scaredofrobots

[scaredofrobots]

I have been thinking a lot about what a cancer diagnosis used to mean. How in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when someone was diagnosed, my parents would gently prepare me for their death. That chemo and radiation and surgery just bought time, and over the age of fifty people would sometimes just. Skip it. For cost reasons, and for quality of life reasons. My grandmother was diagnosed in her early seventies and went directly into hospice for just under a year — palliative care only. And often, after diagnosis people and their families would go away — they’d cash out retirement or sell the house and go live on a beach for six months. Or they’d pay a charlatan all their savings to buy hope. People would get diagnosed, get very sick, leave, and then we’d hear that they died.

And then, at some point, the people who left started coming back.

It was the children first. The March of Dimes and Saint Jude set up programs and my town would do spaghetti fundraisers and raffles and meal trains to support the family and send the child and one parent to a hospital in the city — and the children came home. Their hair grew back. They went back to school. We were all trained to think of them as the angelic lost and they were turning into asshole teens right in front of our eyes. What a miracle, what a gift, how lucky we are that the odds for several children are in our favor!

Adults started leaving for a specific program to treat their specific cancer at a specific hospital or a specific research group. They’d stay in that city for 6-12 months and then they’d come home. We fully expected that they were still dying — or they’d gotten one of the good cancers. What a gift this year is for them, we’d think. How lucky they are to be strong enough to ski and swim and run. And then they didn’t stop — two decades later they haven’t stopped. Not all of them, but most of them.

We bought those extra hours and months and years. We paid for time with our taxes. Scientists found ways for treatment to be less terrible, less poisonous, and a thousand times more effective.

And now, when a friend was diagnosed, the five year survival odds were 95%. My friend is alive, nearly five years later. Those kids who miraculously survived are alive. The adults who beat the odds are still alive. I grew up in a place small enough that you can see the losses. And now, the hospital in my tiny hometown can effectively treat many cancers. Most people don’t have to go away for treatment. They said we could never cure cancer, as it were, but we can cure a lot of cancers. We can diagnose a lot of cancers early enough to treat them with minor interventions. We can prevent a lot of cancers.

We could keep doing that. We could continue to fund research into other heartbreaks — into Long Covid and MCAS and psych meds with fewer side effects and dementia treatments. We could buy months and years, alleviate the suffering of our neighbors. That is what funding health research buys: time and ease.

Anyway, I’m preaching to the choir here. But it is a quiet miracle what’s happened in my lifetime.

[scaredofrobots]

So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.

I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?

They're my fucking hero.

[scaredofrobots]

everyone should be forced to do time in both big and small fandoms, just to give everyone the full experience and maybe even make us all chill out a bit

[scaredofrobots]

FAKE NEWS

Journey to the Past

A/N: That’s right pals, the infamous Anastasia AU is finally being re-uploaded in all it’s 2009 glory. Please ignore @scaredofrobots if she says it’s not real. She’s clearly a robot. 

Chapter 1: Lost Lis

Keep reading

[scaredofrobots]

reblog if you’re team poc james potter

[scaredofrobots]

“May we raise children who love the unloved things”

by Nicolette Sowder

May we raise children who love the unloved things–the dandelion, the worms and spiderlings. Children who sense the rose needs the thorn

& run into rainswept days the same way they turn towards sun…

And when they’re grown & someone has to speak for those who have no voice

may they draw upon that wilder bond, those days of tending tender things

and be the ones.

[scaredofrobots]

very excited about bridgerton’s choice to cast an actress of south asian descent as kate, here’s kate sharma about to destroy her future husband in pall mall

[scaredofrobots]

imagine being excited your book is #37 on some Amazon list (cough @authorpetalstosarah)

[scaredofrobots]

02/17/2021

Is Snape still a douche?

Yes.

[scaredofrobots]

Jily sans chilly is my fave

Jily one-shots

Feb 2021 Part 1

I had an anon just ask me for some of my favourite one-shots, and honestly this is probably one of the most difficult lists to make because I love reading one-shots especially as they are something I can easily fit in to reading in my day.

I would urge anyone who reads these fics to read everything else these wonderfully talented people have done. This is a mere fraction of the excellent work out there and I am constantly having a mild panic that I might have missed someone.

I read just about as much wolfstar and hinny as I do jily so I could probably make lists of those too.

message sent with confetti by @abby10fanfic

the amazing Spiderman by @alrightginger

watch me unwind by @maraudersftw

bookmarked by @sunaprincess7

about time by @jilyss

When the rain came crashing by @curiosity-at-its-finnest

lessons in lesson planning by @fetchalgernon

pumpkin wars by @scaredofrobots

Rumour has it by @punkaspadfoot

In sickness and in Sparta by @alrightginger & @frustratedpoetwrites

all that is known by @women-inthe-sequel

hard copy by @alrightginger

whiskey business by @elanev91

flora and fauna by @women-inthe-sequel

foam hearts by @sleepinghookah 

butterfly garden by @thejilyship

on a scale from one to ten @authorpetalstosarah

Jack of hearts by @orderofthepygmypuff

The Rise and Fall of the Extraordinary Jilysanschilly: Including Excerpts of their Best Collected Works by @elanev91

[scaredofrobots]

I don’t know how I ever thought I was straight- girlfriend you still know every word to every song on a Fever You Can’t Sweat Out by Panic at the Disco

[scaredofrobots]

I just don’t understand how @authorsmberry can write this big ass novel but not a f-in Anastasia fic

@authorsmberry is still terrible

[scaredofrobots]

EWWWW WHO WOULD PUBLISH YOUR BOOK. Can’t wait to give you negative stars on GoodReads

@authorsmberry is still terrible

[scaredofrobots]

@authorsmberry is still terrible

[scaredofrobots]

The only robot I support is resisbot. If you love the USPS text USPS TO 50409 and they’ll send a letter on your behalf to save the USPS!

[scaredofrobots]

[scaredofrobots]

@elanev91

They both 1000% wear heeled shoes, it’s just facts.