not to be all “tw*light did nothing wrong” but misogyny honest to god killed the hunger games
it was no masterpiece sure but it also sure as hell wasnt the love triangle bullshit everyone made it out to be. seriously everyone blames this whole “YA fiction with the special One and teens overthrowing the oppressive government tropes” trend on the hunger games but the truth is that none of those books are anything like thg
god!!! im mad!! name one cliche YA novel where the government actually is BAD like not just “oh love is illegal” or “they barcode you!!uwu” instead of like. actual slavery and rampant poverty while the rich waste their money on dumb bullshit!! and name one main character who ACTUALLY suffers under the government’s regime!! who actually starves and works and suffers and has genuine REASON to rebel!! thg is the only YA book that had anything to say about wealth disparity and the dehumanization of the poor,, every other YA book uses it as a plot device to put some dumbass romance together or show how “badass” the MC is!! thg is genuinely emotional and the focus of the book isnt katniss’s archery and how cool she is and its NOT gale or fucking peeta bread. and then the marketing for the stupid fucking movies took the WHOLE POINT OF THE BOOK (which is to satirize and critique how women in entertainment have any serious things about them ignored in favor of whatever dress theyre wearing or who they’re dating) and turns that into……….. a fucking love triangle. and then the world forgets it because its just another dumb teen girl series. okay.
Me @ myself rn
oh also last thing. the fact that at the end katniss chose to kill Coin (the rebel leader/soon to be newest dictator) instead of just having a plain and simple boring happy ending shows just how different thg is from the YA fiction its compared to. no other book in this genre would have the guts (or even the idea) to put out such a blatant, obvious “the fight against oppression never ends, stay diligent” message and thg is iconic for it and it shows how much thought was actually put into its message. im sorry to susan collins for my 12 yo self for not understanding at the time and thinking it was just bad writing
thanks to everyone adding on about the representation! about finnick’s story and being trafficked! and about peeta and his disability!! and katniss and her indigenous coding and PTSD!! And about how it shows how war n dictatorships always prey on marginalized groups!! and a billion other things!!! that the movies just fucked off n forgot about!!!
Source: ‘When a sperm and egg get together, the body creates tissue in order to support the developing pregnancy. Here are photos of that tissue from 5-9 week pregnancies. This is called the gestational sac, and it’s like the “house” for the pregnancy. Inside this sac there are cells that have the potential to become a fetus but there is no visible embryo at this stage. We rinsed off the blood and menstrual lining (decidua) for these photographs.’
The published images sparked a lot of debate, leading to the story being picked up by other news outlets. For example:
Source:‘Last week, the Guardian published images of pregnancy tissue after abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The small size and appearance of the tissue were shocking to many. We have all absorbed, knowingly and unknowingly, the pervasive anti-abortion narrative that a pregnancy resembles a tiny baby starting in the earliest weeks. Though an early embryo can be seen under the magnification of ultrasound, it can take months for it to be perceptible to the naked eye.’
Source:‘People have responded in disbelief, citing the (magnified) images they’ve seen on ultrasounds. […] ”Think of the illustrations on pregnancy and medical websites. The Mayo Clinic, one of the preeminent medical organizations in the country, shows week-by-week illustrations of embryonic and fetal development without any context of scale, like the rulers in the MYA photos.’
As stated in the article, whilst people talk about a ‘heartbeat’ at 6 weeks, there is no heart developed at this stage - only a group of cells that will become part of the heart.
Source: ‘But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a “fetal heartbeat” at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case. Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future “pacemaker” of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.’
It should also be noted that the images show an embryo, not a fetus, until the 9th week.
Source:‘In human pregnancies, a baby-to-be isn’t considered a fetus until the 9th week after conception, or week 11 after your last menstrual period (LMP).’
The co-founders of the MYA Network responded in a New York Times article.
Source: ‘Many people, even those who support abortion rights, did not believe the photos were accurate. Some insisted we had deliberately removed the embryos before taking the photos. The images weren’t consistent with those often seen in embryological textbooks, magnified on ultrasounds or used in anti-abortion propaganda; these enlarged images are not what you see with the naked eye after an abortion. A Stanford gynecologic pathologist has validated our photos, but many people could not believe the pictures were presented unaltered.
You might think that I’m joking when I say that we need cyborg rights to be codified into law, but I honestly think that, given the pace of development of medical implants and the rights issues raised by having proprietary technologies becoming part of a human body, I think that this is absolutely essential for bodily autonomy, disability rights, and human rights more generally. This has already become an issue, and it will only become a larger issue moving forwards.
No but seriously we need cyborg rights, in case you don’t know how many people count as cyborgs here are some examples;
People with cochlear implants are cyborgs
People with pacemakers are cyborgs
People with insulin pumps are cyborgs
There are even edge cases revolving around how much electricity and integration into the body are necessary to make someone a cyborg.
People with replacement hips or other bones are by some definitions cyborgs
People with implanted medical devices such as artificial valves or stents are by some definitions cyborgs
People with prosthetic limbs are by some definitions cyborgs
People with ostomy bags are by some definitions cyborgs
People in wheel chairs, electric or not, are by some definitions cyborgs
The list could go on but I think I made my point that cyborgs are a lot more than just people with robot arms, they are the disabled deserving of the rights to the technology their lives literally depend on.
This is needed.
Earlier this year, a woman was forcibly deprived of a brain implant that was treating her epilepsy because the company that made the implant went bankrupt. Here’s a link to one of several articles about it:
This story happened back in the 2010s according to the first article but is still relevant. Also if my cochlears were repossessed by the company for some asinine reason I would literally stop being able to do 80% of the things I do and my future would be ruined. Cyborg rights are necessary and should have been codified decades ago
This was in 2020, and the patients weren’t even informed of it - one day their eyes just stopped working because the company that made them went out of business.
sometimes I wonder how we all survive and then I look at my best friends and I go “oh, I survive because I don’t want to leave you yet” and it makes sense. life is so hard a lot of the time, but I want one more bowl of pasta with you.
