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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I finally had the chance to watch the Boston panel.
and I'm starting to think that a lot of you either haven't watched it yourselves, or were so set on specific opinions you personally have, while also having clear expectations of what their answers will be, that with their answers (or what are talked about as their answers) made you so unhappy that now you're just bashing them; especially Hugh.
why, though? none of the things I've seen people complain about were actually said like that or fully implied. so... what?
doesn't make sense to me why some of you are so upset about this panel. it was so much fun and just lighthearted entertainment. panels like that are the reason these things exist and are usually so much fun in the first place.
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More of my dress to impress looks.
theme: prince or princess (tiana from princess and the frog) - [1st]
theme: preppy (cher horowitz from clueless) - [1st]
theme: light or dark (doja cat from coachella 2024)
theme: game of thrones (john snow)
theme: camping (katniss everdeen from hunger games)
theme: villain (harley quinn) - [1st]
theme: red carpet (lil nas x from grammy's 2020) - [1st]
theme: high school (sharpay from high school musical)
theme: spring - [1st]
theme: celebrity look alike (pinkpantheress) - [2nd]
theme: steampunk
theme: animal (capybara)
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Quick reminder for everybody posting/submitting propaganda: I don't boost/post propaganda from post-1970, and I'm very very dicey on including television performances (beyond occasional celebrity cameos where the hot man is playing himself). This tournament focuses on hot movie men from 1910-1970, and I like propaganda that showcases that. I am flawed and I do make rare exceptions, but by and large those are the guidelines I follow. Any questions about my propaganda standards can be found here or here.
Obviously these rules don't apply to the Muppet Show.
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https://www.tumblr.com/skullsandcorals/738285799236321280/im-dyslexic-im-not-stupid
1. Holy shit I am so happy I found another person who gets how smart Percy is, and gets that every instance of Percy looking/getting called stupid is due to his dyslexia or people not telling him anything.
2. Which book/chapter is this from? I need to bookmark it ASAP and start shouting it from the metaphorical tumblr hills.
3. We really don't talk about how good a mom Sally is? Like yeah she's badass and gentle but like. She respects Percy. When the school system failed Percy, she's the one who still not only believed that he was smart but still acted like it and probably taught him too. Queen mom Sally Jackson right there.
1.) YEAHH EXACTLY. Or his ADHD 😭 It drives me NUTS whenever Percy is treated as the dumb + comedic guy. Like I get what they're saying and why they're saying it, but sometimes his character gets reduced to JUST that and it hurts my soul. I get that he's funny as a narrator and as a character and sometimes he can be a little "clueless" but it just feels like some people like to think of that as either all he is or a huge part of who he is. I believe I've also seen Leo get this treatment despite literally being insanely smart at such a young age so. that's...fun. They can be funny and smart too 😞
2.) It's from the 10th Anniversary edition of The Lightning Thief! It's Rick's cover letter for the first readers of the manuscript & a note from the narrator. I don't have a copy of that edition myself, but I've seen some pictures of it on Rick's blog and someone posted one of the pages on Reddit (where I got it from).
Here's the full page from Reddit (source) & the picture from Rick's blog where the page is visible (source):
3.) YEEEAHHHH I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!! What I would do to get adopted by her rn. The way she talks to him makes me kinda teary-eyed because she's just so...you can just tell how much she loves Percy and that she would do anything to make sure he grew up resilient and kind in a world that's always out to get him. She believes in him so much that it just makes me lose my mind a little. It's just so sweet and I can't help but feel so moved by it.
I'm not sure if you've read Chalice of the Gods, but there's this scene where (spoilers, kinda) Sally talks to Percy after the whole thing with Hebe and honestly this scene makes me want to sob and cry and weep
“You are a lot of things, Percy. But helpless isn't one of them.”
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