the future is bullet proof

They will then violently insist that this version is superior to the canon one and act like they "fixed" them and it's like. Buddy that's not the same character anymore. That's just your own oc commiting identity fraud. Like. I get the desire to experiment with different interpretations of a story. But first of all it's okay to just make an original character if that's what you really want to do. And second of all, are you even really a fan of the character you "fixed" if they're a completely different person afterwards?

my partner was a TA for an intro-to-subject course in grad school. finals week rolls around and the students are required to submit this big module assignment they've had like a month to do for a decent chunk of their grade. if you've submitted everything, you'll see a summary screen with a star beside each module name showing it's been completed.

an hour before the assignment deadline, he receives an email from a student claiming they completed the assignment, but the system is not allowing them to submit. there's an image attached to the email. partner goes to open what he assumes is a screenshot of that summary page.

instead, he sees that the student has taken a photo of their laptop from about 2 feet away, with that page open. strange, but it wouldn't be the first time a college freshman has lacked the tech literacy to take a screenshot. he almost doesn't look twice at it, but he realizes something about it just feels a little bit...off. so he zooms in.

the student had CUT STARS OUT OF CONSTRUCTION PAPER and TAPED THEM TO THEIR LAPTOP SCREEN BESIDE EACH MODULE NAME. you could see where they actually had completed the first couple of modules, but the stars for all the subsequent ones were like, double the size of the first two and exactly as uneven/irregular as you'd expect if you were freehanding them with scissors.

like the first signs of a flare up from stress/over exertion used to be red face + fever + rash on my hands

but the lines of my tattoo will become raised and then a little itchy before it progresses to that point

and im discovering that, yeah, if i just listen to the wizard and rest/recuperate/stop pushing myself when it starts acting weird, i can sometimes avoid triggering the other symptoms

I personally hate any kind morality thought policing. I'm not Catholic or religious and I do not feel guilty over my thoughts. You are not an inherently evil person because you saw two athletes in an interview and went "Hmmm...... what if...." The Feds are not going to come banging down your door because you wrote about one band member dicking down the other and sent it to your friend.

Wondering about other people's lives is very human. Being nosy about their personal lives is very normal. People have been writing fiction about other people's lives since the dawn of time. Some people even manage to write New York Times Bestselling Books that are "historical fiction" or "alternate reality." It does not make you inherently bad to be curious about the details of someone's personal life. That's being human. Being nosy is kind of fun.

The problem, however, comes with the ways in which people engage with it, and involve the real people in this. Harassing an musician's real girlfriend because it doesn't fit into the RPF ship. Showing up at real sporting events holding signs about how certain teammates should kiss. Trying to get actors to sign art of them fucking their coworker. Flooding social media with comments using the celebrity's full name and speculation. There's a line, there's a fourth wall, and there's fandom etiquette.

I hate the question of "Is RPF ethical" because it feels like morality thought policing. Post your fics on locked accounts, censor someone's name when you tweet about it, blow up your groupchat with hundreds of "DID YOU SEE THE WAY THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER??" texts. It's not inherently evil to wonder what other people are doing when they're out of the spotlight. Kill the cop in your mind.

Saw a post a while ago wondering about how the show would look without Murderbot's internal narration and decided to try my hand.

Mostly I just seperated the vocals and background track and cut out the vocals whenever MB was narrating. Then I did a little bit of trimming and rearrainging to cover up some of the longer close ups that stood out with the removed VO.

ER doctor: you mean if I just send you for a leg ultrasound right now and it's clear you'll leave?

Me, picking up my book: yeah, I'm just gonna read until we get it done

Fastest ER visit ever (it was not in fact a clot but I sure would have felt dumb if it had been)

Or, "hey so this test result came back weird and so I think we have to rule out a benign pituitary tumor."

The more specific I get with what I need the faster they order tests. For the RA diagnosis it was, "hey this is probably some weird post viral arthralgia but could we do an arthritis panel since I've got 27 affected joints?"

If the doctor says something dismissive or they don't know, I ask for them to refer me to someone with more expertise in this area.

I had to go through three different practices to find a spinal surgeon who did not tell me that operating on me would be too dangerous because I'm fat. But the third one was like, "Oh, I'm not worried about you coding, there's just a risk that it won't work. But it has a hundred percent failure rate if we don't try."

I did not code. The surgery worked. Was it perfect? No. Did it drastically improve my quality of life? It gave me my fucking life back. I can sit. I can be out in the world and not in blinding pain.

It is so important to not take dismissals and such as the final answer. I got so much bullshit for so many years. It nearly killed me twice, people blowing off clots as muscle pain or "depression".

Track your symptoms. Make a list. Talk about how it affects your quality of life. Ask for physical therapy, ask for second opinions. If you have an idea of what might be wrong, ask them to help you rule it out. Also ask for patient assistance, nonprofit hospitals have it. You might have to go through their labs and their doctors but it can cover an awful lot.

Take a friend with you, or a family member. My pcp asks if I want a chaperone (I don't) but literally having an extra person with you can help.

these are images from a 1930s pamphlet that endorsed kudzu, entitled "stop gullies: save your farm"

And she figured out that, when I go to bed, both of my cats would tend to come visit me, which meant this was prime growling time.

Of course, if I get up, she immediately disappears because she is of the opinion that I probably disapprove of her picking fights with my cats, and she has no interest in experiencing any kind of consequence. But then she comes back once I try to go back to bed.

So.

The other night, I turned off the lights, and shortly thereafter heard growling. So I got up, and she ran away. So I turned off the lights, and hid behind the door. And waited. And about five or ten minutes later, I saw a cat-shaped shadow come in through the door.

... Which I closed. Behind her.

She did not expect this, but she immediately realized that we had left the scenario she had envisioned.

So I turned the lights on, and watched her trying to figure out how to avoid both the other cats (who were curious about what was up) and me, and she was not having a great time of it. She eventually settled on my bed and hunkered down and said "maow" in a sort of distressed voice. So I reassuringly petted her a couple of times, and then left the door open, and let her eventually figure out that she was free.

She has not been back since.

There is this artwork (by British artist Marcus Coates) at Utrecht Centraal train station that I adore. Every day it shows a new fact about what's happening in nature on that day. For example in this picture I took last month, the sign says:

14/03 Today in nature: Litte moorhens start constructing their nests.

15/08 Today in nature: The moles cast out their young.

21/08 Today in nature: Young bats are starting to catch insects by themselves, and no longer rely on their mothers' milk.

21/05 Today in nature: The first young Koolmeesje has left the nest already.

01/06 Today in nature: Most Eurasian Hobbies have laid an egg by now.