[mer-mi-dryad] Gin | 30s | they/them | bi I spend more time writing fanfic than original stuff. Mostly fandom (currently Dead Boy Detectives, Roswell New Mexico, Les Mis, ATLA, and assorted others), occasionally more. If you'd like to buy me a cup of coffee (or more realistically, tea), I'd be super grateful! AO3 Twitter YouTube Instagram
I don't read enough history, but what I hate about history is how this field you'd imagine would be fairly stable is deeply embroiled over feuds about interpretation, and in fact the incentives actually seem to point that way, since feuding over interpretation is a more viable career path than research alone
the way you're supposed to handle this is by reading lots of history and being up on the feuds, but that feels onerous in the same way it's onerous for pop culture. at the same time, I take the point that there's no truly unbiased perspective, particularly not in a field built around reconstructing the whole world from a few scattered remnants. what I feel is missing here -- and this is true of a lot of highly politicized disciplines -- is a guide that encompasses the feuds from the perspective of someone who's interested because they love drama, rather than because they're invested in a particular winner. I guess what I'm saying is, we need more history primers that are grounded in a gossip's view of historiography.
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I love your agreeable and amenable and flexible nature and how none of your wants and needs ever get priority and how nobody even knows what they are to begin with and how you never start or engage in conflicts and never express even mildly unsavory opinions and get along with everyone from every conceivable group, thatâs so trustworthy. hey quick question. do you happen to have an enormous pressurized reservoir of rage and resentment you feel like you canât ever analyze or express because that would break the rules for the kind of person you are and if so, do you think a lifetime of squashing it down might ever backfire?
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I've been meaning to make a post talking about my stroke because y'all got bits and pieces of the recovery but I never actually told the story of HOW it went down and the thing is the type of stroke I had is usually the type young people have and since having mine i've now heard multiple stories of people under 40 having very similar strokes and the scary thing is, is that they didn't get help right away. Because you're young and healthy and sure you feel weird but it'll pass right? but it doesn't, and it gets worse, and by the time you get to the hospital (some people literally take days to go) the deficits are worse and recovery is harder.
so here's a super long post about strokes in general, and mine in particular/what I went through.
So for strokes the signs are abbreviated BE FAST. Balance loss, Eyesight changes, Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, -> Time to call 911.
Had I known those MAYBE I would have figured it out but my symptoms were a little mixed. I was reading (fanfic!) in bed because it was a sunday morning and i had nothing pressing to do and suddenly got dizzy. I put my laptop aside because my eyes were blurring (Eyesight changes - symptom #1), and laid down, thinking it would pass, it didn't, it's a little vague how it progressed because I'd been having headaches and neckpain for about 3 weeks leading up to it so I was like 'idk is this a migraine?' (headaches can be a stroke symptom so symptom #2) but i got nauseous and eventually got up and to my utmost surprise I immediately fell over as if I was the drunkest of frat bros. The room literally spun before my eyes as I fell to the floor (Balance loss - symptom #3). I have had some Nights and I had never been that unsteady before. I crawled my way to the bathroom, threw up (nausea - not a common stroke symptom) , took 800mg of ibuprofen, and crawled back to bed.
if you know anything about ibuprofen you might know it's a mild blood thinner and that's a high dose. I may have inadvertently helped myself with that one. I was just feeling like shit and thinking 'idk this might help'
At this point I still thought we were still in Normal Land. Sure, it was a weird morning, but Surely There Was A Reason. (Yes There Was) Anyway, as I'm lying there willing my body to stop suffering I realize my arm is going numb (stroke symptom #4) and I switch positions, because weird, but it doesn't go away, and I gave it a good little while. I'm on a medication that can make my limbs tingle but it usually just does it to my fingers and it dissipates quickly but this wasn't dissipating, and then I realized one of my legs was also going numb. Then one side of my face is going numb.
(at the time I did not look in the mirror but I had a drooping eyelid - symptom #5)
Those all seem bad. I grab my computer and google 'when to go to the hospital for dizzyness' as that felt like the worst of my problems. and indeed the list I found highlighted that if you are also experiencing loss of balance, blurred vision, nausea, and limb numbness, you should see a doctor. That seems like far too many symptoms to be having all to be listed. I grab my phone (thankfully plugged in and by my bed), and start layering on more clothing because it's about 10 degrees out and i'm in a pajama dress. The very nice man at 911 talks with me and sends an ambulance, I tell him I don't think I can get out the front door of my building on my own and he asks if I can get to MY apartment door to which I say yes and he assures me that's fine they will have keys to my building.
(I have been since informed they love to chop down doors but no, I could get that far)
I wait by my door laying down on the ground and they arrive pretty quickly. They see to me in the hallway, which is more of a lobby in my building and the only place with room for me to lie down (I cannot stand unassisted at this point) they ask me a bunch of questions, take vitals, and ask me where I would like to be taken. Me, having never had to go to the fucking hospital in an emergency before, simply go 'wherever is close' because I again, I am having a stroke and do not have the wherewithal to think through these things.
A big firefighter helps me down the stairs (it's only a half flight and I still almost did not make it) and we get underway.
At the hospital they wheel me into triage and I mostly lie there gratefully and answer some questions and respond to some tests (grip strength, following a pen with my eyes, that sort of thing) and then I hear what is great when you've been at urgent care for two hours but what is Very Bad when you just arrived in an ambulance and that's 'She's next'. I jumped the line for a CT scan and an MRI. I was there less than ten minutes before I was actively being scanned. honestly closer to five.
my active symptoms seem to have been worse than some of the stories I've heard, not being able to walk AT ALL in particular, although some other are pretty equal (Footless Jo on youtube had a stroke around the same time I did of the same type and has discussed hers, she delayed going in despite the severity for a variety of reasons and it sounds like her recovery has been difficult) My recovery was pretty easy because i was actively being cared for and on blood thinners right away. I was pretty out of it in the beginning, but I was only in the hospital for 6 days and then in a rehab for another 4 to relearn how to walk and balance, then i was released unto the world and just spent time going to physical therapy and recovering for awhile. I was out of work for about 8 weeks total. I basically had the best outcome for a stroke. I recovered almost fully back to 100% (I'm about 2% less sure footed than I used to be, but it's rarely noticeable), my face still feels a little weird but has markedly improved so I live in hope it will eventually get back to normal. It massively sucked. But strokes can fuck you up for life and I came out a weird medical story to tell and have to take some extra medication now/precautions to take (i cannot do certain types of yoga, no weightlifting, no push ups, no going on rollercoasters.... things that could strain my neck essentially) but overall I escaped very lucky.
For anyone who has ever had covid before, please be sure you are aware of stroke symptoms. Each successive infection raises the risk in a pretty major way, and a lot of people are dying young due to not knowing these signs or being afraid to act on them. Please take care of yourselves.
hello... you posting about you dance dreams has been very beneficial for me (in the hospital waiting on a med change and I have a lot of free time) and I was hoping you could perhaps share with us some more of your favourite Les mis fics, I'm in a nostalgic mood and have an abundance of free time <3
ough sure why not. hope your hospital stuff goes okay!
everything by lady_ragnell (iâm onto silence is the speech of love, now), samyazaz (the subtle grace of gravity i am almost certainly reading next), and noelia_g (but find you in the day) is good. i also really liked tellthemstories (after the end is intense) and myrmidryad (weaving olden dances is lovely).
i do still think about still the same by tears_of_nienna and my head is a weathervane by torakowalski, though tw for references to suicide in the latter. the capacity to be terribly happy is very cute imo, as is correlation by sarahyyy. and i remain charmed by sans tache by arriviste.
evergreen by lyres remains one of the only fics in my bookmarks that i ever gave the tag âfavoriteâ to. you never have to wonder; you never have to ask by gamesformay is also wonderful.
obviously the goat here is under my wings you will find refuge, which is a STILL-UPDATING spn au that is so, so good. i loved it even before i had ever watched spn. fiver is literally that good.
and of course we CANNOT forget world ainât ready by idiopathicsmile, i still remember the night the final chapter dropped i stayed up to read it three times even though i had school the next day. their fic in defiance of all geometry is also great
finally i want to shout out oh, itâs what you do to me by captainskellington because i think they were the first author whose les mis fics i read, so really they got me into this mess. the epitome of tooth-rotting modern au fare, but i remember it fondly.
i guess finally finally iâll sayâwell, i wrote a fair few les mis fics myself. here are three of my personal favorites: one / two / three. enjoy <3
Random bee behavior fact for those who wish to read, just because I feel like it and because itâs late and Iâm stalling on sleeping:
Bumblebees look like passive, cuddly, and docile creatures; and they generally are- but they wonât hesitate to defend themselves if they feel their warnings arenât being seen!
I.e. below, when a bumblebee feels threatened they will raise one or more of their legs into the air, signaling to whatever or whomever may be bothering them as a message essentiality saying: âhey, back off, too close!â
If their defensive posture goes unnoticed or ignored, they may be pushed into defending themselves by stinging (which is an all around sucky experience for not only you, but also for the bee. (Note that bumblebees do not die after stinging, but it is still stressful for them.) If you ever find yourself getting close to a bumblebee while taking pictures, trying to move them, or just admiring them, remember this posture! If they do this, it is simply asking you to take a step back because it feels it is being threatened! You might get stung.
Now you can understand and use this knowledge to your advantage if you ever come across one in the future. (Of course, because itâs very hard not to anthropomorphize animals, I do admit that they look cute when doing it. Just remember to respect their space!)
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The demand for more f/f fic (written by people who aren't turned on by it) has been going on online for decades. In the LiveJournal days, writing and reading f/f was called "eating your vegetables." You weren't supposed to like it, but it was morally suspect if you didn't do it. Like, callout posts would be made for fic writers who had never written f/f.
Obviously, this strategy worked very well to encourage f/f fics, and everyone was happy forever.
That's hilarious actually. Wildly superficial engagement with text, treated as a solemn duty.
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Blood farms and custom guitars: TVL production designer Andres Cubillan shares insights into the seasonâs most memorable setpieces.
As Lestatâs childhood flashbacks move through his adolescence to young adulthood, weâre given hint after hint that the family has fallen on hard times, mirrored by his fatherâs increasing infirmity, and the rest of his family succumbing to various illnesses. âWe see less staff in the house,â production designer Andres Cubillan explains. âWe see the food getting simpler. Even the china on the table. We go from a very sort of elaborate multi-piece setting, you know, crystal glassware, silverware, and that starts getting reduced. So you start feeling like theyâre really impoverished in their sort of ridiculous aristocracy.â
âTheyâre not going to give [Lestat] some large bedroom. Itâs going to be sort of awkward in size. Iâve spoken about the tile floor and the fact that itâs a material that would have been used for servantsâ quarters or kitchens.â Lestat is a second-class citizen in his own home, and the images decorating his walls make a further statement about the violent undercurrents of his childhood.
âThe mural work on the walls, it was a play on the tropes of little boysâ roomsâthe trains and the boats, and that heteronormative ideal for a little boysâ room in that era.â But instead of boats or scenes of boyhood adventures, Lestatâs bed is surrounded by âimages of war and massacres and conquests,â creating a nightmarish backdrop to the only private space he has in the house.Â
The long awaited time lapse of how i wrap my tentacle pots for shipping! Lots of bubblewrap around all the limbs then layered up to make a big ball and then secured in the box with paper all around
