if you’re not committed to antiracism, you’re not a good doctor.
I remember when I had pneumonia I was so sick and exhausted and in pain that I couldn’t get out of bed for *days* — I eventually pushed myself to walk across campus to the doctor’s office (it took me literally 45 minutes to walk there bc I had to walk so slow) and when I got there…the doctor made it seem I was only trying to get out of writing an exam lol. I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was going to be withdrawing from the class anyway bc I hadn’t had the energy to get to lectures at all that semester. She lectured me about how she sees students do this all the time and she can’t take a risk in trusting me when the only thing that was wrong with me was exhaustion. “We all have off days” is what she said lolol.
I was so humiliated at her insinuation that I eventually just nodded when she said it “didn’t seem like I had any issues” and went back home. It wasn’t until I fainted walking down the hallway like 4 feet outside my apartment that I started panicking and called someone to take me to the hospital. When I got there even the receptionists looked genuinely pale to see how hard it was for me to walk and how much it hurt to breathe or talk.
It would take *6* different antibiotics for the really advanced pneumonia to finally die out, the last of which was delivered intravenously in my arm for 10 continuous days — I still have the scar where the initial IV was and I have another mark on my wrist. I *literally* couldn’t walk or lay on my back for 8-9 weeks. I would sleep sitting up with pillows on a chair and when my breath would involuntarily deepen as I started to fall asleep I would jerk awake bc of the sharp pain my lung where the pneumonia was.
That same doctor who thought I was lying about being sick would then call me like 34 times in a row when my blood test results came to her office and the hospital sent her my chest x rays lolol, obviously worried about looking bad and having called me a liar and sending me home when I had such a serious bout of pneumonia.
In the 3rd year of my premed degree I would learn that doctors in North America — and specifically white women in nursing lol — often see south Asian women as malingerers who exaggerate their pain. In a UK study there were neonatal nurses who went so far as to say that south Asian women also lack maternal instincts, care more about their pain meds than their child and “can’t handle” child birth.
Yosif al Hasnawi — an Iraqi Canadian teen — died at the hands of two paramedics who did not believe he had been shot and claimed he was “acting” when he was actually internally bleeding. They made him walk to the ambulance with a bullet in his stomach, from which he would later die after not being transported to the hospital for 38 minutes.
Just yesterday My cousin, totally healthy, just died of a brain hemorrhage and often complained about ongoing migraines that could’ve been telltale signs of hypertension that were totally ignored by her doctor for years.
and just a day before that Kim porter who was otherwise healthy just died of pneumonia while having expressed her symptoms and pain to doctors for days — I would say that I’m shocked by this but the implications faced by brown people and racism in the healthcare system is 10x worse for black women who are often seen as liars and in it for the meds as a result of historical anti blackness and systemic rejection of black patients’ pain.
doctors are literally trained to perceive racialized people as malingerers who are trying to scam for meds or medical attention instead of people in pain. It’s 100% systemic and actually integrated into medical education.
what continuously amazes me about the mcelroys is that justin looks like a gay elf, and travis looks like a portland barista who takes regular business trips to narnia. they both look like weird, cool, funny guys. but then griffin looks like if you hit ‘random’ on a character generator for a game exclusively about tax accountants. he looks like he was born with a polo shirt on. he looks like both his first and last names are jeff. he looks like he organizes socks for fun, and then he opens his mouth and says something funny enough that you rupture all your internal organs laughing about it. it’s incredible.
i just want to say that the first time i saw griffin in the wwe monster factory video (i think), i was floored. i couldn’t believe my eyes. he was exactly like op says and i was not prepared for that at all and i was unable to process anything for days
Story concept: an orphanage/group home for chosen ones whose families were killed by ~destiny~
It’s run by a chosen heroine whose adventure was 2 decades ago and the sweet team-mom healer from her team, who she has since married.
It’s mostly trope comedy with moments of real emotion, here are some ideas for kids:
—two teenaged boys who WERE barreling towards a tragic rivalry that ends in one of them falling to darkness… until one of them confessed that he was just trying to show off because he has a crush on the other one. They’re now dating and the comedy comes from the universe CONSTANTLY trying to get them to fight and failing.
—an eight year old who keeps tattling on the demons who are whispering to her and then getting into sibling fights with them
—a brooding, edgy fire-wielding boy and a brooding, edgy fire-wielding girl who can’t figure out which mystical signs belong to who
—like six kids named Hope who go by names like “Pink Hope”, “Hope the second” and “I’ve been told I’m not allowed to shorten my name to ‘Ho’ so I will now be going by Dick just to spite them”
IDK if I’m going to write this but it’s fun to worldbuild so here’s some more!
The two fire kids have a big age gap, with the girl being 10 and the boy being 17. They spend so much time together trying to untangle their destinies that they wind up developing a brother-sister relationship. The girl is one of the Hopes and the boy’s name is Fox, which results in the following exchange being commonplace.
A: so then Hope—
B: which Hope?
A: oh, baby fox.
Oh, character consolidation idea: Fox is also one of the boys who dodged a fatal rivalry, obviously being the ‘tempted to the dark side’ half of the equation. His full name is Foxglove, and his boyfriend’s name is Raven. Raven is the one to confess and Fox was so shocked he needed to sit down for like 5 minutes to re-evaluate his entire perspective on reality.
Fox is the EPITOME of “oh shit, I didn’t hate him, I was just gay.”
Fox two years ago: Whenever he laughs I get all sweaty and agitated, and that stupid ‘oh look at me I’m so handsome’ grin is so obnoxious it bothers me for hours after I have talk to the guy! God, Raven’s the worst.
Fox now: yeah, turns out the only thing I hated about Raven is that he wasn’t kissing me right that second
The owner’s wife is a subversion on the “cute, sweet, gentle healer love interest who dies in act 2” trope, and her name is Maribelle. She’s just under five feet tall and built like somebody replaced all her bones with toothpicks— she’s TINY.
She is also, as the villain discovered in spectacularly violent fashion when he kidnapped her, the most dangerous member of the party by far.
Because she ISN’T a cleric and she wasn’t using light magic at all. She uses raw magic, which is a rare talent for humans because it’s hard to control and tends to destroy the weirder before their enemies. Maribelle’s love for her friends was LITERALLY the source of her healing magic, because she uses her emotions to shape her spells.
On the other side of that, the emotions associated with trapping her and threatening to kill her girlfriend? She WRECKED him and took the whole hideout down in the process.
OKAY I named the woman who runs the place, her name is Summer!
A lot of people just know her as “the farner’s daughter” because her particular journey of heroics started with a prophecy that said a farmer’s eldest daughter would bring about the death of the tyrannical king. Which, uh, she did, except that it was Maribelle who killed the guy in Summer’s defense.
A prophet rolls in on wheely shoes with a starbucks Frappuccino: IT TECHNICALLY WASN’T WRONG!
When my Mum was pregnant with me she was in the pub and this random creepy elderly woman that nobody ever saw before or since told her that she was going to have a boy and when I was born everyone was like “the creepy lady was wrong” but it turned out I’m trans and THE PUB WITCH WAS RIGHT!
I WAS FORETOLD BY THE PUB WITCH
Witches are always pro-trans culture, transphobes cannot be witches.
The-Lounge 