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dimonds456 · 1 year ago

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hi guys.

MASSIVE CW/TW for medical misconduct, strong language, disability, talk of Death and dying, transphobia / enbyphobia, and personal drama below the cut. I genuinely have no clue what to do anymore.

Also no, this isn't gonna be me asking for money or anything. I'm fine there. It's literally everything else that's the problem.

also long post.

Okay, I'm terrified and I don't know what to do or who to talk to. I keep forgetting to call my doctor, and I'm also actively trying to find a new, different doctor, but every single site to do that is either down or inaccessible as fuck. He won't answer me on the website that's supposed to let you get in touch with your doctor, and as far as I know there's no way to report him for anything he's doing to me.

I have a paper trail now and will be calling him Dr K, since he refers to himself like that in one of the screenshots I have.

For a bit of backstory, I have Graves Disease. Fucking love the name, great choice. Graves Disease is a sub-genre of hyperthyroidism, a typically genetic disease in which your thyroid- a butterfly-shaped gland located at the front of the throat that regulates your metabolism- starts over-producing hormones and doesn't stop. I've had it since middle school.

Here they are in all their glory. For context on how bad this shit can get, my RESTING heart rate BPM was around 100. When I started running around, it got up OVER 200. THAT'S ENOUGH TO GIVE SOMEONE A HEART ATTACK. I was in middle school at the time, so adjust for how much smaller my body was, but STILL. Still terrible numbers, and I was literally in grave danger by the time I got treated.

(wow i love that its called graves disease haha such a funny name WHO NAMED THIS DISEASE I JUST WANNA FUCKING TALK)

So, since I'm 20, it's safe to assume I have the lifelong/chronic variant at this point (it festered for at least 6 months before I started getting treatment, and though it has gotten a bit better with time, not by much).

I don't care if I have to be on meds forever, that's not the problem. The problem is everything else.

Enter my two doctors, Dr M and Dr K.

Dr M was first, he was my childhood doctor and he's the one who originally started treating me. I don't remember much about him, just that he frustrated me constantly because he never listened. I'd tell him that my symptoms got worse after he lowered my dosage, and instead of talking to me about that, he'd point at a chart full of numbers that I don't understand and say "well your numbers look good so." and then proceed to continue lowering my dosage again until it because obvious to him that I was telling the truth, in which he'd up my dosage.

Now, as a kid, I was very much not outspoken. I still am not. I've never been very pushy about anything and always let people walk all over me, so I only really ever got listened to when the "numbers" started to reflect what I was saying. And yeah, my self-confidence it a whole other conversation and I do need to work on that, but also... part of being a doctor is to listen to your patient, right? So no matter how quiet or afraid I was, I should still have been heard out and treated like a person and not a goddamn statistic.

Then, I turned 18. I had until I was 19 to find an "adult" doctor, and Dr M kept seeing me until that could happen. But I had no idea how the fuck to do that. And no one explained it to me. I needed to be sat down and shown exactly how to do it step-by-step, but that never happened. I never got the help I needed.

April 7th, 2022, I turned 19 years old. Time was up, and I still didn't have a different doctor. I had no clue where to start.

I was living on my own now. I had an apartment I'd been staying in for a little less than a year, had a terrible home life with my roommates, had a 3rd shift 10 and a half-hour job + college, and no new doctor. I got one last prescription refill from Dr M, and then that was it. I wasn't allowed to see him anymore.

I kept putting off finding a new doctor because I was preoccupied with The Horrors™, something else that traumatized me last year that lasted from November 2021 to late October 2022. It went on for a literal year and I still haven't recovered from it at all, but again, that's a whole other can of worms that I cannot open yet. But the point is that I was in the mental warzone at the time, and just... never thought about a new doctor.

July 2022.

My 3 months of prescription were over. I was on the wrong dosage, and my symptoms were flaring up. BAD. And I still didn't have a doctor. Time to panic. I don't remember what happened, but my dad was able to help me find a doctor named Dr K, and we set up an appointment- 3 days before the last of my meds would have run out.

I just had to make it til then, then everything would be okay, right? I wasn't going to die- I wasn't going to die. I had to hold onto that. i wasn't going to die.

I saw him, he was able to get me on proper meds, and my dosage was upped from half a pill twice a day to 2 pills twice a day. MUCH better, it helped a lot. Thank fuck, I'm not going to die.

I thought that, maybe, finally, I got a doctor who would listen. But he doesn't. He fucking doesn't. He does the exact same thing as Dr M and only looks at "the numbers" and doesn't listen to what I'm telling him.

Fast forward to now. I am still processing The Horrors™, have (C?)PTSD, I have a new eating disorder that not even the doctors are sure wtf it is (might be ARFID? But they genuinely have no idea, I'm in a weird grey area, so THAT'S comforting), I have new weakness in my legs and arms that they don't know how that got there, I've fallen 3 times, and Graves Disease gave me an eye disease that can make me go blind if untreated. Awesome.

...Dr K still isn't listening.

My most recent appointment with him was last month, when I went to get a normal follow-up. Apparently they forgot to do labs for his stuff and just did them for my eating disorder, so he doesn't really have much to go off of in terms of "the numbers" and I'm the one who takes the blame for it, not the labwork people who forgot to take my labs while I was there getting labs. Fine. Whatever.

I tell him about my symptoms flaring back up, and he continues going on about my "numbers". Points at a graph I can't read. "Your numbers look fine." What does that mean? Idk, he didn't tell me.

During that visit, he brought up with me that I want to have top surgery. I say yes, and then he starts going off about how I need to start HRT before they can do the surgery. I ask why, and he tells me that it's just how they do things. I have to be on HRT for at least 6 months before I can get the surgery I want.

Now, I am transmasc (nonbinary). I am not against HRT, but it's not something I'm sure I want yet. I tell him as such, and he then states that "well since you're still confused, you should talk to a therapist first and then we'll go from there." BITCH I'M NOT CONFUSED. I JUST DON'T WANT HRT RIGHT NOW. I have 50 other medical problems to worry about, I'm not in a good position to start it even IF I WANTED TO. WHICH I DO NOT. I just know I want the surgery! That's it!

I tell him as such, and he keeps insisting that I'm just confused in what I want and basically said that I'm not trans enough to warrant a surgery if I don't want HRT.

Great. Well, now I'm pissed.

Two days later, I hopped onto a Discord server and asked if I was right in thinking that what he said was wrong, and everyone agreed that yeah, what he told me was fucked up. I even brought this up with my parents, who- although they do support me as an individual- are mildly transphobic, and even THEY agreed that what he told me was fucked up. I should not be FORCED into anything like that because I'm "not trans enough," that's BULLSHIT.

Anyway. At the end of my original visit with him, he sent me to get the labwork done same-day and then told me he would update me with what we were going to do.

Last Thursday, August 3rd, I got a phone call saying that he was canceling my prescription altogether.

My meds, which- as a reminder- SAVED ME FROM DYING LAST YEAR, which I know for a FACT I need to live since I was on death's doorstep just for being on the wrong dosage of these meds- yeah fuck em. You don't need them. "Your numbers are good."

The goal has been to ween me off. Slowly but surely reduce my pills a little at a time to slowly ween my body off the medication. I'm taking 30 mg a day. THIS IS NOT WEENING.

Now, I do make a comment I'm not proud of in the following screenshot, but the context is that I had already asked what the numbers meant and got brushed aside for it, both as a kid AND a teenager. I am now 20. So, of course, the "I'm not a kid anymore" thing pops up here, like the fucking cliche that I am. But I have not edited these screenshots except to blot out my picture. I refuse to edit them, just so it's crystal clear the BULLSHIT I'm dealing with.

I went onto the website and sent my doctor some questions, because I was rightfully afraid of what would happen if I suddenly couldn't take medication that I need to live. And the answer I got? Well, look.

I just took these screenshots as I was making this post.

Yeah, so ignoring the "I'm not a kid anymore" comment (I knew I would regret writing that and I did it anyway, go me), I feel like I was professional and careful with my wording here, right? I asked each question and explained why I was asking in-depth in hope of answers. And, I numbered those questions to ensure all 4 got addressed. And all I got was MORE questions.

And he never answered. That was August 7th. It's the 10th now. And I'm suffering. My symptoms are coming back more and more each day, and I've been trying desperately to ween myself off of meds so it's not the literal sudden change that he wants for my body. And also like, I'm sorry but am I reading this right? WHAT THE FUCK DOES "NORMAL HYPERTHYROIDISM RANGE" MEAN?? DO YOU WANT ME TO GET WORSE? RESET ME BACK TO ZERO? UNDO ALL THE PROGRESS I'VE MADE? CUZ ITS WORKING.

Sitting here writing this, my thyroid hurts. I can feel the swelling going up. You can hold it between two fingers now. I'm in pain when you tug on it in a certain direction, which used to be a comforting motion of mine. My resting BPM is going back up fast, the swelling behind my eyes is getting worse (which, again, COULD MAKE ME GO BLIND), and I was super reliant on my cane for balance today, not just the weakness in my knee/hip region that I'd been using it for. I'm getting worse FAST.

I am no stranger to Death. Honestly, my relationship with Death has gone from fearful to almost friendly over time. I feel like we know each other well, they and I. After nearly drowning at age 7, I feel like we've built a pretty uncommonly close relationship with each other. I've looked into the void, it looked back, shook its head and told me to try again. Many times. Not many other people can say that.

Death has given me many chances. I keep getting lucky. But, y'know, after dancing with Death for the majority of my life and being visited by them at least twice a year at this point, you'd think I'd start to figure out the steps to keep up with them, right? Well, you underestimate my ability to dance, ever. All it takes is a touch, and Death will have me.

"Just get a new doctor!" I still don't know how, and when I want to try? The website was down (which isn't the same website as the one I use to talk to Dr K, it's a completely different site).

"Call the office and keep calling them until you get answers!" A) phone calls are scary, B) the nurses aren't going to have the answers I need, only the doctors will, and C) you can't just call your doctor, not in this fucking day and age. If I want an appointment, I gotta book it out by months.

This morning, all I had was a half a pill. I'm running low on meds, and I'm trying to take them only as needed, and with as little as possible, to preserve them for as long as I can. But with all this happening, I... I want to take another half, but that would do more harm in the end than good since I'd have less for later. My dad suggested a Tylenol, since my throat is inflamed and that might make the swelling go down (but it wouldn't address the issue in that my thyroid is making far more hormones than it should be). So now I have to choose.

I had a panic attack over this earlier. I looked up to pick up a box from a tall shelf and fell backwards- the same thing that finally convinced my parents that something might actually have been wrong with me and got me to see a doctor 6 months too late originally. Only difference is that there's no broken plate this time. All I did was look up and I stumbled backwards into the wall.

I don't want to die. Oh, stars, I don't want to die. But they're not going to refill my prescription, and I'm 86% sure my doctor is doing this on purpose because of the trans thing (you could hear it in his tone, but that's not really proof of anything). He won't explain himself, and then proceeded to ignore me when I asked for answers. I need a new doctor, but I don't know how to get one, and the website is STILL DOWN.

I'm fucked. I'm actually fucked.

Death has been kind to me before. I just have to trust that they'll be kind to me again. And I know personifying something like Death is fucking stupid but it's all I have left at this point.

I don't want to die, stars I don't. Been there done that. I just want to feel okay. I just want to feel safe. But in this body, I'll never feel safe. My Graves will never go away, and my throat is closing up what with the inflamation, and I'm in pain, and my eyes hurt, and my eating disorder keeps taking more and more away from me, and I could barely make it through fucking mini golf earlier, so how the fuck am I going to go back to work like this?! They're going to fire me, and then what? Do I just lay down and die?! Let it happen? Because if THIS is all my life is going to be, fighting just for the right to be alive from the people who are SUPPOSED to be helping me STAY alive, then what is the fucking point?!

I should clarify; I am not suicidal. I DON'T WANT TO DIE. I just want to feel okay. Please, stars, that's all I want. I just want to feel safe. I just want to feel loved. I just want to feel happy. I just want to feel like it all meant something, that I can push through and use my own suffering to lift others up so they don't have to suffer like I did. The point is to ease other's suffering as much as I can. That's all I've ever wanted. But all I do is bring others down with me, because of things that are out of my control.

i'm tired. i'm hot. i'm hungry. i can't eat. i'm angry. i'm emotionless. i'm exhausted. i'm cold. i feel sick. i'm in pain. i'm numb. i just want it to be over. i want to push through. i want to give in. i want it all to stop. i want to feel safe.

...I'm gonna try the Tylenol. I can't afford to take any more of my meds.

hah, i'm like doug from portal. save em for the end times.

I just... what if my dad is right and this is all in my head? Like, it's fucking not, I can FEEL the inflamation getting bigger both on my skin and in my throat, but... what if? What if all of this is just anxiety? What if this is all just a result of my trauma from last year? fuck man, idk. i need help, and not even my therapist knows how to give it to me. i'm lost. i don't know who to talk to or who can help me.

im sorry. I'm still going to try to make as positive an impact as I can while I'm still here, but... stars, I just don't know how much time I have.

If you made it this far, take a second and count your blessings, okay? Take the time to wave to friendly faces of your past, remember things you did and people you've met. Remember your favorite childhood bookseries, or your favorite TV show. Appreciate the people closest to you. Hug your pet. Hug your siblings. Send your guardians a text appreciating them for the good memories they've given you, if you can.

Breathe. You're alive. Somehow, someway... you're alive. And isn't that wonderful? To defy the very nature of science that we still don't understand, to plant your feet on the ground and go "no, I'm here and I am alive and I live for myself"? That's incredible.

I'm alive, too. By stars I'm alive. And I'm not gonna go anywhere until I'm forced from this earth kicking and screaming. And I'm gonna try my goddamn best to make sure that every day is as good as it can be, for everyone around me. For myself.

Fuck it, we only have so much time. We gotta make the best of it, eh? Good memories. I want to go thinking about good memories. Laughter. Friends.

Maybe that could be enough.

#dimond speaks #vent #cw vent #vent post #personal vent #vent tw #cassie don't look #ask to tag #tw sui ment #sui ment #im not suicidal though dw- the opposite is true

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bluebelly-sun-serpentine · 1 month ago

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If I could give any advice to instructors not included above, as someone with a lot of experience in UX design (I got my BA in an unrelated field quite late as a result of long-term health issues), it would be this:

• if using Canvas or some other online platform to present class materials to students (even, say, Google Drive, or Box) do what you can to reduce friction and create a clear but simple structure for the class site with your syllabus in an easily accessible place (don't make them click through a bunch of stuff to find this). This means:

• class materials (files, attachments, links) students might frequently reference should be in an easily accessible place, not under several submenus/through several hyperlinks. This is the most important guiding principle, and should be how you design not just your canvas site but also each module. A lot of instructors have the tendency to copy their own byzantine file structure straight into Canvas/whatever, and that's bad for you and bad for your students, because you will constantly be fielding stupid questions from students who can't find that thing because you've put it in the place that makes sense for your brain, rather than in the place that requires the least thought and fewest clicks for the most people. I once had an anthro prof upload our class materials into google drive, with each photo for morph studies in its own separate folder, within a folder, within a folder, within a folder (this was some matryushka shit, it just kept going), so you had to click in and out for each one rather than being able to view the collection in totality or slide through the photos, and if you had to step away or you got signed out it would take you forever to find the right photo again. You cannot do this shit to your students. They will not look, they will email you. Just because I drove myself to insanity finding everything on my own doesn't mean a 19 year old with a tiktok addiction is going to have the same dogged patience.

• Do not upload a poorly scanned reading that students have to rotate because every third page or so is upside down or otherwise oriented incorrectly. Do not upload readings so poorly scanned they are illegible. Just because I reformatted your PDF doesn't mean a 19 year old who has no idea what a file system is will do it. Gen Z got very little computer training. It's not their fault, and it's probably not yours, and I am sorry, but you will have to adjust. Fortunately, adjusting will also make your work more accessible to disabled or chronically ill students who do not have time for your bullshit for genuine pain and exhaustion reasons. I know you are trying to reduce the cost of class materials for students, but don't be surprised when students struggle to get through readings they have to first manually reformat in, like, Acrobat or something.

• if you have some kind of overarching formal expectations for certain assignments (how you want them to take notes, what style guide you expect them to use, etc.) do not wait for them to ask you. Make this clear in the syllabus or a doc linked in the syllabus.

• please for the love of god, if you are writing documentation/rubrics for technical assignments (and this goes for GSIs/RAs/TAs, too) clearly state your goddamn deliverables. Don't say do this step and this step and this step and then forget to tell your students what they need to upload and then be shocked when they email you "hey, do you want us to turn in a screenshot, or do you need it in this format, or are you looking for the data in a spreadsheet." It's not going to be self-evident, because, in fact, your standards are not the same standard every other instructor has, so your students cannot assume you want the assignment submitted in a specific format if they haven't been told a) what they need to demonstrate they've learned/completed and b) in what format that needs to be uploaded. CLEARLY STATE YOUR DELIVERABLES AND DUE DATE. You know, like, you could even have a section at the beginning or end of your unnecessarily long-winded and poorly formatted doc headed DELIVERABLES and that alone would probably help a lot. I promise you, you will have less contempt for your students than you currently think they deserve.

I was not 18-23 while doing my undergrad, so I had some sense of what was stupid 18-23 year old bullshit and what was you guys doing your jobs really poorly. Your students are annoying most often because they are young people and young people are annoying to anyone not basking in the glow of great knees and new sex, not because they are dumber or even that much lazier than you were as a young person. I was concerned about their timidity and lack of engagement at times, but I was also not that surprised by it, because the quality of the education I received did not at all times inspire confidence.

A lot of "do better" tweaks to your pedagogy will save you time and heartache. Your students will take you more seriously. Your end of year reviews will go better. You'll have more time for research, or art, or cat pics (IN THE LONG RUN). Sometimes you may think you are saving yourself time by making a student do something you should have done yourself (like properly formatting your PDF or clarifying deliverables for an assignment). You are making, what, somewhere between twelve and 300 students complete a task that could have been completed once, by you? Every extra student that has to do that work for you is a student who can fuck it up or misunderstand and send you a pointless email as a result. Do the task once.

A lot of this stuff isn't, IMO, just a result of the "crisis of adjunction." Tenured and tenure-track professors couldn't even be bothered to properly plan their classes and provide syllabi in the the first week (let alone day) of classes at the "world class" institution I attended.

I think it absolutely does have a lot to do with apps like Canvas, which it seems like instructors aren't taught to use in effective and standardized ways (causing confusion for students on the front end, but also frustration for instructors on the backish-end) but honestly, I think it just has a lot to do with contempt for the student body and the amount of time most instructors are spending on discourse on twitter (or bluesky, or threads, or tumblr or whatever) vs, you know, actually planning your classes. I literally follow you all joking about how you're procrastinating on your syllabi and and class planning in favor of doomscrolling and cat pics. You cannot hide from me.

My favorite instructor was a boomer lecturer who had all his modules up day 1 of class, super clear syllabi (took several of his classes), and actual expectations for his students. He'd never completed his Phd but had been teaching most of his professional life and he really wanted to make sure his students internalized things – in stark contrast to a number of profs who used endless easy Canvas quizzes as a way to pass as many students as possible. He had frustrations with his students (I later read for him and he advised on an honors thesis, so we got close and I was privy to some of them) but never contempt. He cared about his subject area, cared what students thought about it, was interested in disagreement, and wanted to make sure we'd be set up to use newly acquired skills independently in the future.

My least favorite were a team of Gen X tenured professors co-teaching a class they'd clearly devised as a soap-box for some poorly explored ideas they hadn't bothered to properly workshop into an actual class. These dudes were full-on winging it the entire semester (they had no idea what the readings for a majority of the semester were going to be, and they had vaguely "planned" several intense multi-day field trips w/ van travel during a pandemic but didn't set anything up for them until days in advance). They clearly thought their students – who, while young and naive, approached the hastily scraped together readings and field days with a lot more critical thought than the profs clearly had – were beneath them. These two men were frequently dismissive, defensive, and blasé during discussion. They really thought they were going to blow our minds just bloviating without any prep. You cannot do this. I don't care if you have a PhD; you are not smart enough for this, and your students will know it. The class did not return in any subsequent semesters (they got nuked in their end-of-semester feedback forms), but I had other experiences like this with tenured profs, interestingly mostly with white Gen X men (although I'm not sure if that's indicative of a wider trend, it seemed notable to me at the time).

Sometimes college professors like to hop on my posts lamenting the sorry state of syllabi these days and joke about how they haven't thought that far ahead in the course themselves, or talk about how they struggle to complete a schedule for their students.

With all due respect, that's your job. If you can't do your job, you should have a different job. If you need help, ask your colleagues or your department chair or *someone* because I know that professors aren't given a hell of a lot of education on how to educate, so you probably *need* help.

But every single time I make one of those posts I get anywhere from ten to thirty messages, replies, reblogs, and asks say "oh man, that's exactly why I had to drop out of school; I couldn't keep up with the assignments because I didn't know when they were due until the week they were due."

I have been a college student in three separate decades, and "not having a schedule of assignments in the syllabus" is new to my experience. That shit didn't fly in the 2000s or 2010s and I think it likely has to do with professors being overly reliant on apps.

AT A MINIMUM your syllabus should have:

Contact information (including preferred method of contact) for the professor

Office Hours

Grading Policy

Assignment schedule.

Your assignment schedule doesn't necessarily need to have the exact page numbers of every reading or a full assignment sheet for each project, but it should have things like:

December 1st - Major Project 3 second draft due December 9th - Quiz 10 December 12th - Major Project 3 final draft due December 15th - Final Exam

If you end up presenting a more thorough schedule with readings and homework later, that is acceptable to present a week or two into the semester but it is absolutely insane to me that students these days don't know what homework they're going to have to get done over Thanksgiving break during the first couple weeks of class.

If I had three professors at once who didn't give me a schedule, how on earth would I know if I was going to have to read three chapters of a novel, take a midterm and turn in two stats homework assignments, and complete a history research paper the same week that I'm planning to travel to see family? If I'm aware of this from the beginning of the semester I can make sure not to pick up extra shifts, or I can plan to leave a day later to accommodate the midterm, or I can start working on the paper early to complete it before the due date but if I don't know what's going to be due when, I'm going to have a big problem.

If you don't give your students a schedule you are communicating that you don't care about their schedule, and that you think it's their responsibility to contort their life (and their job, and their other classes) around your class, and honestly my advice to students in that situation is "drop in the first week and pick up another class". That's actually part of why I recommend signing up for one more class than you can really manage - if you get a professor whose class looks like it's going to be a disaster because they don't have a schedule, you can bail before the withdrawal period and get a refund for the class.

I'm only in one class this semester but the professor's response has fully dropped me into "Fuck it, I guess I'll fail" mode and I don't even know if I can pull myself out of my current D grade because I don't know how many assignments we have left in the semester.

This is a shitty way to run a class. If you can't do better than this, you shouldn't be running a class.

#pedagogy #education #bluebellytalks #academia

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nickgerlich · 9 months ago

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#HashtagFrenzy

We see them everywhere. They are used to group similar content, although some people try to be cute by using them in nonsensical ways, as a side comment. In fact, there is now an entire generation who thinks the particular symbol used in conjunction with these has no other name than its current use.

I am talking about the hashtag, of course, and that “#” symbol that must be the first character in the string actually has three names that precede its current appellation as “the hashtag symbol.” That would be the “pound” sign for we older folks, but if you really want to be technical, it is the octothorpe symbol. And for musicians, it indicates a note is sharped, or lowered a half-step.

The first hashtag was deployed in 2009 on Twitter, and social media have not been the same since. In fact, the hashtag has become vitally important for others to discover your content, because they are used as a search tool, like a keyword. On Instagram, users can follow a hashtag, and thus see posts with that hashtag in their feed.

Failure to use hashtags, and, more importantly, the right ones, can mean your post lands with a thud.

This morning I ran across a news piece from a few days ago that suggested Instagram was testing out new limits on how many hashtags could be used. The prevailing limit has been 30 hashtags in a caption, although users could easily sidestep this matter by posting even more in a comment below the caption. The report said that Instagram was testing five as the new limit, with some users reporting a warning message popping up if they tried to exceed that amount.

It should be pointed out that Threads, the site we examined yesterday, has a limit of only one hashtag. In other words, you better spend your hashtag currency wisely.

I’ll cut to the chase, and then comment more. If you read my source article all the way to the bottom, there’s an update. Turns out Instagram was experiencing a glitch, and they do not have plans to cut hashtag usage by more than 80%. But boy howdy, this sure would make a great April Fools Day joke, wouldn’t it?

Cutting the number of hashtags would certainly help deter spammers, who seem to sling hashtags around better than they do actual words. And, like with Threads, it would force content creators to fully vet the hashtags they use, which means going into Instagram’s search feature to find which hashtags have the most use, which are trending, etc.

Regardless of this being accidental fake news, it underscores the importance of the hashtag. This is how we arrange content. It is the Dewey Decimal System for social media posts. Furthermore, it is a complete and perfect democracy, because anyone can create a hashtag. Whether it get used by others is to be determined.

But here’s something extremely important: You cannot legally own a hashtag. It belongs in the public domain. Unlike website domain names as well as copyrights and trademarks, the only claim to fame a hashtag user can ever have is being the first to use it. Sorry, no intellectual property for you.

There is some evidence that placing hashtags in a comment actually gets better traction than including them in the caption. And including them in the caption has another problem. That is, they all count toward the 2300-character limit for Insta captions. In other words, you can’t just drone on and on forever in any caption. I have done both during my 14 years on Insta.

Including them in the caption makes for one less “transaction” if you will, because putting them in a comment is just one more thing to copy/paste. I create my caption in a Google Doc (which I save, because I am that way). I email an individual caption to myself, then paste it into a template I created in Notes on my phone, then copy/paste the whole thing into Insta.

It sounds cumbersome, but it sure beats thumb-typing all of it on my phone.

Anyway, the coast is clear now for Instagrammers. We can carry on with our limit of 30, and if we wish to include more, just put the overflow in a comment. But regardless, make sure they are good ones, or else no one will see your material.

Dr “#HappyMonday” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #hashtags #Instagram #Threads #Twitter

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punishandenslavesuckers · 8 years ago

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Alternate universe where Kal-El’s baby pod comes down behind Wayne Manor. (ao3)

chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4

Wayne family problems always happen at 2AM.

Zatanna gets the call on her cell in Athens and it takes her a full minute to register the buzzing before she rolls over and paws her phone from the nightstand. Scraping her hair form her face, she squints at the name on the phone. Private line, proxy number. She checks the time and figures there’s still only one person who would call at 2AM her time.

“Bruce? Is that you?”

“He went public.”

She hangs up.

Thirty seconds later she drops onto Bruce Wayne’s kitchen island in Gotham, bare feet slapping the two-hundred grand black-marble countertop. Her hair crackles, a writhing nest of post-teleportation static and half-grounded etherium. Her eyes, she knows, have the fairy-light glow of a woman riding wild and uncontrollable forces dimension to dimension. Point of fact, that kind of chaos suits her and the static roar in her blood just now. Chaos suits her fine. She understands the appeal of it, standing there, lit up from the inside. Panic in her teeth.

Bruce looks at the tangled sorceress crouching half-dressed on his kitchen counter, he just says, calmly, “Do you need a bathrobe?”

She’s in shorts and a crop top. She hops off the counter, ignoring him. “Where’s Kal?”

“Metropolis.” He unmutes two mid-sized televisions mounted on the wall by the sink and another by the bar. One is Metropolis Daily, the other CNN. The scroll bar reads: super-human hero saves hundreds. “Suspension bridge collapse. He’s currently holding the bridge in place while everyone evacuates. He’s been there for three hours now. Every news network on the globe is re-casting the live coverage.”

“Metropolis. So he didn’t go far.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Bruce has his laptop open on the counter and pulls up a dozen news articles in various languages, no photos except of what appear to be blurry phone camera stills. “This is the first time he’s slowed down enough to be caught on film, but based on his speed and eye-witness accounts, they’re linking him to series of similar interventions all over the world. Disaster interventions mostly. I think he’s been operating internationally until now. He’s doing exactly what I told him not to do.”

“What’s the damage?”

“So far? His face is all over global news.”

“My god. He’s not a wearing a mask?”

“No. As far as I can tell, he’s wearing some kind of uniform based on his family colors and house crest.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Bruce says nothing. So she looks at the footage.

“Holy shit, you’re not kidding. He’s wearing primary colors. Why does he have a cape? Why is it bright red? What the fuck?”

“Either habit or tactics. If the material is bulletproof like the material from his Robin uniform, then he might be using it to protect civilians.”

“How is he funding this? Did he access his trust?”

“No. He hasn’t accepted anything from me since…” He glances at her. “Since he left. I assume he’s found employment.”

“But not as Clark Wayne.”

“Not that I’ve found. But he knows how to forge documents as well as Alfred does. If he wants to, he can be anyone.”

“Where is he now?”

“Still under the Grandcross Bridge. Rescue and construction personnel are approaching now, but as far as I can tell he’s having no trouble holding position.”

“How is he holding the whole bridge? I don’t doubt he’s strong enough, but he’s too small to just –”

“The five of the suspension cables along the right side of the bridge seem to have snapped. The bridge was going lopsided, cars sliding into the river. He’s just leveling it out. You’re right though. It’s collapsing. He’s a single load-bearing point where there were five. The civil engineers are trying to get close enough to talk to him, I believe.”

“No lives are in danger?”

“No. But…”

“Breaking news,” says the television. “We’re cutting to a live feed from the crisis at the Metropolis Grandcross Bridge. Fire and rescue personnel have deployed a rescue drone to open communication with the meta-human currently holding up the remains of the now highly unstable Grandcross suspension bridge. Live momentarily.”

Alfred, from the kitchen door where he’s just arrived, says, “Bloody hell.”

On the television screen a slightly wobbling drone camera cuts a path toward the belly of the suspension bridge. In the feed, you can hear the whine of the little turbine motors as it zips through the dust toward a blue and red figure braced like Atlas beneath the bridge. The drone flits uncertainly for a moment, buffeted by wind and for a moment captures a turbulent image of Kal Wayne – changed remarkably in just two years, but also not, not at all changed, but different nonetheless – looking slightly to the left and blinking at the little drone.

He follows it with his eyes as the camera swings in a way to frame his face, zooming in. his eyes in the camera are… frighteningly blue, alien blue, almost colorless and iridescent. Zatana’s never seen him do that with his eyes and in that moment, staring into the camera, expression curious and faintly distracted, she thinks the world’s going to change. This is the face of things to come. Something shivers through her, an old primal kind of shudder, deeper than physical… archetypical and ancient. Like every ley line in the world just hummed.

On TV, a loud speaker crackles, barely loud enough to hear over the drone’s motor.

“This is Kathy Motomori of Metropolis Fire and Rescue.” Live captions scroll across the bottom of the screen. Kal shifts his shoulders slightly against the concrete above him, his palms spread flat against the stone. “Are you in danger, sir?”

He blinks. “Oh! No. I’m fine.” A pause. “Thanks!”

“Jesus,” says Zatana.

Bruce has one hand on the counter next to him and it becomes a fist instead. On screen Kal shakes dust from his hair and says, loudly, “Everyone is clear of the bridge now right? Do you need me to keep holding it up or should I let it go?”

There’s a momentary pause from the other side. “My engineers are saying the bridge won’t last even with your help. It’s going to come apart on top of you. We’re recommending you try to get clear. Can you do that without our aid? Do you need assistance? My people are willing to come in.”

“No, no! Don’t send anyone!” He shakes his head slightly and a single dark curl of hair gets free from his bangs, coiling against his brow. Zatana doesn’t know it right then, but that’s the image that’s going to go around the world. “I’m okay. I can get clear on my own.”

“Then good luck, son. Get out of there safe. Understood?”

“Understood, ma’am.”

The drone wobbles and withdraws, pulling back but continuing to zoom in on Kal as he glances up at the massive shelf of stone he’s bracing… then rolls up so he’s bracing his hands and feet against it, creating the optical illusion of being stuck to the bottom of the bridge, his cape flapping gently beneath him. Then, lightly, he pushes off and floats free beneath. The bridge holds, but in the feed the crack and groan of steel instantly fills the audio. The camera pulls back, zooming away as the bridge buckles and falls. Kal watches it for a moment. Then he notices the camera now watching him and looks, momentarily, flummoxed about the attention.

He decides on a kind of half-wave, half-salute kind of thing. Then he turns in midair and throws one arm forward as if into some kind of forward stoke and arcs with that familiar thoughtless momentum into the free air over the Metropolis River. Then the sound barrier breaks in the distance. The camera screen beholds nothing but empty sky.

“Welp,” says Zatana.

“Goodness,” says Alfred.

“…” says Bruce.

From the door, just behind Alfred, Dick Grayson – still in his pajamas, frazzled with bedhead, all of fifteen, dark-haired and thrilled – says, “Cool.”

“The President official gave Superman the Medal of Freedom today for his actions during Hurricane Roger.”

Bruce says nothing.

“He’s ducking my tracer spells by the way.” Zatana takes a seat on the desk, moving Bruce’s files aside to make room. “I’ve tapped a few sources in the magical communities and a handful of them say they’re passingly familiar with someone matching Kal’s description but no one linked him to any of the traceable Superman events. Lois Lane did a pretty bang up job with the international angle. They’re saying Superman’s saved the lives of about five-hundred people and counting just this last year and that’s the incidents people have come forward with.”

Bruce says nothing.

“Bruce, I’m sure he’ll come back at some point and not for nothing, he is bulletproof and mostly magic proof.”

Bruce says, “Kal is an adult now. He can do as he likes.”

Zatana says, “Obviously, but he’s still your little brother. You’re allowed to worry.”

“His approach is reckless and dangerous and literally everything I warned him not to do.”

“He’s insanely popular, well-loved by everyone, and he hasn’t told a soul that he’s an alien. He just keeps insisting he’s nice city boy who want to help. A nice American city boy by golly-gee raised right here wherever here is I won’t commit but hell I’m sure just like you, boss. He’s really good at that. His blandish is excellent. Lookit me, folks, I’m just so adorable blue-eyed relatable and cute. I saved a puppy today. I played baseball with a bunch of kids in Bangladesh. There’s a hundred blogs dedicated to how cute my butt is in my weird uniform that is definitely armor, but no one is talking about it.”

“Just because he’s good at getting people to like him, doesn’t mean he’s safe.”

“Obviously not, but he’s doing the absolute best that he can with the option that he’s taken. He’s popular Bruce. You can get away with murder if you’re popular and there’s precedent for it. You have that Flash guy in Star City. That Green Arrow person. You… kind of… you’re pretty popular in Gotham for a dude everyone thinks is demonic sewer monster.”

“It’s Gotham,” says Bruce, like that explains it.

Zatana picks up her tea and sips.

“Look, Gotham loves two things: Its football team and Batman. Therefore, Batman gets away with a lot. Keeping that mind, Metropolis loves two things –”

“Being owned by a libertarian asshole and over-priced sushi?”

“No, Bruce – is that thing? Stop distracting me! They love being progressive and they love Superman. Okay? If Metropolis likes Superman than a good portion of the country follows. Daily Planet says they like him, then most of the internet says they like him. Metropolis may be owned by a libertarian douchebag, but even Lex Luthor knows to pretend to be progressive and likeable. His blandish is right up there with Kal’s.”

“Yes, there’s a comfort. Lex fucking Luthor talking to Kal-El.”

“Right, because Superman totally didn’t graffiti his pent-house office window last week with vague implications that Lex is a capitalist monster.”

Bruce smiles. Like, not with his mouth, but it’s there. Zatana can see it.

“See, and the beauty of it is Lex can try to take legal action but he won’t because it’s political suicide. Kal know what he’s doing. He’s smart and capable and has an IQ over one-forty and an interest in communications. He’s Metropolis’ favorite son right now. He’s America’s favorite son. You know how I can tell he’s going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread? He’s just a little bit brown and he openly spoke fluent Cantonese in front of cameras and people aren’t trying to nuke him out of the sky. That’s how I know he’s reached the adoration nadir necessary to survive the public. Okay?”

“You can stop trying to comfort me, Zatana. I know you have better things to do.”

“Better things to do than hang out in your mansion and eat your fancy toast?”

“How can toast be fancy?”

“I dunno, man, but you do it.”

“I’ve accepted that Kal is going to do as he likes. I don’t have to like it, but it’s how it is.”

“It’s been nearly a year since he came out as Superman.” Zatana taps a nail meaningfully against the side of her mug. “You could try to get in contact with him you know.”

Bruce says, “I figure he’ll do that himself.”

Zatana says, “Ugh. You’re both children.”

And Dick, who’s been hiding in the rafters in the dining room says, “So am I gonna get to meet him finally or what?”

“Get down from there. What did I tell you about –!”

Six months later a giant albino mohawked dude on a space-faring motorcycle shows up in Metropolis.

Then he beats Superman within an inch of his new superheroing life.

Jimmy Olsen, armed with a smart phone camera and more balls than his resume would grant him, captures most of the carnage on a Facebook livesteam where the hulking alien tries to tear Metropolis’ golden boy limb from limb. In later interviews, Jimmy would admit that he and Superman have a rapport and most of why he stayed was simply because he couldn’t bring himself to leave while Big Blue was fighting for his life. Something, he was certain, Superman had never had to do before.

The world gets a first-hand look at intelligent non-terrestrial lifeforms as one tries to curb stop Superman’s skull open in the middle of Broadway Avenue. Then it gets to watch as said lifeform hurls him into the ground with enough force to break the sound barrier. They watch intelligent alien life rip Kal’s cape from his shoulders, watch it kick him in the ribs, try to strangle him, gouge his invincible blue eyes out and get their thumbs lasered off for their efforts. (Oh, yes, Superman has laser eyes. No one knew that. Now everyone knows that.)

Then the whole world gets to watch Superman do something like panic and beat this monster into a crater with the wreackage of its own motorcycle. Then they get to watch him grab and hurl this alien out of the stratosphere with enough power to splinter the ground beneath him like plaster and send the beast rocketing out of Earth’s atmo. Jimmy Olsen’s smart phone camera captures the moment of aftermath where Superman stands there, uniform torn, blood running from his nose and mouth, staring anxiously into the sky and breathing hard, breathing like his ribs are fractured. Jimmy Olsen’s smart phone camera transmits, live, the moment where Superman collapses to one knee, then collapses entirely and –

Jimmy Olsen, dropping his camera, crying, “Oh my god! Supes?! Superman, are you –?”

Before the feed cuts.

“Look, I’m just saying he’s not that mad at you.”

Dick Grayson, eighteen, wearing a pair of sunglasses with his boots up on the spare chair next to him – he’s got an ice cream cone in one hand and he thinks the whole thing is kind of dumb.

Across from him: Superman in a blue button-up and jeans, blinking at him from behind a pair of un-convincing thick-rimmed glasses. He’s got an untouched basket of fires and a burger in front of him. It pleases Dick just a little bit to note that at eighteen he’s already about Kal-El’s height if not quiet his build. Not, mind you, that Superman has many options in body building and it’s sort of ridiculous to compare physiques when one of them (not him) can pick up a bus and throw it across the country.

The point: Kal doesn’t look very intimidating sitting in a burger joint with an anxious look on his face.

“It’s been almost three years.”

The July sun curves a scorching path into the mid-day sky. It’s pretty hot.

Dick adjusts his sunglasses and says, “Look, Kal. I get that you guys had some big falling out or whatever, but at the end of the day you’re both being huge assholes and should just talk to one another. Zatana says so. Alfred says so. I say so and I’m the guy who’s doing your old job so I feel like I have special permission to tell you to suck it up and stop being weird about it. You weren’t weird about talking to me and I expected you to be a lot weirder in person. So you have no excuse.”

Kal looks genuinely curious. “Why would you think I’d be weird in person?”

“I dunno. You’re so good in front of a camera I thought you might be a little strange when you turn off the whole All American Alien shtick. Any particular reason you try to come off like a home-grown suburbanite when you’re a Gotham kid?”

“Technically, I was raised internationally for most of my childhood, I’m an alien, and mid-western accents are practically un-detectible to anyone not looking for it?”

“Solid call. Solid call. Anyway, you’re not weird.”

Kal looks wry. “Thanks, I try. Look, Dick, I appreciate what you’re trying to say, but I’m not sure if you understand… the history with Bruce and me.”

“Says who? I’m great at understanding. I’ve also been living with Bruce for the better part of three years so, like, try me.”

“Well, first of all, I’m an alien that landed in his backyard when he was sixteen and he decided to adopt me.”

“Yes, he has impulse control problems in that area. I’ve noticed.”

“My childhood was weird.”

“I grew up in the circus and then signed on to be Boy Wonder Two Point Oh. My childhood was also weird. What is it you’re worried I won’t understand?”

“I don’t know… so much of how I was raised was based around this… It’s weird. I am bulletproof. Literally, I’m one of the toughest living things on the planet, but my whole childhood was a lot of fear and hyper-vigilant measures to make sure I was safe. Now, I’m just… it’s like a threw all that away. I feel like a bastard sometimes. Ungrateful I guess? But I don’t regret it. Not… not at all. Not even a little bit and I feel like that’s the part that’s going to make it impossible to talk about.”

“You know how stupidly noble that sounds right? You’re like an afterschool special.”

“Grayson,” he says in this tone that has this low sub-tonal quality that literally makes the air shiver.

“Okay, so you’re afraid you’ll have to defend your decisions to him and he’s going to be judgmental and disapproving, basically? Because, that’s kind of what dads are there for.”

“He’s not my dad.”

“Right.”

Kal looks uncomfortable. “He was always really clear on that point, actually.”

“Oh. Sorry. What I meant is you are family at the end of the day.”

“I know…”

“Jeez, this is really eating at you. What specifically do you think will happen? Worst scenario.”

“I tell him I regret nothing that I’ve done and by extension he takes that to mean everything he ever did for me was pointless and all the work he does is also pointless and he basically realizes he raised a totalitarian monster that rejects all his personal axioms?”

Dick lowers his sunglasses slightly to stare at him over the rims.

Kal looks, thankfully, embarrassed. “Worst case scenario! I literally did the exact thing he raised me not to do and I just don’t see how he’s going to forgive me for that.”

“Because you’re his little brother and he loves you. Wow. That was easy. Let’s go to Gotham right now.”

Kal jerks a little when Dick makes a mock-move to stand up and that tiny fear response makes Dick feel just a little bad. He sits back down.

“You honestly think he’s not going to forgive you for going out on your own?”

“He has strong opinions about things.”

“He’s also just a dude with a thing for Vantablack.”

“You wouldn’t be scared to disobey him?”

“Are you kidding? Petrified. But I’d still do it if I really believed it and, honestly, I think as long as you’re not drowning puppies in buckets or getting a mullet he’ll probably respect what you did.” Dick shrugs. “I mean, it’s hard to argue with the results.”

Kal looks skeptical.

“I’m not saying he won’t be a huge tool about it at first, maybe, but he’ll get over it. Seriously. Just… reach out. I don’t think he’s going to do it because he thinks you… want it this way or something. I can tell you don’t so just fix it. Or at least try. You’re Superman. You can’t possibly tell me it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”

Kal almost smiles. “I’m really glad you signed on to be Robin Two Point Oh.”

“Okay, well, don’t spread it around but I’ll probably upgrade from that pretty quick here.”

“You’re thinking about leaving?”

“I’m eighteen. I’ll have to leave eventually.”

“And… the rest of it?”

“You mean the cape and cowl?” He frowns. “I mean… I think I’ll always want to do that. Just not… not in Gotham forever. And I can’t be Robin somewhere else; I think that’s a really specific role. Look, it’s just something I’m tossing around. You left. I can leave. It’s just the normal progression of things.”

Kal thinks about it. “You picked out a name yet?”

Dick blinks behind his glasses. “No. Why?”

“I might have a suggestion.”

It was, perhaps, inevitable that it would happen this way.

Or that’s what he’s thinking while he’s falling from 10,000 feet up, every on-board system fried, auxiliary flight components shredded, the dark terrain racing up to meet him. He goes through possible scenarios. Anything and everything he could do to prevent slamming into the planet at terminal velocity and he’s got nothing. The sky above him: a rolling orange swath of flame, the steel monolith coming apart in continental shards of alien alloy. The mechanism of mass destruction slicing a fiery path toward the ocean.

Even if he could fly, he’s not sure he could get clear of the wreckage – likely to fall miles around.

His armor’s melted in places – fused to his ribs, his right thigh, his boots have melted at the sole. The pain is… intense actually. Intense enough he’s a little relieved it’s probably going to stop very soon. The wind in his ears roars. Through the roar, his comm still just barely crackles with Dick’s voice, frantic and far away, saying his name (is that really his name?) over and over again from too far away to help.

His primary regret: Dick is going to watch him die on fucking monitor.

“It’s fine,” he says, which is fucking stupid of course.

“No!”

“You’re going to be fine, Dick.”

These are the worst last words in the history of last words. He just doesn’t know what else to say, the earth rushing up as it is, so fast he’s not going to be able to speak. Bruce rolls into a para-trooper flat, belly down, arms and legs out, facing the growing ridge of the mountain that, it appears, will be his final destination. The comm’s damaged. Dick is saying something. He can’t make it out and he’s not sure why that – not the screaming air, not the pain, not the inevitable end – is getting to him. Seconds before his death and all he can think is he’d trade anything to hear what Dick is trying to say.

There’s static now.

There’s no one with him for this part.

That’s fine.

It’s fine.

Really.

It’s…

The mountain below him suddenly snaps. It vanishes. There’s a bright primary blur that baffles his eyes before snapping back into focus and, like a glitch in the universe, Kal-El is between him and the earth. His eyes: wide, colorless blue, inhuman in their hue and containing every human fear possible. He’s moving at terminal velocity, backwards, propelled by the mysterious gravitational forces that live in his Kryptonian physiology. He’s wearing his uniform. Superman – flying exactly fast enough to be exactly within arms’ reach, face to face with Batman as he falls.

He’s shouting something.

Bruce throws his arms out at the same moment Kal grabs for him, seizes his elbows and pulls him into his chest. Bruce feels three of his ribs crack when Kal miscalculates the speed, slams into him with enough force to stun. He doesn’t have the air to scream as Kal balls around him and pitches, hard, right. His arms cage him like a roll bar in a flipping car. The G-force briefly curdles his brain, dark edges closing. His teeth in his skull seem set to explode. Lungs crushed, surrounded by a splintering construct of calcium.

Then it stops. Planes out. Bruce opens his eyes and the sky is framed by trees, the hole in the canopy of evergreens. The ground underneath him smells of pine and shredded earth, a Superman shaped crater in the forest floor. He must have blacked out for the impact. Kal is looking down at him with a panic in his face that steals all his adult years and Bruce sees him – five years old, stuck on that goddamn bunker ceiling.

“Bruce! Bruce?! Are you okay?”

He grunts. Gets his breath.

“Sloppy catch.”

Kal stares.

Bruce grimaces and sits up. “We practiced that about a hundred times in the Philippines.”

Kal stares.

“If you don’t learn how to match velocity in mid-air, you can’t expect to save civilians from –.”

Kal moves forward and hooks both arms around Bruce’s shoulders and silently buries his face against his shoulder.

Bruce hesitates… then loops one arm around Superman’s back, palm flat against his shoulder blades.

“Nice of you to drop by,” Bruce says.

Kal laughs. “Dick said I should.”

“You couldn’t call me before alien warships are flying over Gotham?”

“You couldn't call me before you pick a fight with an alien warship?”

"I don't have your number."

"Dick has my number. You have my number if you wanted my number."

Bruce sighs, pressing a hand into his ribs. “Any chance of flying out of here that isn’t you carrying me bridal style?”

“Not really. You crashed the Bat Jet into the side of their ship.”

“It’s not called the ‘Bat Jet’. It’s just a jet.”

“Dick says it’s the Bat Jet and he also says, you still call the car ‘The Batmobile’. So…”

Bruce glares.

“Are you glaring? I can’t tell with the new cowl. Is that, like, a heavy combat version or…?”

“I’m glaring.”

“Okay. Thought so. You know you can admit I'm good at naming things.”

“Unbelievable.”

“I’m just saying.”

“You should have let me drop into the goddamn mountain.”

“Batmobile. Trademark: Superman.”

#dc #superman #clark kent #bruce wayne #batman #batfam supes au #dcfic #in which i finally bothered to finish the chapter #because its just been siting in my docs forever #anyway #young superman is still kinda scared of batman #dick is just like #why tho?#rae writes #raewrites

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see-arcane · 2 years ago

Note

one video game site describing the game's premise:

"In the trailer, Harker was perceived as a much more efficient and courageous vampire hunter, as opposed to the classic portrayal of Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker’s books and films, including Dracula."

sir... sir... he literally killed dracula in the book...

You know.

I think this broke me just a little more. My camel back was already broken under so many straws, but I think this one made me collapse back in on myself.

So.

There's a lot to be said about the inspirational power of great works of media. Stories and masterpieces that spur wonder, love, and awe. The ones that give you a goal to aspire to in your own creative endeavors. The strive to match up to something great can do a lot.

But I'll tell you, friend. There is nothing quite as empowering as pure, unbridled spite. Just full-on loathing for every piece of half-assed, fan fictionified, self insert-riddled, character-botching, absolute shrug of a creative work that tries to hide under the disguise of a public domain title to cover for its inadequacies, and not only getting away with it because so much of the audience hasn't read the book, not only profiting off of it, but leaving a nigh irremovable stain on the entire pop cultural mind that is so hugely, categorically, monstrously Wrong, that the 'understanding' of the book and its characters is treated as offhand. Because 'everyone knows' it.

"Sure! Everyone knows Jonathan Harker doesn't have any real vampire hunting experience! That's all Van Helsing's shtick, what with him being the very definite for-real nemesis of Dracula, ha ha! Nice of these video game people to give the little guy a shot, eh?"

Just. Wow.

I am ready to make so, so much Jonathan Harker shit. Barking Harker? Sure. Absolutely. Doc's open right now. But maybe I'll do more. Love is my kindling, but bile is the fuel on the fire.

I can do Jonathan Harker as the Superior Dracula, complete with ripping Coppola's reincarnation love interest gimmick out his asshole and doing the Romantic Dracula Trope real justice. Why? BECAUSE IT'S ACTUALLY JONATHAN AND JONATHAN CAN PULL OFF THE WHITE-HAIRED PINING UNDEAD ROLE BETTER. How about that?

How about I make a whole ass script and screenplay for a Dracula series actually in line with the book? No creative license! No Dracula-wolf sex scenes or cheating fiancees or jealous suitors or dodging the el gee bee tee edges or turning Van Helsing into an anime man who saves the day! Just actual events that actually happened in the 125-year-old book that every modern adaptation is too cis-straight-scared to do! How about that?

How about I eat the heart out of every single Van Helsing-centric Monster Hunter series and anime and make it all about the Harkers, their friends, and/or their descendants? How about that?

How about the Harkers getting an eternal vampiric honeymoon after the Transylvanian trip goes bloodily south and they just go about their undead business forever and Dracula is nothing but a footnote in their story which he always was anyway? How about that?

HOW ABOUT I FLOOD THE WORLD WITH DRACULA CONTENT WHERE DRACULA IS NO MORE OR LESS THAN THE SADISTIC VILLAIN HE'S ALWAYS BEEN AND GETS HIS ASS KICKED AND HEAD CHOPPED LIKE THE LOSER BASTARD DESERVES???

HOW ABOUT THAT????

I WILL LIVE TO SEE A WORLD THAT REGISTERS EXACTLY HOW BADASS JONATHAN HARKER AND ALL OF THE HUMAN CAST IS, A WORLD THAT SEES DRACULA FOR THE UNDEAD UNDERWEAR STAIN HE ALWAYS WAS,

FOR I WILL CRAFT THAT WORLD MYSELF UPON THE BONES AND BLOOD OF THE INFINITE BASTARDIZATIONS THAT CAME BEFORE THEM!

I SHALL NOT SUFFER THESE ICE-COLD 'lol no I never touched the book but I kinda remember the wiki for the Coppola movie' TAKES FOR ALL ETERNITY. I WILL REWRITE THE PUBLIC OSMOSIS UNTIL ALL THEY KNOW OF DRACULA IS THAT JONATHAN HARKER KILLED HIM IN HIS DIRT BOX.

Anyway.

To all my Dracula Dailiers out there. I say again. Join me. While our little book club did wonders, the fact is, not a ton of people are going to ever bother with the dusty old novel. Spinoffs and sequels? Sure. But not (what they assume is) a dry old classic. Which leaves audiences and filmmakers caught in a perpetual profit and expectation-based loop.

People assume Dracula is Sexy-Suave Count Fuckula and that Mina hooks up with him while Van Helsing and [INSERT HUMAN NOBODIES HERE] are pushed to the sidelines. So that's what directors will keep churning out. Ditto for makers of books, comics, shows, and video games. It will just keep going in the same rut.

Unless we put some new blood out there. There are so many possibilities. So much that can be made to finally drag the spotlight away from the Count and give it back to the characters who deserve it.

So please. Please. Make that Dracula-derived thing you're unsure about. Even at its most indulgent and outlandish, you have read the book. And you know more about what you're doing than literally any so-called professional who's churned out their tired knockoffs of knockoffs. (Or the folks who take their opinions from the same.)

#sorry about all that Anon #had a rant building up for a while #dracula #dracula daily #jonathan harker #barking harker #my writing #inspiration

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gb-patch · 3 years ago

Text

Ask Answers: July 10th

I really let asks get away from me lately. I was super focused on working on that Patreon Moment. With that done I can finally think about doing other things, so here’s a new collection of answers!

Thank you for sending in questions everyone ^^.

For the new Patreon moment, will you be able to reference it in step 4? Or just like a tiny nod to it if you pick certain choices?

There won’t be. I’m sorry if you were hoping for that! The Patreon moment is meant to be entirely optional, it’s not something that gets you extra content in the main game.

Is the new CG artist the main one now? :0 I’ve noticed theres been a difference in the art style recently. Is the old CG artist still going to make art for the game? :0

The original artist still makes CGs for the game sometimes, but he mainly focuses on character sprites.

Are you going to put the NSFW our life moment on a website other than patreon? I would love to get it but I can't use patreon atm.

I don’t know. I'm afraid we can't release the Patreon Moment on a normal game storefront because we can't mix 18+ content with our family friendly game. If there's some other place similar to Patreon where it's not the normal type of full-scale public content releases we'd consider using that, but I’m not sure if there is another site that’s better than Patreon in that regard. I'm sorry.

Out of curiosity, in all of your games so far, which characters in each were the most fun to write? They obviously don't have to be your favorite characters!

Buffalo Seer in AFA, really everyone in XOD/XOBD is pretty equally entertaining to write, The Guide in LoV, and Cove in OL!

idk if you accept "personal" questions, but is there anything you've been watching/ listening to lately

Mostly, I’ve been watching/listening to Authortube videos as of late! It’s people who talk generally about the process of how books become traditionally published and/or share their own experience as they attempt to be published. I don’t have an interest in writing normal text based books, but it’s really interesting to hear about that world. I’m listening to a video about royalties right now as I answer these asks.

Will one of the desserts we get to pick be fudge? That'd be such a cute reference!

Haha, yeah, it should. Unless I completely blank on it and forget when trying to include the various referential food options.

I don't know if this has been asked previously but what would be the approximate heights for the presets MC can choose from Step 2 ~ 4? Are there any measurement you had in mind? Sorry if I didn't make myself clear kk I've been struggling with my English lately 💀

I don’t know, ahah. I didn’t have any numbers in mind for that. So it’s whatever you imagine it is!

I noticed a bug with the Patreon moment when it comes to what your character wears. When Jamie and Cove are kissing while my character only had dresses selected, I had both the option to remove the dress or to remove the shirt... Picking one of the options to interact with Cove, after he removed his shirt, it had Jamie remove their shirt followed by ther pants despite only having dresses picked.

Thank you for reporting ^^

I keep refreshing steam to see when the new doc for xobd will be released. I noticed you haven't posted anything about it in quite some time. Would it be possible to ask about a timeline/potential date? (If it's even this year—) I know you and your team are probably working super hard, I'm just super curious! ~Thank you!~

There are more stories done, I just haven’t gotten around to publicly releasing them. Hopefully I will have a chance to spend the time on that sooner rather than later!

hello!! i’m not sure if it’s an update but i’ve just replayed our life and at the end i can’t propose to cove anymore? :(( i’ve actually tried playing twice but the options are not there anymore, did you guys remove the options? i’m sorry if you’ve answered this before!! thank you and have a good one :)

I’m afraid things haven’t been changed or removed, so I think you might’ve accidentally picked the wrong things somewhere along the way and locked yourself out of being able to propose by mistake. Sometimes you meant to say you want to get married but instead you mis-click and have it so the MC isn’t thinking about marriage or something. All I can suggest is starting from the beginning of Step 3 and making sure to follow the steps listed in the FAQ. I’m sorry for that.

Did yall remove some of the options for when youre making out with Cove in the charity moment? I could've sworn you could grab his bonkadonk and its not there anymore

This is the same situation as the above. We didn’t remove things and you’re not wrong that there are sometimes those options. But there are various choices you have to make to get those options and it sounds like you accidentally missed something. If your relationship isn’t long-term, you can’t do it for example.

HI IM SO EXCITED I CAN FINALLY GET THE STEP 3 DLC

Thank you for getting it!

Is Shiloh super totally straight bc I’m very gay and a huge Shiloh fan, would my man make an exception?😩

Sadly, he is one of our super straight characters. I’m sorry.

Hi, I have a very dumb question. In Step 2 does Cove not wanna share his drink with us at the mall (or rather why he stops drinking it) because it's an indirect kiss? Or is it like ...weird to him to share? Because if I remember right he eats off our spoon in the birthday scene right?

Yeah, he’s awkward about it because he likes the MC and it feels very personal to share a straw with his crush.

Hi! If you don't mind me asking, who is the artist for OL2? Their style is so pretty!

Thank you for saying so! This is her Twitter- https://twitter.com/redridingheart

Do Beginnings & Always and Now & Forever exist in the same universe?

Yep! XOXO Droplets also exists in the same universe. It’s one big GB Patch world, haha.

Do Pran's parents regret the way they raised him? Do they feel ashamed of it?

No. They’re the type of people best cut out because they’re not gonna change. Which is why Pran does go very limited contact when he’s an adult.

Hi! I just wrapped up my second playthrough of Our Life, and I absolutely adore it, but I had a question. I went to the gallery and found I was missing 2 CGS (specifically Step 1-3 and 2-3) and I had no clue where they would've shown up. Which moments are those found in?

You get it by telling Cove about his dad offering you money to be his friend in Step 1 and Step 2. You can’t get both in one playthrough, since you can only tell Cove the truth once. I’m really glad you liked it!

Hi hi! Please, how tall is Baxter and Derek? Love the game so much and I can't wait to see more!

I don’t know, aha. I think Baxter was around 5′10 and Derek was like 5′8/5′9, maybe. I really am not one who has specific heights for things in mind.

is adult cove a bottom, top, or switch?

A switch, though would choose the top if he had to pick.

I was wondering if there is a way to transfer save data? Even if through the game files. I wanted to be able to transfer my save data from my desktop over to my laptop so that I could continue playing right where I left off from but I'm not entirely sure how to go about that.

If you save the save folder/persistent data of the game from your desktop and put it into the game folder on your other device, that could work.

Hi! Is it possible for us to know the date when our life: now and forever comes out on steam? Sorry if you've mentioned it before but I haven't seen it and I'm looking foward to that happening and just wanted to know :)

It’s gonna be a long time, I’m afraid. There’s no estimate right now.

I started playing Our Life with my sister a while ago, and I think you guys should know that we discovered your secret. >:)

L from death note and Cove are clearly the same person, and this whole game is just an origin story!!

I’ve never seen that show so I’m sorry to say I don’t understand the connection/reference you’re trying to make. I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to media. I don’t watch movies or TV.

Will OL2 have options for disabled MCs?

I understand if it's too complicated, just curious

Unfortunately, it’s not really something we have a plan for. We couldn’t finish the game if we tried to include every disability and have it be meaningful. It’d just be too much content to create. But if we decide to only include a few, how would we choose which disabilities get to be represented and which are left out? I don’t know. It’ll probably have to be something we don’t include as an option again, sadly. I’m sorry.

playing our life > anything else

Haha, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

Honestly, I would like to thank Our Life for helping me come to terms with my sexuality. Before, I never would've actually thought that it was possible to like boys romantically and still be asexual. Almost all of the BL visual novels I've read had unskippable sexual content in them and it honestly just didn't click with what I feel. I'm glad I found Our Life. I love the game, the developers, and this fandom so much. Now, I can safely come out as homoromantic AND asexual (at least anonymously here anyway; my parents are still huge homophobes 😂).

Aw, it’s great to hear you felt comfortable being yourself in the game! That’s wonderful. I’m really sorry about your parents, though.

Will the demo for OL2 be on android? Really not sure if I could wait any longer than I have to aha

Yeah, it’ll be available for Android once we eventually release a demo!

Do all these reveals perhaps mean development is progressing ahead of schedule? Please let that be the case I'm already obsessed with Qiu

No, sorry, aha. Art comes along much faster than script/programming-work for us. It’s gonna be a long time before the game is a finished thing you can actually play. But at least we can look at the beautiful images.

Hey! First of all I wanna say I reallllllyyyyy loooovvveeee Our Life and XOXO Droplets! I have over 300 hours of playtime on Our Life… Anyways, I was just wondering, are the Derek and Baxter DLCs going to come out at the same time? If not, which one do you plan to release first? :3

They will come out separately and Derek will be first! Glad you like the game.

I keep replaying Our Life to get every possible iteration and I am loving it <3 I was wondering if Cove gets locked out of his confession because MC was talking to Lee, would it be possible to confess to him in step 4?

Yeah, you can avoid the confession in Step 3 and then get it in Step 4.

Hi, my Cove wears bracelets through step 2 and 3 but I still don't get an option to give him a bracelet? I didn't even know that was possible until I seen someone else ask about it lol

Hm, did you use the Cove creator? Maybe there’s a bug where using the creator to add bracelets doesn’t fulfill the requirement to give Cove a bracelet in Step 3.

Wait, I'm dense, when does Baxter appear in step 2? Is it from big park firework? I feel so bad since i really love Baxter and waiting to buy his dlc.

It’s in the Soiree Moment. You have to be just friends with Cove, indifferent, or crushing but not ask Cove to the dance at all. Then while there you can find someone new to dance with. But if you bring Cove to the dance while crushing, the MC won’t wanna dance with anyone else so you can’t get the scene.

In step 2 when we go to the soiree I made my mc go alone and baxter chooses the mc to dance, i'm curious, why did he pick the mc? sorry if this has been asked before!

Because the MC looked to be around his age, seemed to also be searching for a partner, and had nice legs. A perfect option for him.

I read some of the FAQs, and I saw that we could tell Baxter about the condo that he rented there was previously the mean old grandparents. how do we get the mc to tell him that?

It happens in the DLC Moment “Late Shift”. If you don’t have a job you instead get a longer scene with Baxter.

I don’t know if you’ve addressed this or not, but are you planning on paying voice actors for our life: now and forever?

Yeah, we pay our VAs in all our projects.

hey can i ask how you did the moments thing in ol? im trying to get into making visual novels and while im VERY sure its out of my comfort zone and all that atm i kinda wanna know just for the future, bc im p sure it would work well for something i wanna do :O but its also fine if you cant say for other reasons :>

I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking how we programmed the screen or something script related? Adding Moments like that is pretty straightforward, though. You just have buttons that open to different labels and then the scripts are essentially individual short stories/vignettes. Good luck with your VN!

Since Autumn becomes gender fluid later in the game, will there be a character who remains as he/him to romance in game?

OL1 has the he/him LIs, OL2 is all about other genders.

I don't want to impose on your creative plans, but a parrot could possibly make a good pet in an OL-type game? They're pretty long-lived and likely to still be thriving by the end even if the MC got them back in step 1.

I do appreciate the suggestion, but I’m afraid it’s not likely going to happen. I understand there are technically some animals that could theoretically live long enough to last the whole game that or we could have the MC only get a pet after some years have already passed. But the many things that would have to be considered/accommodated for makes it just something we probably can’t manage adding. I’m sorry.

As time passes will we be able to see Qiu and Tamarack's other stage arts as well?

They are both so cute i can't wait to be friends with them!

Yeah, we’ll show content from other Steps in the future. It’ll be a little while from now, though.

Can you date Cove and still have your family comfort you in the car?

You can’t get Cove’s Step 3 confession scene if you have the family comfort you in the car. But that’s not the only way to date him. You can get together with him earlier in the game or later on in Step 4.

Is Mc always going to be the one walking down the aisle or could Cove do it? Also could you choose to have one of your moms walk you?

No. Cove wouldn’t want to walk down the aisle like that and the MC automatically respects that. And the MC also gets to have their preferences respected, so it’s up to you whether they want to do an aisle walk or not. You also can pick who, if anyone, walks with you.

Once step 4 is out, will you be able to go the whole game on crush/love without either of you confessing?

Yes, as long as you tell the game you don’t want to progress the relationship. Even in Step 4 it won’t force you to officially get together.

Howdy, so in Step 4, there will be any Romance with Derek that is not part of any dlc?

He’s only a friend unless you get his romance story.

Will the step 4 in OL2 be one big step or are you considering moments?

Step 4 is just an epilogue in both games.

hi kind of a weird question but!! we know tht cliff doesn't start dating again but. wht abt flings? like does he ever do 1 night stands or anything? thank u!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope. Cliff has a very small interest in sex. If he’s not in a real relationship with a partner he’s crazy about it simply isn’t something he feels a need for, so one night stands wouldn’t even cross his mind.

sorry if you've already answered this, but i was wondering if there were plans for there to be bonus love interests in OL2 like how we have derek and baxter in OL1.

Maybe! There are side characters who could be given romance stories, but whether or not it will happen depends on funding and how long everything else takes to finish.

I don't know if i'm allowed to ask about ol2 here yet, if not u can ignore this or answer it later. My question is can you date one of them and be good friends with the other? I don't want to be strangers with the other bcs i love them both a lot :<

Yes you can!

what patreon level do i have to be to unlock the nsfw moment? im on the $5 one right now, will that give me access to the moment, or just access to the moment progress?

That’ll give you access! Tier 2 and anything higher allows the player to download it.

#our life #ask #gb patch #gb patch games #all projects #Our Life Beginnings & Always #Our Life: Now & Forever

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rigmarolling · 5 years ago

Text

Top 5 Things That Will Kill You In the Victorian Era

If you’ve ever spent more than two seconds with me, you know that I live and breathe the fog-choked air of Victorian London. All day. Every day of my life.

See, in many ways, the Victorians were the first version of us--overwhelmed by rapidly-changing technology (and its awful effect on the climate); dealing with incredible wealth gaps; grappling with rising crime and faster travel and out-of-control media and the whole, “God is dead, oh no” thing.

Also, everything was trying to kill you.

Like, literally almost everything.

From your clothes to your doctor to your canned food, here are the top five things that will kill you in the Victorian era.

5. Other Victorians

If the rise of penny dreadfuls (cheap magazines stuffed with horror stories for us morbidly-inclined goth types) was any indication, Victorians loved them some true crime.

And there was no shortage of subject matter to choose from: depending on where you ventured in London, at least, you could be subject to anything from pickpocketing to mugging to violent assault and, of course, murder.

There were a few reasons for this:

For one thing, the population in London alone increased by millions in the 19th century, and approximately no one was prepared for that. So, to accommodate the rapidly-booming population, the wealthy folks in charge reached out and lovingly ensured the masses of the disenfranchised poor were taken care of by redistributing resources and education and access to opportunities that improved lives on a both a personal and social level.

Lol, no, I’m totally kidding; they shoved them into slums and tenement buildings and pretended they didn’t exist.

So of course, there was a rise in crime, because if you have five kids and you can’t find gainful employment and your family will starve if you don’t steal that basket of food over there, or that purse that lady left sitting over THERE, what are you going to do? You’re going to steal the food and the purse to survive, Jean Valjean, I understand, I do.

Except the powers that be did NOT understand, and instead routinely espoused the idea that if people were poor, it was because they were morally bankrupt, or inherently bad, somehow, and the “criminal classes,” as they came to be known by the growing Victorian middle and upper-middle classes, were simply considered genetically bad to the bone and therefore undeserving of assistance.

Basically:

So ANYWAY.

Crime was on the rise and there were multiple efforts to stop it with varying degrees of success, but big city usually = big crime, especially when there’s a massive gap between the one percent-ers and THE REST OF US, WASHINGTON.

Ahem.

All that crime? The booming news industry loved it. The press ate it up and then spit it back out in salacious headlines that never even bothered with journalistic objectivity, like this gem:

I mean. Full disclosure: I, too, agree that cutting off a woman’s head, arms, and legs and then burning them is “awful, inhuman, & barbarous” but just...maybe...maybe tone it down? Just a bit?

No? Okay.

See, here’s the thing: crime sells. It always has. And papers went nuts with full illustrated spreads about the latest brutal murders so you could sit in your parlor and get anxiety poops thinking about how the butcher down the street looked at you funny the other day and oh, God, you’re probably next, oh God.

The most famous murderer of the era, was, of course, Jack the Ripper, which was just the orchestral climax of a hideously corrupted society that had bubbled into naught but a festering carbuncle, an ulcer upon the very soul of man, trussed up as a city of industry, but which is merely Salome, dancing with the Lamb’s head upon a platter and sending us all tumbling into a fiery pit.

....Ahem, again.

Some popular ways your fellow Victorians could kill you included: dueling (with swords but usually with revolvers), stabbing, garroting, and, probably the most popular method of the era, poisoning.

Speaking of which...

4. Anything dyed that hip shade of green

In 1775, a guy named Carl Wilhelm Scheele invented a new shade of green, cleverly called Scheele’s green, and it instantly became a hit. Pretty soon, manufacturers and tailors were dyeing everything this color.

Look at it. Bright, airy. Calls to mind a fresh, spring meadow. (What’s that, you ask? Well, before the Industrial Revolution belched out black smoke onto absolutely everything, there were these things called plants and grass and they were all over the place and you could frolic through them and it was very nice for your serotonin levels.)

I mean, listen, this isn’t really my color because anything vaguely yellow-ish makes my already yellow-ish skin look especially jaundiced, but it’s a lovely shade:

Besides using it to create beautiful dresses and tasteful waistcoats, they used it inside book covers:

And it was a super popular wallpaper color:

They had green candles and green cups and green kitchenwares and green paint.

But while Carl Wilhelm Scheele didn’t exactly murder anyone (even though he has three names like every serial killer ever), he sort of, accidentally, indirectly, kinda...did.

Because that springy dye contained every Victorian black widow’s favorite method to dispose of a troublesome husband: arsenic.

Scheele, of course, had no idea--no one did--so I’m fully exonerating him here, but the poison nonetheless started to take its toll.

Reports began to surface of kids getting sicker and sicker and then dying in their green wallpapered rooms; of fashionable ladies rocking those green dresses at balls and then ALSO getting sicker and sicker and breaking out in horrible sores before dying.

They even used this stuff to dye food green, so of course, anybody who tucked into Victorian green eggs and ham also, you know. Died.

And if they DIDN’T die, they got cancer, because if arsenic doesn’t kill you, it will give you cancer. And then kill you.

Eventually, as science advanced and went, “HEYO, there’s literal poison in this stuff,” consumers were like, “Well, shoot, this summer’s hottest beach shade just killed an entire boarding school,” and Scheele’s green finally fell out of favor.

It was, however, used as a pesticide up through the 1930s, so...way to use the...leftovers? I guess?

3. Your canned food

Hey, now that we’re on the topic of deadly chemicals being where they absolutely should not be, let’s talk about canned food.

In the Victorian era, it was the new Hot Thing (next to arsenic green). You mean I can can my food now? Like? Forever? Oh, only for a few months. Okay, cool. Still cool.

Above: Road trip snax.

Food preservation methods had existed long before canned meats and veggies and soups, but canned everything really started to gain traction around the middle of the 19th century, and people were stoked. Remember, the population exploded; people needed new methods of obtaining cheap food that didn’t spoil immediately. So: cans to the rescue!

Recycling hadn’t really been invented, though, so today, archaeologists constantly find giant Victorian trash pits filled with empty cans.

You know what also hadn’t been invented? Consumer health and safety boards.

So guess what was in the tin cans themselves?

No, no, don’t worry, it wasn’t arsenic.

It was lead.

Which, in case you weren’t aware, is also very, very bad for you.

So bad, in fact, that today, scientists are pretty sure lead-lined tins of canned food were partially responsible for the deaths on the disastrous Franklin Expedition, an ultimately futile trip to discover the Northwest Passage lead by Sir John Franklin in 1845. Every single man on board the two ships stranded in the Arctic died, and in the 1980s, when scientists discovered perfectly mummified bodies (GRAPHIC, if you don’t like that sort of thing, but awesome if you do) of some of the sailors, one of the mummies contained insane amounts of lead. They later tested the cans found scattered across the wreck site and whoops, they also contained insane amounts of lead.

Above: Some of the tin cans from the Franklin Expedition, which contained items like salted beef, vegetables, tea, lethal amounts of lead, and Chicken of the Sea.

Granted, other factors contributed to the Franklin deaths, like, you know, being stranded in the Arctic and starving to death, and also tuberculosis, but lead-lined canned food certainly didn’t help things along.

2. Your doctor

Here’s my advice if you’re in the Victorian era and you’re starting to feel sick: do not get sick. Just don’t. Because then that means you’ll have to go to the doctor. Which probably means you will die.

Hospitals in the 19th century were deadly. Often even more deadly than just staying at home, according to Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art. Nobody knew how to treat anything, really, because medical understanding of biology was in its infancy and antibiotics didn’t exist yet, so you were absolutely, definitely going to get some kind of infection the second you stepped foot in a Victorian hospital.

Above: The surgery, where nobody has any idea what they are doing, ever.

Doctors weren’t trying to kill you on purpose--they just didn’t know any better. And it super duper didn’t help that common treatments for everything from the common cold to tuberculosis included taking mercury (which kills you) and blood-letting, (which can also kill you) the tools for which are shown below:

Those might look like fun doodads for your astronomy class at Hogwarts, but they’re actually vials and a really, really sharp needle that pricks you until you bleed out a critically dangerous amount of blood into those vials.

The (ancient) school of thought behind blood-letting was that draining patients of “bad” blood would rebalance their “humours” and get rid of the icky thing that was making them sick. We might laugh at it now, but if you don’t know any better, logically, it makes sense.

Medically, oh my God, it’s the worst.

So if Doc didn’t bleed you to death, he might try surgery--done without anesthesia or antibiotics (until good old Dr. Lister came along--read The Butchering Art!), and then ship you and your amputated stump leg off to the hospital ward where, instead of healing, you’d get wheeled through hallways stained with every bodily fluid imaginable into rooms filled with people coughing up every bodily fluid imaginable, some of which would get into your leg stump, infect it, and then kill you dead.

“But what about medicine?” you ask. “Can’t I just take medicine?”

Sure! Just be aware that it definitely contains morphine and probably contains cocaine, or mercury, or arsenic, or sulfur, or pulverized bits of ancient Egyptian mummies (I am not kidding. True, the latter had started to fall out of favor in the 19th century, but, like. Stop).

Above: Hard drugs, but just for you.

You think I’m joking?

Above: PARTY TIME.

Sometimes, a doctor would just advise that you move to a “more temperate climate” like Rome or Spain if you were feeling chronically ill, which might help you get a tan and COULD help if you had sucky lungs, but eventually, you’d just die anyway, because what you really needed was a strong antibiotic or antiviral medication and the closest you were gonna get was Mrs. Hopplebopple’s Temperance Tonic, which was probably filled with ground up baby bones and just so much heroin.

And don’t even get me started on Victorian surgical tools:

Open wide.

1. Water

There are three rules in this life: don’t watch any Adam Sandler movies except for maybe Anger Management, don’t eat the yellow snow, and do not, ever, for any reason, ever drink water in Victorian England.

That’s because it was about as clean as a Victorian hospital.

Meaning it wasn’t. At all.

Victorian water--of the Thames variety--contained:

Cholera, one of the deadliest killers of the era and bad water’s favorite roommate.

Poop, human and otherwise, because a functioning sewer system? I don’t know her. (At least, not until the 1860s.)

Pee, human and otherwise, because nothing says, “Jolly Old England” like an open trench of piss rolling through the city.

Dead things, like animals, fish (which are animals, so why am I listing them as a separate thing?), and, occasionally, humans.

Chemicals, which spewed forth from the great factories in billowing, bubbling, belching rivers of sludge. (Ha! Omg, yes, I was an English major!)

The Thames was so filthy that Londoners called it “Monster Soup.”

Above: Same.

In 1855, scientist Michael Faraday (who was also kind of hot; tell me I’m wrong), wrote a letter to the Times about the disgusting state of the river:

"Near the bridges the feculence rolled up in clouds so dense that they were visible at the surface, even in water of this kind. ... The smell was very bad, and common to the whole of the water; it was the same as that which now comes up from the gully-holes in the streets; the whole river was for the time a real sewer."

Tl;dr: “It smelled like ass.”

In fact, it got so bad, so putrid, so horrifically clogged with every disgusting thing your mind and your butthole can possibly conjure up, that it lead to one of my favorite things to read about in the world: The Great Stink of 1858.

Yes, that’s the real name. I did not make that up. History is incredible.

Above: Summer vacation, 1858.

The summer of 1858 was miserably hot in London. And the Thames was miserably clogged with poop, and pee, and chemicals, and dead things, and, uh oh, cholera. During July and August that year, the smell wafting from the river was so offensive that Parliament was actually adjourned because everybody kept throwing up. Cholera devastated the city. The water was killing London.

Faced with either the prospect of living with a city-wide vomit-and-diarrhea smell for the rest of forever OR finally cleaning things up, the government actually did something right and chose the latter. They contracted civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette to overhaul the city’s sewer, to which Bazalgette, pinching his nose, responded, “FINALLY.”

Above: Joesph Bazalgette, savior of the London sewers and purveyor of a truly beautiful mustache.

Bazalgette proceeded to build the London sewer system still in use today. His efforts greatly reduced the number of cholera deaths, cleared the Thames of its Cronenberg-esque muck, and ensured that poop goes where it’s supposed to: way the hell out of HERE and way the hell under THERE.

Water sanitation still had a long way to go, though, which meant you either had to boil your water to kill the bacteria in it, or you could just drink alcohol instead, which was the safer option but which would also leave you very dehydrated and also, if imbibed excessively, would leave you very dead.

So really, you were doomed in some way no matter what you did, and if that isn’t the moral of the entire Victorian story, then I don’t know what is.

#victorian #listory

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ahappydnp · 4 years ago

Note

just curious u dont have to answer but since u have been in phandom forever do u regret stuff u did before

No, that’s a good question and I’m happy to be honest here! Yes, I do regret interacting and engaging with content that I shouldn’t have. The first time I engaged with (or even had heard of it) certain content, it was under the impression that dnp were ‘secretly homophobic straight bros making a mockery of actual gay people and they’re actually really awful and here’s a master doc to prove it’. So I went in ready to have my perceptions of them altered? Then quickly realized it...wasn’t that. (This was circa 2014ish and also the thing that made me get into the forum sites and start to engage with the community after 4 years of being a casual fan). But am I going to sit here and say that was the only time and that I haven’t seen archived posts/information I shouldn’t? No, that would be a lie.

Fandom culture, especially nonfiction, is complicated in that we’re used to consuming all information that is available. So it’s easy to just consume everything you come across without stopping to consider personal boundaries of its creators. So yes, I’ve definitely seen things that weren’t for my consumption. I’ve definitely engaged with things that should have remained private. However, I will say that I have never once directly engaged with dnp about those things. I didn’t really even engage with them in any context until relatively recently (I stayed firmly behind the 4th wall for most of my time here).

If I’m honest, I think my biggest regrets are some of the assumptions I made about them and their motives over the years. When TATINOF/TABINOF was announced I definitely was in the group of thinking they were “selling out”. I was frustrated and assumed the worst of them when they had only shown the opposite, that they were passionate and genuinely excited about the projects. I feel guilty that I assumed their motives had changed and they were going to become yet another youtuber who wanted a quick cash grab. (I especially felt awful when they reacted to the blacklash...that shit hurt). I remember Dan making that exam video in 2016 and me assuming he was trying to push out the old audience because the younger fans are the ones with expendable income and he just didn’t want us anymore. I remember thinking they would give up YouTube for the radio (lmaooo). In reference to my last post, I unfortunately was one of the ones who got mad at dnp for grouping us all in with those people who weren’t respecting their boundaries because I didn’t want to be associated with them (when I should have been empathetic that of course they couldn’t differentiate between who was doing what. All they knew was their community wasn’t respecting their wishes. (It felt like when the teacher yells at the whole class but you weren’t talking and now you’re resentful because you’re 12 and have a complex about authority figures).

And I definitely feel residual guilt about everything they’ve been through with the community. Even if I didn’t say anything to them directly, I still hate that they had those experiences. (Once again, it’s the whole class got yelled at and now I’m sad and want to fix it mentality). Sometimes I wish we as an audience could have a candid conversation with them about everything that’s happened and we could say some apologies and have some kind of resolution, but also that would involve digging a lot of old wounds back up for everyone and bringing things to light that maybe some people don’t know about? (It’s the counselor in me that’s like...let’s talk about this <3) BUT I do think they’ve forgiven A LOT and there’s not as much underlying resentment as some people like to believe.

#anon ask #long post #let me know if i should tag anything else #i feel bad blowing everyone’s dash up with my rambling saassdsada

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littlemulattokitten · 3 years ago

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Is writing cathartic or stressful for you?

Both. Writing is a compulsion and a hobby.

I got into fanfic really young (somewhere between 9 and 11) and it turned into a way to channel my already-existing habit of maladaptive daydreaming. And then the under-developed OCD would kick in and I'd have to write.

Not being able to write for 3 years really...messed with my head. My primary outlet for my primary coping mechanism just...stopped being something I was capable of. I could still do the daydreaming, and I did, often, but when I'd try to purge the dreams from my head, I couldn't.

For a while, I couldn't even use dreaming to plot out or plan Diary. I was so over-stressed by the story and the pressure of the rewrite project that I could barely stand to think about it. Nevermind play with it. My safe-spaces became old fic ideas for fandoms I'm no longer active in that I never planned to type out anyway.

And the more stress I faced in my day to day, the more I wished I could purge those emotions into other things. But everytime I'd sit down to write, I'd just stare at the screen. Maybe edit a few words here and there. But writing new words...they wouldn't come.

In the 3 years I was away from fandom, the most words I ever wrote at one time was 157. It took over an hour. A blink of the words flowing and then they were gone again and I felt worse.

It wasn't until right before the move, when my former therapist and I were talking about how I usually coped with stress in less time-consuming situations, that I brought up my long lost compulsive-hobby.

She told me, in the most jolly, unconcerned, and certain tone: "Oh it'll come back. You know that right?"

I told her how I had written something almost everyday of my life since middle school. That words and blocks had never really happened for longer than a few weeks. That despite my best efforts, nothing had made the words come back. They were gone and so was a massively defining part of who I was as a person. I couldn't describe my hobbies to people without a disclaimer.

"I'm a writer! Well...I used to be. I haven't written much lately. There's hundreds or maybe thousands of strangers on the internet who would get an email alert if I updated a story. Sometimes they tell me they miss me. But I can barely log into those sites long enough to tell them I miss them, and me, too."

After the move, I slept for a month. I had to wait to set my computer back up until I got a new desk. So I didn't do anything but eat, sleep, and heal.

Then I could play on my computer again.

I opened all my WIP docs, Scrivener, all my spreadsheet for Diary. Chapter 30 of Diary was mostly written, but incomplete. It had stopped somewhere vaguely around Tom giving her the reward hug after she becomes a parselmouth. That's where it had stalled out and frozen for almost 3 full years.

I backtracked a few hundred words, started rephrasing things. Tweaking the way the emotions came off. I changed how they talked to each other and how Hermione thought about the situation.

And then I wrote how Tom was feeling. And I checked my notes. Tom wants to charm a hair accessory to fix her curls. Hairstyle insp in locked Pin board. And I remembered what I was doing with the story as a whole and I wrote.

Since that day, I've written just over 40,000 words in Diary alone.

So while I can be cute and say "I love writing it's so much fun" that's bullshit. I do love writing. But not because it's fun or a neat hobby.

It's who I am. It's who I've been since middle school. And whether its a hobby forever or eventually something I do for money (*gives the Novel project a side eye*) it doesn't matter. I only sort of do this by choice. It's part of what I'm here to do, I think.

#stilleundregen #kyla says things #writing #this was longer winded than it needed to be #but #shrug #oh well #thanks for the ask lovely <3

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imgoingtocrash · 4 years ago

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Happy FFWF! What advice do you have for writers who are just starting out writing fanfic? It can be anything from the writing process itself, to learning how to post on AO3/tumblr/other sites, or even just encouraging words to remember!

Oh!!! I love this question! I’ve been reading and writing fic for over a decade now (jesus christ) and so hopefully I have some good advice!

Avoid self-deprecation in your tags and summary

I know. It’s tempting. You’re a new writer and it seems smarter to write “I’m bad at summaries!” so that no one can tell you that your summaries suck in the comments. But here’s the secret: sometimes a summary doesn’t have to be that complicated to be good, so you can “suck” and still technically have a decent summary.

That’s why the Trope Exactly What It Says On The Tin exists. If you’re writing a 5+1 fic, the summary can just be telling me what those 5+1 things are! If you’re writing that 2 characters are having a cuddle, just...tell me that’s what’s we’re here for. Obviously multichapter stories can be different, and for more plot-heavy fics you may want to be more elaborate, but in general, keeping it simple will ALWAYS be better and more attractive to fic readers than telling people you’re bad at something before they’ve even clicked on the link.

Don’t pressure yourself about updates.

Sometimes I’m writing a fic, and I’m stressed about it. I’m constantly thinking about how I haven’t updated it in forever, or I said I was writing it and never did, and maybe sometimes people ask me about it and I feel guilty. It happens.

But remember fic writing is for YOU. Number one, if you are writing what you want to be writing, you will have much more fun and a lot less stress.

Pre-write, if that helps you post more regularly. Write small fics. Post one long 20k fic to post all at once. However you write, just do it in a way that keeps it enjoyable rather than an obligation (or enjoyable while being an obligation). Most readers will be totally understanding (Because a lot of us are adults with jobs and kids and whatever else--yes, we exist--and we totally get that fic writing isn’t a full time job and we’re being given content for free.) And if they don’t, that’s too bad. You’re doing your thing and having fun and it’s not for the people that don’t appreciate it.

Have a basic grasp of formatting/tagging/etc.

This may take a while to hone, and that’s okay! It has somehow gotten both more and less complicated to participate in fandom with the rise of new sites and technologies. Things are easier to find, but the conventions fic writers and readers use change based on the site, and it’s important to know what they’re doing if you want their attention on your work.

Tagging is a big part of it--not all sites have this feature in the first place. (FFNet still doesn’t, and I don’t know about Wattpad.) Ao3 is where it’s easy to get lost in what to tag and what not to. First off, definitely research what other fandom participants are doing. Hell, ask them yourself! We all want to make finding fics easy, and the best way to do that is to make things easier on the tag wranglers by tagging what’s in the fic and using the tags to your advantage to tell us more about what the fic is about (and not talking in the tags so much, like we do on tumblr).

Another thing in this vein is pasting from, say, Google Docs into the Rich Text Editor on Ao3. If you’ve ever done it, you know things get screwy if you just copy, paste, and slap that publish button. One return key between paragraphs on Google Docs = 2 returns on Ao3. The periods at the end of certain sentences can get spaced out weird. And HTML in your summary is a beast of its own.

Learning these tricks and checking your fic before you publish can reduce these errors and give you a chance to Beta yourself, and help in the above of letting everyone else know that YOU KNOW how Ao3 works and that you’re “one of us”. (AKA: Someone whose fic I “trust” to not make those mistakes when I read it.)

Have fun!

I know it’s cheesy, but if you write what you enjoy and share it, there’s probably someone out there that also cares about it and wants to read it. And if there’s not...you made a thing! You wrote! You created! You did it! It’s a large hurdle to get over, sharing your work, and the fanfic archives are so, so better for all of us that have conquered it.

Also, I’ve found that if I enjoy myself and stay in my lane having fun, 95% of the comments are other people doing the same. There will always be some people who leave negative comments just because they like to be negative, but I’ve had really good luck in fandoms both large and small by just hanging out, leaving comments on the things I like, and supporting the people whose work I enjoy.

If you read this, I hope even a little of it was encouraging or helpful. These totally aren’t hard and fast rules, but they’ve helped me over the years to become a better fic writer, reader, and general participant in fandom.

#writing #Fanfic Writer Friday #Fanfic #joyful-soul-collector #asks

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treatian · 4 years ago

Text

The Chronicles of the Dark One: Breaking the Curse

Chapter 9: Birds and Bugs

Just because he was anticipating the breaking of the Curse didn't mean he was going to be stupid about it. There were things in his life that were important, things that he couldn't risk losing, and if a girl like Ashley Boyd could break into his shop, he had to assume others could as well. He'd disabled the camera so that he was safe, but the downside was that now he couldn't use it himself. So, his conclusion was: if it was important, it needed to be transferred elsewhere, somewhere he still considered safe. The morning after the robbery, he'd packed up Bae's shawl, Belle's chipped cup, and the long slim box that held his dagger. He'd gone home and taken those items with him. Now he had to decide what to do with them.

His house was a mess. It always had been. He had hazy memories of it being that way since his aunts died, which meant it had been that way since he'd arrived in Storybrooke. It didn't particularly bother him; he only lived in a few rooms. But it would have bothered Belle. She'd have set herself to cleaning it and keeping it organized. And so, he placed her cup nicely on a table that was more or less uncluttered, somewhere that was safe from his bad habits, a place he could see it every day, but it would appear to simply be a decoration to anyone else. Baelfire's shawl wasn't so much a shawl as it was a scrap of cloth. It looked like a rag, and when he reflected on the life that they'd lived before, he hated to admit it, but the truth was that it was a rag. He folded it as nicely as he could and then set it in a drawer in the kitchen reserved for the rags. It concealed itself.

But as for his dagger…that was going to be harder to hide. For now, it was stashed inside his pillowcase. He went to sleep feeling it beneath his head each night and woke each morning ever aware of its existence. There was something ironic and yet familiar about that. But the pillowcase wouldn't do, not forever. He needed to make alternative plans for it. Bae's shawl and Belle's cup were items he didn't want to lose. But losing the dagger was a lot more dangerous. And without magic, without the ability to constantly feel for it and be aware, he needed something much more creative for it.

He spent the next two days brainstorming ideas for where to hide the dagger and how to hide the dagger. Much like he'd found Maleficent if Regina was watching, he needed to come up with a time when he knew that she would be distracted. That should have been something easily handled, it should have been something he could rely on Dove for, but as of right now, he was having a hard time thinking he could rely on Dove for anything.

The previous night, he'd been in the shop when he'd felt the Earth shake, the power flicker, and heard the sounds of half a dozen car alarms blast to life. He'd sent Dove, who was still tailing Emma, to investigate, and he'd reported a few hours later that the explosion had been in one of the old town mines. Regina was using it as an excuse to finally shutter the mines. He'd thought nothing of it at the time. Something like that seemed too natural for it to be part of the Curse breaking. But he'd been shocked earlier today when Dove had sent him another message today. Henry had gone into the mines. Archie had gone with Emma and Graham to try and get Henry out of the mines when it appeared that somehow Archie and Henry had become trapped inside. Emma, along with half the town, was working to free the pair.

"And Regina is allowing such a thing?" he questioned through a quick text message.

"In all the confusion, I forgot to tell you. Emma Swan was the new deputy, appointed by Graham. Today's her first day."

That was all it had taken to anger him. He was paying Dove good money to watch the girl, paying him to be his eyes and ears. And he'd just "forgotten" to tell him that she'd found a job? A job working for the man that the Evil Queen shared her bed with? A job that gave her access to damn near anything and everything in Storybrooke?! If he'd had magic, Dove would have found himself on the other end of a tight fist. Fortunately for him, there wasn't magic. And he didn't dare show up at the mine site. He had a role to play. Being curious and caring were not words that were in Mr. Gold's dictionary. He couldn't show up at the scene because he wanted to watch, and he couldn't think of a reason to go down on his own.

Dove sent him messages throughout the day, messages that he must have thought he cared for. "Half the town is here working to free the boy." "They found an old shaft they're trying to use as access." "Boy and Doc pulled from the shaft." He didn't care for any of them except for the last one. "Going home," was all it had said. Going home? He nearly laughed out loud at that one. First, he'd forgotten to share crucial information. Then he'd decided to share unimportant information while being certain where the girl was. Now that she was going to be leaving, he was leaving her too. His thinking was backward. And now, to top the encounter off, he'd been sending messages to Dove telling him not to go, to keep watching the girl. Now that Henry was free, he needed to know what Regina's reaction was to her, what Henry wanted to do. But suddenly, Dove had stopped responding to him.

"Home," he'd said. It appeared that Dove needed some reminding of his job. Fortunately for him, he knew where Dove had disappeared to. And better yet, he owned the town, which meant that he happened to have a key to damn near everything, including Dove's apartment.

He sneered at the two useless puppets he kept in his shop, Marco's parents, not that he knew that at the moment. He kept that sneer the entire drive across town. He knocked once on the door, but there was no answer. He had a key. Legally he was the property owner, and if he was worried for the safety of his tenant, he was allowed access. For all he knew, the rush of water he heard coming through the pipes could have drowned out poor Dove's cries if he slipped in the shower. That would hold up in court.

Inside the apartment, he heard nothing but water running through the pipes. The shower was running. Dove's phone, listing his messages, and jacket were left haphazardly on the kitchen counter, along with a can of beer that appeared to have been pulled from the refrigerator. That was all good. That meant he'd be back before falling into bed.

And Dark Ones did love dramatic entrances.

He took a seat across the living room and waited for his time to come. He waited patiently. Patience was his gift, after all. Finally, the moment came. The water in the pipes stopped. There was a pause and then the sound of a door opening. Barely a second later, Dove strode out of the hallway, towel slung across his waist, still wet from the shower. He took it as an opportunity to turn the lamp by his chair on.

"Shit!" Dove cried, jumping nearly six feet and making a motion for his jacket. He preferred not to know, but he suspected he had a gun hidden there. "Fuck!" he cried again when he finally realized who it was. His shoulders relaxed a bit. He stepped away from his jacket. His chest continued to heave. "You scared the shit outta me."

He ignored the language. Nothing he hadn't heard or said before himself, though maybe not word for word. He refused, however, to smile gleefully at the result of his little surprise.

"Remind me why I hired you, Mr. Dove."

"What?"

"Why do I employ you?"

"Sir?"

"You see, I've been asking myself that question all day. Why do I hire you to give me necessary information, and why do I continue to pay you when you don't tell me that important information. Information like…like Emma Swan having a job."

Dove took a breath and shook his head, looking baffled. Did the boy not even understand what he'd done? "I only found out last night, after the mine explosion. Given the circumstances, I thought-"

"I don't pay you to think, Mr. Dove, I pay you to tell me what I do not know," he growled through his teeth. He held up Dove's cell phone, the one that had his unanswered messages on it. "I pay you to answer your phone!" he roared, throwing it at him. The boy managed to catch it before it could shatter on the wall behind him.

"I'm…I'm sorry. It was a long day up at the mines. I was filthy, I needed to-"

"You don't finish your work until I say you have," he interrupted, rising from his seat. "Emma Swan is your assignment. Instead of leaving her at the mine to handle your own…business, you left when she did. Do you even know where she is at this moment?"

"She was just as filthy as the rest of us. I assumed she'd rush right home and take a shower herself."

"This isn't a time for 'assuming,' Mr. Dove. This is a time for knowing. And I need to know everything about that girl. This is a warning…don't disappoint me again." And then, with his assistant good and rattled, he set his sights on the door and-

"Is there something going on?!" Dove shouted at him before he could leave.

He turned to face him again. "Something going on?"

"This is a sleepy town, Mr. Gold. And don't get me wrong, I love my job, but working for you is usually status quo, and now all of a sudden…this girl shows up in town. Storybrooke hasn't seen this much excitement since…I can't remember the last time it's ever seen this much excitement. It's just got me thinking there might be something going on…something you're not telling me."

"I was under the impression, Mr. Dove, that part of your employment included discretion. I don't ask you questions about where you get your information, and you don't ask me questions about the jobs that I have for you," he corrected. "If I'm wrong, perhaps it's time I found a new associate. One of your cousins, perhaps."

Dove stood up a little taller, a little prouder, a feat for someone wearing nothing but a canary yellow towel. "That won't be necessary, Mr. Gold. I'm just…curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat, Mr. Dove. Imagine what it'll do to a bird. Don't make me have to track you down again, Mr. Dove. I find it tedious work, the sort of work I'd prefer to pay you for."

Without another word, he left to go back to his car. But he didn't get far, barely halfway across the parking lot before he heard…crickets! Crickets! The sound caught him off guard, and for a few moments, he couldn't understand why until, off in the distance, he heard the clocktower chime the hour, a noise that was still foreign to him, and he realized. There had never been the sound of crickets in Storybrooke before. Coincidence? Like the mines? Or something more?

Angry as he was, he felt himself smile as he opened his door and slid into the driver's seat. First the clock, then David…now there were crickets. What next, he wondered. What next…

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Mr. Gold #Regina Mills #Evil Queen #Emma Swan #Henry Mills #Dr. Archie Hopper #jiminy cricket #ouat #ouat fanfic #fanfiction

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prongsmydeer · 5 years ago

Text

Ayesha Liveblogs Tiger King

“I think it would be fair to say that Carole is the Mother Teresa of cats” now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear

“I’d never been a person who had friends” statements like this always perplex me because surely there had to be ONE other person in however long you quantify childhood that you identified with. Like not one whole ass person? You’re not the only person who loves cats Carole

The juxtaposition between Carole Baskin’s “Animal Print for Animal Rights” and Joe Exotic’s “Tiger King underwear is our bestseller” is poetic cinema

Okay this isn’t a reflection of my opinions on this man but I Saw a Tiger is a good country ballad there I said it

“When I first met Joe, I was like a month out of high school” well that’s not good

[Joe Exotic voice] Some people have tigers to cope

Doc Antle has only been on screen for 30 seconds and already he has made himself memorable by directing the film crew

Is Bhagavan Antle Indian in some way or did he just have a really intense Eat Pray Love journey with his guru

Also is he really a doctor orrrrrrrrr

“I am out there in the forefront so known of being this guy that is in love with big cats and has them love him back” please don’t tell me this guy does anything weird to his animals

“People only care about saving what affects them”

“You can’t put a price on holding a baby tiger” but you did and apparently it’s $625

The fact that multiple tigers have had albinism is probably a sign of major inbreeding practices at these zoos

You know, even if I ate meat*, there is no way I would be able to handle any kind of early prep stage of it bc seeing these cow carcasses is A Lot

*If u r reading this I don’t care if u eat meat leave me alone

“Animals just wasn’t enough, okay? So then I started adding magic” well that took an unexpected turn

I don’t know if it’s for real fair to criticize every person who has brought a big cat out in a public venue/talk show because I know at least like Dave Sal/moni is always going “THESE ANIMALS MAKE TERRIBLE PETS”

As a sidenote from what I understand this Saff person keeps being deadnamed/misgendered throughout this documentary and I do not appreciate it

“I grew up a professional cowboy in a family of professional cowboys” every sentence on this show is a journey

WHO is letting their ONE-YEAR-OLD lay on top of a tiger cub I know you’re at a zoo but BRUH

“It’s going to be a small Waco” to say this ON THE NEWS

This 2 minute stretch of episode is all the PSA anyone ever needs to never own a gun

Well I think we can all agree that PETA is a fucking mess

God this is like battle of the people who are terrible at doing anything good for animals

“What do you carry that gun for?” “People” AHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!!!!?!?

“I sleep with an AK-47 under my mattress, loaded, ready to roll” WILL SOMEONE HELP THE U.S. OF A

I was warned about this show and yet I was still not prepared for the level of UNHINGED it would be

How in the FUCK does a place like this not have an on-site medic

“Why don’t you come back on another day” he said, after telling the public an employee had his arm taken off

“I am never gonna financially recover from this” SURE JOE THIS IS ABOUT YOU

To go back to work a WEEK after getting your arm amputated... BRUH

“Any law that you think’s unfair or unjustice, it is your obligation, it is your responsibility to stand up against that bullshit law” well Thomas Jefferson was a slaveowner so clearly the injustice thing was relative for him

Traditionally don’t drug addictions fuel people choosing extreme paths with their life rather than the other way around?

JKHGKJHGKJH this whole exchange:

Interviewer: What kind of doctor is he?

Maria: Mystical science.

Interviewer: Mystical science?

Maria, nodding: Yeah.

“How many wives does Doc Antle have?” I didn’t expect this but somehow it tracks

I’m gonna bet none of these people with subcontinental names have a single bit of South Asian heritage like okay “Moksha” and “Rajnee” did Bhagavan name you

On a more serious note: It’s really fucked up that these men keep meeting literal teenagers, making them their employees, and then also get into relationships with them. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough THIS IS NOT GOOD OR HEALTHY

It’s pretty weird that Doc Antle keeps emphasizing so frequently that one of his partners is Italian

“I’m gonna go be a yoga animal trainer” ah, white people bullshit

“Goodbye. Don’t fall in love with your boss.” Good advice, Dad

I was not expecting all this subcontinental imagery to get under my skin this badly but what’s your problem dude can’t u be normal for like a second

“You’re this garbage person, but if you listen to me, I’ll make you great” again this tracks but gross

Again, on a more serious note: if a partner ever talks to you this way please call a domestic abuse hotline

Not that India is at all in a good place right now but I personally ban Doc Antle from ever entering India. Banned. Forever. I will not be accepting constructive criticism at this time

“I didn’t really know any better” is a really good way of summarizing what all of these younger partners have been through

Wow Carole is really explaining this abuse issue succinctly

Antle’s indignation at being implied to be a cult leader despite the fact he is most definitely a cult leader

Joe’s story in his documentary is constantly “is this going to be a humanizing moment PSYCH it’s still terrible”

HOW IS THIS LEGAL PAY YOUR WORKERS A LIVING WAGE

Why is this husband-killing thing JUST A FOOTNOTE AT THE END OF THIS EPISODE OH MY GOD

We have deviated so far from the tiger thing oh my god

Why is the only man in this documentary who is faithful to his spouse the man that smuggled drugs inside of snakes

Every time I learn a new thing about a person in this documentary I have to reorient myself

This whole episode has been about this murder and I’m concerned that its title, “The Secret,” hasn’t even been revealed yet

GOD I take back what I said about I Saw Tiger, the concept of this song/music video for Here Kitty Kitty is so disturbing that this man deserves no credit whatsoever as a musician

CAROLE WHY ARE YOU GIGGLING ABOUT THE MEAT GRINDER IT’S NOT FUNNY

Well I don’t have much to say about this episode other than yikes

I guess if you’re really out to spite someone stealing their brand and posting exactly the opposite of everything they stand for is an effective if weird and petty way to do it

Do you think the whole throne footage moment was a “Frankenstein realizing what he has wrought” kind of thing for Kirkham

This is really like watching a sports game of two teams you can’t stand except the sport is murder and other miscellaneous crime

If we’re all being real with ourselves the documentary filmmakers themselves MUST have had some issues going on to be able to walk into this situation and not do anything about it

This series really seems to present a compelling case for why every major figure in this documentary has potentially committed at least one terrible crime

Ah there’s the judgment from the woman in Florida I guess it’s two crimes with one stone

God these poor animals they do not deserve anything happening to them

While obviously people are enticed by the prospect of someone they’re into having an animal JUST GET AN ALREADY DOMESTICATED ANIMAL LIKE DOMESTICATED CATS AND DOGS EXIST OH MY GOD DO NOT USE EXOTIC PETS AS DATE BAIT

It has been so long since we heard about Travis ngl I already forgot about him

Why is every single person in this show SO OFF THE WALLS I mean I know why but also WHY

This documentary is also a treatise in the flaws of the U.S. prison system and how it sets up people up to fail or re-offend upon release

Take a shot every time a middle-aged man in this show mentions that he casually bought himself a big cat as a teen

“Joe was the entertainment director.... by title” I don’t think this was meant to be a burn but what a burn

I am almost certain I WATCHED that Last Week Tonight episode during that election and if u told me that 4-5 years later I would be rewatching that clip in a documentary about this man’s journey to being convicted for murder then I cannot say I wouldn’t be surprised but I would probably believe it

Also I have to wonder what John Oliver thinks about being part of this

[“Beyonce?” voice] Shaun Majumder?

Sidenote: Until this exact moment I thought of Shaun Majumder as Ben Mulroney even though Brian Mulroney is white as hell I guess I have faceblindness but only for Canadian talkshow personalities

I have been aware of this before now but the fact you can buy a GUN at a Walmart what in the FUCK is U.S.A. doing

Man does this campaign manager really want to take ownership of anything Joe Exotic has ever done

Ngl I was wondering why someone who had at one point clearly had a lot of money seemed to have such poor dental care access but meth certainly does explain it

I mean people can be attracted to both men and women (hello) but since Joe was fuelling their drug addictions since they were teenagers attraction is at best a null factor and at worst an added layer of terrible to this whole mess

It’s hard to even respond to this in a meaningful way because this is so fucked up. Don’t own guns.

“That was a big fucking mistake,” he said, right after someone explained that he was driving large groups of people in an enclosed space in a busy city with wild animals that could maim or kill them

Padlock penls piercing really does not seem like a first date bombshell

“We went to dinner and he never went home” well if that doesn’t set you with a sense of foreboding

TWO MONTHS AFTER WHAT IN THE HELL OH MY GOD also I hope Dillon is okay

“It wasn’t about the animals anymore” you THINK

“It was sort of funny when they started but it’s gotten really dark” how meta

Of all the reasons Joe could’ve abandoned his zoo, I really didn’t think embezzlement would be what pushed him

“He won’t tell anyone where he’s at, not even me,” said Dial, with no acknowledgement of the fact that Joe is also theoretically still married and would maybe tell his husband???

Oh Dillon spotted??? Yikes get out dude

Take a shot every time a white person who really doesn’t understand where the word “karma” comes from starts talking about karma as if it is the Law of Revenge

The fact this man brings a film crew out with him while he’s on the run evading a federal investigation..... incomprehensible

“Joe just wanted to put it in somebody’s name and continue to be the tiger queen, I mean king,” really REALLY of all the reasons to object to Joe you’re going to choose homophobia wow

Is this about an attempt to have someone murdered or does something happen to Baskin it is very unclear

This documentary has an interesting format of switching focus from crime to crime to crime

“I’ve never been as proud of being married to anyone as I am being married to you” It’s weird to compliment your husband by comparing him to all your other husbands

How is the lesson for Jeff Lowe in this “let’s build another zoo” surely at that point it’s better to just cut your losses

[Garretson voice]: You should pay me for being a bro, dude

“I’m a libertarian, so technically, fuck the Feds,” I’ve never heard an intonation that better suits a conservative millennial

I mean I don’t think it was advisable but honestly why are people surprised Joe took the stand isn’t delusions of grandeur kind of his thing

Sometimes it’s just that they’ve added in other moments to break up the awful immoral crimes with just run of the mill douchebaggery like the nanny/gym thing huh

I guess the silver lining in this is that potentially these big cat zoos will shut down but like where do these animals who have been raised in captivity go??? I don’t trust anyone in this documentary to not exploit them in some way ugh

“Not a single animal benefited from this war,” correct, Saff

“I was wrapped up in having a zoo,” not really an excuse but ok

#tw: literally everything #ayesha says things #ayesha liveblogs tiger king #long post #u ever quarantine so hard u watch an entire docuseries in a night #no but seriously it would be hard to warn for everything but proceed with caution #liveblogging

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all-hail-the-witcher · 5 years ago

Note

You guys are friendship goals how do you make internet friends saph

okay story time this is the progression of mine and @papesdontsellthemselves friendship (complete with pictures)

so once upon a time (actually it was november of last year) i was a Sad high school senior drowning my sorrows in my tumblr account as newsies royalty while i stressed over my college applications and auditions. most of my pastimes included 1. writing shitty fics 2. reading good fics and 3. listening to bad music from 2012. and i happened to stumble upon some newsies pics as one does by Someone called @papesdontsellthemselves or, as was listed in the bio “Mikey”

nevertheless i binge read all of them at approximately 2am on a school night and probably fell asleep in ap euro the next morning. i very much liked his fics. they were slappy. and i started to stalk his account, as any normal person would.

and once or twice or several times, as any person who runs out of ideas does, he asked for prompt requests. and me, being a sad fangirl of this poor bois account, decided to send him some. (he still has one that he never answered) and he wrote a few of them. this one was my favorite go read it (i think i inspired this one)

and then one day i opened my tumblr acc and THIS was waiting for me:

and i think i was like KJHSJHASLHJGDSLKH WH

then you know some time went by as time does and we sort of awkwardly coexisted. i actually was within like 10 minutes of him for a college audition before we knew each other that was pretty wild.

and then

the fateful day

i was sitting in ap stats, bored out of my mind, and decided to ignore the lesson on z scores or whatever it was cause what the fuck else are you supposed to do in ap stats and go on tumblr (seriously do not take ap stats its terrible, its an acid trip, i barely passed that class) and i had a message waiting for me from the one and only @papesdontsellthemselves that said something like:

“lol sorry to bother you chief but how to you put your tag lists on your pics so they dont take forever ooo sorry!!”

and i was like ssksksksjskskjsk why is tumblr royalty @papesdontsellthemselves talking to me, a lowly peasant, and i may have freaked out for a hot sec but then i responded something like

“i have it in a google doc and then hit the down arrow and the return key really fast lol”

(only recently he revealed to me that he didnt actually give a shit about my tag list (r00d) and that he just wanted an excuse to talk to me and That was what he came up with and he screamed after he sent the message cause he was so scared. also he was in theater with his weird shoeless teacher not paying attention. we’re good students i promise.)

and then we got to Talking and we just didnt Stop talking? like i told him about jeff, my shitty english teacher and he told me about his theater teacher who made them do 9/11 shakespeare and we bonded and then we sent each other pictures of our dogs:

mikeys dog, leela (aka leeks Big Chonk) ^^

my dog, lacey ^^

and we also went through The Awkward Stage

but then

a miracle happened

twas christmas eve, about like idk 3pm and the two of us were Awkwardly Conversing as awkward internet friends do and i was getting changed for christmas eve dinner (cause my family Extra and you have to be Fancy or face the Wrath of the Elders) and I'm digging through my closet looking for something Presentable when discover The Pencil Skirt.

it twas a rather unsuspecting article, green wool with faint plaid stripes, and hand-me-down from some aunt, and i decided to put it on because i had limited fancy clothes and didnt wanna do a repeat from a previous year. so i added my One White Button Down Shirt and some black dance tights and called it a day.

so then me, being me, was messaging mikey and said (keep in mind were still practically strangers and had been barely talking for a week):

“wow i actually look kinda hot right now like maybe someone would bang me. like, I'm not into that, but I look good enough that someone might consider it.”

yes

me, an asexual, said that to a total stranger on the internet.

what were you Thinking saph.

truly, i have no idea.

but for some reason, instead of being scared away (like a normal sane person should be) mikey laughed and we began calling each other daddy. i dont know okay, it was a wild experience. I'm not sure if it actually happened.

so, my skirt became The Daddy Skirt, a tragic symbol of our strange friendship, and the two of us exited the Awkward Stage.

truly it was an exciting time:

and then we gave each other nicknames. the sappy kind not the cursed kind. mikey was bean cause he was a coffee bean and cocoa bean addict. and i was originally shrub and then bear and finally peanut. im not sure why. he isn't either.

boi also Literally guessed my real name. like straight up. and i was like “o word.” it was trippy.

AND THEN twas a cold february day when we decided to exchange faces. i send him a picture of me eating a christmas tree. he sent me a picture of him in his kitchen wearing sun glasses frat boy posing. truly iconic.

we also liked to look up weird things late at night and have revelations about dumb shit, as seen by these Unexplained Screenshots i have on my phone:

yes those are real screenshots

then we decided to finally talk on instagram instead of this hell site and i was exposed to mikeys finsta *shudder*

nothing much else interesting happened until: College *dun dun dunnnnnn*

(except for that one time i had a mental breakdown at 1am and he drove home form some party to ig call me and tell me about the time his dog ended up in solitary confinement. a true g)

so for Safety Reasons, i finally gave milky my number when i got to school and we started texting and Facetiming which was a Trip.

i also sent him a Box of Cursed Content. he tried to send the box back to me in october and it still hasn't arrived. we think it may be in antarctica.

and then we tried to coordinate to meet up like three (3) separate times before We Got Lucky, the Stars Aligned, and we held hands in the back of an a&f

(we also hugged in a nordstrom in like the Fancy Clothes Section and the lady thought we were definitely dating cause we took pics of us hugging in the fuckin mirror pillar. also i almost lost my wallet but thats another story.)

and next year our wild journey will continue (hopefully)

in conclusion i love mikey and this has been a sappy post

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