aka Nyarlathotep - Somewhere East of the Sun. West of the Moon.
@terminusverge
Things I am doing: more than likely working on my book (about architecure) after my countless (mis)adventures around the world. But not every adventure is worth recording, I have found. Living a charmed but not charming life...still. I would like to remind you that the colour of hope is not always the sign of goodness. Collector of masks (thanks for that mom). Sometimes known as "The Time Being". Monster (affectionate) to my friends and I have no enemies, they are all dead. Cognitohazard. IRL Emet Selch. And finally, I personally prefer embodying three truths: one ineluctable, one debatable and one incomprehensible. P.S. I am not the Pope.
If this is the first time we are interacting, then "Hello! Nice to meet you." Otherwise, it is probably because I used to follow you on my old tumblr and am back. Speaking of back, no obligation to follow me back (not counting the accidental follow on mobile, which has gotten me at least one new friend though). I may follow and unfollow randomly due to forgetting why I followed someone or even who that person is/was. No offense meant, just sometimes memories slip through the cracks and wander off. Times have changed, you may have changed as well. Me? I am sitll the one with "many names and a singular nature", so there is that.
Of those names the one I recall using here the most was void-liminality (yes the same name I once had on the unfriendly bird site. I may have changed it from a different name. Will have to search my archives. More on that in the next paragraph.)
But wait, you may ask, "How did this person even remember or know who I am now after nearly a decade?!"
Well, you see...even though I ditched my tumblr (I had a stalker or two...one of which was my employer at the time and tumblr had much less robust features to shield from that) I kept every single notification I got just to remember what I had here. And have an extensive archive of my own blog to boot.
Every reblog. Every ask. Every follow notification. Why yes, yes I am a bit of a sentimental fool at times, why do you ask?
So hey there, nice to meet you all. Again.
The mortality of other people (and myself) is weighing on my mind lately.
Update the first - sometime in 2024 -
30+ years is a long time to know someone, to be certain, but...it was not, is not, and never will be long enough. Same with the person (my mom) I knew for 40+ years passed. And 50+ (my aunt recently) ...and so on.
Some of you I could know for 1000+ years and I would still want for one more day with you. And then another. And still more until the sun cools to a brown dwarf.
Amusingly (morbidly so sometimes), the way things are going, no one living now that knows me is ever going to get the chance to feel this way about me.
HOWEVER, when I finally perish, please name a shrub after me: something hardy, durable, prickly, and hard to eradicate.
Update the second - sometime in 2025 -
Since all the cool kids are doing it: my name is a reference to my (nuked/placeholder) twitter handle, which is a reference to an older handle (one of which I used on my old tumblr), which is a reference to my LiveJournal name (iykyk). All of which is a reference to the the fact that Death constantly has near me encounters since birth.
While I will not joke about suicide or anything of the sort, I will make occasional reference to the fact that by all accounts I should not be here. To the point that I have been and probably still am a subject in medical and psychology journals. At least two exes wanted to go the mad scientist route and study me "FOR SCIENCE!"...they only half joked about that being why they were dating me no less. That is not even counting the two people I was close to that went into the mortuary biz just to be the one to handle my body when I eventually diedâŠonly for both of them to pass long before me. Hey you two, I am still hereâŠand you are not.
Anwyay, I might have more than a bit of experience with pulling one's self back from the point of no return and finding something worth living for...if you ever need someone to talk to. I will ask for a bit of patience on the reply as, against all odds, I am out here living life and enjoying it.
"Have your employers told you to ask me about my genitals? Because that's a terrible thing to do to you. But I'm not going to tell you about my private parts. Because they're private. I'm sure you understand."
Some stories enter our lives through a library shelf. Others arrive inside a worn VHS case on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
Maybe you grew up with The Secret of NIMH. Maybe Mrs. Brisby, Nicodemus, and the Great Owl left a permanent mark on your childhoodâor perhaps this wonderfully strange animated world is still waiting for you.
How did you first discover NIMH?
đ The original book
đŒ The movie on VHS
đș Television or cable
đ A parent, teacher, or librarian
âš I discovered it much later
đč I havenât seen or read it yet
Reply or reblog with your answerâweâd love to hear your NIMH story.
Weâll be returning to the rosebush soon on The Strange Chapter, where books, movies, animation, and history meet.
its unsurprising that the dude who had a notable fondness for a certain hot as fuck black goddess would advocate for integration of black music into the mainstream.
If they scared, good. Fuck em. That little black kid in Milwaukee or Idaho or Wyoming needs to see him or herself represented in mainstream media. Racists and bigots can pound sand.
In case anyone hasn't heard, the cyclospora outbreak affecting tons of people in the US right now is coming from Taylor Farms produce. Best to stay away from bagged lettuce and prepared salads completely right now, but especially the ones mentioned in the screenshot:
Taylor Farms
Earthbound Farms
Little Salad Bar (Aldi)
Marketside (Walmart)
Kroger House Brand
Target private label greens
Costco salads and greens etc
Trader Joe's chopped salad kits and fresh produce
Fast food: McDonalds, Taco Bell, (Yum! Brands), Chipotle, Subway, Pizza Hut, KFC, Olive Garden, Top Golf, Red Lobster, Burger King, etc.
This is not the first time I've heard about a Taylor Farms foodborne illness outbreak. I stopped eating their salads after reading a description of the conditions in their facilities. Doesn't sound like they've improved anything.
We need a fully funded and staffed FDA, and regulations with teeth - and that's exactly what we don't have under Trump. To make things worse, the CDC is no longer tracking these outbreaks. We're on our own.
hey real quick can anybody help me find this image that Iâve seen before here on tumblr. it looks like this
the button doesnât necessarily say âElucidate the Raptureâ but it does say something thatâs kind of lengthy and has religious connotations. the woman pushing the button has an expression of indescribable smugness. there might be other buttons on the machine (?) she is pressing.
I cannot believe that this is a website where you can ask âhey i think i saw a weird image onceâ and put a bad stick figure drawing of it and someone will be like âoh yeah thatâs the first installment of a 12-part post-ironic apocalypse fever dream photoshop seriesâ and just hand you a dozen of the most unhinged images youâve ever seen in your life, that still have a better three act structure than most modern cinema
this is far more than ârandom person in 2005ish creates surreal visual narrativeâ - letâs go deeper down the rabbit hole, shall we?
to Immanentize the Eschaton means to bring about utopian conditions and create heaven on Earth
the phrase is first cited in the Discordian religious text, Principia Discordia (1963), for whom Discord (aka Eris) is goddess:
the first line of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Sheaâs 1975 The Illuminatus! trilogy: âIt was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton.â
in Frederik Pohlâs The Eschaton Sequence (1997 - 1999), the human race is caught up in a galactic war between two alien races attempting to immanentize the eschaton
in Ken Macleod's The Stone Canal (1997), one of the chapters is âAnother crack at Immanentising the Eschatonâ
Crystal Thierryâs (aka the modern Discordia / Eris) narrative lives in esteemed company
hereâs what the warning in the image says btw because i wanted to read it but it was too blurry so i had to spend several minutes hunting for a version with better resolution, so Iâm posting it here so nobody else has to make that same journey
âDO NOT OPERATE THE ESCHATRON 9000 UNLESS YOUâRE REALLY, REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT DESTROYING THE WORLDâ
Women stick thin and malnourished on the red carpet, and people are saying you can't point out that these women are dying because that's body shaming. Girl.
I havenât had body image issues for most of more (despite my motherâs attempts) but there is something about the onslaught of starving actresses? Itâs grotesque. Itâs deeply uncomfortable. I wouldnât say triggering for me because I donât have a history of EDs, but every word of my motherâs flashes in approval at their skeletal frames- which is terrifying, that all these women supposedly âhealthier than everâ are withering away in front of our eyes- and we are being told weâre delusional.
NO FOLKS! Maybe one natural skeletal frame, perhaps, another secretly has cancer- but ALL OF THEM? No. Eating Disorders are contagious and this shit is DANGEROUS TO EVERYONE.
When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told âKay, you canât go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.â And I sputter and object but they donât hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.
I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about âmen in dressesâ, about people who âgot their dicks chopped offâ, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.
And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting
And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster
And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldnât bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself.
And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.
And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And theyâre still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.
I know this is a really heavy post but if you read it and you appreciated it, Iâd appreciate it in return if you reblogged it. This is really important to me and I want people to read it and understand it. Thank you.
âŠyeah. I am trying to get across town in a reasonable timeframe, in a decently climate controlled vehicle and play some music while doing it. You know anyone like that?
Long COVID patients can experience severe energy crashes after physical exertion. New research provides clear evidence that there's a biolog
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."
I feel insane seeing stuff like this because this research already exists for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, a post viral condition caused by multiple types of viral infections that a LOT of people with "Long Covid" meet the diagnostic criteria for.
This article mentions that ME/CFS is a "similar complex condition" but that's DEEPLY underreporting the similarities. The phrase "post exertional malaise" (now researchers are trying to replace it but this article uses that phrase) was INVENTED for ME/CFS. It's the only known condition, before "long covid", that causes these kinds of symptoms after exertion!
It's good to know for sure that it's the same mechanisms at play when the inciting viral infection is Covid and not, for instance, Epstein-Barr or RSV, but half the time it doesn't seem like researchers are making comparisons at all, just reinventing the wheel and acting like "long covid" is a totally new phenomenon with no previous point of comparison.
There are literally drugs in human trials to try to treat the mitochondrial dysfunction in ME, this dysfunction is well-established and fairly well understood and I feel insane when ppl report on long covid without mentioning that there is already a named and studied condition that accounts for this subset of symptoms!!
SOME researchers are drawing comparisons but they're largely ME researchers who everyone else is largely cignoring because of the widespread perception that ME is a fake disease for lazy women.
That same perception btw is why "graded exercise therapy" (GET), or exercise gradually increasing in intensity, cwas for years the go-to treatment despite MOUNTAINS of evidence that it makes ME patients sicker. Some end up permanently bedbound and unable to even eat or drink without a feeding tube/IV because the damage is so bad!
The GET recommendation was finally changed only in the past few years in the US and the UK, and many doctors hate that they're not allowed to recommend it anymore, because they insist despite the evidence that ME/CFS is psychological and ME patients are just "deconditioned" and too lazy to do anything about it.
Now the same kind of "treatment" is being recommended for long covid patients despite evidence showing exercise is having the same kinds of cellular effects as it does in ME patients. "Taking PEM into account" sounds gentler but I'm deeply concerned about the reinvention of GET for patients who meet all the criteria for an illness that's been shown definitively to become permanently worse with GET.
This mitochondrial damage is progressive in ME, and there's no reason to believe patients who meet all the criteria of ME after Covid won't experience the same progression if they force themselves past their energy envelope in such a systematic way.
The additional finding that T cells â part of the immune system's arsenal â had infiltrated the muscles of long COVID patients also caught Iwasaki's attention, possibly indicating "an autoimmune response within the muscle cells."
This autoimmune response is well-researched for ME. Every time you overexert, you're injuring your cells more and more. It's deeply worrying that rebranded GET is being recommended for long covid patients who meet the criteria for ME when research like this study keeps showing it's the same phenomenon.
aka Nyarlathotep - Somewhere East of the Sun. West of the Moon. @terminusverge - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
