dancingadopteethoughts

[dancingadopteethoughts]

do you think any of the air nomads had complex thoughts or resentments about most of them not being raised by their parents? do you think aang did? (i know quite a bit about adoptees and i know most adoptees have complex thoughts about it once they come out of what they call ‘the adoptee fog’.) do you think it causes any insecurities for them, like abandonment issues or such? i don’t know if you have any thoughts on it, but i was curious on what you think!

ummmm…. so you know how like…. social structures such as the nuclear family model are not ontologically necessitated and adoptees being raised in a culture that reifies the importance of biological parentage are likely to feel an emotional disconnect but if you were raised in a culture that prioritizes communal living and de-emphasizes the supposed sanctity of a direct genetic lineage you are probably far less likely to feel alienated from your community because everyone else also shares your experience…… yeah so it’s probably kind of something like that…..

[dancingadopteethoughts]

"there should be some kind of test you have to take before having kids" -> wrong, extremely dangerous and highkey eugenicist and racist "the youth should have safe and effective legal pathways at their disposal to make sure their human rights are constantly protected and upheld" -> based, centers the youth, gives minors more power to fight inequality and does not reinforce the idea that parents are immune to scrutiny from their kids

[dancingadopteethoughts]

May 2025 Updates

Happy May! I hope you are all well this month. I have shared my May updates below.

I worked a bit more on the current fictional, adoption-related essay I’m writing. I’m trying to take on a different perspective than I normally do when I write these essays, and it’s been an interesting time.

I’ve been reading more of Adeeb Khalid’s Central Asia, which has been very illuminating, and I have been learning a lot of history that I unfortunately was ignorant of.

Thank you for reading my updates! Feel free to share any adoptee-related writings or history book recommendations in the comments below. This month, if you live in the US, I encourage you to contact your congresspeople to urge action regarding the ongoing forced famine in Gaza here and to advocate against cutting SNAP here. Please also review Saroyah’s Twitter list here for updated information regarding the continuing humanitarian crisis in Sudan. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

the thing about being nonbinary is that you really do start to forget that other people have such strict walls around what is and isn’t allowed for genders. i thought we all agreed that we made that up. could you climb out of the cave real quick and feel the sunshine for a minute.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

Lines of thought that seem Normal but are actually rooted in extreme puritanism:

-Seeing the nude human body is inherently traumatic -Sex scenes in art are pointless -Wearing kink-related clothing in public is the similar to performing a sex scene in front of unwilling participants -Depicting female characters expressing sexuality is always degrading -People's sexual fantasies are always an endorsement of the behavior they want to see in real life -Sex work is more traumatic and coercive than other types of work The goal is to treat sex as just another thing people do. That is a much healthier attitude than hiding it! It's not uniquely traumatic, it's not weird to talk about it or include it in society.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

April 2025 Updates

I hope you are doing well this April! I have shared my updates for this month below.

My friend shared this interesting video on how to go to hell in five of the world’s major religions with another friend and me. I enjoyed learning about the diversity between and within these belief systems.

I started a new fictional essay from the perspective of character Wendy Stoneman. I also created a Neocities site and a Wix blog that you can find on my Carrd.

Thank you for sticking around this month! Feel welcome to share any interesting videos you’ve watched or adoptee-related writing in the comments. This month, I encourage you to support the Basandja Coalition, which lifts the voices of Indigenous and local communities in the Congo Basin, and FiveforFive, a collective fund for trans women in the UK. Also, please check out AILA’s immigration advocacy resources. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

Hot take: the following things can be simultaneously true:

America has always done bad things

Trumpism is connected to the failures of Reconstruction

Trump is still a uniquely terrible figure who ushered in a uniquely destructive era in American politics

Snide remarks like “lulz, lmao, you think Trump is bad? America was ALWAYS bad” contributed to the cynicism, nihilism, and apathy which led to not enough people caring about the country to try to stop him at the ballot box

It reminds me of people being outraged when Democrats responded to something like Charlottesville with “this isn’t who we are”; yeah, obviously that’s always been part of America, but rhetoric has an impact and it both empowers white supremacists and demoralizes normies to say “yep, white supremacists represent America and everything has always sucked shit.” There are consequences to pretending all people and eras are equally bad, because then people stop taking new and dire threats seriously, and there are consequences to people believing their society is always and forever evil, because then they don't fight against those threatening to harm that society. You don't need to whitewash history to understand any of this.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

A short explanation of my layer by layer drawing of Central/Eastern Ukrainian folk attire, for anyone who might be interested.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

an important thing to remember about colonialism is that places that were colonized were not perfect utopia but often full of their own horrors and abuses

the other important thing to remember about colonialism that the above does not justify colonialism

[dancingadopteethoughts]

i walk a fine line between “i’m asexual and i hate how much the world revolves around sex” and “sex is way too stigmatized and people should be able to be more open about it if they want to”

[dancingadopteethoughts]

i think too many people operate under the assumption that emotions are some frivilous fantasy of the mind and have no impact on the physical world, which is a cute thought when Humans are an animal that can die from being kinda stressed out

[dancingadopteethoughts]

Collection

[dancingadopteethoughts]

March 2025 Updates

Hello, all! I hope you are having a good March! I have shared my updates below.

I started a new short essay from the perspective of Wendy Stoneman. Wendy is a character I based off of an imaginary friend I had when I was little.

I’m still watching history videos. Xiran Jay Zhao’s video on the first emperor of China was incredibly entertaining and Al Muqaddimah’s video on the first half of the history of Islamic civilization was very informative.

Thank you for checking out my updates! If you have any adoptee writing you would like to share or history video recs, feel free to leave a comment! For this month, I encourage you to check out and support the Darfur Women Action Group which works to support survivors of the Darfur genocide. I also encourage you to support The Sameer Project, which supports families in Gaza, and Black and Pink, an abolitionist organization in the US supporting LGBTQIAS2+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

just saw someone on Instagram say adoption isn't normal and it was gods will to make that child an orphan. What what the fuck.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?

I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we're acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it's actually meant to do.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

I'm still fucking thinking about people advocating neo-Confucian ~extended family~ as a better alternative to western nuclear family. like girl i know there's that assumption that everyone is a white yankee but have you literally never talked to anyone who grew up in a family like that?

our barbarous system where children are the property of their parents vs their glorious system where children are the property of their parents (mystical oriental)

it's like that broader thing where people try and thin down a criticism like "you mean organised religion", "white western nuclear family", "this is such a white people thing" etc to try and weasel their way out of association with an issue.

Misogyny is not a western invention lol, the way it manifests in a lot of societies is a product of certain cultural manifestations of misogyny being exported elsewhere, but the control and ownership of women is not a "white people thing" or a western thing.

the issues of the family are not limited to the anglo saxon protestant yankee middle class nuclear family, misogyny is not unique to one group of people, racism is not unique to one group of people, homophobia is not unique to one group of people, terfs are not all middle class white women, etc etc etc etc

it's just so frustrating and kills any fucking attempt to actually talk about issues because they get drowned out with people appending on specific identities as if that issue is unique to one fucking group of people and the rest of the world is sunshine and rainbows.

[dancingadopteethoughts]

jury-rigged. even keel. by the board. three sheets to the wind. loose cannon. son of a gun. pipe down. taken aback.