#Nancy could relate to him far more than I think he’ll ever know | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

punkscowardschampions · 11 months ago

Text

Tancy

Teddy: [Coming at you in response to your party post, don’t mind me]

Teddy: Is it private or can anyone join?? 🤔

Nancy: Private parties are only fun when the exclusionary nature is purposeful, cutting and I’m the one making the call

Nancy: I don’t think you’ve given me any reason to axe you from the guest list this time… have you?

Teddy: As your sister’s unlikely to be on it, no

Nancy: How delightful, you’ve had a lover’s tiff

Nancy: You got it in one, obviously my darling sister wouldn’t step foot in here unless to chastise me for something

Teddy: The domestics MUST be catching similar to the boredom

Nancy: Half my friends are finally finished with their boring essays and exams, the rest are frantically rushing to meet an extended deadline they BEGGED for, numbers and fun are way down still

Nancy: Who’s domestic, do tell

Teddy: Oh how relatable & dull

Teddy: I was on holiday with the family but J’s wife’s hormones sent us all packing

Nancy: Tragic, isn’t it

Nancy: Nothing a party can’t solve

Nancy: Ah, Chlo, I saw her mother just the other day in [some boujee shop like even better than Waitrose lol], did let slip how massive she’s gotten, after some prompting

Teddy: It’s despicable, no wonder he’s cheating, again

Teddy: still, you expose it & you’re unfairly shot as messenger

Nancy: Did he ever stop?

Nancy: How mortifying of her to make such a fuss

Nancy: Gutted you got to be the bearer of bad news though

Teddy: Allegedly this brat was announced & he made a disgusting pledge, but I have 0 proof of that other than knowing my brother is that whipped for fatherhood

Nancy: It worked the first time… far as party tricks, she probably wants to work on some new ones but hey

Nancy: Makes sense why you’re so bored too, if you should be somewhere sunning yourself instead

Teddy: It clearly isn’t broke, more’s the pity when they need to do us all a huge favour & stop reproducing

Teddy: heir & spare is redundant if you get yourself stricken from daddy dearest’s will

Nancy: I don’t know, your brother could unload his DNA into me any time he liked

Nancy: She really should do the sensible thing and stop it before it starts growing organs or whatever, she’s hardly maternal, what’s the point

Teddy: I’ll pass that along with your regards, darling

Nancy: Wonderful

Nancy: Who do you plan on bringing or are you coming solo?

Teddy: Who would you like me to bring, aside from J who is otherwise engaged, heartbreakingly?

Nancy: I am devastated

Nancy: Anyone, truly, I just can’t stand being alone

Nancy: [do list some other people around his age that you can think of]

Teddy: Fantastic

Nancy: Oh, and your fit friend

Nancy: I’ve forgotten his name

Teddy: I’m going to need slightly more description, Nance

Nancy: I’m stalking your followers list, hold on

Nancy: did you know your bio has been changed or?

Teddy: Do you want to [a lewd af act] him or [an even more ridiculous one because depends how fit he is haha, but then he’ll be able to guess] him?

Teddy: I changed it, so yeah

Nancy: The second, obviously, I’m not a nun

Nancy: Okay, own it, I guess

Teddy: [a correct guess of who this friend is] will be there

Teddy: & of course, my sister was in the midst of trying to hate crime me

Nancy: Yay, my night has been saved, I owe you

Nancy: Conversion therapy would be more of a serve than rehab

Teddy: She can make the booking when she’s capable of taking cock which isn’t permanently soft, it reeks of her own gay panic

Nancy: I can see it, she is that kind of power lesbian stereotype, love that for her

Teddy: G dresses like one & Seb is such a boi name

Nancy: It would spice up what is set to be another dull marriage, I doubt you’re that lucky, sorry

Teddy: I’m absolutely not 💔

Nancy: You won’t be, I’ve sorted so much gear for tonight

Teddy: [namedropping a dealer we like]?

Nancy: He’s coming and [another one just for fun] they aren’t in like a turf war, I did check

Teddy: Well done

Nancy: I’d get kicked out of here if things got that street, can’t have that

Teddy: The shame, you’d have to relocate to [a postcode we’re shading]

Nancy: 😱💀 How dare you

Nancy: I’d sooner marry your sister’s limp-dick fiance before set foot in that neighbourhood

Teddy: Kindly do take him off her hands, if I have to sit across from him for another Sunday I may just start a turf war of my own

Nancy: Aw, baby gangster

Nancy: Has he no craic? Is it really all just 🤑? Yikes

Teddy: I’m sorry? Translation please, you went all THAT side of your family on me there

Nancy: Oh shut up, you know what it means, how much of a bore is he

Teddy: 100% naturally or I wouldn’t care

Nancy: Maybe you should shank him then

Nancy: at least THAT side of my family has the good grace to be entertaining

Teddy: Do they?

Nancy: You have no idea, darling

Teddy: I’m yet to be invited to one of those parties

Nancy: Count yourself lucky, with my sister, I’m sure you’ll never get that far

Teddy: I’m quite sure I’m over the chase

Nancy: 💔

Teddy: As you said, she isn’t forthcoming with her happy endings

Teddy: it’s becoming an epidemic

Nancy: Last I heard she was still fake gay anyway

Nancy: my family is far too dysfunctional for Sunday dinners though, it’s been a while

Teddy: You should catch up, there have been romantic developments

Nancy: Who with?

Teddy: TBC, officially

Nancy: Hmm

Nancy: If it’s just another closeted lesbian

Teddy: It’s definitely someone XY

Nancy: Careful, that sounds dangerously close to studying, and I refuse

Nancy: As long as it’s someone attractive this time, I may consider offering my sisterly advice and attention

Teddy: I’d expect no less, from you at least, darling

Nancy: It can hardly be worse, what can I do about my brother’s taste for incest?

Teddy: It always can, my siblings fucking each other would be preferable to the humiliating spouses they choose

Nancy: You’d feel left out

Teddy: Possibly, but Chlo & Seb could be left out, in the cold

Nancy: Story of her life, truly

Teddy: Gia would, she’s desperate for that piece of my father & they look plenty alike

Nancy: Too bad he went so, so boring in rehab

Nancy: not entirely convinced they didn’t perform some kind of lobotomy, he’d never go for it

Teddy: Hopefully they performed a vasectomy too, Chlo wouldn’t shut up about having one over on him when she thought he was finally going to leave her

Nancy: Did she now

Nancy: Well, you know how it was back then, don’t you

Teddy: The newest can’t be his, they don’t ever touch

Nancy: Maybe they never did, she’s always been quite the liar

Teddy: He wouldn’t remember, he’s the perfect cuck scapegoat

Nancy: Poor, poor James

Teddy: He enjoys it, he must

Nancy: maybe

Nancy: or she was determined someone from our group was going to be stuck with her, he was the unlucky one

Teddy: regardless, it gives him pity ammo to fire into his affairs so they feel suitably sorry for him

Nancy: Him leaving her mid-pregnancy would be too good

Teddy: Hence he won’t, ever the disappointment

Nancy: Not if you find out and spill what her final weapon is, that would definitely tank it all and you could enjoy the fireworks

Teddy: It’s that he’s not the father, obviously, nothing else would hit close to the same

Nancy: Do you think she’s lying?

Teddy: I don’t doubt she tells him they aren’t his brats a hundred times a day

Nancy: Right, not exactly trustworthy

Nancy: she can’t be so delusional that she thinks he’d care about any of her own pre-porker extramaritals though

Teddy: He didn’t do the cheek swabs when my father tried to lay down the law pre-wedding, he won’t have now either

Nancy: Duh, he doesn’t want to know he was actually tricked into wasting the best years of his life with her for nothing

Nancy: truth always outs though, whether you’re going to force it or not

Teddy: I’m off her godfather & confidante list for the moment, not forever

Nancy: You’ve got ‘til they return to think up a charming apology, the [whatever drugs you know he’s gonna go for] will help you get creative

Teddy: Precisely, it’ll be too easy

Nancy: that she is, nothing to be done about that, I’m afraid

Teddy: That truth has long been outed

Nancy: She did worse at school than me, that was really saying something, I don’t think I turned up for half of my exams

Teddy: & you’re horrifically disabled

Nancy: Who said that?

Teddy: [someone you’re dobbing in whether they actually said it or not, I’m sure they didn’t]

Nancy: They can get off the guestlist then

Teddy: Deserved, it’s SUCH a mean thing to say

Nancy: especially when they look like this [and a photo of this person gurning because we just keep unflattering photos for revenge] when they’re on it, no room to judge

Teddy: Ha ha

Nancy: I’m SO telling [their S/O] when they get here

Teddy: As you should, imagine waking up next to that for a minute longer than necessary

Nancy: The view from here is outstanding, on the other hand

Teddy: Truly

Nancy: You should invite [someone we know he’s in messy drama with, just for funsies, as much chaos as possible]

Teddy: You’re right, if I wasn’t jetlagged I’d have thought of that

Nancy: You poor, poor thing, you’ll have to stay up all weekend

Teddy: Keep me company & I won’t mind

Nancy: That’s the plan, isn’t it

Teddy: You’ve forgotten your plans with [fit friend]

Nancy: I haven’t

Teddy: Then you’re double booking yourself, darling

Nancy: I can multitask, not actually being disabled

Teddy: He’ll be devastated you intend to

Nancy: No one stays long enough to be devastated, that’s the only, if unspoken, rule

Teddy: You can be devastated, or devastate, in a second, that’s another

Nancy: Yes but I’m so nice, everyone knows that

Teddy: I don’t

Nancy: how rude

Teddy: It is, I have so very little intimate knowledge of you

Nancy: Best ask around, you’re far too young for anything but hearsay

Teddy: Age is just a number & not actually being disabled you shouldn’t struggle to count

Nancy: I’m aware

Nancy: your friend is 18 though, right?

Teddy: [lie that he isn’t even though he is because you don’t want her to sleep with him haha, not at all casually claiming this boy is underage when it’s you who is because we haven’t done your birthday yet]

Nancy: No way, he looks like he could deadlift me

Teddy: [not you also starting a rumour this boy is on steroids or something haha, we love to see it]

Nancy: Oh, great

Nancy: he’s going to ‘roid out and trash my place 🙄

Teddy: I’ll uninvite him, I haven’t invited him yet anyway

Nancy: Yeah, I can tell

Teddy: For the record, I could deadlift you too

Teddy: you can’t weigh more than [we’re being flattering, but also I imagine his unit of measurement is something hilarious and boujee instead of stone or pounds or anything normal]

Nancy: You’re so sweet

Teddy: I’m simply not registered blind, that’s all

Nancy: Invite your friend, there’s always room for one more

Nancy: I might upgrade if he does throw the TV out the window or something else cliche

Teddy: As you wish

Nancy: You can stay as long as you like

Teddy: I tend to

Nancy: When do the happy couple get back?

Teddy: [drop that date on her, probably something totally unpractical like late sunday night when Jay has school again on monday because Chlo booked it]

Nancy: I am long overdue a visit, will have to show my face, see how she is

Teddy: She’ll be ecstatic to see you again

Nancy: What can I bring a pregnant woman, I only know what she likes when she doesn’t have to care about a foetus

Teddy: Something she can eat? It’s apparently all she does judging by the size of her

Nancy: You would too if no one would fuck you and you can’t even drink about it, poor thing

Nancy: I’ll bring the booze, just in case she still needs it

Teddy: You’re all heart, Nancy

Nancy: I did tell you

Teddy: I have been known to need telling certain things multiple times

Nancy: That’s okay, it isn’t my reputation you’re interested in tanking

Teddy: Not tonight

Nancy: Good luck

Teddy: I don’t require luck, I have skill

Nancy: and you did admit to being severely lacking on that front

Teddy: As I’m lacking in irish blood

Nancy: Craic, tbd

Teddy: It has no business sounding like crack & therefore distracting me each & every time

Nancy: 😅 Soon, boy, soon

Teddy: What o’clock do you want me?

Nancy: When can you get here?

Teddy: As soon as you ask

Nancy: right answer

Teddy: So, what’s yours?

Nancy: now

Nancy: everyone else is letting me down and being so goddamn boring

Teddy: Okay

Nancy: Okay

Nancy: and if you see [describe a boy that is clearly your boyfriend lol] turn up, don’t tell him like, half the things I’ve said, or do, at least that’ll be entertaining

Teddy: I’ll consider both options equally carefully

Nancy: I need to myself, he’s being a prick

Teddy: How so?

Nancy: I wish it were in an exciting way, just acting like he NEEDS to pass whatever exam he has and that means he can’t come over

Teddy: Would you like me to ensure he fails?

Nancy: Go on

Teddy: You can pay to pass, it’ll also go the other way

Nancy: What would you want in return?

Teddy: What would make you think I want anything?

Nancy: I would

Teddy: Well, perhaps I’m only eager to show you what I’m capable of

Nancy: that would be worth your time, yes

Teddy: I’m aware of your worth

Nancy: Smooth

Nancy: as you’re being kind tonight, I’ll save you your money, he’s likely to fail however hard he revises

Nancy: too many rugby balls to the head

Teddy: [not this boy transferring her however much money he thinks it would have cost him]

Teddy: You take it, buy yourself whatever it was you mistakenly believe him capable of bringing to the table

Nancy: Why do you want me to be alone?

Teddy: I’m on my way

Nancy: I already asked, you didn’t have to do anything else

Teddy: It’s nothing

Nancy: Okay

Teddy: What are you going to spend the money on? Do tell

Nancy: You shouldn’t need three guesses

Nancy: What do you think he brings to the table, Teddy?

Teddy: [send a link to an expensive but also very extra sex toy as his guess because assuming that’s all this dude is good for obvs but we aren’t calling her vanilla or basic with it, unlike Chlo who is literally getting a shady one as her baby shower gift with a note like at least this won’t get you pregnant, again, haha because I’ve had that idea since we first realised he’d be going and a gift would be needed]

Nancy: [gotta be done haha, send him back some even more outrageous options, being wild about it, unclear whether you’re saying for you or for him]

Nancy: Thanks, sweetie 😘

Teddy: I have the [most outrageous one lol whether he really does or is lying] in pink

Teddy: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Nancy: Have to live up to your sister’s expectations

Teddy: [send a link to shade your sister and her life choices, god knows, saying your Christmas/bday gifting is done with it whichever comes first]

Nancy: [send a link to some erectile dysfunction aids]

Nancy: Couples gift 💝

Teddy: You’ve single-handedly saved Christmas

Nancy: You can invite me then, I can’t handle another Dublin Christmas

Teddy: The more the merrier

Nancy: when you’re not related to the more, yes

Teddy: What I mean is, you’re more than welcome

Nancy: When’s the wedding?

Teddy: She has no sense of urgency considering the blatant deadline, dead being the key word

Nancy: Rather, an engagement means absolutely nothing when it comes to the will

Teddy: It would serve her right

Nancy: I’ve had an idea

Nancy: maybe she’s waiting for someone to object and they haven’t yet 😬

Teddy: I have, strongly

Nancy: Yes, not you, obviously

Nancy: an old flame, the one that got away, that’s what I would do if I wanted a grand gesture

Teddy: Oh, that is an idea

Nancy: You should scope out the exes, see if she can actually be saved or it’s a lost cause and you have to see him every Sunday ‘til he croaks it

Teddy: [be stalking them and giving her updates/the tea as you find it just for fun even though I’m sure you don’t know about all her exes remotely]

Nancy: Love how there’s not ever six degrees of separation between any two people in this town

Teddy: Who do you know & who would you love to?

Nancy: [tell him which of these men you or your friends have hooked up with, whether it’s entirely factual or not idk, likewise spilling tea because by your standards I’m sure they’re all very boring]

Nancy: [one of ‘em] is really, really minted though, he’d be a better BiL

Teddy: It would ruin her whole pretence of being a self-made entrepreneur & unbothered by other people’s money, which alone is enough reason to go ahead

Nancy: Bless her heart 😂

Nancy: self-made isn’t an appropriate title for anyone in your family since like the 1600s

Teddy: Why let reality get in the way of a ‘good’ story? But I’m the fantasist, please

Nancy: People are hypocrites

Nancy: but you have a project now

Teddy: Like homework but rewarding

Nancy: Please, you’ll trigger me

Teddy: Come off it, all that was definitely too long ago for you to remember

Nancy: Cheek!

Teddy: I’m under no illusion you’re all grown up now

Nancy: Backatcha

Teddy: Hardly, but I’ll have you convinced

Nancy: Mhmm

Nancy: Door and bar is open regardless, you aren’t that much of a baby

Teddy: Not unless my mother’s a surprise addition to your guestlist

Nancy: Entertaining as that could prove to be

Nancy: I cannot be bothered getting in a fight with another middle-aged woman about her precious son

Teddy: Another?

Nancy: Have you had a serious girlfriend yet?

Nancy: It’s standard behaviour, truly

Teddy: No, but you’re really selling it

Nancy: Yeah, you’d LOVE the attention

Teddy: I’ll contemplate my options

Nancy: Point is, whoever she is, she won’t be good enough 💔

Teddy: A given, I’d be letting the poor girl know that

Nancy: 🙄😏

Nancy: You’re the worst

Teddy: It’s charitable, putting them in their place

Nancy: One for the UCAS apps, sure

Teddy: To be counted toward an extracurricular or work experience as well depending how hard they resist

Nancy: Do you doubt your abilities?

Teddy: I doubt her, whoever she may be

Nancy: Relationships are overrated but

Nancy: doesn’t stop everyone insisting on shacking up same time every year

Teddy: I refuse to believe a power struggle ever is, people are doing relationships wrong, unsurprisingly

Nancy: It’s never a struggle, men only submit when they’re in love, they won’t until then, no matter what you do

Teddy: No matter what you do, maybe

Nancy: Ha ha

Teddy: [send her some hilarious bondage links to make men submit, just for funsies but also we’re always flirting]

Nancy: That’s easy

Nancy: Actually cucking someone like your brother, or mine

Nancy: takes time and skill

Teddy: Most things do, you’re spoiling yourself with the instantaneous fun of [her drug of choice]

Nancy: Why deny myself?

Teddy: Because you’d be heartbroken to lose your edge

Nancy: Not going to happen

Teddy: Good, your ancestors didn’t die in some terrible famine or other for you to be an embarrassment

Nancy: What ancestors? Self-made actually applies, we don’t keep count of who came before

Teddy: I don’t know, the potato farmers or whoever

Nancy: Sounds like you know more about it than me

Teddy: Yes, I’ve regrettably set foot in a classroom recently, unlike some people

Nancy: Poor boy, it’s catching

Teddy: You’ll have to be the cure

Nancy: Looks like it, or you’re going to start talking about revision like everyone else

Nancy: hurry up

Teddy: How dare you, I’d NEVER speak of such things

Nancy: Tell me more about ancient history, Teddy, it’s SO fascinating

Teddy: [tell her about your own, the goss and the kiss and tells, ofc, because gotta be done]

Nancy: You are learning, in fairness, you’ve stopped talking about famine

Nancy: [someone(s) he’s just namedropped] is going to come through later

Teddy: Excuse me, I won’t stop mocking your poor relations or you, by extension

Teddy: Where would be the fun in that?

Nancy: I mean, feel free, I just think you expect me to be offended and I can’t deliver on that front

Teddy: Am I supposed to be offended [the person] is invited too?

Nancy: No, it may change your plans, was my thinking

Teddy: Share yours if you’re scheming

Nancy: It could be entertaining to give them a little extra in the drink they already can’t handle, see what they say and do

Teddy: Very

Nancy: Last party I saw them at they [just list whatever mortification this person went through that you found hilarious]

Teddy: [likewise drop whatever embarrassing stories you have, which I’m sure you were sworn to secrecy about but you care not]

Nancy: I want that but funnier, more

Teddy: I’ll make it happen for you

Nancy: That’ll be why you’re invited

Teddy: ONE of your reasons, sure

Nancy: What other motives could I possibly have?

Teddy: Time will tell, not me

Nancy: For once

Teddy: Would you prefer me to be a discrete bore? I think not

Nancy: You would be correct, your stories amuse me

Teddy: Which is, naturally, my sole motive

Nancy: You’re not doing charity work here, relax

Nancy: it’s obvious what your motives are

Teddy: No, you aren’t from beginnings THAT humble

Nancy: And you’re not here to put me in my place

Teddy: You’re already where I want you

Nancy: [namedrop this hotel like cheers to that]

Teddy: [show up like see, we’re both where we should be because now he’s alone with her there basically which is obvs what he wants]

Nancy: [me like some other people show up please lmao but clearly no one else was as eager to jump on your invite and SOS so of course he’s here first, just grin at him and gesture towards the massive bar that all those rooms has basically because I am sure you already have a drink and he should catch up]

Teddy: [do grab a drink and down it to catch up whether you have to make it or there’s fully a butler here lol, not you also doing this to show her you’re a man and not a baby, sir you are 15]

Nancy: [the poor staff, let them go, you having someone to make you drinks all day is a terrible idea, at what point do they cut you off? Never, is probably the answer there, yikes; pat the seat beside you like come sit, come catch up, even though he is but 15 and you should not concern yourself with any of this]

Teddy: [the way he’s deliberately almost sitting on her hand to do the absolute most immediately whilst looking so angelic and like butter wouldn’t melt, never change, raise your new glass you’ve brought over to do a toast, literally saying ‘to you, and the end of your boredom’ before taking a drink because we love to be dramatic and amusing always]

Nancy: [kicking some distance back between y’all as if to free your hand but in an entirely playful and amused way, meeting his glass with your own and a look like god I hope so, resting your feet on him after this kicking because comfortable and must dramatically lounge to express your boredom adequately here]

Teddy: [you’ve likewise gotta lounge like a sir Charles cat boy as per, no notes, downing this second drink too but not getting up immediately to get another like you should because so comfortable, picking up her foot purely like he’s checking out her choice of footwear if she’s wearing shoes or commenting on the lack thereof if she isn’t]

Nancy: [you’re probably barefoot as well as not properly party dressed because an impromptu affair and not cool to try hard, though you can groan like he has just reminded you you probably want to change slightly because he has and you have not considered this yet because priorities, kicking him again like how rude lol]

Teddy: [gesturing like should I take mine off as if this is her house and thus a house rule but with a smirk because you’ve been here enough times to know there are no rules and you’re just trying to put the idea of undressing into her mind]

Nancy: [checking out whatever expensive shoes he has on approvingly, nodding ‘sure, I can sell them and escape my humble origins’ going to take his shoes off like lol, so bants, won’t end up in a playfight]

Teddy: [me knowing in my heart that his outfit is hideous because it is expensive and he dresses badly but knowing she’d like it because their tastes are clearly similar, we can’t even talk about this playfight that is ensuing and how quickly it would escalate because he can and will fully lift her off this sofa and be holding her like I told you I could deadlift you, as if that’s the only reason]

Nancy: [it isn’t a vibe but it’s expensive and that’s all that matters obviously, we don’t need to like it to know you two will, hence pulling whatever shirt he has on over his face is purely a distraction and way for you to escape, nothing else]

Teddy: [the LOL from within this shirt prison, icon vibes tbh, as is the way he’s reaching for her throat in such an OTT way like it’s just oh I’m so mad and am gonna throttle you sibling type bants instead of the hot move it actually is, god bless, and the EYE CONTACT when he’s out of this shirt doing that, also iconic, such a LOOK]

Nancy: [doing a dramatic frown so the noise you make seems more outraged in this playfight way than shocked in any real one, shaking your head like you’re getting hair out of your eyes and not as the most feeble attempt to get his hand away ever, giving his face a lil tap like a cat when it does the very slow one before going in]

Teddy: [my boo says skippidy paps and she’s so right for that, using his other hand to move her hair for her, again as if she genuinely needs that, so gently in contrast, and slowly, as his hand more deliberately tightens around her throat for a beat because we’re testing the waters of how much she’ll actually let us do here]

Nancy: [exactly dr phil, we’re not going off but gotta let you know we’re ready to at any moment lol, still, for right now, are we getting you off us, no, not a pussy, just here trying to push you onto your back to likewise see if we can]

Teddy: [let her push you purely so you fall back onto this sofa and can recline even more lavishly and indecently than you were before and can pat the space next to you like she did, knowing that you’ve purposely barely left her any so she’ll be practically sat on you if not likewise fully lying as you near enough are]

Nancy: [laughing at him because he’s such a ham and you find it genuinely funny, keeping him at literal arm’s length by still having your hands on his chest where you pushed him, debating your next move as you bite the inside of your lip, am going to decide it for you in this moment by making someone ring you so you hop off and up to answer that, be it the drugs or your boyfriend or some dramatic friend, whatever]

Teddy: [doing such an OTT 🥺 about this interruption because you know she’ll see it despite said interruption and how good you’ll look doing it and yep that’s totally the only reason you’re not at all gutted about this interruption nope nope, recline for a while watching her but then go and get and have your 3rd drink sir]

Nancy: [WATCHING him do this in silence whilst you let the person on the phone say whatever they gotta say, not replying until it’s totally necessary, at which point you turn around and head towards the bedroom so you don’t need to have this conversation in front of him, not because that would be awkward to do for reasons you don’t want to think about, grabbing a bottle as you go]

Teddy: [catch him loitering in the doorway for that flashfoward to the future and the 1st convo we did when they get the puppy and he’s being all rom com, we can all pretend it’s just because he’s eavesdropping for fun and goss because she made it clear she doesn’t want him to witness this convo but we all know it’s also because he’s gotta linger near her regardless of whether the door is open or closed]

Nancy: [we love a cheeky parallel, whether we’re going back in time or forwards, catch us rolling our eyes because this conversation is not adequately interesting enough to eavesdrop on, we’re not pretending otherwise, busying ourself actually looking for outfits whilst on this call so we don’t just stare at him, throwing something at him partially just to do so but also shrugging in the yes no way to see if he likes whatever this is or nah]

Teddy: [not you just shamelessly coming in and picking her an outfit wordlessly, holding things against her and staring to do the most ofc, never waiting for her reaction to an item before he discards it or tries pairing it with something else, behaving like a stylist or controlling bf, we love to see it, throwing his final lewk on her bed or a chair the way she threw something at him, as if this is casual]

Nancy: [just letting him do this and silently judging his taste and also learning what he likes all at once, why would you not, giving your best poker face to not give away what you think of this final selection, or whether you’ll put it on, reclining on your bed because this person won’t stfu and you can’t let that be known ANY other way, oh no]

Teddy: [coming and taking the bottle from her, whether that’s literally from her hand or from where she left it, because regardless after taking a swig as if that’s your reward for a very hard job well done you’ll have to return it, be that back to her hand or into her hand now instead of where she left it and either is an excuse to be up close and personal and !! before you then strut out with all the confidence of knowing she’ll wear the outfit and she therefore needs you to gtfo so she can put it on, we all know he’s lingering in the doorway again for a sec though first, holding onto the doorframe like he’s gonna use it either to propel him into the room again or properly out, hitting her with a final LOOK before going]

Nancy: [take the drink and take a drink because becoming more and more necessary to be shitfaced, to deal with the fact y’all are still alone and hopefully by the time you have dressed, you will not be because how long can y’all do this dance of lingering looks and touches]

Teddy: [we’ll cockblock y’all by saying that’s the case because we don’t want anything to happen yet, soz not soz to that friend he didn’t invite and told her lies about because you could’ve been the lucky guy but he absolutely was not bringing you hun or letting you know a thing about this party]

Nancy: [we will do what we gotta do, it’s also just realistic, you’re not going to be left alone for long when she put the call out that publicly; we been knew you would not invite that friend and we will have to bring it up when we remember because lbr, not that concerned when we’ve got all this going on]

Teddy: [mhmm, I’m sure she’ll come out of the bedroom and he’ll be making out with some random in such an extra manner because of the tension between y’all that we aren’t letting you address for 2 years, he’ll be on that sofa doing the most with some girl who isn’t you but will do for rn]

Nancy: [thank GOD there are going to be people for you to distract yourself with because you don’t need to say or do a damn thing about that, pretend you aren’t even looking for him when you come out in this outfit even though he was the only person here previously]

Teddy: [me like we’ve GOTTA say this is the girl she ref-ed asking him if he was still with her at the start of their first ever Grace era convo purely for the pettiness because there’s no way he has been with her for 2 years and that means you know that damn well and were just saying it to bring her up and I love that, especially if he wasn’t even with her seriously because what a deliberate throwback then sis]

Nancy: [my boo says we will be the absolute drama, unhinged behaviour you love to see, speaking of, find your dealer immediately and piss off into the nearest bathroom with this man]

Teddy: [time it deliberately so that you go into the bathroom with this girl, whether to hook up or to do drugs or both because leaving it to Nancy’s imagination is always more of a serve, as they come out of it, doing the thing he does in the future where his hand is on Nancy’s lower back as he needlessly steers her out of the door/his way]

Nancy: [scoffing like you are so above these baby antics like god bless you crazy kids, pushing him not dissimilar to how you did earlier but entirely different vibe, holding onto this dude so you don’t fall out the door yourself]

Teddy: [when you’re essentially ignoring her entirely (and the random girl too lowkey soz hun) in favour of speaking to this drug dealer for a sec because that sort of bitch, making both these girls have to stand here because Nancy is holding onto him and Teddy is in a similar way holding onto this girl so she can’t go ahead into the bathroom without him, enjoying prolonging it for as long as you can before this dude is like okay bye and you go into this bathroom finally to do what you’re gonna do, which assumedly is drugs and some sort of hookup whether that’s fully or oral or whatever]

Nancy: [free yourself from this moment and go party, sorry to this woman but we will not be acknowledging your existence, even though, presumably, you know of us on some level to be here lol, so petty, we do not care]

Teddy: [we all know he LOVES how blatantly she has cut this girl dead, soz hun, hence giving Nancy a LOOK as she goes and he disappears into this bathroom for the antics he’s gonna pretend are with her despite being nowhere near as good and this girl clearly not fully delivering on this roleplay she doesn’t know she’s a part of]

Nancy: [always down to cause drama for literally no discernable reason, likewise sleeping with the boyfriend of the girl Teddy said badmouthed you even though you have no proof and do you even care, no, but we’re going to go there when y’all arrive]

Teddy: [as is he, I’m sure he’ll start some drama with that person who she said is coming, these messy bitches just love the carnage, speaking of, me here wondering if we dare to let any other moments happen between y’all or we should be restrained and not]

Nancy: [a nice evening cannot be had, well, you will enjoy yourselves but these randoms are getting screwed over for your entertainment as per; on the one hand, the vibe is very much too ‘busy’ to have any moments but you’re also patently not so maybe we can get away with some more?]

Teddy: [not saying they have to be big dramatic moments but I am saying this place is clearly big enough that you can get away with having some, I vote that she has a balcony like some of the rooms did and they find each other there at some point because he needs a breather from this girl who has been lead to believe they are !! for each other now and she can have any number of reasons to be out there, smoking etc]

Nancy: [hopefully not wobbling off it lmao, it’s always a good idea to get fresh air at some point in every party and you are going to need to, lol at Teddy talking himself into a relationship here, god bless, this girl turning around to peer at him like ‘oh, hello’ as if you’d forgotten he was here, holding out a bottle you have no business having at this stage but we still out here]

Teddy: [a ‘hi’ like it’s casual as he takes the bottle from her, steadying her whether she needs it or not actually with his other hand because it’s an excuse to touch her and he’ll always take that, but he’s out of it too at this point so almost dropping the bottle/tipping it because he wants to do it two handed and he’s not realised he took that and should be swigging from it, but we’re just amused by any spillage caused and steering her away from the puddle with the same lower back hand move ultimately]

Nancy: [going to ‘wrestle’ this bottle back from his clumsy grip but using it as an excuse to put your hands over his on said bottle and just leave it there, being closer to each other again as a result ‘good night’ as a comment because of the mess he is, smirking and shaking your head]

Teddy: [me like omg they love a hand hold and this is lowkey the first ever, like you aren’t but you lowkey are, spinning her to look out at the sky from this balcony like let’s see if it is, again purely just to touch her and be stood behind her, cannot resist yet another flashforward this time to when they were at the engagement party and he pulled out the label of her dress, doing it now to make that hit different (because someone else bought it for her) with the outfit he picked like he’s so proud of himself for his choices/must see who the designer is in this dim light and this half cut instead of just touching the back of her neck indecently, his head bent like he’s actually trying to read and isn’t simply breathing against her skin with his hmm sound like he’s considering her question/comment so seriously]

Nancy: [when it’s clearly more like the early AM and this pleases you so your smile is almost audible as you are looking over Soho and the people below either also still partying or getting up for work, turning your head back, so you can brush your hair against his face/see what he’s doing like you need to know, smoothing this outfit against yourself in a way that makes it cling to you and he’ll be able to see up close from over your shoulder, because a casual move that isn’t for anyone’s benefit, yep ‘your taste can be passable’]

Teddy: [when you can feel her vibe and it makes you feel likewise happy in a way that she’d likewise be able to just feel coming off you, it’s a nice moment of shared solidarity and feeling, we stan, moving to brush her hair back again like he did earlier but by the very nature of how drunk and high they both are it’s much less soft, not to mention this boy IRL and thus as a character likes to wear a lot of rings so I imagine one of those getting caught in her hair and making the move so !! because not only is it PULLING but then he’ll also have to spend a sec untangling her, which we can’t even talk about the closeness of, but finally able to appreciate this ootn and the move she pulled when he’s managed that ‘yours, I simply pulled it off a hanger’ because your clothes and your taste so if you’re shading his choice you’re shading yourself lol]

Nancy: [when you can’t adequately put words to any kind of being mad at him, faux or genuine, because you’re far too into it and a mess to fight either of those enough, just looking at him with the !! you aren’t explaining or excusing here ‘Yeah, I was being polite’ as you’re smoothing your hair down after he’s been all up in it ‘remember?’]

Teddy: [‘why?’ with the genuine sort of incredulousness of someone who is never polite and sees no reason to be because he faces no consequences for not being, twisting said ring around on his finger as though that’s just a casual action of him readjusting it so it doesn’t fall off or anything/ the idea of politeness is a such a boring concept but really he’s gotta because it’s been all up in her hair and he’d LOVE for a hair of hers to be stuck there but idk if it is because I can’t remember what rings you’re rocking off the top of my head and if any of them allow for that design wise by having like a stone or something for it to be caught round so who can say]

Nancy: [‘I’m nice’ gesturing like duh, hello, despite the fact you literally slept with someone’s boyfriend at this party behind her back and god knows what else general chaos and evilness, because you said you were to him before and the point is we’re shading your taste the rest of the time, of course, here patting ourself down to see if we have any cigarettes because a good time to distract yourself again]

Teddy: [a lol because you know she isn’t nice and you’re into it ‘you’re dressed for it, yeah’ just telling her she looks nice like he didn’t pick this outfit haha, not him shamelessly joining in with this pat down as if purely to help her find what she’s looking for but actually we’re doing the most running our hands over her body nbd]

Nancy: [when you’ve clearly lost or smoked the pack already so you truly are out here doing this for no reason, shamelessly, making a noise of frustration like that alone has you raging]

Teddy: [it’s clearly that point in the night where you don’t have any either so you can’t even be a hero and produce one, instead do a hot move of pulling her into you and her head back to pour some of this bottle’s contents down her throat as if that will relieve her frustration and you didn’t just want to, catching a stray drip/ lbr very messy trickle of liquid with your hand and then indecently putting those fingers to your own mouth, it’s fine, it’s casual]

Nancy: [when the way your body crashes back into his this time is unavoidable and thus you can allow yourself to push back, standing on your tiptoes to be closer to the bottle as if it’ll make this any less messy, can pretend your enthusiasm is solely for the alcohol, thus tilting your head back more and LOOKING at him expectantly is fine too]

Teddy: [letting her feel how that push back got him hard with no shame whatsoever because no fucks are given, hence he’s going from pouring this bottle from a height to pushing it into her mouth so her lips are around it, me like, where is everyone, you’ve been alone on this balcony too long lol]

Nancy: [when you’re fully in danger of downing a whole bottle of something here with how you refuse to stop, dancing against him as if this is for show but no one is close enough to be paying attention yet obviously so who is it for, just working your way down ‘til you’re kneeling in front of him and this bottle, almost panting with the way you’ve gotta stick your tongue out but you’re having trouble breathing]

Teddy: [soz that him and all his antics are only encouraging her to get alcohol poisoning truly, he’ll have her basically deepthroating this bottle neck before he’d let her stop, but at least it’s feasible we can have her choke/gag/retch/throw up when we need to cockblock y’all a bit cos he’s stopped breathing in comparison, just WATCHING her do all this]

Nancy: [no one has ever been more turned on by alcohol, truly, here letting it spill over us even more than he did the first time because we wanna feel it, rip this outfit]

Teddy: [mhmm, the sounds of it all alone would be enough to make him do a lil moan nevermind the sights and how you know she feels and the combo, so he is, thankfully nobody else is entertaining y’all at the moment and won’t hear him]

Nancy: [the sounds you are making are clearly going to get too unhinged to the point of someone else coming over, at which point we’re going to have to think fast on our drunk feet and just involve said person and pour some into their mouth until the bottle is being passed ‘round in this saucy manner like it’s just a game we’re all playing]

Teddy: [great work, someone else can be the flop who throws up and ruins the vibe and the game, there’s always one and it’ll send this boy back inside like lol ew]

Nancy: [I’m gonna do something hold on]

Nancy: Come over now, I’ll send everyone home

Teddy: Everyone?

Nancy: Yes, I just need you

Teddy: How unfair, Nance, I just got here

Nancy: Um, no you didn’t, what??

Teddy: Okay, true, it’s been a while

Teddy: but it isn’t polite of you to kick me out regardless

Nancy: Oh, you

Nancy: go away, I didn’t message you

Teddy: Yes you did, darling

Nancy: Not on purpose, don’t feel special

Teddy: Freud would have a field day with your slip

Teddy: tell me again about how much you need me

Nancy: I’m disabled, you can’t make jokes about it, shut up please

Teddy: It’s my duty therefore to prevent you taking yet another rugby ball to the head

Nancy: Your duty?

Teddy: You can still read then

Nancy: You’re not old enough for a paper round, don’t be talking like that

Teddy: I’m too rich for a paper round, your roots are showing again

Nancy: No, this is natural

Teddy: Please, don’t embarrass yourself OR me

Nancy: I am embarrassed, you carry on as you were

Teddy: We can’t all carry off platinum blonde, being a brunette is nothing to be ashamed of

Nancy: You are looking brassy

Teddy: I am not

Nancy: There’s toner in the bathroom, you can borrow some

Teddy: & deprive your boyfriend of the chance to drink it? I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that

Nancy: How polite

Teddy: Makes one of us, I suppose

Nancy: It was an accident

Teddy: You want me to leave

Nancy: No

Nancy: I say what he needs to hear to come over

Teddy: Message received

Nancy: That makes one of you

Teddy: Quite

Teddy: best of luck with your second attempt

Nancy: Don’t be mad at me, no one’s leaving

Teddy: I am, but no one special

Nancy: Come on

Teddy: Until next time

Nancy: Be like that

Teddy: I’m busy a few hours from now anyway

Nancy: Why?

Teddy: Because my father hasn’t taken enough rugby balls to the head & he’s a sadist

Nancy: Get some [whatever drugs we think will counter the drink and what we assume is still in his system]

Teddy: No thank you, seeing me this way will act as a deterrent for his future ridiculous ideas, I have no interest in remedies

Nancy: Will it?

Teddy: If he has been blessed with any of the sense he claims I wasn’t born with

Nancy: Good luck, honestly

Nancy: parents are unbelievably dim

Teddy: It’s something else that’s catching evidently

Nancy: Ha ha

Teddy: Yeah well

Teddy: Do have fun, won’t you?

Nancy: What else

Teddy: The list would be almost as tragic as the behaviour itself, I’ll spare us both & allow you to focus on said back & forth between you & the other T in your life

Nancy: Okay boring

Teddy: You started it

Nancy: You

Teddy: No, you

Nancy: Liar

Teddy: Go away, I actually didn’t message you

Nancy: I’m going, you keep talking to me

Teddy: [leave that one on read as hard as it would be because you wanna have the last word always + talk to her]

Nancy: [soz boy, at least you can leave and have it that way ‘cos we’ll be watching to see if you do]

Teddy: [gotta love a diva storm out]

Nancy: [hopefully before her boyfriend walks in or it’s that blatant lol]

Teddy: [I’m sure he’ll take ages to arrive if he even does at all, that’s what he’s giving]

Nancy: [would’ve promised more if you had not in fact got the wrong inbox which kinda stopped you in your tracks there hun]

Teddy: [you’re welcome cos a notp for us all there]

Nancy: [as are all her tenuous ‘relationships’ with varying degrees of bad]

Teddy: [mhmm, well we should probably post this as he has stropped off and no more can really be done]

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longitud-de-onda · 5 years ago

Note

can i request something for your drabble event? “He’s so pretty I think I’m gonna faint.” maybe combined with “Is there a reason you’re blushing like that?” for javi, pretty please 💗 sending you many hugs and kisses!!!! hope you're doing okay sweetie!

character; javier peña

prompt; “he’s so pretty i think i’m gonna faint.” + “is there a reason you’re blushing like that?”

warnings; a lil bit of sexual content �� and some alcohol

a/n; it’s a tad longer than usual so there’s much more under the (hopefully functioning) cut

You sit on the edges of the room with your best friend and coworker, Joyce. You’re absentmindedly sipping on a mug full of rum and coke that had been poured for you an hour ago as she chatters on about all the people in the room.

It’s Nancy Phillip’s last week in the Public Affairs office, about to retire and move back to the States with her husband. She’s been here longer than anyone else and seems to know everyone. You don’t know her that well, but you’re in the same office room as her every day, so it would be a little bit embarrassing to not show up.

“Okay, so that woman over there, Chloe?” Joyce says. “She’s in charge of Exchanges and Programs or something, and apparently she was placed in a family embassy house instead of a single apartment, which kept the Chambers family from—holy shit, is that Javier Peña?”

You follow her line of sight, seeing Javier walking through the doors to the party.

“He’s so pretty I think I’m gonna faint,” Joyce groans. “I had no idea the DEA would show up. They’re always so lofty. But Javier? God, he’s so hot. I can’t fucking handle it.”

“He’s alright,” you say. Alright’s an understatement. But you’re not going to admit to Joyce that you thought he was attractive.

For the past year, Javier had been flirting with you in the hallways. It was fun, and it made you feel sexy. You didn’t see anything wrong with it, even flirting back sometimes. The first time it went a little too far, a little too suggestive, he caught you in the parking lot and asked if you wanted him to stop. You told him no, and then didn’t talk to him for a week, terrified that your admission had revealed too much of how you thought about him. The flirting resumed afterward like nothing had changed.

It was almost a month ago, but you and Javi were the last people in the office for the night. Javier was leaving his part of the floor and walked past the Public Affairs office. That night you wound up bent over a table in a conference room, doors locked, as he railed you from behind. The best sex you had ever had. And the next morning you both acted like it hadn’t happened. Until it happened again, a week later. The third time was out in the bathroom of a bar, drunk. The fourth was a day later in his apartment.

It was never acknowledged publicly. It was just sex. Both of you there for the other when you needed it and when no one was watching. A relationship that didn’t exist in the minds of a single other soul.

“I wonder why he’s even here,” Joyce says. “Probably the free alcohol. From what I hear, he doesn’t do parties.”

“I wouldn’t know,” you say. Nancy has been making her rounds with the guests and you can see her getting closer. You don’t really want to talk to her. Pretend you’re sad about her departure. By your calculations, if you stay another fifteen minutes, you’ll have finished your drink, stayed long enough to be appropriate, and just barely escaped a conversation with Nancy.

“Don’t look now,” Joyce whispers, still stuck on the idea of Javier. “But he’s looking at you. Pretty intently.”

You immediately look up, against your better judgment. And Javier is, in fact, staring at you, through the crowd. And not just staring, he’s walking towards you. Why?

“Oh my god, Y/N,” Joyce says, shuffling around to adjust her skirt. “He’s coming this way, please, do I look okay? If I say the right things, do you think he’ll ask me out?”

Do you think Javier would ask Joyce out? You glance back up at him and feel your face heat up with the memories of the last time he gave you a look like he’s doing right now, mischievous and excited. “I don’t think he’s the type, Joyce.”

“Ugh, you’re ruining it. At least let me think I have a chance,” she says.

You laugh, trying to mask the fear that’s building up in your stomach. Nothing good could come out of speaking to him now. “You look… good.”

She seems soothed by your words, and you glance back up to search for Javier amongst the people. And he’s standing just feet away from you.

“Is there a reason you’re blushing like that?” he asks you.

You squeeze your eyes shut, wishing you could be swallowed into the floor. “No, just, you know—I’m not blushing.”

“It looks a bit like it.”

“You’re Javier Peña, right?” Joyce says, and you hope she can keep the conversation away for as long as possible. Hope she didn’t think any further of your brief exchange. “I’m Joyce Gould.”

“Nice to meet you, Joyce.” He smiles. His voice is thick with the charm he uses on just about everyone. “I was coming over to ask Y/N about something, work-related. About a, uh, a press release.”

“Yeah?” you say, and searching his eyes you see the hidden meaning of his words, the recognition clicking into place with the slight lift of the corner of his mouth.

“Oh come on,” Joyce groans. “Tonight’s about celebrating, not work. Save it for tomorrow.”

“It’s fine, Joyce. I was planning on going home in a few minutes anyway. We’ll just talk and then I’ll be leaving. See you tomorrow?” Javier’s waiting patiently and your body seems to instinctively shift towards him in anticipation of what’s about to happen.

“Ugh, you’re so boring,” she says. “But that means more booze for me, can I have the rest of yours?”

You hand her your mug and then wish her goodbye, slipping out of the room behind Javier. He leads you just across the hall and into the DEA offices. As soon as the door clicks closed behind you, your whirl around to face him, about to question everything.

“Shhh,” he says, placing a finger on your lips. “You have to be quiet, okay?”

The finger trails its way down your chin and neck before pushing down the neckline of your shirt.

“We wouldn’t have to be quiet if we left now. If we went back to yours,” you whisper. The warmth of his finger resting just above your breast is enough to cause the arousal to heat up, your core already tightening.

“What’s the fun in that?”

taglists; (let me know if you want to be added, removed, or moved around)

perm taglist; @turquiosenights @el-lizzie @sparrows-books @dxxkxx @opheliaelysia @trashbin2 @rzrcrst @arcadianempress @stevieharrrr @peterparkers-tingle @blushingwueen @coredrive @lokiaddicted @mserynlarsen @badassbaker @cosmicbug379 @flower-petal-blooming @talesfromtheguild @eupphoriaaa @weirdowithnobeardo @gaybroadwayloser @randomness501 @adikaofmandalore @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @poesdxmerons @bountyguild @sinnamon-bunn @readsalot73 @gooddaykate @rage-isaquietthing @womanontheedgeofnothing @coffeencontemplation @hiscyarika @mrsparknuts @wickedfrsgrl @thewallpapergoesorido @lady-tano @dontjudgemedude @cheekygeek05 @lavenderl3mons

pedro taglist; @pascalisthepunkest @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @souls-rain @twomoonstwosuns @sophiasescape

javier taglist; @letaliabane @awesomefandomsunited @applesislife

#javier peña #javier pena #javier peña x reader #javier pena x reader #narcos #camila writes #1k event #rated m #anonymous #ask camila

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marvelslut16 · 5 years ago

Text

Milkshakes and fries

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Henderson!reader

Synopsis: Y/N and Steve take Dustin to the snow ball and get to know each other while they wait to pick him up. The two have a heart to heart over milkshakes and fries, will the two ever be more than just Henderson and Harrington?

Word count: 2140

Warnings: Swearing, there’s some but I don’t think I made Dustin swear enough. Oops.

“Dusty!” you call to your little brother, who is getting dressed for the snow ball. “Harrington is here!”

“Give me a goddamn minute!” he hollers back.

“Language!” mom joins in on the yelling.

“Dumb ass,” you laugh quietly as he walks into the kitchen. “But don’t you look handsome,” you smile down at him and push a rogue curl out of his face.

“Can you ride with?” he looks up at you, there's a vulnerability in his voice that you’ve never heard before. His eyes are huge and giving you the puppy dog look, he’s trying to use humor to hide his nerves.

“King Steve is taking you,” you frown. “Why would you want little old me getting in the way of your bromance?”

“Because you’re my big sister,” he admits quietly. “Plus I want a girl’s opinion.”

Every part of you wanted to say no, to just send him off with Harrington so you could change into pajamas and watch TV with your mother. But you also heard the bad advice that Steve gave him to ignore Max and be borderline rude to her.

“Fine,” you sigh, grabbing your coat that's draped over the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

“Thank you,” he cheers throwing his arms around your midsection.

“Mom, I’m taking Dustin to the dance,” you inform her as you walk through the living room to get to the front door.

“I thought that Harrington boy was taking him,” she frowns at you, from her seat on the couch.

“He is,” you sigh and slip your coat on before zipping it up.

“I asked her to go with for the ride,” Dustin walks up behind you. “She’ll probably go do something with Steve until it's time to pick me up.”

“I never agreed to that,” you hiss at him.

“You just did,” he grins grabbing your hand and pulling you towards the door. “Bye mom!” he calls over his shoulder.

“Henderson, Henderson number two,” Steve greets the two of you as you head towards his car.

Dustin shoves you the passenger's seat door, as he heads to the back of the car. You begrudgingly take the seat next to Steve “the hair” Harrington.

“Which one of us is Henderson number two?” you try to break the silence a few minutes into the ride.

“Dustin,” Steve takes one hand off of the wheel to run it through his hair. “He is the younger one,” he adds with a slight shrug.

“That’s bullshit!” Dustin calls from the back.

“Now now Dusty, watch your language,” you mimic your mom. Steve laughs at your imitation as Dustin flips you the bird. “Love you too little bro,” you laugh.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Dustin whispers to himself as Steve pulls up in front of the middle school.

“Hey,” you say softly, turning to face Dustin. “You’ll be a little heart-breaker in there. You look handsome, and you’re the sweetest guy I know. Once you get passed all of the swearing, that is.”

He smiles back at you, but you can practically hear him chanting shit in his head. “You have to say that,” he finally breaks the silence. “You’re my sister.”

“I don’t have to do anything Dusty, even if we’re related. I’m just telling you the truth.”

“So remember when you get in there,” Steve joins the conversation.

“Pretend I don’t care,” Dustin finishes.

“You don’t care,” Steve shakes his head.

“I don’t care,” Dustin repeats.

“There ya go, you’re learning my friend,” Steve smiles at him. “You’re learning.”

“Don’t listen to him,” you cut in.

“That’s great advice!” Steve defends.

“That’s terrible advice!” you squint your eyes at the driver. “Just be confident Dusty.”

Dustin leans forward, ignoring your arguing with Steve, adjusting the rear view mirror so he can check his hair and face.

“Hey,” Steve whines since Dustin is messing with the angle of the mirror. “You look great. Listen to your sister and me, we’re practically adults. We know this stuff by now. Now, you’re going to go in there, look like a million bucks, and you’re gonna slay em dead.”

“Like a lion,” Dustin agrees, before purring.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Steve cringes slightly.

“C’mon (Y/N/N), back me up,” Dustin looks at you.

“Sorry kiddo,” you give him a slight smile. “I agree with Harrington for once.”

“Okay,” Dustin sighs. He gives the two of you one last look before heading into the dance. You both watch as he walks in and hands his ticket to Mr. Clarke.

“So what do you want to do now?” Steve asks, driving away.

“You can drop me off at home, I don’t want to impose on King Steve’s time,” you look down and twiddle your fingers.

“Or we can go get something to eat,” it almost sounds like there’s a hopeful lift to Steve’s voice. “I could really go for a milkshake.”

“Milkshakes sound good,” you agree quietly.

“I’ll have a chocolate milkshake and an order of fries please,” you smile up at the waiter.

“I’ll have the exact same,” Steve tell him. As the waiter walks away your booth is once again plagued in awkward silence. “So what do you want to do after graduation?” he asks.

“I’m not really sure,” you finally admit out-loud, it was eating away at you whenever your mom would talk about grades and graduation. “I always planned on going away to school, moving away from this town. But with everything that’s happened these past two years, there’s no way I can leave Dustin here. I’ll probably just get a job at the arcade or something. Save up enough money to move out eventually, or wait for some guy to notice me and we can start our nuclear family.”

“I’m sure Dustin would understand if you left,” Steve leans forward, and gently grabs your hand. “You clearly have so much love for him, but you need to do the things that you want to.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” you laugh humorlessly. “You, you’re set for life Harrington. You have the house, the money, any girl you could ever want-”

“They’re all interested in Billy now. Or Jonathan,” he sighs and looks at his hands.

“The point is, you have the luxury to be able to go off and find yourself, I don’t.”

“Money isn’t everything Henderson,” Steve’s brows furrow as he looks at you.

“Obviously not, I’m happy with next to none,” you you match his look. “But it does help in the long run. Plus you don’t have a little brother you would be abandoning.”

Before Steve can respond the waiter comes back with two milkshakes and a giant plate of fries. You thank him and immediately take a sip of your drink. The waiter winks at you before retreating to behind the diner counter. You miss the frown and glare Steve sends the man.

“What did happen between you two?” you sober up immediately and Steve chokes on his shake. “You don’t have to answer that! I was out of line-”

“So what about you?” you ask before biting into a fry. “What does post high school life look for King Steve?”

“Ya know, find a girl and start our very own nuclear family,” the two of you start to laugh. “Honestly? I have no idea. I was prepared to follow Nancy wherever she wanted to go, but we see how that turned out.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” he gives you a small smile. “Nancy and I were never really a good fit, especially because a part of her hated me because she blamed me for Barb.”

”But that’s not fair,” you frown at him. Dustin had filled you in and told you that Barb was sucked into the upside down through Steve’s pool. “You never wanted any of that to happen.”

“And,” Steve continues. “I let Tommy H. and Carol say some pretty bad things about both her and Jonathan, I don’t blame her for choosing him.”

“You should have stopped your friends, but you aren’t a complete asshole. You deserve to be happy too,” you dip a fry into your milkshake.

“So what about you?” Steve questions, shifting in his seat.

“What about me?” your brows furrow.

“Tell me about your love life woes,” he grins cheekily.

“Uh,” you play with the hem of your shirt and stare down at the shiny tabletop. “There’s not much to say, I don’t really have people interested in me.”

“That’s bull,” he jaw drops a little and his eyes slightly widen.

“Tommy H. and Carol used to spread rumors about me, but you already knew that. They said terrible things about my mom and how she was raising Dusty and me alone. They made fun of how I dressed, and the way I look. They even went as far as saying horrible things about Dustin,” your eyes start to water at the memories of their cruel words. Words that occasionally haunt your dreams, as stupid and weak as that may sound.

“I never knew it went that far,” Steve’s voice softens, as he reaches over to squeeze your hand that's once again sitting on the table. You pull your hand away from him and shrink back into the shiny vinyl seat.

“But you still knew they made fun of me, and you just watched,” you frown at Steve. “That’s just as bad as being the bully Harrington. I’m really glad that you have this strange friendship with Dustin. He needs an older guy to look up to, so don’t screw that up.”

“He’s a good kid,” Steve smiles at you. “He’s taught me quite a bit in the short time that I’ve known him. He’ll be a way better guy than I was in high school. And (Y/N), I’m sorry for everything that Tommy H. and Carol did to you. I should have stopped them, I just never had the guts.”

“Thanks Harrington, that actually means a lot.” you softly smile at him.

The rest of your time at the diner went by quickly as the two of you joked and told stories from your childhood. Maybe Harrington wasn’t as bad as you assumed he was. He was actually a total dork, and kind of nice.

Before you knew it, you were back in his car and speeding to the middle school to pick Dustin up. You were laughing at some lame joke that Steve had just told you as Dustin slips into the back.

“I see you two had a good time,” Dustin smiles, looking between the two teenagers in the front.

“Harrington took me to get milkshakes and fries, so it wasn’t completely horrendous,” you grin like an idiot.

“You liked my jokes, just admit it,” Steve grins back at you.

“They were terrible,” you start laughing.

“They weren’t that bad,” Steve murmurs as he starts to drive.

“So Dusty,” you turn to face your little brother. “How was the dance?”

“I got to dance with Nancy!” a huge grin splits his face. Dustin has had the biggest crush on Nancy Wheeler for years now. However, you can’t bring yourself to be too excited for him, because of the man driving the car. You turn to face Steve nervously, you expect to see a clenched jaw and a white knuckled grip on the wheel. But what you see shocks you, Steve is leaning back in his seat and he lets out a little laugh.

“Well I’m sure it was great practice for prom,” Steve grins at Dustin through the rearview mirror.

“Steve, you should take (Y/N) to prom,” Dustin smirks.

“What?” you choke on your spit.

“It’ll be fun,” Dustin wiggles his eyebrows at you.

“I’m not even going,” your eyebrows furrow as you stare at Dustin.

“Why the fuck not?” he matches your frown.

“First of all,” you give him a disapproving look. “I have no one to go with, and you can’t force Steve-”

“Steve huh?” Dustin’s eyes twinkle in humor at the change from Harrington to Steve.

“Am I really that bad?” Steve turns to face you as he pulls into your driveway, there’s hurt written across his features.

“No!” you insist. “I just don’t want you to be forced to go with me.”

“So you’re saying that if I asked you would say yes?”

“No, probably not-” Steve cuts you off.

“Because you hate me?” his frown deepens.

“I don’t hate you!” your voice starts to rise out of nerves. “I would totally go with you, but-”

“So it’s a date,” Steve shoots you a goofy grin.

“What just happened?” you wonder as Dustin laughs from the back. Steve grabs your hand and places a gentle kiss on it, before winking at you.

“I just got a date with a beautiful and intelligent girl,” he grins from ear to ear.

Part 2

Permanent Tags: @crimson-knuckled-queen

#steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #dustin henderson #steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things #Stranger Things Season 1 #stranger things imagine #stranger things season 2 #stranger things season 3

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hcldenbitch · 4 years ago

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wanna play 20 questions?

what are 3 flaws your character has?

3 of holden’s biggest flaws are; he deprives himself of any sort of affection. sure, he’ll come fuck you, but the second you start trying to be weird and cuddle after he’s gotta go. he was told a few times by a shit ex that he was OVERLY affectionate, so he took that as a hint to fucking stop altogether. he likes to think he can take care of himself, he can handle any sort of chaos that comes his way with no problem, but the fact is, holden struggles A LOT when it comes to being responsible, or when something unexpected happens. he likes to think that he’s got his addiction under control - and for the most part, he does - but holden struggles with it every single day and just doesn’t know how to deal with it. therefore, he buries his dick in someone and calls it taken care of when the itch of wanting something comes around.

what are 3 insecurities your character has?

holden’s always afraid that he’s gonna relapse. whilst he has a pretty okay grip on his addiction, the temptations are ALWAYS there - especially with the company he keeps around. holden’s also insecure that he’s gonna be alone all his life - whilst he has a load of people he talks to all the time, there’s a few he really considers his friends / family. but he has that voice in the back of his mind always telling him that they’re just keeping him around as not to hurt his feelings. he really struggles with his health in general - his mental health is a fucking nightmare; with constant nightmares when he’s capable of falling asleep, to sleep paralysis demons, to full on panic attacks holden doesn’t feel it’s anything he needs to talk to anyone about. he’s always telling himself ‘well, if you hadn’t fucked up your life then maybe you wouldn’t have so many fucking issues’ and refuses to be a burden to anyone. he likes to play like he’s superman, but he isn’t.

what is something your character is most proud of?

the thing holden is most proud of, is his career. for someone that wandered the streets, selling himself, drugs, and even going as far as stealing, this is a huge accomplishment for him. and he’s amazed that so many people can appreciate his work as well. holden puts his heart and soul into each and every tattoo and sketch that he does because he wants people to be fucking proud to have his art on them for good.

where does your character feel most comfortable?

the tattoo parlor. holden finds himself at ease at love hate tattoo, the people there are his kind of people, the clients are always interesting, and holden gets to show off his skills. so when he’s there, he feels like he just belongs in the space, and no one is sitting and judging him.

where do they feel most uncomfortable?

anywhere that he’s alone. holden and being alone have never gone hand in hand - before johan arrived to the apartment for residency holden was never there. if he had to be, he made sure he had someone over. if not, he’d be out in the bars, finding company and solace in someone else. when he’s alone, he thinks too much, and when he thinks too much, he gets that itch for a line or two to shove up his nose.

what are some hobbies of your character?

he’s a gym rat; holden absolutely loves being in the gym to keep up with his physique. ever since he’s been in recovery, building up muscle and tone so he doesn’t look like that lil sick, thin, deathly looking man he used to be. he actually likes hiking, too! anything that requires him to be outdoors, sign him up. he also has a drum set, but given that they live in an apartment he’s been unable to play it like he wants to.

are they more extroverted or introverted?

definitely extroverted. there’s not one person that holden wouldn’t talk to - if a brick wall would respond, you could bet your ass he’d have a conversation with it as well.

does your character have any scars, how did they get them?

holden has too many scars to even count. however, they’re mostly covered in black ink, or in places people can’t see and he prefers to keep it that way. most of them are from using needles to shoot up, some are self harm scars, some are just from being completely stupid. but a huge majority are due to his self sabotaging ways.

what is/was your character’s relationship like with their mother and/or father?

holden’s always been the black sheep of his family; his mom and dad had his life planned out for him before he even arrived on earth. the meant to be lawyer was anything but what they expected. a rambunctious, rowdy, and hard to get anything done kid was their soon to be worst nightmare. once they found out that holden wasn’t going to comply to their expectations, and they found out that he was on drugs, they kicked him out and disowned him on the spot.

have they any siblings, if so, do they get along?

he has an older sister, elisabeth. the two of them haven’t spoken since she found holden overdosed in his apartment.

has your character ever had a reoccurring dream or nightmare, what happened?

it’s very seldom that holden sleeps; he has insomnia and finds himself awake more often than not. when he does sleep, more often than not he’s paralyzed in bed whilst a figure that looks like a mixture of gollum and the broke neck lady ( from haunting of hill house ) looks over him and holds him down. nine times out of ten it starts with the creature just sitting on his chest, staring him down with drool just oozing from it’s shark like teeth. they then lean over holden’s face and breath this hot, sulfur smelling breath right in his face and they slowly start unhinging their jaw ( think pennywise in IT ), trying to eat holden’s face and he can’t move. so needless to say, if he can skip the sleep, he does.

what qualities does your character look for in a friend?

holden just looks for someone that can be as annoying and as hilarious as he can. someone that doesn’t take life too seriously and he can just vibe with. as long as he can get along with you, that’s all that matters to him. ( they also gotta not mind him stealing their food whenever they go out to eat ).

what qualities does your character dislike in others?

people who take life too seriously. holden likes to think of himself as a jokester, so if you’re going to be around him and suck the fun out of every little thing, don’t even bother speaking to him because he will put you in your place. he also hates when people are overbearing, and naggy, and just a fucking negative nancy.

how does your character react to confrontation - are they a fight or flight?

fight definitely. holden has no issues taking a problem head on ( unless it’s a problem that relates to him ). if he sees someone in trouble, or if someone comes to him saying something happened - holden is the first one to ask where they are and how he can find them.

how easy or difficult does your character find it to say ‘i love you’ to someone? have they ever said ‘i love you’ without meaning it?

saying it and meaning it, is something holden can’t bring himself to do because he truly thinks that love is some made up concept that he’ll never understand. faking it, that’s a different story. he just laughs and says thanks and goes about his day. holden has never said it without meaning it though, except the one time he told his ex right before they started getting bad.

what does your character believe will happen to them after they die? are they in fear of this belief?

holden’s convinced that he’s gonna come back reincarnated as one of the queen’s corgi dogs. and if they’re dead before he dies, he claims he’ll come back as a cricket so he can piss everyone off.

how does your character react toward children?

he hates them. they’re gross, needy, rude, they ain’t his cup of tea.

does your character have any fears? if so, what are they?

holden’ afraid of swimming. he once nearly drowned during a swimming practice when he was 8 and ever since then, getting in the water - whether it be a pool, sprinkler, or ocean - he just ain’t having it.

if your character could relive one memory they have, which would they choose and why?

it would more than likely be the moment he realized what love really was. when he felt it, it was unlike any other feeling in the world that he had ever encountered. and he would give up anything just to feel that little bit of happiness just one more time.

#amore:task002 #tw drug mentions #tw mental illness #jesus this took FOREVER #AND I GOT 2 MORE TO DO

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lesbianrobin · 5 years ago

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oh.... yes..... as an adhd steve-lover (and person who has a history of unknowingly crushing on adhd characters) i beg to hear ur reasoning......... please...

alright so a lot of this is gonna be like projection ddnkjcn and it turned into more of a general character analysis than an adhd analysis and i’m sure that some things i describe will differ from your personal experience so feel free to critique me but here goes:

Why Steve Harrington Has ADHD

Steve struggles in school, yeah, but that’s not really… crucial to my reasoning? I personally did pretty well in school despite having difficulties with getting work done on time and understanding certain things. The fact that he clearly tried to do well and just couldn’t is what’s important. That’s a classic ADHD thing, feeling like there’s some kind of invisible block making it impossible to think the way you’re supposed to be thinking and do the things you’re supposed to be doing. We see him studying a few different times with Nancy (though he’s reluctant to focus on the task in s1), it’s implied he’s written multiple drafts of the essay that he shows Nancy in the beginning of s2, meaning that he wants to do well. After Nancy critiques his essay, he basically decides to give up because he’ll never be able to make it good enough, and he probably shouldn’t even bother applying to college, and he’ll just end up working for his dad anyway. It’s a bit of an extreme jump from the relatively mild criticism he receives, but it seems to me like the kind of mindset that I (and others with ADHD) fall into constantly. First of all, rewriting something you’ve already written when you have ADHD can be… torturous. It’s impossible to focus because you’ve done it already, it feels pointless and boring, and your brain is just done with the topic. To Steve, there’s no point in even trying because he’s never gonna get it right, and he’d rather not even try than apply to college and have to suffer rejection. ADHD isn’t laziness or apathy. People with ADHD actually tend to care a lot about their performance in various aspects of life, and they care so much that it can often either propel them to excellence or drive them to depression over failure (whether that failure is true or perceived). Spoiler alert: we’re about to get into rejection sensitive dysphoria, folks!

I think this describes Steve perfectly. He wants to be the best at everything (Prom King, anyone?) and he cares a lot about what people think of him (to the degree that he spent three of his four years in high school behaving specifically to avoid the possibility of Tommy H and others making fun of him). Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, or RSD, is a condition which impacts almost all people with ADHD. This means that they are far more sensitive than most people to what others think about them. Think about Steve’s entire character arc: he essentially spends season one chasing the approval of Tommy, Carol, and Nancy. When Tommy and Carol’s desired behavior differs from Nancy’s, causing conflict, he’s forced to take a look at himself and decide what’s more important to him: pleasing his friends, or doing what’s right. Since Steve is a certified angel, he goes with what’s right, and from there goes on to apologize to Jonathan and help him and Nancy fight the Demogorgon. (Sidenote: the fistfight with Jonathan could definitely be considered as further evidence of ADHD! RSD can cause extreme emotional reactions when the person in question feels that they have been hurt or rejected, such as Steve believing that Nancy cheated on him with Jonathan. The fact that Steve resorted to cruel insults that he clearly doesn’t believe shows that he was acting out of his own hurt and anger, not out of true hatred for Jonathan.)

Anyway, s1 Steve’s entire life is built around seeking approval from his peers. He realizes that his desire for approval has turned him into somebody that he doesn’t like, so he makes a change, and by s2 we see that he’s shifted somewhat: Now, he wants to please Nancy. He’s able to handle being mocked by Billy and Tommy H because he no longer puts any stock in their brand of approval, but being told by Nancy that she doesn’t love him elicits another (somewhat) extreme emotional response: he immediately leaves her at the party with Jonathan and doesn’t pick her up for school the next morning. He’s upset with her. Later on, he goes to her house with flowers intending to apologize, though he doesn’t actually know what he’s apologizing for. All he wants is for Nancy to be with him and like him again, because he can’t handle feeling unloved and rejected. S2 is also where we see Steve’s academic insecurity, and he hints at issues with feeling like a failure in the eyes of his father. By the end of the season, he’s able to handle not being loved by Nancy because he’s found a new source of self-esteem and approval: Dustin and the rest of the kids. Through acting as their “babysitter,” Steve’s found something to take pride in that nobody can take away from him. Billy may have overshadowed his basketball stardom and broken his keg stand record, but Steve no longer needs these shallow achievements to feel a sense of self-worth.

S3 shows that, although he’s moved on from seeking approval from specific peers, Steve is still stuck searching for validation. He flirts indiscriminately hoping for anybody to respond positively, and he gets a job to appease his father. Here, I’m gonna jump ahead a little bit (because that’s just the way my brain is saying it’s gotta be lmao) and talk about a few of Steve’s other canon traits, then circle back around to how we see his ongoing struggle with RSD manifest in s3.

Now for the trait that people more commonly associate with ADHD, especially in men and young boys: hyperactivity. This one is a little more self-explanatory so I’m not gonna spend as much time on it. Steve excels in situations with clearly defined rules and expectations where it’s easier to stay on-track, as well as in high-pressure, fast-paced environments. This is why he succeeds in basketball and why he’s such a big damn hero every season. He thinks on his feet and steps up in intense situations without hesitation. Steve is the one who wedged something under the elevator door so that everyone could escape, he’s the one who took out a Russian soldier before he was able to alert anybody else, and when he saw Billy about to ram into Team Griswold Family, he crashed into Billy’s car. Part of this is the fact that it’s a sci-fi action horror show, and there are going to be dramatic action-packed situations, but it’s telling that if Steve is around, he’s almost always the one leaping into danger and adapting to the situation to deal with it quickly. Speaking of s3: The conversation Steve and Robin had on the floor in the Russian torture chamber!

This feeds into an even more elaborate Steve meta theory of mine about how he basically lives his life as if it’s a play and there’s a script and a set of rules that he’s gotta follow to please the audience, so I’m not gonna go into ALL of it, but this conversation is also important to the idea of Steve having ADHD and struggling with RSD. Steve says, “It just baffles me. Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just… bullshit.” When Robin says that she feels like her life has been “one big error,” he agrees. So far, Steve has lived his whole life according to one set of rules. If you flirt with girls and go to parties and play basketball, you’ll be cool and popular. Now that he’s graduated, he’s floundering. The structure of high school is gone and everything he worked for doesn’t actually matter in real life. People with ADHD often struggle more than others with the transition from high school to either college or the working world. Loss of familiar frameworks, routines, and actions can hit the ADHD mind hard, and this is pretty clearly happening to Steve in s3. In the beginning of the season, he can’t even manage to have a decent conversation with a girl without bringing up school and his own perceived failures. Sidenote: Robin also mentions that Steve was late to class every single day, which is both extremely relatable to me and the most ADHD thing I’ve ever heard. I knew exactly how long it took me to get from my house to the school, and I woke up with plenty of time to get ready every single morning, yet I somehow managed to be late so many mornings that I got multiple detentions and ended up having to skip a couple of classes entirely because another tardy would have fucked up my disciplinary record.

Later on in the bathroom scene, when he’s talking about why he didn’t talk to Robin back in school, Steve says, “…maybe ‘cause Tommy H would’ve made fun of me or I wouldn’t be Prom King. It’s stupid…” and it’s somewhat of a continuation of the earlier conversation. Steve is expressing the same sentiment. Now that he’s out of high school, everything that he once used to measure his success and self-worth is just stupid. This is another classic RSD thing! People with ADHD/RSD often set impossibly high standards for themselves and then struggle with self-hatred and doubt when they cannot live up to these expectations. Robin kind of inspires and encourages him to set new, more attainable standards for himself. Spending time with Robin makes Steve happy in a way that he’s never really been before, and he realizes that all of the benchmarks of normalcy and success that he’s been striving for don’t guarantee happiness like they’re supposed to. Instead of finding happiness in academic, romantic, or athletic success, he finds happiness in an unlikely friendship. His whole arc for three seasons has essentially been a big struggle with RSD and impulsivity where he learned how to handle social rejection and place the needs and feelings of others before his own.

There’s also a ton of little things in Joe Keery’s acting choices that support ADHD Steve, like his near-perpetual motion and the way that he’s gotta pace and eat a damn banana (both the traditional way and the no-homo breaking it into pieces way, might I add) so he can listen to Dustin talk about the Russian code. I personally relate to a lot of things he does, like mixing up basic names and facts (like Nazis/Germans in s2 and Gumby/gumbo in s3), and needing to explain a whole situation out loud before he really gets it (like when he runs down the entire monster situation in the mall in s3). I don’t know if those are ADHD things but they make me feel Seen.

Anyways. That’s about it!! Thanks for asking lmao

#princeandreis #steve harrington #stranger things #em talks #asks #i... did not intend for this to be over 1700 words #i'm aware of the irony in a post about adhd being so long and i understand if yall end up skipping over it entirely nkjdcnx #adhd #lesbianrobin.canon

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commonsensewizard · 5 years ago

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The Founders Were Geniuses

I have a B.A. in History and am working on my M.A. in Government with focus on International Relations. I have studied with great care the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers and the Articles of Confederation. I have read many of the personal communique’s of our founders, and have also studied the writings of the 18th century British MP Edmund Burke, who is fondly referred to as the Father of Conservatism, and written a collegiate essay on his views of the American Revolution.

The idea of separation of powers within a government construct has been around since at least Aristotle. When the founders of the United States gathered to throw off the yoke of the British Empire, they were keen on doing all they could to bring as much immunity from a tyrannical government as possible. They were well aware of historical precedents, political philosophies, and current events of social upheaval within Europe. All of their personal experiences were combined with their own knowledge and wisdom, along with history and political philosophy.

What they came up with has stood the test of more than two-hundred and forty years. To say it is perfect would be foolish at worst, naive at best. No form of government run by man will ever be classified in such a term. To denounce our form of government because the men who formed it were slave owners, economic opportunists, conquerors of native peoples, elitists, and held the view that men were superior to women; is to think men of the 18th century should be judged by 21st century standards and that these aspects of their character should be a stain on what they created. People should always remember that the only one who was qualified to throw the first stone...didn’t.

No, our form of government should be judged on its merits over the last nearly two and a half centuries. Of course, liberal progressives will laugh at this statement, mainly because they live their lives looking through rose colored, utopian scented spectacles that only allow them to see the positives in their dreams and smell the lilacs of impossibilities. What they fail to see is what is transpiring right before their lying eyes, in real time...right now. For there is a concerted effort to oust a duly elected president at any cost, by any means, through any charge...manufactured or not. This is fascinating to watch the genius of our founders play out. No other impeachment ‘process’ has taken this perilous of a route. What is happening in D.C. right now is more dangerous to the foundation of our Constitution than the Civil War was. This isn’t an outside force of arms marching to overthrow the United States. No, this is an attempt at an inside coup to tell sixty-three million Americans their vote doesn’t matter; due process doesn’t matter; innocent until proven guilty doesn’t matter; the right to face your accuser doesn’t matter; the right to see the plaintiff’s evidence doesn’t matter; the right to cross examine doesn’t matter; the right to call your own witnesses doesn’t matter; and the powers invoked to the president of the United States by Constitutional mandate doesn’t matter. And I could go on, but those are the high points. And if these enemies of the State are successful, then all of us...ALL of us...are in the same sinking boat. The rule of law in this country will be in tatters and its destiny placed in the hands who think laws don’t matter. And this is where the genius of our founders will be seen, and at its finest hour.

The House of Representatives, the founders declared, would be the only branch of our government who could wield the power of impeachment. The executive and judicial branches of the government are not allowed to do so. Once the House approves articles of impeachment, their job is OVER as a body. It only takes a simple majority in the House to approve impeachment articles. Only the House counsel(s) are in the Senate to act as prosecutor before them. This is as it should be. The House of Representatives is made up of legislators who are placed in office by their district constituents in the state they are from. The number of representatives from each state is based on population. The Senate is made up of two senators from each state, each being elected by voters in their respective states. In other words, these two groups are as democratically elected as we get. With Representatives and Senators, mob rules. Popular votes are all that matter in these races. When they go to the capitol, those who voted them into office are then to have their best interests at the heart of the legislators selected. It doesn’t work out that way, but then again...what government is perfect.

The United States Senate is another aspect of the founders’ genius. Articles of Impeachment, once passed, goes to them. The trial of the impeached president takes place in this chamber. The House has no more say as a body. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court sits in as judge, but has no power over the proceedings other than in a ministerial capacity to arbitrate dissensions for both sides. After the case has been presented, it takes a two thirds super majority to convict. This assures that no matter which party controls the Senate, it will be a hard mountain to climb to remove a duly elected president unless the charges of high crimes and misdemeanors are clear and concise.

What Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are doing, along with their other criminal cronies, is beyond the pale of just practices. Secret meetings? Unknown witnesses with third party information? No questions allowed from the other side? Selected leaks to the media? Hearsay being included as evidence? Transcripts being put in the public record when read as a parody? Since when did ‘reading between the lines’ become valid evidence of wrongdoing? If they can do this to a president, and open this Pandora’s Box of making up the rules as you go; do not think for one minute this will never trickle down to the common citizen. It’s almost there now.

Our founders need to be revered, not reviled. For not only did they separate the legislative branch powers, but they kept the judicial branch out of impeachment altogether, except for the Chief Justice being involved in nothing more than a figure head position during the senate proceedings. Even the Chief Justice has no vote in the matter. Hamilton was adamant in an independent judiciary, and that is why no federal judges are elected. Federal judges have no skin in the game of politics. For if they did, then they would be beholden to the ones who put them on the bench.

So what we are seeing is a blatant attempt to circumvent the Constitution by a political party establishment who knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they have no candidate among them who can defeat Donald Trump. The only way to defeat him is to remove him by establishing the best kangaroo court they can muster and hope beyond all hope that it will work. Maybe even make him so tired of the fight he’ll just resign like Nixon did. The difference is Nixon knew the jig was up. Trump knows there isn’t a prayer the senate can snag a two thirds majority to oust him. The only other hope they have is to damage the public perception of Trump to such a degree people will get tired of it and simply not rally around one so tarnished over the last four years. What they don’t realize is that the majority of the American people do not approve of what is going on, and the massive decrease of money going into the DNC and to the poor losers running for the Democratic nomination is a sign of their political anemia.

The final thing the Democrats have missed out on, is that the founders...even though they lived in the 18th century and owned slaves and were economic opportunists and Indian conquerors and misogynists and elitist snobs...were even then FAR smarter and vastly more intelligent than the likes of them. And all of us are going to be better off for it in the long run.

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serendipitous-magic · 5 years ago

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⭐️

(For the “Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines. Or, send in a ⭐star⭐ to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!” post)

Okay, okay, okay - so this is in Ch 1 of TRS3, and I’m gonna chatter a tad about a section near the beginning, in Dustin’s POV.

-_-_-_-

“You’ve been away a whole month, honeybun, maybe they just...” She wiggled her shoulders with a tilt of her head. “Forgot.”

She didn’t mean him. Of course she didn’t mean that they forgot him. She meant the radios; she meant they forgot what channel they’re supposed to be on. Or that they forgot what day he was coming home. She didn’t mean that they forgot about Dustin himself.

It’s just, it’s not exactly reassuring, you know? It’s the middle of summer already. All the roads are lined with tall, dark weeds. In a few days, everything will smell like sparkler smoke and kettle corn from the annual 4th of July fair. When he left it was barely June, and the weeds along the roadside were little more than sprouts. What else has happened since he left? What else has changed?

Okay so this is the first time I’ve written from Dustin’s POV, so this opening scene with him was a bit of a trial run. I had to establish several things, specifically for Dustin’s character in this story and where his arc starts out.

In this story, Dustin is starting out his arc in a place where he’s a little uncertain of his worth. Here, that specifically means within the Party. As we’ve seen, the Party in general has kind of started drifting apart this summer. Oh, they still hang out all the time, but they’re starting to push more towards “teenage” activities, most of them in a hurry to grow up and leave behind what happened to them as kids (except for Will, who’s clinging to the childhood that was stolen from him, but that’s another discussion). This push to “move on,” combined with the fact that Dustin has been away at summer camp for a whole month, leaves him a little worried that they may have moved on without him.

Lately - probably ever since the Snow Ball, actually - it’s felt like everything has been changing, and not necessarily in a good way. So when Dustin goes away for a month and comes back and it’s like the whole summer has been going on without him (which... it has, really), he’s not feeling great about it.

Secondly: this scene is lifted nearly straight from the trailer we got (since for this fic I’m considering most S3 trailer/promo material “canon,” and then picking and choosing from the show). So, it’s not exactly how the scene in the show went down, but it’s pretty close to how I expected it to go down based on that one trailer we got. So that was fun to kind of re-imagine a little bit (although I think it ended up fairly close to the Netflix version, thus far).

A muffled little tink draws his attention to the vivarium on his left, where Yurtle is bumping against the side, stumpy little legs flailing as he fails to comprehend glass. Dustin grins at him.

“At least someone’s happy to see me.”

Yurtle continues his mission to pass through the solid glass wall, unperturbed by his complete lack of success. Determined little guy. Never gets very far, but he tries.

I love Yurtle.

Dustin isn’t worried about it - the Party, that is. Honestly, he’s not. It’s not like they’ve all been acting weird for the past few months anyway. It’s not like ever since El reappeared Mike has been MIA more often than not, visiting her at the cabin for as long as Hopper will allow. It’s not like Max and Lucas have developed their own little language and routine together - not just boyfriend and girlfriend, but best friends. It’s not like Will has been a slightly different person since... well, since everything. It’s not like he misses how the Party used to be.

And here’s more of Dustin feeling a little insecure about the Party moving on without him - but more than that, I also needed to establish, in this first chapter, where the Party starts out in this story. Recap style. “Last time on: Hawkins, December through June.” What do we need to know to jump right into the story and have all the information we need? Mike has been hanging with El constantly. The Party is being a little weird (as discussed above). Everyone is kind of paired off except for Will and Dustin (until Suzie). Will is having Struggles (TM). Boom, boom, boom. We know what we need to; now on to the plot.

But Dustin doesn’t like to mope. He slaps his thighs and stands up, reaching into the vivarium to turn Yurtle around. Yurtle lumbers off towards his pool, apparently assured that his ability to move is due to his own success, and Dustin hums along with the radio as he unzips his duffel bag with a flourish. Who is he to complain? He just got back from possibly the most amazing summer camp ever. He’s got the whole rest of the summer ahead of him. He’s got things to do. Places to go. Popsicles to eat. (You know what they don’t have at Camp Know Where? Otter pops. Unbelievable, right? Three hundred acres, over five hundred campers and dozens of counselors, and not a single person could produce even one pack of sugary, brightly colored frozen goodness.)

He’s got plans. Specifically, an invention to get up and running - and he has the perfect place in mind. He bets he can get the gang to help him set it up - if they’d just answer.

Dustin is a fairly optimistic and resourceful person. We’ve seen that in seasons 1 and 2. He’s often underestimated, because he seems a little goofy at first glance - which he is, to be fair. But he’s also a problem-solver. He’s smart, and he doesn’t like to just sit and watch a problem get worse. He takes action. He’ll go to the library before school to check out extra books against the rules so he can identify the creature he found in his garbage. He’ll send his mom out of the house by having a fake one-person conversation on the phone, and then armor up in sports gear and single-handedly lure a baby demogorgon into the cellar. He’s not one to laze around and mope about his problems.

So this ^ here is an example of me trying to feel out how this character thinks and acts, and portray it accurately (because, again, I’ve never written Dustin’s POV before.)

Okay, maybe he’s a little unsettled. The Party doesn’t just go radio silent on each other, okay? Because when a Party member goes radio-silent, it usually means that something is wrong. Really wrong.

His eyes slide over the stain in his carpet. It’s a barely-perceptible rusty brown, now, blending in with the striped carpet unless you know just where to look. He had to tell his mom it was spaghetti sauce.

Will wasn’t the only member of the Party who was scarred by what happened last fall. Everyone in the Party went through some shit, to varying degrees. Maybe Dustin wasn’t possessed by a shadow monster, but he did witness his cat being disemboweled and eaten by a baby demogorgon, and then he had to face said baby demogorgon, and scrub cat blood out of his carpet, and all the while make sure his mom wasn’t gonna be around to get hurt, and that would be pretty rough to go through for an adult - and Dustin was thirteen. (And that’s not even to mention the whole fighting-demodogs-with-Steve and infiltrating-the-Mind-Flayer’s-tunnels business.)

His toy robot starts marching out of the corner just as Dustin turns away, chattering unintelligibly in its perpetual-low-battery fizzle, red eyes glowing.

Wait.

What.

Dustin turns back, slowly, and this time the robot is joined by a toy tank and R2D2.

Now, he’s no expert, but in Dustin’s fourteen years of experience on earth, toys don’t come alive.

I just love that little bit.

Also, I REALLY REALLY WANTED TO FIND A WORD THAT MEANT “TOY EXPERT” BUT I COULDN’T FIND ONE. Like, the same way you might say, “Now, I’m no podiatrist, but in my experience that’s too many toes for one foot.” That kind of tone. But apparently there’s not a word for “toy expert,” at least not that I could find. Everything google gave me when I typed that in was sex toy related lol. Not what I was going for.

-_-_-_-

And that’s that little bit! It was fun doing Dustin’s POV, and this fic will be a fun challenge in that I usually write (at least in this fandom) nearly exclusively from Mike or Will’s POV, and in TRS3 we’re gonna get Dustin, Joyce, Nancy, Hop, Billy, the Mind Flayer... So, that’ll be a fresh challenge for me!

Thanks for the ask! I am also working on the others, I just completely forgot what the stars meant because I’m dumb lol

#asks #anon #trs3 #writing memes #writing commentary

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ofphcenixes · 6 years ago

Text

THE PHOENIX || blue hawthorne.

am i two hundred years late to the party ?? you bet your biscuits i am. but hiya all, i’m lilac, i am from the land of Quokkas and the Wiggles. i am already gonna apologise in advance for the mess of an intro below, so HERE is one of my fave videos as Thanks for wanting to learn more about my boi blue !! who, for the record, is so much lamer than he’ll let you believe. then again, i’m watching the nancy drew (2007) movie so who am i to judge lmao.

personality

THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBING TO BLUE FACTS. PLEASE TEXT ‘STOPBLUE’ TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION.

but if you have seen blue’s blog sidebar and title, i feel like you will gather a LOT about his personality lmfao

he is playful, jocular, and honestly? immature

always looking for the childhood he never got to have, y’know?

he is secretly very insecure and always has a need to please. if someone doesn’t like him, he’ll tear himself apart to figure out why.

he’s always telling jokes and always laughing. he’s known for his Memes and is always a good time to be around... if you know what i mean ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

but also Anti-( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) because ya boi has commitment issues so high they’re past the inevitable spaghetti monster that’s probably floating out there in space

he can also be very maternal when the need arises. he is not good at talking about emotions but he’ll give you a meme or a plate of cookies to Heal You

honestly? the human embodiment of a puppy. cannot be alone for very long, has a short attention span, and craves validation lmfao. give him a squeaky toy and he will be Contented

as a footballer he can be Tough on field when he needs to be but he’s also v sensitive and talks to birds he passes on his morning runs like he’s a disney princess djkgfdk

he struggles academically as he has a short attention span most of the time and thinks too little of himself. however, he’s a lot brighter than most people give him credit for. he’s incredibly creative and a lateral thinker. maths makes him want to die, tho.

also what’s money? blue does not know

to many, blue’s known as the troubled kid who turned his life around. to others, he’s known as the local Meme Dealer. but to a lucky few, he’s known as a friend who would do anything for you.

most just know him as the moron named after a colour tho. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

history. (trigger warning: illness, death, drugs, depression)

WHO’S READY FOR SOME CHROMATIC CONTENT

blue hawthorne, who never goes by his birthname bc he hates it dfkjgdgdf ( what is his birthname ? he’ll never tell ┌( ಠ‿ಠ)┘ ) was born right here in ashmont.

despite not having a lot - he grew up with just him and his mum ( his father left before he was born, never knew a thing about him ), in a tiny trailer park on the outskirts of town. a far cry from the opulent manors peppered all throughout town, and the very lifestyle blue’s mother was accustomed to as a child. however, the pair were content as long as they were together.

despite not having much, blue loved every second of his childhood. he wore his mischief like a crown, smiling wherever he went. he’d always resonated with a love of music and dance, and like his mother before him, danced. ballet was his passion growing up, and started as young as 5.

as a child blue was often teased for this, and the fact that he was so close with his mother. he was also very outspoken and strong-willed, and never let his peers get the best of him. he danced, he laughed, he bruised his knees at any given opportunity. what he lacked in possessions he gained in the abundance of joy he felt in his heart growing up. his mother and a few of his close friends were his world.

when blue turned ten, everything changed.

the jubilant, mischievous, but altogether kind-hearted boy was given the heart-breaking news that his mother had been diagnosed with cancer. margarette hawthorne, much like her son, was a fighter - and didn’t let such a diagnosis keep her down. despite their dwindling lack of funds now going towards medical bills, and the fact blue began sacrificing his own childhood as he took to the role of a caretaker of sorts for his mother, he never took his time with her for granted.

things were okay for a while. there was a point where the doctors were convinced that she was going to make it. blue was a fool. blue believed them.

at the age of thirteen, blue lost everything. he lost his place to live, he lost his childhood and lust for life, and he lost the person he loved most in the world. he lost his best friend.

it wasn’t long before the overbearing sympathy from those around him soured blue. he was sick of being bullied, people not liking him, and altogether not being in control. so what did this boy do ? he quit ballet (the thing he’d loved since he was able to stand), he started drinking, he got involved in a very bad crowd and became a frequenter of the local ashmont police station. blue became a certified Bad Boy™

blue was sent to live with the grandparents that despised him and never acknowledged his existence before that moment. righteous and conservative in their views, they had cast aside their daughter when she had blue out of wedlock, and only reached out to her in her final months. for this reason, blue despised these people (he refused to call them family). he tried his best to be appreciative of a house and food ( which was much better than anything he had growing up ). but he was cold. always cold.

as a teenager, blue fell into a rapid succession of bad decisions. still small, still frail in stature, he found himself at a dissonance with his image and began growing insecure about his looks, the years of torment weighing on him. he found anesthetic in the party scene outside of school, taking to alcohol and drugs as a sedative from the life he felt forced to lead. his grandparents were pigeon-holing him into a preppy, studious boy who’d go on to be a banker or a lawyer, when all blue had wanted to do was be himself. he couldn’t decide if he hated himself or he hated the world more.

at the age of 16, his rap sheet seemed to grow with each rising of the sun. he’d fallen in with a bad crowd, hardly ever heading ‘home’ and couch surfed. at the age of 16 he’d gotten his own car and lived more out of that than the stuffy house on top of the hill where he was supposed to stay. his grades were sinking towards the bottom of the barrel, he was always looking for validation from the bad kids he hung around with and made some very poor decisions in the hopes he’d be liked. in the hopes he’d find a new family.

the partying, the stream of hook ups, his criminal record (mainly with traffic offences, a few write ups for public intoxication and fighting), sobriety, the instability of his living situation and his future all came to boil just before he turned 17. physically he’d started to fill out, and look more like the man people know today. he was no longer frail and no longer weak, and when asked, he used to his fists to forge that path he thought he wanted.

after a dark night, it became apparent to blue that his path of self destruction was hurting no one but himself. whether by choice or by accident, he knew he wasn’t ready to see his mother again. so... he’d hit rock bottom with a spectacular thud. but blue knew the only way to go from there was up.

through nothing short than a McMiracle (sponsored by Ronald McDonald, bc no one else is rich enough to pull it off lmfao) blue managed to scrape by and complete high school.

blue had no doubt his family name (that of his grandparents) helped him secure an athletic scholarship to st etienne. in his year of transformation from 17 to 18 his grandmother had softened to the boy she’d always hated and was riddled with guilt for the years of mistreatment, and promised to pay for his education (that wasn’t covered by his scholarship) as long as he promised to make something of himself. his first year of college, things really started looking up for blue. he was finally back on track.

then woops, grim came a-knocking again

bidding farewell to the grandmother he was only beginning to know, his grandfather had no reason to extend her kindnesses, and cut blue off. at the age of 18 he was homeless, with nothing but a car and a handful of pokemon cards he’d had as a kid. not worth anything or even particularly sentimental, he just likes pokemond kgfjfd.

living in his car for a while before eventually crashing with a close friend, blue managed to absorb his days in study and in work. he quickly found his passion in helping kids, and giving them the childhoods that he never got. going into teaching seemed like a no-brainer.

although blue’s wild days are behind him, there are some things locked in his past that still haunt him. there are doors he never hopes to open again. but he got his fresh start, and is determined to live the life a young blue would have wanted for him, and one his mother could be proud of.

then the grim reaper came back a third time, his scythe begging for daisey rutherford.

the investigation.

blue’s connection to daisey is that they danced in ballet classes together... as you can imagine, daisey had to put on her Evil Training Wheels somewhere and unfortunately, blue was one of her earliest victims. teased constantly for his appearance, his love of ballet, his lack of wealth, and on awful days, his single parent household.

for the most part blue had grown resilient in ignoring these comments. but he never forgot how daisey mistreated him, and sparked a wave of similar comments from people in their year when they were only children.

hey now im not gonna rEVEAL (bc what if he is ??? :o ) anything relating to the crime if he was the murderer, but know he is Lorge and Strong and could probably push daisey over with his finger lmfao

it’s also worth noting that one of daisey’s parents, a beloved surgeon, treated blue’s mother whilst she was in hospital with cancer. the late detection of its return is what caused her death, and blue has been vocal in his blame in the rutherford family for the loss of the person closest to him ever since.

now i’m not saying blue did anything... but if he did, his ‘eye for an eye’ motive ? maybe not as crazy as you may think. especially when you consider your boi already has a criminal record. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

plots.

atm i am still working on blue’s blob and getting his stats/connections page up BUT !! here are a few fun lil plots beyond his skeleton connections that i’d absolutely love to explore.

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS - blue grew up in ashmont, and didn’t have a lot of friends kfgjfd. if your muse would have been down for a Young Memey Mess that’s fond of a pirouette, blue is your Man. on the flip side, if your muse is one of the Cool Kids and is looking for potential animosity, i’d love someone who tried to squash blue like a bug in their youth (~:

FLIRTATIONSHIP - blue is currently in a (hidden) relationship, and for the first time in his life, gasp, might have feelings. but he’s a fucking walnut and refuses to admit that, so a plot of someone with an unrequited crush, a fun flirtationship, or even someone that just wants to be his wingman would not only be fun, but also incredibly painful - which is what we deserve. 8) (also note, blue is bisexual so any muse would work. <3)

COWORKERS - blue works as a trainer at the ashmont fitness centre ( .... dont @ maaria for the page not being done fgjdgkdf WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF UPDATING THE PAGES NOW KDFJGDKFJ). but i’d always be down for plots in the workplace !!

UBER - sorry for the lame ass name lmao but dkjfgfkd blue is not about the party scene anymore ( lowkey bc he’s afraid to get addicted again and throw away everything he’s worked so hard for). but he does care a lot about people, and a pal of his is v much still hooked to that lifestyle and he very dkfgjdf determinedly drives them home every time to ensure they’re safe. could be former party friends, could be current friends in some capacity. maybe there was an incident in their past that blue feels guilt over ( a fight perhaps, trigger warning - maybe an overdose?) and so now he looks after them. or even just having a sibling-like bond, which (as blue is an only child) i’d also love something like that!

STUDY BUDDY - blue is a moron and needs someone to help him not fail kdfjgdf. he may not be naturally adept at getting good grades, but unlike many, he’s trying his absolute hardest. in return, he’s more than happy to be your Meme Dealer. bonus points if it’s unlikely friends, or if they didn’t exactly get along at first. :D

FELLOW FOOTBALLERS - 2 bros sitting in a hot tub five feet apart bc they’re not gay. dkjgdgdf but for REAL. exploring the team dynamic of the football team would be so fun, especially with blue’s reputation and the fact he only started taking up the sport when he was about 15-16, which may be a lot later than other guys in the team.

RIVALS - god they’re probably rivals about memes and i hate that but that’s just what it is :/

it’s super late here (for me anyway, as i’m a certified Grandpa ™ so any time after 9pm is basically 3am to me lmfao) but i know these connections aren’t the best that ever was dfkjgdf but i am so excited to plot and come up with things that fit our muses !! if anything in this intro sparked an interest, one of the connections are intriguing, or you’d just like to plot and see what happens, please give this post a like and i’ll come to you !! i will get back to you all tomorrow when im awake aest time, but for now dkjgkfdfg yOU DESERVE COOKIES FOR READING THROUGH THIS ABODIMABLE MESS. i am literally so excited to plot with you all fjdgfd after reading your apps i hOPE I AM WORTHY. so please leave a like on this bad boy and you will find a message on your tumblr tomorrow. (~:

#veritasintro #<3 #i am about to head to bed but i will respond to any and all messages tomorrow !! <3 #GOD IF YOU READ THROUGH ALL OF THIS YOU ARE A SAINT

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thedeviljudges · 7 years ago

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I’m lowkey obsessed with the idea of one of the kids admitting to Steve they’re scared they’re gay and they’re really frightened about it and scared he’s gonna hate them and everyone will too and they haven’t told anyone else and Steve has never told anyone he likes boys before and he’s kinda like “me too” and they’re just like “what?” And he’s like “I think I like boys so I get it okay?” And it’s makes which ever kid lol feel so much better because Steve is so cool and he gets it

uhmm okay so i attempted this and well, i hope it’s okay!!! i chose will out of them all because i feel like he’s the go-to??? also cuz it seems to make sense. i hope this is okay.

The porch is not the most ideal place for life contemplation, Steve thinks, no matter how comfortable it feels out here, staring off into the distance filled with trees, dead leaves, and the quiet hum of the wind rustling the branches above.

It is, however, where he finds Will, the shy kid taking a breather from the commotion inside. Steve has never understood what it’s like to be smothered by family, thinks he ought to enjoy such a thing after baring witness to absentee parents for a good few years of his life. He also knows that because he’s not used to it, it’s exhausting as much as it is overwhelming, and it must be the case for Byers enough to wander outside by himself.

“You okay?” Steve asks because he’s not as familiar with him as he is with the other kids, regardless of his acquaintance with Jonathan. He doesn’t expect a reply, actually figures he’ll be ignored because what does Will Byers and Steve Harrington have in common aside from the Upside Down? Aside from Nancy and Dustin who’ve all merged together in a group of understanding despite the oddities that otherwise would’ve kept them apart as individual people, no paths to be crossed and definitely no reason for interactions.

But Will shrugs his shoulders, leans his head against one of the wooden poles that lines the stairs to the cabin. “I’m okay.”

It’s a lie. Steve knows a lie when he hears one; he’s given his fair share of them when he doesn’t want people to bother him, or more importantly, when he doesn’t know how to tell the truth.

Steve’s met with a crossroads then, choosing to ignore it in favor of respecting Will’s answer or finding another line of conversation that will attempt to crack Will open – if not to admit what’s on his mind, then at least a decent chat to distract him. Steve used to be a bit of an ass, but he’s working on it. Will doesn’t have to tell him anything if he doesn’t want to.

“I don’t think I am,” he says, blurts it out without a moment’s hesitation. It feels good to say that, to not have to smile at Nancy or Hopper or Joyce or even Billy for that matter, to have to pretend that splinters of exhaustion and emotion aren’t increasing the longer he stands on his feet. Steve wants rest; he wants the Upside Down to not be a thing that he – or anyone else – has to deal with, but along the way, he’s learned far too much about everything for his brain to catch a proper break.

Will startles at his comment, glances up as Steve walks forward, sits down on the steps of the porch. He leans on the opposite side of the rails, parallel to Will. Steve doesn’t want to crowd his space, doesn’t want Will to feel like Steve’s a looming presence after all he’s been through because no matter what he’s seen – what any of them have seen – it will never be anything as horrific as the experiences that this kid has gone through.

No amount of dreams, sweaty palms, or edginess will compare, and often, Steve feels guilty that he has after effects of the most mundane bullshit he’s experienced. It shouldn’t be a comparison game, but guilt is a very strong five letter word. “All this shit makes you think,” though he keeps his eyes trained ahead, on the moss and rocks across the ground that he hadn’t noticed before, “about who you are, what’s most important.”

“Everything feels different,” Will finally chimes in. His chin is pressed to his knees, hugging himself tightly like that might make all the bad thoughts go away. It won’t; it never does because Steve’s been there – been in bed and felt restless, felt like maybe if he held himself tight enough, long enough that he’d it’d make up for the lack of warmth he often experiences.

“It does.” Steve’s voice cracks, throws his gaze to his feet and picks at the hole in his jeans. They’re stretched across his knee, an old pair worn thin from multiple washes. It’s not fascinating, but he hates how the strings that weave the material together feel like an omen or, at least, a metaphor for all the connections his life has careened together. “Don’t even feel like myself sometimes.”

There’s a hitch in Will’s breath, so sudden that Steve turns to make sure he’s okay. The kid’s eyes are wide, maybe even a little creepy as he blinks at Steve. Though, the more Steve notices, the easier it is to pinpoint that Byers isn’t looking at Steve so much as he’s looking off in the distance of a memory, of a moment that Steve wasn’t a part of. “I think I’ve always felt that way.”

Steve doesn’t want to dampen the mood more than he must, but he’d like to counter Will’s statement with either you know or you don’t. There’s a certainty in life that he’s traveled through, solid in demeanor and tone. It’s not until you go through something, he thinks, that the limits of who you are are tested.

Unfortunately, Steve thinks he understands the hesitation radiating from Will, that he’d experienced much earlier than someone like Steve who’d had the backings of moderate stability and general popularity to keep him from questioning – or really, to keep others from questioning – the position he’d definitely been given.

Will on the other hand, from the murmurings and chatter from Dustin when Steve drives him to and from the arcade, paint a different story, that some kids aren’t so lucky. In all fairness, Steve wouldn’t’ve even had to look at Will to know the truth because Jonathan was a prime example Steve only paid attention to when others found it necessary to reduce him to mud on the bottom of their shoes.

Steve, before the ordeal with Nancy, had no qualms, no reason to bat an eye to any of the so-called grievances that might’ve been bestowed upon him least he were anyone else. It’s no wonder his existential crisis has taken this long to manifest.

Steve doesn’t really know how to reply to that. Another agreement would fail them both, sat in silence until one of them found the courage to gather themselves for the group inside.

Though, the longer they sit here together, it feels a lot easier not to do that, to let them be, let Will be, let himself just be. A speck in the woods, observing rocks and mud and the blue sky only seen from the parting of branches from the limbs of trees, feels significant somehow, special and quiet. Steve hasn’t had that in a long time.

So when Will shifts his body, Steve isn’t expecting it, isn’t expecting a thrown rock to go flying forward or the tapping of shoes against the wood staircase. And most prominently, Steve doesn’t expect Will to whisper into the woods like he hadn’t spoken at all.

“I think I like boys.”

Steve’s heart flips, stops, then goes again, crazy feral at the hands of such a confession. It hits him like brinks, wonders if maybe he’d said it instead, voice weak from the screams and grunts he’d used to keep himself awake and alive.

“I hate how everyone thought it before I did,” Will says in that same small voice, a little bitter, definitely field with sadness. “They didn’t even let me-” His breath hitches, and he stops, Steve finally turning, finally moving until he’s slide closer to Will.

That’s the part of the story Steve cannot relate to no matter how much he wishes he could. Steve had a reputation, had it easy under the prospects of linear succession of high school fame. As mediocre as it felt all around, it allowed him the easiest navigation in life – now, not so much, but he’s almost out, almost away, and it’s a part of life he won’t have to experience ever again.

Will on the other hand- “Me too,” Steve says, runs his tongue across his teeth as if acid found its way into his mouth. He’d been contemplating it, would up at the notion that maybe everything he thought he knew was different. It started with Nancy, graduated into the Upside Down and the existence of monsters, and now Steve’s stuck at level three of a video game he hadn’t planned on playing – didn’t even know existed, to be quiet frank – and now that he’s there, he can’t quite reach the end of the maze.

“What?”

Once again, Will looks like a wide-eyed teddy bear, confused and in disbelief. Steve watches the emotions cross his face, one of disbelief and anger that comes next. “Are you messing with-”

“Hey,” Steve says quickly, shakes his head because he might’ve been a dick – might still be if the right person asked – but he knows better than this. Knows better than this now. “I think I like boys, so I get it, okay?”

Will’s skeptical eyes goad Steve into backtracking, into calling his bluff, demanding that the joke be over. But Steve is just as relentless, just as frustrated with himself and the situation that’s born out of realizing that girls are not his only forte.

“You’re serious.”

His teeth dig into his lip, and Steve wishes for a moment of reprieve because he hadn’t exactly come out here to make conversation about his issues and the bullshit he was dealing with. Hell, he hadn’t exactly come out here to comfort a young boy either; he’d just happened upon Will who also felt like a breath of fresh air would do him some good. But despite unknowingly walking into a bigger issue than he’d intended, Steve feels like maybe he’s all the better for it.

“They’ll hate me,” Will says, finally understanding that Steve’s serious. His shoulders drop, fingers curling around the railing.

“Then I guess they’ll hate me, too.” Steve thinks of Dustin, of what that might mean, thinks of Nancy and Jonathan, of Billy and Hopper and Joyce. Steve thinks of them first before his parents because it’s not like they wouldn’t care, but he suspects they’d be too busy to notice whatever is going on with their son. If they don’t recognize the distress he’s in from nightmares or anxiety attacks, it’s safe to assume they’d not pick up on much else.

And even then, Byers might be younger than him, and he might be like Dustin – a young kid he could call his brother – but at least Steve can save him from ridicule, can be an anchor until he’s ready to make whatever decisions he needs to. If that means talking about it- if it means existing until he’s out of this hellish town, then Steve guesses he’s got a purpose after all.

It ends with Will launching himself at Steve, a quick hug that Steve only has half a second to reciprocate because as soon as his arms are full of Byers, the kid is gone. He’s pulling himself to his feet, smiling down at Steve with big, watery eyes. “I’ll be here,” he says because he guesses that Will doesn’t want to stick around until his tears fall, the only cure to find the others so he’s not wasting away outside on a porch talking to Steve Harrington while he cries over something that is not yet set in stone.

Will smiles, shoulders relaxing as he takes a few steps up the stairs. “Thank you,” he says, and then he’s gone, Steve immediately recognizing the shakiness in his voice.

He’d like to comment, like to admit that avoiding the emotions attached to something like this is probably not the healthiest of things to do, but if he’d look in a mirror, he could say the same for himself.

Steve sits out on the porch long enough for it to grow colder, long enough for Billy to come outside for a smoke, sharing it with Steve like he’s a natural. Steve doesn’t say anything, just passes the stick back and forth until he’s smiling, until nothing makes sense, until he realizes that sharing his space with Billy isn’t so bad.

It might even be worth the risk.

#x #harringrove #not really i mean implied at the end but uh i gotta tag it as something lmao #i actually kinda like this though???#Anonymous #answered

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nuttersincorporated · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on the American Gods TV show

Spoilers for the series so far. There are also a few minor book spoilers but only in mentioning how the TV show has changed things. Reading this won’t ruin the future plot of the show for you if you haven’t read the book.

I’m really enjoying it so far. I like how characters who only played small roles in the book are being expanded upon and given a chance to shine.

I like what we’ve seen of Shadow so far and I hope he gets a bit more character development soon. We know almost nothing of his life before Laura. That’s a shame because his relationship with his mother and traveling around the world with her as a child played a big part in making him who he is.

In the book, Shadow wasn’t a criminal until Laura talked him into doing one job that went wrong. In the show, he was a petty grifter until he met Laura, then he gave up that life until she wanted to rob the casino she worked it. Shadow didn’t learn coin tricks to con people, he learnt them in prison because it was something to do with his hands and it calmed him. This change mildly annoyed me at first but only a little. I think they did it to make Shadow a little more like Wednesday who is a trickster and co artist.

Shadow also dealt with learning about the gods a lot better in the book. He didn’t always know what to believe but he tended to just roll with things as he couldn’t bring himself to disbelieve his senses. When questioned about why he was coping so well, he said that nothing had truly surprised him after finding out about Laura’s affair.

I don’t mind that they changed things to make Shadow more freaked out by the gods and horrors he’s faced. Without the book helping us understand what is going on in his head, his seeming calmness, which he had a lot of the time in the book, would have been much harder to pull off while making him relatable and understandable to the audience. Besides, they’ve upped the ante of what Shadow has had to deal with so far and anyone would freak out when they have a tree thing growing inside them and was almost lynched.

There’s only one episode left this season and my hope is that Shadow will start to accept things in it. His initial aversion is find but I want to see him develop and start coming to terms with the new world he’s found himself a part of.

In my opinion, they have got Wednesday perfectly. He’s dangerous and tricky, you never know what he’ll do next and Sweeney is right about how you should never trust him.

Salim is a sweetie. I hope he find the jinn again and that they can be happy together.

I freaking LOVE Anansi! His introduction at the start of episode two was a masterpiece. It was easy to believe that he was the one who brought stories to the world. He knows the power of words and can use them to change the world. He’s also good at surviving and escaping danger. I can’t wait for Shadow to meet him as Mr Nancy.

Is Anansi hanging around Wednesday in spider form? If he isn’t, how did he know to rescue Wednesday and Shadow in episode 5? Maybe Wednesday used his phone call to call him.

I like that they are building up the role of Mr World. He is a genuinely terrifying figure in the show. It was easy to believe he inspires dread in others.

Anubis is nice. I wouldn’t mind him coming to collect me after I die. I don’t think I’d like to go through the weighing though.

When he weighs your heart against the feather, it’s obvious that he sees everything. However, I think the person whose heart is being weighed cannot hide or excuse any of the bad things they’ve done in life from themselves. You are forced to confront all the worst things you’ve ever done as well as all the tiny cruelties. I think that, if you can face that and are genuinely sorry, unless you were really bad, your heart will balance. Perhaps Laura’s heart would have balanced if she’d allowed it to be weighed.

Laura’s another character that has been expanded upon. She did cheat on Shadow, was partly resurrected by the coin and saved Shadow from time to time but that was about it.

In the book, at one point she told Shadow that even though she was dead, she didn’t think Shadow was truly alive either. She knew he loved her and would do anything to please her but she felt a kind on blankness from him and thought that he might be dead inside. One of the reasons she cheated on him with Robbie was because Robbie was there and he felt like a real person to her in a way Shadow never had.

In the show, it’s clear that she’s the one who felt dead inside. Laura spent her life not believing in anything and suffering from server depression. I’m not excusing or forgiving her actions but I understand them. It’s like watching a car crash, Laura is a horrible train wreck of a person who hurt everyone around her and she’s just fascinating to watch.

It took dying to make Laura realise she wanted to live. It also made her to start acknowledging how much she’d hurt others. Now there’s at least a little something that wasn’t there before. She wants to try and make a few things right. She was also kind to Salim when she told him where to go looking for his happiness rather than resenting him for it.

Don’t get me wrong, Laura hasn’t suddenly become good or anything. She was perfectly fine with hurting Sweeney much more than was need to defend herself. Granted he could have approached things better too but she was happy hurting him when he stood no chance of fighting back. Laura also just expected Shadow to forgive her and that they could easily work things out. I still don’t think she really loves him the way he loved and still loves her, even though she broke his heart.

I think Sweeney is almost a mirror opposite of Laura but they are both so far down that path that they are almost similar.

Sweeney spent his life knowing exactly what he believed. He truly thinks that he should have died in battle rather than leaving and living long enough to watch everyone else lose faith. Since coming to America, he’s wanted one of two things; to give his coin to someone he deems worthy of it and/or to die in battle.

It took Wednesday telling Sweeney that he’d only be invited to the war if he took away Laura’s second chance for him to realise that the price was too high. Maybe he’ll never stop regretting his past actions but he won’t feel better by continuing to do things he thinks are wrong.

There is no King of America for Sweeney to give his coin to. There are probably plenty of people that deserve a second chance more than Laura but that’s not the point. Like Diana in the Wonder Woman movie, he realised that people don’t have to deserve protecting for him to do what’s right.

Laura has gained a small amount of faith and Sweeney has realised that some of the things he believed were wrong. They are coming from opposite directions but both heading towards being better people for it. Before anyone wonders; no, I don’t ship Sweeney and Laura together.

Okay, that’s all I can think of right now. I look forward to the season finale.

#american gods #neil gaiman #Shadow Moon #Mr Wednesday #Anansi #Mr Nancy #Mr World #Salim #Anubis #Laura Moon #Mad Sweeney #spoilers

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bountyofbeads · 6 years ago

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Harry Reid Has a Few Words for Washington https://nyti.ms/2RpFiwi

Harry Reid, suffering from aggressive cancer, has a few words for Washington. ⁦@MarkLeibovich⁩, who famously chronicled the Senate leader in “This Town,” visits Reid in retirement in Henderson, Nev.

Harry Reid Has a Few Words for Washington

The former Senate majority leader on President Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer, and on why he doesn’t regret ending the filibuster for judicial appointments.

By Mark Leibovich | Jan. 2, 2019 | New York Times | Posted January 2, 2019 |

Early on the afternoon of Dec. 11, about an hour after an Oval Office meeting between President Trump, the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and the incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi devolved on live TV into a shouting match — a “tinkle contest with a skunk,” in Pelosi’s postgame grandiloquence — I pulled up to a McMansion in a gated community outside Las Vegas. I presented my ID and pre-issued bar-code pass to a security guard. Another guard emerged from a sedan in the driveway, instructed me to leave my rental car across the street and pointed me to the front door.

“I put this out here because I knew you were coming,” Harry Reid, the former Senate leader, said, pointing to a large gold menorah on his desk. It was not clear whether Reid had someone buy the menorah especially for my visit or just keeps one lying around in case some reporter of (nominal) Jewish identity happens to drop by around Hanukkah. (Reid’s wife, Landra, was raised in a Jewish household in Los Angeles before she and Reid converted to Mormonism together, after they married.) Either way, Reid seemed both amused and pleased with himself, as if he could see that I was not quite sure how to receive this odd-duck gesture. During his time in office, he always got a kick out of embracing the awkward panders of political life, even if — especially if — they mocked the refinements of smoother politicians than him.

Reid, who is 79, does not have long to live. I hate to be so abrupt about this, but Reid probably would not mind. In May, he went in for a colonoscopy, the results of which caused concern among his doctors. This led to an M.R.I. that turned up a lesion on Reid’s pancreas: cancer. Reid’s subdued and slightly cold manner, and aggressive anticharisma, have always made him an admirably blunt assessor of situations, including, now, his own: “As soon as you discover you have something on your pancreas, you’re dead.”

I had planned to visit Reid, who had not granted an interview since his cancer diagnosis, in November, but he put me off, saying he felt too weak. People close to him were saying that he had months left, if not weeks. Valedictories were planned, and lifetime awards were bestowed. Efforts were underway to rename the Las Vegas airport in his honor, preferably before his own time of departure. Reid refuses to believe that this honor will ever happen. “When I practiced law, I did a lot of personal-injury work, and I never spent one penny until that check was cashed,” he explained to me.

When I went to see him in December, he was confined to a desk near the front door of the house, unable to move without the aid of a walker that rested behind him. Still, he looked better than I thought he would. The last time I saw Reid, during the 2016 presidential campaign, he was wearing dark glasses and was still bruised from a freakish exercise-session mishap in early 2015, when an elastic band apparently snapped and propelled him into some cabinets, breaking ribs and bones in his face and blinding him in his right eye. The visible damage from this incident had abated at last. Wearing a tan sweater over a dress shirt, he looked about how he did a decade ago: roughly his current age, in other words.

Reid’s health, even before the cancer diagnosis, was a factor in opting not to seek re-election for a sixth Senate term in 2016. Over the last few months, he has had chemotherapy and two back surgeries and has suffered a range of other ordeals, some related to the accident, for which Trump delighted in mocking him. “I think he should go back and start working out again with his rubber workout pieces,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post in September 2016.

In fairness, Reid had dismissed Trump as a “spoiled brat,” a “con man” and a “human leech.” As Senate majority leader, Reid was essential to passing President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda, but his dead-eyed realism and morose tones always hung in contrast to the hope-and-change intoxications of those years. His den is adorned with a bright painted portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — one of his heroes, whose view that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” was often echoed by Obama. But Reid himself always seemed more predisposed to believing that the arc of the universe bent toward an ornery brawl.

Reid once called the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan a “political hack,” Justice Clarence Thomas “an embarrassment” and President George W. Bush a “loser” (for which he later apologized) and a “liar” (for which he did not). In 2016, he dismissed Trump as “a big fat guy” who “didn’t win many fights.” Reid himself was more than ready to fight, and fight dirty: “I was always willing to do things that others were not willing to do,” he told me.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, he claimed, with no proof, that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes over the past decade. Romney released tax returns showing that he did. After the election, Reid told CNN by way of self-justification, “Romney didn’t win, did he?” Reid took rightful criticism over this. Still, in retrospect, there’s something almost quaint about the outrage over the episode; Trump routinely surpasses Reid’s unscrupulousness with a few tweets before breakfast.

Leaving Washington on the eve of Trump’s takeover, Reid insisted that he was happy to be escaping. Maybe, he allowed, it would have been different if Hillary Clinton had won. But “with this, no,” he told New York magazine at the time. “I’m not going to miss it.”

And yet, two years later, it was easy to sense him pining for not just the political action but also the particular political action of Trump’s Washington. “No one would enjoy the fight with Trump like Harry Reid would,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who lost her re-election race in November. The president “is an inherently weak man,” she said. “Harry would smell the weakness and say, ‘Damn the consequences.’ ”

In some ways, Washington, under Trump, has devolved into the feral state that Reid, in his misanthropic heart, always knew it could become under the right conditions. Politicians are always claiming to be eternal optimists; Reid is no optimist. “I figure, if you’re pessimistic, you’re never disappointed,” he told me.

Reid has decided to live out his last years in Henderson, a fast-growing and transient Las Vegas suburb. His house is in the upscale Anthem neighborhood: a fortified village of beige dwellings of various sizes and otherwise indistinguishable appearances. There is a Witness Protection Program vibe to the place, accentuated by the security detail.

Reid attended high school in Henderson, hitchhiking 45 miles each way from his hometown, Searchlight: a drive-through smudge of a town between Las Vegas and Needles, Calif., which, in his youth, boasted at least a half-dozen brothels and not a single church. His acidic outlook was informed by his childhood, during which he endured extreme poverty and dysfunction and substance abuse in his family. He took up boxing in high school and put himself through George Washington University Law School by working as a Capitol Police officer. Back in Nevada, he was schooled in the piranha bowl of Las Vegas politics. This education included a stint as Nevada’s gaming chairman in the 1970s, which placed him in the cross hairs of the Las Vegas mob. (Some of the plot of the film “Casino” was based loosely on Reid’s experiences.) There were numerous threats to his life and at least one actual attempt (a bomb discovered under the hood of his family car).

The former F.B.I. director James Comey, after he was fired by Trump, compared Trump to the head of a mafia family, with its codes of silence and loyalty, its fear-based leadership style and fealty to a single godfather. “It’s not about anything else except the boss,” Comey said in a recent interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Others have drawn the same parallel, and I asked Reid if, given his unusually relevant professional experience in this area, it rang true. Reid expelled a quick and dismissive chuckle. “Organized crime is a business,” he told me, “and they are really good with what they do. But they are better off when things are predictable. In my opinion, they do not do well with chaos. And that’s what we have going with Trump.”

Still, Reid added: “Trump is an interesting person. He is not immoral but is amoral. Amoral is when you shoot someone in the head, it doesn’t make a difference. No conscience.” There was a hint of grudging respect in Reid’s tone, which he seemed to catch and correct. “I think he is without question the worst president we’ve ever had,” he said. “We’ve had some bad ones, and there’s not even a close second to him.” He added: “He’ll lie. He’ll cheat. You can’t reason with him.” Once more, a hint of wonder crept into his voice, as if he was describing a rogue beast on the loose in a jungle that Reid knows well.

The Trump era and Reid’s illness have occasioned an inevitable reconsideration of Reid’s legacy and all its contradictions. The Affordable Care Act, which Reid managed to navigate past the oppositional tactics of his persistent nemesis, the Republican Senate leader (and now majority leader), Mitch McConnell, has so far withstood McConnell and Trump’s efforts to dismantle the legislation. Reid was also prescient in urging the Obama administration and congressional Republicans to go public about the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election; the letter that Republican leaders agreed to co-sign weeks after they were briefed on the investigation did not identify Russia by name. “They did nothing — or nothing that I’m aware of,” Reid said.

But McConnell’s and Trump’s own most substantial accomplishment to date, the appointment to the federal bench of an unprecedented number of conservative judges, including two Supreme Court justices who might well end up hearing a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, was made vastly easier by Reid’s decision, in 2013, to get rid of the filibuster for judicial appointments. Reid remains unrepentant about this. “They can say what they want,” he told me. “We had over 100 judges that we couldn’t get approved, so I had no choice. Either Obama’s presidency would be a joke or Obama’s presidency would be one of fruition.”

Still, a certain nostalgia for the Senate leader has set in among Democrats, even those who had their disagreements with him. McCaskill was critical of Reid during their tenure together and did not back him for caucus leader in 2014. There are two major components of a Senate leader’s job, she said. “One is to make the trains run on time and getting things done that his caucus believes in,” McCaskill told me. “But the trains need to be bright and shiny while they’re running,” she added, referring to the communication and messaging part of the job that she said Reid was less well suited to.

McCaskill told Reid at the time that she did not plan to vote for him and explained her reasons to him. He replied that she was the only one of his nonsupporters who had the nerve to tell him directly. “Oh, no, why would I?” Reid told me when I asked him if he felt betrayed. “And I won, didn’t I?”

Reid’s successor is Chuck Schumer, his former caucus deputy who engineered much of the Senate Democrats’ communications and campaign strategy during Reid’s tenure. They had been close during Reid’s 12 years as Democratic leader, Reid serving as the arid desert yin to Schumer’s bombastic Brooklyn yang. When we spoke, Reid told me he did not wish to be seen as second-guessing Schumer. “My personal feeling should have nothing to do with it,” he said. But clearly Reid has more than a few of those personal feelings. He has told confidants that he felt Schumer was too eager to assume his job before Reid was ready to leave. Reid has also criticized, privately, Schumer’s instinct for accommodation with both McConnell and Trump.

In our conversation, Reid seemed incapable of not constantly reminding me that he did not wish to talk about Schumer, as if this itself was something he wanted me to emphasize. “I do not call Schumer,” he told me. Then: “I call him once in a while — not weekly. Let’s say monthly I may call him.” This sounded straightforward enough until he added: “I talk to Nancy often. I love Nancy Pelosi. We did so many good things, and we still talk about that.” And just the day before, he said, he called Richard Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who, along with Schumer, was Reid’s top lieutenant in the Senate and is now Schumer’s Democratic whip. “We came to the House together in 1982,” Reid said of Durbin. “We had wonderful conversations.” (Schumer declined to be interviewed; his spokesman said in a statement that Schumer and Reid “have different styles but they complemented each other well. They are still good friends and talk regularly.”)

In fairness, there’s little that any Democratic leader can do at a time when the opposing party controls the presidency and both houses of Congress, as Republicans did until this month. Durbin told me that he has sat with Schumer and Trump together at the White House. “They are discussing things at a New York level that most of us on the outside don’t understand,” Durbin said. “With Chuck, it’s his grandfather who had some business with Trump’s father or some darned thing. It’s a totally different ballgame.”

I asked Durbin whether this approach had yielded any results. “The obvious answer,” he conceded, “is it hasn’t worked very well so far.”

David Krone, Reid’s former chief of staff, is of the view that leaving Washington saved Reid’s life. “He wouldn’t be alive today if he had pancreatic cancer and he was still the Senate leader,” he told me. “He would not have made it.” Still, Krone said, “I think he misses it, definitely.”

When he was in Washington, Reid used to spend an inordinate amount of time on the Senate floor. “I was always afraid that I would miss something,” Reid used to say and told me again in Nevada. In retirement, he said, “For me to sit here and say I don’t follow politics — you wouldn’t believe me, O.K.?”

On the Friday afternoon before Christmas, just hours before the government shut down over Trump’s demands for more funding for a border wall, I called Reid to see how closely he was following this latest brinkmanship. “Landra and I have been watching the news; we have it on now,” Reid told me. The shutdown, he allowed, was “interesting.” Reid takes an anthropological interest in the changes that Trump has wrought on his old institution. “You can’t legislate when you have a chief executive who’s weird, for lack of a better description,” he told me. He said he could never understand how his former Senate colleague Jeff Sessions allowed himself to be so abused and humiliated by the president. “Why in the hell didn’t Sessions leave?” he said. “Same with Kelly,” referring to the departing chief of staff, John Kelly. “I’d say, ‘Go screw yourself.’ I could not look my children in the eye.”

I asked him if he could identify at all with Trump’s dark worldview. “I disagree that Trump is a pessimist,” Reid said, as if to allow him that mantle would be paying him an undeserved compliment. “I think he’s a person who is oblivious to the real world.”

One of Reid’s assets as a leader, when he was in office, was his willingness to feed the egos of his colleagues before his own; he was happy to yield credit, attention and TV appearances. Yet when I visited Reid in Nevada, I detected a whiff of, if not neediness per se, maybe a need to remind me that he has not been forgotten. He told me that he received a lovely call that morning from Barbara Boxer, the former Democratic senator from California. He gets calls from his former colleagues all the time, he said, and they tell Reid he is missed. He had a final conversation with John McCain over the summer, just before McCain died, punctuated with “I love you”s.

Reading Reid can be difficult. Is he playing a game or working an angle or even laughing at a private joke he just told himself? When speaking of his final goodbye with McCain, he broke into a strange little grin, his lips pressed upward as if he could have been stifling either amusement or tears. It occurred to me that Reid, typically as self-aware as he is unsentimental, could have been engaged in a gentle playacting of how two old Senate combatants of a fast-vanishing era are supposed to say goodbye to each other for posterity.

Reid seemed to recognize my puzzlement and shrugged. “As has been written since I left,” he told me, “I was kind of a strange guy.”

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