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potatoplace · 2 months ago

Text

A Match Into Water

Feysand x Vanserra!Reader

Poly!ACOTAR x Reader Masterlist | Request

Summary: You fall ill, slowly, until it takes over your life. Your mates watch helplessly as you're torn from them too soon.

Warnings: chronic illness leading to death, seizures, fainting rapid weight loss, let me know if I missed something

Words: ~5.2k

Author's Note: So this is for the lovely 🪐 anon, inspired by the song 'A Match Into Water' by Pierce the Veil - I hope I got the vibes right for it, I went with mega angst 🙏 let me know how you guys like it! I didn't start crying til the end, but uh... yeah this one was tough for me to even write, it just feels very heavy. So read with caution. It's up on AO3 too! 🫶

18+ only pls

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

It began with a cough.

Not often enough to cause any concern. Not even every day.

And when it did become every day, you had gone to see Madja, who told you to drink plenty of fluids and gave you a special tea to help soothe your throat, which had grown increasingly scratchy.

Of course, you’d done your best to hide it from Rhys and Feyre at first. They were always so busy and stressed as High Lord and Lady of the Night Court, and you didn’t want to burden them further.

But when you had fainted during Starfall, tumbling off the edge of the House of Wind?

Rhys had caught you, thankfully, and you awoke to the sight of his violet eyes filled with worry. When you turned your head to the right, you saw Feyre, her blue eyes sparkling with tears, some of them already pouring down her cheeks.

“Are you okay, baby?” she asked you, one of her hands cupping your cheek softly.

Your head hurt and you were exhausted, but other than that you felt fine.

You didn’t have to open your mouth, Feyre already curled against the inside of your mind just how you liked. “Good, good. Madja’s run all the tests, but she wasn’t able to conclude what made you faint.”

“And, Madja told us that you’ve had a cough for a few weeks?” Rhys questioned, though you knew he was asking why you hadn’t told them.

With the little energy you had, you pulled him into your mind, showing him how worried you’d been for him and Feyre, how overworked they’d been the past few months, and how you only wanted to save them any worry for you, over something as silly as a cough.

Darling, he whispered into your mind, his midnight voice filling your head and washing away the ache that had been building. A cough isn’t silly, when it lasts for weeks. We want to make sure you are healthy, above all else.

You’re our mate, Y/N, a very important piece of our whole, Feyre cooed, climbing into the cot you were on and cradling you in her arms. We wouldn’t know what to do without you. So please, if you keep having problems, let us know?

You hummed in agreement, nuzzling into Feyre’s chest. I will.

Rhys’s head came to rest on your chest, listening to your heartbeat closely, but shot up a moment later when the door swung open.

Madja stepped in, clipboard in hand. “Ah, Y/N, it’s good to see that you’re awake,” she said as she stepped towards your cot, standing at the end of it. “Now, I wasn’t able to find the cause of your fainting tonight with any of my tests. I was wondering if you had any abnormal symptoms before you did? Anything like shortness of breath, lightheadedness, chest pains?”

You bit your lip, your eyes darting between Rhys and Feyre. “Uhm… I started feeling lightheaded when we arrived at the House of Wind, I think?” you said quietly. “And just before I went out my chest started hurting pretty badly so I went to the balcony for some fresh air…”

Rhys inhaled sharply at the news, and you turned to look at him. “You fell from the House, darling.”

Oh.

“Hm. If it happens again, make sure to sit down immediately, and try having something to eat or drink. And I’ll have you come in once a week-”

“Twice a week,” Feyre interrupted as she stroked your hair.

“Very well, twice a week until you’ve had no incidents for three months. I also want you to take more baths, they should help with the coughing you’ve been experiencing, in addition to the tea I gave you,” Madja said, writing out the instructions for you care and passing the paper to Rhys. “If you feel able to have your mates winnow you or carry you home, I think it would be a good idea for you to have a long soak in warm water, followed by plenty of sleep.”

Do you feel ready? Feyre asked softly. You nodded against her, and a moment later you were pulled into her arms and whisked through the fabric of the world, landing next to the bathing pool in Feyre’s old room in the Moonstone Palace. Rhys appeared just after, tugging you and Feyre into his arms. He pressed a kiss to your head, then to Feyre’s before letting his arms fall.

Let’s get you into the bath, love, Rhys whispered, a soft caress in your mind.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

Just like your cough, the fainting only happened every so often.

Until it began happening weekly. And then daily.

Feyre had stopped most of her duties as High Lady, passing all those that didn’t require her directly off to Mor, who was more than happy to help, given the circumstances.

Rhys set foot in Illyria and the Hewn City maybe once a month, with Cassian taking charge of wrangling the war camps and Azriel overseeing Keir’s rule.

They much preferred staying with you whenever possible, taking you on short walks on the edge of the Sidra or snuggling on the couch, reading the latest novels Nesta had recommended together.

That was all you seemed to be able to do these days, if you wanted to stay conscious.

Currently you were sitting on a cot that had become so familiar to you, it was practically your second bed. Madja was standing before you, her hands hovering in front of you as she used her magic to scan your body.

She sighed and lowered her hands, writing something down in your chart. “I’m sorry, dear, but I still can’t find anything that could be causing these symptoms,” Madja said softly, giving your hand a squeeze when your eyes filled with tears.

“Do you… Could the Dawn Court possibly have answers?” you asked, rubbing your forehead to try to help with the pounding headache that had been building the past hour.

“I could ask some of my contacts there, they might have more experience with what’s happening to you,” Madja sighed, and you could tell she wasn’t hopeful. “It’s worth a try. Now… Have you reconsidered telling your family? I’m sure they would care to know, your mother and eldest brother at least.”

You shook your head. “I don’t want to burden him, he’s just taking charge of the court now that father’s been eliminated,” you sighed. “I’d like to wait until I’m better.�� You stood slowly from the cot under Madja’s disapproving eye, though she didn’t fight you on your decision to keep the news limited to the Velaris, following Madja to the door. It swung open, revealing Azriel, waiting to take you back to the River House.

If you couldn’t go to your appointments with Rhys or Feyre, you preferred going with Azriel. Cassian always had tears in his eyes, and Mor was overly cheerful, to the point your head ached from the positivity. Azriel was a perfect, neutral party. You knew he was worried for you, yes, but he never had misty eyes or tried to cheer you up, instead giving you the space to process whatever Madja had told you that day, usually the same news that she’d found nothing that would tell her what’s causing your health problems.

Today was no different. He let you walk through the clinic and out the door before stooping to lift you into his arms, taking off into the sky a moment later.

Our little secret, he had called it after one particularly bad appointment. You’d barely been able to walk that week, and had been so depressed at your situation. All you had wanted to do was go for a short flight, but Rhys and Feyre refused, worried that it might cause you to faint or have some other problem pop up. But Azriel had taken you to your appointment that day, and after had taken you into his arms, slowly ascending into the sky.

You’d cried in his arms, the freeing feeling of the wind in your hair washing away most of your worries, at least until you touched back down, just outside the River House.

Today, you looped your arms around his shoulders and looked around, gazing with lovesick eyes at the city you cared for so deeply.

The city you’d barely been able to be in, with your condition.

Your eyes traced the path of the Sidra, marked each building that you used to regularly visit, where your friends live.

Until the right side of your body started tingling suddenly, the pain in your head kicking up a notch-

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

“We told you, NO. FLYING. How simple of an ask was that, Azriel?!” Rhys shouted in the distance, loud enough to break through the fuzziness in your ears. “Do you realize that you could have killed her?!”

A voice murmured something softly, and you tried opening your eyes to see what was happening.

But they were so heavy, and you were so tired.

You listened to Rhys yelling for a while longer, drifting in and out of consciousness until you felt a soft hand grip yours.

“Would the two of you shut up?!” Feyre asked angrily, her voice clear and close. “Y/N can hear you.”

An instant later, your other hand was held in between two large, warm ones, and you knew instantly that it was Rhys. Two hands gently grasped your feet, through a blanket.

It took you a few more minutes to muster the energy to open your eyes, blinking wearily up at Rhys and Feyre’s worried faces.

You hated that it was becoming a familiar sight.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Feyre said thickly, tears shining in her eyes as she stroked your hair. “How are you feeling?”

You inhaled slowly, thinking. My mouth is dry, you pushed down the bond, your tongue like cotton in your mouth. Feyre beamed at you, lifting your head gently while Rhys grabbed a glass sitting on the table next to your cot, carefully pouring cool, soothing water down your throat. You finished most of it before you had them pull it back, feeling a bit more awake now.

What happened?

Rhys inhaled sharply, shooting a glare towards your feet. Standing there was Azriel, looking guilty and… scared.

“You seized in Azriel’s arms, mid-flight,” Feyre answered. “He brought you back to Madja’s immediately, but you’ve been out for an hour.”

It’s not Azriel’s fault, you whispered to her. I insist on us flying home, my puppy dog eyes are too good.

Feyre smiled at you, a sad thing. I know, love. Rhys will realize that in a bit too, and apologize.

You gave Azriel a soft smile, hopefully conveying that you in no way blamed him for what happened.

But you knew he would still blame himself.

Madja walked into your room, famous clipboard in hand and an assistant healer by her side. “Y/N, I’m going to be keeping you overnight for observation, just to be sure you won’t seize again without immediate care. Rhys, Feyre, you can stay if you’d li-”

“Yes,” your mates answered in unison, and Madja smiled at them.

“I thought that would be the case. Now, we can get you moved into one of our overnight rooms, the beds in there should be big enough to fit the three of you, but most certainly two of you,” Madja explained. “Now, Norelle will be doing most of your care overnight, but I will still be in the building, available at any moment if you need me. Right now, we still don’t know much about you condition, so tell her if anything changes or gets worse, okay?” she asked, expectant eyes on you.

“Okay,” you agreed, not missing the way your mates also nodded their agreement to her.

“Good. Now, let’s get you into that other room, it should be far more comfortable,” Madja said with a smile.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

You’d been discharged the next morning, with Madja repeating her instructions to sit down and have something to drink if you start feeling off, as well as having one of your mates call for her or Norelle’s assistance.

Only three days later, you had another seizure, hitting you while you were walking in the backyard with Feyre.

You were kept overnight again, and released in the morning, still with no answers as to why your body seemed to be slowly falling apart.

Five days later, you seized again, this time hitting your head on the living room coffee table when no one was in the River House.

You woke to a familiar face hovering above you, glowing hands tracing over your body. “Y/N, it’s nice to see you,” Thesan said softly. “How are you feeling?”

Your head ached terribly, much like it did before each seizure you’d had, and your entire body was sore.

Feyre relayed the information for you while Rhys carefully gave you small sips of water, his eyes completely devoid of stars.

“Hm,” Thesan hummed. “My magic can’t find anything wrong with you. Madja said that this all started with a cough, correct?” You nodded slightly. “And you began fainting at Starfall, preceded by lightheadedness and chest pains?” Another nod. “Those grew in frequency until you began seizing, yes?”

“Yes. Is there… Do you know what might be wrong with me?” you asked hoarsely.

“I’m not entirely sure, but I’ve seen a case similar to yours before,” Thesan answered, somewhat hesitantly.

“And?” Rhys asked shortly, his eyes finally ripping away from you.

“She… It was a difficult road for her, before she passed.”

Feyre sobbed beside you, and you managed to turn your head to look at her, ignoring the stabbing pain in your head as you did so.

Hey, it’s going to be okay, you whispered into her mind. It’s going to be okay.

Her eyes locked onto yours, the anguish in them bringing tears to your own. I know, baby, I’m just scared for you.

Don’t be, we’ve got the second best High Lord helping me now, you told her with a tiny smile.

Feyre chuckled wetly before turning to Thesan. “So, where do we go from here?”

“I’d suggest transfusions of my blood once every other week, and one of yours on opposite weeks,” Thesan explained, and you made a face. Ew. “That should help heal your body from whatever is happening to it, as well as plenty of rest. And since I’m here now, we can start your first transfusion today."

You nodded, ready to get it over with, and hopefully you would start feeling normal again soon.

Maybe you’d even be able to go shopping in the Palaces again, without being carried by one of your mates the entire time.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

A week later, and you’d had no seizures, and only two fainting spells.

Which was perfect, because your brother’s first ball as High Lord of Autumn was tonight, and you desperately wanted to attend.

“Please?” you begged Feyre as you pulled a gown made in autumn colored silks from the closet. “I really want to see Eris be crowned, Fey.”

Feyre sighed beside you as she tried to avoid your eyes, failing miserably. “Fine, but only because you’re so damn cute,” she cooed as she pinched your cheek, pulling you in for a sweet kiss a moment later. “But once we get back, it’s bedrest tomorrow, alright?”

You scrunched your nose, but nodded anyways.

Twenty minutes later, you and Feyre were dressed and ready to leave, meeting Rhys in the living room. He looked mildly upset that you were dressed for the ball, but a moment later he smiled softly at you, likely after Feyre had told him your reasoning. “Are we ready, sweet mates of mine?”

You both nodded before Feyre and Rhys sandwiched you between them, winnowing to the Autumn Court in the next moment and landing in the entrance hall of the Forest House.

Your head went fuzzy for a moment before clearing, and you ignored the worried looks your mate shot you as Eris approached.

“Eri!” you squealed as you flung yourself into his arms, relishing in the way he squeezed you tightly. Before, hugs like these were saved for behind closed doors, one less piece of information for people to use against him. “Being High Lord really suits you, you look amazing!”

“You look lovely as well, sweetheart,” Eris replied, though you could see the worry in his eyes.

You’d lost the smallest amount of weight, you supposed, but it must have been noticeable to him…

“Dinner is just about to start, but once that’s done, I’d like to steal you away from your mates for a dance," Eris said as he led you into the grand hall, the table already set for dinner service, roasts and all.

Dinner was lovely, even with some of the tensions shared between the seven High Lords and their Ladies - or High Ladies, in the Night Court and Winter Court’s cases.

You felt fine all throughout it, and felt well enough to dance once with your brother, after he was crowned with the gold leaf crown of the High Lord of Autumn, adorned with glittering rubies, diamonds, and emeralds.

But halfway through the dance, a dull pain shot up at the base of your skull before spreading further, your body tingling, and you were just able to contact Feyre before all went dark.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

“And when were you going to inform me?!” your brother asked furiously. “She is my sister, I deserve to know if she’s seizing every other day!”

A soft sigh came from your right, a hand gently squeezing yours.

More yelling, but you didn’t care to listen to it, instead shrinking into your mind, where Feyre was curled around you entirely, the inky night cocooning you so nicely.

You’d stay here forever, if you could.

Another hand clenched around your left one, so familiar that you knew it could only be your mother’s.

You drifted off again, coming out of your mind to the sound of more yelling. Your eyes cracked open, moving to the right to meet Feyre’s. Make them be quiet, please, you asked, the pounding in your head only worsened by the fighting.

She nodded, and mere seconds later the arguing ceased, Rhys and Eris making their way to your bed in your old quarters of the Forest House.

“Darling, it’s good to see you awake,” Rhys said quietly.

“Y/N, why didn’t you want me to know you’ve not been doing well?” Eris asked, his amber eyes locking to yours.

Because you would’ve dropped everything to see me, and you needed to secure the court, you told Feyre, and she passed the words on to Eris.

He sighed, but didn’t fight the truth of your words. “Still, I expect to know every detail of your care from now on, and for the two of you to contact me if anything even more serious occurs,” Eris demanded, eyeing Rhys and Feyre carefully.

Rhys nodded, and you knew that he’d keep his word.

“Now, I’m going to have the three of you stay the night until you feel well enough to travel, alright Y/N?” Eris asked, though you knew it was more of a demand than anything. You nodded. “Good. Sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning. Mother should be back in no more than an hour, she’s off grabbing some tea for you, she insisted on being the one to make it for you,” Eris said, his eyes softening.

“Night, Eri,” you said quietly, watching him leave your old room before looking at your mates. “So… Bedrest?” you asked sheepishly before yawning wide.

“Bedrest,” Feyre confirmed, tears in her eyes.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

The transfusions helped, in a way. You were seizing less, but your appetite had vanished entirely for the first few days following them, no matter how you tried to stop it. You began losing weight rapidly, even as you were feeling slightly better from the healing properties of both Feyre and Thesan’s blood.

But the reprieve it brought you dwindled quickly as your health worsened once more, only two months into the new course of treatment.

Nothing could save you, it seemed.

You tried to keep your darker thoughts from Rhys and Feyre, but you were so exhausted most times that you existed within their minds, leaving your tired, sore body behind for most of the day. So they heard the loss of hope happening within you as you stayed bed-bound for over a week straight, seizing too often to even leave your room now.

Eris had begun visiting at least once a week since your incident in the Autumn Court three months ago, and had been coming close to twice a week for the past three weeks. Your mother joined him most times, but today had stayed home.

“…Going to try that, okay?”

You blinked yourself back to awareness, eyes focusing on Eris’s. “What?”

He smiled patiently at you. “We’re going to try something different today. Thesan believes that you have a blood condition, and that my magic may be able to burn it away,” he explained.

“Okay,” you said, too tired to try and understand his words. All you really wanted was to be in your bed at the River House, snuggled on both sides by your mates.

Instead, you’d been stuck in this room, an overnight clinic room of Madja’s that had been set aside exclusively for you, almost all of your things having migrated here, with how often you had to be here.

Rhys squeezed your hand lightly, afraid to bruise your now-delicate skin. “We’ll be right here, darling,” he said softly, and you could hear how he was fighting tears.

You must have fallen asleep, because the next thing you knew, blinding pain shot through your body, heat burning you from the inside. A scream ripped from your throat and the pain stopped, but your nerve endings were on fire, every inch of your body feeling like a gaping wound as your clothes, the bedding, air touched it.

“What the fuck did you do to her?!” a voice roared from beside you, amplifying the pain in your head until you went unconscious, darkness overtaking you.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

Mount Ramiel quaked beneath him as he slammed his fists into the ground, roaring into the air with a sound of pure pain and rage.

Pain, because his mate was dying, in pain every waking second of every day.

Rage, because the Mother had seen this fate fit for his mate, one of three pieces to a whole, who he could not imagine living, breathing, without.

The creature within him burst through his skin, night exploding around him and covering the mountaintop as he raged, waiting to calm enough to return to her side.

To watch her wither away, losing weight, losing consciousness, losing life.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

Feyre sat at your bedside, quietly speaking to Thesan about any possible treatment routes that they hadn’t gone down.

Obviously, the thought that burning your blood with Eris’s healing fire was a misguided one, one that had sent you into a days long coma, still sleeping beside her. At peace, for once.

“I’m sorry, Feyre, but… I think it’s time to consider her quality of life, how much the treatments have affected her,” Thesan said carefully, watching as Feyre’s eyes sparked with rage, before calming into the numbed acceptance she had been displaying for weeks now.

“What would…” she sniffled, rubbing a few tears from her eyes. “What would you suggest, if we… If she wants to stop treatment? To make her… More comfortable?” Feyre hiccupped, grabbing your hand tighter.

Thesan sighed heavily. “We could give her medicine for the pain, but aside from that… I think the presence of her mates, her family, her friends would be the most helpful.”

Tears tracked down Feyre’s cheeks, and she nodded.

She could make that happen.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

You woke to the sound of quiet chatter around you, your eyelids leaden curtains that refused to part.

Hello, love, Feyre cooed into the expanse of your mind, sinking down next to you on the bed. Can you hear anyone besides me?

Yeah, you replied softly, curling into her presence.

Good, people wanted to talk to you. It’s alright if you can’t answer, they just wanted to let you know that they’re here, alright?

You hummed into your mind, the corners of your lips tilting up when Rhys joined her in cuddling you, physically and in your mind. You let yourself sink into the midnight darkness of them, let them hold you safely as your friends and family spoke to you.

“Y/N, it’s nice to see you,” Eris said thickly, and you felt him grasp your shin. “I can’t stop thinking about when you were ten, and you walked around declaring yourself as the High Lord’s heir apparent to all of our brother’s, me included. I’m glad I followed you, or Doran would have thrown you against a wall for it,” he chuckled. “And Lucien-”

“I made you a crown of leaves from outside, and the three of us had a ceremony in the woods, crowning you High Lady of Autumn,” Lucien finished. “It’s one of my fondest memories at Forest House, along with you covering for my dates with Jesminda. It took you an awful long time to learn how to read spellbooks.”

You giggled in your head, thinking of how happy he’d been, winnowing back into your room after seeing his first great love.

“Well I love how you were always ready to go shopping with me, even if you didn’t need anything yourself. We would chat for hours and have lunch and…” Mor sighed. “I loved having that time with you, Y/N.”

“You’re an amazing cook, probably the best I’ve ever met,” Cassian said, earning a few chuckles and a light slap, probably from Nesta. “And I’ve always thought of you as a sister of my own.”

“Y/N, you know that I love how you can beat me in chess, and we both have the same perfect taste in teas. You’re the one that I confide in, and you feel like a sister to me, as well,” Azriel said softly.

“I loved getting to work with you in the kitchen, Y/N, it was so amazing to learn from someone who knows so much. You’re also so kind, and you treated me so warmly from the moment we met,” Elain said with tears choking her throat, and you heard her turn and begin to cry, muffled, likely by Lucien’s shoulder.

“Maybe I didn’t trust you with my sister at first, but you have the exact same taste in novels as I do, and that… May sound silly, but it made me realize that you loved my sister and her mate, even without the bond. And I’ll always love you for loving her,” Nesta choked out, the most emotional you’d ever heard her in the fifty years you’d known her.

“My… My darling daughter,” your mother sniffled. “You have always been there, by my side. You kept my hopes alive Under the Mountain, and seeing you love so freely has brought me so much joy.”

The pain in your head kicked up when you tried to open your eyes to look at her, to see her once more. Suddenly every noise worsened it, before a wave of night washed down your spine and deadened your senses, and you heard almost everyone shuffle out of the room.

Mates stayed, though. Your Feyre, and your Rhys stayed behind, holding you close before sinking into your mind once more. They held you there, the sound of their heartbeats lulling you to sleep as they sent you images of Velaris, as if the three of you were flying again.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

Soft music floated through your mind as you came to, your eyes opening slowly to the sight of your room in the River House, and a careful, slow glance to the left and right let you know that your mates were laying beside you, their arms and legs tangled around you.

Hello, darling, Rhys purred into your mind as he nuzzled your cheek.

Good morning, love, Feyre whispered, planting a kiss on your forehead softly. Are you hungry? Thirsty?

Thirsty, you groaned, letting her and Rhys adjust you and pour water down your throat, easing the aching dryness that had taken root there.

It never seemed to leave you for long, always coming back to make you cough, to make you lightheaded, to make you fall unconscious.

I love you, Feyre cooed when they settled you back against the pillows, letting her lips meet yours gently.

I love you too, Fey-ruh, you said after a moment, your brain working slowly to pull the words together.

And you know I love you too, Y/N, Rhys said before pressing his lips to yours next, softer than ever before, like you would break at the slightest pressure.

Your lips pulled up at the corners, your eyes meeting his blank, teary violet ones. And I love you, Rhysie. You breathed heavily before putting another sentence together. Don’t either of you ever forget it.

Hey, now, Rhys said softly. Don’t be talking like that, love.

You felt Feyre shaking beside you, her grip around you tightening. It’s going to happen. Just… Don’t forget me. But don’t… You coughed, your entire body going rigid until your lungs calmed. Don’t forget each other, you pleaded with them, looking between them slowly, seeing the tears in their eyes. Promise me, you demanded. Please.

You might be leaving your mates, but you would be damned if they left each other to join you, lost each other after losing you.

Okay, we promise. I promise, Rhys assured you, stroking your hair.

I promise, we won’t forget us, but most importantly, we will never forget you, Feyre said, tears streaming freely onto the pillows now.

You breathed out a sigh of relief. Good. I love you, you said tiredly, relaxing as much as you could into your mates’ hold.

You hardly noticed as you went unconscious, the feeling slipping over you with the next push of your lungs.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

“This is it,” Madja said from the foot of the bed.

Your chest barely moved now, each breath growing shallower and shallower. You hadn’t woken in five days, the only liquids your body was receiving being from ice cubes, lifted to your lips to wet them.

Your frail, near lifeless body lay before them, and they could hardly breathe.

The sight of you withering away, the life in your eyes slowly dulling had been difficult, but nothing had prepared them for this.

Your death.

Rhys and Feyre crawled into the bed next to you, and pulled you against their chests, tears freely falling onto your skin, your hair, your nightgown.

They felt as your breath slowed further, your heartbeats growing fewer and fewer as your body finally gave out to the disease that had sapped your life from you in half a year.

When your last breath left you, when the golden thread that tied the three of you together shredded, severed, shattered inside of them…

Night erupted, covering the land in darkness, their anguished cries echoing throughout the Night Court as their mate lay in their arms, dead.

🤍🩵💔💜🤍

General Taglist: @daughterofthemoons-stuff @lilah-asteria @meritxellao @twismare @wrenisrad @icey--stars

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letters-to-lgbt-kids · 7 months ago

Text

My dear lgbt+ kids,

When it comes to healthcare, you’ll occasionally encounter things presented as an opinion or as something up for debate - when there’s actually clear scientific facts on those topics.

You can probably think of some general examples off the top of your head, like:

Vaccines (They save lives. In fact, they are one of the most effective tools for reducing mortality rates worldwide)

Pasteurized milk (Raw milk is not healthier than pasteurized milk, it’s actually unsafe. Pasteurization kills harmful bacteria which can cause severe illness)

Fluoride (Water fluoridation is a safe and effective public health measure)

Climate change (It exists and directly impacts respiratory and cardiovascular health)

“Detox” (The liver and kidneys detox your body naturally; detox teas, juice cleanses etc. are unnecessary)

Cancer (Cancer isn’t just one disease, it’s an umbrella term for many different diseases and that’s why it’s very, very difficult, if not impossible, to just find the one simple fix to end cancer forever)

Sugar substitutes (They have been extensively studied and are safe for consumption within recommended limits)

There’s a lot of misinformation out there and it often thrives because it plays on fears (such as the natural fear of illness, dangerous substances and life-threatening side effects). Nobody wants to willingly put themselves or their loved ones into danger - but this absolutely natural desire for protection can be exploited.

Some common tactics for that are:

relying on personal anecdotes (emotional stories often feel more reliable or trustworthy than cold, hard data, even though they aren’t)

appealing to those who distrust authority (the suggestion that governments/scientists/corporations/“they” are conspiring against you feels trustworthy if it seemingly “confirms” fears you already had)

misusing scientific terminology (Complex-sounding terms can make something appear credible and well-researched, even if these terms are used completely incorrectly)

giving quick, easy answers or fixes to complex problems (health is a complicated, multifaceted topic and there’s oftentimes no easy-cut answer to why a certain person gets sick or if a now-healthy person will still be as healthy in 10 years. This unpredictability can feel scary, and oversimplified answers can offer comfort)

While health myths impact anyone, they disproportionately affect marginalized groups - for example chronically ill or disabled people but also our community.

That’s because health myths (or outright health lies) can perpetuate stigma and create barriers to accessing evidence-based care.

Myths specifically targeting queer health often follow the same patterns we talked about above. Let's take a closer look at some common topics and break down the facts behind them:

Pedophilia (There is no evidence linking sexual orientation or gender identity to pedophilia or predatory behavior. This myth is rooted in bigotry and perpetuates harmful stereotypes)

HIV/AIDS (it’s not “the gay disease” or even a “punishment for being gay”. It’s a virus that can affect people of all genders and sexual orientations)

Regret rates (Regret rates for gender-affirming care are very low, even lower than for getting a new hip or a tattoo.)

Regret rates, 2.0 (“Regret” does not automatically translate to “they were wrong about being trans”. A trans person could regret medical decisions for a multitude of reasons (even external factors like a lack of social support or experience of harassment) and still continue to identify as trans)

Mental illness (The higher rate of mental health issues in queer people is caused by external factors like discrimination and social exclusion, not by the identity itself. Being queer is not a mental illness.)

Conversion therapy (It doesn’t work. It also causes severe psychological harm including an increased risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide)

Treating these myths as not “only” homophobia and transphobia but also as health misinformation may feel nitpicky, but I think it’s important. If we don’t, it’s easy to dismiss them as merely a matter of “not accidentally saying something offensive” - but there’s more at stake than hurt feelings. Health misinformation can prevent people from getting the medical care they need and put their lives at risk. And that applies to “Trans people often regret their surgeries” as much as it does to “Covid vaccines are dangerous”.

So, look out for those typical patterns and warning signs - not only in the general “health and wellness” area but also in discussions about queer issues.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

#lgbt #lgbt+#let me know if this one needs any trigger warnings

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onlyangel4 · 11 months ago

Text

pushed too hard. mv1. SMAU + written.

max verstappen x chronically ill! reader

in which max's girlfriend has a very valid reason for not attending the races but the public doesn't know. and when the hate gets too much she pushes herself too hard.

author's note: so i have written this completely from experience, so the reader has elhers danlos syndrome (which i also have) but if you suffer from a different chronic illness please do imagine it as that.

warnings: chronic illness. hate. hospitalisation. injury.

face claim: katie douglas

y/ninsta posted a story tagging maxverstappen

written: y/sister managed to get a picture of me as soon as i woke up to find out that max won the bahrain gp with a twenty second lead. i am such a proud girlfriend rn.

maxverstappen replied to your story: good you are awake i'll facetime you rn. i miss you and the cats.

user1 replied to your story: if you really were a good girlfriend you would have been there supporting him

maxfan: you are such a bad wag you didn't even stay up to watch the race.

you had woken up on a high. you had turned your phone on to see all the messages informing you of your boyfriend's impressive win and you had even managed to facetime max before he went to bed. it felt like a good day. but then you made the mistake of opening social media. people on twitter were doing what people on twitter do best, talk shit. your eyes scanned over the screen as for the millionth time people picked apart your relationship and called you every name under the sun. they saw you as a villain that just did not support her boyfriend and that could not be further from the truth.

if you could attend every race you would but that just was not plausible. you suffered from elhers danlos syndrome and on top of that you had chronic fatigue. the elhers danlos effected your joints making every day painful to some degree. yes there were good and bad days but there were never pain free days. both of your knees had been operated on and you were awaiting surgery on your ankle due to frequent dislocations. the simple description of elhers danlos is that you had fault collagen, this collagen is what makes your connective tissue so your connective tissue was faulty and therefore your joints had a habit of dislocating and causing you a hell of a lot of pain. it was a domino effect the constant pain that you were in made you incredibly tired and that is where the chronic fatigue came in. max often called you his sleepy girl because you needed at least one nap per day to function properly.

you knew the problems you were having with max's fans could be solved by you telling them what you suffered with medically but they did not deserve an explanation from you. you should be allowed to live your life how you want to without thousands of strangers telling you that you were doing it wrong or that you were a bad girlfriend. you wanted to keep your medical issues private and max completely understood and supported your decision to do so. so instead you had to deal with all the hate. you just had to remind yourself that these people did not know the real you and if they did they, hopefully, would not treat you like this.

y/sister posted a story tagging y/ninsta

written: y/n finally left the house for the first time in five days and it was just for a snack run.

maxverstappen replied: is she having a bad week, she only eats reese's when she is a lot of pain

y/sister: i didn't tell you this but she is not doing well at all, she slept all of yesterday and then today the internet hates her because she wasn't at the race.

as the saudi arabian gp came and went max was busy with stragety meetings and such this meant that instead of coming home for a few days like he had previously planned he stayed out there and was going to go straight from there to australia and at this point you were really missing your boyfriend. the hate had not subsided either. it was just a very difficult time for you. one night where you had just been scrolling through twitter reading through the cruel things that people had been saying about you, you hit your limit. there was no way that you could deal with this for the rest of the season. so insteadyou decided to do something about it.

the morning you needed to fly to australia was when you realised that this was a bad idea. you had woken up in enough pain to down a horse, joints aching and head spinning. but danny had pulled strings for you. he had arranged everything just so that you could surprise your boyfriend and there was no way you were going to cancel when the plan was already in motion. so instead you just grinned and bared it. the flight was okay, luckily daniel had booked you a first class seat.. but sleep was hard to come by due to your body not being used to sleeping while being in flight. you were already tired when you landed in australia. due to the lack of notice the only flight daniel could arrange got in late on the saturday night. so you had booked a hotel next to the airport and arranged for a car to pick you up in the morning.

it had been so fucking hot in your hotel room and that meant that sleep was incredibly difficult to find. you tossed and turned all night only getting five hours of low quality sleep. in the morning you had pulled on a comfortable outfit and made your way out to the car that daniel had arranged for you.

y/ninsta posted a story

written: fit check

f1wags

liked by user30, user31, user32 and 89,172 others

f1wags: y/n y/ln has arrived to her first ever grand prix. y/n has been dating max verstappen for 18 months and had never been to a race before. but today that changes. she is not dressed in usual wag attire instead in an oversized shirt and bike shorts with a red bull cap. she may not be dressed like the others but we are happy to see her in the paddock

view all 628 comments

user30: we wait for her to show up and she comes wearing that. what an awful wag

user31: go on girl. give us nothing.

user32: i'm actually so happy she is here. i love y/n and have never understood the hate i think she is the cutest

the red bull garage was incredibly easy to spot. your eyes found danny loitering outside having a meaningless conversation with your boyfriend, "i got you a present mate. as it is my home gp i decided to spoil you", danny spoke and max raised an eyebrow.

"whatever it is i am sure that i don't want it", max responded

"i wouldn't be so sure", you cut in and max turned around instantly at the sound of your voice a wide smile gracing his features.

"oh my god, y/n", he spoke as his arms engulfed you in a tight hug. "what are you doing here love?"

"i wanted to surprise you"

"well consider me surprised"

you laughed softly as you followed your boyfriend into the red bull garage he gave you a tour of the garage and you followed him clinging onto his arm. he was used to having to hold you up so leaning on him did relieve your aching joints. max knew all about your medical issues he had helped you with them for over a year. he knew that coming to australia was pushing your body past its limits so every so often he made sure to check in on you. make sure that you sat for a little bit before interacting with the rest of the team. however when he left to go and race there was no longer anyone in the garage that knew about your medical issues. and this is what led to you being stood all of the race. stragestists and other people who you gathered were important to the team took the seats, while you stood towards the back of the garage.

it was around lap twenty when your left ankle began to properly hurt and your eyes felt heavy. a clear indicator of fatigue and your body telling you that you needed to rest. but your boyfriend was racing so well and you wanted to be able to watch him. the race continued for a few more laps however just as max started the thirty first lap your ankle gave way, dislocating from the strain of you being stood on it when it was already under pressure. you crumpled onto the floor a yelp leaving your lips as you fell but you were unable to put your hands out to soften your fall so you ended up hitting your head on the hard ground. this was enough to knock you out. first aiders ran over and called the ambulance into the paddock but you next regained consciousness inside the ambulance, on the way to hospital. alone.

f1updates

liked by user35, user36, user37 and 54,092 others

f1updates: as the drivers go into the 4oth lap of the australian gp an ambulance was spotted leaving the paddock with full lights. sources say the ambulance was parked outside of the red bull garage, but no one knows who was inside of it when it left the paddock

view all 554 comments

user35: the stress finally got to horner

user36: shit i hope whoever it is is okay

user37: the red bull garage do look rather stressed

"well done max you have just won the australian grand prix", christian had called over the radio. he felt guilt twinge at him. his girlfriend had been rushed to the hospital thirty laps ago but christian had made the decision to not tell max until the end of the race. he knew that the dutch driver was going to be mad when he heard the news. christian decided he needed someone else to tell max what had happened. "daniel can you come find me as soon as you are out of the car", he had intercepted the racing bulls radio just to give daniel the message, christian knew it would be better to have bad news coming from him rather than himself.

"thirty fucking laps ago", max spoke pacing back and forth in front of one of his closest friends. "you are trying to tell me my girlfriend had an ambulance called on her thirty laps ago and no one told me. she is in a foreign hospital. alone and probably scared shitless", max ranted to danny.

"i know man, christian just asked me to tell you. we can go to the hospital after the podium ceremony"

"oh fuck that i'm going now"

"you aren't driving", daniel knew better than to argue with max in that moment. yes christian would be pissed to find out that max was skipping the podium ceremony but daniel was not going to stop him from leaving. instead the two man snuck out the back of the paddock and to danny's car. the two racecar drivers got to the hospital in record speed with max running up to the front desk asking the nurse where he could find you. he was ushered through the hospital to a ward.

you were sat in a private ward you ankle elevated, an ice pack on your head and fluid iv in your arm. "max. you won.", you spoke softly. you had the television on and the grand prix on, you had just watched footage of a frantic christian looking for the driver that was now in your room.

"that does no matter my love, what happened?"

"i just pushed myself too far max. i forced myself to stand the whole time and my ankle dislocated, the doctors want to operate on it soon. and when i fell i gave myself a nasty concussion", you explained and the look on max's face could only be described as broken.

"oh my love", he spoke softly pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"i just didn't want the fans to think i was a bad girlfriend. that you deserve more than me", you spoke quietly, "they all hate me because i can't go to races", you spoke tears forming in your eyes but max's thumb quickly wiped them away.

"they don't hate you. they just don't know you honey."

"we should put out a statement, tell them what has been going on with me"

"you just read my mind my love"

maxverstappen posted a story tagging y/ninsta

y/ninsta

liked by maxverstappen, landonorris, daniel ricciardo and 830,121 others

tagged maxverstappen

y/ninsta: a long awaited health update. after a week in hospital i am now finally back home from australia. i am expected to have surgery on my ankle in the next couple of weeks. and i am on a strict diet of hourly lollipops because my blood sugar was low. i just wanted to say a massive thank you to max who literally ditched his own podium ceremony (sorry christian) to be with me. i am so incredibly lucky to have you and i love you with all of my heart, even if i am pissing you off while i'm on bedrest.

view all 28,001 comments

maxverstappen: you could never annoy me

y/ninsta: even when i try to walk when i'm not supposed to

maxverstappen: y/n sit tf down

danielricciardo: so glad to hear you are doing better

y/insta: thank you for bringing me take out every day i was in australia

user40: the world owes this girl an apology. you all bitching and moaning about her not being present just to find out that she has a chronic illness. some of you should be really embarrassed rn

#f1 x reader #f1 #f1 fanfic #formula 1 smau #formula one smau #f1 smau #f1 fandom #f1 fic #max verstappen smau #max verstappen #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you #mv1 #mv1 x reader #mv1 fic #f1 social media au #formula one #formula 1

679 notes · View notes

orfisheus · 6 months ago

Text

The Problem With the Eddsworld Fandom's Depictions of Red Leader/Future Tord, A Disabled Perspective

Disability is a contentious concept for most of society, with most either treating us with disgust, confusion, refusing to treat us as human, or to see our struggles as what they are. Ableism affects all people in many different ways, but as someone who focuses a lot of my energy in fandom spaces, the pervasiveness of ableism with how media and their fans interpet and react to disabled characters is a very personal situation for me. While many may argue that an ignorance to these topics in fiction has little bearing on real life, the prevalance of these tropes have echoed and led to feelings of othering for many disabled people, and oftentimes support the same notions that lead to the day-to-day ableism in our own personal lives.

In recent years, I have experienced this most often with the prevalance of negative disability tropes perpetrated by fanfiction surrounding the character of Tord, also known under the alias of Red Leader in some fanworks. It is a problem not just common in the Eddsworld fandom. A more recent, and much larger fandom in Mouthwashing also shares a common trend of repeated ableism in fan depictions and interpretarions of disabled characters. Most fan creators are unaware of these tropes and the harm that they cause, but as a disabled person, I am unable to ignore it.

For context on myself, you can call me Fish. Get it? Or"fish"eus? I like to think I'm funny. I am a mentally ill, disabled, and neurodivergent creative who has niche interests in representation in media and the intersection of intersectionality and fandom spaces. I experience chronic pain due to a multitude of conditions, all of which are invisible disabilities. I am NOT an amputee or have a facial difference, like the character I am analyzing. I can only speak based on my own research in my attempts to portray him positively, but I want to mainly focus on the ableist tropes I see and the real life effects they have. That is something I CAN focus on, because I've been dealing with it for years from conditions that came onset later in my life. I will be speaking from that perspective, but will be doing my best to try to educate on what I do know from my research to help authors, artists, and creatives create a better portrayal of him in fanworks.

The most common tropes I see with him are what I will call "The Disabled Villain", "The Innacurate Disability", and "The Ignored Disability". There are a few tropes in each, but for ease of organization (and the sake of your (and my) time), I will be talking about them together in these sections. There are also overlaps in many, but I will define the main issues with them.

The Disabled Villain

James Bond, Wonder Woman, The Witches. You name it. You have most likely seen this trope at work in cinema. A malicious evil-doer is revealed to have a "horrid" face symbolic of the true evil within their soul, while the beautiful, able-bodied hero is meant to stop them. It's a trope as old as time, one that goes back to even Plato. Tropes are tropes, people subvert them, so a few cases down the line may be excusable. But that has not been the case For many years, the most prevalent form of representation for disabled people was in these villains. Imagine if the only representation you had for yourself was narratives surrounding how the way you look or what your disability is and have it only be equated to evil people. It leads to a villainization of disabled people. People react to facial differences with disgust, because they are "shown" that it is "evil", or "ugly", or equal to being a horrible person. As stated by The Nora Project, "According to the book Disabilities: Insights from Across Fields and Around the World, disabled students are two to three times more likely to be bullied in comparison to their nondisabled classmates. The disabled villain trope contributes to this phenomenon in overt and subtle ways. For example, the trope implicitly encourages fear of disability and difference, while validating, and even elevating, those who fight against the evil, Disabled Villain. Bullying based on fear and disdain is almost a natural consequence of the trope when viewed in this light". Another big issue is that disabled characters have not been given space to exist outside of villainy. There are not many complex narratives surrounding them. This leads to our disabilities being downplayed, us being dehumanised, and we are seen more like props in real life, or simply tools to achieve a message in a narrative.

Tord's disability is never explicitly shown in the show. It is something more prevalent in Fanon, specifically in fanworks that focus on the "Future" era of the show's timeline, where the narrative and outside discussions on the show implies a high tech society, potentially dystopian, potentially a consequence of his actions. These ideas have taken a life of their own in the fandom, with many creators fully expressing these ideas. The problem arises when Red Leader falls in line with this trope. In many works, he is the sole disabled character, a figure of pure evil, or given little nuance in the narrative. Artists illustrate his scars as bright red, crimson, or, in TBATF, green. For some reason. In this way, they attempt to highlight the villainy by equating him with common symbols of evil: facial differences and disabilities. Unfortunately, these are not just symbols. These are conditions and scars that real people have, which the fandom tends to ignore in favor of dramatization.

This was a trope I most commonly saw explored in fanfiction when I first joined in 2016/17. The show, unfortunately, subtly and accidentally perpetrated it by having the only character visibly and irreparably "damaged" by the giant robot fight be Tord, despite the fact that Tom, who had a whole missile directed at him and got buried under a house, was fine with at most a leg injury and a cut on his arm. Luckily, we have grown past the need for ableist tropes, and the faults of the show can be left in the past!

... Not.

Disability tropes have simply evolved in how the fandom treats Tord. Even if it is now done with more consciousness and sympathy towards his character, ignorance still prevails. Let's talk about common pitfalls people fall into when writing him.

The Inaccurate Disability

In fanon perception, Red Leader is an amputee with a high tech prosthesis and a facial difference resulting from burn scars. Like many disabled characters, he suffers from a collective fandom lack of research. But never fret! That is what I have subjected myself to for the past four years, so your friendly neighborhood disabled Fish can tell you how to right your fandom wrongs! Just kidding! Take this as a pointer, and do your own research.

As is common with fictional prosthetics, his arm prosthetic is treated as a perfect fix for his amputation. It acts just like, if not better than an actual arm. The issue with this is that is isn't realistic. Yes, I know, I'm criticising Eddsworld fanfiction for not being realistic. STAY WITH ME HERE. Once again, if it was one instance, or a few, that explored prosthetics being incredibly functional in science-fiction, then it could be a cool concept. But when every sci-fi work has it, then that is no longer a concept. That is a misconception. And I have interacted with people who believed that prosthetics were 100% functional! The thing is, like all disability aids, it does not suddenly make us able-bodied. For example, I have ear defenders that I wear when I experience pain within my ears. But that does not mean my hearing will now become normal, and I will no longer experience pain from the sound I'm hearing. What WILL happen is that I will straight up not hear you. Like, literally. Can you repeat that? I had my ear defenders on. Oh, you're saying that my ear defenders aren't prosthetics and are not a fair comparison? Well, that's fair, but take this as an illustration of a disability aid and how they differ from able-bodied experiences. Also, many prosthetic users do many things without their prostheses, and some even prefer NOT to wear them. Blogs that explicitly cover disabled representation, such as @/cripplecharacters, have posts that cover WHY many amputees are not fans of this trope. The problem comes with that it erases disability, and yet also treats us like we are given a space at the table of representation. It's just another way that authors avoid actually doing research.

Other things that people tend to ignore are how burn scars, or any scars, would not only appear on a character, but also affect them. I have seen, aside from skin tones that looked like they were picked out of a crayon box instead of what would appear on a person, teeth exposed, wounds that look as if they are fresh from the explosion YEARS after they occurred, and what I like to call "paper shredder" scars. Because instead of them looking like burn or shrapnel scars, it appears as if his skin was put through a shredder. Once again, another consequence of the show's at most-30 second scene with questionable decisions that made massive ripples in the fandom. With the injuries Tord received, it is most likely that he would have two kinds of injuries: a burn on 18% of his body (minimum, based on rule of 9s), and/or shrapnel scars from debris. While shrapnel scars would manifest as darker scars, the burn scar would likely be a hypertrophic scar, as "70% of patients develop hypertrophic scars following burns" (Finnerty et. al). The scars, when healed, are warm toned on the boundaries of their areas and cool in between. When on a pale skintone, they are not too dissimilar, and would therefore not have such a drastic color difference as seen on skin. They would also not go down to the bone or skin, as that would be a completely different kind of injury, and are also commonly done to make him look "scarier", which then aids the Disabled Villain trope. It also treats these scars and injuries more like a work of fiction, rather than something that many real people have experienced, adding to continuous misinterpretations of real life disabilities and facial differences.

For writers wanting to include consequences of burns, what would be more likely to be affected are his hearing, vision, and nerves on the right side of his face, as burn scars can go as deep as nerve endings. Also, burn scars, especially third degree burns, require treatments, such as burn-specific skincare. Scars, especially burn scars, can affect you and become disabling. For artists, the main thing I don't see artists do is draw him with damaged hair follicles. Burn scars damage the scalp and eyebrows, preventing hair growth. I am sorry, but he would not still have fluffy, luscious hair. Do not kill me. He just wouldn't. And if you are saying that he had it in the show, I can't hear you because my ear defenders are on, but I hope you heard me, as we've gone over that the show is inaccurate and we should do our own research.

Even well intentioned authors and artists ignore many aspects of the disabilities he would likely have!

Which brings us to the last trope...

The Ignored Disability

Many well meaning people intend to give him nuance by trying to avoid the Disabled Villain trope. Accidentally, however, they end up completely ignoring his disabilities instead.

Just like the high-tech prosthetic, the real disabling aspects of having a disability are at best rarely mentioned. I have seen, in some fanworks, that he goes straight from amputation to having a prosthetic. And that is where his disability ends. Because the prosthetic ends up being a fix-all situation. Authors refuse, or forget, to include aspects of amputation, such as the healing process, stump or phantom pain. Artists will cover up his scars with a helmet or a mask, another trope that undermines his disabilities and attempts to brush it under the rug. I understand that there is a discomfort for able-bodied authors in thoroughly exploring how a character feels about their disability. That is something I think we should. Avoid. If you're not familiar with the experience of being that minority, you do not need to add commentary on it. And if you do, and it just falls into more negative tropes, I will send a salmon cannon at you (/j). However, I do not agree with brushing every disabling aspect of his life under the rug.

People can assume it's not a problem, like it isn't something blatantly apparent. But, if you assume that disability and being disabled is not a "big thing", you end up where your medication is denied because your insurance refuses to see your common procedure as not a necessary medical intervention because you're "too young". And that is not fiction. That is what inspired me to write this essay, because the day that I got that news was the same day I sat down and told myself that I needed to share my perspective on the perception of disabled characters by honing in on one of my favorite characters and how the fandom treated him.

Disabled characters deserve to be included in media, disability and all, with care given to how their life would operate as a result and what they would experience with their specific disability. That's why many people recommend sensitivity readers who can give proper insight upon that disability and can advise people to properly portray it.

But if you cannot afford or access that resource, what can you do?

Fish's Non-Cohesive List of Ways I Tried to Write Tord as a Non-Amputee Without a Facial Difference

Do research!! The more you are to try to understand what you are writing about, the less you are to misinterpret or misrepresent it.

Look into resources that focus on portraying disabled characters, especially with those you wish to write about. Read blogs, research tropes that are common in disabled characters, and hell, read medical journals. They can provide great insight (<< nerd who likes reading medical journals)

Include more disabled characters. Make the other boys be disabled! Want to be canon compliant? Create OCs who have disabilities! I have a bunch! It's 2024! Be cringe and be free! The character's disability would go against the traditional narrative form of "usefulness"? I'm an animator who can't wear headphones and a theatre performer who can't physically handle the volume of a band. And yet, we find ways to persist, to exist. We will always find our way to live in the way we want to, in whatever way we can.

Look into disability activism. Learn the difference between the Medical Model and Social Model of disability. Know what an invisible disability is. Listen to us when we say that we don't want to be treated as special or an inspiration for simply living (inspiration porn). The more you are aware of what we struggle in real life, the more aware you will be to not repeat those mistakes in your fiction.

Write what you can. Highlight little talked about aspects of having a burn scar or being an amputee, such as the recovery, or treatment for the chronic pain, or how different he would be in battle due to decreased depth perception. As a disabled author, I have personally touched on the experience of gaining a disability later in life, and how he copes with it. Now, not all of y'all can do that. But that is a personal experience I do have, and it is something I have highlighted in my own work. So, while I couldn't tell you the ins and outs of having a burn scar or a prosthetic arm, I could describe the shock and frustration that comes with suddenly experiencing difficulties, or even being unable to do what you had done before.

I ask that, if you are willing to do better, or to start on the right foot, you take what I have written, reflect on it, and treat disabled characters, and in turn, disabled people, better from here on out.

Fiction is not reality, but the way we deal with it is reflective of who we are and what we believe. The boundary for our own personal being does not suddenly stop within fiction. When we interact and interpret it and create for it, it is integral that we remain conscious that bigotry runs rampant, albeit often as an unseen force, within fandom spaces, and do our best to counteract that.

I have doubts that the new eddisode will treat this topic with the same respect. I hope you can all go forward with what you have read in this WAY LONGER than I expected essay, and do what those grown British men cannot. Even if they erase it, retconn it, or do not treat it with respect, let's all go forward and do better!

As for always, you can discuss more in the tags or my inbox!

I hope you have a wonderful life,

Fish

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rjzimmerman · 11 months ago

Text

Excerpt from this story from Mother Jones:

When a man with painful cystic acne came to dermatologist Eva Rawlings Parker for help in a Nashville clinic, she couldn’t prescribe him doxycycline or minocycline, two medications she’d typically use to treat this condition. This is because the man was a roofer, says Parker, and these medications would have impacted his ability to tolerate heat.

Parker’s patient was far from alone. Other common medications for physical health, like beta blockers, can impact people’s ability to handle heat. Many medications for mental health do, too.

Conventional wisdom tells people with conditions that make them unusually vulnerable to the sun, like the autoimmune disorder lupus, or are on medications that lead to heat sensitivity, to avoid staying outside when the sun is at its strongest.

But for the one-third of US workers who must spend regular time outdoors, that advice bursts into flames. For some, such as farmworkers, hours and hours of heat exposure, with minimal or no reprieve, are just part of the job. Increasing heat waves and more frequent wildfires point to the need to find real solutions for outdoor workers—and highlight how labor and climate change are intertwined.

Edward Flores, faculty director of the Community and Labor Center at the University of California, Merced, specializes in the conditions of low-wage and immigrant workers in California. He says the need for heat safety policy reform is acute. “We know that workers have been dying,” Flores says, “because of chronic conditions that accumulate through heat stress over many years and decades that lead to shorter life spans.”

Parker, the dermatologist, is acutely aware of how heat can trigger or worsen skin problems. She is co-chair of the American Academy of Dermatology’s group on climate change and environmental issues, and was an author of a 2023 review on the ways climate change can contribute to dermatological issues, including triggering flares of conditions like hidradenitis suppurativa—which causes painful lumps deep in a person’s skin—and skin cancer.

Workers do have some legal rights to breaks and water, depending on the locale. California, Oregon, and Washington are the only states that mandate those breaks. And roughly half of crop farmworkers have no legal work authorization. That lack of legal status, and the threat of deportation, gives many workers reason to fear complaining about working conditions.

In July, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed a new set of rules which would help protect more than 36 million workers from heat-related illness or death. The proposed OSHA rules would require employers to monitor their workers for heat exhaustion symptoms, provide adequate water and shade, designate break areas, and provide mandatory rest breaks, among other things.

#extreme heat #climate change #outdoor workers #employee health #OSHA

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cripplecharacters · 8 months ago

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what are the top 5 things you'd like to see a disabled character do in a story?

Hey! This is a very vast question and a lot of it would depend on the character's actual disability - I have completely different wishlists for what I'd like to see intellectually disabled characters do versus what I'd like to see characters with facial differences do. Different stereotypes and tropes affect different groups of disabled people differently - to work with this fact, the below list will try to account for as large amount of disabled character as I can reasonably think of, but it won't have as much detail as you might want. If you have a specific kind of character in mind, feel free to send another ask.

Not in specific order:

Disabled characters being in love. Disabled x disabled, disabled x abled, disabled x very different kind of disabled, all these variants but including more than 2 characters (since I've yet to see a polyamorous disabled character), all of this.

And I mean in actual relationships, not the pitiful and devoid of actual chemistry thing that we usually get (think "really sad disabled man only becomes happy after an abled woman takes pity on him, but they never kiss or god forbid have sex because that's gross and the disableds surely don't do that anyway").

I want to see an interabled couple going through IVF because they want to have kids, a wife with hemiplegia getting to grow old and wrinkly with her autistic husband, a lesbian with Treacher Collins syndrome moving in with her chronically ill girlfriend after a month of knowing each other, DeafBlind men getting hands on each other in the bathroom of a shitty nightclub, a trans woman with autism asking out a trans man with Down syndrome via her AAC tablet, a neurotypical guy with an obvious crush on his classmate with cerebral palsy.

I want to actually see disabled people being shown as desirable partners, good parents and grandparents, potential crushes, going through some new feelings and going on both good and bad dates, from all walks of life, of all sexualities and genders. Just like abled people.

Disabled characters participating in their community. Especially severely and/or visibly disabled characters. This is obviously a concept as vague as it could possibly be, but a big problem with a lot of disabled characters is that they don't... do anything. Not in the sense that they aren't "active enough", but that they aren't really... characters. They're often reduced to a family member who's at home and maybe the abled character takes care of them sometimes, but that's seemingly all that happens; they have no interests, hobbies, agency, preferences, or an internal thought process. All they do is wait for an abled savior to do something to them, not even with them.

I want to see more disabled characters who have jobs (whether it's a "regular" job, a supported employment workplace, a creative job that maybe they can only do a few hours a week, or self-care as a full-time job kind of thing), participating in hobbies that are accessible and/or modified to their ability level, emailing or sending pigeon letters to their friends, trying out new stuff that they're interested in, having actual complex relationships with their caregivers. Anything to actually make them feel like characters that exist in their setting, not just cardboard cutouts that the author had no ideas for.

Disabled characters who are a part of real-world disability (and adjacent) culture. Obviously also a vast topic. Most disabled characters, regardless of setting, are completely separated from concepts that were made by disabled people for disabled people; usually the connection to disability is their actual medical condition and a sterile mobility aid. This is not incorrect or bad to represent since that describes a lot of people, but I'd like to simply see more variety.

I want to see disabled characters who do parasports, who are excited about tactile art, went to blind/Deaf/SPED schools, call themselves #a babe with a mobility aid, decorate their AAC device, learn about disabled history, experience Feelings when hearing that Neanderthals cared about their disabled children, go to disability-centric events or support groups to meet people similar to them.

Do all disabled people do these? Absolutely not, but I'd like for even 1% of fictional characters to represent those who do.

Yeah I just want more disabled characters doing sports. As in real-life sports that real-life disabled people do, apologies to all the fantasy swordfighting that's out there.

There are so many sports out there we can do, some are adapted, some have a sitting or wheelchair version, while others were made specifically for us. Team sports are such a good opportunity to have your character have a community of people like them, have interesting dynamics, yet the only anything I can think of that's about it is REAL by Takehiko Inoue (wheelchair basketball) and the art by @/gayaest / @/sproutwiki (sitting volleyball). Also some Paralympics documentaries that I can count on a single hand - there's like three of them.

I want to see characters who are starting out and really suck at their sport, ones who are decent, ones with ridiculous sports-anime-level over the top abilities. I want to see all kinds of sports done by all kinds of disabled characters; blind kids learning goalball with their blind parents, quadriplegic guys working their ass off to qualify for national murderball championships, folks using sticker-covered bright-pink ramps in their boccia games, people with POTS playing along with their abled partner on their wheelchair rugby league team, standing fencers becoming disabled and adapting to wheelchair fencing that they love just as much. More disabled people having fun, knowing other disabled people, having interests!

Also, parasports are just cool as fuck and interesting to both watch and read about.

Disabled characters getting to make bad decisions. Disability representation is often extremely black-and-white in terms of morality: the character is either an angel who always does the right thing and talks about being grateful a lot, or the character is comically evil, wanting revenge because of their disability, hating their disability, constantly in grief and anger since not a single mildly ok thing happened to them since they became disabled. Neither of these feel like real people.

Disabled characters should be able to say hurtful things, get mad, lie, and whatever else, without being demonized to hell for it the same way abled characters are. They should be allowed to consciously make a decision that they shouldn't take (also known as "dignity of risk" in context of disability). They should get the same consequences for mistakes as everyone else and need to have the opportunities to actually make them.

In a much shorter way: more complex disabled characters.

These are things that I'd enjoy seeing for disabled characters. But the main thing would probably be that I want more of them. The scope of disabled characters in media is so painfully narrow because there's so few of them + they're usually capped at one per series. More writing featuring multiple disabled people please.

Here is a list of wishes from other mods who wanted me to throw them here:

Disabled characters who act like the author did more than a 10 min google search about their disabilities. [So authors doing actual research.]

More disabled characters of color. A lot of time disabled characters are white because it's only acceptable for them to be one kind of marginalized. In real life that's not how it works. People of color are disabled too!

Characters with comorbidities, characters with physical and mental health and developmental symptoms. Disability doesn't just come with one cut and dry disorder all the time - you can even be diagnosed with some things and undiagnosed with others.

[A character can have 5 comorbidities, or 5 completely unrelated disabilities - both happen. Or, most frequently, a bit of both.]

Characters existing in all parts of their diagnostic journey. [So characters who are yet to be diagnosed, currently investigating their symptoms, ones recently diagnosed, and ones who had their diagnosis for their whole lives - and as mentioned previously, you can be on one stage with disability A, and on another with disability B.]

Characters whose whole life isn't just tragedy/struggle! See this a lot when a story with disabled character is just about how life is hard for them as disabled person. Would love disabled characters being leads in other genres and just existing as people. Not to say disability isn't a struggle, but there is more to life and person than disability.

mod Sasza

#mod sasza #anonymous #writing ideas #character inspo #writing advice #writing disabled characters

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 1 year ago

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the girl next door 1

Warnings: this fic will include elements, some dark, such as age gap, manipulation, chronic illness, noncon/dubcon, coercion, and other untagged triggers. Please take this into account before proceeding. It is up to curate your online consumption safely.

Summary: A new neighbour moves in and upends your already disarrayed life.

Author’s Note: Please feel free to leave some feedback, reblog, and jump into my asks. I’m always happy to discuss with you and riff on idea. As always, you are cherished and adored! Stay safe, be kind, and treat yourself.

This lewk but silverfox

“Mom, we should get going,” you say as you check your bag.

Your mother sits at the table. It’s cluttered as always. You can see her inhaler amid the mess. Wait, there’s another one. You cross the kitchen, only two steps, and grab both inhalers. You feel the subtle difference between them.

You take both, putting the full one back in the medicine cabinet and the other in the disposal bin. The doctor said the inhalent would help with your mother’s dopamine levels, balances her out a little, but the new treatment only seems to be another symptom of her disease. She hates doing it, she hates all of it, but you can’t blame her for that.

“We can’t be late for the consultation. We’ll be waiting another six months,” you come back to the kitchen.

She looks at you as she wobbles slightly. The tremor is more prominent than before. Each day you notice it more. All the little things changing about her. She’s a bit slower, her words don’t come easy or always clearly, and her mood grows grimmer and grimmer. So does yours.

You grab your purse and the keys. You’ll clean up when you get home. It doesn’t take very long for living to pile up though. Especially when you’re the only one to keep it in order.

Your mother grips the table and stands up. Getting her dressed was a battle already won. Her posture is slightly crooked as she shuffles around the table, “I’m moving.”

You step back, waiting patiently for her to round the table. She grumbles. Your mother was never bright and bubbly but ever since her diagnosis, she’s lost any glimmer of warmth. It’s like she’s living in a fog, just slowly wading through.

You walk down the hall ahead of her and pick out your shoes from the rack. As you kneel to tie your sneakers, she leans on the wall and slides her feet into the orthotic flats. She’s not very old yet. Neither of you expected her to decline so quickly.

You stand and open the door. You back up though the screen door and hold it for her. Her steps get a bit smoother the more she moves around. The permanent scowl sinks into the lines of her face as she comes out onto the porch. You lock the door behind her as she grunts and leans on the railing, stamping down each step to the walkway.

You follow behind her. That’s another problem. The lawn. The old mower broke. You haven’t been able to replace it.

As you trail your mother to the car, she swats you away. Sometimes you try too much for her. You know she must feel helpless. You back up as she sits heavily in the passenger seat and your eyes skim around the neighbourhood. The white sign on the lawn next to yours catches your eye.

You remember the finely dressed woman, her very image on the sign, and how she grimaced at the weeds and grass. If she’s going to sell the property, the neighbours shouldn’t be living in a jungle. You heard her say as much over the phone as she paced back and forth on the porch.

You mother pulls the door shut but it doesn’t click. You give it an extra push to secure it and round the hood. You get in the car and turn the key, rolling down the windows as the early summer morning crowds the tight space. Your mother mutters and wipes her forehead with a shaky hand.

“Let’s just go,” she sneers, “waste of my time...” she bends her arm over the open window, her fingers quivering, “damn doctors said it enough. Nothing they can do. Charlatans.”

“Mom,” you chide gently, “the surgery could help. If you qualify--”

“I heard ya last night,” she snaps. “Just drive.”

You nod and snap your mouth shut. You shift into reverse and back out of the drive. You know better than to talk too much. Your mother never liked hearing anything she didn’t want to hear. Facts are just an attack on her.

You steer down the street slowly, following the curve of the suburban street. The green lawns and white picket fences are palatial at first glance. It’s a 1950s fever dream implanted in the twenty-first century.

Your house is the black stain on an otherwise pristine canvas. The HOA must curse your grandmother for her leaving a perfectly nice home to a pair of beatnicks. You don’t blame them. You’re the puzzle piece that doesn’t fit, leaving a gaping hole in the picture.

The radio crackles on and you wince. Your mother struggles to turn the knob and the volume pendulums up and down. You reach to help her and she smacks your hand, only softly as she has little strength behind it. You retract and grip the wheel, listening to buzzing struggle of her unsteady. You just hope the appointment goes well.

🏠

Your mother hasn’t said much since the appointment. That worries you. What should be good news is just another dark cloud over her.

She sits as she often does; half-reclined in the chair by the window, watching the neighbourhood just outside the pane. She’s just a resentful of the picture-perfect neighbours as she if of everything else. As she is of you.

You tidy the kitchen table as the unsaid dangles in the air. You know better than to bring it up. She barely acknowledged it when the doctor said it. She’s a good candidate for surgery but it isn’t a cure. It will help with the symptoms but not stop them altogether. It’s not good enough for her but it might just be her only hope of relief, even if temporary.

“Bring me a coke,” your mother calls through and you hear the hollow tin clatter of an empty can.

You bring the dirty dishes to the sink and set them beside it. You go to the fridge to grab a red branded can and let the door shut on its own. As you enter the living room, your mother sits forward, the recliner snapping forward with her weight. She leans on and elbow as she squints through the window and cranes over the armrest.

You pick up the old can and put the new one on the small table by the chair. She sits back and takes the Coke, trembling as she struggles to crack the tab. You know better than to help her. The curl in her lip warns you better.

“Someone’s looking at the place next door,” she says.

“Oh?” You move behind her chair and try to the next house. You can only really see the edge of the porch from here. You could open the side window but that would give more than a view of the siding and might be too obvious. “New neighbours.”

“Eh, if it sells. Could do better without these stuck-up prissy bitches running around measuring grass,” she growls of the Home Owners’ Association.

You nod. She’s right. You’ve had to deal with that nosy blonde too many times.

“We’ll see,” she mutters as she finally gets the can open and slurps. “Just hope it’s not another bitch.”

You cross your arms and step closer to the window. You sense movement just beyond your vision and the realtor in her pantsuit comes down the front steps of the neighbouring house. She turns back to face someone you can’t see and speaks to him. Their words are garbled by the barrier of window and wall.

The woman smiles and spins to strut down to the sidewalk. A man follows after, a slow stroll in his long legs. He turns to face the house again and puts his hands in his pockets as he looks up at the facade. His eyes narrow as he considers it.

His gray hair is streaked with remnants of its former blond. If it wasn’t for the colour of his locks, you might not have guessed his age. He’s tall and his shoulders are broad. He’s built finely for any era.

Your mother leans forward again, “heh, lookie there,” she slurs.

She leers through the window as you stare blankly out. A new neighbour just means another person to complain about the lawn; or another person for your mother to complain about. The man pivots on his sole and pauses, his gaze set in your direction. You don’t think he can see you, not with how the sun reflects off the square panes. He stalls for just a moment before he turns complete, striding up towards the realtor.

You back up and retreat toward the kitchen. You mother hums as she continues to snoop through the window. The recliner squeaks beneath her as she shifts in the seat.

“Bit old for a family man,” she tuts.

#dark steve rogers #dark!steve rogers #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #drabble #series #the girl next door #au #silverfox au #mcu #marvel #captain america

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subsystems · 1 year ago

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There's been a lot of harmful invalidation and misinformation floating around trauma spaces lately about the cause of complex dissociative disorders like DID. Please, let's put to rest the trauma olympics and claiming that certain childhood traumas are more "valid" than others. The childhood trauma that causes someone's DID does not need to be sexual or physical abuse, or even abuse at all.

From Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach, by Elizabeth Howell (pages xvii - xviii):

"DID is usually the outcome of chronic and severe childhood trauma, which can include physical and sexual abuse, extreme and recurrent terror, repeated medical trauma, and extreme neglect. Pathological dissociation generally results from being psychically overwhelmed by trauma. . . . However, the traumatic experiences that may result in dissociative disorders do not always stem from sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Disorganized attachment which often underlies the dissociative structure of dissociative disorders . . . may result from overwhelming experiences in the infant's interpersonal environment that are not caused by parental maltreatment. Parental illness, depression, or problematic attachment styles may be psychically overwhelming and lead to disorganized attachment. In addition, medical trauma may be dissociogenic. For example, some dissociative patients have reported histories of chronic medical problems and hospitalizations that involved severe pain and unavoidable separations from well-meaning parents. Medical trauma may involve both the chronic and severe pain of certain diseases and conditions as well as painful procedures intended to remediate these medical conditions. Some dissociative adult patients have reported the trauma of being left alone to suffer their pain as children in the hospital. Such children may be additionally confused by the fact that their parents are either hurting them, as part of necessary medical interventions or allowing others to hurt them . . ."

You can find a free download of this book and others [here]. I highly recommend reading it, it's one of my favorite books on DID. If you're able to, please consider purchasing a copy of it to support the author too!

Anyways, if you're reading this and you've been harmed by the recent influx of trauma invalidation, please know that I'm here for you. I believe you. Your trauma is REAL and it was ENOUGH to cause your disorder. You were a child and no child deserves to go through trauma. No one.

#sunflower posts #actuallydid #actuallyosdd #actuallycdd #actuallytraumagenic #actuallydissociative #actuallytraumatized #syscourse #dissociative identity disorder #dissociation #complex dissociative disorder #did support #did informative #trauma tw #abuse tw

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chronicallydragons · 1 year ago

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Me, rereading my book, briefly forgetting **I** am the author and wrote them not kissing when they totally should have: LET! THEM! KISS!

#author problems #author #disabled author #writer #chronically ill writer #writeblr #writing community #disabled writer

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covid-safer-hotties · 9 months ago

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Also preserved on our archive

By Jamie Ducharme

When you reach for a COVID-19 test, it’s probably because you’ve got a scratchy throat, runny nose, or cough. But those are far from the only symptoms that make Dr. Rohit Jain, an internal medicine doctor at PennState Health, suspect the virus.

These days, when someone complains of nausea, diarrhea, or vomiting, “I always get a COVID test on that patient,” Jain says.

Why? Despite its reputation as a respiratory virus, SARS-CoV-2 can also have a profound impact on the gut. Although most people don’t realize it, “COVID-19 really is a GI-tract disease” as well as a respiratory illness, says Dr. Mark Rupp, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Here’s what to know about the gastrointestinal symptoms of COVID-19.

What are the GI symptoms of COVID-19? While some people experience no gastrointestinal symptoms or mild ones, a subset of COVID-19 patients have experienced significant digestive symptoms since the early days of the pandemic.

Loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain are common GI symptoms of COVID-19, according to Jain’s research. Some people experience these issues as their first signs of infection, he says, while others initially experience cold-like symptoms and develop gastrointestinal issues as their illness progresses.

It’s not entirely clear why the same virus can affect people so differently, but it’s good to be aware that SARS-CoV-2 can result in a wide range of symptoms, Rupp says.

How long do GI symptoms of COVID-19 last? Some patients recover in a matter of days, Jain says, while others may suffer from diarrhea and other symptoms for weeks.

Still others may be sick for even longer. Gastrointestinal problems are a common manifestation of Long COVID, the name for chronic symptoms that follow a case of COVID-19 and can last indefinitely.

One recent study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology found that, among a small group of adults who were hospitalized when they had acute COVID-19, more than 40% who originally experienced GI problems such as stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea still had at least one a year or more later. Overall, whether they were hospitalized or not, adults who have had COVID-19 are about 36% more likely than uninfected people to develop gastrointestinal disorders including ulcers, pancreatitis, IBS, and acid reflux, according to a 2023 study published in Nature Communications.

GI problems are also common among kids with Long COVID. Stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting are telltale signs of the condition among children younger than 12, according to 2024 research published in JAMA.

Why a respiratory virus affects the gut How can the same virus cause both a runny nose and the runs?

Once SARS-CoV-2 gets into your body, it infects cells by binding to a protein called ACE2, which is found throughout the body. ACE2 is prevalent in the lungs, which helps explain COVID-19’s respiratory symptoms—but it’s also found in high concentrations in the gastrointestinal tract, “so it makes sense that the GI tract would be a target for the virus,” Rupp says. It’s in part because SARS-CoV-2 collects in the gut that wastewater surveillance is a useful tool for tracking the virus’ spread, Rupp adds.

Studies have shown that the virus can hide out in the “nooks and crannies” of the digestive system for months or even years, says Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who co-authored the Nature Communications study on chronic post-COVID GI symptoms. This may explain why gut-related symptoms can long outlast an acute infection, Al-Aly says—but there are many potential hypotheses in play, and researchers don’t know for sure which one or ones are correct.

For example, many researchers also think the virus is capable of causing widespread and sometimes long-lasting inflammation, potentially affecting organs throughout the body. This inflammatory response may have trickle-down effects on the gut microbiome, the colony of bacteria and other microbes that live in the GI tract, Rupp says. “We’re just scratching the surface as to what happens there,” Rupp says, but studies have already shown that SARS-CoV-2 can change the composition of the gut microbiome both during an acute infection and chronically.

There’s also a complex relationship between the gut and the brain, adds Dr. Badih Joseph Elmunzer, a gastroenterologist at the Medical University of South Carolina and co-author of the Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology study on prolonged post-COVID GI symptoms. His research suggests people are particularly likely to suffer long-term GI problems if they also have signs of PTSD from their acute illness or hospitalization.

That’s not to say GI symptoms are all in patients’ heads; on the contrary, Elmunzer says, they are very real. But, he says, there’s a lot left to learn about the microbiome, the gut, and the myriad ways they interact with other bodily systems.

#mask up #covid #pandemic #covid 19 #wear a mask #public health #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #still coviding #wear a respirator #long covid #covid conscious #covid is airborne

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empyrealoasis · 5 months ago

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Scripting Guide to Character Design for Shifters 𓏲 ࣪₊☾𓂃

This guide is designed for individuals who find scripting challenging and are looking for a thorough, step-by-step approach to help bring their desired reality to life. It aims to cover a wide range of essential elements, providing detailed prompts and questions to encourage creative thinking and help you craft a unique, immersive, and well-rounded script. Whether you're a beginner or someone who wants to refine their scripting process, this guide offers plenty of ideas and suggestions to ensure nothing important is overlooked. *World Building Guide

Physical Traits

Appearance:

What is the character’s height, weight, and body type?

What is their skin tone or complexion? Are there freckles, scars, birthmarks, or tattoos?

What are their most prominent facial features (e.g., sharp jawline, high cheekbones, round nose)?

What is the shape and color of their eyes? Are they expressive, piercing, or dull?

Describe their hair: color, length, texture, and style.

Do they wear makeup? If so, what kind? Is it bold, subtle, or cultural?

Posture and Movement:

Do they stand tall, slouch, or move with a particular rhythm?

Are their movements deliberate, hurried, or graceful?

Do they have any physical tics or mannerisms, like biting nails or twirling their hair?

Clothing and Accessories:

What is their style of clothing (e.g., modern, vintage, rugged)?

Are they flashy, minimalist, or practical in their fashion?

Do they wear specific accessories, like glasses, rings, or necklaces?

Are there cultural or personal symbols in their attire?

Health and Fitness:

What is their overall health—fit, frail, or somewhere in between?

Do they have any physical disabilities, chronic illnesses, or injuries?

Are there visible signs of their health (e.g., dark circles, scars, or a limp)?

Mental Traits

Intellect and Knowledge:

How intelligent are they? Are they book-smart, street-smart, or both?

What are their areas of expertise or hobbies?

Do they enjoy learning, or are they more hands-on and practical?

How do they solve problems—logically, emotionally, or instinctively?

Mindset and Attitude:

Are they optimistic, pessimistic, or realistic?

Do they view challenges as opportunities or obstacles?

What motivates them to keep going in difficult times?

Memory and Learning:

Do they have a sharp memory, or are they forgetful?

How quickly do they learn new skills or adapt to new situations?

Are they haunted by past memories or dismissive of them?

Mental Health:

Do they experience anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges?

Are they self-aware, or do they struggle to understand their emotions?

How do they cope with stress—healthy outlets, escapism, or self-destructive behaviors?

Emotional Traits

Personality:

Are they introverted, extroverted, or ambiverted?

Do they come across as warm, cold, or neutral to others?

How do they interact with strangers, friends, and authority figures?

Are they quick to trust, or are they cautious and guarded?

Temperament:

Are they patient or quick-tempered?

Do they have a calming presence, or do they stir up chaos?

How do they handle conflict—do they avoid it, confront it, or manipulate others?

Core Emotions:

What emotion defines them (e.g., joy, anger, fear)?

What triggers strong emotional responses in them?

How do they express emotions—through words, actions, or body language?

Background and History

Family and Upbringing:

Where were they born, and what was their family situation like?

Were they raised with love, neglect, or strict rules?

Do they have siblings, and if so, what is their relationship with them?

Education and Career:

What kind of education did they receive (formal, informal, none)?

What is their job or role in their world?

Are they passionate about their work, or is it just a means to an end?

Defining Moments:

What was the most important event in their life?

Have they experienced any major losses or victories?

What regrets or achievements shape their character?

Social Traits

Relationships:

How do they treat friends, family, and romantic partners?

Are they loyal, distant, or unpredictable in relationships?

Do they form connections easily, or do they struggle to open up?

Reputation:

What do others think of them?

Are they well-known, infamous, or an enigma?

Do they care about their reputation, or are they indifferent?

Conflict Style:

How do they argue—calmly, aggressively, or defensively?

Are they forgiving, or do they hold grudges?

Can they admit when they’re wrong, or are they stubborn?

Beliefs and Values

Moral Compass:

What is their sense of right and wrong?

Do they follow the rules, break them, or create their own?

Are they guided by justice, compassion, ambition, or survival?

Faith and Spirituality:

Do they believe in a higher power, fate, or nothing at all?

Are they religious, spiritual, or secular?

How do their beliefs shape their decisions and relationships?

Cultural Influence:

What traditions or customs do they follow?

Are they proud of their heritage, or do they reject it?

How much of their culture is visible in their everyday life?

Habits and Quirks

Daily Routines:

What does their typical day look like?

Are they a morning person or a night owl?

Do they stick to routines, or are they spontaneous?

Unique Habits:

Do they have odd or endearing habits (e.g., always chewing gum, talking to their pet)?

What are their guilty pleasures?

Are there superstitions or rituals they always follow?

Speech Patterns:

Do they have an accent, lisp, or unique way of speaking?

Are they verbose, concise, or somewhere in between?

Do they use specific slang, catchphrases, or idioms?

Likes and Dislikes

Favorites:

What is their favorite food, drink, color, or scent?

What activities or hobbies bring them joy?

Are there specific seasons, weather, or places they love?

Pet Peeves:

What annoys them the most?

Are there sounds, habits, or types of people that irritate them?

How do they react when faced with things they dislike?

Goals and Dreams

Short-Term Goals:

What do they hope to accomplish in the near future?

Are they focused, distracted, or conflicted about their goals?

Long-Term Dreams:

What is their ultimate aspiration?

How realistic is their dream, and what stands in their way?

Who or what inspires them to keep pursuing it?

Fears and Doubts:

What are they most afraid of losing or failing at?

Do they have impostor syndrome or insecurities?

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