#Self Quarantine

[titles-for-tangents]

I find that one of the most upsetting, broadly insulting parts about this is that the CDC announced this four years to the day after the first COVID-19 case was announced in NYC (x). At the time, our authorities were doing their part to tell the public not to panic and to let that patient stay isolated. But while they were fully aware that NYC is a massive hub of human bodies and millions commute in and out of it every day, they were also saying at the time that the risk of COVID-19 becoming a public health threat in NYC was low. Famous last words, much? We had no idea how contagious it would be.

While it’s stunning to see how far we’ve come since then - what with the rapid production of vaccines and protective face masks and hand sanitizer, the focus on hand-washing for 20 seconds for everybody, etc., it’s also hubris on a flabbergasting level to drop all federal rules about isolation. Yes, we have gotten much better at treating it and yes, the virus isn’t killing people on the scale it used to, but it’s still killing half a 9/11 a week in the country and it’s only gotten better at evading our immune systems. We are still in a pandemic. The virus has left millions of Americans with lifelong disabilities and it will continue to disable more. The fact that the CDC tells us the virus is now in an endemic state and it’s just something we’re all just going to have to live with is not only insulting, it’s infuriating. And oh btw, no more quarantining isolating; just play it by ear and get back to work as fast as you can to support an economy that won’t support you - just to add icing on the cake.

Like the disabled communities have been decrying for years, we have been abandoned by our government and left to the wind to fend for ourselves. It was already mortifying to see the CDC’s tweets get hacked on Twitter during the worst of the pandemic and then see whoever was supposed to be running their account scramble back to a semblance of normalcy. It has been disheartening ever since to see them actively erode the trust and faith that the public should be able to have in them.

We badly fought a war against a virus and very badly lost. The CDC removing all notion of quarantining is not only outright denial the virus is still dangerous, it’s proof that they don’t care, or no longer want to. (It’s also cowardice and giving up in the face of knowing some people are just not going to heed their advice at all.) Vigilance is exhausting, but Long COVID is debilitating, and regular COVID can still kill you. I don’t want to be in a pandemic; I want the politicians I helped to vote in to take care of us and the pillars of our society to be regularly maintained, not collapse at a moment’s notice after years of neglect and being left to wither and crumble. Our faith in our federal-level healthcare officials should not be so easily blown away like the seeds off of a dandelion in the summertime.

I don’t have a concrete answer for action. What am I supposed to do, vote harder? Run for office myself? At best perhaps I could unionize my workplace. My state already created a law that forces workplaces to allow employees to accrue sick time, but at my job it’s so agonizingly slow to accrue even one day’s worth. Should I write an angry letter? What would writing an angry letter do? Perhaps I think in too polite terms and limit my imagination. I don’t wish to make like the French and storm the bastille if I don’t have to and I am definitely not qualified to run for office. But these systems are arbitrary and can be changed, and doing nothing is not going to stop this. I want those precautionary 14 days of quarantine back and stimulus checks to help me live my life God forbid I lose all ability to work (not to mention we should all be receiving them and universal health care by default anyway, regardless of employment). I also really liked it when New York mandated that employers couldn’t retaliate on employees for going to get their COVID-19 vaccines. Public health is a public concern, what a concept, and I would sure like to see the CDC and our government in general fucking act like it.

I have nothing but bad news for y'all

We were supposed to have until April to leave comments, but the cdc has officially ended the 5 day isolation period as of today, March 1st, 2024.

They're saying as long as it's been 24hrs and your symptoms are improving, you're good.

Nothing about covid has changed. Medical professionals are obviously slamming this decision. All this does is make it even more difficult to avoid long covid, because now workers will have to fight for sick days and time off they already barely have just to fucking heal from an organ damaging virus.

Idk what to say for this one.

[m1d-45]

bloodletting

summary: a budding god needs a place to test their new powers, and childe was always a little too eager to lose a fight... a match made in heaven!

word count: 1.7k

-> warnings : minor AQ spoilers ? just like, general gi plot.. fairly graphic depiction of blood + other injuries (might be classed as body horror???). generally obsessive tendencies (childe <--> you). i cannot stress this enough, reader is 110% a sadist.

-> gn reader (you/yours)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @ryuryuryuyurboat || @undrxtxd || @rainswept || @wanderersqt || @rozz-eokkk

< masterlist >

power was not something that came easy. it was fought over, stolen, defended with teeth and claw, tides of blood shed just so one could have power over another. social, physical, financial; no matter the leverage it provided, power was hard won. to give someone power was to admit defeat, a certain death that tartaglia had learned and taught more than his fair share of times. nobody undeserving of power ever held onto it for long; it was an acknowledgement that you were better, that you deserved it, that you’d won. power was a fickle resource that childe would kill to keep, only ever laying down his blade for a precious few.

the tsaritsa, of course. his fellow harbingers, skilled both on and off-field, who themselves could rival the archons. his family, for whom he’d happily give the world.

and naturally, who would be more worthy to hold power than you?

you, not just a god but the, the highest authority across all of teyvat. you bore a hundred names and a thousand monikers, your worship the one thing the world could agree on. granted, nobody could quite agree on how, but that was fine. childe did not need external powers to tell him what to do. he knew, in his deepest heart, that he had gotten it right.

he knew—and, on occasion, flaunted—that he was your favorite. of all the vessels you had chosen, you returned to him time and time again, wishing on his stars until his vision gleamed. his bow shone with power, even his weakest weapon more than enough to push his strength to new heights. part of him wondered what he could do if you’d granted him swords, or a claymore… but that was speculation for another time. didn’t it say something that you had still chosen him at his weakest?

the thought always made him smile. thick in the heat of puppeteered battle, before the sun to after dark, your presence was a constant in his life. at every altar, with every offering, when his hands stung from the rash of leather and his blade was covered in rust, your name a prayer behind blood-soaked teeth. he could not remember a time when his pocket was not weighted with a charm.

his devotion was no secret. he wore your bow with pride, entirely phasing out his other weapons. it didn’t matter that he was technically more controlled with them, for you had chosen this path for him. your word was his guide, a polar star through bitter nights.

he did not doubt when your presence ebbed or flowed. who was he to dictate when or where you spent your attention? no, his faith did not waver. it had no reason to. he waited patiently, going about his regular duties, lingering in snezhnaya for no other reason that he just felt like he had to.

who was he to question to buzzing in the back of his head? who was he to decline when he felt an instinct to leave, to go for a trip far past the city gates? who was he to think himself better than the guiding light that had never led him astray?

for you, he was whatever you needed. and so he went, armed with a thick coat and snowboots, hands shoved deep in the pockets to hide the slight shake. down the main road, an arbitrary turn into an alley and down an abandoned path, into a part of the city he’d never traveled. but a golden thread had tied itself around his heart, pulling without hesitation. he easily hopped over the fence gate, not bothering with hauling it open through the snow. the path beyond was covered in a thick layer of powder, his foot crunching through a foot of it before hitting solid ground. still, he continued.

snezhnayan winters were not warm. they bit and dug into every gap in your clothes, stealing away the precious warmth within. and yet, with his half-done coat and incomplete guard, he was not cold. or, rather, he couldn’t feel it. his hands were pink with frost, stiff at the knuckles, but he couldn’t feel the resistance. his body was not important, not now.

the snow began to thin. it fell from his knees to his shins to his ankles to his toes, until he was face to face with a thick wall of bramble, impossibly overgrown. he was beginning to overheat in his jacket. twin blades made quick work of the wall, and the sight behind it easily dispelled any breath left in his lungs.

the air that washed out of the bubble was thick and heavy, like a humid spring instead of snezhnayan woods. his breath came in short gasps, a shameful wheeze that he hoped was missed beneath the howling snow. he didn’t want you to see him as weak, as someone so easily tired by a short trip to a falling star; he didn’t want you to think of him as anything other than his best.

but you didn’t push him away. you helped him up—his head was buzzing with delusion, he could hardly see, when had he fallen to his knees?—and brushed the snow off his hair, not pushing him away when he leaned into your touch. he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could barely collect himself enough to recognize that he needed to get you inside, away from the wilds.

that was power. to so effortlessly take over every thought in his head, to hold his mind in your hands and pull it into your liking, that was the power he adored you for. gods were figureheads of power, a physical incarnation of their dominion. a god of the entire world would only naturally have power to manipulate that world to their liking. how blessed was he, that he could be the first you made yours.

he was with you when you first stepped into zapolyarny palace, looking around at the chandeliers and fine tile. he opened the door for you to her majesty’s throne room, sucking in a sharp breath as you brushed by. he was by your side when the tsaritsa swore you her fealty, delicately placing the gnoses in your hands.

and oh, how he’d fallen to the floor right then and there, dizzy from the wash of power that rolled off you in waves, an ocean that he willingly dove into. the floor was cool beneath his forehead, his hair sticking to his skin as sweat quickly began to bead. he didn’t bother pushing himself up on his hands, teeth sinking deep into his lip again to control his panting breath. copper bloomed over his tongue, filling his mouth and clogging what remained of his senses.

dimly, he was aware that he was being pathetic, that this would surely change your mind about him. he heard your voice, faint through the fog of his mind, your wisdom lost to his own inadequacy. and yet, despite his weakness, every part of him was tuned into you. he knew it was your hand whispering across his shoulders, he knew it was your influence that stole the breath from his lungs. he knew it was you, because it was always you. you were all he could think of, and now you were finally able to leverage your full power over his self.

he’d woken up in a hospital bed. saline dripped into his arm and the lights pierced his eyes, his head full of snow and iced over. and yet, the moment he was cleared for release, he found himself desperate to be back to your side, racing through the tiled halls of the palace and following the urgent burn in his chest. you would have been right to turn him away, to deem him too weak to stay by your side, but you didn’t. you smiled when he lost his breath and laughed when he wavered, brushing off his concern. you invited him with you—his lungs burned with the need for oxygen—as you twirled the gnoses between your fingers, as if they were toys or paperweights rather than objects of divine power.

divine to him. child’s play to you. a courtyard of snow was cleared in an instant, ripples of pyro melting permafrost while keeping the flora beneath intact, a lazy show of power that pulled little more than a slight hum from you in response.

he wasn’t so much a fool as to think he could teach you everything, or even something, about being divine. and yet he clung to your side like a sailor in a storm, watching as you grew familiar with the elements. he watched, stubborn and weak, as you stopped hesitating.

flowers bloomed as you walked by, crumbling to ash with the slightest look. electro jumped from your skin to his, a painful spark that drew his mind from his head, finally seeing your amused eyes instead of just mindlessly staring. you could—should—have just left him behind, but you didn’t. you instead asked for his help, taking his hand in yours and leading him to a quieter hallway of the palace. you didn’t comment on his thundering pulse despite the fact that you could certainly feel it, tracing a finger along the crease of his palm.

“i wonder…”

a claw of geo cut across his skin, a sharp sting that quickly welled with blood. he barely felt it, watching with detached awe as it filled up his hand, sliding over the edge and dripping to the floor. you didn’t show any emotion, just… watching. his heart beat in his hands, a pool collecting on the floor, and still, you just watched. your other hand moved over the surface, barely an inch away, the blood collecting in a bubble beneath it. with a hum, your fist tightened, pain lighting up his arm. a strained grunt slipped between his teeth, hand flinching closed, brushing against the ball of his blood you had pulled from his veins. his hand was stained red, shaking in your grasp, minutes stretched into hours.

all at once, it dropped, forced back into his body as forcefully as it was removed. with a snap, the skin stitched itself shut, and you were again dragging him along like a child did their favorite toy.

you did that a lot. pull him aside and experiment with whatever new reaction you had discovered that month, week, day, hour, watching his reactions with unabashed delight. and he let you. every time, without fail, he eagerly followed, knowing full well he’d end up rigid with lightning or with ice crystals studding his throat. it was worth it, though. you always fixed him up, squeezing his hand with a whispered ‘good job’ that never failed to make him dizzy.

it didn’t matter what you did to him. it never did. even when his mind was hazy with pain and he couldn’t quite stand on his own, he never regretted it. unconsciousness licked at the edges of his vision, burning black stains that lingered even after you stopped, but he never once hesitated.

if you asked him to jump, he’d ask how high. if you felt like holding him underwater, he’d cherish every bruise. to be kept as a toy was still to be kept.

[fleetn-crab85]

hello again everyone! I just want to thank everyone who interacted with the last post about the LEGO Newsies! I genuinely wasn't expecting it to take off like that! A lot of you asked for more, so this is a side by side between the actual Seize The Day dance break and our LEGO version. I hope you all enjoy!

ALSO: I'm going to be using the tag #lego newsies for any more posts about it!

Feel free to leave a comment or reblog with what you'd like to see next!

[odinsblog]

The fucking CDC went from, “please quarantine and self-isolate for 10 days,” to “back to normal back to work now self-isolate for only 5 days,” to “stay your mf ass at work even if you do have Covid, none of that self-isolation bs”

Idgaf what the cdc says you better stay your mf ass home

[snailfen]

hey hlvrv community (5 people) how long has it. Been for me...... 2 years??????? Take this thing that i dont think i ever posted while i finish rereading and also redrawing something

[ashton-ryder]

// ext. rooftop garden - afternoon. 24th march. @beauclary

Everything still hurts to be honest, but Ashton has the urge for fresh air and sunshine, always needing it after his quarantine and this was no different, even more so than his usual ones. Company was nice but exhausting with 3 other people, while he rather had just quarantined in his own apartment, he wasn't making those calls here. He had spent enough time alone that morning, recharging enough for him to agree when Beau invited him up to the rooftop, probably excited to show the garden he's been working on.

Ash with only one good hand for now had little to offer unfortunately, not even a race up to the top was possible this time. So he simply picked up a watering can, "thanks for taking care of everything up here these past 2 days." Ash had to mention before it slipped his weary mind, words lacking much energy but he did is best to at least pair it with a smile, Beau deserved that much. "What were some of the new things you had in mind?"

[donnieisaprettyboy]

I didn’t expect to re-experience the feeling of absolute and utter loneliness from 2020 quarantine when getting covid for the first time in 2024 but thinking about it now it makes sense and also I’m so unbelievably lonely and sad oh my god did the 2020 quarantine really fuck with me this hard and I just never comprehended it until right now

[songpasserine]

today I was chilling vodka in my freezer to depression-drink alone, and then I remembered I can just leave! I drove straight for the woods, with a picnic blanket and snacks and poetry and a narnia coloring book. and it didn’t make the sadness go away entirely but it reminded me how much I like myself, how much I love the world. there’s no moral to this story but I hope you get the chance to read a good poem or eat your favorite candy or find some beautiful flowers or see a funny raccoon this week. I hope we all get to live in peace and grow up together

[sweetiepie08]

Glass Onion post credit scene where Benoit tests positive for Covid while Philip wears a mask and gives him a disapproving stare.

[wronghands1]

[merdet]

In 2020, I had a lot time to contemplate some things and I got my first binder. It felt nice so I made some doodles of myself.

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

FITZ!!!!!!!! Such a tense scene and suddenly he comes out with shit like this and I can't help but burst out laughing

[cicicolorao]

Hello. Sorry for not posting much. Kinda going crazy about funny assassin frog and don’t draw anything good anymore lmfao

[wen-kexing-apologist]

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE

I have no notes for Episode 9, it was just 50 minutes of loving Uea and that is ALL I WANT!

We did the plot shit, it was wonderful. But Episode 9 is about having Happy! Uea! Happy Uea for more than 5 minutes!!! WE DID IT FOLKS!

If I hear a single complaint about this episode I will crush you like a little bug, Episode 9 and 10 is not about the plot, it's not about being a masterpiece, it is about giving Uea peace. Fluff, give me the fluff, fluffy, fluffy fluff fluff.

UEA HAS A MOM NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

[spaciebabie]

top 10 finals that make you want 2 shit glue out your ass

[deus-ex-mona]

‼️reset the counter‼️ it has been ✨0✨ days since the last chizuutan content drop‼️