#also I have to do work tomorrow because I've put off... a lot and deadlines soon so uh

[spade-club]

I cant eat tonight so I cant take my meds. I really should have thought this one through. I guess we're just going to have to keep on with mental breakdown week. Today was good though, spent time with the roommates* so I wasnt alone. I feel like 3 days have passed today but I've been okay and thats the important part.

#*parents #but I am simply tired of acknowledging them as such today. #dude I havent known who I am all week. i just realized that. #wild. anyway- #I have animal crossing and new music for listening and coffee so I think I'll be okay #I have decaf coffee now so I can make myself more coffee whenever I want throughout the day!! #which is like. huge news. I think it will do good for me tomorrow #also I have to do work tomorrow because I've put off... a lot and deadlines soon so uh #idk. I have things to do is what I'm saying! many many coping mechanism. I will use them all #might even find a movie to watch or something too. that would be good #maybe I could rewatch veronica mars again.... so many options! #okay goodnight. will uh.... idk. exist later

[shai-manahan]

Hi! It's been a while since I've talked about the upcoming updates, but I finally had a chance to actually sit down and make plans! (the life of a corporate slave, am I right? 🙃)

It has something to do with the changes I will be implementing on my patreon, though. I've thought for a while how to give content that's worthwhile of subscriptions while also making sure I can be comfortable with them, and in all honesty, I had a tricky time doing it. HM is too personal for me, as I used to talk about before, and some of the patreon benefits I promised before eventually felt too revealing - of my own thoughts and people whose lives were a huge inspiration for this story.

I will be talking about these changes and the update schedules as well below the cut.

UPDATES

I aim to finish at least half of HM's Book 1 this year. It seems to be a more realistic goal than forcing myself to finish everything right away (which tbh may have been a huge pressure I put on myself the past few years), though admittedly, things are unpredictable in the field I'm in; my job is full of overtime hours, and I spend most of my weekends trying to recover (or sick).

Still, I gotta finish it one way or another, and it's not going to write itself (though I wish it would!), so yeah, set realistic deadlines, pull out a few all-nighters, and maybe I'll actually get through it, who knows?

I do hope I'll have steadier finances by the time Book 2 starts so I can put more focus on writing and have sufficient energy for it, but that's a conversation for another day.

Changes in Prologue - Chapter 2

Okay. I know I promised not to make revisions until I write more chapters, but changing how some game mechanics work and reworking the stats made it a necessity, and I underestimated how much rewriting I'd have to do. A few scenes ended up not working well anymore, and I couldn't resist from revising a few clunky sections while I was at it.

Dialogue options were one of those that were significantly affected by the stat changes, but no worries, nothing is changed in the story -- meaning Wesley still fucks with the Ripper's life (oops), Richard still goes off doing whatever non-sus thing he's doing, you can still punch Bale (it's even a lot funnier this time), Bertrand remains a bitchy cop, and you'll still have your sad flashback with your former best friend/lover/crush or whatever they are to your MC.

The plan is to release the updated version of Prologue and Chapter 1 to patrons by the end of March (I will have a few days off work that week) and release it to the public once the new content is also ready, which I presume will be available next month (I will keep you all posted but I really hope I can get it done by then because it's been forever 🥲).

I might tweak Chapter 2 a little so the available portion can stand on its own rather than be divided into two parts, because it's just too long lmfao and is harming the pacing as I keep worrying about the length. I'm also incorporating a few suggestions a few folks gave me these past few months.

Succeeding chapters

I've probably said this before but things are bound to get more insane in HM once we're past the first three to four chapters. But also quicker to write in a way. They're the kind of scenes I thrive in, and while they have bigger variations, they're a lot more fast-paced, characters start being manipulative little shits, and the threats are more prevalent than ever. Your Ripper will not have a good time, but I certainly will (I say as I look at my outline and get sad doing it). There will be a few "breaks" in between, but this is not and will never be a light-hearted story. Anyway, I'm inclined to believe I'll be more consistent with updates when that time comes, so bear with me for now :')

PATREON CHANGES

This is getting long, so I'll just list the updated tier benefits and end the day with it. I'll be posting a schedule that I will be committing to (here and on patreon tomorrow morning), with the below details as well (so if you wanna stop here that's totally valid) but for now, here's the tentative list:

Tier 1

Early access - 4 days before a public update (this month will be an exception and you'll get the update as soon as the other tiers get it, too).

Sneak peeks and deleted scenes - I included the latter because apparently I delete a lot of great scenes

Hints for future revelations in the story - the categories will depend on results of polls; the hints may be about Bale's death, about Ripper's family, Pharos, Cyro, the ROs themselves, or the nightmares that the MC is getting, etc. Might be in form of vague conversations/dialogues between unknown characters, might be me dropping subtle info about those involved. Either way, it will be fun :). The polls and these hints will be given monthly.

Tier 2

Early access - 1 week before a public update

all the other benefits for Tier 1

monthly RO snippets - I'm still experimenting with this, but I might simply write MC x RO snippets (with different kinds of MCs for different scenarios because I deeply hate writing blank slate MCs, sorry)

a choice to see the POV of a character, decided through polls, for every chapter/update.

Tier 3

Early access - as early as it's available and goes through testing stages

all other benefits for previous tiers

Non-RO short stories

Previews on unintroduced characters :)

That's all for tonight! I am so tired lmfao but I hope you all are having a great weekend so far! See you tomorrow :)

#patreon #patreon changes #updates #hollowed minds progress update #interactive fiction #hollowed minds series #hollowed minds #wip #writing #hollowed minds book one #if wip #interactive novel

[eponymous-rose]

A full day today, so I figured it might be fun to write up what a professor's day might look like when not lecturing!

6:30AM: Got up early to virtually attend a friend's wedding on the East Coast! <333

8:00AM: I have been very careful this quarter to shuffle lectures/meetings around so that I have a little time to myself in the mornings to sit at home and drink coffee and eat breakfast and pet a cat while I get the day's work started. No exception today! I pull up an application my PhD student has been putting together for a tech grant and use the proverbial red pen to make some (a lot of) comments. It looks good overall, though! I send him a note to encourage him to send it to our collaborator in the computer science department when he's done with edits. Monday's the deadline, we gotta get moving on this.

9:00AM: I load up a bag with books I keep putting off taking to my office, plus some extra Halloween candy I found to add to my office candy bowl, and head out to take the bus in to campus. Also, pet the cat goodbye (she is unconcerned).

9:45AM: At the office, books and candy put away! Time to prep for my first meeting, which is a committee meeting with someone else's PhD student. He struggled a bit with a recent exam (entirely his advisor's fault, but that's a different story), so we're reconvening as a group to see his progress and cheer him on. He sent an update document, so I run through that and take a few notes. Then it's responding to e-mails (setting up my participation in a federal review panel next year, responding to two prospective graduate students interested in working with me - the combo of a fun research topic and a beautiful campus means I'm now up to 20 inquiries so far this quarter, eep - and sending out an update to the department about the charitable giving opportunities I'm coordinating).

10:30AM: Great presentation by the PhD student about all the things he's done since our last meeting back in April-ish. He's made huge changes to his work, and we applaud (literally and figuratively) how much he's accomplished in such a short time. Also, amazing data visualization! Great work all around. He's set to defend his PhD by 2025 at this rate, definitely back on track.

11:30AM: Time to rush back to my office to meet with my own PhD student! We usually meet on Fridays, but we get tomorrow off for the holiday so we jumped the meeting back. He's a few minutes late due to a missed bus, so my next-door colleague and I talk about cats for a few minutes. As you do. When he does arrive, he's got some cool stuff to show me - we talk about the notes I made on his grant application, and I remind him (and myself) to book flights to a conference in December that is rapidly approaching somehow. (I guess this means I have to do some cool and innovative research before then that I can talk about. Go figure.) He also shows me some cool preliminary results from a project he's been doing with a friend out in Pennsylvania. He's late enough in his PhD that my role as advisor is primarily to get out of his way and make sure he has enough supercomputer core-hours to get his work done!

12:30PM: A break for me! I start in on e-mail again, sending a coordinator my bio and abstract for a talk I've been invited to give (virtually, thankfully) at a student conference in January. I also realize that, because of the break tomorrow, I should really put together a homework assignment and next week's lectures for the class I teach Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Hmmm. I dig through last year's lectures and assignments and realize they've gotten a little out of sync this year. The solution? I may just offer 5 instead of 6 assignments over these ten weeks and give them this one a week later. Class average has been extremely high on them, and I think the students will appreciate a bit of a break. Also means today's job is just to prepare a few lectures based on last year's material. I've got a big chunk of open time later this afternoon to deal with course stuff, so back to e-mail. Going to be joining a friend (who I can't help but think of as the undergrad who sat in during all my grad classes, but is now somehow a full research scientist) on a very cool project putting together a new thunderstorm dataset. Also reached out to another friend about setting up biweekly meetings to hopefully start a new research collaboration and... possibly some fieldwork! I also almost forgot to put a forecast together for our forecasting competition, but I got there in time. Phew.

1:30PM: Meeting with a colleague and the undergrad research intern we co-supervise who is sadly having to leave to go attend school closer to home. This meeting is mostly just us reinforcing to her that we're still here if she needs advice/reference letters or ever wants to work on a similar project with us remotely in the future, but we are going to continue with the research until the end of the quarter, at her request. After the meeting, I get an e-mail about another undergraduate looking for a research project! I present her with the options of a cool lightning project with my colleague next door (waiting to hear back about federal funding for that project, fingers crossed) and that other cool thunderstorm project led by my friend in Oklahoma.

2:30PM: Seminar time! A very cool freshly-minted PhD from California tells us all about her research, a complicated topic about which I knew very little going in and now know... slightly more. There was a very geeky moment in which she showed what happened to a particular part of the climate system when CO2 was added, then showed what happened when CO2 was removed, and the asymmetry of it made everyone in the room gasp and then self-consciously giggle.

4:00PM: Post-seminar snacks acquired (a big cookie and coffee are definitely a good late lunch, right? I kid, I kid, I had a big breakfast and have a big dinner waiting at home) and small-talk survived, I scramble back up to my office. Time to get those lectures ready for next week (pretty quick to do - rather than last year, where I'd show the code on the screen and we'd talk about it, I'm having us write the code together live and debug as we go; harder in the moment for me, but the students are learning so much better!). Get an e-mail back from the new undergrad research intern expressing interest in the lightning project, amazing! Time to get her registered so she gets credit for this starting in January. Also finally get a teensy bit more editing done on a draft of a review article that one of the top scientific journals in the world tapped me to write (???? still surreal beyond measure).

5:30PM: BAND PRACTICE. Our department is so nerdy that the faculty/staff/postdocs/grad students put together a giant band to perform popular songs but as covers so we can make the lyrics about our nerdy research. This tradition has been going on for 30+ years, and the big performance is for an hour at our holiday party every year. It's a riot, and this is my first year joining in the chaos (I'm on keys on three songs!). There are like 25 of us, we have a horn section, a professor plays the mandolin, the students create elaborate musical roasts of their professors, it's great. My parts go great, to the point where when there's some trouble with key drift during an a capella part they call me in to play chords under it and keep them grounded. I love playing music with other people!

7:00PM: Time to pack up and head home for dinner. Phew.

Long day, but also LONG WEEKEND BAYBEE. I don't actually have to do any substantial work this weekend, so that means BALDUR'S GATE WEEKEND BAYBEE.

#eponymous academia tag #long text post

[cha-melodius]

3, 7, 13 and/or 18 for the ask game? (also, sending you hugs <3)

First off thank you so much for the hugs, they are gratefully accepted, today was a lot and tomorrow's not going to be better. I'm also in a bit of a writing funk and feeling bad about everything, probably because I'm so emotionally drained. Thank you for sending these as distraction, I'm glad to think about something else tonight.

3. Do you anticipate writing for a new fandom this year? Which one?

Oh I sure hope not. I have a hard enough time keeping up with three. 😂 But one thing I've found is that you never know when a new ship is gonna hook you, so I guess never say never.

7. Will you change anything about the way you interact with other writers?

First, a moment to celebrate what I have changed already: I've gotten a lot better about commenting on everything I read, which I'm very happy about. Now if only I had 12 extra hours in the day to read everything I want to. I'd like to get better at reblogging things on tumblr from other authors, because I know how much reblogs of my own fic posts mean to me. I try to remember to come back and do it after I read a fic, but sometimes I just forget, sadly. I think I need to put those posts in my drafts rather than just likes, or something.

13. Aside from fanfic, are there any other fan works you’d like to try creating? Fanart, or fanvids, gifsets, or podfic? 

You know, doing my tumblr top 10 posts made me realize I'm not sure I did ANY drawing this year? What?? I started getting into it with napollya and then writing kind of took over, but I'd like to get back to it. I don't think I'll pick up anything new, though.

18. Do you typically post multi-chapters as you write, or finish it all and then start posting? Would you like to change your posting method? 

I used to post as a wrote with a month's-worth of chapter buffer, but now I finish them all first. I think it makes the story a lot tighter, I don't have to worry about changing something in the second half and having it conflict with something already published, and it removes the stress of writing to a deadline. So I'm unlikely to change that!

Thank you again my dear, I always love seeing you in my ask box. 💕 (And I desperately need to read all your whumpmas fics still!)

Fanfic asks for the new year

#ask games #about my writing

[medicallymercury]

And Another One - Casualty Hiatus Thoughts - 2/?

I'm still ill but I went into uni anyway like the brave little soldier that I am! (Every night, I decide that all the work that I need to do can be done “tomorrow” but we’re rapidly running out of those until the deadlines. I have lost my train pass and student ID. All I’ve listened to all day is the demo version of Geyser by Mitski. Vague sense of doom.) I got myself some Tesco Finest cookies on the way home. I’m just complaining here. 

I'm back for more already, seems like I've opened the floodgates but this one won't be as lengthy as the other one was. Genuinely sorry I can’t shut up. I thought I was done for a while but I put an episode from series 36 on in the background thinking that I'd be able to do stuff while it played but got distracted by my opinions.

Potentially all over the place again, though this one does manage to be mostly about the series 36 mother-hell storylines. So there's a theme. Warning - I started going off about Dark Room which has a lot of transphobia in it and that’s part of what I talked about.

I really don’t know how I feel about the resolutions of Sah and Teddy’s storylines with their mums. Okay, we already know I'm about to be going on about Sah and Teddy's mother problems storylines but I'm sure there are other characters who this is/isn't applicable to - feel free to let me know about it. As a recap: it’s kind of hard for me to figure out how to describe exactly what happens at the end of Friends Like These, but if anyone has ever seen that quote that’s like “I tried to ask my parents to leave the room, but not my life”, Teddy asks Gaynor to leave the room and she leaves his life. A couple months later a patient situation causes Teddy to call his mum (and that is not brought up again when he gets trapped in a mine in the next episode) and also we are left to assume that all is fine now. Pretty simplistically, in Enough, Sah and Jools talk it out after Kevin has another stroke and then they are also just portrayed as being okay forever by the end of that episode. 

I can absolutely believe that these characters, sad and work-stressed and not always the most emotionally mature, would forgive their mothers. I don’t even disagree with it happening on a story level because I think it could make for a really good development in those stories, or even just a less-than-happy ending. What I don’t enjoy is how these endings are presented as being happily-ever-afters and that everything is supposed to be fine now because they’ve forgiven/reconciled with their mothers who haven’t really done anything to deserve it. Jools is objectively neglectful, and telling Sah they were always enough does not make up for that. I think Gaynor’s behaviour is emotionally abusive; she’s controlling his life, emotionally manipulating him, she’s trying to even limit his contact with people other than her (and she has been doing this, he “wasn’t allowed friends”). Unless I'm wrong, we don’t see or hear from Gaynor at all between Friends Like These and We Need To Talk About Ollie. I don’t doubt they love their kids but that doesn’t make them good parents, and it’s not on their kids to be doing the work to improve the relationships. If we’re getting these forgiveness endings then Jools and Gaynor need to put more effort into proving they’ve changed. Or (and I'd probably find this more interesting cause I'm mean). Forgiveness needs to be presented as something that isn’t this simple happy ending because it doesn't feel like that in these circumstances. I respect the potential misery of the undeserved forgiveness, I love misery for them, especially when they’re both in mother-hell together, I am mean. But if you want to give them a happily-ever-after, keep them away from their mothers or make their mothers do the work. 

They make Sah be the bigger person way too much, actually. In Dark Room, why does Sah have to be nice to Scott when Scott deserves to get re-beaten to a pulp? I don’t care that his mum is also terrible. Not only did he bully them when they were teenagers, he tried to ruin their whole life as a fully grown adult. Their mum is terrible as well and you don’t see them acting like that. They don’t need to be the bigger person and try to help Scott and his also terrible mother, they need a weapon of mass destruction. Also, why is Sah’s deadname used so excessively in series 36? Or at all? Ever? I’m sure there were ways around the audience ever needing to actually know what it was, even if they felt like the story required the implication of characters using it. Another potential Casualty hot take, maybe? I don't think Sah's dad is all that great of a parent either. Obviously it is entirely Jools' fault that Sah has to be his carer at such a young age, he had no control over that and Jools is definitely the worse parent, but getting back with Jools without telling Sah, cancelling plans with Sah to go on dates with Jools, excusing Jools’ pretty transphobic remarks and acting like Sah has to forgive Jools because he has really isn’t great. They were right when they said “it’s not just you she left”. IT’S! NOT! JUST! KEVIN! SHE! LEFT! It annoys me that Casualty is like ‘this action will have consequences’ about that scene because Sah is right. The only person I truly like from Sah’s pre-joining-Casualty life is Bill Phillipsen (and his dead wife) and he died. I knew you very briefly/not at all but I miss you Bill and Jean <\3

This post is absolutely the post for me to start getting into the connections between the mother-hell storylines but I won’t in full. They are kind of this pair of opposites, not just on this wider level of overinvolved mother vs uninvolved mother, there are a lot of patterns I’ve noticed in the episodes and the dialogue. I’d find them all now but it's 2am and I need to be awake at 8am at the latest so I’m putting off compiling that list for another day. Some faves that I can remember off the top of my head: opposite Jan advice scenes, Gaynor really struggling to say she’s proud of Teddy even though he really wants her to while one of the first things Jools tries to say to Sah is that she’s proud of them and they tell her not to, “you won’t see me back if I go” vs “I’m back now if it’s not too late”. I really like these connections, that's why I'm so passionate about what I don't agree with in these storylines.

I didn't mention this in my last post but I got my hands on a bootleg of The Play That Goes Wrong with Milo Clarke as Max and it's very enjoyable. I've been meaning to watch TPTGW at least since I watched both series of the show, probably longer, and I succumbed to the Casualty brainrot and and had to see his version. All I'll say: He really knows how to play aunt based nepotism and situations that could be solved with polyamory.

Based on when one of the episodes is set to air, I don’t think we’ll see Casualty back until about December 30th, unless we are gonna have another break between episodes once it comes back. I don’t really care that much and also, Christmas/New Years episode? The most recent Christmas episode was that one where they were like “what if it was last year?” back in 2021 and that’s always been a weird choice to me. I just want a silly little festive one, normal Casualty episode featuring carol singing and tinsel and the implication of a really intense staff party (we will never get the Sah/Teddy Christmas party of my dreams, not this year cause they’re in the current situation, not last year cause no Christmas episode and also the stuff with Jan was happening then, not the year before…). The only thing that bothers me about the hiatus is the inevitable time skip, so much time will have elapsed in universe by the time it comes back so I feel like we will have missed a lot of the immediate aftermath of stuff that happened at the end of Driving Force.

#mitski may not know it but her music is about the questionable relationships in the pretend hospital #you're my number one. you're the one i want. and i've turned down every hand that has beckoned me to come. so true mitski #geyser is such a good song. I WILL BE THE ONE YOU NEED THE WAY I CAN'T BE WITHOUT YOU. #shilling for mitski cause my love mine all mine got popular and i want people to listen to her other songs thanks for noticing #bbc casualty #casualty #shoelace fandom #teddy gowan #sah brockner

[soullikethesea]

These weeks have been super busy. Oof. I've been working a lot. (Just some venting down below).

I feel a bit activated. ("Like I'm being hunted," someone says inside. Not literally, but they relate a lot to being an animal in a human world). But guess what? I already made two big deadlines and my work of keeping up/preparing does seem to help a lot. It feels like past-me has my back and I can take over with some steps already completed.

I haven't been able to cook for quite a while and tonight I *finally* made my bed new again. (I know, gross). Now if I manage the washing up tomorrow, it will get easier to cook. And omg, the laundry/dryer has been sooooooo annoying lately. I haven't been able to do my laundry, because others needed to do theirs. And it's been so freaking loud literally 8 hours a day this weekend and every evening. It makes me feel a deep sense of despair/powerlessness. I do put on noise-cancelling headphones, but it's not comfortable for such extended time-periods. I still need to do my own laundry, however. So I'll have to cope with it some more. 😭

My colleague is going to send me a Christmas card and I'm so shocked by that somehow..! It feels like maybe we're sort of friends and it's weird to me. (In a good way). This is the one whose girlfriend I trained with the other day (which somehow felt like a job interview, that I did pass).

I did a lot of cleaning and packing today for the moving. I think I'm starting to see how it will all come together. I think it will only take one day to finish the rest of packing, if I get enough boxes. That feels a bit reassuring. It also made me realize that the only category of posessions I feel quite unhappy with is Lego. It feels like I have a bit too much. But it felt too stressful to deal with that right now, so I might get that sorted after moving.

Oh, and I went to yoga again and it was the highlight of my week. It felt like I was snoozing off and on, but in a good way. Falling asleep has been quite challenging, so it felt really nice to be able to go through the process in a safe environment. I hope tonight will be better, with my fresh sheets and all. But it's mostly psychological. Feeling as though I'm at my dad's house and about 7 years old. Scary to even think about.

Taking a deep breath now and giving sleep another try...

[fairytalearista]

Putting in job applications when I (a) really don't want to give my time to a random employer when I have 20+ books for people to buy and provide me income and (b) have, in my experience, never gotten a job unless I knew someone in the company, even when I was spam applying to every company that looked likely is an underratedly insurmountable task. My brain just equates applications as useless, and I might as well spend that time working on my next book. (I have four up for preorder right now, and I don't want to miss those deadlines!)

I don't drive, I live about 30 minutes away from any proper job, I'm some flavor of neurodivergent, and my priority is always going to be my author career, and employers just don't want to deal with me. The fact that I held McDonald's down for five years probably will make me look better now than the two nine-month stints I did the last time I was putting in applications, but ... still. I also don't want a full time job, and I just need to boost my income by about $500-$800 a month.

I also keep running into walls with looking into online jobs 'cause my wifi is not the best and my attention span is pitiful. Transcription looked promising, but entry level gets left with the scraps, and it's not worth the effort. I'm going to try to upgrade my wifi tomorrow and get rid of my landline (last time I tried to get rid of my landline, I was told that they don't do no-landlines for my location, but I've been told otherwise last week, I'll just have to get a better wifi package), so that might not be an issue. But, it's still time that I could spend writing.

But I'm also hitting a wall of executive disfunction where I'm so worried about finances (and I'm almost at the end of my savings and tax return, and while April was a good month for sales, that spike has not maintained as well as I'd hoped. Seriously, who doesn't want to read Jane Austen and Fairy Tales at the same time???), that I'm just watching playing resource management sims and idle games because at least there I get the positive feedback of making money. It's a vicious cycle that just makes me and my loved ones more upset with me.

*sigh* I really don't know what to do. My one side gig has just opened another opportunity for me that I have taken, but I'm not sure yet how much more it will provide (though it is going to be a lot more reliable than hoping people schedule parties for me to host).

Anyone want a book? I have 20+ of them, as I've mentioned, and one will be releasing at the end of this month. I don't know which one it will be yet, because I have two contenders and the other will release next month (and it's probably going to be the opposite of what I've currently told Amazon.) I won't get paid for any sale made this month until the end of October, but it will still be helpful for November, and my royalties to be paid this month and next month are ... not terrible? They're triple digits, at least.

I'm gonna wander off and go write more of my Emma / Rapunzel retelling. The Frank Churchill character just showed up and I'm rolling into the downhill of the story, which shall be glorious.

#life #kendra e. ardnek #my poor brain #anyone want a book? #It doesn't help that I lost my ss card last year and I can't afford to replace it #Austen Fairy Tale

[galactic-pirates]

Fandom, Creation and Me

With it being NaNo tomorrow I am doing update posts, and planning posts, and basically sorting everything out. It's also something I do at the end of/start of every year. It's part cleaning house, part goal setting.

This has been a funny year with moving house dominating all of it. I was just going to update my art goals, only to discover I didn't make my customary end of December post because that was during the madness. Then I remembered I didn't think I updated here either. I checked the archive and I did say I'd finally moved on September 13th but as to my fandom plans not a whisper. So I'm going to talk about it now!

Mid-April I made a post in which I said:

SO! My mission, should I choose to accept it bwahaha is to write EVERY SINGLE fanfic idea on my list (that I still want to write when I get to it) before the end of the year. Deadline December 31st. After that the slate is wiped clean. 

This started to go off the rails when I stopped writing in the summer. Some people write more when they are stressed as an escape. I wish I could say I was one of them but alas I unfortunately do my best turtle impression instead and basically very little gets done.

When I moved into my house that was a fresh start in the biggest way possible. I want - no I need - to make the most of that. I had to think about what serves me, and ultimately I decided to make my clean break then. So yeah, no more fanfic from me.

I have a few WIPs on my HD but thankfully due to my policy these days of not posting until stories are complete, that doesn't matter. I do feel... I wanted those ideas to be brought to life as I do like them, but I had to make a choice about what was best for me, and wistful thoughts about what could have been aren't going to change my mind.

So am I quitting fandom?

No.

I'm still co-mod of Saffi Prompts and I intend to help with that if it comes out of hiatus. I'm still running Saffi Bingo, in as much as I sent out the cards months ago but nothing seems to have happened. I'm helping put together the 13th anniversary event for Bering and Wells next April.

I also just signed up for a Leverage Bingo Card because you see while my fanfic days are over, my fanart days are not.

I want to get into art in a big, big way. I feel like fanfic helped me a lot with my writing journey. Fanfic helped me see projects through from beginning to end, helped me produce on a schedule, helped me keep up the practice when my mental health wouldn't permit me to write other things. I owe fanfic a lot. It's my hope that fanart might fulfil the same function in terms of getting me started.

Now I know I've promised I would do art in the past and then haven't done it. For years I have made it a goal to do 1 piece a month and I've never got close. I think the best I ever did was at the start of 2021 when I think I made it to April before I stopped.

That was before though, and the start of my writing journey was a similar tale. I went through a time when I wrote once a year - for NaNo - and didn't write at all the rest of the time. It's unthinkable now but that's how it was. So just because I didn't draw on the regular in the past, despite saying I would, doesn't mean I will always fail at that.

TLDR

No more fanfic from me. Expect fanart - eventually. I want to work through some art courses I have first before I go back to trying to draw what I imagine. Hopefully this will mean when I attempt those imagined pieces they will be better, and not as cringeworthy when I look back later as to how I ever dared post them on the internet.

P.S. What about gifsets?

Nearly forgot about that. Fandom Friday will not be returning. I don't have the time. However, I'm not ruling out making sets when/if I feel inspired to do so.

#sam rambles (a lot)

[unifiedcitationjournals]

Nursing team leader challenges on a daily basis: "Do you have two minutes?"

Being a nurse team leader in older adult community mental health services involves managing staff, a caseload of patients, and a service on three different levels. The suggestion is to "be organized and prepared," but in practice, we must also be ready to be unprepared. Someone once told me that mental health nursing was all about "chatting with patients and drinking lots of coffee" while I was a student nurse. I have often wondered where that enchanted clinical area was. 

Hello Dear, Have you gone through the conference details? I just want to let you know that the deadline for early-bird registration is ending tomorrow, after the deadline the fee may increase. Kindly register your slot ASAP. You can register your slot here: https://nursing-healthcare.universeconferences.com/registration/

Be ready to be caught off guard

I usually finalize my weekly schedule on a Friday afternoon; it looks fantastic with nice gaps for lunch and space to check in with staff or patients. The Community Senior Team online huddle, which typically lasts longer than the allotted 30 minutes, begins each Monday morning. We decide on the week's workload after talking about staffing levels, wait times, prospective detentions, and crisis work. Before the meeting is over, I've already seen a queue of employees building outside my office door from the side-lines. The coffee I made at 8:45 am is cold, and I have 10 minutes till my next meeting.

Because the staff is only asking for "two minutes," I have to address a number of topics, including staffing, patient care plans, designating staff for planned detentions or crisis work, as well as a wide range of personal concerns. It is not quite 11:00 a.m. and I am already 15 minutes late for my next meeting! Giving employee’s time and giving them priority helps the team be ready and resilient. Next, a cloud forms over the centre of the day as a result of several online encounters.

After the meeting, I have to come up with increasingly creative ways to work, which could put me under more strain.

The highlight

It is expected of you as the nurse team leader to manage a manageable caseload of harder patients. Three of my seven patients need weekly contact and risk management work. No matter how my day is going, I consider my time with patients to be the finest part of it. This time of the day serves as a reminder of my motivation. As a nurse with 15 years of experience, I am constantly learning from my patients. Despite the increasingly sophisticated patient presentations I support, and despite the fact that I appreciate my title as nurse team leader, I am really just a certified practical nurse.

I am acutely aware of how crucial that hour in the day is for someone having mental health issues because of my dual function in life and my current position. I had missed luncheon and the coffee is still cold on my desk as I head out to see my first patient. I almost leave the building, but a worried team member stops me on the way out and inquires, "Do you have two minutes?" I usually attempt to keep my promise when I return to the office following patient visits with a list of follow-up chores that need to be finished before the end of the day.

Reflections

I finish my follow-up tasks and type my notes after a short meal and, eventually, a cup of coffee. This is invariably followed by more "two-minute catch ups" that never seem to last just two minutes. I review my calendar and move any unfinished tasks to the following day. I reflect on my accomplishments and plan for the days ahead, which will likely include additional meetings, reports, staff inquiries, patient evaluations and assessments, and service level issues for which I may or may not be prepared, during my 40-minute trip home.

Even while the "to do" list is never completely crossed off, the "two minutes" spent attending to staff issues guarantees that they can continue, and the time I spend with patients helps the patients get through another day. My responsibility is therefore tri-fold and puts people at the centre, despite the fact that I must be prepared to be unprepared. 

"A Day in the Life of...," The expert on learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and neurodevelopmental nursing is Isla McLane.

Isla McLane, a professional learning/intellectual disabilities and neurodevelopmental nursing advisor with the Autism and Learning Disabilities Team, Scottish Government (www.gov.scot), Health and Social Care Directorate, discusses her role in our most recent "Day in the Life of Series" showcasing the diversity of roles within learning disability nursing.

As part of my job, I offer expert guidance based on my clinical and nursing experience on all issues pertaining to learning disabilities, autism, and other neurodevelopmental disorders to assist civil servants in producing high-quality recommendations for Scottish Government and UK Government Ministers.

How did you land your current job or profession?

I work as a Registered Nurse with a Specialization in Learning Disabilities (RNLD). I have had the honour of working and assisting persons with learning difficulties throughout my career in the NHS. Before transitioning to a Community Learning Disability Team as a Senior Charge Nurse in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, my career path started as a staff nurse/senior staff nurse working in inpatient services.

My next position was with the Primary Care Liaison Team as a Primary Care Liaison Nurse, and after being promoted, I served as Acting Lead Nurse to assist General Practice in delivering locally improved service requirements, collaborate with researchers, and offer training and education to primary care providers. As a sign of early integration, I accepted a position as Clinical Team Leader within a team that provides both health and social care services. At the same time, I was invited to contribute to the Glasgow Caledonian Our Global Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment offers you a special venue to publish your work, which is a fantastic approach to share your findings with the globe. To know more about it visit here: https://www.ucjournals.com/global-journal-of-cancer-research-and-treatment/ WhatsApp Us: [phone] #ResearchProgress #CancerFreeFuture #SupportCancerResearch #ResearchForACure #CancerInnovation #FightAgainstCancer #CancerBreakthrough #ResearchAdvancements

[royalberryriku]

// vent, personal

TW: psychological and emotional abuse, verbal abuse, mention of threats, family issues, ableism

So for the last few days I think my mum's been in a really bad mood and she's gone back to this really screwed up bad habit of using me as an emotional punching bag and making fun of me / making snide remarks about me when she's feeling off.

I have several mental illnesses and (suspected) chronic fatigue, she knows this, but still she keeps making fun of how I'm unable to do things all at once, miss deadlines, can't always do physical tasks as easily as others, etc. I'm basically just this walking butt of a joke and she's always found it hilarious (I sure don't find it that though) to point out how """useless""" I am and how I can't do shit everyone else (as in: "she") finds "easy".

Twice in a two she's done this in the past three days and I'm so fucking tired of how she just suddenly flips around and decides to be spiteful and nasty towards me for literally no reason and for things she KNOWS aren't purposeful/ my fault.

"Knowing you, you'll only be able to do it once I'm at work because it takes you so long" thanks. Way to remind me that I can't do a bunch of shit at once like you can because I need breaks in between things or I fucking faint or snap emotionally! "You really should have a shower, otherwise you shouldn't go [to my friend's place]" after I showered barely a few days ago KNOWING I struggle with showers and that I was tired and in bed all fucking day thanks a lot! This is one way to make me feel even more tired and make it HARDER TO DO THESE THINGS. What does she expect?? Making me tired and feeling worse and like shit will "motivate" me to somehow "cure" my fucking disabilities as if I can snap my fingers and with a few insults suddenly I can do shit?? That's not how this works.

I've told her before that this makes me uncomfortable too, but she just replies with "you shouldn't be so fragile" and tells me to suck it up basically. It's annoying for one, sure, but it also hurts a really sore spot with how she used to be a lot worse when I was younger and I developed a huge fear of being abandoned/ thrown away after she and my dad split and how she used to threaten shit when I was younger. Little me viewed the split as him being "thrown away" because I didn't understand why and had overheard arguments previously where my dad had been called useless by her. Basically, this is just rubbing it in even more and hurting way more than she realises it does. Actually I don't even know if she doesn't realise, maybe she does but I want to at least be optimistic here.

I hate feeling useless and I already feel frustrated due to not being able to do the things I want to do due to said disabilities listed, she's just continually rubbing it in for her own satisfaction and to have a laugh. It makes me feel like she thinks my only use to her is cheap entertainment and besides that I'm fucking useless and she finds it fulfilling to laugh at that as if I fucking choose to have these issues which limit me to this degree. I'm frustrated and angry, and tbh just overall very tired of this bullshit. I wouldn't make fun of her like this, but it's suddenly justified because she thinks she's entitled to me and I can't have a say in how I'm told fucked up shit that makes me want to fucking die or disappear from her life/ stay tf away from her?? Then she gets mad when I distance myself from her because of this. History fucking repeats itself and she never learns.

Anyway. I'm tired as fuck and I'm angry, so I'm not gonna even be able to sleep to avoid thinking about this, sooo tonight is gonna suck. Can't wait for tomorrow to just have some time alone where I can just rest without anxiety or anything. I just really wanna be by myself and be able to let out that anger and frustration with art and music and not having to please anyone or look any particular way or just... put any emotional labour into anything. I'm just tired and need a rest from my mum's bs rn.

#vent #personal

[myaquariusheart]

25/4

Today was.... urm unproductive. I didn't do that much work and spent the day with E. It was good and we had a lovely catchup but I feel bad I didn't finish my disso. On Thursday I need to go to the library and just be alone so I can actually get something done because I'm getting too distracted when I'm spending time with people. I'm creating unnecessary relationships with people and it's honestly annoying me. What happened to just chilling with friends and not thinking too deeply about it. I have work tomorrow early and I'm excited about it in the sense it's a different scene and I need to work on my customer service skills, I think I've been showing emotion on my face too much and it's not nice. I need to be more friendly and engage in small talk but I also feel really awkward and shy when I'm making a coffee for someone and they're just standing there in front of me awkwardly but again it's just something in myself I need to get over. I remember on my last shift, I was so annoyed when this couple came in literally seconds after we officially opened but then I deeped it, they were starting their morning with me and I need to make them a nice coffee so they can have a nice start to my day. I wouldn't like it if I just woke up and went to get a coffee and the girl behind the counter was pissed off. Like damn so that really humbled me and made me realize I need to stop being annoyed and put love into each coffee I make because coffee is important to people and we want them to have a good experience so they come back again and again. There's this couple that has started to come a few times a week and honestly, I found them jarring at first but then I found it cute that as a couple they want to come here together a few times a week for lunch or even to do work. So I'm going to be a lot nicer to them and show them, love, because they show us love all the time. I need to wake up early and at least get my base on because I'm done going in 15 mins late with no makeup, it ain't cute and I'm feeling not done up the whole shift. I would hate me as an employee honestly but I'm going to change. I'm not a morning person but my deadline coming closer is just making me more scared of life. Mum wants me to work at an Agency for school but honestly, I don't want to do that. I am so over teaching right now and want to do something fun and interesting with my life. I want to do teaching later on when I'm mentally ready for a FIVE DAY A WEEK JOB STARTING AS EARLY AS 8AM TO 4?! Not right now, I wouldn't mind a cute receptionist or office job with a good salary so I can enjoy my life and not be too exhausted by the end of the day. I need to start brushing up on my CV and Thursday I NEED to submit my Philosophy and the presentation. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow after work. I've just decided with cake that we're going to go gym after work so it will be a good and productive day. I need to also order my tablets so I can't forget that. Need to try and sleep and not overthink about not doing work because nothing is going to change the fact and it's not like I'm going to do it right now. Literally can't be bothered for anything and this bitch ass Wales man wants to jar me tonight as well? So done with men rn and he can message me good morning tomorrow if he knows what's good for him. Done with the gaslighting, just be for real you know? I never usually write about men because it's irrelevant but he's annoyed me for real.

[chibisquirt]

You don't have to answer, but if you wouldn't mind. What are some things you've learned about ADHD from Tumblr that are applicable to you, or others you may now? I've been reading more on it and how it manifests in girls/women and was curious when I read your rb on that post about Grammarly

I don’t mind at all!  Fair warning:  this is gonna be LONG.

I’m going to start by repeating something I mentioned in that post:  I was diagnosed in third grade, which was over two decades ago.  I had my diagnosis halfway through elementary school, much less high school and two rounds of college.  So a lot of the old information about ADHD I learned as a young person, and those things are worth exploring, too.  

Example:  It’s not that I’m not listening, Mrs. Nock, it’s just that if I try to keep my hands still, then the only thing I will retain from the lesson will be keep your hands still and not the things you trying to teach, which are supposedly important! 

(Mrs. Nock was the one who said to me, “I believe you believe you’re paying attention.”  Yes, it’s been fifteen years.  Yes, I’m still mad.  If you can’t have basic respect for your students, don’t teach.)

I figured out half on my own, half because of the counselling that if I had a fidget tool that didn’t require words I would pay better attention than if I tried to sit still.  (I still remember being mocked by my dad for fidgeting well after making that discovery, though.  Apparently diagnoses should only inform compassion when they’re his.)  On the same lines, I also figured out that music in the background wouldn’t work for me if it had words, and television is too distracting for me to use at all.  (I have a friend, though, whose ADHD works the opposite way:  he has difficulty focusing if there isn’t a television in the background.  Yes, both are valid.)

So, the Classics:  

I always had trouble with organization and cleaning, had trouble with schedules and calendars and managing my time.  Those are the things they’ll warn you about, the things they’ll tell you in counselling are natural and normal things for people with ADHD to have trouble with.  Trouble paying attention, sure.  Trouble sitting still.  Procrastination.  Got it.

But if you turn those traits around and re-frame them, they become a new set of symptoms.  Adaptations for these new symptoms are more personal and universally applicable in my life, and therefore, to my mind, more useful.

Take Procrastination.  (No really: please take it.)  That just means “putting it off until tomorrow,” and there are lots of reasons to do it:  “don’t have the tool I need” is one of the biggies, “want to conserve steps” trips me up a lot, “I still have time to get to it” is HUGE for me...  But a lot of times, these are just superficial reasons.  The re-framed symptom is, Trouble making yourself do things you don’t want to do.  

ADHD is an executive function disorder.  That’s a phrase I first learned on Tumblr, by the way; it may have been mentioned by one of my earlier counsellors, but it definitely wasn’t taught.  

This is why soooo many of us have struggled with the perception (including self-perception) that we’re lazy!  But no one tells the kid in the wheelchair he’s just lazy for not playing basketball.  (Okay, they totally do.  People are terrible.  Ignore that, stick to the point.)  I reframe this the way I do because acknowledging this as a symptom, taking the blame out of it, makes it easier to find adaptation.

Now, this is a personal post.  YMMV.  But I have an easier time managing my conduct if, instead of calling myself lazy a procrastinator, I say, “I keep not doing that --> oh it’s because I Don’t Wanna --> how can I con myself into doing it?”  (Strategies include bargaining, making it easier, powering through but then allowing yourself to stop afterwards, just acknowledging that I Don’t Wanna and allowing that to be valid...)  Procrastination is an action, but “executive function disorder” is a disease and “I Don’t Wanna” is its trigger, just as much as an allergy and a clump of ragweed are.  “Procrastination” is a powerful sphynx against which I’m helpless, but “I Don’t Wanna Disease” lets me start cultivating my metaphorical catnip and researching the answers to common riddles.

And while we’re talking about procrastination--and trouble with deadlines, and schedules in general--let’s talk about Time Insensitivity.  Missed deadlines and perpetual lateness (perpetual) are external actions, just like procrastination, and they can have all sorts of explanations.  

(Shoutout to Mrs. Pollack, who looked around a classroom containing thirteen-year-old me, and, knowing full well that I was chronically tardy, declared that “anybody who’s always running late, deep down, they just doesn’t care about anybody else’s time.”  Great job with calling the thirteen-year-old a heartless bitch, Mrs. Pollack!  As you can tell, I definitely forgot it very quickly, and didn’t at all have a self-critical breakdown about it, periodically revisiting the question of my own inherent selfishness for years!!!)

But ignoring the external actions, let’s take a compassionate look inside the head again.  Executive function includes regulation of, and awareness of the passing of, time.  Again: you can’t play the basketball with no legs.  We literally do not realize what time is doing.  Sometimes we do--if we devote enough of our attention to it, which may be a large amount for some, a small amount for others, or a variable amount for the same person.  But our brains literally don’t process it the same way.  

But hold on a minute--let’s go back to that analogy.  Because actually, people with no legs can play basketball!  It’s just that you have to use the adaptation of wheelchairs to do it--and that’s an adaptation for the game and for the players.  

I use alarms.  I’ve recently seen a post about audio memos as alarms.  There are people who just slap clocks everywhere.  When I was forced to work in a kitchen with no clocks, I used the multi-setting timer and set it for like four hours so I would know if I was keeping on schedule.  I also chose a job environment where much of my shift is the same as itself, and rigid punctuality isn’t enforced--that’s adapting my environment, instead of myself.  There’s all kinds of adaptations.  But you have to know you have the condition before you can compensate for it.

Here’s a fun little story:  when I was... oh, eleven?  Twelve?  My Quaker Meeting’s youth group (#7 whitest phrase I’ve ever written) went to the museum together.  One of the stops was in the children’s section, there was a... a pegboard, I think?  With some kind of problem on it.  A puzzle.  Me and a couple others sat down at it, and it took me a while, but eventually I solved it, and I looked up.  

I blinked.  “Where is everybody?” I said.

“They left,” said my mom.  “Half an hour ago.”  

I was stunned.  “Half an hour ago?!  But I couldn’t’ve spent more than ten minutes on this!”

“I promise you, it was half an hour.”

“Why didn’t you call me??  Why didn’t you say my name?”

“We did.  Several times.”

To this day, I will swear myself blind that I never heard a thing.

Hyperfocusing.  They’ll tell you about the problems focusing; oh yes.  They’ll tell you allll about that one.  But they won’t tell you about the flip side of it.  They won’t tell you about the times when the rest of the world falls away, and the only two things in the world are you and whatever problem you’re trying to solve.  

D’y’know what, I bet that’s the reason I test well.  I just realized this now, phrasing it like that, but--I’ve always tested well, even when my actual practical applications of things are mediocre I do well with the classroom testing on it.  I scored a 39 on the MCAT, back when it was out of 45 and not whatever it is now.  (To those with the plain good sense not to want to be doctors:  that’s pretty good.)  And I just bet it’s because, once I get focused on solving the problems, the other problems--nerves, intrusive thoughts, anxiety--just don’t have room to get in.  Hyperfocusing can be a superpower, if you can harness it.  

But it can also blind you to everything else.  And it works in smaller ways, too:  once I think I understand something, it is very difficult for me to perceive information that contradicts that understanding.  I still get the map of the Elflands backwards every time I read The Goblin Emperor, just because I pictured it one way, and every indication in the text that it was the other way just fell on deaf ears.  

And this one leads right into the next, which is Rejection Sensitivity Disorder.  RSD is hyperfocus, but it’s hyperfocus on how everyone must hate you.  It’s delightful!  I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, as well, and I do have both of those things, but for my money, I think that this one symptom of ADHD--which no doctor has ever even mentioned to me--has hurt me more than both of those conditions combined.  

The last one I’m going to bring up is Auditory Processing Disorder.  Now, I’ve gone and gotten re-diagnosed twice in my life, and the last time was just a few years ago, so they actually used this one in the test.  The psychologist told me about it, she just didn’t use the phrase Auditory Processing Disorder, and she didn’t tell me that it was its own symptom--she just used it for the test.  

What she did was, she gave me two hearing tests, one to test whether or not I could hear, and then the other a list of words that all sounded alike, and I had to mark which one I was hearing.  The second part of that was very long, and very boring, and despite scoring perfectly on the first test, I got several wrong on the second.  I was actually surprised by that; I at no point suspected I had heard any of them wrong.  When she gave me the test, told me this was proof by contradiction, that we were ruling out hearing loss as an alternative explanation for my difficulties.  It was only after the test was done that she explained that the pattern I showed was actually part of the diagnosis of ADHD; that we get bored, and stop really paying attention, and that we don’t even know we’re doing it.

...Okay, but you couldn’t have mentioned the part where I also do that every day in real life, lady?!?!  It’s not just when we’re bored, it’s not just for long processes.  I do this all the time.  I actually tell people now that “I actually have a neurological condition that makes it hard for me to hear; I can tell that you’re speaking, but I can’t tell what you’re saying.”  

This is 100% true.  It is a neurological condition.  

We label this a condition, but as a society, we don’t treat it that way.  Society treats it as yet another excuse.  It’s not.  You’re not lazy, stupid or crazy.  Neither am I.  

I have a condition.  Acknowledging that is the first step of treatment.  Not five thousand sticky notes, not binders or filing systems or even taking all the doors off the cupboards (although I definitely plan to do that one as soon as I possibly can).  Not counselling sessions with so many different people I can’t even name them all, for the love of god please understand that you can’t just fix it with pills.  

(Although mad props to the people who thought Concerta would magically solve me at the age of nine!  Spoiler alert:  it did not do that!  But it did mean that my parents felt comfortable blaming me for all my failures again, so it did at least some of what it was designed for, I guess. :) )   

I have spent the last few years re-understanding my ADHD it as is:  a neurological condition, a disability, and a simple fact of life.  A starting place, instead of yet more proof of my own inherent insufficiency.  And you know what?  When you take the blame and self-hatred out of the diagnosis--when you stop cursing it as the cause of all your problems and start trying to work with it, instead--it gets a lot easier to manage. 

#laexploradoraaa

[bygone-age]

HOLBY CITY BAKE OFF

A fun little idea I had while my mam was catching up with some recent Holby episodes and I decided the writers don't know how to do happy and fun.

It's an AU of course - Dom isn't adopted, Lofty didn't cheat, Ric isn't suddenly past it, Jac is happy (and still in charge of Darwin), Kian is around, but a bit less annoying (I'm getting used to him), Serena and Bernie are still together and Hanssen is not in Sweden. Also Gaskell wasn't a total bastard and Roxanna is still with us.

So anyway, here it is!

******

WEEK ONE - CAKE WEEK

Sacha Levy was not fond of working nights, but he owed Dom a favour and it was only for a few days.

Of course, night shift had its advantages - his last ward round had passed without incident, the patients were settled for the night and barring any unforseen emergencies, they should remain that way till handover in the morning, so all he had to do was check in with the junior doctor and ward nurses every now and then and the rest of the time was his own.

He had a supply of good coffee (a present from Jac and Emma, along with a mug covered in doctor jokes), he'd managed to get ahead of his paperwork for once and he'd even gone over a research proposal from his junior, so he was going to spend the next hour with Agatha Christie. Or least, that had been the plan. Almost as soon as Hercule Poirot had boarded the Orient Express, his office phone rang.

"Mr Levy?" it was the rather shaky voice of Nicky McKendrick. "could you come down to Darwin? I- I- I know you're probably busy, but... well, there's a problem with Ms Naylor."

~~~~~~

Five minutes later he was hurrying out of the lift and onto Darwin. Nicky was waiting for him, looking positively queasy.

"Nicky, what happened?"

"Well, everyone was settled for the night and she had me doing half a mountain of paperwork and practicing for tomorrow morning's surgery, while she worked in her office. About ten or so minutes ago, she stuck her head out and said she wasn't to be disturbed unless it was a critical emergency. She said anyone who did would be thrown out of her office window."

"That's pretty standard for Jac."

"Yes, but I walked past her office and I could hear her going "he's an arsehole, she's an arsehole, he's never going to win, she's just crap" and I knocked on her door to see if she was OK and..."

"and what?"

"She told me to fuck off. Then she threw a cupcake at me."

Now he was just curious.

"OK, first you need to calm down. Get yourself a cuppa and take five minutes, then try and tackle the rest of that paperwork. I'll go and see Jac."

Nicky went off to the break room and Sacha went to Jac's office to see what was going on.

~~~~~~

"I thought I told you to fuck off!?!"

"Not since I knocked Emma's glitter onto the floor!"

Jac turned to see it was Sacha, rather than Nicky butting in as she had before.

"Oh. Sorry, I thought you were Nicky bothering me again."

"No and you should apologise. And explain why you're throwing cupcakes."

"I told her - no interruptions. The cupcake was burnt, it shouldn't have been in the box, but Emma insisted it was fine and I forgot to take it out of the box."

Sacha sat down beside her on the couch and finally noticed what she had on on the portable TV on the coffee table.

"Still mean though, you should ap- Bake Off? I thought that started next week!?!"

"Tonight. Half of them are doomed, but Hollywood is such a dick, I want the worst one to win just to spite him."

Sacha laughed out loud and settled in beside her.

"Mind if I join you? Watching you critique cooking shows is one of the funniest things you can get away with at work!"

She nugded him playfully and grinned.

"Shut up and make yourself comfortable... if you can take time away from Agatha Christie!"

"She can wait for a hour, but I will nip up during the break and grab some of that lovely coffee. And while I'm doing that, you can apologise to Nicky"

He looked at her with just a little bit of sterness and she gave him her best put upon sigh - one borrowed straight out of her daughter's playbook.

"Fine! As long as she isn't going to make a big deal out of it."

They settled in to a comfortable silence for the next few minutes and when the break came, Sacha went to fetch the coffee, hearing Jac call Nicky over as he left.

"Oi, foetus! Put that lot down, I need a word!"

~~~~~~

A few minutes later, having checked in with Keller and grabbed his coffee maker, Sacha returned to Jac's office to see her and Nicky side by side, Nicky practically bouncing with excitement and Jac trying very hard to keep a stern look on her face. He avoided eye contact and set the coffee up on her desk.

"Sorry I'm late, I stopped in at the break room to fill this up" he motioned to the cafetiere. "what have I missed?"

"They're making Angel Cake Slices for the technical" Nicky pipped up brightly "I don't know why-"

"Because you don't know anything. Now be quiet or you'll get another burnt cake thrown at you."

Sacha smiled. Jac wasn't fooling anyone, she was enjoying the company and she knew it. As if on cue, she softened (slightly. Very slightly) and turned towards Nicky as he passed out the coffee and sat on her other side.

"It would be too easy to just do three traybakes and jam them together. This way requires much more skill, so it's a better challenge."

"Oh! That makes sense. You know, you should-" Nicky sneaked a quick look at Jac and decided against what she'd been about to say. "nevermind. It can wait."

"Good. Now, not another word unless the judges make someone cry"

END OF PART ONE

NEXT: BISCUIT WEEK. The action moves to Sacha's flat. Jac makes ginger snaps, Nicky brings tea and Ric has definite opinions on the "loose vs bagged" debate.

~~~~~~

Hope you liked that! I'm going to try and do one for each week, so I know I have some to catch up on and I've never been very good at deadlines, but I will try and if anyone has any ideas, drop me a line any time.

This is especially for @foxyroxysstuff, who I hope will forgive me for delaying finishing her prompt to finish this first! I'm going to do yours now, promise!

EDIT:- Forgot to post this 👇 👇 it's the coffee maker that Jac and Emma bought Sacha.

#holby city #au #fanfiction #fanfic #Holby City Bake Off #jac naylor #sacha levy #nicky mckendrick

[eponymous-rose]

Weird question, but you seem really productive despite seeming to have a constantly fluctuating routine, with both your work and your hobbies. Most people think having a solid routine is the only way to increase your productivity but I've pretty much given up on having a routine since my life seems similar to yours--a lot of travel, weird and always changing work hours. Do you have any advice on how you deal with routine and productivity in spite of that?

Oh gosh, this is definitely something I struggle with a LOT, and I’m not sure I’ve found a coping strategy that works for me yet. But the small things that have been helping have been (1) keeping a routine in my planning even if the stuff I do changes dramatically (even if I’m traveling, I have a notebook where, every Sunday, I list all the stuff that has specific dates/times for the following week, I list the stuff where I still have to come up with a date/time, and I list the stuff I’ve gotta do that week for sure), and (2) finding multiple ways to approach the same goals that I can tailor to my level of energy/spare time on any given week (so this week I’m just not in a super exercisey mindset and can’t rely on having the motivation to run every day, but instead I’m making an extra effort not to eat out this week—lower-effort for my current state of mind, but all toward the same goal of feeling a bit healthier overall).

I’m also very cognizant of how little time at work is actually spent working, so I try not to feel guilty if the total number of hours worked is low as long as the work’s getting done. I’m an incredibly routine-oriented person, but it’s been a bit freeing to slowly and steadily teach myself that stuff just has to get finished one way or another, and the easiest way to do that is to just focus on specific goals and let the rest be flexible.

Anyway, yesterday I was thinking of this ask and was like, “You know, I’ll just write up what I do on Monday as an example, and I bet things will go hilariously awry.” And so they did.

So here’s what my weekly planning list looked like last night:

Dated Events:

Call with paper coauthor at 9AM Monday

Call with leadership academy planning committee at 10AM Monday

Call with peer mentoring group at 9AM Tuesday

Sit in on class at 11:30AM Tuesday and Thursday

Seminars Wednesday at 3PM, Thursday at 4PM, and Friday at 3PM

D&D Saturday at 6PM

Undated Events:

Coordinating abstract submission for an upcoming conference (early week)

Setting up Skype calls with a couple friends I haven’t talked to in a while (late week)

Assorted Priorities:

Book hotel for work travel in July

Accept journal article review request and scope out how long that’ll take

Review some materials sent out for my peer mentoring call

Revise my paper and submit the revisions before the Monday deadline

Get my driver’s license renewed (the joys of yearly visa renewal… your license has to be renewed yearly as well)

Put together a schedule for a biweekly Twitter feature highlighting new publications for the account I run for a subcommittee in my field

Respond to an e-mail about a conference in January about some weird deadline that popped up for next week

Come up with conference abstract ideas before the as-yet-unscheduled meeting

Fill out some action items in advance of my 10AM Monday call

And some more specific checklists for four research projects I’m focusing on this week

I purposely try to group conference calls together, because I currently share my office and feel weird doing video calls when she’s stuck in frame five feet away from me while she tries to work. So Monday seems like a good day to work from home, and I can squeeze in Tuesday’s call before heading to the office that morning. I’ll be in the office Tuesday-Friday, which means I’ll be able to attend those seminars and classes with no problem. I have most of my D&D prep done already because we ended early last game, so I can leave that until Saturday. The only thing I might have to shuffle to next week is the driver’s license thing, because it’ll take three hours and I have to account for finding a Lyft there and back. Okay. Aces.

Wake up this morning to find my internet’s out, and I also somehow left the hard drive with all my research on it at work. Hoo boy. But staring over my to-do list, I think I can set today up as a “big picture” day and not have to do any actual coding, so I’m still okay to work from home. I can also phone in to the conference calls instead of using the video call software. All good.

Luckily, the internet comes back right before my first call of the day. Said call is with someone who also happens to be a dean, so she has a tendency to get held up at meetings, so I take that delay to look at the action items for my second call (I mean… if you send me action items at 8PM on a Sunday I am not gonna touch them until Monday morning).

When she did make it online, we chatted about the new paper, and she strongly encouraged me to send it to our other coauthors in case they have suggestions. We’re submitting on Monday, which is way too short-notice to read a 20-page research paper, but they already read the pre-revision version in great detail, so I shot them an e-mail that included a summary of the substantial changes and a note to the effect that if any of them want more time to look at this stuff, I can beg the editor for an extension on their behalf. Minor crisis averted.

Second meeting is very intense and structured. Everyone has to volunteer to organize and lead two webinars in the next three months, so I go ahead and volunteer for the two April ones so I’ll get it out of the way early. Aaand the first webinar is at 1PM this Friday. Okay. I’ll work from home that morning so I can do last-minute prep, then head into the office in time for the 3PM seminar. No biggie. One organizer puts together a draft schedule, and I send a quick e-mail suggesting a different use of one of the ten-minute time slots. One of the other organizers requests another conference call tomorrow instead of e-mails. I tell them I can only do after 4PM, if I leave work early. Eh. We’ll see how that works out.

After the call, I get through a bunch of small tasks in maybe 20 minutes: hotel booked, Twitter posts prepped, review request accepted (not due until May 20, so plenty of time on that), conference deadline e-mail chain started. I spend the rest of the time before noon getting sucked into an article someone sent me about the myths surrounding undergraduate grade inflation and then reading up on the peer mentoring materials for our call tomorrow. A couple other minor e-mails pop up (scheduling the precise date of a conference mixer in January, that kind of thing) and I manage to deal with them right away.

Lunch! Clearly working from home means I should take the opportunity to indulge in some fine cuisine, some leisurely cooking that highlights—

I heat up a microwave meal (chicken couscous) and watch YouTube videos for an hour.

Back in it! I write up some abstract submission ideas and make a valiant attempt at setting up a time to talk about them, but it looks like that might have to wait until next week. We’re still a ways before the deadline, so that’s okay.

Mmmmmmm someone on Twitter mentions a conference in Germany in September and a workshop in Colorado in July that both look like a good fit for my research. I’m in a situation where I have a big chunk of travel funding that’s going to disappear unless it gets spent in the next year. Oh no. But also oh yes.

Just in case, I put together a couple point-form ideas for stuff to propose that I can bring to the people holding the purse strings.

The rest of the afternoon is spent putting together weekly goals for four of my research projects: each one involves a collaboration with a different person, so I’d like to be able to send each of them an e-mail with at least one new thing to share about that project this week. Just in case that doesn’t happen, though, I rank them from most to least important. Worst-case scenario, I don’t have to send any of them this week, but it’ll make next week tougher if I don’t.

It’s only about 3:30 at this point, but honestly, I’m feeling a bit exhausted and overwhelmed (some of the e-mail chains have gone through five or six replies at this point and keeping it all straight is giving me a headache), so I opt to get some groceries and call it a day.

I may have added some stuff, but I got a lot crossed off today! Here’s how that last checklist looks at the end of the day:

Assorted Priorities:

Revise my paper and submit the revisions before the Monday deadline

Project #1: come up with a new exploratory figure and send to Person A.

Project #2: summarize the early results I started last week and send to Person B, along with an ask to see whether he’d be up for me presenting this stuff in Europe in November.

Project #3: improve on figures I showed last month and send to Person C.

Project #4: prepare a rough outline of the next paper to send to Person D.

Not having my work hard drive means I was able to just focus on the stuff that wasn’t specific to research today. In all the chaos of today, I’ve set myself up well for a research-heavy rest of the week where I (hopefully) won’t have to worry about non-research stuff or big changes to the schedule and can just burrow into research, emerging for occasional seminar/webinar breaks. A good Monday, all around.

#eponymous academia tag #karionwriting

[the-cemetery-researcher]

Progress update 28/01/2022

No update yesterday because I didn't really work on my thesis at all. My arm was really painful and sitting to type hurt a lot, so I decided to try to tackle some other things like batch cooking food to make life easier the rest of the week. However I hadn't defrosted the beef mince so I had to wait til today to tackle lasagna and that was a mistake. I'm veggie and Ash isn't and after very nearly 12 years together and hated not being able to cook for him so I'm finally trying to learn to cook meat which is more complicated that putting something on a baking tray... Needless to say, my kitchen isn't really big enough for making two different lasagnas at once and it looked like the inside of an operating theatre during emergency trauma surgery by the end. I even had to change my socks because I somehow stood in bechamel!

Other than that, today was a productive day for the thesis and I really enjoyed the remote retreat (thank you Janine) so will be doing that on Friday again next week. I've now re-read and made task lists for 9 out of the 10 chapters. And after a long time not being able to face it, I did actually open the 'chapter 3' file with the colourful name - and discovered that one isn't actually the chapter - it's more of a to do list. The actual chapter has a far more inocuous title and there's even a version from 2014 where I started to pick through the mess for the first part so that's good. I haven't actually read the chapter yet, but I have noted how many pages there are and therefore can estimate how long that one will take to go through too.

The bad news is that my sensible estimate of how many days work it would take to fix the chapters, based on 7 hour days, is 157 days. It's 148 days until the very final hand-in deadline (so I need a full draft to my supervisor at least 3 weeks before that) and I also have 25 sets of Pere Lachasie data to digitise (at least 1 day per set) and also a lot of grave plans still to draw for Highgate West (approx another 14 days work) so that's 196 days to fit into 127 days.... Therefore it seems that a safe bet is to assume 14 hour work days for 98 days to leave me a bit of wiggle room and occasional days off for things like birthdays...

There's zero point in beating myself up about how I could have done so much of this work at literally any other point in the past decade. Today I feel strangely calm about that - I should be really angry with myself, but I'm not somehow. I'm just resigned to the reality of it all. 14 hour days are brutal, but it's for a limited time period and I have a lot of luxuries at the moment -I can afford to buy convenience food or takeaway if needed, I don't have to work outside the home, and my other commitments are very limited. I can afford to laser focus a lot of the time.

With that said, I'm still going to go see my friends in Oxford tomorrow and I'm not even going to pretend to go to the Bodleian to justify the trip. I'll work on the train, but it will be on some of my outstanding Cemeteries Project commitments because having those hanging over me while I work on PhD things is not going to help my anxiety. On Sunday, I'll start again in ernest. Hopefully with some of the other things off my plate. I'll also update you all with a timetable for how I'm going to approach this mountain - I'm going to try and vary my days a bit to avoid too much repetative strain from doing to same thing for hours.

#journey

[survivor-ingary]

Episode 2 - "I DON'T WANT THE MYSTERY MOUSE-CA-TOOL BESTIE" - Ellie

At the tribal, Ping was voted out of the Pendragon Tribe nearly unamimously. Tribal immunity for this round is Pictionary.

I bet all these bitches know i voted for Keith and now they are going to come kill me in my sleep if i die i blame dylan

yass round 2 i either think im in the best position on this tribe or theyre all secretly coming for me thats all

Tribal went as well as I expected it to go. No major drama. It seems like Keith is in real trouble if we do go to tribal again though which would put me in a very tricky spot. For now, though, I will be trying my best in the upcoming challenge. The problem is, however, timezones and schedules. Jon is going to be our drawer, but he can only do it tonight or in the early afternoon tomorrow which I will not be there for. Additionally, Keith is asleep so we have no idea what his schedule is going to be so we basically had to schedule the challenge without him. And Nya could only do right before the deadline tomorrow which Jon cannot do. I hate this for us, truly. I just hope that Moth and I can rub our brain cells together for this one so that we can pull out a win. OR somehow the other tribes fail horribly. On the bright side, I am finally starting to catch up on Duolingo exercises. They're a lot easier than I thought, but it is still going to be tedious af to save up enough coins for some of the higher end products at the shop. As a final note, I am going to work with Nya in the long term as we promised each other to. Hopefully that actually works out. Time to actually be loyal and be a hero this time around. Need to try something different.

If we lose this challenge, I will be very upset. We went so hard on this challenge!!! I believe that we can at least get second place, but I don't know how crazy the other tribes are. So, let's see what goes on

Ayyyyy soooooooo looks like the four, Colin, me, Ava, and Brayden are officially in an alliance!? I’m really hyped to be working with everybody and already have sights on who should go if we have to go to tribal 👀 but like I’m gonna feel so bad if we go to tribal and I orchestrate a whole plan to take someone out I gotta do it when I’m not in my feels and the planets aren’t fucking with my emotions too heavy. But go alliance ! This means I’ll be able to stay safe until hopefully a merge and hopefully we can avoid a tribe swap till then which I get those vibe from it !! But I’ll be here to survive two more tribals just in case which is pretty rad. Other then that hopefully me offering to draw doesn’t end us up in the bottom and we can keep killing ! But anyways that is it as off know hopefully I have a lot more coins tomorrow morning and I get hit the hat shop bright and motherfucking early.

Just got asked to be apart of an alliance <33333 the besties in the group trust me which maybe ain't the right move but for now we gotta love the bonding. exciting!!!

YAY FOR ROUND 2! Okay, so I meet once again with the Hat Shop and... third times the charm! Except,,, the charm is getting nothing AGAIN lmao I'm not complaining though, still got that extra vote :P I stayed up at 1 AM for this challenge, and I honestly think our team popped off. Anastasia was guessing a ton, and Riley was amazing at drawing real quick! I have a relatively good feeling about our performance, so I hope I wake up to the news of our tribe being immune :D

so yesterday I set myself on a mission to get an alliance. I wanted Ava + Brayden + Toph + me as a majority alliance. it was our day off from tribal so I thought it was the perfect day to do it!! I talked to Brayden about it first because he's the person I feel the most comfortable with, and then after a lot of coordination and careful communication I was able to pull it together!! I think the most important thing when making alliances is making everyone feel like they're a big part in it. So I was careful to ask each person how they feel about the others, about the game, and made a point to say that I wanted to work with them specifically. Some may call that a little manipulative, but I wanna make sure that I'm an essential part of the alliance!! i need everyone to feel like they need/want me there.

all of this happening so soon into the game is a testament to how aggressive I'm playing this time around. I usually like to lay low and just rely solely on my social game in the start, but I'm trying this out to establish myself early on! I wanted to play the tribe leader and I think I'm doing that in a smart and subtle way!!

so yes now we have a 4 person majority alliance named "duolingo owl hate club" because fuck that guy. I think we're the 4 most active and present people on the tribe so it's only natural for us to work together, but I think it's definitely worth noting that I was the one that was pulling the strings here.

We just did the pictionary challenge, I have a good feeling about it!! Toph was an amazing artist, and if we win, all credit rightfully goes to him!! I think the guessers also did great of course, but like come on, the artist has to be the mvp. I'm really hoping we pull through!! I don't mind going to tribal, but I genuinely don't wanna vote anyone out yet. I'm fine just playing the game in a precautionary way. I know I'm in a great position if we do go to tribal, but it's always preferred that we don't go.

Everyone else on my tribe: doing the challenge and kicking ass

Me: I’m sleep

Riley (Tumblr has once again chosen violence so only the first 10 get banners 🥲)

I think our challenge went pretty well! My team were good guessers. Feeling like I've established some Integrity now. Hope it keeps me safe later!

Toph Soooooo we finished the challenge with 32 points and like wig !! I was a quick as drawer for 32pts expect when my internet lagged, but still ! I think we whooped some ass and if we do go to tribal I know it won’t be me going, thanks to Duolingo owl hate club but I’m also worried same could have and advantage because they seem pretty kean on learning a lot in like 3 hours and then tried to cover that statement to not seem so threatening but like babs s a huge threat too apparently they love Duolingo and know 5 laugnes ? This is from brayden but If so go babs ! That’s absolutely iconic for real Life but fucking scary in this game ! I gotta be buddy buddy with them so hopefully if they do have something it won’t be them going home first and it will be Ava. But I’m thinking we might get second place again unless someone is a fucking wizard at this.

Dennis hmm i think we did well enough in the challenge to not see tribal tomorrow but who knows i guess we shall find out tn

the way ellie was so on top of stuff yesterday only to oversleep the challenge makes me giggle maybe shes freaking out about it which makes me also giggle but i dont think its really a big deal

anastasia asked me to call yesterday and i was like sure lets talk but it is damn near impossible to hold a conversation with her idk i tried BUT she did tell me “yeah i just got off a call with ellie” im like i see. she says shes down to work with ellie but that quickly switched from ellie being ~experienced~ but good to know ellie is also playing hard. anastasia also mentioned that she talks to riley a fair amount who i still have yet to connect to well. but dat makes me think ellie is def talking to riley too miss debate team is definitely a talker. but good on her for the social game i guess

kenneth keeps being like haha we’re the same person and im like yeah👁 i bet we are👁

i just wanna win and not think about tribal just keep it slow and chill for now keep learnin my welsh i guess

Ava Second challenge was Pictionary and I had a ton of fun playing. The tea is: toph did a great job. He was pretty vocal about not being a great artist but really I think he did great. However, Babs was super inactive yesterday and ~too late~ said they were a great artist and should've been picked to draw. It was kind of like.... k babs thanks for the belated "help". They did do great guessing which scored a point in my book. Brayden was supposed to play but last minute logged off without saying anything so we did the challenge without him :/ sorta a bummer. Anyway the lack of participation from Sam is kind of popping off so we'll see where that leads them... Overall a fun game and fingers crossed we did well!

Moth I think we did okay at the challenge. Today I am dying from the heatwave so I’m not thinking too straight! Stay cool everyone

Ellie So yesterday Anastasia and I called for about an hour!!! I’d say we’re definitely way closer, she’s someone I really wanna work with although the idea of her and Brayden eventually being on the same tribe is kinda scary cause I know how close they are. Still she’s so fun to talk to and I just love her energy so much!

Pictionary challenge results: Jenkins Tribe wins with Penadragon second, Hatter Tribe has to go to tribal council on the following day.

Ava Well well well seems our bob ross, toph, didn't pull through (y'all think babs would've pulled it out for us or slept through our challenge like they said they almost did?) I can't wait for tribal. I'm in it for the drama. I'm hashtag voting Sam off - didn't even bother to be apart of our challenge and not too sure they've even been online for a full 24 hours. Weed out the weak.....

Anastasia

Brayden https://imgur.com/n60Lz0c

guys i dont know what to do someone help me out

Dennis i hope damn brayden gets the boot

Raffy Woo! We don't have to go to tribal again! We stan!

Ellie So I figured I’d go idol hunting today cause the shop was about to close and I just wanted to see what had been bought and what possible hats there were, I see that there’s a hat I have enough for that hasn’t been bought and I decide fuck it let’s get it

APPARENTLY ITS SOMETHING THAT IM NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS OR HOW TO USE IT YET???? THEY SAID ILL FIND OUT ABOUT IT LATER

I DONT WANT THE MYSTERY MOUSE-CA-TOOL BESTIE

Sam Well you see. I like all my tribe people. And I think we did real good on that music video! So, I think rather than voting anyone else off, I think I should just vote myself off if that is possible! Ahhh

Babs So sad to see Sam not only go but go through what they're going through :( same w Toph :( they all seem so lovely

Keith Not sure if i submitted a confession after the last tribal. But if I didnt here it is.

Happy I made it out of that tribal. I had raffy backing me with whom I played. Last time we played. We were at odds. We didnt work together but whats worse that we were against each other. It was either him or me goin out. Hopefully thats the past n we can work together. I jus need to keep things calm n show that Im not here itching to make big moves. So they dont feel threatened by me. N its easy cause right now. I havnt made that kind og bond with anyone on my tribe. To even think of such moves. Lets see what round two holds for me.

Colin so uh

we lost! :(

I was really bummed tbh. Like I thought we did well but circumstances with the challenge were just really unfortunate, from conflict about who wanted to be the artist to people disappearing the moment the challenge started, I think we did well despite all of that. Except we did kinda get stomped anyway. Oh well!! The game moves on. Tribal has to happen.

Initially I was gonna push for Babs, just because I feel like I don't wanna attach myself to them too early on. I've seen how much of a bitter player they can be, and lets just say I'm not the most loyal ally to have. however! 9 minutes after we lost, Ava announces to our alliance that she's voting Sam. I wasn't surprised, Sam has been the one not really pulling their weight. But I had some good connections with her!! we both did colorguard and shes so sweet and easy to talk to. I was really conflicted for a little bit, debating on whether or not to actually push for Babs. I think brayden sensed my hesitance but we both knew there was nothing really I could do to stop Sam from being the vote. At first tribal, the initial name always spreads like wildfire.

However, my mess was stopped abruptly by Sam asking to be voted out. welp!! okay then!! babs stays i guess!! i'm not too bothered. I'll never turn down an easy vote hehe.

Pretty sure there's a swap tonight. I'm kinda scared of that

uwu

Brayden

i almost forgot to upload this but dont worry i just remembered

Colin screams

Toph So we’re going to tribal in 20 and all I have to say right now is if there is a tribe swap after I’m gonna so scared but I ducking called I had a vibe and it was right that’s what is gonna win me this game trusting my intuition. I’m holding on now and gonna be the biggest comp beast next challenge in case I get fucked on this swap !!!! Or at least if it is a swap 🤔

Riley I don't know what this announcement's gonna be I'm worriedddd... Ginny said it probably means we're swapping teams but I don't wannaaaa I like our team.

Toph Sam self sacrificing made this the easiest vote ever and me being safe is a plus I guess 😎

#episodes