#and before you bring up co2

[8ice8]

Y'all are so violent in your hatred for Taylor Swift it's insane. I've literally never seen something like this before in all my years of liking things. I say"I like Taylor Swift" and suddenly someone is there like "OH YEAH? I HATE HER. SHE SUCKS AND SHE'S FAKE AND SHE CAN'T WRITE OR SING AND SHE'S A SLUT AND DUMB AND I HATE HATE HATE HER"

That's how y'all sound to me.

Remember the fanfic policy? "Don't like don't read"? Or the thing they teach toddlers, "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything"? You'd do well to remember that. Maybe write a song about it, if it's so easy.

Tldr: let Swifties enjoy and enjoy not liking TS !!!in silence!!! So you don't ruin it for everybody else.

[bubblebaththoughts]

Oral

Neteyam x Fem!Human!Reader

kinkmas masterlist

warnings: 18+ MDNI, smut, oral!fem receiving, masturbation, voyeurism

Neteyam couldn’t lie, he was always curious about you, more curious than he was spider, as the two of you were both sky people. But he figured that Na’vi males were similar to human males, but you? How did human females function? He wanted to know.

Kiri once told him that human females bleed a lot every month and he couldn’t help but wonder if that was true or if she was just messing with him.

You were his gateway to knowledge.

But as of recently, you two haven’t spent more than five minutes alone together. He would try and catch you out at the base, where you and spider would spend some time there, but you brushed him off, using any and every excuse in the book.

Neteyam called it simple curiosity. Lo’ak called it a crush.

“Next time she goes to use the bathroom just corner her.” Lo’ak suggested, lowly so you wouldn’t hear.

“No, that’s creepy.” Neteyam elbowed him in the side

“You’re never going to get her alone if you won’t even talk to her.” Lo’ak shrugged, rubbing the spot Neteyam had elbowed

“Why are you such a bother today, baby bro?” Neteyam seethed

Lo’ak put his hands up in surrender, “Whatever.”

You spotted a tree with fruit about, thirty or forty feet away, and you ran as fast as you feet could take you, it had been hours since you had eaten at this point and you would take anything.

“Lo’ak! I need help!” You yelled back

“Ah! Now is your chance bro! Go help her.” Lo’ak urged him

“Thanks bro.” Neteyam smiled back at his brother

You stood waiting, facing the tree with your back turned.

Neteyam came up behind you and picked the fruit for you.

You saw the blue hand and arm and smiled, turning back to greet Lo’ak Neteyam? “Neteyam?”

Neteyam’s heart wrenched as your smile fell.

“Is there something wrong, Tawtute?” He asked, not letting the growing frown over come his face

“No.” You grimace, “I was just expecting Lo’ak.”

“Ah, well I’m taller, better for fruit picking.” He smiled down at you

“Better for fruit picking?” You giggle, teasing his choice of words “You’re so funny Neteyam.”

You take the fruit from his hand, placing it in your bag. “Can we head back? I’m starving.”

“Yeah… me too.” Neteyam shakily whispered, his eyes trained on your hips as they swayed away from him

He could smell you from here, his mouth was watering. It was a relatively short and quiet walk back to the place you called home, it was an old botany lab that Jake and Mo’at had let you move closer to the clan.

It was definitely less of a lab now, more like your own haven that you could always retreat to. Neteyam loved to visit you in there because you didn’t have to wear that damn mask.

“Where did Lo’ak run off to anyways?” You asked

Neteyam shrugged, looking around for his baby brother, who had seemingly disappeared.

“Oh well, just me and you for today then?” You smiled up at him

“Yeah… Just me and you.” He couldn’t find it in himself to smile back down at you, not with the disgusting thoughts that ran through his mind, how could he let himself think about you like this?

Like right now, he wants to bend you over a tree root, rip off all of your tawtute clothing, and then take you to his heart’s content.

The rest of the walk to your home was mainly silent.

Neteyam had to duck through your door to get in, closing it behind him so you could take of your bulky mask. He turned around to grab one of the masks that you had saved for them, putting it around his neck and taking a small inhale of the “CO2” as you called it, before bring it back down to let it hang around his neck.

Meanwhile, you were busy cutting up the fruit he helped you pick.

Well, struggling to cut the fruit. You had a simple knife, much smaller than his, much duller than his.

He removed his own knife, scooting you out of the way and began to cut the rest of the fruit.

“I had it, you know.” You pouted up at him

“Sure you did.” He smirked down at you, finishing up the rest

He brings a piece to you, close to your face, expecting you to take it from him.

“I’m not eating from your hand, Neteyam, just give it to me.” You tried to take it from him but he held you back

“Such a violent and stubborn girl aren’t you?” Neteyam chuckled

You roll your eyes, letting him feed you the deliciously juicy fruit. The juice dribbled down your chin as you took another bite and suddenly all of Neteyam’s dirty thoughts returned.

Like how you would look with the tip of his cock in your mouth, with his cum dribbling down your chin instead of fruit juice. Or how well he just knew you would be able to take him.

He knew at this point, he was hard as a rock, but his pelvis was against your counter so you didn’t know, yet,

Neteyam cleared his throat, swiftly turning around towards the door with a strained “Sorry, I have to leave.”

You watch him in confusion as he practically ran away. Frantically you put on your mask to tell him goodbye but he was too quick. He didn’t go in the direction of the clan, so you followed him, like one does.

He was up against a tree when he stopped. Sweat very lightly covered his forehead. You had to stop yourself from gasping as he palmed his hard-on.

Quickly, his loincloth was discarded, letting his hard cock out.

Wow.

Your jaw dropped, he was so big.

The sun is setting behind the trees, and his silhouette is illuminated by the golden light, and his body is still and tense. You know what he's about to do, and you feel an odd thrill pass through you.

You see his shoulders rise and fall with each breath he takes, and you can sense the intensity of the moment.

Before you can truly process what's happening, his hands move faster, and his breathing becomes heavier. You can see his body trembling, and the tension radiating off of him is palpable.

Suddenly, a low moan escapes his lips, and it's enough to make your heart race. You can feel your own body heat rising, and a strange ache blooms in your belly.

You watch, mesmerized, as he writhes and moans in pleasure. His motions become faster and more frantic, and you can't help but be fascinated by the intensity of the experience.

When he finally reaches his peak, you watch in awe, feeling a strange combination of guilt and pleasure. You can't help but admire the beauty of the moment, and you feel strangely connected to him right now.

Suddenly, his eyes snap in your direction, he can sense you’re there, but he hasn’t exactly spotted you, yet.

Another sound makes his head snap the other way, so you took the opportunity to sneak away.

You thought you’d gone unnoticed, until you had almost reached your hime and felt a very large, sweaty hand on your shoulder.

“Sevin…” He whispered breathlessly

Your head turned back to him, almost scared to face him. “Neteyam… I-“

“Shut up.” He mumbled, pulling your back against him, he was still hard

His whole hand covered your neck, lightly choking you.

“But-“ You tried

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up, Syulang?” He rumbled

You stay silent.

“Mm, good girl.” You could hear the smile in his voice, “Walk.”

He walked you back to your home, once again ducking to get in the door. He closes it behind him, letting it air lock once again.

“Well, were you watching me?” Neteyam looked at you expectantly

“Didn’t mean to…” You mumbled, unable to meet his eyes

“Oh you didn’t mean to? Is that why you stayed and watched the whole time?” He teased, leaning in real close, definitely towering over you completely

“I, I don’t know…” You sighed

He only laughs at you, picking you up by your hips and placing you on your counter, next to the forgotten fruit.

He gets on his knees in front of you, but he’s still at a good height.

“You wanna tell me the truth?” He tilted his head up at you as he played with the button of your little shorts

“I followed you to make sure you were okay, And I, I saw that…” You explained, “It took me by surprise, I didn’t know what to do.”

He scoffed, reached up to your face and unlatching your mask from your face. Immediately he sticks his thumb in your mouth, you let him. He explores your mouth, focusing on your tongue, asking you to suck on his thumb. You comply, sucking on it gently. He couldn’t help but imagine how good you would look with his tip in your mouth.

“Such a good girl aren’t you?” He smiles

His other hand had unbuttoned your shorts, and he was beginning to pull them down.

Suddenly he’s yanked them off.

“I hate your tawtute clothes.” He mumbled. “Doesn’t show enough of you.”

He pulled at you panties gently, “I like these, very pretty and delicate, like you.”

“Mmm.” You whine

You gasp as his hands begin to roam around your inner thighs, his touch sending shivers up your spine. His palms are hot and his fingertips are gentle as he slowly spreads your legs.

A blush spreads across your entire body as his places soft kisses on both legs, leading himself to your needy pussy.

You were definitely smaller in comparison to the Na’vi women he had been with before. He used two of his fingers to separate your folds to get a better look.

Pretty and pink, definitely different from what he was used to.

He leans back in, his mouth watering as he prepares himself to finally be able to taste your sweetness.

“So good.” He growled, licking his chin before diving back in

“It is?” You ask, almost confused

“You don’t believe me?” He removed himself, looking up at you, also partially confused

You shake your head, “I- I can’t imagine it tastes good…” You doubt

“Mmm what a shame.” He shrugged, going back in, nose first.

He takes his time, lapping and flicking his tongue over every bit of your beautiful folds. You can't help but moan in pleasure as his lips and tongue explore you. Every lick sending a wave of pleasure rippling through your body.

Suddenly, an idea popped into his head, he removed his mouth from your center with a small “pop”. And reached over to take a piece of the forgotten fruit.

He brings it to your wet folds, with a mischievous smile on his face.

“W-what are you doing?” You attempt to close your legs

With a grunt, he forces them open, “Trust me.”

He slowly rubbed the fruit around your folds, making it even more slick with the fruit juice.

Neteyam separated your pink lips with his fingers and eased the fruit over your clenching hole, and he lets the tip of the fruit pop in and out.

He leans back in, lapping up your slick and the fruit’s slick. His eyes flickered to your shocked face. You were shocked about what he had done, that fact that he had done it, and that you were enjoying it.

He removes the fruit, his eyes analyzing it before bringing it to your mouth. Your eyebrows knit in concern he nodded at it to urge you to take it.

You let him feed it to you hesitantly, but you ate it.

“Believe me now?” He smirked up at you, cocking his head to the side

You moan in response.

“Mm, good.” He whispered, immediately going back to your needy pussy

His hands grasp your hips, and he moves his tongue lower. You arch your back and gasp as his tongue teases your little hole. Untouched by anyone except yourself and now him. His lips and tongue are relentless as he licks and sucks, exploring your body with expert precision.

“So sweet.” He mumbled against your slit, making you throw your head back

Your breathing quickens and your body trembles as pleasure builds inside of you. You moan and gasp as he works his way up and down your body, teasing and tasting you until you can't take it anymore.

“Neteyam!” You call out to him, your hands found his hair and you pushed his braids out of his face, making brief eye contact with him, before you threw your head back again, heaving.

The pleasure is intense and overwhelming as you reach your peak. Your body trembles and quakes as you cry out in ecstasy. The intensity of the experience is almost too much to bear.

“Doing so good.” He praised, his hands gently rubbing your shaky thighs

As your orgasm fades away, you feel yourself coming back down to reality. You open your eyes to see him smiling up at you, his eyes smoldering with desire. He looks satisfied with himself.

“Maybe I should spy on you more.” You tease

“Maybe you should.” He shrugged, though he sounded more serious than you.

His head laid on your thigh as he stared up at you. His eyes practically piercing through your soul.

“You know, now that I’ve got a taste of this sweet pussy, I can’t give it up.” He smirked up at you

You would never get tired of that cocky smirk from him.

taglist: @danniackerman @loaksslut

[dellaliz19]

This is by no means the most important take by far re this whole Titan/Titanic debacle but I feel like it’s worth reiterating again: the 24 hour news cycle only serves to ramp up panic and speculation, and functionally serves as conspiracy fuel just to fill ad sponsored time.

Because let’s be real: EVERY single actual expert that weighed in on this was very clear that there were 3 possible options, and that death was the mostly likely option in each scenario, those being:

1) The sub was intact at the bottom of the ocean with:

a) no power and no technology that existed to get it back up.

b) might have had power but been stuck under a piece of the Titanic and could be dislodged, but that this was HIGHLY unlikely and that dislodging it could still break the sub.

2) Was floating on the surface after being able to ballast up, but that it would be incredibly hard to find the sub as it would have no way to communicate, no way for the passengers to get themselves out, and was WHITE, making it basically impossible to see by air rescue.

3) Had imploded at the initial loss of contact (the most likely theory), likely secondary to poor construction and damage from a prior descent, and the passengers had died instantly.

Even ignoring the idea that the “96 hour window re oxygen” was basically irrelevant given: the CO2 scrubbers likely weren’t going to function that well and that death by freezing or dehydration could also absolutely occur before then, the news media’s complete frenzy on that “ticking clock” was beyond transparently gross and circled all the way back into conspiracy territory.

Look I’m on the camp of “these rich people walked right into the risks of this and their families should receive a bill for the coast guard and public agency search and rescue costs.”

But seriously, constantly updating the “ticking clock,” bringing in new “experts” every couple hours to talk about some new way they could “survive in low O2 past that 96 hours” (seriously, CBC), hyper focusing on the idea that “if we can just find them they’ll be saved” (despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary) should serve as an indictment of the 24 hour new cycle and it’s negative impact on real, publically useful journalism.

Because you can’t fill all those news hours with people just repeating that iconic “Do you think they can be saved? No.” sound bit, right? You have to keep feeding into the idea that they CAN be saved, to sell the airtime.

You can’t report the actual news: that they still haven’t found the sub. Just relating that every hour on the hour won’t keep people glued to your channel.

But endless bullshit speculation will.

And so now, when they’ve found the debris, every moron with their tin foil hat already at the ready can scream about the “rhythmic banging” and “faking their death for tax shelters” and “well no bodies, so it didn’t happen,” well fed by the media’s absolute refusal to cover this in a real, productive way.

[nordicmedfet]

Mr A - Part 3

Its been a while since I last wrote something, hopefully you will like this next part.

________________________

Going back to mr A for the umpteen time, Iv'e honestly lost track of how many visits we've had. The waiting room now has even more pictures alonng the walls, I'm actually now one of them. As I hear the doorknob turning I immediately stand up, look him in the eyes over his mask and walk into the procedure room.

-Please put this on and lay down, he says.

He hands me the white see through gown, and a green bouffant cap, I undress and quickly step in to the gown. I stand next to the bed and using a step stool i get up on the bed. Laying down on the cold and narrow bed. Mr A smiles as he brings my arm out onto the armrests, strapping my arms down, he then places a blanket over me making me feel comfortable. After putting in an IV he begins to preoxygenate me.

-Just take some deep breaths he camly says, pusing the propofol throug my IV. Slowly but surely i drift of to sleep, and Mr A now takes a better hold of my face and the anaesthesia mask, pressing them tightly together. He then lift my chin up and turn on the anaesthesia gas. Pusing breath after breath into my lungs with help of the rebreathing bag.

After a minute or two he gently lifts the mask, my face droops as im sedated. He gently tips my face up to make the intubation easier. He places the LMA into my mouth, and firmly pushes it deeper down my throat. The LMA is then filled with air and gently move as it adjust itself. After hooking me up to the ventilator and taping the tube to my face he removes my paper gown, exposing my naked body. Placing ECG leeds on my chest, a bloodpreasure cuff on my arm and a pulse ox on my finger.

Preparing for the surgery he places my legs in stirrups, and then proceeds to place a urine catheter into my bladder, as he plans on keeping me sedated for a while. The next step is to sterilise the field. He pours brown alcohol into a bowl, dipping swabs into the liquid to begin wash the surgical field. He begins to wash my entire belly up to my ribs. The solution drips down my sides and under me. The curves of my abdomen shakes as he drag the swab back and forth. He proceeds to swab my pubic area and submerges the area in sterile alcohol. Next he wipes over my left labia, then the right. He end of by swabbing over onto my inner thighs. He changes the alcohol to a more gentle type, and then proceeds to swab my vagina and the inside of my cervix. Swirling the swab around, changing to a new swab and repeats it a couple of times.

The surgical drapes are placed and stick onto my body. Exposing the pubic area to be operated on. He places drapes on my thighs and pressing them down to make them stay on.He gently begins to tuch my vagina as he proceeds to places a speculum in it, opening it step by step.

As he makes the first cut in my belly button, the blood start to slowly appear. He dabs a cloth over it and proceeds to place the co2 line to inflate my belly. He then makes two cuts around it to place the laparoscopy camera and laparoscopic tools. He works on me for a few minutes until my sats and heartbeat start dropping. He runs to the top of the bed disconnecting me from the ventilator and using the ambu bag to help press down the air. He begins to pound my chest, one two three four... He grabs the AED and place it on my chest. The AED analyse my heartbeat and advise Mr A to give a chock.

My entire body lifts of the table and slam down again, shaking my breastsand belly. The CPR resumes and he gives me another even stronger chock. One last round of hard and vigorous cpr by Mr A before he turn of the machines and sit down with his face in his hands. His first loss..

[bettysupremacy]

oh my god i have a request. are you comfortable with writing our boy stevie dating an anxious reader? for example she gets an anxiety attack in the upside down or with the kids and steve calms here down and holds her??

LOVE YOUU ❤️❤️

hey babe!! sorry this took me so long to get to i hope this is alright! I feel like it’s not as good as it could be

Being a mother of 6 was never easy. Especially at 20.

The volume gnaws at you, blooming panic in your chest. It’s loud. You need to leave. But you can’t bring yourself to ruin the rarity of this moment he and the kids have going currently.

Rowdy and wild, they’ve made camp in Steve’s living room for the last 6 hours on their annual campaign. Their intensity startles you. Loud and vivacious, they don’t tone down their theatrics in Steve’s home. They’ve even roped him into joining.

“Jesus Christ almighty!” Dustin booms. “All you had to do was roll a fucking two!”

Mike snaps back, quick banter that seems to echo in the large home. Your ears can’t take it, you step out front.

Steve notices immediately, of course.

Where his girl goes, follows his attention. He watches it open the front door and leave after you, imagining how far it has to follow you before you stop.

He tears his eyes from the door. Mike slams his pencil down. “Guys.. I’ll be right back.”

“No, dude!”

“Just like.. skip my turn.” Steve shrugs, getting up to leave.

“That’s not how this works!”

“Make it work.” His head shakes. “You literally make the rules of this game, dude.”

Outside is warm. His sleeves flutter deliciously in the breeze, melting the AC off his hairy arms. He wants to find you not only to make sure you’re okay, but to show off his growing muscles. To flex, and smirk, and ask if you want to take a photo, cause it’ll last longer you know?

Though, when he does find you, he seizes. Passenger side of the 733i, you curl in on yourself, hiding your panicked face. It startles him, watching tears roll, hot and quick, down your summertime warm cheeks.

“I can’t breathe.” Shaky hands press into your eyes, calming the staggered and quick tears. Rough on the lungs, your breathing tears apart your chest. “I can’t breathe.”

He squeezes himself into the seat you’ve taken up, pulling most of your weight onto his lap. Your legs dangle out the door. Pulling your hair from your sticky neck, he gathers it into the rubber band he keeps on his wrist.

Your assault on your lungs doesn’t decelerate. “Can’t feel my fingers,” you panic. “They’re tingly.”

“I know,” he whispers. He wish he could tell you something smart like you’re lowering your CO2 levels breathing like this. “You gotta stop breathing like that for me.”

You shake your head, palms digging further into your wet eyes.

“I’m serious, babe,” his mouth is so close to your ear, his hot breath tingles. “Follow me.”

He breathes in, long and exaggerated for you to imitate. He holds, hand on your back, slow and meticulous. He breathes out, extended and loud.

He doesn’t mind that you don’t join him the first time.

“Can you do that for me?” He asks, nosing against your head. He breathes in again.

You follow and though your breathes don’t match his,

“It’s okay.” He whispers. You shake your head, abashed in the worst way. “It’s not?”

Ragged hiccups tear through your chest. “So embarrassing.”

“It’s not embarrassing.”

You don’t seem convinced, pushing further into the safety of his arms. He doesn’t mind, adjusting his grip to hold you closer. “It was too loud.”

“Dustin was really pushing the theatrics wasn’t he?” His smile is warm, genuine, and concerned. His nose scrunches up. You nod.

“I’m sorry.” You shake your head profusely. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, baby.”

“I didn’t wanna ruin your fun time.” Your breathing grows more distressed. “But now you’re stuck out here with me.”

“Stuck?” He appalls. “I’d rather be out here with you.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Are you kidding me?” His grips loosens, your beautiful face now in view. “You think I’d rather be in there with those nerds?”

“You love them.”

He nods, letting you crawl back into his arms. “I do, but no more than you.”

“I won’t tell.”

“I know, my secrets safe with you.” His arms squeeze your frame three times in quick succession.

“I’m sorry” you sniffle.

It’s the most pathetic thing he’s ever heard, and he’s not sure where the apology is coming from.

“Oh, my girl, what’s the apology for?”

You shrug.

“You never need to apologize,” his head shakes seriously. “never to me.”

“I will, though.”

“And I’ll turn you down.” He laughs, shaking your figure in his arms.

“Stop,” you paw at his strong hold, breathless from crying, trying not to laugh. “Can feel my brain moving.”

“I’m shaking the apology from your head.”

“So stupid.” You giggle, stilling his face in your hands long enough to pull a kiss from him.

“I may be stupid,” he’s serious. “but I’m even more stupid for you.”

He revels in the way your nose scrunches. “That was so corny I feel my chest contracting.”

“That’s love.”

“It’s cringe,” you correct. “and it’s killing me.”

“Sorry.” He smiles down at you. “For killing you ‘n all.”

“It’s okay,” Your breathing has slowed down to a comfortable pace. “You’re not all that stupid.”

“Really?” He starts. “I-“

“Hey stupid!” Dustin yells, too loud for the gated neighborhood. “We’re waiting on you!”

He’d be mad if it weren’t for your giggles. “Wait a damn second!” His head dips to you. “You want a minute?”

“No,” you sigh. “Can I go up to your bedroom?”

He rolls his eyes. “Duh.” Popping out the car door, he holds his hand for you. “Look pretty for me when I get back?”

“I always look pretty,” you scoff. “stupid.”

[zabala0z]

AGHPIGOFUUOFJESUS CHRIST.

Okay. So I finished the last 2 episodes of the first season of the magnus archives!!! Pat on the back for me, come on, someone give me a medal. I didn’t write notes but here are some of my thoughts:

Sasha got fucking replaced I am so pissed. I established her as my favorite character and now she’s either dead or maybe in a whole different dimension. The whole time in Human Remains, I was just screaming “that’s not my Sasha!” But like god. Just hearing a voice repeat her last words until it sounded like her was horrifying. I had to pace my room. Y’all.

So the swirly table caused this stuff. It’s interesting because Graham spent a lot of time watching that table according to Amy but he didn’t get replaced until later. Sasha got replaced quickly. Also, “I lost the tapes” oh uh huh. Sure. My Sasha wouldn’t. Also another thing. She referred to “Michael” as a him. Come on Jon, NOTICE. BRING BACK SASHA 😭

Okay, moving on before I break down; Martin and Jon! Both have problems but I liked their little heart to heart, I thought it was sweet. Kinda nice they’re (Jon) growing past disagreements and stuff but that’s what happens in life or death situations. Also, Tim is really funny. I’m not establishing him as my fav or god forbid, he’s gonna wind up as a corpse.

Martin found Gertrude’s dead body. The fact she got shot in a horror/supernatural story is so out of place, I’m cackling. I was thinking like curses or spells but nah it was a GUN.

My theory that they would burn the archives down was wrong. damn. I did think in Infestation when Elias mentioned that the co2 would go off when a fire happened that they’d use the lighter Jon got so my theory would be kinda true?? Didn’t happen

The fact the worms were trying to make a doorway (at least in gassed up Tims mind) is concerning. Like are they making a portal?? Tf are they doing??

Anyways, I’m very happy I finished the first season!! Barely any questions were answered and more questions were brought up but I’m excited to see what’s next. See you soon for “newbie listens to TMA S2 and suffers more”

[rambleonwaywardson]

Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 9

Masterpost

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: This one got away from me a bit so it's longer than usual. And I've finally started putting this on ao3, so you can also ready here.

Acronym and terminology definitions

---

November 15, mission day 9 Lunar Orbit

The crew wakes in a groggy panic to the sounds of an alarm going off in the cabin, a red warning light flashing over the console. Bucky, dressed in NASA-issue pajamas with his curls stuck up in ridiculous directions from the zero G and lack of product, struggles to unzip his floating sleeping bag, which is suspended in the middle of the Orion capsule and secured at both ends. Alex and Rosie’s seats had been stowed once they were en route to the moon in order to make more space in the capsule for sleeping, working, and generally existing without being right on top of each other, but it only helps so much. They’ve been stuck in this glorified minivan for going on 9 days now, and they are only very slightly sick and tired of each other.

As Bucky tries to drag himself over to the console, his foot catches on Curt’s arm, flipping the other astronaut upside down in his own sleeping bag. “What the fuck, Bucky,” Curt groans. With nothing within arms reach to push off of, there’s no hope of flipping himself back over, so he starts trying to free himself from where he is.

“Gotta see how we’re gonna die this time,” Bucky replies unapologetically, settling into his commander’s seat so he can see the console properly.

“What time is it?” Alex asks with a yawn.

“5:50.” Bucky silences the master alarm, bringing quiet to the cabin once again. They’re ten minutes short of their typical wake-up call.

From the other side of the capsule, Rosie rubs his eyes with one hand. “Jesus Christ, we’d be screwed in an emergency.” The unconcerned way with which they’ve reacted to this alarm is not unlike the way college students would react to their apartment building’s fire alarm going off in the middle of the night for the third time in a row. But that’s because that’s basically what this is. They’ve had a number of false alarms already in the days since leaving low earth orbit.

Bucky ignores him and switches on his coms. “Houston? How do you read?”

Benny’s voice comes back. “We read you Bucky, loud and clear.”

Curt slides into his seat as Bucky squints at the silenced alarm still flashing bright red in front of his face. CO2.

“Looks like we’re suffocating again, Benny,” Bucky informs him.

“Copy that.” There’s a pause as Benny checks with the Emergency, Environmental, and Consumables Officer. “Our readings look fine. Don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Can you confirm up there?”

Curt and Bucky glance at the carbon dioxide meters on the console, and Curt shrugs, sighing in exasperation. “Looks fine here,” Bucky agrees. “Another false alarm.” 

This is the third time the carbon dioxide alarm has gone off without cause, but at least this time it happened relatively close to their normal wake-up time. On mission day 4, the cabin pressure sensor had jolted them all awake around 2:00am GMT. They spent nearly two hours sorting that out with Helen on CAPCOM, checking every square inch of the capsule and every line of telemetry data for an explanation. Turns out it was just some bad wiring, and Houston had to walk Alex through the steps to repair it before it would stop going off.

Fortunately, Dr. Huston and Jack Kidd, as Flight Surgeon and Flight Activities Officer, found a way to work some extra sleep into their schedule that day. Unfortunately, instead of just having a faulty wire, the CO2 sensor itself is fucked.

“We’ll get those sensors checked out when you come back Earthside,” Benny promises. “Unfortunately, our electricians have not agreed to extend operations to the moon. At least, not without a hefty house call fee.”

Bucky laughs tiredly. “The audacity of some people. What has the trade industry come to?”

“I could just break the sensor,” Curt offers.

“That’s a negative, Curt,” Benny responds. “EECOM says no.”

“Maybe EECOM should try wakin’ up to this fuckin’ alarm at all hours of the night.”

Benny kindly reminds them, “EECOM is wide awake with you.” Mission Control operates on GMT, along with the crew, meaning that while it’s 5:50am mission time, it’s actually 12:50 AM in Houston. These flight controllers just started their shifts fifty minutes ago. During a mission, normal work schedules simply don’t exist for the team on the ground any more than they do for the crew in space.

Before either Bucky or Curt can say something snarky back, obnoxious pop music is blasting through the cabin from Bucky’s tablet, which is their designated alarm clock on board Orion. “There’s our wake-up call,” Bucky mutters.

“I got it,” Alex calls over to him, floating across the cabin to get the tablet, which is velcroed to the wall.

“Hey hold on!” Curt reaches his hand out. “Give it a minute!” He starts obnoxiously singing along, jamming out beside Bucky to the point that he loses his grip on his seat and starts floating away. 

“I’m a real tough kid, I can handle my shit, they said babe you gotta fake it ‘til you make it and I did.”

The other three join in despite their exhaustion, Bucky and Curt not even bothering to switch off their coms. “Lights, camera bitch, smile, even when you wanna die. He said he’d love me all his life.” Bucky is, admittedly, very pleased when he realizes he can hear many of the flight controllers singing along in the background. It’s a small thing, but their wake up music choices make everyone’s day just a little better. Alex shuts off the alarm.

“Hey Benny,” Bucky says. “Can you ask Gale if he’ll love me all his life?”

“Ask him yourself in… five to six hours.”

“But that’s too long,” Bucky whines. “I need to know now.”

“He’s asleep. Ask your wedding ring, you idiot.”

Bucky grabs at the wedding ring that’s dangling – or, rather, floating – on a chain around his neck. Astronauts often choose to wear rings on necklaces like this in space, since it’ll be easier to grab them if they float away. Bucky has only lost it once so far, which everyone is quite impressed with. He rubs his thumb over the silver band, and Curt makes a gagging noise beside him. 

“Astrofag,” he coughs.

Bucky gives him the middle finger.

With the false alarm and the morning shenanigans out of the way, Benny composes himself and gives the crew a proper morning greeting as Alex and Rosie put on their coms. “Alright, rise and shine boys, big day today!”

“We’re in space. Every day is a big day,” Rosie points out, unimpressed, before starting to fold up and stow the crew’s sleeping bags. He isn’t wrong. Every day in this space-traveling RV is something new. Every day is a little closer to something historic. Every day is something else that could kill them. But today is the day that Bucky and Curt say goodbye to their crewmates and descend to the lunar surface for a week-long all-inclusive stay. So yes, it is a big day. 

“How about a news update,” Benny offers.

“The news is too fucking depressing,” Alex complains.

Benny agrees. “How about a JSC news update, then? Let’s see…” The crew can hear him as he muffles his com and calls out to the other flight controllers in Mission Control, “Who has news?”

Then he speaks to the crew again. “Croz’s kid turned one year old yesterday. A very happy birthday to the little guy. I’m sure you’ll see pictures when you’re home, he smashed a huge piece of cake right into his face.” Bucky smiles and relays his birthday wishes. “Perhaps more importantly,” Benny continues. “Meatball turns five next week.”

“I know for a fact you don’t know Meatball’s birthday,” Bucky interjects.

“Well, the vets think he’s about five, and I just gave him a random birthday.”

“Naturally.” Bucky double checks their trajectory on the console, taking note of how long they have until Starship has to undock.

“Hey, don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same,” Benny says defensively.

“I know my dog’s birthday.”

“Not all of us are perfect pet parents, John. Some of us win our dogs gambling.”

Bucky snorts. “A great slogan for a pet food brand.”

Benny moves on. “We’re having good weather in Houston this week. Looks like we saw the last of hurricane season on launch day. Blue skies – well, not now. It’s midnight-”

Curt situates himself back in his seat and tries to rub the tiredness from his eyes. “Benny why do I give a shit what the weather is in Houston? Ain’t gonna be there for another 20 fuckin’ days.”

“Fine,” Benny says. “The weather at the lunar south pole looks… unremarkable. 24/7 sun except in the shadows. Hot as hell in the light and cold as hell in the dark. Landing conditions look as acceptable as can be expected.”

“Wait, is Hell hot or cold?” Curt asks. “You’re sendin’ me mixed messages here.”

“That’s it. No more news.”

Bucky chuckles and pushes up and away from his console, floating across the cabin to the food ration storage. “Thanks for the update, Benny.”

As usual, Benny tells them all to get some food in their systems before they reconvene to go over the day’s mission plan. Bucky pulls some silver rehydratable food packages out of storage and squints at the labels. Pickings are slim, but not all together awful. “Alright crew,” he says, holding one of the packages up. “We’ve got oatmeal, wheat chex, or scrambled eggs. Take your pick and eat up.”

—

Nassau Bay, TX

Gale wakes around 4:30am, not alone as would be expected, but instead with two cold, wet noses nudging at his face, attacking from all sides. He and Benny have once again gotten into a habit of co-parenting Pepper and Meatball so they’re not alone for too long during the chaos of Artemis 3. The dogs get to hang out together 24/7, moving from Gale’s house to Benny’s and back each day depending on who's on shift at Mission Control. With Benny on the early shift, Gale has them from about 8pm until he leaves in the morning. Benny will drop by to pick them up once he gets Gale updated on mission activities and leaves JSC. 

Nothing about human spaceflight is normal, not even for those on the ground. They work weird hours, sleep weird hours, and no one ever knows what’s about to happen at any given moment. Gale works the Red shift, from 8am CST until 4pm. This corresponds to 1pm to 9pm GMT, the time zone that the crew and Mission Control operate on. Helen then takes over and works the White shift from 4pm to 12am CST. Benny is on Blue shift from 12am to 8am. Even this is misleading, though. There’s up to an hour of overlap between each shift for one shift to get the next up to speed, resulting in a ten hour work day seven days a week.

Today, that’s all fucked up anyway. Gale has to go in two hours earlier than usual so that no shift change has to occur between Starship undocking and landing, giving the crew a constant Mission Control team through the entire process.

So he yawns as he looks out at the dark, pre-sunrise morning, and he shoves the huskies off the bed so he can get to his feet. After stretching out the sore muscles in his back, he rubs one hand, covered by his sweatshirt sleeve, over his face and pauses to inhale the scent still barely clinging to the fabric. He can imagine John going on and on, wondering how Gale doesn’t get hot at night all bundled up like that. But right now, Gale doesn’t have his space heater of a husband to keep him warm, so he needs to make up for it somehow. He’s been sleeping in the Yankees sweatshirt nearly every night since launch, and he’s dreading the day he can’t pick out John’s scent anymore. For the moment, he smiles softly to himself, assured that it’s still there, and he gets on with his morning.

Opting not to take a jog before it’s even 5am, Gale takes himself through a quick bodyweight workout in the bedroom. Squats, push-ups, sit-ups, planks, all while fending off two massive dogs insistent on shoving into his space. Then he takes what can only be described as a military shower, in and out, before scrambling to find a clean button-down shirt and tie. After starting the coffee maker, he turns the TV onto the news story he’d recorded last night. 

“Tomorrow, The Starship Human Landing System will undock from Orion to carry John Egan and Curtis Biddick to the lunar surface.” Marge, as Artemis PAO, is sitting across from an NBC reporter, explaining the details of the Artemis 3 mission plan.

“And how long will it take the lander to reach the lunar surface?” the reporter asks.

“About half a day,” Marge replies. Then she goes on to outline the landing process. 

“Our two astronauts will perform a controlled burn that will decelerate the lander enough to fall into the moon’s gravity well. This means that they will depart from the current Orion orbit and instead descend into low lunar orbit. From low lunar orbit, they will perform another burn that will slow them down enough to fall towards the lunar surface, where they will land near Shackleton crater.”

“And the remaining crew members in Orion will stay in their current orbit?”

“Yes, Orion will remain in NRHO, a near-rectilinear halo orbit. This means that their orbit is balanced between the moon’s gravity and the Earth’s gravity. It’s an elliptical orbit, taking about six and a half days to complete, where they fly very close to the moon at one end, and very far from it at the other. This period of time will correspond to the surface mission.” A window pops up on one side of the screen showing a simulation of Orion in NRHO, complete with Starship undocking and heading for LLO. 

“So when Orion next completes its orbit, Starship will dock with it again?”

Marge nods. “Yes. They’ll meet up again in about a week.”

“And Shackleton crater. That’s at the moon’s south pole?”

The display window on the screen switches to a map of the Shackleton landing site. “Artemis operations are focused on the lunar south pole, where there’s near constant daylight for mission activities and power generation, as well as craters and valleys that are in constant or near constant shadow. So there’s parts of the surface there that have never been exposed to sunlight. Our astronauts will be performing a lot of experiments on the surface, such as studying lunar geology and searching for water ice.”

Gale pulls out his phone and texts Marge. “Look at you on TV.”

A reply shoots back immediately. “Please bring caffeine.”

Gale rolls his eyes, and then heads back into the kitchen to make up two cups of coffee, one black and one with an unhealthy amount of sugar. When he arrives at JSC, Marge greets him at his car, as is their typical routine. She greedily grabs the coffee cup he proffers and takes a desperate sip.

“You’re welcome,” Gale deadpans.

Marge glares at him. “Thank you.”

“What’s up with you?”

Marge blinks rapidly and pinches the bridge of her nose. Makeup conceals the dark circles that are starting to appear under her eyes, and Gale knows he has them, too. “This mission will be the death of me,” she declares.

Gale doesn’t press, because yes. Yes, this mission will be the death of them all. He wonders if the stress level they feel, the inconsistent sleep and the constant demand to always be at their best, is reminiscent of the Apollo days, when nothing about a single mission was standard. In many ways, Artemis is just as novel, if not more so, to the current NASA team than the later Apollo missions were. Every single person involved has trained hard; every component of this mission has been tested. And yet there’s a vague sense nestled in the back of everyone’s mind that they’re kind of out here winging it.

For what it’s worth, Mission Control is calm this morning. Flight controllers diligently monitor their designated systems, updating or reworking things as needed, an idle chatter popping up in this or that corner of the room. The new shift is filing in, getting themselves up to speed. Gale pats Marge on the shoulder as they enter, and they part ways.

“Morning,” Gale mumbles as he stops beside Benny at the CAPCOM console. “Are they ready?”

—

Low Lunar Orbit

John Egan and Curtis Biddick have landed a lot of jets in their lifetimes. They’ve landed a lot of jets in very precarious circumstances, in all manner of environments. They’ve flown them high and low, fast and slow, day and night, with and without landing gears, and sometimes on fire. They’re good pilots. Some of the best NASA has to offer, many might say.

The Starship Human Landing System is about as opposite of a jet as you can get.

Starship is nothing like the Apollo lunar module that today’s astronauts grew up dreaming about, though in their own ways they may be equally unwieldy. Instead of being small and low to the surface, the Artemis HLS is a tall and narrow vehicle, more akin to what science fiction would describe as a spaceship, with the crew seated near the top. When it was first proposed, there was concern over landing such a tall vehicle, especially with no atmosphere and little gravity to help balance it. But the engineers, the testing, and even the sims claim that it gets the job done.

Commander and pilot spent months in the simulators, learning how to handle this awkward thing of a rocket-turned-space-habitat, and neither of them have enjoyed a single moment of it. “It’s like ridin’ one of those giant unicycles,” Curt said once. He’s never been on one himself, and there’s a damn good reason for that. “It’s too fuckin’ tall.”

“You’re a fuckin’ pilot, Curt,” Benny had admonished him. “Figure it out.”

So here he is, figuring it out. “I’m an Air Force test pilot and this is what I get for it, tryin’ to land in a fuckin’ pringles can.”

“Yeah, sure that’s one way to think about landing on the moon,” Rosie rebukes from Orion, which is still in NRHO now somewhere far away from Curt and Bucky.

Bucky sighs longingly. “I could go for some pringles,”

Curt scoffs. “We got wheat chex.”

Gale: “Curt, think of it this way, only the best pilot could land a pringles can in one-sixth G.”

Curt: “Tryin’ to butter me up, Gale?”

Gale: “Whatever gets you on the ground safely.”

Bucky: “No. No buttering.”

Curt: “5,000 feet.”

Bucky: “Trajectory good.”

Curt: “It better fuckin’ be.”

Curt takes a deep breath, eyes locked on the console in front of him. He hates this. Not being able to clearly see where he’s landing, even if it’s half computer automated, which he also hates. He didn’t become a pilot or an astronaut to be a passenger princess, and he sure as hell isn’t trusting his life to a computerized landing module.

From the windows at the top of their silver tower, Bucky watches the lunar surface grow bigger and bigger beneath them, its curvature disappearing entirely as they approach their landing site at the south pole. He sings quietly to himself. “For here, am I floating in a tin can, far above the moon.” 

Gale: “Starship, be advised, you seem to be on VOX.”

VOX meaning Bucky’s coms are currently voice activated, as opposed to Push to Talk, or PTT. Every time he says something loudly enough, his coms pick it up and transmit it to Houston. It’s been a minor (major) issue for the entirety of the mission so far, but if nothing else, amusing to the flight controllers.

Bucky: “Your point?”

Gale: “Our flight controllers here in Houston would like me to tell you you have a lovely singing voice.” 

Bucky can hear the sarcasm, and seriously? From his own husband? The man who is supposed to love and support him unconditionally? Bucky can almost always make Gale laugh, no matter how moody he’s being, by singing a little off-key and pulling him into a reluctant dance. 

Bucky: “They should be so honored.”

Gale: “Houston would also like me to remind you, once again, that everything you say is being transcribed.” He relays these words, but he sounds defeated and unconvinced. He’s right to be. If Houston hasn’t convinced the crew to stop being little shits by now, it won’t happen for the rest of the mission.

Curt: “Fuck Houston.”

Gale: “Still on VOX.”

Curt: “If I were on PPT I’d still say that over coms.”

Gale: “I know, and I’m starting to think we’ll need someone to go through and redact these transcripts cause of your language. Top brass isn’t pleased.”

Curt: “I live to displease.”

Curt squints at the console in front of him, running the numbers in his head before he points out the discrepancy he’s seeing to Bucky. Bucky glances out the window.

Bucky: “Houston, we seem to be entering a roll.”

Gale: “... Come again? Didn’t quite catch that.”

Bucky switches his coms to PPT to make the transmission clearer. “A roll. We aren’t supposed to be entering a roll, are we?” He waits as Gale discusses with Bubbles, GNC, and Croz, FIDO.

Gale: “That’s a negative. We’re working on sorting out why the control software authorized that. Can you course correct?”

Curt: “I’ll try.” He fires the thrusters and manages to stop the roll. “Fuckin’ computer.”

Bucky stifles a laugh as he reads out their coordinates. 1,500 feet to go, and he can see Shackleton Crater ahead. The part of Bucky that isn’t a highly qualified professional is buzzing with ‘are we there yet’ energy, trying to keep his heart rate from spiking in anticipation.

Curt: “What are the odds of this thing tipping over on us, Gale?”

There’s a mildly concerning pause.

Gale: “We don’t have exact numbers on that. Is ‘low’ a good enough answer?”

Curt: “I’ll take it.”

Bucky: “Coming up on Shackleton. I can see the site.”

Curt: “500 feet.”

Bucky: “Jesus, that’s something, isn’t it?” The vehicle flies right over the massive crater like it’s nothing more than a pothole in the road. A pothole that’s 13 miles across. Below the rim, it’s completely consumed by darkness. 

Gale finds himself holding his breath in Mission Control, something he’s been doing a lot this mission. He hasn’t yet sorted out if he’d be doing that no matter what, or if it’s because Bucky is on that lander. He twists the wedding ring around his finger as he listens to Croz calmly relay Starship’s altitude. The thrusters lining the top of the lander fire, controlling its descent at the top of a ridge near Shackleton.

Curt: “Easy, easy babe.” 

Starship sets down on the surface, barely any harder than a bird landing on a tree branch. Everyone, in Mission Control, on the lander, and on Orion, can breathe easy again. Bucky leans his head back in his helmet and pumps a fist.

Curt: “Houston, we have touchdown at Shackleton crater.”

—

Houston, TX

Later that night, Gale leans back against the bartop at the Hundred Proof, glass of soda in hand. On the TV behind the bar, there’s another news story playing about the upcoming moonwalk. By the end of Gale’s shift today, Bucky and Curt were settled on the lunar surface, preparing for the week ahead. They would take the night to eat, rest, and do some basic housekeeping. Tomorrow they will take their first steps on the moon.

Gale looks around the Hundred Proof, taking a sip of his drink. Much of Red Shift, as well as some of Benny’s Blue Shift, made the pilgrimage to the bar to decompress tonight. Croz, Bubbles, and Jack are playing pool in the back. Gale’s seen a few of his other team members milling about with drinks in hand, playing darts or watching sports on the other TVs. Even Clark has taken the time to join his team in letting a load off, laughing as Croz fails miserably to make an eight ball shot.

For just a few hours, no one would even know that these men and women have the weight of the world on their shoulders.

“It’s fuckin’ crazy, what we’re doing.” Benny joins Gale at the bar, leaning back against the counter as he sips a beer. 

“The two of us are just on the ground,” Gale replies. 

“Takes a village.” Benny crosses his arms over his chest, his beer resting against his bicep. He’s dressed in a dark lightweight sweater and jeans. Gale, on the other hand, is still wearing his button down and slacks, his tie loosened and his top button undone the way that always makes Bucky grin and grab onto the tie, dragging him in for a kiss. Bucky’s on the moon, though. And Gale’s just tired.

“It’ll be you next, anyways,” Benny adds, tilting his head to glance at Gale. “You know how jealous I am?”

Gale can’t help the way the corner of his mouth turns up in a little half smile, but he shrugs. “You were just on the station. Too soon to send you back. If you’re lucky, we’ll survive past Artemis 4 and you’ll get yourself on 5.”

Benny takes another swig of beer, and Gale mimics him, sipping his own drink. He rubs his thumb over the condensation gathered around the sides of his glass. “We’ll survive,” Benny asserts.

Gale really hopes so. Seeing Artemis end so soon would break his heart. But you never know what tomorrow will bring, and he wonders if Apollo-era astronauts felt the same way. He thinks they did. “What makes you so sure?”

“Sure is the only thing you can be around here, isn’t it?” Benny shrugs. “And if we’re not sure, we have to act like we are.”

Gale knows he’s right. If they don’t believe in a future here, then no one else will. He glances around the bar, at his coworkers and friends joking and drinking and having a good time. Every single one of them believes wholeheartedly in what they’re doing here, and every single one will fight to keep it going. Come what may.

The Hundred Proof has this transcendent, timeless quality. Classic rock plays through the speakers, and a vintage charm seeps from the walls, lined with NASA memorabilia like a time capsule over half a century old. It’s hardly changed a bit since its early days, with the exception of new televisions and perhaps new drinkware, although no one is really sure about that one. Just about every astronaut who has ever suited up for the United States space program since Apollo has walked on these floors and sat at this bar. Tonight, as it offers its comforts to weary flight controllers ahead of another history-making shift, it feels as if time has stood still. It could just as easily be 1969 or 1972 or 1995. It could just as easily be another era, another mission, and another unknown.

Gale wonders if flight controllers like him and his friends sought out this place in decades past, preparing themselves for the next shift, the next landing, the next moonwalk. If they had the same fears and the same hopes. He wonders if this place looked the exact same as it does right now, harkening back to a past that was too long ago, a hope for the future that NASA has dragged itself back to tooth and nail.

It’s possible that no space mission in this lifetime will ever compare to the way Apollo 11 captured the attention of an entire nation. Of the entire developed world. When Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon – “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” – nearly every household and every TV-owning establishment in the United States was tuned in. Everyone dropped what they were doing to stare at the fuzzy black and white video feed and watch a man walk on an extraterrestrial surface for the very first time. Everyone who remembers that day can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing the moment those first footprints were pressed into the fine lunar soil. 

After that, though, moon landings were seen as routine. By the time Apollo 17 came around, the glimmer of futuristic hope and novelty was fading. Anyone who knew anything about it would tell you that there’s not a single thing that’s routine about landing on the moon. But it didn’t matter; for the public that would never be in that Mission Control room or on that space capsule, it lost its grandeur. 

The funding stopped. 

No one in power wanted to prioritize a lunar program anymore. America had made their point. They’d proved they could do it, proved their superiority in the space race. And dreams of landing on the moon were left to children with stars in their eyes and adventure in their hearts. 

Children like John Egan and Curtis Biddick. 

John Egan has wanted to be an astronaut for as long as he can remember. A little boy with unruly hair and an even more unruly spirit, climbing trees so he could be as close to the sky as the Earth would allow. He went to sleep with his ceiling covered in glow in the dark stars and built model rockets with his dad on the weekends. Almost every decision he’s ever made has been with this end goal in mind. 

He told Gale the first time they ever met that he intended to be an astronaut. He went to school for engineering even though he and mathematics didn’t get along, forcing him to forge through calculus and physics with a blind determination to get himself to where he needed to be. He joined the Air Force ROTC. He became a pilot. He took to the sky and never looked back, always more at home in the clouds than on the ground. Other than Gale Cleven, sitting in a cockpit was the only thing that could settle Bucky’s wayward energy. When the time was right, he applied to NASA, just like he always said he would. It took two tries, but they accepted him. He became an astronaut candidate. He flew on the international space station. He even did it all with Gale at his side. He did everything he’d always dreamed of doing, except one thing:

Step foot on the moon. 

But after tomorrow, he’ll have done that, too.  

Mission Control will be packed tomorrow morning; almost every flight controller on every shift will be there to watch the Artemis 3 crew leave the first footprints at the lunar south pole. Gale will be there, as a flight controller, as a NASA astronaut, and as a husband. He will watch his husband emerge from the Starship hatch and step down onto that lunar surface. He’ll be sitting in a front row seat to see the culmination of nearly two decades of watching John Egan work his ass off to accomplish his dreams. He’ll be right there, his voice guiding John through every step as his legacy is broadcast live to the entire world.

He couldn’t be more proud. Even if he has no fucking clue what will come out of John’s mouth when his boots hit the ground. He can only hope it’s nothing catastrophically embarrassing.

–

It was only weeks ago that Gale walked into their living room, Pepper trotting at his heels, to find Bucky laying on his back on the floor in front of the couch with his hands covering his eyes. A notebook and pen were haphazardly on the floor beside him. 

“What are you doing?” Gale had asked, as Pepper took over her role of protector and started licking Bucky’s face, trying to bring him back to the living.

Bucky had just groaned loudly, pulling his hands away from his face to stare up at Gale forlornly. So Gale bent down and picked up the notebook, which he wasn’t aware Bucky even owned. Flipping through pages of chicken scratch writing, he sat on the couch and tried not to laugh as he read through the brain-dump words. “Are these things to say when you land on the moon?”

Bucky sat up and crossed his legs, which Pepper took as an invitation to lay half in his lap. “Yep.”

There has been absolutely no shortage of people reminding Bucky that he will be the first person to set foot on the moon since 1972. It’s a big deal, and it will be broadcast live to the entire world. He’s been wracking his brain for things to say at such a significant moment in human history, knowing he has massive shoes to fill but not wanting to sound too cheesy, too outdated or philosophical, too… anything. How do you measure up to Neil Armstrong without sounding like you’re trying to be Neil Armstrong? Sometimes Bucky feels like nothing more than a little kid playing astronauts in the yard, pretending to be his childhood hero. 

No one ever expected him to get this far, and now the world is watching. Most of them adore him. Others hate him. If we’re lucky the fag will die up there. Planet Earth is a tumultuous place, but Bucky’s grit and determination have never faltered. He just never expected to be anyone else’s hero.

What words are there to bring a world together when every day it feels like it’s crumbling? Does it even matter what he says? Is it enough that he’s there? Do people actually care about what comes out of his mouth? Will his first words be stuck to him for the rest of his life – a legacy or a shackle? Will they print them in the history books, resound them for future generations? Or will they fade into obscurity like the words of every Apollo astronaut that came after Armstrong? Just a few more words said by another guy whose name most people won’t remember a few decades from now.

“‘With a single step, we return to the unknown for all mankind,’” Gale read from the notebook. “That’s… not bad?”

Bucky shrugged. “A little on the nose.”

“‘As we step onto the lunar surface once again, we bring with us all that we know, and all that we love, to move forward into a brighter future.’”

Bucky made a face as Pepper nudged at his hand with her wet nose. He stroked the top of her head gently, thinking that she had him trained and not the other way around. “Feels sappy.”

Gale glanced down at him. “You are sappy.”

“You’re the only one who knows that.”

Gale rolled his eyes and flipped a few more pages. Bucky closed his eyes as he waited for what was coming, knowing he’d been slowly devolving into madness. Gale choked on a laugh. “‘Hello world, I’m on the fucking moon.’ ‘To all the professors who tried to fail me, who’s laughing now.’ ‘I have the high ground.’ – God, you’re a nerd.” Bucky stuck his tongue out at him before he could continue. “‘Welcome to the shit show.’ ‘Hold on, let me take a selfie.’ ‘We’re here and we’re queer, fight me.’” Gale squinted at the page, running his thumb along some concoction of supposed letters. “I can’t read this one.”

Bucky leaned his head back against the couch so Gale could hold the notebook in front of his face, pointing to a barely legible scrawl across the top of the page. “We’re back, bitches.”

Gale nodded thoughtfully. “Alternatively, the bitch is back.”

“And then I’ll lower my visor like sunglasses,” Bucky nodded. “Stare off into the lunar sunrise. Make a moment of it.”

“Probably not the moment NASA wants,” Gale acquiesced, throwing the notebook to the couch cushion beside him. “You could sing Into the Unknown from Frozen.”

“Oh sure.” Bucky chuckled, scratching at Pepper’s ears. “I can see the headlines. ‘NASA Sends Crazy Queer to Space.’”

“We’re all mad here.”

“This ain’t Alice in Wonderland.”

“It’s true though.” Gale reached his hand down, making a grabbing motion until Bucky noticed and twined their fingers together, letting Gale tug him up onto the couch to Pepper’s dismay. Bucky settled against Gale’s side, mindlessly fiddling with Gale’s fingers like he often does. Gale smiled and leaned his head against Bucky’s, pressing his lips into soft, dark hair. “I’m a fan of welcome to the shit show.”

“Something tells me NASA won’t be.”

A few moments passed, and for those few moments, they weren’t anyone special. They were just a married couple curled up together on the couch. 

Then Gale said, “Maybe something about why it’s so important? Why we’re going back at all.”

Bucky thought for a moment, staring out the window at the night sky beyond. An entire universe that they’ve barely cracked the surface of, worlds and worlds that they may never get to explore. Both Bucky and Gale have always been endlessly fascinated by the infinite unknown. 

“We return to the moon not as a final frontier, but as a stepping stone on humanity’s expedition to explore the wider universe.”

“Mmm.” Gale tilted his head, considering. “That might be too optimistic. Don’t want to be making promises on NASA’s behalf.”

“In case we can’t get our shit together?” Bucky scoffed. Gale nodded, and Bucky had to agree. “Okay, how about, ‘this is the best fucking day of my life.’”

Gale frowned, pulling away to look at Bucky more directly. “I thought marrying me was the best day of your life.”

Bucky’s hair brushed against Gale’s cheek as he turned to look at him, too, letting himself drown in perfect blue eyes as he lifted his hand to cup the side of Gale’s face. “It was,” he breathed out. He kissed Gale then, with a gentle passion that carried with it a silent promise of you are my everything, you are my home. I will come back to you. When Bucky pulled away, he stroked his thumb over Gale’s jaw and let himself marvel at this life he’d made for himself. He’s doing everything he’s ever dreamed of, and he can’t ask for much more. But somewhere along the way, he’d gotten so damn lucky even on top of all of that. This man in front of Bucky, holding him in his arms with such love and warmth, has always been, and always will be, the best thing to ever happen to him. “Gale?” he whispered. 

“Yeah?” Gale’s voice came out in a puff of breath against Bucky’s cheek.

“I love you.”

–

So that’s what Gale thinks as he watches the screen at the front of Mission Control, which is showing video feed from the camera Curt is holding as he follows John to the hatch. It’s what he thinks as he watches the hatch open and John – not physically recognizable because of his bulky EVA suit and yet unequivocally John – stops at the top of the steps that are lowering to the surface. I love you. I love you I love you I love you. 

He can feel everyone in Mission Control holding their breath again. The whole world is holding their breath, crowded around TV screens and computers and phones, waiting. Waiting to see John Egan and Curtis Biddick step foot on the lunar surface. Waiting to hear what John will say to commemorate this moment.

Gale is pleasantly surprised, and admittedly relieved, to hear the words that Bucky has chosen to speak into the world. As the Artemis commander grips the side of the hatch, he looks out at the lunar surface beyond, at the untread terrain that they have the honor to explore. “It sure took us a long time, but we finally made it back,” he remarks. Then he takes a deep breath and hesitates, and Gale knows that, despite Bucky’s cocksure attitude and impulsive personality, he wants to get this right. 

“As we step foot into this beautiful unknown once again,” he says. “We do it not just for ourselves, but for the people of planet earth. We do it for everyone who dares to dream of a brighter future. Everyone who dares to step with us.”

Then he steps delicately onto the surface, and his boot sinks into the fine lunar soil below. One foot, and then the other. One step, and then another. 

He’s on the moon.

“How’s it look, John?” Gale asks.

Bucky turns slowly, open-mouthed, thinking that he feels like he’s on another world before his brain catches up and remembers that it is another world. They’re at the top of a massive ridge connecting two even more massive craters. The sun is just above the horizon, casting long, eerie shadows across the surface where it hits the crater rims. It’s silent. Peaceful. Like he just wants to sit right down on the ground and take it all in for a while.

“John?”

“Hi angel,” Bucky says, too in awe to realize he just called his CAPCOM “angel” on a globally televised broadcast. Neither of them will ever live it down.

But Gale only chuckles. “You okay up there?”

Curt, stepping down off the lander behind Bucky, adjusts the camera so he can record their surroundings. “I think we’re just a little in awe, Buck,” he says, since Bucky seems incapable.

But Bucky manages to find his words again as he steps further away from the lander, Curt recording him from behind as they both test out the gravity on the surface, taking a few bounding strides forward. “It’s incredible,” Bucky breathes, raising his arms out to the sides as if he can somehow absorb this experience into his mind and body. 

He motions to Curt, grabbing for the camera so he can get some airtime, too. He records as Curt bounds a few long and ungainly slow-motion steps away, trying to work out the best way to move in this new environment. Bucky follows behind clumsily.

“See that, world?” he says as he pans the camera around, giving visual of their lander stretching up to the dark sky, the beautifully foreboding crater some distance behind it, the rocky terrain on all sides streaked with long shadows, Curt dropping to his knees into the rough and sandy regolith. “You’re looking at the lunar south pole. No one has ever stepped foot on this part of the moon, but you’re seeing it right now. It’s incredible, isn’t it?”

“It sure is, Bucky,” Gale tells him, as their only link to the rest of the planet.

“Buck,” Curt interrupts as he lets a handful of the soil, fine and sharp like grains of glass, sift between his gloved fingers. “Can confirm the moon is not made of cheese.”

“Alright, Curt,” Gale replies, all too serious. “Thank you for that observation, we’ll note it down. Just please don’t taste it.”

“No promises.”

After a few more minutes of bounding around in wonder and narrating what they’re seeing, Curt and Bucky sign off from their live broadcast.

“O2 levels look good,” Gale informs them. “How’s the pressure feel?”

“It’s fine,” Bucky replies. “It’s dropped just a bit. A little easier to move. I expect it’ll keep improving as we get going here.”

A suit that decreases pressure in increments was NASA’s solution to their decompression sickness problem. When the body is too quickly exposed to low pressure environments, gases dissolved in bodily fluids, namely nitrogen, bubble out, causing a whole host of health issues called ‘the bends’ or decompression sickness. Designing a space suit that maintains the same pressure as the crew cabin – which is the same as mean sea level pressure on Earth – would result in a stiff suit that is impossible to move in. Typically, astronauts on the ISS spend many hours before an EVA pre-breathing – breathing pure oxygen to allow the body enough time to naturally purge the nitrogen – making it possible for them to safely wear EVA suits with a much lower pressure. To shorten this amount of time, astronauts may do physical activity while breathing pure O2, making the body rid itself of nitrogen even faster.

NASA wanted to reduce pre-breathing time as much as possible on Artemis. So on top of some time spent pre-breathing during exercise, the suits are equipped with oxygen regulators, which gradually decrease the suit pressure over time as the crew is out on the surface. Their suits are at a higher pressure when they first start the EVA, and as their nitrogen levels drop during the EVA, the suit pressure decreases, making it much easier to move around.

NASA didn’t come to the moon to play. They’re here for the future. To learn and to work and to push humanity to new heights. It’s a testing ground of sorts, to see how extended extraterrestrial missions may be feasible. The mission is designed for maximum productivity, and they have a lot to do here in the next week. Every single element has been designed with that in mind.

“Good to hear,” Gale says. “Now let’s get to work.”

…

…

Part 10

A3’s planned flight path for those interested:

(Image from NASA)

[superego-imagines]

Hi there. I have a writing request, if you have time. Specifically for Norman/Otto from the Spiderman PS game. They have *history* and I'd love a ficlet of the time their relationship disintegrated over ethics and they break-up (with a lot of feelings still left on both sides). Angst really isn't my strong suit so perhaps you can provide?

Settling - Octogoblin Angst - 2.4K words

((Thank you so much for this request! Those two are my favorite Divorced Couple and I love the PS4 version of them. There’s so many layers and so much history to their relationship. Neither of them is a perfect person and they bring out the worst in each other. I love angst and arguments so this was really fun lol. I hope you enjoy it!

Dr. Octavius’s chest shuddered as he tried to steady his breathing. His hands folded over each other as he hung his head as low as possible. As if he just curled up far enough he’d be able to disappear entirely. God what he wouldn’t give to just disappear. Any time he closed his eyes, the afterburn of the light reminded him of the fluorescent blood splatters that had coated nearly the entire lab. And the screams…he didn’t need to speak the language to understand the terror in their voices. He should have done something. But he couldn’t have done anything, Norman had stopped him. He knew the man was desperate but he never thought he’d do something so stupid.

“You look like you could use a drink.” An uncharacteristically-soft but still familiar voice came from behind him. Otto flinched away from the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. He hadn’t heard the man come in, too lost in thought to really register anything around him. Norman leaned against the work-desk across from where Otto was sitting. A brandy decatur rested on the table beside him, the time for drinking from glasses clearly having passed. He took a sip and fruitlessly tried to smooth back where his hair was beginning to frizz out. “We won by the way. No thanks to you.”

“Won?”

“Of course we won. Kid’s public defender couldn’t even be bothered to pay for a translator. If anything the settlement was more generous than it needed to be. If he plays his cards right he should be set for life.”

“He’s an orphan, Norman. No amount of money changes that.”

“And I suppose that’s my fault too? How could I have possibly predicted that he would turn into- that he would become- whatever that was.”

“But you didn’t know! That’s the whole point!” Otto stood up and closed the distance between them, “You didn’t know what the virus would do, but you did it anyway! How many times did I tell you it wasn’t ready? If you had just listened-!”

“If I had listened to you the boy would be dead. With us having spent years fussing over every little detail before even testing the damn thing. He didn’t have time to wait.”

“You mean you didn’t have time to wait.”

Norman’s face dropped from its dismissive annoyance into an utterly expressionless mask. Otto hated that face. Even Norman’s anger was better than when he wasn’t Norman at all. “What do you mean by that?” His tone is flat but as cold and caustic as solid CO2.

“I know this is about Emily.”

“Oh? Is it? Is there something about me attempting to cure my dying wife that you find unacceptable?”

“Norman- Arrgh! You’re twisting my words. I hate when you do this! You know that’s not-”

“I should have known that’s what this was about.” Norman chuckled but there wasn’t a trace of humor in it, “Christ, you’re pathetic. Anyone ever tell you, you get real cruel when you’re feeling sorry for yourself?”

Otto’s hands tightened into fists at his side as he let out a shuddery breath. Norman was just deflecting. He was just saying whatever he could think of to make him upset, that way he wouldn’t have to actually defend his actions. “This isn’t about her.”

“You can’t even say her name can you?”

Otto raised his voice, trying to speak over him, ignoring the jab, “This is about you being reckless-”

“No Otto. You brought her up. You made it about Emily. So let's talk about Emily. I was very honest with you from the beginning about what I needed and what I could and couldn’t do. You promised me you wouldn’t do this.”

“I know. I know what I said. I know I can’t…” Can’t give him a family. Can never be his husband. “Give you what you want.” He understood that. Really, he did. When Norman and him first started this, whatever this was, nearly a decade ago, he had understood it would have to come to an end. They’d never be able to make a name for themselves if they couldn’t at least pretend to be straight. He’d even understood when Norman had suggested staying together in secret while they both pursued other relationships that could provide them cover or in Norman’s case, a chance at fatherhood. He’d understood that and hadn’t minded all the sneaking around and playing the best friend. And he could have lived his whole life like that, if it was just a cover. But it wasn’t. Norman had gone and fallen in love with her.

And the worst part is, he couldn’t even hate her for it. She was too much of a damned saint. He couldn’t blame Norman for falling in love with her, in another life, he might have too. She was brilliant, there was no denying that, and maybe even more admirably, she was passionate. She was always thinking of new ways to heal the world. Not only as a scientist but as a humanitarian. In a lot of ways, she reminded him of Norman when they’d first met. Back when O’scorp was going to bring humanity into the future, before the company had swallowed him whole. She was perfect and he’s just…familiar. Nostalgic maybe. A habit Norman can’t quit.

“You are what I want. Damn it Otto!” He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face before closing the distance. He rested his hands on the others shoulders, as if doing so would force him to stay but still unwilling to pull him any closer. “I care about you, and I want you in my life. But I also have a family to consider. I love all of you, and I don’t want to lose her or you. You have to understand the position I’m in.”

“I understand…” Otto swallowed the lump in his throat. He understood perfectly.

Norman sighed in relief, “Thank you. I just don’t know what I’ll do if she…”

“She’s not going to die. That I’m sure of.” He pulled away from Norman’s hands in order to put his own on his shoulders. “You have some of the greatest minds in the world working here. I know you’ll manage to find a cure.”

“We’ll find a cure.”

“No…” Otto steeled every nerve in his body screaming at him to stop. To think about what he was doing. To think about what he was throwing away. He couldn’t say no to Norman. He never said no to Norman. He needed to stop before he said something he couldn’t take back. Stop. Stop. STOP. But no. He couldn’t stop. He’d made up his mind when he’d heard the boy wailing for the mother and father that were splattered across his face. “No. You’ll find a cure. I’m leaving the company.”

“What?” Norman wrenched away from him, “You can’t leave. Why would you leave? Is this about Emily?”

“I already told you. This isn’t about her. This is about your complete disregard for any sort of procedure. You went behind my back to do the first human trial of a medical procedure that wasn’t even approved for animals. The fact that you would do something so monumentally stupid and selfish and reckless and…and…” He could forgive a lot of things. He could forgive the cruelty and the ego and all the little ways that Norman drove him absolutely insane. But at the end of the day- “I just can’t trust you anymore. I don’t like where you’re taking O’scorp, and I won’t have my name dragged down with it.”

Norman reached out to him again but he stepped back, maintaining a distance, “You’re one of our lead scientists. Even if you hate me, think of what it would do to the company. Your talent would be wasted anywhere else, and our grants would be wasted on anyone other than you.”

Pins pricked at Otto’s chest and at the corners of his eyes. Of course he’d have to threaten to leave before Norman would dole out a scrap of validation. He couldn’t deny it had an effect on him. The part of him that was still a scholarship student, craving the praise and attention of his peer despite hating him for being everything he wasn't, called out to him, begged him to reconsider. That he needed this. Needed Norman. That without him he was nothing. Well, they’d have to see about that, but he’d be less than nothing if he stayed. “I can’t be a part of this…Whatever this company is becoming. I want to help people. I wanted to fix the world with you. But you only care about yourself.”

A flash of genuine hurt crossed his features, “Do you really think so low of me?”

“I…” Yes? No. Maybe? “I have to go.”

Norman pulled away from him, straightening up as his face dropped into one of cold indifference, “Fine. But understand if this is what you want, you’ll be doing this on your own. You’ll have to find a new source of funding.”

Otto rolled his eyes, “Obviously.”

“Alright. I’ll schedule a time for you to meet with the legal team to discuss your settlement. All further communication will be going through the company’s legal team and a representative of your choosing.”

“What settlement?”

Otto could make out the slightest twitch of a smile before Norman quickly turned away, “Don’t worry, Dr. Octavius. You will be compensated for your time and effort on Oscorp’s projects. In exchange you will turn over all current research and prototypes to the company, with the understanding that any and all use of previous studies or patented prototypes would be in violation of the non-compete clause in your contract.”

“What? What are you talking about? That’s my research!”

“It’s Oscorp’s research. Gained from studies conducted by you but under Oscorp’s roof, with Oscorp funds, with Oscorp technology, with test subjects compensated by Oscorp.” He looked at Otto and this time he couldn’t hide the slight smirk, “You’re a smart man Otto, do I really need to keep going?”

“You…You can’t do this!” All his work…Years of his life that he’d dedicated to this company. It would be like it never happened. So much time wasted. He knew it would be difficult to start over, but to have to abandon everything he’d been working on. It would set him back years, maybe even decades if he couldn’t find another sponsor. Would he even be able to work in the same field? He hadn’t even looked into the extent of any non-compete clauses. It hadn’t mattered because this company was supposed to be his. He and Norman had built it together. It was supposed to be their legacy. “This company is as much mine as it is yours! I have a right to my own research! I’ll sue you!”

“You’ll lose, Octavius. Just like always~ You think you know the law better than my people? Be smart and take the settlement.”

The faux sympathy in his tone strummed at Otto’s raw nerves. He’d seen this monster before, but it had never been directed at him. He knew there was only one way this story ended. “And what if I go to the press?”

“And tell them what? That you signed a perfectly legal contract that only now isn’t fair? Or maybe you intend to break an iron-clad NDA in which case you and anyone who reports what you say will be slapped with a lawsuit so fast your heads will spin.” Norman stepped into his space again and Otto fought the urge to back away. He cringed at the glint of mania in the eyes of the man he thought was his best friend, wincing as he punctuated his sentences with a poke to the chest. “You’ve never had what it takes to run this business. It’s always been mine. While you wasted my time and money with your little projects, I’ve been the one keeping the lights on. I was the one going to the meetings and talking to the investors you considered yourself above. I was the one who put up the funds to build this company and it’s my name on every piece of paperwork because you couldn’t be bothered to properly patent anything. I was the one who insisted you were a good candidate for any project you’ve ever gotten the privilege of working on. And I was the one who gave you a way out from your destiny of utter anonymity and you’re not as smart as I gave you credit for if you think I can’t put you right back.”

Otto wanted to scream. He wanted to hurt him. His mind ran a thousand miles a minute with the things he wanted to say. Every little insecurity. Everything Norman had ever dared be vulnerable about, which admittedly wasn’t much. He wanted to dig a needle inside him so precisely that no matter what he did, he wouldn’t ever be able to claw it out. He could swear his ears were ringing and he’d never hated anyone more than he did in this moment. Well, maybe. He could swear, just barely audible over the pounding of his heart, he could hear his mother's cruel snarl. Look what you did! This is all your fault! Why’d you have to be so mean? You’re just like him. “We’ll see about that. For the sake of professionalism, this should probably be our last meeting. I’ll go and collect my personal effects from my office and will be speaking with the legal team soon.”

He kept his head up but didn’t look towards Norman again as he collected his things and made his way towards the door. As he went to leave, a voice called out from behind him and he hated the way he almost perked up at the sound before he crashed back to reality, “You’re welcome to come crawling back anytime, O.” He didn’t even dignify him with a pause before closing the door on that chapter of his life. Starting over was hard but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to re-envision the future he planned for himself. And this time he wouldn’t let anyone else take it away.

[wordsinsage]

I Hate This Now.

So... I asked ChatGPT to give me the first line of a scene, just as an exercise to be able to improve my writing. I just wanted to write anything and make writing a habit for me.

This is what it came up with:

"The old house at the end of the street held secrets even the wind dared not whisper"

I now understand that Generative AI is shit and I hate it. I will forever burn for this, but i'll leave it up just because it was already done and I won't let those CO2 emissions go to waste.

The old house at the end of the street held secrets even the wind dared not whisper, yet as Lucas stood looking up at it from the curve below, he could swear he heard his name being murmured within the autumn wind.

“Lu…” 

“I know what “best” is for me, Lu.”

He could feel his skin numbing to the weather as he forced his heart, once more, to numb the stalking memories.

Being here, it was all too real. His hands kept shaking, his skin freezing, his heart banging.

Banging. Again and again. Over and over. Refusing to quiet for just one fucking second.

There was nothing he could do to bring him back, nothing he could say, nowhere he could reach. He was gone. Just gone. The house empty. The halls dark. The wind cold.

So cold.

So real.

Name three objects that you can see. The practised thought bulleted into his brain just as his eyes threatened to lose focus.

Red Leaves. Red lips…

He shook the thought and tried again.

A fallen patio chair… that he would have detested to see left so carelessly to the elements.

He could almost see him through the drizzle. Eddie, sitting on that same chair when it used to reside inside the greenhouse he’d spend all summer in, a tea cup filled to the brim with whiskey on one hand as he grazed his lips with the other and smiled mischievously at Lucas.

Red lips. Leaves fallen.

Lucas gulped back the increasing thickness threatening to overpower his throat, only to have it settle around his chest.

He walked only a little unsteadily towards the chair and as he bent down to set it upright, his legs gave away and his bum landed squarely upon the damp, overgrown grass.

Now how the fuck was he supposed to find three objects to see when his eyes where this foggy? Fucking therapist. Just another fibber. And him? Just another run-of-the-mill idiot. 

He placed his head between his knees as he tightly scrunched his worn out jeans on either side.

He should never have come back.

“Lu?”

Fucking wind. Fucking chair. Fucking Leaves.

“Lucas?”

Lucas allowed himself to lean into the warm hand placed upon his shoulder for a few seconds before the fuzzy wool covering the godsent arms wrapping over his chest from behind tickled his nose and made him sneeze softly.

“I’m so sorry, Lu.” It almost sounded like him. So much like he used to sound that is. So much like home. He looked up through the mist and for some strange reason, for the first time in a year, he allowed himself to simply cry.

The arms tightened around him as he let it all out. The fear. The loss. This agonising heartbreak.

His lungs burned with the dryness of the wind as he sobbed and sobbed like a child being held by his mother before she left him for good.

“He said I couldn’t tell anyone,” he finally managed to rasp out as he allowed his head to rest limply over a steady heartbeat. “Made me promise.”

“I know.” Alexia kissed his hair.

The relief he felt at having her say those words out loud, even though she had texted them the week before, was insurmountable. Years had passed before Eddie had managed to tell his sister everything, the same years Lucas had spent slowly descending into utter chaos, wishing for someone to talk to, begging for some sort of human empathy instead of punching shadows in desperation.

And yet, though he lived through it, there was so much he didn’t know.

He knew of the endless nights praying to all the Gods he knew of for Eddie to make it home safely. He knew of the tightness that gripped his chest whenever Eddie looked over, eyes glazed, soft curls just ravaged, guilty as sin, and knew that he was in for heartbreak again. Another sleepless night. Another step down to where his brain found nothing but darkness.

Still, he needed answers. Why? Why did he do this? Why all the secrets? Why..?

“He only wanted you to be okay.” 

“I’m not.” Lucas wiped off his cheeks and stood up only slightly trembling as he turned to look straight into those eyes. Brave of him really. 

Her eyes shone with warmth, they always reminded Lucas of a fireplace, brown and fiery like logs burnt down to embers. They radiated, just like Eddie’s used to before he stopped caring. 

“Have you been…looking for help?” She was still kneeling on the ground, her beige pants now splattered with mud and stained with grass. 

Lu nodded and held out his hand to help her up. She instantly enveloped him in one of those hugs that threaten to make you believe once more in the possibility that everything will turn out okay. 

He had to let go before he started entertaining such notions. He kissed her forehead instead.

“Tea?”

He nodded again and cleared his throat, only slightly embarrassed about his ex’s sister having to hold him while he lost every single one of his marbles.

Not that she hadn’t watched him lose his marbles before, it was just that now she knew he was her brother’s ex.

The wobbly walk to the front door of the estate seemed eternal. His feet dragged and his lungs collapsed with every step. He tried to focus on Alexia's safe hand as it led the way and attempted not to notice everything that carelessly laid splattered across the overgrown front lawn: chipped teacups, dead flowers in pots, bow ties.

Alexia faltered for a second but quickly resumed her way at double the pace. Though she tried to place herself to block it from view, Lucas saw it. He definitely saw it.

A bracelet. Golden. Sparkling despite the mud that covered its surface. A small charm dangling from it, circular, with an L engraved on its surface. Broken.

Leave it. His inner voice challenged. It can’t be repaired.

Alexia opened the front door in record time and motioned for him to follow.

“Please Lu. Let me do this for me.” The words still bounced off the dreary walls and echoed on to him as he followed the woman he considered his own sister through the front door.

“Sorry about the mess. I don’t come here often.” She pursed her lips as she looked around. 

“Or ever,” Lu managed to tease through the clouds of dust that greeted them.

“We can go to the green house if you’d like? I know you two preferred it-“

“No, no… here feels kind of cozy.” He tried to smile.

Alexia snorted and made her way to the kitchen, making herself busy trying to dust off the kettle and figuring out if it still worked while Lucas tried to dust off the sunroom table and open the rusty windows. 

As the cool air filled the house Alexia walked in with a hot pot of tea and two coffee cups.

“No milk I’m afraid.” She tried to place the coffee cups on the dirty table but one stumbled and fell over.

Lucas held her shaking hand with one of his and held her face steady with the other. He looked at her dead on and as a million questions swirled around his mind, he settled on the most pressing one.

“Aleh?” Lu swallowed. “Why am I here?”

“I know everything,” she whispered.

“You’ve mentioned.”

“I promised him I would tell you when the time was right.”

Lu let go of her and took a few steps back. “So you mean you know everything. As in more than I know?”

“Yes.”

“As in why it happened?” Why he..”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They wanted you dead.”

Please, critique, make me feel bad, tell me how to improve :)

Love,

Andrea

[drstonetrivia]

Chapter 4 Trivia

Tsukasa's stone-cold goals are revealed.

Tsukasa's still got some lion blood on his hand from the punch he delivered in the last chapter.

Because lions have to be stronger than their prey, they're full of muscle and don't have a lot of fat, making their meat tough. Because of the lack of connective tissue and fat to soften the meat through traditional methods, the best way to do it is slowly over a low temperature which prevents the meat overcooking while allowing the connective tissue to break down and soften. Recommendations for cooking lion meat say 57°C over 24 hours. After that, it apparently tastes like pork, but richer.

(I couldn't find any sources on the meat smelling or tasting like ammonia, I'm forced to assume it's a side effect of their territory-marking urine?)

Normally it takes 6-8 weeks to make leather out of skin, but here Tsukasa is wearing it immediately and probably even before the body's become cold, judging by Taiju carrying Yuzuriha's statue to the base in the next panel. This is absolutely disgusting. Don't do this please.

Here we have proof Senku switches out his pouches based on what he needs. What's actually in them is anyone's guess though!

Smoking food works for several reasons. It dries the food (preventing fungal/bacterial growth), the smoke keeps insects away during the process, and the smoke itself imparts preservative and antimicrobial compounds such as the aldehydes Senku mentions. (Too much is toxic though!)

Interesting little habit you have there, Senku...

According to Senku, Tsukasa's skin is extremely pale. I'm not sure if this means he's got Snow White's complexion, or if Senku and Taiju are by comparison very tanned from working outside all day.

Tsukasa may have deemed himself the fighter, but he's no meathead! Based off his thoughtful comments, it looks like Tsukasa is quite scientifically knowledgeable himself, just not as much as Senku.

Adding lime (calcium carbonate) to soil reduces its acidity. Most plants prefer a pH of 6-7.5, which is neutral to slightly acidic. Obviously adding lime to already alkaline soil will make it even more alkaline, so you should test your soil first. Some plants like the acidity!

Heating lime to over 900°C releases CO2 and forms calcium oxide. Adding water and sand to it creates mortar, a substance that hardens by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and turning it back into calcium carbonate.

Fun fact: you can use the carbon in mortar for carbon dating!

To make soap, you need a fat (vegetable oil, bacon grease) and a base (lye, wood ash, lime). The goal is to saponify the fat. In modern soaps, calcium carbonate is added to bulk up the product and act as a mild abrasive.

Taiju is a very good friend for Senku because he obviously pays good attention and has a good memory. That is all.

He's just not that great for subtlety or negotiations...

Legally, "disfigurement" means to cause permanent change in a person's body, particularly by leaving visible scars which affect a person's appearance. We don't see any of that on Tsukasa, so did they heal? Was he fighting with broken fingers pre-petrification? What happened?

Freshly broken stone parts are colored in white. Does this mean as long as the stone is still white/unblemished, the pieces can be recombined?

Haha yeah it would be a shame if an evil dictator was woken up...

I still don't understand why Tsukasa skinned the lion where it dropped instead of bringing it back with them if they were going to eat the meat anyway...

[hide-in-imagination]

Heyy, i just read the oneshot of how Simonn proposes to Ambar so i was wondering how do you think their wedding is going to be like :)!

Omg people had asked this before and I never replied because my brain was dead and I couldn't think of anything— But here we go!

Okay, so, it would have to be in Buenos Aires because that's were most of the characters live. Yes, I know some of them are rich and could afford to go to a destination wedding (Cancún? París? Secret third thing?) BUT it's just way easier for everyone to just do it at their home country, and I think they would want to be considerate to their guests. (Sucks for Simón's family though, but again, they are rich, so they can afford to bring them over to Buenos Aires)

I don't think it would be an over the top wedding (because their lives by this point are already pretty over the top with Simón being a music start and Ámbar having whatever very successful job she chose to have) and I also don't think they would go for a church either (something Simón's most religious relatives would protest, but oh well)

So, I think they would go for an outdoor wedding with lots of flowers and just nature in general. They also wouldn't invite 400 people. They'd probably keep it to close family and friends (which would anyway amount to 100+ probably skdfn Simón's family is big)

As for the dress!!! I'm pretty sure Ámbar would choose something simple but elegant, and she seems pretty partial to the combination of lace and see-through fabric, so I imagine something like this:

(It was pretty much the first I found, if I find a better one I'll change it. Also, feel free to picture a completely different dress— I feel like someone's headcanons about their favorite characters' wedding is something that can be so personal and so sacred, so don't listen to me if you don't want to, just be happy with your own choices💖)

And, you know, she already rented this place once for a music video, why not also for her wedding?

You know why it would be beautiful?

BECAUSE IT'S THE SAME PLACE WHERE THEY HAD THEIR FIRST KISS

I MEAN, YOU CAN'T GET MORE MEANINGFUL THAN THAT

And it's also close to the water, which I'm sure Simón would like (even if this water is... clearly not as pretty as Cancún's crystalline waters sdkjfn)

(We're also going to ignore what this place is in real life— We're working only with in-universe information, people!)

BONUS POINTS IF SIMÓN'S WEARS A WHITE ROSE ON HIS JACKET— MORE MEANING!!

For their wedding cake, I'm pretty sure I already posted this picture before, but I'll do it again:

Again, elegant with touches of gold (very Ámbar) but also some Simón touches (the music notes). On top, they'd have little figures of themselves, OR, figures of their rollerskates one next to the other <3 (Or both, idk). And instead of that drawing of two heads, they would have "Á & S" 💕 (Also, the cake would have to be bigger, but you get the picture ksjfn)

So, yeah, they'd have the wedding outdoors, then they would head to a large marquee we're they would hold the reception (u know, the cocktails, the dinner, the party, etc etc). Simón and Ámbar would have their photoshoot first outside, around sunset, while everyone is enjoying the cocktails, and then join everyone else to give a toast and start the dinner.

The rest is pretty much like any other wedding. During the party, they would bring out some goods like costume hats, wigs, party glasses, stuff like that. I also once went to a wedding were they brought light up shoes for everyone sdkjnfn. I think Ámbar would really enjoy a light up cape— those are so fun. OH! And at some point, they would both bring out the CO2 guns😎 (everyone is absolutely drunk by this point)

So, yeah, they all have a blast ❤️

(Oh, and did I mention Simón teared up during the vows?)

(Well, technically, Ámbar cried, and seeing her cry made him cry, but who's counting?)

[sonneillonv]

Just in case you want to be angry tonight! Transcript under the cut in case you hit a paywall.

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Reach Out Updated: April 30, 2024 6:27 PM EDT | Originally published: April 30, 2024 7:00 AM EDT

Former President Donald Trump sat down for a wide-ranging interview with TIME at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on April 12, and a follow-up conversation by phone on April 27.

Over the course of the interviews, Trump discussed his agenda for a second term, which includes deporting millions of people, cutting the U.S. civil service, and intervening more directly in Justice Department prosecutions than his predecessors. He also discussed his thinking on other issues, including abortion, crime, trade, Ukraine, Israel, and the prospects for political violence in this election cycle.

Read More: How Far Trump Would Go

Below is a transcript, lightly edited for clarity, of the interviews between Trump and TIME National Politics Reporter Eric Cortellessa. Click here to read our fact-check.

Let’s start with Day One: January 20, 2025. You have said that you will take a suite of aggressive actions on the border and on immigration—

Donald Trump: Yes.

You have vowed to—

Trump: And on energy.

Yes, yes. And we'll come to that, certainly. You have vowed to launch the largest deportation operation in American history. Your advisors say that includes—

Trump: Because we have no choice. I don't believe this is sustainable for a country, what's happening to us, with probably 15 million and maybe as many as 20 million by the time Biden's out. Twenty million people, many of them from jails, many of them from prisons, many of them from mental institutions. I mean, you see what's going on in Venezuela and other countries. They're becoming a lot safer.

Well, let's just talk—so you have said you're gonna do this massive deportation operation. I want to know specifically how you plan to do that.

Trump: So if you look back into the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower, he's not known for that, you know, you don't think of him that way. Because you see, Ike, but Dwight Eisenhower was very big on illegal immigration not coming into our country. And he did a massive deportation of people. He was doing it for a long time. He got very proficient at it. He was bringing them just to the other side of the border. And they would be back in the country within a matter of days. And then he started bringing them 3,000 miles away—

What’s your plan, sir?

Trump: We will be using local law enforcement. And we will absolutely start with the criminals that are coming in. And they're coming in in numbers that we've never seen before. And we do have a new category of crime. It's called migrant crime. It's, ugh, you see it all the time. You see it in New York City where they're having fistfights with police. And far worse than that. You see it all the time. And you're seeing it in all of the cities, especially the Democratic-run cities, which is a lot of the big ones, but you're seeing it in Chicago, you're seeing it in New York and L.A. and getting worse than in other places.

Does that include using the U.S. military?

Trump: It would. When we talk military, generally speaking, I talk National Guard. I've used the National Guard in Minneapolis. And if I didn't use it, I don't think you'd have Minneapolis standing right now, because it was really bad. But I think in terms of the National Guard. But if I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military, per se. We have to have safety in our country. We have to have law and order in our country. And whichever gets us there, but I think the National Guard will do the job. You know, had Nancy Pelosi used the National Guard. You know, I offered them whatever they wanted, but I often—

You would use the military inland as well as at the border?

Trump: I don't think I'd have to do that. I think the National Guard would be able to do that. If they weren't able to, then I’d use the military. You know, we have a different situation. We have millions of people now that we didn't have two years ago.

Sir, the Posse Comitatus Act says that you can't deploy the U.S. military against civilians. Would you override that?

Trump: Well, these aren’t civilians. These are people that aren't legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country. An invasion like probably no country has ever seen before. They're coming in by the millions. I believe we have 15 million now. And I think you'll have 20 million by the time this ends. And that's bigger than almost every state.

So you can see yourself using the military to address this?

Trump: I can see myself using the National Guard and, if necessary, I'd have to go a step further. We have to do whatever we have to do to stop the problem we have. Again, we have a major force that’s forming in our country, when you see that over the last three weeks, 29,000 people came in from China, and they're all fighting age, and they're mostly males. Yeah, you have to do what you have to do to stop crime and to stop what's taking place at the border.

Would that include building new migrant detention camps?

Trump: We wouldn't have to do very much of that. Because we'll be bringing them out of the country. We're not leaving them in the country. We're bringing them out. It’s been done before.

Will you build new ones?

Trump: And it was done by Obama in a form of jails, you know, prisons. And I got blamed for that for four months. And then people realized that was done by him, not by me.

So are you ruling out that you would build new migrant detention camps?

Trump: No, I would not rule out anything. But there wouldn't be that much of a need for them, because of the fact that we're going to be moving them out. We're going to bring them back from where they came.

I ask because your close aide and adviser Stephen Miller said that part of what it would take to carry out this deportation operation would include new migrant detention camps.

Trump: It’s possible that we’ll do it to an extent but we shouldn't have to do very much of it, because we're going to be moving them out as soon as we get to it. And we'll be obviously starting with the criminal element. And we're going to be using local police because local police know them by name, by first name, second name, and third name. I mean, they know them very well.

How are you going to get state and local police departments to participate in this? Under what authority is the President able to do that?

Trump: Well, there's a possibility that some won't want to participate, and they won't partake in the riches, you know. We have to do this. This is not a sustainable problem for our country.

Does that mean you would create funding incentives from the federal government for state and local police departments?

Trump: It could very well be. I want to give police immunity from prosecution because the liberal groups or the progressive groups, depending on what they want to be called, somewhat liberal, somewhat progressive, but they are—they’re very strong on the fact that they want to leave everybody in, I guess, I don't know. You know, sanctuary cities are failing all over the place. And I really believe that there's a pent-up demand to end sanctuary cities by people that were in favor of sanctuary cities, because it's just not working out for the country.

So by your own telling, these are new, bold, and aggressive actions that you would take.

Trump: I don't think they're bold actions. I think they’re actions that are common sense. But I really believe, Eric, that they’re actions that—it's incredible that they've allowed so many people to come into our country, especially considering they were unchecked and unvetted, most of them. They're just pouring in. They're pouring in at levels that no country has ever seen before. It's an invasion of our country.

Well, let me put it this way: They’re new and they're certainly going to be tested in the courts. If the courts rule against you, do you commit to complying with all court orders upheld by the Supreme Court?

Trump: I will be complying with court orders. And I'll be doing everything on a very legal basis, just as I built the wall. You know, I built a tremendous wall, which gave us great numbers. I also was willing to do far more than I said I was going to do. I was also and am willing to—they should have completed the wall. I completed what I said I was going to do, much more than I said I was going to do. But as you do it, you realize you need more wall in different locations, locations that, at one point, people thought you wouldn't be able to—you wouldn't need.

But, and—the first glimpse I found that Biden, frankly, wanted open borders, because I never believed it. It just didn't make sense. The first time I really saw that was when he didn't want to install the wall that was already built and could have been thrown up, hundreds of miles of additional work could have been thrown up in a period of three weeks.

I want to talk about your plan to build the wall in just a second, but just to come back on that. So you commit to complying with all Supreme Court orders? All orders upheld by the Supreme Court?

Trump: Yeah, I would do that, sure. I have great respect for the Supreme Court.

So come back to the border wall for a second because in the last term, you tried to negotiate border funding with Democrats, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, and had an opportunity for $25 billion. Didn't work. Got the $1.4 billion—

Trump: But with the $25 billion things came that were unacceptable.

Codifying the DREAMER protections—

Trump: Well, a lot of other things besides that. There were a lot of bad things. Sure, they gave you money for the wall. I basically took the money from the military, as you know. I consider this an invasion of our country and I took the money from the—

So my question is, what do you plan to do in the second term? Are you going to move right away on day one to direct federal funds to continue building the wall? Are you going to aim for legislation? How do you plan to do?

Trump: I think what we will do is we will complete—and when you say and when I say complete the wall, I built much more wall than I ever thought necessary. But as you build it, you find out that you need it. And we built it, and there were certain areas then you find out that are leaking and they leak. Like a politician leaks, they leak. And we would get that and we would build that and then you build something else. And it was just a system, we had a great system going. And we could have added another 200 miles of wall and good territory for it. Because it really does work, you know, walls work. Walls and wheels. I would say, you know, a lot of, see what you have here, your tape recorder, everything else is going to be obsolete in about six months. You'll have something that's much better. But the two things that are never obsolete are walls and wheels.

Something you said a moment ago. You said, “We want to protect police from prosecution.” What do you mean by that?

Trump: Police have been—their authority has been taken away. If something happens with them, even if they're doing a very good job, they take away their house, they take away their pension, they take away their, I mean, essentially, they end up losing their families over it. They take away everything. They prosecute people. And we have to give the police back the power and respect that they deserve. Now, there will be some mistakes, and there are certain bad people and that's a terrible thing. But there are far more problems with what's happened now, where police are standing outside of a department store as it’s being robbed and 500 mostly young people are walking out carrying air conditioners and televisions and everything else. And the police would like to do something about it. But they're told to stand down. They said don't do it. And if you do anything about it, if you stop crime, we're going to go after your pension, your home, your family, your wife or your husband. And you know, police are being prosecuted all the time. And we want to give them immunity from prosecution if they're doing their job.

Would you try to pass a law for that through Congress?

Trump: Excuse me.

Would you push a bill through Congress to do that?

Trump: We’d have to take a look at that.

Let’s shift to the economy, sir. You have floated a 10% tariff on all imports, and a more than 60% tariff on Chinese imports. Can I just ask you now: Is that your plan?

Trump: It may be more than that. It may be a derivative of that. A derivative of that. But it will be somebody—look when they come in and they steal our jobs, and they steal our wealth, they steal our country.

When you say more than that, though: You mean maybe more than 10% on all imports?

Trump: More than 10%, yeah. I call it a ring around the country. We have a ring around the country. A reciprocal tax also, in addition to what we said. And if we do that, the numbers are staggering. I don't believe it will have much of an effect because they're making so much money off of us. I also don't believe that the costs will go up that much. And a lot of people say, “Oh, that's gonna be a tax on us.” I don't believe that. I think it's a tax on the country that's doing it. And I know. Look, I took in billions of dollars from China. Nobody else ever did anything on China. I also let people know what the threat of China was. China was going along making $500 to $600 billion a year and nobody was ever even mentioning it until I came along. What's happening in Detroit is very sad because electric cars with this EV mandate, which is ridiculous, because they don't go far. They cost too much and they're going to be made in China. They're all going to be made in China.

Mr. President, most economists—and I know not all, there isn't unanimity on this—but most economists say that tariffs increase prices.

Trump: Yeah.

Are you comfortable with additional inflation?

Trump: No, I've seen. I've seen—I don't believe it'll be inflation. I think it'll be lack of loss for our country. Because what will happen and what other countries do very successfully, China being a leader of it. India is very difficult to deal with. India—I get along great with Modi, but they're very difficult to deal with on trade. France is frankly very difficult on trade. Brazil is very difficult on trade. What they do is they charge you so much to go in. They say, we don't want you to send cars into Brazil or we don't want you to send cars into China or India. But if you want to build a plant inside of our country, that's okay and employ our people. And that's basically what I'm doing. And that’s—I was doing and I was doing it strongly, but it was ready to really start and then we got hit with COVID. We had to fix that problem. And we ended up handing over a higher stock market substantially than when COVID first came in. But if you look at the first few years of what we did, the numbers we had were breathtaking. There's never been an economy—

Sir, the economy was certainly humming during your first term. There's no question about it. But, you know, Moody's did say that your trade war with China cost the U.S. economy $316 billion and 300,000 jobs. [Editor’s note: The estimate of $316 billion was made by Bloomberg Economics, not Moody’s.]

Trump: Yeah. Moody’s doesn’t know what they’re talking about. We had the greatest economy in history. And Moody's acknowledges that. So how did it cost us if we had such a good economy? Everybody admits it. If we didn't do that, we would have no steel industry right now. They were dumping steel all over this country. And I put a 50% tariff on steel. It was gonna go higher. And the people that love me most are businesses, but in particular, the steel industry. They love me because I saved their industry. I've had owners of steel companies and executives of steel companies come up and start crying when they see me. They say, nobody, nobody helped us until you came along. China was dumping massive amounts of steel into our country. And we saved the steel industry.

Do you think that businesses pass along the cost of a tax to the consumer?

Trump: No, I don’t believe so. I believe that it cost the country that—I think they make less. I actually think that the country that is being taxed makes less. I don't believe—

You don't believe that businesses pass on the cost?

Trump: No, I think what happens is you build. What happens to get out of the whole situation is you end up building, instead of having your product brought in from China, because of that additional cost, you end up making the product in the United States. And that's been traditionally what happened. If you look at what goes on. If you look at China, they don't want our cars. They charge them tremendous numbers. You look at India. India is a very good example. I get along very well with the people, representatives of India. Modi is a great guy, and he's doing what he has to do. But we had a case with Harley Davidson, I had Harley Davidson on the White House. I said, “How are you doing? How's business? Very good? Everything's good?” I said, “Just out of curiosity, how do you deal with India?” “Not Well.” Now you’ve got to remember, this is five years ago, four years ago, they said, “Not well. We can't do business with India, because they charged us such a big tariff, it was over 100%.” And at that price, you know, there's a point at which the consumer breaks and can't buy. They said, “But they will do anything for us to build a Harley Davidson plant in India. They don't want us to give motorcycles to India, but they do want us to build a plant.” I said, “Well, I'm not going to be very happy with that.” But that's ultimately what happened. They built a plant in India. And now there's no tax, and I'm saying we're doing the same thing. We're gonna build plants here. Now something that's taking place that nobody's talking about, maybe don’t know, but I have a friend who builds auto plants. That's what he does. If you ask him to build a simple apartment someplace, he wouldn't know how to do it. But he can build the plant, millions of feet, the biggest plants in the world. He's incredible. And I said to him, “I want to see one of your plants.” And he said to me, “Well, are you ready to go to Mexico? Are you ready to go to China?” I said, “No, I want to see it here.” He said, “We're not really building them here, not the big ones, the big ones are being built right now in Mexico or China.” China now is building plants in Mexico to make cars to sell into the United States. And these are the biggest plants anywhere in the world. And that's not going to happen when I'm President, because I will tariff them at 100%. Because I'm not going to allow them to steal the rest of our business. You know, Mexico has taken 31% of our auto manufacturing, auto business. And China has taken a much bigger piece than that. We have a very small percentage of that business left and then you have a poor fool like the gentleman is at the United Auto Workers who is okay with the fact that we're going to do all electric cars and it's so sad to see because the all electric cars are just not what the consumer wants.

Sir, I understand your position—

Trump: And by the way, I have no problem with all electric. I think it's great. And you can buy electric, I think it's fine. They don't go far. They have problems. They don't work in the cold. They don't work in the heat. There's a lot of problems. When I was in Iowa where they were all over. They were all over the streets. It was 40 degrees below zero the night of the Iowa caucuses.

I was there with you.

Trump: Right. That’s right. I’ve never heard of cold weather like that.

Just to clarify something you said a moment ago: You're considering a 100% tariff on Chinese and Mexican imports?

Trump: I didn't say that. They charge us 100%. But they charge us much more than that. India charges us more than that. Brazil charges us what—Brazil's a very big, very big tariff country. I ask people, Who are the worst to deal with? I'm not going to give that to you because I don't want to insult the countries because I actually get along with them. But you'd be surprised. The E.U. is very tough with us. They don't take our foreign products. They don't take our cars. We take Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen and BMW. They don't take our cars. If we want to sell a Chevrolet, even if we want to sell a Cadillac, a beautiful Cadillac Escalade, if we want to sell our cars into Germany, as an example, they won't take them.

Let's come back to Europe later.

Trump: I said to Angela Merkel, “Angela, how many Chevrolets are in the middle of Berlin?” She said none. I said, “You're right about that. But we take your cars, including cars that aren't that expensive, like Volkswagen, relatively speaking.” I said, “Do you think that's fair?” She said, “Probably not, but until you came along, nobody ever mentioned it.”

Sir, you've been critical of how Israel has prosecuted its war against Hamas. In a recent interview, you said that it needed to “get it over with” and “get back to normalcy.”

Trump: Yeah.

So as President, would you consider withholding American military assistance to Israel to push it to winding down its war?

Trump: Okay. So let me, I have to start just as I did inside. [Asks an aide to turn down the air conditioner.] I don't have to go through the whole thing. But as you know, Iran was broke. Iran is the purveyor of—

No, I know that but would you—

Trump: No, but think of the great job I did. It would have never happened. It would have never happened. You wouldn't have had—Hamas had no money. Do you know that?

I do understand that, sir, I just want to know—

Trump: No, but I hope it can be pointed out. During my term, there were stories that Iran didn't have the money to give to any—there was very little terrorism. We had none. I had four years of—we had no terrorism. We didn't have a World Trade Center knocked down. You know, Bush used to say, “Well, we’ve been a safe country.” I said they knocked down the World Trade Center in the middle of your term. Do you remember that one during the debate? That was a good one. But it was true, very true. But we had no terror during our—and we got rid of ISIS 100%. Now they're starting to come back.

I want to know—you said you want to get Israel to wind down the war. You said it needs to “get it over with.” How are you going to make that happen? Would you consider withholding aid?

Trump: I think that Israel has done one thing very badly: public relations. I don't think that the Israel Defense Fund or any other group should be sending out pictures every night of buildings falling down and being bombed with possibly people in those buildings every single night, which is what they do.

So you won’t rule out withholding or conditioning aid?

Trump: No, I—we have to be. Look, there's been no president that's done what I've done for Israel. When you look at all of the things that I've done, and it starts with the Iran nuclear deal. You know, Bibi Netanyahu begged Obama not to do that deal. I ended that deal. And if they were smart and energetic, other than trying to get Trump, they would have made a deal because they were in bad shape. They should have made a deal with Iran. They didn't prosecute that. They didn't make that deal. But I did Golan Heights.

You did.

Trump: Nobody even thought of Golan Heights. I gave them Golan Heights. I did the embassy and in Jerusalem. Jerusalem became the capital. I built the embassy. I even built the embassy.

Right.

Trump: And it's a beautiful embassy for a lot less money than anybody ever thought possible. And you've heard that. But there's been no president that's done what I've done in Israel. And it's interesting. The people of Israel appreciate it. I have like a 98%—I have the highest approval numbers.

Do you know who doesn’t have a high approval rating right now in Israel, though?

Trump: Bibi.

Yeah. Do you think it's time for him to go?

Trump: Well, I had a bad experience with Bibi. And it had to do with Soleimani, because as you probably know by now, he dropped out just before the attack. And I said, “What's that all about?” Because that was going to be a joint and all of a sudden, we were told that Israel was not doing it. And I was not happy about that. That was something I never forgot. And it showed me something. I would say that what happened on—the October 7 should have never happened.

It happened on his watch.

Trump: No, it happened on his watch. And I think it's had a profound impact on him, despite everything. Because people said that shouldn't have happened. They have the most sophisticated equipment. They had—everything was there to stop that. And a lot of people knew about it, you know, thousands and thousands of people knew about it, but Israel didn't know about it, and I think he's being blamed for that very strongly, being blamed. And now you have the hostage situation—

Has his time passed?

Trump: And I happen to think that on the hostages, knowing something about the enemy, and knowing something about people, I think you have very few hostages left. You know, they talk about all of these hostages. I don't believe these people are able or even wanting to take care of people as negotiations. I don't—I think the hostages are going to be far fewer than people think, which is a very sad thing.

You think you could work better with Benny Gantz than Netanyahu in a second term?

Trump: I think Benny Gantz is good, but I'm not prepared to say that. I haven't spoken to him about it. But you have some very good people that I've gotten to know in Israel that could do a good job.

Do you think—

Trump: And I will say this, Bibi Netanyahu rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7.

Do you think an outcome of that war between Israel and Hamas should be a two state solution between Israelis and Palestinians?

Trump: Most people thought it was going to be a two-state solution. I'm not sure a two-state solution anymore is gonna work. Everybody was talking about two states, even when I was there. I was saying, “What do you like here? Do you like two states?” Now people are going back to—it depends where you are. Every day it changes now. If Israel’s making progress, they don't want two states. They want everything. And if Israel's not making progress, sometimes they talk about two-state solution. Two-state solution seemed to be the idea that people liked most, the policy or the idea that people liked above.

Do you like it?

Trump: It depends when. There was a time when I thought two states could work. Now I think two states is going to be very, very tough. I think it's going to be much tougher to get. I also think you have fewer people that liked the idea. You had a lot of people that liked the idea four years ago. Today, you have far fewer people that like that idea.

You said–

Trump; There may not be another idea. You know, there are people that say that that situation is one of the toughest, the toughest to settle.

Yeah, absolutely.

Trump: Because children grow up and they're taught to hate Jewish people at a level that nobody thought was possible. And I had a friend, a very good friend, Sheldon Adelson, who felt that it was impossible to make a deal because the level of hatred was so great. And I think it was much more so on one side than the other, but the level of hatred of Jewish people was so great, and taught from the time they were in kindergarten and before. He felt that—and he was a great dealmaker. He was a very rich man. He was a rich man because of his ability to make deals. And he loved Israel more than anything else. He loved Israel, and he wanted to protect Israel. And he felt that it was impossible to make a deal because of the level of hatred.

Do you feel that way now?

Trump: I disagreed with it. But so far, he hasn’t been wrong.

You said you're proud to be one of the first presidents in generations to have not gotten the United States into a war. You addressed this a little bit in the press conference. But if Iran and Israel got into a war, will you join in Israel side?

Trump: I have been very loyal to Israel, more loyal than any other president. I've done more for Israel than any other president. Yeah, I will protect Israel.

You came out this week and said that abortion should be left to the states and you said you won't sign a federal ban. So just to be clear: Will you veto any bill that imposes any federal restrictions on abortions?

Trump: You don’t need a federal ban. We just got out of the federal. You know, if you go back on Roe v. Wade, Roe v. Wade was all about—it wasn't about abortion so much as bringing it back to the states. So the states would negotiate deals. Florida is going to be different from Georgia and Georgia is going to be different from other places. But that's what's happening now. It's very interesting. But remember this, every legal scholar for 53 years has said that issue is a state issue from a legal standpoint. And it's starting to work that way. And what's happened is people started getting into the 15 weeks and the five weeks or the six weeks and they started getting into, you know, time periods. And they started all of a sudden deciding what abortion was going to be.

People want to know whether you would veto a bill, if it came to your desk, that would impose any federal restrictions. This is really important to a lot of voters.

Trump: But you have to remember this: There will never be that chance because it won't happen. You're never going to have 60 votes. You're not going to have it for many, many years, whether it be Democrat or Republican. Right now, it’s essentially 50-50. I think we have a chance to pick up a couple, but a couple means we're at 51 or 52. We have a long way to go. So it's not gonna happen, because you won't have that. Okay. But with all of that being said, it's all about the states, it's about state rights. States’ rights. States are going to make their own determination.

Do you think that—

Trump: And you know what? That’s taken tremendous pressure off everybody. But we—it was ill-defined. And to be honest, the Republicans, a lot of Republicans, didn't know how to talk about the issue. That issue never affected me.

So just to be clear, then: You won't commit to vetoing the bill if there's federal restrictions—federal abortion restrictions?

Trump : I won't have to commit to it because it’ll never—number one, it’ll never happen. Number two, it’s about states’ rights. You don't want to go back into the federal government. This was all about getting out of the federal government. And this was done, Eric, because of—this was done, this issue, has been simplified greatly over the last one week. This is about and was originally about getting out of the federal government. The last thing you want to do is go back into the federal government. And the states are just working their way through it. Look at Ohio. Ohio passed something that people were a little surprised at. Kansas, I mean, places that are conservative and big Trump states, I mean, Ohio and way up Kansas, all these states, but they passed what they want to pass. It's about states rights.

I understand, sir. Your allies in the Republican Study Committee, which makes up about 80% of the GOP caucus, have included the Life at Conception Act in their 2025 budget proposal. The measure would grant full legal rights to embryos. Is that your position as well?

Trump: Say it again. What?

The Life at Conception Act would grant full legal rights to embryos, included in their 2025 budget proposal. Is that your position?

Trump: I'm leaving everything up to the states. The states are going to be different. Some will say yes. Some will say no. Texas is different than Ohio.

Would you veto that bill?

Trump: I don't have to do anything about vetoes, because we now have it back in the states.

Okay.

Trump: They’re gonna make those determinations.

Do you think women should be able to get the abortion pill mifepristone?

Trump: Well, I have an opinion on that, but I'm not going to explain. I'm not gonna say it yet. But I have pretty strong views on that. And I'll be releasing it probably over the next week.

Well, this is a big question, Mr. President, because your allies have called for enforcement of the Comstock Act, which prohibits the mailing of drugs used for abortions by mail. The Biden Department of Justice has not enforced it. Would your Department of Justice enforce it?

Trump: I will be making a statement on that over the next 14 days.

You will?

Trump: Yeah, I have a big statement on that. I feel very strongly about it. I actually think it’s a very important issue.

Got it. You think this issue should be left to the states. You've made that perfectly clear. Are you comfortable if states decide to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned?

Trump: Are you talking about number of weeks?

Yeah. Let’s say there’s a 15-week ban—

Trump: Again, that’s going to be—I don't have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.

Do you think states should monitor women's pregnancies so they can know if they've gotten an abortion after the ban?

Trump: I think they might do that. Again, you'll have to speak to the individual states. Look, Roe v. Wade was all about bringing it back to the states. And that was a legal, as well as possibly in the hearts of some, in the minds of some, a moral decision. But it was largely a legal decision. Every legal scholar, Democrat, Republican, and other wanted that issue back at the states. You know, Roe v. Wade was always considered very bad law. Very bad. It was a very bad issue from a legal standpoint. People were amazed it lasted as long as it did. And what I was able to do is through the choice of some very good people who frankly were very courageous, the justices it turned out to be you know, the Republican—

States will decide if they're comfortable or not—

Trump: Yeah the states—

Prosecuting women for getting abortions after the ban. But are you comfortable with it?

Trump: The states are going to say. It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It's totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions. And by the way, Texas is going to be different than Ohio. And Ohio is going to be different than Michigan. I see what's happening.

President Trump, we're here in Florida. You're a resident of Florida.

Trump: Yeah.

How do you plan to vote in the state’s abortion referendum this November that would overturn DeSantis’s six-week ban?

Trump: Well, I said I thought six weeks is too severe.

You did.

Trump: You know, I've said that previously.

Yes.

Trump: I think it was a semi-controversial statement when I made it, and it's become less and less controversial with time. I think Ron was hurt very badly when he did this because the people—even conservative women in Florida thought it was—

Well this referendum would undo that. Are you gonna vote for it in November?

Trump: Well, it'll give something else. I don't tell you what I'm gonna vote for. I only tell you the state's gonna make a determination.

Okay, sir. Violent crime is going down throughout the country. There was a 6% drop in—

Trump: I don't believe it.

You don’t believe that?

Trump: Yeah, they’re fake numbers.

You think so?

Trump: Well it came out last night. The FBI gave fake numbers.

I didn't see that, but the FBI said that there was a 13% drop in 2023. [Editor's note: This statistic refers specifically to homicides.]

Trump: I don’t believe it. No, it’s a lie. It’s fake news.

Sir, these numbers are collected by state and local police departments across the country. Most of them support you. Are they wrong?

Trump: Yeah. Last night. Well, maybe, maybe not. The FBI fudged the numbers and other people fudged numbers. There is no way that crime went down over the last year. There's no way because you have migrant crime. Are they adding migrant crime? Or do they consider that a different form of crime?

So these local police departments are wrong?

Trump: I don't believe it's from the local police. What I saw was the FBI was giving false numbers.

Okay. So if elected, going on to the Department of Justice. If elected, would you instruct your Attorney General to prosecute the state officials who are prosecuting you, like Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis?

Trump: Well, we're gonna look at a lot of things like they're looking. What they've done is a terrible thing. No, I don't want to do that. I was not happy looking at Clinton. I was not happy. I think it's a terrible thing. But unfortunately, what they've done is they've lifted up the lid and they've—what they've done to me is incredible. Over nothing.

Well you said Alvin Bragg should be prosecuted. Would you instruct your Attorney General to prosecute him?

Trump: When did I say Alvin Bragg should be prosecuted?

It was at a rally.

Trump: I don’t think I said that, no.

I can pull it up.

Trump: No.

So just to be clear: You wouldn’t instruct your Attorney General to prosecute Alvin Bragg?

Trump: We are going to have great retribution through success. We're going to make our country successful again. Our retribution is going to be through success of our country.

Would you fire a U.S. attorney who didn't prosecute someone you ordered him to? Him or her?

Trump: It depends on the situation, honestly.

So you might?

Trump: It would depend on the situation. Yeah.

Okay, so sir, you said that you would appoint a real special prosecutor to go after Biden and his family—

Trump: Well, it depends what happens with the Supreme Court. Look, a president should have immunity. That includes Biden. If they've ruled that they don't have immunity, Biden, probably nothing to do with me, he would be prosecuted for 20 different acts, because he's created such. You take a look at not only his criminal acts of taking a lot of money and being a Manchurian Candidate. Look at what happened in Afghanistan. Look at what happened throughout the world. Look at what happened with him allowing Russia to do that with Ukraine. That would have never happened with me, and it didn't happen. And I knew Putin very well.

President Trump, isn’t going after your political opponents what they do in a banana republic?

Trump: That’s what’s happening now. Yeah.

Well okay—

Trump: No, no, no, no. Eric, that’s what’s happening now. I’ve got to be on Monday—in fact, we’re doing this today because Monday was a little bit tougher, because I have to be in a criminal court on Monday.

That’s right.

Trump: Over a non-criminal case. It's not even a criminal case. And it's like I said, if you go to Andy McCarthy, or if you go to Jonathan Turley, two real experts, or if you go to all the legal scholars that wrote, they say, this isn't even a criminal case. And I have a judge who's more conflicted than any judge anyone's ever seen. And he's a mean guy who hates Trump. And you take a look at what's going on there. You just asked me, you know, you're talking about—you just asked me a question and they're doing that to me!

Well, sir, just to be clear—

Trump: Wait a minute, I haven't had a chance to do it to them. I would be inclined not to do it. I don't want to do it to them. But a lot of that's going to have to do with the Supreme Court. Look, we are going in another two weeks to the Supreme Court. And they're going to make a ruling on presidential immunity. If they said that a president doesn't get immunity, then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes, because he's committed many crimes. If they say, on the other hand, that a president has immunity, and I happen to think a president has to have immunity, because otherwise it's going to be just a ceremonial position. But Biden has done so many things so badly. And I'm not even talking the overt crime. I'm talking about the border, allowing all of the death and destruction at the border—

Sir—

Trump: Allowing all of this stuff. If a president doesn't have immunity. So when you asked me that question, it depends on what the Supreme Court does.

Well on that question, your lawyer, John Sauer, argued in court recently that if you as President ordered a Navy SEAL team to assassinate a political rival, you shouldn’t be prosecuted. Do you agree with your lawyer?

Trump: Well, I understood it differently. I thought it was a political rival from another country. I think I understood it differently, and I'm not sure. And John Sauer also said that first you go through an impeachment and then you make that determination based on impeachment. But a president, if you don't don't have immunity from prosecution, fairly strong immunity from prosecution. Now, if you do something just overtly very bad and very stupid, that's a different situation. That may be one of those cases.

Gotcha. So just to come back to something you were saying a moment ago, I just want to say for the record, there's no evidence that President Biden directed this prosecution against you. But even if we—

Trump: Oh sure there is.

Well, even if we stipulated that—

Trump: I always hate the way a reporter will make those statements. They know it’s so wrong. It’s just sort of to protect yourself. But no, no. His head of the Justice Department, one of the top few people, was put into the DOJ. Fani, Mr. Wade, Fani’s lover, spent hours in Washington with the DOJ working on my case. The DOJ worked with Leticia James on my case. The DOJ worked with deranged Jack Smith. He's a deranged person on my case. No, no, this is all Biden—

But the question, though—

Trump: And by the way, let me go a step further.

Okay.

Trump: On my case with a woman that I never—that I have no idea who she is, until she made a phone call. “Do you know her?” And I said, “This is something that's a figment of her imagination.”

You’re talking about E. Jean Carroll?

Trump: Then I got sued. Until that, I had no idea who this woman was, I have no, I had nothing to do with this woman. That was done by a political lawyer in front of a highly, in my opinion, a totally inappropriate judge, who was conflicted for a lot of reasons, who wouldn't allow us to put in evidence, he was so bad, he was so evil. But I've had three of those judges in New York now, three of them. That's all I get. And it's a very unfair situation. They've gone after me, it's called election interference. But it's even beyond election interference, what they've done, and they've never seen, and I sort of, it's amazing when you say that Biden knew nothing. Biden knew everything. Just like, he knew nothing about Tucker's business and his business.

Even if we stipulate that, do two wrongs make a right?

Trump: No, I don't, I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to do anything having to do with. I wouldn't want to hurt Biden. I'm not looking to hurt Biden. I wouldn't want to hurt him. I have too much respect for the office. But he is willing to hurt a former President who is very popular, who got 75 million votes. I got more votes than any other sitting president in history. And I have probably eight cases right now that are all inspired by them, including my civil case.

Medicare—

Jason Miller: Eric, the President has his dinner in about 15 minutes. So he has a few more minutes here.

Trump: Are you staying? Are you going to have dinner with everybody?

Yeah, yeah. We only have 15 minutes left?

Trump: Yeah, his dinner is at 7:15.

In that case, let’s just do some rapid-fire questions.

Trump: All right. Do you think you could do this interview with Biden?

You know, he didn’t say yes. So I’m grateful that you’re giving me the opportunity.

Trump: He will never say yes, cause he’s off. He’s off, way off.

Let's take a second to talk about January 6. You have called the men and women who have been prosecuted for their actions on January 6 “hostages” and “political prisoners.” More than 800 of these people have been sentenced through our judicial system, most of whom pleaded guilty. Some of them have been convicted by juries. You've said you will pardon them. Are you calling into question the conclusions of the justice system in more than 800 cases?

Trump: It’s a two-tier system. Because when I look at Portland, when I look at Minneapolis, where they took over police precincts and everything else, and went after federal buildings, when I look at other situations that were violent, and where people were killed, nothing happened to them. Nothing happened to them. I think it's a two-tier system of justice. I think it's a very, very sad thing. And whether you like it or not, nobody died other than Ashli.

Will you consider pardoning every one of them?

Trump: I would consider that, yes.

You would?

Trump: Yes, absolutely.

All right, so—

Trump: If somebody was evil and bad, I would look at that differently. But many of those people went in, many of those people were ushered in. You see it on tape, the police are ushering them in. They’re walking with the police.

I want to ask you another question on this. There are some former allies and staff who don't support you in this election and have cited your attempts to overturn the 2020 election. What would you say to voters who like your policies, but who believe that someone who attacked a cornerstone of democracy—the peaceful transfer of power—cannot be entrusted to preserve it?

Trump: Well, actually, I did the opposite of attack. I'm the one that tried to stop it. I offered 10,000 soldiers and Nancy Pelosi turned me down. So did the mayor of Washington, she turned me down in writing.

What would you say to those voters, though?

Trump: That I offered. Number one, I made a speech that was peaceful and patriotic that nobody reports. Nobody talks about it: peacefully and patriotically. Nobody talks. You know, the committee never used those words. They refused to allow those words. Number two, I had like five tweets that were, go home, blah, blah. I got canceled because of those tweets.

No—

Trump: No, I got canceled because of those tweets. I didn't get canceled because of bad things I said. I got canceled because of good things I said. Because when you read my tweets, and when you see the speech that I made, and when you see the statement that I made in the Oval Office in the Rose Garden, during this very dramatic and horrible period, I'm a very innocent man. Nancy Pelosi is responsible, because she refused to take the 10,000 soldiers or National Guardsmen that I offered. She refused to take them. The mayor of Washington refused to take them too. And they're responsible, you know, for the Capital.

Speaking of this, looking forward—

Trump: One other thing they did that’s so horrible and the press refuses to talk about it. They destroyed all evidence.

Are you worried about political violence in connection with this November's election?

Trump: No. I don't think you’ll have political violence.

You don’t expect anything?

Trump: I think we're gonna have a big victory. And I think there will be no violence.

Mr. President, you've talked a lot about your plan to obliterate the deep state. What exactly does that mean?

Trump: It means we want to get rid of bad people, people that have not done a good job in government. And we look at people like a company would look at people. You know, when you buy a company, you go in and you look at, how do you like the job? Job performance. They have job performance standards. And yeah, we would like to get rid of people that haven't done a good job. And there are plenty of them.

How do you plan to do that? Your team is preparing to give you the power through Schedule F, which would allow you to fire civil servants.

Trump: We’re looking at a lot of different things. Civil service is both very good and very bad. You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected. And you have some people you almost want to protect because they do such a good job. I know a lot of people that are in civil service and they’re outstanding people.

Would you hire anyone who believes Joe Biden won the 2020 election?

Trump: I have no doubt that what we said was fact. The press, the fake news media, doesn't want to talk about it. You know, I have a lawsuit against the Pulitzer Foundation over the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, because they talked about it for two and a half years and it turned out to be a total scam. And then certain writers got Nobel Prizes—

The RNC is holding litmus tests on employees, asking if they believe the election was stolen or not. Would you do the same? [Editor's Note: While the RNC is reportedly asking job applicants this question, it has denied it is a litmus test for employment.]

Trump: I wouldn’t feel good about it, because I think anybody that doesn't see that that election was stolen. It just—you look at the proof. It's so vast, state legislatures where they didn't go through the legislature. They had to go through the legislature. You look at it, it’s so vast, all of the different things. I could give you report after report on state after state of all of the fraud that was committed in the election, and if you had a really open mind, you would say I was right.

I want to get to your policies on Russia and Ukraine in a second, but President Trump, we just passed the one year anniversary of Evan Gerskovich’s detainment in Russia. Why haven't you called for his release?

Trump: I guess because I have so many things I'm working on. I have hundreds of things. And I probably have said very good things about him. Maybe it wasn't reported. But I think he's a very brave young man.

Will you do it now?

Trump: You’re talking about Wall Street Journal?

Yeah.

Trump: Oh, I would certainly call. I’ll call for it right now in your story if you'd like.

Excellent.

Trump: But I do have. I do have many, many things. And here's a difference between me and Biden: I'll get him released. He'll be released. Putin is going to release him.

Can we talk about—

Trump: I think Biden has dealt with Putin very poorly. Putin should never have gone into Ukraine. And he didn't go in for four years with me. I get along very well with Putin, but the reporter should be released and he will be released. I don't know if he's going to be released under Biden.

But you would try to get him released as President?

Trump: Yeah, I would get him released. Yes.

You said that Russia—

Trump: I’m surprised that Biden. Well, I'm not surprised with anything with Biden. But I think it's a terrible precedent. And I'm very surprised that he hasn't been released, but I will get him released, if he's not released by the time we get to office.

Sir, you have said that you're willing to let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that don't spend enough on their defense. If Putin attacked a NATO state that you believe was not spending enough on their defense, would the U.S. come to that country's assistance?

Trump: Yeah, when I said that, I said it with great meaning, because I want them to pay. I want them to pay up. That was said as a point of negotiation. I said, Look, if you're not going to pay, then you're on your own. And I mean that. And the question was asked to me: If we don't pay? It was asked to me long before this event. Do you know that, after I said that, do you know that billions of dollars poured into NATO? Do you know that?

I know that, sir. Secretary General Stoltenberg gave you credit for that. He said that your threat to pull out of NATO—

Trump: Correct.

Led to the allied countries giving $100 billion more on their defense.

Trump: Both then and three years before. Do you know that NATO—the cupboards were bare. They had no cash, they were dying, we were spending almost 100% of the money on NATO. We were protecting Europe. And they weren't even paying.

The question, though, is would you—

Trump: Eight. Only eight countries were paying. The rest of them were delinquent. And I said to them, if you don't pay, enjoy yourselves, but we're not going to protect you. I said it again a few weeks ago, two months ago, I said it again. And I said it, that if you don't pay. Look, that's the way you talk as a negotiator. I'm negotiating because I want them to pay. I want Europe to pay. I want nothing bad to happen to Europe, I love Europe, I love the people of Europe, I have a great relationship with Europe. But they've taken advantage of us, both on NATO and on Ukraine. We're in for billions of dollars more than they're in in Ukraine. It shouldn't be that way. It should be the opposite way. Because they're much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don't. And when I say things like that, that’s said as a point of negotiation, and I did a very good job because billions of dollars came in recently.

You said in 2016 in an interview, you said “in order to get reform, you have to be willing to walk away.”

Trump: I said, for instance, the question was asked when we had a very big meeting, rather secret, but the press knew about it. We had 28 countries at that time. And a gentleman stood up who happened to be the head of a very important country. And he said, “Are you saying”— because I said to him, “You guys aren't paying your bills, we're paying your bills. It's not fair. You're hurting us on trade. And then on top of it, we're defending you. We're spending most of the money on NATO with the United States.” I said it's not fair. And the man stood up and said, “Are you saying that if we aren't paying our bills, if we don't pay our bills, and Russia attacks us, are you saying that you will not protect us?” I said that's exactly what I'm saying.

Now, after I said that, billions of dollars poured in. It was like magic. Obama never said that. Obama would go give a speech and he’d leave. Bush would go give his speech and he’d leave. I went, I looked at the numbers, and I said, wait a minute, the United States is paying for NATO. We're paying for close to 100% of NATO.

So the question, though, sir—

Trump: And not being treated right, because we're being treated very badly by most of the same countries on trade.

So you want to renegotiate the terms of the treaty, it sounds like. Do you want to—

Trump: No, I just want them to pay their bills. I don't have to renegotiate it. It's like Biden. Biden has the right to close up the border right now. He doesn't need anything from Congress. Same thing with NATO. I don't need to renegotiate the terms of the treaty. All I need to do is have them pay their bills. They don't pay their bills.

Do you want to maintain 80 years of American leadership in defending the West, especially Europe, or do you want to change the architecture of the post-war world that has kept us out of a World War for the last 80 years?

Trump: I want them to pay their bills. Very simple. NATO is fine. See, the problem I have with NATO is, I don't think that NATO would come to our defense if we had a problem.

You don't?

Trump: No, I don't believe that. I know them all. It's a one-way street, even if they paid. I want them to pay. But I believe if we were attacked, NATO wouldn't be there. Many of the countries in NATO would not be there.

Would you continue to provide military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine?

Trump: I’m going to try and help Ukraine but Europe has to get there also and do their job. They're not doing their job. Europe is not paying their fair share.

Orban says he came here and met with you, and said that you wouldn’t give a penny. Is he wrong?

Trump: No, I said I wouldn't give unless Europe starts equalizing. They have to come. Europe has to pay. We are in for so much more than the European nations. It's very unfair to us. And I said if Europe isn't going to pay, who are gravely more affected than we are. If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay?

So you may not aid Ukraine?

Trump: Look, we get hurt on trade. We get hurt on trade. European Union is brutal to us on trade. We went over it, the cars, they don't want our agriculture. They don't want our cars. They don't want anything from us. It's like a one-way street. Well it’s the same thing with NATO. They treat us very badly. They don't pay their bills. Now, I came along and they start paying their bills. I'll tell you something, Secretary Stoltenberg said, and I hope he says it now, but he certainly said it then loud and clear, he has never seen any force like Trump. Because every president would come over, they'd make a speech and they'd leave. Trump came over and he got us billions and billions of dollars. I got them hundreds of billions of dollars from countries that were delinquent. And he was my biggest fan. I hope he still is, but I don't know that he is, you know, maybe he is, maybe he is. But even this recent go-round, right, because you're asking me a question. There are two parts of that question. One is, four years ago, and one is now. I did a hell of a job getting money for NATO because nobody else—NATO had no money. NATO couldn't have even prosecuted what they're doing right now. They had no money. All they were doing was building stupid office buildings. They built a $3 billion office building.

Taiwan—

Miller: Eric, Eric, I gotta wrap because his dinner is coming up.

Can we just do the rapid fire then, because—

Miller: Eric, I literally have three minutes until this dinner starts.

Okay, you said—

Trump: By the way, you understand what I just said?

Yeah, yeah.

Trump: He spent $3 billion by the same architect—

Let’s just go through this rapid fire because of the time.

Trump: But you understand?

I do. I do, Mr. President. You said you only want to be dictator for a day. What did you mean by that?

Trump: That was said sarcastically as a joke on Sean Hannity. He said, “Do you want to be a dictator?” I said, “Only for one day. I want to close up the border and I want to drill, baby, drill.” Then I said, “After that, then I never want to be a dictator.” That was done. That was said sarcastically. That was meant as a joke. Everybody knows that.

Do you see why—okay, you say you were joking, but do you see why—

Trump: No, no, wait. If you read it, it was a joke. I wanted to be for one day. You know why? Because we have an incompetent fool that’s allowing people to come into our country. We have an incompetent fool that drove energy prices so high over such a short period of time. And by the way, you know, he's gone to a lot of my policies now. But the day after the election, if they win, there won't be any more oil.

Do you see why so many Americans see language like that, you know, dictator for a day, suspending the Constitution—

Trump: I think a lot of people like it.

But you see why they see that as contrary to our most cherished democratic principles?

Trump: No. I think the press does. Not because they don’t understand it. They understand it as well as you do, as well as anybody does. That was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically.

Only four—

Trump: It’s like “Russia, if you’re listening.” Remember “Russia, if you’re listening”?

Yeah.

Trump: That was said in the exact same vein. “Russia, if you're listening.” Everybody knows that was said sarcastically. But they cut off the laughter. You know, they cut it off immediately. As soon as it was—immediately, it was cut off. But that was said, sarcastically, a joke, it was in jest. This is the same thing. I said, “I want to be dictator for one day, I want to close up the border. And I want to drill, baby, drill.” And then I said, “After that, I don't want to be a dictator.” Now—

You did.

Trump: I did. But nobody reports that.

Well, we have a chance to have a good conversation and get the full truth here, which is what I’m trying to do.

Trump: But you understand what I mean.

I know what you mean.

Trump: I hope you report it. Because that was said.

I’m giving you a chance to respond.

Trump: Good. That was also said, Eric, with a smile. I'm laughing. And Sean Hannity, it was a question that he asked me.

It scares people, though, sir. It scares people.

Trump: I don't understand why it would. Everybody. Anybody that saw it would say I was laughing. He was laughing. The whole place was laughing. You know, it was a town hall?

I saw it.

Trump: And the town hall, they were laughing like hell. That was said in jest.

Only four of the 44 people who served in your cabinet the last time are endorsing you in this election. [Editor’s note: Roughly half a dozen Trump cabinet members had endorsed him at the time of this interview.] A number, as you know, have come out and said they won't support you in this election.

Trump: I don’t know. Like who? I’ve gotten many. I got Mnuchin!

Your former chiefs of staff, your former secretary of defense—

Trump; Well, I don’t know. Look, I mean—

The question, though, is why should voters—

Trump: Well, wait. Even this week, Mnuchin endorsed me. Pompeo endorsed me. Who are the people that? I mean, some didn’t because I didn't think they were very good. Look, when people think you don't like them and you're not going to bring them back. I'm not going to bring many of those people back. I had some great people. I had some bad people. When they think they are not in favor and they're not coming back, they're not inclined to endorse.

Well, the question I have to ask you, sir, is why should voters trust you?

Trump: I’ve had a lot of people endorse me.

You’ve gotten a lot of—

Miller: I’ll send him the full list.

You’ve gotten a lot of endorsements. I don’t dispute that. But the question I have to ask—

Trump: No, I mean that. I’ve had a lot of people endorse me from cabinets. Now, I have to tell you this, I haven’t asked for a lot of endorsements.

They come to you know. I know, sir.

Trump: If I call up 95% of those people that you say, if I made one phone call, they’d be endorsing me in two minutes.

The question I have to ask you is: Why should voters trust you when so many of the people who watched you the most closely in the first term don't think you should serve a second?

Trump: Well, they don't because I didn't like them. Some of those people I fired. Bill Barr, I fired Bill Barr. I didn't want him. Other people. I thought he did a terrible job. As soon as he was going to be impeached, he was going to be impeached by the Democrats, he totally folded. Bolton was a fool. He was a stupid fool. But actually, he served a good purpose because he's a nutjob. And every time he walked into a room, people thought you were going to war. He's one of the people, one of the many people, that convinced Bush to go into the Middle East, blow the place up and end up with a whole destroyed world. And nothing. What did anybody get out of it? We blew up the Middle East. And nobody got anything out of it. That was one of the Bolton people. You could go past. You could give me every single person you're talking about. And I would tell you a reason why I wouldn't want their endorsement. Now I had great people like, you know, I rebuilt the military.

Miller: The president's late for his dinner.

Biden doesn’t have any cabinet members who have come out against him.

Trump: Because Biden’s a very different kind of a guy than me. He keeps bad people. For instance, when you had Afghanistan, he kept Milley. Milley should have been fired immediately. Milley should have been fired based on his statement to China. If he actually made those statements, that's a very serious thing. You know, the statement to China, if he actually made them, and I guess he did, because they're on tape. That is really a serious problem. But he should have been fired for that. Other people should have been. Many people should have been fired. I did fire people, I fired a lot of people. Now I let them quit because ,you know, I have a heart. I don't want to embarrass anybody. But almost every one of those people were fired by me.

You could look at the military people. I said, “Hand me a letter, general, hand me a letter,” every one of them. So they handed me a letter. I don't think I’ll do that again. I think, from now on, I’ll fire. You know why? Because they say that they quit. They didn't quit. I said, “Hand me a letter.” That's a gentleman's thing to do. “General, hand me a letter.” I took care of ISIS. I had people saying it would take five years. I did it in a very short period of time. We have a great military, if you look at our military, I have great support from our military, from the real people, from the real generals, not the television generals. But I could ask for endorsements from 90 to 95% of the people that you're telling me. Every one of them would give me an endorsement.

Would you—

Miller: Eric, Eric, I do have to get the president to his dinner. I’m sorry.

Both the Heritage Foundation's Project 25 and the American Conservative magazine, they're a big supporter of yours, have proposed abolishing the 22nd amendment that limits presidents to two terms. They say that, you know, if you come back into office, you will have served two non-consecutive terms, and that if the popular will is there for you, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to—[Editor's note: The proposal came from the American Conservative, not Project 25.]

Trump: I didn't know they did that.

Well, would you definitely retire after a second term, or would you consider challenging the 22nd amendment?

Trump: Well, I would, and I don't really have a choice, but I would.

You would consider it?

Trump: I’m at a point where I would, I think, you know, I would do that. Look, it’s two terms. I had two elections. I did much better on the second one than I did the first. I got millions more votes. I was treated very unfairly. They used COVID to cheat and lots of other things to cheat. But I was treated very unfairly. But no, I'm going to serve one term, I'm gonna do a great job. We're gonna have a very successful country again—

But you’d consider it?

Trump: And then I'm gonna leave.

You’d consider it, you said.

Trump: Consider what?

Challenging the 22nd amendment.

Trump: I don't know anything about it. I mean, you're telling me now that somebody's looking to terminate. I wouldn't be in favor of it. I wouldn't be in favor of a challenge. Not for me. I wouldn't be in favor of it at all. I intend to serve four years and do a great job. And I want to bring our country back. I want to put it back on the right track. Our country is going down. We're a failing nation right now. We're a nation in turmoil.

Miller: Eric, we’re way past—the President’s gotta get to his dinner. I’m sorry.

Is there anything we didn’t talk about that you wanna talk about before they—

Trump: No.

Any question that I didn’t ask you that I should have?

Trump: No, I thought it was a good interview, actually.

Well, I really appreciate—

Trump: I mean, if it’s written fairly, it’s a good interview.

I had so many more questions I’d love to ask you.

Trump: And I find them to be very interesting questions.

I just try to ask good, probing questions. I have a lot more I’d love to talk about.

Trump: All I ask is one thing: Treat it fairly.

I will, sir.

Trump: I will say this, let me just say this. Everybody wants to work for me. And a lot of people say, “Oh, would he work for me? Oh, would he be a Vice President? Would he accept?” Vice President? I’ve got everybody in the nation calling me begging me to be vice president. I have everybody calling me wanting to be in the cabinet. Everybody wants to work for me. Everybody. And the practice of saying, “General, give me a letter” or “somebody give me a letter,” that's a nice thing to do. I don't think I'll do it anymore. But that's a nice thing to do. But everybody wants to work for me. We're gonna have a very successful administration. And the advantage I have now is I know everybody. I know people. I know the good, the bad, the stupid, the smart. I know everybody. When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people. I had to rely on people. And some of those people gave me very good advice.

People close to you tell me you’re more skeptical now—

Trump: Of what?

Of people betraying you in Washington?

Trump: I'm not more skeptical. I know the way nature—that's the way nature works. And I run a tough operation and some people can't take it. You know, working for Biden is very easy. He never fires anybody. He should fire everybody having to do with Afghanistan. He should fire everybody having to do with the border. I would have fired everybody and it would have been a big story.

Miller: Eric, he’s 10 minutes late for his dinner.

All right, all right. I don’t mean to be rude.

Trump: No, I find it very interesting.

Thank you, sir.

Trump: Thank you very much. Follow-up Phone Interview With Trump

Two weeks after the Mar-a-Lago interview, TIME conducted a 20-minute phone interview with Trump on April 27. Below is a lightly edited transcript of that conversation.

Last time we spoke, you said you had an announcement coming over the next two weeks regarding your policy on the abortion pill mifepristone. You haven't made an announcement yet. Would you like to do so now?

Trump: No, I haven’t. I’ll be doing it over the next week or two. But I don't think it will be shocking, frankly. But I'll be doing it over the next week or two. We’re for helping women, Eric. I am for helping women. You probably saw that the IVF came out very well. And, you know, I set a policy on it, and the Republicans immediately adopted the policy.

That’s true.

Trump: And that was a good policy for women. You know, it's about helping women, not hurting women. And so IVF is now, I think, really part of what we do. And that was important. I think that might have been right around the time of our interview. But in terms of the finalization—and you saw that Alabama and other states have now passed legislation to approve that.

Right, right. And of course there was the law in Arizona that was passed since then too.

Trump: Right.

Mr. President, for the first time ever, Iran recently launched a massive attack against Israel from its own territory.

Trump: Right.

If Israel and Iran get into a war, should the US support Israel in striking Iran militarily?

Trump: Yes, if a situation like occurred. A lot of people say it was a ceremonial, it was a ceremonial attack. Because they allowed everybody to know what happened, et cetera, et cetera. If that’s the case, it would be a good thing, not a bad thing. But a lot of people say that that attack was, you know, I mean, everybody knew about it. I heard about it long before the attack was made, and so did many others. So it would depend, obviously, but the answer is yes. If they attack Israel, yes, we would be there.

Gotcha. Well, on that front, right now there are campus protests across the country, as you know, against Israel and against Israel's war in Gaza and against the United States’ posture there.

Trump: Right.

Your former Secretary of Defense says you once suggested shooting protesters in the leg during the Black Lives Matter—

Trump: Yeah, which Secretary of Defense was that?

That was Esper.

Trump: Well, he was my worst Secretary of Defense. He was a weak, ineffective person. He was recommended by some RINOs that I don't have too much respect for. But I was, you know, I was not there very long. So I had to rely on people. No, he was a very ineffective Secretary of Defense. No, but I would, are you talking about in the case of colleges, or what are you talking about?

I was just going to ask, would you use the American military against protesters as President?

Trump: Well, I would use certainly the National Guard, if the police were unable to stop. I would absolutely use the National Guard. It would be something, I mean, if you look at what happened in Washington with monuments, I passed the law. I took an old law, brought it into effect that you get a minimum of 10 years without any adjustment if you do anything to desecrate a monument and everything was immediately set up. I didn’t have to use very much. That was having to do with the monuments. That was the monument period, where they liked to rip down monuments.

And I signed into effect a law that gives you 10 years, not one day less than 10 years of prison if you desecrate a monument. You know, that was very effective. I don’t know, I think you saw it, everything stopped after that.

I remember that period, sir. So you would rule out using the military on protesters?

Trump: Well, I would use the National Guard. I don't think you'd ever have to use much more than that.

So you have spoken a lot about “woke-ism” on college campuses. Polls show a majority of your supporters have expressed the belief that anti-white racism now represents a greater problem in the country than anti-Black racism. Do you agree?

Trump: Oh, I think that there is a lot to be said about that. If you look at the Biden Administration, they're sort of against anybody depending on certain views. They're against Catholics. They're against a lot of different people. They actually don't even know what they're against, but they're against a lot. But no, I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country and that can't be allowed either.

How would you address that as President?

Trump: I don't think it would be a very tough thing to address, frankly. But I think the laws are very unfair right now. And education is being very unfair, and it's being stifled. But I don't think it's going to be a big problem at all. But if you look right now, there's absolutely a bias against white and that's a problem.

I want to get to your thoughts on China. Do you think the U.S. should defend Taiwan if China invades?

Trump: Well, I’ve been asked this question many times and I always refuse to answer it because I don't want to reveal my cards to a wonderful reporter like you. But no. China knows my answer very well. But they have to understand that things like that can’t come easy. But I will say that I have never publicly stated although I want to, because I wouldn’t want to give away any negotiating abilities by giving information like that to any reporter.

I understand your position there—

Trump: It puts you in a very bad position if you actually come out and make a statement one way or the other.

I understand, sir. Taiwan's foreign minister said U.S. aid for Ukraine was critical for deterring China from attacking Taiwan. Do you agree with that?

Trump: Well, I think they think the concept, because they have the same concept. Are we going to be helping them the same as we helped Ukraine? So they would want to think that, they think if you’re not helping Ukraine, you’re most likely not going to be helping them. So I think it’s difficult from their standpoint in terms of the policy. That’s a policy of the United States. It’s to help various countries that are in trouble.

You said you would back Israel if it goes to war with Iran. Do you think the U.S. can keep troops in the Middle East and contain the expansionist goals of Russia and China at the same time, or would we need to withdraw troops to realistically manage our obligations overseas?

Trump: I think we have a lot of options. And I think we’re in a lot of places where we shouldn't be, and we probably aren't in some places where we should be. We have a lot of options as to troops. And one of the things we have, we can manage our expectations, troops can be put in certain locations very quickly.

Would you withdraw troops from South Korea?

Trump: Well, I want South Korea to treat us properly. As you know, I got them to—I had negotiations, because they were paying virtually nothing for 40,000 troops that we had there. We have 40,000 troops, and in a somewhat precarious position, to put it mildly, because right next door happens to be a man I got along with very well, but a man who nevertheless, he’s got visions of things.

And we have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position. And I told South Korea that it's time that you step up and pay. They’ve become a very wealthy country. We've essentially paid for much of their military, free of charge. And they agreed to pay billions of dollars. And now probably now that I’m gone, they're paying very little. I don't know if you know that they renegotiated the deal I made. And they're paying very little. But they paid us billions, many billions of dollars, for us having troops there. From what I’m hearing, they were able to renegotiate with the Biden Administration and bring that number way, way down to what it was before, which was almost nothing.

Gotcha. President Trump, you have been—

Trump: Which doesn’t make any sense, Eric. Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country. But they're a very wealthy country and why wouldn't they want to pay? They were actually, they were a pleasure to deal with. Not easy initially, but ultimately, they became a pleasure to deal with. And they agreed to pay billions dollars to the United States for our military being there. Billions, many billions.

President Trump, you have been the leader of the world's most powerful democracy and you have dealt with the leaders of authoritarian countries. Why is democracy better than dictatorship?

Trump: Well, it's because the word freedom. You have freedom. And you have all of the advantages with none of the disadvantages. You have freedom if you have a real democracy. I think we’re becoming less of a democracy when I look at the weaponization of the Justice Department, the FBI. When you look at what happened with FISA. When you look at all the things that have happened, we’re becoming less and less of a democracy. But with democracy, if it's a properly-run democracy, which it will be, if and when I get back into office, it’ll be a very proper democracy, not like what we have right now. I don't even think what we have right now is, where a presidential candidate has to spend eight hours a day in court instead of campaigning over nothing. Over zero. Over nonsense. And all speared and all spread out and—and really done by the Biden administration. And I think that's no longer democracy. I think that's third-world country stuff.

I want to get you to respond to one other thing you said that stirred some controversy. You once wrote on Truth Social that you might have to terminate parts of the Constitution. What did you mean by that?

Trump: I never said that at all. I never said that at all. When I talk about certain things, we are, there is nothing more important than our Constitution. But the Democrats have violated our Constitution with crooked elections and many other things. They violated it by using the FBI and the DOJ to go after people very unfairly, very unconstitutionally. I have a judge that gave me a gag order, where I'm the leading candidate, I'm leading Biden. I'm the Republican candidate who's substantially leading Biden. I don't know if you've seen the recent polls, Eric. But in fact, if you would, we will send them to you. Jason, if you could send them to Eric, it would be great.

Jason Miller: Yes, sir.

Trump: But we're substantially leading in all of the swing states and overall, and you know, I’m in a court case. A Biden-inspired court case, where the judge has put a gag order on me where I'm not allowed to answer many very important questions. And so that's a violation of our Constitution. And I would end those violations of Constitution. So that's what I was referring to. They have broken the Constitution. They have gotten very far astray from our Constitution. I'm talking about the fascists and the people in our government right now, because I consider them, you know, we talk about the enemy from within. I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others that would be called enemies depending on who the president is, frankly.

President Trump—

Trump: Because if you have the proper president, you'll be able to handle them very smartly, and everybody will be very satisfied. But if you don't have the proper president, I agree they would be strong enemies. But the enemy from within is a bigger danger to this country than the outside enemy, on the basis of having a president that knows what he's doing. Because if a President is good, solid, the proper person, and you're not gonna have a big problem with China, Russia or others, but you still have a problem from the sick people inside our country.

Mr. President, in our last conversation you said you weren't worried about political violence in connection with the November election. You said, “I think we're going to win and there won't be violence.” What if you don't win, sir?

Trump: Well, I do think we're gonna win. We're way ahead. I don't think they'll be able to do the things that they did the last time, which were horrible. Absolutely horrible. So many, so many different things they did, which were in total violation of what was supposed to be happening. And you know that and everybody knows that. We can recite them, go down a list that would be an arm’s long. But I don't think we're going to have that. I think we're going to win. And if we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election. I don't believe they'll be able to do the things that they did the last time. I don't think they'll be able to get away with it. And if that's the case, we're gonna win in record-setting fashion.

One last question, Mr. President, because I know that your time is limited, and I appreciate your generosity. We have just reached the four-year anniversary of the COVID pandemic. One of your historic accomplishments was Operation Warp Speed. If we were to have another pandemic, would you take the same actions to manufacture and distribute a vaccine and get it in the arms of Americans as quickly as possible?

Trump: I did a phenomenal job. I appreciate the way you worded that question. So I have a very important Democrat friend, who probably votes for me, but I'm not 100% sure, because he's a serious Democrat, and he asked me about it. He said Operation Warp Speed was one of the greatest achievements in the history of government. What you did was incredible, the speed of it, and the, you know, it was supposed to take anywhere from five to 12 years, the whole thing. Not only that: the ventilators, the therapeutics, Regeneron and other things. I mean Regeneron was incredible. But therapeutics—everything. The overall—Operation Warp Speed, and you never talk about it. Democrats talk about it as if it’s the greatest achievement. So I don’t talk about it. I let others talk about it.

You know, you have strong opinions both ways on the vaccines. It's interesting. The Democrats love the vaccine. The Democrats. Only reason I don’t take credit for it. The Republicans, in many cases, don’t, although many of them got it, I can tell you. It’s very interesting. Some of the ones who talk the most. I said, “Well, you didn’t have it did you?” Well, actually he did, but you know, et cetera.

But Democrats think it’s an incredible, incredible achievement, and they wish they could take credit for it, and Republicans don’t. I don't bring it up. All I do is just, I do the right thing. And we've gotten actually a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed. And the power and the speed was incredible. And don’t forget, when I said, nobody had any idea what this was. You know, we’re two and a half years, almost three years, nobody ever. Everybody thought of a pandemic as an ancient problem. No longer a modern problem, right? You know, you don't think of that? You hear about 1917 in Europe and all. You didn’t think that could happen. You learned if you could. But nobody saw that coming and we took over, and I’m not blaming the past administrations at all, because again, nobody saw it coming. But the cupboards were bare.

We had no gowns, we had no masks. We had no goggles, we had no medicines. We had no ventilators. We had nothing. The cupboards were totally bare. And I energized the country like nobody’s ever energized our country. A lot of people give us credit for that. Unfortunately, they’re mostly Democrats that give me the credit.

Well, sir, would you do the same thing again to get vaccines in the arms of Americans as quickly as possible, if it happened again in the next four years?

Trump: Well, there are the variations of it. I mean, you know, we also learned when that first came out, nobody had any idea what this was, this was something that nobody heard of. At that time, they didn’t call it Covid. They called it various names. Somehow they settled on Covid. It was the China virus, various other names.

But when this came along, nobody had any idea. All they knew was dust coming in from China. And there were bad things happening in China around Wuhan. You know, I predicted. I think you'd know this, but I was very strong on saying that this came from Wuhan. And it came from the Wuhan labs. And I said that from day one. Because I saw things that led me to believe that, very strongly led me to believe that. But I was right on that. A lot of people say that now that Trump really did get it right. A lot of people said, “Oh, it came from caves, or it came from other countries.” China was trying to convince people that it came from Italy and France, you know, first Italy, then France. I said, “No, it came from China, and it came from the Wuhan labs.” And that's where it ended up coming from. So you know, and I said that very early. I never said anything else actually. But I've been given a lot of credit for Operation Warp Speed. But most of that credit has come from Democrats. And I think a big portion of Republicans agree with it, too. But a lot of them don't want to say it. They don't want to talk about it.

So last follow-up: The Biden Administration created the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, a permanent office in the executive branch tasked with preparing for epidemics that have not yet emerged. You disbanded a similar office in 2018 that Obama had created. Would you disband Biden's office, too?

Trump: Well, he wants to spend a lot of money on something that you don't know if it's gonna be 100 years or 50 years or 25 years. And it's just a way of giving out pork. And, yeah, I probably would, because I think we've learned a lot and we can mobilize, you know, we can mobilize. A lot of the things that you do and a lot of the equipment that you buy is obsolete when you get hit with something. And as far as medicines, you know, these medicines are very different depending on what strains, depending on what type of flu or virus it may be. You know, things change so much. So, yeah, I think I would. It doesn't mean that we're not watching out for it all the time. But it's very hard to predict what's coming because there are a lot of variations of these pandemics. I mean, the variations are incredible, if you look at it. But we did a great job with the therapeutics. And, again, these therapeutics were specific to this, not for something else. So, no, I think it's just another—I think it sounds good politically, but I think it's a very expensive solution to something that won't work. You have to move quickly when you see it happening.

Well, Mr. President, you've been extremely generous with your time, both in Mar-a-Lago and today, so thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to ask you these questions.

Trump: Thank you, Eric. And it’s an honor getting to know you. And call me anytime you want, okay?

All right, I will, sir. Thank you.

Trump: Okay. Thank you very much.

Correction, April 30: The original version of this transcript mis-attributed a proposal to abolish the 22nd amendment. It was proposed by the American Conservative magazine, but not by the Heritage Foundation's Project 25.

[daffodilhorizon]

i've always been outspoken about equal rights. It started with posts about mental illness stigma. Since being traumatized as a child, i've struggled with depression and anxiety. I opened up about this, in hopes others would feel inspired to share their stories. There's every reason why suffering from mental illness should not happen alone. Then i started talking about gay rights and biphobia and feminism and #metoo and the patriarchy. I tirelessly educated on rape culture and mansplaining. I went hard on telling people to vote (haha) for the most liberal option available. I told people about the wealth gap and classism. I educated myself and read both anarchist and communist theory, and then i started criticizing colonialism and exploitation itself. I advocated for unions, i told people to never cross a picket line and to support strikes. I was already ACAB before Ferguson, but after that i spent years reading antiracist theory and seeking out black revolutionaries. I had to tell an extended family member "all lives don't matter until black lives do". I did not shy from my work in attempting to gently radicalize the people in my life. I attempted to educate others on why we need prison and cop abolition and the alternatives. I got pretty far, even with people i don't consider leftists! Like anyone else, i of course, advocated for environmentalism. I myself do not own a car and go to great lengths to use fully renewable energy. I re-use before recycling. I avoid plastic when i can. In my veganism self-education, i learned about disability rights. This was enforced further during covid. I stopped using ableist language or comparisons. I have successfully eradicated using comparisons to intelligence in my daily life and gently correct people around me when they use them to use a better word. None of this lost me any friends. Until i brought up animal rights. Even the tamest "i'm vegan" had acquaintances putting distance between us. My entire family turned on me, simply for saying stuff like "you are a good person, you just don't see the difference between your cat and a pig because of defense mechanisms, but you would be upset if your cat went through what animals at those places do." or saying killing a turkey is wrong. Then i started losing friends and being ostracized. From people who said nothing even when i pointed out war crimes against Palestine and are full anti-capitalists. People who are open minded, and generally kind to others. People's environmentalism evaporated when i pointed out that methane from cows is x28 as heating as CO2 in the short term, that we can't stay under 2c without people being plant based, or that the majority of plastic in the ocean is from fishing nets, or that fishing is killing way more sea turtles and other "cute" animals than straws. Even just mentioning animal victims a few times every now and then is enough to make people uncomfortable. Definitely not a sign of their own guilt or anything! How painful must the reminder be, to have to completely block out not only the victims at every meal, but humans who remind them of the suffering they are inflicting as well. So it's very jarring to me now, to see other people advocating for other causes saying much more extreme things and not getting any negative social feedback. Straight up mainposting things like "you are a bad person for voting wrong" is becoming more normal with the election season coming up. But vegans get shut down simply for bringing up animal abuse, because carnists know deep down it's wrong to hurt animals and objectify them into commodities. That's why they care so much about animals they view as "cute" "pets" or value (at least on the surface) animals they admire for being free and wild such as Elephants, pretty birds, and whales.

[weatherman667]

Climate Change

Long Post

Climate Change is a completely and utterly bullshit term.  What they mean is Global Warming.  The reason they changed it is the Global Warming is something that can actually be MEASURED.  And if it can be measured, it can be refuted.

Every time a major weather event happens, people bring it out as proof of Global Warming, without the slightest effort to look into the data.  I live in an area that became a worldwide exemplar for how Global Warming is killing us, but the fun thing is I’ve lived here my entire life.  We had a similar heat dome 25-ish years ago.  The reason it had record temperatures was that it happened earlier in the year than the last heat wave.

The Canadian government also uses REARWARD PROJECTIONS to prove the veracity of it’s forward projections for temperature.  What this means is that we cannot believe anything the Canadian government says about temperature data.  For the record, before the government did this, the temperature graph was basically flat.

Just before the change happened, there was a study that looked at mostly rural sites around the country, and showed no change.

But wait, is Carbon Dioxide a greenhouse gas or not?

Yes, yes, yes it is.  And yes, for a time, the increase in global temperatures did match the increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.

So, Global Warming is real then?

First, to put it into perspective, the three biggest contributors to global temperature, other than the Sun, obviously, (we’ll get to that later), is:

Water Vapour

Rayleigh Scattering

All Other Gases.

Carbon Dioxide is the biggest contributor from All Other Gases, but Oxygen and Ozone also apply.

Gas light absorption graphs are logarithmic.  You need an order more gas to produce a linear increase in absorption.  What this means is that at a minimum, for Carbon Dioxide to absorb more light, we’d need to double the current levels, and 10 times is not out the realm of the possible.

Before we jumped on the Global Warming bandwagon without any proof, (more on that later), the scientific consensus is that we were likely going towards a new ice age.

None of these theories are mutually exclusive.  We added Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere, and put off Glaciation, and then Carbon Dioxide reached saturation, (reached a point that it would require 10x more to increase the Greenhouse Gas Effect it can produce).

No onto some other issues that are often brought up as counterproof for Global Warming:

Acid Rain:  We restricted the chemicals that were making acid rain.  We did a fantastic job of cleaning up our emissions, until we started worrying about Carbon Dioxide.

Hole in the Ozone:  This was caused by CFC’s, and we banned them.  And the Ozone layer healed everywhere but Australia.

By contrast, CO2 is, literally, plant food.  A number of green houses use CO2 generators because higher concentrations of CO2 allows them to grow more.

Alright, let’s say we want to stop producing CO2.  Even if not for Global Warming, then as my father suggested, to save some carbon for when we’ll risk going back to glaciation.  So, we want to reduce our carbon emissions, what do we do?

Solar Power:  This takes a of energy to create.  There are other problems, but the biggest one is that we don’t have storage.  California has too much solar power, as they cannot store it for usage when they actually need it.

Wind Power:  We are doing this in an insanely stupid way.  I’m seriously, most wind turbines are the worst way we would do it.  Wind Power is also highly temperamental, and we don’t have a good way of storing it.

These both work on smaller scales, and are something we can slowly lean into, but they cannot provide most of our power.  Actually, we can learn from Germany.  Germany had the highest amount of power from renewables in the world, and decided to increase the ratio.  The rest of their power was from nuclear, so they shuttered nuclear power plants to replace them with solar and wind.  But, solar and wind are temperamental, and you need something that can quickly spin up to make up for any shortfall.  And that is fossil fuels.

So, Germany trades nuclear for fossil fuels, which they were getting from Russian.  And then the Ukraine war started, and the US convinced the EU to no longer pay Russia for gas.  And that’s how you get an energy crisis.

Nuclear Power:  Canada solved all of the problems with Nuclear Power in the 60′s.  And I do mean all of them.  CANDU reactors CANNOT go critical, cannot meltdown, and can use natural uraniums, so they don’t need enrichment.  Nuclear power is the only method we can quickly scale up for out usage.  Quite frankly, if we are going to replace fossil fuels, this is the only method of producing power we can use to do it.  Like I said, Solar and Wind can be developed slowly, but we need to work on storage.

The best / only way to store power in the grid currently is pumped hydro.  Which works, extremely well, but the problem is that regions that can use pumped hydro can just use hydroelectric dams.  Hydroelectric dams and geothermal power are both fantastic, but you have to have the right environment.

How can we store power?

Lithium:  It works.  It’s extremely expensive, extremely inflammable, and we probably don’t have enough for the entire world’s needs.

Hydrogen:  Hydrogen fuel cells work.  Hydrogen combustion engines work.  Hydrogen never went away.

Synthetic Fuel:  One of the major car racing organizations, (can’t remember which one), is planning to switch to wind-generated synthetic fuel that is made using atmospheric gases, (primarily CO2), and water.

And now for electric cars.  If everyone switched to electric cars, it would be better for the environment?  No.  Ignoring the fact that a lot of people cannot use electric cars, the switch would cost most energy than we would save.  Gasoline cars can work for 20 years without a problem.  Electric / hybrid cars typically need a battery replacement after 5 years, which is often the same value as the car at that time.  This means you cannot buy the car for any price, as you will have to shell out thousands, (maybe tens of thousands for a truck), for a used car.  I bought my first car for $1,000.  I traded it in for $500.  Not only are we locking most people out of the car market, but we are making it so that financially, you might as well just buy a new car.  For electric cars (US):

New Nuclear Power Plant every 2 weeks for 20 years.

Quadruple the electrical infrastructure in all regions, without taking growth into account.

Have every - single - apartment building have individual garage stalls that can have a charger hooked up.

Even then, it’s still terrible for people living up North, as the cold takes a HUGE amount of power from the batteries.  With gasoline cars, we use waste heat from the engine to heat the cabin.

[marta-bee]

Pressing on with the great Good Omens read-through, I do believe I've imprinted on our Newt Pulsifer; or at least identified with him to a perhaps extreme degree.

He's just some guy, you know? Looking for a job, he winds up working for Shadwell for a pittance. Bored and more than a bit stultified by being locked in a small room with his nonsense, he grasps at the chance to run an errand and even volunteers to pay his own way. I get it; we've all been in an office where the walls are closing in a bit and we jump at the chance to make a Starbucks run for everyone. And then:

Firstly, however, Newt had to do something about the flying saucer. It landed in the road ahead of him just as he was trying to find the Lower Tadfield turning and had the map spread over the steering wheel. He had to brake hard. It looked like every cartoon of a flying saucer Newt had ever seen. As he stared over the top of his map, a door in the saucer slid aside with a satisfying whoosh, revealing a gleaming walkway which extended automatically down to the road. Brilliant blue light shone out, outlining three alien shapes. They walked down the ramp. At least, two of them walked. The one that looked like a pepper pot just skidded down it, and fell over at the bottom. The other two ignored its frantic beeping and walked over to the car quite slowly, in the worldwide approved manner of policemen already compiling the charge sheet in their heads. The tallest one, a yellow toad dressed in kitchen foil, rapped on Newt's window. He wound it down. The thing was wearing the kind of mirror-finished sunglasses that Newt always thought of as Cool Hand Luke shades. "Morning, sir or madam or neuter," the thing said. "This your planet, is it?" The other alien, which was stubby and green, had wandered off into the woods by the side of the road. Out of the corner of his eye Newt saw it kick a tree, and then run a leaf through some complicated gadget on its belt. It didn't look very pleased. "Well, yes. I suppose so," he said. The toad stared thoughtfully at the skyline. "Had it long, have we, sir?" it said. "Er. Not personally. I mean, as a species, about half a million years. I think." The alien exchanged glances with its colleague. "Been letting the old acid rain build up, haven't we, sir?" it said. "Been letting ourselves go a bit with the old hydrocarbons, perhaps?" "I'm sorry?" "Could you tell me your planet's albedo, sir?" said the toad, still staring levelly at the horizon as though it was doing something interesting. "Er. No." "Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you, sir, that your polar ice caps are below regulation size for a planet of this category, sir." "Oh, dear," said Newt. He was wondering who he could tell about this, and realizing that there was absolutely no one who would believe him. The toad bent closer. It seemed to be worried about something, insofar as Newt was any judge of the expressions of an alien race he'd never encountered before. "We'll overlook it on this occasion, sir." Newt gabbled. "Oh. Er. I'll see to it-well, when I say I, I mean, I think Antarctica or something belongs to every country, or something, and-" "The fact is, sir, that we have been asked to give you a message." "Oh?" "Message runs 'We give you a message of universal peace and cosmic harmony an' suchlike.' Message ends," said the toad. "Oh." Newt turned this over in his mind. "Oh. That's very kind." "Have you got any idea why we have been asked to bring you this message, sir?" said the toad. Newt brightened. "Well, er, I suppose," he flailed, "what with Mankind's, er, harnessing of the atom and-" "Neither have we, sir." The toad stood up. "One of them phenomena, I expect. Well, we'd better be going." It shook its head vaguely, turned around and waddled back to the saucer without another word. Newt stuck his head out of the window. "Thank you!" The small alien walked past the car. "CO2 level up 0.5 percent," it rasped, giving him a meaningful look. "You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?"

The two of them righted the third alien, dragged it back up the ramp, and shut the door. Newt waited for a while, in case there were any spectacular light displays, but it just stood there. Evnetually he drove up on the verge and around it. When he looked in his rear-view mirror it had gone. I must be overdoing something, he thought guiltily. But what? And I can't even tell Shadwell, because he'd probably bawl me out for not counting their nipples.

I mean, what the heck is he supposed to do with all that? That's kind of the point at the end of the day. We are all Newt's, I guess, and what can any of us do, either on our own or to escalate it to someone who actually has the ability to respond? It's kind of a reminder of just how young Adam is, to imagine a response to all the environmenta damage that was really that straightforward and simply-handled. And he is that young, and the world really is that complicated (and therefore so thoroughly screwed). Not that there's not work to do or hope for improvement, but it's certainly not so simple as delivering a police citation.

But it's also just hilarious. Poor, poor Newt.

**************

On a different note, the bit about Agnes Nutter was really interesting. I think she cursed God (or its functional equivalent at least) for acting when They didn't really understand the issues at play. But I'm going to have to think about just what's going on with that little reference, probably reread it,, or more likely than not move on without fully unpacking it, because life is busy and I am a tired little Marta these days. But there's most definitely something going on there.

There's also something fascinating about Agnes's acceptance of the label 'witch': For wytch I am, for soe I am judged, yette I knoe not what my true Cryme may be. She's not scared of the word but precisely because it only means others attached it to her and she's not done anything wrong (quite the contrary, she's quite clearheaded and is mostly known for having helped her neighbors live more healthily), the word itself doesn't mean anythin bad.

She's a bit fearless, isn't she? Or at least has a broader view by virtue of her foresight. A badass certainly. I do hope we get more snippets about her as the story progresses.

[randomoranges]

been having some complicated feelings with my writing. it’s been hard to find the motivation to write. en tout cas. had this idea since last year. it’s very short but whatever. it’s a thing that is done instead of another incomplete project.

Y fait chaud dans l’métro/It’s Getting Hot in Here

 Étienne opens the door to his class after hearing the familiar toc-toc toc toc and before he can even say anything, Edward breezes by and makes his way towards the couch in the back of the class, where he lets himself fall on it with a groan. Étienne locks the door behind him and follows him back to the couch, already amused by his antics.

“It is so fucking hot. I’m drenched and it’s barely noon.” Edward bemoans. He pulls away his shirt to attempt to get a breeze going, but it doesn’t seem to do much. Étienne takes pity on him and heaves one of the two fans towards him. It may only push hot air around, but it’s better than nothing. “How hot is it in here anyways?” He asks as a distraction, while Étienne brings over the second fan, getting some sort of wind tunnel going around him.

“Twenty-eight degrees and seventy-two percent humidity.” He reads off from CO2 reader on the wall.

Edward groans and curses at the same time. “It’s thirty-one up in mine. It’s a boiler. It honestly feels like there’s a wall of heat.”

Étienne gives him a sympathetic pat on the back and joins him on the couch. Even though he has a higher tolerance for the heat, even he has to admit that this is ridiculous.

“I swear to God, if you even attempt to sit any closer to me or cuddle, I will push you away and then melt on this couch.” Edward warns and Étienne knows better than to do any of that, so he stays where he is and opens the lunchbox Edward had brought along. He rummages through it and takes out the carrots before nibbling on one. He’s not hungry – the heat always cuts his appetite but he makes an effort before Edward can call him out on it.

“You know, when I first moved to this godforsaken city, I thought people who had air conditioners were exaggerating and weak.” Edward says as he tears into one of the sandwiches from the lunchbox.

Étienne chuckles, remembering hearing such a comment. He also remembers Edward insisting on putting a unit in their bedroom when they moved in together, but he makes no mention of it, “And now?”

“And now I wonder why this godforsaken government hasn’t started putting them in these old as hell schools.”

“Because they’re too comfortable in their air-conditioned offices and out of touch with reality.” Their own principal and most of the administrative staff in the school has a unit in their office. They don’t obviously, because it would be too complicated or too costly, or some other bullshit excuse. But, it’s okay if the kids and the staff suffer day in and day out. Not that it has any effect on them, really. Or the kids. Or their concentration.

Edward looks at him and manages a stifled laugh. “You know, I think that even without the air-conditioning and the heatwave they’d still be out of touch with reality.” He takes a long swig of water and tries to peel himself away from the back of the couch. “For the record, I also thought you were out of touch with reality when you suggested we get a pool.”

Étienne recalls that conversation fondly. He’d held his bit and eventually, Edward had come around. Now, it almost seems as though Edward gets more use out of the pool than he does.

“And now?” Étienne prods gently.

“Now I think you were gifted with future vision and you knew in what a miserable state I’d be in, languishing in this suppressive heat.”

“You’re welcome,” He teases. “I gather you’ll be going for a swim when we get home?”

“You bet your ass I am. Hell, I might just even jump in fully clothed. Or not. It’s all up for debate.”

“I look forward to seeing what you decide.” Étienne tells him from the lip of his own water bottle.  

FIN