#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,

[heph]

The tech guy in movies

[gongyussy]

(✿◕‿◕) die (ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ✿)

[inkskinned]

you said you were stuck in a time loop, which was fine. i feel like late-stage capitalism has us all in a time loop, ammiright? you came barging in at 5:33. in the morning. i hadn't even processed the idea of coffee.

but you had this look of utter panic in your eyes. terror like the ocean. you grabbed my cheeks. im in a time loop.

i don't know why in movies the first reaction is to deny it. when someone is panicking like that, it's not appropriate to ask them to calm down. it didn't matter if i believed it, what mattered was that you believed it so much that it was consuming you.

so here we are. i pour you some of the dark roast. "you look like utter and entire hell," i say.

you push your fingers into your eyes. "you always say that."

i try to think of something funny to say that i wouldn't have said on previous time loops, but jokes don't land without the proper timing (lol). "remind me to think -"

"-yeah, of a joke that only works in the future. and before you say anything, i know you're pissed i just stole your punchline." you bolt the coffee, which is wild. it's very hot. you don't seem to notice.

i blow on mine to cool it down. i both am very pissed at you and also i can't see you in this amount of panic without wanting to help. but i'm also not really sure what we are, not since i saw you kiss her like that, no offense. it just was like, kind of rude when you knew i liked you.

and besides. i'm just like, barely a person. i write omegaverse fanfiction. i love the concept of a time loop, but what the fuck am i gonna do? send an alpha in there? i open my mouth.

you point at me. "you're about to ask why me. and then say some disparaging shit about yourself. i'm just a nerd who plays dnd or something. that self-own is slightly different each time." you sigh. "i know you think you can't really help me. i don't know who can help me. i only came to you because you fucking believe me." you check your watch, sigh, and throw your head back. you cover your eyes with one hand. "i've come here on 26 separate revolutions," you say. "you have believed me every time. and yeah, i have no idea how you fit into this but i just -" you sigh again. "i just like fucking talking to someone about it."

"do you need more cof-" i start, but you're already holding the empty cup out. i frown at it. "you're not getting any more until you promise not to bolt this one like an animal."

you laugh a little and sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. "okay, that's new dialogue. but to be fair to you, i'm not usually this rude. i'm still pretty new at all of this." you check your watch again. another sigh. i guess you're cruising for a personal best in the Sigh Olympics.

i almost tell you im not an NPC but i've played enough video games to know i'm very much an NPC. i pour you another cup. "so what happens in the loop?"

"really bad explosion." you mutter into the mug. you put your elbows on the table (rude) and bury your face in your arms like an angsty teenager. one hand floats up while you talk, because evidently you literally can't talk without your hands. "i have to save the day and there's this bomb and i have no bomb training and it keeps moving, you know."

"do i die?"

you peek up from your arms. "yeah. bigtime. you keep trying to run or stay or do anything and you always super die."

"oh."

"to be fair, like, everyone dies in it though.... so you're in good company."

i hate that you make me laugh. i hate that being around you always feels tingly and strange, this electric tension between us. something that is evidently (given how you stuck your tongue down a stranger's throat literally 3 days ago) (well. 3 for me) super one-sided. i take a sip of my coffee and close my eyes.

i die today, i guess. a little spark of panic starts at the top of my hands and starts whipping up my wrists.

"shit," you say. you look at your watch and jump to your feet. "i have to go. if i can come back, i will. i am still trying to figure out when is best to do everything, you know? the order of stuff. maybe morning isn't good for us."

i look up at you and think about how you keep kissing me in the back of my car and in alleyways and in the dark. and i can never fucking get a read on you. and i also think about how incredibly panicked you look. how broken. how long have you been doing this? "i don't want to die," i say.

you glance downwards. "well, you're not really dead, you'll come back in the loop."

"but i will have died." my hands are shaking. i am trying really hard to stay calm.

you push your hands through your hair again. "i really have to go. i will have this discussion with the next version of you, though. it is like, something i am thinking about."

"but i don't get a next version," i say. i don't really have the language for this, because i haven't had 26 tries with you. i only have my memories: you, a week ago. drunk and telling me you loved me in my ear. you, kissing her anyway. you, months ago, throwing up on my birthday, whispering to me i ruin everything i touch, always, over and over. please don't ask. i can't ever fucking have that be you.

i run my finger along the rim of the mug. "i don't want to die in this one."

you seem baffled by this. "i get that but - time will reset, you'll be fine, you won't even remember we talked about this."

"but i know now." i stand up too. "i have to live the rest of this day knowing i could die. knowing i probably am going to."

"you could always die, to be fair."

i feel my hands get out of control. "earlier, you said i always say a different insult about myself. what if you're just going through different parallel universes and those are all just different - but real - versions of myself? what if you're not in a time loop, you're in a fucking universe loop?"

"if it helps, i've wondered this too. also, you're hot in all of them. if that helps."

i point at you. "no flirting. i'm trying to figure out if i die today."

"who's flirting?" you catch my wild hands and give me that long, perfect smile. like we're in this together. "i won't let ya die." you check your watch and sigh again. "well. maybe not this time."

i grit my teeth. you are so not making quips at me while i try to explain the existential dread i'm having. "does the time loop reset if i fucking kill you?"

"honestly i don't know how long it continues after i die, because i just wake up. it could be that the loop goes until the explosion for everyone, and we're all in the loop, or it could be that when i die, the loop restarts. when i die i wake up, is all."

i pull away from you and stalk into the kitchen and start doing all 3 of my dishes. "okay, first, you know i was joking. and secondly, this is exactly my point. you don't know if this is just a parallel universe. maybe in the ones where you died, the explosion happened and nobody reset and it's just you travelling." i have to stop and push the heel of my palm into my eyeball. "... how often have you died?"

i look at you. you look at me. you give me this very sad, halfway smile and a little what can ya do shrug. something in that action seems so old and weary that i want to burst into tears.

"i have to go," you say. "really. for real. there's this family of five i save from getting into a car crash. and i know it's like oh but we're all gonna die in the explosion anyway, what's the point. and..." you shrug again. "it matters to me, is all. at least i saved them for now. at least i saved anything."

you pad over to me and wrap me in a tight hug. you always seem so tall against me. i feel your cheek rest against the top of my head for a moment. for a second, it's just us, and the space is warm, and my heart is a little broken hare.

you leave me there, and i stand in my stupid badly lit kitchen with my stupid mugs. i think about you. i start texting my mom that she needs to get out of the city, but it feels pointless.

i don't know what to do. tomorrow is the same day for you. but i have to prepare to die in my today.

[and-corn]

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

[throathole]

[kitskiis]

He keeps doing this I’m gonna cry

[iwasbored777]

I HATE HOW HARD I LAUGHED

[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)

[kwadlayns]

talk to me in french, talk to me in spanish 🍒

[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 ♡♡

[meanbossart]

Much to think about