Owlishments

he’s not “empty” - that man commits, 100000%, whether that’s willing to die in that asteroid field or jumping on an exploding phaser - if he says it, he means it

he’s not “macho bravado” - the man genuinely cares, everything he does, it comes from care and love and a desire to protect - you know what Stamets said about how everything Tilly does come from love? that is Pike too. everything he does is also out of love, out of a genuine desire to protect and shield people because he truly believes that is his duty - he almost walked away from starfleet once because he couldn’t take having to keep choosing who gets to live and who gets to die, because of how much that hurt when he wants to protect all of them and keep them safe - he’s not saving people for glory or power or satisfying some savior complex, he’s doing it because he cares

that man who stood on the bridge and said he wasn’t going to let those people on the hiawatha die and raised his voice - he’s not doing some tropey macho hero speech for cool points or because yay macho man - no - when he said he’s not going to let people die, he MEANS IT

he was told by starfleet to stand down before and people died, some that he probably knew or were friends with or cared about - he couldn’t save them because he was told not to, so of course he wasn’t going to let that happen again if he can do something about it now

scenes don’t exist in vacuum, CONTEXT IS IMPORTANT

10 years from this point of the story in season 2, Christopher Pike will drag multiple young cadets out of danger at the risk of his own near fatal exposure to radiation that permanently injures his body to the point where all he could do is be confined to a wheelchair with only blinking lights for communication - that isn’t “empty macho bravado” - that is a man who is 100% willing to give his life for other people no matter what, a man who puts his money where his mouth is

“Starfleet is a promise, I give my life for you, you give your life for me, and nobody gets left behind”

OKAY SO APPARENTLY I REALLY LIKE THIS CHARACTER ARCHETYPE. ;;;

“Excuse me, Commander Burnham. I was using your station to run calibration modeling programs. Let me just close some of this stuff out.”

We get a brief glimpse of Tilly’s “desktop” in 2x02, including a truly intimidating GENERAL TO DO list.

Make a list of my favorite plays

Read favorite plays

Organize movie night with crew

Subspace mom

Go over reading list and schedule

Exhibit stoic behavior when speaking to others

Do some light “working on myself”

Visit patients in sickbay

Home for a rest (understand my perception of home is in my mind)

Investigate inner workings

Keep strategizing for effective workload

Remember to always be thankful to have a roof over your head, food in your stomach and a good heart.

Get area rug for our room.

To thine own self be true, be light to others and myself.

I hope and dream of a new galactic peace.

Attitude is everything, communication is something, but action is best.

Follow orders for becoming a higher-ranking officer

Research Starfleet’s favorite opera

Make bed and organize laundry

Believe in myself - more

Be more self aware

Strategize my next knowledgeable moves in order to better retain knowledge.

Know that I am allowed to be happy, practice understanding my nervous energy

Do not forget to practice my standing posture

Schedule weekly jog

Return Mom’s last 5 messages

Do at least or more thing(s) for my health and myself, each day

Channel my energy in a positive way

Modular process training exercise (include running and other forms of exercise)

I should practice peaceful behavior, that way I can read people better

Can anyone hear you scream in the Mycelial Network?

I want to trust my instincts more.

Re-allocate the ship’s resources in an orderly fashion.

Mr Mansplainer ‘Well Actually’ immediately biting the dust. Trek says official fuck u to mansplainers, more at eleven. 

Tilly’s Tribble in the kill zone comment and her blatant and shameless Stamets favoritism that led to her doing the Trek version of a hard science major shoving a soft science major in a locker b/c it Doesn’t Count. 

Michael’s ‘you Little Shit’ face when she hears Spock’s log entry, she’s So older sister angry it’s hilarious. And that she just hopped over to the enterprise to cavalierly invade her little brother’s privacy. 

Also: Sarek and Michael’s different species but equivilent ‘oh fuck’ reaction when they thought they were about to see the youngest sibling with no warning. 

Michael ‘i just got stabbed through the thigh by molten hot metal but my friend asked me for a rock and I WILL GET THAT ROCK’ burnham

jet ‘yeah i took a heart from a dead person and built a contraption to use it to keep this other different species person alive and yeah i Am an engineer but like.. books’ Reno 

dude whose name i Will remember eventually staring at Saru’s ganglia and Saru’s pissed off reply

Pike immediately remembering each of the bridge crews names without fail 

Sarek’s admission that he used to listen to Amanda read Michael Alice in Wonderland which was a nice soft insight into his and Amanda’s marriage that is soft and loving while still being entirely Vulcan. 

“i’m a terrible patient” “Yes, you ARE” done with the patients passing trek doctor, i love u

A captain coming back for Michael, not for ulterior motives, just b/c he be like that and won’t leave anybody behind and like, i know the last guy was a mass murdering asshole who would tread over and kill anybody and anything in his way to get home so he could rule an evil empire and that it isn’t the highest bar to set, but Pike is way over the bar. 

Ensign Tilly - ‘Brother’

My favourite things to read?  

@maverick-werewolf‘s shorts, doesn’t matter if they are themed after some of the games we play, or if it’s straight up Wulfgard.  Her work has been inspiring and soothing to my soul.

@chronicallyowlish‘s Welcome the Dawn is easily my favourite fic to read right now.  I love hopeful stories.  And that one encompasses every facet of hope and love that I adore.  

And would I ever?

I got back into writing doing exactly that.  A Valiant Remedy is a 200k word AU / extension to my yet to be finished original work.  In that, I took Sadja out of her world, and dropped her in something resembling our modern day reality.  Except there’s also zombies.  And a grouchy Chris Redfield.

And will I do it again? 

I hope so. 

So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…

I’m aiming to fix that.

Here are over 100 links covering just about every facet of traumatic injuries (physical, psychological, long-term), focusing mainly on burns, concussions, fractures, and lacerations. Now you can beat up your characters properly!

General resources

WebMD

Mayo Clinic first aid

Mayo Clinic diseases

First Aid

PubMed: The source for biomedical literature

Diagrams: Veins (towards heart), arteries (away from heart) bones, nervous system, brain

Burns

General overview: Includes degrees

Burn severity: Including how to estimate body area affected

Burn treatment: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees

Smoke inhalation

Smoke inhalation treatment

Chemical burns

Hot tar burns

Sunburns

Incisions and Lacerations

Essentials of skin laceration repair (including stitching techniques)

When to stitch (Journal article—Doctors apparently usually go by experience on this)

More about when to stitch (Simple guide for moms)

Basic wound treatment

Incision vs. laceration: Most of the time (including in medical literature) they’re used synonymously, but eh.

Types of lacerations: Page has links to some particularly graphic images—beware!

How to stop bleeding: 1, 2, 3

Puncture wounds: Including a bit about what sort of wounds are most likely to become infected

More about puncture wounds

Wound assessment: A huge amount of information, including what the color of the flesh indicates, different kinds of things that ooze from a wound, and so much more.

Home treatment of gunshot wound, also basics More about gunshot wounds, including medical procedures

Tourniquet use: Controversy around it, latest research

Location pain chart: Originally intended for tattoo pain, but pretty accurate for cuts

General note: Deeper=more serious. Elevate wounded limb so that gravity draws blood towards heart. Scalp wounds also bleed a lot but tend to be superficial. If it’s dirty, risk infection. If it hits the digestive system and you don’t die immediately, infection’ll probably kill you. Don’t forget the possibility of tetanus! If a wound is positioned such that movement would cause the wound to gape open (i.e. horizontally across the knee) it’s harder to keep it closed and may take longer for it to heal.

Broken bones

Types of fractures

Setting a broken bone when no doctor is available

Healing time of common fractures

Broken wrists

Broken ankles/feet

Fractured vertebrae: Neck (1, 2), back

Types of casts

Splints

Fracture complications

Broken noses

Broken digits: Fingers and toes

General notes: If it’s a compound fracture (bone poking through) good luck fixing it on your own. If the bone is in multiple pieces, surgery is necessary to fix it—probably can’t reduce (“set”) it from the outside. Older people heal more slowly. It’s possible for bones to “heal” crooked and cause long-term problems and joint pain. Consider damage to nearby nerves, muscle, and blood vessels.

Concussions

General overview

Types of concussions 1, 2

Concussion complications

Mild Brain Injuries: The next step up from most severe type of concussion, Grade 3

Post-concussion syndrome

Second impact syndrome: When a second blow delivered before recovering from the initial concussion has catastrophic effects. Apparently rare.

Recovering from a concussion

Symptoms: Scroll about halfway down the page for the most severe symptoms

Whiplash

General notes: If you pass out, even for a few seconds, it’s serious. If you have multiple concussions over a lifetime, they will be progressively more serious. Symptoms can linger for a long time.

Character reaction:

Shock (general)

Physical shock: 1, 2

Fight-or-flight response: 1, 2

Long-term emotional trauma: 1 (Includes symptoms), 2

First aid for emotional trauma

Treatment (drugs)

WebMD painkiller guide

Treatment (herbs)

1, 2, 3, 4

Miscellany

Snake bites: No, you don’t suck the venom out or apply tourniquettes

Frostbite

Frostbite treatment

Severe frostbite treatment

When frostbite sets in: A handy chart for how long your characters have outside at various temperatures and wind speeds before they get frostbitten

First aid myths: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Includes the ones about buttering burns and putting snow on frostbite.

Poisons: Why inducing vomiting is a bad idea

Poisonous plants

Dislocations: Symptoms 1, 2; treatment. General notes: Repeated dislocations of same joint may lead to permanent tissue damage and may cause or be symptomatic of weakened ligaments. Docs recommend against trying to reduce (put back) dislocated joint on your own, though information about how to do it is easily found online.

Muscular strains

Joint sprain

Resuscitation after near-drowning: 1, 2

Current CPR practices: We don’t do mouth-to-mouth anymore.

The DSM IV, for all your mental illness needs.

Electrical shock

Human response to electrical shock: Includes handy-dandy voltage chart

Length of contact needed at different voltages to cause injury

Evaluation protocol for electric shock injury

Neurological complications

Electrical and lightning injury

Cardiac complications

Delayed effects and a good general summary

Acquired savant syndrome: Brain injuries (including a lightning strike) triggering development of amazing artistic and other abilities

- gay

Cons of writing gay relationships:

Best way to deal with this: Use the pronouns a teensy bit more than you maybe feel is sufficient. Leave the fic for two days before editing (i.e. allow yourself to forget it a little). Come back and re-read. If at any point YOU can’t tell who’s doing what to whom, put names in. Leave the rest of the pronouns.

Also, for dialogue: use characterization instead of names. Let it be clear by the things that are said, the way they are said, who is saying them.