Cw Illness - Tumblr Posts

ID above the cut this time! I took up a good amount of space talking about the inspiration and process for this one, and wanted to make the ID easier to get to, so no one needs to scroll through it if they don't want to.

[ID: A portrait of a moon elf, from Dungeons and Dragons, shown from the shoulders up, facing forward. Instead of having hair, five mushrooms of various sizes have sprouted from their skin, and a couple on their neck. They wear silver earrings, and their left ear has a small notch carved into it. Small beads of a dark, red liquid are scattered across their cheeks and right shoulder, and are concentrated on areas where red blotches have started to darken the pale skin. Their eyes are completely red, with the left eye containing a thin webbing that is also starting to form on the right. End ID]

CW for a discussion focused around mushrooms, fungal infections, death to said fungal infection, and undeath. There's also mention of tree parasites, starvation (after death), and colonization.

Really, anything under the cut is extra; you don't need to read it if you're not comfortable. Please stay safe! (:

Hi! Get ready for an essay, because while I was taking a break from drawing, I wasn't taking a break from thinking about drawing, and I have a lot of unorganized thoughts about this piece, not just about the design, but the fictional fugal infection that its depicting.

I got my Spotify wrapped playlist, and wasn't surprised when Lord Huron's "Not Dead Yet" was my most played song. After all, it's one of my favorites, often getting me in the mood to create, and the inspiration behind a concept I have for another new OC, an undead-ish ranch hand. (It's a work-in-progress.) So over the past few days I've been listening to that song on loop even more than usual, and it put me in the mood to look into some different zombie video games that I have no intention of ever playing. I noticed that the zombie apocalypses I was looking at were all focused on humans turning, and I couldn't remember anything about a zombie plague for any fantasy races. Thus, I decided to create a concept for one that effects the moon elves from Dungeons and Dragons.

I decided that the condition would be caused by a fungal infection. Partially inspired by how European colonizers brought illnesses to the Americas, I decided moon elves would first encounter it when trying to colonize land originally inhabited by wood elves. I know that is the opposite of how it happened with the colonizers, but I wanted to change it up a bit. The fungus wouldn't be a concern to the wood elves, as they already had time to adapt and build up a resistance. However, once brought back to moon elf settlements it would be able to run rampant.

As many already know, elves live for a long time. In this universe that I am apparently creating now, part of the reason for that is that all of them, not just wood elves, are similar to trees, slow growing, and able to survive even when most of its body has been damaged. In the case of trees, it means that when a parasite such as Dwarf Mistletoe* decides to use a tree as its host, a slow race begins. The tree needs to keep growing in order to have enough branches to obtain enough oxygen, while the mistletoe tries to use that oxygen for itself as it tries to take over the entire tree. In some cases, the parasite remains inside the host for a long stretch of time before sprouting to release seeds.

Something similar occurred with the infected moon elves.

After the moon elves' failure to take the land from the wood elves, they returned home, not knowing they were carrying the fungus. It took around fifty years before anyone noticed something was amiss. Infected elves began to die from an illness that weakened them over time and reddened their skin and clouded their eyes. From there, it becomes a standard zombie story: they start to rise from their graves, mindless and seeking out living targets.

The zombies themselves are fairly passive, only attacking if one around them is attacked first. In most cases, they simply wandered around they areas they had risen from, then following living elves. They did not go out of their way to feed, so many would eventually collapse once their bodies finally gave out, either due to starvation or decay.

The main threat comes from the mushrooms that sprout from their bodies. As the mushrooms matured, they released their spores, which then in turn infected the living around them.

The main design inspiration for this was the Bleeding Tooth Fungus, a type of mushroom that, as its name suggests, looks like a tooth with drops of blood on it. I decided that moon elves, with their pale, blue skin, would match the fungus the most after the infection sets in and red blotches start to form. The mushrooms sprouting from the body are not based on any particular species, just slightly inspired by the mushrooms on my Animate Dead sticker. The disk shapes are fun to shade and detail.

A large portion of the line art on the face and neck were done with the symmetry tool. To hopefully keep the piece from looking too balanced, and to distract from the mirrored lines, I purposefully shifted the mushrooms and details in the coloring to different heights on the face.

For the red markings, I experimented with a different combination of brushes that usual. In most cases, I use a simple opaque brush and add details with the flat marker, thin gouache, and g-pen brushes, but I decided to use one of the airbrushes to add some finer speckling.

The eyebrows are only there because I liked the shape I had made them, and I thought the cool color would add some contrast to the area around the eyes.

Thank you for reading this far! I normally don't post lots of writing like this, but if you're interested in reading some more of my world building ideas, check out my side blog, @tired-spider. I'm more active on this blog, but I a lot of my art and world building ideas there, along side some DnD stuff and headcannons for different media I'm invested in.

Critique is always welcome, and I hope you have a nice day!

* It should be noted that I first learned about this on a hike a few months ago. So while I think that this is the type of mistletoe I was told about originally, I'm not entirely sure.

FuckIt. Guilt trip people if that’s what it will take.

I have a sore throat, probably because I drank a lot of beverages hotter than I should have the last few days, but I don’t have any home testing kits, so I’m going to extra keep my distance from my immunocompromised people, and regular keep my distance from everyone else.

It’s not an ideal situation, but I don’t intend to knowing make anyone sick. Especially people I claim to actually care about.

UGH.

you know what boils my blood.

over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."

i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.

but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.

today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.

the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.

so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.

A little red and way too hot

A lot of people in Encanto were sick currently. Of course, Luisa did all she could to help. After all, she was young and strong. There's no way she would actually get sick.

Bad things happen bingo: Chickenpox

One of the peculiarities of life in the Encanto was the almost complete lack of illness. And it wasn't even because of Julieta's gift. In a closed community, all the viruses or bacteria were brought with the first settlers and died in a few years.

So, when the mountains cracked and dozens of visitors came into the village, Encanto was plagued by epidemics. The fact that most of the villagers who were younger than Encanto itself weren't ever sick in their lives and had zero immunoresistance didn't help.

Luisa turned over on her side, groaning in pain. The red blisters on her skin were itching so badly. But she didn't have the energy to do anything about it; her arms were too heavy, and she wanted to do nothing but lie in her bed because of how hot she was. Her head started to ache along with feeling general weakness in her body for a few days before the first ill scrabs appeared on her face.

The doctor, who moved in here a while ago, checked her. At first, it seemed like the flu; many of the villagers were sick with it currently, to the point where you could call it an epidemic. But when Luisa started to become stained, the diagnosis changed to chickenpox. Most people in the outside world were sick with it in childhood, but the village didn't have the virus before; it couldn't just appear out of nowhere. So Luisa couldn't have it when she was a minor; in fact, the only one in the family who was already immune was Abuela. Luisa most likely got sick when she delivered medicines and food to sick villagers. As she was physically strong, she assumed that she would get through any illness easily. Now, lying in her bed, Luisa wasn't so sure anymore. But again, she wasn't really sick before, so maybe this was normal. Either way, she felt bad for all people who were ever sick.

The time was melting together, Luisa wasn't sure how long she had slept or what exactly was going on around her. Memories were a dizzy-fever mess. Her head was hot like freshly brewed coffee, and yet she felt cold. The rash didn't help at all. It was itchy and annoying; the strange ointments helped a little, but it still wasn't a great feeling. And her muscles felt so weak... Compared to it, Luisa had super strength even without her gift.

Sometimes she caught the feeling of a palm against her forehead, but she was too oblivious to her surroundings that she couldn't make out who it was. People were whispering, touching her kindly as her sick from fever brain couldn't make anything that was going on. She knew that sometimes her parents visited her, but only for a short time to prevent themselves from getting infected. Luisa was nineteen, and if she felt that bad... She didn't want to think about how mom and dad would take it in their fifty and forty-eighth years, respectively. And even if they would take it easier, the family didn't need more problems.

"Señorita, how are you going?" Luisa slightly opened her eyes with a weak groan. She stared at Señora.... whoever she was, for a few seconds before her eyes closed again.

"Your body is taking it even worse than expected." Luisa could sense worry in the woman's voice. She remembered something about chickenpox being more dangerous in adults... Or maybe it was a part of a fever dream, because why would kids take it better? She didn't know. But it sounded strange.

The red spots on her body itched so much that Luisa felt that she would've rubbed herself to the meat just to calm it down if she could move her hands. The only thing she was able to do was toss over, feeling the cold pillow against her reddish cheek. People were still talking, but she could never bother enough to actually listen to anyone. Being sick definitely wasn't cool in both senses of this word.