scarrow

[hannah-belle-lee]

Out of all the things I’ve received at pride parades, as a Christian, this one is my favorite.

[fandom-oracle]

I’m an atheist but this is sweet for all my struggling Christian followers

[brainscrewz]

i’m also an atheist but this is… actually really comforting? wowza?

[ribbonspice]

@stellar-nyx

[scarrow]

Experience at a pregnancy crisis center

(I’m not the author! Shared to reddit r/prochoice 10/10/22 by u/redlemur. I’ve made some small edits for clarity and emboldened some sentences.)

I had an abortion 3 weeks ago. Before, my mom took me to a pregnancy crisis center to try and change my mind. I knew pretty much immediately after I realized I was pregnant that I wanted to get an abortion. I'm 16 and just don't want this for my life and wanted everything to be over and just want to go to college and have a normal life, and I am doing really well in school and just want to have a normal social life and normal life. 

But my mom kept saying that she thought I hadn't thought it through, was rushing into a decision and that I would regret it. She also thought that my [boyfriend] was pressurizing me which wasn't true. She said that she wanted me to go somewhere to get "unbiased advice" and to talk through my options to make sure I wasn't making a mistake. Before this she was trying to talk me out of it basically all the time and I wanted her to stop and now I regret telling her at all in the first place.

She said if I went to this place with an open mind and discussed it properly then she would accept my decision (this was not true as it happened). I thought this seemed reasonable and going there seemed harmless and I just wanted to get her off my back basically. I didn't know exactly what it was and didn't look closely but from a 30 second look on their website they looked like professional and unbiased. 

Fortunately I'm in a state where abortion is not banned or anything and before this I was kinda like didn't care about it or know much.

It was kinda weird in that it was a medical place but like it didn't seem like basically it felt like someone's living room. I talked to 2 women there who were like one was about 25 and apparently was a teen mom and the other was like 50 I think. 

To start with they like where convinced that my [boyfriend] was pressurizing me and they kept saying things like it was wrong to do it just as he wanted. …like most women who get an abortion only do it because of the dad. They were convinced it was because of him and they kept saying that most women who get an abortion break up with their bfs soon after. I kept saying this wasn't why but they wouldn't believe me. And then they asked me what I would do if he were "100% supportive" and would support me fully keeping the baby and like I got pissed off at this point with them. 

When I should have calmly said, like “I would still want to get an abortion” but then they took my getting annoyed as me being in denial or something and started being even more convinced but eventually they sorta gave up on that.

They got a video of a supposed fetus in the womb up on the tv screen and they said that this was what my baby looked like [at the moment]. And they also got like a doll of a fetus that age and they gave it to me to hold and also they gave me an ultrasound and they showed this to me but like to me it was just black and white lines but they kept asking me "how does this all make you feel" and they thought I was lying. And they were like how does it make you feel to know you have that growing inside of you?

Like then they started talking about how great my parents was and how some girls would be kicked out for being pregnant and it was great that they weren't doing that and were supportive. And they kept saying we see girls in your situation with non supportive parents and they do great as moms and if they can do it then you 100% can. 

And like one of them was telling me about how she got pregnant and got kicked out and had to go to a maternity home at 17 and she was like because of my "super supportive mom" it would be so much easier for me. And they kept saying how being a mom would make my life complete and would be such a blessing and amazing for me. And then I was like, I don't want this. 

I just want to not worry about all this and I also said at one point I don't want to have to look after a baby all the time and be tired all the time. And they literally told me that was a "myth" and that it would all be fine as my mom would support me and I would be able to do school and college no problem. And they also told me that I wouldn't be able to get an abortion without parental consent as I was a minor which was a blatant lie but fortunately I knew this before and made me realize more that they were just misleading on everything. 

And they kept asking me "how do you think you would feel about this in 5 years time" or "what do you think your life would be in 5 years time" or "if in the future you want to have a baby and you can't how do you think you would feel about this now." And I kept saying “I’m 16, I'm too young for this” and they were like "you are too young for this but not too young to have sex" and "if you have sex which is an adult thing you have to deal with the adult consequences." And they kept saying things like "do you think that sometimes things happen for a reason" or something like that.

Eventually I got pissed off again and tried to walk away and leave and they literally blocked my exit and stopped me from leaving. And then I got a bit more frustrated and upset and then I kinda burst into tears and they then took this as a sign I was having doubts and was unsure and that I was in denial and trying not to think about it. 

And they then started asking me about the abortion procedure and I said I was planning to get a medical abortion. They said the first pill stops a hormone that the baby needs and effectively "poisons" it. And they were like asking me how it makes me feel thinking about what would happen to the fetus and how the fetus would feel. And they were like “don't you think it deserves a chance of life”. And then they massively overplayed the second pill and they said it would induce a "constant agonizing throbbing" and that the side effects would continue for weeks afterwards. And they also said that I would be able to make out the fetus and see the baby shape after it comes out and would definitely be able to make out what it was and that I would probably be having nightmares about it forever. 

And that they speak to women who regret an abortion even 30 years after. And they also said that it would greatly reduce my chance of having a baby in the future and also that it was better to have a baby younger as our bodies are "more designed for it."

They also tried to talk me into adoption and they kept saying "don't you think your baby deserves life" and how there are loads of people who are adopted who do amazing and like I said I don't want to put my body through that and I don't want to go through all that and obviously it would be hard with hormones and bonding as well and they were like “yes, if you have a baby you would be so emotionally bonded you would never regret it” and like I don't know exactly. And they then got some website of like couples who want to adopt and they were like your baby could be a blessing to any of these couples and I could choose which one and be able to see it sometimes. Eventually they sorta gave up on me I think and they also had another appointment but this all lasted about an hour. 

But it was like I felt a bit sick at times afterwards and I don't know. And I think this all has just completely ruined my relationship with my mom.

Sorry if this is badly written. Basically I didn't really know anything about this but now I have been reading a lot more. I want to share my story and maybe for people to use it to try and get more awareness about this all but I don't think I want everyone to know I had an abortion and to do it in my name. But if you think it would be helpful then please screenshot and share this if you want. 

[scarrow]

Non-Binary in Genesis

Twitter thread by Michaela Atencio@michaelaatencio

i'm nonbinary. 

how does this reconcile with the verse, "male and female he created them," you may ask?

the variety in God's creation emphasizes God's creativity as an artist. 

Genesis gives us several examples of this.God made "day and night." this sounds like a binary, similar to "male and female," right?

that isn't quite all we experience in 24 hours. sunrises and sunsets do not fit into the binary of day or night. yet God paints the skies with these too.

On the second day God separated the sky from water. seems like another binary. yet the clouds hold water for us in the sky, the condensation and rain cycle refreshing our earth constantly. the sky, separate from water, contains and releases water. 

God also said "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." that isn't the full story, either. consider marshes, swamps, bogs, and fens. not fully land, not fully waters. there is such glorious variety in God's creation.

We see another binary in the celestial bodies God made: "the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night." and then, almost as a footnote, "and the stars." there is more than just sun and moon in outer space. planets, asteroids, black holes, supernovae.

side note: these magnificent stars hundreds of times more massive than our sun, as simple as that to God. "and the stars." I marvel. Hallelujah.

God created the great sea monsters" and "every winged bird of every kind." a split again between water and sky. yet we see creatures like penguins that are definitely a "winged bird," but do not fly and instead walk and swim. 

and finally "male and female he created them."first off, intersex people exist. but, and perhaps more importantly, friends, look around. listen. do you have friends or family that say they don't fall under "male" or "female?" if so, honor that.

does all this variety invalidate God as creator? of course not! I believe that this instead is an example of how authors weave words to tell a story. we see the author in Genesis give examples of the extremes that God creates. It doesn't exclude the possibility of more.and so we worship the God of more. 

The God of the marsh, the penguin, the God of the sunrise, the cloud, the supernovae. The God of the nonbinary. 

you are loved.

[not-a-space-alien]

I believe abortion should be free, on demand, and no questions asked because you can debate philosophically all you want but at the end of the day, there is no way to restrict and regulate abortion that does not result in humiliating, traumatizing, harming the health of, and even killing people who are pregnant on a mass scale. There are very real, tangible, measurable harms abortion restrictions do to vulnerable populations and the only possible benefit in return is to placate the palate of the morally squeamish.

[not-a-space-alien]

#we're all familiar with the concept of the ''shirley exception'' yeah? @silentstep

I'd actually not heard of this before so I looked it up, and I think this is an extremely good thing to know about and be aware of. Twitter thread.

[scarrow]

(text version for reading access.)

Shirley Exception

Alexandra Erin (She/Her)

@AlexandraErin

The Shirley Exception is a bit of mental sleight of hand that allows people to support a policy they profess to disagree with. It's called the Shirley Exception because... well, I mean, *surely* there must be exceptions, right?

Let's imagine that in response to suspicions about overbroad use of service animal rules, a city somewhere decides to just swing the pendulum 100% in the other direction. Restaurants, public accommodations, etc., no longer have to recognize any service animals.

And in the aftermath of the change, existing rules about where animals may and may not go apply full force.

A lot of people would back the change because Obviously Some People Take Advantage. (Positing that someone, somewhere is taking advantage is a great way to get the masses on your side in our politics, sadly.)

Now if you point out the existence of a blind person or an epileptic person who has a service dog for everyday navigation of life or for life-saving purposes, the Good People who just don't want anyone to take advantage will tell you:

"No one's talking about legitimate cases."

And if you point out that the rule that they're backing would affect what they call "legitimate cases", the response will be:

"But surely there will be an exception."

If you back up an anti-abortion activist to the point where they actually have to grapple with a case where the parent would 100% die delivering a 100% non-viable fetus, you'll get the same answers: "No one is talking about those cases." and "But surely there will be exceptions."

All of those studies of people in Trump Country USA who were shocked, shocked, that the kind man next door who is a good father and a great neighbor and a real part of the community was dragged away by ICE?

They all thought that surely he'd be an exception.

If you point out that the laws/policies they're talking about *don't* offer such exceptions and in some cases explicitly forbid them, if you say "So let's put those exceptions in writing."... well, then you're back to Surely People Will Take Advantage.

See, the people who are sure that Surely There Will Be Exceptions are very comfortable with the idea of justice being decided on a case-by-case basis. They've always had teachers, bosses, bureaucrats, even traffic cops giving them some slack for reasons of compassion and logic.

I mean, if Officer Smalltown von Cul-De-Sac could give them a warning when they were caught with recreational amounts of pot as kids because it was harmless and they Had Futures, then Surely there must be similar exceptions for everyone?

That post about "I never thought the leopards would eat my face, sobbed woman who voted for Face-Eating Leopards Party" is very true, and it goes farther than personal immunity to a very generalized and broad Just World Fallacy.

Surely, they think, surely the leopards will know to only eat the *right* faces, the faces that need eating, and leave alone all the faces that don't deserve that.

But if we try to lay out rules to protect faces from being eaten by leopards, people will take advantage. Best to keep it simple and count on decency and reason to rule the day.

So moderate conservatives, what we might call "everyday conservatives", the ones who don't wear MAGA hats or tea party costumes and think that Mr. Trump fella should maybe stay off of Twitter, they will vote for candidates and policies that they don't actually agree with...

...because in their mind the exact law being prescribed is just a tool in the chest, an option on the table, which they expect to be wielded fairly and judiciously. Surely no one would do anything so unreasonable as actually enforcing it as written! Not when that would be bad!

And then they are confused, shocked, and even insulted when people hold them accountable for their support of the monstrous policy.

"I didn't vote for leopards to eat *your* face! I just thought we needed some face-eating leopards generally. Surely you can't blame me for that!"

The old "Defense of Marriage" laws are another textbook example of this. 

Many of them included language that expressly forbade giving similar benefits (like hospital visitation) to same-sex relationships.

Yet the people who voted for them, in many cases, wanted it to be known that No One Is Talking About Stopping You From Visiting Your Loved One In The Hospital. And Surely There Will Be An Exception.

The Shirley Exception is how people who are only mundanely monstrous, moderately monstrous, wind up supporting policies that are completely monstrous.

And when they do, they always want credit for their good intentions towards those they see as deserving, not the outcomes.

I'm describing a phenomenon here and I don't have a solution to its existence. While convincing people that laws that don't specify exceptions functionally *don't have them* might work sometimes on (ironically) a case-by-case basis, what is really needed is a broader shift.

People need to get used to thinking about the harm policies will do as a real part of the policy, not a hypothetical that Reasonable People of Good Will Can Surely Work Around.

Maybe the tack of saying, "If it was your life on the line, wouldn't you want that to be in writing?" would work. I don't know. Like I said, I don't have a solution here. This is just a thing that happens.

This thread is going viral again. I don't have a SoundCloud to promote because Twitter is my SoundCloud. Tweeting this kind of explanation/analysis is one of the main things I do (when I'm not at a con). If you get some value from it, feel free to tip. https://paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=RR84V5CDS9UP4 

[athingofvikings]

I understand if you want to ignore this ask or block me for it, but I hope you see it as a good faith question. You expressed disdain toward Christians who observe Jewish festivals. Like we are stealing something from you, from your culture, desecrating it. I defiantly agree in regard to those who do it as a fad, without striving for deep understanding. In your opinion, is it possible for those of other religions to observe the Jewish festivals with respect, with empathy?

In your opinion, is it possible for those of other religions to observe the Jewish festivals with respect, with empathy?

Yes.  By accepting invitations by Jews to be guests at our festivals when we celebrate them.  Period.  

Any other method is stealing our culture and desecrating it.  Period.

To paraphrase a quote I’ve seen elsewhere, my heritage is not a sandbox for outsiders to play in, not after the number of bodies that you’ve buried in it.  

[athingofvikings]

So, @ifitistobeitisuptous​, the wording of this ask has gotten stuck in my brain like a popcorn shell stuck between your teeth, and I want to treat it as good faith, but I need to address a few things.

To begin with, there’s a rhetorical trap here that I want to address.  I don’t “express disdain towards Christians who observe Jewish festivals”.  But “disdain” is an interesting choice of words, and I need to dissect it.  Because first off, it’s fairly mild, as such words go, describing a feeling of contempt, dislike, disgust… but also carries with it the implication that I consider myself superior to those I “disdain”.  

That is not the case, and this is part of why this ask was so hard to treat as being asked in good faith.  Saying that I “express disdain” conveys the implication that I’m somehow the person on top, looking down with scorn at these poor Christians who just want to “observe the Jewish festivals”!  And that ties into antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish supremacists (i.e. “only Jews are good enough,” “Jews are the Chosen People,” etc) and that’s a game I don’t want to play.  

So, no, I don’t “express disdain”, because I don’t hold myself as superior.  I just want my minority culture to be treated with respect and allowed to exist without having to justify it in a Christian context.

Now, with that being said, no, I do not hold them in “disdain”, because, as noted, that word is fairly mild as far as communicating dislike goes.  So let me be clear to communicate the depth of emotion here.  I express boiling outrage and furious loathing for these people.  I loathe them on a level I can barely express without dipping into superlatives.  I have ‘disdain’ for inconsiderate smokers.  I have dislike for “civility over substance, and promoting false balance” journalists.  I have disgust for anti-maskers.  I loathe Christians who “observe Jewish festivals”.  

Because “like we are stealing something from you, from your culture”, desecrating it” is in fact completely accurate–and the fact that you include yourself in that number does not do you any favors, which is why this was so hard to treat as a good faith ask.  

I’ll be blunt: Christianity has an entitlement problem when it comes to other people’s cultures, and always had.  In fact, as non-Christians are so frequently reminded at this time of year, “Christmas” started as a pagan holiday.  So did Halloween.  So did any number of other holidays that were made Christian.  So there’s the whole “learn from history” thing there, where I, and other Jews, would very much like it if our festivals didn’t end up becoming Christianized over the next few centuries.  Because we’ve learned from all of the other religions that Christianity has wiped out and paved over.  That’s the first point.  

The second point is that the reason we have our own festivals is that we inherited them from our ancestors and maintained them despite persecution.  And very often, that persecution was from Christians.  In Christian Europe, the Jewish people were marginalized, tortured, forced to do the horrible work, repeatedly expelled from our homes, legally discriminated against, made scapegoats of, and massacred.  European Christians hated Jews so much that one of the rationales given to legitimize the Irish conquest by England was that they were “Judaizers”!  And that legacy hasn’t gone away.  So after over a thousand years of brutality and violence, Christians don’t get to just “observe the Jewish festivals” as they see fit–because that’s just a continuation of that history of violence.  Just now, instead of expelling the Jews from their homes and taking those homes, like Christians used to do, this mindset is expelling the Jews from our own culture and taking it for yourselves.  

And third, if you want to talk Christians stealing our culture and desecrating it…

Let’s talk about “Messianics”.

Fifty years ago, a bunch of Christians who were dismayed that they were not having much success with converting Jews, which they believe is required in order to bring about the Second Coming, created a fake religion called “Messianic Judaism”–which is literally taking all of the festivals, rituals, and trappings of Judaism and profaning them by making them all about Jesus.  Jewish ritual objects are desecrated with the name of a Christian god.  Our prayer shawls are embroidered with Christian symbols. Our Torah scrolls are handled by bare hands.  Even our foods are reinterpreted in light of Jesus.  And this was all with the goal of tricking Jews into worshiping Jesus and thus wiping out Judaism, as per point one.

And that’s not even counting the fetish Christians have for Jewish paraphernalia.  The Green family (the ones behind Hobby Lobby) have a museum full of Torah scrolls acquired under… questionable circumstances.  Far-Right Christians love blowing Jewish shofars for some reason.  Buying Jewish prayer shawls by Christians is typical.  And on and on and on…

And there’s also the simple fact that, in their interpretation of Christianity–an interpretation that is common enough to be a plot point in those “Left Behind” stories–in order for the Second Coming to come about, all of the Jews must be gathered in Israel, the Gospel preached at us, and then we all die.  And those of us who accept the Gospels (supposedly exactly 144,000) will ascend to Heaven to escort down Jesus, while the remainder go to Hell.  

So our purpose in their worldview is for us to die as a sacrifice to bring back your god.

So for any Christian that wants to “observe the Jewish festivals with respect, with empathy”… yeah.  You have all of that baggage, and the only way to achieve that respect is to come in as a guest.  

[athingofvikings]

So, as a followup to this older post, this crossed my dash the other day:

“These Jewish holidays where Christians used to massacre Jews for not accepting Jesus are now Christian holidays! They’re not “Jewish” anymore!“

Look at this post from @xenanichols , who presents themselves as a nice person, posting “things that make me happy”–which apparently includes taking Jewish holy days and shoving the Christian god on them.

Can this be done with respect? I’d say no.

And the thing is… these are Jewish things. The early Christians said so at the early ecumenical councils of the 3rd and 4th centuries, where they banned Christians from celebrating these holidays.

And if people want to go against those councils–the authoritative decisions of all of the world’s Christians at the time–so that they can celebrate these Jewish holidays, then you also have to give up everything else decided on at those councils.

Things like…

The Trinity. The Holy Spirit. The Divinity of Jesus. Jesus as Messiah.

All of it.

[athingofvikings]

So I had my own post cross my dash, just a few after the “humans love rituals; if you take their rituals away, they’ll make up new ones” post.

And I realized something as a result, a synthesis of history and cultural backgrounds and all of that stuff.

So the people most responsible for this wholesale appropriation of Jewish culture for their own aggrandizement are American Christian Evangelicals and others in their immediate cultural orbit.

The thing is, Evangelicals are culturally descended from the iconoclastic Protestants (iconoclasm is “destruction of icons”, such as religious art); in short, during the Protestant Reformation, the Catholics went for religious iconography and art, and the Protestants went for academics and intellectualism as a way of distinguishing themselves from each other.

Later, much of American Protestantism–especially the Protestant-derived groups in the American slave states–proceeded to throw out most of their intellectual traditions in favor of institutionalized White Supremacy; there’s an excellent article on that here. So what you have left of “Christianity” at that point isn’t much–no art, no sacred objects, very little ritual. Mostly what they’ve got is totemic devotion to the idea of “Jesus”, but–thanks to the anti-intellectualism–very little familiarity with the man’s actual teachings. So it’s this very stripped down faith that is basically designed to operate entirely on appeals to emotion.

Thing is… humans crave rituals and venerated concepts, and the Christianity of the Evangelicals–where they’ve “chiseled God down to fit in a box”–doesn’t offer much of any of that.

But they can’t take back the sacred objects and rites of the Catholics, even though that’s part of their distant cultural heritage–that would be tantamount to admitting that the Catholics were right, and these people hate Catholics. However…

Their religion just doesn’t offer fulfillment on any level–not spiritually, not emotionally, not culturally. Because their own faith is so starved of anything that can give them a sense of meaning.

But they need to find something with emotional substance to it, because they’ve got nothing. Like, the precursor to this post started with me trying to think of something that was a sacred object to American Protestants, and irritably commenting to my sarcastic thoughts that, no, an AR-15 is not a sacred object! But that sarcasm was revealing, because I literally cannot think of anything that is sacred or venerable to Evangelicals that isn’t either a weapon or stolen from somebody else.

And that’s the thing.

They need to steal those bits of culture from someplace else–and the closest source that they can rationalize to themselves as acceptable and legitimate are the rites and sacred objects of Rabbinic Judaism.

[vaspider]

As a Jew who grew up steeped in American Evangelicalism, this is… pretty spot on. There are things which I think are sacred to the people I grew up around – and I don’t know whether I consider “a very specific mythical idealized nuclear family with the husband at the head” as ‘stolen’ but it is certainly weaponized.

And most of the other things on that list – military service, the concept of “America” which they usually don’t want to admit out loud is an Ideal Middle Class White America, etc. – are essentially and very deeply empty for most people, and where they’re not empty in and of themselves, they’re weaponized as a means of enforcing conformity to an essentially empty culture which seeks to fill that essential emptiness with consumption.

They certainly were for me and for a lot of other Jews By Choice – which is, IMO, why you see a lot more JBC these days, and our numbers increasing, as well as a larger number of outspoken pagans and converts to other religions. (One of the dearest humans in the world to me converted to Islam around the time I became a Jew, born out of a similar spiritual hunger.)

And look! Christianity doesn’t have to be empty. I know plenty of Christians who have found meaning and joy in their own traditions by expanding them, by reexamining them and figuring out what needs to be celebrated and what’s missing and so on. There’s nothing wrong with creating new things, either.

Of course, a lot of people can’t admit that modern Evangelical Xianity is essentially devoid of meaningful ritual, and that this is what they truly crave. So like, what you see is … very similar to, like, modern pagans claiming they’re part of an unbroken line of succession leading back to prehistory instead of admitting that a lot of their stuff is made up, based on epics written down by Christians centuries and centuries after the actual creation of those pieces of hereditary oral storytelling, or stolen from living traditions by white men within the last century.

Like, make new stuff up, and be okay with making new stuff up, that’s fine! Admit you’re filling in the gaps of what is written down so you have a living tradition that works for you, okay! Cool! Humans need ritual and it’s okay to say “we’re creating these new symbols because we need some.”

(I think, amusingly, one of the things that brought me to ‘it’s okay to make up your own new rituals and symbols, just admit that you need them and stop taking them from other people’ is the queer community and our continuous search for meaning.)

Anyway, I’m super tired and kinda stoned, so I hope that makes sense.

[scarrow]

Abortion Stories

from Facebook, Susanna Roesel September 3, 2021 

I was 30 years old.

I was married.

We were happy.

We were established.

Our 401k runneth over. 

We decided to start a family. 

I got pregnant right away.

Like right away.

We were over the moon.

I kept a journal of every day of the magic.

I got a bump.

I felt our baby kick.

I embraced it fully.

I rejected tests because "it won't change our path"

Emily sent out baby shower invitations.

The nursery was under way. 

And then.

I'm almost halfway there! 

I'm 18 and a half weeks pregnant.

The doctor called.

It was 7pm.

I was out at dinner with my friend Deb.

I stepped outside.

The day before on a whim I agreed to a blood test.

"There's probably nothing to worry about but we need you to come in. There's a 1 in 36 chance something is wrong"

I called Liza sobbing.

My sister told me to lay out 36 straws and see that there's still such a good chance that everything is fine.

I didn't sleep.

We drove up to Forsyth because that was the first available amniocentesis. 

The needle was long.

The room was dark.

The news was really bad.

I changed in that moment forever.

It's a girl! 

We had named her Audrey.

Audrey Roesel -- the girl who will make me a mom.

She was missing her nasal bone.

Her kidneys were tiny.

Her heart was missing a chamber.

She had an extra chromosome.

Part of her brain wasn't formed.

Her head was growing at a rate 4x faster than her limbs.

I want to be a mom.

This is my girl.

This situation could really hurt my body.

She will be in immeasurable pain.

I didn't understand "incompatible with life"

I cried.

I cried some more.

I was already a mom.

Moms keep their children from pain.

Time is ticking. 

I'm 19.5 weeks now.

We are in Georgia.

There's a time limit, you know.

It's Labor Day now.

Doctors go on vacation.

Somehow the world around us keeps on.

Not for me.

In the interest of time...

They sent me to an abortion clinic. 

Me. At an abortion clinic. 

After 20 weeks, it's illegal, you know.

It's the night before.

I ran a bath.

I said goodbye to my daughter in that tub. 

Just the two of us before the world turned upside down.

Did you know...

You have to go 2 days in a row?

1 to dilate

1 for a D&E

It was brutal emotionally.

It hurt physically. 

I begged to be put under.

A kind doctor took my hand.

His hands were large and warm.

He told me I would be a mom one day.

He was an angel.

I woke up in a group recovery room.

In a recliner. 

Next to a young girl. Maybe 13. 

She was also recovering. 

I took her hand.

My milk came in.

Nobody told me.

It hurt in my body and my soul.

I grieved. Hard. 

For months and months. 

I held onto a teddy bear the size of a newborn.

I ached everywhere inside and out.

It was a fluke they said. 

Fast forward four months.

Pregnant again.

Scared.

Excited.

First ultrasound. 

Baby’s gone.

Go to the hospital for D&C.

This is also considered abortion.

They tested the tissue.

it was a boy!

Chromosomes were normal.

Isn’t that good news?

Grief ensued.

So did genetic testing B and me.

I’m not ashamed.

I never was.

I’m what abortion looks like.

So is the 13 year old girl in that recovery room.

In Texas we’d be criminals. [And Oklahoma as of 4/14/22]

Access to safe abortion is a woman’s right.

And abortion is a decision to be made between a woman, her doctor, her family, and her god. ...Not a majority white male cohort of politicians with a false sense of morality.

And your judgement? It matters not.

[liberaljane]

Bah, Humbug! Behind every billionaire hoarding wealth are underpaid and exploited workers. Let’s explore some issues of workers past, present and future.

☕ In 2021, when workers at three separate Starbucks locations in and around Buffalo NY, started organizing to unionize, company executives swooped in with anti-union efforts. Workers are fighting for higher wages as Starbucks claims record profits in 2021.

📦 In 2019, Amazon withheld a third of its driver’s tips before being ordered to pay the $61.4 million back in a federal lawsuit. Warehouse workers across the country have also experienced grueling working conditions that include: too few bathroom breaks, excessive productivity goals, & unsafe working conditions. Amazon saw record profits in 2021.

🍟 In 2018, McDonald’s workers walked off the job for what would be the first of many multi-state strikes to demand an end to the rampant sexual harassment in their restaurants. Despite McDonald’s promises, they have failed to adequately address continued sexual violence at their stores. McDonald’s saw record profits in 2021.

❤️ Created in collaboration with @FightFor15.

[st-just]

“Herein lies the impossible irony of suggesting that vaccine skeptics talk to their doctors and of assuming that this patient-physician bond represents a durable and valued connection between individuals and the larger institutions of health and medicine. No such bonds exist anymore. Like so many other stories of the “declining trust in institutions,” the real story is not the decline in trust per se, but rather the failure of the institution. The increasingly expensive, arcane, and impersonal US health care system, with its harried practitioners, shock billing, impenetrable insurance coverages, and regionally monopolistic consolidation, leaves no room for trust, and certainly has no time for conversation. Is it really so surprising then that millions of Americans are more trusting of their favorite local radio personality, who talks to them for three or four hours every day (at least until he, too, dies of preventable Covid), or of the friends in their Facebook groups, than they are of a strange doctor whom they might see for three uncomfortable minutes once a year — often after an enraging two hours in a waiting room for an appointment made months prior?”

— Jacob Bacharach, Talk to Your Doctor

[lesbianpeachs]

Like, people who identify as Queer know the word is used like a slur. Trust me, we know.

So when we say “queer is a slur” was started by terfs, maybe use some critical thinking and try to understand what we mean. That is, if you actually care about queer people and the damage terfs do, rather that just screaming “queer is a slur!” and ignoring the actual point.

Terfs did not like that queer was reclaimed. End of. This is a fact. Queer was too broad, too accepting, and embraced all the people they wanted gone. And I know y'all exclusionists feel the same but get pissed when we point it out so you deny it, but sit down and listen for a minute.

Queer was the preferred term for poc. For bisexuals. For trans people. For people with multiple identities. It neatly encapsulated everything, and was a friendly community to those who felt thrown under the bus by mainstream LGBT activism. It was a political and social statement, “you treated my like I was different and weird, and guess what? I am and that’s something to be proud of.”

So the response? “You can’t use that word. Its bad. Its a slur.”

And at the time, a lot of people rolled their eyes. Everyone knew why they didn’t like the word and brushed that off. It was fine.

So they started more subtly. “Just so you know this word is very harmful and is a slur so be careful how you use it :))) in case you didn’t know :)))) its a slur :))) friendly reminder :))) for the sake of other people of course :))))” type shit on every post involving the word, including and especially posts simply mentioning self identification.

Always worded in friendly, concerned ways, like the derailment was meant to be nice and considerate, and not about normalizing their rhetoric.

And what happened because of that was a younger generation of community kids growing up with these statements being thrown at them and absorbed on every. Single. Post. That. Mentionioned. Queer.

The result? That same generation of kids cutting it all short, removing the meant-to-be-palatable niceness, to just say “queer is a slur.”

Exactly how it was originally intended. “Queer is a slur.” People drop on posts where young queer people talk about it being a self identifier that actually fits them. “Its a slur,” they comment, with nothing else, on posts they clearly didn’t read past that word, written by people twice their age who had reclaimed it before they were even born.

Its nasty. Its disgusting. It’s plain old bigotry, whether the people saying know it or not. It is a terf tactic, plain and simple.

And no one wants to deny that it is indeed used as a slur (right along with all the rest of our identities.) No one wants to be insensitive and force it on people who haven’t reclaimed it.

But invading queer people’s posts to spit “queer is a slur” is flat out queerphobic. You do the dirty work of terfs, of cis straight oppressors, by saying in one simple sentence: “its a dirty word, there is no pride in it, you haven’t/can’t reclaim(ed) it.”

And regardless of your actual intentions, when you do this, that is EXACTLY what you are communicating and doing.

“Queer is a slur” is a terf movement. Stop fucking supporting terfs just because you want to pretend like it isn’t.

[oodlenoodleroodle]

This is why I block people who say ‘Queer is a slur.’ 

You quack like a terf, I block you like a terf. 

[aristoteliancomplacency]

This thing was so weird to me when I first encountered it on tumblr, because like… in academia

queer studies

 is a thing. Queer Theory is a thing. If I search my Uni’s library for ‘queer’ I get 138,481 results. Here are some of them: 

Queer in Europe : contemporary case studies / edited by Lisa Downing and Robert Gillett.

Queer Phenomenology, Sexual Orientation, and Health Care Spaces: Learning From the Narratives of Queer Women and Nurses in Primary Health Care, / Cressida Heyes, Megan Dean, Lisa Goldberg.

Playing With Time: Gay Intergenerational Performance Work and the Productive Possibilities of Queer Temporalities / Stephen Farrier

Postcolonial and queer theories : intersections and essays / edited by John C. Hawley.

Queer Dickens : erotics, families, masculinities / Holly Furneaux.

Showing Your Pride: A National Survey of Queer Student Centres in Canadian Colleges and Universities / John Ecker, Jennifer Rae, Amandeep Bassi

Mad for Foucault : rethinking the foundations of queer theory / Lynne Huffer.

Do those look like queerphobic texts? And do you think that most of the writers writing about queer theory are straight? Lols. If you don’t want to be personally be called queer, that’s cool. You don’t get to stop other people using the word though. It’s ours now and we’re keeping it.

[akamine-chan]

Did I reblog this already? If I did, doesn’t hurt to blog it again. I usually unfollow people who use the tag (or the equilivant) q-slur. Because fuck you, I’m queer. Have been since like 1986.

[anarchistettin]

queer was mlm slang/code in the 18th and 19th centuries, turned into a slur in the 20th century

when we say it was reclaimed, we mean it was reclaimed 

[didyoumeanxianity]

Today’s fighting Christian hegemony factoid:

“Charity” and “tzedakah” are not synonymous. To many Jews this is relatively clear, but I have seen gentiles struggle to understand the difference. So let’s look at each of these concepts.

Charity, the predominant word used to describe “giving money to people/entities to help make the world a better place” in the west, is a Christian term. And at its root it means giving out of the good of your heart to a person/entity/cause for the betterment of mankind. The word itself is derived from caritas, a Latin word for love. When we speak of charity in the west, we talk about wanting to help people, and then giving our time or money to someone or to some entity for that purpose. If you’re giving money to a good cause but you don’t want to, it’s forced upon you or you’re doing it for social cache, we treat it as a lesser form of giving, because you didn’t mean it. It’s not “real charity.” Charity is giving to your fellow because you love him as you love yourself.

Tzedakah is not at all like that. It too refers to the concept of giving money or other aid to those in need, but it has nothing to do with loving other people or wanting to help people. No, the root of tzedakah is “Tzedek,” which means justice. Giving aid to those in need (or to organizations that will help those in need) is doing justice, and though it’s nice if someone “means it” that is in no way required. Tzedakah is a recognition that it is unjust to have more than you need while denying help to those who don’t have their needs met yet. You can help them begrudgingly, or angrily. You can hate every second of it. But if you give to those in need it is still tzedakah. Because personal feelings, though very relevant to the “love” at the root of charity, are irrelevant to justice.

Related factoid: because giving tzedakah is a mitzvah, it is common for people panhandling for money in Israel to do so in heavily Orthodox neighborhoods. Because halacha dictates that if someone asks for tzedakah, you must provide it if you are able.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I think it's also worth mentioning that the highest level of giving is helping in a way that prevents people from needing tzedakah in the first place.

[tutti-durruti]

The way it was explained to me, a gift that you give to somebody because you feel bad or because their story resonates with you doesn't count as tzedakah. If you're doing it for your own ego or for your own sense of accomplishment, it isn't tzedakah, so the appropriate move is to give again so that you fulfill the mitzvah.

[drek-odradek-deactivated2022031]

ik op was trying to go bare bones here to highlight just how different the two concepts are, but I just know ppl are going to completely misconstrue this in the most antisemitic way possible :)) so I'll expand on what both @unbidden-yidden & @tutti-durruti have already mentioned and say that there are levels to tzedakah. Yes, it's justice and yes every Jew is meant to do it, your personal feels abt it do not really come into play. However, Rambam literally ranked the way of giving tzedakah - #8 and top worst way is what @tutti-durruti already said and the absolute best way is what @unbidden-yidden described. Second best is where I think most of us can realistically fall, and it's giving anonymously to an unknown beneficiary. That way the person who benefits from the justice isn't demeaned/feels endebted and you cannot lord it over anyone, even subconsciously.

[didyoumeanxianity]

Good add-ons.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

it’s only when you get older that you realize how much your average american childhood resembled being a cult

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

I’m specifically referring to all the brain-washing (key characteristic of cults). It is terrifying the extent to which american education & media actively works to brainwash the populace. If you grow up in america, you are continuously surrounded by propoganda and narratives that:

Science isn’t real

Science is the ENEMY

Science is lying and you should listen to the Church instead. The universe is 6000 years old, evolution isn’t real (and the earth isn’t round, and vaccines are poison). Any Good Christian agrees with at least one of these. Teachers are not allowed disagree. (There must be “balanced treatment” of “alternative facts.”)

To remind School Children of their Duty to Obey, they are required to voluntarily recite a Pledge of Allegiance every morning. (Other countries don’t do this; it would be considered “creepy” and “government overreach.”)

(But those countries overreach in other ways, such as by providing healthcare & food & housing to the Undeserving. These countries are not to be trusted. It is a Sin to be UnAmerican, even if you are not American and do not live in America. In fact, that’s even more sinful.)

America is Great. In fact, it is the Greatest. We are better than all other countries. (We are not taught very much about other countries, but we know that we are Better Than Them.)

We are God’s favorite country. God Protects Us, because we are the Greatest. We must be, to have God on our side.

Other countries are a threat to the Spirit of Democracy. It is our duty and God-given right to Protect Our Interest Abroad.

Other Countries Are The ENEMY. (Especially Russia, China, the Middle East, Latin America, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, and whoever the Military Industrial Complex wants to sell us weaponry to invade.)

(Even if we don’t always attack the right people, they are still sinners. It is a sin not to be American.)

Other Americans (minorities, immigrants, socialists/communists, political activists, the poor) Are Also The ENEMY. They are less “American” than we are. That makes them dangerous. These people must not be allowed to attack our Way of Life.

(Even if they are Americans, they are not real Americans. Therefore they are sinners.)

The Police/FBI/CIA/Military are there to protect us. When the Government hurts people, it is because those people are the ENEMY.

Slavery was “bad” but many slave-owners were Great Men. We surround our cities & parks with Monuments & Flags to venerate our Founding Fathers, and the Great Leaders of the Confederacy. These things must be remembered bc they are Historical. They are not harmful because Slavery is over now. It’s in the Past.

(Slavery is also Historical, but it does not need to be remembered)

Racism is over bc of Dr Martin Luther King (who was a peaceful man without socialist leaning) who uncontroversially ended racism, then died tragically (with no governmental wrongdoing). He is loved and respected by white people now, who name Buildings & Streets after him, to remind themselves that Racism Is Over.

MLK’s photo is in every History Textbook, so students can read about how racism ended (and about how MLK was not a radical harassed by the FBI, but simply a mild-mannered pacifist). Students are happy to learn that the Civil Rights Era fixed everything and was a very long time ago. (You can tell because the textbook photos are always in black-and-white. No living person actually remembers it. It was so long ago.)

Everyone is Equal now, but obviously not actually equal, that would be Communism. Poor People exist because they are Lazy and Undeserving, and do not pull themselves up by their Bootstraps. Billionaires are deserving because they pulled themselves up with their Good Ideas. We should Admire them, and not Steal from them out of Envy. Taxing them would be Stealing.

Taxation Is A Form Of Theft. (That is why brave rich white men founded this country.)

(Taxation is not a form of Theft when it funds the most overfunded military in the world. It is Theft when it pays for the breakfast of school children. We need a Powerful Military to Protect Our Interests Abroad. It is the Job of The Parents to feed their hungry children. Sometimes parents are Poor and Lazy, that is not the Government’s Responsibility.

(Every year the Military spends Billions on equipment it does not intent to use; these purchases are stored in “graveyards” throughout the country. America is a young country, filled with many types of graveyards and corpses, so many corpses, some of whom stand upright and walk around and perform labor for crumbs. They stand behind cash registers and stoop at desks, and crumble before your eyes. Your country is crumbling, crumbling its people to dust.)

(One day you will crumble too. You will be nothing but crumbs and bones, and confusion over how this all happened.)

(It happened by design.)

[jabberwockypie]

A lot of people in the notes are asking “What the fuck?” and asking where Gaudy went to school. Like, it depends? It’s going to depend on where you grow up, and go to school, and it’s going to depend on your family, and whether or not your family is - for example - listening to Fox News and angry talk radio like Rush Limbaugh (may his grave be a gender neutral bathroom for all time) and Sean Hannity all the time at home. Even going to school in a very liberal (though also, it must be said, very white) area when I was younger, we got the “Yay Martin Luther King Jr! He had A Dream! We’re going to do an art project for Black History Month, but racism is over now*” thing. *Oh “Racism still happens, but it’s all in the South and other places that are not here”. Even if your TEACHERS say it’s okay if you don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance (you can’t legally be compelled to say the Pledge - there’s a Supreme Court ruling about it - but people do it anyway), people frequently get bullied and ostracized about it. A LOT of mainstream American Christianity is, indeed, cult-y as fuck and is all tied up with Nationalism and the idea that if you’re poor, it’s because you deserve it. Even if you lucked out and dodged a lot of this, you’re still going to meet a shocking number of people whose worldviews were shaped by all of the above. And it’s possible you internalized some Weird Shit even just getting it second-hand.

When I was in 4th grade, I lived in Texas for a year, and we did a unit on dinosaurs in science class. There was a big chunk of the class whose families “didn’t believe in dinosaurs” because “bad people put the fossil there to make people doubt God”. When asked about it, the teacher - in a public school - said “Well, some people believe that the devil made his world first, and that was dinosaurs, and then God destroyed it and then all the stuff in Genesis happened.”

When I was in college and took Biology 100, the professor had to devote most of a class period to saying “We’re going to be discussing evolution as scientific fact. I’m not here to talk about religion - that’s outside the scope of this class. But this is what a theory means in a scientific context. If you can’t do that, you need to drop this class.” at the time I was extremely bored and annoyed, because OF COURSE it’s science. Who would do that?  But people did try to argue with it, and now I wonder how often that had happened that he had to devote so much time to drawing that line. (This was the same school - a public university, mind you - that had “Christianity Awareness Month” but only “Islam Awareness Week”. As if one can actually live in the US without being Aware of Christianity, whether one wants to be or not. Meanwhile, given that this was only a few years after 9/11, when there was a TON of Islamophobia and jingoistic nationalism, teaching people about Islam to combat that might have actually been helpful.)

[wheeloffortune-design]

tonight’s twitter discourse:

this thread (all their takes after the initial tweet are bad too)

https://twitter.com/benedict_rs/status/1349954211358924800

i don’t know if they wanted to become a more popular writer or podcaster but they’re getting ratioed by the minute. 

i’ve been finding new authors to follow by digging in the quote-retweets

[terriwriting]

The best part of this this thread is watching the OP desperately trying to ignore all the award-winning authors showing up to patiently explain why she’s wrong.

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

The best part after that is knowing that she runs a podcast telling people how to be better writers and has just alienated at least half her potential listeners and guests.

[findingfeather]

The part that hurts my head most is someone with a (small) handful of short-story (and one novella?) writing credits to her name claiming the right to run a podcast telling other people how to write. 

[seananmcguire]

I did not have time to wade into this fight again, at least in part because anyone coming to Twitter with this “hot take” in 2021 has already decided not to read or pay attention to any of the people who have already said very smart things on the topic.

[headspace-hotel]

In case anyone isn’t completely convinced: This is not how learning works, and definitely not how learning to write works holy shit.

There are a number of specific skills that fanfiction cannot teach you. Introducing and establishing character tends to be one of those; with fanfiction you’re typically working with already established characters with established characterization, whereas in original fiction you have to do the establishing yourself.

There’s also worldbuilding, and if you want to write fantasy, worldbuilding is important.

And so on and so on.

But.

You do not become a worse writer by writing imperfect stories. Any variation on “writing can make you a worse writer” is, without exaggeration, the worst possible writing advice, because 90% of getting better at writing is literally the exact opposite, which is writing insane amounts of whatever shit you can scoop out of your brain until you’re getting carpal tunnel in your dreams.

Of course, this is not even getting into the things that fanfiction does a better job at teaching you than whatever is considered to be Real Writing:

Time management and deadlines. Most fanfic writers update their stories chapter-by-chapter in a serial manner, which means they’re not only beholden to other people (which is itself something writers need to learn to adjust to), they’re also learning to work more-or-less regularly.

Relationship dynamics. Fanfic is typically very centered on relationships and the development of those relationships between characters and their interactions. I mention this because so much original fiction (obviously not all! but too much) is so ABYSMALLY bad at showing that two characters like or care about each other.

On that note: TROPES. The fact that fanfic has popularized specific terminology for the tropes that occur within a story is fantastic, because the fact that fanfic writers can identify a “found family” relationship dynamic means that those writers are aware of what they’re trying to do, what is effective and appealing about it, and what elements go into it. This is, again, obviously not a broad universal statement, but many original fiction writers don’t appear to purposefully use tropes or understand what they’re trying to accomplish with them. Original fiction teaches you to fashion characters, worldbuilding, and events, and even though there are general rules to what produces a good story, they’re just that…general rules. Most of the technical knowledge of fiction writing that is like…taught in creative writing classes does not classify by function.

what I’m getting at is, there’s knowing what an antihero is, and there’s understanding what about an angsty self-destructive sadboy pushes all the right buttons in you, whether those are catharsis, trauma processing, the fantasy of being deemed deserving of love despite hating oneself and pushing others away, the projection of future healing and ability to change, or just “what if I made all the bad, self-destructive choices that I’m glad I didn’t make?”

still more of a continuation of the last point but fanfic is a LOT more in tune with how specific stories fulfill specific emotional needs in people, and this makes complete sense because fanfic more or less exists because the source material leaves those things unfulfilled. Sure, fanfiction is often more about scratching an emotional itch than developing a grand, complex story, but that’s not a bad thing for developing storytelling skills. I think it’s great that writers are starting out with the understanding that resolving the main plot doesn’t necessarily mean a full emotional resolution to the story, and that leaving the reader satisfied emotionally is important. Seriously. So many awful endings are awful specifically because they ignore or leave unresolved the changes characters would undergo, traumas they would carry, and healing they would have to do, ending their story without fully acknowledging how the story has changed the character. Not just like, in an obvious sense of Values and stuff, but in terms of what they need and want from life.

also, this reminded me of this xkcd:

…which in turn reminded me of James Joyce’s love letters (repressed memory), which itself became a reminder of something I think is a very good final point: There are outliers, but most fanfiction authors can write a far better sex scene than almost any old straight white guy writing Literary fiction. Literally just clearing the bar of having both characters appear to be actually enjoying it and calling a dick a dick instead of a “bulbous salutation” is acceptable. I know the horribleness of fanfic sex scenes is renowned but. Y’all. Have you EVER read any “literary” adult novel I swear to god I have read so many sex scenes that are just the WORST they’re so uncomfortable

…anyway.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Also, while fanfiction won’t teach you everything you need to know to write original fiction, that's… not actually a flaw in the form?

I mean, by that logic, poets should be shit writers. Because what the fuck are they learning? Weird structures, often way too much description, not enough plot, sometimes no characters at all— not to mention the fact that most of it is just too damn short to ever be a novel.

Or screenwriters! This time not enough description, and they’re definitely not learning how to frame dialogue properly, or communicate where the characters are without literally printing it in capital letters at the top of the page.

Short story writers don’t learn how to manage a longer narrative spanning multiple chapters; novelists may never figure out how to cram a satisfying story into just a few hundred words— it’s almost as if these are all completely different forms with completely different purposes.

Fanfiction is fanfiction, it’s not Baby’s First Practice Writing For Before You Write Your Real Novel.

The only reason it sometimes comes across as more amateurish than ‘proper writing’ is because it’s one of the only forms where the average reader is regularly exposed to work from new writers. Very few people will sit down to write their first story ever and immediately churn out something that ends up getting traditionally published, while most people will happily post their first fanfic online.

(It’s also a form of writing that is exclusively done For Fun— when fanfic is legally done for money it morphs into ‘adaptation’ or ‘tribute’ and tends to traitorously ally itself with the likes of Proper Fiction— which in some cases probably does lead to lower standards. Personally, I don’t edit my fics nearly as much as I edit my original stuff. They would almost certainly be better if they did, but this is For Fun, and editing is Not Fun for me.)

This doesn’t mean that those first time writers (or longtime slackers, like me) will become worse writers because of it. Not only will a lot of the skills they learn from fanfic transfer over to original but, whatever happens, writing a lot of fanfiction will definitely make you better at fanfiction. And that’s not an unworthy goal.

[noirsongbird]

Also, fanfiction CAN teach you worldbuilding and character building, depending on what kind of fanfiction you write.

If you write extensive AUs, you’re probably learning how to worldbuild, because you absolutely have to. You’re creating a new universe for the characters to play in, and you’re often altering the characters somewhat so they fit this new world you’ve made. If you write a lot of OC fic, you have to learn how to introduce characters and integrate them into the world. So saying fanfiction can’t teach you these things is disingenuous and ignores a whole lot of the fanfic that’s out there doing…..exactly that.

Which, again, doesn’t mean that fanfiction needs to be doing any of these things to be valid, but it can and does, because not all fic is canon compliant relationship studies focused only on canon characters!

[moon6shadow-bookmark-writing]

This ^^^^

Also you probably don’t have to wonder completely into another universe to need to do or practice worldbuilding. Sometimes you may want to take a route that is different from canon and the information you need just isn’t there or you have trouble finding it. Eg. If canon took a primarily action packed route but you want to try talking and politics. You may have very little, if any, information to start building on or maybe the knowledge gets you part way but you have to figure it out yourself past a certain point.

Part of worldbuilding could also be deciding what to include or not include, getting inspiration from all over the place, and figuring out how all of these things work together and impact each other. Which is something fan creators do all the time. Sometimes because they go ‘I don’t like these bits but I like those bits of canon’ or ‘What happens if I just give things a little twist here, what ripple effects does that have?’ or ‘Ooh that looks cool I’m incorporating that!’ or ‘canon is doing my head in with all these contradictions, I need to pick one or create some sort of mix mash or something and then stick with it’

So in a way even if you aren’t building an entire world, you are still playing around with world building skills.

[noirsongbird]

yes yes yes, all of this too!! fic that focuses on underexplored parts of canon or that incorporates bits and pieces from different parts of a canon or what have you is also worldbuilding!!! you’re creating something new, and even if there’s a skeleton there you’re still doing a LOT of work adding to it!! thank you @moon6shadow-bookmark-writing!!

[amuseoffyre]

You know what’s really quite funny about this? People pulled the receipts and turns out that said twitter person’s ‘original’ writing includes a Modern Retelling of a historic event with Urban Legendish/Fae aspects. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, technically makes it fanfiction of a specific story.

[betsy-cola]

Happy International Women’s Day, everyone! Here are a few groovy reminders 🌈✨

[cannibal-rainbow]

“they” (1 word) is shorter than “he or she” (3 words)

“they” is more inclusive than “he/she”

“themself” flows more naturally than “him or herself”

“they” is less clunky than “(s)he”

it’s time to replace the awkward “she or he”

[edgar-allen-potpourri]

“hey can you go ask they what does they want for dinner, and when is they coming over to watch movies with they?”

[edrec]

“Hey, can you go ask them what they want for dinner, and when they’re coming over to watch movies?”

Step one is learning how to talk like a human person.

[anghraine]

Friendly reminder:

“I shouldn’t like to punish anyone, even if they’d done me wrong.” —George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)

“A person can’t help their birth.” —William Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1848)

“But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable.” —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

“Every Fool can do as they’re bid.” —Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (1738)

“So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” —King James Bible, Matthew 18:35 (transl. 1611)

“God send every one their heart’s desire!” —William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (~1600)

“Now this king did keepe a great house, that euerie body might come and take their meat freely.” —Sir Philip Sidney, the Arcadia (1580)

“If … a psalme scape any person, or a lesson, or els yt they omyt one verse or twayne…” —William Bonde, The Pylgrimage of Perfection (1526)

“And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, / They wol come up and offre a Goddés name” —Geoffrey Chaucer, The Pardoner’s Tale (~1380)

“þan hastely hiȝed eche wiȝt on hors & on fote, / huntyng wiȝt houndes alle heie wodes, / til þei neyȝþed so neiȝh to nymphe þe soþe [Then hastily hied each person on horse and on foot / hunting with hounds all the high woods / ‘til they came so near, to tell the truth]” —William and the Werwolf (transl. ~1350-1375)

“Bath ware made sun and mon, / Aiþer wit þer ouen light [Both were made sun and moon / Either with their own light]” —Cursor Mundi (~1325)

[advanced-procrastination]

We’ve been using they/them/their pronouns to indicate a person with unspecified gender for a long ass fucking time. The only reason it’s become a big issue lately is because it can be used as a semi-respectful term for trans and non-binary folks and we can’t have that can we

These fucks are literally trying to change our language to hurt trans/nb folks, and claiming that’s just the way its always been

[polyhorde]

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Singular “they” predates

Singular “you”

[afrodesiacworldwide]

[xmagnet-o]

Yesss

[anaccessiblelife]

Accessibility success of the day #11

Accessibility can mean having the option to dress up and look fab, no matter your disability.

[1oldbear]

And you should!

[cephalapodsblog]

Nobody will ever understand how much I love this blessed woman and that upsets me

[pinejaysong]

you know what’s even better than a guilty pleasure?

a smug indulgence. tell yourself, “i’m gonna do this thing because i like it, and there’s nothing you can do to make me feel bad about it!” eat that cake! read that romance novel! be free!!!

[libraryjournal]

[signal-failure]

Person with housemates can study.

Person who has spent all their cash on rent and food still has a place to get out of the house and do something interesting.

Cool community classes and community art shows.

ESL tutoring.

Tax prep and forms.

[queeranarchism]

Refugees can get away from the often bad environment of an asylum and use the internet to call their loved ones.

Anyone that lives out of town and needs to kill time between 2 meetings in town can hang out inside a building with a comfortable temperature without spending money.

People can get away from abusive families/spouses who monitor their internet use.

Free. Public. Toilets.

Fuck yeah libraries!