[ SECRET POST #3852 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3852 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.


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03. http://i.imgur.com/4sW0XLi.jpg
[Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Fargo, season 3 - linked/OP warned for nudity]


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04. [SPOILERS for Fargo]



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05. [WARNING for discussion of abortion]



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06. [WARNING for physical and psychological abuse]



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07. [WARNING for incest]



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08. [WARNING for dub con/non con]

[Jafar/Jasmine, Aladdin]












Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #551.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. [WARNING for discussion of abortion]
http://i.imgur.com/8E8qRah.png

[ibbity]

People who write pregnancy fic do it for one of two reasons:

1) because that is their fetish

2) because they want to write about the character(s) having a baby

That's why you don't see tons of abortion fic. The baby is the point (in the non-porn pregnancy fics.) People don't write abortion fic because that would defeat the purpose (and because thankfully few people have an abortion fetish.)

[(Anonymous)]

Looks like it would make great fodder for H/C tho.

[ninety6tears]

I have read one that handled it as just a realistic theme, and the character had the abortion. I mean, it took place in a canon with an episode that deals with abortion being illegal because of population concerns, so I wouldn't have considered it issue-fic either. Not everything is fetishes and iddy fluff, but yes, there's enough of that around for me to guess it's really hard to find fics that treat it that way.

[(Anonymous)]

ditto the above. baby fic is 200% about the babies. Nothing else. babies and how a baby "makes" a couple into a family. /gag

[sarillia]

I've seen it but those were mostly a side story in a longer fic with an ensemble cast.

[(Anonymous)]

I can understand that people who go through the trouble of writing a pregnancy into their story almost always do so because they want to write about a pregnancy and a baby. Not about a character having an abortion.

That said, I still COMPLETELY agree with you, OP. And as someone who doesn't view an early-term abortion as inherently more serious or distressing than any other minor medical procedure, it INFURIATES me that there are next to no stories out there that treat abortion as a neutral or positive course of action for the character.

I actually can't read the majority of pregnancy fics, because most of them have the character getting pregnant accidentally and not exactly wanting to be pregnant at first but going through with it anyway. Plus, so many fics dance around abortion, as though it's just too terrible or upsetting or taboo an option to discuss in a clear and to-the-point manner. It's a narrative I've grown to hate for its ubiquity.

In case this interests you, OP, both Bojack Horseman and Glow have episodes where a main character gets an abortion calmly and with certainty, and without appearing to feel any regret afterwards. You may not be at all interested in those shows, but I thought that just knowing about a couple of shows out there that are doing abortion storylines in this way might make you feel a little better.

[(Anonymous)]

I was just coming here to write a comment about GLOW! I was rolling my eyes preparing for the inevitable 'shoehorning the baby into the show' bit, but it never happened and I was so, so happy.

[(Anonymous)]

It's funny cause I read the first paragraph of this and hit reply to recommend Bojack Horseman, but now I see that you already recommended it haha. It's a great episode!

[(Anonymous)]

Jane the Virgin also has a main character have an abortion without regretting it.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you and wish more shows did this.

[(Anonymous)]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend also had an abortion story like those in its second season.

[(Anonymous)]

I have an additional level of rant. I encountered an author who loved the trope of where the mpreg character really, really wanted an abortion. But they couldn't because ~MaGiC~ or whatever handwaved reason. So they had to accept it and eventually come to love their baby.

[tabaqui]

*That* kind of story makes me gag.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually the one time I saw mpreg done well was when the father didn't want the babies. He was an alien sort of creature who kept the pregnancy secret and ended up smashing all of the eggs. I remember it was really well done, but it's been a few years since I read that fic.

[(Anonymous)]

I read one where Dean Winchester was pregnant after a demon rape and he aborted the fetus. He was very upset by it (which I felt was in character for him) but also thought he'd done the right thing.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, what do you expect? People aren't writing pregnancy fic for social commentary, they write it for fap material or to live out a fanciful childbearing fantasy. They have nothing to do with reality, and if that bothers you, why are you reading them? I think preg fic is stupid so I just avoid it altogether.

[(Anonymous)]

Like the first comment said, vast majority of fanfics are just wish fulfilment. Most fanfic writers (in every fandom I've been in recently) are teenagers or 20-somethings that have never been pregnant and perhaps are not very informed about abortions. When they go for angst they prefer cheating, misunderstandings, separation, or whatever other stuff they might have experienced.

Yeah, I know virgins write smut all the time despite having no experience but they are constantly exposed to it through books/tv/movies and they certainly know what being horny feels like (lmao can't think of a nicer way to say it). People just aren't similarly interested in abortion since it's only something you deal with under specific circumstances.

I admit I haven't read a bunch of hetero fanfics in awhile but even when I did I never saw abortion much... even with the angst angle. It was always just babies ever after or the result of one night stand that's meant to push them together. Ugh... to be honest I'd just rather avoid babies and all the tropes that come with them overall.

[rosehiptea]

Fictional abortion isn't all that common in the media in general, really. Though some of that is probably that they're trying to sell whatever it is and don't want to offend their audience, which is not as much of a consideration in fanfic.

I've been pregnant but pregnancy fic usually doesn't do much for me. Though I did once write a humor ficlet where a pregnant female character had the weird problems I did.

[(Anonymous)]

You don't see pregnancy fics ending in the baby being given up for adoption, either, since, like others have said, it's really all about the baby.

Alternatively, or additionally, it's about shipping and the baby bringing the couple together. You see fics where one half of a pairing is a single parent, but the other bio parent is dead, out if the picture completely, or is written as a villain so the other half of the pairing can become the awesome step parent. You don't see characters who aren't in a relationship have a functional co-parenting situation. You certainly don't see fics from the pregnant character's POV where they give the baby to the other bio parent and say "I'm not interested in a relationship with you *or* in being a parent, bye!"

It's about babies and shipping and kinks and porn

I think it is valid.

[(Anonymous)]

But like others have said, generally the baby is the point of putting the pregnancy in.

I don't think fic writers don't think abortion is a valid choice, but it is a fraught topic, in many ways. I can tell you this much, I absolutely believe there should be the right to have an abortion, but have conflicting feelings about abortion itself, as I think many do, and it's not necessarily anything I would want to explore in writing.

It's just not going to be something that happens all that often and when it does, I think most are going to be specifically writing to it.

[tabaqui]

I'm with you, Anon. I get pretty tired of abortion never being the valid choice in anything ever.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed. I will say, having written a fic with abortion, it feels very... political to write it. Like, if the purpose of pregnancy fic is kid fluff, then that's where the story goes. If it's the abortion itself, there's nowhere else to go. And if you write it into a longer fic, it's just as easy NOT to and so it can feel shoehorned in.

That said, my main fandom features a character who has been very upfront about not understanding the appeal of motherhood. She has a teenaged ward, but *she doesn't want kids*. The sheer number of "I'm pregnant, and I can't get rid of it because the father would be SAAAADDDDD/I suddenly love this baby and everything is perfect/my valid feelings are suddenly invalidated" is rage-inducing. So I, 90% out of spite, decided to write a fic to see if it was possible for the character to get to parenthood without any of that crap, and part of that journey was an accidental pregnancy that she decides to abort and neither parent ever regrets--they think about it, from time to time, but it was the right choice. So it can be done.

[(Anonymous)]

It's especially odd in the case of a world where mpreg is an anomaly. I don't think many authors are accurately exploring just how psychologically damaging and body horror-esque being a pregnant man would be (not saying women can't feel it the same, mpreg just adds another layer). Almost all fics like this I've seen have treated the pregnancy as an obligation the guys owes the world because it's never been done before.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, if mpreg is just not anatomically normal, I can't imagine most men would be fine with it and not completely horrified.