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I've been thinking a lot about Emmrich and lichdom, recently. (Staunchly pro-lich route people, you can stop here-- I hope you guys have a great day c: )

For me-- and this is entirely based on what I bring to the media as an audience member, not a reflection of Emmrich's character-- I'm most interested in exploring routes in which Emmrich ends up making peace with mortality and his fears surrounding death. Because at the end of the day, I do not live in a fantasy world. I am going to die, and given a choice, I'd like to be at peace with that. So for me, there's more value in learning how to live with a terrible truth than escapism, at the moment. One day, if I'm lucky, I'll be Emmrich's age, and then older than him. When senescence is in my near future, I very much doubt I'll be as blasé about it as I am now. There's a focusing effect of knowing the decline that's coming, that's almost here... And everyone says life passes much faster than you think.

So. How does one learn to live with the fleeting, fragile moments we have? How does one realize that greatness is a rare thing indeed-- and one gained only if you are willing to sacrifice a great many trappings of a normal, mundane life? How does one learn to savor the moment that is, and stop chasing a tantalizing and yet hollow future, where no achievement seems to satisfy as much as it feels it should?

I've realized, also, that to become a lich, Emmrich must cease to be himself. I don't mean some nonsense about flesh or having a human body (although I have thoughts about that too)-- I mean, very concretely, that the way Emmrich moves through the world is incompatible with lichdom. In my personal characterization of him, he loves deeply, but struggles with impermanence, with endings-- heartbreak shatters him, and he finds it difficult to move on. People he'd known and loved deeply for a year or two become light anecdotes, yes, but only after decades have passed. (Far more years than he'd ever known them; the wounds run deep.)

To survive lichdom sane, I think he would need to detach. Shutter his heart. Learn to hold the world and the people in it more lightly; eventually, come not to hold them at all.

Emmrich, I think, views lichdom as a triumph: a shining chance to become something greater than a human. To give the world more than he could with time cut short.

The picture I have of his immortality is nothing like his, and it haunts me: there is, you see, more than one way to dig your own grave. Emmrich Volkarin, centuries from now, sits in the library that he has amassed, fully withdrawn into his tomes. The time comes when he no longer has windows-- for the light damages the books, you see-- no longer lights the braziers. He reads by the light of his own eyes.

The only people in his life exist as memories-- and slowly, they, too, fade.

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Fanfic is a free hobby.

It's one of the last few things we can have as a society that's free. You can engage, for free. People give you things (art, stories, etc), for free.

Don't buy into the consummerism just because it's everywhere else.

You don't have to consume everything you interact with. You don't have to use things, just because they exist.

You're allowed (still, for now), to have things that are enjoyable for free.

Do you realise how insane the world is? We don't have many places where we can just be, for free anymore, but ao3 is. Did you notice we don't have ads in ao3? We don't have pop ups? Where ELSE do we not have that?

Where else can you just go and not have to wait for a commercial to be over or for ads to be on the sidelines?

I don't think the younger people understand, but the whole of internet used to be like this. YouTubers would do Youtube for free, just because. You couldn't monetise your internet presence before.

Ao3 is like a little preserved corner of the internet where the old internet used to be, and it's being attacked by people who do not understand that free things are allowed to exist without judgment.

Please don't ruin this for us.

Some of us need it.

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Leverage (2008) // the gang x taglines

HI I'M BACK. Sorry for abruptly vanishing (again). I had sepsis (again). I’m home now though and have open Wi-Fi again so here’s our guys

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Pluto Flyover from New Horizons l NASA APOD

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When Safety Is Optional

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So as CMO he's gotta have a grasp of the specifics of care delivery living in a working ship. Like, the nurses and other doctors can get away with expert medical knowledge but McCoy has to understand the rest of the ship in some detail. Holistically

Like, he needs to understand when an engineering emergency fix is risky because it might fry the cables, or if it's risky cos it might maim the technician. And it's better for everyone if he's already mobilising an onsite medical crew before Kirk thinks to prompt him

He also needs to have some idea of how physically demanding different jobs are. Like, if Sulu has a broken hand can he operate the control? Probably not. But he could do it with a broken foot. But yeoman Rand runs around all day, she can't get the same 'light duties' medical clearance to do her job with a broken foot. He understands what light duties are for every role on the ship, because these crew can't be trusted to self report accurately. They all wanna work

This results in McCoy hanging out wherever there's something interesting going on - like heading to the Bridge when medbay's quiet - to learn what the different alerts and codes mean in terms of medical impact. He also spends time down in the engine room, getting an idea of what the work is like there. To onlookers he appears to be shooting the shit with Scotty, but he's there learning. And while he couldn't do the work, he knows exactly what the work requires

He doesn't closely track every crewman's wellbeing, that would be excessive. Theres other doctors and nurses to keep an eye on them, and he trusts them. But he tracks the overall arcs. Three more infectious illnesses then last week, nothing the computer would notice but they're all in botany so we're vaccinating the botany staff and investigating cause there. This month we're down on accidental bumps and cuts in shuttles, but had one significant injury so medical is advising the captain to maintain increased mandatory training. Spock and Kirk are still overdue for their physicals, so McCoy needs two days of light duties to focus on wrangling them

He's also their best trauma surgeon, so sometimes he's inaccessible for six hours cos an ensign mangled their elbow in a Jeffries tube

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BRB, starting discourse about how, since one of the basic structural premises of most tabletop RPGs is that other participants can make bad things happen to your character without your explicit buy-in by invoking the correct "rule", and typically the only acceptable way to decline these outcomes is to call a time-out on active play and negotiate with the table (i.e., effectively safewording out), playing Dungeons & Dragons is technically a form of CNC.

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couldn’t have said it better myself.

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I’d divorce him too lmao

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letter from a mother of a gay man. sent to ONE magazine, 1958.

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This post was flagged as adult content and the original poster was deactivated so I'm bringing it back.

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this is fred, the dot.

fred wants to grow into a beautiful tree, but sadly has no branches

reblog to give fred a branch

i will post fred status updates as he grows

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🌙

I don't know very much of Marvel, but I watched Moon Knight with a friend yesterday (He convinced me). It was a marathon.

Actually, I like these boys.

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happy pride month to them and them only

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