#nice guy discourse

[liskantope]

Yeah, you mention "doing this discourse for a decade", and I would call it even more than a decade -- more like 12-13 years, although I didn't really start noticing the presence of a coherent counter-movement to anti-Nice-Guy-ism until more like 11 years ago -- and you're right that there's almost no new available wisdom or signs of progress that's been made (although I'd like to think I'm somewhat wiser and have made a bit of personal progress since I was in my mid-20's). What's also striking is that, after over a decade of all this, every time I make a (fairly innocuous and not deep or attention-grabbing) post regarding anything within a certain radius of this topic, I'm almost unfailingly surprised by how many reblogs it gets with different people chiming in. This cloud of issues is mostly sitting on the backburner in the main stage of national social/political discourse nowadays, but evidently it still strikes as many nerves as ever, at least here on Tumblr.

I also chose this particular reblog to respond to directly because I can strongly relate to your first paragraph, in terms of still not really feeling like I know how to get myself into situations where I would or could "just ask someone out" anymore (even assuming I finally found the nerve and confidence to start doing it), to the extent that I ever was in the right kinds of situations (in my younger days, my social circles were way too heavily skewed male as well, and that was certainly part of the issue).

On the topic of normalizing women asking men out, I ran into this blog post today (of course not by coincidence -- I think it was from Ozy's post's comments section). It strikes some notes that I don't love, and it seems to be from the vantage point of a poly woman immersed in tech culture who is mainly attracted to awkward and not-especially-handsome nerdy tech guys, so not necessarily easily relatable, but hey, it makes some good arguments and it's a start!

Actually, between that post and Ozy's post, I'm kind of inspired to refocus on learning the skill (which I never really learned in the first place) of asking people out, specifically not in a dating app context. They both make a lot of good arguments for its merits! Now, if only I had some idea of where in the country I'll be living and what kind of work I might be doing six months from now...

[kraftykelpie]

Sobbing like a fool laying in my bed because I had the sad thought of Ben and Cody on Tatooine in their old age (pre-ANH) and them going to sleep, holding hands.

Cody passes in his sleep. Obi-wan/Ben, feeling Cody's bright presence suddenly blink out in the force, shoots awake, palming for a heartbeat where he knows there is no longer one. They had talked about it, Cody had known his time was coming to a close, he was content with how the rest of his short life had panned out, by his beloved general's side, married and at peace (kind of). Ben saw it. He knew. When it would happen seemed indeterminate; if Ben knew when Cody was passing, perhaps he could have prepared to be ready for it. But real life doesn't often work like that.

Gently cradling Cody's cooling face in one of his palms, uttering quiet "why's" into the dark, and, "i wasn't ready to let you go".

A final keldabe kiss in farewell as he combs his fingers through Cody's curls for the last time.

Just like with Qui Gon, Satine, Anakin, Padmé (we'll be here all night if I list them all), the emotional gut punch of watching the light die (metaphorical in Anakin's case) in the eyes of people Obi-Wan deeply cared about. It caps off at Cody. This is why to me, he was so ready to face off against Vader (including normal plot relevant reasons), because not only was he getting Too Old For This Shit Anymore, but one of the strongest lights (love) in his life had died a few years prior. So instead of offing himself like a coward or giving into his grief all those years ago, and when Cody passed, he became a “self-sacrificial jedi” one last time. Whereupon he would pass into the Force, where hopefully, Cody would be waiting.

[c1trvswurld]

Sometimes, I'll see an amazing mw analysis, and then they use the most ill timing, unfunny, weird joke or phrasing ever and ruin it.

This is a personalized message for any serious mw analysis that has unironically used the word "j-diddy" instead of just manning up and saying the dudes actual name. It is jimmy, he is the main protagonist in the game I assumed you've at least watched a playthrough of, correct? The guy we play as for 90% of the game and see though the nuanced and fucked eyes of. Everyone here is aware of how dark the source material is, correct again? So why are we unironically pulling a streisand effect on him? (Assuming the whole purpose is to obscure jimmy to the point he is unrecognizable/ignored) why give him that power? Why censor his name like a slur and white out his name as if we didn't all come to the table knowing that the media we were about to cut into was gonna be some terrible fucking cake.

[momentomori24]

[This has been sitting in my draft for a while lol]

When it comes to Curly's failings, I always see people bring up his obvious failure to protect Anya and him prioritising Jimmy, who was the rapist in that situation. Which is completely valid btw and we should rake him through the coals for that alone even more. But I also see too many people saying that Curly "didn't enable Jimmy" or playing softball for his actions. And I could maybe see where that comes from if that incident was the only thing we had to point to-- but that wasn't all he did, is it? Curly being indifferent or not taking Jimmy's mistreatment and belittlement of Anya seriously was hinted at so much earlier than that.

Namely, the very first time we play from Curly's point of view. Let's just skip the fact that Curly was putting everyone in danger by not taking his psych evals seriously and simply giving the same answers to pass them even tho he was shown literal minutes after this scene being clearly not-sane, and go straight to the point I actually wanna get into. Which is this:

These scenes in isolation wouldn't be that bad. From his pov, it's played off as comical and it is. Jimmy being a brony (not really lmao) and getting playfully dragged over it is funny. But unfortunately this is the first example out of many for Curly's complacency. Anya is complaining about Jimmy not taking his psych evals or her seriously, which is easy to believe considering how much he rags on her for "not being a good nurse" (she kept Curly alive on hopes and dreams how dare you). So he keeps making her do silly and inappropriate reports she clearly doesn't wanna do, which is kinda shitty (also borders on harassment). But rather than actually saying something about Jimmy's behaviour or even acknowledging how it sucks he says this:

Mate, that's not a good thing 💀 He's clearly aware that the problem is Jimmy's lack of respect for Anya specifically. He knows that if he, his friend and a man in power, were the one doing the evals Jimmy wouldn't try that disrespect. But it's Anya, a meek woman who ranks lower than him so he thinks he can get away with it (which he DOES), and Curly's shown as comfortable in knowing that. He doesn't chew Jimmy out for making Anya uncomfortable nor does he reassure her that he will do something about it. All he does is take it off her hands this once and helps Jimmy power through it to get a good diagnosis (even tho we know he's DEFINITELY not sane either). He doesn't even mention Anya's discomfort or confront him on his inappropriate behaviour, just teases Jimmy in good fun instead because he doesn't think of it as anything serious. It's subtle and pretty minor in comparison to everything else, but I think it's worth pointing out. Especially because this convo takes place after Jimmy had assaulted her, which makes this so much worse.

If you need any more evidence of Curly being an enabler you need not look further than Anya herself. And I'm not just talking about the way he failed her here-- I'm talking about Anya's own view of Curly and the way said view influences her actions.

Just look at her choice of wording. "What would you have done". This is in response to him saying that she could've come to him if she were feeling stressed, which she-- in his eyes-- didn't. The question itself implies that she had no faith in Curly to actually help despite his insistence that he would've, which I think is significant because it shows that she's very much aware of Curly's shortcomings when it comes to her situation AND it's one of the first (or the first time) she actually verbalised her lack of trust towards him or anyone directly. Prior to this scene she had told him about her rape and the rapist, presumably because she trusted him to handle it. And he dismissed her because the rapist was his best friend, and that evidently deeply scarred her. Enough so that she secretly took the gun and hid it someplace else and didn't even tell Curly were that was, because she knows that if Curly has access to it there's a so much greater chance Jimmy will have too, insinuated by the line "the least I can do is make sure he never gets it either". Speaking about the gun:

It sucks so bad that this perception of him isn't even inaccurate nor unjustified. That despite everything Jimmy had done to her and everything he could still do to her, he'd very likely still not allow her access to the gun for protection. Because that's exactly what he didn't do anyway. He didn't attempt to keep her safe from Jimmy, instead he just pretended that nothing was wrong and still let Jimmy's belittlement of her pass. He didn't give her the gun after the incident, because she wouldn't have hid the case if he had. Despite his desperate reassurance that he'd do anything, he did nothing but make it worse for her and she KNOWS that. It's so frustrating knowing he entrusted the axe to Swansea when he needed it but not the gun to Anya when she needed it too. Also this:

The fact that his knee-jerk reaction to her admitting that she's pregnant was "Who would you--" is so fucked, especially considering she's already told him what happened. "Who would you" what? Who would you fuck? Who would you have sex with? That choice of wording drives me up a wall-- SHE wouldn't and didn't do anything or anyone. That was JIMMY. The potential sentence implies that she had any choice or agency in her pregnancy. She didn't. And the fact that Curly had to ask "who" insinuates that he's been putting Jimmy's action out of sight and out of mind the whole time, choosing to not think about them or what happened to Anya at all. And considering he still made her do Jimmy's evaluations despite being able to do them himself and literally didn't even think of making sure she gets psych evals done too--especially AFTER getting sexually assaulted--that might actually be the case (I haven't seen anyone make a stink about that piece of info so I'm going to because what kinda colossal fuck up IS that??).

I vaguely had a post like this in mind but seeing so many people be like "well Anya did some wrong stuff too like leaving Curly alone with Jimmy but you don't get mad at HER for that so why is Curly not doing anything about Jimmy being alone with Anya so different??" actually makes me want to blow some people up. Jimmy's an abuser, sure, but Anya has no real reason to believe that he'd actually harm Curly. From her perspective, they were close, close enough that Curly would not only let Jimmy continuously disrespect her but also get away with assaulting her too. That, and she knows that Jimmy was closer to Curly than anyone and more likely to be civil around him than he ever was to her. She has barely any reasons to suspect Jimmy would harm Curly when they're alone. Curly, on the other hand, has every fucking reason on the planet to think Jimmy would harm her when they're alone. He knows he raped her (likely in her room at night too). He knows that he sexually harasses her. He knows that he doesn't respect her at all. And that was BEFORE the crash. Anya tried insisting on giving Curly his medicine, only for Jimmy to keep aggressively insisting that he'll take care of it despite her protests. Curly didn't try to keep them separate at all even though he was the Captain and had the power to do so. And this should go without saying, but leaving your rapist alone with his best friend that he was close to and enabled/protected him and leaving your friend alone with the woman he raped (and might have repeatedly assaulted given his free access to her) is NOT THE SAME and I'm going to start chucking some people down a waterfall because what the fuck is that argument 💀 Actually leave it to the fandom of the game where the rape of a woman is the catalyst for the events that unfold to use her trauma to defend the guy that enabled it in the first place. Bloody hell.

The reason why this whole Curly discourse pisses me off is because it-- from what I can see-- ONLY brings up his failures 1-0 days before the crash and the Dead Pixel scene (or all the discussion around other points are drowned out by those two). Those scenes, while important to talk about, are not the only things he's done, and focussing on those as the only things is a mistake that comes short of understanding the issue. When it comes to Curly the main defences I see for him are "he was trying not to escalate the situation" and "he was trying to keep things under control the best he can" and "he was waiting for the right time to help Anya", but those don't work when you look at the bigger picture of everything he's done.

He half-assed through his psych eval despite clearly not being sane (and KNOWING he's barely sane, he literally admits it to Jimmy's face). He still continued to task her with Jimmy's psych evals. He brushed over Jimmy's sexual harassment of her as a joke. He didn't think about making sure she got psych evals done herself after being raped. He gave Swansea the axe but didn't give Anya the gun despite it being for "unrest amongst the crew" (whatever the hell THAT means). He let her assault slip his mind that she had to remind him. He's literally a blond man. He took no action to hold Jimmy responsible for anything, and prioritised how his violation of Anya would affect him rather than her. He ignored her demands for him to get rid of Jimmy. He still allowed Jimmy free reign of the ship as co-pilot even after he was openly fantasising about killing everyone and had a major motive and the means to do just that. He was potentially thinking of making her miscarry to cover up what happened. He was so accustomed to her sucking up being disrespected and disturbed that he didn't even notice a difference in her behaviour until she hid the fucking gun. There's so much other shit he's done and hasn't done, and not talking about them or glossing over them makes it so easy for people to argue that he isn't actually an enabler or just minimise the severity of his neglect.

And while I'm already dragging Curly through the mud, I might as well just drag Swansea too. I've seen too many people being like "Anya should've told Swansea instead" and "Swansea was the one that actually took responsibility". Like, y'all realise he's not that much better than Curly, right? He already knew about what happened to Anya-- he admits it to Jimmy's face-- but he didn't do shit. He knew, but he still got completely shitfaced for months despite her earlier protestation to that (for very understandable reasons). He knew, but he still let Jimmy have the axe AND be alone with Anya while having it. He knew, but when Anya locked herself in the Medical and Daisuke and Jimmy asked for his help he didn't budge nor really showed any care. He knew, but the reason he finally decided to do something about Jimmy wasn't Anya, it was Daisuke. Her suffering and her eventual death weren't enough for him to take action either.

This game, on top of everything else, is a great depiction of rape culture. It doesn't just include the rapists, but the people (mostly men) that stay silent, do nothing, make excuses for and protect the perpetrator for whatever reason, and Swansea and Curly (Curly way more so than Swansea) are both active contributors to the environment that allowed for evil to flourish and continue unhindered until it destroyed them all. And while that arguably doesn't make them evil themselves or as bad as Jimmy, they are so much more a part of the bigger problem than the fandom likes to admit.

[Ok since this is kinda gaining a bit of traction please consider helping these guys out here, here and here. Thanks!]

[statementlou]

Tbh i am not surprised that a person who openly talked about having drinking problems since 1d days, because of how crazy 1d worked has been agressive. What surprises me is people being surprised (they never seriously saw drunk person?). But i am also confused about this whole book. Apparently Maya said that that book is not fully bout Liam but compilation about her exes and some of the worst parts are not about him. But recently she said that the book is “ofc about him” so what is true then? Or did she meant it that ofc some parts are about him or that whole book is about him?

Sorry, just confused

I also am not surprised- we've learned so much more about the real stories of things and about the guys' actual lives over the last years, and the story that has unfolded around Liam has been totally consistent throughout if you've been following it, and so the information Maya is telling us is shocking and upsetting but not difficult to believe. I got an anon yesterday saying they were worried about getting similar revelations about the other boys, like "if Liam could be doing this we just don't know, any of them could", and while in a way that's always true I guess, anyone could be doing anything in private like... that doesn't really concern me. Because none of these Liam revelations are coming out of nowhere, there have been many MANY steps along the way leading us here if you've been watching, and he has talked openly about both his mental health struggles and his addiction issues. So to answer that anon... to find out something similar about Louis would in contrast contradict everything we know about him and no I'm not worried about it. Is he an abuser or a loose cannon, well that news would truly shock me to my core, I will be honest. But anyway as for the book I don't find it strange that she was nervous when it came out and treading lightly and later decided, fuck it. In the absolutely on point tiktok she dropped today (YES👏GIRL👏FUCKING TELL THEM👏) she even mentions attempts to keep her from publishing the book, presumably by Liam's team, that I am riveted by and cannot WAIT to hear more details about actually- like I said I don't find it at all strange that she was nervous and downplayed it a bit then. But if she says now that it's just about Liam, well, I would say it's been clear from the beginning that the book is their story. Maya herself brought up the parallel of songs being written about stuff and I think it's the same thing; it's true (she was in an abusive relationship that involved certain kinds of events) but maybe not 100% literal (I'm sure details were changed to make the story work, it's not like a word for word timeline of their interactions or whatever).

[arcanegifs]

I rarely voice my opinions on stuff like this but I think it’s ridiculous that people fight over a show that hasn’t even aired yet.

[queermania]

the thing is that i used to think the jokes about dean being #acab were funny until i realized people were serious about it. he may not be the bootlicker sam is but he is very much not acab. his issue with the police is not that they're law enforcement. it's that they don't know what he does and often make it harder for him to do his job. the reason i know this is true is because he is fine with cops that are in the know (deacon, victor, donna, jody, etc). that being said, i also find the discourse about dean and sam being cops themselves lacking. i understand where it's coming from but it is missing a crucial point and that point is that sam and dean don't have the authority of a badge and the government behind them. now if you want to have a conversation about the huntercorp!winchesters being cops................

[cultivating-wildflowers]

hi there !! i was over here because you had reblogged a really pretty photograph a while ago and i wanted to see what other lovely posts you might've found in the corners of tumblr.

i looked at your account and noticed, oh, pro-life! i was a bit wary at first because many people i've seen as pro-life are misogynistic sexist idiots who say it's a woman's fault if she's raped, even if the 'woman' in question is a fourteen year old girl. i hope you forgive my initial scepticism.

however, i read your post on the pro-life argument with the way you see it (it may have been a reblog of someone else? i can't quite remember) and i have some questions. i myself am pro-abortion, but with certain restrictions (mainly the current law in many places of you can't abort the child a month before birth because it's a human, and that aborting a child for its disabilities isn't ethical in the slightest).

what about when a twelve year old child is raped? is she meant to carry the strain of a child, scorn from parents, lack of support, blame, maybe have permanent harm or disabilities from childbirth? i have an old friend who got her menstrual cycle at eight years old. if she were raped, would she need to carry the child? in my worldview, no. a child gets raped and then the next day the "morning after" pill is administered so an elementary schooler (or middle, or even high schooler) does not have to suffer.

another question: sometimes, conception happens hours or even days after the actual ejaculation. would a "morning after" pill be outlawed? because there's no way to be sure if conception has actually happened, and if it hasn't, then taking a pill or some other action to prevent conception from happening in the first place isn't "bad".

and what about women whose children died in the womb? would anti-abortion laws still apply, would she charged with murder?

what about women who due to an illness or some other reason cannot have a child because they will die in the process, killing them and the child? would the pro-life worldview condemn both lives, or would they allow this person to take a pill and cut off the few cells that could not in any world be called a human?

if some vile person killed a woman who had conceived two days prior, would they be charged with double murder for that which is not yet a blastocyst (the zygote phase is four to five days after conception).

i'm very sorry if these questions seem accusatory or rude-- i'm genuinely trying to understand the other side, because i don't feel like i can actually justify abortion if i don't know how the "other" side would approach ethical questions. i put "other" in quotation marks because while we have two very much opposing sets of ideas on how abortion should be approached, above all we care for the welfare of people and want the best for everyone.

so sorry for putting this big chunk of text in your askbox, and feel free to ignore it, but you're one of the first genuinely nice people i've seen that is pro life who isn't trying to justify arguments with religion (because separation of church and state means no religion as sole justification for law, which is what many people i've seen try to do)

thank you!!

Hello! Thank you so much for your detailed questions! I'm happy to answer as best I can. I had thought this might take a while to answer, because I had to find a few resources I knew I had linked somewhere that helped me as I was sorting through the logistics of my own convictions surrounding being pro-life. Turns out this was how I'd spend my evening, lol.

I still have gaps and I'm always happy for civil discussion. (As you know, a lot of my thoughts are under my pro-life tag. Apologies in advance that several of my links just shoot back to posts I've reblogged, but they're more comprehensive than a single webpage. I can also direct you to a couple of tumblr folks I follow who have even more resources and cover different facets of the issue than I usually reblog or that I'm still investigating.)

As you might have guessed, this got long, so I'm tucking it under a read-more. But before I do, here is my most important resource: What actually happens during an abortion. I rarely say anything is so important that everyone needs to see it. This is one of those times.

i was over here because you had reblogged a really pretty photograph a while ago and i wanted to see what other lovely posts you might've found in the corners of tumblr.

The funny thing is that used to be 90% of my blog until like two years ago, and now here we are 😅 (I lost a lot of followers when I started actually using this like a blog. I also found a lot of great friends.)

i looked at your account and noticed, oh, pro-life! i was a bit wary at first because many people i've seen as pro-life are misogynistic sexist idiots who say it's a woman's fault if she's raped, even if the 'woman' in question is a fourteen year old girl. i hope you forgive my initial scepticism.

Yeah, can't say I'd care to associate with those people, either, and I'd love to challenge them on their own convictions (only, 1. I'm not really one for heated debates and 2. I'm pretty sure I, a single 20-something woman, would be immediately ignored, so why waste my time).

however, i read your post on the pro-life argument with the way you see it (it may have been a reblog of someone else? i can't quite remember) and i have some questions. i myself am pro-abortion, but with certain restrictions (mainly the current law in many places of you can't abort the child a month before birth because it's a human, and that aborting a child for its disabilities isn't ethical in the slightest).

While I was born and raised in a pro-life family, being pro-life as an adult is a conviction I claim and have searched out for myself. I know, and science affirms, that life begins at conception. (Yes, all of those frozen embryos stored at ivf clinics are unique and full human beings. I'll be so honest with you and say even I have to grapple with that and no, I haven't begun to grasp the implications.) Every single human being is deserving of dignity, from womb to tomb. It is never permissible to murder a human being for being inconvenient. (Canadian and British government healthcare systems, I'm looking at you. Also, Iceland, I see your claim that you've eradicated Down syndrome and I know you're a bunch of lying cowards.) It is never permissible to murder someone because they have the potential to be inconvenient. I could be hit by a car tomorrow and end up with brain damage. I could lose my job and plunge into horrible poverty. I could meet some random guy and end up in an abusive relationship. If it's not ok to kill me because of less-than-ideal circumstances, it is not ok to kill a child because they might be born disabled, or into a poor family, or into an abusive situation. We need to fix their circumstances, not kill them.

(Before I get much further, this post is a collection of a lot of my favorite resources on the impact abortion has on women. More facts and figures here. Unfortunately I cannot find the link to the study, but I have seen it cited often on here that a large majority of women who considered abortion but did not go through with it, within five years, are glad they didn't get an abortion. I believe the number is between 90 and 95% but again, can't find the link.)

For the last eight years, I've worked at an organization that provides care for individuals with disabilities, many of whom have the sort of disabilities that would make doctors suggest abortion. Not one of those human beings would be better off dead. The world is richer for them being in it, and I'm happy to know them. They deserve support and dignity, not death.

There is no magical point at which a preborn baby becomes human or becomes a person. They are human from the moment of conception. I have a friend who was born nearly two months prematurely; did she have to wait a month post-birth to be considered human?

There are also no non-person humans. Personhood is not merit-based. Again, if I end up with brain damage and have to rely on other people for the rest of my life, do I cease to be a person?

what about when a twelve year old child is raped? is she meant to carry the strain of a child, scorn from parents, lack of support, blame, maybe have permanent harm or disabilities from childbirth? i have an old friend who got her menstrual cycle at eight years old. if she were raped, would she need to carry the child? in my worldview, no. a child gets raped and then the next day the "morning after" pill is administered so an elementary schooler (or middle, or even high schooler) does not have to suffer.

It is a fact that abortion protects abusers. It is a fact that rapists and sex traffickers force women to have abortions to keep them in those horrible situations. Abortion is anti-woman, because it helps horrible men dodge all responsibility, and it prevents society at large from having to address the actual causes that often drive women to abortion.

Rape accounts for about 1% of all abortions. I'm not saying that makes it ok and I'm not trying to dismiss it, I'm just observing that it's nearly always treated as the main driver behind abortion when it is not. What it is is one of the most horrific things that can ever happen to a person, and the offender needs to be dealt with, with extreme prejudice. Killing a child helps no one. The mother deserves protection, she deserves support, and she deserves medical care. I don't know all the ins and outs of how best to handle this situation, but I believe the best case scenario is eventually a c-section. (A book I really appreciated that covered a situation like this is I Am the Exception by Anna Richey [video linked]). There are countless testimonies of women who were in this situation who chose to save their children and they are glad they did. They know the answer was not to kill children. There are countless testimonies of people who were conceived in rape who are glad their mothers chose to give them a chance at life. They know their lives have value and are worth living. Mother and child are both victims who deserve justice, not trauma heaped upon trauma.

(There's a whole discussion to be had here around child marriage and sexual abuse but unfortunately I don't have the material to even touch it. I can say making pedophilia a protected "identity" is so far off the mark that the radar can't even pick it up.)

(I will briefly sidebar to wave at the legislation being put into place to teach human development in schools via the Baby Olivia...project? [I forget what the whole initiative is called which is horrible because I've seen it around a lot lately.] I think that's actually pretty awesome. Kid-me would have been fascinated [and a bit grossed out because yeah, I was an awkward kid].)

another question: sometimes, conception happens hours or even days after the actual ejaculation. would a "morning after" pill be outlawed? because there's no way to be sure if conception has actually happened, and if it hasn't, then taking a pill or some other action to prevent conception from happening in the first place isn't "bad".

I have to disagree there. It's still bad. Especially because, in the overwhelming majority of cases, we're talking about sex between two consenting adults who are looking to disrupt a natural process and divorce it from all natural responsibility for the sake of convenience. If you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex. If you don't want to have a kid with that person, don't have sex with them. Simple as. Biological children are not a human right, and neither is sex.

(If you poke around at enough of my blog you'll notice I'm straight-up against birth control. For one thing, it is extremely harmful to women; for another, it is a band-aid that has completely stalled the improvement of women's healthcare; for another, it is seriously damaging the average Western woman's understanding of her own body and biology; and there's the whole disrupting-a-natural-process bit. But I digress.)

and what about women whose children died in the womb? would anti-abortion laws still apply, would she charged with murder?

Reading any of the laws in question shows that ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages aren't at all included in those laws. Those are not abortion because the pregnancy is nonviable and it has become a medical situation. Abortion wouldn't even help those situations; if anything, it would only make everything worse, and risk the life of the mother. Abortion is not medical care. Ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages have to be treated medically. All of the cases I've seen where "a woman was charged with murder for miscarriage" end up being something else like "woman miscarried and tried flushing her baby down the toilet" (yeah that was an actual thing in the last month and she was charged with improper treatment of human remains which... = human dignity.)

what about women who due to an illness or some other reason cannot have a child because they will die in the process, killing them and the child? would the pro-life worldview condemn both lives, or would they allow this person to take a pill and cut off the few cells that could not in any world be called a human?

Abortion is not healthcare. If a woman is already at risk of complications, abortion will only make those complications worse. They will not help her. There is not a single situation where pregnancy is so dangerous that the only answer is abortion.

Those "few cells" are human. I'm also a clump of cells; I'm human. If I'm drowning (unlikely because I avoid swimming because I suck at it), is it ok for the lifeguard to hold my head underwater instead of making me calm down so they can tow me to shore?

Any reasonable human being who recognizes that the woman in question is carrying another human being, her child, would recognize that what they both need is medical care. The mother can be monitored, her condition treated as best as possible, and there's always the option to deliver early. Modern medicine allows us to support babies who are almost as early as 20 weeks premature! The answer is to take care of these people, not kill one because the other is in danger.

And in case anyone is wondering, this goes for babies who are "incompatible with life". 1. Doctors make mistakes and it's proven they often make mistakes where fetal development is concerned. (My sister got the scare of her life when a stupid tech told her that her third baby had "spots on her brain". I told my coworker, who said the same thing happened to her 15 years ago and one doctor bandied about the word "abortion" in front of her. Friends, the baby's brain was still developing. My sister's child is fine, and stupidly adorable to boot. Please.) 2. Even if that baby is "incompatible with life", the answer is not to kill them more quickly (and far, far, far more painfully). The answer is to treat them as best as medically possible, support their parents, and afford them the dignity deserving to every human being. Palliative care is a thing. For heaven's sake, let's use it more.

(My mother used to be a volunteer photographer for an organization where she went to hospitals and took pictures of babies who either had just passed or who didn't have long to live, to give their parents something to remember their children by. I also have so so many relatives and friends who have suffered miscarriages and stillbirths. I don't know that grief firsthand, but I know what it looks like, and I know that parents and siblings need support, not murder.)

(We also really need to stop treating all pregnancies like medical situations or a disease. They aren't. Pregnancy is natural. It is only when there are complications that it becomes a medical issue. I love modern medicine by and large. I love that it can help improve our lives. But sometimes doctors need to butt out and let women do what they were built to do.)

if some vile person killed a woman who had conceived two days prior, would they be charged with double murder for that which is not yet a blastocyst (the zygote phase is four to five days after conception).

I don't know all of the legalities of double homicides in the case of pregnancy. I'm fairly certain that if it is known that the woman is pregnant, regardless of whether or not that motivated the murder, then the charge is double homicide. I would assume if the pregnancy was unknown, it doesn't apply? (I watch too many murder mystery and police procedural shows to have any faith in how these things are determined.) Morally, two people have been killed regardless, but I have no idea on the legalities.

Also, note that zygote and blastocyst are stages of human development, same as embryo, fetus, newborn, infant, toddler, adolescent, and adult.

i'm very sorry if these questions seem accusatory or rude-- i'm genuinely trying to understand the other side, because i don't feel like i can actually justify abortion if i don't know how the "other" side would approach ethical questions. i put "other" in quotation marks because while we have two very much opposing sets of ideas on how abortion should be approached, above all we care for the welfare of people and want the best for everyone. so sorry for putting this big chunk of text in your askbox, and feel free to ignore it, but you're one of the first genuinely nice people i've seen that is pro life who isn't trying to justify arguments with religion (because separation of church and state means no religion as sole justification for law, which is what many people i've seen try to do)

I don't think any of this comes off as rude or argumentative in any way! You laid out every point very clearly and it's nice to be able to discuss it as clearly as I am able (which, admittedly, is sometimes as clear as milk) instead of feeling like I have to defend myself (usually in that case I just give up and delete the ask). Again, I'm happy to look into any of this further and to provide better resources if there's something lacking in any of my points. I'm by no means perfect, and my arguments, while driven by a deep-felt and sincere conviction, are not as thorough as perhaps they should be. That's on me to work on, but I'm happy to do my best in the meantime.

Part of my convictions are grounded in my belief in God, but as you are aware, they can't be my whole foundation, and if the person on the other side of the conversation doesn't share that belief, we need another point of common ground for our discussion. (Secular Prolife is an excellent resource if you want more in-depth, non-religious discussions of this topic. I know there are others, but I don't have the list in front of me.)

And it is important to explore all sides of the issue! It's kind of hard to argue coherently otherwise. I see this discussion all the time from people "on the other side" or on the fence, both people I know and total strangers. I'm familiar with a lot of their arguments, both the ones they consider good-faith and the ones that are obviously driven by vitriol. Listening to them only helps bring clarity to my own knowledge and convictions.

I know so many people who are "for abortion with exceptions" are sincerely motivated by concern for other people. The onus is on them to figure out why, for them, that means killing some people for the sake of others. It's not enough to say "Well, I've never been in that situation, so I don't have room to speak". Abortion is a human right's issue. We all have a place at the discussion. Because at the end of the day, it comes down to one thing:

Abortion is the intentional killing of a child, a human being. It doesn't matter the reason behind that killing, whether it's a question of health, social circumstance, situation in life, or fear. It is murder.

And it is never ok.

For further reading (the majority of these are actual links, not links to tumblr posts):

This post and the notes are my-go to for the breakdown of the key abortion arguments.

Choice42

Carrying To Term

New Wave Feminists

The Human Defense Initiative

Birthright International

Abortion73

Rehumanize International

And again, if you are looking for more nice and rational people who are willing to discuss things like adults, I can give you a list!

[rottkitt]

i can’t hold on how uncomfortable tacocse makes me anymore i actually hate seeing it on my dashboard

like. ship what you ship. i don’t care. i have good friends who don’t mind or really like tacocse and i don’t care but i fucking. THEY. AREN’T GOOD FOR EACH OTHER. one of them is literally delusional and the other one has probably never been in a real healthy relationship before???? NEITHER OF THEM HAVE ACTUALLY. they would tear each other apart unconsciously. again no hate to tacocse shippers i’m just. so tired of seeing tacocse on my dashboard just because i follow all of the tags for taco…

they would make each other uncomfortable. they wouldn’t actually understand each other’s feelings in a way that’s healthy or would let the relationship progress. and maybe i’m wrong, maybe i’m only saying this because i’m reflecting onto the ship, you’re allowed to come in and correct me and my information on this

but please be aware that you can’t make me like tacocse. you can analyze in reblogs as much as you want but i just can’t bring myself to like it.

and i don’t owe you any explanation on why i dislike it so much.

[kittyconfidant]

Why is 90% of Bugsnax discourse "I think this character is bad / worse than / less bad than other character-" guys. You're missing the point I think? For one, I personally dislike everyone's need to weigh the morality of all fictional characters against each other it comes off as kind of weird (plus women always get it way worse for some reason hmmm....) and then also just - you know the point is that they're all flawed people who grow and change right? I don't get how people play through the entirety of that game and then come out with that mindset. I personally think the game is really well written and if Young Horses is telling me "These are people who've all made mistakes but aren't actually bad people" I'm taking their word on it. Idk. You guys can like, fight about that forever or whatever you want though.

[mashias]

this is something i wonder about all the time so sorry for the extremely specific question:

i do not mind whatever pronouns or gendered terms you decide to use for this discussion! very curious to know what people think

(do not fight or be weird on this post or i WILL turn off RBs)

[liskantope]

I've been doing a personal 10th-anniversary retrospective of the online world that surrounded me around the time that I first discovered the online rationalist community, and I ran across this cartoon. I remember which current real-life friend posted it on Facebook, the sharp pushback it got from some other friend of hers that I didn't know, and my pride (perhaps in retrospect misplaced) at being able to contribute diplomatic enough comments to the ensuing discussion that somehow got likes from both parties.

The cartoon itself fits precisely in that strange intersection of something I find really funny and well done and enjoy looking at and a representation of a side of a debate that I found very threatening at the time. I loved (and still love) the cartoonist's sense of humor and artistic style and actually most of the individual points she makes. I resented and felt threatened by the broader-picture assumptions that the cartoon implies (and still hold this opinion though now at somewhat of an emotional distance).

[gammija]

today's ep is fun ([Fondly] "Yes, Martin, you are my reason,") but im gonna take the time to complain about something minor from years ago, because when else will I get the opportunity?

occasionally people made (make? ive blocked most people who were hardcore about it so idk if they're still on it) posts arguing that Martin is a terrible boyfriend and person and Jon deserves better, and they always cite this part:

to say 'wow, how can Martin say that when he himself isn't very open either, the hypocrite!'

but if we remove the poorly edited out text, and look at the quote in its actual context...

Martin didn't just decide, 'hey, lets chide Jon on his emotional openness today'. Jon literally just read Martin's mind to know what he was thinking about - it's not dwelled on for too long, but imagine for a moment how fucking invasive that really is. compared to that, yeah, Jon doesn't share as much!

which isn't to say that he always should share everything and it's Jon's ''fault'' if he doesn't immediately tell Martin how he's feeling at every moment. just that, you know, communication has to come from both sides. so i think it was more than fair for Martin to express his concern about the imbalance, if Jon would have continued to just know what was in Martin's thoughts and feelings

[headcanonsandmore]

M*ffat's coming back to write Doctor Who episodes, apparently.

[basket-of-radiants]

Ok hi!!!! I love all your takes on the characters and it's rlly interesting! I also think moash is a very nuanced and fascinating character. I'm kinda mad at him after he tried to convince Kal to k!ll himself but I think he's a great charcter with lots of depth and your pinned post was so interesting because it said so much about moash! Anyway sorry bye!!!

Hello!!! Thank you!! I apologize for inflicting that post on you, but I'm glad you read/enjoyed it! ty for letting me know <3<3<3

[greatwesternrailway]

i do find it a bit bizarre that people are acting like taylor swift is the first woman to ever date a horrible man who sucks because she thinks she can fix him, and to get defensive when everyone else is like this guy’s terrible you can do better. and that she’s uniquely evil for having done this thing that’s so common as to be cliche. like if having bad taste in men makes you irredeemable i have to condemn pretty much every straight woman i’ve ever met.