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#read more link never works

boyfridged · 7 months

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this is only vaguely related to my last ask but it got me thinking again how much i don't like the type of scrutiny that some people engage with when it comes to headcanons. don't get me wrong, there is plenty of headcanons that i despite when they appear in a particular context because they clearly come from a place of total ignorance and sometimes even borderline malice; and there are ways of writing about characters that are very obviously rooted in reactionary attitudes. but i have also seen situations in which people of specific ethnicities were told they were not supposed to hc a character to be said ethnicity because of the classist implications. i have seen people saying that headcanoning a particular character to be trans is too stereotypical and that it makes them "sick." i've seen people annoyed about characters being a particular religion because "there's another character who was said to be that religion before" (shocking and upsetting to some americans especially: religions are real and usually have more than one follower so they don't have to be assigned to a single character per title as their token.) and idk i think we should all pause for a moment and remember that the pieces of identity that people assign their favourite characters are often their own. there are ways to reclaim these cliches too. it's a matter of intention. people often read themselves into their beloved pieces of art. and maybe it does not always create the truest image of the author's intention nor a revolutionary picture of minority rep, but no one claims it does.

#a matter that always gives me a headache is how people read my post about the issue of jason being portrayed as psychotic #as me saying he should never be portrayed as psychotic #when what i meant was that psychosis should not be associated with violence the way it was in these comics.#i write jason psychotic sometimes.#i also write jason queer in all the possible ways. he's a trans guy he's a woman he's aroace he's gay etc.#i also do write him in a way that suggests he has at least a cultural link to eastern europe.#and very explicitly catholic. as i do write quite a lot of characters. most notably dick #all things that could be read as extremely inflammatory and stereotypical #but that are ultimately pieces of me or my loved ones.#i think fanfiction and creative interpretation are a work of love in more way than one #as i said: in a sense you do not only read the material but also read yourself into it.#and there has to be careful consideration when it comes to it at times.#to make sure there is still engagement with the source that makes it worthwhile #but i don't think it's fair to tell people these experiences are inappropriate for these contexts.#it's another thing if devin grayson makes dick romani #it's another thing if a person of a particular id & experience wishes to explore it in fanwork #sorry idk. love wins.

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queer-ragnelle · 2 years

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Look. I’m flattered when people ask for a link to read my WIP book. But like. I’d rather you just say “Good job!” but fantasy/historical fiction/arthurian isn’t your cup of tea from the get go, than ghost me or make up some bullshit about the Google Doc not working.

At best, I think people are more concerned with societal courtesy than being genuine (which would be less offensive, don’t pretend you’re gonna read it, especially when you fucking asked for it).

At worst, I think some (not all, but certainly a few) of these people were unprepared for the interracial queer romance I wrote at the forefront of an ensemble-riddled plot. They didn’t know how to say the book didn’t interest them without coming off like an asshole or making themselves sound stupid. (How they missed these very obvious themes is beyond me, but based on some Things Said, I suspect this is why. But I digress.)

So instead of honesty to avoid sounding stupidly assholish, these people sounded stupidly assholish by lying about the inability to open the document and refusing my suggested solutions. Just ghost me before asking for a link instead next time. Blocked.

#like why are you wasting my time #I’m not gonna ask after you if you have a link & I don’t hear back that’s the end of it #I even had someone send me a message weeks later like #‘oh haha! I’ve been so busy! I’ll start on it this weekend!’#and then I never heard from them again lol #just shut up! why you lyin!!!#no more links going out im done finding randos online for this #paid beta readers & editors only now #freebies and trades have run their course #I end up doing more work for other people & getting little to no feedback I can use #if I get it at all #like I’m sorry but ensemble is a great genre or sub-genre #and tbh I don’t even have that many characters lol but people are lost like what?#Gawain only has one brother and one cousin on page just wait till you meet the Everyone Else #also it’s a m/f romance with Ragnelle but I mean #if my username & also my very upfront synopsis didn’t clue anyone in idk what would #I don’t hide what it’s about yet people get into reading & then they’re like #lowkey racist queerphobic about it #if you can remember the white peoples names you can remember the Persian ones and if you can’t just go away leave my book alone #let the bi people kiss in peace

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axolotlclown · 15 days

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Would you happen to have some studies to back up the "more than one coffee means you're addicted" thing, please? Pretty sure I've seen that disproven as a lens to understand addiction through at all

~ 🪴

Hey! So sorry I never saw this anon. It never appeared in my notifs and I'm really bad about checking my askbox.

You have asked a question that falls in line with a field I am very passionate about! I found some interesting articles in my school library. I'm going to go ahead and write this response, but I'm still waiting on access to a few journals. I'll have to convert those ones to PDFs as they are likely behind paywalls.

Anyway, here's my long post where I intend to rant about a lot of different barely related topics. Caffeine addiction is one of those really controversial but historically significant subjects in psychology!

So let me start off with how to read and break down a journal. It's one of those things where if you don't go to college and specifically major in a research related field, no one ever teaches you how to do it. That sucks.

So when you're looking at a journal, the first thing you want to do is background check the author. What school did they go to? What degrees do they have? (For research, they should have a Ph.D. no matter what.) What is their current place of employment?

Often companies, or other private businesses, will commission someone to do some research and fudge the results to make that company look better. We saw this recently in regards to gender affirming care. The United States House of Representatives had proposed legislation to restrict gender affirming care for transgender youth. The Republican sponsor of the bill had presented a single piece of research that he claimed was significant. The research found that transition regret rates were somewhere in the 30% range. (I don't remember exactly and I know that I could quickly look it up, but I just spent the past two hours reading addiction research. I'll find it tomorrow.) Upon looking into the author and the sponsors of this research, psychologists found that the journal the congressman presented was commissioned by a conversation therapy center in Florida. The research held obvious bias, poor peer review, and inconclusive results. The bill didn't pass. I'm not sure they even voted on it, actually.

Anyway, this is why we need to be critical of the research we read. Chocolate, wine, caffeine, gender dysphoria, and autism are notorious subjects that require more scrutiny before reading.

So, caffeine addiction. This is a subject that more than one field is interested in. Before you read an article, you need to be sure what question you are asking. Psychologists are concerned with a more scientific or factual approach. In this context, a psychologist would be researching the concrete effects of caffeine on mood, sleep, and other psychological disorders. Sociologists are more concerned with the overall social consequences of caffeine addiction. They would be asking how mood and sleep affected family, work, and personal welfare. For your question, we're going to look into the psychological aspect. Also, I'm studying psychology, not sociology, so I would feel like an idiot answering those types of questions.

This distinction matters. When I opened my school's EBSCOHost database, I simply typed in "caffeine addiction" to start. I was bombarded with sociological articles and journals about the affects of caffeine addiction on productivity at work and on mood. Strange overlap with psychology. Two problems: some of the top articles had researchers with ties to coffee companies, and all "caffeine addicts" were self-reported. For the latter, this meant that there was no standard for how much caffeine was consumed. Rather than being a concrete article about caffeine consumption, it was more of a survey of public opinion. You want to avoid those unless you specifically want to know about the public opinion. Even psychologists run surveys all the time (they're cheap and easy), but people often lie on surveys, even if they're anonymous.

So I typed in more specific key words and came up with these articles. I'll talk about some without leaving a link, but that's because I had to request the PDFs for sharing. I'll come back to this post and link them. (Let me know if the ones I do link are broken.)

Okay, so I'm going to start off with a journal that interested me, personally. This study actually observed the effects of caffeine on psychiatric patients. This is an important reminder that different drugs influence different brains. Someone with ADHD experiences caffeine differently for a neurotypical person. Caffeine is a stimulant, and ADHD medications are stimulants. Cool. What about other disorders?

Here's the Sparknotes of the study, "Caffeine intoxication was more prevalent in psychiatric patients than in healthy subjects. The amount of caffeine intake was shown to be associated positively with the severity of pathology and inversely with sleep quality."

The study goes more into depth about the different psychological disorders that different patients had. There were 401 patients participating in this study (150 healthy individuals). Overall, continuous caffeine intake showed a decline in sleep quality and a general increase in severity of other mental illnesses.

So what causes that? What is caffeine? Here's an article that looks into studies about caffeine consumption and performance, as well as what the causes of an addiction could be and what constitutes an addiction. This is one I recommend giving a read, as it helps to illuminate a common problem with researching intoxicants.

Here's the big take away: "Although caffeine is widely perceived to have beneficial psychostimulant effects, appropriately controlled studies show that its apparent beneficial effects on performance and mood are almost wholly attributed to reversal of the withdrawal effects that occur after fairly short periods of abstinence (e.g. overnight)."

In habitual coffee users, the increase of mood and performance after consumption of caffeine is caused by the removal of withdrawal symptoms. Grouchy mood and lack of coordination are symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. Where one may perceive positive reinforcement for initial consumption, for habitual consumers, withdrawal symptoms become a negative reinforcement.

So, for people that drink coffee everyday, it's less about getting the positive effects of caffeine, but rather avoiding the negative effects of withdrawal. This can be classified as an addiction. There is now a reliance on this substance.

Something this article also points out is that caffeine is not just found in coffee. It's found in chocolate and most medications these days as well. Therefore, complete stone cold abstinence from caffeine can be next to impossible, making control groups difficult to find. This leads to the varying research and controversy between psychologists.

Okay, but coffee can't be as bad as alcohol or anything right? Caffeine is practically harmless! Let's take a look into an article discussing the health impacts of caffeine. (I'll provide the full text to this one tomorrow.)

In Dr. Saimaiti's article titled, "Dietary Sources, Health Benefits, and Risks of Caffeine," she explores the benefits of occasional consumption of caffeine and weighs them against habitual overconsumption of caffeine.

While occasional consumption can actually improve mood and cognitive ability, these benefits are lost with daily consumption.

Few people drink their coffee black. For those that put creamer, milk (especially oat), or straight sugar or syrups in their coffees daily, they may be overconsuming sugar. This is especially hard on an empty stomach. This is part of the reason you "crash" later in the day. The sugar raises your blood sugar. For most healthy people, this may not be the biggest deal in the world. For others, it could be a key factor in developing diabetes later in life. In general, don't drink coffee on an empty stomach. Have it with a meal. It's also easier on your liver.

Speaking of liver, what does your body do with the caffeine after you drink it? Caffeine follows the same principle as alcohol. Occasional consumption of red wine can help thin your blood and lower your hemoglobin (something that women may be more concerned about as they get older). However, daily consumption of wine can cause stress on the liver and potentially lead to dementia later in life (I say potentially because there has been a correlation, but no solid research as to why. While correlation does not always mean causation, it's important to acknowledge them in the meantime.)

Caffeine behaves in the same way. Continuous consumption of caffeine can put some real stress on your liver over time.

Caffeine is dangerous for those with cardiovascular problems. While this seems like a "duh!" point, many people don't know that they may be prone to cardiovascular issues until an event happens. This sounds like fear mongering, but it's something to take into account.

The article discusses pregnant women as well, but I would hope that's intuitive? Maybe not? If you're pregnant you should avoid intoxication in all forms.

I'll drop this quote from the conclusion of the article for now (I felt weird quoting text that you can't access yet, so I'll come back with more quotes when I can give you the PDF): "the long-term or over-consumption of caffeine can lead to addiction, insomnia, migraine, and other side effects."

The point is, caffeine consumption can be more dangerous to some than others in general, but excessive consumption with lack of knowledge can lead to long-term damage to one's health.

Okay, that study talks about a relatively small niche. Let's get broad. Let's talk about sleep and cognitive performance. (Another study I'll have the PDF for tomorrow.)

In Dr. Gottselig's article titled, "Random Number Generation During Sleep Deprivation: Effects of Caffeine on Response Maintenance and Stereotypy," she looks at the effects caffeine has on cognitive performance during sleep deprivation.

The conclusions of this research makes a very important point: "caffeine preserves simple aspects of cognitive performance during sleep deprivation, whereas caffeine may not prevent detrimental effects of sleep deprivation on some complex cognitive functions."

This article particularly found that while small cognitive functions such as motor ability improved with caffeine, complex cognitive functions such as problem solving and memory declined.

While a college student could read this and understand that pulling an all nighter and drinking 10 Red Bulls probably won't help them pass their test, there's something much more to be said about these findings.

One sleep deprived night won't kill you, and certainly drinking a cup of coffee to get you through the day won't either. But caffeine cannot prevent the damage that regular sleep deprivation does. Sleep deprivation leads to memory loss, worsening symptoms of depression/anxiety/ADHD, increased chances of developing dementia early (this one is real), and a decline in overall cognitive ability.

Rough. But it is a trap. If you have insomnia, caffeine may feel like your only choice to be somewhat functioning throughout the day. Caffeine promotes symptoms of insomnia. It's a vicious cycle if you can't afford proper treatment, and one, that I hope, that will be addressed with time.

So if you have the ability, it's better to prioritize a good night's sleep. I'll come back to this.

For now, why is caffeine addiction so controversial then? Well, it may not be for long. While there was a push to add "caffeine" to the list of diagnosable addiction in the DSM since the 1980's, the inconsistent and inconclusive research has led to a standstill. As we say with Dr. Jame's article, it is difficult to get a control group for caffeine. However, as research for alcohol and marijuana progresses, our knowledge of how to properly study intoxicants does as well.

The long-term health side effects of caffeine are still being studied as well. While this aspect isn't unique to caffeine at all (marijuana, for example, is just now getting approved for research, where before it was illegal), it's still worth acknowledging what we do know, for now at least.

So, coming back to the DSM. There's a new one coming out pretty soon. It's the talk of the town among psychologists right now. Everyone is arguing about what should be in the DSM-6. It'll be crazy when it does come out. Autism, OCD, Gender Dysphoria, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Facial Dysmorphia are just a few examples of disorders that will likely be completely recategorized.

(Unrelated, but Autism Spectrum Disorder is a big one because a lot of psychologists are arguing that it shouldn't be classified as a disorder at all. The reason being is that Autism is so common, that psychologists are theorizing that the majority of the population falls on the spectrum somewhere. Either way, the diagnosis is about to completely change because of this fact.) (Well, all of them are big ones. I could make a whole separate post about it.)

Anyway, the push to make caffeine diagnosable is becoming a promising endeavor as research continues to come out.

One psychiatrist pushing for this is Ronald Griffiths. In his opinion piece, Griffiths recalls his patients experiencing caffeine withdrawal symptoms that led to a decline in the quality of life. One of his patients was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed to stop drinking coffee immediately. This patient struggled with severe withdrawal symptoms that were difficult to manage while on cancer treatment.

Griffiths explains how difficult it was to treat this patient because it wasn't something he could easily diagnose with the DSM-5, something insurance companies use to decide whether they're going to pay for care or not. Add on the bills for cancer treatment, and you rapidly have a distressing situation on your hands.

Joseph DeRupo, spokesman for the National Coffee Association in the U.S. as quoted in this article states, "What we have here is really the opinion of one scientist who is a lone voice against the accepted view of the scientific community."

Lone voice? In barely an hour I was able to find 5 credible articles, all backed by credible researchers, supporting the understanding that American society consumes too much caffeine. You can take a General Psych class in college and the textbook would spend half a chapter going over caffeine addiction and the controversial research around it. Coffee companies piss me off. And most companies use slave labor to harvest their beans and lobby to prevent legislation to prevent it. Guillotine.

Griffiths also claims that "[e]ven people who consume as little as 100 milligrams of caffeine a day—the equivalent of one small cup of coffee—can become physically dependent."

So this ask is pretty old, but I'm guessing it was in response to me saying that you should only drink one cup of a random beverage a day and the rest be water. This keeps you hydrated and helps cut out where the majority of your sugar intake is. I called it the "desert beverage" and that "coffee counts."

It really does. In the morning, one feels tired, foggy, and grouchy. "Don't talk to me until I've had my morning coffee." They would make their coffee out of habit, barely minding the taste of it—drinking to medicate the headache they've already caused.

Life is worth celebrating, and if we can find little things in our day to celebrate, we should! When coffee becomes a habit, it's just a habit. That's sad.

I worked as a barista for a while at a coffee shop that hired people with intellectual disabilities. That experience is what made me switch my major to psychology in the first place. But I saw the joys coffee could bring, and the damage it can do, too. I had a coworker who would come in and throw a tantrum if we didn't immediately stop what we were doing and make him a coffee—and again in two hours before the end of his shift. It's upsetting.

I do remember the joys, too. Our manager would show us a new niche coffee drink from a random country. We would make cubanos like they would in Haiti and talk about the different names they had in different countries around the world. It ruled.

I don't drink coffee every day anymore. But it's always a wonderful thing when I do. You don't need to have an "excuse" to drink a cup of coffee—you don't need to celebrate anything at all. Coffee, tea, wine, soda, and juice should be celebrated as they are. Drinking them out of habit destroys joy. Intentional habits create stable foundations in life. Unintentional habits create monotony and boredom.

Anyway, the sleep thing I said I'd come back to. So if you're having trouble sleeping, here's the hot tip: avoid screens 30 minutes before going to bed. That sounds easy, but how many of us scroll our phones, watch TV, or play a video game right before bed? It's not worth it.

Instead, do something away from your phone that you enjoy. I like to read, but you can draw, journal, listen to some music, practice an instrument, or write something. Doesn't matter, just don't use your phone or laptop. Set a 30 minute timer for time.

If you're still struggling to sleep, you may find meditation useful. Meditation uses techniques that make your brain send beta waves which relaxes you and is the first step to falling asleep. But! If you try to learn some meditation, you'll have to commit to practicing it every night for it to be useful. It's a skill that requires practice.

Anyway, I could make a whole separate post about evening/morning/afternoon routines as that is another one of my passions, but yeah.

TLDR; An occasional cup of coffee is actually great and wonderful, but you really shouldn't drink it every day, especially more than once a day.

PS. I love Red Bull cream sodas more than the God that created them, I swear, but I only drink maybe one or two energy drinks a year. Energy drinks will dissolve your liver faster than hydrochloric acid can. An alcoholic drinking 5 packs of beers a day will look at your liver and be impressed. Also the Panera lemonade should be illegal. That shit is CRAZY. That bitch had more caffeine than a Bang energy drink. It literally killed a man. Wild.

#anon im gonna be so incredibly transparent #before you read this #i spent four and a half hours researching and putting this together #and i still gotta add more sources tomorrow after my school send the pdfs to me #so i didnt proof read it #im tired #i hope it makes enough sense #also sorry if it sounds like i mansplained in the beginning and end #i dont know who you are or what your background is #so i tried to cover my corners as much as i could #anyway #i got a little buddhist philosophy at the end there to #as a treat for me #i hope it doesnt sound preachy #i need a nap bro #sorry for taking so long to get to your ask #i never saw it until now #BUT #i hope it worked as a good starting point if you wanted to look into more #let me know if the links are fucked and ill try to fix them #asks of dante #thoughts of dante #ill tag your little emoji bc i figured that was purposeful #🪴

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youngks-smile · 2 months

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What I Want You To Know About Long COVID

Well lads, I've been suffering from Long COVID for over a year now. My life is at a complete standstill. I'm 25 years old and I'm too sick to go back to school, I can't work, I had to move back in with my parents and I'm still stuck here.

Here are just a few things I wish people knew about Long COVID, including things I didn't know myself until I got it.

COVID destroys your immune system. Yes, even if you don't have Long COVID. Are you getting sick more often now? When you get sick, does it last longer? There are many studies showing that COVID causes t cell depletion, even in mild COVID cases! T cells are how your body remembers how to fight off infections you've had before so losing those cells? Bad news.

Your initial infection can be mild and you can still get Long COVID. Right from Yale Medicine, "Most people with Long COVID had mild acute COVID." (This is also a good link for a basic Long COVID overview).

There can be a gap of time between when you "get better" from the initial COVID infection to the onset of Long COVID symptoms. Some people get sick with an initial COVID infection and never get better. Some get better and then weeks or months later start developing Long COVID symptoms. Long COVID symptoms can even fluctuate over time, can go away for months and then suddenly come back.

So many people have Long COVID and don't realize it. Do you feel more tired lately but no matter how much you sleep, nothing helps? Is it harder to concentrate at work or school? Can you just not think like you used to? You could have Long COVID and not even know it. Even mild post-COVID symptoms are still Long COVID.

COVID can do anything to your body. Long COVID has over 200 recognized symptoms and can affect basically any part or system of your body. There is no one mechanism or cause of Long COVID which unfortunately also means there's no one cure either.

The effects of COVID are cumulative. Each COVID reinfection increases your chances of developing Long COVID. COVID is also affecting your body in other ways, yes, even if you're otherwise young and healthy! "Repeat COVID-19 infections increase risk of organ failure, death".

Once you have Long COVID, repeat COVID infections will make your symptoms worse. "80% [of Long COVID patients] saw their symptoms worsen [from reinfection]. In 60% of people who were in recovery or remission from Long COVID, reinfection caused a recurrence of Long COVID."

There is a lot more I want to say about Long COVID but I want to keep this post at least somewhat manageable to read. Like how when COVID is contracted during pregnancy, those COVID-exposed fetuses have a 6.3-fold increased risk of motor developmental delays, or that another study found 50% of babies exposed to COVID in utero had developmental delays.

You need to keep caring about COVID, for others around you and also for yourself even if you're "healthy". Everyone is at risk. And don't forget 40-60% of COVID infections are asymptomatic, which is why masking even if you feel fine is crucial. The only way right now to not get Long COVID is to not get COVID in the first place. It's not too late, if you've stopped masking it's never too late to start again! I know it's easy to get distracted by things in your life that seem more real than the possibility of getting sick some time in the future, and the peer pressure to not mask can be intense. But it only feels less real or less important until your entire life is having Long COVID. Trust me.

I know this is a complicated issue, many people can't afford to stay home when sick even if they want to because of their jobs, there are disgusting policies trying to ban wearing masks, but please if you can. Keep masking. Masking works, masking saves lives.

This post got a bit longer than I wanted so below the cut is a non-exhaustive list of my Long COVID symptoms and some of my experiences as one of the "healthy young people" who got "unlucky". cw brief mention of suicidal ideation.

Welcome to the Thunderdome that is my body with Long COVID. Keep in mind these are just my experiences and symptoms, Long COVID can cause any range of symptoms at varying severities.

Dysautonomia: Exercise intolerance, Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM), fatigue, and heat intolerance. What do those things mean? Here's some specific examples. Absolutely terrible circulation I am so cold all the time but also, if I get a little too warm I will pass out. Eating hot food makes my heart rate spike, I sweat, my body feels heavy. Blood pooling and pins and needles in my feet when I walk. Don't even think about exercising past walking, it's impossible. I used to work out an hour a day 4 times a week and now walking up one flight of stairs makes my heart pound and I can't breathe. Can't take even just warm showers anymore or I will pass out. Heat rashes from being in the sun for 10 minutes.

Digestive issues: Honestly too many to name but: constant bloating, extreme nausea, constipation, slow motility, lack of appetite, just so much cramping and pain. I lost 18 pounds from Long COVID, as someone who was already considered underweight their entire life, and almost had to get a shunt put into my chest to deliver nutrients because I was nearly completely unable to eat. For the first 6 months of Long COVID, if I could manage 600 calories a day, that was a good day.

Histamine intolerance: Oh boy. My worst symptoms, I don't even know where to start with it. If you know Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) it's very similar. I can only eat 19 foods. If i eat a single bite of something not on that list, it's 48 hours of absolute hell. Coughing, migraines, itchy eyes, such extreme nausea I cannot even describe it, panic/feeling of doom, racing heart rate, derealization, rash, uncontrollable muscle tremors. I only learned about histamine intolerance 5 months into having Long COVID so before that, I was experiencing these symptoms nearly every single day. Terrifying isn't even a strong enough word to describe how it felt to experience all this and have no idea what it was, how to stop it, or if it would ever stop. Really dark times.

Neurological issues: More of that derealization. Inability to concentrate. Anxiety. OCD-like symptoms such as thoughts getting "stuck" in my head, repeating 24/7 completely unable to stop them, genuinely felt like my brain had cracked open and I had lost my mind. Constant dizziness like I'm on a boat.

Sleep issues: I sleep like garbage. I have insomnia, I wake up dozens of times every night and every single time I sleep I have intensely vivid dreams. I can't sleep longer than 7 hours total no matter how exhausted I am. It is exhausting. I'm exhausted, I'm so so tired.

And finally. Just. Really intense suicidal ideation. My body, my health, my entire life has been stolen from me because someone else decided my life was worth less to them than wearing a mask or staying home if they feel sick. Before I got Long COVID, I was preparing to go to South Korea to teach English, then on to a PhD in neurolinguistics, I was supposed to meet my long distance partner and had already booked plane tickets when I got sick. All of that has been destroyed.

Most of us with Long COVID are stuck in a cycle of being extremely sick, then if you're lucky you'll slowly get better over months, just to get reinfected and go right back where you started or worse. Honestly, I'm not scared of dying from COVID. I'm scared of living for a long time, suffering from Long COVID the entire time. This isn't living.

I don't know how to end this now. I'm still fighting, I'm trying experimental treatments, I'm not giving up yet. I hope everyone reading this stays healthy and well.

#long covid #covid 19 #covid isn't over #pandemic

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feminist-space · 2 months

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"A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google[...]

Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

...

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal." -Cory Doctorow

Read the whole article: https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

#Google #Google is full of trash now #use other search engines #Firefox #seo causes spam

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awakefor48hours · 9 months

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Shows you should save physically immediately

Over the Garden Wall -- It's being pulled from HBO Max on August 31 and knowing HBO, there's a chance it'll be pulled sooner. *I have now made a Google Drive of all the episodes of OTGW. Please, please, please, PLEASE, save these on a physical device.

The Owl House -- Disney has tried to bury this show many times (giving it a weird release schedule, cutting the budget, etc) and has even cancelled the show. Also, Disney+ is going to nuke their catalogue soon and I doubt TOH will survive*I have now also saved all the episodes of TOH. Click here for the posts with all of the episodes

Amphibia -- I know less about the behind the scenes BS than TOH but Amphibia was screwed over by Disney mainly by poor promotion. Also since one of the protagonist is openly bisexual*, like TOH, I really can't imagine this would survive.*Amphibia has also been saved. Go here for the post with all the episodes.

Steven Universe -- Cartoon Network cancelled Steven Universe and gave it a weird release schedule, it has also just been pulled from HBO Max.

Gravity Falls -- Once again, Disney+ is going to nuke their catalogue at some point in the future and between Wendy being canonically bi, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland being in a relationship, and Alex Hirsch (being the amazing man that he is) constantly calling Disney out on their BS, I imagine that Disney would be more than willing to nuke Gravity Falls. *I’ve also saved Gravity Falls now go to the main post here to see all the episodes.

and most importantly

Every single show, book, game, fanfiction, movie, etc you've ever loved

We now know that at any moment's notice, streaming services can and will just nuke their catalogue without hesitation. If it's digital, it can be removed and there's a likely chance you'll never see it again.

So, please take some time to save anything you love on an external device. It could be a box set (it can be official or fan-made one), a USB, or anything.

If you have a physical copy of something, it's yours forever and no one can take that away from you.

*Edit because I’ve seen some confusion about this. Read this again, it’s “one of the protagonists” not “the protagonist.” Sasha is the one who’s bi, Anne’s sexuality hasn’t been confirmed.

Also in addition to this, people have reblogged this to say Steven Universe is still on HBO. Since I don’t have HBO, I’ve been going off of what people have been saying and I’ve seen it mentioned that HBO was taking off SU. You should still save it though.

*Edit 2 if any of the links here don’t work, check the original post as I might’ve changed/updated them. If that still doesn’t work, send me an ask or DM I’ll give them to you.

#toh #the owl house #gravity falls #steven universe #su #amphibia #over the garden wall #otgw #others you should probably save >#rwby #she ra #miraculous ladybug #the legend of korra #< any show with a queer cast #(and/or has been banned in another country)#you should save it immediately #top posts

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areislol · 24 days

Text

twitter links w/ hsr men

pairings. blade, jing yuan, aventurine, sunday, gepard, sampo x afab/fem! reader

warnings. NSFW no minors! please read at your own discretion, explicit/18+ smut, established relationships for most, brat taming for blade, mention of being called a whore (teasing manner) for aventurine, mentions of puppy for gepard but there's no meaning about it. aggressive sex, passionate sex, masturbation (fem.) sub! gepard for 1 twt link, fingering

a/n. i don't think i've done one for hsr yet... or genshin so maybe that'll be in the future. sorry (not sorry) guys i'm ovulating (i need them all carnally). also i think for some you need to be logged in twitter for them to work! this only has a couple of characters cause i'm a bit lazy today

blade

✧ fucking you so good from behind, "you like that don't you?"

✧ eating you out in a room just beside his colleuges room, he likes the risk and it turns on him. you feel the same way, right?

✧ teasing you for being such a brat, spanking your tight pussy and rubbing soft languid on your sensitive clit. you'll learn your lesson sooner or later.

✧ the size difference never fails to amaze him. but that's fine, he'll take his time with you.

✧ making you cum just by his slender fingers

jing yuan

✧ riding your boyfriend jing yuan

✧ fucking you in his bathroom while you're wearing his shirt. how adorable of you ♡

✧ best friend! jing yuan who fucks you right and how you deserved to be fucked. "feels good doesn't it? i know baby but you need to keep your voice down.. your mom is here.." it's quite hard to stay quiet while being pounded relentlessly, isn't it?

✧ a 5 star meal in his opinion, nothing beats your pussy.

aventurine

✧ slowly and painstakingly teasing you with his cock, oh, and you're wearing that new blindfold he bought for you!

✧ bouncing up and down on his dick, "like the whore you are"

✧ morning sex (is this based off the artwork recently posted by hoyo? yes)

✧ fingering you from behind

✧ "fuck..." aventurine loves hearing you moan

sunday

✧ "ride my face, please."

✧ passionate sex with sunday

✧ giving your boyfriend an awaited tit job ♡

✧ restricting your movement by binding you. "stop moving or i won't put it in." he says while also rubbing his hardness on your entrance.

✧ fucking you 'till you're braindead

gepard

✧ your puppy boyfriend who loves eating you out. best meal ever.

✧ breeding you just like you asked, one peak down at the messy sight gets him 10x more hard. good luck with a horny gepard

✧ milking your beloved with a vibrator

✧ teasing your poor husband with a video of your wet pussy while he's at work.

sampo

✧ your boyfriend still continuing to finger you through your orgasm. overstimulated would be an understatement.

✧ making out in your room

✧ fucking you aggressively after seeing his rival, gepard, flirt with you (?? gepard flirting??)

✧ your pleasure is his pleasure//masturbating while eating you out

a/n: me after not writing anything for a couple of weeks (i think almost a month?) :) i haven't done this in SO long. no continue reading for this since it's short. (this is a shitpost)

taglist: @tomansimp @one-offmind @miitchiji @dainsleif-when-playable @momoewn @stygianoir @irethepotato @v4an @imetsk @fiannee @sunnyf4lls if im missing anyone please tell me because i have an inkling feeling i missed a few..

liking + following + reblogs are very much appreciated!!!

#hsr x reader #blade x reader #jing yuan x reader #aventurine x reader #sunday x reader #gepard x reader #sampo x reader #hsr smut #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x you

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birdofmay · 8 months

Text

And again, as always: It would be nice if you guys could stop making this about yourselves. Whenever we post about our particular experience, people who normally can speak, but used to struggle with it, or struggle under certain circumstances, add on something to talk about themselves. This eventually leads to people talking about something completely different, and ignoring what the post was about at first. Make your own post. We are constantly spoken over even in online spaces, and that's especially unfair because we struggle to communicate even more than other autistics. Don't derail posts about people who never learned to speak from the very beginning and won't learn it ever. That's unfair.

Sometimes I see people on here who want to be good allies to nonverbal autistics, but at the same time don't understand nonverbal autism at its core.

Most of us, who are nonverbal "from birth", struggle with language, to communicate, and to understand complex concepts. That's why we never learned to speak at all, ever.

But their strategy is to "hand us the mic" and ask "What are some misconceptions about nonverbal autism you'd like to discuss?" and expect us to respond.

"Misconceptions" is an abstract concept. Most of us can't just come up with an answer; my mind, for example, goes completely blank when I read this.

I wanted to talk about allies assuming that our brain works similar for at least 2 weeks, but it's only now that I am able to write something. 2 weeks!

Sure, there are autistics who can't speak due to apraxia, and who don't struggle with language otherwise, apart from the "not being able to speak with their mouth" part. But that's rare.

Even my ability to express myself well is rare. I am not your average nonverbal autistic. I am very skilled compared to the rest of us.

One thing about "never learning to speak" is that most of us really really struggle with language, and with understanding big words and topics. Not everyone, but many of us. That's why most of us aren't on social media.

Whenever I write "educational" posts, my inbox is flooded with follow up questions I just can't answer without help. Because most of the time I don't understand the text. I regularly have to close my inbox because people assume that I can process the text and respond like everyone else can. But having these abilities is an exception within autistics who never learned to speak from the very beginning. It seems normal, but those people just are the loudest. Because they're on social media and love to participate in discussions.

Most of us can't do that.

I'm glad that I made some speaking friends here who made an effort to understand us thoroughly, and they now often repeat what we think and want "but louder". Listen to them, most of us can't advocate for ourselves. They're not speaking over us, they're helping us to communicate without draining our energy.

And for everything else I have some posts linked in my pinned post because I can't just participate in discussions.

#long post

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