#cg Michael Holden

[cryingatwindermerepeaks]

Regressor!Tori Springs Hcs

🦊 Doesn’t really have a specific age when she regresses but usually she feels pretty young

🦊 most of the time she’s non speaking and if she does speak it usually very quietly and only to Charlie.

🦊 Star Wars is a big comfort for her when she’s little and she watches it on repeat

🦊 she figures out about regression online and immediately it makes her understand herself more but doesn’t really know what to do about it for a long time

🦊 she feels everything so deeply all the time and it feels 10x more intense when she’s little

🦊 she’s super emotional when she’s little because she can’t suppress everything as well as she does when she’s big

🦊 she especially gets really worried about Charlie and likes to be around him as much as she can to know that he’s ok

🦊 after the events of solitaire Tori clearly isn’t doing well and Charlie just keeps asking what’s wrong. Eventually she opens up to him about everything including the fact that she feels kind of ‘small’ most of the time

🦊 Charlie is very understanding because he’s heard about regression as a coping mechanism before. He really encourages Tori with it because he understands why she needs it

🦊 she has a pacifier which she kept from her childhood

🦊 she also has a little purple sippy cup which Charlie got for her after she literally chewed through a rubber drinking straw while she was little

🦊 Nick is also really good with her. He gets her a little stuffed fox toy which she names Alice.

🦊 Tory hides her regression from Michael for quite a while. She’s too scared of the idea of loosing him to risk it.

🦊 one day when they’re hanging out at Tori’s he finds her pacifier. She gets really defensive and yells at him to leave. Charlie, having overheard this, convinces her it’s time to tell him. The next day Michael shows up to apologise and Tori tells him.

🦊 which she’d go on to see as one of the best things she could’ve possibly done because Michael just gets her. Like he understands every part of her including her little side more than anyone else ever could.

🦊 Nick and Charlie call it telepathy because when Tori’s little Michael always knows exactly what she needs and she never has to say anything. He can notice the tiniest shift in her demeanour and immediately know what it means.

[little-tori-spring]

When Tori got diagnosed with autism she slipped very young and Michael got really worried and started asking Charlie a lot of questions

[cellarspider]

23/30 Characterization speedrun

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We return to a movie that exposits with all the grace of an inebriated hippo on rollerskates, Prometheus.

Y’know, I have a soft spot for the first movie adaptation of Silent Hill (2006). Yes, we're tangenting to talk about something else I like better, but I swear it's for a purpose.

It mostly sticks to the first game’s content, meaning it limits the number of themes it has to handle. It makes some alterations that affect its interpretation–it switches the gender of the protagonist, alters the religious elements, cuts out the bit where you basically fight Baphomet at the end of the game, but that always felt weird anyway. And, of course, there’s a required appearance by a certain tetrahedron lad, reanalyzed as a punitive figure turned outward on the world rather than inward toward the person that conjured him. I’ll allow it, partly because I saw it when I was a teenager and I thought he was badass.

But what it really nails camerawork, creature effects, and set design. So much so that a lot of the visuals of following games lifted from creative decisions made for the movie. The Silent Hill movie is more a thing of vibes than anything else, and the vibes are appropriately awful.

[Video description: Rose (Radha Mitchell) and Cybil (Laurie Holden) encounter a Lying Figure (Michael Cota), AKA Armless Man or Straightjacket. There’s only a tiny amount of CG here. It was pretty much all Cota’s unnerving shuffle and his willingness to be shoved into blinding, deafening, arm-tying monster-bondage with a breathing tube hidden around butt-height.. We salute you, Mr. Cota, possibly with our feet.]

But where the movie trips and falls is right near the end, where the vibes screech to a halt so that the movie can sit you down and explain the backstory that it already intimated throughout the rest of the runtime.

On a totally unrelated note, Janek has something to tell Shaw.

This barren moon, believe it or not, isn’t the Engineers’ homeworld. Y’don’t say.

You know what would’ve been a better way to set this up? Have somebody ask “hey, there’s nothing but rocks and ominous buildings here. What gives?”, but they literally never do. Not even the biologist, who does no biology in the movie. The geologist, who also doesn’t do any geology, doesn’t note, say, a lack of siltstone that’d indicate running water, no coal of any kind that’d indicate previous growth of plant matter, no signs of oil or natural gas deposits derived from ancient microbes. Lord knows the poor bastards weren’t swamped with work before the script ate them.

But no, there’s no questioning of this. Shaw dictates in her notes “Was there an outbreak here?”, after exploding the head. But that’s it. No, we leave it to Idris Elba explain, as seriously and as military guy-ily as he can. This is a weapons lab or depot, something went wrong here, Janek’s going to do a self-sacrifice if it seems like the weapon might get to Earth. He even says the weapons are in “those vases”, in case you didn’t notice them before.

Consider: Principle photography for Prometheus was done in 2011, from March 21 to June 10 (cite 1). On November 14, Filming began for Pacific Rim, in which Idris Elba gots to play a serious self-sacrificing military guy with the exact same mustache who has an actual character arc, AND was allowed to use his actual accent.

In Prometheus, Janek apparently had more characterization planned, but it was stripped entirely away until all you’re left is a christmas tree, a plot-mandated laxity in keeping track of passengers, and incomprehensible flirting with Vickers. On balance, that’s more than pretty much everyone else gets, but at the same time, what does that tell us? We are left with a man who’s going to pull a heroic sacrifice, essentially because he’s the only other character we know about.

In cut material, Janek was originally going to give a sympathy monologue to Vickers after she killed Holloway, about a traumatic event in his military career: he watched a bioweapons lab suffer a breach that ended with its destruction. That was cut. His motivation was cut. And more, too, you can see the ragged edges of the script. 

“Right, ‘all you do is fly the ship,’” quotes an exasperated Shaw. “That’s right,” says Janek, who told Vickers that in a cut scene.

Despite these pieces missing, I haven’t been drawing on them very often. Why? Because the movie was still full of baffling decisions, regardless of how they edited it down. The movie that’s shot never looks like what gets shown in theaters, but it is still a representative sample of the material, one that was prepared for us to watch.

While Janek’s entire motivation fell off him in the editing room, Vickers gets undermined by what they did keep. Turns out she’s not just nasty to her employees, she’s nasty to her boss as well, because he’s her dad. She’s presented as obsessed with making sure he dies, which, fair, we’ll soon confirm that his only begotten robo-son is pretty big on that too.

…Except this also means they have the same character motivation, which… That can work, but how well does it work as a twist? 

I am not convinced. Vickers has constantly been pulling power plays on David, who’s pushed back a little in return, but they don’t have to functionally be siblings to make this work. Nor does the weird, occasionally robotic behavior from Vickers have to mean “aha, you see, they are both Weyland’s children with daddy issues!”

She could just be a disposable asset of the Weyland Corporation! She’d have a more sympathetic arc that way, because unlike corpos of Aliens past, she doesn’t want to be there at all. She didn’t want them to talk to aliens, she didn’t express any of the usual flimsy “we can profit off of this uncontrollable killing machine” stuff we’ve come to expect. She seemed to just want to get the fuck out of there. And obviously, she’s gonna die, this movie is frequently aping Alien and Aliens, the corpo does not survive. That could be tragic!

But apparently she wanted to be here, taking five years out of her life and career to sit on ice and do literally nothing but make sure her already dying dad actually dies. Okay. 

It’s especially, structurally weird, because the very next scene has David explaining his motivation to Shaw.

“What happens when Weyland isn’t around to program you?”

“I suppose I’ll be free.”

“You want that?”

“”Want”? Not a concept I’m familiar with. That being said… doesn’t everyone want their parents dead?”

This is what happens when you leave a hyperintelligent newborn alone for two years with nobody but Peter O’Toole as a role model. 

This scene and the pre-caesarian one set up a weird dynamic between David and Shaw that didn’t seem sufficiently motivated by the rest of their interactions, in my opinion. It suggests that David has latched onto her in some way, which the next movie certainly confirms. But why? They’ve barely talked, ad most of it was pure exposition or telling David to do something. Is it because she hasn’t been as bad as the others? Because that’s going to change later. 

David’s hopes are pinned on the Engineer rejecting Weyland. This is a reasonable assumption. The way the scene plays out, however, is not entirely reasonable.

And that will have to wait for another day. Before we get to that, I want another ramble all to myself. About something I like.

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Alt-text rambles:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbhartzog/558247427/in/photostream/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble 

https://youtu.be/cOrcwL5MHYg

Overflow Ramble 1

The kitchen counters don’t have any grippy surfaces on them, and no lip. The *stove* has no lip, which I have seen before, but it’s stupid. Most modern designs for stovetops meant for installation on ships have a high lip and/or grippers that hold cookware in place. There are multiple open shelves that have no lip. And there’s yet another piece of Decorative African Art just hung on the wall above a food prep counter, within the potential reach of steam or grease splatter. The chair Holloway sat in last time is revealed to be free-standing, as is the coffee table.

No. No free-standing furniture, unless it’s collapsible and used at rest. Put lips on every counter and table. Have lots of grip mats you can throw down anywhere. The design in here is more along the lines of airline tray tables, which are meant to be stowed during rough flight. There is no way to stow all this shit in a reasonable and timely manner. Airline furniture is also designed according to hostile forces, which, frankly, might be relevant here. This comfy, beige apartment space was designed by someone who did not give one fuck if a glass went winging off that 2m tall open shelf and gave you a concussion.

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[thereadingchallengechallenge]

🦘 Booklr Reads Australian - Authors on My Shelves 🐨

so, I’ve been trying to think of a way to recommend a lot of Australian authors really quickly for Booklr Reads Australian. what I came up with was just to give y’all a giant list of all the authors I have at home! 

most of them are YA and/or fantasy authors, and I’ve marked my favourites with an asterisk (*) but if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask 😊

1. Sarah Ayoub 2. Eugen Bacon 3. Shirley Barber * 4. AJ Betts 5. Danielle Binks * 6. Cally Black 7. Steph Bowe * 8. Alice Boyle 9. JC Burke 10. Meg Caddy * 11. Frances Chapman 12. Wai Chim * 13. Claire Christian 14. Lyndall Clipstone 15. Claire G Coleman 16. Katherine Collette 17. Harry Cook 18. Cath Crowley 19. Robyn Dennison 20. Cale Dietrich 21. Lauren Draper 22. CG Drews * 23. Michael Earp 24. Kate Emery 25. Sarah Epstein 26. Alison Evans * 27. Fleur Ferris 28. Carly Findlay 29. Helena Fox 30. Lisa Fuller 31. Emily Gale 32. Meg Gatland-Veness 33. Sophie Gonzales 34. Erin Gough * 35. Leanne Hall * 36. Pip Harry 37. Sonya Hartnett 38. Adam Hills 39. Simmone Howell 40. Megan Jacobson 41. Amie Kaufman 42. Melissa Keil 43. Nina Kenwood 44. Sharon Kernot 45. Kay Kerr * 46. Will Kostakis 47. Jay Kristoff 48. Ambelin Kwaymullina 49. Benjamin Law 50. Rebecca Lim 51. Gary Lonesborough * 52. Kathleen Loughnan 53. Miranda Luby 54. Tobias Madden 55. Melina Marchetta 56. Ellie Marney * 57. Freya Marske 58. Jodi McAlister * 59. Margot McGovern * 60. Nikki McWatters 61. Anna Morgan 62. Jaclyn Moriarty 63. Liane Moriarty 64. Garth Nix 65. Lynette Noni 66. Carly Nugent 67. Poppy Nwosu 68. Kate O’Donnell 69. Shivaun Plozza 70. Michael Pryor 71. Alice Pung 72. Emily Rodda * 73. Autumn Royal 74. Omar Sakr 75. Holden Sheppard 76. AG Slatter 77. Jo Spurrier 78. Krystal Sutherland * 79. Jared Thomas 80. Hayli Thompson 81. Gabrielle Tozer 82. Christos Tsiolkas 83. Alicia Tuckerman 84. Ellen van Neerven 85. Marlee Jane Ward 86. Vikki Wakefield 87. Lisa Walker 88. Jessica Watson * 89. Allayne L Webster 90. Anna Whateley * 91. Samantha Wheeler 92. Jen Wilde * 93. Rhiannon Wilde 94. Lili WIlkinson 95. Gabrielle Williams 96. Rhiannon Williams 97. Fiona Wood 98. Leanne Yong 99. Suzy Zail 100. Nevo Zisin 101. Markus Zusak

[geo-theatre-diary-blog]

Mary Poppins Diary 2018

well hello There, I had diary of the show last year, so I'm making one this year, or at least I'm starting it, I won't continue it until we get into the opera house on Thursday, so in 4 days, also I don't have much down time in the show, so idk if it'll be longer or not, and similar to last time there's a hurricane a-comin, hurricane Florence is apparently going to hit North Carolina hard, it won't be as close to us as irma, but we will probably get some bad weather, oh also, do you remember noah from the last show, he is playing Bert in this show. Welp that is enough introduction so... se ya Thursday!

  Surprise I'm back, they are reworking step in time... a week and a half before the show..... UUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!

In other news, there is a big group chat (like last time) and it's a bit bigger now, there is: holden, caraline, Lillian, savanna, cadence, noah, lolly, kane, Damaris, Bethany, mary grace, Clara grace, Brenley, kasha*, Lydia*, Cassie*, hope*, caleb* and Zoë* (* means they are new)

ALSO we have 2 sets of Janes and Michaels. So that's a little bit of an introduction, so ye, NOW I WILL SEE YOU AT THE OPERA HOUSE.

    _____________________________________________

  Hi, it's the next day, I've decided that Imma still update it a little before we get to the opera house. Hurricane Florence is now a category 4, and South Carolina has evacuated its coast, o boi. Also we aren't moving into the opera house on Thursday like I thought, we move in on Saturday.

  Im at rehearsal right now, they are about to start practically perfect. Clara grace isn't here so margo is having to say her lines from the audience. Mortimer and I had a long conversation about video games; his favorite is Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, mine is Super Paper Mario. Winston and Holly are playing Jane and Michael Oh shoot, gotta be on stage, I'll be back.

 Im back, hi. The bank scene is next and i have to be in that, they are doing spoonful of sugar now, holden is KILLING it as Robertson Ay so that's good, aight gotta go

 Im back again, it's feed the birds right now, and I think I'm going to finish with the diary for today. So see ya tomorrow.

 Hi actually another thing happened, someone is filling in for Clara Grace, she is doing ok surprisingly (considering she hasn't done this for 2 months like CG, and that she is a fair bit younger, so I am pleasantly surprised) ok NOW im gonna end it here, today was a lot.

 WELL IM BACK AGAIN, Carrie Elaine FRICCIN ROCKED IT AS MISS ANDREW.

  _____________________________________________

   Hi, I'm back at rehearsal, we are about to run the show. The talking is way worse than normal, and I'm not feeling well; so rip today. The new Nintendo direct is hopefully coming out on Thursday, last week a huge earthquake hit Japan so they had to cancel it, which was the best thing to do in that situation. Either way, they are doing jolly Holiday, so ye.

 I just did the scene where I yell at the kids, the anger in it skyrocketed, and the book slamming perfectly only multiplied that anger, which sounds bad, but it was actually really good; I actually think I scared Everyone on stage

  _____________________________________________

  Hiya, it's Wednesday now, not much has happened today, there wasn't a rehearsal today, so tomorrow is our last day before we get to the opera house

  _____________________________________________

  Today is the last day before we move into the opera house, they are doing a flying rehearsal tomorrow but I don't fly so I want be able to tell how that will go, there is normal rehearsal tonight, we have 5 days until media night and 6 days until the show, so hell week (tech week) has officially started

 Im at rehearsal now, the fly guy, Marquee, is here and all of the props and set have been moved to opera house. I'm STRUGGLING without my umbrella. Oh also the Nintendo direct came out today and Isabelle from animal crossing is in smash bros so I'm HYPED. They are about to do jolly holiday. We haven't been able to condense the show into an hour and 15 minutes yet, and that is our max time for the school shows, so that is extremely stressful. Amelia is being adorable as ever, god I love her, we haven't gone on another date in a few weeks so we need to do that after the show is over

 Marquee seems impressed so far, we are at supercalifragilisticexpialidocious now, the show is going well so far

 I just did the yelling scene, Marquee is taking notes, that's both good and stressful.

 Mrs Andrew is singing her song now, Marquee was really impressed with the last note, we are about to start fly a kite, trisha is doing better as Jane, ok I gotta go on stage soon

 Ok, rehearsal is over and the next is gonna be in the opera house, I got sauce containers for my accio sauce; I will be eating in my dressing room a lot and ranch gets everywhere so Imma just bring the  accio (also noah may want to try some). Hurricane Florence is hitting land now, North Carolina has declared a state of emergency, I hope Abbie doesn't get too bad of weather.

  _____________________________________________

    Well hi, so today was stressful. Imma get all the good stuff out of the way first, so, amelia and I went on a date today so that was good. And that's all the good stuff done, NOW THE STRESSFUL STUFF.

          ༼strong language is used here༽

 Today was a cluster fuck. The new staff at the opera house has no clue what they are doing and can't think ahead far enough for anything to get done. So for starters the stage left stairwell is being remodeled, and the ensemble dressing rooms are under the stage, that means that anyone who is in show that enters from stage left has to walk behind the god damn psych. And in the event of a fire, they won't have an easy exit, because the pit doors are usually locked during shows, and the stage right staircase is a spiral. And what is the opera house doing about this? Jack fucking shit. Also the school shows are being fucked up too, some idiot thought it would be a fucking brilliant idea to have the school buses park 2 blocks north of the actual opera house on an unpaved road. That means that 1000 elementary school children will be walking in a line to and from the buses for 30 minutes before and after the show FOR 2 BLOCKS DOWNTOWN, and we don't even know if the weather will be good or not, if it rains then to fucking bad, those kids have to walk in the rain. Because why not, it's not like there is a HUGE parking lot for the civic center across the street that has been more than welcome to hold the busses OH FUCKING WAIT THERE IS. The fire Chief almost had to cancel the show because the opera house crew can't actually finish the INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT FIXES before the show. NOT TO MENTION THE HANDICAPPED ENTRANCE IS ACTUALLY BLOCKED OFF BY THE CONSTRUCTION. AND NO ONE THOUGH THIS WAS POSSIBLY A BAD IDEA. The city isn't doing anything about it either, what can they do, none of the new opera house staff will respond to their calls. And I get that they are busy but the previous staff had all the work done for them, they've just been sitting there with their thumbs up there asses for A MONTH finishing none of the work and only making their jobs HARDER. I just don't understand how a group of adults can fuck up so badly to endanger the lives of not only all of the 88 kids in the cast, but the 1000 that are going to just be walking the streets during school shows and not have one person, just one person, say "hey what if instead... we didn't" also the renovation to the stage left stairwell is purely to make a new room, there are no structural readjustments or improvements being made.

     ༼ok im done yelling and cussing now༽

   So yeah, today sucked, I have my first rehearsal in the opera house in over a year tomorrow, so YEET

  _____________________________________________

    So today is my first rehearsal in the opera house, im getting ready to leave soon.

 Cherry tree lane just ended, we are now working with flight so that is fun, we are having to re block some scenes to work around it. Holden actually hit his head on the desk this time so that ain't good they are working a scene change right now. The curse of the opera house, everything that seems to be going well suddenly isn't and has to be changed. They are about to start jolly holiday, I gotta get to stage left now

 Ok so it's spoonful of sugar right now and the moving around is stressful,

  ok so they are doing feed the birds and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious now, next is intermission, this show is extremely stressful, and having no stage left is... oh boy. We haven't even gotten to intermission yet and we've been rehearsal for an hour and a half

  rehearsal is almost over, they are working on the flying parts

  _____________________________________________

  Im heading to rehearsal now, we are doing act 2 and whatever else we can today. The stress is really getting to everyone, Lillian almost had an emotional breakdown all throughout yesterday.

Both holden and I actually did have an emotional breakdown, we hugged and both almost cried. It's gonna get better though, tech week is always the most stressful. I have a lot to do when I get there, I have to get my makeup on, then my costume, then my mic, then who knows what else .

  Hi im at rehearsal, in costume.

 Ok so we just finished the show and are doing it again, Winston and Holly are now Jane and Michael. Ok imma check and see if im needed

   Im back home, and a FRIPP ton of stuff has happened; for starters, Carrie Elaine almost died, not exaggerating either, her flight was horrible, she was sideways and nearly slammed her head on the balcony. Noah was basically drunk after the run through due to his harness being so incredibly painful.

  _____________________________________________

  It's spoonful currently, Andrew is changing right now next is the bank scene, Andrew looks like a freaking albino raccoon because of the makeup.

 I just did the bank scene and Andrew is still getting his makeup off. im sitting in my dressing room for the next few scenes and intermission. They recording aswell, also I just learned that a piano is a percussion instrument and I don't know how I feel about that. But now my question is, what type of instrument is an electric keyboard, like is it wind, string, or percussion, I know that there is brass, woodwind and keyboard, but like the three basic types. Also I hate the fact that there is a "keyboard" type I mean like all of the keyed instruments can be placed into other categories other than the electronic keyboard, organs are wind, pianos are apparently percussion, accordions are wind, so why make a specific type?

  Act 2 has started, and there have been a few hiccups here and there but so far, it's good. The audience is enjoying it too. My feet are killing me.

   _____________________________________________

  Today is media night, oh boi. Media night is always cursed, and we open on Wednesday, another cursed day

 Im in costume the entire main cast is jamming out to Africa, take on me, boogie wonderland, and we're not gonna take it. We were gonna listen to jimmy buffet but other people had to change so rip. A PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL CONTACTED AMELIA, IM SO HAPPY!

 Ok house is about to open.

 I'll update the journal later, my phone is at 6 percent

 I ran directly into a wall.

 _____________________________________________

  OPENING NIGHT

 I'm heading to the opera house now, amelia is gonna watch it tonight, and considering that until recently she didn't even know that people could fly on stage, she will LOVE it.

 I just carried Winston, also we can't have our phones on during the show, it's interfering with the mics.

 Act 2 just started and a cable has broken, marry and mrs Andrew can't fly for the rest of the night, bert still can but still.

 Other than the lack of flying the show went very well.

  _____________________________________________

 _____________________________________________

 Hi it's 2 days later, flying is working again, we have already done 2 shows today, and are about to do a 3rd one, someone is stealing some of the costume pieces, Lillian's apron and gloves are missing and hope's apron was found in someone else's dressing room. Lillian had to take all of her clothes with her when she left so it won't get stolen.

 We are heading to the show, dancing queen just came on the radio so yEET. During the break between shows today, Andrew and I listened to music in our dressing room, he tried to squat on top of the trashcan.

 School shows were fun today, we had to cut jolly holiday because of time.

 _____________________________________________

  Hey so is the final day and there were two shows today and both were really good, noah didn't knock over the vase in the second show and I played it off and he did too and the scene continued and it was AMAZING. Also in the first show the flying kite didn't work. Abbie was here for them and really liked the shows, ALSO ALSO tate and trisha really stepped up their game for the last show, and it really worked. IN THE FINALE HOLDEN KISSED HOPE ON THE CHEEK AND I FREAKING LOVED IT. Andrew strapped a bunch of wire hangers to himself to try and conduct electricity. Lillian was bawling and it was really sad, she was literally born to play mary poppins, and now it's over. But like actually though, Lillian just actually looks like Julie Andrews, the hair, the face, the VOICE, etc. It's gonna be hard to not do this show anymore but not as hard as others. But I'll make another diary soon, for next show. I guess you can say "the showS must go on". Also my favorite part of this was watching noah walk up the opera house proscenium during step in time.

  _____________________________________________

  and now i guess it's over, this show was incredibly fun, but incredibly stressful, from the opera house construction, to the rivaling theater companies, to the costumes being stolen. All in all, I don't want to start the show over, nor do I want to do one more show, I want to be done and be ready to move forward, and to remember this show as a good memory, not a bad one. So that's what I'm gonna do.

 I'll make more diaries soon.

                        -Gorge Banks

                              (Geo)

[10minus6cosm]

Antimicrobial Resistance Series 10: MRSA in Laboratory Monkeys

Our paper on MRSA in lab monkeys (long-tailed macaques Macaca fascicularis) used for surgical research has just been published (Hsu L-Y, 2017). My co-author on that paper has beaten me to the post, and you can also read a summary of that work on his blog here.

I reviewed the report of the MRSA from the first monkey in February 2014. 

Staphylococcus aureus was isolated from a surgical wound and identified by tube coagulase test, MALDI-TOF, Vitek 2, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The isolate  agglutinated with PBP2’ latex.

The antibiogram was as follows: penicillin, cefoxitin (cloxacillin), erythromycin, clindamycin, gentamicin, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim resistant; fusidic acid, rifampicin, linezolid susceptible. Whilst isolating MRSA from a monkey was certainly unexpected, the antibiogram of this isolate was in keeping with ST239-MRSA-III, a common multidrug-resistant hospital-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) clone in Singapore. At the time, it seemed most probable that a surgeon colonized with MRSA from a patient had infected the monkey during one of his/her experiments.

DN5 (spa t13638, MLST ST2817), the first isolate of MRSA from a monkey (From top clockwise P: penicillin, VA: vancomycin, FOX: cefoxitin, SXT: sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, CC: clindamycin, E: erythromycin)

DN5 (spa t13638, MLST ST2817), the first isolate of MRSA from a monkey (From top clockwise CIP: ciprofloxacin, GM: gentamicin, TE: tetracycline, LZD: linezolid, RA: rifampicin, FA: fusidic acid)

Nevertheless because it was from a monkey I felt obliged to check if there was anything unusual about the isolate. Furthermore, it appeared that MRSA was spreading among the other monkeys in the facility.

DN233 (same MLVA pattern as isolate belonging to spa t13638, MLST ST3268), a subsequent isolate from another monkey had a slightly different antibiogram. (From top clockwise P: penicillin, VA: vancomycin, FOX: cefoxitin, SXT: sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, CC: clindamycin, E: erythromycin) 

DN233 (same MLVA pattern as isolate belonging to spa t13638, MLST ST3268), a subsequent isolate from another monkey had a slightly different antibiogram. (From top clockwise CIP: ciprofloxacin, GM: gentamicin, TE: tetracycline, LZD: linezolid, RA: rifampicin, FA: fusidic acid) 

The first cheap and easy test we did was multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat fingerprinting (Sabat A, 2003).

Multi-locus variable-number tandem repeat fingerprinting of monkey MRSA isolates. The last 3 lanes before the sizing ladder on the right belong to the common local human HA-MRSA clones ST239, ST22, and ST45. 

It appeared that this was not ST239-MRSA-III after all (the DNA fingerprint is different). Could this be a novel monkey MRSA new to science? 

Perhaps not. In 2011, researchers at the Seoul National University reported in the Journal of Medical Primatology a case of MRSA acute necrotic stomatitis in a rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) recently acquired from China (Lee  JI, 2010). That isolate was resistant to  penicillin, oxacillin, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, intermediate to gentamicin, and susceptible to erythromycin, clindamycin, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, and fusidic acid. This antibiogram is similar to that of some of our subsequent monkey MRSA isolates (see DN233 above). 

The Korean paper actually cites an even earlier case of MRSA pneumonia in a rhesus macaque (Rivas K, 2007). However this is just a conference abstract with no details about the MRSA isolate.

Neither of these earlier reports used modern molecular methods to characterize the MRSA so perhaps we were still on to something.

The first thing we did was spa typing which is based on the result of single locus DNA-sequencing of repeat regions of the Staphylococcus protein A gene (spa)  (http://www.spaserver.ridom.de/). The repeat profile of this first isolate was (210-23-02-34-17-34-34-17-23-34). If you take these numbers and input them into the database on the spa server http://spa.ridom.de/spatypes.shtml, you will get the spa type t13638. If you then click on t13638 it will bring you to the following table.

So there were 2 other MRSA in the database (the last one is ours) with the same spa type. It did not seem to be a common spa type-so far so good. Unfortunately we could not find out anything more about the other isolates.

We proceeded next to multi-locus sequence typing which is based on the DNA sequencing of 7 housekeeping genes (http://saureus.mlst.net/). The sequence type we obtained was ST2817 (1-14-360-214-10-303-329). If you submit that 7 digit allelic profile as a query to the MLST database (http://saureus.mlst.net/sql/allelicprofile_choice.asp) and submit for further query for 3 or more matches you will reach the following table.

Our isolate was the only ST2817 in the database. The closest match was a strain A14049 ST3268 (1-14-430-214-10-303-329) with only one allele difference. Could it have also been isolated from a monkey? Clicking on A14049...

Yes!

A quick search on the internet revealed that we were in a possible race to publication. Unfortunately despite rushing to perform whole genome sequencing on our remaining monkey MRSA isolates, it was a race we were destined to lose as our US counterparts managed to go to press in 2016 (Soge OO, 2016). 

The US monkey MRSA was ST3268 whereas the ones in our collection belonged to ST3268 and the closely related ST2817 So did these MRSA originate in monkeys or were they acquired from humans?

The fact that these MRSA clones have not really been described in collections of human isolates is highly suggestive of a monkey origin. However our monkeys were acquired from a facility in Vietnam and the detailed population structure of MRSA in that country is not well described (the origins of the US monkeys is not known). There has been a recent publication describing rhesus monkey specific clones of S. aureus, but our strains don’t seem to fit nicely into these either (van den Berg S, 2011).  More studies need to be done to determine if ST3268 and ST2817 S. aureus clones are monkey-specific or represent an exceptional expansion of uncommon human S. aureus clones in a defined monkey population. We also intend to proceed with analysis of the whole-genome sequences of these isolates to evaluate their pathogenic potential.

Li-Yang Hsu, Matthew T. G. Holden, Tse Hsien Koh, Kerry A. Pettigrew, Delphine Cao, Pei Yun Hon, Darvi M. Sergio, Edgar Pena, Bryan E. Ogden; ST3268: a geographically widespread primate MRSA clone. J Antimicrob Chemother 2017 dkx120. doi: 10.1093/jac/dkx120 (free access)

Teo J, Tan TY, Hon PY, Lee W, Koh TH, Krishnan P, Hsu LY; Network for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (Singapore). ST22 and ST239 MRSA duopoly in Singaporean hospitals: 2006-2010. Epidemiol Infect. 2013 Jan;141(1):153-7. (no free access)

Sabat A, Krzyszton-Russjan J, Strzalka W, Filipek R, Kosowska K, Hryniewicz W, Travis J, Potempa J. New method for typing Staphylococcus aureus strains: multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis of polymorphism and genetic relationships of clinical isolates. J Clin Microbiol. 2003 Apr;41(4):1801-4. (free access)

Lee JI, Kim KS, Oh BC, Kim NA, Kim IH, Park CG, Kim SJ. Acute necrotic stomatitis (noma) associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection in a newly acquired rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta). J Med Primatol. 2011 Jun;40(3):188-93. (no free access)

Rivas K, Garcia A, Morales PR, Matchett CA, Saucedo A, Wagner JL: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) pneumonia in a rhesus macaque. J Am Assoc Lab Anim Sci 2007; 46:102. (no free access)

Harmsen D, Claus H, Witte W, Rothgänger J, Claus H, Turnwald D, Vogel U. Typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a university hospital setting by using novel software for spa repeat determination and database management. J Clin Microbiol. 2003 Dec;41(12):5442-8. (free access)

Enright MC, Day NP, Davies CE, Peacock SJ, Spratt BG. Multilocus sequence typing for characterization of methicillin-resistant and methicillin-susceptible clones of Staphylococcus aureus. J Clin Microbiol. 2000 Mar;38(3):1008-15. (free access)

Soge OO, No D, Michael KE, Dankoff J, Lane J, Vogel K, Smedley J, Roberts MC. Transmission of MDR MRSA between primates, their environment and personnel at a United States primate centre. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2016 Oct;71(10):2798-803. (no free access until Oct 2017)

van den Berg S, van Wamel WJ, Snijders SV, Ouwerling B, de Vogel CP, Boelens HA, Willems RJ, Huijsdens XW, Verreck FA, Kondova I, Heidt PJ, Verbrugh HA, van Belkum A. Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) are natural hosts of specific Staphylococcus aureus lineages. PLoS One. 2011;6(10):e26170. (free access)

[cryingatwindermerepeaks]

Little Tori Spring Pt.3

Requested by @little-tori-spring : So if you could do one we’re Tori is in school and the fire alarm goes off (this is after the events of solitaire) and she has a panic attack and slips and then Michael finds her and help her

Hope you enjoy !!

I’d recommend reading parts 1 & 2 first but this can also work as a stand alone !

Tw: panic attacks

Word count: 1505

🏫🫂💥

Truham had been the obvious choice for Tori’s new school after the fire. The Academy was somewhat out of the question considering Charlie was already at Truham. A significant number of pupils had felt similarly, this meant that Truham was practically overflowing. There were classes being taught on the oval, in the common rooms, everywhere. It felt like a flood of grey and yellow filled every crevice of the grounds. It was suffocating at the best of times, at the worst…

It had started out like any other period. The subject was irrelevant really, it was nothing more than a blurring of pointless facts being lectured at her and 20 other students who were far more interested in whatever they had open on their laptops than the instructions the teacher had on the board. Tori herself hadn’t been paying attention to anything much at all. Not the teacher, not the whiteboard, not the screen in front of her. She was feeling very far away from the school and her body, never a good sign but there wasn’t really anything to keep her anchored in reality. Until there was. At first she couldn’t even place what the horrendous ringing sound was. Or, if anyone else could even hear it. However when the class began jumping up in disarray and the teacher began trying, failing, to order them into a straight line Tori realised this was very much not just in her head. It was real. It was happening again.

The overcrowded classroom was impossible to leave in an orderly fashion as panicked students began fleeing for their damn lives. Because of course the school was burning down. Of course it was. Tori could feel it, the heat licking at her face. She could hear the crackling and hissing of the fire which was coming to get her. And she had to do something. She had to stop it. No. She’d tried that before. She’d failed. She had to run, but her legs were stuck straight. She didn’t know when she’d stood up but now that she was back in her body she found she couldn’t move anymore. There was a crushing weight on her shoulders, pounding in her chest, and she wasn’t strong enough to move from under it. She was heaving for air, gasping in thick clouds of smoke. She stumbled back, as if the pressure was pulling her like a puppeteer. Drop, she thought, collapsing to her knees, that’s what you were supposed to do in a fire. She was back there again, on the edge of the burning school building. Falling… falling… falling. Floating. There was a firm hand on her shoulder, not heavy like the weight of the world on top of her but steady, Michael.

She’d been here before. With Michael, at the end of the world. Fire. But Michael wasn’t burning. His body was fixed and cool in front of her. His eyes were wild, almost as much as Tori’s own, and flickering anxiously over Tori’s face. “It’s ok,” he promised. He was kneeling in front of her now, pressing his hands to her cheeks. “We’re not back there.” In hindsight, Tori could see now that no, they were not burning to death - still, her chest was heaving uncomfortably and she felt like she might just throw up. “There is no fire, some kid played a sick joke and pulled the alarm.”

Oh.

Relief flooded over Tori but her chest was still heaving uncomfortably and she could feel the fire licking the back of her neck. But Michael was there and it was ok, it was ok. His hands had moved from her cheeks to her hands without her really noticing. They were sat opposite each other on the classroom carpet, legs crossed and chest rising and falling in time. It was ok, she thought, they were ok. Except it wasn’t ok, she wasn’t ok. By the time Tori realised she wasn’t about to die she didn’t have time to realise how quickly she was regressing. The change was almost immediate, as soon as the fire dispersed in her mind, her body was collapsing on her.

Michael’s eyes weren’t as wild anymore, instead they had stilled on Tori. His chest tightened as he watched her face crumple. She was crying, harsh but childlike sobs racking her whole body. Oh. He couldn’t be sure, not really, but it made sense if she was little now. He didn’t really know what to do now she was really crying, he didn’t think he could talk her down from this. It was still Tori, he thought, just a bit younger. They hadn’t really spoken about it much before, what to do if she regressed in front of him, but it seemed to be happening now and there wasn’t much to be done to stop it. Michael tugged Tori into his arms, holding her closely to his chest as if it would steady her breathing. “I’ve got you,” He promised. She was shaking and holding her hands to her face which broke his entire heart. She seemed so small, so fragile, he knew he needed to protect her. “I bet you had a big fright, huh?” He whispered just to her. Tori nodded against her chest, seemingly feeling very little inhibitions about being little about Michael. But of course it was this easy. It was Michael and Tori. They were two opposite halves of the same soul. The two people with a consciousness in the world. It was just them, nothing else mattered. Her tears had subsided significantly now that Michael was holding her, rocking them back and forth gently out of instinct. Tori had brought her fingers up to her mouth, sucking softly on her thumb. Michael thought maybe he shouldn’t encourage this but there were much worse things she could be doing and he didn’t have anything else to replace her pacifier. He readjusted her gently so she was looking up at his face. He gently traced the pads of his thumbs over the tracks the tears had left on his cheeks. “There you are,” He hummed softly, brushing her bangs out of her face with a smile. Tori didn’t smile back but her eyes were wide and doe like, watching Michael innocently as she wore on her fingers. “You’re feeling pretty, small, huh?” Tori nodded, reaching up with her free hand to clutch the collar of Michael’s shirt. “I’m not going anywhere darling,” he promised. Tori relaxed against his side, nuzzling her face against his chest. This was nice, he thought, good. Tori was safe. Tori was in his arms and safe and he didn’t have to worry about her. That was good.

***

It was a unanimous decision that it was time to go home, regardless of the fact that they both had two more periods. The actual process of a fire evacuation hadn’t really happened and all the students had been gathered in a disorderly manner across the oval, it had been easy to slip out. Michael, being the responsible grown up, shouldn’t have encouraged skipping school but Tori had just looked so small in his arms and he wanted nothing more than to take her home and protect her. They walked home side by side, Tori swinging their interconnected hands in an uncharacteristically upbeat manner. She giggled when Michael spun her around and squealed when he picked her up and ran her a few metres down the street. It was nice seeing her properly relaxed and genuinely happy. “Are your parents home?” Michael questioned.

“Nuh,” Tori responded, the first verbal response he’d gotten.

“Let’s head to yours then.”

It wasn’t awfully scary, Tori thought, regressing in front of Michael for the first time after he’d been so accepting. When they got to Tori's, Michael made them Mac n cheese then they went upstairs to watch Star Wars, Tori’s idea. Michael helped Tori out of her uniform and into a grey sweater and black leggings, far more comfortable she curled up in her bed. Michael kicked off her shoes and lay beside her. Remembering the comfort curling up to Michael had provided back at school Tori immediately buried herself against his chest. She grabbed her toy fox from beside her - not wanting Alice to feel left out - she wrapped it tightly in her arms. Tori brought her fingers to her lips for comfort. Michael frowned, it didn’t seem like an awfully good idea for her to have her fingers in her mouth. “Would you like your pacifier?” He questioned, voice low enough so it felt like Tori was the only person in the world who could ever hear it. She hesitated a moment, breathing slowly and deeply to calm herself. She nodded, she did want her pacifier. It was ok, she could be little. Michael reached over to where he knew it was hidden in her drawer. He pressed the soft silicone to Tori’s lips gently and she took it with ease. The opening of Star Wars played quietly in the background and it felt like they were the only two people in the world. Tori and Michael. Michael and Tori. Together, safe.

🏫🫂💥

[cryingatwindermerepeaks]

Little Tori getting out of her uniform the second she gets home because she can’t stand the fabric and it’s so gross and grey

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Thinking about little Tori having a bad day at school but being able to come home and have Michael hold her and care for her aghh

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Regressor!Tori Spring mood board <3

Ft. The chaos of my thoughts about little Tori…

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Little Tori starting to collect Pokémon cards again like when she was little and so whenever she is feeling down Michael will go looking until he finds a card she doesn’t have to give her

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Little Tori on Halloween?!? Dressing up just to stay in and watch scary movies with Michael, getting scared but pretending she’s not, holding Michael’s hand because yeah ok maybe it’s a little bit scary?!

They end up just watching Star Wars or doctor who for the billionth time

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little Tori paints Michael’s nails :)

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Little Tori and Michael have lightsaber battles pretty much every day

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Tori watching Michael’s speed skating practice but regressing part way through so after he helps her skate and holds her hands the whole time !! she’s not very good but she knows he would never let her fall

[cryingatwindermerepeaks]

Little Tori + caffeine would be nightmare fuel 😭

Little!Tori’s favorite soda is Coke but Michael won’t let her have it because it has caffeine and the only soda she’s allowed to have when little is sprite (she usually just drinks lemonade tho)