#best spots in Toronto

[uglyandtraveling]

The Gooderham Building in Toronto: A Flatiron Gem with a Fascinating History!

Discover the Gooderham Building, a historic Toronto landmark! Learn about its fascinating history, stunning architecture, and role in the Distillery District. A must-see for visitors and locals alike.

[magentagalaxies]

going to a comedy open mic tomorrow mostly to watch my friends (it's at a cool venue that my improv troupe performs at once a month and a few improv troupe friends are doing standup there) but when these friends were asking if i'd be interested in coming they were like "btw there's usually a ton of open spots on show days if YOU want to do something... and they're not strict about it only being standup either, people have done character pieces and sketches etc like they embrace the weirdness... and they're not strict about time limits you could probably do anything between three and eight minutes... sometimes if there's not enough people signed up they'll even let you go twice..." and i'm like god damn it i thought i was gonna take a break from aubrey but this setup is like tailor made for an aubrey appearance lmao

[sch-nn]

about yesterday :)

[travelernight]

Ultimate Canada Journey: 10 Stops You Need to Make

[anotheryoutubefanpage]

Just a girl and her bed rot thinking about she could rearrange her room for the third time since we moved in, instead of doing her list of things

[bunnys-kisses]

kink-o-ween - day three

lance stroll - toys

cw: smut/pwp, mutual masturbation, sex toys, teasing/dirty talk, lance in love, (slight) jealousy

a/n: come as you are a real shop in toronto, and they're a co-op and very cool! so if you're in the canadian region and want some place to buy special toys. i'd suggest checking them out!

kink-o-ween: formula one edition - call of duty edition

you enjoyed montreal, since you started seeing lance it had become a second city in the way. you obviously knew that it wasn't covered in snow all year, but to see the city in a sweltering heat of late summer was something else. but it was nice, being in the house that lance owned to spend the last days of summer break together.

but you knew that in the final days before the next leg of races, your boyfriend had a surprise for you. it came in a little pink box, unmarked of any logos, but what was inside sure excited you.

"i think most people just have sex." you remarked as you looked to your boyfriend. you were kneeling on the bed you shared all summer with a toy by your knees. it wasn't anything too special, even though the name of it made your ears hot. g-spot vibrator. this was supposed to hit in all the right places.

"i wanted yo try something different." he chuckled as he laid out on the foot of the bed, propped up on his elbow on his side. he was in loose sweatpants and a t-shirt from some promotion, "came all the way from toronto. from one of the best sex shops in the city." he chuckled. as if there weren't a million stores on st. catherines' alone.

come as you are was the name of the place. they were even nice enough to throw in information about how to use the toy and how to clean it. they seemed like nice people there.

"plus, i'm going to be gone soon and i don't need you getting cramps in your wrists from missing me too much." he chuckled, those dark eyes lingered on you barely clothed body.

nothing but panties and a shirt that made his logo stretch across your pretty titties. you looked at him and took the toy off the bed, "i guess i should get you something, so you don't pull something from jerking off so much during off time."

lance sat up and got his shirt off, "just fill a photo album of pretty pictures of you, babe. and i'll be set for the rest of the season." the toy laid between you two as you got undressed.

it felt weird to lie back with your legs spread out, practically in your boyfriend's lap with a pink silicon toy in your hand. you made eye contact with him before you slowly rubbed the toy up against your pussy. when you managed to get it on you felt your breath hitch in your throat.

lance was laid back at the foot of the bed his legs on either side of yours as he stroked his hard cock. this was a sight to see. his precious girlfriend, the one who he adored. he couldn't stop talking about you most of the time, now you were sinking a pretty toy into your sweet pussy.

while this wasn't traditional sex, it felt really good. your cheeks heated up as you moved the toy in and out of you. the vibrations made you nipples hard which only made lance's mouth water.

"how does it feel?" he asked as he continued to stroke his cock, "you look so good." he chuckled, "i hope he takes care of you while i'm gone. keeps you nice and busy while i'm winning for us."

you smiled a little, hiding your face with your other arm for a moment, "it feels good. i haven't had a sex toy since we started dating." you had fond memories of a lovely rabbit toy that you bought cheap in college. you peeked under your arm and said, "you became my favourite toy after that."

he chuckled before he spat in his hand and continued to stroke his cock. well, weren't you the romantic. he asked, "ah, so i guess i should toss it out then. don't want any competition."

you smiled at him before you let out another moan. you curled into yourself a little as you continued to work the toy against your g-spot. it made your toys curl. you replied, "no, no. sadly, as lovely as this toy is. i can't spend late nights talking to it, or have it cuddle me. it's a fat cry from you."

he leaned a little further back, bracing himself with his other hand while he pleasured himself. you looked beautiful. how your lips moved when the toy hit the right spot, how you jolted when you pulled it out and rubbed it against your clit. it was cute almost seeing you kick out your legs from the vibrations against your clit.

you could only put it on par with the time lance blew on your achy clit after what felt like hours of over-stimulation. it was the only time you almost kicked your boyfriend.

the two of you continued to pleasure yourselves. the toy felt really good, it was good quality that made you toys curl. you didn't want to think about the cost of it. lance liked to spend his money on you, something that made you frown. you didn't want to be the girlfriend who mooched off her successful man. but that was neither here nor there as you rubbed the toy up against your clit once more. stimulating and making your body grow more tense.

you could feel lance's hungry eyes on you as you dragged the toy back inside of you. allowing it to pleasure you in other ways. you moaned, "fuck, lance."

he chuckled softly as he felt the sweat on his neck from his own motions, "that's what you better say when you're playing with yourself." his voice was tinged with a little envy. but you only blushed more, you were the last person that would ever cheat. you were such the perfect girlfriend that lance could only get jealous of silicon and wiring.

you smiled at him, "don't worry, you'll both be called lance." you arched your back a little at the feeling. the pleasure was deep in your gut and moving through your blood. it left you feeling needy all over and you continued to pleasure yourself.

"you're such a-" he beamed at you.

you replied, "whatever you may call me, i'm still yours. through and through. and no little toy could ever prevent me from loving you. when you come back home, he'll be put back in the drawer. because i'll be too busy having the real thing." you then let out a sweet moan which only enticed your boyfriend more.

that was what he liked to hear. your love for him. it was something he yearned for at all times. he wanted to feel his beloved in every way he could have you. if he didn't give you the love and appreciation you deserved then he'd be a fool like no other. why fuck up perfection.

he held onto his cock a little tighter, pre-cum drooled all over his fist and he continued to masturbate in front of you. he drank in the sight of you like fine wine. you made his cock leaky and painfully hard, the sight of you pleasuring yourself.

"i love you." he said.

"i love you too." you giggled, your legs tensed up as you felt pleasure start to really circulate through you. you could feel your boyfriend's hungry gaze across your body. you wanted to shy away for a moment, but the intensity of his gaze on you made you excited.

you liked how lance looked at you, you didn't often feel like a goddess for worship (why would you?), but in the quietness of alone time with your boyfriend. you felt as beautiful as marble statues in a museum. a softness that could only be created with such delicate craftsmanship.

"you're beautiful." he said, "you better send me photos every day. doesn't even have to be of you naked. i just want to see you. you're my good luck charm." he attributed his better performance on the track to you being around him. when you hugged him and kissed him, you got your good luck all over him. you found it endearing, just like many other parts of him.

you tensed up a little more and felt yourself reach the peak of your climax. there was something different about getting to that high on your own. while lance did amazing work when he pleasured you. you knew your body better than he could so there climax was different. you arched your back a little and let out a sweet moan.

it only spurred your boyfriend to keep pleasuring himself as you rode out your orgasmic high. the sight of you was hot and left himself needy. he groaned at the sight of you climaxing. and he soon followed. he came all over his fist, cum dripping down his hand as he felt the tension course through him. when he finally relaxed and shakily exhaled.

"holy shit." he panted.

you chuckled and took the toy out of you. and laid there out on the bed. you drifted off for a moment and heard the tap run in the bathroom. but it wasn't long before you felt movement on the bed and when you opened your eyes, you were met with your boyfriend's big brown eyes looking down at you. he tossed the toy off the bed to be cleaned later.

"hey!" you said as he crowded your space.

"now." your boyfriend said as he kissed at your jaw, "let's see if i can one-up that toy." he rubbed his hardened cock up against your thigh, "don't want to get replaced."

you kissed him on the lips and said, "hmm, i don't know. it really did feel nice against my g-spot."

he licked his lips, "well then." he got between your legs and threw your ankles to your head, exposing your soaked cunt to him. he kissed at your slit and said, "i guess i better start now." <3

[often-daydreaming]

Road Trip

It was... It was always just a fight but the last one between Jason and Bruce had been one of their worst and things only escalated after he accused Jason of having something to do with the Joker's disappearance.

It was another thing to hold against him. Another excuse to keep the Red Hood at arms length but Barbara knows Jason wasn't anywhere near Gotham when the clown went missing. Bruce checked. Tim double checked, but she knows because it wasn't like Jason was even trying to hide from any of them.

He was just traveling.

At first it was with the rest of the Outlaws for a bit and on and off after for a while afterwards with the rest of his team joining up at different points along his trip across the country.

He'd spent weeks spent on the road from New York to Pennsylvania before anyone even noticed the Joker was gone, then took a detour down to Atlanta and through Kentucky. The weekend after that was spent traveling between Michigan and Toronto and a surprising sighting in Kansas which was one of the only stops she still didn't understand since he'd have to be traveling all night just to get to that small town he'd been spotted in and Jason didn't seem to be in any hurry.

A part of her had been tempted to call Kara and see if she'd look into the matter for her but cases kept piling up and they got busy. If it wasn't the usual villain of the day causing trouble then it was the power vacuum left behind by the still missing Joker or one the guys getting into trouble. So she left it alone.

Jason didn't seem like he was in any trouble. He'd come back sooner or later. He always came back. Except he didn't. Weeks turned into months, then a full year passed them by as sightings of the Red Hood grew less and less frequent and it was only a preemptive notification she sat up so long ago that reminded her of Jason's absence as she stares down at the computer monitor playing a few seconds of footage displaying a small crowd of people, the Outlaws, some of Young Justice and the Titans along with a few other people who were cheering him on as he slipped a ring on some red haired woman's finger. The context was clear enough but she didn't find out more about the what and why until later that night when Roy sent out an update to the rest of the Titans claiming dibs on being the best man.

The above is just something that I cobbled together after reading a few Jason leaves Gotham fics and the thought of Jazz killing the Joker for (insert reasons) so my mind kind of jumped to Jason living out his best Cinderella moment, chasing after, flirting (along with getting threatened by a pair of overprotective parents) and road tripping with his team while trying to find the woman who lost her bloody baseball bat. After they meet he's just doubling down on everything with the intent of marrying her, Jazz getting her own little road trip, telling Jason where they're going next or even making a game out of if he can find her at the next stop on the Fenton family supernatural hunting/cataloging road trip cause I know they love talking about ghost but the image of Jack and Maddie fighting Bigfoot is amazing.

And the Fentons are happy for the two of them. At least he wasn't another Johnny. They had Tucker check just to be sure while everyone else just kind of assumes the rest of the bat family already knew when it was actually a mix of (we're super busy right now) and (maybe things will be a little peaceful if we give Jason some space) leaving Bruce trying to play catch up and depending on if he's reformed having to outdo Vlad who is already paying for everything.

[thewintersoldierdisaster]

a/n: andrei got an all star weekend fic last year, so it’s only right that mat gets one this year! i literally have a million favorite pics from this weekend so i had to use them all i don’t care. i tried to hit a bunch of the main weekend highlights! i’m also aware that some of the timing and stuff is weird in the fic, but we’re just rolling with it and enjoying the vibes. 🧡💙

word count: 7k

tw: innuendo, dirty talk, protected sex, oral (m receiving), fingering (f recieving), thigh riding, extremely minimal editing

summary: all star weekend in toronto with mat is one to remember

“Who do you think will pick you?” You ask, settled comfortably in the middle of the hotel room’s mattress, wrapped warmly in the plush robe. You have the perfect spot to watch Mat at the bathroom sink while he shaves. He’s in his suit pants, but his chest is bare, giving you the opportunity to watch his back and arm muscles move as he works.

“Dunno,” he replies, slightly muffled. You can see his face in the mirror, lips tucked in and half covered in shaving cream. He lets his hand fall to the counter and turns to face you, a crooked smile on his face made even more lopsided by the shaving cream beard. “If it’s not Mo and Auston though, I’m leaving.”

You roll your eyes, knowing that your boyfriend loves Justin Bieber almost more than he loves you. “I want Nate and Cale to pick you. I want to meet Tate McRae.”

“You can meet Tate McRae even if I’m not on her team,” Mat scoffs, returning to his shaving. “When am I ever going to get a chance to be coached by Justin Bieber? Never, Squeaks! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“You’re such a dork,” you murmur affectionately, grinning at his back and tucking your face into the collar of the robe. You have to get up and start getting ready soon, but you’re too comfortable to move. Mat’ll go over to the arena earlier for media interviews and the red carpet, but you don’t have to be there, technically at all, but you want to see the draft.

Mat finishes shaving his face and wipes his cheeks off with the hand towel. “You’re not being very supportive of my dreams,” he informs you dramatically, tossing the dirty towel onto the counter and planting his hands on his hips.

You kneel up on the bed and gape at him, amping up the dramatics. “I’m spending my vacation in cold ass Toronto instead of Baha Mar because I’m supportive of your dreams,” you laugh, throwing your arms out to your sides. “Sue me if I want you to have a good celebrity captain.”

“The Biebs would be the best captain,” Mat replies, crossing over to the bed in a handful of steps, reaching out to rest his hands on your hips. His fingers play with the tie of the robe. “He played hockey and he’s a huge fan.”

“Are their colors at least the blue jersey?” You ask. “You look so good in blue.”

Mat lifts an eyebrow. “That would make you support my coaching dreams? The color blue?”

You hum, resting your hands on his shoulders, playing with the chain around his neck. “I’m very superficial,” you inform him, deadpan.

“Yeah,” Mat replies, equally deadpan, “me too.” He breaks a second later, grinning and peppering kisses all over your face, making you squeal. His fingers dig into your sides, tickling you under the robe, and you wriggle on your knees, slumping forward over his chest when you can’t take it anymore. Gasping laughter saws from your chest and you try to catch your breath, but Mat’s making it hard with his hands splayed over your back. They’re warm and slightly rough and you’re both really wearing barely any clothes, it would be so easy to drag him down onto the bed.

He seems to be telepathically picking up on your thoughts because Mat presses a kiss to your bare shoulder where the robe has slipped off and says, “I gotta finish getting ready or I’m going to be late. But when we get back after the draft, my body is yours to use.”

You pull back and grin at him. “However I want?”

“Yeah,” he snorts, “I need to conserve energy to reclaim my title tomorrow, so you have to do all the work.”

“Pillow princess,” you accuse, pouting at him.

“Just for you, babe,” Mat shoots back, cupping your chin in his hand and tilting your head back so he can really kiss you, licking into your mouth and leaving you wet and wanting when he pulls back. “Start thinking about what position you want me in.”

He winks, laughing, and heads back to the bathroom to finish getting his hair in place. You slump back down on the bed and call to his back, “I’m making sure I get two orgasms before you even get one.”

“Fine by me,” Mat calls back, hands working through his hair. “I like the way you scream my name when you’re coming on my cock.”

Your entire body flushes with heat and you press your thighs together. “Damnit,” you mutter, knowing you need to start getting ready and you definitely don’t have time for even a halfway satisfying orgasm. “For that,” you call, starting to roll off the bed so you can do your hair and makeup, “I get three orgasms before you get one.”

“You’re being so mean to your All-Star,” Mat teases, shrugging into his button down and starting to do up the buttons. You plug in your curling iron and roll your eyes at him.

“Should’ve known all the attention would go to your head,” you sigh, pretending to be burdened by him. “I’m your All-Star, Mr. Barzal, and don’t you forget it.”

His answering grin crinkles his entire face and you go to him easily when he reaches out to grab your wrist and tug you into his chest. “That’s why I’m letting you have your orgasms before I get mine,” he says cheekily, pressing a smacking kiss to your cheek and disappearing to the other side of the room for his shoes.

You huff a little, a small smile playing on your lips, and return to fixing your hair. Mat finishes getting ready, lacing up his dress shoes and pulling on his suit jacket before throwing his arms out to his sides and doing a little half-turn, asking, “so, how do I look?”

“Like my All-Star,” you beam at him, tilting your head up for a kiss. He obliges. “I like this suit a lot,” you continue, reaching for your purse and withdrawing a Sharpie. You hold it up in between your bodies and tuck it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Just in case.”

Mat pats his hand over the pocket and kisses your forehead. “Thanks, Squeaks. Text me when you get to the arena, okay? I’ll see you after the draft.”

You nod and with one final kiss, Mat’s out the door, leaving you with some peace and quiet to get ready. You do wish that Bo or Noah had been voted in too, so you’d at least have Holly or Alexa to hang out with while you’re watching the events. Mat’s parents and Liana are getting into town tomorrow afternoon, with enough time to join you for the Skills Competition, but until then, you’re on your own.

Luckily, you run into Steph Marner outside of the arena, saving you from the awkward first day of a new school feeling where you’ll either have to sit alone or find someone you know in the arena. You know Steph a little bit from different events and you’re friendly enough, it’s not the same as having one of your girls with you, but she’s a familiar face.

“Hey, girl!” Steph greets you with a hug that you return. “Welcome to the six!”

“I really wish you were welcoming me to the Bahamas,” you laugh, falling into step next to her. The crowds are wild and you look around as you walk in, having never been to an All-Star game before this is so much fun.

She lets loose a laugh, “you and me both! It would’ve been nice to get out of the city for a bit, but what can you do?” She shrugs and you fall into small talk for a little bit, catching up on what’s been happening since you last saw each other.

By the time the draft starts, you’re pleasantly tipsy and getting into the fun. The guys are all sitting on little benches on the ice and it’s adorable watching them swing their legs like toddlers. You snap a few photos of Mat from your spot in the stands, knowing the professional photos you’ll get from the team’s social media team later will be better. The draft starts and you wait impatiently for Mat to be picked.

By the time the fourth round ends and he hasn’t been picked, you’re starting to get cranky on his behalf. And slightly anxious that he’ll be picked last, even though you know logically that won’t happen. On the ice, he keeps swinging his legs, fidgeting in place until finally Mo and Auston pick him to join Team Bieber, along with half the Maple Leafs - Mitch Marner and William Nylander included.

Steph slaps your hand in a high-five, “woohoo! Teammates!”

You laugh and cheer along with her, snapping a picture of Mat getting a hug from Justin Bieber. You immediately send it off to your group chat, adding the message: pretty sure he’s going to leave me for the biebs 😭

The girls flood the chat, but you’re too busy laughing with Steph about Mat and Mitch’s chatter on the Team Bieber bench.

“Oh my god,” you laugh. “Mat’s such a yapper. He must be talking Mitch’s ear off.”

“Please,” Steph waves her hand in the air. “Mitch can’t shut up either. They probably aren’t even listening to each other.”

As the draft continues, you tune out a little since Mat’s been picked. Eventually, you tune back in and your gaze lands on your boyfriend manspreading to an extreme degree. Muffling a laugh with your hand, you shoot him a text, knowing he won’t see it until later: spread your legs a little wider, babe, i want to feel the stretch when i straddle you 👀

The draft comes to an end and it’s a little bit of a whirlwind after that, chatting with people you haven’t seen in a bit and wandering the arena until you find Mat. Or he finds you, actually.

“Team Bieber!” He crows, barely hiding his excitement now that it’s just you in front of him.

You grin at him, squeaked laughter pushed from your lungs when he crushes you to his chest in a hug. “Happy for you, Mat!”

“Babe,” he shakes his head, grinning from ear to ear, “this is gonna be so fucking fun. He hugged me!”

“You are the biggest fangirl I’ve ever seen,” you tease, tucking yourself under his arm and wrapping your arm around his waist. “It’s adorable.”

“I know you’re making fun of me right now,” he says, “but I don’t even care. We’ve got a Bieber concert to get to.”

You shake your head and let yourself be dragged along to the concert, knowing that Mat’s going to have the time of his life listening to one of his favorite artists perform live and that you’re going to get so many videos of him singing along that will immediately be sent to Beau for blackmail material.

The concert is actually beyond fun, and by the time you get back to the hotel, Mat’s completely forgotten about his earlier determination to be a pillow princess and has you out of your sweater and jeans before you really process what’s happening. His mouth and fingers work you up to two hard and fast orgasms, leaving you sweaty and breathless in the middle of the bed.

“Fuck,” you mutter, wrapping your legs around his waist and squeezing them, bending your knees to draw his cock closer to your cunt. You clit throbs and the condom-wrapped head of Mat’s cock bumps against it, making you see stars.

“One more each, okay?” Mat mutters, pushing into you slowly. You whine and clench around him, scraping your nails down his back. He hisses at the sting, but doesn’t stop until he’s seated fully inside your pussy, breathing hard. Sweat rolls down his temples, dampening his hair.

You barely last a few minutes, overly sensitive from the last two orgasms, and you come before Mat, stroking your hands over every inch of him you can reach while he pumps his hips into yours. He grunts into your neck when he comes, filling the condom and nearly crushing you with the heavy weight of his body on top of yours. The air is pushed from your lungs, Mat’s sweaty chest pressed against yours.

“Fuck,” he mumbles into your hair, “that felt good. You feel good. Could stay here forever.”

You kiss his shoulder. “I’d make some kind of innuendo about being an all star, but I think my brain is melted,” you say honestly, still wrapped around Mat like an octopus and making no effort to move.

——-

Mat’s Friday is quiet, other than an early afternoon practice for the Saturday game and the Skills Competition at night, so you have a lazy morning with him in bed. Neither of you bothered with clothes the night before, so it’s easy to get your hands on him and harder to get his hands off of you. You slip under the covers and wake him up with your mouth on his cock, sucking him off until he comes in your mouth. After he returns the favror with a slow, lingering orgasm, you shower and decide to head off to explore downtown Toronto for a bit before Mat goes to practice and you head off to the airport in the rental car to pick up Mat’s parents and sister.

“Thank god you’re here,” you give Liana a huge hug after helping everyone load their bags into the trunk. “It’s so hard being the only one around to chirp Mat to his face.”

“Please tell me you have video of the Bieber of it all,” she grins at you, a little evilly. You nod and she she pumps her fist. Nadia shakes her head.

“Don’t be mean to your brother this weekend,” she turns around in the passenger seat to face you both. Michael had insisted on driving back into the city and you weren’t about to argue - Toronto traffic rivaled New York traffic.

Liana rolls her eyes. “Mom, he needs some humbling,” she replies. “It’s good for his character

growth.”

You hide a giggle behind your hand. The Barzal sibling dynamic is one of your favorite things to witness. “I promise, Nadia,” you say, leaning forward a bit, “Mat gets so much praise. He does need a little humbling every once in a while.”

Once you’re back in the city, you drop the car and everyone’s bags off at the hotel and head over to meet Mat at the arena. He’s waiting for you all in the main lobby, looking fresh and clean and beyond adorable in his new All-Stars beanie. His smile is huge and only grows when he gives his parents hugs hello. He rubs the top of Liana’s head in a noogie that has her punching his arm, while they both laugh.

“Hi,” you smile up at him. You missed him even though it’s been less than two hours since you saw him.

“Hi,” Mat kisses you quickly before tugging the beanie off his head and unceremoniously dropping it on yours, tugging the cuff of it low over your forehead and smushing your hair. You wrinkle your nose at him and he raises an eyebrow. “It’s cold and you look cute in it.”

You lift your phone, the screen lighting up to display a handful of social media notifications and texts, “not as cute as you, according to the Twitter girlies. Apparently, you’re giving babygirl.” Your grin is shit-eating and Liana openly cracks up next to you, even as Michael and Nadia frown at each other, completely confused by the social media phrases.

Mat’s ears go pink and he nudges his hip against yours. “Shut up, let’s just go for lunch and not talk about that,” he rests his hand against your lower back and slings the other arm over Liana’s shoulder, guiding the both of you out of the arena.

“Oh no,” his sister says in a sugary-sweet tone, “we’re definitely talking about it. I have a few of my favorites bookmarked to mention…” She trails off, starting to scroll through her phone.

“Mom!” Mat whips his head around to look at Nadia. She plucks the phone from Liana’s hands and stashes it in her purse.

Michael, in order to cut off Liana’s complaint, jumps in, “Mat, tell us about Patrick Roy. How’s the change going?”

Luckily, the new coach is a topic Mat could happily chatter on about for hours, so he takes the bait and you end up having a fairly peaceful lunch before heading back to the hotel for a little relaxation before the Skills Competition. Liana comes to hang out with you and Mat, while Michael and Nadia get in a quick nap after their long flight. You put a movie on, but really the three of you end up gossiping and catching up, before Mat finally kicks you both out so he can get in a short nap too.

“Love you,” he kisses you before essentially pushing you out the door.

“Yeah, I really feel the love,” you roll your eyes, quickly pulling your coat back before Mat can close the door on it.

Liana smiles at you wryly. “I don’t know how you put up with him, but thank god for you. Let’s go get a coffee,” she says, linking arms with you as you stroll down to the elevators. You have the toque back on your head, adjusted so it’s not smashing your hair flat, and you can’t help but smile when you think about Mat putting it on your head in the first place.

“He’s surprisingly easy to love,” you laugh. “When he’s not being a drama queen.”

“Ugh,” Liana rolls her eyes affectionately, “you guys are disgusting.”

“Be nice or I’m going to decide to renovate the guest room during the week in April you’re coming to visit,” you joke.

——-

The arena is even louder and more chaotic during the Skills Competition and you’re having fun with Liana, taking pictures and getting snacks while you wait for everything to start.

“Fuck,” you mutter to yourself, scrolling through Instagram before the events start. The reel the team’s socials have posted of Mat picking out his skate blades has your panties immediately damp and you’re ready to demand it get taken down for your own sanity. You shift in your seat, damp fabric scraping against your wet cunt.

Liana looks over your shoulder to see what you’re looking at. “Oh gross,” she fakes a gagging noise. “He needs to put those away.”

“Or save them just for me,” you mumble, for her ears only. As much as you love Nadia and Michael, they don’t need to hear how horny you are for their son. Liana bumps your shoulder and your fingers slip over the screen.

“I’m gonna go blind, put that thirst trap away,” she frowns. “They’re going to start now.”

She’s right and Mat is the first one introduced on the ice. The four of you jump to your feet and scream for him, your heart pounding with excitement. Mat looks so stupidly happy to be on the ice, you can’t help but let out an extra loud wolf-whistle for him.

The Fastest Skater competition is up first and you won’t admit it, but you’re a little nervous for Mat to hold onto his title. You clench your hands together while William Nylander, Quinn Hughes, and Cale Makar go, crossing your fingers when their times are all over 14 seconds.

Mat’s fourth and you scream when he’s under 14 seconds, holding first until, of course, Connor McDavid unseats him. It’s annoying and a little frustrating, but you’re still beyond proud of Mat for being so close.

“Fuck that!” Liana grumbles, echoing your thoughts.

“He’s fastest skater in my heart,” you whisper back, purposely not telling her your plan to giving him a blow job at the end of the night.

One Timers is next. Honestly, you have no idea what the rules on this one are, but you just enjoy the show. Especially since Mat’s not that great in this competition in the end. You can see the scowl on his face and even Nadia laughs a little.

“He’s so hard on himself, even for fun events,” she shakes her head.

You can see him shake his head after his turn at the Passing Challenge, but honestly you’re really just focused on down damn good he looks with the backwards cap on his head. Watching Mat show off his skills is always your favorite thing. Mat takes third in this challenge and then talks to Kevin Weekes on ice and you record him while he talks, loving that crooked smile of his.

“I can’t believe he’s tied for first,” Liana shakes her head, filling in Michael and Nadia as they come back to the seats with drinks. “Think he’ll drop a couple thousand my way?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” you nudge her side. “Right after he funds my tropical vacation.”

During the musical break, you both get up to use the bathroom and stretch your legs. Your phone is vibrating with texts from the team and the girls, chirping Mat and making sure you know to pass on the messages.

Mat’s final event is Stick Handling and you keep your fingers crossed throughout the break - he’s in third overall and honestly you think he could pull off a win. Either way, you know you’re going to celebrate with him later.

“That’s my man!” You shout when Mat’s announced for second place. “Silkiest mits in the league!”

Liana and Nadia jump up to celebrate with you - Mat’s tied for first over all with one competition left.

He makes it to the next round and the three of you cheer, laughing and more than a little tipsy off of arena beers and cocktails. It’s so much more fun to cheer him on and celebrate Mat with his family.

“I always forget how good he is,” Nadia comments. “I know he’s good, but he’s having fun out there too.”

“No, he was literally off the wall excited to come back,” you tell her. “Being selected and then getting to replace Jack Hughes in the skills comp, on top of the new coach, Mat’s been in such a good mood lately.”

“He’s also whipped,” Liana teases you. You stick your tongue out at her.

“He just knows when he has to listen and turn off his hockey brain,” you shrug, talking over the music.

“Oh, Mat sucks at the shootout,” you groan, seeing what the One on One competition entails. “I just need him to not be last on this one.”

Mat picks Igor Shesterkin as his goalie and you watch him collect six points and sit in a tie for third. The New York rivalry runs strong and you can’t wait for the Stadium Series game in two weeks. You’re kind of treating the cold in Toronto as a preview of sitting out in the cold in New Jersey.

And with that, Mat’s onto the final round.

“One step closer to that cool million,” Liana grins. “You know how big of an engagement ring you could get with that…”

You choke on your sip of water and Michael claps you on the back while Nadia frowns at Liana. “No way I need or want something that big,” you manage to squeak out. “Not to be, like, basic, but I’d take a page out of Taylor Swift’s book and marry him with a paper ring.”

Your entire face feels like it’s burning red, talking about marrying Mat in front of his parents. You do, obviously, want to marry him, but it feels strange to say so in front of his parents when you’ve only met them a handful of times.

Liana’s shit-eating grin is identical to Mat’s. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she says and when you try to say anything, she shushes you and points to the ice, where the obstacle course is starting.

“Oh, he’s locked in,” Liana says and you’re all leaning forward in your seats as Mat goes through the obstacles.

“Oh god,” you groan, covering your eyes with your hands as Mat struggles with the little nets. Liana and Nadia wince at your sides. It’s like a train wreck, you can’t look away from his struggle. When they have to bring out more pucks for him, your heart sinks into your stomach.

Mat’s time in the end is awful, and you can see his disappointment on his face when he looks up at the jumbotron. He would’ve beaten McDavid if the nets hadn’t tripped him up.

“Ah, he did his best,” Michael says and you nod. It sucks that Mat didn’t place higher, but you’re so proud of him. Considering he wasn’t even chosen to be in the Skills Competition in the first place, the fact that he made it to the final round and nearly won is an incredible effort.

Mat texts you all in a group chat that you’d honestly forgotten existed, letting you know that he still has to shower and do some media availability, so he’ll meet you all back at the hotel.

Michael and Nadia decide to head to bed and you promise to let Mat know - you’ll all get together for breakfast before Mat goes to his morning skate before the game at 3. You and Liana hang out in the hotel bar until Mat joins you a little more than an hour later, spotting you immediately and wedging himself in the few inches of space left in the arm chair you’re sitting in. He squishes you to the side with his thighs, spreading them without concern. His arms wrap around your shoulders and he kisses the side of your head. “Hey, Squeaks,” he greets you, adjusting so one of your legs is draped over his and you’re as close as you could possibly be.

“Jesus,” Liana mutters. “Get a room.”

Mat squints at her, “I would love to.”

You nudge his side and murmur, “behave,” at him. All that does is encourage Mat to get in your face and kiss you hungrily. A surprised giggle is swallowed by Mat’s mouth and Liana’s disgusted scoff makes Mat smile against your lips.

“I’m going to bed,” she pushes up from her chair. “See you two in the morning. And wear a condom, I’m not ready to be an aunt.”

You and Mat choke simultaneously, Liana’s laughter echoing as she dances away. You drop your forehead to Mat’s shoulder and he shakes his head, “she really knows how to kill the mood.”

When you shift your leg though, you can feel the bulge of Mat’s cock against your thigh. “I don’t think she killed the mood that much,” you tease, curling closer to him. “Should we go upstairs and I can reward you for being the all-star of my heart?”

“Cheesy,” Mat accuses even as he’s pulling you to your feet and guiding you to the elevator bank. “I’m exhausted though, I didn’t realize how much work the obstacle course would be.”

“I’ll do all the work, don’t you worry,” you grin at him.

Less than ten minutes later you have him on his back, cunt clenching around his cock.

“Fuck, fuck,” Mat groans, fingers digging into your hips. “Baby, god, fuck feels so good.”

You lean forward, bouncing over Mat’s cock, nails digging into his chest. “Wanted to do this all day,” you gasp. “All the posts, your fucking thighs, Mat! Been soaked for you.”

He laughs underneath you, sliding one hand to play with your clit. You whine and feel your arousal leak from your body, smearing all over Mat’s pelvis. “Thought about riding my thighs, baby?” He asks, gripping your hip even tighter and helping you bounce on him.

“Every fucking day,” you admit, choking on air when Mat bucks his hips up into yours, the head of his cock smacking against your g-spot. “All-Star Mat is my favorite Mat.”

His face is red from exertion, beads of sweat rolling down his temples, but even still you can tell that your praise is getting to him, flushing his chest pink and making his rhythm over your clit stutter. You grin wickedly down at him, knowing exactly how you want to play him.

“I’m so proud of you,” you murmur sincerely, grinding down on him. “Came in and killed it, made it look easy,” you hiccup on a particularly aggressive bounce, “so fucking handsome. My all-star. Mine, mine, mine.”

“Fuuuuck” Mat drags out the curse, bending his knees and planting his feet on the mattress so he can fuck up into you roughly. “Jesus. Wanted to win ‘cause you were there.”

You whimper every time Mat’s cock hits your g-spot, nearly there, and praise him again, “always a winner. Always my winner. Love you so much.”

Mat’s cock thickens inside of you while you clench around him and you plant your hands on his stomach for leverage and to feel his muscles bunch up in the lead up to his orgasm. He groans and squeezes a handful of your ass, bucking up into you harshly. “Gonna - sorry, baby. Need to come,” he groans your name, filling the condom with a deep growl. You keep riding him through it, replacing his hand on your clit with yours so he can grip your hips and bounce you while he finishes.

“C’mon, fill me up,” you whine, chanting his name, rolling your fingers over your clit until you finish a few seconds after him, gushing around the base of his cock and his lower stomach. You slump over his chest and Mat grunts underneath you, smoothing his hands over your ass.

“God, that was fucking amazing,” he mutters into your hair, kissing your cheek. “Gotta be the all-star more often.”

You laugh and wiggle your ass over him, cunt clenching lazily around him. “I dunno, I was supposed to take care of you, but you took over there for a bit,” you mumble against his skin.

“Couldn’t help it,” he shrugs, “looked so fucking good with your tits bouncing, that gorgeous face you make when I hit as deep as possible.” He yawns a little, swallowing the last few words of his sentence.

“Shut up,” you laugh lightly, swatting at his chest while you roll off of him, sticky and sore. Mat moves to get up, but you push him back a little and wrap a hand around his hip. “I’ve got it.” You make quick work of the condom, tying a knot at the top and padding into the bathroom to get rid of it. You rinse off quickly and bring Mat back a damp washcloth to clean off his stomach, but by the time you get back into the bedroom, he’s got one arm tucked behind his head and he’s fast asleep, letting out gentle grumbling snores.

You laugh a little to yourself, shaking your head. Men.

Still, you wipe him off carefully - not that it matters, he doesn’t move at all - and climb into bed with him, after stealing a clean t-shirt from his suitcase.

Mat chokes a little on his snore and rolls over, grabbing you around the waist and hauling you close to his chest. His arm is a strong lock over your stomach and you shift, getting comfortable before falling asleep with the warm weight of Mat’s body at your back.

You wake up a little bit later, with one of Mat’s thighs wedged in between your legs, corded muscle pressed up against your cunt, making it throb. You grind experimentally over his leg and he grunts against your hair, warm breath fanning over the back of your neck and making you shiver.

“Mat?” You whisper his name quietly and his arm tightens around your waist. You trace your fingertips over the veins on his hand.

His thigh flexes against you and you gasp, warmth pooling between your legs.

“Told you to use me,” Mat mumbles sleepily, kissing behind your ear. “Go ‘head.”

His hand is splayed flat over your stomach and he pushes gently, spurring you into movement. Your hips rock lazily over his thigh, the sleepy rhythm making it hard for you to hold onto the coil of pleasure. Mat rocks his half-hard cock into your backside and you sigh softly, heat building in your blood.

“Feels good,” he sighs, helping you move over him, eyes still shut. He hikes his thigh up higher, catching your clit on his leg hair and sensing a wave of pleasure through your body.

You whine his name, burying your fingers between your legs to help coax yourself to an orgasm. “Wanna feel you,” you whisper and Mat’s hand slips between your bodies, leaving your stomach cold, so he can roughly jerk his cock a few times, tugging until he’s harder.

He pulls you back by the hip, until his cock is nestled between your thighs and you angle back against him, slipping the head of him inside your entrance. A breathy sigh escapes your lungs and Mat rocks his hips so his cock thrusts in and out of your shallowly. Between his cock and your fingers, you’re falling over the cliff of pleasure within seconds, slick covering your thighs.

“Roll over,” you rasp, legs still trembling. You’re not about to go searching in the dark for a condom, so you settle yourself in between Mat’s powerful thighs and take him into your mouth, tasting yourself on him. Both of his hands land on your head, tangling in your hair and holding you in place while you lick at him, kissing the head of his cock and hollowing your cheeks around him until he’s coming in your mouth.

Mat groans, hips bucking up into your mouth, eyes screwed shut. “Babe, christ, love that fucking mouth,” he says hoarsely, hauling you up his body when you’re done so he can kiss you sleepily.

You’re exhausted and close your eyes again, lying over Mat’s chest, his arms wrapped around your back. “You make me so stupid,” you mumble against his collarbone, asleep before you know it.

——-

Saturday is the big game day and after your middle of the night sexcapades, you and Mat oversleep so he just barely has time for breakfast with everyone before he’s off to the arena for a little morning skate and a brief stint on NHL News.

You and the Barzals decide to take in a little bit of the Fan Fest before exploring downtown Toronto before the game starts. It’s fun to spend so much time with Mat’s family and you’re looking forward for them to coming to Long Island for Easter.

The games themselves are beyond fun to watch, since the guys are all taking it seriously while still having a good time.

When Mat and Team Bieber make it to the finals, you and Liana are beside yourselves, screaming with excitement.

“Mat willed them to a win so he can spend more time with Justin,” Liana laughs and you agree.

“Honestly, I’m not convinced he wouldn’t dump me for Justin,” you snort, snapping a picture of Mat on the ice.

Team Bieber/Matthews wins the whole thing and you know it’s just a silly fun weekend, but you can’t help be so incredibly proud of Mat and his performance all weekend. He’s been so light and happy all weekend and you know it was the break he needed to reset for the second half of the season.

After he finishes with post-game media availabilities - where he apparently mentions his future kids, much to Liana and Nadia’s delight and your slight panic, one day but definitely not any time soon - he comes and meets you all for dinner. Mat’s still buzzing from adrenaline and won’t shut up about Justin Bieber as a coach.

“He was just so invested,” he says. “Really wanted to win and knew what he was talking about.”

“Who’s a better coach,” you cut in slyly, “Justin Bieber or Patrick?”

He pins you with a wry look, as his parents laugh. “Squeaks, that’s just not fair.”

“It’s also not even a competition,” Michael points out. “I would think Patrick Roy has nothing on Justin Bieber’s enthusiasm.”

You recognize your boyfriend’s father’s sarcastic joke and giggle. Everyone knows about Patrick’s enthusiastic coaching style.

“I actually can’t wait to get back to it,” Mat says, swiping a bite of your steak off your plate. “I feel really good about the back half.”

Dinner continues comfortably for another few hours, Mat soaking up time with his family while he doesn’t have to worry about practice or a game tomorrow. Eventually, you all head back to your rooms - the Barzals are flying back to Vancouver tomorrow afternoon, while you and Mat get to enjoy the day together before the team flies in before the game.

“Oh, hey, check this out,” Mat’s nearly bouncing when you get back to your hotel room, directing your attention to a huge gift bag sitting on the bed.

You raise an eyebrow, “all star game swag?”

“Even better,” Mat’s eyes are wide. “Justin gave us all some stuff from his line.”

Muffling a giggle with your hand, you poke at the gift bag. “Justin? Your new best friend?” You ask, dryly, spotting a grey hoodie at the top of the pile.

Mat nudges you with his knuckles. “Just for that, I’m not sharing my new gear,” he informs you, pulling each item out of the bag. He’s like a kid on Christmas, giddy with each piece of merch and relaying more stories about Justin behind the bench, like you haven’t heard them all already.

You indulge him, getting ready for bed as he talks, giving him a soft, affectionate smile when he finally pauses his yapping. “You are such a dork,” you murmur, squishing his cheeks between your palms and planting a quick kiss on her pursed lips. “It’s a good thing you’re so cute.”

——

Sunday is quiet, festivities over. Mat immediately pulls on his new Drew hoodie and you snag the sweats, going for comfort over fashion for your day.

“Steal that sweatshirt and send it to me,” Liana says, hugging you goodbye.

“Over my dead body,” Mat shakes his head at her. “Buy your own.”

You sling an arm around Mat’s waist and lean into him. “Oh, calm down. No one’s stealing the gifts your boyfriend gave you,” you wrinkle your nose at him in a crinkly-eyed smile.

He snaps at the waist band of your pilfered sweats and gives you a stink eye. You laugh, “I live with you! They’re going back to our shared dresser.”

“In my drawer,” Mat says and you nod, indulging him. You both know that you’re keeping the sweats.

Once Mat’s parents and Liana are off to the airport, the rest of the day is chill. You’re soaking up the time with Mat before he goes back into the grind for the back half of the season.

“Hey,” you say at dinner later, nudging his foot with yours under the table.

Mat looks up from the menu, hair a little messy, eyes still bright from the excitement of the weekend.

“I just…I’m really proud of you,” you manage to say around the little ball of emotion in your throat. You reach across the table and lace your fingers with his and Mat squeezes them gently. “This has been the best weekend and I hope you get to bring this excitement to the back half of the season.”

His grins at you, that crooked smile of his that you love so much, and says, “having you here was the second best part of the weekend.”

“Let me guess,” you deadpan, “becoming besties with Justin was the best part?”

He nods, eyes twinkling, “yep.”

“I hate you,” you snort a laugh, smiling despite yourself.

“It’s a really close second though,” Mat assures you.

With a faint sigh, you shake your head, “I see where I stand. Maybe I’ll just have to cheer for the Leafs tomorrow.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Mat rushes to say and you kick his shin lightly.

“Of course not,” you scoff. “What kind of Long Islander would I be, rooting for the enemy?”

Mat pinches your palm, “a terrible one and an awful girlfriend too.”

You hum and say nonchalantly, “you’d think two blowjobs in a weekend, plus riding you, would cement me as best girlfriend ever.”

“Make it three and I’ll marry you right now,” Mat jokes, surprising a laugh out of your chest. Your heart skips a beat in your chest at the mention of marrying Mat, even as a little joke. You want to be his forever.

“You know,” you say, voice shaking just slightly, “marriage is all about give and take.”

Mat bumps his knee against yours, grinning wickedly. “Baby, if you wanted an orgasm, all you had to do was ask,” he says, voice low so he won’t be heard in the restaurant.

Your entire body heats with lust and you brush your fingers over your lips, hiding the involuntary little smile Mat’s words elicit. “Oh,” your voice is breathless, “well, if that’s all it takes.”

“You going to ask for what you want?” Mat asks, running his thumb over the backs of your knuckles.

Leaning forward, you hum, catching the faint hint of Mat’s cologne and the hotel shampoo. You wet your lower lip and watch as Mat’s gaze tracks the tiny movement of your tongue. Quietly, you murmur just for Mat’s ears, “I want some all-star orgasms before I become a hockey widow again.”

Mat chuckles and leans forward too so he can give you a quick kiss. “I think I can make that happen,” he replies easily, leaning back in his seat. You can see from the way his body shifts that he’s spreading his legs again. You shift in your seat, feeling hot. He smirks a little at you, clearly seeing the way your body reacts to him.

Fuck, it may be a three blowjob weekend after all.

[neechees]

Raisedeyebrowemojii Scamming information post

So as some of you know, it's been revealed that @raisedeyebrowemojii was a scammer, and for those of you that don't know, I'm sorry you had to find out this way. This is going to be an information post on raisedeyebrowemojii's scamming, lies, the evidence, and where they stole from, and the debunking of all their claims as comprehensively as possible to help the people they scammed and manipulated get some closure, and hopefully to provide insight on how you might spot them again.

I carried out an investigation on the now confirmed scammer, and now deactivated user @blktransdyke, who deleted within hours of my callout post. On that post I connected blktransdyke as being the same person behind raisedeyebrowemojii due to the information both of them had posted for alleged fundraisers, which you can see in the post here. For a short recap, both blktransdyke and raisedeyebrowemojii "Jay" both had the exact same story of allegedly being trans/homeless/disabled and posted photos of the exact same brown tabby cat named "Trouble", both claiming that it was their "best friend's cat" and raisedeyebrowemojii created a patreon for Trouble the cat, only for me to find that Trouble the cat is a hyperpopular cat vlogging/fanpage with 42K followers on facebook, and both of these blogs stole from this page and neither of them were affiliated with this famous facebook.

Moving on, with some help, ive also found more evidence that raisedeyebrowemojii was a scammer. I know many people were already convinced by the callout post I already did, but I think it's important to debunk a lot of raisedeyebrowemojii's claims due to the fact that so many people thought they were genuine, that they had died, and due to the fact that they stole pretty much every detail of their alleged life from somewhere else, and I can prove it, so I want to clear things up, and maybe allow some people to gain peace in the knowledge that "Jay" did not die, and was never in danger of dying to begin with.

The rest of this post will be under the cut because again, this is going to get long. I encourage everyone who was approached by or donated to raisedeyebrowemojii to reblog to help get the word out, thank you. Image descriptions will be available in alt text.

For starters, raisedeyebrowemojii went by the name "Jay", and on the donation posts of theirs (scams), they used the paypal name "Jay Baldwin", and Jay claimed to be disabled (allegedly they had tourettes, autism, cerebral palsey, were deaf, in a wheelchair, had a terminal kidney disease, and allegedly other undisclosed disabilities), Canadian, that they lived in the city of Toronto (in Ontario, Canada), and a trans lesbian. Screenshots for that below

Misuse of terminology & racefaking

Let's talk about their bio first. I suspect that the scammer behind this blog is neither Black nor Canadian, due to the fact that, as I mentioned in this post, 1. Black Canadians don't really refer to themselves as "African American" as much here in Canada, partly due to the fact that a lot of Black Canadians actually have roots from the Caribbean & not directly from Africa or America, 2. "Jay" claimed to be Canadian but also said they had an uncle & grandparents still living in South Africa, which means they're implying they're either a first or second generation African Canadian immigrant, so why would they call themselves "African American" if they have no national/ethnic ties to America, and they are Canadian? So, like the blktransdyke blog, who i proved is most likely the same person as raisedeyebrowemojii, both of these blogs are using incorrect/strange terminology for the ethnicities they claim to be, thus indicating racefaking and a falsified Nationality.

Falsified Nationality

Here I also have reason to believe this person is not Canadian, or in the very least, did not live in the city of Toronto, or likely the province of Ontario. Partly due to the evidence ive just given above, but also due to the reasons I'm about to give & the connected next point I'll get to soon. For one example, "Jay" made the donation post in the first screenshot i gave where they claimed they were scared they were going to freeze to death, and that they could hardly even type on their phone due to the absolute insane cold temperatures of Toronto.

However, I took a look at the Toronto weather forecast for the day that raisedeyebrowemojii posted that update (February 12th, 2023) and found that the temperature had gotten up to 6°C (or 42.8°F), with very little wind, and it didn't even get below freezing temperatures that day, and only got two degrees below freezing the night before (which is when they claim they were staying in a shelter). Canadians will know that this type of temperature in FEBRUARY is actually very very warm and pleasant. Like, unseasonably, weirdly warm. Screenshot for that below.

Now, for an actual homeless person, being outside in the cold, even if it's warmer than usual, this is still difficult and harsh conditions to live under. However, this is still a large exaggeration from what Raisedeyebrowemojii claimed it was, and youre not very likely to freeze to death in this kind of weather compared to the usual Canadian temperatures. The way "Jay" described it makes me think that it is not a Canadian who made this post, and is someone who was not in Toronto to actually know what temperature it was that day, but just assumed it would be very cold.

Impersonation of the real Jay Baldwin

Thanks to some help (of people whom I will keep anonymous for their safety & as a precaution of the scammer harassing them), i managed to locate the identity of the REAL Jay Baldwin, and was able to concretely find out that this person is who raisedeyebrowemojii was impersonating. So, who is the real Jay Baldwin you ask?

Jay Baldwin is a Black, disabled (who uses a wheelchair and has Cerebral Palsey) nonbinary Canadian and the founder of the private Facebook support group "Disabled, Queer, and Fabulous" with over 1.1K members, and is a student at Carleton university in Ontario, Canada, and this Jay Baldwin has actually been doing really well for themselves, and has gotten pretty famous in the Ottawa area. And, as you can see, the raisedeyebrowemojii "Jay" apparently has a lot in common with THIS Jay Baldwin, including their names, being Black, a disabled wheelchair user with Cerebral palsey, nonbinary, Canadian living in Ontario, and both use they/them pronouns. But let me show you how I know they've been stealing from this person.

One way I can tell that raisedeyebrowemojii definitely was not THIS Jay Baldwin is their faces. On the screenshot to the left is the icon that raisedeyebrowemojii (of allegedly "themselves") used for their blog, taken from the webarchive screenshot of their blog, and to the right is a cropped portrait photo of the real Jay Baldwin, taken from this information page on the official Carleton University website, which also lists most of the information I just listed about the REAL Jay.

Obviously these two people look absolutely nothing alike. And we can tell that raisedeyebrowemojii meant for their scamsona to look like the person on the left, because they also used a photo of another dark-skinned Black person in ANOTHER donation post. So they stole these selfies from a different person altogether, although I haven't yet been able to locate where they'd stolen them.

One of the reasons that raisedeyebrowemojii's lies were so convincing though is that they were stealing or misconstruing some of Jay Baldwin's life experiences almost in real time, and I believe that raisedeyebrowemojii was keeping tabs on Jay in order to harvest their life details. For example, on a Facebook post, Jay Baldwin mentioned the death of their father a few times, but also on June 26th 2022, made the memorial post below about the death of their uncle

and meanwhile, on August 25th 2022, raisedeyebrowemojii ALSO suddenly started saying that their dad died, which you can see on the screenshot of their tumblr profile, which as webarchive screenshot shows, was not there before. While they changed the dates, raisedeyebrowemojii was clearly pulling from the real Jay's life, so it looks like we can see around the time that the dcammer decided to randomly incorporate this into their scamsona. As far as I can find, raisedeyebrowemojii never made a donation post regarding their "Father" and said that he was abusive, so adding this detail from the real Jay's life shows that it was unnecessary except to look more real and to manipulate people into believing them.

In the ways that raisedeyebrowemojii misconstrued things, they also of course constantly used the story that they were either homeless or on the verge of being homeless. Where Jay would post facebook updates of doing very well and being happy in life and even doing & hosting events for disability rights, raisedeyebrowemojii around the same time would post about needing money due to either allegedly starving, of dying, needing medical attention, or being homeless.

Below are screenshots of, in the order that they appear (so we're going chronologically in time that these were posted by both raisedeyebrowemojii and Jay Baldwin respectively) from left to right, raisedeyebrowemojii asking for money on February 16th 2023 talking about being in allegedly horrific conditions, then Jay Baldwin posting a peppy update on facebook, looking very happy and having a drink with the caption "Cheers to life!" on February 22nd, and then another donation scam post by raisedeyebrowemojii begging for money saying they're "on the streets" and "will die", posted on February 26th 2023.

You'll be happy to know that the real Jay Baldwin is not homeless or food insecure, and seems to have had a good relationship with both of their parents and is in an accepting home, unlike what raisedeyebrowemojii claimed THEY had, and claimed they were being abused. Raisedeyebrowemojii likely falsified all that while still impersonating Jay and keeping tabs on them in order to create a false sense of urgency whenever they wanted money at random.

Normally I wouldn't go into this much detail about the people who were stolen from in scams, but I feel like this case in particular it was important to point out where the scammer was pulling from to debunk their lies, but also because the real Jay Baldwin has become quite an iconic figure in their area, and all this information was taken from multiple publicly available sources, and so I can only assume that Jay is comfortable with this personal information being known.

Little to no life details, interests, or personality outside of the impersonating Jay Baldwin, and manipulation

As I'm sure many of you know by now (as ive mentioned it in previous posts, and that some of you currently reading this were victims of the scammer), but raisedeyebrowemojii contacted multiple, predominantly Black users to attempt to befriend them, and they did this in order to appear more legitimate, and most likely so that they had "friends" to call upon should any of their scams have been questioned. We've also seen this with multiple other scammers where a new blog will appear and suddenly start tagging mostly Black users to ask them to (unknowingly) reblog their scam posts.

And as a more famous example, we've seen this with the famed scammer Laura Deramas where she befriended multiple users to get them to stick up for her.

But to get down to the title's point, outside of the life details they were stealing or misconstruing from the real Jay, Raisedeyebrowemojii didn't have much of their own personality or traits, which is common in scams. Say, for example, a scammer will create a scamsona who is a lesbian and loves cats and is making a fake donation post for a sick cat, and so in order to make their blog look more convincing, they will randomly reblog popular posts from tags about cats or lesbianism.

In Raisedeyebrowemojii's case, we had one user mention that while Raisedeyebrowemojii was trying to "befriend" them, Raisedeyebrowemojii would only answer very generic questions asked of them despite the fact that they sent the messages first appearing to try to get to know that user, like answering "I like reading!" Instead of answering what their favorite books are if asked about their interests. Below is a screenshot of that conversation. This user emphasizes that they never got an answer to the last question they asked.

"Kidney disease" and alleged "death"

I stated on my blog that I believe raisedeyebrowemojii randomly said that they were diagnosed with a "terminal kidney disease" (allegedly chronic kidney disease) specifically with the view that they could leave, deactivate, or abandon their blog and then move onto ANOTHER scam blog (and likely this was the blktransdyke blog) without looking suspicious or weird, because then people would just assume they had died, which is exactly what happened.

Raisedeyebrowemojii stopped posting around June 2023, and the blktransdyke blog appeared in early April 2023, which makes me think this is when they started to move to that blog or potentially even another blog we don't yet know about. Funeral scams, or scams where the scammer pretends their persona has "died" in general is not new and is actually pretty common. It's possible that raisedeyebrowemojii was going to (or may still attempt) to return on another blog and pretend to be a family member or "friend" of the raisedeyebrowemojii in order to ask for alleged "funeral money", which we've seen with blogs like the now deleted blog @destrawberry.

But the main reason I think why they stopped posting in specifically June is because that is around the time the real Jay Baldwin was gaining popularity again, doing multiple public events, and was doing very very well, so I think the scammer became aware there was now more of a chance of people discovering their scam. In June, Jay won an award at an LGBT film festival for a documentary they had made ("Supporting Out Selves") and an Academic Hospital wrote a piece on their success, and in August they announced that they teamed up with ASE Community Foundation for Black Canadians with Disabities to host their 3rd student summit in September. You can find evidence of this by googling or by looking at Jay Baldwin's facebook, but of course, please give respect to the real Jay Baldwin & do not pester them.

Conclusion

All in all I hope that this clarifies a lot of things for those of you that were confused by all this, and again, I extend my dearest sympathies to those who donated to raisedeyebrowemojii and were manipulated by them, I know the feeling and I'm so terribly sorry that it's happened to you too. I advise any Black users especially to be very cautious about any new blogs with a donation post up that is new, and this new blog is trying to ask you to reblog their donation post: it's common for scammers to retarget anybody who may have donated to them, talked to them, or even just barely interacted with them before.

I'll put some of raisedeyebrowemojii's old paypals, gfm accounts, etc in either the replies or another reblog, because for now I'm running out of space. If you donated to them at any point, i suggest you report their accounts where you did the donating. And in the mean time, my colleague @kyra45 is taking testimonies on raisedeyebrowemojii, so if you have an experience with this scammer and would like to share that experience with us so we can document this scammer's behavior, please send Kyra an ask.

[uglyandtraveling]

Toronto’s Graffiti Alley: A Colorful Adventure Full of Vibes and Vivid Art

Explore Toronto's vibrant Graffiti Alley! Discover stunning street art, capture Instagram-worthy shots, and dive into the city's creative urban culture.

[luvhughes43]

monday morning | lila drysdale au

lila, my love masterlist💐

summary: just some monday morning fluff<3

word count: 0.6k

“Mmm where are you going?” you groan as jamie jostles himself out of bed. he leans over his side and presses a soft kiss to your forehead. 

“I have PT this morning,” he replies simply, which brings last night's events rushing back to you. that's right, you thought. Jamie did tell you that he had an appointment last night you were just… too preoccupied to pay much attention to his… words. 

jamie straightens up again, and you grasp his arm lightly to pull him back down to you. “I need a proper kiss if you’re going to leave me,”

jamie hums in response, leaning down to properly kiss you on the lips. you both melt into the kiss but before anything has a chance of developing, lilas loud shrieks fill the quiet spaces of your house. 

“and… that’s my queue” you sleepily sigh as you pull away from your husband and kick the covers off of you.

“I can go get her,” jamie offers but you easily decline. you had some work to do from home today so it was probably for the best that you woke up now. 

“make me a coffee instead?” you ask, to which jamie silently nods. 

you walk into lilas nursery and the first thing you notice is her sleepy figure standing up in her crib. she’s leaning against the crib rail, her chubby baby hands holding her upright. she leans back when she sees you open the door, immediately making grabby hands for you. 

you pick your girl up with ease, making sure to change her diaper and get her all situated before bringing her downstairs. 

jamie, ever the loving husband, put on your favourite background tv show for you to watch while you lay with lila on the couch. “thank you jams,” you mumble softly as you sink onto your plush couch. your daughter rests on top of you, cuddling into you as she watches her dad move around the kitchen from over your shoulder. 

you exaggerate a gasp, “is that your dada?” 

you watch as lila giggles and smiles, mannerisms exactly like her fathers. “dada!” she repeats, nuzzling her face into your neck when jamie makes a silly face at her. 

jamie sets your coffee on the side table beside you, before taking lila into his arms. “hi baby girl!” he coos much to lila’s delight. he rest’s lila on his hip before continuing to go through his morning routine. 

“And now, I'm going to put the toast in the toaster!” jamie narrates, encouraging all of lilas babbles with nods and replies. “yeah! And I'm going to put mommys in again because she likes her toast burnt…”

“I like it crispy!” you pipe up from your spot on the couch. 

Jamie hums loudly enough for you to hear before stage-whispering, “she likes it burnt” to your giggling daughter. 

after drinking half of your coffee, you are awake enough to start helping with breakfast. you cut up some fruit for lila, and then move on to start making jamie’s protein shake. you’ve gotten the process down to a science, and you were quite proud that you managed to make it to your husbands liking. if there’s one thing you learnt about athletes through living with jamie, it’s that they’re very specific with their different drinks and routines. 

you hold out the shake to jamie, who awes appreciatively. “have i ever told you that you’re the best wife a guy could ask for?” 

“only a million times,” you smile, sticking your cheek towards jamie who swiftly places a kiss there. 

“well it's going to be a million and one because you’re the best!” jamie smiles at you, and you can’t help but reminisce on how quickly things have changed between the two of you. one minute you guys are exes who hookup whenever jamie was back in toronto… and now you share a babygirl and have been married for three months. life was so good. 

yndrysdale

liked by jamie.drysdale, sandyliang, and others

yndrysdale monday morning🫂💐

view all comments

jamie.drysdale my loves❤️

yndrysdale you're my love forever💗

trevorzegras ive got the cutest goddaughter😭😭

wagbff looks like the perfect monday!💘

user01 those flowers are so pretty!!

yndrysdale thank u! jamie has them delivered to the house every monday💗

user02 lila's the cutest baby i'm cryingg

user03 omg what's the third slide?

user04 y/n works with a bunch of designer/fashion brands lol

user05 we dgaf now post jamie

user06 ?

yndrysdale posted to their story!

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[cranberrv]

so high school

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ in which you run into your high-school sweetheart, darrel curtis.

( a/n : this isn’t my best work but not every piece has to be my fave! hope u cuties enjoy nonetheless, sorry i have no idea how to write darry )

his brown eyes met yours from across the classroom for the first time since grade 12.

your heart sank. you thought darry would’ve left by now, started his career as a successful football player or something even better, but he was standing in your classroom, still in tulsa.

your entire teenage years flash before your eyes — running on the field to kiss the quarterback, playing kiss marry kill, driving to parties, meeting his family. he looked the same.

darry’s eyes widen as he sees you. he elbows ponyboy. “you did not tell me that y/n l/n was your geography teacher.” he whispers.

“you’d of freaked if i had told you, man,” ponyboy whispers back.

tonight was parent-teacher interviews. one of your best students was ponyboy curtis, little brother of your high-school sweetheart. they were greasers, and you were a soc, but that never stopped you from going over to their house everyday, back when you were bittersweet 16.

“darry curtis,” you say softly, smiling gently. “long time no see.”

he avoids your gaze, his cheeks glowing pink. “yeah, nice to see you, y/n.”

“feel free to take a seat,” you offer, and they sit in front of your desk.

you begin talking about ponyboy — his incredible grades, your insistence on him participating more, assuring darry that ponyboy has a high chance of getting into a good post-secondary school.

you look at darry again. you have to address the elephant in the room — it would be weird not to. “this is weird, isn’t it?” you ask, voice soft. “i mean, we met in this school, and now i’m teaching your younger brother.”

“yeah, i guess so,” he agrees. “i honestly thought you would’ve left this dump by now, you always talked about wanting to move to new york city or toronto or somethin’.”

“yeah, plans changed.” you shrug. “i thought you would’ve moved by now, too.”

“plans changed,” he repeats, quoting you. you smile at him.

“what have you been up to since high school?” you ask him. “still play football?”

“i roof houses.” he answers. “but yeah, sometimes i fool around with football. not as much, though.”

“you were good,” you compliment.

“thanks,” he answers. he is never this awkward, what is happening? “you still into reading and history and stuff?”

“yeah,” you answer. “i mean, ponyboy can tell you, i never shut up about it when i’m teaching. always got a new book to talk about.”

and there we go. the conversation is back to ponyboy. “oh, that’s nice. pony only talks good about you. just never pieced together that it was you.”

“yeah, well, guess you thought i would’ve been gone by now.”

“guess so,” he agrees. “glad you’re not.”

you smile at him.

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

the following weeks, you’d notice ponyboy talking to you a bit more whenever he could in class, talking to you about darry. and when you walked into the DX, sodapop asked if you were “darry’s chick,” and you had no idea how to respond.

flowers started blooming at the local park in your neighbourhood, so you decided to take a walk and pick some to decorate your classroom and decorate them for spring.

everything reminded you of him — you walked past a small punch of pink tulips. he got you tulips for your grade 11 semi-formal. he got them for a discount at the gas station, it was all he could afford. they were beautiful.

while you were walking, you spotted a gang of greasers. darry was with them, he was the tallest and stuck out like a sore thumb among the pink and yellow flowers and blossoming trees.

sodapop and ponyboy spotted you instantly, catching your eye and then telling the rest of the gang that you were here. they all excitedly started pressuring darry to go talk to you. you overheard the giggles and you couldn’t help but smile to yourself.

darry walked up to you after a few moments of resistance. you looked stunning — your hair gently waving in the warm breeze, a handful of wildflowers in your grasp. and you were smiling at him!

“hi darry,” you greet. he starts walking beside you, leaving his friends behind.

“hey, y/n,” he says. his voice is deeper than it was when you knew him. “it was real nice seein’ you at ponyboy’s parent-teacher thing.”

you agree, and then he speaks again. “i just, uh, wanted to talk to you about something.”

“what about?” you ask with a tilt of your head.

“okay, so i know we dated back in high school and stuff,” he starts. “it was real fun. we had some good times.”

“yeah, we did.” you agree.

“do you want to try again?” he asks you. his muscular body and his intimidating looks would be nothing if you heard how he was speaking now. it felt wholesome, shy, like how he asked you out in high school.

you take a second to think. you remember how you felt when he took another girl to prom 3 weeks after you broke up, you remember how that hurt you and how you wanted to kill him. but you remember watching shows with him on saturday nights, you remember kissing in the backseat, you remember his mom, mrs. curtis, kissing you on the cheek the first time you met her. you remember cheering when he got a touchdown, you remember him kissing tears off your face when he got hurt in a rumble. you remember the good and the bad. and when you look back up at him, you feel so high school.

“yeah,” you say softly. “i would love that, darry.”

[sweetiepoison]

Famous Baby (Social Media Blurb)

It all started with posts you added to your instagram story. Your fans immediately began flooding your dms with questions about why you’re in Toronto.

You of course have friends that live in the city but since speculation has begun about you and a certain NHL player, it’s hard to believe you’re there just visiting friends.

Some news outlets started reporting that you were in Toronto with Shawn, “rekindling” your relationship. They used the fact that you went to his show months before and pictures taken of the two of you at the Drew House party.

You post two more pictures to your insta story during the leafs game which had everyone going crazy.

Fan#1: (y/n) really said let me make it clear who my man is

Fan#2: No fr, the Matthews jersey in the second pic she posted like girl….you aren’t being subtle

Fan#3: (y/n) as a wag is what 2024 needed

-> Fan#4: Can you imagine being a wag for the leafs and now (y/f/n) (y/l/n) is also one and you get to hang out with her!

->Fan#5: She would be the ultimate wag!

Fan#6: Steph Marner posted a picture of the game to her insta story and she tagged (y/n)

->Fan#7: STOP! Mitch and Auston are best friends and now we’ll get (y/n) and Steph as best friends!

Fan#8: apparently some fans went up to her during the game and she was super sweet and took pictures

->Hater#1: people were saying she wasn’t wearing his jersey like that’s so unsupportive

->Fan#9: She doesn’t need to wear his jersey to be supportive like gtfo 😤

@yourusername: Lover girl 💙🤍

Load more comments….

Fan#1: I know ya’ll also saw Auston’s post 👀

->Fan#2: They aren’t even trying to hide it

->Fan#3: fr the matching captions, the hearts being the leafs colors…might as well just tell us

Fan#4: I’m so happy that she’s happy!

Fan#5: I know that tattooed arm!!

Mitchmarner: Just move here already

->yourusername: Can I stay at your place?

->Mitchmarner: yeah you can sleep between Steph and I

->stephmarner: she’s actually taking your spot in our bed 🤷‍♀️

-> yourusername: say less…bags are packed

Fan#6: NOOO!!! It should be you and Harry!! If you ever loved him you would get back together

->Fan#7: Can people move on and accept reality like it’s so weird

->Fan#8: I loved her and Harry, but obviously it wasn’t meant to be and we can’t bash her for moving on with her life

Yourbff#1: It’s giving soft launch

Youbff#2: It’s giving my man my man my man

->yourusername: You two will always be my #1’s no matter what 💖

@AustonMatthews: Lover boy 😮‍💨

Load more comments…

Fan#1: Alexa play that should be me

->Fan#2: Idk who I want to be more Auston or (y/n)

->Fan#3: No bc you are so real for that

Fan#4: It has to be (y/n), she’s worn those sweats before during tour rehearsals

Fan#6: oh he’s down bad for her

->Morganrielly: horrendously bad

Mitchmarner: World’s biggest simp

->Fan#7: the confirmation we’re getting from all their friends in the comments is crazy 🤯

->Fan#8: no literally there was probably a pr meeting they were supposed to attend and obviously no one showed up 💀😭

Hater#1: this is gonna be terrible for his game, she’s just gonna be a distraction

->Fan#9: she literally has a whole life and career outside of him. Like she doesn’t even have the time to be a distraction

->Fan#10: she’s the best distraction to have

->Fan#11: tell me your a hater and desperate without telling me your a hater

Fan#12: Kinda random, but I love that their styles compliment each other

->Fan#13: I was thinking the same thing! I love the lowkey matching

Fan#14: I love that (y/n) was trying to be subtle and Auston was like “no I’m showing off my girl”

Fan#15: hand her back to @harrystyles

Multi-Grammy winning pop star, (y/f/n) (y/l/n) and NHL superstar, Auston Matthews have fans speculating (and fangirling) about a possible romance between the two. While we haven’t seen a picture of the two together, back and forth posts across social media platforms have fans suspecting there might be something more than friendship there.

It’s believed the two met through mutual friend, Justin Bieber. And while we don’t know exactly when it’s clear they started becoming closer at the beginning of this year, starting with the NHL all star games. (Y/n) attended the weekend in Toronto with friends to support Bieber who was a celebrity captain alongside Matthews.

The 7 Rings singer who has been on her world tour since the summer took a break before going overseas and seems to have spent a majority of that break in Toronto.

(Y/n) posted on her instagram story at a Toronto Maple Leafs game this past weekend as they took on the Edmonton Oilers at Scotiabank arena. One post in particular caught fans eyes. At first glance it’s simple enough, a glass of wine at the game, but fans focused on the fact that also featured in the picture was a fan in front of her with a Matthews jersey on, possible a tribute to her new relationship.

When asked about (y/l/n)’s attendance following his 2 point game, Mathew’s gave up very little info. “Yeah she decided to come to a game, but so did a few thousand other people.” Auston continued, “She’s an extremely popular celebrity who is insanely talented so I’m not surprised she received a lot of attention.”

He shut down further conversation about the pair’s relationship status by saying, “I’m not going to talk about my personal life. I know what you want me to say, but it’s not my place to speak for or about her without her permission.” When asked by another reporter if (y/l/n) reached out to him about his goals or the teams win he responded, “And that’s gonna wrap it up here” ending the press conference altogether.

Later in the week the two posted to Instagram within hours of each other and fans pointed out that many of the pictures are similar. (Y/n)’s post included a boat ride featuring the Toronto skyline. Auston was a little bit more bold as his post also included a boat ride with the Toronto skyline and kissing girl but her face can’t be seen. They also had similar captions with (y/n)’s being “lover girl” and Auston’s being “lover boy”.

While they are giving away very little, we along with the rest of the world are excited about this possibly new couple.

[thefangirlfever]

Stress Relief, part 2: 18+, Minors Do Not Interract (a Miguel O'hara fanfic)

Summary: When your boyfriend has to travel for his job, you both have to find an other way to relieve all the tension…

Tags: F/M, Smut, very self-indulgent, Use of toys, Sex phone, Masturbation (M/F), heavy dirty talk, established relationship, very horny, dicussion of aftercare

Word count: 4642

================================================

It was not often that Miguel had to travel for his work. But this week he had to. There was this huge conference in Toronto where he would meet a lot of specialists and renowned scientists, including some who could support his upcoming projects. This was an occasion he couldn’t miss, even if the thought of being away from you made him feel a bit melancholic. Unfortunately it wasn’t like he had a choice. He could tell you weren’t too happy about him leaving for a whole week, even if you did your best to hide it. To most people it would have seemed like you accepted the situation, but he knew you better after three years together.

That was why he was trying to not show too much enthusiasm about the conference, to not bum you.

« I wish they had chosen an other time for this. It must be freezing in Canada right now... », he grunted under his breath. He was just adding an other sweater inside his suitcase. The sight and the dedication he was putting into trying to hide his enthusiasm was pretty endearing and enough to make you look up from your book.

« Is it enough of a reason to pack 6 sweaters ? »

He didn’t miss your snicker and replied sheepishly: “He, you know me, I’m not made for cold weather…”

You hum in response and tried to look back at your book when your eyes catch the shape of a box wrapped in colorful wrapping paper. Despite having your interest piqued, you didn’t ask any question about it. But Miguel caught your curious gaze on the package and a wry smile crossed his lips:

“This is a little something I got for you, so you will be able to wait for me while I’m away…”

This time, you definitely closed your book and he was pleased to see that he had your full attention.

“Oh, what’s this?”

“Huh huh, I’m not telling you now. You’ll have to wait til I’m gone to know.”

He couldn’t help but smile at your small pout. His smile stayed on his face even when you started crawling toward him. Once your body stood in front of his with you on your knees on the bed and your arms wrapped around his shoulders, he could feel a familiar strain in his pants.

“Why?”

“Because…” He seemed to struggle finding his words when you looked at him this way, with your doe-eyes hidden underneath the thick curls of your lashes. “It won’t be a surprise anymore if I tell you now. And I want you to use it only once I’m gone.”

“Ah ah...It’s something I could use alone!” He mentally cursed himself forgiving you already a hint of what could be inside this package. “I wonder what could it be?” You may have asked this innocently but he didn’t miss the way one of your hands travel down his torso with your spread fingers taking in the enticing shapes hidden beneath his tight-fitting shirt.

Miguel gently grabbed your wrist and held it a few seconds, preventing you from moving any lower. But the hurt was already done. He was spotting a semi-hard tent inside his sweatpants, the outline clearly visible under the gray fabric. He shushed you gently while shaking his head:

“You’ll have to wait a bit more...Just one more day...”

No matter how much you would groan in irritation or pout, you knew he wouldn’t flinch and so you decided to let it go. You were about to turn back to your reading, adverting your body away from his when his hands found their usual place on your hips. You immediately stopped whatever move you were going to do and looked down at his fingers on your exposed midriff. Miguel nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck, not even bothering pushing away your hair. He was too eager to feel it against his face one last time before his departure, to immerse himself into its luxurious softness and intoxicating scent. His warm breath fanned over your skin, heightening every sensation on your already taut body.

“I’ll miss you… You know it, right?”

“And here I thought you were unaffected by this… You know it’s only for a week?” You may have teased him but you were also affected by his departure. It’s been the longest the two of you have been away since you moved in together. You wouldn’t consider yourself clingy but it would surely feel weird the first days, coming back home without finding him on the couch or in the kitchen, without finding his shoes already waiting for you in the hallway, and falling asleep alone…

“How could I be unaffected by this?” Miguel replies in a slightly raspier voice. His hands were moving to a more dangerous territory, making their way toward the curve of your buttocks. He knew this was only for a week and even if he was not clingy either, the idea of staying away form you this long seemed like an eternity.

“I don’t even know if I’ll be able to focus on my work with you so far away…” His words were punctuated by small pecks that he would pepper along the column of your neck down the smooth curve of your shoulder. His hips pressed urgently against yours in a pleading motion. Alone with you, in the intimacy of your room, he was unraveling into the needy mess he tried to hide outside.

“Please, Y/N...please…” You shushed him gently and pulled him closer to your body, feeling the depth of his desire against you.

“C’me here, sweetheart…” These were the last words you found yourself able to speak properly before a low groan escaped your lips and you both fell down the bed.

***

You knew that the hardest part of your day would be when you would have to come back home. Miguel had left the airport around 6 in the morning and has informed you of every step of his journey by messages, pictures and even voice mails. Coupled with your work, you didn’t realize that you were now alone and the fact only hit you when you get back at the apartment later that night.

The heavy silence inside the place was the only thing welcoming you while you slowly took your shoes off. Some of your friends had offered you to go out tonight, and even to move out for a whole week. It would be like a giant sleepover. But somehow this was not what you needed. Going out won’t bring Miguel back home sooner and you knew that you wouldn’t have been of any good company tonight.

At least, having the apartment all to yourself had some perks. This meant music playing freely around the place, taking a bath as long as you wanted to and the control remote for you alone. Miguel had assured you he had checked in his hotel approximately 8 hours ago. He also texted you the planning of the conferences and even through the texts you could sense his enthusiasm. In this situation it was hard to bring his mood down by telling him how lonely you felt tonight.

It as around your fourth glass of wine, or maybe was it the sixth, that you remembered the present he had left for you. The package had definitely picked your interest, especially since the shape of it didn’t let you have any idea of what could lay inside… Miguel did mention that it was something to occupy you during his journey, so you might as well unwrap it now.

You scurried to the dressed in your shared room, where he had left the package, your footsteps echoing trough the empty place. The package came with a small handwritten card. Only these cryptic words were written: “I hope you’ll have fun while waiting for me.”

A strange feeling started growing inside your gut, almost as if you could finally guess what he got you. No...that would be too unlikely. And how could he have bought something like this anyway?

Unless…

There was only way to know. You grabbed the box carefully and sat down the edge of the bed. As you kept unwrapping the present, the sensation down your stomach only amplified. Your heart was beating loud enough for you to feel it drum inside your ears.

What if this wasn’t this? Would you be disappointed?

When you finally lifted the lid of the box, there was no more room for doubt.

And clearly, you were not disappointed.

But saying you were surprised was an understatement.

There, nestled inside pink paper lied a...vibrator. Bright pink with ridges all along what was supposed to emulate a penis. The thing was clearly different from what you usually used. Most of the times you were drawn to more...discreet toys. No noise, no penetration needed, smaller...And there comes this thing with its obnoxious bright color, its large and thick base as well as its two ‘bunny ears’. By rule of thumb, you could tell the length wouldn’t be a problem. It looked almost as long as Miguel’s, around the same diameter...And it seemed to work with a battery. You pressed the ON button without any expectation and to your surprise, the toy started vibrating. The phallic shape almost seemed to rotate while the ‘bunny ears’ vibrated but that was not the only movement you noticed.

Your eyes opened slightly wider when you noticed the base of the toy...move. It seemed like under the pink silicone, something was shifting. Something like small...beads.

You quickly turned the toy off. It was hard to tell if your cheeks got flushed because of this or the drinks you got. With a small grunt you let yourself fall down the bed, the toy still in your hand.

This thing was not a toy, it was made to kill. Even if the attention was nice and you were the first one to advocate for the use of toys, you didn’t know how to feel about it. It was both different and very alike to what you were used to. One look at the phallic shape and you gulped loudly. Did you really see beads moving underneath the surface?

With a careful touch you let your finger trace the ridges over the smooth material, almost as if it was alive. Your index traced the shape of it and then slowly followed the ridges. They looked like small mountains with creases and valleys, creating a very...interesting relief. You kept mapping the toy with your slow touch until your finger pinched the edge of it, the tip if you would. Almost as a reflex, your thumb rubbed small circles over the squishy mushroom head. After a few seconds spent rubbing the silicon, you realized that you were biting your lower lip and waiting for something to happen. Something that wouldn’t come from a toy.

What was Miguel doing?

The thought stopped your movement and you rolled over the bed with a low groan. You were sure of it now, he did this on purpose. He specifically chose this toy among all the other ones just to torture you, to have you think about his cock while he was miles away and out of reach.

Just when you were thinking this, your phone vibrated; the sound reminding you of the toy in your hand with great embarrassment. The name on your screen made you immediately reply.

Y/N: What the hell is this?

It took only a couple of seconds for Miguel to send back a text. You could almost feel him smiling behind his keyboard.

M: Just something to help you relax. I’m glad you like it.

A few seconds later, you received an other text:

M: We’re talking about the same thing, right?

You immediately typed back:

Y/N: I don’t know. Are we talking about the monster you left on my dresser that strangely looks like your own cock?

M: I’m feeling flattered you think it looks alike.

You send back a deadpan emoji, to which he replied:

M: Sorry for being cock-y. But seriously...do you like it?

Y/N: Don’t know, haven’t tested it out yet.(please, stop making puns)

You had to wait a bit longer to get an other reply. Maybe he had fallen asleep? Or maybe you went too far and he felt awkward about all of this? You were not expecting the next message you got.

M: I can change it again if you don’t like it this way.

Y/N: What do you mean ‘change it again’?

M: I may or may not have added some details into this toy… Have you seen the beads?

You looked back at the thick base and replied with a growing heat in your cheeks:

Y/N: They’re kinda hard to miss.

M: Well, I added them myself. If it bothers you, I can add, or remove some of the details on it. Nothing is more important than your comfort.

You couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on your face at his words.

Y/N: So, what you’re telling me is that one of the most brilliants engineer in the whole country spend his free time to upgrade some vibrator?

M: I know it will be worth it.

Y/N: Do you?

You hadn’t realized it yet but you were lying down the bed, fully relaxed now and something told you that Miguel was doing the same. It was almost like these times when you would both chat together until you fell into sleep out of exhaustion.

M: Yeah. Just imagining you using it was already worth the time spent working on this.

The sheer time and energy he spent working on this project made the attention even sweeter. You couldn’t deny it any longer. You would have loved any present coming from Miguel, no matter what it was. But the idea of something he crafted itself made it even more endearing.

Y/N: Thanks for the present, it was really sweet of you.

Y/N: So… you’ve been thinking about me using it?

The reply came quicker this time. He is so predictable sometimes.

M: Not gonna lie, it’s been hard focusing today, knowing you could be using it at any time of the day.

M: That’s exactly why I chose this one. I could picture you using it almost immediately.

The chat was clearly diving into more risky territory. Not that you complained. You could definitely use some relaxing time after that stressful day. Your free hand was already resting on your hip and your eyes darted between your phone screen and the vibrator.

Y/N: Shouldn’t you already be asleep?

M: It’d be hard to sleep in my condition right now…

You sent back a line of question marks, to which he replied with a simple picture. The pic was taken in the mirror of his hotel room. Miguel was sitting at the edge of the bed, manspreading, shirtless, in his gray sweats, the shape of a very noticeable erection outlined by the light of the room.

Okay. If you had any more doubt about his intentions, it was now fully clear.

Y/N: That was very subtle of you.

M: You’re really trying to talk about subtlety after seeing your present?

Y/N: Fair enough.

You couldn’t help but look back at the picture he sent you, zooming in on some details. And the lingering heat in your stomach didn’t go away. On the contrary it only seemed to get more insistent.

Y/N: I gotta say, your room looks nice.

M: Are you really looking at the decoration?

Y/N: No.

A small pause. Three dots moving on the screen. And finally you got an other message.

M: I missed you, you know. I wish you were here. No, I wish I was with you, no matter where.

Your heart skipped a small beat at his confession and you tried to quickly compose yourself, despite the fact that you were...alone, with no one to see the flustered, and horny mess you were turning into. Your eyes fell back onto the shape of the toy and you couldn’t get the image of the beads out of your mind this time.

Your silence didn’t seem to deter Miguel. At this point you were sure nothing would stop him.

M: The things I would do to you if you were here.

M: Just wait till I get home…

You clenched your thighs almost as in a reflexive move. You had no trouble imagining what he would do if he was here.

Y/N: I don’t know if I’ll be able to wait til then.

M: Me neither.

The solution to this problem was obvious, so obvious in fact that none of you seemed to want to admit it. Your eyes darted between the toy and the dial button on the phone. You had never tried this before. Sure you have already send each other some pictures but nothing like this… What if you assumed wrongly his attentions? What if he wasn’t comfortable enough to do this?

Miguel took you out of your reflections with a simple message:

M: Can I call you now?

Your only response was to press on the dial button. He only replied after one ring. His face and shoulders soon filled out the screen. He was still shirtless and you could tell he had recently washed his hair by the way the strands stick to his neck. A small minute of silence filled the space while you observed each other with almost shy smiles. Finally a soft chuckle from Miguel’s side broke the tension.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“Are you currently wearing my shirt?”

You looked down and replied with a shrug: “I just took the first thing I saw…”

“Sure…” Miguel was by no mean fooled by your answer but he hummed in amusement. It’s not like he would complain. He liked the view of you, drowned in the oversize piece of clothe, with your thighs bare and one of your shoulders exposed. His eyes followed the curves and hollows of your collarbones before locking on the small mole at the crook of your neck. He could almost taste it under his lips, how warm and smooth you felt, the rich and salty taste of your skin, your perfume pricking his nose… The strain in his pants became harder to ignore by the minute and you could see him shift over the bed, trying to adjust as best as possible.

“So...what were we talking about already?” You asked as an attempt to bring the conversation further from your very light outfit. A wry smile curled up Miguel’s lips: “If I recall correctly, we were talking about the things I would do to you if you were here…”

“Oh right…”

It was your time to shift slightly over the bed, your thighs rubbing against one another, trying to ease the throbbing ache between your legs.

“And what would you do exactly?”

Even though he took a moment to think about it, it was clear he knew exactly the answer to this question. In fact he fantasized about it all day.

“Well, first of all...I would get you out of this shirt, no matter how cute you look inside it…”

You hummed softly, your breath a bit shorter as you visualized his hands pulling up your shirt like he did so many times in the past.

“And then?” Your fingers shifted toward the hem of the said shirt without you even thinking about it.

Miguel seemed like he was struggling to speak, as if his whole mouth had suddenly gone dry. He slowly licked his lips and the sight made your fingers press lightly against the fabric of your panties.

“I would...kiss you. Everywhere.” This sounded both like a threat and a promise and you had to stifle a gasp. You pursed your lips tightly and pressed your fingers harder against the fabric. Warmth oozed from between your thighs. You finally nodded as a sign that you heard him.

Miguel was feeling his heart beating faster and the lump inside his throat getting thicker. The sight of you visibly turned-on, your eyes glazed with lust and your eyelids heavy...it stirred something inside him, something that left him almost breathless. He could also picture your naked body, free of the shirt and the could imagine how the skin would break into goosebumps, how you would shiver against him before arching yourself under his touch.

His own hand dropped lower down his body.

“I would...do things to you…”, his shorter breath was indicating that he had also succumbed, just the way you did. He was palming himself through the fabric of his sweatpants, imagining these were your hands making him feel good, feeling his warmth, his arousal, his sensitivity…

“Yeah...me too…” Your reply was everything he could dream of and more. Emboldened, his hand cupped his erection and he felt his eyes roll back. The simple gesture sent a shot of arousal straight to the rest of his body.

“Like what?”

“I would...touch you, kiss you too...remove your pants, get on my knees…”

Every word you uttered was like a straight punch to his gut. At this point, his pants were of no use. The tent created by his engorged member was indecent and so he slipped them down his thighs, freeing his already leaky cock. You couldn’t see it, but the sound of ruffled fabric helped your imagination fill the blanks.

“You saw that mirror in my room? I would have you there, sitting on the bed with your legs spread f’me...right in front of that mirror and I would...I would eat you out. I would let you watch for yourself…”

The vivid image he depicted appeared clear as day in your mind. You couldn’t hold back any longer and you slipped your hand under the cotton of your underwear. You were already wet without any surprise. Your fingers tangled for a few seconds with the soaked curls of your pubic hair before your found the source of your heat. You slowly traced your lips and a small moan escaped your lips.

Miguel’s ears perked up at the sound and he muttered in a low gruff: “That’s it, let me hear these pretty sounds, baby… You’d like that, huh? For me to take you in front of a mirror, like we did last time?”

You could only nod your head while you slipped a first, careful finger inside your core. Your walls clenched around...nothing, or at least not as much as what you needed. You quickly had to add an other finger, motivated by the voice of Miguel in the background. It felt like he was whispering straight into your ear with this sultry tone of his.

“...what if we changed the rules this time? I’d get you on all four and took you from behind. What’ya think, honey? You’d like to see that? How cute of a mess would you be?”

A total mess. You would be a total mess as he would ram into you, making you cry out his name backshots after backshots while supporting your with his arms alone. Your thumb circled around your clitoris and you gasped. Your whole body jolted and a low whimper left Miguel’s lips.

“Please, let me see you, angel...I want to see you…” His whole face was flushed with heat, his luscious lips parted as he breathed harder and his tousled hair falling over his forehead. He was a sight to see, but so do you. He couldn’t care less about his image or how needy he might look.

You pulled your panties down and adjusted the camera to give him a good view of your pussy. An other moan breached the barrier of his restraint and this time his voice cracked slightly as he begged you: “Let me hear these pretty moans… Show me your face again…”

You adverted the camera and after a micro-second of hesitation, you grabbed the vibrator, turned it on and placed it against your entrance. The sound made Miguel’s breath even more labored, as much as his gaze toward you was adoring.

“Such a pretty thing...You know how crazy you drive me when you take care of yourself, honey? When you look so lost in pleasure that the rest of the world doesn’t exist?”

“Yes…” This was both an answer and a small cry of pleasure as the head of the toy penetrated your slick entrance. It stretched you out deliciously, almost as perfectly as Miguel.

“There’s some lube in the box too…”, Miguel informed you and indeed, you found a bottle of lube down the pink paper. You groaned as you sprayed the liquid over the phallic shape and muttered:

“What would I do without you?”

He was visibly too busy to reply to you with anything else than a pathetic whimper. This time, you managed to slide the toy more easily and you could them...the small beads under the silicon surface. They were moving at the same pace than the head, massaging your swollen lips, stimulating you in a way that felt both new and mind-blowing. Combined with the massage of the ‘bunny ears’, this was too much for you to stay quiet. Miguel seemed to find his own pleasure in your high-pitched whimpers and the way you tossed around the bed. His mind was getting lost in a lustful haze, both nourished by your voice and the images in his mind. The most vivid of them consisted of you, on your knees sucking him off while the toy would pump faster inside you. And in the middle of this moment, he had a flash of lucidity, if you can call it that. He needed to design something to control the toy at distance, like a remote… The thought of you squirming under his eyes while he would control every movement and pulse of the toy was making him almost delirious. No matter how hard he was trying to edge himself, to show some restraint, he could feel his palm getting slicker, warmer… It was only a question of time before he lost it.

Watching you move was like looking at a picture in motion. The way your brows rose with every new inflection of your voice, how you whisper his name among many words he could barely make out, how he could easily imagine that you were getting heated from the pink hue on your cheeks, the sight of your plush lips swollen from your biting…

So, when you came, he was unable to look away.

Your walls clenched around the toy as your clit plead for mercy, all red and sensitive from the stimulation. He wasn’t any better himself and he was panting like an animal when the first drops of his semen started staining the sheets underneath him.

The buzz of the vibrator stopped and you both found yourself silent as the realization of what you just did hit you. After a small minute, this was again Miguel’s laugh that broke the tension. He was lying on this side, holding his phone with one hand, the remain of his orgasm visible on his lower stomach. It may have felt good, very good, but he missed the feeling of your skin after the moment, of your scent, the small comforting ritual you both had after sex… And so did you.

“Hey…”

You soft voice caught his attention. His eyes looked almost feverish as he looked back at you.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

Maybe it was his eyes playing tricks on him but it looked like you were almost glowing after this moment. No. You were definitely glowing.

“Thanks for the present.”

A large smile lit up his face as he replied: “You’re welcome, love.”

==============================================

Taglist: Thanks to @safixiovi for pointing out the idea of Miguel making his own toy for his partner.

And thanks to anyone who read, commented and reblogged the first part 🌻. There will definitely be a third part👀

Notes: Waiting for a sex-toy brand to sponsor these stories.

< Part 1 / Part 3 >

My Masterlist

[lukola4evs]

So here’s my theory (subject to change)

Mom and Dad always had a soft spot for each other or “kind eyes” but could never act on it since 2019

L always referring Ross and Rachel etc.

They’ve always been friends, he ask N for advice on J etc. and even in season 1 or 2 promo (zooms she did) she was tearing up seeing her friend asks her questions.

Season 3 they dive in and get super emotionally connected.

Season 3 they fall in love as polin but also fall in love to the point where the blurred lines definitely have J/L break up.

Timeline during filming

Block 3 filming, episode 5/6 emotional mess so to speak if you catch my drift. J/L breakup nov/dec

Block 4 filming episode 7/8, flirty on set but no definite name to it.

Episode 8 riding scene (all lukola) and production could tell so that’s why we get montage cut.

But they are so bf/gf coded here

Liz (ic) gives them steps to walk away and make sure it’s real and they are distant but they do check in and they’re still in lurve with Photo Booth pic.

So N makes decision for them to walk away because Liz but also since she’s a jaded guarded Capricorn she needs to make sure it’s real for her and not just feelings from pen since it’s “such a profound experience”

L does hbs and parties his feelings away,

N and L post thirst traps for each other on ig last year. I’ll post pics later but she did one from New York and he did shirtless pics from R ig. (You don’t have to follow publicly to keep tabs)

They come back for reshoots dec ‘23 and they back at it like they meant to be but N still doesn’t let anything happen because polin 🙄

On March 2nd, 2024 N likes that zendaya posts saying about being an actor and falling in love with your costar.

Then press tour heats up. Back and forth messages hidden in promo (Ive rewatched 50 videos and the things you catch 2nd time around is crazy)

Now press tour - it was fun until Brazil and L only told N it was completely casual with A and not to worry about it.

They allowed themselves to fully soak up in each others energy because they are doing press as them. Not the characters. So they now know it’s not just an on set thing. Fucking Finally.

N ditched her side piece expecting L to do the same and he tells her he will, they love up some way or talk about feelings all Brazil, Toronto, Ireland, and part of london.

L is nervous af knowing a’s going to London premier and didn’t tell N outright. So in all london interviews he’s reaching out constantly to n (not only because he wants to now but because he’s worried whatever he and a have planned with his team is gonna be like a 💣 to N)

N ever the skeptic can since his bs (or maybe his lack of vulnerability when they were with her family) and eases back emotionally when she remembers too

London promo always throws me off part of the way. (Deliberately calling him bud - downplay what they have if he’s not gonna be serious or talking about showers to incite jealousy?)

But she can’t help when we see the 😍 either.

Pap pics drop she’s pissed next day. Post satc tt to be a bit vindictive

Lets it stay up for 24 hours.

L or someone reaches out and she makes the lukey newts fan club pr post.

Then for the first 6-7 days after it’s like they have coordinated posting. Always liking in 15 minutes or whatever.

Then in addition to this she lets the Polaroid be seen at ts to let us know it’s all good between them to the ga and shippers.

Fast forward to Wimbledon we see enough of the Polaroid to let us all on x know it’s a different one. And if we know it’s different from computer screens then so does L. Remember by now we know his notifs are on.

He’s got adhd and best believe when his love of his life is icing him out he’s gonna hyper fixate on everything he knows. Including a phone case he’s stared at for ages and constantly liking her stuff first thing when he wakes up.

Now n is icing him out, giving herself some time to do her and work.

Didn’t @ him on latest amazing thank you all posts which is usually her m.o. she tagged the pic but not in the captions is what I mean.

When they reunite after he deals with a he’s gonna have to make amends because Istg I know they are end game but I feel like he told her it was gonna be one way when it went sideways on her outta nowhere (she left after party super early even for having work next day)

Like he’s such a ppl pleaser the minute he got back with his friends he or someone decided that life isn’t his regular life and went back to friend group ways.

Posting more tomorrow. Didn’t realize this was so long.

LOVE x

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The real AI fight

Tonight (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

Last week's spectacular OpenAI soap-opera hijacked the attention of millions of normal, productive people and nonsensually crammed them full of the fine details of the debate between "Effective Altruism" (doomers) and "Effective Accelerationism" (AKA e/acc), a genuinely absurd debate that was allegedly at the center of the drama.

Very broadly speaking: the Effective Altruists are doomers, who believe that Large Language Models (AKA "spicy autocomplete") will someday become so advanced that it could wake up and annihilate or enslave the human race. To prevent this, we need to employ "AI Safety" – measures that will turn superintelligence into a servant or a partner, nor an adversary.

Contrast this with the Effective Accelerationists, who also believe that LLMs will someday become superintelligences with the potential to annihilate or enslave humanity – but they nevertheless advocate for faster AI development, with fewer "safety" measures, in order to produce an "upward spiral" in the "techno-capital machine."

Once-and-future OpenAI CEO Altman is said to be an accelerationists who was forced out of the company by the Altruists, who were subsequently bested, ousted, and replaced by Larry fucking Summers. This, we're told, is the ideological battle over AI: should cautiously progress our LLMs into superintelligences with safety in mind, or go full speed ahead and trust to market forces to tame and harness the superintelligences to come?

This "AI debate" is pretty stupid, proceeding as it does from the foregone conclusion that adding compute power and data to the next-word-predictor program will eventually create a conscious being, which will then inevitably become a superbeing. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding faster and faster horses, we'll get a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As Molly White writes, this isn't much of a debate. The "two sides" of this debate are as similar as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Yes, they're arrayed against each other in battle, so furious with each other that they're tearing their hair out. But for people who don't take any of this mystical nonsense about spontaneous consciousness arising from applied statistics seriously, these two sides are nearly indistinguishable, sharing as they do this extremely weird belief. The fact that they've split into warring factions on its particulars is less important than their unified belief in the certain coming of the paperclip-maximizing apocalypse:

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/effective-obfuscation

White points out that there's another, much more distinct side in this AI debate – as different and distant from Dee and Dum as a Beamish Boy and a Jabberwork. This is the side of AI Ethics – the side that worries about "today’s issues of ghost labor, algorithmic bias, and erosion of the rights of artists and others." As White says, shifting the debate to existential risk from a future, hypothetical superintelligence "is incredibly convenient for the powerful individuals and companies who stand to profit from AI."

After all, both sides plan to make money selling AI tools to corporations, whose track record in deploying algorithmic "decision support" systems and other AI-based automation is pretty poor – like the claims-evaluation engine that Cigna uses to deny insurance claims:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

On a graph that plots the various positions on AI, the two groups of weirdos who disagree about how to create the inevitable superintelligence are effectively standing on the same spot, and the people who worry about the actual way that AI harms actual people right now are about a million miles away from that spot.

There's that old programmer joke, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't." But of course, that joke could just as well be, "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't understand either":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/11/the-ten-types-of-people/

What's more, the joke could be, "there are 10 kinds of people, those who understand hexadecenary, those who understand pentadecenary, those who understand tetradecenary [und so weiter] those who understand ternary, those who understand binary, and those who don't." That is to say, a "polarized" debate often has people who hold positions so far from the ones everyone is talking about that those belligerents' concerns are basically indistinguishable from one another.

The act of identifying these distant positions is a radical opening up of possibilities. Take the indigenous philosopher chief Red Jacket's response to the Christian missionaries who sought permission to proselytize to Red Jacket's people:

https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5790/

Red Jacket's whole rebuttal is a superb dunk, but it gets especially interesting where he points to the sectarian differences among Christians as evidence against the missionary's claim to having a single true faith, and in favor of the idea that his own people's traditional faith could be co-equal among Christian doctrines.

The split that White identifies isn't a split about whether AI tools can be useful. Plenty of us AI skeptics are happy to stipulate that there are good uses for AI. For example, I'm 100% in favor of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group using an LLM to classify and extract information from the Innocence Project New Orleans' wrongful conviction case files:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

Automating "extracting officer information from documents – specifically, the officer's name and the role the officer played in the wrongful conviction" was a key step to freeing innocent people from prison, and an LLM allowed HRDAG – a tiny, cash-strapped, excellent nonprofit – to make a giant leap forward in a vital project. I'm a donor to HRDAG and you should donate to them too:

https://hrdag.networkforgood.com/

Good data-analysis is key to addressing many of our thorniest, most pressing problems. As Ben Goldacre recounts in his inaugural Oxford lecture, it is both possible and desirable to build ethical, privacy-preserving systems for analyzing the most sensitive personal data (NHS patient records) that yield scores of solid, ground-breaking medical and scientific insights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eaV8SWdjQ

The difference between this kind of work – HRDAG's exoneration work and Goldacre's medical research – and the approach that OpenAI and its competitors take boils down to how they treat humans. The former treats all humans as worthy of respect and consideration. The latter treats humans as instruments – for profit in the short term, and for creating a hypothetical superintelligence in the (very) long term.

As Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax reminds us, this is the root of all sin: "sin is when you treat people like things":

https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2009/02/granny-weatherwax-on-sin-favorite.html

So much of the criticism of AI misses this distinction – instead, this criticism starts by accepting the self-serving marketing claim of the "AI safety" crowd – that their software is on the verge of becoming self-aware, and is thus valuable, a good investment, and a good product to purchase. This is Lee Vinsel's "Criti-Hype": "taking press releases from startups and covering them with hellscapes":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Criti-hype and AI were made for each other. Emily M Bender is a tireless cataloger of criti-hypeists, like the newspaper reporters who breathlessly repeat " completely unsubstantiated claims (marketing)…sourced to Altman":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464030855880383

Bender, like White, is at pains to point out that the real debate isn't doomers vs accelerationists. That's just "billionaires throwing money at the hope of bringing about the speculative fiction stories they grew up reading – and philosophers and others feeling important by dressing these same silly ideas up in fancy words":

https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/111464024432217299

All of this is just a distraction from real and important scientific questions about how (and whether) to make automation tools that steer clear of Granny Weatherwax's sin of "treating people like things." Bender – a computational linguist – isn't a reactionary who hates automation for its own sake. On Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 – the excellent podcast she co-hosts with Alex Hanna – there is a machine-generated transcript:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417

There is a serious, meaty debate to be had about the costs and possibilities of different forms of automation. But the superintelligence true-believers and their criti-hyping critics keep dragging us away from these important questions and into fanciful and pointless discussions of whether and how to appease the godlike computers we will create when we disassemble the solar system and turn it into computronium.

The question of machine intelligence isn't intrinsically unserious. As a materialist, I believe that whatever makes me "me" is the result of the physics and chemistry of processes inside and around my body. My disbelief in the existence of a soul means that I'm prepared to think that it might be possible for something made by humans to replicate something like whatever process makes me "me."

Ironically, the AI doomers and accelerationists claim that they, too, are materialists – and that's why they're so consumed with the idea of machine superintelligence. But it's precisely because I'm a materialist that I understand these hypotheticals about self-aware software are less important and less urgent than the material lives of people today.

It's because I'm a materialist that my primary concerns about AI are things like the climate impact of AI data-centers and the human impact of biased, opaque, incompetent and unfit algorithmic systems – not science fiction-inspired, self-induced panics over the human race being enslaved by our robot overlords.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en