#and if it gets too unwieldy it'll be a fanfic instead

[cuddlesomeone]

me starting to draft a vegeta and raditz and nappa centric comic immediately upon liking nappa even a little bit

[delta-lethonomia]

Tav’s name was originally Avery.

(Some thoughts below about developing a backstory for Tav from For All the Wrong Reasons, and how taking a joke to its logical conclusion can lead to some sad places + some thoughts on Dorsey, Tav's mum. No spoilers if you're caught up.)

I was reading a bunch of fanfic at the time (early August) and found all the different names for the same “role” confusing and annoying. All these fics with "Elizabeth/Anna/Tavella/Taviron/Tammytav/etctav" were either short enough that their names didn't matter, functioning as a mere annoying placeholder, or confusing, because I couldn't tell if this was the player insert "Tav", "The Dark Urge", or another character entirely. So instead, I figured I'd just stick with Tav for my "one-shot." (Hah!)

“Tav” is kind of a difficult nickname to work with (unless your name is Gustav lol), but all the vaguely elven/fantasy vibes names people came up with seemed even more unwieldy, but I certainly couldn’t come up with anything better. So I got to thinking - why not go full ridiculous, and make up something so awful everyone immediately understands why she goes by Tav instead? Easier on me, easier on the readers, let's never speak her full name again.

I looked up a bunch of dnd elf names + common suffixes => Tavortheylinith. It’s so bad! Who would name a half elf something like that? Alright, the elf must not be involved, so probably a human mother. But the name’s still stupid - surely if you know an elf well enough to get pregnant with them, you might know some basic naming conventions? Ok, a one-night stand, and a mother who doesn't know any elves, yet wants her child to have such a long elf-inspired name? That's a lot of hope to place on a kid. Hope to reconnect with the father? Why care so much about a one-night stand who left her knocked up, but she presumably didn't catch their name, as otherwise why not just do a female version of the father's name instead? Or stick with a name from her own culture, an honor name for a relative, anything?

...The mother's a teenager. A young teenager - young enough that making up a name from whatever elven names she's heard of seems like a good idea, the tragic equivalent of the cursed Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way of My Immortal fame. Thirteen, Fourteen? No parents, or at least not involved ones to stop this tragedy from happening. Elves are long-lived, and it's a bit of a trope to give them few children as a result; I assume any elven teens aren't shacking up with their fellow human fourteen-year-olds, at least not here, where young Dorsey doesn't even catch her paramours' name. So - older elf. An adult.

Why is young Dorsey, parentless, having a child with an adult Elf she doesn't know? She's not mad at him, she hasn't been raped - she makes up a name for her special baby, in honor of her other side, her special, half-elf daughter, with a Mary Sue worthy name. She places all her hopes on this baby, and there are so very many: she's nothing but a child herself, and has already given up on her own future.

Dorsey's a child prostitute. Maybe she's too poor to afford contraceptives, maybe she was arrogant enough to think she didn't need them, or skipping a day was fine, or maybe lonely Dorsey wanted a cute baby, a family, something to have that could be only hers; and a break from working on her back, even if other jobs don't pay as well. Later, she tells Tav that her father left without paying, or perhaps that he stole the money back the morning after, because it absolves her of having made a mistake, of being the wrong type of role model to follow.

Little Tavortheylinith is going to grow up better. She'll go to school and have a roof over her head, and it'll be her and Dorsey against the world, together. She'll never kick her out like her parents did to her. (She does.) Tav won't have to sell herself like she did. (Tav volunteers instead.) Elves are naturally good at magic - maybe she'll grow up to be a wizard, a rich one, and everything will be great. (She won't.)

(Tav grows up to become just like her mother.)

[mamamittens]

Hi! i'm a avid reader of fanfic and I recently saw some post about purity culture. What is purity culture?

This is a bit... Of an odd ask for me, but I'll try my best as someone who has grown up in the Bible Belt of America where purity culture is thick.

Uh, content warning for purity culture, rape, rape culture, and sex. It's complicated and quite unpleasant to get into, but I'll try not to drag down the conversation too much. It'll be a bit messy though, because it is a very large topic and I likely won't be able to cover a lot of it here without it being unwieldy or heavy to read.

Purity culture is in reference to... Well, it's a bit complicated and expansive, but at its root it's at least associated with Abrahamic faith practices based on sex and virginity.

Depending on where you live, you've likely already seen or experienced instances of it. Typically applied almost exclusively to girls and women, in fact.

Where it's viewed as an inherent value of a person based on their sexual activity (even perceived sexual activity). Wherein any 'sexual' act devalues someone, even if they don't quite say it so openly.

Like girls who have had a lot of boyfriends or are rumored to 'put out' a lot or are 'easy'. They're usually looked down on more than, say, the pious good girl that waits till marriage for sex. Depending on the extent, even kissing or thinking about romantic/sexual relationships are seen as sinful and requiring penance to 'earn back' their once 'pristine' purity.

This standard is rarely, if ever, applied to men and boys by the way.

An example would be the weird conference my school took us on at the end of elementary. It had a few seminars about self defense, the D.A.R.E program (say no to drugs thing), and the ending was a big speech about abstinence. Which is the most common way to perpetuate purity culture instead of education about sex, safe sex, and pregnancy.

There, there was what I believe to be a pastor, who gave a demonstration about why it was important to save yourself for marriage.

His chosen metaphor was a bar of chocolate (others include chewing gum or even cars), where the point he was trying to get across was that you wouldn't want a chocolate bar a lot of people have handled. That it gets gross and melts and is generally unappealing--he hilariously had to lick it cause the boy he chose to help demonstrate didn't give a shit about bare hands touching the chocolate bar.

There was also some weird part about how things get boring the more you do them and you naturally want to eventually get further and further. From holding hands until, before you know it, you're having sex cause you just can't get that rush from holding hands anymore.

I don't know. It was weird all around.

Anyway, my mom was horrified when I told her and that was all I needed to know it was bullshit.

In hindsight, the obvious conclusion is that the pastor was implying that people will think you're gross and won't want to be around you if you sleep with someone you're not married to.

On the surface it doesn't seem so bad, but the toxicity only grows when you realize things are rarely ever so simple.

Because there aren't exceptions in purity culture for abuse or rape. Or for the very real case where a relationship you thought was forever turns into just... A few years. If that. You're not suddenly lesser because you were sexually abused or thought you'd be with someone for the rest of your life.

But purity culture insists you must be. You, typically in this case, being a girl or woman because "boys will be boys" and "men have needs". Because your body, your purity and virginity, was supposed to be a "gift" to your husband, not something to be passed around lightly. Your body was, in the eyes of purity culture, never really yours to do with as you please.

For the unfortunate, purity culture is a toxic downward spiral you won't ever be viewed compassionately through. And for those that play along, they turn into commodities and vilified for not giving into their partners "urges" in many cases. Being called a prude, frigid, or uptight.

It's contradicting and unfair, toxic even for the men that barely need to worry about it to start with. Because sex in purity culture is a hot commodity and a need which mystifies a very common aspect of human relationships. Leading to unwise decisions or unfortunate circumstances such as teen pregnancy, rape, and sexual abuse in extreme cases.

Because purity culture also doesn't like to... Talk about sex in even the basic terms. "Leads to sin" as it were, but if you don't know anything about sex, how do you know you've had it? How are you supposed to realize you can get pregnant or contract an STD? If all you know is that sex is "something for husbands and wives to share" involving "special parts" how can you know when your naivete is being taken advantage of? How can you ask for help if you only know to call your parts (dick, vagina, whatever equipment you're working with) vague pleasantries like "butterfly" and "fishing pole" or whatever? So saying someone touched your "butterfly" or "fishing pole" sounds so innocuous, why would they be alarmed?

And it doesn't have to be just sex, by the way. Clothing and style choices also can be judged harshly in purity culture. I've seen girls be called whores for using tampons, dying their hair, reading romance novels, having guy friends, or wearing tank tops. Anything viewed as "promiscuous" or even vaguely "sexually appealing" can be used as an excuse to denounce your value under purity culture. Depending on how uh... Conservative in their belief they are. Hell, some girls are considered whores just for who their family is.

Or even your sexual attraction/orientation but that's like, an even bigger and more complicated can of worms based on where/when/and what type you're talking about.

I hope this helps and I absolutely encourage you to research more on the topic because I am only one person from a fairly laid back household on the topic of religion and sex. I know there are at least TedTalks on the matter, and even documentaries but fair warning, it can get pretty dark pretty quick.