snowblindrpg | [network] @hotstud_xxx; Day 314; audio [open] (cw: there may be graphic discussion of illness)

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[network] @hotstud_xxx; Day 314; audio [open] (cw: there may be graphic discussion of illness)

[This is Christmas. House's idea of Christmas, anyway. Sudden onset of deadly illnesses with disjointed and impossible progression of symptoms, and him not affected? Christmas! Someone out there loves him. Granted, he might not be able to help anyone get better and that's lame, but answers. Answers are something he is particularly prepared to provide. House is also curious if there's some psychosomatic effect at work here that might let him influence people. He goes on audio for this, and someone sounds almost gleeful.]

Hello, sick people! Dr. House here. I am a board certified medical professional and tenured professor of diagnostics at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in Princeton, New Jersey. I have a double specialty infectious disease and nephrology and head the only Department of Diagnostic Medicine in the world in my universe.

All that said... tell me what ails you, Snowhell. Details required. Pics if you need them. Allow me to diagnose you. This service is free of charge for today only! Or however long this whole thing lasts. I'll even prescribe you meds if they're relevant to your condition. Step right up, then! Don't be shy.

It should go without saying, but I am limited to identification and diagnosis of Earth-based diseases. So if you've got a different name in your universe for the measels, I'm still calling them the measels.

((OOC: While House is an ace diagnostician, I am very much not. It would be helpful for me if you could indicate the disease or diseases your character is suffering from for the event or indicate that the constellation of symptoms was pulled at random/non-Earth-based.))

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Some of us are just get the time and means to perfect our assholish inclinations, yes. But I'm sure it's a relief to know you can be just as bad as an undead leech and still retain your vital signs. But it's less your utter lack of empathy that concerns me than how you deal with the knowledge that what you're seeing could be you, given the right, or wrong circumstances. Luck of the draw. Total randomness, as usual.

[It's a little longer for a response as House actually considers his answer, rather than being flip.]

you just do
i don't believe in an afterlife
it's not like i'm scared of anything coming after
some people do
maybe that's what freaks them out

House, you are talking to a vampire who occasionally practices necromancy-derived magic. I know for a fact that there is an afterlife. What scares me is the much less existentially complex possibility of spending the rest of my life, such as it is, in helpless, oozing pain.

live life in constant pain
bad enough that it's occasionally difficult just to move in the morning
find yourself helpless multiple times
while other people make life-altering decisions you didn't ask for on your behalf
and suffer from one or more bouts with common ailments in your life

being sick and suffering is part of being human
so maybe it gets cranked to 11 on some people
it's still something baseline understandable

Are you fishing for sympathy, or for admiration of your powers of endurance? Because I will raise you existing as a cold corpse, unsure of what truly animates you night to night, remaining frozen just as you were when you died, whether you liked what you were or not. Never able to see the sun, taste food, or even shed real tears. Drinking human blood for sustenance. None of us were particularly heroic or deserving for putting up with such an existence and not succumbing to the horror of our condition. It's simply about the devil you know.

neither
you asked a philosophical question
i'm trying to answer it
how do i personally deal with watching other people suffer?
i just do
because that's what the human condition is
it's universal
apparently even in undeath
so treat it like that
and just get on with your life
they'll be fine
you're not obligated to take care of them
particularly if it's bothering you that much

Edited (i know what words mean) 2018-01-16 23:45 (UTC)

This is probably the part where I tell you that dealing with the horror of the human condition becomes easier when you share it with others. That's absolute bollocks, but let it be noted that we have raised the point and duly examined it before dismissal.

cool
philosophical discussion concluded
got anything more interesting to talk about?
i have other people to diagnose

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