Fan death

[tsaiko]

You learn something new every day. o_O

Fan Death is a South Korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can result in the death (by suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia) of those inside. This belief also extends to air conditioners.

I'm filing this under: I have got to use this belief in an alien species one day.

Comments

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

Eee! I'm glad you like Sparkle. When I wrote it I kind of wished I had a better resource to learn about PTSD (mostly what I could find were news articles and diagnosis, with not much emphasis on symptoms). Mostly I had to wing it. It's always gratifying that I wasn't too far off (although I wouldn't wish PTSD on anyone).

[sagesae.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I've seen a few too many people who have it.

Really, you displayed the flashback portion of PTSD rather well to my knowledge. Really, the closest my experience comes to that is brief spurts of fear at sharp, loud noises that come with the thought to move. Move where? I don't know. I know several guys couldn't play those army video games after returning because the explosions sounded too real to them.

I know PTSD comes in many forms, so many I think they only really categorize the main ones. And on top of that, it doesn't even have to be causes from a situation of seeing the war from the outside the camps. If you were there, you can have it. It's just pure stress. You never get days off, you're already stressed about being there and people shooting at you, or the fact that even as a minor soldier, there's so much media pressure and political pressure in everything you do that screwing up is BAD.

The worst part of it is that a majority of people don't get help. They think first what their buddies will think if they knew they were and convince themselves they're too strong to need that sort of thing. Or their not weak enough to even be suffering.

And people back in the states? They tend to not understand it either. I think that's why I was so impressed with Sparkle - outside of it just being very good. People who haven't been usually are blind to it all, as if it never happens. It frustrating.