You know what was not fun? Suddenly out of nowhere developing eczema when I was in my mid teens.
1, it gets bad every time the season changes—every summer I'm like no yeah it gets really gnarly when it gets all hot and humid and every winter I'm like no yeah it gets really gnarly when it gets all cold and dry.
2, I'm horrible at the not-scratching thing. Do I know it will make the problem worse, and probably also cause some bleeding/weeping? Yep. Does that make it easier to resist? No. It itches. When things itch I want to scratch. I often do it without even thinking and oh shit now I feel bad because I should've "just not scratched" and also now my hands hurt more.
3, I fear even scratching what appears to be a regular itch on my hands, the insides of my elbows, or the backs of my knees, because I have it predominately on my hands but it's been really horrible on the backs of my knees especially, like before I realized there was actually something going on there I scratched so much it hurt when I ran soap over the skin while I was showering, and there were always these big red bumps with little spots of blood, and if I scratch in one of those places what if I cause it to flare up by irritating the skin?
4, I feel bad for complaining about it, because I feel like people are going to see me feeling sorry for myself about my (legitimate) skin condition and say okay dramatic bitch it's just a skin thing it's not that big a deal, and because I sometimes feel that way towards myself about it even though I live in my own body and I know it is a big deal; it itches all the time and it hurts and as you can clearly see by this post that all effects me mentally.
5, it makes me feel ugly sometimes. When I had it on my knees it was summer, and therefore I was wearing shorts, and it was visible and I knew it. I was so worried that people were going to look at it and be revulsed or make fun of me or just laugh about how ugly it was, because it's not pretty—and it's a medical condition, it's not supposed to be, but it still makes me feel lousy. On my hands, depending on how long my sleeves are, I can cover most of it, but I still know it's there and I worry that if I shift my hands too much while talking other people are going to see it and wonder ew, what's wrong with you, and not want to be near me.
6, it started at the worst possible time. I was a teenager with my first boyfriend, a very hard-won boyfriend mind you, talking to him in the first place was the boldest thing I'd ever dared to do not just because I knew he was cute and smart and that he liked superheroes, but because he was a human being and speaking to other humans is one of my greatest trials, and it was all well and fine until our second date was coming up and suddenly I had these horrible red patches all over my skin and all I wanted out of life at the time was to hold hands with my boyfriend but I felt incredibly self-conscious and sad about the idea that my eczema might gross him out and he wouldn't want to hold hands with me. (In case you're saying poor Martian, hunny did he let you down? no. he did not. I drove myself crazy not scratching and was lotioning day and night to try and get it under control and for the most part I did so I suppose I'll never know if he would've, given the opportunity, but I didn't have to worry about it on the day of the date itself so that's what counts for me.)
7, it's something I had to adapt to. not very good at doing that tbh. Every time I have a flare up I'm can't help thinking it wasn't always like this and being upset, because my skin used to act the way skin is supposed to and for some reason I don't even know, it stopped.
8, I was prescribed medicine (one that will literally do permanent damage to my skin if I use it too often but that's barely here or there), but if I forget to put my preemptive strike on for a couple of nights and there's a change in the weather and I don't use my anti-eczema lotion enough during the day then I have a flare up anyway.
9, once a flare up starts it's really hard to stop. Nine times out of ten one of the problems is that my hands are too dry to start with, but the medicine only makes them dryer, which while it does help them heal, it also creates a different secondary sort of problem that stymies the healing at a certain point. So I take a break from the medicine to focus on getting my skin to a healthy moisture level but that's really hard to do, I don't know why, and the eczema is getting worse because I'm not applying the medicine and I'm kind of stuck.
So...yeah. Eczema sucks and I'm not even a little brave about it, I'm just tired and sad.
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This might seem like an "old man yells at cloud" situation, but it's just wild growing up and being told how dangerous distracted driving is - how, at highway speeds, you can traverse the length of a football field (100 yards, 91 meters) in a matter of seconds - how one split second sending a text while driving could result in a potential fatal crash, and then getting on the road as a driver and being surrounded by billboards. Their entire purpose is to catch one's attention, so they're lining major roads, which tend to be highways. How is it that you're told how important it is to never be distracted while driving, but still being advertised to?
At best, this type of advertising is an eyesore to pedestrians and motorists and a general waste of electricity to light it, and at worst, it is an active danger considering they are there to advertise and therefore, must catch people's attention.
I'm not even against advertising in theory, but this particular mode bothers me so much and I hate how pervasive it is - especially in large cities or highways.
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Early Accident AU
So Danny becomes Phantom at like age 8 or something right. And everything goes just about similar to canon, including TUE. The only difference is that instead of the meeting being called because Danny cheated on a career aptitude test, it's now because his teacher is just worried about him and is staging a sorta intervention thing.
So anyway, Danny cannot stop the Nasty Burger explosion and ends up going to live with Vlad. Which isn't going well. He's constantly crying and feeling guilty for not stopping the incident. There's also the constant fear that he'll become Dan. Vlad is doing nothing to address any of this. Instead he's showing off his godson to anyone and everyone and bragging about how smart he is. In fact, that's exactly what he does when he gets invited to a Wayne Gala.
The bats take one look at this kid, who's eyes are still red from crying, being dragged around by his guardian and alarm bells immediately start ringing. Especially for Tim who experienced what it was like being dragged around to special events even when he was incredibly ill.
The bats get even more concerned when Vlad pulls his charge into a corner to scold him for looking miserable instead of comforting him. He's telling the kid stuff like only babies are allowed to get away with crying and that if he continues making the man look bad, he'll be punished when they get home.
Danny does his best to suck it up. He tries to push down all the swirling emotions surrounding his powers, the death of all his loved ones, and even the unprocessed trauma of his own death. He ends up going to the bathroom to try to splash some water in his face and calm down.
As he's making his way back to Vlad, he is intercepted by Tim. When this kind stranger sincerely asks him if he's ok, he breaks down. This is the first person to genuinely ask him how he's doing since he's family's death outside of people doing it for the sake of pleasantries.
Now the boy is absolutely ugly crying in front of this whole party of people and Vlad is not pleased to say the least. He tries to snatch Danny up and whisk him away but the bats intervene. Bruce says something about knowing how to console children as Dick ushers Danny into a separate room where Alfred is already waiting with some hot chocolate.
After a while Danny starts to calm down and he goes to wipe his eyes. As he's doing this, his sleeve slips down a little, revealing an arm covered in bandaids. To explain, it hasn't been that long since Danny came to live with Vlad. Couple that with his healing factor being slower due to his emotional state and he has a couple of small wounds still remaining from his fights that have yet to heal.
Of course the bats don't know where those wounds are from. All they know is that there's no way in hell Danny is leaving this manor with Vlad.
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One thing I find really fascinating about this last ep is that the confrontation with Laudna, in Orym's own words, "brought [him] back to himself, a little bit." Because of this, he chose not continue his plan of using Ishta, a blade Dorian refers to as "clearly a threat." Orym turns away from it and admits it's probably a good thing he's been diverted from this path.
Meanwhile, both Laudna and Dorian use Orym and his (now defunct) desire for the sword as a point of comparison and/or mental justification for their own ill-advised risks. Laudna leads with, "Just as Orym wishes to wield that sword, I wish to wield Delilah" (obviously this was said before Orym gave up the sword, but his doing so has not, as far as we know, dissuaded her from this path at all), and Dorian holds the Gambler's Blade "thinking to himself about Orym last night, and how serious he was, how dedicated he was to the cause of wanting this sword that was clearly a threat" and sits with the reality of the situation he's in and decides to take an extra risk on his own life.
All three of them, in some manner, are pinging on the same concept: that the stakes to this fight are enormous and taking a massive risk might be necessary to finish this mission. But in this specific scenario, Orym is the one who backed off, re-evaluated his position, and decided the potential risk (to both the cohesion of the team, and his own mental health/morality, presumably) wasn't worth it. But the impression was already made. Laudna still wants to bring Delilah into this fight (something she'd already basically decided, but chose here to really double down on), and Dorian made the active decision to lower his chance of survival for a better chance to hit. Both of them doing the opposite of what Orym ultimately did, while still keeping Orym in their minds as they do so.
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I have a new essay for everyone its called "OFMD S2 is an insult to Con O'Neill both as a person and his legacy in his acting career as a queer man"
Like, this man did not spend his ENTIRE FUCKING CAREER playing almost exclusively openly queer or heavily, heavily coded queer characters to be treated like this??? In fucking 2023??????? He got better, more queer happy endings in the 80s and 2000s, the fuck?
I think it's incredibly telling that David felt like he had to hide what he was doing with Iz' character arc from Con till it was too late in filming. Hey, hey David? What did you think he was gonna do if he knew beforehand what was happening?? David? David do you think he would've walked? Do you think he would've used his leverage both as the fan favorite and integral part of the story to demand BETTER from you and everyone else writing the show?
Con has been making queer art since the fucking 80s when he was in his 20s. He has openly talked about trans rights and the fight against homophobia that we have been fighting for years and decades. I can't imagine what kind of push back he had to deal with to get all the gay shit he was doing to come to fruition. I can guarantee that at least part of the reason he doesn't have as big of a career as he absolutely deserves is because of how openly queer he has been since the start. I think if Con had been allowed to have some input in the direction of Izzy's character that something like this wouldn't have happened, at least not this messily and uncompassionate.
I legit can't imagine how fucked he must've felt after being given the genuinely very beautiful Unicorn scene and then be casually taken aside and told "lolol anyway Izzy is gonna die now, without love and without the acceptance he had already been given". But at least he was given a cuddle????
Anyway watch Dancin' Thru The Dark. Its on YouTube and it's about an openly genderqueer/bi man who goes on a sad but fun music adventure and it's actually really really good. Con sings and its a fucking bop AND he doesn't die at the end or watch Bedrooms And Hallways, it's a fun romcom about a found family of all queer people doing stupid gay shit. Also you can see Hugo Weaving's entire dick and balls in one scene and if that's not better gay rep then ofmd s2 then idk what is
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