#I’ve done the same problem eight times

[a-person-who-didnt-wanna-be-here]

Pov you’re literally only a week into school crying over math

[pl0tty]

Jojo’s ABC’s of Drarry fic: a rec list of Drarry fics I love, sorted in alphabetical order!

26 fics ♡ 26 authors ♡ a good mix of smut, fluff, angst and plot ♡ enjoy!!

A — All the Earnest Young Men by @tepre (E, 29.4k)

All over London portraits are disappearing from their canvases.

Auror Harry! Expert-in-Magical-Art-Theory Draco! There's running, dancing, falling through ice, what’s this paper giraffe doing here? A great time was had by all.

B — Beneath the Wave by @moonflower-rose (E, 30k words)

Harry is done with a life in the spotlight. No more adventures, no more mortal peril. He wants a quiet life of food and friends, and family. He even manages to have it for a while, until suddenly there are giant rabbits that need ferrying to a mysterious island, and a handsome Draco Malfoy, and Harry's right back in the middle of the action again, despite his best efforts.

C — Come For Me by Frayach (E, 24.6k words)

After Draco is paralyzed in an accident, he and Harry discover a new way to make love.

D — Dwelling by aideomai (E, 83.3k words)

Curses, James and Lily Potter ride again, several Ministry balls, a teenage Summer of Love, a grim young adult dystopian winter, a few different Draco Malfoys, secrets and the problems re: not having any, alternate lives, impossible lives, real lives, allusions to Dirty Dancing, and just because it's not called the Mirror of Erised doesn't mean you shouldn't know better.

E — Embers by @shiftylinguini (E, 41.2k words)

Werewolf Alphas aren't meant to be alone, or to suppress their ruts indefinitely like Draco has been since he was bitten eight years ago. He needs company, companionship, to knot ― he needs an Omega Heat Companion. At least, that’s what the Healers say, and even Draco can admit contacting the person they’ve referred him to might be nice.

Of course it turns out to be bloody Potter.

F — freely, as men strive for right by @bixgirl1 (E, 17.1k words)

How can Harry love a man like Draco Malfoy?

If only Draco would let him count the ways.

(Sometimes, a happily-ever-after takes a bit longer than you expect.)

G — Going Postal (A 125-Page Comic) by dustmouth (T)

So Draco and Harry sort of maybe have a bit of a thing going. Which is all fine and good, but would probably be more effective if they managed to be on the same continent for more than five minutes at a time.

H — Hermione Granger's Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run by waspabi (T, 93.3k words)

'You're a wizard, Harry' is easier to hear from a half-giant when you're eleven, rather than from some kids on a tube platform when you're seventeen and late for work.

I — I Do Not Love You by @writandromance (E, 228.2k words)

In 2013, a carefully-designed Obliviation leaves Harry reconfiguring his life and identity without any memories of true love; an act that's essentially erased Draco Malfoy from his mind despite a wedding band and shared home.

In 2000, Draco had expected Pansy's relationship with Luna to bring the Gryffindors a bit closer to his orbit of quiet, carefully pacifistic existence, but he never expected to navigate such a transparent embrace into a unit of family, friendship, and love.

A mystery, two love stories, and a reminder that learning to love never has an end date.

J — Je te reverrai by @soliblomst (E, 16.1k words)

When Beauxbatons visited Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament, Draco managed to control his attraction to fourteen-year-old Harry Potter.

When Beauxbatons returns three years later for a cultural exchange, Draco's attraction to seventeen-year-old Harry Potter is impossible to curtail.

In his defence, Harry's perfectly tailored blue robes, mixed signals, and French accent do not help.

K — Keep your hands on me by @tenthousandyearsx (E, 21.4k words)

Malfoy binds himself with a sex curse. Harry cannot get enough (but would much prefer to keep Malfoy for himself).

L — Lusimeles by orphan_account (E, 23.2k words)

“You’re not special, Potter,” Kingsley informs him, not looking up from his work.

“But I’ve already done Occlumency training!” Harry splutters, indignant. “And it’s Malfoy.”

M — More Than That by joosetta (E, 10.9k words)

This is a story about two 52 year old men who refuse to age gracefully.

N — No One Ever Told Me by @slightweasel (M, 25.7k words)

Harry marries Draco to get him out of Azkaban.

Things get weird. And confusing. And then weird some more.

O — Our Objective Remains Unchanged by @citrusses (E, 46.1k words)

Harry Potter, returning member of the Oxford University Boat Club, has two goals for the spring of 2005: beat Cambridge, and beat Draco Malfoy. Perhaps not in that order.

P — Probationary Action by @toomuchplor (E, 63.3k words)

As part of the terms of the probationary contract, DRACO LUCIUS MALFOY shall submit for inspection his WAND on the last day of every month, such inspection to be carried out by a duly registered and fully qualified AUROR in the employ of the MINISTRY OF MAGIC, and such inspection to include a PRIORI INCANTATEM spell to ensure that no PROHIBITED MAGICS as heretofore described have been practised by the aforementioned probationer.

Q — Quickie by @greaseonmymouth (E, 11.8k words)

Harry's 8th year is going okay: he's got a girlfriend, the future is far away, and he has no choices to make. And then Malfoy starts sending him dick pics.

R — Rookie Moves by peu_a_peu (E, 75.3 words)

Aurors Potter and Malfoy crack the case.

S — Slithering by @astolat (E, 27.3k words)

Draco found the nest down in the Manor’s cellars, while he was clearing them out.

T — Tandem by @fastbrother (M, 90.8k words)

Harry and Draco meet by accident six years after the war. Harry's an Auror with a drinking problem and Draco's a broke student. Things don't work out well. Six years after that, Draco joins the British Auror Office as a Potioneer.

U — Untouched by @stratigraphywrites (E, 11.2k words)

"The magic demands a sacrifice," Malfoy said. "What kind of sacrifice?" Malfoy's mouth twisted grimly. "A virgin." Harry felt his eyes widen. "Killing one?" "No, of course not, Potter," Malfoy snapped. "Don't be macabre. Fucking one." Malfoy exhaled with bitter disappointment. "Fuck. Rules us out." Harry took a deep breath. His face felt hotter than ever. "It doesn't, actually."

Harry's had some terrible birthdays in his life. But this one - trapped in a cave with Draco Malfoy, and only one way out - has to take the cake.

V — Vis-à-Vis-à-Vis by @vukovich (E, 50k words)

Harry's assignment was simple. Close out Draco Malfoy's missing persons case so he can be declared dead.

But who's making withdrawals from Malfoy's vaults? How is a death omen-turned-Unspeakable involved? Is an organization known as the Moirai to blame?

Harry brushes it off until he can't. Until The Prophet is flooded with sightings of dead people. Until Robards throws himself on his sword. Until Ron turns on his own family. Until Harry scarcely trusts his own reflection in the mirror and trusts the stranger in his bed even less.

Until all that stands between war and peace is Harry, a name plate, a stadium of murderers, and Draco Malfoy.

God save the Ministry.

W — What’s Mine is Yours by @fluxweeed (E, 17k words)

Harry loses something important. Malfoy helps him get it back.

X — Ex Nihilo (And Other Feats of An Untrained Veela) by Kandakicksass (E, 129k words)

Ever since returning to Hogwarts, Harry has had nothing to do with Draco Malfoy, who exists at the bottom of the social ladder and is just trying to survive their "eighth year."

One veela presentation (and Harry's natural resistance to veela allure) changes all of that.

Y — Yours is the Earth (Hold On, Hold On) by chickenlivesinpumpkin (E, 127k words)

After a serious accident in the Forbidden Forest, Draco's personality begins to undergo subtle changes. At first, Harry credits this to a new enthusiasm for life. But as the days pass and Draco's behavior becomes more and more mysterious, Harry begins to suspect that something bigger--and darker--is at work.

Z — Zenith by @corvuscrowned (E, 20.6k words)

Desperate to find relief from worsening migraines and broken magic, Harry sets out to reach mystical hot springs that are said to grant healing and realignment.

The only problem? The springs lie deep within a cursed forest that lures hikers to their death by tempting them with their greatest desires.

So when Harry sees Draco Malfoy in the forest, he must be hallucinating.

Right?

Or: A hero’s journey but gay.

[twopoppies]

I'd like to share my opinion in refrence to this ask and see what you think: I think the first thing to acknowledge is that Louis knows he played a role in creating this. He knows that in the past, he rebelled against his closet in the only ways he could—through coding, lyrics, even the bears. But he’s not that young, reckless version of himself anymore and he’s now trying to rein it in. Because while those signals may have been acts of defiance back then, they also helped create a situation that he now has to manage all the time for his own privacy.

And that’s where these more recent denials come in. If you actually look at what he’s saying, he’s not saying what people think he is. He’s not denying anything about Harry. He’s not saying he’s straight. He’s saying that this conversation has become too big, too invasive, too damaging at times.

"And occasionally, [these theories] end up addressing things that are a little unfair. This is what we have now. There’s nothing I can do about it."

This is what actually bothers him. Not people believing in Larry. Not people thinking he’s in love with Harry. But the way people go after his family, invade his privacy, and refuse to respect the reality he’s living in. Because whatever the truth of the situation may be, Freddie has been in his life for eight years. This is his reality for now. At this point, what else can he do but accept the situation and try to make the best of it? I think that’s really what it comes down to—boundaries. Not just for himself, but for the people around him who never asked to be part of this narrative. Because while there are plenty of fans who support him quietly and respectfully (like us staying over here on our little corner of Tumblr), there are also people who take it way too far—who harass his friends and family, invade privacy, and trample over boundaries in pursuit of proof.

And I think that’s who he’s really calling out when he speaks on this. Not the people who love and support him. Not even the ones who believe in Larry. But the ones who won’t accept that some things aren’t theirs to dig into. The ones who make his closet harder to live in. The ones who take what was once about love and turn it into a demand for answers he can’t give.

So, I think he uses these denials more to set boundaries. At the end of the day, I think his priority isn’t proving or disproving anything—it’s making life as livable as possible for himself and the people he loves (including Harry).

Hi, darling. I agree with all of this, with one small bit of nuance added.

The last denial was very different from all the others. With that, plus the documentary, I agree very much that he’s trying to set boundaries. And there are definitely larries who overstep, just as much as there are solos etc. who do.

The problem is that every denial he’s done previously has felt so targeted toward larries and “conspiracies,” that the immediate reaction from everyone is to attack us (and for us to feel defensive).

I think this new vibe is certainly a better approach. And, as I’ve been saying for a while (and in the post you link), I think he’d prefer fans who focus on his music, his fashion brand, and whatever other work he does, and stop focusing so much on his personal life.

They don’t need the same sort of support they once did. I do wish he’d just say that instead of leaving it up to everyone to read between the lines because most people are going to read it in a way that suits their own narrative.

I recognize it’s a very tricky thing to do. But fans could help if they’d pull back a bit. I know I’ve been trying to do that (it’s hard).

[deancaspinefest]

If Only the Cat Could Talk

Author: TwinOne | Artist: golby moon

Posting on Friday March 14

Being a homeless kitten sucks. I was cold, hungry, and barely hanging on. But then Tuna showed up—low, growly voice, warm hands, and absolutely no clue what he was doing. I knew right away I’d hit the jackpot. Now, I’ve got a cozy home, endless food, and a human who thinks he’s in charge (adorable, really). Training him has been my greatest challenge, but I’ve done a fine job. Everything was perfect… until he brought in Salmon. I like this one—deep, steady voice, nice safe smell, excellent chin-scratching technique, and he actually listens to me when I meow. The problem? They were never with me at the same time but seemed to always wish they were. Seriously, how long are these two going to dance around their feelings? I may be a cat, but even I know what’s going on. If these humans don’t claim each other soon, I just might have to take matters into my own paws.

Keep reading for a sneak preview!

John took another long sip from his beer. “You’ve been chosen, son. Looks like you’re the new caretaker. This has ‘cat distribution system’ written all over it.”

Dean, still stunned, looked down at the tiny furball in his lap. It seemed utterly at home, kneading the fabric of his jeans as if it had done this a thousand times.

“I swear, this cat’s got better moves than I do,” Dean muttered. “He’s already got me wrapped around his ugly little paw.” The kitten was even dirtier than the day before, leaves and dirt were clumped on his fur, making his bright yellow eyes stand out when he looked up at Dean.

John chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, at least you won’t have to worry about being alone in this house anymore.” The kitten gave an exaggerated yawn, stretched out, and settled in for what looked like a very long nap, completely uninterested in anything but its new domain.

“It’s disappointing that he’s going to have to stay outside, though,” Dean sighed, hands still in the air.

“What do you mean?” John asked after taking a sip of his beer.

“What do you mean, ‘What do I mean’?” Dean narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “I am allergic to cats. That’s why we never had one growing up, right?”

John grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah, you were allergic. That’s the story I told you, wasn’t it?”

“You did,” Dean confirmed, then turned back to stare accusingly at his Dad. “Are you saying I’m not?”

John leaned over to whisper conspiratorially. “I totally made it up.”

“What the hell Dad.” Dean pushed John away and then looked down at the kitten finally giving in to the urge to pet him. “You know, I’ve always had some doubts. I mean, I’d never actually broken out in hives or anything… But hey, I trusted you. You told me I’d get all sneezy and itchy, so I just… well, I avoided cats.”

John let out a deep laugh, almost snorting into his beer. “Oh, come on. You weren’t allergic—I just didn’t want to deal with a cat. You were like, what? Eight? I couldn’t have you getting attached to some cat and then suddenly the thing becomes the ruler of the house. So I made up the allergy story.”

Dean stared at his father, jaw dropping slightly. “Wait, what? So I spent my whole life thinking I was allergic to cats because you didn’t want one in the house?! That’s a crap reason to lie to your oldest son.”

John’s grin widened, and he shrugged. “Hey, I was just trying to keep my own sanity. And look at you now. You’re the one with the kitten in your lap. No allergic reaction, no sneezing. Just a whole lotta cat love.”

Dean stared at the kitten, which was now happily purring and stretching out across his lap, clearly in charge of the situation. “You know, I’m going to be honest with you, Dad,” Dean said slowly, shaking his head. “I think you owe me, like, a whole lot of allergy medicine. And maybe some new furniture when this thing claws everything to shreds.”

Keep reading on Ao3 after Friday March 14 🌲Find more 2025 Pinefest previews here 🌲

[cutielights]

Tw: none

Rise! Boys x Spider Person! S/O

Leo

Incredibly whipped

He’s in love

You can stick to walls? That’s awesome. Bring him with you.

Brings you on patrols and such

Absolutely adores your spider suit

Spider senses? Extremely useful, but not around Leo

He’s getting into trouble so much that they constantly go off

Constantly makes spider jokes

He is genuinely thoroughly relieved that you don’t have eight legs, sticking to the average

Spiders have no bones, but humans do. The compromise? Extreme flexibility. Low-key freaked him out a bit

Raph

Likes your webs and combat style. Not so much the fact that they stick to him even if he barely touched it

Spiders can lift up to fifty times their body weight

You can lift him no problem

He found this out when you caught him after he got thrown by an unnamed villan

“Okay, I’m not freaking out. But, how are you holding me right now?”

He likes the feeling, not many people can lift him

Listen, he loves that you can take a few hits, move around NYC speedily and efficiently

But for the love of god- Stop. Scaling. Buildings.

He knows you can stick to walls. But he has a heart attack every time.

He’s found himself incredibly fond of your spider sense, taking a certain amount of stress off of him, even if it’s just a little

Donnie

Fascinated by you, every time you use your powers you can see him furiously taking notes out of the corner of your eye

You slept off a spider bite instead of going to the doctor?”

��Yes?”

“You’re incredibly lucky to be alive.”

“C’mon aren’t you over reacting?”

“IT WAS RADIOACTIVE HOW ARE YOU NOT FREAKING OUT?”

“It was like a year ago, chill.”

Runs consensual tests on you

Estimates what type of spider bit you

Tied between the need for knowledge, the fear of spiders, the love of his partner

Refuses to touch your webs, and he’s not sorry, not even if they happen to be purple

Mikey

Likes that you can stick your feet onto skateboards

Makes it ten times easier for you

Gets you to sling him into high places to do graffiti

Spider-Man kisses?

SPIDER-MAN KISSES!

Gets you to stick to the ceiling so you can jumpscare Donnie

Helps you with different suit designs, sure he’s more on the pallet side of things, but it’s still fun!

Asks if you have dietary restrictions, and therefore cannot eat pizza

You reminded him that you just have spider powers and not spider insides

Doodles spiders on your arms, in relatively the same places his own spots are, so you can match!

I wrote this in one sitting, easiest I’ve done in a while <3

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan Burge at Graphs About Religion:

What in the world happened in the 2024 presidential election? It’s a question I’ve been asked by dozens of media outlets over the last six months. But I had a big problem: no reliable data that would aid me in answering such a question. The exit polls, no matter what anyone tells you, should not be considered gospel. There are a number of fundamental flaws in their design that make it impossible to rely on them to construct an accurate portrayal of what actually happened on election day. Their real purpose? To fill air time on election night while the major networks wait for the results to pile again across the United States. But all that’s changed now and my goal over the next couple of months is to tell the story of the campaign between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris using data from the newly released Cooperative Election Study. This survey indicates that 22% of all American adults align with an evangelical denomination. Seventeen percent of the sample are white evangelicals and just over 5% are non-white evangelicals. Among those non-white evangelicals, 38% were Black and 28% were Hispanic.

It should come as no surprise that evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in 2024, because they gave him a tremendous amount of support in both 2016 and 2020. But, it’s noteworthy that Trump continued to make inroads among evangelicals - his share of the vote went from 70% to 75% in the last three elections. The Democrats have not done well at all with evangelicals. Their best effort was in 2012 when Obama got 30% of their votes. But Harris did slightly worse than Biden - 23% vs 25%. But it’s notable that Biden got the same share of the evangelical vote as Hillary Clinton in 2016. Of course, Trump’s real base of support is specifically among white evangelicals. In 2016, Trump’s vote share was no different than McCain in 2008 or Romney’s in 2012 - about 77%. But in 2020, Trump ran up the score just a bit - garnering 81% of the white evangelical vote. The data from 2024 says he continued to win over the white evangelical vote at 83% - the highest on record. However the breakdown of the non-white evangelical vote may tell the story of the 2024 election when it comes to religion. Republicans have historically struggled with this group of voters. In 2008, Obama enjoyed an 18 point advantage and that expanded dramatically in the next couple of election cycles. In 2012, the non-white evangelical vote was D+30 and it was D+25 in 2016. But then in 2020, Trump managed to make some inroads - getting back to 40% and narrowing the gap to 18 points. But look at 2024 - a huge shift. The non-white evangelical vote was essentially split in 2024 - Harris 49% and Trump at 48%. Harris lost at least ten points with this constituency - a huge blow. [...] There’s a lot going on in this graph but I think that the big narrative is how Trump just continues to make gains among evangelical voters. Between 2016 and 2024 he gained five points among yearly attending evangelicals, eight points among monthly attending evangelicals, seven points among weekly attendees and eight points among those who attended multiple times per week. However, Trump didn’t actually lose ground with those who attend less than once a year. What about those non-white evangelicals? I would direct your attention to the bottom right of the graph. Donald Trump made really sizable gains with the high attenders. Between 2016 and 2024, Trump’s share went from 33% to 47% among non-white evangelicals who attend church every week. He did thirteen points better among those who attend religious services multiple times per week. But there are also increases among yearly attenders and monthly attenders, too.

Ryan Burge writes in Graphs About Religion on the 2024 election post-mortem on the evangelical vote. While White evangelicals lopsidedly backed Trump, non-White evangelicals were nearly split [49% Harris to 48% Trump].

In previous elections, non-White evangelicals voted Democratic by a decent margin, but the margins were nearly wiped out, and that was driven mainly by Hispanic evangelicals swinging hard to the GOP.

[scoonsalicious]

5.4 Major*

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Summary: Lily McIntyre, trainer for new SHIELD recruits at the Avengers Tower, has been in love with her best friend, Bucky Barnes, from the moment she met him. She's been content with her role of the #1 girl in Bucky's life, even if it means she has to sabotage a romantic relationship or two. It'll be worth it when he realizes that they're meant for each other, right? There's just one small problem: Lily McIntire never expected Bucky Barnes to fall for You.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, explicit sexual content (hand stuff, fingering) Minors GTFO: I don't serve your kind here.

Word Count: 900

Previously On...: Lily knows Bucky's been lying to her, and she's surmised he's on a date. That's got to end.

A/N: Posting a little early today to make up for yesterday being so late!

I've decided to postpone my break by a few days, so I will give you Chapter 6 in its entirety before I take my mini-hiatus. It's only three parts long, so I will start my break on Thursday, 5/16 and resume posting on Thursday, 5/23. It's a better place in the story to leave you, a little bit more dramatic than at the end of this chapter, like I had originally planned, lol. It felt off leaving you all here.

NOTE! The tag list is a fickle bitch, so I'm not really going to be dealing with it anymore. If you want to be notified when new story parts drop, please follow @scoonsaliciousupdates

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

You flopped your body down onto your bedsheets with a giggle. “Full marks, Sergeant,” you gasped between panting breaths. “Once again.” It was all the two of you could do to get back to your apartment without ripping each other’s clothes off.

Bucky laughed and came to lay down alongside you, propping his head up on his vibranium arm. Leaning over, he bent down to kiss you. “I couldn’t have done it without you, doll” he said with a grin, but then his face grew serious. “Seriously. It’s never been like this with other girls.”

You blushed and playfully pushed at his rock hard shoulder. “Come on, Bucky,” you said with a laugh. “You’ve already got me naked and exactly where you want me; you don’t need to sweet talk me.”

Bucky placed a hand on your sweat-slicked hip, gently turning you to your side so you were facing him. “I’m not,” he told you, searching your eyes with the utmost sincerity in his expression. He pushed back a strand of damp hair away from your face. “I’ve been with… well, a fair number of girls over the years.” At the raise of your eyebrow, he held his flesh hand up defensively. “What? I’m 105 years old, doll. I’ve been around the block.” You couldn’t hold back your laugh at that, and he kissed your nose before continuing: 

“Like I said, a fair number of girls. And none of them, not a single one, ever made me feel the way I have when I’m with you.” He cupped your cheek in his hand and you felt your cheeks flame in a blush. “Come on, sugar. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it, too. That this,” he took his hand off your cheek to motion between your two bodies, “isn’t something special.”

“It’s been a little over a day, Bucky,” you chastised him gently with a smile, afraid to admit that you, too, felt this was something unique. “Maybe thirty hours?” Thirty hours in which the two of you had somehow managed to have sex eight times, not that you were counting. You couldn’t believe how quickly he was able to get it up again after he came, but he’d assured you that was his favorite side effect of the serum that had made him a super soldier. It had quickly become your favorite, too.

Bucky’s face fell, and you realized that he wasn’t going to judge you if you told him the truth, because he felt it just the same. “The best thirty hours of my life,” you clarified, tucking your fingers under his chin so you could bring his gaze back up to yours. “And yes, I feel it, too. It’s never been like this before. Not with anyone else.”

“Not even with your ex-husband?” Bucky asked with a playful smirk.

“Especially not with Conner,” you told him with a roll of your eyes. “Took me years to teach that man where my clit was, and even on his best days, he still needed a map.”

“Oh, you mean this, right here?” Bucky deftly slid his hand between your thighs, finding your hub of nerves almost instinctively and began to lightly trace it with his finger, sending an electric tingle through your body. 

“Fuck, yes,” you exhaled, reaching up to grab Bucky’s shoulder for support as he increased the pressure. He moved his metal arm from under his head and slid it behind your shoulders as he pulled you flush with his chest.

“I got you, sweet girl,” he murmured into your hair as he moved his fingers faster against you, occasionally dipping them down to your entrance to collect some of your slick for lubrication. You hitched a leg up over his hip to allow him better access to your core. 

“Jesus, Bucky,” you moaned, feeling yourself building to the crescendo. Taking your hand off his shoulder, you grabbed his wrist, guiding his movements so you could grind your desperate cunt against his hand.

“Do you want my fingers, sugar?” Bucky panted. You looked up at him to find his gaze locked on where his hand had vanished between your thighs, his pupils completely blown from lust. “Do you want me to fuck you with my fingers until you squirt all over me?”

You couldn’t even get out a coherent word, just a pathetic whine that turned into a near scream when Bucky plunged three of his digits into you. The air was full of the frantic sounds of your combined breathing, along with the rapid squelch of his fingers driving in and out of your cunt with a speed you didn’t know was humanly possible. It felt like he was hitting every part of you, even parts you didn’t know existed until now. Every time with Bucky felt that way.

“How you doing, sugar?” Bucky asked as he continued to drive his fingers home. “You okay?”

You nodded and grunted in the affirmative, loving how he always checked in on you. You were so much more than okay. You were transcendent. 

Soon, you felt that intense, unfamiliar build up that only he had been able to pull out of you once before, on the living room floor. The pleasure was so intense, you couldn’t see straight and you were exploding all over again, clinging to Bucky for dear life as you screamed his name. 

<- Previous Part / Next Chapter ->

[forsetti]

On American Exceptionalism: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” -John Naisbitt

Right after the 2016 election, the dominant hot take from pundits was Hillary lost because Democrats failed to understand Rural America. This explanation was complete nonsense. Liberals who grew up or lived/live in Rural America very much understand them. That wasn’t the problem. As I wrote about at the time, the problem with Rural America was/is the racism and misogyny that are deeply embedded in their culture and religion and their willingness to all these to dictate their choices, even at their own expense.

Here we are eight years later and with Kamala Harris’ loss to Trump, the stupid hot takes are again flying off the shelves. This time around, the reason for Trump winning was Democrats didn’t care about the working class. As with “Dems don’t understand Rural America,” the reasons behind why Trump won were racism, misogyny, and stupidity. “Dems don’t care about the working class,” is a flat-out lie, no matter who says it, (I’m looking at you Bernie Sanders.) All the evidence shows America has done better than every other major country responding to the pandemic and EVERY economic indicator is better now than just about any time in the past fifty years regarding unemployment, job creation, DOW, wage growth… Trump’s reelection showed how much facts and evidence don’t matter in America.

As long as people “feel” a certain way, that is all that matters. Any argument that hinges on “feelings,” or “vibes,” is intellectual laziness at its finest. Why do people feel a certain way? Are these feelings justified? These questions are completely ignored or quickly glossed over because no one wants to know or discuss the answers to these questions.

No one wants to discuss why a large number of Americans are willing to believe a Five-Star, chronic liar. No one wants to know why these same people are willing to vote for a self-serving billionaire who has a long record of fucking over working-class people who have done work for him. No one wants to know why “good Christians,” happily support an adulterer who paid off a porn star not to divulge he had sex with her four months after his wife gave birth to their youngest child. No one wants to ask why these same, “good Christians,” are gleeful about fucking over immigrants and asylum seekers. No one really wants to know why Republicans are hell-bent on stripping women of rights and economic opportunities. No one really wants to admit that “The Greatest Nation On Earth,” “The Shining Beacon On The Hill,” and “God’s Country,” is very much racist, misogynist, and really stupid.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." -Agent K

People are generally stupid. Stupid people are easy to manipulate, especially when it comes to their feelings. Most of the “feelings” about “economic anxiety,” are rooted in racism, bigotry, and misogyny.

In America, truth and evidence have been replaced with feelings and vibes because it takes no effort to feel something, to believe something. It takes a lot of work to understand and know something. There are too many Americans who are intellectually lazy and poorly educated and are either convinced they are smart or know they aren’t and overcompensate by gish galloping and talking very loudly. The only thing more dangerous than a stupid person is a stupid person who is convinced they are smart.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had little to no tolerance for stupidity. As a kid, I would often come home from school or church and complain vociferously to my mom about the stupidity I’d encountered. Her advice to me was always, “You can’t fight every battle against stupid people, there are too many of them. Even if you “win” against one, there will always be another to take their place.”

Whenever she would tell me this, it would remind me of something I once heard the population of China was so large and growing so rapidly, that they could walk ten-abreast into the ocean and the line would NEVER end.

That is how I few stupid people. Never ending.

Instead of constantly battling against stupidity, I tried to carve out niches of smartness and sanity wherever I could. It is why I felt the need to leave America and go to Japan for a couple of years. It is why I studied philosophy. It is why I ended up in grad school at a Big 10 school in a very progressive town. It is why I’ve always surrounded myself with a very small but incredibly smart group of friends.

For a long time, this way of dealing with stupidity worked. Then social media brought the stupidity I’d fought so hard to avoid to my door with a vengeance.

Nobody was more excited for the internet than me. I’m an information junkie. My “hobby” as a kid was reading the Encyclopedia Britannica every night until the wee hours of the morning. Having all the information readily available was amazing. At least it was amazing until the Libertarian Tech Bros decided to create social media platforms to “democratize” information and bad-faith actors realized how easily they could manipulate a poorly educated population.

Thomas Jefferson knew that democracy could only truly function and succeed with an educated citizenry. Poorly educated people cannot make truly informed decisions. This is why mentally incompetent people and children cannot enter contracts. It is why people on certain drugs in hospitals are not allowed to make decisions about their health care. A democracy of idiots isn’t a real democracy (and if you tell me America is a Republic, not a democracy, I’ll send a civics teacher to your house to beat you about the head and neck with the largest textbook in their library.)

You can’t have a functioning democratic government with un/misinformed people. The exact thing is true when it comes to “democratizing,” information. It might sound like a good idea to open up information to any and all because good/sound ideas will rise to the top and win out in the end. To quote from, “A Stress Analysis Of A Strapless Evening Gown: Essays For A Scientific Age,” “There goes another wonderful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts.”

When you “democratize” information you automatically give everything equal weight of legitimacy and truth value. Then, somehow, the right/true things become apparent and win out. This treats facts as opinions. The answer to, “Which is better, Coke or Pepsi?” is not a factual statement. It contains no truth (even though anyone with any taste buds knows the correct answer is, “Coke.”) When scientific theories and data are treated the same as opinions and opinions are treated as facts, we are beyond fucked.

The other thing “democratizing” information either takes for granted, completely ignores, or willfully denies is, in order for their notion of a “free marketplace of ideas,” to work, people need to have the skill sets necessary to properly understand and process the information, in order to make informed decisions.

The tech bros don’t have these skill sets. Libertarians, by nature, are idiots. The best description of Libertarians is from Tom Morrow - “"Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand.” Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg don’t give one fuck about the well-being of people. They care about their egos. They care about how much data about you they can extract to sell to other amoral dicks. They care about how many toys they can buy and how many expensive, unique experiences they can have to brag about to their other equally amoral dick friends.

Truth isn’t contingent on popularity or who has the most followers or poll numbers. To treat truth this way obliterates any and all standards of evidence, validity, and soundness. It does away with the need for truth. To pretend otherwise is to either not understand a functioning view of truth or to understand it and use the destruction of truth to your advantage.

When you combine a completely misguided idea like democratizing information with a poorly educated population, the result is the stupid become proudly and arrogantly stupid. It becomes the perfect breeding ground for conspiracy theories.

Social media sites always kind of were this way but two events really showed just how problematic and dangerous they were: The election of Barack Obama and the pandemic.

The amount of sheer bullshit spread on social media about Obama’s birth certificate and the Affordable Care Act was staggering in volume and stupidity. Stupidity that is still believed as absolute gospel by a good chunk of the right. This really isn’t surprising since many of these same people deeply believe Jesus was white and apparently a vindictive, gun-toting he-man.

However, as stupid and awful as the lies about Obama and the ACA were, they paled in comparison to those spread about the pandemic. The propaganda about the pandemic was unbelievably widespread and very dangerous. Literally, hundreds of thousands of people died from the lies spread, mostly on social media, about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

I have people I know very well and some I love deeply who adamantly believe the stupidest nonsense about the virus and vaccines for no other reason than the propaganda they read/heard on social media, pundits, and their social groups… The more people passed along something they’d heard/read, the more it turned into a very dangerous Purple Monkey Dishwasher situation:

Once people believe untrue things, especially if those things are closely tied to their self-identity, it is almost impossible to unscrew that pooch because it would mean they have to admit they were not just misled and wrong but adamantly so. It takes humility to admit you are wrong. This is why, no matter how many times we are promised that the “Republican Fever,” of Trumpism will break, it will never happen because it isn’t Trumpism, it is Republicanism, and because the right will NEVER FUCKING EVER admit they were wrong about anything, especially if the liberals were right. It just isn’t in their fundamentalist, white supremacist, misogynist, Manifest Destiny DNA.

The past few election cycles have been nothing but a constant barrage of well-designed, well-placed propaganda from bad-faith actors here and abroad. Fear, hatred, lies...all get more attention and traction with people, especially stupid people, than facts and the truth. Anyone who has a basic understanding of human psychology has to know this. The entire field of advertising hinges and relies on people being easily manipulated.

The culmination of decades of underfunding, undercutting, lying about, and demonizing education by the right and the proliferation of social media outlets resulted in the election of the most unqualified, uncaring, self-absorbed, chronic liar to run the world’s largest economy and military not once but twice.

I keep hearing people blame Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris for losing to Trump because, based on who Trump is, “the race should never have been close.” This is a stupid take. It absolutely shouldn’t have been close, either time. The problem wasn’t Hillary or Clinton or anything they did/didn’t do. The problem is Americans are fucking stupid and since America is a representative government, their votes are a direct reflection of who/what they are.

The day right before this year’s election, all the left-wing pod bros and Never Trumpers, to a person, talked about how Kamala ran the most perfect campaign they’d ever seen. The day after the election, every single one of them rushed to get on the “Dems don’t care about the working class” bandwagon like they were trying to get front-row tickets to Taylor Swift.

In my lifetime, ALL of the evidence from jobs created, unemployment, wages, and the DOW… shows Democratic administrations greatly outperform Republican ones. Yet, the narrative has always been that Republicans are better at handling the economy.

Why is there such a gap between facts and feelings when it comes to the economy?

One answer is propaganda. The right has a massive media advantage when it comes to pushing whatever narrative they want. AM radio, FOX NEWS, and Sinclair Corp… do nothing but pump out right-wing talking points all day, every day. If you hear/read nonstop that the economy is in crisis, no matter what the facts are, you will start to believe it. This is why, when Republicans were polled about the economy pre-election, the majority said they were in a good economic situation but the country was not. This also explains why, right after the election, when the “bad economy” propaganda was no longer being pushed, the very same people who claimed the US economy was in shambles a week prior, now think the economy is doing fine.

The same thing is true about crime rates, welfare, immigration… You name it and there has been/is a massive propaganda effort from the right that has made a whole lot of Americans “reprogrammable meatbags” (hat tip Driftglass.)

Let’s just put aside the fact the Biden administration did more for workers than any administration since LBJ and possibly all the way back to FDR. When it comes to Democrats “ignoring the working class,” every single economic crisis in my lifetime happened while a Republican was in the White House. And, every single one of the times this happened, it was a Democratic president who fixed the mess only to be replaced by another Republican who once again fucked up the economy.

The reasons why Trump won in 2016 and again in 2024 had nothing to do with Dem messaging or policies. The reasons are racism, misogyny, widespread propaganda, and Americans are unbelievably stupid. Full stop.

I’m not surprised Trump won again because I understand the American electorate. I’ve also been warning for at least the past three decades that as white, male Americans become less culturally and demographically significant, they are going to do and rationalize whatever it takes to hold onto their artificially created sense of importance and self-worth. They will not just fight like hell to protect what they deem their God-given place in society, they will burn it all to the ground and salt the earth behind them rather than see anyone they deem unworthy get a damn thing.

In one of my undergraduate philosophy classes, I can’t remember which one or the context, one of my professors brought up a hypothetical scenario where a wise king had a difficult choice to make. The public well in the village he ruled over had been tainted and anyone who drank from it went mad. The choice the king had to make was to either not drink from the well and rule over a bunch of raving lunatics or drink and become one of them.

The general consensus among the students was the right choice was for the king to drink the tainted water because, no matter how wise you are, you can’t rule idiots.

I completely disagreed with this and thought the entire thing was a false dilemma (an either/or fallacy.) The smart/right thing for the king to do would be to find another village to rule over or head to the wilderness. Trying to rule idiots is a waste of time and talent. However, idiots aren’t going to be any more easy to rule if you are also an idiot. Find a new place for your talents and/or get the fuck out of Dodge.

I’m certainly not a wise king. I’m just a lowly villager but I have the same choice to make because the public well of information has been tainted and those who drink from it are getting stupider by the day.

What does this all mean?

It means I’m out. I’m getting the fuck out of Dodge, not in the physical sense but intellectually and emotionally. I can no longer be a part of the public square of information because it has been overrun by idiots and bad-faith actors.

I’ve been out of fucks to give for some time and barely running on fumes. Watching 70+ million of my fellow Americans vote for chaos, white supremacy, lies, misogyny, and sheer stupidity and a whole lot of other Americans not even be bothered to vote for whatever reasons they tell themselves to feel better about themselves has completely exhausted whatever was in my public engagement tank.

I am going to completely stop using social media and pretty much avoid as much other media as possible. I know a lot of people who are leaving Facebook and Twitter and setting up shop at sites like Bluesky. I have a Bluesky account but won’t be using it. When I say I’m taking myself out of the public square, I mean all of it. If the public has access to something, the well of information that hasn’t been poisoned eventually will be.

There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to hang around and watch people who voted for the Face Eating Leopard Party get their faces eaten by leopards. Nobody loves the Find Out portion of Fuck Around And Find Out as much as I do. However, I can’t enjoy the Schadenfreude of people who voted for or enabled Trump to get exactly what they deserve because a lot of people who did the right thing for the right reasons are going to suffer as much, if not much more.

I also can’t watch people who keep telling me they are allies continue to make horrible choices, bitch about the consequences of their choices, and then make the same choices again. Every single person on the left who says things like, “Both parties are the same,” or “Dems have ignored the working class,” needs to go back and take a remedial civics class.

There is ONE AND ONLY ONE principle progressives need to come to terms with. If you want FDR-like policies, you HAVE TO HAVE FDR-like majorities in Congress. There is no fucking third or fourth or fifth option. The surefire way to not get these kinds of majorities is to sit out elections, vote third-party, and spend more time and energy attacking would-be allies than opponents.

I can no longer watch people be more concerned about coming across as “independent thinkers,” than being intellectually honest.

I can no longer watch people monetize anger, grief, racism, misogyny, bigotry, and stupidity.

I can no longer watch people care more about how many followers they have than facts.

I can no longer listen to people talk about “Christian values,” when their actions and words would make Jesus weep.

I can no longer hear people complain about “elites,” but continue to cater to billionaires and be fine with tax cuts for the wealthy.

I can no longer listen to people who do not understand basic economics, basic civics, and basic logic. I can no longer deal with people saying, "It's no big deal, it's just politics."

I can no longer watch people “punch down” on people/groups that are the most vulnerable in our society.

I can no longer watch women and minorities be treated as second-class citizens.

I can no longer tolerate the left being a shining example of “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”

I can no longer watch people who claim that women and minorities are high priorities to them but who constantly don’t do what is necessary to protect them.

I can no longer watch the hypocrisy of people who claim to be “Christian,” exude so much hate and anger towards people their Jesus would have taken in and washed their feet.

I can no longer watch people with little to no critical thinking skills carry more influence and weight than experts in their field. Sorry Uncle Freedom, but you don’t know Jack about virology or tariffs or Ukraine or gas production or (fill in the blank.) You don’t have the critical thinking skill set to even know why you don’t know what you don’t know and neither do the idiots you listen to on AM radio, FOX NEWS, Rumble, or OAN.

All of this probably comes across as “sour grapes,” and/or “arrogance.” I don’t fucking care. I haven’t been wrong about this stuff yet and I don’t believe I am now. I really want to be wrong. However, over the past few years, Americans generally haven’t done anything to prove me wrong.

Someone might think I’m, “just another elite liberal talking down to “Real Americans©.” First, despite all my scholastic training, I’m very much blue-collar. Second, I’m not being judgmental, I’m being purely descriptive. Finally, the Fuck Your Feelings Crowd don’t get to complain about what people think/say about them. If you are a liberal and think I’m being too harsh, get a backbone and stop pretending Republicans are something they are not, and stop wasting your time trying to convince them. No amount of evidence or arguments is going to make a meaningful dent. The ONLY thing that has a chance of making them change their beliefs is if they personally suffer from their choices, and even then that isn't a guarantee.

I saw a very popular Tweet from someone lecturing the left for “mocking people who are concerned about the price of eggs and bacon.” I’m not mocking them for their concerns. I’m mocking them for not understanding the very easily understandable reasons why certain things cost what they do at any given moment in time. Don’t wrap yourself in a flag of capitalism if you don’t understand the basics of supply and demand. Don’t be fucking stupid and certainly don’t let your stupidity lead to even stupider consequences.

It isn’t the fault of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or liberals that a lot of Americans don’t understand the consequences of a worldwide pandemic, deregulations, supply-side issues, how the need to maximize stock dividends led to a shortage of warehouses or dozens of other economic factors. They tried. A FUCKING LOT. Somehow, it just seemed easier for a lot of people to believe the person who lies about his wealth, lies about his crowd sizes, has a long list of failed businesses, including two casinos (BANKRUPTED... TWO... FUCKING... CASINOS something that no one thought was even possible,) than the President and VP who oversaw the largest growth in US manufacturing, wage growth, jobs, and saved pensions in the past 60+ years.

To call what happened on Nov 5th stupid is an insult to stupid. What it sure the fuck wasn’t, just like in 2016, was a result of “economic anxiety.”

I have to take myself out of the public square because I see no end to the stupidity. I only see it getting worse. It is going to get worse because too many billionaires are more concerned with their placement on the Top 100 Biggest Pricks List than making things better for anyone other than themselves. It’s going to get worse because white men and their enablers are going to fight even harder to hold on to the bullshit worldview of their stature and importance. It’s going to get worse because AI is going to further dumb down an already poorly educated population. It’s going to get worse because people running social media platforms are more concerned with algorithms that will generate profits than what those algorithms contain or their consequences. It’s going to get worse because young people don’t have the skill sets necessary to process the amount of misinformation and disinformation they are exposed to on a daily basis.

It is going to get worse because there is no more fragile substance in the known universe than the male ego.

It is going to get a lot worse because when fundamentalists think they have the upper hand, they ALWAYS make things worse.

It is going to get worse right away because the worst person and president in my lifetime, and possibly American history, isn’t going to have the people or guardrails around him like he did the first time. The upcoming administration is going to be a clown show. Not a Bozo or Krusty The Clown show but Pennywise and John Wayne Gacy clown show because every single person being singled out for top positions is not just grossly unqualified but a rabid nut job.

Germany turned to fascism largely because of economic factors. Between a decimated manufacturing sector, severe reparations due to Great Britain and France, hyperinflation, and the effects of The Great Depression, Germany was an economic disaster post-WWI. Hitler capitalized on this economic strife by telling Germans he’d make Germany Great Again.

America has the world’s greatest, most stable economy. The lives of everyday Americans are infinitely better now than they were a generation ago. Many of the problems we do have can easily be corrected with some basic regulations on our poorly regulated capitalism. Yet, despite this, Americans are turning towards fascism because they can’t buy whatever they want whenever they want for as little as possible, and, most importantly, white men see their self-appointed place at the top of the social/cultural pyramid, threatened. American White Christian Male Exceptionalism and Hitler’s Aryan Master Race are both based on pseudoscientific bullshit. They aren’t the exactly same but the Venn Diagram of the two overlaps a lot more than Americans care to admit.

Other than exiting from the public square, I really don’t know what I’m going to do. The last time I felt this way, to a much lesser degree, I moved out of the country. This is certainly something I’ve thought about and a serious option but due to personal responsibilities, it wouldn’t be for a few years.

When I lived in Japan, they might have been as stupid and conspiratorial as Americans (I don’t believe they were) but I didn’t know the language well enough to find out. There is something sadly true about the quote from “Bull Durham,”-“The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness.”

I’d really like to get back into writing but I haven’t figured out what to write about if I’m self-exiled. Writing about the Village Gone Stupid would defeat the reasons I’ve decided to leave the village. No matter how little you expose yourself to poison, it is still poisonous.

Whatever happens, I want to thank everyone who has read, tolerated and appreciated what I have posted and written.

I initially thought about ending with a quote from Douglas Adams- ”So long and thanks for all the fish,” but that doesn’t really capture how I feel. A better ending would be to post the entire lyrics to “Amused To Death,” by Roger Waters. However, that is too long and I’ve gone on enough. Instead, I’ll end with the lyrics from another song by Roger Waters from the same album.

Muslim or Christian, Mullah or Pope Preacher or poet who was it wrote Give any one species too much rope And they'll fuck it up -Roger Waters “Too Much Rope”

[kinardsevan]

Prompt: Buck finds out that Tommy is actually related to TK Strand.

(ahem. you asked for this.)

ETA: I have a serious problem with word skipping when reading if you can’t tell 🙃

He never intended to find out this kind of information. He done the 23&me on a whim after joking around with Eddie and Chim at work when Chim had randomly dropped into conversation “did you know I’m eight percent Scottish?” And of course they didn’t know, because how would that information have been freely available to him? How would he ever have known? 

And then Chimney had gifted him and Eddie each tests for Christmas, and at the time, Evan had figured ‘why the hell not?’ So he’d done the whole thing. Spit in the tube, sent it in, figured maybe he could at least find out if he had to worry about cancer in his future due to the Daniel of it all. 

“You sure you want to mess around in that,” Tommy had asked him over dinner one night. “I’ve heard about people finding out about murderers in their family.” 

But he’d been so sure. So sure there would be nothing interesting that would come back. There was nothing fun about the Buckley’s. His parents are teachers. His grandparents died of natural causes. What’s the worst that could happen? 

Turns out it was a lot. 

. . .

He’s on the stairs when Tommy comes into the loft, duffel still hitched up on his shoulder. They’re supposed to be spending the weekend together, but Evan’s not really sure what’s going to happen after the last twenty-four hours. 

“Hey,” Tommy murmurs softly, letting his bag hit the floor as he walks over to the stairs. He perches down at the base of them, resting a hand on Evan’s knee and ilfting the other to his face, brushing away the tears there. 

“Hi,” Evan rasps back, still staring at his hands folded in front of him. 

“Eddie said Bobby sent you home,” Tommy murmurs. Evan nods. 

“What’s going on,” Tommy asks softly, concern laced around his words. 

Evan’s eyebrows are knit so tightly together they could one into one another and the line his mouth is pressed into could crack peanut shells. 

“I-…My…Um, Maddie…” The words keep dying in his throat before he can get them out, and it just keeps making the knot in his chest tighter. 

“Is something wrong with Maddie?” 

Evan’s head lifts then, meeting Tommy’s eyes. There are conflicting emotions in the blonde’s sapphire eyes. Sorrow. A little bit of anger. Something else Tommy can’t place. Loss? 

“No,” he replies rapidly. “No, she’s fine. B-but she’s… she’s not-…”  Evan shakes his head at himself and reaches for his phone next to him on the stairs. He unlocks it, swipes at it a few times, and then passes it to Tommy. Tommy stares at him for a moment longer than necessary, and then looks down at the screen. 

“Family tree,” Tommy comments, moving the screen around to see the connections. It takes him a moment, but then suddenly he’s pulling the phone closer to his face, moving things around. “Where’s Maddie and Chim?” 

Evan lets out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, pressing the back of a hand to his nose as he sniffles. Tommy just keeps staring at the phone. 

“This has to be wrong,” Tommy comments. He sets the phone down and looks back up at Evan, cupping his face. 

“It’s not,” Evan rasps, blinking more tears down. “I got the first set of results weeks ago. Told them the same thing. They had me send a fresh sample and retest.” 

Tommy deadpans at him, eyes widened. “Evan.” 

“They’re not my family, Tommy.” His voice is so small and broken that it breaks Tommy, and he can’t stop the tears in his own eyes. “I never fit in because I didn’t belong to them. I’ve never belonged to them.” 

Tommy slides his hands off Evan’s face then and stands, pulling the blonde up with him as he does and into a tight hug. Evan burrows his face into Tommy’s neck, crying softly into the fabric of his maroon henley.

“I’m so sorry, Evan,” he murmurs to him, hand to the back of his head and lips to his temple. For all the jokes everyone has made in recent weeks after Chimney had gifted his friends the test, nobody, not even Tommy, could’ve forseen this outcome. 

They stand in that position for a while, letting Evan process. When it seems like he’s calmed enough, Tommy pulls him over to the table and they sit down next to each other. Tommy pulls Evan’s chair right up next to his, stretching his arm across the back of it and resting his free hand in the blonde’s on the table. 

“There’s nothing that says you have to do anything with any of this information,” Tommy tells him. “Maddie is still your sister. Your family is still your family.” 

Evan sniffles, leans over and rests his head on Tommy’s shoulder. 

“I know them,” he murmurs a moment later, his voice cracking. “The-…my biological family. I know them.” 

“You do,” Tommy asks. He tries not to sound overly curious in case Evan doesn’t want to give more information. 

Evan nods, lifting his head back up. “You remember my friends who came through a few weeks ago to visit?We went to dinner with them?” 

Tommy’s brow furrows as he tries to recall what Evan is specifically referring to. When it clicks, he looks back over at him. 

“TK and Carlos?” 

Evan nods. “H-his parents-… o-or I guess….” He pauses, shakes his head. “Owen and Gwyn had a kid their first year of college. Me, apparently.” 

Tommy frowns at him. 

“They placed the baby for adoption,” Evan continues. “With the option for the baby- me… to seek them out if I decided to once I was an adult.” He pauses for a moment, scowling at his table. “I don’t know h-how, but m-my parents...they tried to have a savior sibling, for Daniel. And it didn’t work. But they knew people through the hospital, a-and when I was born…” His voice trails off, his expression shifting to one of disgust. He looks up at Tommy. “I was technically a match to Daniel. But the graft didn’t take.” 

Tommy narrows his eyes at him, the weight of what Evan’s telling him sinking in. “They adopted you so they could have your bone marrow?” 

Evan lets out disgusted laugh, shaking his head. 

“And then when I couldn’t save the son they actually wanted, they acted like I wasn’t their problem,” he mutters. “And they never told me. “ 

Tommy huffs. He lifts his arm from behind Evan and pulls him in, presses his lips to the blonde’s birthmark. 

“I know it’s not a consolation, but you can still know them,” he states softly. “You already have TK in your life.” 

Evan shakes head, pulling away and looking at Tommy again, more tears in his eyes. 

“Gwyn is dead,” he tells him. “She’s been gone for two years now.” 

Tommy’s head tilts at the information, sorrow and compassion crossing his face. TK also had mentioned when they met that his father was a cancer survivor, and the realization of both of those factors is almost gut-wrenching. 

“I don’t have the right answers for this,” he admits softly. “But I can be here with you through it, whatever you want to do.” 

Evan nods. He leans back over, resting his head on Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy presses his face into Evan’s hair, leaving quick, gentle kisses there as his fingers massage gently on his scalp. 

“You’re the only person who’s ever loved me just as I am,” Evan murmurs, snuffling back a small whimper. “The only one who’s ever decided I was enough this way.” 

Tommy gulps down past the knot in his throat as he fists a handful of Evan’s hair, holding him close a beat longer. 

“Never gonna stop,” he rasps after a moment. “This version of you is enough, no matter what anyone else thinks.” 

[pois00nivy]

Call it what you want

Summary: She's always worried about helping others. What about someone worrying about her?

Pairing: 2!F x Saphic! reader

Warnings: violence, suicide atempt mentioned, fluff, kissing, kind of slown burn, english is not my first lenguage, also reader is 8f, eight floor is nine and the others dont change, lmk if i miss anything!

Wc: 1.3k

A/N: Never thought this would be my first fanfic, but since i didn't found any fic about her and i'm obssesed, and also she deserved better :cc i've just decided to write this!

♡ . ` ~

Before meeting her in the game, you had seen her a couple of times around; you worked in the same place. Her tough and reserved, yet genuinely altruistic attitude had always caught your attention. You never had the courage to approach her, using the excuse of being too immersed in your own problems.

She also used to stare but never made a move.

You weren’t surprised to see her there, in the 'show'; it only saddened you to think about the situations that had brought her to that point. You understood it in people like yourself, too selfish to care about someone they didn’t know. But even from her disadvantaged position, she found ways to help those in need.

How sad that life had brought her here anyway. You wondered if it had somehow contributed, recalling the times she endured suffering in exchange for helping someone else. You also remembered how you had been about to end your life before the notifications started coming in.

Had she been about to do the same?

From the moment you chose the number eight and followed the instructions on the platform, you knew that even though it seemed like you couldn’t die, the explicit mention that everything would end if you did meant rough days were ahead.

Who would give money without expecting anything in return?

Despite your distrust, you decided to join because it was much more hopeful than what you had almost done just hours ago.

She seemed surprised by your presence.

She let you approach her silently before starting to trust you. Despite the attraction she also felt, trust was more important.

When everyone grouped up to divide shifts for climbing the stairs, you got assigned two consecutive days of climbing followed by two days of rest, to make it fair for everyone.

Of course, she would do this.

You thought when she volunteered to go up and down the stairs so first floor could rest. That day, you were also doing your part, so you simply shared your food with her, as she didn’t want 1st Floor to stop eating because of her.

The next time, if you hadn’t been too exhausted, you would have volunteered first so she wouldn’t have to. Still, later, when you saw her red-faced and working for the fourth consecutive day, you did it and insisted that she rest.

“No, let me. You’ve been working for two days.” She protested.

“You’ve worked three. I can rest tomorrow.” Reluctantly, she agreed.

When it was time to vote, you went to the corner where she was hiding.

“I think I’ll vote for ninenth. What about you?” she asked.

“Some will probably vote for third floor. I’m undecided between ninenth or abstaining,” you said, pausing and making eye contact with her. “Anyway, I’ve never sent my trash to one, and I’m not starting now.”

She nodded in agreement. What was the point? Why couldn’t everyone just take care of their own trash?

Later, you met with 1f and decided to support by voting against the top floor.

Days passed, trying to extend your time here, and during breaks, you spent time together.

By the end of the night, your thoughts were filled with her.

When will she make the next move? Should I? What if she thinks I’m just being kind?

“Can I trust you?” Everyone was in their rooms resting, and you were beside her on the swings in the park.

The days of hunger imposed by the unbearable person from the top floor had ended after 3rd and 4rth Floor apologized, just before everyone gathered to decide what to do next.

“Why do you ask?” you responded, part of you offended by the question.

“This peace won’t last forever.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about what will happen when simple games and dramas are no longer enough.” Both of you fell silent. “I’ll stand by your side,” you said, wondering if you hadn’t made it clear enough before.

Her face lit up, and you wished you could be closer.

“Great, because I also want to stand by yours.” Compared to how you only exchanged glances without words before, you were grateful to trust her and especially to have her trust in you, knowing she also needed reassurance since she was usually the one providing it.

Later that day, during the King game, it was 8's Floor turn, with a promising challenge—until 2nd Floor raised her hand.

She had to kiss someone, but that someone wasn’t going to be you. She immediately looked at you expectantly, and you were already watching her. Her eyes reflected… disappointment? When you didn’t raise your hand, Floor 3 did instead.

Your heart almost stopped, and a knot formed in your stomach, almost worse than the pain from days without eating.

You relaxed briefly when she refused. But then, she had to fight Sixth Floor. How you hated him. You were sure she would beat him like the other day, but you didn’t want her to get hurt.

The fight started in her favor, and you enjoyed watching her throw him to the ground, waiting for him to recover a bit before immobilizing him again. Still, you were worried because the fight would last long; his pride wouldn’t let him give up easily.

Your brief happiness at seeing her land another hit faded when she showed a moment of weakness, and it clicked.

Of course, she still hadn’t recovered from hitting the tiles a few days ago. Damn it. You knew this rivalry wouldn’t lead to anything good (though you admired her bravery in facing 6th Floor, who always tried to stay ahead of everyone).

A moment later, he hit her hard enough to keep her from getting up, pressing on her still-delicate hand with brutal force. The following seconds were torture to watch, tormenting you further as no one could separate him from her, and she refused to give up. When the fight ended, you wanted to tear that idiot to pieces, and your heart broke at the sight of her bloodied face.

Fifth Floor and you took her to her room while Floor fourth asked the elevator for supplies to treat her. After leaving her there, you rushed to your room, bought medicine to ease her pain, and sent it to her floor along with a bandage for her hand. You went back down, where Floor 5 finished treating her. You helped bandage her hand.

When Floors fifth and fourth left, her eyes were filled with tears, her face temporarily disfigured. She squeezed your hand as if afraid you’d leave too.

“Please don’t go”

“I wasn’t planning to. I’d rather stay here. You always worry about others; it’s time someone worries about you"

You pulled her close to comfort her, wrapping your arms around her. She leaned into you, resting her head on your shoulder as she brought her arms to your waist.

You ran a hand through her hair, gently caressing her head, trying to help her find peace.

“You should’ve kissed him,” you said.

“I don’t regret not doing it.” She pulled back slightly to look into your eyes. “He’s not the one I want to kiss.”

Your heart raced as the tension grew. You kept eye contact before she brought your face closer to hers, finally joining your lips in a slow kiss. You followed her immediately but carefully, afraid of hurting her.

You wondered how many minutes the clock would add at that moment, disgusted for a moment at the thought of men watching, but forgetting about it soon, when her eager grew as she kissed you more fervently, holding your waist tighter and pulling you as close as possible until you both separated, breaths heavy as you tried to catch them.

“Now that the violence has started, there’s no going back,” you said, and she nodded. "You can trust me,” you answered the question she had asked hours ago.

“You can trust me too.”

[dcoraclestan]

Untitled Batfam/Squid Game cross over fan fic

Summary: a sad fan fic where the batfam are in a squid games-esc game playing dodgeball and it comes down to Jason and Tim as the last players on each side but Tim is too scared to say anything so it’s up to Jason to decide whether his team lives or dies and I gave the surviving Robin crippling survivors guilt as they refuse to open their eyes and witness their brother dead on the floor.

Background info: This is chapter 3 of a WIP a few people asked me to post. Basically Bat fam in a squid games situation were forced to split up into two to play dodgeball. They didn’t get to choose the teams and they get one minute to strategize before the game started. The transparent wall kills anyone who crosses it. All of which is explained in chapter one that I haven’t written yet lol. Not important but the teams are Alfred, Tim, Stephanie, Damian, Roxy Rocket, Harley Quinn, Deathstroke, Penguin, and Two Face. The others are Bruce, Selina, Jason, Tiffany, Lucius, Kate, Riddler, Killer Croc, and Scarecrow. If there are any grammar mistakes, just know I’m illiterate. Enjoy!

Ever since they broke off into teams, Alfred had not taken his eyes off Bruce. And while Bruce had done an excellent job at hiding his grief for Dick and Luke, Alfred knew better. Bruce may have been putting on a Batman exterior, but his eyes held the same look as the recently orphaned eight year old latching onto his petticoat, unsure of how to answer Officer Gordon’s questions about his parents’ murder.

Unsure.

Seeing his younger master unsure was what terrified him the most. If it wasn’t for the transparent wall having split the court, Alfred would have been over with his adopted son helping him plan, but instead he was standing with his grandkids attempting to figure out what to do while those that terrorized their nightmares were trying to convince them to win instead of throwing the game.

“Oh please! Like they aren’t over there talking the same shit!” Penguin squawked. “They’re going to kill us all the second they get and be thrilled we’re dead!”

Stephanie clinched her hands, “we need to delay the game! As long as possible at least!”

Roxy laughed, “I’m with this one. Make it exciting!”

“Don’t be stupid,” Deathstroke snapped.

“Aw come on, Willy,” Harley pouted. “Don’t be mean. The poor girl just wants her fake family to rescue them! There’s no chance they will in time, but these hero types always have a hope in them that’s hard to shake.”

“Quinn,” Damian ordered, “please stop talking. We have less than a minute to plan.”

“Planning our own deaths,” Mad Hatter shot. “You hero types never pass up an opportunity to sacrifice yourselves for the greater good. No, we gotta throw all of them in the front lines and make sure they get out fast.”

“You want to throw the three most physically fit members of our team under the bus?” Deathstroke pointed out sarcastically. “Great idea.”

“Fuck you!” Stephanie snapped, raising a fist. “You had no problem pushing Dick down! If it wasn’t for you, he’d be alive!”

Deathstroke rolled his eye. “I told you, I slipped.”

Stephanie threw the first punch which lead to a loud argument of people holding each other back, screaming over each other, and otherwise preforming a mockery of teamwork. Alfred almost joined the fray before turning and noticing Tim was not in the circle. He was standing close to the barrier and staring ahead at the other team.

Alfred approached him, wincing from his now relocated shoulder. “Master Drake, is everything okay?”

Tim shook his head vaguely. “We’re going to die. All of us here. We’re all going to die.”

Alfred’s heart sunk into his stomach, but he kept a gentle expression. “Why do you say that?”

Tim gestured to Bruce in their much more cooperative group huddle. “Batman doesn’t know what to do. I’ve been watching him, Alfred. He hasn’t said a word in their meeting. He also hasn’t let any of us move far away from him. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. He’s trying to spend what little time he has left with us. I’ve seen him be less protective when Darksied nearly wiped all of humanity, but… he’s completely given up now.”

The lump in Alfred’s throat grew bigger. He placed his good hand on his shoulder and felt Tim shaking under his palm. “That doesn’t mean there’s no hope, Master Timothy.”

Tim shook his head. “Alfred, don’t try to pretend. We both know we’re not making it out of this school alive.”

Alfred didn’t know what to say as he secretly agreed. Fortunately, the whistle blew so he never had to come up with the words. “Planning period over. The game is about to begin. I repeat. Planning period over. The game is about to begin.”

Everyone got into a vague position to start. All of the inmates were at the front with the bat family further away from the center. Five balls dropped from the ceiling as a new ten minute timer started ticking down. The villains all ran for the balls and started throwing. Alfred and Lucius were not nearly young or healthy enough, and unsurprisingly were benched quickly. All the vigilantes were moving on instinct and muscle memory rather than a desire to live. Each time a ball got caught, someone else was called back in, but that was the only time the bat family spoke. Other than that, they were dodging as best as they could. The only two who were having any resemblance of fun was Harley Quinn and Roxy Rocket who couldn’t help but taunt and jeer at every person who got out. Once both were knocked out by a well aimed throw from Kate, the court was silent because of rule #3. It was obvious those on the bench wanted to say something, but none of them were willing to be shot just to make fun of someone being hit.

Reguardless of where they stood morally, both teams were all were nervous to be playing. All kept subconsciously glancing to Batman every few seconds for a way to get out of the situation entirely. Unfortunately, Batman was not playing the game. No matter how hard he tried, Bruce was the one on the court. Bruce found it impossible to ignore their glances at him for answers.

Similar to red light/green light, after each person was eliminated a whistle blew from no where and their name was called, except this time it wasn’t followed by a gunshot. That didn’t mean Bruce’s heart rate didn’t go up with each blow of the whistle. He kept seeing Dick’s face blown apart by a sniper rifle at too close range, hearing Luke’s chest ripped open by the same gun and Tiffany screaming in fear. Even Clayface and Bane perishing in an equally hideous display crossed his mind. He didn’t want anyone else to die, not even the Arkham inmates. It was senseless violence. All of it. Even then, as Two Face hurled a ball at Riddler’s bad leg with the intention of hurting him more, there wasn’t a reason for it.

Bruce kept trying to rationalize the scene. He was playing dodgeball in an elementary school with his family and enemies. That was the extent he could go. When he managed to get a ball in his hands, all he could think to do was roll it on the ground so no one got out. It was completely pointless. If that timer hit 0 everyone would be dead. Someone was going to have to decide who lives.

Bruce only became aware of his movements when he allowed himself to be hit by a disbelieving Tim who stood alone on the opposite side. Bruce didn't say anything and selfishly walked back to the stands. The ball that bounced off Bruce had rolled back to Tim’s side of the court, hitting his shoe.

“I-I thought he was gonna catch it,” Tim stuttered to the sole member of the other team.

Jason laughed humorlessly. “Bats not sacrificing himself for the greater good? You’re kidding yourself.”

Tim unsteadily picked up the ball at his feet, an unwilling passenger in his own body. He held the ball in his hand shaking violently but felt as though it was ten feet away. He could hear the countdown on the timer. He only had 42 seconds left on the clock. It wasn’t enough time. Less than a minute for half of his family to live. But which half? How does he choose? How could he? He was a teenager, a kid really. One side had more people, more members of his family. But he couldn’t let Damian, Alfred, or Steph die. But if he did let himself live with the others, the rogues had already declared their promise to kill them the moment Batman was dead. The inmates had a numbers advantage on them. They could easily overpower an elderly injured man and three kids who wouldn’t be able to defend themselves without Batman’s help. Tim felt everyone staring at him wanting to shout out their opinions and what he should do. He almost wished they could as it might have blocked out the sound of his beating heart.

“Jay… I can’t do this,” Tim whimpered, shaking where he stood.

Jason searched his mind for a sarcastic comment to shoot back at his brother to make him laugh, but he couldn’t come up with anything. “Tim… man, it’s gonna be alright,” Jason consoled.

“I… I can’t do it. I can’t. We’re all gonna die and it’s gonna be my fault but I can’t choose…”

“Don’t then,” Jason blurted out trying to give him some solace. “Throw it easy. I’ll either catch it or not. It won’t be your fault then, just mine.”

Tim shook his head, “no. We…. Jay it makes more sense for your side to live. Sacrificing yourself I get, but… the only way you have any chance to get out is Bruce and Lucius. We’re just kids over here, and they’re gonna kill us the second Bruce die-“ he stopped himself from finishing his sentence, having to take a deep breath to keep himself from completely breaking down. “But… I don’t want Damian to not grow up. I don’t want Steph to not see Cass again, I don’t want… I don’t want to-“ It was all he could say before sobbing.

“Tim,” Jason’s voice cracked. “There’s not enough time left…” Jason didn’t even realize he was talking, his lips moved without thinking. “E-either way one of us is dead. You don’t even have to choose anything! All of the balls are in your…are in your court, so no matter what… it’s me who has to decide…”

The gravity of it caught up to Jason in that moment. It really was up to him no matter what. Tim could throw whatever he wanted, but he had to either fight for his life or die for his brothers’. Tim was right. Unfortunately, there were more rational adults with more skills on his side. If there was any chance of getting out before the games ended it was with Lucius and Tiffany’s tech skills to override the locks, Selina’s stealth to steal a weapon, Kate’s martial arts skill, and Bruce’s planning. But that would mean…

Jason looked up and saw Steph smiling comfortingly and tears streaming down her face, Alfred standing dignified with Damian uncharacteristically vulnerable leaning up against his leg, refusing to look at the court. Tim was hugging the ball to his chest tightly, the only thing he could do at the moment, trying his best to keep from crying.

The clock was ticking down, now at ten seconds. Jason had to make up his mind quickly. He found Bruce’s eyes and quietly asked what to do. Bruce looked away and down at his hand in his lap clutching onto his wife’s. A small gesture that told Jason what he would do if the roles were reversed.

Jason turned to Tim and gave him a single nod. He had made his decision. Tim threw the ball up in the air and time seemed to freeze. All eyes were on the second Robin, watching his every moment. They saw his feet move to become more center with the ball, directly in its path.

There was the sound of the ball making impact. Jason closed his eyes and waited, the familiar feeling creeping up in him that death was about to come. Jason hated that the last image Tim would ever have of him would be of him shaking and terrified, but no matter what he did he could not manage to muster up a smile onto his face.

“It’s gonna be okay-“

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

No final words were granted. No goodbyes were given. One by one, the sound of bodies dropping to the floor echoed in the tiny gym. The former Robin’s eyes had shut tight with the first gun shot, not wanting to see his brother mutilated before him. He could feel his brother’s brain matter coating his hands and the blood soaking into his shirt but as long as his eyes were shut, everything was fine. As long as his eyes were closed his family was alive. As long as he didn’t look, almost all of his siblings were still standing.

He didn’t cry as he stood there. He couldn’t if he tried as his grip of reality started to pull away from him. This was his nightmare, his absolute nightmare. The former Robin couldn’t think of a worse scenario for him to be in. It was just up to him and his brother to choose the fates of his family. There was no way this was happening. Kidnapping almost his whole family to play children’s games to the death?! That’s completely insane. It may have been Gotham but-

Scarecrow.

It had to of been. He had to be under the influence of fear toxin. There’s no other way. It was the only thing that made any sense. It was all of his worst fears wrapped up into one. A high dose of fear toxin.

“This isn’t real,” he said out loud. “This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” He repeated this over and over and over again, each time somehow shutting his eyes tighter and tighter, refusing to open them. He knew this couldn’t have been true, the timeline of events was too coherent to be a hallucination, but he could manifest it into being fake if he tried hard enough. He could make it true. He could make it so his brothers were alive. If he just repeated this, it would-

“It’s going to be alright,” a man’s voice said, clasping a firm hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to be alright.”

Jason snapped out of his trance to see the rubber ball still in his hands. There was the clear sign of skull and brain coating the outside of it, the last remainder he had of Tim. The transparent do-not-cross wall was already dividing the court, but Jason could not bring himself to look through it and instead stared down at the ball in his hand.

“I-I caught it…” Jason stated, holding it up to Bruce beside him. “I caught it.”

Bruce nodded, jaw tensed, swallowing a lump in his throat. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Jason looked right through Bruce. “I caught it…” he breathed out and lowered his arms. “I caught it…”

Bruce didn’t say anything, but instead wrapped his arms around his son and pulled him in tight. Jason did not hug him back. He didn’t seem to have noticed at all that he had moved. The ball in his hands was the only thing grounding him to reality as it was a fact that he caught the ball. He saved Bruce, Selena, Tiffany, Kate, and Lucius.

He caught the ball.

“I caught it,” Jason was still repeating over and over as Bruce gripped him tighter. “I caught it.”

“Thank God you did!” Ed Nigma scoffed, limping down the stands. “I was worried you were about to do something stupid.”

Jason didn’t hear him. His chin was resting on his adopted dad’s shoulder. The ball was pressing in under Bruce’s ribcage but similar to the last living Robin, he didn’t notice anything other than Jason’s grip on this world slipping away as he kept stating how he saved his life. Bruce was already numb from the moment he turned around and saw his oldest son had been shot in the head. His daughter, father, and other two sons shared the same fate.

Jason still hadn’t cried nor stopped repeating himself. It might have been better if he did either. Bruce didn’t know what to do or how best to comfort him. It was Bruce’s fault he was like this. Bruce purposefully tagged himself out, not so Tim would have a chance, but so he didn’t have to make the final decision.

“I… I caught the ball,” Jason finally differed slightly from his script. “I caught the ball.”

“It’s going to be okay, Jason,” Bruce comforted. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Bruce wished his voice wasn’t so monotone. It might have helped if he has some emotion, angry or sad, or anything. But Bruce pushed down all of his pain, all of his feelings. He didn’t allow himself to grieve, not yet. Not only was it unproductive, but he knew once he started crying he would never be able to stop. He had to focus on what he had, and all he had was four people outside this game presumably trying to break them out, a wife who he loved deeply, his one living cousin, one of his oldest friends and his loyal daughter, and one surviving son right in front of him who was unable to cope with the decision he made and would haunt him forever.

“You did nothing wrong,” Bruce repeated. “It’s going to be okay. You did nothing wrong.”

Bruce didn’t know how long they stood there repeating themselves over and over, each one not interrupting the other.

Eventually, a gentle hand was placed on Bruce’s back. “Sweetheart,” Selina consoled, “we should probably go before they kick us out.”

Bruce did not make a conscious effort to let go of Jason, but he found himself walking towards the gym door all the same, one arm wrapped around his son to guide him.

Jason was still clutching the rubber ball in his hand when the voice announcement came on overhead. “No taking game items outside of the playing field. I repeat. No taking game items outside the playing field.”

Selina unwrapped herself from Bruce’s side, stopping Bruce from taking a step out the door. “Jason,” Selina cautioned gently.

Jason looked through her and held up the rubber ball just like he did minutes earlier to Bruce. “I caught it.”

Selina smiled as warmly as she could. “I know. I know you did. We have to leave it behind now. Is that alright?”

Jason’s eyes went to the ball where a fragment of Tim’s skull was practically glued to it with now dried blood. “I…caught the ball…”

Selina reached out carefully and placed her hands as best as she could so she didn’t touch any gore on it. “I’m going to take this from you. Can I do that?”

Jason watched his own hands unwrap themselves from the ball and have it settle in Selina’s hands.

“Thank you, Jason,” Selina thanked before going back to the stands and gently placing it down on the bleachers so it didn’t make a sound.

“Y-yeah…” Jason mumbled, still holding his hands out as though nothing had been taken from him.

Bruce rubbed Jason’s arm for comfort and continued walking down the hallway once Selina was next to him again. The only sound down the hallway was Jason’s mutters of catching a ball getting quieter and quieter.

“B-B-Bruce?” Jason asked as they neared the corridor to the kindergarten classroom.

“Yes?” Bruce responded.

“I…I think I’m done,” Jason admitted. “Yeah, I don’t want to play any more games. I’m gonna… I just want to go home.”

Bruce stopped in the hallway and turned to be in front of him with Selina stopping a step behind Bruce. Bruce suddenly did not see a 19 year old Jason Todd standing in front of him, but rather the 12 year old Boy Wonder who just wanted to do good in the world. He didn’t know what else to do other than kneeling down to his knee and grabbing Jason’s arms. Bruce couldn’t think of what to say, but somehow the words came out of him. “You made a hard choice back there, Jay. No one would deny that. There was no right or wrong decision, only one that-.”

“They probably felt how I did…” Jason muttered.

Bruce felt his heart shatter as Jason’s eyes finally focused on him. “I…I made them watch the clock tick down to their deaths. They didn’t deserve that.” Bruce froze, finally understanding what Jason had been trying to tell him. He watched as Jason’s eyes shifted away from reality once more and stared off into the abyss. “I caught the ball…” Jason began repeating again.

The first tear fell out of Bruce’s eyes without him knowing. They were silently streaming down his face, knowing for a fact that this was his fault. He left the decision up to Jason. This was Bruce’s doing. And he would have to live with that for the rest of his life.

[annakie]

FIXING THE HOUSE - PART FOURTEEN (B) - THE TRUE FINAL CHAPTER!

Copper Green

Part One: I Do Not, In Fact, Have the Power

Part Two: Let’s Spend Lots of Money!

Part Three: All These Things That I’ve Done

Part Four: I Really Want to Stay At My House

A little interlude.

Part Five: Power Down

Part Six: You Will Leave Some Paint

Part Seven: Backwards to go Forwards

Part Eight: Master of Bathrooms

Part Nine: Within a Room, Somewhere

Part Ten: Rooms With No View

Part Eleven: Big Bang Room Part A and also Part B!

Part Twelve: We Can Make It On the Outside

Part Thirteen: Mauve Haze Symphony

Part Fourteen (A) - In the Kitchen

Part Fourteen (B) - Copper Green (YOU ARE FINALLY HERE!!)

Guys, we've arrived.

I can't believe this is the last Fixing the House post. Well, unless I find some other major thing to fix? But I SURE HOPE NOT. I don't have the money for that. :p

Y'all... I wasn't going to touch the kitchen. I really wasn't. I mean, I needed to get it rewired with the entire house. And it definitely had its quirks like we talked about at the end of the last post but it was... okay. It had the 2009 facelift and there were certainly bigger problems in the house. The "new" countertop and sink were holding up well 15 years later, still looked quite good! And OKAY we needed to replace the floor along with all the other new flooring Arturo put in, it's all one big room pretty much and there was a little water damage around the sink and fridge, but it wasn't terrible.

Well. Then... things happened.

Honestly, the first thing that happened was the flooring, like I talked about. I'd written out a priority list and there were a couple of "nice to have" things in the kitchen but they all ranked low. But the thing was, there had been one thing in the kitchen I really wanted, but looking at my budget, after asking Arturo the price of the floor vs the price of the thing I wanted... I went with the floors.

What I really wanted though was new cabinet doors and drawers.

I'd just said in the previous post (and tbh I added it a few minutes after posting, in case you read the previous post right after I posted it) that the bottom cabinet doors would just open on their own all the time. Annoying. And the drawers kept falling off the tracks, and one drawer had fallen apart and so was wasted space.

So I didn't even want new cabinets, JUST the doors and drawers, maybe something more modern than the cheap and obviously 60's doors that were there. I think the layout of the kitchen is as good as it could get without like HUGE fixes.

(And hilariously - and putting this out there first that we did not do this, - Arturo had A PLAN of what he really wanted to do. He VERY MUCH wants to tear out that entire wall with the oven and pantry, and put in a HUGE island. We'd have to do a post or two for support. I pointed out that I'd lose the pantry, and a couple of days later he came back with a plan to move the pantry to the side closer to the door, and also to raise the dropped ceiling by re-routing the air ducts located there, which is the reason for the lower ceiling in the kitchen anyway. If ever in the future there is an update to this series of posts... that's probably going to be why. But no, we didn't do that. I'm thinking about it for some day when I get a financial windfall though :p )

But... yeah. Looking at the budget, the floor was in worse shape, more practical, more economical.

Then, when I'd made peace in my heart that we were just not going to really touch the Okay Kitchen much, two things happened.

First, my mom called one night to discuss how things were going. We had a good long talk and near the end she asked about the kitchen. I told her that I had thought about the cabinets and had Arturo price it for me, and it would be about the same as the floor, so I'd chosen the floor. "Do both," mom said. "There's money if you need it. I know you're good for it."

Not wanting to take a loan from my parents, I told her thank you and I'd think about it.

And then right about the same time, Arturo told me how his brother, who was also a contractor, had, a couple of years ago, renovated a hotel. In one part of the hotel they'd put in this granite, and then the hotel owner decided a few days later he didn't like that granite and told Arturo's brother to get rid of it and bought some new countertop.

Instead of throwing it away, Arturo's brother stored that basically new granite in Arturo's backyard. Where it had sat since then.

Both Arturo's wife and the city (or maybe HOA?) were telling him he had to get rid of it. He showed me a picture of it. The picture was taken at night and kind of grainy so I wasn't sure about it.

So he brought me a sample the next day, just a like 1' wide piece.

It was black and kind of coppery in person and I fell in love almost instantly. I put the shittiest picture he sent me up there on purpose.

"Well," I asked. "How much?" Granite was a pipe dream, after all. I hadn't ever seriously dared to dream about ever having granite. I mean, really. GRANITE? In this house? Not possible.

"Oh," Arturo replied "you can just have it. You'll have to pay my regular countertop guy for the install but that should only be like, $500."

My jaw practically dropped open. What the fuck. Granite didn't belong in this house. And now I could have it?!? For FREE!?!

I was almost in tears when I told Arturo yes, and thanked him like a thousand times.

That night I called my mom, told her what Arturo said, and asked for that loan.

I mean, hell, I couldn't get granite countertops without getting the cabinets done, right?

---

It wasn't just the doors. When I decided to do this, it triggered something else. I just needed to do the kitchen right this time. It was okay now. But it could be even better, and mom agreed. I was at this point invested in making sure the whole house had all the shitty things fixed. I could have the best kitchen a reasonable budget could give me. I was getting granite countertops and new cabinets and I needed to bring a few more things up to that quality.

Look, I haven't posted many pics yet, so let's start with these. They're kinda like one I posted from 2009! But these instead have Fry checking things out. I guess technically these pics come after the next one because this was countertop day, ah well.

What you can see in these pictures is that the drawers would be on secure tracks along the side instead of one track hanging overhead, that was easy to drop off of.

I made the decision that the backsplash had to get upgraded. That wasn't an easy decision but as much as I loved the copper tiles... they were losing their luster and needed to go.

I didn't want to entirely lose the "old copper" though. I did look into what a new range hood would cost and decided the old one was just fine, thank you, let's keep that and the lazy susan in the pantry as the cool reminders of the kitchen's roots.

I asked Arturo for more outlets there in that pic above by the fridge. New lighting above the sink, wired in and not taking up a precious outlet.

A week or so later, just a day or two after the new floors were in, there was a knock on the door and a whole crew of 20-something guys streamed in. I had no idea it took a village to replace a small kitchen's worth of doors and drawers, but everything had been made.

I stayed out of their way and let them do their thing all afternoon.

Throughout the day the old doors came off, and the naked new doors went in. It was honestly a bit bittersweet, seeing the old doors get stacked up to probably be discarded. They took them, though. Maybe they resold them as vintage. I do not care.

At the end of that day, the kitchen looked like this:

One drawer and that end cabinet needed refitting, and the drawers on the other side, but holy crap, look, I have Shaker-Style cabinets! Not painted yet, no handles or knobs yet, but they had... hinges with springs??!!? They aren't super fancy, no soft-close or anything but the drawers... I mean they stayed on their tracks?? Didn't just fall open!? AND YOU CAN OPEN THEM ALL THE WAY AND GET TO WHAT'S IN BACK?

(Sidenote: Remember how said the old cabinet doors came open on their own all the time? Turns out I was wrong. The night after these went in Pemily started crying LOUDLY in the kitchen when... it turns out she couldn't open these cabinets. Yeah, the old doors didn't have springs in the hinges and SHE was the one opening them all the time, she just hates closed doors! She can't get these open, the springed hinges make them too heavy for her. It took several days for her to stop crying about it. I would show her what's inside sometimes to calm her down.)

---

Arturo said he should have told me before the cabinet guys showed up to empty the kitchen, so I made their lives harder by not having that done, so I got started on that ASAP that night.

That was was RIGHT after we got the dining room furniture put back in the dining room. Got most of the boxes from the Office/DR unpacked (not the green china cabinet, as you can see below) and put away and immediately the DR looked like this.

I also took the opportunity to do a big purge of the kitchen. That huge box in the front left became where I put all the cookware, dishware and utensils that I no longer wanted. I threw out like five trash bags of expired food but mostly expired cleaning products and misc kitchen things that I no longer wanted but weren't good enough for giveaway.

A lot of the things put in that box or thrown out once belonged to my grandparents, a lot of that red and green pattern dishware from that previous post's picture. I just didn't use most of it and had gotten stuff that was more to my taste.

I called my parents and for some reason felt like I needed permission to get rid of it. They granted it, absolving any guilt I had. I just was tired of having crammed cabinets. It was time to make hard choices. I ended up giving that box of stuff to my across the street neighbors. They have yard sales often and so knowing the stuff probably got sold to someone else and is still in use somewhere feels better than knowing it went directly in the trash. I had planned to donate it to Goodwill or something but honestly my neighbor benefiting from it with no more effort from me felt just fine, thanks!

Around this time, another box arrived, something I'd shopped many hours for and had mostly bought with accumulated points on my credit card. I was so excited, it was one of my favorite things I'd bought.

Here's a preview.

We'll get back to it, though.

---

There was a bit of drama with the granite countertop install. Arturo's normal guys decided to try and charge me double of what they would normally charge for an install this size. They showed up to do the work then told Arturo it'd be $800. Arturo got into a slightly heated argument with them and threw them out of my house. He said they were trying to take advantage of me, and wouldn't let them.

Two days later another pair of guys he worked with, normally his second choice, showed up. They wanted $430. DONE!

Arturo is amazing, y'all. And these guys did an amazing job on the countertop install.

That night when it was in, I stood in the kitchen for, I don't know, twenty minutes or so like crying with joy just repeatedly wiping down and running my fingers over the granite. It was so gorgeous, it was beyond what I imagined I could ever have in my house, when I started with that ancient, yellowed, worn-out countertop 21 years ago.

My kitchen was going to be pretty. It could be something to walk into and say "WOW!" about, instead of me feeling like I had to apologize for.

---

So, backsplash.

I looked at several places online but it was on Amazon that I fell in love. I knew the second I saw it that it was perfect. I ordered the boxes without consulting Arturo, and somehow managed to buy the exact right number.

I knew pretty early on what color I wanted the cabinets. It wouldn't be a gigantic change, but I was sure the second I saw it that it was perfect. I wanted classic Americana. I wanted the perfect compliment to the star of the show in the kitchen.

I wanted Sage. Just the sage that was simply called Sage in the Sherwin-Williams Swatch Book. I considered other sages, but no. The classic Sage was perfect.

The final cabinet fitting with the Cabinet Crew happened a week or so after the first. It was really not fun being without a fully functional kitchen for like two weeks but I lived through the inconvenience, I could always microwave or crock pot even on the most inconvenient days. After they were done, Arturo took all the doors and drawers back off. They were all painted in one day in the backyard thanks to spray-pump technology. It took me DAYS to do it the first time in 2004! And look at this, it wasn't much past noon when I took the above pic!

I was even more certain that I made the right color choice as soon as I saw the final product.

It took a day for the cabinets themselves to get painted.

Around then we also started talking wall colors for the kitchen and pantry. I knew the pantry shelves would also be sage, and the pantry door. But the walls...

Something in me said no to green walls. Too much green. Something in me said... go bold.

The backsplash had arrived recently and there was a bit in the backsplash that I really loved, and I was like... would this be crazy? Should the rest of the walls pull out this color?? The color was a very dark brown. Like, a coppery brown. Dark brown walls. Is it insane? Janarie (Arturo's main painter) and my mom both sounded very unconvinced when I discussed it with them. I was split between two browns, and I brought my idea to Arturo, and he said that he actually had a practically new gallon of one of those colors, Black Bean, from his previous job, so we wouldn't even have to buy that paint. Hell yeah.

The doors got put on as soon as the cabinets were dry a day or so later. The backsplash went on that same day, Arturo and his guys stayed late to get the backsplash on so the grout could dry overnight.

The grout... I'd picked a brown, matching Black Bean almost exactly. Pulling it together even more.

When the backsplash was on, Arturo confessed that he thought maybe after seeing it on the walls that Black Bean was going to be too dark with the backsplash and brown grout. We talked about instead painting the walls an offwhite.

The pantry was small and would look even smaller and TOO dark if it were done in Black Bean, we'd both agreed on that. So I got the Sherwin Williams website to tell me what shade of white went well with Sage. It gave me Heron White, so we got a gallon of that, thinking we'd probably do all the walls that color at that point. The pantry walls got done that day and I asked Janarie to hold off starting on the kitchen walls until Arturo and I could talk about it, she painted the shelves sage instead. The Heron White looked more off-white-y on the website than in person and I was like... I do not want pure white walls in my kitchen. I just don't.

So when Arturo got there we decided to go ahead with the Black Bean plan after all, and hey, it's just paint and if we hated it, we do another color.

We did the small wall where the lightswitch is by the microwave first.

And it looked fucking awesome.

Arturo and Janarie quickly painted all of the walls in the kitchen Black Bean. I started a new little project at the end of the day and got all my real copper bottom cookware all polished. I'd bought a used 1960's set of Revere Ware, from when it had pure copper bottoms from Ebay a few years ago. It was an economical way to get some quality copper cookware and I'm very happy with it, though the handles sometimes need repairs.

That night i screwed new (copper colored) hooks into my pots and pans wall, that same wall Dad and I had covered with paneling... and holy shit, look how amazing this looks y'all.

Black Bean and polished copper, an outstanding combination. I love it so much.

We ended up painting the ceiling the Heron white, as it had gotten a bit gnarly with splashes and time, and it looks amazing. That's also done in the above picture.

---

I bought a few more things like perfectly matching sage potholders and dishcloths (from All Clad, sure why not? The color is right!)

One more thing to talk about so I can just post another picture -- another small change i had done was had a light put in the pantry. It was always so dark and hard to see in parts of the pantry. No more!

Heron white and sage pantry! I also bought those new copper canisters for fresh coffee grounds always, and another set behind it for flour/sugars/oats.

One thing about the pantry... THE FREAKING DOOR.

We had to replace the ugly door that came off the tracks with a door that fit, and stayed on the tracks, and was pretty.

We got a solid bi-fold door. Arturo put it on and I LOVED IT.

But then I thought the handle was too high. So I asked if we could move the handle. He said no, but we could flip the door over and it would be lower.

So we did that. And then over the next couple of days I realized it made it so the door as opening from the wrong half of the fold and was harder to open in general.

One of the few times I genuinely annoyed Arturo for during the renovations was when I asked him to flip the door back over, lol. But he did it. SORRY ARTURO. You were right and I was WRONG!

Now painted, with pretty new door pull, too!

---

What knobs/cabinet/drawer pulls were like another big area I spent a LOT of time. I shopped around the stores but I wanted things that went together. I found on Amazon an entire set of things that were handles, cup pulls and knobs. Arturo and I talked a lot about what went where and in what configuration but in the end I found exactly what I wanted. I almost made a real dumb decision to get cup pulls for EVERYTHING but Arturo and some pictures I saw where someone else did that talked me out of it.

The color on the knobs on top in particular is a little brighter than I'd like but the style is exactly what I wanted and it's a very tiny thing I can live with.

Okay and KITCHEN LIGHTING is a big thing.

Those stupid, deep recessed wells where the lights were? Arturo went "Yeah we're covering those up and putting in can lights." I tried suggesting putting some dangling pendulum type lights that would reach the bottom of the wells to keep some of the depth of the wells, since the ceiling is so low in the kitchen, but he said that those still wouldn't distribute light well and it would still be dark in the kitchen. He talked me into covering the wells and putting in can lights like the office/dining room.

So I agreed, and he was right.

---

OK here, judge my 2024 food choices.

Or just tell me how great my Sage and Heron White pantry looks. It's a bit better organized now than in this pic.

----

Okay, y'all. Let's finally do some real reveal pics!!!

Guys. GUYS.

The bright lighting.

The Black Bean wall.

The Sage shaker-style cabinet doors.

The Copper knobs, cup pulls and snag-free door handles.

The All-Clad sage potholders.

THE GRANITE COUNTERTOPS.

The new floor.

THE BACKSPLASH. Copper. Hexagons. In three colors of copper, and dark brown grout that lets the copper be the centerpiece. Closeup of that coming soon.

A sliver of the new pantry door.

OH and I didn't even mention... we painted the oven black with a special heat-resistant paint so that it fit in better. Yes, I still have the same oven. It works fine, except for the 50-degrees off thing which is not at all a problem once you know about it. Maybe someday I'll get a new one, but I truly don't need it now and there were a lot of places that needed the investment more. It blends into the kitchen painted black and I'm very happy with it.

Um, I think at some point I mentioned I love copper, right?

I got copper-colored flatware.

But also... look at these drawers that smoothly pull out all the way and stay on their tracks!!!

A closer look at that backsplash and the painted oven. New copper spoon rest. Also the kitchen utensil holder is new. I've gotten rid of most of the black utensils and replaced them with stainless steel since.

It all goes together so well.

Reverse angle!

Oh! One more new thing I forgot to mention I think anywhere (Maybe in the dining room post? Not sure?) is that we also put a new light and switch in over the entryway. I realized that when we took out the old ceiling fan and put in one that didn't have a light, that when I entered the house from the garage I had no immediate access to any light since the lights in the dining room are on the wall opposite the oven. So we took out a very old ADT alarm panel, which came with the house when I bought it and was nothing but an eyesore, put a new lightswitch and single light there for immediate entryway lighting. Brighter and more convenient!

Also the door handle on the door to the garage was VERY weirdly about six inches into the door instead of a normal length. No idea why, but it required a special doorknob that was in bad shape. Since we were replacing all the doorknobs in the house, Arturo had to drill a new doorknob hole and he somehow seamlessly patched the old hole, I don't know how he did it but you can't even see the old hole. Now the doorknob is right where you'd expect it to be.

But here's a picture where you can see I'd shoved a dishtowel in the old hole for insulation before it was patched lol.

-----

Okay, okay so... let's look at the other half of the kitchen. In just a sec.

My entire adult life I have dreamed about a certain thing in my kitchen... well I mean besides granite countertops.

A copper sink.

So I started wondering if I could possibly afford that.

And YEOUCH. They ranged from pricey but... maybe to lol no that's more than I'm spending on the rest of the kitchen two or three times over.

Also I started really reading into what it took to maintain one and was like uhhh... that seems like a lot of work. Maybe not.

And then I saw online this one company... Strictly Sinks? And they did colored stainless steel sinks? And they were... okay definitely not cheap but relatively affordable. And they made copper colored stainless steel sinks. Pretty well reviewed, too.

And... I just absolutely fell in love. With one in particular.

The next day I showed it to Arturo and asked if we could make it work and he was like "Yes we can, and you have to get that sink. It's beautiful."

So I DID IT.

We'd also need a new faucet, and we measured and discussed how high I could go for a new faucet with the cabinet there. I took a chance with one that I absolutely loved.

And it all came together more amazingly than I could have ever hoped for.

Y'all... just... just look at this.

Pemily says Hi, and wants to know if you can open the cabinet doors for her please.

I cannot believe this is my house.

An under-counter farmhouse style sink in the most gorgeous copper color and the easy maintainability of stainless steel.

A faucet that fits with enough clearance under the sink that's tall enough to fill a big pot, and in an absolutely perfect, oil-rubbed bronze color.

I love that you pull down the head of it for a very flexible hose so you can spray ANYWHERE easily. It has three modes of spray. A regular stream, a light circular shower shown above, and a a button to push that turns it into a heavy spray.

And the sink. It's so gorgeous. I'm so happy with EVERYTHING about it. The sink came with the grates to help protect the bottom and keep the bottoms of pots/dishes soaking from getting gunky. If you look at the close-up pic of the stove area there's a beautiful wooden cutting board that the sink also came with that slots right over the sink for easy chopping and scraping right into the garbage disposal.

(Speaking of which, when they took out my old sink they damaged the garbage disposal so Arturo gave me a new one for free he already had laying around. Let's hope this one stays working well.)

The square bowls and drains are so stylish, too. The color is perfect. I'm so happy about it. When people walk into the kitchen the sink is the first thing they notice and ooh over. It's the centerpiece, and it deserves it as much as the granite. The backsplash gets its fair share of attention as well. And the Black Bean really was the right choice for the walls. The lighting situation has improved so much that even with the darker appliances and black countertop, I really thinks everything comes together and balances so well.

Look at the SHINE!

I had the copper containers by the sink already but my favorite drink mixes and snacks go in there for easy access. Also yay, four outlets! Bought a new toaster, too.

And the over-sink lighting is hard wired, bright LED lights that stretch about 2/3rds of the way under the counter. It looks fantastic and so dramatic in the dark as you can see in the first reveal pic above. I keep it on on all day now, it's bright enough that I often don't turn on the overhead lights.

Who knew a kitchen didn't have to be dim and dingy?!

I love it so much y'all. So. Very. Much.

---

But there's been ONE more big change since these pics were taken.

The fridge there... so we painted it black with a thick sticky paint and... I painted it more after that picture and it looked pretty good!

But it had also been making a lot of noise for the last couple of years, getting worse all the time.

It was 21 years old, and very cheap when I bought it. I wasn't sure it was doing its job that well anymore. And it had the "can't open all the way" problem discussed in the previous post.

My parents had visited a few weeks earlier, as had my bro/SIL+ niblings and all had commented on the noise. The fridge was dying y'all and that is one thing you don't want to delay on too long. I'd been delaying awhile.

So I told my mom I was going to delay paying her back for a little while longer and on Black Friday did a lot of research, went to Lowe's and made a decision.

A side-by-side. Whirlpool so hopefully quality (New dishwasher is Whirlpool and doing great after 4 years.)

It's pretty much the smallest full-size side by side there is and i had very specific size requirements.

Verrrrry specific, lol. Honestly this is bad because it's supposed to have more room to vent, so I have it pulled away from the wall a bit more than I would otherwise. This fridge fits in the space., but not by much.

It's beautiful!

And I can stand in front of it and open both doors all the way.

Please feel free to continue judging my food choices.

It is THE last Big Purchase. It's now time for repayment and re-savings.

Well, as soon as I finish getting the generator hooked up. I have the stuff I need, just gotta get the electrician out to do the work.

---

HEY, if you've read all this, thank you so much for reading/liking/commenting! I know it's been a six-month saga for us both! I hope it was fun / entertaining to read, but mostly it was self-indulgent for me.

I honestly hope every one of you get to someday make your living space into what you want it to in a budget-friendly(ish!) way.

And I hope you all find your own Arturos if you want one!

Merry Christmas / Happy Hanukkah / Happy Holidays / Happy New Year y'all! <3

[danasevans]

Dana & Frankie + creaky stairs?

fun fact my aunt and uncle’s place in Pittsburgh actually has insanely terrible stairs with this layout so this is dedicated to them lol

Dana had moved in with Benji about a month after he proposed. By then, Maddie had already been eight years old. A perfectly good age for sleeping through the night, long since done with bedtime struggles, so long as Dana pointedly ignores the flashlight and paperback stowed under her pillow. They’ve lived in this house for ten years now, but only for the past two has Dana worried about how creaky the goddamn stairs are.

She and Benji have their master bedroom on the third floor of the townhouse. It’s cozy— a master bed and bath, and a tiny spare room tucked in there too, where they can host guests for a night or two before they get tired of the crappy futon. The main floor of the house has the kitchen, dining room, and living room in a lovely mess of awkward corners and doorless frames instead of halls. The second floor has two bedrooms and a full bath, and at first, Dana’s only complaint had been managing a baby and a teenager in the same bathroom space. It had never even crossed her mind that climbing the stairs to her own bedroom every night would cause problems.

And then along came Miss Frances Maria Evans… who has slept through the night a grand total of zero fucking times in her thirty months of life.

2100 is relatively early for Dana to be home from work, but much too late for either of her daughters to be awake. Hell, she’s pretty sure Benji’s asleep already; he tends to doze off waiting up for her once he climbs into bed with his book. But as Dana reaches the second floor landing, stairs creaking under her steps, tiny feet come running down the hall.

“Mama!” Frankie attaches herself quickly and efficiently to Dana’s leg, her tiny hands fisting in the material of the yoga pants Dana had been so relieved to change into after shedding her scrubs. She sighs and leans down, lifting her daughter into her arms and ignoring the protests of her back as she kisses her forehead.

“Hey, sugar,” she whispers, keeping her voice low even though she doubts they’ll disturb Madison— her eldest sleeps like a rock. “Why aren’t you in bed, hm? It’s late.”

“‘Cause you’re home!” Frankie answers, smiling the smile of a toddler who has never given a flying fuck about her parents’ sleep. “Daddy said you were gonna come kiss me but I didn’t wanna wait.”

Dana can’t help but smile at her daughter’s excitement. “You know, I’ll always give you a goodnight kiss, even if you’re already asleep.” But she starts to climb the next flight of stairs anyway. Benji says if they always bring Frankie into their bed, she’s never going to go to sleep on her own. But Dana had let Maddie crawl into bed with her well into elementary school, and she’ll be damned if she tries to reason with a toddler after dark. They’re like goddamn gremlins.

“Will you sing me a song, Mama?”

Dana hums. “I don’t know, Frankie, Daddy might already be asleep.”

“He’s not,” Ben groans, as she slips through the doorway. “But she should be, babe.”

“Listen,” she huffs, “after the day I’ve had, I need baby cuddles. You want me in your bed, you get her too.”

Ben holds up his hands in surrender and sets his book aside. “Then come here, both of you.”

Ever since Frankie, Dana has showered in the hospital locker room instead of waiting to make it home, wanting to streamline her nightly routine as much as possible. So now she tugs her hair free of its ponytail and ditches her clothes, sliding into bed with her husband. Their daughter nestles between them, blonde hair messy and in her face as she curls up against Dana’s pillow. Dana strokes her cheek, kissing her forehead when her eyes close.

“Mama,” Frankie mumbles, already much closer to sleep, “you gotta sing.”

“Yeah,” Benji agrees, grinning over from his side of the bed. “You should.”

Dana gives him a tired smile and begins to hum slowly, a classic hymn that’s been floating around her head since Sunday mass. By the second verse, she sings aloud.

“Crown him the lord of life, who triumphed o’er the grave… and rose victorious in the strife for those he came to save…”

Frankie nestles closer to her, sucking her thumb. A vague thought about middle school orthodontics crosses her mind, but she’s too tired to consider it. She sings softly, reaching out to brush her fingers over Benji’s arm. He leans over and kisses her cheek, before repeating the gesture with Frankie.

The problem, Dana thinks foggily, is that every night falling asleep like this makes her less inclined to reinforce Frankie’s bedtime rules.

She’ll just have to handle the toddler in her bed a little while longer.

[gallavichpreg]

🟠 E5: Pre-Pregnancy Clothes

Laundry day.

Mickey sorts through his newly washed clothes, picking them out of the hamper one by one, and folding them neatly on the bare mattress. Shirts. Pants. Socks. Boxers. Pick, fold, repeat. The sheets and covers are still in the wash, and since they always take a while to get clean, he’s got a good chunk of time to kill.

Time to get his shit together.

“Fuck.” He mutters to himself, carefully setting another warm shirt down onto the bed. “I can’t be wearing this shit too much longer.” He stares down at it contemplatively, his shoulders tensing. It’s only been a few days since he and Ian went down to the clinic, and found out that he was pregnant. Seven weeks along, the doctors said. Eight weeks now. Over halfway through the first trimester. “I’m gonna be too big.”

Mickey’s been dealing with the news well… the best way he knows how. At first, he was scared… then he was angry… but, after the dust settled, and all of the emotions passed, he just stopped thinking about it altogether. As far as he’s concerned, if he just soldiers through the morning sickness and goes on as though nothing’s changed, he won’t have to deal with it at all. He doesn’t want to talk about it… so he and Ian don’t talk about it. He refuses to pay attention to the way that he’s eating, to start getting more rest, or do any of the other things that the folks at the clinic recommended for him. He doesn’t want Ian to touch him, or be all sappy with him. There’s nothing to be sappy about. He does all of the same things that he’d been doing before… or as much of it as his body will allow… convinced that he can go on this way until he’s too pregnant to ignore it anymore.

“I’m… I’m gonna be too big.” He says again. Staring down at that shirt… a shirt that he’s only owned for less than a year, all of the thoughts and feelings that he’s been trying so hard to suppress come pouring out of him. Even standing a foot away from the bed, he can already see the curvature of his stomach jutting out just below his line of vision. It’s growing so fast. All of that worry and angst gushes from his pores like sweat, clinging to his skin… and, for the first time since the day that he and Ian found out about the baby, he speaks about it out loud. “I’m already so big! I’m… I’m not getting new clothes.” His hands trembling, he tosses the shirt back into the hamper, as if to reverse time. “Fuck this. I’ve gone this long without having to buy any new shit. Eight weeks, and my stuff still fits. Eight fucking weeks!” Turning his back to the bed, he takes a breath and stares at the wall, going back to that disconnected place that he’d been in for the last few days. “I get too big, I’ll… I’ll just wear Ian’s shit. I don’t gotta worry about that.”

That familiar numbness washing over him once again, he sits down on the exposed mattress—his bare ass against the soft fabric. He’s done with the laundry now. He’s done. Whatever’s left of it is going to be Ian’s problem.

[solarbird]

The thing about spending eight years cheering, supporting, and encouraging political violence and welcoming people dedicated to political change through violence to your movement is that…

well…

…okay, sure, you can build up a mean little coalition of paramilitaries that way. If you’re disciplined and careful.

Or, if you lack that discipline and those organisational skills, you can instead build up a motley little coalition of people more than happy to listen to your calls for stochastic terrorism.

And the problem with that latter route is they might not always aim where you want them to.

The other problem with that is if they decide you’ve abandoned or betrayed them – and if you’re coaching them and constantly encouraging them in conspiracy theory thinking and bullshit, that gets a lot more likely, for any reason and none – they might even aim at you.

Elon Musk earlier today wanted to know why people weren’t trying to assassinate Kamala Harris and finds it very suspicious that they aren’t. (He since deleted the tweet.)

The New Hampshire Libertarian Party said anyone who did it would be an American hero. (Screenshot, also since deleted.) Whoever is in charge of that account is gonna have a looooooot to talk about with the US Secret Service tonight.

In short, the usual crew of fash are trying real hard to aim this shit. But so far, well – it’s not working out as they’d planned.

Nonetheless, they will continue to do this just as they have. They will continue to ramp up white nationalist violence against immigrants in particular but not just, and tell their base that brutality and violence will be necessary and just, just as the OG Nazis said, and the crisis will escalate through – and almost certainly after – the election.

The more they realise they’re going to lose, the more they’re going to ramp it up going into the election. Harris is at +5 points today. Polls are difficult at best in this environment, but they listen to them just the same, and their actions say it’s worse for them even than it seems.

However, the more by which they do lose, the more it’s going to ramp back down after. I’ve talked about this before. The bigger the loss, the fewer people will be willing to take action to overturn it.

This is now the latest reason we need to deliver the biggest, most absolutely crushing defeat that can be managed. They need to be deflated, depressed, and done in. It needs to be a definitive statement that this will not gain you power.

The win needs to be so clear, so obvious, that any attempt they launch will attract the fewest number of people, and so, cannot succeed. Roberts and the corrupted SCOTUS are, sure, firmly in their camp, but they’re not stupid; they want to hold onto power even in the event of a GOP loss everywhere else, and that puts hard limits on how far they’ll go to overturn an election.

They absolutely will not further endanger their own power. They want to be around to rule from the bench for decades, if they can.

So. This year has been doomed to be violent for a long time now. But we can make it the least violent it can be with an absolute electoral blowout.

There will be more of this, going forward. Expect it, but do not be discouraged by it; in fact, be heartened, because the more they lash out, the more it clearly it shows that they know they’re about to lose.

Stay on target, team.

49 days remain.

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Beware, Emoji SOUP

🚨⚡️➰➰☠️🧟‍♀️🧟‍♀️⚡️⚡️🔽☠️☠️◀️🔼➰🚨▶️🚨🚨🧟‍♀️⚡️🔽🔼☠️☠️➰🚨⚡️⚡️☠️

Oh boyyyyyyyy

3 for 🚨:

---

“Have you been hurt on the job?” Phillip asks. 

Eddie was not expecting this question.

---

3 for ⚡️:

---

Eddie looks over his shoulder nervously, to make sure Chris isn’t listening. He’s not. 

“Mom, you have to know it’s so different.”

---

6 for ➰:

tagging @steadfastsaturnsrings

---

Buck rolls over in bed,  away from the bright red digital clock face, to where Eddie is still sleeping, arm slung over Buck’s waist. He shakes Eddie awake.

“Eddie.”

Eddie’s eyes flutter open. 

“Morning, handsome,” he mumbles. 

“What day is it?”

---

3 for ☠️:

---

His nerves don’t bode well for him today.

Ransone begins the interview the same way he did for everyone else.

“Did you know Captain Gerrard was allergic to shellfish?”

---

6 for 🧟‍♀️:

---

“He always talked about the two of you finding each other again,” Chim says instead. “Crazy that you actually pulled it off.”

She smiles. “I like that he’s made a life for himself here. A family. In case I didn’t.”

---

6 for ⚡️:

---

“I do,” she says. “Very different.”

“I am making this choice because it makes me very happy.” Eddie tells her. “Because I know exactly what I want my future to look like, for the first time, and not what I think it should look like. And that is being married to Buck and building a family with him.”

---

3 for 🔼:

---

Eddie smiles gratefully. “Thanks. I just need like an hour or two, then I’ll be good.”

---

6 for ☠️:

---

Tommy’s eyebrows crease. “I did not.”

“Really?” Ransone presses.

“Unless I’d forgotten?” Tommy shrugs. 

---

6 for 🔼:

---

Strange, to have an eight year-old between them, but to have never really done that before. 

Eddie nods. “See you in a bit then.”

And then he heads off to the bedroom to sleep. 

So it’s getting somewhere. Looking up. Things aren’t perfect, and they’re still really awkward a lot of the time, but for the first time in a long time, they sort of feel secure. 

---

3 for ➰:

---

Eddie’s eyes shift from sleepy to intense in a snap. Like Buck has doused him in cold water. 

“What?”

---

3 for 🚨:

---

Honestly, he’s not even sure why it’s relevant. But sure, he’ll bite.

“Not too seriously.”

---

3 for 🔼:

---

Shannon finds out exactly how she is going to ruin things literally the next day. Or at least, how she could. Because she is, at this point, still determined not to.

---

6 for 🚨:

---

“Had a bit of a close call earlier this year, but I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve got a great team looking out for me.”

He nods at Buck and Chim.

“It still seems risky. I mean, from what I hear, Evan has spent quite a lot of time in hospitals,” Phillip retorts. 

“From what you hear?” Buck echoes.

---

3 for 🧟‍♀️:

---

“Well, we’re a tight unit,” Chim says. He waits a breath before speaking again. “And we could be that for you, too, you know.”

---

3 for ⚡️:

---

Helena inhales. She blinks, eyes tearing up. Eddie is a little caught off-guard, to be honest.

---

6 for 🔼:

---

The problem happens after an impromptu text from Maddie, inviting her over to her apartment for takeout and reality television. Not usually Shannon’s go-to, in terms of viewing genre, but it sounds fun on a Sunday evening where she’d otherwise be alone. Eddie has a family dinner at his Abuela’s, so Chris is there. Shannon has to have other things to do. That’s part of this, right? Figuring out who she actually is.

---

6 for ☠️:

---

“Are you especially forgetful?” Ransone asks. “When it comes to matters of life and death?”

“Well, no…” Tommy frowns. “But I don’t remember this.”

---

3 for ➰:

---

“What day is it, Eddie?” Buck asks again. 

Eddie swallows heavily.

---

3 for 🚨:

---

His tone is icy. Severe. It chills Eddie, a little, to hear it.

---

6 for ⚡️:

---

“I had to ask, Eddie.” She says again. “I didn’t ask last time, because I already knew the answer. I knew what I thought the right thing was… I didn’t do right by you. But if you’re happy today, then I am very, very happy for you.”

---

3 for ☠️:

---

“Do you remember mixing up the pitchers when you were making caesars?” Ransone asks. 

Tommy’s eyes bulge.