#it'll only harm beings for EXPERIENCING AN ATTRACTION

[weirdnerdygoat]

i grew too pissed at all the anti-MAP posts

so reminder that this blog supports MAPs (minor attracted people) !!!

Being minor-attracted does NOT mean that someone wants to sexually abuse children. Most MAPs wouldn't ever want to actually have romantic/sexual contact with a child, and they're allowed to not live in fucking shame for their THOUGHTS and FEELINGS.

attraction =/= abuse

If you're anti-MAP, please rethink your stance and consider what MAPs actually are

and if any MAPs see this, I'm wishing you a very lovely day :3

[radinclus-not-radqueer]

On "consensual incest"

PT: On "consensual incest" END PT

I know I said this wouldn't be an education account, but as this affected me personally and is something other anti-radqueers struggle to argue against, I decided to briefly explain why "consensual incest" is a lie and how it's almost always harmful.

Let's start this out by explaining that, when you're being hurt, you often don't notice it. Any abuse or grooming victim can tell you that when you're currently being abused, you usually don't recognize it. Even if you do recognize that something is wrong, you convince yourself that it is either normal/it'll get better soon or it's entirely your fault. An abuser rarely ever directly states "I'm abusing you" (and when they do, it's often a sarcastic joke made to make the victim think they're imagining it).

When you're a minor being abused by a family member who lives with you, it is nearly impossible to leave. Because of this, your brain tries to convince you that everything is fine because you have no other option besides staying. On top of this, abusers often follow up abuse with love, gifts, and apologies, pretending that they're going to change and that it actually wasn't that bad. This further manipulates the victim into believing everything is actually just fine - and when you can't physically leave your abuser, your brain is already trying to latch onto anything to make it seem better.

People who support "consensual incest" are probably already skeptical of this because I keep talking about abuse - however, there have been many, many studies that incestual relationships badly affect your mental health and traumatize you.

According to this study in 1983, incest victims are much more prone to drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and intense guilt, and are also at an increased risk of marital problems and abusing their children. It also states that victims will usually have PTSD, which will worsen if they don't receive help.

In this study from 1992, victims of incest were shown to have much higher rates of anxiety, depression, phobias, PTSD, and alcohol addiction.

In this article from 2018, it states that survivors of incest are more likely to report feeling depressed and psychologically damaged than survivors of other types of sexual abuse. They are also more likely to be shamed and shunned when they try to go to others for help.

There are many, many more studies and articles explaining the same thing. If you google "stories from survivors of incest", you can find many stories from people who went through this type of abuse.

You can say that everything is actually fine and you're in a happy, healthy relationship, but as I explained above, it may seem like that, but it is often not the case. If you believe that your partner is an amazing person and would never do that to you: your partner is most likely lying to you. You are probably experiencing love bombing - where an abuser tries to act all sorry and loving to keep their victim trapped in the relationship.

Many victims of incest report that they convinced themselves everything was fine. Ex-radqueer victims (including myself) have, time and time again, talked about how they were encouraged to stay quiet about their abuse because it was "consensual" and they were only grossed out because it's "stigmatized".

I was manipulated by radqueers into pursuing a relationship with my sibling. My sibling and I have always been best friends, partially because we've both been through a lot of abuse and trauma from family members. Because of the abuse I went through, I felt incestual attraction towards my sibling as a trauma response. I was in the radqueer community at the time.

People in the radqueer community offered no help. All they did was tell me that I was an example of how people who went through incest-related trauma can still support and be in happy "consang" relationships. They told me to pursue a relationship with my sibling, because that was just what being radqueer was all about.

My sibling and I briefly dated for a few weeks. I was sent to a mental hospital due to several suicide attempts. While staying at the mental hospital, I realized how awful the community was, and I realized how badly being in an incestual relationship was affecting me. I'd tried to normalize and rationalize everything in my mind, I'd tried to see the best in everyone and do my research before supporting things, but the radqueer and "pro-consang" communities had taken advantage of that and used it to turn me into a living proship fanfic.

We both consented. We both desired a relationship. Neither of us intentionally abused each other. Despite that, we both have trauma from it and may never recover.

I'm in therapy now, and I'm recovering, so don't worry about me. Worry about the young, traumatized kids in the radqueer community who are being manipulated into accepting abuse as "consensual" and "normal". After everything I've typed up here, I think it's as clear as can be that nothing about incest can ever be consensual.

[magnuficent76]

And and. Grrr also 🖊!!! For Jonah/Mephistos brother I know who that is but my brain. GRR I just woke up and tumblrs search is so shitty I can't find him but you know who I'm talking about!! Was in that writing that tore up my soul. Talk about that one more!

YES I DO AND THAT IS NONE OTHER THAN

MR BASTARD BOY HIMSELF ! ARCHER :D !

A man overtaken by greed, by the need to be bigger and better tham everyone else, Archer Caede is not a man who you would trust with your life, but you'll probably still trust him with your money. Everyone is just another pawn in his mind, but he fails to realize he too is attached to strings.

Brother package deal along with Jonah ! A resident of Pandora who always craved a life better than this hunk of intergalactic trash, but who really didn't have many opportunities to get away without leaving behind what he had. Unfortunately, he is burdened by sentimentality. A big flaw in a man of ambition, but hey, he won't have to worry about it too hard after a while. Not too smart on numbers or very skilled with guns, but an absolute madman with words. He can convince anyone of anything and he'll still make it sound like they're the ones coming out on top. Manipulation doesn't even begin to cover what this man does for fun. Its also the only reason why he keeps calling himself straight [SLASH J]

Lawful evil and I mean that. Has never broken a single law by virtue of just being really really good at making what he does (stealing) sound noble ("taking away resources from bandits locally as to reduce the harm they do in our communities"). He will fight with every banned trick in the book if he has to because he knows otherwise his ass would not make it out of the fight without an (even more) broken nose. He's perfectly content swiping the rug from under people's feet when they're no longer of his use because he's TERRIFIED of the possibility they may turn on him first, and he knows he wouldn't survive if that happened. He's very weak (in his own words) and because of that, everything is just an opportunity to keep surviving, everything is just another thing that is out to get you at all times. Unmedicated OCD king.

Archer is a very, very deep in the closet gay man who has literally never accepted or even tried experimenting with his sexuality once before because his mask is made out of paper and he's scared if he breathes a little too hard it'll melt and reveal the "shameful" version of himself. He struggles actually being himself because the real version of him is not marketable, and that's all he sees himself as: A Product, the face of a brand. This just keeps getting intensified as he goes with Maliwan, whose whole company premise is "be as marketable as physically possible or else you're useless". Which is also why he comes to really hate his brother too. "Why can you be yourself without having to worry about what other people expect. That's not fucking fair" he says, as he keeps worrying about what other people expect even though he could just not. Meanwhile Jonah is just bisexualing about. Like some kind of wizard.

Despite this he still falls in love extremely fast. He doesn't know what proper intimacy feels like so he just latches onto the first person to give him attention and thinks that is what being in love is supposed to be, so often times he ends up scaring people away because it comes off as... very very very intense. He just wants to distract himself from the reality but reality doesn't hold back very much !

Look at him and his brother together <3

He is soooo normal around a certain someone from his office. Totally not experiencing first hand what obsession feels like. This guy's super, incredibly, very normal about attraction to other men. You can trust this man, as an employer, around your son, who is his superior. He is so normal.

[Turns out he's actually not]

[corcnaiism]

REPOST and rate your muse's traits out of 10 in each category !

noctis ( modern vers. )

COMPASSION — 7 / 10. ( he's very compassionate towards those he cares about and sometimes randos, but not so much those that've done him harm directly or indirectly )

BITTERNESS — 7 / 10. ( he hates everyone and the world except a few selected and his music )

HAPPINESS — 7 / 10. ( he can be happier but either refuses to or life doesn't want him to )

POLITENESS — 7 / 10. ( treat people the way you want to be treated and sometimes he just has to mistreat others against his will )

MORALITY — 7 / 10. ( he knows what's right and what's wrong but having been stuck in his home for years makes him want to explore the world in indecent ways just to feel alive )

CHIVALRY — 7 / 10. ( following the golden rule )

PRIDE — 10 / 10. ( it'll be the death of him )

HONESTY — 5 / 10. ( mf def be hiding something at all times )

BRAVERY — 10 / 10. ( he's brave and stupid )

RECKLESSNESS — 10 / 10. ( the living definition of 'fuck it we ball' )

AMBITION — 10 / 10. ( his music and bashing someone's face in if he thinks they deserve it with corresponding evidence; he's not a monster )

LOYALTY — 10 / 10. ( mf would die for his homies )

LOVE — 10 / 10. ( again, mf would die for his homies )

SENSE OF FAMILY — 10 / 10. ( even tho he doesn't say it, but his dad is very important to him just as all the maids and caretakers that have raised him since he was a baby. luna def counts as his big sister and his boyfriends too most def are family. and i'll say it again, HE WOULD DIE FOR HIS HOMIES )

ATTRACTIVENESS — 10 / 10 ( people hate his guts but can't deny he's pretty to look at )

AGILITY — 8 / 10. ( the more fights he's in, the more experienced he'll get )

SEX DRIVE — 8 / 10. ( sex is hot but so is the meaningfulness behind a relationship, platonic or romantic )

prompto ( modern vers. )

COMPASSION — 10 / 10. ( he's a sweetheart )

BITTERNESS — 3 / 10. ( honestly, the bitterness he has is towards himself and those who hurt those his loves )

HAPPINESS — 6 / 10. ( he's very happy being in a better home than before but still struggles with his own inner demons )

POLITENESS — 10 / 10. ( yes, he's a sweetheart )

MORALITY — 7 / 10. ( growing up in a fucked up broken home, he's a little torn between what is right and what's wrong sometimes, but he does his best to do what's right )

CHIVALRY — 10 / 10. ( SWEETHEART )

PRIDE — 5 / 10. ( he doesn't have much confidence in himself )

HONESTY — 7 / 10. ( he does his best to be honest with those close to him but there come those white lies every now and then and also moments when he feels like the truth is better kept hidden until it spills out or the right timing arrives )

BRAVERY — 7 / 10. ( he's only brave in situations when he has to protect those he cares about )

RECKLESSNESS — 7 / 10. ( normally, he's reckless bc noctis is a bad influence on him and/or he has to be reckless in order to protect someone )

AMBITION — 10 / 10. ( his music is very important to him just as his job even tho he is living with one of the most wealthiest people around. but he doesn't want to freeload and works really hard with everything that he does )

LOYALTY — 10 / 10. ( he'd do the same as noctis and die for his homies )

LOVE — 10 / 10. ( yes, he would die for his homies )

SENSE OF FAMILY — 10 / 10. ( with a better home and better people around him nowadays, his sense of family is much stronger than it was before where he now understands and is a part of something more than just himself. he doesn't have to worry about being alone anymore and that means the world to him )

ATTRACTIVENESS — 10 / 10 ( he's a cutie patootie )

AGILITY — 7 / 10. ( it's not the best, but it's enough )

SEX DRIVE — 6 / 10. ( he gets more turned on by affection than sex tbh )

tagged: stole it

tagging: you you you !!

[gruesomejack]

Naughty Canons || Henry

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

- cuddly :3c Henry likes to keep touching and bury his face in his partner's neck. He's definitely the type to put off showering until the next day bc he wants to stay in bed and just,,, be with them

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

- He's pretty happy about his arms! He's strong and gives good hugs and can lift pretty well. On other people, he tends to notice smiles first and then he goes for the butt 😔👌

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically)

- Ehhh??? He's not outright like,, obsessed? But he does think it's hot bc,, yanno getting someone else off is sexy.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

- HONESTLY HE'S PRETTY VANILLA. The first thing that came to mind was masturbating to a priest and yanno,,, sdhcgvxffFHXGC "Fuck I'm going to Hell, but,,,, Jonah :)"

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

- He's had sex with one person, but multiple times??? So like he's not new to the concept.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying.)

- Forking bnzvvZgbcgbv

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

- he's definitely humorous and giggly! He's like a mushy teddy bear who can't stop smiling

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

- Fuzzy!!! He's soft and fuzzy. Groomed and yanno clean, but definitely not hairless.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…) 

- Mushy and soft 😔❤

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

- He's one of those guys who like,,, if he's struggling to sleep, he'll rub one out and it'll knock him out for the night LMAO

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

- mild humiliation? only if it's in the bedroom and paired with praises as well-- Basically talk him up and coach him.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

- okay,,, picnic sex. Like lunchdate near the creek on a blanket getting frisky

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

- a strong presence. dirty talk? also like,, gentle teasing. Like brush along his thighs, kiss behind his ears. Just hint at him and it'll get him going.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

- Hurting his partners? He's definitely not the one to give a paddle or a whip. He'll refuse.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

- Oh he doesn't mind either way!

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

- He likes to take his time 😌

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

- HELL yeah. Like sometimes quickies can be super fun depending on when and why.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

- You can convince him as long as he's not causing anyone harm.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

- LMAO he gets sleepy after one, but could probably last two

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

- Yeah. He's never been with another man despite being attracted to them, so he's filled the void with toys a few times.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

- Casually. He's too easily manipulated into spoiling his partners LMAO

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

- Soft panting and throaty moans?? Also if he forgets his hearing aid, he can get a little loud bc he can't hear himself

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon)

- BOTTOM ENERGY. He's a switch hitter, but remember when I said he's easily manipulated? He's terribly good at being a bottom

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

- ehhh?? Like 5 1/2" 6"? Thicker towards the base?

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

- Average-Low. He's on antidepressants and they keep him a little below average.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

- LMAO WITHIN AN HOUR.

[psychologeek-blog1]

A to Z of Human Emotions

Let’s do a quick test: list every emotion you can recall without searching anywhere or asking anyone.

You ready? Go.

I’ll wait.

…

How many words did you come up with? 4? 8? 10? More than that?

Every day, you experience a wide range of emotions you aren’t even aware of (yes, even as an adult). Recognizing different types of emotions and facial expressions build up your emotional intelligence which is the key skill you need to thrive in the world.

(GIF by JosepBernaus on Dribbble)

In this post, I’ll give you an A to Z of of emotion vocabularies. You’ll find some of words from different cultures and languages (some of which are taken from Tiffany Watt Smith’s The Book of Human Emotions). Instead of trusting your memory, I recommend you to save this post to come back to it from time to time to increase your emotional awareness.

Now without further delay, here’s the list of human emotions and feelings arranged in the alphabetical order:

A

Acedia or sometimes called accidie, is an emotion that has no real equivalent today. It was a short-lived but disastrous emotional crisis, usually striking between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Its first signs were listlessness and irritability, but it didn’t take long to turn into desolation and despair.

B

Bafflement is a condition when someone faced too many options, particularly those poorly arranged in a disorderly heap, make it hard to follow, or know which direction we should proceed, leaving us feeling frustrated, or angry, even bilious, but most of all exhausted by a surfeit of information that creates a sense of blockage, and precipitates a feeling of existential angst for the random purposelessness of things.

C

Cheesed off is a form of irritation feeling; often described as being ‘browned off’. The expression ‘cheesed off’ can be traced back to the nineteenth century, used by the pilots comparing themselves to rusting engines. The reason why it became so popular among airmen remains a mystery. Some say it’s because cheese turns brown under a grill. Others, because cheese on toast was obsessively eaten while waiting, and the men were, quite literally, fed up with it.

D

Dismay is a feeling of horror and paralysis. It flattens us; it might make us cover our eyes. The term descended from desmaier–Old French, came to describe a feeling; in other European languages, desmaier morphed into words for falling unconscious; in Spanish, desmayo is a swoon; in Portuguese, desmaio is a fainting fit.

E

Envy is a desire to have the material possessions and advantages of others. It’s the sickness that comes on hearing another’s happy sigh, the ache of contemplating their success. As adults, we mostly feel it as a secret vice. It’s there behind the rictus grin that celebrates other people’s successes.

F

Fago is the pity felt for someone in need, which compels us to care for them, but it is also haunted by a strong sense that one day we will lose them. Fago comes in those moments when our love for others, and their need for us, feels so unexpectedly overwhelming—and life so very fragile and temporary—that we well up.

G

Gladsomeness describes the appearance of a glittering, shining thing. This meaning still lingers in the expressions “glad rags” or “glad eye”—the twinkle that attracts a lover. In the fourteenth century, gladsum, or gladsomenesse, began to be used to describe a brightening of the soul too, a sparky, bouncing feeling, which today we might be more likely to call joy.

H

Hesitant (rooted from Latin word, haesitant), is a condition when you’re slow to act or proceed (as from fear, indecision, or unwillingness). If you are hesitant, you do not do something immediately or quickly because you are nervous or not certain. 

I

If you are inquisitive that means you love to inquire; you're always asking questions. You are eager to know a lot about people or things, sometimes in a way that annoys people. 

J

Jealousy involves the fear of losing a person or their affections to someone else. It is triangular: me (the victim), you (the traitor) and the other (the thief). Such treacheries are all the more painful for the feeling of having been discarded. It is this threat that makes jealousy so inflammatory—and intimacy such a risk.

K

Keen came from the Old English word, cene, that translates to ‘bold and brave’ and while the spelling is now really different, the sounds are similar. If you are keen on doing something, you are very interested, eager, or wanting to do that thing very much.

L

Lenient means tolerant or relaxed, and is usually used when we’re talking about someone’s attitude toward discipline. If you're not overly strict, and you show tolerance and mercy when someone does something wrong, then you're being lenient.

M

Malu, roots from Bahasa Indonesia, is the sudden experience of feeling constricted, inferior and awkward around people of higher status than us. You might be experiencing malu if you clam up before your partner’s parents, or a conversation with a former headmistress leaves you staring at the floor and sweating.

N

The word neglect comes from the Latin verb, neglegere, which means ‘disregarded’. Neglect is worse than ignoring something. It's ignoring it, failing to care for it, and probably harming it in the process.

O

When something isn't fair, or offends you, it often results in your feeling outraged. When you're outraged, you're furious. When you're outraged, you're furious. You might be outraged over the rude treatment you get at a fancy, expensive restaurant.

P

Pathos is a quality that stirs emotions (especially pity or sorrow). A song with a lot of pathos hits you right in the heart. When someone tells a story about people suffering that makes you feel for them, that's pathos.

R

Came from an old French word meaning ‘carried away’, rapture is a feeling of emotional ecstasy so magical it's almost as if you've been transported to some other world. It's happiness so extreme that you just about float to heaven, complete with big goofy grin plastered to your face.

S

Serenity came from the Latin, serenus, meaning ‘calm or peaceful’, plus the English suffix -ity, meaning ‘quality or state of’. Serenity used to describe a state when your mind is still and perfectly calm.

T

Triumph came from the Latin, triumphus, which means an ‘achievement, success, procession for a victorious general or admiral’. It'll make you pump your fist and yell "Hurrah!"

U

Uneasy describes an uncomfortable feeling. You might feel socially uneasy when dining with your girlfriend's parents if they don't like you very much. Your stomach may also feel uneasy at that same dinner and gurgle in an embarrassing way.

V

If you spend all day admiring yourself in reflective surfaces — mirrors, pools of water, the backs of spoons — people may think you are conceited, or vain.

W

The German word Wanderlust describes a kind of longing for movement that runs as deep in the human psyche as love or fear. It’s the desire, as old as human life itself, to see what lies beyond the next mountain, or outside the boundaries of the village—and may leave us with the gnawing feeling that life only makes sense if we are traveling in some direction or another.

Y

A yearning is a strong desire. If you have a yearning to travel in Maldives, it means that you dream about it and intensely hope that one day you'll end up there.

Z

Zeal is dedication or enthusiasm for something. If you have zeal, you're willing, energized, and motivated. If you have passion for something, you have zeal, which is kind of a mix of eagerness and energy and devotion.

That’s all, folks! Isn’t it amazing how many of these emotions we already felt but didn’t know there was a word of it?

If you keep expanding your emotional vocabulary, you’ll be much more comfortable when dealing with your negative emotions and much quicker to appreaciate the positive emotions.

How many new words did you learn today from the list of emotions? Share this post with your friends with one new word you learned today.

[shirlleycoyle]

The Boy on the Mountaintop

Our subletting Funbagger Drew Magary’s third novel, Point B, was released yesterday. A reader once said Drew’s novels read like a really long answer to a Funbag question. So it is with Point B, which asks the question, “Hey, what if you could teleport anywhere you wanted, simply by using your phone?” The following excerpt provides one of many, many answers.

THE BOY ON THE MOUNTAINTOP

By Katy Wagner, GizPo

9/21/2030

(COOS BAY, OR) — Melanie Greenberg has a plan for what to do if she ever meets the Kirsch family. She's rehearsed her speech in the mirror for over a year now. Late at night, when she's mired in the private hell of insomnia, she'll jot down tweaks to her working script, each word chosen carefully for maximum impact. She's learned to write legibly in darkness; rarely does she misspell a word or write one word over another despite writing blind. She can feel the pages for indentations from where she's put pen to paper, so she can locate free white space beneath. And she has sharpened the words down to a blade, so that when she sticks them into a Kirsch, they'll leave a mark.

Can you tell me what you plan on saying?

"The words 'you killed my son' will be in there somewhere."

You think they killed him.

"I know they did. Emilia Kirsch runs the company. Jason Kirsch invented the technology. Tell me who else would be responsible."

Do you want to physically harm Emilia and Jason?

"Yes, but I know I can't. I've convinced myself it's the wrong idea anyway. I want them to live with the hell of being themselves. Emilia and Jason can stay rich. They can stay free. But they'll always have to live inside their hateful bodies, and I want that to hurt them."

It wasn't always easy to get to Coos Bay. You used to have to drive here from Portland, taking the 5 South down to Route 38 and then across to 101, a tattered ribbon of a country highway that would test even a cast-iron stomach. That slim passageway through the wild, coupled with eternally damp weather, was enough to keep Coos Bay relatively isolated in the beginning of the century, especially as shipping jobs began to dry up and drugs took hold over this otherwise anonymous bit of Oregon shoreline.

"We'd have campers and tweakers," says Greenberg. "But now you get these clusters of surfers and fishermen, all zapping in together at exact times and making a goddamn mess before zapping right back out again. And, of course, we have a few port refugees from here and there."

But the greater impact that porting has had on Coos Bay hasn't come from people bypassing the endless roads to come here, but rather its original residents leaving. When the world opened up, the youth of Coos Bay fled in droves. So many kids have dropped out of nearby Marchfield High that the school has been forced to shutter entirely.

One of the kids who dropped out was Melanie's son, Jeffrey. If you're conjuring the stereotype in your head of what a high school dropout might look like these days—lazy, disaffected, porting at random, addicted to black market opioids, etc.—Jeffrey's story will alter that image drastically. He was a straight-A student. He was lead trumpet in the school marching band. He never drank or smoked. A sophomore at Marchfield during the advent of porting, he was already receiving letters from prominent Pac-12 schools with hints of scholarship money in the offing.

"I think, in some ways, porting has been worse for the smart kids," Melanie tells me. I'm in her house right now. It's a split-level abode nestled deep in the woods. This is an area that gets little port traffic, although that hasn't stopped Melanie from keeping dozens of guns handy to fend off aggressive trespassers and would-be squatters. She makes me a fresh pot of coffee but, in a moment of absent-mindedness, forgets to put a filter in the coffeemaker. Hot water and loose grounds spurt all over the kitchen counter.

"Jeffrey wanted to leave Coos Bay, and I don't blame him. I mean, this place was a meth hole. He was excited to get out and see the world, and I was excited for it, too. I just think you have to be ready, you know? No one was ready for it."

She held off buying Jeffrey a PortPhone for as long as she could, but after he saved up hundreds from his own personal landscaping business, she couldn't fend him off any longer.

"I remember where he ported to first," Melanie says to me as she rinses the soaked coffee grounds out of her pot and puts in a fresh filter. "It was Cancun, which is predictable for a 16-year-old. I made him promise only to go for a couple of minutes. So he zaps out, and I'm waiting, and waiting, and I've got half a mind to go to his pin and thrash him in front of all of Mexico. Then he finally came back."

And what was that like?

"He wouldn't stop laughing. That ever happen to you? You're so happy you start laughing, and you don't know why? It was that. And I saw that look of joy from him and…" she begins to cry, "I'm a mom, you know? When you see your kid happy, you want them to stay that way forever. It's like when you give a small child candy, and they go crazy for it. It makes you want to give them more. To spoil them. Because it's so easy. Spoiling them makes them happy. But you know you can't spoil them always because if you keep giving candy to them, it'll…" She can't finish the thought. She presses her hands against the counter and lets out a long exhale.

Jeffrey began porting every weekend, and then every night. Once PortSys began offering unlimited plans, Melanie felt powerless to stop him. He always managed to talk his way out of having the phone confiscated. Sometimes they would port together places, but more often it would be Jeffrey out in the world on his own, Melanie dying a little inside every time he vanished.

"Everything was different overnight, and I needed more time to adjust to that. We all did. We all still do! But PortSys? They never gave a shit. They weren't careful. They didn't bother preparing anyone for this kind of world. They charged ahead because they knew no one would ever have the courage to stop them."

One Sunday in May, Jeffrey told his mom he was going to Los Angeles with fellow bandmate Paul Gallagher. They had an agreement that he would share his pin with her anytime he went somewhere. This day, the destination was the Santa Monica Pier. Melanie watched Jeffrey port out, then ported to Atlanta herself to visit a friend before coming home to wait for him.

But Jeffrey never showed. Melanie called her son. She texted. Still no answer. When she checked her own PortSys account, she realized that Jeffrey had unfriended her that morning, leaving her unable to see his port history. By the time Monday morning arrived, she had turned frantic, porting to Jeffrey's chosen pin on the beach and wading through hordes of unimaginative tourists to look for her son, a human needle in the haystack. When she called PortSys to try to verify his current location, they refused to disclose it.

"Sometimes," Melanie says, "You trust your children too much, you know? Jeffrey was such a good kid, I'd have trusted him with any decision he made. But then I would forget he's still just a kid."

What Melanie didn't know was that Jeffrey's trip to Santa Monica was actually a premeditated ruse. He and Gallagher weren't going to California at all. Rather, they had spent the better part of a month sketching out a plan to port to the summit of Mount Everest. They studied storm patterns. They borrowed mountaineering gear from a friend (lightweight, to adhere to PortSys' YOU PLUS TWO guidelines, which allow for teleporting an extra two kilograms on your person in addition to the mass of your naked body) plus bottles of supplemental from a more experienced summiter. They went on long runs in high altitude cities: cities that Jeffrey had truthfully told his mother he was going to visit, while keeping hidden his ulterior motive for the jaunts.

The plan was port to increasingly high altitudes, get acclimated, and then hit the summit. Once on the roof of the world, Jeffrey and Paul would take in the view of the surrounding hemisphere, get a selfie, and then leave in an instant.

It is, of course, not legal to port to the summit of Everest. Since the advent of porting, only the South Slope of the mountain is open to climbing, with the North Slope formally closed by a Chinese government that outlawed porting from the start and has no plans to reverse that policy. Thus, oversight of Everest's unlicensed port tourism has fallen mostly to overwhelmed Nepalese officials.

The path to the summit was awash in litter and human excrement long before the advent of PortPhones, and porting has only exacerbated the problems at the top of the mountain. As with other national landmarks all over the world, port tourists have overwhelmed and desecrated what were once carefully preserved lands. In a bit of morbid irony, the deadly environs of Everest have help protect it from being completely overrun. Other parks and attractions lack such natural deterrents.

And standard tourist attractions are even more vulnerable, particularly spots highlighted by popular WorldGram travel accounts like @GoHere, which can create nightmare crowding situations the instant it recommends a porting destination. The Eiffel Tower in Paris is patrolled by armed forces at all times because port tourists stampede in at all hours, but the Tower is fortunate enough to be able to afford that security. Prominent amusement parks like Cedar Point in Ohio now must charge by the ride instead of charging gate admission because they can't build a portwall large enough to secure the grounds. Pebble Beach golf course in California now has PINE agents on carts patrolling the holes 24/7. Other hotspots, such as Monte Alban in Oaxaca and parts north of the aurora oval in Alaska, lack the funding to afford a portwall or beefed-up security, and have thus suffered environmental and ecological decay due to massive increases in foot traffic.

The summit of Everest, despite its hostile climate, has also suffered likewise. Perhaps it hasn't suffered the same amount of damage as Uluru in Australia, but any damage done to the roof of the world is substantial and permanent. New mountaineering laws have not helped. Anyone caught porting to the summit of Everest is subject to arrest and fines in excess of $500,000. But catching violators and enforcing fines is nearly impossible. While Nepalese officials were glad that porting eased some of traffic to the summit, they have had little control over the inevitable overcrowding that now routinely happens on it, especially when weather conditions prove favorable. How can you control the top of a mountain when anyone can get there by pushing a button and stepping into a wormhole? You can't keep a police force 33,000 feet up in the sky. You can't patrol it from the air. Proposals to create a portwall around the summit have proved unworkable.

To prevent being identified at the summit, Jeffrey Greenberg and Paul Gallagher left their passport lanyards behind in a still-unknown location. Jeffrey's callowness meant that he had vastly overestimated his ability to execute the Everest plan. As they ported from one acclimation point to the next, Jeffrey complained to Gallagher that he felt nauseous and dizzy: unmistakable signs of altitude sickness. An encroaching storm system—not exactly a surprise development around Everest—forced Jeffrey and Gallagher to accelerate their plans and shorten their acclimation intervals so that they could port to the summit and get out before the squall bore down.

That would prove to be a fatal error, because Jeffrey's lungs were already starved for oxygen. At the peak of Everest, the air only has roughly a third of the oxygen contained in the air at sea level. That thin air, combined with the drop in air pressure, can tax the lungs of even a seasoned climber. And Jeffrey was far from that.

The instant the two boys ported to the South Summit, with an altitude of 28,704 feet, Jeffrey collapsed and began to convulse, the result of a cerebral edema. Gallagher, now terrified, tried to program Jeffrey's PortPhone to port his friend back to safer ground, but couldn't get his bandmate's finger to hold steady on the phone's scanner prompt. Even if Gallagher had succeeded in this, Jeffrey never would have been able to take the crucial step to complete the porting. He was stuck seizing at the summit, his body desperate to hyperventilate but too weak to do so. His diaphragm cramped into a hard knot. The oxygen supply to his brain got cut off entirely. When Gallagher called American medical startup 1RSPND and begged them to have first responders port to the summit, the company told him that they were over their monthly porting data limit, and that PortSys had throttled their service. Mountaineers that had secured official permits to summit the mountain began to openly grouse at the two boys clogging up the summit, which has a surface area roughly the size of an apartment closet. No one was going to help Jeffrey Greenberg.

It was all over in less than a minute. A nearby team of experienced climbers, who had made the summit the old-fashioned way, rushed to administer CPR to Jeffrey, but by then he had no pulse. With the storm closing in quickly, Paul Gallagher, who would only agree to speak on background for this story, had little choice but to abandon his friend right there, 100 meters below the highest point on Earth.

Jeffrey Greenberg's body remains on Everest to this day, scattered among the hundreds of other corpses resting on the mountain that cannot be removed, neither by porting nor by law. He is far from alone in being the only young person to meet a gruesome fate by porting somewhere he didn't belong. There was the case of Taylor Garrison, a college student who accidentally ported into the middle of the Pacific Ocean and drowned. There was the case of Megan Abay, who got stuck in a faulty wormhole that teleported her back and forth from her apartment in Chicago to her parents' home in Addis Ababa every microsecond, splitting her into two places simultaneously and destroying her mind. There was Leann Egan, who was ported 200 feet above her intended pin in Maui thanks to what PortSys described as a "glitch" in its famously guarded algorithm. She fell to her death.

And then there was the strange case of Anthony Drazic, a seven-year-old who, through yet another system "bug," ported directly into the body of a full-grown man named Joshua Klim, killing both instantly. Drazic's body had to be surgically removed from Klim's abdomen in a gruesome Caesarian section that would take a Serbian coroner thirteen hours to complete. To this day, it remains the only violation of PortSys's supposedly ironclad law that solid matter cannot port into other solid matter. And then there are, of course, the tens of thousands of runaways and refugees shot and killed by interior patrols lurking in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Russia, and every other country looking to crack down on port migration.

These deaths, be they the result of direct failures in PortSys's algorithm, or the result of PortSys failing to curtail its users' more reckless impulses, have invariably resulted in solemn statements issued by the company, along with any number of discreetly agreed-upon cash settlements. Melanie Greenberg was offered $28,000 to settle her case against PortSys. When she refused and filed a formal lawsuit, the case was thrown out in Federal court after Congress passed a law that made it illegal to sue "any porting carrier" (curious wording, given that PortSys is the only porting carrier in existence) for accidents resulting from the use of their products.

Calls for PortSys to restrict how users port—into private homes, into war zones, and to dangerous terrain—have been rebuffed by the company in the name of port neutrality. The closest PortSys has come to fixing the problem is establishing two-factor confirmation for any user wishing to port into "conflict zones," areas marked as dangerous by the company (of course, those designations have often been met with vehement protest by residents of said zones). They promise that the bugs that killed Josh Klim and Leann Egan have been fixed in later software updates. The company's parental controls, ostensibly introduced to help parents monitor where kids port, remain cumbersome and lightly used.

When Jason Kirsch was confronted with these facts in an email exchange with me, he remained defiant.

"Our terms of service are clear," he told me. "Our port moderators do not advise people porting to certain areas they have declared as unsafe, but we are not going to close off those areas and restrict the God-given freedoms of those who are experienced and hardy enough to tackle that kind of terrain. I myself have ported to such locations. Have you been to the top of Devil's Tower? I have. It's breathtaking. It is incumbent upon users to follow both their better instincts and the laws of anywhere they choose to port."

"So you're absolved of all responsibility in these deaths?" I asked him.

"Let me make it clear, Katy: This company saved the world. You know that. I know I speak for my mother when I say it's a terrible thing any time someone experiences a porting malfunction."

You mean a porting death.

"No, these are unfortunate malfunctions. In the event of someone harming himself during the porting process, we mourn just as his family mourns."

I don't believe that.

"Believe what you want to believe," Jason Kirsch wrote back. "I have the facts on my side, and what the facts say is that porting solved this planet's energy crisis, along with its housing crisis and its traffic crisis. People can now evacuate from natural disasters in a snap, and rescue workers can port into those same areas with equal speed. Once we get China on board with porting, we'll have improved modern civilization by orders of magnitude. To me, it's insane that some people don't appreciate this. WE INVENTED TELEPORTATION. How can you not be astounded by that? I'm astounded by it every day! Do you understand how many lives this company has saved? 40,000 automobile related deaths in the United States alone. Every year. All saved. Why is that not the focus of your story?"

(Jason Kirsch is not entirely correct here: While passenger automobile deaths are now nearly extinct, trucking fatalities have increased over 500% since the advent of porting, thanks to decaying highway infrastructure plus huge increases in demand for construction and shipped goods in formerly remote areas.)

Melanie Greenberg has never seen her son's body. To visit Jeffrey, she would either have to pay an outrageous amount to have it removed from Everest, or she herself would have to port to the summit, something she is terrified to do both from a physical and legal standpoint. For now, Jeffrey's body remains on display in a permanent, open wake she'll never be able to attend. She long ago forgave Paul Gallagher for his role in Jeffrey's death. Instead, she saves the bulk of her ire for PortSys and the Kirsch family. Sometimes, when she wakes up in the morning, she discovers that she's written hundreds of words in frantic night scribbling. She shows me the notes, which take up an entire filing box.

Are all those notes for the Kirsches?

"Not all of them. I spare more than a few for myself."

I don't think you're alone in having a hard time reckoning with how much freedom to give your children.

"Yeah but my son is dead, so I have hard proof I did a lousy job, don't I? I caved when I should've been stronger. And I let him have this power, because I wanted to have it too."

This is when I notice a rectangular bulge in Melanie's pocket. She takes out her old PortPhone6, the screen slightly cracked and the chrome edges nicked and scarred. She knows what I'm about to ask, so she goes ahead and answers in advance.

"It's for the Kirsches. It's my only way to get to Emilia and Jason. When they do one of their bullshit listening tours, or when Jason stages one of his insufferable new product launches, that's when I'm gonna port in and tell them about my son."

And then?

"And then, I swear to you, I will throw this thing in the fucking ocean."

The Boy on the Mountaintop syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/