I need mentally ill trans girls out there to know they're loved, I need physically disabled trans girls out there to know they're loved. I know every day can feel like you're a burden and terrible, but you're loved and wanted, you are not a burden and even if you were we want to carry that burden.
"car crimes peaked in the late 80s and early 90s. nobody knows what caused the decline in crime since then. some have attributed the drop in crime to unleaded gasoline. others, to hard-on-crime laws implemented by Reagan and Thatcher. still others remark on the strange coincidence between the steady drop in all crime since the late 80s, and the release of Technotronic's dance anthem, Pump Up The Jam."
I have a wild idea. what if we supported our claims of fact by linking to a reliable source. better yet, what if we went hogwild and just straight up linked to the actual unpaywalled study
OpenGateLabs is shutting down unfortunately. They're clearing out stock, so if you need estradiol vials for cheap (upto 50 dollars off for some), now is probably the time before they close up
I have three monitors on my desk. The left one shows the order book. The middle one shows Truth Social. The right one shows the investigation queue.
On April 21st, the left screen moved first.
I am a Senior Surveillance Analyst at a commodities exchange. I have held this position for nineteen years. My job is to monitor trading activity for suspicious patterns and generate compliance reports. I am employee of the quarter. I have a mug.
At 19:54 GMT on April 21st, someone placed 4,260 sell orders on Brent crude futures. They did this during post-settlement. The window after the market closes when daily volume is typically in the dozens. Sometimes single digits. Sometimes I watch the screen and nothing happens for forty minutes and I think about whether my daughter is happy.
On April 21st, someone placed $430 million in directional bets in 120 seconds during that window. One hundred and twenty seconds. I timed it on my watch because the system clock rounds to the nearest minute and I have found, in nineteen years, that precision matters to no one but me.
At 20:10 GMT, the President posted on Truth Social that he was extending the Iran ceasefire.
Brent dropped from $100.91 to $96.83.
I flagged the trade. I flag a lot of trades. I want to tell you what happens to my flags.
My flags go into a system called TRACE. Trade Review and Compliance Evaluation. I did not name it. The system generates a report. The report goes to a committee. The committee has a name I am not allowed to share but I can tell you it meets quarterly and the conference room has a credenza with bottled water that is sparkling because someone once put still water in the room and a managing director sent an email about it that was longer than most of my surveillance reports.
The committee reviews my flags. The committee has reviewed all of my flags. Here is the complete record of actions taken on my flags in 2026:
Reviewed.
That's it. "Reviewed" is a status. In compliance, a status is the absence of an action that has been given a name so it looks like one.
Let me show you my flags.
March 9th. Someone bet millions on oil falling at 18:29 GMT. Forty-seven minutes later, a CBS reporter posted that the President said the Iran war was "very complete, pretty much." Oil dropped 25%. Forty-seven minutes. I flagged it.
March 23rd. Someone sold 5,100 lots of Brent and WTI crude futures between 10:49 and 10:50 GMT. Fourteen minutes later, the President posted on Truth Social about a "COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION" to hostilities. Oil dropped 11%. Over 13,000 contracts traded in sixty seconds after the post. Fourteen minutes. I flagged it.
April 7th. Someone established a $950 million short position in oil futures at 19:45 GMT. Three hours later, the President declared a two-week ceasefire. Nine hundred and fifty million dollars. I flagged it.
April 17th. Someone placed $760 million in bearish bets twenty minutes before Iran's foreign minister confirmed the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Seven hundred and sixty million. I flagged it.
April 21st. The $430 million. Fifteen minutes. I flagged it.
That is $2.1 billion in directional oil bets in April alone. Every one of them landed on the correct side of a presidential announcement. Every one of them was placed in a window so narrow you could measure it in bathroom breaks. I flagged every single one.
The CFTC chair told a Congressional committee that his organization has "zero tolerance" for fraud and insider trading. I wrote that quote on a Post-it note and stuck it to my right monitor. The one that shows the investigation queue. The investigation queue has not moved since March.
Zero tolerance. Zero staff. Zero budget. Zero prosecutions under the STOCK Act since it was signed in 2012.
Fourteen years. The law has existed for fourteen years and has been enforced zero times. In compliance, we call that a compliance rate of one hundred percent. No cases filed means no cases lost. You cannot fail an audit you never conduct. We call that excellence.
Last month the White House sent an internal email to staff. I was not on the distribution list but I have read reporting on it and I need you to sit with what I am about to say. The email instructed White House staff not to use insider information to place bets on prediction markets.
The White House had to send a memo telling its own employees not to insider-trade.
I want you to read that sentence again. Not because the instruction was unclear. Because the instruction was necessary. Because someone in the building looked at the same pattern I have been flagging for months on my three monitors and decided the appropriate response was an email.
The President's son sits on the advisory board of Kalshi. He is an investor in Polymarket. Both are prediction markets. Both saw accounts created days before U.S. military action.
One account. I cannot stop thinking about this account. It was called "Burdensome-Mix." It was created in December. On January 2nd, it placed $32,500 on Venezuela's president being removed from power. On January 3rd, Maduro was seized by U.S. special forces. Burdensome-Mix collected $436,000. Then it changed its username. Then it disappeared.
One account is a coincidence. But there were six.
Six accounts were created on Polymarket in February. All bet on U.S. strikes on Iran by the 28th. When the President confirmed the strikes, the six accounts collected $1.2 million between them. Five of the six never placed another bet. The sixth went on to correctly predict the ceasefire date and made another $163,000.
My surveillance system logged all of this. My system logs everything. My system does not have opinions and neither do I. I generate reports. The reports go to committees. The committees meet quarterly. Between meetings, the windows get shorter and the bets get larger.
March 9th: 47 minutes. March 23rd: 14 minutes. April 17th: 20 minutes. April 21st: 15 minutes.
The window is compressing. In March, you had time to make coffee between the trade and the announcement. By April, you had time to send a text. By summer, at this rate, the trade and the announcement will be the same event.
The spokesman said any implication that administration officials are engaged in insider trading is "baseless and irresponsible reporting."
Then the White House sent the email again.
I have been in compliance for nineteen years. I have seen insider trading run out of strip mall offices by men who could not spell "derivative." I have seen pump-and-dump schemes coordinated over WhatsApp by people who used their real names. I have seen a man try to manipulate soybean futures from a Panera Bread.
I have never seen $2.1 billion in perfectly timed trades across five presidential announcements in a single month go uninvestigated.
But I have also never seen a compliance system work this beautifully. Every trade flagged. Every report filed. Every committee briefed. Every quarterly meeting attended. Bottled water: sparkling. Minutes: distributed.
Zero prosecutions.
As long as the flags go up and the cases don't, my performance review says I am meeting expectations.
I am meeting expectations. The system is meeting expectations. The $2.1 billion is meeting expectations. The fourteen-year-old law with zero prosecutions is meeting expectations.
The left screen moves. The middle screen moves. The right screen stays perfectly, immaculately still.
Hello World, we’d like to introduce ourselves. We the workers of the Magic: The Gathering Arena team have come together to unionize as United Wizards of the Coast - CWA!
We are game makers, storytellers, artists, and creative technicians, and we are passionate about the work we do.
However, to continue creating games that you, the players, enjoy, the reality is that we must change how we are treated as employees by Hasbro & Wizards of the Coast.
Unionizing, in partnership with Communication Workers of American CWA, is how we ensure better protections, compensation, and a seat at the table for the future of the game we have made successful.
Hit the link for our full statement, other socials, ways to contact UWOTC reps, and more.
Together we will build the games industry we want to see. Support by sharing our posts, celebrating our work, & calling on Hasbro & WOTC to voluntarily recognize our union!
Briony's body swayed gently back and forth in the warm breeze. E took a slow, steady breath in, feeling the webbing of the harness clutch eir body and press into em as e inhaled. Eir legs tensed and relaxed as e tested the strength of the silk frogtie sleeves that e already knew were too strong to break. Eir hands wiggled behind em for purchase on something, anything to free emself, but it was no use when they were wrapped in tight mitts and hooked close to each other.
E couldn't see anything, not with the adhesive blindfold covering eir eyes, but e knew the view of the lake was lovely in the afternoon, and the woods around it were just the kind of place a person - no, a xenosophont, a pet - would not be easily seen. Even with the bright spots on eir half-insectile moth-firefly body lit up fiercely with eir flustered excitement, nobody would find em unless they knew where e was.
E could have called for help, of course, but what was the use of that? This was the Affini Compact. If help was coming, it would have already been here. If Briony was strung up in a loosely-bound, helpless package, right out in a public space, helpless and squirming and unable to escape, well… maybe there was a good reason for that.
Maybe e was tied up and dangling from a tree because e liked that. Maybe calling for help wouldn't work, because in their cores, the Affini Compact knew that it was good for their pets to be helpless.
Maybe calling for help wouldn't work mostly because of the thick flowery gag with puffy pink petals that had expanded to lodge itself firmly into eir mouth, preventing more than a few muffled moans from escaping eir throat.
And maybe calling for help wouldn't work, because eir Owner was away. E felt the gentle, pulsing reassurance of eir Owner's love resting cozily in eir spine, but for today, Owner was occupied with clerk's meetings. It had offered to bring em with, but that would have involved far, far too much affini attention. So e had the day all to emself. It felt weird, not fearing its intrusion into eir every moment. But it did give em a chance to try something e hadn't ever had a chance to try by emself.
Maybe nobody was coming to help, because e had done this to emself.
E twisted eir body back and forth, just a little too much, feeling that slow slippery heat filling eir body with embarrassed pleasure. This was by eir own design. E wanted this. E let emself roll eir hips and chest in slow, torrid squirms, and hummed uselessly into eir gag, flexing eir hands in the mitts, pushing against soft silken restraints.
And for a while, e allowed emself to be stuck, captive to eir own desires, and squirming for an escape e knew e could never achieve.
At least, not until the timer on the harness let em go after a reasonable amount of time. Briony wasn't so cooked on the Compact that e would put emself into a predicament like this without knowing it would end somehow, after all. E wasn't-
Footsteps. E heard the faint, rhythmic rustle of feet on grass. Not an affini, e would have felt one's electrochemical core rhythms coming before e ever heard them.
"Mmmph?" e called out, as loud as the gag permitted. Whoever it was did not answer. E heard their footsteps stop, just to one side of em. "Mmmph. Mmm mm-km." E tried to wave with eir mitts to shoo the person away, but e couldn't quite manage it.
A hand touched Briony's protruding bug-butt, and e emitted a high-pitched squawk of alarm. "Mm-mm! Mm-mmm!" e exclaimed, shaking eir head back and forth vigorously.
"Shhhh," the voice whispered, and gently pet the top of eir rear end. Not sexual, not suggestive, just a comforting petting. E had lived in the Affini Compact enough to learn many different kinds of pets. Some were much more lascivious than others. This was just nice.
"Mmmmm?" e still mumbled, still partway horrified to know e had been found.
"You're safe, little bug. Safe, loved, and home, right?" the strangely familiar whisper replied. Briony felt fingers run through the short, soft fur along the back of eir thighs and eir sides where the harness wasn't gripping. E whimpered at the touch, and tension crept through eir body in waves from up in eir shoulders to down through eir toes.
"That's right. Just relax."
Briony's breath quickened and shallowed at the voice. But as the hands gently ran down eir back and sides, e couldn't help but loosen and relax into the gentle touch. There was no point in escape, and there was no point in alarm. If it was happening in the Affini Compact, it was good for em. There were no bad surprises, after all.
The hands reached eir head, and carded long, rounded nails through eir hair and into eir scalp. A shaky whine leaked out of eir throat, and e couldn't help but push eir head further into the touch.
E could smell the floret now. She smelled earthy, and musky, and heavy with coffee and pollen, and all too familiar. Wait.
"Mph Kph?!" e mumbled through the gag. "Mph Kph iffat ymm?"
"Hey buuuug." the voice giggled, and careful fingers peeled the blindfold off of Briony's eyes with a damp, tacky thwippp. "Enjoying yourself, are you?" Miss Keet Prosopis, Eighth Floret, beamed her wide smile at em. She was hunched over to put her face level with eir own, dark-haired, bronze-skinned, and full of joyful menace.
"Mmmph." Briony grimaced at eir best friend, pinnate, and fondest tormentor. "Mmphmmphmmph." E pushed at the gag in eir mouth, trying to call attention to it. Miss Keet, still beaming, teased the gag until its soft internal petals retracted and allowed her to pluck it, dripping, from Briony's mouth. "Augh. Thank you. But you're not supposed to be here, I wanted to… This is personal stuff you shouldn't be… here…"
"Why not?" she asked, sitting down on a bench-like flat root and lifting her loose floral companion dress from her legs. She wiped Briony's drool off of the flora-gag on her thigh, and Briony did not know how to feel about that.
"I like to do things on my own sometimes, you know," e said, trying to ignore how hot and squirmy eir body was feeling.
"Like tie yourself up and wriggle like a little bug in need of rescue?"
Briony's face flushed as e looked away.
"Yeah, even without your fucked-up spider owner, you like that."
"…it's… I… look, it's just…"
"You don't have to justify what you like or what you're into, Bri." She leaned forward and bumped her forehead into Briony's, smiling. "You know, though?"
"Know what?"
"It feels good to just give yourself up to it, doesn't it?" she said, touching eir cheek. "Even if you weren't a floret, I bet you'd still like this."
Briony couldn't quite muster the courage to look Miss Keet in the eyes to respond to that, but hesitantly, e nodded, and muttered, "I know. It's… yeah. It feels really good."
Miss Keet leaned back and pulled Briony's body forward with a loose strap of harness. She planted her lips on eir own, and kissed em, long and soft. She tasted like coffee and cherries, and e closed eir eyes without really intending to.
And then, before e could recover, she plopped the gag right back into eir mouth, where it blossomed into place in eir mouth. It now tasted of Miss Keet's sweat and body, and e knew exactly how e wished e didn't feel about that.
"Mmmphgh…"
"You like being a helpless little bug."
Cheeks burning and bugbutt glowing bright, Briony reluctantly nodded.
"Mmmmmm. And you like being stuck like that."
Briony closed eir eyes in embarrassment, and nodded.
The blindfold went back over eir eyes, and adhered snugly. The world darkened.
"And you know… I know you like being alone. But I also know you like being around friends."
Nod. Nod.
"So how would you feel about being rescued from being trapped and helpless?"
A giggle, followed by some strange vibrations through the suspension harness, and a familiar musical tone from far above. And then, a light swat on the butt that made Briony mewl in shock.
"'Cuz I just turned off your timer."
"Whmph?!" e groaned. "Whm whg… nnnn!"
"I'll be back later, little bug!"
E heard Miss Keet's footsteps in the grass, and her voice recede. E tried eir best to cry out after her, but it just made it harder to hear her leaving.
"Maybe an affini will rescue you from this predicament you put yourself in. Or maybe I'll be back in an hour or so, and I can rescue you. Probably that."
Briony sighed, partly in relief, and just a little in disappointment.
"Or maybe I'll be back when I feel like it, and you're ready to beg for rescue! Maybe I'll let you go free. Or maybe I'll take you home with me. We'll see!"
And e heard her laughter fall further and further away as she left Briony dangling from the tree bough, squirming uselessly for escape e knew e would never achieve.
To understand Donald Trump's actions since he took office, you have to realize there is only one overriding theme: He considers the U.S. government to be a company that he bought and now owns (along with Elon Musk, who he then cut out of the deal). This explains almost every one of the big events: bringing in an "efficiency expert" (Musk/DOGE) to cut spending, claiming he can fire anyone he wants and replace them with loyal toadies, swinging a wrecking ball at whatever government building he wants, siccing his legal department (the Department of Justice) on his personal enemies, trying to make new trade deals by stiffing vendors and leveling tariffs on customers, putting his name on whatever he wants, making deals to have the government take financial stakes in various companies, etc.
He considers all the money in the Treasury HIS money, so whenever he can stop spending on things he doesn't like and extort money to fill it up, he gets the same pleasure as he would pretending he can still score with some supermodel. You don't have to go farther than that to figure the man out.
origamiaround
germansingergirl
janainaart
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
