Whenever I talk about the medical neglect and ableism I've encountered as a victim of the healthcare system, there's always some cockwaffle who feels entitled to come into my inbox and make the argument of "not all doctors" while talking about how "people like them" (because it's always someone in a field of medicine who does this) are doing their best and it's really hard because so many people fake being ill to get on welfare (Yikes), but like, yeah, obviously #not all doctors, because if all doctors were negligent, bullying scum bags, I'd be dead.
But here's the thing: while I truly believe that the majority of doctors are doing their best in a system stacked against them and their patients, their presence does not negate the mass harm caused by the bad ones. And there are far more bad ones than you realize.
Fuck, John Oliver literally did a segment on this last week:
Yes, the truly bad, malicious doctors are in the minority. Most are just horrifically burned out and fighting a losing battle against a system, killing both them and their patients through a lack of funding and resources and profound overwork.
But the malicious ones do exist, and they will go out of their way to harm patients who don't kowtow to them.
I almost lost my life because when I was in my early twenties, I told a doctor I didn't think she was listening to me, and I disagreed with her assessment of my mental health (she was not a mental health doctor, and I was there for heart palpitations and chronic pain). She retaliated by putting "non-compliant" in my file.
There was also a fun little "doesn't show respect" note too that lives rent-free in my head because I know I wasn't rude. I was polite. I just didn't agree with her, and my refusal to accept her off-handed comment that "you probably have bipolar or BPD" (again, I was there for heart palpitations and chronic pain) meant I was "refusing care."
I wasn't. I just refused to be slapped with a mood/personality disorder when I was there because I kept fucking fainting when I stood up.
(Spoiler alert: it was dysautonomia)
That "non-compliant" marker followed me around for years. It followed me across an ocean and effectively ensured that any doctor I saw was going to treat me like absolute dogshit because no one wants to help Difficult Patients. It wasn't until I was so undeniably ill, literally on the brink of death, that anyone helped me.
I'm alive because of a good doctor. And all the good ones that came after him because of him.
So, I know they exist. You don't have to tell me that.
But I really fucking need you to acknowledge the bad ones and that you're part of a system with a long, long history of abusing minorities and vulnerable people. I need you to acknowledge that because it's the only way we're going to survive this godforsaken nightmare and make things better.
So yeah, #notalldoctors, but if you feel the need to say that because someone talking about being literally left to die by the medical system hurts your feelings, I'm going to have to ask you to take a step back and ask yourself if you're going into medicine for the right reasons.
Namely: do you want to help people, even the "difficult" ones?
Even the ones who might disagree with you?
Even if they're on welfare?
Even if they'll never get "better" in a way that means "cured"?
Just a thought. But hey, what do I know. I'm just someone who experienced hemolytic anemia because doctors kept telling me I was anxious and needed to exercise more 🤷♀️.
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First Years Finding Out Your A Girl?!?! (NOT CLICKBAIT!!!)
TW: Mild swearing, STRICTLY Female Reader, Discussion of Jack having a good sniffer (lol)
Info: Headcannons; Ace, Deuce, Jack, and Epel x Reader (platonic); Mostly for fun
🍓Hi. I'm back... sorta. I didn't have much time to write over the summer, and I honestly don't know how much I can write during school cause my schedule is... yikes. But I picked up something I wrote a while ago, edited it, and decided to post it. I'll be answering whatever's in my ask box right now, and then maybe work on some other stuff.
Ortho & Sebek
Second Years
Third Years
Dorm Leaders
-Okay so, I know we’re all wondering, how the hell do you get away with hiding your gender for so damn long?
-Firstly, those ceremonial robes do great at hiding the figure. The only tell would maybe be your hair, but feminine men aren’t unwelcome at Nightraven College, so you mostly get a few questioning stares and that’s it.
-Secondly, Crowley wants to save his own fucking ass. He already has to hide from the press that he has a MAGICLESS student from ANOTHER DIMENSION here, he doesn’t need the fact that you are a woman ALSO on his plate. So, obviously, he helps you hide your gender from others.
-Grim knows, of course, and he keeps his mouth shut for a few yummy cans of tuna (and threats of being expelled from Crowley <3)
-Even when you were just a janitor, he couldn’t have the rumor that he put a “helpless” young woman to work. (Like it wouldn’t be expected.)
-So how do you two do it?
-Baggy ass uniform. Crowley gave you at least three sizes too big.
-Your figure is completely hidden. Sure, you look completely homeless, but at least you’re hidden.
-For your voice, you simply deepen it. After some point, you blackmail Crowley into giving you a potion to help with it, since it's so taxing on your voice. (Or maybe your voice is naturally deep!)
-Sam provides you (for an unfairly pretty penny (not too different from your original world…)) any feminine hygiene products you might need.
-Honestly, you’re set for being cared for, but it’s the adjustment period that’s the hardest part.
-Truly, it’s very jarring to suddenly be thrown into both a magical world and be isolated in a man's world with nowhere to hide.
-At least in your world you had other women who could understand your struggles. Here though? You’re completely alone.
-You notice how… messy some of these guys could be. How some of them smell… really rancid. -How rough they were with you and each other.
-Honestly, it’s kinda eye-opening. The way men show affection to each other is oddly refreshing to watch and experience!
-Ace and Deuce specifically are a good… trial run.
-That’s not what we’re here to talk about though…
-For the most part, it's incredibly easy to hide yourself for the first while on campus. Everyone on campus is so self-absorbed that they don’t bother questioning you.
-Your only real risk factor is Savannaclaw, but it's easy to avoid those guys (minus Jack, of course, but we’ll get to him).
-However, you can only hide your gender for so long… It’s mentally draining to keep up this facade all the time around people you care about.
-So… how do they find out?
FIRST-YEAR SQUAD
Ace
-He’s one of the first ones who find it out, and it’s in the very cliche anime way.
-After some point of knowing you, Ace is so comfortable that he just invites himself into ramshackle.
-It’s never been an issue or anything. You’re thick as thieves now, you’ve survived death together a handful of times. If you ask Ace, that’s about as close as you can get with someone.
-Normally, you and Grim are just sitting around in the living area, but this time you aren’t. However, he does hear voices coming from your room. His curiosity is peaked.
-So, slippery guy that he is, he sneaks up to your room and his curiosity only grows when he hears a woman’s voice. Prefect getting lucky? And he didn’t tell him? Ace thought you guys were friends.
-He creeps up to your room, slides open your door, and!!! Holy shit it’s you. It’s you in a towel. It’s you and you’ve got tits?!?!
-His first reaction is to… well… scream.
-“You’re a girl?!?”
“Why are you in my room???”
“You’ve got- boobs!”
“Get out Ace!”
-Bro sits very politely and very quietly on your couch after that. Deep behind his blank stare, he is seething. You were a girl this whole time, and you didn’t tell him! He thought you guys were friends!
-He definitely fights you about it once you’re down and dressed. He’s just salty, he’ll get over it.
-Swears up and down he won’t tell anyone.
-Immediately tells Deuce.
-That's it though! Deuce is part of the main quartet, he deserves to know! (You scold him for this too, but you figured it would happen one way or another).
-From him finding out, he doesn’t really treat you differently. You’re still a person, why should he act differently cause you’ve got different body parts than him.
-Though, and he won’t admit this, he’s a bit more… watchful of the others around you. Yeah, you can hold your own and he respects you… but guys like Azul exist, and he’s seen firsthand the torture Azul is capable of.
Deuce
-As stated before, Ace outs you to Deuce almost immediately after finding out.
-Deuce, in all his awkward glory, completely shuts down. Disconnects from this plane of existence. He cannot believe the news he was just told.
-You, one of his best friends in all of twisted wonderland. You, the person who survived multiple overblots alongside him. You, who have seen him at his most vulnerable… are a girl.
-It isn’t even the fact that you’re a girl, it’s the fact that you kept this a secret from him for so long. You guys are… bros… how could you possibly hide something so important from him. Did you not trust him?
-Yeah… he overthinks things quite a bit.
-He also ambushes you the very next day with a million questions (very loudly (very in public)), to which you calm him down and reassure him that “No, Deuce, I don’t suddenly hate you. I wasn’t hiding it from you maliciously. I was going to tell you at some point, I just hadn’t had a good time to.”
-Deuce’s behavior definitely… changes… in some ways.
-Deep down he knows you’re a kick-ass bitch and you don’t need to be cared for, but he can’t help but want to.
-It’s definitely his mommy issues in play here.
-He just becomes more… protective and aware around you. Not in a creepy obsessive way, just in the same way a guard dog would.
-Like Ace, he’s more than aware of what the people on this campus are capable of, and you’re completely magicless on top of being more feminine. Some guys at NRC would hop on an opportunity like that like nothing.
-He just doesn’t want to see his friends getting hurt okay :(
-It’s like you gained an overprotective older brother who also sometimes barks!
Jack
-Out of everyone, Jack was the first to find out.
-I don’t wanna be the cliche writer but… he’s got a sniffer on him.
-He definitely could smell that something was up, but he didn’t want to assume!
-You could be trans, you could be genderfluid, you could be anything other than a woman! It’s not his place to judge, and smell isn’t always the end all be all. You could just really smell feminine and that's how guys come in your world.
-Mr. Respectful would never want to assume anything… but he’s a little curious he won’t lie.
-Jack REALLY found out shortly after Ace, Deuce and Grim got their asses in trouble with Azul.
-He’d never been given a reason to spend any more than a few minutes around you at a time. However, since he got pulled into this mess, he’s spent a lot more time with you.
-It happened when he was forced to hide under the desk in his office.
-You were so close and you just… smelled like a girl.
-He is so polite and so upstanding, he would NEVER ask you directly. But the suspense of not knowing really does take a number on him.
-By the end of Azul’s overblotting he is so awkward and nervous around you, that you absolutely have to say something.
-At this point, you figured most of the beastmen had an idea of you being feminine, however, you had no real confirmation of that.
-Jack is such a “let's not bother other people” kind of guy, that you knew he wouldn’t want to say anything to you if you knew… so you decided to take the plunge.
-At the museum, you pull him aside and you have to ask.
_”Jack?”
“Hm?”
“You know, don’t you?”
“…”
“I figured as much. Don’t tell anyone, m’kay? I want to tell my friends on my terms.”
-It makes Jack respect you more than he already did. Not only did you have the confidence to confront him, but you did it calmly and you were understanding of his position.
-And honestly? Not much changes between the two of you.
-He just respects you a little more. He’s not particularly protective around most other students, he talks to you the same, and he doesn’t act like you’re special. You’re just… a friend.
-The only thing that he may be different about is other beastmen. He does his best to shield you from them if he feels they might be a threat to your well-being.
Epel
-Epel, being a more feminine-looking man himself… doesn’t think much of you.
-At this point, you’re well acclimated to things at nightraven college, and are very good at being “one of the boys.”
-His ONLY implication is how… differently Rook and Kalim treat you.
-At this point, Kalim has found out via the previous chapter, and Rook knows because of course he does. (We won’t be getting into that today though)
-They both are more… delicate with you? Rook whips out the charm times ten when you’re around. Kalim, although friendly with everyone, seems to be even MORE friendly when you’re around. Like he wants you to like him.
-Even Deuce and Ace have a few… odd tells.
-They both pointedly ensure Jamil is at least five feet away from you at all times. Glare at Rook when he’s a little too charming.
-Other than that, nothing really gives it away.
-Epel is completely and totally in the dark because you’re really good at hiding that you’re a woman.
-He does, however, eventually find out because… Deuce slips up. He’s there giving his big speech on the beach, hyping Epel up, and somehow he manages, “And the prefect is a woman, but she never lets that get in her way!”
-Epel: Shocked, confused, in awe… says nothing. He lets the information ruminate.
-He lets it ruminate for a very long time.
-So long, in fact, that he doesn’t raise his suspicions until the two of you are on a broom heading off to save Vil’s life.
-The silence was killing him, so he had to ask.
-“Prefect, are you a girl?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I couldn’t be sure, I look like a girl too, so you never know.”
“Yes, Epel, I’m a girl.”
“…Cool.”
-Honestly, he’s kind of jealous of you. You passed better than him, and you had to try harder.
-It doesn’t change how he treats you, honestly. He’s not that kind of country bumpkin, but he won’t lie and say he doesn’t have a little resentment held against you.
-He thinks you’re cool as hell, and you help redefine what femininity can look like to him much better than what Vil does.
-He, however, does actively become more protective of you.
-Not because he thinks you can’t fend for yourself, but because he kinda wants to show off a little.
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Dp x DC AU: Danny didn't want to rely on his rogues, but Tucker's computer skills only got them so far and if the media black out continues... Danny knows it's not going to be pretty for them. Nightmares begin to plague the Justice League.
---
Danny gets back from a shitty conversation with Clockwork and in his frustration, accidentally sets off one of the new GIW sensors that his parents allowed to be installed in the lab. Their collaboration seemed to be going no where but when Danny had new holes blasted through him... it must be going somewhere. Damn it.
The commotion is loud enough that Jazz hears it from her room above the lab (he knows she listens to more than just the lab... it's cause she cares, even if it is a bit invasive.) and rushes in to play the distraction while Danny gets away. This time it works- the Drs. Fenton might have the worst aim in the city but they demand all shots cease if a civilian is nearby- Next time his mom might be aiming her gun at him and not the ground. Danny decides he'll buy Jazz a coffee on his way home.
But first, new holes. Yikes. That like, needs medical attention- He heads to Tucker's place and he's pretty sure Sam is already there.
"Danny! What the fuck, did Clockwork-" She starts, her meticulous cat eyeliner making her glare all the deeper.
"Nah, it's the stupid GIW sensor, the stupid one I told you guys about that has a spring lose in the back?"
"I thought we decided those weren't a concern?" Tucker looks him over, face covered in undisguised and very blatant concern.
"Yeah well, Clocky pissed me off so I forgot about them when I came back in through the lab portal-"
"you were supposed to be practicing making your own." Sam interrupts.
"-And when I did, the thing got knocked and I was swatted like immediately. Jazz launched herself into the lab so Mom made them stop shooting and it gave me enough time to get out." Danny continued to explain, ignoring his friend's 'i told you so' faces.
"Dude. We're pushing it close this week. Sam already had a confrontation with the lab guys and I already got blacklisted on my new persona accounts. We're like seriously threading the needle for getting caught." Tucker, pulls his glasses down to pinch the bridge of his nose and Danny and Sam both get what he's really saying. They need to lie low.
"What did CW say to piss you off?" Sam asks after a silent moment.
"He said nothing really, just like he always does, but insinuated I should try getting a rogue to help." Danny sighs.
"What, Like getting Ember to announce the GIW invasion on her tour? We already agreed that-" Sam is getting angry as she speaks so Tuck cuts her off- "It's a bad Idea. She is- They are all just as likely to get captured and hurt as you are if you go out of town." He comes to the same conclusion they've agreed on for weeks. No rogue involvement.
"Maybe we just need to sleep on it... Hey... wait." Danny sighs, but then his gears start to turn.
"Nocturn. We need Nocturn to help us. He can get the message out through dreams." Danny comes to the new conclusion and his friends look hesitant but at least like they're considering it.
"Isn't he an ancient? He's not going to help us for free." Tucker, ever the Egyptian god in these moments.
"Most people don't take their dreams literally." Sam, ever the skeptic in these moments.
"Yeah but, if they dream it enough times, and they're the right people to do something... they can look it up and then at least see that there is a problem?" Danny sounds hopeful and its the first time he's sounded that way in months.
"What, you're gunna give Batman nightmares?" Tucker snickers but Sam looks inspired.
"That's exactly what he's going to do. We need to haunt the Justice League. They'll see past the fake facade the GIW put up online and they'll be able to get the right legislation passed." Sam is practically buzzing.
"Okay, so lets get scheming- What do you get the primordial beast of the unconscious? Should I google 'what to get someone who has everything'? " Danny laughs.
_____
Bruce and his children rarely do feelings when they have breakfast in the morning after a night of separate patrols, but it seems as though the room is plagued with unease. Tim looks about as tired as ever, so his unease is probably attributable to WE board meetings, but its unlike the rest of his children to be so... disturbed. For some reason, after Alfred has excused them all from eating more than a few nibbles, they make it to the cave. Bruce is glad for the noise his children bring.
The nightmare's he's been having are following a dark plot. A town, a boy who looks like he was kin, and so, so much death. Bruce has had vivid dreams before in life, but this nightmare is... unreal. He tries to remind himself that it's just a nightmare.
When his JL emergency communicator goes off at the computer desk, he's not expecting it to be Dinah Lance. She and her Birds are typically wary of him in Gotham, even if they work well together in the League. He answers it like he would any Batman call, with silence.
"Bats, we have a problem. Any chance you've been having weird dreams about a kid getting experimented on or a town being burned down? Ghosts? Lazarus portals?" Dinah sounds exhausted, but Bruce snaps to her voice with rapt attention. As do all of his children.
"I-" Bruce takes a look around the room, everyone's heads except for Tim's nodding up and down with distress," We all have."
"Something tells me that they whole JL is. Everyone I've talked to this week has had a variation of the same dream. We either have a telepath trying to tell us something, or something even worse than that."
"I'll call emergency meeting, we need to collect details and try to determine the complete message."
"I'll send you what I've noted down so far, sans personal details of course, it's definitely in a town called Amity Park though. My client this morning saw the sign."
Batman grunts and the call ends. It's time to get to work.
----
When the Justice League finally arrives, the town is glowing, and everything feels like... sleep. smothering. snoring. smoking. smoldering.
And then, despite the exhaustion that echos within them, the trudge onwards. The noise of laser guns certainly wakes them up a bit.
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