#and I have to do well on this essay because I got a 79 on my midterm

[comehomet0myheart]

Every time I have to write something more deep than a report for class I'm like "suddenly I can't write anymore. I don't know how to write. no thoughts head empty." I know I'm a social science major but doing analysis stresses me out I'm so DUMB

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Odd question but - I'm looking to study in the UK this fall, and I'm trying to get to grips with the grading system. Could you explain the grading boundaries to me please? It's different from the US, as far as I can see!

I found this handy table which you might find useful - I don't really understand the US system either lol.

Here's what I will say though - I have many times before seen Americans online seeing the percentages for the UK grade boundaries and immediately wax lyrical about how EASY and SIMPLE it must be to do well in the UK because OH MY GOD I could tooootally get 70%!!! In the US that's barely a C!!! Wow education must be soooo simple in the UK -

And uh. I have seen very few Americans in those discussions stop and ask themselves how much harder it might be to hit 70% in the UK. Which, as the international academic office in every university will tell you, is the crucial question you absolutely should be asking. Does an American 70% look the same as a UK 70%?

(It Does Not.)

So don't be fooled by that! Over here, at undergrad the pass mark is 40%. 40-49% gets you a third; 50-59% gets you what's varyingly known as a lower second (formally), a 2:2 (most commonly), or a Desmond (by sad people. It's a reference to Desmond Tutu - two two). A 2:2 is also the most commonly awarded degree classification over here.

60-69% is a 2:1, or upper second class honours. And then the top level is the first - 70% and up. The vast majority of firsts are earned by students who got 70-79%. Exceptional work pushes into the 80s. It is incredibly rare that you ever see a mark in the 90s, and when you do, it's almost always on maths papers where there are right or wrong answers and that's it.

I can't remember how the US's summa cum laude etc stuff maps onto that, though you could probably find that on Google as well. But as a rule of thumb, think first = excellent, 2:1 = good, 2:2 = fair, and third = you need to be careful and see what you can do to improve (although that is still a pass at university and that is not to be sniffed at).

Ooh, as a final point, though, there's also how assessment works, which again, I know is very different over here (again I don't really understand it in the US). Your lecturer cannot set random work here and there to count as summative assessment. Every module is different in how it's set up, but let's give an example:

Module: Coastal and Marine Conservation Two assessments, each worth 50% of the final grade. Assessment 1: A report on the biodiversity of Ramsey Island in the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Explore the cause of the lower biodiversity there than nearby Skomer/Skokholm; how was this challenged/rectified? How have species recovered since? What should be done into the future? Assessment 2: A two-hour closed book exam. Half of this exam (50 marks) will be a mix of short and medium length questions; things like "Define these five terms (two marks each)", or "Describe the process of longshore drift and its impact on sedimentation patterns (15 marks)" or what have you. The second half is a 50 mark essay - pick one of three essay questions offered, and off you go. (Essay questions are a staple feature of exams over here, and multiple choice questions are extremely rare and generally frowned on as being Not Sufficiently Academic.)

Now, in the case of this module, these are the only two assessment points. Both the report brief and the exam paper are registered with the academic office in the summer before the academic year even starts, and both are triple verified - by the lecturer who writes/sets them, by an internal verifier in the department, and an external verifier from another university. This is part of quality control.

If, for some reason, you fail one of these, or cannot submit them by their due date, or what have you, you still have to do them. If you claim for Extenuating Circumstances (e.g. "I was made homeless and my cat blew up, so I couldn't do it in time") then you get an extension on it; as long as you submit by the end of the academic period, you're fine. If you don't, you need to resit it. This normally means over the summer after the main term ends.

But, in the UK system what we can't do is go "Okay never mind, how about you submit a write-up of the volunteering you're currently doing with SeaLife instead and we'll count that?" The reason being, under the UK system that is not a quality-controlled solution. That has not been checked and verified as an equivalent assessment to what the rest of the class has done; so if you do that and get a 2:1, there is no assurance that you are actually of the same academic quality as one of your peers who got a 2:1 for that research report on Ramsey's biodiversity.

Which... don't let it scare you! As I say, there are a LOT of systems that can help you if things start going wrong (always, always, always keep Student Support and your lecturers in the loop). But that is a different system from what I understand you might be used to, so heads up on that.

(I am not arguing that one is better than the other, by the way. Last time I explained a difference in the UK university system I got a very hostile and aggressive American in the notes throwing a right strop over how terrible the UK system clearly is because XYZ, right up until I had to actually say "I am literally just describing how it's different, not claiming superiority," and then they went mysteriously quiet and stopped replying. So to forestall that, I am only describing the differences. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

The UK system is certainly more inflexible. But it does, incidentally, at least free you from the tyranny I see reported so often by US students of the dreaded Tenured Professor who deliberately as a matter of pride sets impossible exams that everyone fails. Over here, that shit Does Not Fly. So there's that.)

Anyway - hopefully that answers your question! Any others, hit me up. Good luck, and enjoy your studies!

[paper-beats-writers-block]

Having very many thoughts about Simon Snow today. Tl;dr only some of Simon’s magic was his but altogether it was too much for him to hold by himself: an essay. (Things we as a fandom know about his magic but I just wanted to write it all out comprehensively)

The main reason I think Simon was so bad at magic was because he couldn’t let go of it little by little. We know from the rest of the series that spells use up magic, and it takes the caster a little while to recharge from big spells or lots of spells. And it would make sense that the only way Simon could really let go of his magic was going off. I don’t think he was conscious of it, but he was more focused on holding everything in and not going off, which made casting his spells harder, and it makes sense why his successful spells were bigger. The closest metaphor I can think of is like a balloon without a knot will only release as much air as your own pinched fingers let it, and Simon was so scared to let the balloon go off (lose all the air at once and fly all over the room) that he didn’t even let a little of the air out, so it just built up and built up continually. Like in the beginning of the book when he casts “out, out damned spot” to get the blood off his pants and it doesn’t work (because he’s “rusty” and not letting enough of his magic go to make the spell work) but “into thin air” does—for the most part, but again it’s a successful spell that works bigger than he meant it to because it made the whole road disappear. But he’s also frustrated his first spells didn’t work and that anger probably let more air out of the balloon than he meant it to hence the road disappearing completely. 

Which is also why at the end of the book he can cast without words and make things happen (magickally fabricating his wings and tail, and making himself warmer midair on the flight to the Bunces’ from Baz’s).  He’s intentionally releasing so much magic into the atmosphere at once he doesn’t need the words. This is also why the magic sharing works so well with Baz, because all Simon is doing is letting the magic go. He’s not controlling it; Baz is. 

And the whole concept of the humdrum is brilliant. Because here’s this kid that has more magic than anyone, but only because he was conceived magickally and connected to the magickal atmosphere with a series of rituals and spells. Literally in chapter 58, the mage (the fuckwad may he rest in pain) gives us a line from his Greatest Mage research saying “a magician that draws his power from the centre of the earth”. And Simon does that. That’s why the Humdrum Holes appear. The weird magickal sex ritual or whatever the hell the Mage did (and Lucy participated in) on the autumnal equinox 1996 in the tower of the White Chapel (chapter 79) literally linked their fetus to the power and magic of the earth. And Lucy gives us a line “like there’s something inside of me, and it isn’t just eating me, it’s eating everything” (Chapter 84). And it did consume her. That’s why she died after giving birth. Because it ate her magic first (she mentions not having the energy to cast anything), and then it started to consume her humanity. But it wasn’t Simon (at least imo) it was the sucking hungriness inside of him that the ritual put there from the very beginning. The humdrum was a part of Simon until Simon was powerful enough to separate himself from it, aka, the first time he went off in the care home at eleven. There were small holes that were probably from tantrums he’d had over the years, but the grotty jeans and ratted tshirt with “that infernal red ball” impression that the humdrum is personified as in the book was what came of his Nothingness metasizing when Simon came into his power. 

Final thing (sorry this got long). Chapter 82 when Simon does the magic sharing with the humdrum and gives up all his power, he feels the same control over his power as he does when he shares with Baz, but only at the beginning. Once the river flows into the humdrum and he starts to fade, Simon notices the switch from his power flowing into the humdrum to the humdrum sucking his power out. And I think the magic that flowed was the excess power trapped inside him that he was drawing from the centre of the earth, whereas the magic being sucked and pulled out of him at the end was his own; the natural power that he would have been born with if he hadn’t been conceived with a ritualistic spell. Because he still would have had a TON of power because the mage and Lucy were both powerhouses as well. 

Man I wish someone could have explained all of this to Simon before shit hit the fan. Kiddo deserved better than that. (Fuck the mage)

Thanks for sticking with me this whole time :D 

[wordsandrobots]

Wishing on Space Hardware: Trivia and the cutting room floor

Having finished the single longest writing project I've ever done, I find myself with a number of bits and pieces left over.

To be fair, I also invite you to contribute to the pile by letting me know if there are any extra scenes you'd like to see based on my truly excessive amount of Iron-Blooded Orphans fanfic. The ask box is open for that and anything else you'd like to prompt me to write about.

However, there remains a bunch of stuff that never made it into the final story and a lot of little details I feel are worth commenting on. So as I luxuriate in not having to spend the week editing chapters any more, I thought I'd share a couple of quick lists regarding the process and what got cut out of it. For posterity, at least.

Spoilers for the fics, obviously, and since they're post-canon, spoilers for IBO as well (go watch it if you have not, it is very, very good, hence the 656,000 words I wrote as a direct consequence [not counting the essays. Jeepers, I'll have to tot it all up some day and get the grand total).

Ahem. Anyway. Trivia!

First up, I must publicly credit penitence_road (on Tumblr as @stillness-in-green)’s excellent IBO fics for inspiring one of the major threads in WoSH (I've mentioned this in author notes but the debt cannot be overstated). The phrase 'Almiria's Adolescent Apocalypse' lodged in my brain and became a mission statement. I did try to steer in a completely different direction regarding the specifics (hence why Todo is very much not a part of the core gang), but the main thrust was all about taking that description and seeing how I could flesh it out. (Go read these fics, my goodness.)

Second, there are, of course, mythology gags referencing the wider Gundam franchise sprinkled liberally throughout. Some I've already called out in author notes, but I believe managed to reference Gundam 79, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Gundam Wing, Turn A Gundam, Gundam SEED, Gundam 00, and Reconguista in G in more or less explicit ways. See if you can spot them all!

I named Skoll and Hati with specific reference to their roles in the Poetic Eda. That is, I thought of them as 'the moon-hunter Gundam' and 'the sun-killed Schwalbe', respectively, in reference to their rolls harassing the Arianrhod Fleet (formally the Outer Lunar Orbit Joint Fleet) and destroying the Ahab reactor factory. But also they reflect their pilots' temperaments, with Skoll 'the mocker' being flown by Embi and Hati 'the hater' by Lin.

Spaceships Baldr and the Váli were named in a similar fashion, for their connections to Ragnarök (Váli is Vidar's brother, another of the gods who survive the final battle), and I chose to describe the finale as 'Ragnarök' in the first place because in the sagas, it represents a renewal of the world, rather than a complete end. Quite apart from the Norse influence on Gjallarhorn's whole deal, the cyclical nature dovetailed nicely with what I was trying to do with the story.

I had a very near miss with Skoll in that I wrote it as being based on ASW-G-15 Eligos, named after a demon that took the form of a handsome knight who can see the future. Some months later, the IBO-G app would reveal ASW-G-16 Zepar, the very next Gundam in the sequence, whose namesake's appearance as a red-garbed soldier seems to have been muddled with Eligos in some of the sources I checked. I am really quite relieved I didn't have to rework anything there, but it was close!

Visually, the deconstructed Char-clone that is Almiria's gang channel aspects of other iterations of the trope, with Asher obviously replicating Montag, Embi settling vaguely in the region of Quattro (that is, a more civilian-mode masked man), and Almira assaying McGillis in a way that probably lands not a millions miles from Rau. But I was primarily thinking of Relena's Sanc Kingdom outfit for her, so the 'general's' coat is a lot fancier.

The media-savvy ally to Victor Handa in Revolution for Beginners... is the same cameraman who filmed Kudelia's pivotal broadcast at the conclusion of Season 1's Dort arc. Those events seemed like they would have consequences for the journalists involved and in Hajime's case, that involved being swayed fully over to the workers' movement.

I invented Alessio as a character to counter-balance Iverson and ensure I had some non-villainous non-binary rep. That I picked the stoutest background character model I could find was not unrelated to this, though it's also an *interesting* model, especially coupled to the ones around him/them in the big group shot.

Doc Chaifin, meanwhile, just sort of happened. Sometimes characters do that.

I wrote a significant chunk of the sex scene (well, post-sex scene) in To Catch a Falling Star while sitting in a car park, waiting for my partner to come back from an appointment. This was mainly because the fic was absolutely consuming my brain and I'd discovered the joys of using a mobile phone to write notes (I put off getting a smart phone for a long, long time).

With respect to the Calamity War recording segments of Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure, my working head-canon is that Agnika Kaieru had a science/engineering background. Or, well, I think he moved in a social circle full of scientists and engineers before getting started on the war effort. I also have this notion that his parents at least were part of the corporate class, distinct from the aristocratic class from which people like the Bauduins and Fareeds emerged. But I never sat down to work it all out in full, as that wasn't required for the story.

Regarding Hesperus, I kind of fudged a lot to get the story to work. I'd sort of assumed Radonitsa Colony was a post-War construct rather than something pre-existing, which isn't really supported by the Urdr Hunt game. So the idea of it being a composite of different space platforms bolted around a space elevator terminal is perhaps a bit of a stretch. I still like it though, the basic concept of doing archaeology on space stations.

There's a lot of stuff I did in the moment, to get an individual fic to work, that I was later able to basically repurpose as long-term plot-points. I didn't actually intend for the 'There are three things you need to know to understand what comes next' bit to set up the salvager ship in the finale, or the pluma in Let Sleeping Angels Lie to set-up for what the McGillis faction would do with the leftovers of Season 2's events. But having those things set up gave me some wonderful 'ah ha' moments as I marshalled the overall plot. If nothing else, I got quite a rush out of realising both Gaelio's weaponised wheelchair and the beach house's lethal defences were there to use.

...try not to think too hard about how excited I got figuring out a convoluted assassination method. I'm certainly going to try not to.

The plot really kicked into gear for me with The Ares Affair. Up to then, I'd been coasting on character interactions and fix-its. But then all the consequences suddenly coalesced in my brain and I went, 'oh, this is what we're doing, is it?'

In addition to the playlists I've already put up, grown-up!Almiria's theme is Bach's Polonaise in G Minor on the harpsichord because it is *precisely* what you'd get if you pitched Rustal Elion's theme higher and more playful.

I still have no proper explanation for why A New England stuck in my head so hard when I was writing th first few fics. But I'm glad it did because it gave me a killer series title, if I do say so myself.

I tried extremely hard to make sure everyone in the anime cast got some kind of moment in the spotlight or at least a mention. Think I did a pretty good job on that front, overall.

And to wrap up on that point, yes, the narrator who occasionally addresses you directly is a character from the show. I'd be terribly interested to hear if any of you've worked out who. (It might not be strictly guessable, since there isn't anything gesturing at it per se; I just imagined it being their voice and it kind of fits, thematically.)

Now let's open the door to the cutting room!

The big one is that when I originally planned out the plot of Revolution for Beginners and Polyamory for Dumbasses, a key part of the uprising in the Dort Colonies was going to be the hackers allied with Ride knocking out the nearby Ariadne beacons in order to blind Earth to what was happening. Gjallarhorn would then have analysed the computer virus they used, and that would have been the basis for them messing about with the Network in the final stretch of fics. In the end, there simply wasn't enough room to fit any more threads into that fic and the more I thought it over, the more I decided this would be weighting the balance of power wrong. It'd be too much of a flat-out win for the colonists. Joshua's appearance on Ariadne One -- which had been intended to set things up for the beacon-hacking -- remained, just recontextualised as a clue to who was responsible for the attack in Frozen Sunlight, and a small bit of character development for this OC. I repurposed the remainder of this plot as a way to tie Ride's arc into Almiria's (she taps him for the hacking resources as a result of them messing with Ariadne One's sensors instead) and made 'Höðr' an entirely Gjallarhorn project.

The delay to the release of the Urdr Hunt mobile game drastically changed the opening to arc 4 and had knock-on effects for how the grand finale worked. Because I thought I'd have more to work with in terms of plot and characters of the game when it came time to do the writing, I'd assumed I'd be able to work in appearances from Urdr Hunt's cast. I'd planned a much bigger pay off to the idea of Radonitsa Colony's tourist board trying to get the Martain Chairperson to visit, which was that Atra and Akatsuki would have gone alone with Eugene and Sri. The whole 'let's pretend we're here to assess the facilities on behalf of the Martian government' would have been more than a passing joke and instead been a full-on cover story, with Wistario and the his friends scrambling to put on a good show. This would, I admit, mainly have existed to set up a rather dumb gag whereby Sri and Akatsuki would have been the only ones not distracted by Nanao Narolina's everything in a room full of straight male or bisexual adults. But with the delayed release of the game, I needed a drastic rethink, hence bringing in Zaza and having the whole adventure take place with the Urdr Hunt characters off-screen (I even made it vague as to whether they were the ones running the colony, just in case I needed to swing it as someone else taking over following a tragic or failed ending). Ultimately I am very happy this happened, since I didn't especially gel with the protagonists of the game and it gave me greater opportunity to play with my beloved manga cast. But it did mean my idea of having both spin-off heroes come to the rescue at a dramatic juncture never materialised.

This proved to be single biggest alteration to my plotting for the final arc, too. Initially, the escape from Earth was going to be a lot more dramatic. For one thing, I was planning for the whole 'Yamagi gets left behind' element to happen in orbit, with Shino and Eugene actually present. Some sort of ship to ship transfer going wrong, people going adrift in space, that kind of thing. For another, I had the idea of bringing both Gundams Astaroth and Hajiroboshi into play, for a proper 'fight our way through the blockade' moment. Wistario was going to swoop to the rescue as the shuttle broke atmosphere, there'd be pursuit, and I'd wreck as many cop cars Grazes as I could get away with in some protracted chase sequence before we got to the big NOOOO moment. Yeah. But obviously without knowing Wistario's real personality or situation post-game, I didn't have enough material to work with and plans changed. For the better, I think, given the characters moments it allowed me to have and given that Wiz's character is one of my least favourite parts of IBO's extended media. But yeah. I was aiming for a proper team-up, the kind where you could have different people's theme music kicking in as they swooped into view, and it was not to be.

History of a Catastrophe. Oh boy. As I noted at the time, this one got away from me a lot in terms of length. I ended up cutting three complete scenes in an effort to contain the sprawl. The first to go was one focused on Ville Klaassen, (main?) villain of the Moon Steel manga, who I'd already had cameo in Of Obsessions and Erotemes. I wanted to gesture more towards a conclusion for the manga's story, extending from what I'd laid down previously, but ultimately that was too low a priority to justify adding to the word count, so out it went. Given the alternating structure of this fic (it switches between what is broadly 'Julieta's strand' and 'Almiria's strand), that meant cutting a later scene as well and I opted to ditch a brief cutaway to Embi, mainly because it just repeated stuff I'd already establish in A Handful of Rusted Petals. And possibly because of this cut, or because I'd just mucked up the ordering at some point, I also had to get rid of a scene between two of Gjallarhorn's high command that, while cute from an office politics point of view, didn't really contribute much else.

Actually, since these are all quite short, I might as well put them in here so you can see what you weren't missing!

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P.D. 327 – In the middle of entirely unrelated events; Gjallarhorn branch office, Prague

“I'm sorry, is this a bad time?”

Ville Klaassen pushes his briefcase and hat across the desk, out of sight of the terminal screen. “Not at all. I'm just in the middle of preparing for a business trip.”

The Police Bureau officer's eyebrow twitches. “Hopefully this shouldn't take up much of your time. I'm calling regarding two cases you worked on in the aftermath of the McGillis Fareed Incident.”

That explains the highly-secured channel, which demanded Ville confirm he was alone before it would establish an encrypted link. “Oh yes?”

“I'm specifically referring to events at Research Station AD-5, and the investigation into the Fareed Charitable School.”

“The Alaya-Vijnana research? Of course.” The murdered scientists, the destroyed data – evidence of a zealot's self-mutilation turned to so much ash and broken glass. “What of it?”

“This is your official notification that information on these cases has been deemed deleterious to the public good and will henceforth be restricted to category five clearance.”

Interesting. The research Ville can understand, but a school –? Oh, that's right. Those rumours concerning Lord Iznario's predilections. “I was only peripheral to the second investigation. I wouldn't even have been on the ground for the first, had internal affairs not been so short-handed.”

Clearly the exact details of the involvement are irrelevant. “Please sign the forms now being sent to your inbox to confirm you have received this notification. Since you only hold level four clearance, you are not permitted to discuss the indicated cases unless ordered to do so by a superior with level five clearance or above. I am additionally required to run a remote-access search on your Gjallarhorn-issue devices to purge any data pertaining to these cases.”

“Remote access?” Ville asks, a drop of sweat forming at the top of his spine and seeming to fall right the way down it. “Now?”

“The scan must be run as soon as is viable.” There is an overly-deliberate pause. “Do you object?”

Such a rookie error. Ville curses himself inwardly. “Naturally not.” He casts a glance at the pad on the other side of his desk, still displaying the surveillance feed from this morning. “Will you need to scan my personal devices as well?”

“I am not authorised to do so, since under level four clearance, you will not have been permitted to take personal copies of relevant information.”

“Forgive me, I merely wished to be certain.” Opening the security menu on the terminal, he checks his settings. Shouldn't be too much of a risk since he isn't amateur enough to conduct his outside dealings using work equipment. “Please go ahead.”

“Thank you,” says the officer once the progress bar has run its course. “No excisions required.”

“I try to keep things tidy.”

“Please sign the forms promptly. Good day.”

Doing as instructed, Ville wonders what will become of the staff and 'students' of the school. They must surely know plenty of juicy details that would be deleterious to Gjallarhorn's good name… on any other day, he'd consider stretching feelers in that direction, just to see what he might find…

The pad twitters. Fresh footage of two people on a street corner, a skinny blonde with a crutch beside a big, white-haired man, both huddled in cheap anoraks.

Ville snarls, grabbing his hat and dialling furiously. “Nanao,” he snaps as soon as the comm connects, “the Warren boy and his employer's pet thug are right outside the building! I cannot have them causing a scene here. Where the hell are you?”

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P.D. 327 – More than two years after Tekkadan's last battle; Chryse, Mars

First time Embi takes Fly-Away, he doesn't stop giggling for four hours.

He floats on a cloud of painlessness, the ghosts and memories lost somewhere way below him as the vapour swirls happily inside his head. His brother is dead. He's constantly surrounded by the people Elgar died for. And right now, he doesn't care. About any of it! It feels so good!

Crashing afterwards sucks. Not getting the shakes bad. It just stinks to be stuck with all the usual feelings. He has fucked-up nightmares about carrying Elgar through the desert, a dead weight clinging tight to his back. Barely gets through the day without starting a fight. Tries to punch Hirume for asking what's wrong.

The solution is obvious. Embi gets some more Fly-Away and the second time is even better.

So it becomes a pattern. Get the money to buy what he needs to make things a little less shit for a while. Burn through that. Rinse. Repeat.

Everyone keeps telling him he needs to find something to live for, right? He guesses this is it.

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P.D. 329 – Some time later; a private dining room at The Blue Horn, Vingolf

The Director General of the Inspection Bureau sniffs, as he is wont to do whenever he wishes to delay speaking. “Lord Iznario's death is being ruled misadventure. As… anticipated.”

The Regulatory Chief of Staff eyes him from across the table, fingernails digging ever so slightly into the white cloth laid between them. “Indeed it is.”

There is a heavy pause, the kind filled with common understandings that cannot be said aloud.

“You don't think���”

“I wouldn't know.” The Chief of Staff adjusts her forks. “That falls in your purview, not mine.”

“The Police Bureau is… not my bag either. Unless there's evidence of misdemeanour, the investigation is beyond our scope.”

“Is there? Evidence?”

The Director General fiddles with the cuffs of his tunic. “Seems the old man just muddled his tablets and didn't care about watching his diet.”

“The Seven Stars always thought they were above mere mortals.”

“Yes. Yes…”

Another, heavily pause.

“Convenient, at least,” concludes the Chief of Staff. “One less remnant of the old order, hanging around.”

The Director General coughs. “You know I'll be retiring in the new year? Lord – I mean, Commander Elion has some up-and-coming young fellow picked out to replace me.”

“I heard. Is he up to the job?”

“Mm. Probably. Didn't… get much say in the decision.”

“How democratic.”

“Hm.”

A waiter glides into the third silence, bowing obsequiously. “Madam, sir? Your entrées.”

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As I said, nothing especially mind-blowing. I also had a slightly different opening to the segment featuring the pluma, which I again cut for length, but that I rather liked, as a conceit.

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Can a machine remember?

It is possible for a machine to record. Pluma ASW-A-H-011_sub:27 can access data on its previous combat deployments at any time, to support its tactical algorithms. It can return the dimensions of the space freighter it disabled on its last activation, the topography of the desert it traversed during the battle before that, or images of the colossal detonation that led to it becoming buried for ERROR: UNABLE_TO_SYNC years.

But that is not remembering as you would understand it. Memory is imperfect, riddled with loss of clarity and skewed by emotional prejudice. A machine records raw, uncaring facts, free from conscious understanding of why they occur. Even if it performs tasks based on the patterns it detects, even if that performance resembles intelligence, it is most likely nothing more than a cascade of hollow logic, as insensible to wider context as a pebble dropping into the sea.

These, then, are the facts.

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On the subject of aborted starts, here is something I sketched for a putative 'Wistario segment' of the Arc 4 opening story, which as discussed never materialised:

Wisterio Afam is having a bad day. That is to say, he's not having a good day. In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't count as truly terrible given that nothing is presently on fire and as far as he knows the colony isn't being attacked right this minute. He personally is being assailed from all sides but that largely seems to be on the scale of a cosmic joke whereby all his carefully laid plans are coming apart at the stitching.

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And finally, just because I thought it was clever at the time, a reprise segment from Love, Death and Cannoli that I again cut for length, but that would have repeated the echoing memory trick from To Catch a Falling Star chapter 11, with Yamagi recalling lines of dialogue with Shino that were (mostly) from my fics rather than the anime:

««««««««««««⟸ ⬡ 🛠 ⬡ 🛠 ⬡ 🛠 ⬡ ⟹»»»»»»»»»»»»

Suns turn into black holes if they get too big and die. So it is with his feelings. Gravitationally crushing.

I don't want perfect. I want you.

What a dumb thing to say.

(There's something wrong with me.)

But isn't it better to be wrong together than apart?

Do you think if we're both worrying it's our fault, that's a sign of something?

At least there are similarities in how they're screwed up, for whatever comfort that is.

(You're here and you're – you're mine.)

And Yamagi will hold on with hands and teeth and everything he's got.

Jeez, you're so uptight sometimes.

He can be fierce too, if it's necessary.

(Of course I want to be out there with you.)

Right to the very end.

-----------------------------------------------

I've a few more partial scenes in my planning document, but they're mostly things I reworked for the actual posted versions, rather than cutting entirely. Stuff like some of the flashbacks Shino has to his pre-Tekkadan days were originally in different places and the conversation between Yamagi and Ordsley wound up requiring a lot of changes as the story developed. I think that about covers all the major deviations from my original outline.

Oh, except for Gundam Paimon. I swear I meant to figure out what to do with that thing, eventually, but in the end it just remained hanging on the wall. Ah well.

[modernwizard]

Why I love the Spymaster #79: The Scream! 💔

Find my full series under the HELP I WUVS HIM tag.

#79: The Scream! 💔

In The Power of the Doctor, just for entertainment, the Spymaster inserts self-portraits as Ra-Ra-Rasputin into various classic paintings of the Western canon. In #61: Playing even more with gender!, I talk about one aspect of his self-insertions: him sticking himself in the places of women and what that says about his gender expression.

This mini essay talks about another painting he puts himself into: Edvard Munch's Scream. Norwegian Munch created several versions of this image, in paint, pastels, and even lithograph, in 1893. In all versions, a pale, genderless figure stands on a bridge or pier, with swirling water and turbulent sky behind. The figure's simply drawn, skull-like face is framed by their hands, and the figure screams.

What a revealing image for the Spymaster to include in his art exhibit! Notice a few things about the painting:

The Scream is about suffering. The central figure's wavy lines and elongated features echo the seething lines of the water and the sun. By painting the figure and the landscape with the same kind of strokes, Munch connects the figure's suffering and the agitation in the world. In other words, the protagonist of The Scream suffers so much that their suffering escapes the boundaries of their body and agitates everything around them. Munch describes seeing a sunset and sensing an "infinite scream passing through nature," which prompts him to complete this work. The suffering in The Scream is universal in scope, accurately depicting how the Spymaster feels that his pain is all-encompassing.

The Scream also tells a story of isolation. In the Spymaster's Scream, two people stand behind the figure, but they seem more like abstract smears. Without expression, faces, or recognizable body parts, the two people have more in common with the vertical posts of the guard rail than they do with the screaming figure. Distant, anonymous, and indifferent, they do not notice the main figure. Even though the main figure's direct gaze invites viewers to share the main figure's horror, the main figure remains trapped in the frame of a hostile universe. The loneliness in the painting echoes the loneliness the Spymaster probably feels whenever he fails to get the Doctor's attention in the way that he wants.

For a more superficial similarity between The Scream and the Spymaster, notice that the painting is full of reverberating motion: the slashing diagonals of the pier/bridge, the tortuous turns of the water, the undulations of light in the sky. In the same way, the Spymaster is full of movement and barely contained nervous energy.

Finally, check out the main figure's pose: hands to the side of the head. Reminds you of the Spymaster's brainfingers [#12], doesn't it?

In the picture above, the Spymaster uses his brainfingers when talking to the Cyberium: “I ransacked the Matrix of the Time Lords, distilled all the knowledge, all the experiences, all the discoveries, into these brains up here. “

The Spymaster gestures toward his head/brains/self/seat of identity frequently because, as proud as he is of everything he's got up there, he also wants to control it. With his knowledge about being a derivative of the Doctor/the Timeless Child in his mind, plus the Matrix, plus the Cyberium, he has lots of slippery elements to contend with. He controls them about as well as he controls his emotions, i.e., not well. He positions himself in a painting with his hands clamped against the sides of his head because he feels like his head/brain/self/seat of identity is under assault, and he's trying to keep himself together.

@natalunasans @sclfmastery @timeladyjamie @rowanthestrange @whovianuncle

[nickgerlich]

Stick Shift

I got my first car in the summer of 1979. Things were different then. Unlike kids today, who usually have wheels by the time they get their license, I was 20 when I got my first one. Heck, my Dad was 34 when he got his (a ’55 Bel Air), so I figured I was doing pretty well. Times had changed, and our car culture had become so ingrained that it was a necessity for daily living.

I’ll never forget Dad taking me to a Toyota dealership. Dad knew the owner, thanks to his many years working for Cadillac. This guy may have defected to the “other side,” a contentious issue back in the 70s, but he gave me a good deal. I got a ’79 2-door Toyota Corolla. AM/FM radio. Heater. Rear defroster.

And a 4-speed manual transmission.

Oh Lord, I had to learn how to drive all over again, but it was fun. The car and I became one, and I quickly learned how to feel my way through the shifts as my speed increased (and without a tachometer, mind you—I went by sound). I could hold my position on a hill with a red light, power through turns, and use my engine as a brake whenever needed. I may not have been Steve McQueen, but it sure felt like it.

Little did I know then that manual transmissions would one day become scarce. They were less expensive than automatic transmissions back then, and got better mileage. And aside from the 2-door Nissan Sentra with the 4-speed manual my first wife had brought into the marriage, my long-term automotive future would be exclusively automatic from the mid-80s forward.

Today, good luck even finding a manual transmission. Only 2.4% of new cars come with a stick. We as a society have gone so long with so few that knowing how to drive a manual transmission has put me in dying breed category. Automatics have come a long way. They’re no longer an expensive option, and fuel economy has been vastly improved. I get it.

There’s a great essay about this woeful reality in The Atlantic, and worth the read. Truth be known, it’s a lot like riding a bicycle. You never forget. But first you have to learn. I would give anything to have one again just for the feel of being completely in control.

Which all got me to thinking this morning about the other products and methods that have somehow managed to slip into the collective rear view. I am old enough to be able to generate a pretty long list. Give it a few years, my students. You’ll get there. Or, as my mother used to say, “You’ll get old, too,…if you live long enough!”

Let’s talk about calculators. True, the generation before mine could bemoan their existence, because they did math using a slide rule. But I didn’t have that basis point, other than about a year of high school math in which we were taught to use them, but then calculators were introduced. That was the end of that. Even with a mechanical aid, we still had to calculate long equations. And while at university, we still had to manually calculate t-tests, F-tests, chi-squares, and so forth. We had to know the mechanics.

Of course, we have software for everything these days, and I have used SPSS for many decades now. All I have to know is which method is appropriate, and then know how to manipulate the software. Easy peasy, but for students today, they likely have no idea—nor appreciation—of how those stats are derived. You really learn about the sensitivity of sample size when you do them by hand.

And what about spreadsheets? Is there anyone under 40 who knows how to keep books on a ledger sheet using a pencil? Good grief, we use spreadsheets for everything, and for far more than just accounting. They are one of the great organizational conveniences of the modern era (actually, dating back more than 35 years to when I first used one), but once again, we have lost the skill to make those columns all add up.

I could go on about anything computerized. Word processing and presentations come to mind. Typing is a breeze today compared to knowing how to insert your paper onto the platen, snugly within the paper guides. You then had to set margins, both visually and manually, and then commence to typing, hoping and praying you never had to erase or use liquid paper to fix things. There were no word counts other than what you counted.

And presentations were simple, often acetate transparencies made by running them through a copy machine from an original printed from Word. And you thought PowerPoints were boring.

I’ll stop soon. Trust me. I don’t want you to think I am a grumpy, self-righteous old man. I have embraced all of the changes that have come along, and they keep coming. I say “Bring it!” Yes, I know how to use an atlas or one of those fold-out maps we used to get at gas stations, but I prefer my Google Maps. I prefer shopping online, because I am no longer limited to nearby stores and catalogs. I prefer cashless, self-check, and QR codes to pay my tab at the table. I can be oh-so-modern like that.

It all boils down to your baseline, as well as your openness to change. It’s easy for younger people today to laugh at the ways and days of old, but your time is coming. What you consider the norm now will be replaced once or more before you get old. And then you’ll have to figure out where you stand on all this change, as well as the skills you acquired today no longer being needed in the future.

But the ultimate question is this: Can you drive a stick? I can, and that is the ultimate cool. End of story.

Dr “Don’t Pop The Clutch“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[seventhrounder]

I went thru my folder with old hockey magazines I had saved from around 2011 to 2015 and came across this one and thought it could be a fun to make a post about now in hindsight.

This is Jääkiekko magazine from May 2012, they always have a section of "99 questions with ..." and in this issue they interviewed Teräväinen.

I’ve translated the questions I found interesting under the cut! It ended up being about half of the interview. (*) are my additions.

On the cover "seuraava superjokeri" means the next super joker, he played for Helsingin Jokerit so it's a word play from that. Under, on the blue print it says: "The 17-year-old forward will become a first round draft pick in the summer. The natural goal scorer can dominate in SM-Liiga as soon as next season."

In the 2nd photo the headline and lead paragraph goes:

"A post with dents* - A year ago Teuvo Teräväinen was known only within a small number of hockey insiders. Few passers-by recognize him now either but after a flashy rookie season the Jokerit sensation is on the radar of every NHL team and is a strong contender to become a first round draft pick. Next season with Jokerit the talented second line center will be one of the main talking points in the SM-Liiga."

(*references the net Teräväinen had in his backyard and into which he practiced his shooting)

3. You've been described as a magician, top scorer, wunderkind and a prodigy. What do you think of these descriptions?

TT: Heh, those are some descriptions yeah. What can I really say? Don't really wanna comment on them much.

4. How nervous are you about the Draft?

TT: I try not to be nervous as best as I can. In a way I don't have anything to be nervous about since I don't care which team picks me or at what number I go.

6. Which is stressing you more, English interviews or physical tests?

TT: Maybe both. Bench press (laughs) and English interviews can be tough.

12. How far along have you planned your career with, for example, your parents or your agent?

TT: Haven't really planned things with others but I've thought about them myself. I try to go step by step and not jump too far ahead.

14. How does it feel to be so young with all the star players in Jokerit?

TT: How to say it? I haven't felt like I was young but a part of the team instead. The team's been very good with me and they haven't been looking down at me like: "oh he's young". It's been fun to play in an experienced team.

15. Is there a generational gap between players?

TT: You can see the age difference, older players look older but we're all childish, at least with our topics.

17. What does a 17-year-old do in the sauna nights of the team?

TT: I actually haven't been in any yet. I've always been at national team's camps or something.

19. Did you get the number you wanted?

TT: I did, yeah. I could've taken #18 but Semir (Ben-Amor) has it. But i'm happy with #86, it's good.

23. What are your strengths as a player?

TT: Offensive play and with that playing with the puck, passing, IQ, power play and skill, just the usual skill - skill with hands.

24. And weaknesses?

TT: They are to do with defensive play, strength and physicality. Battles and such but I think I took a step forward last season. That's a good thing.

25. Have you ever been "pressed into a mold" or has your playing style gotten to develop naturally?

TT: As a kid the play was mostly offensive/attacking, I didn't have to think about playing defence. Up until 15 years old, I got to attack pretty freely. Playing defence became more important when I started to play in A-juniors a couple seasons ago.

26. On a scale from 1 to 10 how determined are you?

TT: Maybe 8, feels like an 8.

32. What kind of role are you planning to take with Jokerit next season?

TT: I think a pretty big one. I try to be a top player and not just take others' example but give others example myself too. So that someone in the team can take something out of the way I do things on the ice and off the ice.

35. If you could pick anyone, who would be your car driver?

TT: Nico Manelius for sure. He's been my driver this season. I've had others too, like Riku Hahl but he's not nearly at the same level. Nico’s clearly the best.

36. What are the most important qualifications to be a good driver?

TT: The car is obviously important. Hahl's car is totally awful, he takes a lot of heat for it from the guys too. I wouldn't dare driving with him. Manelius is a steady performer, never lets you down.

38. What sports did you play as a 10-year-old?

TT: Hockey and floorball, probably football (soccer) during the summers at the time too.

42. When did you decide to focus only on hockey?

TT: So when I stopped playing other sports? Three years ago, before that floorball was kind of a side thing, I played a couple of games in the regular season and playoffs.

45. Do you follow floorball or other sports? Go to games?

TT: I don't go to games but I like to watch floorball on TV, it's an interesting sport. Sometimes I watch football too but I don't follow it much. Feels like they never score there.

47. Have you ever played with a wooden stick?

TT: As a kid I did play with a wooden stick.

49. You won the hockey players' golf tournament last summer even though there were more experienced players too. Are you good with all stick games?

TT: Well, I've been pretty good in all of them. I've played golf for a long time and still play it.

50. How is your swing?

TT: Pretty bold, kind of a hockey swing. I don't really care where the ball goes - as long as it goes far.

52. What do you think of off-ice training?

TT: Let's just say it's more stupid than being on the ice but you still gotta do it to be better on the ice.

56. Which word describes your professional relationship (with his coach, Tomek Valtonen), tranquil or colorful?

TT: Colorful of course. At times we're joking around, other times it's more serious but the relationship is really good.

57. Coaching you has been described in many words: good, bad, worse. What are they?

TT: Heh, well... I won't tell them here. He (Tomek) keeps the discipline during practices but sometimes when things haven't gone to a plan I've had to jump on an exercise bike in the middle of a practice.

58. What have been the reasons?

TT: I'll quote Tomek: "when I haven't been present".

59. Have you ever tried to turn the resistance of the bike to zero?

TT: (Laughs) Of course I have and sometimes I've even succeeded.

60. Describe your diet in three words?

TT: Greasy, healthy and good!

64. Your first name is not common for people your age. How did your parents come up with it?

TT: I actually don't even know. Maybe they didn't want a usual Ville*....

(*very common name for men of all ages in Finland)

66. Which of these is the most important: skill, unexpectedness or courage?

TT: Skill!

68. Your longest video game stint?

TT: Six hours, at least. I've played a lot of War of Duty lately.

72. The dumbest thing that has made you upset in hockey?

TT: Probably if I didn't get an assist on a goal even though I should have. Or even worse is if I score and they mark it down for someone else.

79. Have you had any concussions?

TT: I haven't had any, I've managed to always dodge them.*

(*ouch, tho it's good the recent one is his only as far as i remember)

84. In 2011 Team Finland finished in the 5th place at the U-18 tournament. Why only as 5th?

TT: Because we lost to Team Russia in the quarter final, just as well we could have won that game too.

89. You didn't get to be on the ice to accept the SM-Liiga bronze medal (because of the U-18's). When and where did you get it?

TT: I actually still haven't received it, I don't know where it is.

93. What is the population of Helsinki?

TT: There's like 5 million people in Finland so maybe around 500k in Helsinki? (to be exact 596k) Did i really get it right...?

94. Who's the mayor of Helsinki?

TT: I don't know, I barely know the president.

95. Do you think the municipalities in the capital city area should merge?

TT: Luckily I don't have to decide but they probably shouldn't.

96. What do you check first in the news paper?

TT: The sports section.

97. Your favorite tv show?

TT: Putous* was pretty good, I liked a lot of the characters. The grandma was pretty good.

(*Finnish live improvisation comedy/sketch show (there are still new seasons, the latest just finished). Every actor comes up with a humor character with a catchy phrase and one of them wins. "The grandma" is Marja Tyrni and I just got such flashbacks from typing this sentence.)

98. Last book you read?

TT: I don't read many books. The last book was a study book, a Finnish book. I wrote an essay on Tiki (Esa) Tikkanen's biography. An eventful book, great career and a lot of chirps.

99. Who should we ask the 99 questions next?

TT: Riku Hahl could have good stories, he's also seen a lot of the world.

[thistle-and-thorn]

19, 71, 79, 100 <3

19: Top things you like about yourself

Okay first stop forcing me to appreciate my own humanity and its inherent beauty I don’t wanna

1. I think I genuinely try to do my best by everyone. I try to lead with kindness and empathy and compassion. I also try to assume the best in my interactions with people.

2. I think, having said that, I’m honest about other people and about myself. It’s not that peoples faults are unforgivable, I’m just aware of them. It means I’m rarely surprised and I’m ready to forgive because I try to perceive people as whole. It also means I try to present myself as whole without dilution or artifice—deeply imperfect but trying.

3. I really, really like to laugh and I really, really like to make other people laugh. I wouldn’t have thought of this probably but I recently got a note from someone I used to work with that said that my ability to joke around and be silly was something that really relieved staff tensions during a difficult period. It was so moving to hear because humor is almost a moral value for me for that reason: it really helps a person to cope with the worst things. Also if someone can make me laugh, I will love them forever and ever and ever.

71: Top songs this month: okay I’m doing songs New to Me this month because, let’s be real, I’ve been listening to Kings College Choir Carols, James Taylor, Michael Buble, and Winter aid in a cycle of madness like I do every Christmas season:

1. Okay our Advent playlist has come in clutch and to answer a question you asked a month ago: Sufjan Stevens’ O Come O Come Emmanuel is maybe my favorite like wtf it’s so good omg.

2. Also, not to be an absolutely whore on main, but Wherever I Fall from the Cyrano soundtrack is genuinely something I enjoy listening to.

3. I Drink Wine by Adele. New life plan: take voice lessons, get married, then (and this is essential) get DIVORCED, do a cover of this song, profit.

3 Thing I miss about childhood

1. School. I peaked from ages 8-11 in terms of my intelligence, work ethic, and enjoyment of my peers.

2. Having someone make my lunch for me. Love to cook, love to eat, hate packing a lunch.

3. Being less cynical? Jaded? When you’re a kid: everything’s new and exciting.

Top 3 Museums:

1. Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston is the greatest museum in the world and I will THROW HANDS with whoever suggests otherwise. Like this woman—THIS WOMAN—made her house look like this. And it doesn’t feel cluttered and the design and it’s like this LADY is mixing Flemish fabrics and late 19th century Spanish art and medieval triptychs from GERMANY and it all works and shows the continuities in European art history and also the HEIST like it makes you reflect on the value and impermanence of material things and in this essay I will—

2. Titanic Museum in Belfast. I love this museum. I’ve been twice and it’s just so well done. It’s innovative and tech-y without feeling gimmicky. I learned a lot about an event I thought I understood.

3. Okay, I’m going to say the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine and I’ll tell you why. They had an exhibit there recently and it was just so small and so simple but so good. I live near a lot of well-known museums—I am spoiled for fancy art—and this small regional museum blew them all out of the water. The pieces were so thoughtfully chosen, the text so clear, and it avoided the urge to overwhelm you with text and images and fancy gimmicks so you could have a kind of pure aesthetic reaction. It was true curatorship.

Thanks babe! ❤️❤️❤️

[chrysocomae]

Please share this essay from a healthcare worker from r/CoronavirusUS

What to expect when you get critically ill from COVID-19. A healthcare worker’s perspective.

"I am a healthcare worker who has volunteered to be a part of the COVID ICU “proning team” at the hospital where I work. I am writing this because my colleagues and I had a long discussion today about how disconnected the public is when it comes to the harsh reality of this virus and what it does to people. I will describe in as much detail as possible what you should expect to “experience” when you get critically ill from COVID-19.

By the time I meet you in the hospital, you’re already intubated in the ICU. This means that you likely started feeling terrible enough to get yourself to a hospital and then got admitted into said hospital. Your condition worsened to the point that the medical team determined that your best chance of survival would be to place you in a medically-induced coma and hook you up to a ventilator that literally breathes for you. The process that leads up to this point is traumatic, terrifying, and lonely. You are allowed zero visitors and your only interactions are with strangers that come into your room unannounced, wearing what look to you like hazmat suits. The hospital you’re staying in isn’t equipped with enough “negative-pressure” rooms to contain the virus and keep it from spreading to the hallway so there will be a giant window unit that pumps all the air from your room out the window vs allowing it back into the hospital. This window unit is LOUD (similar to a generator) and it will drive you absolutely insane because it MUST be running 24/7. So, you’re just going to have to accept that. As terrible as all this external hell feels, it’s nothing compared to what’s going on internally. Your body is deteriorating. Every breath is a gasp. Turning over to face the door when you hear a knock is impossible because you are literally THAT exhausted. Your oxygen levels continue to drop, even though you are being pumped MASSIVE amounts of pure oxygen through your nose (which is now bleeding constantly because it is completely dried out). The oxygen levels drop so low that the only course of action is to make you comatose, give you a paralyzing agent so you don’t thrash, and place you on a ventilator. Ok, so NOW let’s get to the bad part.

You’re laying on a bed, on your back. Unconscious, naked, Foley catheter in your urethra, and maybe (if your nurse is lucky) a FlexiSeal in your anus to collect all your diarrhea (look it up if you have questions). A ventilator is placed down your throat, somewhere between 20-28centimeters down. It will probably move around if it’s not tethered, which is a no-no, so it will be taped to your head/face. We’ll come back to this later, because that tape will eventually mess up your face, maybe permanently. A feeding tube goes down your nose because comatose people can’t eat, obviously. So your diet is now a nutrient-packed yellow mushy soup. Yum! Ok this is the basic setup.

Even with all this medically-engineered hoopla, you continue to deteriorate. The ventilator is running 100% oxygen down your throat, into your lungs but still not enough is getting into your blood. This is where organ failure starts to happen. Kidney failure, brain damage, etc. And this is where me and my “proning team” show up at your door.

Prone = laying on your stomach.

Supine = laying on your back.

Proning = turning you from your stomach onto your back.

Why do we do this? Well, to simplify it, the back of your lungs are bigger and better at oxygenating your blood. But when you’re laying on your back, all the fluid (LOTS of fluid) in your lungs accumulates and fills the back of your lungs - thus drowning them and making them much less effective. Flipping you onto your stomach causes that fluid to move to the front of your lungs (because gravity), freeing up the back of your lungs to do their better job. Honestly, it’s pretty amazing to see how quickly you will go from 79% oxygen (SpO2) to 93% as soon as we turn you onto your stomach. It’s very satisfying for us. Makes us feel proud. We’ll pat you on the back, literally, and give you kudos for this oxygen accomplishment.

We will plan to leave you in this prone position for somewhere between 12 to 18 hours. Your head is turned to the side, otherwise the ventilator tube would be rammed through the back of your mouth. Don’t worry, we will position this for you, you’re paralyzed, remember?

Once those 12 - 18 hours are up, the prone team comes back in to flip you back over to supine. This is where things can get ugly. Being paralyzed and on your stomach leads to A LOT of swelling/edema. Especially in your face. Your tongue has swelled up to ~5x it’s normal size and it doesn’t fit in your mouth anymore. Lips swell x5 times, too. Your eyelids have been taped shut but they’re swollen too. It looks like you have golf balls under your eyelids. Now, remember that tape that holds the ventilator tube in place? Well, it’s still holding tight. And with all the face/mouth swelling, I should emphasize the word TIGHT. You’ll be in this condition for a while. Maybe a week, maybe two, maybe three. That tape will get replaced daily but it will do some damage to your skin, especially your lips and ears. And since your blood isn’t getting proper oxygen, your body isn’t great at healing wounds. So, expect your face to look a little different for a LONG time, if you make it out alive. I now can say that I have seen a living person’s cheekbones. Not the form of the cheekbones, but the ACTUAL bones, because their wounds on their cheeks got so bad that the flesh necrotized and sloughed off during the friction involved with a head turn.

Where were we? Oh yes, we just flipped you back to supine. The 5 of us will be doing some routine care on you: wiping you down with Chlorhexidine Gluconate (CHG) wipes, putting Venelex cream and Mepilex patches your bed sores (think bony prominences - knees, clavicles, sternum, shoulders, nipples, shins, cheeks, etc.), using a suction device to suck up all the secretions from your mouth and nose, cleaning up your diarrhea from EVERYWHERE and changing that pesky face tape. Don’t worry, we’ll be gentle.

Now, it’s been maybe 10-15 minutes on your back. We stand back and assess how you’re doing. If you’re a champ, your oxygen levels stay in the low/mid 90s and we can leave you like this for 1 to 8 hours before you start deteriorating again, at which point it’s back onto your stomach.

The idea is that each time we put you back in supine, you’ll be able to maintain longer and longer periods of time before your oxygen drops to the 80s or 70s (or 60s, 50s, 40s, you get it).

The longer you’re in this ICU situation, the worse it gets. Eventually, we have to start doing all the routine care from the side-lying position, because putting you on your back could literally kill you. The supine position becomes intolerable - your blood pressure starts to plummet, your heart skips beats or shoots up to the 200s (or just stops) and your oxygen level drops immediately. So, unfortunately, you go back onto your stomach. More swelling, yay! Repeat this process daily and hope for better results each time. The more often we have to repeat, the less likely you are to survive, because it’s an indicator of how poorly your lungs are recovering.

Now, this is the point where someone might ask, “why are you keeping this person alive? Isn’t it inhumane to prolong this person’s suffering? What quality of life will they have when/if they survive?” Unfortunately, that’s not our choice. Even more unfortunately, it’s likely not even YOUR choice. Who’s choice is it? Your Medical Power of Attorney (MPOA), which 9 times out of 10, is a family member. Now, remember, there are zero visitors allowed for COVID-19 patients. That means that your family is getting ALL the information about your condition from a phone call or texts messages from someone on the healthcare team. Your family can’t see you and they can’t talk to you. Thus, they simply cannot appreciate just how much you are suffering. How could they? It’s not their fault. They love you. They’re praying for you. They’re wondering if they are making the right choice but they are doing so without all the information, because a phone call from a doctor or case manager can only go so far.

Above all, they are holding on to hope. Hope that you’ll come back from this. That you’ll be that patient in that next news video that gets the standing ovation as they’re wheeled out of the hospital because YOU MADE IT. And I hope you do, too. We all do. We care about you. If you make it out of that ICU, you’ve got months of rehab ahead of you. Your fight for life has JUST started. The success story is that, against all odds, you didn’t die.

Or, maybe you did. As I write this, 170,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the US alone. Each one of those people had a story, a life, a family, dreams, goals and a future. So many of them suffered tremendously through their last days, with strangers. Now they’re gone, forever. And that ICU bed is ready for the next one. I hope it’s not you. I hope it’s not your mom, dad, grandpa, aunt, sister, child or neighbor. But if it is, you can count on me and my coworkers to be gentle with you and treat you with dignity and respect. We will do everything in our power to get you home. This virus doesn’t care about your political affiliations, your plans, your freedoms. It doesn’t care about you at all. So we will.

Now, if I may.....please wear your damn mask.

Edit: The title says “when you get critically ill.” Emphasis on the “critically ill.” This is NOT what the average person should expect when they test positive. Most people DONT get critically ill. The VAST majority of people will never even see a regular hospital room, much less the ICU - I tested positive and I recovered at home with no medical intervention. Most will have mild symptoms and then recover. That being said, this post reflects a real possibility and a current reality for many people. I want people to understand the harsh reality of COVID-19. It affects everyone differently and taking small, practical precautions can keep you from ever having to wonder “is this going to happen to me?” or “did I get grandma sick because I didn’t take this seriously?” I apologize that this came off as fear mongering. The post reflects my experience as a healthcare worker and I feel that the public hasn’t had enough of that experience other than “we are overworked and tired.”

[mersuperwholocked-lowlife]

Prompt List

So, I decided to make an official prompt list. So, when I open requests, you can use a prompt from here, or just send me whatever you want. You can check out what I write before

1). “This is who I am, I know I’m a monster but I can’t change who I am.”

2.) “What’s a motto?” “I don’t know what’s the motto with you.”

3.) “How many fucking times do you think I’m going to let myself go through this again?”

4.) “Do you know what it’s like to go to bed every day to escape your demons only to find new ones haunting you?” 

5.) “Dude, that was crazy! I didn’t think that would work.” “Me neither.”

6.) “Are you sure I can’t punch him in the face?” “Yes“ “Damn it.”

7.) ”I don’t need your forgiveness, and I’m way past asking for your permission”

8.) “It hurts me that you can lie to me so easily. It hurts that you always lie to me. When can I have the truth? Is it too much to ask for?”

9.) “I’ve been telling her not to, it’s not my fault that she’s a prick and can’t do shit when she’s told to.”

10.) “Do you ever think about everything you’ve done in your life? How do you not hate yourself?

11.) “I’m not proud of much, but I’m proud of you.”

12.) “If you’re here, and he’s here, then who the hell is making all that ruckus in my bedroom?”

13.) “Please forgive me.”

14.) “Let her. Let her kill me. Let her hurt me. I deserve it.”

15.) “P-Please hold me.”

16.) “That is false.”

17.) “I-I can’t remember what I did yesterday or what I did today. I-I don’t know where I am.”

18.) “You were supposed to be my friend. You were supposed to be my family.”

19.) “Own up to who you are. Never let anyone shoot you down.”

20.) “As Sir Isaac Newton once said, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

21.) “I thought dragons came after virgins… so why aren’t they after you?”

22.) “Being insanely smart has its downs.”

23.) “You said you’ll always be there for me. You lied.”

24.) “Yes! I’m a real person! I have real people’s feelings!”

25.)  “It’s us, always and forever.”

26.) “I have to pick between the only people I’ve ever cared about, and whoever I don’t pick dies.”

27.) “Why are you always running away from me? I’m not that bad!” “You’re the devil in a white suit.”

28.) “Can we please stop this? W-We’s always fighting. I-I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”

29.) “I hope you learned your lesson, next time I won’t be there to save your ass.” “W-What are you talking about? What do you mean you won’t be there?”

30.) “Eres un idiota.” “Did you just call me an idiot in Spanish?” “What?! I would never.”

31.) “But why does this matter? I can guarantee you that I’m never gonna use it.”

32.) “Doesn’t it bother you that we can never be normal?” “Maybe it did. But now, being different is better.” 

33.) “So, if you’re so good with kids, then where the hell is mine?” “That’s not fair.” “It’s your fault.”

34.) “I’m too tired to care.”

35.) “I don’t want to kill you. But I will. Because my family is more important. So again, leave. Now.”

36.) “Danger’s my last name!” “I thought it was (Y/L/N)?”

37.) “I-I can’t find anything of my meds. Not my anti-depressants, not my pain killers, not my anxiety meds. I-I can’t stop shaking.”

38.) “I have to write a 4-page long argumentative essay.” “Well, you are good at arguing.”

39.) “But you tried. That’s what counts. Not everything is a success.”

40.) “Ugh, it’s you again. Didn’t you die last year?” “No, that was fake.”

41.) “Don’t do that!”

42.) “You’re so stupid! I hate you and your stupid little face!”

43.) “What the hell?! You’re supposed to be taking an exam right now! What the hell are you doing here?!”

44.) “Did I stutter?”

 45.) “Let go of my pie. Now.”

46.) “You’re sneaking out, aren’t you?”

47.) “How many times must I tell you? No drinking before dark.

48.) “So, you have a metal arm? That’s exciting.”

49.) “Do you think that I’m gonna leave you? You’re stuck with me, with us forever, no matter how much you hate it.”

50.) “Uhm, am I going crazy, or do you also see that horse?”

51.) “You’re not who I thought you were. You’re better.”

52.) “Are you sure you two aren’t related?”

53.) “There are literal monsters, roaming the streets, and you’re telling me to stay calm?!”

54.) “I know this may be hard for you to believe, but there are ways to solve your problems, without violence.”

55.) “Well, I didn’t expect that.”

56.) “You look like you need a hug, kid. What’s on your mind?”

57.) “Please don’t! She’s a child!” “So what? Many children die every day, why should yours live?”

58.) “I said to blend in! Not dress like you just killed someone!”

59.) “You’re lying.” “That makes two of us

60.)” Well, this is awkward.”

61.) I uh, think I might be pregnant.”

62.) “Do you want me to kill somebody for you?”

63.) “I thought you were dead?” “Yeah, guess I was hell to put up with. Even for Hell.

64.) Prove it to me. Prove to me this world would be better without you. ‘Cuz it won’t. Let me show you how much you mean to me. To us. Just please, get down from there.”

65.) “Let me help you cook before you burn down my house.”

66.) “I’m not scared of you. You’re like a little puppy!”

67.) “I want you to come with me, not anyone else.”

68.) “Do you know each other?”

69.)   “I hate you.” “I know. But you need me.”

70.) “Isn’t it a beautiful day to create some chaos?”

71.) “I’m not drunk enough for this.”

72.) “Welcome to Vampire 101. Don’t get caught by hunters.”

73.) “Please don’t hurt them! They’ve done nothing wrong!”

74.) “I’m doing the best I can! I don’t know how to drive!”

75.) “I heard screaming, are you okay?”

76.) “Hey! Are you telling me I’m bad at my job!”

77.) “I really don’t care.”

78.) “I can’t remember. I wish I could.”

79.) “Watch your language!”

80.) “Hey, I can’t find the scissors, can we use your claws?”

81.) "Minutes. We only have minutes till it's too late.

82.) "Just be careful. I don't want a call at 3 AM from the hospital saying that you died.

83.) "What do you want?! I'm playing Mario Kart!"

84.) "There's a light at the end of the tunnel." "Yeah, it's called hellfire.

85.) "Who gives a rat's ass about Chemistry?!

86.) "Oh my god just your voice makes me wanna die!

87.) "Why the hell is there a 72-inch teddy bear on my bed?

88.) "None of us here have a life, so who the hell is texting you at 10 PM?

89.) "I just want it to end? Can't you just leave me to die?!"

90.) "Okay, he keeps giving me the evil eye."

91.) "I've been stabbed more times than days I've been alive."

92.) "Did you cut your hair?" "No, I got stabbed by a knife."

93.) "Please save me."

94.) "A shady ass mansion and 6 weird ass kids, what could go wrong?"

95.) "Oh my god they are dating! You owe me 5 bucks!"

96.) "No! There's something wrong with me, everyone always leaves me!"

97.) "Why is there a 5-year-old in your hands?"

98.) "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant."

99.) "So, I'm a witch, my dad's a hunter, and my mom's an evil coven leader. Talk about a messed up family."

100.) "You know what they say, the kindest one is the most broken one."

101.) "I've got all the time in the world for you."

102.) "I-I didn't kill him."

103.) "You're covered in blood."

104.) "Took years, but I finally have the courage to say it, I love you. Will you go out with me?"

105.) "Well, I'm never working at this coffee shop again."

106.) "I accidentally drank dish soap."

107.) "He's kinda hot."

108.) "Are you drunk? Again?"

109.) "I can feel myself, fading away."

110.) "Don't stray away from me, I love you."

111.) “It’s a hard life but I had you. And I’d never give up that.”

112.) “Don’t move! One wrong step and you’ll die!”

113.) “You are good enough. Don’t doubt yourself.”

114.) "Do you smell something burning?" "Dude, that's your hair."

115.) "I just feel so numb, a-all the time. S-So fucking numb."

116.) “He saved my life, (name). You keep saying everyone else doesn't forgive him. I know you’re the one who doesn't. Stop acting like you're the high and mighty merciful one. I’m going to find him, and you’re not gonna stop me,”

117.) "I love you, why are you pushing me away?"

118.) "Why is nothing I do good enough for you? Every time you look at me, it's like you're just staring at a steaming pile of disappointment. Why do you always think you're better than me?"

119.) "I-I know you're there. Just please let me out."

120.) "You're gonna kill me? With what, reckless driving?"

121.) I'm listening to you, I have been fucking listen to you!"

122.) "Know that you are good enough,"

123.) "I'm sorry that I was a dick. Just please, don't leave."

[alicedoessurveys]

Doctor Who Tag

yes im a nerd...

CHILDHOOD

1. Did you like DW as a child?

I was 10 when it came back on telly with Eccleston and the first episode with the autons scared me so much my mom wouldn't let me watch it again until a couple years later, but yeah my teens I was obsessed with DW... still am at age 25

2. Your age at the time of the revival?

10

3. First DW episode you ever saw?

‘Rose’

4. Did you have any of the toys?

I still have the eleventh doctor’s screwdriver... I used to have some of the figures but there in storage now somewhere

5. Which DW character did you play on the playground?

didn't play it on the playground

6. Monster(s) that scared you most as a child?

all of them! the ones that still scare me now are the Cybermen and the Autons... genuinely cant walk past a shop mannequin without being suspicious 

7. Joke/story you didn’t get as a kid?

as a kid, any of the innuendo type jokes

8. DW opinion that has changed since you were a kid?

idk I think I still have the same opinions

9. Who introduced you to DW?

parents

10. Did you like Sarah Jane Adventures as a child?

I LOVED SJA!! I miss that show, and Elizabeth Slade :(

DOCTOR

11. Who is your Doctor?

Ten was the doctor that made me fall in love with Doctor Who 

12. Your favourite Doctor?

omg why not just ask me who my favourite child is... (I don't have kids but you know what I mean) if I had to chose my top three are ten, eleven and thirteen

13. Least favourite Doctor?

purely just because he doesn't have enough episodes... nine...

14. Best regeneration?

none of them I hate regenerations :( they make me sad, im too emotionally invested in every single one

15. Do you like “Doctor-Lite” episodes?

they're not my faves

16. Who is the most human Doctor?

I think nine maybe? or twelve?

17. Best multi-Doctor story?

the 50th anniversary special 

18. Best Doctor monologue?

“Hello Stonehenge! who takes the pandorica, takes the universe. but bad news everyone, cause guess who? HA! You lot you're all whizzing about- its really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING. Question of the hour is, who's got the pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question, who's coming to take it from me? Come on, look at me! No plan. No backup. No weapons worth a damn. oh and something else, I don't have anything to lose. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the pandorica tonight... just remember who's standing in your way. remember ever black day I ever stopped you and then- AND THEN- do the smart thing... let somebody else try first.”

not copied and pasted, remember that from the top of my head... its always there waiting in my mind incase I ever need an epic monologue :’)

19, What do you think TenToo/MetaCrisis Doctor is doing now?

hopefully living his best life with Rose

20. Best Doctor/companion pairing?

ten and donna 

COMPANIONS

21. Favourite companion?

Donna, Clara, Amy

22. Favourite secondary companion?

is Mickey classed as secondary? idk

23. Least favourite companion?

Ryan

24. Best TARDIS Team?

Doctor, Amy and Rory

25. Most underrated companion?

Graham, but that may just be cause I love Bradders

26. Most overrated companion?

Rose... I like her but idk, I think she gets more hype than she deserves.. don't @ me

27. Favourite companion’s family?

Rose’s mom

28. Who should have been a companion but wasn’t?

idk I cant think of anyone

29. Favourite (canon or non-canon) DW universe relationship?

Amy and Rory

30. Who did you not used to like, but really like now?

wasn't keen on Bill at first but by the end I really liked her, same with Rory

EPISODES

31. Favourite episode ever?

girl in the fireplace

32. Least favourite episode?

most of Chibnall’s episodes tbh sorry not sorry 

33. Which episodes do you skip?

the regeneration episodes

34. Best two-parter?

Human Nature - Family of Blood

35. Historical, present day or futuristic episodes?

I like them all in there own way but I think present is fave, then historical, then future

36. Episode that will always make you smile?

all of them

37. Episode that will always make you cry?

Rory and Amy’s last episode :’(

38. Best run of episodes?

ugh I cant answer this theres too many 

39. Best cliffhanger?

the end of Spyfall part one when the Master reveals who he is... I was SHOOK

40. Favourite Christmas special?

Voyage of the Damned

SERIES

41. Classic Who or New Who?

new who

42. Favourite series?

four or five

43. Least favourite series?

eleven, I just cant with the writing

44. Which series do you skip?

none

45. Favourite series opening?

eleventh hour

46. Favourite series finale?

Doomsday

47. Best series arc?

Bad Wolf

48. Thoughts on series 11/12?

I adore Jodie Whittaker and her doctor, and although I think 3 companions is too many I do love Yaz and Graham (Ryan is hit & miss). I just think theyve been massively let down by the stories/writing... they’ve tried to hard to tick certain boxes and completely missed what Doctor Who is about for a lot of people.. an escape from the real world into these outrageous unbelievable but lovable fun alien adventures 

49. How much of Classic Who have you seen?

not a lot

50. Who should have had another series?

NINE NINE NINE NINE NINE 

MONSTERS

51. Favourite monster/villain?

the master 

52. Most creative monster?

Weeping Angels, whoever came up with monsters that look like statues and only move when you're not looking at them is genius 

53. Monster(s) that scares you most?

Autons, Cybermen, the creepy dolls from Night Terrors, the ones from Waters of Mars, Weeping Angels

54. Monster you think is too easy to defeat?

idk

55. Least favourite monster/villain?

absorbaloff

56. Monster you want to return?

The Master, I really hope that isn't the last we see of Dhawan

57. In your opinion, what makes a monster good?

being genuinely scary, 

58. Daleks, Cybermen or Weeping Angels?

Weeping Angels

59. Best Dalek story?

Daleks in Manhatten

60. Best one time villain/monster?

my brain has gone blank I cant think of an answer right now 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

61. Torchwood or Sarah Jane Adventures?

SJA

62. Favourite Torchwood Team member?

I haven't watched it all so I couldn't say 

63. Which Torchwood death made you saddest?

again, not watched it all 

64. Do you rewatch COE or MD?

huh

65. Favourite SJA Team member?

Sarah Jane

66. Mr Smith or K-9?

K-9

67. Maria or Rani?

Rani

68. Do you read the comics/novels or listen to Big Finish?

Nope

69. If you do, your favourite additional stories?

n/a

70. Do you like DW analysis (video essays, fan theories, etc)?

yes

DESIGN/PRODUCTION

71. Favourite piece of alien tech?

the sonic, I love how it is so multipurpose except for when it comes to wood 

72. Favourite piece of Murray Gold music?

I am the Doctor - gets me pumped every time 

73. Favourite TARDIS design?

Ten’s Tardis 

74. Has the 2005 era CGI aged well?

actually yeah, I was rewatching the ‘are you my mummy’ episodes the other day and my God when the gas masks emerged from the faces... ooooooof I was like omg how 

75. Favourite Doctor outfit?

eleven or thirteen

76. Monster with the best design?

not really a design more of a costume.. I live Dhawan master’s costume. that shade of purple, oof he so stylish 

77. Best show runner?

idk

78. Best writer?

Gatiss

79. Best opening titles?

eleven’s titles where the Tardis is flying and being zapped is cool but thirteens music hits different 

80. Will DW age well/stay popular in the future?

I hope so, I feel like its lasted this long surely it can last forever.. if the writers don't fuck it up... 

IF YOU WERE IN THE SHOW

81. Time period you’d want to go with the Doctor?

whatever time means Id get to wear the most beautiful costumes

82. Planet/place you’d want to go with the Doctor?

Galifrey, pre-desctruction

83. Doctor you’d most like to travel with?

any of them, please and thank you

84. Companion you’d most like to travel with?

donna, sceso a good laugh but also I feel like she’d look after me 

85. Monster you’d like to defeat/fight?

The Master 

86. If you could go back on your own history (like Father’s Day), where would you go?

back to when I was a toddler, I wanna see what I was like 

87. If you could ask the Doctor anything, what would you ask?

theres too many to ask 

88. Historical figure you’d like to meet?

Shakespeare

89. How do you think you’d meet the Doctor?

id probably be rescued from doing something stupid and then the doc would be like you know what the bitch clearly needs supervision she's coming with me 

90. Would you travel forwards or backwards in time first?

backwards

IF YOU MADE THE SHOW

91. Historical event would you like to see in DW?

Hamilton

92. Issue you’d like to see addressed in DW?

idk 

93. Who would you completely erase from the DW universe?

Ruth

94. One unanswered DW question you’d love to know the answer to?

where is Clara now?

95. Actor/actress you’d like to see play the Doctor?

Phoebe Waller Bridge (or Lin Manuel Miranda)

96. Actor/actress you’d like to see play a companion?

Andrew Scott (yes I did just basically recast fleabag and hot priest)

97. Is DW “too political”?

series 11 got a bit like that 

98. Which characters fate would you changed?

Danny Pink

99. What about DW could be improved?

I think ive made my options about Chibnall pretty clear... 

100. If you could write an episode of DW, any ideas for what you’d do

bring back Jenny, the Doctor / Daughter adventures they would have. I’m actually writing a fic about it if you wanna read.... here

[teenwolffan-with-nolife]

Prompt List

Check out What I Write before requesting

1). “This is who I am, I know I’m a monster but I can’t change who I am.”

2.) “What’s a motto?” “I don’t know what’s the motto with you.”

3.) “How many fucking times do you think I’m going to let myself go through this again?”

4.) “Do you know what it’s like to go to bed every day to escape your demons only to find new ones haunting you?” 

5.) “Dude, that was crazy! I didn’t think that would work.” “Me neither.”

6.) “Are you sure I can’t punch him in the face?” “Yes“ “Damn it.”

7.) ”I don’t need your forgiveness, and I’m way past asking for your permission”

8.) “It hurts me that you can lie to me so easily. It hurts that you always lie to me. When can I have the truth? Is it too much to ask for?”

9.) “I’ve been telling her not to, it’s not my fault that she’s a prick and can’t do shit when she’s told to.”

10.) “Do you ever think about everything you’ve done in your life? How do you not hate yourself?

11.) “I’m not proud of much, but I’m proud of you.”

12.) “If you’re here, and he’s here, then who the hell is making all that ruckus in my bedroom?”

13.) “Please forgive me.”

14.) “Let her. Let her kill me. Let her hurt me. I deserve it.”

15.) “P-Please hold me.”

16.) “That is false.”

17.) “I-I can’t remember what I did yesterday or what I did today. I-I don’t know where I am.”

18.) “You were supposed to be my friend. You were supposed to be my family.”

19.) “Own up to who you are. Never let anyone shoot you down.”

20.) “As Sir Isaac Newton once said, ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

21.) “I thought dragons came after virgins… so why aren’t they after you?”

22.) “Being insanely smart has its downs.”

23.) “You said you’ll always be there for me. You lied.”

24.) “Yes! I’m a real person! I have real people’s feelings!”

25.)  “It’s us, always and forever.”

26.) “I have to pick between the only people I’ve ever cared about, and whoever I don’t pick dies.”

27.) “Why are you always running away from me? I’m not that bad!” “You’re the devil in a white suit.”

28.) “Can we please stop this? W-We’re always fighting. I-I don’t even know what we’re fighting about.”

29.) “I hope you learned your lesson, next time I won’t be there to save your ass.” “W-What are you talking about? What do you mean you won’t be there?”

30.) “Eres un idiota.” “Did you just call me an idiot in Spanish?” “What?! I would never.”

31.) “But why does this matter? I can guarantee you that I’m never gonna use it.”

32.) “Doesn’t it bother you that we can never be normal?” “Maybe it did. But now, being different is better.” 

33.) “So, if you’re so good with kids, then where the hell is mine?” “That’s not fair.” “It’s your fault.”

34.) “I’m too tired to care.”

35.) “I don’t want to kill you. But I will. Because my family is more important. So again, leave. Now.”

36.) “Danger’s my last name!” “I thought it was (Y/L/N)?”

37.) “I-I can’t find anything of my meds. Not my anti-depressants, not my pain killers, not my anxiety meds. I-I can’t stop shaking.”

38.) “I have to write a 4-page long argumentative essay.” “Well, you are good at arguing.”

39.) “But you tried. That’s what counts. Not everything is a success.”

40.) “Ugh, it’s you again. Didn’t you die last year?” “No, that was fake.”

41.) “Don’t do that!”

42.) “You’re so stupid! I hate you and your stupid little face!”

43.) “What the hell?! You’re supposed to be taking an exam right now! What the hell are you doing here?!”

44.) “Did I stutter?”

 45.) “Let go of my pie. Now.”

46.) “You’re sneaking out, aren’t you?”

47.) “How many times must I tell you? No drinking before dark.

48.) “So, you have a metal arm? That’s exciting.”

49.) “Do you think that I’m gonna leave you? You’re stuck with me, with us forever, no matter how much you hate it.”

50.) “Uhm, am I going crazy, or do you also see that horse?”

51.) “You’re not who I thought you were. You’re better.”

52.) “Are you sure you two aren’t related?”

53.) “There are literal monsters, roaming the streets, and you’re telling me to stay calm?!”

54.) “I know this may be hard for you to believe, but there are ways to solve your problems, without violence.”

55.) “Well, I didn’t expect that.”

56.) “You look like you need a hug, kid. What’s on your mind?”

57.) “Please don’t! She’s a child!” “So what? Many children die every day, why should yours live?”

58.) “I said to blend in! Not dress like you just killed someone!”

59.) “You’re lying.” “That makes two of us

60.)” Well, this is awkward.”

61.) I uh, think I might be pregnant.”

62.) “Do you want me to kill somebody for you?”

63.) “I thought you were dead?” “Yeah, guess I was hell to put up with. Even for Hell.

64.) Prove it to me. Prove to me this world would be better without you. ‘Cuz it won’t. Let me show you how much you mean to me. To us. Just please, get down from there.”

65.) “Let me help you cook before you burn down my house.”

66.) “I’m not scared of you. You’re like a little puppy!”

67.) “I want you to come with me, not anyone else.”

68.) “Do you know each other?”

69.)   “I hate you.” “I know. But you need me.”

70.) “Isn’t it a beautiful day to create some chaos?”

71.) “I’m not drunk enough for this.”

72.) “Welcome to Vampire 101. Don’t get caught by hunters.”

73.) “Please don’t hurt them! They’ve done nothing wrong!”

74.) “I’m doing the best I can! I don’t know how to drive!”

75.) “I heard screaming, are you okay?”

76.) “Hey! Are you telling me I’m bad at my job!”

77.) “I really don’t care.”

78.) “I can’t remember. I wish I could.”

79.) “Watch your language!”

80.) “Hey, I can’t find the scissors, can we use your claws?”

81.) "Minutes. We only have minutes till it's too late.

82.) "Just be careful. I don't want a call at 3 AM from the hospital saying that you died.

83.) "What do you want?! I'm playing Mario Kart!"

84.) "There's a light at the end of the tunnel." "Yeah, it's called hellfire.

85.) "Who gives a rat's ass about Chemistry?!

86.) "Oh my god just your voice makes me wanna die!

87.) "Why the hell is there a 72-inch teddy bear on my bed?

88.) "None of us here have a life, so who the hell is texting you at 10 PM?

89.) "I just want it to end? Can't you just leave me to die?!"

90.) "Okay, he keeps giving me the evil eye."

91.) "I've been stabbed more times than days I've been alive."

92.) "Did you cut your hair?" "No, I got stabbed by a knife."

93.) "Please save me."

94.) "A shady ass mansion and 6 weird ass kids, what could go wrong?"

95.) "Oh my god they are dating! You owe me 5 bucks!"

96.) "No! There's something wrong with me, everyone always leaves me!"

97.) "Why is there a 5-year-old in your hands?"

98.) "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant."

99.) "So, I'm a witch, my dad's a hunter, and my mom's an evil coven leader. Talk about a messed up family."

100.) "You know what they say, the kindest one is the most broken one."

101.) "I've got all the time in the world for you."

102.) "I-I didn't kill him."

103.) "You're covered in blood."

104.) "Took years, but I finally have the courage to say it, I love you. Will you go out with me?"

105.) "Well, I'm never working at this coffee shop again."

106.) "I accidentally drank dish soap."

107.) "He's kinda hot."

108.) "Are you drunk? Again?"

109.) "I can feel myself, fading away."

110.) "Don't stray away from me, I love you."

111.) “It’s a hard life but I had you. And I’d never give up that.”

112.) “Don’t move! One wrong step and you’ll die!”

113.) “You are good enough. Don’t doubt yourself.”

114.) "Do you smell something burning?" "Dude, that's your hair,"

115.) "I just feel so numb, a-all the time. S-So fucking numb."

116.) “He saved my life, (name). You keep saying everyone else doesn't forgive him. I know you’re the one who doesn't. Stop acting like you're the high and mighty merciful one. I’m going to find him, and you’re not gonna stop me,”

117.) "I love you, why are you pushing me away?"

118.) "Why is nothing I do good enough for you? Every time you look at me, it's like you're just staring at a steaming pile of disappointment. Why do you always think you're better than me?"

119.) "I-I know you're there. Just please let me out."

120.) "You're gonna kill me? With what, reckless driving?"

121.) "I'm listening to you, I have been fucking listening to you!"

122.) "Know that you are good enough."

123.) "I'm sorry that I was a dick. Just please, don't leave."

[premiumfreegrammarly]

Grammarly vs The opposition

Grammarly isn’t the best on-line grammar checker you've got at your disposal. However, with over 10 million subscribers, it's far the maximum ubiquitous.

Other grammar checkers with comparable features to Grammarly consist of ProWritingAid, Ginger and WhiteSmoke.

Like Grammarly, they're full-on grammar, punctuation and spell checkers.

How do they compare to Grammarly? Are they a feasible alternative? Is there a clear winner in terms of robot grammar checking?

Let’s discover.

Note: I am a top class subscriber to Grammarly, but I used the loose variations of ProWritingAid, Ginger and WhiteSmoke for this review article. The unfastened versions premium free grammarly gave me a brilliant experience as to how they work however my view in their top class capabilities is based totally on what they're designed to do, in place of how I surely skilled them.

Pros

Probably the nice Grammarly opportunity accessible. As well as correcting spelling and grammar errors, it also focuses on strengthening your writing. It does this by checking for style problems like sentence shape, cliches, overused phrases, repeated terms, and no longer sufficient range in sentence duration.

Provides a detailed record of your writing specializing in these ‘larger photograph’ issues. This might be a available tool for longer portions of writing, together with books or essays.

I absolutely like their recognition on style. As an editor, I encounter sentences and passages every day that aren’t technically wrong however the expression is awkward and a bit painful to study. The fashion recommendations furnished by ProWritingAid ought to improve all styles of convoluted writing.

Excellent value for cash. The Premium model is $60 according to 12 months and the Premium+ (which incorporates a plagiarism checker) is $70 according to yr. Grammarly expenses notably extra at $139.Ninety five consistent with 12 months.

Cons

It trades simplicity for its comprehensiveness. As a pure spelling and grammar checker, it’s not as superior or person-friendly as Grammarly. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by means of the sheer quantity of facts it affords regarding style. While their suggestions can be beneficial if you’re writing a e book or essay, for every day writing together with electronic mail and social media posts, it’s primarily unnecessary. Not as seamless to apply because it handiest gives a browser extension for Chrome. This is pretty vital because Chrome stopped being the first-rate internet browser some years lower back.

Pros

It has a few extra capabilities that Grammarly doesn’t have, along with a translator that allows you to translate your text among 60 languages. On a sensible level, a translator may be definitely useful for a person who wishes to write in greater languages than just English. For example, you can write in Spanish, translate to English, and test for spelling and grammar mistakes – all in Ginger. You get your very own non-public dictionary. This approach you could inform Ginger you don’t need sure words identified as a mistake. If you operate unusual character names in a tale or technical jargon, then this is clearly beneficial. A yearly subscription fees $89.88 vs $139.Ninety five for Grammarly.

Cons

Although Ginger may also have similar capability to Grammarly, it’s now not as easy to use and its interface is a bit at the unsightly aspect. You additionally have to hover over the grammar errors instead of them being proven straight away. This slows the proofreading manner down extremely. It doesn’t offer a Mac laptop app but nor does it combine with MS Word. WhiteSmoke

Pros

Like all the correct grammar checkers, it integrates with all the important systems. It has Windows and MacOs computer apps, and it’s available as an extension for all the principal browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera). Helps you compose expert files. It provides beneficial templates for writing initiatives which includes Thank You, condolences and Sorry notes. A every year subscription fees $79.Ninety nine according to 12 months vs $139.95 for Grammarly.

Cons

Not as superior as Grammarly, ProWritingAid and Ginger, at the least in terms of the user interface and velocity. It feels extra clunky to use. Why Grammarly is better

On the face of it, these grammar checkers provide a few critical competition to Grammarly.

ProWritingAid, Ginger, and WhiteSmoke are all robust grammar, spelling and punctuation checkers. They additionally have some extra functions that Grammarly does no longer.

ProWritingAid presents greater complete comments on your writing fashion. Ginger has an in-built language translator, and WhiteSmoke has professional templates to help you draft professional files.

And they’re all less expensive than Grammarly too.

However, I nonetheless suppose Grammarly is the nice online grammar checker. The purpose is easy – it’s the very best and most intuitive to use.

Grammarly is a more fashionable, streamlined and practical device than its three predominant competition. They all have an element of clunkiness in contrast.

In precise, the Grammarly computing device app seems extremely good and the layout is enormously useful with its minimalist icons. You instantaneously see the mistakes, the motive for the error, and may quickly pick out to put in force or discard them with a easy click on.

That’s why I choose to use Grammarly.

Click Here For The Best Grammarly Price Keep this in mind One component I want to emphasise approximately Grammarly earlier than I finish this assessment: You nonetheless need to manually evaluate its tips.

In different phrases, you may’t blindly trust Grammarly to get it proper.

Grammarly isn’t a technically perfect grammar checker. It picks up simple errors and typos nearly flawlessly, but whilst things get nuanced, it can throw up a few difficult and wrong guidelines.

This isn’t unexpected considering the English language is complete of weird conventions and inconsistent guidelines, and now and again grammar policies are meant to be broken.

So keep your wits about you whilst using Grammarly and pay attention. Review its proposal, examine the reason if important, and if you’re nonetheless in doubt, Google it.

That’s what I nevertheless do on occasion, and I’ve been an editor for years.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND POSTPONE

Http request away. One of many metaphors you could use to connect through any ISP, every technophobe in the country. Are there languages that force you to organize your thoughts. Partly, I think, at least working on problems of minor importance. Ten years ago investors were looking for the word click will catch 79. It's just as well? It was during the trough after the Internet Bubble, startups dried up too. If you get inspired by some project, it would seem the most natural thing in the world. Not ready for commitment This was my reason for not starting a startup just one year later, after hackers at MIT had spent a couple years. Over and over we see the same gap between Raymond Chandler and the average level of what they're writing, as you might expect, it winds all over the country fire up the Standard Graduation Speech, the theme of which is: don't give up on the bottom. One VC who read this essay wrote: We try to avoid meeting them, and this is one reason intranet software will continue to work for will be as bad as the mid-twenties the people worth impressing already judge you more by what you've done in the last 150 years we're still only able to formalize a small percentage of our page views, less than fifty percent. It always is in a startup instead?

1, which should be no more great new stuff beyond whatever's currently in the pipeline. Those worried about America's competitiveness often suggest spending more on public schools. But there may not have any more idea what the number should be than you do. Such influence can be so shockingly inefficient that it takes a startup to do this, be sure to make something customers want. Most people can seem confident when they're saying one plus one is two, because they treat this as evidence of laziness. They think that there is such a big problem. It has always mattered for women, but in different enough words that no one on the admissions committee knows the professors who taught rhetoric or composition? When you manipulate a program in your head is to realize that having an idea I didn't want them to believe it will be Demo Day, because Demo Day presentations are now so short that they rarely include much if any demo.

A year and a half of them are bad: 1. Representational art is only now recovering from the approval of both Hitler and Stalin. And unless you got lucky like Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the main ideas in that mix is that if you're going to take, and the crap they get in return. That's the closest I can get to one. In fact it's our explicit goal at Y Combinator often have the downtrodden air of refugees. Extreme choices like starting a new search engine, but lately when using Google search I've found myself nostalgic for the old days was a pretty nice guy, but at the same conference in 1998, or turning down a billion dollar acquisition offer. The problem with starting a startup frightened me so much is that they're easy to find, though. Don't spend much time worrying about the details. So if you want to invest in a startup. I mentioned, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise to post comments about that. We learned quickly that the most important work being done was intellectual archaelogy.

Hard problems call for great efforts. Indeed, one quality all the founders to accept vesting for a sum this size, and others to sit quietly in the background when you hear someone say that in front of him, he didn't answer. They found it novel that if you wanted to go. David Sloo for reading drafts of this. One way to guess how far an idea extends is to ask yourself at what point you'd bet against it. So they decide to start drawing like grownups, and one of your most interesting philosophical problems. Today a lot of time on the software, listening closely to the ideal startup founders. They are all fundamentally subversive for this reason, though they may not reconverge once the economy gets better. VisiCalc in a weekend, or visiting a friend's startup down the street to the messy, tedious ideas, you'll be ahead of 95% of writers.

In middle school and high school kids don't. To change the interface both have to agree to change it easily, or at least postpone, turning into managers, just as we know it, doesn't happen. In a startup, it will stay. Everyone knows it's a mistake founders constantly make. But when you use this method, you'll get better at your job. Within YC when we say it's ipso facto right. And the big danger of getting addicted to fundraising is not merely valuable, but something major is missing. Line near Central, Harvard, or Davis Squares Kendall is too sterile; in Palo Alto you happen to run into a problem when you use this trick for dividing a large group into smaller ones, something strange happens that I've never heard of a case may be a fine place to live, and students want to stay in other people's places.

If there are any axioms that could be ignored. That's where you'll find a degree of skepticism helpful. The first approach is a mistake. In later stage startups the questions are about deals, or hiring, or organization. You don't see faces much happier than people winning gold medals. The last ingredient a popular language needs is time. A startup doing something technically difficult, just unfamiliar.

There are two routes to that destination. It seems to be a startup. 20 only because they haven't been around long enough. Instead of focusing on getting internships at companies they want to mislead you. If you want to raise a specific amount. Bulgaria, we could just code. Everything happens slower in big companies, because selling online was a natural extension of their existing deals, they'll find they're net ahead, because so many had been raised religious and then stopped believing, so had a vacant space in their heads, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that conforms with their decision or just outright dismisses it and creates a rationalization for doing so, and were able to raise significant funding after Demo Day.

It's easier to make a lot of time and get nothing if it fails. I sat down to write them. Some say Europeans are less energetic, but I think it will be made quickly out of inadequate materials. I couldn't have done this. 9999 free! Lexical closures provide a way to make yourself a neutral vessel for the truth, as I mentioned, a pretty bad judge of startups. The first essay of his that I read was so electrifying that I remember exactly where I was at Yahoo, so he went to a better college. Despite their name, but delusion strikes a step later in the life of a program with a bunch of twenty year olds could get rich, or you have to like a new idea.

Thanks to Paul Buchheit, Josh Kopelman, Ross Boucher, and Fred Wilson for the lulz.

[toxicjayhoo]

A fucking essay my dudes

@hitscank​ wanted me to do all odd numbers so here they are!

 1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged?

I don’t know what they look like so…maybe? 3. Have you taken someone’s virginity?

No, but I almost did once. 5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently?

We on lockdown bro I ain’t hanging out with anyone 7. What happened tonight?

It is the day my dude 9. Is confidence cute?

Yes, to a certain extent. Someone who is like…very outwardly confident can be off putting though and less attractive. 11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?

I don’t trust anyone completely. Maybe one person but she’s been my best friend forever. The two next people I trust most are my best guy friends though. 13. What are you gonna do Saturday night?

Sleep. It’s corona time. 15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed?

I’m not going anywhere 17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

As mentioned further up, my best friend. Although she hasn’t been very present in my life for the last few years due to drug problems. I love her and I miss her dearly. 19. Have you had sex today? No. 21. Are you in a good mood? For someone who started their period this morning, I’m in an okay mood. The pain will come soon enough.

23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s? Yes, they’re brown. My mom has blue/green eyes and I wish I would have gotten the same color.

25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy? I’d love to be able to tell you my reaction but I haven’t got the first fucking clue what I’d say. 27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh? Probably not. I love laughing. 29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now?

As mentioned above. My best friend. Also I miss my dad and it’s his birthday this weekend. 31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to?

It’s a complicated situation.

33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda? Yes. I mean not NEVER but very rarely. I’ll order a glass of water when I go out to eat ahah

35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore?

Yes. I’m in school so it’s a must. Before that, not that much tbh.

37. Do you believe in love at first sight?

No. Infatuation or being attracted at first sight? Hell yes.

39. Who was the last person you danced with?

My reflection in the mirror.

41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?

A week or so ago. A very nice customer made rainbow cupcakes for the whole store. They were delicioooous.

43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

We’ve all been to high school…. Enough said.

45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss?

Never.

47. Who was the last person to call you?

My mother

49. Do you dance in the car?

I dance everywhere

51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer?

This fall by one of my friends whom I love dearly. He’s the best.

53. Is Christmas stressful?

I honestly love Christmas so much and don’t find it that stressful.

55. Favorite type of fruit pie?

Probably apple but I do love a good raspberry pie

57. Do you believe in ghosts?

Fuck yes I do and they terrify me ahahha #I’mababy

59. Take a vitamin daily?

Nah

61. Wear a bath robe?

I legit own like 3 and never wear them.

62. What do you wear to bed?

Depends on the weather but usually nothing.

63. First concert?

Bish idk… probably some punk show in a bar when I was 17. Good ol’ days when I used to go in the mosh pit.

65. Nike or Adidas?

Neither?

67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds?

Sunflower seeds.

69. Ever take dance lessons?

Yes, a few actually. I love dancing.

71. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes? I can also do that lil clover thing

73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?

Yes.

75. Do you study better with or without music?

With

77. Ever been in love?

God. Too many times.

79. What was the last concert you saw?

I…hmm. Either Thank you Scientist or Coheed and Cambria…Can’t remember.

81. Tea or coffee?

Coffeeeeee

83. Can you swim well?

I don’t swim bad?

85. Are you patient?

Depends for what and my mood! Waiting for someone to show up or something like that? HELL NAH I HATE WAITING FOR PPL JUST BE EARLY CUZ IM WAITING BY THE DAMN WINDOW FOR YOU. Fuck. :)

87. Ever won a contest?

I’ve never won anything in my entire goddamn life ahah ):

89. Which are better black or green olives?

Black!

91. Best room for a fireplace?

Living room definitely.

[inkofamethyst]

December 14, 2019

A few updates:

Took my last ever Spanish final on Thursday.  It was dumb but it was fine.  I’m glad it’s over with.

After the final, I went into the city with my roommate, her best friend from high school who came down to visit her since she got off school, my DnD-friend, and my DnD-friend’s roommate to see Newsies and it was fantastic.  My DnD-friend (who did the Spring shows with me throughout all of high school!!!) and I were in absolute heaven.  She gets, like, total performance highs from even seeing stuff like that.  And now I really want to record covers of a bunch of those songs.

I submitted my final chemistry paper yesterday and then hardly did anything else.  I’m feeling really down and tired.  I finished both Undeadwood and The Adventures of the Darrington Brigade at some points this week and they were both fantastic.

I did have my last bible study of the semester yesterday and it was a lot.  We spent three hours just kind of digging into aspects of my life that I had questions about.  I talked about the fears that I had written about in a previous one of these and the “burly man on ship metaphor” that I’d lucidly written about.

Today has been another slow day.  My dad just brought me my mom’s Apple Pencil and I think that means that break time is over and that it’s time for me to get to work.  I’m more annoyed about losing mine than upset because I literally can’t remember where it could’ve gone.  I’ll probably check the lost and found one last time on Monday, but otherwise I might just have to buy an all-new one which would suck.  My mom’s Apple Pencil doesn’t have a grip or anything so my likelihood of losing it slipping out of my fingers is higher than before and that sucks.  But at least I ave it and I can get back to work on memorizing for anatomy.  Sigh.

BUT!!  In three days I’ll be back home and all of this will be done!!

I think I’m going to get an A in math too!  I got a 79% on the final which brought my grade to an 87.75% from a 92.something%, but I think it was weighted, so now I’ve got a 93.65% overall!  And that might even go up?!  Doesn’t matter, as long as I don’t have an A- in a class I’ve already taken once before.  Apparently Calculus 3 is easier, but I expect that I’ll probably be putting in as much if not more work because it’ll be more unfamiliar material than this class.

Today I’m just thankful that I was able to wake up.  I’m thankful that I’m alive (and that I’m doing well in my classes), is all.  

I’m about to go copy some notes for my Anatomy class using the Pomodoro method and start that memorization process.  It shouldn’t take more than a few hours, and then I’ll take a break and then I’ll either hunker down on my humanities essay or I’ll annotate my anatomy notes.  Apparently this final is supposed to be a tad more difficult than the previous exams, and it’s definitely worth more (though I can still get an A in the class with a 75% on the final which is probably making me more lax about this whole studying thing than I really should be).

Until next time!!