Oh I see, Nadeshiko's magic is forcing her to be a nadeshiko. As in an ideal feminine. Which yes would rather push her towards having 12 kids.
Didn't quite make that connection before. Which raises the question of would papa still be attracted to mama if he was herself. Man that sucks as a delima.
Fucking what.
Excuse me?
There isn't any nefarious brainwashing that is
forcing Nadeshiko to want lots of kids. Nadeshiko wants lots of kids
because she likes the idea of having kids.
Nadeshiko is super-femme
because she's super-femme. The social roles that appeal to her, the social roles she
aspires to, are ones that are traditionally feminine-coded, like "caretaker," or "mother."
Nadeshiko is attracted to Tomoyo
for the same reasons anyone is attracted to anyone - and I point out that in the CQ-timeline, where Nadeshiko doesn't have any magic, she's still married to Tomoyo and has 1+ daughters.
Nadeshiko's magic isn't forcing her to be someone she's not; it's forcing her to be someone she
is. She's deep in denial and self-doubt - deeper, I suspect, than most cis people have ever been; I know that literally no other bout of denial I've ever had has come
anywhere close to the state of denial I was in about being a girl. She needs her magic to force her to
be herself, because she can't manage that on her own.
The excuses, the fear, the prevarication, the reflexive denials and distancing: all of those are things Nadeshiko has been using to protect herself - because being trans, admitting
even to yourself that you're trans, is
terrifying and
painful and
genuinely dangerous, and denial keeps you
safe. Miserable, but safe.
Society. Fucking. Hates. Trans women. Society will hurt trans women if it can. Society will
kill trans women if it can. And so, if you never admit - even to yourself - to being a trans woman, society can't hurt you for that. You're safe, because you've fucking torn out your own heart and locked it away in a box where no one can touch it. You wear a mask that looks like what society expects from you, and you pretend even to yourself that it's your face.
And you're safe. You're fucking
dying from how you've torn yourself up inside, you've broken your own heart and lost sight of your own fucking soul - but hey, society can't hurt you.
There's a reason trans people are massively prone to suicide.
Tomoyo's magic gave Nadeshiko a body she could bear to inhabit. Nadeshiko's magic cuts through all the obstacles - the anxiety, the denial, the fear, and on and on
and on - that she's put in her own way to prevent her from going out and being who she wants to be.
And you know what?
Even with two fucking miracles in play - two miracles Nadeshiko received for the price of none, two wishes that she didn't have to sell her soul for - it's
still hard for her to come out, even to herself.
That's how badly the world screws trans women up.
You also don't get to do things like ride skateboards, swear, raise your voice, wear pants, or other unladylike things like that.
"Damn you, Tomoyo!" you cry out. "Damn you, you beautiful idiot! If it was just the magic talking, it wouldn't be this hard!"
The
moment Nadeshiko admits to herself that she's a girl, the compulsions break. Because that's what they're there for. She's compelling
herself to push through the fear and confusion and hurt that would otherwise stop her.
If only we could see that conversation with Yukari and know for sure!
- Swap Hitomi back into the past
- use ribbon on Yukari Hitomi to recall this specific conversation
Sending Hitomi back to catch that specific conversation is an awful idea - the ribbon
swaps people, which would mean that when Yukari went
back, she'd have no idea what had just happened; and also I don't think that there's any good reason to go to our sister and say "hey! Want to go back to the past just in time for your Papa to viciously insult you and say that you don't deserve to live?".
Also, I think we can reconstruct much of what Nadeshiko said to Yukari just from what we already have, and I'd be willing to do that once I've calmed down and don't want to fucking throw things out my window.
I really need a list of what the hell kind of problems we're facing and what we think we ought to do about them, sorted by how important each problem is.
... That might actually help. I think tomoyo might be the only one who has a clue of all the problems at this point though.
I just keep track of the soul/Grief/multiverse-collapse problems myself.
Yeah, I pretty much stick to interpersonal issues myself. Maybe if we each do a list for the things we've been covering? I'll see if I can get to that in the next couple days.
Again, right now I just want to scream at people and that's not a productive state of mind.
