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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

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Cigna’s nopeinator

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THURSDAY (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Cigna – like all private health insurers – has two contradictory imperatives:

To keep its customers healthy; and

To make as much money for its shareholders as is possible.

Now, there's a hypothetical way to resolve these contradictions, a story much beloved by advocates of America's wasteful, cruel, inefficient private health industry: "If health is a "market," then a health insurer that fails to keep its customers healthy will lose those customers and thus make less for its shareholders." In this thought-experiment, Cigna will "find an equilibrium" between spending money to keep its customers healthy, thus retaining their business, and also "seeking efficiencies" to create a standard of care that's cost-effective.

But health care isn't a market. Most of us get our health-care through our employers, who offer small handful of options that nevertheless manage to be so complex in their particulars that they're impossible to directly compare, and somehow all end up not covering the things we need them for. Oh, and you can only change insurers once or twice per year, and doing so incurs savage switching costs, like losing access to your family doctor and specialists providers.

Cigna – like other health insurers – is "too big to care." It doesn't have to worry about losing your business, so it grows progressively less interested in even pretending to keep you healthy.

The most important way for an insurer to protect its profits at the expense of your health is to deny care that your doctor believes you need. Cigna has transformed itself into a care-denying assembly line.

Dr Debby Day is a Cigna whistleblower. Dr Day was a Cigna medical director, charged with reviewing denied cases, a job she held for 20 years. In 2022, she was forced out by Cigna. Writing for Propublica and The Capitol Forum, Patrick Rucker and David Armstrong tell her story, revealing the true "equilibrium" that Cigna has found:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-medical-director-doctor-patient-preapproval-denials-insurance

Dr Day took her job seriously. Early in her career, she discovered a pattern of claims from doctors for an expensive therapy called intravenous immunoglobulin in cases where this made no medical sense. Dr Day reviewed the scientific literature on IVIG and developed a Cigna-wide policy for its use that saved the company millions of dollars.

This is how it's supposed to work: insurers (whether private or public) should permit all the medically necessary interventions and deny interventions that aren't supported by evidence, and they should determine the difference through internal reviewers who are treated as independent experts.

But as the competitive landscape for US healthcare dwindled – and as Cigna bought out more parts of its supply chain and merged with more of its major rivals – the company became uniquely focused on denying claims, irrespective of their medical merit.

In Dr Day's story, the turning point came when Cinga outsourced pre-approvals to registered nurses in the Philippines. Legally, a nurse can approve a claim, but only an MD can deny a claim. So Dr Day and her colleagues would have to sign off when a nurse deemed a procedure, therapy or drug to be medically unnecessary.

This is a complex determination to make, even under ideal circumstances, but Cigna's Filipino outsource partners were far from ideal. Dr Day found that nurses were "sloppy" – they'd confuse a mother with her newborn baby and deny care on that grounds, or confuse an injured hip with an injured neck and deny permission for an ultrasound. Dr Day reviewed a claim for a test that was denied because STI tests weren't "medically necessary" – but the patient's doctor had applied for a test to diagnose a toenail fungus, not an STI.

Even if the nurses' evaluations had been careful, Dr Day wanted to conduct her own, thorough investigation before overriding another doctor's judgment about the care that doctor's patient warranted. When a nurse recommended denying care "for a cancer patient or a sick baby," Dr Day would research medical guidelines, read studies and review the patient's record before signing off on the recommendation.

This was how the claims denial process is said to work, but it's not how it was supposed to work. Dr Day was markedly slower than her peers, who would "click and close" claims by pasting the nurses' own rationale for denying the claim into the relevant form, acting as a rubber-stamp rather than a skilled reviewer.

Dr Day knew she was slower than her peers. Cigna made sure of that, producing a "productivity dashboard" that scored doctors based on "handle time," which Cigna describes as the average time its doctors spend on different kinds of claims. But Dr Day and other Cigna sources say that this was a maximum, not an average – a way of disciplining doctors.

These were not long times. If a doctor asked Cigna not to discharge their patient from hospital care and a nurse denied that claim, the doctor reviewing that claim was supposed to spend not more than 4.5 minutes on their review. Other timelines were even more aggressive: many denials of prescription drugs were meant to be resolved in fewer than two minutes.

Cigna told Propublica and The Capitol Forum that its productivity scores weren't based on a simple calculation about whether its MD reviewers were hitting these brutal processing time targets, describing the scores as a proprietary mix of factors that reflected a nuanced view of care. But when Propublica and The Capitol Forum created a crude algorithm to generate scores by comparing a doctor's performance relative to the company's targets, they found the results fit very neatly into the actual scores that Cigna assigned to its docs:

The newsrooms’ formula accurately reproduced the scores of 87% of the Cigna doctors listed; the scores of all but one of the rest fell within 1 to 2 percentage points of the number generated by this formula. When asked about this formula, Cigna said it may be inaccurate but didn’t elaborate.

As Dr Day slipped lower on the productivity chart, her bosses pressured her bring her score up (Day recorded her phone calls and saved her emails, and the reporters verified them). Among other things, Dr Day's boss made it clear that her annual bonus and stock options were contingent on her making quota.

Cigna denies all of this. They smeared Dr Day as a "disgruntled former employee" (as though that has any bearing on the truthfulness of her account), and declined to explain the discrepancies between Dr Day's accusations and Cigna's bland denials.

This isn't new for Cigna. Last year, Propublica and Capitol Forum revealed the existence of an algorithmic claims denial system that allowed its doctors to bulk-deny claims in as little as 1.2 seconds:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

Cigna insisted that this was a mischaracterization, saying the system existed to speed up the approval of claims, despite the first-hand accounts of Cigna's own doctors and the doctors whose care recommendations were blocked by the system. One Cigna doctor used this system to "review" and deny 60,000 claims in one month.

Beyond serving as an indictment of the US for-profit health industry, and of Cigna's business practices, this is also a cautionary tale about the idea that critical AI applications can be resolved with "humans in the loop."

AI pitchmen claim that even unreliable AI can be fixed by adding a "human in the loop" that reviews the AI's judgments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

In this world, the AI is an assistant to the human. For example, a radiologist might have an AI double-check their assessments of chest X-rays, and revisit those X-rays where the AI's assessment didn't match their own. This robot-assisted-human configuration is called a "centaur."

In reality, "human in the loop" is almost always a reverse-centaur. If the hospital buys an AI, fires half its radiologists and orders the remainder to review the AI's superhuman assessments of chest X-rays, that's not an AI assisted radiologist, that's a radiologist-assisted AI. Accuracy goes down, but so do costs. That's the bet that AI investors are making.

Many AI applications turn out not to even be "AI" – they're just low-waged workers in an overseas call-center pretending to be an algorithm (some Indian techies joke that AI stands for "absent Indians"). That was the case with Amazon's Grab and Go stores where, supposedly, AI-enabled cameras counted up all the things you put in your shopping basket and automatically billed you for them. In reality, the cameras were connected to Indian call-centers where low-waged workers made those assessments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

This Potemkin AI represents an intermediate step between outsourcing and AI. Over the past three decades, the growth of cheap telecommunications and logistics systems let corporations outsource customer service to low-waged offshore workers. The corporations used the excuse that these subcontractors were far from the firm and its customers to deny them any agency, giving them rigid scripts and procedures to follow.

This was a very usefully dysfunctional system. As a customer with a complaint, you would call the customer service line, wait for a long time on hold, spend an interminable time working through a proscribed claims-handling process with a rep who was prohibited from diverging from that process. That process nearly always ended with you being told that nothing could be done.

At that point, a large number of customers would have given up on getting a refund, exchange or credit. The money paid out to the few customers who were stubborn or angry enough to karen their way to a supervisor and get something out of the company amounted to pennies, relative to the sums the company reaped by ripping off the rest.

The Amazon Grab and Go workers were humans in robot suits, but these customer service reps were robots in human suits. The software told them what to say, and they said it, and all they were allowed to say was what appeared on their screens. They were reverse centaurs, serving as the human faces of the intransigent robots programmed by monopolists that were too big to care.

AI is the final stage of this progression: robots without the human suits. The AI turns its "human in the loop" into a "moral crumple zone," which Madeleine Clare Elish describes as "a component that bears the brunt of the moral and legal responsibilities when the overall system malfunctions":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The Filipino nurses in the Cigna system are an avoidable expense. As Cigna's own dabbling in algorithmic claim-denial shows, they can be jettisoned in favor of a system that uses productivity dashboards and other bossware to push doctors to robosign hundreds or thousands of denials per day, on the pretense that these denials were "reviewed" by a licensed physician.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

#pluralistic #cigna #computer says no #bossware #moral crumple zones #medicare for all #m4a #whistleblowers #dr debby day #Madeleine Clare Elish #automation #ai #outsourcing #human in the loop #humans in the loop

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whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst · 7 months ago

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My Five Headcanons for Beyond Evil (because I apparently just enjoy 🎶 pain and suffering 🎶)

1.) It’s almost five years before Dongsik can go visit Jeongje in the mental institution on his own. He’s learned what the limits of his mercy are, and so for those first five years he brings people with him when he goes. It’s usually just him and Jihwa, so it’s not bad; they sit together in an atrium open to visitors and talk for a while about what’s new in Manyang while Jeongje sketches. During one particularly bad day, Juwon’s lingering insecurity and guilt complex makes him confront Dongsik over whether his own offers to come along to these visits have been rejected because it would be Dongsik sitting with two reminders of Yuyeon’s death: the son of the man who ran over his sister, and the other man who ran over his sister. Dongsik explains (gently) that his worry is over triggers of a different kind. Because back when they were still flirting with (investigating) each other, he’d called in a few favors to figure out certain sealed parts of Juwon’s family history. During visiting hours, the atrium is full of institutionalized women who are about his mother’s age, as well as their visiting families.

2.) Kwon Hyuk is a survivor. Ambition requires adaptability. He bounces back from setbacks and disappointments (like his mentor/father figure), and he cuts people out of his life if they threaten his progress forward (see: previous). Rich people are tools that can be used or discarded along the way, except for one (1) poor little rich boy with a bad attitude who nevertheless starts calling him hyung one day when he’s fourteen. So while it doesn’t make sense for his career to continue a relationship with a demoted officer who abandons ambition and voluntarily (???) gives up one bad job in a small town for a worse job in a smaller town, deep down Kwon Hyuk knows that he’s hanging on to Han Juwon (hyung’s rules, nonnegotiable, die mad about it Juwonnie).

3.) The first time Juwon laughs—like, fully and genuinely laughs—in front of Dongsik is when they’re at the Chief’s lake-house one evening in early spring. They’ve had a couple of drinks and Dongsik is trying to show a cringing Juwon his interpretation of a Stray Kids dance choreo out at the edge of the water when he accidentally trips over his own fishing line. He stumbles for a few steps then star-fishes into the muddiest part of the water half way through the chorus, but the water’s shallow so he surfaces fast like a playful dog, shaking his hair out cheerfully. He’s just opening his mouth to claim it’s all part of the dance routine when he hears a soft sound from behind him. Juwon has waded into the water with a hand extended to help him up, and he’s laughing, and Dongsik finds himself at a rare loss for words. Juwon’s face is lit up, eyes scrunched and shining, with one arm pressed over his mouth, like he’s used to muffling the sound. So naturally, when Dongsik accepts the outstretched hand and pulls himself up, his next move is to gently tug Juwon’s other arm away from his face so he can get the full view. He has a mental picture of each person he loves, here and gone alike, and for the rest of his life the picture of Juwon that exists in his mind’s eye is of this moment, Juwon standing in front of him calf-deep in muddy water and laughing breathlessly, enveloped in the golden hour haze of the sun setting behind him.

4.) Jihoon accidentally becomes the mayor of Manyang.

5.) Once Han Gihwan finally dies, his life insurance payout is sent to Juwon, who goes wandering in the reeds for a few hours. Dongsik sits in his car on a hill nearby, giving space but making sure Juwon doesn’t ever fully disappear from his sight, and answering Juwon’s phone to field calls on his behalf. Juwon eventually comes back to the car and tells Dongsik that he’s going to use the money as a foundation for a women’s shelter. Dongsik approves, and names the shelter Balsam Flower Home.

#whomst #beyond evil #jwds

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morbidology · 2 months ago

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Tina Watson, born Christina Mae Thomas, was a 26-year-old woman from Alabama who had recently married Gabe Watson, her college sweetheart. The couple had a shared interest in scuba diving, and they chose the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, as the perfect destination to kick off their new life together. Gabe, an experienced diver, had over 50 dives under his belt, while Tina was relatively new to the sport.

On October 22, 2003, the couple joined a group of divers for an expedition at a site called the SS Yongala, a shipwreck popular among divers. According to Gabe Watson, shortly after the dive began, Tina began to experience difficulties. Gabe later claimed that Tina panicked and knocked his mask off, causing him to swim to the surface to get help. When he returned, he said, Tina was already unconscious on the ocean floor.

Tina was rescued by another diver and brought to the surface, where attempts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful. She was pronounced dead on the scene, and what had begun as a dream honeymoon had turned into an unimaginable nightmare.

Tina’s death was initially ruled an accident, attributed to drowning and possible inexperience with diving. However, as the investigation progressed, authorities began to suspect foul play. Witnesses reported seeing Gabe Watson act unusually during the dive, and questions were raised about the couple’s relationship and the circumstances leading up to Tina’s death.

The most damning evidence against Gabe Watson came from Tina’s autopsy, which suggested that her death might not have been accidental. It was determined that Tina’s air supply had been turned off during the dive, and her body was found in an area where the current was not strong enough to have caused the kind of panic that Gabe described. Additionally, investigators discovered that Gabe had increased Tina’s life insurance policy shortly before the wedding, with himself as the primary beneficiary.

Furthermore, fellow diver, Dr Stanley Stutz told authorities that he had witnessed David giving Christina a “bear hug” as she was flailing in the water, clearly distressed, before he saw David reappear at the surface as Christina sunk to the bottom. Another diver, Gary Stempler, snapped the disturbing above photograph which shows Christina lying on the bottom of the ocean. The photos were developed a few weeks after her death.

In 2008, five years after Tina's death, Gabe Watson was charged with her murder by Australian authorities. Watson agreed to return to Australia to face the charges, and in 2009, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, claiming that he had failed to fulfill his duty as her dive buddy. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, a sentence that many, including Tina’s family, felt was shockingly lenient.

Following his release from prison in Australia, Gabe Watson returned to the United States, where he faced additional charges of murder in Alabama. U.S. prosecutors argued that Watson had plotted to kill Tina in order to collect on her life insurance, and they sought to try him for capital murder.

The case drew significant media attention, with debates over whether Watson should be tried again for the same crime he had already been convicted of in Australia. In 2012, the Alabama judge overseeing the case dismissed the charges due to insufficient evidence, concluding that there was no proof that Watson had intentionally killed his wife.

#Tina Watson #True Crime #Bizarre #Strange #Morbid

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wolfgang1097 · 2 months ago

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What's up folks? Since today was just another do-nothing day, I decided to share this out of sheer boredom:

I will admit, the following image is actually pretty adorable:

Seriously, that is so freak'n adorable, yet also rather sus at the same time because really Black? Really? As much as I find Black hugging the "used car salesman" rather cute, it's also really weird. Plus, unbeknownst to Black, the so-called "used car salesman" is actually White, who pulls another callous prank on Black (WARNING: SPOILER IN PROGRESS) by selling him what appeared to be a bullet and fireproof automobile, naturally Black accepts the offer and, of course, it's a trap.

See. (Holy crap, that's gotta hurt.)

Black, you should call Geico (not Gecko, duh) in regards to the gouged windshield in your vehicle. A fifteen minute call could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

These images were taken from the strip "Armor Dilly," from "Missions of Madness," which is a reprint of "The Fourth Declassified Files of Spy vs. Spy." I do not claim ownership of any content. Spy vs. Spy belongs to the defunct MAD magazine and Antonio Prohias.

#spy vs spy #black spy #white spy #antonio prohias #spy vs spy paperbacks #mad magazine #used car salesman #black should call geico #he'll probably save 15% or more on his car insurance #I did in fact make a slight reference to the early geico gecko commercials from the late 90s and very early 2000s #either way just look at the gouge in his windshield #that's gonna be expensive AF to repair #I cannot get over how cute it was when black straight up hugged the “salesman”#at the same time it was also rather sus...especially considering that he wasn't even aware that the “salesman” was white in disguise

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deluxewhump · 9 months ago

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The Scry

Ch 12: My Treat

CW: whumpee with powers, medical trauma mention, unmedicated noncon surgery mention, medical whump vibes but nothing explicit

Carlo was asked to dinner in a dimly lit downtown restaurant by the neurosurgeon who had slipped him a cryptic note two weeks ago. It wasn’t their first meeting, but he had the feeling it was the important one, the one where he’d be asked if they were moving forward or not.

He’d looked the guy up extensively before agreeing to meet him that first time. He’d found his credentials, mentions of his attendance at Stanford and then Johns Hopkins, a photograph of him as a younger man in a white coat being awarded the Clinical Science Award for an abstract he’d published on spinal deformities in 1996. After that there were publications, an award in ‘08, a glossy feature in a local magazine about top physicians.

I can help, he’d said when Carlo finally called him one Friday night when Max and Ingrid were out. If it’s what you want. He hadn’t even known about the sale, that Spartan was shuffling them off to some other fate in a few short weeks. But it only made his offer sweeter. He could take the power out of him, extract it from his brain matter like a coiled snake. It was separate from anything else, he said, and he would still be perfectly himself without it, just sans scrying powers. With no special ability, he would be free. What use would he be to anyone?

Carlo wanted desperately to ask Max if he thought he could get in legal trouble for this, if the company he’d been sold to or even the government could sue him, charge him, or worse. But Max didn’t know where he was. He’d left the office at midday while Max was at lunch with Eddie and Alex, leaving his own cryptic note behind.

“Tell me about your expectations,” Dr Holstrom said in his calculated, velvet way. There was a hint of an accent on his consonants, almost undetectable. Carlo couldn't tell what it was anyway. Something Scandinavian?

He took a sip of the wine the doctor had ordered for them, a dry red that sucked his tongue and warmed his belly. “I want to be rid of all unnatural abilities,” he said plainly. “I want to be left alone.”

The doctor set his napkin onto his plate and sat back thoughtfully, apparently finished. Carlo took another bite of risotto. The food here was remarkable, unlike anything he’d ever remembered having.

“Interesting you use the word unnatural.”

“Supernatural. Unexplainable. Whatever.”

The doctor smiled serenely at him. “In any event. You want to be unremarkable.”

“I don’t want to be an asset. If I am not a precognitive, they can’t claim me. No one can.”

“What will you be when I remove that ability for you?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“How will you see yourself? You’ve been something coveted and studied much of your life.”

“And because of it I have no freedom,” he shot back, feeling his face grow hot with annoyance, possibly aided by the wine. For a man who claimed to have irreconcilable differences in opinion to Martin Olsen, he was really starting to remind him of him. “No autonomy. No life. I told you what it was like. And that wasn’t even half of it. I’ve been treated more like a human being by some guy who sells insurance than I ever was with the US Government.”

Dr Holstrom nodded sympathetically. “Oh, I know. They aren’t allowed to treat lab mice the way they treat you precognitives, do you know that? Haven’t been for decades. And it’s not that they don’t know better. It’s that there’s no legislation to stay their eager little hands. Ethics boards slow progress. Bureaucracy clogs the machines. What I’m going to do to you will be absolutely painless, by the way. I thought you might ask, but you didn’t.”

He shrugged. Standard anesthesia didn’t work on precogs, it turned out. He’d never been told, but according to Dr Holstrom, that was the reason they didn’t give him any at the research facilities. This man claimed to have a solution, a secret sauce he’d put together himself that was going to make the whole thing pain-free.

“With any luck, you won’t feel a thing. I wanted to reassure you of that right away. You have some hefty medical trauma, I assume, being what you are. I’d prefer you get no more of it from my care.”

Stubbornly, Carlo forked the rest of the risotto into his mouth. The memories this was threatening to dredge up were enough to put him off it, but it was delicious and expensive, and he wanted to finish. He’d thank this stranger once he proved to be telling the truth.

“Carlo,” said the doctor, sitting back up so his elbows grazed the tablecloth. “I wonder if you shouldn’t tell your former user where you are… It sounds like you two were close, and I’m sure he’s worried about you.”

“I’m sure he is,” Carlo agreed, satisfied with his dinner and now determined to polish off the wine. The stem was so thin it was difficult to grasp, something that would surely break so easily it was impractical. Wealthy people love impracticality, he knew. They are so used to it they don’t even see how glaring it is.

“Would you feel better if you called him and told him where you are? Told him who I am? I could even speak to him, if you like.”

Carlo shook his head. “I left a note.”

“A very unspecific note, isn't that right?”

“It’s really for the best. He’d try to interfere. He means well, but… he’d say this was dangerous, medically risky… he’d get lawyers involved and it would take too much time. And then it’d be too late. He can’t help it, it’s what he does all day.” Carlo shrugged, like it was neither here nor there to him how Max was about him.

In truth, it felt like a gunshot wound every time he thought of Max Kelly’s face, or voice, or house, or office. The thought of Max going home in the afternoons without him, of his bed lying empty up there in the little room under the eaves, of how he’d voluntarily left the only person in recent memory who’d ever cared about him, shown him kindness… and not even told him why.

“He’s protective of you.”

Carlo lifted his eyes over the table to Dr Holstrom’s. “Sure.”

“Well, maybe you’re right.” He smiled. “ Maybe it’s best that he doesn't know.”

The subject was dropped with surprising swiftness.

“What do you really get out of all this?” Carlo asked.

“I told you,” the doctor replied, always so unruffled. “The chance to be the first to perform a groundbreaking new procedure. That’s not an everyday occurrence in my field.”

“Won’t you get in trouble? Don’t you have to get a bunch of approvals for something like that?”

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission. In the longer term, the public will side with us on this, and my actions will be seen as humanitarian. Heroic, even. It just takes time.”

Carlo wasn’t satisfied. He took another drink for fortitude, noticing it didn’t taste like much anymore. “That’s not all,” he accused.

Dr Holstrom smiled. “Nooo,” he crooned indulgently. “Not quite.”

Staff cleared their plates and left Carlo with the bottle. Dr Holstrom ordered them both espresso.

“Martin was an old friend of mine,” he said when the server left. “Until he screwed me over on an investment. I’m not proud of this, but it gives me great personal satisfaction to screw him over on one now.”

“The precogs belong to Spartan, not to Mr Olsen.”

“Martin has more pull than he’d let you believe. This project was his baby, he gunned for Spartan to purchase you, and I am assuming he brokered the sale when he decided he’d cashed in enough on you.”

Alex Clair had always suspected as much about Martin and the project. Carlo wished he could tell him he was right. “So he will take the blame when they’re one precog short?” he asked.

“Ideally.”

Carlo sighed. He contemplated the rest of the bottle but his espresso arrived and he thought better of it.

“So when do we do this?”

The doctor had put him up in a Hilton on the north side of town, near the hospital. That was evidently a coincidence, because the procedure was to be done at Holstrom’s own surgery center. Carlo had looked it up. The facility was an unassuming brick building in a medical park, in the middle of an affluent suburb. State of the art, it said on Google. Insurance and Medicare accepted.

“Whenever you’re ready to fully commit.”

“And what, you drive me back to the hotel after?”

“I thought it would be more appropriate for you to recover at my home. It’s not far from here. I’ll want to monitor you.”

“For how long?”

Dr Holstrom spread his hands. “Three days? A week? Depends on how you take it.”

“You know I can’t pay you, right?”

“Of course not. It’s not that type of arrangement.”

“I just wanted to make sure.”

“You’ve paid me tenfold, Carlo,” the doctor said with a smile that looked almost fond. He nodded at their server across the room for a check. “By the fate of our stars crossing paths.”

Carlo reached for some of the cash he'd pulled from his checking account before leaving Max, but Dr Holstrom was already slipping a card to the server.

"No," he said, waving dismissively. "My treat. Let’s go get your things and check you out of your room. It won’t be long now. You can stay with me.”

taglist

@whumpsday @distinctlywhumpthing @pumpkin-spice-whump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @tidalwhump @pigeonwhumps @interdimensional-chaos @top-hat-aye @thecyrulik @boxenby @mylifeisonthebookshelf @inpainandsuffering @heartsherps @latenightcupsofcoffee

#the scry #the scry au #whumpee with powers #medical whump #kinda

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ameagrice · 2 years ago

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Capsize

chapter eighteen | a dream is a wish your heart makes

percy jackson x fem reader

Talking to Annabeth once during the summer, when you’d been thinking four times as hard as you usually did, she told you things you hadn’t known before.

Children of Athena were born from the thoughts of the goddess. You weren’t born like normal children were—the knowledge of which made you literally scream over the phone. You were simply thought up, and into existence. This meant most children were claimed at birth. Some, like you, knew of their mother. They knew what they were (or at least that they were different), and upon arrival to camp would find it easy to be sorted into their cabin.

You hadn’t had a clue. Your dad never explained it (though for a guy always invested in insurance claims and telephone calls, you weren’t surprised). But you couldn’t help feeling left out. Your mother gave her other children signs. Annabeth was scared of spiders (the same way you were), but Athena had guided Annabeth to Luke and Thalia. Cora had heard her mother’s voice in her head telling her to run. You had traipsed through life of your own accord, standing up for yourself and doing what you had to. There had been no guidance there. At times, looking back, you guessed maybe you hadn’t felt totally alone in things. But that was as far as it went. Your claiming at camp was the first sign of recognition that she must have been watching at some point.

Your dad wasn’t the outwardly loving kind. In terms of affection, you’d get a phone call now and again in Yancy, or an email with a smiley face at the end. You appreciated it. You took it as it came. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a void that didn’t need some kind of filler. Your heart was drying out, bones screaming for some kind of something.

And then along came Percy.

And everything began to change.

It was just that sometimes, you wondered where your guidance from your mother was. You almost craved it the way an addict craved drugs.

Which was why when you set your sights on the kids in the corridor, and you heard a woman’s whisper in your head, a shiver ran up your spine, and you spun.

Turn around.

You jumped viciously, walking backward into the kids and pushing them behind you. Dr. Thorn waited at the end of the corridor watching; you’d thought he was distracted, but apparently your plan hadn’t worked well enough.

Survival instincts had been a crucial part of many events in your life.

And they were strong right now.

Your body buzzed with demigod instincts, ready to fight. You pulled your knife from your jacket. You’d chosen it for its hold, and the shininess of its bronze-like colour. If you could distract him, and get the kids out of the way, your best bet would be to aim straight for the heart. The weapon was so sharp the point hurt just to look at, and your aiming skills had progressed insanely.

You had no doubt you could pull this off.

“Um,” Bianca shook behind you. “What do we do now?”

“We fight!” Nico exclaimed. You watched Thorn closely, not paying much attention to Nico. “My Zeus card—”

“Be serious, Nico!”

“You guys run through those doors,” you mumbled. You felt shifting behind you, so you turned to watch the kids take off.

You never would be able to fully explain what it felt like to be slammed against a wall, knocking all the oxygen from your lungs. It almost happened like a blackout, so quick you couldn’t even understand at first that nothing had been in place to put you there. You yelped, body smarting. Bianca and Nico had stopped, looking back at you for guidance, and the doors they’d been running for slammed closed. Pain exploded in your shoulder, clogging up your throat, squeezing your intestines into nausea. You swiped the air with your dagger, but nothing was there. Just the feeling of a cold, heavy hand pushing on the front of your body, keeping you in place.

Bianca looked at you in horror, and then to Thorn. You wished you could tell her it would be okay, but feared if you opened your mouth now the only thing to come out with be vomit.

You shoved forward in an attempt to dislodge the foot-long black spike that struck through your jacket and pinned you in place. An awful burning was taking place across your shoulder, beginning to run down your arm, hot and painful.

Dr. Thorn moved before you could see him. He was closer now, and Nico and Bianca were huddled together not far away. Bianca had Nico at her front, arms protectively over his shoulder and crossed at his chest. Thorn still looked human, but his face was ghoulish, something from a halloween horror.

“Thank you for coming out of the gym,” he said crispy. His voice had a slight French accent. ”I hate middle school dances.”

Your right mind screamed what, been to a few? But your survival mind said ABSNDKFNEKDKL!!!

You kept silent as he grew closer. Your arm tingled horribly, the sensation of pins and needles if the pins and needles were really jabbing in to your skin.

WHIIIISH! A second projectile shot from somewhere behind Dr. Thorn. He didn’t appear to move. It was as if someone invisible were standing behind him, throwing knives. In the dark hallway behind him, you searched for something that would tell you what was going on.

Bianca suddenly screamed, a shrill, cold scream, and you dreaded the worst. You turned your head—she’d moved next to you, and the thing had hit the wall just centimetres from her head.

“All three of you will come with me,” Dr. Thorn said. “Quietly. Obediently. If you make a single noise, if you call out for help or try to fight, I will show you just how accurately I can throw.”

—

You really didn’t want to let the kids know you weren’t doing so great. But Bianca looked at you and her eyes went so round you thought they might pop out of her head.

You chastised yourself mentally, nauseously.

Oooo, well done, idiot. Yeah, let’s run off without the others. You’re so smart. Definitely a child of Athena.

You walked down the halls, and wondered how on earth you were going to get somebody to help you. You’d come pretty much defenceless, you were hurt, and nobody knew where you’d gone. The four of you walked and walked, and you were beginning to grow desperate.

Until a whistle caught your attention.

Thorn stopped instantly and turned like he was about to proclaim the worst news on earth. Except he looked positively murderous.

“Which one of you was that?”

You shook your head. Your stomach spun. “Not me. I feel like I’m dying.”

“My poison causes pain, not death. Now move.”

He turned and began leading you outside.

The path he lead you down was snow-leaden and slippery. Some sort of instincts made you want to reach out and take Nico’s arm; he slipped over and Bianca pulled him up right away, before Thorn could notice. But vomit was in your mouth now, and you couldn’t move your arm. It turned heavy, a weight, and hot like you were leaning on a heat lamp, still being jabbed by invisible pins. You couldn’t have lifted your arm if you tried.

The path was dimly lit with old-fashioned lamps, casting a golden glow, and making the snow glitter. It would have pretty, you wished it was pretty. But truth was you were most likely walking to your death lest your friends came to the rescue. And, looking behind you, seeing nothing but dark woodlands, the chances were looking slim.

“There is a clearing ahead,” Thorn announced. “We will summon your ride.”

You blinked. “What ride?” you tried to be brave, but really there was acid running up your oesophagus. “Where are you taking us?”

“Silence, you insufferable girl!”

“Don’t talk to her that way!” Nico’s voice quivered, small and childish. He was clearly very scared. But brave.

Thorn made a growling noise. It sounded anything but human. Anything you tried now would be an attempt in vain. With your arm now turning numb and heavier, unable to move it, and two kids in front of you in your care, you began to let yourself panic. At first it was easy to hide your fear, but nobody had so much as followed you out here.

You had led these kids right to their deaths.

“Halt.”

In front of you was the edge of a cliff. It was jagged and uneven toward the end. Waves crashing and roaring could be heard. It smelled of sea salt and seaweed.

Thorn pushed you first, a firm hand between your shoulders. Only then, after turning numb, did you feel an awful prickling feeling, the worst feeling you’d ever felt, across your upper body. You looked at your hand, something you’d only just thought of:

It was purple. Your hand was purple and swelling, and if your hand was, so was the rest of your arm.

You gagged.

Bianca gazed at you, looking concerned. You wanted to laugh. The roles were reversed here.

“You okay?” She asked.

You nodded. Barely.

“What is he?”

You blew air from your cheeks. Your hair whipped every which way. “Honestly--”

“I’m scared,” Nico mumbled. Your heart ached.

“Stop talking!” Thorn bellowed. The three of you shut up. “Face me.”

You never had liked taking orders. Being told what to do and just doing it was not in your nature. Everything in you yelled fight back!!!

You glanced to the side. Waves still roared.

“I dare you, daughter of Athena,” Thorn drawled. “Save yourself.”

How did he know?...

“What did he call you?”

“It’s an extremely long story, dude.”

“I would kill you before you even reached the water,” Thorn continued. “You do not know who I am, do you?”

Were you supposed to?

Something whizzed past your ear--another missile-thing. It flew so close that you jumped, and right into its line. It caught your ear as it passed, and you were left trying to hold down the next set of vomit.

But something distracted you very, very quickly: a tail. A tail.

You’re shitting me.

“Unfortunately, Thorn said, “you are wanted alive, if possible. Otherwise you would already be dead.”

“Who wants us?” Bianca demanded. “Because if you think you'll get a ransom, you're wrong. We don't have any family. Nico and I...” Her voice broke a little. “We've got no one but each other.”

“Aww,” Dr. Thorn said. “Do not worry, little brats. You will be meeting my employer soon enough. Then you will have a brand-new family.”

Employer? You racked your brain for the only person you figured could be behind this form of kidnapping. The only demigod who had turned, who wanted monsters at his side.

“Luke Castellan,” you realised. “You work for Luke, don’t you?”

“You have no idea what is happening, daughter of Athena. I will let the General enlighten you. You are going to do him a great service tonight. He is looking forward to meeting you.”

Horror filled you. Those words could mean anything. You had to fight back somehow. You physically couldn’t...

It started with your attitude.

“The General?” you mimicked in a terrible, off-putting French accent. “Oh, so scary. Just explain, already.”

“I think he will enjoy killing you, first,” he tilted his head. Goosebumps ran up your spine. “He does not have want for those who defy.”

In the distance, you could hear the turning of a helicopter and wondered just where the hell this guy planned on taking you. It hit you, all of a sudden, the determination to look after these kids. Strong in your heart. Your eyes didn’t move from Thorn. And his eyes didn’t move off of you.

“Where are you taking us?” Nico asked.

“You should be honoured, my boy. You will have the opportunity to be a part of a great army, just like that silly game you play with cards and dolls.”

“They’re not dolls! They’re figurines!” Nico spat. “And you can take your great army and sho--”

“Now, now,” Dr. Thorn warned. “You will change your mind about joining us, my boy. And if you do not, well...there are other uses for half-bloods. We have many monstrous mouths to feed. The Great Stirring is underway.”

The Great Stirring? Your first thought was a pot of homemade soup, and your dad’s wooden cooking spoon engraved with World’s Worst Cook! But figured now was not the time.

It did, however, help you to keep it in mind.

“What does that mean?”

“The stirring of monsters.” Dr. Thorn smiled evilly. “The worst of them, the most powerful, are now waking. Monsters that have not been seen in thousands of years. They will cause death and destruction the likes of which mortals have never known. And soon we shall have the most important monster of all—the one that shall bring about the downfall of Olympus!”

“Alright,” Bianca whispered. “He’s totally nuts.”

Anything to calm her nerves. “He’s totally on drugs. Probably Class A’s.”

“Class A’s?” She frowned heavily. You felt your expression change, though you could not put a proper name to how you were feeling. Maybe confused? Who didn’t know what Class A’s were? Surely in a military school setting, these children had been taught about drugs? Hell, you knew what they were even before school.

Something was wrong.

And the need to run was getting stronger.

“Listen,” you whispered. You eyed Thorn carefully; he was looking out at the sea, for something. “When I say go, we jump, alright?”

Bianca’s eyes went wide. “What?” she laughed under her breath. “Great. You’re nuts, too.”

You didn’t have any chance to argue with her.

A sudden force plowed into you, knocking you down hard. Your arm was in so much pain that the increased flare of it stopped any sound coming out of your mouth. Bianca fell on to you, injured side, and Nico on top of her, like a car pileup.

But the distraction turned Thorn towards you three, giving what seemed to be Thalia and Percy the chance to attack him. You’d say for certain, but the pain was so blinding with Bianca pushing on you to stand that your head swam, inner voice and thoughts diminished instantly.

So what was the alarming thing to bring you back to your senses?

The way Dr. Thorn’s arm changed from a limb to bright orange, huge paw. A tiger’s paw. It slashed at Thalia while Percy swung his sword with an anger you’d never seen before. He caught the back of Thorn, and he let out a yell of pure fury. He swatted Percy backward, and he hit a tree. But Percy had gotten him, and black blood dripped quickly to the snow.

Dr. Thorn launched another volley of missiles at Thalia. Ahh, you thought. That was how he did it.

He had a tail—a leathery, scorpion-like tail that bristled with spikes at the tip. The missiles deflected off Thalia’s shield, Aegis, but the force of the impact knocked Thalia down.

Grover sprang forward. He put his reed pipes to his lips and began to play—a frantic jig that sounded like something pirates would dance to. Grass broke through the snow. Within seconds, rope-thick weeds were wrapping around Dr. Thorn's legs, entangling him.

Dr. Thorn roared and began to change. He grew larger until he was in his true form—his face still human, but his body that of a huge lion. His leathery, spiky tail whipped deadly thorns in all directions.

“A manticore!” Annabeth said. You hadn’t seen her appear, so out of it. Her invisibility hat lay next to you on the ground. With one hand, you tried to stand, slowly.

“Who are you people?” Bianca di Angelo demanded. “And what is that?”

“An absolute bitch,” you groaned, finally standing.

“A manticore!” Nico gasped. “He’s got three thousand attack power!”

Thalia was still fighting Thorn, in a back-and-forth match that seemed to go on. A figure behind Thorn, by the trees, caught your attention. Percy, you realised, almost forgetting that he was there.

While Thorn was distracted.

In your weary state, arm feeling like it was no longer a part of your body, you didn’t recognise what was happening until it did. Percy sprinted over to you, almost sliding off the edge of the cliff. You practically collapsed on him, hating yourself for this.

“Hey, let me see. Dude, I swear if you don’t give me your arm.”

“Can’t even feel it at this point,” you mumbled. Percy grabbed you and with your good hand you swatted at him.

“Oh. Oh. Ew. Dude. What are your thoughts on limb loss?”

“Don’t say that!”

“It’s blue!”

Thalia seemed to be yelling at Thorn. The Di Angelos looked terribly alarmed. Thorn was shooting spikes this way and that, and Grover was desperately trying something. At your side, Annabeth patiently (if not a tad worriedly) tried to take to the kids.

Behind you, the sound of the helicopter was much, much louder. Your hair began to blow violently, and then you knew: it was right there.

Annabeth yelled. Thalia was on the ground, defeated, watching dazedly. Grover lay, eyes closed, in the snow. Thorn prepared to shoot. And Percy dropped you instantly. Your knees hit stones.

Percy skidded to his own knees when you did, in front of Thalia, shield raised.

Thorn laughed cruelly. “You are defeated, half-bloods. Give in.”

He went to strike.

A hunting horn blew and rang in your ears. Everyone fell silent, watching; waiting. Thorn turned his head slowly in the direction of the horn.

“No. It can’t be--”

His sentence was cut short when something shot toward him like a streak of moonlight. A glowing silver arrow sprouted from Dr. Thorn's shoulder. He staggered backward, wailing in agony.

Your hair whipped about, knees smarting. The helicopter lights lit up the area.

“Curse you!” Thorn cried. He unleashed his spikes, dozens of them at once, into the woods where the arrow had come from, but just as fast, silvery arrows shot back in reply. It almost looked like the arrows had intercepted the thorns in mid-air and sliced them in two. You watched, captivated. No one, not even Apollo's kids at camp, could shoot with that much accuracy.

The manticore pulled the arrow out of his shoulder with a howl of pain. His breathing was heavy. Percy swiped his sword, but Thorn wasn’t so taken aback as to be unaware of his surroundings. He knocked Percy aside.

“The Hunters!” Annabeth called, amazed.

Finally, you felt. Someone’s here to save us all.

“Permission to kill, my lady?” About a dozen girls came from the woods, armed with silver, heavy-looking but slim bows and arrows, all glinting and shiny. This one girl at the front held her weapon at the ready, armed well on Thorn.

When you first started out at camp, the idea of killing anything was wildly disgusting. Now, though?

Kill him. Get it over with.

“This is not fair! Direct interference! It is against the Ancient Laws!” Thorn roared.

“Not so,” a girl who looked younger than you spoke confidently but coolly. She had bright auburn hair and fair skin, bright eyes. “The hunting of all wild beasts is within my sphere. And you, foul creature, are a wild beast. Zoe, permission to kill.”

Thorn growled. “If I cannot take one alive, I will take them dead!”

It happened before you saw it coming. Thorn leapt at you, and you both tumbled in the snow. He was so much bigger than you, and with your arm the way it was, you could nothing but try to pry him off you with your free hand, kicking violently. You screamed and he yelled, spit flying. You were so close to the edge of the cliff. Your heart dropped.

The others around you screamed and shouted.

Thorn was thrown off course. You lay on your front, hands flat in front of you, holding yourself up as much as you could while gasping for breath, as someone was on his back. Annabeth.

Her blonde braids whipped her face, but it didn’t put her off. She jabbed Thorn with a knife, and he let out the most unhuman sound ever heard.

“Get back, half-blood! Get out of the line of fire!”

“Fire!” Zoe ordered.

“No!” Percy.

Arrows flew. They caught Thorn in the chest, and one in the back of the neck, missing Annabeth by inches. He turned terrifyingly fast, visibly angry, growling. “This is not the end, Huntress! You shall pay!”

And, at the edge of the cliff, Thorn fell backward off of it, plummeting to the sea and rocks. You heard a scream--was it you? You’d reached your hand out at some point.

Annabeth went with him.

Thalia and Percy Grover rushed to the edge, too close.

Above you, a boom sounded. Looking up, all you were witness to was a flock of black birds flying off, the helicopter gone.

And then there was silence.

The one called Zoe spoke first. “You,” she seethed.

You managed to roll over, sitting up. Your pants were soaked with snow.

Your fault. Your eyes drifted to Percy still sat at the edge, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, just watching the water below. Your fault.

“Zoe Nightshade,” Thalia’s voice shook with anger. “Perfect timing, as usual.”

Zoe scanned the rest of you. “Five half-bloods and a satyr, my lady.”

“Ah, yes,” the younger girl said. Her own silvery eyes scanned the scene. “Some of Chiron’s campers, I see.”

“Annabeth!” Percy yelled over the edge. “You have to let us save her!”

“I’m sorry, Percy Jackson, but your friend is beyond help.”

Percy tried to get to his feet, face like thunder, but two of the Hunter girls held him down. Thalia watched Zoe with anger in every inch of her body.

And that was when you noticed Grover. Your attention drawn solely to him. He was walking to you, mouth twisted sadly. He knelt beside you.

“You okay?”

You barely nodded.

“Can I?...”

You wanted to say no. Having people start touching you was not on the agenda. But, like Percy had said, your hand was frozen-blue, veins pronounced and purple now. And Grover just wanted to help.

You’d never much liked Grover. But things like these, kindness like this despite the past, put things into perspective. In the end, you were all fighting the same thing, working together.

So, you could still feel iffy about him (and not even have to have him as a friend) but any help now would be beneficial for you.

You said yes. Grover helped you to pull off your coat and sweater, leaving you in your tee. The wind bit your skin. As far as you could see, the poison had spread to your chest.

You didn’t have a choice in the embarrassing thing to happen next:

Your eyes rolled back.

And you fell unconscious.

—

The sun warmed your skin. It wasn’t unusual for Australia, but considering the thermometer on the wall above the television told you it was into the hundreds, you were surprised you didn’t feel hotter.

“Your dad’s pretty cool.”

You jumped. Something nagged in the back of your mind.

“Yeah, he’s alright. Has his moments.” You answered without having to think, like it just came to you.

Turning your head to the side, you were surprised but also not to see an older boy lying on the opposite sofa, legs stretched across the velvet sofa. Sunlight passed through the mirrored wind chime in the window and sparkled lighter dots across his face, drifting this way and that gently with the wind from the fan on the wall.

His jaw was so sharp you swore it would have been able to cut your hand if you touched it. And his skin was so bronze, tanner than you knew somehow it had been for a while. His shirt rode up. Your stomach fluttered at the sight, and the boy grinned cheekily. You knew that smile.

Percy’s black hair was a mess, like he’d ran his hands through it. And those goddamn eyes, as bright as they could get, almost shone green. His arms settled behind his head, and some soft, calm Lofi music played from the radio on the black-tinted glass table between you both.

“I-uh—” you had to swallow before you choked on your words. “We should go to the beach before it gets too late.”

When you looked down on autopilot, able to feel everything like it was real life, your shirt slipped down, like you’d pulled it up a little beforehand. A loose, almost see-through white with tiny embroidered flowers in soft yellows and greens.

“I love you.”

Your breath caught in your throat. You blinked at the edge of the sofa, unable to move.

“Do you not always?” You weakly retorted, in an effort to not let on to how affected you were by his words.

You didn’t have time for his answer to reach you.

Because you woke up.

And everything came back.

So…what did y’all thing of that :\

I wrote part of this on my laptop and the last half on my phone whoops :D

Taglist:

@bl6o6dy @embersparklz @lilyevanswhore @rottenstyx @hawkeye12 @rory-cakes @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual @marshmallow12435 @luckydragontriumph @lantsovheiress @distinguishedmakerpandapatrol @bugsys-bubble @twsssmlmaa @gayandfairycore @padsfirewhisky

#capsize #percy jackson #pjo #leo valdez #annabeth chase #heroes of olympus #trials of apollo #hoo #jason grace #nico di angelo #Percy Jackson x reader #pjo series #Leo Valdez x reader #pjo x reader #reader insert #fanfiction #percy jackson fics

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annakie · 4 months ago

Text

Let's Spend Lots of Money!

Back in June I posted about how after a huge storm rolled through, I was without power for over five days and then talked about all the insurance and stuff going on.

Well, things have progressed since then!

Would you like to read/see pictures of exterior home renovation? This is the post for you! Warning: It's really long! And the story isn't done yet!

Here's a cut for extreme length!

PART ONE: The To-Do List

When it was over, at the end of my post, I posted some To-Do's:

Call Plumber - Done, and I thought the problem would be solved for another year or more.

Get garage door serviced. Done. The guy I called was clearly trying to rip me off. He told me immediately that I needed new springs, and when I pushed back and pointed out how shiny and new my garage springs were, because they were less than five years old, and they just needed to be tightened, he tried telling me that it's not possible to tighten garage door springs, something I knew for a fact was bullshit. I pushed back on him and was about to tell him to just leave when instead he had me sign a thing saying that he couldn't promise that fixing the springs would fix the problem and if I called them out again it would be another service call fix instead of guaranteed work. In the end, I got what I wanted but paid too much and marked that company in my phone as "never call again." The work they did do was fine, but screw them.

Get Handyman to take care of the fallen tree - Check, a day or two after power came back. I tipped him extra for it, too, because he always takes care of me. My insurance lady told me what I paid was quite inexpensive for the job.

Work with Insurance - Yep! We'll get to that.

Talk to my neighbors about the fact that I’m going to get a wood fence put up to replace our chain link one. YEP. We'll get to that, too.

Get the electrician back to wire up the house for a generator. Nope. Not yet. But someday.

Buy a generator Not yet, but again, someday.

Clean out the garage, for real. Maybe when it's not 100 degrees out every day again. But yeah, on the list, for multiple reasons.

So yeah... the last six weeks or so have been a trip.

PART TWO: Getting Money

One of the things I did when I didn't have power was see that we could file a claim with FEMA for disaster assistance. I figured... why not. A day or two after I got power back, a FEMA inspector lady called and then came to the house. I pointed out all of the things. I ended up getting a little bit from FEMA. Not a ton, but honestly, I was grateful. Anything helped.

Later that week, or maybe the next, my insurance sent an adjuster. Crazily she was flown down from another part of the country, she was living in the exact town that I grew up in. Like it is not a huge town. Not "small" but also just not somewhere you'd expect to meet someone from on the reg. So we had a good time chatting about the city when she came to inspect the house.

Insurance gave me an OK amount. My roof was old so they only paid out 40% of the replacement cost. And yeah, that's about what I got from them them with the final price when it was all said and done.

PART THREE: Finding Help

My roofer initially seemed great. I was excited to work with him. When the insurance came, instead of him coming, he sent an "assistant" who didn't really seem like he knew much of what he was doing or was very helpful. But hey, you know what? right after a storm like that, they're gonna be busy.

Several times over the next couple of weeks I texted him asking how things were progressing on just getting me a quote. He sent a whole other guy over like two weeks later for the fence quote. He barely seemed interested to be there. Um, okay. He also wouldn't even give me a ballpark at the time. Whatever.

Two weeks after that I hear from the roofer that he's almost done with my quote. By then it was the weekend before July 4th.

I'd gotten the money from the insurance. I'd sent the documentation of their payout to the roofer and made it clear I had a sum of cash above that (not exactly how much) to come out of pocket, and a priority list for the work to be done. My best guess is that he figured my business wasn't worth as much time as other people's, so I kept getting shuffled to the bottom of the stack. OK. His prerogative. Fair. But I was at the limit of my waiting, considering how bad my roof was.

My across the street neighbor had told me that she had her roof redone a year or two ago who she said did a good job, and he'd come to see how her roof fared from the storm and told her to give me his number if I wanted him to look at it. So when I didn't hear from my roofer after July 4th week, I went and asked her for the number, then texted Joel, the new roofer.

Anyway, Joel came out the next day. I showed him all the work I'd been approved for. He and I negotiated a price and materials for the roof. A price was set that was right about what I thought it should be.

Still had some money leftover in the budget so I asked about a fence, specifically an 8' Cedar fence. His quote was $1k more than I was hoping it would be, but honestly, still what I thought was a good deal.

He also mentioned a price for the patio roof. I was at my hoped-for spend limit and would get back to him about the patio roof.

In the end, I pulled a little more money together and told him to go for it.

That was Tuesday and Wednesday.

Original Builder sent me my quotes on Wednesday. How nice. Too late. Also they were like 30% higher than what I settled on with Joel. He just emailed them, didn't even bother to follow up with a text.

I had a polite response planned out in my head if he'd texted or called. But he didn't. Oops, I guess I didn't see that email.

PART FOUR: The Survey Drama

Thursday, Joel and his main builder came out, tore out the chain link fence and started putting up 10' poles for the 8' fence (2' of which is buried in concrete in the ground.)

Joel also told me that he needed a copy of my land survey for the build permit, which I should have from when I bought the house.

I spent a good hour searching through every document I had from when I bought my house in 2003 looking for it. And I felt I'd pretty much kept everything. I had my bids on houses I didn't win in there. I had notes that I took back then.

I did not have a survey. Well... shit.

So, I started by looking at the city website online. The city does not keep copies of surveys.

So I tried calling my mortgage company. Except oops they went out of business in like 2010.

Getting real panicked, I threw a hail mary and went to look up my Title company. They'd been bought out in like, 2007. But there were a couple of people working under franchise names of that company still. A total longshot, but I called the person nearest me.

That very nice man said he couldn't help me BUT I should call the home office. He gave me the name and number of a lady named Kim.

So I called Kim, and she was very very sweet. And extremely doubtful she had anything on file, but she would get with the records department and look.

A half hour later she called back. THEY'D FOUND IT. Holy crap. Even she was astonished.

I thanked her profusely and asked her to thank the records department. A few minutes later, the survey was in my email. And hey, it had my signature from 2003 on it! I sent that over to Joel and we got the permit. WHEW. Work continued.

I printed out three copies of the survey and emailed it to myself at two other email addresses.

PART FIVE: Communication

I texted my neighbor on the side where the fence would be built (the other neighbor had built their fence, also an 8' cedar fence, like 20 years ago, so hey, at least I only had to pay for two full sides and two fronts.

Technically I text with their daughter, as her parents don't speak English. They knew that this was coming and were cool with it. They knew the fencer would need to do some work in their yard and that there would be no fence for a little while. I asked Joel to please help minimize the time there was no fence for their dog (a pitbull, she's very sweet) to be penned in by.

Just want to say my neighbors are saints. They were very cool with everything, though I sent them many apologies. It was especially frustrating because we took the fence separating our yards down on Friday and there was no full fence put back up all weekend. It couldn't be avoided, though. Just wish the days had gone by faster. They could only let the dog our on the leash for those days. I asked (daughter) several times what I could do to say I'm sorry and thank you and they were really just kind and chill about it anyway. I am still thinking of something I could do for them, though, once this is all over. My initial thought is a small basket of dog toys and treats for the pupper.

I also started discussing paint stain colors for the fence with Joel, and let my neighbors help me make a decision, since they'd have to look at it, too. In the end, we decided to go with the same brown color that the fence on my other side already was. I kinda wanted to go with maybe a dark grey, which would also match the neighbors house well, but that's what they wanted and having a color match was my other main choice, and probably the right one, even if it doesn't match with our houses.

Mostly I'm glad my good relationship with my neighbors is intact.

PART SIX: CONSTRUCTION BEGINS!

Okay yeah so Thursday some poles got put up. Friday the rest of them got put up. Joel is mostly coordinating everything, the main builders are Jose and his wife Maria. Neither of them speak English and my High School and College Spanish were uh, 30 years ago but I retained a decent amount. Mostly though, we communicate through whatever sentences I can piece together and a lot of Google Translate. We have had entire conversations through Google Translate. It's great.

Saturday the work on the poles were finished and Sunday no work got done... I mean... it's Sunday. It was only annoying because of my neighbors having to take care of the dog and I felt bad about it.

Over the weekend I also picked out roof shingles. I got an architectural single, which is a nicer shingle. I wanted a medium-grey color -- I never liked the light grey my old roof was, I didn't pick it out, though I know lighter is probably cooler. I picked what I thought was a nice compromise.

PART SEVEN: Roof Day One

AKA my new Skylight.

Monday I woke up stupid early for no reason. But it was fine that I did because at 6:30am the doorbell rang. The roofers were here. And they got started right away.

It... was loud. I knew it would be but I don't think I was quite prepared for how loud.

But I had little to do after welcoming them, so I mean, when it was time for me to work (my job is 100% WFH still, yay!) I just got to work, doing my best to ignore the noise and hoping they wouldn't fall in on me. The cats were terrified and hiding, curled up together under my recliner in the living room, their normal safe place. I put food, water and their litter box in there, closed the door 90% of the way, and let them be.

Anyway, here I was, working away in my office and at about 10:15 am, there was a bright light and a foot in my ceiling.

First and most importantly, he is fine! He slipped and his leg fell through. It wasn't the end of the world, and MOST important, he CRAZILY fell through right above my very tall bookcase, the tallest piece of furniture I own. Instead of falling completely through the ceiling, he "stepped" two feet down, and his foot caught on the bookcase, and he pulled it right back up. If this had happened ANYWHERE else, it might have been a LOT worse.

Joel and Jose came in and assessed the situation and Jose said no problem. For about three hours the hole remained, until Joel came back from Home Depot with some drywall, and I had a funny story to tell all my friends, co-workers and family. That angle in that pic up there is literally an angle from where I sit while I work all day. Lots of fun comments about my new skylight and terrible puns from my brother.

It currently looks like this:

You can see the scuffs on the wall from the guy who fell's shoe!

Jose came in and got the drywall on and the spackle in. There was a crack already from the window to the ceiling, from the house settling, so he just went ahead and spackled that, too.

I actually have the paint can for that paint in my garage, so I handed that over to them to paint match.

Honestly, aside from being glad the worker is OK, I do not get upset over stuff like this as long as it gets fixed, and it well, so it's fine!

There's a similar hole in my garage ceiling, too, which still needs fixing.

The roof workers worked from 6:30am until 9pm. It was 100 outside that day. They were amazing.

This was taken Mid-day when they were eating lunch.

I not only was getting new shingles, but new decking (aka the wood that the shingles rest on that is connected to the rafters. I know they didn't redo the decking in 2003 when I bought the house and they put the cheapest roof possible on it before selling it to me. Joel confirmed that there were several rotting places in the decking and I saw a few pieces myself. And under in the attic the decking they installed a Thermal layer for more insulation that wasn't there before.

I did have good insulation installed pretty early, like 2005, so at least when the power has gone out since it's stayed nicely warm/cool depending on the season.

I had some old whirly type vents coming out of the house. Several of them were either broken or uh... very squeaky. Especially when it was cold, one of them had a definite squeak that you could hear outside and it was mortifying if my neighbors could hear it. That one, or maybe another one, rattled really badly when it was windy, too. TBH I would just put in my headphones to sleep sometimes because of roof noise the last year or two during very cold or windy nights.

Well, the roofers got rid of all of those. In place, they put a ridge vent, which basically means a tiny gap along the entire top ridge of the house, covered up by a special shingle. I learned all about it when I watched a Youtube about it the next morning after looking at it and going "WTF is that little bump?" Anyway, no more loud squeaky/rattling vents for me. My house is modern now. :D

So anyway, Monday night they finished getting roofing over the entire house, but the garage still wasn't done.

This was taken early Tuesday morning, there'd been tarps over the garage that night. There was no rain forecast, so everything was cool.

PART SEVEN POINT FIVE: No Internets (Part 1)

This is part 7.5 because I had to come back and add it in later when I forgot to add it until I was almost done writing, and I don't feel like correcting all the section titles, but it is absolutely part of the story.

Monday early evening as they were hurrying to finish getting roofing over at least the house part of the roof they got some of the garage done. Around 7pm there was a blip where my internet went out, but it came back.

And then at like 8:15 as they were finishing, it went out and DIDN'T come back.

I did all the normal troubleshooting things, put in a ticket with my provider, and called tech support.

Eventually I got someone on the line who asked me to make sure everything was plugged in, what, like I'm some kind of idiot? I work in IT! I know what I'm doing! But, I humored her. And she reminded me that there's not only the box on the outside of my house, but also the one in the garage, could I please check to make sure that was plugged in?

OK Sure. Constructions been going on, I'll humor her.

So anyway, I had forgotten the the box in the garage was plugged into an outlet in the ceiling that had been put there for my garage door. It had come completely out in all the banging from the roofers.

OK no problem, right? I'll just plug it back in, and voila! Internet!

Um except the plug is right above my car, like dead center.

OK sure, just gotta move my car!!!

...except there was a dumpster in my driveway, riiiight behind my car. I couldn't move my car more than a foot if I tried.

I spent like 10 minutes trying to reach it with my stepladder (nope not even close) or maneuver it back in with a broom handle (lol noooo chance) and gave up.

I took this pic just now for illustrative purposes. The plug is now plugged back in. But yeah, I had to cancel my Monday night PF2e game from last of Internets.

In the morning, I overslept, and they rang the doorbell to let me know they were there. I saw Joel and waved to him, and one minute later I went back outside to tell him about the internet problem. He was gone. I texted him, didn't hear back. It was getting close to work time, so I called him and he'd left as soon as he saw I was home and ready for the workers to work. I didn't realize he was so far away already, but he still turned around, came back in, and figured out a way to plug the plug back in without standing on my car. I was a half hour or so late to logging into work but it all worked out. Just a little bump in the road. I felt bad that he had come come back from wherever he went, too. I swear I looked for him a MINUTE after I saw him that morning!

Part EIGHT: Fencing!

While the roofers roofed, Jose and Maria were busy with the fence. And by the end of the day Monday, they had most of the neighboring fence with the dog put up.

In the picture in part 7 above, on the left is the fence that's been there 20 years. You can see that those neighbors put the "ugly" part of the fence with the poles and boards on my side.

Honestly I've been mad about it for the 20 or so years it's been up. Not like super mad, I never talked to them about it, but I just thought it was really shitty of them to do that. I've always tried hard to be as kind and thoughtful to my neighbors as I could be and wouldn't have dreamed of doing that if I had put the fence up first.

In the alley and the other side of their house, the pretty side is the outside and the ugly side is inside. But on THAT ONE SIDE, they gave me the ugly side. Never talked to me about it, never consulted me about the fence, it just went up one day and I was left to deal with it.

I've always even since been kind about granting them access to fix their fence and am on good terms with the wife of the couple of who lives there. And when my house was broken into in 2011 the husband heard it happen and called the police and gave a statement, which I thought was very good of them, the police were able to get my house sealed back up somewhat so when I came home a few hours later the damage as minimized.

So yeah, I'm not sure why I got the ugly side of the fence from them. Also like, it seems way easier to climb that side of the fence so all they did was make their own yard less secure? I didn't want that! A big part of wanting an 8' fence was more security!

Anyway, it was important to me to not make my other neighbors look at the ugly side of the fence. Also, I just figured why not have it look the same all the way around? And again, the security issue.

But also... like two or three years ago the neighbors on that side put up sheds on their property... and backed them right up to the property line. Again, no discussion with me, they just did it, and by the time I saw it, happened it was too late to change anything.

I wasn't super happy with it because of this scenario right here.

Sunday Joel and I had a long conversation about what to do about it, and I was still committed to wanting the ugly side on the inside. But they literally couldn't hammer back there to get the fence up behind the sheds.

In the end, we went with an, admittedly weird, compromise.

Note that that side of the fence goes that far back so that both of the windows on that side of the house are inside the fence. Again, security.

So yeah, the fence swaps facing mid-way for just the part where their sheds are. I still have mixed feelings about it but honestly, it's fine. I wish it could look completely the same all the way around, but, it works OK this way. Maybe I should have made the neighbors look at the ugly side the entire way, but the security issue was important in my mind... even though tbh anyone who really wanted to could just climb up on my neighbors sheds and hop over. It's a little weird and I guess technically I gave up a few inches of unusable property there, but it's a compromise I can live with any whoever buys the house after me can live with it, too.

Honestly at this point, can't wait for them to finish the fence all-around because I feel like I can barely sleep knowing all this expensive STUFF is just laying around my wide-open yard.

It's also real dumb because my 4' chain link fence kept no one past five years old out of my yard, it wasn't even padlocked, and yet I feel less secure with no fence.

This is what the back of the fence looks like right now (Thursday morning) and has since... I think Monday or maybe Tuesday. Joel's had problems sourcing more of the right boards. The gap on the left is, of course, where the back gate will be. I do feel better having it like, two-thirds done at least. there's also no gate on the front yard yet, either, which will just be flush with the end of the fence there.

PART NINE: The Patio Begins!

The roofers were done with their parts Wednesday afternoon. And I love the roof so much, but I'm going to hold off on posting pictures of that quite yet!

The patio roof before, if I had to guess, was built in the 1980s. The roof itself was just a big piece of corrugated metal, held up by some OK-built wood beams and ironwork pillars in the front. It was fine, it was functional. You can see in this pic from last month pretty well the construction and also how it was getting holes in it.

The wood was also really starting to rot. There were a couple of places where it barely still connected because of wood rot. I'd guess within 5 years it would have been falling down. It was definitely time for a new one, and the price Joel gave me I thought was really fair for a patio roof of the same quality.

Well, I was wrong about the quality.

When Jose ran out of wood for the fence, he and Maria got started on the patio. First, they demo'd it.

Oh hey, also first look at the new roof color.

That's how my patio looked all Tuesday night to Wednesday morning. You can clearly see in that second picture some of the wood rot. Here's some more of it.

That piece on the upper left I'm pretty sure was the part right over my patio door that I had to look at basically like, all the time. It was disintegrating.

So yeah, I was so glad to see that go.

A couple of years ago, when the big tree near my house was still there, it hadn't gotten trimmed recently and there was an ice storm. The tree branches swung low and the icy branch ends were smacking against that metal roof in the wind. It was loud and spooky. I had to go sleep in the living room that night from the sound. I really didn't like that metal roof.

I'm never going to have that problem again, since no tree there (for now...) but also the construction of the new patio roof is very different.

We'll get back to that.

PART TEN: Crazy Wednesday

Wednesday morning began with me realizing that all the banging and knocked one of the lights off of my bathroom ceiling. No problem, Let Joel know, it'll get fixed.

Jose and Maria finished up the demo of the patio roof (chunks of it are still in my yard).

I honestly had no idea what they were planning to do to replace it. Joel just told me to trust him, it's going to be great. OK!

The next thing I knew they're cutting into my house. WTF? Trust me, Joel said, it's gonna be great. OK!

Tuesday the sewer had started backing up again. God damnit, it JUST HAD backed up and I had it cleaned a month and a half ago when I got power back. So I called the plumbers, they were scheduled to come out that afternoon.

Just another thing I didn't need, but whatevs. I had a very productive morning for once this week while working, at least.

In the early afternoon, they had started to demolish more of the patio than I expected. They cut through some of the eaves, and took some of the facing off of the house where I wasn't expecting.

The plumber also arrived and was doing his thing. He then told me that my entire sewer was fine, I didn't have a stoppage. He took me out in the alley, though, and showed me that there WAS a stoppage outside the property line in the alley, and told me to put in a ticket with the city.

Kinda hate that it cost me $350 to find that out, but mostly it was a bit of a relief that it wasn't actually my problem.

I went back inside, put in a ticket with the water department, and got back to work.

Then, weirdly, my internet went down again a half hour or so later.

I checked all of the connections, then got a sinking feeling. I went outside and saw more stuff cut down and in that stuff was... a wire. I looked inside that wire and yeah... that's an internet cable.

That's a terrible picture but you can see some of the facing it came out of, lol.

Literally as I was taking that picture, a guy from the water department walked up to me and told me that there was indeed a stoppage in the alley. Because some kid had unplugged the cleanout line behind my house and dropped a baseball down there. The baseball was probably stopping up the entire block.

They couldn't get it out, so they were putting in an emergency ticket to dig up the line, and pull it out. I wouldn't have sewer for a day or so.

I think the "How SCREWED AM I with all of this going on!?" look on my face (though I was very polite and not upset with him obviously) paired with the state of my yard and the work being done gave me some sympathy -- he assured me I didn't have to pay for it, and he'd let me know when things would stop.

Ooooohkay.

It also started to drizzle a little at that point, but it never actually rained and work didn't have to stop, thankfully! Instead, Jose and Maria had a lovely overcast day in the 80's to work in. I had been worried about them the last couple of days and had supplied them with a big box of water (From a water delivery service) and big cups of ice to make sure they were well hydrated.

I went back in my house, laid down on the couch, and tried putting in a ticket with my internet company. The chatbot wouldn't let me do it, so I called and sat on hold for 45 minutes just staring at the wall. This was A Lot.

I also let my boss and Eric, my friend/co-worker who lives nearby know. Eric was up at the office today, but told me he was about to come back home and would bring me a hotspot, so I'd have SOME internet.

While I was laying on the couch, the doorbell rang. It was the water guy, and with a big smile on his face he told me that his coworker was able to use some tool to get the baseball out! There'd be no sewer work needed and things were flowing freely.

Fiiiinally, a break.

Eventually got to talk to a real person on the phone with the internet company, and not long after Eric arrived with the hotspot. I showed him around the mess a bit. After over an hour "break", I got back to work.

And as of Thursday morning, I'm still on the hotspot. But this one is pretty fast, and it has a network jack, so I even got to run my Wednesday night D&D game off my PC last night. What a relief.

Internet company should be here this afternoon to fix stuff. I'm probably going to have to pay for that, though.

The other great news is that somehow i didn't even notice that the gutter contractor had been here, done his job and left!! I don't even know when he was there/did his job, and my office is the front of the house! Maybe he did it when I was laying on the couch in the living room!? It was FAST, though. Joel just called to tell me to go outside to look, and WOW. He'd said they might do black gutters. I was unconvinced but trusted him.

He was so very, very right.

Anyway, finally, here's a pic of the front of the house, with the new roof and black gutters.

Holy crap, what a difference. My house almost looks fancy now. Almost. The shingles are so gorgeous.

You can see that ridge vent pretty well there. And that's with the old white gutters obviously. The black gutters give the house a really striking and defining line that really pops.

Here's a quick comparison with the old roof and gutters:

A truly amazing difference. And yeah I need to paint the garage door. Going to actually get to that now.

PART ELEVEN: The Patio Continued.

SO! They got so much done, and although there's a lot to do, I am already so well pleased.

The reason they were cutting into it so much was because they'd determined that the best course of action was to have hte patio become a part of the roof, and it would be built on a similar slant instead of just a flat piece of metal. Instead, it would just be a full roof anyway.

The posts are huge, thick wooden posts, which Joel tells me will be covered when they're done.

The roof is literally... the thermal barrier, decking and will be the same siding as the roof I already have.

This is what it looks like as of last night...

They did accidentally also break the light cover over my porch light so that'll need to be replaced, but it's small potatoes.

I still don't have a full picture of what it's going to look like, and I'm so excited for it. It's going to look so nice. I've loved the work Joel and Jose/Maria have done so far and honestly trust them completely with whatever now. The quality is fantastic and despite the little hiccups, things are actually, honestly going well.

I'm going to post this now and report back in a couple of days when it's done! I'd planned on holding off until it was ALL done, But this is post is already long enough!

This has been one of the biggest money commits I've ever done, after buying my home and buying cars, but honestly, totally worth it.

Gonna suck if I end up selling the house to gtfo of Texas in the next couple of years, but at least it'll sell for more if it looks this good!

#personal post tag thingy #home renovation #new roof #i hope you enjoyed

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an-aura-about-you · 4 months ago

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ok gang who's ready for the story of the bullshit I've been dealing with today?

so the day is already off to a promising start because I have to take my cat to the vet for his 3 times a week fluids treatment, so we're sequestered in my bedroom and he's waking me up because he has to mess with my stuff and can't just leave the room.

but eventually he chills out and we both go back to sleep.

I wake up and see I have a couple of missed calls. one's a voicemail from the body shop.

rewind for a bit: I had a car accident back on the 4th of July. I didn't mention it here because it was basically a fender bender, no one was hurt, and I didn't have to pay for anything since the other guy was considered at fault. but part of my car got crunched pretty good, so it went to the body shop for repairs and that's where it's been for the past two weeks.

anyway, my car is ready, so it's time to return the rental and get my car back. after taking the cat to the vet, which thankfully was without incident on my end but took some time because of an emergency they had.

I go to the rental place and return the car, and they try to stick me with the extra costs even though my claims adjuster said it should be free of charge to me. the extra costs being they were unable to provide a car in the covered size, so according to their contract with the insurance company the upgrade should be free to me. and I don't want to be a Karen about this but I also don't want to get the runaround from two groups telling me two different things. it also makes me wonder who the heck my claims adjuster talked to since she said she would give them a call. because really, it is neither my fault nor the insurance company's fault that they didn't have a small car available for my reservation. hell, maybe it isn't the rental place's fault either since they say they're returns based, but looking at the cars they had at their lot, I have to wonder if they DID have any small cars at all.

in any case, they charged it to the insurance company minus the fuel I agreed to cover (since I chose the option to bring it back on an empty tank instead of trying to match what fuel I had when they loaned me the car.) and they give me a ride to the body shop.

I get there, my car looks great, I go in to get my key and sign off on the paperwork.

and then my car won't start.

I go back inside like ??? and they go, "yeah we've had to jump your car a number of times while working on it." which, they didn't tell me that before?? and Dad and Razzz jumped on this being suspicious, but we'll get to that.

the guy jumps my car, I drive it over to the nearby AutoZone, and the car dies just as I'm pulling into the spot. I think, "well, if it is the battery, I couldn't have asked for a better spot for it to die."

I go in, I tell the dude what's up, and we jump my car again to get a read on the battery. things look bad but inconclusive, so he recommended I take it to another place to see if it is just the battery or if something else is going on. and I can't get it out of the parking lot.

fine. ok. I knew one day I'd have to cowboy up and handle things, so I pull up my insurance app and request roadside assistance for a tow. I don't have roadside included in my plan because this is the first time in the 7 years I've owned my car that I've needed roadside assistance, so I figure paying it out of pocket this one time balances out. they say it's going to be possibly 2 hours for them to get here, and I have to be at work in an hour at this point, so I make arrangements to have the car towed without me there.

fortunately the guy at AutoZone was happy to help, but that led to an interesting interaction. he saw the stickers on my car, including an Arkansas sticker in the colors of the Progressive Pride flag. and he asked if I knew a friend of his who was trans. we had a nice talk about it, but in my brain I was like, "??? We Don't All Know Each Other!" don't get me wrong, I would love to meet his friend! but we don't have like a meetup place or a psychic link.

THEN I call Dad to see if he can give me a ride. he can't, and that really should be the end of the conversation. but no, dads gotta dad, so he asks for more details about my car trouble and tells me it's super sus that I get the car back from the body shop and suddenly it's having this trouble. and it's like he's not wrong but he is not solving any problems by talking to me about them over the phone at that moment. he was also like, "the car didn't give you any trouble like this on your vacation," and I was like, "because I had the rental on vacation and haven't had my car for two weeks!" I eventually had to be like, "I'm handling it but right now if you can't give me a ride I REALLY need to get on the phone with someone who can!" that fortunately did the trick, and I jumped onto Uber.

I managed to get an Uber just in time for work, and the driver was weird about me slamming her doors?? I didn't think I was but she seemed to think I was slamming them. I wasn't even thinking really, just wanted to shut the door firmly because I don't want the door just hanging open. but that's whatever and I managed to remember to not "slam" the door when I left.

also, while in the Uber, I got a call from the tow truck saying he was almost there. I updated him on the situation including the guy at AutoZone who I left my key with. and turns out tow truck guy and AutoZone guy are friends who used to work together! that at least was a happy coincidence.

somehow I made it to work on time, then I was on the phone for like an hour talking to various people about the situation and where the car got towed to because it was brought to a different dealership (and actually the one I would have chosen had it been offered as a default on the app) and now that whole mess of it is sorted. as far as they can tell, it IS just the battery, but I asked them to make sure just in case anything else happens with the car. I will be a little sore if it IS just the battery because AutoZone could have resolved that problem without me paying for a tow, but I would rather be safe than sorry about my car.

anyway that's been my day so far. how are y'all?

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shiroi---kumo · 1 year ago

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Guys Bust style commissions are open for now. I have very limited slots so I have time to work on them and I don't overwhelm myself before I accept more.

I only take commissions through artistree and

you can find the link to do so here

I am not offering anything other than bust commission right now and I am only offering 1 character because I am thinking about speed. Please be patient with me I'm doing what I can to replace some of the money I'm losing from being off work. I'm still off and they're making me stay off for a whole 'nother week because of the mess that happened today.

My workman's comp claim got denied and they didn't tell me until monday (HR did, workman's comp hasn't contacted me since) and the doctor I was supposed to see tomorrow was my workman's comp doctor who took me off work in the first place. (Due to this concussion business)

So since workman's comp got denied

(because I didnt sign papers to release medical records but i havent gotten any papers from them in the mail? And apparently it was denied the same day workman's comp called and said they were mailing things for me to sign)

that means tomorrow's appt got canceled and my referrals for PT for my neck got lost and never acted on. So I have to see my personal doctor now but the one i used to see at my office is gone now so a new one and i cant see him until next Weds but work refuses to let me come in unless a doctor releases me.

SO that's where commissions come in.

I have money in savings, so i'm not dying but I also have bills to pay and car insurance coming out and I want to make sure that things dont go to hell BEFORE I get back to work. This also means I'm paying for all my medical appointments because of this concussion and possibly PT now because workman's comp fucked me over. So I need to make some money and work won't let me work. So here we are.

(FMLA is in progress; we'll see how that goes)

So for now I am offering bust commissions to you and I will doodle for you. I just ask if you have OCs please give me visual reference to work from. Thank you.

#ooc || mun speaks #// you may reblog

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ollieofthebeholder · 1 month ago

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And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA fanfic

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] || Also on AO3 and my personal website

Chapter 7: For this they wait, one waits in pain

There was some sort of confusion regarding the insurance that took a while to sort out, and the only doctor in the hospital qualified to perform brain surgery already had an operation scheduled for that morning and couldn’t arrive any earlier than he was already set to, which resulted in considerable debate over whether it would be better to move Gerard to another hospital or keep him there until the neurosurgeon was available, on which neither Gerard nor Gertrude was consulted. Evidently, however, the other hospitals in the area were also fully booked, and the decision was made that there was no point in transporting him somewhere else if he would have to wait the same length of time. It took Gertrude a great deal of effort to swallow down her impatience over the delay—she had work to do, after all, and this was seriously impeding her progress, to the point that she almost would have wondered if Gerard’s seeming illness was something caused by the Stranger trying to slow her down had the MRI not come back with positive results. In truth, she still wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t.

Gerard, for his part, seemed relieved it wasn’t happening right away. He slept fitfully through the night—she was permitted to stay with him because they’d bought her claim that she was his mother—and she wasn’t sure if the constant waking and jerking about was due to pain or fear or something more insidious. Looking into his head would be a frivolous use of a dread power, so she restrained herself.

It was difficult, though, especially having to answer the same question every single time he surfaced from unconsciousness, which was proving to be at least once an hour. At least it wasn’t an example of memory loss.

She glanced at her cell phone just as it lit up with a notification—an incoming text message, unsurprisingly from Tim. Swiftly, knowing he was likely to call her if she didn’t and not wanting to disturb Gerard’s current state of rest, she sent him the exact building and current location, then slid the phone back into her pocket. Chicago traffic was less a condition and more a war in progress, but even with all that in mind, he would arrive within the hour, and hopefully would be in time. She didn’t need to wait for a response from him.

Which was a good thing, as she realized with mild surprise nearly twenty minutes later that she had never actually received one.

As the thought crossed her mind, Gerard stirred and woke once more, and once again spoke in a raspy, sleep-strangled voice. “What time is it?”

“Ninety-two minutes later than the last time you asked, Gerard,” Gertrude replied, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “It’s ten thirty-seven A.M.”

Gerard blinked at her, then sank back against the bed, blinking. So softly she almost didn’t hear him—a sure sign he wasn’t talking to her—he murmured, “Still morning.”

Gertrude glanced up at the ceiling. Technically, Gerard hadn’t been moved into a room yet; he was in a bed partitioned off from the larger part of the emergency room waiting to be prepped for surgery, and there were no windows back here. Understandable that he might have lost track of time, but a bit odd that he was so desperate to keep track.

“I think if your condition was at the risk of being immediately fatal, they would have rescheduled the morning’s patient,” she said as neutrally as she could.

Gerard rolled his head to look at her. Before he could answer, though—assuming he was planning to—the nurse who had been checking on him for most of the evening slipped around the curtain, a light jacket thrown over her scrubs and her purse dangling from her shoulder. Ignoring Gertrude, as she was wont to do, she spoke directly to Gerard. “Hey, sweetie, I’m about to head home, but I wanted to let you know that I just heard from my boss that they’re finishing up the surgery ahead of you. It shouldn’t be too much longer now.”

“Oh. Okay,” Gerard said quietly. “Thank you.”

“No problem. You just relax. Everything’s going to be fine.” The nurse smiled. “I’ll try to pop in and make sure you’re doing okay when I come back tonight, depending on where you are.” With that, she turned and left.

Gertrude snorted. “I’m so thankful my cloak of invisibility is working properly.”

“You said yourself you weren’t on my paperwork.” Gerard twisted the sheet in his hands, just slightly. “And I’m awake. They don’t need to tell you anything.”

His eyes flicked up to the equipment beside his bed, scanning the screen. Gertrude studied it herself. She was no medical expert, but…

…but the Ceaseless Watcher gleefully rushed in to fill in the details about heart rate, pulse, oxygen level, and temperature. She knew the exact percentages of the components in his intravenous drip and exactly what would be of concern to his doctor and what would be dismissed as unimportant. In truth, the majority of it was of no more than secondary concern.

“Is there something worrying you?” she asked. This time she couldn’t stop the slight impatience creeping into her tone.

“No,” Gerard replied, with the immediacy and flicker in his eyes that made a lie of that even if she hadn’t had supernatural assistance.

“Gerard.” Gertrude could feel the tingle of the Beholding on her tongue, and it made her all the more perturbed. Gerard’s childish worries were worth neither the expenditure of energy nor the courtesy of gentleness.

“Okay, no, I just…” Gerard swallowed hard. He seemed to have some trouble with the motion. “Have you…heard from Tim?”

Oh. Of course. Gertrude had even thought, after contacting Tim about Gerard’s medical emergency, that he would be upset and stressed if Tim didn’t arrive before he went into surgery. She just somehow hadn’t expected him to actually start worrying until they told him they were actually ready for him, rather than just a vague it shouldn’t be too much longer now. Especially since she’d only vaguely told him that Tim would be arriving…

In the morning. Hence why Gerard had asked, every time he awoke, what time it was. He was trying to ask, as subtly as he could, if Tim would be arriving soon.

She pressed her lips together tightly for a moment so her irritation at herself wouldn’t bleed out into what she was saying. “His plane landed…” She glanced at her phone. Still no reply from Tim since she had sent him their information. “Thirty-two minutes ago. He’s on his way now.”

Gerard exhaled heavily, then coughed hard for several moments. Once he could draw breath again, he leaned back against the headboard with a groan. “I’d kill for a cigarette right now.”

“I doubt they’ll allow it,” Gertrude said dryly. She, too, was itching for a nicotine fix, but at least she wasn’t going in for surgery. As soon as Tim arrived, she would be able to step outside for a smoke. Possibly to leave as well, but most likely she would wait.

“Thanks for staying,” Gerard said softly. “Dunno if I said that yet.”

“You didn’t. But you’re welcome.” Gertrude didn’t bother pointing out how much work she had to do or how much of a sacrifice it was for her to remain. Gerard knew all that. He also knew that she wouldn’t have made that sacrifice for just anyone.

She hoped he knew that it meant that she did care for him, in her own way.

In fact, Tim arrived exactly nine minutes later, rushing through the curtain just as the baby-faced day nurse, his scrubs still so new that they crackled with dye, was disconnecting all the equipment Gerard was hooked into. The relief on Gerard’s face was palpable. “Took you long enough.”

“Yeah, sorry, the teleportation circle was out of service.” Tim looked at the nurse, whose eyes were huge, and then at the white-coated doctor just behind him. “Did I miss it?”

“We’re just getting ready to take him back, Mr. Keay,” the doctor said. Tim didn’t correct him. “You can follow us as far as the door, but then you’ll have to wait outside.”

Gertrude assumed she was included in that; if she wasn’t, nobody stopped her. She trailed after Tim, who kept pace with Gerard the entire way. At last they reached a T-intersection with a sign on the wall. An arrow pointing left read SURGERY; one pointing right read WAITING AREA. Obviously, this was where they would part.

Gerard, who had been silent and almost drowsy—he must have been tired, since he had barely slept in the last twenty-four hours—suddenly reached out and touched Tim’s hand. “Winter.”

Tim frowned. “What?”

“It’s—I’ve been thinking about it. Winter. The first movement, the allegro, but all of it really.”

Gertrude didn’t understand, nor did she understand the grin that split Tim’s face even as the sudden fear flared in his eyes, but she kept her mouth shut as he said, “I’ll give it a listen, then.” He squeezed Gerard’s fingers lightly, then bent over and kissed his forehead. “Play nice. I’ll see you when you’re done.”

“Yeah.” Gerard managed a shaky, tentative smile in reply, then fell back against the gurney. The nurse wheeled him towards the door to the surgery. Tim watched silently for a long moment, then turned and headed for the waiting room.

Gertrude started to follow, then stopped. She really needed a cigarette; it had been a long night and a long day before, and she was itching for the nicotine fix. Tim was there and waiting. She could step outside for a few minutes and probably be back before the anesthesia had even taken effect.

Or…theoretically, she could leave. After all, Tim had arrived, which meant Gerard was no longer alone. They both had her number. She could, in theory, take her bag and go on to Pittsburgh as she’d planned. She could continue on her journey, while they…

While they what?

She pushed the thought out of her head, or at least to the back of her mind, long enough to focus on memorizing the route out of the hospital.

It took her longer than she had expected to find somewhere to light up; unsurprisingly, there were regulations against smoking within a certain distance of the hospital, but it hadn’t occurred to her that the sheer glut of medical centers in the area would mean she would need to walk several blocks before she was free of the judgmental red circles with crosses. Finally, she stopped on a street corner, tapped a slender cigarette out of her pack, and flicked her lighter. The crackle as the leaves caught, and a moment later, the soothing scents of tobacco and menthol curling into her nostrils, calmed the itch and put a balm her fraying nerves.

There were probably better ways to do that, but hell, at this point, if the cigarettes hadn’t killed her yet they weren’t likely to. Then, too—she smiled grimly to herself as she drew on the cigarette—there were enough things that wanted her dead that would be furious if something as innocuous as emphysema was her undoing in the end that it was almost worth the attempt. Anyway, smoking hadn’t caused Gerard’s illness.

She leaned against the signpost on the corner, blew out a puff of smoke, and watched it spiral up to join the clouds overhead. Now that she had time, she tried to put her thoughts in order.

Facts. Logic. Look at the situation without emotion, without sentiment. It was something she was ordinarily quite good at, but for some reason, she was having trouble this time. She was getting soft in her old age, that’s what it was.

Logic reminded her that if she was truly viewing this situation from an unemotional standpoint, she wouldn’t have bothered to contact Tim. The sensible thing to do would have been to get Gerard his treatment, get out the door, and get moving. She had, after all, left the Archives virtually unguarded, and there was no way to alert Leitner that she had done so. Since he knew about Tim, he would be down in the tunnels—which she also hadn’t mentioned to Gerard or Tim—and assuming everything was fine. Tim should be there, not here. Logically.

Except…Gertrude had to stop herself from grinding the end of the cigarette into pulp. Except Gerard needed him, whether he would admit it or not. Except that she would lose Tim’s respect, to say nothing of his trust, if she kept something like this from him. Except there was no way she would have the patience to wait for Gerard to recover enough from brain surgery that he could leave the hospital, never mind travel. She Knew that it would be several days before he was well enough to leave the hospital and that it would be six weeks before he could safely fly—the minimum suggestion was seven to ten days, but hospitals tended to suggest the full six weeks, and she didn’t want to risk pushing him too far, not when she’d gone to all this effort to help him.

Damn and blast.

So. As she saw it, she had two choices. She could leave Tim and Gerard behind in Chicago while she continued her search, then contact them to catch up with her whenever it was safe to do so and hope like hell Elias didn’t get into the Archives in her absence…or she could leave Tim and Gerard behind in Chicago, fly back to London herself, and leave them to continue the search.

Neither of those options were particularly palatable, but one was definitely easier to stomach than the other. And the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. After all, wasn’t that what she had assistants for? She’d taken Tim into her confidence, at least as much as she took anyone else in. He knew as much as she had at his age—maybe more. And Gerard was Eric’s boy, so he was sensible…but he was also Mary’s son, and he wasn’t defenseless. They would be all right.

And it would keep them out from underfoot for a bit. She could call them home when—if—things got bad.

Gertrude finished her cigarette, flicked it into a nearby ashcan, and headed back to the hospital. Since she still wore the visitor’s pass they had printed out for her that morning, it was no trouble at all to get past the desk and back to the waiting room.

It seemed odd to have so many people there on a Tuesday afternoon, but then again, medical emergencies didn’t precisely wait until after normal business hours. Gertrude paused in the doorway and scanned the room. Partly she was scanning for potential statements—not that she expected much, but the fear of the survivor, the unharmed, was often sweeter than the fear of the actual physical victim—but mostly she was looking for Tim. It didn’t take long, even in the crowd. He had claimed a spot in the corner, directly under the television, which seemed to be playing some sort of home improvement show, and sat with his head bowed, staring at his hands, which were laced together between his knees. She edged her way across the room to join him.

The moment she sat down, he stirred. He leaned further forward, reached into his bag, and withdrew a folder, which he handed to her without making eye contact. “Brought your lunch.”

Gertrude, who had been in the act of taking the folder, blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“The statements. You get energy from them, right?” Tim shrugged, still not looking at her. “I’ve seen you. You start getting tired in the afternoons, you grab a statement and a cup of tea and head into your office. You always look a lot perkier when you come out, and it’s sure as hell not the tea. I know you didn’t bring any with you, but I kind of got the impression you were picking statements up as you went. But if you’ve been here with Gerry since last night, I reckoned you might be running low.”

Slowly, Gertrude pulled the folder into her lap and opened it. Three separate statements, if the plastic clips holding them together were any indication, sat in its covers, the top one yellow and fragile with age. She hadn’t thought she was that obvious.

“Thank you,” she said. Convention dictated a reciprocation of some kind, she felt, so she asked, “How are you holding up?”

Tim was silent for several moments, staring at his hands. Finally, he asked in a low voice, “Is he going to be okay?”

Guilt stabbed at Gertrude’s stomach for a moment. “I can’t Know the future, Tim.”

“I’m not asking the Archivist.” Tim looked up at her for the first time since he had arrived. “I’m asking you.”

Gertrude took in the pinkness of Tim’s eyes, the hollows in his cheeks, the tight lacing of his fingers. He was too open, too vulnerable, and she was too tired and drained to stop the Ceaseless Watcher from letting her Know—about the way his throat had closed up momentarily when she had told him Gerard was ill, about the way he’d sat upright and rigid and willed the plane to go faster, damn it, faster, about the way he’d nearly broken down when the receptionist couldn’t find Gerard’s name at first, thinking he was too late. About how much he had already lost in his life, and what he feared would happen to him if he lost any more.

“He will be fine,” she said, with all the certainty she could muster. “He’s young, and healthy apart from this…well, and the smoking. We caught it before it was too far gone to correct.” She patted Tim’s arm in a perfunctory, awkward fashion. “And you’re here.”

Tim managed a smile. “I’m not exactly a trained doctor.”

“No, but now Gerard knows you’re waiting for him. He was…quite anxious that you weren’t here. Hopefully now he’ll be able to relax, and let the treatment actually work.” Gertrude fished her reading glasses out of her pocket and perched them on the end of her nose. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to read this statement.”

“Go ahead.” Tim pulled out a set of earbuds and popped them into his ears, then plugged them into his phone. A moment later he had called up one of those video sites and was scrolling for something.

Gertrude turned her attention to the statement and began to read it aloud. She kept her voice low, and nobody seemed to notice—especially as doctors periodically came out and called for one person or another. Tim seemed fully absorbed in whatever he was watching on his phone, so she allowed herself to sink into the statement. It was old, but nasty, and while she wasn’t particularly interested in the Flesh she could at least see why Tim had brought it to her. It had taken place some way to the west of where they currently were, but nevertheless it was American. She could almost feel the very ground beneath her rising up to meet the statement, the blood and fear that had soaked into the soil of the place singing out to welcome its errant brethren home.

Which was unusually fanciful for her, and patently ridiculous. But she felt it nonetheless.

A few answers filtered in as she lowered the last page to her lap. Sarah Carlisle had not died, not then; she had been found half-frozen by a nearby Cheyenne tribe and taken in. One of the members of the tribe, though his title in their tongue had been different, had been an Archivist, and though Sarah had believed the Cheyenne could not understand her, the Eye had granted him the ability to interpret her words—my husband’s corpse begged me to eat it—and he had led an expedition to the cave, where he had encountered the Avatar of the Flesh that dwelt there.

As much as she wished the Ceaseless Watcher would leave her be, she would admit to a grim satisfaction at the knowledge that that long-deceased Archivist’s tactics had not been so very different to her own. At least she was following in a grand tradition of sorts.

Tim had been right, although she wished he wasn’t. She felt much better after that. She turned to study him just as he sighed, removed his earbuds, and pocketed his phone. “That’s him, all right,” he mumbled.

“The Winter allegro?” Gertrude asked.

Tim started. “Hey. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t. I was finished. Were you listening to the allegro from Winter?”

“Well, the whole thing really, but yeah, that’s what I was listening to.”

“I must admit, it doesn’t seem like it would be something Gerard would listen to,” Gertrude said, tucking the statement in the back of the folder and closing it. “Unless it’s also the name of a heavy metal album. Why did he ask you to listen to it?”

Tim managed a small smile. “I asked him if he were a piece of music, what would he be.”

Gertrude gave him a disapproving look. “I thought I told you not to contact him.”

“I didn’t. I asked him that before you left. It was what we were talking about at the pub when you called.” Tim glanced at the clock on the wall. “Jesus, it’s only been an hour. Feels like it’s been forever.”

Gertrude, too, glanced at the clock. “I don’t imagine it will be much longer.”

Tim shook his head. “Craniotomies take anywhere from three to five hours. And considering they made the decision to do the surgery right away instead of scheduling it for a few weeks out when he hasn’t had a cigarette, it’s probably bad enough that they thought the risks of tobacco use on surgery are better than the risk of waiting, so it’s probably going to take a little longer. We won’t hear anything until early evening.”

Dismay and annoyance mingled in Gertrude’s mind. She had hoped to be on the road that day…and, all right, she still could, but two to four more hours had not been in her plan. Still…she would put up with it. It would still mean she had spent no more than twenty-four hours in the hospital, and she could at least make the next train out of Chicago.

It was another hour before it occurred to her to be surprised at herself for not even considering the possibility of just leaving then and there.

People came and went, responding to doctors’ summons or settling in to wait or taking small children who couldn’t sit still any longer to stretch their legs or rushing in to find out how’s it going. Tim coerced Gertrude into playing a simple pen and paper game she remembered from her childhood but hadn’t played in ages, meaning she got thoroughly trounced three times in a row before she recalled the strategy and started out-maneuvering him. She was just about to suggest he consider closing his eyes for a few minutes when the door opened once again and a vaguely familiar man stepped out.

“Who’s here for Gerard Keay?” he called softly. Like most Americans, he mispronounced the first name.

Tim got to his feet so fast Gertrude was almost surprised the sudden change in altitude didn’t make him dizzy. She rose at a more reasonable pace and followed him as he went to speak to the surgeon. She could feel the anxiety rolling off him, but one look at the doctor’s expression and she knew he needn’t worry.

“How is he?” Tim asked as soon as he was in range.

“Doing amazingly well. He got here just in time.” The neurosurgeon smiled. “It was a very large tumor, and it appears to be growing rapidly—I can’t think how he wouldn’t have noticed it before otherwise.” Gertrude kept her face blank with effort. “But we were able to get all of it, as far as we can tell.”

Tim swallowed. “Can I see him? Can I be there when he wakes up?”

“He’s awake now. We had to keep him alert for the surgery so that we could ask him questions, to be certain the removal didn’t affect memory or movement. But he passed with flying colors, which means we were been able to remove it without loss of function. We’re taking him to intensive care for the night, just as a precaution, but he’ll be able to go to a regular room in the morning. And you can stay with him, of course. Just give us twenty minutes to get him settled and we’ll come back for you.”

“Thank you, Dr. Greene.” Tim’s face shone with relief.

Dr. Greene smiled, patted his arm, and headed out the door again. Tim sank to the nearest chair, looking as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders.

Gertrude, too, confessed to a certain amount of relief. She sat down next to Tim. “I told you he would be fine.”

Tim managed a cheeky grin. “Never doubted you for a minute, boss.”

Gertrude smiled back, then got serious. “You have the folio?”

Tim reached into his bag and pulled it out. Gertrude nodded, then reached into her own bag, pulled out a notebook, and handed it to him. “Here. Everything we’ve collected so far. I have a backup copy”—she patted the pocket where her laptop and its various accoutrement rested—“but you’ll need this.”

Hesitantly, Tim took the notebook, then unzipped the folio and tucked it in. “Am I…taking it back to London?”

“No.” Gertrude zipped her bag up and slung it over her shoulder. “Not yet, anyway. Once Gerard is well enough to leave the hospital, and once he’s able to travel, I want the two of you to continue the journey. The next step is Pittsburgh—all the notes are there—and from there, I trust you’ll be able to follow the trail.”

Tim sat up a little straighter at that. “Of the Stranger?”

Gertrude nodded. “I need access to the Archives for at least some things, and if we’re going to tip our hand that you’re helping me to stop the Unknowing, I’d rather you not be directly under Elias’s eye. More to the point, I don’t want him to be aware that you know about all the rituals. You may be safer if he thinks you only know about the Stranger’s. Regardless, head to Pittsburgh and check the Hall of Records. The specifics are in my notebook. Beyond that, I trust you to use your discretion.”

“How long do we have?”

“As long as you need. I’ll call if you need to return. In the meantime, stay in touch.” Gertrude rose. “And be sure to submit your receipts as frequently as you can. I’ll have the Institute reimburse you. Once you’re on the trail, of course. Until you leave for Pittsburgh, you’ll officially be on leave.”

Tim stood, too. “Don’t forget about the fire suppressant system. Elias has been ignoring the stuff I submitted.”

“I won’t.” It likely wouldn’t come to anything, but Gertrude would give it a go. She held out her hand. “Good luck, Tim.”

“Good luck, Gertrude.” Tim shook her hand solemnly. “And…thank you. For everything.”

“Thank you,” Gertrude said, in a rare show of sincerity. “I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.”

She patted his shoulder, shifted the weight of the bag, turned on her heel, and strode out of the hospital. She would head to the Amtrak station, explain the situation, and see if they would move her ticket to tonight. Then, instead of stopping in Pittsburgh, she would continue on to Washington, D.C. and visit the Usher Foundation to see if her files from Pu Songling had arrived. Then she could catch the next flight back to London, and to her Archives.

Tim and Gerard would be fine. They would continue the work abroad, while she continued it at home. It was the optimal strategy.

She just had to hope it was the right one.

#ollie writes fanfic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #and if thou wilt forget #gertrude robinson #gerry keay #tim stoker #hospitals #illness #surgery #medical stuff #smoking #loss #slight misuse of Beholding powers

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 10 months ago

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By Jennifer Block

Published: Nov 7, 2023

In August, a Missouri law went into effect that limits gender treatment for minors to counseling. Such laws, which have passed in 22 states to date, can be particularly cruel. Minors already on puberty-suppressing drugs or cross-sex hormones are being effectively cut off. Trans adults on Medicaid who’ve been taking hormones for years may find their prescriptions are suddenly unaffordable. And often these laws are tied to overt acts of culture war — like a ban on drag shows in Tennessee.

This wave of legislation is unfortunate for another reason. A lot of fair-minded, thoughtful people may question whether hormones and surgery are appropriate for the growing number of young people who are distressed about their biological sex. But given all the campaigns in red states, many progressives are instead biting their tongues and trusting that doctors know what they’re doing.

The problem is that as more kids identify as transgender than ever before, it’s still worth asking whether “gender affirming care” is the right model for them. Despite the certainty advocates project that this is an open-and-shut case, it wasn’t long ago that this “affirming” approach for children was simply an idea — a hypothesis informed by experience, but an idea nonetheless. Yet in less than a decade, it became standard of care and is now practically gospel in the United States, even as other countries are redirecting services toward psychotherapy and social support.

A natural response on the left to bills restricting or even outlawing gender-related medical treatment is “keep your laws off my body.” As a vocal supporter of abortion access, I’m sympathetic. But it’s a mistake to conflate these two causes. Abortion is a thoroughly vetted, one-time procedure, and denying access to it reduces a woman to an incubator. That’s quite different from a relatively new hormonal protocol in children that can lead to major, irreversible, long-term impacts.

The practice of medicine doesn’t have perfect checks and balances, but it does have a history of proving itself wrong (for the latest episode, see: cold medicine). So when a new approach for children and adolescents involves powerful medications and surgeries, people aren’t necessarily misguided (or “anti-trans”) to voice concerns. Yet journalists, parents, researchers, and clinicians who have raised questions about the evidence have been ensnared in a conversation about identity and rights. Now it seems all we can hear are the loudest and most reactionary voices, echoing in statehouse rotundas.

Loaded terms

For as long as gender roles have existed, there have been people whose inner compass, even at an early age, felt unaligned with their bodies. What’s new today is the ability to medically address that mismatch in adolescence, before puberty has fully had its say.

And since about 2016, the number of young people receiving what are called “puberty blockers” — drugs that suppress the signal to the pituitary to release the hormones that transform tweens into sexually mature adults — has grown. An analysis by health technology company Komodo found that the number of kids between the ages of 6 and 17 in the United States who began suppressing puberty to treat gender-related distress rose every year between 2017 and 2021 and leveled off in 2022. Komodo counted more than 6,000 children in that category in that time span, although that number is likely an undercount because it only represents treatments covered by insurance. Massachusetts is among the top five states, generating 6 percent of claims.

At least 14,700 minors with a gender dysphoria diagnosis began taking prescription estrogen or testosterone from 2017 through 2021, according to Komodo’s analysis — especially testosterone, as female-born teens now outnumber males 3 to 1 in many clinics. And a recent study found that gender-related surgeries, such as breast removal, nearly tripled between 2016 and 2019, including among 12- to 18-year-olds.

Meanwhile, European countries, including those that pioneered early intervention for children with gender dysphoria, have generally limited gender-related surgery to adults.

“Puberty blockers,” “hormone therapy,” and “top surgery” fall under the umbrella of “gender-affirming care.” These are loaded terms, fraught with as much activism and obfuscation as “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” yet they were validated by medical sources like the 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) statement in support of the “gender affirmative care model.”

This document informs clinicians that “many medical interventions can be offered to youth who identify as transgender and gender diverse,” including drugs that suppress pubertal development, cross-sex hormones, and, “on a case-by-case basis,” surgeries. These kids, even before puberty, “know their gender as clearly and as consistently as their developmentally equivalent [cisgender] peers,” the statement says. An approach of “watchful waiting” to see how a young patient’s identity develops is “outdated” and “does not serve the child because critical support is withheld.”

The statement presented the affirmative approach as settled consensus based on evidence. However this past August the AAP — under pressure by several members — announced that it would commission an independent systematic review of the evidence. That’s typically the first step in developing what the National Academy of Medicine calls “trustworthy guidelines,” so that patients and providers can make decisions informed by a thorough, unbiased evaluation of the available research. But the AAP hadn’t done that before releasing its 2018 statement. The AAP did not respond to requests for comment other than to reaffirm its 2018 statement.

Existing systematic reviews have prompted Sweden, Finland, and England to restrict treatments for minors, because the evidence that they are likely to result in more benefit than harm is of low quality. But unlike US states that have taken legislative action, these countries are allowing hormonal treatment in select cases, and they are ensuring that researchers follow the recipients over time so the evidence base gets stronger.

The case for watchful waiting

Not only do red-state gender laws tend to lack the humanity and room for inquiry seen in Europe, I think they also distract progressives from fully absorbing what the people they’re marching with are actually chanting. The argument for early treatment is not just a medical one — it is a metaphysical one. It holds that gender identity is something that exists deep inside a person’s psyche and that this diagnosis, essentially, will be revealed to the clinician, even by young children. That is a radical interpretation of patient-centered care.

When I spoke with the AAP statement’s lead author, Jason Rafferty, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Providence, he reiterated that this model of care is fundamentally about “affirming and validating the child’s sense of identity from day one through to the end.” Its main principle is that when a patient says, “‘I’m X,’ we operate under the assumption that what they’re telling us is their truth, that the child’s sense of reality and feeling of who they are is the navigational beacon to sort of orient treatment around.”

Joshua Safer, director of the Mt. Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery and a coauthor of the Endocrine Society’s practice guideline — another influential document — told me, “I know that kids who are talking that way when they are 9 years old are overwhelmingly consistent in their thought processes,” and thus, giving such patients puberty blockers “would save them from surgery” down the road.

But when I spoke to the Dutch clinician and researcher Thomas Steensma — who joined the team that pioneered the early treatment model that migrated to the United States — he distanced himself and his colleagues’ practice from the current American iteration. In brief, he said, “That’s not our approach.”

In the Dutch clinics, he said, young patients undergo a “long, focused” process of assessment, and even social transition is not a given. “It’s not necessarily true that a child who feels gender dysphoria or incongruence will grow up with [those feelings],” he explained. “Our approach is to make developmentally informed decisions with the child, with the family,” and through counseling to explore what might help. “Identity is not the strongest force in providing medical treatment” because it becomes more fixed during puberty. “It’s common sense,” he said, that the brain matures with the body, and that one gains greater capacity to “reflect on your body and about your identity.”

In 2016 — while the AAP statement was being drafted and reviewed — Steensma coauthored a review of 10 studies of gender-incongruent and dysphoric youth. Among 317 kids, 85 percent resolved their identity distress “around or after” puberty. The review also found that most dysphoric kids turned out to be same-sex attracted, lending credence to the concern that enthusiastically affirming kids may mean “transing away the gay.” The article made clear that “there is currently no general consensus about the best approach to dealing with the (uncertain) future development of children with gender dysphoria,” even social transition. In its 2015 guidelines, the American Psychological Association also said there was no consensus.

Steensma’s article explains that, in the model of “watchful waiting” — what the AAP derided in its 2018 statement — children are neither discouraged from nonconforming behaviors nor counseled to accept their natal sex (denounced by critics as “reparative” or “conversion” therapy, historically the term used to describe the widely condemned practice of trying to “convert” same-sex attracted adults). Rather, families are encouraged to allow their child to explore their feelings and given counseling “to bear the uncertainty of the child’s psychosexual outcome.” There’s an effort to “find a balance between an accepting and supportive attitude toward gender dysphoria while at the same time protecting the child against any negative reactions and remaining realistic about the chance that [dysphoric] feelings may desist in the future,” wrote the authors.

This is different from what has become the dominant approach in the United States, in which children’s sense of identity is supposed to be accepted as true and real by care providers and medically treated accordingly. Not affirming, by this interpretation, is tantamount to conversion therapy. But in the approach Steensma describes, children are in an unpredictable process of self discovery, and thus care providers must follow closely and exercise caution in treating. “We do think puberty suppression can be a good intervention for adolescents struggling with gender incongruence,” Steensma told me. But “you have to be very careful.” “We say, don’t make certain decisions where you close developmental pathways. Watch and see what happens with the identity.”

These competing approaches — one proactive, one restrained — could have been treated with equivalence by the AAP and other entities as they continued to evaluate the evidence. Instead, tens of thousands of pediatric providers, including the therapists charged with assessing prospective patients, were essentially told to trust their young patients in determining whether to recommend potentially life-altering treatment.

A risk-benefit calculation

In the mid-2000s, Boston Children’s Hospital became a satellite for the Dutch early treatment approach. Pediatric endocrinologist Norman Spack, now retired, told me what motivated him to pitch this to his higher-ups was years of witnessing young adult trans patients struggling. Even with hormones and surgery they couldn’t easily pass as their felt gender, they had little support from family or society to express themselves, and many were fighting addiction, homelessness, and suicidality. Spack wanted to pilot a strategy of early detection, because it was at puberty when “they started to fall apart,” he told me recently. The idea was to catch these patients before “their bodies escaped from that neutral space of pre-puberty.”

Seeing the suffering of a population is often the impetus for a preventive treatment. Obstetricians began using electronic fetal monitors in the 1970s in the hopes of preventing cerebral palsy and stillbirths. Physicians began screening men for prostate antigen in the hopes of catching and curing deadly cancers. These were solid rationales, but what happened was an epidemic of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Strapping laboring patients to beeping machines initially succeeded in tripling the rate of Cesarean surgeries without any concomitant improvement in infant outcomes (and added harm to their mothers). PSA testing increased the rate of prostate surgeries without an overall survival benefit — and a not insignificant amount of resulting urinary and sexual dysfunction.

Spack told me that the evidence for early intervention was “the many, many years of nontreatment for transgender youth waiting until they were adults to do anything medically for them” and seeing where that led.

But what if he was only seeing a sliver of the population — the minority who continued to feel distress and seek treatment, rather than the bigger picture that included those who may have felt a mismatch in childhood and then realigned during puberty? Imagine only studying cases of emergency Cesareans and drawing policy conclusions based on those births rather than everyone who gave birth in a particular year. I ran that comparison by Gordon Guyatt, a research methodologist at McMaster University and one of the founders of evidence-based medicine. Earlier intervention is a “reasonable hypothesis,” he said, but if the population you’re observing is “a subpopulation that is unrepresentative and you make inferences about the entire population, you’re in trouble.”

Spack said the suicidality among his trans patients, even kids under 12, “was so strong that I felt we had to do something.” And he saw many kids “flourish” with treatment. Research does suggest that LGBTQ youth are at higher risk for depression and suicide, but the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s own systematic evidence review makes clear that it can claim no definitive relationship between hormonal treatment and mental health outcomes, especially in adolescents, and that it’s “impossible” to say what impact hormonal treatment has on suicide. Long-awaited research funded by the National Institutes of Health — Spack was one of the original lead investigators — recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported some improvements among 315 youth receiving treatment in university-based gender clinics, but there were also two suicides. “Sometimes you have to bite the bullet, and go with more than a hunch” based on “smaller numbers and not being able to answer all the questions at once,” said Spack.

By 2011, the Dutch had published on the outcomes of a cohort of 70, which seemed reassuring, though the findings had limitations and haven’t been replicated elsewhere. Steensma told me he and his colleagues have never thought of their work as “scientific proof” that their model would work everywhere. “We always have said, ‘This is what we can provide from evidence, but you have to do your own studies.’”

In a new analysis of the mental health outcomes of the first 44 recipients of gender-related puberty suppression at the UK’s Tavistock clinic, roughly a third got better, a third got worse, and a third did neither. The National Health Service has ordered the Tavistock clinic to close after a review found the care “inadequate.”

Like the Dutch, the Boston clinic didn’t take kids at their word without psychological assessment. In fact, the staff used tools the Dutch had designed. Laura Edwards-Leeper, the clinic’s original psychologist, told me that extensive, exploratory talk therapy was historically part of the model. But lately she’s been outspoken about her concerns that “more providers do not value the mental health component, largely because they believe if the young person says they’re trans, they’re trans,” she told me.

The dramatic rise in young people presenting for treatment, especially genetically female teens, and the number of clinics that have sprung up with little to no emphasis on assessment, all make Spack “anxious.” “I run into so many people who tell me they have a child or grandchild or niece who’s trans. And I always say, ‘Well, who made that determination and when?’”

The logic of affirmation

I’ve spent the last year reporting on pediatric gender medicine and policy for The BMJ, one of the oldest medical journals. Like other journalists in this space, I’ve been accused of transphobia, hate, bias, and worse. Some of the rhetoric is extremely hostile, but the underlying logic is apparent: If people need medical treatment to exist in their identity, and kids know who they are, then anything that might impede access is an existential threat. Politicians who simultaneously target pride parades and library books and “groomers” only reinforce that terror and turn up the political heat. That’s even more reason for journalists to keep cooler heads and stay true to our duty: to hold authorities to account.

The most important question is one that the Europeans and Americans seem to be answering differently: What if it’s possible that there are kids who identify as trans who indeed know who they are at very early ages — younger versions of the adult patients who haunted Spack — and there are also kids who identify as trans for a finite period of time? And what if there’s no sure way to tell them apart?

Before he stopped returning my calls and emails, Rafferty acknowledged that children are in a “process of discovery” and may understand themselves one way at the onset of puberty and another way five years later, but that uncertainty shouldn’t preclude medical treatment. “It needs to be an ongoing, flexible, dynamic approach that we understand from the beginning may change over time, and so we need to bring in interventions when they seem their most appropriate from our medical perspective,” he told me. “If we’re wrong, then we need to back up and say, ‘What do we need to do differently?’”

And what if a kid has taken hormones that caused permanent hair growth or vocal changes or damaged their sexual function and came to regret these effects? In a recent Zoom meeting — footage of which has been shared on social media — Marci Bowers, a California gender surgeon and president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, shared a startling observation: Adult patients who transitioned from male to female couldn’t have orgasms if they had been “blocked” at the earliest signs of puberty and went directly on to estrogen. Bowers told me she was sharing a hypothesis, but that it was “a wake-up call for those who counsel this group of patients.” Safer told me “there’s some discussion about adjusting the timing of some of these treatments” to achieve more optimal function. “If you come to our meetings, that’s what we’re discussing. Nobody is worried about puberty blockers for a year or two.”

Yet data suggest that more than 95 percent of the children who begin puberty blockers continue on to cross-sex hormones. “The most difficult question,” the UK pediatrician Hilary Cass wrote in her interim report of a national review of gender health services, which led to the order to close the Tavistock clinic, “is whether puberty blockers do indeed provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they effectively ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway . . . by impeding the usual process of sexual orientation and gender identity development.” In 2020, following a systematic review, the UK’s National Health Service removed language that called the blockers “fully reversible” and replaced it with “little is known about the long-term side effects.”

There is an unknown number of people whose identity shifted and feel they’ve been irreparably harmed by medically transitioning. Corinna Cohn, who was born male, began hormones at 16 and had genital surgery at 19. Now, at age 48, Cohn testifies in support of laws restricting treatments in minors. “The thing that I’m most convinced of right now is that the longer somebody puts off medicalization, the more opportunities they’ll have to really clarify in their mind whether transition is actually good for them,” said Cohn, for whom “transition was a way out of having to deal with puberty. But I’m sort of stuck in a state of arrested development, because I never completed the adjustment to my body as it was becoming an adult body.”

Bowers pointed out that “you can always find someone who is going to regret” and warned me not to “single out transgender care” when one in five people regret their knee surgery, for example. “People have to take some responsibility in making those decisions,” she said.

But how can young people and their families make informed decisions without strong evidence it will make them better? How can children who’ve never experienced sexual intimacy consent to treatment that may limit their ability to have it in the future?

Edwards-Leeper believes some children do benefit from early treatment. “But to the general question of how can a young kid consent to something like this, it is a huge ethical dilemma . . . because honestly, they can’t,” she told me. “The responsibility falls on the parent.”

Rafferty told me patients who live with harms or regrets do not signal a failure of the affirmative care model. If a child or patient doesn’t like the effects of an intervention, or begins to feel different in their identity, then the provider continues to affirm by discontinuing treatment. “They’re not treatment failures if that’s what’s affirming,” he said.

In other words, the logic of affirmation seems to ensure only successful outcomes, circumventing questions of risk and benefit entirely. If parents and providers find this untenable, they are rejecting an argument — not trans people.

[ Via: https://archive.md/guho4 ]

There are no grown-ups in charge. Children are self-diagnosing and self-treating.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

Text

The real AI fight

Tonight (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

Last week's spectacular OpenAI soap-opera hijacked the attention of millions of normal, productive people and nonsensually crammed them full of the fine details of the debate between "Effective Altruism" (doomers) and "Effective Accelerationism" (AKA e/acc), a genuinely absurd debate that was allegedly at the center of the drama.

Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA "spicy autocomplete") will someday become so advanced that it could wake up and annihilate or enslave the human race. To prevent this, we need to employ "AI Safety" – measures that will turn superintelligence into a servant or a partner, nor an adversary.

Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity – but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer "safety" measures, in order to produce an "upward spiral" in the "techno-capital machine."

Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationists who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we're told, is the ideological battle over AI: should cautiously progress our LLMs into superintelligences with safety in mind, or go full speed ahead and trust to market forces to tame and harness the superintelligences to come?

This "AI debate" is pretty stupid, proceeding as it does from the foregone conclusion that adding compute power and data to the next-word-predictor program will eventually create a conscious being, which will then inevitably become a superbeing. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding faster and faster horses, we'll get a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As Molly White writes, this isn't much of a debate. The "two sides" of this debate are as similar as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Yes, they're arrayed against each other in battle, so furious with each other that they're tearing their hair out. But for people who don't take any of this mystical nonsense about spontaneous consciousness arising from applied statistics seriously, these two sides are nearly indistinguishable, sharing as they do this extremely weird belief. The fact that they've split into warring factions on its particulars is less important than their unified belief in the certain coming of the paperclip-maximizing apocalypse:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/effective-obfuscation

White points out that there's another, much more distinct side in this AI debate – as different and distant from Dee and Dum as a Beamish Boy and a Jabberwork. This is the side of AI Ethics – the side that worries about "today’s issues of ghost labor, algorithmic bias, and erosion of the rights of artists and others." As White says, shifting the debate to existential risk from a future, hypothetical superintelligence "is incredibly convenient for the powerful individuals and companies who stand to profit from AI."

After all, both sides plan to make money selling AI tools to corporations, whose track record in deploying algorithmic "decision support" systems and other AI-based automation is pretty poor – like the claims-evaluation engine that Cigna uses to deny insurance claims:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

On a graph that plots the various positions on AI, the two groups of weirdos who disagree about how to create the inevitable superintelligence are effectively standing on the same spot, and the people who worry about the actual way that AI harms actual people right now are about a million miles away from that spot.

There's that old programmer joke, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't." But of course, that joke could just as well be, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't understand either":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/11/the-ten-types-of-people/

What's more, the joke could be, "there are 10 kinds of people, those who understand hexadecenary, those who understand pentadecenary, those who understand tetradecenary [und so weiter] those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't." That is to say, a "polarized" debate often has people who hold positions so far from the ones everyone is talking about that those belligerents' concerns are basically indistinguishable from one another.

The act of identifying these distant positions is a radical opening up of possibilities. Take the indigenous philosopher chief Red Jacket's response to the Christian missionaries who sought permission to proselytize to Red Jacket's people:

https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5790/

Red Jacket's whole rebuttal is a superb dunk, but it gets especially interesting where he points to the sectarian differences among Christians as evidence against the missionary's claim to having a single true faith, and in favor of the idea that his own people's traditional faith could be co-equal among Christian doctrines.

The split that White identifies isn't a split about whether AI tools can be useful. Plenty of us AI skeptics are happy to stipulate that there are good uses for AI. For example, I'm 100% in favor of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group using an LLM to classify and extract information from the Innocence Project New Orleans' wrongful conviction case files:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

Automating "extracting officer information from documents – specifically, the officer's name and the role the officer played in the wrongful conviction" was a key step to freeing innocent people from prison, and an LLM allowed HRDAG – a tiny, cash-strapped, excellent nonprofit – to make a giant leap forward in a vital project. I'm a donor to HRDAG and you should donate to them too:

https://hrdag.networkforgood.com/

Good data-analysis is key to addressing many of our thorniest, most pressing problems. As Ben Goldacre recounts in his inaugural Oxford lecture, it is both possible and desirable to build ethical, privacy-preserving systems for analyzing the most sensitive personal data (NHS patient records) that yield scores of solid, ground-breaking medical and scientific insights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eaV8SWdjQ

The difference between this kind of work – HRDAG's exoneration work and Goldacre's medical research – and the approach that OpenAI and its competitors take boils down to how they treat humans. The former treats all humans as worthy of respect and consideration. The latter treats humans as instruments – for profit in the short term, and for creating a hypothetical superintelligence in the (very) long term.

As Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax reminds us, this is the root of all sin: "sin is when you treat people like things":

https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/granny-weatherwax-on-sin-favorite.html

So much of the criticism of AI misses this distinction – instead, this criticism starts by accepting the self-serving marketing claim of the "AI safety" crowd – that their software is on the verge of becoming self-aware, and is thus valuable, a good investment, and a good product to purchase. This is Lee Vinsel's "Criti-Hype": "taking press releases from startups and covering them with hellscapes":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Criti-hype and AI were made for each other. Emily M Bender is a tireless cataloger of criti-hypeists, like the newspaper reporters who breathlessly repeat " completely unsubstantiated claims (marketing)…sourced to Altman":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464030855880383

Bender, like White, is at pains to point out that the real debate isn't doomers vs accelerationists. That's just "billionaires throwing money at the hope of bringing about the speculative fiction stories they grew up reading – and philosophers and others feeling important by dressing these same silly ideas up in fancy words":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464024432217299

All of this is just a distraction from real and important scientific questions about how (and whether) to make automation tools that steer clear of Granny Weatherwax's sin of "treating people like things." Bender – a computational linguist – isn't a reactionary who hates automation for its own sake. On Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 – the excellent podcast she co-hosts with Alex Hanna – there is a machine-generated transcript:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417

There is a serious, meaty debate to be had about the costs and possibilities of different forms of automation. But the superintelligence true-believers and their criti-hyping critics keep dragging us away from these important questions and into fanciful and pointless discussions of whether and how to appease the godlike computers we will create when we disassemble the solar system and turn it into computronium.

The question of machine intelligence isn't intrinsically unserious. As a materialist, I believe that whatever makes me "me" is the result of the physics and chemistry of processes inside and around my body. My disbelief in the existence of a soul means that I'm prepared to think that it might be possible for something made by humans to replicate something like whatever process makes me "me."

Ironically, the AI doomers and accelerationists claim that they, too, are materialists – and that's why they're so consumed with the idea of machine superintelligence. But it's precisely because I'm a materialist that I understand these hypotheticals about self-aware software are less important and less urgent than the material lives of people today.

It's because I'm a materialist that my primary concerns about AI are things like the climate impact of AI data-centers and the human impact of biased, opaque, incompetent and unfit algorithmic systems – not science fiction-inspired, self-induced panics over the human race being enslaved by our robot overlords.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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