you lost the game

Jack doesn't do TEMS by accident. We're introduced to Abbot as a solider from the beginning. Before we've even had more than 2 minutes of screen time with him we hear Robby reading his letter to the wife of the vet they couldn't save ("...I, like Ray, am also a veteran...") then bookending the first season with his talk to to Robby on the roof ("That is what happens when you're in a war and nothing makes sense").

And that's what TEMS is for Jack! It's going back to being a soldier, to the familiarity of 'hurry up and wait' on the slow days and the life-risking adrenaline on the fast ones. Jack as a combat medic/doctor is uniquely trained and practiced not just in battlefield medicine but in being able to step back from himself and treat the people he's closest to. In the army he would've treated the injuries (big and small) of people he had met that day AND of people who he had known for weeks or months or years. (That is a skill not only unique to him in the Pitt but also very likely (part of) the reason Dana goes to him when she's worried about Robby, and why Robbys other coworkers, even ones that are close to him (Dana, Caleb, etc) can't quite bridge the gap of being able to help him, in fact they do the opposite and almost step back on purpose- because nurses and doctors are explicitly taught against treating their own family and friends.)

All that to say: Jack gets to recreate that absolutely vital part of his environment with TEMS. He knows those guys, they would've worked jobs together, they would've done training runs together, they're his brothers: and he is also the one that has to keep his cool and stay objective to run in and stick a jerry-rigged tube down one of his brothers throats under active fire when shit hits the fan.

As jack himself said, playing golf cannot substitute that.

I think if Jack was ripped away from doing TEMS (or anything equivalent) at this point in his life, it wouldn't be healing, it would drive him to the edge of insanity. His personal alternative to doing his badass doctor thing while exchanging fire would not be to join a chess club, it would be to start doing shit like robbing banks and doing cocaine and killing himself. And I think Jack knows that about himself.

Taking risks and seeking adrenaline is not immoral or a sign of mental illness and distress in and of itself (despite what tumblr may have you believe-), and I don't think that any part of Jacks healing has to necessitate him suddenly softening up and contenting himself with some risk-less domesticity, and it's odd that this has seemingly become the status-quo of fics etc about him. I think Jack doing TEMS /is/ the lesser evil for him, anything less and he wouldn't be able to find his own balance.

Last ep of S2:

"Because it comes for all of us man. You and I know it more than most. We see it every shift, but we can't let ourselves succumb to it"

-This is part of how Jack stops himself from succumbing to the it.

(As an aside, this is why I also don't think Jack is nearly as against Robbys motorbike as people think. He's worried about it because Robby has implicitly told him that he wants to die, and is visibly unwell. I think Jack would be worried if Robby said his new hobby was knitting- because he might stab himself in the eye with a kitting needle. The bike just happens to be the thing Robby might use to hurt himself.)

Okay listen. I never publish hate asks.

But it's been four days since I got this and I haven't stopped laughing at it. (Also still unsure as to if this is actually a hate ask.) I sent a screen recording of this to a server or two, and it was thirty full seconds. That is because this ask is six hundred and thirty four words long.

It doesn't seem like AI, either, I'm honestly impressed.

Here's some of my favorite comments about it.

You are directly harming your own cause.

Refusing to acknowledge the existence of the State of Israel doesn’t materially change the reality that Israel is a sovereign nation with over ten million citizens. When leftists in the west chant “from the river to the sea” and “we don’t want no two states”, regardless of the intention, what do you think Israelis hear? What do you think a people that has faced genocide in living memory, from which our population still has not recovered, gets from that? We don’t hear it and consider your points, we hear it and remember all of the times Israel has been attacked with genocidal intent, and only survived through our own defense.

And what does this ultimately result it? It results in Israelis who no longer believe in the peace process. It results in Israelis who feel a visceral sense of fear which leads to doubling down on national security. It leads to diaspora Jews feeling unsafe in their communities and immigrating to Israel.

they are only there some of the time or at certain entrances (possible but prosaic, includes the potential for tra la la lallying as shift work)

elrond’s magic has some kind of built-in warning system and they cleared out to avoid potential danger (plausible and realistic considering that i don’t think team tra la la lally is either interested in fighting or skilled in emergency response)

the changing political climate and increased danger around rivendell resulted in all tra la la lallying activities being moved inside the valley (which begs the question of where, and if they just manifest barbershop quartet style beneath guests’ windows)

elrond didn’t know about it until bilbo unwittingly mentioned the experience over dinner, and all roadside tra la la lallying was brought to an end (either petering out without the allure of secrecy or simply by the power of elrond’s consternation)

the whole thing was contrived solely to troll the dwarves (elucidates the standout conformity of only these elves to historic ‘tree-dwelling hippies’ stereotypes)

bilbo fully made it up (this was revealed when merry and pippin cheerfully asked elrond when the tra la la lallying would start, and elrond said ‘gesundheit’)

First, song is immensely important in Middle Earth, to the point where some of the most powerful character moments and magic effects we see are done through singing and poetry. The tra la lally gang are most likely quite powerful sorcerers!

Over 500 years spent trying to cut down a whole trunk of human culture.

TFOFC-VERSE: PROJECT HAIL MARY FAKE BOOK RECS

The Father of First Contact: the Uncharted Life of Ryland Grace by Dominique Reid. (If you only read one book about Dr. Cpt. Ryland Grace, make it this one. Reid really humanizes him in ways that he deserves + this one has The Declassified Records. You know the ones.)

Amaze!: Languages of the Hail Mary by Ray Tamaguchi. (The Hail Mary Accent Book For People Who Want to Get Emotional About An Accent Shared By Two Beings And Other Cool Language Stuff Too.)

Microscopic Empire: The Fight For Taumoeba 82.5 by Thandi Mazibuko. (Mazibuko makes lab work feel like a forensics thriller, I never want to see someone say scientists can't write well ever again.)

This is the most beautiful scientific diagram I've ever seen.