Geeky Nurse

Starting today, and running through Wednesday, January 28th, we’re raising funds to publish the third and last book of the Twinned trilogy by Tris Lawrence ( @tryslora ) ! Whether you backed the campaigns for books 1 and 2, or you’re just hearing about these books for the first time from this post, now is a great time to get one book, get two books, or get the whole trilogy so you can read the full story!

People with Talent—Mages, Dreamwalkers, shapechangers, and others—have always lived among mankind. Their existence was hidden until ten years ago, when the world was abruptly introduced to the existence of these secret magic users after a young gymnast spontaneously teleported during the Olympics. This event heralded the start of the Emergence; whereas, once, Talents were close-kept secrets that ran in family lines, now everyone knew that there were people with incredible abilities in communities all over the world.

The Emergence wrought changes at every level of society.

At Pine Hills University, a small liberal-arts college in Upstate New York, these changes have been pronounced, as the University has taken the lead in studying Talent academically: encouraging Talented students to apply, hiring Talented faculty, and debuting Talent-related curricula, minors, and majors.

This is the milieu against which the events of the Twinned trilogy unfold. Ten years has been just long enough for the young, Talented students of Pine Hills University to think they know where they fit in the world—but there are many changes yet to come…

For this campaign, we’re also making some fun Pine Hills University merchandise—the crest of the fictional university as an enamel pin, a car back-window sticker, and one of our signature dux in a PHU-colored varsity jacket.

Oh and – these books are hella queer! The main character is a gay aro man, the lead of the second is asexual biromantic and has a trans twin brother, and book 3 features an established m/m relationship between the leads. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; lots of the side characters are also LGBTQIA+.

Do NOT allow some street urchin to peer pressure you into eating moldy bread. We’ve lost too many agents to that one

Also again we do NOT authorize use of the company machines to get in more study time for the cultural sensitivity training. Taking risks with the fabric of space time is not permitted for personal use.

The system intrinsically abuses poor people.

look how much fun they’re both having! yes!

and also this couple, who are both wheelchair users

Okay, let's say that these people mentioned *do* deserve to die, just for the sake of argument.

Who gets to decide that they do? Who actually genuinely has the right to make the final decision, specifically?

Is it the judge? Is it the lawmakers? It can't be you. It can't be a case by case basis where you get input, this is being carried out by the state.

Do you trust those people to never ever get it wrong? Do you trust the state?

If you do trust them, you aren't paying attention to literally anything that has ever happened in this or any country.

If you don't trust them, you must shift your stance to oppose the death penalty because a circumstance where an innocent person is killed is unacceptable.

Peeling back the curtain, yeah, my personal feelings are that there *are* people who should stop being alive. I don't think that's a good thought for me to have, but I have it.

And I don't trust the fucking state, or myself, or judge, or a panel of people, or ANYONE to be able to, with ZERO false positives, make that determination. No one, no one, NO ONE has the right to make that call because no one can always get it right.

So I oppose the death penalty even though, yeah, my gut reaction is that certain people who have severely harmed others and will do so again should be killed. But the death penalty is wrong. For even a single innocent person to die is a moral failing, an unacceptable loss. There is not and never will be a way to administer that fairly and perfectly.

Lethal injection protocols with three drugs (which is most of them) are designed to give the appearance of a clean medical death without suffering. The truth is:

Many states use midazolam as their first drug to “induce sedation.” Midazolam is not physically capable of maintaining unconscious deep enough to overcome agonizing pain! It also has a “ceiling effect” meaning that it literally cannot do any more after a certain point, as it bonds to GABA receptors(?) and you only have so many! Despite many doctors testifying, briefing, and submitting affidavits to this effect, the Supreme Court ruled it was okay.

Why was it okay? Well, the inmates had to demonstrate that they would definitely be tortured to death and then they have to propose in detail an alternative method of execution (what???). But they don’t have that evidence because the second drug is a paralytic that acts to ensure that the body cannot move no matter what pain it’s in. It literally only gives the appearance of a peaceful sleep without really doing anything to help the execution.

Both the second and third drug are horrendously painful.

The huge overdose of drugs introduces chemicals of the wrong pH into the bloodstream. This balances quickly but not before an extremely acidic or caustic fluid goes through the lungs. Most inmates lungs in autopsies after executions are filled with fluid and froth and show signs of struggles to breathe. Literally the drugs dissolve their lung tissue and drown them while they are conscious (because midazolam does not keep them unconscious) and paralyzed.

Placing IVs frequently goes wrong because medical professionals rarely participate, this being wildly against the Hippocratic oath. This results in drug delivery constantly going wrong, creating huge blister-like bubbles full of drugs in people’s joints or muscles.

Drug companies refuse to supply medications, meaning prisons use huge cash transactions with dubious compounding pharmacies whose names are kept secret by special state laws or just on the black market. Or they lie when they buy the drugs.

Independent reviews are nonexistent. Reviews are often prohibited by those same secrecy laws, which many states have specifically to protect the fiascos that are state executions.

Safety, ethics, and sustainability are all a part of urban gardening and foraging. I'm sorry that means you need to do homework before you can do anything, I know that sounds lame. But life is complicated.

Daily reminder: Leafy greens like kales uptake all those delicious heavy metals in urban soils like lead and cadmium.

Don’t eat sidewalk-crack kale.

Here's some cool references from the EPA on safe urban gardening:

REUSING POTENTIALLY CONTAMINATED LANDSCAPES: Growing Gardens in Urban Soils

I have type 2 Narcolepsy. Studies have shown that serious viral infections can cause people to develop Narcolepsy if they are already genetically susceptible to having it. This includes covid. That is what happened to me.

Yall, I can’t believe that I have to do this, but I am going to say this in as clearly as possible

The anon was very confused.