#Pandemic mention tw

[antiquecritique]

|| Elena & Duncan ||

For Duncan, there had not been an issue of a shortage in a very, very long time - he had been on this earth for far too long to not plan way ahead and have a backup even for his backup. Very few things were of a major concern for an old undead creature aside from the one thing his entire unlife basically revolved around - blood. And that was something Duncan always made sure to have in a steady supply. So although with many donors available on a call, Duncan still made regular trips to the Greywood Hospital, for the blood packs supplied by a specialized department who took care that the residential vampires and even businesses catering to them were well supplied by clean, healthy blood to consume and on a regular basis too. It was the most legitimate way anyone in Greywood could get blood for consumption, as long as they were registered, able to be reached out to if needed and had proven that they were of a species in need of it with papers signed that they would not waste the precious donations for other purposes. 

So, in essence, Duncan had going on his weekly shopping to the hospital with, essentially, vampire food stamps to spend it on. He would’ve found it funny if humor were still working on him. Since it didn’t, he just found it very convenient. There was no need to hide, no need to hunt, no need to charm a human to give up what kept them alive without a fuss. Truly a golden age for vampires in this town, save for the black plague when availability, although grim and depressing, was much more abundant. 

There was another thing to look forward to - as much as an emotionless vampire could look forward to anything - on these weekly errands to the hospital. An acquaintance he’d made there, out of a nurse who works on the floor. To her, it would all seem like a very accidental story, how they first met and started chatting and how the vampire seemed very friendly and perhaps even pleasant to talk to while he was waiting for his request to be processed and her work was too slow and she had nothing better to do than to humor him. For Duncan, it was a way to keep an eye on the family. Not progenies or alike, but the real family, the mortal one that descended from the numerous branches Duncan was the ancestor of. By now, he knew her schedule and had picked times to come in when she would be around in her night shifts. He had no specific interest in her but instead in her son, who through Roman carried still the Creeds’ ancestral bloodline within the Baudelaire branch. 

So there Duncan was, in his usual old-fashioned best, occupying the same seat in the waiting room he always would as he waited for his name to be called, knowing that sooner or later Elena, the mother of a Baudelaire, would be passing down the hallway and maybe notice him and come up for a chat.

@elena-delacruz

[chronicallydragons]

I’ve decided the taste of paxlovid is the taste of 🔥🔥VIRUS DYING🔥🔥 which means THIS IS THE BLOOD OF MY ENEMIES UPON MY TONGUE AS THEY FALL BEFORE MY DEFENSES

(It's so yucky I have to romanticize it somehow)

[cepheusgalaxy]

Ok

Um

My... essay teacher just died?

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

ppl will go “i’d notice if society was going to sacrifice a marginalised group of people and if they said that it’s ok that a bunch of people would die then i would stand against it” and then they’ll hear people saying “well only disabled and vulnerable people will die of covid” and go “yes this is normal and ok and fine”

[inevitablemoment]

Samlan September Day 13 - Baking

Word Count: 213

Warnings: Brief mention of the pandemic

Fandom: Law & Order

Pairings: Nolan Price x Samantha Maroun

This is short, but sweet. Enjoy!

————————

Sam stirred awake on the couch as she heard her stomach rumble. She looked down at it in surprise before a sweet aroma wafted into the room, coming from the kitchen. She pushed the blanket off of her and walked towards the kitchen.

She saw Nolan at the counter, mixing something in one of the metal bowls that came with the stand mixer.

"Something smells good," she said.

Nolan looked up from the bowl. "Hey. Did you have a nice nap?"

"It was good," Sam told him, walking around the counter to join him. "But I'm getting a little hungry... what're you making?"

"Just some chocolate chip cookies," he answered. "There's another batch in the oven right now, but I thought I'd make some more."

He held the spatula up to her.

"Wanna try?"

She pinched a piece of the dough off of the spatula and dropped it in her mouth. She let out an almost orgasmic moan.

"Oh, God, that's so good!" she exclaimed.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yeah-- didn't know you liked to bake," Sam remarked.

"Yeah, it helped get me through the pandemic," Nolan told her. "And you had a pretty rough day, so I thought I'd make you a little treat."

Sam smiled. She really had the best boyfriend.

"Thanks."

[little-peril-stories]

Happy STS, Kate!

Writing about a world other than our own involves choosing some elements of our world to include and others to leave out. In your writing, do any such elements stand out, like a real topic you put in your fictional setting, or a significant everyday detail of our world which doesn’t exist there?

Did anything work its way in without your intent, e.g. sayings or traditions or units of measurement you didn’t consciously include, but noticed later on? If so, did you remove them or leave them in place?

- @verkja

Thanks so much, @verkja, for the ask! Happy STS!

Hmm. My main stories (TPOT, TQOL) on here take place in our world (just heavily fictionalized) and my Tumblr fantasy, TCC, doesn't have much of a developed world at all, so I guess I'll draw on my non-Tumblr novels to answer. :)

In that... well, I "accidentally" included a pandemic in the past. I say "accidentally" because at this point I've written this damn book so many times I don't remember when I added/decided on/changed things. All I know is that at one point, the character had a birthmark and then later it became a scar, and it was from an illness, not an injury, and the illness was widespread, and hell if I know whether I made that decision before or after COVID.

In terms of mundane things? Workplaces and educational institutions are pretty organized in my world, and very based on real ones. My main character has a job (in a workplace with very clear rules, expectations, hierarchy, and structure), which she got by attending what we might call a vocational school and which differs from the more "formal" or "academic" universities that are also present. So I borrowed those concepts from real life.

Sayings? I'm still battling with whether to include "okay" to this day. And I had to consciously monitor which curses I was using - were they too reminiscent of our world? I meant to invent some original curses and. uh. forgot. [just checked the manuscript and apparently I used 'damn' seven times but nothing else.]

I included "miles," which is funny because I'm Canadian and don't understand miles at all, but I also don't think the metric system really works in a fantasy setting. 😂 I only used "inch" as a verb.

If I included anything unconsciously, I haven't become conscious of it yet. 😁

[flirts-with-dragons]

Not a professional but the crazy thing about ptsd is that you can be going through multiple ptsd's at the same time in different severities, complexities, and stages. Like for example I've got cptsd from my childhood abuse, cptsd from being bullied throughout school life, and at the same time, I've got regular ptsd from the mental hospital. I've also got another regular ptsd from cyberbullying. And the ptsd from the beginning of the pandemic! They're all at different recovery stages, they're all at different severities, and there's the differentiation between the forms of ptsd or cptsd.

I know some psychology student is gonna look at this and scoff, but I'm going through this and I know so many other people are. So many of us being poisoned by our own cortisol. Damn!

[feralboo-the-weirdo]

oh how I long for someone, anyone, to confide in.

I forgot how lonely I was until I sat in my room in the dark, alone, wishing there was a shoulder to cry on beyond my own.

[kudos-si-do]

move along (or you might as well be dead)

they tell me: sooner or later, life is going to look like it did before. i don't think that's true. when i was ten, my dad promised me that we'd come back to a place that came to mean more to me than anywhere else in the world. he died before we had the chance. sometimes i look at the pictures, at the curves of roller coasters gleaming above lake erie, and i wonder if he knew that his cancer would kill him.

it's been a long road. the chemo they used to save me — to poison me just enough to only almost kill me — almost killed me again, more than a year after remission. neuropathy, they said. common with chemotherapy. especially common with how much you were treated with.

it doesn't matter, what they say now. i hit the ground headfirst from somewhere around eight feet up. i don't remember it. you're getting better, they say, but then they take another look at me and i'm placed back into the prison i've only ever been paroled out of for a few scant days, a few golden hours.

there's blue ice cream on my tongue. they don't sell this specific kind here. i laugh as i say it's a gel or a liquid, banned on airplanes. freedom, taken back. blue, blue, blue.

you tell me that my family isn't normal. i've been told all my life that every family is its own kind of mess, that my family wasn't any messier than anyone else's. that maybe we were lucky, getting the family we had. i believe only part of it now, but before you, i believed it completely. yes, it's true that humans are messy. we get our messes everywhere. but it isn't so normal for someone to throw away your possessions and laugh while you sob, scoff as you dig through the dumpster for pieces of your childhood you can never get back. or is it normal? am i making everything about myself again? am i being dramatic? i've been told that all my life — i'm too dramatic. i walk on three broken bones and i don't complain.

your family isn't normal either. someday i'll send hockey postcards to your father without an ounce of guilt. someday i'll look another member of your family in the eye and disagree, even though i was supposed to be agreeable, even though i promised i wouldn't do anything to make your life harder. smile, smile, smile, i told myself. be at your best. don't let your cracks show through.

my dad was supposed to teach me to drive, to threaten my significant others, to walk me down the aisle. all my friend was supposed to do was grow up. she'd be an adult now. her birthday was last month. the sixteenth anniversary of her death was a less than three weeks ago. she's dead, frozen in time as a kid with a feeding tube up her nose and a bucket hat on her head, always pink or purple. i remember thinking that she was the bravest person i'd ever known. my dad was brave, too. does bravery always beget bravery?

i'm going to die. one day, if not today. if not tomorrow. if not next week, next month, next year. i'm trapped in the same few hundred square feet as i'm always trapped in. you're late by an hour to pick me up from the airport. i think i should be annoyed about it, but i only shake my head. i wonder what adventure your adhd has taken you on. when i hug you, there's relief in the action. i'm tired. my head is spinning. i'm not quite there, not quite right, but i want to be. i'm a little bit trapped in my mind, i think. am i being dramatic? later, i'll hit my head lightly on a support column in the barn while you're trying to teach me to dance. it will bruise, just barely, but enough to betray me. i'll have bad migraines for days, and i'll be too scared to talk about it. i find the fucked up basement we joked about and i make sure you see it.

i don't touch people much. most days, i don't like to be touched. i remember that my dad's hugs felt like the safest place on earth. i wonder if there's anything left of him below the ground, eighteen years later, or if it's all just bone. i've lived much longer without him than with him. i try to project safety through my arms and hope that's enough. or at least something. anything. i can touch people i'm comfortable with, most of the time. every time i thought you looked sad, i did my best. i swung my arm around your shoulders. shook your arm. made a face. i hope it made a difference. i know it was hard, being where you were, doing what you did. i hope you knew that i was proud of you.

i'm scared, but i'm not allowed to be. i fight with my brain, frustration growing. i watch your family with suspicion, with disapproval that they might or might not have earned. i try to be friendly, project myself in a way that makes me enjoyable to the people around me. i'm not that person, not really, not always. one of my friends says i'm much different in person than i am otherwise. is that true? who am i, really? am i someone who can be seen, whose flaws can be pushed away enough to only show the light? when i looked at them, who did they see looking back?

it was odd, hearing my name with a different sound to it. everyone used the same pronouns, but not the ones i'm used to hearing. it's funny, i think. gender means nothing to me, but at home, i hear a different set of pronouns. sometimes i wonder what it would be like, but i don't dwell. it wouldn't be dangerous, i don't think, not in the way a lot of queer folk are in danger, but it would bring more harshness and hardness to my life than i think i can currently bear. i wonder if you think that i'm a coward. am i a coward?

i'm in bed again. you were supposed to be here this week. i watch the plans sift out of my hands like sand. the pressure in my chest is enormous. it hurts to breathe, sometimes. my head is tangled up. they think i'm having seizures. i'm spending more time inside the hospital than i have in a long time. it curls in my chest like fire against bare skin, but i have to bear it. you're lucky, they tell me. it can always be worse. can't it?

i was raised by a religious mother and a non-religious father. once he was gone, there was nothing left to protect me from it. i spent years entrenched in it. i remember one of my teachers bragging that they didn't take money from the government so that they weren't beholden to their requirements. they didn't have to hire the gays, she said. i remember how one of my bible instructors told me to keep my mouth shut. i had too many questions. i ruined too much. the only time i blatantly cheated, it was on a test to name the chapters of the bible. i was caught and suspended. the teacher looked at me like i was scum the rest of my time at that school. am i fake, made of plastic and metal? am i real, flesh and bone and sinew? pulling out of that hate has taken a decade, and i'm still not done.

i stand amongst the protesters, those early months of the pandemic. i wonder, even then, if it will make a difference. years later, my cousin hangs a wooden flag with a blue stripe above her door. i burn underneath my skin. i say nothing.

i found the churro ice cream in the freezer section with a "new!" label around the plastic tamper shield. i bought both of the pints that they had and put them in the freezer. i got a pint of half baked, too. i prefer phish food, myself. i look up the closest scoop store and wonder what it would take to get there. i don't touch any of the pints.

i'm not allowed to drive. my car sits, unused. i rankle as i pace the same endless walls. i trip on nothing. i sit back down, mutinous. i haven't been kind to the breaks in my pelvis and femur. they twinge from the cold, or from overuse, or from both. i remember walking around the oncology floor years ago, spurred by the sheer amount of steroids i was on to offset the effects of the difficult rounds of chemo. there was no leaving, nothing but the same floor and the same walls and the same enlarged pictures of flowers. i got paranoid enough to think that they were watching me. in some ways, i think they're still watching me.

there aren't any flowers in my room. i don't like to see them, outside of in nature, but sometimes i understand the desire to receive flowers. i've never been given them. i've never considered myself as particularly desirable. i've dated, and the relationships have ended in failure. but i loved them, once. i still love them, in a way. i'm not sure if there's a wrong way to love, so long as you're loving in good faith. i wonder if i'm lying to myself about love, if i even have the capacity to love. i wonder if i'm lying to myself about any good traits i think i might have more often than i care to admit. i'm not a good person, i think. i try, scrape and scrabble my way up mountains, but it never feels like enough.

i forgive you for not braiding my hair.

but you knew that, didn't you?

[longlegsnamjoon420]

Stress is literally the only thing that makes me lose weight I literally stopped doing everything “healthy” and I’m finally. Losing weight lmfao I can’t

[winterstaryu]

Both of my paternal grandparents have Covid. They're over eighty and I'm. All I can think about is watching another person in my family die. Just everything happening all over again. Fuck. What the fuck.

[tornblackedgcs]

I...might be spamming some ask boxes or something tonight. It was...is, the day I was supposed to be in Bermuda for my dad's service, but I just couldn't swing going out there for it because money So I'm in a weird head space and would rather distract myself you know?

[fishmonarchy]

So I probably developed IBS from the last time I got Covid. Never mind that I have gotten 5 shots. Never mind that I always wear a mask and only go out when I must.

Anyway, I haven’t been eating much to avoid going to the bathroom ‘cuz every-time I do I have to go. I finally got to see the gastroenterologist and the pills they gave me seemed to be working. I got over confident and ate a normal amount. Breakfast, snack, lunch. Every two hours. Portions too. Almost didn’t make it to the bathroom. The meds are supposed to make it so I don’t go so much?!!!

Anyways, again. Please stay safe because although it’s a 98.2% recovery rate, it’s gonna mess one organ up or another. I got gut. Someone might get lungs or brain or maybe even constant fatigue. Hear about hair loss and mind fog too.

In the US post Covid symptoms could be considered a disability recognized by the ADA. So also be aware of your rights.

[faceglitchsworld]

🖤

[izzydrawsforfun]

What do you think of Jair Balsonaro?

I know this is an art account, but there are times where I gotta be serious here. I can't pretend to ignore what happens in my country, and I gotta be the voice of my people to my followers who are from other countries.

Content Warning for Political Discussions, Pandemic mention, and general hate speech mention:

That being said... Bolsonaro is, in my honest and humble opinion, a tumor in society. Not only one of the worst presidents Brazil ever had in matters of economy... But his wave of hatred left a undeniable scar in brazilian society. He was ellected by fear, prejudice, hate speech. He was supported and fed by the masses and the elite members that were tired of seeing the working class, lower classes and beyond being able to buy houses, cars, to attend universities that only their lil rich children were attending.

He was ellected on fake news about gender ideology, communist threats, and turned politics into a holy war. He made his followers believe that he was a messenger of God and Jesus themselves and everyone who was against them, was the Enemy and should be purged. He was completely reckless during the Pandemic, we had over 650.000 people who lost their lives to the virus because he refused to buy vaccines and mocked people who were hospitalized with the virus.

And just yesterday? His followers attempted our very own version of the Capitol invasions. All because they were salty that their little genocidal president was no longer in power. All because President Lula was approving laws to defend and protect the people, the environment, the POC, indigenous, LGBTQ+, working people. They stole and destroyed many of our nation's itens and art pieces, one of the copies of our Constitution...

While Bolsonaro himself is now in Florida, pretending to be sick at the Hospital because he doesn't want to come back to Brazil to be tried for his crimes. Not to mention his sons, who are the biggest suspects of the political murder of Ms. Marielle Franco. (Please look up her story. Marielle's memory is too important for the brazilian favela and the POC youth she was seeking to protect).

Bolsonaro is a coward. A joke in a presidential suit. A tumor that forever left a wave of pure hate on our nation, who destroyed our beloved Amazonia. I sincerely hope he faces trial and prison for what he did. And he sure is lucky that Brazil doesn't have death penalties. Because what he did can be very easily considered a betrayal against our nation. And I know very well how places like the US treat their traitors.

Overall... I'm just glad this Monster is no longer our president. And I am happy to see the whole world siding with our Democracy.

[cannibalsamruby]

I've just realized that my anxiety (especially at night time, like rn) was always bad, but since the pandemic started, that's when it's become worse. I know I talk about my anxiety a lot on my blog, I sincerely hope that it doesn't bother anyone, but with that being said, this blog is a source of comfort for me.

Covid has gone through my house once so far (here's hoping it doesn't sweep through it again) and that's increased my anxiety. I feel like I'm lucky that I didn't develop long Covid, but another case of it combined with my asthma, could worsen my already shitty physical health.

Maybe the pandemic wasn't the biggest contributor to my worsening anxiety, maybe it's my genetics (one of my grandparents had diagnosed anxiety), maybe it was the unstable environment I grew up in, idk. Whatever the biggest contributors are, I'm sure my doctor can help