Queen Brazen Bitch

Uncanny Avengers #4 - "Unmasked!" (2023)

RATING: RELIABLE

The above is from this article from The Guardian.  The images are from MYA Network. The caption on their website reads:

Source: ‘When a sperm and egg get together, the body creates tissue in order to support the developing pregnancy.  Here are photos of that tissue from 5-9 week pregnancies.  This is called the gestational sac, and it’s like the “house” for the pregnancy. Inside this sac there are cells that have the potential to become a fetus but there is no visible embryo at this stage. We rinsed off the blood and menstrual lining (decidua) for these photographs.’

The published images sparked a lot of debate, leading to the story being picked up by other news outlets. For example:

Source: ‘Last week, the Guardian published images of pregnancy tissue after abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The small size and appearance of the tissue were shocking to many. We have all absorbed, knowingly and unknowingly, the pervasive anti-abortion narrative that a pregnancy resembles a tiny baby starting in the earliest weeks. Though an early embryo can be seen under the magnification of ultrasound, it can take months for it to be perceptible to the naked eye.’

Source: ‘People have responded in disbelief, citing the (magnified) images they’ve seen on ultrasounds. […] ”Think of the illustrations on pregnancy and medical websites. The Mayo Clinic, one of the preeminent medical organizations in the country, shows week-by-week illustrations of embryonic and fetal development without any context of scale, like the rulers in the MYA photos.’

As stated in the article, whilst people talk about a ‘heartbeat’ at 6 weeks, there is no heart developed at this stage - only a group of cells that will become part of the heart.

Source: ‘But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a “fetal heartbeat” at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case. Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future “pacemaker” of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.’

It should also be noted that the images show an embryo, not a fetus, until the 9th week.

Source: ‘In human pregnancies, a baby-to-be isn’t considered a fetus until the 9th week after conception, or week 11 after your last menstrual period (LMP).’

The co-founders of the MYA Network responded in a New York Times article.

DO NOT DO THIS.

This makes me so angry.

If you work in a movie theater and you do this I have no respect for you.

My younger brother is Type 1 Diabetic.

When we go to a movie theater, we always get him diet soda. If he were to get regular when we asked for diet, we would not give him the insulin he would need for it. If that happens, his blood sugar level could go so high he could go into a coma, go blind, or even die.

If somebody gave him regular soda instead of diet without telling us, that person could be responsible for a nine-year-old being killed or blinded.

Just thinking about that makes me so angry. I get scared every time we take him to a movie in case the people working there saw this picture and decide to do the same thing.

I am very sensitive to lactose, not Lactose intolerant but because of stomach ulcers that are still healing. A couple years ago I went to Starbucks right after my classes with some friends and asked for a green tea latte with soy milk. The barista, for some reason out of malice and/or hate for her life so she took it out on me, gave me whole milk in my latte.

5 minutes after my first sip of latte, my stomach cramped BAD. Not the “Oh! time to poop!” kind of cramp but it felt like someone had stabbed me with a knife and twisted it. Now I’ve had this happen before so I knew the cause of it. I went up to the barista clutching my gut screaming at her that she put dairy in my latte rather than soy LIKE I REQUESTED. She denied it and called me a “pretentious white girl for wanting soy”and so my friends got the manager. I had to explain that I had stomach ulcers that were still healing and if I were to go to the hospital for this incident, they would be responsible for it.

Manager flipped his shit and the barista was terrified out of her mind. Pretty sure both thought i was gonna sue. Manager actually fired her on the spot because of the negligence. My friends managed to get me home in one piece while I stayed home for 3 days in absolute agony and missed my midterm.

Last month I went out to dinner with a friend at an italian restaurant that had a small gluten free menu. I had been there once before and had their gluten free pasta and it was great! I think one of the managers had been there and was super helpful when taking my order to make sure that everything was gluten free for me. When I ordered the gluten free pasta again this time though, the waitress who took my order all but rolled her eyes at me. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because the restaurant was so accommodating before, I just assumed it would be the same this time.

But sure enough, they brought out my pasta, I ate it, and about an hour later I had extreme stomach pains and was throwing up (in a movie theater no less).

Barfing and agonizing pain aside, eating gluten when you have celiac causes a lot of internal damage that’s hard to notice. The biggest thing is that it damages your intestines, preventing your body from absorbing nutrients properly, which can take months to heal.

90% of people don’t take my cats and dog allergies seriously when I tell them I’m allergic and wondering if a cat or a dog is present at X place. They think it’s just watery eyes. Nope. Well yeah, watery and itchy eyes, but I start wo wheeze and have trouble breathing. They don’t give epi-pen for those (anyway you have to go to the hospital after) just inhaler. It’s no miracle, specially if I didn’t take other meds before.

Customer was pregnant.

She still thinks about that every day.

Full article here.

Screw it, let’s also talk about how the MCU and Whedons pasty ass FUCKED Natalia Romanova.

So like the whole traumatic forced sterilization? Not in the comics and was unnecessary. Nat had kids in the comics, and she was a super soldier. A watered down one but still. She had relationships and was generally happy, until cap went “hail hydra” and snapped her neck.

Fucking cosmic cube -.-

Anyways. The way they portrayed her as a 2 dimensional “sexy spy” when she is more than that made me want to die. And also that…whatever she had with Bruce? Just no. Personally, this iteration of Natasha was my least favorite and I personally read the comic where she did a face swap with Yelena and tried to play it off as teaching her a lesson.

Whedon is an absolute idiot and I’m not going to budge on this.

She is also not a super soldier.  The only reference we get to ANY serum is from Deadly Origins.  She accepted *something* in order to save Ivan.  Given the longevity and her lack of pretty much all the other Super Soldier attributes, it’s far more likely she got a version of the Infinity Serum.

That's the summary I have with SamBucky and all the things surrounding SamBucky. Honestly, they're so phenomenal that there's so much against them too... but even with that against them, there's also love for them so... I'm sticking to loving them.

Hi Anon!!! I'm trying to follow what you wrote and I think I understood what you're saying, and if I misunderstood any part, let me know.

In my opinion, you're right and absolutely right you'll find racism and misogyny in many MCU fandoms especially when it comes to M/M ships and female characters who are potential love interests, and also sometimes homophobia for people who are trying to argue against M/M ships and it's not always easy to navigate.

It goes from the usual "why does everything have to be gay" to.... some stuff I won't re-write. But I have seen some nasty stuff on Twitter and people think it's ok, because they're criticizing a ship.

On the other hand, a lot shippers especially in the MCU fandom refuse to acknowedge that there is a racism problem in the fandom because then, they would have to admit that maybe they have a racism problem too or have some prejudice.

Like, why do you think you make gifsets of all MCU4 characters and then conviniently forget to include the Black character who is the lead of the show? Or always think about how Steve left Bucky, but never think about Sam, who didn't even know Steve was leaving. Or why they can see that Bucly needs to be take care of sometimes, but never think about Sam does too? Or why Black Widow and Captain Marvel are praised by feminists as groundbreaking in the superhero world but they never talk about Black Panther, that had 3 female superheroes and one Queen (More female characters than any MCU movies before that, but apparently it only counts when it's White men) Maybe there's some self - exploration to be done there, before you start getting defensive and denying everything. (I hope that you understood that this is a general you lol, not you anon😉).

So yeah, a lot of racism, but getting defensive is easier than acknowlzdging the problem

But you're right too that some anti M/M shipping rhetoric use arguments that are bordering on homophobia and even plain right homophobic sometimes.

However, HOWEVER, what you are saying is only true in theory, but in practice it isn't completely true. From what I have observed a lot of the shippers who talk about homophobia, or queer representation when it comes to shipping...are really quiet when some topics arise.

Exhibit A: "Shipping is about representation"

There is a CANON gay character in the Eternals movies and I have yet to see posts about him. I have seen some of course, but the number of them is absolutely disheartening. Empty emptiness. And Phastos has a husdand and they have a child!!! I hope I am wrong and that once the movie comes out he will be getting lots and lots of support... But I have close to no faith in the fandom.

I don't want to hear any arguments about how he is a side character when White Male side characters have always been popular on this webiste. And have had support, gifsets, and metas written about them even when they had one minute screentime.

Exhibit B: The whole discourse surrounding what happened with that Interview with Anthony Mackie

I read the interview way before I even read the transcript or listen to the audio, so to me Anthony was talking about Sambucky in the interview.

And even then, I said that the conversation shouldn't be about the shipping because he is an actor, he just plays the script he is given and isn't involved in the writing or anything... So blaming him for "not shipping" Sambucky was nonsensical and irrelevant. And saying he was "homophobic" for not seeing them as romantic, was completely ridiculous.

For me, the problematic part of Anthony's interview was the part where he talked about how two male friends couldn't go to the bar anymore without people thinking they're together and I don't like it when people talk that way because there are homophobic undertones to it, because why is it a problem if people think you are gay? But a lot of Straight Cis men talk like that, and although I thought this should be discussed, I didn't think it deserved qo much outrage and hatred towards him.

So imagine my surprise when I when through Tumblr posts and Twitter only to find out that most people who were calling him homophobic were calling him that because he said he didn't ship Sambucky.... So here we are, with people calling out an actor because he said the two characters were friends and they literally didn't care about any part of the interview except the part about the ship.

A lot of people were not interested in any conversation about homophobia that didn't revolve around whether or not Anthony shipped Sambucky... Why do I think that? Because they were only talking in terms of Sambucky,(as if Anthony had any say in the writing) .The moment the transcripts were available and it was made clear that he wasn't talking about Sambucky, discussions stopped.

This is how I see the people who were hating on Anthony btw:

And to be clear, I'm not saying people who say they ship characters because there is a lack of representation are lying or anything, no they're not, because the Queer MCU fans really care about representation and some compensate the lack with shipping, but there is also part of the fandom that says it but doesn't believe it, this is just my observation from the few fandoms I have been in. I won't pretend I know how it is for all the other fandoms.

Anyway, thank you for writing this to me. As long as you are aware of what's going on in the fandom and not trying to deny it. As you said, continue shipping Sambucky in peace😉!

Here’s the part I disagree with, tho let me preface this by saying I have not seen the interview in question or read transcripts etc...

The idea that someone has homophobic undertones simply because they say two people can’t go do something together without it being something other than friendship is silly.  The fact is, especially in the Tumblrsphere, friendship is often cast aside in favor of a “ship”.  People will literally ignore the fact a solid friendship exists to push their sexual relationship.  Not every relationship has a sexual element.  I have plenty of friends of all genders and sexual orientations.  Frankly, there’s only about 1% of them I would even be remotely sexually attracted to.  And herein lies where I absolutely cringe when people start slinging the “homophobia” term around.  Because they have forgotten that all relationships aren’t sexual or romantic in nature.  You CAN have friends who don’t want to sleep with.  You CAN have people whose company you enjoy without wanting to jump their bones.

People can ship what they want.  But they often throw around things like “homophobia” simply because they aren’t getting their way.  Do I find Mackie’s comments homophobic?  No.  Simply put because no one seems to value a friendship any longer.  Now, I don’t know the man, don’t follow him, don’t read interviews, etc.. so  maybe he truly is homophobic.  But I’m not willing to call it based on this comment.