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live-laugh-lenney · 5 months

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You should so do a fic where the reader has a podcast (like saving grace) and everyone noticed how comparable she and Arthur seem he. He’s a guest (even though she’s like much more extroverted) would be fun🤞❤️

oh, this would be so cute :'))

if there was one thing yn felt comfortable doing, it was waffling.

she just loved to talk. about anything and everything, from what she had read on twitter to what she had heard about online to a brand new documentary that she had taken an interest in when flicking the channels on the television. delving deep into topics that had endless possibilities, spewing off facts that she'd read about online and putting her own thoughts forward in certain aspects that she found interesting and favourable to whoever she was with.

when she came up with the idea of hosting her very own podcast, in the middle of a housewarming party for one of her friends, she was excited to have a platform where she could let her own thoughts be freed yet she was also terrified it wouldn't take off and that she'd make it to a respectful ten episodes before she gave in and decided it wasn't something that the world needed.

when her first episode came out, she had asked james marriott to be her very first guest. one of her best friends, someone she had known for a while, someone who she felt comfortable around and gave her the space to speak freely without making her feel judged. allowing him to promote his new album as well as allowing them to discuss all kinds of musical knowledge from who their favourite bands were and who he would love to open for on a world tour.

and it took off.

earning herself over half a million views in the passing of one day, a lot of youtube subscribers who were offering their own suggestions on the different guests she could have and the more positivity she saw, the more she read, the more excited she was to continue.

she had herself a sweet studio; big beanbags instead of chairs, with a blanket draped over the back of each one and a decorative pillow that was there for added comfort and matched the colour scheme of the whole room, with shelves nailed to the wall full of relatable objects and images that fit her branding - images of her friends, her podcast name in neon lights and a few faux plants that hung low. it was just a simple setup but it felt homely and that was the vibe she had planned from the very beginning.

"good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on when you're checking in. i'm yn and welcome back to the one and only podcast on youtube dot com where we just sit and talk shit for an hour," she grins widely at the camera, cosying back into the beanbag beneath her and crossing her legs, hand holding the microphone to her lips, "today, we're joined the king of 90 day fiancé. it's mister arthur television."

"hello, hi."

he gives the camera a short wave and smiles widely, already having cosied himself down in a similar manner to the way yn was sitting in her beanbag, their shoes (both a sucker for comfort and choosing their air force 1's over any other trainer) kicked off aimlessly onto the rug in the middle of the room and left in a heap, his jacket draped over the back of his seat.

"thank you for having me," he looks in her direction, "this is definitely one of my favourite sets i've ever been on. it feels so homey and wholesome."

"i tried to base it on what my bedroom back home used to look like as a teenager," she giggles softly, looking over her shoulder and flicking on the orb lamp that was placed on a shelf above their heads for a bit of additional lighting to fit the ambience of the room, "i was such a tumblr girl growing up, i think it shows."

"i was gon'a say," he laughs and she rolls her eyes in his direction, "it feels very nice. very comforting. especially with the blankets."

"my nana knitted them for me," yn states, "just for this podcast. she's an avid listener, my number one fan, ."

"really?"

"no. i'm kidding," yn laughs softly and he looks across to her, "i don't think she really gets the whole podcast thing, to be honest. she's only just started to understand the whole youtube thing, bless her. she's a sweet soul and i love her but she's so innocent when it comes to all things technological."

"you should use that story more," arthur insists and adjusts himself in the seat as he felt himself sliding down into a slouch, "it adds more story to the setup. it's cute."

"i'll tell her you said that. she'll love it," yn giggles, 'but, anyway. you, arthur frederick, are one of my most requested guests to appear on my podcast."

arthur's eyes widened and he can feel the heat covering his cheeks as he looks across to her, microphone still held tight to his lips, hoping it hid the shy smile that grew on his lips.

"seriously. i had people practically spamming me on twitter to get you on here," she explains and looks at the camera, "you're a loved man, aren't you?"

"i guess i am," he admits shyly, "people are also asking me and isaac to get you on the bach and arthur podcast. close second to george."

"we'll have to make that happen," yn grins widely, "the viewers would love that crossover. chaos crew and little ol' me."

"i think you'd fit in perfectly," he says, "at least i'll have someone on there that appreciates my facts and interesting tidbits of information. it gets lost amongst them. they're not so intelligent when it comes to you and i."

she snorts and shakes her head, dropping her eyes down to her lap before she looks back up; he wasn't lying, truth be told. she was no stranger to being in a conversation with him, at parties and at events both of them were attending, that involved exchanged fact after fact after fact with each other, hours passing by as they discussed nature topics and the newest piece of information to do with outer space and all the theories coming from online.

with the hour closing in, she didn't want the conversations to end. and she knew, in the back of her mind, that she needed him back on her podcast for another episode because he understood her. and she understood him. and their talks flowed effortlessly with no need for extra encouragement from those around them in the room.

he was an interesting man and she wanted more.

both personally and for her podcast.

anyone else getting heart eye vibes from the two of them???

yn was in her element for this episode!!

arthur being on this podcast just made my day. we need more of the two of them!!!

the way there was no silence at all this entire episode. conversations flow between these two.

the two of them are the same person, i swear.

without a doubt, arthur is the male version of yn. that's adorable.

its like the universe copied and pasted their personalities into two people of the opposite genders. that's so cute!!

"the podcast episode was a hit thanks to you."

yn surprises him and made him jump as she approached him at the bar, his figure turning from where he was stood with his back to her so he could pull her in for a hug, and she grins up at him before her own arms wrapped around his waist. a sex on the beach cocktail held tight in her hand and she was careful not to spill it down the back of his shirt.

"i was wondering where you were," he says and lets go of her to pick up his beer that had been placed on the bartop, "when you texted me to say you were coming to chris' birthday drinks, i knew i had to come and find you when you arrived."

"looks like i beat you to it," she says and she takes a sip of her drink through the straw, "people loved the two of us together on there."

"yeah?"

she nods quickly.

"i'm pretty sure it was the best episode to date. figures wise," she says and he grins widely, looking over her shoulder and seeing a free table in the corner of the room, using his head to indicate for her to look at where he was looking, "i'm gon'a need you to feature again, for sure."

she turns on her heels and wiggles her way through the crowd, the feeling of his hand resting on the base of her back driving her insane as she set her drink down on the table and hopped up on the stool, watching as he did the same.

"i'm not keeping you from chris, am i?"

"no, he's about to hop on the karaoke with isaac," arthur cackles out loud and looks over his shoulder at where his two friends were arguing over the song book, "i'm too sober for that at the moment so I can't think of anything worse right now."

"you're not one of those party poopers, are you?"

"no," he shakes his head, "i just need to be almost blackout drunk in order to belt out my lungs really, really poorly."

"i think i need to get some shots in you then because i really need to see that tonight." xx

#arthurtv #arthurtv fics #arthurtv headcannons #arthurtv imagines #arthurtv blurbs #arthur frederick #arthur frederick imagines #arthur frederick blurbs #arthur frederick fics #arthur frederick headcannons

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sweetbbyshion · 6 months

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brokenhearted (chapter 3)

-> Touya Todoroki (Dabi) x fem!reader

summary: "How can I hit rewind so I could find a single reason why you would leave with no goodbye"

Touya walked into your life with no warning and settled himself in your heart. But how do you expect to build a relationship based on lies and betrayals?

warnings: major character death, mentions of sex, angst, no happy ending

masterlist -> previous chapter

networks: @eveningatthemoviesnetwork @love-and-fiction

You don't know exactly when Touya stops showing up at your doorstep. It's gradually, you think. First, he only shows up whenever he needed a good fuck - a way to let out some steam. Everything is too fast. Most times, you don't even get your clothes off before Touya is pushing you against any surface to fuck you; then, he starts spending less and less time with you - completely ignoring aftercare or anything related to your well-being in general. The hero leaves before you catch your breath. On those days, you just lay in bed crying with the painful bruises to remind you that none of this is just a nightmare; lastly, you simply stop seeing him.

You held onto the hope that Touya was just too busy but days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months and, when you realize, it has been 159 days since you last saw him. You spend sleepless nights figuring out if you should blame yourself for his disappearance but you can't seem to find a reason why you are at fault. But you must be, right? There has to be something you're missing. Another part of you is scared that Touya is dead in some alley and no one found him yet. The memories of your first meeting keep replaying in your head and you're afraid history repeated itself, except you weren't there to save him.

The TV is on and serves as background noise to try and drown your thoughts as you helplessly try to study for your upcoming exam but a change of the image has you turning your head to pay attention to the television. Your heart stops at the sight. Touya is sitting on a couch, shirtless, shoulders down. He looks the same but you still have to take a double look. Touya has always seemed light and happy around you but this Touya looks… dead.

“I am Touya Todoroki.” The sound of his voice after so long makes tears form in your eyes. It almost makes you brush past the famous surname that leaves his mouth. “The eldest son of Endeavor.”

You get up and make your way until you're standing in front of the TV. You stare and stare at the image of Touya on the screen and you pinch yourself hard to wake up from the sick dream you're having. “To date, I’ve killed over 30 innocent people in cold blood and today I’d like everyone to know exactly what drove me to such despicable acts.”

You run to your phone and search his name online. Hundreds of people are already talking about it. News articles after news articles talk about ‘Dabi’ and everything that is known about the villain. You read those stories as your Touya speaks about his past in the background. This has to be some sick joke. A link to a livestream has you shakingly click on your screen, redirecting you for some streaming app. The fight already had started by the time you finished downloading and setting up an account. Touya (or Dabi, you’re not sure what to call him anymore) is destroying himself while all you can do is watch. For a bit, you think whether or not you should intervene but what were you supposed to do? You were a quirkless civilian that just so happened to have a sort of situationship with a wanted criminal. You would get held back or killed before you even managed to talk to Touya.

So you watch. You watch the blurred images of your Touya fighting and destroying his body along the way through tears, with sobs that shake your body and have you gasping for air. You watch your Touya get engulfed in flames as he gives his all to destroy the man who he claimed to be his father. You watched until you couldn't watch anymore, stopping just as the camera was about to move to show his unmoving body on the floor.

Incoming messages from a groupchat with your friends have you putting the device on ‘do not disturb’ so you don’t see what they are saying about the man you once dreamt of introducing to them as your boyfriend, your lover.

You let your body fall back on the couch. You cry until you can’t cry anymore, your tears dry, your sobs stop and the room is silent. You sit there looking at the TV in front of you, your reflection staring back, and you wait for Touya to come knocking at your door. You tell yourself it is just a joke - Touya will be coming back to you, smirking when you open the door while knowing you will be tending his wounds gently.

“Touya… this isn’t funny anymore.” you speak up. There’s no reply. “You’re always getting hurt. I have to keep restocking the first aid kit because of you.” You laugh but there’s no happiness behind it. “Seriously I’m going to be broke soon because of you… Either way, I’ll always take care of you. So pl-ease come home.” And just like that you’re back to sobbing loudly, totally alone in your small apartment. You keep begging Touya to be okay, hiccups making your speech barely understandable but it doesn't matter because you’re alone. Lonely on the couch where you spent so many good moments, you beg for the man who put you together just to break you again. Curled up on the couch and with the feeling of a knife stabbing your heart, you’re undoubtedly alone.

Losing Touya hurts. It keeps hurting for days and weeks and months. It never stops working but the pain becomes bearable. At least, that is what you tell yourself. You hated Touya (or Dabi, you’re still not sure what to call him) for a few weeks. You despised him for lying and for not telling you even in his final moments. You hated that you couldn't sit on the couch without thinking about him but you also couldn't sleep on the bed because of all the moments you spent there. You loathed that he still made you cry everyday before sleeping, curled up on the floor because it seemed to be the only place that didn't fill you with love and grief.

Those negative feelings for Touya prevailed until you saved up enough money to remodel your whole apartment. You didn't leave. You hated Touya Todoroki but you never left the place that reminded you of him the most. Part of you doesn't want to feel like he won - you didn't want to leave your home because of a messed up relationship. The other part was hopeful that Touya would be back one day - you couldn't risk moving places and never seeing him again.

After you stopped hating him, you started missing him. You would find yourself cooking his favorite and then setting two plates on the table. You would talk about your day and ramble about whatever was going on in your life. Silence was your only answer but you still talked. “Your little brother was on the news today. I didn't pay much attention but he looks just like you. I bet you’re proud of it, uhm?” You would say. Silence. “You always said you couldn't make amends with your siblings but I think you should try.” More deafening silence. “I know you don't like to talk about it. Anyways, work was chaotic today.”

This period of yearning never ended, unlike the time where you hated him. You changed your routine to accommodate Touya and never went back to normal.

Your friends noticed the way you changed so drastically but nothing was enough to get you to talk like you do late at night when you think you’re sharing your thoughts with Touya. They recommended therapy but you couldn't tell what had happened. You couldn't do that to him. So you played pretend. You smiled, laughed and everything went back to normal when you were outside the house. But you knew better and the void inside you was eating you slowly. You think everything would get fixed if you just had one person to talk to but you were alone. At some point, you were so desperate that you considered going to his family. Maybe you could share your moments with Touya, show them he was more than the villain TV portrayed. You end up coming to the conclusion that it is a bad idea.

Despite everything you live your life the best way you can without the man that changed your perception of love forever. You don't date or even try to even if your friends insist. You don’t look for Touya in other men and try to fill the void he left. You survive while ignoring “Why aren't you married?” and “Is there anyone special in your life?�� and a hundred other questions that people in your life throw at you. You spend your days surrounded by people but still lonely and empty. You die young but with a feeling free after so many years tied up by sadness. In your final moments, you are alone. You pray to whoever is listening that you will meet Touya again, whether it is in heaven, hell, or in your next life.

You die just like you lived - isolated and hoping you will be with Touya Todoroki again, even if only in your dreams.

#kora posts!#dabi x reader #dabi angst #my hero academia angst #my hero academia x reader #touya todoroki angst #touya todoroki x reader #dabi x y/n #dabi x you #my hero academia x y/n #my hero academia x you #touya todoroki x y/n #touya todoroki x you

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godesssiri · 1 year

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Thrifting Philosophies 1

Getting the good stuff requires commitment, knowledge, and luck. There’s always going to be an element of luck in thrifting. What are the chances that the perfect item will be donated and put out on the shelves of the very thrift store that you are going to and that you will get your mitts on it before anyone else? There is real kismet in walking out of a thrift store with an item that you’ve dreamed of, I literally daydreamed about one of my best scores (a 2.5-foot-tall ceramic panther) for years before it actually happened – and discovering it actually went almost exactly like my daydream.* Don’t let the luck factor put you off because if you are committed and knowledgeable then luck will come to you more often.

You have to go often. You have to have a circuit and make it routine and scour every inch of the store. Like I said I daydreamed for years before I found my panther, you’re NOT going to just walk into a thrift store and find your dream thing first try, unless you are extraordinarily lucky. I’ve noticed a couple of the Youtubers I watch that have a very specific aesthetic, and know exactly what they want, often mention searching new listings online every single day, they have their list of search terms, and they just keep looking every day until they find exactly what they’re looking for. Thrifting dream items is a hunt, and you have to remember you are a persistence predator so be persistent.

Being knowledgeable about what you are looking for will also increase your luck. The more you learn about the thing you love the more search terms you learn it could be listed under. The more you train your eye the more likely you are to spot the gems. I recently scored a Lisa Larson figurine for $3; her stuff goes for hundreds, and I never thought I would be able to own something of hers. But because I was familiar with her design style when I saw this little dog (on the shelf where my favorite thrift store stashes stuff they think is crap and they just want to sell it cheap) I was able to identify it as something that looked like her other designs and scoop it up. The marking on the base was so faint it was barely readable, and I had to google her mark so I could compare side by side. I then googled ‘Lisa Larson dog’ and checked the image results and sure enough my little guy popped up. Google is your friend in these cases and whenever I’m in a thrift store and think I’ve found something good, but I don’t know enough to tell for sure I’ll put it in my basket and take a seat in one of the armchairs that are for sale, and I’ll google away. Researching on your phone while you’re in store is the best way to decide if the thing in your basket is a bargain or not, today I saw a malachite box in the cabinet at the thrift store but it was a bit pricey, $40, so I googled to see if it was worth that, boxes of a comparable size were popping up for $150-$200 so you bet I snapped it up for $40. If you’re interested in an item, then do your research so when you spot it you instantly know what you’re looking at. Looking at lots of examples of a thing online means that when you come across it in real life it will draw your eye so it’s more likely jump out at you when it otherwise might be lost in among all the other stuff on the shelves – I’ve trained myself to spot antique blue and white china from just seeing the rim of a plate in a stack of random plates. I absolutely cannot emphasize enough that you need to know that you’re looking at something special when you lay eyes on it, there is so much good quality stuff in thrift stores you just have to be able to recognize it when you see it. The more you research and dream about finding your goal items, the more likely you are to stand in a thrift store and squint at something and go: Is that? No couldn’t be. Maybe it is? Then pick it up and turn it over to discover that it’s exactly what you thought it was and you’ve got a treasure in your hands. People talk about manifesting the things you want, and I do believe that you can. But I believe it has less to do with putting mystical vibe out into the universe to bring you those things and more to do with training you brain to spot the opportunity to get those things.

*The panther story for anyone who’s interested. I’ve been drooling over these huge ceramic big cats on Pintrest for years and desperately wanted one, you can get tigers, cheetahs, leopards, panthers, and they’re usually sitting up and are about 2.5 feet tall. They were mid-century and original ones sell for $$$$, you can buy new reproductions from the original molds but even those are in the 1-2 thousand range so yeah, I was never gonna be able to buy one. I daydreamed that someday I would walk into my favorite thrift store and find one. I live in an area with a lot of retirees who had money around the time these were being made so my chances were decent. My favorite store has a fully glass frontage and they put the best stuff where you can see in the windows. I daydreamed that I would be walking up to the store and see it through the window before I’d even gotten through the door, that I would beeline for it and grab it growling “Mine!”, and march it up to the counter without even looking at the price, I dreamed that when I got to the counter I would check the price and it would be incredibly reasonable – like $200 (considering how much even reproductions sell for). The things that went differently from my daydream: It was just after a Covid lock-down and here in New Zealand we used to scan-in to public places using a QR code which registered us on a government app – if someone tested positive everyone who had been in a location they had been to at the same time as them could be warned through the app. I saw my panther through the window just like my daydream and was fumbling to scan in while making loud inarticulate noises that embarrassed my mother and brother who were with me. My brother carried him up to the counter for me because I was shaking with excitement. When I actually stopped to check his price, he was $75!!!!!!!!!!! My brother also found a David Bowie book that day that retails for hundreds and that he’d wanted but never thought he would be able to afford, it was also $75. My mother still talks about my squealing and just about running people over to get to Jayjay the Panther (my honorary nephew, Jayjay then 4-years-old, was the one that named him, and he wanted to name him Jayjay).

My previous thrift post

#thrifting #solarpunk #fuck capitalism #sustainability #eco home #reduce reuse recycle #thrift shopping

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scoonsalicious · 5 months

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Here we are ladies, gents, and the non-binaries. The long-awaited Chapter 27 which you've blessed us in FULL today. 8 parts??? what have I done to deserve this? And I've got so many thoughts I Literally had to stare at my screen to collect myself because where do I even start????? Well, first off, I can start with the fact that that was amazing and you're incredible, and thank you for this. I've got so many things to say but I'm literally short-circuiting so AAAH. okay. I'm doing it by roughly by parts so I don't miss a thing. And since you've given us 8 parts, expect this to be the longest essay yet (I'm not even kidding please I apologize this got away from me)

First off, the slow build-up was killing meeee. But then again, I do love seeing them having normal conversations (I mean, a dick in the garbage disposal isn't exactly normal but I digress because that part made me laugh) and seeing Bucky be so protective of her because he has a point. Jesse is out for blood and leaving Pocket alone would be a terrible idea (I mean, well, we obviously see this later). I love their banter too! The teasing and the joking and Bucky's smug lil "nothing I haven't seen before" like okay, pipe down. I love Pocket's stubbornness, arguing with Bucky that she can handle herself (which she can obvs) but I couldn't help but giggle when she *pouts* "I have a gun" *pouts* when Bucky told her that even Nat couldn't handle Jane in hand to hand ESPECIALLY when the unhinged snake is set out for the kill and a super soldier at that.

Now, the footage of Jacky in the Hydra base. That was….a lot. It honestly was so disturbing and scary. It's absolutely insane the way Hydra manufactured her obsession with Bucky. But it's also genius in the sickest way. Because THAT is how you make sure you get a mission done. A teenage crush turned obsession? I mean, have you seen one direction fans back in the day? They were unhinged and could hack anything and that's without training (I was a fan too and I saw it all happen online LMAO). Now we have someone who is a teenage girl with an obsession, who's fucked in the head with all that Hydra manipulation, has super soldier powers, a highly trained assassin and has been made to believe that she can get everything she wants? Who’s stopping that? She makes serial killers look sane. She's been set out to him before anyone even knew she existed. Honestly, that whole thing just had me sitting staring at the wall for a few seconds before I could continue because it's insaneeee. It's so scary, just thinking about someone like her existing in the real world. But that part where she was about to jerk off to Bucky's picture has me laughing and feeling distraught at the same time. But that hint of Bucky being uncomfortable about it followed by Pocket's comment about already sleeping with her, at first I thought he just felt guilty about it but after reading all the parts? A foreshadowing that he's never been comfortable in the first place? I see what you're doing. But god, massacring a whole Hydra base and just the image of her Carrie-style but with a proud grin. Chills. Get her away from me please I'm scared.

(on a side note, Pocket thirsting over Jesus Barnes in Wakanda please BIG MOOD. That really reallyyyyy short clip of him in Infinity War throwing that sack with one hand has me falling in line like, yes sarge, me next please. ANYWAY back to the story)

I'm glad they cleared up that whispering in the conference room when the whole below the paygrade comment. Because people keeping forgetting that were just in Pocket's POV and with that comes some unreliable narrating sometimes because we obviously won't get the full scope of what happened because we're only seeing her thoughts and her perception on the situation. Which is why I always think it's important to think on a broader scale outside what's shown on the text. But god, THAT much money? I'm still heartbroken for Chloe though because she didn't deserve that. But sigh, we just discussed not letting Pocket leave the safe house for her safety and then suddenly we're leaving her alone? Barnes? Really? Have you read any fanfics in your life? Anyway.

That whole commentary about the whole trafficking situation was so spot on. I have nothing else to add to that because you pretty much said it all. It's both sad and so enraging. BUT AH NO. YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO LEAVE POCKET SERIOUSLY. But she genuinely did think Dimitri was the least evil of them all so sigh. I already knew where this was going and I already had a hunch who this "Hydra" boss is waiting at the club. But lol the gasp I let out when I read her name. *insert that 'why am I gasping, I already knew that meme' here* Even just that hint of Jordan being so quick and strong since she's a super soldier, it really sets the tone how Pocket really can't get out of this through physical strength. And now the face off begins.

But damn. I honestly didn't think she'd get even crazier yet here we are. I even felt my skin crawl just knowing the amount of time Jerms spied on Bucky, Pocket, and them both together. She's literally been watching their every move even in the confines of their bedroom. And that gives her so much upper hand because all the fights, insecurities, weaknesses, all their trauma and past, what makes them tick as a couple, what breaks them down, she knows it ALL and she's obviously going to use that to her advantage. Well, she did and she did it well. Imagine playing a cheese game with someone who already knows all your moves. How can you win against that? Every time she says she "loves" him I have the urge to throw up. Like girl you don't. You’re obsessed with him. There's a huge difference. And God that she show here obsession and delusion and that really is the best play Pocket could make. Shattering that deranged fairytale she has in her head of Bucky ever wanting her.

That part, where Juno admitting to feeding Bucky all the things she'd been feeding him, especially the degradation parts. When you're so desperate to try and save a relationship, you really do become willing to try anything and take any advice even if it's not the best ones. And like I said many parts ago, she's smart so the way she manipulated Bucky (who's already so insecure and broken and such an easy mind to manipulate) was so calculated that it was always going to be a success.

Which brings me to the infamous video which was without consent, might I add. The way Jayla made it seem in her text when she recounted it Bucky was so far from what actually happened. She really was selling it as if they'd fuck like no tomorrow and Bucky turned into this feral sex god or something. But that's her delusions playing it up, making it seem like it was the best sex ever when in reality, that couldn't have been farther from the truth. That wasn't fucking, hell I don't even know what you call that. I mean, I could be pushing it here so please do correct me if I'm wrong, but that was SA in a way. An unenthusiastic yes is still a no and you could clearly see that Bucky wasn't into it, tried to stop it even. And with men, there's a different dynamic when it comes to SA because of patriarchal standards and toxic masculinity and this misconception that they always want sex etc. And it truly was pathetic on Josef's part claiming that they fucked because, dude, what was that? But it also left a bad taste in my mouth for Bucky. Because what I saw in my head was just him laying there while she took what she wanted, I guess. And yeah, he didn't push her off and there was a part of him that was so hurt and angry thinking that Pocket betrayed him that he wanted to get revenge but even then, he didn't seem that excited on the fact. I mean, the snake had to bring up the articles and Steve over and over and over again because that's the only way she could keep Bucky angry and hurt enough to not protest and just, let things happen. And she was feeding him lies and hitting exactly where it would sting with that purple push up bra because how could she have known that right? In Bucky's head, that was confirmation that she was telling the truth because he didn't know that Jenny had access to footages. She played her game well and she stabbed him exactly on where the stitches are so that was a lost cause on Bucky's part.

And God, I have all my reports saved in one doc and I really did hit it already did I. About me saying how Bucky probably let Russia happen as a way to punish himself too. And that Jayla truly did play into Bucky's insecurities with those articles because what fight does he have against America's Golden Boy? When he already believes Pocket deserves someone better and that someone took form into the person he's insecure about the most? How can you not spiral? I know I'm repeating myself but we truly can't just ignore what Bucky went through with Hydra in all of this. He's got such a fragile mind and self esteem that it's already easy to break him down if you truly think about it. Now, imagine having someone who knows EVERYTHING that made you crumble and has all the ammo and information to be able to say just the right words for you to trust them? And, well, speaking from experience, you really can't know you're being manipulated until you're out of it. I didn't realize how bad my experience was until I retold it to a friend. So I don't Bucky had an ounce of awareness as to what Joanna was doing to his mental state. It was the sickest most calculated thing what she did that I think even the most secure person could feel that security crumble even for a little. Now you have someone who's already fragile and insecure in the first place? He honestly stood no chance.

Obviously, it doesn't take away the fact that Pocket was still hurt and she has every single right to be. But I think she was more hurt that Bucky wasn't secure in their relationship and her love for him rather than the act itself. Because the way it happened really was kind funny and God I cringed at the way Jocelyn took so so long to even get him going and not even get him going at all because Bucky had to think of Pocket to get hard. And he truly only got himself going by imagining it was Pocket. I mean, he had his eyes closed!!! Beyond me how Juan was able to keep going since Bucky was practically screaming someone else's name so fucking obvious and loud and I have no doubt she heard it since she's a super soldier but she's a different level of delusional so I'm not even surprised. Taking what she could get probably.

I can't WAIT to see feral protective Bucky on the next part. And as much as I want to see all the action, I kinda want him to see him be so calm with his confrontation with Jude. Because you know what would truly break that snake? Bucky telling her over and over and over how he could never love someone like her in all the languages and all the phrases he could. Is it evil of me to want him to break her down on a mental level rather than physical? Because to me, that would be a much more worth it revenge with all the emotional and mental abuse she's done on Pocket and Bucky. Because yeah, Pocket saying those things already hit a nerve. Now imagine it coming from Bucky's mouth? The man she claims she "loves"? Either way, I have no doubt you're going to feed us well so I'm going to be happy not matter what happens. I CAN'T WAIT.

— Jnon 🤍

\y Beautiful Jnon,he 'dick-in-the-garbage disposal' line will live rent-free in Bucky's head for the rest of his life, lol. I like to imagine that it's a visual that got Pocket through a lot of tough times. I loved writing their banter (tbh, I love writing banter in general, lol). I just adore seeing them in a little bit of domestic fluff. And .Bucky has definitely seen it all before, lol. Literally nothing Pocket's got going on hasn't been exposed to his... intense scrutiny, lol. When it came to leaving Pocket alone, the safehouse was probably the safest place for Bucky to do it. I mean, Carthage knew about the Wiggle Room, but she didn't know where the safehouse was.

I'm pleased (which is weird to say) that the Hydra footage was disturbing-- it was 100% meant to be. Like, back in the '90s (the glorious '90s, which I miss with every fiber of my being), I was a HUGE Hanson fan. Like, so rabid I look back on it with embarrassment, lol. And I was thinking-- there's no one with greater obsessive focus than a teenage girl with a celebrity crush, you know? And it just kind of made sense to me that Hydra would harness that to ensure the greatest success to assure they get their asset back. And Jade's not a teenager, but she grew up in isolation, without peers her own age, so I see her as emotionally stunted. In a weird way, she has that in common with Pocket. They were both prevented from growing up in the natural order of things so they could serve the agenda of men. They're like two different sides of the same coin. And Bucky was so uncomfortable at the idea of seeing Jade get off to photos of him, because she did, essentially sexually assault him-- he was never comfortable having sex with her, and the idea that she was using his photo for sexual gratification long before he ever knew she existed makes him feel even more violated.

Let us discus Jesus Barnes. Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have had impure thoughts of a man, repeatedly, lol. But for real, if you're not familiar, please check out Rock Me, Sexy Jesus from Hamlet 2, which is literally THE ONLY thing I can think about when I see this:

Like, turn my water in whine, please. (I'm not even sure how that works as some kind of filthy entendre, but I'mma leave it 'cause I like how it sounds, lol)

I almost didn't include the bit about Bucky telling Pocket what he actually said to Jade during the mission briefing, but I realized I didn't want her thinking he divulged her secrets. He did some shit, but he didn't do that.

Bucky has not read any fanfics in his life, unfortunately, but this just gave me a hilarious idea for a oneshot where Pocket tries to get him riled up by reading a smutty Bucky Barnes fanfic to him, so thank you for that, lol.

Sad part is, Pocket trusted Dimitri. And I think he trusted her, too, which was why he was so betrayed when he found out she wasn't who she said she was. I did need Bucky to leave Pocket alone, but in his defense, the safehouse was the safest place he could have left her. I mean, Jade knew about the Wiggle Room, knew that she would be working there, but she didn't know where the safehouse location was. So, it seemed liked the safest place at the time, and it would have been if Dimitri hadn't shown up for her. Everyone wanted Pocket to kick Jade's ass, and I wanted it, too, but Jade's always been too strong and fast. All Pocket could use to beat her is her wits.

Having her spy on Bucky and Pocket was actually a late addition to the narrative, and I'm so glad I included it, because it really cements how messed up she is. And it gave her so much ammo to use against them. They really did not stand a chance with her having all that access. (Also, I know you meant "chess game," but you wrote "cheese game" and I am in so in love with that, I'm going to pretend you did it on purpose, lol). I also wanted to show that Jade wasn't just crazy, but she was smart, too, and resourceful, which is what makes her so much more dangerous.

And you're not wrong-- the Russia incident bordered on sexual assault. I don't think he would ever see it like that, being a man from the '40s, but it was. An unenthusiastic yes is just as bad as a no. She pushed and manipulated him so badly, he really had no chance. And once she brought up that purple push up bra? It was over. Without knowing she'd been spying, how could he not believe her?

I'm dying to hear your thoughts about Chapter 28! I can't wait! Love you!

#unwanted #jnon report

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remove-the-stairs-bitch · 10 months

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A tangent about myself, corporations, and absolutes, or My Experience.

I am going to speak on my own experience as a now cis white woman, previously a transgender/nb person. I might say things that you won't like, and that's fine. I know that there are people who don't like what I'll say. And that's good. Disliking certain things about people is a great opportunity for growth. It teaches nuance and depth, and there are things about even my closest friends that I don't like and yet see past. I still love them. My best friends are either far left or far right or wholly centrist, and that's okay. Because they're people. And we need to be able to see people as people, instead of just mirrors of our flawed selves.

As a disclaimer, this includes what some might consider transphobia, but I don't. Like parents keeping someone from transitioning bc of their age or someone breaking up with a new trans person. Also includes a death in the family. My own views on topics are heteronormative and based in Christianity, my parents views, my peers views, and the things I've seen and experienced, online and off. Don't discount my views for any of these, and if you do, please explain why.

I'll start with 2020, the year I joined tumblr and started doubting my identity as a woman/girl/female person. It was a rough time for everyone, and my 15 year old egocentrism did not help. At the time, I was dating a man of 16 years. I call him a man because he was wise in many ways, and in my mind he earned the title. But when I started questioning my gender, I told one of my friends about it. Consequently, she told her parents about it. And they told the man I was with about it. Because of my egocentrism, I was blind to how much it hurt him to think that his potential future wife was intent on becoming a man. I would have left him, as it's called, a trans widower. I say would have because there are nuances to this story that I'll explain later on here.

After a while of thinking that I was either a male or something between the genders, I eventually began identifying as a demigirl. The reason I thought I was a man or between the two at the time was my isolation from others, the natural desire to rebel at that age, and the fact that I was seeing so many trans men on YouTube tik tok compilations. On top of these was my stress from school, my stress from switching chores with my younger brother, and the stress of transitioning in itself. I blamed all of my problems on my gender. This did not solve anything. Because it didn't solve anything, I blamed the others around me, growing more and more abrasive towards the people I cared about until my mom pulled me aside and told me that there are people in my life who had it far worse than I did. It was not an actual of transphobia. What she did opened my eyes to the idea that I was not the center of the world, not even the center of my own. She told me that one of my best friends had been the victim of a violent crime, and while I was caught up in my own gender, I completely ignored her pain. I was a worse friend, a worse child, and a worse person, because I was focused solely on my problems and my image. That was when the facade began to break.

I began detransitioning in 2021. It was easy, free, and more freeing than trying to cram who I am into an agender box. I'm very glad that I wasn't able to find hormones at the time, or I'd be suffering the effects to this day. It was an emotional drain for the pressurized bottle I had built up in myself. And it was a struggle. There were times when I'd look in the mirror and think to myself, "I'm very masc presenting today," and then realized that's just how I normally dressed when I was younger. When I completely identified as a girl. It was hard because I saw other people transitioning. And when they finished transitioning, nothing changed. Their circumstances did not get better. Their grades sometimes dropped. Their quality of life went down. Their already strained relationships with their families broke entirely in some cases. It hurt to see.

My ideology then changed. I returned to my religion in August of 2021, and was able to find some peace. It was a great comfort to me, even when tragedy hit. My older brother left the family in pursuit of a narcissist. They were trans as well, but had multiple mental illnesses that made them arguably unfit to take care of another person, much less the polycule they had amassed. This hit my family hard, almost as though my brother had died. (I say this with the experience of losing a parent, not with the intent of coming off as saying "he was dead to us.") He left on a sour note, not telling us that he loved us anymore. I started a D&D campaign in the hopes of having some small connection to him, and it succeeded. Eventually, he was a victim of the very person he left us for, and he came back, traumatized. We have a place for him to this day, and he's at least slightly more comfortable with himself and his gender than he was when he returned to us. He doesn't lie when hardship strikes anymore, and he knows that we love him no matter his choices or his struggles.

In 2022, I got high grades and was nearly able to graduate. I had no need for other curriculum, as I had already met and exceeded the requirements for my state's high school graduates. I was undecided, so I opted to go through the summer of 2023 and see which way the wind blew. Over that summer, my father died. It was during a family trip that we had been planning for a while. It was unexpected, but wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. This may just be because of my religion, as it gives an answer for what goes on after death, and gives anecdotes of folks being brought back to life. I understood that no tears would bring him back. But I also understood that I was his legacy. And that he died proud of himself, his family, and his peers. In all likelihood, he died contentedly.

I quit my part time job and decided to try school again, if for nothing else then for the social security benefits. This proved to be a bad move. The friends I had there promoted unhealthy lifestyles, and although I loved them, I couldn't stay and let them affect me. So I left school, which wasn't something the teachers wanted me to do (I'm sorry Ms. F, I'll come back to show off my sewing projects!), but it was necessary in order to push myself to grow up. That was immediately stifled by a knee surgery (which was prescribed basically the week after my dad's death, bc I dislocated my knee right before going to the hospital to see his cadaver). It is now December, and here I am yapping about my personal life online.

I intended to speak on the near-widower that left me after I came out. We're back together. He still loved me. I just needed to grow up to see that.

There are people out there who might hate you as a trans person. But there's a solid difference between hate, ignorance, and concern. Hate is active oppression. There is oppression, and from what I've seen it's on a systemic and corporate level. But it's not on a personal level. On a personal level there's either ignorance or concern. What I experienced when I was struggling with my gender was concern. There was no ignorance in my case. The people who left me left for the same reason I left my school. It was because they saw the path I was taking and did not want to be shouted over while I was wandering. People can leave people they love because it's better to give a situation to the authorities than it is to try and fix it yourself. If my fiance hadn't left me, my mental and emotional state would have rubbed off on him and hurt him. I could have done more harm if he didn't cut me off when he did. For that, I think I'll forever be grateful. The people who stay stay because they know you need support while you'd still say they're toxic or hateful. That's what I thought of my parents until I was able to see the bigger picture. If your parents are actively beating you or shouting at you or gaslighting you, of course don't stay. But I recommend taking a second to ask about what's happening around you instead of within you. Because of today's culture, I took the notion that the answer was always inside me far too seriously. Sometimes the answer is in the people who care about you.

But this brings me to the second part of my little rant here. I came to the realization that the less people identify with solid and tangible things, the more the corporations in control of our country can manipulate us. There's pridewashing, virtue signalling, deflecting when serious issues are brought up, and we ignore it for the sake of letting these corporations remain the one stable thing in our lives. There are far more tech jobs these days than agriculture, and because of this, we could end up starving while corporations pull an Orwell on us and say there has never been a steady supply of grain. Or that there has always been a poor AQI. Or that we need the new Juicero Pro to do our taxes instead of making juice. I don't feel like America itself is the problem, but the corruption within it. I still rely on a device created with slave labor to share outlandish opinions and borderline radical ideology with you few, but I don't want it and I don't need it. I could just as easily toss this thing against a wall and be fine. (I won't bc my mom would be rather miffed if I did, but you get my point.) I could survive for a good long while without it, and probably be far happier. Same with all the trinkets and plastic I've accumulated, in my bloodstream and otherwise. I have no need nor desire for these things, and yet I keep them.

But there's a need and desire for at least a little tradition, which is expressed by many women who are sick and tired of being lumped into the modern idea of "man, woman, or nonbinary," and just want to be allowed to be tomboys again. Or just want to be allowed to be a wife. There's nothing inherently wrong with desiring a home with a working man and kids. There is something wrong with telling women what they can and can't do, according to modern feminism, and yet the women who want to be homemakers are silenced and shouted down, along with detransitioners among the lgbt. Aren't these people valid too? Isn't their plight just as understandable? But they're pushed to the margins as low statistics that really don't matter in the long run. Along with trans widows/widowers. Is it not wrong that we're ignoring the people who we harm with our movements? Isn't the point that we help the hurt? So why aren't we helping the people we're leaving behind? It's concerning is all. A society based on a single voice is no society at all.

Sorry for the rant. If anything here has resonated with you, feel free to comment about it. Same with anything that has struck a nerve. I miss being able to speak about the things I disagree on in a kind manner. I miss the good that disagreement brings.

#Long rant #Feminism #Detransitioning #Trans issues #The deranged opinions of some American cis her white woman #Capitalism

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seriously-mike · 1 year

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So You Want To Use AI-Generated Images Commercially?

Fuck off. And keep fucking off until you're out of my sight. Not because of any moral issues, but because whatever the marketing goons tried to sell you, they're ripping you off and bullshitting you with a straight face.

First, the generators, despite being merely large-scale statistical models, have no concept of consistency. The level of human interference into generation process to keep everything consistent between images is large enough at the general level to have you hire an actual artist who will do it by hand instead. At specific level, it's outright hopeless.

I saw a good example in a Facebook reel today. Some goth chick fed the frames from a five-second video of her getting up and walking towards the camera into an image generator with what I assume is the same prompt and the result was a jittery mess with details being drawn completely differently every frame, even despite the Image-To-Image process trying to stick to the original concept at least a little bit.

Another one was a guy trying to have the generator draw the portraits of four public personalities: Ralph Baer, Shigeru Miyamoto, Andrzej Sapkowski and a fourth guy I forgot. Not just every one was in a different style, but Miyamoto's likeness went off the rails like an absolute motherfuck. It added some twenty years on top of his current age and made him barely recognizable, if that.

Second, time spent on refining the prompts, yanking the lever and binning failed attempts is time wasted. Particularly to those even dumber than you who have no idea how the entire shitshow works, but demand Results (With A Capital R) in less time than required to load the model and run a render with enough steps to get something barely convincing. Look, even I don't exactly know how it works beyond mathemagics and fairy dust.

Third, 3/4s of what you read about image generators online is complete horseshit. That includes positive and negative prompts. If you know how the original datasets were built (read: a web crawled bot scraped images and their alt texts off Google Images and made them into a database), it becomes obvious. A lot of folks bang terms like "4k photoshopped trending on artstation" into positive prompts like fucking apes, thinking it will yield results - it won't. Particularly thanks to the nature of alt-text, which is widely used by screen readers for visually impaired people, so it needs to be short, sensible and to the point. And negative prompts are magical thinking as well. Realize this: when the datasets were built, they did not include any of the typical AI-generated fuckups like distorted torsos, too many limbs etcetera. This becomes obvious when you get the thing you explicitly asked the generator to avoid over and over again. And finally, you need to remember that StableDiffusion asking you to set the image dimensions as multiplies of 64 is there for a Reason. The Reason being, 64 by 64 pixels is the smallest area the model can render, and even then it's often a part of a larger element described in general terms.

Fourth, online generators themselves are a scam, more or less. Some defend themselves by having their own, custom-built datasets, like Leonardo AI - these guys dared to build a Stable Diffusion 2.1 datasets when everyone else sticks to 1.5 version. Others, like mage.space, are bullshitting you - when I went through the list of the generators they want you to pay ten bucks a month for, I found nothing but stuff available for free on HuggingFace and CivitAI, based on SD1.5. Half of them I already had downloaded. Not to mention, online generators usually don't have the fancy plugins you can use with your local machine install (I do know that LeonardoAI lets you use ControlNets, and that shit is next-level even despite the general wonkiness described above). That, of course, is true for StableDiffusion, but Dall-E is just as shit and Midjourney might do a couple of things better, but it still wipes out in a good few areas.

Image generators are good only for memes, shitposts and Tijuana bibles. And you'd need a special kind of schmuck to pay for any of those.

#ai generated images #ai art generation #mike's musings #stable diffusion #ai image generation

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yourtoradorasextendedwarranty · 2 years

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Ok so this is going to get a lot of hate but let me make my point. This meme is based on the below images:

So one of these was posted on March 11th, about a VTuber making a flat joke with a pretty sus model. VTuber Characters which are based off anime and do not look like real life people. This tweet has, at the time the picture was taken, 67.6K likes.

The second of these was posted on March 13th, about a real life grooming and SA ring targeting children on twitter, using code words to get groomed kids to put their ages in their bios without it being obvious what the age is to outsiders. Several people have investigated these tags and brought them to light. The tweet at the time this picture was taken, 7.1K likes.

Now first and foremost let me say this. I personally don’t give a flying F*CK if you like loli or shota. Nor do I care about any attraction you have to any fictional characters at all. They are not real. They will never be real. And even if they WERE and they were over the age of 18 and could consent, I STILL would not give a damn. Now with that said, I’m a victim of real world SA. It happened when I was around 6. And it really f*cked with me a lot and it’s the only reason I remember it at all. DO NOT come to me trying to equate fictional characters to real world people. They are fundamentally not the same. They are not even in the same universe.

Fact of the matter is, Loli and Shota are not always “Kids”. Often, they are in fact just petit people of varying ages. However, it’s also worth noting that a lot of the perceived “lolicons” in Japan, more or less where the term got popularized from, do not even sexualize the characters they like. It’s not to say it doesn’t happen at all because it does. However, it’s not the majority of the time. It’s more of a weird, “Must protect and be a big brother at all cost because CUTE”. Which culturally, Japanese people tend to love cute things. It’s why there is a mascot for pretty much everything in the country. What’s more it’s no surprise when you consider that the culture is very puritan in nature, and do not do well with acts of affection. Not to mention the fact that their culture almost shuns it. As such, they internalize the need for that in what ever ways they can. Is it always healthy? Not even remotely. But the reason this is relevant is because I saw a lot of backlash against the person sharing the story about the “Baby Blue” story. The person being called out as a “Lolicon” and “Shotacon”. Now, this person is probably not Japanese. But the above concept still exists. Today we live in a culture where we are ALL online almost all the time. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, Instagram, SecondLife, RP.ME, etc etc. We do not connect with other people the way we used to. Person to person interaction has been grinding down to nothing. And, to top it off, people are not dating at the same rates they used to.

The reason all of that is important is because fiction fills that gap. Often for a lot of different people. I’m not going to judge them, unless I hear them saying something like, “Oh I like the fact this character is a kid. It really gets me going”. That would likely send me into a blind rage on the spot. However, if they just pointed at a character and said, “Hey this character is cute and I like them”, even if it was a younger looking character, I’d probably just go, “......Ok”, and be done with it.

My issues start when real world kids are involved. Like in this below photo.

If you were to just read the context, you would be like, “EGAD! HOW DARE THIS PREDATOR DATE A YOUNGER GIRL!”. Except as it happens, both parties in question were only a few months apart. And what’s more the judgement was that he was really old, based on his height. (Wonder where I’ve seen that equivalent before? *Glances at antis*) And even more than that, he got doxed, and the school got contacted attempting to get him expelled. People tried to legit ruin this kids life. And do you know why? It’s because we have watered down what the term pedophile is. More over, when people look at the dictionary definition of it, it doesn’t paint a complete picture either. Pedophiles tend to be people whom WHILE YES tend to like kids that are with prepubescent bodies, the larger reason they “like” and target kids is because of their innocence and purity. Pedophiles, often victims of sexual violence themselves as kids, tend to target kids because of trauma stemming from their own childhoods. That trauma is often extreme levels of abuse, or themselves having been SA’ed. As such, it caused their maturity to stunt causing it’s own bundle of issues. However, this in and of itself is not meant to defend them. It’s meant to point to the fact that many of these people belong in mental institutes. Now, with that said, there are other pedophiles that are not mentally sick in the same way. No they come from backgrounds with no abuse, and often consider their attraction to be a kink. What’s more they are the ones pushing the hardest for the “acceptance” of pedophiles.

The last of this group however aren’t pedophiles in the traditional sense. They don’t care about the age of the person involved at all. Often they just want to get their rocks off. Those people are opportunists. Often adults into their later years who will look for anyone they find attractive, actively targeting younger people not because they like them sexually, but because they find them to be easy targets. But since people on THIS platform have issues saying “ok all of these things are bad but some of these are more bad” I won’t get into it deeper than that.

The above understandings come from around 12 Years of studying psychology under friends and acquaintances that are professionals in the field. Now all of this comes together with a few things.

Trying to ruin a kids life because he is tall and dating another kid in school is disgusting. Even IF the age gap WAS in fact 18 and 14 fact of the matter is that doesn’t make him a pedophile. More over with several other factors like when did they start dating? Did he only date her BECAUSE she was that age or did they just mesh? Was she the one that asked him out? Etc. This not also covering the fact that we DON”T teach young adults to be adults anymore. You can’t just go to a kid that’s 18 and has only had investment in maybe sports, his gf, and his friends, and then say, “Hey once you turn 18 you need to end all your relationships because otherwise you are a pedo/predator”. That’s not even how that works. Shit when I was in school it WAS NOT uncommon for freshman to date seniors. Not at all. And age of those grades was never universal as it depended on when you started school, and if you got held back, or skipped grades. Moreover, the concept of “predators” to most teens tends to be, “Oh they are people that kidnap you and do bad stuff to you”. They internalize this, and then think that if someone is not that thing exactly, they are not a predator. More over calling kids and young adults predators is a dangerous precedent to set. Why? Because it leads to kids like the one above, getting doxed, threatened with being expelled, showcased all over social media, and harassed nonstop.

Which brings me full circle. I don’t like when people compare fictional characters to real world kids. They are not the same. They are not even in the same realm of “same”. They are fundamentally different entirely. And even if you argue to me that “One represents the other” why is it that a lot of the time they ONLY like that style of art and those characters? Why don’t they dabble in more realistic looking fiction? “Oh well you don’t know that they don’t!”. No. I do not. However their likes and replies on almost every social media is often public and visible to go through. And when people dig and dig through them it tends to say within the realm of quite nonrealistic. Aside from the fact that even if they “Like” loli and shota often that’s not the only thing in their likes by a long shot. Which honestly furthers my point. Words have meanings for a reason. Understanding those meanings and understanding the types of people associated with those words is very important. If a person were to consume underage fictional content (of that kind), I probably would not associate with them at all. If it were hyper realistic, and I found out about it, I would report it to the law because THEN it is actually illegal. But if they are just like, “Hehehe Rebecca from Edge Runners go burrrr” I won’t give two shits.

Stop putting real the real world, and fantasy on the same levels. They are not. And if you tell me that, “OH well consuming the fictional version will lead to consuming the real thing”, how about you point me to a study of real world examples. Talk to me about how my playing the fictional game of Call of Duty is going to make me go out into a desert with my tactical gear, grenades, and run and gun a bunch of people I’ve never met. And yeah it is the same concept. Same with certain types of kink “Play”. There is a fundamental difference between “PLAY” in those regards and real version of those things. MURDER role play is a thing. And I can promise you 99% of those people DO NOT want to be stabbed to death. It’s pretend for a reason. It’s fiction.

If you want to steer clear of people that like loli and shota characters, be my guest. But when real world instances of harm are brought to light, and you DON”T point to it, and others who scream about people liking loli and shota don’t bring light to it. I’m going to assume you are either complacent with real world kids being harmed, and that you only scream about lolis and shotas to cover your own predatory thoughts and behaviors, or that you are quite literally just screaming about it all for clout and could care less about kids being harmed. You don’t have to agree with me on any of this. But the facts are what they are.

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suugrbunz · 5 months

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Hey! 💝anon here.. That was me giving tips earlier.. Been back on Tumblr for just a couple days, clearing out my old account, saying hellos to old online friends. Thank you, so much, for how you inspired my story last year. You motivated me - so much!

The story finished. I adidn’t do a huge amount with Maureen & Lyam’s relationship; they had a few more moments together, bonding & learning to trust & appreciate each other. Their final moment in the story was their first kiss! (I can send a snippet if you’d like?)

I turned 19 last year (so, a bit younger than you I suppose :)) It’s been good, getting offline. It’s given me more time to do other things; learn gardening from an elderly relative, do some singing (on my own lol), spend time with my family, learn about things that interest me.

Anyway. Hope you’re doing okay and taking care of yourself, and you can find ways to make life easier, whatever those ways are.

I understand about the streaming service thing. My family usually just watch cheap second hand DVDs (charity shop sells 20 DVDs for £1!), and occasionally use the cheaper version of Netflix (with ads). I use Internet Archive (archive.org) for books and films (manly older, lesser known films), it’s free, so that’s a good option.

And totally, get away from Instagram & TikTok! If you think you’d be happier without it, drop it! People online can be really nasty. I quit looking at Reddit, & basically all comments, last year after I suffered a deep depression (due to peoples’ extremely nasty comments toward a part of lgbt that I identify with) Doing a lot better now.

IDK, and it’s not my business, but hope something works for you. The best people, the ones worth knowing, are those who appreciate character and kindness over consumerist beauty ideals (I say consumerist cause it’s in my belief that we’re pretty well brainwashed to think “perfect looking” people look good; a way of getting people to keep buying makeup they don’t need and the latest fashions)

Ahh, hope this isn’t too much, I write fast and am only basing this all off a couple posts I saw you made, so I’m real sorry if it’s too much! I’ve got a ton of spare time today so I’m just rambling.

I can’t be coming back to online socialising like I used to, as it took up so much of my limited spare time last year, so this is a rarity, just to say hello. Hugs 🫂

💝anon

i literally cried seeing it was you— i was noshing on a gyro, crying alone in the kitchen. I have hereditary depression, so it won't get better. It'll always be there. It's just worse than normal lately. Hoping it'll calm down, I wrote and edited some of my book today.

This is like writing a lovely old pen pal, ah, it's nearly therapeutic. I think of you often. I'm nearing tears as i write this because something about talking to you has felt so homeward bound. I love archive, that's how I watched the clash movie, Rude Boy! I have some unread books I wish to finish, one is kafka and the other is khalil gibran. You should see the khalil gibran book, it has such an ornate cover.

I adopted a cat since we've last spoken, she was beside my neighbours house during a storm. I had been taking out my dog and heard her meowing. When i approached her, she immediately came to me. Oh, her name is Laila, she's a tortoise shell.

I definitely have to agree, we are brainwashed constantly to see aging as a sign of lost beauty. Similarly, we are taught that our bodies are never enough because whatever the trend is— it isn't for a girl with an hourglass body. I told my mother the other night, through lots of tears i have never truly loved myself. I mean, around puberty is when confidence develops, at least in my opinion. I got bullied for my body developing into what it now is. So, you can imagine what eating disorder shit i go through because of it. Only fueled by my mother also having a fucked up perception of body-image as well. I am trying my best to understand that my value is an independent variable from the weight on a scale.

Please send me all the writing you wish to, I remember loving your writing. I started publishing my book, but it's completely different. I had to change everything; it was going nowhere. I couldn't get a plot to stitch together. I was nearly at the point of deleting it. Then, out of the blue, I woke up after some dream and was like— "what if I used tamino as a faceclaim? What if x, y, z?". Soooo, i ended up experimenting with it and i actually followed through on replacing nick (i want to implement him in the new book tbh, i miss him). Ah, i hope you find the time to read the chapters I have published... that is if you want to read them, truly there is no pressure there. Again though; please send me your work.

#💝 anon #౨ৎ guys my favourite anon is back 🥹

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cherokeegal1975 · 1 year

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The Grey, WIP: 7/7/23

Well, I wish I had realized yesterday that by painting the base coats of the wings and then just fading out the references over the top of them, I could have saved myself some time and trouble. Now all I have to do is erase around the white wing and it'll be mostly done...save for some highlights I might want to put in.

This was a single image, then a doubled one because my graphics program has a tendency to merge all layers prematurely once in a while. A glitch that I'm not at happy about. I was just able to remove the bulk of the reference picture today. Look so much better without it there.

I was going to do a half gold and half silver halo, but with all that black and white, there's need for more splashes of color. So, the halo will be solid gold and have red jewels set into it. The flames will also add some color as well as the lady's skin. A nice brown. Her hair will be black.

References for the bits I need to see are still there, just invisible at the moment. Except for the frame design. I'm doing my best to eliminate anything I copied from online as fast as possible. Except for the wings of course. I need those.

I will lighten the hue of the cloak; I usually start dark and work lighter then darker again in spots as I go along. I even have brushes that will do fabric textures. I think I might try that. In spite of the need for more color, I still insist that the cloak be grey. Maybe I can add some patterning or something. I'll think about it.

Anyway, I never meant this drawing to look like a playing card. In fact, the main elements of the drawing just showed up randomly in my head when I wasn't really thinking of anything particular. But I liked what I saw, so I'm drawing it.

Yes, I know I'm cheating a lot. This is because sometimes I have trouble translating what's in my mind onto canvas. I can draw the human figure but haven't had a lot of practice at it. Nor do I have a lot of practice drawing clothing. It was just easier to find what I needed online to help me out this time. I don't know who all the artists are who put out all these free resources for me to use. Though angelic figures are common, I can say with confidence that this idea is uniquely mine. Just for the fun of it I did a general search image for a moment and found lots of angels, but nothing exactly like mine. So, there's that.

I can and to draw freehand. I'd do it more often than I have been lately if I had more time. My time off is sporadic at best/worst. Given the choice, I'd spend more time doing everything in my head. Taking a few hours a day just to draw. I can do a solid three hour session of drawing before my brain gets tired and I have to take a break. I rarely get that time lately.

Ugh. This is devolving into a bitch session. I won't do that here. Anyway, when this is completed, people who are into games like Dungeons and Dragons or similar games may use this character as part of your game. Just ask me first because I want to know about it. Give me credit for the design. No, you may not sell it. I need the profits far worse than you do.

I came to think of The Grey as a kind of judge for contests and legal issues...and maybe other things. She knows there's more than one facet to every story, there isn't just pure evil and pure good. There's always those shades of grey. And she's an excellent and fair judge. A living personification of justice and a powerful force for the good side. My mind had to work on this for a while as I drew her "card." Because originally, she had no story, no meaning. I'm still inviting people to have an open interpretation of her character however.

I can also see this as a big poster over someone's bed simply because it looks cool. It would be a nice decoration, especially if it turns out as nice as I want it to.

I'd appreciate it if no one used my idea until it was completed. I might make some changes along the way that I won't know about until I get there. Not that I think anyone will really. Every offer of free resources I put out gets ignored. I don't know why.

I will also post this on Redbubble when it's done and send a link. I can't seem to completely let my optimism go even though I'm aware that no one wants to buy my artwork. I don't know why.

#cherokeegal1975 #digital art #wip #work in progreess #original character #original D&D character #free resouce

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loveyou-4-life · 2 years

Text

𝐍𝐎 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄— thomas bordeleau ( chapter two )

summary: When shes getting time to meet her new “boss” and seeing how he is behind the articles. She finds out he’s holding a lot of baggage. Making her mission for him to open up, it was harder than it looked because of his new found hatred for her. That’s until he invites her to a special place.

warning: mature language, mention of alcohol, childhood trauma. not proof read.

authors note: i’m having too much fun with this series. ik that bords doesn’t have a clock tattoo but just go along with it. why does this chapter feel so short lmao

masterlist.

love sex and hockey masterlist.

“THOMAS, THIS IS JULIETTE D’AMOUR, you’re new Pr representative” Scotty introduced. Thomas ignored her hand and only gave her a stiff nod earning a glare from his agent.

“Nice to meet you” She said. Acting as though he didn’t threaten to fire her 12 hours ago.

“I’ll let you two get to know each other for a bit until we go to the press conference” Scotty declared. Julie knew he warned Thomas to be nice to her, she could practically hear a fuming Thomas from the other room.

The door closed behind Scotty leaving the two alone. Tension rose and Thomas was getting impatient.

Julies focus was on something else tho, in Thomas’ arms , tatted was a clock and knife stabbed into it. She wondered what it meant, then going around it was a tree, without leafs. And then a lion with a scar along on one of his eyes.

Maybe they meant something to him, they do probably. And all this thoughts were around her head. He needs to open up. He’s definitely not an alcoholic but maybe he’s drinking to forget. Was she really going to judge him based off his tattoos? that’s a start.

“Didn’t your parents ever tell you that staring is rude” Thomas questioned with a teasing tone. Julies eyes went from his to arms to his face, she wish she could say he didn’t have a nice face.

“Didn’t your parents ever tell you that you don’t ignore others when they try to shake your hand” She shot back. He chuckled, butterflies suddenly exploding in her stomach. his laugh.

“Well they only told me to not ignore elders” He stated. His eyes were like they were smirking, Julie knew she and him were going to have a hard time.

“In order for us to work together , you and I need to get along” she said softly. He scoffed standing up from his seat.

Bending down to her height, he came close to her face. “In your dreams witch”.

—

timeskip

2 WEEKS LATER

He wasn’t working with her, literally.

Every time the two would see each other, he would go the other way and he was basically forced to have weekly two hours meetings with her. She wasn’t sure what she did to him, maybe she took too far in insulting him?

Today was the day of another press conference. The last one she had when she first formally met Thomas, didn’t end so well when a new reporter slipped out that he had wrote an article on the one nightstand Thomas had with an instagram model. Scotty was furious.

Her nickname by him became “witch” and soon even Scotty would call her that. She wasn’t annoyed, it was just a nickname. She was used to them by now.

She had just finished a schedule plan for Thomas to do for the next 6 months. It included him visiting sick fans and spending the day with them, going on a run , and all types of funny interviews she had seen online. All of these activities were in a public place for the paps to photograph. She was slowly going to help him bring his image back.

She headed towards Scottys office , she was sure Thomas was there when she saw him walk in this morning. Going up to the office open doors, she softly knocked on the hard wood and both heads turned towards her.

“If you aren’t busy , I need to talk to both of you” She played with her fingers. Her laptop on her hand . Scotty softly smiled at the girl, she had heard him say plenty of times that she reminded him of his daughter.

“Yeah come in” She heard Thomas groan. She chuckled, it was actually funny to her. Thomas’ misery.

“I just finished the schedule plan,you can take a look at it for this week and then we can talk about the next 6 months.We have a kid that reached for you by Make a Wish foundation wanting to have dinner with Thomas and teach him how to take a girl on a date, I was thinking maybe for Thomas to spend the day with him. His name is Will and he’s sick—“ Julie rambled. A small soft pity smile came across Scottys face. He could tell she really wanted the kid to meet Thomas and that showed care, and it was a good idea to make Thomas the good guy sometimes, but Julie was cut off by Thomas.

“I get it that you have trauma by spending your life in an orphanage but I don’t get to pay for your personal trauma just because you feel bad for some kid” He snapped, cutting her off. Julies jaw dropped, how did he know that? was her past coming back to her? her eyes filled up with tears.

Maybe Thomas was right, just because Will reminded her of her traumatic past doesn’t mean she needs to force Thomas to spend the day with him.

She heard Scotty gasp. “Thomas” his voice dripped with venom, warning him to stop. And he did, he shut his mouth closed but it wasn’t because of Scotty. It was her glossy eyes that stopped him.

“You’re right I’ll make sure to just write him a letter your busy right now and wish him a full recovery” She said softly, almost like a whisper. Suddenly guilt filled up in Thomas’ body, he gulped, opening his mouth but words didn’t seem to find a way to come out of his mouth.

“I’ll send you the other plans for the next 6 month by email” With her printed plans for him in her hand, she turned and stormed out of the office as quick as she can.

Thomas sighed, putting his head in his ands.

Scotty’s voice filled up the silenced room. “Go, make her forgive you for all the immature shit you just did”

—

— 3 DAYS LATER —

Julie still hadn’t heard from Thomas, and this time she was glad. Him bringing up her past was something personal and it never had anything to do work.

She was just debating to sent the boy the letter or actually drag Thomas to spent two hours with his number one fan.

A knock interrupted her silence. When she looked up from her day dreaming, she made eye contact with a pair of eyes she was trying to avoid for three days now.

Thomas stood awkwardly, his hands in his pockets.

“You have any plans around 8 o’clock?” He questioned. Julies eyebrows came together, she was confused. She didn’t know any press conferences or meetings for today. She had made plans with her bed and Netflix watching Blacklist.

“No… why?” she said, dragging the no in the end. He nodded his head in approval .

“Great I’m gonnq take you somewhere” He declared. Julie looked at him suspiciously. Thomas wanting to give her his time of day willingly? This was definitely Scottys doing.

“You’re supposed to ask, guess another manned your parents failed to teach you” She pointed out. He chuckled. “Is this an apology for bringing up my childhood trauma?” She questioned. His expressions falled and he gulped , feeling the guilt in his stomach.

“Yes and I’m Sorry” he admited apologizing. She nodded her head with a soft smile. He almost chocked apologizing jeez . But Julie knew rarely did those words ever come out of Thomas’ mouth.

“8 o’clock, wear something casual and comfy if you want. I’ll come pick you up, don’t be late” He stated and turned leaving. She smiled nodding her head, this was a start.

—

When 7 o’clock came around, Julie wore a white crop top with blue denim loose jeans and a pair of white sneakers.

Emilia was gone to go visit her mother and she didn’t bother telling the girls because she didn’t have time for them to come over and glam her up.

A knock on the door was heard, heading towards it. She saw Thomas from the peep hole and opening the door she welcomed him.

“You look…good” He admitted. Julie chuckled at his hard time saying those words.

“Thank you, you do too, let’s get going” Julie rushed. Her apartment wasn’t cleaned and right now she wasn’t looking for another insult from him.

He opened the door for her like a true gentleman and they drove. She rolled down the window, the breeze freshly making contact with her skin. Her hair went everywhere, it was like a scene from a movie. She get it know, she actually felt free.

What she didn’t know is how Thomas eyes admired her, she looked gorgeous.

Soon they arrived, the sight made Julie confused. It looked like an abounded building

“You know I’m starting to think you’re a cereal killer and you invited me here to kill me” she laughed. Thomas laughed . His laugh. Oh god.

“Come one Witch” He stepped in front of her, extending his hand and leaving it, inviting it for her to take. She was shocked, she never really would believe the guy that hated her would invite her to hold his hand but she took it nether less and went behind him while he led them to the place.

Suddenly they were in front of a mural , a boy was painted, he was laughing holding an ice scream. And the other boy was painted in dark colours, his ice scream was bigger than the others but a worried look was on his face while he looked at the other boy.

Then she suddenly gets it. Thomas was worried he wouldn’t live up to the expectations, to the pressure to be good. She never really thought of that tho, she always knew that he would be good no matter what, at least in hockey.

But i guess it the least problem you expect for people to have. This was Thomas’ problem, she got him now. He would drink to forget and then be angry in the morning because not one hockey player had this many scandals. And then he would drink to forget his stress and pressure, his insecurities. That’s why he didn’t want to do those activities, because he knew that he would have to make people happy by meeting people’s expectations.

This was something Julie didn’t get in the nhl world, if you loose a game. A part of the loss is on you, if you win a game, you had to do that for the next games and with that came pressure. She needed him to know that he was enough, enough for everyone and it was okay to have losses. We all did have those at one point.

“Thomas” She turned towards him “Let me in, let me help you”. His eyes met hers, they showed worry and hesitance. She knew that look before, the first time someone tried to help.

“Come let’s get you back home you have an early morning tomorrow”

—

#thomas bordeleau imagines #thomas bordeleau x reader #thomas bordeleau #brendan brisson #mark estapa #nhl imagines #hockey #nhl #saint jose sharks #thomas bordeleau blurbs #kent johnson #owen power #jack hughes #luke hughes #nick blankenburg #imagine

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homo-sex-shoe-whale · 3 years

Text

Online shipping, the fetishisation of gay men, and the romanticisation of queer trauma

An essay by me!

Word count: 2.8k

A link to the Google Doc version of this essay.

A big thank you to my friends Nathan @themeerkatnate, Mav @not-mavv , and Duke @dukedark-ness for reading this essay and giving me their thoughts as mlms on the topic. Make sure to check out their blogs and give them a follow!

So I was on a lovely website by the name of Twitter.com yesterday, just scrolling through while having my afternoon cup of coffee, when I saw that viral post of a girl reading a Larry fanfic through a classroom projector. I'm sure most of you have seen it. It's gone viral on Instagram, TikTok, and likely Tumblr too, and if you haven't come across it I'm positive you will soon.

Now, after getting through my initial reaction to that post which was, holy fuck, that's so embarrassing, I had a second reaction of... wait, this ship is still around?

And after I had some thoughts on the incredible permanence of some online ships and the weird obsolescence of others, I did get to thinking of how lots of these popular ships seem to stem from the same types of perceived relationship dynamics and homophobic stereotypes.

These online fandoms often seem to have an obsession with objects of queer trauma, such as having to hide a relationship, lying about sexuality for self-preservation, and even social rejection. So, after some opinions from my followers and the great archive that is the internet, I've decided to discuss some of the most popular examples of online shipping and the particular nuances they came with.

NOTE: Out of respect for all these people, I won't be sharing viral images or videos of them in perceived romantic proximity (or even kissing, as is applicable for some examples), but I will be describing certain moments I deem to be relevant. So even if you're unfamiliar with them, you won't be confused as to what I'm talking about.

NOTE 2: Although not all people within these fandoms were/are toxic, this essay is focused on the overall toxicity of the fandoms, and how they are toxic more so as a "hive" than as a group of individuals. When I refer to a fandom I don't mean every person involved in the fandom, but rather the collective impact of the group.

1. Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson

This is arguably the most popular example of online shipping. The absolute permanence of this ship, and how its fandom never seems to fully die off even beyond the lifespan of One Direction as it once stood, is downright impressive.

I'm going to be the first to admit I was never in the loop with this fandom. My childhood best friend was actually a massive Larry shipper and asked me to beta read one of her fics, but that was before I even knew who tf Harry and Louis were! Not because I avoided the fandom or even because I rejected the online shipping, but just by coincidence, I delved into the world of pop punk music right when One Direction began gaining its popularity. I bought my first ever album, Riot by Paramore, in 2011- only a year after One Direction made their X-Factor debut. So, this fandom just bypassed me by a sort of weird coincidence.

But I don't need to be in the loop with this fandom to know the astronomical obsession with these two men, no, these two BOYS, was extremely toxic. In 2010, when One Direction made their debut, Harry Styles was only 16 years old. And Louis Tomlinson wasn't much older at 19! This made the two of them incredibly young when this unprecedented wave of shipping hit the internet, and although that must be traumatising for anyone, I cannot even fathom how overwhelming it must've been for two boys that young.

I'm 18, almost 19 now, and I cannot begin to imagine how scary it was for the two of them to have their every interaction nitpicked within an inch of its life by thousands upon thousands of people online. I do not know this myself, but from numerous recounts by some of my followers, this massively impacted Harry's and Louis' nondescript relationship in real life, seemingly driving the two previously close friends apart.

Now, before we move on, there's something we need to talk about. And that is the obsession with the dominance/submission dynamic within the world of gay shipping.

With almost every popular mlm (an acronym meaning man-loving-man) ship based on real people, it seems that fandoms have a particular fascination with power imbalances in these relationships. You don't even need to look at the insane amount of fanfictions based on BDSM to figure this out. In almost all of the examples I'll be citing today, there is an age gap within the perceived relationship and a person the fandom has seemingly decided to be the top/dominant figure.

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are 3 years apart in age. Although it isn't all that relevant now, an age gap of 3 years when you're in your late teens is a lot more significant. In 2012, for example, when this shipping really started gaining traction, Harry Styles was 18 and Louis Tomlinson was 21. That power imbalance, albeit not that significant, is enough for a fandom to latch on to. We'll see this a lot more in the coming example with Dan and Phil.

2. Dan Howell and Phil Lester

It's impossible to have a discussion about internet shipping without talking about Dan and Phil.

Dan Howell and Phil Lester, although being popular YouTubers individually, are arguably one of the internet's most iconic duos. The two creators published their first videos together in 2009, and while their relationship was already a motive of speculation back then, the peak of the "Phan" shipping definitely came in the 2013-2016 era of Tumblr.

Now, I'm going to admit… I was actually on Tumblr when that happened.

The 2013-2016 period perfectly aligns with my middle school days (I started middle school in 2013 and high school in 2016), and I was not only on Tumblr back then, but I was on Wattpad too! Again, this wasn't a fandom I had much contact with as I had a huge anime phase in middle school and I was on Tumblr posting mainly photography and Soul Eater content more than anything.

But I did watch some of Dan and Phil's videos! And the occasional "Phan" content did not completely evade me as one of my closest friends in middle school had a fanchat for them. I wasn't involved in the fandom myself but they were actually one of the few English-speaking YouTubers I watched once in a blue moon (back then I watched mainly Brazilian YouTubers). One thing I did in fact notice over the years, around 2014ish perhaps, was that the two of them seemed to grow increasingly "awkward" around each other, in a way that many folks on the internet thought was reminiscent to Markiplier/Jacksepticeye, two YouTubers who also dealt with extraordinary amounts of shipping.

I'm not the only one who thinks this. The change in Dan and Phil's relationship, at least to the outside world, was clear to almost anyone who watched their videos for a while. I cannot blame them at all. The shipping was nuts. Between the countless fan videos, speculative comments, and insurmountable number of fanfics, there's no way the two of them didn't feel the weight of the shipping. The term "demon phannie" made its way into internet vernacular and there it stayed for years. Even Shane Dawson, who was one of the largest creators on the platform at the time, made several videos speculating on the nature of Dan and Phil's relationship and their sexual orientations.

There was even porn made in which actors with similar appearances to the creators were made to have sex on camera.

Now, this is actually a rare example where the two people involved in the ship actually came out as gay once the shipping seemed to die down. I'm incredibly happy Dan and Phil both reached a point where they were comfortable being publicly out, but I hate to say I'm shocked this day ever came. If I'd gone through what the two of them did, I don't know if I'd ever trust the internet.

And again, this ship's fandom definitely had an obsession with the power dynamics they thought existed between the people within the ship. Dan Howell is 4 years younger than Phil Lester, and was only 18 in 2009, when they started making videos together. From my personal understanding, the shipping was often quite focused on this dominant/submissive dynamic especially in discussions from their early relationship. And this is in no way exclusive to Dan and Phil.

This general fascination with the older man/younger man dynamic, in my opinion, plays into the homophobic stereotype that gay men are predators. The idea that gay men usually seek younger men, and somehow "convince" them to engage in homosexual relationships, is popular homophobic rhetoric. The popularisation, exaggeration, and fetishisation of these power imbalances, in age and/or in relationship dynamics, is directly harmful to the mlm community.

Not only that, but the romanticisation of a "hidden/forbidden relationship" is also detrimental not only to gay men and the mlm community, but to queer people as a whole. Queer people face huge trauma having to hide their relationships; queer attraction is already a societal taboo. And acting like this is good, or even desirable, is harmful to queer people as a whole, regardless of whether or not it's actually applicable to the people being shipped. It normalises this trauma not only to cisgender, heterosexual people, but to impressionable queer youth who grow to believe this type of trauma is to be expected.

3. Frank Iero and Gerard Way

This is another example where the perceived power imbalances between the two subjects of the shipping were directly exploited online. Now, this ship did precede the others mentioned above. If we're looking at this topic chronologically, this particular ship did come first in the shipping timeline. It's closer to the origin of the shipping extended universe, if you will.

In case you aren't familiar with them, Frank Iero and Gerard Way are both members of the American emo band My Chemical Romance. This ship is the first one here of which I don't recall the full popularity. It really peaked in popularity around the late 2000s, circa 2008. And I don't remember this moment online as in 2008, I was only 6 years old and believe it or not, I wasn't really all that concerned with rumoured homoeroticism as a first grader.

However, the popularity of this ship did carry over into the 2013-2015 Tumblr shipping boom. The emo fandom (or "bandom" as it was called) involving not only My Chemical Romance but other similar bands such as Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, and Pierce the Veil, found its hub on Tumblr.

During this time, I did in fact listen to this style of music, but was focused a lot more on the anime side of Tumblr as mentioned earlier. Of course, I wasn't 13 years old like, "hey, this type of content might be harmful and can inadvertently perpetuate homophobic stereotypes," I just happened to care more about my silly little anime and ended up not getting involved.

This ship does involve a discussion that the others don't, however. With Frank Iero and Gerard Way, there is quite often a certain sentiment of, "Oh, they brought this upon themselves!" as the two band members very famously kissed during a show in 2007. In my opinion, though, this doesn't really justify all the obsessive shipping. If you look at Green Day, a band often grouped in with MCR as another famous pop punk group, the members don't follow too different of a trajectory. Billie Joe Armstrong has, on numerous occasions, kissed both of his fellow band members onstage- particularly Tré Cool, the drummer. And Billie Joe Armstrong is openly bisexual, which none of the members of MCR seem to be but some, or even all of Billie's bandmates, are too.

You'd think Green Day would face a lot more shipping as the more persistent onstage homoeroticism and Billie Joe's openness about his sexuality would warrant more "substantiated" speculation. However, Green Day faces nowhere near as much shipping as My Chemical Romance. Why is this? I actually don't know. It might've been because Green Day has been around for over a decade longer and generally has an older fandom, but I really am not that sure.

It could also be because of the lower lack of potential for forced relationship dynamics. The members of Green Day are all less than a year apart in age and are even similar in height. However, Frank Iero is 4 years younger than Gerard Way, who is not only the frontman of My Chemical Romance, but also considered to be the group's intellectual and creative "leader". Even beyond that, Gerard Way is quite visibly taller, and the perceived power difference between the two of them definitely did not elude their fans.

This difference could even be partly due to the lack of a "mystery" with Green Day. There's not as much to speculate as, well… the members of Green Day are already open about their sexual orientations. It might be that shipping in the Green Day fandom has less of a forbidden appeal for most people.

Of course, I won't just keep repeating myself, but my previous points about forced relationship dynamics still stand.

4. Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch

Better known for their roles in BBC Sherlock as Sherlock and Watson, Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch unfortunately had their roles follow them well into real life. This is the example I know least about, so have these thoughts from a follower by the name of @indubitably-a-goblin, who had the following to say:

"the main issues i had with it were:

a) they were both married at the time, freeman to amanda abbington and cumberbatch to sophie hunter (in which both had children)

b) the main reasoning for it was their chemistry in the many projects they've done together. which is, shockingly, their Whole Job. They're actors! That's what they're supposed to do! if they weren't good at interacting then they wouldn't be good actors! i don't know how people can't understand this.

c) they're real people. we don't know them. we aren't friends with them. we aren't their family members. we have zero right to be pushing this onto them and ruining their friendship by doing so. (this one relates to most of the ships you've mentioned though)

d) healthy friendships between two men are ignored so plainly in most medias and in fandom. its obvious that these two men have a relationship, but that doesn't mean it's a romantic one.

e) its fine to ship their characters, but actors shouldn't be treated as less-than-human or some sort of prop. they're doing a job, and once they are off-screen, they aren't here for your entertainment."

I believe she did a great job of summing it up on her own, and for the sake of avoiding redundancy, I'll leave it at that!

5. Corpse Husband and Sykkuno- an emerging yet subtle example

I am absolutely positive you remember how popular the game Among Us was a couple of months ago. And with the popularity of this game, some of its most prominent content creators became the targets of online shipping- as is the case with YouTubers and streamers Corpse Husband and Sykkuno.

Although the shipping involving these two creators is nowhere near as strong as it was/is with the examples above, I do think there is once again a reemergence of a common theme here. Whilst Sykkuno is known for his happy-go-lucky, almost "innocent" persona, Corpse Husband is the antithesis of this, known for his much darker and moodier personality.

Do I even have to mention what the common theme seems to be?

Again, although the popularity of shipping - at least with real people - seems to have died down a bit since the Tumblr shipping boom of the early to mid 2010s, I do believe this example is worth mentioning. Even though the creators are still close, they have in fact expressed discomfort regarding the shipping, and I can only hope the internet as a whole lets their friendship blossom and exist naturally without obsessive speculation.

My final thoughts

As explored in the essay:

The romanticisation of objects of queer trauma as a part of online shipping normalises queer trauma to both cishet and queer youth.

Online shipping, especially at a high intensity, can end up negatively impacting the very relationships they pine over.

The relationship dynamics often forced on mlm ships perpetuate homophobic stereotypes about non-heterosexual men.

If anyone else has thoughts on this matter, do share! This essay is moreso an opinionated observational piece and isn't meant to be taken as fact but rather just as my thoughts on the matter. I hope it was useful as a reflective piece regardless!

Date of posting: June 16th 2021

#lgbt #lgbtq #gay #mlm #I cannot believe I said the phrase 'shipping extended universe'

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juminsmysticmc · 3 years

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mc with jumin whose company went bankrupt

Jumin x Mc with C&R going Bankrupt

Ouhhhh, this one was an exciting request, I hope you like it just as much as I do! Have fun reading and tell me your opinion!

You groaned as you opened your eyes, meeting the sunny weather. Your hand slowly tapped Jumin’s half of the bed, realizing that once again his part was empty and cold, making you withdraw your hand. Loudly sighing, you tried to get up slowly on your own. Lately, everything was hard on the both of you. Jumin wasn’t often at home, even though you needed him the most, but not just you, his pregnant wife but also C&R. The company was facing a difficult time. After your marriage you started to work in the company too as Jumin saw how competent you were. You supported Jaehee with her work and advised Jumin in a few decisions. However, the company didn’t have the best image thanks to the Chairman who was often involved in scandals, making a lot of partners change.

,,It’s logical. Imagine Seven is a good person, knows how to handle his business and can handle every single security based error. He is the best in that department.’’ ,,Thanks Mc-’’ ,,Shut up, she is explaining, I bet this is something she learned overseas,’’ Zen tried to make the red haired man shut up as you guys had a RFA meeting. However, you somehow ended up talking about the company. ,,But Seven is known for his tasteless prank. He doesn’t even seem like someone who knows what security means,’’ you told Jumin, hurting Seven’s feelings. ,,What does this have to do with Seven? He isn’t even a partner of C&R,’’ Yoosung asked as he took his chicken in his hands to take a bite. ,,Right. Seven isn’t, but we are. Our image is crumbling because of Chairman Han. Of course I love him as a father-in-law, but his scandals are destroying the company’s reputation. No one would care if he wouldn’t always date big famous girls. This of course doesn’t have anything to do with the know-how of the company, but other people are scared that if they work with us, their company will be in a bad light too and so they won't work with us at all. Even worse, imagine someone would buy our goods and one day we go bankrupt. They would have a big problem too. It can happen to anyone, but for us it’s a bigger possibility as we have this image problem,’’

Back then you didn’t know how right you were. Ever since you got pregnant, Jumin made it possible that you could stay at home and rest as you had a rather complicated health situation. Since then he barely talked about C&R, but instead about your daily life. ,,Jumin..?’’ you called, seeing the white cat licking her paw as you slowly walked through the living room. You shrugged with your shoulders. Apparently you were alone.

,,But Daddy always makes sure to leave a note, right?’’ you asked your baby and of course you didn’t get an answer, but just a light kick. You decided to just do what you always did and made yourself some breakfast and turned on the radio to get ready, but suddenly you let go of the plate as you heard shocking news.

,,The supposed heir of the company C&R, son of Chairman Han, Jumin Han stated today that his company was bankrupt. This was sudden news for everyone in South Korea and world wide. How could such a big company have so many-’’ it didn’t take you long until you turned off the radio and instead called Jumin, who of course didn’t take the call. Instead you entered the chatroom, seeing that luckily Jaehee was online.

,,Jaehee!’’ your fingers quickly typed on the display. You were shivering, scared, but not because of your existence. You weren’t scared at all, but you were more worried for Jumin. You knew how much he loved the company, how much it meant to him, and now… ,,Mc… I’m sorry we didn’t tell you anything but…’’ she sent the message without adding anything. ,,Jaehee, how is Jumin?’’ you asked her and suddenly you felt a sharp pain in your heart. Before she could answer anything, you informed her that you would come right away. And usually Jaehee would try to hold you back, however, this time your friend and co-worker as well as your husband’s assistant, agreed and thanked you. The situation was worse than you thought.

Driver Kim picked you up and helped you in as he also made sure that you could enter the company without the paparazzi seeing you. ,,Mc… how?’’ Jumin mumbled as Jaehee let you in. He was just resting his head on his hands on the desk in front of him. He looked pale and… devastated. ,,Why didn’t you tell me anything?’’ you asked him, approaching him as you stroked his face. His cheeks were wet. Had he been crying? ,,You… you’re stressed enough…’’ he whimpered. You could feel his hands shiver as you took him into your embrace. ,,Jumin, I am your wife… let me worry for you at least…’’ you sobbed and as you began to cry, Jumin too let go of his pain.

,,It’s gone… just like you said… no one wanted to work with us anymore, people demanded more and more money… And I was… scared,’’ he mumbled. ,,What do you mean…?’’ you asked him. You were sure that Jumin did have enough money to save C&R if you guys really were bankrupt. How could he- ,,You didn’t invest into the company anymore?’’ you asked him, whispering, scared someone could hear you. Jumin looked at you, nodding. ,,I… I am… I feel so bad but… you’re pregnant… we’ll become parents soon. If I would have saved the company, all my money would have been gone and, how can this help me if my father already destroyed the company? This is a hopeless case… I just had to give it up…’’ he sobbed and you knew that Jumin made a decision based on you and your child, not his own family or something he owned.

,,Jumin…’’ you began, ,,you did well… you decided something so difficult on your own. You… you decided to take a hard path instead of the short cut and I am so proud… and you know what? We can just take it and go… let's make this baby grow up in a different environment. I know that you have what it takes to have your own company. We can do it better with the two of you,’’ you whispered and suddenly you had the feeling that Jumin seemed… happier. ,,You… do you mean it?’’ he asked you.

It was hard. Chairman Han was… furious. Jumin stood strongly in front of you as his father threw every possible bad word at him. But when he began to badmouth you and the baby you were carrying… Jumin saw red. ,,Father! I forbid you from badmouthing my wife and accusing her of cheating or manipulating me! You should look at yourself! This company ended this way because you were unable to keep it alive. If someone is at fault… that person is you, Chairman Han! I resign! I will open my own company! Ask your other children to clean your mess!’’ he hissed and took your hand. The sight of you tearing up was breaking his heart, but he knew, as soon as he took you out of there, the both of you would finally begin to live your own life…

,,Mr Han…’’ Jaehee began as you rested on the couch, your legs on the table in front of you as you observed Jumin packing his stuff. You wanted to help him, but he didn’t let you. Regardless, you were too tired either way. ,,You are a really… bad boss,’’ she said, making him look up. ,,And I know that you only took me as assistant because I didn’t seem attractive enough for Chairman Han to… well, we both know why you chose me, because-’’ ,,You are a hardworking woman because I can trust you and your knowledge and because you were the only one who needed what I needed at some point. But I can understand if you want to go. I will make sure to pay you with my own money and also pay your overtime hours and -’’ ,,But I will go with you and help you because if I leave my work to my friend, Mc...she will leave you for sure,’’ Jaehee joked, making you laugh.

Jumin smiled. ,,I will make sure that you won’t regret choosing me as your boss once again,’’ he nodded. ,,Well, I already regret it so… I want 30% more than here. I want 35 hours a week with 35 days off in the year and I want to have money for every hour I work overtime and I beg you, never ever leave your cat with me again,’’ Jaehee said, making Jumin look… rather surprised. ,,Guess Jaehee grew over the years with you. Give her what she demands, Jumin!’’ you laughed and observed how she packed her stuff. Jumin and Jaehee worked on a new concept, talked to banks, made layouts, and searched for new people. Yoosung was one of them, as well as Seven, who was in charge of IT.

,,The website looks like shit, Seven,’’ you moaned as you told him what to change. ,,I never knew that people who work in marketing and social media design are like this…’’ he mumbled and tried to change what you demanded from him. ,,Customer Relation Management, Yoosung, you have to make sure that you know what it is!’’ you tried to explain while he massaged your shoulders. ,,Mc, you are such a strict teacher,’’ he sobbed as you explained what he needed to know step for step. Jumin looked around himself. This was going to be his new company with the people he loved around him. ,,Of course this will be a good start, I’m the face of the company,’’ Zen mumbled as he went through the pictures Jihuyn took for the ad.

ᗰᗩᔕTEᖇᒪIᔕT

27.08.2021// 22:59 MEST

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dwagom · 2 years

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an entire thread by @ Tweetermeyer (E.W. Niedermeyer) on twitter about that piece of shit elon skum:

In 2015 I decided on a whim to check out Tesla's battery swap station that was earning the company 9 figures in California ZEV credits, and found it wasn't real. Instead Tesla was using diesel generators to charge cars. Here's how this changed my life

Up to that point I had been skeptical that any startup automaker could succeed. That view wasn't about Tesla, it was about the car biz. But what I found at Harris Ranch was shocking, a cockroach, and I decided to follow a life-changing instinct: THERE IS NEVER JUST ONE COCKROACH.

Journalists are like investors, but instead of money they bet their time and effort. What I saw at the battery swap station was so at odds with the image of Tesla in 2015, I knew there was a good chance investing in scrutiny of Tesla would pay off. It did.

A year later I found another big cockroach: Tesla was hiding defects by requiring customers sign NDAs in exchange for free repairs. This cut off the auto safety regulator's only independent source of information about defects. This led to a couple of important lessons...

First: MUSK'S KEY SKILL IS CONTROLLING INFORMATION. It's not just crafting appealing narratives about himself and his companies, but also silencing anything that contradicts them. Tesla's entire history is lined with NDAs, backed by sheer terror of what Musk will do when cornered

That terror comes from another lesson: MUSK DOESN'T REFUTE, HE ATTACKS. I learned this after the NDA story, when an official Tesla blog post accused me of fabricating the reporting and doing so for financial gain. Zero evidence was offered to support this attack on my credibility

What happened next taught another lesson: MUSK FANS DON'T CARE ABOUT FACTS. I was mobbed by online attacks that could not be dissuaded or mitigated by facts. My claims had evidence and his didn't, yet hardly anyone knows my reporting and his 2016 lies are still repeated today.

My book made some key claims that have proven true: Tesla can't make affordable cars, Tesla can't make its "Full Self-Driving" work, Autopilot has real safety issues, Tesla is fundamentally weak on manufacturing, and more. Here's the hardest lesson: NONE OF THAT HAS MATTERED.

As I realized this, and as I realized that Musk and Tesla were on a trajectory toward increasingly implausible and fraudulent claims (which massively enriched Musk), I realized: TESLA IS NOT AN AUTOMOTIVE STORY, IT IS A CELEBRITY STORY. Faith in Musk personally was what mattered

Along my journey I have heard a lot of rumors, evidence of big cockroaches, that I chose not to hunt down because I wanted to cover the automotive/mobility tech story, not Musk's personal life. But his personal life, who he really is, is what actually matters here.

If Tesla printed cash like Amazon or Facebook, Musk's character and personality wouldn't matter. But Tesla has always been financially precarious and dependent on valuations based on Musk's dream weaving: saving the planet, self-driving cars, Mars colonies, etc

In short: TESLA IS A CONFIDENCE GAME. Confidence in one man and the image he so ruthlessly controls is what holds it all together. Understanding why Musk's dreams are bullshit is hard (learning about manufacturing and AI is cool though!), but anyone can grasp a person's character

Like all human behavior, journalism has crowd dynamics. Every cockroach killed motivates other cockroach hunters to mount up, but celebrity journalism takes this to a new level. EVERY CELEBRITY STORY IS THE SAME: FIRST THEY ARE BUILT UP, AND THEN THEY ARE TORN DOWN

If celebrity journalists smell Musk's blood in the water and start a feeding frenzy, they will find more cockroaches. Why? Because Musk's history makes one lesson undeniable: HE DOES NOT BELIEVE THE RULES APPLY TO HIM. That is the core belief of every abuser.

That is ultimately why my view has evolved from mere skepticism about Tesla as a business to a belief that Elon Musk demands firm justice: his impunity and ability to meme reality to his will is making his behavior worse all the time. HIS TRAJECTORY IS UNSUSTAINABLE.

Even more importantly: his abusive behavior, his impunity and the unfathomable wealth they have generated for him create incentives for everyone else to mimic his behavior. Even if you think Musk deserves special treatment, do you want a society where everyone acts like him?

To wrap up: HAPPY HUNTING CELEBRITY JOURNALISTS! This is the moment for you to prove that what you do is as important to society as any business or political journalism. Musk's personal life is a cockroach-rich environment, and your stories will have impact that mine never did.

I still think my reporting is important. Understanding cars, the car business, manufacturing, AI, autonomous driving tech and the other issues I cover in my book are critical to a better future. I hope more people choose to start learning about them now.

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antiporn-activist · 4 years

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The Children of Pornhub

Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?

By Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, Dec. 4, 2020, New York Times

This article contains descriptions of sexual assault. It’s also really long.

Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty, the website that buys a billboard in Times Square and provides snow plows to clear Boston streets. It donates to organizations fighting for racial equality and offers steamy content free to get people through Covid-19 shutdowns.

Yet there’s another side of the company: Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for “girls under18” (no space) or “14yo” leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.

After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.

Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.

Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded directly from its website. So even if a rape video is removed at the request of the authorities, it may already be too late: The video lives on as it is shared with others or uploaded again and again.

“Pornhub became my trafficker,” a woman named Cali told me. She says she was adopted in the United States from China and then trafficked by her adoptive family and forced to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was 9. Some videos of her being abused ended up on Pornhub and regularly reappear there, she said.

“I’m still getting sold, even though I’m five years out of that life,” Cali said. Now 23, she is studying in a university and hoping to become a lawyer — but those old videos hang over her.

“I may never be able to get away from this,” she said. “I may be 40 with eight kids, and people are still masturbating to my photos.”

“You type ‘Young Asian’ and you can probably find me,” she added.

Actually, maybe not. Pornhub recently was offering 26,000 videos in response to that search. That doesn’t count videos that show up under “related searches” that Pornhub suggests, including “young tiny teen,” “extra small petite teen,” “tiny Asian teen” or just “young girl.” Nor does it necessarily count videos on a Pornhub channel called “exploited teen Asia.”

I came across many videos on Pornhub that were recordings of assaults on unconscious women and girls. The rapists would open the eyelids of the victims and touch their eyeballs to show that they were nonresponsive.

Pornhub profited this fall from a video of a naked woman being tortured by a gang of men in China. It is monetizing video compilations with titles like “Screaming Teen,” “Degraded Teen” and “Extreme Choking.” Look at a choking video and it may suggest also searching for “She Can’t Breathe.”

It should be possible to be sex positive and Pornhub negative.

Pornhub declined to make executives available on the record, but it provided a statement. “Pornhub is unequivocally committed to combating child sexual abuse material, and has instituted a comprehensive, industry-leading trust and safety policy to identify and eradicate illegal material from our community,” it said. Pornhub added that any assertion that the company allows child videos on the site “is irresponsible and flagrantly untrue.”

II.

At 14, Serena K. Fleites was an A student in Bakersfield, Calif., who had never made out with a boy. But in the eighth grade she developed a crush on a boy a year older, and he asked her to take a naked video of herself. She sent it to him, and this changed her life.

He asked for another, then another; she was nervous but flattered. “That’s when I started getting strange looks in school,” she remembered. He had shared the videos with other boys, and someone posted them on Pornhub.

Fleites’s world imploded. It’s tough enough to be 14 without having your classmates entertain themselves by looking at you naked, and then mocking you as a slut. “People were texting me, if I didn’t send them a video, they were going to send them to my mom,” she said.

The boy was suspended, but Fleites began skipping class because she couldn’t bear the shame. Her mother persuaded Pornhub to remove the videos, and Fleites switched schools. But rumors reached the new school, and soon the videos were uploaded again to Pornhub and other websites.

Fleites quarreled with her mother and began cutting herself. Then one day she went to the medicine cabinet and took every antidepressant pill she could find.

Three days later, she woke up in the hospital, frustrated to be still alive. Next she hanged herself in the bathroom; her little sister found her, and medics revived her.

As Fleites spiraled downward, a friend introduced her to meth and opioids, and she became addicted to both. She dropped out of school and became homeless.

At 16, she advertised on Craigslist and began selling naked photos and videos of herself. It was a way to make a bit of money, and maybe also a way to punish herself. She thought, “I’m not worth anything any more because everybody has already seen my body,” she told me.

Those videos also ended up on Pornhub. Fleites would ask that they be removed. They usually would be, she says — but then would be uploaded again. One naked video of her at 14 had 400,000 views, she says, leaving her afraid to apply for fast-food jobs for fear that someone would recognize her.

So today Fleites, 19, off drugs for a year but unemployed and traumatized, is living in her car in Bakersfield, along with three dogs that have proved more loyal and loving than the human species. She dreams of becoming a vet technician but isn’t sure how to get there. “It’s kind of hard to go to school when you’re living in a car with dogs,” she said.

“I was dumb,” she acknowledged, noting that she had never imagined that the videos could be shared online. “It was one small thing that a teenager does, and it’s crazy how it turns into something so much bigger.

“A whole life can be changed because of one little mistake.”

III.

The problem goes far beyond one company. Indeed, a rival of Pornhub, XVideos, which arguably has even fewer scruples, may attract more visitors. Depictions of child abuse also appear on mainstream sites like Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. And Google supports the business models of companies that thrive on child molestation.

Google returns 920 million videos on a search for “young porn.” Top hits include a video of a naked “very young teen” engaging in sex acts on XVideo along with a video on Pornhub whose title is unprintable here.

I asked the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to compile the number of images, videos and other content related to child sexual exploitation reported to it each year. In 2015, it received reports of 6.5 million videos or other files; in 2017, 20.6 million; and in 2019, 69.2 million.

Facebook removed 12.4 million images related to child exploitation in a three-month period this year. Twitter closed 264,000 accounts in six months last year for engaging in sexual exploitation of children. By contrast, Pornhub notes that the Internet Watch Foundation, an England-based nonprofit that combats child sexual abuse imagery, reported only 118 instances of child sexual abuse imagery on its site over almost three years, seemingly a negligible figure. “Eliminating illegal content is an ongoing battle for every modern content platform, and we are committed to remaining at the forefront,” Pornhub said in its statement.

The Internet Watch Foundation couldn’t explain why its figure for Pornhub is so low. Perhaps it’s because people on Pornhub are inured to the material and unlikely to report it. But if you know what to look for, it’s possible to find hundreds of apparent child sexual abuse videos on Pornhub in 30 minutes. Pornhub has recently offered playlists with names including “less than 18,” “the best collection of young boys” and “under- - age.”

Congress and successive presidents have done almost nothing as this problem has grown. The tech world that made it possible has been mostly passive, in a defensive crouch. But pioneering reporting in 2019 by my Times colleagues has prodded Congress to begin debating competing strategies to address child exploitation.

Concerns about Pornhub are bubbling up. A petition to shut the site down has received 2.1 million signatures. Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, called on the Justice Department to investigate Pornhub. PayPal cut off services for the company, and credit card companies have been asked to do the same. An organization called Traffickinghub, led by an activist named Laila Mickelwait, documents abuses and calls for the site to be shut down. Twenty members of Canada’s Parliament have called on their government to crack down on Pornhub, which is effectively based in Montreal.

“They made money off my pain and suffering,” an 18-year-old woman named Taylor told me. A boyfriend secretly made a video of her performing a sex act when she was 14, and it ended up on Pornhub, the police confirmed. “I went to school the next day and everybody was looking at their phones and me as I walked down the hall,” she added, weeping as she spoke. “They were laughing.”

Taylor said she has twice attempted suicide because of the humiliation and trauma. Like others quoted here, she agreed to tell her story and help document it because she thought it might help other girls avoid suffering as she did.

IV.

Pornhub is owned by Mindgeek, a private pornography conglomerate with more than 100 websites, production companies and brands. Its sites include Redtube, Youporn, XTube, SpankWire, ExtremeTube, Men.com, My Dirty Hobby, Thumbzilla, PornMD, Brazzers and GayTube. There are other major players in porn outside the Mindgeek umbrella, most notably XHamster and XVideos, but Mindgeek is a porn titan. If it operated in another industry, the Justice Department could be discussing an antitrust case against it.

Pornhub and Mindgeek also stand out because of their influence. One study this year by a digital marketing company concluded that Pornhub was the technology company with the third greatest-impact on society in the 21st century, after Facebook and Google but ahead of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.

Nominally based in Luxembourg for tax reasons, Mindgeek is a private company run from Montreal. It does not disclose who owns it, but it is led by Feras Antoon and David Tassillo, both Canadians, who declined to be interviewed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada calls himself a feminist and has been proud of his government’s efforts to empower women worldwide. So a question for Trudeau and all Canadians: Why does Canada host a company that inflicts rape videos on the world?

Mindgeek’s moderators are charged with filtering out videos of children, but its business model profits from sex videos starring young people.

“The goal for a content moderator is to let as much content as possible go through,” a former Mindgeek employee told me. He said he believed that the top executives weren’t evil but were focused above all on maximizing revenue.

While Pornhub would not tell me how many moderators it employs, I interviewed one who said that there are about 80 worldwide who work on Mindgeek sites (by comparison, Facebook told me it has 15,000 moderators). With 1.36 million new hours of video uploaded a year to Pornhub, that means that each moderator would have to review hundreds of hours of content each week.

The moderators fast forward through videos, but it’s often difficult to assess whether a person is 14 or 18, or whether torture is real or fake. Most of the underage content involves teenagers, the moderator I spoke with said, but some comes from spy cams in toilets or changing rooms and shows children only 8 to 12.

“The job in itself is soul-destroying,” the moderator said.

Pornhub appears to be increasingly alarmed about civil or criminal liability. Lawyers are circling, and nine women sued the company in federal court after spy cam videos surfaced on Pornhub. The videos were shot in a locker room at Limestone College in South Carolina and showed women showering and changing clothes.

Executives of Pornhub appear in the past to have assumed that they enjoyed immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects internet platforms on which members of the public post content. But in 2018 Congress limited Section 230 so that it may not be enough to shield the company, leading Mindgeek to behave better.

It has doubled the number of moderators in the last couple of years, the moderator told me, and this year Pornhub began voluntarily reporting illegal material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After previously dragging its feet in removing videos of children and nonconsensual content, Pornhub now is responding more rapidly.

It has also compiled a list of banned content. I obtained a copy of this list, and it purports to bar videos with terms or themes like “rape,” “preteen,” “pedophilia” and “bestiality” (it helpfully clarifies that this “includes eels, fish, octopus, insects”). Diapers are OK “if no scatophilia.” Mutilation depends on context but “cannot depict severing parts of the body.”

So while it is now no longer possible to search on Pornhub in English using terms like “underage” or “rape,” the company hasn’t tried hard to eliminate such videos. A member called “13yoboyteen” is allowed to post videos. A search for “r*pe,” turns up 1,901 videos. “Girl with braces” turns up 1,913 videos and suggests also trying “exxxtra small teens.” A search for “13yo” generates 155,000 videos. To be clear, most aren’t of 13-year-olds, but the fact that they’re promoted with that language seems to reflect an effort to attract pedophiles.

Moreover, some videos seem at odds with the list of banned content. “Runaway Girl Gets Ultimatum, Anal or the Streets” is the title of one Pornhub video. Another user posts videos documenting sex with teenage girls as they weep, protest and cry out in pain.

While Pornhub is becoming more careful about videos of potentially litigious Americans, it remains cavalier about overseas victims. One Indonesian video is titled “Junior High School Girl After Class” and shows what appears to be a young teenager having sex. A Chinese sex video, just taken down, was labeled: “Beautiful High School Girl Is Tricked by Classmates and Taken to the Top of a Building Where She Is Insulted and Raped.”

“They’re making money off the worst moment in my life, off my body,” a Colombian teenager who asked to be called Xela, a nickname, told me. Two American men paid her when she was 16 for a sexual encounter that they filmed and then posted on Pornhub. She was one of several Pornhub survivors who told me they had thought of or attempted suicide.

In the last few days as I was completing this article, two new videos of prepubescent girls being assaulted were posted, along with a sex video of a 15-year-old girl who was suicidal after it went online. I don’t see how good-faith moderators could approve any of these videos.

“It’s always going to be online,” Nicole, a British woman who has had naked videos of herself posted and reposted on Pornhub, told me. “That’s my big fear of having kids, them seeing this.”

That’s a recurring theme among survivors: An assault eventually ends, but Pornhub renders the suffering interminable.

Naked videos of Nicole at 15 were posted on Pornhub. Now 19, she has been trying for two years to get them removed.

“Why do videos of me from when I was 15 years old and blackmailed, which is child porn, continuously [get] uploaded?” Nicole protested plaintively to Pornhub last year, in a message. “You really need a better system. … I tried to kill myself multiple times after finding myself reuploaded on your website.”

Nicole’s lawyer, Dani Pinter, says there are still at least three naked videos of Nicole at age 15 or 16 on Pornhub that they are trying to get removed.

“It’s never going to end,” Nicole said. “They’re getting so much money from our trauma.”

Pornhub has introduced software that supposedly can “fingerprint” rape videos and prevent them from being uploaded again. But Vice showed how this technology is easily circumvented on Pornhub.

One Pornhub scandal involved the Girls Do Porn production company, which recruited young women for clothed modeling gigs and then pushed them to perform in sex videos, claiming that the videos would be sold only as DVDs in other countries and would never go online. Reassured that no one would ever know, some of the women agreed — and then were shattered when the footage was aggressively marketed on Pornhub.

Girls Do Porn was prosecuted for sex trafficking and shut down. But those videos continue to surface and resurface on Pornhub; last time I checked, videos of six victims of Girls Do Porn were on Pornhub, which continues to profit from them.

One of the Girls Do Porn women I saw on Pornhub is now dead. She was murdered at 20, allegedly by an angry ex-boyfriend who is about to go on trial. I’m not disclosing her name because she should be remembered as a vibrant college athlete, and not for a sex video that represented her most mortifying moment.

VI.

So what’s the solution?

I had expected the survivors to want to shut down Pornhub and send its executives to prison. Some did, but others were more nuanced. Lydia, now 20, was trafficked as a child and had many rape videos posted on the site. “My stomach hurts all the time” from the tension, she told me, but she doesn’t want to come across as hostile to porn itself.

“I don’t want people to hear ‘No porn!’” Lydia told me. “It’s more like, ‘Stop hurting kids.’”

Susan Padron told me that she had assumed that pornography was consensual, until a boyfriend filmed her in a sex act when she was 15 and posted it on Pornhub. She has struggled since and believes that only people who have confirmed their identities should be allowed to post videos.

Jessica Shumway, who was trafficked and had a customer post a sex video on Pornhub, agrees: “They need to figure out who’s underage in the videos and that there’s consent from everybody in it.”

I asked Leo, 18, who had videos of himself posted on Pornhub when he was 14, what he suggested.

“That’s tough,” he said. “My solution would be to leave porn to professional production companies,” because they require proof of age and consent.

Right now, those companies can’t compete with mostly free sites like Pornhub and XVideos.

“Pornhub has already destroyed the business model for pay sites,” said Stoya, an adult film actress and writer. She, too, thinks all platforms — from YouTube to Pornhub — should require proof of consent to upload videos of private individuals.

Columnists are supposed to offer answers, but I struggle with solutions. If Pornhub curated videos more rigorously, the most offensive material might just move to the dark web or to websites in less regulated countries. Yet at least they would then not be normalized on a mainstream site.

More pressure and less impunity would help. We’re already seeing that limiting Section 230 immunity leads to better self-policing.

And call me a prude, but I don’t see why search engines, banks or credit card companies should bolster a company that monetizes sexual assaults on children or unconscious women. If PayPal can suspend cooperation with Pornhub, so can American Express, Mastercard and Visa.

I don’t see any neat solution. But aside from limiting immunity so that companies are incentivized to behave better, here are three steps that would help: 1.) Allow only verified users to post videos. 2.) Prohibit downloads. 3.) Increase moderation.

These measures wouldn’t kill porn or much bother consumers of it; YouTube thrives without downloads. Siri Dahl, a prominent porn star who does business with Pornhub, told me that my three proposals are “insanely reasonable.”

The world has often been oblivious to child sexual abuse, from the Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts. Too late, we prosecute individuals like Jeffrey Epstein or R. Kelly. But we should also stand up to corporations that systematically exploit children. With Pornhub, we have Jeffrey Epstein times 1,000.

#if you use pornhub you're complicit in this #sorry i don't make the rules

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