#having a sexuality crises right now

[mok-a-chino]

When I have a crush on someone (99% of the cases, a fictional character) It's not because I wanna fuck them. I want to protect them from all evil. I want to make them a cup of tea and give them hugs and kisses and tell them they are safe. I want them to feel happy and comfortable and do things they like together. I want to tell them they are beautiful inside and out and that they are perfect the way they are. I want them to know they are not alone.

Is it because there's a possibility I'm asexual or because I'm traumatized? We will never know. Maybe both.

[she-is-ovarit]

By EDITH M. LEDERER Updated 9:11 PM PST, March 8, 2024 UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Legal equality for women could take centuries as the fight for gender equality is becoming an uphill struggle against widespread discrimination and gross human human rights abuses, the United Nations chief said on International Women’s Day. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a packed U.N. commemoration Friday that “a global backlash against women’s rights is threatening, and in some cases reversing, progress in developing and developed countries alike.” The most egregious example is in Afghanistan, he said, where the ruling Taliban have barred girls from education beyond sixth grade, from employment outside the home, and from most public spaces, including parks and hair salons. At the current rate of change, legal equality for women could take 300 years to achieve and so could ending child marriage, he said. Guterres pointed to “a persistent epidemic of gender-based violence,” a gender pay gap of at least 20%, and the underrepresentation of women in politics. He cited September’s annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, where just 12% of the speakers were women. “And the global crises we face are hitting women and girls hardest — from poverty and hunger to climate disasters, war and terror,” the secretary-general said. In the past year, Guterres said, there have been testimonies of rape and trafficking in Sudan, and in Gaza women women and children account for a majority of the more than 30,000 Palestinians reported killed in the Israeli-Hamas conflict, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. He cited a report Monday by the U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict that concluded there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture” and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. He also pointed to reports of sexual violence against Palestinians detained by Israel. International Women’s Day grew out of labor movements in North America and across Europe at the turn of the 20th century and was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977. This year’s theme is investing in women and girls to accelerate progress toward equality. Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan, told the Security Council on Wednesday that what is happening in that country “is precisely the opposite” of investing in women and girls. There is “a deliberate disinvestment that is both harsh and unsustainable,” she said, saying the Taliban’s crackdown on women and girls has caused “immense harm to mental and physical health, and livelihoods.” Recent detentions of women and girls for alleged violations of the Islamic dress code “were a further violation of human rights, and carry enormous stigma for women and girls,” she said. It has had “a chilling effect among the wider female population, many of whom are now afraid to move in public,” she said. Otunbayeva again called on the Taliban to reverse the restrictions, warning that the longer they remain, “the more damage will be done.” Sima Bahous, the head of UN Women, the agency promoting gender equality and women’s rights, told the commemoration that International Women’s Day “sees a world hobbled by confrontation, fragmentation, fear and most of all inequality.” “Poverty has a female face,” she said. “One in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty.” Men not only dominate the halls of power but they “own $105 trillion more wealth than women,” she said. Bahous said well-resourced and powerful opponents of gender equality are pushing back against progress. The opposition is being fueled by anti-gender movements, foes of democracy, restricted civic space and “a breakdown of trust between people and state, and regressive policies and legislation,” she said. [Click on the link to continue reading]

[xiaq]

Thanks for all the prompts! I combined a few: Outsider POV, getting together with the help of friends, Steve Harrington is an Idiot (affectionate), Rocky Horror, and “did we almost just kiss?”

“Robin,” Steve says, before he’s even fully in the Family Video door. “I’m having a crisis.”

She shoves another VHS tape into the rewinder. “No.”

“What do you mean, no?” He whines, collapsing face-first onto the counter.

“I mean no. I don’t have time for a crisis right now. We just finished a crisis and I require at least fifteen business days between crises. I do not have the bandwidth.”

“It’s not like a crisis, crisis,” he mutters. “It’s…a personal crisis.”

She flicks the side of his head. “What is the nature of this personal crisis?”

He rolls his face so his cheek is pressed to the laminate. He meets her eyes. “How did you know you liked girls?”

“Oh,” Robin says. The tape rewinder clicks but she doesn’t move. “Oh. Yeah, we can handle this crisis now. It’s long overdue.”

“Long over—” Steve straightens, weight on his elbows. “What?”

“Honestly I thought we were going to have this conversation during the whole Rocky Horror Picture Show thing but––”

“Robin”

“Sorry. Right. I knew I liked girls because I liked girls. I knew I liked girls because I wanted to kiss girls.”

“Yeah. But how did you know it was more than the normal amount?”

“…the normal amount,” she repeats.

“Well sure,” he scrubs a hand through his hair. “Everyone wants to kiss everyone a little bit, right? Like. How did you know it was more than the normal heterosexual amount?”

Robin cannot believe she’s going to have to say this out loud. She glances around the empty store just to make sure no one has somehow teleported in during the last two minutes.

“Steve. Steven. There is no normal heterosexual amount of wanting to kiss people of the same gender.”

He crosses his arms. “Well, that can’t be right.”

“Hold on. Wait. What boys have you wanted to kiss?” She can guess, but confirmation would be nice.

“Are you sure that––”

“Yes, I’m sure. But back to the boys you’ve wanted to kiss. Have you…acted on that, ever?

“Yeah but just the––oh. Well. You’re probably going to say there isn’t a normal heterosexual amount of kissing the same gender either.”

“How are you this stupid.”

“I mean, everyone messes around with their friends at some point, right?”

“I desperately wish that was true,” Robin answers. “Because if it was, I would not be standing here at 19 years old finding out that Steve Harrington has kissed a boy before I kissed a girl. Jesus. Wait. How many boys have you kissed?”

“Three?”

“Three? Unbelievable.”

Except now he’s wearing his big-eyed, floppy-haired sad expression and she knows, she knows she’s not handling this the way she should.

Robin sighs. “Ok, I’m sorry. Thank you for trusting me with this. I love you and I’m here for you and it sounds like you’re bisexual. Which is actually pretty cool because that means I know two whole queer people other than myself in Hawkins. Well. Probably three. But that hasn’t been officially confirmed.”

“Bi-sexual.” He rolls the word around in his mouth like he’s tasting it. “Bisexual. Huh. Okay.”

“It means you like both. Or, any, I guess. Which no, is not normal for everyone.”

“Okay. Bisexual. Neat. Who else do you know?”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Right. That would be super uncool of you to tell me without their permission. But, um. Are they people I know?”

“They’re people you know.”

“Are they over the age of 16?”

“One of them is.”

The hopeful look on Steve’s face is actually a little gross.

“Are they–”

“Eddie!” Robin says, “hey, what are you doing here so early?”

Steve’s reaction to Eddie pushing open the door provides all the confirmation she needs about which boy Steve currently wants to kiss. Not that there was a lot of uncertainty there anyway. He’d practically kept vigil at Eddie’s bedside while he was in the hospital and in the last month since Eddie was released, they’ve become weirdly inseparable. Half the time when Robin calls in the middle of the night to talk though her nightmares, it’s Eddie answering the Harrington phone. And when no one answers the Harrington phone, a call to the Munson phone will usually do the trick. She’s tempted to think they’re already together except Eddie’s pining has only gotten worse over the last week. If they were banging he’s be less insufferable. Well. He might still be insufferable but in like, a happy, well-fucked way. She doesn’t want to think about that.

“Eddie,” Steve says, “hi.”

“...hi,” Eddie says, understandably confused by Steve’s strangled greeting. He rocks back and forth on his heels, hands shoved in the pockets of a pair of black jeans that are, for once, not ripped. “So. Big news.” He spreads his arms. “You are now looking at a gainfully, legally, employed, upstanding citizen of Hawkins.”

Robin isn’t really surprised. The owner of the auto shop across the street that Eddie applied to is friends with Wayne and a regular at Hideout. If there’s anyone who’s willing to look past Eddie’s poor reputation, it’s him. And Eddie had gotten some sort of automotive certificate the year before in shop class. One of the few things he’d passed with flying colors.

“Oh my god,” Steve says. He stumbles over to hug him and then twirls him around like they’re in one of the stupid romcom videos on the back wall. “Eddie,” Steve says again, this time so overwhelmingly full of tenderness that Robin feels like she’s intruding despite the fact that she’s, you know, standing behind the counter of her own place of work. 

“Congratuations,” Steve continues. He’s set Eddie down again but they’re still so close, arms tangled together, that he’s practically speaking the words into Eddie’s mouth. “When do you start?”

Eddie doesn’t answer. Eddie seems to have misplaced his self-awareness because he’s swaying forward, through the scant space left between them, and oh my God, Robin is going to have to do something or they’re definitely going to have their first kiss in the Family Video with her watching.

Robin slams the clamshell case on the Aristocats return she’d just rewound. They jump apart, looking dazed. Steve runs a hand through his hair. Eddie plays with his rings. Even though they’re no longer touching, they’re still looking at each other with the kind of naked affection that could get them in trouble if they’re not careful. Well. More trouble. 

“Eddie, that’s awesome,” Robin says brightly. “When do you start?”

“Oh. Monday, actually.”

“That’s great. You and Steve should celebrate tonight.”

“We…should.” Eddie agrees.

“I have plans. Important plans. That I can’t miss. But Steve was just telling me that he wanted to watch Rocky Horror again, right Steve?”

“I–yes?”

“And you like Rocky Horror, right Eddie?”

Eddie narrows his eyes at her. “I do.”

“Great.”

She gives Steve a significant look.

“I’ll come to your place with the movie once I’m off?” Steve suggests to Eddie.

Eddie nods slowly. “Yes. Cool. Cool cool cool. I’ll get pizza. And see you then.” He salutes for some ungodly reason but Steve salutes him back like that’s a normal thing to do and they grin at each other as Eddie walks backward toward the door.

Idiots.

God, she loves them so much.

Steve waits until the van has pulled out of the parking lot to resume his face-down position on the counter.

She goes back to rewinding tapes.

She waits.

“Did we almost just kiss?” he asks finally. “In the Family Video.”

“Sure looked like it,” Robin says. “Which is not advisable. I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“Yeah, obviously, but that means…if I try to kiss him tonight he’d probably go for it, right?”

“Only one way to find out,” Robin sighs.

Except she already knows that tomorrow morning Steve Harrington will have kissed four boys and she still has yet to kiss a single girl. 

Unbelievable.

Steve sits up with sudden purpose. “I am. I’m going to kiss him tonight.”

“Great. Super happy for you. Can you help me rewind some tapes until then?”

Already working on PT. 2 which is Wayne’s POV when he accidentally intrudes on their celebration that night. So. Stay tuned for that.

Pt. 2 is Here.

[useyourwordsdarling]

Hey, I hope this isn't too rude considering you already have an effing mountain of asks in your inbox, but I wanted to express my gratitude. No pressure to respond; I just hope you see it, and it makes you smile. Just read the pink out of this word salad; my kink is that I feel the need to explain my reasoning like a proper STEM idiot.

(below explaining why I'm thanking you essentially)

Probably oversharing here, but:

For the last two years or so, I've started to believe that the only men who would accept me were those that needed me as their therapist rather than a partner. I don't mean just listening to them; I mean them struggling with mental health crises and me having to pick up the pieces like the empathetic dumbass I am (and them being too scared to call the hospital). These are just the sort of people I seem to attract. As you can imagine, that did wonders for my self-worth and future perception of people who hit on me.

I already consider myself an eccentric woman. Among other things, my libido often feels insatiable. I write smut both on and off tumblr, the latter of which is some of the most nonsensical, most embarrassing, most bizarre shit I have ever written. 783 pages since 2020, the last 100 pages of which have been me realizing I have a deep-seated desire to be a cocksleeve. It's hard enough to tell people how much I care about having a healthy, passionate sexual relationship without bringing any of that into the mix.

(end explanation, TL;DR I attract shitty men and am insecure as hell about my own sexual preferences.)

All of that has made me despair on numerous occasions that I will ever get to know someone who both actually loves me and wants to fuck the absolute shit out of me.

But blogs like yours have lifted me out of that hellhole of anxiety more than once. Seeing both your own fantasies and the way you respond to your asks makes me feel like I'm not doomed to a relationship where I will have to sacrifice a large part of myself for the other person's sake. It makes me think: "People like this exist somewhere."

Thank you for being a dom that cares about your sub, and thank you for sharing on this blursed platform where I could see you.

Side (less wholesome) note: Yes, you have provided a lot of fuel for my smut pieces, and I am officially blaming you for the fact that there are now 446 fucking instances of the word "Daddy" in my most recent collection.

I appreciate how much effort you put into making this. And as another STEM idiot I love the way you made your reasoning. Also to be clear I love asks, I just have a hard time replying to many at once, but I appreciate them a lot.

And as to you attracting shitty men, I understand how exhausting and how heavy it might be the burden to carry the responsibility over someone’s mental health issues. But I think that also says a lot about your character, how you’re someone who’s really caring. Who wants to help these people, which is an amazing thing but it can be problematic if you don’t set boundaries. Which is a hard thing to do (I know because I’m bad at that…) it’s healthy to focus on your own mental health, your own problems. Especially when we have very little energy left.

And you aren’t doomed for that type of relationship I believe. And I hope you eventually find the right person who’ll love you and not make you responsible over their mess (and also fuck the shit out of you, fingers crossed). So it’s just a matter of time

Side (even less wholesome) note: I’d be lying if I said part of me isn’t curious about those 446 instances now..

[doyouwanttoseeabug]

Modern Merthur AU where they're uni roommates and everyone knows that Arthur is gay except Merlin. Merlin's having constant moral-and-sexual crises because his hot straight-boy roommate keeps cuddling with him in bed and shaving Merlin with a straight razor, one hand in Merlin's hair while he murmurs 'don't move,' or telling Merlin that he looks good on his knees when Merlin's cleaning the bathroom, and Merlin's just like he is straight he doesn't know what he's saying do NOT get a boner right now you are NOT allowed to get off to your best friend oh god should I say something??? how do I tell Arthur that he accidentally turns me on all the time and he needs to stop? Meanwhile Arthur is just like 'yeah, Merlin and I have been dating for six months, but we're taking the physical side of things pretty slow.'

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

its unimagineable that there are so many girls and women for whom the most brutal and unspeakable sexual violence is a part of their daily lives.

of course they dont even mention western involvement. tell me vice, who is buying the cobalt the rebels steal in raids? where are the weapons coming from? 👀

this is one of the worst humanitarian crises happening right now. nobody gives two shits about impoverished women. give men the chance to do anything without consequences - this is what happens: sexual violence as the norm. women and girls in the margins suffering.

in the west they cry when one refugee rapes a western woman - they dont cry when a western man does and definitely not when the victim is not western - as can be seen in the acceptance of the mass exploitation of immigrated women in brothels and on the street - and there is no cry for the 1.8 MILLION girls and women who have been raped in the congo in the last 20 years.

[daydream-the-demon]

Claustrophobia

I might be claustrophobic.

Maybe not in the general sense though...

I feel claustrophobic because of the skin, muscles, organs, and everything that's covering me. I think that's why I always have that feeling to throw up, because I want to throw my physical self up away because I always feel claustrophobic.

I keep talking about wanting to throw up. I now have the answer to why.

I think that's a reason I am part of the queer community by being AroAce (because I physically can't stand the physicality of people, and myself), but being Fictoromantic/sexual (because I tend to like the mind and not the physicality). And why I am Xenogender/Genderless because I don't identify with human norms.

I realized I'm scared, no, absolutely TERRIFIED of humans, human norms, human constructs, EVERYTHING.

Also, I realized I had a God Complex. And technically? I'm not wrong. From my perspective, NOTHING exists. I have no proof! I have no proof other people have the same mental capabilities as me. I have no proof ANYTHING exists! It's all fake!

If I were to kill myself, none of you, NONE OF YOU WOULD EXIST.

I realized this is why I'm suicidal. I don't want to mentally destroy myself, no! I want to live forever in that sense! I want to create art and stories and keep on living. I want my myself to be immortalized.

But what fears me, what destroys my whole image, the thing I want to get rid of, is my physical self. I can't stand being trapped like this, feeling so many things that I don't want to. Emotions are chemicals in the brain produced by the physical self, and I try my best not to feel them.

I just feel... wrong.

I dealt with a lot of derealization, depersonalization, and maladaptive daydreaming problems. And I may just have found the reason why. Because I CAN'T STAND my physical self, so I end up leaving, feeling detached and better off in the mental world.

I don't think it's "normal" to be claustrophobic about engaging in basic human functions such as eating, drinking, sleeping, speaking, and everything else.

A lot of things have been explained as soon as I realized my claustrophobia of the real realm.

I just don't belong here, not like this at least.

And I don't know how my Autism plays into this but I KNOW something about all of this is related in SOME SORT of way.

I remember from a young age I felt this.

Why must I have existential crises, every second?

I want to throw up.

I want to bash my skull against a wall.

Everything feels so... wrong.

Something's not right.

I feel insane.

[queerweewoo]

okay this is very long and mostly just for me to get some stuff of my chest and out of my head therefore anybody tagged pls don't feel as though you have to read it all (like obvs you know you don't have to but you also hopefully know what i mean lol):

so i've had some quite heavy stuff going on in meatspace recently, and then i went to see i saw the tv glow two nights ago which was beyond brilliant but fucked me up entirely on a personal level. then, just to be a bit (read: incredibly) stupid, i for some reason (read: bc i'm a masochist) decided to delve into reading waaaay too many of my first 'eddie losing his shit over christopher leaving/summer of sexuality queer crisis' fics, which i've not dared let myself do before now bc it's all very close to the bone for me i.e. my own queer (trans) crises—yes, plural, they keep coming—and stuff that's not a million miles away from the shit going on with my eldest son (bar kim lol). why tf my brain chose the worse time possible is just another one of life's mysteries (read: i'm just insane [see above]).

(btw my struggling hugely with issues of repression plus my son hating/not hating me aside, THIS FIC is the insanely brilliant piece of art that kicked off the binge. it's from the astonishingly talented @wildehacked and is one of two parts which are possibly the best buddie fics—or even just some of the best fics, period—that i've ever read. seriously, check the tags and if you're a buddie lover and it/they seem like your sort of thing you should 100% go save/read it/them!)

anyways, after all that i'm now just kind of spiralling a bit tbh aha. i'm not fine, not rn, but i will be fine at some point soon sort of thing. like, i'm okay and nobody needs to worry etc i'm just trying to do one if the countless things that i'm absolutely bloody terrible at which is reaching out. but not because i need anything from anybody it's more just for me to be able to say “i'm going through some stuff right now and i might or might not disappear for a while” because i don't usually manage anything at all like that when i'm in the trenches and instead just retreat into my shell and go radio silent—and the thing is, i know some very lovely people who have shown concern when i've done that in the past and i'm therefore trying to be better. friends old and new alike such as @shealynn88 @sharkfish @greyhavenisback @raisesomehale @doilooklikepeople @woodchoc-magnum @buddiebeginz i'll absolutely be getting back/chatting to you when i'm able to interact with a bit more—well, when i'm a bit more, i 'spose xp

also tagging lovelies @novemberhush for the usually well-loved procrastination tag game stuff and @inell and @kitteneddiediaz (and possibly @veronae-buddie and @daffi-990?) for the WIP games i've been kindly tagged in but not responded to. thank you and sorry! like, i know it's absolutely fine and nobody really cares about stuff like that, but i'm just very much feeling like i need to say these things right now. and more apologies if there have been tags i've missed from other lovely folks; not being round these parts for 48+hrs = horrendous notifs situation (you know how it is).

on the writing front, i don't know if it's both completely dumb and ridiculous to start this by saying, “hmm, i'm unsure if it's related or not?” but as well as everything else i'm simultaneously having one one those Everything I Have Ever Written Am Writing Or Could Write Is Utter Fucking Dogshit sort of moments (like, i know i'm not a great writer—which is not derogatory and just fact and 100% absolutely fine—but i'm usually at peace with the strange little oneshots i puke out, y'know?) which is yet another reason for me to disappear off here for the time being as i sadly have one of those unhealthy irrational relationships with fandom that's like I Don't Deserve To Be Here If I'm Not Being Useful—which i know is dumb af and i would absolutely try to coax anyone else out of if it were them saying it and not me, but alas poor yorick. thing is, i used to be incredibly prolific in making fanart, for loads of different fandoms, and that too has dwindled considerably over the last year or more (god, is it that long?) therefore it's just a double whammy currently with the writing now also taking a hit. and i know, i know, whomp whomp poor me etc etc i just—i fear whenever i disappear, i won't ever be able to make it back... bleugh horrid lol

obviously i can't seem to be normal about anything ever so i'm sorry if this is a weird way to respond to nothing happening that nobody asked about (there is no 'if'; it absolutely is weird but i'm afraid it is what it is) and i truly don't need anything from anybody, i just think me posting this and saying how i'm feeling will probably be doing me a bit of good. honestly, pls feel free to ignore, this is just cathartic for me. but i guess, at the same time, as well as those things, me being on the spectrum means i'm not skilled at keeping friendships going, which makes me very sad, so this is maybe me voicing those fears in an attempt to combat them becoming a reality? i think? it's just that i've already drifted away from too many lovely people here due to the affects of these things and i'm therefore just—i think i'm just really trying in my own odd little way.

anyways i'm gonna go rewatch some sense8 and sob out my own weight in tears and snot and just keep on keeping on with existential crisis #4793 for the time being until something shifts in me and then i'll be back at some point? yeah, i think that sounds about right.

love you guys big much (one of my son's isms from when he was little) <3

ps just realised i wrote this on my buddie blog and really can't be arsed copying and pasting it over to my main @all-or-nothing-baby... so anybody who was wondering, yeah it's me yer boi cassidy xp also if you read this far you're insane and i love you even more for it <3

[mariacallous]

Even as a growing number of foreign governments commit to protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people, others are actively marshaling their resources against them. From the Hungarian government’s legal and political attacks on LGBTQI+ people to Iraqi legislation that punishes those who “promote homosexuality” and increases criminal penalties and fines for same-sex relations, the negative trends are significant and concerning.

In many places, politicians blame LGBTQI+ people for a wide array of societal ills to boost their popularity at home and their geopolitical interests abroad, distracting from the real economic, social, and political challenges their countries face. In Georgia, for example, the ruling party may have used anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric to manipulate the political landscape ahead of elections. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, a country long considered relatively welcoming for LGBTQI+ people in the Middle East, one activist described a political leader’s rhetoric as “the manufacturing of a moral panic in order to justify a crackdown, and to deviate public attention away from their unpopular policies.”

Although human rights are seen by some as a lower-priority foreign-policy issue for the United States than so-called hard security threats, the failure to protect them abroad can have significant negative consequences for U.S. interests. Now more than ever, the United States needs to push back against foreign-government repression of LGBTQI+ rights while also doing this work at home. As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it recently, this matters “not just because we have a moral imperative to do so,” but because doing so “helps strengthen democracy, bolster national security, and promote global health and economic development.”

Across a range of issues, it’s clear that anti-LGBTQI+ policies and rhetoric can cause significant damage to many of the United States’ top foreign-policy priorities.

To start, efforts to repress LGBTQI+ rights are often a canary in the coal mine for more severe persecution to come. A 2022 report found, for example: “From Nazi Germany to genocide in Darfur to the breakup of former Yugoslavia, the imposition of ‘moral’ codes that directly assault sexual and gender identities and freedoms came before widespread state-led physical violence and atrocity crimes.”

The targeting of LGBTQI+ people can also be a precursor to, or occur alongside, abuses against other vulnerable populations. The Taliban-promoted sexual assault of and life-threatening attacks on LGBTQI+ people, for example, have occurred concurrently with brutal restrictions on women’s and girls’ participation in education, work, and other aspects of public life. Likewise, vicious torture of gay men in the Russian Republic of Chechnya has taken place against a wider backdrop of long-term human rights abuses by Chechen authorities.

Erosion of LGBTQI+ human rights can also signal and exacerbate the breakdown of democratic norms and institutions, including restrictions on independent media and judicial review, serving as a bellwether for the state of civil society more generally. Russia’s recent detention and prosecution of LGBTQI+ people have paralleled its crackdown on independent journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society.

Countries in which the human rights of LGBTQI+ people are less respected also frequently have greater levels of corruption, partly because discriminatory legal regimes create barriers to reporting wrongdoing by corrupt officials, making LGBTQI+ people an easy target for extortion. Corruption, in turn, compounds other pressing problems: It degrades the business environment, drives migration, and impedes responses to public health crises and climate change. States with endemic corruption are also more vulnerable to terrorist networks, transnational organized crime, gang-related criminal actors, and human traffickers. This is, in part, because threats to transparent and accountable governance are among the root causes of radicalization, and restrictions on LGBTQI+ and other civil society organizations reduce the capacity of those groups to mitigate the conditions conducive to violent extremism, terrorism and other criminal activity.

Not only are anti-LGBTQI+ policies a drag on economic growth, but they are also detrimental to public health. Punitive laws fan the flames of stigma and discrimination, in turn making vulnerable communities reluctant to seek life-saving and public health-protecting services. Across 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, HIV prevalence in countries that criminalize homosexuality is five times higher among men who have sex with men than in countries without those laws.

Taken together, the failure to protect LGBTQI+ people’s human rights can create disastrous effects for U.S. interests. State-sponsored discrimination and violence undercut the United States’ tremendous investments in international anti-corruption efforts, counter-terrorism programs, economic development, and public health. And, as the COVID-19 pandemic made clear, a disease threat anywhere can quickly become a disease threat everywhere. The same can be said for terrorism, corruption, and economic instability. When governments target LGBTQI+ people, they also increase the chances that the symptoms and consequences of this repression will spread in their communities and across borders.

Given the stakes, it is crucial that the United States uses the tools and powers it has to promote accountability for human rights abuses and mitigate their harms to U.S. citizens and businesses.

In this respect, the recent heightened repression by the Ugandan government is illustrative. In May 2023, Uganda signed into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which mandated the death penalty for certain “serial” offenses and a 20-year prison sentence for the mere “promotion” of homosexuality. Although the legislation was decried by human rights advocates, it was lauded by some of Uganda’s geopolitical partners as evidence of shared interests. Shortly after the legislation was passed, the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Uganda and made the unfortunately common—and demonstrably inaccurate—claim that homosexuality is a Western import. He also identified opposition to Western support for LGBTQI+ people as “another area of cooperation for Iran and Uganda.” In similar fashion, an editorial on the pro-Kremlin Tsargrad website summarized the law as “a geopolitical victory [for Russia], which they see as the direct result of years of their hard, methodical work [on a] global anti-LGBTQ hate campaign.”

The AHA was the final, egregious straw amid an ongoing decline in respect for human rights, including of LGBTQI+ people, and democratic backsliding in Uganda, and the United States’ response was swift and comprehensive. Underscoring the link between the violation of the human rights of LGBTQI+ people and broader harms to American interests, U.S. President Joe Biden described the law as part of an “alarming trend of human rights abuses and corruption.” The United States issued a business advisory; updated the U.S. Travel Advisory and Country Information Page for Uganda; expanded existing visa restrictions to include those repressing vulnerable populations, such as human rights advocates, LGBTQI+ people, and environmental defenders; supported the World Bank’s decision to pause Uganda’s access to new funds; and imposed sanctions on the Commissioner General of the Uganda Prisons Service for widespread violations of human rights, including credible reports of physical abuse of political opposition and LGBTQI+ people. President Biden also determined that Uganda did not meet the eligibility requirements of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), “on the basis of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

Although the law remains in place, these actions and international attention have had effect: Uganda’s government has not conducted widespread roundups of or ordered death sentences against LGBTQI+ people. But violence, abuse, and evictions have increased in the country, and arrests of LGBTQI+ people have persisted and likely risen under an earlier, colonial-era law that criminalizes same-sex conduct.

As the situation in Uganda demonstrates, the United States has options to respond to foreign governments that fail to uphold their human rights obligations. These measures can be unilateral, as is the case for issuing travel advisories or removing trade preferences, or multilateral, which could involve working with the United Nations, the World Bank, or other multilateral institutions. They can also be affirmative, as opposed to punitive—for instance, expanding humanitarian and development assistance for human rights defenders and mobilizing private sector capital to support businesses that operate consistent with international non-discrimination standards.

As with all diplomatic efforts to address wrongdoing, the choice among these options will vary depending on circumstances, such as whether a government is launching a new campaign against LGBTQI+ people or has an older but little-enforced criminal law on its books. Inevitably, the importance of raising human rights concerns will be weighed against other U.S. priorities, and human rights will not always prevail. However, increasingly, LGBTQI+ issues are being integrated into bilateral relationships, even when doing so is not easy and when quiet diplomacy is the only option. In all circumstances, consultation with LGBTQI+ civil society must be prioritized in weighing the benefits and risks of action to ensure that efforts do not contribute to backlash or negative repercussions for LGBTQI+ people on the frontlines of global human rights movements.

In a recent State Department convening on LGBTQI+ rights in U.S. foreign policy, Secretary Blinken made our commitment clear, telling civil society leaders: “Our promise is this: We will be with you every step of the way. We’ll persevere with you. We’ll listen to you. We’ll learn from you. We’ll help resource and support your fight. And we’ll bring our strength together with yours so that finally together we can build a world where all people are genuinely free—free to be who they are, free to love who they love.”

Although this work may have been in the spotlight during Pride month, it requires our focus year-round. Indeed, our national security depends on it.

[pseudophan]

was there ever a time their relationship status WAS in question? I watched them in like 2010 but stopped paying attention until BIG so I missed everything

LOL this is potentially the funniest possible phannie journey. you essentially left right before everything blew the fuck up and returned as it settled like, oh hi sorry did i miss anything?

but i mean, yes. yes it was very much in question. once they properly blew up and the vday video leaked (events that, unfortunately for them, pretty much coincided) dan freaked the FUCK out and was mr heterosexuality i-don't-know-what-gay-people-are for a year or two. to the point where he was honestly a bit of a cunt for awhile, but in hindsight it's like.. that's fair. i mean, it wasn't, because he'd play along and be like lolol yea me and phil are a bit gay lol and then suddenly did a 180 like everyone kill yourselves for even thinking it ! but it all makes a lot of sense, it's fine, boy was having a sexuality crisis to end all crises and got very famous very quickly all at the same time. and everyone who made him famous was breathing down his neck asking if he sucks dick. not a great time.

this was 2012, and as any seasoned phannie will know that year is infamous lmao. a lot of it was just phannies making shit up, tbf, but also a lot of it stemmed from very real shit. like, you can TELL the vibe was off. it's pretty obvious things weren't all sunshine and happiness in the dan and phil household for awhile there. and this weird vibe combined with dan going on rants on tumblr kind of did irreparable damage to the phandom for awhile, because even after dan mostly got over it (by the middle of 2013 he had chilled out and was back to joking about phan etc, even if he was still sneaking in little 'im straight btw' mentions now and then) phannies were so afraid of scaring him off again it became this huuuuuge thing. like. on one hand a lot of us did think they were together, but tbh in 2013-2014 i don't think the majority did! a lot of people wanted them to be, but it wasn't like now when it's just kinda accepted that they actually are. then in 2015-2016 they got even bigger and by now there were enough new phannies who didn't experience 2012 that people were a bit more chilled out in regards to saying if they're together or not. and since then it's just kinda... kept evolving. generally as the years passed it became more of an occam's razor thing, like, statistically what's more likely, they're together (in some shape way or form) or they're, somehow, actually just friends who've always just been friends. then they came out and everyone was like oh ok then. and now we've kinda revived the discourse but this time it's a lot less dramatic

[lunar-years]

i hope this isn't too weird to join the discussion as a random follower but i've been very stuck on the trend you mentioned where prior to s3, fics often had jamie join established roykeeley after a lot of pining and self-recrimination. and i thought hmm i haven't really seen much of that for keeley joining established royjamie post s3, even though it would make a lot more sense given where they all are at the end of s3!

(cont.) i would love to read (or write) a fic about royjamie being on (but on the downlow due to their careers and the homophobia in football) and somehow keeley finds out about them so she has to keep things secret but is also like, oh god, this is it, this was the missing ingredient and i've MISSED MY CHANCE and angsting about whether she made the right decision in the end. it'd all come good in the end but let keeley feel insecure in fic! she's too self-assured in fanon imo.

YES!! You know funnily enough, despite this scenario being like, THE way I most think the ot3 actually gets together after the finale, I haven't written it and it's not in any of my current wips, either, lol. My friends with benefits fic is sort of going to include a similar dynamic (at least in terms of Keeley being like, fuck I've missed my chance and now they're going to get together without me and its my own fault yada yada). Except it's a slightly different flavor of it because they're fwb and Keeley is still participating as often as she pleases and neither roy nor jamie have yet realized how the dynamic has shifted from fwb into something else/more between them. so it's really just Keeley panicking on her own that they're going to realize at any second how they feel about one another and ditch her altogether.

but anyway, YES i want to read your exact version, and YEAH Keeley definitely is too self-assured in fanon, especially for a character who was basically continually in a self crisis spiral for 75% of season 3, lol.

If I had to pick a single headcanoned way I think they get together after canon events, I think Roy & Jamie apologize to Keeley and she kindly tells them she isn't currently in the place for a relationship with either of them, but she cares about both of them deeply and wants them to all be friends (with an implied 'my thoughts on being together romantically might very well change in the future, I'm just not ready for that now.') Which honestly is the right call for her personal growth and self care, because I think Keeley deserves & needs a hot single girl self-love era.

Only, Keeley hasn't actually realized how close royjamie have gotten as she's been having her various s3 crises, and even though she obviously knows they're not obligated to wait around for her to make a decision, I think there's probably a part of her (that she refuses to acknowledge of course) that is like, 'well they've both simped over me this long, of course that door is always going to be open. I can just return to that decision when I'm ready.'

...Color-her-surprised when Jamie and Roy do not just wait around, they get together. And as they all three continue to hang out as friends, she catches on to the relationship and at first it's like okay this is hot, all good fun. But then she realizes just how close they are, and has a full blown crisis because holy shit this is serious, and how did that happen right when she wasn't looking? They're in love, and she's missed out because she was too busy tasking time for herself, and that just isn't fair, is it, she's the one who helped make both of them better!! SHE put in the work and now they're getting the payoff??

Cue angst and irrational thinking patterns and Keeley loneliness that of course ends with a frank conversation and a threesome that turns into canon throuple. amen.

ironically the fic I've read closest to this concept was written prior to s3, Robocop by wildwren. it was part of a roykeeley breakup series, but basically there's lingering sexual tension between all three of them, then Keeley decides she's ready to sleep with Jamie, only to go over to his and find him and Roy already fucking in the car 🫢 and then she thinks she's missed her chance etc. The series wasn't finished (if there was going to be more to it, idk) but the whole thing was BRILLIANT and like. spot on to the dynamics set up in s3, because wildwren is a wizard.

[wastemanjohn]

qu'est-ce que c'est

i wanted to share a little something i've been working on... and by working on i mean dipping in and out of for months... here's a rough 4k-ish excerpt from the serial killer john AU i promised like last december lol. if you like it please let me know, i need all the motivation i can get to actually get this finished 😘

cw: see tags pls. johndean, accidental incest.

There’s a boy John has been watching for a few nights now. A boy who must be new in town, or at least to the more offensive parts of it; a boy of about 25, give or take, although it's hard to tell under all those neon lights. They don't do much to obscure his delicate, fawn-like prettiness; a boy with a face like that would be hard pressed not to stand out anywhere. A face that would suit both the cover of a teen magazine and a career in extreme pornography, a face that's a recipe all in itself for wet panties and sexuality crises - but good looks alone have never been enough to hold John's interest for that long. Luckily for him, there seems to be a lot more to this boy than that.

There would need to be, for such a boy to seek out the kind of bar no regular kid his age would go to; the kind of bar where the rotten keg smell can make you delirious and the jukebox is a relic from 1972, the kind of bar where you leave at the end of the night with your lungs tarred from all the smoke and a hangover already forming from whatever cheap crap is actually served out of all those brand name optics, the kind of bar where the true dregs of society drink their welfare money and at least keep the breath they waste to a confined space.

And such a boy sits up at such a bar, all alone in worn layered shirts and jeans degraded at the knees, the soles of his scuffed up boots held in place by duct tape. A closer look reveals scar tissue on his knuckles, a slight but palpable crookedness to his nose, like it's been broken more than once. There are these deep lines on his face even at rest, at odds with his obvious youth, and the skin around his eyes cracks like broken porcelain when he licks the residue of his whisky on ice off of cherry plump lips that pout and quirk in flirtatious grins to the chubby leather-skirted bartender, to the double-denimed smooth-brained admirers who orbit him all night like fruit flies, buying his drinks and putting their dirty hands on the small of his back, getting so close to his face that he must be able to smell their stale tobacco tooth decaying breath; but this boy, he doesn't seem to mind that at all. He minds it so little that around midnight, four free drinks down and keen to get what he so clearly came for, he'll let one lucky redneck take him to the boudoir of the bathroom stall, the romantic open air setting of the alleyway behind the building, or maybe a fast food-crusted backseat, if he's really lucky. Not that the boy seems particularly fussy; which might just be the thing that completes the entire sorry picture.

Yeah - beauty really isn't that interesting at all, without damage. It's an irresistible combination; it's fascinated people since time began. John's not immune to that fascination. Curiosity, about this boy, and what the hell happened to him to fuck him up so badly. John likes to get close to things like that, a little closer than most people. He likes to study it; break it down. See what he can make out of it. And with the right opportunity - the perfect opportunity - John's sure this boy, with his scars and his cracks and his indiscriminate promiscuity, could be something really, really special.

By the fifth night, John has everything ready for the boy. All that's left is to create that perfect opportunity.

He leaves his usual booth abandoned. He stands up at the bar, nursing an increasingly warm beer, and waits.

The boy comes in on the cusp of eleven, hands in his jacket pockets, all hard rock swagger and high shoulders. He walks past John and settles into his usual stool. He coyly compliments that trashy pig of a bartender on something or other, the way he always does, and she turns away from him with this flattered smirk as she goes to get his drink, the way she always does.

John sees his window. His heart starts to hammer in his chest. Hand on his wallet, he sidles over.

"I got this." He makes a point of not looking directly at the boy; instead, he offers a tight-lipped smile to the bartender, who looks a little startled, but John's used to that. She always seems a little uncomfortable around him, the way people often do, but John doesn't really think that's his problem.

This boy doesn't seem to think so either. In John's periphery, he's grinning. "Well. I’d been wonderin’ when you were gonna crawl out of the shadows."

John feigns a slight tremor in his hand as he passes over his change; notes how the bartender is a little tense in taking it, but again, he's used to that sort of thing. “Excuse me?" he says.

The boy blinks at him through long, dramatic eyelashes. “Come on, man. You really think I haven't noticed you staring at me like a fucking creep all this time?"

The boy props his chin up on his hands and looks at John like he’s pleased, or maybe a little smug. That’s the thing about damaged boys like him. Attention that would unsettle most people flatters them. 

"So what's up with you?" the boy adds. "You don't like making the first move, or -"

Rhetorical or, drags on. He has a deeper voice than expected. It doesn't match that face of his at all.

John confesses, “I guess I am a little shy."

That grin hasn’t left the boy’s mouth. "Well, I don't bite. Unless you want me to, of course."

The boy holds John's gaze; sips his drink, puffy pink lips melding around his glass in a way that seems very practised. That kind of thing doesn't work on John. But he humors the boy anyway. Gives him the admiring, up-down glance he's perfected from watching other people flirt.

The boy notices. In return he treats John to the same glittering "use-me" eyes he's been dishing out like cookies the last few nights. Doesn't John feel special.

"So," the boy says. "Are you a regular at this dump, Shy Guy?"

"I come in and out." It's true. Truck stops and street corners sometimes keep John away. "But hey, sometimes even a craphole like this is better than being stuck at home alone, right?" He shrugs.

"I feel that," says the boy, with this ironic smile. "So you're not married or nothing?"

"Not anymore."

The kid snickers. "Well, that's refreshing. Most guys who hit on me don't even bother taking off their wedding bands."

"Not me." John shrugs again, slow, heavy. "My - my wife died last year."

The boy starts to look uncomfortable. "Wow. That's, uh, rough, man. I'm sorry."

He really is. John can hear it in his voice, see it in those twinkly doe eyes. "Yeah," John sighs. "It was… it’s been pretty hard, you know."

The boy nods into his glass, swirling his ice. "I get it. My mom - I was four. Leaves a hole, doesn't it?"

How interesting. "Yeah," John replies. "It really does."

Neither of them says anything after that. Drinks are sipped; optics are idly glanced at. John watches the boy's face; and just for a moment, this split second thing, he can see that loss there, as raw as when it first happened. The hole this loving mother who baked cookies and gave the best goodnight kisses left behind, idolized and martyred, the memory of her smile lost to time. And if the boy's penchant for men twice his age is anything to go by - which it usually is - John's willing to bet the father never stuck around afterwards. There's quite often the ghost of a cruel or neglectful one hanging around his boys, stinking of booze, acrid rage.

Despite it, John can see the boy's posture softening just a little; a sign that he's starting to relax. His kind usually do, when they're led to believe that John is a kindred spirit. Someone with more pain than love in his life, just like them.

"Anyway," says the boy, after a moment. That cocky grin comes back. "Now we're done with the little therapy session, maybe you wanna tell me your name?"

John forces a chuckle. "My name's Henry." Yeah, fathers linger. "And yours?"

“Dean,” says the boy. He looks a little confused, like he's not used to being asked.

John slaps on a sitcom-warm smile. "It’s nice to meet you, Dean."

"Likewise,” Dean says. He leans against the bar, elbow cocked, those pretty green eyes sparkling. "So. What does Henry do when he's not staring at the back of boy's heads in bars?"

I'm usually staring into the back of their mouths while I wrench out their teeth. "Nothing right now. I used to be a mechanic." He hasn't worked in years, actually, but Dean doesn't need to know that.

Dean's eyes light up. "Me too." He pauses for a moment, like he's embarrassed by his enthusiasm. "Uh - I mean, not like a professional one, or anything. But I know my way around an engine, you know."

"That so? I could probably get you some work around here, if you want a real shot at it." John promises his boys this often, regardless of what field they express interest in.

Dean shakes his head. "Thanks, but it's cool. I'm just passing through town for work. My day job keeps me pretty busy anyways."

"Which is?" John probes.

"Oh." Dean's forehead creases. "Like, extermination. Pest control. That sort of thing."

John nods. "Oh." A miserable job for a miserable boy.

Silence lands again; John doesn't break it. Some awkwardness is natural in these sorts of situations, after all. He watches as Dean touches this pendant hanging off a raggedy black chain around his neck, twiddle it between his fingers. It's some weird occult looking thing; probably some mass produced crap he thought was cool. John logs this information quietly, as he watches Dean watching the optics again; looks over Dean's side profile. There's this dusting of stubble over his jaw, a jaw romance novels would describe as "chiselled," a desperate statement of toughness on a man who’s too pretty for his own good. Despite his relaxation, those shoulders are still kind of rounded, see: toughness. 

“You have a really pretty neck,” John tells him.

"You like my neck?" Dean throws him a glance, then smirks. “Weird fucking compliment, but I’ll take it.” 

He raises his hand to his neck all the same, looking a little giddy. John thinks about all the little tendons and bones in that neck, ripe and tender beneath Dean's fingers. He represses a shudder.

“Was just listening out,” Dean says. “I like this song.”

The music’s a little low under all the chatter, but John can vaguely make it out. “Aren’t you a little young to know Jefferson Starship?”

“I’m a little young to know most of what I listen to.” Dean smirks, like this is impressive. “More of an Airplane man myself. But Red Octopus is a damn good album.”

“I guess you know your music.” That album came out the year he and Mary got married.

“You’d be surprised,” Dean says. “Besides, Grace Slick is a babe. What’s not to like?”

“I don’t think she’s a babe anymore.”

Dean shrugs. “Don’t care. For badassery alone I’d still hit it.”

John pauses, considers this, as Dean downs the last of his drink. “You like women too, then.”

The boy shrugs again. "I like anyone who's willing, you know? It's all the same to me."

For a moment, he almost looks sheepish. Loneliness, John thinks, does have a very specific stench. Up close, this boy fucking reeks.

Dean moves a little closer to John on his stool. John feels the whisper-light brush of Dean's knees against his own. “Alright," he says, "I'm done with the small talk. We getting down to business or what?"

John does his best to make sure his gulp is visible. "Business," he echoes. "Uh - okay."

Dean laughs a little. It's not unkind. "You ever been with a man before, Shy Guy?”

Shy Guy shakes his head. Avoids the boy’s eyes slightly, in a further show of patheticness.

“Just wanna know what it’s like, huh?" Dean says, kinda softly. "You're curious?"

“I - yeah. I guess - I think so."

Shy Guy stumbles over his words. Hopes he's getting the boy to pity him a bit.

“You’re nervous," Dean says.

Shy Guy nods.

“It’s new.”

Another nod.

“I can help you out."

Dean’s hand comes down on John’s wrist. Gentle fingertips walk up his forearm, press against the leather of his jacket. John’s skin feels too tight, fuck, he hates being touched. Makes him want to rip off the kid's face.

He forces himself to lean into Dean's hand, regardless. To look nervous and wanting all at once, as he glances at Dean's lips again. He comforts himself with thinking just how beautiful they're going to look stretched around silicone, pressed against steel, smeared with blood, come, puke. How pretty those girlish lashes are going to come up all dewy with tears, how that deep voice is going to crack and squeal as he begs for his life, sobbing out pleas to gods that have never so much glanced his way before. John's getting all tingly just thinking about it.

“It’s hot as hell, Henry,” the boy promises. Palm on the crook of John’s elbow now. “Fucking another guy. You’ll never want to go back.”

John makes a show of sucking in a breath. He meets Dean’s eyes, finally. They’ve gone a little dark. John’s willing to bet the little slut is already leaking in his dollar store briefs.

"Tell me, Dean," he says, matching the boy's quiet register, "What on earth could a pretty young thing like you want with an old man like me?”

Dean bites his lip. “I like 'em older.”

Well, no shit.

“Besides,” Dean glances him up and down, with this gaze that makes him feel stripped, “You really got that whole Daddy thing going on.”

The cliches keep on dropping. John does his best to look a little startled; he's practised that one. “Daddy thing?” he splutters.

“Yeah.” Dean winks, making it worse. "I can show you, Henry. Show you what a good little boy I can be."

Those finger presses get a little more insistent, up John's bicep, like acid; John sees the amusement in Dean’s eyes as he feigns another little gulp. Pulls at the collar of his shirt. 

Dean pouts those pretty lips, looking John up and down. “Honestly? I want you to fuck me until I can't walk."

John moves past gulping; this time, he chokes on his own spit. Dean laughs, loud, raw mirth. Something a little sadistic in it now, like he's enjoying pursuing this innocent, naive prey. Maybe he and Dean have more in common that John thought.

“O-okay," John stutters out, eventually, again.

“Okay,” Dean repeats. That cocky, irrepressible grin comes back, as he nods to John’s now-warm beer. “So, why don’t you get yourself something a little stronger for those nerves? Then we’ll see about making those sad eyes roll all the way to the back of your head.”

“You’re - forward, huh?” John thinks he does a good job of keeping the disgust out of his voice.

Dean shrugs. "Well, life is short.”

It feels like an ironic comment.

John holds Dean’s gaze. “And you’re not married yourself?" he asks, carefully. "You got no one to take care of you?”

Dean laughs. Genuine amusement. “Sounds like someone’s life, man. Doesn’t sound like mine.”

John was 99.9% certain on that. Because beauty and damage, for most people, is a combination, a concept, to be enjoyed from afar. The simple minded might think Dean is oblivious to his good looks, with the way he'll apparently fuck anybody; they'll bleat on about low self-esteem or some shit like that. They'll say that Dean must think he can't do any better. John, though; John's a little more enlightened than that. John knows that this boy really can't do any better. Your average person would run a mile from someone like Dean, someone with that desperate stench, that damage so clear in his face if you squint just the slightest bit. And this boy - bless his heart - he knows it too. He won't be missed.

“Someone as beautiful as you shouldn’t be alone," John tells him.

“Yeah, well.” Dean snorts, like he's heard this a thousand times befoer. “Looks ain’t everything.”

John feigns a quiver in his hand as he reaches out to touch Dean’s stubbled cheek. Dean’s teeth graze his lower lip, he gives this gentle sigh; John catches it on his lips as he leans in for a chaste, gentle kiss. John's never seen Dean get a kiss off of any of his nightly lays; isn't surprised, because men like that aren't smart enough to understand that gentle attentions make boys like Dean so putty they’re almost liquid. And the boy shivers, full body, as John pulls away.

“You’re sweet.” John tells him, in the softest register he can. "Thank you, Dean. For - you know. For being so nice to me."

The boy snorts. “Oh, come on. Don’t make it weird.” But John can see the joy that only praise can bring lighting up the back of his eyes. Yep. Putty, alright.

John smiles. Tender, like he's seen in movies. “Same again?”

"Sure," Dean says, with all the entitled air of someone who never pays for his own drinks; and John flags down the bartender, while Dean sits there beside him, quiet, relaxed. So sweet, so trusting. Oh, he's asking for this. He's fucking begging for it.

The music cranks up suddenly, like it always does around this time. Dean jumps, the way boys like Dean always jump at sudden noises; disco and drivel, go on now go, walk out the door, the exact kind of vacuous crap that passes for great art in places like these.

Dean, to his credit, looks genuinely angry. “What kind of terrorist put this on the jukebox?” he shouts above the noise.

John reaches for his wallet again. There’s window number two.

He fishes out a quarter, reaches for Dean's hand; prises open Dean's dry-skinned fingers and deliberately presses the coin into his palm. John touches his face too; holds his jaw, tilts up his head. 

"You're gonna look so fucking pretty screaming for that dead Mommy of yours to come and save you,” he tells Dean.

Dean squints, because he can’t hear a thing above the music. 

John raises his voice. “I said, go put on something you like."

“With pleasure,” Dean shouts back, but looks at the quarter in his hand like it’s the greatest gift he’s ever received. How cute. He even lets John ruffle his hair before he slides off the stool and goes on his way.

On his way, leaving John alone with his drink, and with the other essential item he keeps in his wallet. The pill bubbles and fizzes in Dean’s whisky as it dissolves, while around John, the majority of the bar’s unwashed patrons are in various states of emotion, bleating along to I Will Survive with hands on chests, arms around the same friends they’ve had since they were fifteen. They’ll wake up tomorrow with no memory of the event and go back to their lives, lives so boring and worthless that this is their definition of euphoria. It’s sad, John thinks. It’s really, really sad.

He watches Dean at the jukebox. Dean, the beauty in all of this, shining so bright and special. The light in all of the pollution. It moves John to see it, the way nothing else ever moves him; stirs up the gentle beginnings of all those emotions that have always been just out of his reach, excitement, joy, fulfilment. Soon. He'll have all of them, everything he needs, soon.

Sure, the drugs aren't ideal - but John’s long since learned his lesson about taking his boys out to his car fully conscious. They always lose their nerve when it dawns on them they've been driving for way too long, and it's an unnecessary hazard when they start panicking and crying as the trees get thicker, as the roads narrow out until they’re nothing more than dirt trails; just plain dangerous, when they grab for the steering wheel, and annoying as hell when they leave marks all over the interior of John's Impala with their frantic, kicking feet. There have been times when John has had to stop the fun before it’s even started because of that shit. He makes sure the last thing those boys see before the light goes out of their eyes is the disappointment in John's face.

Anyway; that shouldn't be the case for Dean. It's so much easier this way. So much easier to haul Dean out of the bar on liquid legs, to laugh with the group of middle-aged women smoking outside about “my wasted son," how he just can’t hold his liquor; and “have a good night,” says the one with the shortest skirt, and “you too, sweetheart,” John replies, even though it repulses him to interact with a stain like that; no, so much more fun to enjoy Dean’s dazed, confused face, to dodge the clumsy, off-kilter swings that come from fists that can’t even clench right as John eases him into the backseat of his Impala, fresh and newly cleaned for the occasion.

"You're alright," he tells his agitated boy, in lieu of returning those swings; that wouldn't do with witnesses around. "Just relax, Dean, okay? You're gonna need your rest."

Dean's eyes are everywhere, lashes fluttering like he’s seizing. "Th'fuck you doin'?"

The confusion in Dean's face is delicious. Not to mention the way his limbs are starting to falter, the way his body is failing him. Falling into that seat without resistance.

“Don’t worry about it.” John takes Dean's ankles, tucks his legs into the car. They jerk, but only a little his last attempt at fighting as his eyes start to close. “Just doing a little pest control of my own.”

When John is sure Dean is out cold, he takes the opportunity to reach into the boy's pocket. The kid has two phones, which doesn’t surprise him much - implies shady shit, and his boys are usually into some kind of shady shit - he can dump them both on the way.

It doesn't surprise John how cute Dean looks like this, either. He strokes his boy’s unresponsive face, as his own, equally unresponsive face, quivers into a genuine smile. What a find Dean is. What a find.

[ellas-journey]

Ah the Red light- I mean “entertainment” district 💄

It is true that there are three figures that we associate with Japan: Naruto, Luffy and Goku - I mean the ancient samurai, the modern salary man, and the eternal Geisha. Especially during the Edo Period, there was a rise in the so-called red-light districts, stage of the mesmerizing ukiyo-e, that the common mortal would happily purchase, in special, the shunga, that could picture the most obscene acts. But things aren’t always like the art portrait am I right? Sex trade in early modern Japan was so important that its history can also be read as the history of the society. But even though the prostitution relationship with the government changed, one thing they always had in common: it was the exchange of sexual services for a payment [most of the times in cash]. Before all, let's say something: male prostitution did exist. But it was just not considered the same business than the woman’s prostitution. Male sex trade became more associated with the theatre world and the teahouses. It was never recognised or regulated and had never the same punishments that woman did. This could be linked to the function of the man and woman in the households. Since a man could only be a brother, but the woman could start turmoil and try to substitute the wife in the family and give the male heirs. (Ah yes, always the baby problem. So be gay do crime I guess) During the 17th century prostitution was flued by the demographic movements of man opening cities, by the 18th the power shifted to the small provinces. And to where the man goes, the sex trade goes. In the 19th century the sex trade spread to all the territory. In the beginning of the Edo period, the rule of the "wife" and the "prostitute" could be confused. After all the women could be said to only have those two paths, and it wasn't for her to choose, but her male guardian. Since the woman was viewed as an object of the man's property, he could sell her as he wished. Yes, even wives and daughters from "good" families were sold as a way to pay a debt. “There was no question that the Tokugawa authorities’ vision of status order had been confining for woman: it subordinated them to male household heads and emphasized the values of obedience and submission. Indeed, some must have welcomed the opportunity to step outside their narrowly defines roles as wives and daughters. (…) But for the vast majority of woman who worked in the sex trade, the crises of the gendered order, and the disintegration of the limited protection it offered, was hardly a form of liberation.” - Stanley,2012;

In 1612 a man called Jin'emon tried to ask the Shogunate to recognise his business. He said that unregulated sex trade could cause a lot of problems like young girls being kidnapped, samurais plotting rebellions in the courtesans' beds, man splurging their wages on woman (and babies a lot of unwanted babies coming back for their illegitimate families let’s not forget that). The shogunate (finally) agreed and gave him a plot of land in the outskirts of town with (a lot of) conditions: they would regulate the sex trade, they would record the comings and goings, report anything suspicious, and the woman - yujo - could not leave the "pleasure quarters" and thus the Red Light district was born, at the time called Yoshiwara or "Reed Plain". The Shogunate soon started to forbid the selling and buying of humans, believe it or not this also included woman. But, as always, with exceptions. Woman could enter the “pleasure quarters” if the hitonushi [the woman’s legal guardian] allowed and if she consented. The same would apply if a family was in extreme poverty, the man could only sell is wife as a last resort. Also, eternal servitude was now illegal, the limit was now 10 years, but obviously the Yoshiwara’s pleasure houses lords would manipulate the contracts to go around this rule. The Shogunate tried to regulate the clandestine prostitutes that the common people called baita [whores]. But these women, that normally worked in the side of the streets, were paid very little and were the wives and daughter of marginal men. There was also the problem of the “bathhouses”, where pretty woman would scrub the backs and rinse their hair of men. Yoshiwara brothels complained that these bathhouses were hurting their business since it was at the time that bordels were forbidden from working during the night, so this bathhouses would do drinking parties with shamisen music and everything. And the yuna [bathing girls] were cheaper than the yujo. Bit after the big fire of Meireki at 1657 these bathhouses choose to relocate to Yoshiwara. But there was a problem is this tentative of politicised the sex trade: the woman that only sold sex as a secondary option. She shogunate realised this problem and declared that all the waitresses, dancers and entertainers that agreed with patrons to sell sex would be considered clandestine prostitutes. But there was a risen of a type of artistic woman, that was skilled in entertainment, that started to imitate the male way entertainment - the Geisha. “Originally, both men and women professionally living on light accomplishments inseparably went under the name of “geisha”, although men were called “otoko geisha” or male geisha, and women “onna geisha” or female geisha. Subsequently the term “onna” was dropped, so that the onna geisha came to be called simply geisha, and the otoko geisha or male geisha changed simultaneously their name into “hokan” or jester.” – Longstreet; Mansfield; Longstreet, 2020; The word geisha can be split into "art" and "person", meaning that the geisha were the perfect mix between the performance and prostitution. They were supposed to have many artistic talents like singing, reciting poetry, performing the tea ceremony, playing the shamisen, arranging flowers, telling the best jokes, whispering obscene things, in short entertaining men. Selling sex was a last thing. They were sexually available, but they had a price, and with a higher price came its social value.

These Geisha usually had their hair up in the traditional maga style [which was mostly made of wigs], wore colourful makeup, kimonos, and obi. Normally they had various apprentices called maiko or hangyoku. (Yes I'm sorry to break your heart but the little girls at House Tokito (Tanjiro infiltration), that help the Koinatsu Oiran were either sold or daughters of courtesans at that house, being trained to be the next Oiran) Obviously, they also had lovers, but outside their job. In the workplace they would smile and bow to entertain their patrons. Sometimes they could choose a wealthier patron that would sponsor their lifestyle. Sometimes they had another lover that was their true love, but that was not the best option since time was money. Unlike the courtesans the geisha could choose their patrons, but sooner or later their professions would start to be confused. Many of the trends of the Edo period continued after the Meiji restoration. Until the Taisho Era [1912-1926] the number of prostitutes registered in brothels doubled. The number of Geisha alone as circa 79.348. It was estimated that 1 out of 31 Japanese young women were employed in the sex trade (that excluding the comfort woman cause non-Japanese did not count, cause ah the imperialism) The funny part was, the money that these women made was income that would be invested in important modernizing infrastructures like elementary schools. With the westernization government started to being pressure to liberate this woman, but soon these women realized that they did not have were to go. So, in technical terms nothing really changed. But the Japanese started to be see this woman as impure, in part because of the sexual deceases that were starting to be aware of. Now we understand why one of the Demon Slayer arcs takes us to the pleasure district, because during a lot of time it was the center of a lot of what we now call the japanese culture.

Linfamy. 2023 - Two Oh-So-Happy Destinies Forced Upon Daughters in Edo Japan. [Consulted on the 27th June 2023] Available on: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcewuw0sMOo>; LONGSTREET, Stephen. LONGSTREET, Ethel. MANSFIELD, Stephen. 2020 - Geishas and the Floating World: Inside Tokyo’s Yoshiwara Pleasure District. Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing. [Ebook]; STANLEY, Amy. 2012 - Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan. California: University of California Press. [Ebook];

[thelaithlyworm]

still working through english Three-Body.

trisolarans have just had their minds rocked by hearing a bedtime story that deals with lying.

whoah! they say. never saw that coming!

w-what did they think that computer game was? even without the blatant emotional manipulation of the child the player constantly tries to save... translating the history of that planet into western zhou, warring states, tudor england whatever, is, you know, fiction.

was this in the book? haven't read the book so maybe it's in there. if it's in the book maybe it make more sense on the page.

argh, finding this such a frustrating watch. because there are things i genuinely enjoy about it and then it throws this weirdness in. cuts all the nuance of ye wenjie's story. cuts the ambivalence of the ETO with its rival factions. cuts the... you know how ye wenjie saw the excesses and harm and purges of the communist party gone too far, even as many of its followers genuinely believed they were doing the right thing, and then she sees excesses and harm and purges from the ETO and knows she's the leader of that, all of these feuding people look up to her at least notionally and what is she going to do about it? or wang miao having multiple crises of faith in how the world worked then going home and showing his daughter the physics trick of getting the egg in the bottle or detective shi, uh, showing support with the countdown.

it's just so cut down.

EDIT:

oh, and now ye wenjie is sucking face with evans.

god forbid anyone be affectionate or allied with someone without sexual desire being the glue. no... shared beliefs, meeting of minds, camaraderie.

wait, does this mean the showrunners want us to think the oxford five are all one big fucking polycule off-screen? huh.

[voxofthevoid]

@fayevinn said:

I didn’t realize I needed 65 in my life; now I must know more ^.^

Ask and ye shall receive 💙

65. of all the deadly sins, he's lucky seven

Omegaverse-canonverse with omega!Sukuna, alpha!Yuuji, and alpha!Gojou, in which Sukuna drags Yuuji into his domain for his heat and Yuuji’s rutting body autopilots its way into Gojou’s ass.

I think this was my first sukuita idea. It's so...tame. No one even gets eaten.

Heats and ruts don’t stop until they’re satisfied the old-fashioned way (let’s ignore what that would do to society), and Sukuna having a raging heat in his soul keeps Yuuji in a sustained state of pre-rut.

They don’t really figure out what’s wrong at first. Most kids present during puberty (11–13), with the first cycle done then. The next cycle usually takes a few years. Yuuji’s due one, but the pre-rut starts but doesn’t develop into a full rut and doesn’t abate either, and he’s a menace to everyone and everything, and his pheromones are fuck strong to the point he has to be isolated: alphas get fight or flight reactions, betas are just plain uncomfortable, and omegas are at real risk of having sympathetic heats triggered even from the pre-rut. Gojou’s literally the only person who can stand him, and Yuuji doesn’t react badly to his presence even though he’s also an alpha—which implies either strong filial or sexual feelings. Wild guess what it is.

Sukuna fashioning himself a dildo out of the only possible substance in his domain—bone. And idly riding it while a pissed-off Yuuji drops in to figure out what the fuck is this asshole’s problem now and promptly has three different crises.

His pre-rut flares immediately into full rut because this was the trigger it needed—and Sukuna knew it. Stage set for Yuuji out of his mind with rut and Sukuna gleefully taking advantage. Yuuji wouldn’t ever fuck him on purpose, and Sukuna wouldn’t ever lower himself to ask. But taking Yuuji like this? That he can do. And Yuuji’s too far gone to care about anything other than a hole around his knot.

But this all happens in Yuuji’s mind/soul. His body’s also in rut. And Gojou does notice Yuuji’s CE flaring and his pheromones going wild. Rushes in and gets accosted by Yuuji’s…pilot-less body. All instinct, no mind. It wants to fuck, and Gojou’s all that’s available—plus, the body is the soul is the body, and even with Yuuji not there, his body knows it wants this man. This would be a death sentence for literally anyone else, but luckily for Yuuji, Gojou also wants to screw his brains out, so he takes one for the team and lends a hand—a hole, more specifically.

Will probably end with Sukuna, sated, shoving a still rutting Yuuji out of his domain…and right into the body that has knotted a clawed up, chewed up (and very happy about it) Gojou.

Ask in response to the WIP Open Season

[thediktatortot]

Kidfic, Steddilly, Fluff

---

Billy never thought he would be a father in a million years. He thought, 'How could I parent a kid when all the fathering experience I have to go off of is Neil Hargrove', never thinking himself good enough or safe enough to one day be a father.

After Starcourt, healing and a few years of adulthood under his belt however, life didn't give him that option of choosing whether he was going to be a father or not. It made him one.

He hadn't even thought about the consequences at the time, post physical therapy, post uncomfortable hospital beds and the smell of bleach, post tangled hair from laying down for long periods of time. He'd cleaned up with the help of his step sister and some members of 'the party' before fucking off on the first bus he could with the government hush money he had gotten and disappeared for more than three months.

It was cathartic, necessary for Billy's healing and in that time he'd done anything he wanted. Anything meant anything and in that time he'd experimented with whoever he wanted, took whatever he wanted and ate whatever he wanted. It was like three months of unfiltered chaos and at the end, Billy just wanted to go home.

But home was Hawkins Indiana now, so Billy had gotten himself a ticket back and dropped right back into the life he'd fled from just three months ago.

One year, a sexuality crisis, a gender crisis and a few mental break down's later, Billy Hargrove lived in an apartment with two other guys and on his apartment doorstep, a woman he vaguely recognized stood there with a bundle in her arms and a sour look on her face.

"This was your fault." The woman said with tears in her eyes as she thrust the bundle into Billy's arms. "I didn't even want her." She said, young looking and scared. "I- I can't keep her, she's yours, I remembered your name and looked you up and if you try to find me you wont so-."

The woman grit her teeth and adjusted herself, "Her name is Angela," before turning from the stunned Billy and disappeared down the hallway.

Billy was rooted in place, his whole body a pillar of ice and fear as he looked down the hall where there were no longer anyone there. His brain was empty, unable to think as he looked down at the small bundle and slowly made his way back into the apartment.

He was in shock, he knew this, having felt it before a few times in the last year and even though he knew what his body was doing, it didn't make it any easier to control. With the little girl on his lap on his knees and the couch backrest holding his entire world up, Billy unwrapped the blankets and found brown eyes staring up at him.

There was a roll of papers tied tightly together along side the little girl- Angela, that Billy grabbed and unraveled, finding the birth certificate and a medical records with the time and dates of her birth.

February 14 1987, time of birth: 2:18AM.

Roughly nine months after Billy's three month sabbatical and- yea...he'd gotten with a few girls while out in the world, gotten with a few guys too which was the reason for his crises in the first place when he got back home. The two guys he lived with were Steve fucking Harrington and Eddie fucking Munson.

His boyfriends. Oh god they would be coming home soon and here he was with a baby in his fucking lap, HIS baby and there was no doubts about it.

Angela had curly blond hair, tons of it even with how new she was and even though she had the brown eyes from the woman that was her mother, Billy could only see himself in her.

Angela was starting to cry, her face scrunching up as the realization that mom was not coming back for her setting in and Billy felt like his heart was breaking, like the Mindflayer hadn't left and was reaching through his chest to squeeze his heart one last time.

"A-...Angela...." Billy said softly as he reached out and smooth his thumb over the pudgy cheeks of the baby to wipe away the tears as his own fell over his cheeks and onto her blanket. "Angie...I'm...oh god what am I going to do?" Billy's voice broke a little as he set the papers aside and wrapped the little girl back up into the blanket and pulled her into his chest.

"What am I gonna do?"

-----

"Nah-uh"

"Ahuh"

"Nah-uh"

"Ahuh"

"Nah-uh"

"Ah-"

"I swear to all that's good on this green earth if you two don't stop I'm going to put you both in time out." Billy's voice cut through the nonsense as Eddie and Angie looked over guiltily to Billy where he sat at the dining room table, book open and pen almost breaking in his grip.

"...Sorry daddy."

"Yea, sorry daddy." Eddie stuck his tongue out from where he was sitting on the couch with Angie, the two of them having their heads buried in a nature book all day while they waited for Steve to come home from work.

That was their life now.

Eddie worked at a local auto body shop and still did gigs with his band, Steve had become store manager at Malvad's and Billy was going back to school and staying home with Angie.

"I've got sandwiches!" Steve's voice called from the hallway of their small home.

The four had moved out of their original apartment only a few months after Angie's arrival, quickly discovering that a two bedroom bachelor pad with little to no heat in the winter and mold in the corners of the house wasn't going to be the most safest place to raise a baby. They hadn't even thought of buying a home before she came, none of them having experience in adulthood or any idea how to actually go about doing those adult things, but with the help of Jim and Joyce, they'd figured it out.

"Papa!!" Angie screamed in Eddie's ear as she scrambled off the couch and ran out of the living room, leaving Eddie rubbing his head.

"The pipes on that girl- need to get her into choir when she starts going to school."

"I thought you didn't like putting kids into extra curricular activities against their will." Billy said from where he sat, still buried in his text book as he took notes.

"Yea- sports. Choir is like...totally different. Besides, if she doesn't like it she can always do something else."

Steve walked in from the hallway with a bag on one arm and Angie on the other, smiling as the two of them whispered to each other while he made his way into the kitchen.

"Stop whatever it is you all are doing and come get your dinner. That means you Billy." Steve's voice filtered through the kitchen doorway soon followed by Angie's giggling. "Yea Daddy, Papa mean's you!."

Billy sat back against his chair and dropped his pencil on his notebook with a sigh, glaring daggers at Eddie chuckling. "Yea daddy, he means you." Eddie stuck his tongue out at Billy before darting off into the kitchen to get his share of sandwich.

"You guys are so mean to me." Billy sighed, his tone light as he let his head hang back and stare up at the dining room ceiling, letting out a long breath with a small smile.