#“right. that's your prerogative”

[jadedbutler]

back when i'd first read dark rise, i'd written this little moody rescue au oneshot for Will & James (KempClair? What're we calling them lol),

I'd started drafting a James POV + continuation of it, which was left marinating in my gdocs until i read dark heir last weekend and had my brain chemicals once again reactivated.

below is a sample of that WIP which i am feeding you directly from my stupid little hands ;;

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

All draped in black and gold, crystal and white, wearing lavish masks over their eyes, unable to obscure their covetous little stares. Appraising James like he’s one of the cracked marble busts or stolen baroque oil paintings laid out on the lobby floor to be admired, but all too rich for their blood.

Another era, another gilded cage.

James St. Clair, on display again, an objet of virtu presented by yet another man drunk off conditional loyalty and borrowed prestige. Surrounded by vermin that think themselves his followers.

Well. Not untrue.

James tips his crystal drinking glass to his lips, itching to stain the crimson carpeted floors of the Hotel with a much darker red. It would be sooo easy; with a twitch of his fingers, he could turn this stupid masquerade into a massacre. But what he lacks in temperance and humility, he makes up for with patience. So he lets the wine soothe his nerves and sharpen his tongue instead. Biding his time.

Waiting. Always waiting. 

"Are you enjoying yourself, my jewel?" James' current "patron" whispers, close enough to disturb the pendant dangling from his earlobe. A diamond-encrusted silver cross, clamped painfully onto James' ear, since his invulnerability makes piercings impossible to hold. It's not a relic, but like most jewelry designed in his honour, the earring is... troublesome.

"Oh, positively euphoric," James drawls in reply, inspecting the cuticles of his free hand to showcase exactly how much fun he's not having. But his sarcasm is lost on his patron, the dleusional swine, who returns a satisfied hum as he swirls his own champagne glass thoughtfully.

"As you should be. After all, tonight will be the marking of a new era - a new king. And what is a king without his crown jewel?"

Hah. Derision peals out of James' throat before he can swallow it back. How violently laughable. It's like this every fucking time.

But his laughter falters a moment later, as a subtle murmur ripples through the throng of cultists surrounding him. No, not a murmur, no one has stopped talking, not for a second.

Not a flicker, either, the chandelier lights overhead glittering bright, winking starlight into his eyes.

A shiver, then. A sudden drop in temperature that only he seems to feel. And it was so sickeningly hot just a moment ago.

And then --

Found you.

Robbed of his breath and his heartbeat and every thought he's ever had, James lifts his eyes and finds himself pinned, under that dark endless gaze he's felt a thousand times in his dreams.

There, in the crowd, separated by a dozen or so false followers, a pale face looks regards him, shrouded in black lace.

James' lips part by a fraction of a centimeter, and he feels himself about to say. You found me.

The spell remains unbroken, even as James' patron pulls an arm around his waist, announcing his latest conquest to the thrall before him. "A toast--" he says, or maybe he doesn't. James isn't listening. He can't hear a thing.

He swallows back the rest of his wine, untangles himself from the unwanted grip.

"Where do you --"

"Breath of fresh air," he mutters, tearing himself away.

Away, away and up the empire steps to the mezzanine, up the next few floors of the Hotel until he reaches an empty hall, void of false followers and prying eyes. He's vaguely aware that he's shivering hard. Not because his thin white shirt leaves his back exposed. Not because of the wine in his blood.

Absently, he grabs a forgotten coat draped over the bannister, and pulls his arms through. But the shaking does not stop.

In the Hotel, his steps are muted against the carpeted floors. But as pushes through the glass doors leading to the balcony. the ground beneath his boot heels is more solid. Still, he feels as though if he takes another step, he'll fall right through.

Will is waiting for him by the marble-wrought railing, still and beautiful as a sculptor's depiction of Lucifer. God's beloved, fallen.

"You came for me," he breathes, bathed once more in Will's beckoning gaze. With impossible yearning, James reaches out, not with his hands but with his magic, to assure himself this isn't a spectre, a cruel trick, the kind that fate has played on him over and over and over -

"You can come closer,"

A gloved hand reaches toward him. Not begging to touch. Not commanding.

It's too much. James had spent this entire lifetime cultivating a wall of ice and iron around himself, only for it to melt from a single gesture from Will. He practically pours himself into Will's arms, pressing his cheek against his hand.

"I wasn't sure," he sighs, dragging his fingers, his real ones, along Will's armdf;lskdf;lka;lkfsdlkjdf idk to be conitniutend ?????? bY e

[vaguely-concerned]

you know it is hard to not feel for caterina a little in my worldstate. she loses sight of lucanis for a couple of months while her other grandson has her in jail for grandmother time-out, and by the time she sees him again he is in full undying devotion mode for the guy she sent to get him back. her grandson finally brought someone home, and it's a fairly low-level elven mortalitasi whose family background is 'idk we found this baby in a crypt and liked their vibes' who will not be giving her any biological grandchildren. not even one of the politically well-connected scheming mortalitasi, which could at least have been useful (nevarra is a bustling market for the crows! twenty contracts on the king alone and still going strong! still a payday baby let the good times roll!), but one of the dutybound earnest little freaks they keep down in the necropolis to wrangle skeletons and write esoteric papers and who frankly don't care that much about murder b/c death comes to us all in its own time anyway trust us on this one. lucanis looks at him like he hung the moon, the sun, every celestial object and glittering star in the sky, like he's the only real thing in the world. and in caterina vision she sees this weird little slip of a goth mage guy wearing too much kohl who cracks jokes at strange times and is so hard to read but also gives her the unmistakable flinty 'I'll try to keep this civil if you do the same. If.' eye contact over lucanis' shoulder sometimes, with the utter grave calm that only someone who's a speaker to the dead (and the dead are savage) and who has killed several gods and wouldn't back down from second deicide if necessary could bring to bear. she sucks and deserves this and more but she also does have a whole Situation on her hands here

(I love that rye's relationship to lucanis' family is basically 'I met some of the most insufferable people. but, they also met me'. he tangoed with the god of lies and betrayal so he could waltz his way through a dellamorte family dinner relatively unscathed)

[elderwisp]

sometimes i see the hottest takes and by hottest i mean a bit elitist takes on tumblr and it honestly puts me in such a bad headspace but then i remember everyone wants to be seen everyone wants to be heard but ! i should also just curate my space better and be apart of that change i wanna see

[stillgotscars]

.

[tea-and-secrets]

five months out from phalloplasty and I feel like I can’t talk abt it w anyone bc I don’t know anyone who’s had it or wants it and all the phallo spaces I’ve looked into are flooded with privileged crypto truscum who get really hostile whenever you mention being even a little bit GNC ✌️ “um i heard it’s basically just a numb tube of flesh why would you want that” on one side and “you’re taking a surgery away from a trans man who really needs it” on the other. what if the planet blew up.

.

[haughttopics]

finally watched happiest season and i totally understand why people hated the ending.

except for Jane. she deserves the world.

[evermoredeluxe]

anon who sent me a long ask about travis, please block me. i usually ignore stuff like that, but i have a strong feeling we’re mutuals (and even if we’re not, block me anyway). and i am not offended that you don’t mesh with me anymore. you can have whatever opinion you have of me, and since it’s not positive, i encourage you to cleanse your online space from my negativity

[smile-files]

this might be a hot take... but if you care about disavowing media made by bad people out of fear of looking like a bad person yourself more than you care about actually doing good things... you might have your priorities (and your morals) screwed up a bit :/

(see my tags for more of my thoughts on this topic! please try to avoid making make bad-faith assumptions about what i mean!)

[cak31ssuperi04]

(Breaking my silence) I kind of. Love Saaya actually

[femmefitz]

I'm sure this is relevant if you are a mostly dragon age blog and this is your stance but also this is the funniest thing I've ever seen on a dni. Help.

[an-absolute-trainwreck]

honestly some of you motherfuckers have never lived in a small town in your life and it shows

[vaguely-concerned]

my capacity to see a bad fandom take and just blithely say 'okay! I disagree' internally and move on because it's not my responsibility or concern that someone else thinks that has leveled up so tremendously over the years. I haven't quite escaped the pit of misery yet but I think I'm getting there

[theclaravoyant]

and yeah humanity is basically good and hen is basically a forgiving person but you Cannot tell me it wouldn’t be satisfying if they do decide for Gerrard to have a come to Jesus moment after the 118 save his sorry life , for her to look him in the eyes and be like “apology not accepted . now get the fuck out of my office.”

[coolspacequips]

I hate the way content leaks are just so prevalent now, I would hate to make something and everyone has spread it around and discussed it to death in piecemeal third party chunks 2 days before the thing comes out, like fuck!

To the degree that you almost can't even block it, particularly because it immediately becomes fanon, so large amounts of people are not tagging for leaks/spoilers, incorporating it as common knowledge within a day, months/weeks/days before it even comes out. It's already hard enough having to binge through everything as fast as possible because everyone is in a race to say x about it, first, but now you've got to binge it all before it even comes out, it just feels like audiences are too hungry these days while respecting the people that make it less than ever lol

And like yeah you can just avoid socmed to avoid spoilers which I've been doing, but that sucks and also it just kinda sucks in general

[eldritchamy]

This isn't an argument I want to have, and I really shouldn't bother responding at all, but here are my original tags:

#setting the precedent that that supreme court decision is VALID would be a bad move tbh #it will be abused in the first HOUR of a republican presidency yes #but I get the decision not to let history accept it as normal #a republican isn't president yet and we HAVE to make sure we don't have a right wing government in 2025 #that decision can still be undone before a president abuses it

See the second tag. Yes, it will be abused almost immediately on day 1 regardless of what Biden does.

Does that mean Biden should abuse it now?

As of right now, the intentional ambiguity and open endedness means it's not really set in stone what that Supreme Court ruling makes possible. If Biden were to push the boundaries on it and set something that dangerous in stone (i.e. that a President can set policy without Congress, a direct violation of the Constitution's separation of powers, which would throw the country into a "Constitutional Crisis" before the election even happens), that only makes it easier for a future president to GET AWAY WITH however they try to abuse it later.

You can make the argument that the risk of doing nothing outweighs the risk of losing the election and having it be abused later. That's an opinion you're entitled to have. A similar argument was made at the end of Obama's second term: that he should invoke emergency powers to stall the election/results in response to the counterintelligence investigation of Trump's campaign team and the risk of foreign influence of both electoral results and the president-elect's decisionmaking.

But that's not really the game the Democrats play by, and arguing otherwise is unrealistic, reactionary, and short sighted. You can argue that they SHOULD if you want, but there are good reasons why they don't, and it's important to understand what those reasons are.

Whether Trump TRIES to abuse it is not in question. It was tailor made FOR him specifically to abuse by justices he put on the court.

If Biden abused that same ruling NOW to force policy through, he'd be doing so in open violation of the Constitution, from the only branch of government currently controlled by the Democrats, during a volatile and highly contested ELECTION YEAR. The Republicans would almost certainly drop everything to force an impeachment trial before November. And the judicial branch wouldn't be on his side right now either. Extremely negative coverage of it would be wall to wall on every cable news outlet for the rest of the year, right up until the moment the headline is "Biden loses reelection bid".

Forcing a policy through like that would be met with immediate backlash, even from his own party, at a time when he absolutely cannot afford to have that kind of hit to his public image. The Democratic party wouldn't do things that way, and if they did they'd risk alienating a large part of their base AND SWING VOTERS at a really bad time.

It would also get a lot harder for us to get people to notice how absolutely terrifying the 2025 Project is.

So basically? He'd be shooting himself in the foot and he wouldn't even get away with it. He'd only be making it easier for a Republican (with a favorable congress and SCOTUS) to get away with it later. The next Republican president will ABSOLUTELY abuse the ruling no matter what Biden does.

But the first president who tries to abuse that ruling will definitely get challenged on it.

Do you want that challenge to happen NOW?

The reasons for him to do it are bad, and the reasons for him not to do it are bad. The whole situation is fucked because we have a rogue SCOTUS packed with Trump loyalists who lied under oath trying to pave the way for open, unchecked authoritarianism.

The game the Biden administration is playing right now is to set himself apart as COMPLETELY UNLIKE his opponent. In both practice and policy. It's an electoral strategy.

And impotent-for-now policy proposals like this are part of that strategy. This is his appeal to the likely voters about what would come out of the Democratic policy agenda if he has a usable congress in 2025. And those policy proposals for the most part look very good. It would be the most left leaning agenda this country has ever had. This is an appeal through action. It won't pass, but BIDEN PUT IT ON THE TABLE.

The Republicans have to be the ones to reject a policy that would wildly benefit a huge number of people throughout the country. He's laying out a case for the different agendas that the electorate will be choosing between. He's "putting on a show" of what his next term (with a favorable congress) would look like.

There are reasons things are done this way. You don't have to like those reasons. You're entirely correct that the right doesn't give a shit about those reasons and will rip precedent apart within hours of regaining control of the Oval Office.

But Biden and the Democrats are playing a long game: that the ruling was an aberration and will be overturned. Using it is setting a precedent that normalizes the aberration and lets someone else get away with it later. And you don't prevent authoritarianism by embracing it in your own hands.

The toolbox is there. The Democrats want it to stay locked.

Trump DOING IT is not the sticking point. It's how easy it would be for him to GET AWAY WITH IT. The Democrats are hoping it doesn't come to that at all, because a second Biden term with a blue congress and serious SCOTUS reforms (which he's already proposed) would be able to overturn the ruling before ANYONE gets to abuse it.

You don't have to like their game plan, but that very much is their plan. They're banking on a win, and they're not going to make things easier for Convicted Felon And Known Aspiring Dictator Trump in the event that they lose.

Try to look at proposals like this as proof that the parties are absolutely not the same, and not as things Biden should violate the constitution to force through, only to lose them all in January anyway. There IS political strategy happening here, and there is logic BEHIND that strategy.

Mr Biden's proposal - which requires congressional approval - would cut off tax credits for landlords who try to raise rent by more than 5%.

The policy would apply to landlords who own more than 50 units, comprising about 20 million rental units across the country, according to the Biden administration.[...]

The proposal does include an exception for new construction and buildings undergoing substantive renovations. As the US faces low housing stock, this carve out is aimed at encouraging new rental property construction to increase the number of apartments and homes available.[...]

Nationwide, rent prices have risen by 21% since January 2021, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis.[...]

Mr Biden's plan to lower housing costs come as recent polls show he is trailing his rival, former President Donald Trump, in the 2024 presidential race.[...]

As a part of his housing announcement, Mr Biden said he would also direct federal agencies to assess whether public land could be repurposed to build affordable housing options.

16 Jul 24

[viper-commander]

Watched a Korean zombie horror film and believe me I never felt more American than when I watched the main characters continuously trusting their government and police and trying not to scream ‘DONT TRUST THE GOVERNMENT’ WHERE ARE YOUR GUNS. HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF WOMANS RIGHTS.

Also, homeless people get blamed for a lot of things even when it’s obviously not their fault and that they’re usually the first victims,