont wanna distract u!!!

    No, you’re fine!     I need a break anyway, my brain feels like cement

The process of sharing is natural, sometimes abundant and sometimes halts, but never feels forced. The person behind the pixels seems as flesh and blood as anyone you know “in real life”, though you’re forced to confront your growing disillusionment with that phrase. You’d scoffed at a friend in high school who had had an internet girlfriend, asking how the relationship could be real if you’d never seen them in person. The internet had been a barrier back then, and while intellectually it made sense that there was a human being on the other end of the Ethernet cord, it was like watching shadow theater play out behind a scrim. It had never made sense that someone could fall in love with what you only saw as black and white pixels on a screen.

More and more, however, you’re forced to accept that you know more about this person than you do about many of the people you see on a day to day basis.

****

    This might be a bit weird but go with me on this

    yeah?

    SO I’ve never ever seen you in real life, but it’s so weird that I know more about you than the girl in my cell bio class that I’ve been crushing on and I see her for actual hours a day     And I don’t know a damn thing about her     We braethe the same air     *breathe

    it’s wild dude     i know whatu mea n     (sorry long day, typing sucks haha)     one of my tas was talking bout th is at a party (she was hella stoned, fukin wild XD)     going on about global societies an d how we as like a people could connect so mjuch faster to somenoe acoss the globe     easier than th people we see evry day     somthing about a keyboard makes it easier     ^^^her exact words

    Whoa

    i know rt?     maybs if bio girl gave u her fb u two wopuld talk     fuck dude i gott slep     i kno my typing sucks but this is embararasing     *embasrasing     FUCK

    HAhahahaha, no worries     I should get going too (though I wanna hear more about this TA)     (I never run into any of my profs or anything at parties)

    haha highly recomend, its an EXPIERENCE     cya dude

This idea of global society sticks with you, and their TA’s comment about keyboards. A keyboard offers a backspace key, and a way to edit yourself. You’ve said plenty of dumb shit on the internet before without necessarily stopping to think through the consequences, but then it occurs to you that at the start of this whole friendship, you’d sometimes gone through ten variations of the same two-sentence message before finally deciding to send it. It was a series of self-edits and careful selection of which parts of yourself you’d wanted seen. Just like real life.

There was comfort in the distance, though. Without a person in front of you, and with the limitless communication offered by a message sitting in your inbox, you couldn’t see reactions -- or judgment. This correspondence held more personal information about yourself than some of your in-person friends knew.

****

    So I got Maya’s facebook page     We’ve been talking, and we’re going to get drinks this weekend, maybe see a movie if there’s anything good out

    YAY!     thats awesome1!!

    Thanks! :)     If we hadn’t talked about global societies and stuff a few nights ago I dunno if I would’ve gotten up the courage to talk to her. Your advice for talking via computer made it soooo much easier.

    so ur saying im resopnsible for this new relationship?     *responsible     ur welcome ;)

Drinks go fantastically, and you and Maya decide to forgo the movie and head back to her place. When you finally make it back to your computer, there are a few frantic, nosy messages.

    HOWZ THE DATE     cmon dude im dying to kno

    i can only assume ur havn massive amounts of sex rn     and im v happy for u     but i need to know

    r u alive????

You can’t keep the smile from your face, and you start to type out a response. Maya hadn’t thought it strange at all that you had an internet friend who had pushed you to finally ask her out. She’d even teased you, “Make sure to brag about me to your buddy.” The memory of that, her lips grazing your skin and her breath tickling your ear, raises goosebumps, and you shiver just a little bit. Some things just can’t be replicated over the internet, you decide, but friendship doesn’t seem to lack.

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: Quick Carbs, and Can Accutane Cause Diabetes?

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-quick-carbs-and-can-accutane-cause-diabetes/

Ask D'Mine: Quick Carbs, and Can Accutane Cause Diabetes?

Hey everyone! Happy Saturday! Welcome once again to our weekly advice column, Ask D'Mine, with your host Wil Dubois veteran type 1, author and clinical diabetes educator. Today Wil's tackling sources of quick-acting carbs in case of lows, and whether a certain (acne!) medication is connected to causing diabetes. Great questions, all!

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email your questions to AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

Larry, type 3 from Virginia, writes: My type 1 daughter is 14 years old and an excellent tennis player. Yesterday she was in a very strenuous match which lasted over 2 hours. In anticipation of the match, one hour before she reduced her basal 50% and consumed some complex carbs. Thirty minutes before she suspended her basal completely. She started the match with BG at 185 but it quickly dived into the low 60's. This was a USTA match, so the changeovers are timed and she has to check her blood and consume as many carbs that she can in a very limited amount of time. During the match, she consumed 4 bottles of Gatorade and about 12 tabs of glucose which amounted to approximately 160 grams of carbs. Her BG's stayed in the 60 — 75 area throughout the match. Toward the end she felt bloated by the amount of Gatorade that she had consumed and it certainly impacted her play in the last game. Any comments about managing BG in athletic events would be appreciated, but my specific question revolves around what would be a better source for a high amount of carbs which could be consumed quickly and easily during changeovers?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Short answer to a long question: Dex4 fluid. Why? Because it has 16 grams of very, very, very fast-acting sugar in only two ounces of liquid. Gatorade, by comparison, has less than 2 carbs per ounce. So for getting a lot of sugar into her young hide with a minimum of bloating, the Dex would be the way to go. (Now of course, some Gatorade for the electrolytes is probably a good idea, but not four bottles worth.)

As for how you handled her pump and complex carbs, I think you did great, so I've got nothing to add to that.

Now, I'm feeling the need for a bit of a disclaimer here because I've recommended Dex stuff before.Once or twice.But, I'm not on their payroll. I'm not a stock holder. In fact, I think the damn stuff is a little pricey. I spend way too much of my limited disposable income on Dex4 products each month as my frickin' insurance company won't cover glucose products. Apparently, it's not a necessary medical expense.

But I love the stuff. It works and it's saved my ass more times than I can count. It's portable, fast, and effective. And most importantly, it keeps me from overdoing it. If I were using some tasty candy I'd eat five times too much, have a rebound excursion, plus all the unneeded calories would make me fat. (Frequent lows can = bigger waistline.)

Oh. One little tip before the first serve: Make sure you have the little Dex4 bottles open for your daughter in advance. Otherwise getting the tricky seals off the top of the bottle will use up her whole changeover!

Michelle, type 3 from Massachusetts, writes: I appreciate your weekly column and look forward to learning more each time I read. I've been with my fiancé for 3-1/2 years now (we will be getting married next year) and he is a very "keep to himself T1" so it's hard for me to ask him questions and get anything more than a rushed answer or just have the subject changed. He was diagnosed his senior year of high school and blames Accutane for getting diabetes. Since we've started dating I've done a lot of research, but really only found one article that briefly mentioned that Accutane could impact blood sugar. Do you think that Accutane could be to blame, or could there be more to the story? Thanks again.

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Not to blame, no way. Part of the story? Perhaps. But no more than a brief prologue or maybe a foreword from an outsider. But just so everyone's in the loop, Accutane is an acne drug. Well not just any acne drug. Sort of a drug of last resort when all else has failed. It's powerful stuff with a host of side effects.

According to the prescribing information sheet there's a "high risk" that the med can cause miscarriage, still-birth, or birth defects. It can mess with your head, causing depression or psychosis in some people. And suicidal behavior. It can dry out your eyes and rob you of night vision. It can make your skin hyper-sensitive to the sun. Make you more prone to scarring. It can screw up your bones, sometimes making them weak, and other times making them abnormally thick. It can cause nosebleeds, change the color of your skin, slow down healing of wounds, raise your triglycerides, and create unwanted hair growth. It can trigger pancreatitis. Frankly, it's one hell of a scary-sounding drug. No wonder your guy blames his diabetes on it.

And hidden in practically the last line of this long litany of terrifying side effects is the off-hand comment that "some patients receiving Accutane have experienced problems in the control of their blood sugar. In addition, new cases of diabetes have been diagnosed during Accutane therapy, although no causal relationship has been established."

So there you have it. Straight from the Accutane horse's mouth. It can cause blood sugar problems. And it has been associated with new diagnoses of diabetes. But does that mean it caused his diabetes?

That's the 64-million-dollar question, isn't it?

First, consider that Accutane has been prescribed to over 13 million people (the name brand, made by Roche, was pulled from the U.S. market in 2009 under the weight of over 5,000 personal injury lawsuits, but generics still remain available). And there's what? Around 3 million type 1s? If Accutane were a primary cause of type 1 diabetes, I'd expect there'd be a hell of a lot more of us!

Given the wide-ranging side effects of this med, one has to wonder if there's anything that it doesn't cause. But the key thing to consider here is that we really have no clue what causes type 1 in the first place. So that makes it kind of hard to know with any degree of certainty what hand Accutane did, or didn't, have in your guy's diagnosis.

Here's all we really know for sure: in those of us with type 1, the body's immune system goes bonkers and attacks the home team. Our immune system gobbles up our insulin-producing beta cells like they were M&Ms.

And that's about all we know. Period.

Why does it happen? What's the trigger? No one knows. Some people think a virus. Some people think environmental pollution. At least one guy believes it's the Accutane he took for his acne in high school. But it could just as easily be contamination from aluminum in TV dinner trays, preservatives in foods, holes in the ozone layer, global warming, or sunspots. Who the hell knows? I spent almost 30 years working in photographic darkrooms and laboratories and have sometimes wondered if all those toxic chemicals we carelessly dipped our hands into played a part in my health destiny.

But I know a lot of ex-lab people (no more labs, everything went digital) and none of them have diabetes. Still... did the photo chemicals play a role? Even for just a few people like me? Maybe.

But so what?

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but I believe that for individuals the cause of our diabetes is meaningless. Hey. We got it now. Time to put on our big boy and big girl pants and deal with it. Now, for the greater good of all the yet-to-get-it folks, I do think science needs to figure this out so we can prevent future cases. The fifth generation to survive since the discovery of insulin is developing type 1 every day. It would be nice if there wasn't a sixth generation.

But for me, figuring out if there is one cause of type 1 or 100,000 causes—and figuring out what caused mine—really doesn't matter. It won't reset the clock. It won't change what happened to me. I think that spending too much time on "why did this happen" is unhealthy. It's counter-productive. An energy suck. Best to move on.

Controlling... well, ha! Trying to control my diabetes takes all the energy I've got to spare. Worrying about how I got here?

I don't have the oomph for that.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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