#anyways. start teaching internet safety again it’s so important now more than ever

[paranormeow7]

in the midst of getting all of our news and opinions and information in general from social media so many people online have forgotten that it’s the wild fucking west and literally anyone can just lie and say they’re a doctor and that drinking bleach is good for you. I’ve been seeing so fucking many warning posts along the lines of “sometimes people online lie!! reminder that people online can pretend to be someone else and spread false information!!” like yeah I thought this was common knowledge. we as a society need to realize that the internet is not always a reliable source of information, and that the people on here hide behind a shroud of anonymity, allowing them to genuinely be anyone. do not trust xxboyslutxx on TikTok with how to treat your crippling acid reflux or lose 10 pounds or whatever. check your sources or read a book at your local library

[sometimesrosy]

I have bouts of unhappiness from time to time, now more frequently than not. For more than a year, I haven’t talked to friends because of COVID and confinement. All of the friends I talk to are online, but there’s no human contact. One of them is spanish, so we never talked any other way. The others are mostly my boyfriend’s friends with whom we talk on discord. I only see my mom, grandma, boyfriend, and my cats. I work at a study center, but now even the kids I talk to through zoom because of a new confinement. I’ve been feeling pretty low and without a drive in life. I stopped reading, I stopped bullet journaling, I stopped writing, I stopped watching movies and tv. Recently I’ve started streaming video games, and honestly it’s the only thing that keeps me doing something outside of work, but I wonder when will I give up on it too. I’d like to blame this on the confinement, but even before we had it, I had already isolated myself from people. It’s really easy to feel lonely, to feel like I can’t connect. I know it’s not depression because I’ve had and I hit rock bottom then, so I know I’m better. I lost friends along my life, but most of it was for the best. I have found a life partner that treats me 100% well and who gave the best kitties I could have ever asked for. I have a mom that does anything and everything for me, a grandma that cooks for me, a house with fast internet. I have a job and students that like me. And yet, sometimes I feel like I’m here doing nothing? As if I have no purpose? I have so many interests it kills me to never be satisfied. I honestly think this is my problem. Anyway, I’m so sorry for the rant. I just felt I needed to let it out somehow. I know tomorrow I’ll wake up fine, but next week I’ll have another day like this. For now, I’m going to bed and cuddle with my boyfriend and kitties. I just wish I could change my perspective these days I’m feeling down. I don’t need to have a purpose, I don’t need to commit to hobbies. I don’t need to expect something of myself when I don’t even know what it is. Thank you for “hearing” me out. Please never delete this blog!

So here’s the thing I want you to remember:

You are living through unprecedented times. The pressures of a global pandemic, national upheaval, cultural revolution and environmental extremes have us ALL on edge.

When you take stock of your life, as you have here, you can see you’re doing pretty well. You have love and family and work and security and safety and the best kitties in the world, right? You KNOW depression and this isn’t it somehow.

And yet, you seem to think that you have to look for *your* problem, the reason why *you* particularly are feeling this way.

Nope. It’s not you. There’s not something wrong with you that isn’t wrong with everyone.

Now, I’m not a therapist, I’m not making a diagnosis here, but before this pandemic thing, there was a lot of upheaval in my life and I worked through it, leaving me in a really good position to ride out this global disaster that I wouldn’t have been in before. I mean it wasn’t good, but it’s like I experienced it before everyone else so am already on the way to healing from it while everyone else is falling into it. So from my experience and the research I have had to do for my own health and well being, what I think you’re experiencing is ANXIETY.

I think that because you told me you stopped doing the things you love, reading, bullet journaling, writing, movies and tv. That happened to me too. I mean aside from hyperfocusing on writing. It was rather stressful to STOP reading for me. And I kept feeling like something was wrong with me, then I discovered that not being able to focus on reading is actually a symptom of anxiety. And it’s common now. The world feels out of control and you feel like you should be doing something to fix it, only you can’t, and focusing on the things that are part of your life feels insufficient. You’re overwhelmed. Actually, there’s probably a bit of depression in there, too.

But I do know that I needed to read and watch COMFORT content. Something I’ve already read, or a literature genre that wraps everything up neatly in the end. For me, Historical Romance, because I need the Happy Ever After and I need the problems to be distant enough from my reality to not affect me. In fact, when I read a book that touches on traumas that are too close to real for me, I get tense and can’t continue. (I had this problem last week with a romance set in the civil war. I just can’t handle fictional racism and brutality in my escapism book when I’m trying to escape IRL racism and brutality. I think it’s because the MC was traumatized by it, where in the other books in the series, the characters were fighting it. Anyway, good books, The Loyal League Books by Alyssa Cole, the last is just hitting some of my triggers.) 

Still, I find myself unable to read science fiction or fantasy. I can ONLY read romance. It’s very weird for me, because I love SFF. But my brain is struggling to handle all the real life chaos, and there’s really no room in it right now to have comprehend the big thoughts and new universes of SFF. So when Bridgertons showed up, which is my perfect genre right now, and which I’ve already READ multiple times, so it isn’t even new material for me, THAT is the kind of thing I can watch. Superhero shows where I already know the characters. Fanfiction where it’s just two characters falling in love over and over again.

I dont’ mean to talk about myself, but as an illustration, I wanted to show you. You are overwhelmed and your brain wants to rest. Video games seems to provide that. Okay! Keep doing that. Just like I finally had to sign up for kindle unlimited so that I could zoom through all the romance books for comfort reading without having to buy new ones all the time.

This is how you are coping.

And if I read your ask right. You’re a teacher. I dont’ know what kind of teacher or if you’re irl or distance teaching, but I do know that the stress of teaching in this pandemic is INCREDIBLE.  Shoot, normal teaching is demanding enough, add the pandemic and OUCH. So I think you should recognize that you are a front line worker in keeping society running. You honestly don’t need to have a higher purpose than that... if you feel like you need to be DOING something important. You already are. 

Everyone can only do what they are capable of. Some people are in politics, some people are developing vaccines, some people are stocking shelves, some people are teaching, some people are raising kids, some people are volunteering. You don’t have to do it all. Find your place in your world and accept that you are contributing.

What you need to do right now is to take care of yourself. You MUST have time to relax. Value your family and boyfriend and kitties, just like you say. Rest, relax. Do NOT burn out. Stay healthy. That is important especially now. Eat right and drink water and sleep enough. 

I think you’re right. It is a matter of your perspective. You’ve forgotten that your life has turned upside down.  You’re expecting activity/energy levels from yourself that you had before the world was a flaming dumpster fire. But so much of your current energy is going to surviving in that flaming dumpster fire. 

EVERYONE is trying to survive right now, even when we have relatively comfortable situations. Recognize that and give yourself a break. 

[faunahudson]

One Night In Belfast

WHO: Sawyer Hudson and Fauna Flanagan - @sawyer-hudson

WHEN: 27th October 2020

WHERE: The Hudson Suite

WHAT: Sawyer and Fauna push Fauna’s personal limit of being recorded during intimate situations in a display of trust between the two of them. 

WARNINGS: Smut, dirty talk, slight slut shaming.

Fauna was sitting in front of the mirror at her dressing table in a brand new silk robe, she’d spent probably longer on her appearance for this scene than she had for any other which was saying something. Making sure that her face looked perfect and that the long extensions she was wearing were perfectly curled, after a long look in the mirror she nodded to herself. Maybe she was compensating for how rough she'd looked in her two previous forays into this sort of thing, or maybe it was simply that she liked looking good for him, she didn't want to look too deeply into it. “I’m done now.” She promised knowing how patient her Dominant had been with her. “Camera ready.”

Sawyer didn’t want to focus too much on his own appearance for this, letting Fauna simply style his hair, although he was nervous about being on camera, he had never been on camera before. It wasn’t like he was scared of people ever finding it, because they were going to keep it simply on the hard drive of Sawyer’s computer, behind a number of firewalls, and nowhere near the Cloud or the internet. He just wanted to make sure Fauna felt comfortable throughout it all, it was her biggest limit being pushed, and he was honoured she felt completely safe with him, but was still worried he’d somehow fuck it up. He smiled as she announced she was done, turning to face her, jaw dropping. Fauna always looked beautiful, in any state of undress, but she had really outdone herself this time. “Look at you, He murmured, pulling her closer for a quick kiss, “Beautiful.” He said against her lips, leading her to the bed, the camera beside it on a tripod. “Before I finish setting it up, let’s go over our limits, safeword and what we hope to get out of this scene.”

The kiss that he gave her did do a little to dampen the paralysing fear of the camera in the room. And once again she found herself employing the same technique that she had been over the past few days. The camera they had now wasn’t creating something else to be ashamed of, it was going to tape over all of her bad memories. Replace the thing she feared with something that she loved. “Thank you.” She murmured as he lead her over. “Okay Sir. My limits are scat, vore, needles.. then today we’re going to be pushing my limit surrounding recording and pictures of me and I’m okay with that. It’s what I want. I want to try stop being afraid of something that happened to me a long time ago,  and to show you how much I respect and trust you as my Dominant to keep me safe. My safeword is Derry and I love you.” The little brunette responded, squeezing his hand a little.

He smiled softly as she listed off her limits, knowing he could list them himself in his sleep by now, but it was important for her to feel safe listing things that made her uncomfortable, and things he’d never try and force her to do. Things he didn’t want to do himself. “I love you too,” He affirmed, squeezing her hand back. Their little sign from day one that said “I’m here, I’m always here, I’m not going anywhere.”  He tucked back a stray lock of hair. “Your safeword is Derry,” Sawyer repeated so he knew that she knew he understood, “and at any point you feel uncomfortable you use it. Whether you want to simply stop filming or stop the whole scene together, okay? Your safety and comfort is the only thing that matters to me and I’ll stop the moment you say.” He kissed her gently on the top of her head, only getting up to press play on the camera. “I’m about to start, okay? Ready...” The Dominant grinned a mixture of bashfulness and absurdity, “Action.”

She smiled softly as he brushed her hair off her face, her thumb swiping over the top of his hand. All they were going to do was have sex, something that they did multiple times a day. “Okay Sir. I know that we can stop anytime that I want. Or.. any time that you want, if you get camera shy.” She teased, ignoring him pressing play on the camera to focus on him. It didn’t have to be awkward. She leaned in and kissed him when he said action. “You look so hot today.” She told him against his lips. “When you were leaning against the lockers outside of my further submission class I was just thinking about how sexy you are.”

He smiled into the kiss, the camera all but a thought in the back in his mind. “It’s amazing we get any class work done at all, considering how distracting we find each other.” His arms snaked round her waist, hands playing with the delicate lace of her lingerie. “I have to say Kitten, you always find new ways you impress me.” Sawyer leaned in, nipping at her neck. “I can’t wait to rip this off you.” He murmured into her skin, hands tracing softly down her body, a teasing trail to her panties.

Fauna wrapped her arms around his neck in return when his muscled ones found her waist. “I only do the class work at all so that when I see you I can spend all my time with my hands metaphorically and physically down your pants.” She purred back, running her fingers through the soft hair at the back of his neck. Her hips shifted a little with arousal at the idea of him once again tearing her lingerie from her body. “God you don’t even know how hot it is to me that you can physically rip my clothes off me.” She told him honestly, tilting her head back so that he could reach more of her neck. Goosebumps formed on her skin as his hand made its way down her body, and she rolled her hips just a little to press against his own crotch.

Sawyer chuckled. “We both know you only do class work to appease your favourite teacher, and I have it on good authority he’s very, very pleased about you doing your schoolwork.” He praised in a low growl, nipping at the part of the neck she exposed for him. He groaned when she rolled her hips against him, his cock twitching at the pressure. “C’mere,” He murmured, pulling her closer against him, gripping tight.

She giggled, he knew her too well. Despite her love of academics when it suited her, she'd long since made it clear she wasn't all that interested in what Devereux had to offer her class wise. She was however interested in winning the approval of Mr Hudson. "I mean you caught me Sir, I'm so glad that he's pleased with my progress. I do so love being a teachers pet." She purred, shifting her body closer against his raising her hips again to continue to tease him. "You know who else I love to appease?" She asked.

A part of Sawyer had to remind him that they had all night, to not rush things, even though he was aching to rip the lingerie off her as promised. Instead he continued to nip at her, chuckling against her body at her words. "And he loves how far you're willing to go to keep him happy, I think he's scheduled some office hours for you in the future." He promised, in a teasing manner. He raised his brow, fingers firmly gripping at her hips to stop her from playing. "Who else?" Sawyer asked, curious though he was sure he knew the answer, wanting to hear the confirmation from Fauna's lips.

She let out a satisfied little mm of pleasure at the idea of Mr Hudson reserving time for her. "He's so considerate to take time out of what I'm sure is a packed teaching schedule for me." She purred, giving him just a little pout when he stilled her hips with his big hands, she knew he always hated to be teased like that. Though she also loved when he took control of her in that manner. "You of course Sir, I love being your little pet too." She responded pressing a kiss against the corner of his mouth. "So.. how can I appease you right now?"

“Oh yes, definitely packed,” Sawyer told her with a chuckle, flushing a deep red at the cheesy innuendo. He leaned down and gave her a gentle peck on the lips when she pouted at him, knowing she loved it really when he controlled her. “And I love you bring my little kitten,” He affirmed, “Hmm, so many options,” Sawyer stroked up and down her leg as he pretended to think, teasing traces with his big hands. “I think the feeling of your mouth around my cock would appease me very much right now.”

She giggled, totally relaxed now keeping her eyes on his face. “You’re blushing Sir.” The little submissive told him with a mischievous glint in her eye. Fauna preened a little when he told her that he loved having her as his kitten. Leaning in to pepper kisses down his chest while he was thinking. Normally she very much enjoyed blowing him, but her stomach curled a little because she was suddenly very aware of the camera again. She assessed her fears and decided they were a part of things, but they didn’t override her enjoyment at the idea of bringing him pleasure. “Your wish is my command Sir.. will you hold my hair for me?” She asked, waiting for him to release his grip on her hips so she could get on her knees.

A part of Sawyer wanted to tell her she didn’t have to, that if it were too much they could stop it. But another part of him thought that drawing attention to it would be detrimental to the progress Fauna was making, and the third, very horny part of Sawyer was just focused on how good her lips felt as she trailed down his body with kisses, leaving goosebumps in her wake and making him gulp thickly. “Of course,” He said with a grin, hands reaching up from her hips and scooping up the heavy extensions from her shoulders. “I don’t know how you can bear having this weight on your head most days,” He then commented, breaking his Dominant demeanour for a second, just regular old Sawyer. And he wanted to be more Sawyer than Sir for this scene anyway, to make them both feel more comfortable about the camera in the room with them.

She laughed, feeling more relaxed immediately when he joked with her. He wasn’t some boy who wanted to use her to get off, or to make a video to show his friends later she was making a sex tape with her boyfriend who loved her. Who wanted her to blow him because he desired her, and found her sexy and alluring. She dropped to her knees. “I lost feeling in my scalp a long time ago.” Fauna joked, pulling his boxers down her nerves evaporating completely as she kissed teasingly along his hipbone before taking his length in her mouth with ease. Even managing to glance in what she considered to be an alluring way at the camera for just a moment as she did so. Maybe one day she’d actually want to watch this thing so she might as well give future them a good show.

Any clever quip or comment evaporated from Sawyer's brain as he watched Fauna drop to her knees with lust-blown eyes, pulling down his boxers to reveal his slowly hardening cock, letting out a small gasp as her lips found their way to his hipbone, travelling down until she took him in her mouth, a groan escaping his own. “Fuck,” Sawyer whined, “yes, just like that Kitten. You know exactly how I like it.” He wasn’t really that verbal if he could help it, but he noted her glance at the camera and he had to remind himself that they were making a sex tape, not just filming with a camera in the room. The camera was a third player of this game, and he had to be somewhat inclusive of it.

She did know exactly how he liked it, she knew his body almost as well as she knew her own at this point and she wanted to exploit it just a little. She replaced where her mouth had been on his hipbones, with her fingers giving him a little bit of pressure. The brunette moved her head slowly at first, pressing her tongue against the underside of his cock. Thinking vaguely of real porn, what did the actresses do to make that sexy? She supposed a lot of it was about confidence and camera angles which she could do very little about right now.Fauna moaned around his length, moving her mouth faster now.

It didn't take long for Sawyer to be a mess of gasps and groans, hating yet loving how much Fauna was taking advantage of how well she knew his body. Cock hardening in her mouth, his fingers were grasping her hair with the same firmness she was holding his hips. "Fuck, that's a good Kitten," He moaned, once again aware of the camera in the room, "That's it, get me nice and hard for you."

She enjoyed the tugging at her hair, and his encouraging words. Pulling her mouth off for a moment to lick along his length, more for the benefit of the camera than anything else. In the back of her mind, she imagined making eye contact with a future Sawyer watching the tape and there was nothing that she enjoyed more than getting him hot and bothered for her. If she thought of it that way she almost enjoyed the idea of making the video. She flicked her eyes back up to her boyfriend before taking him to the back of her throat again.

God, it was really erotic to watch the way she likced up his shaft, before taking his length back down her throat. He groaned, the familiar knot in his stomach tightening, though he held off. Not like this, not this soon, he reminded himself. "Stop, stop." He commanded, gently but firmly pulling him off her. "Thank you, Kitten," Sawyer murmured softly, "I think it's time for your reward now. On the bed, spread your legs for me."

She giggled mischievously as he pulled her off him, biting her lip a little and decided to have a little fun with him. "You seem a little hot and bothered Sir." She teased, lying back onto the sheets and spreading her legs a little more slowly than usual to put on a show. "I can't wait for my reward." She purred, fanning her hair out a little against the sheets to make everything a little prettier for the camera.

It was always the mischievous giggle that interested Sawyer. He loved it when Fauna was a good girl for him, a good Kitten, but he also couldn’t resist when she gave him a little bit of a challenge, when her personality shone through her role. “Sounds like someone’s getting a little cocky,” He pointed out with a raised brow, trying to control how flushed he was, trying not to cringe when he realised his reddening face would be on camera. Sure, only the future Fauna and Sawyer would be watching it, but he knew himself and knew he’d be embarrassed. He watched, aroused, cock straining, as she crawled back onto the bed, catching her ankles as she spread them, lifting one up towards his mouth, placing a gentle kiss against the joint, slowly moving up her leg, wanting to tease her, this was a show after all. There was no rush.

Fauna was glad when he seemed to take her challenge, she was perfectly happy to take orders and obey his rules on a daily basis, however she also enjoyed pressing her fingers against the barriers he put up occasionally so he could put her back in line. No longer afraid of being perceived as a brat by him, she knew that he was never disappointed in her when she played, in fact he liked it. “Who me Sir?” She asked as she watched him, nibbling on her lip. The submissive let out a little breath as he caught her ankles, brown eyes watching him as he pressed a kiss against the skin there. Her breathing only got more erratic as his mouth made its way up her leg, heart fluttering.

The way Fauna’s breathing halted and shifted only encouraged Sawyer to tease more. He got to her inner thigh, mouth lingering on the warm skin, before flashing her a cheeky smile, and continuing the process with the other leg. When he had finished kissing up her limbs, shifting so he was perfectly on his knees in between her legs, Sawyer traced his fingers delicately up her bare skin, stopping at her panty line, teasing her through the thin fabric. “How badly do you want to feel my fingers on you, Kitten?” He asked, “How much are you willing to beg like the needy little slut you are for my mouth on your cunt?” Sawyer’s line of questioning was more for the benefit of the camera than anything else, but Fauna wasn’t the only one pushing limits and boundaries with the scene, and he was willing to try with the name-calling in bed, even if it was something he didn’t often put in practice.

Fauna lay stiller than she usually would as she felt his mouth slowly moving up her leg, a soft little moan of excitement escaping from her lips as he reached her inner thigh hoping that his mouth would continue its path upwards. She whimpered a little when he teased her by restarting the process at her ankle again, beyond aroused by the way he was teasing her. She watched him keenly as he settled between her thighs, shivering a little as he traced his fingers over her skin goosebumps following his touch. “So badly Sir.” She responded, her words catching in her throat a little. She almost raised an eyebrow when he called her a slut, it was something that she personally enjoyed but she knew he shyed away from things like that normally. She assumed out of his own politeness. “I’ll beg as much as you want me too Sir.” She promised eagerly showing him verbally that she was more than okay with this new element of the scene . “I’m such a slut for your mouth on me, I’d do anything to earn your touch.”

Sawyer didn't know whether it was the fact that they were, in their own ways, putting on a show for their future selves, or that they had just developed a bond that could never be broken, but something stirred within him when she called herself a slut, which wasn't something the Dominant was anticipating. His fingers kept teasing her, feeling a wet patch form on her panties as he did so. "Oh really, anything can be a heavy word Kitten, so many possibilities..." He mused, with a deviant grin. "I want you hear you, loud and clear. So loud our neighbours will know what we're doing, that behind that mischevious smile of yours is a desperate little slut who only thinks about getting fucked by her Dominant." He was getting more comfortable in this mindset, because it was something Fauna was enjoying, and if the camera was a once off, so could this type of dirty talk, and really, he did want her to be loud, because Sawyer always enjoyed it when she was vocal, and helped encourage him to make sure they both were having a good time.

Fauna mewled a little as he continued to tease her with his fingers, her hips bucking up to meet his hand. She reached down and tangled her hands in the sheets below, as he responded to her declaration. “Please Sir, I really will do anything for your mouth on me. I’ll be as loud as you like.” The brunette exclaimed louder than she usually would. “I’m a little slut for my Dominant. All I think about is you fucking me.” She declared without shame, shifting her hips again to back up her statement. She’d thought that she’d never be able to stop thinking about the camera, that her heart would be in her mouth for the whole scene. But instead she found herself feeling very little other than aroused and excited. She knew it was because of him, her Sawyer, she was pretty sure there was nothing they could do together that she wouldn’t enjoy at least somewhat.

It was still early to tell, but Sawyer decided, if they were ever to watch this video back, he'd be rewinding this part over and over again. But that was the last time he thought of the thing as he watched Fauna's hips buck up, entranced, his smirk at the loudness of her words slightly delayed. "Good little Kitten," He praised, deciding to rip the panties off with a firm tug, an action he knew aroused them both, ducking his head enthusiastically in between her thighs, his tongue lapping through her folds in one broad stroke, his thumb finding its way to her clit, rubbing the sensitive nub in rhythm to the movements of his mouth.

She liked the way that he was looking at her, with such obvious desire and if he hadn’t been about to put his mouth somewhere much more interesting she would have dragged him up to kiss her. He smirked and she bit her lip, letting out a squeak of delight as he ripped her panties from her. His mouth found her already wet cunt, and she let out a moan of excitement. “Shit Sir.” She whimpered, her hips rising up to meet him again as he began to rub at her clit. “I love your mouth on me so much, I’m so spoiled having you for a Dom.. You’re always so generous.” Usually she wasn’t particularly verbal while he was going down on her, but she was mindful that this particular scene wasn’t just for their immediate benefit.

Fauna's words of encouragement, coming out in breathy moans, only motivated Sawyer more, lapping her folds with a familiarity, knowing every inch of her body by now. What she liked, which spots were the ones that were more sensitive than others,  and exactly how she reacted each time. That said, even though her heard her moan and mewl like this a thousand times before, his cock still twitched as if it was the first time he heard his submissive make these noises. He moved his thumb from her clit to replace it with his tongue, sucking the sensitive nub, brown eyes looking up at her in hunger, copying her earlier approach to glance at the camera, imagining how future Fauna would be reacting to watching this back.

He knew her body so well at this point, that she was sure he could practically pull invisible strings to make her feel however he wanted. The submissive shook with the pleasure of his mouth on her, hands still grasping tightly at the sheets as she continued her whines of pleasure. When his mouth found her clit with a loud moan, she arched her back playing up the motion a little for the camera her minding scrolling back to what women in porn looked like momentarily. The coil in her stomach was starting to form and she let her eyes flutter open again to look at him. “Oh..oh god... Sir.. I’m going to cum soon if you keep going like that.” She panted.

He kept going, groaning against her sensitive cunt in response to her own noises, gripping her thighs tightly as he did so to hold her down. He grinned mischeviously against her at her warning words, glancing up at her with a glint in his eye. "Then I'm going to keep going like that, Kitten," He said, voice a low, breathless growl, "and you're going to cum for me, and make those pretty but very dirty noises for me. And then, I'm going to fuck you until you can't walk straight, okay?" He always felt more confident in himself and his skills with Fauna, but this was a whole new level, and he wondered if it was him playing up for the camera, or completely disregarding it, deciding not to dwell on it again as his mouth once more made contact with her wetness.

Fauna let out a little mewl of delight as he gripped her thighs and held her down against the sheets always enjoying a little bit of bite with her pleasure. A further breathless moan left her lips at his next words, her body overwhelmed not only by the pleasure that he was giving her but also this new declaration. “I want that so badly Sir, I want to cum for you and then I need you inside me.” She whimpered, letting out another low whine as his mouth returned to her cunt. “There’s nothing like getting fucked by you hard and fast, your big hands all over me. Making me beg for-“ she meant to go on but she lost her train of thought as his tongue traced patterns over her clit and her declarations were reduced to simply whimpers of pleasure. It didn’t take much longer before her eyes fluttered closed and she released against his mouth with a loud moan of his name. “Thank you Sir.” She gasped out.

Tongue moving with ferocity at her words, he couldn’t help but smirk at the way she cut off and came hard for him. He helped her ride out her orgasm, slowly down slightly to not over simulate her, coming back up for air with a softer Sawyer-like smile rather than his more Dominant, teasing smirk. “You’re welcome, Kitten,” He murmured, moving himself to straddle over her, stroking her hair as he lined himself up, “are you ready?” He murmured, holding onto her, waiting for her confirmation before he slid into her.

She calmed herself a little as he smiled at her, reaching to run her hand through his hair tenderly for a moment. Just giving herself a second to appreciate him not playing to their audience in that moment. “Im always ready for you.” She promised, leaning up to kiss him as he pushed inside her, running her hands over his shoulders. The familiar lines of his body pressed against hers in a way that was in her view protective as well as sensual.

He kissed back deeply as he entered her, giving her a moment to adjust to him, before he began to thrust -- slowly and teasingly at first -- reaching around her small frame to pull her closer. "God, you feel so good around me," He groaned with a thick voice into her ear, before pressing kisses against her shoulder blade, moving up towards her throat, the kisses turning into playful, gentle nips. "I want to mark you all over, remind the world that you belong to me."

She let out a little moan against his lips as he began to thrust, looping her own arms around his neck. Whining a little when he started out with just slow teasing thrusts. “There’s nothing like being this close to you.” Fauna told him rocking her hips against his. “I can never get enough of you.” She blushed when he started to leave his marks on her skin. “I want everyone to know I’m your girl Sir. And everyone to know how well you fuck me.”

The rhythm of his thrusts got deeper, rocking against her with practiced synchronicity, one arm holding her against him as they moved against each other, the other caressing her body as much as he could reach, touching her as if he never felt her before. "Mine, all fucking mine," He grunted out, glancing briefly at the camera, remembering that they were putting on a show. "Flip over for me." He ordered.

Something that she always enjoyed about sex with Sawyer is that beyond just wanting her in the sense that he was attracted to her, he always provided some sense of intimacy. The hand supporting her was that intimacy now, it was her anchor. And it was this certainty in him as her anchor that meant she nodded breathlessly and gasped. "Yes Sir." Dragging her body from it's comfortable rhythm and felt no nerves when she faced the camera.

Biting his lip as she gasped out his title, Sawyer waited until she had shifted positions and was supporting herself comfortably, before entering her from behind, large body eclipsing her small frame. When in this position, the Dominant could be slightly more rougher with her, be able to pull at her hair and hold her gently by the throat, the position making better for deeper, harder thrusts. Plus he knew it'd be an angle good for the camera. He grab her loose curls that were bouncing of her shoulder as he fucked her, pulling them so her neck would crane back towards him. "You never fail to drive me crazy," He groaned against her neck, peppering more and bites along it, stopping down to her shoudlers, his free hand adjusting so he could continue to rub her clit.

Fauna whined loudly when he re-entered her, so aroused by the pressure of his large form around her own. Her little hands tangling into the sheets as his pounded in and out of her. He always knew what to do to drive her insane, and she couldn’t stop herself from whining again when he gathered her hair and pulled it back. His mouth on her neck making her tremble just a little. “So good.” She gasped. “Fucking me so good Sir.” The submissive choked out, the pressure on her clit starting to build the coil inside her again. “Harder please.” She begged, brown eyes looking pleadingly at the camera.

Everything was too much, but in the best way possible. In between the noises Fauna was making, especially the begging, and how she felt around him, Sawyer was close. He could feel the coil in his stomach with every thrust. “Of course Kitten,” He murmured at her request, “God, I love how even when you’re a desperate mess like this, you’re still so fucking polite.” He gasped, pounding even harder as he could, making eye contact with the camera for a few minutes, before his eyes moved back to her slender frame, licking his lips at the way she was reacting to him; spread out, knuckles clenching the sheets. “I’m so fucking close.” He grunted.

She flushed despite herself when he praised her for being polite. Her whimpers getting louder as he pounded in and out of her, the coil getting impossibly tighter inside of her. Her cunt clenching around his length. “I’m so close too Sir, can I cum for you please? I want to cum just for you.” She begged, he hadn’t told her to ask but she thought that it would sound sexy on camera. Her hands gripping the sheets even tighter as she held herself on the edge for now.

Sawyer was trying hard not to focus on not coming, not just yet, but it was getting impossible with the way her cunt clenched around him and the way she whimpered and begged. “Yes Kitten,” He groaned out, gripping her even tighter. “Come for me, I want everyone to hear you fall apart for me.” He took a breath, holding off his own orgasm, wanting to focus on Fauna, to help her ride out her pleasure, letting out a groan just thinking about how oversensitive she’d be feeling.

She was so glad when he agreed, she didn’t know if anyone would be able to withstand the jolts of pleasure from him rubbing her clit. Or the way his cock was stretching her cunt. “Thank you Sir... oh god thank you.” The little brunette whimpered, already sensitive from her earlier orgasm as she came around him. Her pussy clenching as she whined out his title and then his name. Trying to continue to support herself despite the fact that her legs now felt like jelly, in order to allow him to feel the same pleasure while he had his own orgasm.

Sawyer continued pounding as she came around him, lips connecting with her neck as she whined out both his title and name, the words sounding delicious falling from her lips. He wrapped his large arm around her slender frame to support her as he kept fucking her. "Fuck, so close," He groaned, pulling out of her as he felt his orgasm impending. The Dominant didn't usually do this, but they were putting on a show, and it was more for the benefit of the camera than anything else. With his free hand, he stroked himself, letting out a moan garbled with some sort of cross of Fauna's name and 'Kitten' as he came over her back, knowing they were at the perfect angle for the camera. "Fuck," he gasped out as he finished, rolling back over on the bed as he felt his limbs turn to jelly, careful not to squish Fauna. He rolled over, planting a kiss on her forehead, wiping the sweat from his. "You were amazing, as always." He commended.

Fauna mewled a little as he wrapped his arm around her, grateful that he was holding her up. His continued thrusts meant that her body experienced a further few aftershocks that made her speechless as he pulled out of her. She moaned as he came, her face caught out in a blissful little smile. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he rolled over, burying her face against his skin. “You were beyond amazing Sir. Honestly that was... so hot.” She praised back, almost surprised at how much she had enjoyed what he’d just done. “I... I really enjoyed myself.” She confessed, running a finger along his collarbone.

Sawyer felt the tiredeness settle in his limbs, and he forced himself up, knowing if he stayed laying there, they'd fall asleep without cleaning up. "I'm really glad you enjoyed yourself, Kitten." He told her with a gentle kiss on her forehead, "I wanted you too. I know it was a very difficult thing for you to face, and I'm really proud of you for facing it." He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. "I'm going to turn the camera off now, okay? And clean ourselves up, get ourselves a drink. Do you want to talk about the scene before we nap, or afterwards?" It was important, with something like this, to talk about it, a big part of aftercare. But it was completely up to Fauna, as it was her limit they had faced today.

Fauna almost wanted to tell him to lie back down and that she would just sleep sticky, but slowly she dragged herself from the pillows. “Honestly... it wasn’t so scary with you. I just thought about you watching it.” She told him honestly, her cheeks flushing slightly as he brushed her hair from her face. Even after all this time she sometimes felt like it was the very first day that she’d met him. Like he hadn’t literally just been inside of her. “I guess after we shower..” She shrugged, she glanced at the camera. Taking the sheet from the bed with her as she slipped off the bed, and turned it off.

"I thought about you watching it with me too," Sawyer admitted, watching her turn off the camera with a small smile, before taking her hand and leading her to the bathroom, turning on the shower, wrapping his big arms around her small frame in a loving embrace as they waited for the water to warm up. "I'm so, so proud of you." He murmured into her hair, "You did so well." He could feel the steam from the shower behind him, gently tugging at the sheet she was using to cover herself. "C'mon, let's get clean." He instructed, sounding more sleepy all of a sudden. "I'd offer to make us some tea after but, I haven't quite got that one down." He then teased.

Fauna smiled at that thought. “I guess we’re just secret exhibitionists when it comes to each other.” She agreed leaning against him in the shower, tracing her hands over his arms in a lazy attempt at washing him. “You did great at making me feel safe... I think there was only one moment in the whole scene where I felt even a little bit wobbly.” She told him honestly. “I’ll make the tea, it is my duty as an Irish submissive. My granda used to claim he chose my grandma because she made such a good cup of brew.” Fauna responded off handedly, yawning as they stepped out of the shower. “Will you get me that shirt you have that’s the cuttlefish bottle band or whatever?” She asked heading through in her towel to the kitchen to make the tea.

The shower was slow and quick at once, in a lazy yet rushed attempt to get themselves as clean and dry as quickly as possible. As he dried his hair, Sawyer nodded at his words -- some wobbly moments were to be expected, and he was glad they were as minimized as possible. "I'm glad I made you feel as safe as possible, it's how I always want you to feel with me." He admitted to her. He laughed at her anecdote, shaking his head at her misterm of the band. "Catfish and the Bottlemen?" He asked, with a laugh.  "Yeah sure." When she returned with two hut mugs of tea, he took his gently, his t-shirt on her side of the bed. They tucked up together, talking in detail about the scene, letting the warmth of the tea and being cuddled up together take over, letting the sleepiness overwhelm them. When both made sure they were happy and satisfied, they decorated each other's faces with little kisses, let sleep take over, the scene ending.

[orenonahaichigoda]

I had a rough day, and came to a realisation. I will say a bit about my own experience, and then, after having to lay the groundwork of explaining 400 things about Japan because American schools and media think the whole world is the US, Western Europe, and places to blow up, making explaining necessary, will tie it to Ichigo, or at least how I portray him.

I'm Post Dankai Juniors, growing up in Japan. So's Kubo, actually. The boundaries of this Japanese generation are roughly '75 to '85, Yutori, the following generation that's always translated and localised as Millennial, pretty solidly set as beginning at '86. These things are always fuzzy because you can't vivisect living brains and find the part that likes char siu buns and the part that likes jazz fusion. I *majored* in Social Science. You'll have teachers who say "it is absolute that we date people who are similar to us because we're all actually narcists." (It *might* be because they're like our beloved family or community. Narcistic Personality is not universal) But it really just is fuzzy, and that teacher/book author is an idiot. Anyway, Yutori is always translated as Millennial. I don't know the end boundary. Post Dankai Juniors covers almost totally a debated throe for Germanic nations (I know Britain, Germany, and Nederland use the same generations as America, and their languages are Germanic) because of how fuzzy it all is, though.

Anyway, so since coming to the US, my interactions with other Asians, again, how is this defined when China, Mongolia, Japan all border Russia and West Asia includes Jordan and Saudi Arabia, South Asia is India's area, Southeast Asia is Laos, Thailand's area, I mean, find the Arabic kanji. I don't think Thailand even uses soy sauce. What the heck IS Asia, really? (Or "Middle East" when half of that's Africa and the other half shares plate with Europe? )

Anyway, my experience with Asians that are Boomer ages tends to be people who immigrated as adults, who more identity with a generation like "Dankai" or "Sirake." My experiences with Latinos older than me... I've never actually asked if the generational labels are even the same.

The thing about that is that when the name is the same, it means enough cultural traits are shared.

My biggest experience with people who grew up under the term "Boomer" are Black and white.

I've noticed a unifying trait.

If they're something oppressed (Black, gay), their attitude tends to be"it is mandatory to stand up for *my* demograph...but kicking the person behind me on the ladder in the teeth is wholesome, pure, and fun."

Outing me to large groups and saying I "speak Asian" seem to be the most common two. Calling me "Chinese" long after I've cleared this up for them is a close third.

I mean, don't get me wrong--my experience with Italian Americans past GI generation has been that now acquiring the "white" label, just like biphobic/aphobic/transphobic cisgays, they're more often staunch priveledge defenders than cishet people of Anglo descent! And it's just as true for X and Y as it is for Boomer (for the latter, one need only look at NYC destroyer and trump defender Giuliani) I actually don't really identify with my Italian side at all because I was kinda locked out of making any meaningful connection.

But back to my point that even in so-leftist-it's-almost-not-America Bay Area, Boomers are still like this!

The kind of stuff that flows out a X/Y TERF's mouth, or the mouth of an X/Y person with a Confederate flag on his wall, American-raised Boomers say with ease regardless of their alignment! It's banananas.

(Please note that I also just have not met a whole lot of Native Americans, period, nor enough people significantly older than me from any one place in Africa, that was an omission of lacking data, not intended as erasure)

How I tie it to Ichigo--

So Kubo avoids specifying birth years for anyone.

When I see something like this, I generally assume date of publication, as do most people in most fandoms (which of course gets screwy when you have something endlessly rebooted like Superman or Batman or something eternally unchanging like Detective Conan)

Anyway, the first Bleach something published was the comic in '01.

I generally assume it was supposed to be the start of a new school year, as Ichigo doesn't know many of his classmates until at least the first test scores come out. So it's probably April or something.

If Ichigo was 15 then, he'd also be Post Dankai Juniors, just barely. If Ichigo TURNED 15 shortly after, during his adventure, he'd be undebatably Millennial.

Now, there is still something up with Dankai and Sirake. PM Abe is the latter, b. 1954. A lot of his age-peers are behind him. This is the guy who supports remilitarisation and was caught funding a private militarist/fascist high(?) school that teaches that people from countries Japan conquered during its brief phase of trying to beat colonial Europe are less than dogs.

Now, I left there as a teen. Clinton was US president. Scandals still got people kicked out of public office in Japan. I hadn't figured or come out yet. Sure, I got bullied for being mixed, but kids will pick if you like different singers than the "cool" ones. They'll pick based on what's in your lunch. That data is sausage.

I'm not 100% sure what Ichigo would face day-to-day sociopolitically as he grew up/aged. I haven't had living family since'95 there, and friendships don't get deep enough to ever last distance until at least high school. For me, adulthood.

But I've kept/caught up enough (you try keeping up in the South before the internet was more than ten University sites!) that I know he'd face fascists (c'mon, the guy takes on a martial law government to save a new friend--that's anarchist, he just doesn't seem anarchist in his own world. He only fights humans in defence) I'm not sure how he'd feel about the JSDF, but he only fought the sinigami's war out of feeling like it was his responsibility because the adults around him kinda made it so. I super don't see him being for *starting* wars. In a human war, I see him actually being like Sugihara Chiune, a historical figure who died when I was a kid who I majorly admire. He worked at a Japanese embassy in Nazi territory, and when the embassy was evacuated,he continued throwing passports to Jewish people to go to Japan from the train he was departing on,and is hidden from Americans in the same spirit that Martin Luther King is...pulled the teeth out of. (PS, speaking of,go Google Steven Kiyosi Kuromiya)

Also, Ichigo's whole schtick is defending those worse off than him. He's not someone I see defending Yamato Japanese priveledge. Heck, I could see him joining Uchinanchu efforts to get Parliament and the US base to leave them alone. I can easily see him sticking up for a Filipino domestic worker he met thirty seconds ago.

To this end, I think regardless of what he is, he'd have a large rub with Japan's equivalents of Boomers.

Not to mention that Abe supporters tend to be very sexist and queerphobic, which isn't even homegrown but imported from Américanisation. I mean, there were female warriors--assasins, which is what Yoruichi and Soi-Fon are styled after, and go look at some Ukiyoe, like Utagawa Kitamaro. Quite a few artists in the 200-ish years of the Edo period depicted life in the queer districts. I've also had people posit that Noh might've been a welcoming draw for trans people the same way drag was all over the US in the twentieth century and still is in rural areas, where there's less cisgay gatekeeping. But this isn't something I can reasonably research without access to plenty of older and not well known dusty documents, and lots of time, and I live in the US many years now. And do you know how much round trip airfare alone is!? Also, the language changed so much and I can't read anything before Meiji without dropping words. Rukia, Byakuya, Yoruichi all have made for TV old-sounding Japanese like period dramas. Actual 18th Century Japanese would be unintelligible to the unspecialised.

So this stuff isn't really native, but Abe and a lot of people his age support all these -isms.

I super don't see Ichigo being happy about this.

(I also feel like Issin's old enough to remember before these -isms, but that's my own thing. In my project, he was in those districts, but that's me)

At the same time, I'm still writing this through my own lens. Also, not still being there, I just don't have enough data on Yutori in adulthood, or the grown Yutori lens. Honestly, even most other immigrants I meet are older than that. Or older than that and their adorable three year old children. So I have no clue.

In the early 2000s, I got myself from the South to CA and began to reconnect, but began to is the key phrase. I can tell you right now that Abe is as much of a second phase of Nakasone as trump is of Nakasone's buddy Regean. But what shifted when, I can't say. I'm not entirely sure how Koizumi ran the ship, as it were. I know some things, but not enough to say.

But whenever things shifted however, and whichever year Ichigo was born, I just cannot imagine him being any more on board with current events than really anyone in my area not born between 1946-1964 and raised in America.

I feel like he'd probably be too tired or self-effacing to fight for himself, but he'd take on, loud and proud, any bigotry against *others.*

I...also can't really say I'm much different, except my joints are held together by the power of wishes, so I'm more like "get the victim to safety" than "give the attacker plenty of regret." So, I can only do anything in limited ways.

Ichigo is also entirely fuelled by the power of love. Lost his ability to protect and feels like his sinigami friends ditched him? Mondo depressed, however much he wants no one to notice--which most do a great job of ignoring! Everyone in his world turned against him for a guy who has attacked people close to him? Terrified, and murder can now be an answer. (Fullbring Arc)

I was going somewhere with that. I've forgotten, but I'll leave it.

But anyway, I feel like he really only comes close to fighting for himself when others are taken away from him in a way that's also wronging them.

So yeah, I super don't see him happy with current events or Sirake gen.

I'm not sure how much I see him fighting for himself as mixed panromantic grey-ace. I mean, we know he fights people who are about to punch his face in for his looks, but what else can you reasonably do at that point? Get your head bashed in? I'm not sure how much I see him fighting hateful words pointed at him versus resigning himself to "people are the worst." I mean, when he talks about being picked on, he kinda seems resigned, or at least like it's a fact, like shoes being for outside or something.

I guess I tied it to Ichigo a lot better than I thought!

But also, the struggle against people born just after the war is not just you, and not just America. It's a major problem.

And it's likely that Ichigo would agree.

[caroline18mars]

A Man On Fire - Chapter 49

“VAL!! get OUT of my bed right now” he jumped up from the bed and switched on the light, how the hell did she get naked so fast? “how did you even get in here?” he shouted at the top of his lungs. ”Come on Jay, don't be so naïve! You can try and hide things for her, but you can't hide from me, I know you want this as much as I do, you and I have unfinished business mister!” she sat up on her knees on the edge of the bed and started untying the knot of his pajama bottoms, licking her lips. He swatted at her hands “stop it! I don't want this, when will you get that through that thick skull of yours? I'll ask you one last time, how did you get into my room?” he was absolutely livid. “You and I have been doing this a long time , remember? I know how to get into your hotelroom, I know all the cover-up names you use, I know YOU, Jared..like nobody else does” her arms wrapped around his neck. How many more times did he have to push her away, was she waiting until temptation would get unbearable and he just had to give in? Was there some #hetoo hashtag that he could use? “nonono Val, how many more times do I have to tell you? We're NOT an item anymore” he grabbed her wrists and untangled them from around his neck. “Oh come on, Jared, just one night, I need it and so do you..if my memory serves me right, you're not the man to live like a monk, you're addicted to sex” she licked her lips as he sternly held her hands behind her back “one night of harmless fun?”. Feeling her push her chest against his, had him step back “one night? You kiddin' me? That's just one night too many..what do you think is gonna come from all that? I'll tell you: a whole lot of trouble and for what? Just a quick shag?” he breathed “and I don't even want to! There's too much at stake now, I refuse to lose her over something as trivial as you being horny; so will you just keep those damn hormones of yours in check?”. There was a knock before the door opened and Shannon and Stevie walked in only to stop in their tracks when they saw the position Jared and Val were in “We heard voices so we decided to stop by with this” Shannon held up a bottle “but I can see you're really busy, so..” he grabbed Stevie's arm who stood there watching them dumbfounded “we'll be leaving, we'll be seeing you in the morning, keep it safe kids” he had to suppress his laughter as they turned around and left again.

”Argghh” she sat up straight in bed with a loud scream, her heart thumping in her chest as she tried to regain consciousness and figure out where she was, ok her loft, she was here in the safety of her own loft, but her stomach was cramping up like she was gonna be sick, something was wrong, she felt it. instinctively she grabbed her phone but when she wanted to press the call button, she hesitated. Wait, he's probably still sleeping, come on, breathe, no need to worry him with a stupid nightmare, you're not a baby, she calmed herself down and opened the mail app, she didn't have to think long about what she wanted to say, her fingers whizzed over the keys.

From: HCDeRobiano

To: BJLCubbins

Subject: Definition of a nightmare

nightmare

noun

noun: nightmare; plural noun: nightmares

a frightening or unpleasant dream.

"I had nightmares after watching the horror movie"

and I definitely didn't watch any horror movies (I hate those, they're a waste of time), but I did have a nightmare, I'm still shaking..Remember that I said Iwould dream about you? Well I did, but not in a good way, I dreamt about you being locked in a very hot sandwich with a few of your former girlfriends (mind you, I've never met or seen any of them, but in this dream they were all your typical size 0 skeleton models that I'm sure you dated by the truckload). The weird part was that I just stood there watching you (and I really don't have a voyeuristic bone in my body) and all those girls kept yelling and shouting at me that I was way out of your league and all you did was laugh and ridicule me. So I guess you could say it was pretty horrible!

The thing that's keeping me sane is knowing that you would never do that to me in real life, because you're the sweetest, most considerate boyfriend I've ever had, and I'm lucky to have you, right? RIGHT!

OK, now that it's out of my system, and I'm a lot calmer already, all I need to know is how you are, did you survive party night after all?

Anyway, hope you're dreaming better dreams about me, I'm about to go and run all this stress out of my system.

Bye man of my dreams (except for the nightmares)

Harper

The familiar and beloved beep roused him from his coma, hmmm, instinctively his hand ventured to his crotch to give himself a good squeeze, he was extra hard already thinking about his lover. A nightmare? What? Ex girlfriends? A hand that landed on his side startled him, whatwhatwhat? Why was she still here? Think, Leto, what the hell happened last night for her to be in bed with you?. “The fuck you're doing in my bed?” he quickly turned to face her, a storm brewing in his eyes, “what do you mean? You know I'm not the girl to leave after an orgasm, and definitely not after a couple of orgasms” she purred as her finger seductively trailed down his chest. Huh? “oh will you just stop, we did NOT have sex, Val” he spat back, but doubt already crept in, wait, god no, you weren't that drunk that you don't even remember what you were doing, “you're hurting my feelings here, Jared, it was great, you resisted for a while but I always know how to break down your wall with your own sledgehammer” she giggled and kissed his collarbone. NO way, they didn't, he did not, come on just try to remember, “look, I don't know why you're doing this, but there was nothing going on between us, alright? And that's exactly how I want to keep it! So, the only thing you're gonna do is get the fuck out of my room and you're not gonna stir up some shitstorm about nothing at all, is that understood?” groaning he got up from the bed, god he was naked..wait..how the hell..?, he didn't remember getting in bed naked. “I'm gonna get in that shower and you're gone when I get back” he stomped over to the bathroom and locked it behind him, seconds later she heard the water run, you're still the same old silly dumbass, Jared, leaving your phone all unattended, let's see what your so-called girlfriend's number is. “Had a wonderful night with your man, still as hot and roaring to go as ever, he's a fuckin' stick of dynamite” she stopped painting to check her phone thinking it was him..what? “I'm sorry but I think you've got the wrong number” she texted back, there was no name, not hers and not from the other person mentioned in the text and an unknown number. Ok, focus, green is a ridiculous colour, it's so frikkin stripy, there should be special courses to teach people how to paint with green, 'beep-beep' what now? Can't a girl just paint in peace? Still that same number, I don't know you and I don't want to know you! Still she picked up her phone and read the new text. “Oh, I'm pretty sure I've got the right number, Harper Coco, right? Jay's girlfriend? Jay who can't keep his dick in his pants when I'm around! Thanks Harper for lending him to me, it was an amazing night”.

From: BJLCubbins

To: HCDeRobiano

Subject: Re: Definition of a nightmare

Gorgeous woman of my dreams,

You're anything but a nightmare, so please don't ever stop strutting (that sexy strut of yours) around my dreams because they are the best dreams I've ever had. I know I'm repeating myself, and I know you're probably sitting there right now facepalming so hard, but I need you with me..so bad..so when are you coming over? If you don't soon, I swear I'm flying back to New York, fuck this tour, you're more important than this tour or anything on it.

Ok, I'll try to collect my thoughts before this missing you and longing spirals out of control, tour is going well so far, had a good couple of shows, the crowd is so 'in it', they know every word to the new songs already, the internet is a curious thing isn't it? When I was young (and I don't want to hear the 'old' word, I don't even want to hear you think it, ok?) we had to make the effort to go out there (mostly bother our mother to drive us to the record store, the other option was to get on your bicycle) get home, get a new needle on our recordplayer and then learn the lyrics by heart..ok fuck it, I AM old :-)

Oh who am I kidding? I can't collect my thoughts, I can't talk or think about anything or anyone else but you.

Maybe I should get on that plane after all? To keep you safe from all those stupid nightmares, there's absolutely no need for you to have them, I promise!

Love you to the moon and back!

Your Jay, forever and ever and ever! (we should be in that book you used to read about those famous men and their loveletters)

Harper's heart was beating out of control when she read his mail, what the hell was going on there? First those texts and now this e-mail from him, sent almost simultaneously, a little too convenient..enough to raise suspicion, wait, hang on, try and think rational about this..don't give in to that Italian temperament, you knew from the start that there's always a lot of girls hanging around him..don't give into temptation of locking yourself up and shutting him out again, don't let yourself go through that heartache again, on the other hand maybe this is all a set-up of some scorned ex or wannabe lover..hmm, you know what? Go and ask him yourself, you know exactly when he's lying don't you?

From: HCDeRobiano

To: BJLCubbins

Subject: Truth or Dare

Dear Mr. Leto,

It seems I'm getting mixed messages, can you tell all those little trollups you're fucking over there to give it a rest? That would be ever so kind of you and much appreciated by myself, because I don't know if my heart can take this nonsense all over again. You really didn't have to follow up on my nightmare and turn it into reality!

Harper Coco De Robiano

her fingers whizzed over the keyboard, all her good intentions of not shutting him out went out the door when the first tear fell, should she send this? Oops, too late! just go and see him..checking her bankaccount she sighed, paying off a few debts certainly hadn't done her finances much good, oh fuck it, just book yourself a planeticket and go see for yourself what really is going on there, do I want to know the truth? Or better Jay's version of the truth, at times like these she hated being on different continents..it would give him time enough to get rid of the evidence if that text was true..and he was a good actor, an Oscar-winning actor even, this was a fight she just couldn't win.

[itsclydebitches]

On Blogs, Age, and Keeping My Sanity

I wasn't planning to follow up on the original thread (which you can read here) because delving into The Discourse isn’t particularly how I want to spend my Monday afternoon, but I've been pinged and messaged enough that I figured I might as well put my thoughts more clearly into a separate post. This admittedly turned into an essay (apologies), so if you want to read it, cool. If you don't this exists simply so that I have something to vaguely gesture towards instead of answering all the people who apparently think I'm a monster.

In short, a lot of people are taking issue with my stance on whether people should have ages on their blogs as well as whether kids should have any responsibility in their own safety online. I'm going to try and address both of those questions (as well as more minor ones) in as organized a fashion as I can, drawing directly from some of the more common accusations I’ve seen the last few days.

“It takes two seconds to put your age on your blog and it keeps kids safe, why wouldn’t you do that?”

Because I don't think it does keep kids safe, for the simple reason that people lie.

Let me first be clear that I have no problem with people including their age if they want to-- I have mine displayed because I'm comfortable with it. What I found problematic is this insistence that everyone has to do it or else they're some kind of predatory monster. Now let's say for the sake of argument that tomorrow everyone on tumblr woke up and agreed to put their general age on their sidebar. Not their specific age, as the OP originally wanted, but just a "I'm an adult/18+/20+/etc." Now for the people out there telling the truth? Yes, this makes things a little easier. But this conversation was specifically about predators and frankly anyone who wishes a minor harm online will just straight up lie. A predatory adult will write that they're 13 or a minor or whatever they think will lure people in. The minor who wants to be treated like an adult will write that they're 18 or older. Or they’ll tell the truth and announce to the world that they're vulnerable. And instead of learning how to identify whether someone is acting in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable--what they post, how they talk to you, etc.--kids will learn that all they need to do is look at the sidebar. They said they're 15 like me so it's fine, right?  

No, sadly it’s not.  

“But most people WILL tell the truth and if including your age helps some people why wouldn't you do it anyway?”

Because it's going to hurt a lot of other people too. For example,

The adult who grew up in the age where giving out any info could lead to you being sued and that's a hard thing to push past, even if it's not as much of a concern anymore. 

The person with PTSD/depression who isn't comfortable releasing any personal information to people they don’t know. 

The person who is afraid that their age + other info will help people identify them in real life and they want to keep their online persona separate.  

The person afraid that their age + other info opens them up to identity theft. 

The adult who writes they're 30+ and starts getting anons asking why the hell an adult is drawing porn, what's wrong with you? 

The adult who's just learning a new skill (writing, GIF-making, whatever) and hates that everyone knows they're so much "worse" than that 13yo over there. 

The adult who chooses to just write 18+ and strikes up a conversation with a 19yo and everything is great... until it comes out that the adult is actually 40 and now the 19yo feels "lied to" and "tricked." 

The adults who aren't comfortable divulging their age, period. 

The person who isn't comfortable giving out any information online, period.

And that's just what I can come up with off the top of my head. I am comfortable displaying my age, so there's only so far I can step into the mindset of someone who's not. Now, is any of this worse than online predators? Of course not, but again, displaying your supposed age isn't going to solve that problem. The people who want to lie will lie and the people who want to be ambiguous will be ambiguous and soon enough people will insist that they’re uncomfortable that someone won’t tell them their exact age, what are you hiding? Age is a tricky, personal thing and I can't in good conscience insist that people push past their concerns just because having it displayed might do some people a bit of good. (Especially when, again, anyone who is concerned can ask someone’s age on anon. The information is available to you, it’s just not overtly displayed - which I think is a good middle ground overall.) 

“You're claiming that it's the child's responsibility to keep from getting taking advantage of/this is just like 'not all men'/this is the exact same thing as victim blaming”

Okay. There's a lot here. Let's start with a story from my own childhood:

When I was about five or so my mom told me that if anyone ever tried to take me on the street I had to kick and scream and make an absolute fuss. Simple enough. But she was smart enough to know that most kidnappers don't do that. Most were going to try and lure me away by pretending to be someone safe and approachable. So she also taught me how to ask questions. How to pay attention to my instincts if they started screaming, 'This person is creeping me out.' She gave me a password to use if anyone claimed to have been sent by her or my dad.

I wasn't kidnapped (yay), and if I had been my mom certainly wouldn't have blamed me for. Yet at the same time she wouldn't have stopped trying to teach me to take care of myself either. Education is not the same thing as blame.

Are kids responsible for themselves online? Yes, for the simple reason that it's literally impossible for adults to protect them 24/7. It sucks but it's true. The internet is like the street: it's not a kid-specific space, it's dangerous, and though all adults have their eyes peeled to help if they need to, you still teach your kids to look both ways before crossing. Online safety is no different than any other kind of safety: you do the best you can and you help the kid do the rest. It's a parent's job to keep their child safe from kidnappers, but in the event that they're not there they teach that child how to try and protect themselves. It's also the parent's job to make sure their kid doesn't get hit by a car when they’re together, but that doesn't mean they stop teaching them how to obey traffic laws for when they’re on their own. Me telling kids to start thinking critically about who they interact with online is not a precursor to blaming them if something does happen; it's another safety measure to try and keep that from happening in the first place. Someone else sneered at my claim that kids should assume they're talking to an adult online until proven otherwise and asked how in the world a kid is supposed to know to do that. They don't. We don't know anything until we're told it, which is why I said that and bolded it in the original post, with the hope that a kid will read it and perhaps remember it the next time they just assume they're talking to another teen. Kids decided that they’re old enough to go online, that they're old enough to have their own blogs... which that means they’re also old enough to start thinking about all the dangers that come with those privileges. Do your best to protect kids and teach them to protect themselves. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

As for the 'you saying not all adults are predators is the same thing as saying not all men'... I can understand why those two things seem comparable on the surface. However, 

1. Yes all men, in the sense that all men do benefit from a patriarchal society, similar to how all white people benefit from a country built on racism. It doesn't matter if you as an individual are blatantly mysoginistic or not, you still gain all the advantages of the system. Pedophiles though? People targeting and harming others online? That doesn't benefit anyone but the attacker.

2. The phrase "not all men" is not in and of itself up for debate. Meaning, every woman knows that "not all men" are mysoginistic/rapists/etc. (their benefiting from the system aside). The issue with that phrase isn't whether it's true or not, but the fact that it's used to shut down the conversation. Men use the phrase as a shorthand for, "I don't do that and therefore there's nothing left to discuss" when that's clearly not the case. Me saying that not all adults are predators is pointing out a problem with the proposed solution (just put your age on your blog and if you don’t you’re suspect), not shutting down the conversation. I want the conversation to continue because I don't think this is a particularly useful solution and I want us all to keep trying to come up with better ways of keeping everyone safe and happy online. I obviously want the conversation to continue considering I just wrote nearly 2k about it!

Anyway.

Can a simple "I'm an adult/20+/etc." help a child make an informed decision online? Yes. It can, so if you're comfortable including that on your blog please do so and make some people's lives a little easer. But please don't assume this solves the problem and definitely don't assume that anyone who doesn't want to give out their age is evil or predatory or some monster who hates keeping kids safe. It's not that simple.

No issue as important as this ever is.  

~<3 

[mitchellkuga]

On Writing for the Muses

Published by The Creative Independent

Astrologer and author Chani Nicholas on the connection between astrology and storytelling, having the time and space to fully be a mess before you finally hit your stride, and understanding the audience you're writing for.

Your voice as an astrologer is so distinct. What was your journey as a writer?

I certainly don’t know anything about grammar and sentence structure—I was a really bad student. [laughs] I was in my daydreams all the time and I didn’t pay attention and I wasn’t good at homework. I also didn’t write consistently for much of my life, but I always remember when I would write things people would say, “Oh, that’s really beautiful, you’re a really good writer.” I had this natural need to express myself, but I never thought of it as any kind of way forward.

When I went back to get my bachelor’s in San Francisco I thought, “Would I really want to be as an essayist? Well, that’s stupid—you know you can’t make money doing that.” And that’s when I started to write astrology. I realized this is a way that I can actually write. So I put my passion for all the things I was learning about into the form of astrology. It helped me build a habit of writing consistently and it was that habit that eventually turned into everything else. It really just started with the habit of showing up at the same time every month or every week or, in the beginning, every full moon, that really hooked me into the relationship with writing.

Would you say the essence of your voice was there from the beginning?

Yeah, my weird sentence structure and all that? [laughs] That person never changed.

Your book opens with a love letter to your wife Sonia Passi, who is the CEO of FreeFrom, [a nonprofit dedicated to financially empowering victims of domestic violence]. How does your relationship inform your work?

It’s very necessary for me to be part of some sort of social change in order for me to feel, somewhat, like I can sleep at night. My ability to support her and her work in the ways that I can helps me to feel engaged. That is a really healing part of our relationship. She also works on chaninicholas.com with me. Within FreeFrom, Sonia is an incredible leader—she’s gifted in a lot of ways, but that’s one of the ways in which she’s extraordinarily gifted—so she teaches me how to be a leader in my own life and business, and about how to create the best kinds of habits for work culture. We don’t just want the work that we do to go out in the world and only help the people that receive it—we want ourselves included in that equation, we want the actual workspace to be as healing as the work that is being produced. It has to happen at home first. She’s taught me about that.

And then there’s just the basic… well, it’s not basic, but I’ve never had somebody believe in me the way that she believes in me. Someone who has that kind of watchful faith, who’s that mindful. It has helped me to take risks I don’t know if I would have been able to take otherwise. It has helped me to develop in ways that I didn’t know were possible.

A lot has been said about the particular resonance astrology has with queer folks. I’m curious about the other side of that equation: if being queer informs your approach as an astrologer?

What I learned from some of the elders in the queer community—whether they’re Black feminists, indigenous feminists, POC feminists—informed everything that I am. It informed how I see the world and everything that I write. If it’s any good, it has someone’s teaching in it that I’ve gratefully received. So my queerness, I mean it should be clear: I think we have to push back against the currents that are trying to sweep us up and say, “Fuck this. This is actually the way I need to take up space in the world.” Even if we can’t take up that space externally, for safety reasons, I think it’s really important if we allow ourselves to take up that space internally. Astrology supports that, because it only ever speaks to your essence in a nonjudgmental way. So as queer folks living in this place in history we need these systems of knowledge that support our understanding of ourselves to say, “You are you. This is exactly what was meant for you. This is exactly who you’re supposed to be.”

How do you interpret the link between astrology and storytelling?

The story that we have about ourselves—and about each other, but it’s essentially about ourselves—is so incredibly important. Astrology is a map of your life. It tells a story of your life and if we can work with it in a way that feels affirming and also in a way that challenges us—not to stay complacent, not to stay in places that are comfortable or quelling our creativity—then it can be used to help us tell our story in a really wonderful way.

Like, everybody knows what Saturn Return is now—the story of our Saturn Return is always so magnificently perfect for that person’s chart. Even if it was extraordinarily painful and challenging, it’s something that helps us to shape, contextualize, tell the story of our life and the choices that we had within that story. It’s still a choose-your-own-adventure. Astrology would say, “Okay, this is the story that we’re in. What are you going to choose within this setup?”

You mention being a late bloomer in the introduction to your book. What did you gain from leaning into your calling later than is culturally expected?

I was such a mess in my twenties and thirties. Like I really, really wasn’t ready. The moment I was ready for it, I felt like it came. I needed all those years to heal. I needed all those years to figure myself out. I’m not someone who naturally has a really thick skin, so learning in public for me, like it is for a lot of people, was really challenging. I’m really glad I lived out a lot of mistakes offline. I’m really glad that I wrote a lot of awful things that didn’t ever see the internet. I’m glad that I got to, you know, like really fuck up and find my way through it. And I don’t know if that’s a cop out or not, but I just needed that time to not be inside the fun house of success. Because success does not make you happy, it just magnifies what’s already there.

Personally, I needed to be really humbled by doing work that I didn’t want to do for a long time. It was a way of me developing my spiritual practice. In jobs that I hated, I would pray or do affirmation and breathing exercises all day long, because I was so miserable that if I didn’t I was sure to get fired. [laughs] Working through the despair was a big part of my journey. Working through the despair of not having “made it” and having to learn how to love and value myself anyway, even though I hadn’t fully established myself in any kind of way that felt really meaningful or connected to me. And then it took me a long time.

My whole story really is about disconnection and abandonment. You know, the childhood story. And so the astrology came along and I kept refusing it and rejecting it, but it was the one thing that, when I started to get into it and write about it, was the one place I felt connected, and it never abandoned me. I had to learn how to not abandon myself and not abandon it. And the more I turned to it the more I felt this internal relationship with it. That was like a lifeline for me internally. It was like, there’s something here, there is energy here. I can keep putting energy into this, and it keeps feeding me.

So much of your business depends heavily on digital platforms. What is your relationship to social media and how do you avoid burnout?

Oof—I get so burnt out. I really do. So like, 90 percent of the time I’m posting something that I’ve created out of the need to create it, and probably 10 percent of the time I’m forcing something and posting it because I feel bad that I haven’t posted something. I’m not as consistent as, you know, I should be for business purposes. I don’t post every day, I don’t do all that stuff. But I do feel like it’s a creative outlet for me that’s kind of compulsive. I know that when I feel pain or when I feel my own kind of sorrow, the way that I feel back in control is to be creating something. That is where I find my agency and maybe it’s where I distract myself—which I don’t think is such a bad thing—but it is from a place of wanting to be able to do something about either how I feel or something that I’ve come to in therapy. [laughs] Like, oh, that thing! Yeah, how can I bring that in? How can I communicate it to people? Is it useful? Is it relevant? Do I make another fucking meme about something or should I just shut up?

Do you have any tendencies as an astrologer or writer that you find yourself actively fighting against?

As an astrologer, I’m always trying to understand what I’m not witnessing or how I’m not seeing the picture. As a writer I’m always trying to think: If this is a square and I turned it on a corner, it would be a different shape—how could I look at it from that additional angle? I really feel like I’m trying to learn how to be a better storyteller, how to point to things that are in support of what I’m trying to illuminate, like rabbis do. I’ve heard a lot of rabbis tell incredibly woven tales: they start with, “It happened on a Saturday,” and then they transition to something that happened in the world, and then they go into a cloud and it’s like, “Oh my god, how do they do that?”

How do you balance the day-to-day tasks of running a business while still giving yourself the necessary space for creativity? Do those two things feel separate or are they pretty intertwined at this point?

My god, that’s a lot of what I’m doing right now. We’re trying to create, again, habits. I’m trying to help Sonia help me help the people we’re working with. I’m not good at it and it’s been total chaos mode and just flying by the seat of our pants, trying to figure it out and fit it all in.

I’m at the space now where I have to block off creative time—it has to be just itself. And then I have to have time for meetings, for email, for all of the other business things that have to be separate from the creative time. Otherwise it’s too easy to let yourself be distracted by all the busyness of the day. I really have to quarantine my creative time. I’m really trying to carve that out in my everyday schedule, Monday to Friday.

Why did you decide to write a book?

I’ve thought about that many days. Why? [laughs] You know, publishers started reaching out to me in ways that made me feel like, “Okay, it sounds like a time to write a book.” I know that writing a book in terms of being a business legitimizes you in some way. And then I felt like there wasn’t a book for beginners to learn the core principles, to understand the meaning of your chart in a very fundamental way. There wasn’t a book I could point to that I didn’t feel was kind of problematic in some way—which is also fine, people can read around things, but I wanted to write my version of it, my kind of updated version. It’s the book I wanted people to read when I was teaching courses.

How do you define success in your work?

Success is feeling like I didn’t let panic or fear ruin my day. That I was able to be present and thoughtful, and that I was able to show up. That I was able to be in the day and creatively, thoughtfully responding and not reacting to what was happening. Because every day something chaotic happens and I need to be able to roll with it in a way that doesn’t tax the fuck out of my system.

How have you been doing that lately?

Well, I fail a lot and I talk about it with my wife and friends. If I fuck up with somebody then I make sure that I apologize right away, or change the behavior right away, or a combination of both. And then I’m trying to remember to breathe. Just take a couple of deep breaths and feel my seat in the manic-ness of everything. That’s the thing I think that helps me the most.

You’ve said in a previous interview: “I actually just write to please the muse I’m writing for or with.” Who is that muse, and do you ever write with a specific audience in mind?

I’m always writing for my people. You know, like I’m always thinking about those people who I don’t know yet or maybe never will, and those that I love and those that I respect and those whose work I know but might not know personally. I’m always having conversations in my head with the things that I’ve read during the day, or have read during my lifetime that have shaped me in some way. Those are all my muses.

And then there’s just an energetic presence when I’m writing that we’ve all experienced some version of. I’m trying to get in line with it. And when the sentence lands in the way it wants to, there’s an energy or lightning or something. My friend Barry Perlman describes it as a little ding-ding-ding. [laughs] Like, yes, you got that. You got the golf ball in the hole or whatever. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it feels so epic.

[biofunmy]

Gabb Is The First Smartphone Dumb Enough For Children

Gabb Wireless

The Gabb Wireless phone, designed to be a kid’s first smartphone.

The decision for when to get your kid their first phone, and what kind, is unique to each family. There are a ton of factors: what you can afford, if your kid’s school allows phones, when their friends get phones, parity with an older sibling, and a realistic assessment of your kid on a scale of “mature perfect angel who won’t do anything bad with this phone” to “little shit who is going to fight me over screentime every day.”

And that’s just the family and social dynamic side of it. The actual needs and uses vary wildly too: Do they just need to be able to call you to ask for a ride home from soccer practice? Do you need to be able to GPS-track them, or provide them with maps to plan their own bike route? Do they need email for class assignments? Do they need a phone to video-chat with grandparents?

And then there are those other considerations: What’s your personal anxiety level about school shootings?

And then there are those other considerations: What’s your personal anxiety level about school shootings? How about kidnappings? Does it outweigh your anxiety about exposure to child predators, cyberbullying, and pornography? How do you feel about kids and smartphones: Do you long for your childhood where only the luckiest kids had a landline in their bedroom and afternoons were spent in some falsely remembered haze where the main use of a phone was to scam your way into two dinners’ worth of Stove Top stuffing?

Perhaps you embrace the possibility that phones and internet-connected devices are neutral or maybe even positive for kids, teaching them some sort of skills? Did your spouse text you that one New York Times story about the ill effects of phones on kids, or the one from Slate that said the opposite?

Basically, you can take everything about your entire lifestyle and outlook on parenting and boil it down to this one decision: What kind of phone — if any — is your kid getting?

One common option for parents is to get a lower-priced smartphone or older model phone — maybe a hand-me-down from the parent when they upgrade. But for those parents who want to keep their kids away from the hypnotic warm glow of the smartphone, there have been few options aside from a flip phone.

“It’s really painful for a 12-year-old to be the only one with a flip phone.”

“It’s really painful for a 12-year-old to be the only one with a flip phone,” Stephen Dalby, the founder of Gabb Wireless, a new smartphone designed for kids, told BuzzFeed News. Dalby bought a flip phone for his 12-year-old son, who was truly not amused. “For us, it’s like, what’s the big deal [about having a dorky phone]. But for them, it’s a huge deal.” The experience inspired him to develop a phone specifically for kids.

Another New York City parent (who requested anonymity to protect her kids’ cool factor) confirmed just how tragically dork a flip phone is to a middle schooler. She bought a flip phone for her sixth-grader, but her daughter was so embarrassed she wouldn’t ever even take it out of her backpack, lest her peers see it.

Okay, so why not just get your kid a phone that doesn’t do anything?

That’s precisely the idea behind the newly released Gabb* phone. It’s for parents who truly, truly, do not want their kid to have access to anything the internet might provide. It has no browser (so no Googling “boobs”), no apps (so no social media or video games), no Bluetooth or AirDrop. It doesn’t even offer email. There’s just calling, text messaging, an FM radio, and a calendar — which won’t even sync with a Google Calendar.

Worried about your kid sexting? The Gabb phone offers just SMS texting, not MMS, which means you can send plain text messages only — no texting video or pictures.

I tested out the Gabb phone and considered using it instead of my iPhone XS for a week, though reality stopped me. The touchscreen phone is manufactured by ZTE, and it’s the same general size and weight of an iPhone or Samsung, though it feels distinctly jankier. It runs on Android, and since the features are so Spartan, there’s not much notable to report: The texts work, the calls work. The camera is 5 megapixels, or just 2 in selfie mode, and well, it really makes you appreciate your own smartphone camera. The photos I took with the Gabb reminded me of my Nokia flip phone days.

Eventually, I was able to import the photos via a Windows computer. It truly felt like 2010 again! 

Since Gabb offers no email, MMS, or AirDrop, the only way to get your photos off the phone is by plugging it into a computer via USB. But it doesn’t play well with Macs. The files showed up in my Macbook’s Photos app in an unreadable file format; even our IT desk was stumped. Eventually, I was able to import the photos via a Windows computer. It truly felt like 2010 again! A rep for Gabb Wireless confirmed that the ZTE phone is not compatible with Mac computers.

Gabb phone (left) vs. iPhone Xs:

Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News

Gabb exists on its own wireless network, Gabb Wireless. Like Cricket or Boost Mobile, this is a wireless network that leases the services of bigger providers like Sprint or Verizon and resells it to consumers. The downside to this is that you can’t add your kid’s phone line to your family plan. The plus side is that the talk and text plan is only $20/month, which is probably about the same as or less than you’d be paying for an additional line anyway. The Gabb phone itself is only $99, which makes it cheaper than many current smartphones (but of course, other smartphones DO a lot more stuff).

The Gabb phone does lack GPS tracking. For some parents, this feature is a big safety priority, as middle schoolers often have the freedom to walk or bike or even take the subway to get to school or friends’ houses on their own. One NYC parent of a middle schooler told me that Gabb’s lack of GPS was a dealbreaker for her — she needed to be able to see her daughter had arrived at school each morning safely from the subway. Another parent from that same school told me just the opposite: She doesn’t worry about tracking her kid.

There’s currently only one Gabb phone model, but a second model with a few more features is coming out soon, according to Dalby. This beefier model will be made by Samsung and it will feature a better camera, support photo texting and group texting, and have GPS (it will also be Mac-compatible, unlike the ZTE). The idea is that a kid could “graduate” from the basic Gabb phone after a year or so and upgrade to the model 2 Gabb phone (still with far fewer features than a real smartphone). The basic model might be perfect for a fifth- or sixth-grader, the fancier one for a seventh- or eighth-grader.

Stephanie, a parent of a 12-year-old boy, bought him a Gabb phone. Her reasoning was that he was already very connected at home via other devices (tablets and gaming consoles), but she wanted to be able to text him when he was out with friends. Unfortunately, her son hasn’t shown much interest in the Gabb phone; he seems put off by its limited functionality. “The issue now is if he doesn’t want to use the phone, do I try to force it because I’m the one that wants to be able to reach him?” Her 8-year-old son is eager to get his hands on it, however.

There have been a few other devices developed for kids considered too young for a smartphone, but old enough to need to call or text their parents. The Gizmo smartwatch is a $180 smartwatch with the main function of being able to call and text, plus GPS tracking. The Relay is a colorful, pocket-sized walkie-talkie that sends voice messages over 4G to a parent’s smartphone. A parent at BuzzFeed said he got them for his kids, but his older son found it so un-fun he often forgot to bring it with him. (I tested the Relay with a coworker at BuzzFeed — we thought it was fun, though the rest of the office found us very annoying, since the Relay is basically a speakerphone.) These devices seem to skew to a younger kid, and work only if there’s a supplemental device at home like a tablet or WiFi-only phone where they can call grandma or text classmates about homework assignments.

RelayGo.com / Verizon

The Relay walkie-talkie and the Gizmo smartwatch.

Is a Gabb phone right for your kid? If your primary concern is keeping them off the internet and away from social media or sexting, then Gabb is an ideal phone for you. Even flip phones tend to have cameras, internet, and games. Even an iPhone with the strictest parental controls activated won’t be this locked down.

Parenting decisions are perpetually fraught, starting in the delivery room and ending with what to wear to their wedding (and probably long after that, to be honest). Getting your kid their first phone is just another one of those decisions you will inevitably torture yourself over and second-guess, particularly because the decision seems to arrive at a time when they’re becoming little individuals with lives and secrets of their own. Scary! So here’s the truth, if you need to hear it: You’re doing a great job, your kid is great, it’s all going to be fine.

*If you’re wondering, yes, Dalby is aware of Gab, the social network for far-right extremists. He said he’s not worried about people confusing the two.

Sahred From Source link Business

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[wciblackbeltacademy]

Women's Self Defense: A True Story About What Happens When You're Not Prepared! If you're seriously committed to learning effective and reliable women's self-defense, and the ability to survive a brutal attack from a bigger, stronger, and determined attacker, I can only hope that you have also learned the importance of mastering the non-physical, strategic and emotional aspects that actually forms the foundation - the most important parts of effective self-defense for women. Of course, if you've been following along with my articles in this series, you know that these elements include: Attitude, Mindset and knowing who and where the dangers in your life could be. If you haven't learned about this important pieces of your training, I highly suggest that you learn these right now. Don't worry, this article will still be here when you get back. No really. Reading about women's self-defense in an article or on your computer screen is going to give you the ability you need. So... take the time to learn it... Now! Okay, you're either: 1) Back from your information-gathering and learned what you need to know 2) You have already learned the critical and foundational parts of a solid self-defense program for women, or... 3) You're going to do it just as soon as you finish reading this lesson Either way... Now that you're thinking on the right track, you have to start thinking about preparation in order to protect yourself. Before I start in on preparation, I want to tell you a story about a woman I know who has had three situations in her life that put her in danger. And, believe it or not, it took that many for her to start carrying a gun and another to make her a believer. Some people are either in denial, or just slow learners, I guess. Anyway, here's the story. Around the age of 10, this woman had a rogue uncle who was staying with her parents. He attempted to sneak into her room but was caught lurking near her door and she was saved. Later, it came out that he had molested his daughter through the years and she almost became another victim of a trusted family member. About 17 years later, this same woman was walking in a park. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, she was about half of a mile from her car and had no kind of women's self-defense weapon with her when a predator pulled up on a motorcycle and started making gestures and flicking his tongue at her in a lewd way. Luckily, as he was starting to get off his bike, a car came by and he drove away. She definitely was not thinking about women's self-defense when that incident took place. She had walked in this park for years without an incident. I should point out that both of these incidents were rare in the area she lived. But, about a year later this same woman had a situation where an attacker jump from the bushes of her driveway and tried to climb into her SUV. In a panic, he drove off with the guy hanging out the door. Shortly after that, the assailant was arrested and found to be a juvenile detention officer who was in the middle of nowhere because of a domestic situation he had with his own wife. Apparently, she was mad, pulled over, and left him and his son on the road. The real problem was that he was drinking and going to strong-arm her and make her drive him to where he needed to go. After that, this lady's husband bought her a gun and trained her how to use it. It took all that to get her in the mindset of actually accepting the fact, and responsibility that she should learn some women's self-defense tactics. But, after about five years, her women's self-defense mindset became complacent. She had moved to a new place and walked in a new park where people were around constantly. Again she was harassed, this time by a guy in a mini-van. He followed her slowly in the park in what seemed to be an attempt to figure out where she lived. The police were called and they advised there was nothing they could do unless he physically assaulted her. After that, the reality finally sunk in that she was on her own and that it was her responsibility to be prepared to defend herself. And ever since that moment, this woman has had the proper women's self-defense attitude and mindset. She has taken protecting herself to a needed level, but still does and enjoys what she wants. She just does it with a proper and vigilant self-defense mindset now. Oddly enough, she has three or four close friends that have never had a single incidence of this type. Fortunately for her, she has had great luck with these situations not turning into a rape and/or murder. The point of the story is this. This is just one woman who was "lucky" when she wasn't prepared. There are countless other stories out there of women without a proper women's self-defense mindset - who are not prepared - who were not so lucky. Now, they are either mentally traumatized, physically scarred for life or dead. Is this you? How many suspicious or overt "close-calls" have you had over the course of your life? What will it take for you take action to get the kind of training and abilities that you will need to be a survivor - rather than a victim? Do yourself a favor and start now by developing a solid women's self-defense attitude and mindset. Put yourself into a position adequate for protecting yourself. Protecting yourself is solely up to you. By the way, this story is not internet junk. It is a 100% true account of one woman's encounters in a town where "things like this are not supposed to happen!" Effective women's self defense requires more than just a few "karate moves." It involves the ability to think strategically, and understand how to defend yourself with as little wear-and-tear on you as possible - against an attacker who will be bigger, stronger, and determined to succeed! How? Start by following the steps above and decide to be responsible for your own safety and survival. You can also visit our website, http://sunburymartialarts.com/ to request information about Women's Self Defense Or call Warrior Concepts Black Belt and Life Mastery Academy at (570)884-1118 Jeffrey M. Miller SPS, DTI, is an internationally-known women's self defense expert. He is a former police officer, undercover investigator, and body guard. Each month he teaches literally thousands of students through live seminars, corporate training events, and his online self defense courses, the lessons to be able to survive in Today's often dangerous world. pa pa skarate