#more than just tired

[arvencacklethorn]

I've had debilitating symptoms for what appears to be (trying to test for/prove it has been it's own kind of hell) me/cfs for at least.. oh gawd.. the past decade, maybe even since I was ill one particular time as a child. I'm 25 now.. no proper diagnosis, and it's tricky enough to even have a doctor consider the possibility because I'm "so young."

Last January I got covid.. all my previous fatigue symptoms got (and stayed) worse, plus some new *features* like extra breathing difficulties at all times, especially if I laugh/talk a decent bit, or have otherwise existed that day. I hadn't realized I had covid til the respiratory issues it caused hit me like a truck delivering bricks- I had figured it was just a really bad fatigue flareup til then, with the awful body aches, fever, chills, muscle weakness so bad that I couldn't lift my blankets or move my head without pain and pressure like my head could explode. I thought I'd just REALLY overdone it by a small family visit in cold weather... bcs that's kinda how my body does things if I "overdo," like going for a long walk, or staying awake too long, being out in the cold at all, standing up/still too long, or exercising more than the tiniest bit. I just expect a day-week of misery after doing a complete action of any strenuous degree.

Doc's solution to my, and I cannot emphasize this enough, *severely debilitating* post exertional symptoms? "Graded exercise therapy," and I tried to do that for a time, until yet again my symptoms got permanently a bit worse.

I'd given up on clear diagnosis for the most part, docs wanted to test for everything else under the sun first, the expense and pain that all brought.. all for something I've been so often told there's no treatment for. It just doesn't seem worth it- so I've just been trying my best to manage and keep careful of certain limits.

If there are *finally* ways to definitively and effectively detect illnesses like me/cfs and long covid, and *finally* some kind of treatment to actually improve symptoms.. maybe it'll be worth it to try that path again.

Full Transcript at the link; 3-minute listen.

Quote:

By taking biopsies from long COVID patients before and after exercising, scientists in the Netherlands constructed a startling picture of widespread abnormalities in muscle tissue that may explain this severe reaction to physical activity.

Among the most striking findings were clear signs that the cellular power plants, the mitochondria, are compromised and the tissue starved for energy.

"We saw this immediately and it's very profound," says Braeden Charlton, one of the study's authors at Vrije University in Amsterdam.

The tissue samples from long COVID patients also revealed severe muscle damage, a disturbed immune response, and a buildup of microclots.

"This is a very real disease," says Charlton. "We see this at basically every parameter that we measure."

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.

[flagellant]

yeah we might be brothers in christ but so were cain and abel so shut the fuck up before i decide to find a rock about it

[joshuamj]

Hero.

[grey-viridian]

Twins Angst My Beloved

[mumblesplash]

in honor of last season’s poem being called “”end poem”” (all quotes mandatory) this season i made one out of pieces of the actual end poem

[kaiserouo]

(1999 spoiler)

why are you two fighting you are both excaliburs

[apostaterevolutionary]

Okay can I be a bitter Anders fan for like. Just 2 minutes here lmao

Cause bioware released some game stats for veilguard and apparently 72% of players redeemed Solas which is like. Okay yeah the game kinda pushes you towards that. But when I think of all the shit I used to have to put up with just for enjoying Anders like at all and…

(This is not me being anti-Solas, I do not care if you love or hate him, but I am gonna say what he’s done is like. Objectively worse than literally every other companion so lmao. And that’s fine! You can still enjoy him! I’m not saying you can’t and it’s important to me that people understand that! I’m just saying he did in fact do objectively morally worse things in game than Anders did and I don’t think that’s really debatable. And I can’t really make my point here without saying that but I do want to make it clear this is not some moral condemnation of Solas enjoyers cause it’s not)

Getting anon hate on the regular, being told “oh you’re allowed to like Anders as long as you regularly talk about how much he sucks”, people gleefully describing how much fun they have killing him ON your posts about the fact that you like him, the devs making jokes about shitty fates for him when fans asked innocent questions about him, the absolute audacity of his writer to say half the shit she did in interviews (about bisexuality and mental illness, most critically), and then being beaten over the head again in inquisition about how Anders is the worst character to ever exist and there’s no redemption for terrorists who lie to you one time in the entire game and he deserves death or worse and that’s it

And now… 72% of people are down to redeem the guy who lies to you for 2 games straight and who did a lot of questionable things that includes creating the fucking blight and. Like. I guess I’m glad that Solas fans can live in a world where they aren’t constantly harassed and can give their ship like. A pretty damn good ending all things considered. And that the devs love Solas and actually give the option for that happy ending and have characters go to bat for Solas throughout the game and the most annoying thing they have to see are people making scrambled egg memes. I would not wish anyone to have to deal with the shit Anders fans had to put up with back then cause it sucked. It really sucked. And I’m glad it’s not being repeated with a different character, if nothing else

But like. Man there really is a difference when the writers actually like the character who does the thing, huh

[luciasatalina]

Davrin best mate

[thevioletcaptain]

i genuinely don't care how good a piece of ai generated art or writing looks on the surface. i don't care if it emulates brush strokes and metaphor in a way indistinguishable from those created by a person.

it is not the product of thoughtful creation. it offers no insights into the creator's life or viewpoint. it has no connection to a moment in time or a place or an attitude. it has no perspective. it has no value.

it's empty, it's hollow, and it exists only to generate clicks (and by extension, ad revenue.)

it's just another revolting symptom of the disease that is late stage capitalism, and it fucking sucks.

[uwuinhell]

When your identity issues collide with your feelings of being unwanted ;p

Oops! Loops angst /personal vent!

Only doodle cuz. eepy.

[bloobydabloob]

Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.

Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.

But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. I’m not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I don’t have much to add regarding the things you’ve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.

The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirk’s apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.

It doesn’t even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. It’s just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. There’s not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, I’m surprised I don’t see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.

Roxy & Dirk’s relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe it’s important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasn’t right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.

I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say “most interesting” interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.

I would be interested to hear about Dirk’s relation to his brother’s theme of time though. I don’t have any thoughts on this and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me I’d be thrilled.

[boar-cry]

somewhere, beneath the fog, you know someone is waiting for you. (you have to keep going.)

so take a breath. rest for a bit. but you must continue.

[pseudophan]

dan helping phil down from a tv at the end of the show in warsaw

[donutfloats]

Gabriel’s flock is the closest you’re gonna get to a cult that actually isn’t a cult due to their mostly pacifistic ways

This does cause problems however when dissenters or spies start causing problems

Gabriel is a little backwards with how they deal with people like this, as they simply just kick them out instead of forcing them to to change their ways

Granted if they cause actual problems, like stealing, damage to property, or hurting others: they will get sent to jail

For the most part it’s these individuals choice if they want to stay, Gabriel isn’t forcing them

Doesn’t mean Gabriel can’t get frustrated tho and contemplate “what if I just said fuck it and murdered these people”

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Laios's three Boy Best Friends. And yes, they hate him.