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nattysstargirl · 8 months

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The Beast of my Dreams

Chapter 1.

Were!Hyena Natasha Romanoff X Fem Reader

Word count: 3079

TW18+: Masturbation, dirty talk, dirty dreams, cursing

A/N: first story ever written, enjoy

~~~

Y/N is in the forest again.

Her eyes fly open as she gasps to a seat, panting with a hand pressed flat against her chest. Dark trees loom and reach down for her. Her feet are bare and dirty. Her pale blue nightgown doesn't cover her knees.

A shiver runs up her spine as she searches the woods. The oak in front of her is the same as it always is, trunk wider than her arms can reach to either side, thick bark running with lines so deep she probably couldn't reach the back with her finger.

Long branches reach high and low, some brushing the ground, all dripping with thick clumps of gray moss. And at the bottom of the trunk, dug into the dirt beneath it, is a hole.

Two feet tall and two feet wide, the hole is so dark Y/N worries it might suck her in if she gets too close. She stays seated on the cold ground, waiting for what she knows will happen next. She tries to swallow quietly, but her throat is dry, and an audible gulp echoes in the still forest.

A low rattling grows in an enormous creature's throat, four high-pitched yips. Then, the dark hole is watching her with glowing yellow eyes. Y/N gasps softly, the skin on her limbs pricking with goosebumps as her stomach flutters.

She reaches a slow hand toward the tree. The creature's growl gets lower and softer, and its eyes move toward her, nearly touching moonlight before Y/N jolts awake. She's sitting in her dorm bed, and she apparently kicked her blankets off in her sleep because the shivering is real. She pulls her nightgown over her knees, then reaches for the duvet and yanks it up to her shoulders.

"Is that going to keep happening?" Peggy's annoyed voice comes from the kitchen-side of the dorm. If you can call it a kitchen. They have two twin beds nestled against their own walls with four feet of precious floor space between them, a small bathroom tucked behind the entry door, and a "kitchen" comprised of a sink (that also functions as the bathroom sink) and a microwave perched on top of the mini-fridge.

Y/N could make ramen noodles while sitting on the foot of her bed, which is often what she ends up doing for breakfast. She rubs at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

"Sorry," she mutters.

"It's just that I have morning classes?" Peggy says.

She's tugging an instant coffee pod from the machine and tossing it into the trashcan while she clips the mug lid on with the other hand.

"I'd appreciate a full night's rest without...whatever those sounds are you make."

"I'm sorry," Y/N says again.

"I'll pick you up some earplugs today."

"Don't bother." Peggy pats her straight brunette ponytail in the mirror on the wall, as if a hair would have dared fall out of place, then pulls her backpack onto both shoulders.

"I have inner-ear problems. Can't even wear earbuds. Why don't you try meditating? I can send you a referral link for my app. Might help you sleep better." Peggy leaves without saying goodbye, and Y/N's phone pings as soon as the door closes behind her.

It's a link from Peggy to a trial account of her meditation app. She rolls her eyes and tosses the phone onto their shared nightstand. Peggy ran a neat line of decorative crafting tape down the middle of it when they moved in, and the only items on her half are a boring, brushed nickel reading lamp and a self-help girl boss paperback.

Y/Ns side has candles, journals, scraps of paper with notes she probably doesn't need anymore, and a box of tissues to hide-she digs her hand inside and pulls out a slim purple dildo. It's not even 8:00 yet, and her first class isn't until eleven. She tugs the blinds closed (Peggy loves opening them first thing in the morning) and retreats under her blankets in the dark.

She pulls her nightgown to her waist and tugs off her underwear. The satin sheets cool her bare ass. She flicks on the dildo and pushes it in, cooing quietly as she clenches around it. It went in easy. As she learned after her third or fourth time having the forest dream, she wakes up ready.

Y/N is naturally flexible, so folding one leg under herself to hold the dildo inside with the heel of her foot is easy. Then her hands are free. She runs her left hand over her clavicle, tickling out a sharp inhale, before roughly grabbing her right tit. Her right hand rubs slow circles on her clit. She tries to think about the hot TA in her stats class, with his thick curls and wide shoulders, but her mind keeps bouncing back to the creature in the woods.

It's not weird-she's sure it's not an animal. It might be...animalistic, but like in a werewolf way. No one thinks it's weird to be attracted to Jacob Black, right? It's normal. She bites her lip hard. Every time she has that dream, she tries to stay in it until whatever is in the tree comes out.

Maybe it would speak to her. Maybe it would do...other things. Either way, Y/N wants to see it. "I want...you," she gasps at no one, shoving her heel harder against herself and bucking her hips.

"Oh, yeah... Fill me up," she mutters. Her nipple is sore from clawing at it, so she switches to the other and rubs her clit faster. "Yes...yes," she hisses. Then she moans and bucks as her orgasm builds. "Mmm." She gasps hard and opens her eyes. Then pretends she didn't just get off to the thought of a pair of yellow eyes in a tree.

"Again?" Peters's light eyebrows near his hairline raise. "And nothing else happened?"

"Yeah," Y/N whispers, as if the students seated around them would even care about her dream. "And it feels so real, Pete. Like, I forget I'm dreaming every time. I feel cold, I feel the wind blowing. The trees rustle at the right timing for me watching them rustle. It's fucking bizarre."

"And you've never seen what's hiding in the tree?" he asks. He's swaying the chair back and forth with one foot on the desk leg. This lecture hall has those long desks with chairs attached by pistons, and Peter never sits still.

His gray eyebrows match his hair, both dyed. He's a natural brunette, but Y/N will never expose him. People call him Jack Frost, and it's a whole thing.

"It's not hiding from me," Y/N says quickly. "It's just...watching me. It's not scared."

"Okay," Peters eyes wander the room. He smiles and waves at someone who just entered the lecture hall. Y/N knows he's trying his best to care, but other people's dreams aren't remotely interesting.

Especially around the twentieth time they've had the same dream. She drops her chin in her hand and stares through the empty podium. The hot TA arrives before the professor does, quickly passing out a quiz and taking his seat at the front of the lecture hall to pretend he's watching for cheaters.

Y/N does her best, but her mind frankly hasn't been on homework these last few weeks. She's got to get it together. After they pass the quizzes back, Professor Potts finally enters. She wears black slacks and a white silk button-up with the sleeves rolled to her elbows and the top three buttons undone.

Y/N always thinks she looks like a model. "Good morning, class," she says without looking up from her notes. "I trust we're all preparing for next week's midterm." The overachieving dick suckers in the front row nod their heads enthusiastically.

Y/N and Peter exchange eye rolls. "Right," Professor Potts says. She shakes tight blonde ringlets from her face. "Just to get housekeeping out of the way: I'm sure you're all aware of the wild animal problem on campus. Some geniuses generations ago thought it would be super cool and smart to build a university slab up against the biggest forest reserve in the state. Cute, right?"

There are a few giggles around the hall. Everyone has a crush on Professor Potts. "So," she continues. "I'm meant to read this announcement on the subject: 'Students of Avenger University-please use caution when moving between buildings on campus, especially at night. There have been an increased number of sightings and incidents of an unknown animal of significant size, strength, and presumably aggression. Travel in pairs when possible.' Yeah, whatever." Professor Potts drops the paper she was reading from.

"Y'all stay inside at night, use the buddy system, don't leave food scraps hanging around, got it?"

"Yes, Professor," a quarter of the class choruses. Peter leans toward her to whisper: "Ohh, a mysterious creature." Y/N swats him away, but she was thinking the same thing. She feels eyes on the back of her head and peeks over her shoulder.

A pair of students are glowering at her from the second-to-last row. They look like siblings. Pale skin, shaggy blonde hair. One is definitely a girl, but the other looks androgynous with a strong jaw and a small, upturned nose.

Y/N decides they're sisters, but she doesn't know why they're glaring at her. The blonde averts her gaze when Y/N meets it, but the girl stares her down with unblinking green eyes. Her hair is flopped over her forehead, and a buzzed undercut barely shows behind each of her ears. A row of silver rings runs the edge of her left ear, but the right only has a single blue stone piercing the lobe. She watches Y/N like she expects something from her. Y/N turns back in her seat and tries to focus on the statistics lecture, since apparently there's a midterm coming up that completely slipped her mind.

Get it together, Y/N.

After five solid minutes of attending lecture with her full mental capacity and taking copious notes, her mind wanders again, and she comes up with a plan to get this dream issue taken care of. Stand up, she chants to herself silently. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. Y/N is on autopilot for the rest of the day, repeating that mantra to herself through lunch and two more lectures. Stand up. Stand up. She hurries back to her dorm building after her last class and repeats it the whole walk. Then in the elevator, then all the way down the hall. Stand up. Peggy isn't home. Good.

Y/N locks the door behind her, kicks off her shoes, and climbs into bed in her underwear. She's sleepy enough that she dozes off quickly. Stand up. - The forest canopy waves at Y/N. It's dark, and the ground is cold on her back. She sits up. The enormous tree seems to grow larger, or closer, as her eyes focus on it. She knows she's dreaming. There's a hazy, mystical quality over all of it, but it's so, so real. Stand up. The yellow eyes appear. Y/N's chest heaves up and down with deep, slow breaths. They watch each other. Stand up. With every ounce of awareness and mental energy she has, Y/N rises to her feet.

It surprises her so much that she can't take a step forward for what could easily be hours. But when she looks up, the eyes still watch her. They're just yellow globes, but...they feel expressive and curious. Like they're just as surprised that she stood up, and they're waiting to see what she does next. Y/N takes a shaky step forward, and she swears the eyes look startled. At a glacial speed, she moves toward the tree until she's got one hand resting against the thick bark. God, what now? She didn't consider that the creature could jump out and attack her. But it's a dream, right? If she dies, she'll wake up. There are no consequences here. She slowly lowers to her knees next to the hole, but she can't bring herself to peer inside. Y/N swallows hard. Then, cautiously, she reaches her hand toward the trunk's hollow.

The constant, low growl from the creature that's been a staple in every dream has quieted. The forest breathes around her. She holds her hand still at the entrance, and nothing happens. Further, then. She steels herself and pushes her hand a few inches into the darkness. Fuck, what am I doing? Before she can yank her hand out, a gentle, warm exhale curls around her fingers. Her eyes fly wide. It's right there, not an inch from her hand. She doesn't move while it sniffs each finger carefully. When it seems the creature has finished inspecting each digit, Y/N turns her hand like she would to pet a dog that had accepted her, but she doesn't reach further.

A solid, warm thing pushes against her palm. She thinks it must be a head, maybe a dog's? She strokes it gently, and she's treated to a pleased rumble from the creature's throat. She smiles and pets it again. When she moves further forward on one stroke, her stomach falls as she realizes the sizable furry thing she was petting isn't a head. It's a snout. She feels along the ridge of what she'd been petting, confirming that it ends with a cold, wet nose. She lets her fingers slowly explore upward, feeling the full head of a gigantic creature that's not quite a dog...but she doesn't have any other guesses. It doesn't feel like a wolf either, and she still can't dare to peek at it.

Two ears positioned more on the side of its head than on top of it are rounded and furry, like a koala bear. The head withdraws, and she gasps quietly in disappointment, her palm immediately cold from its absence. But she isn't alone for long, as something wide, wet, and warm wraps around her thumb. She gasps again. Is it licking her? And she lets it. It moves meticulously, licking every part of every finger, then her palm. That's when she realizes how huge the tongue is. When it licks her palm again, she pays attention to what it touches. The edges of the tongue wrap around to the back of her hand. It must be four inches wide! A light disgust rolls over her stomach as she chides herself for the first idea that popped into her mind.

But then she thinks, this is my dream. No one knows what I think or do in here. As if in response to this decision, the creature sucks three of her fingers into its mouth. Yes, sucks. Like a person. And inside, sharp teeth graze her fingertips, but they don't hurt her. This thing could rip her apart if it wanted, but it laps its tongue gently between the spaces of her fingers, building a growing need in the pit of her stomach. Y/N looks over her shoulder at the darkness of the forest. The moonlight barely peeks between thick branches above, and she can't see anything past the small clearing. It's like the only beings in this entire universe are Y/N and this creature.

Without further consideration, she uses her free hand to hoist her nightgown to her waist. Then she sits on her ass and scoots her legs into the opening unabashedly. The creature slowly releases her hand from its mouth. She lets it fall to the ground, inching into the tree opening until it's to her ribs. She breathes slowly through her nose and keeps her eyes on the tree canopy. This is her dream, and she has some control, and that tongue has got to have some other uses. Or it'll drag her inside and eat her for a midnight brunch, then she'll just wake up in her dorm, no harm done.

The cold wetness of the creature's nose pokes at her knee. She hisses, all shame gone and replaced with heart-thrumming lust. The nose runs down the inside of her thigh, as if it knows what it's doing and has done it many times before. Y/N should have taken off her panties, but now she's too nervous to reach her hands down. It replaces its nose with the wide, warm tongue, swiping slowly against her inner thigh, right at the edge of her panty line. It takes all of her effort not to moan. She definitely doesn't want to scare it away now. Hot breath billows around her hips and she tilts her pelvis upward.

"Go on then," she whispers encouragingly. She is throbbing from her hips to her knees. Then the sun rises, all at once and everywhere. Y/N flings upright.

"What the fuck?" Peggy is by the door, her arms crossed.

Y/N squints in the light before realizing her sheet have drifted to the foot of her bed, and she's lying with her legs spread wide in just her underwear and a Calvin Klein sports bra. "You know what time I come home," Peggy says with the tone of a scolding kindergarten teacher. "I wish you could have a little respect for our communal living space."

"All of it's communal," Y/N mutters, yanking her sheet up. "When can I nap in my underwear in peace?"

"Between the hours of seven-thirty and six-fifteen," Peggy says, hanging her jacket and backpack neatly on her row of hooks. Y/N squints at the clock on her bedside table. Shit, she napped for hours. "And it's not the underwear that is the issue," Peggy continues. "It's the moaning and writhing."

Y/N feels her face flush. "Sorry," she says quickly. "Must have been dreaming."

"Oh, I know all about your dreams," Peggy assures her. Y/N's eyes widen. "The TA, right?" Peggy says. "You haven't mentioned him in a while, but it sure sounds like you're being ravaged. Just...do it quieter, please?" Peggy grabs a towel and her shower caddy and leaves. She won't be back for at least forty-five minutes. Y/N rolls over and reaches into her tissue box.

#marvel #natasha romanoff #lesbian #were hyena!natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #g!p natasha #intersex #wlw ns/fw #kinktober

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jellyfishloveletterghosts · 1 year

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Burn Baby Burn

I’ve got a lot of wips going at the moment, most of them for my new bingo card and it’s Wednesday so have a lil snip from my phoenix Square.

Steve’s work phone rings and despite the fact that he is currently in the middle of a park feeding the birds he answers because he is always on call. "Hello you've reached last resort cleaning service. How may I help you?" The other end of the line is quiet but Steve holds off on just hanging up. Sometimes people need a couple of seconds after he has picked up, whether to compose themselves or for the coast to be clear.

"Um are you, are you an actual cleaning service?" The voice on the other end is nervous which is not all that unusual. What is unusual is how young they sound. "Maybe I have the wrong number." Is softly mumbled almost too low to hear, the distracted manner making it clear she is not talking to him this time.

"How old are you?" Steve frowns flicking a seed at a particular bold pigeon that dares peck at his loafer. He is plumper than the rest, clearly used to getting what he wants and now is no different as he quickly devours the seed unfazed by the light grazing.

"What’s that matter?" The kid practically hisses voice low.

"I'm hanging up.” He does not clean up after messy kids who do not want to get in trouble with their parents. He does not provide that sort of service.

"No wait! Wait please, we need help!" This time she sounds desperate, more like someone who would call him for a good reason and not just paint spilled on a fancy carpet. She sounds like his actual customers.

There is a groan in the distances and shuffling and Steve strains his ears trying to pick up more. "How did you get my number?" His business is referral based mostly but occasionally someone finds his card just laying around.

"Henderson. Dusting Henderson gave it to me." She says quickly another groan sounding, it is closer this time.

It stills his thumb from ending the call. Dustin knows better than to give his work number unless it is to a sup who might have an actual legitimate need for his help. "What do you need help with?" That pigeon is pecking at his shoe again and now it has a slightly skinnier friend bold enough to pester. He flicks his ankle watching them fly back before he grabs a fist full of bird seed and tosses it a safe distance from his shoes. They descend on it like they are starving, quickly lost in the flock as more birds swarm to the fresh seed.

"There are hunters after us,” Steve curls his fist around the bag and closes it, no more feeding for today. “they got Billy pretty bad and Eddie's in the ground until the sun goes down. They have us pinned down." She sounds like she might start crying as she says Billy and Steve cannot help but wonder how bad the hunters got him, how safe they are at this moment. He is already moving toward his car.

"You should have started with that. Where are you, text me the address. I'm on my way." His car is only a short distance away in the little parking lot from the park under a shady tree. He looks around the lot finding it empty for the moment and pops his truck, lifting the bottom cover and checking in his case for provisions. He should have everything he needs to dispatch a few hunters.

"Really?" Just as wet as before but less like she might cry, like she has hope that someone is going to come. It is one of the reasons Steve does this job, that hope.

"Yes, find a place to hide and don't come out until I give you the word Demogorgan. You got it?" Steve slams his truck closed, jogging around to the driver’s side door as his phone pings with a text.

There is a moment of silence before she answers like maybe she forgot he cannot see her and nodded instead. "Yes, I got it."

“Max?” A weak groaning voice calls and Steve can only guess it is the girl's name.

“I’m here Billy, I’m here! I called for help. It's going to be okay.” She is definitely crying this time, voice sodden, words going distance as she lets the phone drop.

"Max!” Steve raises his voice to get her attention, there is the muffle of the phone being scooped back up. “Max, what's the word?" He needs her to repeat it for him, make sure she got it.

"Demogorgon." She tells him firm and sure.

"Good girl, don't come out before then." Steve ends the phone call and peels out of the parking lot heading for the warehouse district.

#harringroveson #jellyghostfic #fanfiction #st fic #wip #billy hargrove x steve harrington x eddie munson #phoenix Steve Harrington #Werewolf Billy Hargrove #Werewolf Maxine 'Max' Mayfeild #vampire eddie munson #harringrove #steddie #mungrove

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spaceyqueer · 1 year

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it's trans day of visibility and I used to post selfies of myself on trans day of visibility, but while my face is still probably easy to find I'm not going to share my face today because even if you can see the image of me, the reality of my life right now is that I and many other trans people are invisible. our concerns are invisible, our pain is invisible, our struggles are invisible, while cis people who actively discriminate against us get every camera facing them.

I was referred to the NHS gender identity services in early 2017. I was on the waiting list for gender affirming care until September 2021, which is when I received my first appointment close to five years after I was first referred. After my first appointment, which was an assessment (of which you have to have two, usually, before you receive any medical treatment). I was then booked in for my second appointment with a psychologist in January 2022, but was never actually sent the appointment email (and since this was during the lockdown period, all apointmnets were online) thus I missed the appointment. I called on the day and I called multiple times afterwards before I was finally told that since I'd missed the appointment I would have to wait for when they could fit me in. This turned out to be another six months later, in July 2022, nearly a year after my first appointment. During this appointment, I expressed an interest in hormone therapy and was encouraged away from it and instead got an appointment with a speech therapist. Except, yet again, I never got the appointment email, despite me checking multiple times that they had both my correct home address and my correct email, which they did. Another appointment missed, without even a hint it ever existed. I contacted them, and got told I would have a new one, as well as an appointment with the psychologist from before. I finally got a new appointment with speech therapy in February this year, and an appointment with a different psychologist. That means over a span of about a year and a half I've had a grand total of four appointments. And I've just been confirmed that if I want testosterone, the earliest they'll be able to get any support for me, pending blood tests, is November. Which will be over two years since I initially got off the waiting list.

I'm lucky. My sister, who is also trans, was referred to a brand new gender identity clinic by the NHS and informed she was off the waiting list, expecting her first appointment only to then be left in limbo, as she was told she would be waiting for her first appointment indefinitely. We have no explanation as to why, only guesses that the clinic wasn't fully prepared for the waiting list they received as other people were referred to the sudden new availability. Meanwhile, other trans people I know have been denied referrals, denied hormones, or been waiting so long their mental health declined severely. A few have lost their lives to the long wait, caught in limbo. All this while our government talks about the 'concern' for trans children, and Rishi Sunak publicly agrees with outing trans children to their parents, irrespective of how dangerous it is because 'keeping parents in the dark' is obviously much worse then exposing children to potential abuse, homelessness, conversion therapy (which is still legal in the UK for trans people) or even death. All of this without consulting trans children at all. Pop-culture figures like J K Rowling talk about how women are being neglected as a result of trans rights, while conveniently ignoring the high rates of transphobic and misogynistic hate crimes directed at trans women. 'TERF' Island is a recurring joke about the UK but I find it harder and harder to laugh, even at my own expense

I am 'lucky'. My family (mostly) supports me, I have had appointments with the gender services, and pass enough as a cis woman (despite that making me very uncomfortable, as a non-binary person) that I don't get much harassment on a regular basis. And yet I am still invisible. My coworkers talk about their criticisms of 'trans ideology'. 'Friends' have made jokes about bottom surgery, and how I'd be attractive if I did have it. I've had to ask HR for more training on trans folks, because we've faced abuse from the public for our company being supportive of trans people. I long for a day when this is better. And perhaps on this day I should be sharing a happy story but I couldn't. I really couldn't, and I apologise for that.

I am invisible, and with that I am safe, but I hope for a day when we are visible AND safe.

#trans day of visibility #tdov #trans day of visibility 2023 #UK politics #UK #transphobia #transphobia tw #lgbt #lgbtq+#trans #transgender

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sophiamcdougall · 9 months

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So to sum up

This was yesterday: * Wake up with a migraine * Take the last of my "emergency supply" of ADHD meds * Contact Boots to say 'hey, remember how you decided not to bother to reorder my medication, didn't tell me and left me to run out? Well, you said you'd text me when it came in and you haven't, what's up?" * Boots doesn't have my meds * Boots is fucking rude about it too * Already upset. HAHA I know nothing. * Call another pharmacy. Discover that the fucking global shortage of ADHD meds has struck again * Call all the other pharmacies. * Nothing. *Call GP *GP says to call the psychiatric clinic * Tell GP: "They WILL say there is nothing they can do and to call you back." *GP says to call the psychiatric clinic *[Still migraine] *Time to start work! I have a document to edit this afternoon! * Call psychiatric clinic. Psychiatric clinic does not answer. Says to call in office hours. It is office hours *Call psychiatric clinic several more times *[I hate making phonecalls! They make me stressed and uncomfortable!] *Psychiatric clinic answers. Psychiatric clinic says there is nothing they can do and to call the GP back. *Call GP back. *GP says "Oh, you're completely out of meds"?? as if this was a surprise. *GP says they will try to get me an urgent referral to the psychiatrist to get me prescribed something else. * I say I don't! particularly! want! to do that! I just want my normal, boring medication and even if the 40 and 60mg pills are out, might it not be available in another dosage somewhere? *GP, who keeps interrupting me literally every two seconds, to the extent that I think less "man" and more "honestly needs to read the description for the condition we're talking about" has apparently not thought of that. Will call me back *Edit document *[Still migraine] *GP somehow manages to interrupt me several more times to tell me they're trying to do Things which is nice but not! helpful! when you are trying to edit a document WITH A MIGRAINE! *GP finally says that while there is no way on God's earth to get me 120 mgs of my medication, I CAN get 100mg. Which you'd think we could maybe have got to SEVERAL HOURS AGO but OK. GP spends a long time arguing with me that this is a good idea even though I am not arguing back and agree with him. *Finish editing document. Time to go to GP, to get new prescription for 100 mg! Troubles nearly at end! *Migraine maybe fading? * SLAM foot into large box where keep craft supplies. * Wait for pain to subside. * It doesn't. * Think toes are broken. Can't walk. *Have to walk. GP about to close. GP not on bus route. *Hobble, gasping and wincing half a mile to GP. Hobble, gasping and wincing (and occasionally singing Italian pop music under my breath to take mind off pain because it's That Bad and we do what we got to do at this point) further half mile to Pharmacy. *Walking mile not good for foot definitely at all. * Pharmacists watch me limp into their shop in obvious dismay. "Hi!" I say brightly "This is unrelated to why I'm here!" * Pharmacy interested in toes. Says maybe toes aren't broken? Aren't black. *I agree maybe I'm making a silly fuss and only later think that it had been less than an hour at this point and despite what fanfic will tell you, injuries take longer than that to GO black.¹ *Get my 100mgs of meds. *Limp to bus stop, * Get home. Eat a consolatory ice lolly. *Hobble to bathroom to wash hands *Inexplicably, just to add baffling insult to ludicrous injury, a pile of towels falls on my head.

[¹Today still not black, but still cannot walk and even the weight of bedclothes unbearable -- they're broken as fuck.]

#cursed cursed cursed #what did i do to deserve this oh Zeus?

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nagisasstunningpersonality · 1 year

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Please stop making AI Fanfics; it's art theft.

AI programs still from pre-existing fics to write the prompts you ask of them, A03 is currently fighting against AI programs but they can't do much if people keep feeding the machine.

Please don't feed the AI!

So I did look into this, mostly because the state of the internet has forced my natural response to anything to be "don't believe it without evidence".

Since you didn't cite anything, I just did my own digging. It appears that this specific claim originates from a reddit thread. The OP cites this article as their main source. Ironically, a good chunk of the post is straight up copy-pasted. The website is Communications Today, which is apparently an Indian telecoms magazine, but I could not find much information on it at all about them that wasn't produced by them.

According to their own LinkedIn:

"Communications Today provides a platform to build corporate image and influence purchase decisions through advertising. The magazine reaches decision makers who allocate budgets for procurement of equipment and services and identify and evaluate vendors for supplies. In-depth coverage and comprehensive research has made Communications Today an important referral for telecom, network equipment purchasers, and broadcasters."

Source

This publication appears to have some guest writers who have legit positions, however the specific AI article has no credited writer. This is questionable. Point is, I have doubts about the trustworthiness of this source to begin with, but there is clearly going to be some level of bias involved with its reporting. The article is pretty sensationalist anyway. This is how the media world works - outrage and fear sells.

This post also includes three examples. As someone who has written research based papers before, this is far from enough to prove anything.

To be clear, the AI I used was not sudowrite, which much of this discussion seems to centre around. The one I used (nor sudowrite itself apparently) don't use user input as training. This means that it responds to prompts and questions, but this doesn't actually teach it anything new permanently. Thus, me using it in this way has zero impact on its dataset and is certainly not feeding it. I also paid no money to use it. Your claim of me interacting with a chatbot somehow making AO3 action (can't find much in the way of evidence of this either by the way) harder also appears unfounded. If it did specifically scrape and train from AO3, then the damage is already done, so again my interaction with it would not mean anything to legal action.

GPT3 (which is what these bots use) have sourced data from the scope of all areas of the internet. It is not, as far as I can tell, any kind of specific targeting of AO3 as a training ground. The issue in this lies in the way this information is presented. "AI BOT SCANS AO3 TO STEAL YOUR FANFICS" stands out a little more than the alternative. AO3 even responded to the OP mirroring the fact that bots are everywhere, have been for a while, and they can't do much about it - not sure if this constitutes 'fighting AI programs' as you claim.

Look. I've been on tumblr a while. I've seen fear explode and spread like wildfire before (4chan incident, for example). I think it's a little misguided to mass panic (about something that has existed for years). The only evidence I could find was those three examples on reddit. I really don't think that equates to the chaos on this issue.

I'll also be clear that I'm not exactly an AI defender, and I dislike Elon Musk for many many reasons. I do think AI writing is a little more murky than AI generated images (certainly worthy of concern) because it's hard to prove much direct copying, especially in the case of Fanfiction which, by nature, involves existing IPs.

Does AI call into question a lot of potential societal problems? Yes. Is it straight up nefarious and evil? Nope, not in my opinion anyway.

That aside I also don't really care on a personal level. For me, writing is a hobby that I'm fortunate to be able to share with others. I also think there comes a point where the concept of artistic 'ownership' becomes asinine anyway, but that's a whole other debate.

My specific posts:

I have been using my OWN existing fanfic summaries as a basis. I don't think I can really be accused of stealing my own work. And as I said, I don't see enough evidence to prove in anyway that these bots are directly ripping things from AO3 in the copyright sense (as in, content in tact enough that it could be traced to an original author).

In other words, thank you and all, but I don't really like this kind of scare posting. Especially if you're not going to source or back up your claims, whatever your intent this comes across as spreading misinformation. I found my little experiment both interesting and amusing, and ultimately what I share on my blog in my relatively tiny corner of the internet is my decision.

TLDR: Don't believe everything you read on the internet - do research before forming solid opinions.

#AI #ai bots #ai writing #sudowrite

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rayan12sworld · 7 months

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The fanfics, we all want to tell lan xichen that wei ying isn't a mistake

Like how can wei ying be your brother's mistake when your brother didn't even confessed his feelings untill the very ending in wei ying's life

And it was right after his shijie death

Enough!

By:Jeeny271196

Summary:

Wei WuXian had enough of them blaming him for everything. Or say Wei WuXian snapped out!

Wei WuXian reacted differently after Lan Xichen blaming him for Lan Wangji's suffering at guangying temple. Which changed lot of things.

Chapter:5/?

Words:12,484

Status:ongoing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

💙Wei Ying Was Not A "MISTAKE"

By:Jeeny271196

Summary:

Most of FF shows how pitiful Lan XiChen is,

Showing that he was the biggest WanXian Shipper, A good brother, how kind he was, etc etc.

Deliberately ignoring his flaws.

The mistakes committed by him, knowingly or unknowingly.

This FF is short of Lan XiChen and Lan Sect Critical.

Let Lan WangJi SpeakUp for Once.

Chapter :1/1

Words:16,636

Status:Completed

I'm sorry, I forgot, this is no more Lan An's Lan Sect. there is a new tradition in this sect. 'Spouse does not count as part of the family.' First, my mother never counted as family and now my own spouse." They both stare at wangji as though they saw a ghost, Lan Qiren's face went red "Wangji!!!" he shouted. Lan Wanji stare indifferently at Lan Qiren, "not today Uncle! I kept silent for my whole life. Today is my day to speak. By the way, Shouting is forbidden, But again if Grandmaster Lan Shouts, throw things at the guest disciple, has Prejudice toward a dead woman, has presumption towards the very same woman's son who was an orphan at the mare age of four, it's completely alright. But if my Wei Ying Laughs loudly and plays some harmless, childish pranks. he commits a grave crime" "Hypocrites" Lan Qiren was struck dumb, unable to speak anything.

~~~

"WangJi, don't be cruel to your brother. He is already suffering." "I'm doing the same what he did to my Wei Ying." Wangji told with indifference.

~~~

I Want You to Look In my Eyes Sect Leader Lan!" Lan XiChen looks at him. In his bloodshot eyes. Lan WangJi continue again looking straight into his eyes, "People call me Hanguang-Jun, Light Bearer. That means I do not have a light of my own. Just like Moon Depends on Sun for its shine, I depend on Wei Ying For Light." "Such a Pure soul, such selfless and Righteous being, who fought till the end, who walked in the fire to do the right thing. Who did not draw himself in grudges and hatred, who is Innocent just like a child, who doesn't have any envy towards anyone, who is actually free from worldly affairs. Only Knowing that such a person exists somewhere is an achievement in life." "I must have performed so many good deeds in my previous lives, that I got a chance to fall in love with such a person" "A Person whom I referrer Heaven's gift to me, you dare to call him My mistake??"

He took out the jade token, "I defect myself from gusu lan. I finally took the hint that we are unwanted here." Lan Qiren was horrified, "WangJi you are not thinking properly. This is your home. Who said you are unwanted?" "Wall of your sect said we are unwanted. Do not interact with my family." "We have suffered enough. My husband still can't sleep at night because of nightmares. From the age of four, he never got home. I thought I will make cloud recesses his home. I was wrong. Now I will build a home for him on my own. He sacrificed enough for the cultivation world who never acknowledge his sacrifices. Now it is time to live for each other." He looks at them for the last time, "One Last Advice, stop being a hypocrite, you used all inventions of Wei Ying, and shamelessly wrote on the wall do not interact with him. If you hate him that much why not discard all his inventions, all his research regarding resentful beings??" "Remember, I'm not Qigheng-Jun, I will not Confine my spouse nor myself. I will burn down this whole place if you dare to harm him physically or emotionally. I am not as forgiving as Wei Ying nor I'm selfless like him. I will not think twice before firing this whole world to save Wei Ying. Once I failed, not again, never again."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

💠💙When has silence saved anyone?

By:Vrishchika

Summary:

Wei Wuxian accidentally lets it slip that Lan Xichen called him Lan Wangji's only mistake. Neither his husband nor his son are happy about it.

Chapter:1/1

Words:6,051

Status:completed

Wei Ying hesitates and presses a kiss to his cheek in silent apology. His voice is low and blank as he recounts the remainder of the conversation, "The way he looked and talked to you when he saved you, even someone who was blind or deaf could perceive his feelings. That was why my uncle was so -. Wangji was a model for the disciples when he was young, and a prominent cultivator when he grew up. He had been honest, righteous, and immaculate—you were the only mistake he made." Wangji's fingers dig into Wei Ying's arms with bruising strength. "And you say you do not know. After you returned, how did you pester him and confess to him? Every night, you had to… And you say you do not know? If you did not know, why did you do such things?" Wei Ying huffs a laugh, "I really wanted to go back in time to kill myself-" Wangji freezes. "Really, your brother set me straight. Without him, who knows-" "Be silent." Wei Ying stills, turning to him with concerned eyes. Wangji's thoughts roar like fire from one edge of his mind to another, eliminating all measures of restraint. He doesn't know the right words, the proper method to express his fury and disgust. Wei Ying knows him well now and remains silent, just pressing light kisses to his chest, his hand rubbing Wangji's arm soothingly. "Which is why you were so insistent on declaring yourself immediately," Wangji observes. He cherishes the words Wei Ying spoke back then but… thinking about what his husband had to endure to reach his resolve is unbearable. Wangji had been willing to be patient. He was content to wait until Wei Ying understood his own heart. Wei Ying deserved gentleness. Xiongzhang had, again, decided to meddle where his interference had been unnecessary. Selfish. So selfish. His brother forced that realization through pain. He had trapped Wei Ying, broken him down, and blamed him for the audacity of not returning Wangji's feelings immediately. He had implied that Wei Ying was inferior, that he was undeserving, that he was Wangji's mistake. Wangji can't bear the thought. He curls around Wei Ying and feels the agony of it tear his heart apart. Their love, the most noble emotion Wangji has ever felt, was declared a mistake. His heart, his very life, the freedom that he breathes every day, the warmth that sinks deep into his bones, the love in precious grey eyes, the heat that he burrows into every night… All a mistake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

💠💙break

By:justdoityoufucker (orphan_account)

Summary:

Wen Ning doesn’t hear everything, not at first. He can tell that Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao are speaking, within the temple complex, but he cannot get the specifics of what the men are saying until he presses himself closer to the rear walls.

Or, Wen Ning listens in.

Chapter:1/1

Words:3,535

Status:completed

#wangxian #wangxian recommendations #wangxian fanfic #wei ying #mxtx mdzs #mdzs fanfic rec #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #mdzs fanart #wangxian fic rec #wen qionglin #lan xichen #lan qiren #break #When has silence saved anyone?#Wei Ying Was Not A “MISTAKE”#Enough!

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raincamp · 10 months

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7 - 20 - 23

i relapsed yesterday

it was a mistake. partly because the hangover was Hell, mostly because i had therapy today and had to sit in the all encompassing sea of shame and guilt for 50 minutes straight.

last week i mentioned how my therapist told me in order to continue therapy with her i would have to do addiction counseling. i have been procrastinating calling her referral to schedule an intake appointment, and this week (today) she finally told me that she will not have any more sessions with me until i call him.

i mean. i get why she said it. she can't help me and she wants me to get help because, as she said, "we've tried the whole 'you can handle it on your own' thing and that only made it worse," and— well she has a valid point.

considering i did relapse. even after i said i could handle it on my own.

((talk of therapy session ahead))

i hated her fucking smirk when she said it though. when she says stuff like that she always ends it with a little self righteous hum, because she knows she's right, and she knows that i know that she's right, and when its something i don't want to hear, it pisses me off.

she's such a smartass (affectionate)

i hate relapsing because of her (which i suppose is the point), and if i, for whatever reason, fully go off the deep end and start going on benders again, my sessions with her are going to hurt so much. because they did every other time. and it did today.

people with BPD have maladaptive learned behaviors that are survival mechanisms to get our needs met. DBT tells us that any maladaptive learned behaviors need to be replaced with adaptive and effective coping skills that still help us get our needs met.

sometimes, a lot of the time, one of these needs is attention/ validation, solid physical proof that we are loved and cared about. and a common way to get this need met is to be self destructive in hopes that someone we love will see and try to save us.

DBT also tells us that in order to eliminate these self destructive maladaptive behaviors, one should not continue reinforcing them by giving them the validation and attention that they are being used to obtain.

because of this, my therapist will be cold and clinical with me in sessions where i had been self destructive during the week. as well as while we're talking about slip ups like i had this week.

and OH MY FUCKING GOD is it painful. i cannot describe to you the amount of abandonment and rage and shame i feel when she does this. and you know why that is?

its because i didn't get my needs met when i wanted to. and its not that she won't give that to me when i need it, (within the confines of her abilities and boundaries of a therapist), because she does, but only if i've actually followed through on my treatment.

it may seem manipulative, and it is to a fault, but imagine the shit she has to deal with from me. i think i can admit i do way more of this type of "manipulation" than she does. my "manipulation" causes me and other people harm. hers is psychologically proven to put BPD into remission.

anyway fuck her for setting that boundary because it fucking hurt so fucking much and also fuck her for saying "i knew you would be" when i told her i was angry at her

but i know she's just trying to help. and im grateful for the strength she has to be able to do this for me. even if its causing me pain right now. especially because its causing me pain.

she is literally the only person in my life who can give me this kind of care, who can give me the emotional support that it need, even (and especially) when i dont want it.

and when im not being pissed at her about it, it makes me feel incredibly loved and cared for.

- andrew

#actually bpd #actually mentally ill #im not mentally stable #addiction #borderline personality disorder #bpd struggles #bpd stuff #dbt #therapy stuff #tumblr diary #diary #journal #therapy #therapy stories

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aprillikesthings · 2 years

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Update time!

My right hip started bugging me again on my long walk last weekend and is still happening on the walks to and from work, so no long walk this weekend. Might look up some yoga videos, though. (How much time have I spent looking at anatomy diagrams of the muscles of the hip and butt while poking myself to figure out which spot hurts? SO MANY.)

(I think it's one of the dozen little ones underneath the gluteus maximus but I Am Not a Doctor (or PT))

I did, just today, finally call Kaiser to ask about seeing a physical therapist.

Their soonest appointment is 8am the Monday after Thanksgiving. >:(

I could see a "community partner," but only with a referral from my doctor.

FFS.

I've done the online form to contact a place about a mile from me and ask how much it is out of pocket. I only need like ONE OR TWO VISITS probably.

I already hate making phone calls and shit and this was not encouraging. Doing them before work means having to estimate how long I'm going to be on hold and getting up that much earlier than usual and I never have any idea, at all, how long a phone call will take. Kaiser has had me on hold for nearly an hour before. ("Doesn't Kaiser let you make appointments online?" Not for everything! A bunch of specialists--including mental health--require phone calls.)

I have Fridays off, so ideally that's when I make phone calls, but also I hate making them, and so I sit and stew in anxiety until I either 1. make the call at like 4pm 2. don't make the call at all and get really angry and cranky at myself. It's taken me THREE WEEKS to call Kaiser for PT.

I have SO MUCH TO DO between now and April and I swear to god like half of it is shit I really hate doing and find horribly anxiety-inducing.

The real spiritual test of my Camino: dealing with phone calls and paperwork and appointments, things like "maybe switching my ADHD meds" and "doing a couple of years of back taxes" and "figuring out how to pay for things in Spain without being dinged by fees."

(Please do not offer advice.)

ANYWAY. Fingers crossed on the PT place near my house. Whether I see them or go back and get a referral through my doctor after all is gonna depend on the expense.

#April does the Camino

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takoichigo · 10 months

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I fucking hate this.

When I was in the hospital, I asked for help with my mental health. In May. On discharge, they gave me a list of every single provider in a 50 mile radius and a sheet of paper that said "referral to mental health" on it and that was it.

The cancer center has a social worker who reached out to me, and she said she'd help me find someone. She found two places, and I picked the one with female therapists. She said they'd give me a call the first week of June to schedule an appointment.

Nobody ever called me.

I went back and forth with the social worker a few more times. The cancer center has a therapist on staff, so I went to see her a couple of times, but we didn't click at all and she was not helpful. She mostly just made me uncomfortable. The social worker said she'd keep trying to find someone for me.

I finally got an appointment with a place last week, on Monday. They upset me immediately because I had no idea how high the copay was (literally more than a hospital visit) and the receptionist and billing folks were both pretty nasty with me. I still haven't gotten paid and I had $7 to my name. They made me agree to pay them this week once I got paid, but I looked and I'm still not getting paid this week. I have an email in to HR about what the fuck is happening there, because I was supposed to have short term disability kick in on July 1st and I still haven't seen anything from it, but of course they haven't replied to it.

Anyway I did see a therapist last Monday, but all we did was fill out paperwork and she asked me about whether I wanted to kill myself and what triggered that. She was surprised they hadn't done a screening on me first, so when I went to leave she brought them paperwork to set that up and said I'd likely hear from them by the end of the week. I had another appointment that was scheduled for today, for the purposes of discussing medications I am currently taking. I never heard from them last week.

This morning they called me to remind me of my appointment today, and I asked about the screening. They tried to say I'd done it last week, and when I said no, I hadn't, they said they'd have to check into it and call me back, but if I hadn't done the screening there was no reason for me to come in today.

They did not call me back. I had to pull many strings to get rides to and from my appointments this week, so I called them back myself after waiting as long as I could. They told me not to come in, and said they'd call me back to schedule the screening. So I canceled my rides.

Half an hour later a different person calls me to let me know my appointment is canceled for today (thanks! I know!) and they want to schedule my screening. They ask when I'm free and I say basically whenever, but not tomorrow. She pauses and says "oh! I had a cancellation for today at 2! Can you come in for that?"

...that's when my appointment was supposed to have been to begin with.

I was kind of rude about saying no, I would not be coming there today. Now I have to wait till next Tuesday. For a screening. So they can schedule another appointment about the medications I'm on. So they can figure out how to actually get me into mental health care. And by that point I'll have spent over $350 on copays. That I don't have.

If it hadn't been so hard to get into a place, ANY place, I'd have walked out the door last week when they were nasty to me and said to hell with this place. I'm gonna try to talk to the social worker again tomorrow, I guess.

I'm so angry and fed up at this point. It's like every fucking thing I've had to deal with has been an absolute failure. I'm half tempted to just go to the hospital and scream at people until someone agrees to see me about my fucking brain. Because it can't take any more of this.

#cancer #mental health #therapy #tw suicide #fuck this whole system

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rowenabean · 2 years

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Just found my diary from my first week as a doctor 😂 I kept it half as a way of processing and half as a way of remembering what it was like in the theory that I might one day want to share it - and I am deeply glad that I don't have to be brand new any more! I was on call through the first weekend after I started, and at my hospital that meant working 10 days in a row with the two weekend days being 8am-10.30pm. If anyone would like to know what it's like on your first day as a doctor - read on...

(be aware it's kinda long, apparently I had a lot to say)

Day 1:

The first ward round is a chaotic mess. We have two surgeons, one registrar, four new house officers, and one buddy. Even between the five house officers, the ward round goes at such a pace that we can barely find the notes in time to hear the bosses move on to the next patient. All of us are scrambling to find notes, work out which patients are our patients and which belong to someone else, and write down some approximation of a plan. By 8.40am this hot mess has moved through four wards and the ICU (or the approximation of an ICU that is what [redacted hospital] has to offer) and we're sitting down trying to sort out what actually needs to happen in our days. I only have two patients, so I spend most of my time doing jobs for the others, and by 11am I feel like my day is in control, I am used to the power of being a doctor and signing things, and I might have a chance of getting through everything I said I would do.

Then my pager goes off.

In all the haze of the chaotic morning, I had forgotten that we might actually get new patients – that the hospital is actually still open despite our inexperience. My patients neither know nor care that it's my first day as a doctor; they want treatment just the same. So when I get a phone call with a GP referral, I say “of course we want to see them;” and when my consultant calls with another patient coming in (opening with “are you my house officer?”) I say the same. I get to ED and discover the first rule of doctoring: you can never trust your phone call to tell you the truth about how sick people are. The possible appendicitis child is happily sitting on the bed chatting away, and the vaguely unwell adult turns out to be dangerously septic. Sorting them both out takes most of the afternoon, but come 3.45 I have time to head up to the ward to handover, thinking that I might achieve the rare miracle of leaving on time on my first day. Halfway up there I run into one of the other surgical house officers, who first tells me he's just certified the death of one of my patients (not unexpected, but I am a little miffed no one bothered to page me and let me know) and then hands me a bunch of jobs to do.

At least there is this: was mostly able to smile at my patients, to be friendly, to engage and acknowledge and thank the people who helped me, and to help others as I could. In that way I held to my values and to the ways I want to be a doctor today.

Day 2:

More on top of things, more aware, more in control today. One patient went to [redacted major hospital]; the others are mostly fine.

Day 4:

Today was a low potassium kind of day, with prescribing errors abounding. So that's fun. Just coming out feeling slightly less competent as a doctor than when I went in. I don't think anyone's going to die as a result of it, but it has shaken me a tad. Haven't been able to set things down, have definitely carried my work home today.

Surprised by new patients again today. A nurse comes up to me and asks me about Mr X, and I say “definitely not my patient” and then stop and realise that my boss is operating downstairs, and actually this person probably is mine, and although I have never heard anything about him, his problems are mine to solve. It's fairly minor, though – a missed signature on the drug chart – and it's nice to be able to solve a problem at this point.

Day 5: Remarkably stressful day - just lots of jobs. Managed to do all the things, eventually, and left the hospital at 5 - James was going to be around late, but I was shattered and given that I'm coming back tomorrow, was not up for staying late.

Discovered that the possible passionfruit vine is in fact exactly that! Hooray! There are also a couple of stonefruit trees, but I saw them out a window and couldn't figure out which bit of outside the window corresponded to. Have not figured out the hospital layout yet.

Day 6:

I've been secretly dreading this – the arrival of the weekend. About halfway through the week it occurred to me that the weekend is not only two long days in a row – a challenge in itself – but that I am also responsible for all of the jobs and reviews from both orthopaedic and general surgical patients, and any ED calls, both days. By which I mean: there are only two junior doctors covering all inpatient beds, including the 6 bed ICU/CCU, for the whole weekend. The other one's a first year too. [Redacted] Hospital? Registrars? You've got to be kidding. (In fact, two weeks after I do my weekend, they start employing medical registrars as well; but for now, it's just me.) The day starts well, with a speedy orthopaedic ward round, but the general surgery boss on call is notoriously slow at rounding and by the time we get halfway through the patients it's 1200 and I've been paged 5 times to rechart a drug chart that someone missed. He is not my favourite person today.

(Almost signed the end of my diary entry there, after signing things all day)

Day 7:

My first big problem comes at around lunchtime. I've been seeing someone in ED, and am looking forward to lunch next, when I get a call from the ward; my patient, admitted for a fracture, is apparently having a major asthma attack. I head up at speed, and when I get there try to assess him. When I enter the room, he pulls off his nebuliser and starts insulting me and accusing me of not caring; it culminates in him refusing to be treated by me, and me leaving the room almost in tears and fortunately running into the second-year doctor rostered on to help out. He takes over the situation, handling it much more competently than I would have, but fortunately it means there is someone else who can take over with this patient. Most weekends there wouldn't be.

The orthopaedic surgeon has been and gone, but the general surgeon only starts the day at 11.30, for reasons of his own.The cafe at [redacted hospital] closes at 2pm on a weekend, for both lunch and dinner, and by 1.30pm – still on ward round, and anticipating going to theatre afterwards – I admit that that is my main concern. Fortunately, as we review yet another ICU patient (the whole unit belongs to me today) someone volunteers to run off and save me some food. At the same time I get a text from the other first-year on call that he's seeing my child who has been sitting in ED for 2 hours. I call both of them absolute gems, stars, my favourite human beings, and keep rounding. By the end of the round I have an unmanageable list of jobs (including finishing ward round notes on some of the patients – how is the round simultaneously so slow I accumulate 20 calls on my pager, and so fast I can't write notes for some patients? Why does my consultant stop to gossip with ICU nurses while I have jobs waiting? Why is the world against me?) and another patient waiting in ED, and an acute surgery that I'm supposed to be scrubbing in for. The consultant looks at me, and says he will find someone else to do it. I am simultaneously utterly relieved and rather embarrassed that my stress is so obvious to the outside world.

At 1730 my sick patient on the ward is finally stable, just in time for me to get called to theatre for an emergency caesarean. The one good thing about taking this time out of my day is that I get to give my pager to someone else and pretend I'm a student again for an hour. I arrive just as the consultant starts scrubbing, demonstrate my terrible slowness at scrubbing and gowning, but get to the table before the baby comes out. My assistance is the absolute minimum length of time necessary, and as soon as the consultant starts closing up I get to unscrub and hunt down Steve with my pager, and the beautiful man tells me he will go solve my problems while I go get some dinner. I pretend I'm not hiding from the nurses while I eat. I definitely am.

Day 10:

I can feel my compassion trickling out of my ears. The nurse wants me to review my patient's pain. I do not want to review my patient's pain. I would rather sit in the back room and finish abandoned discharge summaries from the weekend. On day 1, all I wanted was reasons to go and have a chat to my patients; it's depressing to realise how much fatigue changes that.

(on day 11, I flew down to my university city for graduation - that's right, there was a small enough gap between medical school and starting as a doctor that I had not even formally graduated yet)

#medicine #medblr #for the record one of the patients above does know that it was my first day when i saw him #although he didn't at the time #as you can see i had a wildly varying amount of things to say about my days #day 3 i literally just wrote 'planted some veges in the hospital raised beds today'#(they were built by a previous generation of junior doctors adn open for the using)#even though presumably i also did some medicine on that day #names are changed btw obvs no names of patients at all but doctor names are fake

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themikecollective · 1 year

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feb is a busy doctor month

Celebrating today's successes - Called the new dr office, to check in on if I needed to be off any meds for them, and they said not for evaluation! And any tests will be discussed there and i'll get a paper guide on what I need to do for prep. Yay. I love directions.

I really really hope they are able to help me. And i really hope that they do help me! Hope it will be worth the cost. . . . the ongoing cost if they can help me. it's ok.

My other dr is pretty cagey about whether or not I actually have a diagnosis from her... so once i officially hear back from and see another office, I will request my records. I hope i don't need to switch away from this dr in the future, because they offer video visits. But I hope that insurance keeps allowing video visits, otherwise I will have to try again to find someone within bus distance, which will either be one of several expensive private/no insurance places or really really far, and one of the only ones i have found that takes my insurance even requires that you switch your primary care to them first... and I am not yet ready to do that because I still need to see swedish drs for allergy and neuro. Not to mention i would worry that they have less quality care, since they require you to switch, making you dependent on them for all referrals to specialists, making it hard to find different specialists if their pcps are not competent. Or too busy to actually send referrals.

good and bad with my pharmacy. They are filling all of my subscriptions including covid tests, but aren't able to get 2 doses of my adderall, so i'll be 2 short for the month. I already ration, because of the shortages, but it is very sad. Because it means I can't get as much benefit from medication per month as I otherwise could.

#csm #chronic health tag #advice welcome but mostly i'm just venting

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currycurrie · 1 year

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Allow me to rant about US healthcare for a moment.

I had one (1) emergency room visit last June. It was a very simple visit. Standard blood work, CT scan, IV, and a referral to a gastroenterologist. I have insurance but not very good insurance so still would have been on the hook for somewhere between $1k-2k after everything. I don't make a lot of money and at the time my partner did not have a job. As such, I applied for financial aid from the hospital. Per their guidelines, I qualified for total forgiveness of all bills.

It took me over TWO MONTHS to get the fucking letter saying I qualified. With weekly calls to the hospital billing department. I had to provide paystubs, tax returns, and bank statements going back six months. I received the letter in the mail in SEPTEMBER. It was dated August 31st. Well, I thought to myself, at least it's sorted now and I don't have to worry about any surprise bills from the hospital.

HAHA. HAH. WELL. In OCTOBER I received in the mail two separate bills regarding my JUNE hospital visit. As it turns out, both the doctor I saw that evening and the CT scan/radiologists were both separate entities from the hospital. They just happen to work IN the hospital not FOR the hospital. As such, they did not get the memo that my bill was forgiven. So I call them both up and ask about it. "Yes," they both say giving me false hope, "we do participate in the hospital's financial aid program. Just email us a scanned copy of the financial aid letter and we will forgive the bill." Perfect, I think filled once again with false hope, it's a little annoying I have to do this in the first place but whatever at least it's over now.

I scan the letter. I send off the emails. Happy that this six month ordeal is finally done with. But oh, dear reader, do you remember when I said the letter was dated? That's right! August 31st. Which is not before June. It is, in fact, after! Which means that I just received an email from those billing departments saying that this letter is not sufficient proof that my hospital bill was forgiven.

When I tell you I started crying as I explained this all to my partner today. So now my course of action is to call the billing department of the original hospital, explain the situation, hope to God they can send off an additional letter regarding the June visit specifically, hope to God I receive that letter before these other providers send my bills to collections, and hope to God that this ordeal is over once and for all before 2023. I am currently trying to move. If my already crap credit score gets any worse I'm doomed in the really competitive real estate market I live in. And all this, because I went to the ER one night in June.

(This journey does not include the fact that the HR department of my job mistakenly cancelled my health insurance in August for no reason and with no notification. No I'm not kidding. No the problem is still not resolved. Yes I am looking for a new job.)

#🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃#oh sweet death please take me now #because fuck this whole ordeal right to hell #now excuse me to make some more fucking phone calls

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nickywhoisi · 2 years

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SO IT HAS BEEN A GODFORSAKENLY LONG TIME

WOW I KNOW and sadly there has just been too much to regale. A lot that would be very uncomfortable, but thank the whole entire cosmos that now I can say that, for the past few days, things have finally become steady and even a little good again. I got some motel stays to get out of this absurd heat AND IT HAS BEEN SO GOOD TO BE ABLE TO COOK AND HAVE A FRIDGE AND MILK AGAIN

I can watch some good TV, and I have finally gotten the energy back to come to terms with such slimebucket populus' mental ideas about homeless people, and how it really does not apply to me and no matter how much I can get accosted by it, I should try my best to not...automatically hate people. I mean, I still do, but I am working towards getting all my trust back. It will be a very long road there. But I also have enough energy to rekindle my love for my interests and catch up on my shows and videogames and art. I have been slowly creating and doing more, and it feels good.

I am really hoping a certain pet store does not get kicked out in place of a fucking shitty pot store. That just means to me all of the mall its in will be literally smoked out of all business, and it will all go to be destroyed. I don't want that, and I am so tired of these things like this. I will be sent to an early death by dementia if this world keeps changing too much around me exactly into what I don't want it to be.

I did get to visit it for a couple final days though. So now I will always have the memories of the tetra fish, the bubbling sounds of the fishtank filters, the sights of the colorful dioramas, the bird cages and the gerbils. The slightly checkered floor. It's all there in my mind now. I even got a pet, so I fulfilled a wish of mine from way back when; to get a pet of my own from there. Sadly, the bird is a little shit at the moment, but I'm slowly learning how best to take care of it, and hope that it will finally learn to appreciate my efforts for it. It was not an easy decision to make as a homeless person and was a great expense, and the bird is also still a baby so it has a lot to learn. Far too many errors and badness between us happened so far, but just last night and today seems different from these rocky beginnings.

And most importantly, I got the correct help from Options, and UCRC got me not only one but two referrals for their mental help and homeless prevention teams! I have to figure out where I'll be on Tuesday so I can make it, and I really wish I could get started on getting help from the other team, but tomorrow, I can at least call the second team to get psychiatry help. I think this will be really good for me, like this journaling has been. But it's so incredible to me! I set out to get a referral, and I got TWO when I was beginning to dread that they didn't have/do these services and I would have been so afraid that options would be just another organization who cornered me with incorrect information and I would have had no reason left to trust anyone trying to "help". My social connections I think would have been fully over, dead in the water. That would not be okay. So as impatient as I am with one team not being available while I very much am ready, I will try to get some more time here at the motel, because it still seems like the weather is absurdly hot, and I need to keep me and the bird out of that heat.

Additionally, I have FINALLY AFTER EONS OF WAITING FOR THE RIGHT TIME gotten back into watching One Piece. I'm on the Nanone G-8 island, the series' best filler arc. It is still super good, just like I remember 8D Jonathan is such a great guy and amazing captain. He's the only one in the whole show with a galaxy brain and he has actually good strategic thinking. The Straw Hats get a really different kind of battle here; purely of wits and creative problem solving, and I think that's why in a shounen show famed for spectacularly wild battles and pure combat, this arc sticks out so well even today. I can only hope there are more moments or characters like what we get here later on in the episodes.

My art I am still working on slowly, with limited art supplies too. But I did get some good inks, so I'm gonna upload. And I finally extracted the files I needed for the book finishing posts. Unless my mind is really going and I've already done? Might need to check. Disregard if I have.

#gypsy diary #yeah so this is the whole big update so far #I really did not want to be away for so long...I missed all of you #I wanted to be with my friends here but so much occured #I will use this period of respite wisely though!#time to upload lots #nick is back babies at least for a little while

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