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merrybloomwrites · 8 months ago

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A Podcast Love Story

Summary: The story of Shayne & Y/N, as told through a series of podcasts

AN: This story was inspired by a request from someone that tumblr isn't letting me tag, so that's dumb lol

Also, I tried to follow the actual timeline of when these podcasts were posted but I did take some creative liberty, so some things might not match up with when the were really posted irl

Wordcount: 3.4K

CW: very light mention of smut, talk about pregnancy

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SmoshCast #75 – How Shayne and Courtney Feel About Being Shipped Together

Dating someone who’s in the public eye was not entirely unexpected. You live in Los Angeles after all. When you and Shayne started dating in 2019 you decided to keep it a secret for a while. Neither of you were ready to share your relationship with the Smosh viewers yet.

This became more difficult when you decided to quarantine together in 2020 during the pandemic. Two weeks after he returned from Australia, when you were sure that neither of you had Covid, you packed your necessities and headed to Shayne’s. It was nice being together, but it did get complicated when he needed to film videos.

Sometimes you would go for a walk while he was filming. Other times you would hide in the other room. He’d triple check all his footage before submitting it to make sure you, and any of your belongings, weren’t in frame.

One day, a few months in, he and Courtney are recording an episode of the SmoshCast. He sets up at the small dining table in the corner of the living room. You’re on the couch, meaning you can’t be seen on the camera, but you are in Shayne’s view. It might not have been the smartest decision since you’re now stuck there for the entire time they record, but you have a book and a snack, so you get cozy.

You can only hear Shayne’s side of the conversation, so you’re not fully paying attention. That is, until you hear Shayne say, “If we so much as say hi to each other, Shartney fans poop themselves.” The mention of this ship between him and his castmate has you more focused on the conversation. Not because you’re jealous, because that would be ridiculous, but because all of you find it quite funny how hard the two of them are shipped.

He can’t stop looking over to you for the entire ten-minute segment. It’s subtle, but there’s definitely a connection between the two of you. It’s obvious that he’s reassuring you that there’s nothing to worry about. You especially like when he says, “You can ship me with anything. Ship me with bananas.” And you nearly lose it when he says, “I am begging you, please, make a ship edit of me and Kathy Bates.”

They continue to talk and the conversation steers towards how fans make assumptions based on what they see in videos. Shayne brings up how people were concerned about him for a few weeks at the beginning of quarantine. He starts to explain, “I was very quiet in those early podcasts, but the reason was, one, I was not getting enough sleep. I kept staying up late,” here he looks at you before quickly saying, “playing video games.” You again struggle to keep quiet, knowing that was not the truth. Unless “playing video games” has now become code for “having intimate moments with my girlfriend”.

He continues to talk about how his setup for recording was less than ideal and finishes by saying, “I wasn’t sad at all, I was actually having great days.” Again, you share a quick look, showing that you agree with him about how wonderful it’s been since you started living together.

They wrap up the podcast a little while later and Shayne is officially done with work for the day.

“Playing video games, huh?” you say teasingly.

“Oh yea, totally a pro gamer now,” he replies.

“You think so?” you say with a laugh.

“I mean, I could always use more practice,” he answers as he lifts you from the couch, carrying you to the bedroom.

SmoshCast #85 – American Horror Story: Adulting

A few months later and things are looking better in the world. This means a return to the office for everyone. You’d landed a job at Smosh, working in post-production, so now you and Shayne work together. You were nervous about being around each other all the time, but luckily there’s still a fair amount of the day when you’re apart. Shayne is often filming or in meetings or busy writing, and you spend most of the time at your desk working on the next video.

But sometimes, you get a break to see him. Shayne, Damien, and Coutney are filming a new SmoshCast episode, and you sneak in to watch from the back. The theme is “Adulting”, and they somehow start by talking about how they interact with the younger generation. You can’t help but smile as Shayne talks about his niece, endeared by the relationship he has with her. He also mentions grandchildren, which makes your imagination run away thinking about your future together.

You stay for a little while and just watch your boyfriend. He’s not saying anything crazy, or doing anything special, but you love listening to him give advice. You also love how attentive he is to his friends, how closely he listens to everything they say. When you do go back to your desk you take a moment to think about how lucky you are that this man, with a solid head on his shoulders and more emotional maturity than you’ve ever seen before, is your other half.

Smosh Mouth #5 – Shayne and Y/N Share Their Love Story

“Welcome back to Smosh Mouth, I’m Shayne.”

“And I’m Amanda.”

“And today we have a very special guest. We have my lovely wife, Y/N Topp,” Shayne says, smiling at you as he finished the introduction.

“Hello everyone,” you say into the microphone.

It’s weird being in front of the camera. It’s only happened a few times in the years that you’ve been with Shayne. Even though you also work at Smosh, you’re always behind the scenes. You’ve only really been in videos that highlight the crew, so the focus has rarely been on you.

But today you’re finally sitting down to do a podcast for the channel. They’d just revived the podcast after a nearly three-year hiatus.

So much has happened in your personal life since then. At the time that SmoshCast was airing, your relationship with Shayne was fairly new, and you weren’t ready to share it yet. Within a year of that last episode going live, you two had gotten engaged. This led to you guys getting married, and as of 22 weeks ago, you being pregnant with your first child.

“Well, I for one am very excited to have you here today,” Amanda says. “I cannot wait to grill you on every last detail of your relationship.” You all laugh at that, knowing that while you’re sharing more personal information than you ever have before, no one is going to push you or Shayne too much.

“So,” Amanda continues. “Tell me, how did you meet?”

You look to Shayne, encouraging him to start the story.

“We met in 2019,” he begins. “Someone had recommended a book to me, so I was at the library to pick it up. While I was looking through the shelf Y/N came over and started looking through the section as well. We kind of started at opposite ends and moved to meet in the middle. Turns out we were both looking for the same book.”

“No you were not!” Amanda interjects.

“We really were,” you say to confirm. “We basically have the most cliché meet-cute story.”

“Ya, no kidding! So, what happened next?” she asks.

“Well, I had picked up the book first and noticed Y/N glance at it. So we started talking and I told her she should take the book first and I’d read it when she’s done.”

“And then he very smoothly said he could give me his number so I could tell him when I was returning the book,” you add.

“Look at you,” Amanda says. “Making the bold moves.”

“I had to give it a try,” Shayne says with a laugh.

“And it worked. I texted him a couple weeks later, the day before I returned the book.”

“I didn’t have her number,” Shayne says. “And I was kicking myself for not getting it because waiting to hear from her was pretty torturous I’m not gonna lie. So as soon as she texted about the book I asked her on a date.”

“Which actually shocked me at first. I really though he only was interested in the book.”

“Did you know who he was?” Amanda asks. “Like, had you watched Smosh or seen him on TV before you met?”

“I did know who he was. I had just started watching Smosh, so I recognized him but really didn’t know much about him.”

“Did you start watching old videos and try to get to know more about him after you met? Or after he asked you out?”

“I tried not to. I wanted to get to know him naturally, not through videos online. But there was a video posted after he asked me out but before our date called ‘Why We’re Bad at Dating’ and I couldn’t resist. And I truly think it helped us hit it off on that first date.”

“How so?” Amanda inquires.

Shayne takes that question, saying, “In the episode I talked about what I do on dates that kind of lead to there not being a second date. And Y/N/N called me out on that.”

You chime in, adding, “He said he puts on a ‘CW’ version of himself. I told him not to do that. And I admitted to being just as anxious about the date as he was so we should just forget the pressure and hang out and get to know each other.”

“Well, that’s adorable,” Amanda says. “So obviously you started dating and kept dating. When did you take the next step?”

Shayne takes this question and says, “I asked her to be my girlfriend a couple months later. And then we moved in together shortly after the start of the pandemic. Which was slightly challenging when it came to filming at home for Smosh since we wanted to keep the relationship a secret for a while.”

“Yea, how in the world did you make that work?”

“We were very, very careful,” you say. “I definitely hid in the bathroom more than once to stay out of frame.” At this you all laugh, and you add, “Totally worth it, though.”

“Ok, next juicy question. Shayne, how did you propose?”

“So, I hired a sky writer,” he says before laughing and continuing, “No, just kidding. We’d been dating for a year and a half, living together for almost a year at the time. We rented a cabin in Colorado for a few days and on the second day we went on a hike. Packed a picnic, did the whole thing. And I uh, I proposed at the top of the mountain.”

“You guys are literally a romcom,” Amanda quips.

“Would a romcom do a hike proposal? I feel like they’re always at fancy restaurant or the beach. Or like, yelling ‘Will you marry me?’ As the girl walks away down a street in the pouring rain,” you say.

“Oh, a hike proposal is very Lifetime or Hallmark.”

“Good point, it’s totally been in at least one of those movies.”

“Did you like that it was on a hike?” Amanda asks.

“Yea, Y/N/N, did you like it?” Shayne says, pretending to be truly concerned and worried about your answer.

“Hated it,” you say jokingly. “No, honestly, I loved it. Shayne and I always bonded over how much we love nature, so it was perfect for us. I can’t imagine it being any other way. I know a lot of girls want to make sure their nails are done so they get that perfect ring picture, which totally fine, not judging at all. But it definitely felt right that I literally had dirt under my nails and scrapes on my palms from slipping up the hill. Much more authentic that way.”

“And the wedding, anything you want to share about it?” Amanda asks.

“We actually got married in New Mexico,” you say. “It was the central spot for both our families. It was last April, so, beautiful weather during the day. And we lucked out that the temperature didn’t drop too much at night.”

“Very nice,” Amanda replies. “Shayne, anything to add?”

“We kept it pretty small, just family, and close friends. I feel like it was a very typical wedding, but it was ours, you know? So, it was special.” Shayne blushes and you know that your wedding day means more to him than he’s letting on. And that’s fine with you. It was a private event, and even though you’re sharing your relationship now, neither of you want to give away too much about your wedding.

“Aw, he’s getting red,” Amanda jokes. “Did you go on a honeymoon?”

“We did. We went to Hawaii. Neither of us had been before so we knew it would be special for us. We wanted to experience something new together,” you answer.

“Cute!” she replies. “Now, dedicated fans know you guys are together, know you’re married and all that. But there is some news you two have to share that no one knows, is that correct?”

“That’s right,” Shayne says. He looks at you, silently asking if you want to say it. But you can tell he’s bursting to tell everyone, so you give him a nod to continue.

“Y/N and I are having a baby,” he says.

“Hell yea you are! Smosh baby!” Amanda cheers. “Congratulations to you both! Y/N, how are you feeling?”

“Pretty good right now. I’m in the second trimester so my morning sickness is mostly gone, thank god. We’re very excited, got some classes we’re planning to take and we’re reading all the books so I’m sure we will still be extremely unprepared,” you say with a laugh.

“If there’s anyone I trust to figure it out and be great parents, it’s the two of you,” Amanda replies earnestly.

“Thank you, Amanda,” Shayne says.

The podcast continues with Amanda continuing to ask questions and you and Shayne sharing more stories about your time together.

You wrap up recording by mid-afternoon. You have an appointment with your doctor scheduled and since it’s so close to the end of the day, Shayne was also given time off to join you. Everything goes well and as he drives you both home you can’t help but be grateful that the two of you were brought together.

Smosh Reads Reddit Stories: Office Nightmares

It’s been a month and a half since recording your episode of SmoshMouth, and three weeks since it aired. The news that you and Shayne are expecting a baby spread faster than anything you’d experienced before. You’d both received messages of congratulations from more people than you had ever expected: from Smosh fans to Disney fans, and even Goldbergs fans. You never imagined the amount of support you’d receive.

You had the morning off for yet another checkup with your doctor. You get back to the office early, but technically you’re still scheduled to be off, so you opt to sit in as they record the next Reddit Story video/podcast. It’s one of your favorite series currently, and you love listening to Shayne read all the stories.

He begins the third story, reading the title, “Am I the asshole for telling my wife that I’m not taking off of work to be present at our daughters’ birth?”

They joke around for a bit, and then he dives into the story, reading how the man explains that he couldn’t take off work cause there’s a project and they need him there. The wife finds out that’s a lie, and it mad that he didn’t take time off. He says he wants to work more so they’d have more money after the birth, and that the baby wouldn’t even remember him being there. He finishes by saying he doesn’t know why it’s such a big deal to be there at the birth, and even blames the wife’s hormones for her being upset about it.

Shayne, along with Spencer and Tommy begin to share their thoughts on the story. You smile and nod as Shayne makes the point of, “He keeps saying the baby’s not gonna remember, but you’re fucking wife will!”

They even give reasons why they’d understand him not being there, with Tommy saying, “If they were really desperate for cash then I’d get it,” and Spencer saying he’d understand if he were terrified of being around childbirth.

The boys then look over to you and Spencer says, “Y/N, you’re pregnant, how do you feel about this story?”

“Yea,” Tommy adds, “would you kill Shayne if he did this?”

“Oh, for sure!” you call out.

“C’mere,” Shayne says. “You’re probably the one most qualified to give an opinion here.”

You look to Kiana who’s directing the video and she gives you a nod, so you walk onto the set and stand behind Shayne, leaning down so your face is next to his and your voice will get picked up on his microphone.

“What are you’re thoughts on this?” Tommy asks.

“You guys definitely made a lot of great points. I mean, childbirth is terrifying, and I keep trying to ignore the fact that I do have to actually, you know, birth a human. But I know that Shayne will be there and is studying to be the best support person. I mean, he’s read enough books about it, I think he could deliver the baby himself if necessary,” you say with a laugh.

“I will add, if this was the father of my child, I’d wonder what he actually deems important. Because this is arguably one of the biggest days of everyone’s life. First of all, it should be important to him. It’s literally his child entering the world. It’s a privilege to be one of the first people that baby will ever meet. And then, what will be a big enough deal for him to take off work in the future? Baby’s not gonna remember her first birthday, is he gonna go to that? She has a dance recital at three years old, is he going to think that’s silly and not go?”

“Oh, I didn’t think of that, but it makes sense,” Spencer replies. “He definitely seems to have his priorities and being there for his family isn’t one.”

“I truly cannot imagine not being there when our kid is born,” Shayne says. “My worst fear would be if something kept me from being there.”

“Because you’re a good person,” Tommy says bluntly, and everyone laughs.

You head back off camera as they continue on.

After a few more stories Shayne begins another entry, titled, “And I the asshole for eating the last doughnut before my pregnant coworker could have one?” He looks at you once he reads it and laughs before saying, “Y/N’s face says, yes absolutely you are.”

He reads the story which explains that the young employee ate his allotted two doughnuts, and when the pregnant coworker didn’t show up after half an hour, he ate her two as well. She gets there shortly after and explains she had car trouble and is upset to see everyone had a treat but didn’t save her any. Later, the boss pulls aside the employee to tell him he’d been rude to his coworker.

After he finishes the post the boys discuss the etiquette of eating communal snacks in the office before Shayne says, “Also, if there is one thing I know, it’s that you never mess with a pregnant woman’s food unless you want to die.” You laugh so loudly at this that you know for sure the mics picked it up from across the room.

“Y/N, anything to add?” Spencer says.

You walk over again and state, “Listen, all I’m say is that I’m mad you guys are just talking about doughnuts when we don’t have any. Cause cravings are a bitch and now I am literally not going to stop thinking about doughnuts until I get one.”

After moving offscreen you realize you need to pee, again, so you leave the studio to head to the bathroom. Once you’re out of the room Shayne says, “Hey Kiana, can I have my phone a second?”

“Why do you need your phone?” Spencer asks.

“I gotta doordash some doughnuts.”

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AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any requests for Shayne stories!

Taglist: @american-girl001 @tatumrileyslover @queenofcaradelle @1nkm0nster

#shayne topp x reader

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whileyoureinschoolidothisallday · 11 months ago

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lrt the key thing to remember about covid is that it isn't magic. It has to get in you first before it can infect you, and you have to have a certain amount of viral load before it can take over (it doesn't take much anymore, but it still has to reach that threshold).

The key to being able to do fun, indoor things is to find an n95 or higher respirator, test to make sure it fits you without leakage, and then do not take off your mask. ever.

This is where it gets people. I hear tons of stories from people who caught Covid even though they masked, and it almost always turns out they took it off for one reason or another.

"Hungry or thirsty?" Eat and hydrate beforehand or plan to stay until you get hungry. If you have a medical condition where you have to eat or take meds while you're out, find a place outside and bring multiple masks so you can put on a fresh one when you're done. For thirst, they actually make something for this. Do not take off the mask.

"What if we wanna take a selfie?" Take them beforehand or keep the masks on. Do not take off the mask.

"What about air breaks?" No air breaks. If you can't tolerate being in a mask for long periods, you cannot safely go to long events. Do not take off the mask.

Respirators have a seal. When you break the seal by taking it off, they do not work as effectively. The seal can also break after a certain amount of use, which changes depending on how many other people are masking around you. I used to have a diagram showing how long each masks last in different situations, but I sadly cannot find it so I won't say a specific time since I can't confirm it, but this is essentially why if I'm going to attempt something riskier, I wear a p100 because those are good for 8hrs before you have to change the filter, and anything that I go to indoors won't be more than 3hrs (simply because I'm old and I ain't staying out longer than that lol)

I really appreciate that op made a psa, because the point of that post I think a lot of people are missing is that we need to be in full pandemic mode specifically because of the wave. But the problem with writing Covid things in a sensational kind of way is that it makes mitigation seem like an impossible task that requires monk like sacrifice, and that makes people immediately shut down. It's not, even in a huge wave like this. Will you have to change your routine and behaviors, and some of those changes might be inconvenient? Absolutely. But they will never be impossible. It's important to remember that adaptation isn't sacrifice. You're not "giving up" anything. You're still gonna be able to have your social needs met, you'll just be doing it in a different way for awhile.

If you want to hang out with a small group of friends at their/your house, and it's too cold to be outside or you just don't want to, the safest way to do it is universal masking, full vaccinations, testing multiple times beforehand, and using at least one air purifier that filters up to 0.1-0.5 µm in the room you'll be gathering in. This can be done diy with a Corsi-Rosenthal box if you need something cheaper! Air filters suck in viruses faster than people can breathe them in, so the risk of getting covid would be incredibly low in this situation (but never zero). If you want to share a meal, know that taking off the masks will increase the risk, but at least let the purifer run at the highest setting tolerable for an hour before doing so

If you can't afford to stop reusing your N95s, I recommend either locating a mask bloc near you and ask for some mask donations, or buy an elastomeric n95 like this one. There are many to choose from and while they are more expensive, they're reusable, with the filter only needing to be changed after 8 hours (or sooner if in a big crowd)

Some people are currently inventing portable air-purifiers you can pair with masks, and you can 3-D print them!

You're at work/the dentist/some other situation where you absolutely can't go outside in a non-crowded space, and you need to take down your mask? Nasal sprays like this one can be a good extra layer of protection for these situations. You can always, like with most viruses, rinse out your nose after being in public and rinse your mouth with CPC mouthwash for even more extra layers of protection.

One of the frustrations I have with the current Covid advocacy is that it's still largely focused on near-total abstinence, which has never been and never will be an effective education tool. I prefer taking a cue from AIDS advocacy and focus on education and providing resources. Of course, staying home is the only way to stay 100% safe, and you should choose contactless options whenever you can as long as the pandemic is still going. But isolation is becoming less and less realistic for most people and I want to still show them that you can stay safe even if you can't stay home.

Covid is not an impossible task. It's not magic. You do not need to catch that wave. These are imperative facts we as a collective have to internalize if we want out of this pandemic. You are not helpless. We've had airborne viruses for years and years, and we've known how to protect ourselves from them as well. We've known how to protect from Covid, specifically, for years. The only reason it's gotten this bad and is still a pandemic is because our governments benefit more from the masses being sick and needing resources, full stop. Like climate change, we have the tools to beat this virus back at any point. Because of this, even in this huge wave, there is no reason you have to only exist online. There are ways you can see your friends safely.

All people like OP are saying is that, at least until this wave improves, you should do that without going to the bars, clubs, restaurants, concert venues, etc. Because it's not only extremely unsafe for you, but it's putting other people in danger too.

#danger days: truffula flu simulator #truffula flu survival guide #covid #covid advocacy #covid-19 #covid-19 resources #covid safe

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mllemaenad · 4 months ago

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Is there a reason FEV keeps turning up all over the place? Or for the differences in Super Mutants between regions? I've been assuming different strains, since the virus was experimental, but there might be another explanation.

The Doylist answer to this one is "because super mutants are iconic". They're the threat the Wasteland is facing in the original Fallout, and "where the hell are the big green guys coming from?" is that game's biggest mystery.

When you think of the aesthetic of Fallout, you get: vaults and vault suits, ghouls, super mutants and power armour. So you tend to get those things in all the games. There are Fallout stories without super mutants, but they're mostly DLC. While certainly not impossible, it seems highly unlikely that you're going to go a whole game without ever seeing a super mutant.

I say this because it helps to understand the starting point when the writers are putting together the story: we're having super mutants. That's not in question. We're just inventing the horribly unethical experiment that justifies their presence in this instance.

Okay. With that out of the way ... to go more Watsonian: why is FEV everywhere? Well, because it was a big pre-war project. Arguably, it was the big pre-war project.

It starts with the "New Plague", sometimes also known as the "Blue Flu". This was ... well, I guess imagine the horrible child of COVID and bubonic plague. Big pandemic that killed a whole lot of people in the 2050s. New Plague was also rumoured to be a Chinese bio-weapon. Now, I will note that there is not a lot of strong evidence in the games that this is true. "It was a naturally occurring virus that the US government fear-mongered about for the purposes of propaganda" and "it was some other horrible US research project gone wrong and released into the general populace" might also be reasonable explanations. But the New Plague existed, and it was at least believed to be engineered as a weapon by humans.

So the plan to solve that was the Pan-Immunity Virion, which was intended to be a one-and-done vaccine for any and all viruses. Which, in fairness, does sound pretty cool. Most pre-war projects just leave you wondering who the hell could have thought this was a good idea – but I'll give them that one. That would have been an excellent use of science. But while they were tinkering with that, they found that their test subjects got bigger, stronger and (sometimes) smarter.

Unforeseen side effects began surfacing in early 2076 with the PVP. Animal test subjects began showing an abnormal growth rate accompanied by increased brain activity. The U.S. government took notice of these discoveries, and in the interests of national security, moved a team on-site to secure and oversee the project, which was now dubbed the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) project. – FEV Research, Fallout

This leads me to the another big pre-war problem: resource scarcity. See, the big military advancement that was allowing the US to hold its own in places like Alaska was power armour. Now, anybody who's played either Fallout 4 or Fallout 76 knows that power armour is a pain in the arse to maintain. It has to be built; it has to be repaired; it eats through fusion cores at an alarming rate. One of the jokes in the television series is each Brotherhood knight needing a squire along just to deal with the massive amount of work that goes into keeping a person functioning in power armour. And we are in the middle of the damn Resource Wars.

So ... okay. What if, instead of putting soldiers into walking tanks, we turned them into walking tanks? Solves your power problem in one hit, right? Reduced costs, more profit. Suddenly this isn't a medical project, it's a defence project. And the important thing here is that the power armour guys and the FEV guys are one and the same: West Tek Corporation. The people who built those suits the Brotherhood of Steel love so much also made the big green guys they keep picking fights with.

West Tek, much like Vault-Tec, was deeply entwined with the US government and likely the Enclave. They had a lot of free reign to do what they wanted. And what they wanted was to dunk humans in FEV to see what would happen.

We know they tested FEV on soldiers at the Mariposa base.

Log Date January 7, 2077 Major Barnett has ordered transfer of all FEV research to the Mariposa Military Base. He plans to continue the project experiments on volunteer subjects. I am against this, and would like it noted here that research on human subjects is not recommended by myself or my staff. – FEV Experiment Disk, Fallout

We know they tested it on civilians in the town of Huntersville.

The sickness that hit us around February is getting worse. Thanks to some doctor from West Tek, we haven't had any deaths yet. Thomas McDevitt was able to convince them to lend us a hand, and they sent help. Their doctor says it's nothing to worry about, just a rare strain of the flu virus. Tell me, what kind of a flu virus makes your skin start to change color and your hair to fall out? People are starting to get scared. Maybe I'll convince Thomas McDevitt to hop into his truck and head for Charleston or something, to get more help. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Thomas McDevitt since he went to West-Tek. – Gail Meyer's Journal, Fallout 76

We know that soldiers enforced these experiments in both cases. This was government sanctioned mass-FEV exposure.

While it was never surprising, the scene in the Fallout TV series demonstrating the various pre-war corporations collaborating on the vault experiments makes its presence in Fallout 3's Vault 87 pretty much a given. Why wouldn't West Tek try to continue its most tantalising, but perhaps least consistently successful, experiment once the bombs fell?

And like I said – West Tek, Vault-Tec, all those people were caught up with the Enclave. The Enclave loves FEV. If they are in an area, you can guarantee the virus is there as well. There are two separate attempts to just kill everyone by dosing them with FEV – Dick Richardson's Enclave tried it in Fallout 2 and John Henry Eden's tried it again in Fallout 3. The Scorchbeast situation in Fallout 76 seems to have been an accident, but I think there's a fair chance they had some FEV mixed in with their flux and ultracite, given how radical the results were.

Thomas Eckhart: So you're telling me we're responsible for this thing? It's what? A mutated bird? Some kind of vulture or something? Enclave Scientist: Mister Secretary, based on the physiology we're assuming something originating from the Chiroptera order before undergoing changes… bats, sir. But it's not just a result of radiation, sir. The specimen was inadvertently exposed to our biochemical tests last year, considered a failure at the time. – Whitespring Automated Recording five-point-four-point-eight, Fallout 76

The West Coast Enclave had access to FEV by the time of Fallout 2 (around 2241); Appalachia may have had it earlier (it was easily accessible, in Huntersville). So you've got enormous pre-war companies with a heavy investment in FEV spreading it everywhere, and at least one post-war faction running around with it – and that faction does not care about anybody's wellbeing in the slightest. No wonder that crap is all over the place. I also suspect, given the lax safety standards of pre-war America, and the general chaos of the post-war period, that there's a lot more ambient FEV floating about than is actually documented.

But that brings me to the second part of this – different types of super mutant. To get back on the Doylist train again for a minute: FEV is specifically designed to be the plot device virus. It does whatever the story needs it to do. It's both highly modifiable and wildly unstable so you can have "we tried to do this wacky thing and it succeeded!" scenarios and you can also have "we tried to do a thing and this wacky nonsense happened instead" scenarios. The same exposure event produced both the Master, who is not a super mutant by any stretch of the imagination, and the whole Harold-and-the-tree situation.

That said, I have a few different lines of thought here. One: different strains of FEV seem less important than the various other things to which the victim has been exposed. Two: I don't think there's a lot of evidence for massive differences in super mutants specifically. Three: I think, as I said, that it's at least possible that FEV has been involved in some of the known "wild" mutations out there, and that this can tie those two earlier points together to create a better picture of FEV mutants.

To the first point: we know for a fact that radiation exposure is a major factor in what sort of super mutants you get. The Master figured this out by trial and error:

Oh glorious creator!! I have succeeded in spreading the complete joy of unification to another soul! Unlike the others, his total radiation count was low. I believe this is the factor we have been overlooking all this time, as it seems the conversion is more successful in the cases with less radiation damage. I have never known such glory as I felt when taking his mind into our own. – Richard Grey's audio diary, Fallout

... and the Institute confirmed the same:

This is Doctor Elliott, reporting for the BioScience division. March 2224. We just received another batch of… subjects… but as my previous report stated, we're at an impasse here. More of the same won't help. I am officially echoing the team's position: the most likely progress for our research on synthetic organics requires new avenues of exploration. The two most promising strains of FEV have been adapted to an ideal state, but… we're still missing something. Additional Commonwealth subjects will not help. It's the same problem across the board: exposure to too much radiation. We need something… someone new. There's a proposal we'll be putting forward… I am not entirely comfortable with it, but it seems the best course. – FEV Research Notes: 2224, Fallout 4

This is why the Institute needed to kidnap the Sole Survivor's son in Fallout 4. You just do not get good results when you expose post-war humans to FEV. Whatever adaptations or relatively benign mutations the radiation has caused react badly with the virus.

It's worth noting here that the Institute does actually seem to have successfully completed the original West Tek project. I mean ... synths. They're human, but with increased resilience and disease resistance, and "Coursers" specifically function as a kind of super solidier. Pre-war DNA, appropriately modified FEV, and a hell of a lot of tinkering – and that's what you get. That's exactly what West Tek was trying to do. Implanting chips into their brains to control them is a bit of Institute-specific evil, but I'm pretty sure West Tek would have approved.

With less rigorous testing, you get on the one hand people like Marcus and Lily: super mutants with minimal radiation who seem to have survived the process changed, but nevertheless as complete people. Marcus is very much just a normal guy (terrible aim with a minigun; never ever give Marcus a minigun, but otherwise ... ) and most of Lily's issues seem to be caused by stealth boy use, rather than FEV specifically. On the other hand you get people who clearly had suffered some degree of radiation exposure. This covers most of your generic super mutant foes, but also people like Gond (a super mutant NCR ranger in Fallout 2), or Grahm (a super mutant trader in Fallout 76). They have suffered some degree of brain damage – but they remain people.

Okay. So what do I mean about there being little evidence for differences in super mutants? Putting that Doylist hat back on for a second ... super mutants primarily serve the same purpose across all the games: big, tough enemies for your character to fight. This isn't just a Bethesda thing either: Fallout and Fallout 2 both used mobs of super mutants as enemy encounters. So their behaviour and characteristics have to fit with that function, and any storytelling is going to revolve around that. You could have had the FEV do something different with them, but they didn't.

Back to the Watsonian version ... once you recognise that you are only likely to get super mutants like Marcus if the victim came from either a vault, or somewhere equally protected from radiation, there's just not a lot of difference between the super mutants in general. FEV seems to:

increase aggression – and this is something even largely peaceful super mutants seem to struggle with. For example, Gail in Fallout 76 will tell you that she refrains from violence at the request of her adopted daughter.

impact speech – this is obviously a stylistic choice, as super mutants fit into the "B-movie sci-fi" aesthetic that defines Fallout. Their broken speech is less about the science of FEV and more about "how monsters talk". A few super mutants are exempt from this, obviously, but it's supposed to be shocking to hear a super mutant talk "normally".

affect memory - this may explain the former point, at least somewhat. If super mutants need to relearn speech post-infection, then their manner of speech could simply be the product of copying each other. It's noteworthy that this one seems to be true even in the least affected super mutants: Marcus's memories of his former life are hazy and Fawkes has no idea what he was doing before the FEV. It seems to be progressive, at least in some cases: Marcus's exact words are "My memories of being a human aren’t as clear as they once were"; Brian Virgil still knows who he is; Lily definitely still remembers her grandchildren. But that loss of identity is a persistent theme across most super mutants.

So with all of that, it seems like you're mostly dealing with situational differences. In addition to what are functionally super mutant raider gangs in Fallout 2 there are also many of them living peacefully in places like Broken Hills.

Fallout: New Vegas specifically deals with the interaction between super mutants derived from non-irradiated humans and irradiated ones. Tabitha, a nightkin, refers to the latter as " dumb dumbs" because ... she's helpful like that.

The radio station is fixed, and we've begun sending our message out into the desert. Marcus thinks I spend too much time in here, but what does a first gen know? Rhonda says they're just one step from dumb dumbs, and I agree. – Tabitha's Journal, Fallout: New Vegas

Super mutants in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 occupy strategic buildings, and seem to have deliberately tamed creatures like mutant hounds and floaters. There's evidence of strategic thinking in Fallout 4: Fist was using Rex to lure more humans and the whole affair was just hilarious to every super mutant in the building (bar Strong). Likewise, Hammer clearly knew exactly what he was doing when he occupied West Everett Estates:

Fist, this is Hammer. I got a human to make the machine work. We found a good place. Already has walls and water. Some human made a tiny room under ground with many good things inside. Send more people so we can raid more. We give you these guns for trade. – Hammer's Holotape, Fallout 4

There's less of that in Fallout 76, but in its earliest version that game had zero interest in presenting functional societies of any kind. When friendly super mutants showed up, they behaved much the same as the examples in other games. There isn't a friendly super mutant town in Appalachia as of this writing, but there could be, if Bethesda ever decides to take the story in that direction. There was no peace with the super mutants in Fallout 4, either, but there could be, one day, under the right circumstances.

Aside from size and the distinctive green skin, there's not a lot of difference between a super mutant and a raider. You're looking at a bunch of angry, amnesiac people who were not likely having a great time even before they got dipped.

That handles most super mutants ... but it obviously doesn't address the elephant in the room: Fallout 3. What about the super mutants of the Capital Wasteland?

We know, absolutely, that the scientists in Vault 87 were experimenting with multiple strains of FEV:

Once again, I've hit that damn wall. At fourteen days, all of the test subjects began to exhibit severe bouts of rage and anxiety. So much so that they were a danger to my team and to this facility. I had no choice once again but to order them to be destroyed. It pains me every time we do this. The same cycle has been repeated in every strain we test. We always see superior physical adaptations, but the mental changes are their downfall. – Chief physician's terminal, Fallout 3

That could definitely account for things like their gold skin, markedly different to the prevailing super mutant green. But the key thing is that they got the same results with every strain they tried. And they were working with vault dwellers, which is supposed to make it easier. So what gives? Well, one thing we also know is that their maintenance chief had persistent problems with radiation:

Vault-Tec's crappy handiwork is at it again. I have spent the better part of a month patching and re-patching the radiation purge system that vents excess radiation from the G.E.C.K. chamber. I have no idea why this system keeps failing. I suspect the system is simply inadequate and can't handle the amount of radiation it's purging. Recommend installing a new purging system as soon as I can get one cobbled together from spare parts. Should have it ready in about a month. – Engineering terminal, Fallout 3

I strongly suspect that the residents of Vault 87 had suffered radiation exposure. Not lethal amounts – we're not talking "leave the vault door open to see what happens" levels here – but enough. They were functionally no different to surface dwellers. Thus the scientists got the exact same results with every FEV strain: aggression, memory loss and distress.

In terms of their behaviour, I think Fallout 3 is best understood as an extrapolation of the "worst" ending of the original Fallout – that is, the ending where the Master wins. You can read through them all on the wiki, and despite all the Master's big promises there's never any blissful "Unity": just a wave of super mutants washing over every settlement, wiping them away. This is what's happening in Fallout 3, and by the time the Lone Wanderer arrives on the scene there's little left.

The original inhabitants of Vault 87 were survivors of a nuclear war. They suffered tremendous loss and grief even within the vault: people who were murdered by the scientists were listed as "unexplained" deaths. They were the victims of hideous experiments that deprived them of their identities. And when they broke free, they inflicted all that grief and misery on the Capital Wasteland. They are without purpose or cause. They are just angry and confused. They don't know who they were or what happened to them.

But how different to their brethren are they, really? You can listen to some of their dialogue:

This is boring. We should be collecting more humans. We need more of us! The bucketheads have killed too many… – Super mutant dialogue, Fallout 3

That's a rational enough statement, in context. By 2277 the super mutants are locked in a decades long conflict with the Brotherhood of Steel. They are aggressively dipping people just as the Brotherhood is recruiting from the locals, to replace their numbers.

I'm hungry! I need something to eat. Meat would be good… A Brahmin head, roasted just a bit, with some… – Super mutant dialogue, Fallout 3

Perfectly reasonable. Who doesn't dream about dinner when they're hungry?

They are not mindless, and they haven't necessarily suffered more damage than an average West Coast super mutant.

Fawkes is obviously the exceptional super mutant in this case: the companion character, the one who came through all this relatively unscathed. But there is also Leo: a super mutant who has largely forgotten himself, but who has chosen peace.

And this, which makes me especially sad, from Fallout 4's terminal entries:

As the years passed, and Arthur Maxson grew, so too did his accomplishments. At age 12, while on a training patrol, he killed two Raiders and saved the squad that was supposed to be escorting him. At age age 13, he single-handedly killed a Deathclaw (and gained the large facial scar he still has to this day). But it was his victory at age 15, over the Super Mutant "Shepherd" who was attempting to re-organize the Capital Wasteland's Super Mutants, that elevated him to hero-like status. When word of this feat reached the Elders back on the West Coast, they knew the time had come… Maxson was ready. Ready to lead and, more importantly, to reunite the fragmented Brotherhood of Steel forces on the East Coast. – The Rise of Elder Maxson: Accomplishments, Fallout 4

That's a super mutant with a name. A super mutant with a drive to organise his people. I'm frankly suspicious of the idea that he was a war leader with a name like "Shepherd", but even if he was organisation of the Capital Wasteland super mutants would be broadly positive. Yes, it might make them a tougher enemy to fight ... but it could also open up the possibility of negotiation, or even peace. It would be a step away from mindless violence. Until the Brotherhood put a stop to that.

So I am not sure there is a significant distinction between the types of super mutant, specifically. Okay, but FEV definitely does some bizarre stuff. We have Harold and the Master; we have floaters, centaurs and mutant hounds; we have intelligent deathclaws (I miss them; I loved them); we have that one genius mole rat from Fallout 2.

So why would super mutants be consistent? Well, I'd suggest maybe they're not. It's just that "super mutant" is what you get when you expose a person to FEV under certain circumstances. I suspect that other mutated humans may also have an FEV component to them, and when the differences are big enough we stop calling them super mutants.

This is not meant to be exhaustive. There are a lot of mutants in the Fallout universe and this post is quite long enough. Nor is it meant to be definitive proof that these are FEV mutants. We mostly can't know. My argument is that: we know FEV gets around; we know environmental elements can have a significant impact on what you get out of FEV exposure; in some cases we know we are looking at quite extensive changes in a short period of time.

Group 1 - Psychics: There are people in several of the games that seem to demonstrate psychic ability. Sulik, in Fallout 2, is quite uncanny with his insights when communing with his grandfather's spirit. The Forecaster, in Fallout: New Vegas is able to foresee certain evrnts. Mama Murphy, in Fallout 4 takes chems to receive visions of past, present and future. We know the Master in the original Fallout experimented with an FEV "psyker" project. It did not go well. While there seem to be some side effects, the people listed above are largely fine, so this would presumably involve extremely mild exposure to FEV.

Group 2 – Trogs: "Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion" is an environmental mutation suffered by residents of the Pitt. Like classic FEV "super mutant" exposure, these individuals suffer from memory loss and aggression. Unlike super mutants, they are small (ish) and wiry, and very much built for speed. We know that radiation and toxic chemicals play a part in their mutation, and it is noteworthy that the Fallout 3 Official Game Guide makes a reference to "unidentified mutagens". It is also noteworthy that there are Trogs in Fallout 76, which begins 25 years after the bombs dropped. So whatever happened here happened fast. We're not looking at two centuries of change.

Group 3 – Mole Miners: There is very little lore on these people, but they are also a very rapid mutation: they are present in Appalachia at the start of Fallout 76. As there are "classic" super mutants in the area, these may be an interaction between FEV and the toxic air found in the mines.

Group 4 – Swampfolk: Admittedly this one is a bit of a reach, but they very much fill the super mutant niche in Point Lookout. I acknowledge that there's an unpleasant joke about "hillbillies" and "inbreeding" here, but I think it's also worth noting that these people suffered from both radiation exposure and apparently New Plague. This would be an interaction between multiple types of engineered viruses.

I know, I know: this is a lot of words. So – the "too long, didn't read" version:

FEV is everywhere because a bunch of careless and malevolent pre- and post-war groups put it there. They also dumped it in the water in at least one location, and once you've done that the stuff can get anywhere.

While there are different strains, environmental factors are probably more significant in determining what kind of mutant you get.

What we call a "super mutant" has relatively little variation, with the major factor being how much radiation exposure the person had, and consequently how much brain damage they have suffered.

There are a lot of other types of mutated human out there, and where FEV is involved you're likely looking at wild variations based on various environmental factors. But we don't call those people super mutants, because that's a very specific type of FEV mutant.

#fallout #fallout 2 #fallout 3 #fallout new vegas #fallout 4 #fallout 76

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whoneedssexed · 2 years ago

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Is it true that homeschooling in the U.S. is typically done for religious reasons, that's it's not regulated at all and that the children are at a disadvantage, or that they can be abused more easily? I hear about it but when looking it up all I see is stuff for COVID homeschooling reasons.

That it's typically for religious reasons? Not sure about that, especially depending on how one might define as "religious". Some people may talk about how the Christian g-d is their reasoning for pulling their kids out, but nothing they teach has anything to do with Christianity and more to do with conspiracy theories.

That it's not regulated? Unfortunately, this one is true. There are very few regulations, nobody's required to teach their children accurate information, or any information at all. There are a few regulations that basically make it so that the children/families aren't defying any compulsory education laws and the kids are accounted for, but each state is different in how this mandatory reporting works.

This is of course very dependent on what each state wants, but for the most part in the country there's very few defined rules. Here's a link that quickly goes over some of the legalities in homeschooling, and which states actually put effort towards educating children in the home.

That they are at a disadvantage? It can be true, yes, especially for the many parents who choose to "unschool" or otherwise remove schooling from their children entirely. While some have a much more structured approach on this, a lot of people have taken this to mean not even trying to educate their children. You can partly thank the internet for this, in my opinion, as it allows these types of knuckleheads to spread nonsense like that (think facebook mom type of groups).

There's also arguments made that homeschooling limits a child's social development, as they are around a lot less people and peers their age, and don't experience the typical interactions of the world.

This isn't always the case, however, as some homeschooling is done through actual programs offered by education experts, and classes kids can attend at their leisure. This allows them more socialization and to stay up to date, while also giving them the space and freedom to get what they need out of it.

So when it comes to disadvantages, it is heavily case by case.

That they are more likely to be abused? Well, it really depends on how you define abuse in this sense.

Of course, some people absolutely can and will argue that refusing to teach things like basic math or reading skills is abusive, or that forcing kids to believe your theories of the world is abusive, let alone that "withholding socialization" from them can be seen as abusive as well.

But some families abuse in ways that there are no gray areas about, such as families that intentionally leave their girls in the dark because they do not believe women have rights, or that use their older children to enforce punishment and be free babysitters under the guise of "homeschooling". These are pretty clearly abusive.

There was an uptick in abuse cases when children had to stay home as a result of the pandemic. The problem with these stats is that there are so many factors going into them that it's hard to say for certain any specific thing that makes the abuse more likely. Particularly big contributors include the stress of trying to juggle everything added with the fact that just being around someone more often increases the likelihood of abuse. These are two things that homeschooling can fall prey to.

So again, it's really a case-by-case thing.

The major problem is there isn't, and never was, a one-size-fits-all solution on education. That's why a lot of parents choose to homeschool - because their children are not succeeding in a formal public classroom as a result of needing something different than what is being presented to them. This is what a lot of parents with kids who have disabilities have to wrestle and contend with. In the same vein the lack of regulation of education can allow all the negative aspects to flourish. We see the same thing in public schools.

I'm not sure how things are run in other countries, maybe they have figured out something we haven't (which is very likely, considering the amount of things we are so far behind in).

But for the most part, what you've heard is true, it's just not always true for all homeschooled kids.

mod BP

#homeschooling #school #education #student rights #family #teaching #familial abuse #parental abuse #parenting #parents #schooling

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alarajrogers · 1 year ago

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There's going to be an impact from COVID, too.

In the beginning, COVID hit blue states hardest, where the big cities are. But as the pandemic progressed, it became a bizarre mark of cultural allegiance for Republicans to refuse to wear masks or get vaccinations, which resulted in red state governors passing laws that made it impossible for people to protect themselves. COVID has always been more deadly to senior citizens than most other groups of people. So in the second half of the 2020-2021 pandemic season, before the vaccinations were out, and then the entire time that vaccinations existed, the pandemic has been disproportionately killing and disabling Republicans. Specifically, Republicans who want to virtue signal about their loyalty to the MAGA brand by being deliberately stupid about protection from COVID.

Even leaving aside the ones who died... how many people who now have long COVID, or who nearly died, realized how they were betrayed by those they put their faith in? How many of their Gen X and Millennial children, who saw them die or saw them suffer and become disabled, turned on the MAGA contingent? How many are enraged that their families are now in poverty, their breadwinners unable to work, and the leaders they voted for are too busy posturing over trans people and abortions and the bugaboo of Critical Race Theory to do anything to help them?

How about the heat waves? Those have been most destructive in the South, where most of the Republican strongholds are. How many people have finally thought, shit, this is fucking awful, this isn't like the summers of my childhood! Maybe these climate change people have a point!

Worldwide, it is the people who have done the least to cause the climate disaster who are suffering the most. But in the US, it's the South that is suffering the most, and the South is where the majority of climate change disbelievers who stand in the way of progress live. (It's also where many, many innocent people who have effectively no voice due to gerrymandering and voter suppression live. This isn't an excuse to shit on the South. This is pointing out that the people who have been standing in the way are disproportionately affected by climate change, not that they're the only ones.)

So we've got an incoming wave of young people who are energized and ready to vote. And we've got circumstances that have been disproportionately handing out karma to Republican voters, most of whom have not died of it... but they may have woken up and changed their minds because of it. (And while the number who have died is probably negligible in total next to the number of people who vote... in places with low populations that got hit hard by COVID, it's gonna be the anti-vaxxers who died more often than the people who wore masks and got vaccines, and politically we know how that plays out. We may see some red states swing blue and some congressional districts do the same because only a small number of people were needed to push the needle one way or the other, and that small number might be the number of antivax Republicans who have died.)

Not to mention the clown show with Trump. If he is allowed to run, many Republicans who have become disgusted with his antics will stay home. If he is not allowed to run, because he is convicted of insurrection, he will probably do his best to sabotage the Republicans because no one is allowed to win if he can't, and his MAGA groupies may write him in anyway, dividing the vote and taking it away from whoever does win the Republican primary.

I am so, so nervous because the stakes are so damn high, and I thought for sure Trump would lose in 2016 and he didn't. But he won by a narrow margin, and every vote since then, Democrats have gained more ground. (Yes, we lost the House in 2022. This is usually a blowout; when one party wins the Presidency it almost always results in the other party winning the House in the midterms. This didn't happen in 2002 because the Democrats were being such spineless Republican-lites at the time, and while it did happen this time, it happened by much, much smaller margins than anyone expected. Meanwhile we won the Senate, though Kyrsten Sinema did her best to fuck us over anyway.) Almost all the Republican gains of the past two years have been at the state level or caused by the Supreme Court, which we now know the justices on the conservative side to not only have bad opinions, but incredibly corrupt and doing pay-for-play for big conservative donors.

I am, cautiously, beginning to have hope for 2024. If we win the Senate by a margin large enough to claim a supermajority, if we win the House back, if we keep the presidency... and we might actually do these things... then maybe we can start to undo the damage. Maybe even make progress for once.

This is how the dominance of older white voters ends ... per https://digbysblog.net/2023/07/19/a-cool-balm-in-this-hot-summer/

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jonquilandlace · 9 months ago

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My youtube is currently flooded with videos of either -gen alpha wishing they were teenagers during the pandemic -people roasting gen alpha for wishing they were teenagers during the pandemic

As someone who turned 21 during the pandemic, first off it definitely wasn't as romanticized as the people wishing they were teenagers during it are imagining it was (like. my dad tried making me a whipped coffee one time and failed lmao, it was super sweet but no we did not have whipped coffee daily. I never made sourdough. I was struggling through some of my hardest college classes, just now online, was realizing my career path was about to shift entirely (I wanted to be a doctor, folks! And then the pandemic made me realize I did NOT want to deal with either being in a lab or being someone who had to respond to these situations permanently!) and also would regularly have panic attacks on my mom at about 2 am because circadian rhythm was not a thing that exists when you don't go outside and whoops my anxiety meds wore off and I still am not tired! My grandpa died during COVID in a nursing home. He had dementia and absolutely did not know what was happening, but the last time we got to see him was two days before the lockdown began, and even that was because I had heard of a case in the next city over from us and knew we needed to go see him or else we wouldn't get to. Thankfully (I say somewhat bitterly) he wanted cremated, so we finally were able to have a funeral for him last summer. I was absolutely terrified that if anyone in my family got COVID, we would die. We didn't get it for almost a year and a half, but we were exposed twice, and I legitimately cried myself to sleep over it repeatedly.)

But that said. I also feel like,,, the other side of it isn't quite right, either? Like there are things about the pandemic that I do admit to fucking missing. I miss being able to embroider in class. I miss my mom and I doing donut and coffee runs at least every other day because the drive throughs were safe (PLEASE respect essential workers, yall, they got hit so unfairly by this and the things I miss of the pandemic are heavily based on me being middle class and thus having the privilege to benefit from their work). I miss my cat sitting on my lap during meetings, and staying up until 2 am on the regular listening to soundtracks of musicals I'd never heard of before because there wasn't something to interrupt it. My parents are among the lucky few who still get to work from home, but I miss the even slight relief the stimulus checks gave us. As someone whose closest friends have never lived close to me, who live even further now, I miss Zoom game nights that now no one really wants to do anymore. (I will admit for my friend group there might be other reasons, ha, but the essence remains.) I know aesthetics are still a thing, and still a thing getting roasted, but I even loved that first week back to in-person uni, when "style" was so non-homogenous suddenly, when there wasn't a real "trend" because in lockdown everyone had just... done what they wanted! I came back in full Dark Academia blazers and button downs, and I sat across from someone dressed proto-Y2K and someone in cottagecore in my first class, and the difference was so much bigger than what you'd think if I said the same now! I miss the boy in my virtual creative writing class whose gimmick it was to sit next to a halloween skeleton in a hammock like they were roommates! I miss Among Us and Minecraft nights. I miss the (pre-corporate) Ratatouille the Musical phase of tiktok! I miss the sea shanty era! I miss wildlife coming back through cities they hadn't been in in ages, and pollution fading to where cities could see the stars. I miss just... making the best of it!

And yeah, this is absolutely romanticism! It's absolutely a sign of my privilege! But god, it was wonderful to have all this darkness and to see so many people trying so hard to bring back the light! The pandemic fucking sucked! But the human spirit during it was so beautiful nevertheless!

#jonniejonniejonquil #pandemic #covid 19 #im scared to use the real tags but like. i just. i think this deserves to be out there.#i just. think the truth is somewhere right between.

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lettersfromandie · 4 years ago

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Why Reese Lansangan's EP Resonates With Me

Last October 2020, my favorite OPM singer-songwriter, Reese Lansangan, released a five-track EP titled, "Playing Pretend in the Interim". The moment it was already out on online music streaming platforms, I can never stop replaying it. I love every song in that EP, especially Reese's storytelling approach. Even if the personas aren't entirely herself, just "borrowed eyes", I felt connected to them somehow. Which is why I wanted to share how and why every track in this EP resonates with me.

Track 1. Mall Rats

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The more birthday cakes I blow, the more I feel nostalgic to things. Have you been to a place where you used to go a lot before, and when you visit it again after a long time, it's just old familiar halls now? Or probably the other way around: you miss the solitary state of a now-busy place. This song reminds me of the places I went in the past but are nowhere to be found now — like the Banana Booth in Ayala Center Cebu located near the cinemas, and the mall's fountain on the ground floor which is now replaced by an indoor playground. (Ahhh so mushy to reminisce the years gone by.)

Life is fleeting and without knowing it, time is slipping away. Our surroundings gradually change, whether we want these changes to happen or not. Sometimes I ask myself: while I get so consumed with my phone and other earthly possessions that give me momentary happiness, am I missing out the time of savoring everything outside my consumption, unaware that they'll be gone soon? 'Cause I don't want to witness an abandoned place and deem I should've done better to relish it while it was still there.

Track 2. Extended Vacation

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I most probably think that this track is the "highlight" of the entire EP since it's a project done and completed during this interim — the COVID-19 pandemic. From what I understood, the persona in this song is a deliveryman or a worker who goes to our homes to hand our orders. These workers are one of the most important intermediaries now that almost everyone orders and does transactions online. So, it is just right for us to say thank you to them, and even give them a tip!

It's a vacation for the ones with money to celebrate. This song also really tells that even if we are all suffering amid the pandemic, it is not to the same degree as others. For those who are fortunate, lucky are they to still be able to plan vacays even outside their homes. But as for me, a.k.a the deliveryman, or generally the working class, this pandemic's never really a vacation for them.

Track 3. Ghosting

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I admit that this is the least of all tracks that resonated with me. Wouldn't it be absurd if one says that they connect to this persona of a ghost? But oddly enough, it kinda made me think if I were just a lone soul, I'd do the same as the lyrics of this song: Some time now I've been wanting

To move on, find another

Place where I can feel like I can sleep again

A traveling ghost perhaps? Hahaha.

I just thought that maybe if I were one, people might be scared of me because I can go "anywhere". But maybe I'd go and stay in different nooks and crannies because I just simply want to until I grow weary of it. That's just it.

Track 4. The Encyclopedia Salesman

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I can recall back then when salesmen go door-to-door selling. There was once a time when a man convinced my father to buy a children's encyclopedia set. I know I was happy he bought it because I remember taking pleasure of flipping every page and feeding my curious little self with information and images I never knew about.

But in this time wherein almost everything we want to know, learn, and get can be obtained through using our screens (and also buyers' preference for in-store), I guess people don't find the need for salesmen to knock on our doors anymore.

This isn't something I typically feel sentimental about, if it weren't for this EP. It made me contemplate how hard it must had been for them knocking doors all over cities under heat from 9 to 5 knowing that they have to sell the heavy load of products they bring while going door-to-door, just so they can provide for themselves and their families.

I guess it's been a decade, and we still have that encyclopedia we bought from the encyclopedia salesman (though now hidden and dusty). But I don't remember the last time I opened those books. I don't even remember when was the last time the encyclopedia salesman knocked on our doors. I hope wherever he is now, he doesn't have to bring a heavy load anymore.

Track 5. When It Happens

youtube

Sometimes I wonder if I die *knocks on wood*, will people share their best memories with me, even those who I don't talk to anymore? I know I shouldn't be dwelling so much about death and just live in the present. But I can't help but think: Will my ending days be as worthwhile as I would've wanted? And when the time comes *knocks on wood again* that the scythe decides to reap my soul, am I still worth remembering?

So weep for me, my darling dear. Tomorrow you'll move on.

I know that people might forget and move on (or maybe act like it) after weeks of mourning. So Reese is right. Because while the dead body is decaying, the lives of the people who mourn still carry on.

But you've got miles to go. In a life I'll never know. So move on along.

Love, Andie

#music

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chargetheintruder · 1 year ago

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The second biggest threat in 2024.

Short version: lots of Americans in general and lots of Democrats in particular are feeling poorer than we were, thanks to lapsed and betrayed benefits. Meaning: yes, having the corrupt and back-biting Supreme Court push people off of a cliff with regards to student loan relief didn't help, but it runs deeper than this.

It's that AND the engineered expiring of Trump's "tax breaks" for the middle class during Biden's term, and also this:

Meaning people feel like they're losing money hand over fist, regardless of how well people might be doing in the workplace.

And yes, it's the Second Biggest issue since it isn't about a) putting Trump behind bars and disqualifying him from further political office (remember the 14th Amendment) and also stuffing the Supreme Court until it gets back on the damned team again, OR b) doing whatever it takes to keep World War III, As Usual, from breaking out in the Middle East over Israeli business (and yes, it's complicated and a mess, but the short of it is (i) Israel has no business even remotely looking or sounding fascist at any given time, while (ii) Hamas and Palestinians really could learn how to be a civil society and NOT just constantly attack and kill people like the REST OF the Middle Fucking East).

What I'm saying is: I can wrap my tired brain around the Second Biggest Issue. I can imagine our doing something about it. Trump's not going to go to or stay in prison until or unless we stuff the Supreme Court and also throw the entire book at him, 14th Amendment and all. And we've all, as human beings, completely blown the last three good chances we had at peace between Israel and anyone else? Yeah.

So, here's the deal with the Second Biggest Issue. Congress in general and the Traitor Party in the House in particular just needs to get rolled the fuck over. It's that simple: everyone needs to be grabbed roughly as fuck by their shortest short hairs and brought back ON the team already, if only because the rest of the world is so fucked up that WE have to be a rational neighbor if not role model for them.

And in the medium-term this means finding ways (without engineering a new pandemic, mind you) to force the issues on a) Student Loan Debt Relief, wherever possible, since it was promised until Harlan Crow's sleeper muppets on that "Supreme Court" decided to be fucking traitors, and b) rreforming and funding the hell out of expanding Social Security until people on it are no longer in abject poverty. Yes, two high-risk and high-profile goals at once, I get it.

But to be candid, I can't think of much else that would give President Joe Is Still Biden some honest-to-God, "sit down and SHUT UP" Points to use against whatever Trump Muppet he faces in 2024. And as for having those points already, versus Congress? There's already plenty of blackmail material that can be coughed up against ANY Congressman, it's just a question of how willing you have to be to go IN on everyone as roughly as possible.

And there's the issue: is there the will and manpower to actually put a gun to everybody's head in Congress until actual good work and budgeting gets done? I doubt it. But to be candid? We had two solid years of control of the Congress and they STILL didn't deliver the goods. They still didn't act aggressively in the best interests of this Union and her people. Nope, not even post-January 6th.

What I'm saying is: it's not just corruption. It's not just the unfettered psychosis of the Reich Wingers in the House.

It's that the people who say they represent the actual majority of this nation literally refuse to act like it time and again even when they can. At this point I'm assuming your average Democratic Congressman has some form of Stockholm Syndrome and literally will not act in the best interest of the American People who voted for them, nope, not until or unless they can "get brownie points" by sucking Traitor Party off somehow. It's appalling and ridiculous.

It is. It's appalling and ridiculous that I have to cyberbully and threaten folks and demand a coup'd'etat, of all things, just to get anything to work properly? Yeah. But here we are now, and the Media's looking for excuses, any excuses, to betray the President and to let the Head Traitor out of the cage before he's even in it.

#long #political #U.S. politics #President Biden #Congress #2024 Election #policy #budgeting #CW harsh language

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loverofpaperwork · 1 year ago

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Why Ivermectin Gained Popularity in Anti-Vaccine Groups

Individuals opposed to Vaccines have always existed since Vaccines were invented. Back in the day, people were forced to get stuff like the polio vaccine. Reasonable hesitation isn't something to mock people for or try to belittle them, but the thickheadedness of some people pushing Ivermectin as a panacea requires something of a brief investigation.

Recently Joe Rogan had Dr. Pierre Kory on his program to talk about Covid-19, the pandemic, and the vaccination rollout. For those who don't know, Dr. Kory is now Mr. Kory because of his spreading of misinformation. Joe Rogan, of course, ignored this simple fact. He accepted everything as fact. And I get it, Joe is an entertainer, (One that I don't like) and it isn't his job to fact check people on the program.

Mr. Kory pushed Ivermectin because he felt (legally not lying, but he totally was) it worked. Not a great standard for medical practice. No credible trial, or any trial has ever produced an antiviral response from Ivermectin. People request it as an offlabel treatment, and it does nothing for them.

People want to believe it works because it is easy, readily available, and has little or no side effect. Same with Hydroxycholorquine. They might as persrcibe a chocolate bar.

As a medical outsider I doubted Ivermectin as a covid-19 treatment because countries that use it to combat onlabel diseases such as malaria were ravaged by covid. Their infection and death rates were extremely high.

But this rational anecdote doesn't answer why Ivermectin is popular among these groups. I mentioned it briefly but it is an easy answer. Easy solutions to life's problems is basically the foundation of a scam. Be it snake oil(Ivermectin and Hydroxycholorquine), cleaners that don't work, get rich quick schemes, whatever. Anti-Vax influencers love to promote corrupt Doctors that are willing to harm people for a quick buck.

One such Doctor was doctor Zelenko, who died in 2022 of lung cancer. in 2020 he published a letter to the trump admin pushing the idea of using a Zithromax(or azithromycin), zinc, and hydroxycholorquine drug cocktail to treat covid-19 patients. The admin agreed, but the medical community skeptical issued concerns. Chief among them, to me, was the fact that he claimed to be treating an abnormal amount of patients. Patients he in fact never saw in person, but merely gave them a prescription over the phone. In fact he couldn't prove he treated anyone with covid-19, and had to pay a huge fine for defrauding the government.

But the damage was done, Hydroxycholorquine was in the public eye. People still try to push it as a miracle cure all, for covid, cancer, blindness, whatever. This doctor hurt people but he meant well. He was giving people the information that they wanted to here.

And that really is why Ivermectin is still being talked about. They have no proof it does anything offlabel, but they want it too. I can't take that away from them, you can't argue against a fervent believe. It hurts. I want these people to get the help they need, because the vaccine actually helps.

And it really isn't Joe Rogan's or anyone else like him fault his guests do this. It isn't his job to fight against such fervent belief. But he should attempt too. He shouldn't lie about his covid-19 treatments for a quick buck either. When the Ivermectin and Hydroxycholorquine pushers get sick, they got experimental scientific therapies. They didn't just rely on a minimal dose of a offlabel drug cocktail.

Also believe or not, most the medical misinformation accounts are bots of like 15 people. At least according to some reports. And it makes sense, they buy bots to eventually get some person to buy their book/newsletter/snake oil pill that does nothing and the voice of a million fake accounts amplifies it. Social media companies do nothing because it generates revenue and it doesn't directly kill their customers (at least legally).

This actually is a huge problem on Youtube. A lot of the time text to speech reads out on the same slides, reuploaded like 1000s of times on different channels. To what, make .00001$ off of ad revenue.

#covid-19 #joe rogan #ivermectin #antivax #pro vaccine #scam #Doctor Zelenko #Dr Kory

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invisiblerhythmcat · 1 year ago

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I just had to finally put into words that I might not be able to go again to the most meaningful thing I've ever done in the past few years

with the best people, and strongest community, and most me I've ever felt.

But, with the lack of covid tracking, inaccessibility of testing, and basically no one masking (added to the fact that I can't drive, so I would have to take a bus or plane to get there), I just can't do it again.

Last year, enough people were masking and testing and I could keep enough of an eye on the numbers, that I felt decently comfortable attending, but now all of that's gone and everyone's acting like there's no more pandemic

And I don't know if the issue is more my physical health or my anxiety, but it is impossible.

And there are no more virtual options. I had to back out of a performance last weekend because there were no covid precautions in their indoor venues and my outdoor performance got rained out

It just feels so...scary and so empty.

I don't get to do my work. I don't get to be with my community. I don't get fucking anything except fear and illness.

And, out of most disabled people, I am definitely one of the safer ones. What about the people who couldn't have even taken the risk when there was some attempts at mitigation and tracking? What about the people who literally haven't been able to leave their houses for however fucking long it's been?

Like, when people don't mask, there's the health risk of getting covid, but there's also the fact that vulnerable disabled people are losing family, community, and support because of this.

Like, one of my friends recently started publicly transitioning and going to in-person events at a local lgbt community center and it has been lifechanging for her. But she isn't masking and no one else is either, and I just have this burn of jealousy because I haven't been able to go to a drag or burlesque show or be in queer community that isn't my workplace in so long. And then I think about all the trans people who don't even get to share a shitty workplace with other trans people.

This is a terrifying, scary time to be trans and some disabled trans people don't get to be in community because our leaders seem to think the risk is over and it's fine for us to die.

It's awful and I'm so fucking angry. And I know this community and I know these people and I know they would do anything in their power to get me to the thing safely if it's possible. But what about all the at-risk people they don't know? Could they commit to doing the same? Would they even have the funding or resources to do that for more than one person? How long until the well-meaning, low-resourced people who want to do the right thing crack because the fucking government and capitalist institutions don't give a shit?

I don't know. Enjoy a rant. I'm So Fucking Tired.

#in which I rant #because it is heartbreaking to have to say no to this thing #but it's even more heartbreaking to think about all the people who will never get to experience it #because our stupid fucking greater society wants them dead #asdljkfashlfjkdsah

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existentialcrisisgirlie · 2 years ago

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13 December

I feel like I'm in limbo.

For a really long time limbo felt really safe. I didn't want to be forced into making any decisions about my life. I wasn't ready to make any moves. I didn't even want to take any steps towards making moves. I felt really comfortable staying in one place. The place I was - the place I more or less still am - felt safe, albeit less than ideal

Now, I feel time barreling past me and I have no idea how to grip onto anything. I feel like I'm in a wind tunnel but my feet are cemented to the floor. I can't go back, not that I'd even want to, but I also can't possibly begin to move forward.

How has anyone begun to move forward after the last three years? I can't even fathom what it would look like to pick up the pieces and fragments of who I am and who I used to be and what I want and what I want to leave behind. I feel so fundamentally and undeniably altered as a person from what the last three years of pandemic has done to me. I look around at everyone else who is seemingly back to normal and I feel like I'm in the middle of Times Square screaming at the top of my lungs and no one can see me and no one can hear me. I don't feel alone. I just feel crazy.

I hesitate to even bring up the pandemic, even on this anonymous platform, because it appears that any amount of mention of COVID just triggers people into admonishing those of us who recognize it to not be over. I don't want that. It's hard to be vulnerable. But at the same time, this entire stupid blog is an experiment in vulnerability for myself. It's hard. It's hard to still care about COVID. It's hard to try to build a life within this (heavy air quotes) "post-covid" world. It's hard to even dream of a life I might want to build.

But I'm still in that wind tunnel. The wind isn't getting any slower, if anything it's picking up. And I need to start moving. With caution. But movement nonetheless.

I just, I don't know what to do. How does one navigate wanting to do nothing and wanting to overhaul everything? Where do I fit in? In general? I want to feel passionate enough about something that it pushes me to make the necessary moves. But I fear that I won't find that while I still feel confined by health restrictions. It's a vicious cycle. I have no conclusions today.

#journal #existential thoughts #feelings

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somelonelywordmonger · 5 months ago

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Yes, I have white privilege. I work hard every day to educate myself on that and raise awareness. I literally cannot do anything about the genocide in Palestine because I don't have the person on my ballot who would do something about that. I don't have a choice. I have a choice between brain worms, project 2025 and accelerated stripping of rights for all minorities, including myself, and the genocide supporter who likes capitalism and not pushing for real change. The point of my post and plea was for us to come together so we can fix this problem. I would love to not have to vote for yet one more old white male who does nothing for us. But we must get better candidates into Congress, the Senate, SCOTUS, and the white house. It is halfway through July, and the final presidential candidates will be chosen in August. We are out of fucking time. If you are giving up and not voting for anyone else that we might be able to get to see reason, then you are also complacent. I am queer, I am disabled, I am autistic, I was born female at birth, and I am not Christian. My family and I have no money even while living paycheck to paycheck. Literally, it is only my whiteness that gets me any leverage. I am not okay with Biden being president. I am sick of this shit. But he is all I have and the most reasonable of all. I do not condone genocide. I speak up against it, I have gotten in fights over Genocide Joe. So I ask, what is the right thing to you then? Because I am not doing this just for minorities. I am not some savior, just as I am not a white supremacist.

The point of this post I made was one part venting and one part speaking about how we need to push back harder this next round because our planet and all of us literally cannot keep going with this.

"So you just do not think Palestinians and all of the people who've died from Covid19 al all of the people murdered by the police that Biden poured more funding into count?"

These people are important. The Ukrainians, those in Sudan and Yemen, and the Palestinians matter. All of these people matter. The pandemic isn't over; hell, Biden has COVID right now. But out of these four fuckers in this image, the one who is probably close to leaving us and also able to be reasoned with the most is Biden. And really, the president is like a figurehead at this point. What we need to do is target Congress, the Senate, and SCOTUS, as I said earlier. Few decent options arise for me to vote in my state, and when they do, I fight for them until I literally have no choice, like here. I'm sorry you misunderstood my intent in my post. I'm sure my wording didn't help as much. But I do fucking care. I care so much it physically hurts. I care so much that I have meltdowns. Doing what is right is keeping the worst out and working toward getting the better in. But if you think these other candidates are going to do anything good for Palestine or COVID-19 or support things like #landback and reparations to both Indigenous Americans and Black Americans, or restore Roe v Wade and support gender-affirming care, and on and on, then you are sorely mistaken. I'll tell you who would have done that and more, Jasmine Sherman. And unfortunately, they are not on my state's ballot, and not enough people know about them. So if they run again, I will be even more vocal than I already was.

^ The shit options

But if I get up there and see Jasmine Sherman on the ballot for my state, you can bet that everything I have said about voting Biden will be tossed out. (These ballot sites be confusing af to my fatigued and fibro-fogged brain.)

It's shitty, it's terrible, it's outright awful. We have a choice but it isn't really a choice. And now, the best option for us is to stick to the liberal proverb, "Now is not the time." Our best option is to vote blue. Our best option is to maintain the fragile status quo. Hear me out. If we maintain the fragile status quo and then get Democrats into the positions on the Hill, we can turn our focus to more productive avenues. We rally together and strengthen our positions. We use what remains of our democracy and fight to get people like Jasmine Sherman (for instance) into positions of power. They need money, they need their voices amplified, and then we can stand a real chance of thwarting the two-party system. Democrats piss me off because a lot of them aren't truly representing what I feel, and I know it is the same for many of you. Republicans are worse because they would sooner see us locked up, dead, or worse, before making any meaningful contributions to our society. Biden is worrying me with his present struggles. But he's all we got right now to at least keep things teetering on the edge. We need to avoid plummeting, and voting for something other than Biden right now will increase the likelihood of us plummeting. But if we vote for Biden, we can double down on our efforts to swing our seesaw away from the edge of certain doom. Things like this take time, and I'm facing my own struggles, but if we all bring what we can to the table, we can surely make it work. I hate that I have to vote for Biden, that yet again, "blue is the choice," and so on. But it is all I can do right now to try and fight back against the destruction and total fascism that looms on the horizon. The red horizon. Please vote for Biden. Don't let the conservatives win. At least the Democrats are destroying us slower than the Republicans. The Democrats buy us time.

#I literally don't know what else to say because I do truly not want to vote for biden #but I have no fucking choice #actually autistic #my problem is I care too much which is why I made this post in the first place #and of course I get shit for it #jasmine sherman #usa politics

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wastelesscrafts · 3 years ago

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Hi! This isn't related to repairing clothes but rather the concept of 'slow fashion' and reduce/reuse as a whole.

I'm in need of some more clothes after gaining some weight (note: not plus-sized, just moved from Small to Medium, so it shouldn't be hard to find the right size) and I'd like to buy secondhand for sustainability reasons. The issue is, I have autism and I'm very sensitive to clothing textures - I know I prefer cotton over synthetics, but the individual feel of a cotton shirt can range from great to unbearable.

This is an issue because most thrift stores around me have closed their changing rooms/are not allowing customers to try on clothes beforehand, for sanitary reasons in the pandemic. (I'm not sure about the big chains like Goodwill and Salvation Army, because I'd rather not support them for ethical reasons.) Not to mention that buying secondhand clothes online (from sites like eBay or Mercari) might offer a greater selection but obviously can't try those on beforehand.

So my question is, is there a way to judge how a shirt might feel texture/fit-wise without needing to actually try it out?

Thanks in advance for any tips, I love your blog and all the help you provide :)

I'm autistic too, so I completely understand.

Shopping for sensory-friendly items:

Every person with sensory sensitivities is different, so I can't just tell you what to look for. A garment I find comfortable might be a sensory nightmare for you, and vice versa. What I can do is tell you how to figure out what to look for yourself.

What to look out for:

Go to your wardrobe, pull out your favourite items, and check their labels (if you've left them in). Note down two things: the brands that produced these items, and the materials they're made of.

Once you're done, take a look at the items themselves. What characteristics make them sensory-friendly? What characteristics do you dislike? Do they have elements you like to stim with?

Look at your list. Is there anything that pops up multiple times, be it a fabric, brand, or characteristic? Whatever it is, that's part of what makes that item sensory-friendly to you.

Look for items that check these boxes when shopping. Don't be afraid to look at the labels inside of second-hand clothes if you're in a physical thrift store (unless local Covid regulations say otherwise), and use the items on your list as search keywords when thrifting online. Most second-hand shopping apps have a search system that allows you to look for specific brands/sizes/materials/... If you don't know how to use these, look up a tutorial (like this Depop tutorial by Leena Norms, for example).

Once you've gotten a new item, take good care of it. Washing a garment the wrong way can alter its texture, and so can mending it.

If you still end up with a garment that doesn't feel right, check if you can make any alterations to improve it. Cut out the labels, replace itchy parts with a different fabric, wear it over a long-sleeved undershirt, remove a neckline or cuff if it makes you feel constricted,... It's your item and you can do with it whatever you want.

If all fails, you can always try reselling it and using that money to buy something else.

An example:

I know that items made of materials such as flannel, bamboo or chambray will always be sensory-friendly to me because those tend to pop up a lot in my wardrobe. Basic cotton is hit-or-miss for me depending on the way it's produced and washed, and sheep's wool is a no-go because I find it itchy. When I shop second-hand, I always keep an eye out for items made of flannel, bamboo or chambray, and when I need a warm knitted item I look for alpaca rather than sheep's wool because it's an itch-free alternative.

Going through my wardrobe, I realised there's a few brands that I wear more than others because they're always made of materials I personally find sensory-friendly, and they match my aesthetic style (Axes Femme, for example). When I need something new, I look for these specific brands on second-hand apps.

As for characteristics, I know I like loose or shirred items better than fitted items, and I hate turtlenecks because I can't stand how they cling to my throat. When shopping, I ignore anything with a turtleneck and look for loose items rather than fitted ones.

Conclusion:

It's possible to shop for sensory-friendly items without touching them, but it takes practice.

Once you've got some experience with handling fabric, you can sort of guess what an item will feel like just by looking at it. Sewing and altering clothes is a great way to develop this skill. You'll still occasionally bump into unpleasant surprises as you can never predict a 100% how something will feel, but this will happen less with time.

You can minimise the risks by getting to know both yourself and how clothes are made. I frequently thrift online and rarely run into issues any more because I know what to look for.

#wasteless crafts #ask #autism #sensory friendly #sensory sensitivities #second-hand shopping #thrifting #stimming #neurodiversity #sustainability #sustainable wardrobe #fashion #slow fashion #fast fashion #sustainable fashion #global warming #climate change

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