so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.
first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.
it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.
and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.
you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.
and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.
your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.
in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.
in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.
so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.
you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.
once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.
and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"
you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?
hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!
you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.
we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?
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sorry dude i can’t hang out today. i saw someone online misinterpret my favourite piece of media. yeah i have to lay on the floor. yeah it’ll be all day.
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>be a webcomic
>decent popularity and critical support from the fans at the start
>immediate drop in quality over next bunch of updates
>fans hate it
>gets so bad writers and artists are harassed to the point of leaving the team
>endless controversies between writers acting shitty on their personal Twitter account to fans to accusing discord mods of being 4Chan nazis
>comic loses half its funding 8 months in
>bimonthly updates 4 months in return to the sluggish once a month updates from the start
>pause 14 months into the comic’s intended 5 year run.
>announce a month later indefinite hiatus
>radio Silence for THREE YEARS AND NINE MONTHS
>be almost 4 year anniversary of the webcomic’s start, 17 days away to be exact
>drop 4 DOZEN pages
>new director
>new writers union
>new EVERYTHING even the title of the comic changed
>the “it’s so over” from the fandom supercharges back into “we are so fucking back”
>its name is enough to scare half this website into shock
>look at tags
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GUYS. when i say i love haymitch i do not mean the black-out drunk, 'violent' haymitch abernathy i quite literally mean the one that advocated against his tribute becoming a sex symbol/stopping the capitol from physically altering her body, the one that made hefty sacrifices for both his tributes at times, the one that sleeps with a knife and the lights on out of safety, the one haunted by his past with little sparks of hope left inside of the rubble of his current self. the one that did so much and was pretty much glossed over despite how much was revealed about him. the seam boy with a fire that never was put out, but dimmed as he grew. the one that outlived 47 tributes and manipulated the arena with his intelligence that is so HEAVILY slept on. THAT, is my haymitch. not the one that fell off the stage, or puked on the rug, or anything that would turn him into some sort of joke because he's not. to me he's a little like the hidden meaning of an art piece, symbolic and aching like the painter who put their feelings on canvas.
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Ok Ok so.
In dpxdc stories. Danny always gets assumed to be sick or uses it as an excuse or whatever to hide his powers right?
What if he wasn't lying?
It wasn't something easily noticed, not when half a dozen other things could explain it after all.
The shakes lingering? Well he'd used his ice powers a lot the night before fighting Skulker.
The faint feeling and lightheadedness? Well his mom had a good shot when people didn't interfere, and while he healed fast, it wasn't from nothing; he felt better after he ate anyway.
Heart racing suddenly? Probably just attempting to regulate the low beat on reflex again to seem normal but over shot it.
But the getting out of breath or spotty vision hadn't really been easily explained.
It was Mr. Lancer who asked about it after he'd gotten up from his seat in detention-happening less and less for actual reasons and more an opportunity to safely do his work and rest, after the truce with the ghosts to leave him and the town be during certain hours-only for the next thing he knew he was on the floor, head pillowed on Mr. Lancer's sweater, and a cool wet paper towel on his forehead and neck.
POTS. Post orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Not uncommon for those who had had injuries too their hearts to get.
It made sense when the teacher asked if he could have it. Apparently a friend of his's daughter had it.
From there, it made things easier to an extent. Salt was pretty easy to add, he figured out a wrist brace that he could extend into a cane if needed to.
In ghost form he didn't need it at all, but human form had its limits.
Despite all that he'd gone through, he graduates and even gets accepted to a college near jazz, hers was in Metropolis but Gotham had the ambient ectoplasm that he needed, and it was a day trip away.
And so Gotham U became his home, especially after his parents couldn't take that he wasn't "their son" anymore when he told them-after moving everything and getting his cheap apartment set up just in case. He considered it lucky that they loved their son enough they couldn't hunt "his ghost".
Last he'd heard they were working closer with the GIW but hadn't had much luck since the portal strangely closed soon after he left and the other ghosts didn't feel much reason to visit Amity anymore without him there.
It was Gotham U where he met Dick by literally fainting into his arms after a long day where he'd forgotten to eat and the early dinner the night before plus the going down the stairs at a quick pace and leaning forward with gravity.
"sorry, couldn't help falling for you~" the cheesy pick up line was the only thing his foggy brain could comprehend before he fainted.
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