#I don’t want to dox where I work so that’s about as far as I can go into it but it’s seriously the most disproportionate penalty imaginable

[inga-don-studio]

Work has given me the opportunity to be fired for the funniest/stupidest reason I’ve heard of in a long time (like completely disproportionate to the forbidden deed) and I’m so tempted.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

My (31 F) friend (late 20s M) is from another state and I live in a city where a big event is happening this week. Some people might be able to guess what I’m referring to, but for the sake of not totally doxxing myself, I will be vague about it. Friend will be called Tim.

Tim is a very good friend who I met in an online D&D group a few years ago. We hit it off right away and have been consistently hanging out on a weekly basis via various online TTRPG hangouts.

Being the elder Internet user that I am, this is not my first time around the block; I have met online friends IRL in my adulthood (with the utmost caution and responsibility, mind you), Tim being far from the first.

Tim’s had it on his bucket list to visit my city and come to this big event for a while, so invited him down to participate. In doing so, I established a couple things: 1) I don’t have the capacity to have someone stay at our house for extended periods of time for multiple reasons (although I did offer him a place to stay for 1 or 2 nights); and 2) I don’t have the capacity to entertain 24/7. I had an experience with a friend who came to visit a couple years back that wasn’t disastrous by any stretch of the imagination, but it did make me realize that I couldn’t offer too much of my time and also keep my house and social energy in check. I tried to be as open and negotiable about this as possible. Tim sympathized and agreed.

I took time off work to hang out with Tim while he’s in town. Tim, my partner (32 M), and I hung out from dinner till past midnight on Wednesday. Tim excused himself from our party as he was tired from his flight. Tim and I hung out from lunch till 11 PM on Thursday. Today (Friday) Tim and I did lunch again, hung out, and got matching tattoos to celebrate our D&D characters, and grabbed dinner. It’s been a great time thus far, and my friend group has taken to him very quickly.

At some point today I explained that because we didn’t have any solid plans for Saturday, I would appreciate the free time to clean up around the house, spend some time with my partner, and generally relax as we already have a full day planned out for Sunday. Tim agreed. We parted ways for the night.

It is still today (Friday). Post-dinner and getting back to my house, Tim calls me and tells me at length that he feels neglected and shoved aside because I don’t want to make plans with him tomorrow. I apologized and we worked through the conversation. He seems to be feeling better now, but I’m having second thoughts about conceding that I was the one at fault here. I think his feelings are valid, but maybe narrow in scope? My partner thinks I’ve been more than accommodating, but I feel bad considering I’m his only friend in a strange new city.

TL;DR: I feel like I’ve hung out a lot with my friend, but he feels I’ve neglected him by not making plans with him tomorrow. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[sai-lec]

it’s almost the 8th so happy international women’s day to the major resurgence of absolute sexism and misogyny that the recent situation with christian horner has brought to the female fans and employees of f1 .

regardless of where you stand on the sketchy af handlings of the horner issues the potential of a false claim from a female employee has provided an excuse for male fans to harass and degrade female fans expressing their discomfort with the situation and the treatment of the women involved- particularly in the doxxing and bullying of the woman who initially submitted the claim before the investigation had even ended. Women across tumblr, twitter, tiktok and all have been pushed into retracting their feelings, deleting their posts and videos on the situation from the sheer scale of hate and harassment at the hands of misogynistic fans because ‘allegations ruins men’s lives’. Completely ignorant are they to the fact that they are active participants in the ruining of a potential victims life by exposing and sharing her personal details, and continuing create environments where women are unable to speak about their experiences with sexual harassment and assault .

Ignorant are they to the fact that they are maintaining patriarchal standards that they claim are non existent to ensure that women understand their issues are not important . the 2% chance that an allegation is false is by far the greater are more believable problem than a woman experiencing sexual misconduct at the hands of her employer . not to mention that the majority of sexual assault and rape cases do not revive a sentencing . that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen or that the victim lied. just that the board saw the evidence as inconclusive or not enough to support prosecution . sa and rape have the lowest prosecution rates of violent crimes . also quickly a reminder he was never cleared. huge complaint was dismissed. the word innocent was never used and the lack of transparency on the investigation doesn’t tell us anything of his innocence .

the responses from drivers again go on to validate misogynistic men’s feelings by labelling the potential sexual misconduct of a team principle as ‘noise and distractions’ or that it doesn’t matter to them . it’s irrelevant. and yes i understand that they mean they don’t want to comment on the situation because of its personal nature but that’s not what they’re saying . by trivialising matters of sexual misconduct as mere chatter and sympathising with a potential abuser it’s speaking to your female fans that you are not an advocate for their safety . it says they don’t take sexual harassment seriously .

what they could have said was ‘the matter is not something i’m personally involved in so i can’t provide insight or comment other than my hopes for it to be resolved quickly and fairly with full transparency’ . instead their responses directly downplayed the situation at hand, ignorantly dismissing the weight of the situation its its affect on women across formula 1 by essentially saying ‘who cares’ and provide pathway for misogynistic fans to follow suit .

formula 1 is a sport which in recent years has leaned into welcoming women into the sport, and this is seen by the rotated dynamic of women in f1 from ‘something good to look at before the race’ as comments regarding the grid girls would have it to a grid of 16 cars fully backed by all f1 teams for women to compete in their own formula racing series . this has welcomed a lot more women into the space. however, it cannot force attitudes to change . the only way we will see real change in f1 is to encourage personal growth for both fans and employees wether they be drivers, mechanics whoever . the work needs to be done to truly welcome women into the space that is currently occupied by them in motorsport . and they can start by taking us seriously .

[ivy-meshle]

Okay I said on Tuesday in the tags I might talk about plurality n stuff wrt myself. Right now this is more stream of consciousness than anything polished, and idk if I’m going to be up to talking about it with people for a few days.

This is gonna get pretty long so I'm putting it under the cut:

(FWIW, I'm mainly using 'I' here, but that's because I've spent so long trying to make sure I keep plurality stuff off of this blog it feels weird to write 'we').

I think it was... fuck, six or seven years ago now? that I first learned what plurality even was, then another year and a half where I just kept thinking about it for weeks on end before I started to maybe consider that the reason I couldn't stop thinking about it was maybe the same reason I couldn't stop thinking about transness after I'd learned about that.

Even now, I'm still hesitant to claim plurality. It feels like a step too far- like I’m overstating things. I don't feel like one person, but I don't know that I feel like more than one, either. Certainly I don't have clear boundaries between one self and another. It’s more akin to distinct patterns of thoughts and behaviors that I feel like I snap between. Neural pathways that open and close.

There is one consistent pattern I've noticed though: when I'm in a period of stress, those distinctions become a lot clearer, and they tend to stay clearer than they were before even after I can unwind. Which is part of why I'm feeling more comfortable talking about plurality now; I know I'm going to be more people, more clearly, in the next four years.

The other major reason is that I want to not feel doubt every time I talk about us, that I'm just deluding myself. And that means that I need to get more used to talking about us.

So, uh, introductions, I guess? I've opted not to introduce characters (fictives(?)), since they tend to come and go more frequently- usually as I write about them. I think it's something about trying to get into their perspective that creates some of the same sort of neural pathways. If they stick around for longer than three months after I stop writing about them, I'll introduce them then. The sole exception here is Nensa, who meets that requirement.

For now: Hunter, 'me', host(?). He/it. Mostly responsible for getting people and things to where they need to be to work. Emotional regulation and planning type things.

Asher. He/ey. Math/physics nerd, problem solver. He handles the homework :Þ

Nensa. They/she. Minecraft Warden hybrid, stoic, helps with handling sensory overload mainly.

Miranda. She/her. Customer service voice social butterfly. When I need to talk to people at the bank or on the phone, she’s the one who takes the wheel.

Blake. He/him. Punk aesthetics and paranoia. He’s the one who keeps us from doxxing myself every other day, but also he keeps us from opening up to people. It’s a balancing act. (He’s very resistant to posting this.)

Dakota. She/her. Probably the first distinct self I identified; basically the face of my RSD. Very sensitive, cries frequently.

Ulyssa. She/it/void. Goth and angry and rude. It formed semi-on-purpose when Hunter decided to treat the negative self talk while I was spiraling like it was a person he could talk to and well. Now she is! Hunter tries to keep it and Dakota separate as much as possible.

Qwerty. It/she/he. Online persona, kinda? It only shows up when we’re on the internet. He’s more in tune with the social norms of the web than the rest of us are.

Anyways. Yeah. IDK. Life is weird and brains are weirder and I don’t necessarily think of myself as a system, but I would count myself as plural. That’s about the long and short of it.

Feels like I ought to say more, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m going to schedule this for, like, 9am my time so that I don’t have to actually hit that post button myself (scary). I also probably won’t be up for talking about this with other people (sorry mutuals!) for at least a few days. Thanks for listening.

( @ivy-meshle so I can rb this in the future )

[awkward-clone]

Ok think I’ve finally got my thoughts together on the bright situation and im just gonna say it.

Its not gonna work.

It basically is just slapping on a new name on dr bright and calling it a day. Like. No matter what u do its the same character, it does nothing. Djkaktus said it himself that he was “always writing elias shaw.” That “any similarities are just a coincidence.”

So its funny seeing some of the ppl thats on board with this claim that “u cant separate the art from the artist” and yet that’s exactly what they're trying to achieve. Except, u know, the community had already done that a long time ago, ripping bright out of the hands of admin bright. So really, no change is actually being made.

Anyway with that out of the way I do want to address some concerns about djkaktus.

I’ve been looking around and have seen people mentioning that the dude:

1. Was quiet about the admin bright thing when it was happening along with actually being one of the people trying to cover it up

2. Had been banning people simply cuz they didn’t like his works

3. he’s an alleged predator

Now I havent personally found much relating to this other than people's words on it on tumblr. Tho someone on insta has told me that djkaktus was extremely quiet during the bright situation. Which yea it took an entire year after admin bright was banned to only now bring up this elias shaw bs.

Now if anyone has sources on any of this, links, screenshots, anything, it’d be a great help if ya can send it to me via replying to this post or dm-ing me. It would better help spread this awareness around.

Also regarding articles that had brights name replaced w/ SA jokes that haven’t been edited out which is something else that also has been mentioned to me, would appreciate it to get more scps/tales listed regarding that. Only got 4498 so far which has a really bad um…”butt stabbing” joke...I mostly did skim read it so I’ll have a proper read at some point.

Tldr:

- Elias Shaw is pointless and does nothing.

- People who are saying u can't separate art from artists are tryna separate bright from author.

- Djkaktus was quiet during the admin bright situation and potentially was tryna cover it up, has been banning ppl for not liking his stuff, is an alleged predator and hasnt edited out sa jokes in articles where he changed bright’s name.

Correct me if I’m wrong on anything or anything like that.

Edit: reminder to take the djkaktus stuff as a grain of salt (especially the predator allegations) as it did come from pixelated harmony who did in fact doxxed someone

Source:

Still I stand by that he was quiet about admin bright though and of course I still don’t believe the elias shaw thing is gonna work

edit edit edit: things are messy. u can look in the comments for more info I don't rlly know what to say beyond this point.

[shrimpmandan]

don’t answer if ur not comfortable but how do u differentiate truly having a harmful paraphilia from intrusive thoughts abt it? im someone who has intrusive thoughts abt 2 out of the big 3 as well as other sexual things that can’t be done morally and i often stress that that means i am a paraphile (ik that’s a broad term but i don’t like specifying which ones yknow).

to my understanding, non offending big 3 paraphiles experience with their attraction seems similar to intrusive thoughts because they cause distress and such, so i guess im wondering abt where the distinction lies? i also find the psychological aspects of sex and sexuality interesting in their own right so beyond my own concern i’d be interested to learn cuz it’s just really fascinating

thanks dude!! :)

No worries at all anon! This is a HUGE SpIn of mine and I'm always happy to provide any perspective, even if I'm not a professional and all that.

The biggest distinguishing factor between an intrusive thought and a regular thought is if it's voluntary, and if the thought is welcomed or wanted. Intrusive thoughts are out of your control and often incite feelings of revulsion, disgust, discomfort, fear, anxiety, or rejection. They are thoughts that you want OUT of your brain as soon as possible. When you talk about paraphilias, the waters can muddy a little.

Paraphilias do not necessitate that the thoughts are unwanted. This may be true of paraphilic disorders, wherein the patient experiences clinically significant distress over their paraphilia (this doesn't necessarily refer to one of the big three!), but it's not inherent. A lot of paraphilic fantasy rejection can come from internalized shame due to outside social stigma and personal morality... but so can intrusive thoughts. There's no clear cut distinction between the two due to how much influence society has over our thoughts and how we respond to them, HOWEVER, you may want to consider looking into something like POCD.

POCD, while not an officially recognized diagnosis, is a subset of OCD that specifically centers around pedophilia. There exists also ZOCD (zoophilia OCD) and NOCD (necrophilia OCD), however POCD is by far the most well-researched out of these. POCD involves obsessive and/or compulsive behaviors regarding proving or disproving if one is a pedophile, such as through intentionally exposing themselves to distressing imagery on purpose or engaging with intrusive thoughts related to children. More often than not, people with POCD don't end up having any paraphilic attractions at all-- they are worried about the concept of being a pedophile and if they'll enact tangible harm, not grappling with actual attraction.

I've struggled with POCD for some time now, but I'm fairly confident in that I don't have any attraction to IRL children. The extent to which I'll engage with my thoughts is in fiction, and even then, it's more of a curiosity as opposed to something that's a consistent turn-on-- which is in direct contrast to my other paraphilias which are much stronger and carry with them less internalized shame, and more externalized fear over being harassed, abandoned, and/or doxxed. I don't experience fear over IF I'll offend, because I'm confident that I won't under my own circumstances. But this is something that can vary from person to person.

Some potentially helpful further reading:

r/OCD also may be potentially helpful! Plenty of people on there have talked about experiencing zoophilic, necrophilic, or pedophilic OCD. Just type one of those words into the search bar and you'll probably find someone who's going through the same thing.

[twh-news]

Loki Season 2 Episode 2 Review: Wolfe Among Us

This review contains spoilers for episode 2

★★★★☆

In the second episode of Loki season two, Loki and Mobius try to track down Sylvie.

Loki and Mobius hit the darkened streets of the Sacred Timeline in episode two of Marvel’s Loki, as they attempt to track down Sylvie by tracing the movements of a TVA deserter.

X-5 (rapper and Blindspotting star Rafael Casal) has made quite the life for himself on Earth in the 1970s as Hollywood A-lister Brad Wolfe, and it’s one that he really doesn’t want to give up, so Mobius and Loki have to give chase like proper magic time cops at the premiere of his new movie, Zaniac. (If you look closely during this opening scene, you’ll also see a poster in the background for Kingo’s latest movie! Always refreshing to have an Eternals reference in one of these shows.)

Also refreshing is Casal as the arrogant X-5 aka Brad, and his “mummy’s boy” attitude makes him supremely punchable. When Loki and Mobius finally haul his ass back to the TVA, it creates an interesting dynamic in the interrogation room. Mobius assumes that the sneering, entitled X-5 will easily be able to push Loki’s buttons, but it’s the eternally-chill Mobius who loses his temper when Brad questions his reticence to find out what kind of life has been stolen from him by He Who Remains and the TVA. Looks like Loki is setting up a curious arc for Mobius in season two – he was really sensitive about that whole deal. Nice to see Loki take time out to chat with Mobius after his meltdown, but that key lime pie looked really gross honestly.

Regardless, I would absolutely watch these two sit talk about literally anything every week. I love their friendship. There have been some comments about Hiddleston’s performance in season two so far, noting that he’s completely stopped being the Loki we’ve grown to know and love, and that Loki could now be any other “normal” character as played by Tom Hiddleston. I get where they’re coming from. The show has gone to great lengths to re-shape this variant of Loki for his hero’s journey, but I do sometimes miss the edge Tom used to give the character. When we see Loki “perform” as his old self in this episode, the glimmer in Tom’s eye just serves to remind us how much fun he used to be. (I rambled on a bit more about this here.)

Loki gets that groove back (briefly) when he and Mobius are forced to figure out the mods on Brad’s TemPad without OB’s help. Luckily, Casey is a TVA guidebook superfan and he helps them figure out that the TemPad isn’t blocking the TVA’s tracking system, but since they’re no closer to breaking X-5 or finding Sylvie, they decide to try torture and ….yeah, I don’t know. I don’t like Brad, but the “box crushing” torture was kinda rough and I didn’t really love seeing it play out well for our “good guys”. You mileage may vary!

The “temporal aura” exposition between B-15, OB, and Casey is also kinda rough. Seeing Casey fan out over OB’s guidebook makes it easier to swallow, but the mechanics of the Loki plot were definitely easier to follow when they were coming from a cartoon clock. Unfortunately, Miss Minutes has absconded with Ravonna Renslayer to lord knows where. There’s certainly no sign of the pair this week, but Loki, Mobius, and their Brad-shaped prisoner do finally find Sylvie. She’s working at McDonald’s in her branched Broxton timeline and seems pretty content, if a little lonely.

Things are awkward between Loki and Sylvie, but I really don’t miss the romance plot between them. If that’s still cooking in season two, it’s at such a low level that I don’t have to acknowledge it at least. The sexual chemistry between Hiddleston and Di Martino is still missing and presumed dead, unlike General Dox, the loyalist who gets taken back to the TVA alive after committing countless genocides. Sylvie, however, chooses to stay in Broxton and sling burgers, but in the closing moments of the episode we see she still has He Who Remains’ TemPad, which is really advanced TVA technology that can twist time in a different way. I wonder what she’s planning to do with it?

Overall, this was a solid second episode of Loki, with only a few wobbles. It wasn’t as compelling as the premiere, and lacked its kinetic pace, but I found the ongoing story so entertaining that it didn’t bother me too much, and I’m looking forward to episode three next week. Fingers crossed, Miss Minutes is back and just as terrifying as when we last saw her!

[firecrackerhh]

Yknow when I really think about it I don’t really give a shit if someone doesn’t like Viv’s stuff.

Cuz ultimately they can cry and bitch and moan about her all day long, doesn’t change the fact she’s still gonna do what she’s gonna do yknow?

My problem lies where some criticals have this fucking superiority complex where they fucking think they’re better than us fans just because they look at something “critically.” Even though there’s more to critical thinking than constantly fucking bitching about how bad you think something is, something they have yet to figure out.

Frankly, they aren’t better than us, they’re just obnoxious.

All they do is cry about Viv and how terrible her writing is, or how the color palette is bad, or how this or that relationship is toxic, or sometimes they don’t even bother with the show, they just start shit-talking Viv as a person.

I feel like if you have so many complaints about a work to where you want it to be something else, Just write a fucking fanfic and move on, instead of wasting time with something you clearly dislike. Stop lying to yourself about how you want to see it improve when in reality you just want it done your way.

It’s fucking weird, like they expect us to just keep listening to their stupid bullshit with no complaints, yeah you have a right to free speech, so do we, you say something fucking stupid, don’t be surprised when people call you out on it. They act like they get fucking harassed by us when in reality we’re just responding to them normally? Yeah maybe some people in the fandom are passive aggressive or respond with memes or whatever but that’s only because so many antis and criticals are fucking blockheads and nothing we say matters to them anyway so why bother? Can’t argue with a brick wall.

If you think Viv’s writing is so fucking bad, and every episode just keeps reinforcing that opinion, then why keep watching it? Swear to God I legit think some criticals are fucking masochists or something.

I’m not saying you can’t criticize either show at all, but if your criticisms revolve around how her characters “all look the same.” Or how Vivzie portrays demons or angels in an inaccurate way (even though demons and angels don’t fucking exist) then perhaps, I’m sorry to repeat something you’ve heard a million times before, it just isn’t for you.

It isn’t like Viv ever SAID she was aiming for accuracy anyway, if you think that, that’s your fault my dude. You are the idiot here.

I know those aren’t the only examples of course but they’re the ones I thought of off the top of my head.

Look, I don’t think Viv is a fucking goddess among us mere mortals or any of that horseshit, she isn’t infallible, but she’s a fucking human being! She’s a human being who frankly I think does not deserve half of the constant fucking bullshit she probably is forced to bear witness to every time she goes on social media. She doesn’t deserve to get fucking doxxed or get patreon shit leaked or whatever because some of y’all are fucking douchebags who get some fucking thrill out of making shit harder for someone who hasn’t done anything to you. She isn’t the literal devil.

But, though I’m sure she would appreciate the sentiment, I don’t have the energy to waste on debunking obviously bullshit claims about Viv, other people do that shit online as is, I just…it’s exhausting man.

I just like it for what it is. Isn’t perfect, nothing is, but I’m not asking for perfection! What I’m looking for is a good time, and so far? I’ve been enjoying myself, irritated as I can get by hearing stupid people online. Isn’t my fault I’ve been hyperfixated on her shows since 2019.

It for whatever reason has brought me far more joy than I honestly expected. Like I made OCs, I’m almost on 40 chapters of my fanfic I’ve been writing since late 2019, maybe everything I’m writing is garbage but hey, I’m having a fun time, anyone who has a problem with that can suck it.

It isn’t like this is the only thing I’ve liked that gets nothing but constant bullshit online. Sometimes I honestly think it’s best if we just didn’t bother even speaking to critics and antis, it’s obvious they’re as set in their ways as we are, why bother? Unless they say something truly reprehensible in which case we bring the wrath of God (Satan?) upon them.

Well, there’s my 2 cents. Though I think I turned 2 cents into 20 dollars with how long my ramblings tend to go on for.

🔥🧨Firecracker out🔥🧨

[bunnyrab1d]

Game is currently under Hiatus I am terribly sorry!! However I’d like to use this post to talk about something very serious we are currently experiencing. It will be my only time addressing this.

Me and my Bf had been in a poly relationship that ended super rocky and with us evicting the two partners we were with, those two said partners had lost their jobs and made little to no effort to find other income when our agreement had been splitting rent, utilities, etc. They both then became increasingly financially dependent on us when we both did not want that, as me and my Bf are both lower class and don’t have much to spare, For 8 months straight we paid their bills, necessities, etc. we were struggling horribly and I begged them both to find jobs and little to no surprise - no effort. Going so as far to make the dynamic light hearted calling me ‘sugar mommy’ etc. it was completely demeaning and I was struggling severely mentally being the breadwinner for two people older than me, I got with both of them Freshly at 18, and we broke up when I was almost 20. During the eviction process the two went behind my back to convince my Bf to leave me for them, saying horrible things about me and trying to frame me for abusing my bf. Which was not the case whatsoever, Me and my bf had literally been together since I was 10, We grew up together and He has been nothing but the best to me.

They got us to a point in financially trouble where I have 6k in debt, we lived with no power and no water for a minute. And I was pulling 80 hour weeks to make sure we all still had a roof over our heads. We were drowning in bills.

However this issue arises, I have been doxxed by both of my ex partners. Deadnamed, addresses leaked, continuous hate on all platforms i posses. It’s overwhelming and draining my mental state further, I block and I block and I cannot escape them. And it is absolutely devastating seeing and platform I have tried and dreamed of building to be torn down to this extent. And legal action has been to no avail due to police taking their sweet time with the restraining orders in process, I get detailed and gut wrenching death threats almost on the daily. They know where I work, they knew where I lived up until we moved for safety. And these two have a history of burned bridges along the lines of this, But I am not completely innocent.

The way I handled the situation was utterly immature, I was angry and I said things I shouldn’t of. I was mean and cruel and it came from a deep seeded hatred that had built over time for those two partners, I had continued to financially support them but any emotion I had towards them were negative for 5 months straight, it was loveless and my BF didn’t want to break their hearts. I pretended to “stay” and I really wished I didn’t, it got me into a hurt situation and brought me down to the lowest point of my life. I wish I could go back and time and just not get with the two of them. Now me and my BF have to go through intensive therapy and constantly have to try and evade our old socials and handles due to the amount of hate we get, it’s dogpiling. It’s utterly exhausting. I am exhausted, and if you are one or both of the two seeing this, please. All me and my bf want is to be left alone, we are both equally hurt, I am pushing for legal action and I have concrete proof to make sure you two will get that restraining order on. I will continue to fight it and I will not stop until it is active.

[thegaythespian]

a quick rant about work where people can see it because AUGH do these people frustrate me endlessly sometimes

okay so basically i work as a receptionist at a physical therapy place, which is connected to a hospital. Hopefully that is common enough to not be doxxing whatever. I just hate how my coworkers handle health guidelines and whatnot. Like one of our physical therapists saw an inpatient on Wednesday, and learned the following day that this person, who had been breathing onto the PT’s face, had covid. The PT wore a mask on Thursday, but not at all Friday or Saturday, and, as far as I’m aware, even if they tested Thursday or Friday morning covid tests wouldn’t be able to detect it yet. Whatever, they’re not near me at least most of the time. Though I should say we mainly work with older adults who are already disabled in some way???? So why aren’t you still wearing a mask. Cause I sure as hell don’t want to spread anything to our already vulnerable patients. And then yesterday my main coworker, the one I’m enclosed in a small room with for over 5 hours a day, tells me her allergies were acting up, and I just fucking knew she was getting sick. And then this morning she calls in sick. Big shocker. And it just pisses me off. I wear a mask all the time because I’m not trying to get sick, but here we are, and I’m fed up with how lax these hospital employees are treating viruses

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Went out to see live comedy last night, for the first time in months. It was also a rare time for me to go to a proper comedy clubs, rather than just to pubs where people work out material. This was a Saturday night at one of our two major dedicated clubs – the height of comedy in the area. The night all the comedians work their way up until they can play that. A club that I yesterday heard John Hasting’s call “Canada’s equivalent of Jongleurs” on the ComCom podcast, which makes me immediately understand exactly what British comedians mean when they use “Jongleurs” as shorthand for “a certain type of comedy club”. I mean I’d worked out what they mean from context anyway, but that comparison makes it clearer to me. A club where I’m not going to write its name, not because I’m avoiding doxing myself (this club is a franchise that’s all over Canada so saying its name wouldn’t tell you where I live, also this post would already let people look up where I live by Googling where John Hastings is now, but I can’t imagine anyone cares enough to bother doing that), but because I’m vaguely paranoid about showing up in Google searches for it. I don’t want to talk too much shit about this level of comedy in a public forum, because this has people I know personally in it and some of them are nice.

However, it was really interesting going to that club after hearing Hastings’ ComCom interviews yesterday, and seeing what he was talking about in action. Saying this club is the equivalent of Jongleurs (a UK club I have never been to and never heard anything recorded there so I can’t actually talk about it, I’m not talking about whatever happens for real there because I don’t know, I’m talking about the thing it represents in the way comedians talk about it), and UK comedians talk about how there’s Jongleurs where they cordon off the “lowest common denominator” comedy and then other places for “proper comedy”, but the difference is that here, our club like that is the main thing and there’s hardly anything else. And I’m pretty sure that’s the case in most places in Canada outside of our couple of biggest cities.

So I won’t go too far into it, but I will say, of the three comedians who went on before a headliner, one is a guy who performed on the same bill as me on two of the seven occasions that I have performed stand-up comedy, both times at open mic nights in a pub. On one of those occasions I did well, and on another I did badly, and then afterward I stood outside with comedians who were all smoking and that guy told me I had good material and just need to be less nervous and shouldn’t feel bad about it not going great. He was very nice. Another one of the guys who was on last night is a teacher who used to be the teacher supervisor for a school team I coached, I knew him fairly well as I saw him at two practices a week for the five-month season and he traveled to a couple of tournament with us, very nice guy, I didn’t even know he was a comedian until the one time I performed at an actual club last year, and he was also on the bill. So technically – technically, on a technicality – I have gigged with two different people who have gigged with John Hastings.

There were three acts on before him, the two people I knew and one person I didn’t, and it was… well, it made me think of the thing I posted yesterday, the ComCom interview from 2014 where John Hastings described himself as “alt” and Stuart Goldsmith basically said “but are you, though?” And I thought, no he isn’t alt compared to Tony Law playing a bassoon (that was the example they used in the 2014 interview, I might now come up with a more recent example that’s gone less right-wing). But he’s alt compared to the local stuff I’ve heard, just because he tells stories that are more than a few sentences, that have a few different layers that you have to remember in order for them to make sense, he employs structure and callbacks to things he said more than like four minutes ago, he touches on a few topics that are slightly outside the incredibly obvious, he occasionally sneaks in just a touch of a genuine message with a bit of thought behind it. And I will say that during the pre-headline acts last night, I repeatedly thought, “Yep, this is proving the point John made ten years ago, that all those things make him alt compared to this.”

In that interview ten years ago, John talked about oscillating between two styles of comedy, going to the Jongleurs places and doing the largely crowd work-based simple stuff that made him feel soulless and shitty, and then getting the confidence to do more involved “alt” material that made him feel better about his own work. This interview would have taken place while he was previewing his 2014 Edinburgh show, which is on his Bandcamp page with the title Adventure, and which I also listened to yesterday and quite liked. It’s a standard Edinburgh hour – stories about his childhood and culture shock when he moved to the UK and getting angry about things that go badly. He had a lot of clever turns of phrase, he was great with using little comparisons to illustrate his points, he did fun things with language, he jumped around between high and low status, it was a funny and really enjoyable hour. I can absolutely see why, when he was working on that show but was used to comedy those first few acts I heard last night, he considered himself as alternative in a way that confused Stuart Goldsmith.

I also heard the ComCom interview he did in 2023, once he’d moved to LA. In that interview, he described the world of curating stand-up for social media, setting up crowd interactions and filming them to feed the algorithms, doing lots of crowd-work based stuff because that’s what works online. He described this with full awareness that it’s a messed up thing, if you treat comedy as an art, but also admitted that he’s employed an expert in SEO and algorithmic stuff to help him optimize his social media, has been playing this game for a while and it’s been working.

The show I saw last night was being filmed on a whole bunch of cameras for another John Hastings special, and his set, like most of what was on that night, had at least as much crowd work as material. He didn’t get deeper into any story than the people who were on before him, with the exception of maybe one story, he played the same game they did of lots of short little things designed for people who weren’t trying to think too hard. It wasn’t “comedian destroys heckler” stuff or anything – the audience was lively but not very rough compared to a lot of local crowds I’ve been in, and they mostly had fun together. To be fair to him, there was a lot of weird stuff going on in that audience. He seemed like he had planned to do slightly more prepared material than that, but he kept hitting different audience members who’d provide something else that he had to get into. He definitely got a lot of stuff that will appeal to crowd-work-heavy social media.

But here’s the thing. I didn’t genuinely laugh once in the three acts who were on before him (though I tried to look like I was laughing for the couple of people I knew, because I was near the front and, you know, nice people), but when John Hastings came out and did similar really simple stuff like that, he absolutely killed me. I laughed so much. I want to clarify that I didn’t laugh at the previous acts just to defend the fact that this hasn’t suddenly become my preferred style of comedy or anything. But apparently it can in fact be very very funny. I mean of course it can. Daniel Kitson has made me nearly cry laughing with crowd work before. The existence of annoying people on Tik-Tok shouldn’t mean that crowd work can never be actually funny.

From when John Hastings came on stage until the end of the night, I had an absolutely fantastic time. He was incredibly fun. He did do some jokes/stories, and I liked them. He did a lot of crowd stuff, and I liked that. Everyone was on board, he got a great response across the room, I’m sure the internet will love it whenever he releases whatever the video is going to be. However, Stuart Goldsmith would definitely have a point if he watched that set and then told John Hastings that it’s inaccurate to call himself “alt”. It was nothing like his Edinburgh shows.

He did a lot of local stuff, which I’d normally also think of as sort of cheap comedy, but it was really funny. I think it helps that he actually grew up here, he didn’t just Google two or three things about a place before performing there on a tour. He was able to be very accurate about all the bits of the city. You’re right, John, that is the highway exit where you’re most likely to get mugged! He also had the fun perspective of being enough of an insider to know the city very well, but because he’s lived in other places for so long, enough of an outsider to be able to point out absurdities that seem normal when you live here. It was fun. I have learned so many intricacies of culture and geography and sociology in Britain just so I can understand all their little local references; it was fun to hear a local reference, automatically do that thing I always do where I start bringing up the stuff I’ve learned so I can understand it, and then realize I don’t have to do any translating because he’s talking about the train I take to work every morning.

Oh, I said in a post yesterday that I think he might have gone to a high school where I used to coach their team. He mentioned the name of his high school on stage last night, and it wasn’t the school I thought it was, but it was a different school where I also used to coach their team. One I coached in the same year – but a different school still – as the school where I coached with that teacher who was on earlier in the night. Small world. Small fucking world. Small world but hopefully I’m fine making this post because it’s a big internet.

Anyway, it was a great time. On the way out I stuck around and chatted to the guy I know who’s a teacher, he’s a ridiculously nice guy whom I like so much and it made me feel bad for being judgemental of his set and that whole style of comedy, a thing I’d already started feeling bad about because I’d spent the first half of the night judging people for doing it and then the last half dying laughing at John Hastings doing the same type of stuff but just doing it very well. I told him I’m going to the Edinburgh Festival and he asked me if I’m seeing Stewart Lee, and I said no I don’t think he’s going there this year, and then I said I’m going to try to come out to local comedy more, and I meant it. And then I got in the truck with my roommate and my roommate asked me if John Hastings was gay, because he seemed very gregarious and flamboyant, and I said no, but there's a reminder, I guess, that a guy who comes across as incredibly mainstream to some people can come across differently to others (not that... I mean lots of gay comics are mainstream, but I think my roommate specifically meant that he had a bit of an outsider vibe that read as gay, which I guess might be true if you're not used to meeting anyone outside the sphere of combat sports).

[lyonfreddie]

this is completely self-serving but behold, a chronological list of everything that’s gone wrong in my life in just the past 2.5 weeks:

5/24: almost missed my flight home from canada

5/25: goes back to work and finds out the moms for liberty transphobic bookbanning hate group booked my museum/workplace for an event at the end of june and staff are signing a petition to cancel the event. the contract for the event was signed in DECEMBER and we just found out about it NOW. LMAO

5/26: incompetent coworker made a huge mistake in gift entry over a month ago and i just uncover it now and have to fix it (because he sure as shit won’t)

5/28: succession series finale

5/30: emergency town hall meeting @ work where many lgbtq+/poc employees share emotional, tearful personal testimony with our ceo (who says he’s listening) to cancel the moms for liberty event

5/31: renewed a museum membership for war criminal karl rove

6/1: ceo announces in the allstaff meeting that we are NOT going to cancel the moms for liberty event. staff are openly weeping. one staff member quits on the spot. ceo twists our mission statement to serve his own batshit narrative and clearly doesn’t give two shits about lgbtq+ staff. full-body breakdown number 1.

6/2: goes to an ice cream shop for a nice milkshake to cheer myself up and a random dude wordlessly steals it from the counter right in front of my face on the hottest day of the year so far like are you fucking serious

6/3: has to work a midday event and pretend i’m proud of where i work. then i decide to drive home to pet my puppies only to find someone stole my headlights and side mirrors and broke one of my car’s windows???? i had to call the police and file my first police report. full-body breakdown number 2.

6/4: car gets towed. i go home with my parents.

6/5: i take the day off work and stay home to pet my dogs. news stories start to break about the event at the museum, people start calling wanting to cancel their memberships and sever ties with the museum. i get the voicemails on my phone.

6/6: we get talking points for phone calls/feedback and they are complete dogshit. i realize i am in a position where i’m perfectly capable of doxxing our entire board of directors. SPLC designates the moms for liberty as a certified extremist group, which would have helped immensely on june 1st, but fucking whatever. have to work ANOTHER event, this one in the evening, and pretend again like i’m happy to work at the museum.

6/7: horrendous wildfire smoke, but i go into the office because i have to print and mail 120 memberships and don’t want to do any amount of work for a ceo who fucking sucks and also i’m getting like 5 calls an hour from people telling us to cancel the event and i agree with them 100% but cannot say that!!!!

6/8: staff are openly sobbing in the office because all of our diversify living history partners are (rightfully) boycotting the museum for this decision. everyone’s jobs are 10x harder. support networks that staff have spent 6 YEARS building up with vulnerable communities in the region evaporate overnight. our crowning special exhibit on a free black man from philadelphia who fought in the rev war and used his war experience to inform his later fight for abolition & voting rights now looks completely hypocritical. because of ONE MAN’S DECISION.

6/9: work anxiety finally hits and i’m sick to my stomach all day. i get to wfh at least. there’s a board meeting, but it’s virtual, and they’re all rich people who live on another fucking planet, so they have no idea how absolutely abysmal morale is. a protest is held on the plaza outside at 6pm.

6/10: i have a daytrip planned with friends that i have been looking forward to all week. one might say it was all that was getting me through the week. i call an uber to take me to the train station with time to spare. the uber gets stuck behind a fucking trash truck and i have to cancel the uber and on my friends because i’ve missed the train completely. bawling on my bedroom floor before 9am. my dad calls and i try to explain to him why moms for liberty are filth and he doesn’t believe me. full-body breakdowns numbers 3 and 4 and 5!

the funniest thing is literally all of these things are outside of my control. so like.  why do i even try. lol

[justaventaccountman]

It’s been a while since I’ve typed here- I’m doing better, genuinely

S*** h*** isn’t a concern to me anymore, and even like. Suicidal thoughts are fleeting and infrequent.

I’ve also definitely improved my relationship ship with my mom now, and gotten a little closer to my sisters (although it’s not all clear yet)

I also! Have a potential major now- double major in film and CS. Why? Who knows but I don’t hate it? And maybe I’ll grow to enjoy it.

Film is like. A way for me to be able to write without having to read a bunch of stuffy old books and be in classes filled with like. Pretentious assholes. I was worried about film bros but everyone I’ve met so far is just. Super passionate in a cool way or just doesn’t care. Production side of stuff is also useful to know if I start to take this streaming thing seriously, which I kind of am? It’s looking like something I can commit to.

CS was just a stem thing to get my mom to not worry about what the hell im doing, but I’m also like. Interested in the future of AI, and I feel like in the next generation coding will only become a more valuable skill (I kind of suck at it, and if I don’t like. Start to get it soon I’ll pivot but I’m fine for now)

I think my problem now is that I’m faux introspective- instead of s*** h*** i self loathe. And I know it’s a problem! I just dwell on negative things as a way to not have to truly deal with them.

Things have been getting a bit rough interpersonally lately. One of the few things I’ve prided myself on was being a people person, and I’ve been forced to realize these past few months that I’m not that.

My high school friend group and other periphery high school friends are solid but like. I can tell everyone is starting to leave me behind. Which is good by the way! It’s awesome to see everyone pursuing their dreams and crafts in ways I couldn’t imagine. I just feel like. I’m starting to become dead weight— I can’t really trust myself to vent or ask them for help anymore, because I don’t want to make things worse.

In college? A shitshow. I got into an argument with a super close friend and we haven’t really talked since. I also, in the same day, left my college friend group that I had there since I came to *insert college* (not THAT eager to dox myself)

I just. I realized I was sort of stagnating. And ignoring the fact that those people didn’t really give a shit about me, and only really cared about me when I was becoming an inconvenience for them. (There was like this whole weird. Intervention thing where my former roommate asked to speak with me in the hall and told me everyone’s grievances with me.)

It just made me think of the interactions I had with the first person I started venting too— they ended up bottling it up for five years before telling me I was having a negative effect on them.

It just made me think. Why couldn’t anyone be honest with me? Back then it was because I came off as too unstable and they couldn’t trust I would react well (which, fair). Now? Who knows.

It just made me realize that despite all the self reflection I did, despite all the work I put into myself and trying to be a better person, I was running into the same exact problems.

It honestly really hurt me. I wasn’t good for a while afterwards. But now It’s starting to fade into the past

The close college friend is a different story though, that was just. Me being an asshole. (Although I wasn’t FULLY in the wrong.)

She was a coworker and good friend of mine (friend before coworker) and I asked her to cover the shift for me before Thanksgiving. I was in a panic because I really wanted to get back to the city, and no one was offering to cover. She agrees after seeing me stress over this, and I thank her to death and promise to cover a shift for her, even 2 in return.

I think that’s the end of it, and it’s a huge burden off me. Then 2 days later, she says that she wants to go to a friends house that day instead and can’t do it anymore. This friend offered her after she agreed to help me out and I just felt. Betrayed.

Betrayal isn’t the right word. Like. Discarded. Like, my needs weren’t her concern at all and I didn’t matter at all. She was just able to completely go back on her word and screw me over 2 days before thanksgiving. I had recently confided in her my difficulty with asking people for help and trusting that they’ll follow though too

And so I responded pretty coldly to that, she asked me if it was okay and I told her frankly I thought it was a pretty shitty thing to do. We start arguing and things escalate. I’d like to think I kept it respectful, but she felt hurt by some of the things she said (I genuinely think that might’ve been a language/cultural barrier — she took me saying “that was a shitty thing to do” as “you’re a shitty person for doing that”)

I only realized this after and while I like. Ultimately just reacted coldly because I felt hurt and betrayed by what she did— I could’ve responded better, and she was really just trying to help me out at the end of the day and then couldn’t.

Idk man, it was a very messy situation, but is forced me to recognize that! I am not actually as good as I thought I was with handling people, in one fell swoop I lost almost all my college friends! ❤️

It’s funny, I originally opened this vent to complain about how lazy and awful I was for not recognizing a schedule conflict in my very meticulously planned schedule, and how I felt very bad about not being able to resolve it without spiraling — but this just turned into a reflective vent instead. That’s a whole other issue, that I’ll be sure to talk about later lmfao

[avengerscompound]

Apartment X - Chapter 10

A Hawkeye Fanfic

MASTERLIST PREVIOUS //

Buy me a coffee with Ko-fi Character pairing:  Clint Barton x F!Reader

Word Count: 1858

Warnings:  smut (MF, plane sex, public sex, masturbation, vaginal sex, sex tape)

Synopsis:   You had chosen your apartment for a lot of reasons.  It was quiet.  It had good light.  It was secure.  Your landlord was an Avenger.  It was a good space to live and work and feel safe. When you become friends with your landlord Clint Barton, it also comes with the potential of a pretty special boyfriend.  You’re just not sure how the public will react to finding out that one of the Avengers is dating a Camgirl.

Chapter 10

After your relationship with Clint had been outed to the public, there was a reset period while you both worked out what you could do to protect yourselves from the press, fans, and crazy stalkers.  First, Clint went and spoke to the team.  There was then a meeting you had with Captain America where he told you not to worry about what the public was saying, the team had both yours and Clint’s back in all of this.  It was a relief to hear.  As much as you wanted to live in a perfect world where people weren’t judged negatively for being or dating sex workers, it wasn’t the world that currently existed.  To know that everyone had Clint’s back was comforting.  It was nice to know his friends were so supportive of him.  You had good people in your life, and knowing the man you were in love with had that kind of support too made you feel happy in a way that you didn’t expect.

The team even backed up the words with action.  Steve told Clint to take you out of town for a couple of weeks while Tony Stark worked on a way to filter out IP addresses of people trying to contact you through media outlets and to ban people from streams if they mentioned certain aspects of your personal life.  He was also going to set you up with state-of-the-art web security to prevent you from ever being doxxed.

It almost made you wish you’d had this happen sooner.  Or at least that other women’s privacy and agency on the internet was protected by everyone the way that yours would be now.  But given that the outing of relationship not only meant you would have a better computer set up, but that you were now also on your way to Jamaica with Clint and when you got back the two of you would be moving in together.  All in all, as far as shit things that could happen to a person, this was turning out pretty well.

Clint had splurged on first-class seats, but given it was less than four hours in the air all up, the first class was only different from economy due to the chair size and leg room, and even then it was not significantly different.  Not that you were complaining, of course.  First class was first class and you were with Clint on the way to a beach resort.

“It’s kind of weird to be flying commercial with an Avenger,” you teased as you ate your rather sad excuse for a lunch the flight attendant had handed over.  It contained a panini with some soggy tomato on it, string cheese, and a tub of yogurt, and you weren’t particularly impressed with any of it.

“Yeah - I did consider flying us in a Quin,” Clint joked as he blew on his coffee.

“Well, why didn’t you?  We’d probably have been there by now, and we wouldn’t have had to spend two hours in Miami Airport.”

Clint leaned in, bringing his lips to your ear.  “I can’t enlist you into the mile-high club if I’m having to fly the plane,” he whispered as his hand moved up your leg.

You yelped and swatted his hand away.  “Clint!”

“What?” Clint teased, bumping you with his shoulder.  He leaned in again and nuzzled at your neck.  “Come on… you don’t want to live your life never having done it, do you?”

“Couldn’t you ask to borrow one of Tony’s private jets or something?  Surely there’s a bed on it.  Or even just a long haul first class where you get those little private pod things,” you whined playfully.  You lowered your voice and looked him in the eye.  “Shit - I’d even take a long haul domestic and let you finger me under a blanket.  But that bathroom is going to be gross.”

“It won’t be,” Clint assured you.  “Hardly anyone has gotten up and it’s the first-class one so…”

You huffed and leaned your forehead to his temple.  “God, you’re a pest.”

“I know,” he said.  “You know you want to though.  I know you.”

You whined and wiggled in your seat.  It was tempting.  Even despite the fact it was a tiny space that was probably disgusting, it was the ultimate of public sex acts on your bucket list of public sex acts.  You just didn’t want to get caught - partly because you were going out of town to give Clint’s sex scandal a chance to die down, you didn’t want to set another one off again right on the tail of the first.  Mostly though, you just felt bad for the flight attendants who would almost definitely know what you were up to.

“Okay.  I’m dropping it now,” Clint said, holding up his hands.  “If you want to do it, you can ask.”

“Okay, okay,” you relented.  “How do you propose this happens?”

“We make out a little here,” he whispered, his fingers walking up your leg.  “Get us both in the mood.  Then … you go down to the bathroom, lock yourself in and finger yourself.  I’ll be down a little later and we’ll be as quick as we can possibly be.”

“Gosh, you’re such a romantic,” you teased, as your hand went to the back of his head and tangled into his hair.

“I know,” he laughed and brought his lips to yours.

You pulled yourself up against him as much as you could given the arms of the chair blocked you from really getting close.  Clint’s hand ran up your thigh and gripped your hip.  The two of you kissed until your lips felt numb and tingled pleasantly.  Your mouth was becoming dry as his lips moved against yours, which was countered by how damp your underwear was getting.  You moaned softly into the kiss, and your hands roamed up under his shirt.  You weren’t sure if it was just the kissing, the fact it was so public, or if it was the anticipation of what was about to happen, but your body was practically thrumming with desire.

Clint broke the kiss but kept his forehead pressed against yours, so when he spoke, you could feel the soft brush of his lips.  “Go down to the bathroom,” he whispered.  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

It would have been clear exactly what you were doing if you had gotten up and gone straight to the bathroom, so you waited for a few beats, wiggling a little in your chair.  It felt like torture.  The insides of your thighs were sticky with desire, and it felt like you were vibrating.  You took a sip of your drink and a bite of your sandwich in an attempt to slow yourself down and not give it away too soon.

After you washed down your mouthful with the last of your drink you got up and headed down to the bathroom.  Clint was right, it hadn’t really been used yet, but it was still a tiny, weird-smelling space that didn’t evoke sexy thoughts of joining the mile-high club.  You pushed down your panties and began to finger your clit.  You were already soaking and your fingers were soon covered in your slick.  It wasn’t long before your legs were trembling with your impending climax and you knew either Clint was going to take too long to get here and you will have already come or he’d barely even need to enter you for you to be knocked over the edge.

There was a soft knock on the door followed by Clint’s voice.  “It’s me,” he whispered through the thin door.  You unlocked the door and he slipped in behind you.  His lips were on yours as soon as the flimsy door was locked behind him.  His hands cradled your jaw as the two of you kissed, and you scrambled to get his cock out.  When his pants were open, you reached into his pocket and pulled out a condom, quickly tearing it open and rolling it on.  He spun you around to face the toilet and you bent over and braced your hands on the wall as he grabbed your hips and shoved hard into you, pushing you up against the wall.

He held himself in deep and you looked back over your shoulder, wondering what he was doing.  To your surprise, he was getting out his phone.  “What’re you doing?” you asked.

“Filming it,” he answered.

You turned back with a smile on your face.  That somehow made this even better.  The video wasn’t for fans.  It wasn’t for anyone except you and him and he wanted to keep a record of this moment.  It sent a shiver through you that made you clench up around Clint’s cock.  Clint began to thrust, holding your hip with one hand as he filmed himself fucking you from behind.

You had to bite into your hand to smother your moans as he quickly dragged you back to the edge of your orgasm.  “Fuck,” Clint whispered.  “I love being inside you so fucking much.”

You moaned again and looked to your left, watching yourself in the mirror as Clint railed you from behind.  It was as far from aesthetically sexy as you could get.  The room was small and cramped and as ugly as a bathroom could be.  Yet everything that was happening was working together so you were completely falling apart for him.  Being filmed, the fact it was so public, the plane, the desperation.  Your orgasm coiled tight inside you but needed a little more to break.

You reached between your legs with a shaky hand and started to rub your clit.  It made you less stable on your feet and your arm slipped on the wall as Clint railed into you.  Your body clenched and you bit down into your fist and you came, your moan muffled by your hand.  “Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck,” you babbled as your orgasm shuddered through you.

Clint spanked your ass but he didn’t ease up.  His hips kept pistoning as he pushed you up against the wall with each thrust in.  “Oh god, Clint. Please. I want it.”

He pulled out and whipped off the condom as you flipped up your skirt, and he jerked his cock, spilling over your ass in thick white ropes.

The two of you took a moment to recalibrate, but given where you were you didn’t have much time to just bask in your post-orgasm glows.  Clint turned off his phone and slipped it back in his pocket,  He grabbed a paper towel next, and cleaned you up.

When you were standing again, and your panties were pulled up, Clint gave you a soft kiss.  “I’ll clean up here.  You go take your seat.”

You giggled and kissed him again before ducking out of the bathroom.  No one was nearby, so if anyone had picked up on what had happened, you didn’t know.  You headed back to your chair feeling high and very, very in love, excited to see how the rest of your vacation was going to go.

// NEXT

[mariacallous]

Free speech absolutists are like the cocky audience of a spectator sport – they think they could do better than the players, if they were just allowed a crack at it. To them, speech should be as free as possible, period. Nowhere is their oversimplification of the issue more evident than on social media, where abuse and disinformation have created a new frontier of regulation – and with it a cohort of disingenuous free speech warriors.

These absolutists are so unaccustomed to facing consequences for their actions that they have pushed the idea that a censoring “woke” orthodoxy now prevails, and is a threat to freedom of expression. Elon Musk is among them, but since his takeover of Twitter he is having to learn quickly that free speech is not simply about saying whatever you want, unchecked, but about negotiating complicated compromises.

Musk arrived at Twitter with an approach that I am sure he thinks is pretty straightforward. The site, he believes, has a leftwing bias that should be corrected by allowing suspended users back on to the platform. The accounts of Donald Trump, Kanye West and Jordan Peterson have been reinstated, along with nearly all those that were suspended for falling foul of old Twitter’s rules on abuse and hate speech.

This means that Twitter is about to turn into a far more unpleasant and potentially dangerous experience. Little of this appears to have anything to do with a political strategy on Musk’s part. Like Trump, Musk has become the tribune of fascists and racists by way of adolescent contrarianism, an insatiable need to flaunt his control and a radicalising inability to cope with being told he’s wrong on the internet. For him, “free speech” seems merely a vehicle for his delusional plan to make Twitter into a fawning “digital town square” that he presides over.

But not even the richest man in the world can pull that sort of free speech arena off. Twitter isn’t sustained by previously suspended users, but by the millions of people for whom the platform feels (most of the time) like a political and cultural slipstream. Twitter has an odd social media profile. It is both extremely influential and also often quite trivial, and the coexistence of the two is what makes the site viable. Twitter is a window into the soul of politicians and opinion-makers – its style of interactive rolling commentary works well in drawing them out to post their views or engage with others, revealing personalities and politics that otherwise would be surpressed or closely edited. And it is the first resort of citizen journalists and those marshalling political protest. It also remains the only social media platform where people with little clout or profile can challenge elites directly.

But Twitter is also a solipsistic place, where even small users can become protagonists in spats that are then amplified both by the site’s algorithms and a rightwing media that trawls it for telltale signs of “wokeness” or “cancel culture”. For better or worse, it is Twitter’s adjacency to current affairs and general political and cultural discourse that makes it, uniquely among platforms, feel relevant.

If you’re not on Twitter, chances are that you have come across stories that started out or were precipitated there, whether it’s a debate on trans rights that swirls around JK Rowling’s tweets, or calls to organise street protests against dictators in the Arab world. For all these things to be possible on the same site, robust content moderation is necessary to ensure conversations don’t descend into doxing (maliciously publishing someone’s personal information) and hateful conduct, and that news and journalism is verifiable. In the absence of moderation, or at least the appearance of it, things fall apart pretty quickly. When a place is not fun or hospitable or truthful to users, it also becomes commercially pointless for advertisers. Since Musk took over, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers are reported to have left the site. If things continue as they are, it is hard to see a future for the company.

The ultimate cause of that demise will be the failure of Musk to understand that for some speech to be free, other speech has to be limited. It is generally true that if a service is free then it is by definition exploitative of its users – if you are not paying for a product, the axiom goes, then you are the product. But in the case of social media, the regulation of your speech is the product. If a platform becomes too toxic, then it is useless for anyone except those who want an extremist ghetto of agitators. In that sense, social media is very much like society in general. Political and legal authorities are in the business of content moderation, in order to make our shared space as stable and safe as possible for a majority of people. The public and other stakeholders, such as the press, businesses and social media companies themselves, are in constant negotiations with these authorities on what those limits should be – for instance, whether religious dress is protected speech, or what constitutes incitement to violence.

Old Twitter was far from perfect, and by its own admission its algorithms favoured rightwing accounts. But it was improving because of the drag that advertisers, regulators and users were putting on its algorithmic urge to encourage antagonistic activity. The high-speed destabilisation of Musk’s Twittershould be a warning to free speech absolutists. The set of curbs they object to are those that make users’ experience of social media, and life in general, possible; they protect against, among other jeopardies, libel, impersonation, plagiarism, misinformation and grooming. In essence, all our free speech arguments are about finessing, rather than obliterating a system of functional restrictions.

Those with power have more leeway to define what free speech is, but they can rarely do so without limitation. Twitter’s chance of survival is dependent on whether Musk chooses to accept that, like freedom of speech, his power is not absolute.

[carpathxanridge]

so my mother has been taking a digital sexual harrassment seminar for her work over the past few days and she noticed something disturbing and infuriating:

all of the example situations thus far have been of female perpetrators. two were heterosexual, one homosexual.

and i understand where this push is coming from. they believe it would be “sexist” to imply that only men are capable of sexual harrassment, and they want to drive that point home. and in past years, they typically achieved this by alternating between examples of male and female perpetrators, something i would argue is still wrong because it is demographically inaccurate. that in itself implies that workplace sexual harrassment is not a gendered issue, when we know it is.

but for all of the examples thus far to be of female perpetrators? the only possible motivation behind that is to preserve men’s comfort, and avoid putting the onus on men where it belongs.

and i recognized a similar disturbing trend in my own school’s sexual harrassment training when we were forced to watch wildly offensive and euphemistic Tea Consent video. if you haven’t already been subjected to it, I’d encourage you watch it and see for yourself how it implies that men who commit violent sexual assault on unconscious women are simply confused! if only we presented information on what constitutes violent rape in a way that were easier for them to digest and understand, then of course they wouldn’t do it!

i dont think i need to explain why it’s rape culture to talk to college aged men about consent as if they are children, as if they simply don’t understand consent and would never willingly violate it, when college campuses have a sexual assault epidemic and so many of the perpetrators are excused harsh sentences or any sentences at all on account of them being young and “making a mistake.” not only is the video itself an offensive analogy, but it refuses to name the issues: of male violence, male sexual entitlement, rape. it values the comfort of the male audience over women’s realities.

not to mention, my mother told me that the first situation her seminar portrayed was one of revenge porn. over 80 percent of the victims of revenge porn are female, and there’s gender disparity in the type of revenge porn men and women face—women face public humiliation and violation, having their images posted to myriad public forums and often facing doxxing, death threats and harrassment as a result, whereas men more often face financial extortion. to pretend that revenge porn isn’t a gendered issue is grossly offensive.

if i werent already so disillusioned id say i can’t believe we’ve really reached a point where sexual harrassment seminars, with supposed aims of education and workplace abuse prevention, seem more concerned about not seeming sexist against men than they are with demographic accuracy and actually naming male sexual violence.