#and those bling bling stickers on the back of the phone!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

i-jakeb · 4 years ago

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Best apps to kill time on 😻

I've been seeing some posts circulating about popular websites/apps and wanted to make my own version.

These are apps I’m way too addicted to. Am I missing any?

Edit: Sorry for all the time I’ve taken away from your life

Commaful - popular fanfiction, story, and poetry community 👑

Photo Filters - makes my Insta feed look perfect

Spellbinding - super addictive bite-sized stories

Sweatcoin - get paid to walk

Terrarium 🌱 - build the ultimate garden empire

Idle Human - build a human from scratch. for reals.

Palm Reader - get your palm read!

Meditation and Sleep - helps me find happiness and calm!

Choices - get crazy in this role play choose your adventure game!

Fitnesss Coach - your indoor fitness coach, get fit!

Cat Game - cutest cat game ever 😻

Byte - watch the funniest videos on the internet

Weed Factory - grow your weed empire 👿

Idle Construction - build a city!

Tabou: juicy HS stories

Sushi Bar - run your own sushi restaurant and win big

Zooba - zoo battle royale!!!!

BIGO Live - the best live streaming app!

BitLife - a life simulator

Calm - how i deal with my mental health

My Story: go to back to HS in this choose your own adventure

Well - an awesome hypnotherapy app that makes you feel better

Idle Workout -get fit in this virtual workout game!

Draw it - how fast can you draw? So addicting!

Tennis Clash - the best multiplayer game on the app store

Hily - a privacy + safety conscious dating app!

Repair Master 3D - open up some electronics and fix em up!

Perfect Paint - how fast can you paint?

AMAZE - taking mazes to the next level!

Video Editor - an easy video editing app for your phone!

Bake It - bake some masterpiees for your customers!

Yubo - come make friends!

Cold Cases - solve some cold cases!

Go Fish - win trophies by catching hella fish

Golf Orbit - ever play golf on mars?

Basket Throw - just throw the ball into the basket. Easy right?

Gun Gang - build your gang and shoot your way through

Avakin Life - your 3D virtual world

Knock'em All - shoot balls, destroy everything!

Adventure Escape Mysteries - investigate clues and solve the crime!

Drop and Smash - smash it all!!

Bunch - really fun way to play games with friends

Crazy Shopping - spend as much as you can, as fast as you can!

Army Clash - build the biggest army and destroy them all!

Shoot out! - kill the bad guys, save the good guys 🔫

Dental Bling - pull out the rotting teeth

Fam - video parties!

Aquapark - race you down the water slide! (and push you off it!)

Jetpack Jump - fly this addicting jetpack!

Scribble Rider - Draw your wheels in this crazy adventure

2048 Balls - how far can you go in this one?

Ball Blast - upgrade those cannons and shoot some balls!

Smash Cars - race and smash some cars!

Taimi - finally a good lgbtq+ dating app

Wired For Youth - get knowledge and learn from interviews and books

Ultrahuman - a very calming meditation app for sleeping

Flex - work out with friends!!

FitnessAI - your personal home workout trainer

Unfold - make your Insta stories awesome

Flip Jump Stack - flip and stack all the way to the cheer tour!

Run Sausage Run! - Avoid the knives and save the sausage

Bee Factory - build and raise your bee empire!!!!

Draw Joust - draw your own cart and crush the other player!

Sniper - are you a good shot? prove it!!

Rolly Legs - race your robot to victory

Let's Be Cops - you're the only good cop in the city. Can you keep the peace?

Good Slice - slice that food!

Go Fish - win trophies by catching hella fish

AmpMe - amp up your phone speakers!

Betternet - a safe, fast VPN to get around bans!

Demolish! - demolish everything!

ASMR Slicing - the most satisfying slicing game

Paint The Cube - paint through a 3D cube maze

Car Restoration - let's restore some cars!

Curvy Punch 3D - swipe to punch!

Line Color - paint the road!

Flip Tumbling - just keep flipping! Parkour!

Baseball Fury - hit that home run!

Summer Buster - play these summer mini games!

Sharpshooter Blitz - your mission, storm the enemy base

Shred - your personal home workout planner

Spiral Roll - dig wood, make spirals, destroy enemies

Tower Run - grow your tower of humans

Foot Clinic - run a foot clinic to fix all types of feet!

Farmer Hero - run your own ranch! step into the farm land!

Jumpero - can you get through this obstacle course?

Sleepzy - Your sleep cycle tracker

Crash Landing - anyone can fly, but landing takes skill

Farmers.io - harvest as much as you can!

Ball Slider - slide that ball!

Blast City - Be the hero the city needs

Fast Driver - It's a race! Can you win?

Magic Woods - chop those trees!

Five Hoops - shoot hoops with millions!

Super Sniper - be the best sniper you can

Sleep - awesome bedtime stories!

Off The Rails - control the train!

Tie Die - make some awesome shirts, bikinis, and more

Woodturning - create your wood masterpiece!

Crowdmaster - blast those enemies away!

Ramp Car Jumping - do some crazy jumps with some crazy cars!

Stunt Truck Jumping - do some crazy stunts in trucks!

Doodle Run - it's a race!

Overtake - a racing game, can you overtake your foes?!

Acrylic Nails - run a virtual nail salon!

Spark - ran easy mobile camera and video editor

Braindom - figure out who's lying, cheating, and married!

Ramp Car Jumping - drive off a ski jump...in a car

Super Salon - run your own salon!

Bullet Rush - shoot everybody!

Itsme - hang out with your BFFs!!

Idle Slice and Dice - the most satisfying game for cutting all kinds of stuff!

9 Months - a pregnancy simulation!

NERF Epic Pranks - epic nerf battle!

Flipper Dunk - pinball meets basketball!

Ibotta - save money on everything you buy!

Wish - the funnest way to shop!

Wishbone - fun game for comparing stuff like hair, celebs, sports

Sticker Stack - epic stickers for you to send!

Celebs - the app that shows you what celeb you look like

Palm Reader - get your palm read!

Yarn - stories that are seriously creepy af

RemNote - the best freenotetaking site for students and professionals

WeBull - get 2 free stocks valued up to $1k!

Sweatcoin - get paid to walk

Idle Human - build a human from scratch. for reals.

Terrarium - build the ultimate garden empire

Spellbinding - super addictive bite-sized stories

You’re welcome 😉

#ad

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ligayaharukadiwata · 4 years ago

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Those who follow me from way back know I love to personalise my things. I finally managed to brand my #PlayStation4 console and controller with #Aggretsuko skins this weekend thanks to my spouse, who gifted the same #SkinIt stickers and also ended up doing most of the dainty work on the controller. 😂✌ Thanks Mahal! Now I'm contemplating whether or not I should skin my phone as well... a part of me still wants to apply #deco #bling on it though, but again I wonder when I'll find time to do that. 🤔 https://www.instagram.com/p/CMLUhZNHmEU/?igshid=nsnpivgathym

#playstation4 #aggretsuko #skinit #deco #bling

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venusxxlangdon · 6 years ago

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Hotline Bling

summary: Nothing foretold troubles when suddenly Michael’s phone screen lit up with an incoming call. Without taking his eyes off the laptop, he reached for his phone, thinking it was Gallant.

“Hello?” he asked

“Have you been a good boy?”

AU, where Michael is an art student at Hawthorne University with a penchant for rollerball lip gloss & fleece blankets and the reader, is phone sex operator who accidentally calls the wrong number

pairing: sub!Hawthorne Michael x fem!reader

warnings: dirty talk, smut, sub!Michael, mommy kink, humping

words: 3.3k

A/N: there will be part 2!

Michael Langdon had been having a penchant for nice things for as long as he remembered himself. He was soft and delicate by nature, so it was no wonder that he enjoyed fleece blankets and scented candles, wide linen shirts to wear around the house instead of old T-shirts paired with sweatpants everyone liked, fluffy socks that made him feel comfy, warm bubble baths, and cinnamon French toasts topped with cherry jam or powdered sugar.

However, not everyone had the same opinion on his preferences. Constance Langdon, his grandmother (may she rest in peace), who raised him like he was her son, had been trying to do everything in her might to make Michael fit into her idea of what boys should have worn, studied in university, and done in their free time. Although, after he brought home his first high school girlfriend she seemed to stop being so hard on him as if the fact that Michael was into girls was some sort of a relief for her. The truth, as usual, was somewhere in the middle: Michael had no idea who he was into and preferred to go with a flow and take interest in whoever he liked no matter their gender, religion, and social background. He was not only a good-looking guy — the blond mop of short curls surrounded his head like a halo; crystal blue eyes, made him look like an angel; cherry kissed lips sometimes had a touch of a peachy lip gloss rollerball he carried in his designer backpack, resembled the petals of a beautiful rose — but he was also beautiful inside, despite a blinkered mindset of his grandmother.

When he moved to a small apartment that was only 20 minutes away from Hawthorne University where he was majoring in art, he started decorating the place to his liking: curtains made of sheer organza flowed down the windows like sea foam; the transparent fabric allowed the sunlight to spill into the room, bounce off the walls and flood every corner of it with radiant warmth.

The endless list of things he liked to do in his free time mostly consisted of going to the exhibitions and gallery openings, attending independent movie premieres with his artsy friends, grabbing a strong espresso on the way to class every morning, and dancing to his favorite songs while cooking. He lived alone and was comfortable with it because truly deep in his heart he was a loner. Of course, he had friends, take, for example, Gallant. A very extravagant guy he had met at one of the events and immediately clicked with. Michael did not know whether he believed in soulmates, but Gallant was definitely one of those people in his life who understood him and shared the same interests. However, Michael always enjoyed his time alone in the perfect world he built around himself and spent so much effort maintaining and protecting from people who thought that it was their duty to call it too “feminine”.

“Angel! I’m home!” he stepped into the apartment and tried to shut the door with his shoulder because both of his hands were busy holding a new print he’d got from Gallant and a paper bag from Whole Foods.

A white cat appeared around the corner to greet his owner who never managed to come home without a handful of stuff. He cautiously approached the print Michael put against the wall.

“How have you been, little guy?”

Michael found Angel a year ago on the way home when he was returning from a bar he went to with Gallant and his boyfriend. It was during the time when he was recovering from an extremely painful breakup with his last girlfriend. It was a complicated relationship from the very beginning, but he thought that his love would have been enough for both of them.

In the end, it left him drained out, heartbroken, and utterly devastated. So there he was young and depressed, cringing at the bitter aftertaste of alcohol, he drank with his friends, on his way to his small studio where nobody was waiting for him. At first, he didn’t understand where the tiny mewls were coming from, but as he approached one of the waste containers, he realized that among the litter there was a small white (well it was gray at that moment) kitten. Alone and abandoned just like him.

“I missed you, love” he smiled at the cat, picked up his bags and made his way to the kitchen.

It was a regular evening for him with a homemade dinner and some tv show in the background. He was sitting on the couch with the blanket around his shoulders and a Mac on his lap, working on a digital project for the upcoming assignment. Angel was snuggling by his side, snoring peacefully, and the light scent of his favorite 26 Santal Le Labo candle was filling the room. Nothing foretold troubles when suddenly his phone screen lit up with an incoming call. Without taking his eyes off the laptop, Michael reached for his phone, thinking it was Gallant.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Have you been a good boy?” the question asked in smooth silky voice on the other end made Michael jump on his seat. He immediately looked at the screen but did not recognize the number, so he hurried to bring the phone back to his ear and demand the explanation.

“Ex-excuse me?” he stuttered.

“I’m asking you if you’ve been a good boy for mommy today,” he felt the blush bloom across his cheeks not only from the lascivious tone of your voice but the words you were saying. What on God’s green earth was that?

It took him a few seconds to first, close his mouth because his jaw had dropped indeed, and second, formulate a coherent sentence.

“I’m sorry, I think you called the wrong number” he bit his lip and looked at the display once again as if the range of figures would have turned into something different.

“Is this strawberryboy69?”

Michael giggled at the nickname and put his laptop aside, straightening his legs out.

“No, my name is Michael, and who are you?”

You started scrolling through the data to check if you had called the right number feeling the embarrassment wash over you. Nervously you scanned the table of clients’ names, and your brows frowned when you found out that you had done everything correctly. Strawberryboy69 was supposed to be the same caller that was being on the line, and his kinks should have been “age play, mommy kink, slight humiliation, choking, and spanking”. There could not have been any mistake unless the client had told the wrong number himself.

“I’m sorry, sir. There’s gotta be a mistake,” you murmured still confused. “Please, accept my apologies, I-...”

And before you even finished the sentence Michael asked:

“Wait, was it supposed to be a sex call? Like for real?”

He didn’t know why he even asked that question, and why his cheeks were still beet red. Of course, the girl on the line was a phone sex operator. Who else would’ve started a conversation asking if he had been a good boy? He unconsciously ran his fingers through his hair and caught himself thinking that the idea of having actual phone sex really excited him. He’d never done anything like that, and it felt forbidden. Even mysterious, since he didn’t even know your name. He looked at Angel nervously as if the cat was judging him.

“Yes, and it seems like the client gave me the wrong number. I won’t be taking your time unless you’d like to try...” you lowered your voice to emphasize the last part of the sentence. Having worked for over a year in this company you had learned that if a caller started asking questions it mean that you got his attention. Even though this guy wasn’t the original strawberryboy69, you could try your luck and make him your new client.

Michael’s breath hitched.

“Um, I am really not sure” he mumbled, hugging the pillow and pressing it hard against his chest trying to calm down. “I’ve never tried anything like this....how much do you charge per minute?” he felt the thrill of the rush tightening in his stomach.

You smiled to yourself. You got him.

“It’s a dollar per minute, and after the 10th minute, the rate is 0.50$. Don’t worry about being inexperienced,” the tone of your voice switched from cool and professional to lustful and teasing in a matter of seconds, and that was what got Michael aroused. “I got you.”

Michael let out a frustrated sigh and flipped on his stomach, resting his chin on the pillow.

“Okay,” he cleared his throat, “okay, I think I want to try this, but what do I start with?”

You leaned back on your chair and put your phone on the speaker ready for the show.

“I want you to tell me about yourself first. What do you like in bed? What are your secret fantasies?” you turned on the timer.

There was some mumbling on the other end, and you heard something like “God, I can’t believe I’m doing it”.

After a long pause Michael spoke:

“It’s nothing extreme”, he said, “I think I am boring, like...okay, so...I don’t really.. Oh God.. Sorry, I can’t do this,” he felt so embarrassed; his cheeks were burning bright red.

It was a normal reaction for the person who had never practiced phone sex, and you understood him. So you took the initiative:

“Michael,” you remembered his name, “do you like being in control and dominating your partner?” you purred.

Michael shook his head as if you could see him.

“No, actually, it’s the opposite. I like when my partner takes care of me. I like it nice and soft,” he felt his cock harden in his pants and instinctively snaked his hand down his crotch to slightly squeeze it.

You briefly made a note “soft, probably sub” on a sticker, brought a pencil to your mouth, and pensively started sucking on the tip. It seemed like you got a new strawberry boy.

“Hmmm, sounds good” he was making a progress indeed, so you made sure to praise him for that, “I would love to take care of you, darling. Tell me what you look like, baby?”

Michael felt hot. Suddenly the temperature in the room increased drastically, and he slowly started unbuttoning his blue linen shirt. He traced the tips of his fingers starting from the prominent collarbones and moving inwards. Gently applying pressure, he whimpered at the sensation. Using a circular motion, he splayed his hand out gently across his chest and brought his fingers together at the pink nipple.

“I’m tall, and that’s why I’m always slouching. My grandma used to be so mad at me for not being able to sit straight, and-...” he paused suddenly realizing what he was saying. “God, I’m sorry, that was absolutely unsexy. I don’t know why I even said that...”

You couldn’t help yourself and giggled in response.

“It’s okay, darling” you hurried to reassure him, “feel free to share whatever you like. I’m listening.”

Michael buried his face in the pillow.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered, “I’m blond, curly-haired, and I have blue eyes, what else...”

You didn’t doubt that he was actually describing himself even though he could have pretended to be whoever he wanted. Most of your clients usually told you that they looked like models or actors, everyone was “tall, skinny, with big 11-inch dick (yes, sure), and pornographic boobs.” You couldn’t blame them for that because it was their fantasy and they had every right to dream about it.

“Baby, you are so pretty,” you told him, “let me lace my fingers through your curls and slightly tug on them so I could kiss that pretty neck of yours.”

Michael involuntary bucked his hips forward, grinding his clothed cock against the sofa.

“I-I-I love neck kisses,” he whispered feeling hot flush wash over him. “And love bites.”

You hummed approvingly. Slowly, step by step, you were going to bring him out from his comfort zone.

“That’s wonderful, kitten” you said twisting a strand of your hair around your finger, “imagine my full lips on your neck. Kissing and sucking on the tender skin. I’d slowly run the tip of my tongue across your throat and bite on your collarbones, mark you as mine. Are you mine, darling?”

You heard a quiet whimper on the other side. Michael’s hand passed the hem of his pants and sneaked inside to wrap around his half-hard cock. His mouth dropped open at the feeling of the velvet skin around the glistening head under his touch.

“Yes, I’d like to be yours.”

“That’s my good boy,” you cooed, “now I want to you touch yourself, baby,” it was like you were reading his mind, and Michael squeezed at the base of his shaft imagining that you were actually watching him.

“Already”, he said brokenly, moving his hand up and down his length smearing the precum.

“You are doing so well, love.” Having worked as a phone sex operator for quite a while, you stopped getting off with your clients, but this time it was different. Maybe it was Michael’s inexperience that got you, or his low, silky voice that sounded hot even when he was apologizing for the unnecessary things, or his appearance that he described. You imagined how nice it would be to have a blond, curly-haired boy on your lap, all flushed with embarrassment and arousal. You started circling your clit with the tips of your fingers through the denim fabric.

“Imagine sitting on my lap, baby,” you couldn’t hold yourself back and miss out on the opportunity to act out that fantasy of yours. “All desperate for me. Rutting your hips back and forth, as my hands cup your ass and squeeze it. Hard.”

Michael’s eyes fluttered open; he lifted his head from the pillow and threw it back at the thought of straddling your thighs, moaning loudly.

“Ugh, please” he whined, jerking himself off. The rough material of the sofa didn’t provide the friction he wanted, and he howled in frustration. “It’s not enough, it’s not enough, please..” he muttered.

You closed your eyes.

“Baby, I want you to take a blanket and put it between your thighs for me. Tell me when you are ready.”

Michael’s trembling hands reached out for his favorite fleece blanket, crumpled it hurriedly and placed it between his thighs. He hooked the waistband of his pants and yanked them down his long legs along with his boxers. A broken moan slipped of his tongue when the tip of his cock brushed against the fuzzy fabric.

“Ready, sweetheart?” you wondered in anticipation. The sweet little mewls escaping the boy’s mouth were driving you crazy. Your pussy was throbbing at the thought of ruining him, messing up his curls, and making those blue eyes water with the unbearable neediness.

“Y-yes”, Michael answered waiting for the next order.

“Now I want you to slowly start humping it”, you said, voice dripping with seduction, “while thinking of my hands sliding down your body, caressing every inch of the exposed skin. C’mon, move your hips in circles.”

His skin felt like it was on fire. His abdomen tensed as he started drawing figure eight with his hips, and he had to bite at the corner of the pillow to muffle his moans.

“Let me hear you,” you whispered while rubbing your clit, “God, I wish I could see you. Tell me how does humping feel, hmm?”

Michael moaned in response. His long fingers formed a fist around the tip of his cock and started sliding up and down the length, matching the thrusts of his hips.

“Feels so good”, he murmured. He licked his dry lips and sighed heavily before asking, “could you, please...argh...” Michael hissed when he accidentally slid his thumb along the slit, “Please...”

“What do you want, Michael?” you urged him to speak up.

“When you asked if I’d been a good boy”, he couldn’t believe he was actually about to ask for that, “you called yourself mommy, and I really liked it,” he rolled his head to the side feeling so damn embarrassed and pathetic.

“Oh, baby,” the boy was insufferable. You spread your pussy and inserted two fingers simultaneously, pumping them in and out, “imagine that it’s mommy’s cunt is clenching around your cock.”

Michael was on all fourth, jerking himself off violently. When a sinful “mommy” rolled off your lips, he bit on his knuckles trying to suppress a desperate squeak.

“I told you not to hold your moans in,” his heart skipped a beat when he heard the stern tone of your voice. “If you want to be quite so desperately, open your mouth and start sucking on your fingers.”

And he obeyed like a good boy. Michael brought his free hand to his lips and stuck his tongue out to lick at the tips of his fingers.

“That’s a good boy”, you moaned at the sloppy sound of his lips sucking on his digits. “Keep going.”

You hoped that he was getting close because your own orgasm started building up inside you with every push of your fingers.

“Mommy, I’m close,” you smiled at Michael’s whimpers. You were definitely in sync.

“I know, baby”, you squeezed your thighs flexing your pelvic floor muscles. “Mommy’s close, too.”

“Please, may I come?” he pleaded, and who were you to refuse him?

“Cum for me, kitten,” you moaned feeling your orgasm unfold, and flooding every cell of your body. “My pretty boy, you’ve been so, so good.”

With a broken cry, Michael let go, and came in his fist, staining his blanket with white stripes despite his attempts not to make it messy. You wished you could have seen his face. Fuck, for the first time you actually wondered what your client looked like.

Michael rolled over on his back. Coming down from his high, he felt ethereal. Starting at the ceiling, he couldn’t believe that a stranger had made him come so hard. He looked at his sticky hand and closed his eyes. Holly shit.

“Thank you,” he whispered and heard your soft chuckle.

“The pleasure was all mine,” you said with a smile and quietly whimpered at the feeling of dump panties between your legs.

You should have already thanked Michael for the call, charged for his time, and hung up, but instead, you were still on the phone with him.

“Hey, listen,” Michael cleared his throat, “is there any way I can contact you later?”

A wide grin spread across your lips.

“Yes, you can use this number. I work from 8 to 11pm.”

You were not going to make it easy for him.

Taglist: @langdons-rep @babypinkstyles94 @sammythankyou @kaigitana @ms-mead @sebastianshoe @langdonsdemon @iloveziggystardust @chaoticevillangdon @sojournmichael @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26 @theghostoflangdon @divinelangdon @avesatanormalpeoplescareme @ticklish-leafy-plant @bbyduncan

People who might like it: @ccodyfern @1-800-bitchcraft @ritualmichael @wroteclassicaly

#michael langdon smut #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon imagine #duncan shepherd smut #ahs apocalypse

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eeriestatic · 3 years ago

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For Lexy

What are some affectionate gestures that catch him off-guard?

What is his love language? (words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service, gift-giving/receiving)

How open is he about his desires? Is he shy or does he hold nothing back when being asked about them?

What is a deal-breaker for him?

How does he deal with a partner who has trust/image issues? (presents to you Meimei shdg don't let all that bling fool you, he thinks he's cringe)

Giving or receiving? (important)

What are some of his kinks?

Choose one: kiss on the back of the hand, kiss on the palm, kiss on the cheek, kiss on the lips, kiss on the forehead.

1 . Affectionate gestures that catch him off guard are relatively common ones actually, but equally the ones that ground him easily too since he's always on the move or the ones that attention garner easily. Ones, such as hugs from behind, and face contact and caressing, forehead kisses and overall affection that's pointblank in his face in that sense. Or, you got non-physical ones, when they aren't in contact for those rare times, he likes the little phone sticker back and forth, if Maestro starts it even, he's going to get spammed fhds they feel affectionate to him and it's always a pleasant surprise even if Maestro would be busy at any point

2 . Lex borders on acts of service and physical touch, groom him and love him up, he’s going to melt into putty hdjf

3 . Lex is a bit in between, although he won’t put in too much detail, that’s mostly since he is shy and doesn’t want to sound dumb, trying to put them into words. But all in all, he’d still do his best efforts. Not like he too familiar with all the terms, but when it comes to questioning, he’d probably be a bit more front with them on the spot, other than thinking of how to word it on his own

4 . Aside from what we know is awful and not acceptable in any case, it would always apply to the entirety to my characters because we aren’t gross uwu but leaning on something that comes to the characters struggles and worries for example, the things that Lex would end up leaning away in terms of a deal breaker(s), is ignoring him\shooing him off and brushing him off. Sure, might sound very fragile in that sense, though it doesn’t come off that way to me, but Lex would take any of those cases as a red flag and back off. He knows when he’s not wanted, but in every case when it comes to love, wanted is what he wants to be

5 . Lot’s of physical praise and verbal, both in affectionate terms. Down to complements, though they are genuine of course, if meimei changes an article of clothes, he’s likely going to make a comment on it or if he changes anything really, it’ll always be an allured expression of words. Pretty, how it fits, how it feels, even when it comes to smells and so on. You shush, he thinks the bling is pretty afhsjf in terms of trust, he will always be heavy on reassurance, Lex might not seem like someone to be able to handle stuff like that, but much like my others, he is very capable of doing lots. Especially the best when it comes to partners

6 . He likes to receive fjdfg but don’t be fooled by the answer, Lex isn’t picky either because he likes to please too

7 . Temperature play, though he especially leans more into the heat side of that kink, ya boi spicy meimei, then you got hints of fragrance kinks, lil bit of an odd one but he really like the meimei smell hdfs smells edible- activated it first encounter when he they were vibing, bye- sure he like the temperature play, but he’d probably enjoy the half clothed in meimei’s stuff too. Then there’s grinding, don’t know the exact word for that one or if it’s even in the kink def, but he likes friction in the tease sense and stimulation until it gets to the real spicy time

8 . Making me answer struggle but lip kissies fdkf gestures and love language clash

#mnemosys #[Lex]#{hes burning over here}

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beardcore-blog · 5 years ago

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A Princess Diary

"What’s Wrong With Cinderella?"

I finally came unhinged in the dentist’s office — one of those ritzy pediatric practices tricked out with comic books, DVDs and arcade games — where I’d taken my 3-year-old daughter for her first exam. Until then, I’d held my tongue. I’d smiled politely every time the supermarket-checkout clerk greeted her with ”Hi, Princess”; ignored the waitress at our local breakfast joint who called the funny-face pancakes she ordered her ”princess meal”; made no comment when the lady at Longs Drugs said, ”I bet I know your favorite color” and handed her a pink balloon rather than letting her choose for herself. Maybe it was the dentist’s Betty Boop inflection that got to me, but when she pointed to the exam chair and said, ”Would you like to sit in my special princess throne so I can sparkle your teeth?” I lost it.

”Oh, for God’s sake,” I snapped. ”Do you have a princess drill, too?”

She stared at me as if I were an evil stepmother.

”Come on!” I continued, my voice rising. ”It’s 2006, not 1950. This is Berkeley, Calif. Does every little girl really have to be a princess?”

My daughter, who was reaching for a Cinderella sticker, looked back and forth between us. ”Why are you so mad, Mama?” she asked. ”What’s wrong with princesses?”

Diana may be dead and Masako disgraced, but here in America, we are in the midst of a royal moment. To call princesses a ”trend” among girls is like calling Harry Potter a book. Sales at Disney Consumer Products, which started the craze six years ago by packaging nine of its female characters under one royal rubric, have shot up to $3 billion, globally, this year, from $300 million in 2001. There are now more than 25,000 Disney Princess items. ”Princess,” as some Disney execs call it, is not only the fastest-growing brand the company has ever created; they say it is on its way to becoming the largest girls’ franchise on the planet.

Meanwhile in 2001, Mattel brought out its own ”world of girl” line of princess Barbie dolls, DVDs, toys, clothing, home décor and myriad other products. At a time when Barbie sales were declining domestically, they became instant best sellers. Shortly before that, Mary Drolet, a Chicago-area mother and former Claire’s and Montgomery Ward executive, opened Club Libby Lu, now a chain of mall stores based largely in the suburbs in which girls ages 4 to 12 can shop for ”Princess Phones” covered in faux fur and attend ”Princess-Makeover Birthday Parties.” Saks bought Club Libby Lu in 2003 for $12 million and has since expanded it to 87 outlets; by 2005, with only scant local advertising, revenues hovered around the $46 million mark, a 53 percent jump from the previous year. Pink, it seems, is the new gold.

Even Dora the Explorer, the intrepid, dirty-kneed adventurer, has ascended to the throne: in 2004, after a two-part episode in which she turns into a ”true princess,” the Nickelodeon and Viacom consumer-products division released a satin-gowned ”Magic Hair Fairytale Dora,” with hair that grows or shortens when her crown is touched. Among other phrases the bilingual doll utters: ”Vámonos! Let’s go to fairy-tale land!” and ”Will you brush my hair?”

As a feminist mother — not to mention a nostalgic product of the Grranimals era — I have been taken by surprise by the princess craze and the girlie-girl culture that has risen around it. What happened to William wanting a doll and not dressing your cat in an apron? Whither Marlo Thomas? I watch my fellow mothers, women who once swore they’d never be dependent on a man, smile indulgently at daughters who warble ”So This Is Love” or insist on being called Snow White. I wonder if they’d concede so readily to sons who begged for combat fatigues and mock AK-47s.

More to the point, when my own girl makes her daily beeline for the dress-up corner of her preschool classroom — something I’m convinced she does largely to torture me — I worry about what playing Little Mermaid is teaching her. I’ve spent much of my career writing about experiences that undermine girls’ well-being, warning parents that a preoccupation with body and beauty (encouraged by films, TV, magazines and, yes, toys) is perilous to their daughters’ mental and physical health. Am I now supposed to shrug and forget all that? If trafficking in stereotypes doesn’t matter at 3, when does it matter? At 6? Eight? Thirteen?

On the other hand, maybe I’m still surfing a washed-out second wave of feminism in a third-wave world. Maybe princesses are in fact a sign of progress, an indication that girls can embrace their predilection for pink without compromising strength or ambition; that, at long last, they can ”have it all.” Or maybe it is even less complex than that: to mangle Freud, maybe a princess is sometimes just a princess. And, as my daughter wants to know, what’s wrong with that?

The rise of the Disney princesses reads like a fairy tale itself, with Andy Mooney, a former Nike executive, playing the part of prince, riding into the company on a metaphoric white horse in January 2000 to save a consumer-products division whose sales were dropping by as much as 30 percent a year. Both overstretched and underfocused, the division had triggered price wars by granting multiple licenses for core products (say, Winnie-the-Pooh undies) while ignoring the potential of new media. What’s more, Disney films like ”A Bug’s Life” in 1998 had yielded few merchandising opportunities — what child wants to snuggle up with an ant?

It was about a month after Mooney’s arrival that the magic struck. That’s when he flew to Phoenix to check out his first ”Disney on Ice” show. ”Standing in line in the arena, I was surrounded by little girls dressed head to toe as princesses,” he told me last summer in his palatial office, then located in Burbank, and speaking in a rolling Scottish burr. ”They weren’t even Disney products. They were generic princess products they’d appended to a Halloween costume. And the light bulb went off. Clearly there was latent demand here. So the next morning I said to my team, ‘O.K., let’s establish standards and a color palette and talk to licensees and get as much product out there as we possibly can that allows these girls to do what they’re doing anyway: projecting themselves into the characters from the classic movies.’ ”

Mooney picked a mix of old and new heroines to wear the Pantone pink No. 241 corona: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan and Pocahontas. It was the first time Disney marketed characters separately from a film’s release, let alone lumped together those from different stories. To ensure the sanctity of what Mooney called their individual ”mythologies,” the princesses never make eye contact when they’re grouped: each stares off in a slightly different direction as if unaware of the others’ presence.

It is also worth noting that not all of the ladies are of royal extraction. Part of the genius of ”Princess” is that its meaning is so broadly constructed that it actually has no meaning. Even Tinker Bell was originally a Princess, though her reign didn’t last. ”We’d always debate over whether she was really a part of the Princess mythology,” Mooney recalled. ”She really wasn’t.” Likewise, Mulan and Pocahontas, arguably the most resourceful of the bunch, are rarely depicted on Princess merchandise, though for a different reason. Their rustic garb has less bling potential than that of old-school heroines like Sleeping Beauty. (When Mulan does appear, she is typically in the kimonolike hanfu, which makes her miserable in the movie, rather than her liberated warrior’s gear.)

The first Princess items, released with no marketing plan, no focus groups, no advertising, sold as if blessed by a fairy godmother. To this day, Disney conducts little market research on the Princess line, relying instead on the power of its legacy among mothers as well as the instant-read sales barometer of the theme parks and Disney Stores. ”We simply gave girls what they wanted,” Mooney said of the line’s success, ”although I don’t think any of us grasped how much they wanted this. I wish I could sit here and take credit for having some grand scheme to develop this, but all we did was envision a little girl’s room and think about how she could live out the princess fantasy. The counsel we gave to licensees was: What type of bedding would a princess want to sleep in? What kind of alarm clock would a princess want to wake up to? What type of television would a princess like to see? It’s a rare case where you find a girl who has every aspect of her room bedecked in Princess, but if she ends up with three or four of these items, well, then you have a very healthy business.”

Every reporter Mooney talks to asks some version of my next question: Aren’t the Princesses, who are interested only in clothes, jewelry and cadging the handsome prince, somewhat retrograde role models?

”Look,” he said, ”I have friends whose son went through the Power Rangers phase who castigated themselves over what they must’ve done wrong. Then they talked to other parents whose kids had gone through it. The boy passes through. The girl passes through. I see girls expanding their imagination through visualizing themselves as princesses, and then they pass through that phase and end up becoming lawyers, doctors, mothers or princesses, whatever the case may be.”

Mooney has a point: There are no studies proving that playing princess directly damages girls’ self-esteem or dampens other aspirations. On the other hand, there is evidence that young women who hold the most conventionally feminine beliefs — who avoid conflict and think they should be perpetually nice and pretty — are more likely to be depressed than others and less likely to use contraception. What’s more, the 23 percent decline in girls’ participation in sports and other vigorous activity between middle and high school has been linked to their sense that athletics is unfeminine. And in a survey released last October by Girls Inc., school-age girls overwhelmingly reported a paralyzing pressure to be ”perfect”: not only to get straight A’s and be the student-body president, editor of the newspaper and captain of the swim team but also to be ”kind and caring,” ”please everyone, be very thin and dress right.” Give those girls a pumpkin and a glass slipper and they’d be in business.

At the grocery store one day, my daughter noticed a little girl sporting a Cinderella backpack. ”There’s that princess you don’t like, Mama!” she shouted.

”Um, yeah,” I said, trying not to meet the other mother’s hostile gaze.

”Don’t you like her blue dress, Mama?”

I had to admit, I did.

She thought about this. ”Then don’t you like her face?”

”Her face is all right,” I said, noncommittally, though I’m not thrilled to have my Japanese-Jewish child in thrall to those Aryan features. (And what the heck are those blue things covering her ears?) ”It’s just, honey, Cinderella doesn’t really do anything.”

Over the next 45 minutes, we ran through that conversation, verbatim, approximately 37 million times, as my daughter pointed out Disney Princess Band-Aids, Disney Princess paper cups, Disney Princess lip balm, Disney Princess pens, Disney Princess crayons and Disney Princess notebooks — all cleverly displayed at the eye level of a 3-year-old trapped in a shopping cart — as well as a bouquet of Disney Princess balloons bobbing over the checkout line. The repetition was excessive, even for a preschooler. What was it about my answers that confounded her? What if, instead of realizing: Aha! Cinderella is a symbol of the patriarchal oppression of all women, another example of corporate mind control and power-to-the-people! my 3-year-old was thinking, Mommy doesn’t want me to be a girl?

According to theories of gender constancy, until they’re about 6 or 7, children don’t realize that the sex they were born with is immutable. They believe that they have a choice: they can grow up to be either a mommy or a daddy. Some psychologists say that until permanency sets in kids embrace whatever stereotypes our culture presents, whether it’s piling on the most spangles or attacking one another with light sabers. What better way to assure that they’ll always remain themselves? If that’s the case, score one for Mooney. By not buying the Princess Pull-Ups, I may be inadvertently communicating that being female (to the extent that my daughter is able to understand it) is a bad thing.

Anyway, you have to give girls some credit. It’s true that, according to Mattel, one of the most popular games young girls play is ”bride,” but Disney found that a groom or prince is incidental to that fantasy, a regrettable necessity at best. Although they keep him around for the climactic kiss, he is otherwise relegated to the bottom of the toy box, which is why you don’t see him prominently displayed in stores.

What’s more, just because they wear the tulle doesn’t mean they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. Plenty of girls stray from the script, say, by playing basketball in their finery, or casting themselves as the powerful evil stepsister bossing around the sniveling Cinderella. I recall a headline-grabbing 2005 British study that revealed that girls enjoy torturing, decapitating and microwaving their Barbies nearly as much as they like to dress them up for dates. There is spice along with that sugar after all, though why this was news is beyond me: anyone who ever played with the doll knows there’s nothing more satisfying than hacking off all her hair and holding her underwater in the bathtub. Princesses can even be a boon to exasperated parents: in our house, for instance, royalty never whines and uses the potty every single time.

”Playing princess is not the issue,” argues Lyn Mikel Brown, an author, with Sharon Lamb, of ”Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers’ Schemes.” ”The issue is 25,000 Princess products,” says Brown, a professor of education and human development at Colby College. ”When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.”

It’s hard to imagine that girls’ options could truly be shrinking when they dominate the honor roll and outnumber boys in college. Then again, have you taken a stroll through a children’s store lately? A year ago, when we shopped for ”big girl” bedding at Pottery Barn Kids, we found the ”girls” side awash in flowers, hearts and hula dancers; not a soccer player or sailboat in sight. Across the no-fly zone, the ”boys” territory was all about sports, trains, planes and automobiles. Meanwhile, Baby GAP’s boys’ onesies were emblazoned with ”Big Man on Campus” and the girls’ with ”Social Butterfly”; guess whose matching shoes were decorated on the soles with hearts and whose sported a ”No. 1” logo? And at Toys ”R” Us, aisles of pink baby dolls, kitchens, shopping carts and princesses unfurl a safe distance from the ”Star Wars” figures, GeoTrax and tool chests. The relentless resegregation of childhood appears to have sneaked up without any further discussion about sex roles, about what it now means to be a boy or to be a girl. Or maybe it has happened in lieu of such discussion because it’s easier this way.

Easier, that is, unless you want to buy your daughter something that isn’t pink. Girls’ obsession with that color may seem like something they’re born with, like the ability to breathe or talk on the phone for hours on end. But according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, it ain’t so. When colors were first introduced to the nursery in the early part of the 20th century, pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty. Why or when that switched is not clear, but as late as the 1930s a significant percentage of adults in one national survey held to that split. Perhaps that’s why so many early Disney heroines — Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Wendy, Alice-in-Wonderland — are swathed in varying shades of azure. (Purple, incidentally, may be the next color to swap teams: once the realm of kings and N.F.L. players, it is fast becoming the bolder girl’s version of pink.)

It wasn’t until the mid-1980s, when amplifying age and sex differences became a key strategy of children’s marketing (recall the emergence of ” ‘tween”), that pink became seemingly innate to girls, part of what defined them as female, at least for the first few years. That was also the time that the first of the generation raised during the unisex phase of feminism — ah, hither Marlo! — became parents. ”The kids who grew up in the 1970s wanted sharp definitions for their own kids,” Paoletti told me. ”I can understand that, because the unisex thing denied everything — you couldn’t be this, you couldn’t be that, you had to be a neutral nothing.”

The infatuation with the girlie girl certainly could, at least in part, be a reaction against the so-called second wave of the women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s (the first wave was the fight for suffrage), which fought for reproductive rights and economic, social and legal equality. If nothing else, pink and Princess have resuscitated the fantasy of romance that that era of feminism threatened, the privileges that traditional femininity conferred on women despite its costs — doors magically opened, dinner checks picked up, Manolo Blahniks. Frippery. Fun. Why should we give up the perks of our sex until we’re sure of what we’ll get in exchange? Why should we give them up at all? Or maybe it’s deeper than that: the freedoms feminism bestowed came with an undercurrent of fear among women themselves — flowing through ”Ally McBeal,” ”Bridget Jones’s Diary,” ”Sex and the City” — of losing male love, of never marrying, of not having children, of being deprived of something that felt essentially and exclusively female.

I mulled that over while flipping through ”The Paper Bag Princess,” a 1980 picture book hailed as an antidote to Disney. The heroine outwits a dragon who has kidnapped her prince, but not before the beast’s fiery breath frizzles her hair and destroys her dress, forcing her to don a paper bag. The ungrateful prince rejects her, telling her to come back when she is ”dressed like a real princess.” She dumps him and skips off into the sunset, happily ever after, alone.

There you have it, ”Thelma and Louise” all over again. Step out of line, and you end up solo or, worse, sailing crazily over a cliff to your doom. Alternatives like those might send you skittering right back to the castle. And I get that: the fact is, though I want my daughter to do and be whatever she wants as an adult, I still hope she’ll find her Prince Charming and have babies, just as I have. I don’t want her to be a fish without a bicycle; I want her to be a fish with another fish. Preferably, one who loves and respects her and also does the dishes and half the child care.

There had to be a middle ground between compliant and defiant, between petticoats and paper bags. I remembered a video on YouTube, an ad for a Nintendo game called Super Princess Peach. It showed a pack of girls in tiaras, gowns and elbow-length white gloves sliding down a zip line on parasols, navigating an obstacle course of tires in their stilettos, slithering on their bellies under barbed wire, then using their telekinetic powers to make a climbing wall burst into flames. ”If you can stand up to really mean people,” an announcer intoned, ”maybe you have what it takes to be a princess.”

Now here were some girls who had grit as well as grace. I loved Princess Peach even as I recognized that there was no way she could run in those heels, that her peachiness did nothing to upset the apple cart of expectation: she may have been athletic, smart and strong, but she was also adorable. Maybe she’s what those once-unisex, postfeminist parents are shooting for: the melding of old and new standards. And perhaps that’s a good thing, the ideal solution. But what to make, then, of the young women in the Girls Inc. survey? It doesn’t seem to be ”having it all” that’s getting to them; it’s the pressure to be it all. In telling our girls they can be anything, we have inadvertently demanded that they be everything. To everyone. All the time. No wonder the report was titled ”The Supergirl Dilemma.”

The princess as superhero is not irrelevant. Some scholars I spoke with say that given its post-9/11 timing, princess mania is a response to a newly dangerous world. ”Historically, princess worship has emerged during periods of uncertainty and profound social change,” observes Miriam Forman-Brunell, a historian at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Francis Hodgson Burnett’s original”Little Princess” was published at a time of rapid urbanization, immigration and poverty; Shirley Temple’s film version was a hit during the Great Depression. ”The original folk tales themselves,” Forman-Brunell says, ”spring from medieval and early modern European culture that faced all kinds of economic and demographic and social upheaval — famine, war, disease, terror of wolves. Girls play savior during times of economic crisis and instability.” That’s a heavy burden for little shoulders. Perhaps that’s why the magic wand has become an essential part of the princess get-up. In the original stories — even the Disney versions of them — it’s not the girl herself who’s magic; it’s the fairy godmother. Now if Forman-Brunell is right, we adults have become the cursed creatures whom girls have the thaumaturgic power to transform.

In the 1990s, third-wave feminists rebelled against their dour big sisters, ”reclaiming” sexual objectification as a woman’s right — provided, of course, that it was on her own terms, that she was the one choosing to strip or wear a shirt that said ”Porn Star” or make out with her best friend at a frat-house bash. They embraced words like ”bitch” and ”slut” as terms of affection and empowerment. That is, when used by the right people, with the right dash of playful irony. But how can you assure that? As Madonna gave way to Britney, whatever self-determination that message contained was watered down and commodified until all that was left was a gaggle of 6-year-old girls in belly-baring T-shirts (which I’m guessing they don’t wear as cultural critique). It is no wonder that parents, faced with thongs for 8-year-olds and Bratz dolls’ ”passion for fashion,” fill their daughters’ closets with pink sateen; the innocence of Princess feels like a reprieve.

”But what does that mean?” asks Sharon Lamb, a psychology professor at Saint Michael’s College. ”There are other ways to express ‘innocence’ — girls could play ladybug or caterpillar. What you’re really talking about is sexual purity. And there’s a trap at the end of that rainbow, because the natural progression from pale, innocent pink is not to other colors. It’s to hot, sexy pink — exactly the kind of sexualization parents are trying to avoid.”

Lamb suggested that to see for myself how ”Someday My Prince Will Come” morphs into ”Oops! I Did It Again,” I visit Club Libby Lu, the mall shop dedicated to the ”Very Important Princess.”

Walking into one of the newest links in the store’s chain, in Natick, Mass., last summer, I had to tip my tiara to the founder, Mary Drolet: Libby Lu’s design was flawless. Unlike Disney, Drolet depended on focus groups to choose the logo (a crown-topped heart) and the colors (pink, pink, purple and more pink). The displays were scaled to the size of a 10-year-old, though most of the shoppers I saw were several years younger than that. The decals on the walls and dressing rooms — ”I Love Your Hair,” ”Hip Chick,” ”Spoiled” — were written in ”girlfriend language.” The young sales clerks at this ”special secret club for superfabulous girls” are called ”club counselors” and come off like your coolest baby sitter, the one who used to let you brush her hair. The malls themselves are chosen based on a company formula called the G.P.I., or ”Girl Power Index,” which predicts potential sales revenues. Talk about newspeak: ”Girl Power” has gone from a riot grrrrl anthem to ”I Am Woman, Watch Me Shop.”

Inside, the store was divided into several glittery ”shopping zones” called ”experiences”: Libby’s Laboratory, now called Sparkle Spa, where girls concoct their own cosmetics and bath products; Libby’s Room; Ear Piercing; Pooch Parlor (where divas in training can pamper stuffed poodles, pugs and Chihuahuas); and the Style Studio, offering ”Libby Du” makeover choices, including ‘Tween Idol, Rock Star, Pop Star and, of course, Priceless Princess. Each look includes hairstyle, makeup, nail polish and sparkly tattoos.

As I browsed, I noticed a mother standing in the center of the store holding a price list for makeover birthday parties — $22.50 to $35 per child. Her name was Anne McAuliffe; her daughters — Stephanie, 4, and 7-year-old twins Rory and Sarah — were dashing giddily up and down the aisles.

”They’ve been begging to come to this store for three weeks,” McAuliffe said. ”I’d never heard of it. So I said they could, but they’d have to spend their own money if they bought anything.” She looked around. ”Some of this stuff is innocuous,” she observed, then leaned toward me, eyes wide and stage-whispered: ”But … a lot of it is horrible. It makes them look like little prostitutes. It’s crazy. They’re babies!”

As we debated the line between frivolous fun and JonBenét, McAuliffe’s daughter Rory came dashing up, pigtails haphazard, glasses askew. ”They have the best pocketbooks here,” she said breathlessly, brandishing a clutch with the words ”Girlie Girl” stamped on it. ”Please, can I have one? It has sequins!”

”You see that?” McAuliffe asked, gesturing at the bag. ”What am I supposed to say?”

On my way out of the mall, I popped into the ” ‘tween” mecca Hot Topic, where a display of Tinker Bell items caught my eye. Tinker Bell, whose image racks up an annual $400 million in retail sales with no particular effort on Disney’s part, is poised to wreak vengeance on the Princess line that once expelled her. Last winter, the first chapter book designed to introduce girls to Tink and her Pixie Hollow pals spent 18 weeks on The New York Times children’s best-seller list. In a direct-to-DVD now under production, she will speak for the first time, voiced by the actress Brittany Murphy. Next year, Disney Fairies will be rolled out in earnest. Aimed at 6- to 9-year-old girls, the line will catch them just as they outgrow Princess. Their colors will be lavender, green, turquoise — anything but the Princess’s soon-to-be-babyish pink.

To appeal to that older child, Disney executives said, the Fairies will have more ”attitude” and ”sass” than the Princesses. What, I wondered, did that entail? I’d seen some of the Tinker Bell merchandise that Disney sells at its theme parks: T-shirts reading, ”Spoiled to Perfection,” ”Mood Subject to Change Without Notice” and ”Tinker Bell: Prettier Than a Princess.” At Hot Topic, that edge was even sharper: magnets, clocks, light-switch plates and panties featured ”Dark Tink,” described as ”the bad girl side of Miss Bell that Walt never saw.”

Girl power, indeed.

A few days later, I picked my daughter up from preschool. She came tearing over in a full-skirted frock with a gold bodice, a beaded crown perched sideways on her head. ”Look, Mommy, I’m Ariel!” she crowed. referring to Disney’s Little Mermaid. Then she stopped and furrowed her brow. ”Mommy, do you like Ariel?”

I considered her for a moment. Maybe Princess is the first salvo in what will become a lifelong struggle over her body image, a Hundred Years’ War of dieting, plucking, painting and perpetual dissatisfaction with the results. Or maybe it isn’t. I’ll never really know. In the end, it’s not the Princesses that really bother me anyway. They’re just a trigger for the bigger question of how, over the years, I can help my daughter with the contradictions she will inevitably face as a girl, the dissonance that is as endemic as ever to growing up female. Maybe the best I can hope for is that her generation will get a little further with the solutions than we did.

For now, I kneeled down on the floor and gave my daughter a hug.

She smiled happily. ”But, Mommy?” she added. ”When I grow up, I’m still going to be a fireman.”

– by Peggy Orenstein, for the New York Times Magazine (December 2006)

Posted by lukewho on 2007-01-01 19:50:52

Tagged: , fremont , christmas , 2006 , jacinto , princess , disney

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