Here I am

They're serfing the internet

OBGYN: Yeah, you are exhibiting all the signs of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I’m so sorry.

Me: Huh? Oh, yeah. Insulin resistance, impossible weight loss, pre-disposition to type II diabetes, painful AF periods. Likelihood of bleed outs. Crap. That blows.

OBGYN: Yeah, well that too.

Me: *blinks* What?

OBGYN: Well, PCOS makes it very difficult for a woman to conceive and carry.

Me: BWHAHAHAHA. Yeah. No. No babies. Ever. Never wanted them. At all. Maternal instinct is not strong with this one. Only upside today.

OBGYN: Well then. Not exactly problem solved, but we’ll run with it.

Me: So about the MIND-SEARING PAIN and occasional HEAVY AF BLEEDING. When can we deal with that.

OBGYN: Not until you are 35.

Me: Dah fuq?

OBGYN: Not my rules. Hospitalization won’t even consider any treatment unless it’s life or death until you’re 35.

Me: Why?

OBGYN: Because you might want to have a baby.

Me: I’m 31. I didn’t want kids when I was 11, I didn’t want them at 21, and I sure as shit don’t want them now. Can’t I just sign a form that says “I don’t ever want a baby take it out, take it out now”?

OBGYN: Nope.

Me: Why?

OBGYN: Government rules. No removal of baby making parts before 35 unless your life is in immediate jeopardy.

If you’re in the US and your OBGYN says “government says no,” look for a new one because they lied to you. If your OBGYN says that “hospital says no,” look for a new one because this one doesn’t respect your bodily autonomy. It is true that most surgeons don’t like to perform hysterectomies until you’re in your late 30s at the earliest, but a respectful surgeon will listen to their patient and not just write them off. Sexism in hospitals is alive and well- and it’s not just anecdotal evidence. There’s been a history of looking at it academically/professionally since the 70s (look into Mary Halas as a good place to start if you’re curious), and it crops up all the time in articles in the Journal of Women’s Health and Women’s Health Issues, and the International Journal of Women’s Health all of which are peer-reviewed, well-respected medical journals. It’s absolutely a real thing. 

So if your doc feeds you this BS line about not being allowed to, ASK IF IT’S THE HOSPITAL POLICY.  If it is, ask if they are able to perform the procedure elsewhere. If they are not, ASK FOR A REFERRAL.

I was 28 years old when my OBGYN explained that he wasn’t allowed to perform a sterilization procedure onsite, and then he proceeded to tell me what a crock of shit it was and referred me to someone else who was able to. And even though I was under 30, his referral listed me as “an ideal candidate” for the procedure.  

Why is the mountain range square. How did the mountain range form. Why is there one singular volcano in the center. Why does it act like a composite volcano but have magma that acts like it’s from a shield. If it’s hotspot based volcanic activity why is there only one volcano.

my favorite thing is the american great lake snowbelts! so, the 'flow' of weather across north america, in very general terms, blows from the northwest on down south and east to the gulf of mexico.

so the wind is blowing from west to east, and in the winter it's a dryer wind than in the summer because it's colder. but after blowing across a great lake for a hundred miles, the wind is wet again. and that wet turns into snow. so for all of these lakes, the big cities are on the west side, not the east sides, because the east sides absolutely suck to live on.

the sole exception is buffalo, NY, which literally has to be there because, unfortunately, that's where all the important canal stuff between lake ontario and lake erie is happening.

also this always strikes me as cool, check out where cleveland is:

On a Watsonian level, sure.

On a Doylistic level, Mordor looks like that because plate tectonics was a fringe, ludicrous, laughable theory that nobody outside serious geology nerds had ever heard of until scientists proved seafloor spreading in the early 1960s. The first edition of the LotR trilogy was published in 54-55. We literally did not know that plate tectonics was real until almost a decade after the book was published, so obviously, it was not something Tolkien could have been considering as he made his maps.

LotR has recurring themes of the reckless imposition of one's will on the natural world creating ugliness, an order you thought was inherently an improvement that in fact is inferior to what you have displaced. (Typified by reckless tree-felling; a reflection of the despoiling of the English countryside and the world by Progress.)

Western Washington:

Eastern Washington:

blood now must be repaid with blood later, but the fourth baby is a girl, and she lives.

*

she grows slowly, and out of order. first her hands, long and bony; then her arms, thin, hollow-looking. she never looks quite like a child: no chubby cheeks, no skinned knees, no missing teeth. her hair is thick and so black it sometimes seems viscous. her skin is so thin you should be able to see the blood running through it.

they name her snow white, for the fairness of her skin. so fair that she cries when left in the light too long.

*

the queen dies when snow white is four, still small, and beloved. she is not beautiful, her mouth too painfully red, her eyes too liquid dark, her teeth too pointedly sharp. but only those who do not live in the castle think this. to know the child is to love her. to know the child is to want to please her. to know the child is to know that she is precious.

that she must be protected. that she must be obeyed.

“it is not your fault,” the king whispers to the child on his lip, petting her head. “she was not strong enough. i will make sure you never go hungry.”

the child presses her tiny hand against his cheek. “i know you will,” snow white says.

*

peasants begin to go missing. young boys are snatched from the fields. women are summoned to the castle and never seen again.

“gifts,” her father calls them. “eat. you are too thin.”

the girls are always silent, and the boys always scream. snow white hates it. she wishes they would stop, but she is hungry. she is so hungry. and doesn’t she have the right to survive? isn’t she a child, too?

but her mother’s blood is the only food that ever made her feel full. now she can eat and eat and eat and never feel like she has taken a single bite.

she grows thin. the sun becomes too strong for her to go outside.

“a mother’s blood,” the king muses, and sends his advisors out to find snow white a new one.

*

the kingdom has six queens in six years, but no more peasants go missing. it must be something in the castle, they say. some mold. some terrible illness. something that lingers, and kills you slowly.

but snow white grows healthy regardless. she can be seen, sometimes, on the parapets: in the early years she wears a heavy cloak but as she grows it gets thinner, and then disappears entirely.

she is small, and delicate. her laughter, floating down into the village, is silver and gold and painted in eighth notes. it is said that if you look into her eyes you can see your deepest desire. it is said that she will give it to you. it is said that every time a queen dies it breaks snow white’s gentle heart. she shrinks. she hides away indoors. she becomes frail and cannot leave her bed.

so many queens in so many years. eventually, somebody will notice.

eventually, somebody does.

*

“mirror, mirror, on the wall: who’s the fairest of them all?”

you, my queen.

“there are no others?”

there is one other. but she is young. she was made by the forrest. she doesn’t know what she is.

“another? after all this time? where?”

the kingdom of six queens.

“how strong is her heart?”

she is too young to know for certain. but she when she is hungry, she has always been fed.

*

snow’s new mother arrives on horseback. her lips are red as blood, her hair as black as ebony, her skin as fair as–snow’s. 

she marries the king and they spend the night in his chamber. this has never happened before. snow white does not understand. she is hungry. she always gets fed, the very first night. she always gets blood on her gown.

but her father stays in his chamber and does not come out. in the morning, his eyes are hazy and he does nothing but smile. her new mother’s teeth are red.

snow white waits. she isn’t starving yet. surely her father will snap out of it and feed her.

*

“today?” snow white asks, and her father pats her head.

“i will find you a peasant boy,” he says. “a strong one. your favorite kind.”

“that is not my favorite,” snow white tells him. she frowns. he has never told her no before. he, and everyone else, has always done exactly what she wanted. “father, i am hungry. you promised i would never be hungry again.”

she begins to cry, and the hazy look leaves him. he falls to his knees, her face between his hands. “of course,” he murmurs, “of course, tonight, i’ll send her. i don’t know why i didn’t before. i don’t know what i was thinking. tonight.”

snow white kisses his cheek. her red lips leave a print.

*

her new mother does not come. in the morning, her father’s eyes are hazy once again.

*

“father,” snow white begs.

“i promise,” he answers, but he is weak, every night he gives in to weakness because her new mother does not come. snow white is hungry. snow white grows thin. snow white cannot go out into the sun.

*

at last, her new mother comes. she has a plate of food: vegetables, fruit, and a slab of meat.

“eat,” her new mother murmurs. she perches on the edge of the bed.

snow white shuffles away from the sunlight coming through the window. “i’m not hungry,” she says.

“but you must be hungry,” her mother says, smiling. she reaches out to chase the edge of snow’s jaw. “you haven’t eaten in weeks. not even a peasant boy.”

snow white looks up, startled. “they aren’t filling,” snow white says.

“no,” agrees her new mother. “i agree. i prefer kings, when i can get them.”

“i prefer mothers.”

“i am not your mother.”

“then what are you?”

her smile is slow and bitter red. “my mother made the woods a promise, and the promise was me. she did not know that promises must be paid in blood, and sustained in blood, and that the blood was also me. she got what she wanted, and i ate until i was as full as a human could make me.”

“are there others? like you? …. like me?”

“there were,” the queen says. “once, there were many of us, and all of us were starving.”

snow white does not yet understand. “then what happened? where did they go? how did you survive?”

the queen runs a finger along the fabric of snow white’s blanket. her nail rips a line through the thread. “humans are weak, snow white. a thousand of them would not be enough to fill us up. but we are strong. our hearts can sustain a body for a hundred lifetimes.”

her teeth grow long. “i have been hungry for such a long time,” she says. 

snow white understands.

she runs.

*

it hurts: her skin is so hot it is nearly on fire. her feet blister as she runs. she has never been outside of the castle grounds, but the woods are dark and shaded. the shade is like jumping into a pool of water. the red bleeds from her skin, leaving her fair and white once more.

she hides inside the hollow of a tree (the woods created her and the woods will keep her safe until her mother’s debt is paid). she sleeps while the hunting parties pass her by, all but one. he is a huntsman. he knows the woods. he knows the woods have favorites, and protect them; but the woods are old and can be tricked.

he waits.

when she emerges, it is dark. her skin is so white he almost wants to drink it. she is small, her hair so black he thinks she has woven the night sky into it. as he notches his bow he thinks it seems a shame to kill something so beautiful, something so beloved by the woods. the huntsman is loved by the woods, too. he knows how its favorites suffer.

she turns to look at him. when their eyes meet he sees his deepest desires. her eyes promise to give it to him. we are the chosen, her eyes promise, as she approaches and he does not shoot. cannot shoot. cannot look away.

“i am so hungry,” she whispers, reaching out to touch his face. “my father hasn’t fed me.”

“she wants your heart,” the huntsman confesses.

snow white knows that already. snow white is beginning to understand the bargain that her mother made.

“she cannot have it,” snow white says, and her teeth get long, and she eats.

*

“mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

you, my queen. but not for long.

*

and in sonic heroes, the pressure makes her snap. if she Has to fill the mould she’s forced into, then it’s the outside world saying she’s doing it wrong that’s the problem, because she Has to be perfect, right? metal sonic is the golden child out of all of her “siblings”, and while that means she’s not outright going to be destroyed by her father and faces much less verbal abuse and marginally more affection, it also means she’s forced to uphold the perfect image her father sees her as, else she fail and face the same treatment she’s seen her fellow badniks go through. and that image she’s always tried so, so hard to force herself to fit is that of her father's magnum opus, his masterpiece, a superior version of his enemy. and to be superior to sonic she has to Be sonic and so if everyone says she’s Not they have to be the ones in the wrong and not Her she has to be the real true superior sonic and she has to Prove it.

but the thing is, not only is she forcing herself into performing the perfect role set on her- one that’s specifically masculine- she also reinvents Herself. this is something in heroes a lot of people miss, but neo metal sonic isn’t an upgrade From Eggman to her (and also came After her breakdown, she did it Because she felt she couldn’t Beat Sonic And Therefore Be Him if she stayed the same) her neo form is entirely self designed, and it was done all by her own hands. neo metal sonic is probably the closest we can get to how metal actually wants to present herself to the world, that’s Literally just named to be the New Her, and. ma’am this is a goth girl.

like. not only is she Literally Wearing A Skirt, not only does she Literally Have Eyeliner, she's also designed in such a way it looks like she’s wearing clothes, which feels silly to bring up until you remember sonic anthro characters almost universally only wear clothes if they’re female. and neo metal sonic straight up has hatsune miku sleeves a belt with a flowy skirt and leg warmers but with spikes. like it’s already fem as shit (in a emo edgy fourteen year olds oc way) but like i'm pretty sure by mobian standards this is about as feminine as a murderous robot can reasonably get. and while obviously that doesn’t = gender, metal specifically presenting as feminine in her idealised form she designed herself, while having a meltdown because she’s unable to Be A Specific Boy and is having an identity crisis bc she’s miserable trying to chase that is… like, that’s just a closeted trans girl innit. like this is Very Obviously not the intended read but like… it’s an extremely obvious and resonant one?

metal is, canonically, a scared teenager. as in, she herself says that she was scared Before her transformation. she’s mentally like 15 afraid of failure with an abusive and neglectful father figure suffering from psychotic episodes brought about by golden child burnout. like that’s not how it’s phrased in a 2003 game rated 3 and up but that is like, objectively what’s happening in sonic heroes she’s very open about her motives that’s just canon. which doesn’t make her Trying To Burn A Toddler Alive in any way not absolutely horrible like people forget how excited she was to murder a group that included Multiple small children in it brutally she’s fucked up. but her issues with her identity are more tragic than anything. her being dehumanised and treated only as A Superior Sonic broke her. and when she finally is able to express herself in any way, she's able to present as, well, a very edgy teenage goth girl but in robot form! she’s a fucked up and evil person but she’s also unable to be her true self and she’s scared and frightened and alone. and she’s not incapable of good! she Did sacrifice her life for shadow in rivals 2 like she can care for people she’s not inherently evil she’s a Person just one that steals your IP address. but what Makes her evil is sticking to a path and presentation that makes her evil.