#autonomy starts with choice.

[thistlevalden]

Mithrun gender is very unimportant to me. He really is the physical manifestation of that "im probably non binary, but i have a job, so idrc about that rn" tweet.

Unsurprisingly, i think Mithrun is an androgynous person, lol. I dont think he's a dress and heels hyperfemme or a stone muscular hypermasc, so its kinda funny seeing the discourse around it from time to time when im rubbing my hands going — "heheheh its NEITHER!". (Though i lean towards him being slighly femme, but hey, that's just me)

(Dgmw i somewhat like the idea of past mithrun presenting fem soley to conform, trans things ykyk. but at the same time, i also hold the belief that elven culture is very androgynous and lacks the conventional gender roles (bc of the lack of sexual dymorphism) so its kinda weird since theres literally nothing to conform to bc no one actually gaf) and hey. There are valid trans stoies that dont follow that format!

BUT!! While i do agree that past Mithrun isnt a true reflection of mithrun's gender identity and some part of it was due to conforming. In my opinion, His appearance we see in the majority of the manga isn't his true gender presentation either

Im kinda linking it with the conversation where Mithrun lacks autonomy over his life. His hair is only so short because it gets in the way of fighting, and he lacks the desire to maintain it. He's muscular only because it can help him maintain his body and defeat the demon. Even in the way he acts, in his mannerisms where he acts more masculine (like his stance, his behavior) is because he lacks the desire to care about what people think about him. Every aspect of current mithrun's gender identity exists only because of convenience.

And that doesn't mean that's his true gender identity. im sure he wants to be perceived in a different way. But, it's the same way when mithrun gets tired or hungry, He just lacks the desire to act on those wants and desires or find the effort into realizing those desires in the first place.

That's why I like the idea where, in post canon, he tries to finally regain his gender autonomy back. He starts by styling in the way he used to, maybe in different ways, Before settling into a style he likes. (Or maybe he realizes that he likes his current style more.)

We already see him dress in the same modest style he used to (which im reallt happy about)

And maybe we can see him loosen up more, starting to act on his wants and desires about his identity. So he starts acting more soft and feminine, which is a hard and comical clash to his very intimidating demenor. Again. Androgynous king.

[reasonsforhope]

"The number of teenage abortions in Finland fell by 66% between 2000 and 2023, its public health institute THL said on Monday, attributing the reduction to the offer of free contraception to adolescents and compulsory sex education in schools.

Finland also passed a law in 2022 liberalising abortion, at a time of deep divisions over abortion rights in Europe and court rulings in the U.S. that restricted access to terminations of unwanted pregnancies for millions of people there.

The number of abortions among women under 20 rose during the 1990s in Finland, which led the Nordic country to respond at the start of the 2000s by making morning-after pills available without prescription from 15 years of age and sexual education compulsory in all schools.

"We can assume that sexual education plays a significant role," THL's research professor Mika Gissler told Reuters, adding that increased access to contraception from a young age was another factor behind the change.

The number of abortions fell 66% to 722 in 2023 from 2,144 in 2000 among all teenagers aged 19 or younger in Finland, while the drop was even steeper at 78% among those under 18 in the same period, THL's statistics showed.

"Since the latter half of the 2010s, the decline in the number of young people's abortions has also been influenced by the introduction of free contraception in many welfare regions," THL wrote in a report...

Under the 2022 liberalisation, Finland from September 2023 stopped requiring women to give a reason for having an abortion, making it available upon a pregnant person's request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

[Note: That's actually not a very long window for abortion! Many conservative states in the US have actually instituted 12-week bans, and it's caused terrible upheaval and limits to medical services. Sounds like Finland should liberalize further, imho! Still, important progress!]

THL said it was too early to conclude whether the legislative change, which took effect last year, will have an impact on the number of abortions."

-via Reuters, June 3, 2024

[arthursfuckinghat]

You know, whenever I see the discussions around Jack Marston possibly getting drafted in world war one, I can't help but physically ache at the thought of it.

Jack Marston, born into a gang that honoured freedom above everything, forced to sacrifice everything he has left for war.

Jack Marston, a boy who read about knights and soldiers, now forced to become one in another fight he never asked for.

Jack Marston, raised to be away from a life of violence, but now the world has found a way to drag him back in.

No matter what happens, Jack would have to face a really tragic dilemma. Does he go to war and sacrifice the legacy of freedom he was raised with? The life his family died for? Or refuse and be labeled a criminal, putting his parents to shame and repeating the same cycle his father went through?

It just tragically mirrors the struggle he’s always had - trying to find his own identity outside the legacy of John Marston, and the violence that came with it. But he's being pulled back in, no matter what he chooses.

He was never made for the violence that shaped his parents' life.

[uncanny-tranny]

I promise you can speak about and denounce undesirable behaviour without attributing it to some in-born, immutable, unchanging trait that you must "civilize" away.

In this specific instance that inspired this, you really don't need to attribute bad behaviour that's done by a man with unchanging character traits. This isn't even solely about men, because doing this affects everyone, men included.

"Men needed to be civilized out of behaving this way!" Who are you expecting to be doing the civilizing and why? This is just defending the idea that women are responsible for training up men - the millenia-old idea that a man's failings are actually a woman's fault, not his.

As a man, I am responsible for my actions. You don't need to dehumanize me in order to preserve your misogyny and your need to hate a group of men. Don't get me wrong, this rhetoric absolutely is not good for men to face. It especially targets men who have experiences with marginalized identities. If you're on my page, you know that this is something I deal with personally, have personal stakes in that affect my life daily. I just also think we really need to remember that this issue exists in a context where women and other folks will inevitably be punished as a direct result of these ideas as well.

I need to make that last part emphatically clear: even if this rhetoric (somehow) only hurt men, it would still be wrong. It would still be wrong! I want to - as a man - remind people (especially those who already have decided to dehumanize entire groups of people) that nobody is safe from being exempt from punishment due to this rhetoric.

[backjustforberena]

guys, the tragedy isn't that the marriage died and then she died, it's that she died before they could make it right.

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

Re: the end of your Joever/renegade post, it’s almost like wondering at what point does the “rough patch” cease to be a rough patch and just how the person *is*. As in, this is just how they choose to exist or are most comfortable living as a person.

(Not villainizing him at all, it’s just alluding to what you and others said… at some point it stops being a single issue or issues to fix and starts revealing itself to just be fundamental differences in compatibility and outlook.)

Just got this and I know it was sent pre-TTPD tracklist, but yeah!! Like it makes so much sense to me that a relationship would take over a year to go from Renegade to YLM and then another year to reach breaking up for good. That honestly feels like the most normal progression in the world, and I’m sooo interested to hear how she describes this experience and gives voice to something that I think a lot of people have been through.

I’ve talked about it on here before but my current relationship is 6 years old, and Renegade literally sparked some very VERY serious conversations for us when it came out because it gave voice to things we were dealing with and we were able to address using the language she offered us in the song. That was a definite “rough patch.” We nearly broke up, and had a real epiphany about things that we both needed to change in order to continue, and the types of support we both needed in order to stay safe and healthy. I felt so seen by Renegade and then in midnights as well- labyrinth and The Great War come to mind - the decision to stick it out. When I heard about joever it hit me (and others, from what I’ve heard!) suuuuper hard because it was like wait. Whatever measures they took after Renegade and the Great War actually didn’t fix it; what does that mean for me!? I was soo shaken up because of how strongly I related to the struggle (as it was portrayed to us). But that gets to the point of this ask: the difference between a rough patch and something un-fixable. I’m certain this will come up on TTPD, and it’ll be a deep portal time travel exploration of how she came to that exact conclusion. I can’t wait.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

I was reading sea glass gardens for like the 8th time in a row (listen I was praying to the gods for a fic focuses on Megumi & Yuuta, for a fic that shows Megs dynamic with the Zenins more, and for a fun little gojo adopts the fushiguro siblings and forced his friends to play aunt and uncle. You checked all my boxes. I am in debt to you now.) and its the way I'm still seeing the little details that should've been so fucking obvious to me —

Megumi and Tsumiki fucking around and adopting some of Gojo’s habits and sayings? I know he was so proud that his children is becoming mini versions of him. Toji is crying in the depths of hell while Mamaguro is happy as hell in the pearly gates.

“It’s a garden” it took so long for me to peep that this was his domain. Like tfw when your domain is fucking you up. I pray that Gege shows us his completed domain. Actually I PRAY GEGE LET MEGUMI SHOW OFF HIS FUCKING POTENTIAL. But alas Gege is a coward.

THE NICOTINE PATCH? Oh Shoko my beloved. I get her. I fucking hate cancer sticks but if I had to spend time with corpses, being forced to converse with the higher ups, and having to be friends with Gojo and Geto AND witness their divorce. Well. I would’ve smoked something too. Like goddamn these bitches should’ve been at the club.

The little callbacks to the playbooks? How petty the sorcerer world gotta be for them to have cheat sheets on their enemies. Is that not crazy? Is this who they are? Petty bastards.

toji pulling up to get married in sweats. megumi killing curses at such a young age for his sister? toji giving megumi shit to get him to stfu? oh megumi you dodged a bullet with toji.

BUT WHAT I REALLT WANTED TO WAS THE BATHHOUSE. Megumi needs to go feral as a threat cause imagine how humiliating that must’ve been. A bunch of assholes & such watching you like some fucking cult. I really hope that Megumi and Gojo have some type of reassuring talk about his time at the Zenins.

(Yaga and Gojo going at it while Panda in the room is so funny to be but…it’s also kind of sad. Like imagine seeing your dad figure basically be okay, well not okay but not willing to fight back, about the higher ups and everything.)

Obsessed with the fact that I can toss up what seems to me to be a random niche interest and find a community of people who wanted exactly that. I’m thrilled I checked off your boxes.

The bathhouse was designed to be humiliating by nature. I talked about it more on another post (but fuck if I know where it is), but the point of including that whole bit was that I really couldnt think of any better way to emphasize that megumi wasn’t a person to them.

On its face, the private bathhouse with servants tending to it could be a sign of status. It’s kind of an old world nobility thing to have? Which fits with the Zenin, who are very traditional and value Megumi as their most treasured person to be born to the clan in centuries. He would be presumptive heir if Gojo hadn’t intervened. So they’d easily be able to cast this in their own minds as a good thing, as a way they’re taking care of him. He’s not subjected to the communal bathhouses or small private bathrooms like the majority of the clan—they’ve given him his own private facilities and servants to care for him in it.

However, once you take away Megumi’s consent, it becomes an absolutely humiliating and degrading experience that only happens for the Zenin’s comfort and not his own.

I spoke about this in the other post in more detail, but I tried to imply that this wasn’t the first time the Zenin had done this to him. And there’s two points that kind of implicate that—when Maki’s talking to Yuuta about how it used to be when Megumi was a kid, she says the first thing that they would do when he arrived in the clan was hand him over to the servants to make him presentable. She also talks about how viciously he hated the way they’d make him look in the clan, including stomping the clothes they’d make him wear in the mud. When Megumi himself is talking about the bathhouse, he says he was given over to the servants like when he was a kid. This wasn’t a new experience for him. They weren’t doing this to him for the first time. They did this to him when he was a kid, and he’s reliving all of that trauma anew.

In my mind, it was a product of how selfish the Zenin’s love for megumi is.

He’s their favorite doll. He’s a possession. They want him to look and act exactly the way they expect from him, and they despise any divergence from what they want the ten shadows to be. And they hate it when they’re reminded of how Gojo took him from them.

They don’t want him dressed in modern clothes. They don’t want his hair styled in a manner similar to Gojo’s. They want him to look like the Ten Shadows they always wanted, and one surefire way of controlling that is to simply do it themselves, whether or not megumi is on board.

And the thing is? It is such a fundamentally minor thing to let someone bathe and dress themselves. It would have cost the Zenin so so little to let Megumi do it. Even if they were still dictating what clothes he wore and how he styled his hair (which would still rob him of his autonomy on its own, they could have at least let him do the actual act of bathing and dressing himself. They could have violated him a little bit less than they already were. The biggest inconvenience it would have risked to them would be him doing something not to their exact standards and losing a few minutes to making him redo it. But on Megumi’s end, it symbolizes a huge source of autonomy and comfort. Letting Megumi bathe himself really does impact so little for them, but for Megumi, it could have saved him from lasting trauma.

The Zenin do it to him anyway because they value their minor conveniences over his very bodily autonomy. They don’t even recognize that as a genuine concern. He’s a possession to them. An object. They don’t actually love him, and the love they think they have is actively dangerous to him. They will violate him in a very fundamental way just so they can make sure he looks how the ten shadows is supposed to look, and they won’t care.

Being forcibly bathed against your will is just humiliating, especially at Megumi’s age, and it’s one of the things that hurt him the worst out of everything the Zenin just did to him. I think Megumi takes physical pain better than he does humiliation. Having to be exposed and vulnerable the way he was with other people watching was a more effective torture than locking him in a room with curses for days.

But there’s extra layers to it if you consider 1) this is something the Zenin have done to him before and 2) this is something that he could have stopped.

When Megumi was six, he was definitely at the age where he was already bathing himself. Some parenting books say parents should still be helping at that age, but his parents were completely checked out well before then. He had already been handling all his hygiene needs on his own. Having strange adults force him to let them do it for him was a traumatizing and infantilizing experience that represented one of the many ways the Zenin robbed him of all control over his own life when they had him.

But now it’s happening again.

And megumi probably didn’t think the Zenin would do that to him again, walking into this. He probably explained it away as them doing that to him because he was still a little kid at the time. He told himself it happened because he was six, and he’s not six anymore.

Having it all happen again was a very visceral reminder of how helpless his abusers used to make him, and immediately kicked him back down to that level with a very potent reminder. It’s trauma reawakening trauma. He felt like he was six again. He probably told himself for a long time that it would never happen again and it still did.

The other thing is that he’s a lot more capable in a fight than a six year old. He’s a grade two jujutsu sorcerer. He’s a fighter. And he’s being manhandled by servants who don’t have a lot of cursed energy, if they’re even sorcerers at all, and aren’t meant to be combatants. These are people he should be able to defend himself against easily. He should be able to stop them from doing this to him again.

For whatever reason, he couldn’t.

Maybe Gojos theory about them having something on him was right. Or maybe he was too worn down and broken from the cursed spirits. Maybe it was something else. Whatever the reason, this is something that he would have told himself he was strong enough to stop, and then he wasn’t. He either had to let it happen or couldn’t stop it even if he tried. It’s a new level of helplessness and humiliation that it made him experience.

In short, megumi does deserve to go feral over the bathhouse, and probably needs to. He’s really not okay over it. It would probably be cathartic.

[borealing]

im gonna go off on one in the tags pls enjoy

[ariannadi]

I was completely bracing myself to be heartbroken/betrayed by Astarion - I definitely wasn’t expecting such a wholesome and tender romance by endgame 🥺

[patchworkpunk]

i think im going to start expressing my frustration and general upset with politically charged graffiti and protest stickers

[justletmeon12]

My personal least-favorite concept in "medicine" (psychiatry, which I refuse to consider real medicine) is "insight."

It goes something like this:

If they agree with you that they need "help," they're getting better

If they disagree, that means that they're sick and need to be treated against their will

It's just such a blatant attempt to undermine consent that it has no equivalent in medicine and is omnipresent in psych.

tired of medication positivity posts that assume everyone has a positive relationship with medication

here’s to people who don’t take medication that their doctors want them to take. here’s to people who get marked noncompliant. here’s to people who get sectioned or hospitalized bc they won’t take their meds. here’s to people who self-medicate w nonprescription drugs. here’s to the people in withdrawal. here’s to the people who would rather deal with their symptoms than medication side effects. here’s to the “treatment-resistant” people who have never found medication that helps at all. here’s to the people who are only on meds nonconsensually. here’s to people who refuse meds for “irrational” or “stupid” reasons. here’s to people for whom taking meds is a trauma trigger. here’s to people who are disabled from past medications. here’s to people who are constantly being pressured into taking meds they don’t want and having to defend their “no” over and over again

yes, lots of people need their meds. yes, meds can be important. but don’t forget us

fuck everyone who calls us anti-science or anti-recovery. who says we are hurting other ppl by talking about our choices. bodily autonomy includes the right to say NO. even to medical treatment.

[anak1n]

even in my dreams where im trying to like save the world or whatever my brain tries to keep things on easy mode as much as possible. Beautiful

[kindacreepy-kindaugly]

.

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Each morning I wake I see the world with fresh and optimistic eyes and I ask myself, is this a precursor to mania,

[lilac-set]

#hmm. is it okay if it's polite and undemanding? #like "did you take your meds today?"

This is gonna depend on the person, some pda’ers are still gonna see that as a demand, and some won’t. I think in general the less demanding you can be the better, even if its still seen as a little bit of a demand, it’ll be easier to bounce back from that than just a straight up command. Personally, when i have to set reminders or make to-do lists for myself (which i generally avoid doing, but i understand the appeal of posts like this for most people), i like to use phrasing like “its ok to drink water if you want to”

Questions like “did you-“ arent particularly demanding in and of themselves, but as someone with pda it can be easy to turn that into a demand for ourselves. “Oh, i didnt. I should. i have to��. “Its ok if you want” offers a reminder with 0 pressure, and in the same breath invites us to be gentle with ourselves as well. This is my personal preference. But like i said, everyone is different. I like to use a few extra words to reassure myself that im not trying to impose, but so many extra words can read to some people as passive aggressive or sarcastic, but questions can read that way too

I like words like “invitation” or “offer”, “can/could/may” is infinitely better than “should/must/have to”, “its ok to” can be really powerful for me, as well as “if you want”. Even though some things are more of needs than wants, i would still aim for phrasing like “its ok to use the bathroom if you want to” compared to “if you need to”, because having pda and being reminded about a need just always feels claustrophobic

Others with pda, feel free to chime in with your favorite phrasing

I know those posts have the best of intentions but as someone with pathological demand avoidance it feels like deliberate sabotage when posts are like “STOP!!! This is a checkpoint! If its between 10pm and 7am you must sleep!! Make sure youre on wifi not data! GO TO THE FUCKING BATHROOM AND DRINK WATER YOU IDIOT”

1, not everyone’s circadian rhythm does the whole 10-7 thing and thats perfectly ok, you dont need to enforce normalcy on everyone like that, holy shit

2, now i cant do any of those things, because you put my body in fight/flight/freeze mode instead of productive mode. Why would you do that? (/rhetorical)

[preciouslittle-bhaalbabe]

Astarion wants to enjoy sex. He wants to have loving intimacy with the player. The first time they had sex was indeed different for him despite his disassociation. He reflected on it and enjoyed it enough to want to do it again (he still disassociated, it wasn't exactly wonderful but I digress) . He didn't have to. As far as he was concerned the player was already seduced.

He wants to have sex without the feelings of disgust. He isn't repulsed by sex, he's repulsed by not having the choice. The reason all of the scenes have to be approved or agreed upon by the player is because this is a roleplay game and if a sex cutscene just started playing without any options I think people wouldn't like that. Please stop babyfying Astarion and acting as if he never actually wants to and is people pleasing/lying to the player/hiding what he actually wants or feels or is unable to decide for himself. That he is incapable of consent due to his trauma. If you feel that way why would you romance him at all? He makes it very clear when he doesn't want to. He asserts that boundary. And if you push it he breaks up with you. The "I could be persuaded" line in the graveyard is him being playful. If he actually has to be persuaded there would be a skill check like that other time.

In conclusion, Astarion wants intimacy with the player. And he wants it on his own terms. This is especially evident in his scenes because he's usually taking the lead in one way or another. If you don't choose to have sex with him after that one time that's perfectly fine, but that's because YOU are making the choice for your Tav, not Astarion.

*Edit, if the things I said don't apply to what you think or how you play the game, then this post wasn't for you. Please refrain from filling my comments with conjecture about unrelated things I never brought up*

*second edit* THIS IS NOT ABOUT ACE PEOPLE. If you hc Astarion as ace that's perfectly fine. My issue is when people insist he is incapable of choosing for himself that he wants to have sex due to his trauma. Or that every time he brings up wanting to, he's lying and people "fell for it". Moreover if that's what you think, fine. But don't harrass people who feel differently and say we're bad people because we don't agreee with your headcanon. This is a completely different conversation from talking about Astarion being ace. This entire post is calling out the behaviour of people making choices for him when that's the entire theme of his story. He wants the choice, let him make it. Believe him when he says what he wants. This is about Astarion's relationship with autonomy. Nothing more.