#and all pro bodily autonomy of course

[faith--in-the-future]

I agree with you, not everyone has the same boundaries like I’m speaking for myself I’d be terrified to go on the barricade tbh lol but Louis clearly loves it, it’s so obvious so I feel like this whole barricade discussion and people trying to spin this convo into “if it was a woman” i’d so weird because people are different and different people have different boundaries. Louis is clearly adrenaline junkie, let him have his fun lol as long as his security is watching it’s all good. He’d stoped doing the barricade long time ago if he didn’t like it, he’s very good at setting boundaries.

yeah ! i used to like talk about this by citing what you said all the evidence of how and why he enjoys it etc but I really think we need to take a step back and before even talking about louis specifically the conversation should start with "are you aware that someone can enjoy something that you find uncomfortable?" (as long as they're not harming other people obviously) like otherwise we'll never see eye to eye on this ya know?

and yeah the whole feminist spin is kind of useless at best and purposefully misused at worst. not to be that person but a man will never feel the same way about being in that situation as a woman and the societal forces at play in that situation would be completely different. saying the two situations are equivalents means completely disregarding the entire patriarchal structures our lives are based on and their consequences on women

[givemearmstopraywith]

how do i reconcile being religious (catholic specifically) while also being pro-choice? I’m sorry if this sounds like a bait question, it’s not i promise! But recently i’ve been grappling with my faith again and trying to immerse myself with god again and i feel a bit….dissonant i guess? over having strong opinions on abortion and then on the other hand being religious. i don’t feel grief about being pro-choice, it’s something i believe proudly and w integrity. but it seems like i am in between two opposing great forces which demand of me to choose one over the other? do you have any kind words on how i could possibly reconcile with these? thank you x

i just finished writing research close to this topic, specifically on the problem of mary's consent. which of course comes back to issue of bodily autonomy which is central to questions of abortion. and mary is a problem: theology can neither acknowledge the problem of rape nor accept a consenting woman. to not consent is to be raped, to have control over your body, to say "yes," to consent, is to show a yearning for sexual pleasure, for oneness, and to innate acknowledge that a woman has control over her body before Go does. women must be both and neither: that is why we have the virgin mary. according to contemporary understandings of consent, mary simply could not consent: effectively God has autonomy over her body before she does.

the historical mary is a woman: she is jewish, poor, young, unmarried, and pregnant, and is the ultimate embodiment of liberation theology’s “preferential option for the poor.” but she is absolutely absent of any sexuality. when marcella althaus-reid states that poverty is a bodily and sexual matter, mary cannot be included in this statement. mary is never indecent: her existence is pinioned on the concept of her decency. she is the “right” version of all women, the perfect mate for the god-man: she is submissive, and receives him without becoming distracted by the matter of her self-determination. mary is never overcome by a profane hunger. theology requires this ultimate model of femininity to measure against all other women.

elisabeth schussler fiorenza calls attention to the danger to ecclesiastical and political authorities if mary is rendered as a self-determining single mother: a single woman who is “god-empowered, god-protected” and “filled with the holy spirit who exalts the violated and makes the fruit of illegitimacy holy.” if mary was rendered as excitedly or joyfully consenting to the act of impregnation by god, she would not suit the dominant narrative of women’s sexuality in theology: her joy can only be vocalised after she has already submitted to the masculine-penetrative god-man.

a woman who leans into the oneness and pleasure of union with god because it is pleasurable, out of the locus of her body and her sense of self-determination rather than a sense of duty or submission, has no defined place in christian theology. she can only be appropriated and co-opted by dominant patriarchal narratives, talked over, and silenced. a mary who found pleasure and joy in her impregnation, who readily and excitedly agreed to the divine directive in full knowledge of its implications, implies a femininity which cannot be controlled.

i mention mary because mary is the nexus of most catholic arguments about abortion, whether she is specifically named or not. she is the excuse used to block anyone regarded as "receptive" to patriarchy from having control of their body. i personally read the lucan narrative as mary consenting: let what you have said be done to me. this is consent, though we may debate whether or not it was informed or coerced. but i cannot imagine that christ would have come into the world through an unwilling mother. nor does God force belief on those who do not consent to believe: only people, only dogma, forces itself on the unconsenting. so in this way i can say that God cannot exist to us without consent. violation is a human creation: it is humans who violate God at the crucifixion. as such God cannot exist to us without bodily autonymy, without allowing us choice- it is the human creation of fascism which denies choice, and i hold that dimension of denial absolutely separate from God, because it is not part of God. God may be used to excuse it, but God cannot deny the natural choice and autonomy of his creation without also violating his own existence.

as for catholicism, it is old and it loves augustine. the idea that abortion is wrong is a fairly new invention in the cahtolic church and really only comes from fears that all babies are destined to hell. medieval catholicism saw life as beginning at the "quickening," which could mean anything but was seen as the first movement of the child in the womb. quickening was seen as the moment of ensoulment, and church views of abortion dictated that after ensoulment, a baby would be condemned if not baptized. it is this bizarre and exceptionally antiquated view that is the foundation of contemporary abortion debates: but even contemporary ideas of "human at conception" are ludicrous in comparison to how medieval catholicism understood when a person became a person separate from the person of the one bearing it. christianity dispelled with the judaic idea that the mother's life was more important than the fetus: it is typical of christianity to dispel of its own humanity.

effectively what i'm saying is that things change. the church changes: we find ourselves in unfortunate epochs, but the catholic church is prone to evolution and i appreciate that. but i don't feel, in any way, that being pro-choice and being catholic are at odds with each other. your morality is simply beyond where the magisterium can currently gather itself, and that's okay. the church has always been like that and probably always will be. it is the body of believers, those in the grassroots, those out in the world, who matter the most: over and above canon law, since all law (unlike God) is subject to editing and change. maybe that's a bit controversial: i don't believe it is. jesus didn't live in the temple, he lived on the street. he loved his religion, but he also knew that certain aspects did more harm then good. and maybe he felt conflicted over his love for his faith and his conviction about humanity. you walk where he treads: be proud of that.

[sophieinwonderland]

Not that prev religion anon, but the fact is, you’re not just hurting sysmeds “in their bigotry.” You’re hurting pro-endos too, such as myself, by saying these sorts of things so loudly and with no nuance.

I love the idea of a plural God for others, but not for me. I don’t agree with the idea based on my teachings. But furthermore, I don’t agree with my God being used to… further… plural acceptance? That’s not the point of spreading Christianity.

If you’re looking for actual theological discussions, then yes! Fuck yes discuss! But you aren’t. It doesn’t feel like you’re saying God is plural out of any desire for theological debate or a deeper understanding of Christianity. It feels like you’re using it solely to upset anti-endos into foaming at the mouths loudly enough that Christians will look at you and… somehow go, “Oh, this plural thing sounds good!” And that will somehow make plural acceptance a thing.

I don’t like feeling so used. ):

I'm sorry you feel that way.

But furthermore, I don’t agree with my God being used to… further… plural acceptance? That’s not the point of spreading Christianity.

Right. Of course. The point of Christianity is spreading homophobia and taking away people's bodily autonomy...

Yes, I know that's not true of all Christians. But the point I want to make is that... I think we need to acknowledge that the Church is always used for politics. And there's power in whoever can use it best to their advantage. If it's not us, it will be the pluralphobes.

Can I ask, have you thought about what a plural future will entail?

Or, to be more specific, have you thought about the Church's place in a plural future?

Because I have, and frankly, it's more than a little worrying.

Did you see the article about tulpamancy from Rod Dreher?

Either the tulpa is a wholly psychological phenomenon generated by the mind, or it is an unusual way of allowing a demonic spirit to take possession. Or perhaps both. It is at best a sign of great mental disturbance, and at worst a sign of evil spirits inhabiting a person’s body. Whatever the case, it ain’t good.

Then there was the right-winger not too long ago who infiltrated a plurality panel at a gender conference, and claim she felt a demonic presence. She's STILL claiming this plurality conference caused her to be possessed by a demon.

And in fact, the first time I ever brought up the Trinity being plural wasn't on my Tumblr blog. It was in a catholic subreddit in response to members saying that tulpas sounded demonic. (I regret deleting those comments now.)

Like it or not, widespread plural awareness means that plurality WILL become a topic in churches. And we can't afford to allow the narrative to be shaped by the right-wing evangelicals alone. We NEED to get ahead of this and appeal to churches before it comes to that.

Because I already have a pretty good idea of what talking points they're going to be churning out.

They'll say that plurality is evil. That we're getting children to open themselves up to demonic forces. They'll say that our experiences of plurality are impossible because God designed each of us to be one person, and anyone claiming otherwise is delusional. I mean, this is pretty much what they're saying right now, just on a smaller scale.

So this is my counternarrative. God is plural and Mankind is made in God's likeness. To claim plurality is unnatural is to claim God is unnatural. To hate plurals is to hate God. Coming our of the gates with this will be an immense help in the battle to come.

And I do realize that this only applies to Trinitarians, but that's the large majority of Christians.

If you don't agree with my methods, that's fine. But I think the seeds need to be planted now. We have a chance to gain a foothold in this conversation before it really starts. Because let me tell you, once it really kicks off, the rightwing talking points will spread fast and countering them isn't going to be easy. Changing a firm belief is way more difficult than convincing someone who is undecided.

Every sympathetic Christian we can introduce to the idea that God is plural is hopefully going to be somewhat inoculated against the right-wing propaganda when it comes in full force.

We're going to need every advantage we can possibly get when we're going up against these massive right-wing evangelical Christian institutions.

And I've decided that potentially offending a few people along the way, even a few pro-endos, is going to be worth the long-term benefits.

[piosplayhouse]

This didn’t quite fit into my response to the mpreg survey, but I’ve been thinking about it and wanted to mention it to you somewhere— I’ve noticed that a lot of mpreg content has a passive or even overtly pro-life stance. The most dramatic outliers are what stick with me ofc (I once read a fic where Shen Jiu said he wouldn’t get an abortion because “he’s not a child murderer”. The irony.) but for they most part it’s just a subtle slant. Do you think this is caused by the fact that, by the plot’s necessity, they gotta force their blorbo to have that baby (inserting moral objections to abortion like a horror movie inserts reasons for cell phones not to work)? Do you think that people with that belief set are more likely to have a pregnancy kink? Do you have other ideas for causes I’m not considering?

Ok I can only speak to things I've read and other responses I've seen (that fic sounds so ?????) so I do have to say the majority of things I've read (esp in scum villain) are mostly pro choice leaning where if a character gets pregnant they're given the chance to abort and usually don't take it (insert sy voice binghe I would never abort you) (however I do remember reading a wangxian fic where lwj drives his coworker wwx to a clinic to get an abortion (pre wangxian relationship) because lwj wanted to support wwx in his decision bc lwj was horrified that his mother was never given a choice on whether or not she wanted to be a mother and suffered a lot because of that, which was a really interesting subversion on the topic I think)

There is a trend I've seen in the responses to the poll where some people appreciate mpreg as a genre that takes bodily autonomy to a sort of emphasized issue, particularly outside of omegaverse/transfic (responses on whether or not people see trans pregnancies as mpreg were actually pretty even from all demographic groups) where there's this heightened sense of unexpectedness and urgency to the idea of pregnancy. As far as I know, there are a nonzero amount of people who use this framework to work through their own issues with a sense of detachment-- for example, many people mentioned having pro-life family members in real life who are pressuring them to get pregnant, and they like mpreg that either subverts that idea (what if a character was given the space to get pregnant on their own terms with full family support) or portrays it to an extreme (what if a character was being forced to not abort) but from the safe distance of fiction where they can just pull away whenever things get too real. It gives them a sense of agency and control over a situation that in real life they don't have control over, similar to how a lot of trauma kinks work.

Of course, there are equal numbers of people who are vehemently uncomfortable with that as well, so that should be considered too. On a broader demographic level, since much of fandom skews (unfortunately) American, there's also of course the probability that a lot of people have just grown up with heavy evangelical pro-life beliefs/influences, and this either consciously or subconsciously affects the way they view pregnancy as a topic. In terms of the actual heavy pro-life evangelicals, I think the majority of them would be opposed to mpreg on the basis of lgbt topics (lol) but it has been long speculated that quiverfull movement and adjacent adherent people do have some form of pregnancy kink that unfortunately they work out in real life on real children rather than in fiction, based on how they treat their coming baby/themselves while pregnant versus how they actually treat their children when they come out (unfortunately very poorly in most cases)

Anywayy that's all kind of speculation, but I hope that helps a little bit. There are always people with a billion different reasons for everything, and it would be impossible to capture those all in the span of a Tumblr ask response, but I hope this gives you something to chew on! If anyone else would like to add things to this feel free to reply or reblog or send another ask with your thoughts, it would be much appreciated :)

[secularprolifeconspectus]

I want to understand the pro-life argument. I'm in my late teens and have never been pregnant before but I'm pro-choice because I don't think a girl/woman should be obligated to carry a rapist or relative's child. It depends on the individual but pregnancy can be very hard, sometimes permanently, and the idea of forcing any girl/woman to go through that sounds harsh. Why should a woman support a child that was unwillingly put in her? For a moral ideal? This also extends to women in abusive relationships whose husbands/boyfriends might baby-trap them to control them. Abortion is important for situations like this in my opinion.

In a more common scenario, a woman chooses to abort a child because of unfavorable circumstances. Why can't she can exert control over her own body? I do agree that sexual responsibility is important and abortion shouldn't be used as birth control; but why should a woman logically carry a child that she does not want? Does the fetus's right to life (I guess) trump over the woman's right of bodily autonomy? If so, why? I'd appreciate if we can exclude moral arguments.

Well anon, sorry to break it to you, but all arguments about abortion are moral arguments. Whether or not it is ethical to abort is always going to be a philosophical argument about morality, because that's what ethics is by definition: the philosophical reflection on morality. More on that here.

So you want to understand the pro-life argument. Luckily, I have an entire tag dedicated to that, so all you have to do is read the posts. If you're looking for specific topics, check out my table of contents.

And I hate to burst your bubble, but if you oppose abortion except for in cases of rape, you're pro-life. I discuss abortion in cases of rape here, here, here, and here. And I have testimony from an SA survivor who aborted here. We can have empathy for women in abusive situations and still oppose feticide.

Ultimately, the foundational difference between the pro-choice and pro-life worldview is whether or not preborn humans are people equal to you and I. If they're merely potential people, then of course it's unreasonable to force anyone to go through pregnancy for the sake of an imaginary and nonexistent baby.

But if they are powerless people, specifically helpless babies, then it is cruel and unusual to suffocate, poison, or dismember them for their age-appropriate abilities and dependency. Because that's how abortion induces fetal demise. Because I understand embryos and fetuses to be real and actual people right now, I think elective induced abortion is murder. Fetuses are people. More on that here.

If fetuses are people, then of course it's wrong to suffocate a baby just because they may suffer in unfavorable circumstances in the future. If fetuses are people, then of course it's wrong to poison a baby just because they are unwanted. If fetuses are people, then of course it's wrong to dismember a baby just because they were unwillingly created. Child killing on demand is always wrong.

Bodily autonomy matters, but if fetuses are people, then abortion isn't self-defense; it's disproportionate force and brutality, to which autonomy doesn't extend. Abortion isn't just murder; it's abuse of power and deliberate violence. So the child's right to life does not conflict with the mother's autonomy. Elective feticide is wrong because it violates the child's right to freedom from abusive violence.

Anon, I think to be fully informed about abortion, you need to see three things. The first is a living embryo (or two). The second is an abortion procedure (or four). The third is an aborted fetus (or five).

[hyperlexichypatia]

Hi! Something I’ve been wandering is if there is no point where a brain is truly fully developed, then how do we gage what age should be the age of consent? /genuine I was wandering if you have thoughts on that because it’s something I feel pretty befuddled about

First, I'm sorry this answer is a little late, because I had to think about it a little bit. I think this question, which is a good one, has almost two answers -- one for an ideal youth-topia, and one for our current, ageist, kyriarchical, very-much-not-youth-topia world.

Also, heads up, I'm going to be talking about child abuse in a few paragraphs.

In an ideal world, I think children should begin having some say over their lives and bodies as soon as they're able to express their own opinions, but in conjunction with at least one trusted adult to provide guidance. As the child gets older, the balance should gradually shift over time, with the child's opinion gradually carrying more "weight" over time. Then at some fixed end point, which should be no later than the late teens, the new young adult should have 100% autonomy with no oversight (they can still ask for advice -- which I specify because half the time this comes up, someone asks "What if a young adult wants their parents' advice!" and I have to say "Then they can call and ask, it's not illegal").

An adult will have to make pretty much all the decisions for a baby, because babies don't really know what's what. A toddler's decision-making ability mostly maxes out at picking which toy they want to play with and then crying because actually they wanted the other one. But a school-age child can start having some say in the decision-making process and can practice asking questions at the doctor's office, being included in the conversation, having things explained at their level, understanding things like "I know the shot hurts, but it will help keep you from getting sick later," or "I know you don't like taking pills, but they help your headache go away" or "If the pills don't help your headache go away, say so, and we'll ask the doctor for something that works better." And a teenager can really start taking the lead in their own decisions, with guidance, especially if things like making thoughtful decisions, asking questions, weighing pros and cons, and doing research with reliable sources has already been practiced and modeled over the years. And by the time they're in their late teens, they should have sole final say in what happens to their bodies.

But. All of that is very much the "in an ideal world, youth-topia" answer.

We do not live in an ideal youth-topia. We live in a world where many (I'm being generous and not saying "most") adults in positions of influence over children and young people intend to manipulate or exploit them ("for their own good" or otherwise), and it can be really... extremely... difficult to keep kids from being abused or exploited by parents, families, doctors, capitalists, administrators, politicians, and others.

Most of the arguments I get into are about people wanting to raise the age of majority or some other minimum standard for ""real adulthood"" to some age higher than 18, usually invoking some spurious argument about "the brain."

And I will die on the hill that this is wrong and that 18 year olds should be considered full real adults with full bodily autonomy to do whatever they want no matter how unwise anyone thinks it is -- drink, smoke, take medicine, refuse medicine, have sex, have children, get married, have abortions, get their tubes tied, whatever.

Okay, but then you might say, what about 17 year olds? What about 16 or 15? Is an 18 year old really "more mature" than a 17 year old?

Well, no, of course not. The problem is that the legal status of minors is so absolutely abysmal that, within that legal status, it's hard to asses what "consent," let alone "informed consent," even means. It's not that I think a 17 year old isn't "mature enough" to choose to have surgery, say, but an 18 year old is "mature enough." It's that when you have zero (0) legal rights, having the right to make one (1) choice is really constrained.

Throughout the U.S. -- and I'm only going to be talking about the U.S. here because I can't confidently speak to any other country's laws -- it is legal, to varying degrees (and with even more varying degrees of enforcement), for parents to beat their minor children. It is legal, to varying degrees, for parents to restrict their minor children's movement. To restrict their food. To keep them in conditions barely above prison. To send them to "troubled teen" farms that are literally prison. Even if the mistreatment crosses into some threshold of legally actionable "child abuse," there is no guarantee that the law will be at all enforced. There is no guarantee that the abuse will be stopped. At most, the government will remove the child and place them in a foster home which is likely to be just as abusive if not moreso.

I'm not saying that minors shouldn't have the legal right to make more medical and general life choices than they currently do -- they absolutely should -- I'm saying that in the absence of certain basic physical safety guarantees, a technical on-paper "choice" doesn't mean much.

Like, I just said that I would fight for 18 year olds' right to be sterilized or get married, and also, I'm vehemently opposed to sterilization of minors and firmly support raising the minimum marriage age to 18. That's not because I think decision-making maturity and wisdom magically kick in at the 18th birthday. That's because an 18 year old can leave and file assault charges when their parent says "Sign this consent form or I'll beat you and send you to a prison farm."

So... with that in mind... I do think there are ways to protect minors' right to consent. I think people over 12 or 13 should have to give their own consent for any medical procedure that isn't an immediately life-threatening emergency. And ethical doctors shouldn't perform procedures on people they have reason to believe are being coerced.

As for minors seeking out medical procedures, I think we can look at some contextual questions like: Is the need for this procedure urgent or time-sensitive? I.e. is there any reason it can't wait until the person is older? Can someone interview the young person to try to assess whether they're being coerced? Can the young person articulate the risks or give some indication that their choice is informed? Can they talk about how the medicine/treatment/procedure makes them feel? Do any adults benefit financially from the young person's decision? Are they having an undue influence over the young person? (That isn't just about medical treatment, it's also questions like "Why are child beauty pageants a thing?" and "Why do 7 year olds play American tackle football?") Have they been exposed to other points of view?

Obviously these are all really contextual questions that depend on people in power behaving ethically, which... is a lot to depend on.

So. That's my long answer. I guess.

Final note, mostly I'm talking about medical treatment in general and life decisions in general, but I wanted to quickly mention transition and gender-affirming care in particular. I do support youth gender-affirming care. I didn't always. When I first heard about youth transition, I thought it was a risky thing that young people were going to be coerced into. I thought there would be parents coercing their gender non-conforming children into transitioning to the "other" binary gender and doing surgeries on them before they could object. I was wrong. I know that now, after learning more about how youth transition actually works. Doctors involved in gender-affirming care for youth really seem to be doing it right. They interview the young person. They make sure it's really what the person wants. They go slowly at first. The young person has ample time and opportunity to change their mind. I think other forms of health care for youth (looking at you, psychiatry) (looking at you, weight loss) (looking at you, reproductive health) should model themselves on the kinds of youth-affirming, consent-affirming practices that are standard in youth gender-affirming care.

[diaphin93]

Your musings reminded me of my own thoughts about fe3h fandom in general and w.r.t. Edie, and it is such a weird beast… It makes for an uneasy neighborhood. On one hand, it's hard to find anything pro-Edelgard that doesn't have a token "her decisions are so stupid" comment. On the other, the analysis arms-race between subfandoms resulted in some of the most intricate and interesting media analyses I've ever seen haha, including literature and film

On one hand, you can find extreeeemely well done character studies exploring personhood, bodily autonomy, nature of authority — all incredible themes. Both popular and very niche. Some genuinely superbly written, and some more amature-ish but still sporting cool ideas. And somehow, this cohabits one ao3 tag with horrific humiliation-torture-porn of a too-radical woman. Brr, I steel sometimes think about it (and the existence of AG) and can barely avoid getting miserably triggered. I think that one time you spoke about historical treatment of transgressive ladies you hit the nail on the head.

[On a side note, 3Hopes is such a funny game. Heroic Edelgard w/ Claude in SB and GW enraged all the anti-Edelgard people, and AG is an atrocity to anyone who is pro-Edelgard and/or is remotely feminist. Imho, I could be wrong, of course, I'd love to be wrong, but that's the strong impression I got from my limited information]

I think I would've been more able to enjoy Dimitri and Claude, if none of their fans espoused deeply disturbing sexual assault jokes targeting a fictional abuse survivor… Ok fine I think I still wouldn't be fine with Dimitri and his whole "let's dismember that woman and make a spectacle out of it" spiel, but maybe it would be easier for me to not read it as misogyny if it wasn't weaponized by misogynists…

Sorry for the rant with some troubling topics! :( I figured you kinda enjoyed engaging with them, so I hope that's no bother

Hi. No worries, it doesn't bother me and I'm sorry that many aspects of the community have a triggering and uncomfortable effect to you. I'm always happy to reply here.

Personally I must say, on one hand the fact that Discourse is so heated and active even 5 years after the games release is on one hand testiment to the games success at deeply resonating with people and making the choice of horde and which side to fight the war on impactful and important.

On the other hand, it lead to a massive moral panic because alot of people simply can't handle a morally grey and nuanced female Antagonist/Protagonist or a game that lets you play opposing factions. I can't imagine how bad many people in the FE3H Fandom would have been in World of Warcraft back when everyone was obsessed with the Faction System. Not leaving myself out, especialy last year where I, admittedly, really went down the deep end due to personal reasons.

Though I will say, I also dislike the narrative of Edelgard just doing nothing wrong and being a flawless pure morally good character on our side of discourse. I get it, I went there too because Discourse got so heated and the sheer volume and intensityof the poison and outright misogyny many people on the Edelcrit side of things spill and I projected alot of it, unfairly, on Dimitri myself. Sometimes I still do, though I try to be more reasonable and remind myself of the fact, that similarily to Edelgard, Dimitri is for many people a comfort character whose narrative, trauma and personal development deeply resonates with them, and I really don't want to ruin that for the people who can at least respect and acknowledge the reasons why many people, especially queer women, feel drawn to Dimitri. I mean, I once convinced a person to be more open towards Edelgard but unevitably embittered them to Dimitri and thinking back on it, it kinda felt shitty. Sure, I want people to be more appreciative and less bashful towards Edelgard, but I think I don't really want them to in turn loss enjoyment of a character that before resonated strongly with them, because thats just not a nice thing to do.

Personally, I would actually love to play Azure Moon through the eyes of a Dimitri Fan, as it is clear, that for many people the writing, themes and emotions of this story were clearly very powerful, I just can't really enjoy the route that much and don't get emotionally invested into it, it is just not for me. And the discourse probably made it even worse over time, when originally, playing CF as my first route, I was hella excited to to play Dimitris route immediately afterwards, because he seemed like such a fascinating character and I've heard so much good about it. Maybe I should return to it nowadays and look at it with different expectations and a reopened mind.

I mean, I think really the most weird and problematic people are the church fans in my opinion. Not even for liking the church cast, outside of Gilbert, whoever likes him is yikes, but for this insistance of everything it doing being this bastion of moral righteousness and absolutely correct, when the games entire story is about how its not.

But yeah, probably less of an answer, but I saw it as a good opportunity to just talk about some things that are on my mind as of late.

[romana-after-dark]

hear me out hear me out hear me out, could dolly NOT stay pregnant and somehow have a miscarriage/abortion??? If the pregnancy was terminated, dolly would actually be able to see if Logan will keep his word in never hurting her again while being who she needs/wants him to be; or if he really is just like all the other people in her life that lied to her, abused her, and manipulated her. ALSO, dolly didn't have any bodily autonomy until she got away from her abusers, which Logan was aware of. So, the fact that Logan knowingly took that recently gained human right away from her makes it all the more impactful on their relationship, and definitely would've broken every single ounce of trust she had in him. It's obvious dolly doesn't trust Logan and is already exhibiting the behavior of a victim in an abusive relationship. So, if an abortion/miscarriage were to happen, Logan would have the opportunity to gain back dolly's trust and possibly repair some of the damage he's done.

If dolly carries out the pregnancy, and there's somehow a 'happy' ending for her and Logan, she may still have those same fear/trauma responses to Logan's touch, voice, presence, etc.; which would in turn have a massive impact on her mental health over time leading to possible addictions, self-mutilation, suicide, etc... I think going through w the pregnancy would re-traumatize dolly and probably cause her to have a mental health crisis; not to mention the fact that 1 in 8 women develop postpartum depression/anxiety/distress, which would definitely impact her already fragile state of mind.

but hey! That's just my opinion, take it w a grain of salt. Love ur work regardless:3

thank you!

can i just say how much i LOVE getting these sort of asks!!!! I love how much thought yall put into these things.

I wana start by saying, in general, I don't write miscarriages with a few exceptions.

In Seattle, a Moon Knight story over on my main, Rebecca had a miscarriage but it was super early, and the day she found out she was pregnant. I just dont have the stomach for miscarriage or child death. It has to be very very specific circumstances for miscarriage.

For some reason, this rubbed an old mutual of mine wrong, who somehow took issue with the fact I'll write rape and all the horrible things i wrote in the wrong way, but then in that story i assured people the baby was okay??? anyway, you of course probably had no idea of any of this nor did you know i generally dont write that, so absolutly nothing wrong!

as for abortion... I dont know, honestly? Well, for this series, no. I have a specific plan for a lot of it. I do, at some point, want to write on my main a reader whose had an abortion or she decides to get one. I think It's important to make people whove had abortions feel seen. But this unfortunetly isn't the story for me to explore that.

However, this IS a very pro-choice page, and no matter dolly's reservations on the topic, her voice is not mine. I said before, I was raped as a teen and if I had gotten pregnant, i dont know if i would have gotten one, even though my views were pro choice by then.

I loved your insights!!!!

I think it would be interesting to see what Logan would actually do. would he be mad? would he try to get her pregnant again?

I think, and my friend Katie would agree, that Logans actions in this story is a certain kind of fucked up.

In TWW, Joel rapes LO but all shes ever known was a life of abuse, and she knew what was going to happen when she was sold. In ROF, madonna goes through all this shit and its so sudden for her, breaking her idealic world

But in this series, Dolly goes through some absolutely horrifc things, and trough her own sheer tenacity she escapes (more on that later!) and for a while, she thinks she's safe. She meets Charles who takes her in, gets her a knew identity and sets her up at a job she LOVES. Dolly adores teaching those teens. She has Remy, whose her bestest friend, and lots of good people around her. And then she had Logan, who shes falling in love with and thinks she doesnt deserve. Even still, the world is lighter with him around.

And then logan rips the first hope shes had since childhood away from her, traumatizes her over again and destroys this pretty life she was building

and im not saying logan is better or worse than Joel or Santi... but i just think thats a special kind of fucked up. Taking the autonomy she had just gained, you are absolutly correct, and intentionally trying to gt her pregnant is insane.

[mrsmarlasinger]

And you know what? Idgaf if she -'*~feels bad~*'- about driving distracted and/or intoxicated—she SHOULD. I'm very proud of myself for telling her off, point-blank; I'm just disappointed I didn't ream her harder!

As someone whose social group originates almost exclusively from the sole local gay bar, trust that I consider myself more than qualified to say I hate it when people drive drunk. Fuck that shit. I HATE intoxicated driving.

I hate the wanton distribution and consumption of drugs, and I hate drug use without prior research, without harm reduction, without moderation, without testing one's supply, without regard for cross-potentiation, without respect for psychoactive substances and their risks...no, no, not just "risks," we're talking LIFE-THREATENING dangers here.

I hate normalizing and downplaying addiction (or, hell, even drug use in and of itself!). I hate the romanticization of psychoactive substances. I hate the unfathomably widespread normalization of alcohol and nicotine, and the equally widespread refusal to acknowledge them as drugs and even toxins.

Now, believe me: I say all of this as someone who is radically pro-bodily autonomy and, therefore, pro-drug. Yes, even [whichever ✨Big Bad✨ drug you're thinking of]. Yes, to the point of legalization. Yes, even for addicts. Yes, even if you're an employer.

(Of course, being pro-drug also necessitates being pro-providing ample free resources encouraging mental health support and safe, informed drug use—without fear of legal repercussion—but I digress.)

I'm a drug user; shit, I'll admit it, I'm a drug user who still has shit to work on re:reducing harm and risks to my body (I mean, fuck, I smoked a cig earlier, and I'm asthmatic!).

Do whatever you want with your body. I damn well fucking mean that. But the moment you put others at risk—the moment you put yourself in a position where you cannot be trusted to not endanger others—

Well. That's where it becomes a matter of morality.

Risk your own health, life, and sanity, sure. You absolutely deserve the autonomy to do that, regardless of whether I agree with your choices.

But don't risk other people's well-being. Ever.

Be a safe person to be around. And you know what? A helluva lot of the time, that means being sober.

[anamericangirl]

Reading the things that @powerfem post is crazy. Bragging about being irresponsible in sex. Saying that she would even purposefully do so, just for abortions.

Women like her are children. They don’t want to take responsibility for their promiscuous lives and would rather believe a baby is intentionally trying to kill them, when in reality they’re just upset God made sure there’s consequences for being lustful, which is a deadly sin.

Then they scream “bodily autonomy” as if they’re so stupid to forget what sex leads to 99% of the time. It’s like you said: when you consent to sex you also consent to the consequences of it. Then they say stuff like “forced pregnancy” when I’m pretty sure that’s just a fancy slang for rape.

They’re grown woman. They know what sex is. They know what babies are and how they’re made. It takes two to tango and acting like children isn’t doing them any favors in making them seem mature.

They even try to bring up rape victims while simultaneously ignoring when we bring up that abortions are much more dangerous for woman than just giving birth, and that barely even 0.2% of women that get abortions are raped, AND that it’s mostly women like them who don’t want responsibility that get abortions.

They also get real quiet when you bring up how the internet doesn’t even go into full detail on abortions like it does with other surgeries.

It is crazy and it's also sad because they are the embodiment of what our culture has become and what it's currently teaching the younger generations.

The idea of personal responsibility is almost non-existent anymore and that's exactly the kind of mentality ignoring it takes. They are being taught sex is nothing to limit yourself with and it's consequence free when neither of those things are accurate. People are encouraged to have sex whenever, however, wherever, with whoever, and as much as they want with the only precaution being "use contraception" and that somehow takes all personal responsibility away from them.

People aren't even taught about abortion. They are just told it's "terminating a pregnancy" and that's pretty much the extent of any pro-choicers knowledge about it. And it's easy to be flippant about something when you have no idea what that thing is and refuse to accept responsibility for your own actions.

Bodily autonomy is the only term pro-choicers know in regards to abortion but they don't know what it means or how it works but they will scream it at the top of their lungs as if just saying the words is some kind of argument.

And the jump to rape every single time personal responsibility is brought up in regards to abortion is ridiculous. Abortion due to rape is such a small amount like you said, around 1% or something but they act like it's regularly happening. It should be common sense that when we're discussing abortion, we are discussing the overwhelming majority of them, which happen after consensual sex.

But of course the people who engage in that kind of behavior don't know that. They don't really know anything, which is how you get such flippant, ignorant behavior. They can't use facts to rationalize their position or discuss the issue beyond the words "bodily autonomy" because they don't anything beyond. Our society works hard to make sure young people are very uneducated about abortion and it's sad to see it working.

[uboat53]

Well, yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of the Dobbs ruling that took away the right of women in this country to have an abortion and I think we can say that, no matter what your opinion on the topic of abortion, it's been a disaster.

If you're pro-life you're probably horrified to see that the number of abortions nationwide has actually risen substantially since the ruling and if you're pro-choice you're probably horrified at the number of states that have restricted the bodily autonomy of women. No matter what side of the issue you're on, I hope you're horrified to see that maternal deaths have increased substantially, particularly in states that decided to ban or restrict abortion, in that time as well. Also no matter what side of the issue you are on, I hope you're horrified by the sheer disdain that the majority showed for the right to privacy, all the rights underpinned by that right, and, in fact, the concept of individual liberties at all.

Again, no matter which side of the abortion issue you're on, the majority's disdain for the idea that no individual rights exist that aren't explicitly stated (for the record, there are only 26 rights specifically spelled out in the Constitution, 23 if you combine all the ones that prohibit restricting voting rights for specific reasons, and only 9 if you combine all the ones that specifically deal with your rights relating to trials) should horrify you; it can only lead to a massive decline in the individual rights of Americans, most of which are widely approved of the point where most Americans think they ARE explicitly spelled out in the Constitution.

Now, if you're not over the age of 75, you may not be aware that we didn't always have a right to privacy. It doesn't appear explicitly in the Constitution, but, in 1965, a supermajority of the Supreme Court found that a right to privacy had to exist for other explicit rights to exist. In other words, it was found to be an implied right. As I said, if you're not over 75 (which would have made you 15 when the decision was reached), you probably didn't realize that this hasn't always been the case until, of course, the Dobbs decision made it abundantly clear.

Given all of this, I'd like to make a very simple proposal: we should ammend the Constitution to explicitly include a right to privacy in personal decisions.

We should all have the right to be free from the state (meaning any level of government) monitoring us and controlling decisions which affect our health, our well-being, and our personal lives but, according to the Supreme Court we have today, that right does not exist in the Constitution. Fortunately, the founders, in their wisdom, gave us a way to modify it so that we can add rights that become necessary over the course of our experience.

I think we should do it.

[astramthetaprime]

The Balance of a Hair

On August 12th, I woke up at 5 AM and lay there a few moments before I smelled the most horrible nauseating smell.

A moment later my mind shorted out and for at least a couple minutes I lay there not able to fit thoughts together, not even enough to know what was going on around me -- not my dog beside me, the ceiling over my head, the blanket across my chest.

It passed after a couple minutes.

And I got up to start my day an hour earlier than usual since there was no way I could get back to sleep.

This has been happening since about 2021 or 2022. It's inconvenient since it usually happens several times over the course of a day, but happens in no discernible pattern over the course of months. It doesn't seem to cause any permanent damage, has no cause I've been able to determine. Just the horrible vomit-inducing smell and dissociative episode, lasts a couple minutes, might make me almost throw up, might make me kind of shaky after two or three times in a day. But then it's gone and I go on with my life.

I hadn't been paying much attention, because it did no lasting harm.

But now, I'm working outside of the house and having to drive to work five days a week. And on the 12th, it happened while I was driving on one of the busiest roads in my city, surrounded by early morning rush hour traffic.

I'm all right. I didn't hit anyone. But the very real possibility that I could have easily killed myself or someone else crossed a line and once I got to work I called my doctor to make an appointment.

They managed to schedule me fairly quickly and I went in this past week. I'd written down all I could piece together about the incidents and gave it to my NP.

She completely ignored the parts where I dissociated in the middle of rush hour traffic, claimed it was just acid reflux, and prescribed Pepcid for it.

Then, out of left field, she wrote a referral for an ADHD assessment and a prescription for Adderall, when I had said nothing about that and hadn't asked for it.

She just ... threw an addictive stimulant at me. Because, y'know, nothing bad ever comes of easy access to addictive psychoactive stimulant drugs. ( /sarcasm )

Throughout my life, I've avoided drugs at all costs whenever I could. Some drugs are beneficial, I'm on three without which I would be dead. But for several years in my 20s I was on Paxil, an SSRI anti-depressant. They tell you it's non-addictive. The hell it isn't. You build up a tolerance for it and have to keep upping the dosage to get the same effect. And God help you if you're forced to give it up cold turkey. Ask me how I know.

(Pro tip, if you have to give up Paxil cold turkey, it makes your head spin like a top, to the point of vomiting. Keep a supply of motion sickness meds at hand -- Dramamine -- and keep on it until you're clean of the Paxil. You're welcome.)

Beyond this, it is strongly implied now that I'm considered to have both ADHD and Autism. I didn't come to the ADHD conclusion myself. I'm still really coming to terms with being Autistic. But now, ADHD and substances I am not sanguine about allowing into my body. It's a matter of agency, of bodily autonomy. I didn't consent to this, really. I was told out of the blue that I would be assessed for ADHD when I hadn't asked for that and hadn't been prepared for it.

Another pit opened beneath me, and I don't know who I am anymore.

I can't see by this new light.

The edit for my manuscript came back on Monday, it's Friday, I haven't even been able to open the file to start on it. $1600 for that edit, I haven't even been able to open the file.

But by God two nights ago I did a solid two hours on Ember Star because I took an Adderall at noon and nine hours later I was still going strong.

Am I being played by my NP because she has a quota to fill? She's short on her Adderall scripts this month and there's crazy old Aunty Proton, Autistic as fuck, we'll just slap down that referral and a script and hey we're up by one. Latest statistics say 70% of Autistics also qualify as ADHD, she probably is, we'll just get the cart before the horse and throw drugs at a problem that hasn't even been diagnosed yet.

No one seems to see me here, losing all my concept of who I am.

There's probably a drug for that too.

[see-arcane]

Dead Dove Venting below, Do Not Read

I'm aging another decade every time I see any update on the state of things at this point.

Winter as a season is melting into nonexistence. Within a decade we'll likely be past the point of no return. Corporate pollution continues pumping up into the air, boiling away the future and drowning the generations to come.

Devices are being made to slot in people's brains or to lock around a head to filter company training and duties into you as you sleep.

AI is eating people's art and work and faces and shitting them out in corporations' desperation to excise human involvement from creation just to pinch another penny.

American education is sliding down the toilet between book bans, strangled sex ed, and 'history' lessons edited to erase the reality of human atrocity and variety.

Bodily autonomy has became a joke since Roe v Wade was stabbed in the back. A Texan woman--a mother already--a mother-to-be who was heartbroken to discover the guaranteed painful death of her unborn child and whose full term 'birth' would only mean agony for the newborn before its end and a risk to herself and future attempts at carrying a child--who met every possible exception set forth by Texas' abortion ban, jumped through every legal hoop, and finally was told she could go through with the abortion...only to have the state's attorney general declare she couldn't do it. She had to flee--flee--her own home state to get a life-saving procedure because the 'pro-life' movement showed its full colors to her and the country as it wiped its ass with hers (and every other person with a womb's) human rights.

Pro-life is not about preserving life. Not when its supporters are so rabid as to demand a woman risk her life for a fetus destined to die within moments of exiting the womb.

Pro-life is about forced birth and always has been. For the sake of making cattle of women and adding numbers to the population, willingly or otherwise.

And in that vein, of course child labor is making a resurgence. Now your 14-year-old kid can serve in the grease trap or bar of their choice, dishing out food full of microplastics and booze full of bad decisions to grown adults ready to wink at a high schooler and ask what they're doing after work. Heartwarming! 12-year-old is mowing lawns for the chance to save up for college where they'll get into loan debt for a degree that won't get them a job because every position in their field requires ten years' experience! Gets a new mower donated to the cause!!

Artificial inflation, price gouging, and wage stagnation have eaten the promise of independence out from under an entire generation, their little siblings, the next generation to come. We're living in cars, in sardine-packed apartments, under our parents' roofs. Probably until the day we die, ancient and hobbling inside Walmart's sliding doors as greeters and cashiers, at least until the jobs get taken by smiling hotel bots and self checkouts. Retirement no longer exists as a concept.

Genocides on top of genocides, funded by vulture governments, against their citizens' will, using money that has magically appeared to funnel aid and weapons to the mass murderers slaughtering innocent people with a brutality of such scale and evil that it cracks the mind to try and measure. A shame that money wasn't around to help the tax payers or the people in need at home. Guess how many people go hungry in America, the Greatest Nation. Or don't guess! Look.

Nausea and shame and bile.

Bile bile bile at the thought of this country, with its masturbatory obsession with World War II, with its endless marathon of 'war hero' films showing the plights and heroics of our brave soldiers sent to fight for our rights!

(Because they were drafted. Because they were poor. Because they were lied to with myths of glory and valor. Because they would be killing and dying for the Greater Good.)

All this. All this. When we are living through the proof-positive that if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened, kicking the self-absorbed hornet nest of our government into frenzy, the good ol' U.S. of A. would absolutely have jumped on Adolf's dick and applauded the Holocaust start to finish. Hell, we might have handed them every killing tool but the nukes.

Now here comes 2024.

Voting Day looms. And of course, Joe's poll numbers are shitting the bed the way Trump is shitting himself in the various court battles still chewing on him like spray-tanned cud.

In 2020, we had the vigor of the country shouting as one: VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO. Because we were living in a different, far more intense, borderline fascist state. We felt the pressure of the stakes of a second term with the despotic Cheeto.

But now as more blood spills and our blood boils, there are, of course, people clamoring again about how voting is a sham. What kind of sucker is still convinced that voting red or blue, no matter who, is anything but giving candy to a genocidal joke? Both parties have proven they're corrupt. Complicit. Why fucking bother? We need to do more!

And we do.

We absolutely do need to do more.

But for the love of every god I no longer fucking believe in, do it after voting for whoever Is Not the Republican Candidate. You don't want to vote for Joe? For any of the potential Democratic candidates? For whoever is blue, no matter who?

Fine! Fuck it! Stick to your guns! Vote for fucking no one! Play chicken with the top office of the entire country all over again! 2016 the Sequel!

And when every MAGA shithead votes in Trump or one of his sycophants and plunges us into Diet Tyrant Rule 2.0, at least you can wear a little badge of pride--but no actual pride badges, ha ha, DeSantis has already declared rainbows ~too gay~ for Florida schools ha ha ha--that says, 'Well, Both Candidates Were Shit, So I Did the Morally Spotless Thing and Voted for Neither! Surely This Will Earn Me a Good Grade in Martyrdom.'

I hope I'm just making too many assumptions about how literal some people are being about 'why bother' and 'hold your vote hostage' kind of talk. I hope I'm reading too much into hyperbole and not seeing the rise of a new wave of bots, undercover right-wingers, and genuinely self-sabotaging moralists who think not making time to go click a button to Participate in the One (1) Guaranteed Expression of Power We Have as Citizens short of en masse protest and/or outright civil war.

I want there to be a magic switch to flip to unfuck all of this. Half of it. Even a fraction. Every day I wake up and things are worse. Even here, on the one website I regularly dip into to try and escape into silliness and personal passions, there's no avoiding the realities of the world as they get worse and worse and worse and fucking worse.

This is as close to cosmic horror as I think we can get short of Cthulhu finally getting out of bed and wiping us out.

Everything is getting worse.

All the 2024 vote has to offer at this point is a choice between Current Bullshit (Democrat) and Exponentially Worse Bullshit with a Side of THIS CANDIDATE WILL TRY TO BECOME THE FOREVER-KING OF 'MURRICA AND WILL BE EQUALLY MONSTROUS (IF NOT MORESO) IN THE GENOCIDE GAME (Republican).

But I will still drag myself into the booth. I will still vote blue, no matter who. And I will still support Palestine, still protest against evil, still raise my voice. And I'll do so in a country that won't be run by people who want to double down on regressing society to the Dark Ages with a crossover between The Handmaid's Tale and Orwell's nightmares. Who will take dissent as an offense worthy of violence and violation. Who will take every scrap of progress made by the left or by the citizens themselves and set it all on fire.

I'm tired. I'm afraid. More tired under that.

There's such bliss in the idea of flipping the bird and then flipping the table when it comes to the small important steps we can still make as people in our society. It all feels insignificant. Lackluster compared to the bombastic moves of on-the-ground protest. But you can do the small and the big steps. And we need to.

This is not Mad Max. This isn't a comic book or an action movie. There is no utopia waiting on the other side of dismissing elections as ~not worth the bother~ when it was an election that put Trump in power and another that kicked him out.

If anyone out there has a magic switch to flip that will unfuck this country? That will unfuck the entire planet's degradation? Flip it. Right now. Hammer it until it breaks and all the withheld Grace and Sanity pours over everything like a miracle tide and we can all wake up from this group night terror.

But if that switch doesn't exist?

Inch along. Do what you can. Vote in every election, big and small. Act. Support. Boycott. Scream. Fight. Do not shrug and sink into apathy. Little steps to big steps and all the intermediates in-between.

We're not in Hell, despite the weather. Sweating in December. Another massacre per minute. No, not Hell.

Hell has justice.

All we have is this.

[internalself]

This blog exists for those who do not understand people with identity inconcruence (pwii, for shorthand) which may also use the label "transid" or "transx". At the very least, even if you disagree with our existences, know thy enemy. A lot of what you have been fed is biased and/or made up.

Above all else this blog stands for freedom of identity and expression, and bodily autonomy.

Pinned post! Please read under the cut before sending in any asks!

Preferred conduct / rules

Obviously, I cant make you follow them, but going against this will probably just result in your ask being disregarded.

Please engage with us in a civil manner. We will engage with you like this, and I won't answer or take seriously any ask with hostile tones and threats.

Please maintain an open mind. I want you to take the time to consider what others have to say. We will do the same for you.

If you disagree with a specific point we made, cite it and explain why. We won't keep responding if you refuse to actually engage with any of the things we've posted. No repeating points we've already discussed unless you're going to further on it. (Ex: "but they're food!" "Potatos are food, but not a fruit." "But they're food!")

You are absolutely allowed to ask us to go more into depth on something if you feel as though it was inadvertently discussed or you lack the background knowledge on it.(ex: you mentioned trees are alive, but aren't they plants? Please explain what you meant.)

We won't require sources on everything- this topic is often very subjective, and all about personal experiences and feelings. Asking for or demanding sources would be outrageous and we understand that. We ask you understand that too. This is discussion of people feelings, not on how to build a car.

Please do not ask questions about unrelated topics such as shipcourse or syscourse.

Understand that one person doesn't speak for all of us- that of course includes me! Some people may have ideas I don't agree with, many may disagree with mine- if you see someone say something and tag it transid- don't assume we agree with it bu default.

Refrain from insulting us or others on our blog

Refrain from assuming things about others that you do not know

Futher,

We will not ever advocate for / tell other people to harm themselves or others. We do not consider surgery to be self harm, so long as it is with a professional, in a controlled and trustworthy environment. That being said- this is not the place to ask about medical procedures- I am not a doctor. I'm not even close to being a doctor. Feeling like your body doesn't match your external self can be frustrating but the answer is not to wing it and try it yourself.

We will not, have not and never will advocate for or encourage sexual activities with children. This is a misconception often associated with especially labels such as transage. It's regurgitated queerphobia.

Just because something is a social construct, doesn't mean that construct doesn't exist or that the construct is not based off of something else which is real.

While we are pro transid, there are elements we do not agree on or will not talk about. I will define our definition of transid here.

Transid: trans-identity. Generally a person who faces incongruence and sometimes dysphoria (or euphoria) around aspects of their identity. Usually this means an internal version of the self or desire for the self that does not match the external self.

An example could be a person who internally feels as though their body should be a dog's. Externally, of course, they are human. This may cause them distress.

Glossary:

Pwii - people with identity inconcruence.

Transage - people with an inconcruent internal age.

O2Y / OTY - Older to Younger (transage)

Y2O / YTO - Younger to Older (transage)

Transabled / transability - people with inconcruent internal ability.

Transspecies - people with an inconcruent internal species, also used by therian community to describe arguably the same or similar experience of lack of human identity.

Trace - people with an inconcruent internal race

Trans race - word used by people who were adopted into families often outside of their perceived culture and/or race. Sometimes used to mean trace. (See above)

Transethnic - people with an inconcruent internal ethnicity

W2PoC / WtPoC - White to Person of Color (trace) *

PoC2W / PoCtW - Person of Color to White (trace) *

PoC2PoC / PoCtPoC - Person of Color to Person of Color (trace) *

W2W / WtW - White to White (trace) *

Pwiioc - people with identity inconcruence of color *

Time stuck - people who's internal sense of the current time is inconcruent. Theyre inherently pwii but may consider themselves/ that facet of themselves to be.

Salmacian - people who desire mixed or unusual genitals. Not inherently pwii but may consider themselves/ that facet of themselves to be.

* these words are used for contextual reasons mostly in discussions about personal experiences. They are not here to invalidate anyone. They are important when addressing people who may be asking questions about themselves, and help illustrate the fact not all trace people are white, many are not.

This post may be updated at any time.

(There are multiple mods, so any questions aimed personally will be answered by which ever one decides to answer it / is active. Mods don't sign off / have tags or announce arrival or leaving at this time just for the sake of not junking up the blog)

[olderthannetfic]

I think a lot of people that are into omega verse or at least don't mind it had a 'to each their own, but not for me phase'.

Ultimately, it's just another AU that can be styled in a myriad of different ways. I like the power dynamics, the kink, the trope subversions, the angst and the additional level of complication. But that's because I generally like that in my AUs and fics.

There is of course a bio essentialism scale to it. The one thing I absolutely cannot stand are plots that start with an independent and self-determined omega who then gets told that the alphas and betas in their lives know better than them and the plot 'proves them right'. The omega took surpressants that have some nasty side effects and their circle of friends find out and now their staging an intervention because surpressants are illegal and harmful and you don't know what you're doing and what's best for yourself. I hate it. I have read the 'the plot proves them right' version of this, where the protagonist becomes meek little thing, a little to far a couple of times, because I do like the version where the plot proves them wrong.

I just don't get why that's an interesting plot to read/write? It slaps of bio essentialism, pro life, lack of bodily autonomy, ultimately really lack of any autonomy for omegas/women. It's like reading the Hamdmaid's Tale but you start in the resistance get captured and slowly start to see that Gilead was right all along without a glimpse of dissonance after 2 days of initial stumbles. It doesn't make sense to me. It makes my hair stand on end.

It really doesn't read like kink and I'm usually pretty good at spotting that, also there are kinky versions of that and they sound different. Same for fics that are deliberately dark and aware of that, that explore the visceral horror of your mind being changed like that. Maybe the point is that it is meta level horror? But it seems unlikely to me.

Can cognitive dissonance allow for someone that actually support those values to write M/M omega verse romance on ao3? Doesn't seem unlikely, now that I've written out the possibility. Not common, of course, but not wholly impossible either.

--

I find those fics tedious, but it's laughable to think we can always spot other people's kinks in how they write.

[lesbianlenas]

are you pro choice?

of course i am pro choice….u cannot be a feminist if u aren’t pro choice. the base core tenant of feminism is for women to have bodily autonomy which is impossible w/o access to abortion. no woman or girl should be forced to have a baby and women can’t be liberated from patriarchy w/o full reproductive autonomy. the literal basis of misogyny is men wanting to control reproduction which is the one thing they are not able to control so they have to subjugate women to do it. u cannot have women’s liberation w/o abortion access. idc if any woman personally doesn’t want to have an abortion or if they are morally against it for themselves if they want to call themselves a feminist they need to understand that other women MUST have the right to control whether or not they are pregnant. and i am not just pro choice i LOVE abortion 🤩 i dont think there is anything wrong w it at all and women should have the ability to decide what they want to do w their lives forever and ever. allowing men to control women’s bodies only leads to women being abused and prevented from taking the steps to develop their own independent lives. making abortion a moral issue is entirely religious doctrine (painting women who become pregnant unintentionally as being impure, deviant, seductresses, and immoral who should have been good catholic women waiting for marriage and doing their family planning) and has no place in secular society. you can only place “life” on a bunch of cells if u believe in the existence of souls separate from the body (ie you are a soul living in a body rather than just being your body) which again does not align w secular thought which is what laws are meant to be based on.

and in any case if there is any woman out there that wants an abortion and can’t get one and is forced to give birth to the child the quality of life of that child will probably be low. is it worth it to bring a child into an unfair life situation based on the morals of other ppl and men’s desire to force women to produce more babies to continue fueling the workforce? if anyone truly cares abt these “babies” they believe have to be born they would understand that allowing a woman to have an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy is a bigger mercy to the child than being born into an abusive environment or being put into foster care or into adoption (adoption is much more traumatic than media would have u believe) or having a mother who isn’t able to properly care for them for w/e reason. so many ppl have an inability to understand that being alive can actually be worse than nonexistence.

even more so if they want to prevent abortions from taking place instead of banning abortions (which does NOT lower the rate of abortions it only makes it more unsafe) there should be a focus on improving sex education and access to contraception for both men and women so that young ppl are better educated on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies so less will happen. lack of sex education doesn’t prevent young ppl from having sex all it does is cause them to have unprotected sex. so sex ed is a WAY better focus for preventing abortion than banning abortion but it’s not abt that anyway. it’s not abt preventing abortion at all it’s abt forcing women to have babies. and if they are more educated and not becoming pregnant they can’t be forced to have more babies (to fuel the workforce like i said).

and anyway. no woman should be forced to go thru permanent changes of her body that could result in future complications or death during the pregnancy. if a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant she shouldn’t be. period. i think abortion is beautiful and wonderful and any woman should be able to get one for any reason.

sorry for going off but like i have a VERY strong pro abortion stance i mean i have very strong feminist opinions in general but reproductive autonomy is THE basis of feminism. u cannot have feminism w/o reproductive autonomy!!!