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limoteethw · 1 year

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Big Finish We Love Beards Shirt

Writing from faraway Australia I have to glumly report that our 2 most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, as well as Canberra and its surrounds, are in hard lockdown and state and Big Finish We Love Beards Shirt irrespective of their political leanings, are taking no chance. There was a slight relaxation of public event restrictions towards the end of the 2020 pandemic – schools reopening, some theatres, concerts and sports events with limited seating – but no major festivals. Since then there has been the emergence of the even more virulent Delta strain – with no indication as to what even worse variants round the corner – and we are in total blackout conditions again – the wartime parallel will not be lost on you – or on me as an ex-Pom. So far the total death toll has not yet exceeded 1000, or only recently – in stark contrast to the daily death toll of 1000’s which you have been experiencing for weeks on end – and the population of the UK is only just over double that of Oz -but any resumption of “normal” life is just not on the horizon. In the historic past people rode out plagues, prayed to the God of their ancestors, and locked their doors until the pestilence blew over. In our time such death rates, and the yet-to-be-assessed degree of debilitation among those who survive -are just not acceptable. Much as I and my fellow-musicians, and others in a whole range of professions, are devastated by present realities, we have to accept that any wholesale re-opening of business-as-usual is not worth the risk.

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But wait a The 1975 Noacf Photo New Shirt . Mars long time ago had the same conditions as earth(flowing water etc) but why did it become like this? All the atmosphere might have washed away by the solar wind . Even now due to solar wind 100grams(not sure of the number) of atmosphere of mars is washed away per year. So even if we now emit green house gases there they are going to be washed away and become useless. But its not happening to earth, because the solar wind cannot reach till the atmosphere , our magnetic feild stops it (yes we first need to pray for that magnetic feild looking at a compass needle). Mars has no magnetic feild (it has local magnetic feilds due to some astroids with metals collided with planet but doesnt work for our purpose). Since there is no magnetic feild all the plan is waste of time. 🙁 . But wait for earth magnetic feild always changes with ti

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Home Page: Limotees

me. So may be the same for mars. Wait for some years (not few) and then mars may develop magnetic feild. One more interesting thing mars doesnt have its own magnetic feild but sun has magnetic feild.

Home Page: Limotees

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superhyp01 · 1 year

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Las Vegas Raiders Coconut Tree Hawaiian ... Get here: https://superhyp.com/product/las-vegas-raiders-coconut-tree-hawaiian-shirt-qk/?feed_id=14735&_unique_id=64ddcbfa645e0

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melodiiesxfmadness · 1 year

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estelle despoina desrosiers

tracked tag: desrosiersx

nicknames: stell, stella, des, poina, madre / mama ( montgomery ).

entomology:

estelle - From an Old French name meaning “star”, ultimately derived from Latin stella. It was rare in the English-speaking world in the Middle Ages, but it was revived in the 19th century, perhaps due to the character Estella Havisham in Charles D*ckens’ novel Great Expectations (1860).

despoina - Means “mistress, lady” in Greek. In Greek mythology this was the name of the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon. She was worshipped in the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were secret rites practiced at Eleusis near Athens.

desrosiers - Means “from the rose bushes”, from French rosier “rose bush”. It probably referred to a person who lived close to, or cared for a rose garden.

date of birth: 11.22.1973

zodiac sign: sagittarius

place of birth: rochester, ny

residence: washingtown, d.c.

gender: female

species: mortal

occupation: fbi special agent, Major Crimes Unit ( 2003 - present )

previous occupation:

lvmpd || las vegas metro police department ( 6 years, last 4 as a member of S.W.A.T. ) | 1997 - 2002

2016 - 2018 ; temporarily reassigned to the norfolk field office as part of a special task force

orientation: heterosexual

parents: both deceased.

sibling (s):

Iris Clara Desrosiers | younger sister, 33

Alexander Josue Desrosiers | older brother, 52

pets:

Agamemnon ; Belgian Malinois ; retired service dog ; 03.02.2020

Alfalfa ; American Akita ; fully trained guard dog

children:

1, montgomery “monty” jacob booth ( son || date of birth; april 25th, 2008 | father is seeley booth )

height & weight: 5'4", 175 lbs.

hair & eyes: dyed blonde ( naturally a brunette ), green.

piercings: two holes in each ear.

tattoos:

[ 001; claddagh ring ] – located along the curve of her spine, estelle got this tattoo at the five month mark of her pregnancy with her son ( montgomery ), although there is a noticeable crack in the heart.

[ 002 ] ; “The only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment.” - Marquis de Sade / located on the ribcage, left side. // this tattoo was acquired in 2015.

education:

James Monroe High School ( 1988 - 1992 )

St. John’s University ( bachelor’s in criminal justice || 1992 - 1996 ).

extra curricular activities: ice skating, girls hockey, lacrosse and field hockey.

NYPD Police Academy Training ( 6 months. || 1997. )

FBI Academy Training ( 20 weeks || 2003. )

religion: catholic.

additional spoken languages: english ( native ), french, arabic, pashto, farsi, russian, mandarin, german, portuguese, czech, & dutch.

nationality: french-american ( 4th generation )

heritage: american • greek • french

ethnicity: European / Greek

instagramaccount: ( not real. ) blondieinthenatcap ( short for blondie in the nation’s capital )

additional training in muy thai & krav maga

served for six years in the las vegas metro pd, four of those six years were on the LVMPD swat team // left the lvmpd at the rank of Sergeant

went to college for her bachelor’s in criminal justice

almost became a federal marshall instead of an fbi agent.

was actually recruited twice by the fbi while in the LVPD, the last time was when she took the offer.

estelle & montgomery live EXACTLY three floors above seeley in the same building. ( pre-booth/brennan. * updated version is she moved into a condo mid 2010. )

backup guns: Beretta Nano ( 9mm ), Beretta Pico ( .380 )

main on duty gun: Glock 22

favorite things: hazelnut mochaccino with coconut milk, chouquettes, raspberry creme filled crossiants, greek yogurt with sliced bananas and peanut butter, Macaróns, Madeleines, & Mille-Feuille.

ps4 gamer; all three bioshock games, until dawn, homefront: the revolution, we happy few, sims 4, the evil within, the evil within 2, red dead redemption, fallout 4, call of duty: modern warfare, call of duty: ghosts, call of duty: ww ii, far cry 5, assassin’s creed IV: black flag, assassin’s creed: origins, tomb raider.

personal preference: reign total body fuel is far superior ( especially in taste ) over bang energy, which she took TWO SIPS OF AND FOUND IT WAY MORE SUGARY THAN NECESSARY. ( will drink it as a substitute for coffee during the warmer months especially. )

cleaned floors and did laundry for extra cash throughout college.

wears reading glasses for tiny text in printed items ( books, magazines, newspapers, etc ) & on screens ( phone, tablets, laptops ). // been wearing them since she was 39.

can & still does play - the oboe, the piccolo, & alto saxophone.

#( original character. )#( character bio: estelle desrosiers. )#desrosiersx

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starcraft-cheat-codes-tt · 2 years

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starcraft cheat codes working VQY5?

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Reveals entire map. food for thought. Instantly Lose the Mission. Cheat Codes ; Receive 10, Minerals and Gas, show me the money ; Receive Gas, breathe deep ; Receive Minerals, whats mine is mine ; Reveal entire map. These cheat codes can provide you with that "edge" you're looking for. To use a cheat code, press the enter key, type in the code, and press enter again. Searching for StarCraft 2 cheats? All you have to do is type these codes into any singleplayer campaign, and before you know it, you're effectively a god, healing units, gaining all the resources you want, and getting new upgrades and tech in an instant. These cheats are especially useful if you want to take your time with Easter eggs, or just play around with what's possible on the battlefield. It's important to note that using any of the cheats will disable achievements, so if you are trophy hunting or just playing the game for real, it's better to start a new campaign or load another save. These cheats also don't work in multiplayer. So here's our helpful list of StarCraft 2 cheats, including some StarCraft 2 Easter eggs, that'll make you smile. It's quick and easy to begin using these StarCraft 2 cheats. To get started, launch a singleplayer campaign and press Enter on your keyboard to open the speech box. Type one of the cheats below to activate it, and look out for the chat log to display the word CHEAT in capital letters. The cheat should take effect immediately, and you're now ready to enjoy your playthrough. Skyrim console commands opens in new tab Fallout 4 cheats opens in new tab Fallout New Vegas console commands opens in new tab Minecraft commands opens in new tab Red Dead Redemption 2 cheats opens in new tab GTA 5 cheats opens in new tab The Sims 4 cheats opens in new tab Ark: Survival Evolved cheats opens in new tab. During the Media Blitz mission guide your Odin mech to the bottom right of the map and destroy the science facility at the end of the road. Pick up the documents that come out of the wreckage and look out for the secret mission Piercing the Shroud on the mission select screen. You have to complete it before heading to Char. In Wings of Liberty, during the fiery Devil's Playground mission head to the bottom right of the map to find Diablo. You can't kill him or interact with him in any way, but there he is. In Heart of the Swarm in the Roach Evolution mission after you've evolved and are heading towards the next set of enemies, keep an eye on the containment chambers on the top wall of the facility. Diablo's chilling out in one of those too. In the mission Unsealing the Past, set on Endion, you can find Ewoks all over the place, huddling around camp fires and hiding behind trees. There's also a Jurassic World reference in this level. There's an 'enhanced strain' blue Zerg monster called Indomilisk Rex, a pastiche of Indominus Rex from the film. In the mission Zero Hour clear out the Zerg infestation in the top left of the map. Move beyond it and you will find a level 80 Tauren marine in power armour. Treasure your brief time with him, because your appearance causes him to run into a nearby toilet and never come out. In Legacy of the Void, in the Templar's Charge mission, move your base platform up, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. The Tauren Marine lands with a nuclear explosion and you can control him as a unit. Hey folks, beloved mascot Coconut Monkey here representing the collective PC Gamer editorial team, who worked together to write this article! PC Gamer is the global authority on PC games—starting in with the magazine, and then in with this website you're currently reading. Jump to: Cheats How to use Easter Eggs. PC Gamer. See comments.

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starcraft-cheat-codes-sb · 2 years

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starcraft cheat codes working D5OR!

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mxchellesworld · 4 years

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You know biggie?

Spencer Reid x Poc!Reader

Synopsis; Where Spencer enlists help from Morgan to try and impress you

Warnings; none, mention of smut, mostly fluff

a/n; this is very much a self indulgent thought i have so im very sorry that i modeled y/n kind of like myself. also as a black/mexican girl it is so upsetting that are rarely fics with cm characters and a poc so here we are. anyways hope you enjoy!

***

The day you walked into the BAU Spencer knew he was fucked. Though that’s how Derek put it, he wouldn’t disagree. From the moment he saw you were able to get Hotch to smile he knew you were special.

You were a ball of vibrant energy. Always trying to bring people up when they were having a tough time. While you’d never admit it, Garcia had a run for her money.

He was lucky enough to have his desk next to yours. Every time you walked by him in the morning, the mix of your coconut shampoo and the bright smile you gave him pushed him to do his best.

Now he wasn’t a jealous man at all. It was more so that he wished to be able to have some moments with you like the ones you share with others. The one he wanted the most was how you acted with Morgan.

Of course he was the big brother figure to everyone. So naturally whenever he was driving you’d always yell out, “shotgun” to sit with him. Spencer would just playfully groan but had no problem giving up his seat for you. If anything it was the perfect time to admire you.

Even on the dullest cases you were able to lighten the mood by connecting your phone to the aux and blasting your favorite songs. He’d watch how you’d start poking Morgan’s arm as he drove to try and get him to rap along with you.

Spencer would notice how he would bite his cheek to try and keep in the grin begging to spread across his face. You’d then pick up the imaginary microphone and give them the performance of a life time. Aiming the mic towards Morgan’s mouth he knew he couldn’t let you down and would always give in to your playful ways.

But his favorite part was when you’d turn in your seat to sing to him.

The way your plump glossy lips would curve in a smile with each word you sang. The way your big brown eyes showed how the emotions of the lyrics flowed through you. Even when you’d get a little bold and caress his face then playfully bop his nose.

Morgan would be looking in the rearview with a shit eating grin on his face mouthing ‘you’re whipped’.

For the rest of the ride he would be entranced by your curls bouncing as you bopped your head to the beat.

Maybe he’d ask Morgan to write down some of your favorite songs. For research of course.

After a year of you being on the team Penelope decided a party was in order to celebrate. Rossi being the generous man he was offered up his house for a pool party since it was June and the heat was coming on strong.

Spencer walked into the back yard where the party was in full swing. You had asked for just the members of the team and their families. The adults were sitting around on lawn chairs or resting on the edge of the pool watching their kids.

Looking around for you he saw you laying on the grass with Hank resting on your stomach. His tiny hands would reach for your face and you’d playfully press kisses to his palms causing a roar of giggles to come from his small body.

Spencer felt a hand clap on his shoulder and knew who it was.

“She’s something else huh pretty boy,” Morgan said while looking at you cooing at his son.

“Yeah,” he sighed longingly, “Do you uh, what do you think she’d day if I asked her on a date?”

“Pretty Ricky I know you have a IQ of a million in there so you should be able to run some guesses.”

“So she’d say no,” Spencer said with a pout.

Morgan smacked the back of his head which caused Spencer to let out a loud noise of disapproval. You walked over with Hank in your arms to see Spencer rubbing the back of his head.

“Derek did you hit him?” you asked with a defensive tone.

“He asked a stupid question,” Morgan said in defense.

“Yeah yeah take your kid,” you said handing Hank over to him, “Spence let me get you a drink.”

The only thing he could do was nod and return your smile. You motioned for him to follow you into Rossi’s kitchen. As he walked behind you it took all his strength to not let his eyes drop down to the small wrap you had around your waist covering up the bikini bottoms you had on.

Though the water dripping down your tan back from the tips of your hair didn’t go unnoticed by him.

Reaching into the fridge you pulled out a beer and quickly opened it. He felt his breath hitch as your fingers grazed his while you handed it to him.

“Is that ok? I know you usually like whiskey or something when the team goes to bars but I figured you were driving home so I thought maybe a beer would be better to keep you on your toes,” he had never seen you ramble as if you were nervous. The butterflies in his stomach fluttered at the fact you had been so thoughtful of his drinking choices. Even if it was something so simple.

“Yeah Y/n this is perfect.. You’re perfect,” he said looking down at you.

“Oh- I uh um thank you Spencer. You are quite perfect yourself as well,” you said trying to regain some of your usual confidence.

Neither of you had realized you were standing there until the beat of an all too familiar song brought you out of your trance, lost in his caramel eyes.

Hypnotize by Biggie Smalls

“God I love this song,” you perked up, ready to head back out to the rest of the guests.

“Did you know “Hypnotize” was released just weeks before his death on March 9, 1997,” Spencer tried to say keeping his voice from wavering.

“You know Biggie?” you said with a questioning smile.

“Y/n I grew up in Vegas of course-,” he cut himself off noticing your raised eyebrow, “Ok maybe I didn’t know him that well. I uh asked Morgan for some of your favorite songs to get to know you and did a little research.”

“Aw Spence that’s really sweet. How about you come over tomorrow and I can put you on to some music?”

“I will be there,” he said raising his bottle.

“Great. And Spence, I envy your glasses,” you said with a smirk.

“What? My glasses?”

“Cus they’re sitting on your face and I’m not,” you said winking at him then turning around and heading out the patio door.

He looked in that direction to see Morgan peeking his head in with Hank in his arms. It was crazy to see how such a small child could have such a knowing look on his face.

Spencer groaned and walked back out to the party. Making eye contact with you as you passed on the imaginary microphone to Penelope who gladly took it and sung at the top of her lungs.

#spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x poc!reader #poc!reader #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #chellewrites #spencer reid smut

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akitbeast · 2 years

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KinnPorsche after-thougths

KinnPorsche has ended...

I'm really hoping for another season, but until then, we shall weep and rewatch, and spin meta and stories, and yes I'll read the novel.

I loved this series. It fed my inner clinical psychologist, my inner storyteller and my inner librarian [looking at you, Erika, you bodacious babe].

Thank you to everyone in the Coconuts Mafia for accepting me in your merry band of insanity through this experience.

KinnPorsche things my brain demands:

Tankhun taking Chay under his wing and them becoming a most fabulous duo.

I want Yok to be added to the Tankhun and Chay team and become the most invincible trio ever.

I want Yok and Tankhun to go into business together.

Kinn and Porsche continuing to be disgustingly in love with each other. If Porsche's dream of a beach bar never comes to fruition, can he and Kinn at least have a little place somewhere that is not dripping with luxury? Somewhere Kinn can sing his songs and Porsche cheekily cackle about the things his mafia husband doesn't know how to do, but is more than willing to teach him.

Vegas, Pete and Macau becoming a full-on domestic family. I know there's [spoilers] for them. To that I want to add Pete's grandma to come visit and teach Vegas Pete's favorite dishes. I want a besotted Pete perched watching them putter around the kitchen, cooking. I want Macau to be that sibling that makes gagging noises at how sappy they are, but deep down loves it so much.

I want Big and Chan to have ended up in the hospital and out of danger. I want them to recover, confess their feeling for each other and continue being amazing.

I want Erika to have survived and continue being the awesome librarian she is. No one touch my lady.

@suga4mycoffee suggested this one in the coconuts chat and I love it. I want Chay to realize Big saved his brother, and for the little cinnamon roll to become Big's biggest fan (aside from Chan). I want Big to take to Chay and teach him how to defend himself.

I want walking into the Hum Bar with a fruit basket to become a Pavlovian response. Yok going "What did you do now?" to whichever Theerayapakul man comes in.

And so many more things.

I'm gonna go rewatch now.....

#kinnporsche #vegaspete #coconuts mafia #akitbeast musings

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coyotesongwriting · 4 years

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Home - Ch. 5

Chapter 5 - Ghosts

Chapter Summary: When a blast from the past walks in years later, what hapepns next?

Word Count: 3135

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading this story and I hope you enjoy it. I’ve tried a new writing style for this fic and I can definitely say it’s not my cup of tea but I love the story anyways!

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters so don’t sue me please. I just really like them haha

Previous Chapter Series Masterlist

You drove North. When you were making the plans to leave, you knew there were only two places for you to go - the North, or down to the South. You’d always complained about the cold of winter, so the team would surely expect you to go to the southern states, somewhere winter wouldn’t bug you. When you reached Vegas, you sold your car and bought a new one at a different dealership under your new name to hide your tracks.

You spent all day in the car, stopping every time the twins cried and spending the night in roadside motels. With all of the stops, it took you four days of driving to reach Montana. Your plan was to go up to Eureka, Montana and make a life for you there. With just over 1000 occupants, the town was small enough that you could get to know everyone but large enough to hide you in events.

You were almost there, 20 minutes outside of Eureka in a town called Trego when you passed a small run-down diner off the side of the road with a ‘For Sale’ sign out front. The old light blue paint was peeling, the signs outdated and the lights had long ago burned out. But something about it, some part of it called to you. You unloaded the babies, dropping the windows in the car and leaving Rex inside as you headed inside the diner.

Inside the vinyl on the benches had become cracked, the linoleum chipped. But there was something about it. From the moment you walked inside, it felt comfortable. Walking through those front doors felt like home, and you knew you’d found where you were meant to be.

Within a month, you’d bought the diner from the old owner, as well as a beautiful log cabin on the edge of Dickey Lake. The locals had been very displeased when you immediately shut the diner down, but when you’d hired some handymen to help renovate it, their attitude turned around.

With a new paint job and reupholstered booths, it wasn’t long before the diner was ready to re-open. You changed the name to Rebecca’s and a month after buying it, you re-opened. It quickly became a beloved spot in town. People passing through on Highway 93 began to pour in, and business was soon booming.

People questioned why you had named it Rebecca’s at first, while they liked the new name, there was something about losing a name they’d loved. You’d explained a few times that it was the name of your dead sister-in-law, and word seemed to spread quickly. The new name quickly caught on, and it wasn’t long before you’d hear people downtown talking about going to Becca’s for dinner.

Raising the twins was hard, as you’d known it would be. There were many sleepless nights, nights where they’d take turns crying and waking you up and you’d find yourself crying yourself to sleep, exhaustion breaking you down. You’d quickly made friends in town though, and on your worst days, one of the locals would stop by and stay for a few hours so you could take a nap.

When you’d first arrived, there had been some questions about the boy’s dad. You’d taken to wearing Bucky’s ring, trying not to wonder how he’d have reacted when he saw you wearing it. As far as the town was concerned, your husband James had passed away in a mining accident, and with no family, you’d decided to try your luck somewhere new. No one questioned it.

The first year was the hardest. You missed the Avengers. You missed getting to text them, getting to tell them the boy’s first words, getting to send them pictures, and share your life with them. Every day, you wondered if you’d gone too far if maybe you should reach out to them, let them know you were okay, you were safe. Until one day, when the news reports featured a war in Upstate New York, the complex took heavy damages. Luckily, there were no casualties but you couldn’t help but think how much easier it would be to hurt you and the boys alone in remote Montana. As time ticked by, you slowly thought about calling them less and less, every day adjusting to the new normal.

Rex was happy in his new life too. He loved exploring the woods at your home and watching as the boys learned to walk. Whenever you were outside with the boys, Rex never took his eyes off of them, always keeping a close eye for danger. On the days you went in to work at the diner, Rex would tag along with you. No one seemed to mind as he came and went, approaching people for a quick scratch before laying back down behind the counter. You’d even set up a small place under the counter for him to sleep but keep him out of the way.

As the boys got older, you started bringing them with you to the diner to work instead of leaving them with a babysitter. You set up a playpen in a back corner near the counter and you’d keep an eye on them while you worked. The boys learned to walk in the diner, toddling along the linoleum floor in between customers.

You slowly became a beloved family member of the town. You were invited to birthday parties, holidays, everything. The guys looked after you like their own baby sister, and the girls made sure you never felt alone. Of course, there were some old busybodies always starting trouble, spreading rumors about the new girl from out of town but no one paid them any mind.

Over the years, life moved on and you did too. You missed Bucky, of course, you did, but in the end, you were happy there in your new home. When you’d see the Avengers come on tv, it felt like that life belonged to a different person, and in a way it did. You were no longer that person you’d been. You no longer killed, no longer woke up each day not sure if it would be your last, and that feeling… was intoxicating. You still trained daily, in the early morning hours before the boys were awake, just in case anything ever happened, but it was different now. It was more of an exercise, as opposed to being prepared for the almost daily life or death battle.

The boys may have been identical physically, but personality-wise they couldn’t have been more different. James was a shy child, always hanging on to you as you worked, hiding his face behind your leg when someone tried to talk to him. George on the other hand? He was so outgoing it scared you, he’d run up to anyone and start babbling away, he had no fear of new people.

What threw most people though, was the fact that James may have been the quiet one, but he was the trouble maker. Your favorite story to tell people about him was the time he decided he wanted a cookie after you’d told him no, so he’d dragged a chair over to the counter, climbed up, then onto the counter and was halfway onto the fridge before you realized what he was doing. George was just sitting at the bottom, watching cautiously.

Your favorite story to tell about George was the time he managed to get into the giant tub of coconut oil. You’d bought a 5-gallon bucket on Amazon once, instead of the small tub you’d intended to, and it had been sitting in your pantry ever since. You’d been on the phone with the neighbor while you cooked dinner, and when you turned around there he was, covered head to toe in coconut oil and you couldn’t help but laugh. He’d pouted at you for laughing at him, and you’d scooped up your oily little boy, kissed him on the forehead, and immediately went off for a bath. He smelled like coconut oil for a week after that.

When the boys turned four, you signed them up for swimming lessons. James took to it like a duck to water, and you had a hard time keeping him out of the water the following summer. George wasn’t a big fan of all the rules, but what he did enjoy was splashing everyone - particularly James.

You cried the day the boys went to kindergarten for the first time. Their teacher, Miss Jay, was a frequent customer at the diner and the boys couldn’t wait to spend the day with her so when you dropped them off, they ran into her room with just a wave goodbye. You’d gone back to your car and sobbed for thirty minutes. On days like that, the ghost of Bucky sat heavy, and the guilt you’d long ago accepted came flooding back. It was hard, but you made it through. And when the boys came home that day telling you so excitedly about their amazing day, you smiled and laughed along with them.

Teaching them to ride a bike had been a disaster. You’d brought the bikes home and spent all morning putting them together. The only problem was, James’ bike was missing a piece. And it wouldn’t be in for two weeks. The boys hadn’t wanted to wait any longer and had convinced you they could just share until then. Which seemed like a great plan until James was ready to ride without the training wheels and George was not. For the next two weeks, it felt like you were constantly putting on and taking off the training wheels.

For their sixth birthday, you took them on a trip to California. Rex wasn’t happy to be left behind in Montana, but you guys were flying and you didn’t feel right putting him on a plane. The first thing you did when you got there was take the boys to Disneyland. George fell in love with Cinderella from the get-go and had stood back watching her for the longest time before she saw him and posed with him for a picture. James was infatuated with Peter Pan, and you’d spent all day trying to figure out where he would be. You’d almost given up hope when a cast member saw how upset he was and managed to arrange a special meeting. For the rest of the trip, the boys just kept talking about how amazing it was.

You’d taken them to the beach for the first time too. You’d spent weeks before the trip teaching them all about the dangers of the ocean waves and currents, and so when you told them they could only go in the water when holding your hand they didn’t fight you. After that, you took them to the Aquarium of the Pacific, where they got to pet the stingrays and jellyfish and got to feed the colorful birds.

After you got home from the trip with the boys, you soon learned that the Avengers had been in that same part of California as you had. The fear rose in your chest, and for weeks you worried they’d found you, that they’d show up and you’d have to leave again. How could you raise the boys on the run? Forcing them to leave behind the only home they’d ever known because you worried someone bad would find you. As weeks passed with no unexpected visitors, you merely chalked it up to an unlucky moment and decided to be more careful on vacations in the future.

Through the years you’d become close to your neighbor down the road. Ty owned the mechanic shop right next door to the diner, and whenever something broke that you couldn’t fix he was your first call. He’d lost his wife to cancer two years after you moved in, and the two of you had bonded over the loss of your loved ones. It seemed like everyone in town had a bet on when the two of you would start dating, but you both knew that would never happen. It probably didn’t help that you both loved Criminal Minds so he’d taken to calling you a variety of fun pet names every time. You loved each other like siblings, and he was more than happy to step in and fill the role of father figure for the boys. Of course, they knew he wasn’t their dad but it was nice to have a positive male role model for them. Part of you wondered what things would have been like if you’d let Steve, Sam and Tony be in their lives, but that only lasted until news of another Avengers related disaster hit the news.

Ty’s mother, Kay, soon became Grandma Kay to you and the boys. Since Ty and his wife never had children of their own, she was more than happy to welcome your family in as her grandchildren. You never felt unwelcome or out of place in her house, and growing up the boys loved getting to go spend the night at Grandma Kay’s, or “Gamma Kay’s” house as they’d say when they were younger. For the first time in a long time, you felt like you had a real family and you couldn’t have been more grateful to them for welcoming you in without a second thought.

On April 28th every year, Ty would take the boys for the day. He’d take them to the movies and ice cream, and out on adventures so you could have the day to yourself. That evening, they’d always spend the night at Grandma Kay’s. And every year, you’d spend the day crying in bed. While the rest of the year you managed to get by with just a few shed tears here and there, the anniversary of Bucky’s death hit you just as hard every year. Long ago you’d learned to accept that the past couldn’t be changed. You couldn’t go back and save him, the only thing you could do was let go of the guilt and the blame.

When the boys were old enough, they joined the local cub scouts group. The night of their first-ever camping trip you stayed up all night and didn’t sleep a wink. You’d never spent a night away from them before, and you kept waiting for a phone call. It wasn’t until dawn that you nodded off on the couch, phone clutched in your hand, and Rex curled up at your feet. The boys were so excited when they got home they wouldn’t stop talking about how much fun it had been for almost a week, and you had to promise to go camping with them as soon as you could.

It was a slow Wednesday afternoon in the diner, the lunch rush had already passed but the dinner crowd hadn’t come yet. You were just hanging out with the server and chef on duty, talking about your plans for the upcoming weekend when a news bulletin caught your attention. There’d been another attack on the Avengers complex in upstate New York, and this time it was a bad one. Most of the buildings had been completely destroyed, and no one knew if there had been any casualties.

Your employees couldn’t figure out why you looked at the tv like your world had just come crashing down around you as you waited for any news. Eventually, they’d called Ty and he’d taken you back to your home. You didn’t explain, and he didn’t ask questions. Your eyes were glued to the television for the rest of the day. Ty took the kids for the day, and you could never thank him quite enough for that. Rex and you watched the reports, hands shaking until you saw your team give a press conference reassuring everyone they were okay.

For their seventh birthday, James asked for a skateboard and George asked for a pony. You couldn’t say no to them, not on something like this, but you weren’t quite sure you guys were prepared for the life of pony ownership, so instead you signed George up for lessons at the local stable.

George took to riding like a natural, and the smile that lit up his face the first time he mounted up brought a tear to your eye. Within six months you’d bought him a sweet old school horse, a horse who had seen and done it all and was perfect for him to learn on. George named him after his favorite Avenger - Falcon. You cried that night, wanting nothing more than to just call and catch up with Sam and Nat, but you didn’t.

James was a nightmare with the skateboard and within a week he’d started building ramps out of spare wood he earned helping out at the hardware store in town. Ty helped him build the ramps, and you watched nervously as he became more and more of a daredevil. When he fell and broke his arm, Ty cried and blamed himself. You’d merely sighed and told him James would have found a way to do it anyways, if anything Ty had made sure it was only a broken arm.

The years slowly ticked by and before you knew it, it had been eight years since you’d last spoken to any of the Avengers, almost nine years since you lost Bucky. Life was good, and your biggest worry was Rex getting up there in years. The vet said he was almost 10 now, and you could see it in the graying of his muzzle. He wasn’t quick to greet every visitor to the diner anymore, happy to just sit and watch the people as they went about their lives.

You didn’t hear the chime of the diner door opening, too busy chatting with Ty at the far end of the counter as you poured him a cup of coffee. It wasn’t until Rex let out one loud bark that you turned around to see what was up. In all the years you’d been running the diner, he’d never once done that so when you noticed the stranger standing at the diner entrance you watched cautiously as they removed their baseball cap and looked up at you.

The carafe slid from your grasp, shattering on the linoleum at your feet. Your hands flew up to cover your mouth and you froze, your eyes locked on the familiar figure in front of you. Your eyes knew what they were seeing, but your brain couldn’t process it, couldn’t believe what it was seeing.

You felt a warm hand settle on your shoulder and Ty’s voice seemed to echo through the now silent diner, “You okay, baby girl?”

The familiar man in front of you glanced at the ring on your finger, then Ty’s hand on your shoulder, and shoved his baseball cap back on his head, leaving just as quickly as he had arrived.

You stood there frozen for a long time, before breaking out of the trance and racing out the door after him. He was long gone, no trace he was ever there and if it wasn’t for Ty and Rex’s reactions, you’d have thought he was a hallucination. Ty followed you outside, but you weren’t listening to anything he said, could barely hear the questions that poured from him.

You bit back a sob, one name slipping through your lips as tears began to track down your cheeks, “Bucky….”

~~~~~

Next Chapter ->

Taglist OPEN: @he-is-chaotic-she-is-psychotic @queenoftheunderdark @redfoxwritesstuff @brokenthelovely @collinsstanharbour @samsgoddess @redhairedfeistynerd @winterisakiller

#Marvel's Avengers #marvels the avengers #Marvel The Avengers #marvel #Marvel's The Avengers #angst #angst with happy ending #Angst with a happy ending #bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes #fanfic #Avengers #The Avengers

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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years

Text

Do you like meatball subs? It’s not something I’ve had too many times, but sure. I much prefer spaghetti and meatballs, though.

Are you severely sleep deprived? I really am. My sleep schedule has been so bad for so long and I’m just so damn tired all the time.

What music are you listening to? I’m not listening to music.

What is your favorite smell on earth? The ocean, rain, firewood burning, coffee, garlic, patchouli, cinnamon, mint, cedar wood, sandalwood, baked goods, coconut...

What are you doing tomorrow morning? Hopefully I’ll be sleeping.

What are you supposed to be doing right now? I don’t have anything I’m supposed to be doing, but I will be making ramen soon.

Have you ever killed your elbows on an inflatable obstacle course? No. I’ve never done an inflatable obstacle course.

Are you aware that all these questions are being made up at 3:54 am? How would I know that?

Ever gone a whole day without eating? Yeah, it happens sometimes.

Do you feel that you need to improve your spiritual life? I’ve been building my faith and relationship with God for the past few years. Participating in Bible studies really helps me do that.

Can you curse fluently in Spanish? No, but I know a few.

If you go to school (HS or college) does your school have a rival? My high school did.

What’s your school’s mascot? I’m not in school anymore, but I’m not sharing any of my school’s mascots.

Do the numbers 44 and 53 mean anything to you? No.

Ever had banana pudding flavored ice cream? I’ve had banana pudding froyo with vanilla wafer cookies before, which was quite delicious.

If you have a sib, do you call him/her “brother” or “sister” sometimes? I sometimes will call him “bro.”

Has the weather been odd lately where you live? We did have a pretty crazy storm a few weeks ago that was out of the blue and kinda rare for us. I loved it.

Remember “Kenan and Kel”? Yep.

Does the mere mention of that show make you crave orange soda? Nah, but watching it always did.

Are you *this* close to falling asleep? Yes. I was dozing off earlier.

Do you own a Wii? It’s my brother’s, but I could use it as well if I wanted.

If not, do you want one? --

Did you ever collect stickers? Yeah. I love stickers as a kid.

Isn’t Hello Kitty just the cutest thing ever? Not ever, but she’s pretty cute.

Are there any songs you could just listen to over and over and over? Yeah, there’s numerous songs that just don’t get old for me.

Do you have a favorite basketball team (NBA or college?) Nope. I don’t care at all about sports of any kind.

Ever had chicken curry and basmati rice? No.

Do you have a weird obsession with numbers? No.

Does your job (if you have one) involve sitting at a computer for hours? I don’t have a job. I do spend a lot of time on a computer at home, though.

Do you get major shoulder/upper back pain from that? Or think you would? I do get shoulder pain.

Do you have someone who will give you a massage when you need one? No. I’ve never had a massage before, actually.

Ever seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Nope.

Do you own any diamond jewelry? No.

Is this survey random enough for you? It’s fine.

Do you have an American-made car? I don’t have a car; I don’t drive.

Have you been baptized in any religious tradition? No.

Do you drink alcohol at all? Nope. It’s been 8 years since the last time I’ve had alcohol. I just have no desire at all for it.

If not, do you like the smell? Ew, no.

Are you in a chair, on a couch, in bed, on the floor, what? I’m sitting in my chair.

Can you eat just one potato chip? Never. Well, unless it was one I tried and didn’t like.

If your best male friend got a mohawk, would he look good or ridiculous? I don’t have a best male friend.

Do you love the smell of sunblock? I do.

Does the computer you’re on have Vista, XP, or something else? I have a MacBook Air, which currently is using macOS Sierra.

Internet Explorer or Firefox: which do you prefer? Neither, it’s all about Chrome.

What are you going to do now? I’m going to take my medicine and either make my ramen now or do another survey.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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kurayamineko · 8 years

Photo

#schoolgirl strikers: animation channel #tierra #tee-hee #sumihara satoka #yaginuma io #miyama tsubame #sajima yuumi #namori mana #team altair torte #yukishiro mori #ibuki imina #shiranui hazuki #shinonome ryouko #takamine ako #team coconuts vega

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unholyhelbig · 6 years

Note

Can we have more FBI Bechloe. You write them amazingly well!!

[A/N: Sure thing, and thank you! If you guys missed part one, click here]

Beca frowned into the burnt cup of coffee. It left a tinted and flaky rim around the typical white mug. She had tasted it first, and then the smell hit her. It was sour and reminded her of the breath of a monster with dripping yellow fangs. Its spit thick like hot venom. The young detective decided to forego it as she set it back on the edge of her desk under the one desk lamp that remained on.

Her eyebrows knit against the paperwork on her desk. A printed version of the contents that littered the flash drive. Most of it was in code, or at least that’s what Beca thought. There were strings of numbers and letters that she couldn’t quite decipher. Maybe she should play by the rule of thumb and give her eyes a break from the nonsense, then it would culminate into something more.

She let out a deep breath and leaned back into her chair, letting it creak and groan under her weight. The station had cleared out earlier, an assistant and a security guard being the two other people on this floor.

The holding cells remained on the floors below, sometimes a drunken man would stumble over his feet and shout. It would travel up the stairs and give her a moment of pause, a moment of thought. She had half a mind to pour the whiskey in the bottom cabinet of her desk into the coffee. Maybe it would make it taste less stale.

The flash drive was the first step in something more. She had foolishly slammed a drink into a Stepford wives face. She could still smell the sickeningly sweet edge of coconut and blue food dye that stained her beautiful dress and the hotel floor. Her knuckles were still a deep violet that faded to an amber brown. The necklace in evidence somewhere. Nicki would never talk.

“You’re here late,”

Beca drew in a breath sharp enough to cut the inside of her throat. She reached blindly for the weapon on her leather belt. She had untucked her button down from the front buckle in an effort to make herself feel more comfortable. Instead, it kept the fabric pinned under her thumb as she shot her midnight eyes up to the surrounding desks around her. Even in the stray light from her own lamp, she could relax her shoulders.

Chloe Beale.

The detective stood awkwardly between the main aisle and her own desk; her fingers were clamped around her elbow as she rocked back and forth of the balls of her feet. She was holding a pair of heels that would give her significant height, a form-fitting black dress hugged every curve in her body perfectly. Her auburn hair was curled and rolling, bringing out the vibrancy in her eyes.

For the first time in Beca’s stint here, she could read how uncomfortable Chloe was. It radiated off of her like the hint of air freshener that hung in the air with its tropical scents.

“You look nice, Chloe.” Beca simply said, drawing the mug to her lips before forcing a deep gulp of scalding liquid. She flinched at the taste. Her eyebrows raised. “Hot date?”

“There was supposed to be one. He was drunk when I got there, though. Loves to cause a scene.”

“That’s a real shame.”

Beca felt a pang of guilt towards Chloe. She had been admittedly difficult since she had been assigned to this case. She was pulled from her home office in New Orleans and forced into a stuffy city with no sense of music a couple of months ago. Chloe hadn’t been so bad, if not, more personable than any New Yorker she had meant thus far.

Chloe was a good sport. She would keep their covers during assignments and bring homemade food to the stakeouts that crowded them in the back of white vans with a fake logo painted on the side. Certainly not the type of woman to be treated with a drunken welcome.

“It is,” She let out a deep sigh and fell into her own rolling chair, its springs groaned. “He’s downstairs now. Figured a night in a holding cell might sober him up.”

“Oh, that’s ruthless, Detective Beale.”

Chloe smirked and pulled out the bottom case in her desk. The metal creaked and groaned as she breathed in evenly, flicking on her own desk lamp. In the light, Beca could evenly see her red painted lips and stunted highlighter. She looked beautiful, the backdrop of a normal agency behind her expertly curled hair. “Any luck on the flash drive?”

Beca didn’t’ answer right away. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to work out the lines of code that made her feel blue in the face anymore. Her eyes were trained on something more- something she hadn’t noticed before. Chloe Beale had always been the annoying partner that she had to play wife with dressed in obnoxious button downs.

“Beca?”

“hmm?” She leaned forward enough in her seat to put the soles of her shoes fully on the floor. “Oh, sorry. It’s not going… At least I don’t think it is. None of this makes sense.”

“Let me take a look,”

Before Beca could interject Chloe had gotten from her seat, her bare feet left heated marks against the floor. Her back was instantly warmed, Chloe pressing her whole front flush. She smelled like vanilla with a hint of champagne. Not enough to keep her from driving, or even give her a buzz. Beca froze.

Chloe’s skin was hot against hers as she let out a guttural noise, scrunching her features up at the printed version of the flash drives contents. “Huh, odd. You have Lily take a look at these?”

“I sent them out this morning but thought I could get some headway.” Beca focused on each word, trying to make sure they sounded even.

She hated the feeling that bubbled up against her stomach. Beca Mitchell didn’t get fondness. She would always show up and be teamed with someone who couldn’t tell a 9mm. from a 12. When she met Chloe for the first time and shared a clammy handshake, she knew it would be no different- thought it wouldn’t’ be.

“Maybe she can give you some insight then, because this?” Chloe leaned even further into her “This is all nonsense.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Beca asked, making a brazen move as she turned around completely in her seat and moved it so Chloe was still left-leaning close to the desk, but not as mind-numbingly close. “Chief thinks this thing runs deeper than the drug trade on the Marina. I might be here longer than you wanted.”

“Than I wanted? You don’t’ step on my toes as often as you like to think, Detective Mitchell.”

Chloe seemed to stifle a laugh as she got a good look at the scowl on Beca’s features. She placed her palms on the edge of the desk and pulled herself onto its top, careful not to cross her ankles and cock an eyebrow.

“That so?”

“Mm, I get along with most people. Once we kick that smoking habit of yours, you’d be a delight.”

Beca scoffed, she should have been offended, buy the way Chloe said that, but that innocent yet smug smile on her lips was enough to turn Beca’s stomach over. It reminded her of a woman she met a few months back at a truck stop in Las Vegas. The waitress smelled like artificial strawberry and she stared Beca down as she tied the black stem of a cherry with nothing but her tongue. She waved it around like a white flag and Beca fucked her in the bathroom after her shift was over.

Her stomach felt like that stem. Chloe’s had evidently dropped itself by the sound of it. Her smirk faltered as it let out a tough growl in defiance.

“You didn’t get the chance to eat on that date of yours, did you?”

“I paid for his tab and left.” She drew in a breath “I was going to grab whatever left-over lunch Stacie left in the fridge.”

“You’re nicer than I would have been.”

Beca stood then, picking up her jacket from the back of the chair. Chloe watched her with a tilted stare. “How do you feel about burgers? Do you boycott them as well?”

“Shove off, Mitchell.” Chloe Beale said easily, but with a smile.

#Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #bechloe #bechloe fic rec #fanfiction #request

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shirlleycoyle · 5 years

Text

The Fleshlight Is a Portal to the Future of Sex

“It’s quite possible someone’s having sex with me right now and I don’t even know it,” adult performer and director Stoya told me.

Her vulva is for sale on the internet and in stores. Or rather, a rubbery, lifelike mold of her vulva is, in the form of a Fleshlight. The outside of it looks almost exactly like her actual body. The inside is a labyrinth of corkscrew shapes, nodules, and ridges. It’s dubbed “The Destroya,” a name that, nine years after the product launched, still makes her laugh.

Fleshlight manufacturer Interactive Lifeforms LLC has sold more than 75,000 Destroyas and more than 15 million Fleshlights total since the company started 20 years ago. It averages around 20,000 retail orders every month, according to a spokesperson for the company.

At around 1.63 pounds each, that’s nearly 24.5 million pounds of fucktoy floating around, taking up space in closets, nightstands, and under beds around the world.

The Fleshlight is an artifact of the sexually adventurous, technologically innovative 90s, but it’s become the face—and lips, and anus, and lips—of the male sex toy industry. The fact that a disembodied vulva and vaginal canal to jerk off into exists in 2019, the era of #MeToo and grabbed pussies and tabloid uproar over sex robots, shows the often contradictory intersection of sex and technology.

On one hand, the Fleshlight is a portal to new forms of sexual openness, allowing people, even those who think of themselves as heterosexual men, to engage in sex that moves away from old notions of gender and the biological body in general. On the other, the Fleshlight is also the reduction of a person to a replica of their reproductive organs. But 21 years since its inception, Fleshlight, the people who use them, and sex toy experts are realizing that maybe people don’t need an exact replica of a vulva or anus to get off. Sex toys are increasingly taking on more abstract, functional forms, and the future of the Fleshlight and toys like it may rely less on using replicas of disembodied genitals.

Today, the Fleshlight is polarizing even for the people who use it. No matter your opinion of the ubiquitous brand, it’s made an undeniable mark on human sexuality and the world.

Hundreds of years from now, if sentient life still exists on Earth, when archeologists dig up the still-intact bits and pieces of plastic casings containing rubberized genitalia, what will they think of the Fleshlight? Will it be considered an antiquated representation of how society literally objectified and commodifed sexual pleasure, or a turning point in the normalization of sex toys for all people, and our first step into a world where technology is an inseparable part of sex?

The answer, according to people who make them, use them, and are them, is both.

WHAT MAKES A FLESHLIGHT

The original Fleshlight model consists of a 10-inch plastic tube casing with a soft sleeve inside. You stick an erect dick (plus some water-based lube) into one end, grip ridges on the outside of the casing, and stroke the penis inside of the sleeve. You fuck the tube, come in the tube, then (ideally promptly) unscrew the whole apparatus and rinse it out with water (soap could degrade the material) and dry it.

Earliest archived version of Fleshlight.com, captured May 1998

Why the Fleshlight exists is a complicated story that’s become seminal sex toy lore. If the many interviews given by the company’s founder Steve Shubin are to be believed, the Fleshlight was born from his desire to get off while his spouse was pregnant.

In the late 90s Shubin, a former member of the Los Angeles Police Department’s SWAT team, and his wife Kathy were expecting twins. Both in their 40s, the couple was advised by doctors that because of their age and the fact Kathy was having two babies, the pregnancy was high-risk. He claims they were told not to have sex again until after the baby was born.

“I asked my wife ‘would you think I was a pervert if I told you there was something that I could use, sexually?'” Shubin told Wired in 2008. “But the adult store had only junk. Just crap. I thought, I can make something better, and took $50,000 of our savings to start working on it.”

Image from the 1997 patent filing for a “discrete sperm collection” device.

Shubin’s first patent filing, in 1995, was for a “female functional mannequin,” a hard sex doll torso. He called his next invention, which boiled the whole doll down to just the genitals, a “device for discreet sperm collection.” The proto-Fleshlight.

This version of the Fleshlight was pretty similar to what we see on the market today. But the description Shubin laid out in the 1997 patent filing was much more clinical. The product was framed as useful for sperm banks or doctors’ offices.

It also predicted some of the embarrassment many men feel from tucking a sex toy away in their own homes:

While my [sex doll] patent succeeds admirably in fulfilling the objects of that invention, it has several characteristics that prevent it from universal acceptance. When the torso mannequin is used in sperm banks, doctor’s offices, and other public facilities, it is sometimes intimidating to the patient being treated or may have an adverse effect upon the patient’s sexual desire and ability to deposit sperm. […] When the device of my patent is used in the home, or by those who find such a mannequin to be positive in nature, there is the concern that others will still find the object during a casual visit to the home.

The earliest version of Fleshlight.com that’s archived online, captured in 1998, shows a company attempting to carve a path as the first widely-accepted male sex toy by characterizing it as a requirement of virility, manliness, and insatiable sex drive. From an archive of Fleshlight’s “Our Philosophy” page circa May 1998:

The need for sexual gratification is as present and as powerful in a man as it is in the stallion. But where the stallion has no ability to wait, relentlessly pursuing his desire until he is satisfied or restrained, man has the ability to control his desires through fantasy… That release has to be done in a responsible way or we risk our relationships, expose ourselves to disease, take a chance with unwanted pregnancy, or even, in extreme cases, break the law.

The market, and we as a species, were primed for this thing to succeed. Hallie Lieberman, sex historian and author of Buzz: The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy, told me that artificial vaginas and sleeves date as far back as the 1600s—the first being Japanese masturbators made from tortoiseshell and velvet, she said. Artificial vaginas were sold in the U.S. as early as the late 1800s, she said, and Doc Johnson debuted the “pocket pal” in the late 1970s. Pocket pals look a lot like Fleshlights without the hard case around them (therefore, like long fleshy sandworms), and the labias themselves are a lot more realistic-looking compared to Fleshlights’ more smooth, almost cartoonish aesthetic.

Doc Johnson’s “Pocket Pal,” as seen for sale on Amazon.

When Fleshlight hit the market in the late 1990s, sex toys marketed to male customers still mostly consisted of “pocket pussies,” “those disembodied, often clunky looking artificial vaginas—sometimes with fake pubic hair,” Lynn Comella, associate professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of Vibrator Nation, told me. “They were really kind of gross looking and for years, many women-friendly retailers, such as Good Vibrations, refused to carry them because they felt that displaying disembodied female body parts didn’t fit with their women-friendly vibe.” (San Francisco-based Good Vibrations became the first sex-positive, women-friendly sex shop in the U.S. in 1997.)

“Some Fleshlight designs actually depict women’s genitals beautifully, like a more commercialized version of a Georgia O’Keefe painting.”

Since time immemorial, men have been fucking whatever they can get their hands on, whether it be rubber gloves, toiler paper rolls, couch cushions, fruit, teddy bears, etc. A story about a Redditor who jerked off into a coconut, then later had his penis covered by maggots (he did it multiple times with the same coconut), has become treasured Reddit lore. There are also communities committed to exploring upscale DIY masturbators by refashioning Pringles cans, sponges, and building a better Fleshlight.

The Fleshlight arrived in a perfect pro-masturbation societal storm, Lieberman said: On the heels of the safe sex messaging of the 1980s AIDS crisis, in the midst of cultural landmarks like Seinfeld’s 1992 episode “The Contest” which grappled with masturbation both male and female, and as the White House forced Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders to resign in 1994 for suggesting masturbation should be taught in school. In the 90s, masturbation, for better or worse, was discussed more openly than ever.

Shubin couldn’t have happened into a better time to unveil a tasteful sex toy for penis-having people. But the Fleshlight founder’s reputation is controversial: he’s waxed nostalgic in interviews about his time as an aggressive LAPD cop, and the company’s Glassdoor reviews are generally abysmal.

In 2010, Stoya stopped by the Fleshlight headquarters in Austin, Texas before her mold was made, and described Shubin as a “mountain of a man” who normalized the absurdity that surrounded him.

“He was like, ‘We’re having a meetin’ about selling your vulva, in a can, in a box,'” she said. “It suddenly seems so reasonable and everyday when you’re talking, but you get back to regular life and it’s like, Ha, there are like 100,000 replicas of my pussy floating around.”

USER EXPERIENCES

When I went looking for Fleshlight users, nearly 200 people messaged me to voluntarily talk about their Fleshlight experiences.

“It felt a lot better than I thought it would, which kind of depressed me tbh,” one Fleshlight user told me. “Made me miss actual physical intimacy. Hence why I only used it like 5 times.”

I offered all of them anonymity in order to speak freely about their private, sexual experiences, and asked the ones who requested anonymity to explain why they didn’t want to be named. Almost all of them cited some element of social stigma or shame.

The overwhelming majority of these people were male-identifying. Many said they were lapsed Fleshlight or non-Fleshlight pocket pussy enthusiasts—guys who told me they’d been gifted a masturbation sleeve of some kind, years ago, or bought one on a whim, and used it once or twice before casting it aside again. Several cited the difficulty of cleaning the Fleshlight for why they don’t use it more.

At least three cited some hazing ritual in college, or sharing one pocket pussy with an entire group of male friends.

Several described feeling a sense of disgust with themselves after using it.

“Used it like 4 times, post nut clarity hit extra hard, & now it’s somewhere in my closet soaked in semen & dust,” said one person.

Almost everyone who spoke to me said the feeling of masturbating into a fake vagina is nothing like the real thing.

“They’re billed as lifelike, and they simply are not,” one said. “Of course! It’s a chunk of rubber at the end of the day. It’s not a bad thing, they feel good.”

A few men told me that they use Fleshlights due to physical disability, to increase stamina, or conditions that make it difficult for them to have sex otherwise. One said he bought his online when he was 22. Because he has cerebral palsy, finding sexual partners is difficult. A Fleshlight, he thought, would make imagining the experience more vivid.

“It was what I expected, but it was also more difficult to enjoy for me as my hand would cramp from using the plastic container thing it came with for extra suction,” he said. “As a disabled user, it allowed me the freedom and knowledge that sex toys were definitely for me! It helped me deal with some of the loneliness that I was experiencing.”

I also spoke with Dan Cooper, senior editor at Engadget, about his experience reviewing a Fleshlight Launch—the company’s digital product made with teledildonics company Kiiroo, that moves up and down on its own, in tandem with porn scenes. Cooper’s childhood phimosis (a condition that causes over-tightening of the foreskin) led to him needing a medical circumcision, which he said gave him limited sensitivity during sex or masturbation.

“Even as someone who thinks of themselves as sex-positive, I’ve always held the view that Fleshlights were a bit sad,” Cooper told me. “I’d assumed that they wouldn’t have worked with my broken genitals, but it was revelatory how effective (and fun) they are to use.”

A few wives and girlfriends told me why they bought their male partners Fleshlights as gifts. Their stories usually involved buying masturbators as a couple, to use while traveling or in long-distance relationships. Some said they were gifts to use during military deployments.

Karabella, a trans woman and porn performer, told me that she first encountered a Fleshlight in 2012, on her first big production shoot. “I’d never even heard of a ‘pocket pussy’ before, but [the director] pulled out a brand new one and handed it to me,” she said. “It wasn’t exactly inviting when I first slid into the butthole-shaped slit of cold silicone, so I initially started to lose my erection. However, as it began to warm up around me it was increasingly difficult to differentiate between it and real flesh.” Seven years later, using a Fleshlight has become a staple of her cam shows and performances.

HOW IT’S MADE

Beyond what’s publicly available on the Fleshlight website, specific details about the production of Fleshlights are a closely-guarded company secret. No one outside the company seems to know what the soft, skin-like material—trademarked as “Real Feel SuperSkin”—is made out of.

Kristen Kaye, Fleshlight’s Head of Business Development until late last month when she left the company, said that the material “is indeed proprietary.” She told me she believes it is biodegradable, and “made of natural materials, mostly.”

The closest I came to finding the secret recipe for SuperSkin was through the founder of FleshAssist.com, a website devoted to all things Fleshlight and masturbators. A 24-year old web developer who goes by the pseudonym John started FleshAssist in 2014 after years spent frequenting Fleshlight forums. He told me in an email that ever since buying his first name-brand Fleshlight at 20 years old, he was “hooked.”

John told me that SuperSkin, as far as he’s aware, is made from “amorphous polymers,” a mixture of PVC and silicone. It’s similar to CyberSkin, another type of thermoplastic faux-skin material used in lots of non-Fleshlight brand sex toys and dolls (but not patented, like SuperSkin).

“The trick with softer materials is that they will inevitably not feel as velvety or suede-y as harder silicone,” Emily Sauer, founder of sex wearable company Ohnut, told me. “So there is in the development of the product, there is a constant battle between, you know, does it feel too sticky? Does it feel gross in any way? There’s a very fine line.”

“The hand is just way easier. Boner. Hand. Done. It’s that simple.”

Micropores in the Fleshlight’s PVC make their “skin” more realistic to the touch, but also can never be fully, truly sterilized once it’s used. The top complaint I heard from all of the Fleshlight users I spoke to was that it’s too hard to clean to use regularly.

“That’s really gross to me that guys don’t even rinse them out right after, now I’m thinking about it,” Kaye said. “How hard it would be to clean…. If you were to let things dry in there, how disgusting that would be?”

After our call, I borrowed a friend’s (unused) Fleshlight to find out for myself. It’s relatively easy to unscrew the pieces and take apart, and there’s a hole in both ends of the removable soft sleeve to run water through it. As In Bed Magazine’s YouTube review notes, the most inconvenient part of cleaning is leaving it out to dry in the open long enough that you can safely store it without worrying about mold growing in a wet, airtight can—but not so long that your roommates or family stumble across a silicone worm with a vulva on the end of it.

“I think it just comes down to laziness, to be honest,” Kaye said about why people don’t regularly clean their Fleshlights.

According to my very informal online polling, she’s right.

“The biggest annoyance for me was the clean up,” Twitter user and self-proclaimed “vaginal aficionado” @BurlClooney said. Burl first heard about Fleshlight on an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, which had a partnership with the company from 2010 to around 2012, according to Rogan’s tweets at the time.

“Your semen goes down into a base at the bottom and you should really clean that shit immediately,” he said. “But, I usually just wanted to sleep right away and would leave it until the next day or I would forget until I next used it. It was absolutely fucking disgusting. The cum would turn a weird color and it was so gross to clean out then. However, I mainly stopped due to all the prep work. The hand is just way easier. Boner. Hand. Done. It’s that simple.”

BECOMING A ‘FLESHLIGHT GIRL’

Stoya told me she once fucked a man with a mold of her own silicone vagina.

“It was so like, bizarrely narcissistic, but kind of beautiful,” she said.

She’s featured in one of Fleshlight’s most popular product lines, the Fleshlight Girls. There are also Fleshlight Boys (anal molds), and Guys (dildos), all modeled after real porn performers’ anatomy. Fleshlight currently offers around 45 models of Fleshlight Girls, including Stoya, Riley Reid, Jessica Drake, and Kissa Sins.

“I was laughing and talking a lot, and they told me to be careful, because your asshole actually moves a little bit when you laugh.”

Becoming a Fleshlight Girl is a career goal for many in the industry. Kaye, who led the selection of Fleshlight models, told me that three or four years ago the performer’s popularity rank on Pornhub, for example, would have been a deciding factor. Now, she looks at a variety of metrics—social media following, engagement online, how entrepreneurial and invested they are in their own success.

As secretive as the SuperSkin material recipe is, the process of molding a real vulva into SuperSkin is kept even more tight-lipped.

Fleshlight Girl Elsa Jean told me that the process of getting her custom mold done involved going to the Fleshlight headquarters in Austin and having someone cast a mold of her vulva and anus. Fleshlight models’ genitalia are also photographed using a 3D camera, and the final mold is hand-sculpted by a professional artist to get the details as accurate as possible.

“For my butthole, I had to go into a doggy[-style position],” Jean said. “I was laughing and talking a lot, and they told me to be careful, because your asshole actually moves a little bit when you laugh.”

Once they’re finished making the silicone mold, the models are given the product to check out. When Stoya saw a Fleshlight modeled after her own anatomy for the first time, the first thing she did was text a handful of her former lovers a photo of the silicone vulva. They’d know, she reasoned, if it was realistically accurate. (They said it was.)

“It was a very like, holy shit moment,” Stoya said. “You feel a bit like an action figure.”

Models are paid in royalties instead of a flat fee. The more that sell, the more money they personally make. For Stoya, being recruited for a Fleshlight of her own was a springboard into independence in the adult industry. “It’s what’s enabled me to start independent porn companies like Zero Spaces,” she said. “It’s sold well enough that it gives me the extra resources to do creative things.”

“Having my vagina and butthole on sale for people is actually pretty amazing,” Jean said. “Believe it or not, it was one of my goals when I first started in the industry. It’s as close as they can get to having the real thing.”

The actual objectification—turning a woman’s body into an object—involved in making a custom Fleshlight has brought the company, and anatomically-correct masturbation sleeves generally, some criticism.

“I don’t think it’s objectifying,” Lieberman said. “In fact, I’d even say that some Fleshlight designs actually depict women’s genitals beautifully, like a more commercialized version of a Georgia O’Keefe painting.”

I asked Stoya how she feels about the objectification criticism, as someone who’s worked in the adult industry as an actor, director, writer and business owner. Is the idea that hundreds of men could be fucking “her” right now weird at all?

After all, hundreds of people could be jerking off to her porn right now, too—and isn’t that kind of the same? Not at all, she said.

“People like don’t give a fuck largely about who’s doing the fucking [in mainstream porn], who’s coming up with the fucking, but with a Fleshlight—someone has looked [for me],” she said. “And even if they don’t know who I am, or my work, or care who I am as a person? They’ve still chosen my vulva. And that’s qualitatively different.”

People choose the Stoya Fleshlight because they’ve seen her work, or read something she’s written, or even just read the description on the product page of her persona, she said—and liked what they saw enough to pay $79.95 to fantasize about fucking her.

“That feels really humanizing,” Stoya said. “Whereas seeing one of my videos pirated on Pornhub with a sentence in the description that says, ‘Don’t mention the performers name so she can’t find this and get this removed’? That’s really dehumanizing, and really separates you from your work. With the Fleshlight, it’s the opposite.”

THE STIGMA

As the woman charged with marketing a plastic pussy to the masses, Kaye had a big job. And a huge part of that job, she told me, is overcoming the stigma attached to masturbation sleeves, and the men who buy them. Kaye’s worked in the adult industry—in advertising, consulting, and marketing—for 13 years, but for the last three with Fleshlight, she’s made it her mission to drag that shame out from under men’s beds and bring masturbation tools into the light.

“Unfortunately, for men, there are stigmas attached to using a masturbation device… because for whatever reason, if a guy’s masturbating or talks about masturbating, it’s like they’re not getting laid,” she said.

“For cis-gendered males, revealing you have a fleshlight gives implications that you can’t ‘get a girl’ on your own, which inhibits the positive ramifications of using sex toys,” one anonymous user told me. “In reality, they can help people explore what satisfies them, and healthily masturbating can relieve stress or just clear one’s mind, at least in my experience.”

“I feel like a lot of men feel ashamed or embarrassed for using one, but when you’re having a dry spell or not getting laid often, it’s very beneficial,” Twitter user @g0dsparadise said. “I have given Fleshlights as gifts in the past, I have told my closest friends about it, and I am hoping that one day it becomes very common to own one just because this whole stigma is ridiculous to me.”

Some pointed out a percieved double standard between male and female-gendered sex toys. “There’s an interesting dichotomy,” Cooper said. He attributed it to women’s sex toys being seen as “luxurious” and respected, while men’s typically aren’t. “But it all drills back to the idea that we should somehow be ashamed of sex.”

FleshAssist founder John told me that while the stigma itself isn’t as bad as it used to be, it still exists.

“I saw a comment before that said something along the lines of ‘a dildo looks potent, it shows that a woman doesn’t need a man,’ making it a symbol of female independence and empowerment,” John said. “I think if we flip that around, and say ‘a man with a masturbator shows that he doesn’t need a woman’ it doesn’t have the same resonance at all.”

Liberman said that she has noticed this stigma, too—and that despite toys like Fleshlight in the mainstream, it hasn’t changed much. “I think that’s because men are supposed to be self-sufficient and not need additional tools to get off,” she said. “Their hands are supposed to be all they need.”

THE FUTURE OF FUCKTOYS

It’s possible that the Fleshlight and other toys like it are a decent oracle for the future of sex.

If the analog Fleshlight was a step toward destigmatizing male sex toys, its interactive, internet-connected iteration could help bring virtual reality sex to the mainstream.

Fleshlight’s Launch device syncs automatic, motorized movement with interactive porn content. It’s a Fleshlight sleeve inside a casing shaped and sized like a wine chiller that moves the sleeve up and down in rhythm with the porn it’s synced with.

Fleshlight isn’t the first sex toy to combine porn, virtual reality, and a connected device that syncs the two. Around the time the earliest adult-themed virtual reality films were revealed, in 2015, people started wondering if porn would be the thing to finally push VR into the mainstream.

Sex toys that interact with film and VR open new worlds of transcending what your physical, corporeally-limited body could experience. Companies like Camasutra exist today that scan real humans into avatars for fuckability in virtual worlds. There’s no limit to what you can embody, sexually, in these virtual environments.

“The porn and sex-toy industries have always led the way in technological innovation: from the electrification of the vibrator in the late 19th century to the early adoption of VHS by porn directors,” Lieberman said. “VR and the Fleshlight are just extensions of this trend that stretches back all the way to the printing press and erotic literature.”

She attributes this innovation to a need for something novel. Putting your dick inside a mechanized stroker-bot certainly is that, and Fleshlight, as it chases the interactive trend, knows it.

As our identities become more openly fluid and less binary, so do our toys. Ohnut, another wearable, doesn’t look like anything anatomical at all. Even the color, a pale jade, is meant to evoke a neutrality without being skin-like. Like Kaye, Ohnut’s founder Sauer also mentioned the concept of enhancement. “It’s not trying to replace skin. It’s not trying to replace a person or anything. It enhances,” she said.

Sauer points to Tenga, a Japanese company that’s been making disposable soft strokers and sleeves since 2005, as an example of where the industry could continue heading: Toward a less gendered, more pleasure-centered future of sex. One of their products, the Tenga Egg, is a handheld stroker shaped like a gummy, hollow egg, and they’re sold inside Easter egg-hunt-shaped packaging.

“They’re de-misogynizing the male masturbator,” Sauer said. “[Tenga products] are so delightful, but they’re just as dirty. They’re meant to be thrown away, but they come in really fun patterns. And what’s less masculine than a white egg?”

“I think that sex toys now are moving away from realism: the idea that a person would only want to masturbate with a replica of genitals is kind of going away,” Lieberman said. “People are more focused on both the utility of a device (does it give me an orgasm) and the design: they want something that looks beautiful.” She noted that the Eva II vibrator by Dame, and Unbound’s Bean and Squish are geometric—not dick or vulva-shaped.

Fleshlight is no exception to this trend. According to Kaye, the Fleshlight Turbo, a newer, non-anatomical sleeve, is creeping up in reviews. It looks nothing like human anatomy. It doesn’t even come in “skin” colors—only “Blue Ice” and “Copper.” (However, a helpful cross-section of the Turbo labels where you’re meant to imagine the lips, throat and tongue would be.)

Screenshot via Fleshlight.com

“I think marketing the other stuff—the stuff that’s not like, pardon my French, fucking a rubber pussy—that’s how we’ve transitioned our marketing approach,” Kaye said. “The exact replica of the genitalia? I think that’s kind of getting tired. I see that the younger people are more inclined to get the stuff that’s non-anatomical, that’s a little more discreet.”

“The idea that a person would only want to masturbate with a replica of genitals is kind of going away.”

“There’s more of an acknowledgement that many people don’t fit into the gender binary and our toys should reflect that,” Lieberman said. “I think that gender neutral sex toys are popular now because sex toys always reflect the culture of the time they’re created in; they reflect the current gender norms…. I think this shift in sex toy design to gender neutral reflects both a profit motive and a desire for inclusivity.”

For some companies, this might be an inclusivity effort, but for others, “it’s a response to the fact that inclusivity can be profitable,” Comella said. “A business that de-genders vibrators or ‘queers’ sex toys also expands its potential market reach by eliminating labels that don’t have to be there in the first place.”

But for those who still want the visual illusion of another person, Fleshlight isn’t going anywhere.

“That’s the thing to always keep in mind with the adult industry: It’s the business of fantasy,” Stoya said. “It’s like magic or professional wrestling. The audience who enjoys it comes in, ready to suspend their disbelief.”

Lieberman believes that lifelike sex toys impact our sexuality mostly for the good. If you want the feeling of fucking a penis or vagina or butthole without another person attached to it, that option is available to us, here in the future.

“I’m not sure that our society is that much different for having the Fleshlight in the world,” Lieberman said. “But our society is better when more people are having orgasms, and since Fleshlights provide orgasms, then our society is a bit happier thanks to the device.”

The Fleshlight Is a Portal to the Future of Sex syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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thephilosopheroftheboudoir · 6 years

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Grim History

Michael Oliver, the Phoenix Foundation and Three Failed Attempts at Starting a New Nation

National Public Radio once called The Phoenix Foundation a shadowy and sinister organization. It is not entirely clear if they are still active. We do know that their founder, Michael Oliver, tried on three separate occaisions to start his own nation based on libertarian ideology. His methods involved stirring up troubles in small island nations with a potential for starting violent independence movements. Michael Oliver and the Phoenix Foundation were, at best, on a quixotic quest without any realistic chance of success.

The sixties were a time when national independence movements were thriving. The post-colonial era was at its peak and anti-Soviet rebellions were breaking out in Eastern Europe. Some of that spirit spread to the first world and Michael Oliver, a real estate developer who had made it big in Las Vegas, caught a bit of that wind. Oliver was a Lithuanian immigrant, a far-right anarcho-libertarian in ideology, an anti-communist, anti-tax activist, and advocate of strict adherence to the gold standard. In 1971, he began pitching dreams of a libertarian utopia where no government would interfere with anybody and no taxes would be paid. He attracted a sleazy group of intelligence agents, laissez faire capitalist extremists, pimps, drug traffickers and mafiosi who poured $200.000 into his scheme to build his island paradise in the South Pacific.

The Minerva Reefs, somewhat near Tonga, were uninhabited by anything other than sea creatures; this was due to their location underwater. Michael Oliver hired a team of barges to haul sand from Australia to the reef and dump it there to make an island rising above sea level. When the waves no longer covered the newly-made land, Oliver and his appointed president of the Republic of Minerva, Morris Davis, arrived with flags and freshly minted coins made of gold on one side and silver on the other. They built one tower on the island. The other governments of the region were suspicious, so they held a meeting and agreed that something needed to be done. The King of Tonga sent a small band of troops to occupy the island; they seized Minerva’s one tower, planted the Tongan flag in the sand, and chased Oliver and his goofy friends away. The island of Minerva has been a part of Tonga ever since.

Never one to kknow when to quit, Oliver saw the Republic of Minerva as a learning experience rather than a defeat. His next venture into nation building involved ex-OSS intelligence agent Mitchell Werbell and a large supply of military-grade weaponry to be used for defense and armed rebellion. 1973 was the year when Great Britain decided to set the Bahamas free and end colonial rule in that Caribbean group of islands. The white inhabitants of Bahamian Abaco wanted to remain a part of the U.K. since they feared being a marginalized minority population under a government made up of Afro-Caribbean politicians. Oliver saw his opportunity. He made contact with the people of Abaco and offered them financial and military aid in exchange for letting him build his libertarian fantasy on their land. He soon brought Werbell in a helicopter with a large collection of heavy weaponry and a newly-penned constitution guaranteeing extremely limited government and establishing Abaco as a tax-haven nation.

Mitchell Werbell attempted to build a militia by training the residents of Abaco in warfare techniques. Initially, the machine guns and hand grenades looked like fun but soon the peoples’ interest waned. They had little interest in being a utopian country where rich people could hide their money in banks to avoid taxation; they did not want their island to turn into a seedy enclave of drug runners and whorehouses. Ultimately they wanted to remain a part of the U.K. but that dream died when the British officials flat-out told them they were not interested in keeping Abaco as a British possession. Oliver began to look like a meddler and a crank. The Bahamian government easily put down the rebellion; Michael Oliver got deported and Werbell got arrested for illegal weapons trafficking. They sentenced him to prison in the United States.

The Phoenix Foundation officially started in 1975. The three trustees of the group were Michael Oliver, his friend James McKeever, and Harry Schulz, the world’s highest paid investment banker at the time. Their aim was to turn their anarcho-capitalist, laissez faire ideology into a tax-free banking nation ; their motivation was that something had to be done soon since America was losing the Cold War and the age-old right wing trope that a communist totalitarian dictatorship would soon engulf the freest nation in the world was imminent. Either that or society was about to collapse because the government makes people pay taxes. After scheming in secret for five years, the Phoenix Foundation moved its headquarters to Amsterdam to escape the prying eyes of the IRS and other government snoops. In 1980 they put their plans into action.

The New Hebrides were never officially a colony. The French and British governments came to a unique agreement to jointly administer the South Pacific island chain without actually claiming possession of it. The colonial era was winding down and both countries agreed to allow the New Hebrides to become an independent nation, soon to be named Vanuatu. The transition was to be a peaceful one and a cause for the Melanesian inhabitants to celebrate. The biggest obstacle came from a remote island called Espiritu Santo. Jimmy Stevens, a half-caucasian and half-Melanesian leader of a cargo cult called Nagriamel, had campaigned in Vanuatu’s first presidential election and lost by a landslide. Disgruntled, he returned to Espiritu Santo and declared the island to be a separate nation named Vemerana. The people in his cult rose up in rebellion, armed only with fists and bows and arrows. They seized all government property and the radio station, rioted, burned and looted buildings and blockaded the air strip to prevent any planes from landing.

Soon after that, a boat full of Vietnamese refugees got intercepted by the military. Upon inspection, they uncovered a large cache of guns and radio equipment. The boat was headed for Espiritu Santo and the ownership was registered as the Phoenix Foundation. The Vietnamese boat-people were being brought along to bulk-up the population of Espiritu Santo, although what they would do once they got there has never been fully explained.

For the Phoenix Foundation, this proved to be a minor deterrence. They flew Jimmy Stevens to the United States to petition the United Nations for statehood recognition. He returned with boxes of Vemerana flags, passports, and freshly minted coins. The Phoenix Foundation clandestinely brought in a new supply of war materiel from Fiji. Spies alerted the government in the capital of Vanuatu. The conflict known as the Coconut War had begun. Three years after the murder-suicides of the People’s Temple cult in Jonestown, Guyana, a group of white men supplying natives of a remote jungle island with rifles made the Phoenix Foundation look scary and suspicious. The Vanuatuans asked Britain and France for help. The British thought it was more trouble than it was worth but France still had troops in New Caledonia. They were transported to Espiritu Santo, albeit with no mandate to engage in any military action. When the followers of Nagriamel saw the unwillingness of the soldiers to fight, they went on a rampage and destroyed all the stores and buildings on the island. In an act of desperation, Papua New Guinea sent in a band of soldiers to quell the violence. In the end, the Papuans were welcomed as guests and fellow Melanesians; they quickly made friends with the Nagriamel fighters and the Coconut War ended without any combat.

Jimmy Stevens was arrested and imprisoned. During the trial, it became obvious that the Phoenix Foundation was manipulating him and trying to orchestrate the uprising behing the scenes. Michael Oliver and his gang of loony libertarians were deported and permanently banned from Vanuatu.

Despite being a successful businessman, Michael Oliver was a three-time loser nonetheless, and the Phoenix Foundation turned out to be nothing more than a clique of dopey rich kids who could not see farther then they could reach. This is sad because they obviously could not see very far. Maybe this is what millionaires do when they have too much time on their hands, too much imagination, too little purpose in life and only a tenuous connection to life in the real world. Wealth does not automatically breed wisdom. A nation can not be built with an excess of ideology and no pragmatic or practical plan of action.

Strauss, Erwin S. How to Start Your Own Country. Paladin Press, 1999.

https://grimhistory.blogspot.com/

#michael oliver #phoenix foundation #libertarians #vanuatu #south pacific #history #micronations #grim history

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