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Posted because somebody was curious. I created this file in Notepad, so the spacing turned into a big mess.

FROM D&D WIKI--EDITED BY ME

Changes were made to the breath weapon, Hit Dice, skill points, and feats that may not conform to the SRD. These changes were made to increase the starting CR to 3 as specified for a half-dragon and allow for 1 level's worth of improvement per age category.

Sartorn, Wyrmling Half-Dragon Mouse
-----------------------------------

There is a mouse at your feet. It sneezes. Roll a Fort save.

Sartorn is probably the smallest dragon that ever existed. Covered in minute blue-gray scales from her twitching nose to the tip of her long, mousy tail, and with slit-pupiled blue eyes, she has useless, permanently folded wings on her back and two stubby silver hornlets above her low-set yet mouselike ears. She is one of the Mad Mage's experiments, the result of infusing the stolen blood of a silver dragon into a pregnant mouse. Sartorn can speak haltingly in Draconic. She can read Draconic symbols. She cannot speak or read any other language.

Sartorn has remarkably long, sharp claws (for her size) and fangs as well as gnawing teeth. She has dug mouseholes in every square that contains a wooden surface in the Mad Mage's lab, which effectively means that she has a network of secret doors accessible only to a Fine or gaseous creature. She liked the Mad Mage, who often spoke to her in Draconic, but had to escape when she realized that he was laying out dissecting tools and there were no animals in the lab. Although saddened by his evident disregard for her as a person, she is lonely. She will observe visitors carefully from a hidden vantage point. If the party is not destructive or cruel, she will approach them at eye level and attempt to speak with them in Draconic. If treated well, she may follow the party, being careful to stay out of sight until she really trusts them, abandoning her treasure if she can't figure out how to hide it among the party's belongings. If treated poorly, she will escape. If the party seems dangerous, she may attack a lone character using her paralyzing breath and take food, tiny works of art such as finely crafted earrings or rings, and small items of fine cloth to her lair in one of the walls.

If the party can communicate with Sartorn, she will describe the Mad Mage's death in simple terms; although she saw him die while she was hiding nearby, she does not have the Int score necessary to understand what was happening. It should still be clear to the party that he was alone and examining an object.

Size/Type: Fine Dragon
Hit Dice: ¼d10 (3 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 15 ft. (3 squares), climb 15 ft
Armor Class: 23 (+8 size, +1 Dex, +4 natural), touch 23, flat-footed 22
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-17
Attack: Bite* +7 melee (1)
Full Attack: Bite* +7 melee (1)
Space/Reach: ½ ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: 5' cone of paralysis gas (Fort save DC 11, lasts for 1d6+1 rounds), usable
every 1d4 rounds
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent, darkvision 60', immune to sleep & paralysis, takes
no damage from cold, takes 1½ damage from fire
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +2
Abilities: Str 9, Dex 13, Con 12, Int 4, Wis 15, Cha 4
Skills:** Balance +16, Climb +9, Hide +21, Listen +17, Move Silently +11
Feats:*** Skill Focus: Listen
Environment: Lair of the Mad Mage
Organization: Unique
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: A matching brooch, hatpin, and ring intricately crafted in gold, rubies, and
pearls, and 4 pairs silk stockings sized for an adult male human (3,600 GP)
Alignment: Neutral
Advancement:**** As dragon until her ability score bonuses and penalties total at least 1.
Level Adjustment: 3 (ECL = 4)

*Sartorn's bite attack has reach as if she were one size category larger.

**As a mouse, Sartorn has +8 racial bonuses on Balance and Climb, a +11 racial bonus on Hide, a +7 racial bonus on Listen, and a +4 racial bonus on Move Silently. She can always take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened. She may use either her Strength or Dex modifier for Climb and Swim checks, whichever is better. The skills listed in this paragraph are also her monster class skills. As a half-dragon, Sartorn receives (6 + Int modifier)(ECL) skill points at start of play and (6+ Int modifier) skill points per dragon level, with max ranks of her ECL + 3.

***As a dragon, Sartorn may take general feats or monster feats whose prerequisites she can fulfill. She may do this at any level in any class at which she qualifies for a new feat.

****Sartorn is a puny and relatively short-lived dragon. Each change in her dragon age category is an increase of 1 level. If she takes no other class levels, her ECL as a great wyrm will be 15.

Sartorn's Stats by Age (Not Counting Feats Past Initial Feat)
Base Attack/ Space/
Age Sz. HD (hp) Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha Grapple Atk. Reach 1Bite 2Cl. 2Wings 1Tail
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wyrmling F ¼d10 (3) 9 13 12 4 15 4 +0/-17 +7 ½'/0' 1d2
Very Young D ½d10 (5) 11 13 14 4 15 4 +0/-12 +4 1'/0' 1d3
Young D ½d10 (5) 13 13 14 6 17 6 +0/-11 +5 1'/0' 1d3
Juvenile T ¾d10 (10) 15 13 16 8 19 8 +0/-6 +4 2½'/0' 1d4 1d3
Young Adult T ¾d10 (11) 19 13 18 8 19 8 +0/-4 +6 2½'/0' 1d4 1d3
Adult S 1d10 (15) 23 13 20 10 21 10 +0/+2 +7 5'/5' 1d6 1d4
Mature Adult S 1d10 (15) 25 13 20 10 21 10 +0/+3 +8 5'/5' 1d6 1d4
Old S 1d10 (16) 27 13 22 12 23 12 +1/+5 +10 5'/5' 1d6 1d4
Very Old S 1d10 (16) 29 13 22 14 25 14 +1/+6 +11 5'/5' 1d6 1d4
Ancient M 2d10 (27) 31 13 24 16 27 16 +1/+13 +11 5'/5' 1d8 1d6 1d4
Wyrm M 2d10 (28) 33 13 26 18 29 18 +1/+14 +12 5'/5' 1d8 1d6 1d4
Great Wyrm L 3d10 (39) 37 13 28 20 21 20 +2/+19 +13 10'/5' 2d6 1d8 1d6 1d8

Breath Weapon
Age Spread Rounds DC* Spd. Init. Special
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wyrmling 5' cone 1d6+1 (11) 15, climb 15 +1 See above
Very Young 10' cone 1d6+2 (12) 20, climb 20 +1
Young 10' cone 1d6+3 (12) 20, climb 20 +1 Can take levels in
another class
Juvenile 15' cone 1d6+4 (13) 25, climb 25 +1
Young Adult 15' cone 1d6+5 (14) 25, climb 25 +1
Adult 20' cone 1d6+6 (15) 30, climb 30 +1
Mature Adult20' cone 1d6+7 (15) 30, climb 30 +1
Old 20' cone 1d6+8 (16) 30, climb 30 +1
Very Old 20' cone 1d6+9 (17) 30, climb 30 +1
Ancient 30' cone 1d6+10 (19) 35, climb 35 +1
Wyrm 30' cone 1d6+11 (19) 35, climb 35 +1
Great Wyrm 40' cone 1d6+11 (20) 40, climb 40, fly 150 (poor) +1 2nd feat
*10 + ½HD + Con modifier; recalculate as needed if Sartorn gains levels in a class other than dragon.

Fort Ref Will
Age Armor Class Save* Save* Save*
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wyrmling 23 (+8 size, +1 Dex, +4 natural), touch 23, flat-footed 22 + 3 + 3 + 2
Very Young 22 (+4 size, +1 Dex, +7 natural), touch 22, flat-footed 21 + 5 + 5 + 4
Young 25 (+4 size, +1 Dex, +10 natural), touch 25, flat-footed 24 + 6 + 6 + 5
Juvenile 26 (+2 size, +1 Dex, +13 natural), touch 26, flat-footed 25 + 8 + 8 + 7
Young Adult 29 (+2 size, +1 Dex, +16 natural), touch 29, flat-footed 28 + 9 + 9 + 8
Adult 32 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +19 natural), touch 32, flat-footed 31 +11 +11 +10
Mature Adult 34 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +22 natural), touch 34, flat-footed 33 +12 +12 +11
Old 37 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +25 natural), touch 37, flat-footed 36 +14 +14 +13
Very Old 40 (+1 size, +1 Dex, +28 natural), touch 40, flat-footed 39 +15 +15 +14
Ancient 44 (+1 Dex, +32 natural), touch 44, flat-footed 43 +17 +17 +16
Wyrm 46 (+1 Dex, +35 natural), touch 46, flat-footed 45 +18 +18 +17
Great Wyrm 48 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +38 natural), touch 48, flat-footed 47 +20 +20 +19
*Calculated using the ability scores of Sartorn's current age category. Recalculate if her scores increase due to gaining levels in another class.

Educational philosophy is the framework on which we hang our daily lesson plans. It covers how children learn, what should be taught and when, and what education is for. If you attended public school, or most private schools for that matter, your teachers worked from the assumption that a child's mind was a receptacle to be filled with selected pieces of knowledge in carefully chosen order, and by so doing the teacher could create skills that had not existed before and build students into productive citizens. This teaching method is based on the educational philosophy of a man named Johann Friedrich Herbart, although he would be amazed at where people went with his ideas because he died in the mid-19th century. Most people have never heard of him; we just think of this kind of education as the way things are. But it is always worthwhile to get to the roots of things.

When I was getting ready to homeschool, I looked at many different virtual schools, curricula, and support groups. I had only a dim idea--more of a hope--that there were other ways to learn and teach. When I read about the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason, it was like a light coming on in a dark room. Here were answers to my book of questions.

Mason, who was born a year after Herbart died, had serious problems with his philosophy and the teaching method that had been founded on it. You can read her own words at multiple sites. I recommend Ambleside Online (amblesideonline.org) because the site is mostly text with very simple graphics and windows. She was an active teacher and administrator, so she never found the time to edit her work into streamlined form. However, she did list her underlying principles at different times. Here is my rough summary of her philosophy:

First, children are complete people from the day they are born: people who combine inborn talents and handicaps with the ability to change, grow, and learn. They are not unformed little blobs, but neither are they permanently set in good or evil ways.

Second, whether we like it or not, human beings live in hierarchies. Sometimes they are elaborate (feudalism), sometimes very simple (the skipper tells the other fishermen what to do), but authority and obedience are natural to our lives. However, individual personhood must be respected. Manipulation, humiliation, and intimidation are wrong.

Third, respecting the children who have been placed under their authority limits teachers to three tools: providing a good place to learn, teaching children to discipline themselves, and presenting the material in ways that children's minds are best suited to grasp.

A good place to learn: The point of childhood is to grow into the ability to live in the world on one's own. Therefore, although you should of course keep kids safe, don't dumb down or kiddify the child's learning environment. If they are learning about firefighting, arrange a visit to the firehouse so they can get an idea of the real thing instead of giving them toys. If they are learning about farms, don't present pictures of smiling purple cows or pigs in hats; show them video of real farm animals living their lives--or take them to an actual farm. (And prepare for mud and smells!)

Teaching children to discipline themselves: This is easier than it may sound at first because people run mostly on habit. Teach children good habits first, starting with the basics, such as hygiene and neatness, and going on to habits of courtesy, study, etc. Don't lecture; lead by example and briefly remind as seldom as possible--otherwise your children may develop the habit of tuning you out. On top of this foundation of good habits, teach children to discipline their wills: to understand the difference between "I want that" and "I'm getting it now," and between "I don't find this to be fun" and "I can't do this/it's not worth doing."

Presentation: The current standard way of teaching, with its carefully organized facts and repetitive practice sheets, actually slows most children down, not to mention making them hate school. Very young children should not be formally educated at all, but given plenty of freedom to exercise their bodies and senses. When education begins, handling concrete objects must come before abstraction; for example, teach them to count and add shells or stones before they ever put pencil to paper. Our most ancient method of presenting things that should be remembered is storytelling, so reading (for example) history lessons to students up to the fourth grade is appropriate--and finding texts that flow like a good story, what Mason called living books, is vital. Instead of having their minds filled with a sequence of abstract facts, let the students use their minds to find the important facts in the context of a living book and make the connections on their own. As children mature toward adulthood, it is appropriate to ask them to do more work on the page and without direct oversight. But at all times, lessons should be short--five minutes is not too little time for many subjects; repetition should be shunned in favor of having the student do something as well as they can a few times and try again the next day; and review should be immediate, because we best remember the things we are able to put into words. Reread this paragraph a few times, because if you had a standard K-12 education this may paint a very different picture of school from what you remember.

Fourth, there's no way to educate a child to know everything they will need. However, we can teach them how to find out what they need to know and lead them to discover and develop their own abilities. A Charlotte Mason education, then, covers a little of everything from making things (useful things, not paper crafts) to mathematics, the Dewey decimal system to debate.

Fifth, the limit of education is the limit of human reason. Helping children develop their ability to reason, by teaching them logic and debate, helps them become adults who can maintain and shape our civilization--one of Mason's main goals. However, while our minds can take us very far indeed, we can't understand everything. Therefore, it is extremely important to teach children to choose what to believe in the areas of life where reason cannot help us. A foundation of good habits and a survey of the wide range of human experience will help them choose.

Sixth, Mason believed strongly that spirituality should be an everyday thing. By this she of course meant the mainstream Christianity of her culture. She made Bible reading and prayer a regular part of her schools. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, it is true that if you want your children to feel them to be part of their lives, they should experience them regularly. Whether you believe in a spiritual realm at all, it's important to make the rituals of your cultural identity part of life on one hand, and be sure that children understand why you believe what you believe on the other. (And of course, be sure that what you say and what you do are the same thing!)

If this summary doesn't strike a favorable chord for you, there are other educational philosophies out there. I can't provide a summary of every single one. Wikipedia provides a pretty good starting point, here.

And do keep this series in mind, because you can use the same texts with many different methods of teaching.

I post these articles in my spare time and revise as needed. Watch this space.

People start homeschooling for various reasons, sometimes with very high ideals. If you're homeschooling on a tight budget, however, you have to adjust your expectations. MNHK is not designed to:

Make every kid into a top-performing student. Instead, the end goal of this curriculum is to pass the GED test battery. It is nearly impossible to get any further in life in the U.S. without a diploma from a public or private high school or a GED certification. Perhaps it ought to be different--but we have to prepare our children for the world they will actually enter, not the one we wish existed.

Turn out the next generation that will run America. You can't duplicate an elite school environment at home; whether we like it or not, people who rise to political power early in life do so only partly by talent and training, while the rest of it is connections. However, the ability to participate in a democracy as an informed and empowered citizen is definitely something you can teach. And you never know: an 18-year-old voter may become mayor at 40 and senator at 50.

Make your child rich. We all want our children to be comfortably well off, but the truth is that all we can do is lay the groundwork by teaching literacy, reasoning, and good habits and hope that opportunity knocks. Don't try to predict the job market 12 years from now. Do your best to foster the growth of a well-rounded, hard-working student who can jump in any direction.

Produce perfect children who never do anything wrong or hurt your feelings. This is impossible, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Keep children sheltered from all harm. You can't do this either--not forever. You can, however, strengthen their ability to reason and their willpower, so that they can resist evil when they encounter it.

Make it so your children will never leave you or disagree with you--the creepy underbelly of the sheltering urge. If you want that, get a dog!

I should also point out that although I am autistic, I am not presenting a curriculum tailored for neurodivergence of any kind. I teach as I wish I had been taught, making adjustments for each student's individual needs, so if you are an autistic teacher or the parent of an autistic child, you may find some useful ideas here. But for more information about how autism or any other kind of neurodivergence affects learning, you should seek the advice of a professional.

I am posting this in my scarce spare time and will revise as needed. Watch this space.

We all write what we know. I am a lower-middle-class American citizen, a lifelong resident of an isolated small town in the extreme north of the Pacific Northwest who married the boy next door, and a cradle Christian raised in one centuries-old mainstream denomination and currently teaching Sunday school in another. I live in a multicultural community, but I am (and my husband is) so white even a nasty old Victorian bigot wouldn't find anything in my family tree to sniff at. My people have been in the country long enough to have no old-country connections, but not long enough to claim membership in the DAR or what have you. I am on the autism spectrum, but received neither diagnosis nor treatment in my 13 years of public school. Academically I was far ahead of the curve by the time I graduated, but I began keeping a notebook of questions nobody seemed interested in answering in early primary school: questions about why bullying was so prevalent and about how we were being taught. All of these factors have formed my perspective on homeschooling.

I have homeschooled all of my children from the beginning, due in no small part to my own public school experience. Local conditions will require me to enroll them in public high school, but if our finances permit I will homeschool all of them through eighth grade. I am lucky to live in one of the most homeschool-friendly states in the Union. By this I mean that not only is it easy to homeschool one's children here, but the children also receive the oversight they need in order to confirm their progress. Every year, starting in third grade, they take the same standardized tests as their peers in public school; I receive a detailed breakdown of the results. I write report cards four times a year and submit a list of topics to be covered and a booklist at the beginning of the year. In return, I receive a voucher equal to the amount spent on public school students, access to all public school services and facilities, and invitations to extra learning opportunities and get-togethers for local homeschool kids. The school voucher doesn't cover religious materials in order to maintain separation of church and state, but the homeschool office has a free library of donated books, including many from Christian publishers. I even get a monthly stipend to offset the cost of my online access--and a pretty nice laptop to use for school.

But what if I didn't?

Before the school began loaning out its laptops, I was stuck using an old, slow machine that couldn't even run an OS that still got updates. We still have a low monthly download limit and our bandwidth is not the best. Going places to have experiences is not in a lower-middle-class budget when you're hundreds of miles from anywhere else, voucher or no voucher. If I didn't have a pipeline of books, music, classes, and teleconferences on tap, what could I do? Actually I had no idea that vouchers even existed when I made the decision to homeschool. Finding out about them turned me away from the resources available online, but I was recently prompted to take another look. There are some excellent free and cheap curricula and virtual schools out there, but they are all built on the assumption that you have the latest greatest shiniest speediest online-access device and a data plan to match, not to mention money for reams of paper and scads of printer cartridges, plus scientific equipment. I know that there are people out there in the bind I was almost in: you have to homeschool, but you have to make every penny and byte count. Hence, Mother Necessity's Homeschooling Kit.

Here's what you need in order to use this curriculum:

A computer (phone, tablet, desktop, laptop, whatever) that can download, store, and display PDFs, including some really big files. It doesn't have to be online all the time, but it's going to be on a lot.

Time to prepare lessons for the day or week. If you're a fast reader, you may be able to teach some things "cold," but pre-reading is always prudent!

Money for some basic school supplies, such as pencils and paper.

Additional funds for things you will have to put together yourself, mainly homemade scientific equipment, plus time and skill to do the work--or a helper who can do it.

A spot in your house where you and your student(s) can sit comfortably while any preschool children are occupied with other things. Each of you will need enough clean, cleared table space for desk work; you should have decent light and ventilation, and everyone should be able to see the screen when reading an ebook.

A printer, but only for a few items; I have found no-printing-required alternatives for almost everything.

Patience, good humor, and the willingness to adjust your approach to the needs of individual students. A tense teacher makes a miserable classroom.

I am writing this series bit by bit as I have a few spare minutes here and there. I will revise each article as needed. More later.

This will be the master post for a series about homeschooling with a bare-bones budget and a slow old computer with restrictive download limits. Watch this space.

(Not betaed; I apologize for any errors.)

It's funny how he can turn a corner, see a wall where there was no wall, and go online to find people who were born long after he went into the ice lamenting that very fact. There are so many blogs devoted to cataloging the traces of Old New York that he can't keep up with all of them. But there are puzzling gaps in what they cover. He can take a virtual tour of historic Jewish cemeteries, get a map of the best 20th-century delis still open, but nobody posting seems to be aware that the people they are lauding didn't grow up speaking English. Or not only English.

He hasn't heard Yiddish on the street in...in a long time. The language isn't extinct, he knows, but it isn't like it used to be.

Well, he knows a bit about how that happened. He never did get to punch the real Hitler, but doing for the goddamn paskudnyak who thought Hitler was a piker--it was worth the ice.

He's been following Ms. Hill's strong recommendation (order) to lurk, but one evening a debate over which language a radio personality's immigrant parents must have spoken--German, Latvian, or Hebrew--and whether he ever learned it gets to him. He remembers this guy, who's smiling from his tombstone in an engraving taken from one of his publicity photos. He remembers WEVD pulsing out of the radio on the windowsill of the apartment below his and Bucky's on hot summer nights, the variety shows, the producers who went out with their microphones to ask any passerby to speak their piece, like an online forum sent forth on the wind. He types--well, he types a hell of a lot about it: Yiddish radio all over the dial, Yiddish newspapers on the streetcorners, children in the midst of some game in a vacant lot using Yiddish curses that would have infuriated their mothers, giggling girlfriends with their heads together shmuesing, strong old voices reciting prayers on a Friday evening. Hardly any of the old acetate recordings survived long enough to be transcribed, but he digs around online and finds a link to the WEVD theme song. Turn this up, he types at the end, in careful Yiddish with English hovertext. It should be loud.

And he signs his name: Steven G. Rogers.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: http://www.yiddishradioproject.org/

I used to hang out at a blog for people who had heard absurd, cruel, stupid, and/or scary things from the people who were supposed to be helping them or their loved ones during pregnancy and labor. Most of the really awful stuff came from OBs, hence the name, but midwives, nurses, even radiologists and receptionists might feel free to bust out with this stuff. The blog is gone, but while it was still up I rummaged around in the archives and created some Bingo entries from the most common submissions. Yes, everything here is something that somebody has actually said to a pregnant or laboring person or their partner!

HOW TO PLAY

There are 5 groups of Bingo squares: M, O, B, S, W. Make a 5x5 grid, with the Dead Baby Card as the free space in the middle and M, O, B, S, W at the top. Pick random entries from each group below to put in the 5 columns. Head on over to any place where people talk about their experiences of pregnancy and birth and see how long it takes you to get a straight line in any direction. Then announce that you've got BINGO!

MIGHT BE FUNNY IN THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES

1. Already Gave Birth? Must Run Down Labor Checklist Anyway
2. You Can't Be Ready to--Oh, Look, a Baby
3. You Aren't Pregnant Because [Nonsense]
4. Everybody Gets a Pregnancy Test. EVERYBODY.
5. Vaginas Suck Up Poop (The Poop Vacuum)
6. Umbilical Cords Turn Into Blood Siphons After Birth (The Sloshing Baby)
7. Birth Attendant: "Ew, Icky, Messy, Ew"
8. Ignorant of Nursing Basics (Nametag Reads "Lactation Consultant")
9. Can't Tell That Baby Is Upset/Uncomfortable (Handles Babies Every Day)
10. Unbathed Babies Are Biohazards
11. Has Never EVER Seen an Uncut, Unmedicated Mother
12. Wheelchairs Are Magic, You Can't Leave Without One
13. Doesn't Know How Sleep Works
14. All Women Need Interventions Because Evolution (Or Something Like That)
15. Bugs Person in Labor/Transition for Decisions/Signatures

OUTRIGHT HORRIBLE

16. What Is This "Consent" Nonsense?
17. Ha Ha, I Lied & It's Too Late to Fire Me
18. Men's Boners Trump Women's Health & Dignity (The Husband Stitch)
19. Side Effects & Complications Are Just Your New Normal, So Shut Up
20. HDU Fact-Check This Thing I Just Made Up
21. Obey or I Have You Locked Up/Take Your Baby Away
22. Stop Having Emotions, They Annoy Me
23. Obey or I Punish You With Procedures/Drugs
24. I Decide Whether You Are in Pain/Distress
25. Sin/Bad Attitude Caused Your Physical Problem
26. Can't Buffalo Mom? Let's Try Her Partner
27. Fat? No Medical Care for You
28. Your Type Shouldn't Have Children
29. Saying Yes Once = Blanket Consent Forever
30. Sexual Predator

BROKEN, BUSTED, AND ABOUT TO EXPLODE

31. EDD = Extreme Death Date (What's a Midrange?)
32. All Breasts Are Broken
33. All Fat Women Explode and Die
34. All Short Women Get Stuck Babies and Die
35. Over Average Age Primipara = Feeble and Sickly
36. Under Average Age Primipara = Careless and Stupid
37. "Failure to Progress" Caused by Failure to Wait
38. Dead Baby Card (FREE SPACE)
39. Continuous Monitoring or KABOOM!
40. Babies Who Aren't Tiny Are "Too Big"
41. "Failure to Progress" Caused by Failure to Provide Privacy & Simple Comforts
41. On Your Back in Bed or KABOOM!
42. Be Precisely Average in All Ways or KABOOM!
43. Be Terrified of Everything or KABOOM!
44. Pushing Urge--Ha! Push When We Say So or KABOOM!
45. Don't You Dare VBAC or KABOOM!

STUPID-ASSED OR JUST AN ASS?

46. No Clue How PPD and/or PTSD Actually Work
47. In Agony = Drug Seeker
48. A Definite Muscle Wound Beats a Possible Skin Tear (Good at Cutting, Bad at Sewing)
49. I "Helped" You by Overfeeding Your Baby (What's a Lactation-Nursing Cycle?)
50. OMG OMG YOU MUST HAVE A C-SECTION (On Next Available Business Day)
51. You Must Induce Because We Don't Have Staff After X Time
52. All Women With Birth Plans End up in . . . Trouble
53. Can't Stand My Inept Technique = Weakling
54. "At Least You Have a Healthy Baby! :D"
55. Either CP Is Stupid or CP Thinks Mom Is
56. Declining Optional Procedures is Selfish (Why Pay Less?)
57. 38 Weeks Is the New 40
58. "Oh, It's Gonna Get Sooo Much Worse :D"
59. Blurts Awful News, Runs Away
60. Manually Stops Non-Emergent Labor Because Doctor Isn't There

W.T.F.

61. I Can't Do That Because I Never Did It Before
62. Same Client Mix, Drastically Different C-Section Rates
63. Teach That Helpless Baby "Independence"
64. Nursing Is Freaky, Breasts Are for Sex
65. You Don't Know Your Cycle. I Know Your Cycle.
66. Ultrasounds Are Super Magic (The Precise Estimate)
67. Twins Mature More Quickly
68. Women In Labor Should Be Nice and Quiet
69. Body Fat Clogs Vaginas
70. Breast Shape = Milk Production
71. I Decide When You Eat
72. Oh, Sure, You Can Take That (What Physician's Desk Reference? I Don't Know That Book)
73. Breasts Shouldn't Be Substitutes for Pacifiers
74. Can't Recognize Dangerous Bleeding
75. Everything Online Is Bunk (Even My Professional Association's Published Recommendations)

When I'm stuck at the computer nursing a baby who is having a rough night, I read a lot of fanfic. 90 percent of it is dreck of various kinds. Another 9.5 percent is pleasant but forgettable, or well written but not my cup of tea. Then there are the gems. This is an ever-evolving list of the fics I go back to again and again when I really need to escape into a good story.

ETA: My babies are long weaned, but I maintain this list as a kind of mental palate cleanser. Last updated in 2016.

AVENGERS

"Count the Cost" by katydidmischief (cassiejamie)
A happy ending for Bucky Barnes in which his old friend Steve, a child of the Golden Age of Radio and a veteran of all-American propaganda, quickly grasps the power of social media after the fall of Project Insight. Bucky, brain-damaged and traumatized, keeps trying to disappear into life on the street, but it seems like the entire Eastern Seaboard wants to give him sandwiches and money and little slips of paper with Steve's phone number on them.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1517447?view_full_work=true

"Hollow and Honeycomb" by antistar_e (kaikamahine)
Wingfic sounds like an intriguing concept, but in execution it is nearly always "my kink, let me show you it" or "gosh I wish I were pretty." This story delves into what it might be like if some people, but only a few, actually had wings.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/1876371

CALVIN AND HOBBES

"Every Day is a Reminder" by ishie
Calvin, Hobbes, Susie, growing up, sad and joyous.
http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide/works/36485

FOREVER KNIGHT

Pretty Much Anything By Mary Combs
Too much to explain. Too good to pass up. Read it all here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~combsmfk/

HARRY POTTER

"Brave New World" by theatresm
Discovering the Wizarding World as an adult isn't quite like discovering it as a child. Two adults from very different backgrounds meet on the brink of a horrific secret war. And kick butt. One mild buzz-harsh for high-handed behavior within a relationship.
http://www.mirrordance.net/aashby/bnw/bnwindex2.html

"Survivors" by Dyce
After it's all over, after the funerals, the trials, and the cleanup, life has to go on. People grow up and find new lives beyond the Second Wizarding War. Everybody gets a character arc in this one, even Winky.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2544317/1/Survivors

SPIDER-MAN

"Just a Face on a Train" by katheryne
The only thing ever posted under this nym, which is a pity. Peter Parker discovers that somebody has his back.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/684873/katheryne

STAR TREK

"On Alien Seas, and Shores" by starlady
The only Trekfic starlady has written, apparently, which is a shame. A meditation on grief, the power of the past, and friendships made at sea. Oh, and smuggling.
http://archiveofourown.org/works/6466

STAR WARS

All But Name by Mirror and Image
A conversation with newly bereaved Obi-Wan Kenobi at Qui-Gon Jinn's funeral pyre goes differently--and in less than a minute, everything changes, from the lives of two grieving people to the fate of the Jedi--or so it is foreshadowed. This story, completed in 2012, begs for a sequel.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6836473/1/All-But-Name

Everything By Fialleril
The bitter fact that Anakin was born into slavery should have been part of the entire plot arc following its introduction. Fialleril explores this in several series set in alternate universes. Also, the Jedi may think that redemption is impossible...but they're wrong. Or: Fialleril is here for the Tatooine slave revolution.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1015225/Fialleril

THE TERMINATOR

"Seven Sunday Mother-Daughter Mornings" by David Hines
Happy this ain't. I would call it more "cathartic." It is about a mother and a daughter, and ordinary moments in the course of human life, and learning how to person, and what can be stopped and what can't.
http://hradzka.livejournal.com/272408.html?page=3

To the tall, skinny guy with the short auburn beard who paused to talk to me in Safeway this evening:

You did not just validate your mad parenting skilz. You did not call me out on my bad parenting behavior. You did not strike a blow against [insert whatever obscenities currently apply to me and my husband and children this week] on behalf of the childfree.

You recommended striking a baby until she screams in pain.

Actual conversation:

BABY: Blat! (Translation: This is my mad voice! I am tired and I want to go home and have the booby. I have been telling you this every 10 to 30 seconds since we got here and you are not getting my point.)

ME, HURRYING TO GET THE ESSENTIALS BECAUSE I WOULD RATHER NOT BE HERE EITHER: It's okay, sweetie, we're almost done. I know, I know, it's tough sometimes.

BABY: Blat! (Translation: Not buying your soothing tone of voice, lady. Booby now! Attica! Attica!)

AFOREMENTIONED AUBURN-BEARDED GENT, ABOUT MY AGE, NO VISIBLE SIGNS OF MENTAL DECAY: mutter-mutter-mutter (word that is either "smack" or "slap") mutter-mutter-mutter give her something to cry about. *smile smile*

ME, TRYING TO PUT A GOOD FACE ON IT AND NOT WANTING TO START A FIGHT: "I want to go home!" That's all she's saying. Babies get tired and bored the same as us. (Or words to that effect; I was pretty shocked at the time.) *smile smile, push cart away from the crazy man who wants to HIT MY BABY DAUGHTER*

Creep.

UPDATE: He turned out to be a local judge.