running-in-the-dark

[running-in-the-dark]

reblog if you're corny and insufferable

[running-in-the-dark]

list link here

[running-in-the-dark]

“They’re trying to convince people they can’t do the things they’ve been doing easily for years – to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies – to write that for you.” We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, “that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won’t know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can’t do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat. People are already doing this. You won’t have to process grief, because you’ll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it’s going to destroy humans, long before there’s a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people.”

Justine Bateman on AI in this article from The Guardian

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My wrist pain is apparently just regular old tendinitis, at least that's what my GP said. It makes sense, I've had chronic tendinitis before so yeah sounds about right.

It pisses me off though! Now I can't even use my computer for a few hours a day without this happening?! I really don't know how the fuck I'll ever get a job, all of this shit just keeps getting worse.

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rich people throughout history cannot help being so fucked up and insane. why is it now a status symbol to be botched with filler etc. “look how i can afford to permanently disfigure myself” well look how on my middle class salary i can afford to be good looking and attractive with the face of a human being and not a grotesque caricature of one

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happy tenth taskmaster anniversary!!

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Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit

[Image Transcript:

And how will I prove my age?

There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:

Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age. 

Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.

Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.

Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.

Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.  

Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18. 

Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.

End Transcript.]

Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.

I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.

I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.

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Back when I first started taking paroxetine, I got really annoying auditory hallucinations - they all had to do with the doorbell, someone coming into the apartment etc. It stopped after a while and I forgot about it (though I kept having the doorbell one a few times)

Well it's back now that I'm switching to a different medication. And it's the same damn thing!! I was sure this morning that someone knocked on my door (no one there), then later that I heard the apartment door close (husband hadn't left, and no one else was there). I've heard the doorbell a few times too. It's always when I'm asleep or half asleep, but it's totally different from a dream. I hate it, it's so confusing.

Plus my brain just generally feels scrambled and useless right now. The brain zaps are BAD. My head keeps buzzing. And when I move my head it feels like my vision is lagging behind and I can physically feel it or something, I don't know, it's hard to explain but it feels gross! I'm hoping it won't last much longer because it does actually make me feel a bit crazy.

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i said it was my favorite piece of media that i’ve hyperfixated on since the tender age of 12 and have not let go of since. i didnt say it was a Good piece of media

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I don't want to die or anything, just like, start life over with a different character because this one fucking sucks

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Heyo! Got very distracted with another post of yours, but I was wondering if you had a post busting myths about rabies without the scary misinformation attached?

I'm worried people will take their time to read through all those stories, think they're learning something, and not make it to your addition because the whole post is quite long. Or internalize too much fear and wrong info along the way

Correcting misinformation from the viral “rabies education” post

Hi, my name is Nessie/Lochlan O’Neil and I am a biologist and actual rabies educator and this post is to dispel some misinformation on a viral post about rabies that has been going around since 2018. (You have my full legal name so you know I’m not just some stranger. I also did a rabies and raccoons panel at Dashcon 2)

Myth: “You have to take an anti allergic shot in order to get the vaccine.”

Fact: IDK where this person got that idea, but that is not true. There is an HRIG (human rabies immunoglobulin) shot, but that just gives you immediate immunity to rabies, stopping the virus in your body in its tracks, and gives the rabies shot time to work. It’s fine, it’s not scary. It’s a regular sized needle and a regular sized vaccine, they just break it up into a bunch of little shots around your wound like they do with dry needling.

Myth: You have to get rabies shots in each limb and in your ass.

Fact: The poster who was spreading this information received improper rabies PEP. For one, the guidelines since the 80’s have specifically stated NO RABIES SHOTS IN THE ASS. Second, the shots go around the wound. And now, in 2025, it’s just one shot every few days.

Myth: The rabies vaccine is not as effective for immunocompromised people

Fact: Rabies post exposure treatment is just as effective for immunocompromised individuals. You just have to get one extra shot and you're fine.

Myth: Docility is also a very common symptom of rabies

Fact: Docility in rabies is incredibly rare. In reality, animals that are overly docile are more than likely habituated. Or, if they seem sick, they have distemper. STILL DO NOT TOUCH WILDLIFE.

Myth: Rabies makes raccoons’ eyes glow radioactive green

Fact: Distemper makes raccoons’ eyes glow radioactive green (also, I checked with OP who shared this story in the original post, and it was distemper that raccoon had, not rabies)

Myth: “Literally any wild animal is a rabies vector.”

Fact: While any mammal (and some birds) can get rabies, “rabies vector" is a specific term applied to specific species and varies from place to place. In Alaska, arctic foxes are rabies vectors. In Tennessee, red foxes, skunks, and coyotes are rabies vectors. Animals like rabbits and deer and bears are not rabies vectors. The #1 rabies vector world wide is the domestic dog.

Myth: All you need to do to get rabies is come in contact with an animal's bodily fluids through some open wound.

Fact: This one is kind of true, but only certain bodily fluids like saliva, vaginal fluid, milk, eye gunk, snot, spinal fluid, and brain matter. Rabies cannot be transmitted through blood or urine. You can also get rabies through any hole (including your eyes), not just cuts.

Myth: The paralytic stage of the disease is useless for spreading rabies

Fact: The paralytic stage is very useful for spreading rabies to opossums and other scavengers and is just as contagious as any other stage of the disease.

Myth: Opossums are immune to/are resistant to rabies due to their body temperature.

Fact: Opossums are found rabid just as frequently as most other non-rabies vector species. There is no proof showing any kind of resistance due to their low body temperature. Rabies in opossums is likely under reported due to this myth and the fact that they tend to get paralytic rabies and thus are not out attacking people.

Myth: In all of recorded history, one person survived an infection after she became symptomatic

Fact: Dozens of people have survived rabies after becoming symptomatic. You are talking about Jeanna Giese, and even then, we don't actually know if she or any of the other "survivors" actually had Rabies lyssavirus to begin with. There are many lyssaviruses that cause rabies other than Rabies lyssavirus, and there are lyssaviruses that causes survivable diseases that look just like rabies. Although Jeanna’s CSF tested positive for rabies, the test they ran was unable to distinguish rabies lyssaviruses from other lyssaviruses. Lyssaviruses are also under researched and we are still learning about new ones every year. Like frog “rabies.”

For reference, on the left is American treefrog lyssavirus and the right is Rabies lyssavirus. To the test they would be the same.

Myth: Rabies education comes across your dash “because some fuck up calls themselves Rabiosexual.”

Fact: People who jokingly identify as "rabiosexual" are simply having a silly time and have actually been the most receptive to rabies education. Even if the whole rabiosexual meme didn’t exist, you would still be seeing rabies education because I am a rabies educator and I live on tumblr dot com

Myth: If you see any animal other than a dog who’s been attacked by a porcupine? It’s rabid. everything else in the animal kingdom knows better than to mess with a porcupine, unless their brain is being ravaged by something beyond their control.

Fact: Read the actual study. 3 nonrabid raccoons had quills in their face, five rabid raccoons had quills in their face. Small sample size. Anyway, animals are stupid as hell. Raccoons get drunk on human alcohol for fun.

Myth: As a child, Louis Pasteur watched a man from his hometown die slowly, painfully, and unstoppably from rabies from a rabid wolf bite

Fact: It was a dog. DOMESTIC DOGS are the #1 rabies vector worldwide and remembering this fact keeps people safe.

And remember…

Do not get your rabies education from viral posts made by strangers on tumblr dot com

[running-in-the-dark]

Um.

[running-in-the-dark]

Too dizzy to even read my book(s), so instead I'm watching Taskmaster in bed (I finally started rewatching it a few days ago & it's making me so happy ❤️)

Oooh man the medication switching is so annoying - I slept for over 12 hours, I've been super dizzy all day, and my brain buzzes every time I move my eyes lol. But! I wasn't tired today! So that's pretty nice.

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Oooh man the medication switching is so annoying - I slept for over 12 hours, I've been super dizzy all day, and my brain buzzes every time I move my eyes lol. But! I wasn't tired today! So that's pretty nice.

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It was verrrry uncomfortable at first -

He wasn't happy that I basically said my GP told me I should switch medications, but to be fair that was only because *I* suggested it might be the problem, and also hello that is a GP's job, to send patients to specialists to discuss these things, which is all he actually did, so like 🤦 and then I also said that I looked up side effects online and he did not like that! But eventually he got over it and was nice again (especially once he realised HE didn't even prescribe the Paroxetine initially lol) and he prescribed me Fluoxetine and I'm supposed to just start taking it tomorrow. I'm kinda relieved that he said he'd rather not have me stop the Paroxetine first (yeah me too), so we're doing it this way. I hope it'll be better. And I hope it'll work for me (Sertraline did nothing at all for my anxiety or depression, just made me feel nothing (except that)).

But anyway here's the two Squishmallows I got on the way home because one was on sale and they're both frogs so I couldn't leave the big one behind (she's also cuter but I was planning to get one of the little ones... it's difficult because they only have 2 or 3 so like... he was the cutest!)

I've got an appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow to discuss switching to a different medication and I'm super nervous.

About the appointment itself - it feels stupid because I've been saying this medication is helping and now all of a sudden I'm like actually you know what, the side effects are ruining my life, so maybe not!

Which is silly because he's not even the one who initially prescribed it to me (he said he doesn't really prescribe it at all lol)

And also, I guess mainly, about stopping my current medication.... I'm on Paroxetine right now and I've read so many horror stories about discontinuing it 😭 starting was bad enough already (I remember I was dizzy and nauseous for the first two weeks), and I'm pretty sure I'll get the brain zaps again like I did when I stopped taking Sertraline before. 😭

I'm thinking he'll probably want me to switch to Fluoxetine because he's mentioned that before (he didn't think it was necessary to switch at the time because obviously I hadn't figured out that I'm having like allllll of the side effects), and it sounds... so much better??? I've been looking it up for an hour and I don't fucking understand how that other shitty psychiatrist gave me Paroxetine instead!

Buuuut every source (except one) that I've looked at says you need to slowly taper and then stop Paroxetine first before starting Fluoxetine, and I'm terrified of that. I don't know how I'll get through that... I'm finally used to not being anxious (and tbh also not having obsessive thoughts) literally ALL THE TIME, that'll really suck especially combined with the withdrawal symptoms :(

But oh well. We'll see how it goes. I just hope I'll be able to stick with it, I've only been on it for three years so hopefully I'll have better luck than some of the people whose experiences I've been reading about.... 😬😬😬

And I'm just looking forward to the appointment being over tbh (which - hey that's been a huge improvement! I've been low-key nervous about it for over a week, but I haven't cried or panicked or been completely unable to do anything because I'm so terrified! that's definitely nice.)