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prettycottonmouthlamia · 1 month ago

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I'm going to be honest here it is a little bit hard to really buy the arguments of individuals who seem to think that transmisogyny is like. A tumblr fad. You do realize the term is quite old? Like it's 17 years old. It actually has a strong base in feminism and, you know, works within an intersectional framework. Transmisogyny as the exploration of the intersection of transphobia and misogyny is important!

You can't alter the term though and have it retain its intersectional meaning. Cismisogyny is inherently extremely silly. It sounds like something a TERF would make up. There is no systematic oppression of cis people. You also can't change misogyny in the same way because...well men aren't oppressed for being men. You would have to redefine the entire word into meaning something it doesn't, which is a problem when the term itself comes as a reaction to discussions of transmisogyny.

I say "reaction" neutrally here. I think we make assumptions sometimes about terms and assume their strongest meanings. Seeing "transmisogyny" and understanding that your own experiences differ in a unique way is an important part of discussions. This is almost certainly how the concept of biphobia and transmisogyny were born.

The lack of mirroring in any other conversation is also a bit of a red flag to me. When we talk about homophobia, we don't tend to mention homomisogyny, but that is primarily what lesbophobia is (although I would also argue it covers bisexual women too). Lesbians and bisexual women experience both homophobia, for being interested in the same sex/gender and misogyny, from being women. Gay men, then, don't get to claim that homoandrophobia exists. While there are specific experiences unique to gay men, they are not being discriminated against due to being men. Rather, it is from the framework in which men are judged for not meeting the idealized masculine framework: the white supremacist, sexist framework.

And yet. This isn't necessarily a disqualifier from male privilege. History has born this one out for the queer community, and it has taken multiple decades of trying to make things right in order to change it. Let's look at a really quick and easy example to prove this point.

Take a look at the list of queer Congressmen and women and see how many of them are men. It's a bit overwhelming! Now keep in mind this doesn't necessarily mean any of them are bad people, and I imagine a lot of them aren't. You do not need to be a bad person to benefit from male privilege.

Now you can point out that there are far, far fewer queer members of Congress than there are straight ones, and I entirely agree. We're still dealing with institutions, and people, that are homophobic. But the pattern is still there.

(And, also, an overwhelming number of these people are white. This is kind of obvious and I haven't really seen queer people who actually care about social justice ever state this was a phenomenon that didn't happen.)

It takes real effort to prevent this, btw. A lot of people are subconsciously sexist and misogynist even if they would insist otherwise. It's taken decades of advocacy to have more queer women in higher level positions in organizations and media. This is why saying there is androphobia in the queer community is deeply silly. There's no proof! Everything points rather directly to the opposite being true. There's a very strong bias towards, rather than against, masculinity.

Now, moving back to transmisogyny for a moment, it is worth noting here that transmisogyny does have to have people it doesn't cover. Misogynoir, for example, doesn't really cover white people. Why would it? Likewise, while men can experience misogyny, it is usually very silly to say they are the targets of misogyny. Misogyny is many cases for men is more of a deterrent than a form of oppression. It's to keep men in the fold, to keep men and women as distinct, separate categories.

If the targets for transmisogyny are all trans people...this creates some issues. What then separates it from transphobia? This isn't even particularly radical. But where I think the problem lies (outside of clumsy wording of TMA and TME) is in this.

The world is not split up between oppressed people, and oppressors, on an individual level.

What do I mean by that? Oppression isn't a passive thing. It's a result of systematic incentives and forces. In a very simple way of looking at it, oppression is the harmful implementation of power against those who do not have it. Ultimately, no one is immune to this. You can get power, and willingly use it to hurt others and keep them down. But you can also do this unwittingly. But this also means that not everyone is an oppressor. Not everyone has this power to wield over others. I want to look at this article briefly (Fair Warning: I cannot get 12ft to actually work here so I am not sure how exactly to bypass the pay wall, my apologies.)

This article isn't necessarily super substantial (it is meant to be a very cursory look after all) so the example given here is very basic. But I want to point out the obvious here. In the example, this is not a trans man in the oppressor role. Rather, it is to highlight how transphobia can and often is experienced differently, and let's be entirely honest with ourselves here, often much more intensely for trans women.

I've seen people claim this isn't actually true, which is kind of fucking wild because being someone who is around and doesn't have the memory of a goldfish, I remember when the bathroom panic started. It started, pretty much in its entirety, as a response against the idea of trans women being in women's bathroom. This was so strongly the point of the reactionary drivel that a lot of trans men rightly pointed out that the argument being as one-sided as it was actually meant there would be more masculine people in the women's bathrooms.

It was so overwhelmingly only about trans women that trans men pointed out the implications were very funny in a very stupid way. This wasn't that long ago!

Ultimately, and I want to point out this was pretty much what Serrano was talking about in that article that got spread around, not being the target of transmisogyny doesn't in turn make you an oppressor. Oppressors need power, and that power is not always given to trans men, which brings up a final question.

Can trans men benefit from male privilege?

Uh.

Yeah.

Obviously. To insist otherwise would be to insist they aren't men.

Privilege, when wielded, can in fact be a form of power. It's very easy to do this unwittingly.

Let's talk a trans man and a trans woman for a moment, and put their lives next to each other. Let's assume all factors are equal here: they're both white, they're both from middle class families, they're both straight, neither of them are disabled. Both of them also pass (I'm not going to go into the concept of "passing privilege" here, which is a silly term for a different concept entirely), so while moving through their lives, they exist as both a man and a woman.

All things are equal here. Who, ultimately, do you think has the better access to jobs? Who gets paid more? Whose opinion gets treated more seriously? The man. Obviously.

Now, of course, the real world is WAY more complicated by this. That's the point of intersectionality, the way in which different axises of oppression and privilege interact with each other. The fact that a wealthy woman might have more privilege than a homeless man does not make misogyny fake or unreal. Intersectionality does not contradict the core premise of the oppression.

Now, for the sake of fairness, let's reintroduce transphobia back into the picture. This makes the waters murky, but there are trends to look at. The issue here is, obviously, that a trans man's access to male privilege is extremely conditional, I would say more conditional than basically any other group of oppressed man, and even when those conditions are met, like other groups of oppressed men, they often benefit from male privilege less than cis men. This is because the ideal man is not a trans person, it's a cis person. Much as it is not a black person, it's a white person.

Trans women do not get this. At all. This is a really important point to make. Transphobes do not see trans women as misguided men. Once you make the choice of becoming a trans woman, it's very rare to get brought back into the group. Detransitioning does not solve the issue. Transphobes view trans women, even while they are calling us men, as inferior to men. We are less then men. The act itself is so transgressive that there is no penance. The solution is to get rid of us. This is why so many TERFs are blatantly genocidal. This is why teaming up with men to kill us doesn't bother them.

Now, this isn't to say that trans men are given much of a chance at penance. Violence is also a tool used against trans men, as it is still against gay men. For many people, although thankfully a lot less than there used to be, sleeping with a man is also an act so transgressive the only solution was violence. The point is to show that trans women are in a double bind. Becoming women disqualifies us from male privilege, makes us acutely vulnerable to misogyny, and we are almost never able to escape that.

This is all ultimately why transandrophobia bothers me as much as it does. As a term, it stands in blatant disregard of a lot of feminist thought, including intersectional feminist thought, and here's the thing.

I, like Serrano, believe that trans men do experience transphobia in a way that is different to trans women, and not necessarily in a strictly easier way. There is a need for language here. But the idea that trans women cannot ultimately criticize the choices made here is a bad faith argument. It's very bad faith. There are trans women who ultimately wash away this need in its entirety, and I strongly disagree with them, but to act as if good faith criticisms of the feminist framework of your choice is an attack is bad as well.

Transemasculation is one of the options I've seen that I actually quite like. I think it gets down to the core root of the issue very well. There can be others, obviously.

What I worry about is that the rhetoric I've seen is...really quite bad a lot of the time. I have my own criticisms of TMA and TME, but they come down to the terminology used. I don't have criticisms of the structure. For transmisogyny to exist, there must also exist those who are and are not the targets of it, just like anything else. I've seen a lot of criticisms of the structure, which has its own implication: that transmisogyny doesn't really exist.

If you believe that, but then also talk about transandrophobia, then I don't have nice words to say about you. You can stand, ultimately, in direct opposite to history and to like the majority of established feminist thought if you want, but I don't know if I want to be around you.

History never repeats, but it often does rhyme, and my prediction here is that ultimately, trans men, if nothing is done, will ultimately end up favored and privileged. The thing is that a lot of work has been done to prevent that. Serrano did not destroy the trans movement by coining transmisogyny; again she did that back in 2007. It is ultimately the responsibility of us all to make sure not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Trans men need to work to make spaces inclusive of trans women. White trans people need to work to make spaces inclusive for black trans people.

(BTW: White trans men who are making a big row about white trans women. I see you. You ain't slick.)

This can be hard work, sometimes, but we have literal decades of work to fall back on. Wealthy trans men helped to push for greater access to transition healthcare for everyone.

None of us are immune when given access to privilege and power from becoming an oppressor, but likewise, nothing disqualifies us from choosing to instead do the right thing.

#im not making any more posts about this subject #this is such a bad poisoned debate #watching second wave feminism wars with society come back is wild #a minority of bad people being blown up into evil man hating feminists once again by other bad actors #i know its tumblr but man some of y'all need to sit down and read a book

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reachartwork · 1 year ago

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So, I'm curious to hear your opinion on what the ethical problems of AI art actually are. Is it just an issue of the industry being dominated by capitalism and the issues inherent to that, or is there anything less obvious than that you consider to be an issue? (Since I imagine you get a lot of asks like this in bad faith, I want to be clear I'm genuinely interested, and I don't have any inherent problem with AI art.)

the issues with ai art from an ethical perspective are the same issues with any sort of automation in a world dominated by a capitalist mode. that is to say, i think further automation is an unequivocal good by itself but when combined with a world that requires people to perform labor to live, it becomes a bad thing. digression - i think intellectual property as a concept is bad, so anything that undermines it is good. you can't say "be gay do crimes" and be in favor of IP law, one of the most destructive anti-creative forces in human existence.

by itself, i consider ai art in specific (rather than automation as a concept) to be value neutral. it's a tool. you can use it for things. its as ethically correct as the person using it.

i do think there is also a problem in companies that want to paywall ai art or restrict what you can do with it. i think that's ethically bad. but that's the companies, not the program.

#ai art discourse #discourse #ai discourse #not art

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wof-reworked · 1 year ago

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dragon religion is an idea i think that is rlly awesome. i hope tui goes over it in the guide, anyway. if u have any specific religion ideas / hcs for dragons.. would they have jobs ?? like dragon priests orrrr idk tbh. sorry if this question is annoying im obsessed w the idea of dragons having religion and religion-based jobs

Originally I had like. a whole "series" of like. ideas for each tribe's religion and mythology, but in the interest of actually replying I'll do like. quick bullet points here and I'll try to fill in more later on ^^;;.

I have like. a lot of abstract feelings n concepts because I've always found it interesting how,,, little religion there is in wof at all. There's barely even really "magic", with only really animuses. wof's characters are occasionally superstitious, but all their superstition is based in like- historical events, like Darkstalker or Queen Oasis's murder, and not like. magic. so I want to keep some of that true because I think it's really fitting for a setting of dragons (who have historically usually *been* the gods, rather than the worshippers !!!) and it's also a rare opportunity to like. get into society without religion (this is a hostile zone for the great ice dragon, I'm sorry I Do Not Care About You and your One Off Mention, God Bless)

ANYWAY. Posting this under the cut bc it's kind of massive, read at ur own risk lol (cw for talk of death/funeral rites but that's really it)

Skywings:

Skywings for me have always been the clearest as like. focusing on historic figures as "saints" (though ik that's a pretty christian concept and word, just hang in there I prommy it goes places)

Point being- I've written about it before here, but for Skywings, the sky is alive and holy in its own right. They view it as the foundation of life and believe themselves (and all dragons, though the other tribes abandoned their way of living) as children of it, originally like birds.

It has some slight. monarchist overtures to it with how the sky itself is like an omnipresent parent, and its moods and shifting currents can be seen as a reflection of Skywing culture. When the sky is angry and casting out its children, there is a lesson that needs to be learned, and it is the collective punishment of all Skywings until the problem is fixed.

But past that, Skywings who achieve remarkable things can be recognized as local guardians and figures of protection- when Skywings die, they return to the sky in the form of clouds. Some Skywings also believe birds to be reincarnated Skywings, especially the spirits of those who rebuke the sky and strike off on their own (which is not an inherently bad thing, but a symbol of independence in its most neutral)

Some Skywing patrons I was thinking of were: the patron of duty- the first Skywing soldier, the patron of children/joy- the first kitemaker, the patron of guardians/parents- the lamplighter, and the patron of Skywing excellence/patriotism- the stormchaser.

Miners who die in Skywing tunnels also achieve something akin to a martyr status- spirits of those who bravely sacrificed their time in the sky to keep the caverns safe and protect those who would follow them. Not one patron, but the collective protection of spirits trapped underneath the ground

Sandwings

Sandwings are similar, but different: where Skywings have patrons who have been given a certain holy power, Sandwings have two kinds of spirits: the family spirits and folk heroes

I swear to god I wrote a Sandwing headcanon post, but I genuinely can't find it at all I don't know where it went. FOUND IT WHILE LOOKING FOR MY ICEWINGS POSTS. READ IT HERE. anyway tho starting with house/family spirits: Sandwings tend towards multigenerational homes, moreso than many other tribes, and remembering your family becomes increasingly important when there's so many of you

Most Sandwing houses keep a small shrine or altar for their dead relatives and their family history- some households have patron animals or spirits that they invoke for a little extra boost of fortune but these aren't like family crests as much as your family's,,, collective mythos

The Sandwing creation myth involves the First Sandwing tricking each animal into giving them a piece of themselves- the stinger and venom from scorpions, the quickness and wit of jackals, the resilience and scales of the lizards, and finally just snatching the wings and size from dragonbite vipers who used to rule the desert, who were reduced to their small snake status and have hated every Sandwing since. So if you want to pay special homage to your family being intelligent, the jackal might be your patron

This creation myth varies WILDLY- it can include many different animals or different exact retellings on what the original Sandwing tricked the animals into giving them, so patrons can vary and can be very house-specific

(I have a little draft, somewhere, of Thorn teaching Qibli her family history post-adoption/rescue and it being one of the moments that Qibli really starts to view her as family and not just the next Cobra)

Sandwing folk heroes are also super varied- I subscribe to Sandwings having a heavy oral storytelling tradition and general,,, art culture, so I'm not gonna write every single possible story you could tell with Sandwing folk heroes, but most of them embody those original Sandwing virtues- resilience, intelligence, and quick adaptability to come out on top

Mudwings

Mudwings already have their own dedicated post !!! yippeeeeee !!!! you can read it right over here :>

Mudwings are also big big oral storytellers but unlike Sandwings the gods are a more active part of these stories and the focus is rarely on individual Mudwings as much as the dynamics of the gods' dynamic as a sibling troupe.

Rarely,,, "worshipped" in the way Skywings will venerate their patrons or Sandwings will maintain their shrines, but passively appealed to and celebrated as like. the broadest encapsulation of what it is to be a Mudwing- the way they're moved by the seasons and their families moreso than anything else

Icewings

I wrote more lists originally about Icewing superstitions, which are right here, and I stand by basically all of that. I don't really know how to incorporate gods into that but I think a lot of Icewing superstition is just. vague cultural paranoia about Things Out There

Icewings have the strongest death beliefs/rituals out of any of the tribes imo- Icewing bodies need to be properly buried or the souls don't get to return to the soil, and become stuck on the ice.

Icewing funerals depend on if you live inland or on the coast- burials at sea are common for Icewings on the coast to allow the body to be taken by the water and allowed to disperse that way (though only when the ice isn't frozen over, as otherwise it may become trapped), and Icewings inland prefer open-air/sky burials that allow the body to decompose in nature.

Winter deaths are seen as bad luck, and are given extra caution and work (which also ties into Winter's role as a black sheep in the family- it's a bit of a dark name to give your child, especially as the youngest/least wanted heir of the family)

Great Ice Dragon,,,, I have no ideas for, I imagine just the source of all Icewings and their father who ensures that, despite it all, they can survive.

Seawings

least religious lets goooooooo

Seawings are just. straight up vibing. They're the most down to earth about being alive in the sense they're just animals like everything else (though they still have their own mixed feelings about dolphins from canon)

Seawings do put a lot of stock into destiny and fate though- almost as much as Nightwings, and they have a healthy stargazing culture and track the changing of seasons and time through the stars more than anything else.

Some Seawings think of themselves as fallen stars- scales still glowing from their core of starlight. Seawings who die return to the sky and come back in the form of comets, it's especially good luck to be born under a meteor shower.

Another common superstition is a Seawing's personal star- this can be as serious as knowing exactly where it is in the sky, or as lax as pointing to one and declaring it yours. This is the star that determins your destiny and is your personal guardian, you can look to it for good luck (plus if you pick right it can be a neat way to teach your children how to navigate).

Seawings LOVE tall-tales though. Almost everyone has a story of the time they 10000% saw A Sea Monster or a dolphin spoke to them in riddles, etc etc. Half the words out of a Seawing sailor's mouth are lies, and the other half are exagerrated beyond all reason (except of course,,, for the ones that are true)

This drives other tribes insane btw, especially the more devout ones like Skywings and Icewings. How are you going to make that shit up every time pls be serious for one moment (never)

Nightwings

The other least religious, but this time for complicated cultural reasons of. well. volcano.

Nightwings love science until they don't, essentially. Everything has a reason except the things we don't understand which are mysteries from beyond the pale that we just have to hope will one day become clear.

TL;DR: SO MANY GHOSTS. EVERYTHING IS HAUNTED.

Nightwings are like the closest to a lot of real world agnosticism- it could be real, but we just don't know yet. Lots of ghost sightings though and subtle signals from the universe. It's a bit of a collective coping mechanism for the loss of their powers + the amount of dragons, like Fatespeaker, who were born under the full moons but without a clear sky and thus only left with confusing powers.

(slaps the side of the canon Nightwing art) These bad boys can fit so much victorian ghost fear in them <3

Mastermind has and 100% would again drink absinthe to perform a seance to Nightwing seers of the past, prove me wrong

I think in older Nightwing mythology, there would have been lots of smaller gods and domains- complicated webs of connected esoteric spirits who each vied for power over the material world through their domains and contact with dragons.

The heart of it all is the Moons though- the three sisters of chance/luck, destiny/death, and soul. Something akin to the three fates but each in collaboration with each other over life.

In ye really olden days, some sects thought these spirits worked through scavengers. These guys are pretty broadly considered a strange cult though, and the history is scant at best.

Clearsight and Darkstalker would've grown up aware of these gods but given special privilege due to their powers- mostly as people exempt from the gods due to their connection to the moons as something surpassing the petty whims of spirits. Priests and priestesses would be preferred as powerless, as a clear head is needed to communicate with the gods fully.

Rainwings

Souls !! lots of souls !! Rainwings believe everything has a beating pulse and could be slash is alive in their own unique way.

The Rainwing gods are serpents- wingless but capable of moving through the trees as though they were flying, their scales a constant mass of brilliant colors. Names and identities are a WIP for me, bear with me as I flesh out these guys ;U;

Rainwings are big storytellers as well, and tend to create their own ideas and religions, in a sense. Being a puppeteer and performer especially is the closest to being a priest that a Rainwing can get- by embodying other things you are essentially changing your soul to align with them

Rainwings also aren't. super religious as much as just committed each to their own truth over a collective myth or story. Each Rainwing builds their own unique sense of mythology from the rainforest.

No gods no masters only fruit >:3c

I have some wips for each of these, some of them fics, some of them elaborations and continued myths, but I hope y'all enjoy them !!! All feedback welcome, as always.

#wof reworked #wof headcanons #wings of fire #wof #sunny speaks #skywings wof #icewings wof #nightwings wof #mudwings wof #seawings wof #sandwings wof #rainwings wof

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eridianfic · 1 year ago

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꧁Late꧂

Take from me/what you want/what you need

Pairing: MC X Sen

Length: <1k

Tags: hurt/comfort, gender neutral reader, angst, general audience

a/n: there's so much angst inherent to Sen's concept! This is probably wildly ooc bc we know so little about her, but I couldn't help myself:) heavily inspired by two songs, embedded at the end.

You know she’s not in the bed besides you as soon as you wake. It’s not the temperature that alerts you. After all, her side is always cold as the grave, just like her. No- it’s the weight of the bed that’s different, the mattress pressing around you instead of shifting towards her, and the blankets pushed off to the side when she got out of bed.

You find Sen sitting on the window ledge in the kitchen, tiles cold under your feet. You’re cold too- the air is chilly on your skin now out from under the comfort of your blankets. It’s almost pitch black in the rkkm and you just faintly see her silhouette, a dark void in front of the moonlight outside. She’s nearly motionless but she acknowledges your approach with a slight turn of her head towards you. You breathe together, quietly. Her breath comes out slower, more labored. After a pause, she speaks.

“I don’t think I can stay here much longer.”

“You’ve made up your mind?”

She sighs, a deep, rattling thing. “You know I have. I can’t hold on longer for you. I’ve been trying. It’s not working.”

Her faint outline against the moonlight feels more akin to a ghost than a person sitting in front of you. You guess it’s only fitting.

“Sen, I know it feels hopeless, I know that. But listen, we haven’t been searching for that long. I think there’s a cure out there for you, something that will alleviate your suffering and bring you back to-“

She cuts you off. “Bring me back to you? Back to life? I wish I could be with you. You know that. I’ve been trying and trying. And when I tell you it isn’t possible, it feels like you don’t hear me. Like you’re choosing to not hear me. You need to let me go.”

Your breath catches a little as your throat tightens. "Sen. Sen, I'll give you whatever I can. Whatever you need from me. Stay here. Stay with me. We'll figure it out".

She laughs at that, sharp and jagged. It cuts into you. "What I need from you is your blessing. Your acceptance that the person you know is already gone." She softens a little, and you can hear the rustle of her against the windowsill as she shifts towards you. "You've fallen in love with a ghost. It wasn't meant to be."

You stumble towards her in the dark, kneeling in front of her.

"God, Sen. You told me we shouldn't get to know each other when we met. But aren't you glad we've had this time together? Don't you want more of it? There's so much we haven't done together, so much I don't know... If it's about hope? I'll have enough hope for the both of us." You scoff dryly. "All the sins in the world and the one I got was greed. I want you. I want more time with you, more memories, more opportunities to find out how to fix this". Your hand reaches out to hold her cold hand in yours, fingers running over the delicate line of stitches.

What you don't say is that she's the only one you have. That if she leaves, you'll be alone. Alone again, always betrayed, always left behind, never worthy of being fought for. With her, there's something that you've never felt before. Serenity frozen, isolated from the world. Insulated from each of your problems. A place, deep in the earth where you can hibernate, together. A grave, perhaps. Away from time.

Her hand slips out of yours. "Don't do this to me," she whispers. "I've been brought here against my will. When is it going to be about what I want, for myself? I can't. I can't sacrifice myself for them, for you. I don't want to. Help me find a way to end this. To let me rest in peace like I want to. Don't you know? I've experienced it. Peace, at the end of it all. The stillness and richness of soil, of stone. That's what I want."

You hate yourself for saying it, but you say it anyways. Mutter it, in spite of yourself. "My peace is you, Sen. How can I have that without you?

There's a note of finality to her voice. "I guess you just can't understand. It's not something for you to know. It's my journey to go on, and you can choose to accompany me or not."

You've known that she felt this way. Couldn't stop yourself from trying to convince her one last time. You nod. "Whatever you'll give me. Whatever time we have left together."

You rest at her feet for a moment, leaning against her knee. She places her hand at the nape of your neck, gently carding through the strands of hair. You sit there together, quietly.

Your head nodding sleepily and resting heavily against her leg causes her to pause. "Come back to bed. We'll start looking again in the morning."

You follow her upstairs. You'll follow her until you can't any more. Until she goes to a place you can't reach.

#sen #touchstarved sen #touchstarved #touchstarved fanfic #touchstarved fic #touchstarved game #sen touchstarved #sen x mc #sen x reader #debut post!! tho I have a few fics in the works as some collabs with lovely people!#I tried to make this really sad but tbh it just comes of as kinda sad.#but damn sen has such a dillema between leaving and achieving her go #*goal #but leaving mc... or staying for them and perpetually suffering #tough tough tough #redspring studios pleasseee a smidgen of personality info so I can better characterize her <3 #Spotify

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sanctity-in-sexuality · 8 months ago

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I'm a little confused about the teaching that it's ok for a couple to use a perforated condom to collect a sperm sample for medical testing (as stated in USCCB's 2020 "Reproductive Technology Evaluation and Treatment of Infertility Guidelines for Catholic Couples"). I assume that even a punctured condom must still reduce the chance of a pregnancy by a little, otherwise it wouldn't collect a sample very well? Isn't reducing the chance of fertilization through the use of a tool like this kinda partially being closed to life? Regular condoms don't have a 100% prevention rate and yet we still condemn them for reducing the chance. I'm also assuming that a couple who does the same behavior but without the intent of keeping a sample for medical testing is doing something faulty. But don't we say that a faulty act cannot be made permissible even with a good intent, like with it still being unacceptable to masturbate to obtain a sperm sample? And I guess I'm confused about the theology handles nitpicks like, how small can the holes be before it's no longer permissible. This isn't like a pressing relevant issue in my life by any means but I'm trying to better understand the logical thinking behind topics in sexual morality! Thanks

The reduced chance of conception in this scenario is so negligible that it is practically non-existent. You honestly need very little sperm to get a woman pregnant; that's why the pull-out method doesn't work as birth control, because even the sperm in the pre-ejaculate is enough to cause conception. To say the amount of sperm a man ejaculates during sex is overkill is an understatement.

Intent doesn't necessarily excuse faulty action, but intent is nonetheless important in determining whether an action was faulty in the first place. Some actions are inherently sinful; others are sinful based on circumstance, means, and intention. Avoidance of conception during sex falls in the latter category. Masturbation falls in the former. (I'm happy to explain why, if you'd like).

I think the problem here is that you assume the issue with condoms are that they reduce conception rates. Which is true, but the moral issue is not the thing itself, but the purpose of its use. The tools themselves are neutral. Using it to collect samples for health evaluations wherein its property for potential barrier to conception has, in all practicality, been rendered harmless, is a licit use of a neutral tool.

FYI, a couple could actually licitly use a condom during sex regularly -- i.e., such a textured one for assisting the wife's pleasure -- if they were to cut the tip off. I don't really see any reason why a couple would regularly use a perforated condom except with the hope of potentially mitigating conception, in which case the intent is clearly sinful (even though it wouldn't work lol).

#condoms #nsfc #ask

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aortaobservatory · 1 year ago

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im VERY interested to hear your thoughts on the blood aspect... its one that i think is taken very much at face value, and is somewhat limited in the traits often ascribed to it (responsibility, heritage, friendship).

Though we have canonical explanations for the Aspects, you're correct in that they often get reduced down to face-value. It was a problem I encountered myself in my early analyses; human beings are multi-faceted, and thus, so are these aspects which are meant to represent many concepts within humanity as a whole. That was something I had to learn to ascribe to my classpect analyses.

My analyses now use four keywords I whittled down from the canonical descriptions as well as the wider concept I understood it to convey. This is an attempt to portray these aspects as multi-faceted as opposed to what is commonly done in flattening them down into only one concept. (IE, "Blood = Friendships, Breath = Independent, Light = Smart, Mind = Logic, Hope = Religious, Rage = Anger", and so on. These words aren't necessarily wrong, but they're definitely not right either, and they definitely don't fit everyone within those aspects. They do not encapsulate the full scope of the aspect as a whole, which means they do not encapsulate the full scope of whatever classpect they are applied to, which then provides a flat, confusing, or biased classpect analysis.)

From The Extended Zodiac, I pulled these keywords from the Blood Aspect description. These would be the "canon" traits; they are what I adhere to when analyzing, but it should also be understood that this concept encompasses much more to do with than these keywords. Its "vibe", if you will, is much more than what is written.

TEZ Blood Keywords: Bonds, trust, camaraderie, groups, inspirational, relationships, friends and allies, charismatic, uplifting, magnetic, (sullen, unkind, set-in-their-ways)

None of the above traits are inherently good or inherently bad. The Blood Aspect, like all the other aspects, is inherently neutral; it is neither good nor bad, but merely a representation of a concept we experience as human beings.

I will say that responsibility is definitely a core trait of the Blood Aspect, but the aspect should not just be limited to that trait and its synonyms. Responsibilities, promises, relationships, camaraderie, community, bonds, connections; these things are what Blood is about. The ties that bind and the blood of the covenant are strong themes for the Blood Aspect.

I would personally say that Blood is what drives humanity, community, and many cultures. That is not to then say that Breath, its inverse, has no place in humanity either; too much of anything is never a good thing, and these aspects have inverses to balance them out accordingly. This is also part of why I so strongly believe inverse classpecting is important to consider as well, as you must be aware of how you should balance to be able to balance, but I digress.

Blood does not just value the relationships they have. They can also be the core of their friend groups, the thing keeping their family members together or in touch, so on and so forth. I believe that particular concept is termed "Unity". They bring people together, which is very powerful.

This is why Karkat, as a Knight of Blood (Active Utilizer), was able to bring twelve extremely different and difficult people (including himself) together long enough to succeed at an extremely convoluted, long game session. Kankri on the other hand, as a Seer of Blood (Passive Knower), was not experienced in his aspect and wasn't able to bring his friend group together a long while before they decided to scratch, but that did not mean he wasn't trying; as inane as Kankri's rants were, they were founded from his understanding of Blood as someone who only understood it from the point of view of the Breath aspect. Had Kankri reached godtier as a Seer of Blood and fully properly understood the Blood aspect, I believe he could have succeeded in the same fashion Karkat was able to.

This got quite long, my apologies. I did not think I would have this much to say! I hope it was intriguing for you.

#classpecting #karkat vantas #kankri vantas #homestuck #blood classpects #classpect analysis #homestuck aspects #ao classpecting

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deservedgrace · 2 years ago

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the more I become a leftist as well as being ex-evangelical is really, really making me think how xtianity is basically a perfect tool of manipulation for imperialism.

and how much it has damaged the world into thinking humans are inherently evil. contributing to people feeling hopeless about humanity in the belief that we are inherently cruel. as xtianity spread that idea of original sin to everyone

a lot of other cultures viewed humanity in a more neutral light. some neutral to good

how would someone feel like they can make actual change in the world for the better if we were taught humans are inherently damned?

through this and many other aspects of xtianity… it is no wonder many conservatives who fight against progress are evangelical. and no surprise that christofascism would evolve as a concept and is a significant threat in the US

you're so right. there are so many things that contribute to xtianity being so effective as a manipulation tool but enforcing the idea that something is inherently wrong with you in order to sell the "cure" (xtianity) is particularly insidious

there's this weird dichotomy in evangelical xtianity where you're this horrible, depraved sinner without any hope of being better because you're a human and it takes away responsibility and accountability for your actions, and yet you're better than all the other sinners because you have ~the cure~, and because you have ~the cure~ and you're better than everyone else, you don't need to look at the harm you're doing. it's really similar to the issues in like, over-identifying with being a "good person" or "bad person" imo. if you're a "bad person" there's no point in examining your behavior because everything you do is bad, and if you're a "good person" you don't have to examine your behavior because everything you do is good. and in so many of these people we get this weird yet inevitable mix of "i can't help that i'm a horrible evil sinner" and "i'm always doing the right thing" that leads to this inability to self-reflect or take accountability even when people explicitly say they're being hurt. and then it's magnified by this belief in an all-knowing, all-loving god that you cannot question without consequences and couldn't possibly ever understand with your mere human knowledge that demands your full trust and faith anyway or burn in hell for all eternity

and then by claiming that everyone else is horrible and evil and that you have the ~one true fix~, you get these people who desperately want to "help" others but simultaneously view them as inherently evil and worthy of destruction, and that combination is catastrophic because then you have people who are not only willing to do whatever it takes to "fix" them, they view it as a loving activity

and all of that ties into the problem of heaven, where people are like "why should we make things better for people when the good, deserving xtains will be rewarded in heaven anyway and this life won't matter, and the evil, undeserving non-xtians are lucky that earth isn't as bad as hell will be"

i can only speak for where i'm at (the us) but the idea that humans are inherently evil is prevalent even outside of xtian circles, and it's so unfortunate because that's a very xtian idea that stems from the idea of original sin... which is the reason xtians think xtianity is necessary in the first place

i'm gonna stop there but i have A Lot of Thoughts about xtainity and why it's manifested the way it has

#thank you for sending this anon :)#i hope you're well #ex christian #religious trauma #cult tactics #hell tw #heaven tw

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thegapbetweenmoments · 1 year ago

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New Muse Ideas!

So here is my consistent conundrum: I like writing things with what I like to refer to as notable supernatural elements. This could be a vampire character (Alicia), a necromancer (Diana and kind of Belle), a time mage (Tom), etc.

The problem with this is twofold. One issue is simply that many people aren't super interested in fantasy based things, which is 100% fair and fine, and why most of the time I just write without the supernatural bits unless otherwise specified.

The other is that even when people do want to write supernatural-ish things, sometimes the vibes don't line up with whatever it is that I made for my characters, which is why it takes a while for new characters to be made even at times like this when I'm relatively active.

SO!

Below is a list of character ideas I've come up with that I'm currently considering. If you see any on the list and go "Ooh! That sounds cool!", please let me know, because that kind of input is super helpful for this process. Doesn't matter if you're a mutual, nonmutual, never interacted before, etc (though more weight will be given to mutuals/people who've interacted before). Just drop a little response and that will give more weight to the idea. Once one or two have been figured out, I'm going to make a new post about FCs, because tbh I suck at picking those, but that is a thought for later!

The list of thoughts (under read more so that I don't take up the whole dash):

Half-devil lawyer (Honestly, this is a character I actually did use for one thread and I enjoyed a lot. I may make this one even if people don't want him, but weight and priority will likely be given to things people actually want. I've always enjoyed devil contracts as plot devices, and he might be just a smidge lawful evil)

Freed djinn nurse (General concept is that she has pretty significant powers that only work if she uses them in response to a wish. She wouldn't have to respond to every wish, and like more nefarious djinn she'd probably try to use the wording of wishes in order to bend things to work how she wants, even though she as a person is not trying to harm anyone. Job as a nurse is essentially so that she can hear wishes that are inherently more benevolent and grant or bend those to do good things)

Rune mage tattoo artist (Essentially, the thought behind this is a guy who can write a long, complicated series of glyphs as a sort of magical sentence on something and activate it to give whatever it's written on an effect. Take this to its logical conclusion and with enough time, this can be used to give magical tattoos to people that give them some type of ability or effect)

Air mage pilot (I mean the usefulness of the power is kind of obvious, but also I think she'd likely own a smaller plane of her own and generally be a bit more chaotic/daring than most of my girls on here, which is a lot of the fun behind this idea for me personally)

Blood Mage Butcher (I like when characters have these powers with crazy amounts of evil potential, who then use them for completely mundane, neutral-to-good aligned things. I think this guy is just passionate about meat and grilling. Probably early to mid thirties with wholesome dad vibes. Maybe not the route most people would go for characters they want to write with, but certainly one I find amusing)

Lightning Mage Art Thief (I'm thinking she shorts out cameras and security fixtures, then just walks up to an expensive piece art and swaps it with a replica, possibly with a nearly invisible hidden signature. Some real heist movie bullshit. Then, she goes back to some incredibly mundane or wholesome day job. Maybe an elementary school art teacher who steals to buy art supplies for class)

#OC ideas #open rp #feel free to let me know!#Thank you in advance for any input offered

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doctordragon · 9 months ago

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you do know that by transitioning to a masc aligned gender identity you don’t have to hate women or be radically pro-sex to the point of supporting harmful things. like those two things don’t have to go hand in hand. you do know that

also, your arguments are just asinine. yes, all work is degrading, but it is no way comparable to the shame and violation which comes with raped all day for money that you dont get. no one is trafficked and forced to become a chiropractor/masseuse/etc. also, you are against capitalist society, and yet you are somehow still pro sex work? you cannot agree that all work is degrading and yet delegate one type that is particularly degrading and harmful as okay or even good.

also, you cant compare hierarchical society in the workplace (as bad as it may be) to actual, real world forced sex. no one is forcing you to have an office job

consent can’t be bought for the right price. if all work is non consensual what do you call non consensual sex. i think you know

First of all, you have absolutely no right to call me a woman hater you projecting motherfucker. You literally told me you think all men should die and that I should kill myself for being a man. If that's not you, stop being a fucking coward and prove it and talk to me off anon. Meanwhile I have been nothing but supportive towards women and women's issues, especially because almost all of them still affect me as a trans man.

I am radically pro sex. Our culture's views on sex are incredibly toxic and unhealthy. Your puritanical bullshit is only contributing to this toxicity. Sex is a neutral act. You can use all sorts of provocative language to describe it, but ultimately it's not that much different than any other activity people can do together. Your attitude towards sex as inherently violating, intimate, and shameful comes from the fact that you are a 17 year old asexual teenager. Not everyone views sex the way you do.

And how many times do I have to tell you, you are minimizing workplace abuse. My friend had her legs PERMANENTLY FUCKING DESTROYED from working at Starbucks out of the managers convenience. She literally told you that she would rather be "forced" (because you don't believe sex workers can give consent) into sex with strangers than have to live with her shitty legs. Amazon warehouse workers literally died because they weren't allowed to leave the warehouses during a deadly tornado. And that's just in North America. The electronics you are typing this ask out were made with slavery. The lengths you go to dismiss workplace abuse are astounding.

Anyway, you have yet to provide an argument against SEX WORK ITSELF. You're just arguing against trafficking and rape, and of fucking course those are bad. But, trafficking and rape are not inherit to sex work just like forcing people to stay in a building during a tornado isn't inherit to warehouse work. The problem isn't sex work itself, it's the abusive practices in the sw industry and societal factors that force people into sex work. If people were being trafficked into office jobs, would you be against any job sitting in front of a computer? If being a non trafficked masseuse is fine, what's wrong with being a non trafficked sex worker?

And yes, all work is degrading because we live in a capitalist society. The problem is the capitalism, not the work itself. In a perfect socialist utopia, people would still do work because we have a society that needs running. And there would still be sex work because there will ALWAYS be sex work.

I still have no idea what your actual policy positions are, unless they're just coming online, complaining about the concept of sex work, and misgendering trans men, which is very ineffective. There will always be sex work, so what measures do you want to take to ensure sex worker protections? I have realistic goals and policies that would tangibly make the lives of real sex workers better. All you have is a shoddy argument that sex workers are too stupid to know what's best for them or give consent.

And again, you can't easily sort things into "consensual" and "non consensual" with a hard line. Of course work in our society isn't fully consensual. The problem here isn't the presence of sex - sex is completely neutral - it's the coercive factors. If you can acknowledge the difference between working a minimum wage job and slavery, you can acknowledge the difference between a sex slave and a sex worker.

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molsno · 2 years ago

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I can actually see why some transmascs may talk about "hatred of masculinity" in a good faith (and still be wrong).

Before realizing that they were men they were probably identifying as women heavily dissatisfied with being women and probably also heavily gender non-conforming. Neither of those are considered fully acceptable by wider society, but totally accepted by feminist movement, at least here where I live. And the most prominent feminist organisations here are radfem-adjacent.

Now, saying that those organisations at large are "anti-men" or even "against masculinity in men" is wrong, considering how they tried to portray their enemies as effeminate as some kind of own. And, though I have never witnessed it myself, how straight girls who use radfem rhetoric are willing to invent new definitions of lesbianism to call their cishet boyfriends "lesbians", men for them have higher priority than lesbians at least.

Still, running into people there who did just hate men was a daily occurrence, and many more were parroting their rhetoric ("feminine energy" as some kind of fix for civilisation and so on). If some transmascs allied more with people like this, discovering that they are what they considered to be some ontological evil might have been traumatic.

Still, posing misandry as big societal problem and not fringe worldview that they internalized is silly at best (I am using misandry here as personal attitude, not system, hence no quotes). And I always assume that people who talk about it as something important are either doing it in bad faith or repeating someone's bad faith arguments without analysing it.

(Now it's up to question how many transmascs actually joined those organisations in any way, considering how for unrealised trans girl that I was any idea about how good men or masculinity are even (in not ridiculous form) was an instant "no" on all levels, but who knows)

yeah, that's pretty much my understanding of it, too. basically all transmascs who believe in transandrophobia display at least some level of internalized gender essentialism underlying their entire ideology.

and like, I get it. the feminist wave of the 2010s was so deeply entangled with radical feminism that for a good while, anyone heavily involved in the movement was exposed to the biological essentialist worldview central to radical feminism that declares that men are ontologically evil, and I have no doubt that many young, repressed trans people at the time internalized that idea to an extent. I certainly did, and it only amplified my dysphoria as a teenager. it was traumatizing to me, and I can completely understand why it would be traumatizing to transmascs to come to terms with the fact that they were something they had always believed was inherently bad.

it's just like you said though, it's a mistake to frame misandry as a society wide issue when really it's a very small minority of people. but a lot of trans men never question or challenge the worldview they developed in their youth, so when they start getting read as men when they're adults and inevitably face transphobia, they start attributing it to a societal hatred of masculinity instead of recognizing that the actual cause of their oppression is a society that seeks to protect the concept of the immutable gender binary that enables the patriarchal hierarchy of power at all costs.

I don't really have any sympathy for them, though. like yeah, it sucks to be made to feel like you should hate yourself just for existing, but like, that isn't unique to them. the gender essentialism so many of them have internalized is a big reason a lot of transandrophobia truthers start aligning themselves with terfs, and I don't think I need to tell you how I feel about that. 😑 they have an alternative, they can just reevaluate their beliefs until they come to realize that man and woman are completely neutral categories entirely devoid of value judgment and don't say anything meaningful about any given person other than what they like to be called. I'll admit from experience that accepting that truth can be difficult but it's not impossible, and challenging your worldview is something you're going to have to do a lot in life if you actually want to meaningfully change how you interact with people and the world around you.

but why do that when they can demand trans women bend over backwards to appease them? it must feel good to get a taste of that male privilege when a few trans women are actually self-hating enough to listen to them. that is, at least until they get too much backlash from the rest of us who have enough self esteem to stand up for ourselves and they recede into the open arms of terfs for comfort from the mean trannies.

#ask #Anonymous

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utilitycaster · 1 year ago

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the thing is, the accounts on cr twitter who have these wild takes aren't even shippers

they're all about nuance about the gods, aeor, ludinus, ruby vanguard.....but then have these extreme views about orym, say he's got bloodlust and pretty much equate him to a cop/military soldier

Hey anon! So I will admit as I have in the past that I largely avoid CR Twitter because I hate Twitter as a platform and the community of CR Twitter specifically (more below) but I will say the tweets I have seen have largely been from people who are, if not the most rabid of shippers, shippers. I did in fact just go there and click on "Orym" as it was trending, and the tweets to this effect are largely from people with black and purple hearts in their names. I don't think they're necessarily conscious that this is the reason why they try so hard to discredit Liam's characters (and I think the desire for Laudna to be a Traumatized Innocent rather than a person who has done her own share of harm is an even larger factor) but I do think it is part of it.

I should note: a significant point of reference for me is that the person who famously said "do not uwuify this" re Orym post episode 63 is Wally Wests on Twitter. Look, I know I use the word "stupid" a lot, and I'm trying to reduce it not because I think it's a problem to use but because it reduces the impact and also heavily implying people are stupid without outright saying it tends to be more effective on every level but god this person is the dumbest motherfucker in the fandom and I'm not even kidding. Like, they're the "Australian white person who writes like Rupi Kaur but worse" I've referenced. Because of The Algorithm they are weirdly popular in that space and it baffles me because I honestly don't understand why every single thing they say isn't just filled with replies saying "are you fucking stupid." Like I physically cannot understand how you can have a brain and read a single word they say and go "this is a person I should listen to." They are also not a big shipper, but they do like the ship from what I understand. Specifically on Tumblr, the people echoing this nonsense are pretty much shippers.

With that said yeah, I do think it's worth addressing the soldier aspect. First off, if we're talking cops, why is Bryce, pleasant but forgettable minor NPC, inexplicably popular in this fandom despite them being an actual crownsguard of an actual authoritarian government. Like are all fictional cops bastards or no (fwiw my opinion is no, because the context of the world in which they exist is extremely important; I'm just pointing out the inconsistencies)? But also...I've run into this with Worlds Beyond Number too, and it actually came up on the Fireside chat, but there are words people hear (empire, religion, soldier) and automatically go "BAD BAD BAD" and don't spend any time thinking about how we've come to these conclusions. And for what it's worth I think Empire is always ultimately going to be bad because of its source in conquest; religion is neutral with the potential to harm or hurt; and soldier is deeply contextual and inherently gray; but all are very valid things to explore in fiction, where the war crimes and abuses aren't real. I remember seeing a take about Candela Obscura shitting on how half the party is former soldiers, and like...the messaging of this season of Candela is undeniably about the immense psychological damage of war, and the soldiers were defending their home against a colonizing force rather than doing any sort of invading, but some people are so high on a paper-thin unexamined concept of what I presume they tell themselves is leftism that they cannot see that. Orym's husband did not die trying to invade a nation for their oil. He died because people trying to unleash a horror ran an attack on their town as a practice run. Orym's experience as a soldier has always been one of defense, never conquest or destruction, and that is important to understand. It doesn't mean that in the future Zephrah couldn't become an oppressive power (and various worldbuilding in Exandria does explore the idea of small community watches or protective guards growing deeply corrupt or expansionist over time, but god knows the people saying this shit have the lore knowledge of a dead pigeon), but the aspects of being a soldier he is engaging with are those of personal sacrifice and protecting one's own, not killing for resources or ideology (which, let's be real, is usually an excuse to take the resources of those you disagree with).

#answered #Anonymous #i've also now gotten like. 3 or 4 examples of how fucking BONKERS this cohort's cherrypicking is re: video clips #they cut off just before the thing that clearly contradicts their point starts. it would be funny if it didn't remind me so much of fox new #anyway uh. sorry anon for going on a rant this is why i don't go on twitter.#long post #cr tag

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