#; out of tightrope

[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?

[jo-castle]

"You're Gonna Go Far" by Noah Kahan as Ezra Rho's perspective on Arlaen Draith

[toxooz]

Feel free to not answer this if its too invasive but what do you do for work? how do you manage your time to still create such awesome things while working? sorry if this comes off as weird I just want to find a way to work while still having time for my art

hoo boi ok i went into the job field hellbent on getting a more heavy duty job like welding and just do art as i please and preserve my passion for it so i dont get burnt out from an art job, but bröther ive realized the hard way my body just don't have the energy to balance working my ever sweatin ass off all day and Also have the energy to draw. I used to have a factory job building coolers but the management went to pure shit, all my good coworkers got fired or quit, and i was beginning to not trust myself holding a framing gun sOOO as of rn i '''technically''' don't have a job, my patreons payin the bills (and then some praise the lorTTTT) rn plus i got that mural gig that came at the most perfect time but im currently perfecting my craft at tattooing so i can get into that field eventually 🤙 i worked my ass off and drew my ass off for a while but my lack of energy made me crash and burn so i may not be the person to give advice on that AHHAAaa

[yourlocalhauntedmansionnerd]

I made the tightrope walker/Sally Slater on Dress to Impress

[winepresswrath]

the thing about revisit of the fight in 1x5 is that Louis started it and Louis kept it going and Louis threatened to kill Lestat but it's kicked off because Lestat put his hands on Claudia. that's what tips Louis over the edge into physical violence.

and the other thing about that fight is that Louis was not going to leave Lestat. He's not focused on trying to get away or comfort Claudia, though he is enraged on her behalf. He is trying to hurt Lestat. He can't really hurt him but he doesn't know that yet. He wants to punish him for both what he did to Claudia and for Claudia leaving in the first place. honestly knowing Louis probably for some other stuff while he's at it. he's been punishing him for seven years. But I really don't think he was going to actually try and leave him. that's so fucked up. they're so fucked up.

[bericas]

allison argent | simmer

[touchmypixels]

[wall-eye]

Arlaen and the Raven Queen, making a choice

[thatmoththoth]

If I was a tma character I feel like I’d either be the oblivious mess who just crawled out of a sewer after getting into a knife fight with a ghost, or the smug bitch who knows everything but refuses to share with the whole class because it’s funny, and there’s no in between.

[fideidefenswhore]

Anne's ability to hold the king off for seven years is part of her legend. The brilliance of her strategy was to cast herself in the role of the courtly lady, requiring Henry to play to perfect knight. Henry was nothing if not dogged in the pursuit of all the roles in which he cast himself—philosopher-king, warrior, even husband—and 'this persona of courtly lover...was fully formed in Henry and had been signaling...for an answering adept to come and lift its latch. In Anne, he had her: she was the mistress of Petrarchan contraries [...] the perfect [player] for the king's tender interest.'

Renaissance Prince: Elizabeth, Lisa Hilton

[likeadevils]

i just watched that lindsay ellis yoko ono/the beatles video and it spurred me to actually listen to the beatles discog and i feel like you might appreciate this information claire

HELL YEAH! what are you listening to what are your thoughts. i'm a abbey road and rubber soul girl myself

also, if you enjoyed the video, i HIGHLY recommend watching get back--like, i genuinely cant recommend it enough, it's a three part documentary directed by peter jackson of all people (the guy who made lord of the rings), and its just footage of them grappling with interpersonal issues while making let it be. no talking heads from modern day butting in with their opinions, just four guys in their twenties trying (and failing) to hold onto each other. it's the thing that spurred me to take a closer look at them, like it’s so good

[asofterhyranor]

I’ve only had Ezra for 45 minutes but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this podcast and then myself

[empressofthelibrary]

Well, today was absolutely rotten, but food does make me feel less like exploding from the stress and disappointment. I'm never gonna not be mad that self-maintenance actually, y'know, works.

But I can be mad and grateful at the same time. I'm complicated like that.

[stranger-awakening]

it's actually so embarrassing when someone i know in real life asks me about my writing because it's like yeah i'm a writer i'll always be a writer but that very much just manifests with fics these days and i'm not about to tell my manager that so i have to pull up some vague oc idea that's been rolling around in my head for over a decade to cover my own ass but that requires the precursor of hey this is an idea i've had since i was a teenager and then it looks like i'm not writing at all and that is only partially true and so on and so forth

[lumchan]

wind breaker vol 8

[bromcommie]

thinking about posting a snippet of the character study zemo ficlet I'm writing. just a little bit just as a treat to myself for getting my work done today