Well, that's that done!

Seuche Chapter 13: Leid
Honey Trap Chapter 2: It's Different for Girls

Yes, as you can probably tell from the relentless Link Whoring included in this update, I've updated my WK fics again. This makes me happy, even if the process of getting reviews makes me nervous and waiting for ff.net to get their act together and actully list the fics is annoying. Oh well, at least I've finished doing the HTML. One of the only things I detest about writing fanfiction is the process of adding all the HTML tags so that the fic actually comes out like an actual fic and not a scrambled alphabet soup nightmare. I refuse to upload in plain text format, because that's just lazy and lame. I need my bolds and italics, thank you.

So it took ages, but it's done. This is good and it makes me happy.

It amuses me that I'm uploading one chapter of a ridiculously long and twisted angsty pice at the same time as I do a chapter of a piece of comedic fluff which I wrote partly as an antidote to the long and twisted angsty fic, but mainly as an excuse to get Ken into a dress. The juxtaposition seems curious to say the least.

Oh. The links lead to the pages at the ubiquitous fanfiction.net. I can't upload the new chapters to my homepage as of yet because this computer doesn't have an FTP program on it at the moment and for reasons far too tedious to repeat I can't actually download and install one myself. I don't have moderator privileges on the downstairs computer, annoyingly enough. Oh well, at least they're up somewhere even if I can't stick them on my own homepage yet.

Since I was on the site anyway, I've just read the latest chapter of arldetta's wonderful 'Mend My Heart' and the omake at the end really had me giggling, if only in sheer recognition. There's something strangely appealing about putting Ken through absolute Hell, Or I hope there is anyway on the grounds that I've been doing it for a fair stretch of time now and I find it very appealing. Ken's very cute when he's hurting. Consequently, I don't feel quite as bad as I could do about the sheer amount of angstiness in Chapter 13.

So I've been busy today, or busy enough anyway - even if it did take me ages to write the final scene for the chapter I've actually been working on. Still plot development without all that much action or angst has to happen sometime, I suppose. Oh well, at least it's done. It's done and that is good and the next chapter I'm writing should be rather more fun for me because it's going to be angsty and have Schuldich in, which wasn't meant to happen. I really like Schuldich, though. I should try and write something a little more sympathetic to him sometime soon. It's fun making him an evil bastard, but for the sake of balance maybe writing something else would be good too.

Yes, i definitely want to do another WK one-shot. I like writing one-shots. Now all I need is an angle.

... and trust me to go update my fics about an hour and a half before ff.net's database goes into a four-hour read-only downtime. Oh well. Just as long as the things show up in the listings and on my profile sometime in the next 24 hours I will be quite pleased. I would like reviews though, because deep down in the bottom of my secret heart, I am a daft fourteen year old writing lame OOC nonsense and pleading for r&r plz thx bai, so I will be kind of annoyed if this downtime hinders my progress. ^^

Warning: this update is Opinionated and perhaps no more than Semi-Informed, but whatever.

... if anyone else out there has seen Trey Parker and Matt Stone's funny, if amazingly tasteless puppet extravaganza Team America: World Police, the title of this post is supposed to be sung to the tune of the show-stopping 'Everyone Has AIDS' from 'Lease', the movie's parody of the rather 'interesting' musical, 'Rent'. I know it doesn't quite fit, but whatever.

Why do I mention this? Well, if you believe the media, everyone and their dog is coming down with MRSA, or is in imminent danger of doing so. Sounds scary. Too bad it's not even remotely true.

I'm getting pretty teed off with all the MRSA scare stories the media is churning out at the moment. What really brought this one home to me is that even the local free rag has jumped on the MRSA bandwagon in interviewing a woman who has been recently discharged from one of the hospitals in the trust I do my work placements at, who has been 'infected' with MRSA following an operation in one of the hospitals there. Yes, there is a reason why I have written 'infected' in inverted commas.

Simply: there is no way this woman can have been systemically infected with MRSA if she is at home and giving interviews to the local rag. If she had been, she would be very, very ill and still in hospital at that. I feel sorry for the woman in question - but I'm aggravated that she should have been so ill-informed. She cannot have a systemic MRSA infection. I suspect that what has happened is that the wound site has been colonized with MRSA, which means that she will need to undergo a very thorough cleaning and skincare regimen. I often wonder where the papers get their statistics for MRSA infection, and if they only detail actual MRSA infections or if they also include MRSA colonizations, which are not the same thing at all.

The ignorance of the woman in question alarms me. Someone should tell her that she doesn't need to keep her distance from her children. Her children are perfectly healthy. They are in no danger of contracting MRSA from her. MRSA is only a danger to people who are sick: it doesn't matter a bit if they find it on the Tube. Most of the people traveling by Tube are far too healthy to contract MRSA. Calling it a 'superbug' doesn't mean we're all going to get it. It just means that MRSA is a tricksy little antibiotic-resistant blighter (the R in MRSA stands for 'Resistant', as in resistant to antibiotics) and once you've got it, it's damn hard to get rid of. That's why it's a 'superbug', not because the entire population of the UK is in any imminent danger of catching it.

Actually, as bugs go MRSA is actually rather lame as healthy people are in no danger from it whatsoever. This is how come house staff aren't constantly coming down with it.

I don't mean to downplay the risk posed by MRSA infection to the sick. I know: it's a horrible thing to happen to anybody. But I really don't think that the woman interviewed by our local team of hacks is in any imminent danger. If she was, she would still be in hospital. This is why all the scaremongering the popular press in this country is doing is doing people no good at all. Okay, inform people of the dangers - but give them the actual goddamn facts, please!

One of the things this individual has said, however, really does make me wonder what planet she's living on. The hospital, she claims, are not being supportive by refusing to give her any treatment for the disease. Sounds shocking until you consider one major factor. The hospital she was in was a national center, not one of our local ones - she must have been referred there by her specialist. Since she's now at home, she's been discharged. The hospital in question cannot dispense drugs to a patient who is no longer in their care. No hospital can. It's not allowed - that'd be like me trying to get prescription drugs from the GP in my home town, whom I'm no longer registered with. I'm no longer a patient of theirs, ergo they cannot issue me a prescription.

This is why the hospital has not given her any treatment. It's not that they won't: it's more that they can't. Hang on... what's stopping this woman in question from getting the drugs from her GP? Sigh.

Okay, rant over. I feel a lot better now that's off my chest.

By the way... I'm very grateful to arldetta and vermachtnis for their kind comments on my updates. I found writing Chapter 13 of 'Seuche' such a pig that I wasn't entirely sure how well it was going to be received. Gotta say, though, it's nice to come across people with comparable appetites for angst and torment as well as enforcing them both on Ken, who really doesn't deserve it. Though, sadly, it's precisely because he doesn't deserve it that crazed fangirls in the same mold as myself torment him so much. Poor guy, he really doesn't need fans like me. Too bad he's got me, huh? Some day, she says, things might get a little nicer for him. Still, the way this fic is going it won't be for quite a while yet...