#but this really happened

[jehcee]

Regulus: are you a serial killer?

James: no (laughs)

Regulus: then why are you being so nice to me? What do you want from me?

James: you. I want the whole you, the little you, the you who knows to trust, the you who knows he's loved, the you who's safe, the you who's happy, the you exactly the way you are.

Regulus: I... I-

James: yes you deserve all this love. Just wait until I prove this to you.

Regulus: *starts crying*

[deliciousnecks]

someone getting pissy about the virgin blood: how!? how is that blood any different? virginity is nothing but a social construct! me: chill, it’s just a comedy, monica.

[the-cookie-of-doom]

What Do You Do?

A 38-year-old man was at home with his wife, who was asleep in bed, when he answered the door to a gunman that fired multiple rounds into his torso. The victim is brought into the ER by EMS at 6:00am and rushed into surgery. He was shot multiple times, at least once through the abdomen, and is hemorrhaging. The patient needs a massive blood transfusion (qualified as 10+ units w/in 24 hours, or 5+ units w/in 4 hours) to survive. There is a national blood shortage, but the hospital is a level II trauma center that treats these kinds of patients all the time. 

What do you do? 

You put in the orders for a massive transfusion protocol and give the patient as much blood as it takes to get him through surgery. 

The patient survives the hours-long surgery, where he received 40 units of blood, equivalent to 40 peoples’ worth of blood donations (1 unit is ~1 pint of whole blood). He is transferred to the ICU at 13:00, where the nurses and doctors attempt to stabilize him. Unfortunately, the surgery failed to stop the bleeding, and the patient continues to hemorrhage internally. His stomach is visibly swollen and bruised from the build-up of blood. The patient also begins bleeding from his nose and mouth. He needs another massive transfusion to keep him alive while the nurses try to get him stable and stop the bleeding. 

What do you do? 

Give him the blood. He’s young, healthy, an innocent victim of a violent crime. We need to do everything we can to save his life. Full heroics. 

Or… 

He’s had 40 units already (equivalent to ~5 gallons) and is still hemorrhaging, even after surgery. It’s time to consult the family about stopping treatment. 

Due to the violent nature of the situation, the local Sheriff’s Department, and homicide detectives from LA, are refusing to allow visitors into the hospital. This includes the patient’s mother, who’s been downstairs all morning. Stopping treatment is out of the question, regardless of what the family wants. 

What do you do? 

Try to convince the doctors to stop treatment. We’ve done enough, and nothing is working. The blood is pooling in his abdomen and pouring out around him; there’s already a shortage, and we’re only wasting it at this point. Other patients who have a chance at survival need it more. 

The doctors refuse to give up on their patient. However, it’s been hours since the initial surgery, and the trauma surgeon refuses to take the patient back to the OR and stop the bleeding. He’s too unstable, and won’t survive the surgery a second time. But he’s still hemorrhaging in the ICU. 

What do you do? 

There’s nothing you can do. As a nurse, you have to follow the doctor’s orders. If there’s no family to call off treatment, and the attending physicians won’t, you must continue. 

At 2:30pm, the patient’s family is finally allowed to visit. She sees her son, unrecognizable in his bed, and tells the team around her: do whatever you can to save my baby. The patient has now received 60 units of blood (7.5 gallons), and the blood bank has informed the nurse that their supply is critically low. 

What do you do?

Call the social worker to counsel the family. We’ve been with this patient for hours, everyone in the room knows he’s not going to make it, but no one wants to be the one to say it. And now the hospital is running out of blood. 

It’s a weekend—there’s no social worker, and the mother won’t listen to anyone who says her son can’t be saved. The doctor puts in an order for more blood and platelets. You go down to the blood bank, where the lab technician sets down a unit of platelets and tells you: you know, there’s an 18-year-old car crash victim going into surgery right now, that could really use those platelets, and that’s my last bag. You think she’s joking; you wait for the, I’m just messing with you, here you go, but it never comes. You ask if she’s serious, and the look of frustration and exhaustion she gives you—because she’s been packaging up blood orders for you patient for the last 8 hours—tells you she’s deadly serious. The lab technician then tells you she’s not only out of platelets—it’s all gone. 

You ask her what to do. 

Is there an ethics committee that can make the decision of who deserves it more? No. Will the doctors and surgeons meet to argue over who deserves it more? No. Then how do you decide? It’s based off of who’s orders came in first, and it’s not the new 18-year-old trauma patient. 

What do you do?

The patient has received over 60 units of blood, has received the best treatment possible for the last 8 hours, and it didn’t make a difference. Give it to the child, who still has a fighting chance. 

What do I do? 

What if you find out that the patient was in a gang, and that’s why he was killed? The woman asleep in his bed wasn’t his wife—it was his on-again off-again girlfriend, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and because of his involvement, she’s now lying brain dead in a room down the hall? Who deserves the blood? 

Who told you the—african american—patient was in a gang? Was it the homicide detectives, investigating someone who is clearly the victim, even after the perpetrator was apprehended? Was it the “prison” tattoos all over the patient’s body? Was it the nurses, who knew and still know nothing about this patient, who are burnt out and angry over this blatant disregard for the lives of every other patient in the hospital, and any who might come in, and are reaching for any straw to justify that anger? 

Does it lessen the guilt to tell yourself the patient deserves to die, if it means a child will live?

Yes. We’ve done enough. 

Hospital protocol demands that the blood be dispensed on a first-come, first-served basis. 

I’ll take it to the OR anyway. It’s 20 feet from the ICU, no one has to know I was there. I’ll drop it on the desk and walk away. 

Taking the blood anywhere but to the patient is a violation of hospital protocol that will result in loss of job and license, very likely a civil lawsuit, and potentially criminal charges. Is this patient worth your life and livelihood?

…

Is any patient? 

…

No. 

You bring the blood cooler to the nurse. You tell her about the 18 year old going into surgery. She already knows. She looks exhausted as she takes the cooler from you. She looks like she wants to cry. Or scream. She puts it on her computer and doesn’t scan it yet, and you know: she still hopes she won’t have to give it. But she does, and it can only be delayed for so long. 

The nurse has to call the Red Cross for an emergency delivery. The truck is coming from Culver City, it will take another four hours, it’s not bringing enough to replenish what’s been lost, and the patient receives another 20 units of blood in the meantime. He’s still unstable. Still bleeding out. The mother is still in denial, and the doctors still refuse to stop treatment. But finally—the surgeon agrees to try again. After 12 hours of non-stop hemorrhage, after receiving more than 80 units of blood with nothing to show for it, the patient is taken back to the OR at 6:30pm. 

As they’re preparing to take him away, the mother stands outside the room. You offer a small comfort: we’ll do everything we can. I know this surgeon, you tell her, he wouldn’t agree to the surgery if he didn’t think there was a chance. I believe that. You do—you’ve witnessed him refuse surgery before, heard him tell grieving parents their children were dying, and there’s nothing anyone could do. You have to believe in him.

The mother grabs your hand, crying, and tells you that the patient—the one you’ve spent hours wishing would just die already, so this can all stop—is her baby boy, the one that always takes care of her, ever since she got out of surgery herself.

What kind of person am I, wishing for her son to die, so someone else’s son might live? Do I have the right to make that judgment? Can I live with the guilt, now that I have looked her in the eye, touched her suffering, offered her comfort as her world falls apart? 

Can you? 

I can. Because we tried. For so long, we tried, and it’s not right that one patient should use up all of the resources we had. How can I live with my part in this situation? By praying that the surgeon is able to save the patient’s life, because then it will at least have been worth it. 

Your shift ends right as the patient is taken into surgery. You walk with his mother, and the rest of her children, following the nurses and doctors to the OR. It feels like a funeral procession. Everyone is crying. We know he won’t make it, but we pray that he does. We search for meaning in our collective trauma. 

Then you clock out, get in your car, and drive home. You call your mother, a veteran ICU nurse, the only one who can understand your helplessness and hopelessness, and you cry. Away from your colleagues, away from the patients and their families, because at work, you need to be strong. You need to carry your patients’ fears—they put their lives in your hands, and you need to show you deserve their trust. That you will do everything in your power to save their life, and if you don’t believe it can or should be saved, you need to bury it deep, until you can break down far away from them. 

You don’t work the next day. You call the hospital in the morning—the patient, after receiving more than 10 gallons of blood, didn’t survive. 

You’re not surprised. 

Three other traumas came in within the span of a few hours, just before you collected that last bag of platelets. The 18-year-old, and two others, all in need of blood and blood products that we no longer have. 

The final consideration: where can that line be drawn? 

Who decides when enough is enough? 

What criteria? 

A woman gave birth three weeks ago. Post-partum hemorrhaging nearly killed her. For hours, she received massive transfusions. Buckets of blood, certainly more than her fair share. Again, a surgeon refused to take her back for surgery until she was stable, but there was no way to stabilize her without surgery. All night and into the next day, bucket after bucket after bucket of blood was transfused, until finally, she went into surgery for a hysterectomy. After that: she was fine. She survived, and her baby got to go home with a mother. 

But when should the transfusions have stopped? After 10 units? 20 units? What if a patient only needs one more, and that will be the one that makes a difference, but protocol dictates you stop treatment? 

What do you do?

[perrieedwards]

i feel like people are skimming over the uk riots in a way that makes me want to tear my hair out. muslims in the uk are in active danger. immigrants in the uk are in active danger. refugees in the uk are in active danger. people of colour in the uk are in active danger. asian communities in the uk are in active danger. black communities in the uk are in active danger.

there are massive far right riots throughout the country right now and people like fucking elon musk and nigel farage are inciting it and still have a platform to speak. people have used three young girls deaths, people's genuine grief in southport, to try and gain traction for their own racist bullshit and it's working.

a lot of refugee charities have been forced to close leaving many people without support, homes, funding, food, etc. if you aren't able to donate please consider sending a message via the conversation over borders campaign! it will send a hopeful, welcoming letter to a refugee in the uk. there is also a guide to staying safe here.

please do your own research and donate to refugee charities, anti-islamophobia charities, mosques who are trying to rebuild after being destroyed, counter protesters, here are some i've heard positive things about but the list is extensive; southport strong together (support for the southport victims and their families), southport mosque rebuilding, riot repair fund, middlesbrough vulnerable residents, nasir mosque rebuilding, hull help for refugees, bristol welcomes migrants,

[kensatou]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[and-corn]

shoutout to the "foolproof" bread recipe I fucked up entirely for inspiring this

[makenna-made-this]

Okkkkkk so where is Chicken Miku?

Anon the way i dropped everything when i saw this

HATSUNE BEAK-U

(based on the Onagadori chicken breed)

[throathole]

[guhhhhhhhhhhh]

Man.... tumblr really has changed. Someone filmed themself having gay sex on the senate hearing room floor and I haven't seen a single post about it

[annluvazzel]

[AU in which neither of them becomes a pro-hero part 2]

•

Someone needs to say this to Deku but in the meantime I'll do it myself ♡♡

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[meanbossart]

Much to think about

[blackkatdraws2]

[⚠️The Amazing Digital Circus SPOILERS] This episode was interesting!

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[hattersarts]

im already at the south downs cottage guys, catch up

[musubiki]

my favorite fields of mistria boys 🥰