#vague-er with fewer details

[apocalypticdemon]

thank you for the tag, @clandestinegardenias!

rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have wips.

I have also elected to list only my WIPs for The Terror; I have one or two for other fandoms, but they are unfortunately languishing on the back burner while I figure out what I'm doing with them. I'm also actively planning/working on these, rather than the others, which are just... in storage, basically, to dust off for later.

without further ado!

the droning engine throbs (in time with your beating heart)

2. underneath the waves you were most alone

3. the once and forever bloom gone

4. is this a better way to spend the day (keeping the winter at bay)

5. never so much blood pulled through my veins

no-pressure tags: @sunlaire, @imwritesometimes

[oblivionbladetd]

The Unfortunate implications of basically all of Lily's work: 99 tabs of tvtropes and a wiki.

This one's a doozy, but I'll be damned if it's not one that needs covered. As anyone who's taken a critical look at the infamous list of 100 tips could tell you, it's full of tvtropes jargon. While it will take a while to explain in full why this is awful, a shorthand exists that sums it up, "putting the cart before the horses." As in you shouldn't be pre-planning tropes at all, for like the concept of genre, it is often ascribed to the work in post. Though even that explanation is a little too economic, so as always, check under the cut for more.

I think a practical demonstration is in order, so let me set a stage. Superman has just recovered from being thrown through a wall by Darkseid, roughs him up until they are outside, talks about how dainty the world feels to him, and assesses Darkseid is capable of not dying to Supermans 'normal' and badda boom badda Bing, the codifying moment for The World of Cardboard Speech! Sure, there's literal seasons of context missing, and it notably doesn't include the ensuing beat down and subsequently bamboozling of Supe. Just him saying world made of Cardboard and presumably having the chops to deliver.

There in lies the crux of the issue. You always lose something when you boil down to tropes. As with the above example, all the little details on what makes the moment so iconic, recontextualizing the seasons of willful weakness, the implications that Superman is still not going all out and is just 'cutting loose' for the first time, none of that actually matters to the trope in a vacuum. Not to mention, one could easily break the world of cardboard speech into even more tropes or let it be absorbed into bigger, vague-er tropes.

Tropes have their place in making larger concepts more digestible and give valuable perspective in how and why these tropes crop up, but it's necessary to remember that even simple characters can embody dozens upon dozens of individual tropes! To a point that indeed trying to think about a character by just their tropes becomes an effort in arbitrarity, if not futility. Tropes are trends other people find in a work and decide to break down into small digestible chunks. Less a bible and more a smattering of quotes loosely bound together. If you are writing in accordance with tropes, you are almost inevitably trying to churn out a finished product first try, for you aren't making organic characters and scenarios, you're ticking boxes on a list. Making a personal experience impersonal. Never write with Tvtropes open.

This leads us to the equally important, but needing far fewer explanations, wiki's. Most commonly referred to as info dumping grounds for the fandoms they are built for. While being easier to sum up than tropes, it has the same glaring issue in that it rarely paints the full picture as its purpose is to speak the facts of the matter rather than live in the moment. Goes without saying that, especially as a creator, it is all too easy to pack it full with worthless knowledge and call that exercise in procrastination somehow productive.

That's when it hit me, and I knew I needed to sit down and say it. Lily has wiki's for her fanfics and tvtropes pages for them as well. The Pokemadhouse wiki, we have confirmation that she's actually did write it. The rest are only suspected, as unlike Lily, I have too much integrity to boldfacedly lie even when I'm probably right. Though enough being petty, for it hit me really hard in one key way in that creators are most certainly NOT supposed to be writing these pages, and the fact she has leaves open some unfortunate implications.

Firstly, if we are to assume that these exist as reference for Lily, that's an ill omen. It frames her work in the light of a dispassionate data keeper, for no amount of tropes will encompass a properly rounded character, along with forever fattening a public wiki page implies viewing every detail as necessary and that will be addressed in a future comic. Hell, even if Lily wasn't subject to the skewed priorities that the websites can encourage... it's still leaving your notes in a public space made for people to read. You aren't allowed to be mad that people say shit about it. Your computer came with the Notepad app.

On the flip side, the more likely explanation is vanity. It is in truth that having a tvtropes page and / or a wiki dedicated to your work is actually a huge honor, a golden glittering beacon of fan engagement as they compare notes and keep their facts straight. The fact that her tvtropes and wiki's are self authored as an attempt to fluff her ego or make her one of the big shots of the fandom world is as hilarious as it is utterly pathetic. And it is pathetic. It paints a picture of fanatical control of what people think and / or simply not being able to drum up enough fan engagement that anyone considers wiki tending worth the effort. It's literally a scam! "Look! this fic has wiki's and tvtropes pages it must be good!" Don't make me laugh. It's a chest full of medals of honor that all suspiciously look like glazed clay secured to dollar store ribbons with crazy glue.

With all that said, it really boggles my brain that people excuse the allegations leveled against Lily. Half-baked contrarian critiques and fanfiction's so unengaging that she has to manufacture the engagement herself? That's more than enough to just ignore all the real hurt she's caused to real people? The tales of Brittany, Courtney, Sunny, and Lizzy are meaningless under the ultimate creative potential of somebody who can't even both change the cadence of her voice when she's playing with her sock puppets? That somebody operates with this prolific combination of cluelessness and Vanity is just above consequences? You have to be fucking kidding me. This is why I'll be poking holes in her work. It's not that good, and definitely not on any level where anybody should avoid at least acknowledging all the awful she both has done and still perpetuates.

Pokemadhouse is nowhere near good enough, along with the things Lily is accused of being so heinous that i do hate to imagine anyone could look at Lily typing this in reference to a fictional caricature of her wife

And be anything less than deeply concerned.

[thedwarrowscholar]

Hello! First of all, I wanted to thank you for all the effort you put in your work, which never stops to be an incredible help!

My question was: what's the difference between a normal word and its professional form? For example: "builder (person form)" is "uzhar", but its professional form is "Zaharâl" translated as "he who is a builder". When should I use one or the other?

Thanks in advance, have a good day!

Hi there! Thank you for that question. To be honest, I was surprised I had never covered this before, nor published any article on this. I could have sworn it was one of the seventy+ documents on the site, sadly seems not. Not to worry though, happy to explain in detail. I must start by saying that the current English translation of these two forms "he/she who is... " or "...-er" isn't ideal, but seeing English makes no distinction between these two types it is what I thought was most clear at the time. Answering your questions, in simple terms, the professional form, for instance "Zaharâl", is used when the subject in question is indeed a builder professionally. Meaning a Zaharâl is one who is hired and paid to build. While the normal agent noun "uzhar" is one who builds (regardless of the fact of any payment or hiring is involved). In most cases, with the concept of professions in mind, the distinction will be clear directly. For instance "singer" could be "ukmath" or "kamathâl" (the first sings a leisurely song while on his way to work in the mine, while the latter sings in the Dwarvish Opera expecting payment after).

Speaking of Dwarvish singers, a shameless plug for my own Dwarvish tavern song (link to the song here) In other cases, one might think that, one should always use the professional form, seeing that people don't build for a hobby, for instance. Well, not really, sadly it's a bit more complicated. So, some more information on the usage of the agent-noun vs professional form: Khazâd tâtîn uzhur 'Urd'êk (The Dwarves were the builders of Halls of Erebor) Uzhur ("(the) builders of") - as you can see, we use a form of the agent noun here, not the professional form. Seeing that the noun this refers to is "(the) Dwarves", the entire race. Doubtless more than one professional builder dwarf was involved in the building of the Halls of Erebor, but in this case we refer to the race of the Dwarves and seeing that not all of these are professional builders, we can't use the professional form here.

The Halls of Erebor by Inias Schoutteet As such, depending on what type of form you use, you can convey more information in Dwarvish than one could in English, using fewer words, an example of this: U'zâgh zakafôn 'uzghu! (The warriors have won the battle!) Here we use "u'zâgh" (the agent-noun) and not "'azughâl" (the professional-form). By using "u'zâgh" were are in fact conveying that those warriors were comprised of at least some non-professional warriors. In case we had used "'azughâl" we would have indicated that the troops that won the battle were all professional warriors. As such, Neo-Khuzdul is a very definite language in which words are often less vague than their English counter parts. Another example of this definiteness is the English "your", which has no less than twelve counter parts in Neo-Khuzdul (depending on gender, plurality and politeness). Hoping that answers your question. Ever at your service, The Dwarrow Scholar

[pemfrost]

Can you please write a Spideynova with jealous Sam? :)

I’m not sure if this 100% counts, but I tried :D  (I didn’t edit, sorry for any typos. I’ll fix ‘er up before I post to AO3)

 

Sam's head fell against his open biology book and for once he was thankful for how thick the damn thing was. It was almost midnight, and instead of relaxing -or god forbid, sleeping- he was cramming for a final. It was the unglamorous part of being a superhero while also being a high school student. Yea, getting out of a boring lecture to save lives was great and all, but it added up. And it added up quickly. 

"Can we just call it a night?" His voice was muffled by the book, but he knew Peter would understand well enough. 

Originally, they all studied as a team. Or, tried to. Sam was absolutely fine with how things shook out after Ava stormed out on one session. Now, they took turns rotating to study in smaller groups. It was easier for Sam to focus this way, with fewer distractions. And fewer arguments over the appropriate amount of non-school conversations. 

Sam enjoyed studying with everyone; Ava made him actually study, Luke helped give him a new perspective, Danny helped him relax, and Peter gave him a reason to want to succeed. Every time Sam would wonder why he bothered with school, he thought about Peter. Sure, Sam could easily be successful with the Guardians, no stupid Biology final needed. No need to graduate. Just him, his helmet, and a universe at his fingertips. 

And then there was Peter. Loathe as he was to admit it, there was something special about Peter, something Sam had yet to find the words to describe. Perhaps Danny could help him when they studied for their English final. 

“Take the practice test. Pass it, and then we’ll call it a night.” Peter dropped a small pile of papers on Sam’s head. 

Sam groaned and brushed the papers off him without lifting his head. “I'm serious, I’m done.”

“What can I do to convince you? You need to pass this final, unless you wanna retake it…” 

There was a teasing lilt to Peter’s voice that made Sam roll his head to this side to see him. The dark circles under Peter’s eyes betrayed his own exhaustion, but his eyes sparked with mischief, like he was daring Sam to make some ridiculous request. Like taking a video game break. Or make a frozen pizza- he’d spied one in Peter’s freezer earlier. 

Or, a kiss. 

Yes, a kiss would convince him to take the practice test. A kiss. From Peter. A kiss. From Peter.

Peter rolled his eyes when Sam didn’t respond, and Sam was thankful his super power wasn’t reading mind- though, it would make it easier to actually tell Peter. Instead, he was laying on his book, looking to Peter like he was so disinterested he couldn’t even make a joke for the sake of breaking up the monotony of studying. 

“I’m grabbing a drink,” Peter stood from the table without looking back to Sam. 

“Ugh.” Sam pulled himself up and stretched his stiff back. It was utterly helpless. He was putting so much effort towards a future on Earth just because of Peter- and he had no way of knowing if a future on Earth would include Peter. At least, include him in a way that mattered. 

Okay, he could do this. He could tell Peter. Ask Peter. Make all of this work mean something more than the promise of a possibility. And he was certain he wasn’t imagining the looks Peter gave him when he thought no one was looking. 

Sam sighed and scooted over to sit at Peter’s seat. His notes were so much more organized, rivaling Ava’s in their detail. He kept his ears trained towards the kitchen, no way he was going to let Peter catch him using his notes, not after their earlier argument over Sam’s own poor note taking. 

As he was rereading Peter’s meticulous notes on meiosis for the third time, Peter’s phone lit up next to him. Huh. Usually Peter took his phone everywhere, he wasn’t one to leave it lay around where anyone could, you know, glance at an incoming message. 

Sam didn’t mean to look, but he was caught off guard, and his eyes jumped to the screen on reflex. And if they lingered on the screen as more messages came in? Well, no one ever accused him of having tact. 

♡♡♡: Still up?

♡♡♡ :Thinking about you ;)

♡♡♡: Miss you! 

The room tilted as the screen faded back to black. Sam was certain time was frozen, or sped up, or maybe it just didn’t exist at all and was just made up. Made up like the glances he swore Peter was giving him. Made up like stupid bubble of hope he’d let form around him. 

“Sam!” Peter laughed as he entered the room again. “Do you want me to make you a copy? I told you my notes were so much better than yours.”

“Whatever.” Sam grit his teeth and refused to look at Peter as he began shoveling his own notes and book into his bag. What was the point of studying, anyway? He clearly had no chance of being on Peter’s romantic radar. 

“Whoa. What’s the rush?” 

“Nothing. I told you I was done.” Oh, he was so done. So, so, so, done. 

“You’re ridiculous. If you fail the final-”

“Maybe I won’t bother taking it.” Sam was numb, his mind repeating the three messages over and over. Who was it? Who had Peter’s love? What did they have that Sam didn’t? 

“The hell, Sam?” Peter raised his voice slightly, still mindful of Aunt May sleeping upstairs. 

“Look,” Sam said without any emotion, “I can’t keep… doing this.” He gestured vaguely. 

“Look, we don’t have to keep studying tonight. We can do a quick cram tomorrow before-” 

“No, Peter.”

Peter stepped to block Sam’s retreat. “What happened? I thought-”

“Well, don’t think.” He glared up at Peter, but couldn’t put any real heat behind it. Peter didn’t do anything wrong, not really. The only person to blame was himself for falling for a teammate. 

“What is with you all of a sudden?” Peter’s concern was written all over his face, and it was a punch in the gut. Peter was worried about him, as a friend.

Is that all they would be, then? Friends? But then, what sort of friend was dating someone and didn’t tell his friend? They were friends, right? Right?

“Sam?” 

“What are we, Peter?” 

Peter jerked back, “What?”

“Forget it.” Sam could feel heat rising up his neck and he refused to meet Peter’s eyes. 

“No, what do you mean?” 

“I-” Sam bit his tongue, it had betrayed him enough for one night. 

“We’re… friend’s? Teammates at least.”

“Least. Because friends don’t keep secrets.” Sam tried to shoulder his way past Peter, but a strong hand on his shoulder held him back. “Let go.”

“So, what? Because I want you to study, we're not friends now?” 

“No,” Sam ground out. “We’re not friends because you’re dating someone and didn’t think it was worth sharing with me. Like friends do.” 

“I- What?” Peter stammered and the damn hand left his shoulder. Even so, Sam could still feel the warmth lingering where Peter touched. “I’m- I did!” 

Sam stared. Peter stared back. 

“I told you. When we were getting ice cream with MJ and Harry…”

Oh. Sam looked away, his cheeks warm. He remembered the day, a few weeks ago, remembered staring at Peter as he ate his cone, and nodding along without actually hearing- yea, Sam remembered. 

“Sam? S-seriously?” 

“Gah! Forget it, already.” 

For once, Peter listened, letting him leave without any more questions or comments. What was there to say? Anything more and they would officially be in territory Sam was wholly uncomfortable with traversing. Anything more would carry the possibility of doing permanent damage to their friendship. As it stood, their conversation could be swept under the proverbial rug as a late night blip fueled by studying for too many hours without a break. 

When he got back to his room, Sam fell against his closed door and focused on breathing. Peter was dating someone, and that someone was not Sam. Probably never would be. He was not okay with that. 

Despite that, he pulled out his notes and gave them one another read before he passed out on the floor. 

-

Thanks for reading!

[beck-a-leck]

For the AU ficlets, I come begging for more shameless indulgence: Dr. Trent x Pastor Carter 48. meeting again at a high school reunion au 🥺

I live to provide all of the shameless indulgence in tumblr prompt form!

Have a little high school reunion Trent and Carter in a slightly modern-ish AU, maybe perhaps just some pre-moving to Mineral Town AU.

Enjoy!

Ficlet AU Prompts

Trent sighed for what had probably been the tenth time in as many minutes as he carefully smoothed the adhesive nametag over his right breast pocket. The woman who had been handing out nametags at the reception table had looked vaguely familiar, but Trent hadn't recognized her last name. Then again, she had most likely gotten married over the last ten years if the ring on her finger and the swell of her belly indicated anything. On the other hand, he was at his high school reunion – the likelihood that people were lying to try and impress their former classmates or save face was higher than normal social situations. He joined the small throng of people who were shuffling into the hotel ballroom. The same place, supposedly, that had held their senior prom. He hadn't gone, he wouldn't know.

He scanned the dimly lit room, half looking for any familiar faces, half looking for the promised bar. He saw the bar at the far side, across the dance floor where a few people rocked and swayed to last decade's top hits under the lights of a disco ball, past the extensive display of posters and pictures of their high school years. Faces taken from the yearbook, group and club shots, those silly little 'elections' they'd done, most likely to succeed, prom king and queen, et cetera, and then somber in memoriam of former classmates who hadn't made it to their tenth reunion.

Trent sighed as he scanned the poster for any faces he recognized, there weren't many, fortunately, but he still felt a twinge of sadness at those who were there. With an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach, Trent recognized the name and face of a former patient, a car crash victim that had come through the ER while he had been doing his residency.

Trent pulled his eye onto the next poster; someone had kept a mint condition program from their high school graduation and had tacked it up with a collection of photos of classmates in their caps and gowns. Trent had gone to a large suburban school, his graduating class had counted nearly 500 students – by his best estimate of people in the ballroom now and nametags left on the table, less than half had deigned to come to their reunion. Actually, Trent had thought fewer people would come. With people flung far and wide across the globe in their adulthood, high school reunions weren't really the local events they had been ages past. With modern communication people who wanted to keep in touch with each other were already in touch, and life updates were easy to keep up with.

Hell, Trent hadn't even wanted to come to the reunion, not really. When he got the invitation, he half filled out the RSVP email out of curiosity, decided against it, had to go take care of a patient, and then forgot about the invitation until he opened his email again and accidentally sent off a half-finished response to the organizers. By the time they emailed him back, asking for the rest of the necessary details and if he had any desire to contribute old photographs or help organize, it felt impolite to refuse the invitation.

Trent made his way to the bar, grabbed a beer, and not feeling in any particular mood to dance by himself, wandered back over to the collage of pictures. He scanned them, looking for familiar faces. He hadn't sent in any of his own, so he didn't expect to find his face in the candid snapshots of laughing friends. But he found his yearbook photo, stiff toothless grin, unenthused and too thin and pimply and his hair cut unflatteringly in a style that was popular back then, and already too stressed out not knowing what was to come though undergrad and then med school. Trent laughed ruefully at this photo of his younger mug, looking just as awkward and ungainly as the classmates surrounding him. They'd all felt so grown back then, seventeen or eighteen, and on the cusp of true adulthood, looking back, even just ten years later, they all looked like kids. Goddess knew what Trent would think of this photo in another ten or twenty years.

He scanned the group pictures, knowing he would be in a few of the club photos. There, science club, hiding in the back row with the other taller boys, and math club, the very small Asian-American club. Enough extra curriculars to round out his resume and look impressive, but still leave him plenty of time to dedicate to his studies. No sports teams, Trent had never been very athletic. His stomach gave a weak lurch when he saw the varsity football team, the quarterback had been Trent's first crush on a boy, but then again half the school was swooning over the quarterback so he wasn’t alone. Unfortunately for Trent and most of the school, Travis had dated the same girl from freshman through senior year, so the crush had stayed a crush. Then there, in the debate club was Emily, the first girl Trent had dated. They'd been together for six whole months sophomore year.

He scanned the photos one last time, smiling despite the painfully embarrassing recollection of his most awkward years. There was a photo of his homeroom class, in matching t-shirts they'd made for their last week of school. He scanned the faces and tried to recall their names and found that he couldn't confidently place half of them. The last time he'd spoken to most of those kids was the last day of school. He wondered if any of them had also come to the reunion.

Another body stepped up to the photo board, Trent shot the newcomer a sidelong glance. He held a cup of punch in his hands, he was wearing a black suit, his sandy brown hair was cut short, he was clean shaven, and – Trent felt another swoop in his stomach – quite handsome in an everyman sort of way.

The man grinned at Trent. "Goddess look at us, we were just kids back then, weren't we?"

"Yeah." Trent took a sip of his beer. "Find yourself in any pictures?"

"Oh. I actively avoided any group activities in school, and I didn't bother with school pictures. But I think there was one I couldn't avoid; it was one of the days I actually bothered to show up. There." He pointed to Trent's homeroom group picture. There was mirth in his voice as he pointed, "There I am, the scowling one."

"That was my homeroom..." Trent did a double take between the sullen teenager with shaggy hair that had been dyed black, with a number of piercings and a couple tattoos peeking out from under his t-shirt sleeves, and the clean cut, easily smiling man with shining eyes, standing next to him sipping punch. He hadn't been wrong; he'd barely attended school enough to avoid getting held back or suspended. He'd had no friends that Trent knew of, had been, as Trent's father liked to loudly complain about, a 'no good shit kicking gutter punk.' And it was probably only because he had stood out like that in Trent's memory that the man's name came back to him.

"Carter?"

Carter's grin widened, "One and the same. Trent, right? I haven't forgotten everyone, have I?"

"No, you've got it." Trent offered his hand, and they shook. Carter’s hands were warm, slightly calloused. "How have you been? What have you been up to?"

“Oh, all kinds of things. Last ten years have been full of change for both of us, I imagine.” They stepped away from the photo boards to take a seat at a table. Carter’s eyes swept over Trent. “Let me guess, you went to med school, became a doctor, didn’t you?”

Trent’s eyes widened, why would Carter remember something so small like his projected career path from high school? “Yeah. How did you know?”

“It’s on your nametag.” Carter laughed.

“Oh, right.” Trent’s cheeks grew a little warm. He’d forgotten that nametags included professional titles, if acquired. And Trent didn’t go through eight years of medical education to not be called Doctor. He took another sip of beer before asking. “What about you? What are you up to?”

“Would you believe I’m in the seminary right now?” Carter laughed and took a drink. “I don’t think anyone who knew me back in school ever expected the angry, goth, near-dropout would end up becoming a priest, but here I am.”

The laugh lines were deeper on Carter’s face than most of their classmates. The wrinkles by his eyes were a little more pronounced. There were hints of past gauntness, a hollowness that was beginning to fill out. He’d been prematurely aged, looking older than their twenty-eight years. Trent suspected that Carter’s last decade hadn’t been as easy as it had for a lot of their peers. He’d seen a lot of faces come through the ER, aged prematurely by one substance or another.

“A priest? How did that happen?”

“Oh, a little of luck, a little divine intervention, and a lot of therapy.” He laughed again. Trent really liked the sound of that warm, easy laugh. “I didn’t exactly join up right after graduation, really it’s a recent development.”

They spent almost the entire evening sitting at that table, taking turns getting fresh rounds from the bar. They mingled with other classmates, making polite if mildly awkward small talk. Trent heard “wow, a doctor!” more times than he cared to count. But at the end of the night as he got into his car, he thought fondly that tonight wasn’t a complete waste of a Saturday. He left with Carter’s number and a plan to get lunch together on his next day off.

[trentteti]

Predictions for the October 2019 LSAT

The October 28th LSAT — obviously the spookiest LSAT, given its proximity to Halloween — is nigh. And that means it’s time once again for Most Strongly Supported’s LSAT prognosticator to play a little seasonally appropriate dress up; today, our in-house prognosticator will don his fortune teller costume, dust off his crystal ball, shuffle his tarot cards, do whatever it is one does with tea leaves before reading them, and predict what’s going to be on the upcoming LSAT.

But, to be honest, it’s kind of hard to get into this holiday spirit. It feels like just yesterday we predicted what’s going to be on the September LSAT. The prediction game isn’t like it used to be in the days of yore (er … a few years ago) when there were only four LSATs each year. With the current schedule of LSATs, the crystal ball barely has any time to get dusty before we must take it out and divine what will be on the test. And the frequency with which we must make these predictions ties into the most important prediction this post will make: will LSAC unveil a brand-new, never-before-seen exam on October 28, or will they simply reuse an old exam?

Now, with disclosed exams like September’s, LSAC will definitely make and release a new exam. And on the old schedule, when there was only one “nondisclosed” (or unreleased) exam in February, they would even make new exams in February to hold onto (in case they had to issue a make-up exam to some test takers who experienced a test center irregularity, or to use for exams given to international or Sabbath-observing test takers). But since LSAC increased the number of LSAT administrations twofold, it’s started to reuse some exams, at least for now. It did so in July of 2018, in fact, after making the unexpected announcement that it would be holding a July exam for the first time ever. And many speculate that one reason that LSAC re-issued limitations on the number of exams people could take was because LSAT wants to reuse exams. By limiting the number of tests people could take, the reasoning goes, LSAC will limit the number of people who might see the same exam in multiple test administrations.

Why would LSAC reuse an old exam, you (presumably) ask? Well, it takes a lot of money and man-power and time to write a single LSAT. Even if LSAC had the coin to hire the extra test writers needed to pump out twice the number of LSATs (and, since the expanded LSAT schedule hasn’t yet led to a concomitant increase in test takers, that doesn’t seem to be the case), they’d still need to subject the new questions to the rigorous process of testing the fairness of these questions through the experimental sections of real exams. While more test administrations means more experimental sections and thus more opportunities to test questions for bias, these first few years of an expanded LSAT schedule will almost certainly include a few reheated old exams, either from past February, international, or Sabbath LSATs.

So, will this October LSAT be a reused exam? Well … [adjusting the problematic feathered turban our prognosticator is donning as part of his fortune teller costume] … we think so. Full disclosure: we predicted the same thing last March and were wrong. But if they’re going to continue to reuse old exams, this October exam is their last opportunity to do so in 2019, since the disclosed November exam will definitely be new. So we think they’re going to rehash an old exam — perhaps an old February exam but, more likely, an old international or Sabbath-observing exam. They’ll probably use a recent exam, but not something too recent — they don’t want October test takers to have seen this test before. So we’re thinking they’re going to take an exam from the 2013-2016 period.

So what should you do with this information? Well, you could scour the internet for information on all these exams to guide your studies. But if you do that, you’ll find, at most, vague descriptions of the subject matter of the games and passages. You won’t find anything about what kinds of games they were, and not anything about the questions they asked. And you won’t find anything useful with respect to the Logical Reasoning section. LSAC keeps this information under pretty-strict lock and key, and sends some strongly worded messages to loose-lipped internet sources.

Instead you’re probably better off relying on what we know about the released exams from that era. In Logical Reasoning, this era saw the birth of Big Strengthen — Strengthen questions became the most prevalent question type during this time period, with tests regularly featuring nine, ten, or even eleven Strengthen questions. We saw a more balanced Characterization family section during this era — there were on average more Role and Describe questions, and fewer Disagree questions, than there are now. Flaw questions, however, dominated this family then, as they do now, with between six and nine of Flaw questions per test. And the Implication family wasn’t quite the rotting pumpkin it is now — there were a few more Must Be True, Soft Must Be True, and Must Be False questions, on average, in this era.

In Logic Games, this was the era of unstable grouping games — games in which you had to assign players into one of several groups, but the sizes of those groups are left undetermined. Those appeared on over 80% of the exams from this era, so I’d definitely expect one to show up if they reuse an old exam from that period. Basic ordering games, which showed up on 100% of the tests from this era, and tiered ordering games, which showed up on 75% of the tests, will also likely show up. Other than these three games, there were no other game types that were regular fixtures of the era, which makes predicting the last game a little difficult. So we’ll go out on a limb and say the last game will be an overbooked ordering game — one in which there are more players than spaces to put those players. Our prognosticator would be derelict in his duties, however, if he forgot to mention that there was the occasional oddball game during this era as well — such as the workstations game from June 2014, the computer virus game from September 2016, or the trading building games from December 2016.

Reading Comp was quite predictable in this era, too — you’ll be getting passages on the law, on the physical sciences, on some social science, and on the arts, in all likelihood. These passages were also predictably difficult as well. We wish you well.

Or, perhaps best of all, you can note our predictions, but trust that no matter what the October LSAT features, whether it’s an old exam or a new exam, it’ll test the same skills that every LSAT tests. If you can diagram conditional statements, break down and translate arguments, and identify common fallacies, you’ll handle your business on Logical Reasoning. If you can consistently identify the game type, make an organized set-up, and find ways to construct helpful scenarios, you’ll clean up on Logic Games. And if you can notate the structure of the passage, discern the author’s attitude, and highlight the important details, you can survive Reading Comp. If you have this skills nailed down, the October test doesn’t need to be so scary at all.

Predictions for the October 2019 LSAT was originally published on Blueprint LSAT Blog

[marymosley]

The Era of E-Minutes

INTRODUCTION

Minute taking is a very significant function in an organization. People frequently find themselves called upon to take the minutes of a meeting, with little guidance on how one is expected to produce a precise record of what happened.Ambiguous agreements, a vague agenda, interruptions and a poor chairman are just some of the factors that can make this a daunting task.

The position of a minute taker can vary in different organizations. The basic understanding is that it involves attending the meeting, taking the notes and then typing up the final minutes of the meeting. Although, these activities are the key part of the role of a minute taker, there are many other tasks which may fall under the purview of the same. Many of these will associate it with the administrative tasks to be carried out before, during and after the meeting. To be a successful minute taker, it is required to have a professional approach and the application of a broad range of skills.

Taking minutes is more as an art than as a science. The major issue at stake here is not so much the taking of minutes but what is done after that to ensure accuracy and security. Prompt drafting and delivery is crucial. The agenda items are written in advance and any presentations that are going to be seen by the board can be included. Only the actual discussion forming part of the meeting needs to be recorded later. This preparation of lot of materials ahead of time helps the job of getting the minutes drafted in a much easier way.

The overall purpose of minutes is to preserve an accurate and official record of decisions made and actions taken. As such, minutes are direct prima facie evidence that a meeting was held, who attended and what happened in the meeting. A number of legal requirements and concepts support this overall purpose.

Best practices will include having relevant members of management comment on the first draft. In most organizations, it becomes very apparent who makes clarity-enhancing comments to minutes and who is just editing for style. Clarity comments are more acceptable while style comments can be rejected in a major proportion. His is especially important in order to ensure that the minutes remain consistent from meeting to meeting.

Use the three fundamentals of “Accurate”, “Accessible” and “All the Same” when you prepare minutes. You will have a strong foundation of practice and good process if your minutes ever come into question. Your board and management will appreciate how easy the minutes are to read and understand. Most importantly, you will make your own life easier, because research is simpler when resources are short, clear and stand out on the page. Similarly, comments are fewer when language is clear and precise.

  WHAT ARE THE MINUTES

Minutes of a meeting are the documented evidence of the business transacted at a particular meeting and of the decisions reached. They are the permanent record of the proceedings in a particular meeting. Good minute taking is a fairly difficult and a time consuming task. It is far more than just an administrative task. Although, there is no statutory format for writing minutes of a meeting, minutes should be explicit, brief and unambiguity. All relevant dates and figures should be stated and should not be left ill-defined. Minutes must be impartial. Minutes should not be altered, except to correct grammatical errors. This should be done before the signature, with the alterations being initiated by the Chairman. Once signed, minutes shall not be altered and any subsequent revisions should be dealt with by amending minutes at a subsequent meeting.

  THE PURPOSE OF MINUTE TAKING

The objective of minute taking is to provide an explicit, unbiased and balanced internal record of the business transacted at a meeting. The degree of detail recorded will depend, to a large extent, on the needs of the organization, the sector in which it operates the requirements of any regulator and the working practices of the chairman, the board and the corporate secretary. At a minimum, minutes should include the key points of discussion, decisions made and, where appropriate, the reasons for them and the agreed actions, including a record of any delegated authority to act on behalf of the company. Distortion, ambiguity and reinterpretation can often occur when only memory is relied upon and this is the reason why a professional approach is required to be taken in the production of minutes.

Minutes must be:

·        Objective

·        Clear

·        Concise

·        Complete

  Minutes should be written:

·        Impersonally

·        In the Past Tense

  Minutes should contain:

·        The name of the Company

·        The type of the meeting

·        The day and place of the meeting

·        Those present or in attendance

·        Relevant details of discussion

·        The full terms of resolution adopted, etc.

  AN EFFECTIVE MINUTE TAKER

The qualities of a good minute taker include:

·        Listening to multiple voices at the same time and capturing both their arguments and their tone.

·        Summarizing an argument accurately and recording decisions taken and action points on which to follow up.

·        Identifying which parts of the discussion are material and which should be recorded.

·        Having the confidence to ask the clarification.

·        Having the confidence to stand firm when someone asks them to deviate from what they believe to be an accurate record.

  THE WRITING STYLE

Minutes need to be written in such a way that someone who was not present at the meeting can follow the decisions made in the meeting. Minutes can also form part of an external audit and a regulatory view, and may also be used in legal proceedings. While writing minutes, it is significant to keep in mind that a formal, permanent record is being created, which will comprise part of the ��Corporate Memory’. Minutes should give an unbiased, balanced, clear and objective record of the meetings, but they should also be reasonably precise. The importance of accuracy should not be underestimated, as the minutes of a meeting become the definitive record of what happened at that meeting and who attended. Court will rely on them as being conclusive evidence unless proved otherwise. The way how minutes are written will be a matter of style and practice for the organization.

Historically, the convention has been that:

·        Minutes should be written in past tense and in the conditional mood for future actions, i.e., would and should, rather than will and shall.

·        The board/committee has the collective responsibility for its decisions; so, naming the individuals should be avoided wherever possible, although there is no such specific rule.

·        Minutes should be sequentially numbered for ease of reference.

  USE OF TECHNOLOGY FOR MANAGING MINUTES

The process of taking minutes varies a lot from company to company. Some Company Secretaries make extensive use of technology to manage the minutes and treat them similarly to other corporate records. Others simply keep the minutes in hard copy under lock and key. Latter approach is still the most common, but it is starting to change as the problems inherent with hardcopy become more obvious and as demands for information increase.

While using technology for managing minutes, the following principles may be noted:

·     All materials provided to the board/committee for information or consideration should be collected and retained by the Company Secretary. They should be stored and protected in a manner that deters tampering.

·    Meeting briefing materials, meeting presentations, monthly operating updates and similar materials should be preserved with details.

·       Objective of the management should be to ensure that the board has, on a timely basis, all material data relevant to issues that they will be acting on. If the board is not satisfies with the information being provided, it is their responsibility to instruct management on changes they desire.

·     All board and committee minutes should be prepared promptly and presented for review and approval of all board members at the board’s next regular meeting. Committee actions pursuant to authority delegated by board should be presented for the information of all board members.

·        Proposed resolution should be incorporated in the Agenda itself, allowing directors the opportunity to consider their import as well as the proper substance and wording.

·        Once board and committee minutes have been approved, their integrity should be safeguarded, and they should not be altered in any manner without the express approval of the board.

·        Final minutes should be made accessible to the board and the management who are responsible for carrying out the board’s directions, without being ‘filtered’.

Advanced records management technology helps to ensure the accuracy and security of Board minutes. Once the draft is done, it enters the document management system. Any changes made to the draft after it enters the system will be automatically noted making it easy to track version control. As soon as the minutes are finalized and uneditable scan shall be made which can be added to the records management system.

Certain companies tape record their meetings which is transcribed so that there are very few errors or changes that need to be made once the minutes are written.

After the minutes are approved, a scan is taken and stored on the server and then the minutes themselves are stored in a locked, fireproof room.

Though different methods yield benefits, a major advantage to using technology is the ease with which searches can be done. It is not uncommon that you need to go back into the minutes and find where the board discussed certain issues. On the other side, going back through years of hard copy books would be much more tedious.

Developing your own toolkit with everything you need for taking minutes of the meeting will ensure the quality and accuracy of the final minutes.

  Navin Kumar Jaggi

Aashna Suri

The post The Era of E-Minutes appeared first on Legal Desire.

The Era of E-Minutes published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[carlow089792122-blog]

10 Should Check Out Areas In The United States

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Investing In The Big Apple Urban Area Great White Means tickets are really an expensive work, particularly the moment you're anticipating for exceptional seats area for beloved shows. And then to perform something to God's personal kid that adored me sufficient to need me. I at that point understand I am actually not deserving of redemption as well as recognize how evil my center has actually become. It is to Greater London what Moments Area is to Nyc Area. In the future several Metropolitan area streets will certainly suffer the very same fate, becoming vague gorges that do not have the glimmer they when possessed as the sunlight shone on the days along with blue skies.

[kingsholmrp]

                          MILA VALENTINA GARCÍA LÒPEZ

Age: 29 Birthdate: 23rd February 1989 Gender and Pronouns: Female, she/her Hometown: Chosto de los Jarros, Mexico Occupation: Hospital nurse

                                    She is a Silver. She is an Invulnerable.

                                              BIOGRAPHY:

The most interesting thing about Mila is also the thing nearly nobody knows about her: she was raised in a cult. As a child, the commune she lived in seemed completely normal. She attended school, performed chores, attended church–nothing was unusual about her upbringing. Religious families, after all, were completely normal in rural Mexico. The commune felt like a close-knit town, and she liked growing and cooking their own food. They had their own doctor who lived nearby, so visiting a hospital was unheard of, and they didn’t often trek to the nearest city except for some supplies for their houses–and, when they were lucky, new, store-bought clothes.

Mila, however, had severe asthma, and a few attacks when she was in her early years did end at the hospital. Her second trip to the ER when she was ten was when she finally realized something was different about her family: her mother argued vehemently with the nurse, refusing to let anyone with a needle near her daughter. Mila’s parents were tense, angry, stroking the hair from her face and guarding her like dogs over a hurt puppy. Finally, one nurse with a cross necklace convinced them to let her treat Mila without drawing her blood, and they departed a few hours later, Mila confused and sore and her parents still bristling. Finally, her parents and the religious leaders of their commune sat her down to explain: medicine, the kind practiced in hospitals, was evil, against the will of God. If God wanted one of His disciples to join Him in Heaven, it was a beautiful thing, not something to fight. Child or elder, infant or ill, they all passed eventually, and modern medicine was trying to stop the natural progression of the world.

She was the first of the family to go to the hospital, because she–Milagros, named for the miracle of her birth–was different. The doctor in their commune called her blessed, and it was clear the hand of God was upon her. When she was born, in the light of a full moon, her skin glowed with light–Heaven smiled upon her, and Mila was protected by the angels. Her birth had been mere days after the death of her great-grandmother, the last Blessed of the family, so there was no question that her soul resided within this baby.

It explained so much–why Mila never injured herself, even when playing rough with the other children. She’d seen skinned knees on others, but never on herself. God was watching over her, making sure she lived to share His will with others. For all intents and purposes, she was normal, and everyone in the commune treated her as such, but she never felt the same after that. She learned how to manage her asthma, taking the medicine her doctor gave her at home, and engaged in fewer active hobbies to avoid triggering another attack. On the times she couldn’t stop it, she would travel to the nearest hospital, have a companion ask for a Catholic nurse, and explain that, for religious reasons, she could not have her blood drawn, and needed something else. It worked, and Mila was content with her life, until she was twenty-one. She left her town, with her parents’ blessing, traveling to Mexico City to spread God’s word with a few other disciples from her commune. After a year, Mila took up a role volunteering at a hospital, and though her companions were bewildered and against the idea, they believed, at this point, that Mila was God’s Chosen, the Blessed, and her ideas were the will of God. They spent their days holding the hands of the dying, praying over the sick, and comforting the families of patients. Mila befriended a few of the Catholic nurses, and her attitude towards modern medicine slowly changed. She took to using an inhaler, to slow down the frequency of her asthma attacks, though she still refused anything invasive–no needles, no vaccination shots, nothing that would cause harm.

One of her disciples died two years later. The nurses called it tetanus, and said that if he had received treatment, he could have lived. Mila grieved for him, prayed, and agonized–she confessed to a priest in a nearby Catholic church that she could no longer hear God as clearly as she had in her old town. The city, he said, was harming her, harming her disciples, and blocking God from reaching her.

The death of her disciple attracted attention. Their cult was small, but somehow news had gotten out, and the vague rumor of there being a Blessed amongst the disciples was enough to bring government agents to the town. Mila and her disciples had warning from the nurses that someone was poking around, asking questions, and they prayed–and God told the disciples to stay, and Mila to leave.

It felt like exile, though she knew it was protection. None of them wanted Mila taken away, and their commune had told them what might happen if Satan’s forces discovered her. Mila traveled as far as she could on foot, taking refuge in churches, praying the entire way. She stumbled into a small town with a Catholic doctor who needed a nurse, and though she had no practical schooling, Mila had watched countless procedures at the hospital in Mexico City and had picked up enough to assist. She was helping people, and though it was not in a way her commune would have wanted, her actions felt right. Her prayers were being answered again. God wanted her to be a nurse.

Mila returned to Mexico City to study nursing, aware by now that her former disciples had been driven out by the police shortly after her departure (with no Blessed to lead them, they’d lost their way and returned home). One fateful day, she helped a man who had been in a hit-and-run accident and joined him in the ambulance on his way to the hospital. It turned out that the man was a witness in a police investigation, and Mila was called upon to give a statement to the policemen who visited the hospital. She had also gotten a good look at the car, and the man driving it, so on several occasions she was brought back into the police station to give descriptions and look at suspects.

The policeman she fell in love with was not assigned to this case. He was not even a Mexican policeman–he was brought in from somewhere else, temporarily, he said, but he was around often when she was in the station, and one day he brought her a coffee and apologized for how long she’d been waiting on the policeman assigned to her case and she immediately stopped worrying about the study time she was missing while sitting with him.

She never talked about crime or work with Hudson. She talked to him about her nursing classes, about the foods they liked, about their hobbies. Mila was quiet and shy, but he made her smile so easily, and it wasn’t long before they were meeting for coffee outside of the station, him correcting her English and she correcting his Spanish, Mila blushing when their hands touched, terrified and delighted when they first kissed.

She avoided telling him that she had been part of a cult–because, by then, she knew what her commune was. Mila did not regret that part of her life–after all, her family was still her family, and there still was something different about her. Her religious fervor was milder and she prayed less, and she no longer believed she was her great-grandmother’s reincarnated soul, nor was she a prophet. She never told Hudson any of that–he was too learned, too traveled. Eventually, his stationing in Mexico City was changed, and Hudson left. Mila never quite understood why or what he did, but that was because he didn’t like to talk about the details of his work, and she couldn’t blame him. She didn’t share details of her anatomy classes, after all. Unpleasant things weren’t worth writing in their letters.

Mila was twenty-eight when she first tried to practice her lessons on herself. She’d stuck plenty of patients with needles, but she’d never experienced it herself, and she’d found ways to practice modern medicine safely without ever having her blood drawn. It was hard to break that particular part of her belief system, after all.

She tried to stick herself with a needle and, to her surprise, she couldn’t. It wouldn’t puncture her skin. She tried again, harder, and broke her needle. Mila felt panic coming on, and ran to the bathroom for her inhaler, where she caught sight of herself in the mirror–and her eyes were silver. Intrigued rather than terrified, she concentrated on her eyes, and the color vanished, returning to her usual brown. Mila dragged her needles into the bathroom, sat in front of the mirror, and practiced sticking herself while watching her eyes instead of her arm. Sure enough, every time the needle came close to her skin, her eyes flashed silver, and the needle failed to break skin.

It took nearly a week of practicing–and many broken needles–for Mila to control herself enough to will the silver back down inside her and press the needle into her skin. Barely a pinprick before her eyes flashed again and her needle broke, but it was enough to draw blood. And the blood was silver.

She never told Hudson, because she didn’t understand it herself. It fit the stories her parents and religious leaders had told her, about her great-grandmother’s metallic eyes and her own silver glow on the night of her birth, but Mila couldn’t believe those kinds of things to be true. The more she practiced, the better she got at controlling her ability, and every time she drew blood, it came out silver. Like mercury ran through her veins, not blood. Was it God’s will, angel blood, or something else entirely?

Eventually, Mila spoke to one of her teachers about it, and his response scared her. She had to make up a story about it being a patient, not herself, and he insisted on her telling him the name of the patient even after she refused. That same month, Hudson returned to Mexico City to see her, and he proposed marriage. Mila accepted without a second thought, both because she was–of course–thrilled–but also because he was now stationed in Norway, and that was far enough away for her to be able to escape the risk of being discovered in Mexico City, where the rumors of the cult-girl called Blessed still remained. Even living with him in Kingsholm, she hides her research from him, because she can’t risk him leaving her–or committing her to an insane asylum if he finds out about her past.

                          Mila Valentina García Lòpez is portrayed by Karla Souza.

[whatsgoodnews]

The Rookie Surgeon and the 13-Month-Old Gunshot Victim

What it’s like to be an ER doctor in the city with America’s highest rate of gun violence.

*This article was written by my former manager! Thanks Renee! And I think it does a really good job at showing the awful world of gun violence to people who live in areas where gun violence isn’t as prevalent. 

Read original article by Renee Hickman here: https://www.thetrace.org/2017/05/pediatric-surgeon-st-louis-gun-violence/

Before coming to St. Louis for her medical residency, Pam Choi, the chief surgery resident at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, can recall treating only one patient who’d been shot — a man who came into the ER while she was on a surgery rotation as a medical student at the University of Rochester. Gun violence was neither part of her personal experience nor an issue she thought about much. She grew up in the Northern New Jersey suburb of Franklin Lakes, one of the safest towns in the state.

It was not long after arriving at St. Louis Children’s Hospital that she began noticing with horror the regularity with which young people were brought into the emergency room with firearm injuries. The incidents soon blurred together in her memory. She can no longer remember the first child gunshot victim she saw. But she may never forget one baby boy.

One night in 2014, Choi was working an overnight shift when her pager buzzed. A tiny patient was headed to the emergency room. “When you see that page come across — ‘13-month old baby, GSW (gunshot wound)’ — your blood just runs cold. You’re like, ‘Oh my God; what should I expect?’” she says.

The infant had been shot as his mother held him in her arms. Only vague details were relayed to Choi as the paramedics rushed the baby across the city, but according to the reports she was getting, the bullets were meant for someone else. The baby was just in the way.

Choi and her team raced to the trauma bay and waited for the ambulance to arrive. She found herself standing very still as she focused on how she would deal with all the possible scenarios.

Would there be cardiac injuries? How much blood loss? 

The younger the patients, the less likely they are to survive traumatic injuries. Was the ambulance taking a long time, or did it just feel that way? Did her team have all the supplies it would need? Were they ready for this? She and her colleagues exchanged only a few words as they waited.Before coming to St. Louis for her medical residency, Pam Choi, the chief surgery resident at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, can recall treating only one patient who’d been shot — a man who came into the ER while she was on a surgery rotation as a medical student at the University of Rochester. Gun violence was neither part of her personal experience nor an issue she thought about much. She grew up in the Northern New Jersey suburb of Franklin Lakes, one of the safest towns in the state.

The boy arrived in the ambulance with his mother. As paramedics wheeled him into the emergency room, Choi pulled the mother aside into a quiet conference room and explained where they were taking her son and the operation they would perform there. The boy’s sobbing mother begged Choi to do whatever she and the other doctors could. Choi promised that they would, though experience had already taught her that even in the best of circumstances, outcomes are never guaranteed in the ER.

The infant was chubby and crying loudly. He’d been struck just once, but the single bullet in his small body had done enough damage to threaten his life.  Choi remembers hearing the baby’s cries growing softer as he struggled to breathe. The doctors worked for several hours to stabilize their small patient. Finally, after persistent resuscitation efforts, it became clear that he would survive.

Despite the victory of the boy’s survival, Choi continues to be disturbed by what she witnessed that night. As the boy’s recovery dragged on, she could only think that he didn’t belong there in the hospital. He should be like any other 1-year-old, happily learning and exploring his world.

As one child gunshot victim after another appeared on her operating table, Choi became more frustrated. She wanted to do something about the bigger problem. Her training led her to think about the issue in terms of disease  — the way one might ponder the spread of the flu or HIV. If children were being hurt and killed by particular means, causes could be researched and solutions implemented.

St. Louis Children’s Hospital has one of two Level I trauma centers equipped to treat pediatric gunshot injuries in the St. Louis metro area. Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital has the other. During intake, social workers interview patients and their families to determine the circumstances surrounding their injuries. Choi recognized that her facility was uniquely positioned to produce a better understanding of how children in the region become victims of gun violence.

Along with a handful of other researchers, Choi analyzed 398 pediatric gunshot injuries in St. Louis between 2008 and 2013. That rate of young victims was unusually high: A similar study in Detroit covered 10 years and recorded 289 gun injuries in children. A study over nine years in Colorado recorded just 129. The children of greater St. Louis were being shot in the city and in the suburbs. They were targets, bystanders, accidental victims. Slightly fewer than half were in their own homes when they were hit.

The high rates of gun violence in St. Louis have led to numerous intervention attempts by the city government, private organizations, and law enforcement. Programs for at-risk youth abound. Neighborhoods hold regular community forums. In 2014, St. Louis County established a curfew from midnight to 5 a.m. for minors under 17. (Choi’s research showed why the policy would likely be ineffective at stemming the shootings: She found that most gun injuries actually happened outside curfew hours, between 6 p.m. and midnight.)

Despite those efforts, gun violence rates have spiked. In 2007, Missouri legislators repealed a law requiring gun owners to obtain a license before purchasing a gun. In the years afterward, the number of shootings continued to rise, jumping 25 percent through 2010, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy Research. They continued to climb, to 37.7 homicides per 100,000 in 2013; to 50 in 2015; to 59.3 in 2015.

To bring the numbers down, many doctors in St. Louis echo the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians in approaching gun violence as a public health issue, disentangling research and preventative measures from the partisan politics of gun legislation.

Dr. William Powderly is the director of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, which launched the Gun Violence Initiative in 2015. To illustrate his organization’s approach, Powderly uses road safety as an analogy. Early on, American drivers had to follow few rules. They could drive with a drink and without a seatbelt, often to deadly ends.

“We had carnage on the roads, and this was clearly recognized as a public health issue,” Powderly says. “And over the next 30, 40 years, we gradually made driving a much safer enterprise in the United States.”

But in Missouri (and across the United States), guns are not like cars. Politics have so thoroughly saturated any discussion about gun safety that some doctors moderate their language to make gun owners more receptive to their ideas.

Dr. Robert Kennedy, a pediatrician who, like Choi, works in the emergency room at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, doesn’t like to use the term “gun control,” for instance. “When you use that language a lot of people tune you out,” he says.

Kennedy has been in the field for about 40 years. Sitting in his house in St. Louis, he clicks through slides of data on child gunshot injuries in St. Louis on his computer — locations, ages, intentional or unintentional — and recounts one tragic story after another. There was the child who thought a family handgun was a squirt-gun; the 12-year-old who didn’t mean to shoot his friend after finding a gun in his grandfather’s bedroom; the father who accidentally shot his infant son while in the car.

In 2013, not long after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Kennedy wrote an op-ed for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch with fellow St. Louis Children’s Hospital physicians David Jaffe and Martin Keller. In it, the doctors implored readers to support recommendations by a host of medical organizations that wanted to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and end federal restrictions on funding research into gun violence.

But today, Kennedy has stopped looking to legislative solutions to help halt the flow of gunshot victims into his hospital. “I don’t think there is any way to get any legislation passed right now,” he says.

Instead he’s emphasizing simple measures doctors might take, like asking more questions about firearms use and gun violence exposure while documenting patient medical histories. Queries about gun ownership and storage would appear alongside questions such as, “How many alcoholic drinks do you have per week?”

Elsewhere, doctors have found that even such straightforward patient interactions can be vehemently contested. In 2011, Florida passed a law, backed by the National Rifle Association, that barred physicians from asking patients the sorts of gun-related questions that Kennedy believes can prevent firearms injuries and deaths. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down the law, saying it violated doctors’ rights to free speech.

If doctors and public health experts are seeking treatments to what they view as an epidemic, Mary Hennings could be considered a survivor of the disease. The 61-year-old is recovering from her fourth surgery since she was injured by gunfire in 2013.

On a warm evening in March, she moves with difficulty around her daughter’s home in Jennings, a St. Louis suburb. She looks for the right place to sit so as not to irritate her left hip, which was recently replaced. She points to the spot where the bullet entered her leg and then traveled upward. A long, deep scar marks its path.

Hennings was standing in front of her son Michael’s house when she was shot. She was about to head into the city with Michael and a few other family members and friends. But then Michael had to use the bathroom. And then someone else forgot their phone charger. And then Hennings, hurrying to make her appointment, turned to go inside to get it.

Before she could open the door, she found herself falling to the ground, confused. She tried to move but couldn’t. As the pain spread through her leg, she heard more rounds being fired and understood what was happening. She prayed for the shooter to run out of bullets and for the pain to stop. To this day, the case is unsolved.

Hennings’ godson, Anthony, ran to her on the porch. He is so much a part of her family that he calls her Mama. As she bled onto the steps, he ripped off his shirt. “Mama, this is gonna hurt,” he told her as he used the shirt to create a tourniquet. Later, a doctor told Hennings his action had probably saved her life.

This was not the first time Hennings had experienced gun violence. Her son Alvin was shot and killed in 1989 in the St. Louis area. And five months after Hennings herself was shot, her  other son, Michael, was shot to death.

At the kitchen table, Hennings pulls out a scrapbook and points to pictures of Michael. The photos show a handsome man in his 30s who smiles easily back at the camera. Hennings likes to remember doing work around the house with Michael, fighting over who would cut the grass.

Mary Hennings once cut hair for a living. Shortly before he died, Michael told his mom that he was going to barber school, so he could take after her. “Michael was a good guy,” she says, gazing at the photos, occasionally closing her eyes to try to stop the tears.