Dork Side

Beyond the fact that I know how to use both a phone book and a rotary phone and can read cursive (as long as it’s not too horrifically messy), I think it was the attitude of “Oh no, we’ve got you because you couldn’t possibly figure out how to use something that’s new to you” that really made me snort. But I think that’s the key to this and similar memes that I’ve seen.

They don’t think we could figure out how to use something new to us, because they can’t do it. 

Like, if you presented a millennial with a rotary phone or a phone book and they had never, ever used one or seen one used before, I can guarantee pretty much any millennial could figure out how to use it. Because that’s what we do: we adapt. We’ve been through so many variations of technology and seen so many new forms of technology emerge that we’ve had to learn to adapt swiftly and fluidly. It’s second nature to us.

Put a boomer in a room with a smartphone, laptop, and tablet however, and well…different story.

I don’t like to butt in on people’s posts, lord knows I don’t like starting shit but lemme take a second to tell y'all about getting ur lady bits put out of comission.

I, at the age of 12 years, was diagnosed with PCOS. For you that don’t know what that is, PCOS, or Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, is a LIFELONG medical condition where groups of cysts grow on your ovaries causing the production of female hormones in your body to go batshit nuts and cause a whole sideshow of different symptoms such as but not limited to:

Irregular cardiac function (it’s a scary time)

severe weight gain and trouble losing weight (i may eat healthy and work out daily but until I was down to 1-2 meals a day of spinach i wasn’t losing weight)

severe adolescent acne, and adult acne

extra hair on the face, chest, arms, legs, thumbs, belly and back (I shave my face everyday before class and usually before I go to bed)

thinning hair on the scalp due to an excess of male hormones

irregular or no periods 

HEAVY periods

EXTREME PERIOD PAIN

depression and anxiety

pelvic pain

increased risk for type 2 diabetes

Increased for all female reproductive cancers due to infrequency of periods

Now, TMI, but I recently had my first period in 6 FUCKING YEARS. Due to the nature of PCOS generally when you have a period it’s because one of the cysts on your ovaries has burst releasing a flood of hormones into your system as well as built up toxins. Basically, when I had mine my body went into full on panic mode, nausea and vomiting, extreme fatigue, mood swings like you wouldn’t believe, my body went from being relatively alright to the cliffs of fucking Gallipoli in an hour flat. The kicker was on top of all that I had cramping so bad I actually blacked out.  Given that I know this is likely to happen again before I reach menopause, I decided to book an appointment with my local Planned Parenthood (applaud those lovely people and what they do) to see what my options were to make sure it never happens again. After telling me about various hormonal treatments they could prescribe me (not pills but IUDs shots and various other things) I asked them if it was possible for me to get a partial hysterectomy. A partial hysterectomy removes the uterus but keeps the ovaries so that they still are able to produce estrogen. The lady I had the appointment with looked at me with a look of the utmost pity and told me that unfortunately due to my age there would be likely no chance for any doctor to do it. When I pressed her on the topic she said that the most common excuse doctors will give you for it is that you’re too young, you might change your mind and want to have children later in life.  Now I dunno if y’all reading this are currently seeing anything wrong with this scenario here but I was told that I, someone who can’t have kids, doesn’t want kids, has never wanted kids, and would be put at severe risk of life threatening complications, have to have had children before anyone would consider giving me a surgery that not only would undoubtedly improve the quality of my life but also remove

Well, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to get a referral from her during the appointment, I went home and decided to research this bullshit. Turns out that there is something commonly evoked when women want to have any part of their reproductive system put out of commission called the three child rule. Basically if you are young, doctors usually wont let you get either a hysterectomy or a partial hysterectomy UNLESS you have already had three children. 

HOLD THE MOTHERFUCKING PHONE FOR A WHOLE SECOND AND THINK ABOUT THIS

By most doctors standards, YOU are REQUIRED as a woman to PHYSICALLY GIVE BIRTH to at least 3 CHILDREN before you are able to have any of your reproductive system removed or decommissioned. 

And that isn’t even the worst part of it all, these standards DO NOT change when the patient is at high risk for reproductive cancers!

How fucking miserable is it that to take control of your own fucking health in a first world country a woman has to have submitted to the gender roles of having children or actually have contracted cancer or some other immediately life threatening condition.

-had to undergo very painful surgery to get automail

-had to relearn how to write because of his prosthesis (there’s a post going around showing he had to switch hands etc) and his handwriting is likely a lot worse due to that. This means automail isn’t super good for delicate work, unsurprising, considering what it’s made of. 

-experiences phantom limb pain and therefore other associated stuff (this was only really shown in the manga)

-cannot go anywhere too cold without changing his automail or he’ll get really bad frost bite and it will stop working

-cannot go anywhere too hot, period, because the metal attached and under his skin will overheat and he will be badly burned

-Reattachment is painful, but needs to be done frequently if he breaks or outgrows his automail

- it’s HEAVY so much so that the strain has the potential to cause stress on his body, enough that it’s even theorized as possibly stunting his growth.

-it requires regular maintenance or it will break down, as shown when he forgets to do that and it…breaks down

-when it does need to be repaired, it takes time to do that, during which Ed uses regular prosthetics (that usually don’t quite fit him).

-costs a lot of money (not a problem for Ed due to high state alchemist salary/having mechanics as surrogate family, but explicitly noted to being the reason why most people in the fmaverse stick to regular prosthetics along with the painful surgery)

So Ed can’t actually do everything perfectly and experiences a lot of extra hassle, problems and pain people without automail don’t have to deal with!  And any advantages he does have are more suited to fighting than day to day life (being able to incorporate weapons/fake out people who want to blow up his arm). 

Do you know the definition of the word disabled. Have you ever looked up what a disability is.

Plus, in HTTYD 2, Valka proceeds to introduce her son to several dragons who became disabled as a result of injuries from traps: one with a torn wing, one with a missing foot, and another that’s entirely blind. Plus, there’s Gobber, who’s missing two whole limbs! He has a gangling walk from his peg leg, and has to deliberately switch “hands” with his other and cannot always be properly equipped. We need not get into Drago, but the point remains that Hiccup, Gobber, and these dragons very much are disabled characters.

One could easily call Sol Regem of The Dragon Prince disabled as well, since the burns on his face completely and utterly ruined his sight. He can go by smell and hearing only, which was the saving grace of two beings that he normally would’ve been able to kill within moments. Plus, there’s the ever lovely General Amaya…who is deaf and communicates predominantly by sign and lip reading.

Plus, there’s the ever famous Toph, who while she greatly improved her life when she mastered vibration sight, it’s still imperfect. She still would rely on her friends when she couldn’t properly see (read, during the airship fight during the finale, or when they were putting up Appa’s Lost posters). Plenty of other disabled characters were also shown there.

Coraline (2009), dir. Henry Selick.

#same energy