#under quarantine

[call-me-vault]

warning exsist for a reason...

[iamkidfish]

elphaba and glinda are actually absolved from any of their actions because of course the inevitable college wlw situationship makes everyone do very questionable things

[neechees]

There's this vid going around of this tiktoker calling this town in AB "a very welcoming place" when it's incredibly racist

[dr-futbol-blog]

Grace Under Pressure, Pt. 6

McKay had just realized that his symptoms of euphoria, elation and over-confidence were caused by an excess of CO2 in his system. What is curious is that as we join Sheppard in the space in which they are working on modifying a jumper now, it almost seems as though he is suffering from similar symptoms. Based on what we see at the end of the episode, he is deeply affected by the situation and is hiding in well. But it is possible that there is something more going on here because, as we find Sheppard directing an assorted group of scientists and engineers, it is not his expertise as a Lieutenant Colonel that he seems to be drawing from here. He is not directing them as a military commander but as a foreman, and he is doing it expertly. He is, in a word, performing McKay's role. He seems to have slipped into it as easy as if it were his second skin.

Sheppard: Yeah, alright. This corner: take it over here; move it over here. Weir: What's all this? Sheppard: Ah, this is my plan! Weir: Yeah, I figured that much! You care to elaborate? Sheppard: Well, Doctors Moore and McNab are here to study the ocean on M8R-1229, which happens to be under a thick sheet of ice, so they brought a thousand-foot cable...

Being that Sheppard was somewhat vague about this plan of his that by the looks of it he had started devising even before their recent meeting with Zelenka -- very likely the moment he had heard about the jumper going down -- Weir had clearly now decided to check up on his progress. She seems surprised to find such a well-oiled machine working on Sheppard's plan, Sheppard seeming to have roped everyone from the science corps that was not currently employed by Zelenka in making calculations as to where they might be able to find McKay into figuring out how to get him out of there once they do find him. Sheppard has no formal authority to commandeer the employ of the civilian scientists into doing his bidding, and yet they all seem not just willing but eager to work with him on this.

The first thing we may note, as Sheppard steps out of the jumper to speak with Weir ostensibly because they might hear each other better on the outside, is that he makes sure to step around her on the side of her back. The more natural way would have been to go around her from the other side where she was already turned and to step out of the jumper together, then to commence with a discussion. Sheppard goes out of his way to show both the audience and her that he does not want to have his body facing her and that he is only going to allow it for the minimum time it takes for them to have this discussion out there in the open where everyone can see them. There is nothing either intimate or private about the way he wants to have this conversation with her. He was more intimate with the scientist he had just been talking with inside the jumper than her, he had let the man more inside his personal space.

The second thing is, Sheppard seems to know McKay's staff. And make no mistake, he does not know these people because he just happens to know everyone on Atlantis and because as the military commander of Atlantis, he simply makes it his business to know everyone who comes there. No, the knows Doctors Moore and McNab by their names and knows what they do because he hangs out in McKay's lab all the time. We get confirmation of this only later in First Strike (S03E20) and Quarantine (S04E13), both episodes showing us that hanging out in the lab is very much a thing that Sheppard does. And because McKay is the one doing work and has a tendency to see the people working for him as instrumental and Sheppard, not actually doing any work while hanging out there and hence having much more time to observe things happening around him, an argument could be made that he actually knows McKay's staff better than McKay does, on a personal level. Sheppard might be able to name more members of his staff than McKay who, as he tells Weir, is able only to point at people he thinks are slightly less useless than others. Ergo this, Sheppard knowing members of the science corps by name and being actually able to tell her what their science projects are, tells us that Sheppard was already hanging out at McKay's lab at this time.

Sheppard: ...and a pretty powerful winch to lower their instruments. Weir: OK. Sheppard: And Edgar over here is responsible for the magnetic grapple designed to lower the F-302s into our jumper bay. Weir: And you intend to put the two together. Sheppard: Like chocolate and peanut butter. Weir: Is the mechanism gonna be strong enough to lift a half-flooded jumper out of the water?

Weir is quick on the uptake and figures out that Sheppard intends to combine the two things, and we may note that she says "put them together" instead of "marry the two together" that she might also have said and which is what Sheppard actually intends to do, given his use of the simile of the things going together like chocolate and peanut butter. It is a cute turn of phrase to be sure, but since we are here to reach, there might be something in peanut butter and jelly being the more common and expected pairing, the domestic All-American Family combination that might represent a heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman where chocolate and peanut butter, being that both are sticky pastes produced from beans, could be seen as representing a relationship between two men who are similar in essence but not the same, Sheppard being the dark chocolate to McKay's peanut butter. Sheppard might like both but he certainly seems to prefer the combo of chocolate with peanut butter.

Sheppard: Not a chance. Weir: Well, then why are you...? Sheppard: Because we don't have to. We just have to get near enough to the surface so we can get McKay and Griffin out with a cutting team and rescue divers. Weir: Good. How long? Sheppard: Couple of hours.

Here, we see the euphoria, elation and over-confidence at play. Weir expresses her concern for whether the plan is going to work and Sheppard tells her that of course it won't work, there is not even a chance that it could. It is as though he is treating this as a science project. At the same time, he seems to have come up with a very elaborate rescue plan seemingly all by himself, all ex tempore, and has managed to put together the best possible team to work on it. His tone betrays no urgency, no anxiety, no debilitating fear; it is as though the only thing he feels is excitement over getting to try this out in the real world. He projects such enthusiasm that he is even able to transfer this enthusiasm onto her. Weir seems honestly baffled by his response here, the tone of it, likely expecting Sheppard to be distraught. She knows the two men are close. She does not know and does not even want to know the full scope of their interaction but when ever she thinks that she has started figuring this man out, Sheppard seems to give her whiplash.

Weir: You and Rodney have been bugging me for a chance at trying a jumper as a submersible, but you sure went a hell of a long way to make me say yes! Sheppard: Well, you still haven't said it yet. Weir: I just did. Sheppard: OK! Oh, uh, how close is Zelenka to finding them? Weir: I'm gonna go ask him.

It seems as though Sheppard's excitement and confidence that they will be able to rescue both McKay and Griffin using this plan is contagious, and so Weir does what she has witnessed Sheppard do so many times in the past, which is to make light of the situation to make it seem lighter. She basically cracks a joke about the fact that the two of them are giving her gray hair on purpose and that they really need not go quite this far to get her to give them permission to play with their Ancient toys.

But at the same time, what she says reveals to us that this is something that McKay and Sheppard have been at the very least talking about doing together, they have been planning it together. Earlier, McKay mentioned that he had theorized that the jumpers could be used as submersibles and apparently this was not only something that they had been doing together but was actually something they had already requested permission from Weir to try out, and they had been trying to get that permission more than once. We may recall the way both men were excited to see the alien flight craft on Olesia in Condemned (S02E05). Even though the motivation for their interest and excitement of the technology remains slightly different (McKay is interested in the engineering and how it works, Sheppard is interested in the thing that goes fast), they still love and care about the same thing. Even if they come at it from different angles, they share a common interest, and they definitely seem to want to play together.

This project of seeing whether a jumper can be used as a submersible seems like a variation of the same thing. McKay wants to know if his theory can be worked out in practice and Sheppard is the one of wants to make the dive, and although McKay is currently fast approaching the ocean floor, he would have been more than glad to let Sheppard take the reigns. He is happy to let Sheppard drive. There is no one he trusts to be able to pilot better than Sheppard. Furthermore, Weir says that they have been bugging her about this and that they have been bugging her about it together. While just in the previous episode we found Sheppard and McKay spending time together off the clock, on their way to do something together that did not warrant an explanation, this too confirms to us that they spend a lot more of their time in each other's company than we are strictly shown on screen.

Regarding the over-confidence, even though this is very much an act on Sheppard's part here and he is trying to convince himself more than anyone else, he acknowledges Weir's attempt at cheering him up by returning the quip, making it seem like yes, this was just an elaborate ruse to get her to say yes even though both of them know that is not the case at all. He appreciates that she is not attempting to make him feel his feelings or worse yet, to have to perform his feelings to her because it is difficult enough for him to keep himself together in order to be able to do what he needs to be able to do as it is. If there is one thing he appreciates about Weir, it is that she is as emotionally stunted as he is and hence undemanding in that regard.

What is amusing here is that his response to her, although he seems to bounce on his step in his excitement to get back to what he was doing, actually looks almost like he curtsies to her. Another thing to note, as he leaves her, is that he again goes on the side of her back. It takes more effort from him, a whole extra step, to make sure that he has his back turned toward her as he passes her where for McKay he does the opposite, he usually draws his shoulder back to not have his own damn body parts make any kind of a barrier between them. He takes effort to have his body turned toward McKay at all times, and he makes effort to do the opposite to Weir, and that is a thing that keeps recurring.

Continued in Pt. 7

[snootlestheangel]

I love standing there talking to my manager and just having the worst coughing fit and she's like "please don't die"

It's gotten to the point cough drops aren't really helping so that's fun

Only 3 hours left and I can go home and sleep

[aidenwaites]

It's been four years and they're not together anymore thank god so I can finally talk about that time, summer of 2020, one of my friends was dating our other friend's ex, he lived an hour away and neither of them had a car so I was making twice weekly drives out there for all of us to hang out together, I spent two weeks on zero rest because I was babysitting my grandma's dog and she + the faulty fire alarm system in the neighbor's house wouldn't let me sleep, I was getting constantly dragged into this couple's arguments while the rest of our friend group is complaining about what an asshole Friend 1 has become since he started talking to this girl, I'm playing therapist and number one confidante for both him and the girlfriend at this point,

one day I go over to her house (not a great situation I knew this) and there was a bowl of macaroni on the stove that fully had maggots in it (I cleaned this up) (in way over my head), worst day of my life comes up where I'm with the couple and I take them to get food, and then I can't go into my own house to hang out to eat because my stepmom is cleaning and doesn't want me to, so we go to a park and sit in a gazebo while it's raining,

they get into the worst argument I've ever witnessed them get into (in which the guy brings up the crush he had on me in high school, for some fucking reason), I walk away, I come back and he's telling me he wants me to go to Walmart, I piece together that he wants to go FIGHT my EX-COWORKER because I invited the guy to a dnd game and he said something maybe flirty to the girl (didn't know she was dating anyone) (backed off after she said something / she told me she hadn't been made uncomfortable), I say I'm not doing that, and no you are not walking home, I'm driving them to the gas station for reasons I don't remember when he's in the backseat talking about how girls don't know when guys want to have sex with them and calls me "dense" to my face as if thats a normal thing to say to a person who's done a hell of a lot for you in the past six months,

This all culminates in an argument over a discord call in which I finally call him on some of his shit and end things, go into another call with some of our other mutual friends, say "Man I feel like I just dumped someone in a toxic relationship or something" and proceed to get told by my most aware friend, who'd been waiting for this moment for those six months, "you kinda did"

[celestialrealms]

it's me. i'm barbatos's little fairy 😳🏳️‍🌈

[hakuryuu]

could an emotionally unstable person do THIS *crying over my slice of life comfort cooking manga*

[keyofjetwolf]

Just finished my second mitten of Midge's second pair for the season (still need to weave in and make the connection cord, but the mitten itself is done). At near the same moment, finished my latest book (Apples Never Fall, for the curious). Hard to get a more conclusive punctuation mark on the day, and so I take the universe's hint.

[mecharose]

its rainy and its sunday this is soooo the type of day to curl up in ur room and recover from the world but alas. places to be

[paarthursass]

still waiting for javascript to be enabled for the sideblog but tentatively saying that @razumdars is where you will now find my rpg ramblings. follow me there for bg3, vtmb, dragon age, pathfinder, etc.

[untoterxhund]

still waiting for this plant to call me back 'bout the interview and such since they're 'desperate for workers' 'n such but tbh i've already heard this sob-story before w/ other places and some of these places honestly don't seem like they want workers or the help- anyhoo, my weekly apology for the lack of activity. i don't wanna do/start anything here yet until i've got my whole situation figured out and hopefully solidified. mentally, just now in the writing mood and haven't been for months due to things that are/were out of my control.

i've seen too many posts online about boomers complaining that 'people don't want to work anymore because of covid', i haven't been handing out resumes daily for a year (even repeating places that i've even handed out to 2-3 times) just for some out of touch dinosaur to hand out some random false statement and call me lazy 'for not looking hard enough' or 'taking opportunities that bite'. i've got 13 years work experience and i'm just about done doing hard-labor for jobs that make me work 14 hour shifts for minimum wage :/ and still have management act like nothing was being done (doesn't help if you just sat in the office of the factory and watched netflix and complained about it being too cold [in a hot, 35-40c/95f plant btw] and not listen to the machine-operators about their warnings of the machine breaking down or gradually working lower than the standard it was made for THUS eventually breaking down after pieces of the expensive-ass machine finally and physically break due to poor, unprofessional maintenance and then blame the machine operators for and I quote 'not doing a single damn thing since the day we hired you')

ps: also if people are complaining about no one wanting to apply/reapply for your business, there's something wrong with you and your workplace, not the poor soul trying to recover financially :p

[iceyrukia]

the only porn brain rotted person here is the op who saw some very carefully wrapped tamales by their own grandmother and thought “ haha just like in bdsm amirte guys 😂”

[ansburg]

ICYMI john oliver did a great segment on solitary confinement and i highly recommend it

[werewolfetone]

Wonder if anyone who said this knew that in the 1810s people 100% unironically thought that Patrick Duigenan was going to do this irl

[sarcoptid]

@ scientists please invent an international pet teleportation service rn immediately