#WE ARE NOT POST-PANDEMIC AND COVID IS NOT GONE

[baileyboo2016]

FOR REAL. it makes me feel so uncomfortable when ppl say covid is over or we’re post-pandemic. it may not be how it was two to three years ago but it is still here.

reminder that even if the world health organization says covid is over, it isnt.

[acealistair]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard GameInformer Article Transcribed

I saw some people lamenting that they had no way to read the GameInformer article, and while MVP dalishious posted screenshots of the article here, I figured that might be a little difficult to read, plus people with screen readers can't read it of course. So I've gone ahead and transcribed it! Full thing below the cut!

As a note, I transcribed it without correcting any typos, capitalization errors, etc. that the article itself had (as much as it pained me, omg the author capitalizes so many things that shouldn't be and vice versa). There may be some typos on my part as I did this as quickly as I could, so apologies in advance for any you might encounter.

I have also created a plot-spoiler-free version of the article for those who would like to learn more about the mechanics of the game without learning more plot info than they want!

Throughout my research and preparation for a trip to BioWare’s Edmonton, Canada, office for this cover story, I kept returning to the idea that its next game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard (formerly subtitled Dreadwolf) is releasing at a critical moment for the storied developer. The previous installment, Dragon Age: Inquisition, hit PlayStation, Xbox, and PC a decade ago. It was the win BioWare needed, following the 2012 release of Mass Effect 3 with its highly controversial and (for many) disappointing ending. Inquisition launched two years later, in 2014, to rave reviews and, eventually, various Gameo the Year awards, almost as if a reminder of what the studio was capable of.

Now, in 2024, coincidentally, the next Dragon Age finds itself in a similar position. BioWare attempted a soft reboot of Mass Effect with Andromeda in 2017, largely seen as a letdown among the community, and saw its first live-service multiplayer attempt in 2019’s Anthem flounder in the tricky waters of the genre; it aimed for a No Man’s Sky-like turnaround with Anthem Next, but that rework was canceled in 2021. Like its predecessor, BioWare’s next Dragon Age installment is not only a new release in a beloved franchise, but is another launch with the pressure of BioWare’s prior misses; a game fans hope will remind them the old BioWare is still alive today.

“Having been in this industry for 25 years, you see hits and misses, and it’s all about building off of those hits and learning from those misses,” BioWare general manager Gary McKay, who’s been with the studio since January 2020, tells me.

As McKay gives me a tour of the office, I can’t help but notice how much Anthem is scattered around it. More than Mass Effect, more than Dragon Age, there’s a lot of Anthem - posters, real-life replicas of its various Javelins, wallpaper, and more. Recent BioWare news stories tell of leads and longtime studio veterans laid off and others departing voluntarily. Veilguard’s development practically began with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When I ask McKay about the tumultuousness of BioWare and how he, as the studio manager, makes the team feel safe in the product it’s developing, he says it’s about centering on the creative vision. “[When] we have that relentless pursuit for quality, and we have passion and people in the right roles, a lot of the other stuff you’re talking about just fades into the background.”

That’s a sentiment echoed throughout the team I speak to: Focus on what makes a BioWare game great and let Veilguard speak for itself. Though I had no expectations going in - it’s been 10 years since the last Drag Age, after all, and BioWare has been cagey about showing this game publicly - my expectations have been surpassed. This return to Thedas, the singular continent of the franchise, feels like both a warm welcome for returning fans and an impressive entry point for first-time players.

New Age, New Name

At the start of each interview, I address a dragon-sized elephant in the room with the game’s leads. What was Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is now Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Why?

“These games are reflections of the teams that make them, and as part of that, it means we learn a lot about what the heart and soul of the game really is as we’re developing it,” Veilguard game director Corinne Busche tells me. “We quickly learned and realized that the absolute beating heart of this game is these authentic, diverse companions. And when we took a step back, as we always do, we always check our decisions and make sure they still represent the game we’re trying to build.”

Dreadwolf no longer did that, but each member of BioWare I speak to tells me The Veilguard does. And while I was initially abrasive to the change - lore aside, Dreadwolf is simply a cool name - I warmed up to The Veilguard.

Solas, a Loki-esque trickster member of the Elven pantheon of gods known as the Dread Wolf, created the Veil long ago while attempting to free the elves from their slave-like status in Thedas. This Veil is a barrier between the magical Fade and Thedas, banishing Elven gods and removing Elven immortality from the world. But players didn’t know that in Inquisition, where he is introduced as a mage ally and companion. However, at the end of Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, which sets the stage for Veilguard, we learn in a shocking twist that Solas wants to destroy the Veil and restore Elves to their former glory. However, doing so would bring chaos to Thedas, and those who call it home, the people who eventually become The Veilguard, want to stop him.

“There’s an analogy I like to use, which is, ‘If you want to carve an elephant out of marble, you just take a piece of marble and remove everything that doesn’t look like an elephant,’” Veilguard creative director John Epler says. “As we were building this game, it became really clear that it was less that we were trying to make The Veilguard and more like The Veilguard was taking shape as we built the game. Solas is still a central figure in it. He’s still a significant character. But really, the focus shifts to the team.

“[We] realized Dreadwolf suggests a title focused on a specific individual, whereas The Veilguard, much like Inquisition, focuses more on the team.”

Creating Your Rook

Veilguard’s character creator is staggeringly rich, with a dizzying number of customizable options. Busche tells me that inclusivity is at the heart of it, noting that she believes everyone can create someone who represents them on-screen.

There are four races to choose from when customizing Rook, the new playable lead - Elves, Qunari, Humans, and Dwarves - and hundreds of options to customize your character beyond that. You can select pronouns separately from gender and adjust physical characteristics like height, shoulder width, chest size, glute and bulge size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, how crooked your nose is, and so much more. There must be hundreds of sliders to customize these body proportions and features like skin hue, tone, melanin, and just about anything else you might adjust on a character. Oh, and there’s nudity in Veilguard, too, which I learn firsthand while customizing my Rook.

“The technology has finally caught up to our ambition,” Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes tells me as we decide on my warrior-class Qunari’s backstory, which affects faction allegiance, in-game dialogue, and reputation standing - we choose the pirate-themed Lords of Fortune.

Notably, instead of a warrior class, we could have chosen mage or rogue. All three classes have unique specializations, bespoke skill trees, and special armors, too. And though our Rook is aligned with the Lords of Fortune faction, there are others to choose from including the Grey Wardens, Shadow Dragons, The Mourn Watch, and more. There is some flexibility in playstyle thanks to specializations, but your class largely determines the kind of actions you can perform in combat.

“Rook ascends because of competency, not because of a magical McGuffin,” BioWare core lead and Mass effect executive producer Michael Gamble tells me in contrast to Inquisition’s destiny-has-chosen-you-characterization.

“Rook is here because they choose to be, and that speaks to the kind of character that we’ve built.” Busche adds, “Someone needs to stop this, and Rook says, ‘I guess that’s me.’”

Beyond the on-paper greatness of this character creator, its customizability speaks to something repeated throughout my BioWare visit: Veilguard is a single-player, story-driven RPG. Or in other words, the type of game that made BioWare as storied as it is. McKay tells me the team explored a multiplayer concept early in development before scratching it to get back to BioWare basics. The final game will feature zero multiplayer and no microtransactions.

Happy to hear that, I pick our first and last name, then one of four voices, with a pitch shifter for each, too, and we’re off to Minrathous.

Exploring Tevinter For The First Time

Throughout the Dragon Age series, parts of Thedas are discussed by characters and referenced by lore material but left to the imagination of players as they can’t visit them. Veilguard immediately eschews this, setting its opening prologue mission in Minrathous, the capital of the  Tevinter Empire. Frankly, I’m blown away by how good it looks. It’s my first time seeing Veilguard in action and my first look at a Dragon Age game in nearly a decade. Time has treated this series well, and so has technology.

Epler, who’s coming up on 17 years at BioWare, acknowledges that the franchise has always been at the will of its engine. Dragon Age: Origins and II’s Eclipse Engine worked well for the time, but today, they show their age. Inquisition was BioWare’s first go at Ea’s proprietary Frostbite engine - mind you, an engine designed for first-person shooters and decidedly not multi-character RPGs - and the team struggled there, too. Epler and Busche agree Veilguard is the first RPG where BioWare feels fully in command of Frostbite and, more generally, its vision for this world.

We begin inside a bar. Rook and Varric are looking for Neve Gallus, a detective mage somewhere in Minrathous. The first thing players will do once Veilguard begins is select a dialogue option, something the team says speaks to their vision of a story-forward, choice-driven adventure. After a quick bar brawl cutscene that demonstrates Rook’s capabilities, there’s another dialogue choice, and different symbols here indicate the type of tone you can roll with. There’s a friendly, snarky, and rough-and-tough direct choice, and I later learn of a more romantically inclined “emotional” response. These are the replies that will build relationships with characters, romantic and platonic alike, but you’re welcome to ignore this option. However, your companions can romance each other, so giving someone the cold shoulder might nudge them into the warm embrace of another. We learn Neve is in Dumat Plaza and head into the heart of Minrathous.

Rhodes explains BioWare’s philosophy for designing this city harkens back to a quick dialogue from Inquisition’s Dorian Pavus. Upon entering Halamshiral’s Winter Palace, the largest venue in Dragon Age history at that point, Dorian notes that it’s cute, adorable even, alluding to his Tevinter heritage. If Dorian thinks the largest venue in Dragon Age history is cute and adorable, what must the place he’s from be like? “It’s like this,” Rhodes says as we enter Minrathous proper in-game.

Minrathous is huge, painted in magical insignia that looks like cyberpunk-inspired neon city signs and brimming with detail. Knowing it’s a city run by mages and built entirely upon magic, Rhodes says the team let its imagination run wild. The result is the most stunning and unique city in the series. Down a wide, winding pathway, there’s a pub with a dozen NPCs - Busche says BioWare used Veilguard’s character creator to make each in-world NPC except for specific characters like recruitable companions - and a smart use of verticality, scaling, and wayfinding to push us toward the main attraction: Solas, attempting to tear down the Veil.

All hell is breaking loose. Pride Demons are rampaging through the city. Considering Pride Demons were bosses in prior games, seeing them roaming freely in the prologue of Veilguard speaks to the stakes of this opener. Something I appreciate throughout our short journey through Minrathous to its center below is the cinematography at play. As a Qunari, my character stands tall, and Rhodes says the camera adjusts to ensure larger characters loom over those below. On the flip side, the camera adjusts for dwarves to demonstrate their smaller stature compared to those around them.

This, coupled with movie-liked movement through the city as BioWare showcases the chaos happening at the hands of Solas’ Veil-break ritual, creates a cinematic start that excited me, and I’m not even hands-on with the game.

Eventually, we reach Neve, who has angered some murderous blood mages, and rescue her from danger. Or rather, help… barely. Neve is quite capable, and her well-acted dialogue highlights that. Together, Varric, returning character Lace Harding, who is helping us stop Solas and is now a companion, Rook, and Neve defeat some demons. They then take on some Venatori Cultists seizing this chaotic opportunity to take over the city and other enemies before making it to Solas’ hideout. As we traverse deeper and deeper into this hideout, more of Solas’ murals appear on the walls, and things get more Elven. Rhodes says this is because you’re symbolically going back in time, as Minrathous is a city built by mages on the bones of what was originally the home of Elves.

At the heart of his hideout, we discover Solas’ personal Eluvian. This magical mirror-like structure allows the gang to teleport (and mechanically fast-travel) to Arlathan Forest, where Solas is secretly performing the ritual (while its effects pour out into Minrathous).

Here, we encounter a dozen or so demons, which BioWare has fully redesigned on the original premise of these monstrous creatures. Rhodes says they’re creatures of feeling and live and die off the emotions around them. As such, they are just a floating nervous system, push into this world from the Fade, rapidly assembled into bodies out of whatever scraps they find.

I won’t spoil the sequence of events here, but we stop Solas’ ritual and seemingly save the world… for now. Rook passes out moments later and wakes up in a dream-like landscape to the voice of none  other than Solas. He explains a few drops of Rook’s blood interacted with the ritual, connecting them to the Fade forever. He also says he was attempting to move the Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, part of the Evanuris or Elven gods of ancient times, to a new prison because the one he had previously constructed was failing. Unfortunately, Solas is trapped in the Fade by our doing, and these gods are now free. It’s up to Rook to stop them; thus, the stage for our adventure is set.

The Veilguard Who’s Who

While we learned a lot about returning character but first-time companion Lace Harding, ice mage private detective Neve Gallus, and veil jumper Bellara Lutara, BioWare shared some additional details about other companions Rook will meet later in the game. Davrin is a charming Grey Warden who is also an excellent monster hunter; Emmrich is a member of Nevarra’s Mourn Watch and a necromancer with a skeleton assistant named Manfred; Lucanis is a pragmatic assassin whose bloodline descends from the criminal House of Crows organization; And Taash is a dragon hunter allied with the piratic Lords of Fortune. All seven of these characters adorn this Game Informer issue, with Bellara up front and center in the spotlight.

The Lighthouse

After their encounter with Solas, Rook wakes up with Harding and Neve in the lair of the Dread Wolf himself, a special magical realm in the Fade called the Lighthouse. It’s a towering structure centered amongst various floating islands. Epler says, much like Skyhold in Inquisition, the Lighthouse is where your team bonds, grows, and prepares for its adventures throughout the campaign. It also becomes more functional and homier as you do. Already, though, it’s a beautifully distraught headquarters for the Veilguard, although they aren’t quite referring to themselves as that just yet.

Because it was Solas’ home base of operations, it’s gaudy, with his fresco murals adorning various walls, greenery hanging from above, and hues of purple and touches of gold everywhere. Since it’s in the Fade, a realm of dreams that responds to your world state and emotion, the Lighthouse reflects the chaos and disrepair of the Thedas you were in moments ago. I see a clock symbol over a dialogue icon in the distance, which signals an optional dialogue option. We head there, talk to Neve, select a response to try our hand at flirting, and then head to the dining hall.

A plate, a fork and knife, and a drinking chalice are at the end of a massive table. Rhodes says this is both a funny (and sad) look at Solas’ isolated existence and an example of the detail BioWare’s art team has put into Veilguard. “It’s a case of letting you see the story,” he says. “It’s like when you go to a friend's house and see their bedroom for the first time; you get to learn more about them.” From the dining hall, we gather the not-quite-Veilguard in the library, which Busche says in the central area of the Lighthouse and where your party will often regroup and prepare for what’s next. The team decides it must reach the ritual site back in Arlathan Forest, and Busche says I’m missing unique dialogue options here because I’m Qunari; an Elf would have more to say about the Fade due to their connection to it. The same goes for my backstory earlier in Minrathous. If I had picked the Shadow Dragons background, Neve would have recognized me immediately, with unique dialogue.

With our next move decided, we head to Solas’ Eluvian to return to Arlathan Forest and the ritual site. However, it’s not fully functional without Solas, and while it returns us to Arlathan Forest, it’s not exactly where we want to go. A few moments later, we’re back in the Arlathan Forest, and just before a demon-infested suit of mechanized armor known as a Sentinel can attack, two new NPCs appear to save us: Strife and Irelin. Harding recognizes them, something Dragon Age comic readers might know about. They’re experts in ancient elven magic and part of the new Veil Jumpers faction. The ensuing cutscene, where we learn Strife and Irelin need help finding someone named Bellara Lutara, is long, with multiple dialogue options. That’s something I’m noticing with Veilguard, too - there’s a heavy emphasis on storytelling and dialogue, and it feels deep and meaty, like a good fantasy novel. BioWare doesn’t shy away from minutes-long cutscenes.

Busche says that’s intentional, too. “For Rook, [this story’s about] what does it meant to be a leader,” she says. “You’re defining their leadership style with your choices.” Knowing that Rook is the leader of the Veilguard, I’m excited to see how far this goes. From the sound of it, my team will react to my chosen leadership style in how my relationships play out. That’s demonstrated within the game’s dialogue and a special relationship meter on each companion’s character screen.

Redefining Combat Once More

Bellara is deep within Arlathan Forest, and following the prolgoue’s events, something is up here. Three rings of massive rocks fly through the air, protecting what appears to be a central fortress. Demon Sentinels plague the surrounding lands, and after loading up a new save, we’re in control of a human mage.

Following the trend of prior Dragon Age games, Veilguard has completed the series’ shift from tactical strategy to real-time action, but fret not: a tactical pause-and-play mechanic returns to satiate fans who remember the series’ origins (pun intended). Though I got a taste of combat in the prologue, Veilguard’s drastic departure from all that came before it is even more apparent here.

Busche says player complete every swing in real-time, with special care taken to animation swing-through and canceling. There's a dash, a parry, the ability to charge moves, and a completely revamped healing system that allows you to use potions at your discretion by hitting right on the d-pad. You can combo attacks and even “bookmark” combos with a quick dash, which means you can pause a combo’s status with a dash to safety and continue the rest of the combo afterward. It looks even cooler than it sounds.

Like any good action game, there is a handful of abilities to customize your kit. And, if you want to maintain that real-time action feel, you can use them on the fly, so long as you take cooldowns into effect. But Veilguard’s pause-and-play gameplay mechanic, similar to Inquisition’s without the floating camera view, lets you bring things to halt for a healthy but optional dose of strategy.

In this screen, which essentially pauses the camera and pulls up a flashy combat wheel that highlights you and your companions’ skills, you can choose abilities, queue them up, and strategize with synergies and combos, all while targeting specific enemies. Do what you need to here, let go of the combat wheel, and watch your selections play out. Busche says she uses the combat wheel to dole out her companions’ attacks and abilities while sticking to the real-time action for her player-controlled Rook. On the other hand, Epler says he almost exclusively uses the combat wheel to dish out every ability and combo.

Busche says each character will play the same, in that you execute light and heavy attacks with hte same buttons, use abilities with the same buttons, and interact with the combo wheel in the same way, regardless of which class you select. But a sword-and-shield warrior, like we used in the prolgoue, can hip-fire or aim their shield to throw it like Captain America, whereas our human mage uses that same button to throw out magical ranged attacks. The warrior can parry incoming attacks, which can stagger enemies. The rogue gets a larger parry window. Our mage, however, can’t parry at all. Instead, they throw up a shield that blocks incoming attacks automatically so long as you have the mana to sustain it.

“What I see from Veilguard is a game that finally bridges the gap,” former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah, who left BioWare in 2021 before joining the Veilguard team last year as a consultant, tells me. “Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of ‘combat wasn’t too bad.’ In this game, the combat’s actually fun, but it does keep that thread that’s always been there. You have the focus on Rook, on your character, but still have that control and character coming into the combat experience from the other people in the party.”

“This is really the best Dragon Age game that I’ve ever played,” he adds, noting his bias. “This is the one where we get back to our roots of character-driven storytelling, have really fun combat, and aren’t making compromises.”

Watching Busche take down sentinels and legions of darkspawn on-screen, I can already sense Veilguard’s combat will likely end up my favorite in the series, although admittedly, as a fan of action games, I’m an easy sell here. It’s flashy, quick, and thanks to different types of health bars, like a greenish-blue one that represents barrier and is taken down most effectively with ranged attacks, a decent amount of strategy, even if you don’t use the pause-and-play combo wheel. Like the rest of the game, too, it’s gorgeous, with sprinkles, droplets, and splashes of magic in each attack our mage unleashes. Though I’m seeing the game run on a powerful PC, which is sure to be the best showcase of Veilguard, Epler tells me the game looks amazing on consoles - he’s been playing it on PlayStation 5 and enjoying it in both its fidelity and performance modes, but I’ll have to take his word for it.

Pressing Start

The start or pause screen is as important to a good RPG as the game outside the menus. Veilguard’s contains your map, journal, character sheets, skill tree, and a library for lore information. You can cross-compare equipment and equip new gear here for Rook and your companions, build weapon loadouts for quick change-ups mid-combat, and customize you and your party’s abilities and builds via an easy-to-understand skill tree. You won’t find minutiae here, “just real numbers,” Busche says. That means a new unlocked trait might increase damage by 25 percent against armor, but that’s as in-depth as the numbers get. Passive abilities unlock jump attacks and guarantee critical hit opportunities, while abilities add moves like a Wall of Fire to your arsenal (if you’re a mage). As you spec out this skill tree, which is 100 percent bespoke to each class, you’ll work closer to unlocking a specialization, of which there are three for each class, complete with a unique ultimate ability. Busche says BioWare’s philosophy here is “about changing the way you play, not statistical minutiae.”

Companion Customization

You can advance your bonds by helping companions on their own personal quests and by including them in your party for main quests. Every Relationship Level you rank up, shown on their character sheet, nets you a skill point to spend on them. Busche says the choices you make, what you say to companions, how you help them, and more all matter to their development as characters and party members. And with seven companions, there’s plenty to customize, from bespoke gear to abilities and more. Though each companion has access to five abilities, you can only take three into combat, so it’s important to strategize different combos and synergies within your party. Rhodes says beyond  this kind of customizable characterization, each companion has issues, problems, and personal quests to complete. “Bellara has her own story arc that runs parallel to and informs the story path you’re on,” Rhodes says.

In Entropy’s Grasp

As we progress through the forest and the current “In Entropy’s Grasp” mission, we finally find Bellara. She’s a veil jumper, the first companion you meet and recruit in-game (unlike Neve, who automatically joins), and the centerpiece of this issue’s cover image. Because our mage’s background is Veil Jumper, we get some unique dialogue. Bellara explains we’re all trapped in a Veil Bubble, and there’s no way out once you pass through it. Despite the dire situation, Bellara is bubbly, witty, and charming.

“When designing companions, they’re the load-bearing pillars for everything,” Rhodes says. “They’re the face of their faction, and in this case [with Bellara], their entire area of the world. She’s your window into Arlathan Forest.” Rhodes describes her as a sweetheart and nerd for ancient elven artifacts. As such ,she’s dressed more like an academic than a combat expert, although her special arm gauntlet is useful both for tinkering with her environment and taking down enemies.

Unlike Neve, who uses ice magic like our Rook and can slow down time with a special ability, Bellara specializes in electricity, and she can also use magic to heal you, something Busche says Dragon Age fans have been desperate to have in a game. Busche says if you don’t direct Neve and Bellara, they’re fully independent and will attack on their own. But synergizing your team will add to the fun and strategy of combat. Bellara’s electric magic is effective against Sentinels, which is great because we currently only have access to ice. However, without Bellara, we could also equip a rune that converts my ice magic, for a brief duration, into electricity to counter the Sentinels.

As we progress through Arlathan Forest, we encounter more and more darkspawn. Bellara mentions the darkspawn have never been this far before because the underground Deep Roads, where they usually escape from, aren’t nearby. However, with blighted Elven gods roaming the world, and thanks to Blight’s radiation-like spread, it’s a much bigger threat in Veilguard than in any Dragon Age before it.

I continue to soak in the visuals of Veilguard with Arlathan Forest’s elven ruins, dense greenery, and disgusting Blight tentacles and pustules; it’s perhaps the most impressive aspect of my time seeing the game, although everything else is making a strong impression, too. I am frustrated about having to watch the game rather than play it, to be honest. I’m in love with the art style, which is more high fantasy than anything in the series thus far and almost reminiscent of the whimsy of Fable, a welcome reprieve from the recent gritty Game of Thrones trend in fantasy games. Rhodes says that’s the result of the game’s newfound dose of magic.

“The use of magic has been an evolution as the series has gone on,” he says. “It’s something we’ve been planning for a while because Solas has been planning all this for a while. In the past, you could hint at cooler magical things in the corner because you couldn’t actually go there, but now we actually can, and it’s fun to showcase that.”

Busche, Epler, and Rhodes warn me that Arlathan Forest’s whimsy will starkly contrast to other areas. They promise some grim locations and even grimmer story moments because, without that contrast, everything falls flat. Busche likens it to a “thread of optimism” pulled through otherworldly chaos ravaging Thedas. For now, the spunky and effervescent Bellara is that thread.

As we progress deeper into the forest, Bellara spots a floating fortress and thinks the artifact needed to destroy the Veil Bubble is in there. To reach it, though, wem ust remove the floating rock rings, and Bellara’s unique ability, Tinker, can do just that by interacting with a piece of ancient elven technology nearby. Busche says Rook can acquire abilities like Tinker later to complete such tasks in instances where Bellara, for example, isn’t in the party.

Bellara must activate three of these in Arlathan Forest to reach the floating castle, and each one we activate brings forth a slew of sentinels, demons, and darkspawn to defeat. Busche does so with ease, showcasing high-level gameplay by adding three stacks of arcane build-up to create an Arcane Bomb on an enemy, which does devastating damage after being hit by a heavy attack. Now, she begins charging a heavy attack on her magical staff, then switches to magical daggers in a second loadout accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick attacks, then back to the staff to charge it some more and unleash a heavy attack.

After a few more combat encounters, including one against a sentinel that’s “Frenzied,” which means it hits harder, moves faster, and has more health, we finally reach the center of the temple. Within is a particular artifact known as the Nadas Dirthalen, which Bellara says means “the inevitability of knowledge.” Before we can advance with it, a darkspawn Ogre boss attacks. It hits hard, has plenty of unblockable, red-coded attacks, and a massive shield we must take down first. However, it’s weak to fire, and our new fire staff is perfect for the situation.

After taking down this boss in a climactic arena fight, Bellara uses a special crystal to power the artifact and remove it from a pedestal, destroying the Veil Bubble. Then, the Nadas Dirthalen comes alive as an Archive Spirit, but because the crystal used to power it breaks, we learn little about this spirit before it disappears. Fortunately, Bellara thinks she can fix it - fixing broken stuff is kind of her thing, Epler says - so the group heads back to the Veil Jumper camp and, as interested as I am in learning what happens next, the demo ends. It’s clear that even after a few hours with the game’s opening, I’ve seen a nigh negligible amount of game; frustrating but equally as exciting.

Don’t Call It An Open World

Veilguard is not an open world, even if some of its explorable areas might fee like one. Gamble describes Veilguard’s Thedas as a hub-and-spoke design where “the needs of the story are served by the level design.” A version of Inquisition’s Crossroads, a network of teleporting Eluvians, returns, and it’s how players will traverse across northern Thedas. Instead of a connected open world, players will travel from Eluvian to Eluvian to different stretches of this part of the continent. This allows BioWare to go from places like Minrathous to tropical beaches to Arlathan Forest to grim and gothic areas and elsewhere. Some of these areas are larger and full of secrets and treasures. Others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling. Arlathan Forest is an example of this, but there are still optional paths and offshoots to explore for loot, healing potion refreshes, and other things. There’s a minimap in each location, though linear levels like “In Entropy’s Grasp” won’t have the fog of war that disappears as you explore like some of Veilguard’s bigger locations. Regardless, BioWare says Veilguard has the largest number of diverse biomes in series history.

Dragon’s Delight

With a 10-hour day at BioWare behind me after hours of demo gameplay and interviews with the leads, I’m acutely aware of my favorite part of video games: the surprises. I dabbled with Origins and II and put nearly 50 hours into Inquisition, but any familiarity with the series the latter gave me had long since subsided over the past decade. I wanted to be excited about the next Dragon Age as I viewed each teaser and trailer, but other than seeing the words “Dragon Age,” I felt little. Without gameplay, without a proper look at the actual game we’ll all be playing this fall, I struggled to remember why Inquisition sucked me in 10 years ago.

This trip reminded me.

Dragon Age, much like the Thedas of Veilguard, lives in the uncertainty: The turbulence of BioWare’s recent release history and the lessons learned from it, the drastic changes to each Dragon Age’s combat, the mystery of its narrative, and the implications of its lore. It’s all a part of the wider Dragon Age story and why this studio keeps returning to this world. It’s been a fertile franchise for experimentation. While Veilguard is attempting to branch out in unique ways, it feels less like new soil and more like the harvest BioWare has been trying to cultivate since 2009, and I’m surprised by that.

I’m additionally surprised, in retrospect, how numb I’ve been to the game before this. I’m surprised by BioWare’s command over EA’s notoriously difficult Frostbite engine to create its prettiest game yet. I’m surprised by this series’ 15-year transition from tactical strategy to action-forward combat. I’m surprised by how much narrative thought the team has poured into these characters, even for BioWare. Perhaps having no expectations will do that to you. But most of all, with proper acknowledgement that I reserve additional judgment until I actually play the game, I’m surprised that Veilguard might just be the RPG I’m looking forward to most this year.

[covid-safer-hotties]

With COVID-19 relief gone, teachers are losing their jobs. It's a blow to diversity. - Published Sept 3, 2024

Erica Popoca's ninth grade English students were livid in the spring when she told them she wouldn't be back to teach this fall.

The district where she works in Hartford, Connecticut, terminated her contract because the COVID-19 relief money that covered her salary was about to dry up. Newer teachers such as Popoca were the first to be cut. Her students wrote letters urging school board members to change their minds.

Popoca, the founding adviser of the multilingual student club, worried she would lose bonds with Latino students she had taught for two years who identify with her culturally as a Latina and as one of the few teachers who speaks Spanish at the school.

The district ultimately came up with other funding to pay her, and in a win for her and her students, officials reversed the layoff.

Popoca is among the thousands of teachers and school staffers across the U.S. at risk of losing their jobs as districts balance their budgets and prepare for the shortfall after COVID-19 relief money expires. Districts have been scrambling to put unfunded staffers into different roles. The reality is that many students will lose contact with adults with whom they have built relationships in recent years.

The Biden administration granted schools $189.5 billion over the past few years through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) under the American Rescue Plan Act. School officials have until the end of September to commit the remainder of their money, and districts will no longer be able to pay for nonteaching staff roles with that money after Sept. 30. Schools nationwide used most of their relief fund money to pay for classroom teachers and support staff, according to a U.S. Department of Education analysis of district spending for fiscal year 2022. Districts across the country are now laying off recently hired educators, teaching assistants, counselors, restorative justice coordinators and other key staff at schools, or they're scrambling to find ways to retain them.

A recent survey of 190 district leaders by the nonprofit research group Rand found that teacher reductions were "the most common budget cut" officials anticipated. Conversations about staff layoffs cropped up in at least 28 districts ahead of the upcoming fiscal cliff, according to a tracker of media reports from the Georgetown University-based research center Edunomics Lab, which monitors potential layoffs at districts.

The post-pandemic layoffs have been widespread. Montana's Helena Public Schools cut 36 positions, including 21 teachers. The Arlington Independent School District in Texas cut 275 positions, including counselors, tutors and teaching support staff.

Newer teachers are the first to go in states that allow or require districts to use "last-in-first-out" policies, which protect tenured teachers – and many people terminated will be staffers of color, said Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University. States that diversified their educator workforce in the past several years will see a backslide in that progress since "recently hired staff who are often more diverse" will be "laid off more than experienced staff who often are more traditionally white," he said.

Schools serving low-income students will be hit hardest by the shift in funding because those campuses received more federal relief money, Pallas said.

Schools were required to comply with some equity provisions when obligating the relief money. The end of the funding will disparately affect students of color and kids in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Popoca, who comes from the Bronx in New York City, is concerned about what the losses will mean for her school.

"I am relieved but wary because quite a few positions are still vacant," she said. "We don’t have the amount of staff we're supposed to have, and I'm concerned about how the lack of staff is going to impact the students and the school."

Which states are likely to lose new teachers? At least 11 states – Alaska, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island – last year had policies explicitly requiring districts to consider seniority in layoff decisions, according to a 2023 analysis from Educators for Excellence, a New York-based nonprofit organization that supports state laws that rid of seniority-based considerations from layoff decisions. Some other states, including Connecticut, where Popoca lives, allow districts to consider seniority in layoff decisions among other factors, but it's not required. Some states ban districts from considering seniority as a factor.

Because junior teachers tend to begin their careers in higher-poverty schools, there could be cases in which schools lose high percentages of their staff, said Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University's Edunomics Lab.

"It's really disruptive for students," Roza said. "And it's not great for teachers."

When Popoca told her class of mostly Black and Latino eighth graders last spring that she would be laid off, they were heartbroken. She's one of a few new staffers of color returning to the district this year. A few of her colleagues lost their jobs in the spring and won't be back when school starts, she said.

What should families expect to see at schools? In addition to the emergency funding layoffs, Roza said, many teachers may leave of their own accord. Some districts may also try to shrink their staffing pools with attrition rather than layoffs.

"They're going to hope and pray teachers just leave," Roza said.

Most of the cuts will likely hit the pool of support staff districts beefed up during the pandemic to help kids recover, Columbia's Pallas said.

The counselors, nurses, restorative justice coordinators and teaching assistants added to campus staff in recent years will be gone, and students and their school communities will start to feel that loss by the start of this school year, he said.

Francis Pina is one of several staffers and one of few Black men hired by Boston Public Schools to train teachers how to infuse social-emotional learning into classroom teaching. At the end of last year, he learned his role and the jobs of most new staffers on his team would be dissolved because it was considered a short-term position. Boston Public Schools paid Pina with COVID-19 emergency money through the end of the past academic year.

Pina will return as a high school math teacher this year, but he worries about what will happen to the district's social-emotional learning program.

When he heard his role was coming to an end, Pina said, he was nervous because he felt it was "really important to support students" still facing pandemic-related academic, social and emotional setbacks. He says students in the district haven't worked through all of those losses, even if the district has gone back to the "status quo."

As a Black man who attended Boston Public Schools, he believes he offers a unique perspective to kids, including Black students, and helps them thrive academically and emotionally in school.

"Prioritizing this is important," Pina said. "Kids need to know we care about them."

Teacher diversification will face a setback Diversity among the teaching staff has improved in recent years in Massachusetts, where Pina teaches. But the state's last-in-first-out policy means schools will lose diversification in the workforce, Roza, from the research lab at Georgetown, said.

That's a problem considering students of color are the majority at public schools in the U.S. Nearly one-fourth of public schools did not have an educator of color on staff, according to a May analysis of state-by-state data from TNTP, a nonprofit organization focused on the needs of students of color and those in poverty. Academic studies show students of color perform better academically when they have teachers from diverse backgrounds

There's a surprising reason: Why many schools don't have a single Black teacher

Representation on campuses may be further diminished when the emergency funding ends.

To stave off those losses and rescind seniority-based layoffs, some lawmakers tried to change how layoffs work, but they ran into pushback from the state teachers union, which said the policies harmed protections for senior educators. In March, the Massachusetts Legislature rejected sections of education bills that would have removed seniority considerations as the sole factor for layoffs.

“While we are happy to see the legislature taking strides to improve teacher diversity in Massachusetts, it is disheartening to see that the Education Committee chose not to prioritize protecting these very educators in the event of district layoffs,” Lisa Lazare, executive director of Educators for Excellence's Massachusetts chapter, said in a news release.

More new staffers of color are expected to face layoffs this year, Roza said.

For now, Popoca, in Connecticut, is looking forward to returning to the classroom and seeing her students – many of whom come from Latin American countries and with whom she feels a special bond. She's worried about the cuts, she says, because the school needs more teachers and support staff, not less.

She already has heard from people she knows who had considered entering the teaching profession in Hartford or elsewhere who have pulled back because of the district's lack of money.

"It's really concerning," she said.

[marcmarcmomarc]

(I wanted to post this in the form of a video with GamingMagic13’s style of editing, but I don’t have the energy for that.)*

People say Chloé’s redeeming qualities only started to show through during Seasons 2 and 3 because Thomas had no involvement in the production of those two seasons as if he wasn’t on the writing team on every episode for those two seasons.

The consensus shouldn’t be, “Thomas went away so the other writers started a redemption arc which Thomas ruined when he came back”. It should be, “Thomas and the other writers spent two seasons tricking people into feeling bad for Chloé by revealing that she was more than just a one-dimensional mean girl, and then yanked the rug out from under them just for the sake of yanking the rug out from under people”.

Thomas, your target audience is literal children. I don’t think subverting their expectations is that much of an achievement to brag about.

Also, does anyone else think that, if people weren’t so antagonistically vocal about Miracle Queen and didn’t harass Thomas over it and the “We thought she was redeemable” tweet, then Chloé wouldn’t have gotten worse and worse as Seasons 4 and 5 went on?

Considering the fact that, after Season 3 ended in Fall 2019, the show went on a hiatus that was forced to be even longer due to the COVID pandemic with only the New York special to keep us company in September before finally returning in Spring 2021, the crew had plenty of time to rework the scripts to worsen Chloé.

I would say this applies to Lila, too, but it’s not like feeling bad for her was ever a common fandom talking point and the only thing about her that could have qualified as a redeeming quality that could have gone somewhere (that she lies for attention that she can’t get at home because her mom is out working for most of the day, which only briefly comes back at the beginning of Oni-Chan) is now irrelevant (now that she has multiple moms and identities) because this show has proven how much it loves its retcons and has done nothing to convince me it’s not misogynistic, not even the half-a**ed attempts at redeeming Nathalie and Sabrina after four seasons of them making Bayonetta faces. I know I’m of the “better late than never” opinion, but that mindset can only go so far until “too little, too late” kicks in.

*When talking about the GM13’s editing style, I’m referring to the one he’s been using since the Top 20 Worst Movies video, as in, the topic he is currently talking about will contain clips from the franchise the current topic is discussing.

Talking about Toy Story? Clips from the Toy Story saga.

Talking about The Incredibles? Clips from the Incredibles duology.

Talking about Cars? Clips from the Cars trilogy.

Talking about The Owl House? Clips from The Owl House.

Practice with this.

[seoul-bros]

A Performer's Sacrifice

Thinking again today about the Weverse live this week and the way in which Jimin spoke about enlistment. I really feel for him. Someone whose identity and whose joy is so intimately connected to the stage and performance, to be dragged away from that, when you finally feel you are finding your feet and growing, must be a cruel blow.

The last time he performed before an audience was at the final D-Day tour back in the summer and even though we know he has prepared things that we will have the pleasure of hearing and seeing when he is gone, he won't be able to share that experience directly with us. There won't be the rush of that push and pull between audience and performer which Jimin and Jungkook, in particular, crave and enjoy.

I had hoped he might get one last bite of the cherry releasing and promoting a song before he enlisted but, even though this seemed tantalising close at some points over the last couple of months, it is something that never came. No doubt these are the compromises you make when you are part of a company so heavily reliant on you and your band mates to keep them a float.

But to go nearly two years without having that direct contact with your fans, well it's enough to make any artist a little somber especially one that was previously so heavily affected by the restrictions of the COVID pandemic era.

I hope that the time goes by faster than he can imagine at this moment and that he can get some satisfaction from seeing us enjoying the music he has left behind.

Personally I plan to be vocal and energetic and I know there are many more Jimin fans out there who share that intention.

Post Date: 09/12/2023

[sirfrogsworth]

The Pretty Average Trump Trauma

I really picked the wrong week to have a controversial post go viral.

The appeal deadline for my disability case is very soon and we just recently got the last of the medical records. My lawyer can get very busy and hard to reach. And I have been freaking out trying to get a hold of him to make sure everything is ready to be submitted. Thankfully he just emailed and said everything is on track and will be sent in for the appeal.

But having this weighing on me behind the scenes while also dealing with the blowback from my "vote for Biden" post caused me to enter into some unhealthy arguments and lose my temper on several occasions.

I didn't actually think about what would happen if that post went viral. Sometimes I write things and a hundred people see it, and it serves as a catharsis because I was able to get my thoughts and fears out of my brain.

And sometimes it gets reblogged 6000 times and I can forget I have a platform where that happens from time to time.

I wish I had written a better initial post. I think my thoughts in subsequent posts, along with the inclusion of what I think is a better strategy, would have gone a long way to help people understand my point of view. Looking back, that original post feels incomplete.

The post that ended up going viral was not inspired by reason or logic and it was never really meant to convince anyone of anything.

I thought I was preaching to the choir.

It was a representation of my fears. It was the result of two years of panic and trauma from the pandemic which ended in my mother's horrible death.

Let me explain...

On November 9th, Shaun, a YouTuber I respect, posted this.

And it scared the hell out of me.

A very popular leftist with a huge platform wrote this to 5 million people and I freaked out.

Shaun wasn't necessarily saying not to vote for Biden at the time. But he thinks people should all say they won't vote for him unless he calls for a ceasefire. I get the strategy. But I feared that nuance would be lost on many people and they would only see it as "don't vote for Biden... no matter what." Which was an accurate prediction on my part. The guy from Eve 6 has been going nuance-free for weeks now.

The one thing I greatly disagree with Shaun about is this...

Before the pandemic, I might have understood his argument. For the first two years, Trump was mostly an ineffectual goof. He had trouble getting a lot of his worst ideas to manifest. Most of the border wall he built ended up being repairs of existing barriers. And Obama droned civilians and kept kids in cages too—though Trump kept them in cages indefinitely and made up a rule that we can't actually know how many civilians he was droning.

So, a lot of the same, but turned up to 11.

But nothing about the pandemic response was pretty average.

There is something I have been choosing not to say during all of these discussions. I felt like saying it would be poor timing. I was worried people wouldn't actually agree with me. I worried it would make people think I was turning suffering into a competition. I didn't want to make it look like I valued certain lives over others. But then people accused me of all of that anyway. I was called evil and a collaborator and a supporter of genocide.

So I'm going to talk about it. Because the fact that few have mentioned it in these discussions has been bothering me. And the fact that the majority of society does not mention it makes me feel very alone in this belief.

I have long believed Trump and the majority of US conservatives committed a genocide of the disabled and elderly. I was never really comfortable calling it that word. I wasn't really sure how a genocide got classified as such. So I would just say things like, "40% of people who died during COVID should still be alive" and "Trump is responsible for hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths" and "Trump killed my mom" and hoping people would make the connection or at least see it as mass murder. I mean, this country judges everything by how many "9/11s" something is, but not the pandemic?

Donald Trump was the leader of the Republican party. When he refused to wear a mask due to vanity, his followers looked for something to excuse him. And I feel that directly birthed the "masks don't work" movement among conservatives. Donald Trump, having enormous influence among his acolytes, refused to correct this dangerous rhetoric. And he probably welcomed the cover so he could continue going maskless and not smear his makeup—even after he nearly died.

It is my belief this was the beginning of a genocide of apathy, deliberate and accidental incompetence, and non-compliance. And the reason for that non-compliance was not freedom as many claimed.

Conservatives did not like being inconvenienced.

They didn't like having to consider others.

And if competence requires effort and vigilance, they'd prefer doing the bare minimum.

Trump was famous for not filling vital administrative positions in the executive branch. Not only that, his turnover rate was 5 times higher than previous administrations. People were asked to do the job of several people because they didn't staff properly, and so those people quit. Thus creating a cycle of inexperienced new-hires that were out of their depth and asked to do much more than they bargained for. There is no way they could succeed in their jobs.

I think people forget that part of the role of the executive is the day-to-day boring administrative shit that is required to run a country. And when this day-to-day work isn't valued, it creates a crisis of incompetence. Which then creates things like not enough tests, not enough testing, Trump saying "if you don't test, it doesn't count", botched vaccine rollouts, rampant misinformation, poor education of the populace, and abysmal improvised press conferences where the President does a quick riff on injecting bleach.

This competence aspect is one of the hugest reliefs I had with the Biden administration. Not Biden. Not his policies. I'm talking about the regular workers getting shit done. This is the reason I am desperate to get my shit worked out with Social Security before the election. I once called Social Security during the pandemic and I literally got a recording saying to try calling back the next month.

Trump didn't care. People criticized him for not hiring people. He was aware of the problem. He just did nothing about it. And many conservatives praised him for "trimming the fat" or whatever. This idea that all of these government workers were useless burdens on the taxpayer fell apart during the pandemic.

There is incompetence caused by ignorance but it can also be a deliberate act. Trump was extraordinary in all forms of incompetence. He wasn't qualified to manage a pandemic. But he could have easily appointed experts and then gotten out of the way. But his narcissism would not let him cede power to anyone. He has always been convinced "only Trump can save you" and so his ego helped kill nearly half a million people.

Once the incompetence ball got rolling, that's when malicious apathy reared its ugly head. It was time to choose who they cared least about dying—who they felt was most useless. Conservatives decided it was time to devalue lives and start making sacrifices to save politicians' money laundering fronts small businesses.

Popular conservatives were going on TV and saying it was okay if Grandma died. It would be a worthy sacrifice to protect our freedoms.

The Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, basically offered up the elderly for sacrifice all while claiming that he spoke for them and was also willing to die. Though I don't take his personal willingness very seriously, since he has the money and resources to get the best medical care and probably had no expectation he was in any danger.

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ But if they had? If that is the exchange, I’m all in. So my message is let’s get back to work. Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves.”

But you cannot just sacrifice the elderly. You may justify it by saying they have lived a long life, but many of the same health risks were shared by the disabled. Many of whom still had normal lifespans, but just needed extra care and protection.

There are countless elderly who cannot "take care of themselves" but they are still of value to our society. They are still loved. They watch and teach their grandchildren. They are the keepers of the family stories. They bake cookies and give you two dollar bills. They have random bowls of butterscotch all throughout their house.

But some need help. Some are sick. Some can't drive. Some can't walk. I guarantee not all of them were prepared to die for the cause.

And none deserved to die for a sports bar.

Oh, didn't I mention?

Dan Patrick owned a chain of sports bars that were losing money from the lockdowns. Did you really think he was sacrificing old folks "for the children"?

Thankfully Dan's sports bars are gonna be okay. He ended up receiving a $179,000 PPP loan... that was forgiven.

Then they started saying COVID deaths weren't COVID deaths.

"Well, they had a bad heart." "They were obese." "They had cancer."

They dropped the elderly excuse and began to openly devalue the disabled as well. If you were sick, what good were you? They considered us the next sacrifices for their convenience. If we wanted to survive, we shouldn't have gotten sick. It didn't matter that we could survive for years or even have a normal lifespan as long as we were protected by our communities.

And then began the non-compliance.

Trump's followers ignored masks and lockdowns and eventually vaccines. They were unwilling to protect the vulnerable and so many of us just... died.

Again, 40% of the US COVID deaths could have been prevented. Hundreds of thousands of people should still be here. Malicious apathy, incompetence, and non-compliance were the direct cause of this genocide.

The United Nations Genocide Convention identified 5 acts that typically constitute genocide. Only one act is required and in the pandemic 3 of the 5 acts happened.

Killing members of a group. Causing members of a group serious bodily harm. Imposing living conditions on that group that would destroy them.

I'm looking at that third one just now and realizing why we have advocates to remind us of vulnerable groups that need protection. I was thinking about how the elderly and disabled were trapped in hyper-contagious nursing homes and care facilities, but I completely forgot about prisons and the concentration camps at the borders.

I am not trying to diminish the awful things happening in Palestine right now. This is not a comparison of suffering—but a reminder. When a current terrible thing is happening, it can be hard to focus on anything else. But I do wish more people recognized what happened as a genocide and that the leader of that genocide, the one with the power to stop it, was Donald Trump. If we are going to base this voting decision entirely on acts of genocide, why is this not part of the consideration?

It is an awful moral calculus we have to figure out. One president is supporting and asking for funding for a genocide and I feel the other was the direct cause of another genocide. That's why I said both choices sucked. And the only way I could resolve this moral calculation was by asking what path would cause the least harm for everyone involved.

And the most disappointing aspect of all of these debates was the ableism. People told me if Trump was elected and I lost my benefits I should grow my own food and learn about medicine. They said I valued disabled lives above those in Gaza. They told me to imagine myself in Nazi Germany as a collaborator despite the fact I would have been euthanized.

But I felt like they weren't considering the disabled at all.

I am a disability advocate. So of course I am going to remind people to consider us in their voting decisions. But I'm tired of hearing I value lives differently just because I speak on behalf of a vulnerable group more often. I'm tired of continually having to justify my existence. And I'm tired of people dismissing the very real trauma caused by Trump.

It was not pretty average.

I'd like to tell you the full story of my mother's passing. All of the details. Even the ones I can't bear to type. But this isn't just my story. This is the story of countless others who had to watch their loved ones slowly die behind glass or over the phone or on an iPad.

I spent two years in constant anxiety trying to protect my two very sick parents. It was always assumed that my father was the most at risk. And that he was probably going to die long before my mother. But she had started a treatment for her psoriatic arthritis that turned the volume down on her immune system. Something that would normally not be a huge risk... but a pandemic changed that. A vaccine needs a functioning immune system to protect someone.

She could either accept the agony of stopping treatment or risk getting COVID. If people would have been willing to protect her, it would have been an easier choice. And she would still be around today. And I wouldn't have to worry about being homeless right now.

I don't know for sure when she was infected. I kept her inside as much as possible. But she needed those treatments and we had to pile into a crowded waiting room every time. And I remember a man in his fifties who seemed preoccupied with having to wear a mask. And when he thought no one was looking, he'd pull it down below his nose. A few days later she was being taken away in an ambulance.

A few weeks before my mother died, she called me on the phone. She was heavily medicated and they had two different breathing devices assisting her. The nurse was holding the phone up to her ear and she was trying to speak over the volume of the air rushing into her face from the masks. I could not hear her no matter how loud she yelled. So she asked the nurse to take the masks off for just a second so we could talk.

Her only concern was for my father. We all contracted COVID and she was so worried he would end up just like her. Thankfully the vaccine worked for him and he was okay at that moment. But she kept yelling, "Is Dad okay? Is Dad okay?" And I kept trying to tell her he was fine, but she was hard of hearing and the phone could not be held very close to her ear.

Unfortunately, the yelling made it harder and harder for her to breathe. She started gasping for air. The nurse kept insisting she put the breathing equipment back on, but my mom refused. "I want to talk to my son! I need to talk to my son!"

I knew there wasn't much we could do to communicate. And so I kept trying to yell "I love you, Mom. Everyone is fine. I love you!" I then asked the nurse to tell her that. And when she finally understood what I was saying, she burst into tears.

Her oxygen levels were getting dangerously low and she was fighting the nurse. And she just yelled out, "I'm so scared! I think I'm going to die! Tell Dad I'm sorry I can't take care of him! I don't want to die!" She kept repeating that over and over. The nurse had no choice and had to put the masks back on. My mom screamed and shouted "No! Please no! That's my son!"

And those were the last words I ever heard from my mother.

Gasping for air. Scared of dying. Worried about her family.

This moment has intrusively popped into my brain on a regular basis since it happened. It happens when I'm awake. It happens in my dreams. I have no control over it. I just have to keep experiencing it like it is happening for the first time.

After I saw that tweet from Shaun and then many others expressing the same thing (without the strategic aspect), my dread and trauma resurfaced with a vengeance. I've been reliving my mom's final words in my dreams. That moment keeps popping into my head. I feared the man I feel is most responsible for my mother's death may regain power and kill me and the last of the family I have left.

I keep asking myself the same questions over and over. What if there is another public health emergency? What happens to my trans friends if he turns the US into Florida and Texas? What will happen to the migrants at the border?

All I have is my two best friends. Katrina is gay and Delling is trans and disabled. All of us are vulnerable.

I wrote that post to help deal with the nightmares. Writing is part of my coping process. I didn't really expect it to go super viral. I just needed to get that out of my brain. But when people pushed back and started calling me evil and a collaborator and that I was valuing my life above those in Palestine, all with a huge heap of ableism, I found myself unable to let it go and not respond. I couldn't choose the healthy thing and step away.

While I feel I made some good arguments and put forth some solid ideas for other ways to handle this, I also got angry and lost my temper and stayed in arguments for way too long—all to my mental detriment.

My little world felt like it was collapsing and the world at large also felt like it was collapsing. I had personal horrors in my mind mixing with the horrors of this global conflict.

It was too much.

I don't regret what I posted. Many felt the same as I do. And I think my subsequent posts did a good job of expanding on my thoughts while also offering hope for alternate solutions.

But I do regret the timing and I wish I hadn't lost my temper. Especially in a reply I left with a lot of cussing.

People might disagree but I am hoping that people can understand the fear and trauma that influences my point of view.

I am actually willing to risk quite a lot to protect other people. Even people in faraway lands I don't know.

But I refuse to offer up the vulnerable to be sacrificed if it won't actually help anyone. That's what a Texas Lt. Governor would do.

[beardedmrbean]

What’s an acceptable tip for a driver who delivers a $20 pizza?

A TikTok video purporting to show a DoorDash delivery driver in Texas swearing at a customer over the $5 tip she gave him has gone viral, sparking fresh online debate over tipping culture in the U.S.

“I just want to say it’s a nice house for a $5 tip,” the driver can be heard saying as he walks away from a home in the door camera video posted to TikTok earlier this week by a user under the name Lacey Purciful.

“You’re welcome!” the resident says, appearing surprised by the remark. “F--- you,” the driver responds before walking away.

“So how much should I be tipping for a $20 pie?” Purciful, who, in a separate post said she herself has worked in the service industry for over 10 years and tips “very well,” wrote in a caption.

Purciful, who did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment from NBC News, said the driver was fired by DoorDash following the incident.

A DoorDash spokesperson confirmed that the worker had been removed from their platform. They said the company had also reached out to the customer regarding the incident.

“Respectfully asking for a tip is acceptable but abusing or harassing someone is never acceptable,” the spokesperson said.

“Our rules exist to help ensure everyone who uses our platform — Dashers, customers, merchants — have a safe and enjoyable experience,” they said. “We expect everyone to treat others with respect and we will enforce our rules fairly and consistently.”

The video added fuel to a growing debate in the U.S. over tipping culture, with some complaining current trends may have reached a tipping point.

“Tipping is out of control,” one social media user said, commenting on the video. They said they felt $5 for a $20 order was “more than” enough.”

“I doordash and most (not all) pizza delivery orders don’t tip. That was a Rockstar tip,” another user said.

Not everyone agreed, however, with some branding Purciful a “Karen” for contacting DoorDash over the incident.

One poster said they felt the driver should not have lost their job over the exchange, writing: “What he said was not right, but he didn’t have to lose job over it. Everyone is trying to make a living.”

Another commenter noted that the driver may have been concerned about mileage, writing: “Maybe $5 wasn’t enough.”

The COVID-19 pandemic brought consumer willingness to give tips, particularly during times of hardship, into fresh focus, with many ponying up to pay higher gratuities during the crisis, according to research.

Figures provided earlier this year to NBC News by payment processor Square showed the frequency of gratuities at full-service restaurants grew 17% in the fourth quarter last year from the same period in 2021. Meanwhile, tip frequency at quick-service restaurants, such as coffee shops and fast-food chains, rose 16%, according to the company’s data.

The apparent rise in tipping came despite a period of record inflation, which has eaten away at many consumers’ discretionary income.

While the pandemic appeared to spur widespread changes in tipping culture, the growing use of point-of-service, or POS systems, to process payments also appear to have made it easier than ever for customers to provide — and for businesses to ask for — tips.

In a survey of restaurant executives by industry group Hospitality Technology, 71% of respondents said using data to “understand guest preferences and behavior” was their primary reason for facilitating POS system upgrades, while for 57% enabling new payment options was the priority.

A recent Lending Tree survey found that 60% of Americans felt they were tipping more, NBC Boston reported. Around 24% said they felt pressured to tip when the option was presented, while 41% said they had changed their buying habits due to gratuity expectations and 60% felt tipping expectations had gotten out of hand. _________________

Door dash fired him, your opinion on tips aside that's not how you act to customers unless they are directly rude to you.

[mochicrackersss]

Blog Post - Convention Preview ᯓᡣ𐭩‧₊˚ ⊹

I've always enjoyed participating in fandom experiences! Though, I haven't been to anything crazy, like Comic-Con or Anime Expo. My most notable were just a few local Florida conventions. But they were still fun overall and gave a great look into youth culture and fandom communities with its vast amount of participants around the globe and things tailored for each fandom.

My first convention was PolyCon at Florida Polytechnic University. I don't remember much about it because it was a couple of years ago, but would say it was a good time! The convention itself was pretty quaint with not a lot to do and not many people attending besides Polytechnic students. But for being my first exposure to convention life, I was enamored. There was also a student-run maid cafe that was amusing to go to, specifically because my dad came to the convention with me. Younger me had absolutely no idea how to explain to my dad why a bunch of college students were in cat ears, maid costumes, and doing intricate dance routines. He was so confused... it was lowkey hilarious but also embarrassing.

I'd say the most memorable convention memory I have is when I went to Mega Con in 2021! It wasn't super long after the COVID quarantine got lifted, and so until then, I hadn't gone to anything or seen many people for what felt like a long time. Being able to go to a convention (of course, by then it was safe to be in public spaces) and simultaneously going with my best friend for her first time was just what I needed. However, it was very different with COVID regulations still in place, like masks and social distancing. But I did notice the convention felt like a sense of normalcy for many con-goers after the pandemic. Everyone I met was so kind (and that's rare because you're bound to run into a few bad eggs or creeps), and every cosplayer I saw, even with the masks, made the most out of their costumes! My best friend and I also tried to cosplay as our favorite characters from Demon Slayer because the anime was a huge comfort to us while we holed up inside our homes with nothing to do. Yes, I think my costume was horrible because I am no professional, and I lowkey hate looking at pictures of it, but it did act as a nice escape from the COVID-filled reality at the time. Because of that, I was so happy to spend that precious time with my best friend! And buy a lot of stuff in the artist alley because Mega Con's is so big lol.

Another convention I went to earlier this year was the University of Florida convention, Swamp Con! I never knew until later in my first semester that UF held its own convention, and I think more students should know about it! Swamp Con is an event completely run by students in the Reitz Union, which I think is super impressive based on how many activities there were to do! There were panels, quizzes, performances, cosplay contests, an artist alley, outdoor games, special foods and drinks, and even a maid cafe (which was so funny to see a second time in a college). I also cosplayed again for this convention as Sophie Hatter from Howl's Moving Castle, which is such a huge shocker based on my Tumblr. 

Overall, the convention setting on a college campus took an unseen pressure off, which is something I also remembered feeling at PolyCon. I thought that would be an interesting thing to point out compared to venue conventions! 

[mamaz00m]

It's been ten literal years.

It's about time I finish what I started.

I've been gone so long that I don't even know what Boosh fandom is like anymore. I don't know how active it is, I don't know who all is still hanging around. Really I can only hope that by posting this to AO3, anyone who is subscribed to me will see this update and be happy that the story is finally complete.

This story's incomplete status has haunted me for years. I met my best friend through Boosh fandom in the LiveJournal days (RIP--I have fully lost my login for that site) and since I moved in with her in June of 2019, she has stayed on top of my ass about finally completing this fic.

As you'll all know, I wrote and posted two chapters in 2019 (as well as two one-shots for this universe) with the harassment of my bestie and cheerleading from @cle-o-pat-ra, whom I own an apology to for falling off the face of the planet once the pandemic hit.

I had a real All Eyes On Me moment in 2020. Without getting too much into it, after years of dealing with mental health issues which led to me becoming a shut-in, I moved across country to be with my best friend. I started going out, I started making friends. I started finally living. And then Covid happened and I went off the rails a bit. Quite a bit.

It took some work, but I am doing a lot better now.

So what prompted this return?

Ironically, it was watching GBBO with Bestie over dinner each night. We subscribed to Netflix just to watch it this year. It was seeing Noel--smiley, cheeky, and only just now finally beginning to show any signs of aging--that made my heart clinch.

I found myself wondering what Gabe would be up to at Noel's current age. How Eli is doing.

I realized I missed these characters desperately.

I can only hope you did, too.

Because I have tentative plans for the future...

I'm going to tag the folks I can remember enjoying this fic back when I was more active in the fandom. And I'll be around, in case me showing up like this stirs up any big feelings.

Thank you all for showing so much patience towards me. For loving these characters and playing in this space with me for ten long years. I've missed this world and I've missed you.

@culumacilinte @arbeaone @azurfemme @littleredchucks @radiumkind @oblong-goblin @the-stoned-ranger @pussywhang @concupiscence66

And of course, giant, massive thanks to @derangedficrecs / @derangedbutterfly for being this fic's beta for over half the chapters before my life got so hectic and...well, I owe you an apology too. I'm sorry.

Raise Hell. Chapter 21: THE WORLD

[redhairedwolfwitch]

Baby Shepherd - Part 7 - Jo Wilson x Shepherd!Sister!Reader

Summary: All of your siblings have children, now that Amelia and Link have Scout. After Jo spends some time with a baby left at Station 19, the two of you begin to think about adoption. Then patient Val Ashton is admitted with an abdominal pregnancy.

A/n: yes it took me over a year but I rewatched season 17 of Grey's Anatomy, cried a lot, and finished this.

"Hey, heard you caught an interesting case... well, a non-COVID case anyway."

Jo gave you a weak smile, thinking for a moment before she decided something.

"Come with me."

///

"This is Luna... she was growing on her mom's liver. Her mom is the patient you heard about." Jo explained, smiling softly as your eyes widened.

"She's so small... but she's a survivor." You stated, pausing as you realised.

"She can't see her mother, can she?" You already knew the answer, but you asked anyway, seeing how sad Jo looked.

"Val really wants to see her too."

"I'm going to go see Val..." You concluded, heading out of the NICU and across the hospital.

///

Everything had gone so quickly. One moment, your wife was trying to take Luna to see her mother before her surgery, and then, Luna's mother had coded. Jo ran the code for an hour, but you both knew she was gone. Val died never knowing her baby, never getting to hold her, or comfort her over more than a video call.

Luna's surgery went well, she was strong, but now she had lost her mother, and her father signed away his parental rights almost immediately. Jo had told you what he had texted to Val, a good luck and a baby emoji.

"She deserves parents who love her. Val loved her, even if her father didn't care that she existed... it sucks, when parents who love us get taken away so early..." you trailed off, the memories of your own father, or lack thereof, since he had died such a long time ago.

///

"Would you be mad at me if I quit surgery... and became an OB/GYN resident instead?" Jo enquired, rolling over in bed to face you, nuzzling into your bare shoulder.

"Well, it's not like Grey Sloan has a rubbish OB/GYN program, you'd get to work with Carina DeLuca... and you'd get to work with Addison, since I'm trying to persuade her to visit post-pandemic, if we ever get there. Plus, I think the residents were getting confused with the amount of Shepherds on the OR board... it wasn't as bad when Derek was here, since it was him and Amelia in neuro, and I was cardio. But now it's cardio, neuro and general surgery... now OB/GYN... like Nancy..."

Jo was silent for a moment as you trailed off, letting out a quiet hum before you spoke again.

"Yeah, Carina and Addison first, I think Nancy and Kathleen are still in shock over our wedding."

"Probably shocked to see you happy... but I love happy on you." Jo replied, grinning as you quickly leaned your head over to kiss her nose.

"I love how happy looks on you too... we're going to be okay. Even when everything sucks, you've got me, and you will always have me." Comforting your wife, you brought her hand up to your mouth to kiss, before she shifted so she could lean over and kiss you properly.

///

"DeLuca deserves a proper funeral. Not a memorial in a car park." Jo murmured, feeling you squeeze her hand as the two of you stood together, leaning into each other and trying to fight back tears as you listened to Andrew's residency application video. How he grew up stealing his older sister's game of Operation.

You were quiet during the drive back from the memorial, confusing your wife for a moment before you finally broke the silence.

"Can we- um... I want a game of Operation, at our place. For any children, doesn't have to be ours, since all my siblings have children... there's even one trying with medical school at the moment but, I-"

"Yes. I will order a game of Operation when we get home." Jo nodded, needing the joy and understanding where you were coming from immediately.

///

"How's Luna doing?" You enquired as Jo walked into the ER, making a beeline towards you as you waited for the incoming patient you were paged down to the ER for.

"She is a genius! She reacts to her name, even though Hayes doesn't seem to think so..." Jo replied, grinning at the thought of Luna, which made you smile in response.

"I'll go up to see her later- the traumas are here!"

///

"Hello, my darling wife, hello, Luna! How are we doing today?" Jo cheered, despite the fact that she was carrying OB/GYN textbooks in her arms, the scene of you stood with Luna in the NICU brightening her day.

"Well, Doctor Shepherd, Luna seems to be doing well according to Hayes, but Luna and I were having a nice chat about animals. I think she reacted when I talked about a giraffe!" you paused to glance down at Luna with a soft smile, "you talk to Bailey yet about OB?"

"Not yet. I know Webber gave me everything to say but... what do you want to watch for movie night tonight?" Jo chewed her lip, her gaze fully on Luna as you hummed.

"Madagascar?"

///

"So, Jo's changing from surgery to OB, hoping you could give her some tips, with your extensive extraordinary qualifications... we're... we're doing okay? Does Henry know how to play Operation?" you were sat by the window, looking out onto a world void of people until hands wrapped around your waist. Your wife's chin resting on your shoulder as you talked with Addison.

"Is that Addison? Can you ask her if I can ask her questions? Carina's going back to Italy for a month... she's getting married though so she's coming back!"

///

"Your mum was Val. We loved Val. You are Luna, and you have a family here. Every time I step into an OR, I think about your mum, and you, and my wife. My wife thinks about you too. Every movie night for a while now, there has been a giraffe. One day you'll get to watch those movies, Luna, I know it."

You smiled as you stood in the NICU doorway, listening to Jo talk to Luna, who smiled as she spoke to the baby girl.

///

Jo was much more tense after she met Luna's legal guardian assigned from CPS, then every time since seeing Carmen Delgato with Luna as each week went. As Hayes put it, social worker, not a parent.

"She deserves parents who love her, not a social worker who sees her as a box to tick on a list." You whispered, having snuck into the NICU to check up on Luna, not realising that Hayes had overheard.

"I'm surprised you two Shepherd haven't put the paperwork through to become her legal parents yet."

"My wife told me about how the social worker wasn't allowing that operation... we're working on it, had to get Jo's background check cleared, and they started looking at my family too. My dad was murdered before I was born, it traumatised my family... they're being thorough." You shrugged off the look on Hayes' face, keeping your gaze on Luna instead.

"All my siblings have children, Jo and I only really started thinking about children after Jo attached to this baby left at Station 19, but it was during DeLuca's memorial that I realised... anyway, we're fighting for Luna, and... we were going to move after the wedding but the pandemic... anyway, we're also looking at moving. Jo wanted to try get Link to foster until we can get the legal stuff sorted, but it's moving faster with both of us than it would if it was just Jo alone trying to get parental rights." You explained, letting out a sigh as Hayes nodded.

///

"Have you spoken to your sisters or your mother about Luna?"

"Nancy will probably try analyse her case, Kathleen will say we're not ready, Liz will be supportive, Amelia is struggling with Link and Scout. She adores them both but she's struggling. Addison is struggling with the pandemic because Jake just works on model trains, and Henry plays videogames at every waking hour. My mother... I think she was concerned at first but I think she worries we'll struggle without help... but there's a vaccine, and we're doctors who understand how to take care of Luna's needs. Besides, my sisters can get their updates from the rare Instagram photo of Luna's hand or foot or something... Luna's our daughter, I'm not listening to them talk about a baby negatively."

///

"Y/n! You're Amelia's sister! Do you know what ring she'd like?" Jo summoned you into a patient room where Luna was staying, revealing Link and three engagement rings.

"Uh... um... right, engagement ring for Amelia... why did you get three? You kept receipts right? You don't need three of them!" you pointed out, leaving Link to nod, closing the boxes and hurrying out after asking the two of you to wish him luck.

"Jo... I don't think Amelia will say yes."

"Oh poop! Merry Christmas everyone..." Jo murmured, her eyes full of panic as you sighed, nodding nervously.

///

You smiled as Jo paced around on the phone, thanking whoever was on the line informing you that the adoption of Luna had been approved.

"She tell you she sold her hospital shares yet?" You enquired, leaving Bailey to pause.

"What's with that face? Bad price?"

"I still have my shares but... it's more the person my wife sold her shares to..." You trailed off, smiling at how you referred to Jo as your wife, and accepting the kiss that Jo gave you as she sat on the picnic bench with you and Bailey.

"Maybe I should just let the person who bought them tell you..." Jo paused, turning the phone around as it began to ring with a video call.

"Miranda! Did you hear the good news?"

Bailey's face fell as Tom Koracick was revealed to now have shares in the ownership of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

"Shepherd. Tell me you didn't. I offered you both character references!" Bailey hissed, whilst Jo hurriedly hung up the call, and the two of you hurried away as Bailey glared.

///

"Welcome home... welcome home Luna, and my darling wife!" Jo smiled, looking around the apartment that was once Jackson's, but the two of you had purchased from him for your family to grow up in.

"I found the Operation game!" You declared with a grin, revealing the box as Jo rolled her eyes playfully.

"I thought you were looking for cutlery!"

///

Tags: @nnightskiess @multifandomlesbianic @emskisworld @afuckingshituniverse

[im-adrienne]

We're Kind of Doomed...Just a Little

Tonight while I was playing PVE DayZ, I came across a large gas canister that I didn't need. I typed out in the chat that I had a large gas canister that I didn't need and if anyone needs it then it's theirs. I would even leave it where they could find it later if need be. Someone responded with, "We can buy that at the Trader." This didn't exactly break my brain yet it started me thinking. Capitalism is a certain kind of brain rot that goes so deep into the psyche of a person that they impose its rigidity on a fucking video game.

I say this because that person and many other people on the server:

Believe that there should be no "hand outs".

Believe that community is not about sharing as much as it is about making a profit from others and expect rewards.

Find it foreign/baffling when a person doesn't want a reward or payment for something.

Get mean & aggressive when you want to share items with others. (Ex. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?!?!? THAT'S WORTH X-AMOUNT YOU C*NT!")

Cannot comprehend bartering or mutual aid.

What baffles me is that DayZ is about surviving a zombie apocalypse. Keyword being "surviving". Just because there are traders it does not mean that the survival aspect must be capitalistic. Helping people and building a communal aspect in a post-apocalyptic environment where you could be mauled to death by zombies, bears, wolves, etc at any time is the best survival option and not where one must depend on having enough cash on hand to buy every little thing.

The more I think about a zombie/post-apocalypse type scenario happening in a place like the United States or United Kingdom (or any hyper-nationalist capitalist state) the more I think we're kind of fucking doomed. Like just a little fucking doomed. Mainly because of the individualist, "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality that has gotten only the 1% farther in life yet brainwashed billions into thinking they are millionaires in-waiting while they get paid unfairly. Too many do not understand mutual aid...yet they set up GoFundMe accounts so they can pay off their medical bills. It's disturbing how around-the-facts people can go and for how long.

Even in a fucking survival video game where you loot to survive in a post-apocalyptic world full of stuff that wants to kill you there are people that put a price on everything and hold currency over necessity. If you've ever been in a WoW Guild it can also be this way too.

We all saw and were impacted by the Pandemic. We all saw what people did with hoarding supplies and buying up supplies so they could sell them online at a markup...during a global pandemic. The world is still recovering from that greed (and Covid-19 has not gone away at all). Supply chains are still fucked. Imagine if the Pandemic was worse. Imagine if The Last of Us came to pass. I don't even want to think about it not because of the clickers. No. I don't want to think of it because of the ultra-individualism of too many people that would become a faction of rabid capitalists without a world bank or a stable currency.

Just a little fucking doomed.

[remembertheplunge]

Pandemic and Protest And an Altered State Of Living.June 2 to June 4 2020

June 2, 2020 Tuesday 6:14pm Jail Lobby

Barricades are up near the entry door to the lobby..Like, they are trying to protect from being rammed into.

I just invented a new term: Trump-demic! Inspired by the “oh fuck” Trump pandemic meteor hurtling at earth post card I sent to Zoe recently.

This edition of the Journal is the Protest edition. Protests rage across the country. 

Jared Is not happy that I spent $60 on this journal.

End of entry

Notes : 7/8/2024

I wrote the above entry in the lobby of the Stanislaus County Jail 5 miles West of Modesto. Large cement barricades had been set up to block an attempt to forcibly take the building by Black Lives Matter protesters.

My sister Zoe and I liked to send humorous post cards back and forth to one another. On portrayed a meteorite racing toward earth entitled “oh fuck”. It was the Trump Pandemic meteor!

I had paid $60 for the leather bound journal that I wrote the June 2020 entries in. Jared was my law clerk and business manager and was not happy with the investment.

________________________________________________________

6/3/2020 Wednesday 7:10pm 

NPR: Market Place is on. The Pandemic--Protest is in full swing!

I was up in Stockton at the jail. a fellow defense attorney said police are surrounding the court house. She told me not to come to Stockton tomorrow for court. Too dangerous. She will appear for me.

Meanwhile, Jared said a protest in Oakdale today went violent.

The feeling out here is shaky.

The protests flair here. The virus flairs there. But you never know where or when.

End of entry

Notes 7/8/2024

NPR was National Public radio and Market Place was a show on that station. I listened to Market Place a lot in the early =days of the pandemic. They had honest reporting of how the Pandemic was unfolding.

Oakdale is a town in eastern Stanislaus County, California. 

__________________________________________-

6/4/2020. Thursday 5:20pm Rasputiun’s

Cut. Cut. Gone The two trees marked for destruction are gone. Progress? Productivity? Pandemic and Protest Rage, cutting down 2 trees took priority.

Jerad and I had a beautiful talk with the female clerk at Preservation Coffee House this afternoon. She went to the Sunday 11am protest at 1010 10th (down town Modesto, California) and will go to one in Ripon. She told us that“We need to be willing to be injured to push for change.” .

Magnificent.

Jared said that during the Oakdale protest yesterday, Trump 2020 “all lives matter” stood across from “Black Lives Matter” protesters.

People are out in mobs now. 

I think 10,000 protested yesterday in San Fransisco, Thelma and Louise style, racing for the viral cliff’s edge.

I anticipate a spike in virus and in violence.

Mobile Art Gallery just passed

End of entries

Notes 7/8/2024;

Rasputin’s is a DVD record store located near highway 99 and the rail road tracks in Modesto. During the pandemic, when I could no longer write in coffee houses, I would sit in my car, listen to Mavis Staples songs, write and observe. I got to know the area of the parking lot that I would write in very well. Two young trees I often sat near had been marked to be cut down  with white paint rings around their trunks. On June 4, they were gone and I eulogized them in my entry.  There was another man who would at times park there, too in his hot yellow sports car. He would read his  newspaper. He never looked my way, but, I’m sure that he saw me. Pandamic exiles resorting to a parking lot for covid free reverie.

In 2020 I started noticing Graffiti on the trains as I drove up and down  Highway 99. In March 2020, when the State was in  lock down and the highway electronic signs were screaming out “Stay home and live!”.  I had to be out and drive for court. I never sheltered in place. Besides, I wanted to see the world in its grip of fear. It was fascinating. But, scary , too. And there were the trains. And the Graffiti art work on the train cars. And they were comforting. A message written from before the time of the plague , barreling along as if to say, come follow me . I will lead you to safely out of the virus veil. 

Preservation was Preservation Coffee in Modesto where pre pandemic I spent many hours writing. Post pandemic I have rarely returned and never to write there.

Thelma and Louise was a 1991 movie in which two wild intense women go on a crazy vacation that finds them hurling over  a cliff in the end.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

Authors: Rose (Shiqi) Luo Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

Catherine Itsiopoulos Professor and Dean, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

Kate Anderson Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University

Magdalena Plebanski Professor of Immunology, RMIT University

Zhen Zheng Associate Professor, STEM | Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University

____________________________________________________________

Nearly five years into the pandemic, COVID is feeling less central to our daily lives.

But the virus, SARS-CoV-2, is still around, and for many people the effects of an infection can be long-lasting. When symptoms persist for more than three months after the initial COVID infection, this is generally referred to as long COVID.

In September, Grammy-winning Brazilian musician Sérgio Mendes died aged 83 after reportedly having long COVID.

Australian data show 196 deaths were due to the long-term effects of COVID from the beginning of the pandemic up to the end of July 2023.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 3,544 long-COVID-related deaths from the start of the pandemic up to the end of June 2022.

The symptoms of long COVID – such as fatigue, shortness of breath and “brain fog” – can be debilitating. But can you die from long COVID? The answer is not so simple.

How could long COVID lead to death? There’s still a lot we don’t understand about what causes long COVID. A popular theory is that “zombie” virus fragments may linger in the body and cause inflammation even after the virus has gone, resulting in long-term health problems. Recent research suggests a reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 proteins in the blood might explain why some people experience ongoing symptoms.

We know a serious COVID infection can damage multiple organs. For example, severe COVID can lead to permanent lung dysfunction, persistent heart inflammation, neurological damage and long-term kidney disease.

These issues can in some cases lead to death, either immediately or months or years down the track. But is death beyond the acute phase of infection from one of these causes the direct result of COVID, long COVID, or something else? Whether long COVID can directly cause death continues to be a topic of debate.

Of the 3,544 deaths related to long COVID in the US up to June 2022, the most commonly recorded underlying cause was COVID itself (67.5%). This could mean they died as a result of one of the long-term effects of a COVID infection, such as those mentioned above.

COVID infection was followed by heart disease (8.6%), cancer (2.9%), Alzheimer’s disease (2.7%), lung disease (2.5%), diabetes (2%) and stroke (1.8%). Adults aged 75–84 had the highest rate of death related to long COVID (28.8%).

These findings suggest many of these people died “with” long COVID, rather than from the condition. In other words, long COVID may not be a direct driver of death, but rather a contributor, likely exacerbating existing conditions.

‘Cause of death’ is difficult to define Long COVID is a relatively recent phenomenon, so mortality data for people with this condition are limited.

However, we can draw some insights from the experiences of people with post-viral conditions that have been studied for longer, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

Like long COVID, ME/CFS is a complex condition which can have significant and varied effects on a person’s physical fitness, nutritional status, social engagement, mental health and quality of life.

Some research indicates people with ME/CFS are at increased risk of dying from causes including heart conditions, infections and suicide, that may be triggered or compounded by the debilitating nature of the syndrome.

So what is the emerging data on long COVID telling us about the potential increased risk of death?

Research from 2023 has suggested adults in the US with long COVID were at greater risk of developing heart disease, stroke, lung disease and asthma.

Research has also found long COVID is associated with a higher risk of suicidal ideation (thinking about or planning suicide). This may reflect common symptoms and consequences of long COVID such as sleep problems, fatigue, chronic pain and emotional distress.

But long COVID is more likely to occur in people who have existing health conditions. This makes it challenging to accurately determine how much long COVID contributes to a person’s death.

Research has long revealed reliability issues in cause-of-death reporting, particularly for people with chronic illness.

So what can we conclude? Ultimately, long COVID is a chronic condition that can significantly affect quality of life, mental wellbeing and overall health.

While long COVID is not usually immediately or directly life-threatening, it’s possible it could exacerbate existing conditions, and play a role in a person’s death in this way.

Importantly, many people with long COVID around the world lack access to appropriate support. We need to develop models of care for the optimal management of people with long COVID with a focus on multidisciplinary care.

[thepolyamorouspolymath]

Fun fact to share with anyone who tells you about how they vote Trump because of prices or the economy, the "gas and eggs" lie that even leftists seem to believe...

Eggs have gone up in price around $0.70 since 1980 as has gas when adjusted for inflation.

So no it wasn't a choice between wallets and human rights -- because those prices haven't changed much.

It's taking more of your money to pay for essentials because of an artificial housing crisis (of Republican support), an out of date utility system (of Republican support), and wage suppression (of Republican support.)

You can check here

for prices on goods like gas and eggs and milk, adjusted for inflation every year.

The idea that Republicans are better on the economy is a lie. It's simply not supported by actual data. If we were in 1925, then we could debate the value of liberal and conservative economic policies -- they were both largely untried, simply theoretical math.

But it's been almost a century and every time conservative economics have been put in play, a market crash and recession inevitably follow. When liberal policies have been put into place, we rebounded from the biggest economic disaster in history to the longest period of sustained growth, created the middle class, funded not only our own part in WWII but a goodly portion of the UK's as well, paid to reconstruct Europe, increased education, created a safety net for our elderly (FDR post Hoover depression), had an economic and technological boom, a soaring stock market, ran a budget surplus, (Clinton post Reagan/Bush recession) restored industries, improved healthcare, came back with 72 months of sustained job growth (Obama post Bush 2 recession).

Now I will not blame Trump for the economic problems in his last year in office -- pandemics can happen to anyone and while better economic policies could have helped, that's theoretical which is up for debate, and I'm here to address FACTS. Hard data from unpartisan sources that is publicly available FACTS.

And Biden's "terrible" economy? Yeah we had the lowest inflation in the western world (EU inflation in 2023 was 6.59% versus US inflation in 2023 was 4.1% -- as of October 2024, inflation was at 2.6% versus Trump's 2.3% inflation rate in 2019) at a time when inflation is INEVITABLE (literally every pandemic has an inflation period after it, since forever -- look at the Black Death sometime), the highest GDP (21.43T for 2019 versus 27.36T for 2023) and GNP (21.73T in 2019 versus 29.03T for 2023) in history, jobs growth every quarter (unemployment rate of 3.7% in 2019 to 3.6% in 2023, which means we not only got back everything we lost from COVID, but then some), and an increase in the median wage from $35k per person per year to $59k.

For those of you who have some weird devotion to tax rates in 2019, the federal income tax rates were 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. In 2023 they were... exactly the same. Your tax rates remained unchanged by Democrats at all. Also the largest budget deficit in history occurred under Trump's first administration. Personally I find these less than irrelevant (FDR put on a top tax of 94% and spent more than anyone knew you could spent and it paid off spectacularly.) But if you want to claim to be a fiscal conservative (tell me you don't understand history or economics without telling me...) then you should care.

The stock market is the worst indicator of economic health as its based on perception rather than value and has relatively little effect on daily life for most people. So how did it do under Trump (pre Covid number) versus Biden?

The S&P 500 value as of January 2020 was 3289.29. As of October 2024, 5705.45.

Again, those are all publicly available numbers.

STOP LETTING THEM GET BY WITH THE IDEA THAT THEY ARE GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY BECAUSE NO THEY ARE NOT. THEY HAVE LITERALLY NO DATA TO SUPPORT THAT.

Economics is a hard science. Data matters.

We can debate the role of religion or parental control or the fundamental nature of man. But basic arithmetic? No, sorry that question has been answered.

And anyone who tries to use it as a justification for supporting Nazis is wrong, lying, or both.

[scorchedthesnake]

April 1, 2022

The post-Covid reopening finally came in February 2022, long after most everything else had already come back. Many of us attended an invited dress and found, as expected, a number of changes – no 1:1s initially, some new choreography to fill in for them, some nice hygienic changes, and a number of new faces. It was wonderful to be back. It was also incredibly sad how much we had lost in the meantime.

If you were fond of playful deviations from the script, as I am, it was all kind of devastating to see how by-the-numbers everything had to be now. Obviously, I understood, but the mischief of the early years was well and truly gone. On the other hand: phones were all locked down, finally. While it had been entertaining to see Paul smack the phone out of a patron's hand and hiss "shame on you," none of the cast ever should have had to deal with that. In late 2019, audience were strolling around with a document open on their phones telling them where to go and what time, and it was awful. The reprieve from that was by a wide margin the most positive change at reopening.

Sleep No More had so much become my home that my best friend's boyfriends, as they came and went, realized that it was the best place for them to meet me for the first time – I guess I was at ease and felt mastery of the situation and was more forgiving than usual of any personality quirks. In April 2022, Matt's long-distance boyfriend came for a visit, and suggested that we go together with my new friend and at the time possible romantic interest (this didn't last long, we have a certain fundamental incompatibility) Josh. Further, a friend from my old classic Warcraft guild was in town so we made a major evening out of it.

The show that night marked the return of some 1:1s – I had the first confirmed post-pandemic Fulton. Crowd behavior was already beginning to slide back to pre-pandemic levels of obnoxious, which frankly felt good.

After the show, for a brief time, they opened the lobby – the "Porter's Parlor" which was a way of relieving crowding in Manderley. We got some nice drink service and they let us do photos. My friends asked me, why do people treat you like royalty here? And it was true – everywhere we turned, we met someone I knew from forever ago and some special door was opened. The hospitality in that immediate reopening period was incomparable, and after so long away, felt wonderful.

It was a tremendous send-off for my two weeks at The Burnt City which followed later in the month.

[constance-mcentee]

Holy Week 2024

Good Friday, 29 March 2024

I haven't been to church since Christmas morning at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. I can't prove I got covid there, but by the end of that week I had covid. It's also possible my son got it when he was visiting with my co-parent and then gave it to me. We were both sick at the same time.

It's strange, staying away from church for all of Lent. But, I just felt it would be best if I did so. If I'd gone to Ash Wednesday, would they have worn gloves for the administering of ashes? I don't recall seeing the Eucharistic ministers wearing gloves during Communion back at Christmas.

I guess I could have tried to do a Lenten practice on my own at home, but I find being in a community to be a more complete experience. Maybe I need to work on that. The idea of being a solitary witch is no big deal to me. Why is the idea of being a solitary Christian so strange?

I am not planning on going to Resurrection Sunday worship. The experience of covid is still too new in my memory. And in a way, that's encouraging considering the memory loss I've been experiencing. But there was a lot of "emotional weight" (I don't know how else to describe it) to that experience, so that helps me remember.

I just feel that maybe church really can't go back to normal until we're actually in a post-pandemic world. The pandemic isn't done yet. So, we still need to keep precautions in place.