#ending the epidemic.

[morningmantra]

Navigating Life with HIV: A Journey of Resilience and Hope

Navigating Life with HIV: A Journey of Resilience and Hope

Understanding HIV and AIDS HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system, the body’s defense against infections. Over time, HIV can weaken the immune system to the point where it’s unable to fight off infections and diseases. This weakens the overall health and increases the risk of developing serious infections and illnesses. AIDS, or Acquired…

[aangular]

I kinda hate when people act like Aang is this naive kid who doesn’t know what’s going on or what he’s doing, especially at the beginning of the series.

For example, in “The Southern Air Temple, " he shows Sokka and Katara around, acting excited and playing around. Do you think that he doesn’t know what’s going on? Do you think that Aang, someone who grew up in that temple doesn’t know what is supposed to look like?

In his timeline, he had been gone for at most one week. Do you really believe that he would think it is normal that the place that was filled with people a few days ago is now completely empty Do you think that he would find it normal that the entire place is run down and poorly kept?

I’m just confused. Since episode one, the narrative has made it obvious that Aang has avoidant coping mechanisms, where he outright ignores what’s happening around him because he cannot deal with it. It’s an integral aspect of his character (since it’s the reason he ran away after finding out he was the avatar, which quite literally sets off the plot). I get it if people don’t necessarily like that aspect of his personality (wrong opinion, btw), but understanding that it’s there and how it affects how he interacts with the world is important to getting ATLA.

Yes, he did know what the being avatar meant to an extent, and he knew he had to learn the three elements, but the reason he didn’t go to the North Pole straight away was because he didn’t want to. He wanted to put it off for as long as possible, going on adventures and “eventually getting to the NP”.

There was literally a 2 part episode (The Winter Solstice) to tell us that Aang couldn’t just mess around that entire season because it introduced a time limit to defeat the Fire Lord. Ever since then, the gaang pretty much beelined for the NP, plus some detours, but that’s the magic of worldbuilding.

I would talk about his reluctance to learn waterbending from Pakku, but that’s a different post altogether.

Obviously, he didn’t understand what it was like growing up in the middle of a war (because he didn’t). Still, no one understood what losing their entire people and being the last of their kind was. And no one calls other characters naive or stupid for their constant insensitivity throughout the series…

The bottom line is that he knew; he always knew. It was just easier to pretend he didn’t.

[inkskinned]

everyone talks about the clothing store and honestly everyone is expected to wear stuff from that store and you're a little young and curious, and what's the harm of looking. it's in all the magazines and everyone knows okay some of the things are ugly but! like generally everyone thinks we should be wearing these clothes. they're elite. they're precious. they are a symbol of wealth and status.

you walk into the clothing store and see a very nice sweater and you've been wanting to stay warm so you pick up the sweater. it turns immediately into a horrible fizzing froth, rushing over your skin, faintly acidic. it's tacky, it leaves behind a residue. horrified and a little ashamed - did you do it wrong? - you reach out blindly and your hands find a shirt. that one dissolves too. you think of the phrase you break it, you bought it. how much money did you just accidentally spend on that shirt and that sweater, both things that you'll never be able to wear.

more confused than anything, you turn to the first person you see, but she's experiencing the same thing, her brows furrowed. "i've been here since i was 13," she says. "one of these days i'll actually get to try on something."

you were raised with horror movies, so you look for an escape instead of trying to stay. you go to the front desk and wait in the front line and when you finally get to the front, a very angry man is sitting there, scowling at you. "i think your store is broken," you say to him. "i can't pick up any of your clothes. they don't work."

it is as if you have said something vile. every person within earshot takes a step back from you. the man gives you a cool look. "these clothes are good for you," he says.

"no, i know that," you've read about them, "but i can't seem to actually hold them."

again, everyone seems to think you've said the wrong thing. some of them are holding shirts, so obviously some clothes work. those are the people you hear whispering first. lazy. someone murmurs. i managed fine, you hear. i just had to keep trying.

the man taps a sign next to him. in big bold print: not everyone can have this.

"okay, um. if you're not going to be helpful, i'm just going to... not buy this," you manage, feeling yourself flush with heat. why are you so embarrassed? their clothes are the thing that aren't working.

"i don't have time for people who don't dress themselves well," he says. "it's disgusting."

you don't know what else to say because actually you dress fine, you're pretty sure, you're just not in their clothes. you leave the store.

but your hands are still tacky from before. you find yourself weirdly sensitive about your clothes. maybe you should go back in, try again? there were people who were able to make the clothes stay present, you might have just been doing something weird.

plus there's the rest of the world. how people look at you in airports. how shame rushes over your cheeks during job interviews, worried you don't look "professional" enough. the people across you are all wearing those clothes, and you're not. in the doctor's office, the nurse's eyebrows skyrocket. are you sure you actually went into the store and tried on the clothes? you're staring at her - i'm here to see about my cough, not about my wardrobe.

but of course it fucking matters. when you google it, you find out that most people can only hold onto the clothes for about two years or so, and then they fizzle out too. that the clothes only "stick" for 5% of customers. it just means that any person in those clothes matters more. it's a scarcity. at first, you're horrified by the idea of something that almost never works. but you learn it soon enough: being in the 5% means you have taste, class, are exceptionally pretty.

you try to ask why exactly it's these clothes, but you usually are answered with an eye roll. you ask why the prices are so high. why nobody seems to care about the way their clothes leave that weird strange residue for years later. there's a sizing chart online you find, hoping it might explain your weird inability to lift anything. most of the news articles all read the same thing - this chart was made by someone cruel and definitely isn't accurate, but for some reason it is still used as our golden rule.

so you go again. you fall too. it's worth it to try. even kind of ironically. even kind of privately, shamefully. this time you go and manage to hold onto socks, but it means you sometimes get that strange residue on your floors. you get used to the tackiness after a while, but when you manage to hold onto pants, you discover the tackiness spreads. sure, it's irritating - this sense there's a barrier between everything you touch, even you and your friends - but it's worth it, because people notice you're in those pants. and you don't want to be one of the 95% who lose them after all this fucking work you put in, so you let the tack get all over everything until it dries down into a fine powder that coats your floor in a brick red flurry. when you walk, your footprints look bloody, so you just learn to step gently.

and since it worked for you once, like gambling - you will come back. you will teach others how to get into the store. you will tell your own children - oh, you just have to keep trying at the clothing store. you will let others treat you badly when you are not wearing the right things. you will spend all that money over and over and over again and you will feel ugly if you are not wearing their brand. you are simply treated better if you dress like this. you feel better if you dress like this, secretly winning over your friends who are between sizes. it doesn't matter how much time you spend at the store, missing birthday cakes and parties because you're trying to make a dress look nice before dissolving. what matters is that when it works, all that relief and joy and peace rushes in. when it works, people finally love you again.

the diet industry promises you - it'll all be okay, once you're thin.

[good-old-gossip]

With the arrival of summer heat waves, Gaza's overcrowded camps for displaced Palestinians face the growing risk of epidemic and disease, the Gaza Civil Defence Agency warned on April 25.

"The suffering of displaced people in the displacement camps in the southern governorates of Gaza seems to be increasing with the intensification of heat waves,'' the agency said in a statement.

It added that this situation "forewarns of the widening spread of epidemics and diseases among them, especially among children and pregnant women."

The statement called on the World Health Organization (WHO) ''to urgently take actions to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and find alternative places to tents amid severe heat waves in the coming days."

Gaza is experiencing a severe heat wave, with temperatures reaching around 37°C during daylight hours on Thursday.

[shinygemstone]

Lately I've noticed a trend online where everyone is Miserable and Lonely all the time and the younger people are the meaner they get for some reason. So I kind of want to get some info I guess

(also, before you click, context: dependent means that someone else is the primary source of your livelihood. This applies to minors and young adults who don't support themselves- like, if they go to college and work a few hours a week.

Independent applies to anyone else. If your partner is the primary source of your income, pop right here. If you work more than, say, 20 hours a week and either pay rent/own your home, hop over here. Also, yes, homemakers belong here

We'll say that "miserable" means that you feel that generally, your life sucks, and there's no imminent reprieve. "Lonely" is more obvious- you feel like you can't connect with people)

If you feel neither miserable nor lonely, feel free to share life tips for how you avoid those feelings in the notes.

[mlentertainment]

editing team i HEAR you reusing mice and murder music in the best possible ways and i am kissing you on the mouth about it

[sudaca-swag]

"women hating men" isnt a group problem, and will at most involve one individual woman not wanting to form a relationship of some sort with him because of a personal reason (like his values and how he treats other ppl or women), but men hating women is something that gets women murdered solely because we are women, and its a social problem based on a patriarchial system what isnt clicking about them not being equiparable?

[meowsticmarvels]

who else up thinking about the 3-4 month gap between ZTD's D-END 1/C-END and the reactors going off. it isn't rly elaborated on much but i think whatever happens there is very obviously extremely horrific and tragic the whole time. it makes me crazy to think about. there's probably timelines where sigma and phi and anyone else vital to the project didn't make it to april. more in tags. it is crazy and i need to know peoples thoughts

[caffeinatedopossum]

I love the book scythe because I also fantasize about having a world where I could just casually kill myself as stress relief

[lesbiancarat]

TWS : 1st Mini Album 'Sparkling Blue'

Track List

🫧 2024.01.22 6PM (KST)

🫧 2024.01.22 4AM (ET)

[untitledgoosegay]

i grew up with a bunch of folk CDs from people my parents either knew or went to concerts of

& at one point i was listening to one of them for the first time in a while, and i realized all at once that this song i'd known since i was a kid was about the AIDS memorial quilt

[theology101]

Something that I like to keep in the back of my head is that America is gonna have a HUGE population drop. And like, soon.

My mentor worked a lot in public health law and his wife worked for the CDC, so they both keep their fingers on the pulse of world health news. And right now, a new strain of Avian Flu had been making jumps cross species and across statelines - found in pigs and cows in Ohio, Michigan and New York.

If Avian flu becomes Humanized, and even a SMALL outbreak starts, millions of Americans will die.

COVID was 1-2% fatalities

Avian Flus average around 50.

COVID was directly transmissible, Avian Flu can survive after secondary and tertiary contact.

[bas-taard]

my youtube home page is just filled with ai "artist" news and even though most of them are of the "look at this fucking idiot" variety, it's still demoralising somehow

[maybebabyplease]

save us from the woman listening to tik toks OUT LOUD IN PUBLIC in the otherwise silent coffee shop where everyone else is working on their laptops

[starlooove]

The way "you are kenough" still praises men for the bare minimum

[cowgworl]

i hate seeing beautiful women with ugly men