im still captain-sky in the inside | call me captain | somewhere in the OC | twenty one | I used to strip flag poles and toss rifles and shit into the air | computer information systems major
i’m sure someone probably commented on this post already but this is calamity jane, they eventually move into a tiny cabin together and sing a song about how “a woman’s touch” can fix anything. i watched this movie daily when i was about 7 and now i’m a dyke
my butch lesbian professor who is well into her sixties had told me that this was her first real exposure to the concept that a woman could not only be attracted to other women, but be butch while doing it. she said this movie propelled her into her sexuality with a sense of pride and remains a cornerstone of her coming-out journey. in short, representation matters and always has.
so basically when you have your period and your lower back hurts it is because your hips are contracting and spreading apart, only slightly, to make room for the release of the blood and linings of your uterus. so basically your body is going through a small and mild labor to push out the dead insides of your uterus. so basically I have gone through labor and basically I don’t want children.
why aren’t we taught this shit
…..this wasn’t obvious to anyone? What did you think your body was doing? Did you think the lining of your uterus just fell out of your vagina? And the cramps were what, for fun?
Considering how practically non-existent sexual education is and the fact some people with uteruses have so little knowledge available and actively shared about their body they don’t know where they pee from or that having large labias is normal, it’s probably safe to say, no, it wasn’t obvious. Nobody thinks you’re hot shit for pissing on people for not knowing something we’re rarely taught in-depth.
I hate it when people get all ‘wow wasn’t this obvious to you guys, you’re pretty dumb’ about shit like this. Shut the fuck up you’re not helping.
^^^
This isn’t taught in some other countries? Even though they didn’t go in deep detail till we had it in biology class, it was still in the guidance and counselling textbook they gave us when we came to school. And I thought I was conservative, this is just too much.
no, i mean this social experiment started by a history teacher in calofornia in 1967
im Intrigued
it’s creepy not so much like paranormal but as in it’s a scary look at human nature. hang on a sec ill explain it
alright so. in 1967, a new history teacher at Cubberly High School in Northern California named Ron Jones was teaching his class about the Holocaust and Hitler’s rise to power. At some point during the lesson, many of his students began to ask why the rest of Germany had stood by and done nothing, and how afterwards they could have said they didn’t know. Many said that they would never allow something like that to happen, but most simply couldn’t understand how the population had allowed it back then. This made Ron curious: what was the answer? Why had so many Germans joined and tolerated the Nazis as their neighbors were dragged away? He realized there was no way of knowing, not without being there, and certainly no way of teaching it - unless, maybe, they could experience something similar.
The next day, Ron came in and began to command his class differently than usual. He had stricter rules, making students stand when asking or answering questions and having them fix their posture. He said it was a lesson on discipline and the phrase “strength through discipline” was written on the board.
The students, shockingly responded positively to the stricter rules; it was as if they had just been waiting for this and wanted more. They worked as a team and answered questions correctly, even sitting quietly until Ron dismissed them at the end of class.
In the next two days, the phrases “strength through community” and “action” appeared on the board. Ron announced to the class that their new rules and ideas were now the cornerstones of the group called the Wave. Their mottos were the three phrases on the board, and he introduced them to a salute (made by curling one’s right hand into the shape of a wave and tapping one’s left shoulder with it). The kids practiced both the motto and the salute that day.
Everything was going well in this experiment: Ron was increasingly seen as an incredibly important leader, the kids were being more well behaved, they were ahead in their studies, all good things, so Ron decided to continue the Wave. In class, he gave the students Wave membership cards, some of which had red x’s on the back. The x’s indicated that those people were to monitor the other members of the Wave and report directly to Ron if someone broke a rule.
Additionally that day, Ron gave the instruction to recruit members to the Wave; all were invited and all were equal in the Wave.
And recruit they did.
Later that week, there were over 200 members of the Wave. The pep rally became an official Wave rally where dozens of new members were sworn in. As the group grew, most everyone joined. However, if someone did not join, they were likely to find themselves very alone and possibly being threatened or hurt by Wave members.
By the 5th day, Ron knew things had spiraled out of control. He had grown into a mythical leader, and the students carried out his orders without hesitation, even if these orders never existed in the first place and were grown from within the Wave. He decided to tell the students that there would be a televised announcement of the Wave’s candidate announcement for the presidential election, and that all members should attend the rally later that day.
When they arrived, the hundreds of students were greeted with a blank screen and Ron. He told them the true nature of the Wave; how it had been born as an experiment that had grown exponentially until he had to end it. The students were shocked, and some even cried. They had all believed in the Wave wholeheartedly after just 5 short days.
The Wave is terrifying because it is real. Not so long ago, a history teacher fresh out from college was able to turn a school into a military state in just 5 days. We as humans are so easily led into fascist dictatorships and we so rarely question what goes on around us. The Wave is a testament to that, and a scary one.
There’s a really great German film of the same name (“Die Welle” - The Wave) based on this experiment - rather than stopping after 5 days however, the teacher lets it continue and things get much, MUCH worse. It’s a terrifying movie, but fascinating too.
My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.
I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”
I searched and searched for the post this graphic was from, and the OP deactivated, but I kept the graphic, because my BFF does the same thing, uses her imagination to come up with the worst pain she can imagine and pegs her “10″ there, and so is like, well, I’m conscious, so this must be a 5, and then the doctors don’t take her seriously. (And she then does things like driving herself to the hospital while in the process of giving birth. Probably should have called an ambulance for that one!)
So I found this and sent it to her. Because this is what they want to know: how badly is this pain affecting you? Not on a scale of “nothing” to “how I’d imagine it’d feel if bears were eating my still-living guts while I was on fire”.
I hate reposting stuff, but I’ll never find that post again and OP is deactivated, so, here’s a repost. I can delete this later, i just wanted to get it to you and I can’t embed images in a chat or an ask.
This is possibly why it took several weeks to diagnose my fractured spine.
Pain Scale transcription:
10 - I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.
9 - My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely move or talk because of my pain.
8 - My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
7 - I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.
6 - I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.
5 - I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
4 - I am constantly aware of my pain but can continue most activities.
3 - My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.
2 - I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
1 - My pain is hardly noticeable.
0 - I have no pain.
I have never met a chronic pain patient who does not loathe the pain scale with a fiery passion for this exact reason. And I have never seen the above moderately useful descriptions in a doctor’s office or hospital. Instead, they always have this bullshit:
“
For The Buffalo that could not dream, German photographer Felix von der Osten chronicles life on Montana’s the Fort Belknap Reservation, where since 1888, the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Native American tribes have raised their families and continued to foster a deeply-felt respect for the land.
“
You know what, I have gotten my life limit of looking at pictures of natives that white people have taken. Hell, we still gotta deal with Curtis and his baggage he left. Also, the photographer was there for a month and suddenly can shoot photos with feeling that a Native couldn’t have done with an eye far more clear for having experienced it their whole life?
No, my friends and family, you want to see some amazing work, look into the book, “Shooting Back From the Reservation”, where Native children were given cameras to capture their lives and did so with grace and laughter and leave this German bozo alone.
All right, Fam, I got some pretty horrible hate mail for this opinion of mine so now I’m going to expand on my LOVE for “Shooting Back from the Reservation”, and why I dislike this German man’s photos of Natives.
If you have seen Edward Curtis photos (and who hasn’t?) these were taken in the same vein and tell about as much about Natives as Curtis’ did (which is not a lot).
Posed, un-smiling, dressed in regalia - heck, not one picture that this Felix guy took has anyone who is smiling! Not even the children! All posed and stern, with serious faces - this is not the full reality and isn’t the most important part of our communities! Even in the landscape pictures he conveyed isolation and emptiness when it’s not really like that. How can the land be empty when my grandpa taught me how to speak to it?
Shooting Back was made by Native children who were sharing and exploring different aspects of their LIVES. It shows how life really is within a Native community by young Native people. It’s not someone who showed up on a reservation for a month because his girlfriend had extended family there and took pictures. This is a glimpse of a moment out of their day and holds so many aspects of their life that you cannot view from an outsider’s pictures.
It shows you that there is no one way a Native is suppose to look,
It has chubby babies with big heads and intelligent eyes,
And shows that often our places are run down, and held together with more than a little duct tape, WITHOUT it being poverty porn,
It shows the love of rez dogs and rez cars,
And dads that make funny faces just because he likes to hear you laugh,
It shows a cemetery with too many graves,
And those medicine wheels that your aunt makes when you get a new to you car,
It shows kids playing, goofing around, and laughing!
And standing kinda awkwardly next to a white guy,
And elders that make silly faces too!
But my favorite part of this book is that in a society where our Native youth have some of the highest suicide rates, where they are silenced twofold because not only are they Native but they are also children and apparently that means that you’re not a full person yet, this book gives them a platform for their voice.
And I. I just really love this book. So if you want to see what Native life is, not just the poverty porn and the Edward Curtis wannabes, please check this book out. That is all.
Just bought the book, thanks for the rec!
OMG!!! So excited about that! Please let me know how you like it!
A little girl in my 4th grade class came up to me after recess and said, “I got married at recess!” and I said “Oh? I didn’t know anyone was ordained under the age of twelve.” and she asked me what ordained meant and I explained and then she said “Oh, well, no, my wife and I were married by the slide, but we’ll be happy together anyway.”
So apparently on school playgrounds, slides are already legalizing same-sex marriage.
ariel is the
youngest of triton’s children – the most treasured, the most coveted and
protected.
ariel is triton’s
only son, and the heir to the kingdom of the sea.
his mother had
given him his name. the healers hadn’t had time to tell her that she had borne
a son, not a daughter, before she died.
they all call him
ari.
~
he is beloved. his
eldest sister fawns over him, attina trying her best to be a mother to six
children even though she’s barely a teenager. she may be queen on day – no one
yet knows who will succeed her father, but she is the eldest, and clever and
not a bad hand at magic. she may be queen one day, and if she cannot comfort
six mourning children, how will she rule a nation?
they have many
nannies, people to make sure they are fed and dressed and bathed. but it is
attina they turn to with their nightmares, their cries, and their hurts. it is
attina who first forces ariel into their father’s hands. “he’s your son,” she
says, desperately.
triton has been as
affectionate as always with his girls, has embraced them and kissed their
cheeks when they come to him sad and scared at the loss of their mother. but he
has not yet picked up the child his wife died to give him. triton looks down at
the small babe and says, “he has her hair.”
“and her eyes,” she
says, “don’t you want to see mom’s eyes again? look into his, and you will.”
he heaves a great
sigh and hold out his hands, something guarded and stony in his features.
attina carefully places ari into them, anxiously watching as her baby brother
breaks into a huge grin, grabs onto their father’s beard, and tugs.
she wants to
scream. why couldn’t he have giggled or smiled or done something else adorable
and lovable –
but triton’s whole
face softens and he throws back his head and laughs, the first one she’s heard
since their mother died. the sadness is still there, but as he gazes down at
ariel the first hints of true happiness peak through.
“he’s just like
her,” he says, and when he looks up at her, she realizes she’s smiling too. she
hadn’t done that since her mother died either.
~
ari is two years
old, sitting in his father’s lap in the middle of a council meeting, when he
topples forward and grabs onto the trident for balance.
“no!” triton yells,
horrified, pulling him back even though it’s too late, even though one touch is
all it takes.
but his son is
unharmed. he’s not a pile of ash, he isn’t crying, there are no deep bloody
wounds on him. instead he reaches for the trident again, and this time no one
tries to stop him. he bites it, liking the feel of cold metal on his sore gums
as his teeth start to poke through. all that happens is a little spark of
electricity travels up the trident.
the advisors are
staring. triton has no choice but to make a public announcement.
prince ariel, the
youngest of his children, is the chosen heir to the throne. there is no longer
a question of succession.
the trident has
spoken.
~
if this were normal
circumstances, then the confirmation ceremony would commence immediately, and
ariel would be named a regent.
but this is not
normal circumstances. ari is not of age, is a baby who touched the trident by
accident, who was named crown prince of the sea by accident. “we do not know how
the trident will react to my daughters,” he objects, “perhaps it likes all my
children equally, and it is simply ari who touched it first.”
“regardless, he has
touched it and been declared worthy,” his councilman says, unimpressed. “let
your daughters hold it then, and we shall know for sure.”
there’s a chilling
fear up his spine, because if they are not so favored it may kill them. they
are of the royal line and magic blood and it will not mean to, but there is a
reason he himself did not hold the trident until he was a man.
this must all show
on his face, because his councilman softens and says, “we shall move up the
timetable from eighteen years old to ten years old. your two eldest daughters
will attempt to hold the trident immediately, and each daughter shall attempt
the same on her tenth birthday. then, if the trident chooses any or all of
them, we shall know for sure who shall be declared regent on the day of their
eighteenth birthday.”
it’s a compromise,
and one he doesn’t like, but one he must stomach. news of ariel using the
trident as a teething toy has already spread even farther than the oceans, is
being whispered about by the gods and spirits of the surface and the sky. “very
well,” he says, pretending he has a choice in this at all.
attina manages a
full five seconds with her hand on the trident before she releases it with a
cry of pain, her palm coming away bloody. alana barely places her hand against
it before she pulls it back, shrieking, the skin where she touched it gone
completely.
triton cleans their
hands and heals them, kissing the wounds even as he comforts them. somehow,
he’s feels like this is how each of his daughters will fair when the time
comes.
he’s not wrong.
~
ari is slightly
less beloved after that. it is unavoidable – he is a treasured, a crown prince
when they are only princesses, and even as a child his talent with magic is
obvious, his affinity for controlling the power of the ocean plain for all to
see.
he spends long
hours with tutors, with old men and women who teach him the basics of wielding
power, and then even more when his talent and intellect demands it.
but he is still a
child.
“this isn’t fair,”
ari pouts, clinging to his sister’s hand as she tries to tug away, “i want to
go to!”
“you’re too
little,” aquata says, finally shaking him off, “father doesn’t want you leaving
the castle.”
he runs to the
window and calls out, “when can i leave?”
“when you’re
older!” andrina answers, laughing. he watches his sisters’ tails create a
rainbow as they all swim away from him.
andrina is only a
year older than him. this doesn’t seem fair.
~
he is five years
old when he realizes he’s not just jealous of his sisters’ freedom. but even
that young, he knows he can’t have what he wants, so he says nothing.
~
ari has big blue
eyes and hair a brighter red than anything else in the ocean. he looks like
their mother, or so everyone tells him, and he wonders if that’s part of the
reason their father doesn’t let him stray.
he grows his hair
long, and it raises a few eyebrows, but not too many. triton has long hair,
even if it’s not the current style. ari’s is different, though, and he knows
it. he spends longer than his sisters combing it each day, and loves it’s
softness and it’s shine.
alana grabs him one
day and shoves him into their room. he loves his sisters’ room. as the only boy
and crown prince, he has his own quarters, away from them. he wishes he didn’t.
it’s bright and
glittering, littered with jewelry and hair ornaments, with sparkly shell tops
that he loves to touch. he wears his hair in a long braid down his back because
it gets in the way when he’s reading, when he struggles to summon the power his
father uses so easily, and memorize spells and languages no one else in the
kingdom will ever know.
there are other
magic users in the kingdom, of course, but the extent to which they can utilize
their power and effect the world, and the extent to which the ruler of the sea
can do such things, are so far apart as to be laughable.
“sit still and let
me practice on you,” alana commands, undoing his braid with impersonal,
practiced motions.
arista sits by
them, “wow, his hair is the longest of us all. trying to look like a girl,
ari?”
he freezes, a cold
lump at the bottom of his throat. is she – do they know – is he so obvious?
“be nice,” attina
says absently, head buried in a book. “you’re just jealous because your hair
keeps breaking midway down your back.”
arista scoffs, but
takes one of his hands, “here, brother, you should have the nails to match.”
for the next hour
arista polishes and shapes his nails before painting them the same shade as his
tail. alana twists his mass of red hair into several styles, before deciding on
a complicated updo dotted through with pearls and abalone shells carved into
floral shapes.
“this looks fun,”
adella decides, and takes her own spot in front of ari. she brings over a set
of pots and a couple delicate brushes. she swipes on eyeliner and paints his
lips red, then grabs some of the expensive glittery green powder from that
attina’s vanity.
attina rolls her
eyes but doesn’t move to stop her, “that’s only for special occasions.”
“be quiet, it’s
perfect,” adella says, using delicate fingers to smudge the powder onto his
eyelids.
finished, they all
lean back to look at him. his other sisters crowd in close, and even attina
looks up from her book. “huh,” arista says, “it was meant to be funny, but –
you look really pretty ari.”
heart in his
throat, he turns and finally allows himself to look into one of mirrors. he
raises a hand to his reflection, then lowers it. it’s so close to perfect that
he wants to cry. “guess it’s time to take it all off,” he says, but doesn’t
move to do so, only keeps staring at himself.
no one says
anything until attina snorts, “they spent so long making you look pretty, ari.
you should at least keep it all on for the rest of the day.”
he snaps his neck
around to look at her, but she’s already focused back on her book. “okay,” he
says, and the wave of relief is pathetic.
“you might as well
keep the pearls,” alana says, trying for nonchalant and failing miserably,
“they look better on you than me.”
“i don’t know how
to put them in,” he says, and winces. he should have said that he didn’t need
them because he was a boy, and boys didn’t wear pearls in their hair.
“well,” alana says,
a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips, “i guess i’ll just have to
teach you then.”
~
“when can i use the
trident for my spells?” he asks hungrily, the dizzying power of having it so
close crackling up his spine.
triton sighs, “only
when you have progressed to the point where you do not need it.”
what’s the point of
being able to handle and use the trident if his father won’t let him? what’s
the point of spending so much time cooped up in the castle, reading and
learning and practicing, if he can neither explore with his sisters nor fully
explore his magic?
“you have more
important thing to do than your sisters,” triton tells him, “you will be king
one day, and you must study your magic. on your eighteenth birthday, you will
be tasked with proving your claim to the throne, and you must also be able to
wield the trident.”
ari holds out a
hand, and his father willingly passes him the trident. if anyone lacking great
power attempts to hold it, if anyone deemed unworthy of being the ruler of the
sea tried to use it, they would be killed.
that ari is able to
hold it with nothing more than a spark of static electricity on his fingertips
is the only sign of his rank and status of heir that matters. his sisters have
all tried to hold it more than once, and it left angry, blistering welts on
their hands. it did not kill them, but neither will the trident allow them to
wield it.
it is ari, and ari
alone, who will one day wield the trident of the seven seas.
~
ari is five years
old when he figure out that he’s not a boy. he’s a girl. and he wants to say something,
to go to his father and demand he use the power of the trident to make him look
like his sisters, to tell everyone to only call him the name of his birth, to
wear pretty things in his hair and seashell tops.
but he doesn’t. not
as a child, and certainly not as he grows older. he knows what’s at stake.
he can’t be a girl.
if he’s a girl, the trident will reject him just as it rejects his sisters.
if the trident
rejects him, there will no longer be a clear heir to the throne, and the
kingdom will weaken. triton’s rule is peaceful, but not uncontested. there are
sea gods who seek to claim the oceans for their own, water spirits who would
snatch it away at even the hint of opportunity.
if atlantica loses
its crown prince, if there are signs of unrest in the kingdom, it will be as
good as inviting war onto their doorstep.
he can’t be a girl.
~
when’s he’s
fourteen, he masters illusions.
he leaves a double
in his bed, and sneaks out past the palace grounds for the first time in his
life. he’d feel guilty about sneaking out from his father’s watchful eyes,
except –
he doesn’t know how
anyone can expect him to rule a world that he does not know.
ari does this,
night after night. he explores, visiting all the places his sisters talked
about and he could never go. he goes down caverns and takes naps on the back of
blue whales. he rides rip currents and plays tag with tiger sharks.
at night he has all
the freedom that’s denied to him during the day.
but even at night,
he refuses to think of himself as a girl, because he’s worried if he thinks it
too loud the trident will know, and the next time he goes to pick it up it will
sense it and reject him.
~
ari doesn’t have
friends. he has his sisters, and he has servants. those are the two types of
people that are in the castle, besides stuffy advisors and dignitaries.
he meets a boy one
night at the edge of atlantica, a boy with bright yellow hair and electric blue
eyes. he’s an orphan, and too-thin, but he teaches ari to pick locks and steal
food from the cook first thing in the morning.
his name is
flounder. ari starts to bring food with him to all his nighttime adventures,
and flounder doesn’t steal so much. “what’s it like being the prince?” flounder
asks one day, both of them lounging on a rock on the surface under starlight.
triton would be furious if he knew ari went to the surface, that he went not just
once but nearly every night.
ari frowns and
doesn’t look over at his friend, “lonely.”
flounder rolls over
and pokes him in the shoulder, “you’re not lonely now, are you?”
“i’m not a prince
when i’m with you,” he says, smiling. he can’t be lonely around flounder, who
knows him better than anyone else in the sea.
flounder rolls his
eyes, “you are a prince always, no matter where you are. that doesn’t change.”
“i suppose,” he
says, but won’t say anything more than that.
~
ari is sixteen when
flounder grabs his wrist and says, “you know you can tell me anything, right?”
“obviously,” he
says, tearing his eyes from the shipwreck they were so close to exploring. he
loves ships, and all the things they contain, all the things from the surface.
sometimes he worries he’ll never be satisfied by the world he was born in, but
will instead always be searching for something more. “why?”
“why doesn’t anyone
call you ariel?” flounder asks, and suddenly all of ari’s attention is on his
friend and not on the ship.
he crosses his
arms, “don’t be ridiculous. my mom gave me that name because she thought she
was having a girl.”
“she did have a
girl,” flounder says, “didn’t she?”
his skin’s hot and
too tight, and he wants to cry. “why are you doing this? i thought we were
friends.”
“we are!” flounder
darts forward and takes his hands in his own, “we are friends! and – and i’m a
boy, and i would get really upset if my friends treated me like a girl, because
i’m not one. i’m a boy. but – so – if, i mean, i think you’re a girl. and if
you’re a girl, and my friend, then i should call you a girl and treat one like
one, if that’s what you are. because you’re my friend.”
he’s definitely
crying now. “i can’t be a girl. i can’t.”
“i don’t think
that’s the type of thing you can control,” flounder says gently, “look, how
about – how about if i treat you like a girl, and call you ariel, okay?
because you look sad so much, and i think this might be why. i mean, what do i
know, i’m just an orphan street urchin and you’re the crown prince – crown
princess – but i think that – that we should call people what they are. and you
are a girl.”
“i can’t be a
girl,” he repeats, shoulders hitching.
flounder’s face
screws into determination and he darts to the sea floor and then back up, a
smooth round rock in his hand. “this is a shell.”
“it’s a rock,” ari
says, confused, trying to regain control over himself.
“it’s a shell,” he
says, rubbing a layer of caked on mud to reveal a pale orange layer below.
“maybe some people would think it’s a rock, and say it looks like a rock, maybe
everyone would call it a rock and treat it like a rock. but it’s not. it’s a
shell. and no amount of calling it a rock will change that.” he places the muddy
shell in ari’s hand, “just because everyone calls you a boy and thinks you look
like a boy doesn’t mean you are one. if you don’t want to correct them, i’m not
going to try and make you. but – it’s okay if you’re a girl, ari. it’s okay.”
they stare at each
other for long moments, the silence stretching out to the point of being
uncomfortable, flounder not sure if he’s crossed a line that he can’t come back
from, not sure if he should apologize or just leave or what. then his friend
breaks the silence with an almost hysterical laugh.
“call me ariel,”
she bawls, throwing her arms around flounder’s neck and clinging to him. “i’m a
girl!”
“i know,” he says,
nearly weak with relief as his arms encircle ariel’s waist. “i know.”