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lycanlovingvampyre · 1 year

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MAG 199 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: Slow Tuesday at work/after work...

MARTIN: "Anyone want another cup of tea?" Ah yes, Martin's solution for everything. Tea XD

MELANIE: "So, we’re seriously holding up ‘let Jon become god’ as a legitimate choice here?" Yeah, I guess Melanie would hate that. Even if it's not her god, with her being cut off from the Eye and all xD

So, as far as I see it from these first few sentences we have Melanie and Martin who want to send off the Fears. Then we have Jon who is adamant on becoming the Pupil and letting the Fears die so no other Jon ever has to suffer this. And Basira and Georgie, who are kiiiind of more on the neutral/fence-sitter side.

GEORGIE: "But is it all other realities, or just some of them?" JON: "Does it matter?" MARTIN: "I mean, maybe? If there are infinite worlds out there then “thousands” isn’t even a drop in the bucket, cosmically speaking." MELANIE: "'Cosmically speaking'?" MARTIN: "You know what I mean." [MELANIE SIGHS] BASIRA: "It’s still more than one, though, isn’t it? Which is what we’re discussing." It's time to bring up MAG 155 again! xD They are talking more than one, that's for sure, so it seems like they would do more harm if they send off the Fears, hitting more people than they are, in total numbers I mean. But are they? Here's the hypothetical part again (in MAG 155 it was that the statement giver was working on projects which could save thousands of lives. Hypothetical, cause in the end nobody knows if the projects would have actually failed if it wasn't for her). They don't know what these other worlds look like. We know there's one very similar to theirs from MAG 114. But how many people are there? Maybe all those other worlds are so much smaller that in total numbers they are less than the people here. Very unlikely I know, but there is no way to tell for sure.

GEORGIE: "Option two is Jon takes over from Magnus. Keeps the Powers contained here with us, and tries his best to make the place a little more… tolerable, until the end." MARTIN: "And we lose him." Technically, they don't know that either. Martin fears Jon's humanity will be lost once and for all. But what if he just stays the same?

MARTIN: "No, Jon, I’m sorry, but if one world still matters in an infinite spread of dimensions, then one person does, too." That's the problem. Jon doesn't think that way. If you're counting in total again, trading one life for so many others would have been quite expensive.

Lol, I just remembered this is basically Life Is Strange on a much larger scale and more complicated due to more variables and unknown outcomes XD

MELANIE: "I-I think the issue is he matters a bit too much." MARTIN: "The point is you don’t have a responsibility to sacrifice yourself just to make everyone else’s lives a bit easier." JON: "I’ve already made them a hell of a lot harder!" Okay first, fuck you, Melanie, seriously! Second, their conversation here again feels so real. Martin thinks Jon's martyr complex is bullshit and that it's not his fault. I feel like Jon did a lot better during their pilgrimage, accepting that it was not his fault and that he was used. But now after what Annabelle told them I'd say he sees himself existing already as his fault.

MELANIE: "Hey! Georgie didn’t do anything!" GEORGIE: "No, Melanie, I, I didn’t." MELANIE: [Softly] "Yeah." GEORGIE: "And maybe I should have. I kept out of it, even when I got a pretty good idea of what was going on towards the end. But… I should have known better. Hiding never helps." It's cool that doing nothing is also presented as doing something. (On a lighthearted note, it's just like someone asking you "Hey, what's your plan for the weekend?" - "Doing nothing" - "Great, then you can join-" - "No, you don't understand. My plan is to do nothing!" XD)

GEORGIE: "For a while! But… we couldn’t actually do anything, could we? Couldn’t save anyone." BASIRA: "Okay, fine, blame for everyone. But the hard fact is, Jon’s the only one who can take over the Panopticon." Oh wait, isn't there a Communist Bugs Bunny meme with Basira??

GEORGIE: "Which brings us to our third option." JON: Which is?" GEORGIE: "Do nothing. We… adapt to the new world, and just wait for it to finally end." Of course Georgie comes up with that one xD But she's right. As I said, doing nothing also is doing something.

BASIRA: "Do we actually have the right to make this decision? The five of us? For the whole world, or for maybe infinite worlds we know nothing about?" GEORGIE: "No, of course we don’t. But we’re the ones here." Ahh, I love the dilemma.

GEORGIE: "And I doubt there’s anyone else out there who’s in a better position to decide." JON: "There isn’t." I mean, Jon wouldn't know, he can't see them. They could technically try to ask other watchers who don't like that they ended up as a tormentor.

MELANIE: "Right? It’s kind of shitty to bring them out just to ask them if they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good." There simply is no right way to do this.

MARTIN: "If it’s just a matter of guilt, then I’ll take it right now. I’d rather live the rest of my life lying awake wondering if I made the right choice, over lying awake listening to the screams of everyone on Earth being tortured!" JON: [Angry] "What? So it’s better for a thousand times more people to scream as long as we can’t hear them?" Very fair point of Jon. Also, most of the guilt would still be weighing on Jon, since he was the lynchpin to all this. I think it would totally fit his character to be high at risk of committing suicide in a scenario where they pass on the Fears and nobody knows he was the Archivist so nobody would come to take revenge on him.

MARTIN: "No! Because Annabelle said it wouldn’t be like that. Wherever they go, it’ll be like it was here before, with the Powers just lurking on the edges." MELANIE: "And our world survived like that for… for what, all of history?" MARTIN: "Mmmm." MELANIE: "Sure, it’s not great, but it’s, it’s not like those other realities won’t have bad stuff happening already. We all lived with monsters in the shadows, and we just got on with it." BASIRA: "Yeah, until we didn’t – until the ritual kicked off. What’s to stop the same thing happening in these other worlds?" MARTIN: "It, it took like millennia of failed rituals before this happened. That means there has to be a chance that it won’t happen at all, right?" Sooo many possibilities! It's such a shitty situation all over again!

MELANIE: "And if it does happen, it will be because of the actions of the people in those other dimensions, just like here it was because of –" JON: "Me." MELANIE: "Because of us." Ohhh, another Communist Bugs Bunny meme!! Also, if it does happen (another mass ritual working) it was only possible to happen at all because that world got the fears passed onto them. So it's not solemnly the fault of the people over there. Our crew would have given them the materials necessary for it.

MELANIE: "Exactly. Probably have their own Panopticon, their own Archivists." Oh yeah, what again are the stakes in The Magnus Protocol? TWO Panopticons and FOUR Eliases!!! xD

GEORGIE: "Well… Did Annabelle say for certain that this dimension is where they were, um, ‘born’, I guess?" JON: "No. No, the Eye can’t see its own creation, so… I don’t actually know how they came to be. Perhaps we can’t know." This does change things again. Annabelle said she doesn't know if they are unique to their world. But that there are definitely worlds without them to spread to. (Also, wait, isn't the MAG 200 statement exactly that?)

JON: "Sure, but even if that was true, it doesn’t change the situation." BASIRA: "Yes, it does. If it’s a choice between stopping the Fears completely – destroying them once and for all, here and now – or just being one universe they don’t escape, among potentially infinite ones where they do… Those are very different scenarios." Yeah exactly that, very well summarized.

JON: "We don’t know. And even if we hunted Annabelle down, and squeezed more information out of her, I don’t think she knows either. We simply don’t have that information, and we can’t just arbitrarily decide what’s true just because it makes the choice easier for us." Ahh yes. One of the themes in Magnus. Making decisions based on the information at hand at that point.

BASIRA: "No. No, I’m not just gonna stand here, and watch you try to justify murdering humanity." JON: [Angry] "How is it different from just letting it happen on its own?" BASIRA: [Forceful] "Because it is. It’s not an option. End of discussion." This and...

GEORGIE: "We’ve got to hope." JON: "Hope that our actions don’t destroy countless other worlds!" GEORGIE: "It’s better than the certainty that they’ll destroy this one!" [TENSE SILENCE] JON: "Sounds like you’ve all decided, then." ...this were breaking points. Especially not even counting Euthanasia as an option. It's Jon's life all over again. People deciding for him what to do. And the thing is, for the plan of passing on the Fears he doesn’t even have to do anything actively. All he need to do is watch them doing it. But doing nothing is also doing something...

GEORGIE: "Can I have a cigarette?" Noooooooooooo! This marks the point of no return. Just like MAG 1 already was the point of no return for them. And Jon once again takes the bait...

GEORGIE: "Then you won’t mind if I hang onto this?" JON: [Distracted] "Hmm." [FAINT STATIC RISES AND FALLS] Did Georgie know what the lighter means? Or that Jon can't keep track of it? We didn't hear how they explained the whole situation, so we don't know... And can this moment be seen as the one Jon finally sheds all the cobwebs off of him? Also I said last episode there's another lighter-moment for me, it's this one. Cause I missed this on my first listen!!! In MAG 200 I was just as surprised as Jon was when he looks for the lighter XD

GEORGIE: "I’m sorry. I know you hate what we’re doing." JON: "I hate all the options. I just… It’s all my fault, you know?" GEORGIE: "What, because you weren’t able to outsmart the literal embodiment of manipulation and scheming?" JON: "Mmm." GEORGIE: "We all make bad choices, Jon. It’s not your fault some eldritch horror decided yours were going to affect the whole world." For all the things Georgie did that made me not like her, I do like her for that one.

JON: "They were still my choices." GEORGIE: "Yeah. And you live with them. Or you don’t. That’s all there is, really." JON: "Hmm." I think that's another cog wheel for Jon to make his own decision.

MARTIN: "I’d understand if you hate me right now." JON: "What? No! No, Martin, I love you. I always will. And I know you love me too. I mean… [sighs] that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the real core of it. You want to save me." MARTIN: "I want you to save yourself." And that's the last puzzle piece for Jon to finally see the big picture. So to count them all again I personally would think its Jon learning his life was a set-up to this. The others dismissing his options. Georgie telling him all he can do is live with his choices or don't and finally this. Jon doesn't see sending off the Fears as saving himself. It's condemning himself. Again. Him saving himself would mean he can finally put a stop to this and save other people like him in return. Spare them the guilt.

JON: "Sometimes… I imagine if none of this had happened. If we had just… met. Been together, without… all of this." MARTIN: [Softly] "Me, too. … But we wouldn’t have, would we? Been together, I mean." JON: "Huh? W-What do you mean?" MARTIN: "Well, we had that, didn’t we? Almost a year of just working a normal job together, and you hated me." I don't think Jon meant this as them working in the Archives together. More like, him still in research, without the pressure of a job he's not qualified for, without a chaotic task of cleaning up after that one colleague who was about to retire and therefore didn't do their work anymore and without the feeling of The Eye pressing down on him. Just Jon meeting Martin in the library and getting to know him.

JON: "Oh god, Angela! Ha! She’s still about, you know? Lording it over a nasty little Flesh domain. Anyway, I didn’t explicitly say it. I… implied it." Face it, Jon, you're a prick xD

MARTIN: "Face it, Jon, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible. And that sucks. But here we are. And I don’t want it to be for nothing. I won’t let it." JON: "That’s very sweet of you, Martin. Sort of. Thank you." I do see Martin's point of view and I think Jon sees it too. But I also think Jon thinks it will all be for nothing if he sends off the Fears. Also yeah, shared trauma can create a hell of a bond.

MARTIN: "Wherever you go, I go. That’s it." JON: "You promised to let me go. If I had to." MARTIN: "And you promised not to go if there was any other choice. And there is. So that’s the deal." JON: "That’s the deal." I wonder if it would have changed anything, if Martin left it at that. (Also "Wherever you go, I go" T__T)

MARTIN: "I guess that’s why it really bothers me, you know? I try, but I can’t actually imagine ever making a decision that I knew meant losing you. And it… It hurts to know you can." Oh no. If reminding Jon of his promise might have actually turned him around, than this here definitely sealed the deal on going with his own decision again. Martin basically admits here, that he wouldn't have held up his end of the bargain. This makes it sound like Martin is relieved he doesn't have to break his promise cause he definitely would have anyway. I think this is so crucial to what Jon ends up doing.

JON: "I did this. It’s my fault. And I don’t want… I can’t let anyone else feel that. That helpless, enormous guilt. Ever." [JON SNIFFS AS IF TEARING UP] MARTIN: "Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey, come here, come here." [FABRIC RUSTLES, WITH SNIFFS FROM JON] Oh fuck that wrecked me. Still does. In general, these "hey, hey, hey, hey, hey"s get me, I don't know why. It was the same in MAG 102, when Jon does it when Martin begins spiraling into his guilt over not even knowing Jon was kidnapped.

MELANIE: "We were scouting. I was showing Basira where we think the gas mainline is." MARTIN: "And?" BASIRA: "Not good. You know those eye things?" JON: "The old Archivists?" BASIRA: "Yeah. I think they know something’s up. The place is crawling with them. It’s like they’re looking for something." I mean yeah, it's world-building, but also a bit of a loose end, since we never hear their struggle to get to the gas main. I think Jonny mentioned in one of the Q&As/Retrospectives that he thought about squishing in a scene of that somewhere in MAG 200 but he couldn't find a fitting place for it. And I think he's right. I don't think it fits anywhere before Jon realizes the lighter is gone and then an explosion immediately hits, it would kind of devalued this moment. And after that there's already too much going on, breaking off Jon and Martin at that point would destroy the atmosphere. But it's fine, there's a lot in TMA that was implied which we never actually hear first hand. It does give MAG 200 a bit of a suspense, like are they actually able to light up the gas main.

MELANIE: "Jon, you’re sure about this whole gas main thing? It just seems, I don’t know, really mundane." JON: "It’s what Annabelle said, and she wasn’t lying. At least, she didn’t think she was." It's also what Gertrude was planning on doing and she had lots of experience about blowing stuff up.

MARTIN: "You’re not listening. I mean, if he kills Jonah, then knowing our luck he’s just going to end up taking his place in the Panopticon, isn’t he?" Hmm, there's quite some dream logic involved. Cause in MAG 193 Jon said "The Eye would choose a suitable replacement" and "If we kill Jonah Magnus, I take his place". It is never specified if different persons killing Jonah have different outcomes. But I guess you could argue that if Jon himself does it, he's more connected to he whole thing going on and the Eye would be much quicker to put him into place. With someone else doing it (whom the Eye does not see fit to become the Pupil) it probably takes a few moments to connect to the Archivist.

MARTIN: "He can come up with me, but when it actually comes to Jonah…" It wooould make more sense for Jon to hide in the tunnels, cause the Eye can't properly see this place. It would probably take a looooot longer to get to Jon, which is easier for them to time their operations. Buuut, if Jon had to stay in the tunnels, we would immediately know Jon went up to Jonah alone, and so we still have a few seconds benefit of the doubt.

BASIRA: "I just mean… um… If we don’t make it out of this… I wanted to say thanks. For coming back for me. [sighs] What I did… Who I was… I – Thanks." JON: "I’m sorry for all of this." Aw, same thought as with Georgie earlier.

BASIRA: "We’ve all got regrets. But we can’t undo what’s done. All we can do is try and do something worthwhile with the time we’ve got left." [HEAVY SIGH FROM JON] JON: "Yeah." Oh no, that "Yeah" didn't sound good...

@a-mag-a-day

#a-mag-a-day #mag 199 #tma #tma spoilers

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neechees · 1 year

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I used to get kinda annoyed with the people who get REALLY hard into being “anti ship” because my first exposure was people telling me that a ship that had I think like a 19yo and a 17yo (I don’t remember specifically) was ped0philia? And these were characters that didn’t initially have canon ages, so most of the fandom thought they were the same age. I was like 13 at the time so it totally enraged me that I was regularly being told my fun little ship was endorsing ped0philia. But now that I’m older I have critical thinking abilities and I can tell that a lot of those people were just doing that whole “I don’t like __ for personal taste reasons, but I must find a moral reasoning to justify why I dislike it” thing, and I can also tell that most people who are anti ship are just people that aren’t fucking freaks.

I suspect some people who talk about like “understanding both sides” are people with experiences similar to mine, but they need to realize that “pro ship” people are genuinely ok with people viewing genuine crimes against humanity as romantic and sexy. Also like, I think some so called fence sitters don’t get that there is a difference between people who are like “no, we do not need to burn every copy of Lolita,” or even “I write about dark stuff to deal with my trauma and you should not find this sexy,” and the people who are like “it’s ok to write CP that you find sexy and want other people to find sexy.” It’s only the last thing that pro shitters are genuinely advocating for.

Yeah like I don't doubt there's some people who use that just to defend their fandom stuff & it can get stupid. I don't like calling myself "anti" because 1. I'm literally just normal, & 2. I'm not using stupid terminology fandom freaks came up with lol. I don't really mind if other ppl use it for themselves but for me I think it's stupid. There also seems to be some confusion as to what these terms mean sometimes (even in fandom circles) & again, that's partially because of the fandom weirdos self victimizing with the terminology to make it seem more innocuous than it is.

#cp tw #cp mention #anonymous

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stuffedeggplants · 2 years

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Sabal, Amita, and the Sleeping Saints

I just finished a mission for Sabal where, instead of assisting with opium production/transport like Amita wants, you destroy it all. Amita feels the loss of that drug revenue as the loss of a medical clinic, of schools, and of other things they could’ve built to improve Kyrat. She confronts you about it, and says that if Sabal really cared so much about preserving Kyrati culture, he would be doing something to stop the Royal Army from blowing up the Sleeping Saints statues like the Bamiyan Buddhas.

That does sound like something Sabal would deeply care about, but instead he prioritizes using you as a roadblock to put a stop to Amita’s goals of developing Kyrat’s narcotics-based economy. Sabal does genuinely seem to hate opium and the idea of seeing the country become a drug state, but I think he chose to give you this mission over protecting the Sleeping Saints shrine because it helps him consolidate power over the Golden Path.

Whether you destroy or encourage drug production, it becomes a statement about the direction of the Golden Path. Instead of being locked in a stalemate over certain kinds of policies, now either Sabal or Amita has the upper hand, able to push their goals forward because of you. One person gains influence and the other person loses it in a way visible to anyone in the country who is paying attention to the Golden Path’s actions.

From a political perspective, regardless of what happens to the Sleeping Saints, Sabal cannot lose while he very much can lose if you side with Amita over opium policy. If you save the shrine, that’s perfectly in line with Sabal’s goals. There’s no problem. But the destruction of a major religious site would be an opportunity to bring over the fence-sitters onto his side, showing them how serious the situation is in the face of “Amita’s apathy” or “antagonism” as irreplaceable cultural heritage is blown to pieces.

I’m not saying Sabal wants them to be blown up or that he rubs his hands together to be evil and sexy when no one is looking. I think he’s being quite shrewd about this and is willing to let whatever will happen to the Sleeping Saints happen because he sees his own leadership of the Golden Path as a superior moral outcome in the service of the Goddess Kyra, eliding over the fate of the Sleeping Saints which is less important in the grand scheme of things.

#Cody plays Far Cry 4 #Far Cry 4 #Sabal #Golden Path

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neondarklight · 2 years

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Alright, I’m gonna post some various takes of various temperatures, all categorized. If you have something to say about them, I’d really appreciate you sending me an ask. I have zero problem with clarifying any of these.

Fire Emblem:

Most, if not all people who believe that Edelgard did nothing wrong and is heroic on all routes are antisemitic.

What Fire Emblem needs most of all right now is for its next original main game to have a “back to basics” approach.

Three Houses’ approach to classes should not become the new normal. Same goes for how magic works in that game.

Three Houses is a terrible entry point into Fire Emblem for new fans. It’s a good game, it just fails as an entry point.

Like it or not, Edelgard is a bigot.

Dimitri isn’t some dumbass fence-sitter. For fuck’s sake, he implements a constitutional monarchy in his solo ending on AM.

The Friendship and Marriage Seals in Fates were a genius idea.

Phoenix Mode was... fine, I guess? I mean, it’s entirely optional, so there’s that.

Danganronpa:

Hiyoko is a fucking child.

Yasuke is an abusive piece of shit and Junko was wholly justified in killing him.

Chihiro is transfem.

In the context of V3, Shuichi works better as a protagonist than Kaede due to the theme of Truth vs. Lies rather than Hope vs. Despair.

Flags:

The pride flag variant with the black, brown, and trans pride triangle is an awful design. Nothing wrong with its message, it’s just that the design itself fucking sucks.

The California state flag is fucking awful.

New Mexico has the best US state flag.

If Mississippi removed the “In G-d We Trust” from its state flag and instead had a complete ring of stars, it would probably be a top five US state flag.

The fact that Alaska’s state flag was designed by someone who was seven years old at the time is one of the main reasons why Alaska’s flag is as good as it is.

Indianapolis has a top five US city flag.

Lettering on flags is consistently a bad idea.

Pokémon:

Pokémon Black 3 and White 3 would be more appealing than Black and White remakes.

The VGC scene benefitted significantly from Dexit.

It makes sense that GameFreak tends to show favoritism towards VGC players over Smogon players, simply because VGC is the official competitive format while Smogon isn’t.

GameFreak has completely stopped giving a fuck about not causing too much powercreep.

Pachirisu winning Worlds in 2014 wasn’t a show of how you can “always win with your favorites” and to not care about a metagame, instead just making a “creative” team. Sejun Park picked Pachirisu to support his Mega Gyarados, which was frankly a more offbeat choice (that still made sense given the metagame), because Pachirisu was the Pokemon that was best equipped to support Mega Gyarados given the metagame.

A “creative” VGC team isn’t just slapping six random Pokémon and calling it a day. Creativity can also come in the form of movesets, EV spreads, etc.

Incineroar and Regieleki are more unhealthy for VGC than Landorus-T, and it isn’t even close.

Miscellaneous:

Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is one of the best Switch games out there.

Dimentio > Fawful.

An all-winners season of Big Brother is an awful idea, simply due to the amount of winners that would actually come back.

Steve was easily the second-best player in BB17, and from the Final Six onwards, beats everyone other than Vanessa in a Final Two.

Survivor is not fake. [REDACTED] fell into a fucking fire (I feel bad for the fire for having to touch [REDACTED]). Russell Swan was collapsing and unconscious from dehydration. Caleb Reynolds nearly died from heat stroke.

#neon darklight's radio night #fire emblem #danganronpa #vexillology #pokemon #mario + rabbids #mario and luigi #super paper mario #big brother #survivor

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menalez · 2 years

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https://at.tumblr.com/dushman-e-jaan/690741520507224064/ip02o47se28i

Hi, what do you think of this?

the post in question:

It’s quite insane as to how BBC and JK Rowling have only been cancelled by the neo-liberals now—after they’ve started going after the Trans-Community. When, in reality, they’ve been active instruments in the oppression of MENA for years: BBC was the government’s mouth-piece in all of UK’s wars, Iraq War included, and now it’s cranked up its xenophobia (one of its journalists recently called the naval blockades in the areas around China a “noose”), because of which, hate crimes against Asians have sky-rocketed (300% increase in the USA alone); Rowling was always a loyal Blairite; and her anti-Irish stance is very clear through the character of Seamus Finnigan, the only character who accidentally blows himself up; I can go into more details as to how the Harry Potter Universe is very Blairite in the way it handles the so-called “conflict”; but I can’t say that I’m interested. Why weren’t these two cancelled before? It isn’t that I’m not glad that they’re being rightfully maligned for going after the Trans-Community; but they were doing all the aforementioned well before this, as well. Then why now, and why not before? The truth of the matter is that the faux-concern for the Trans-Community by the neo-liberals (the fence-sitters aren’t any better) is but a facet of their performative politics. Speaking out against the military industrial complex means that they’d break apart the bipartisan between the conservatives and democrats, a very real instrument of oppression, exploitation, and neo-colonialism overseas; their economies stand on this war-machinery’s shoulders; entire communities flourish about the military bases; and millions upon millions of jobs are sustained through the bloodshed of MENA. They’re aware that their political parties export fascism. It’s just that, it’s the fascism that they reap the rewards from, and the support of this particular community allows them to be perceived as the better ideology out of the two. It’s all theatrics. No praxis. The fact is that when you don’t stand for anything, you have to stand with something to appear “progressive”. It’s a matter of perception for everyone, and what better way to go about it than passive performativeness? I’m surprised that this lot isn’t dragged through the pits of cesspool for this.

honestly i have nothing to say lol im not aware of BBC's history and if it was pushing propaganda an instrumental in harming us. i have only ever read the first HP book and it was when i was very young so i have no opinions on that either though im under no impression that JKR is a saint, but i don’t see how her being anti-irish has anything to do with MENA. i know shes also against scottish independence so im willing to believe she’s not fond of irish independence either but that’s unrelated to MENA so that was a confusing argument to me. yeah i dont have much to say to this

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galaxy98 · 9 months

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You ever look at a situation and just go, “If I even make one judgement call, I’m gonna later regret it for the rest of my life” ?

Because I can think of the few times—even recently—where this is applicable.

And I wouldn’t be so hung up about it if I didn’t considered it from a moral standpoint. You can’t go through life being a fence sitter or else you’ll end up like Boogie2988. You can’t always depend on your gut just because the truth is inconvenient to you.

I get that we’re only human, but I should know better by this point.

I’d LIKE to think that I’ve gain some wisdom over the years based on how this keeps happening time and time again. But there’s always that situation where I can never be so sure of what’s true or not.

And we’re not talking about minor stuff here. This stuff that involves things like people getting hurt or some form of enabling or misconduct.

To give you an example, take Michael Jackson for instance. For the past few decades and post-mortem, we’ve been trying to uncover any truth to whether or not he was a pedophile. And we’ve thought we had an answer with the Leaving Neverland documentary. But then this other stuff started coming about the muddled details regarding its existence that now it feels like we’re back to square one.

That’s when I threw up my hands and said, “Fuck it! I’m going to die not knowing whether he did it or not!”

And that’s what tears me up inside.

Yeah yeah i know “LiFe IsN’t FuLl oF EaSy AnSwErS” and all that crap but sometimes I wish it was. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to constantly live with that guilt.

Maybe I am beating myself up over nothing.

But I’ve been betrayed so much that I no longer have any faith in my own judgement anymore.

It’s been like that since 2016. And if you lived through that year, you will know what I mean.

#personal #morning thoughts #or thoughts I shouldn’t be having at 6:00

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oh-yes-i-did-not · 11 months

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For some reason I’ve been going down a memory lane and even remembering stuff I’d forgotten. While I’m the infuriating agnostic-atheist fence sitter that everyone hates these days, both religious and non-religious people, I was brought up Lutheran. And while I don’t remember one moment of believing in something I can’t see, hear, feel, or touch, it was pretty much the only free option to do anything after school, and thus the one that my mom couldn’t control. Like, she really, REALLY loved the spiel of “if you don’t behave and do things up to my standards then we won’t be paying for this” and somehow nothing was ever good enough for her so I had no paid hobbies, end of.

So anyways, I spent a shit ton of time at church and in church activities as a kid. I kinda felt bad about it at times, but also, not really. My personal beliefs didn’t matter to them anyways, just that I showed up and did shit. And if ended up being the receiving older kid on some kid’s personal musings? Well, agnosticism is not exactly... hhhh, I wanna say judged, but I also grew in the bible belt of my country and where most of the small sects and cults came from, so I wouldn’t say it was ever the safe option. But there is no official word against it afaik. And the whole “cool, hip, young pastors” was a thing back then so I don’t think they minded anyways. So if I asked the kids to think about some things on their own, where’s the harm?

The only time I really regret, and it wasn’t even my fault, was when I was leading a camp group at... well, it’s kinda hard to explain Finnish Lutheran practices to foreigners, but we do this thing called confirmation as the age of 14-15. It’s preceded by a religious indoctrination camp where we spend a week in some remote place with only priests and pastors and a handful of other kids, older teens, who act as camp group leaders. And the whole point is to learn as much about bible and then test on it like you were in a school.

So anyways, one day we got assignments to write group works about angels. And my group (the group I was leading as an older, already confirmed teen, just to clarify, I was not a member going through confirmation) for one reason or another, personal or no, they decided to write about the trauma of a child dying and then the family having the comfort of knowing that child is now an angel, watching over them all. It was a group of 5 teenagers and they all decided to write about that. It was pretty damned important to them, okay?

The priest residing over just nodded and we all thought it was good, we did good.

But that weekend? On Sunday sermon? That same priest preached about the heresy of believing mere humans could become angels, the horrible thought that gods created angels could be tainted by humanity. I was mortified. And I was also just a teen myself so I don’t think I handled it well. I actually don’t even remember what I said to my group or what I did, but I don’t think it was anything helpful. I was just so, absolutely, horrified by what the priest said.

Like, I have some religious trauma, that included, but little of it comes from the small circles of church I mostly interacted with as a kid and a teen, okay? It was a pretty nice place but also, the adults there sheltered me from a LOT. Just that when I got older, the less handful of people could protect me. Even the fact that I could walk into the church office at 18, resigning from church, and the people there being all “okay, that’s fine, just sign here” with smiles, is not that common, I later learned. The fact that eroakirkosta.fi exists is for a reason. It’s not always that easy. I could do it in person, my partner later on absolutely could not.

This is all just to empathize that while you can have a good time in a church environment and the people around you are nice and accepting, that is not the case for everyone. And while I don’t have statistics about anything, I would go as far as wager that it’s not so in majority of parishes. It’s just a rough estimation between me and all the people I know who had the exact opposite experiences. ‘Cause I’m pretty alone in this category of “had some good times, some disturbing times, took advantage, then left lmao” category.

And yes, I do believe people telling me they did not have the same experiences as me. Why would I not?

#church #christianity #evangelical lutherans #lutheran church

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fierytakeferdinand · 1 year

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UK’s Political Landscape is not unlike a zombie apocalypse story.

What it says on the tin.

Let’s do a brief recap:

Tories have shit the bed, like all conservatives before them and how all of them after, they have stolen from the people and given to their corporate donors/handlers, protected their landlord/theft businesses and

Environmentalists are the only ones who seem to be doing anything but they’re basically single-issue grass simps so it’s hard to get excited about anything they do and most people still shit on them relentlessly massively missing the entire point of all the paint throwing and parliament occupying. Although at least they’re doing something so even if we disagree they have my undying respect.

GreenAndPleasant types are in a superposition of being stalin-apologist anti-Ukraine red-fascist tankie morons while also simultaneously rushing to defense of fucking landlords as long as there’s a sob story. I would say something witty here but the word “Gallery of Morons” is all I can think of so let’s leave it at that.

DemSocs/SuccDems don’t exist here, Labour party liberals are sizeable and had a chance to become a real opposition under Corbyn, but post-massacre by the media, the liberal leadership of Keir still feels like it’ll lose simply because of a boomer monolith voting tories despite the country being now the poorest in Western Europe thanks to Tories, but what can you or I do against them, they are somehow a completely different species, a horror truly beyond my understanding on every level, the kind of “people” who complain about Starbucks baristas not smiling(?) and being “gormless”(??) on Google Maps(???).

Pictured: Anti-Trans hate group. One foot in the grave, the other in other people’s business where it doesn’t belong. Probably the same kind of people who leave the kinds of reviews I posted above.

The Greens basically don’t do anything of note and lost their one exciting candidate for leadership (or rather a duo — Amelia Womack and Tamsin Omond), but at least not to the openly TERF candidate — Shahrar Ali. I’ll drink to that, he can die in a fire, but the fact he was anywhere near a progressive party is already incredibly concerning.

Anarchists are non-existent. LAF pretty much already existed only on Facebook with occasional events and meetups but haven’t done anything since August and their posts get no interactions other than a few random boomers talking about the biker gang sons of anarchy (fucking lol) or making nonsensical comments appended by obligatory elipses, so I doubt they got all that much attendance.

Most users on /r/unitedkingdom are either fence-sitters or pro-labour but they don’t matter compared to the tory monolith that made this country poorer than Poland. And these are the fucking internet using young progressives railing against the system??? What the fuck. Even those who support socialism seem to have this “oh it’ll happen eventually” attitude and just sit on their hands.

In a country known as TERF Island, most trans rights activists are sitting writing essays (and yes I realize the irony), and arranging piss bottles outside headquarters instead of breaking windows with them.

Why is it like this?

Well, because I think we’re past the saving-the-world stage and into the all-we-can-do-is-critique-it stage.

This feels like cyberpunk genuinely. Or a Zombie Apocalypse story. The two are alike in that they share a similar distinction of being set in a static, usually unmoving world, portrayed as a sort of endpoint of history and societal evolution rather than as an age of turmoil and transformation.

This is what separates cyberpunk fiction (and I’m using just a general average of cyberpunk worlds, of course there are outliers) — from other political fiction.

Star Trek is kind of anti-establishment in some ways because it’s effectively a different establishment critiquing our time, in episodes such as The Drumhead, witch hunts and well, “drumhead trials” are critiqued through a story taking place in a society that’s not invulnerable to it’s occasional reappearance, but has learned to spot it, and has learned to fight it. It critiques our society, which has not yet done so. The positive ending is a foregone conclusion because the portrayal is ultimately a utopia, but it’s moral lessons come from defeating challenges.

Cyberpunk fiction’s moral lessons then come from the exact opposite, the world is a dystopia, the bad conclusion to the story is a foregone one, but seeing it transpire allows us to critique it.

Similarly, zombie apocalypse stories allow us to examine human morality in close critique under extreme pressure, it does not provide solutions to complex moral dilemmas nearly as often as simply letting them play out.

The zombie apocalypse is often beyond comprehension, beyond resistance, it is simply an unstoppable force of nature, a world of “is” and that’s that, and all one can do is survive, a constant, like death.

Sure there’s some exceptions, like The Last Of Us or Children of Men (which isn’t a zombie story but basically is), but those stories rarely end with the apocalypse being un-done or fixed or the state of the world made better because that’s just a plot device more than not, something to get characters moving from situation to situation.

In Cyberpunk, similarly most characters either don’t resist the world order at all, or do so out of selfish, malformed reasons, being the products of the very world they resist, and even when they do resist the world, and do so for the right reasons, they very rarely succeed making even a dent in the monolithic power structures that govern their world with the power equal to that of the new natural laws of The Walking Dead.

There is dystopian fiction that does provide solutions of sorts, like idk, Total Recall for (not a great) example: is pretty anti-capitalist typical Paul Veerhoven action film that gives solutions, namely, get Arnold Schwarznegger to shoot the bad guy and at the end of the story like this, characters either solve the problems, or make the world better in some way, they make a difference towards a brighter future.

But it’s harder and harder to think we live in the latter type of dystopia than the former. Remember that monolith of boomer voters that feel like a static, unmoving thing seemingly unaffected by the actual reality of the country, behaving in ways incomprehensible to normal human beings? It’s kinda like that. Like zombies, that just keep coming and coming, with no end. All one can do is delay the inevitable end on a personal level.

It’s not about saving the world in those types of stories, it’s about saving yourself, and the world exists as an endpoint of social evolution, and it exists solely to take you from yourself, and when even holding onto that is a struggle, saving the world feels akin to curing death — an incomprehensibly complex task.

Still, at the very least I hope to make a positive difference somehow, do something more than just saving myself, preserving my mind only to comprehend fresh horrors of late stage capitalism.

Even if it’s just to know I tried, even if I don’t believe it will actually do something. Political morons might be endless, and fighting them feels hopeless, but helping someone get a meal, that’s at least one day they won’t starve as much for.

#politics

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smokeybrandreviews · 2 years

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Bromance

I find the discourse around why Billy Eicher's Bros failed, absolutely fascinating. Both sides of the aisle are going hard in their respective ideologies and it's ridiculous. I'm no fence-sitter, if you've followed this blog long enough then you know I'm a borderline anarchist with common sense social views, but I feel like a lot of the very vocal dissenters in this argument, are missing the point. The Conservative Right would lead you to believe it failed because no one wants to be preached to, that Bros was Hollyweird politics being forced on people and the populace voted with their dollars. The Progressive Left would lead you to believe it failed because of homophobia. This feels like spin to cover up the abject failure of a gay film, a sentiment validated by a Rolling Stone puff piece claiming it's one of the greatest comedies of all-time. In its first week of release. Because, gay. While both are true in very small doses, the resounding truth in a Bros failure is the fact there's no audience for this thing.

Bros reads as a derivative, rom-com, cashgrab. It can effectively be Cliche Romantic Comedy number 12345, but gay. That's it. Bros feels like a movie we've seen before, but done much, much, better. Now, I say read because I haven't seen Bros. I have read various reviews and even a plot synopsis or two, and I just feel no desire to partake in this sh*t. Don't misunderstand me, I love rom-coms. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a romantic comedy and it's top twenty for me. I adore that film. Eternal Sunshine is another that really left an impression, as did the likes of Moonstruck, The Princess Bride, Kissing Jessica Stein, over Linings Playback, and As Good As It Gets. I'm sure I'm missing a few but those immediately come to mind. I am absolutely receptive to a gay rom-com (see Jessica Stein) but Bros came across as a movie i wouldn't care to see. Twenty dollars and two hours of my time is a huge commitment in this post-Pandemic age of recession. I'm even debating whether to see Black Adam in a theater and I f*cking love both The Rock and Capeflicks for these exact reasons! Do I really want to gamble on is Bros will be a fun watch knowing it's going to hit digitalis a ton of bricks because of all this controversy over its theatrical run.

At the end of the day, no one saw this film, gay or not. Like, the demo Bros was made for, didn't even show up. This movie appeared to no one. Cis men were driven away after the ridiculous straight hate campaign from Eicher and his production stooges, after it stumbled in its opening weekend. Women didn't go see it because why would they? They can't project themselves onto to, male, gay, leads and accept the fantasy enough to be immersed in escapism. The guys might have showed up but not nearly enough of them did and here we are. Bros might very well be excellent. They may have done some fun, interesting sh*t, with the rather uninspired Rom-com tropes we all already know. Hell, I may see it when it drops on streaming but asking for people to brave the theater when gas is forty-seven dollars a gallon feels extreme. Admittedly, this is all the opinion of a straight black dude who loves boobs so I might not be an authority on the nuance of this moment but I kind of feel like the vast majority of the movie going audience probably feels the same. Minus the very loud extreme ends of both sides. Those cats are all assholes, just in different ways.

#Bros #Some ol' bullsh*t

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smokeybrand · 2 years

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Bromance

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casperthinks · 2 years

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What if we just stopped arguing with the conservatives and the centrists and the nazis? Their ideas are harmful, and they deserve to be challenged, but I’m not arguing against challenging them at all. I’m arguing against having a gladiator style fight in a public space. If you are walking down the street with you 10 year old sibling and you run into a Westboro Baptist Church style crowd protesting a queer event, it is more useful to the child that you walk on and speak directly to them about what all of that means and why it’s intellectually and morally bankrupt. The child does not learn from you yelling at the mob. If anything, that exposes them to the mob’s disingenuous defense tactics in a context where they are not very likely to have the political literacy skills necessary to detect that or why they are bullshit. For more on those tactics you can and should watch the Innuendo Studios series, “The Alt-Right Playbook” on YouTube.

The crypto nazis and the die had Both Sides centrists on Twitter will not be persuaded by anything you say. Ever. And while your trained ear can hear the dog whistles from hundreds of miles away, the unfortunate reality is that that’s not a very wide-spread skill, and it will be laughably easy for these professional trolls to respond to you in a way that, while absolutely nonsensical to someone who is left-leaning, will not raise any red flags to an outsider in the logic department, but will instead make you seem completely unhinged. That is inaccurate. But it’s also convincing. It doesn’t benefit you, it doesn’t reach an audience that might do anything Other than dismiss you as an ultra-cucked liberal snowflake (no, they don’t know that liberals are not left-wing, it’s a mess). If we see something inaccurate and damaging, and especially if we suspect the person is not likely to argue in good faith, we should abandon the fantasy of owning them with facts and logic. I understand the appeal. I want to be able to do that too. But it doesn’t work. Your facts and logic are pearls before swine. Address the topic on your own, independently, far away from that belligerent nonsense, and save the pearls for your discerning audience and for the curious fence-sitters that are less likely to turn rabid now that they are not at risk of getting bitten by a radioactive fascist.

#mine #politics with Casper #Casper thinks

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goldenshoyo · 3 years

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Taste like Strawberries - DILF Daichi

Warnings: Fem!Reader, age gap (Reader is 22 and Daichi is mid to late 30s), daddy kink (obv), brat taming, finger sucking, spit kink sorta, dumbification, degradation, thigh riding, oral (m. receiving), rough sex, a little praise, alcohol consumption. (as always, let me know if you want something else tagged)

Word Count: 4.9k (honestly idk how it got so long hahaha sorry)

Author’s note: This is my contribution to @kaijime's dilf collab! Make sure you go check out the masterlist and read all the wonderful works on there as well! Also, I edited this at 2am; so sorry if it is a mess.

Can you pick Mei up for me? I have to work late.

You sigh looking down at the text from your sister, this is the third time in the last few weeks she’s sprung this on you. Despite knowing there’s nothing she can do about it, it’s irritating with her husband traveling and needing to work. The one good thing is the quality time you get funny spoiling your niece after school, getting her whatever junk food she wants that your sister never lets her have.

Texting her back that you will, you go back to studying. Your final year of college has been more stressful than you expected, work always piling up with your motivation lacking. No wonder so many students take an extra year. However, you were determined to finish now and not extend your torment any longer.

Glancing at your phone you see it’s nearing pick-up time at Mei’s school. You clean up the library table, shoving your laptop and notes into your bag, and leave. The drive isn’t long, her school is close to your apartment and sister’s house so you would have needed to take this route anyways. Pulling into a free spot near the school, you leave your bags in the car going out to meet her by the school’s front gate.

“Big sis!” Your niece squeals and you look up from your phone. She’s dragging another little girl behind her, pulling her your way. “This is Kaiya! She’s my best friend. She said it's okay I use her first name, so don’t scold me like momma does! I let her call me Mei too!”

You laugh listening to her babble on about her new friend. She’s coming up on her 6th birthday, and every day she is growing more and more into her own personality. “I wouldn’t scold you like your mother. You know that,” you bend at the knees, getting at their height.

“Hi Kaiya, I’m ----. It’s nice to meet you.” You shake her little hand and she smiles.

“You’re very pretty, like Mei.” She pulls her hand away and then her lip pouts. “I wish I had a big sister.”

“I can be your big sister too if you want. Mei, you don’t mind sharing me do you?”

“Only if you promise to get me ice cream.” Her eyes and nose squint and she laughs, her mischievous face has stayed the same since she was a toddler. It’s impossible to resist.

You stand up, rubbing her head and laughing. “Fine, we can stop by a shop on the way home.”

“Sorry,” a deep male voice comes from a few feet behind you. “I had a work thing... I’m sorry I’m a little late baby.”

You watch as a tall, broad man picks up Kaiya while she giggles and wraps her arms around his neck while squealing ‘daddy’. You smile politely when he looks at you. His face is handsome, features not too sharp or round; everything about it warm and inviting. He’s still dressed in his uniform, well besides the jacket. You assume he’s a part of the police force from the pants and belt he wears matched with a dark blue shirt that clings to his form.

“I hope she wasn’t bothering you,” he says while setting her down.

“Oh of course not. She was very polite and well behaved. You’ve raised a great daughter.”

He chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thank you. I’m Sawamura Daichi, and you are?” His smile is so cute, you think. It’s not forced or out of politeness, but instead genuine happiness.

“---- -----,” you tell him and shake his hand. He squeezes it once, and your stomach turns. What was that?

“Is Mei yours?” He tilts his head, eyes going between you and your niece. “I’ve never met her mother, only your husband. Kaiya talks non-stop about Mei when she’s home with me.”

“Oh, no-no. I’m her aunt. My sister works a lot, so I pick her up from time to time.” You laugh. “I go to the local college, so it’s close by. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Sawamura.” Trying to keep yourself from becoming too flustered, you look away. Watching as your niece digs through her backpack for some reason.

“Please, call me Daichi. It’s nice to-”

“Daddy, big sis is taking Mei to get ice cream!” Kaiya cuts him off. “Can we go too? Pretty please!” She kisses her father’s cheek, smiling brightly as he sets her back down. She holds tight to his hand, begging some more.

“If it’s okay with your dad, we don’t mind. Do we, Mei?”

She nods with a big smile. “Kaiya they have the BEST strawberry flavor.”

“Do you mind? I don’t want to impose on your time with Mei.” Daichi asks while still keeping an eye on the girls, who have wandered a few feet away while blabbering about ice cream flavors.

“Of course not. It’s good for young girls to spend time together.” He nods and thanks you. “There’s a spot close by. We could walk if you don’t mind.”

“Better wrangle the girls then,” he laughs, walking towards them both and getting their attention.

Taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh, you try and relax. It’s just ice cream for the girls… even if Kaiya’s hot dad is coming along. You’re sure he’s just trying to be nice and let his daughter have a nice time. However, it’s hard not to feel something when a man this hot and good with children is around.

The ice cream shop has a pretty outdoor area off the back of the shop, fenced in with a swing set and other children’s toys and playsets. No one else is visiting currently, so the girls have the playground to themselves, running around with ice cream dripping all over the ground when they forget they should be holding the cones up. Sitting quietly, spooning ice cream into your mouth, you try not to stare at Daichi too often.

“What are you studying?” He asks, breaking the silence that was threatening to become awkward.

“Oh, uh,” you swallow the cold cream. “Literature and classics.”

“Interesting. I bet you enjoy reading to your niece then,” he smiles at you before taking another spoonful of ice cream. You can’t help but watch his tongue dart around the spoon.

“Yeah.” You say quickly looking away. “Mei enjoys it, well, when she pays attention. Does Kaiya like stories?”

“Her mother says she always listens to her when she reads, but for me, it’s hard enough to get her to go to bed. I don’t think she’d ever stay still to let me read her a book.” He continues to talk about the weekends he gets with her, and you listen closely.

It’s stupid, you think. You shouldn’t feel this excited that he’s either divorced or at least no longer together with Kaiya’s mom. It’s selfish, but lucky in some ways. You don’t have to worry about a jealous wife coming after you because her husband paid for your ice cream.

“I’m not around for bedtime, so I can’t really relate.” You say softly and stick your tongue out lick the spoon clean. Stopping yourself from licking the ice cream off, deciding to explain more, “Mei never really stays the night anyway. She gets too worked up without her-”

The spoon is plucked from your hands and you frown looking at Daichi, who has a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “What do you like to do at bedtime?”

Your breath catches in your throat, and you stutter out something incoherent. Daichi’s tongue swipes up your spoon, and you watch carefully, longing to be that spoon as his tongue drags across it.

“Well?” He continues, then hands you back the spoon.

“I, uh, I don’t know.” You manage to stutter some words, even if it's not a real answer. “I uh-”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. You don’t need to answer now. Let me see your phone,” he asks holding out his hand and you hurry to hand it to him. He puts in his number then hands it back to you. “I’m not free on weekends unless I get a sitter. But, I’ll see you around.”

You sit, stunned by how quickly that turned from a polite playdate for your niece to potentially a playdate with Daichi. You bring your hands to your face, trying to compose yourself before waving at both Daichi and Kaiya as they leave.

“Big sis,” your niece wines. “Wanna go home.” She pulls you from the park bench and through the shop while you continue trying to collect your thoughts.

Did you really just pull a dad? There’s no way he was serious, right?

You texted him the night after you got ice cream, but he hadn’t responded. It wasn’t until late Sunday evening he sent back a short ‘you’re welcome’ after you thanked him for the ice cream. Your face burned and your stomach twisted with every flashback to watching his tongue slide across your spoon.

It was so unnecessary.

It was so hot.

Gathering up the courage to ask when you could see him again took another day and liquid encouragement. Maybe texting him while you were drunk wasn’t the best idea, but it did make sending him photos of yourself a lot easier. The ones you got in return nearly made you drool. Joining the police force ensured he never lost his perfect physique. Every inch of him looked like it had been handcrafted by the gods themself.

Slipping your fingers into your panties and toying with your desperate clit was all too fun when he called you late that night, not caring about his early morning shift or the classes you may have. His voice breathy and deep, yours whiny and high pitched when you came around your fingers begging him to come over and fuck you.

He only laughed, telling you to wait until he had a day off.

Sitting across from him at dinner should be fun. He keeps the conversation going and you always paid attention and politely answered. However, it becomes increasingly obvious that the burning between your thighs is becoming unbearable.

“Check please,” he tells the waiter, and you nearly squeal with excitement.

“Mind if I go get some fresh air while you settle the bill?” You ask, placing your hand over his; thumb drawing circles on the back of his hand.

“Of course, sweetheart.” He smiles at you and you walk out of the door, ignoring the way his eyes make you feel as you walk out the door.

Cool evening air hits you hard. Letting out another sigh, you laugh at yourself for acting this desperate in public. He must know. It’s not like you’ve been good at hiding it. You’re worse than a cat in heat, mewling for attention and a quick fix.

“Ready?” His voice startles you and you turn to face him. You nod and he extends his hand out for you. The walk to his car is short, and you’re grateful for the dim lighting in the parking garage once you slide into the passenger seat.

Unable to can’t wait any longer, you straddle his lap in his seat and he tilts his head, looking up at you in amusement. Kissing his neck, you run your hands down his chest and slowly grind against him. His firm hands hold your hips and you whimper, trying to convince him to give your body more attention.

“Daichi,” you whine against his neck. “Please, I need-”

You’re stopped as his hand takes control of your jaw, cheeks squished in his hand while he admires you above him. His gaze is intense, not a hint of a smile or enjoyment on his face, but the bulge in his pants hints otherwise. You frown looking down on him, irritated this is the most he’s touched you all night.

“I don’t like brats.” He says simply. “Impatient ones are even more annoying. Tell me, are you going to be an annoying brat?”

You try and shake your head no, barely getting it to move from side to side in his grip.

“Good,” he releases your face and you sigh. Rubbing your cheeks with your fingers you relent from trying the aggressive approach with him; seeing now he’s much less patient than you had expected. “Now can you wait until Daddy takes you home?”

You nod, a smile brimming on your lips while your stomach turns.

“I want to hear you say it.” His eyes somehow focus on you more, making your stomach twist once more.

“Yes, daddy.”

“Good girl.”

The rest of the drive is silent, his hand resting on your exposed thigh a little too close to the hem for comfort. It keeps your mind buzzing, every nerve lit aflame at the slightest bump in the road or motion of his fingers. His thumb occasionally draws circles on your sensitive skin, and the whimper that always leaves your lips feels embarrassing.

Are you really a whimpering mess already?

Everything about being with Daichi made you feel more intense like your body knew just how to react to everything he does and says. Was it the age difference and excitement? Or was it simply because he knew how to touch and speak to you?

“Sweetheart?” Daichi’s voice draws your attention and you look over to him. “We’re home now. Be a good girl for me, and go unlock the door.” He dangles the keys in front of you and you take them nodding.

“Yes sir,” you slip out of the car. Did you call him sir? At the moment it felt right, but now with your face burning and palms sweating you wonder if he thinks it’s ridiculous.

You unlock the door, pushing it open and standing awkwardly waiting for him to walk up the stairs to the front door. Why is he prolonging this? There was no reason for him to stay behind. Turning your head to look where he parked the car, you see he’s talking to a neighbor, laughing, and paying you no mind.

What’s his game here?

You huff, frustrated, and embarrassed with how desperate you’ve been acting and he seems to not have a care in the world. Stepping inside, you close the door and take your shoes off. He doesn’t mind you having access to his house with you unsupervised. After all, he did give you the keys to unlock the door.

His home looks comfortable and lived in, not overly clean but not messy per se. You sit on the couch, crossing your legs and laying your head back. While you know it’s rude to begin feeling this irritated, if something didn’t happen soon you were going to have to call for a ride and get home to a toy or even indulge in one of the sleazy dating apps you’re all too familiar with.

Pulling out your phone, you respond to a few notifications you garnered over dinner, nothing of real substance, but better than sitting in silence. A few friends have invited you to a bar not too far from your location, and you consider it, but the front door opening grabs your attention.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, sweetheart.” He smiles at you and you lay your phone down on the cushion beside you, feeling like you’ve been caught texting in class. “I see you made yourself at home.”

“Oh, I-” you stand up, even more embarrassed.

Does he take pleasure in making you uncomfortable or are you just too on edge?

“Sit back down,” he laughs walking into the kitchen. “Would you like a drink?”

“No thank you,” you answer quickly, sitting back down and laying your hands in your lap to fiddle with your fingers.

He comes back into the living room with his shirt unbuttoned a few, his chest peeking out, and a beer in his left hand. Sitting on the recliner adjacent to the couch, he motions for you with his pointer finger then pats his lap. Your body moves without thinking, straddling him with your knees sinking into the soft cushion of the recliner on either side of his hips. He grins watching your dress ride up your thighs before he takes a drink from his beer.

“Why are you acting so shy now? What happened to that confident little attitude?” He sets the beer down on the table between the couch and chair.

“Why are you toying with me?” You ask, furrowing your brow and tilting your head. “Just fuck me already.”

“There it is,” he chuckles. “You’re not as good of a girl as you think. You’re nothing more than a spoiled brat who needs put in her place. Lucky for you, I know just how to handle bratty girls like you.”

His thumb pulls on your bottom lip and you part them, letting his middle and index finger slip in and press against your tongue. You moan at first, grinding your cunt against his thigh before his fingers slip further in and make you gag. Closing your eyes you grind on him harder, the gagging only intensifying and your body lighting on fire.

“Pathetic,” he laughs while resting his cheek against his hand. Opening your eyes more you see he looks unamused, even as he shoves his fingers down your throat more. “Moaning like this over what? I’m barely touching you.”

You moan again, pressing your core harder on his thigh and whining. Your fingers dig into the arm of the recliner, steadying yourself while you ride his thigh. It feels too good to stop, the minute amount of pleasure intensified by Daichi’s fingers in your mouth.

“Maybe I was wrong,” his voice making you whine again. “Maybe you’re not a brat, just a dumb little slut desperate to cum.” Removing his fingers from your mouth, you take deep breaths, coughing and leaning your head on his shoulder.

“P-please,” you beg. “Please fuck me, daddy. Wanna feel you in me. I’ll be good, I swear.” You sound desperate, you know it and so does he.

“Do you think you deserve it?” He rubs the spit from his fingers onto your cheek while holding your jaw. He shakes your head back and forth slowly as a no for you. “That’s right. You don’t deserve daddy’s cock.”

“B-but-” you whine and grind against him. “Please!”

“Hmm,” he hums, releasing your jaw and licking his fingers clean before taking another sip from his beer. “Maybe if you earn it. I’m not in the mood to fuck an ungrateful whore.”

“Anything!” You nearly shout, eager to please him.

How you’re feeling is different than usual, the need to do whatever Daichi wants completely takes over your own desires. While the feeling is new, it’s something you want to continue to chase. Your head feeling lighter and body burning is all too good to give up now.

“Do I need to tell you what to do?” You nod. “Of course,” he chuckles, “silly of me to forget you’re nothing but a dumb brat. Get on your knees in front of me. Put that mouth to good use for once, won’t ya?”

“Yes daddy,” you say quietly, sliding onto the floor and tugging at his pants.

His belt is a struggle, and he makes no attempt to help you until you’re sliding his pants and boxers off and he lifts his body up just enough to get them down his thighs. Gripping his cock, your mind races wondering if you’ll even be able to fit his girth in your mouth as your fingers barely manage to wrap around him.

“If I finish this beer before you make me cum, I might not fuck you at all.” He says tapping your forehead with the cold glass bottle. “Do you understand?”

You nod again and he leans back into the recliner. Precum leaks from the tip and you wipe it up with your tongue, enjoying the taste as it floods your senses. As your tongue swirls around the head and your warm mouth takes him in, he moans.

It’s quiet and short-lived, but enough to encourage you to take more of him. He fills your mouth so quickly, but you’re determined to make him cum; unsure if it's because you’re desperate to be fucked or if you just really want to please him. Either way, you’re going to have him cumming in your mouth in minutes, you know you can.

You gag loudly when you force him into your throat, nearly taking him to the hilt. This time his moan is louder and longer, making you buzz with pride. Managing to keep him deep in your mouth you rub his balls with your shaky fingers while setting a steady pace bobbing your head up and down.

“Fuck,” he groans. “I guess that mouth is useful for something…” another moan breaks his last word but you don’t care.

The condescending praise just enough to make you hum against him with glee. He bucks his hips when you do, his fingers tangling in your hair and forcing you to choke on him again. You claw at his thighs, desperate to come up for air while you fight against him. He releases the tight hold and you take him out coughing as you stroke him with your hand.

You watch with a frown while he drinks on his beer again, watching carefully as the faint line of liquid lowers nearing the bottom of the bottle. You can do this, you tell yourself before taking a deep breath and taking him back in your mouth. Humming against him lightly while massaging his balls in your palm earns the same reaction, except you’re better at keeping a steady pace now.

“Shit,” he groans.

His cock twitches against your tongue and warm spurts of cum coat your mouth before you can swallow fast enough. He pulls you off his cock by your hair.

“Tongue,” he says and you stick it out timidly.

He spits on your tongue before pulling you to his face and kissing you, his tongue invading your mouth and making you gag at the taste of his beer. His kiss takes your breath away, literally struggling for air as he continues. You’re coughing and pulling away from him while a mix of spit and cum runs down your chin.

“I didn’t think you could do it,” he admits. “I’m surprised someone as desperate and stupid as you could make me cum that fast. I suppose I should reward you then, hmm?”

“Please daddy, please,” you beg. “Want your cock in me so bad.”

His hand slips under your dress and rubs against your soaking panties. “You really do want me, don't you baby?”

You nod.

His free hand gropes your breast, pinching your nipple through the thin material of your dress. You close your eyes biting your lip as you enjoy the not so soft touches he gives you. You moan when his fingers slip into your panties, sliding against your puffy clit.

“Daddy!” You squeal when his middle finger slides inside of you and curls. “Fuck, more please.”

He laughs, pulling his finger out and standing up. He sheds his clothes while you remain on your knees in front of him. You can’t help but admire how good he looks above you like this. Honestly, you think you’d do anything to remain in this moment even if the anticipation of him splitting you open is forcing you to clench around nothing.

Daichi offers you his hand and he assists you in standing to your feet, but it doesn’t last long. He bends you over the arm of his recliner in seconds, pulling your dress down and allowing your bare breasts to fall from it.

“Tell daddy what you want,” he teases while rubbing his cock between your folds.

“Want your cock!” You turn your head back to look at him. “Please, I need it.”

“Good fucking girl,” he groans while sliding inside of you.

Even with your intense arousal and the spit on his cock, it stings. Your body goes limp against the arm of the recliner as you try and relax your body to let him in. Crying into the cushion, you try to not be too loud while getting used to his size.

“If I’d known you’d be this tight, I would have fucked you sooner,” he says after fully sheathing himself inside of you.

He isn’t nice enough to give you more time, too overwhelmed with the way you squeeze him so nicely to not start thrusting immediately. You cry out when his cockhead hits deep inside of you, pulling against your walls as he pulls back out only to do it all over again.

It hurts. It feels ethereal.

“Daddy!” You whine as his fingers twirl your nipple between them and he holds you back against him while relentlessly pounding into you. “Too much!”

“Be a good girl,” he hisses. “I know you can take it.”

You whimper in response, his thrusts forcing your breasts into his hands while he continues to assault them. Your thighs begin to shake and your core feels like it’s a tightwire about to break.

“Wanna cum!” You tell him, some part of you knows it's better to warn him or ask instead of letting yourself go. “Please, daddy! Let me cum.”

“Aw, my little slut is learning,” he chuckles, thrusting deep into you and letting you fall back onto the recliner. “Go ahead, cum for daddy. Cream all over my cock sweetheart.”

He hits the sweet spot inside of you once more and you come undone, cumming around his cock and crying out a mixture of daddy and curses. He grunts as you clench around him, body pliable for him to hold you closer while rapidly fucking you.

He cums, and you feel it drip out of you around his cock before you comprehend what’s happened. You’re too fucked out to even care if you’re honest. He pulls your panties back to the side as he pulls out of you.

“You’re going to keep it all in, aren’t you?” He pulls his pants back on, leaving his shirt on the floor and sitting on the couch.

You nod, pulling your dress back over your breasts and adjusting the thin straps back to a comfortable position on your shoulders. He pats his lap again, and you sit across him, wrapping your arms around his neck and resting your cheek against his shoulder.

A knock at the door startles you and you look at Daichi with a concerned face.

“Oh,” he laughs. “I lost track of time. Can you get that?”

You sheepishly nod. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I need to go grab something from my room. I’m sure you can handle it.” He disappears down the hall.

Running your hands through your hair to make sure you don’t look crazy, you open the door.

“Oh,” a sharp tone greets you.

“Big sis!!” Kaiya screams, jumping up and down and running inside.

Shit.

“Uh,” who you assume to be her mother says shaking her head. “Is Daichi here?” She’s irritated, and reasonably so. “I need to speak with him immediately.”

“Yeah, he’s right-”

“What do you want?” He appears back into the living room, pulling a loose shirt over his head as he comes in.

He easily could have done that before. Is he doing this on purpose?

Oh god, he is.

You look quickly between the two of them as he steps in the doorway with you, wrapping his arm around your waist.

“I think we need to speak in private.” His ex tells him, eyeing you up and down.

“Sweetheart, do you care to take Kaiya to her room to play for a few minutes?” He kisses your forehead and you look away from the intense glare you receive from Kaiya’s mother.

“Daichi! Why are you-”

“Stop,” he says loudly. “---- can watch her for a moment.” He lets go of you.

“Can you show me your room Kaiya?” You ask sweetly and she takes your hand and guides you down the hall.

You’re not sure if you’re grateful Daichi got you away from his ex or if you’re happy Kaiya won’t have to see her parents bicker. Either way, it’s a win for you. Your heart is beating against your chest, making you nauseous. There’s no way he just forgot he was getting his daughter tonight.

You’re flattered that he used you to make her angry, but the more spiteful part of you wishes he had let you in on it a little more. Having you answer the door was good, but you could have left your hair a mess or something more…

“Big sis, why are you here? Did you and daddy have a playdate?” She asks, handing you a stuffed rabbit while you sit on the floor of her room with her.

“Uh,” you giggle. “Yeah, we had a playdate.”

#dilf collab!!#daichi sawamura #sawamura daichi x reader #sawamura daichi smut #daichi smut #dilf daichi #daddy daichi #hq smut #haikyu smut #haikyuu smut

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hellomynameisbisexual · 3 years

Text

Travis has had both boyfriends and girlfriends since high school. But when his coworkers discovered his dating history at a board game night, they told him he couldn’t be bisexual. “Bi men don’t exist,” they said. “You’re just a confused gay guy.” Travis, 34, had brought his girlfriend with him that night, but they started calling her his “roommate” after they found out he was bi.

Santiago got an even harsher reaction when he came out to his family. “‘Bisexual’ is just code for insincere gay man” is how he said one of his relatives reacted. “He didn’t use the term ‘gay man,’” 24-year-old Santiago told me, “but I won’t repeat slurs.”

In the past couple of months, I’ve heard dozens of stories like these from bisexual men who have had their sexual orientations invalidated by family members, friends, partners, and even strangers. Thomas was called a “fence-sitter” by a group of gay men at a bar. Shirodj was told that he was “just gay but not ready to come out of the closet.” Alexis had his bisexuality questioned by a lesbian teacher who he thought would be an ally. Many of these same men have been told that women are “all a little bi” or “secretly bi” but that men can only be gay or straight, nothing else.

In other words, bisexual men are like climate change: real but constantly denied.

A full 2% of men identified themselves as bisexual on a 2016 survey from the Centers for Disease Control, which means that there are at least three million bi guys in the United States alone—a number roughly equivalent to the population of Iowa. (On the same survey, 5.5% of women self-identified as bisexual, which comes out to roughly the same number of people as live in New Jersey.) The probability that an entire state’s worth of people would lie about being attracted to more than one gender is about as close to zero as you can get.

But the idea that only women can be bisexual is a persistent myth, one that has been decades in the making. And prejudice with such deep historical roots won’t disappear overnight.

👬👫👬👫

To understand why bisexual men are still being told that their sexual orientation doesn’t exist, we have to go back to the gay liberation movement of the late 1960s. That’s when Dr. H. Sharif “Herukhuti” Williams, a cultural studies scholar and co-editor of the anthology Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men, told me that male sexual fluidity got thrown under the bus in the name of gay rights—specifically white, upper-class gay rights.

“One of the byproducts of the gay liberation movement is this…solidifying of the [sexual] binary,” Herukhuti told me, citing the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s as a pre-Stonewall period of relatively unstigmatized sexual fluidity.

Four decades later, the gay liberation movement created a new type of man—the “modern gay man,” Herukhuti calls him—who was both “different from and similar to” the straight man. As Jillian Weiss, now the executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense Fund, wrote in a 2003 review of this same history, “gays and lesbians campaigned for acceptance by suggesting that they were ‘just like you,’ but with the single (but extremely significant exception) of [having] partners of the same sex.” Under this framework, attraction to a single gender was the unifying glue between gay men, lesbians, and straight people—bisexual people were just “confused.”

Bisexual people realized that they would have to form groups and coalitions of their own if they wanted cultural acceptance. But just as bisexual activism was gaining a foothold in the 1980s, the AIDS crisis hit, and everything changed—especially for bisexual men.

“AIDS forced certain bisexual men out [of the closet], it forced a lot of bisexual men back in, and then it killed off a number of them,” longtime bisexual activist and author Ron Suresha told me.Those deaths hindered the development of male bisexual activism at a particularly critical moment. “A number of men who would have been involved and were involved in the early years of the bi movement died—and they died early and they died quickly,” bisexual writer Mike Syzmanski recalled.

The AIDS crisis also gave rise to one of the most pernicious and persistent stereotypes about bisexual men, namely that they are the “bridge” for HIV transmission between gay men and heterosexual women. As Brian Dodge, a public health researcher at Indiana University, told me, this is a “warped notion” that has “never been substantiated by any real data.” The CDC, too, has debunked the same myth in the specific context of U.S. black communities: No, black men on the “down low” are not primarily responsible for high rates of HIV among black women.

For decades, bisexual men have been portrayed—even within the LGBT community—as secretly gay, sexually confused vectors of disease.

In 2016, bisexual men are still feeling the effects of the virus and the misperceptions around it.

“We’re still underrepresented on the boards of almost all of the national bisexual organizations,” Suresha told me, referring to the fact that women occupy most of the key leadership positions in bisexual activism. And in a new, nationally representative study of attitudes toward bisexual people, Dodge and his research team found that 43% of respondents agreed —at least somewhat—with the statement: “People should be afraid to have sex with bisexual men because of HIV/STD risks.”

For decades, bisexual men have been portrayed—even within the LGBT community—as secretly gay, sexually confused vectors of disease. Is it any wonder that they are still fighting to shed that false image today? It’s hard to convince people that you exist when they barely see you as human.

👬👫👬👫

It’s not that bisexual women have it easy. Both bisexual men and women are much less likely than gay men and lesbians to be out of the closet, with only 28% telling Pew that most of the important people in their life know about their orientation. Collectively, bisexual people also have some of the worst mental health outcomes in the LGBT community and their risk of intimate partner violence is disturbingly high. Bisexual people also face discrimination within the LGBT community while fending off accusations that their orientation excludes non-binary genders. (In response, bisexual educator Robyn Ochs defines “bisexuality” as attraction to “people of more than one sex and/or gender” rather than just to “men and women.”)

And on top of these general problems, bisexual women are routinely hypersexualized, stereotyped as “sluts,” dismissed as “experimenting,” and harassed on dating apps. Their bisexuality is reduced to a spectacle or waved away as a “phase.”

But it is still bisexual men who seem to have their very existence questioned more often.

Suresha pointed me to a 2005 New York Times article with the headline “Straight, Gay, Or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” the fallout of which he saw as “a disaster for bi people.” The article reported on a new study “cast[ing] doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.” The study in question measured the genital arousal of a small sample of men and found, as the Times summarized, that “three-quarters of the [bisexual male] group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.”

“It got repeated and repeated in all sorts of media,” Suresha recalled. “People reported it in news briefs on the radio, in print, in magazines, all over the place.”

As the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force noted in its response to the article, the original study had some clear methodological limitations—only 33 self-identified bisexual men were included and participants were recruited through “gay-oriented magazines”—but the Times went ahead and reported that the research “lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.”

“Show me the quest for scientific proof that heterosexuality exists. It begins and ends with even just one person saying, ‘I’m straight.’” — Amy Andre, Huffington Post

The article fueled the devious narrative that male bisexuality was just homosexuality in disguise. The lived experiences of bisexual men don’t support that narrative—and neither does science—but its power comes from prejudice, not from solid evidence.

And unsurprisingly, the 2005 study’s conclusions did not survive the test of time. In fact, one of the co-authors of that study went on to co-author a 2011 study which found that “bisexual patterns of both subjective and genital arousal” did indeed occur among men. The New York Times Magazine later devoted a feature to the push for the 2011 study, briefly acknowledging the paper’s previous poor coverage. But many in the bisexual community were unimpressed that the scientific community was still being positioned as the authority on the existence of bisexual men.

“Show me the quest for scientific proof that heterosexuality exists,” Amy Andre wrote on the Huffington Post in response to the feature. “It begins and ends with even just one person saying, ‘I’m straight.’”

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One of the most tragic things about society’s refusal to accept bisexual men is that we don’t even know why it is still so vehement. Dodge believes that his new study offers some hints—the persistent and widespread endorsement of the HIV “bridge” myth is alarming—but he told me that he would need “more qualitative and more focused research” before he could definitively state that HIV stigma is the primary factor driving negative attitudes toward bisexual men. (Research in this area is indeed sorely lacking. The last major study on the subject prior to the survey Dodge’s team conducted was published in 2002.)

In the meantime, bisexual advocates have developed plenty of compelling theories, many of them focused on the dominance of traditional masculinity. For example, Herukhuti explained that “we live in a society in which boundaries between men are policed because of patriarchy and sexism.” Men are expected to be “kings of their kingdom”—not to share their domain.

“For men to bridge those boundaries with each other—the only way that we can conceive of that is in the sense that these are ‘non-men,’” Herukhuti told me, adding that, in a patriarchal society, gay men are indeed seen as “non-men.” The refusal to accept that men can be bisexual, then, is partly a refusal to accept that someone who is bisexual can even be a man.

Many of the bisexual men I interviewed endorsed this same hypothesis. Kevin, 25, told me that “it’s seen as really unmanly to be attracted to men.” Another Kevin, 26, added that “the core concept of masculinity doesn’t leave room for anything besides extremes.” Justin, in his mid 20s, said that “men are one way and gay men are another way [but] bisexual men are this weird middle ground.”

Our society doesn’t seem to do well with more than two—especially when so many still believe that there’s only one right way to be a man.

And Michael, 28, added that bisexual men are “symbolically dangerous”—a “big interior threat to hetero masculinity” because of a shared attraction to women. It’s easy for a straight guy to differentiate himself from the modern gay man, but how can he reassure himself that he is nothing like his bisexual counterpart?

The answer is obvious: He can equate male bisexuality with homosexuality.

The logic needed to balance that equation, Herukhuti explained to me, is disturbingly close to the racist, Jim Crow-era “one-drop rule,” which designated anyone with the slightest bit of African ancestry as black for legal purposes.

“For a male to have had any kind of same-sex sexual experience, they are automatically designated as gay, based on that one-drop rule,” Herukhuti said. “And that taints them.”

To see that logic at work, look no further than the state of HIV research, much of which still groups gay and bisexual men together as MSM, or men who have sex with men. Dodge, who specializes in the area of HIV/AIDS, explained that “when a man reports sexual activity with another man, that becomes the recorded mode of transmission and there’s no data reporting about female or other partners.” Bisexual men have their identities erased—literally—from the resulting data.

“A really easy way to fix this,” Dodge added, “would be to just create a separate surveillance category.”

But when it comes to categories, our society doesn’t seem to do well with more than two—especially when so many still believe that there’s only one right way to be a man.

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The situation of bisexual men is not hopeless. Slowly but surely, they are expanding the horizons of masculinity. The silver lining in Dodge’s study, for example, is that there has been a decided “‘shift’ in attitudes toward bisexual men and women from negative to more neutral in the general population” over the last decade or so, although negative attitudes toward bisexual men were still “significantly greater” than the negativity directed at their female peers.

“Put the champagne on the ice,” Dodge joked. “We’re no longer at the very bottom of the barrel but we’ve still got a ways to go.”

That distance will likely be shortened by a rising generation that is far more tolerant of sexual fluidity than their predecessors. Respondents to Dodge’s survey who were under age 25 had more positive attitudes toward bisexuality, perhaps because so many of them openly identify as LGBTQ themselves—some as bisexual, some as pansexual, and some refusing labels altogether.

That growing acceptance is starting to be reflected in movies and on television, once forms of media that were, and still often are, notoriously hostile to bisexual men. A character named Darryl came out as bisexual with a myth-busting song on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and, as GLAAD recently noted, other shows like Shadowhunters and Black Sails are starting to do bi male representation right. The HBO comedy Insecure even made biphobia into a powerful storyline when one straight female character, Molly, shunned her love interest when he told her that he once had oral sex with a guy in a college. But other shows, like House of Cards, are still using a male character’s bisexuality as a way to accentuate his villainy.

Ultimately, bisexual men themselves will continue to be the most powerful force for changing hearts and minds. I asked each bisexual man I interviewed what he would want the world to know about his sexual orientation. Some wanted to clear up specific misconceptions but so many of them simply wanted people to acknowledge that male bisexuality is not fake.

“It’s important that bisexuality be acknowledged as real,” said Martyn, 30, adding that “there’s only so long someone can hold on to a part of themselves that seems invisible before it starts to make them doubt their own sense of self.”

“I am happy being bisexual and I’m not looking for an answer,” said Dan, 19. “I’m not trying things out, I’m not using this as a placeholder to discover my identity. This is who I am. And I love it.”

Samantha Allen is a reporter for Fusion’s Sex+Life vertical. She has a PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University and was the 2013 John Money Fellow at the Kinsey Institute. Before joining Fusion, she was a tech and health reporter for The Daily Beast.

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