#This is like a combination of a ton of stuff

[toraoistired]

let's talk about project 2025 and smut.

bc I've seen some of my favorite authors already state they aren't writing any more smut due to the mere threat of project 2025 going into effect. And hey, I'm a simple person who likes to read abt sexy times.

pls read through all the way and share if ya like any of what i wrote here - i don't want panic to be spreading through the writers of tumblr/ao3 like wildfire unchecked.

qualifications: BA in political science focusing on domestic policy, activism and ethnic studies.

Part I - what is it?

project 2025 at its core is a roadmap. it was created by the Heritage Foundation (an extremely far right disgusting think tank), and plenty of people associated with the previous and incoming Trump presidency. its like 900 pages of alt-right, christian nationalist bullshit.

but its not uncommon.

think tanks like the Heritage Foundation often create roadmaps like this to plot out what they would most want to see in a future presidency or period of political control. it isn't even particular to right-wing think tanks; left wing ones do it too! the difference in this case is the magnitude and attention paid to the manifesto.

the heritage foundation is a vast organization with a lot of money, and has had a part in US politics for a long ass time now. because of this, what they say/do carries a bit more weight. combined with the fact that dems in the past election used project 2025 as a common refrain (instead of like, developing their own policy but whatevs), you get a general public who is aware of the buzzword "project 2025" but not knowledgeable about what it contains.

what it does actually include is certainly worrying, but among the new freaky shit is a ton of stuff that has been on the republican party's to do list since day one, like dismantling the department of education. just reading that seems really shocking, i know, but if you look back to when the department was created, you will find evidence of republicans trying desperately to dismantle it.

i find the media flurry around project 2025 to be a bit concerning, because while i understand dems wanting to show voters how dangerous this shit can be, its also made it into something far more important than it could actually be. as i stated earlier, these types of policy blueprints are extremely common among think tanks. its like their entire job!! and yes, this one is scarier and more visible than others, but it

a.) isn't the official policy of the incoming admin (and if you look at their actual policy statement, its very clear they don't rly have policies, so who knows what that's gonna look like)

b.) isn't united states federal law

Part II - what's it gonna look like?

i'm not gonna sit here and say you shouldn't be worried about project 2025, bc a lot of whats in it is freaky asf. but that freakiness is what (in my opinion) will be its primary challenge. since its so out there, the extreme right wing republicans are going to have to work their asses off to get the votes they need to pass these things.

which brings me to another point-- project 2025 is a whole list of proposals. its not like republicans can put forth one bill that has the entirety of project 2025 in it and pass it all at once. for a whole laundry list of reasons, that's not possible. the process of getting one bill passed through the house and senate is an excruciatingly long one, and doing this process for 900 pages worth of plans ain't gonna be easy.

i should mention that donald trump has yet to endorse the plan as his own, so there's the real possibility that he wont even want to implement any of the ideas included. i could 100% see him ignoring the entire plan because he doesn't like that someone else came up with it tbh. and while i don't believe he has never heard of the heritage foundation, as he has claimed in the past, i think it is important to note that there hasn't been any confirmation from him that project 2025 is his roadmap.

the plan includes rollbacks of rights for every minority group possible, restrictions on immigration, access to morning-after pills, restructuring of the federal government to allow for easier hiring and firing based on little/no evidence, etc. all in all, not great.

but again, project 2025 isn't united states federal law

Part III - what does it mean for fanfic authors?

the section that has the fanfic-consuming/creating world in a tizzy is the bit about outlawing pornography. this is a concerning policy propsal, but not because of possible fanfic bans. rather, bc project 2025 and the heritage foundation at large sees queerness as inherently and exclusively sexual.

"pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children" (The Heritage Foundation, p.5)

thus, if they ban pornography (with a definition that includes/focuses on queerness), they can effectively ban expressions of queerness in the united states.

that shit is scary. and while i never want to rely on foundational documents when the people interpreting those documents (court justices (esp those appointed by the previous and incoming trump admin)), i will hesitantly say that this is gonna be a tough sell. both from a constitutional standpoint, and from a broad base support standpoint.

for the first of the two points, arguing that the first amendment doesn't "apply" to something is always a slippery slope, and defending that point is extraordinarily difficult. obviously this isnt always the case, but especially relating to pornography and obscenity, proving that a work fails the Miller test (a three part test created in Miller v. California (1973) to determine if something is obscene or not) is, like, really hard (heh).*

while the miller test is precedent for specific cases that come up in the court system, if some version of the porn ban goes into effect, the US court system is going to be dealing with challenges from every state, every form of media, every fandom.

which brings me to the second point. broad base support.

while the headline about Grindr crashing in Milwaukee during the RNC wasn't true in 2024, republican events in previous have brought an influx in users to the area in which the events are held if ya know what i'm sayin👀

on a real note though, getting a pornography ban passed in the united states would be exceedingly hard (no pun intended). especially one that includes forms of media like written pornography, not just visual. in terms of feasibility, a ban on video pornography is incrementally more likely than one on all forms of pornography. arguments against porn are weak at best, and the anti-porn movement in the US (usually religious) has been trying, and failing, for decades to ban pornography. most content about porn bans also refers primarily to video-based porn, not written smut.

let's just say worst case scenario something like this does go into action. anything you've written before the law goes into action cannot be used as a way to prosecute you. that would be an example of ex post facto punishment, which is explicitly prohibited in the constitution and by court precedent.

*note: i'm not endorsing the way the US court precedents around porn/obscenity look, as they are another symptom of purity culture and anti-sex culture created in the US

Part IV - what do we do?

well, giving up before a bill has even been proposed ain't it. it makes me deeply sad to see so many writers saying they wont be writing smut anymore because of the vague possibility of this plan. not only does it make me sad, it makes me angry. because that means people have seen so much misinformation about what project 2025 is and how it works that they are too scared to do anything about it. let me repeat again.

project 2025 is not law in the united states of america, nor is it in the process of becoming so. act accordingly.

so go forth, write smut, be gay, do some shit to make the heritage foundation angry today. and don't give up before the battle has even started. bc that's how they win. and i know shit seems really scary, but community and mutual aid is how we are gonna make it through this, so do your due diligence and research what you're scared about! knowledge is power and you gotta wield that sh*t.

i'd like to end with a quote from Timothy Snyder, who everyone and their mother has been quoting recently, but i still think it has value.

"Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy." (Excerpted from On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, 2017)

[Note - i have cited sources where appropriate, but this is also based on my (important to note, informed) opinion. please treat it as such, thank you]

[flowers-in-your-basement]

the first time Dean looked at his brother, only 13 and looking younger and saw something he wanted like he wanted the girls in town he felt an unbearable disgust. A week-long bender later he realized that it was even worse than he thought, he didn't want Sammy like he wanted all those girls in bars, he wanted him like the prince wants the princess, a fairy-tale true love, deep kiss as the screen turns black kinda want. He, of course, threw up as soon as he realized that.

Sam was 15 now, less skinny but still, his bones showed when he stretched and Dean was constantly stuck between a motherly wanting to put more meat on his bones and a not-so motherly wanting to eat him alive. Most days he wasn't sure if that was sexual or if he was just even more disgusting than he thought.

[komashkathesilly]

no one asked for it but i brought some very crunched mizunene

[gornackeaterofworlds]

Some rise miraculous au doobles

Completely disregards pre-existing miraculous romantic relationships. Tcest dni

Click for unfuzziness. Base color versions below

[miodiodavinci]

i saw that you used to hint at oc stuff on twitter (don't ask me why im digging im looking for zola stuff lmao) why don't you post more about them?

i am simply terrified that if i post oc things online someone will steal the concept and run with it faster and better than i ever could have and then i will be devastated forever and ever

more seriously i have very little to show for any of my oc things (adhd brain making life difficult as per usual awawawawawa) and every time i've shared oc things in the past i've ended up never following up on it and it makes me feel bad and guilty so i've just convinced myself i will Never talk about my ocs until i have something substantial i can put out there

[transmechanicus]

Woke up from my little power outage nap and couldn’t even manage to eat a full box of macked cheese, grad school will fuck you up for life kids, do it at your own risk.

[fattylime]

commission for @graymorart 🌼

[cerubean]

hi! just wondering when you were going live again?

hey!! i was planning on going live this friday and saturday since i had a long weekend but it turned out to be a total disaster with my power going out which made my computer start acting funny (it's fine now!) and dealing w/ bad cramps so ;-; im very sad abt that!

my goal is to go live next week and if i don't i'll make sure to let you guys know!

[everymlmhybrid]

part one. once it's fixed. ohhhh will be so beautiful.

[pikachu-deluxe]

i absolutely am an idiot sometimes huh

[outerspace-iiinnerspace]

Zero, Zenith, Dorn, NM-Dev-1, Seven of Nine, Kai, Murderbot, and the Toy Soldier are my absolutely favorite character archetype. If you make a book or a TV show and put someone in it who matches the criteria they will immediately be my favorite no or very few questions asked which is why it’s so frustrating that I can’t articulate what exactly this type of character is.

[pebblezone]

About to serve absolutely abysmal cunt

[actualaster]

I'd also like to point out that kudos really will skew certain ways.

If a fic is a 40 chapter, 100k WIP that's still being updated will typically generate a lot more kudos (especially if it's been going for years!) than a brilliant 10k one-shot, or a drabble series that makes absolutely stunning use of short-form storytelling, or a 4k 2 chapter that will hit every single one of your "yes please" buttons but happens to be for some more niche character/pairing/trope/etc.

A fic that's very old may have a lot more kudos than something equally as good (or even better to your tastes) than something much newer simply because it's had years to accrue them.

If somebody is a BNF then... Well, they could be writing absolute dogshit quality about a bunch of wildly different OCs who seem to have murdered the canon characters and are masquerading in their skins instead and causing a whole bunch of absolutely wildly unsupported or even canon-contradictory fanon to get passed around and they'll still have kudos heaped upon them by virtue of being a BNF.

It's also entirely possible to game the system on kudos. Right now, without any real effort, for a fic that allows logged out users I could easily give five (5) kudos to a fic between my devices that will register as a different person and my accounts. I could do three (3) for fics that only allow logged-in users to do so. Honestly this is a well-used tactic to give a fic extra kudos on a re-read by doing it as a guest. I've also seen people who absolutely get their friends together to game the system and artificially inflate their kudos to keep their fic at the top of the kudos search if somebody else starts getting a little too much attention for their liking.

Also, hits will absolutely skew towards fic with more chapters as well as older fic--and also keep in mind that not all of those hits are people! Every time a bot hits the fic (which happens non-maliciously for things like populating search engines so you can find the fic when you google it) it will generate a hit. Hits also won't tell you if a fic is good/enjoyable/well-written/whatever. His merely tell you "this is how many times a link was clicked". A hit is generated the same for somebody who clicked in and loved it as the best thing they'd seen yet and somebody who got 3 sentences in and noped out of there so hard they got metaphorical whiplash because it was the worst thing they'd ever encountered according to their personal tastes.

Really, your best bet for finding good fic and hidden gems is not to sort by highest kudos/comments/hits, it's to consider what it is you're looking for and limit search results to that and then go through and see what interests you and give those fics that got less attention at least a chance if the summary and tags seem to your tastes. Sometimes you'll find stuff you didn't need to waste time on, sometimes you'll find amazing things. But you'll also find stuff you wish you hadn't wasted time on if you sort for highest kudos/hits, too, so this way at least you have a chance of finding a less popular but no less fun to read fic.

fuck it, I'm romanticizing underrated ao3 works now. 8,000 word fics with only 13 kudos, even after 5 months. multi-chaptered works with only 11 comments from the same 3 people and the author themself. incredibly specific works featuring OC's mingling with canon characters that only get 5 kudos. rare-pair fics. gift works that are literally ONLY for the receiver.

[yo9urt]

i really should make rice more often i just never do because it takes time and im not in touch with my hunger signals enough to plan it out properly anymore plus with my family always blasting the tv (misophonia) i usually end up wanting/needing to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible...but i do miss rice...SIGH

[fatrobotz]

T!kt0k reactions to stuff I'm seeing

Tw/ fatphobia, death feederism

[fingertipsmp3]

Okay, anyone else on SSRIs: is it normal to suddenly feel a little bit stupid all the time