#abstinence only

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Carter Sherman at The Guardian:

Awash in soft, peach-colored light, the infant yawns, sticks her thumb in her mouth and flutters her eyes at the camera. As the camera pulls away from her, an umbilical cord and the fleshy tunnel surrounding the infant comes into focus. This isn’t a newborn baby: it’s a fetus in a disembodied womb. “This is Olivia,” a British female voice narrates. “Though she has yet to greet the outside world, she has already completed an amazing journey.” Say hello to “Meet Baby Olivia”, an animated video made by an American anti-abortion group that purports to depict humans’ embryonic and fetal development in an alleged effort to convert young people to the anti-abortion cause. The video – or something very close to it – will be required viewing for public school students in two states, with several more potentially on the way.

Last year, North Dakota became the first state in the nation to pass a law mandating that schools screen “Meet Baby Olivia” or a similar video. This year, Tennessee enacted its own “Meet Baby Olivia” law, requiring that “Meet Baby Olivia” or something like it be shown as part of schools’ sex education curriculum. So far in 2024, legislators in at least 10 other states have introduced bills that would require schools to show students “Meet Baby Olivia” or, in language that appears repeatedly throughout the bills, a similar “high-quality, computer-generated rendering or animation” that shows “every stage of human development inside the uterus, noting significant markers in cell growth and organ development for every significant marker of pregnancy until birth”. Including Tennessee’s legislation, bills in at least five of the states cite “Meet Baby Olivia” by name.

Classrooms are a burgeoning front in the post-Roe v Wade abortion wars, as conservative activists have increasingly intertwined their attacks on abortion with their distaste for sex ed that discusses alternatives to premarital abstinence. But medical professionals have accused the anti-abortion group behind “Meet Baby Olivia” of spreading propaganda and even misinformation in order to convert young people to their cause.

Seven of the 12 states where the bills have been introduced or passed ban almost all abortions. So far this year, state legislatures have considered at least 135 sex-ed bills – a record number, according to a CNN analysis. Sixty per cent of them would restrict sex ed in some way. Live Action has denied accusations that any sentence of “Meet Baby Olivia” is inaccurate. “‘Baby Olivia’ isn’t about abortion. It never says the word ‘abortion’,” said Noah Brandt, Live Action’s vice-president of communications. “‘Baby Olivia’ is an important place for states like Tennessee and North Dakota to turn to next, to continue to do work to educate on both biology and life, because they’ve already protected life so now it’s about teaching people when life begins and to respect that.”

A quiet success story

The emergence of the “Meet Baby Olivia” legislation comes at a precarious time for the anti-abortion movement. Since the overturning of Roe, support for abortion rights has mounted even in conservative states. Some Republicans have tried to downplay their opposition to the procedure or even supported efforts to protect it, in a sharp departure from decades of marching in lock step with the anti-abortion movement. But as the anti-abortion movement flounders, the “Meet Baby Olivia” bills are a quiet success story. Abortion opponents overturned Roe by spending years pushing for state-level abortion restrictions; if a restriction was successful in one state, lawmakers in other states would copy-paste its language and introduce their own versions. This strategy gnawed away access to abortion. In the “Meet Baby Olivia” bills, observers see a similar strategy at play – and evidence of mission creep.

“Anti-abortion, anti-sexual and [anti]-reproductive health movements have been focusing on other areas and expanding their scope in terms of what is relevant to them and what they’re working on,” said Kimya Forouzan, principal policy associate of state issues at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Although Guttmacher tracks restrictions on sexual and reproductive health, Forouzan said that she had never before seen legislation quite like the “Meet Baby Olivia” bills.

[...] In at least two states, West Virginia and Iowa, “Meet Baby Olivia” bills passed one legislative chamber, but both state legislatures have now shuttered for the year. Most of the legislatures that introduced “Meet Baby Olivia” bills have either ended their 2024 sessions or are set to do so in the next few weeks. Compared to the rest of the country, the states that have introduced “Meet Baby Olivia” bills this year – which also include Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina – have less comprehensive sex-ed policies, according to Siecus: Sex Ed for Social Change, a decades-old organization that issues best practice guidelines for comprehensive sex ed. (None of the states garnered more than a C grade in the Siecus ranking system.) Most states do not require public school sex ed to be medically accurate, culturally appropriate or unbiased, according to Guttmacher. Only four states say that sex ed cannot promote religion.

The Guardian reports on the disturbing trend of red states pushing new bills that require the showing of the propagandistic "Baby Olivia" video by anti-abortion extremist group Live Action in classrooms as part of the right-wing war on sex ed in schools.

[gwempire]

Today I have made a meaningless discovery. As it turns out, the man who coined the term 'Steampunk' is the same man who gave Boba Fett the "sex before marriage is immoral" belief. The more you know?

[neeshachar]

On my 100th reread of tgcf (I'm halfway through the first book) I am only now realising how much of a romantic Xie Lian is.

I thought the only line that indicated his nature was during the seaside "what matters is you, not the state of you" conversation where Xie Lian said "there were very difficult times in my life where I imagined if someone could see me like that and still love me. I still don't know if there would be anyone like that". But this is way later in the 3rd book and before that I hadn't imagined Xie Lian wanting someone to love him.

But I am now realising its outright clear from the beginning. In the first quest, Xie Lian enters the tea shop and looks out the window, noticing how beautiful the scenery was and his first thought was "this would be such a nice place for lovers' chance encounters" and immediately after that he has in own meet-cute with the butterfly.

Later, as he is led out of the bridal sedan by Hua Cheng, he is constantly thinking how great a husband Hua Cheng would be, "considerate, patient, loving" etc etc. Xie Lian enjoyed playing the bride then. He was thinking "oh it would be so nice if this were real, and this man was my husband". You cannot tell me that Hua Cheng was the only one swooning at the hand holding.

I see so many posts and edits of Hua Cheng being whipped from the start, but honestly Xie Lian was falling in love right from Mount Yujun. He knows nothing of the man but from one romantic encounter he remembers the boot bells so fondly and decides "he was soft with me. I like him". I know it's mxtx's doing and all but there is still something to be said when the story is narrated entirely in Xie Lian's head that every interaction XL has with San Lang that onwards is painted so romantically. Xie Lian is a romantic, it didn't take him long to fall hard and love Hua Cheng on purpose.

[the-witchhunter]

I still think it’s really funny to imagine some very basic knowledge the scientists forgot to include while making Kon-El

Has a high school education but doesn’t know how to tie his shoes or what gay people are because his sex Ed was from 1993 when he was introduced

[hubridbunny]

Why does no one ever seem to have a child the normal way. Why’s it always gotta be some shit like “I stole your dna and combined it with mine in a lab”

[heir-of-the-chair]

See I love Pete and Steph and they work so well together because they are the only normal people in all of Hatchetfield

[itsdefinitely]

do girl jeri and boy jerry exist explicitly to torment me

[heykesl]

LAUREN LOPEZ as MARY NIGHTMARE TIME: EPISODE 2 ABSTINENCE CAMP ( 2022 )

[exalt1ora]

i only have 2 moods: stephanie lauter and ruth fleming

[susie-dreemurr]

Btw Chasity’s dynamic with Stephanie is so funny.

Like to literally anyone else who does what Steph does, Grace would think of them as an awful sinner who deserves to burn in hell. But since it’s her “friend” Steph, Grace is like “I can fix her”

Of course, Grace is the unhinged one and Steph is normal-ish. But this would still be her train of thought.

[overly-verbose]

I'm just thinking that Uraume is a great cook, but the real masterpieces are made up of people. I understand that Sukuna will be a little uncomfortable eating people's kebabs (that usually scares teenagers, you know). BUT. The moral mobility of His Evil Majesty's mentality simply says to me: Find the enemy, and the big guy will finally get a nice meal. He worked so hard, he deserves dinner. ("Fu_k, Marry, Eat" game. Start). SO. ONE DAY. People tempura — yes or no? How much Curse is in our King?

Uraume is indeed a great cook, ridiculously even lol

- I mean afaik it's canon that, whilst human meat is supposedly difficult to prepare well, they managed to do it; which is one of the main reasons why Sukuna kept them around aside from the fact that they're a powerful sorcerer lol

(he most probably liked the unaltered taste by itself too (he did in my Series Canon for sure), but Uraume made it additionally enjoyable - so for Mr. I Do What I Want it was definitely a unique plus lol)

As for SIkuna eating people, hmm

Although he's pretty deeply in denial about it, he doesn't actually directly feel anything negative at the prospect

(as showed in Part 4, he actually found the little taste of Yuji's blood he got by accident ridiculously enjoyable, if in terms of Identity Issues and 'Ah Shit That's The Kid's Blood' extremely distressing as well. What a fun combination)

- it's Everything Else around it that makes him uneasy; like the fact that he Knows It's Wrong, The Kids Would Most Freaking Likely Not Like it, and just overall the Character Dissonance he feels about it all

because how the fuck can he be a protective inner marshmallow that would just like to hug the kids, and give them headpats, and heal their wounds, and just overall take care of them as best as he can 🥺

and someone that gets absolutely freaking giddy at the idea and acts of violence and bloodshed (as long as it doesn't involve Some People but especially if it involves Other Ones) at the same time y'know?

(sorry bro, you're not gonna get any less contradictory anytime soon if ever - have fun being yourself, whatever that means, lol

Complex characterisation and all that ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ)

But returning to the topic; I won't say anything about further down the timeline

(he might, he might not, who knows, probably not in a way that would upset the kids too much if anything but ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯)

but there is this one particular, hm, person that would fit all boxes in terms of being a mostly guiltless but still tasty snack, though not as tasty as possible, who miight be meeting him relatively soon (how??)

- and SIkuna wouldn't even need to break any promises with Yuji (oop spoiler 👀) to indeed have a spooky snack!

So, before anything as sophisticated as tempura - there may be moreso sashimi :] *HeeHee HoHo's a bit as lighting strikes in the background and I comically jump in surprise because wtf the sky's clear-????*

.

[mumblesplash]

anyone on here ever figure out how to dress for a summer wedding when you’re nonbinary and can’t stand suits or dresses or jumpsuits or button-down shirts and all you ever voluntarily wear are black joggers + polyester blend athletic shirts in colors ranging from navy blue to gunmetal

[lilacthebooklover]

part of the reason why i find nightmare time episodes so interesting is because in half of them, i'm not even sure who the writers want me to root for.

take honey queen, for example. linda's the focus of it and we see her emotions, motivations & family, so it's expected that she would be the "hero" of the episode. but she isn't. the episode consists of her doing horrible things to zoey, zoey doing horrible things to her, and it gradually escalating to the point of kidnapping and murder. it's due to linda that zoey dies. and she gets what she wants, what the whole episode has been about her vying to achieve, but we as viewers don't feel satisfied, because how can all that's happened possibly be worth such a tiny, temporary, meaningless title? linda's father seems to be proud of her, which is what she's been hoping to gain and added an extra element of sympathy for her character. but in the end, he sacrifices her to an eldritch being because she "the hungriest". honey queen is tragic and comedic and messed up and chaotic and there are The Horrors and nobody is distinctly good.

and that stays the same in every nightmare time episode. so many of these characters wouldn't care a bit if they killed someone, as long as they were able to survive. but that's just hatchetfield. a strange community of selfish people with no clear morals, because that's all they know and that's all they can be if they want to survive. they have a magic child fighting ring, they have evil weed birds, they have clones in the technical department, they have an asexual axe murderer in the woods, they have a wealthy doting mother who's been alive for centuries, they have a 1986 foxbody mustang possessed by a dead psychiatrist, so on and so forth.

the whole hatchetfield universe is so surreal: this is a place where people go missing every day, where gruesome murders are dismissed unless it threatens their football team losing to the clivesdale chemists, where a character can do the most horrendous things or seem absolutely irredeemable, only for the narrative to put them through so much that the audience ends up loving them.

each character is so complex and unique (i could write an essay about literally any of them if i tried to- and yet that includes peanuts the hatchetfield pocket squirrel). none of them are meant to be all good, and none of them are meant to be all bad. they're realistic to their environment and screwed over by their universe and they all have their own lives to focus on.

the vast majority of the antagonistic characters are very beloved in this fandom, because this is hatchetfield, where the most horrifying things are normalised in-universe, so they begin to be for us, too. we don't think it's as awful when we see zoey's body hanging from the rafters, or watch boy jeri be killed by his own son, or see eldritch beings hunt people down, since that's all seen as far more normal in this world. besides that, people like to have flawed characters, it's good to have little fictional freaks committing atrocities since it means the episodes are completely unpredictable.

every volume of nightmare time is a rollercoaster or a fever dream, because they'll take the most unexpected characters and the most random concepts ever and throw them into a completely absurd plot. so many modern pieces of media follow a specific genre or structure, but the hatchetfield universe does whatever the hell it wants, and it's so investing to see. there aren't any limits here, and each episode is a separate timeline, so the creators can go wild and do literally anything with this town. it's like a treasured collection of cracky aus that have been written and performed astonishingly beautifully.

anyway, this is your sign to go check out nightmare time and @blinkysrewatchparty! it will be entirely worth it, i promise <3

[the-writer-nerd-ro]

It's crazy that being attracted to Grace Chastity has gotten three guys killed

[unmerrymagdalene]

“Sydney takes your arm as you walk. ‘Let me know if that ever bothers you. I... I kind of just grab onto people that I like.’” -Event that can happen when walking along the beach with Sydney.

oh my GOD I CAN'T TAKE IT-

It's a very sweet piece of dialogue but also. Sydney. The person who grew up in the Temple, where they deeply frown at certain types of touching. Who keeps everyone at arms length. Seemingly forever alone and isolated. Begging to be touched-

[i-saw-your-chanel-boots]

"the beloved, fan favourite nightmare time episode jane's a car" makes me wonder