A poem you may enjoy, if you have not yet heard it (little cat, you’re just like me: you go outside and squat to pee. SQUAT):

Dude, I am sorry that things are shitty for you.

My favorite pairing was Wufei and Duo.

Oh, yes! I was just expanding on your post with what I hoped were somewhat interesting additions :)

You probably have seen this, but in case you (or others) haven’t, The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper did a great piece on “good guy with a gun” ideas.

I’m a nervous/reactive smiler myself. It’s a bit cultural - I’m originally from the Upper Midwest in the USA, and people smile all the time. You’re not smiling? Is something wrong? Silence or neutrality is often taken as a negative, or that you’re upset (especially if you’re female - older men can sometimes get away…

No French people I know (from good friends to one of my partners) are down with fucking children. Really, raping children. They think this case is fucking horrible, too, and that the requirement of violence for it to be “rape” is too harsh.

I copy-edit erotica, and I notice that there’s a lot of breathy utterings of “yes”, and “keep going”, and “please, more” or whatever, and I think that that can help set the tone of “this is definitely consensual”.

I think so, too! I think people are the scariest of all. But some people are really bothered by like, body horror or ghosts or blood/gore, so it’s a fair metric, too :)

My mom’s beloved 10-year-old pug is also named Phoebe! She’s a wonderful little creature, if you don’t mind her endless snorts (and I honestly don’t).

It’s not a scary movie in like, a monster-movie sense, more like a psychological thriller. The ending has a bit more of the violence one might expect in a horror movie, though.

I am American, but don’t live in the US and haven’t for a few years. I’m also a student, and currently, at this very second, even, sitting in a psych ward.

I loved that sketch. I always felt that Lori-Beth had great comedic timing and would be a breakout star, but I guess it never really happened. I’d say it’s a shame, but perhaps it wasn’t what she wanted.

Japan, Czech Republic/Czechia, and Estonia are the same. While the law requires the English translations of the contract to be the same, if there’s a discrepancy, the non-English one will be honored. All of my contracts, from work to insurance to apartments, have included this.

My mom used it to track who I was talking to so she could try to wedge them out of my life if she felt that they weren’t “good” for me (i.e.: they were not heterosexual, and their gay might rub off on me). If I ever talked about how she would want to know all the details of my life, I basically got told that she was a…

I’m American, but most of those wouldn’t really have much effect on me unless I deeply cared about what that person thought of me. The type of person who thinks it’s really cool to have the perfect, cutting insult is generally not someone whose opinion I deeply value, so getting called names or being treated as lesser…

I see what you mean, but it’s not quite correct.

I have been posting this everywhere. “Soft no”s are understood as the refusals they are in other situations, and there is no reason that they cannot be understood in sexual ones.

Agreed. Men are capable of understanding indirect refusals in all other kinds of situations, and they are capable of understanding it in sexual ones, too.

I live in Estonia, and there is a bumper sticker that I’ve seen around that reads, “Estonia Is Not Africa”.