Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.

It gets so bad he's always being woken up by adverts that offer insomnia cures and better bedding that play when he tries to sleep.

So he buys the ad-free tier, and it's great... for a few months. And then he starts getting adverts from 'premium partners'. So he goes up a level... and the same thing happens.

So he jailbreaks his wallpaper and sends all the ad servers to 0.0.0.0 and voila... he can sleep.

Until this SWAT team blows his door off and drag him off to jail. The Ad companies are suing him for loss of revenue for the products he' notionally have bought if he'd watched their adverts, based on some weird 'The average consumer buys X products with an average value of Y' calculation.

The judge is like 'well I dun wanna annoy the sponsors' so he RICO's this guy's house and possessions and sends him to jail.

... which is a nice relaxed non-volent offender jail for the corporately disenfranchised. But because these people have no money... there's no ads and now he's happy because the only place he's free... is in prison.

Which at the time was a bit much and now it's like: Called it.

Elon's suing companies for not advertising because he's losing revenue. He's also cranking the price of Ad Free Twitter. Disney and Amazon play adverts on their paid service when services used to be free because of the adverts... and now you have to pay to watch the adverts or go up a couple of tiers.

-visits being banned in favor of video calls that still require your loved ones to come to the prison and never see you irl (and you are charged by the MINUTE for these calls)

-pay-by-the-minute access to BOOKS

-being banned from buying literally anything except from overpriced commisaries that charge hugely inflated prices to their LITERALLY captive customer base

-often being subject to extremely underpaid and unpaid slave labor, often in extremely dangerous conditions -dangerously inedible food provided and many necessities of life insufficiently or even not provided at all, in order to keep the captive customer base buying stuff -ntm in prison you can be forced to work as a slave for years in a job that you will be unable to do for pay after prison, bc they don't actually PAY for your work if you have a criminal record

and that's only just touching on the more economic aspects!!

unfortunately in real life having no money is almost never an escape for anything 😭

if you want to know what dystopian direction capitalism will take next for people like you, look at what's happening to systematically vulnerablized people, especially those in prisons.

sorry ik this may feel slightly beside the point, but it is genuinely a really good idea to pay attention what is happening in the prisons!!

There's a difference between a man who is immature and buys into misogynistic views of beauty and aging and one who is a predator. Also, many actual predators? Not losers and able to move through society pretty freely being seen as cool and the ideal, so conflating the two isn't helpful.

if a 40 year old dude only dates 25 year olds, DiCaprio style or something adjacent to it, then yeah he's a loser

if a 40 year old dude meets a 25 year old through social event or friends or whatever and they happen to hit it off and make a go of it, and this isn't some sort of reoccurring pattern for the guy, that's just a relationship with an age difference

being predatory means something specific, and man I agree w/ OP and really wish people just stopped ascribing it to any and all relationship dynamics they personally might not like

Legally (I live in the UK) we were not minors, although we inhabited an odd legal limbo until we turned 18, and we were certainly not “children”. Intellectually, socially, though, we were considered (young) adults, or at the most “older teenagers.” We were expected to read mostly adult books (rather than middle grade or YA), watch the news/read papers, watch mostly adult television.

And I do think we a bit under-protected, under-supported, and in some cases - neglected and financially exploited - and I’m not necessarily advocating that. But it did make us feel, I think, in charge of our own lives, capable and competent to make decisions.

At 16-17 my parents knew they could leave me alone overnight/for a couple of nights, and I wouldn’t starve or burn the house down. I felt comfortable getting cross country trains on my own, or booking and staying at a hotel (yes, with my boyfriend.)

Then there was this… creeping of sentiments that we were all Too Young to trouble our heads about certain things. A lot of it was good - more stringent licensing laws, raising the school leaving age, raising the minimum smoking age(!) - but some of the broader cultural stuff was… a bit patronising? Eg, the introduction of “New Adult” as a category of books aimed at 18-25 year olds, the way cartoons and books written for the 9-12 age group were being marketed as for the 12-15 age group, referring to late teens as “children,” etc etc.

Then, in 2008, there was the big financial crash and suddenly my generation were (broadly) robbed of all the usual markers of adulthood and success, meaning that we got ‘stuck’ in the lifestyles and modes our late teens/early 20s. And suddenly, all the emphasis shifted from social and legal protections for late teens/ younger adults, to legal restrictions on their freedoms/rights, and strange philosophical protections on the emotional states.

So, OF COURSE a 23 year old can’t buy a beer without carrying an ID card, and a 17 year old can’t have a crush on a 16 year old, but also, because you’re *children* you don’t need to live like adults. So the UK government got to save money by saying “18 isn’t a proper adult,” then “20 isn’t a proper adult,” and “25 isn’t a proper adult” because it meant they could refuse to give single occupancy housing benefit rates to people of those ages (I think they’ve raised it over 30 now.) Or by refusing to clamp down on exploitative temporary/zero hours contracts - because they’re just “temp jobs for young people!”, or by raising the retirement age because “60 is far too young to retire. You’re not a real adult until 35.”

And it means the discursive environment is such that you can claim that a 21 year old trans person is too young to make their own medical decisions, or a 15 year old is too young to consent to the contraceptive pill.

Meanwhile, they are not offering additional *protections* to these newly infantilised adults. 18 year olds are still encouraged to saddle themselves with enormous educational debt, or allowed to have credit cards, or expected to pay rent, or no longer receive child benefits. You still have to *work*. In fact, in the States, they’re looking to removed child employment restrictions - but that’s fine, because 20 year olds are being protected from making their own medical decisions, and adults get to say which books their teen kids are reading in school, and kids aren’t allowed to change their name or what they wear without parental consent.

We can see what these people are doing to the rights of children - so why are we being so complacent in expanding the definition of ‘child’?

Regardless - 25 is VERY CLEARLY an adult. At 25 I was married, had two kids, an overdraft, rent to pay, and experience of living in the world for 6 years. I had more in common with someone of 40 than I did with someone of 15. Hell, at*20* I had more in common with someone of 40 than someone of 15. Any sexual or relationship decisions you make at 25 are your own to make.

Of course there are likely to be power imbalances in a 15 year age gap - which is why most 25 year olds don’t date 40somethings - but not actually necessarily. And yeah, a 40 year old who only dates 20somethings is a skeeze - just like a 30 year old who routinely ingratiates themselves with rich 80 year olds is a skeeze.

But if any young people are reading this (doubt it)… your rights are much, much more important than your protections.

Yes, young people should be protected, but if someone claims they’re protecting you while denying you access to personal autonomy, financial stability, intellectual curiosity, or sexual self-determination because you’re “too young” to need, or understand those things… be very suspicious of their motives.

Your husky isn’t “hyperactive”, it’s bred to pull sleds for 8 hours straight and you have it in a 400 sq ft yard.

Your English sheepdog isn’t “pushy”, it’s bred to herd sheep, and you have neither to space nor the herd to allow it.

Your terrier isn’t “nippy”, it’s bred to kill rats and your hamster looks a hell of a lot like one.

Your Catahoula isn’t “mean to animals”, it’s bred to hunt any and all animals smaller than it, and you didn’t acclimate it to your cat.

Your Lhasa Apso isn’t “yappy”, it’s bred to bark at any tiny noise and alert watchmen to intruders

if I challenge the boundaries on purpose it's because I want them to go away... but more often than not I am challenging them incidentally, just by being myself. and in real life, which isn't a game or a stage performance, this has incredibly horrible consequences for myself and my sisters

They're thinking of things like Quentin Travers firing Giles in Helpless because he has "a father's love" for his Slayer charge. Of the moment in Dead Man's Party, just after Buffy comes back from LA, where Giles goes to the kitchen to make tea and we see how relieved he is that Buffy has returned safely. Of various supportive speeches he makes: at the end of early episodes like Never Kill A Boy On The First Date and When She Was Bad and Lie To Me. And of course in Innocence where he tells Buffy he won't accept that everything that happened to Angel is her fault ("if it's guilt you're looking for, Buffy, I'm not your man. All you will get from me is my support and my respect.").

In this interpretation, a lot of Giles's behavior in the later seasons is just pointlessly out of character. Giles is a father to Buffy, so the theory goes, so he wouldn't just abandon her when she needs him and fly off to a comfortable life in Europe with her. He wouldn't come back a year later just to throw even more unasked for responsibilities on her shoulders in the form of the Potentials. He wouldn't presume to make decisions on Buffy's behalf, without consulting her or telling her the truth. He wouldn't publicly question her leadership in front of the other Scoobies.

But, look. I don't think that's right.

For all its (many) faults, Buffy as a show does not have that sort of rosy-eyed view of fatherhood. Who are the other major father figures on the show, after all? Hank Summers? Mayor Wilkins? Xander Harris's father?? Quentin Travers may think Giles has "a father's love" for Buffy, but both Joyce and Maggie Walsh separately suggest Buffy "lacks a strong father figure". Indeed in A New Man (where that Maggie Walsh quote is from), Maggie also suggests that this lack has caused Buffy to take on an adult role "too early", which both echoes something Jenny warned Giles about ("Adulthood? Buffy's seventeen tomorrow, Giles. Don't rush her [...] You should be careful of treating her like a grown-up") in a deleted scene from Surprise and also ties back to Joyce's initial reaction to finding out that Buffy is the Slayer ("it's because you didn't have a strong father figure, isn't it?" can be read on commentary about Giles, even if Joyce doesn't know it yet).

This isn't to say that Joyce or Jenny or Maggie Walsh actively dispute the idea that Giles is a father figure to Buffy. It's just that they tell him, often to his face, that he's not doing a very good job of being one. And I think this is a critique that, more often than not, the show largely endorses.

Giles is a surrogate father figure to Buffy, but this is not an unalloyed positive. It does not mean he never acts badly towards her; it is not correct to say that the way in which Giles is unkind or unfair to Buffy happen despite him being a surrogate father figure. In fact they tend to happen because of it.

Almost immediately after meeting her, Giles attempts to position himself as an authority figure in her life, not just in the Slaying but in her personal life (trying to "forbid" her from trying out for the cheerleading squad as early as the third ever episode of the show; telling her she shouldn't go on dates, visiting her house unexpectedly and demanding she accompany him). He questions her judgement and her instincts time and time again (complaining that she doesn't identify vampires the 'correct' way in Welcome to the Hellmouth, not believing Xander is possessed in The Pack; not believing Sid is anything other than an inanimate dummy in The Puppet Show, ...).

He hypocritically warns her against using her powers to "impress cute boys", despite canonically having told every romantic interest he ever has (Jenny, Ethan, Olivia) about his role as a Watcher (and, indeed, that Buffy herself is the Slayer, information he forbids Buffy herself from sharing). He keeps secrets from her (the prophecy about her death in Prophecy Girl, his past demon-summoning activities that are revealed in The Dark Age) and makes decisions on her behalf (unilaterally deciding that the Slayer Handbook would be "of no use in [her] case"; murdering Ben in The Gift after Buffy chose to spare him). He doesn't think she should have a private life, but he does -- repeatedly -- insist on his own right to one (sending Buffy home when she comes looking for him in The Dark Age, telling her "this isn't your fight" when he goes to try to kill Angel in Passion).

These are not things Giles does because he's departing from his role as Buffy's father figure. Rather they are things he does which fit perfectly well within the role of "father figure" as the show understands it.

Tellingly, I think, one of the closest times Buffy and Giles come to admitting the parental role Giles plays in her life to each other is in Season 6's Life Serial. While thanking him for the money he's just given her, Buffy says haltingly that "I don't really know how to say this, but it's a little like having mom back". Giles is a bit taken aback by this ("In this scenario, I am your mother?") and Buffy asks him whether he "want[s] to be my shiftless absentee father".

And note that, despite Giles's counter-offer ("is there some sort of rakish uncle?"), this is exactly the role Giles almost immediately falls (back) into. Just a couple of episodes later he convinces himself Buffy would be better off without him -- which he came close to doing two years earlier, back in Season 4's The Freshman -- ignores her when she insists that isn't true, and flies off out of her life.

When I say that Giles is a kind of surrogate father figure to Buffy, what I mean is that -- at least in part -- a lot of the ways Giles is (unintentionally) cruel towards Buffy throughout the series come from the fact he sees her as something of a teenage child. As somebody who needs to grow up, fast, and who needs his help to do that whether she likes it or not. As an adult, yes, but not as an equal.

A food-item (Waffles, Peanut)

A color (Pinky, Hazel)

A real-life person (Marilyn, Paris)

A fictional character (Eevee, Simba)

A type of flora (Rosie, Willow)

Animal-like (Kitty, Gator)

A trait (Lucky, Buddy)

Something else

If you have more than one pet, choose the most applicable listed (ex: you have three pets named Cookie, Cream & Rocky, so you choose the “Food” option). Also, would be interested if you reblogged your pet’s name(s) in the tags and the reason why you chose it ^^

Last week I was at a meetup where I was the only transfem. I checked the groupchat when I arrived and there was a message from the organiser: "We have a newcomer called X, can you look out for him if you get there first?" I located X, introduced myself, sent a message to the chat say, "I have located X," and continued to talk to him until the organiser arrived. When the organiser arrived, she was not happy with me. It turned out my phone had autocorrected, "I have located X," to, "I had located X," which the organiser interpreted as me passive aggressively telling her that I had already done the thing she was asking about. Her conclusion: I was unreasonable and aggressive in responding to her reasonable request. My explaining what had happened didn't convince her otherwise.

A different occasion last week: in a local trans groupchat, a trans man sent a link to a drag event happening in our town. A few people said they were already going, some said they might go. Then a trans woman replied saying, "Thanks, but I don't really like drag." Her tone was immediately called into question. Her words were assumed to communicate: "I think you are a terrible person if you like drag," even though she never said that. Several non-transfems who had never even heard that drag might not be universally-beloved by everyone were upset to discover that fact. A trans woman simply saying she didn't like this thing became A Big Deal.

Meanwhile, at a different event again, a trans man told a group that he was straight and attracted to women, but he wouldn't feel comfortable bringing home an "AMAB woman" (yes he actually said that). It was quickly brushed over, and after he had left even trans women tried to defend him by saying "he probably didnt realise people would be offended" etc etc. In contrast to the examples above, he is not even aware that anyone was upset by what he said, never mind worrying about what consequences he might face.