Complete Insanity. Possibly Edited.

I was curious about something, because with the light of the Amazon announcements, I realized that as a fandom, we treat Christopher, Tolkien’s 2nd youngest child, like he’s a second JRR Tolkien–and don’t get me wrong, I love his work with the Histories, but I realized a major error in our fandom as well. For all our talk of “but what about women in Tolkien’s works” I realized that there are no search results for his only daughter and youngest of his children. Not on tumblr at least. She’s not devoid of interaction, either, as she has written articles, given talks, and supported general fanworks (such as the Tolkien Ensemble).  She co-published the Tolkien Family Album, with her older brother, John (now deceased).  Why does it bother me so much that she has no search results, despite also the severe irony of “We only care about his surviving son, and not at all his only daughter, who her parents had long hoped for.”? Because all of his children are extremely crucial to his work, and not just his sons.  Frodo is named after her stuffed bear (Bingo Bolger-Baggins), which is highly delightful to me. He eventually altered the name, obviously, to Frodo.  She attends the Oxonmoots frequently. She has a BA degree in English and worked as a social worker. (Hence why she isn’t so “famous” as her older brother.)  She is a member of the Tolkien Society (last I checked, honorary VP).

As Tolkien’s only daughter, Priscilla has noted her father’s “complete belief in higher education for girls; never in my early life or since did I feel that any difference was made between me and my brothers, so far as our educational needs and opportunities were concerned.” [x] She typed out some of the early chapters of Lord of the Rings for her father (around the age of 14).  She has written for Amon Hen.  She was one of the heading trustees for suing Warner Brothers over a breach of contract.

It’s been centuries and nobody’s been able to pull the magic blade that can kill the demon king from the stone, but people keep dying–so the local blacksmith takes a hammer and chisel to the rock in the middle of the night because fuck it, somebody has to do something.  Little do they know the sword was specifically placed so as to be un-drawable by everyone until somebody came along with enough practicality to do things the sensible way.

The paladin very definitely never had any prophetic dreams, but if she’d said she was leaving her village to go be a mercenary just because she was so desperate to get out everybody would have cried and scolded and been super-judgy, so she maybe invented a Call a little bit.  But now her first aid’s working way better than it should and some weird shit happened the other day with those undead, and she still hasn’t had had any contact from her god but she’s not meant to be this good of a liar.

A trio of con artists take on the persona of an old folk-legend for a job, and gets in over their heads when a little sleight-of-hand gets out of hand and the whole countryside starts believing it.  They end up fulfilling half the prophecy just by deliberately trying so the con doesn’t fall apart around them.  Meanwhile the other half of the prophecy’s coming true around them at every turn, which they keep chalking up to good fortune, assuming one of their co-conspirators is pulling off on purpose, or just plain not noticing because they’re too distracted with the rest of the con.

Dick started copying the way Bruce Iooked at people when they walked in, and because he’s a performer at heart, he enjoys the way it looks practiced and smooth

Babs started doing it because of the psychological effect, and the bonding feeling that comes from judging people together

Jason and Steph started doing it because of the intimidation factor, and because it was creepy cool

Tim started doing it because he likes learning behaviors like nothing else, and for the intimidation factor

Cass started doing it because it feels good to act as part of a group, and because creepy and silent is her jam

Damian started doing it because clearly, it was a skill he was supposed to have as Robin, and also because he likes it when people fear him

Naturally, the first person to experience having eight people, of various ages and including at least one child, turn their heads to him in complete unison, with utterly blank faces, is Hal Jordan.

In the aftermath of yet another global disaster (not aliens for once, so no one was looking at Hal for information and direction, thank God), he saw the Bats assembled on what was left of a rooftop, debriefing. In New York. Again. Because fucking New York.

He’d had a reason to go over and try to talk to Batman. Really, he had.

He just couldn’t quite remember it past how creeped out he was.

The moment he’d touched down on the roof, all seven people standing on the roof, and even the person whose face was being projected from someone’s glove, had all turned their heads towards him, and only their heads, in a very pointedly and deliberately casual way that makes him think of eyes in the dark. Specifically, the kind of eyes that made him feel like he’d walked into a roomful of shadows that had just finished discussing the best way to eat him.

(Shut up, imagination was a good thing for a Green Lantern.)

The point was, he’d forgotten what he came over here to ask, and he didn’t really care any more. He’d been fighting uncanny valley murderbots and exploding fake children for almost two days, and wow, no. He’d had more than enough creepiness without adding Children of the Corn: Bat Edition.

God, they looked like little dolls, heads all attached to the same string.

Hal made the executive decision to remove himself from their creepy as hell collective presence, gave them the first excuse that came to mind (he didn’t even have an Uncle Jim, let alone one that owned a doll factory, and neither of those things would need a Green Lantern to solve their problems, what in the actual fuck was he thinking?) and got the hell out of Dodge.

Dick waited exactly long enough for Hal to get out of hearing range to burst out laughing, immediately followed by Steph and Jason, and then the rest. Even Bruce cracked a smirk.

“Did you—see—his face?!” He wheezed between giggles.

Steph was literally on the floor, rolling back and forth, as she responded. “I can’t—oh my god, that’s it everyone, we have reached the peak of the Batfam Head Turn, you can all go home now!” She lost the battle to her laughter, breaking down into the silent chest spasms that meant she was laughing too hard to make a sound.

Bruce shared a glance with Cass, and she smiled back at him, knowing how much it meant to him that they were truly acting like a family, smiling and laughing together, without anyone hurting anyone else.

And all because of some stupid horror movie gag freaked out Hal Jordan.

Maybe he should thank him.

governess for an intelligent child in an old, decaying mansion in the english/scottish countryside (MAYBE american, but it has to be a part of the country where it rains a lot) (note: the house must host at LEAST one ghost) (second note: if the child’s parent is single, good-looking, brooding, moody, and compatible with my sexual orientation, even better)

handmaiden for the Lady Of the House in a mansion, castle, or sprawling country estate (note: the Lady Of the House must avoid questions, give vague answers about her history, have a fondness for red wine, and avoid venturing outside during daylight hours. a fondness for masquerade balls is not required but HIGHLY preferred)

personal tutor for the Young Lady Of the House whose father will not allow her to see any men, but feels he can trust me, another young woman, to keep his daughter out of trouble (note: in this scenario i can play piano so we can play together and “accidentally” brush hands)

assistant to a private investigator in a city where it always rains and always seems to be night, with vaguely humanoid clientele (note: the investigator must wear a long, black coat. after i’ve solved a case all my own – probably around book 4 or 5 – i get one too.)

For more than a year, Vox’s Sarah Kliff has been investigating hospital price-gouging in America, collecting hospital bills from her readers and comparing them, chasing up anomalies and pulling on threads, producing a stream of outstanding reports on her findings.

In her latest installment, Kliff digs deep into the famously bizarre world of ER bills and points out some of the most egregious ways in which these are rigged.

For example, if you are injured and also financially precarious, you might travel to a more distant ER just to be sure that the hospital you’re visiting is in-network for your insurer, but that means nothing. “In-network” ERs often staff “out-of-network” doctors, and there is no way to find out whether the doctor treating you is covered by your insurer until you get the bill: one of Kliff’s readers got bills for $8,000 from an out-of-network surgeon who treated his broken jaw at an in-network hospital.

And much of the care you receive at an ER is subject to bizarre price gouging: one of Kliff’s readers was charged $238 for two drops of the generic eyedrop ofloxacin which retails for $15/vial; the routine pregnancy test that ERs administer to women of childbearing years can cost up to $465, enough to buy 84 pregnancy kits at the pharmacy; and one Seattle hospital charged $76 for a squirt of generic neosporin. Not all hospitals gouge on all drugs, and many of these drugs are not being administered for urgent health problems – a halfway honest hospital could advise a patient, “We charge $238 for this eyedrop, why don’t you pick up a bottle for $15 next door and administer it yourself?”

Finally, Kliff uncovers wild variability in the “ER facility fee,” which is a cover-charge you’re assessed just for walking in the door at an ER. One of Kliff’s readers paid $5,751 for sitting in a hospital waiting room with an ice-pack and a bandage while waiting to see a doctor, but who left because she was feeling better and didn’t need care after all. Kliff’s work reveals that these “facility fees” are rising at twice the rate of other health charges, with no rhyme or reason.

All of this refers to people who come into the ER under their own power, out of an abundance of caution – for example, my daughter recently broke her collarbone, but we didn’t know that until we went to the ER for an X-ray, and if we’d less prudent, we could have iced it and made a regular doctor’s appointment for the next day, leaving her untreated and undiagnosed. But of course, ERs treat large numbers of people who are unconscious or in agony when they arrive, either on their own or on an ambulance gurney. These patients can’t possibly be expected to shop around, to demand to know whether their medicines are medically necessary (I once had a small eye injury that I went to get checked out on a Sunday just in case and had to stop the nurses from pumping me full of IV dramamine just in case it turned out I would need neurosurgery!), to evaluate whether the doctors are in- or out-of-network, and so on.

(We ended up paying $2,400 out of pocket for our daughter’s ER visit, including $2.50 for a generic tylenol, despite having gold-plated insurance from Cigna)

Kliff’s work reveals the whole story of “market based medicine” to be a fiction. Markets are regulated zones where consumers compare the offerings of producers and make purchase choices based on their information. To call being wheeled unconscious into an ER and raced into an operating theater and then presented with a bill months later a “market transaction” is to make a terribly, grisly joke.

It’s as good an argument for Medicare for All and single-payer health care as you could ask for.

Like, what if his name just happens to be Montgomery Scott, so all of his friends started calling him “Scotty,” and then every time he was introduced to a new person, they would be like “Oh, are you Scottish? My uncle was Scottish!”

And finally, he just gets sick of explaining the situation, so he starts replying with “aye, laddie!” But then it turns out that the person he said that to was Captain Kirk, and he doesn’t want to admit that he lied to his new commanding officer, so he has to keep speaking in a ridiculously over-the-top brogue and commenting constantly on how much he loves drinking Scotch, and by the time that he realises that Kirk would have found humour in the situation, he’s in too deep and can’t stop pretending, and it gradually just becomes his normal speech pattern.

Then, years later, the Enterprise is being inspected by a Starfleet engineer who’s actually Scottish, and Scotty takes him on a walking tour of his warp engines and is all like “Auch! Here be me wee bairns!” and the other engineer is just like “what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Scotty soundproofing his quarters on the Enterprise so that no one can hear him teach himself to play the bagpipes from instructional videos.

Scotty making a great show of taking a shuttle down to Aberdeen to “visit his family” every time the Enterprise is in Earth orbit and then, once on the ground, discreetly site-to-site transporting himself to Vancouver or whatever.