Pronoun Trouble

I needed to do a five-to-seven minute history presentation for my Intro to Human Services class (with visual aids), and pick a topic from a pre-selected list; I chose the ADA, and presented on Wednesday. I got 100% 😃

Anyway, here's what I wrote, for anyone interested: ( The History of the ADA (sources linked at the end) )

Side note, one of my classmates picked the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, and her presentation was both fantastic and available on YouTube! Great use of humor to balance out a very dark topic. If you've got about six minutes, I recommend giving it a watch 👍

The entirety of "Bill Nye the Science Guy" is available for streaming and download on the Internet Archive.

So I got a postcard today informing me that I made the Dean's List?

Someone explain how proud I should be of this. It's a community college, and I only took two classes this summer, but that's also after having taken no classes for eleven years and with ADHD, so.

Like, I'm on board with being pleasantly chuffed, but is this a "Go out to dinner at a reasonably fancy restaurant to celebrate" kind of situation, a "Brag to all my friends and relatives" situation, or what?

(My parents are very proud, and insisted I put the postcard on the fridge. My mom also confided in me that she never made the Dean's List when she was in school, even once. And she did go to a junior college, but she also went to an actual university, so. Data point not entirely helpful.)

Week one for Social Problems class:
- Read one chapter of your textbook
- Write an essay on a half-hour documentary

Week two for Social Problems class:
- Read one chapter of your textbook
- Write an essay on a half-hour documentary

This week for Social Problems class:
- Read two chapters of your textbook, one for Tuesday and one for Thursday
- Write an essay on a two(-and-a-half?) hour documentary

Next week for Social Problems class:
- Read two chapters of your textbook, also one for Tuesday and one for Thursday
- At least there's no documentary to write an essay on!
- Oh wait, you get to study for an exam taking place on the first day of Week 5 instead
- Welp! Good luck with that!

I'll tell you what a social problem is, I'm going to be a social problem if I have to keep this up 🤬

Okay. Okay, I can do this. I'm very glad I checked the class schedule today, because that means I can get a solid handle on my energy needs and get started on that reading ASAP. I can manage this. (If I didn't like these teachers I would be so fucked.)

Edit: Just emailed my Intro to Human Services teacher (not this class, but also more homework-heavy than I'd like) to say that I'm borderline struggling and also help please. She's been pretty vocal about wanting to help us if she can, so. Fingers crossed!

Honestly, this helps me psych myself up and keep on top of stuff, so I might make it a weekly thing. Just a heads up.

( Homework report )

( Fandom projects )

Okay, looking good! I'm going to try and finish my written assignments for class tonight, and if I do so with enough time/energy left over, I may "reward" myself by typing up and posting my first completed Poképod Project draft.

Edit: Ah, frick, I forgot I still have to make tea for work tomorrow!

Okay, time for me to be realistic: With classes starting again and homework being A Thing already, I need to not push myself to finish my second Sot69 fic for this year.

I want to finish it! I do! And I want to have at least one more thing done for Sot69 this year! But if I push myself, I'm pretty sure that things won't go well. Even with no class or work on Monday, there's no guarantee that'd be enough recovery time for me, especially with Saturday now my only guaranteed day of the week with neither class nor work.

I think I'll probably at least try to get the outline I have typed up. (Actually, now that I think about it, that might even be a good entry for the final theme of Failed 69!) But I'm not going to pressure myself into writing the whole thing.

The important thing is, even if I don't finish it by September 6th, I can still finish it in the future!

IDK if I'll ever put it in a fic or anything, but the words "Eight-Legged Spider Hawk" spontaneously generated themselves in my brain as I was preparing for my evening ablutions.

My first reaction to this thought was that Peerless Cucumber absolutely roasted Airplane in the comments when this monster made its debut, because he thought that "Eight-Legged" and "Spider" were redundant. Airplane retaliated by introducing Six-Legged and Ten-Legged Spider Hawks in the next chapter, including important distinctions between the species.

I don't know about the six- or ten-legged varieties, but here's the lore I came up with for the eight-legged ones:

Appears very much like a very large spider with hawk's wings, it is often mistaken for one in flight or while hunting. Its movement on the ground, however, is unmistakable. These creatures line their nests with a particular type of silk that makes exquisite bondage rope.

The ten- and six-legged varieties probably have somewhat different venom or are more prized for their feathers or something.

Fandom: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
Summary: Shang Qinghua is in a meeting with Mu Qingfang about the innovative new peak first aid centers when they're interrupted by a disciple from the beast peak: Shen Yuan, an otherwise ordinary young man, has discovered yet another treatment for sex pollen that involves neither sex nor involvement with heavenly demons.
Mirrors: AO3 link
Wordcount: Not quite 2k words
Ships: None
Notes: Inspired by this post on Tumblr:

Post text

ceramicrambles:

Medical mystery Shen Yuan who literally every checkup has a new thing that should have killed him and Mu Qingfang is incredibly concerned

MQF: Shixiong, why is your blood purple?

SY: Oh right! it’s okay I was hit with the misty eyed-transfusion-curse-of-papapa pollen but I took the antidote so now I sprout a daisy every time I pee. It’s basically the closest thing to a cure haha and the only other treatment is heavenly demon blood so what are you gonna do, amirite?

MQF: what.

mikkeneko: mind you. I'm not saying Mu Qingfang is NOT concerned. But I also think that Known Mad Scientist Mu Qingfang would see an absolute golden opportunity in just following SQQ around with a notebook at this point

Thanks to ceramicrambles for both the inspiration and beta reading!
Fic: ( There's No Hippocratic Oath in Xianxia China )

I've been playing this game for just over a week now, and already the difficulty scaling is past where I find the rewards worth it. Most of the puzzles are around difficulty level 4 to 6 now, and I'm just not figuring enough of them out in the time limit I'm given. I'll still get some yarn when I finish the designated three puzzle set, but if I fail any of the puzzles, it's the lower quality yarn—even though the point total from all the puzzles, failures included, is higher than when I was playing the games on their lowest difficulty.

If I were getting more yarn per try, it might be worth it to me to keep playing. If the timers were more generous, it might be worth it to me. If I could choose which puzzles to play and which yarn to work towards, or if the difficulty scaling were a bit slower, it might be worth it to me. But at this point, I'll probably just play a few more days out of sunk cost fallacy driven hope, and then try to forget I even bought the damn game. Which is a shame, because I'd really love to have some sort of apartment-decorating game with the mechanics from the main room that I loved so much.

Honestly, I'd originally bought this game with the hopes of playing some of the puzzles with my niblings, but with how the game's set up, I'm not sure I'd even be able to reach all of the games, let alone be able to play in a way that didn't leave all of us frustrated in the end.

This disappointment aside, if Nintendo ever decided to put out a simple version of Voltorb Flip that works the same way as it does in HGSS, maybe for $2 or so, I'd buy that in a heartbeat. (They won't, they'd want to microtransaction and dark pattern the hell out of it, but that doesn't stop me from wanting it!)