#I put more effort in this than in my biology A-level

[hellsite-proteins]

I LOVE THIS BLOG… would you be able to explain the stuff you’re doing to someone who knows nothing about proteins? all I can remember is something to do with dna ..?

of course! ill do my best to give an entry level crash course here, but if any of this is unclear please leave a comment or send an ask so i can better explain.

DISCLAIMER: all of this has been simplified, and because biology is messy, there are exceptions to pretty much everything i've said. the point is not to give a perfect explanation, but rather a general understanding

the central dogma of molecular biology is pretty much our version of "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell", and since you've alluded to it already, i'll start there. it states that genetic information goes from DNA to RNA to proteins. inside of almost any cell is DNA, which codes for all of the genetic information allowing the cell to function. for our purposes right now, just think of DNA as an instruction manual. when a protein is going to be made, the part of the DNA sequence encoding it is copied over to make a RNA sequence.

RNA is structurally similar to DNA, but while DNA is usually found as a double helix (with two complementary strands), RNA is more often single stranded. it is less stable than DNA, so it does not work as well for long term information storage, but is smaller and can cary out numerous crucial functions.

prokaryotes are things like bacteria, and are distinct from eukaryotes (which includes us) because they lack a nucleus. this means that their DNA is loose inside their cell, rather than sectioned away. in prokaryotes, transcription (which copies information from DNA -> RNA) and translation (which is the process of going from RNA -> proteins) can happen at the same time, while in eukaryotes these processes are separated, as DNA is too large to leave the nucleus. messenger RNA (mRNA) is the specific type of RNA used to code for proteins in all cells. inside a eukaryotic cell, mRNA must be processed to increase its stability and allow it to exit the nucleus.

now, getting to the part about proteins! proteins are made through a process called translation, which translates the information stored using a sequence of nucleic acids on RNA to a string of amino acids known as a protein. each set of three nucleic acids, which on mRNA can be A, U, C or G, makes up the codon for one amino acid. the code is referred to as 'degenerate', since there is a lot of redundancy built in and so some information is lost along the way. there are more possible codons than there are amino acids, and so there is a lot of overlap with several codons coding for the same amino acid.

translation is accomplished using organelles known as ribosomes. these bind to the relevant RNA sequence and help join together the amino acids that are encoded by their sequence, forming peptide bonds. this is done using another specialized type of RNA called a transfer RNA (tRNA), which sticks temporarily to the three-letter codon on the mRNA and carries the corresponding amino acid to the ribosome so that it can be joined with the others in the sequence. all proteins start with the same codon (AUG), and subsequent amino acids are added one at a time. RNA and proteins both have directionality, which means that the two different ends of these molecules are not the same, and the direction you read the sequence in matters.

as a protein is assembled, the N terminal end is put together first, and so this part exits the ribosome while the rest is still being built. at this point, it comes in contact with the liquid inside the cell, and starts to bend itself into different shapes in order to make the most thermodynamically stable structure. this happens spontaneously, and is an effort to minimize the free energy of the protein and the surrounding water molecules. basically, everything wants to be in a state that requires as little energy as possible, and will fold itself to get there. think of this as a similar process to getting home after a long day, and trying to make yourself comfortable as fast as possible. protein folding is the equivalent to you taking off your jeans and lying down on your couch.

the thing is, proteins are complicated, and they need to fold quickly, because the inside of a cell is crowded and chaotic. the way they fold is influenced by several different factors, including how fast translation takes place and whether anything else is nearby to help them fold correctly. proteins do countless different highly specific things in any given cell, and their ability to function is based entirely around their structure. just like how you probably have numerous different tools in your home made of plastic, but each one is a different shape and therefore does something unique. if someone came along and melted your plastic cups until they were completely deformed, they wouldn't be of much use.

the primary structure of a protein is its amino acid sequence, and the secondary structure is made by interactions between nearby backbone atoms, but the tertiary structure is the main thing you'll see looking at any real protein structure. it is the combination of interactions between all the atoms within one amino acid chain. if this gets damaged (which can happen with things like heat and strong chemicals), the protein is said to be denatured. some proteins also have a quaternary structure, which is formed as different folded chains of amino acids each making up one subunit assemble together to make a bigger, more complicated protein.

whether they folded wrong from the start (like your plastic cup getting made with a hole in the bottom at the factory) or they started off fine but then got broken (like your plastic cup melting after you leave it on the hot stove), misfolded proteins are the wrong shape and therefore cannot perform their function correctly. these can do a lot of damage in an organism, and are generally a waste of resources to keep around, so they get destroyed and their parts are recycled.

hope this helps!

letter sequence in this ask matching protein-coding amino acids:

ILVETHISLGwldyealeteplainthestffyredingtsmenewhknwsnthingatprteinsallIcanrememerissmethingtdwithdna

protein guy analysis:

this protein is strange, terrible and filled with holes! just like many of the other structures, the myriad of loops want nothing to do with each other, and everything is all over the place. this whole structure is disordered and likely wiggling around trying to find something else to stick to and mess with. just a toxic trainwreck that should never have existed.

predicted protein structure:

[gayinajar]

Iv spend a lot of the last months being miserable about my physical decline but goddamn my brain sucks too lmao

I love science, and maths. I spent a year dragging myself through higher level maths before I had to drop to ordinary because I just wasn't good enough. I did biology for fun in school. I always, always wished I could have done higher maths, physics, chemistry, higher irish, applied maths. I wish I could have had more options. But I spend my entire secondary school time with undiagnosed adhd, autism, dyslexia, and possibly other mental disabilities that I never got help for.

Along with mourning a life of normalcy in terms of my physical abilities, I mourn the years I spent struggling three times as hard to get half the result my peers could. I still do not think I am academically intelligent because I spent years struggling. Years putting in more effort and seeing less results than anyone around me.

There was a guy in a couple of my classes I payed too much attention to. He did all the "smart classes". Higher maths, applied maths, two sciences (I think physics and chemistry). In a lot of ways I found similarities between us. We both sat out of p.e., took every chance to avoid it, were always reading. He talked so little practically no one heard him speak more than once in two years, I only spoke to others when I needed to. I spent two years comparing myself to him because I felt like he was the smarter version of me. He felt to me like what I could have been, were I less disabled. Even now that I'm out of secondary school and going to college next year, I can't help but think about how he likely could choose almost any college, any course in the country. Meanwhile I had 3 options I could reasonably achieve to do the course I wanted.

I'm 18. I'm sick of mourning what I could have been. What I could have achieved. Why do I have to spend my life mourning.

[moonshine-nightlight]

Hi, I'm always very impressed by your world building skills, even in shorter stories! Do you have any advice for aspiring writers on how to build their fantasy world?

So i drafted a response to this in between working just far too much and then my computer crashed and i lost it. Then i was even busier so i never got around to writing it again but i am making some time this weekend, so worldbuilding post - take 2

My main, high level worldbuilding tips are:

Rule of Cool: worldbuild things you think are fun and interesting. not only is that the best way to get ideas you like and are motivated to write about, but other people will also think they're interesting too. have fun with it.

Iceberg theory: know more about the world than ever makes it into the story. people can sense when worldbuilding is shallow, so even if they never see the true depths of the world they can often sense it's there. plus if u know the whole picture, everything the readers do see will seem more coherent

Integration: i heavily integrate the world i'm building into the story i'm telling--so dig into the plot and characters and make sure that the world and the story serve each other well. your world is there to contribute to the story so make sure its fulfilling that purpose

For more specifics about how i personally world build and for some examples from my stories of the above guidelines, see below.

So firstly, i love worldbuilding. i just think its a ton of fun and could easily spend hours just thinking about worlds in my head. (i mean what else is there to do when ur commuting to work, amiright?) i think that does make it easier for me to take the time to do it right and makes the world come through more vividly in my writing. it can get annoying or tedious or be more challenging at times, but since i like it/find world building interesting, i'm more willing to put in the time and effort to whip it into shape and i get less frustrated with that part of the process in general.

i'm also always thinking about world building to some degree in the back of my mind. picking up interesting information, facts, snatches of cool ideas or images or whatever. then i throw all that in like a junk drawer in my brain so when i sit down to more officially write or flesh out a world, i already have spare parts at my finger tips to use or drawn on.

Reading and consuming other art and worlds also makes it easier to make your own, just lik reading is a key part of writing practice. i don't just mean fiction, but just anything about the actual world makes it much easier to make up your own--that can manifest as awe at the fireflies that actually exist or spite that dragons dont. Whether that's random youtube video essays about the history of musicals or drinks or fashion to books and articles and documentaries or just my friend's niche interests (or their regular jobs). i'm always taking worldbuilding notes in the back of my mind.

For a more writing specific example, i read this short guide '50 Ways to Kill a Mermaid' (its locked for AO3 so u hav to sign in to read it) and it was super fun and cool to read that info from a writer who had studied marine biology. then when i was fleshing out Don't Shoot the Messenger a year later, the problem of Satrasi being a sea demon in a fresh water pool and bloating came to my mind because i'd stored that tidbit from the article away for later use.

My personal method for worldbuilding and plot outlining is sort a brainstorming/Q&A i have with myself (i hope this makes sense when i'm done writing this all out lol).

I've mentioned this before but the prompt that inspired Dale was: "You’re pretty sure your boyfriend was replaced by an eldritch being that can barely emulate being human. Weirdly, you enjoy a better relationship with them than your actual boyfriend."

So when that idea grabbed me, i started brainstorming about the world and asking myself questions. Why is the reader with the boyfriend if they don't really like them? What would make someone stay in a relationship like that? Do i want to make this a dark story? And i did not, i wanted it to be fun, so the arranged marriage angle came to mind. And if that's the premise then when is the story? is this our 'past' or another world entirely? diff world means more freedom so i automatically leaned in that direction.

Can the reader tell the 'boyfriend' has been replaced? Are demons a thing people know about? does the reader know that's an option? which is more fun? if the reader is worried about Dale getting caught, that's more room for hijinks so then yes, demons are known, but not common otherwise too many people would notice.

So my plot and worldbuilding are evolving in tandem and informing each other, based on the type of story i want to tell and how the characters i have in mind will react etc.

i run through a lot of ideas and turn them over in my head--trying out diff pieces to see if they fit--and am always willing to drop an idea or save it for another story if i don't think its working for the current one

For iceberg theory, i mentioned above for Dale would be the religions in that world. When i decided to introduce a priest like character (for discovery danger) i knew i needed to focus more on the religions than i previously had noted. the majority of what i came up with isn't int he story, but i think the fact that i know it helps me write when did end up in there, helped make it consistent, and means i can more easily work in allusions to it without having to work so hard those singular times.

For example, i'd decided to call the demon realm "the Depths" early on, which to me already invokes deep water and darkness, so i followed that through to sort height and air and light as being perceived more positively. fire and light are important symbols in this world and they primarily burn their dead--to bury someone below ground would be seen as almost condemning them and someone drowning is also seen as like, not good for their soul because what if it is 'pulled down' rather than 'ascending'. some of this was alluded to in the chapter, but most of it is not. this also helped me come up with the various "by the light" "dawn's ire" and other similar little 'religious' phrases and exclamations different characters use at times.

Meanwhile, in Sacrifice, the people living their are relatively non-religious--thats why they both don't pray to any other deities and it takes 5 years of problems to even bother trying an old god. it's not sacrilege because they're desperate people trying a long shot, not violating or abandoning a different belief. because i wanted the reader's main problem with it all to just be that they didn't think it work.

And why is she a translator? because i wanted to use the idea from that one post that goes around about how ridiculous it is in movies when their translated prophecies rhyme in english. why are they arguing about the translation? because its a dead language so no one really speaks it, that means the people who came up with it were here a century ago or longer. why aren't they here anymore? nomadic so they left and ended up staying away because of a natural disaster elsewhere. why is this town here now? a particular export/resource in this area became valuable enough for people to try to live here. the fact that its a lumber town due to some rare wood native to the area doesn't come up in the story, but i know it and i think that i know that about the town helps it feel more real, makes it easier for me to reach for new details when i need them

and going back to anything can be inspiration, let's talk about the doorlock in the very beginning of Finally Woken. its literally just a magical keypad/number pad but with different colored tiles instead of numbers because i wanted the reader to be able to get in, but i felt it didnt make sense for them to hav a physical key. and i thought it would look cool in Heshi's door and it went well with the fact that he's a glassblower . also, why is Heshi a glassblower? because i frickin' lov blown glass - i just think its so cool and pretty. that helped lead into the sort of artisan economy feel that world has.

Each of these stories has an outline and notes doc at a minimum. the notes doc is where i throw lik pics, inspiration posts, random worldbuilding ideas etc. only much shorter stories or stories that are heavily based in 'modern' world don't hav extensive random notes.

my Dale folder has subfolders for characters and the setting, as well as random worldbuilding files such as "demon summoning/magic" "spiritual belief and org" "fashion - feminine" and so on. Even excluding the plot outline and chapter notes (and not counting pics) i've got like, over 4k of random notes saved. dale is the one i hav the most of that for, but all my fics have some little section with stuff like that jotted down

in the end, i think the best way to sum up all that is with my three original rules of: put stuff u think is cool in your world, known more than you tell to help everything fit together and seem deep, and build your world around your plot and characters because they should all be working together to tell the story you want to tell.

honestly, i could ramble about worldbuilding all day so if anyone has any questions or wants more examples, just let me know ^^

[rrhodes25]

So my brain was in a DND rabbit hole as per usual and I found a sort of unique gripe I have with the system. It doesn't have to do with mechanics or anything like that, but with how the game categorizes sizes in monsters. So I'm gonna yap about that for a little bit, this is my opinion, not the rule of law, it's just how I've decided to change it at my table and why I chose to do so.

I'll just deal with the greatest offender here: the Tarrasque. In the 5e monster manual it is stated to be 50ft tall and 70ft long. It's lore describes it as a cataclysmic event, a force of nature, it is supposed to be DND's Godzilla. Even the official art makes it look titanic. So why is it smaller than a blue whale??? Or even several titanosaurs??? This is a fantasy world not limited by the parameters of real world biology, so a titan class monster should be TITAN CLASS. It should at least be on the same scale as Godzilla Minus One, if not bigger. An immediate thought from this is how do small humanoid adventurers fight it at that scale? The answer: they probably shouldn't. If I were to put a Tarrasque in a campaign it would BE the campaign. It would require the united effort of the world as it was brought together by the adventurers to pool all of their resources together to stop it. Maybe it's a superweapon that can bring it down fully, or maybe it's something that can bring the beast down to a reasonable level to be fought by tiny, very powerful specks. I dunno, but if you want something to feel cataclysmic, it has to be of an otherworldly scale in my opinion, not something smaller than what is possible in reality.

I use the size classes listed at the top of monster statblocks for their mechanical purposes, such as how big the mini should be for example. But for the sake of worldbuilding and description, I change the details a lot. The 'Huge' size class consists of all manner of things from elephants to giants to Tyrannosaurus Rex to adult dragons, who I imagine are actually about 70ft in length in their adult stage. An ancient dragon can easily be more than double that it my eyes. Something in the 'gargantuan' class is something that would exceed the reasonable scaling of the huge class, such as ancient dragons and purple worms, but do not classify as titans. And the 'titan' size class, (listed as a subclass of gargantuan in the monster manual) is it's own class, and consists of beings too large to be described by any other word than titan.

That's my little rant, not too much of a point just wanted the thoughts out of my brain, so I put em here. If you have thoughts, feel free to share, just be nice. I am simply a little guy.

[meganechan05]

Someone on Twitter has been feeding to the fire that is my Evil Clone KingOhger idea 😂

Specifically the HimeRita portion so I'll probably be talking more about their clones in this post.

I'll start off with the guys first to get them out of the way.

Gira's Tyrant Shtick is real for his Clone. He actually uses it against Gira in a far more threatening way that scares him as it would remind him of Racles's tyranny. He also makes Gira question why he even continues using his Tyrant Persona when the people of Shugoddom already know he's a good guy.

Evil!Yanma takes his yankii personality to a whole other level and actually takes his "I'm the Best" as is by stepping over everyone compared to Yanma who views his people and fellow Kings as equals. He finds joy tormenting Shiokara and the Hacker Gang since he finds them inferior to him, taunting Yanma in the process at how his goals and views on others contradict each other ("I'm the Best" vs no social hierarchy in his country).

Kaguragi's Clone is much more terrifying to him on a deeper level. He's more open about his manipulation and will more often than not call Kaguragi out on his. "You'd say you'd dirty your hands for your people. Yet you were so willing to put your sister in possible danger by having her in Shugoddom soil for your plans? ...You say she wholeheartedly agrees, but would a loving brother who would take sole responsibility for the safety of his country drag his dear little sister into the fray?" (Think Iroki's taunt in the movie but at a much more deeper level. The Clones do know about the originals' deepest insecurities so...)

Jeramie's Clone would have way too much fun taunting Jeramie. He would put on theatrics when explaining all of Jeramie's insecurities to him. How he was only just a boy when his mother died and his powers sealed, giving him more survivor's guilt than he already does. How his vision for a bright future clouded his judgment which caused his writing to cause the 2000 year long misunderstanding. How such clouded judgement makes him unaware of the issues of those around him. How he has finally made friends with the Kings but know he will only outlive them due to his biology.

Evil!Himeno currently seems very cut and dry when it comes to how she takes Himeno's selfishness to a dangerous level. But I know for a fact that she would very much use it against Himeno. "If you were truly selfish. If you really are the best doctor in world. Wouldn't you have done it? Bring Mama and Papa back? Have your family back in your life? If you can heal people, why not try to resurrect the dead? A much better version than what Grodie can do. Wouldn't that be nice?" Or in a situation where she does kidnap Rita and turn them into a doll. "I can turn them into a puppet, you know? They're so stubborn. Wouldn't it be easier if you could just control them so you don't have to use word games to get them to agree?"

Evil!Rita is just outright terrifying (at least to me). Not bounded by Absolute Neutrality while having the memories and thoughts of the original. Not held back by the idea of "the law protects the people" or providing fairness even in a fight. Fighting style can also use underhanded tactics befitting of a country of (ex-)convicts. They call Rita a hypocrite for being impartial but holds bias for Moffun. Being impartial yet open themself up to Morfonia and their fellow Kings (especially Himeno). Question why they're so willing to be selfless when no one has ever reached a hand out to them for 15 years. Question why they endure suffering alone for the sake of Neutrality and the safety of others when no one would bat an eye for their efforts. Why Karras took the risk of making a mere child her retainer and heir. Why Karras and Shiron would make them King without thinking about the consequences of the effects it would have on the child's mental health with no support system ("perhaps they just didn't care as much as you think"). Why they always push their feelings aside to help the others when it's clear they were suffering inside yet never show it.

Stuff like that...

Now for HimeRita, I feel like if their friendship ever turns into a relationship, this story would only make the issue with the Clones worse.

Evil!Rita is emotive to a point where you can't really tell if it really is Rita's clone or just what people think Rita would be if they weren't bound by Absolute Neutrality. So it wouldn't be a surprise if they took advantage of hidden feelings. Same for Evil!Himeno.

There could be a point where the two would drop hints of HimeRita's feelings for one another and taunt them for it once the two have a look on their faces that point they've put the pieces together.

"Oh? You never noticed? How sad. Well. Not like it would ever get anywhere considering how Rittan over there is."

"Doubt they even know they even have those feelings in the first place."

The two would try to talk about it later in private which makes it very awkward and confusing for the both of them as neither even realized their feelings were more than just friendship. They would have a heart-to-heart discussion about it and even discuss their worries for anything that would happen in the future once they can talk more easily without the fear of the clones intercepting.

Only once they were able to agree on that, the two are captured and taken to different locations by the other's clone (according to said clones' plans). Both having extremely unsettling 1-on-1 conversations to mock and drive wedges between them or give them heartbreak. Maybe even have Evil!Rita tempt Himeno with the opportunity of being able to show Rita requited affection through the clone by taunting her of how Rita would never allow themself to return her feelings for the sake of work. Evil!Himeno would taunt Rita by mocking them and putting on the waterworks, questioning why they're so picky on making exceptions to Neutrality when others before them had no problems breaking Neutrality for love.

Putting the two in a tight spot with no one to help them.

...yeah...

[caspersscareschool]

imagine im sending all the emojis under Character Specific - i love when u talk about the versions of the turtles that exist in ur mind, theyre canon to me (has never watched the show or any movie)

you are the realest one out there I'm so serious. under cut because that's a lot of questions

first of all: she/her leo, he/it raph, he/him donnie, any/all mikey but mostly he/him unless the situation calls for it

🥊 Does Raph have anger issues? If so, how does Raph deal with his anger?

i guess you could say that it does, but its issues have more to do with the guilt and fear associated with feeling or expressing anger on any level. he relies a lot on leo's constant emotional support

🧶 Does Raph knit?

no, but yoshi sews. raph's hobbies include raising butterflies and stag beetles, planting herbs and then forgetting to water them and crying when they die a week later, basketball, and lacrosse (but only with leo). he also has a hamster named daisy whom he would kill himself for without a moment's hesitation

🗣️ Is your Leo the leader? Has he always been?

...there's not really a "leader" since that's not how families work in real life, but she's generally the dubious voice of reason and the one who carries everybody's water bottles and medications and whathaveyou. she resents this position a little but doesn't have the self awareness to confront it

🔥 Is Leo accident prone? Especially in the kitchen?

no ❤️ she's not good at cooking because she is too afraid of failure to put any effort towards building skills that don't come naturally to her, so if it was her job to cook dinner she'd just dump a bunch of hot sauce and tuna and jelly and cheese and gravy in a pot and go heheheyhehheehhehehe Soup👍

🔬 Is Donnie only interested in Tech?

I'm not entirely clear on what this question means. he has other interests outside stem, but in my verse his focus is much more on computer science and mechanical engineering than any other field of science, so he kind of doesn't gaf about biology or anything organic or "squishy." if that was the question. other interests include grindcore music, transformers, my little pony (the toys), swimming, gambling, arguing on forums, sculpting, 3d animation, girls, and other things.

🤖 Does your Donnie have a robot child?

Grins really huge.

🎨 Is Mikey the artist of the family?

yes but he's best at cartoons and graffiti and abstract designs. he also makes his own music (mostly experimental hip-hop). donnie is a far better representational artist, but he doesn't consider his work "art" since he doesn't have mikey's imagination or eye for color and he pays mikey disgusting amounts of dubiously-sourced money to draw his pngtuber rantsona. mikey in turn spends this money on fancy cheese

😈 Is Mikey a little shit?

what more is there to say. Yes

🐀 Was Splinter a human or an animal before he was mutated?

human. but don't worry about it

🧑‍🍼 How does Splinter raise the boys?

Jesus. i really don't know how to get into this without copy/pasting 3 pages of backstory from my notes doc. he did his best that's all i can say

💏 Does/Did Splinter have a significant other?

he had a weird bisexual thing. which is different. i can't disclose more at this time

🎤 Is April a reporter?

april is a first-year undergrad majoring in journalism and minoring in environmental science. she interns at her college newspaper, and lately has been going to dangerous lengths to uncover her "big break" so they'll let her do more than edit the crossword

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Is April considered a sibling?

she's like. okay. april is an integral part of their family, AND. she's also really not a surrogate/adopted/found sister in a literal sense. yoshi isn't her dad, and her relationship with the turtles is quite distinct from their relationship with each other as siblings, but it's still just as important, because she's family. like, found family outside of any traditional nuclear family roles. she's their best friend and they're her home away from home

🏒 Does Casey play hockey?

casey is such a minor character in my verse right now that it's actually kind of hysterical that they'd be on this list. they used to play, yeah.

🦸 Is Casey a vigilante?

they are a serial murderer.

[caesarsaladinn]

the fact that I have gotten vastly better grades in upperclassman history classes than I have in biology classes, despite bio being my career-oriented major (history is just cool and fun and I pay per semester, not per degree, so I may as well leave with two diplomas) suggests some number of possibilities:

biology classes are generally harder than history classes at this university

I am better at history than at biology (I put a lot more effort into bio and still get worse grades)

I am equally talented but don't need to put as much work into history--I'm far more knowledgeable about history because it's a stronger extracurricular interest

they're equally strong interests, but history is MUCH more generalizable. every hour spent reading about history gives much more generalizable knowledge than every hour spent reading about bio. political systems in different states are a lot more similar than protein pathways in different organisms

the amount and difficulty is equal, but the questions on bio exams have much more specific answers, and the same level of knowledge/forgetting what the lecturer said translates to a worse grade because it can't be bluffed.

I'm leaning toward 4 or 5 but I would genuinely love input on this one. my brain is structured such that I should go into an at least semi-academic career, but on what subject?

keeping in mind, of course, that the prospects for finding a decent-paying job in biology are orders of magnitude better than finding one in history.

[1babyporcelain]

Controversial opinion which shouldn't be...

What we (especially us women) wear when trying to look nice is ultimately not for ourselves, it is for others, though the feeling does serve 'the self'.

We get a good feeling from thinking we are looking good. But it makes no sense in evolutionary biology to put in effort where there are no rewards. The reward is the approval in the eyes of others that affirm our acception within social networks and groups, because as humans we have evolved as social animals with deep instincts to remain part of a tribe. There is no shame in saying 'I dress well to attract others' (not just sexual attraction). It is a truth many people can't seem to face or actually realise. Beyond things (anything) feeling good, too many people don't ask the deeper questions as to 'why' it might feel good. Yes, it feels good to look good, but 'why', is where the truth lies. What is the benefit of looking good if no one is around to appreciate it? What will this help someone achieve if not in some way tied to a social benefit? I doubt anyone can say they have a real answer for that. I doubt anyone can say they have lived years in isolation where everyday they put on their makeup, styled their hair, pressed their clothes and wore them to sit at home all day, everyday, without having any human interaction or contact. That can take 3 hours of effort per day, which is simply unproductive if it gives no benefit. People in isolation do not do this for a reason, when no one is watching, there is no lasting desire to maintain an appearance.

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" 

And evolutionarily we are a social species. Yes we (especially us women) do things for ourselves such as looking great. But beyond that, it is for social approval, ultimately. Why is that so venomously denied? (Well I would say anything so strongly denied without rational counter argument is generally because there is truth in the supposition anyway).

My personal belief as to why people become triggered by someone assuming they are 'dressing for attention', is because, if indeed they are, they do not want their 'secret' to be known. Narcissism, at any level, is a deeply immoral and penalised personality trait within society, which is a great thing for everyone. And those who dress a little 'on the edge' or 'provocatively', pretty much are fully aware they are doing so. Therefore, I suspect based on my own educated guess, is that their own awareness of their choices to dress certain ways (provocative or not - subjective to many), may hold more powerful subconcious guilt and fear of disapproval if 'that fact' was to be revealed - that they are 'doing it on purpose'. And so they lash out more readily in defence of their choices. The fact of the matter is, they are doing it on purpose, and that seems entirely normal. I would say embrace the choices of clothes we wear, be fearless and shameless, but simultaneously admit the element of attention they are trying to attract. Which, again, there is nothing wrong with. Some people desire more attention than others, and thats a whole other topic.

[rigberts]

Just finished my shinogiyuu reincarnation oneshot and I still have so many thoughts i did not put into it.

First of all, names. Hebihara, of course, uses the characters for "snake" and "origin". Mizuki can be written in a variety of different ways, but i chose the ones that represent "clear water" and "radiance". When written this way, the name has connotations of honesty and being true to one's self. On the other hand, Shinobu (the name) generally is associated with being enduring and reserved, which to me felt like an opposite sentiment. Fujiwara is written as "wisteria field". I didn't exactly break the creativity bank on these. I also couldn't think of a way to have a different name for sabitos reincarnation and have his identity be clear, and it seemed distant and out of character for giichi to call him sabito's reincarnation, so-

Something i wanted to talk about but didn't get to were Mizuki and Giichi's childhoods. Giichi was a rainbow child and his parents were very concerned when he didn't seem to cry or exhibit normal behavior, which made him feel a bit bad for worrying them. To reassure them he put a lot of effort into learning to make sounds and move independently, which was much harder than he thought due to physical limitations. As a result, he ended up hitting all his baby milestones (crawling, walking, talking) quite early. It was also a surprise to all of them when he turned out to be ambidextrous, having been not only naturally right-handed as giyuu, but using solely his left arm in his last four years of life. Giichi was something of a prodigy early on in life, being proficient in reading, writing, and basic math since preschool. However, he was a little embarrassed by middle school, when he found that he could no longer rely on knowledge from his past life to get him through. However, he rededicated himself to school and became a slightly above average student. He also met sabito in his first swim class, and they immediately bonded. Their dynamic is slightly different in this life, since Giichi has more experience and a better sense of responsibility. In this life, Giichi is a bit more like an elder brother to sabito, who lives a more carefree life, but is just as charismatic and principled as ever. In high school, they were nicknamed "the two school princes" because they led the school swim team to an unprecedented level of success, were on the student council, and generally seen as stand up guys. In middle school, sabito wanted to try kendo because he thought it was cool, but no matter what he said, Giichi wouldn't join. Bored, he eventually went back to swimming. Giichi sometimes feels a little guilty about it. Giichi's dream is...well, he's not really sure, because sometimes it feels like he's already living his dream, spending time with the people he cares about.

Mizuki, Shinobu's reincarnation, was a second child and carried completely to term, so people were confused when she opened her eyes extremely early but didn't cry at all. They kept her for a few days for observation but found no defects. However, when she was taken home and she saw her older sister for the first time, she immediately started wailing. Her parents like to tell that story often, and mizuki dislikes it as it completely misrepresents how she felt at that time. After that, mizuki was extremely interested in her sister, to the point of doing whatever she could to beg to be held by her, and showing comparatively little interest in her parents. Mizuki also met her milestones early, but usually only when her sister was around. Apart from her attachment to her sister, mizuki was extraordinarily independent at an early age, and was considered a stereotypical prodigy, not only because she had all of her past life information to pull from, she was constantly seeking out new information to fill in everything she had missed in the past 100 years, particularly in the fields of chemistry, biology, and medicine. Her family was utterly baffled as to how a four year old could understand dense medical textbooks, and when they asked she would unconvincingly reply that she was only looking at the pictures. She was known for having a sharp tongue and a short temper from the moment she could talk, and while she has lots of friends and her sister adores her, her relationship with her parents is a little strained, as they were extremely busy doctors that often failed to make time for her sister, something Mizuki has always resented them for, while they were always somewhat offput by her independence and how little she cared for their approval. When mizuki decided she needed a chemistry set at age seven, rather than ask her parents for it, she used various household items to make homemade lip balms, perfumes, and cosmetics in their kitchen, sold them to her classmates, pocketed the money, and purchased the equipment and materials for her experiments herself. After hearing exactly what had happened, her parents ended up just giving her a credit card so they would be able to track her purchases. Mizukis dream is to own a pharmaceutical company and employ geniuses from across the world to create more effective vaccines.

Mitsuri and Obanai's incarnations are both in their early forties, with five children, the oldest of which is seventeen, and the youngest is nine. Their small restaurant, which they opened as a young couple, isn't very unique, but they use fresh ingredients, are extremely clean, and cook large amounts of food incredibly quickly. Their restaurant was already very popular with locals, but a famous celebrity from the area in an interview said it was the thing he missed most about his hometown, prompting many famous people from around the country to visit. They became internationally famous when their eldest child posted a video of them dancing behind the counter during a lull in service, and netizens thought it was adorable, so they basically internet sleuthed using the background to figure out the restaurant. Mrs. Hebihara, while flattered people found her and her husband cute, didn't like the idea of strangers knowing so much about her kid, so the next (and last) video on the account is her breaking an enormous beef bone in half with her bare hands and warning people not to stalk her children. Since then, the original account has been deleted, but both videos have been saved and reuploaded elsewhere, and interest in the small restaurant has only grown.

Tomioka Giichi's least favorite thing about the modern era: phones. when he gets a lot of notifications he's very stressed out, and he's also kind of a slow texter.

Kochou Shinobu's least favorite thing about the modern era: regulations. back in HER day, an orphan teenage girl with suspicious amounts of money could have a private medical practice and no one batted an eye. Yet, in this woke era...

[trashbinbackyard]

1-10, 20-30 for hibiscus and ipes

my god i should not estimate how long it takes to answer these adeagaqeh

A silly goose and very serious goose

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything? 

Hibiscus Nettle Baskerville, they were meant to be named Hyacinth bc purple but oopsy. They and their sister were named after plants

Nayla Hahn, her parents didn't put in the effort to give her a middle name. Doesn’t mean anything in particular. Her chosen name Ipes comes from the demon Ipos

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them? 

Officially they’re “Lady Baskerville” bc noble and all that but they’d rather toss themselves into the ocean than have someone refer to them as that

She doesn’t have any official titles but she is known (at least underground) to be the drug kingpin of the outer rim

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory? 

It was alright, didn’t think much of it as a kid but now later in life realized how bad it actually was. They had all their basic needs met, education and tutoring, some training with weapons as well, but no parental guidance, no real friends, all the attention was always on their sister. The happiest they were as a kid was with Hyacinth

Nope, both her moms were addicts, dropped out of school, received zero help or support, basically looked after her parents when they were supposed to look after her, got into lot of trouble very early on

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

Wants nothing to do with their parents, and their parents only formally acknowledge them as their kid. Their parents used to take out their frustration on them or just leave them alone completely

She’s gone no contact with them, and believes they’re dead already. Very strained back when she was still living with them, and there were some good moments, like when they would get sober for her birthday, bring some gifts for her to try and make amends etc

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults? 

Has twin sister Hyacinth, she was their world when growing up, but later as the two of them went their separate ways she wasn’t as ready to defend them like she used to. Now they’re still writing each other but Hibiscus isn’t too eager to visit

Only child

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate? 

Excellent at school, or the noble tutor scholar equivalent, very intelligent. And bc they didnt have friends and their parents didn’t let them outside the manor grounds often they had nothing else to do. Enjoyed history the most. Wasn’t a fan of math

Did pretty well all things considered, excelled at math, chemistry and physics, as well as languages. Wasn’t too keen on history, biology or other realities that required a lot of reading. Did end up dropping out of higher education before getting a bachelors degree in anything.

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood? 

Basically considered Hyacinths friends their friends as well but the feeling wasn’t mutual

Just a couple of kids in equally bad situations, they just stuck together, spent all their free time away from home loitering and being delinquents

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals? 

The Baskervilles had some fancy birds in the manor grounds, as a well as couple dogs for show and hunting. Hibiscus adored them. As an adult and due to their lifestyle getting a pet is a bit of a bad idea

Didn’t have pets as a kid. As a an adult she got into snakes, getting a more stable position in the gang allowed her to start keeping one, which is now the black mamba she adores and scares people with

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals? 

They’re ok with animals and animals get along with them

The animals can sense her rancid vibes from miles away. Snakes dont care luckily

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

They like kids and kids like them. Will get a kid with Pestle to commit to the bit fully. Will be the fun parent, the parent who straps the bebe on and starts doing insane parkour.

Not a fan of kids, and kids are afraid of her. Got her uterus yoinked as soon as she had the funds to get it done

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes? 

They enjoy theater a lot, musicals included, especially musicals. Isn’t too passionate about music in general but will enjoy a diddy played in a tavern 

Music in the background is fine, the club being so noisy kinda turns her off from listening to music on her free time, but when she does its lofi beats to run a criminal empire to

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper? 

Not really? They don’t really explode. Patience is not a thing Hibiscus is good at either, they want to do something they’ll do. When dealing with people (like this question probably assumes) they have a limit on how much bs they’re willing to put up

Ipes is more patient, analyzing where the situation is going and acting/talking accordingly. When she start spiraling she’ll begin to lose her temper and lash out and that ultimately will be her downfall

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back? 

Dickhead, just straight to their face, and then bitch about them later behind their back

Doesn’t really insult people, she just berates them and makes them feel bad in other ways, will curse out people when talking about them behind their backs too

23. Do they have a good memory? Short term or long term? Are they good with names? Or faces? 

Decent, nothing special but not the worst either, very bad at remembering names though

She has a very good memory, her brain is like a file cabinet

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress? 

They try to keep it regular, though often night sneaking is required in which case they just nap more to  compensate. A soft bed type of lad, likes to get super comfortable. Can sleep pretty much anywhere though

Sleeps through the day mostly and stays up all night. Has relatively firm mattress.

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves? 

They’ll squeeze out humor out of anything whenever they can, just overall wants to be jolly and lighthearted and find humor in bad situations

Tbh she’s lost her sense of humor a long time ago, nothing to laugh about in this life

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions? 

Their emotions are always on the show, no use hiding them, so when they’re happy their step is light and might do a little skip and hop too

When she’s happy she becomes more relaxed and mellow

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad? 

A lot of things make them sad, and once again they’re not hiding any of it, in childhood they had enough of hiding their emotions, they will hide themselves however, shut themselves into a room to cry it out

She’s just permanently neutral i think, can’t really squeeze any tears out of her. When she’s sad she just shuts down and locks herself in her room

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared? 

Not being enough, not being able to do anything. They’ve faced some Horrors on their journey but interpersonal situations are the worst

She fears a lot of things, loss of control being the main one, physical assault and getting injured a more concrete one

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective? 

Try to tease first to maybe get them to relax about it, but if the vibe is off they’ll take it seriously

She’ll use it against them. Unless its Kenzo, in which case she feels protective, for some unknown unholy reason

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

Pretty often, gotta keep in battle and sneaking shape when not on the road. When out and about they dont feel the need to take extra time to work out

She would do something like pilates and yoga, some low-impact exercise like 15 minutes a day

[officialbabayaga]

heyyy i saw your tags on the college post about taking seven years to finish undergrad and i was wondering if you could talk about how you got from there to law school? i’m still struggling to finish my last year of undergrad and as someone who’s always conceptualized myself as academically successful and has watched all my friends do this seemingly with ease it’s been a rough time, and i’ve been worried i won’t be able to get into grad schools given that i’m gonna graduate in more than four years. anyway if this isn’t something you want to talk about that is so valid and know that just by mentioning it i’m feeling less alone so thank you!

Oh no worries I’m happy to talk about it! I feel like “nontraditional” academic journeys are never really acknowledged enough, to be honest. What I want you to know right from the start is that I got really lucky with the opportunities that I was given, but I also put the work in to follow through.

I’ll skim over the gory details but I did… terribly in undergrad. It wasn’t because I couldn’t intellectually keep up with my classes, mental illness was eating my brain and I just couldn’t function at the level I needed to. BUT I finally graduated with a 2.7 GPA, and was lucky enough to have made a good enough impression at a summer internship that they hired me full time immediately after I graduated. That was a HUGE hurdle, especially because my bachelor’s is in biology, and jobs with a bio degree but no graduate school are really hard to come by.

Now what helped me the most was that I “paid my dues.” I worked my way up from a research assistant to, eventually, a senior research associate after 4 years of incredibly hard work. Even though my undergrad transcript was a pile of shit, I showed through my career that I could do really good work. I did overtime and took on extra projects so I could get my research published and I did everything I could to go to conferences and (unfortunately) network as much as possible.

(digression - my favorite professor once said that networking seems pointless at the time, because you’re not going to see the payoff for another 5 years. that helped put it in perspective for me. basically my networking tips are to just be NICE and HELPFUL when you meet people, especially in a professional context but literally if you just live your life that way and actually talk to people at boring events you’re basically good to go)

graduate schools don’t only take your undergraduate performance into account. Even with my shitty grades, I had put the work in for 4 years at a job that allowed me to really expand my CV. this was a lot of effort, but it was also a LOT of luck. it’s hard to find jobs that actually allow you to move up the ladder but it’s so worth it when you find one. even if it seems thankless and awful at the time, DON’T just give up and settle somewhere that will never promote you or give you opportunities to progress. show through a few years after undergrad that you can work hard and succeed, even if it was professionally and not academically.

Also, since I knew my grades sucked, I wanted to tip the scales even more in my favor. For about 4 months I spent every weekend slamming a vietnamese iced coffee to simulate a panic attack and take khan academy full lsat practice tests. This may not be an advisable way to study, but I have an anxiety disorder and I knew I’d be a fucking mess for the actual test so I made myself get used to it before it actually happened.

a killer admissions essay and really good letters of recommendation are so helpful, too. I didn’t have any professors I could ask for letters, so I got my lab director and the ceo of the company I worked for to write two for me, because we were on really good terms.

and I think that’s about it? it was a big mix of luck and hard work, and for me, the end result was getting accepted to law school 5 days after i applied :) but i was rejected from one school and waitlisted for another so it’s important to remember that the places you’re applying to could have extremely different criteria for what they’re looking for in students.

I wish you the best of luck!! It can be so tough but if you haven’t shown your best work in undergrad, you’re never out of chances to prove that you’ve grown enough to get back into academia. also in my experience, generally, law students who have real-world job experience do better than the ones who are coming straight from undergrad! because it IS a job, and learning professionalism and self-direction before getting into it makes a whole lot of difference.

[rain-candles-jazz]

Whumptober 2023 Day 5

"It's broken."

tw: referring to humans as objects, medical pain

The base commander leaned down to stare through the one-way mirror, down into a testing room painted walls to floor in a grid. On this floor grid, a human-shaped form lay, coated in a dark blue uniform.

The air condition in the observation room was all that could be heard. Dr. Gilmore felt himself growing more and more nervous the longer the commander said nothing.

He had been part of the 00 project for long enough to know that few things went perfectly when combining biology and synthetics, but he had come to expect a certain level of understanding about this from those above him. This latest project was testing that level, and Gilmore had spent many a night wondering what level of responsibility he felt for it.

The subject code-named 004 had been a rough case from the start. The project’s need for secrecy meant that no one had their first choice of test subjects, but this one had arrived terribly wounded, nearly dead. At the time, Gilmore saw it as a wonderful opportunity to help this man, to give his battered body back a functionality it might never have again with traditional medicine. He had imagined the scientific strides they’d make in nerve, limb, wound recovery, contributing to the medical sciences, the biotechnology possible to help victims of trauma and disease…

Unfortunately, his heady ideas at the time had failed to consider two things: 004’s mental and emotional state, and the Black Ghost organizations disinterest in anything other than weapon development.

These two factors had contributed to Gilmore and the other scientists compromising on what was added to 004’s design… everything added or fixed required a way for the modification to be deadly. The more these compromises were made, the more frequent Gilmore’s nightmares had become.

He was never under any illusion that Black Ghost was a philanthropic institution, but he had always hoped that his involvement with the organization would be able to steer it in a better direction. More disabling rather than deadly weapons; more shields, walls, armor for those in harms way; transportation technology; surveillance - these were the things he had tried to put more effort into. The 00 program, he had told himself, was meant as a deterrent - a way to ward off wars. No one wanted to fight a battle when the other side was manned by robot soldiers, right?

004 had forced him to come to terms with all of this. 004 was built back to be a weapon and nothing but. 002 and 003 had recon and surveillance capabilities: they were supplied with guns, sure, but 004 *was* a gun. Blades and machine guns and missile launchers had been built into him. Gilmore could not justify any of it.

These modifications had long been decided and implemented. 004 was still healing from the multiple surgeries these “remodels” had necessitated. He had been given a thorough physical just this morning and been cleared for a basic test of his progress.

And yet… there he lay, prone on the gridded floor, blank eyes staring straight ahead.

Finally, the commander straightened back up without breaking his gaze from the room beyond. “Hmph…. It’s broken!”

Gilmore stepped up next to him and glanced between him and 004. “Um… if I may, sir: He’s a human, not a robot. No one is ‘broken’-“

The commander leered over him and sneered. “IT,” he emphasized, “is a cyborg, and right now, its not working.”

Gilmore stammered, “He-It-it *can* work, sir, it-it just… he doesn’t *want* to-“

“Gilmore, what are you talking about?” The commander was obviously annoyed and not terribly interested in listening to some bookish scientist preaching about ethics or guns with feelings. “I had to clear my morning schedule to come and check up on your little pet project, and all you have to show for the astronomical R&D budget is-“ he flailed an incredulous hand at the seemingly lifeless cyborg in the next room. “That!”

Gilmore lowered his head as the commander turned to go. “I just don’t know how much longer we can indulge these expenditures, Gilmore.”

After he marched out of the room, Dr. Gilmore turned back to look at 004 for awhile before typing the code that allowed him in the room. He strode over, noting that at no point did 004 even acknowledge his presence. *He looks like he just got run down by a truck*, Gilmore noted about his pathetic position on the floor.

Staring down, Gilmore felt more than a little frustrated: though he didn’t like the direction of the project thus far, he knew 004 still had potential, and his performance today wasn’t going to help anything.

“004, you could have at least tried to hit a single target. This behavior isn’t going to get you any more help you know.”

004 was silent for a minute. Nothing changed about his demeanor when he responded, voice quiet and hoarse. “Everything hurts…”

“You had a full physical this morning,” Gilmore sighed. “Your chart mentioned nothing about pain.”

“They didn’t ask,” 004 replied.

The Doctor grimaced and bent down, reaching for 004’s metallic hand, lying softly beside him, intending to inspect the limb for malfunction.

He only had time to mumble a quick, “No-“ before the slightest touch from Gilmore made 004 breathe in sharply and yell.

Gilmore fell back in surprise and felt all of his annoyance float away. 004 was breathing heavily, now tense on the floor and seeming to struggle to wait for his nerves to calm down. Gilmore shook his head, concerned. “I-I’m sorry 004,” he spoke softly as 004’s breathing regained some regularity. “No one told me” He made a mental note to make sure he was alerted to any further discomfort from the cyborgs. “I’ll get some analgesia,” he stood quickly and turned to head to his lab.

Before he got too far, however, he heard the door on the other side of the room shift open. A pair of heavily armed guards entered and headed straight for 004.

“No wait!” Gilmore moved to stop them. “He’s having a reaction, he’s very painful-“

Before he got any further, 004 was roughly grabbed up by his arms. Gilmore cringed as he yelled, being dragged roughly back to his holding cell, not fighting at all in a vain attempt to remain as still as possible.

“Stop!” the Doctor yelled, still trying to catch back up to the guards.

He heard a truly heartbreaking sob from the cyborg, just as the door closed. Gilmore was left standing alone in the gridded room, feeling suddenly drained…

[theladyofbloodshed]

You’re a teacher in UK (I’m assuming based on a few posts from before). Rishi Sunak (the new prime minister) is making plans to make maths compulsary for kids upto 18 years old.

All over social media, british people have different opinions about it. Most are however against it. The most common reason is that they believe it kills creativity, and that the cirriculum could use some other useful subjects.

What is you opinion on the matter as a teacher?

(Sorry if you only take fandom related questions. You can totally ignore it if you don’t like non fandom related questions)

I think it is ridiculous. Long post so I'll put under a read more

If everybody studied maths to 18, it wouldn't make anybody more employable because all would have that qualification. The majority of jobs do not require you to use maths. So often my kids will ask me why they have to learn something and the honest answer is that the government told me I have to teach it.

The shift between GCSE to A Levels was hard. That was ten years ago for me, but it was hard. It's a big jump in terms of depth of learning. In order to study maths to 18, either students have to drop a subject they had wanted to take to fit it in (in the UK, you generally take 4 subjects for AS Level then drop one for the final year. I took biology, chemistry, psychology and philosophy & ethics then dropped the latter) or will have an extra subject wedged on top which gives them less time to focus on each class - or they won't actually care about taking maths so won't put effort into it.

I work in a primary school and how it works here is you teach the same 30 children every subject for a year. My role is slightly different as I am a cover teacher and cover all across the school so when a teacher has the afternoon to plan, I'll teach their class which means I can teach from 4-11 years old in the same week. We already have children who declare they hate maths and its hard. We have parents who when we ask them to support their children's learning will say that they were bad at maths so it doesn't matter if their children give up on it. I had a child last year who at 11 years old was greater depth for writing and reading (the highest level you can be) but wasn't secure in her number bonds to ten so massively struggled with all areas of maths. Number bonds to 10 should be secured at age 5. Our curriculum is so big that sometimes we run out of time to teach everything or children have absences and they have so many gaps. She was missed every year as somebody who should have been higher and I spent so much time trying to catch her up by filling in all of her gaps on number bonds and times table knowledge which filter into every strand of maths. We had 2 years of covid so maybe if that hadn't happened, the gaps would be apparent sooner, but she's not the only child like that.

Maths isn't valued here. Partly that comes down to the way it is taught. It's not a criticism of teachers, but the syllabus is so massive that you have to hit everything at pace and for those who can't keep up, they end up with massive gaps in their learning. If they've struggled with fractions for the 3 weeks they've studied it, too bad we're onto area and perimeter now, you'll do fractions next year!

In the mornings, I tutor a group of children who have fallen behind and I have to plug any gaps and try to catch them up to age related expectations. This past week, I taught them bus stop method for division because that was what I was told to teach by their regular teacher. I then found out what we aren't supposed to teach that method until next year.

But they had understood it, because they know how to exchange from subtraction because we ensured they really were secure and understood what exchanging means rather than "you add a 1 to the next number".

So then we had to go back a step because the government said they need to learn how to partition it into a whole part model... which is actually harder because they didn't know how many tens or ones they should be splitting it to. It's just so ridiculous. They completely understood the one on the left and will be taught that next year and will use that method forever. But the one on the right has confused them - and they won't need to do that ever again after this year - but we have to teach them like that because that's what the government says?

I didn't really enjoy maths. I never gelled with my teacher and I had the same one for 4 years and I knew I wasn't taking it beyond a compulsory level. I got a B at GCSE which was bad in my school so I had to go to a remedial math class at the start of year 12 because there was maths in biology/chemistry which I had chosen. But in the first lesson my teacher was like "why are you here?" because the small branch of maths that I needed for my science subjects was secure. I've not needed trigonometry or the quadratic equation ever in my life.

I've needed maths to teach maths but actually my understanding of fractions and place value has only become secure since I've had to teach it.

That time would be better spend in teaching young adults how to apply for jobs, for understanding taxes and insurance, for developing contacts in careers etc. The average grade for maths at GCSE level is around a low B/high C. At my school, if you received a B in a subject that you wanted to take for A Level, you would be warned that it would be difficult. If you had a C, they'd advise you against taking that subject because it would be too hard.

It would be better for the government to look at the national curriculum and see how many hoops educators have to jump through and how many boxes we have to tick to please them first. It's so stupid!!!

[unhumanrights]

Spell Trek, 10/26/2023: Questioning and Balance

Hey, welcome. You’ve reached the part of the creative process where I begin questioning why I’m doing this! Isn’t that the most fun part? Okay, it’s not quite as dire as that. However, I am uncertain about where things currently stand. So, I’m just going to talk about what’s in my head right now.

Gonna warn you now that it’s a lot. It’s probably not really that interesting if you’re not me or at all invested in the idea of Spell Trek. But it’s all under the “keep reading” link, so you are protected if you want to be spared my “writing about writing” shtick.

So, what has me questioning why I’m doing this? I’ve mentioned balance in previous entries here, but it really is on my mind a lot with this project. It would be different if I was writing an original work because I would not be contending with anyone’s expectations. As this is fanfiction, there ARE expectations. People know and love these characters. You can defy expectations, sure, but there is risk. There is also a threshold. Different readers have different thresholds, I suppose. Still, if you’re using established characters, what would be the point of diverging too much from the source material? Might as well write OCs if they’re too divergent.

Now, I’m not worried about how I’m portraying characters right now. I haven’t even considered characters yet because I’m still noodling about the setting. What am I trying to balance with the setting, then? Well, I’m trying to find the balance between the familiar and the transformative. If I don’t change things enough with my AU, then what was the point of making it an AU at all? If I change things too much, then what was the point of using Trek as a template? There must be change. There must be preservation. It gives me a headache!

Plus, you know, there’s always the chance that I’m overthinking things. I’m guilty of that in my life, for sure.

That brings me to the brainstorming I’ve already done. Have I made things different enough to make the AU worth it? I’m not sure I have. So far, this is where my setting stands:

It’s still in space, but now it’s MAGIC space.

The species are all the same as in vanilla Trek, except those with special abilities get them from magic rather than biology (or magic is just a part of biology, however you want to think of it).

All the tech is still there, but it’s all MAGIC instead.

When I read that, it feels like I didn’t actually do anything. Where is the innovation? Where is the transformation? In my effort to keep things familiar, I’ve made changes that are practically irrelevant. I kept the Trek levels high, but the fantasy levels are low. This AU is barely A at all.

What was my original intent with making this AU, anyway? It was my attempt to feel comfortable writing stories in a fandom which is not my natural genre, since I love Trek and these characters. That's still valid. But why would anyone care? Why would they read something that is essentially just a literary palette swap when they could just stick with something written in the actual setting?

I think this AU has to truly diverge to be worth the effort I'm putting into it. So I have to revisit everything I’ve already written here and give it a second thought. Oy. But it will be worth it. Either I’ll figure out how to write the dang thing, or I’ll figure out that I shouldn’t write the dang thing at all. After all this talk, I’d hate to find out it is the latter option. I’m not giving up that easily, though.

I guess the question to answer is…what do I WANT to write? I thought, perhaps, I wanted to write something a little more adventurous, action-packed, like an actual episode of Lower Decks. That was another reason for making this AU that I forgot to mention above. I thought I could handle such things better in my comfort genre. And perhaps I could. Or perhaps not. I’ve never really written action/adventure stuff in the past. Why would I start now? Perhaps I was blinded by my love of seeing it in Trek. Then again, it’s not my main reason for watching Trek. Actually, I’ll watch the action and enjoy it, but it would probably be on the bottom of the list of my likes. So what do I like? Interesting characters in bananas situations, for sure. That’s a given. I’m all about that interpersonal stuff. Here’s a fact about me: I watched wrestling many years ago, but only for the stories. That should tell you something about me. So I want to see characters interact, and maybe some weird stuff is happening, but it’s probably not too action-packed. Here’s something that’s very specific to Lower Decks: I love the fact that it is showing people on the bottom of the Federation pecking order doing the dirty jobs that nobody else does. It’s mundane to them, but it’s still fascinating to me. Another favorite show of mine is Superstore, so that should make sense (and I swear, I am going to make a Lower Decks AU that is inspired by Superstore; I’m already figuring out how the characters would fit in the world). I guess I like the part of Lower Decks, and Star Trek as a whole, that would fit in the category of “cozy fiction.” It is my chosen genre, and if I can find cozy sci-fi or cozy fantasy, so much the better (you all should read Legends and Lattes, just saying). I think I could write good cozy fiction, especially with these precious characters.

So that’s what I WANT to write. How can I make Spell Trek work as cozy fantasy? That, I am not certain about yet. I have a vague inkling about a wizard tower housing some kind of magical Federation that can do magical research and exploration throughout the multiverse, but nothing solid yet. I’ll return to this another time. I have some other projects to work on, and this has taken me three days off-and-on to finish.

P.S. The word "cozy" is weird. Not the word itself, but how it is used for fiction and games. I used it here because it seems to be the popular word for the concept, but I prefer calling it something else, like "low-stakes." I suppose low-stakes maybe doesn't sound as interesting, but I like it because it gets the point across: this fiction isn't about world-changing events, there's no Chosen One, the fate of millions is not of concern here. Smaller stories that affect the characters within, and maybe some others not mentioned, but that's about it. Why am I still here writing when I just said I was going to go do something else? Fine, I'm outta here.

[selormohene]

day 122 (thursday, november 2nd 2023) 

More on mathematical cultures. The phenomenon of interest here is the extent to which proofs or conceptual understanding or having a feel for things in one subject (say, category theory or algebra) can feel harder than in another (say, analysis or topology), to say less of other ways of doing mathematics (construction, modelling, computation, numerical estimation, conceptual creation, etc.). But then there’s also the fact that sometimes I get better at certain kinds of proofs the more I’ve been doing them, the extent to which this is textbook-dependent, the extent to which it depends on first conceiving of these fields as separate to begin with (so maybe if my education in topology has been heavily point-set-theoretic versus category-theoretic, etc., then my ability to understand the field, and perhaps even to later get other ways of treating the issues in the field, may be different). All of this doesn’t negate that people may feel an affinity towards some things more than others, but in other fields it’s just accepted that one’s starting feeling of affinity for some things versus others is one part of the puzzle, it may place a limit on the level of felt ease but not on the level of acceptable performance and consequently not on the level of effort it’s thought normal and natural and possible to put in. Like in other places it’s just taken for granted that you can strengthen your weaknesses. They aren’t reified in the same way and it’s the reification that creates the false sense of immutable reality and not the other way around. And even though I’ve here limited my attention to cultures like different subfields of pure math versus other mathematical disciplines like applied math or the quantitative sciences, there are also more far out mathematical cultures which in terms of subject matter are similar but in terms of approach are going to be and feel very different.

The cool thing about intellectual specialisation is that it’s a form of division of labour. The world is a complex place and there are too many patterns for any one person to keep track of, but also subsets of the patterns cluster into perspectives on the world as a whole. The more we specialise the more we’re able to latch on particular patterns and clusters of patterns in a complex reality, but we also have this domain-general kind of reasoning, and people manage to be polymaths as well, but it’s also quite incredible that we’re able to communicate our specialised insights to people who aren’t specialised in the ability to derive those same insights in the same way. Like it’s possible for someone who’s been studying some complicated question in biology to break down their research, albeit at a high level, to someone who doesn’t really know much about biology, but who is nonetheless capable of asking insightful questions which get at something which is very important and central to the biological inquiry in question.

[lyreleafblog]

☽ Crystal Magic / Part One ☾

After years of therapy and many hours of candle lit meditation, I have realized that the reason I became estranged from my spirituality is because other human beings deliberately used it to manipulate me. Now that I am more self-aware and able to identify that kind of manipulation, I am longing for an aspect of my identity that I’ve been keeping myself away from. It’s interesting to be disabled and still find oneself drawn to the earth-worship that celebrates our own uniqueness here in a world where calling someone “special” is a school-yard insult.  Following a decade of questing to figure out if a physical science could explain the so-called healing properties of crystals, I discovered that the answer is that it simply doesn’t matter whether science has an accepted, stable explanation. Science can only vaguely guess how the Tylenol I just took magically immunized me against the sensation of my dulled-out-neurosurgery contractions. 

 Instead, I have learned, through trial and error, the science of biology is not only perhaps more important to my goal, but itself is as much of a science as the science of cinematography. Less of a science, really, and not at all an equation—biology follows the patterns of communication.  It is a process that neither high priestesses nor philosophers nor doctors or chemists can properly articulate.  In a world of genetics, everyone is biologically imperfect, and imperfection is the very variable that thwarts our demise. The science of biology is so powerful that for nearly ten years after I was diagnosed with bradycardia, deliberate, diligent efforts towards daily meditation— towards meditating in the doctor’s office while sitting bare-assed in a paper nightgown— did much more than make me feel normal in myself, but presented a level of confidence that demanded my autonomy. I don’t want to, and I look like I know what I’m doing, so people have listened.  I didn’t want to be “The Sick Woman” like my mother had always been to me, and so I refused to become her.

 But now, I know better. I know better than to fake normalcy in front of my doctors. The secret of my weakness protects absolutely nobody because I am a 25-year-old adult and there is no longer a risk over the legal supervision of my neglect. I no longer must pretend that I am not sick to escape localized or systemic abuse. 

 The things I haven’t talked about are incredible. I’ve been talking about talking about them for years while I am never ready. Have I told you just how deeply this tribulation can devastate a lineage? I’m sure I’ve muttered about it in stupid, cryptic, passing glances. Like a little whisper on the wind, I’ve been tickling my audience, covertly trying to pull this experience out from within all of us so that I can compare myself against it.

 Allow me to put it simply: no, I did not have magical auric vision for seeing ghosts and dragons like the Christian Counseling service my mother dropped me off at when I was in first grade would have somehow, apparently, permanently convinced everyone else of; instead, I had un-medicated seizures. My mother of course simply would not have such a thing. She was the one with real problems, after all—with arthritis and endometriosis and a clinically labeled somatic disorder that she refused absolutely any form of psychological intervention over.  Despite that I was born weeks before my due date with an infection serious enough to prevent me from even going home in the beginning, I was never allowed to actually be sick. Instead, I had to role play as being spiritually broken.

 In real, scientific and clinically-repeatable reality, I was not the spawn of a voodoo curse. I had multiple neurodevelopmental abnormalities, all of which with offensively practical, simple and very truly human therapies. I grew up in a household that defaulted to blood-ghosts when they didn’t already have the answers to their predicaments. Somehow, they still knew better than to let the outside world become aware of the depth of that phony ignorance. Children like I was seldom invite friends (spectators) over. The series of (non-biblical) therapists I’ve had over the course of my lifetime have all explained it away with the infamous label of “neglect.”

 That’s why I stopped— why I put the pendulum and the cards and the long skinny rainbow candle collection into a box under the bed and then tortured myself for craving the connection that had, in some way, always been there for me. Did you know that this connection is a big part of my marriage? Of course you didn’t. Nobody knows. The blood-ghosts got me, after all, but not in the way my parents were ever expecting. I still hear the voice of my own old crone talking down to me over a flame lit crucifix at the dusty, cigarette-ash-stained iron wrought kitchen table. It appeared like a scene from the original “Carrie.” I remember looking at one of her eyes—just to the left, behind her head, at the idyllic floral pattern on the country curtains a much more normal version of her had once hung over her sink window. She described how stories of hell terrified our savage ancestors into walking with her lord. I sat baffled at the hypocrisy that a great spirit became a white-but-middle-eastern man all because of Christopher Columbus—who we hated, despite enthusiastically adopting his beliefs. I stuffed all the quartz and more colorful variations of quartz into an old flimsy shoe box and left them in my closet, under my S.O.’s utterly unused paintball bag, for years.

 My health dwindled. No, it wasn’t because I’d shaken the sand and crystals out of my baggy, paisley pockets. It was because I’d had them there in the first place. I surrounded myself with the walls of a man-made echo chamber so that every sound I heard was merely a reverberation of my own, already existing thoughts. Crystals in my pockets would keep me healthy, therefore, I believed, I didn’t need to save up for medical appointments. Moreover, I had long deluded myself into my own pseudo-spiritual rabbit hole—one that is so extremely common that a hashtag describes it.

The #vegan community wasn’t exclusively self-perpetuated. I hadn’t really thought the lifestyle would be feasible for myself until the pediatrician my step mother had selected for me cooed in approval over my sixteen-year-old-self-declared-vegetarianism. “In fact,” she went as far to say, “You could even go vegan and still get all of your vitamins and minerals.”

 She proceeded to explain that I could get my iron from raisins! Y’know, I once had a teacher who told me that everyone gets exactly one exclamation mark that they’re allowed to use for the rest of their lives. I choose to implement it just then because I really want to convey to you the valley-girl enthusiasm in how this middle aged doctorate-wielding woman told me, a visibly anorexic teenager who still used four fingers to hold a pencil like a toddler, that raisins would cure my pre-vegan low iron levels.  Unfortunately for everyone involved, I would outwardly lie about my health in all possible situations and do nearly anything to avoid both medical examinations and treatments. There are reasonable reasons for this behavior—at least, reasonable given the cognizant capacity of an awkwardly neurodivergent, neglected teenager—that I will not get into here. I successfully avoided much supervision of my health. When I turned 18 years old, my health insurance became much more expensive and I was removed from the plan. This ensured that I wouldn’t be able to have my health monitored even if I had been willing to allow it. I opted to keep up with my life-long-prescribed meditation.

 I doubled-down on what, at the time, was an overwhelming majority opinion in the scientific and medical community. Meat was bad, phytochemicals and fiber were good. Nobody could possibly eat too many fruits and vegetables, ahahaha. Salt was, of course, super-very-bad for you because it caused bloating! Bloating just so tanked my body image. Like I had mentioned in my prior entry on this blog, I was a happy-go-lucky-ed-recovery girlie—one who had once had a doctor and therapist supporting my newfound restrictive diet. I found every possible justification for my behavior.

 There’s a bit of a lesson, I suppose—the moral of the story that I’m sharing with you today is this:

 Humans can justify anything.

 Justification doesn’t require justice—which is an immeasurable, immaterial, ethical philosophy vocabulary word— but merely willpower. Justice might describe something more value-centric—as in, fiscal value—but justification is the decision to subscribe to a set of beliefs, against which to compare the actions of oneself and others—and even more ironically, is so mutable and fragile that each individual warps it circumstantially. I had suddenly found myself consumed a new system of justification upon my lifestyle change. My new sense of justice was validated by pillars of authority I once felt like I had been rebelling against. I will clarify now that apparently, those pillars of authority have a bit of a controversy regarding their alleged support of some parts of the new justice system I had taken on. At the time, however, it was hard to find a legitimate shred of scientifically literate doubt in the idea that abstinence from animal foods prevented all known diseases.

 I remember a time much more recent than my aforementioned kitchen curtain scene. Instead, in this memory, I was a messy, frumpy 18 year old runaway in a town I’d never even been to, sitting on the tip-jar-penny-littered carpet of my $375 per month apartment bedroom. I remember hurting, aching, really, with my spaghetti-arms wrapped around my abdomen, and swaying back and forth in the warm sunlight of northern Florida’s golden autumn afternoon. As my insides curled and twisted, I retched and dry heaved next to my box spring set up. I kept telling myself that it couldn’t really be all that bad. I simply was just a very dramatic human being—maybe thanks to all those high school years spent analyzing Tarantino’s foot fetish through his so-called art. The thought of it all being in my head was an addictive, dark and disturbed comfort that had long kept my sensitive mind from facing the reality of being born disabled. It was like a lucrative secret—it feels, if one can even postulate such a thing—the same way that not eating for days once felt in my mind. I feel like I’m winning when I succeed at hiding the pain.

 So, I told myself, over and over, that I had already gone above and beyond to eliminate the risk of sickness from my life. I was living a lifestyle that the global authorities on health and nutrition were broadly claiming eliminated much of the risk, so I justified my action by repeatedly regurgitating what, at the time, was one of the most common opinions. I crafted my little echo chamber and refused to communicate with conflicting information. As I sat there weeping on the floor beside my bed, way back in 2015, in that sparsely decorated, crummy little apartment room, I recited instructions I’d received years prior in less-than-ideal-therapy. I told myself that my pain was a fuzzy-wuzzy-pink pillow, scratchy and stringy and present. I tried as hard as I could to depersonalize the sensation into a mental object I could then discard. No matter what I told myself, it continued to feel real to me.

 I was willing to keep this charade up for quite some time. I believed in my adoptive ethics so thoroughly that I was clearly willing to suffer for them—after all, the only thing really wrong with me was just anxiety, right? I went as far as humoring the idea that perhaps my own suffering was somehow divine in itself; Christlike, since that’s the branch of religiosity that had framed my upbringing—and to be Christlike, I would, like Christ, suffer at the mercy of life around me. I force-fed myself dated, blurry slaughterhouse footage from establishments whose exposure had long ago warranted and attained their closure to mentally drive myself farther into my position. Sure, my hormones were clearly failing me and my pain was taking me over, but at least I wasn’t being skinned for leather-making.

 It all tied back into a warped sense of spirituality. Many spiritual and religious practices discourage an overbearing ego and even go as far as to claim that human existence is inherently plagued by our spiritual inadequacies. At the root, many western practices argue that humans are incapable of perfection but should strive to be some form of tolerance or good for the sake of our own larger wellbeing. Egoists, however, perhaps even King James type of egoists—have found many ways to flounder the values of individual interpretation. Instead, egoists infiltrate the sensitive, vulnerable communities who flock towards the historical and perhaps even anthropological inclination of human beings towards some form of religious practice.  

 I had allowed my egoist-prescribed sense of ethics to supplement that missing component from my life. As I’d described, my notion of spirituality revolved around my own incapacity for a long time, so my newfound connection to the world around me, which I nurtured, supposedly, through my disciplined actions, occupied a void that I was raised longing to fill.  This obsessive behavior made it far easier for me to cling to my beliefs, especially since they coincided along a natural vice towards avoiding food. As I ached on, and things worsened for me, I began seeking every possible solution that my new religion tolerated—but never, of course, considered that my own behavior might be playing a role in the pain I experienced.

 I remember this period vividly, with a curdling sense of horror, because of the mix of confused desperation that strung me along through it. At time, my blessed little group of girl friends and I would frequent the expensive Co-Op grocery stores. Never-mind my face-consuming acne, which I spent great efforts pining over “all-natural-cruelty-free” labels for any product that didn’t contain some form of comedogenic oil, I also disproportionately veered our trio towards the extra-expensive isle of supplements. B12 and niacin, magnesium, iron, and zinc were readily available, right alongside the devious little bottles of mysterious, magical hormone-curing pills. I had already done my own (little g) google research, fully aware of some of the grossly underregulated concoctions I wanted to blame my next catastrophe on. I struggled to find Vitex and Dong Quai that didn’t come stamped out in those little gelatin capsules—as I was a pectin-only type of gal and would apparently rather suffer than take (fake) medicine (that I didn’t yet know wouldn’t work). I came across some vegetarian Evening Primrose on one little shopping trip and added it into my arsenal.

 I took fistfuls of these pills every single day. To this day, I take a lot of pills most days and I know that I probably will for the rest of my life. Still, nothing can compare to the discomfort of having to take these three bulky pills evening primrose pills three times a day. I remember my period had come and gone without nearly as much incident or a reliance on nearly as much ibuprofen after a month or so on my magic-oil-pills.

 Oh, boy, did I think I had done it all. I remember bragging to my friend, who ironically, has EDS too, and was diagnosed years before I was, (and who has been a tremendous help and friend to me since the day I met her) about my au-natural period pain remedy. I have no idea how she ever had the stamina to tolerate my bullshit and to this day I still do not.  I obviously had no idea what I was talking about. Nevertheless, I sure thought I did… at least for a few more months.

 It was right around the time that I started dating my partner when it seemed that my new all-natural-cruelty-free-supplement had suddenly and inexplicably stopped working. Older, more mature me questions if the coinciding pint of ice cream he and I somehow consumed in one sitting every Friday night might have been just a little too much sugar for my extremely fragile endocrine system to handle. My pain became horribly, upsettingly bad all of the time.

 I had no insurance at the time, so I used a service called prjktruby to initially talk to a professional about my pain and figure out a reasonable route for treatment. Right away they recommended that I take a pretty conventional combination contraceptive and encouraged me to skip as many periods as I wanted to by avoiding the placebo pills.  Being that I had started a relationship that had the capacity to result in a pregnancy for the first time in years, I was excited by the prospect that this class of medication is even more effective as a contraception than some of the others available. Believing that I was perfectly healthy, too, besides what I thought were a few supposedly “minor” issues I had been diagnosed with earlier in life, I saw no reason to actually monitor my own vitals or get regular bloodwork while on this medication.

 The medication did not effectively stop my menstruation which was much of the purpose of going onto it.  I had also developed a new host of symptoms that were extremely debilitating. I had honestly completely forgotten that my pre-existing stomach issues were something worth mentioning to a doctor, so when I did finally talk to one about the side effects of the medication, I would up getting re-diagnosed with IBS. I was experiencing what were pretty normal symptoms of my already existing stomach issues, however, and just didn’t know because I had only experienced other symptoms of it previously (and since). More concerningly, this doctor ensured me that my combination-hormone medication was not responsible for my symptoms and argued that perhaps I was misrepresenting the accuracy of my perfect use of the pill. I did some more googling.

 As it turns out, there don’t seem to be many studies that do a good job of testing this out—even now, far into the future. On google scholar, I couldn’t find one to reference here. But, fortunately, in the areas that science has wrongfully or willfully ignored, we can fall back on the philosophical source of deduction itself; we can rationalize anecdotes and draw inferences from existing ideas.

 Looking into the realm of existing ideas, I discover many articles with a similar ring to them. One begins with “Even though several hormones…specifically control the activity of the gastrointestinal tract, there has been curiously little research to date on the role these hormones might play in IBS. However, there are a few indications that aberrations in gut hormones may be a factor in IBS symptom production” (Palsson & Whitehead, 2017). It’s clear that there is evidence that supports the anecdotes of the masses. Speaking of the anecdotes, let’s take a moment to explore some of those as well. This thread in an online forum is just one miniscule example of someone’s experience with this phenomenon, but one comment paints a broader picture. User kd1410 writes “In the back of my mind I’ve wondered if birth control is the root cause of my IBS issues (I know it’s somewhat common from reading here).” User goldstandardalmonds replies “You’re right it’s common from reading here. It’s been posted about here a lot. I’ve also come across it on r/askdocs periodically so it isn’t out of the question.” It would have appeared that other people had already been exchanging about this dialogue.

As any good google-er does, I compiled the data I could find and deduced my way into a decision. I took myself off of the hormonal medication. Now that I had a boyfriend and what not, this was a rather big deal for a number of reasons. I still remembered my partners tragically bad attempt to convince me that he was in fact completely okay with using good old, reliable rubbers.  Regardless, it was evident to both of us that this medication was having some kind of negative impact on my health, and so we went into our new plan together.

My symptoms kind of, maybe, slightly improved. I remember announcing that I could see colors more clearly and felt like myself again—which is another oddly common retrospective comment among birth-control-abandoners. I had again decided to experiment on myself with the herbs, oil-pills and period-cramp-teas. I naturally persisted with my strict vegetarianism. Mind you, I had previously had what were identified as allergic reactions to both eggs and dairy products—namely, from using shampoo that contained either product—and I couldn’t imagine that adding those ingredients back into my diet would have had any kind of positive impact, so of course, my abstinence was the one aspect of my consumption that I never thought to change.  Again, my health seemed to temporarily get better. Then, it got much, much worse.

One of the darkest times of my life occurred in that period between the medication, Aubra, and what would eventually become my next, and this time permanent medication, Norethindrone.  Shrouded in a depressing cloud of darkness, my household became very still and quiet during that lull between medicinal interventions. Days began to blend, enmeshed entirely by the unbridled experience of pain. I remember feeling grateful, initially, that the worst of my so-called period-pain had again seemed to retract back down to only a couple of weeks out of every month, but before I knew it, the sensations of menses became borderline omnipotent in my life.

 It was around this time that I remember losing most of my general mobility. Now, an older, more mature version of myself can see that the pain in my abdomen disabled me to the extent that the rest of my body would become dramatically weaker from my lack of using it.  At the time, I was only 21 or so, and had neither the self-awareness nor the physiological experience necessary to infer how chronic pain causes cumulative damage to a body, even in areas outside of its source. Rather, from my perception, it simply felt like I was dying.

Every day, it seemed, another new problem emerged. I remember that I had started having trouble with my daily ritual of walking home from work. I remember noticing severe pain in my shoulder as I would try to style and brush my hair in the mornings. I had trouble with every kind of food I could possibly eat—but especially, and specifically, the foods that had for so long been pushed by society, healthcare providers and every other outlet I had ever encountered as being the healthiest choices possible. My food troubles were agonized by the even still worsening chronic nausea and vomiting that by now I’d been living with for many years. I persisted in my egotistical earth-worship.

The crystal magic hadn’t quite finished draining out of me at that age. I replaced a worn-out, molded tarot deck that I’d had since childhood with new, shiny, clearly synthetic-gilded cards, hoping that perhaps paying some form of financial respect to the tools of whatever divine I had yet discovered would have any chance at changing my current path. I prayed to non-existent entities while repetitively reminding myself that my innate speculations against their reality were the true origin of my physical suffering. I threw up almost every single thing I ate and ran off the fumes of the American Spirits I’d stolen from my partner to keep in my wallet. Somehow, as my hair thinned and my skin yellowed and aged decades in a matter of months, I still didn’t think to question the raw-fruit-and-kale-salad.

Eventually, somehow, my partner found something online on one of the many, many days we spent in our damp little roach-infested Our-First-Place-Together. He had encountered either an article or a forum or something that explained one layer of the living conspiracy that is endometriosis treatment. At that point, I had become so desperate for relief that, while I clung to the soymilk and spirulina, I had decided that, fuck it, I needed whatever surgery it was that my father had told me my mother once underwent for her own endometriosis treatment. Known as laparoscopic ablation, this operation consists of creating small incisions where a surgeon then uses a tool to burn the lesions of suspected endometriosis. This process achieves nothing and is entirely a waste of both the duration of human life and the limited resources in the medical world (in my totally unqualified but inevitably correct patient-opinion). My partner, however, in his research had found that other people self-reported benefiting from a different kind of surgery—one that was markedly less likely to result in recurrent pain or damaging scar tissue.  Excision surgery was a different ballgame and perhaps even more importantly, to the matters of science and research, that is, the excision surgery (cutting the diseased tissue out in entirety) technique allowed for genuine pathological analysis to occur. By one technical definition, the ablative treatment of suspected endometriosis could not actually itself warrant an authentic diagnosis because the diseased matter, once destroyed by heat, would become unidentifiable.

I think that this was probably one of the first times in my life that I felt a sense of hope regarding the scientific-medical community. I had always been a science-kid growing up, to the extent that, to this day I have held onto a ratty old science-achievement-certificate, still framed, buried deep in the crevices of my closet so that I might never rid myself of this lethal battle between crystal magic and underfunded medical research. Suddenly, science had the answers again, and suddenly, I found myself looking at this gaunt, ugly girl in the chipping full-body mirror and wondering how I’d let her fall so far into so-called grace.

The story of how I first got my health insurance through my job will be an article all on it’s own, so I’ll save that tale for  later date. To simplify, I got insurance and my partner and I began our pilgrimage from Tallahssee, Florida, to Jacksonville, where Dr. Michael Fox operated out of Jacksonville Center for Reproductive Medicine or JCRM. Dr. Fox is a life-saving surgeon with the bedside manner similar to that of a schoolyard bully. In his office, after watching me wring my skinny little vegan fingers while explaining my magical pain, he metaphorically turned me upside down and shook the crystals out from my pockets.

“A vegetarian or vegan diet is one of the single worst things you could possibly do to your health.” (I sure hope I’m not misquoting him, but since he’s vocal about this perspective online, you can probably find some of his opinions in your own research) He had told me. He insisted I immediately quit my diet—which was also my entire identity due to its ethical associations-- and eat as much meat, cheese, eggs and the like as I possibly could. I was around 95lbs and I was given to goal to get to the triple digits—but ideally 103lbs, before my own endometriosis excision. I had a few months, but if by the date of my pre-op, I was not a safe weight, my surgery, that I had been waiting and fighting and suffering and dying for, would not happen. I would then loose my job from my inability to work, and after that? There would be no after that.

I made the weight. Then, there was my heart, which worried me because on the morning of my surgery, as we left while it was still dark, I ended up puking in the grass on the freeway, as my stomach was processing the bowel prep a bit slow. Vomiting always at least temporarily worsens my heart rate, so I assumed the worst—that I’d find myself sitting there waiting for anesthesia for them to come and tell me that, despite even throwing my system of ethics away and gaining weight, I’d eventually find myself writhing outside, unemployed and utterly hopeless. To my surprise, on the most important day of my life, my heart, for once, decided to simply play along. My vitals were strong. I was strong—strong enough, anyway.