#but.... i'll have other chances

[inkskinned]

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?

[blackkatdraws2]

There are more things in the Parable than Stanley knows about. [Blank Scripts AU]

[mobius-m-mobius]

LOKI APPRECIATION WEEK 2023 | for @dailyloki Day 2 : Favorite Episode : S02xE01 - Ouroboros

[hedgehog-moss]

These days Poldine gets to go out for a little walk every day at apéritif time, because she's a good llama who doesn't bother my guests (too much) (she does ask for baby carrots and kisses) and she always returns to her pasture without a fuss. It's become a nice little summer evening ritual.

And it happened several times that Pampérigouste didn't see me open the gate for her daughter, and, when she realised Poldine was out, became genuinely puzzled as to how her prim and proper kid found a way out that she hadn't.

Pampelune would be allowed to go out too, but most of the time she's content to stay in the pasture with Pirlouit; it's only Pampe who (once she realises her daughter can't possibly have escaped on her own and I must have facilitated it) is like

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Smell Check [Easy: Failure]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 1 (part 2 - part 3)

[starflungwaddledee]

Hear me out…Meta Knight and Starstruck

✧˖°.✧ gravity ✧˖°.✧ ɡravɪti (noun) 1. the force that attracts a body towards the centre of the earth or towards any other physical body having mass 2. the degree of intensity of gravity, measured by acceleration 3. extreme importance; seriousness 4. solemnity of manner

[iris-drawing-stuff]

Happy Pride Month everyone!

Lets all ponder the gay ass apple with Kazui.

[fidgetspringer-art]

Olath - Aberrant familiar

[bonefall]

Feel free to ignore you've probably got a lot going on right now, but considering you know a lot about DOTC and Clear sky, I had a question...

We know that he's a terrible, misogynistic, woman beating and war mongering lunatic who was excused of all his actions because his equally misogynistic brother said " But-But he's nice! Deep down! This isn't the real him! "

But! In a world where the Hunters could write such a character, what do you think Clear Sky would look like as an actual sympathetic villain?

Idk if that makes sense, but what I've thought of doing is taking purely cannon Clear Sky and attempting to change him enough that he's still an antagonist, but not too far where only Reddit defends him.

I don't think he works as a sympathetic villain, on any level, ever. I think you're making a huge mistake to even try, and I have never seen an AU where it was done well nor am I interested in entertaining the thought.

Characters. Are. Tools. They exist to tell a story. The story that people tell me, by obsessing over some alternate universe where he was "ACTUALLY sympathetic and had a REAL redemption arc," is that they're not fucking interested in his dozens of victims. Nor do they actually care about the abusive impact he had on the minds and feelings of his family. They're JUST interested in Clear Sky himself.

Just like the Erins. Everything that happens in DOTC revolves around him. Everything. All his wives die so he can be sad about it. His brother defends all of his actions and BEGS you to sympathize with his pain so he can be 'redeemable.' One Eye comes out of nowhere so that there can be an example of "real" evil to contrast Clear Sky so he's less bad in hindsight.

The first three books of DOTC are bad, but the last three are fucking insufferable because SUDDENLY all that Gray Wing apologia pays off, and they take their main villain and throw him out a window. You CAN'T have "redeemable" Clear Sky and the plot of DOTC without dragging in someone else to drive the conflict, to BE the bigger threat to "unite" against. Slash and One Eye have to be conjured up out of thin air so Clear Sky can WHINE about how people only suck his toes instead of deepthroat them after he killed all their friends.

And yet, in spite of this absolute failure of an attempt, we continue to see this bullshit "redemption" be a mistake because Clear Sky is a fantastic villain, with major antagonist roles in nearly EVERY bit of follow-up material for DOTC that came after.

He's the most consistent monster in all of Warriors.

He's a fragile, egotistical, self-absorbed megalomaniac who ALWAYS sees himself as the victim, REFUSING to self-reflect and blaming everything else for all of his terrible choices. He will USE your love of him against you like it's a chain through your nose, step out of line and he will yank you into place with guilt trips, manipulation, public shaming, and violence.

He's a child abuser. He's a tyrant. He abandons the sick and disabled as soon as they're of no use to him, with grand speeches about "illness" and "weakness." He's a murderer who stands above the shredded corpse of his victim and bellows, "I'M NOT GREEDY! I'M JUST STRONG!"

And you'd write a "good" redemption arc for this, why?

Why are people so chronically unable to accept that there are LOTS of people like him, and you can't save your abuser? Why don't you ask yourselves why you're not interested in exploring Thunder, or Petal, or Gray Wing, and how his toxic influence impacts them? Why does the sympathy fall on Clear Sky? What about the DOZENS of victims who are dead by Book 3, and how THEY could have been saved?

Why ruin a perfectly good villain?

What's behind this trend where a billion people say to me, "Yes Clear Sky is a walking cavalcade of fucked up abuse apologia, and an incredibly realistic depiction of an abuser, but how would you change this while keeping it all the same?"

I wouldn't. You can't. It wouldn't be the same story, or it wouldn't be the same character. Never seen it done well, and I have seen it a lot. So I don't entertain this deeply frustrating "Well What If Clear Sky But Nice" impulse.

[sarcasticmirage]

there's been a bit of rgu and fma comparison, so here's my dissertation on why they should kiss

[iaxsl]

while shanks and mihawk are like those divorced exes that still talk occasionally. shanks and buggy are the whirlwind once in a lifetime tragic romance. met and fell in love too soon and got together before either of them were ready. their story was destined to end in heartbreak

[archerdork]

spoilers for ofmd s2e8 - a discussion of the decision to do That to You Know Who

i guess my biggest issue is that you should have seen the end coming because it makes sense narratively, so in a way you did see it coming, but the show has spent two seasons subverting expectations and chucking logic out the window, so in the context of the universe they've created it fucking doesn't make sense.

I know it narratively makes sense to tie Izzy's arc off like this, but this show has gone to great fucking lenghts to show it doesn't give a toss about sense or how you're supposed to tell a story. The plot armour has been so thick for two seasons it's genuinely ridiculous, but that's the show and now this is the audience it's amassed. You think I've spent all this time watching these idiots strut around an ocean the size of a bathtub powered by nothing but spite and a gaydar because I value logic above all else? You think I like the show despite it's narrative insanities, not because of it?

Spending a season on Izzy's emotional and mental journey only to kill him off in the end does makes a certain literary sense. Him dying surrounded by the family he finally accepted and who accepted him in turn makes literary sense. His death allowing Ed to let go of the last of Blackbeard makes literary sense.

In the real world.

But we've spent two seasons in Pirate Muppet Land, with it's bathtub size ocean where everyone can find anyone, where wounds heal the moment they're patched up, where crocs and paparazzis paperazzis exists in 18th century. I'm not here for realism, I'm here for the insanity. I'm here for the workplace romcom where this community of queer idiots can laugh and cry and have their drama and, yes, a boatload (ha) of angst but it's fine because it is about them, the plot only there to further their personal journeys no matter how unrealistic that plot turns out to be. They created Something, something new and different and hopeful, and then made a single decision that went against everything they'd built so far because? Logic? I genuinely don't know.

Ultimately I'm happy with this season. I had so much goddamn fun. I enjoyed the ending, though for the personal journeys it concluded rather than story it actually told. This season was way too rushed, for which I assume we should largly blame HBO. The cast and crew did what they could with what they had.

Still though.

I said at some point during this season that I "genuinely can’t see a scenario where they kill off any of the crew, it’s just not that kind of show". Turns out it decided to be that kind of show, with the worst decision they could make. Killing off Izzy does make literary sense. Which, in context of the show so far, makes it goddamn unrealistic.

It's not a good plot twist to pull the rug from out under the audience if the rug is actually a carpet floor you've spent the whole season nailing down.

[kaiserouo]

can i get on his shoulder if im being annoying enough

[amuhav]

Aestrya Calaith. Vinari. Captain of the Sentinels and Palace Guard. There was a reason only Calaith had ever been considered to take over Qariel’s position, entrusted with the Queen’s very own safety. The same reason she was the only person Ailos feared more than Kaelys herself. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to never experience the emptiness of that woman’s magic again.

[buttercupshands]

just some LoV sitting in the long lost bar in Ultra Impact in clothes that they didn't wear yet

[svtskneecaps]

ngl if streams get dry i think qsmpblr should create some initiative where we day by day watch the series over again in order. give it some fuckin stupid ass tag name like "qsmp reverse redux" for proper filtering and tag it all as vodblogging and set ourselves loose on bits of the series that some people may never have had a chance to watch because this series moves SO. GODDAMN FAST. and there's barely ever time for vodwatching.

pick your pov or watch multiple who cares but it has to be in our pocket dimension reverse time day. a qsmp electric boogaloo. idc if we have to make a fucking discord server to keep track of what day we're on or to maybe even coordinate those "watch2gether" youtube tool groups or whatever it was so those who feel inclined to twitch chat can still feel the feeling of being in a live chat except the streamers can't hear you.

i just think it would be fun. and i like liveblogging with y'all. and not everybody was around from day 1, so we can try to give them that. unfortunately we missed the exact one year so it'd be a bit messy but who the fuckkkkk cares :D