#consequences of last minute changes in development i imagine

[infamouslydorky]

I know people compare Emmrich Volkarin to Vincent Price, which is fair, but i still think about Peter Cushing, personally.

Doesn't help that Emmrich was written as an individual fascinated by flowers, and I can't help but think about how Cushing worked with botanists to develop a flower he named after his late wife Helen

[laststandx3]

I'll be bitter for a minute and say it: i think the terror for how good it is, is also very partial on crozier on being #1 mister only good colonizer in the arctic, and i sort of hate it because the change happens only because he sobers up. and sure alchool makes people cruel, but sobering up doesnt make them perfect. he went from let silna be left on the ship without protection/kick her out for the tuunbaq if she doesnt help us/ rip the guy that died to get me a bottle of whisky, anywayy to peace and love on planet earth lets us all take this walk together while i share words of wisdom and love with this other colonizer who's also very sorry he didn't do anything good with his life. Crozier started the journey at least as a heavy day-drinker and i understand how that's different from heavy alcholism but at the same time i can't imagine all of crozier's faults being the consequences of whisky alone. and having him overcoming his alcholism and wising up immediately after being clean for a few weeks is FOR ME a terrible writing choice that paints him as being naturally good and his 'bad' behaviors coming ONLY from the alchool. yes he sees blanky getting hurt and that's starts his sobering up path. but that's not enough for me. the people (other characters state aloud for the audience) he loves more than god loves them are dying left and right. and i really dont care if corzier cares about the crew or not but if he cared he should have cared about them even when he was drunk and not remembring about their wellbeing AFTER he got clean. i'm not saying you cant enjoy crozier. i just believe his character development isnt earned and that he got it only because he's the designed good character that canonically survives in the book. i dont think that him shitting himself for a few weeks while sobering up can count as having the emotional development to go from one extreme to the other. especially because everyone else is also there sufferring physically and psychologically even more than him due to the fact that their all stranded in the arctic and dying of scurvy and no one else in the crew could have the time off work, privacy and attentions to heal. crozier being the 2nd on command and then captain used his power to become a drunk and later to clean up. and i just dont believe that a man who abused his position like that from the beginning just becuase he was pissed he couldnt marry the woman he wanted suddently stops abusing his position because he's now clean and pure. TO ME it's a bad writing choice that is also force-fed to the audience with the line 'more than god loves them' so that you get it for sure that he's the good guy who cares about people not like those others evil characters who would do anything to survive like killing innocents and being racist (the good guys could never. except they canonically did- but wait, not in THIS continent so it doesnt matter) and eating people (which is a sign of being naturally evil, no matter the circumstances) or following a religion in a desperate last chance of survival (again no one on the good guys side would put religion above good sense and the safety of fellow human beings. in this continent?? maybe? ugh)

in summary i think the main flaw i find in the terror is how much it still tries to draw a line between good and evil. instead of just trying to portray the human disperation for their mortal condition. how much having to come face to face with tuunbaq must destroy all of those men convinctions on what life/afterlife are (for what i remember it just addresses it for tozer AND in the SCRIPT) nobody else gets a life shuttering experience. it's either the devil, then good christians should be safe, or it's a different religion, then what?? what do you do when your life looses its meaning? and the answer for most of the charactes was 🤷‍♀️guess we'll think about it after this awesome party we're about to throw. i dont want this to be about religion, but these men are wrecked in every way, there's nobody to save them and everyday they're a little more in pain than the one before. there shouldnt be a camp of the good men lead by the strong and wise one who take care of their sick and lets the dying die peacefully with morphin. while in the bad guys camp they eat people and have evil laugh competitions and kill their sick with knifes bc giving them poison might make them unedible. and specifically those evil guys where also the reason why the expedition happened to hurt the locals, the good guys have nothing to do with it.

i dont think there's nothing wrong (narratively) in doing anything to survive. even if it's something cruel, because those men are at the end of the world alone, it's at least realistic that they'll try everything to avoid death. crozier(and jfj even if offscreen) gets to be cruel at the beginning of the story but by middle point they're shown to be sad (about unrelated things) and spend the last few episodes being kind and brave (and forgiven by the narrative) while their chance at character development is uniquelly given by their ranks. in the meantime the consequences of those cruelness (only hickey, because we dont get to see survivors of jfj trip to China, if he left any) dont get the chance to heal and change because hickey's position of subordiante never allows him to be really safe, and because his torture was public, automatically making every witness taking the side of the perpetrator. hickey's never given weeks off work to recover because he got lashed because of his own actions. hickey doesnt get words of wisdom from a companion because in his mind everyone agreed with crozier in him deserving the lashes, (except maybe tozer? but even that isnt that clear cut) hickey, manson and hartnell also magiaclly heal from the lashes after a few weeks (even when ANYOTHER character cant heal because of scurvy) so the narrative can't held crozier accountable for the pain he caused.

the good guys and the bad guys' actions are treated differently by the show. even when the good guys actions should have consequences and the bad guys' shouldnt. the narrative has already decided which sins will be forgiven and which will be punished. and it's a bit annoying to me because for how wonderful the terror is, i cant help but feel like i'm being spoonfed a narrative about morality when at its core the story is about humanity.

[beej-machinations]

PBA Canon Character Fic Nominees

To help you choose your fave PBA '24 Best Portrayal of a Canon Character Fics, grouped by name!

I've written my own summaries, centred around the nominated character and which of their traits the story explored.

Voting Round ends April 21st (vote here x)

Card Games, Vampires, and a Very Late Letter by TheSailingRabbit Kinch enters the service while hiding a chronic illness; much later, Hogan has finally thought up a way to help him (It's very UnOrthodox). Kinch & Hogan friendship 👍👍🥲

Kinch in Mama Bear by PicassoPenguin 4+1 story of the times Kinch took care of the other bears. what's not to love? Kinch uses his skills in observation and subtlety to watch out for the crew in both direct and indirect ways.

Carter in A Brother's Bond by PicassoPenguin After the war, Little Deer misses his brothers from Barracks 14. He tells Brown Rabbit about them, how much he admires them, and about the first days when he joined the heroes ( !!! )

Carter in Exit, Pursued By A Bear by pronker Carter has questions. The extent to which the gang humors or suffers him is a delicate balance. I think the author captured his voice well :)

Hogan in Decoration Day by Abracadebra Hogan mourns, then honors, the men that have died under his command. He has to lie to Klink to do so, but that's only natural.

Hogan in Sergeant 'Don't You Sass Me, Hogan' Wilson by whatisthismandoinghere Doctors may make the worst patients, but Colonels come in at a close second.

LeBeau Hogan in Well and Truly Got by Cardinal Rose - (Hogan story, i think this was mislabelled in the poll) Hogan's luck runs out. He tries anyway, but the consequences are unavoidable.

Klink in Klink's Brother by Sam Worth Klink talks a little about his family, both real and imagined. Well captured voice and mannerisms

Klink in Yoga Session by Deepbluethinking Klink discovers that kowtowing to Burkhalter leads to kowtowing in a more literal way, to the dismay of his hamstrings.

Klink in Ashes by LightShiner14 Atypically, Klink goes to church. Childhood memories rise unbidden; and Klink reflects on the irony of attending church in the bloodied present day. There's also a question pressing at him: what does he find within himself? Does he dare examine it?

LeBeau in Operation Mother Hen by Tuttle4077 Lebeau is sick. He's miserable, prideful, and Not Happy with the fuss everyone is making - to the point of driving everyone crazy: until they recruit the best nurse (very cute)

LeBeau in Spring Flowers by Tuttle4077 a poetically evocative piece on how Lebeau witnesses the changes to his beloved Rhineland. For better, for worse, for better, for worse. for better? (the imagery is vivid, and Lebeau's love really shines through)

Uneasy Company by dust on the wind Stuck between a rock, a hard place, a Hochstetter, and more troubles on the way, Newkirk is stranded without any backup. We get to see how he thinks and performs under pressure when the crew isn't there. When he needs to use his lockpicking skills, how can he explain them to the paranoid Hochstetter?

Drop Bears by dust on the wind Newkirk makes a bet with an Australian POW, and ends up taking a different gamble and performing some last-minute acrobatics.

A Deserved Gift by Cardinal Rose Newkirk dreams up the perfect plot for springtime. Most of the crew beg off taking part, because its an unnecessary risk, but regardless the victory is sweet and enjoyed by all. (in wartime, even Petty Revenge requires Pro Revenge tactics)

Cracking the Vault by Sierra Sutherwind Reminded of his younger days, Newkirk gives himself an inconveniently timed challenge - much to the dismay of Hogan and Schultz. They support him, but tbh they had their hands tied, what else could they do? (bonus: Schultz and the OCs in this fic go through some interesting developments, but they arent the focus in this category)

Once Is Enough by Abracadebra Newkirk is recruited as the reluctant accomplice in Marya's latest wild scheme. He shows off his skills at bluffing, snarking, and griping >:) i like how the more stressed he gets the funnier he gets haha

Autumn Winds by Fear-Of-The-Cold Newkirk's attitude toward human connection over the years, as it is influenced by his family and the world. we get to see a pre-Heroes POW Newkirk

The Assassin by lonewolfette9846 Newkirk is given the most important job in the war. And he has to do it alone. He does his best to keep his cover, and in the little time he has strategises his next moves. A very tense story - and that tension takes its toll on Newkirk. I like how methodical and tactical Newkirk comes across in this, despite the mission not being remotely in his experience.

----------

(voting link again)

[apureniallsource]

Niall Horan is not worried about turning 30. The singer-songwriter, who famously devoted a portion of his youth to One Direction, will be crossing that threshold later this year, and he wrestles with maturity in “Never Grow Up,” one of the best tracks on his upcoming album, The Show: “I hope we still dance like we’re falling in love/ Hope we still drink like we’re back in the pub/ Hope we grow old, but we never grow up.”

“I don’t care anymore,” he says of the impending milestone, chatting with Consequence over Zoom. “We speak about what happens from 16 to 20, and 20 to 24, but more actually happens between 25 and 30 than I thought. Your interests change, and things happen in your life — the kind of things you write about.”

According to Horan, it’s a “lovely day in London town” when we speak a few weeks prior to the release of The Show, out June 9th. He comes across as easygoing, humble, and grounded, but also seems very excited to talk about his music. The album’s two pre-release singles, “Heaven” and “Meltdown,” have provided listeners with their first window into The Show, an album that plays like a natural extension of his previous two full-length efforts.

It’s the hope of most artists that each project is their favorite to date, and the vocalist confirms that his personal anticipation for this release is high. “I feel like I’ve got my best work here,” he notes. “If you don’t back yourself, who’s going to back you?”

The Show‘s 10 tracks were developed with some of Horan’s trusted collaborators. He reveals that part of the project was written in Nashville, Tennessee — “What a town,” he says with a smile, shaking his head. He tries to make a visit to Music City at least once a year, he explains, and “Never Grow Up” was one of the songs that came from his time at Starstruck Studios, located on a block lined with songwriting houses, labels, and publishing companies.

“Never Grow Up” was co-written with Julian Bunetta, John Ryan, and Shane McAnally, the last of whom is one of Nashville’s true producing and songwriting gems. The sonic landscape of the song, and most others on The Show, is where Horan seems to be particularly comfortable, surrounded by acoustic guitar, truthful lyrics, and a reliable drum beat.

“If I’m sat still for even a minute, I’m always thinking of something to write. I write a lot of stories,” he says of his process. Narratives are always turning over in his head, both real and imagined. “I like to have an idea before I go anywhere near a studio or before I start to sit down and write something.”

While The Show slots neatly into Horan’s discography, this album feels different to him for a few reasons. For one, “There’s no heartbreak,” he confirms. That’s quite the contrast to his previous project, literally titled Heartbreak Weather, which dropped on March 13th, 2020 as the world screeched to a halt. Like many other artists, he felt inspired by the stillness that came with a global pause. “Stillness was something that actually was more thought provoking than I thought it would be,” he explains. “Reflection. My outlook, and feelings and emotions that I hadn’t really cracked into — they were a big, big part of what this album’s about.”

There hasn’t been an abundance of downtime for Horan recently, who also recently wrapped his role as a judge on Season 23 of NBC’s The Voice. Next, in support of The Show, Horan has mapped out an enormous 2024 world tour (find ticket details here), and the gears turning in his head while discussing the trek are practically visible. “My favorite thing about my career is being able to have an effect on people’s lives and create things for them to relate to,” he shares. “Hopefully we can just keep that going, and maybe gather some new people along the way.”

He describes himself as tied inherently to his artistry. When asked what goals he might have or what he might be looking forward to just as Niall the person rather than Niall the artist, he’s a bit stumped. “I just want to take it all in, because I feel like I’m so fired up. I haven’t toured and done shows in five years now, so I’m just more grateful than ever.”

For someone who has spent over a decade centered in the spotlight in a variety of ways, Horan seems to have his priorities quite clear when asked how he prefers to be seen by people. “I’ve been told if you’re a nice guy, that’s a good thing,” he jokes. “I love meeting new people and love chatting. To be told I’m a songwriter and a nice guy? I’d take both of them to the grave with me if I could.”

[cosmos-daughter]

Resident Evil Village could've been the perfect game if the Lords were treated right.

Despite it being an enjoyable game and one of my favorites, it is undeniably rather unsatisfactory in some aspects. I can't help but grieve all that we could've had if it was better in one specific aspect. More specifically: story-wise. For the first time since the RE5/RE6 era, Capcom decided to make another story oriented Resident Evil game, and the result was as expected: lacking in many ways.

There are parts of the story that could make the game much more interesting if they focused more on it. The biggest issue and my main complaint is the character waste. Without an exception, all of the Lords were underutilized and presented in a very shallow manner, even the one that had more participation in the story. This detail weighs as a immense negative point on the game's overall quality, since they technically play a huge role in the story and make up most of the content of the game. With the exception of Moreau — who's too far gone and barely has any intelligence left ー all of them could've had more depth and maybe even a character development. They do possess the required qualities: captivating characters — cool designs, their own detailed and customized areas that are somewhat a reflection of their unique personalities — but even with all of that, none reached their peak due being robbed of the exploration of the themes that could add realness and authenticity to the characters such as their past/background, motivations, etc. So regardless of how promising they look, since we haven't seen beyond their surface and don't know understand and know enough about the characters, they end up slightly shallow and simple. The consequence of this lack of humanization is that in the end they didn't receive an ounce of dignity/empathy even in their deaths. A cruel fate that feels even harsher when you remember that all the Lords were once normal people that just happened to be victims of Miranda's evil scheme.

It feels terribly frustrating to see a good character go down without being fully explored, especially on Alcina's case, since she was a character that everyone had high expectations for, because she was used as a marketing strategy to attract the public by being the focus of the game's demo and trailer. Everyone was interested in Village because of the beautiful tall vampire lady, but turns out she appears only in the beginning and barely has significance in the rest of the story. I didn't expect a redemption for her, it would be unrealistic and out of nowhere ー the game made clear that she's more inclined towards evil than morally-grey by the way she and her daughters are unnecessarily cruel and see the villagers like nothing but food stock, so it would indeed be difficult to create a situation in which she cooperated with Ethan, even if he hadn't killed her daughters — and her blind loyalty to Mother Miranda also makes this nearly impossible; so I agree that redemption or a change of heart seems out of the question for her, but still... making her the first to die after hyping her up that much was quite anti-climatic. The least they could do to honor her was make her be one of the last characters to go, so she could hunt Ethan until the end for avenging her daughters. It would make more sense for her to die just before Heisenberg's section, or literally anything instead of killing her off during the first twenty minutes of gameplay and never bringing her up again as if she's insignificant. Amongst all the countless existing possibilities for her, they decided to follow the worst and less satisfying route.

Now, the next topic and the true reason why I'm obsessed with this game despite everything: Karl Heisenberg. Imagine giving us one of the best characters in the whole franchise: a hot dilf coded villain with a dark, tragic past and a problematic personality that still shows signs of redeeming qualities, and then preceding to completely waste all of his potential as both: a possible ally, and a character, by not exploring the depth of his person. If there's any character that should've had redemption in this story, it was Karl. What is the point of adding the detail of his secret disloyalty and quiet hatred for Miranda if that wouldn't make any difference in the end, because Ethan doesn't even consider his offer for a partnership and we're forced to kill him either way? Why give him a whole character arc (if you can even call it that) focused on his disdain for his fake Mother, who happens to be the main villain, and not give him a chance of joining the protagonist's side when they both share the same enemy? I think the reason is simply lazy writing.

Not that he has to be a good person to be on the good side, but it's also implied he wasn't evil like Dimitrescu, who drained people of their blood and cannibalized their flesh, or Moreau, who coldly experimented on the living. Karl experimented solely on the dead, and while definitely unethical, he didn't directly inflict pain on anyone ー and that makes me assume that he's a morally grey character who's done bad things, and while he's definitely not the most moral man on earth, still has a line and humanity. But since dear Capcom decided to not give us any lore, we'll never know more. Regardless, it's still understandable why Heisenberg acts the way he does. It's only the consequences of living the nightmarish hell of having to constantly humiliate yourself by serving the person you despise the most, your worst enemy in the shape of a Mother — the very same person who stole your freedom and turned you into nothing but a puppet, a monster, a weapon. All this time, he was just fighting to recover his stolen freedom, fueled by his raw hatred for this woman who stripped him of his dignity, hurt his pride, and took his autonomy away by force. But in the end, he witnessed all he worked so hard for in flames in front of him as he died alone under the freezing rain, in the same hell he wanted so badly to escape. His fate was merciless and cold, even for someone who had their hands dirty.

You can argue that some Lords deserved their fates if you want, but the unfairness of Donna's is undeniable. She truly did nothing wrong and was just a victim. Her gardener's diary entries prove that she's always been a gentle and lonely person, and the fact that even after being infected with the Cadou and gaining hallucinogenic abilities all she wanted to do was people meet with their late loved ones one more time only further proves her goodness. She has nothing but old dolls in her house, it's so painfully clear that she didn't bother anyone and lived a quiet, melancholic life by the waterfall, where she was isolated from everyone else. Donna deserved better than to die alongside her dusty dolls, left to be forgotten forever.

The point I meant to make clear by now is that these characters being villains didn't stop me from feeling affection for them, it never does. So even if surviving wasn't a possibility, I wish we had at least seen more of their human side, lives aside from Miranda, or their past before getting locked away in the village by her. There were so many things, small details that I wanted to know about them — what's their age? Birthday? Any family left? Friends? Past lovers? Was Dimitrescu always this heartless? When did Moreau's intelligence start deteriorating? When exactly did Heisenberg realize that Miranda was manipulative and didn't love them and never saw them as her family? How did he manage, unlike his siblings, to see through her manipulation? The way Heisenberg speaks of Miranda sounds more similar to someone who's been hurt instead of someone that's always hated their current enemy, especially because of the line "She doesn't care for us, no. Her humanity is long gone. I must destroy her." That leaves me with so many unanswered questions, there's so much I wanted to know. But for sure what I wanted the most on this whole story was for them to have at least received a little bit of empathy, instead of being referred as monsters all the time. As a player and someone who enjoys the characters, it feels unfair to hear that. They were people too.

Now that I've talked about all the characters, I think it's important to emphasize that despite it being annoying to watch good characters being underutilized, none of that would be a surprise if this was just another typical Resident Evil game. This franchise has always been terrible when it comes to writing and making characters become constant on the series, just look at the amount of cool characters that literally never showed up again after their first appearance like Carlos, Billy, etc ー and Resident Evil is even worse when it comes to villains, since they're never offered the chance of redemption. For that reason, I usually don't hold high expectations when it comes to character development or story, however, it was made clear enough by trailers and by how much more cinematographic this game is compared to any other that Village was meant to be less survival horror and more story/character focused, more movie-like. And since that was the direction they were heading to, the least they could do was create a story in which the plot and characters are equally developed and worked in unison.

Speaking of gameplay, the game is fun and plays well, but it's also not as tense as the previous title because the survival horror aspects are much less present: item managing is barely needed unless playing on hardcore or higher because the game is very forgiving of your mistakes — just like RE4, it has a mechanic of rewarding you for killing enemies rather than punishing you, and this mechanic that doesn't work too well in a survival horror game since it doesn't force you to be cautious with your resources and spend them wisely, you can just go on a killing spree and you'll be fine, and knowing that makes the game's atmosphere significantly less tense.

Since there was more criticism than praise in my words so far, allow me to mention my next point, which is in my opinion the best part of Resident Evil Village: the atmosphere and exploration. I was enchanted with the scenery of the gothic isolated Romanian village filled with blood, monsters and death, the breathtaking and detailed Baroque architecture of the Dimitrescu Castle, the calm, eerie silent snowy regions that fills you with a sense of desolation and dread. The visuals of this game are magnificent and immersive. Last but not least and another resemblance to Resident Evil 4: the merchant and his requests was the perfect addition to encourage map exploration and reproduce the impression of a open-world game. The whole experience of hunting treasures and searching for ingredients for the Duke's Kitchen were genuinely fun things to do.

I must finish by saying that if Village wasn't part of the Resident Evil franchise, it'd probably be a 10/10 for me. But carrying the name of a loved franchise comes with expectations, and I found that many of them weren't met. Still, even if not life-altering, Resident Evil Village is still a great, solid game with a high replay value and a decent story, so I recommend it and find it worth playing, because as long as you don't expect the game to be similar to the classic RE in terms of gameplay or horror level, or don't get too attached to the good-looking antagonists, the game's mediocre writing and less challenging than usual gameplay probably won't bother you, and you'll be able to have fun with it. I don't believe every game should be a masterpiece, and this one, even with all the mentioned downsides, still delivered an emotional and beautiful story about familiar love that was able to make me sympathize, connect with the characters and cry a river, so I consider it a good game, even if I think it could've been better with a few changes in the direction of the story.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi, aj!

How are you?

This will be about ER. Who is your favorite character and why?

hi, anon!

i'm well! how are you doing?

honestly, i have a hard time deciding on one single favorite character on er, just because a) there are so many characters i absolutely adore (mark, susan, carter, benton, lucy, and neela among them), and b) my answer tends to change based on the era.

that said, forced to choose, i'd say my all-time favorite er character is abby lockhart.

while certainly there are some parts of abby's storyline i enjoy more than others—i've never really liked any of her canon romances, tbh—in terms of her personality and overall arc, i find her so endlessly compelling.

given what her background is, she reads exactly as she ought to.

she is so real and three-dimensional and dynamic!

watching the way she evolves over the course of her nine years on the show is one of the great delights of er's later seasons for me.

and, of course, maura tierney is such a consummate actress! i can only imagine that had she not been in direct competition with west wing-era allison janney for most of her er career, she probably would have much more major award show hardware on her mantel for this role.

just on a pure character design level, i love abby's wry, sardonic sense of humor; that she is a fellow minnesotan and has that "well, i guess this may as well happen—" kind of fatalistic midwestern outlook; how she occasionally is possessed of a streak of "bored housecat" naughtiness; how deeply she cares about her patients and will go out on limbs for them, oftentimes literally; her complicated relationships with her family members; how steel-trap clever she is; the way she struggles with her self-esteem; how she has to really work to initially find her confidence and speak up but then becomes such a firebrand (and sometimes rebel) in the department; her love for dead flowers; her deadpan comedic scenes; that she has some of the deepest, most fleshed-out female friendships on the show (particularly with kerry and neela); the way she so often self-sabotages and then has to deal with the consequences but always does deal with them, however roughshod the effort; how she gradually overcomes her hard start in life and eventually grows into this really graceful, wise, centered person, both professionally and personally; etc., etc., etc.

i also love that her story isn't a linear one: that she starts and stalls, not only along her path to becoming a doctor but also with her own recovery from alcoholism and her mental health issues; her interpersonal relationships and her struggles with her own self-doubt.

the way she is written is remarkable in a good way.

she is allowed to make mistakes to a degree that few female main characters on primetime television ever are—to fuck up royally and even at times be downright unlikeable—and yet she is also allowed to progress, however slowly and unevenly, and to grow.

to me, her long-in-coming triumphs are that much sweeter and more earned because of her numerous setbacks and failings along the way. you really do travel a wending road with her, and by the time you reach the end of it, the destination is so welcome.

there are multiple abby-centric episodes that are among my favorites of the whole series, including episodes 07x07 "rescue me," 10x12 "nicu," 11x10 "skin," and 14x08 "coming home."

i've said it before, but i have never seen such a well-done character sendoff episode on any series as episode 15x03 "the book of abby," which serves as a bittersweet, beautiful forty-five minute love letter to our much-beloved protagonist as she leaves county general for the last time.

her overall arc is one of the best examples of character development i've ever had the pleasure to watch.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[purplesaline]

One of the consequences of getting covid is that it can trigger POTS in a lot of people, it's what's been causing Long Covid for many.

POTS is a condition that not much is known about (it's believed it may be an autoimmune disorder) and it causes dysautonomia, aka impairs the autonomic nervous system.

One of the most noticeable ways this expresses itself is an impaired baroreflex. Baroreflex is your bodies ability to regulate your blood pressure when theres a change that would cause it to increase or decrease, and this impairment means that the body never recieves the signal for blood vessels to properly constrict to help force blood back to the heart, resulting in blood pooling in the lower extremities when you stand up. In response your heart beats faster to try to force the blood to move, but the blood volume isn't high enough for that to be very effective, so your heart beats even faster.

When I stand up and do absolutely nothing but stand quietly without moving my heart rate can reach 170bpm within 20 minutes. Simply shopping at the grocery store was enough to cause my heartrate to get to 200bpm. Even sitting upright in a chair raises it to 120bpm.

This is exhausting

It's actually beyond exhausting really. Imagine doing a full set of wind sprints any time you do anything.

POTS also causes heat intolerance, and raising your arms above your head is very tiring, making the simple act of showering incredibly difficult.

Now, most people with POTS don't have as severe a case as mine and will have flares where they notice the issue (my life is just one long flare I swear lol) and their heartrate doesn't get quite as high, but it will rise by at least 30bpm within 10 minutes of standing, which is still a very noticeable and tiring experience.

The good news is that it isn't life threatening, the bad news is that it can be devastating to your quality of life.

I've been bedridden for nearly 2 years (I need a chair to make a fucking PB&J sandwich), and the 4 years before that wasn't much better.

YOU DO NOT WANT THIS

And if you have ADHD or hEDS, especially if you are AFAB, you're at a higher risk of developing POTS.

Wear your fucking mask!!

For your own sake, PLEASE wear a mask and avoid situations where the risk of getting covid is high.

POTS is a life changing condition and it can cause permanent, severe disability preventing you from being able to work to support yourself.

I'm lucky, I live in the Province with the best disability program in Canada. I get $1,787/mth to live on. Most of you will not be this lucky.

Wear

Your

Fucking

Mask

PLEASE

I'm begging you. Even if you aren't afraid of covid and you don't think you can die from it (and you're probably right honestly), you should be worried about developing POTS. I developed it after a stomach bug 6 years ago (viral or bacterial infections are one of the main triggers)

It doesn't matter if you're super active and healthy, you can still develop POTS, and then say good bye to your fun active lifestyle.

This used to be an incredibly uncommon condition, amd them the pandemic happened and now I can't throw a rock without hitting someone who got POTS in the last couple of years.

Please for the love of all you hold dear, PLEASE just wear a damned mask and avoid high risk activities. I am quite literally begging you.

"A significant percentage of COVID-19 survivors develop POTS within 6-8 months of infection"

Autonomic dysfunction, of which POTS is an important subset, has been noted in more than half the patients with COVID-19 as post-acute sequelae in some studies

There is an approximately 1 in 10 chance (2-14%) you will get POTS if you have a symptomatic covid infection. Every time you get covid.

Please wear a mask

“The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that as of August 12, COVID hospitalizations had increased by 21.6%. In comparison, during the week ending on August 5, hospitalizations had increased by 14%. On July 8, there were 6,454 confirmed COVID hospitalizations in the United States, but since then those numbers have nearly doubled, now sitting at 12,613 hospitalizations nationwide.”

—

COVID Hospitalizations Now Up Nearly 22%

I know that we are all super over it. I know we all want to go back to our lives, and not think about masking indoors.

I feel it. I really do. And as much as I hate it, the reality is that Covid is still out there, still contagious, and it does not care if we are over it, or not.

I don’t agree with the minimizing “it’s just the flu” or “it’s just a cold” rhetoric. I suspect that’s coming from people who are tired, and really WANT Covid to be “just like _____” instead of what it is. But even if the rhetoric were true, I don’t want to get a cold, and I don’t want to get the flu. I don’t like feeling shitty. So I will continue to be cautious. I will continue to mask indoors, not because I’m modeling anything, not because I am afraid, but because I want to minimize my exposure risk to all airborne illnesses, even the ones that aren’t as unpredictable as Covid (and the Long Covid cases, which we still do not fully understand.)

Please be safe, take care of yourselves, and stay healthy.

[jacksonestrella]

Preserving the Flow: A Water Conservation Crusade

Definition of...

Story.- a fictional narrative shorter than a novel.

Tales.- a usually imaginative narrative of an event.

Science fiction.- fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals or having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component.

Once upon a time, there was an earth in chaos and with no water on it. Humans were dying, animals were extinct, and any other single kind of life already disappeared. By this XXIV century, scientists had already carried out many technological advances, including the increase of human longevity and possible safari time travels to the past. Of course, I was an important worker of this scientific society with 294 years, and I was assigned with one crucial mission for the future of humanity, travel to the past and prevent the discovery of immortality, because, even though human beings discover a type of half-immortality, needing only food to survive but not water, people messed up everything polluting and wasting all water on earth, causing the dead of every animal and plant, and, as a consequence, we take off any food supply that was necessary to maintain our half-immortality. 

Afterward, a few minutes before I travel through time to 2023, my mentor and guru Mr. Mark tells me one last phrase before he starves to death: ‘‘ My student, Remember, Human stupidity led to the discovery of a way of deleting water from our diet instead of look after it, and human stupidity led us to the destruction of life, the only solution is travel there and change everything, then, maybe we will develop our hearts and not only our brain.’’ With these words, I was filled with courage and I went to the travel machine to take on responsibility for the water scarcity problem. Subsequently, with only a few hours before going back to the future, I ended up stranded in what seemed to be a world full of life and happiness with a déjà vu, however, it was not time for me to stare there and enjoy it, so, the first thing I did was get together with my 17-year-old self, and once with him, we talk about everything, and a few hours later my younger version promised that he would do everything possible to avoid water pollution and the search for a dirty way of increasing human longevity by changing the natural cycle of things. Finally, with this promise, I went back to the time machine and when I arrived in the present, I noticed that everything changed, happy people, trees everywhere, lots of animals in the streets, and most importantly, a sign in the middle of the city that says: ‘‘Respect and preserve our water, the source of all life.’’ After this, I saw something strange in my body, and with a smile on my face, I started disappearing knowing that my younger version kept the promise of making a beautiful future for everyone.

END.....

Importance of water conservation

Water, a basic necessity for life, plays an essential role in our existence. However, millions of people,children and poor communities, face the reality of water scarcity daily. Furthermore, in regions without rivers, water conservation is indispensable. This essay will highlight the vital importance of water conservation, focusing on these underserved populations and resource-scarce areas.

Water conservation is a critical necessity, especially for those who cannot access clean drinking water. Children and impoverished communities endure significant hardships, often traveling long distances for unclean water sources. This affects their health and hinders access to education. By conserving water resources, we can help alleviate their suffering and offer them a chance at a healthier, more promising future. Additionally, in regions with scarce water resources or those lacking rivers, water conservation is their lifeline. It ensures the sustainability of clean water sources, providing a fair opportunity for survival and development.

In conclusion, the urgency of water conservation is part of our ethical duty to safeguard this crucial resource for life, especially for those struggling due to its scarcity. Water conservation promises to give a brighter future for everyone regardless of their geographical location or socio-economic status. By preserving water, we can make a significant difference in the lives of those who need it most.

I created this image in Leonardo.ai: https://app.leonardo.ai/ai-gene

REFERENCES:

Definition of story. (2023). En Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/story

Definition of. (2023). En Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tales

Definition of science fiction. (2023). En Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/science%20fiction

[gertritude-art]

Progress Update!

As promised, here is a progress update on DemonVN!  This is just a general update of what I've done (or, at least, can remember doing...) over the past month or so.

GENERAL/MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

Character Sprites: I completely re-did all of Mordred and the Demon's sprites! They now have about 70-80 sprites between them, which is probably way too many, honestly.

^mordred and the demon reaction to this distressing count

Along with them, I finally attempted a Lillie sprite redraw, and am in the process of fixing the anatomy of Catherine and Mr. Li (there are. Issues). I will show those all off in the next progress report, probably.

Item Sprites: with the addition of a few new item sprites, I believe that these are 100% complete, minus any last-minute additions!  great news: demonvn now has feet in it

Mordred’s Journal Extras (Glossary, Journal Entries): I decided to add these in as a fun extra thing for the game!  The glossary covers in-game terms, and Mordred's journal entries detail some of his experiences moving to his new town. They're still in the process of being worked on, but we're getting there!

INTRODUCTION

In which Mordred tries to capture a demon, epically fails, and then gets himself possessed (shown above).

This section continues to be in development hell. Do not ask me how finished it is because I WILL start crying. The good news, though, is that I fully finished the section where Mordred has an evil monologue about much he wants to kill all his classmates! That doesn't seem like a lot, but it did involve a cg that took me way too long to draw for how simple it is + multiple new Mordred sprites.

I also am currently working on revising some of the opening backgrounds a little bit! They're almost done.

Anyway, all the rest of my progress has been tearing my hair out trying and failing to write some sections of this, so let's move on!

MIDDLE SECTION

In which Mordred is forced to search for a demon at his high school homecoming dance.  

This middle section is currently a MESS of half-written/mostly written stuff that needs to be fully cobbled together, but the good news is that it IS getting written. Shout out to Stephanie and Catherine for having the worst sections by FAR to write... You would think they would be easy, but nope!!!!!

I have implemented a lot of the items, at the very least! Some of the writing around their use/getting them is missing, but they ARE there.

Also, other good news: the DJ booth background + Mr. Li's section is all basically done! He has a shocking amount of dialogue, actually, considering you can get him to comment on all five students in the game. I also drew up some expressions for him, but more need to be added :^)

^Mr. Li pushed to his breaking point (looks mildly annoyed) after hearing Mordred verbally reenact a “i was born in the wrong generation” youtube music comment

Most of Rusty's writing is also complete!! Very happy with how he's being presented :^) Now I just need to work on those sprites...

^Who’s this mysterious stranger with such a good taste in media...?  Just kidding.  It’s Rusty.

CLIMAX

In which multiple different characters all come together at once in the stupidest way imaginable.

So, I can't really get into the details of the progress I made without spoiling stuff, but I did do some writing for this section! I made some changes to how I wanted the endgame to go, which have in turn changed certain parts of this section. Overall, I'm happy with how it's coming along! Cannot wait for the inevitable [REDACTED] call-out post as a result of their actions here

ENDGAME

In which Mordred must deal with the consequences of his actions.

This outline for this section has been fully drafted, finally!!! who knew that changing it so that [REDACTED] would solve all the problems I was having with this + in various other sections. However, it is - for the most part - unwritten. Here's a section of the outline though

Along with this, I started work on one of the endgame backgrounds + I drew some of the items I needed for this section! Obviously, though, I can't show them off.....

EPILOGUE

Hopefully self-explanatory, given the name.

I did a little bit of writing for this, but for the most part, I've left it alone. It will be completed at some other time...

IN CONCLUSION...

Demonvn is currently at a whopping 35,000 words long (oh geez), and I would not be surprised if it was upwards of 40-45,000 by the time I get finished writing and editing everything. I remember when I thought it would be 1500-2000 max...

At the moment, my development is still slow, but it's being going at a steady pace at least! I still have no release date plans, and I don't think I will officially announce any until I am actually forcing people to beta test it.

Anyway, I'll put out another progress report on August 1! Lots of little things I need to work on before then, but my big goal is to finish at least ONE of the main sections. Who knows what that will be. Until then, I'll try to stay quiet on what I'm doing, but we'll see how well I can stick with that.

Anyway, talk to you guys later!

[cinebration]

What I Mean (Sherlock Holmes x Reader) [Request]

Hi lovely! Love love LOVE your work! You’ve got some truly amazing stories 💝 would I be able to request a Henry!Sherlock Holmes x reader one shot where the reader has feelings for Sherlock but thinks that he doesn’t like her at all? — Requested by anon

Warnings: none

Gif Source: acecroft

The first time you saw Sherlock, you fell in love. It wasn’t because of how he looked or how he carried himself. It was how he brushed past that insufferable Constable Lowell, ignoring the man’s protests with a wave of his hand. The way Lowell became flustered and upset and the way DI Lestrade laughed at him made your heart swell in your chest. After the last five months of verbal bullying from the constable, you were supremely satisfied to see him humiliated.

Sherlock frequently appeared unexpectedly at Scotland Yard. You learned to recognize his presence in the building before you ever saw him. There was something about the way he moved through the place, like it was of little consequence, that you could feel. It reminded you of being caught out in a storm with lightning striking nearby, the hair on your arms rising as static built up in the air.

You didn’t meet Sherlock until your fourth month of employment. What had started as a typing job had turned into secretarial work—with no increase in pay to account for your extra duties. You strode into Lestrade’s office with a thin smile and said, “If I’m going to be mitigating your literacy blunders, I expect to be compensated.”

“That’s out of the question. You are a typist and are paid accordingly.”

“Well, then, in that case…” You dumped a huge stack of folders in front of him. “I don’t need to inventory these.”

Lestrade stared at the stack in displeasure.

“Oh, and they haven’t been properly sorted. I’m only meant to type, not to organize your chaos.”

“Now wait.”

“I expect a ten-percent increase. That’s what a proper secretary gets paid. Oh, and the title. I want everyone to know I am not a mere typist.”

The muscle in his jaw jumping, Lestrade reluctantly agreed. Sweeping the files up in your arms, you strode out of the room, light on your heels.

Sherlock leaned beside the door, a faint smirk playing on his lips. You stumbled, surprised by his appearance.

“I thought I was the only one who could so easily maneuver Lestrade,” he said.

“He makes it too easy,” you managed to say.

Sherlock’s eyes skimmed the files. “They’re already organized, I see.”

“The trick is making him think only I can do this job.”

“Clever.” Then he was in Lestrade’s office discussing a case, leaving you standing there flushed.

~~

Sherlock took to greeting you cordially each time he passed by your desk after the incident with Lestrade. Sometimes he didn’t meet with Lestrade at all, instead opting to leave you with a message for the detective inspector. Sherlock never spent long at your desk, much to your disappointment, but the few minutes he spared you each time were enough to make you float the rest of the day.

You had taken it upon yourself to have all the necessary information on all of Lestrade’s cases close at hand. Sherlock often appeared to ask Lestrade for information regarding something he had read in the paper or heard from others. The first time you furnished him with a small envelope of the relevant information, you had been pleased to see genuine surprise in the consulting detective’s face.

“You are quite indispensable,” he remarked. “I don’t know how Lestrade managed anything before you.”

“Poorly, I would imagine.”

“I heard that!”

Smothering a laugh with your hand, you settled back at your desk and tried to think of something else to say to make Sherlock linger for a few moments. Before you could, he dipped his head and left.

You didn’t know why you kept entertaining the idea of interacting properly with Sherlock. The society rumor mill claimed the man was impossible to nail down and seemed uninterested in any of the ladies. It was supposed he, being an eccentric, was possibly too obsessed with his sleuthing hobby and therefore poor marriage material anyway.

Still, you flirted with the idea until you saw him interact with his sister, Enola. He smiled at her and praised her for a particularly thorny case she had unraveled.

Oh, you thought with dismay, feeling all hope leave you. He treats me like his sister.

The realization settled deep in your bones. It had been fruitless all along, the special treatment you had accorded him, the way he seemed pleased with you.

Of course he was pleased with you, you snarled inwardly. You helped him with his work. Even he suffers Lestrade in order to do that. You are nothing but a convenient secretary he doesn’t need to pay.

You couldn’t bear the thought of making things difficult for him, however, so you continued to keep the case information neatly organized and accessible. While everything in you had changed, the only outward sign of it was a sudden coolness toward him. You no longer smiled easily when he arrived, and you spent most of your time avoiding his gaze, busying yourself with tasks at your desk.

If he noticed, he gave no sign. It was as you had thought. You were of little consequence to him.

~~

A year after being hired, you considered quitting. There was a small detective agency in need of female detectives to uncover unfaithful wives and husbands for divorce proceedings. It would get you away from the stifling atmosphere of Scotland Yard, where the likes of Lowell and his ilk still roamed unchecked. You could do with a change.

You could do with an escape from a certain debonair consultant.

“You can’t leave,” Lestrade declared. “I won’t allow it.”

“Did I sign a contract, sir?”

“No, but why would that—”

“Then I am under no obligation to continue working for you.”

Lestrade sputtered, trying to refute you. “You’re needed here.”

“I know a woman who is as adept as I am at this work.”

“But—”

“I’ve made my decision, detective. Please leave me to it.”

You remained only to show your replacement the way of things and to warn her about Lowell and the others. Only then did you leave and seek a posting in the detective agency.

A day after you had applied and been accepted, you arrived to work in your work clothes, fully expecting to be sent somewhere to survey a cheating spouse. As you walked through the door, you heard exclamations from within.

“Mr. Holmes! What an honor it is to have you grace our establishment.”

You froze in the doorway, heart hammering in your chest. Sherlock’s broad back was turned to you, his face in three-quarter profile. You wanted to flee, to escape the magnetic pull you felt in your presence.

Your new employer saw you past Sherlock’s shoulder. “Ah, here she is.” Waving you over, he watched you walk stiffly down the hallway, your hands clenched into nervous fists by your sides.

Sherlock turned to you, fixing you with those striking blue eyes. You felt trapped beneath them, sucked in their magnetism once more. Swallowing thickly, you nodded. “Mr. Holmes.”

He smiled tentatively at you, revealing the point of a canine.

“Mr. Holmes has requested you for an investigation,” you employer said. “I offered him Miss Hemmings, of course, she being our finest, but he insisted on you.”

The hair on the back of your neck rose. Resisting the urge to scratch, you asked, “Did he?”

“I did. Now, if we could go? We are wasting time.”

Fighting the disappointment rising in you, you followed Sherlock out the door and into a transom. Enclosed in the small space, you couldn’t avoid his scent, a pleasing mix of tobacco smoke and something else. You avoided his gaze, folding and refolding your hands in your lap.

“You left Scotland Yard.”

A statement. You nodded but didn’t offer anything more. “Where are we going?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

You frowned, lifted your head. “I beg your pardon?”

“Did I do something incorrect?” A crease appeared between the man’s eyebrows. “Your demeanor toward me changed in the two months leading up to your resignation.”

Toying with the fingers of your gloves, you felt panic clawing up your throat. He had noticed. What did that mean?

“I can only conclude that something occurred, but I can’t determine what.”

You met his concerned eyes. “I…it doesn’t matter, Mr. Holmes. I can do whatever job you need me to with as much professional courtesy as it requires.”

His lips pulled into a thin frown. “That isn’t what I’m asking.”

“I don’t know what you mean, then.”

“Please, you are smarter than that. Or was my regard for you misplaced?”

You blinked in surprise, unsure you had heard correctly. “It…isn’t my place to tell you where to place your regard.”

He laughed then, a sudden HA that made you jump. “You are making this difficult, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I am not given over to emotionalism, but I won’t deny that your treatment of me in those last months affected me.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“What I mean to say is that I had hoped we were developing a familiarity.” His hand went to his collar, adjusting it. “I had hoped to…call on you.”

Your head snapped up in surprise. “To call on me?”

“I had thought my feeling for you was returned, but if I am mistaken, please inform me now to save us both further embarrassment.”

You could hardly speak around the tightness in your throat. “It is returned.”

The smile on Sherlock’s face made your heart ache. “Good. I’m glad we have remedied that. Now, if we’re both to be detectives, then I suppose we had best collaborate. I need you to spy on Richard Haskell. It seems…”

[letsasoiaftogether]

Imagine...

....Joanna Lannister surviving Tyrion’s labor

(gifs aren’t mine)

Word Count: 794

Warning: None

A/n: This is technically a quick dabble/gif imagine. I want to do something longer with them, I’m just trying to develop my take on Joanna Lannister before I go and type out a 1000/2000 word one shot just to change my characterization of her a day later lol

“You will save my son! Do you hear me? You will save my son! I am a lion! I will save myself!” 

It was lost on everyone how many times the Lady of the Rock had screamed that during her short labor. Even covered in sweat and shaking with pain, she had strength and the ferocity she was expected to have.

On the sixth hour of her labor, when her youngest child came ripping his way out of her body, Joanna Lannister fell silent - those who were in the room with her would whisper for years to come that her last demand had fallen silent on her lips and her face had gone pale. All the strength left her the moment her third child slipped out of her.

She caught a fever within twenty minutes - while her son, a dwarf who would be named Tyrion, was being cleaned and wrapped in a blanket to keep him warm, Lady Joanna was bleeding out in the bed all three of her children had been conceived in.

“You saved him over my wife?” The Lord of Casterly Rock was a man to behold, but standing there in the hall outside his wife’s bed chambers, green stare narrowed and dangerously pointed toward his Maester, even the King of Westeros himself would have ran for his life. 

“Lady Joanna told us to save the babe, My Lord, I…”

“SHE’S YOUR LADY! AND YOU’RE LETTING HER DIE!”

The hall was silent for a long moment. 

Tywin’s brothers and sister, all who had made sure to be at the Rock for when their cousin and good-sister gave birth, all flinched and looked uneasily at each other. It wasn’t normal for their brother to lose his temper so openly. He was usually so silent and calculating, displaying his rage through silently dealt out consequences.

The Maester bowed, “My apologies, My Lord, at the moment…there is nothing to be done.” He excused himself to return to Lady Joanna’s bedside.

If anyone saw the panic or the pain on Tywin Lannister’s face in that moment, it would never be said out loud.

As weeks went by, people began to wonder if Lady Joanna had known how little regard the Lord of the Rock had for their third child. As Joanna miraculously survived her labor, lying in bed with a fever for a week before it finally broke, there were some who wondered if she had found the strength to live in order to spite her Lord Husband who didn’t bother to hide his disgust at his infant son. Of course, they knew that Lady Joanna would ever admit to it but people do love their gossip.

As it was, Lady Joanna Lannister was well aware of how her husband viewed their third and youngest child. She wouldn’t have been a very good wife if she didn’t. She knew Tywin and she could understand why he was so offended by Tyrion’s birth. The Hand of the King hated being mocked and laughed at, and with a dwarf son there was no doubt he would receive that ridicule for the rest of his life.

“A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinion of the sheep, My Love.” Joanna often whispered to her Lord Husband whenever he would complain about others, and it was what she told him when it came to his thoughts and other’s opinions when it came to Tyrion. “You may not claim him, but he is my son and he is a Lannister. He will be raised as such. Even if I must raise him myself.”

The two would fall silent, but it wasn’t missed by anyone the way Lord Tywin would take his Lady’s hand and place a kiss to her knuckles - his lips pressed to her skin for a long while before pulling away. Those who knew them knew this was their Lord’s way of accepting his wife’s position and supporting it.

Just as Lady Joanna would silently submit to Lord Tywin by placing a hand to his arm and leaning into his side when he whispered what he believed would be best in assuring Tyrion could be respected by their vessels (something that was most important for any Lannister, but especially one with Tyrion’s….short comings).

The Lord and Lady of the Rock had many different opinions on what was and wasn’t a vice of man, but when it came to the strength of their family and showing the might of House Lannister, they always went to war side-by-side - never allowing an argument between the two of them to last for fear it would ripple through their home and cause rot in the foundation they had worked so hard to build since Tywin came to be Lord of Casterly Rock.

A/N: I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED IT! 

If you enjoy this, and other content, and want to support me please consider buying me a Kofi at https://ko-fi.com/atlex0616 !

Thank you and have a good day! :D

[krakenartificer]

One of the things that I find hardest to do, that turns out to be textbook ADHD, is figuring out how to get started on a project

(I say, after having procrastinated on writing this, for the last 4 hours. Actually, I have no idea how long I've been procrastinating - I have timeblindness. But I did post a Facebook comment right before I tried to start for the first time, so I can check that. goes to check facebook ohno.jpg) (Two hours. It was 2 hours.)

That overhead/activation cost is so high, I desperately want to finish every project all in one go, in one sprint, rather than have to pay it twice. "Slow and steady wins the race," they say; "Just break it down in to steps and do a little bit every day," they say; and I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to make that work, but just doesn't. Paying the startup cost for 10 minutes of work isn't worth it, and deep down I know that, and won't let myself do something so extravagantly wasteful of spoons. That's not me being immature or unwilling to work -- that's me making an accurate and intelligent assessment of tactical realities.

And yet the fact remains that almost nothing worth doing can be done all in one sprint with no breaks, and that forcing myself to try is detrimental to both my mental and physical health, and therefore I do need to learn how to shut down a project and then start it up again. This is not a complete list, by any means, but it's the best method I've found so far. The specific solutions may or may not work for you, but hopefully it'll give you some ideas on how to start designing your own methods.

My problems with starting my work fall into three broad categories: 1) reticulating splines 2) remembering what's happened, and what's supposed to be happening 3) translating knowledge into action

1) Reticulating Splines

"Reticulating Splines" is a concept I stole from Luna Corbden. They explain it in detail at [link], but the way I always think of it is that my brain only loads in high-res. There is no "just a quick overview" or "don't get into the weeds" for me -- you are getting every piece of information related to this topic, and every relationship between all those pieces of information, or nothing. And as we all know from waiting on high-res videos to buffer, that takes FOREVER.

Now that's not inherently a good or a bad thing.

Once that network map has loaded

I am amazing at pulling up details other people have missed: my map isn't fuzzy and pixelated.

I am spectacularly good at spotting edge cases and unexpected consequences: I'm looking at the entire project and all its interrelationships at the same time.

I am incredibly good at following other people's trains of thought even when they're communicating badly: I know every possible path between two statements, so when someone says they're related, I can back-trace what their route from A to B must have been.

I am a much better developer, a much better tutor, and a much better manager because of this capability, as long as you give me time to get the splines reticulated.

But it does mean that there's no such thing as a "quick question" for me. Imagine if every time you went to Wikipedia, it had to load every single Wikipedia entry in your web browser before it would show you the page you asked for -- that's what talking to me is like if you spring a conversation on me without warning.

It follows, then, that there's no such thing as a "quick code change" or a "quick edit" or (my apologies to all the ADHD peeps struggling to get through this essay) a "quick explanation". This is how the world exists in my head, with all these interconnected parts, and I don't know how to give you only part of it. If you want me to change the code to write to a different table, or to change my terminology, I have to load the entire program, or the entire essay, into my brain, then make the change, then shut it all down again, before I can move onto the next thing.

So that's problem number one: every time I stop working on something, and then try to start up again, I have to re-load the entirety of the project into my brain again.

So the first thing about starting projects is to

be compassionate with yourself while things are buffering.

You're not stupid for needing to take your time to review, and you're not wasting time scrolling back and forth and clicking between pages and re-reading things in an order that you could never explain to someone else, and you're not trapped in some failed-functioning dissociative circle of hell. You're buffering, and the extra time it takes you to load this data structure is proportional to your ability to do things with it once it's loaded. That's just how it works.

The other thing is to externalize the splines as much as possible. Which gets us into

2) Memory (working and otherwise)

Look, we all know how ADHD affects memory, I don't think I need to go into a lot of detail here.

So that's problem number two: every time I stop working on something, I completely forget wtf I was doing.

Which means that you shouldn't rely on your memory.

WRITE THINGS DOWN

I don't care if everyone around you thinks that this is easy to remember. I don't care if you understand it all perfectly right now and can't imagine ever needing a reminder of how it works. Your vision of perfect clarity is because the splines are reticulated; as soon as you switch gears, that vision is going to fade into nothingness and you will be left with only a distant fuzzy memory of the galaxy-brain comprehension you once had, unless you WRITE. IT. DOWN.

For projects, specifically, there are two things I find very important to write down:

A) the overall flow of the project: what the steps and the sub-steps are, how they fit together, what order they should be done in, and how to tell if they've been completed or not. (My system for this is described at length here [x])

B) What the current status of the project is right now.

Where am I in the overall flow of the project? What step am I currently working on? What is stopping it from being completed? As with writing down the overall flow of the project, remember that these notes are for you, not for anyone else: they only have to make sense to future!you. Don't write them down in a way that you would write a memo to your boss, or an way your English teacher would approve of -- write them down in a way that makes sense to you.

A sample of the types of notes I have left myself:

For reasons I cannot begin to explain, the enrichment template and the enrichment block strings that existed in the repo this morning bear absolutely no resemblance to the enrichment query that is currently running prod, and I cannot find any place that the correct templates and strings have ever existed. So .... idk, tbh. I can't explain it. But I can fix it. So. I have copied the query from a prod run in EMR, and pasted it into the templates, and submitted that as an MR. I also changed the block_strings in Rosetta. With those two changes, we end up with something that looks like what's in prod, even if it's not in Master. So can I proceed? Are we good? I don't know -- my brain is too tired and dumb to figure out how to tell that.

It's been running all week, but not actually providing any data, because apparently mvno_accounts hasn't been updating its metadata. So I MSK REPAIRED and that fixed the problem. I added an MSCK REPAIR to the code, and hopefully that fixes the problem. I still need to backfill everything between run_date=2021-08-10 and run_date=2021-08-17

Says it has partitions [screenshot] Says it doesn't have data [screenshot] S3 says the partitions have no data [screenshot] So that's nice, I guess. How do I get the damn thing to write?

It gives me a completely useless error each time, each time on a different query, and I have no FUCKING clue what the FUCK it wants. So it can just FUCKING FUCK OFF. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE

Things to note from these examples:

You are not being graded on grammar / spelling / punctuation. As long as the punctuation enhances your ability to understand the sentence, it's correct.

It's largely a snapshot of MY internal state, not the state of the project. In contrast to everything western-supremacist culture tells you about suppressing your feelings, emotions [x] make [x] memories [x] stronger. That last one may not look like much of a hint, but when I got into work the next day, I read that, and I knew exactly what I had to do in order to continue work on the project.

Also please note that I have been using this system for a while, and I've gotten pretty good at guessing what future!me is going to need. You'll get better with practice. Just keep swimming, and be kind to yourself

And then also write down ...

3) Translating knowledge into action

As Russell Barkley says, "You've got a real problem on your hands. Cuz you can know stuff, and you won't do stuff." [x] The ADHD brain (apparently, I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm just trusting this neuroscientist) has a gap, or a wall, between knowledge and performance.

That is to say .... apparently most people .... if they know what needs to happen .... that means they can just .... do it??? Like, that's enough?? IDK, it sounds crazy to me, but I'm trying to respect that neurotypicals are the experts on their own experiences

I mentioned this in my stimulus-setup post [x], but putting "I need to decide which window to put this fan in" doesn't do a damn thing for me. I KNOW I need to figure out which window to put it in; the step after that is measuring the window, and I can't bloody measure the window if I don't know which window I'm measuring, can I? That much is obvious; any idiot could figure THAT out. But how do I figure that out??

So that's problem number three: every time I stop working on a project, I've lost the momentum, and I can spin my wheels for hours trying to find enough traction to translate knowledge into action again.

The most common way to try to compensate for this problem is to just try to remember this information until I get back to the project, but that leads to so many other problems. I have to keep checking myself: do I still remember? What was that list? Run over it again? It's hypervigilance, and it causes all kinds of health problems, and it makes for shitty doing-work-while-I-sleep dreams, and it's also a terrible way to live. And also, even if I succeed, it means I'm keeping the damn thing in working memory, which I already don't have enough of.

No, what I need to write down, as the last line in that note I'm leaving for myself, is the actual next thing that needs doing. "Check which window better fits the fan." That's actionable. That's a clear instruction -- especially if I've already left myself a note about which two windows are the final candidates, and where the fan is. That takes the goal and turns it into a thing that can be done.

A sample of the types of notes I have left myself:

open ~/Documents/Rosetta\ Docmentation.docx

Pull a chair up to the loom, and start re-stringing.

Find the damn manuscript

Go through the pattern and ID (and outline in bold) sections that could be sewn together with all one piece of yarn

Things to note from these examples:

Some of these steps are really really simple. Yes, in fact, I did indeed get hung up -- not on the incredibly gumption-draining process of re-stringing a loom, no -- I got hung up on the fact that we don't keep a chair next to the loom. If I pulled a chair up, I could do the rest of the project. I refuse to be ashamed of this. Neurotypicals suck at stuff I'm amazing at, and I suck at stuff they take for granted. If I write down "pull up a chair", the work gets done. That's what works for me. So I do it. Remember that you can't edit the manuscript until you find it. Write out the full path to the file; start your instruction with "go to the garage" ... do whatever it takes to make it actionable for you

for computer work, see if your OS gives you a way to make the computer do some of this work. In Linux and macOS, open is a valid command, which means I don't even have to remember how to open a document: I can just copy-paste open ~/Documents/Rosetta\ Docmentation.docx into terminal, and the document I need will magically appear on my screen.

Because I already have notes on the overall flow (see step 2), I don't have to have a lot of details or context in these notes. I don't have to specify where "the pattern" is, because the project notes already have a link to the pattern for this project.

Actionable Takeaways:

Before you start work on something:

Figure out what needs to be done for this project and how all the pieces will fit together (Detailed post on that at [link]) into one big project operation

Write that operation down

Before you stop work on something:

Write down anything you're keeping in working memory in order to be doing the work you're doing

Write down your current emotional state / inner dialogue

Write down the simplest, clearest instruction you can on what actual action you need to do to proceed.

[ideas-on-paper]

Despite being the acquisition mission for my favorite character, the Reaper IFF is probably one of my least favorite parts of ME2. The fighting is just exhausting (all the more if you hate Husks and Scions), especially the final battle in the core room.

During my recent research, however, I found out that the original plans for the mission might have been a little more interesting: Instead of destroying the core, you were supposed to fight a Husk version of Dr. Chandra at the end (the guy who recorded the logs you find during the mission) who incoherently retells some of the history of the Reapers. (Here is the post where it's mentioned, and here are the cut lines Dr. Chandra was supposed to say.)

If you think about it, the original concept actually makes a lot more sense. I mean, Legion gets knocked out by a random Husk - you would think that if the Geth create a single unit for a mission without any backup or support, they would do their best to construct a durable shell. Instead, Legion just... goes into standby mode because a normal freaking enemy (not even a particularly strong one) managed to hit the off button somehow. (Wasn't there something about the Geth deleting their memory cores if they sustain critical damage?) It just feels so much like one of those last-minute ME2 plot changes - BioWare hastily threw something together that kind of made sense, hoping that the audience wouldn't look into it too deeply.

Still, good to see BioWare actually didn't forget about Cerberus researching indoctrination and Husks. A plot point from ME2 still being relevant in ME3? Never thought I'd see the day. xD

Now, you've given me some interesting ideas about Geth accompanying their Quarian masters abroad. I suspected many Quarians had Geth as personal adjutants, so one can assume they took them with them if they went off-world. But what happened to them when the order to terminate all Geth went out? Did they keep tabs on all active Geth units, and these were the first to be called back? Also, what about processing capacity? Since these units would have to operate independently without any other Geth to interlink with (like Legion, essentially), they would need to consist of more programs than usual.

Oh, I love the idea of Legion simply being picked up by the Geth if Shepard airlocks them! xD Also, it would be really interesting regarding the consequences in Mass Effect 3: Legion still knows who Shepard is, but unlike when you recruit them, they have no basis to trust Shepard. Would love to see how this affects the interactions.

I think Saren mentions that Sovereign doesn't really care about the Geth, despite the Heretics viewing Sovereign as a kind of god. I like the idea that the Heretics developed the virus because they felt vulnerable on their own - after Sovereign's defeat, I can definitely imagine that.

The question of who provides the Codex entries in-universe is an interesting one. Maybe files like the one about Sovereign are just the "standard" Alliance docs, and stuff like the Derelict Reaper entry is top-secret? Idk. xD

Mass Effect 2 replay, Reaper IFF:

Schwarzschild

-Etamis – A post garden World. An advanced spacefaring species was bombarded by dreadnought class weapons 20-40 million years ago.

Once again: Probably reapers.

-Atahil – Also has signs of orbital bombardment. Probably had been settled by the same species as the one on Etamis.

-Linossa – Its rings contain nano-manufactured materials. The species from Etamis and Atahil probably mined it for helium-3.

Century

-Klendafon – The Great Rift Valley was made when a mass accelerator round glanced the planet 37 million years ago.

Presumably this is from the round that killed the derelict reaper.

Thorne

-There’s a geth ship beside the Reaper. Understandably, everyone assumes the geth killed the science team and that’s why they stopped reporting in.

-Mass Effect is one of the better series about women, but sometimes unconscious bias shows.

For example: “Default NPCs” are frequently men. Such as all the members of the Reaper research team we hear from or about are men.

Once named characters are involved women start cropping up more frequently, but I’ve noticed that when the writers need a character for a bit part it’s normally a man.

-This mission feels like a missed opportunity. Shepard is exploring a dead reaper from the inside! There’s so much they could learn.

But instead the mission is very brief, and most of it is fighting hordes of husks or listening to logs the researchers left behind.

Why doesn’t Shepard have the opportunity to examine any Reaper tech? To interact with any of the Reaper’s systems? To explore the inside of the Reaper more extensively?

Imagine if Shepard had to find the IFF on their own, instead of collecting it from where the researchers had placed it. Determining where it might be located, making a way to it (it would be beyond where the research team had gone), detaching it from the Reaper...

Just… There’s so much potential for this to be a fantastic mission, but instead it’s just fight after fight in minimally differing environments.

-Cerberus Researcher in a log: But even a dead god can dream.

Very good line.

-Miranda and Kasumi have no dialogue for the Dragon’s Teeth. Google tells me that only triggers if Garrus, Tali, or Jacob are in the party.

You think they’d have something to say about people pierced on spikes in the middle of the Reaper, but apparently that’s an uninteresting sight.

-Geth are not known for speaking.

Hmm. Maybe I was too hard on Project Overlord.

Still, Cerberus should know the geth are capable of speech, even if they normally choose not to use it. The geth served the quarians; it’s safe to assume they communicated verbally with them.

There should be records of that; hell, probably videos. I’m sure quarians took geth with them all over the galaxy when they traveled.

-There are so many husks. And scions! Scions are made of multiple humans.

How big was this research party? And why is this dead Reaper creating the same type of enemy we normally encounter?

I can almost understand the husks. The Dragon Teeth are used in every cycle and create an enemy based on their DNA or whatever. But the Scions? Those must be crafted.

-Kasumi, about the iFF: So the Cerberus team did recover it. But where are they now?

...Kasumi knows what Dragon’s Teeth are, doesn’t she?

-Thank goodness for the Cain. I did not not want to fight that battle the “proper” way.

-The Mission Summary states that Cerberus is researching indoctrination and the husk conversion process. Some nice foreshadowing for ME3.

It could be seen as benign, although we know it’s not. Understanding how something is done is the best means to develop a countermeasure for it.

Normandy

-Jacob keeps advocating for airlocking the geth, but that isn’t even an option I’d have.

It’d be amusing if that was a neutral option, than in ME3 we find the true geth recovered Legion.

-Jacob, if you choose to keep Legion: Tali’s going to freak when she hears about this.

As said before, I don’t think Jacob’s actively malicious towards Tali. Insensitive at worst. Here, he’s fully aware that she will not be okay with a geth being onboard.

…I presume this line is skipped if Tali hasn’t been recruited?

-Edi warns that linking the Normandy with the IFF poses a risk. Hah. Bit of an understatement.

-Legion says that the term Reaper is a superstitious title the Protheans gave. The Geth refer to them as the Old Machines.

This almost feels dismissive of the term “Reaper” and the Protheans. Which is notable, as the geth don’t have emotions.

Well, we know they have opinions. Apparently superstition is not held in high regard.

-Legion says Shepard was killed by the Reapers and rediscovered on the Reaper.

Did Legion know Shepard was alive? Surely he did – Shepard’s been active for quite a while at this point and word gets around.

Still, the way it’s phrased it sounds as if Legion did not.

-Legion was on the Reaper to learn the information necessary to prevent the heretics from using the virus to overwrite the true geth.

How long have the true geth known about this virus?

-For that matter, why has it taken the heretics this long to be ready to deploy it?

They’re storing it on a data core provided by Sovereign – you’d think if Sovereign was involved he could have completed the virus and it could have been used years ago.

But maybe Sovereign didn’t care or the data core was originally intended for something else and the heretics repurposed it. I suppose we can assume they’ve been working on this for the last two years or so.

-Why do the heretics wants to reunite the geth but the true geth do not?

Perhaps it’s because the heretics faction is smaller, and they accordingly feel the loss of the other more. We know geth are smarter when there are more of them.

With the loss of the other geth, Sovereign, and all of C-Space hunting them I bet the heretics feel very vulnerable at the moment. If they can sway the true geth to their side, their abilities will increase and they’ll feel safer.

-Geth believe all intelligent life should self determinate.

Not shocking from a former slave species, but good to hear.

-There are paragon, neutral, and renegade options to accept Legion’s loyalty mission. No other loyalty mission has that.

Only paragon expresses concern for the geth. Neutral and Renegade focus on eliminating a threat to organics.

Codex

-The entry for Sovereign refers to the “Eden Prime War”. This includes the Battle of Citadel.

Does everyone refer to it as this, or just the Alliance?

-The entry is written like Sovereign was just Saren’s flagship, not a Reaper.

This is puzzling because the Codex waffles over whether or not Reapers are real. In Sovereign’s entry they’re not, but in the Derelict Reaper you get an entry on Reaper Indoctrination.

-The heretics might be as small as 5% of the total geth population.

Yeah, I’d hazard the Council is frantically preparing for a possible war with the geth. Wrong enemy, but the preparations will still be handy when the Reapers show up.

[chaoticallyandmentallydead]

Thoughts on Edge of the World's tone and Them's the Breaks, Kid as a whole.

This will basically be all my criticisms about these episodes into 1 post.

Let's get this out of the way, Them's the Breaks, Kid was a waste of an episode slot and Edge of the World failed to show any Hunter related consequence of Hollow Mind.

Because if was up to me, Them's the Breaks, Kid would be scratched, except for the last scene, which would be put in either Any Sport in a Storm or Reaching Out, to make an aftermath episode for Hollow Mind that also focuses on Eda and Raine + Hunter.

An hypothetical scenario is for the episode to be set during Luz and King's trip, it'll basically be a Eda and Lilith rescue mission to then Raine, Darius and Eberwolf get involved.

Hunter might not even appear in the episode, but his existence would still be acknowledged. The main idea you can take from this is that so we can see Eda and Raine's confrontation.

Because the way people are treating the Raine remembered everything as the most important thing about the story and not how Eda could react to it or how their confrontation would go down, which could have been this episode, raises a question: do you prefer shock value over an actual character driven story? Because if I remember correctly the reason why Luz talking about her father's death and Hunter's panic attack were so praised was the exact opposite. I can't help but think that the Raeda confrontation will be barely one mid episode scene.

About Edge of the World, I want to make this clear: my problems towards this episode are not directed to King or his backstory (I would kill in his name), and every single thing I liked about the episode was because of him and him alone. Oh, and Eda's breakdown was a nice scene too.

Honestly, just change the episode order for Edge of the World to be set before Hollow Mind and put Eda's breakdown scene in Labyrinth Runners so that the awful tone and Luz showing no signs of Hollow Mind's aftermath during the trip would be fixed.

But let's try something different, let's judge Them's the Breaks, Kid's flashback as a stand alone story only.

The light-hearted tone in it managed to work, thankfully, mostly because of the stakes were lower than 50% of S1 episodes. (Also, I just want to point out how Any Sport in a Storm had a believable premise to make it's light-hearted tone work and didn't had to make itself being set on a different time period for it or just making the most tone deaf shit imaginable.)

Anyway, to the characters. They took out everything that makes Eda, Raine and their relationship great.

For this we have to talk about one my favorite things about Eda.

Eda's kindness and selflessness was always an integral part of her characterization and one of the most important themes of the show.

Is why she cared for the life of a human she knew for less than a day, is why she end up raising a baby she got stuck with by accident, is why she forgive her sister for taking out 30 years of her life, is why she wanted to safe both her daughter and her enemy from mortal danger while also extending a hand to him before even knowing what happened. Etc. Is arguably her most defining trait.

What makes it so great is that the decades of suffering she went through aren't forgotten, her arc is basically about her learning to be more open about the fact she cares for Luz and King while dealing with the burdens of the curse. And learning about her upbringing and why she's like this is still the best part of Keeping up A-fear-ances, and that episode managed to give us an important insight about a character to actually develop them in the present in 1 scene, now compare to what Them's the Breaks, Kid did for 20 minutes.

And Eda is even more than that, I love how a mentor character is so straightforward. I love that she left school out of a hatred for the educational system and not because of something like laziness which also ends up reflecting on how stubborn she is. I love how a woman in her 40s is portrait as unapologetically sassy and sexy. I love how she is a way to tell the mature and best themes of the show.

But, for some reason, people want to turn the most nuanced yet grounded character of the show into regular-teenage-girl-protagonist, number 3.534.798.126

On Raine, there's a reason why only the final scene of Them's the Breaks, Kid is used as argument that the episode served to characterize Raine further, and, while a great moment, serving as a parallel to Lumity, which both characters are being more honest and close with each other, while Eda and Raine just keep pushing each other away, kid Raine is not a source of development, they're barely an insight. The most we learn is that they changed school because of a girl they knew for less than a day. For example: would anything change if another coven head was in Terra's place during the labyrinth hunting section?

It would be fine if they mimicked Keeping up A-fear-ances and placed the scene where Eda and Raine met each other at the beginning and used the other 95% of the episode to develop Raine. But not even that happens. How Eda met Raine was never set up as a mystery and could've just been answered with a single line in other episode. And I consider myself to be a big Raine fan so kid Raine really wasn't entertaining, if only because they didn't have any of Adult Raine's characterization, like for example the tough love that existed because of the years of trauma shared with their girlfriend.

And the angst is what makes Raeda works, plain and simple, if you remove the years of trauma, you also removes all the interesting things about the best ship of the show. (If you couldn't tell, Eda's Requiem is one of my favorite episodes)

About Hollow Mind's consequences, I have to keep constantly reminding myself that the same show has Separate Ties, the episode dedicated to explore the consequences and repercussions of the biggest story event up to that point while also managing to transition the show's tone to a more serious one and making the characters recive an integral part of their development in their individual characters and relationships. That is also for some reason is so ignored by the fandom at large.

Meanwhile the ending scene in Hollow Mind showed a child soldier that attempted suicide before having a panic attack because everything he believed was a lie and he has no where and no one to go, running away from a place where he knows his uncle would very likely found and kill him.

And he doesn't even gets a mention while this episode opens with the most tone whiplash disposable dream sequence imaginable. And I'm just mentally preparing myself when Hunter shows up in the last episode with his arc happening off screen

Is especially insulting because when the pirate guy mentioned he doesn't work for the Golden Guard anymore, it would be SO EASY to put an small emotional moment there showing that Luz looked uncomfortable, but she doesn't even blinks. Or even a background detail like one of her drawings. Seriously, during Sense Insensitivity they remembered to put a small moment where Eda is alone and she comments about the curse getting worse, which was a plot point in the previous episode, but this doesn't gets a mention???

And is also kinda weird for Luz's character in general, compare to how Luz acts throughout Separate Ties, which was the moment she became more mature overall, and then something even more impactful happens and while she did had a important reaction, during the trip her trauma just... vanishes and she acts completely fine during the rest of the episode. I'm entirely convinced that all the trip scenes were written with the intention to air before Hollow Mind. And the King is an infinite Titan blood source thing kinda rings hollow to me because we didn’t even get to see Luz's reaction to not having the glove anymore.

And I saw some people saying that Luz and the others didn't contact Amity, Willow and Gus either about not getting coven marks as an excuse why he wasn't named dropped, and thank you btw for pointing out another reason why this needed a aftermath episode, because I was so bothered by Hunter's non-existence that Luz not even seeding them a message, which could've been a moment as brief as Luz messaging Hunter in Reaching Out, or just making Owlbert recruit them as well about something they should definitely know wasn't clear to me at the moment and it's another problem with this story.

Actually, their lack of screentime in the 3 most recent episodes has been genuinely bothering me in general, I can understand why they didn't appeared in Hollow Mind, but why not at the start of Them's the Breaks, Kid or Edge of the World? Considering we're at the final stretch of the show, they should appear the most as possible, right? Or at the very least a mention about having to alert Amity, Willow and Gus about the coven marks? At least they'll probably appear in the next episode. Gus will, that's for sure.

And you guys can put fault on Disney for cutting S3 as much as you guys want, but it was Disney who didn't allowed a single mention? Like, most things in this ridiculous tone deafness could've been fixed with a single line or two. King's father knows we didn't needed that opening sequence, so go ahead and replace that.

Still, my crazy conspiracy theory is that Hollow Mind's first draft was made before the shortening news, maybe it was originally written as the S2 finale and Amity, Willow and Gus would’ve made a appearance. And the reason why this theory exists is because of how rushed the aftermath was handled.

[wordsnstuff]

20 Mistakes To Avoid in Enemies To Lovers

PLEASE REBLOG | Tumblr suppresses posts with links :/

Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress

–

Weak Conflict

There should always be a strong, compelling source of tension between two people who are considered enemies. Even if their rivalry stems from external sources, such as bad blood between families or competing for a number one spot, there should always be a concrete reason why they hate each other.

Not Explaining Forgiveness

When one of these conflicts subsides, or a tense moment resolves, it should be justified. Tension and emotions shouldn’t disappear because you’re trying to stuff romantic moments in here and there. If one of your characters crosses a line and the other character chooses to forgive them, there needs to be a clear and understandable reason. It doesn’t always have to sit well with the reader. Your character can make a blatantly stupid decision, but it needs to serve the plot. 

No Tension To Be Found

If your characters have to verbally or physically assault each other to demonstrate the tension between them, you’re doing it wrong. If they have to kiss for the reader to see that they like each other, you’re doing it wrong. Tension is in the little things. It’s in the instances that most people would overlook, but your characters zero-in on because the subtext is too thick to gloss over. Tension is the most important plot device in enemies-to-lovers stories, so it requires a lot of time and attention to minute details. 

Conflict Solved Too Easily

If the rivalry between your characters is one misstep after another, with immediate forgiveness following, the tension won’t build correctly. You’re working your way up to a boiling over moment. A moment where everything comes out and then, once resolved, makes way for the romantic feelings to enter. If the conflicts don’t slowly build on each other, that boiling moment will come out of nowhere and be less satisfying to read. Don’t let your characters off that easily. Enemies aren’t constantly letting things slide. 

Characters Changing For One Another

People don’t need to be exactly the same to see attractive qualities in one another. It’s true that relationships shift your perspective and that it occasionally results in outward changes in behavior, but one or both characters shouldn’t mold their personality around their partner. 

Stupid Potion

If one of your characters has to become oblivious or avoid critical thought to maintain a relationship with that character, you haven’t made the two characters compatible enough. This is especially true when one or both of your character’s identity revolves around a higher intelligence. They should have enough in common that there doesn’t have to be a giant shift in one or both personalities to work as a couple. 

The Relationship Brings Them Down

The thing about enemies to lovers stories is that the happy endings are usually an indication of the author’s view of what is and is not forgivable in a potential partner. The acceptance of someone’s past mistakes, current flaws, and future struggles. When a love story ends with a couple that repeatedly lower each other or hurt each other, that sends a bad message, and that is your responsibility to avoid. It doesn’t need a happy ending, but it should never have a destructive one. 

Writing Abuse Instead of Rivalry

There is a big difference between writing two equals who have a rivalry slowly falling in love and putting aside their differences, and writing an abusive, predatory love interest who repeatedly hurts, manipulates, and gaslights the main character. Just because you can imagine the character forgiving them doesn’t mean they’re a good partner. Cheating, physical abuse, isolation, passive aggression, and manipulation are not character flaws. They’re not “mistakes” that the character needs to forgive in order to save their relationship. It’s abuse, and when you write a story between an abuser and a victim that has a happy ending, that has consequences. 

Revealing Feelings In A Cliché Way

This is very subjective, however, there are also a plethora of tropes to choose from and an infinite amount of alterations you can apply to make them your own. The objective, however, is to build up to it in a way that creates a satisfying payoff, and an interesting moment that serves all of the work you’ve done to build to it. There’s nothing worse than reading chapters and chapters of build up, anticipating a big moment where sparks fly, and then having all of that tension result in a sad sputter of mediocrity.

Instant Trust

Trust is difficult to build between two people, especially when they have a complicated past. Trust is earned, no matter who you are or what you’ve been through, it’s always a process. It’s never inherent. When two characters have a history of betrayal or hurt, trust is going to be even harder to develop between them, and that process is an opportunity for more tension, character development, conflict, and eventually a satisfying resolution. Trust development is a major plot device, and I recommend you take advantage of it. It’s also a huge opportunity for building romantic tension amongst the angst of trials and tribulations. 

Why Do They Hate Each Other, Though?

There’s a thin line between love and hate, and that line is infatuation; obsession. So, what put the two of them on the bad side of that line? This reason is the main conflict. The overarching plot begins with the point where that rivalry either begins or is challenged after a long while of stagnation, and it ends with the two characters crossing over that line into love. You need to make that beginning point very clear.

Rivalry Shouldn’t Just Dissolve

There needs to be a transitionary period that is tense and awkward with scattered moments that make the effort worth it to both of them. There should be a “Well, we hated each other last week and then they did some really sweet things and now I’m not so sure. Maybe we’re starting to become friends now? I feel really excited when I see them, so I must not hate them anymore, right?” period. 

Complete Opposites

Yes, opposites can attract. Yes, completely different people can fit together very well and have a happy relationship, but this is a cliché and is, in most cases, poorly thought out with little to no originality. 

Love With No Reason

Just like your characters need a reason to hate each other, they need a reason to love each other. There has to be something that makes them work. Not just a common hobby or characteristic or exterior aspect they share, but something that makes them fit together. If they love each other because... they can, your reader will feel like they’re watching two stupid, lonely people tolerate each other’s flaws in the interest of sex or companionship for 100 pages. 

No Actual Conflict Resolution

Relationships are built through conflict resolution. Communication, empathy, effort, and understanding between two people who work to make each other happy. Hollow forgiveness is not apart of that process, and if that’s all there is, you’re not developing a realistic relationship between compatible people, you’re depicting a toxic relationship that, in the case of these origins, can be abusive. 

Underusing Sexual Tension

Sexual tension is great. It’s easy to develop, it has a satisfying payoff, and it doesn’t take up a lot of space on the pages. It doesn’t have to result in x-rated material, especially if you’re writing for a young adult audience, but it’s simple and effective. 

No Awkward Transition Period

A large chunk of the plot should be awkward and uncomfortable to watch. The transition should be organic and make sense for your characters, but all organic movement contains struggle. Nobody goes from hating each other to loving each other overnight, and relationships are complicated and require hard work. Show this.

Catalogue Characters

There are enough stories out there with cardboard characters and self-insert protagonists, especially in romance. Make your protagonists unique and individual. Make your characters diverse and interesting to read about. Readers should have a bit of wiggle room for imagination, but that doesn’t mean they should be filling in the blanks like your characters are Mad Libs. Don’t close your eyes and point at character archetypes to form your cast. It’s obvious and lazy. 

Stagnant Tone

The tone of these stories often falls flat because in the interest of building tension, writers ignore purposeful tone shifting, scene-to-scene. Change it up, make it potent, and make a lasting impact during important moments. Suspense and anticipation shouldn’t just build during the climax and resolution. 

Bad Pacing

When your readers spend hours reading a story that promises a romantic payoff, they expect to see some of it. I think that a three act structure is really effective with this type of arc, with the first third being devoted to building rival tensions, the middle third being the shift from rivals to friends, and the last third building that romantic tension and ending with a happy resolution. 

–

Masterlist | WIP Blog

If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.

[swissmissficrecs]

Favorite Sherlock Holmes fics from 2020

Usually I put a bunch of explanations and disclaimers on these lists but you know what, it was a weird year and I’m not going to try to justify or apologize for what I read or didn’t read so here are my favorites that were completed last year, in descending order of length:

and your very flesh shall be a great poem by CaitlinFairchild (151K, E, Johnlock) After a tragic confrontation with terrible consequences, Sherlock and John follow Mary as she flees to America.

Drawn to Stars by Silvergirl (107K, E, Johnlock, Sherlock/OMC) After the Culverton Smith case Sherlock is clean, working, and looking for a romantic partner—since John has told him that’s what he needs. Shame John didn’t mention he was interested in that role himself, before Sherlock went off to Rome with a gorgeous Italian copper to try to fall in love and become a complete human being. (This one is very slightly cheating because it was finished on 30 Dec 2019, but it didn't make it onto my 2019 list because I didn't read it until after I'd made the list. And it deserves to be on a Best Of list, so here it is.)

Thermocline by J_Baillier (83K, M, Johnlock) John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

Do No Harm by Calais_Reno (79K, T, Johnlock) In 1923, Dr John Watson is on trial for the murder of his lover, Mary Morstan, a writer of popular mysteries. If convicted, he will hang. Sherlock Holmes sets out to prove his innocence, but finds himself more and more infatuated with the handsome doctor, and deeper and deeper inside the bohemian world of London's painters, playwrights, and poets. Will he uncover the evidence needed to acquit him in time?

To Be Human by ohlooktheresabee (78K, NR, Johnlock) There is a serial killer on the loose with a penchant for collecting the brains of his victims. Sherlock, John and Scotland Yard are on the case, but something about the chosen victims has Sherlock on edge. While they piece together the clues that will lead to the killer, John begins to realize that the way his best friend thinks may sometimes be more a hindrance than a help….

immediate and inglorious by simplyclockwork (72K, E, Johnlock) Bodies are showing up in back alleys, with no sign of a struggle, no trace of drugs. If not for the strangulation bruises on their necks and the scythe carved into their left shoulders, they could have died peacefully, in their sleep. With New Scotland Yard dumbfounded by the Grim Reaper Killer case, Sherlock is called in to consult. The more he investigates, the deeper Sherlock finds himself drawn into the work of London's newest serial killer. As his views of good and bad begin to blur, he risks losing himself to a darkness he never imagined. And, even more pressing: where does John Watson, grieving ex-boyfriend of the Grim Reaper's latest victim, fit into all of this?

Curtain Rising by tiger_in_the_flightdeck (61K, E, Johnlock) A disgraced television star is the target of a series of death threats just after a theatre production’s adaptation of The Sound of Music is announced with her as the lead. The suspect list is a mile long and growing, Rosie Watson is in the spotlight, and Sherlock might be getting too fond of his time on stage to focus on the case. With opening night approaching, can he and John figure out who wants their client dead before her final curtain rises?

The Fire Finds a Home by fearfully_beautifully_made (61K, E, Johnlock) After Sherlock and John decide to give having a relationship a go, this is how their relationship starts to develop. There a little bit of plot, if you squint, but it was mostly an excuse to write John and Sherlock having sex in a lot of different ways and learning to love each other.

Borrowed Ghosts by DiscordantWords (57K, M, Johnlock) In the aftermath of the Culverton Smith case, John spent one painfully stilted afternoon hanging out with Sherlock. He counted the minutes, finished his tea, and left for home without ever clearing the air between them. And once he'd left, he found it very hard to go back.

You Might Just as Well Be Blind by ArwaMachine (56K, E, Johnlock) When a serial killer starts targeting couples, Sherlock and John must do what they have to do in order to get to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, John already has a girlfriend. Surely pretending to be in a relationship with Sherlock won't pose any problems with his relationship, will it?

The Broken Tether by J_Baillier (54K, M, Johnlock) Maybe he thinks that you only enjoy his company because of the Work, because of the way his dazzling intellect shines when he's in his element, but the truth is this: it is when he is at his most human, most bare, that you feel closest to him.

how the light gets in by subtext-is-my-division (Quill_A)  (54K, E, Johnlock) Red wine always makes him tipsier than usual and he finds himself saying, the words slurring a bit. “You know, I’ve got to ask. Do you always shoot cabbies for people you barely you know?” John meets his gaze over the rim of his glass, and there’s something there that Sherlock can’t pin down. “Not for everyone,” he says, meaningfully, pointedly, his smile all teeth.

Erosion by saintscully (53K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock’s father falls ill, leaving the surviving family members broken and rudderless. James Sholto shows up in London unexpectedly, his intentions unclear. John has to navigate the consequences of crime, illness and death and their impact on his frayed relationship with Sherlock.

Hold You Like a Weapon by MissDavis (52K, E, Johnlock) Eurus shows up at 221B Baker Street in labour. Things go downhill from there.

Chances Are by Berty (51K, M, Johnlock) Sherlock is spending some time in his mind palace - so far, so normal. But why is John there, why do things keep changing and why are there only two exits from the sitting room at 221B, neither of which seem to go anywhere useful? It's a case like no other for Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Sine Nomine by SilentAuror (45K, E, Johnlock) As Mycroft reviews the footage from Culverton Smith's morgue, he revisits his original question: whether John Watson would be the making of his brother, or make him worse than ever. He's come to a conclusion, but decides to give John one last chance. So he gives him a choice.

Cockaigne by HollyShadow88 (38K, E, Johnlock) When John’s contacted by an old uni friend about problems in his new art exhibition, he doesn’t think it will be worth Sherlock’s time. After a glance of the crime scene, however, they’re both pulled into the project in ways John didn’t expect. Will a week of erotic performance art finally be enough to bring them together in the way they both secretly hope? (Spoiler: it’s a tropey fic, of course it will)

Written in Ashes by 88thParallel (37K, M, Johnlock) Sherlock becomes the prime suspect in a homicide case, and recently unearthed memories of his childhood are complicating matters. It's up to John to track down answers — can he help Sherlock before it's too late?

A Desperate Indulgence by LollipopCop (34K, M, Johnlock) John thinks it's 2012 after waking up with amnesia, having no memory of Mary. Sherlock, exhausted from years of tension and hiding his love, pretends they got married instead.

Inhale With Ease by Vulpesmellifera (25K, E, Johnlock) In the years after Vivian Norbury's capture, life seems to work out just as John planned. He's got that respectable job at the surgery and goes home to his wife and child. He joins Sherlock on cases a couple times per week. It's a rhythm he can live with - just enough adrenaline highs to balance out the drudgery of a normal bloke's life. Until a pandemic, and Victor Trevor, arrive in London.

The House on Rue des Boulangers by Berty (24K, M, Johnlock) After being invalided out of the army and without any other prospects, John Watson has relocated to a small town in northern France. Now he has to decide what to do for the rest of his life. One morning there's a mad stranger in his garden chasing a swarm of bees, and it seems John's decision is made.

High Mountain Tea Leaves by disfictional (23K, E, Johnlock) A mountaintop robbery on a Japanese-occupation-era train where the only item stolen was a small case of mysterious tea leaves in a backpack? An ideal Christmas gift, two days late. Sherlock convinces John to travel for tea.

Detours by saintscully (22K, M, Johnlock, Sherlock/OMC) During the better part of the first year following Mary's death and the events at Sherrinford, Sherlock and John are slowly rebuilding their lives and their friendship. All seems (relatively) well and John takes comfort in once again being a father, a doctor and a friend. An unexplained shift in Sherlock's behaviour catches John by surprise, and he begins to worry about his place in his friend's life. John has to examine everything he thought he knew about Sherlock, himself and their relationship in order to win his rightful place yet again.

hands full of matter by simplyclockwork (21K, E, Johnlock) When Sherlock is captured in Serbia, Mycroft cannot afford to involve the British government in his rescue. Instead, he sends John. After two years spent thinking Sherlock was dead, John finds himself navigating not only Sherlock’s rescue but their fractured friendship as well.

The Victim Experience by J_Baillier (16K, T, Gen) A case takes Sherlock and John deep into the seedy underbelly of the haunted attractions industry. With audiences craving more and more intense experiences, is a real murder the next logical step?

On the Fence by BeautifulFiction (13K, T, Johnlock) The murder of the King's College fencing champion leads to revelations about Sherlock's past. Will it be the point that tips them from friends to lovers, or will they remain on the fence?

Plus bonus ACD era:

"Baker Street: The Sleep of Reason": A Memoir by John H. Watson, M.D. by Gaedhal (98K, M, Johnlock, Johniarty) This is a Victorian Era story in the "Sherlock Holmes" (2009) Ritchie-verse. The main characters are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson and is from the doctor's memoirs. It was written before "A Game of Shadows" so there are differences in this story and film canon, mainly in the person and backstory of one particular character.

The Taste of Truth by sanguinity (25K, T, Johnlock) Two and a half years after Reichenbach, John Watson discovers the magical tree that caused Holmes to fake his death.

The Adventure of the Vatican Cameos by Garonne (18K, E, Johnlock) How should one behave when waking for the first time in the bed of one's dearest friend? Holmes and Watson solve a case in Catholic London while navigating the turbid waters of their new relationship.

Hot Water by wordybirdy (13K, E, Johnlock, Watson/Gregson) Dr. John Watson's libidinous affair with a respected Scotland Yard inspector abruptly judders to a halt when the former meets a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, for the very first time. The attraction between the two is strongly mutual, but misunderstandings only multiply and tensions abound, as all three men attempt to deal with the new situation.