Moral Education
*chanting* OT3 OT3 OT3!
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Mal's teeth are sharp when she grins. “The beast king locked all the royal children up in his castle, just as he’d been locked up and abandoned by his own people. It’s to teach us all a lesson. So we can learn the power of isolation, or something. I don’t know what moral lessons your father is trying to impart. I’m not from here.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“School.”
“Do you–” Ben starts, and then just stops for a moment, with his mouth open and his jaw working like he’s trying to digest the fact that the villains have more accurate information about his father than he’d reckoned for. “Did you have a source for that? One I could read, maybe?”
Mal scoffs. “Like I’d ever steal a textbook. That’s school property. I’m a beacon of goodness and moral integrity for these trying times, and I’d never steal textbooks from a blessed institution of learning.”
Ben levels an incredulous sort of look at her. “Really.”
“Really. I didn’t steal anything–” anything of value, Mal adds to herself. “From Dragon Hall.”
“Because there wasn’t anything to steal.” Evie adds unhelpfully. “And you didn’t attend very often.”
“I had better things to do.”
“Liar.”
Mal rolls her eyes. She attended school enough of the time. Like, at least half of the days that they were allegedly supposed to attend. She showed up just often enough to keep all the little villains in line, and to get the free food that some particularly enterprising adult got for the cafeteria. “Whatever. The point is, we know that your father donated his old castle to keep the royal children all locked up in one place, and that’s why we’re not allowed to leave. The king wants us all contained so we can be just like him.”
Ben’s face folds up into a frown. His eyebrows do this cute crinkly thing when he’s confused that makes Mal sort of want to kiss the point in the middle of them, right where his head goes all wrinkly. Like a weird, sexy old man. “That’s not true. We’re allowed to leave on the weekends.”
“You’re allowed to leave,” Evie chimes in. “We’re not. Only the Auradon kids who have parental permission can go into town. I asked Fairy Godmother, and she said that we don’t have signed permission slips from our parents, so she can’t bend the rules and let us out, even though we could just send the permission slips over to the Isle of the Lost for them to sign.”
“Like my mother would ever sign something to make our lives better.”
“My mom would forge her signature for you,” Evie says sweetly. Ben’s eyebrows are reaching a new level of distress, but that’s not their problem. “She knows how. It’s something you learn, when you’re cohabitating with someone. Which our mothers are doing. Because they’re fu–”
“OKAY, OKAY, OKAY.”
“Fucking,” Evie finishes, flashing an absolutely wicked grin. “They’re fucking. Because that’s just the headache we needed. Our mothers having a forbidden isle romance, after we already claimed that story.”
“I’m going to end our romance if you don’t stop talking about my mom’s sex life,” Mal grumbles. She’s watched a lot of shitty, awful things happen on the Isle of the Lost, but her mother’s romance with the Evil Queen has been one of the most disgusting. “They’re like watching a pair of goblins try to catch a fish.”
“Disgusting and wrinkly,” Evie agrees. “And something that feels illegal. In the boring, gross way. Not the fun way.”
“I’ll show you the fun way.” Mal shoots back. Her mouth just runs on autopilot sometimes, without any actual input from her brain. It’s sort of a problem. “In bed. You wanna get up to some indecent exposure together, princess?”
Evie’s mouth is so red and sweet, and Mal is well aware that it’s lip gloss, but she still wants to lick the shine off of Evie’s perfect smile when she turns it on like this.
“I think that should wait til later, M. We have a guest right now,” Evie says sweetly. “Ben?”
Right. They have his royal highness over.
“I’m–yeah,” Ben squeaks. He’s so cute when he’s flustered. “I mean, sorry. I didn’t know that Fairy Godmother wasn’t letting you four leave on the weekends. I mean, I knew that you weren’t going anywhere, but you’re always so busy, Evie, and I just figured that you were staying on campus to get everything done, because that’s what I have to do, and– uh, I can talk to her. About it. If that would help.”
So sweet.
“That would be great, babe,” Evie coos. “You’re the best.”
Ben ducks his head into his smile. It doesn’t make sense for the crown prince to be shy, but Mal’s maybe, possibly been keeping track of when they can coax a real smile out of him, and nine times out of ten, when they get his real smile instead of his public one, he ducks his head to hide it.
It’s cute, in a sad sort of way. It’s one thing for Mal to watch Evie, and Jay, and Carlos hide their real smiles, because they’ve grown up hiding their emotions from everyone but each other, but Ben’s supposed to be the well-adjusted one. He’s supposed to be Auradon’s perfect prince. The boy wonder who always has a kind word for everyone. Their future leader, equipped with a strong arm and a kind heart and a level head. It’s sort of distressing to think that he’s been taught to hide his emotions just the same as they have, so Mal buries the feelings for now, and keeps watching and waiting instead.
“The best,” Mal echoes. “Best boyfriend ever.”
Ben’s eyes flicker up to meet hers. Gods below, but she has got to stop falling for this boy every time he smiles at her. It’s not fair to the others. She’s got a limited number of butterflies that her stomach can produce, and they all seem connected to the way Ben’s smile makes his eyes crinkle up at the edges. It’s even worse when he’s all sunlight and golden like this. She’s going to have to have Evie make blackout curtains for their room, because it’s just not fair to keep bathing Ben in golden afternoon light. He’ll get some sort of complex.
“Thanks,” Ben says, voice round and soft around the word. It fits naturally into his mouth just like it doesn’t in Mal’s own. “I’ll do what I can. There’s nothing I can do about official school policy, but I’m pretty sure there’s a loophole about students whose parents don’t have custody that we can exploit to get you four off campus. I’d wondered a bit why you never took us up on visiting the ice-cream place.”
“Maybe we hate ice cream.”
“I’d believe that.” Ben says seriously. “I would. That was a good delivery. But I know you, Mal, and I know that you’d never turn down an offer of mint chip.”
Ugh. Unbearable. The butterflies aren’t going away.
“ANYWAY,” Mal says, spinning away from her boyfriend and his stupid golden eyelashes. “As I was saying, I’d never steal from Dragon Hall, because I am a beacon of moral purity now, and stealing is wrong.”
“And because you didn’t go to class,” Ben agrees, with just a hint of a laugh in his voice. “Or so Evie says.”
“Evie’s a liar and a cheat.”
“And she’s right here, Malfeasance Bertha, so if you want any help with your remedial goodness homework later, you’d better watch your mouth.”
Her girlfriend is the worst.
“Anyway,” Mal says again, turning so she can face both of her beautiful, perfect nerds at once. “We were taught that king beast locked up the royal kids in his former castle so he could keep control of them. And for moral lessons, or whatever it is you good folks tell your kids to keep them compliant. And then we got here, and we’ve been stuck on the castle grounds since then, soooo.”
“So your logical conclusion was that your teachers were right, and my dad locks us up here,” Ben says, nodding. “Okay. I see it now. Do you want to know the real truth, or would you rather bring it up to Fairy Godmother when we ask her to let you off campus?”
“I want the truth.” Evie breaks in. “Please. I spent enough time locked in a castle back on the isle, so if there’s another way of living, I want to know about it.”
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Ok, am I crazy for thinking a feminist church might be cool?
The purpose would be to enshrine feminist ideology as a protected religious belief, legally. In everyday practice, it would give feminists a local group that can meet to discuss feminist theory and action and a group that can make meaningful differences in their community.
For example, they could raise funds that could be used to help local women with bail, housing, food, medicine, or escaping an abusive man. They could also work together to protect women’s shelters, make abortion accessible, and raise supplies for homeless shelters or food banks.
I know there are a lot of great groups out there that do all of those great things. I also know feminism isn’t actually a religion. This would be a loophole to protect feminists, like how west borough baptist is still around despite being patently bigoted, they wouldn’t be able to come after women for being gender critical because it is protect by freedom of religion.
Also, if you know a nation group that does the above, lmk. I know of some groups that require dues, which I respect but can’t afford right now and I want this kind of community to be more accessible.
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All at once now ladies "But this never happens"
By Natasha Biase March 22, 2024
Spain’s Minister of Family, Youth, and Social Affairs in Madrid is raising alarm bells after locating multiple cases in which men convicted of domestic violence changed their legal gender identity. In a letter issued to the Minister of Equality, Ana Dávila-Ponce de León Municio detailed her concerns that the safety of female victims of violence was at risk due to Spain’s “progressive” approach towards gender identity.
In her letter, issued March 18, Minister Dávila-Ponce de León noted that she had become aware of six cases in the autonomous region of Madrid where men charged with violence against women had changed their legal gender identity — a process that was streamlined and made significantly easier following the enactment of Spain’s “Trans Law” in 2023.
In addition to updating their registered sex, three of the men made requests to stay in women’s shelters with the wives and children who had been escaping from them. So far, concerned staff at the shelters have blocked their access but may be violating the nation’s gender discrimination laws as a result.
The letter sent by Minister Dávila-Ponce de León to Minister Redondo Garcia.
But perhaps most disturbingly, an abuser changing his legal sex has a tremendous impact on the resources the victims are able to access. In one of the cases recently highlighted by El Mundo, a female victim of sexual assault was stripped of the special protection provided for victims of physical and sexual abuse because officials told her that her aggressor, who drugged and raped her in front of her young daughter, “was no longer registered as a man, but as a woman.”
In Spain, special gender-based violence charges exist, providing female victims of male violence specific protections and resolutions which can impact divorce or separation proceedings, custody, and other important factors. Victims of gender-based violence can also access special protections intended to ensure they are safe from their male abuser.
Because a female cannot be convicted of gender-based violence, male abusers who change their legal sex can avoid this charge and deny their female victims of those legal protections.
As previously reported by Reduxx, a man in Spain who abused his female partner for opposing his gender transition avoided charges of gender-based violence by legally changing his identification to “female” and adopting a woman’s name. As a result, his victim was unable to obtain a specific protection order for intimate partner violence which would typically result in the male abuser being removed from the home to minimize the financial impact to the woman at a time where they are most vulnerable.
Despite only one year passing since the Trans Law was enacted by Spanish parliament, making it easier for people to “self-identify” their gender on their legal documents, several cases have emerged involving men using the law to receive financial, social, or legal benefits. The phenomenon is now being referred to as “trans fraud.”
Earlier this month, Reduxx reported that dozens of male civil servants in one small Spanish community changed their gender identity reportedly just to get benefits allocated for females. Among them was Roberto Perdigones, a 35-year-old Army corporal, who boasted of changing his legal sex to “female” after deciding he identified as an “intersex bigender” person.
From that moment on, he began to enjoy the benefits: the day he got his new ID card, he showed up at the barracks with earrings, long hair and a beard, now able to disregard mandatory dress code regulations without repercussions.
But the benefits are not limited to aesthetic issues, with Perdigones also now qualifying for a mother’s pension as he is a “woman” with a child.
“By changing my sex, as I have been informed, my pension has gone up. Because women receive more in retirement pensions to compensate for the inequality. In addition, I get 15% more because I have a child,” he boasted.
“I even have a private room in the barracks, all to myself, with a private bathroom. Because, being a woman, I can’t be with the men, and I didn’t consider it appropriate to be with the biological women out of respect for them. I’ve had the room to myself since the sex change.”
Perdigones also intends to seek a promotion and will be utilizing the so-called “affirmative action measures” designed to increase female presence in the Armed Forces command.
As Perdigones is approaching the mandatory age of retirement for temporary soldiers, obtaining a permanent position would be beneficial for him. Perdigones will be applying as a “woman,” since the physical tests are less demanding and because certain positions are seeking more female representation.
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Canon divergence/AU with pregnant Izzy
Izzy gets pregnant with Meliorn's child (they used protection, but nothing is a 100% secure).
The Clave gets wind of this and demands she aborts.
Izzy refuses, which has the Clave threaten de-runement, as they refuse to employ a shadowhunter with a tainted child.
Knowing that going through deruning while pregnant would place Izzy and her baby at serious risk, Alec and Jace (after failing to get the Clave to repeal the order), go on the run with her.
They try Meliorn first, hoping to have Izzy safe in the seelie realm.
But while the queen doesn't care about her subjects' dalliances with other species, she will not shelter a shadowhunter in her realm.
Meliorn, no matter his feelings for Izzy and his child, is loyal only to his queen.
He does give them the advice to seek out Ragnor Fell, the High Warlock of London, because the warlock once hid himself from the Clave's awareness for almost two centuries.
So if anyone can help them stay hidden until at least Izzy's baby is safely delivered, it's him.
When they find Ragnor, it just so happens that his best friend, Magnus Bane, is visiting.
From there on, stuff (and romance) ensues.
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