Laura

I'm a huge proponent of public transit, rail in specific, and I'm very glad that the greater Seattle area is finally starting to see some solid light rail infrastructure sprouting up in the form of the 1 and 2 lines, but that in no way stops me from critiquing the decisions made in planning and implementation.

Light Rail, in it's colloquial form here in the US, is basically always a compromise solution. It's cheaper than subways, can make good use of existing right-of-way around freeways, and can function as a kind of low-capacity commuter rail in the suburbs while behaving more like a tram or streetcar in downtown areas. It is crucially, however, not a streetcar, nor is it a commuter rail. Streetcars make frequent stops and are optimized for dense areas with lots of traffic. Commuter rails are larger and stop less frequently, optimized for bringing suburban residents into city centers. Commuter rail should, however, be independent of street traffic so it can travel at higher speeds. For this reason, most of the Link light rail system in seattle is actually not at-grade (street level), but on either elevated or sub-grade track. Downtown, the lightrail actually functions as a low-capacity low-frequency subway system in what used to be the bus tunnel (we don't have time, but yes it was stupid). Everywhere else, it's up on elevated tracks that largely follow the freeway system.

There are three stations, all immediately south of that Mount Baker elevated station, where the Link actually runs at-grade. These stations run through the historic low income immigrant neighborhoods of southeast seattle. Here, the trains are forced to stop at red lights, interact with crossing and left-turning traffic, and even cross through sidewalks and terrifyingly narrow pedestrian islands. They could have built elevated track here, as they did everywhere else, but they didn't. they didn't want to spend the money. I have personally watched light rail cars carrying hundreds of people have to wait two full minutes for cars turning left in front of them, delaying trains so like, 5 people could drive there. Once it reaches the end of this low income immigrant-dominant neighborhood, however, the Link returns to it's above-grade status, with Mount Baker being the first elevated stop. You want to know how this woman, who claims she was misdirected by her GPS, probably ended up here? I would bet anything she tried to make a turn at the intersection just before the stop and got confused. The intersection, for reference, looks like this:

I'm not saying it's an easy mistake to make, but given the number of people who drive through here every day, it's honestly not that surprising that someone, especially someone who is from out of town, or someone who is used to shared streetcar lanes, would eventually make this mistake. When you're dealing with a city of hundreds of thousands of people, it's only a matter of time before a mistake like this happens. but it is only possible for it to happen because of the decisions made in the planning process, and one of those decisions was effectively "we can save money if we make everything worse in that part of town where all the foreign poors live", and so they built the thing at-grade, instead of keeping it elevated like everywhere else.

So last night after a weekend of intense shenanigans (we played fraction8 nearly 4 times) I was VERY fractionated still, and very easy. I'm sat in a vc with my wife and our friend. We play together a fair bit and safe to say I was in one of my subby moods. The two of them are science-y types and they were talking about some sort of biology thing (for context I failed bio and chem at high school as well as maths, it's not my jam).

My wife looked in the camera and shushed me. Placing her fingers on my lips always forces me to be quiet. As she holds her finger to the camera I lost the ability to speak. So here I am flustered and fractionated. Squirming in subby frustration at this. She's like "hey since we're going to talk about smart science things you can just smile, nod and look pretty okay?" I start to unravel a little at the idea. While it wasn't stated I should be getting dumber, I was very confused, my head started to spin a little. The last time such a thing was said to me was around 2018 when I was dumbed down in this same situation. Smart people talk while I, the total ditz can only listen to the smarty pants people talking to each other doing their smart things with their full brain. Now this alone would have done me in, however earlier in the call I picked up my tally counter, my personal clicker, the one that now thanks to this friend drops me into trance when I click it. Only for a second of course, not long enough sometimes but enough to get my brain fucked up after a while. He said "I know you haven't even thought about putting it down" and I thought about that for a second. He was right. I didn't want to and after explaining the difference between wanting to do something and actually doing that thing to me he said, "you know while we talk you can also just keep clicking yourself into trance, clicking your mind away." And that did me in. I knew the game was set.

this is emmett and cullen they are best friends

Dog: :) fine, thanks

and someone has a spare can of estrogel around, and says 'okay we're doing this now. everyone, get her' and five girls pin her down while that someone gets out the can and puts the first dose of gel on the girl and rubs it in.

and sure, she resists, she's supposed to. she's meant to fight it. just long enough to be sure it's real, it's happening, and that she's not getting out of it this time. there's no more excuses. a dozen hands have made sure of that.

and afterwards, laughing and joking about it. how many of us wish that was *our* first time.

Let me explain

In a dynamic that involves punishment for mistakes the sub knows they're going to be punished, they know that no matter how lenient the rules they will make a mistake eventually, even if it takes months, even if the rules are simple to follow it is just impossible to be perfect. So the sub knows they're going to be punished.

Now imagine being in that situation, say your rule is you have to brush your teeth at least once a day. You probably do that anyway but now if you miss even one you'll be punished. Let's say the punishment isn't even that bad, either something minor that you legitimately dislike or worse* something you kinda do like. Now imagine every time you brush your teeth you're reminded that you're eventually going to be punished, every time you walk into the bathroom you see your toothbrush and have that tiny reminder. I'm not remotely joking when I say this is torture, it's like having a stone in your shoe, it's like having a skin pull on your finger, and what's more it builds up over time. Imagine it takes a full year for you to miss brushing once, imagine the guilt that would hit you when you realise you've failed.

But here's the really insidious part; for the length of that punishment you're free, the worst has already happened, is happening, you don't have to feel anxious or guilty, you know that this is it, so even tho the punishment hurts it's still better than not being punished

And then the punishment is over and you're back to being slowly tortured

Back to waiting

Back to anxiety and imagined pain

All of this causes you to see punishment as a positive thing, you crave that release so you seek out stricter rules, more severe punishments, you want that in relationships moving forward because that moment of freedom feels so good compared to the constant torture.

This is the best possible situation, imagine if the rules were strict and the punishment severe.

But then if you look at it from the dominants perspective? They see their submissive following rules and think this is working, when their sub makes a mistake they get to use violence to solve a problem without having to recon with the fact that they enjoy causing pain, they get the catharsis of reacting physically to something annoying, etc etc

It's a self perpetuating cycle that's easy to fall into and takes conscious thought and effort to stay away from

Even worse than that is that's basically what being a child is like so you're probably already a little bit locked into that cycle

So yeah I'd say punishments in dynamics are bad