#chronic illness metaphor

[arcaneyouth]

you know what i am gonna make my own post about it. ghost trick spoilers under the cut

in a very non judgemental way, this post was prompted by people who read yomiel as queer for the same things that made me see him as a lot like myself in a chronic/terminal illness way. the queer readings are extremely valid, i just wanna point at how much this connects to people like me in a very blatant way, and yet not a way i have (personally) seen talked about much

it is so dehumanizing to be chronically/terminally ill. (for the purposes of this post, i am going to use these terms interchangeably because i am a person who is chronically ill with an illness that could have killed me easily so they are, for me, quite the same). it is so awful and horrible to feel like you are doomed to this fate of being a ghost when you think you're supposed to be alive but no one will look at you that way because to them you are already dead. and yomiel captures that fucking excellently.

forced to ""live"" for 10 years but never being alive the entire time. all he fucking wanted was to live until it was time to die properly. he wanted people to accept that he's like this and love him anyways. he wanted to Exist but the way he's existing isn't right, so he's been forced to be alone for 10 years stuck in this fucking limbo of life and death.

and as a chronically ill person that really. really fucking resonates. maybe it would have been ok if he had just been allowed to exist as he is. been allowed to be dead. if he hadn't become so isolated by the giant shadow that is his own death. being ill is isolating. the fact that he's puppeting around a body that doesn't feel like it's really his anymore.... what terminal illness does to a motherfucker fr fr.

and god. the moment with lynne, where she is the first person to understand what he's feeling. how everything about his death feels like it dragged him down into an endless void, and she Gets It and that alone makes him really start to want to change.... fuck dude. it's not pity, it's not denial, it's someone finally reaching out a hand and understanding what it means to be like This. to be nothing but a ghost to everyone. and that's what makes him feel like a person again.

makes me insane. anyways happy disability pride month

[sidotherobot]

WAIT GUYS I FORGOT WHAT DAY IT WASA IM SO SORRY HAVE A CYRUS FOR OCTOPATH DAY

[deoidesign]

Hi, I kind of have a question, Adam said that can't walk in the sun when doesn't drink blood, but what exactly happens? Do vampires just burn immediately, begin to be more sensitive to sunburn or is it another kind of thing?

so, in time and time again I really wanted blood to be something of a medicinal need for vampires. it's not a 1:1 metaphor of course, please don't try to think of it that way, but it's how I conceptualize it.

He needs blood to go in the sun, to heal, to "be something of a human again" and it also grants him the ability to time travel, shapeshift, compel others...

Without blood, he can't do these things. So, to be honest, without blood vampires would just... die. They can't exist without it. being in the sun uses blood, its dangerous. it wears you down. it makes you weaker. it can kill you!

I realize this ends up making my vampires feel weak, but... it's a metaphor for chronic illness. They have limited energy and if they do not take the time and the 'medications' they need to recover, they'll become weak or die. They have to manage their limited energy.

there's extreme privilege for vampires who have steady access to blood, like Adam does. His access to blood lets him time travel, transform, go in the sun constantly, etc. Vampires without as much access have to become nocturnal, they get stuck in one place, they have to be careful because even a small cut can cost precious resources...

A desperate vampire might end up hurting someone for what they need. a vampire with people who are willing to help them can get by, or even thrive. a vampire with none of these will die.

I know it's not the most satisfying answer, but it is my answer! My experiences being chronically ill are very much at play here.

[pochapal]

girl who learns for the millionth time "healing from being harmed" often means "learning how to dodge activities which provoke the wound" instead of "regaining the ability to engage in said activities unencumbered"

[tofu-bento-box]

being my roommate is great! sometimes i’m perched on my desk chair in complete darkness frantically writing fic on my phone until 2am, and sometimes i go to bed at 5:45pm because i’ve got another fuckin migraine

this post brought to you by, you guessed it, another fuckin migraine

[red-l1ke-roses]

I made a thing 

[the-bone-queen]

Read Illness as Metaphor and AIDS as Metaphor and it inspired this poem remembering those who died during the AIDS epidemic 💔🏳️‍🌈 full text under the cut

Illness as Metaphor/AIDS as Metaphor

by E. Smith Umland

Illness as thinness

Illness as paleness

Illness as quiet.

Illness as in no energy

to scream or cry

Illness as in behind 

closed doors

Illness as in “There’s nothing

we can do.”

Illness as in God’s hand/plan

Illness as in lessons learned

Illness as in sometimes good/bad things

happen to bad/good people.

[neuroticboyfriend]

if seeing everything through rose-colored glasses means you're seeing the best in everything, even to the point of ignoring the bad things... doing drugs to stay happy is like wearing dark sunglases and expecting to see the sunset.

you may look through them, see the world in a way you didn't before, but you're not seeing the real beauty. it's an illusion. you've become so accostumed to the dark, that even when you try to take the glasses off, the sunset may be too bright, too scary. so you scramble to put them back on. until you realize what you're missing, and carefully try to readjust to the light again. until we can finally look at the sky, clearly.

but some of us then fall into the pink cloud - the rose colored glasses of addiction - where everything seems so much more hopeful, we have enthusiasm, we're optimistic... but eventually that can slip as the stressors of our life catch up with us, and at some point. we just need to stare at the sky, clearly, and take it all in. take things for what they are, good and bad, and work on what we see. as best as we can. one day at a time.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

When my RA flares, I have two impulses. The first is to go for eery possible painkiller and anti-inflammatory known to man. The second is to read Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor for like the fourth or fifth time. I don't always read Sontag when I flare, but holy tits do I always remember how uncomfortable academics (so mostly cishet white dudes) were with this book because one of the things that strenuously arguing against the use of metaphors to wrap one's head around a chronic and/or terminal illness does is it removes the veneer of morality that people try to put on health and wellness.

THEY are good people, so they won't get sick.

THEY are good people so even if they do get sick, they won't die or need to take time off or anything like that.

THEY do [arbitrary thing that wellness bloggers are super into for a hot five minutes], so they won't get sick.

THEY are in control, so they won't get sick.

THEY will battle illness and win because they are a somehow superior to everyone who dies of a terminal illness.

And Sontag's whole shtick is that actually, illness is a completely neutral fact that you have very little real control over, and to artificially impose a narrative and a moral value to health and illness is, perhaps, NOT HELPFUL.

At which point I pretty much decides to go to my bookshelf, grab the books that do chronic illness and disability rep well, and cuddle them like teddy bears. Because that is way better for me than trying to talk myself out of being in pain.

[imaginarylungfish]

i watched the episode where bakugo dies. wow. i cried. the part where he's asking if he can still catch up to izuku really hit me. bakugo finally understood all the effort izuku put into becoming a hero. finally.

like i've said before, i can't not see izuku's journey as one of disability. and in this moment, bakugo finally sees and understands all izuku does to just be "at the starting line"/normal (at least for heroes).

i felt this. like when people finally realize all the effort i put into just being able to live. it's so relieving to know someone else in this world understands and acknowledges my efforts. it's heartbreaking too.

[the5n00k]

Getting increasingly harder to get my body what it needs while doing what's expected of me <3

I tried sleeping in to combat my later free time schedule and to see if I would stop being tired

[deoidesign]

I have a question, but it may be already have been answered in the story (my brain is just not the best with memory).

Since vampirism symbolises for you chronical illness (which, omg, that is a hot take I've never thought off before and love from now on), does Steve count as chronical ill, too, with the whole halfvampire thing going on? So, would his uncontrollable time jumping each month be a symptom of that chronical illness?

not in the story, no worries! Just a possible interpretation and my personal intent when writing.

As a small aside I personally don't like to think of chronic illness as something that people "count" as, so to speak, it's an extremely personal label and incredibly varied between individuals and as with all disability there is never such thing as hard lines or black and white... but I understand why you worded it that way and I understand what you're asking.

So, yes, Steve is also chronically ill within this framework. The entire comic is sort of shaped around this, to be honest! I mean he canonically has some pretty extreme memory issues... He's also canonically homeless (not that this is an illness but I just mean it's something I think most people forget about him when discussing him). And, yes, his condition is uncontrollable and is severely impacting his ability to live the life he wants to live.

He has just been barely coping up to the point we meet him, and has been very desperate which is what led him to creating that list of deviations. He has periods where his body is out of his control, he is unable to form relationships, he hurts others without meaning or wanting to... Yeah. He's metaphorically relating to a lot of things, really.

So, yknow, you're welcome to interpret him as you'd like! for me I relate a lot with my various issues and conditions and thus that's why I've projected on him the way I have, but of course I would understand entirely different interpretations of what is inherently metaphorical.

[sophiethewitch1]

kinda wanna write a fic where the dog is literally the deus ex machina

[eff-plays]

"I resonate with Spawn!Astarion's vampirism and think that him finding peace with it is profound and meaningful and therefore I don't think I'll be curing him in my canon." = Valid.

"If you HC curing Spawn!Astarion then you're ableist" = Sincerely, shut the fuck up.

[myersesque]

so like. what is the general consensus abt getting gale's orb tattooed on u. bc i relate to him n his backstory a fuckton and Really Want It (no promises i'll listen to the general consensus, i just wanna know what it is)

[snakegentleman]

Currently projecting so many disabled metaphors unto Vash