My friend tagged me in my discord server and was like "this is Turtle's wrapped" and it was just. This picture.

today, my coworkers’ refusal to see me as a man put one of our patients in a position where they felt unsafe for the third time. i’ve been at this job for less than two months total. i don’t even care about getting misgendered anymore, i just want the people we’re supposed to be taking care of to feel comfortable around me.

i work at a hospital where we have to supervise our patients in a lot of vulnerable situations. there are safeguarding rules in place for certain things that male employees aren’t allowed to be present for when it comes to female patients. and yet, the people training me and telling me what to do have repeatedly put me in situations where i’ve been forced to do things that the female patients aren’t comfortable with me doing. and because they have repeatedly failed to teach me the rules for doing my job as a man, i have no way of knowing when i’m crossing one of those lines unless one of the patients tells me.

i’ve had to watch a victim of SA stare at me in abject terror as my coworkers asked her to strip naked with me still in the room. it took several minutes for her to even be able to speak enough to ask if i could leave the room. i found out after that she broke down crying the moment i walked out. my biggest regret is that i didn’t realize what was happening fast enough to leave before she ever had to say something, because she shouldn’t have had to say it. i never should’ve been allowed in the room in the first place, because that’s not something male employees are supposed to be present for. but i didn’t know that yet, because i was training and i thought surely, they wouldn’t train me to do something that directly violated their own safeguarding rules. that moment was the first time, and it’s haunted me ever since, but it wasn’t the last time. not only did it happen for the third time today — it almost happened for the fourth, and would have if someone hadn’t spoken up to say they should pick someone else. i care for these people so deeply, it’s why i took this job, and i’m so tired of hearing the fear in their voices when they have to ask me not to do something i never should’ve been told to do.

i’m very used to the personal discomfort of being misgendered. i willingly deal with it a lot at work as well as in other situations, not because i’m in the closet (at this point in my medical transition that would be impossible), but because it’s such a frequent occurrence with my coworkers that we would never get anything done if i took the time to correct them every time. but to see it get to the point of causing such visceral discomfort in other people? people i’m supposed to be taking care of and keeping safe? that’s something else entirely, and i’m fucking exhausted.

and after all of that, some of them still look at me like i have two heads when they tell me what to do and i say “i can’t do that, only female employees can” because i’m learning now. clearly i’m already seen as a man by our patients, but my coworkers would still rather put them in an unsafe situation than just train me as a man.

but the thing is, melanie hates jon because he is so very much like her.

they work in adjacent fields, they've got such similar temperaments - they both run straight for whatever supernatural horror they need to understand, they both suck at planning ahead (poisoned coffee, melanie?) and they both lash out as a primary defense mechanism - and jon wasn't qualified for his job, and martin's only "degree" was in paranormal psychology, so clearly the Institute was hiring from a broader pool than "qualified archivists." i can't imagine ghost studies are all that lucrative as a field. if melanie hadn't made it as a youtuber, what would she have done? we don't know a lot about her educational background but - she knows what it's like, to need to know. she walked into the Institute and got a job because Elias saw that he could use her.

If she'd had a legitimate encounter sooner, if she'd started her quest a few years early, if she'd come to the Institute to give her statement and stayed to use their library before Gertrude had died -

Or even if she just couldn't survive on a youtuber's salary, if she'd gone looking for job postings in relevant fields -

It could have been her. She looks at Jon, and she sees exactly who she could have been. It's only luck that it wasn't.

And that's the kicker, isn't it? It's luck, that she's in her shoes instead of Jon's.

And is she supposed to feel lucky? To feel thankful that she's had to suffer through attack after attack, Elias showing her how her father (her dad, who called her his little moth) died screaming, her body torn open by things that don't exist, her sense of self slipping as she ripped into flesh with no recognizable form, her trust violated as she woke up to two of the few remaining people who are supposed to be on her side cutting into her against her will - to feel lucky, because she had to gouge her eyes out just to have her body back in her control -

Is she supposed to be happy that she lived through all that? Is she supposed to be glad, just because she could have been Jon?

Nobody told Melanie she needed to feel sorry for Jon, or give him her sympathy, or any other kind of pity. She just wants to give it, because God, what he'd gone through -

(Thank God it wasn't her -)

- Fuck that, she isn't lucky.

She hates Jon, because she refuses to feel grateful for the horror show her life has been. (Because she's grateful, that it wasn't her; and she's furious, because - yes it was. she paid the price of the apocalypse in blood and scars and trauma, too. She wasn't Jon, and could have been - but fuck it, she was still Melanie. and the hell that she has lived through isn't nothing.)

It's just bad luck, that it was Jon of all people. It's just bad luck, that it was Melanie.

No one here is lucky.

i get why everyone wants to moralize the gl corps into space explorers but realistically it’s still just going to be the same level of “progressiveness” as before. like park rangers: the green lantern edition is still going the have the common tropes where they head to an alien planet → meet the local population → inevitably get mixed up in a problem → superheroes function as superheroes do → oh wait, this is a cop allegory again! i mean cmon wtf are they going to do in space if they’re not going to fight ppl. none of them know jackshit about galactic wildlife they’re getting poisoned if they try to repopulate an endangered species or some shit like that 😭😭

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Howdy Caroline, I saw a post about Talk shop Tuesday so I thought I'd be nosy on main. I wonder, how does research factor into your fic writing, and what was the most taxing research you had to do for a fic? 🐸

oooh hi, iva!!! thank you so much for shooting the ask--god knows i always love talking about fic!

to answer your question: i think most of my fic-related research is limited to "what episode did character x do this/say that", just so that i have the timeline of events down. i know it's not the end of the world if i don't perfectly remember how a certain scene went down, but i can't help it--i like being precise when it comes to at least recalling canon events.

outside of that specific brand of research (just making sure my timeline/recitation of quotes is all set), i'll sometimes do wilder research for like ... au projects that are set in a different time. that doesn't happen often (i think the reason why i tend not to write au's that are set other than present day is specifically because i get overwhelmed by the amount of research to be done), but when it does, i'm usually stuck researching for hours. that's probably why i just never got around to posting this one period jwds au i have. the plot keeps shifting, mostly to suit the research that i've done. deep sigh. one day i swear i'll finish writing that story and post it, but right now it's just gotten a little away from me. it's marinating.

outside of that story though, i think i've been lucky enough to not need to do too much research for fics . . . maybe that'll change one day (especially if i ever fall in love with a more period-drama-esque story), but ! ! ! as of now, i think my research time really only takes up 10 - 15% of my fic writing process.

i really want to start making a table collecting statistics on the audience demographics i'll perform my aubrey material for (like what generation most of the audience is, whether i'm performing in a predominantly queer space, etc.) and how well the jokes land bc like. i need to collect more data points before i can properly present my findings but the results so far have been fascinating

I realize that that post isnt the most politely worded

however

it is literally one of only a handful of things i ask from any of you

Yay! I get to actually use my very specific engineering experience in food beverage to go hmmmmm someone is lying to the government

how do u see ur loved one struggling and think im gonna take them to the bathroom and force them into the shower and also strip them naked even tho shes saying she doesnt want to and is resisting then spray her w cold water be for fucking real

frederick chase, legacy

thinking about frederick chase, who grew up in a family that knew about all the things everyone else couldn’t see, not because those things touched them, but because they used to. thinking about frederick chase, who’s a little too strong, sometimes, who’s a little too quick, sometimes, who has a strange aura of power that he didn’t earn but his great-great-great-grandfather did. thinking about frederick chase, who wants to be normal, who is almost normal, who is almost able to ignore the things that have too many eyes and razor sharp teeth and kill children in alleyways--but not him, never him, he doesn’t show up on their radar, not anymore. thinking about frederick chase, who is dizzingly, maddeningly grateful for his own cosmic insignificance because he knows what happens to heroes. 

thinking about frederick chase, nerdy and goofy and gangly and too smart for his own good, but more or less a normal guy once he moves out of his parents’ house. thinking about frederick chase, who graduates summa cum laude studying heroics of the human kind and gets his pick of grad schools and flirts with another TA at three am while they both pretend to grade papers and ignore their research. thinking about frederick chase, who falls in love with gray eyes and sly grins and stubborn pride and shows that by arguing and teasing and fiddling with his glasses and showing off, just a little, just to make her laugh.

thinking about frederick chase, who takes her home to meet his family, only for his sister to gasp and his father to drop his wine glass and his mother to bite her lip and his brother to watch with wide, jealous eyes. thinking about frederick chase, whose blood is almost all red, whose life is almost all safe, whose legacy is almost all forgotten, it’s been so long, who’d almost escaped completely, whose feelings of betrayal are sharp, vicious things. thinking about frederick chase, confronting a goddess, terror and anger making his voice shake, and what that must have looked like, a mortal lecturing the divine, how that must have made athena wonder and plot and plan. 

thinking about frederick chase, who wakes up exactly one year before he has to present his dissertation to a baby on his doorstep with his hair and her eyes who he knows just by looking at her is doomed, doomed, doomed. thinking about frederick chase, who lives off of coffee and ramen and hasn’t showered in a week and still isn’t even twenty-eight, who never wanted any of this, who was never asked if he did, who feels violated and alone and afraid. thinking about frederick chase, who tries to give the baby back because he knows what happens to kids in alleyways when the monsters (or the gods) are hungry and knows he’s not enough to protect her, who’s told he has no choice but to try. 

thinking about frederick chase, who keeps his daughter because none of this is her fault and gods forbid athena take any responsibility for the life she created without his consent, who names her annabeth for favor and oathkeeping and grace, who raises her the best he can even though he’s convinced he’ll outlive her, his clever little miracle child who represents every single one of his parents’ warnings and all the ambitions his brother’s ever sought. thinking about frederick chase, who reads to her and braids her hair and puts her in a playpen with a box of legos while he teaches his classes and comes back to find her building temples and shrines and skyscrapers with her chubby toddler hands. thinking about frederick chase, who knows his daughter is smarter and more powerful than him, who knows exactly what all that wit and strength is meant to protect her from and how little either will matter, in the end. 

thinking about frederick chase, who has every member of his family stolen from him before annabeth steals herself away. thinking about frederick chase, who never once blames her for it, who wants her safe, even if it that means being far, far away from him. thinking about frederick chase, who messes up and says the wrong thing and forgets, sometimes, that for all her cleverness, his daughter isn’t a mind reader and needs to be told that she is precious, that she is cherished, that she is everything he’s ever been afraid to lose. thinking about frederick chase, who doesn’t know how to raise a demigod, only how to mourn one, so he fails, and fails, and fails, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how deeply he loves.  

thinking about frederick chase, who, when given the chance, shows his adoration by brainstorming new building ideas and telling old college stories and making midnight breakfasts and shooting at titans with celestial bronze bullets. thinking about frederick chase, who grows and shifts and tries to see his daughter in real time, not only in those last moments he knows are coming, when she’s that kid in the alleyway and he’s not enough, never enough to stop the monsters from coming for her. thinking about frederick chase, who never once makes his peace with it, but works for the rest of his life to earn his own peace with her.

hmm. I'm starting to think maybe the weird uncomfortable dreams about my childhood best friend won't actually stop, no matter how much time passes 🙃

Another Thing That Leonidas Didn't Talk About But I Would Have Rather He Did (Or That We Otherwise Got More Info About)

Three or four eternities ago (read, months) I made a post that speculated that Leonidas was keeping a pet panther that he never talked about based on a curious consistency in artworks, which you can see here if you, too, wish to see his panther he has put jewels on.

But because Leonidas and the rest of his family passed communications with a D- when it comes to familial relations (their father couldn't help them study, having failed the class himself), there's more than one thing hiding in the margins of their lives that they just don't talk about. This time, it's hiding in Gala Mars' story:

Namely, that Mars does not seem to be Leonidas' first dragon.

So essentially Mars killed Leo's pactwyrm (judging by the 'new pact'), and Leo essentially said: Cool, wanna join up? This is a video game, after all.

Oh, Leonidas.

PS: I always will find it funny that Mars, underneath all the mana cylinders embedded in his flesh and what-have-you-not, really just looks like Red Midgardsormr, judging by this Dragalia Mini art. He's even got a yellow highlight under his eyes!

Even his chibi style is pretty similiar to Midgardsormr's!

I do appreciate though that at least Mini!Mars is being fed Leo's curry enough to have cravings of it. Then again, this may not be a special privilege since I'm guessing Leonidas does indeed wish to demonstrate his superiority in all things, including curry-making.

sometimes you will want to cry in mundane or unideal situations and that's okay. sometimes you will want to cry even if you don't have a "reason" and that's also okay

wuh woh