Wolf of the Woods

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. go to work. go out to eat. don't be afraid.

They weren't killed by the slashing of the CDC. They weren't killed by the administration's demonization of masks, that brought on by the vanity of one man who didn't want his bronzer to come off. They weren't killed by an industrial food system which will only do things Right if it's forced to, if it's inspected and made to, and over which there are far fewer watchdogs than there used to be. No! Don't worry. They were killed by underlying conditions.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. the engines must keep running. don't be afraid.

Don't think about the fact that 12% of the population, or just about the same percentage of the population that marked themselves as Black on the 2020 Census, has diabetes. Don't think about the fact that 10% of the US population, or approximately the same percentage which has blue eyes, has at least one autoimmune disease. Don't think about the fact that 6% of the adult US population, or approximately the same percentage as 'people under the age of five', has a chronic heart condition. Don't think about the fact that the CDC says that 40% of the US population is obese, and that is an "underlying condition," too. That percentage? It's about the same as every US resident between the ages of 25 and 54.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid.

"Underlying conditions" is a way to wave away responsibility, yes, but it's more than that. It's a way to put separation between the average citizen and the two people -- so far -- who have died from food infested with parasites, the two people who literally shit themselves to death because the Trump administration has fully abandoned all of its proper functions in order to strip down everything it can get its hands on and cart it away for itself. It is not enough to grift billions through American Liberty World Financial Bitcoin, Gold Shoe, And Bible-Printing Emporium. It is not enough to set up a literal "please bribe the President" ATM for foreign governments to shovel cash in via cryptocurrency. They have to grab everything they can that isn't nailed down, and to do that, they have to rip everything they can out of the walls, fire everybody they can get away with, and shuffle the money into ICE, and from their into the pockets of friends no-bid contracts.

It is not enough, and so they whisper "underlying conditions," because that tells so many Americans, "Hey. Don't be afraid. It's okay. You don't have 'underlying conditions,' right? You are good and virtuous. You have done Everything Right, and are thus blessed with Good Health. You have Worked Hard and Been Proper and thus you will not be touched by the seemingly-random hand of fucking death hiding in a bag of Kroger lettuce." It's the same voice that says, "You don't want those layabouts getting disability and cheating you out of your money, so we should make it harder," except now it's saying, "Actually, just like COVID, the only people who died were the people who were sick already, and obviously you only have underlying conditions if you weren't taking care of yourself, which you are, so don't worry! We don't actually have to do anything. This will sort itself out."

Like the idea, "if a trans man were not trans, he would be a cis man," despite being well meaning, entirely erases the traversal inherent to transness. Especially for trans men who love not being cis, who fulfill and represent a manhood which is not conformant to cis ideals, nor inherently based on the identities of cis men. This same principle stands for the rest of the trans spectrum, and especially for nonbinary folks who have no cis counterparts, trans men have just been the example in the posts I've read.

Let's say I am residing in one city, and travel to another, if I had never traveled, I would still be in the previous location. This concept is important, trans advocacy, as far as I am concerned, requires that we grow beyond the idea of gender as static. In my metaphor, if we argue that I actually inherently reside in the second city, while that can be my personal experience, and I may personally choose not to acknowledge my previous city, is not useful to pretend I never moved when defending my right to reside somewhere besides the place I was born. That is to say, holding that transness includes traversal of states and identity, whether internal or external, is essential to trans liberation.

The utility in "born this way," rhetoric has especially run short in the fight for unconditional acceptance of transness and queerness at large - because to think all queer people were simply, "born this way," is to believe that queerness is contingent upon permanence, further dependent on the innateness of their identities - which is cissexism. The idea that gender is innate and unchangeable is core to patriarchal enforcement after all.

Oh cool so the CDC is just doing a media blitz to lie the groundwork for weed becoming illegal again in many places huh okay

I have never had these problems, as a chronic cannabis user, I literally ingested mould that was growing in my guts…..

But the doctors ALL blamed it on my cannabis use.

I got pamphlets and guides on how to curb my 'addiction', and they stressed real hard it doesn't matter if I used it for medical reasons, if I wanted it at all when I wasn't on it, it must mean I am addicted and need to stop.

I am 100% certain that my INGESTING MOULD issue was written down as "Cannabis Emesis Syndrome" and would get wrapped up in the data to suggest that emergency room visits among cannabis users for cannabis use is becoming higher.

Like... it's fucking biased reporting that is going to fuck a lot of us over.

Despite having an active infection, not having even used cannabis in a month or two because I was actively recovering from a surgery, I was told that it was likely CES (even though all the pamphlets they gave me said CES would ease if you didn't use again "for a few days to a week"). And my only advice when I was discharged (after staying the night, being flooded with antibiotics and hydrated via salin drip), was to cut out the cannabis. I ingested a fuck ton of mould spores that made me sick, but because I also am a chronic cannabis user because of my debilitating nerve pain and PTSD, it will have been listed in the records as CES because that is what the doctors decided to focus on. Because it's the big new scary thing.

Fuck, the surgery I was talking about before that I was recovering from was gallbladder removal - and before that my own doctor tried to blame CES for what was in fact a very inflamed gallbladder. Once I got over the rough recovery from that, the symptoms my doctor wanted to associate with CES *went away* because it wasn't CES it was an actively inflamed gallbladder that was causing the problems.

Like, people talk about fad health trends in pop culture readily enough but I think we should also turn this focus towards doctors themselves because holy shit this was a fringe theory that everyone latched on to and started reporting cases of - regardless of whether or not they fit the description.

I liked it

Eva Stratt is a FANTASTIC character, I hated her choice and I understood it perfectly and I'd have done it too. 10000/10 nuance

I was terrified they'd make her and Grace kiss and I'm so so glad they didn't

I too would die for Rocky

About 3/4s through the movie I said out loud in front of my entire family "Rocky and Adrian seeking third, question" and at least two of my siblings snorted

As a huge fan of "queerplatonic soulmates bonded through the fires of hell; not lovers or brothers but something deeper" phenotype, I am actively chewing on the drywall