#I was so down about the future after the election but now I actually genuinely feel hopeful

[artablooo]

Y'all I was praying a handsome, dark haired, swol, bisexual man would come into my life and god really said "🥺 sorry we had other plans".

[himluv]

Okay. I think I've twigged to a reason why this game is so polarizing for the fandom. Please, allow me to ramble about this theory in these dawn-light hours, pre-coffee.

You see, Veilguard is a fantasy. I don't mean its genre is fantasy, we know that. I mean that, for the first time, the story Veilguard tells is itself a fantasy. And a pretty explicitly queer one.

(vague and mild spoilers for Veilguard below)

A world where strict, seemingly narrow-minded mothers can accept and use their child's correct pronouns and be proud of them. And where entire organizations rally around said child to affirm them.

A world where a queer organization stands up to all flavors of tyranny, and while it may suffer great losses, is victorious in the end. Its future is one of supreme hope for lasting change because one of their founding members becomes the ruler of their nation.

A world where a common enemy ACTUALLY unites everyone to fight back and those efforts are welcomed, even from those whose ethics are questionable. Because now really ISN'T the time for in-fighting. There will be time to discuss your morally dubious recruiting methods AFTER the world-ending calamity has been vanquished.

A world where the return of a tyrant is stopped, because the people joined hands with friends, neighbors, and loved ones and refused to let go.

And then they WON.

(depending on your choices, in the end love LITERALLY wins (the love was there and it mattered after all).)

To me, Veilguard is clearly a response to its development cycle. It hit its stride during the height of the pandemic, when people were sick and dying en masse, and most people felt more isolated and helpless than they had in generations. Facism was (is) on the rise across the world. And a very queer and neurodivergent development team looked at the world they lived in, then at the one they'd created, and made some choices about the story they would tell.

And then it released mere days before the US election. I finished playing it on election night (or rather the wee hours of the next morning). And can I tell you? This queer, neurodivergent, nonbinary person NEEDED this story. This exact story.

But, maybe not everyone needed it. To my reckoning, it's the first DA game to take such a firmly hopeful and positive approach to its storytelling, and that's bound to be divisive in a fandom as... Opinionated as ours (affectionate, mostly 😂 ).

Genuinely, I am sorry if it wasn't what you wanted or expected. I'm sorry if you felt let down by your favorite franchise. That fucking SUCKS.

But know that, for some of us, it was a lifeline in a very dark and tragic week, and I suspect it will remain so in the months and years to come. I hope that, if you ever need a dose of pure hope, you might give Veilguard another try.

[queenie-avenue]

L-O-V-E! That's what she feels for you!

💌 ⤻THE CHEERLEADER, Katie Williams

—> despite how loud she is on the field, she is always quiet when watching you through your window.

⤻ reader is gender neutral, reader is a nerd, obsessive behaviour, stalking, stealing, posessive behaviour, bullying, jealousy, slightly suggestive, this is a drabble but I will make fics for her in the future

🦋 ⤻ archives.

Katie Williams, the most popular girl in school. Stereotypically pretty with brunette hair, rich ebony skin, and of course, the cheerleader captain of you college. Regardless of what major you take, everyone has heard of Katie Williams and her sorority parties and cheerleading skills. Not to mention the piling number of admirers she has.

Yet, the only person she admired was you. The Hopeless Nerd who was a fellow student in one of her elective courses.

The first time she saw you, you were unassuming, the type of person she would have talked about behind your back but when you offered to share notes with her; without anything in return other than a thank you, it made her heart flourish like a blossom. You seemed so genuinely happy when you managed to speak to her and offer you help in the course.

She even heard you muttering about how you were glad to make a friend.

Oh... oh you... you may seem unassuming from your sweaters and oversized pants, but you — beautiful you — you were such a vixen; seducing her like that.

That night, she could not sleep at all.

Instead, she lulled over your notes in her one-person dorm, taking in the scent of the paper as she wondered whether the paper was accurate to how your delicate fingers actually smelled like.

She wanted those fingers so badly on her skin.

She had never desired anyone as much as she desired you. From a young age, her looks, her sensuality, and her popularity were all a means to an end — from that time she batted her eyelashes at a professor to round up her grade or flirted with the quarterback to get him to bring his crate of expensive beer to a party — but you were different. So different to the point she wanted to study you.

So she did.

✧ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ✧

It started out innocent — as innocent as it could be, really — by just tailing you after classes, even appearing out of nowhere so she could chat with you or maybe even drag you to cheer practice. Oh, your hands were so nice to touch, she didn't care if they were soft or callous, she just liked to touch you. She just loved the feel of your skin against her ebony-coloured hands. She was darker than most people so seeing the contrast made her rather pleased. It was a mark that you were holding her hand. As disgusting as it sounded, she didn't wash her hands till the scent of your hands faded away. If you used lotion, cologne or perfume, she made sure to buy that exact scent just to spritz around her dorm room to mimic the delusion that she was cuddling with you.

More than that, she utterly loved watching you from afar. Sure, talking to you was heaven for her, but seeing you alone, unfiltered, and without any societal pressures on you just made her want to latch onto you. She hoped one day you'd be able to show that part of yourself — unrestrained from social norms — to her. For now, she'll have to watch you from afar and from the camera she had snuck in when she came over to talk about a history essay for your class.

✧ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ✧

"[y/n], I remembered you liked this kind of candy, so I bought it for you!" She exclaimed as she clung onto your side.

"Huh?" You responded as you looked down at the candies she placed into your hands. "Did I ever tell you I liked this kind of candy?" You racked your brain, attempting to find the memory where you had shared such an intimate detail with her. After all, the both of you aren't that close, yet, anyway.

She froze on the spot for a moment. She had never been so obsessed with someone before, so she was admittedly a bit sloppy but she quickly recovered. "I see you around campus always snacking on it, I hope you like it!" She explained, twisting her words to make them sound sweet.

All. For. You.

"Thanks." You smile at her, and she swears she might faint. "See you in class?" You offered.

"Ye-yeah, see you in class." Katie had never been much of a fan of history, it was just something she picked out, but now she had something to look forward to.

"Are you coming to the game next week? I'll be cheering as usual, so you need to come! Cheerleaders need their own cheerleaders too, okay?"

[schraubd]

We Don't Know What a Fast Garland World Would've Looked Like

It is almost certain that Donald Trump is going to run out the clock on facing real legal consequences for his myriad 2020 election related crimes before the 2024 election occurs. Consequently, many are blaming Attorney General Merrick Garland for being too slow and cautious in his prosecution of Trump. By taking so much time before bringing his case, Garland enabled Trump's various delaying tactics -- aided, of course, by loyalist judges at both the trial level and Supreme Court -- to stretch the cases out until after election day. Had he moved faster and more aggressively, things would have been different. Maybe. But the thing about alternate futures is that we can't live there; and if we did live there, we wouldn't know here. Suppose that Garland did move fast and aggressive on Trump right at the outset of Biden's term. And suppose that right-wing judges such as the current Supreme Court majority, or Judge Cannon, issued the same rulings that they did in our timeline -- providing broad immunity to Trump designed to shield him from legal accountability. I suspect that, in that timeline, there would be a lot blame cast at Garland for moving too quickly -- he rushed things, he let political expediency get in the way of methodically building a case, and so he gave the courts an excuse to slow things down or even to cast his investigation as a witch-hunt rather than a genuinely legalistic inquiry. Had he been more temperate, things would've gone differently Now, since we live in our timeline, we know that a more temperate and methodical approach would not have led to a success story. But the point is not just that it's always easy to speak with the benefit of hindsight. It is that we actually don't know what alternative paths-not-taken would look like, and if we did know we wouldn't know what was happening in our path. This is a ubiquitous problem, and while it is entirely reasonable given what we know now to say that Garland made the wrong judgment, it is not hard to imagine a very plausible timeline where Garland made the judgment we (in the prime timeline) say is clearly "right" and it is widely viewed (in the alternate timeline) as a terrible and eminently avoidable miscalculation. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/u6qhSiz

[bitchy-peachy]

https://www.tumblr.com/bitchy-peachy/768338161013325824/i-remember-coming-across-a-post-after-the-election

I frankly think there's also a strong element of cultural Evangelicism present in the mindset behind Third Parties, and honestly a lot of other things that have been co-opted by the worst aspects of the left.

They don't really want to DO any of the work necessary to make their dreams a reality, because doing so would risk "tainting them with impurity" of the realities of such a thing. They'd have to make difficult compromises, talk and pull people into their group via understanding and compassion instead of basically acting like a cult, and not be so damn condescending towards those they deem inferior.

They don't want that. They view third parties, socialism, communism, worker's rights, etc. not as tangible things with complex histories and difficulties and consequences, but as their mythical "pure" belief system that will swoop in and stomp their enemies, kill the haters, and plop them at the top of the food chain without them having to lift a finger or actually care about the people they claim to stand for.

They want to sneer down from atop their throne (coughHeavencough) and praise themselves as the morally pure chosen ones who made the "right decisions" and who have no blood on their hands because they expect OTHER "lesser" people to make the tough sacrifices which they can then condemn while they pretend they themselves are blameless.

And if they don't succeed? well then it's ALL the filthy impure people's fault for not getting with the program of sacrificing themselves for the gain of the "right people"! It's NEVER their fault.

And that's why they won't do anything. That's why third parties, socialism, and the like can't ever gain any significant foothold for long, or actively sabotage themselves constantly:

Because frankly, a far too large chunk of the far left has been taken over by selfish egotistical assholes who will literally let us all die if they don't get what they want to the letter, with their name in bold to preen about how THEY'RE the saviors, even if it means destroying their own cause in the process.

I just got reminded of a quote that went along the lines of "You're so afraid of doing something 'bad' that you don't do anything at all."

A lot of these people acting morally superior with their lame useless 3rd party or non-voting stance really remind me of this.

They still fucked up because they can't be taken seriously, least of all now. They're weak, too emotional and they actually put people off.

They've said racist shit to me and my friends, told us to die etc and then push 3rd party voting because they wanted to punish democrats.

What they did was just punish the people. Politicians still are getting their fat cheques, genocide still exists, minorities are more fucked than ever in this country.

That's their grand fucking "accomplishment" with their 3rd party.

(Don't get me started on how they didn't even know how truly fucked up their "candidates" were. One of them was a fucking transphobe and another a deadbeat shit dad.)

Who tf is gonna listen to pieces of shit that act up like this and push candidates like those? We were already done with Trump as it is and they sprung more shit assed candidates for parties they didn't even build.

As long as they continue squatting on this shit, they'll get nowhere.

Also, I never see a "perfect commie party" winning any election in the future like these delusional tankies want.

Their bullshit is extremely unpopular in all sides and they're genuinely unlikeable people.

They act like privileged whiny brats. I just block them at this point cos I'm tired of rolling my eyes every time I see their shit.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

"Truly Nonbinary"

😅

Oh, it's been stressful lately. I'm trying to clean up this apartment and make it more livable and my allergies are killing me, but I'm trying to stay on top of health stuff too. I had to have a "hormone readiness assessment" ahead of seeing a new (better, I hope) endocrinologist. Being assessed by therapists is a trauma trigger for me and I almost went full flashback before the appointment, but the doctor was very nice. One of the scatterbrained, chunky jewellery sort. Helpful, not adversarial.

We still had to go over a lot of awful stuff and I'm still normalizing, but I've latched onto how she noted my desire to baffle people. Apparently, some folks who come to her identifying as nonbinary just want to be more masc, and they'd be happy that way. The truly nonbinary ones want to confuse people. I'm one of them. I was (and am) so worried about not performing my real, actual identity well enough to be seen, because I'm so damn used to masking, but I managed it. There's a genuine human being in here somewhere and it's visible! Sometimes! If I put in the effort to let my guard down!

OK. Well. That's out of the way and I should be able to access better healthcare at some point in the future!

The living space is somewhat better organized, I have room in my new desk setup for the pen display, and maybe now I'll have more headspace to get it calibrated properly and repair the damage WP's updates have done to my site format AND fix all the fonts AND put some more content in the Ko-Fi store. More new story after the election is over and the rhetoric calms down - I've got half of the next six written.

I probably won't be able to stop commenting on the news entirely, as the situation deteriorates, but I'm still gonna be quieter. I'll check the feed after November and see if I need to adjust it or just let it go. In the meantime, I live! Just with many distractions and a crap ton of antihistamines on board.

[miss-bvnny]

Cinderella sequels multiverse theory + Anastasia's reward for repentance

Do I have your attention? Great! Let me explain what I mean:

For those unfamiliar, Cinderella 3: A Twist In Time (2007) tells the story of Lady Tremaine getting ahold of Fairy Godmother's wand, and using the magic as a means of enacting revenge on Cinderella and finally climbing the social ladder by using Anastasia as a pawn. Cinderella eventually undoes this chain of events thanks to the mice, and Anastasia's conscience as she realizes this is all wrong.

Anastasia is at first coerced into the scam enticed by the thought of the prince loving her. However, as time passes Anastasia realizes that this is NOT what she wants. Especially not through these means. The prince loves her because he's been tricked into thinking she's Cinderella via Among Us Imposter means. Anastasia wants someone to love her for who SHE is, not for who they THINK she is.

This movie takes place on Cinderella and the Prince's first anniversary. Meaning it's been a year since the wedding at the end of the first movie, and LESS than a year since Cinderella 2.

Now, this movie came out in 2007. Cinderella 2 came out in 2002. Many of you might remember Anastasia and the baker falling in love in Cinderella 2. Which, to sharp-eyed Disney Nerds, was never once mentioned in Cinderella 3. Anastasia laments that she wishes there was someone who would love her the way the Prince loves Cinderella

But...what about the baker??? If the story with the baker in Cinderella 2 had really happened at this point...she PROBABLY wouldn't be singing this?? And before you say ''They obviously just forgot about that aspect of Cinderella 2'' HOLD ONTO THAT until after you hear what I've got to say.

At the end of Cinderella 3, when the prince finds the REAL Cinderella and the truth is uncovered, Fairy Godmother asks them if they'd like the true timeline to be restored, as they're currently in a botched false timeline created through Tremaine's meddling. They choose not to return to the present, instead electing to fall in love and have their first year all over again. In layman's terms...Cinderella 2 is now obliterated. It happened, then the timeline change occurred, and now it's going to happen again. Basic Back To The Future timeline meddling plotline stuff.

So here's the meat of my theory: Anastasia doesn't meet the baker until after the timeline reset. It was her reward from a higher power (God, Fairy Godmother, True Love, etc) for doing the right thing and coming clean to Cinderella and the kingdom instead of going along with Tremaine's scheme. She's shown to be visibly uncomfortable with being a piece in her mother's game. And despite obvious fears of consequences, she confesses at the wedding. Something that...I have to imagine must've been hard to do with such a horrible mother and Drizella breathing down her neck. She did the right thing, despite fearing the outcome. Something worth rewarding.

Now remember when I said I didn't think they'd ''forgotten'' about the baker? During the end credits, they show a bunch of really cute painterly portraits of the cast presumably taking place after the movie. And...what's the FIRST one they show???

SHA-BOOEY!!!

Now...this CLEARLY isn't an airtight theory, but in my defense...all time travel movies are VERY messy to a degree. My fallback explanation for any cracks in the case is Cinderella 2 actually takes place after 3, in the new timeline. THAT'S how the story of Anastasia in love manages to be present in THAT movie.

Anyway all this is to say that you should REALLY watch Cinderella 3 if you haven't already because it is GENUINELY one of the cutest disney sequels, and I REALLY love Anastasia's character in the latter Cinderella movies <3

[coffeewithcutcaffeine]

Much has been said and shown about Moldova over the past few weeks, mainly due to the referendum and presidential elections. Nonetheless, very few of us (including myself) have really sat down and tried to immerse ourselves (or at least understand) into the issues ordinary Moldovans have to face on a daily basis. Moldova is always looked upon as Romania's poorer little sister or a heavily Russified region, but to help them integrate themselves, push through the difficulties, and reach a particular goal, we must pay attention and try to hear them first.

The Slovak newspaper Denník N (in cooperation with its Czech counterpart, Deník N) published a wonderful article written by the Czech journalist Petra Procházková that delves deeper into the ordinary Moldovan soul and is a true eye-opener. You may not be able to relate to every opinion shared in the article (God is my witness that I didn't, either), but it might help you understand where it all comes from. It shows why it is important not to remain in our comfortable bubbles but speak out, explain, support our points of view with solid arguments. It also proves that the world sees Eastern Europe as a region not worthy of attention, which is something that must change in the following years.

Here is a link for those who can (and want to) read in Slovak:

For those who cannot but are interested in the topic, I am putting my own translation of the article below (warning, Russophilia mentioned; despite that, I encourage you to read it as someone who genuinely, from the bottom of her heart, cannot stand Russia and what it represents):

I shed all my tears there. How Lora from Moldova uprooted her cherry orchard and why the EU is to blame

(by Petra Procházková, Deník N)

The second round of Moldova’s presidential election on Sunday (November 3) will determine the country’s future. The candidates are the incumbent head of state, Maia Sandu, and the former prosecutor general, Alexandr Stoianoglo. The former represents the pro-Western direction of the country; the latter promises to mend broken relations with Russia, as well as maintain a certain type of neutrality until it becomes clear who will actually win in the region.

A young man in a sweatshirt stands by the stalls at the local market, passing the time. He has just arrived from Italy. Here in the westernmost tip of Moldova, in an area with fertile soil that is hard to find elsewhere in Europe, and people who know how to make the most of it, you cannot find work at all.

‘I’ve been travelling there for three years!’ Nikita says, pulling out his phone to show us some photos. ‘Here we pick watermelons, here pumpkins. They’ve got it nicely organised. They give us free accommodation, they feed us, though they charge a little for food. But not much. I get 7 euros for an hour of hard work. People here wouldn’t even dream of that. But now I have to go home for the winter.’

Around Nikita’s birthplace of Lipcani in Moldova, the soil is as fertile as in Italy. After all, 77 per cent of Moldova is farmland. Everything imaginable is grown here in the north-west. But Nikita is only one person out of a third of the working-age population who pick Italian or Spanish apples instead of Moldovan ones, or who look after feeble German pensioners. They even work as receptionists in Moscow or history teachers in Omsk. The dispersion, both geographical and professional, is enormous.

For there is no one left in Moldova who does not have to stay there.

‘It’d be enough for me to earn 10,000 lei (a little over 500 euros - ed.) at home. And I��d never go anywhere. It’s so beautiful here!’ Nikita says and goes off to kill time.

Cabbage and chrysanthemums

A woman in a warm waistcoat offers cabbage for 7 lei a kilo (about 0.35 euros - ed.). That is a good price. A few kilometres down the road, some men sell it for 10 lei. Ruslana, however, has lowered the price because the customers are few and ‘I’m not going to throw it away’.

‘We own a decent piece of land, but we can’t sell much of the produce. How much do we need per month to be able to live a normal life? About 10,000 lei. And I can’t earn that much from flowers and cabbages. But there is no other work here,’ she says.

Ruslana comes from the village of Trestieni. At home, she has children, a husband, grandparents, a pig, chickens, and several dogs. ‘We bottle and preserve everything we grow, we buy milk from our neighbour or exchange it for what we have in turn. We survive.’

Ruslana will not vote on Sunday. Whether it is one or the other who wins, she says, it will not make any difference to her family.

Even cheaper than Ruslana’s are the cabbage heads of Timur who lives in the neighbouring village of Satul - a kilo for 6 lei (about 0.30 euros - ed.). Neither he nor the other inhabitants of this remote region know that the World Bank has invested millions of euros in various agricultural projects in Moldova - for example, to boost the country’s competitiveness. Timur has heard something about this, but where is the money? He has no idea. Probably in other parts of Moldova. It certainly has not come here.

Nor has he heard that in 2022, the EU has temporarily liberalised trade in seven Moldovan agricultural products: tomatoes, garlic, grapes, apples, cherries, plums, and grape juice. These products were allowed to enter the EU market in larger quantities and with no customs duties. There are dozens of other EU projects and NGOs supporting Moldovan civil society and agriculture, but their echoes do not reach very far here, in the region between Ukraine and Romania.

Sugar and men’s suits at half-price

Timur will vote, but refuses to say who. Besides cabbage, he sells apples, a kilo for 0.50 euros. When he finds out that we are a Czechoslovak team, we get three apples for free. He served in our country in the 1980s, he announces with a smile. He spent two years in the 152nd Engineer Battalion in Zdechovice. He says he liked it there.

‘They say Stoianoglo wants us to be with Russia. But I’m not really sure about that. I have to ask you this. You know what? I’m going to vote, but no matter what the result is, I’m still going to stand here and sell. Sandu is supposed to lead us towards the EU. Stoianoglo towards Russia. You don’t want us in Europe, but Russia would accept us. I don’t think anything will change in my lifetime. For the worse, maybe.’

At home, Timur speaks Romanian, but his Russian is perfectly clear, without any traces of an accent. ‘I switch between languages as I please,’ he says.

The enterprising farmer manages to make a living not only as a ploughman and market seller. Every week he travels to the neighbouring country, Ukraine, to the city of Chernivtsi, for a big shopping trip. ‘It definitely pays off. Because a kilo of apples costs 10 hryvnia there, 10 lei here. But if you buy euros here and then exchange them for hryvnias there, it’s half as cheap as in Moldova,’ he says.

‘In Moldova, you buy a kilo of sugar for 20 lei; in Ukraine, when you re-count the money, convert it and exchange it, it’s 10. I buy what I need, bring what the customs allow me to bring, and sell it cheaply at home. And I can even dress myself well there. A suit here costs half as much as it does in Ukraine. And don’t even get me started on gas! Compared to us, the Ukrainians pay kopeks. But you can’t take gas with you. But these are all small things. What matters is that there is no war.’

The money for a funeral is saved for decades

Timur is one of the few who does not complain significantly or live from hand to mouth.

Vladimir died at the blessed age of 80. That’s quite an achievement by local standards. He had been on sick leave for the last three years, so more money was put aside for the funeral. His wife has survived a stroke and for the past twenty years, she has been thinking about how they will both say their final goodbyes to their fellow villagers. She has been saving money and now, her efforts have finally resulted in a nice, not too flashy, but not too modest funeral.

We are in the westernmost Moldovan village of Criva. It lies in the valley of the Prut River and is one of those villages where the old and the young live in a forced symbiosis. Productive adults have gone abroad to work, both to the West and to the East, to Europe or to Russia. Ideology played very little part in their decision-making. What mattered the most was who knew whom, who they bumped into, who helped them find a job.

‘My friend went there, so I went there as well,’ is the most common answer from Moldovans at the tip of the region gripped from above by Ukraine and from below by Romania.

The late Yuri’s daughter lives in Canada. This time, she sent more money than usual to help give her father a decent funeral feast. He deserved it. He drove a tractor in an agricultural county where the soil is the right colour and consistency. He supposedly did his job better than anyone else. He lived to see the collapse of collective farms and the decline of one of the most fertile parts of Europe, according to his relatives who also worked in agriculture. But the collectives collapsed with the fall of the Soviet Union, the borders with Russia remain closed, and nobody wants their apples, cabbages, nuts, potatoes, garlic, onions, or watermelons anymore.

A funeral is the worst kind of nightmare for Moldovans, and not only because it is a sad event associated with the death of a loved one. It also eats up a large part of the family’s savings. The final farewell here has its iron rules: the deceased’s shoes must be put on, and they must be dressed in new clothes, including underwear. This costs 3,000 lei. A car to take the open coffin with the body to the cemetery costs 2,000 lei. This, of course, is in addition to the payment for the priest’s services. If the body has been previously deposited in a morgue, one has to pay another 2,800 lei.

A new gravestone and the work involved in digging the grave and placing the coffin in it cost another few thousand lei. The most modest table in a restaurant costs around 6,000 lei. This is another trauma for the family, if we stop thinking for a moment about the death of a loved one - such a modest feast is considered a disgrace. In short, for less than 20,000 lei, you cannot secure a ‘decent’ funeral.

And a wedding? Unless you invite at least a hundred people, it is not a Moldovan wedding. In that case, you need to prepare at least 80,000 lei.

Victoria is saving money for a dance with her great-grandson

Campaigning for the election is not exactly a big affair here. There are only a few posters of Alexandr Stoianoglo, the challenger to the current Moldovan president Maia Sandu, in Lipcani and the surrounding villages. Lipcani is, for a change, the northernmost town in Moldova. From here, it is close to Ukraine as well as to Romania.

Alongside the posters, we finally come across a live campaign in the form of a woman in a stall holding a newspaper with Stoianoglo’s picture on the front cover. The volunteer’s name is Victoria. She has two grown-up children: a son who works in Russia, and a seriously ill daughter whom she looks after. Her daughter, Victoria’s granddaughter, also lives in Russia. Victoria worked all her productive life in the food distribution department of the local agricultural trade union. When the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the union.

‘How can you abolish agriculture in an agricultural country?’ she asks angrily, hoping that Mr Stoianoglo will steer the country in the right direction. ‘This president [Sandu] is leading us to ruin,’ she warns the few people who pass her by. The town, like all the surrounding villages, does not give a lively impression. The most active part of the population is somewhere in Europe or Russia.

Victoria has her reasons to complain. She has to work very hard to get something to eat. Not only does she hand out newspapers with Stoianoglo’s face on them, but she is also rewarded in kind. She refuses to reveal with what or how much.

‘I worked for thirty-eight years. In one place! And now, my pension is 2,770 lei (142 euros - ed.). My granddaughter used to help us from Russia, but then they closed the banks! We haven’t been able to receive anything from her in months! Tell me, is it my fault what is happening, and that because of this, the Russian banks are closed and I will starve to death here?’

Victoria lives in an old house that has never had gas. That seems to be an advantage now that prices have risen sharply again in the last year. Russian gas prices have been perfectly mirroring the deteriorating relations between Russia and Moldova over the last few years. As a result, raw materials are becoming more expensive. After Chișinău joined the anti-Russian coalition condemning Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Moldova had to give up cheap Russian raw materials for good. Many Moldovans take this personally, blaming both President Sandu and the EU.

‘We use wood for heating. Imagine, a cubic metre of wood cost 700 lei a few years ago. Now I had to buy a cubic metre for 1,400 lei. But if I wanted to heat my house, I wouldn’t have enough money to pay for electricity. I also have to pay for the internet. How else can I keep in touch with my granddaughter?’

A disability pension for her daughter could not be arranged. She is not the first person to tell us that it ‘does not work so easily here’. Mostly, she complains, it costs money. ‘To get the pension, you have to pay the official. And I don’t have the money for that right now.’

The granddaughter - now a geography and maths teacher with Russian citizenship living in distant Omsk - found herself literally on the other side of the front line as a result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Without her financial help, both Victoria’s and her daughter’s situation has worsened dramatically. Victoria is genuinely upset about the sanctions; she says the war in Ukraine, literally just a few kilometres away, is none of her business. And the European Union? It has caused all of this.

‘I am going to vote because if Stoianoglo wins, maybe he will help me hug my great-grandson one day,’ explains Victoria.

Daniel is in sixth grade. ‘They send us pictures of themselves in the park, at the cinema, playing sports. They live like royalty! And how he does ballroom dances, in a tuxedo and with a little girl, they both look like something out of a fairy tale. When I manage to save a few kopeks here and there, I send it to him so he can buy something for himself. You know why? To remind him of his grandmother and great-grandmother. So he knows he has us still.’

Victoria has seen Daniel twice - as a baby and when he was four years old. That was when her granddaughter could still come to visit her family in Moldova. But then came the COVID and the war.

‘Why, I am not afraid that the Russians will attack us. They’re like that, you know, if you leave them alone and don’t provoke them, they’ll leave you alone as well. We have to get along with them somehow,’ Victoria declares, adding: ‘I was born in the USSR, I went to school and worked all my life in the USSR. I learned everything in the USSR. I had everything I needed then. And now I live like a pauper. But I still want to do one thing - dance at Daniel’s wedding.’

Why should an Italian baker be any better?

Sitting by a half-empty box of tiny garlic heads, she is annoyed. Her name is Lelia. She worked as a saleswoman all her productive life and even managed to work her way up to a restaurant manager. ‘One euro buys two loaves of bread. That’s what we ended up with,’ she laughs bitterly.

Lelia celebrated her 83rd birthday on October 4. In 1996, she decided that her life was not over yet and went to Italy to look after a feeble Italian man with a pension of over 2,000 euros. ‘His family paid me 1,200 euros a month. The grandpa was ninety, he was good to me. He worked all his life as a baker, and look at what a nice pension he had.’

With this statement, any praise for Europe ends. ‘And I brought up six children, worked for thirty-eight years, and got what? A pension of 1,800 lei. 93 euros! What makes that baker better than me? Did he have eleven grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren like me? Go to hell with your EU!’ she shouts at us, as though we were to blame for her misery and need.

‘Russia is rich. You have nothing. No real natural resources. So no need to quarrel with the Russians,’ she concludes. ‘And yet you and Sandu want to drag us into a war.’

Her daughter, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren live in Russia. She will never have that kind of money. One of her younger grandchildren, however, works in France. ‘He graduated from two universities and got a job here in Moldova for a stupid 300 euros. How can you start a family on that? So he went to Paris to work as a taxi driver. With a degree in economics. If you believe in God, may He protect you,’ she ends the conversation with us because she says it leads nowhere. She is probably right.

It is all the fault of ‘those at the top’

The lady at the next stall has a pension of 1,900 lei (98 euros - ed.). Lora can count very well, she is an engineer. ‘Last year we uprooted twelve hectares of cherries. Oh, no! No disease! We grew them with love, but the real drudgery was picking them, and then we had to throw it all away three years in a row! Throw it away, you understand? We tried to sell a kilo of cherries here for 10 lei (0.50 euros - ed.), but nobody wanted to buy them. People are more likely to buy sugar or bread, but cherries? So we uprooted them. These twelve hectares are now a salt pan because I shed all the tears I had left there.’

Nothing grows on the land where the cherries, once a luxury item on Moscow’s markets, once grew on their trees. Thistles and weeds have taken over. Lora has kept two cows and is trying to sell her own cheese. Not a single person has come to her stall in the hour we have been talking to her.

‘We used to export everything to Russia before, but now? Not even a potato. Not even a litre of wine. Everything is closed, blocked, you can’t transfer any money, and you can’t get the goods across the border. So we sit here in the square with our goods like fools, waiting to see how the elections turn out. And what will they change? Nothing. And you in Europe are going to let us in with our apples? You have yours,’ Lora concludes.

When Lora’s Soviet collective farm disappeared, she fell from the pedestal of a chief economist to a job as a cleaner at a petrol station. But even that recently closed. She is left with two cows, which she says eat more than they earn.

Even Lora, the spokeswoman for the highly educated market workers, does not know what needs to change to make life better for Moldovans. She says the elections are useless. After a long silence, she shrugs her shoulders and finally reveals the secret of Moldova’s crisis: ‘What to do? You have to ask those at the top.’

[femmmie]

THE ISLAND

Read the entire fic on AO3

Chapter 8: The betrayal

Ian can't believe Amanda would write a hit piece on him. And yet, here we are. Meanwhile, Angela asks Amanda to come with her on an expedition of sorts...

Chapter word count: 2.266

Rating: general

“The fall of president Hecox

By Amanda Lehan-Canto

Once America’s golden boy, mister Hecox ran a brilliant but deceiving campaign, running on decency and respect. His platform was unifying and appealing to the general electorate.

Once elected, though, things quickly took a turn. As soon as he was sworn in, it was like a Russian sleeper-cell was activated. He grabbed power, misusing the declaration of a state of emergency. He’s been governing like a tyrant ever since.

Big business is not happy with these developments. A CEO of one of the Fortune 500 companies bemoaned anonymously: “We fear for our lives, actually. If the heat doesn’t get us, these draconian constraints on the free market will surely choke us to death!”

In fact, because Hecox has shown to be a liar and completely turned from being a normal and nice guy to being a self-imposed Steward of the country, he has thrown capitalism and democracy out of the window. A far cry from the all-American image he so carefully crafted of himself.

What will he do next? Will he usurp even more power? Will he dissolve congress? Who is to say, nobody knows ‘this’ Ian Hecox. We live in uncertain times and will remain so for the foreseeable future. One thing is clear, however: something has to be done about it.”

Ian couldn’t believe it. He and Amanda’d had a lovely interview once again just yesterday! How could she have done him dirty like this?

“Can you believe this crap?!” Ian showed the People.com article to Shayne and Courtney on his phone. They stood inside the oval office.

“It really doesn’t sound much like her. I thought she was cool,” Courtney said.

Shayne shook his head slowly. “Yeah, me too. What the heck? She was the only journalist still willing to write honestly about you. But I guess she finally folded to the pressure.”

Ian was genuinely hurt. He could usually judge people really well. And he’d only gotten good vibes from Amanda. They had… they had a ‘thing’. He didn’t even know if it was flirting, or just goofing off. But every time they would be close, something was in the air between them.

“And they even chose my ugliest picture!”

“Yeah, that doesn’t look good, my guy,” Shayne one-armed Ian’s head. Ian pushed him off playfully.

“Well, then. It’s going to be interesting to see which companies will still do business with us after this. We had the green energy ones planned this week.”

“Yeah, about that…” Shayne mumbled sheepishly.

“Just give it to me straight?”

“They cancelled.”

Ian threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Then why did I become president?”

~

“What the hell?!” Amanda called, and she never called otherwise, with her boss at People.com. “I didn’t write this? Why are you posting it under my name?”

“You interviewed him last, that little WANKER,” her boss squeaked. “And it was high time someone told the BLOODY TRUTH about him.”

“What are you even saying? This is unacceptable! Retract the article or I quit!”

“Well, I got news for you, babe: YOU’RE FIRED!”

Her boss hung up, but he apparently hadn’t pushed the button correctly. So, she overheard him say:

“Now, where’s my BOOZE!”

After the incident, Amanda called Trevor.

“Hey Trev. I have some bad news…”

~

It was the middle of the night, but infuriatingly hot as you were supposed to only use the AC during the day. Amanda paced back and forth through her apartment in her underwear. What would she do now? Somehow, she didn’t feel like pursuing journalism anymore after all this.

But as Fate would have it, her phone rang. It was Angela. Amanda sat down and relaxed into her couch.

“Angela! Am I glad to hear your voice.”

“Hey Amanda, sorry for calling so late. So, uh, this might be a weird question, …”

Amanda’s heart swelled. Angela’s voice was raspy as always and full of cheer. She just made Amanda smile.

They had talked on and off the last couple of months. Only on the phone, though.

“But I remember us talking that time at the dog park about how you love nature and would like to make a change.”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m going on an expedition to basically get some people together and brainstorm ideas on how we can make that change. To battle the heat, use nature to help out people and animals and stuff. I know you’re a busy woman, but…”

“You had me at ‘weird question’.” Amanda smiled and pushed her phone against her ear.

“Great! We sail out tomorrow at 9 o’ clock.”

“Wait. Tomorrow? Wait. Sail?”

“Yeah, I know it’s kinda short notice! But you know how it goes, I talked to a couple of folks and they have commissioned an artwork on an island. I told them I’d do it for free if they would let us chill there for a while so we can focus and come up with the best ideas.”

“Angela, my dad would love you. you’re so strange.”

“Gee, Amanda, thanks. You know actually, that’s the biggest compliment you could give me. Plus, you’re weird yourself, loser.”

“Ugh, I AM a loser though. Ang, I just lost my job…”

“WHAT? Oh no, baby! I’m sorry to hear that. But that means you have all the time to help me out!”

“I guess I do! But wait, what do I even bring on a boat?”

“Uh.. I don’t know actually. I guess a toothbrush?”

“Sounds good. Wow, I’m actually doing this? We’re going sailing? What if there’s another hurricane though?”

“There won’t be.”

“If you say so, babe. Oh, ew, my old boss called me babe. Can you believe it? He also used to call me ‘bird’, it was weird.”

“Ew ew ew! What the hell? Can’t you sue him or something?”

“Nah, I’m not putting all my energy into that. I’m just glad I’m out of there!”

“Yeah, me too! Nobody treats my friends badly without suffering the consequences! Which are, that I glare in their general direction, disapprovingly.”

Amanda laughed, and felt extremely grateful to have someone like Angela in her life. She’d never connected with anyone that well before.

Amanda felt safe talking to Angela. Raving to her about the latest Bridgerton episode, trying to get her to come to a true crime village, which was probably or definitely a tourist trap, but wanting to go anyway. And Angela was always enthusiastic, always up for ‘the bit’ and indulging Amanda to a degree nobody else ever had.

Even though they had only met once before, Angela felt like home.

~

“Hi, oh my god!”

Amanda hadn’t slept. She had thrown some clothes and her toothbrush into a suitcase, downloaded her favorite true crime series onto her phone and mindlessly brushed her hair until her alarm rang.

And now she stood on the quayside, looking up at Angela who was already on board.

“AYE AYE, SAILOR!” Angela saluted.

“I hope this isn’t my White Star Line!”

“HEY! NO JINXING IT!”

“Sorry, cap’n!” Amanda tipped an imaginary hat to Angela.

“Whew, okay, I guess I’ll get on board!”

~

The trawler, an old fishing boat, was quite large. Even so, there were a lot of people on board and everyone was crowding around in the salon. Amanda, being as tall as she was, had to bend her head down a little. It gave her cramps.

“So, you remember Chanse?”

“Of course, hi!”

Chanse waved.

“And these are Damien, Arasha, Noah, Keith, Nicole and Olivia. They are all experts at strengthening the environment against climate.”

“Look at you! It’s so nice to meet you all!”

Everyone politely waved or shook Amanda’s hand.

“So, are we all set?” Angela asked.

“Not quite, I have a plus one, if you don’t mind.” Amanda looked out of the window. A tall guy wearing a bandana quickly approached.

“Hi! Is this the right one?” He called.

Amanda ran on deck and waved at him.

“There you are, Jack!”

“Oh, my dear Rose!” Trevor joked back.

“TREVOR!” Angela, who’d followed Amanda outside, called down.

“Wow, your voice is so loud from up close, haha.” Amanda winked at her.

“You know me, my Italian roots run deep.”

“I love that!” Amanda fixed her hair behind her ear.

Trevor climbed up the boat as well. He hugged Amanda warmly and shook hands with Angela. Amanda had filled him in just this morning, and he’d volunteered to come with immediately. Amanda was really lucky to have a friend like him.

“So, where are we going?”

~

Everyone was either sat at or stood around the salon table, eating breakfast. Amanda sat next to Trevor and Angela. She was in high spirits despite the few hours of sleep she got last night.

“Thanks again everyone,” Angela began, “for joining me on such short notice. You know, things may seem bad and may be bad. But everywhere there are people trying to do something about it. And we can make a bit of an impact too. I really believe that. And, you know, if it’s all in vain, at least we died trying!”

The crew was silent. Amanda decided to laugh loudly to break the awkwardness.

“Yeah, we sure will Angela, haha! Anyway, I would actually love to know what everyone here does. What is your specialty? Because, well, I don’t have any, to be honest. But I am a journalist so I could at least try to get your ideas out there.”

“And I can spice up her stories with some good shots,” Trevor added. Amanda smiled at him. He was so cute.

“Shall we do a little roundtable?”

“Yeah, awesome,” Damien seemed eager to talk about his passion. He had a warm face and dyed silver hair. “Yeah, so I specialize in weather control. It’s not even my personal preference, because, ehh, it’s never without consequences. But things like great green walls, meaning giant forests surrounding cities to protect them from sandstorms and desertification for example. Those are cool. But if there really is no other way, you can use chemicals to make it rain.”

“Wow, that’s so impressive!” Angela was sketching in a little booklet.

“My work is also pretty impressive,” Keith said so deadpan that everyone was scared for a second but then laughed. “I put polluters in jail! I’m an environmental prosecutor and basically try to get big companies to pay for their sins. Let’s not kid ourselves though, haha. They will not stop polluting. But that cash goes a long way to help small businesses that do follow the rules.”

Arasha nodded. She was a beautiful girl with sharp features and long, black hair, falling in tresses around her shoulders. “I can’t believe these big corporations, don’t they know they’ve already killed off half the planet? The CEOs should be in jail!” She sighed. “I work at a smaller scale but try to optimize the outcome. The thing I do is plant tiny forests in big cities. They grow like crazy and provide a little shelter for the local animals and people alike.”

Amanda’s eyes lit up. “Aww, tiny forests? That sounds so cute! I’m imagining these tiny trees looking all cute and stuff…”

“They are pretty cute, you’re right.”

“You’re cute, cutie!”

“Aw, gee, thanks, Amanda.”

Trevor rolled his eyes.

“I work to supply companies that try to improve the climate with the data that they need,” Noah said a bit shyly. His hair was dyed green, and he had big green eyes. “It’s not as cool as you guys’ projects but it’s nice to be able to work data driven. It helps people higher up in these companies have the necessary arguments for their decisions.”

“Yeah, we use a data driven approach as well,” Olivia, a beautiful petite woman with a mischievous demeanor, continued the roundtable. I’m coordinating rewilding projects all over North America: wherever we can release animals that thrive in the changing climate, and have a positive impact on the environment, we do it. But we need lots of data to determine where exactly the right places are to do it. This way, nature does a big part of the job itself.”

“I love that,” Nicole said. “Our company Pressalike does carbon hypercapture. Nicole was a gorgeous woman in fashionable clothing, outclassing everyone else, except for her pink Grindr hat. “We could supercharge your tiny forests, Arasha.”

“That would be amazing!” Arasha smiled.

Angela sat up and stopped drawing for a moment. “See! We’re already making progress! Yeah, so I am more in Amanda and Trevor’s lane: I attract attention to the good cause with my artwork.”

“And you’re a masterful organizer,” Chanse added. “Oh, hii again everyone. Yes! So, well, I am your captain! That’s my job.”

Everyone laughed and cheered him on.

“Go Chanse! We won’t get anywhere without you!”

“So yeah, let’s leave shore and head to the island!” Chanse got up and went to the control room.

“I hope we see some whales or orcas or something,” Olivia said hopefully, looking out.

“I heard you can attract them by throwing meat into the water,” Keith suggested.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Noah challenged him.

“Don’t throw meat into the water!” Angela hastily interrupted. “I don’t even know if we have meat,” she added, pondering and losing track of her thoughts.

Olivia and Keith disappeared.

“They’re going to check if there’s meat on board this boat,” Amanda and Trevor whispered to each other.

“They better not find any!” Arasha shuddered. “I’m terrified of sea creatures! Any of them!”

[knitmeapony]

I'm pretty sure you are lashing out, as you didn't actually process anything that I said in my last post. Anything that I say here is likely going to be taken in bad faith and you're going to make another snarky post with the same kind of insulting language that reactionaries and accelerationists have been using for the three decades I am aware of, and historically speaking much longer. (Although it's worth noting that's not where brainrot comes from.)

I'm going to answer anyway because I genuinely hope that you will think about what I'm saying and surprise me.

Words do have meaning. I'm not trying to *shame* anyone into voting. I'm trying to *convince* people to vote. If you feel shame, that's not my intention, but it's worth examining that feeling and figuring out why on your own time.

Professionally speaking I come from a world where no fault analysis is important. When you are looking at secure systems after an intrusion or a breach, it's important to foster the kind of environment that doesn't make people want to hide their mistakes. If you can't figure out the root cause of a problem, especially because everybody's busy covering their own ass, you'll never actually make your systems more secure.

But you do need a root cause analysis. You need to sit down and take a look at what could have potentially improved the situation, and what may have caused a situation. This isn't about figuring out who is at fault, we are not Catholic about this. This is not about figuring out who's the bigger sinner. At the end of the analysis, nobody gets punished. This is about doing the math and figuring out what your best actions are moving forward, and what actions taken in the past would be best to avoid.

When voter turnout is high, there are fewer opportunities for fascists to hijack the election. When voter turnout is high, it is more likely that candidates who are elected are folks who will push the Overton window toward the left. When voter turnout is high, progressive causes tend to get bolstered. It is easier to get a centrist candidate to listen to your left of center ideas than it is a right-wing/conservative candidate. You are setting yourself up for less resistance in the future as you campaign for the things that are most important to you.

On the flip side, conservatives actively attempt to suppress voter turnout. They particularly attempt to suppress voter turnout among the young, among women, and among non-white voters. They do so because when those types of folks vote, it's good for progressive causes and bad for conservatives. They also do so because they don't believe in the wisdom or humanity of a lot of people and would like to treat them as lesser than in general.

Voting is a very handy tool. It takes very little time out of your day, much less your year. Once you've done your due diligence and marked your ballot, with the other 364+ days in your year you can do a tremendous amount of good working for other causes, participating in mutual aid programs, whatever feels most productive to you. In terms of both risk/reward and work/benefit ratios, you're looking at very little cost for genuine benefits, especially at the state and local level.

This is just an analysis of best outcomes and best practices. Nowhere am I talking about virtue, much less some kind of fancy virtues. This is sheer practicality and efficiency of systems. If you want to work for more progressive causes, you want to see the government be more leftist, getting out the vote is one of many moves you can make. It's quick. It's tactical.

I used two examples where voter suppression and voter distraction benefited the conservatives. In the analysis of what went wrong both of those years, there are many things that you can say contributed to the problem. I am not denying that - and those are conversations that activists have been having for years now.

But in terms of moves we can make to prevent similar problems in the future, voting in numbers that will keep us out of recount territory and help win not just the popular vote but the Electoral College as well... for very little work, we get a reasonable reward. I would much rather fight with a center left person about removing means testing from the social safety net programs that we have then I would want to fight with a right-wing person about whether or not we should even have a social safety net.

I don't want a violent revolution (or the system overturned suddenly, which is more or less saying the same thing.) I don't believe I have ever heard of a violent revolution that properly takes care of disabled folks, poor folks, vulnerable folks in general. If your planned coup includes the idea that some innocent people are just going to have to die, probably the weak ones, I am deeply uninterested. If you've got some other idea, one that includes an actual detailed and functional plan to get through the transition period with everyone intact, feel free to send me a link.

We have lived through this before.

People said Gore wasn't good enough, that he was Bland and uninteresting and middle of the road and something had to change. So they voted third party or they didn't vote at all. And the Democratic party didn't wake up, and we got George W Bush and all the absolute hot garbage that came with him.

And they said Hillary Clinton was the wrong candidate, that she was middle of the road at best and conservative for the Democrats at worst, that she was entitled and they were going to vote for a third party or they didn't vote at all or worse yet, they voted for the other candidate as a joke because it's not like those votes change things, you know? And the Democratic party didn't magically wake up, they didn't majorly change, and we are still dealing with the fallout from that.

And that's not only twice in my lifetime, but twice in my voting lifetime. One of the important things you learn in therapy is that you cannot change other people, and you cannot set your expectations based on how you think they ought to react to certain things.

If you are refusing to vote, or voting third-party because of what you think it's going to make someone else do, please reconsider.

If you want to make the liberals or the centrists or whatever you want to call them wake up, you're going to need to do something that hasn't already been done twice in the last 20 years.

[qqueenofhades]

i'm genuinely curious... is it even possible to win in states like florida and texas at this point? even in georgia, after it flipped blue in 2020, the republicans rushed to make things even harder for marginalized voters (i'm pretty sure that's why this runoff is happening a month earlier? i could be wrong, but that's what i've read). with everything so divided between the democrats and literal fascism in the gop, i feel like every time we make any kind of progress they'll strip it back and make things even more difficult. i really don't mean this to sound cynical, and i'm so sorry if it does, i'm just curious. i wasn't old enough to vote in 2016 (i still had a few months before i turned 18) so i feel like my experience w elections in this country has generally been so much division that's only gotten worse

Yes, it is possible, and I'll tell you why:

Fascism is not inevitable.

This is not Pollyanna-ing, or "hopium," or whatever else the professional doomsayers like to jump in with (borne of the same school of thought that brands happy endings in fiction "unrealistic," because clearly the Real World is nothing but pain and suffering all the time) whenever someone expresses cautious optimism for the future, as if it's a coolness contest to see how to be the most pessimistic all the time. I'll tell you how I know: because if the Republican Party in its current incarnation thought that its ideas were genuinely popular or actually supported by the American public (and not just a grudging corollary of WAH WAH GAS PRICES!), they wouldn't spend absolutely ALL THEIR TIME doing their damndest to suppress voters. They wouldn't dwell endlessly on imaginary fraud, make endless voter suppression laws, run psyops convincing younger (and thus liberal-leaning) people that it's a waste of time to vote, etc etc. They are SHIT SCARED of any change that makes it easier for the general public to vote, because they know if they do, those people will vote, the Republicans will lose power, and due to the shifting demographics that see old Republican voters dying out and picking up only a minority of the next generation, they will not get it again. They are especially horrible right now because they are TERRIFIED, especially after seeing those Gen Z numbers for the Democrats. But because youth turnout overall was still bad, they likewise bought themselves a few years more to hang on. Still, the future is ours, not theirs, and they are fucking losing it.

Basically, the gamble the GOP made in this election was that they could howl about The Economy (which is doing shockingly well overall, despite high inflation etc), and voters would just ignore all their ludicrously dangerous nutcase beliefs on abortion, democracy, election denialism, etc, and vote for them anyway, even though they offered absolutely no plan to fix it apart from their usual method of blaming the Democrats for everything. Well, to say the least. That did not work. Election deniers running for positions where they could majorly influence state elections got across-the-board thumped, and abortion rights won everywhere, even in home of Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul (ugh) Kentucky. Voters do care about The Economy, but they also do care about basic things like bodily autonomy and representative democracy, and they aren't willing to throw those things away and go full MAGA even if WAH WAH GAS PRICES. That matters, and it will also matter in 2024, when we have to do this all over again.

Likewise, the Republican establishment/media is finally starting to visibly turn on Trump-- not because he's literally the worst person alive, but because they're realizing what an electoral liability he is, and all they care about is power. Once Trump is in the way of that, they will get mad at him, but Trump won't go away quietly and will do his best to burn them down on the way out. If the GOP is turning against Trump, there may also be less opposition if or, pray God, WHEN the DOJ finally fucking indicts him and drags his stupid orange ass to jail. That is likewise a good thing.

Anyway: yes, Democrats (and democracy in general) can win in Florida and Texas, if they put in the bottom-up effort rather than immediately trying to flip the flashy and high-profile offices. Both of those states have been institutionally designed to maintain the crazies' power, and it works very well. But if people keep putting in the work, it will not be forever, and the Republicans know the tipping point is not far in the future. There are more of us than there are of them. Fascism is not inevitable. It works by disheartening you and making you decide that there's no point in fighting, because it will just happen anyway. That is not true, and it needs to be challenged whenever it turns up as "received wisdom." Because. Yes.

Anyway, once more and as ever: Vote every election, especially if you are under age 45. Vote Blue. Make the Fascists Big Sad. Repeat.

Thank.

[overthinkingfandom]

Cards on the Table - Breaking down the tactics in L'manburg Independence

/rp /dsmp

Much has been said in the fandom about L'manburg's independence. It is, after all, arguably the most important moment in DSMP's history, as the rest of the story wouldn't have existed without it. 

In light of the recent anniversary of it, yes I know I’m late, I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and add something to the discussion surrounding it. However, as the morality of the situation has been discussed to death I'll be taking a slightly different approach to it. 

Due to the nature of the DSMP's medium, the story has many unique quirks. One of those quirks is how realistic the tactics used in the story's portrayal of politics are. The independence conflict is a great example of it. While on the surface things seem to be rather simplistic in nature, there's a lot more going on that’s less obvious.

Both Wilbur and Dream are brilliant politicians who get to show both their strengths and weaknesses in dealing with an equally skilled opponent in this encounter. There’s actually quite a bit to go into, despite their interactions being so short.

When most people think about the L'manburg's independence, they think about the moment the declaration has been written up and the subsequent declaration of war. While this moment is certainly iconic, it's not really all that impactful in the grand scheme of things. Both declarations are the culmination of decisions that have been made beforehand. It's the moment when those decisions were made that really influenced things.

Conveniently, Wilbur and Dream only hold a single conversation about L'manburg before the declarations are drawn up, so we don’t need to look far in order to figure out where those decisions were formed. 

Wilbur has been working on L’manburg, collecting materials and building the wall surrounding it, for almost an hour when he spots Dream lurking. “Get [Dream] into the VC, I need to talk with him. He’s the leader of the other nation, I think we need to have a congress.” (52:44)

Dream: “Hello?”

Wilbur: “Hello Dream. Welcome to our great nation of L’manburg.”

Dream: “L’manburg?”

Wilbur: “Yes. We are seceding from Dream SMP. This is our own server now. This area, just this part [between the walls of L’manburg], is our server.”

Wilbur doesn’t waste any time before getting right down to business and talking about the matter at hand. However, the way he speaks about it here and in the rest of the conversation is fairly interesting. Wilbur is talking about L’manburg as if it’s something which already exists. They are seceding. This is their land. This conversation is merely a courtesy to give Dream a formal notice of their separation.

Yet, a bit later Wilbur shows he knows they need Dream’s acknowledgement in order for L’manburg to be its own entity. Independence is not a concrete thing that can just be taken or created on one person’s whim, after all. It only exists when the people with power agree it exists. 

Wilbur: “Dream, basically all we want from you is just acknowledgement that we are an independent nation now. That’s all we need.” (56:20)

So if Wilbur knows they aren’t independent yet, why is he talking like that? 

It’s because he’s using a salesman technique called an Assumptive Close. Instead of posing it as a question and putting the choice of agreeing or disagreeing in Dream’s hands, Wilbur acts as if it’s already true and leaves the burden of challenging his claims on Dream’s shoulders. He even moves on to ask secondary questions on how Dream feels about having embassies in his land (and notably he frames it as a question, unlike how he frames the topic of L’manburg’s independence) as if L’manburg is already a political entity. 

Wilbur: “Dream, I’ve got a proposition for you. How do you feel about having Tommy’s land being an embassy? Like it’s an enclave in your own land.” (59:01)

Wilbur’s use of this technique has an interesting side effect in that it signals to Dream Wilbur is taking a non-compromising position in this negotiation. In essence saying “L’manburg is independent, take it or leave it.” 

A non-compromising position is the game theory term for when someone goes, "I'm going to do that, this is going to happen and nothing can dissuade me from this course of action." It's a strong tactic which forces everyone to react to that person's position, reducing the others' options into a binary of either accepting that position or rejecting it. 

This is a very common tactic and various manifestations of it can be seen all over history and media. From Martin Luther who refused to recant or compromise with his famous words of “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise” to groups who cultivate a "with us or against us" mentality to heroic characters who say they would die before giving in to whatever Evil the story focuses on.

This is the situation Dream is facing here. He can either accept Wilbur's assertion that L'manburg is an independent entity by either encouraging them or even doing nothing, or he can reject Wilbur's assertion by acting against it.

As we all know, he ended up choosing the second option but what were his considerations for doing so?

For that we would need to know what his goal was here, something we don't really get a sense of from his conversation with Wilbur. However, he ends up stating what it was in a later conversation with Skeppy. 

(Emphasis added by me and wasn’t part of the original dialogue.)

“Everyone can build wherever they want. [L’manburg] just decided to say that they get to determine where they can build and we can’t and we said well no, you can’t do that. And that’s what the whole war was over.” (31:44)

“[L’manburg] can’t tell us that we can’t go in their land. That’s all we wanted to say. That they’re not independent, they are a part of the Dream Team SMP. They’re just a delusional, small part." (34:26)

Dream lies a lot, so just because he says something doesn't mean it's necessarily true. However, this seems to be genuine. Dream has no problem telling Skeppy “we burned down their houses and blew up the whole land.” (32:36) later on in the conversation, so we can rule out that he's trying to paint himself in a better light, and there aren't really any other reasons for him to lie to Skeppy here about this. 

When looking at Dream's options with his goal we can see the choice is pretty much a no-brainer. 

Accepting is a total lose scenario for him. Not only will it fail to fulfill his goals, it would actively encourage the sort of behavior he doesn't want to happen, as Wilbur would set a precedent that so long as someone insisted hard enough and implied Dream is a bad person he would fold in negotiations and give them what they want.

Rejecting gets him far closer to his goal of railing against L’manburg’s exclusion. Going to war means he has to invest much more effort and resources into his reaction than if he just accepted as well as deal with the risks any war has, however the sheer difference in ability between Dream's side and Wilbur's side make the risk minimal. 

Going to a war he’s pretty sure he can win VS encouraging the sort of thing he disapproves of, isn’t really a hard choice.

This is actually the result of a mistake on Wilbur's part. CC!Wilbur called his character naive (37:49) and he's not wrong. Wilbur has a tendency to act as he wishes and not take into account that people might disagree or retaliate. We see it with him saying they could just ignore the Americans (1:51:17) or during the elections when he told Quackity his scheme and got blindsided by Quackity deciding to run against him. 

Historically, non-compromising positions worked best when the person who used it made sure rejection would be more costly than acceptance in one way or the other. In essence, narrowing down the options for others even more and leaving them only with acceptance. 

Wilbur may have managed to wipe off the table all other options and put pressure on Dream to accept with his use of Assumptive Close, but he didn't do anything to prevent Dream from rejecting. In fact, it seems like Wilbur didn't even consider it as a valid possibility as he outright dismissed it when Dream brought it up as an option.

Dream: “What happens if the rest of the server decides to take over your land?”

Wilbur: “They can’t. It’s literally not how servers- Dream you’re supposed to be smart man, that’s not how servers work. You can’t just take over another person’s server.” (54:33)

But, you may be asking, if it was better for Dream to go to war against L'manburg rather than grant them independence, why did he end up giving into their desire for independence in the war? Wouldn't it have been better if he just saved everyone the trouble and gave it to them when they asked for it the first time? Or maybe Dream’s obsession with Tommy and his discs is just that strong?

We can find the answer to all those questions at Punz’ video where he shows the behind the scenes of the independence war, including some of the planning which went into it from the Dream Team’s side of the war. Specifically, this quote:

Dream: “[The L’manburgians] are never gonna give up. So then in the end the resolution will probably just be, we won but they can think whatever they want, we’re just going to ignore them because they’re essentially like- You want to think you’re independent? You’re not, you’re still part of the SMP, but if you want to think you’re independent, you can.” (9:04)

“They’re never gonna give up.”

Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter, as this is what Dream thinks and so this is what dictates his actions. Perhaps he’s overestimating his opponents here, or maybe he’s talking about how even if L’manburg is defeated this time they would try again for independence in the future. In either case, it’s clear Dream thinks the best case scenario for him - completely preventing people from fighting for L'manburg's independence - is impossible. 

So, he tries for the second best case. If he can’t prevent L’manburg, he’s going to allow it but only under Dream’s terms. That’s what his “they can think whatever they want” line is all about. He intends on giving them token independence here, something which would satisfy them but wouldn't pose a real threat. Which is exactly what he ends up offering them during the bow duel.

Dream: “Let me just clarify: if you win, we grant L’Manburg independence.”

Tommy: “Alright.”

Dream: “But we recognize it still as a part of the Dream Team SMP.”

Wilbur: “That’s fine, that’s a fine condition.” (40:54)

The token independence thing didn’t work out so well for him. L'manburg quickly grew to be seen as an entity separate from Greater Dream SMP by everyone, and so Dream was forced to concede and treat it as one as well. 

However, despite this part of his plan failing, overall the independence war was a glowing success for Dream. 

By giving L'manburg independence after winning the war, Dream sent a very clear message. L'manburg only gets to be independent so long as they stay on Dream's good side. If they don't adhere to the terms Dream sets out for them? He can and will kick their asses, as the war so aptly demonstrated.

This message is received loud and clear. During his entire presidency Wilbur went out of his way to treat Dream with respect and try not to piss him off. Something he clearly demonstrates a number of times, like when he asked if he should call Dream “king Dream” (59:08) or during the railway skirmish (24:16).

In fact, it can be argued that this message lasted all the way up to Tubbo's presidency. Unlike Quackity, who was perfectly fine with starting a fight with Dream, Tubbo knew first hand what a war against Dream looks like. He knew that they could not win a war against him, especially in their weakened state at the time, and that influenced his decision. 

As Dream once said: "L'manburg can be independent but it can't be free."

[thespoonisvictory]

i agree with how wilbur and tommy are currently the deciding factors in the smp! i do believe there's a very high chance for a wilbur lore boom during the summer as album stuff gets smoothed out (writing and recording a bunch an album will take way more time then processing and mastering it, for example) and i can also imagine a dip in content around july that swings back august-september, like what happened before the elections. i do feel like wilbur and tommy do really enjoy the smp story so far and will put in effort for it, and tommy could very easily bring back the daily semi-lore type content in the future months, once the initial vlogging hype dies down. i also think tubbo and ranboo have very good potential to rope people into semi-lore. there's some people i cannot imagine getting as involved with the lore anymore, and some who really depend (like if the syndicate manages to drag itself back, i can see niki rejoining the lore). and yeah technoblade is really a "if he wants to do this," since we don't really have a solid idea, but if a semi-lore wave comes back it opens a big spot for him and how he prefers to do light-hearted stuff. i feel like quackity is really going to be the lore "meat" for a bit, having a bunch of the heavier stuff. i feel like what's really dragging down the smp now is how spaced out everything is and where the semi-lore return would really benefit the server. i also agree with you that quackity very likely might burn himself out on content soon. i think he could really benefit from showing up on others streams to further lore (like on fundys) instead of shoving a bunch of things into a highly-produced stream, similar to other "villains" like schlatt and wilbur. i appreciate what quackity's doing rn a lot, but i think there needs to be another "threat for threats sake," like schlatt and the eggpire. a villain that's more traditionally lighthearted, with quackity being the darker side of "villainous" lore (see: schlatt and wilbur, to a degree, dream and the eggpire, etc) to balance things out. also, tommy was right with what he did with church prime! being afraid to change anything will get you nowhere! sapnap, start another pet war! i also think more smpearth fellas should be added to the dream smp who've shown interest, like wisp and sophietexas. spice things up!

just a solid agree on pretty much everything here.

in particular with your point about how the server is being dragged down by lore that's too spaced out, 100%. the server has had a problem since the end of s1 with oscillating between full throttle lore and... near radio silence (genuinely the l'manburg/ pogtopia arc was so perfectly paced imo ah but that's another topic). the issue with quackity's lore is that his tendency towards cliff hangers means that it 'freezes' certain characters, and they can't really have an impact when they're not in quackity's semi-movies. there's been a similar issue like that with the syndicate.

basically, the server went from feeling like an actual world we got daily peeks into, with a constantly moving timeline, very much an actual server that featured non-lore, shenanigans, chilling after tournaments or among us games, stage productions of macbeth, people just casually playing on it for fun, semi-lore, and lore, to just lore, with occasional streamers. you see- niki actually stocked her bakery for people to take from quite frequently, people would come on and grind to get stuff back after a battle, wilbur would mine in pogtopia, etc etc.

it was a living, breathing thing that I feel bad that some people didn't get to see live because it's hard to describe. people kept up the casual rivalry between the smp and l'manburg, wear their uniforms to tournaments: and that was what made it so unique. schlatt was a very real threat that could just pop into your vc at any moment, he felt like a proper villain in that sense. in the same stream that wilbur and tommy would be in pogtopia mourning the fact that they had no allies while two hours later we would see fundy writing in his spy diary and niki casually resisting. quackity's lore doesn't really allow for that, and it's good lore, but it's missing what makes live action rp so captivating.

how would I fix it?

1. don't end things on cliff hangers, for gods sake. let a plot resolve in your stream so that way people can react to an build off of it in between lore streams. quackity shot himself in the foot for any casual lore by leaving it on the fence whether people would join and not establishing any clear rules, meaning that all the streams we could be getting rn are blocked by that.

2. save high production value streams for big events, or flashbacks, or just anything that can't be done completely live or improv. that way, you can decrease the time in between any lore at all, take some pressure off quackity, and get back some of the organic, homespun charm. I was watching quackity's stream and thinking 'this is nice, but he could have done five short streams over the course of a week or two that accomplished the same goal but without so much energy and rushing. then, he could cut the footage together into a video if he wanted it condensed for viewing pleasure.' it would build hype and set some sort of much needed pacing

3. if it's not already being done, make the plan public so people can jump in if they want, leave open space for improv, at least a bit. if quackity let himself lean on other streamers half as much as wilbur did for both his arcs as c!wilbur and ghostbur, things could move at a more decent pace and feel like an actual server again. just- hop into foolish's streams my dude

I could elaborate more, but tldr: quackity's lore is good, but it severely lacks pacing, stifles organic chemistry between characters, and could very well burn him out. he should mix in casual lore and used formal lore as a supplement, not a base

[bonjour-rainycity]

A Friend

|masterlist|

A/n Anon, thank you for your request and for your patience!! I hope you get a break soon <3 Please do what you can to take care of yourself! 

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: TW - ANXIETY // TW - ANXIETY ATTACK // TW - STRESS 

Word count: 1308

Request: Jasper x Reader where the reader catches the attention of Jasper with the overwhelming emotions he feels from afar and it’s the reader in the middle of a silent anxiety attack in a remote hallway (she’s just walking back and forth with a hand over her chest, trying to breathe) and he comforts her without actually using his power. He kind of just listens? And tells her when to breathe in and out? I’ve been going through a very rough week and nothing is going the way I planned, so I wanted the reader to feel like she’s stressed from schoolwork, college decisions, and being a musician who always has to put in time to practice while also being sleep deprived af because that’s been me for the past year and a half

If Jasper had a blood pressure, it would be rising.

The forceful cacophony of hundreds of emotional climates converge upon and disorient one individual: himself.

After so many years of this existence, Jasper is relatively good at managing the excessive input. He knows how to identify the emotions of those important to him and let the others fade into the background — never completely gone, but not at the forefront, either.

But today, on this cloudy, nondescript Thursday morning, there is one emotional climate he cannot ignore.

It’s chaotic. It’s panicked. It’s frantic.

Jasper raises his hand and excuses himself from class — humans tend not to disagree with him, even if he doesn’t come up with a great excuse. I left a book in my locker. Well, he’ll have to return with a book after he’s located the person waging war on his senses.

Once free of the cramped classroom, Jasper allows himself a breath. The scent of barely-concealed human blood is tempting, but it is much more manageable due to experience and frequent hunting. There was a time when, had Jasper gone searching for a human, his body would have interpreted it as a hunt, and the human likely would not have survived the encounter. But now, Jasper feels confident in his footsteps, trusting in his ability to not commit murder, as Carlisle calls it. Besides, even if the call of the blood is tempting, Jasper has no desire to attend another of his victim’s funerals.

As Jasper turns a corner, the emotions intensify. The core emotion, the loudest, most pressing, is one he knows well — anxiety. Others — stress, exhaustion, indecision, hopelessness — swell and ebb, each fighting for dominance in this poor human host. As he enters another hallway, Jasper registers the sound of sneakers hitting the linoleum floor — the human is pacing while attempting to take deep breaths. The breaths are stilted though, jerky, and from what he knows about humans, they probably aren’t doing much to calm the human down.

A final turn and Jasper locates the source of the emotions — a human girl he had a science class with last year. She hasn’t noticed him yet and he takes the opportunity to assess the situation. An anxiety attack for sure.

Jasper clears his throat.

The girl’s wide, panicked eyes meet his and she sucks in a labored breath. “S-sorry, I—”

Jasper shrugs, doing his best to seem nonthreatening. He doesn’t want to add to the fear she’s already feeling. “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?” Mentally, he chides himself. She’s obviously not. Hesitantly, he takes a few steps forward, shortening the distance between himself and the girl. She keeps a hand on her chest, probably trying to ground herself with the rise and fall.

“It’s—it’s nothing,” she mutters, it sounding half like a gasp. “I’ll be fine, I just need to calm down.”

Jasper nods evenly. He could use his ability to do the work for her, but he knows that would only be a temporary fix; she’d probably just have another episode the minute he and his power left. So, he elects to attempt a different strategy, one that might actually help long-term. Jasper strides forward, careful not to startle the human, and sits on the ground, resting his back against the faded blue lockers. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Her paces falter and she stares at him, clearly trying to assess if the offer is genuine. Jasper tries for a smile but then quickly lets it fall off his face, worried showing his teeth will frighten her.

The human huffs and a feeling of desperation momentarily swells forward, then is overpowered by stress.

“Okay,” she shrugs, seeming to sag under the weight of her exhaustion. Her pacing resumes. “Everything is just too much. The semester’s almost over which means I have way too much schoolwork to even think about, everyone’s expecting me to make these huge college decisions that could affect the rest of my life — I mean, what if I choose wrong? How will I know if I’m choosing wrong or right? And then throughout all of this, I somehow have to find time to practice. I already don’t have enough time to get all my homework done, so how can I get to practicing? But somehow both have to be a priority!” She whimpers, the sound shaky and defeated. “So I get it all done, sometimes, but at the cost of my sleep. I can’t remember the last time I felt well-rested. So I stay up to get all these things done, but then I don’t have the energy to do these things well, but I need to be doing these things well to get into a good college so I don’t screw future-me over.”

The human’s pacing—which had sped up in accordance with her words—stops. Her shoulders sag and she sinks to the floor next to Jasper, leaning her head against the lockers, staring at the ceiling. “It’s just a lot,” she mutters, tears pricking at the edges of her eyes.

The frantic note to her emotions has faded, but the anxiety and stress are still there. Now though, the feeling of overwhelmed comes to the forefront, as well as a general sense of being lost.

“Breathe in and out,” Jasper advises.

She gives him a dubious look. “That doesn’t help.”

“Come on, do it with me,” he encourages, showing her an exaggeratedly long inhale followed by an equally lengthy exhale. He really shouldn’t be breathing in such close proximity to a human, but he finds himself wanting to help her. No one should have to deal with so much, especially not by themselves.

She acquiesces and follows his lead, taking deep breaths.

Her heart rate begins to slow.

They sit like that for much longer than the time needed to ‘get a book from his locker,’ but Jasper doesn’t mind. He’s happy to be here helping this human feel better again. The piercing, destructive emotions are calming, slowly but surely giving way to relief and a tentative measure of peace.

The human closes her eyes. “Thank you for listening.”

Jasper furrows his eyebrows, confused by her gratitude. She did all the hard work, he only sat there. “Of course. And you know, you don’t have to have everything planned out or do it by yourself. It’s all going to work out.” An old phrase comes to mind, something his mother used to tell him back in his human life. He smiles fondly at the memory. “But you can’t pour from an empty cup. Before you can contribute to school or practice or make big decisions, you have to take care of yourself.”

She smiles softly, nodding, and a note of amusement comes forth in her feelings. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Jasper waits a few more minutes until her anxiety is gone. Then, he turns to look at her. “Are you ready to go back to class?”

There’s a momentary spike in her stress, but a deep breath calms it once again. She nods. “Yeah, thank you again for sitting with me.”

Jasper smiles. “My pleasure. Can I walk you?” He finds himself not quite ready to leave her. He wants to make sure she’s completely okay and settled before going back to his own class.

The human accepts his offer with a smile. The two walk slowly, talking about things they’re excited for in the upcoming days. By the time they arrive at her classroom door, the human feels rejuvenated, hopeful. She pauses before entering the classroom, waving goodbye. “See you at lunch?”

Jasper nods, promising to himself that he will check on her then. “See you at lunch.”

And, as Jasper heads back to his own class, he makes himself another promise. As long as he’s around, the human girl will always have a friend.

[mystic-sky]

✨part 1 here ✨

Satoru’s only been in love once. Though it wasn’t with you, it wasn’t long before he met you either. The summer before he graduated high school he fell into a deep infatuation with someone. 

He was always a fast guy, even during his earlier youth- having lost his virginity in his sophomore year. He was a curious one, and he had the looks and the charm to scoop as many women as he chose. But he did give love a try with her. She was spunky, but shy at the same time. Outspoken, and he’d never forget how she kissed him first. She scooped him off his feet, somehow wrapping him around her finger- until she got bored. Gradually, there were no more late night phone calls, no more study dates and sneaking out together. She no longer responded immediately to his text messages, and casually rescheduled plans on short notice. Satoru had never been out right rejected before. But his nonchalant attitude lead him to adapt, and just reciprocate everything she had been doing. 

And in came his ex best friend, Suguru, who he no longer spoke to for external reasons.

He couldn’t go anywhere in school without witnessing or hearing the two laughing amongst one another or watching them hold hands. He felt nauseous every time he saw him wrap his arms around her; her sickening smile and her eyes sparkled just for him.

Senior year felt way too long. In the end, she left the both of them high and dry for an American University after graduation. But Satoru saw it as a lesson of sorts. He didn’t think all women were the same, but he certainly didn’t leave himself open to disappointment after this.

And that’s why he wasn’t the least bit surprised when he saw Suguru pressing his lips to your knuckles in the cafe you both first met in.

“Snake,” Satoru muttered under his breath.

He had no plans to walk inside the establishment at all, until he saw your cheery smile over the head of the brunette on his arm through the window. He shifted his gaze towards the source of your happiness, feeling that same sickening feeling from 3 years prior. 

He needed something sweet to rid the awful taste on his tongue. He took the brunette girl on his arm with him, offering to buy her a sweet drink. She happily obliged, simply ecstatic to be in his highly esteemed presence.

He imagined you didn’t even know who Suguru was, or what kinds of things he was capable of. But who was he to try and inform you? The both of you had split long before, and the last thing he needed was you thinking he actually cared about you. 

But he couldn’t stop looking at you. His heart swelled as he remembered when you both first met. It wasn’t even in lecture the way he had convinced you prior- oh no, long before that. It had been in sophomore year of college, the semester before you signed up for the political science course. 

He saw you in the college office, discussing electives you’d possibly be into with your counselor and one of your friends. He thought you were a cute, timid little thing. He gave himself a project, figuring he’d plant the seed and flirt with you in the near future when he had less women in his current line up. He could tell you were a busy one, rushing out of the office just as quickly as you came in. He didn’t even get a chance to make conversation with you. 

He signed up for a political science class, realizing just how low the probability of him ending up in the same class as you was. One semester later, he remembers chanting God is good as you sit idly in the middle of the lecture room when he arrives. 

The seats around you are taken, and he regrets being late on the first day. At least he had 2 hours to admire you from a distance. 

Your friends had came to get you as soon as class ended, making him miss his opportunity again to talk to you. The week after, you showed up late to class. Satoru being Satoru, it was impossible for him to keep empty seats beside himself due to his popularity. He watched you climb the steps and sit all the way in the back, far behind him. You had stayed to talk with the professor after class as a result. And unfortunately, his entourage of women couldn’t be kept waiting. That week he cut them all off. It was getting too difficult to maintain so many relationships along with his multiple sexual partners.

 A part of him thought having multiple partners and women around just wasn’t worth it. He grew tired of having multiple personalities around him. One sexual partner would be the most convenient. He didn’t even care if people thought he was dating that one specific person- as long as people left him alone. To rid himself of his options when he hadn’t even found a new contender for himself yet is what leeched at his brain. He might of been a bit of a sex addict. But there was also a part of him that was sure you’d be into him. All he had to do was try.

The third week you were absent. He almost lost his shit. He never saw you around campus ever, and he didn’t even know your name. This was getting a bit ridiculous.

Then, seemingly God sent, did he happen upon you in the university’s local cafe. He hadn’t known how long you’d been there since he had been studying himself towards the back.

You had gotten up and had been staring out the glass at the rain. A golden opportunity, he thought.

He packed his things, tossing his bag over his shoulder and umbrella in hand. Smoothly, he stood in the same space by the window. You were dazed, in your own little world, barely noticing his presence. He heard you speak,

“I guess I should sit back down,” you muttered quietly. She’s really not paying me any mind, he thought.

“Man, you don’t have an umbrella? That sucks.” He finally spoke, earning a startled look from you. He continued to stare straightforward towards the window pane. 

“Yeah, I know.” You say, sighing to yourself. He could see the slight blush in your cheeks through the corner of his sunglasses. 

“It says the rain is going to stop within the hour on the weather app.” He said, scrolling and tapping away at his phone. “You goin’ to the train station?”

“Oh, yeah.” You say shyly. He watched you nervously tucked some hair behind your ears before he looked straight ahead at the rain.

He also noticed you couldn’t stop stealing glances at him through the corner of his eye.

“Like what you see?”

You blinked at him repeatedly, earning a cocky chuckle from his end.

“Wanna walk with me?” He asked, peering down at you. He assumed it was too forward because he couldn’t read the look on your face after that. Just a series of blinks and a continuous puzzled stare. 

“I don’t even know you.” You said bluntly, and he felt that you meant it disrespectfully.

“Not yet.” He said slyly. “But I’ve seen you around campus a lot.”

Though that wasn’t true, he couldn’t possible tell you that he had been secretly admiring you every Wednesday for almost three weeks now either.

He watched you put a finger towards your chin before speaking.

“Professor Edamura’s class right?”

“Bingo.” He grinned.

“There’s like 120 people in that lecture.” You only took a guess, considering that was your largest class. 

“Yeah. But I think you’re the cutest.” He could’ve been smoother about it. But he was anxious to make his introduction. Only seeing you on Wednesdays sucked. This way, he could make sure you’d be thinking of him for a little while until you saw him again. 

Whose the mysterious tall guy with the white hair, or at least that’s how he thought you’d be thinking of him in his head.

“Thank you,” you say, squeezing your arms around your book and pressing it towards your chest. 

“Oh look, the rain is stopping.” He says, leaning forward, nose nearly pressing against the glass.

“Well, see you Wednesday.” He smiled a cheeky smile, before walking off. He felt you watching him stride down the street, and that’s how he wanted it to be.

Days later, Satoru was sure to be on time to class. He finally got a chance to sit beside you, offering you a wink and a smile. He could feel how shy you were, choosing not to make much conversation with you during the two hours of lecture. 

Luck was on his side yet again, considering he got paired with you for a group project. He offered to meet at his house, fixing up a group chat for the five of you. The other girls in the group talked over you while you made project plans before class ended. He was highly aware that they were trying their hardest to flirt with him, completely unphased by your presence. He felt bad that he couldn’t even really get close to you without other women somehow ruining things yet again. At least he learned your name and got your phone number. 

The next day, and also the night before the meet up, he texted you privately outside the group chat. 

He remembers checking his phone a few minutes later, seeing you’d left him on read. He realized he probably shouldn’t have been so forward. He chuckled at himself before tossing his phone on the bed and going to sleep.

You arrived somewhat early to his apartment, greeting him quietly before he told you to make yourself comfortable. It didn’t take long for the other three to text the group chat explaining that something had coincidentally came up, leaving you all alone with him. There you sat on the floor of his living room, not looking all that pleased to be in his presence. 

“Guess it’s just the two of us,” he chuckled. 

“Don’t look so happy about it.” He watched you roll your eyes.

“I can’t help it,” he says, sitting across from you on a different floor pillow. “I won’t lie. I had been thinking of asking you on a date. I didn’t think I’d get so lucky.”

“And did you text the other girls in our group the same thing the night before?” You say, nonchalantly opening your book. You didn’t even look his way. Your response threw him off.  Why were you acting like you hated him?

“No, they’re incredibly annoying.” He sighed genuinely, hoping he could change your outlook on him even a little.

“You’re pretty cool though. Kind of bummed you didn’t text me back.” He addressed. It sort of ticked him off that you didn’t respond to him. 

“Because I know what you’re up to.” You say, scribbling away in your notes.

“And what might that be?” He takes off his shades, putting them on the glass coffee table. He loved to play with the girls like this; acting so oblivious to his obvious intentions. 

“I’m not going to fall in love with you. I don’t have time for that.” You firmly set your pencil down, looking at him. He was taken aback. He’s intrigued and wants to poke at you some more.

“I don’t exactly want you to.” He chuckled. You looked at him before speaking again.

“So what do you want from me?” You say, placing your palm in your hand and leaning forward a bit to look at him directly. He thought the way you furrowed your brows at him was precious. He was fully aware you were being serious but he thought you were too cute.

“I said I wanted to take you on a date.” He laughs. “Get to know you a bit, but ultimately take you to bed at the end of the night, if you don’t mind. You can decline, I just wanted to show you a good time.”

Satoru may have been a downright whore up until now, but one thing he did manage to do was not lie to any of the women he dealt with. He never made false promises, and he never ever told women he would eventually commit to them. He hated when people tried to hold him emotionally accountable for things. He was typically clear to everyone about what he wanted from the beginning. Anyone who got their heart broken afterwards couldn’t say shit to him. 

“Sure,” you say calmly, to his surprise. You shift yourself around the table, right beside his body.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” you took hold of his jaw, delicately planting a kiss. He had no idea you were so confident. It had been so long since someone had kissed him first so forwardly and so passionately. For the first time in a long time he was mesmerized, feeling the summer before senior year of high school all over again on his living room floor. Your lips were incredibly soft and pillowy. He was already hard, wondering just what your sex was like if you kissed him like this.

You shifted over his body, straddling him against the bottom of the sofa. You’d give him exactly what he wanted.

“You better be good at this, or don’t even bother looking at me after we finish this project.” You break from his lips. His eyes widened a bit, staring deeply into yours before speaking. 

“Oh princess, I don’t ever disappoint.” He smirked. He lifted both your bodies off the ground. He sucked in your lips, kissing you firmly as he brought you to his bedroom. 

That night, he gave you the best sex of your entire life. He wasn’t lying about not disappointing you.

Sex with you was more than a memorable experience to him. The both of you had formed this bond having had done it so many times in one semester. You never pried or asked him about his personal life. You never hinted at wanting more than what he was already giving you. He would notice when you were stressed and life would occasionally beat you up. He lent you his ear, hoping to ease you the best he could. This kept up for almost a year, and he genuinely thought you’d get tired of the agreement by now. But here you were still, being exactly what he wanted you to be. You never smothered him, and that made him want to spoil you. 

He didn’t know how to communicate that unless it was while he had sex with you. You told him not to buy you gifts. Maybe he could treat you to dinner but you were keen on keeping things minimal. 

The most intimate moment you both had was probably the night before you both had ended it all.

He hadn’t seen you all week, and took you to dinner before bringing you home to bed like he always did. He wanted nothing more than your skin against his own. The warmth you gave him was intoxicating yet somehow endearing. He couldn’t dare fall in love with you, but his sex told you otherwise.

“Fuck, I missed you.”

Your entire head was hot from the whisper he made into your ear. He knew he shouldn’t have said it like that. The way your sweet and dazed eyes looked up at him- he knew it was starting to fuck with you. You let out a moan as he filled you up completely, grinding your sex towards him from underneath.

“It looks like you missed me too,” he chuckled. He could never forget the sounds your slimy cunt made every time he inserted himself into you. He knew you couldn’t lie to him even if you tried— your body wouldn’t let you.

He heard you moan back how much you missed him too, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him close. This was getting bad and he knew that. But he never had someone hold him like that before- like they loved him. 

“I know baby,” he placed sweet kisses against your face and neck, “I know.”

This memory echoes in his brain as he watched Suguru play with your fingers at your table. He orders his drink, and the dame beside him is talking a thousand miles per minute but he doesn’t hear thing. He somehow tunes out the entire establishment, only focusing on you and the dark haired bastard right in front of you. 

She moves on quickly, he thought. He was thankful he had his signature dark shades on so he could stare at you as much as he wanted. 

Were you both just talking? Did Suguru establish the same friends with benefits situation with you? Or... was he your boyfriend? 

It felt like it was just yesterday you were telling him how much you missed him, how much you needed him. 

Satoru then remembered the bullshit speech you gave him once about how you didn’t have time to fall in love. 

So what the fuck was this?

He knew he could’ve handled the split so much better. But he was scared. He didn’t trust you. He didn’t want to find out if you were capable of hurting him. Were you that fickle? He knew he was one to talk, but he’d never forget the look you gave him that night- like you were in love with him.

But that was only two months ago. He watched the both of you get up, and pack your things. The nostalgic yet sick feeling from earlier grew tenfold in his stomach as he watched you and Suguru join hands. He watched him press a long sweet kiss against your forehead before tilting your chin up to his gaze. Suguru whispered something to you, obviously making you blush and stare at the floor. He presses another kiss to your forehead before leading you out of the cafe. 

Satoru’s chest felt tight, and he hadn’t felt this way in years. Such a green feeling, but mostly terrified that he might’ve been in love with you. 

Just how was he supposed to get you back?

✨part 3 here ✨

[tenthgrove]

yess thank you for letting me ask you about the lore >:3c so I have to get my absolute favorites outta the way first— what kinda lore and thoughts do you have for sorbet or gelato ( <- before they get together and the earlier years of them getting together if you need a specific period ) I have to also ask are you ok if I go down the “line” and get your thoughts in other asks about the rest of the la squadra babes? Thank you sm 💖💖 I hope you’re having a wonderf day/evening

Ah! Now this is one of my absolute favourites! Apologies to anyone who has already heard me ramble about my Sorbet and Gelato backstory ad nauseam on multiple occasions, but this is really an area where I can't help myself. Besides, this is my opportunity to go more in depth where I haven't before:

(Note after writing this: It's stupidly long. I'm sorry I just can't help myself with these backstories. I couldn't decide what to leave out so I decided nothing.)

(Also please feel free to ask me more lore questions because I love doing this)

We'll begin with Sorbet, born in Naples in February 1967 if you follow the canon timeline (although by default I write in modern AU so move the dates 20 years later). His situation at birth was absolutely dire, the eldest child of an incredibly vulnerable woman and one of her clients as a sex worker. Sorbet's mother was by all means a decent woman but her severe mental illness and drug addiction made it impossible for her to be a good mother, which of course had a bad effect on Sorbet growing up. After Sorbet, she had 5 more children, all through clients, and Sorbet was saddled with much of their care.

Though he loved his siblings, Sorbet was pretty much done with this life by age 12 and was easily swept up by older boys from the local street gang, who paid him well to peddle drugs when he should have been in school. This was a very underfunded neighbourhood so nobody questioned his truancy, and within the next couple of years he had stopped going to school entirely. Shortly after this, having acquired sufficient money through his crime involvement, Sorbet left his family to stay with his new friends, moving between them on a regular basis. He also discovered his sexuality around this time and dated a few male friends, though none of these relationships got very far.

By age 16, Sorbet had earned a reputation in the street gang for skilled and passionate violence, and was selected by the ringleader to commit the group's first planned murder, in exchange of course for a lucrative reward. Sorbet accepted, succeeded, and became the group's de-facto assassin whenever needed. He continued to hoard considerable money for the remainder of his adolescence, though continued to be functionally homeless since he didn't see it necessary when sofa-surfing was suiting him fine.

Before resuming with Sorbet, let's explain the life that Gelato came from. Gelato was born in October 1967 in St. Petersburg, Russia, (Note- I previously used the city of Minsk, unaware that this is in fact, in Belarus) to an upper-middle class businessman and his Italian wife, a distant relative of French Monarchy. Gelato's relationship with his parents was rocky from the start due to the fact they would have preferred a girl after three successive sons, but any parental love they had for their youngest child broke down entirely after he was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD at age 5, in an evaluation intending to find the cause of some behavioural issues that were really, just a response to emotional neglect.

When Gelato was 13 he, his parents, and two of his three brothers (the eldest was already an adult by this time and elected to stay behind) moved to Italy to escape some allegations of corruption in the father's business. They moved to a rural village in North-West Italy where the community was very middle-class and quite stifling for Gelato, who had enough social rules to remember in the familiar, economically-diverse city he grew up in. His behavioural issues got worse and began to include things he would later regret, such as attacking and stealing from younger children, and things he would absolutely not, like attacking and stealing from teachers. By this point the family had largely written him off as a failure, revering instead their academically successful, well-behaved older children, which absolutely contributed to the spiralling cycle of behaviour issues Gelato faced.

Then, at age 17, Gelato failed a crucial exam and was expelled from high-school. His parents kicked him out on the spot, and with no other family in Italy Gelato had very few options on what to do next. He recalled, however, one older friend having links to a street gang in Naples, and decided to see if this boy might have a route out of destitution for him. Indeed, the friend did know of a man in Naples needing assistance within the gang, but could offer no help in getting Gelato there. Seeing no other way, Gelato walked the whole journey.

Arriving in Naples, the friend's associate announced that the position Gelato was after had been taken, but taking pity on his distress, informed him of another friend who needed someone to look after an unlicensed bar that served as one of the group's main meeting points. He agreed to arrange for the small apartment above the bar to be given as payment.

Gelato accepted, but although he had now solved the problem of homelessness his life was still incredibly miserable. For one, with his pay being the apartment he had to rely on measly tips to get by, which rarely left him with enough to eat let alone anything else. Additionally, as an outsider with little understanding of the way gangs work Gelato was an easy target for abuse, and was treated like absolute shit by the bar's patrons.

By this point in time, Sorbet had just turned 18. He was, incidentally, in the same gang Gelato had joined, and a regular at the bar he worked in. For a good couple of months they took no notice of each other, until Sorbet came to be in a coincidental feud with one of the men who was violent to Gelato at the bar. When Gelato witnessed the two of them in a fight, he made the spur-of-the-moment decision to join in on Sorbet's side, knocking the patron unconscious and leaving him too afraid to visit again. For his trouble, Sorbet gave Gelato a portion of the money he looted from the fight's loser, and flirted with him lightly before going about with his evening. Unknown to Sorbet, he had just sent Gelato falling head over hills in love.

Gelato found out about Sorbet's sexuality from other patrons and, delighted, attempted to flirt with him the next time they saw each other, but his attempts came off very poorly and Sorbet actually thought he was being insulted. Angered, he dragged Gelato into the cellar to demand what was going on. Gelato, terrified, admitted having a crush, which Sorbet found to be the sweetest and most genuine thing he'd ever heard. While he couldn't promise a relationship, he did agree to show Gelato more attention in the future. But, it was only a matter of days until Sorbet found himself loving Gelato back.

This whirlwind relationship continued happily for three weeks, Sorbet greatly improving Gelato's situation through his saved money and helping him fend off the abusive patrons. Gelato, in turn, offered Sorbet a permanent place to stay in the apartment, which he accepted. Sorbet was in the process of moving his things, and they had plans to refurbish the place to make it actually habitable.

But then, everything came crashing down. One night the bar was subject to a surprise raid by the police, operating by the false assumption it was empty. Sorbet and Gelato attempted to flee but were caught, and in a panic, Gelato shot a policeman dead. Rushing to his defence Sorbet killed two more, but a fourth escaped to tell the tale. The couple knew they were screwed. Running to the headquarters of their gang they begged for protection but were informed the small group simply could not save them from a charge this serious, and gave them only a single night of shelter to plan their next move. Gelato, who remember had never committed anything more serious than minor ABH before, had an absolute breakdown over this predicament that night, and whilst comforting him, Sorbet devised a blood pact with him to stick together no matter what came.

Over the next few days, Sorbet and Gelato fled north, avoiding the police through Sorbet's skills as a criminal and Gelato's very convincing Russian tourist impression. They were almost at the French border when Sorbet awoke one night to find Gelato missing behind him. He chased his tracks to the driveway of a rural house, a tearful Gelato clutching a knife at the shut door and trembling. He informed Sorbet that he had intentionally led him to the village where his family lived, with the intention to break in and kill them as revenge for the years of abuse. Sorbet warned Gelato that this would not be good for their attempts to flee, but said he understood fully and would help him if this is truly what he wanted. Gelato agreed, and together they broke into the house and slaughtered Gelato's mother and father, additionally killing one of his brothers after he woke from the noise. The other brother, the youngest other than Gelato, was spared, as Gelato felt his role in the abuse had been comparatively more minor and he did not deserve to die. This of course, left another witness.

The massacre in the village was quickly linked to the one at the bar and Gelato was promptly identified from a comparison of DNA found at the scene to his surviving brother's. Sorbet, a known criminal, was identified soon after. Not only were the pair now known but the police figured out what their plan was and informed the French police as well, making things exponentially harder for the couple.

They made do for a while by hanging low and keeping on the move, living off money stolen from the parents' house. Eventually however, they needed more, and began making deals with local crime organisations to carry out assassinations in exchange for money or temporary shelter. While Sorbet was already a pro at this, Gelato found himself a fast learner, and soon realised he shared Sorbet's adoration for the act of killing. He felt as though he was finally coming to meet his true self.

Though the assassination deals were lucrative, they did not help the couple keep a low profile and the attacks from police were relentless. Several times, they barely escaped capture. All this was not good on their mental states, and after two years, Sorbet knew it needed to end. He and Gelato returned to Naples in the hope their old gang might reconsider protecting them, but they were met with a surprise as their old gang had been completely overtaken by Passione. Even still, the new mobsters had heard a lot about Sorbet and Gelato's exploits and agreed to get them an audience with a local Capo, Pericolo, who was impressed by the men's skills and moved by the sense of honour suggested by their love for each other. He agreed to initiate them into the gang.

Soon after this, Sorbet and Gelato recieved stands which, although not very powerful, assisted them greatly in the art of assassination. Soon, they were natural choices for Passione whenever a hit needed carrying out in the Naples area. At some point a few years in, they befriended a man named Prosciutto who had been recently forced into Passione due to his heritage. Prosciutto was also funnelled into assassination jobs and, with less of a reputation for impulsivity than Sorbet and Gelato, was the one given the order to form a new assassination squad when the need arose, around 1993 if we're following canon.

(Note, I hc La Squadra was created by Passione in response to a real life government crackdown on the Italian mafia around 1992-93, in response to an incredibly scandalous series of assassinations. In such a climate, it would make sense for Passione to want to consolidate an elite squad of its best hitmen, do avoid future problems.)

Due to personal commitments Prosciutto did not want to be the captain, so attempted to give this responsibility to Sorbet, a request the boss promptly denied. Prosciutto was, however, allowed to add Sorbet and Gelato to the team's ranks, cementing the three of them as the first members of the team.

Prosciutto would, soon enough, find another person to give the title of captain to, but that's a story for another time.