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gabessquishytum · 4 months

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Human AU! More asexual Dream agenda. Morpheus used to question his sexuality in his late teens and contemplated that he might be somewhere on the asexual spectrum. It seemed fine to him back then, that is, until he realized how much he didn't fit in when all the relationships his peers had seemed to revolve around sex. So, Morpheus started dating, went out with a few guys, but it died out naturally after a few dates because he refused to have sex. Eventually, he meets Calliope at the uni, and he's really in love and determined to do anything to make this work. They finally have sex, and...it's nothing spectacular. Morpheus just doesn't get why people seem to prioritize it so much (like, how can his friend Cori dedicate so much time to fucking his way through London when there're so many more interesting things to do? reading, for instance!). Anyway, as time goes by, Morpheus tries to really grasp this whole sexual aspect of relationship but it just evades him. He watches porn (it does nothing for him, but he switches on a video every now and then for educational purposes - maybe he'll see something that Calliope might like), tries his fair share of sex toys (some of them are nice, alright, but...cuddling in the blanket is nicer, still?), and comes to a spectacular conclusion that something is very wrong with him. After all, it's him who doesn't meet normal expectations. To make things worse, he starts to notice that Calliope avoids having sex with him (she's tired after work, has a headache, isn't in the mood, etc., and this goes on and on for weeks that turn into months), becomes more distant, and they slowly drift apart. It's a matter of time till they break up. Morpheus takes this as his personal failure, concentrates on his work, even goes to therapy, though he sabotages it before he can actually spell out that he thinks he's asexual, and...he doesn't date. Like, at all. Why set himself for another failure and disappointment? Enter Hob Gadling. They meet accidentally (or not so accidentally, if you ask Hob's elder sister), and Hob is smitten from the word go. He pursues Morpheus insistently yet never creepy; he is, in fact, very understanding and accommodating, and even though Morpheus bristled like a sad wet cat at first (and at second, too), he can't deny anymore that he's in love. He's scared shitless to fuck this up over sex again, but somehow, Hob manages to do the unthinkable: he puts Morpheus at ease. He figures out Morpheus is ace early on, and he's fine with wanking by himself till the end of time if his partner never ever wants to tumble in bed. There're other intimacies to be shared, they also matter! Morpheus doesn't believe him at first, but with time (and lots of cuddles), he cautiously accepts that this may be true. With sex no longer an obligation in his Google calendar, Morpheus even feels attraction...sometimes. It's a rare occasion, but Morpheus is shocked when he experiences it for the first time: he's never truly felt a desire before, and letting go feels scary. Hob is there for him and feels delighted to gently guide him in this exploration. And when Morpheus doesn't want anything sexual, which is most of the time? Hob's still happy with his magnificent husband, their Netflix evenings, disastrous baking, long romantic walks, endless literature discussions, and his right hand.

Gosh, i love this!!! Love the idea that Dream being able to change his perception of sex because it no longer feels like a chore or something that he's been forced into doing (by societal expectations). Mostly he's still not interested but occasionally if he does get a stirring of attraction or desire, he can plop himself down in Hob’s lap and be his pillow princess for an hour or two.

Calliope is probably the happiest person when she sees how content Dream is these days. She and Dream can be good friends (now Dream isn't psyching himself up to have sex with her, and she isn't just constantly getting the vibe that her husband doesn't want her). It's much nicer to have coffee and gossip.

And Dream gets to go home to his husband. Maybe they'll take a shower together, or dance around the kitchen and have a midnight feast. And they'll go to sleep after making out until their lips are sore. Dream will feel no expectations, except the expectation of Hob’s love. That is absolutely guaranteed.

#the sandman #dreamling #nsft

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hrts4hanniehae · 5 months

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clutch || five

there are written parts :)

note that the timeline or educations may not add up but just ignore it because i don't have the brain power to sync up THIRTEEN + 1 's education schedules

also!!!! the story begins in the christmas period of 2022!!!! IF THERE ARE YEAR ERRORS IM SO SORRY!!!! i legit can't change it omfg

"so you guys went to vernon's place before coming back?" - wonwoo

"can't risk e/n finding out where yn lives now." - vernon

"you and seungkwan have to be careful too." - dino

"yeah. he's away hosting this netflix show so i'll just look out for myself." - vernon

"he's so annoying..." - yn

"i'll fetch you from work from now on, yn." - wonwoo

dino and vernon turn to look at him in shock. wonwoo? volunteering? to go out of the house? to help someone?

"thanks... i didn't really expect him to become like this..." - yn

no one expected e/n to knock on wonwoo's door while yn and dino were home alone.

hiding in her art room as the knocks got louder, yn and dino began to silently panic.

"where the hell is wonwoo" - yn

"he has a streamer event to attend. i'm going to cry why is he so scary..." - dino

"okay wait go strip and put on your bathroom after wetting ur body or smth then open the door and ask why he's here." - yn

"huh?!" - dino

"fasterpleasegonow." - yn

dino took a deep breath before opening the door. sure enough, it was e/n, who was shocked to see him."

"sorry but does someone named yn ln live here?" - e/n

"sorry who?" - dino

"yn ln. about this tall, (hair colour), (eye colour)..." - e/n

"i don't know anyone like that. sorry. would you mind leaving? this apartment building is off limits to those who don't live here and i don't recognise you." - dino

"... sorry for bothering you." - e/n

dino immediately closes and locks the door once e/n leaves and rushes back to the art room.

"how the hell did he get in without the keycard?" - yn

"probably tailgated someone inside. have you texted wonwoo?" - dino

"he said he was on the way back." - yn

when he got the text from yn, his heart dropped. a simple sentence. "e/n is here. help." he feared the worst. he didn't understand. yn was one of the nicest people he knew, willing to help anyone, hardworking and dedicated. why was she suffering at the hands people like this?

his relief when she texted that she was okay made his legs weak. he barely knew her, but he knew the effort she'd put in to keep a smile on her face.

e/n threatened her peace. and he didn't know why he cared so much, but he did.

ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ

a/n: i'm sorry it's a little short today but i was tired since i went out to buy albums today. i finally bought my boynextdoor album. and OMG TWS MEMBERS???? based off instant attraction alone... it's me and shinyu against the world.

synopsis: wonwoo is a popular streamer known for his incredible gaming skills and good looks. He turned heads. but he hates the attention. he just wants to play games and earn money. one day he receives a letter. his apartment’s rent has almost doubled. no warnings at all. his current paycheck from streaming can’t shoulder those bills. he has no choice but to rent out his spare room. to who? a fresh art university graduate who has… 1. a stable job ✅ 2. talent for art and sculpting ✅ 3. many friends ❌ 4. social anxiety ✅ 5. no filter ✅ when his iconic cat logo gets copystriked, she comes to the rescue with a new logo for him. when his apartment’s walls start peeling, she fixes it. whatever he used to struggle with… the empty space... was now filled by her. so what does he *last player standing* do when her ex *enemy spotted* tries to take her back? heh. *clutch* he clutches.

inspired by wonwoo's gam3bo1 streams, falling into your smile & gogo squid (has hints of valorant)

pairing: streamer!jeon wonwoo x fem!artist!reader (ft. jeongcheol, soonhoon, junhao, seoksoo, verkwan)

genre: fluff, comfort, slowburn, comfort, pining, bestfriend!minghao

warnings: stalker ex, toxic ex, mentions of abuse, guns (game), cursing, hate comments, panic attacks

started: 28.12.23

ended: ?

taglist: join from my masterlist

main masterlist

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tags! @fairyofhour @megseungmin @sun-daddy-yoriichi @woozixo @euphoric-univers @christinewithluv @haowonbins @ocyeanicc @asyre @cynthiaaax13 @superhoshisvt @bangantokchy @chimmy-bts @angelarin @daisawa @writingbarnes @jeonghansshitester

@belladaises @wonwootakemyheart @wonwooz1 @luchiet @kookssecret @caratsland @peachescreamandcrumble @thepoopdokyeomtouched @isabellah29 @leah-rose03 @yandere-stories @coupshour @heesbees @hamji-hae

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incarnateirony · 10 months

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So, about #WhatArentYouWatching

The post immediately before this covers the breakdown of the ... hm. Conflict of opinions within the guild, and my pinned post and its link discusses the reasons behind why the WGA will never actually make that move (legal repurcussions)--AS A UNIT, vs other post about, well, authors fearing loss of rank, and fandom confusing "individually support a specific show on preference/choice" and authors being able to independently choose whether they tell people to keep watching or not, etc -- seriously just check out recent posts for the full scale of that.

But to move forward, here's WHY it was designed. The proposal was dropped on July 14th. Now let's look at some interesting charts,

6 month vs 1 month, WBD

6 month vs 1 month, Disney

6 month vs 1 month, Netflix

Netflix is quite funny, actually, as it's an outlier and I'll cover why, but met the same end.

Disney, for example, lost 5.5% of value from its Jul 13 close Jul 14-17. WBD similar dip, exact same days. Netflix tried to head it off with dropping their Q2s reporting the password shakedown account gain and less insider investors bought in to bring it up 40 while on the 14th you can see the same dip try to hit; casual investors bought in and others, or even they themselves, bailed out. So they lost more than they gained even still and ended up in the same pit, while any attempted bouncebacks like the others will be a bit delayed for the same... timeline/trust/nervousness reasons.

Investors are nervous. And will only get more nervous as this drags on. That's the first dip.

This is just the impact of "Just One Guy", which you know I laugh about. The WGA is also "not announcing it YET" and makes sure to include that YET in actual releases. The studios are waiting to legally pounce if they do, but they won't. The YET, and the fear of it in the climate, is enough to scare away most investors and leave Bob Iger and David Zaslav slamming their phones telling their topline investors to not bail and It'll All Be Fine(TM).

Per my other post, some authors fear loss of treads or property value, and the WGA can't really enforce this. However, to put this in terms: the man who released it is running for leadership. Generally, when you run for leadership in a democratic system, you aim to do What Seems The Most Popular To The Voting Demographic. A man running for leadership does not use his political positioning and even folder directory to post something Only A Few People Want. That is hw voting works. I hope I do not need to explain this any further.

Of the 11,500+ people represented by the WGA, even if you find a dozen people going, "The Guild Has Not Said; It Is A Personal Decision" to slap it down, there's a fuckton that are choosing to stay quiet right now. And frankly, the Guild will Never Say It; not because the majority doesn't want it, but because they legally can't without screwing themselves. So for every tweet you manage to dig up, just subtract it from the 11,500 others silent and figure out what's going on here.

Frankly, it is starting to piss me off at some authors. Because this is writers using word manipulation as a skill to repeat statements that are technically correct but highly misguiding for their own personal gain above the masses willing to take small hits and frankly is its own form of scabbing imo. You'll let the others be quiet but hop in to protect your own data (one literally used the word Data and ran when I was like, we both know not everyone agrees on it) to come out above the rest. But the few repeated old: "The guild has not" puts off airs to the unkeen eye of "the guild does not want you to", and "personal decision" both equalizes the moral weight and appears to put the onus on fans with little education in it rather than the decision to parlay with this dialogue to say, no, keep watching, or to risk saying, no, turn me off, as a personal decision.

So yeah. While it's mostly nobodies afraid of their one big break they got falling in, there's at least one big old fave of mine that favored his personal attachments to a project and is forever stricken from my list, cest la vie. Go be politicians, assholes. Unsurprising that the guy protecting his New Show About To Air Episode 10 And Otherwise Has Only Written For Political Shit And Political Shows And Events popped out to spray this at me and run when I held to the wording and spoke from knowing. Motherfucker dipped the moment he realized I wasn't some rando fan he could lead on with that bullshit. Fuck.

So anyway. Turn off fucking streaming in September. And tell your friends. And point them at my posts for all the bad arguments against it being killed dead, and highlights of blatant reframings of quotes like a bunch of asshole politicians.

If you wanna support your faves watch that shit on TV where possible, buy new DVDs even of old seasons, they make literally 100,000x more on average from that anyway. (One ep new OitNB linear broadcast: $22,000 residuals; all seasons netflix, 0.23 cents residuals)

Imagine how big that 5.5% cut would be if a dozen self vested assholes weren't convincing fans that telling everyone NOT to boycott was the righteous thing by use of suggestive political language obscuring the truth, even when the reasoning behind it is weak and boils down to intentionally trying to outcompete guildmembers in the resulting crunched market. Imagine how nervous those investors would be if this shit was as viral as it should be, "Just One Guy" or not.

Yall right. It's a personal decision.

Now you have the information to make it.

And the louder you, and all your friends get, the more scared those investors will become. You want it to end? Turn off your fucking streaming in September. Also cancel any services that don't have a show immediately coming out from the backpipe that you intend to individually support. Netflix is about to bleed all the followers it gained with an empty library anyway. Help that shit out. Save money. Everyone wins.

See, I can tell you this. Because I'm not WGA. And I've done this dance before. Come at me 30301.

That's why Fuckin September. The same reason Netflix had its Q2s available to drop public as an investor distraction to get chuds that didn't know better to stall the gap. But this time, inside investors can see a very, very different picture and run early. And Q4 can be spent with corps rotting for their choices. And your fave shows can get a huge bounceback when Q4 hits and you all watch again. [jazz fucking hands]

eyyyyyy zaslav, its me, ya boiiiii with the blowtorch [revs it up to test the gas] I said I'd be good if you stayed business sound but man this is some dumb business, and that whole "let them starve" quote of yours "anonymously" or whatever the damn phrasing was, naw. Naw if I have to print and pass flyers all over my metro area to get this out, I will.

I think that's what I'll do. Every time some chucklefuck whether fan or self-vested person with something to gain beyond supporting the guild efforts pops up trying to vague down this shit with sound bytes, I'll have another friend in another metro area distribute a stack of fuckin flyers. Pin it up in walmart. I don't care, I did this before twitter was a thing. And it worked then. And it'll work now.

Go ahead. Check the 5 year stretches of the above and other studios and their networks. This time of year, they should be coming up, not dipping or flatlining, with investors jumping in for fall season. Nope. Not there.

#what aren't you watching #wga strike #stockmarket #stocktrading #investors #brands #seriously if any of yall are invested #fucking run #it will not get better #not this fuckin quarter #and with several of these studios/streamers waiting to eat each other #for most of you it'll never bounce back #good luck

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thanakite · 2 years

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It's always a little bit of a bummer to me when I watch One Day At A Time that they don't translate the Spanish that is spoken because it is literally a contributing factor to people not watching it, and realistically it doesn't make sense to do that

Like, I speak Spanish so it isn't a problem for me, BUT it's also a show my mom would likely really enjoy, but she doesn't speak Spanish and it would legitimately bother her that she couldn't understand what was being said so there isn't a point in trying to get her to watch it (which we've actually discussed, so I know it is a legitimate stumbling block for her) and it is utterly ridiculous that we do that quite honestly

This doesn't even necessarily need to apply to English but is generally more often the case with it due to the global influence England and the US maintains, but the reality is that people can't be expected to be able to know whatever language is before them even in the case of Spanish when the US is in such close proximity, because the reality is that unless schools here are required to teach Spanish (or any other language) to fluency level in childhood there is a major struggle to attempt to learn on your own, even today with apps like Duolingo, and some people just don't have the time, energy, or ability to do that, and it isn't their fault they have been failed by the US educational system, and even if it was it isn't logical to keep doing this

Like, there are so many people like my mom who would enjoy One Day At A Time, but end up not continuing to do so because of the issues they have with not understanding the Spanish that is spoken, and maybe if that wasn't the case One Day At A Time wouldn't have been cancelled by Netflix and ended up on another network (that I believe only ended up doing one season, but I'm not sure because while my family has live TV I never watch it since it requires me to watch an episode a week and be okay with that but I'm not) which would have allowed it to continue to make salient points and provide a real voice and opportunity the way it had been during the 3 seasons it had on Netflix

And One Day At A Time isn't the only show where this is the case, like I do totally understand the argument that a lot of shows are made in English and not translated well for audiences that have different first languages and so putting lines in other languages without translation forces English speakers to experience what you have been forced to deal with all the time, but it is actually causing more harm than good because it alienates part of an audience that could contribute to being able to provide your message longer and is actually an accessibility issue for some

Like at least in One Day At A Time when you have closed captioning on they still put up the subtitles, they're just in Spanish, but a lot of shows will just have [speaks Spanish] instead (or even will have subtitles but if you have closed captioning on it, it blocks the translations with [speaks Spanish] from the closed captioning), and it is incredibly frustrating for me with auditory processing issues and must be even more frustrating for those who are deaf or hard of hearing, and really none of this should be an issue in the first place

All shows should have all words in their captions translated into those caption's language exactly (or the way that will be best understood) because if you don't have that you alienate part of your potential audience and that is completely illogical

Shows that want to be progressive should want them to be as accessible as possible so they can reach as many people as possible, instead choosing to act in ways that limit the audience doesn't make sense and is going to cause more harm than good always because I can almost guarantee that more people watching One Day At A Time and seeing and understanding everything that goes into it is much more important than alienating part of your potential audience trying to stick it to people who made you feel that way at one point or another or trying to appear more "progressive" by doing this, because in the end everyone should be given the opportunity to understand what is being said so that everyone can have the opportunity to learn from the shows that have the most potential to teach them in addition to also just providing entertainment

#one day at a time #spanish #accessibility #auditory processing issues #look i get the argument for why this is a thing but again it is doing more harm than good long term

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liskantope · 20 days

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Okay, so here's the review of the Netflix limited series Maid that I said I might write (for whatever interest anyone has in it, as I'm guessing that almost none of my followers have seen Maid and I doubt this post will particularly entice anyone to see it). I've held off reading any reviews of it so as not to color my opinion.

The best I can say about Maid is that I found it somewhat educational; it was engaging; and I got to care enough about the story and some of the characters to keep watching through the ten episodes. But I otherwise found it mediocre and very flawed, though flawed in interesting ways which I think were part of what kept me watching. (Interesting enough to make a very long post, apparently.) Maybe it doesn't help that I watched it straight after finishing Six Feet Under, a truly fantastic series, and Maid was recommended to me by the same person in just as enthusiastic a tone but seemed quite meh in immediate comparison.

(Vague spoilers immediately to follow; more specific spoilers later below the cut.)

Maid is about a young woman named Alex with an almost-three-year-old daughter who has just run away from an abusive living situation with her boyfriend and is struggling to find a way out of crippling poverty to get a stable and safe life for her and her child. The tone of deliberately directly educating the audience is sprinkled throughout a good bit (though by no means all) of the script, which contributes to the "meh"-ness but which I appreciated as education, mainly of how the social services system works as well as how one gets and sustains a job as a maid doing cleaning work for different homes. (I do like the unspoken symbolism of cleaning up other people's messes as both an occupation and as the general pattern of her personal life.) An example of this "clearly written to educate" aspect to the script is all the dialog specifying the concept of "emotional abuse". (As a sidenote, I have my doubts about whether the boyfriend Sean's behavior can really be rounded off specifically to emotional abuse, which I have generally understood to mean "manipulating emotionally with words, like for instance to make the other person feel worthless, or threats of violence": some of that was going on but a lot of it was Sean scaring Alex with violent behavior (though not actually striking her) which makes her feel physically threatened, making it impossible for Alex to work or have basic adult-levels of control of her day-to-day life, etc. Sean's behavior prior to the start of the story and later is seriously abusive, but I'm not sure that the severe controllingness, just because it's not directly physical abuse, should be categorized as emotional abuse instead. Maybe I'm wrong and could find out by research that emotional abuse is defined as all abuse that isn't physical or something.)

The show mixed the modern fast-paced style of comedy with wacky side characters together with the overall drama of the situation in a way that, well, I suppose could have been done much worse. I often was able to predict the "beats" and specific plot turns just because I recognized them from tropes of standard American sitcoms and slightly soapy dramas.

Some characters are developed fairly well in my opinion (like Alex's mania-prone mother), but others are developed sketchily and inconsistently (like Sean, despite his central position in the story, or like Alex's dad who turns out to have some parallel faults to Sean's). The writers were clearly going for making Sean a nuanced character who has a nice side when he's sober but intersperses that with controlling, hateful behavior on top of his violent rages. I understand intellectually that a person can be that way, and in fact if they made Sean out to be a monster all the time I would be criticizing the writers for lack of nuance in characterization. But for reasons I can't entirely put my finger on, for the first two thirds or so of the series I found something piecemeal and not very believable about how Sean was coming across.

It's notable to me that ultimately every single female character winds up being vindicated as a wonderful and sympathetic badass (really only Alex's mother is the one that retains serious flaws and even she in the end is extremely sympathetic), while every single male character winds up coming across as a horrible person. Okay, so some would say that Nick (quickly and predictably established as Alex's main romantic interest apart from Sean) doesn't qualify as a bad guy -- in fact, he's implausibly saintly almost throughout -- but eventually he (in another predictable beat) decides his niceness is going to come to an end and is dropped completely from the rest of the story, I think the only major character whose interactions don't get tied up in a neat knot at the end. I honestly don't mind the "all women are amazing, all men are awful" outcome as much as I'd have thought I might. The main social theme of the show, besides poverty, is domestic violence after all, and while I do wish feminists didn't tend to depict it as so exclusively male-to-female in nature, I didn't particularly expect this show to be exceptional in breaking out of that.

I will also give the show credit for elevating class issues above race issues, having a diverse cast without mentioning race once apart from Alex's internal monologues about feeling like "white trash", having the rich character who eventually befriends Alex being a black woman, etc., particularly during 2021, a time in the wake of George Floyd when the overall social discourse ethos was very pressuring to Make Everything About Race All The Time.

Alex is not an inconsistently or sketchily -written character, but I would say that she's... not really a developed character at all, so much as a blank slate marked by all the complicated and difficult situations she's put in. Her programming basically consists of "be completely sympathetic at all times in all decisions she makes, and be incredibly competent at everything she tries to do" and then seeing how she goes when tons of adversity from all directions is thrown at her. I realize this is a very dehumanizing way to talk about someone, but I'm approaching her in her capacity as a fictional character consciously created by writers, and I think she was created in a sort of empty way. Oh sure, she has some vulnerabilities, and she makes like a couple of mistakes (one of them a very big one: see below cut) but always the mistake even a wise person would kind of have to make in her situation. This, more than any other aspect of the show, is what differentiates it in my view from a truly great show like Six Feet Under. Eventually some non-externally-determined personality shows through, as we see that Alex has a flair for writing, but it still comes across to me as "the writer decided on a talent for Alex to have so that she can wind up with a hopeful future".

What (in some sense deep down kind of) bothers me most about Alex's characterization is that she's just so consistently hyper-competent at doing absolutely everything she tries to do and doing it all at once while being a perfect mother to her three-year-old. I don't criticize this as unrealistic, since I actually do know people (one of them who similarly successfully struggled out of an absolutely daunting level of poverty and lack of support) like this; they are the sort of people I've bitterly described as so many more times productive than I am that they appear to have superpowers. But the show did leave me wondering, is Alex's outcome really that typical? Don't most people in her situation do several times worse at trying to get out of it, because most people have several times less competence/neurotypicality/ability not to mention a particular talent like Alex's talent for writing? And then there's the fact that, after the first half of the series highlights all the dysfunctions of The System, later in the series all these things rather implausibly abruptly fall into place for Alex. It seems ultimately calculated for good-feels rather than gritty likelihood. And, I mean, it is refreshing for not every show with obvious social justice messages to go what we might call "the Orange is the New Black route" where we have to make sure that not too much comes out okay for the characters because then we might be implying that sometimes justice actually does get done. But I see issues with both extremes here.

An interesting note: in Alex's big cathartic confrontation scene with Sean, she tells him that she has PTSD from his treatment of her, but I noticed no evidence whatsoever on screen that she had symptoms of PTSD. (There is some strong hinting of PTSD from childhood due to her father's behavior, in fact, but not from adulthood.) And just as strangely, it's never mentioned again. (As anyone here who knows my views might guess, I'm not terribly happy about this because the writers / Alex seem to be saying that having PTSD is an automatic aspect of surviving domestic abuse and that we don't need to bother to have an actual concrete definition/description for PTSD -- of course, I suppose someone who had gone through what Alex had gone through might well wind up with some kind of PTSD, but show it, please, and don't imply that it's just an automatic meaningless default.)

Anyway, not only is Alex hyper-competent, but her kid is kind of a perfect kid even at barely three years old while rolling with the very turbulent punches of Alex's chaotic life (which involves not knowing whose roof they'd sleep under from day to day). Oh, I think once it comes up that she has issues sometimes with being told that she has to get off the swing at the playground, or something. Let's just say, I know plenty enough about myself at that age to say I would not handle the chaos and instability one tenth as well and that I (and honestly most kids) might be quite visibly damaged by the end of it.

Anyway. Now for the writing at the end which killed a lot (though not all) of the respect I still had for the show. This will be more specifically spoilery regarding Alex and Sean's relationship, so is placed under the cut.

The basic synopsis of Alex/Sean is as follows. Alex and Sean, right up to the start of the series, were in an abusive relationship in which Sean had developed a violent temper whenever he was drunk, never striking her or their child but punching and destroying things near her. She decided she had enough the night the story begins, when she had to pick pieces of glass out of her daughter's hair, and runs away with the kid. It's later revealed that Sean had cut off her credit card some time earlier after she had missed a payment, so there were multiple forms of abuse going on here.

Sean manages to temporarily secure full custody of their daughter. Then he shows a better side of himself in a scene where he confesses that he needs to clean his act up and drops the claim of full custody, leaving them with equal custody. Sean manages to get sober for a while, and he and Alex have their ups and downs as co-parents. Then, in a moment of (very understandable) weakness, after Sean is super helpful to Alex when a separate crisis comes up, Alex sleeps with Sean (fulfilling another trope I have noted before), grows to trust him again, and gradually drifts towards getting back together with him.

Sean's run of acting like an angel ends very abruptly when he gets very upset over the fact that Alex just got awarded a scholarship to go to college in another state; in the next few hours he very deliberately gets rid of Alex's one mode of independent transportation giving a BS excuse and physically intimidates her when she protests (it's ambiguous but it seems not unreasonable to assume that there's no alcohol in the house at this time and he hasn't had a drink). Sean then goes back to drinking, effectively imprisons Alex in their house (her feeling of completely losing her sense of self is artfully depicted through images of her sinking into dark, deep holes), doesn't let her have a phone or a job or any access to money, and controls her every move. This is the kind of "on the bottle" behavior I was thinking of in these posts which I'm afraid tells me something pretty awful about a person even if they were to become permanently sober.

Then through a implausibly perfect sequence of fortunate developments, Alex escapes, gets a fancy lawyer to help her pro bono to gain full custody of the kid, and gains some promise of a good future. At first Sean reacts predictably badly, but then he has a revelation that he really needs to get clean in order to be a fit father and so relinquishes his claim to custody. He makes a confession to Alex's face very similar to the one he made earlier in the season (I note, never concretely naming or apologizing for the extremely abusive things he recently did to Alex, just owning up again to the fact that he can't be a parent until he's sober), and in that very conversation, offers for Alex to stop by his house to pick up their daughter's stuff, which Alex agrees on the spot to do (that's right, cheerfully walk back into the house that was your prison last time you were there -- oh and you mentioned you have PTSD from it, by the way -- alone with the man who imprisoned you). In their next scene together, Alex is leaving for college with their daughter, and she warmly tells Sean he can come visit their daughter whenever he wants, to which Sean earnestly vows to get permanently sober and visit tons. It's played as a really nice ending to the turbulent relationship between them.

Obviously the writer wasn't going to be dumb enough to have Alex and Sean get back together again in their happy ending, but man does Sean get off way too easy in this ending, and if I don't find that this decision was harshly criticized in multiple reviews, I'll be tempted to conclude that the aggressive 2010's-era form of internet feminism is truly dead (which, I shouldn't be complaining, but... it did made some good points?).

Again, the rationale seems to be that, well, Sean is a monster when drunk but great when sober, so if he promises to be sober, sure, warmly let him back into your lives. The thing is, number one, he promised to clean up his act earlier in the series and look how that turned out half a series later. And two, when Sean turned back into an abuser (an even worse one than before) near the climax of the story, I thought that was quite good writing, and that Sean's true character was finally coming together: his being so nice beforehand seemed partly just an effort to win Alex back, and once he (mostly) did, the moment she later upset him, he reverted right back to his old ways and showed his true self that had been hidden underneath the whole time and only needed to be triggered. That seemed like the overwhelmingly obvious interpretation at the time, but I guess the interpretation the writers are nudging us towards is that he was genuinely unselfishly good while sober, not trying to weave Alex back into his web or anything, and then started acting like a monster when he went back to drinking, and the solution is just to not let himself drink so that he can be a great person. It doesn't sit well with me, and that's what spurred me to write my posts of last night asking about what "good person when sober, bad person when drunk" really means.

(Disclaimer to all of this: I remembered halfway through writing this surprisingly long post that the series is based on a novel, and maybe the nuances Sean and Alex's relationship are better written in the novel version.)

#maid (netflix show)#six feet under #abuse #poverty #social services #alcoholism #domestic violence #classism #racism #orange is the new black #ptsd

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giorno-plays-piano · 3 years

Text

Money, Money, Money Part 1

Pairing: mob!Bucky Barnes x Reader, slight Peter Parker x Reader

Warnings: lots of swearing, silly drunk mobs, mentions of alcoholism, parody, Peter is adult, is this a crack fic??

Words: 2578.

Summary: When Steve finds out somebody has stolen their money, Bucky realizes he has to take his ass off the leather couch in his office, finally.

P.S. This is my first attempt to write humor and I’m sorry in advance for everything I’ve written here 😅

_________________

“BITCH, DID I STUTTER WHEN I SAID TO KEEP THAT SAFE CLOSED AT ALL TIMES?”

Allyson massaged her temples softly and let out a groan: if Mr. Rogers continued to yell like that, he would definitely choke soon. This morning he had been pretending to be the death, vengeance and fury, ready to kick the ass of her immediate superior, James Barnes, who acted like he was deaf, unable to pull himself from the couch where he slept after getting drunk as a fish last night. Oh, poor Bucky. Apparently, he fucked things up again if Mr. Rogers stormed into his office like he was getting chased by a 200-pound dog.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you son of a...” glancing at a pouting man-child with a three-day beard, Steve covered his face with his palm and let out an exasperated sigh, “... respectable woman who would die of shame if she saw you now!”

“Come on, Stevie,” the man yawned, finally moving his huge, muscular body up to sit instead of just laying on the couch since he felt a little guilty Steve was getting all riled up while he just chilled, “why so serious? Yeah, somebody took a bit of cash from the safe, it’s not a big deal.”

Allyson heard everything as if they were speaking right in front of her - Bucky was a real Mr. Cheapo who didn’t want to rent an office with decent walls - and quickly closed her ears, wishing she had taken her earplugs today. Her boss just made a grave mistake, and now both of them were going to pay for it with their eardrums.

“NOT A BIG DEAL? NOT A BIG DEAL, YOU MASSIVE BAG OF DOUCHE?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY WAS THERE, HUH?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THOSE MONEY WERE FOR?!”

Seriously, she considered getting a new job, but these free daily standup shows were both tiring and so fucking funny she was afraid she might wet her seat.

“Oh my fucking God, Bucky, I swear I’ll kill you, I’ll... no, I have a better idea!” Steve gave his best friend a dirty look. “I’ll call your uncle. Yeah, you know which one. He’ll be sooo happy to take you drunk ass to jail and then give your mama a call. I bet she has a cure for both your attitude and alcoholism.”

“You wouldn’t do that!”

Suddenly realizing the danger he was in, Bucky quickly got up, almost falling to the floor but holding on the leather chair in the very last second. When Steve talked about calling his uncle, a chief of police of the neighboring town where his whole family lived, it meant things were going bad. Real bad.

“Bucky, it was the part we were going to invest into Pierce’s casino. I have to take it to him tomorrow morning. TOMORROW FUCKING MORNING, DO YOU HEAR ME, YOU STINKING DRUNK?”

“I’m drunk but not deaf, Steve!”

“Oh my God, I’m driving you to a rehab, go gather your stuff right now!”

Allyson sighed, getting up and proceeding to choose the most beautiful cup to fill it with fresh coffee: when their conflicts escalated to threats, it meant her boss would soon start to sweet-talk, apologizing to his best friend and promising to sober up and get things right. Every time she felt like Mr. Rogers would really do something to Bucky, the guy used his natural charisma and charm and got away with anything by just reminding Steve how he fought for his best friend in the dark alleys when Rogers was a sick, skinny kid. It worked every damn time.

There they were again, talking about same things with Bucky swearing on his mother’s life that he will find the money and bring it back to Steve. Usually it meant the threats were coming to an end, and soon Mr. Rogers would open the door and come out red as a lobster, breathing heavily as if he just ran a marathon. There he would see her with a cup of nice coffee with cream and two spoons of sugar just like he preferred, gladly accepting it and saying nobody understand him but her. Then Allyson would smile compassionately, listen to his small talk before he went out the office, and wait until her grumpy boss would fall out the room, reeking alcohol, and ask her what the fuck had happened yesterday.

After that in a couple of minutes things would finally settle down, and Allyson would have a chance to give a call to her best friend.

_______________________________

Your day couldn’t start better: you had finally received your Amazon order - hooray to the stupid makeup tools you would use, like, once a year - and even watched your favorite Netflix series with a cup of a fragrant coffee with marshmallows because it was Sunday and you were finally free from both work and cleaning the apartment. It felt so nice to just do absolutely nothing, laying on your couch with a piece of pizza in your hand. Seriously, even a workaholic like you had to do it more often.

Your lazy morning was interrupted by Peter, a sweet college student who was getting into troubles more often than a drunk in a local bar: you seriously considered calling him Harry Potter after you found him half-naked with a scratch on his forehead standing in the corridor of your building and holding a broom. To protect himself from bullies, he said, by the look on his face you could tell it was as good as a magic wand against 6"4 ft tall guys, seriously.

Since he rented an apartment with other unlucky nerds who had zero skills how to survive in this cruel world, you ended up nearly baby-sitting Peter, patching him up after he was getting in a fight and lending him some money time after time when he struggled to pay rent or buy food. His parents were elderly people with income below average, but they still did whatever they could to give him an education, so you decided to give the guy a hand.

Now that baby was standing in front of you, lit up like a Christmas tree, with a bouquet of wonderful pink roses, big box of hand-crafted chocolates and a whole bag of what looked like some very fine food, even a bottle of champagne clinking inside.

"Good morning, Fairy Godmother! I came to bring back what I owe you!" His smile was a mile wide when he looked at your face, happy to the point he couldn't stand still, dancing like those Duracell rabbits in the tv ad.

"You're up early, Cinderella."

You yawned, laughing when you saw the guy pouting at the nickname you gave him - tf he expected for calling you Fairy Godmother?

"Don't stand there, come in."

When he actually handed you the flowers and chocolates, giving you a quick peck on the cheek shyly, you froze, finally realizing he brought all this for you. Wait, what? Where the heck did he get so much money to buy that expensive stuff? You thought he was helping his other neighbor who was planning to finally propose to his girlfriend. Perplexed to the point you nearly missed that peck, you blinked at tomato red Peter.

"Please don't tell me you robbed your 90-year-old paralytic professor."

"Why don't you ask if I robbed a bank?" He pouted again, putting the bag on the floor and getting a hundred dollar banknote out of his old leather wallet. "I actually came to thank you for everything you've done for me. And I didn't rob anyone! I got a real job!"

"Real job?" You eyed him curiously. "But don't you already have a job in delivery?"

"Pfft, you can't call it a job. It was getting one nasty smelling pizza from one place to the other while looking miserable."

You barely held your laugh, leaving the bouquet and chocolates on the side table and rubbing guy's back. Poor Peter, nobody was giving him a hand - while you couldn't question people's decision since the guy wasn't the most reliable one, it was still a shame he wasn't treated decently as if all of them weren't young and careless once.

Wait, but who on Earth gave him such a well-paid job all of a sudden? He must have spent hundreds of dollars on the bouquet, chocolates, food and champagne, not even counting those 100 dollars he owed.

Oh God.

"Please don't tell me you're working for some shady business." You looked at him in horror, your hand flying to your mouth. "Peter, is it Tony's band?!"

"Jesus woman, why would I work for some stupid mob." The guy rolled his eyes, and you sighed in relief, not knowing what to except from this trouble on two skinny legs. “I’m telling you, it’s nothing bad! I just have to keep it a secret before I get a contract. Once I figure it out, I’ll explain everything, I swear!”

“Alright, alright, don’t stress over it, I’m not your Ma.” Smirking, you went to take a square glass vase you hadn’t use in ages, filling it with water to drop the bouquet inside. “Let’s celebrate it, then! Woah, careful there, give me that bottle until you drop it on my clean floor, I’ve been scrubbing it for hours yesterday!”

_______________________

Bucky still felt like Steve was making too much of a big deal out of it: obviously, it was Tony who went to him at night when Bucky was already drunk like a monkey, celebrating the birth of Clint’s daughter. Nobody else had the courage to steal from him, Steve’s right hand, an ex-soldier who had a reputation of a man killing with the first punch. Not that Bucky ever killed anybody, actually being a ex-trumpet in an army band...

Anyway, the man was heading over to Stark’s Tower, a motel where he and all his guys lived when his wife Pepper was out of town. Pepper had definitely been out of town lately since Tony didn’t call: when she was coming back, Steve and Tony were having a two-day truce with nobody getting in a fight because it was making Mrs. Stark upset, and when she was upset, both Steve and Tony didn’t risk getting out of their holes to face this enraged blonde woman who could make anyone wet themselves with one her glance. If there were anyone killing with just one punch in the town, it got to be Pepper.

As he got closer in his Cadillac that looked like it went through fire and water before being sold to Bucky, Barnes stared at the motel suspiciously: it was strangely quiet with everyone hiding inside, not a man guarding the motel’s entrance. What the hell happened? Tony loved showing off, pretending he ruled over the town, and he would definitely act like a king after stealing Steve’s and his money. It was unbelievable Bucky so nobody welcoming him with a smirk.

Hoping he didn’t use all that money for emptying a liquor store, Bucky parked the car and went to the motel, dying to have some beer: one heartless blonde boss of his emptied his fridge.

“Oh, more drinking partners returning to continue the fun, huh?”

Bucky froze immediately, staring at Pepper who stood in the doorway with a face of an iron maiden. Jesus fucking Christ. She returned to the city way before Tony told him, and it was clear she found him not in the condition she expected to. While Bucky considered whether it was better to run, Tony’s head appeared somewhere behind his wife, and Barnes saw Tony was as drunk as him, if not even more. He could see a huge blue mark from Pepper’s heavy hand on Stark’s cheek.

“Who’s that, honey?” The man asked innocently, earning an enraged glance from his wife, and Bucky thought he should have run. “Hi, Buck! Come on in, it’s ok if you didn’t bring beer even if I asked twice.”

Oh. Something was going on. Of course, Bucky could rat the man out immediately, telling Pepper he wasn’t drinking with Tony yesterday’s night, but he wasn’t such a heartless bastard - by the look on Stark’s face Barnes could see his sweet blonde wifey would beat poor Tony to death with her Dior handbag.

“Sorry, I blacked out for a couple of hours in my car.” He mumbled, bowing his head in respect. “Pepper, such a pleasure to see you.”

“Come on in, alcoholic.” Her gaze was heavy, and Bucky shivered a little, carefully leaving his shoes near the door and scurrying away to the coach where Tony sat, nervously biting his fingers. “Well, do you wanna tell me something, huh? How many hookers have you brought here yesterday?”

Glancing to Tony and back to Pepper, Barnes suddenly realized his frenemy had been so drunk he had no hecking idea whether somebody really brought hookers to the motel - it was a total taboo, but once they got drunk they could barely control themselves. Once they literally woke up to a Santa Claus singing Jingle Bells in the tub in the middle of June because Tony missed Christmas.

Of course, Stark would never slip up the night before Pepper was coming back to town, but, apparently, she didn’t stay with her mom for as long as she planned, and Tony was royally fucked.

“I’ve asked you a question.”

And now Bucky was, too, if he didn’t think of something quick. Of course, he could tell her the truth, but it meant losing Tony completely, and Barnes didn’t want that. A real mafioso should have at least one strong enemy, right?

“I’m sorry, Pepper, but I don’t think there were any hookers here last night.” He said, carefully choosing words. “You see, first, Tony never allows us to. Second, we’re good Christians. We would never invite some hookers when we celebrated the birth of Clint’s daughter!”

As he got silent, enjoying the effect his words were having on Pepper, Bucky looked at the man sitting to his right, watching Tony’s eyes watering: it was definitely God himself who sent Barnes his way that morning, saving his from near death. Nothing would work better than this excuse. Clint and all Bucky’s guys were so drunk to the point they barely remembered what had happened, and it would be easy to convince them Tony and his gang came to see Barnes for something and ended up staying with all of them.

Besides, there was a nice bonus Bucky could add to make it work even better.

“By the way, Clint named her Natasha. That’s also the name of your mom, right?”

By the look on Tony’s face the man realized he was ready to sing.

“How did he know my mom’s name?” Pepper eyed Steve’s right hand distrustfully, but he could tell she was less irritated.

“Oh, you know, he and his wife couldn’t choose the name, so we started saying whatever names we knew, and Tony mentioned Natasha.”

For a second Bucky thought Stark was going to kiss him through excess of joy.

When he finally left the motel, getting his pack of beer given him by lovely Pepper who changed the anger to mercy, Tony ran out of the house after him, giving him a pat on the shoulder and whispering quietly, “I own you one, brother.”

Bucky sighed. Stark didn’t take the money.

______________

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki @helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @hurricanerin @inlovewiththefictionalcharacters @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @navegandoaciegas @rosalynshields @brattycherubwrites @sllooney @angrythingstarlight @lookiamtrying @buckysbunny @soleil-dor @stargazingfangirl18 @dillybuggg @literate-lamb @cosicas-cuquis @sarge-barnes-sir @buckybarnesplumwhore @jaysayey @megzdoodle @gotnofucks @lux-ravenwolf @iheartsebandchris @ximebebx @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @sourpatchspinster

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #steve rogers #peter parker #peter parker x reader #winter soldier #mcu #crack fic #mcu fanfiction

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jaskiersvalley · 4 years

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Hey, I just went through your entire blog in two days only and I wanna say, your writing is astounding! I haven't had a chance to watch the show yet as I can't afford Netflix right now, but you're fics were a truly fine introduction to the fandom Much love and keep being awesome! ~M

It’s you!!! I watched you blast through my blog with likes and reblogs and was absolutely in awe of you. Thank you so much for being such an avid reader and supporter. You single-handedly made me smile so much. And because words of thanks never feel like enough, I give the only thing I can, a ficlet of gratitude!

Education at Kaer Morhen involved a lot of things. Different weapons, physical fitness, hunting, foraging, identifying poisons by scent, even sewing to mend clothes. However, there were a lot of things it didn’t involve. Things that a witcher couldn’t possibly need. Music was definitely one of those things, Jaskier mused because Geralt obviously had zero appreciation of the art. But other things too which were less about being cultured and more about basic skills.

There were moments where Jaskier suspected things but didn’t want to believe them, Put them down to Geralt being Geralt. He obviously preferred information first hand, always seeking out the alderman or asking locals where to find the poster of the contract. Sometimes Jaskier just watched Geralt in front of a board like it was the world’s greatest word search. At times, he’d skip over a contract and Jaskier couldn’t figure out why. But pointing it out usually had Geralt frowning at the piece of parchment and huff out something about it not striking his fancy (as if witchers could ever pick and choose amongst contracts) or it not being valuable enough (as if that had ever stopped Geralt before - the man seemed to thrive on helping the poor). A pattern emerged after a while though and Jaskier didn’t want to think about the implications. The contracts Geralt skipped over didn’t contain the words ‘contract’, ‘monster’, or ‘witcher’. Which led to some alarming implications.

It wasn’t something Jaskier could delicately raise, lead Geralt to realising he knew and wanted to help. Also, Jaskier couldn’t very well corner the man and accuse him of being unable to read. Because if he was wrong, Geralt’s allegedly nonexistent emotions would be very hurt. So, Jaskier did the simplest thing he could. Whenever Geralt went to look at a village noticeboard, he tagged along and pointed at random papers, reading them out loud. Once or twice he fudged up words but Geralt never seemed to realise that the advert Jaskier was pointing at was for a laundry service rather than for a tailoring service he was describing.

“Why are you pointing out such useless adverts?” Geralt snapped.

“Just thought you’d be interested.” Jaskier shrugged and plucked the contract Geralt was looking for from the board. “Here. This is the one you want.” It didn’t have any of the key words Geralt tended to look for. There was no thanks thrown his way and Geralt stomped off, the parchment clutched in a tighter grip than usual.

It went on like that, each time Jaskier got more and more certain he was right, Geralt couldn’t read.

“What do you think of this one?” Jaskier plucked a random advert and pushed it into Geralt’s hand who stared at it with contempt. It was advertising a littler of puppies from a good guard dog lineage.

“What about it?” Vague, carefully eyeing the advert but not acknowledging any of it. Jaskier’s heart broke a little. Given how often he had shoved the necessary contract into Geralt’s hand, it was obvious Geralt was trying to figure out whether it was a contract or not. The price in the corner suggested it wasn’t but the poor couldn’t always pay in coin. Sometimes other goods or services were written down which he would negotiate verbally.

“You’re not tempted?” It was cruel but Jaskier had enough of the song and dance.

“For so little?” Geralt scoffed, hedging his bets on Jaskier not screwing him over by putting something other than a contract in his hands all of a sudden.

Ever so gently, Jaskier took the advert and pinned it back up to try and hide the sound of his heart breaking. “You’re right. I don’t think there’s much for us in the village. Come on.”

They turned away but Jaskier saw Geralt turn back, a small frown on his face as he looked at the advert Jaskier had put back, clearly not understanding. Returning to their room at the inn, Jaskier knew he had to end the farce. He pulled a book from his bag and passed it to Geralt who stared at it, more disgusted by it than any kind of head or guts he’s waded through on a hunt.

“What’s this?”

“A book.”

“I know that. But why are you handing it to me?” Geralt set it to the side, not even glancing at it.

“Given we’ve got a bit of downtime, you’ve tended to your swords last night, I thought you might fancy a bit of a change. Does the title not intrigue you?”

A gruff “no” had Jaskier’s eyebrow raising as he sat down on the bed with a small smile. “You mean, a monster compendium is not something of interest?” He had picked it up a little while ago, intent on learning more about Geralt’s potential enemies, even if the book didn’t have all the facts correct, it was a good starting place. “Or maybe you’d want to go through it with me and correct the mistakes?”

Watching Geralt try and find a way out of it was painful. He frowned, frowned harder and ended up growling in his throat, turning away from the book with a moody “no”.

“I could teach you,” Jaskier offered quietly. “If you’d like to read.”

Silence stretched and Geralt’s back was stiff obviously coiled tight and ready to either fight or flee. “Since when has a witcher ever read a monster to death?” That sounded far too much like something Geralt had learned from someone else and all Jaskier could think of was a young Geralt being denied the chance to learn to read over and over again with such cruel and mocking words. However, it wasn’t a no.

Moving quietly, Jaskier grabbed the book and settled on the bed with enough room next to him for Geralt to join if he so wished. Cracking the book open, he began to read out loud. It took a minute but Geralt eventually joined him, looking angry and disinterested but Jaskier knew better. He was scared, terrified even, of being mocked, of being found wanting. Not breaking his reading, Jaskier adjusted his grip on the book so he could pull his finger under the words as he read them, letting Geralt follow.

They spent a few days like that, Jaskier reading aloud and Geralt watching, listening to how the words sounded compared to how they looked. Jaskier even picked up a few other books, much simpler, suited for children really. He swapped out to one of those books as they sat in a clearing in a forest, away from everyone and everything. Shoulder to shoulder, Jaskier got Geralt to haltingly grit out the sentence “the cat lost his hat”. It was perhaps the proudest Jaskier had ever been and the small, satisfied look on Geralt’s face was worth it.

Months down the line, when Geralt was able to sit next to Jaskier and read aloud from the book of monsters and laugh together about the inaccuracies, there was a soft lull. In fact, Geralt looked nervous as he pushed to book into Jaskier’s hands.

“I’ve got something for you.” Eager, Jaskier sat up, smile wide. He was expecting a kiss, maybe some oil for his lute or, if Geralt was feeling especially romantic, some jewellery. “It’s something I’ve been working on in secret.”

Reaching into his pack, Geralt pulled out a bit of parchment folded in half. On the front of it was a crudely drawn heart, obviously done by someone who wasn’t artistically inclined. It was shoved gruffly into Jaskier’s hands and he opened up what was a handmade card.

To Jaskier,

Thahk Thank yuo.

I lov yuo.

Geratt Geralt.

It was, without a doubt, the most precious thing Jaskier had ever been gifted, spelling mistakes and all. Because while he had gotten Geralt reading, it never even occurred to him that writing would be another skill to teach. All the education at Oxenfurt was something Jaskier had taken for granted until now. With Geralt by his side, he realised it was a gift, one that he was delighted to share with his beloved.

#geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #the witcher #illiterate geralt #tldr: geralt can't read and jaskier puts his education to good use

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lucidpantone · 2 years

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In the defense of Shirley, I'm pretty sure they came out and said the channel (whoever she technically works for) requested AFTER they had written the season and whatnot, to add a plotline about HIV/AIDS (maybe there's more of a stigma against it in France, I don't know) and so they basically had to scrap part of their og idea, or legit condense so much of it JUST to fit the HIV plotline. And we know if it was David Baguette that was asked to do this, he would have added an unnecessary trauma for Bilal to some how get it and then people would have been upset that the homeless guy got it and stereotyped it and whatnot. So in all fairness, I'd cut them some slack on S8. But that's just me, feel free to agree or disagree

So I understand Shirley's decision behind not giving bilal the hiv storyline because its like he is arab, brown, poor and also is attached to the HIV epidemic. Like it would feel like a pile on. I always wondered if it would have been a cool storyline to attach it to his father's death. Like maybe he had hiv and during covid he died because he was compromised. So it could also inform audiences that vulnerable groups were heavily effected during covid but then I also think its important to inform the public that hiv can be contracted via any type of carrier no matter their gender. I have said I think as two mini 5ep seasons Bilal and Jo's season are ok. The issue is they are incomplete because they are only 5 episodes each and so it does neither story justice. Also khalil is a way better actor then Louise I felt like she struggled alot with some of her more in-depth scenes. She has great comedic timing but isnt my fav concerning delivering dramatic moments. I felt like khalil had to carry alot of that season via the acting and he didnt even get to show his whole story so it really sucks for him.I know he did land a Netflix film after this so I am happy he got some recognition but yea it just sucks overall and I am not so sure that Shirley is gonna give his storyline much more time in this season because Khalil was filming his movie during s9 and s10.

So we will see.... I also think HIV is still largely judged in most of the developed world. People think well protection is basically free in most western developed nations why not just use it? However I think people forget that most queer youth which is a large portion of the HIV population in the developed western world has had little to no sexual education. Most schools won't even acknowledge queer sex as a form of sex that also needs sexual prevention. I live in NYC which is like the gayest place ever and I would say only in the last 15 years is queer sexual education being pushed hard. Like pride week has teen day (I think teen day has only been around 10yrs or so) where its alot of queer sexual education and where you can get information on prep, non-latex condoms and protection for wlw intercourse and how to get any sexual health related advice and treatment without needing parental sign off and this is NYC. Also my neighborhood where I live all the sex shops which there is alot since I live in a gaybourhood will give any teen who asks free condoms and lube and an hiv test if they have some. But also you can get a free hiv test at any health center and there is a lot in NYC and all that stuff is free. But once again this is NYC most places preach abstinence or they dont even acknowledge sexual intercourse between queer youth. Also I do agree people put a alot of importance on not getting pregnant for women but just because you can't get pregnant doesnt mean you can't catch a bunch of other shit so kiddos need to be safe out there. Be a hoe if you want. I say this being a retired thotty(in my youth I was a wild one) but dont be dumb. I also say this as someone who was dumb but was lucky enough to catch something that wasn't life altering. Be responsible you only get one body!

#skam france #i liked jo's storyline just not as part of bilals season

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purplehoodiesimon · 3 years

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Any show recommendations ?

Young Royals

Can't really rec the show this blog is for lol, y'all here know it already. I watch so much on Netflix, I have so many recommendations lol.

Absolute Must Watches

Sex Education, obviously. It's so fucking good, I am so excited for the next season. That 70s Show, it's just so much fun. One Day At A Time is amazing, I'm so upset it got cancelled. Stranger Things has been so good and I'm really hoping they're not going to drag it out and make it bad🤞 And Hollywood is literally the only thing that got me through those first couple weeks of lockdown in 2020.

Less Necessary But Still Good

Stargate SG-1 and Star Trek TOS or TNG are my family's favorites if we put something on in the evening. Lucifer on Netflix is pretty fun, and Glee is the most interesting show you'll ever watch. BBC's Merlin is a lot of fun to watch, I love Katie McGrath with all my heart. Supernatural is a mindtrip experience, you'll never be the same again after watching it. H2O Just Add Water is a show I grew up with and cannot live without at this point, it's so ingrained into my personality.

#asks #not yr

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janiedean · 6 years

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Fandom and politics, that's the topic of this message and a request for your opinion on fandom and politics. In recent days in polish fantasy fandom one of the prominent figures, a writer, asked why can't we all just talk and be fandom and leave politics behind, like in "good old days". And explained how he and the wolę fandom just doesn't like ideology pushed at him in media. (1/2)

(2/2) The problem is, what he calls ideology, is often media not being as racist, sexist or homophobic as usually (i.e. the feminist head of the team of writers of The Witcher netflix show, black Heimdall in "Thor" etc.)Or women in fandom demanding to do sth with t-shirts that was sold at one convention, with a print that goes sth along the lines of "I love burning villages and raping virgins". Because those are the prominent scandals of polish fandom.

hmmm the thing is, I think that fandom shouldn’t meddle with politics when it comes to fans period and when it comes to authors, it should but to a certain point. what I mean is:

when I say fandom shouldn’t be meddling with politics when it comes to fans I mean that whole part where you’re judged as SOMETHING just out of your fandom preferences. I mean, people saying you’re homophobic because you don’t ship the slash ship, people assuming you’re racist because you ship two white guys or the likes, people thinking you’re pro-pedophilia because you ship underaged characters and so on. that imo is a thing that regardless of the media in question should die in a fire because you cannot judge people on their fictional preferences. no one should assume I’m okay with incest in general if I ship thor and loki, no one should assume I’m racist because I like stevebucky better than stevesam and no one should assume I’m homophobic if I ship a m/f ship and so on. especially when it comes to people who ship/like problematic stuff for whichever damned reason and they get told they’re monsters when they just wanna do their thing. like that imo is a thing that has to die in a fire right now especially when it becomes a fandom-wide thing and you get people basically going like ‘if you’re white you can’t engage with a fandom with black/poc characters because you’re gonna be racist anyway’ and then complain when they get zero content. or worse, the star wars lists of problematic people that you need to avoid because they ship rey/lo and are therefore *insert problematic word here* and such things. fandom should be a place where fans are free to do whatever they like and explore whatever subjects they like without being judged for it. obviously if someone fucks up MAJORLY (see: the infamous j2 haiti fic of doom) calling them out should happen, also because it means that if they’re ignorant they’ll learn, and using fandom as a platform to learn stuff about people different from your social/ethnical background is always great, but people shouldn’t be shamed for what they do in fandom as a general rule. that is my general opinion when it comes to fans. you can’t go on and judge someone on whether they like noncon in fiction or not. like. no.

what you’re talking about instead is the media itself being more progressive, and in that case I don’t agree with the *good old days* thing because more diversity is good and honestly if someone’s problem is that heimdall is black in a marvel movie that isn’t even accurate per se because in theory thor and loki aren’t even odin’s sons then like, you need to get over yourself.

and like, one thing is having reservation over a shirt such as what you said and another is telling other women they can’t like kink or m/m porn, so like that is a kind of politics that needs to be discussed and absolutely should, but that’s not what I mean when I say I’d really like politics out of fandom space. one thing is fandom space, one thing is the original content. I’m entirely down for diverse original content of whichever kind, what I don’t think should be done is fans engaging with it just looking at the politics and judging it based on the politics only and not on the plot, and mostly judging it on whether it’s progressive enough or not and judging other people for liking it if they don’t think it’s progressive enough, not fans asking for more diverse stuff in general and/or wanting to feel included in fandom spaces, and I think creators should acknowledge that.

like, the polish fantasy writer obviously doesn’t care for diversity - but no one forces him to. but saying that FANTASY IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS WAS JUST WHITE PEOPLE is also ridiculous bc diverse fantasy has been around for ages like ffs.

what I mean is that we absolutely should have politics - if by that you mean more diversity - in the original media we consume, though I don’t think authors should be forced to do that because you get better things when the author actually wants to write them, and fandom should engage with more diverse media absolutely, but fandom can’t also judge what people in it do all the time based on how *they* engage with the content in case, because everyone will like different things and you can’t force people to engage with that specific thing just because you think it’s woke. and you also can’t trash the author for things you might perceive as problematic but actually aren’t.

examples of what I mean: I, author, write a fantasy story.

not so ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t know much stuff outside standard fantasy and I don’t feel like writing people who aren’t what I am. I write your usual standard lotr-ripoff, everyone is white, cis and hetero, there’s one romance, a couple bromances, no social or political hidden commentary. it has a good story. it’s an okay book. the fandom most likely will ship the guys in the bromances. no one feels challenged. tumblr declares me problematic for not writing diverse stuff and then ignores me.

ideal case of politics in media: I, a white cishet female author, decided to write a fantasy story. I don’t want to do the same usual lotr rehash and I know that diversity is important and I want to make a good job. I make my character list. I decide who’s white and who’s not, giving a decent balance. I make some of them non-straight. I don’t see many trans characters in fantasy, so I decide one of them is. I spend months talking to anyone belonging to the aforementioned categories asking them what they think of my approach - ie I find a number of trans people to discuss what I want with the trans character, I talk to a number of black people if I want the character to be black possibly not all from the US and I pick people from all over the place. I write my book. I make sure every character has a meaningful relationship with the others so that all their interactions are interesting. I try as much as possible to not have stereotypes. I get a bunch of betas and I change anything they find improvable. my book gets published. everyone loves it.

now, ideal fallout of the above which is what I mean with healthy fandom consumption: I get a fandom made up by diverse people because I have a diverse book. people enjoy that I gave everyone some space. they might interact with me on twitter and asking me ships headcanons. I tell them that they can ship whatever they like write whatever fic off it they want. every character gets some fic or moodboard and everyone enjoys whatever they like in whichever dynamic. not-trans people who had never run into a trans character in fantasy might go like ‘wow I hadn’t realized that’s how it felt’ and might get informed. if I based it on some specific historical period people might get informed on that. people belonging to the minority categories educate the others in fandom about what they might not know, nicely. everyone writes all the porn in the world. everything is great. if someone asks me why I have black/lgbt+/etc people in my book I reply them that minorities exist so why shouldn’t they be in my book and that’s the most twitter hate I get. life is great. my publisher wants more. that book becomes a series. rinse and repeat.

not so ideal fallout, ie what I mean with fandom shouldn’t be about politics: somehow, there’s a fanon ship that gets most fans for a reason. it happens to be idk, bisexual white guy + gay white guy who are not together in the book. they get more fic than dunno, hetero black woman with hetero asian guy. people start calling the first group problematic because they don’t ship the poc couple and THEY’RE RACIST. the trans character isn’t a stereotype/isn’t *good enough* for fandom standards so they decided that idk, feminine straight guy I put in because feminine straight guys exist is actually the only trans one because HEADCANONS and suddenly all fics with a trans character for that book are about the headcanoned character that’s actually a stereotype if you go for that, not the one I actually spent six months researching, and if you don’t agree you’re suddenly a transphobe. someone sends me a twitter message asking me what I think of HEADCANONS and I answer that I’m okay with HCs but I put canon characters that aren’t white, straight and cis for a reason and suddenly I’m THE MOST PROBLEMATIC AUTHOR EVER and people decide that my efforts aren’t good enough and that as a cis woman writing gay men is problematic and everyone in fandom who writes m/m and is a woman is shit. then people decide that shipping the black cis bisexual guy with anyone white is racist and writing porn where he’s on top is racist but then another side says that if he bottoms it’s racist (guys LOOK AT SW FANDOM I DIDN’T MAKE THIS UP), so no one ends up touching the black character out of fear of being dissed. six months after the book is out, the only thing there’s a fandom following for is a problematic as hell crackship in between two cishet white guys that hate each other and barely interacted because it’s the only fandom space where people don’t get shamed for what they like.

I, the author, look at all the hate messages I get on twitter and think fuck it, next time I’m just doing high fidelity 2.0 just with cishet white female protagonists so no one can tell me I did it wrong since I’m white, cishet, female and I hang out in record stores all the damned time or at least I used to when I was younger and they existed. I never write a diverse cast again. I never write a trans character again because that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I just wanted people to have fun and enjoy a more diverse cast of characters without fans murdering each other over it.

like, that’s what I mean with politics shouldn’t be in fandom that much, not that politics shouldn’t be in fandom spaces/in the media we consume period XD ;)

#janie rants #yes my fantasy book is the upgraded version of the sw ST fandom #I MEAN THAT WAS AN EXEMPLAR CASE WHAT DO YOU THINK XD #fandom for ts #valentinevilleforts #ask post

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papirouge · 2 years

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(Bisexual anon here) I'm really grateful for the kind response! I know that as long as I don't act on it I'm fine, its just I feel like such a pervert for being attracted to women. It causes me a lot of stress and I feel like I'm lying to those around me by not being out. I will try to accept it and just continue following God. And also, to clarify, I made myself bisexual in that as a kid I remember WANTING to be bi/gay because gay stuff was in so many cartoons. I literally thought it was cool. I don't think I ever had gay impulses before then. And I remember trying to force myself to have a crush on this one girl in my class which eventually worked. Like the "gay agenda."

Oooh😳💜 It makes me so happy you found my reply compelling🤍🤍 Since I'm not struggling with my sexuality, I'm always anxious before replying to people asking me for advice about such sensitive topics and I'm scared of lacking enough education about it, so I really appreciate your words💝

I think you need to grasp something important, anon: you don't owe ANYONE information about such intimate details as your sexuality. Even your family. I would say the only exception would be a (sexual) partner (to who I advise as much transparency as possible when it comes sexual records), but that's it. I know this modern internet culture is about pulling out as much info about yourself out in the open (carrd, disclaimer, bio, DNI) but that's not an obligation. You're not "pervert" for entertaining same sex desire lol Or at least, you're not any more "perverse" than all of us sinners. NEVER trust a Christian saying you're somehow worse for having same sex attraction than a straight Christian, especially when said straight Christians are committing sins on the regular... lol

I totally feel you about being enticed to things that are 'foreign' to our true nature because of stuff we watch. That's why it is suuuuuper important be watchful of what we put before our eyes. I totally understand why gay people might feel uncomfortable with the idea of a "gay agenda" so much this matter of fact has been weaponized by homophobes to justify the ostracization & invisibilization of gay individuals (who obviously aren't responsible for their representation in medias) but it's true that modern mainstream entertainment (Hollywood, Netflix) is heavily pushing a narrative trying to dismiss heterosexuality as a norm. There can't possibly a show without a gay or a trans person these days, when these demographics are a blatant minority IRL. And as Black person I feel like the same phenomenon is happening to my community, which, of course, Black activists are conveniently play obtuse about it... It's getting kinda ridiculous how they're shoving Black actor into roles depicting non-Black characters (Belle, Elizabeth of York etc.), all the while using mixed girls (half White half Black - hi Zendaya!) to play actual Black characters..... Chaos breeds confusion, and that's exactly what they want.

#answered

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

Text

Meet the Couples Who Spent Valentine's Day at The Museum of Sex

Night Fever: New York Disco 1977–1979, The Bill Bernstein Photographs. Museum of Sex

At 1 PM on February 14, just past a gift shop stocked with vibrators, Disney erotica, and "Netflix and Chill" condoms, the Museum of Sex's disco-themed photography show, bar, and lounge are filled exclusively with couples. I'm half of one of them, since I'm there with my girlfriend. We're wondering who, besides a couple of journalists, decides to spend the most romantic day of the year ogling historically significant sex toys, the work of reclusive artists consumed by sex, and life-sized sculptures of animals getting it on.

Plenty of people, as it turns out. "Valentine's Day is one of the busiest days of the year," curator Lissa Rivera tells Creators. The Flatiron District institution draws 300,000 visitors a year, enough on Valentine's Day to warrant extended hours. "A lot of people devote all of their attention on Valentine's Day to exploring intimacy. On a normal day one might come alone or in a group, but on Valentine's Day you're exploring sexual expression with your partner."

OBJECTXXX: Selected Artifacts from the Museum of Sex Archive. Museum of Sex

Sweethearts come to MoSex from all over the country to spend the holiday in a place where it's socially acceptable look at naughty pictures, slurp boob-shaped jello shots, and swill a free "Aphrodisiac Shot," made from vodka and hibiscus extract. Sipping cotton candy and glitter cocktails, they eye Bill Bernstein's sultry photographs of NYC's Studio 54-era royalty and relax post-coital art experience. Sex is on the brain, but it extends far past the limbic system and into the frontal lobe, mixing the museum's academic and respectful programming.

The menu includes shocking and captivating outsider artists, an often-hilarious compendium of diverse animal sex maneuvers, Bompas and Parr's bouncy castle filled with boobs, vintage porn from the illustrated pamphlet to Deep Throat, and an archive of interesting sex objects, the crown jewel of which is William Thomas Porter and Andrew H. Shirley's pedal-operated dildo machine, Fuck Bike #001. So, what brought people to MoSex? We talked to a few couples to find out:

Patrycja & Anthony

Anthony, 22, Security Guard, New Jersey & Patrycja, 22, Office Manager, New Jersey. Dating for 16 months. Photo by the author

Whose idea was it to come to the Museum of Sex on Valentine's Day?

Anthony: Me. I read about it online and we spoke about it a couple of months ago, so I figured I would take her for Valentine's Day.

What was your favorite exhibition?

Anthony: The first room, with all the objects [Objectxxx: Selected Artifacts from the Museum's Archive].

Patricia: With all the old-school sex toys, the bicycle.

Anthony: The Fuck Bike.

Known/Unknown: Private Obsession and Hidden Desire in Outsider Art. Museum of Sex

What did you like about that room?

Anthony: It was intense. There was a lot of stuff I don't see on the daily.

Why do you think it's important to have a museum dedicated to sex?

Anthony: It lets out your inner experience of thinking about sex.

Patricia: I think it's important because people should know where all of our sexual culture came from, where it all started. It's cool to see how sex has changed over the years. That bike… why people would even think to use that is crazy.

Anthony: It's too much work for just that.

Patricia: But everybody has their own taste and imagination.

Anthony: I also liked the bouncy castle [Jump for Joy by Bompas & Parr]. It was quick, but it was a good experience.

Alexander & Wilson

Alexander, 20, Support Worker, Bridgewater, NJ & Wilson, 21, Full-time Student, Elizabeth, NJ. Dating for 7 years. Photo by the author

Whose idea was it to visit the Museum of Sex for Valentine's Day?

Wilson: It was his idea. Alexander: It was my idea. I've come here before and I thought Wilson would appreciate it a lot. We came for the free shot. I wasn't passing that up.

What was your favorite exhibition?

Wilson: I liked the room with the bicycle, but I also liked the masks in the gift shop.

Alexander: I liked the woman giving head in the clip from Deep Throat [playing in Hardcore: A Century and a Half of Obscene Imagery].

Untitled, [Photograph of Woman Inserting Candle], Photograph, (c. 1890–1900), Collection of Mark Rotenberg. From the exhibition 'Hardcore: A Century & A Half of Obscene Imagery.' Museum of Sex; Untitled, Lithograph, (c. mid-19th century), Museum of Sex Collection. From the exhibition 'Hardcore: A Century & A Half of Obscene Imagery.' Museum of Sex

Why is it important to have a museum dedicated to sex?

Wilson: I think sex is such a big part of life. It's so artistic. You can't not come to a museum to appreciate it! Being kinky is a part of life, so I can't help but embrace a museum dedicated to it. It's beautiful in my opinion. I keep thanking him for bringing me.

Growing up really religious, sex was a forbidden subject. Now that I'm older I embrace it completely.

Kevin & Ellen

Kevin, 27, Transportation Management, San Antonio, TX & Ellen, 27, Oil Field Sales Rep, San Antonio, TX. Photo by the author

Whose idea was it to come to the Museum of Sex for Valentine's Day?

Kevin: Oh, the wife.

Ellen: It was recommended to us by a friend. We have a week in New York and decided to come here for the holiday.

What was your favorite exhibition?

Kevin: The first room we went into was really fun. It was a lot of displays of random sex objects throughout time.

Ellen: They had a lotus shoe, which was used to restrict the growth of women's feet in Chinese culture. Now it's considered a fetish as well.

Kevin: I thought the penis bike was fun, too. The Fuck Bike was fun.

Known/Unknown: Private Obsession and Hidden Desire in Outsider Art. Museum of Sex

Why do you think it's important to have a Museum of Sex?

Ellen: Learning about the different facets of sex, even animal sex, how it contributes to us as a species, is very important. It's good to see it how relevant the animal point of view is too.

Kevin: It's something we all do. We have a museum for everything, why not sex?

Renaldo & Erica

Renaldo, 24, Philadelphia & Erica, 28, Victoria's Secret Sales Associate, Philadelphia. Photo by the author

Whose idea was it to spend Valentine's Day at the Museum of Sex?

Erica: A friend was telling me about it so I decided to take by boyfriend on Valentine's Day.

What was your favorite exhibit?

Erica: Believe it or not, learning about the animals. The turtles were my favorite. I learned that their penises are shaped like a stingray, sort of. There was a video of one trying to have sex with the wall! That was kind of weird. He was trying, but it wasn't working. But if that's what floats his boat for his masturbation to happen, that's his business.

Renaldo: The toys that animals use, how they design the toys, I found very interesting. My favorite part was learning about the giraffes and the lions. They give off a scent to attract a mate. When they want to have intercourse they moan and rub up against each other, stuff like that.

The Sex Lives of Animals. Museum of Sex

It's funny, that's pretty much what humans do too.

Renaldo: Yeah, pretty much! I thought it was interesting how they communicate that they want to do it.

Erica: The monkeys use sign language to let each other know what they want.

Renaldo: I just loved the whole thing. I didn't even know it was this deep until I came here and saw. The museum put a lot into it.

Why do you think it's important to have a museum dedicated to sex?

Erica: ...I think handcuffs are important! I like how they have information for couples that will enhance their sex lives. And games. I think games about what you can do to, uh, stimulate the flow, that's good.

Renaldo: I think it's important because you can learn about not just your own intimacy, but how people have been intimate throughout history. What tool they used, and how to do things safety. And it's been good for, uh, fantasizing.

Taylor & Veronica

How did you hear about the Museum of Sex?

Taylor: My friend suggested it. We couldn't figure out to do that wasn't too expensive, but it seemed like a good idea.

What is your favorite part of the museum so far?

Taylor: My favorite part is seeing Bill Bernstein's photo of J. Alexander from America's Next Top Model when he was younger [in Night Fever: New York Disco 1977-1979, The Bill Bernstein Photographs].

Veronica: I agree. When I realized who that was I was like, "Oh my god," and rushed straight to the picture.

Night Fever: New York Disco 1977–1979, The Bill Bernstein Photographs. Museum of Sex

Why do you think it's important to have a museum dedicated to sex?

Taylor: I think it's really important. We're coming back to the point of a new sexual revolution and it's more acceptable to talk about sex. I never really thought about this stuff as a kid, but it's cool that I can learn about it here and it's not taboo anymore, which is important.

Speaking as a queer woman, it's not something I was taught in school. I learned from my friends, from the people who came before me. There are a lot of things I would do differently had I been better educated. It's important for the generations after us to have access to more information.

Veronica: Especially now that we're teaching the younger generation that certain things are ok, certain things aren't ok. The dos and don'ts have you. Some people go all in and don't realize it's ok to not do something if you don't want to do it. Don't feel pressure to do something you don't want to do. You don't have to do the norm.

Sex is starting to become easier to talk about. People can feel comfortable with themselves being in a place like this, whether you already enjoy talking about it or want to figure out how to talk about it, this museum is here and it's going to get talked about.

Known/Unknown: Private Obsession and Hidden Desire in Outsider Art. Museum of Sex

Learn more about The Museum of Sex on its official website.

[NSFW] Tantalizing Illustrations Show the Pleasure and Pain of Long-Distance Relationships

[NSFW] Erotica and Manga Mingle in This Bisexual Illustrator's Surreal Fantasies

Grindr Expands Its Diverse and Sexy Photography Program

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#IFTTT #creators

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