#and his problems which are worse than Franken's right now

[earl-of-221b]

He thinks of Frankenstein’s son. He thinks of the boy in the snow. He thinks of the boy in the snow as Frankenstein’s son, even when he knows better. He thinks of Frankenstein as someone’s son. He had a father, a mother, once upon an age, did he not? Not even an age. Frankenstein is not yet one hundred years old. His forebears lived mere decades ago, and he was brought up in a place something like this, among snowy winters, crisp mountain air and crowded town squares full of festival song and dance, light for the dark and memorial for the deceased. He lived like this, once upon a time, perhaps ploughed fields like this, else apprenticed in the next town like this; and he was going to have the son he craved, daughters too, a warm house with a homely fire, a beautiful, seasonal garden, and a table spread certainly not lacking of ciorba de burta. This is the rich, varied, chaotic human life he was going to have. Living in a farmstead, village, citadel like this. With people like them. He was going to live like them and die never reaching his one hundredth year like them. He is them.

Frankenstein’s lips tug mischievously into one corner as he catches Raizel’s eye from across the round. 

Does he miss his people? Does he miss his world? 

Raizel doesn’t miss Lukedonia.

Excerpt from ch 7 of Strangers

[cabinofimagines]

I hate you; I love you; I hate that I love you. 

 So, y’all remember those requests I answered in the past days? Well, here they are. They are, in fact not multiple fics, but one big fic. Title comes from the song ‘I hate u, I love u’ by gnash, good feelings there. 

Thank you Danny for being the Doctor Franken to my Doctor Stein, she wrote parts of this fic too! We’re really clearing out the inbox with this!

Pairing: Percy Jackson x Reader Requests: Listed at the bottom for more dramatics! No spoilers here. Words: 5.6k (it long lol) Warnings: description of panic attack, like 3 cuss words uuh

-Asnyox (ft. Danny) 

This was not what you had planned at all. You never wanted to meet  Perseus Jackson, you never wanted to see him up close so you could look in his rumored sea green eyes, you never wanted to see his stupid face in your mind. 

And yet, that idiot was there, all the time. It was stupid, you, a child of Aphrodite, to fear love, to fear him. And yet you had all the reason to be. This was not part of your plan. But perhaps, if you got him crazy enough, he would join you. 

Percy was facing the same problem; he did not want to admit that your face made his heart stammer. He did not want to admit that it wasn’t only your Aphrodite charms working on him but also your character, the way you carried yourself. He was never going to admit to the fact that he wanted you a lot closer to him than you were right now. 

No, that was all stupid, and weird, and not him. 

So, Percy being the boy he is figured the best way to get over the weakness in his knees, the sweating of his palms, was to challenge you. Sure, this was all just a weird fear of you, right? This would bring it all to an end as soon as he beat you. 

‘And what’s in it for me?’ You asked him, cocking your eyebrow, ‘I mean, surely you understand how this battle would be unfair right?’ Why was your gaze so intense to him?

‘I mean, we would not be fighting each other, just different monsters-’ you interrupted him,

‘Only one of us was dubbed the best swordsman of camp?’ you rested your hand on your palm, knowing full well the looks your fellow cabin mates were sending you. Percy’s eyes widened as he realized what you meant. 

‘Well, I could- uh’ he stammered, ‘I could have a handicap of some sorts?’ he suggested, feeling his composure falter under your gaze, and the glares your cabin mates had started sending him. ‘Or we do two challenges? This one is yours and I pick another one?’ you glanced at your siblings, seeing a few mischievous smiles form on their faces. Sure, you could trust them to come up with a good one. You had no idea as to why Percy was asking for this challenge. Well, you kinda had a suspicion, but you were praying to be wrong. Still, if you were right, you had to make sure he wouldn’t win.

Percy seemed to be thinking.  What would you challenge him to? It could not be much worse than fighting monsters, which he was sure he could win. His fingers twitched a bit, and he balled his fists to get a grip. He nodded and looked back at your -uh not beautiful at all- face. ‘I agree, what will you challenge me too?’ you looked at your cabin mates, smiling. ‘Any suggestions?’ you asked them, looking around. 

‘What about-’ Drew started, but you cut her off. ‘No. Anyone else?’ Drew glared at you and scoffed, sure it might’ve been unfair, but you didn’t want to do a fashion show of some sorts. ‘What about the nervous game? We could empty out the cabin for that?’ a voice piped up and you nodded. 

‘What’s the nervous game?’ Percy asked tentatively. It might not have been a suggestion by Drew, but he didn’t know it and he wasn’t about to go in blind. ‘You’ll find out, Jackson. You agree?’ You extended your hand, and your gaze once again made his insides turn to mush. It was time for Percy to get over his fear of you, it was time to face you in your evil game, whatever it would be. He nodded and shook your hand. 

The dumbass.

-

‘Okay, the rules are that whoever gives the vital blow to the monster wins! You’re allowed to use any and all resources from within the arena, however you are not allowed to attack each other, is that clear?’ Chiron announced. Of course, a fight between the son of Poseidon and anyone else would become a special occasion, you cursed under your breath. 

‘Beat him (Y/n)!’ you heard Clarisse scream from the tribunes. You were sure that she would gladly have taken your place. This was excessive, you thought, especially now you wouldn’t be able to use any dirty tricks to get Percy down. Gods, why did you ever think this was a good idea? 

But this needed to happen. Both you and Percy nodded and turned to look at each other. ‘May the worst swordsman win,’ you said as you extended your hand. Percy let out a laugh, ‘May the best swordsman win, indeed’ you shook hands and readied your weapons. 

‘Alright, release the chimera!’ Chiron’s voice boomed through the arena. The cheering got louder than ever. This was going to be fun. 

As soon as the chimera was released you felt the rush of adrenaline kick in. You charged forward, trying to slash at the chimera’s head. You missed and side stepped before the chimera could lash out at you. It bared its teeth and was solely focusing on you now. However, you now saw that Percy was trying to sneak around and attack it from the sides. Oh, Hades, he was not going to get out of this easy.

You ducked under the chimera’s goat head and ran straight to Percy, successfully getting the chimera to focus on him. However, you weren’t paying attention and stumbled and fell. ‘Fuck-’ suddenly the chimera was on top of you, its weight holding you down. You felt the cold metal of your necklace pressing against your skin, your stomach dropped with dread. This can’t end like this, you could do this, you had to fight back.

Percy’s eyes widened, realizing the danger you actually were in right now. You gasped feeling a claw slash your right arm. 

Percy let out a scream as he charged straight at the chimera, this successfully got the beast of you, and you gasped for air. This man would NOT be your rescue, after all the things you’ve gone through to be where you are, Percy Jackson, out of all the campers there, would not end up being your hero, you swore as you stood up. You did now see that the chimera was facing away from you, and Percy was backed against a wall. Grabbing your sword with your left hand you silently and swiftly made your way to the beast. His snake tail focused on you, but you quickly chopped it off and immediately stabbed the chimera in its back. The beast let out a loud howl as it turned to dust, and you sent a shit eating grin towards Percy. ‘Seems like the worst won, huh?’ 

Percy grimaced, now he had to win your game, whatever the rules were. 

-

‘Okay, so the rules are simple. You need to touch the other person’s body - PG-thirteen places, mind you- and ask if they’re nervous. If they say no, you may continue, if they say yes, you need to stop and it’s their turn.’ you stated. Percy had expected a lot, scares, heart opening stories, but not some stupid couples game. Alas, it was too late to back out or he would immediately lose to you, and he would never again.  

‘So how do you win?’ he asked, trying to mask his disgust, and nervousness. He knew that the ‘symptoms’ he had around you would make this a hard one. ‘Well, whoever lasts the longest, I guess.’ you half smiled at him. 

You both were seated on the floor of the Aphrodite cabin. Much like your siblings promised, they had given you an alibi and an empty cabin. People weren’t allowed to be with only two in a cabin, but if half the Aphrodite campers can’t be found outside, where else would they be? 

The perfume smell was suffocating Percy, and he wanted to say that the location was an unfair advantage for you, however he figured that this game was best done without an audience. The pink in the walls made him want to puke, or the nerves in his body. ‘So, who starts?’ 

‘I guess that since I’m the host today, I should show you how it’s done,’ You smirked.

Silently you eyed him up, Percy cursed in silence, you weren’t even touching him and he was already breaking. He took a deep breath, ready for whatever you were about to do.

Your hand made its way to his forearm, one finger slowly tracing the veins downwards until you reached his wrist, Percy’s heart was hammering, for a brief second he wondered if you’d be able to feel his pulse, even though your fingers were merely hovering above his skin. 

You couldn’t though, soon your hand was making its way back to his bicep and your fingers disappeared under the fabric of his short sleeve, he could feel the warmth of your digits pressing against his shoulder, and he had to stop himself from making an embarrassing sound, his eyes fixed on his own hands trembling with anticipation.

‘Are you nervous?’ You asked after what felt like the longest time.

He composed himself, throwing a small, but confident smile your way. ‘Nah. My turn.’

As Percy fingers slowly traced up your arm, his hand seemed to stop shaking. He carefully touched your shoulder, and his eyes met yours. ‘Are you nervous?’ you shook your head, your heart beat picking up. His hand moved to your neck, slowly hovering up. His fingers brushed your neck and you shivered a bit. Then his hand started moving downwards, going towards the necklace you were wearing. Your heart beating fast, and as Percy touched the leather of your necklace and his face inched closer to yours, you backed away. Too close, Percy was just too close.  

 ‘Nervous already?’ Percy looked at you. You shook your head. ‘No, no, it’s uh,’ you swallowed, gods why had you let your guard down? ‘I am not too happy with, uh, those parts? Of myself?’ you looked down at the floor. 

‘Huh?’ Percy looked at you in bewilderment, ‘You? Insecure?’ Your head shot up as you glared at him. ‘Yeah, make fun of it alright,’ you spat as you sat up. ‘No, that’s not-’ Percy stammered. ‘Sure it isn’t. An Aphrodite child can’t have problems huh? With how they look or how they feel?’ You felt a slight burning in your eyes, fuck- ‘Just because mom has it all worked out does not mean we do, Perseus. Just because you’re like your daddy, does not mean everyone else is.’ You blinked as you felt a warm tear slip down. You opened your eyes to see that Percy was silent and staring. Didn’t this guy have anything going on behind his beautiful eyes? 

You stood up, and made your way to the door. ‘You win this round Jackson, do what you want with it.’ you sighed as you walked out. You needed time, that’s all you needed. 

--

Ever since Percy ‘won’ the nervous game, he could not dismiss this icky feeling whenever he saw you. He started paying attention to the way you smiled and laughed, he started looking at your eyes. He noticed how often the emotions you portrayed were not the ones you were feeling. Your eyes didn’t lit up when your face did. Your lies didn’t add up to the times you actually were fine. 

He did not enjoy seeing you suffer. You might have been a fear of his, but not anymore. He now saw that you needed a friend, and that’s something he could be. Percy Jackson made it his job to not rest until you were genuinely happy. Well, he would sleep of course, but you get the point. 

‘Hi, Y/N!’ He welcomed you as soon as you walked past the arena.

You frowned a bit but returned the greeting. ‘Hi?’

‘Want to train with me?’

You looked around, wondering if you were the only camper available. You weren’t, lots of people were walking around with nothing to do, then you looked back at him. 

‘Why?’

‘After the moves you pulled during our challenge I think I might need to learn a thing or two from your book,’ He grinned. ‘C’mon, I hate training in silence! We could chat, get to know each other?’

You froze in your spot. Get to know what? What could he possibly want to know about you? There were lots of things you could tell him about yourself, but you doubted any of them would help you get a date with the son of Poseidon. 

‘Uh, maybe later, okay?’ You smiled tensely, you weren’t ready. ‘Promise.’

Percy’s smile faltered, but his stare remained soft. ‘Oh, yeah okay, no worries.’

And there you were, wondering if the way Percy now treated you was better or worse than before. Was this really what you wanted, or was it only what you thought you desired? You needed the answer, but you weren’t getting it.

Besides, this was just too dangerous to keep up. Sure, having him wrapped around your finger technically could make things a lot easier for you, if not better. But what if this was all a trap? What if he didn’t actually like you? What if he’s just trying to get close and comfy so then you’ll feel safe enough to let your guard down? You’ve gone through enough disappoints me in this lifetime, you can’t let him get in the way.

--

‘Everything okay in there?’ Silena nudged your arm playfully. 

‘I’m well enough,’ you shrugged, ‘You know, the general peachiness?’ you looked at your sister. She shot you a knowing smile. 

‘It’s about Percy, isn’t it?’ she asked softly and you let out a sigh. ‘Perhaps, Silena. Perhaps not.’ You sort of sneered. You really weren’t in the mood to talk about this. You looked at your fellow cabin mates who were readying themselves for the day. Silena studied your face and put a hand on your shoulder. 

‘I am sure it’ll go well, (Y/n),’ she squeezed your shoulder, ‘He won’t hurt you, you know that right? Harmless sea puppy. The way he’s acting... I can assure you he has feelings for you, things will go great.’ You looked down, took a breath and looked at Silena,

‘But what if he likes, I don’t know, Annabeth? They’re close and we barely talk at all. Besides, Annabeth has so much more than I do!’ you exclaimed, feeling despair crawl up your spine. 

‘Stop that,’ Silena said severely, ‘Look at you, (Y/n), don’t doubt yourself. We are the children of one of the most powerful goddesses, you got this.’ You nodded silently, leaning closer into Silena’s shoulder as a way of comfort. ‘Next time you see Percy just go ahead and ask him. If he says no, then that’s it. But if he says yes you can move further!’ you glanced in Silena’s eyes, a weird courage building up in your mind. 

‘I will, I promise.’ you said as you removed yourself from Silena’s grip. You would just need to confront Percy. 

‘Good. In the meantime, you keep yourself busy. Don’t get too caught up in your mind, okay? Don’t overthink, just do it.’ Silena’s frown deepened and your heart squeezed. 

‘I know.’

---

It was hard enough, sitting through breakfast while trying not to stare at the son of Poseidon. It was even harder to see Annabeth go to his table and just sit down. The audacity! That was against the rules, and you wanted any reason to get her away from Percy. But you saw how they conversed, hushed and secretive. And you saw the smile Percy got from whatever Annabeth said, and you realize your mistake. You should never have convinced yourself that this would work. 

A soon as breakfast was done you locked eyes with Percy. He seemed to want to talk, but you couldn’t, not now. You went back to your cabin.

Silena told you not to overthink, but it was hard not to. You couldn’t do it, you weren’t good enough for your own goals, and you certainly weren’t good enough for Percy. It felt as if the weight of the world was on your shoulders. Why were you so tense? What were you playing at?

It was too much, the weight on your shoulders had spreaded all the way to your chest and throat and now it felt as if you were suffocating. The weight became a burning sensation, the pain stopping you from breathing properly. Your blinked and your sight was blurred, your hands were clammy and tense like never before. What was happening? 

You slammed the door close and fell against the door, covering your mouth with one hand in an attempt to control your breathing. You heard yourself gasping for air, yet you felt nothing enter your body. Your own gasps were painful to your eyes and a loud buzzing invaded it. You needed to focus, anything. Your palm felt ice-cold against your lips, and you felt your breath fawn against it. You closed your eyes, realizing this had to be a type of curse sent from above, the gods could see right through you, they were judging you, your plans, your longings…

Someone knocked on the door but it was enough to startle you. You jumped back to your feet and stumbled further into the cabin, crashing your back against one bunk bed. Your sobs were stopping you from speaking, but the person at the other side of the door spoke first.

‘Y/N?’ 

‘Don’t come in,’ You replied, but it came out so broken even you couldn’t tell exactly what you were saying, or if you even spoke out loud. The buzzing noise was still there, and you were sure you were being burned. 

The doorknob twisted and soon enough Percy’s sea green eyes were staring back at yours.

‘Holy shit– are you okay?’ He stepped further into the cabin, thinking that maybe you were hurt.

‘Don’t!’ You demanded again, looking down and doing your best to hide your face.

‘Gods, Y/N, what happened?’ He remained a few feet apart from where you were standing, not quite sure of what was going on.

‘What are you doing here?’ You asked in distress. 

‘I came to… I just wanted to ask if you wanted to train now but i heard someone crying and i thought you… Please, Y/N just tell me what’s wrong.’

You just shook your head. What was wrong? What wasn’t wrong? Everything was wrong! The war, friends leaving camp in the dead of night without anyone knowing, and you. You, and your stupid heart. And Percy, with his annoying loyalty and his godly looks. What was wrong? Life was wrong. This was wrong, you couldn’t have him, you were not good for him and what he was destined to be.

But maybe, just maybe, you didn’t have to be so strong all the time. Maybe showing a bit of vulnerability was exactly what you needed. And perhaps, you could even pretend everything was right just for a moment.

Messy as you were, broken and anxious beyond your own capacity. You gave in. You sobbed harder, letting the stress pour and drown you. It didn’t take long before Percy decided to close the distance, not before making sure you were alright with it. As soon as he felt you initiating contact, he wrapped his arms around you.

‘I’m sorry,’ You mumbled against him, ‘I’m sorry I can’t be good.’

‘What?’ You heard him, you could almost sense his frown.

‘I’m not worth it, Percy. What do you want from me? I’m so, so tired…’

‘Not worth it?’ He softly whispered in disbelief. ‘Y/N, what are you saying?’ he gently tightened his hold on you, hoping to ground you and let you know you were safe.

‘Oh please,’ You sniffed. ‘Look at me. Look at… at Annabeth. She’s got everything. Skills, looks, brain… and you. Or course she’s got you.’ He felt your body stiffening, as if you were trying to lessen the contact between the two of you.

‘I mean, I got her back, yeah… she’s my best friend,’ Percy started. ‘But that’s… I mean, you shouldn’t try to compare yourself to Annabeth. It’s like trying to compare a pegasus with a seahorse.’

You couldn’t help the little trembling laughter that came out then. ‘What?’ your eyes seemed to finally find focus again, as you looked at the son of Poseidon. You saw how his face flushed. 

‘I just- uh,’ Percy stammered, ‘What I mean is that you’re amazing, and great. Just in different ways,’ he let out a small laugh, ‘Like, sure Annabeth is great, but in different ways. You’re both great people, but you are also both different.’ Percy looked up, and he smiled to himself. 

‘And between the two of us? I think I like you better.’ he said as he shifted his hold on you, looking into your eyes. His heart was beating out of his chest, but he knew he shouldn’t tell you right now. What you needed was support, not a love life. 

You send him a small smile as you close your eyes. You let your head rest against his shoulder and sighed. ‘I’m sorry you had to see this, Percy,’ you apologized, only for Percy to shake his head. ‘Don’t do that, I am happy I could help you, you shouldn’t go through stuff like this alone.’ You hummed in reply. 

‘How about we go off the floor now, and find somewhere more comfortable.?’ He suggested and you nodded. To your surprise, he just lifted you up, and sat you down on your bed. As you both got comfortable you felt a droopiness take over your eyes. 

‘Thank you, Perce.’ You softly said as you let sleep take over. 

Percy smiled softly at your sleepy form. He really wished he could have told you how much you really mattered to him, he wished he could’ve whispered sweet nothings into your ears. His heart stammered and he pulled you close. If you loved him back, he would sure be the luckiest man alive. 

As you shifted, something hung out of your shirt. He noticed and grabbed the leather string to put it back. Carefully, he pulled the necklace softly and soon enough he was staring down at the little charm hanging from it. He froze.

Percy stared at the scythe attached to your necklace in horror. 

----

You woke up, feeling warmth surround you. Someone was holding your waist and the smell of the beach woke you up completely, you slowly opened your eyes.  The events of the day before flushed into your mind and you realized - oh Gods, Percy was holding you. Your heart picked up its beat as you bathed in his presence, smiling and knowing what he thought of you. As you shifted closer to the boy, he spoke up. 

‘Hey, (Y/n),’ his voice sounded cold, and you moved away to look at his face. There were bags under his eyes, and he seemed pale. ‘Gods, Percy, you look sick!’ you exclaimed, moving your hand to his face to check for temperature. He caught your wrist before you could touch him. 

‘I’m fine, I just had to,’ he paused, ‘think.’ you shot him a confused look and gestured him to continue. In reply he just shook his head. He got out of the bed you two shared and you sat up. ‘Did everyone leave for breakfast already?’ you asked the boy in front of you. 

He didn’t reply, as Percy felt his stomach get heavier with every passing second. The scythe doesn’t have to mean you are the spy. You don’t have to be the traitor. You could just be his, his love and nothing more, right? He looked into your eyes, and swore he saw actual care in them, actual feelings. You, the wonderful amazing (Y/n), would never betray your friends? Why would you? 

‘Perce?’ you slowly stood up, ‘Are you alright?’ Percy’s eyes looked at you, but you felt like he was looking through you. ‘Percy?’ your started to feel anxious, heartbeat going faster. Something was wrong, but what? Had you overestimated Percy’s feelings? ‘Do you,’ you carefully picked your words, ‘did you not want to be with me?’ you softly asked. 

Percy wanted to be with you, and he wanted you. But could he trust you?

‘Your necklace.’ a painful look crossed his face at the sound of his own voice, ‘where did you get it?’ 

You gulped, your throat closed and a buzzing invaded your ears. When did he-? Shit. Of course he’d seen it, you spent the whole night together. And you’d fallen asleep first.

‘It’s- I- I got it from a friend,’ you brought out as you reached for your necklace. It was still there, thankfully. 

‘A friend?’ Percy’s cold voice chilled your bones, ‘Who?’ 

Who did give you the necklace? It wasn’t Silena, and you knew Percy would read you like a book. Saying any name now would make him look into them- would arouse suspicion. 

‘Why do you want to know, Percy?’ you shot back, stepping back and feeling your bed against the back of your knees. You were cornered by your love and your loyalty. Your heart stammered and you were sure he could hear it. 

‘Was it Luke?’ you could see a storm in his eyes, as the water was dripping from them. The sea was overflowing and this was your fault. You should’ve known he would find out - you should’ve known that you would fall for him and fail.  

But he couldn’t know, and honestly, he did not want to know. The way your face changed when he asked about the necklace told him everything, the way you dodge the question and the way your beautiful eyes were now looking at him like he was a chimera you needed to beat. 

‘Please, (Y/n),’ Percy’s facade cracked and he felt angry, ‘Just tell me.’ it sounded rough, it sounded painful. The hurt on his face was killing you, and you wanted to cry. You wanted to yell, resign from the army and live a happy life. Forget you ever made mistakes. But you could never go back, not now. 

‘I won’t lie to you,’ you coldy said, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Percy.’ You took a deep breath, the air only weighing you down.

‘Then don’t,’ Percy moved forward, ‘You can join camp, stop serving Kronos,’ He reached for your hands and you tried to step back, but instead you sat down on the bed. 

You realized that Percy would never betray the camp. He wouldn’t do it for love, he wouldn’t do it for you, he would never do it. You had realized it countless times between jokes and laughs, when he trained the newer campers or went on quests. His loyalty ran deeper than any possible feelings he could have. He wore his heart on his sleeve, but his duty was deeply rooted inside him. And yet you wanted him, you wish you could have willed him to leave camp, and he would never. 

‘You’re such a fucking dog, Jackson.’ you said and you stood up pushing him out of the way, ‘Oh so loyal to this stupid camp.’ you grabbed the emergency bag you kept next to your desk. You needed to get out of camp before Percy turned on you. ‘A dog of the gods. You think they’ll love you for it– Wake up,’ You turned and glared at the only person you ever loved, ‘Why won’t you see that they’ll never care for you?’ 

You once again pushed Percy aside, this time to reach your sword. Percy grabbed your wrist, trying to stop you. You couldn’t leave him, nor camp. He did not want to lose you, he wanted to hold you, to remove this cold exterior you put up. He knew this wasn’t you, this was merely a mask, one crafted carefully around your true beautiful face, he couldn’t blame you, people do things in order to survive, and you, like all the others, were doing nothing but your best. But you needed to know, surely you had to know by now… you didn’t have to face things alone anymore. 

‘You don’t have to go, (Y/n).’ Percy pleaded, ‘I know it’s hard, and the gods aren’t always there, but you can stay,’ his voice quivered, ‘you can stay with me. I won’t tell anyone and we can work this out. Together. I won’t let them take you.’ 

You wished, but you had sworn yourself to the cause. Perhaps it was you who had become Kronos’ dog, but you didn’t care. You needed out, you needed air, you needed time... you needed Percy, but you could not get any. You ripped yourself from his hold and grabbed your weapon. You moved to the doorway.  

‘C’mon! Please, (Y/n),’ You could hear the heartbreak in his voice. ‘I… I love you, don’t do this! I know we can work it out!’

You stiffened in your pace, guards down, face lowered. You loved him too, with all your heart. Percy was all you wanted. 

‘...If only the feelings were mutual, Jackson.’ 

And you were gone. 

Percy cried as much as he had to, but he did it alone. He told you he wouldn’t tell anyone, he didn’t want you to be in danger. That didn’t stop the sick feeling in his stomach. He wanted to hurl, to scream. This was his fault, of the gods, of the world... He needed you, and he was going to try everything in his power to get you back. You were lying to his face, he just knew it. This wasn’t you, you wouldn’t use him like this. You were surely just scared of what Kronos could do. But he would take care of that.

He might have lost you in this battle, but he will return with you from the war.

-----

Requests: Hi I’m not sure if you’re writing imagines still, but can you do a percy x reader for the nervous game? I really loved the one with Leo :)///Hi! Can I request Percy Jackson reacting to reader falling asleep in his arms? Can be fic or headcanons. Gender neutral. Fluff. Thank you!///i saw that request were open and i was wondering if you can do an imagine with a really confident girl and she's just really sure of herself and she's the daughter of aphrodite but Percy and her both have crushes on each other but both are too stubborn to admit it to each other ?? sorry it's so long and confusing !!///Hi i loooooove your blog!! Can i have a Percy x reader where the reader is a shy quiet bookworm, and then she has like a panic attack because of a car crash that happened a long time ago and hes like “its okay” and it ends in fluff? Please and thank you! ( you dont have to do it tho)(i would like it if you did tho)///Can you do one where the reader (is female) is really insecure about her looks and her smarts and fighting skills. She’s been best friends with Annabeth for like ever making her feel so small. But Percy tells her that she is perfect! Lots of fluff ///can I request a Percy × Reader story. Also, warning, I suck at plots. So, (Y/N), is, of course, damsel in distress, Percy comes to save her, bUt ThEn, PERCY gets in trouble and (Y/N) ends up saving both of them! ///Can you do an imagine were the reader is really insecure about like her body and Percy tells her that she is beautiful?///I was wondering if you could do a Percy Jackson x reader where the reader is the spy, thanks! 😊😊

---

[heathendolan]

Boys Will Be Bugs -- Lemon Boy Series [E.D]

Summary: Ethan’s mean and bitter for a lot of reasons, but none of them have to do with the shy bookworm who shows him was a real friend is. / A better look at how Ethan really feels about… well, everything. From his impressionable and incredibly sensitive toddler years to the end of college, it’s his turn to talk.

Warnings: MAKES WAY MORE SENSE IF YOU’VE READ LEMON BOY + 888 FIRST !!!

A/N: hi everybody, i feel like i’m new again and i’m as nervous as i was when i first published on here lmfao. i heard cavetown’s ‘boys will be bugs’ a few weeks ago and just about exploded with how accurate it was for ethan and was completely inspired to write a part from his narrative. also, this anon also did me solid with this request, so thank you so fkn much!! extended author’s note here, cause i have mucho to say. mmkay. love y’all 

WC: 23.2K+ || masterlist || PLAYLIST

SERIES | 1: Lemon Boy | 1½: Banana Bread | 2: 888 | 3½: It’s U

Ethan isn't right. He isn't wrong. Well, his parents say he's isn't--but his teachers say he's 'a little... different', and Ethan knows just what that means. He knows that when they say things like "Ethan just doesn't fit well with the other kids," in hushed voices at the semiannual kindergarten parent-teacher conferences, they're implying that he's the problem, and moreover that he's noncompliant to some degree. They only confirm this theory when they say things like "Ethan, go build blocks with Jacob and Cory," knowing full and well that he'd much rather sit underneath the tented blanket-walls of his own personal fort and read The BFG. Teachers call his fort 'antisocial'. Ethan calls his fort 'exclusive'. (He read that word in Charlotte's Web once). (He hopes he's using it right). (And pronouncing it right, for that matter).

Ethan feels a little like a BFG--Big Friendly Giant--and it isn't because he's oversized or anything, because he's actually a bit of a runt, like Wilbur the pig. He's like a Big Friendly Giant in the sense that he feels really alone in a sea of kindergarten boys, ones that are bent on perfecting spiral throws and effective tackles. Grayson, his twin, is sort of like that; Ethan thinks his daddy probably likes him better than Ethan for that reason. Ethan's more like his mommy. He likes to read (and he's happy to tell you that he's already at a second-grade reading level, thank you very much), and he likes to read a lot.  (Hence the fort.) And even if he didn't like to read (which he does), he would prefer building blocks in isolation. Ethan's sensitive--another word he learned in Charlotte's Web. The other kids are mean, even when Ethan knows they aren't trying to be. So when he misses his mommy and Jacob Kronwell says, 'suck it up', he bursts into tears, and that's alright. And on that note, what does 'rub some dirt on it' even mean? His daddy says boys just gotta be tough, but why? Why would Ethan ever choose football over a reclusive reading hut if he doesn't even like football all that much? To look cool? Ethan doesn't care about being cool. He cares about getting to the end of this chapter and lunch. And so what if he cries? He just can't help it--he feels better when he cries, and he's not going to stop just cause Jacob says he acts like a girl. That's hardly an insult--last time he checked, his sister Cameron was the coolest person he knew.  Ethan hopes first grade is better.

- Ethan loves summer. Summer is almost better than The Adventures of Captain Underpants. (Almost). His mom takes him to the library almost every day. The first time they walked hand in hand into the big building, Ethan's jaw fell to the floor; how on Earth had they been hiding all these books from him? He was frozen solid in place with shock while his mom chatted away with the librarian, carrying polite small talk about how 'simply stunning this colonial architecture was' and how she was 'heartbroken she hadn't been here sooner'. Ethan thinks she's overcompensating with compliments because they only moved to Allentown about a year ago. He noticed it a few months ago when she talked to the checkout clerk at the local grocery store for a full hour about the rising prices of milk. He asked her why she did that. She told him that was how people made friends. Ethan thinks anybody that only wants to be friends with his mom because she can jab about milk for an hour is stupid, but he's not allowed to use that word yet. Now is not the time for jabbing about milk or colonial architecture Ethan decides, and he wiggles right out of his mother's grip and clambers over to the kid's section, completely ignoring the way his mom calls his name and apologizes meekly to the librarian. He doesn't care what the librarian thinks about him. He cares about books. And there's so many of them. He has to crane his neck just to catch a glimpse of the tower of shelves with books, upon books, upon books. He sees all of the books that are in his scholastic book fair catalog and then some. The priest at his church talks about heaven a lot, and Ethan thinks he found it. His mom is hot on his trail though, because she scoops him up in her arms and balances him on her hip, pulling him in snug and warm. Ethan loves his mom and all the affection she gives, and he wraps his arms around her neck. "See one you like?" she asks, kissing his temple. Some of the kids in his kindergarten class hate being picked up by their mom, and Ethan doesn't really get that. They would always say things like 'Mom, stop,' and 'go away' and he doesn't understand; his mom was by far his best friend. And probably his only friend, besides Gray. And Cam. And Dad. And they said things like 'you still call your mom 'mommy'?', and that's why Ethan loves summer the most, because he can be himself without those comments. "Yeah," Ethan says, poking generally at the whole stack of books. "I wanna read them all." His mom merely chuckles and nods. "Alright, we have all summer," she says. "Grab one and we'll read it, and then we'll return it and grab a new one." Ethan reaches blindly and grabs the first one he can wrap his stubby fingers around. "James and the Giant Peach?" she clarifies. "You know that's from the same guy who wrote The BFG, right?"  Ethan already knows this one is going to be his new favorite.  - Kids are mean. Ethan thinks just about half his classmates are minions of Count Olaf, the villain in his newest literary obsession, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Ethan feels a bit like one of the Baudelaire children. Not because his parents died in a house fire or that he's been relocated to various relatives, each stranger than the last, and most certainly not because he's inheriting a gazillion dollars (because that part is super untrue. His family's sort of struggling right now). He feels like a Baudelaire child because it seems like everywhere he turns is a dead end full of people that want to kill him. Okay, maybe 'kill' isn't the right term, but God, it��feels like it when Riley Johnson purposely trips him in dodgeball--especially when they're on the same frickin' team. (Ethan's in second grade now, so he's allowed to use that word). (Not around his mom though, but his dad's okay with it). (However, the phrase 'shut up' is one hundred and ten percent off limits). And Cory Willson, frankly, is nearly confirmed to be the spawn of satan. He flicked a meatball at Ethan at lunch on the first day of school--picture day. And that stain took two separate washes to get out of his nice white polo. But Cory is simply a grain of salt on Ethan's plate of problems.  And Jacob Kronwell? Well, Jacob Kronwell is the twelve ounce, medium-rare steak and the side of mashed potatoes. He's probably the steamed vegetables in this metaphor, too. Jacob Kronwell is Ethan Dolan's personal Count Olaf. He is no spawn of Satan, he is Satan, with a capital S.  It started in kindergarten, and it hasn't stopped yet. If anything, it has only gotten worse. It began with exclusion, name-calling, and stealing his pencils without asking. Ethan could tune out being called a girl (and honestly, didn't mind all that much if he's honest). Ethan can't ignore Jacob when he steals his books and throws them into Mr. Franken’s yard, the most feared (and coincidentally--or not--most elderly) neighbor in all of Allentown. Ethan has had to fork over a lot of toys and allowances to pay the library fees. And it didn't stop there. Jacob figured out early on that being the largest kid in second grade included a lot of benefits, serious benefits. Not only was he the best at football (and baseball, and basketball, and dodgeball), but he was really good at wrestling. Ethan would know; he's been the test subject of Jacob's poorly rehearsed WWE moves since Jacob discovered America's most violent live-action soap opera. But Jacob's getting more creative every month, and now that he's seen A Christmas Story, Ethan's been forced to stick his tongue to a pole in the middle of a New Jersey winter and, subsequently, Ethan's been sent home with half of a (very bloody) tongue. Jacob wasn't generous enough to let his mutilated tongue heal before he made him do it again. Grayson's lucky--so lucky--that he can play football. And it is ironic--so ironic--that Grayson gets off scot-free because of it. It's a god blessed frickin' miracle that Grayson hasn't been mistaken for Ethan and been given a swirly yet. Or had a huge chunk cut out of his hair with scissors. Or been trapped in a locker. Ethan's practically defenseless; he doesn't have many friends (besides Grayson, Mom, Dad, and Cam) and he's pretty small, and Jacob knows that. That's what makes Ethan such easy prey. And he's created this stigma towards Ethan that's circulated through the whole school at this point. He overheard him telling Holly Brinkins that he picks and eats his boogers. No one wants to be friends with that kind of outcast, not even kindergarteners--and they actually pick and eat their boogers. Ethan's not too lonely though. He already has all he needs: his family, a colossal stack of fifth-grade-reading-level books (and he's only eight!), and Ginger, the frickin' best dog in the whole wide world. His mom let him pick out a dog from the local humane society so that he'd have his very own friend, and it was the best gift ever. So who needs friends or school lunch on most days? Jacob can eat two helpings all he wants, Ethan doesn't even like the school's mystery meat. - "What'd'ya wanna do when you get older, E?" Grayson asks as they hike up the alpine mountain in the forest behind their house. Ethan knows it's technically a hill, and not even a big one at that, but listen: he just discovered the word 'alpine' and it sounds kinda cool on his tongue, and he's got chicken legs. It feels like Mount Everest to him. "The King of Narnia, no doubt," he responds, a wheeze in his words and an ache in his calves. The walk to their hidden (and super cool) basin seems to stretch longer every single day. Grayson's cut out for this with his quarterback physique--even if it is only little league--but Ethan... Ethan's a little bit of a 'NAF.' Jacob told him so. "Ethan," Grayson grumbles, twisting his head towards him to pointedly roll his eyes. "I'm serious. Be a little more realistic." "I don't know Grayson, what do you want to be?" Ethan asks. "Tom Brady." "I see you're taking a pragmatic approach as well," Ethan scoffs, kicking a stray rock into the jungle. Sometimes Ethan sits outside in this forest of his and reads and pretends the bluejays that chirp are really some tropical parrots from Lord of the Flies. In all reality, he could sit inside next to their new parakeet, Gizmo, and get the same effect, but he's decided to permanently hate that bird ever since they had to get rid of Ginger. He's been bitter ever since. He doesn't care if Grayson can't control the fact that he's allergic. "See," Grayson sighs, halting in the dirt path, "when you say shit like 'pragmatic' you make me wanna to kick you. I don't even know what that means." Grayson and Ethan are not allowed to say words like 'shit', 'fuck', 'damn', or 'Jesus' yet, and certainly not phrases like 'ass-clown', but they’ve made a sworn truce to never tattle. They even spit and shook hands, so it's practically motherfuckin' law.  Ethan scowls at him. "Probably cause you're dyslexic." Grayson is already winding up when Ethan cowers, and Grayson knows to just give it up. Ethan deals with enough during the school year.  "E, I'm just saying. If you didn't say words like that, maybe you wouldn't get beat up. Well, at least, not by me," Grayson hurries out, knowing it's a sore subject, Ethan getting beat up. "Oh right, because that's the reason I get my ass kicked," Ethan grumbles, trudging past Grayson. Grayson is quick to catch up, following on Ethan's heels like a troubled puppy. "Look, all I wanted to know was what you wanted to be when you were older." Ethan knows Grayson doesn't mean to be mean. Ethan thinks most kids actually don't mean to be mean; it's sixth grade, everybody's already got their friend groups. It's not that anybody's excluding him at this point, it's just that no one's including him. People discarded the term 'cooties' a long time ago, and nobody thinks he picks and eats his boogers anymore. People just grew up together without Ethan. He's adjusted. He's alright. But Jacob's still a fucking asshole. He isn't violent anymore--he abandoned hair pulling, foot stomping, and locker stuffing around fourth grade when Ethan got to be as big as him. He's just mean. He leans up behind him and tells him that Chloe Krass will never like him back and that Grayson would never be friends with him if he wasn't forced to be. And it sucks, because it's true. It is absolutely true. He'd rather give Jacob his lunch for the rest of his life than have him stomp on his heart. Ethan's sensitive--he always has been. And you know what? It's dumb that people feed off of his sensitivity. It's fucking bullshit.  "Gonna make fun of me?" Ethan tests, giving Grayson a sideways glance and lifting his chin protectively. "No," Grayson insists.  "Alright. I... I wanna write books," Ethan admits, his chin lifted high in the air for some faux-confidence. He casts a glance at Grayson and finds that Grayson's face has disappointment painted all over it. Grayson's brows are drawn tight together, ready to chastise him, and he's opened his mouth to say, "Ethan," irritably.  "And if you don't like that," Ethan growls out quickly, "then you can go fuck yourself, Grayson." Grayson's shock is all Ethan needs to prove he's figured out a loophole to this drama, and Ethan speeds off towards the pond feeling a little bigger, a little stronger, and a hell of a lot tougher. - Ethan's underneath his comforter with his head buried under his pillow, his entire body numb. It feels like a dream, or maybe a nightmare, what happened today. "Mom, it wasn't his fault! You know how terrible Jacob is to him," Grayson defends in the kitchen, screaming frustratedly. "Jacob Kronwell's father is threatening to sue, Grayson. Do you think they're going to take the side of the kid who beat another kid to a bloody pulp? This is so much bigger than you think it is," his mom hisses back, slapping her palm against the granite table. "Lord knows what will happen. Your brother's definitely expelled. We can't afford to be sued." He can hear his mother's voice crackle with tears. He doesn't want her to cry. He doesn't even know how it happened. One moment he was washing his hands in the boys bathroom, the next he was being circled, the next he was having his head shoved into the bowl of a toilet for the hundredth time, and then a moment later he had Jacob on the ground with blood gushing from his nose. And he just kept kicking, and kicking, and kicking until he felt the principal dragging him out of the bathroom. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, and the part of his brain surged out with how unfair his life in Allentown has been so far, and he just let go of all the anger pent up inside him. Jacob had been torturing him for eight years, and for what? Why? It was so fucking unfair. He knows what he did was wrong, but he doesn't really regret it. Not at all, actually.  "Mom, you don't get it! Jacob's the worst!" Grayson yelled still, crying himself. Everybody was crying and it was all Ethan's fault. "Your father's going to have to find a new job," his mom whined. "your brother's going to be expelled. I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know what we're going to do," she pressed on, her voice shaking.  Ethan felt like his chest was caving, or his stomach was twisting into an impossibly tight knot, or his skin was on fire. Jacob's always been right: Ethan's a fuck up, a waste of space, a piece of shit, trash, garbage, stupid, worthless. "Honey, it's going to be okay," his dad says from the kitchen. "I don't know what we'll do either. But it'll work out." "Are we going to have to change schools?" Cameron asks. "I only have a few months left before graduation, can we just stay? Please?" There's an awkward pause that probably answers the million dollar question: they are going to have to move, Cameron's going to have to graduate with a bunch of strangers, their dad's going to have to find a new job, their mom's going to have to open a different shop. All because of Ethan. All because of Ethan. - "So I just got off the phone with Scott Kronwell and he's decided to drop all charges if we get the hell out of dodge," Ethan's dad says the following Monday. It's just Ethan, his mom, and his dad in the kitchen for lunch; Ethan's been suspended for seven days. Not that he minds; he sort of sees it as an early spring break. Any time spent away from school is good for Ethan. "What's that mean?" his mom asks before she bites into her sandwich. "Well," his dad sighs, pinching his eyes together with his index and thumb fingers. "I told him how a bunch of teachers have been emailing me willing to testify against Jacob for bullying, which is pretty stupid if you ask me, because that means they saw how he was treating E and didn't do shit. I think it spooked Scott, because the guy basically threatened me. Said we have two weeks to move districts or he'll press charges. Such a dick. Ethan, I'm kind of glad you beat up his kid." "Sean," his mom scolds, her lips in a tight line. "Thanks," Ethan mumbles with a faint grin. If his dad approves, he really doesn't regret it. "Luckily, we're in a good place financially to just get up and leave. But no Bora Bora in December," his dad sighs, staring blankly at the table. Ethan knows Cameron's going to be pissed. First, she has to move schools with three months of high school left, then she gets robbed of her dream vacation? Ethan will be sleeping with one eye open. His mom sighs with both relief and grief and lays her head on her arms. "Ethan, no more fighting, okay?" she asks weakly, lifting her head only enough to stare at him with pleading eyes. He never wants to see his mom make that face again. "I won't," Ethan promises, and means it. He never wants to lose control like that again; it's been a week and he still can't remember a damn thing about what happened. He dislikes that side of himself the most--and Ethan hates just about every bit of himself.  - Ethan likes their new house a lot. He gets his own room, it's big, it's old, and it's probably haunted. It's perfect. There's a river in the forest behind this house, too. It's got a waterfall at the beginning, about a mile north of his house, and if he treks down the stream, he can find a cluster of miniature cliffs just waiting to be jumped off of. The river seems deep enough to swim in and venture through and it probably has a ton of cool rocks in the shallower parts. He and Grayson spend most of their summer there unless they're at the local beach like they are now. "I think the kids at our school are scared of you," Grayson says, skipping a slippery stone across the still lake. The boys watch it bounce once, twice, thrice before dipping beneath the water.  "So?" Ethan snipes. He's had to put a lot of work into being scary. He thinks he'll have frown lines by twenty-five if he keeps glaring at everybody. "Well, I don't think you're going to make many friends if you don't say anything to anyone," Grayson shrugs, plucking another rock from the sand and skipping it even farther than the last.  "Not like anyone wants to be my friend anyway," Ethan retorts. That was a stupid thing to say on Grayson's behalf. It seemed like people were afraid of Ethan the moment he stepped foot in Long Valley, but he's beginning to think that might be Ethan's intentions. He gets it; it's better to be feared than bullied, but the boys in their grade are getting more comfortable with him. Grayson's doing just fine. He's already decided he'll play football this coming fall and he's made a few friends through lacrosse, but he's never had problems making friends. "You could always hang out with me and my friends..." Grayson offers meekly. "I heard your friend Carter call me a mute back in May. No thanks," he nips. It's a lost cause, and all Grayson can really do is pray that someone, anyone will befriend Ethan. He's not asking for too much he doesn't think. Is he? 

​​​​​​-

Ethan slides into his seat at the kitchen island, Romeo and Juliet in his grip and a blanket draped around his shoulders. Grayson’s cooking up something terrible—but arguably edible—for them as an after-school snack, rushing around the kitchen far too much for Ethan to focus on the already complicated book. He had heard that girl (Y/N) mumble something negative under her breath when it came to Shakespeare, and he has to agree—his novels were complete garbage.

“So, how was the first day of school,” Grayson sing-songs sardonically, popping his hip out like their mom.

Ethan shrugs lamely, taking a sip of his water. “S’alright.”

“And what about that girl, (Y/N)?” Grayson prods, waggling his eyebrows. Ethan sputters on his water, coughing and encouraging Grayson’s teasing. With a smirk, Grayson continues, “She’s pretty cute, huh? She seems into you.”

Ethan glares at him once he stops hacking, wiping his mouth on the fabric of his blanket. “Not funny,” he says.

She is pretty cute—and pretty kind, too. He couldn’t get it out of his head all day, the way she just asked him about his tattoo—talked to him, with genuine interest and curiosity. And furthermore, she’s smart. He couldn’t believe she’d read the entire list too, willingly. Ethan read it over the summer out of pure boredom and because his dad wouldn’t stop harping him about it, but she seemed like she really enjoyed reading. And she wasn’t a snob about it either, she seemed a little shy and humble—unlike Tanya. Ethan’s already floated off into his own daydream of their first conversation, right in the middle of the hallway with her papers askew when Grayson calls out his name impatiently.

“What?” he grumbles.

“I’m serious dude, she’s into you! Heard her talking to her friends at lunch,” Grayson pushes, raising his eyebrows. “She’s got a crush on you. Big one, too.”

Ethan feels a blush creep up the back of his neck and he scratches it. It’s impossible. It’s simply impossible. ”Shut up," he says, his voice cracky.

Grayson pops a few pieces of bread into the toaster and pushes down on the handle. “No dude, I'm not kidding. Like, all her friends knew about it and they were like, teasing her and stuff. They wanted to hear all about her conversation with you."

Ethan's fighting to keep the shock off his face. A girl like that? Having a crush on a guy like him? It defied all laws of logic.

"Whatever," Ethan chokes out, feeling butterflies parade through his stomach. He doesn’t even know why he’s entertaining the notion with himself—this is frankly pure lunacy.

"She's hot dude. If you knew what was good for you, you would jump on that," Grayson shrugs nonchalantly.

Ethan's cheeks grow even hotter at his comment. With his mouth gaping like a fish’s, he sputters, "I-I'm not going to jump on that, what the fuck Grays-"

"That's not what I meant!" Grayson laughs, shaking his head. "I just mean, she's going to have a bunch of guys' attention. She does seem kind of quiet, though."

Defensively, Ethan thinks, what does that have to do with anything? But, in an effort to stay discreet, he just shrugs for the umpteenth time.

"Whatcha boys talking about?" Ethan's dad asks as he walks into the kitchen, surfing through the refrigerator for a good snack. A flash of heat decorates Ethan’s cheeks again and his eyes widen as he mentally prays, begs, pleads for Grayson to just keep his gigantic mouth shut on this one.

“Ethan’s giant crush,” Grayson teases, squinting smugly at Ethan. Behind his dad's back, Ethan gives Grayson the middle finger and mouths 'fuck you'.

"(Y/N), huh?" his dad replies easily, already well aware of who they’re talking about. Ethan’s jaw just about hits the floor. Grayson begins snickering loudly as he butters his freshly baked toast, and Ethan briefly weighs the pros and cons of vaulting himself over the kitchen island and just strangling him quiet. But before he can make a proper decision, his dad’s continuing. ”Ethan, she's one smart cookie. The whole list! Blew my mind," he says with a shake of his head.

Ethan doesn't note that he himself had also read the list, because he knows it's different. “Yep,” he mutters, tapping his fingers along the granite.

“So you have a crush on her?” his dad asks, peering over his shoulder from where he hovers in the refrigerator’s doorway.  

Ethan says, "No!" the same time Grayson says, "Yes."

"I'll keep that in mind, Kiddo," his dad says.

Ethan just whines, already so very aware of how humiliating it will be to have his dad prod at him. But deep down—deep, deep, deep down—he hopes by some miracle it'll be beneficial because it's true; Ethan would be crazy to not have a crush on her. He already knows he's in deep when he catches himself smiling for the thousandth time that day over their measly conversation in the hall.

-

Ethan’s never been so bored in his life. No, that isn’t true, and yes, it is incredibly dramatic, but he means it, okay? With Grayson at football camp for a week and Cameron working overtime at the ice cream parlor, Ethan’s feeling stir crazy while he stares up at his ceiling fan and watches it spin round and around and around and around. He knows he could go for a swim down by the riverbed, but he’s done that the last two days. And sure, he could shoot hoops in the driveway, but what’s the fun in doing that alone? It’s only been a day and a half since Grayson’s left, and he thinks he might just die before next Monday comes around. He’ll never admit how attached he is to him.

He huffs and he puffs and he sighs and he whimpers, but nothing comes to mind. He feels a frenzy in the pit of his stomach, one that’s begging him to just move, and he hops upright, ready to pace around his room if it means getting some of this energy out. He jumps up and down—even throws in a few jumping jacks just for some spice—but it’s useless; he needs interest.

His mind wonders off to (Y/N) again like it has every single hour of every single day since summer began. He wonders, for the gazillionth time, how she’s spending this unusually hot July day, what she’s doing, where she’s doing whatever she’s doing. Ethan realizes these thoughts only make him antsier because the idea of (Y/N) alone makes him nervous in general, so he smacks his forehead childishly to swat away the thoughts. She’s probably reading. But reading what?

Harry Potter, of course, unless she’s marking off the Composition reading list one by one. But who would want to do that on a day like today? He’s sure she’s spending it with a book in her hand and probably sunning at the local beach, her peers alongside her. She’s quiet, but not unsocial; the gaggle of girls she has are nice—well, nice enough—and murderously loyal, it seems. Ethan approves of her friend group most out of the entire student body; sometimes they say hello to him, and that’s more than 99% of the mass population would ever do for him.

The way she talks about those Harry Potters, Ethan would think they’re magic. Well, duh, he thinks. But they’re children’s books—what could possibly be so good?

Ethan knows what he’s going to do today.

He hauls himself to the local library, a good four miles away (which is more than enough for him to rid himself of some of this boyish energy he has), and checks out the first two books. Then he cracks the spine of the first one and begins reading and walking on his way home.

His first impression is terrible; he hates the Dursleys, and Harry is frankly quite bland. But before he knows it, he’s skimming the pages just to find out what happens next, and then he’s scrunching his nose bitterly at characters he hates and grinning whenever Hagrid is featured in a chapter. He’s decided to hate Severus Snape until his dying breath and he’s almost certain he’d be sorted into Slytherin and he has full intentions to name his first child Ron whether it’s a boy or a girl—and it’s only been five chapters. He gets it—he totally freakin’ gets why she loves these books so much. He feels like a kid again. He’s so lost in the plot that he brings his book to the dinner table and flips pages between forkfuls.

“Ethan!” his mom shouts, smacking her palm against the table.

Ethan jumps, startled. “What?” he asks innocently, his heart still racing from his abrupt interruption.

"Honey, I've called your name eight times!" she laughs, eyeing him disbelievingly.

"Sorry," he mumbles around a bite of steak, already turning back to his story.

"Nuh-uh, it's dinner time, put the book away," his mom warns, a quirk in her eyebrow and discipline clear in her voice. Ethan shrinks in his chair and dog-ears his page, reluctant but compliant.

"What are you reading?" his dad asks, tilting his head to try and make out the title. "Oh, Miss (Y/N)'s favorite book, I see," he smirks.

Ethan frowns as his jaw falls. "How did you-"

"Oh please, you two weren't all that quiet when you were flirting up a storm in my English class. I'm pretty sure I know just as much about her as you do," he snorts, shaking his head and shoveling in another bite of meat.

Ethan pouts into his plate, embarrassed and annoyed. So what if he wanted to read her favorite books? They were friends. He was allowed.

"Are you talking about (Y/N)?" Cameron pipes up from across the table, a smug smile on her lips.

"Save it, Cam," Ethan grumbles, feeling sour.

"So you don't want to hear all about her visit to the ice cream parlor today?" Cameron quips, speaking theatrically loftily. "Because her friends sure had a lot to say about you..."

Ethan ponders over whether he should play it cool or embrace his excitement. "What'd they say?" he squeaks quickly, sounding more desperate than he's ever heard himself.

His family chuckles at his eagerness and eyes one another. Normally this would really irk him, but he has bigger interests.

"Oh, just that she talks about you all the time," Cameron sings. "She didn't say as much as I said, though."

Ethan's blood runs cold in his system. "W-what did you say?"

"Oh, just that you never shut up about her and that you have a huge crush on her," Cameron smirks, squinting evilly at him across the table.

Ethan's read Dante's Inferno and he is absolutely, positively, 1000% certain that he has just entered the ninth ring of hell. Oh my God. Oh my God.

"Cameron!" he shrieks, hopping from his spot. He doesn't even realize he's grabbed his steak knife along for defense, but suddenly everyone's rising from their seats and demanding he calms down. Ethan feels hot tears spring in his eyes; his friend, his only willing friend knows about his stupid dumb crush. She's never going to talk to him again. She's never going to-

Ethan thinks he's going to pass out.

"Dude, chill out! I already told you she likes you too!" Cameron shouts back, her hands raised defensively.

Ethan's sensitive. His whole family knows it, but even they're shocked when his bottom lip begins to wobble and a tear slips down his cheek. He's so glad Grayson isn't here to see him cry like a fucking baby.

"E, c'mon," Cameron coaxes, looking at him with bewilderment. "It's not that big of a deal!"

"Easy for you to say!" Ethan screams, collapsing in his chair. She's going to hate him, she's going to hate him, she's going to hate him. She does some charity work, befriends the freak, and then she realizes she has to deal with his obsessive crush? Why wouldn't she walk away? This isn't even fair--he would have kept his mouth shut about his stupid crush for life if it meant keeping her as a friend. "She's my only friend!"

The dinner table falls quiet; Ethan's unpopularity has always been the elephant in the room. Ethan's scrubbing the hot tears away from his cheeks and grinding his teeth together to keep the emotion better at bay but it isn't any use; the thought of (Y/N) joining the army of people absolutely disgusted with Ethan is too much; he has to cry.

He knows Cam had good intentions; she's just being a sister. But what's done is done, and he doesn't think he can look (Y/N) in the eye ever again.

Cameron slips out of her chair and over to Ethan, cuddling his frame close to hers. Ethan cries into her shoulder pathetically, and he knows this is all so unusual for his family, seeing him weep so openly like this, but this is just too much. He doesn't know what he'll do when he sees her in a month. He thinks about homeschooling.

"Ethan," Cameron whispers. "She looked excited. She clearly likes you too."

Ethan shoves away at her shoulder, angry all over again. "Cameron, don't try and soothe the wound. The damage is done."

Cameron scoffs, stands, and folds her arms over her chest. "Okay Princess, I was being gentle, but now you're just being a prima donna. She likes you. Accept that you're likable."

"That's not even funny, Cameron," Ethan whimpers, another wave of self-hatred washing ashore.

"Honey," his mom coos, "(Y/N) would be very lucky to have a boy like you."

Ethan's getting angrier by the second, and he's about ready to stomp off with his plate and his book and his pride. The realization that his family has just seen him sob over a girl makes his cheeks melt with shame.

"And you would be lucky to have a girl like (Y/N)," his dad pipes up. "I'm telling you guys, her Scarlett Letter analysis was just out of this w-"

Cameron groans loudly, stuffing her face in her palms. "Would you shut up about her Scarlett Letter analysis!"

Lisa gasps beside her. "Cameron June! Do not speak to your father like that."

"Well seriously, he mentions it like every day!" she quacks back.

"Well, it's worth talking about! I mean really Ethan, that girl is going to win a Pulitzer Prize one day and I want her last name to be Dolan when she does," his dad urges, raising his eyebrow and biting a forkful of steak.

Ethan snorts goodheartedly, still anxious but exhausted from emotion more than anything. In an effort to escape the conversation and his family, he excuses himself and tucks himself in his room, ready to devour his book again.

He loves this book. He loves this book. It's maybe the best he's ever read. He's flying through the pages so quickly he has to reread some parts to really enjoy it properly. It's edging ten in the evening and he's just about to venture into the Forbidden Forest with Harry and Malfoy when he hears a soft knock on his door.

"Hey," Cameron mutters, peaking her head in.

Ethan folds his novel in his lap, prepared to have a forced heart to heart with his offender. "Mom send you up here?" he asks rhetorically.

Cameron cracks a grin and nods. "Yeah, but I wanted to say sorry anyway. So..." she trails off shifting between her feet. "...Sorry."

"Thanks," Ethan snorts.

Cameron hobbles over and plops herself on the edge of his bed, plucking the story from his comforter. "These are such good books," she nods, leafing through a few pages to get an idea of where he is in the plot.

"I know, I can't believe I've never read them. The way (Y/N) talks about these books, you'd think they hung the stars in the sky," Ethan murmurs, chuckling to himself.

Cameron purses her lips and gives him a sidelong glance. "She seems pretty cool, sort of shy, but sweet."

Ethan's brows furrow together. "I don't get why people always say that like it's a bad thing," he deadpans, encouraging her to rethink her statement. "She's shy, so what? She's really nice."

Cameron giggles and shakes her head. "Look at you, all defensive," she prods, ruffling his hair. Ethan's beginning to regret ever inviting her into his room. Cameron smiles more to herself and says, "I'm happy you have a crush, it's, er... healthy. And I think she's a good person to have a crush on--she's super cute."

Ethan laughs to himself and decides to let his guard down, if only for a moment. "Tell me about it."

Cameron's lips spread so wide her teeth peek out from under them. The two are quiet for a minute, and it isn't awkward. Ethan doesn't hate his sister, even if she ruined his only friendship.

As if reading his thoughts, Cameron stirs the pot some more. ”Ethan, she likes you, okay? And maybe you don't see that, but I know it," Cameron swears, grabbing his hand where it lays on the bed.

Ethan yanks it away, uncaring of his blunt rejection. "You don't know shit," he grouches.

"E," she sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Trust me, she does. I'm a girl, I know how they act. And you know what? Quit being so bitter. No one likes a pessimist."

I know, Ethan thinks, That's the problem.

"So suck it up, or... or you'll have to deal with my two friends, lefty and righty," Cameron threatens, waving her fists around 'threateningly'. Ethan thinks she needs a lesson or two on intimidation.

He chuckles, which clearly bruises her ego, because she begins tickling him torturously, and after half an hour of a tickling war, all is forgiven. Cameron eventually deserts him with his book and Ethan returns to his own little literature world, more excited than he’s ever been about a series.

-

Miraculously, when Ethan sees (Y/N) on the first day of school, she doesn’t hate him or his newly dyed purple stripe. She actually calls him hot, and Ethan knows that he’ll absolutely never get over it. He’s made it through a month of school with her by his side, the two as close as what he imagines a best friend would be like. He hasn’t had one besides Grayson, and he knows that that doesn’t count. But things are going alright, and he couldn’t be more thankful.

Well, except for every other person involved in his school. Since everyone had survived their first year of high school, they were much less skittish and much meaner. Ethan’s had comments thrown his way every single day since the start, and he’s even been shoved once or twice, just like he’s seen in movies. He’s seriously wondering if they’ll lock him in a locker soon. He hasn’t experienced that since eighth grade.

But Ethan isn’t going to let that happen. He’s bulked up over the summer—gained a few inches and more than a dozen pounds—and he knows how to fight. Obviously, bites a voice in the back of his head. You almost killed a kid.

Ethan worries about the day when (Y/N) finds that out, that he'd nearly been expelled for almost murdering Jacob Kronwell at the innocent age of thirteen. He shudders at the thought and stuffs it down, down, down and just prays she never finds out.

Career day is, by far, the least interesting school-fueled 'holiday' Ethan can imagine, and he's considering spirit day and all its pep-fest activities. Career day is just tedious, plain and simple. It annoys the faculty, it annoys the students, and infinitely more importantly, it annoys Ethan because he knows what he wants to do. He wants to write books, and Long Valley was seriously lacking world-renowned authors and best-selling novelists, which meant the other teachers, scrambling for anything to jam-pack his day, would tell him to visit the journalism booth or the English teacher division, which in itself was completely useless. His own dad was an English teacher--if he had questions, he could ask them over spaghetti tonight.   

And then there was that bit where he had to listen to certain people drone on and on about their solid, reliable plans of being 'The Next Michael Jordan' or 'The Next Tom Brady' or, most unrealistic of all, 'The Next Kim Kardashian.' Ethan seriously doubts that if they don't have a booth for creative writing, they won't have a booth for the profound artistry of face-tuning or the ambitious marketing strategies for FitTea Tummy. But that's just Ethan.

It's not like he's going to find out anyway; he plans to lock himself away in his dad's quaint English room for most of the afternoon, lower the lights, draw the blinds, and stuff himself in the beanbag tucked in the corner just for him and finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He has been fervently reading them ever since he stole the first copy from the library, and he's really edging towards the climax of this one. He's dug it out every spare second, reading between class periods and during his lunch. They truly are very, very good books.

When he arrives at school that morning, it as chaotic as he had imagined; every student is swarming about the halls, jabbing about what professions they'll bore themselves with for a few hours. He assumes they'll be too preoccupied to bother with their typical harsh stares and obvious gossip, but he's hardly made it to his locker when Cole Eptom eyes him quizzically from a few slots down. "Hey Dolan," he calls, nodding his head.

Ethan debates momentarily over whether he should tune him out or give Cole the benefit of the doubt and engage in what could only be small talk or torture. Suppressing a sigh, Ethan turns to look Cole's way with a raised eyebrow.

"That pink hair's fucking queer," Cole sneers, shutting his locker and marching off with his monochromatic Career Day pamphlet and his enormous, inflated ego.

It shouldn't bother Ethan. He knew last night when he spontaneously bought a box of hot pink hair dye and painted the bleached tuff above his eyes that he'd get a few stares. He thinks he's seen Cole wear the same pair of basketball shorts every day for the past month, and Cole himself said that jeans would only be reserved for five star restaurants. Cole doesn't know shit about fashion, and furthermore, Cole's hideous. And mean. His opinion shouldn't bother Ethan.

It does.

Ethan's feeling sourer than normal today, with Career Day's boisterous chatter infiltrating his ears (even after he'd stuffed them with headphones and extremely loud music) and the unending sly and taunting comments about his hair. It felt like every pair of eyes that existed in this building were zeroing in on the fuchsia tuft blanketing his forehead.

Queer. Queer. Queer. Queer.

He heard Cole's comment over and over and over again in his head and had to dig his nails into the palms of his hands to keep his nausea at bay. What was he thinking, dying his hair bubblegum pink? What was he thinking? He wasn't. Ethan never thinks, he just does, and that is why he didn't have many friends. Impulsive and stupid were such a terrible combination. Ethan wouldn't touch himself with a ten-foot pole.

He's being harsh on himself, he knows he is, but he can't help it now. Fuck, it feels like his clothes don't fit him right, like they're too small and woven with needle-sharp fragments of glass. And it's hot in his sweatshirt, too warm and suffocating and it's boiling beneath the base of his neck, right where his collar starts, and only then does he realize just how tight it feels around his throat-

"Hello!" (Y/N) calls, looking bewildered. She smacks his arm as she sidles up next him by his locker. "How the fuck can't you hear me?"

Ethan's not one for cliches, but he almost immediately feels at least half of the weight burdening his shoulders float off, off, off at the sight of her. She's similarly cozied up in an oversized sweatshirt, the sleeves falling past the tips of her fingers, and he wonders briefly if her hands are cold. He hopes not.

"Sorry," Ethan mumbles, chewing on his lip. "I'm just... stressed."

Ethan thinks stressed might be a better word than anxious, because then she'd ask questions because she cares. She cares a lot about Ethan, and he knows it, and he feels the weight drift off his shoulders some more.

"Well, your hair looks great," she says, blushing terribly. Her cheeks are scorned a bright pink, nearly mimicking the neon tuft dangling above Ethan's eyes.

"No it doesn't," he grumbles, glaring up at the strands.

"No, it does," she pushes, though her voice is squeaky and weak. "H-Hot pink for a hot guy, right?"

And then her face is scrunching up, embarrassment etching her features adorably, and slapping her palm against her forehead. She looks tortured with her eyes screwed shut and her neck flushed a deep red, she's tucking in on herself with humiliation and Ethan's hardly able to contain his grin. He doesn't try, just lets his lips split over his teeth, big and wide, and chuckles.

"Hot pink for a hot guy," Ethan agrees, smirking with kind eyes down at her shielded figure.

She peaks through her fingers to glare at him and smacks his shoulder, and she looks so sweet and gentle. His heart begins thumping and thumping in his chest, so loud it drowns out all the snide comments he's had thrown at him this morning. He chokes back the feelings, whatever feelings these are, and shakes his head, leaning back against his locker confidently.

"Oh, fuck off," she mumbles, crossing her arms.

"You sound more and more like me every day," he laughs, poking her side teasingly. "Lemon girl."

"Not a chance," she replies loftily, rolling her eyes. Ethan loves this side of her more than anything; it is sound proof that she is completely comfortable around him, despite the way she acts so constantly nervous. "I actually wake up on the right side of the bed sometimes, which can't be said for you."

In return, Ethan rolls his own eyes with a smile. "Right," he snorts, "but today is clearly not one of those days."

"No," she groans, falling forward and pressing her forehead on the ball of his shoulder. "I feel so sick. Feel my forehead. Sympathize."

Ethan laughs outright and scrubs a hand down her back. "Poor (Y/N)," he simpers dramatically. "Don't tell me it's the plague."

She burrows her head deeper into his figure and he prays she can't feel the way his heart rate picks up considerably. "Just might be."

"Look, if you die on me, I'll have to befriend that Tara chick from Comp just to spite you in the afterlife," he says, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

With an absent-mind he realizes, uncaringly, that they probably look quite cozy to any of the students passing by in the hallway, with Ethan cradling her comfortably and her nose buried in his collarbone. He doesn't mind. He doesn't mind at all.

"You wouldn't dare," she threatens, her words muffled by the fabric of his hoodie. "I'd fuckin' haunt you until you died, and then I'd kick your ass from beyond the grave."

Ethan's glad she's tucked into him so she can't see the way he's biting back laughter.

"You know I could kick your ass, right?" she pushes.

"Of course," he complies.

All too soon she's uncurling from him, wiping her sleeve over her nose, and sniffling. "What career day things are you going to?" she asks, digging her pamphlet out of her backpack and scanning it.

"Dunno," he says, shrugging lamely. He knows he isn't attending any of them, but he's saving his breath. "What about you?"

She frowns bitterly and squints at the paper. "You're kidding me. There's a booth for Veterinary Acupuncture but not a single booth for creative writing?" She has disgust painted all over her pretty features when she says, "E, I'm sorry. That's fucked up."

"Sorry? Why are you sorry?" Ethan asks surprisedly.

"Cause, I know you wanna write when you get older and it's twisted that they don't have anything catering to that. I mean seriously they- oh my god, they have a booth for Clown Academy but not-!"

"How'd you know that?" Ethan asks with a furrow in his brow.

He can't ever remember sharing that with anyone, not besides Grayson, and that was years ago. He wouldn't share that with anyone. He'd never want to.

"Says right here on the brochure, Clown Academy, right above Counseling."

"No, not- not the clown academy thing, that I wanted to write."

She lifts a brow, puzzled. "You told me," she elaborates obviously. "That's why you got that little pen tattoo next to Grayson's birthday, right? You told me on the last day of school last year."

He did. He remembers it now, faint and vague, but he's gobsmacked she'd remember such a thing. Almost as gobsmacked as he is that he told her.

"Right..." he murmurs, scratching the back of his neck. He ducks his head and says, "Yeah, no, it's stupid that they don't have anything."

"Stupid's one word for it," she continues, shaking her head and glowering at the sheet she's holding. "Kind of bothers me too since I want to do something with writing."

"Really?" Ethan asks, his head popping up to meet her eyes. "You want to write? Like what? Like journalism? Or like books? Or-"

"Easy tiger, you're talking to a girl half drugged up on DayQuil," she giggles, quirking a brow.

Ethan feels himself flood with embarrassment once he realizes how ridiculously giddy he sounded just then. He just cares a lot, okay? And he bets her writing is simply stunning, he could probably read it forever if she let-

Ethan feels panic rise up in his throat and all through his chest when he realizes there's no prospect of "forever" with a girl like her. Ethan reminds himself that this friendship is a stroke of luck--practically a miracle, considering everyone else sees what Ethan sees in himself--and that he can't even pray for anything more than a high school friendship with her. And that's that.

(Y/N) is completely oblivious to his storm of emotions as she says, "Dunno yet, could be something with romance--I'm big on cheesy novels," with a giggle. "But I've got three more years of high school, maybe by then I'll have dreams of law or med school or being a swimming pig island guide. We'll see."

Maybe you'll be mine, Ethan thinks before he can stop himself. He nearly slaps himself in the face. Stop it, we just had this conversation, he thinks. And after thinking that, he realizes he's talking to himself. Freak.

"But anyway, I'm gonna drop my stuff off at my locker and then head to the gym, wanna walk me down?" she offers.

Ethan, as much as he would absolutely love even another second with her, realizes he must ditch her for that cozy book nook in his dad's room that'll host him all day. So, he says, "Would, but I've gotta piss and then talk to my dad."

Her nose scrunches adorably and he feels his stomach swoop. "Could you be less, uh, gross?"

"Never, you love it," he shrugs.

Momentarily, her friendly expression caves and she looks as though she's been caught in the act of something with her flushed skin and doe eyes. "Right," she squeaks. "Well, I'll see you around."

The two part ways and Ethan immediately jogs to his dad's room feeling the best kind of tired and excited to snuggle up under the blanket he's stashed under his dad's desk. He burrows himself in the bean bag and cracks the spine of his Harry Potter and gets to work, ignorant to the hours that slip by or the chaos that is most definitely ensuing in the gymnasium.

His dad stops in once or twice to check on him and backhandedly scold him for ditching such a fantastic and beneficial expo, saying things like 'It's such a shame kids don't attend such a well-stacked organization,' and 'the journalism department has some gifted staff members that have such fantastic brochures.' It is snooze worthy for Ethan, especially in comparison to the duel between Harry and Voldemort that he's reading about.

Around noon Ethan is forced to get up and stretch, moan and groan as the joints in his back pop and shift from his fetal position in his bean bag, because, for starters, he's absolutely famished and, for enders, he's just finished one of the best books he's ever read in his whole entire life. He can totally understand why (Y/N) gushes about them so much.

On his walk to the library, he thinks about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios in Florida, and wonders how much two plane tickets and passes would be, just to see her face light up when she takes her first sip of butterbeer. Or better yet, when she flicks her newly purchased wand around in her newly purchased robes and jumps up and down like the kid she is at heart. Or, even better yet, how she'd spill every bit of knowledge she had about the books before, during, and after their little adventure, all throughout the plane ride there and all throughout the plane ride home. It's just too perfect--it is exactly what she deserves.

And then Ethan catches himself grinning almost wolfishly his smile is so big, and he shakes his head like a cartoon character trying to rid himself of these crazed thoughts, because there are so many complications. One, he is broke as can be, two, his mother is incredibly strict and would never let him whisk away his giant crush to paradise, some 15 states away, and three, he doubts (Y/N) would ever want to go with him. He imagines she'd want to go--just not with him. And that is understandable, so as his fantasy explodes with a mournful pop!, he hurries into the library and grabs the cleanest copy of Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix and dashes out. Clearly, the smell of books--which he has already associated with (Y/N) for some unrelated reason--is too intoxicating for a clear mind.

After chomping away at the lunch he'd packed that morning, Ethan again nestles himself in his bean bag chair, ready to float from reality between the pages of what is undoubtedly his next favorite book. However, just as he's flicking open the cover, a tentative knock sounds at the door.

"Mr. Dolan?" calls a voice, one sweet like honey, from outside the room. "Mr. Dolan, you in there?"

Ethan quickly shoves the book underneath the bean bag before clearing throat and lowering his voice comically, "Come in."

"Mr. Dolan, I'm sorry to interrupt your lun-" (Y/N) stops dead in her tracks when she realizes there is no Mr. Dolan, well, no Sean by any means, but that Ethan's looking at her expectantly. "Where's Mr. Dolan?" she asks.

"He's right here," Ethan says, gesturing to his comfy figure in his comfy bean bag.

Her lips crack into a grin and she says, "No, you dummy, I mean your dad. Is he on his lunch break? And why are you in here? I was wondering why I hadn't seen you at Career Day."

Ethan shrugs lamely and surveys her; if he didn't think she looked like an angel, he would have thought she looked like hell: she had deep, dark circles beneath her eyes and her skin had paled even more throughout the day, the base of her nose scrubbed from rubbing it all day and her lips parted and cracked from mouth-breathing. Her clothes even look more rumply, like she's been curling up every spare second she's gotten.

"Go home," is all he says, his voice cracking embarrassingly. "You look like you're dying."

"Ugh, I am," she complains, folding her face in between her two palms. "I seriously think I might have something bad. My body's killing me."

"Then go home," Ethan encourages again, frowning sadly.

"Can't," she says, "got things to do."

Ethan rolls his eyes irritatedly, annoyed with her ambition when she is so obviously sick. "No, I'm not asking."

"Me neither," she shrugs. "Not like I can drive home anyway, I just have to tough today out."

"Well... well, don't go back to career day, the last thing you need is all that activity. And you could get a lot of people sick..." Ethan mumbles, fumbling for a decent excuse to just get her to stay in this room with him so he can ensure she doesn't die or something. Obviously.

"I'll be fine, I don't have another option," she says, sniffling.

"Hang out in here!" Ethan blurts, his words loud and unpredicted. "I- I mean, you can take the bean bag, and I'll lay on the floor, and I can set up a movie on the SmartBoard or something, okay? You shouldn't deal with all that- that activity for Career Day, and like I said, you could still get people sick."

She's watching him with amusement, and Ethan feels his embarrassment grow. But soon enough, she's asking still, "And what about you? What if I get you sick?"

Ethan could not care less about her getting him sick. He doesn't think he's ever felt so apathetic about a risk. "I'm just one person," he defends weakly.

"But an important one," she singsongs, but she's already working her way over to his beanbag. "But I'm sold. Put on a John Hughes movie--Pretty In Pink!" she cries, clapping her hands. "Just like you! Because of the new, pretty and pink hair you've got. Get it?"

Ethan's almost forgotten his latest hair alteration, and chuckles. She thinks he's pretty in pink?

As he's clicking away at the computer and setting up her film of choice, she asks, "Hey, is this your Harry Potter book?!"

He spins around to find her holding the copy he had stuffed under the beanbag and feels nervous for some reason. He hasn't told her he's reading the series, because he likes the way she explains things when she thinks he doesn't already know them, like a really excited kid. So, he says "Psh, no!”

As if that wasn't the shittiest way to tell a lie.

It doesn't seem dishonest to her, because she says, "Ugh, E, you gotta read them. Whoever was reading this has great taste."

"Not much of a reader," he snorts sarcastically, finally starting the film and heading back over to her to curl up on the floor.

"Whatever," she laughs, patting his head--too kind to ever smack him hard enough. "I'll read them to you. You have to find out how great these books are."

Ethan thinks about how wonderful that would be, her reading to him, and feels his heart flutter. Ethan Dolan is a fifteen year old boy who has just felt his heart flutter. He knows he's in much, much too deep. "Alright," he squeaks. "I'm holding you to that."

And then they watch the movie, and Ethan isn't even bothered when she coughs through half of it.

-

“Is it weird to get (Y/N) a present?” Ethan blurts as he waltzes into Grayson’s room, opting to pace back and forth anxiously instead of seating himself on his bed.

Grayson yanks out of one his earbuds and cocks a brow. He was all snuggled up under his comforter and enjoying the ache that comes with an overstuffed belly after Thanksgiving, ready to doze off any minute. He would be annoyed with Ethan, but he looks like a nervous wreck as he walks back and forth across his rug, and Grayson really likes (Y/N). Not to mention, he knows how much (Y/N) means to Ethan, as a friend and as the love of his life, so he knows this is serious.

“Um…” Grayson mumbles, processing his question.

“Um means no, right?” Ethan squawks, halting in his footsteps. “Right? I just- I know that it’s dumb, but listen, I have the perfect idea and-“

Grayson laughs in disbelief and shakes his head. “You’ve got it so bad.”

“I know!” Ethan growls viciously, and Grayson’s almost scared. “I know, okay! But that’s not what this is about!”

Grayson isn’t trying to be rude, he’s just stating the obvious. Anyone that’s almost in tears over stress because of a Christmas present—with the holiday still a month away—clearly cares a lot. Ethan’s never bought Christmas presents for anyone else but Gray, Cam, their parents, and their grandparents before, so this is a whole new milestone for him. But, Grayson realizes nobody else has ever really cared about Ethan. “Okay, okay,” Grayson says softly, removing his other earbud and folding his hands on his lap. “What’s your idea?”

Ethan whines and scampers over to his bed, looking more vulnerable than Grayson’s ever seen him in his life. Once Ethan’s seated criss-crossed, he takes a deep breath he begins rambling again. “So, her favorite books ever are the Harry Potters, and JK Rowling just came out with limited house edition versions of the Philospher’s Stone. I just think that’d be so perfect for her—a limited edition of her favorite book. But here’s the problem, I don’t know what house she’s in! And I can’t ask, because if I ask then-“

“Well, how about I ask her?” Grayson offers, fighting a crooked smile off his lips.

“No,” Ethan says, shaking his head. “No, this needs to be a complete surprise. You’ve never even talked about the Harry Potters with her. I just need to get them all.”

Grayson blinks in shock. “Get them all? That’s your solution? E, that’s like at least $80.”

“$100,” Ethan mumbles around the nail he’s nibbling on. “Not including shipping and handling.”

“$100! You can’t drop $100 on (Y/N)’s Christmas present!” Grayson stammers, bewildered and gobsmacked.

“Well, why not?” Ethan grumbles, glaring at his lap.

“Ethan,” Grayson breathes, his face collapsing in his hands. “Why do you want to spend $100 on her Christmas present?” Ethan shrugs his shoulders lazily, distancing himself from Grayson emotionally. He can practically see the guards going up. He sighs as he says, “I’m not judging bro, I just want to know.”

“She’d just really like it,” Ethan elaborates, as if that wasn’t obvious.

“She’d probably really like a bar of chocolate, Ethan. Anything you get her she’ll love. Do you really want to make a dent in your bank account like that over some girl?”

Grayson can see he’s struck a nerve, and he knows just how before the words even come out of Ethan’s mouth. “She isn’t just some girl, are you serious? This is my best friend. This is my only friend.”

Grayson scratches at the back of his neck. “Is this to make her like you? Do you think she’s going to like if you buy her stuff?”

It came out wrong. It came out wrong, but he still meant it. What does Ethan think he’s doing?

“Fuck you, Grayson,” Ethan bites out before hopping off the mattress and stomping towards the door.

“Bro, come back here, you know that’s not what I- Ethan, stop being a bitch,” Grayson grumbles, sliding out from his bed and chasing Ethan into his own room. The walk is uncomfortable with Grayson’s overstuffed gut, but he knows he needs to tend to Ethan’s giant, sensitive heart. Upon arrival, Grayson finds that Ethan’s actually locked the door on him. He knocks once, twice, three times without an answer before he just bangs his head against the wood. “You’re such a child.”

“And you’re such a dick,” Ethan snarks from the other side.

Ethan knows he’s overreacting, but Grayson knows better than to say things like that; he’s done it before and received the same treatment. It’s not fair that everyone always treats her like she’s average or disposable—Ethan would buy her the world if he could, and Grayson damn well knows it. Moreover, Ethan doesn’t expect anything in return from her; not a gift, not a relationship, not even a thanks. He just loves that he has someone to care for, even platonically. He’s never had this kind of opportunity. He’s never had this kind of friendship.

“Look, I’m sorry about calling your friend, er, ‘some girl’. And I’m sorry for the other part, too. But seriously E, do you really want to spend all that money? You don’t even have a job. This is like, birthday money and stuff…” Grayson tries, wincing.

“Yep,” Ethan replies flatly.

Exhaling a deep sigh, Grayson shakes his head against the wood. “Have you made up your mind?” he asks rhetorically.

Ethan doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to.

After a pause, Grayson sighs once more. “I’ll grab your wallet.”

-

“Ethan,” his dad calls, stomping his feet off of snow on the welcome mat in the foyer. “Gotta gift for ya.”

Ethan frowns where he sits on the couch with Grayson by his side, a pair of festive elf hats adorning both of their heads for Christmas day. “Me?” he asks incredulously, spinning in his spot.

“Is there another Ethan living in this house?” his dad asks with an eye roll before tossing him the package. It’s about as big as a shoebox, if not a little bigger, and there’s a glinting metallic red bow on the face of its white wrapping paper. He knows immediately that it’s from (Y/N) somehow.

He feels nervous. What if she was returning the books for some reason? It wasn’t heavy enough for that, but maybe she kept her preferred house and returned the rest… or maybe it’s just a letter softly letting him down, that his present was out of line and that she’s seen through his lies this past year and that she knows for certain he’s in love with her. Ethan let’s his mind whirl around torturously for a full minute.

Grayson can tell what Ethan’s thinking as he watches his brother stare at the wrapping paper with wide eyes and an anxious frown, so he says, “Ethan, just open the damn box.”

“Grayson!” his mother chastises from the couch across the coffee table. “No swearing! And on Christmas too?!”

Grayson barely holds back his eye roll. “Sorry, but look at this idiot. He’s about to have an anxiety attack over a gift!”

His snarky comment awakes Ethan from his terrible daydream and Ethan elbows his side. “Shut up,” he growls. “I’m going upstairs to open this.”

Grayson leans in close so his family can’t hear him. “What, think it might be lingerie?” he snickers.

Ethan’s cheeks burst with color and he gapes. “No!” he shouts, pushing off the couch and running to his room, ignoring the way Grayson cackles maniacally behind him.

He seals himself away in his space, hops into his bed and flicks on his bedside lamp. His hands are shaking with the suspense of it and he has to tell himself to calm down twice. Then he counts to three and begins tearing at the paper, shredding it and splitting open the tape that boxes it.

It’s simple, but so perfect. He grabs the plush T-rex tucked inside, chuckling when he realizes it’s a token from their conversation on the last day of freshman year in advanced English. He squeezes it to his body and hugs it so tight it hurts.

Then he pulls out the giant box of sour patch kids candy and laughs at the note, ‘For a sweet n sour kind of guy.’ Then he finds two bookmarks, one with lemons patterning the front and the second is just blank with a polaroid the two of them took at their local bowling alley taped on top. He feels his throat begin to choke up with emotion and his heart’s beating really, really fast.

Lastly, he digs out the two prompt books from the bottom with stickers that boast ‘Over 2000 prompts inside!’. On the cover of the first is a sticky note that says, ‘Hopefully you can find some inspiration in here.’

And beneath it all is a tiny note on three-holed paper written in blue ink.

Merry Christmas Ethy. Never make me cry like that again, okay? I almost sobbed to death. You mean the world to me and are a great friend. Give the fam a hug for me.

Ethan’s crying. He’s crying so hard that he thinks he’ll never stop because she is such a good friend. She’s too good for him, and she doesn’t know it, and he never wants her to figure that out because he wants her for life. Friend, girlfriend, whatever. It doesn’t matter as long as she’s around him.

His mom knocks on the door gently from outside his room, hearing his wails all the way from the staircase. “Etee?” she calls. “Can I come in?”

Ethan makes a noise of approval through his choking sobs, and she enters the room, fearing the worst.

But then she sees him hugging a stuffed animal undoubtedly gifted by (Y/N) and her heart swells three times its size. She is so proud of her Ethan, and she is so proud of her (Y/N) now, too. She loves that girl like her own.

Ethan’s mom sneaks over and wraps him up in a hug and squeezes him once because she loves him, twice because she loves his best friend, and three times because it’s Christmas, and makes a mental note to find a gift for (Y/N) next Christmas, too.

-

Entering the final weeks of his junior year, Ethan's beginning to relax, finally. Him and (Y/N) have been best friends for over a year now and spend just about every waking minute together, going to movies every weekend, bowling every Tuesday, swimming in the summer, sledding in the snow; the two could have fun in a cardboard box at this point. They know each other like the back of their hands, and they've grown so close even Grayson's beginning to get jealous of the amount of time they spend together. But Grayson--and everyone else--knows that it is only because they are so blindly in love with one another. He'll let them be ignorant for a little bit longer.

Ethan's situated in the rigid reigns of his unassigned-assigned seat in the very back of his college interpersonal communications class, pencil in hand, brows sloped together and feeling low as he ever could.

The assignment was simple. He was confirming or denying personality traits and ranking them on a scale from one to ten with one being inaccurate and ten being suitable. For example, Ethan's eyes hardly ghosted over the phrase '3. I am sociable' before his pencil darted over to the one column and jotted down the number 3 since the phrase 'sociable' was practically an antonym for 'Ethan Dolan'. The assignment is generic enough, but for some reason, Ethan feels targeted. He supposes he should put number '4. I am paranoid' under column eight.

Ethan's hard on himself. And he thinks that, after placing '6. I am revolting' under column nine, he should probably lighten up, but he agrees, okay? And he is anxious, he is argumentative, he's immature and impatient and cowardly. The further he skims down this list, the more cons he agrees with. However, there's a fair balance of disagreement: he certainly isn't affectionate, charming, or humorous and he certainly is not, er, 'happy-go-lucky'. He's being honest with himself--and that's what this activity is all about.

But it hurts. Ethan's foot is bobbing so fast against the rung of his chair his whole desk is practically vibrating and his throat feels tight and he feels cold, cold and cold-hearted. Before long, he's listing phrases like '11. I am snobbish' under category ten without a second thought.

'16. I am sensitive.'

Ethan's pencil hovers. He isn't sensitive. He is not sensitive, not anymore; his skin has thickened over the years, hardened with scars by the paper cuts of snide remarks and deep gashes of his own cruel thoughts. He couldn't remember the last time he'd even cried. His heart was practically dry ice at this point.

That's not true. You are still weak. You are still so weak.

Ethan feels his own insult slide down the length of his spine, cold and humiliating and it leaves his cheeks burning because it's true. He doesn't cry and that doesn't mean shit. He is still pathetic and lowly and he knows it, he knows better than to lie to himself like this. There is no place for dishonesty in his own mind--it is quick to reprimand him. He puts the number 16 under ten.

'17. I am lovable.'

His eyes pinch shut, stinging with tears, and he groans inwardly, aching with the pure cruelty of it. He can't think of a less applicable phrase. He ditches the one column completely and creates an entirely new scale, zero, and writes 17 twice.

He's hardly noticed that he's hunched over, his hand buried in his mop of hair and protectively shielding his vulnerable, tearful eyes. He's tucking in on himself until he's small, cowering under the weight of his thoughts. It hurts. It hurts.

He doesn't know where this wave of emotion came from, but he's digging his nails into his palm in order to distract him enough while the teacher's speaking.

"Now, the second part of the assignment is to see how other people rank you. I'll hand out a second copy and you will give it to them and give them the same instructions with you in mind," Ms. Stogerson says as the bell chimes overhead. "Bring it back tomorrow!" she cries as people file out of the room.

Ethan is last to leave with a heavy heart and a head full of heavy thoughts. He's practically sleep walking to his locker, his mind's so far away, and he jumps when (Y/N) puts a hand on his arm.

"Hey, you okay?" she asks gently, her eyebrows slung together with worry.

No. "Yeah, course," Ethan mumbles, staring down at his sheet littered with personal, personal insults. "Listen, um, you busy during study hall?" he asks.

She shakes her head no and waits for him to continue.

He sighs and nibbles on his lip. "Could you help me out with an assignment maybe?"

"Of course," she smiles easily. Ethan was dreading her response. He really, really, really doesn't want to do this. "What's the assignment?" she asks as he twists the lock on his locker.

"Um," he drags on, "it's kind of a weird one. You're supposed to like, rank me. Well, okay," he grumbles, ducking his head into his cubby for a moment of privacy. He sucks in a deep breath and closes his eyes, hoping the tears that still well in his eyes will soak back. "It's, uh..."

"Ethy? You okay? Seriously," she pushes, grabbing his forearm where it holds the rail of his door.

"Yeah," he tries, his voice cracking. He clears his throat and then steels himself. "Yes, I'm fine," he says with more certainty. "Basically, you have to rank my character traits from one to ten, with one being inaccurate, five being average, and ten being accurate. So like... so for instance, if the sentence was 'I am athletic', you'd rank me at like, a one since I'm not athletic at all. Get it?"

She squints at him and nods, tipping her head towards the classroom so they can begin walking. "Yeah, I get it, but I wouldn't rank you at a one. You might not be in sports, but I'm pretty sure you could kick someone's ass, and I saw you in gym class; you singlehandedly won capture-the-football for your team. I'd put you at like, an eight," she shrugs.

Ethan hadn't considered that. He really wasn't all that unathletic when he really thought about it. He frowns at his sheet. "Well... alright. But, you get it then?"

"Yeah, sounds like a piece of cake," she says and snags the sheet out of his hand.

Once they seat themselves in their study hall, (Y/N) breaks out her pencil and begins jotting down on the worksheet, and Ethan's almost sweating he's so anxious from what she'll say about him.

He knows she won't cut him down, she never has. But this is pure honesty, this says everything about what she thinks of him, how highly she sees him; it's as if he's asking her each question. Do you think I'm honest? Do you think I'm unique? Do you think I'm approachable? And she'll answer him.

It's an exercise based on self-evaluation and the mirror theory, and Ethan's supposed to find out if he sees in himself what others see in him. But he doesn't care what people think about him, he just cares what she thinks about him.

"Are you almost done?" Ethan mumbles, fidgeting with his hands.

She gives him a sidelong glance and a grin. "Yes, Mr. Impatient. Just... one... more. There," she says, sliding the sheet his way.

Ethan can't believe it. He really can't believe any of it. "You ranked me as a 10 on the attractive scale?" he gapes, bringing the paper close to his face to see if his vision had deceived him.

When he turns to look at her, she's blushing terribly but shrugging nonchalantly, as if she doesn't care if he knows that she thinks he's a ten. Ethan could throw a party.

"And another ten for charming? And a ten for humorous? And a nine for kind? Are you out of your mind?" he snorts, scanning her list. "Those are ones and twos on my list."

She blinks at him with horror. "How?" she asks incredulously.

"Charming? When am I ever charming?" he pushes.

"Er, well..." she says, avoiding his eyes entirely.

"And when am I funny?" he asks still.

"Oh, you know that you're funny, don't be stupid," she deadpans. "You make me laugh all the time. Let me see your list." Before Ethan can stuff it in her binder, away from her reach, she snags it and begins reviewing it studiously. Her frown deepens and deepens and her eyes get the look as if she's just seen animal abuse first hand, and Ethan hates it. He hates her sympathy, he hates her need to console him because he doesn't need it. He doesn't need sympathy.

"Ethan, how can you even say you're snobbish? When the fuck are you snobbish?" she mumbles, shaking her head.

"Well, I don't talk to anyone in this school besides you. I think that's kind of snobby of me," he shrugs, chewing on a hangnail.

"Ethan, you don't talk to anyone because they're all a bunch of assholes. I would be concerned if you did talk to them. Give me that," she says, grabbing his pencil from his hand and erasing his work. "We're doing this together."

"Why are you erasing revolting? That belongs in column ten!" he cries, grasping for the pencil.

"You're out of your mind, you are anything but revolting," she growls back, still erasing. "Now, why do you think you're irresponsible? You have a 4.0, Ethan."

He scratches the back of his neck, shrugging his shoulders lamely. "I don't know, I forgot to lock my locker one time and Kyle Henz sprayed shaving cream all over my books. If I'd remembered to lock it, that wouldn't have happened, you know?"

(Y/N)'s jaw clenches next to him and her knuckles turn white where they hold the pencil. "Well, Kyle Henz is a piece of shit, and that isn't your fault. You're responsible. It's going in column eight. I'll admit you're insecure, I'll leave that in column ten, but you shouldn't be. You are... so great," she says, shaking her head like she can't believe anyone like Ethan would be hard on themselves.

She makes him want to not be so hard on himself. She makes him want to believe in himself like she believes in him.

They go down the list until Ethan actually agrees with her on some. He doesn't know why he thought he was insensitive or bossy or dishonest because he just isn't. He is plenty of insulting words, but he isn't any of those, or half of the words he said he was an hour ago. (Y/N) makes an effort to give him an example with each one, why he's polite, why he's kind, why he's interesting, and it lifts his spirits higher than they've been in a long, long time.

"Why'd you pick me for this assignment?" she asks as the hour draws to an end.

Ethan doesn't really know. It's not because she was the first person he saw, because he would have picked her anyway. After a moment, he chews on his lip and murmurs, "You know me better than anyone else."

"Even Gray?"

"Even Gray," he nods.

She grins big at him and nods to herself. "Well, I know you better than anyone else, and look at what I think of you," she says, tapping to her sheet full of positives.

Ethan guesses that's one way to look at it.

They share a look, a look they share too often, a look that makes Ethan think that maybe she feels the same way too, a look that makes him believe that someday they could work out. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out, and the bell chimes overhead, and the moment's lost to reality.

"See you after school," she says to him breathlessly.

All Ethan can do is nod and watch her hurry out of the study hall room.

-

Ethan never does things right for too long. A year and a half of friendship was much, much more than he could have ever asked for, so he doesn't know why he's shocked. He doesn't know why he's even hurt.

He walks into his home robotically, his feet carrying him to his parents' room without him even knowing it. He doesn't even register that he's there until he hears his mom's gasp and feels her hands cradling his face. "Ethan Grant, how did you get that?" she asks.

He knows she's talking about the black eye that's marking the left half of his face, and he tries to answer her, but all that comes out is, "I think I lost (Y/N)."

He needs to talk about this. He needs to cry about this. He feels like something is eating him alive, starting with his heart; his heart, it hurts so bad.

"Honey, what do you mean? What do you mean you think you lost (Y/N)?" his mom asks, rubbing her thumb over his cheekbone and staring up at him with worry all over her features.

He just falls on her, lets her hold him like a child, and thinks about the times they used to go to the library and read together. He misses that innocence, that simpleness right now. He doesn't want to be so sad. Ethan is shaking with sobs and chokes on his own cries and sniffing loudly, trying to see through his blurry vision and calm down. He begins to hyperventilate and his mom leads him out into the living room, wrapping him in a blanket and attempting to console him, but it is very little use because Ethan is heartbroken.

He is absolutely heartbroken.

-

Ethan can hardly open his eyes the next morning, they're so puffy. He's still on the couch, and his mom is still by his side. He blinks blearily and looks around to find himself draped in a thick comforter and a cup of tea on the coffee table, still steaming. His mom looks as sad as him, and he can feel the disappointment radiating off of her. Whether it's from him fighting or him losing (Y/N), he doesn't know, but he hates it. It feels like another weight on him.

She cards her fingers through his tousled bangs and smiles sadly at him. "There's a delivery for you," she whispers to him, "from (Y/N)."

The name alone sends his heart jolting, and tears flood his eyes uninvited. He sniffs and nods, sitting up from his spot and propping himself up on his elbows. His mom leaps from her seat and pads into the foyer, her slippers scuffling on the marble floors, and returns soon enough with a laundry tote overflowing with books.

Ethan's brows furrow on his forehead, but he doesn't ask any questions. She simply drops it at his feet and leaves him alone with it.

Ethan wipes his eyes with the back of his fist and stretches a sore arm out to grab the first book within reach. He picks up the Great Gatsby and finds a sticky note on the cover. 'Here's something you haven't told me'.

Ethan reads and rereads it a few times, but it doesn't make any more sense the sixth or seventh time. So, he just cracks the spine and opens it to the first chapter. Ethan doesn't know what he's expecting, but nothing’s out of the ordinary for the first three pages and after a while he forgets what he's looking for and just reads instead. He's convinced he'll never hate a character from a first impression more than he'll hate Daisy Buchanan, and his annoyance grows bigger and bigger as he keeps reading. He figures he ought to just finish the chapter--even though he knows how it'll end--now that he's started it, and as he flips to the final page, he's glad he did. He skips over the paragraph and just reads the scribbled pen at the bottom in the space beneath the last paragraph.

I think Ethan would hate Daisy. Well, I hate Daisy. I hate her so fucking much.

Ethan laughs outright, even if it comes out a little strangled with his hoarse voice, at (Y/N)'s bluntness. She was shy and reserved in real life, but in her own fictional world, she was as bold as anyone he’d ever met.

I can't even figure out how Ethan made it past the first chapter with how shitty it is. I feel like his dad told him to read it, so he did, and he just ended up loving it, because if I didn't know the great reputation this book had, I would throw it in the garbage after the first chapter. I hate Daisy Buchanan. She’s a ditz.

She's absolutely right; Ethan only read it because his dad told him to. And he hates Daisy, he hates her so goddamn much from the start. But he's giddy with the realization that (Y/N) probably writes something at the end of every chapter, and begins leafing through the pages to find out what more is on her mind. On most pages after that, he finds highlighted quotes and margin notes and even little doodles, all pertaining to her thoughts on the book and what she thinks Ethan thinks, and most of the time, they're spot on.

After a while, he discards The Great Gatsby and grabs The Perks of Being a Wallflower and finds that it's similarly stained almost completely in highlighter and pen ink. Every single book in the overflowing laundry tote is well-worn, well-read, and well-marked. Ethan realizes after the eighth book that these are all of his favorites.

It's well into the evening when he stops searching each book and reading all the thoughts she took the time to scribble down. She knows him better than anyone in the world, better than Cameron, better than his dad, better than Grayson, better than his mom. She knows him better than anyone and she still loves him. She loves him like a friend, and maybe even more, and Ethan figures now is a better time than ever to just spit it out--he is so fucking in love with her, and he's going to tell her.

-

It's been six months and a day since that god-awful day, and six months since (Y/N) became Ethan's. That's one hell of a silver lining.

Her, Ethan, and the other four Dolans are seated around the Dolan's porch with oversized pumpkins in their laps and carving tools in their hands, sipping hot cocoa and eating recently decorated sugar cookies. Ethan can't think of a better way to spend his Halloween.

It means a lot to him because (Y/N) was invited to at least three parties and her friends were threatening to kidnap her if she didn't show up herself, and she turned them all down. She knows it's Ethan's favorite holiday, and she knows he doesn't like parties. She wouldn't have wanted to go without him, anyway.

"Ethy, pass me the scooper," she demands, making grabby hands at his toolset.

Ethan passes it along to her without a snarky comment because he's overjoyed. Nothing can bring him down.

"(Y/N), did we ever tell you about the time Ethan cried over you at the dinner table?" Cameron smirks, glaring smugly at Ethan.

Ethan lied. This can definitely bring him down. "Why no," (Y/N) drawls, grinning toothily, "you haven't Cammy. Fill me in."

"Absolutely not," Ethan growls. He raises the kitchen knife next to his pumpkin only half-jokingly. "Shut it."

But Cameron has no interest in keeping quiet. In fact, she's inviting everyone to chime in if they so please. "Dad? You remember that? Mom?"

"Of course," his mom giggles, her eyes lighting up happily. "Sean, you remember that right? Right after Cam met her at the ice cream parlor?"

"Remember that (Y/N)?" Cameron laughs, reaching over to grab her arm in delight. "When you and all your friends stopped in and we met? Well I told Ethan that I told you that he had a crush on you, and I swear to God I've never seen the kid cry so hard in my life, he was sobbing," she snorts, leaning forward as she wheezes.

"Oh my God, and he was reading the first Harry Potter and we were teasing him and he was getting so upset," his mom joins. Ethan's fuming. He's fuming!

"Stop," Ethan barks, glaring down at his pumpkin.

"That's not the first or last time he'd cry over you, either," Grayson scoffs, shaking his head. "When he picked out your Christmas present sophomore year, he was almost in tears he was so nervous."

Ethan's about ready to just leave, head inside and lock himself in his room with the way his girlfriend's giggling along and everyone's mocking him and his sensitivity. He opens his mouth to shout something obscene, but (Y/N) starts talking. "That's definitely not as embarrassing as the times that I've cried. When he first got that lavender stripe in his hair, my friends told me some other girl was going to snatch him right from me and I went home and sobbed to my mom," she laughs, covers her mouth and shaking her head. "She literally had to give me NyQuil because I cried all night."

His whole family bursts into a chorus of laughter; his dad's holding his stomach, his mom's wiping tears, and Cameron and Grayson are staring at each other with complete mirth.

"A-and then," she continues, her giggles breaking up her words, "on the last day of school freshman year, I cried all night long because I wasn't going to see Ethan for three whole months. I didn't even know him yet!"

Ethan finds himself chuckling deep in his chest too with a big wide grin, and he clears his throat.  "You're kidding," he snorts, jabbing her shoulder with his elbow.

"No, I'm not," she says with a giggle, shaking her head. "I think I cried like, a dozen times over you. Just too in love, I guess," she smiles sweetly.

Ethan doesn't know why he was so worried about being embarrassed around her--he knows she'll never judge him. And he knows she loves him too, so what's his problem?

The laughter dies down after awhile and everyone returns to their pumpkin carving, debating over the best slasher horror movie and which one they'll watch later. Ethan knows he'll be so scared he can't sleep, but that doesn't actually bother him all that much. His reality's so much better than any of his dreams, anyway.

-

Ethan's graduated. He is finally fucking graduated. He's never felt so good in his life.

He feels like someone's uncuffed his handcuffs, untied his reigns, or some other analogy for breathing a fresh breath of freedom. He can't remember anything ever being so physically relieving, outside of the moment (Y/N) confessed her love for him too. On second thought, there is something better than graduation, and it's standing in his driveway.

That thing is plopped on the pavement, with its limbs stretched out and its bare feet tickling the sidewalk at the end with a baby blue bit of chalk in its hand, writing in bubble letters 'WELCOME!'. Its got its tongue poking out of its lips and its hair is falling sideways around it and it’s looking absolutely stunning in its best sundress. Ethan can't believe he ever thought, even dramatically, anything as simple as graduation was as good as it.

And it, of course, is (Y/N). She's already spent the morning hanging streamers around the garage and setting up poster boards of Ethan and Grayson with Lisa and carrying out gigantic tupperware with large portions of food and sneaking a cupcake (Ethan saw) out of the dessert stand. And all for a graduation party that isn't even her own.

Ethan is anxious--which is a phrase that is often said and even oftener felt by him. But that does not mean he does not feel any less nauseous, any less dizzy, or any less on edge than he has all those times before; if anything, he is feeling more anxious than he has in months, because Ethan is less than popular at Long Valley, and half of the school is going to be coming to his house on his territory and they are going to be just as cruel as usual. And there's nothing Ethan can do; in fact, he's supposed to welcome them.

They've all been invited by Grayson, the twin who can actually speak, the twin who is a social butterfly. And Ethan gets it--it's not Grayson's fault he's likable. But he's been a little bitter ever since Grayson warned him that Cole Eptom and Alex Peterson were invited and attending. Where's Grayson's loyalty? This has been a clear violation of the Bro-Code, and he knows it.

More than this, it'll just be awkward. It'll be awkward when everyone's rushing up to Grayson and hanging off the edge of his every word, and no one is coming up to Ethan. And that's how it has always been, but it's frankly unfair and downright impolite when the celebration is about Ethan too, after all. He feels a little like his name is in fine print on their cheesy graduation banner.

(Y/N) stands up from where she was lying on the cement and claps the chalk off her palms. She stares down at her masterpiece with a frown and then swipes her tongue across her thumb and smudges out a bit of the W, and then grins contently and looks to Ethan for confirmation. Ethan doesn’t really care what it looks like if he’s honest, but he gives her two thumbs up and a big wide grin. She’s smiling, and that’s all that really matters.

She patters over to him, her white sandals scraping against the pavement and her matching white dress flowing with her body, and sidles up next to him, wrapping her arms around his frame. “You excited?” she asks.

Of course he isn’t. “Yeah, should be fun,” Ethan says.

She snorts disbelievingly and shakes her head. “No you aren’t, I haven’t seen you smile all morning.”

Ethan throws an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in tighter, kissing the top of her head. “That’s cause you’ve been busy helping and not paying me any attention. At all.”

She sneaks out from under his hold and slides her fingers up his jawline, eager to pull him in for a chaste kiss. They end up forgetting the ‘chaste’ part and making out in the driveway, oblivious to the commotion going about around them—the tables being set up, the decorative plants being vased, the food being set—and get lost in the feeling of each other. Ethan thinks it’s the best distraction he could have thought of. Their moment is so quickly ruined though when he feels a tiny bar--which he soon realizes is a carrot from the veggie tray--pelt the back of his neck, and he flinches and pulls away.

“Are you guys serious!” Grayson calls from the garage, his arms outstretched with dubiety. “We have a graduation party, dumbass!”

Ethan grumbles and pulls (Y/N) flush to his chest, both arms secure around her shoulders, and lifts his chin over his shoulder to pierce his twin with a glare. “Not for another half hour, fuck off.”

“It starts in five minutes, Ethan. For fuck’s sake, Grandma could walk up any second and see you guys tongue-fucking each other.”

“Or, Grandma could walk up and hear you using foul language, Grayson Bailey,” Grandma Adrianne scolds, her frown etching deep crevices in her face. Ethan’s never felt so smug as he does when he watches Grayson’s life flash before his eyes.

“Grandma Adrianne!” Grayson chokes out, faux-cheeriness in his strangled voice. “When did you-“

“Save it, you’re lucky I don’t tell your mother to wash your mouth out with soap,” she grumbles, waving him away. She’s quick to hurry up behind (Y/N) and snatch her from Ethan, pulling her into her arms and swaying the two of them back and forth. Ethan almost wants to be offended that she’s chosen his own girlfriend over him, but his belly feels warm with the reality that his family loves (Y/N) just as much as he does—some days, he actually thinks they might love her more. But that is a ridiculous thought. “Hi, Honey,” Grandma Adrianne says to her, patting her back. “How have you been? You takin’ care of my Etee?”

(Y/N) pulls away and holds onto her arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You know it, Lord knows what would happen if I wasn’t,” she says with an eyeroll.

“Good. We need you and Lisa by him always, the little devil.”

“Hey!” Ethan calls, his arms flying out defensively.

“Oh trust me, you aren’t near as bad as your brother over there,” Grandma Adrianne assures, waddling over to hug Ethan. She squeezes him tight and kisses his cheek, and Ethan smiles. “Quite the potty-mouth. Where do you even find words like ‘tongue-fu-‘“

“Grandma,” Ethan laughs.

“I’m not kidding, he’s in hot water with me. I told you boys no swearing, it’s unnecessary.”

“Lucky for you, I am a saint,” Ethan fibs, winking at (Y/N) over Grandma Adrianne’s shoulder. She rolls her eyes playfully in return and shakes her head, a blush on her cheeks.

“Yeah right, Kid,” Grandma says. “Now where did Grayson run off to? I bet he’s hiding,” she says and chases him into the kitchen where he is undoubtedly cowering.

Ethan takes the spare moment of privacy to kiss (Y/N) one last time, sadly chastely, and burrow his nose in the crook of her neck despite the way he has to dip down. He feels protected by her in a way he can’t explain—he knows she’d never leave him defenseless, nonetheless hurt him, because she has had that opportunity for years and yet, she has been nothing but kind, gentle, patient, and caring. Ethan’s reminded by this when she brushes her lips against the shell of his ear and whispers, “You’re going to be fine. Breathe easy. You’ve got this,” even though he hasn’t spoken a word of his churning anxiety. She just knows.

After that, Grandma Bernadette and Poppy John hobble in, followed by the twins’ little cousins, all eager to speak to the boys and snag a cupcake or two. However, after that files in their chemistry teacher, a girl Ethan doesn’t quite know, and half of the soccer team, all of which hardly grant Ethan so much as a glance. It doesn’t bother him; (Y/N) is secure by his side, chatting off his ear and playing iSpy.

But it keeps happening, just like Ethan knew it would. His history teacher is polite enough to say hello and ask him how it feels to be a graduate, but other than that, the dozens of people filling his garage are practically seeing right through him, while Grayson has a lengthy line just waiting to talk to him. His mother is sheepish, trying her best to entertain him with small talk until she’s hauled away by a visitor, and his dad is busy talking to his fellow coworkers. It’s just Ethan and (Y/N), ignoring the elephant in the room—Ethan is so, so unpopular.

He’s not letting it get to him. He isn’t going to. This is way too common for him to get all worked up today—there’s nothing different about today than yesterday, or the day before that, or any of the days at school. Grayson is simply more likable, Ethan knows that. Ethan knows that if he wasn’t so fucking quiet, so fucking grouchy, maybe, just maybe people would talk to him. But then he thinks about six-year-old-Ethan, neither grouchy nor particularly quiet, who was still just as unlikable. Is there something wrong with him? Is there just a wavelength that surrounds him, so negative and intolerant that people won’t even speak to him at his own graduation party? Because, in all honesty, today is different. Today is about Ethan just as much as it is about Grayson, but people are still avoiding him like the black plague. And these are nice people—people who have manners, who are polite enough to know to at least acknowledge his presence. What the fuck is wrong with Ethan?

(Y/N) squeezes his hand beside him, a frown on her lips and curiosity in her doe eyes. “What’s wrong?” she whispers, leaning in close.

“Nothing,” Ethan breathes, sighing breathily. “Nothing at all.”

She knows better, and he knows that she knows. But he's close, so close to tearing up in his garage in front of the cluster of people to his left, hanging off of Grayson's every word.

It was so unfair. He knows it's pointless to be asked where he's attending college since him and Grayson are going to the same place, he knows it's pointless to be asked who he's rooming with, but they could ask him about his major, they could ask him if he wanted to study abroad, they could ask him so many other questions. He did not deserve this.

Or did he? There must be a reason people hate him so quickly, almost inherently. It was as if everyone just knew to hate him. Hating Ethan seems like a knee jerk reflex for the mass population.

It can't be his looks--he sees the way girls fawn over Grayson, and he looks just like him. It can't be his last name, because everyone loves Cameron and his dad and his mom and Grayson. He's mulling over why, why, why people hated him so much they won't even speak to him at his own graduation party. He's mulling over why so much, that he hardly notices (Y/N) poking his side.

"Hey, Ethy," she says tentatively, jabbing him. "Someone's here to see you," she coos.

Ethan lifts his gaze slowly to stare at the woman in front of him--(Y/N)'s mom. He only realizes he's been frowning so bitterly at the ground when he begins to smile, ready to speak to one of his favorite people. "Hi!" he cheers, dropping (Y/N)'s hand to throw her mom in a hug. "Thank you for coming!"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Honey," she giggles in his ear, squeezing him back. "Gonna miss it?" she jokes, pointing to the pair of caps and diplomas on the table.

Ethan laughs and shakes his head. "Not a bit," he says.

"Good, those people suck," she whispers to him, discreetly thumbing to the crowd by Grayson.

Ethan smiles happily and nods in full agreement. "You can hop in line and talk to Grayson if you want," Ethan says politely, cocking his head to where Grayson's chatting away with a member of the volleyball team.

(Y/N)'s mom rolls her eyes. "He looks busy," she says flatly. "Besides, we have to go over more important matters; what flavor are the cupcakes?"

Ethan chuckles and grabs (Y/N)'s hand again, the knot in his stomach unwinding. "Red velvet with cream cheese frosting, just for (Y/N) here." He looks down to see his girlfriend is already munching on what seems to be her third cupcake, a speck of frosting dotting the tip of her nose. He swipes it off with a grin and licks his finger.

(Y/N)'s mom has already grabbed two and is in a hurry to make it to the food line. "Ethan, I hope you don't mind, but (Y/N) and I invited a few people. I already talked to your mom and she said it's fine," (Y/N)'s mom calls to him, stacking chips and sandwiches on her paper plate.

Ethan's brows slump together and he looks down to (Y/N) who is carefully avoiding his gaze. "Uh, yeah I guess that's fine? Who'd you invite?"

There is no time to answer, however, because the entirety of (Y/N)'s extended family is ushering into the garage, squeezing past tables and chairs, forming their own line to speak to Ethan twice as long as Grayson's. People are beginning to stare as (Y/N)'s cousins argue over who gets to speak to him first, her aunts are already coddling him, and her grandparents are hobbling up to the front, claiming 'dibs'. Ethan's mom is grinning so big he thinks her dimples might be permanent, and Ethan's dad is hardly paying attention to his coworkers, and neither of them mind when the family leaves late into the afternoon after dozens and dozens of hugs and kisses and conversations with Ethan and only Ethan.

-

Ethan isn't nervous for his first day of class, he's not. He has no reason to be. No one cares about him at university, and that's just how he likes it.

Well, he’s a little nervous. Not because he thinks people will pick on him, but because he thinks everyone will care so little about him that no one will bother to speak to him. It’s definitely better than bullying still, Ethan thinks. He just wants a decent spot in his lecture hall.

The walk to campus is easy enough. It’s sunny and seventy-eight, the perfect temperature for an early September morning. He kicks a rock all the way down the sidewalk and keeps his head down to pass the time and distract him of his thoughts. Before he knows it, he’s yanking on the door to his building and nearing the hall, and he’s nervous. He’s nervous and he’ll admit it to himself, because there’s no way he can deny the frenzy in his stomach or the sweat dampening his hands.

He walks into the room and it’s bigger than he thought it would be and already flooded with students. There’s a spot open here and there, but he’d have to cross the sea of bodies in each row to get to it, and he feels himself overflow with anxiety.

“Hey, need a spot?” a guy a few rows up the stairs asks, waving his pencil.

The guy seems nice enough but kind of intimidating; he’s absolutely jacked. Ethan knows he’s probably not a dick like Cole Eptom or Alex Peterson or Jacob Kronwell, but if he happened to be, he could kick Ethan’s ass. Despite his paranoia, he offers a nervous grin and climbs the stairs to sit in the spot next to him.

“I’m Rocky,” the guy introduces himself, offering out a hand for Ethan to shake.

Ethan takes it firmly and smiles at him. “Ethan,” he says back.

Rocky taps his pencil against his open notebook and bounces his foot against the floor. “You know anything about, er, The Evolution of Roman Literature?” he asks, squinting at the syllabus they grabbed at the entrance.

Ethan laughs and shakes his head quickly. “I don’t know shit about the Romans in general,” Ethan snorts.

“God, me neither,” Rocky responds, laughing with him. “What hall are you in?”

“Krater,” Ethan nods. “I room with my brother, how about you?”

“Hey, I’m in Krater too!” Rocky cheers, grinning with a row of white, pearly teeth. Ethan worries that this guy is too attractive to be within a mile radius of (Y/N). “I room with my best friend from my hometown, Collin. He’s pretty cool, you should meet him.”

Ethan’s making friends. He doesn’t know the process all that well, but he’s doing okay, he thinks. This is what making friends is like.

“For sure,” Ethan nods, drumming his fingers against the table. “You, uh, gotta meet my twin Grayson, he’s nice enough. But he can’t cook for shit, just warning you.”

Rocky tips his head back and laughs, and Ethan feels himself easing up significantly. “You’re funny,” Rocky nods as if it he’s confirming it to himself. “Look, if you wanna stop by my room after class we can pick up Collin and Grayson and get some food—Collin just texted me that he found the best sushi place in New Jersey just downtown. You in?”

Ethan’s in.

-

“Pay up, bitch,” Charlotte shouts in Ethan’s face, waving a hand of rainbow money across his nose. He knows for sure that she’s tipsy if not drunk because Charlotte rarely swears. He has no idea how she is best friends with (Y/N), the swearer of the century.

Charlotte, Hera, Marcy, Carlos, Collin, Baasim, Christian, Rocky, Grayson, and of course, (Y/N) formed a circle in their too-tiny living room, cramped so close their knees overlapped. In the center was a monopoly board with eleven tokens (ten sterling silver pieces and a single, makeshift character—a stale cheez it—for Christian) all mapped out in different sections. Carlos was thriving, Baasim was nearly asleep, and Hera had been to jail four times. Everyone had cried from laughter twice. All was well.

“Fine,” Ethan grumbles, forking over a pink bill. “Fuck you.”

(Y/N) cuddles into his side, touchy from the liquor she had ingested, and tips her head on his shoulder.

“Can we get away from your PDA for one night? Just one? You guys make me sick,” Christian snorts, picking up his cheez it figurine and tossing it at Ethan’s forehead.

Ethan smirks and reaches down to squeeze (Y/N)’s ass for all to see and groan.

“This is ridiculous, I shouldn’t have to deal with this stuff every day,” Marcy says, though she’s tucked in Carlos’s lap comfily. (Y/N) glares at her and jabs her pointer finger at the couple, pointing out their hypocrisy.

“This is actually a miracle,” Ethan shrugs. “Pipsqueak here was shy as fuck in high school. She would never let me even touch her in public.”

“(Y/N)? Shy? I find that hard to believe,” Hera laughs, reaching over and pinching (Y/N)’s cheek lightly. She grabs Hera’s hand and kisses the knuckles, which sends everyone giggling all over again. She really must be feeling affectionate tonight.

“’S true though,” Grayson pipes up, nodding. “I knocked over (Y/N)’s books the first day of my freshman year and I thought she was going to have a heart attack or something.”

(Y/N) sits up and pins Grayson with a hazy glare. “Worth it,” she slurs out. “Otherwise I’d never have the guts to talk to my crushhhh,” she cheers, throwing her arms around Ethan’s neck. Everyone laughs and boos, groaning theatrically and pretending to throw up.

“Yeah, cause Ethan here was a punk back in the day,” Grayson says. It’s the first time they’ve ever mentioned Ethan’s bitterness in high school, but Ethan’s not worried. He has nothing to hide; these people are his family.

“Punk? Really?” Rocky pushes.

“Oh yeah, had a huge emo-phase,” Ethan snorts. “Used to have a neon stripe in my bangs,” he elaborates, pulling on the now natural-colored tuft. “Hot pink.”

The group gasps and shouts a collection of ‘No!’s through their laughter, their ribs all hurting with the idea of Ethan in pink.

“He was so pretty!” (Y/N) chimes from beside him. “Don’t laugh!”

But she’s giggling too, feeling giddy and carefree in the chorus of laughter. Ethan’s got his face in his hands with shame and Rocky leans over to throw him in a headlock, tearing him from (Y/N)’s grasp and scraping his fist against his scalp. They spend the night drunk on cheap beer and laughter, feeling broke but in good company in their sophomore year inside their overstuffed apartment.

-

(Y/N) is seated on the couch with her legs strewn out across Ethan’s lap, with his legs strewn out onto the coffee table. She has a bowl of Reese’s Puffs being spooned into her mouth, and she’s watching Tom and Jerry and wiggling her toes to the intro-song. Ethan’s nervous.

He’s just received a letter from Penguin publishing company offering him a position as an editing intern. He’s overjoyed, really, but he’s stressed about (Y/N). Where’s she going to go? What’s she going to do? Penguin’s all the way over in Manhattan, and it’s a tough area for fresh-starters. He’s absolutely amazed that they sought him out.

He can’t honestly think of a better start for himself. He’s not sure what he’s going to publish, but he’s sure he’s going to publish something, and working at the biggest publishing company in the world makes for good connections. Furthermore, he’ll get to read and critique for a job—two of his favorite things. He knows (Y/N) would love that job. So how does he explain that to her?

It’s not that she won’t be happy for him, she’ll be overjoyed. But she’ll probably be a bit jealous, a little insecure, a little confused as to why they didn’t pick her instead. Ethan’s just as lost as her; she has a better GPA than him and everything about her is just perfect.

The job’s rare too. It’s a highly competitive field, and Ethan was chosen alongside nine others to work in cubicles with stacks, upon stacks, upon stacks of manuscripts, and he couldn’t be more grateful.

But it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right having a secure job without knowing (Y/N) has one too. And they’ll have to move to Manhattan-

What if she gets an internship in West New Jersey? What if they’re completely split? Do they break up?

Absolutely not. As crazy as it sounds, Ethan would never take his dream job over her.

But what do they do? If she doesn’t have an internship, does she follow him to Manhattan and find work there? Manhattan’s huge, would she like it there? Charlotte’s committed to an internship over in Newark for magazine journalism, which wouldn’t be too far away from her. But was that enough? Was Ethan enough of a reason to want to move to Manhattan?

“What’s on your mind?” (Y/N) asked around her spoon, crunching on her cereal still.

“I got an internship at Penguin publishing company,” Ethan blurts thoughtlessly, his chest heaving breathlessly after his admission.

That was the worst way to say it. That was the absolute worst way to say it.

“I’m sorry,” he whined, scrubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I found out last week. I didn’t want to tell you yet because-“

“Me too!” (Y/N) screamed, setting down her cereal bowl and sitting upright. “Ethan, me too!”

But Ethan wasn’t listening, he was just rambling. “I just didn’t want you to be upset because I know it’s far away in Manhattan, I don’t-“

“Ethan,” she laughed, pulling at his arm.

“I will totally drop it if you don’t want to be in Manhattan. I will totally-“

“Ethan!” she shouted, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Me too! I got an internship at Penguin, too!”

Ethan couldn’t have possibly heard her right. “What?” he breathes, setting his hands on either side of her face. “Really?” he asks, shifting excitedly in his spot.

“Yes!” she cries, leaning forward to peck his lips. “Yes, they sent me a letter last week, too. I didn’t want to tell you either,” she giggled.

“You’re kidding. You’re kidding!” he whooped, pulling her into him and hugging her oh-so-tight. Only ten candidates and two of them were himself and (Y/N)? This was god-sent.

“Not kidding at all. This way I can keep an eye on you, make sure you don’t flirt with the receptionist,” she teases, tapping his nose.

Ethan snorts and shakes his head, amazed she’d even suggest it with how obsessed he is with her. “Right,” he says. “you’ll definitely need to keep an eye on me.”

“Mhm,” she agrees, kissing his jawline.

“And we can spend our lunch break together,” Ethan grins, thinking of all the cool cafes he can take her out to. She gasps and smiles at him excitedly.

“You mean it? You won’t get sick of me, spending so much time together?”

Ethan’s never heard anything stupider.

-

Ethan doesn’t think Miami is the place for him, and luckily, he doesn’t think Miami is the place for (Y/N) either. It is most definitely the place for Carlos and Marcy though, that much he does know.

They’ve hardly made it to their Air BNB before everyone’s clambering around, scrambling to call dibs on rooms and wheeling their squeaky luggage around the marbled floors, wonkily up the stairs, and all around the halls; he needs some ibuprofen for his oncoming headache. (Y/N) looks the same next to him, with her hair tousled from the turbulence and her oversized clothes rumpled from curling up on Ethan’s shoulder during the flight. He’s no stranger to her post-flight daze; this is their fourth and final spring break trip. He knows how this will go hour by hour.

First, Charlotte is going to slip into her suit and dive headfirst into the pool before anyone can even unpack, and then she will convince everyone to ditch their tasks and join her. Then, they’ll get drunk while swimming (and in Hera’s case, sunning a good ten feet from the water) and let the first day slip away without a thought of their itinerary. Then, someone (Marcy) will beg to play Kings and then someone (Marcy) will get so belligerently drunk that someone (Marcy) will fall asleep in the tub and refuse to get out, and that someone’s fiance (Carlos) will have to carry them back to their room. However, the party will be far from over still, and Ethan and (Y/N) will be kept wide awake until the early hours of the morning, laughing until they have tears streaming down their faces with their best friends. He isn’t sure where, but he’s also certain that a pizza will be ordered somewhere amidst all that chaos.

“Has anyone seen my suitcase?” Charlotte shouts through the echoey halls of their gaudy mansion. (Thanks, Carlos’s parents’ money). “I need my swimsuit!”

A series of ‘no’s and a single ‘yes’ return her way, and Ethan decides at that moment that he needs an ibuprofen or he might just die. (Y/N) is curled up on her chair by the kitchen island, half asleep where she has her head propped on her palm. Ethan smiles to himself and pads over to the refrigerator to grab her a juice and an apple, knowing that’s what she’ll ask for any minute now.

“Ethy, can you grab me- oh, thanks,” she giggles as he slides her the snacks.

“Welcome, Sweetheart,” he murmurs, smirking triumphantly and raiding the cabinets for a bottle of ibuprofen. He checks over his shoulder just to ensure she’s grinning bashfully at her lap and feels funny all over when she is. He’ll never, never, never get tired of her.

“Think we’re gonna go clubbing tonight?” she asks him around a mouthful of crunchy apple.

Ethan laughs quietly and shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Me neither,” she agrees with a grin. They know their best friends better than their own families.

Charlotte comes thundering down the stairs, her bare feet slapping against the marble, and races out the backdoor by the kitchen, a towel in one hand and a portable speaker in the other. Ethan and (Y/N) share one of their looks, one of their lovey-dovey looks, one of their looks that makes all the other friends cringe and groan out loud.

“Enough!” Baasim wails as he rounds the corner, his swim trunks on a tacky white stripe of sunscreen down the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, you guys have got to stop eye-fucking each other.”

“We aren’t eye-fucking each other,” (Y/N) laughs, breaking their gaze to flick Baasim’s bare shoulder. “If we were, Ethan’s dick would be standing straight out.”

Collin begins dramatically hacking up make-believe vomit when he enters the kitchen, groaning and rubbing his stomach. “Never mention Ethan’s dick around me again,” he states.

Christian nods in agreement. “But she’s right. They were probably just doing their gross ‘we’re totally going to be in love until we’re a hundred years old’ looks, and those are so much worse than their eye-fucking looks. Trust me, I’ve seen both many, many times.”

Baasim shakes his head sympathetically at Collin and they pout together. However, Grayson steps in quickly after them with a lot to say. “You two don’t know the fucking half of it,” he grumbles, a beer already in hand.

Ethan rolls his eyes before pointing to his drink. “Where did you get-“

“There’s a mini fridge in my room! Carlos’s parents must be fuckin’ stacked.”

“They are,” Carlos replies snobbishly, a towel over his shoulder. He lowers his sunglasses momentarily to wink at the crew and they all swat at him mindlessly, paying no mind to his ridiculous ego. Marcy’s on his arm and eager as always to get out and swim, so they follow Charlotte outside right away. Soon enough, everyone’s filing out into the fenced-in backyard and a little more than tipsy.

The first night goes exactly as planned. Well, not according to their itinerary, but according to Ethan’s: there was pizza, there were drunk-bathtub-slumbers, there was Kings, and there was no sleeping until well after four in the morning. But the second is more well-mapped because Hera informs everyone that she’s secured them all wristbands to the VIP section of the Rockwell, and nobody’s willing to pass up that opportunity. And it’s fun—Ethan’s not one to deny himself of a good time—but the group is itching to return the next night, and Ethan’s just not as stoked as everyone else.

“Dude, Rockwell is so fuckin’ steeze,” Rocky nods.

Ethan snorts at his comment and shakes his head. “I don’t think I’m going to go tonight,” he shrugs, spooning a bite of Reese’s Puffs into his mouth.

It’s nearly one o’clock in the afternoon, but Rocky and Ethan are the only ones awake; last night’s wild rendezvous have left everyone drained and hung-over. Ethan’s already set out a bottle of Advil and two glasses of water by (Y/N)’s bedside table.

“Not going? Are you out of your fuckin’ mind?” Rocky asks, squinting at him incredulously.

Ethan isn’t out of his fuckin’ mind, he just knows how to pace himself. They have six days in Miami and he has the party-endurance of an eighty-year-old man—two days of heavy drinking in a row means he must take a night off. “Nope,” Ethan says. “You’ll have to tell me everything tomorrow morning if you can remember it.”

Rocky shakes his head with raised brows and stares at his toast. “Last night was insane.”

“Too insane.”

“Too insane,” Rocky confirms. “This is the shit you tell your kids about.”

Ethan thinks about that for a moment and realizes him and Rocky are just different people. Spring break is fun, unforgettable even, but Ethan would never peg it as life-changing. He knows what he’s going to tell his kids about—the time (Y/N) laughed so hard she peed on Grayson’s dorm bed and told him she spilled apple juice on his sheets. He’s going to tell them about the time she and he played hide-and-go-seek in their freshman residence hall for five hours. He’s going to tell them about the first time she snorted while laughing around him and he got it on video, and then how she tripped while chasing him and nearly had to get stitches. What’s the point in talking about the nights you can’t even remember? He wants to talk about the things he’ll never forget.

“Definitely,” Ethan nods, too tired to disagree.

“Is (Y/N) going to stay here too then?” Rocky asks.

Ethan shrugs but then nods. “Probably. I’ll honestly be surprised if she can even function after last night—she drank more than me, and she’s kind of a lightweight,” he says, chuckling to himself. He thinks about the way he had seen her throwing back twice-spiked pina-coladas and grins so hard his dimples pop in his cheeks.

“Gross…” Rocky says aloud, scrunching his nose and sticking out his tongue. “Stop being so in love. Just get married already.”

Ethan’s no stranger to comments like these, and they don’t startle or unsettle him. He has full intentions, he just doesn’t know how, when, or where to pop the question. He doesn’t even have a ring yet. But he’s ready, so very ready—he’s been waiting since ninth grade.

"Soon," Ethan murmurs back.

"Really?" Rocky says, pausing mid-chew. "When do you think you're going to ask her?"

Ethan doesn't know. "Soon," is all he says.

Rocky seems to notice he shouldn't push anymore because he backs off the topic. Around two in the afternoon, people start sleep-walking into the kitchen and fetching themselves some food, acting more like zombies than humans. When it takes (Y/N) an extra hour to drag her body down the steps, Ethan knows for certain she'll be sticking in the Air BNB with him all night long.

"Good morning," Ethan whispers quietly to her, kissing her hair softly. He knows her temples are sensitive today, so he doesn't dare kiss any part of her forehead.

She doesn't reply, just nods in return.

"Good morning, (Y/N)!" Rocky cheers obnoxiously. Ethan fears homicide.

"Go fuck yourself," she growls back, covering her ears protectively and folding herself into Ethan. Everyone's amused by her grumpiness since she is usually such a cheerful friend, but she's not in the mood to entertain. She grabs a carton of strawberries from the refrigerator and Ethan's wrist and tugs both upstairs to their bedroom where the blinds are drawn completely closed. The air conditioning's blasting on high, the bed is fixed with thick, fuzzy blankets, and the sound of drizzling rain is playing from her phone's speaker. She slips off the sweatpants she was wearing and snuggles under the comforter in Ethan's giant tee. He knows she isn't leaving this room until well into the evening.

He doesn't mind a bit. He'd choose a quiet nap with her over all the parties, all the alcohol, all the friends in the world. He would rather spend an hour with her than a lifetime with his closest friends, and even that thought doesn't scare him. Because she's his best friend. She's his other half and his favorite girl in the world. He's actually excited to have the place to themselves tonight.

The two doze off, sent to sleep by their aching bodies and pounding headaches. When they awake they don't necessarily feel refreshed, but they feel a little less like death, and that's good enough to crawl out of their den and order a pizza. They munch and gossip and watch a collection of movies, giddy to be with each other and in paradise.

“Do you think she’s in it for his money?” Ethan whispers with a glint in his eye, his hands on top of her bare thighs and a smile on his lips.

She nods around her slice of pizza, the gooey cheese slipping off the crust and sending her cackling as she tries to catch it. She stares over at the screen for a moment, grinning at Ferris Bueller and all his antics, before swallowing. “I think they really love each other, just never more than they’ll love themselves. And the money is definitely a perk, I mean, look at this place,” she says, pointing to the high ceilings of the living room. “Could get lost in here.”

Ethan nods and grabs another piece from the box, chowing it down in a few bites. “No kidding. Carlos’s head is too big for his body, I think he’d marry a mirror if he could.”

It’s all lighthearted; Ethan would die for Carlos, and (Y/N) would die for Marcy. But what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

(Y/N) giggles and tangles her fingers with Ethan’s where they lie on her legs. “Bet they’ll buy this mansion and live in paradise forever.”

He nods and smiles and hopes it’s true. They deserve their own kind of happiness—it isn’t his place to judge. He’s already the happiest he could be. “Could you ever live in a place like this?”

She tears her gaze away from the movie and shrugs a shoulder. “Dunno. I don’t think I’d ever be opposed to a mansion, but I definitely don’t need it,” she snorts. “I’d be happy in a cardboard box if you’re in there with me.”

Ethan’s stomach swoops at the domesticity of her comment, the way she says it casually, confidently, comfortably like the thought doesn’t scare her one bit. “Good, ‘cause I can’t afford this,” he laughs, taking down the last bite of his pizza and falling into her arms. She chuckles and wraps him up, cradles him like the baby he is sometimes, and he lays comfortably between her legs with his head on her chest. They talk forever about nothing and their minds don’t stray to their friends crazy night out once.

Around two in the morning, they find themselves in the kitchen, (Y/N) propped up on the granite island with her legs dangling off the sides and Ethan raiding the cabinets. Music is playing off the speaker from Ethan’s phone, and they both have the case of the giggles. God, they’re so in love.

“Want some whip cream?” Ethan asks with his head buried in the refrigerator like an emu.

“Is that a question?” she replies, though it comes out funny with her mouth stuffed with doritos. He tosses her the bottle blindly and she catches it, tipping the bottle above her head and spraying a good glob past her lips. Then, she hears the opening chords of a guitar and she gasps, sending her coughing.

Ethan’s only a little concerned because she’s laughing so hard during all of it, but he turns to check on her. “Are you o-?”

“There once was a bittersweet man and they called him lemon boy,” (Y/N) sings, hopping down from her counter throne and smirking at him smugly.

“No,” Ethan groans, laughing outright and groaning into his hands.

“He was growing in my garden and I pulled him out by his hair, like a weed,” she taunts, grabbing a fistful of his hair and tugging. Ethan reaches out and pinches her side, and she scampers around the island to escape him, giggling still.

“(Y/N), don’t,” he whines, embarrassment flooding his features. He begins racing around the table to catch her and muffle her teasing, but she’s quick and bubbling with laughter.

“Lemon Boy and me started to get along, together,” she squeals, barely dodging his grabbing hands. “I helped him- Eek!”

“Quit it!” he calls through laughter, his fingers skimming the back of the giant tee shirt flowing from her back.

“It’s actually pretty easy, being nice, to a bitter boy like him,” she cheers, her hands raised above her head joyously with her eyes closed. Ethan pauses where he trails behind her and just waits for her to run into him blindly. She does, falls flat against his frame, and throws her arms around his neck in defeat. “So I got myself, a citrus friend!” she cries, swaying the two of them back and forth.

Ethan doesn’t have the heart to be even the least annoyed, because she is just perfect for him. It has been long, so, so long since he’s been bitter. He slides his hand up the back of her shirt and rubs his thumb over the ink below her shoulder blade, grinning to himself. Feels too good to be true sometimes. He takes her vulnerability as an opportunity to tickle her until she screams.

He has his hands around her sides, wiggling his fingers all around her tummy and her sides and under her arms, and she’s screeching and begging him to stop, but he loves the way she laughs so he doesn’t. He throws her over his shoulder and smacks her bum, races around the island some more and chuckles at the way she squeals. He feels like a kid with her and he never wants to grow up. 

He never wants to grow up.

“Lemon boy and I, we’re gonna live forever,” she sings still, hung upside down on him.

“Like Snufkin and Little My, we’ll get around, wherever,” he chimes in much to her delight. She smacks his back and pleads for him to put him down, that the turbulence on this ride is worse than their Spirit Airline flight down to Miami.

He obliges and lifts her back to her righteous spot on the island, sliding into the space between her legs. “Yeah we’re the bitterest guys around, and I got myself, a citrus friend,” she finishes, placing her palm on his bare chest and pressing his mouth to his cheek with a loud smack. They’re out of breath and still so giggly, but then they’re sharing one of their looks, one of their lovey-dovey looks, one of their looks that makes all the other friends cringe and groan out loud, and Ethan’s so happy that they have the house all to themselves tonight. It feels like a honeymoon.

“Love you,” he whispers and plants a kiss on her forehead in return. He means it more than ever.

“Love you more,” she murmurs back.

Ethan hears a series of beats and a single guitar strum before he realizes what song is drifting through the air. “Ever heard this song?” he asks quietly, his hands settling at her waist. She shakes her head and slips her arms around his neck, already rocking back and forth to the easy music. “’S called Japanese Denim. It’s one of my favorites,” he explains as he burrows his nose in her hair.

“Sing it to me,” she says.

Ethan isn’t much of a singer. It doesn’t matter. He wants her to know that he thinks of her during every cheesy love song.

He hums to the tune and begins his serenade. “You’re my four leaf clover, I’m so in love, so in love,” he rasps out, squeezing her tight to him. He takes the time to pull back and kiss her slow and soft, as sweet as their first time. “My blue jeans,” he coos. “Will last me all my life. So should we, I’m spending all this time…”

She runs her fingers through the bangs of his tousled hair and smooths her thumb over his cheekbone. She loves him and she’ll love him forever.

“I’m reaching Nirvana, goodbye sweet Rwanda,” he continues, chuckling as he speaks the next bit, “High school was never for me. I say let it be, let it be, Forever’s a long time.”

High school has never felt further away with Ethan so happy, so optimistic, so friendly, so sociable. He can’t even remember the names of the terrible people, the words of their comments, the spots where they bruised him, the dates that he cried. He can’t imagine where they are now, and he never wants to. High school gave him his most prized possession, his best friend, his future wife, his soulmate, his other half. He couldn’t be more grateful.

They sway softly, trapped in their one little world. They don’t even notice when the group comes home, quiet with hoarse throats and all boozed out. But they find the couple in the kitchen, dancing in place to a love song, more in love than they could ever hope for themselves. They’re tucked in on each other and mumbling about something the crew can’t hear, and none of them have the heart—not even Grayson or Baasim— to break up their moment, so they just grin to themselves and slip off to bed. They just hope they’re all part of their wedding in the near future.

If Ethan could hear their thoughts, he would tell them they don’t have to worry. He’s already decided to propose right after graduation. And he knows just how he’s going to do it.

-

NEXT: 3½ | It’s U

[quakerjoe]

In the end, not even the Progressive Bernie Base showing up for Hillary in larger numbers than her own supporters did for Obama in 2008, could prevent the inevitable. A massively flawed candidate who failed to electrify the Democratic base and make the case to Rust Belt voters- why she is the better option than the Populist candidate spraying out anti-trade rhetoric.

Blame whatever you want. The blame rests squarely on all of us. But there is so many lessons to learn from the 2016 Primary and General Election. Populism and Progressive policy became the central topic. Healthcare is a right. The ultra-rich are KING in America, and they must be reigned in. Primary process should be more fair. Flowery platitudes aren’t enough to generate excitement for the poor to turn out, etc.

Literally ZERO of these lessons were learned. Even in the face of an ACTUAL Corona-virus pandemic, with over 30 million unemployed, more and more uninsured at the time of writing this- the Democratic party has done nearly nothing to fix the problems from 2016. Actually, in all my shock- they’ve made them worse. The Democratic party pulled every string it could. Bent over backwards to not only stop Bernie Sanders, but stifle Progressives and our policy agenda. All in an orchestration to crown their nominee just years after a 2016 lawsuit said the DNC can meddle how ever they like in their own “Democratic process”. All to push a man who did next to no campaigning in any states past South Carolina. A man who didn’t actually work for your vote, but instead- coasted on “Hope and Change” establishment nostalgia, for when times weren’t so chaotic.

So for pragmatism sake, let’s push all that aside for just one moment. We can debate all day about how “fair” Joe Biden’s path to the Democratic Nomination has been. But let’s view Biden on his own merits for his candidacy’s sake. What’s the incentive for Progressives to vote for Joe? Well- unless you’re sticking to the concept of the very first paragraph of this article, the answer is: There isn’t one.

If Hillary Clinton were a flawed candidate, Biden may just be the worst nominee in history. A long history of terrible behavior including coddling racists, racist behavior, repeated threats at slashing the safety net, warmongering for a devastating Iraq war that’s helped kill endless innocent civilians all based on a lie, the nomination of Justice Thomas and controversial treatment of Anita hill, the Obama administration’s failure to even pass a Public Option with a Super Majority government, while pushing a healthcare plan that was little more than barely a small step in the right direction.

Now- Biden stands as the presumptive Democratic Nominee, and with a sizable Progressive Bernie Base up for grabs, what has Joe Biden done to earn our vote?

Answer: Nothing. Well, at least nothing significant.

Three items come immediately to mind on what Joe Biden is doing to “reach left”.

1: Joe wants to lower the Medicare age to 60. By comparison, Hillary Clinton wanted to lower it to as low as 50.

2: Joe Biden wants to eliminate student debt for those making under $125K. By comparison, Bernie Sanders wanted to eliminate it universally.

3: Nebulously- Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have created “working groups” on various policy issues focusing on education, criminal justice, climate change, immigration, the economy, and health care policy. As of yet, nothing has come of these “groups” on policy.

As the Primary was coming to a close, I as a Progressive- was completely open to Joe moving (not reaching) left on policy positions.

Overwhelmingly, if you ask Sanders supporters what they care about most, it’s Policy.

What will you do for the underprivileged working class people of America?

What will you do for my children and grand children facing a Climate Change future?

What will you do for your Mass Incarceration mess, ending the drug war, legalizing Marijuana, and freeing non-violent drug offenders?

What will you do for the upwards of 45K people who die each year because health care is not affordable?

The 67% of American bankruptcies being due to health care costs?

BUT. Sanders supporters also believe in principle. Consistency. History. Fighting for change. Decency. Human rights. We’re also majority young people (a group Joe Biden did not do well with). Perhaps these things could be talked out. But now there’s a bigger elephant in the room. One that establishment Democrats and Joe’s supporters are ignoring.

Joe Biden was credibly accused of rape.

Democrats spent months yelling about “Believing Women” during the Kavanaugh Confirmation hearings. Rightfully fighting for Christine Blasey Ford’s story to be heard- knowing it would be a fruitless task at the hands of a twisted Senate Republican majority. Now, establishment Democrats are making the media rounds with Biden campaign talking points with denials and every attempt to downplay Tara Reade as not a credible accuser, even as several corroborations of her story have surfaced, 1 of which was an archive video of who Tara Reade alleges is her mother discussing the issue with Larry King on CNN in 1993. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s campaign has it’s surrogates and supporters on news networks shielding Biden. Nancy Pelosi downplays the accusations, Kirsten Gillibrand (who helped cancel Al Franken) is downplaying the accusations. Alyssa Milano, prominent #MeToo voice, who made a performative appearance at the Brett Kavanagh hearings, now wants to “change the rules” on the movement in favor of a sort of ‘Due Process’- a process that many perpetrators cancelled by #MeToo never got, in favor of protecting Joe Biden.

What this means to me is that Democrats think it’s perfectly fine to be selective on who and who doesn’t deserve to be heard and taken seriously, based on who’s on your team. As if it should be that easy to just shed your principles like Snake skin, hypocritically protecting one predator, while gunning for another that doesn’t fit with you politically.

In 2016, I was perfectly fine voting for the “lesser evil”. Now that the party has loudly stated that not only does my values, principles, and policy demands for the poor and sick of America, not matter- I should fall in line with a candidate that has helped endless innocent people die overseas with America’s imperial military reach, helped endless people die at home because they cant afford a doctor, said that he has “no empathy” for young people- the same young people that have to live and suffer under the conditions of Climate Change while he’s dead and gone, sexually assaulted and violated multiple women, said that nothing will fundamentally change for the same rich people who are now gaining BILLIONS under pandemic conditions while their workers get sicker, if they’re even employed at all.

Moderate establishment Democrats and voters tell me that Trump is the number one threat. That we need to “vote blue no matter who”. Just how “blue” is Joe biden? Just how dissimilar is Joe Biden and his supporters from Trump and his following? For all of the cries of the “angry Bernie Bros” online, I see countless accosting and abusive discourse examples from Biden supporters calling any dissenters “Russian Bots”, or “MAGA Hats”. Being told that I’m somehow a Trump voter by default, for not immediately supporting Biden. All this when all I’ve ever seen from “the Bernie Bros” is aggressively holding smear artists to facts and truth in a thick environment of misrepresentation of Bernie Sanders and his platform.

So- Why shouldn’t Progressives vote for Joe Biden?

This Democratic party doesn’t give a damn about you. Nor does it care about Progressive policy. The party and its supporters spend all this time, smearing Sanders and his base as “Not democrats”, angry “socialists who want free stuff”, “How are you gonna PAY for it?!” etc etc, all while claiming to support SOME form of our policy, and then dropping it the second it doesn’t feel politically advantageous. This party threw everything it could into stopping YOU. With tactics like voter suppression, using a silly app suspiciously funded and supported by shady actors in Iowa, taking WEEKS to give final results, running Super PACs against Bernie and our movement, fear-mongering about Bernie when he did win states, gas lighting the public on “elect-ability”, using a literal pandemic against Bernie to guilt him into dropping out while attempting to blame him for continued spread of COVID-19, while they sent voters to the polls and we didn’t.

And after zero policy concessions, zero good will, repeated demands we fall in line after more than a year of being slammed and disrespected, showing up for Hillary Clinton and then being blamed for her loss anyway, which is inevitable again if Joe loses? Are we just going to keep allowing that? Just how long do we have to hold our noses, voting for Moderate do-nothing lite Republicans who would sooner see you die, than provide you affordable and universal healthcare, because a Billionaire would stand to lose money. Even NOW, during a Pandemic this party has done next to NOTHING to secure the livelihoods of American citizens, as more and more die, get furloughed, and cant pay their bills. All while Trump and Republicans take credit for pitching more common sense plans (even though they want to send us all back to work/school to feed the machine).

This- is the “resistance” party? THIS is the best we can do? Performative rage against a fascist clown while propping up an accused rapist warmongering corporatist with cognitive decline and previous racist tendencies? THIS is what the party keeps telling us we better support or be shamed as somehow supporting the “bad guy”?

Listen, #NotMeUs- this will never stop. This party will NEVER stop using us as a prop for our ideas and passion, then throwing us under the bus when they think they no longer need us. They cannot continue to be allowed to drag us further to the right with guilt trips and shaming. They will NEVER take you seriously unto you take serious action. We’ve been preaching about “action” this whole campaign. Why should that “action” stop in the ballot box? Have some foresight for just a moment and envision how this plays out in future elections, unless you stand up and make them WORK for your vote.

I, for one will not vote for Joe Biden. But I wont shame you for your vote, no matter who it’s for. Why? Because the party did a terrible job at earning -your- vote. I’d maybe only criticize you if you don’t show up at all. There’s so many down-ballot candidate who need support. Even if you leave the President box unchecked, at least show up for the other races.

But consider: There are other options that have been stifled for way too long. Perhaps its time we give them a shot, no? Green Party is running Howie Hawkins and a platform that is much closer to our principles that Biden would ever try for. Justin Amash just jumped into the race if you’re a little more on the Libertarian side. Jesse Ventura is also discovering running on the Green ticket as well. Just imagine Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura on the debate stage with Donald Trump? Popcorn for DAYS.

In order for us to be taken seriously, we must prove that we’re capable of holding the party accountable. Not voting for them is the ultimate accountability, and you get to keep your principles intact.

Now- to the ultimate argument you’d inevitably get: “You would be helping Donald Trump secure 4 more years”.

My response? You don’t have to bare the blame for that. You wont be at fault for Joe Biden losing any more than those who chose not to vote at all. It’s on the party to earn these votes. That’s how elections work. If you hate the candidate and don’t feel good about them as a person, why is it your responsibility to put them in office? To me- one of the most personal things a person has, is their vote. Not their dollars, or their Tweets. It’s checking a box for the person YOU chose to represent you. If that person doesn’t believe in hardly anything you personally believe in- why is it that they deserve your vote, again? How is it that they’re are somehow entitled to that vote? They don’t, and they aren’t. I’m looking at you too, Republicans.

In closing…

Progressives, I’m sorry to break it to you but- Medicare For All is not on the ballot. Taxing the rich is not on the ballot. Ending corruption and crooked politicians is not on the ballot.

But- ending a terrible two-party system IS on the ballot. Taking your personal vote back, IS on the ballot. In my opinion- the only wasted vote, is the one you were demanded in giving up to what you don’t believe in.

-LZ

https://medium.com/@legacyzero/why-sanders-supporters-should-not-vote-for-joe-biden-a9146bee189b

[dahliadreamcraft]

Lament of Innocence AU

So I’m working on a fanfic of Castlevania that is basically “Frankenstein is the villain instead of Dracula”. However this au is in turn based in an au of Lament of Innocence instead of canon Lament of Innocence.

This post was originally going to be a bunch of random facts about the Lament of Innocence AU, mostly focused on giving Sara more character and her own backstory, and rewriting things so that they make more sense with the cartoon.

It ended up turning into a plot outline of the prequel to Requiem of Resurrection ( the name of the actual Franken Leon fanfic when I get around to actually writing it).

Which I’m putting under a read more so that it doesn’t end up turning into a ridiculously long post on people’s dashboards.

Also @darkartist98 for the freaking AMAZING fanart you did of Franken Leon. That inspired me to start posting content again and actually start working on the AU like I was supposed to. This doesn’t feature Franken Leon quite yet, this is all backstory but I thought you might like to know it.

*TRIGGER WARNING: One of the characters commits suicide. While I am going to do my best to treat the subject with all the gravity and respect it deserves, this is still a sensitive subject matter that I feel should be warned for.

Lament of Innocence is a tragedy. This doesn’t have a good end.

*Mathias was a vampire for at least two thousand years before Lament of Innocence happened

*Mathias is the “king of the vampires” by virtue of being the oldest. Bernhard is the second oldest. A vampire by the name of Oriana (inspired by the Witcher series) was the third eldest.

*Leon was eighteen when he first became a knight and actually earned his baron title by defeating a basilisk.

*The town the basilisk was menacing was where he met Sara and her father Rinaldo (I combined Sara and Rinaldo’s backstories)

*Sara gives him the first prototype vampire killer which she made.

*Sara eventually also makes the real Vampire Killer along with its upgrade Morningstar.

*Sara and Rinaldo are originally from Italy but came to France following Bernhard.

*Sara is a polyglot, which is a fancy term for she learns languages uncannily quick. She was damn near fluent in French and barely had an accent when she meets Leon for the first time and she’d only been in France for a year. The accent completely disappears a few months later.

*Sara was a young girl when Bernhard kidnapped her sister Gabriella, starved her to the point of madness, and let her loose outside of Sara’s home. Sara’s brother managed to throw her inside their father’s workshop to protect her just before Gabriella killed him.

*Her brother’s screams still haunt Sara’s nightmares.

*Rinaldo made it back in time to kill Gabriella before she could force her way into the workshop to kill Sara.

*He still has nightmares about that night.

*It was not love at first sight for Leon and Sara. Despite Sara giving him the whip, neither of them thought they were going to see the other again after that day.

*After Leon (with Trefor’s help) killed the Basilisk thanks to the whip Sara gave him (because his sword broke during the fight) Leon is so high off of the win and the fact they didn’t die that he finds Sara again to thank her and in his excitement kisses her.

*He comes back down to earth and starts to apologize but Sara waves him off saying ‘there are far worse things than being kissed by a cute knight’.

*Despite this they still didn’t think much of it when he left to go report to his captain about the basilisk being dead.

*On his way back from the basilisk fight he comes across an exceptionally tall vampire about to rip some poor bastard’s throat out.

*He attacks Mathias with his new whip, which causes him to drop the man out of shock because the whip actually hurt him. Not much, but the fact it did anything at all was amazing.

*Mathias at first thinks Leon is just some upstart vampire hunter, and accuses him of believing in superstitions because of the cross he is wearing at the time.

*Leon’s response becomes ingrained in Mathias’s memory.

*Said response was ‘I wear a cross because I’m Catholic. You prick.”

*Leon keeps refusing to be impressed by any of Mathias’s grandeur showboating and that leads to a fight.

*Leon gets his ass kicked and the whip gets torn up.

*Mathias decides to let Leon live however, instead stealing the cross necklace he was wearing at the time.

*Leon ends up having to go back to Sara and Rinaldo to get another whip.

*And that is how Leon ended up becoming a vampire hunter.

*Over the next three years Mathias keeps coming back to pick fights with Leon, each time Sara’s whips getting better and better but still not quite good enough.

*Leon and Sara also end up getting closer and closer until Leon proposes to her.

*Mathias crashes their wedding to pick another fight with Leon.

*Sara gets her revenge for this about a month later when he appears in their kitchen and she hits him in the face with a frying pan.

*Leon is where the Belmont impulse to fight the supernatural “because it’s the right thing to do” comes from. Sara is where the Belmont impulse to fight the supernatural “BECAUSE FUCK YOU” comes from.

*Mathias never quite lives the frying pan down.

*Meanwhile Sara’s best friend Elizabetha meets a tall handsome stranger one night. This tall handsome stranger is totally unrelated (no it isn’t it’s Mathias).

*The event that finally leads Leon and Mathias to becoming friends is right after Sara creates the true Vampire Killer using a blood ritual that creates a bond between Leon and the whip.

*Leon and Mathias get into another fight, but this time Leon says something that strikes a chord with Mathias.

* “You’re old enough to have seen all of these great things, old enough to have witnessed history itself, but never did any actual witnessing? You’re bragging about all the things you missed. That’s nothing to be proud of, all it means is that you’ve spent the past however many thousand years just...existing! That’s not respectable, that’s just pathetic.”

*Mathias leaves in a huff but while he does Bernhard comes in and attacks Leon (who is exhausted from his fight with Mathias.)

*I won’t get too graphic here in the interest of avoiding triggering anyone but let me put it this way. Bernhard is the vampire equivalent of a serial killer torturing small animals before eventually moving on to people (other vampires). Leon is the small animal.

*Mathias comes back and after seeing Leon in horrible shape (he’s barely alive at this point) realizes he actually cares about Leon quite a bit and doesn’t want to see him dead.

*Mathias then proceeds to fight Bernhard and saves Leon’s life.

*And that is how they end up becoming friends.

*Over the next ten years a lot happens.

*Leon and Sara have two children. The eldest Sonia and the youngest Gabriel.

*Mathias and Trefor are named the godfathers.

*Mathias gives Leon and Sara a mirror that allows them to communicate and even venture through to the mirror on Castlevania’s end.

*Elizabetha and Mathias get closer as well, Elizabetha in fact is the reason Mathias learns so much about the medical field and the human body. She wanted real methods to actually treat people inside of “throwing tea leaves at the problem and hope it works.”

*Sara still makes whips and other alchemical weapons in hopes of defeating Bernhard one day, which leads to the creation of the Morningstar upgrade.

*However one day Elizabetha dies unexpectedly. It’s the first major bereavement Mathias has ever hand in over two thousand years. 

*It is then that it hits Mathias just how little time he has left with Leon and Sara.

*He wants them to become vampires themselves.

*They both refuse.

*Mathias, knowing that they would hate him if he forced them to become vampires, instead tries to manipulate the matter in his favor.

*He pretends to have gotten bored of Leon and Sara, and suggests to Bernhard that a good way to get Leon to come to him would be to take and turn Sara.

*This goes horrifically wrong.

*Bernhard does to Sara what he did to her sister, starving her and once she went mad with bloodlust, he lets her lose inside her and Leon’s village.

*She massacres the entire village of people she personally knew for the better part of a decade. Sonia and Gabriel barely make it in time to hide from her inside the basement with Trefor.

*When she comes back to her senses she’s drenched in the blood of all the people she knew from their village.

*Sara, unable to cope with the overwhelming guilt of having massacred her own village or the prospect of living with that knowledge for thousands of years, kills herself.

*Leon comes back just in time to see the results of what Sara had done and what she did to herself.

*Bereft and angry, Leon takes the Morningstar whip and hunts down Bernhard, and finally is the one to put an end to the vampire.

*Just before he disappears into dust however, he reveals the true mastermind behind Sara’s turning.

*Leon is completely crushed by the revelation.

*Mathias meanwhile is just discovering how horrifically wrong his plan went and goes to Bernhard’s castle with the intent of killing him in the slowest most painful way he could manage.

*Instead he finds Leon just outside the ruins of Bernhard’s castle, tears running down his face and hatred in his eyes.

*Leon attacks Mathias, beside himself with rage and grief and betrayal.

*This time Leon wins.

*But he ends up sparing Mathias. Not because of their friendship, but because it’s the cruelest thing he can think of doing to Mathias, forcing him to live with the consequences of his actions.

*He swears that the Belmont line will haunt Dracula’s every step from now on, that they will kill every vampire who dares try to harm humanity and never again will they put their trust in a vampire. 

*Mathias moves to Wallachia and Leon takes Sonia and Gabriel and goes there too. Trefor follows knowing that Leon needed a friend to help raise Sonia and Gabriel.

*Five years later however, Leon dies of a similar illness to Elizabetha.

*Sonia contacts Mathias via the mirror to inform him of Leon’s passing. She angrily declares however that she will continue what he started, and that she won’t let any other vampire hurt people the way Mathias had hurt her parents, had hurt her and her brother

*She then through tears informs him that this was goodbye. That if they ever met again, she would fight to kill him, or die trying.

*Sonia then uses the morning star whip to destroy the mirror.

*The pain and loss of losing all three of the people he had come to love and care for, the fact his godchildren now hate him and he now has to fight Leon’s family for the forseeable future, ends up physically aging Mathias in a way time hadn’t.

And this is how Lament of Innocence happens.

[saventhhaven]

Lost Time

Word Count: 2,823

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader

Tags: nerd!reader, sweet!Sam, protective!Sam

A/N: Some of the stuff I have in here was research that I connected on my own, so please note that a “rugawolf” is not canon (although that’d be pretty freaking cool)

(Gif not mine)

You tossed a manila folder onto the motel's round table, undoing the top button on your crisp white blouse as you did. Playing dress up as an FBI agent wasn't your favorite part of the job, but hey, you had to do what you had to do.

"Another one," you stated. Both boys looked up from their laptops, turning their attention to you. You had gone out to question the witnesses while the two of them brushed up on some lore.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Another attack today." You shrugged off your black blazer, draping it over a chair. Dean raised his eyebrows with interest as Sam turned his attention back to his laptop.

"And?"

"And," you continued. "I went through a fair amount of trouble to get past those damn cops, but I managed. I got some pictures of the victims' bodies, take a look." You gestured at the manila folder as you turned your back to the boys, fully unbuttoning the white blouse. "Oh," you remembered, "I also got a name and address. Aaron Bayles. Lives about ten minutes from here." Having put on a clean t-shirt, you turned back around to the boys. Dean clapped his brother on the shoulder.

"See, Sammy? Told you she didn't need anyone to go with her."

"There's more," you continued. "We got lucky enough to have a nosy neighbor. Mrs. McGarvey. When I asked her if she noticed anything out of the ordinary, she said our guy's been 'uncharacteristically violent' for the past few days." Dean gave a thoughtful nod, lifting his feet up to rest his heels on the table.

"Hunks of flesh missing, hearts gone," Sam mused as he leafed through the pictures. "So, what, a werewolf?" You shook your head, pushing Dean's feet back off of the table.

"No, I don't think so. I mean, I thought so at first, but the chunks out of the flesh threw me off. It doesn't match up right to be a werewolf."

"Werewolves only go after the hearts," Dean agreed. You nodded your head at him.

"Exactly. That's why I was confused. But then, I remembered something I read back in college when I did a personal study on mythical creatures and their origins." Dean snorted.

"Nerd," he muttered under his breath. You smacked the back of his head as you sat down in an empty chair.

"Do you know what the French term for werewolf is?" you questioned.

"Loup-garou," Sam answered. You pointed at him.

"Right. And an alternate spelling for rugaru is 'rougarou,' with two extra o's."

"You're losin' me here, Y/N," Dean admitted, leaning back in his chair. You continued on, ignoring him.

"When using the alternate spelling, both terms use the suffix '-garou.' So, I dug into some lore, and I found out that werewolves and rugarus are related. Some people even call werewolves rougarous instead. But get this: the term rougarou originated in the early sixteenth century. The term werewolf originated in the late sixteenth, early seventeenth century. Both originating in Europe. That means werewolves had to have evolved from rugarus. So, I think what we're dealing with here is a mixture of the two." Sam nodded, and you could tell by the look on his face that the pieces were falling together for him too.

"An evolvement between rugaru and werewolf." You grinned at him.

"Yahtzee." Dean leaned forward in his chair.

"Okay, wait wait, so, what, you're telling me we're dealing with some sort of... Franken-freak wolf crap here?" You chuckled.

"For lack of a better term, yeah." Sam shut his laptop, his eyes gleaming with an excitement that only came with solving a problem like this.

"Y/N, you're a genius," he said. His compliment made your chest swell with pride, and you felt your heart flutter. You had really missed this. Dean shot you a kind smile.

"It's like you never even left, huh, Y/N?" You caught the way Sam scowled over at his brother, but before you could ask about it, the scowl was gone, replaced with his usual expression.

"So, here's what I'm thinking," you began to explain to the boys. "Silver bullets might kill a ruga-wolf, but I'm not liking our chances with that 'might.' I think we'd be better off with a good old fashioned flame thrower." Sam stood from his seat, flashing you a pained smile.

"Y/N, can you give us a minute?" You frowned, confused.

"Uh, sure." The younger Winchester tilted his head in the direction of the motel door, and Dean got up, looking just as in the dark as you felt. When you shot him a confused glance, he only replied with a shrug as the motel door closed behind him. You rushed over to the door silently, trying to hear what was being said.

"-going on?" Dean was asking.

"Why did you call her?" Sam demanded. As a frown turned the corners of your lips downwards, you heard Dean let out a heavy sigh.

"Sam, you said it yourself: we needed help on this one."

"Yeah, but not from Y/N!" Your heart squeezed painfully in your chest. Had Sam's feelings towards you really changed so much in the past few months?

"She's the smartest hunter we know, okay? We couldn't do this one without her!" Dean argued.

"I don't want her here!" Sam shot back.

"Is this about the break-up?" You made a mental note to thank Dean later. That was the question you had just been wondering, yourself.

Getting the call from Dean yesterday had immediately made you uneasy. Especially because Sam had made it painfully clear that neither of them could be in contact with you anymore. Your relationship with Sam had gone on for almost a year and a half and all of a sudden it was over. You understood why he had ended it all. Because he wanted to protect you. Because Sam wanted you as far from the hunter's life as possible. But that didn't make losing him hurt any less. And now, almost a year later, Dean had called you up out of nowhere. Your biggest fear was that the call was to inform you that Sam had been hurt. Or worse.

"I did it to keep her safe," Sam said quietly. "I still love her. And I can't lose anyone else, Dean. Especially not Y/N." When the motel door swung back open, you made no effort to make it look as if you hadn't been eavesdropping. Instead, you stood there, staring the two of them down. When he saw you, Sam's cheeks flushed red. "Did you hear..." he trailed off. You nodded.

"I did," you replied. "And if you two think I'm gonna sit on my ass while you get to do the dirty work, then you have another thing coming." Dean looked at his brother warily before looking at you again.

"We're not gonna be able to convince you to stay here, are we?" You crossed your arms firmly, not backing down.

"There is no way in hell."

The sun had just set when the three of you finally pulled up to the house. The two boys swiveled around in the front seat to look at you.

"Know the plan?" Dean asked. You nodded curtly.

"Get in, get out, don't get dead," you answered. "Just like always." The three of you strode cautiously up to the front porch, trying not to disturb anything. You slowed your pace even more as you drew closer to the front door, which was barely hanging from a lone hinge. Not a good sign. You hadn't been nervous at all during the car ride, but now that you were here, unease was beginning to settle in the pit of your stomach. It had been a good few weeks since you had been on a hunt, and you couldn't afford to screw everything up now. The boys were counting on you, and you had to prove to Sam that you could hold your own. You jumped slightly as Dean came up behind you, gently placing a hand on your shoulder. When he raised his eyebrows at you, you nodded at him to signal that you were okay and stepped through the threshold. It was eerily quiet and had it not been for the broken door, the silence would have been a dead giveaway that something wasn't right. As you tightened your grip on the homemade flamethrower, Dean gave you and Sam a sequence of carefully practiced hand signals, wordlessly telling you to split up. With Dean covering the lower level, that left the upstairs to you and Sam. Sam went up the wooden steps first, and you followed him guardedly, listening for any sign of movement. When he reached the top of the staircase, he halted suddenly, reaching out a hand to steady you when you almost stumbled. Sam pointed to the wall, where a bloody handprint dripped into a small pool on the dark wooden floor. The ruga-wolf had been feeding - and recently. Sam broke off to the left, motioning for you to go the other way. This was all you. You willed your heart rate to slow. You couldn't afford to lose focus now. You had to keep your guard up. Hunting this monster, in particular, was uncharted territory, and you honestly had no idea what you were up against, nor what to expect. You gingerly pushed your shoulder against a closet door down the hallway, easing it open. This was your least favorite part. A fight head-on you could almost always handle. It was the games of hide-and-seek you couldn't stand. The room you found yourself in was a small bathroom with nauseatingly yellow walls and a full-length mirror in the far corner. Nudging the shower curtain aside with the tip of your flamethrower, you sighed in relief. The bathroom was all clear. Movement caught your attention, and you looked into the mirror to see the creature charging you from behind. You gasped and turned around just in time for the monster to throw you into the mirror. Glass shards tinkled to the floor all around you as you swore loudly. With the wormy skin of a rugaru, and the fangs, claws, and glowing eyes of a werewolf, this creature was nothing less than terrifying. And unfortunately for you, your weapon was just out of your reach. You were screwed.

"Hey!" Sam stood in the doorway of the bathroom, holding up his flamethrower menacingly. In the ruga-wolf's moment of surprise, Sam aimed his weapon at the creature's head. When only a small hiss of air came from the gas tank, his eyes widened as he looked at you in panic. Before Sam had a chance to get his bearings again, the ruga-wolf charged at him, tackling him to the floor.

"Sam! Y/N!" you heard Dean yell from downstairs. Swearing loudly, you dragged yourself over to the cabinet under the sink, praying you would find something you could use.

"Y/N!" Sam wheezed as he struggled with the ruga-wolf.

"I know, I know!" You yanked open the cabinet door and spotted a can of air freshener in the back. Bingo. You popped off the top of the aerosol can. "Move!" Taking your cue, Sam shoved the creature off of himself, giving you a clear shot. You jammed your finger down on the spray nozzle and flicked your lighter on, the fine spray instantly catching fire. The ruga-wolf growled at you, rearing back for another attack. "Burn in hell, you son of a bitch." Before it could make another move, you directed the stream of flames towards it, and it caught fire, howling inhumanely. When the monster finally fell still, you tossed the can of air freshener to the side in relief. Boots pounded against the hardwood floors, and Dean appeared in the doorway of the bathroom.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded, picking up Sam's flamethrower from the floor. Sam gestured wildly at the device as he stood.

"It jammed," he explained. Dean frowned.

"So, how did you-" Wiping beads of sweat from his forehead, Sam bobbed his head at you. Pushing strands of hair from your face, you gave a small smile.

"I didn't," he answered.

You spent the entire ride back to the motel trying to gather your thoughts. Now that the hunt was over, your mind wouldn't stop going back to what Sam had said to his brother. That he still loved you. You knew Sam had ended things to protect you. He had told you that himself. But after almost a year of no contact with him at all, you had just assumed that he had moved on. The silence surrounding the three of you was almost painful. You and Sam sat on opposite sides of the room, neither of you daring to sneak a glance at the other, with Dean sitting at the table in the middle. After a few moments, he sighed, reached for his keys, and stood.

"You going somewhere?" Sam asked, sounding just as relieved as you felt.

"I'm gonna go for a drive. Maybe pick up some more beer." You quickly stood from your place on the motel bed.

"I'll come with you," you offered, headed for the door. Dean held out a hand, stopping you.

"No," he objected, "you, uh, you stay here. I'll be back later."

"But-" Dean closed the door behind him before you could follow, leaving you and Sam alone in the room. You knew without a doubt what was going on. This was Dean telling you and Sam to stop avoiding it and just have a conversation. Honestly, though, you weren't sure you were ready to have this conversation. But at this point, it didn't really seem as if you had much choice in the matter. Sighing, you turned around. "I guess we should just get it over with, huh?" Sam pressed his lips together in a line as he nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so." You went and sat next to him on the other bed. After another moment of silence, you turned to look at him.

"Can I ask you something?" you asked quietly. Sam nodded, finally meeting your eyes.

"You can ask me anything, Y/N." You felt your heart begin to hammer in your chest as you licked your lips.

"What you said to Dean earlier," you began, "about still loving me. Do you?" Sam reached for your hand and laced his fingers through yours.

"I do," he admitted honestly. "But having you here, it..." Sam closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. "Y/N, everyone I've gotten close to in this life has died. Every single one." He met your eyes again, pain evident on his face. "I can't do it anymore. Especially if I would be losing you." You gripped his hand tightly.

"But you're not. I'm still here."

"I didn't want you to be. I told Dean not to call. I begged him. It's too late for me to get out of this life, but Y/N, you still have a chance. You were able to leave it all behind for almost a year, and then he calls you? Drags you back into it?" You shook your head softly.

"Don't blame your brother. I appreciate you giving me that chance to live my own life, Sam, but I never took it." Sam's eyes widened as he looked at you with shock.

"What?" His voice was barely above a whisper.

"That year we were apart? Sammy, I was hunting the whole time. I think the only reason Dean called is because he probably figured I never stopped." Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times before he finally spoke again.

"B-but you-" he stuttered.

"I knew the risk," you cut him off. "And I appreciate you trying to protect me from all this, but that's not your decision to make for me." Sam looked shaken.

"You've been hunting alone this whole time?" You gave him a somber nod.

"I have." Without any warning, he wrapped you in his long arms, burying his face in your hair. Surprised, you froze for a moment before responding to the embrace. When you inhaled, you realized just how much you had missed him. It sounded sad, but you had spent countless nights trying to remember every hint of his scent to commit it to memory. Coffee, soap, a little bit of aftershave.

"I'm sorry you had to spend all that time alone." You shook your head and tightened your arms around his torso.

"I'm not," you replied. "It brought me back to you, didn't it?" Sam angled his head downwards to kiss you gently on the lips, a gesture you didn't hesitate to return.

"But it was a whole year that didn't have to happen." Giving him a broad grin, you moved closer, your lips hovering mere centimeters from his.

"Then we'd better make up for lost time."

Thank you so much for reading, you guys! I’ve had this one up my sleeve for literally months now, but it needed a lot of tweaking before it was reading material.

If you liked this, please leave me feedback! I love hearing from you guys!

Links to my masterlist, taglist, and inbox are in my bio description as always!

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Welcome, all! Our topic for today: President Trump’s endorsement of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. (And the Republican National Committee decision to support him again.) My question is … what gives? Is this a political mistake?

First, takes?

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): I think it’s a stupid move. Trump is clearly trying to score a “win,” but it’s far from certain that Moore will get him one. All that’s happened in that case is that he’s endorsed an accused child molester.

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): It’s not … not a mistake. It likely won’t substantially change anything, but it’s hard to see what good it could do for the president or Moore.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Trump coming out to endorse Moore is extremely … unsurprising. And, yeah, I don’t think it will change very much.

julia_azari: I don’t mean to underestimate the moral outrage at stake. It’s just not clear to me that moral outrage outweighs many other factors in contemporary politics.

harry: I guess my question is: What is it that made Trump go from mostly endorsing Moore — essentially by attacking his opponent, Democrat Doug Jones — to fully endorsing him. Why do that?

natesilver: Have you ever known Donald Trump to take a half-measure? Everything plays out into the most extreme possible version of itself.

micah: He may have half-colluded?

harry: LOL.

natesilver: The collusion was spectacular, I’ll tell you that much.

harry: He ordered the code red!

micah: You’re goddamn right I did!

julia_azari: So the “I hate political correctness” narrative seems to have worked out well for Trump in general. I wonder if he thinks this can be filed under that somehow — i.e., liberals are going after someone for accusations that either didn’t happen, or were a long time ago, or weren’t as bad as they sound (to gather up a range of talking points made in Moore’s defense).

micah: Yeah, I buy that.

Supporting Moore fits snuggly into Trump’s larger message and image.

natesilver: It might also be more personal than that:

If Moore wins, I wonder if Trump would instinctually come out against expelling him because he'd see it as foreshadowing an impeachment proceeding.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 15, 2017

And Trump might see himself as being unfairly attacked by the liberal media, just as Moore has been.

micah: No self-tweet-quoting allowed here.

julia_azari: Dammit. I saw Nate’s move there as an entree into quoting my own favorite takes of mine.

micah: LOL.

harry: I was reading this great book … “The Signal and the Noise.” Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

natesilver: Now available for just $9.99 on Amazon dot com.

micah: OK, so Nate and I had an argument about this the other day, but how about this theory: Trump moved to a full-throated Moore endorsement because he has internal polling that shows Moore’s lead increasing and so wants to hop on the bandwagon.

Any takers?

natesilver: Oh god.

julia_azari: It’s nice and simple, so that’s a point in favor.

natesilver: That line of thinking is like always wrong. If people start talking about Moore’s internal polls, I’m going to bet heavily on Jones, and vice versa. Also, the public polling tells a fairly confusing story.

The Emerson College poll showed the race moving slightly toward Jones, although Emerson has been on the Moore-leaning side of the consensus recently. And the Gravis Marketing poll showed essentially no movement and Jones still ahead.

julia_azari: When coming up with explanations like these, I tend to think the one with the fewest assumptions that we can’t really prove is the best one.

harry: Trump is likely looking at public polling. So it’s simple, and I like it.

natesilver: The simplest answer is that Trump supports Moore because birds of a feather flock together. And then the RNC backtracked so as to stay on the same page as Trump. Also, the GOP brand was already going to take the PR hit once Trump endorsed Moore, so why not drop a few bucks on him?

harry: If they’re so similar, then why in the heck did Trump not endorse him in the primary? Honest question.

natesilver: Endorsing Luther Strange was one of the most out-of-character things Trump has done.

And he might have felt a little burned by the experience when Strange lost.

julia_azari: The Strange endorsement was … please stop me before I make the joke.

harry: Haha.

julia_azari: I’m not sure how to say this politely, but I think Strange sucked up to Trump effectively and that explains the endorsement.

natesilver: Or maybe Mitch McConnell convinced Trump that Strange was a key vote on health care and taxes (which is not a totally crazy notion).

But, anyway, I think the media has a pretty big bias toward seeing all actions as deeply strategic. When sometimes, it’s just Trump mashing buttons and everyone else playing cleanup.

micah: So, do you think Trump or Republicans will pay a political price for supporting Moore?

julia_azari: It’s hard to see the case for a big short-term impact. There’s already a significant gender gap in the national vote. And there’s so much news, including many sexual misconduct revelations on the other side of the political spectrum, that it is easy for things to be drowned out.

micah: Yeah … that seems right to me.

Anyone want to make the case that this endorsement hurts Trump and/or Republicans?

julia_azari: I will say that presidents getting involved in congressional elections rarely goes well or adds anything

micah: Say more!

julia_azari:

1. It’s kind of a norm violation, although that norm is eroding. (See my piece about FDR from last week.) Congress is a distinct and co-equal branch.

This race is messy for Republicans (see my piece about their lack of good options for dealing with Moore), and as Nate has pointed out, Moore has lost a lot of support in a very solidly red state. Why highlight the party connection as Trump has?

Relatedly, it illustrates just how nationalized party politics are. That offers some advantages for presidents, who get to set the agenda for their parties. But if members of Congress are always running with the party’s national brand on their backs, it washes away some of their independence — their distinct, district-based political support because of relationships they have there.

I don’t think Trump endorsing Moore is a huge turning point for that phenomenon, but it doesn’t do anything to enhance the independence of Congress.

natesilver: It’s also one of a large number of factors that could have a drip, drip, drip effect on the Republican Party brand. And there’s some precedent for this sort of thing mattering, e.g. with Mark Foley. With that said, it’s going to be pretty hard to pick out the effect of Moore from everything else.

And seeming Democratic hypocrisy on Sen. Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers might dull the effect some.

micah: OK, so … speaking of Conyers. He announced on Tuesday that he’s resigning (well, sorta). Does that put the Trump endorsement in a different political light? Or does it help Democrats have a sharper, more coherent message on this issue?

julia_azari: I don’t know. That Nancy Pelosi clip (in which she called Conyers an icon when asked about the allegations against him) might be forever.

harry: Well, there’s still the Franken situation and the initial response to Conyers, but … what a contrast. On back-to-back days, you get the president endorsing Moore and Conyers being essentially forced to resign.

natesilver: Yeah, part of my critique of how Democrats handled the issue is that it felt like the discussion had reached an inflection point when the Franken accusations hit, and Democrats had an opportunity to claim the moral high ground, which they declined to take.

You can attempt to regain the moral high ground, I guess, but it isn’t as easy as keeping it in the first place.

We’ll see if there’s renewed pressure on Franken to step down, though.

micah: And the moral high ground matters, obviously, but does it matter politically?

julia_azari: ^ strong candidate for the 2017-est sentence ever.

But of course, Democrats — including prominent feminists — didn’t take a hardline with Bill Clinton back in the 1990s. As long as these misconduct cases are treated as individual problems, I think the broader political agendas will prevail.

micah: Wait, so imagine a world where Democrats have forced out both Franken and Conyers. Is the party better off in that world?

I’m trying to get at whether the moral high ground is important politically? Whether message coherence matters, basically.

harry: I don’t think they’re worse off.

natesilver: I think Democrats made a political mistake, yes.

micah: Nate, you’re not explaining how the mistake hurts them.

natesilver: Because they look like fucking hypocrites, that’s how.

harry: ANGRY NATE SMASH.

natesilver: And looking like hypocrites makes it easy for a Republican to default to partisanship in rationalizing a vote for Moore.

Or Trump for that matter.

micah: Couldn’t I argue that the default to partisanship is so strong that it would happen anyway? So why play by a different set of rules?

julia_azari: I can see both sides of this — to the degree that Democrats lose out politically because of an “enthusiasm gap” or a decline in support from people to whom consistency is important, I could see a case for this mattering on the margins.

Because a lot is happening on the margins now. (Because the country is closely divided.)

But mostly I assume that partisanship matters and the state of the economy matters and the duration of incumbency matters. Racial attitudes matter.

Everything else has a high burden of proof with me.

natesilver: For one thing, Micah, the Democrats are supposed to be the “woke” party on treatment of women (and good for them). So they look more hypocritical if one of their members abuses or harasses women, in somewhat the same way that an anti-gay-marriage Republican would look more hypocritical than a liberal (ostensibly straight) Democrat if they had a gay affair.

micah: You can tell Nate is mad when he uses my name in his response.

julia_azari: So I’m also certainly angry at the situation. It would be nice to think at least one party had consistency on this issue. And as a woman in a male-dominated field, yup.

harry: I tend to think about politics in this way: When you can do something that is morally correct and isn’t going to hurt you politically, why not do it? What’s the argument for keeping Conyers and Franken around?

julia_azari: But Democrats have consistently been inconsistent, and this has included women.

I’m getting into territory that’s not quite my expertise, but I’ve thought a lot about this lately. I think the answer to Harry’s excellent question is that the assumptions about these kinds of accusations run deeper than the more immediate political ideologies. It’s possible that Democratic women find it difficult to believe that people they like and respect and who champion their issues are engaged in truly wrong behavior.

micah: Yeah.

So it’s hypocrisy, but unintentional, sorta.

OK …

Back to Alabama. Let’s take Trump’s endorsement from the other side: Does it help Moore?

julia_azari: I find it hard to imagine that it will bring back Republican voters who decided to back Jones instead. Might it encourage people who had decided not to vote? That’s more plausible but not an obvious conclusion by a long shot.

harry: Remember when Strange got endorsed in the primary by Trump? That didn’t help Strange. Granted, it was one of the weaker endorsements I’ve seen.

natesilver: I guess the answer is … sure? Trump’s still reasonably popular in Alabama. But I kind of think a Trump anti-endorsement (coming out against Moore) would have mattered more than coming out for Moore, if that makes sense.

In other words, I think voters assumed that Trump implicitly backed Moore already. The only way it could hurt him, though, is if Alabamaians feel like it’s national politicians interfering in their election, which they don’t like.

But that explanation feels too cute by half for me.

micah: Yeah … that’s an easier line for a Republican to sell than it is for a Democrat, IMO.

julia_azari: So when I wrote that piece about the party not being able to get rid of Moore, I was surprised at how much discussion it provoked about national vs. state party organizations and interests. But that convo was mostly among party politics scholars on Twitter, not rank-and-file voters in Alabama. A national politician doing something unexpected might be seen as interference, but a Republican president endorsing a Republican Senate candidate is not that wild on its face

micah: We gotta wrap … so, before I ask for final thoughts, one more question: If Jones wins, does it hurt Trump? Or does it tell us anything about Trump’s standing with GOP voters? (Trump would have backed the losing candidate in the Alabama primary and general elections.)

harry: I have a very hard time believing that a generic Republican would lose in Alabama, even in this national environment that so favors Democrats. That said, if Jones were to win, it wouldn’t have been possible without the national environment being where it is — it’s a combination of Moore’s crummy candidacy and Trump’s low national standing.

julia_azari: I basically agree with Harry and would add that Trump’s political influence is maybe a bit inconsistent.

natesilver: I’m not quite sure what the narrative is going to be if Jones wins. Part of what I was trying to argue on Monday is that it’s really, really hard for a Democrat to win in Alabama — even against a candidate like Roy Moore! — so Jones coming close is a pretty impressive outcome. But I don’t know that I expect the mainstream media to interpret the race that way.

I do think Trump has mildly raised the stakes, though — a Jones win will be seen as reflecting the limits of his powers of persuasion, when it might not have been before.

julia_azari: Trump is unpopular generally, remains fairly popular with GOP voters, has prominent defectors like Sen. Jeff Flake — that is not normal — and has few real political alliances, which limits his influence.

micah: So a Trump endorsement is worth less than your average presidential endorsement?

julia_azari: The thing that strikes me about Alabama is it’s not a close state at least in presidential elections — it went from solid Democratic to solid Republican. This race being close could signal that Moore is a crappy candidate, but he is a crappy candidate who won the primary and maintained local party support. This could be evidence of the general crumbling of governing majorities in the country, if that makes any sense.

On balance I’d say yes, Trump’s endorsement has below-average value. He doesn’t have deep political roots. If he endorses you, it’s not clear exactly who comes along.

micah: Any other final thoughts?

natesilver: It’s a really weird dynamic — (i) lower turnout gives Democrats more of a chance (if the whole electorate turns out, we know Alabama is a really red state), but (ii) it’s good for Moore if the harassment/molestation allegations stay out of the news. Trump’s endorsement could help with GOP turnout, but it also sort of puts the race back in the news, which is risky to Moore. Still, I say it’s helpful on balance.

[supertrendingnewsarticles]

Earlier this month, I wrote a column asking what Democrats should do about sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, the party's presumptive nominee for president. My answer? Not much. The accusation made by Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer from his days in the Senate during the early 1990s, didn't strike me as especially convincing, so Democrats, I suggested, could move forward without much concern. Though toward the end of the column I included two caveats: If Reade offered further corroboration of her claims or if evidence emerged of a larger pattern of abusive actions toward women on Biden's part, that could well change my views of the matter.Just two weeks later, both of my conditions have been met.Last week we learned that Reade's mother called into the Larry King Show in 1993 to talk about how her daughter had quit working for a "prominent senator" after unspecified "problems" as a staffer. Then earlier this week Business Insider reported that a former neighbor of Reade's (a self-described "strong Democrat") recalls a conversation with her in 1995 or 1996 in which Reade tearfully described being sexually assaulted by Biden. Together, those two stories help to corroborate Reade's specific claim about herself.Finally, on Tuesday, a 2008 essay by the late Alexander Cockburn surfaced in which the journalist reported that Biden had made "unwelcome and unwanted" sexual advances against a woman in 1972 or 1973. That establishes a possible longstanding pattern of Biden's behavior that further validates Reade's accusation (and potentially opens the door to others).In light of these revelations, the time has come for a two new questions: Can Biden survive the gathering storm around Tara Reade's allegations? And if so, will that fact be good or bad for the Democratic Party in November?The first question is the easier one to answer: Biden's presumptive nomination is quite likely to survive the corroboration of Reade's claims. That's because members of Biden's electoral base in the Democratic Party — older, culturally moderate white working-class voters in the Midwest and older, culturally moderate African Americans — are unlikely to be turned against him by one corroborated allegation of sexual assault from nearly three decades in the past. If anything, rank-and-file Democrats have expressed regret that some MeToo allegations have taken down popular members of the party (former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken is the example cited most frequently) — and they're also irritated that Democrats are expected to adhere to standards their opponents openly flout.The factions of the party most likely to turn on Biden because of a sexual-assault scandal are those who've been least wedded to his candidacy from the start — those firmly on the left, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders; and white urban progressives, who tended to favor Sen. Elizabeth Warren's candidacy. Neither group possesses the numbers or influence in the party to get it to overrule the preferences of the other two electorally crucial factions — and obviously their opinions will also carry little weight with the candidate himself. This means that, so long as no additional corroborated accusations materialize, Biden will most likely get to hold onto the nomination if he wants to.That might turn out to be a very bad thing for the party come November.But how could this be? How could a sexual assault allegation place Biden at a disadvantage in the general election against President Trump, a man who has openly bragged on tape of sexual assault and has himself been accused of rape on multiple occasions?On substance, Trump will have zero moral ground to stand on. But he won't be taking a stand in the name of treating women with respect. Neither will he be accusing Biden of being a sexual predator. Instead, he and the entire Republican noise machine will constantly, relentlessly hammer Biden, leading Democrats, and the media for flagrant hypocrisy and double standards. The moral content of the issue won't matter one bit. What will matter is that Biden has set himself up as a moral arbiter on issues of sexual harassment and violence, insisting we must "believe all women," and that in the fall of 2018 he and many other members of his party sought to destroy the reputation of Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for allegations of sexual assault that were less convincingly corroborated than those Reade has lodged against Biden.The Democratic nominee for president and his party are ruthless political operators who seek above all else to destroy their enemies and help themselves, all the while setting themselves up as impartial moral authorities. This will be the message, driven home over and over again: that claims of purity and impartiality are pretense, transparent fakes. Democrats might posture like they're better than Republicans, including the president, but they aren't. They're every bit as bad. They're just more dishonest about it.The Biden campaign's effort to portray itself as a moral reset from the debasement of the Trump years will run into this counter-message like a power sander. The Trump campaign will strip it away with a barrage of paid ads, prime-time cable news diatribes, and a hailstorm of tweets — all of it repeating the message (illustrated with clips from and about the Kavanaugh hearings) that Biden and his fellow Democrats are every bit the BS artists that Trump is, only they won't admit it. They'll lie about it, right to your face.To Democrats this prediction may sound implausible. There's no way that Trump, a man whose mendaciousness is well established and total, can possibly succeed in portraying Biden as more dishonest than he is. But he won't have to show that Biden is worse, just that he's no better.That's Trump's (perhaps only) winning move — to bring the playing field down to his level, to lower Biden's favorability rating, to make him seem less admirable, less likable, less morally upstanding, less … superior than Trump. He did the same thing against Hillary Clinton in 2016, using the FBI investigation of her email practices while secretary of state as a cudgel. Last summer, the strategy was to impugn Biden's son, making them both look like corrupt wheeler dealers in Ukraine. That didn't work out, but now Reade's allegations have made it possible for Trump and his party to do what they love most of all, which is to accuse Democrats and the media of smarmy double standards instead.Of course this won't work with most Democratic voters, but that won't be its aim. The aim will be to ensure maximal turnout and Trump loyalty among Republicans — and the destruction of Biden's reputation among independents in crucial swing states.Will it succeed? Trump will be facing re-election while presiding over a deadly pandemic and the early stages of an economic depression, so who knows. What I do know is that the behavior Tara Reade has plausibly alleged about the presumptive Democratic nominee is going to be a major liability for him as we head toward Election Day.Editor's note: A previous version of this article mischaracterized a quote by Alexander Cockburn. It has been corrected. We regret the error.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com The perils of Hooverism Florida's health department reportedly told medical examiners to remove causes of death from mortality data Elon Musk, who predicted 'close to zero' new coronavirus cases by the end of April, demands we 'free America'

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Earlier this month, I wrote a column asking what Democrats should do about sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, the party's presumptive nominee for president. My answer? Not much. The accusation made by Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer from his days in the Senate during the early 1990s, didn't strike me as especially convincing, so Democrats, I suggested, could move forward without much concern. Though toward the end of the column I included two caveats: If Reade offered further corroboration of her claims or if evidence emerged of a larger pattern of abusive actions toward women on Biden's part, that could well change my views of the matter.Just two weeks later, both of my conditions have been met.Last week we learned that Reade's mother called into the Larry King Show in 1993 to talk about how her daughter had quit working for a "prominent senator" after unspecified "problems" as a staffer. Then earlier this week Business Insider reported that a former neighbor of Reade's (a self-described "strong Democrat") recalls a conversation with her in 1995 or 1996 in which Reade tearfully described being sexually assaulted by Biden. Together, those two stories help to corroborate Reade's specific claim about herself.Finally, on Tuesday, a 2008 essay by the late Alexander Cockburn surfaced in which the journalist reported that Biden had made "unwelcome and unwanted" sexual advances against a woman in 1972 or 1973. That establishes a possible longstanding pattern of Biden's behavior that further validates Reade's accusation (and potentially opens the door to others).In light of these revelations, the time has come for a two new questions: Can Biden survive the gathering storm around Tara Reade's allegations? And if so, will that fact be good or bad for the Democratic Party in November?The first question is the easier one to answer: Biden's presumptive nomination is quite likely to survive the corroboration of Reade's claims. That's because members of Biden's electoral base in the Democratic Party — older, culturally moderate white working-class voters in the Midwest and older, culturally moderate African Americans — are unlikely to be turned against him by one corroborated allegation of sexual assault from nearly three decades in the past. If anything, rank-and-file Democrats have expressed regret that some MeToo allegations have taken down popular members of the party (former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken is the example cited most frequently) — and they're also irritated that Democrats are expected to adhere to standards their opponents openly flout.The factions of the party most likely to turn on Biden because of a sexual-assault scandal are those who've been least wedded to his candidacy from the start — those firmly on the left, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders; and white urban progressives, who tended to favor Sen. Elizabeth Warren's candidacy. Neither group possesses the numbers or influence in the party to get it to overrule the preferences of the other two electorally crucial factions — and obviously their opinions will also carry little weight with the candidate himself. This means that, so long as no additional corroborated accusations materialize, Biden will most likely get to hold onto the nomination if he wants to.That might turn out to be a very bad thing for the party come November.But how could this be? How could a sexual assault allegation place Biden at a disadvantage in the general election against President Trump, a man who has openly bragged on tape of sexual assault and has himself been accused of rape on multiple occasions?On substance, Trump will have zero moral ground to stand on. But he won't be taking a stand in the name of treating women with respect. Neither will he be accusing Biden of being a sexual predator. Instead, he and the entire Republican noise machine will constantly, relentlessly hammer Biden, leading Democrats, and the media for flagrant hypocrisy and double standards. The moral content of the issue won't matter one bit. What will matter is that Biden has set himself up as a moral arbiter on issues of sexual harassment and violence, insisting we must "believe all women," and that in the fall of 2018 he and many other members of his party sought to destroy the reputation of Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for allegations of sexual assault that were less convincingly corroborated than those Reade has lodged against Biden.The Democratic nominee for president and his party are ruthless political operators who seek above all else to destroy their enemies and help themselves, all the while setting themselves up as impartial moral authorities. This will be the message, driven home over and over again: that claims of purity and impartiality are pretense, transparent fakes. Democrats might posture like they're better than Republicans, including the president, but they aren't. They're every bit as bad. They're just more dishonest about it.The Biden campaign's effort to portray itself as a moral reset from the debasement of the Trump years will run into this counter-message like a power sander. The Trump campaign will strip it away with a barrage of paid ads, prime-time cable news diatribes, and a hailstorm of tweets — all of it repeating the message (illustrated with clips from and about the Kavanaugh hearings) that Biden and his fellow Democrats are every bit the BS artists that Trump is, only they won't admit it. They'll lie about it, right to your face.To Democrats this prediction may sound implausible. There's no way that Trump, a man whose mendaciousness is well established and total, can possibly succeed in portraying Biden as more dishonest than he is. But he won't have to show that Biden is worse, just that he's no better.That's Trump's (perhaps only) winning move — to bring the playing field down to his level, to lower Biden's favorability rating, to make him seem less admirable, less likable, less morally upstanding, less … superior than Trump. He did the same thing against Hillary Clinton in 2016, using the FBI investigation of her email practices while secretary of state as a cudgel. Last summer, the strategy was to impugn Biden's son, making them both look like corrupt wheeler dealers in Ukraine. That didn't work out, but now Reade's allegations have made it possible for Trump and his party to do what they love most of all, which is to accuse Democrats and the media of smarmy double standards instead.Of course this won't work with most Democratic voters, but that won't be its aim. The aim will be to ensure maximal turnout and Trump loyalty among Republicans — and the destruction of Biden's reputation among independents in crucial swing states.Will it succeed? Trump will be facing re-election while presiding over a deadly pandemic and the early stages of an economic depression, so who knows. What I do know is that the behavior Tara Reade has plausibly alleged about the presumptive Democratic nominee is going to be a major liability for him as we head toward Election Day.Editor's note: A previous version of this article mischaracterized a quote by Alexander Cockburn. It has been corrected. We regret the error.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com The perils of Hooverism The Trump administration is reportedly organizing a Manhattan Project-style effort to expedite the development of a coronavirus vaccine This visualization shows how droplets from a single cough can infect an entire airplane

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[attredd]

Earlier this month, I wrote a column asking what Democrats should do about sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, the party's presumptive nominee for president. My answer? Not much. The accusation made by Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer from his days in the Senate during the early 1990s, didn't strike me as especially convincing, so Democrats, I suggested, could move forward without much concern. Though toward the end of the column I included two caveats: If Reade offered further corroboration of her claims or if evidence emerged of a larger pattern of abusive actions toward women on Biden's part, that could well change my views of the matter.Just two weeks later, both of my conditions have been met.Last week we learned that Reade's mother called into the Larry King Show in 1993 to talk about how her daughter had quit working for a "prominent senator" after unspecified "problems" as a staffer. Then earlier this week Business Insider reported that a former neighbor of Reade's (a self-described "strong Democrat") recalls a conversation with her in 1995 or 1996 in which Reade tearfully described being sexually assaulted by Biden. Together, those two stories help to corroborate Reade's specific claim about herself.Finally, on Tuesday, a 2008 essay by the late Alexander Cockburn surfaced in which the journalist reported that Biden had made "unwelcome and unwanted" sexual advances against a woman in 1972 or 1973. That establishes a possible longstanding pattern of Biden's behavior that further validates Reade's accusation (and potentially opens the door to others).In light of these revelations, the time has come for a two new questions: Can Biden survive the gathering storm around Tara Reade's allegations? And if so, will that fact be good or bad for the Democratic Party in November?The first question is the easier one to answer: Biden's presumptive nomination is quite likely to survive the corroboration of Reade's claims. That's because members of Biden's electoral base in the Democratic Party — older, culturally moderate white working-class voters in the Midwest and older, culturally moderate African Americans — are unlikely to be turned against him by one corroborated allegation of sexual assault from nearly three decades in the past. If anything, rank-and-file Democrats have expressed regret that some MeToo allegations have taken down popular members of the party (former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken is the example cited most frequently) — and they're also irritated that Democrats are expected to adhere to standards their opponents openly flout.The factions of the party most likely to turn on Biden because of a sexual-assault scandal are those who've been least wedded to his candidacy from the start — those firmly on the left, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders; and white urban progressives, who tended to favor Sen. Elizabeth Warren's candidacy. Neither group possesses the numbers or influence in the party to get it to overrule the preferences of the other two electorally crucial factions — and obviously their opinions will also carry little weight with the candidate himself. This means that, so long as no additional corroborated accusations materialize, Biden will most likely get to hold onto the nomination if he wants to.That might turn out to be a very bad thing for the party come November.But how could this be? How could a sexual assault allegation place Biden at a disadvantage in the general election against President Trump, a man who has openly bragged on tape of sexual assault and has himself been accused of rape on multiple occasions?On substance, Trump will have zero moral ground to stand on. But he won't be taking a stand in the name of treating women with respect. Neither will he be accusing Biden of being a sexual predator. Instead, he and the entire Republican noise machine will constantly, relentlessly hammer Biden, leading Democrats, and the media for flagrant hypocrisy and double standards. The moral content of the issue won't matter one bit. What will matter is that Biden has set himself up as a moral arbiter on issues of sexual harassment and violence, insisting we must "believe all women," and that in the fall of 2018 he and many other members of his party sought to destroy the reputation of Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for allegations of sexual assault that were less convincingly corroborated than those Reade has lodged against Biden.The Democratic nominee for president and his party are ruthless political operators who seek above all else to destroy their enemies and help themselves, all the while setting themselves up as impartial moral authorities. This will be the message, driven home over and over again: that claims of purity and impartiality are pretense, transparent fakes. Democrats might posture like they're better than Republicans, including the president, but they aren't. They're every bit as bad. They're just more dishonest about it.The Biden campaign's effort to portray itself as a moral reset from the debasement of the Trump years will run into this counter-message like a power sander. The Trump campaign will strip it away with a barrage of paid ads, prime-time cable news diatribes, and a hailstorm of tweets — all of it repeating the message (illustrated with clips from and about the Kavanaugh hearings) that Biden and his fellow Democrats are every bit the BS artists that Trump is, only they won't admit it. They'll lie about it, right to your face.To Democrats this prediction may sound implausible. There's no way that Trump, a man whose mendaciousness is well established and total, can possibly succeed in portraying Biden as more dishonest than he is. But he won't have to show that Biden is worse, just that he's no better.That's Trump's (perhaps only) winning move — to bring the playing field down to his level, to lower Biden's favorability rating, to make him seem less admirable, less likable, less morally upstanding, less … superior than Trump. He did the same thing against Hillary Clinton in 2016, using the FBI investigation of her email practices while secretary of state as a cudgel. Last summer, the strategy was to impugn Biden's son, making them both look like corrupt wheeler dealers in Ukraine. That didn't work out, but now Reade's allegations have made it possible for Trump and his party to do what they love most of all, which is to accuse Democrats and the media of smarmy double standards instead.Of course this won't work with most Democratic voters, but that won't be its aim. The aim will be to ensure maximal turnout and Trump loyalty among Republicans — and the destruction of Biden's reputation among independents in crucial swing states.Will it succeed? Trump will be facing re-election while presiding over a deadly pandemic and the early stages of an economic depression, so who knows. What I do know is that the behavior Tara Reade has plausibly alleged about the presumptive Democratic nominee is going to be a major liability for him as we head toward Election Day.Editor's note: A previous version of this article mischaracterized a quote by Alexander Cockburn. It has been corrected. We regret the error.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com The perils of Hooverism Florida's health department reportedly told medical examiners to remove causes of death from mortality data Elon Musk, who predicted 'close to zero' new coronavirus cases by the end of April, demands we 'free America'

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3eZY9Hb

[ramrodd]

Why is Antifa considered a left-wing political organization?

COMMENTARY:

My experience of Anitfa goes back to the SDS during the 60’s and includes the boutique terroism of the 70s that was mostly theater. They were sort of the Peter Pan elements of the anti-war movement as a Trotsky Insurgency. Christopher Hitchens was their ideological Archetype, in the same way the pro-war crypto-Nazis identified with William F. Buckley,Jr.

I was never a fan of the SDS nor the Young Americans for Freedom (a more descriptive working label for those white, neurotic, sexually inhibited, middle class bigots that had been the Big Men on Campus before 1965 is Young American Fascists. They are nearly universially Trump voters, today, and the Proud Boys and other domestic terrorism elements of the GOP Deep State),

Antifa has always remained theater, especially in Oregon and the places the G-7 show up: a nuisance but not into blood shed, unlike the white supremacists who can trace their lineage back to the KKK and George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi party, who end up blowing up abortion clinics and staging Tiki-Torch violent resistance demonstrations.

Now, according to Democracy NOW, last night, Anitfa deploys against the alt.right infestaton to defuse and neutralize their violence and the City Manager of one of those cities was describing the turmoil from her perspective and, seeing as she is an African-American in the whitess part of America, I tend to lend her a great deal more credence than any Proud Boy version of events. The Proud Boys are a populist movement, basically, a semi-permanent lynch mob and Antifa isn’t.

This same dynamic has been on display in Honk Kong, The Umbrella Movement is a characteristic of Democratic Socialism in a culture, the right of redress carried into the public square and debated in the sunshine, Beijing wanted to impose an extra-constitutional extradicition process into the Honk Kong governance as an anticipated trickle-down from the 5 verticles of reform in the Navarro Trade Deal. President Xi understands that the PRC needs to clean up its act, generally, but he has come to understand that any trade deal based on Peter Navarro’s economics will just make the problems worse and, as a direct result of the Unbrella Movement, will only complete a trade deal based on the Green New Deal and he is willing to wait for Sleepy Joe to put together a deal like that in solidarity with Carrie Lam, CEO of Hong Kong, and Joshua wong, one of the primary influencers in the leaderless synthesis of the Umbrella Movement.

In Hong Kong, the Umbrella Movement is the Antifa movement in full flower.

The violent agitation in Hong Kong is coming from the alt-right elements associated with the Proud Boys by way of Steve Bannon, By and large, the so-called populist movement, globally, is almost pure astroturfing, as opposed to Antifa, which is organic and home grown. The Students for a Democratic Society was home grown and a focus for the leadersless resistance of the anti-draft movement, while the Young American Fascists was an association of whinely white people like Tucker Carlson and Pat Buchanan who complained that their white privilege was being squandered on coddling minorities. Bannon and any of the American expatriate community associated with him, such as the US Chamber of Commerce, have been sponsoring this astroturfing to support Donny Duck Ass’s trade war and his attempt to force President Xi to sign off on anything Navarro.

The short answer is that Antifa is defined by the wing nuts as Left Wing and the Main Stream Media has been too intimidated since 1981 to call out white supremancism as a clear and present danger as domestic terrorists, with Wayne LaPierre a major megaphone for violent astroturfing.

I’m still not a fan of Antifa, if only because I had my fill of being the target of demostrations as an ROTC cadet during the 60’s, but I’ve always considered them a mostly harmless extention of the original subversive satire of Saturday Night Live, the Animal House Food Fight as a mechanism of Social Justice.

The most important difference between Antifa and alt-right is the difference between satire and sadism. Or the Harvard Lampoon in contrast to The American Spectator. Al Franken and Tucker Carlson. Sleepy Joe Biden and Richard Spencer.

The difference between the leadersless synthesis of Democratic Socialism versus the domestic terrorism of Trumpocracy.

[velmaemyers88]

If Democrats want to win, they need to learn this lesson from Obama’s presidency – ThinkProgress

Imagine, for a moment, what 2009 would have looked like if the Senate’s Democratic supermajority showed up for its first day of work and immediately nuked the filibuster.

In such a world, the White House didn’t have to beg Republican senators for the votes it needed to enact President Barack Obama’s stimulus package. Though Democrats eventually achieved a 60-vote supermajority in the 111th Congress, it was only after Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties and after Minnesota Sen. Al Franken prevailed in a protracted electoral recount. The result was a watered-down bill short $110 billion in stimulus that three Republicans demanded as the price of their vote.

Indeed, in the world without a filibuster, the White House also could have ignored conservative Senate Democrats whose desire to fix the economy was tempered by their fear of deficits. The result would have been a stronger economy in 2010 that could have mitigated Democratic losses in that year’s elections.

In a world without the filibuster, conservative Senate Democrats also could have been sidelined during the Obamacare negotiations. The result likely would have been something more similar to the House health care bill, which included more generous subsidies, a larger Medicaid expansion, and a “public option” that would have allowed many Americans to opt into a publicly owned health insurer.

In the world without a filibuster, Obama could have filled the federal courts with lions of the civil rights, criminal defense, poverty, and consumer protection bars. If the economy continued to struggle into 2010, Congress could have enacted a second stimulus bill and potentially saved the Democratic House majority. Buoyed by additional stimulus, the economy would have been stronger in 2016 — potentially strong enough to give the incumbent party just enough of a bounce to keep President Donald Trump out of the White House.

But of course, the idea that Senate Democrats would have removed the biggest roadblock to democratic governance in 2009 is a fantasy. Less than four years before Obama took office, several Senate Democrats capitulated to the Bush White House’s demand to confirm three very conservative judges in order to prevent filibuster reform from happening in 2005. Around the same time, many liberal operatives launched misguided and, at times, ridiculous campaigns to save the filibuster — such as an ad campaign “in which an animated character, Phil A. Buster, asks viewers to help ‘save checks and balances.’”

There simply wasn’t a meaningful call for filibuster reform within the Democratic Party in 2009, and there wouldn’t be one until Democrats spent more than a year discovering just how effectively the Republican minority could wield the filibuster to sabotage their agenda.

Flash forward 10 years, and no one is creating animated mascots for Senate obstructionism.

To the contrary, as Politico reports, a coalition of 15 left-of-center organizations launched a campaign to push senators to abolish the filibuster. The groups include old guard unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and juggernauts of the newest class of progressive groups, such as Indivisible. As one of their first initiatives, the coalition will “spend six figures on digital and print ads pushing [Sen. Michael] Bennet to support a bill making D.C. a state — and to do so with just 51 Senate votes, bypassing the filibuster.”

This initial move appears to be a warning shot over the bow of other Democratic leaders tempted to oppose procedural reforms that would make the nation more democratic. Bennet, who supported the 2013 filibuster reforms allowing most presidential nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority, has since reversed his position on that vote.

He also argued, implausibly, that if Democrats didn’t attempt to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court — thus leading Senate Republicans to change the rules to allow Supreme Court justices to be confirmed by a simple majority — that Republicans would not have made this rules change during the fight to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The name of the coalition fighting for filibuster reform is “51 for 51,” a reference to the coalition’s twin goals. It seeks to admit the District of Columbia as the 51st state — and to allow the Senate to vote for D.C. statehood with a simple majority of 51 senators.

Senate malapportionment is, if anything, an even greater threat to democracy than the filibuster. The bloc of senators who confirmed both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh represent less than half of the nation. Similarly, the bloc that prevented Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, from receiving a confirmation vote also represented less than half the country.

And it’s going to get worse. By 2040, according to a University of Virginia analysis, about half of the country will live in just eight states — which means 16 senators for one half of America and 84 for the other half. Meanwhile, there is a strong correlation between population density and partisan voting, with less dense areas tending to favor Republicans. That means that Republicans may soon have a permanent supermajority in the Senate regardless of what the voters prefer.

Admitting D.C. as a state will not solve this problem. The Senate is so fundamentally rigged in favor of less populous states that re-balancing it would likely require chopping up large states like California into many smaller states. But permitting the overwhelmingly Democratic voters of the District of Columbia to elect two senators would at least mitigate the unfair advantage Republicans now enjoy in the Senate.

Ultimately, the most important lesson of Obama’s first two years in office is that good ideas, a popular president, and even a crushing electoral victory are not enough to ensure American self-governance. If the next Democratic president hopes to be more than a figurehead, they will need to think in terms of structural reforms that will restore some resemblance between the popular vote and the composition of the United States Senate.

And they will become a failed president if a majority of Senate Democrats are not also committed to these reforms.

Credit: Source link

The post If Democrats want to win, they need to learn this lesson from Obama’s presidency – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/if-democrats-want-to-win-they-need-to-learn-this-lesson-from-obamas-presidency-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-democrats-want-to-win-they-need-to-learn-this-lesson-from-obamas-presidency-thinkprogress from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186390842087

[reneeacaseyfl]

If Democrats want to win, they need to learn this lesson from Obama’s presidency – ThinkProgress

Imagine, for a moment, what 2009 would have looked like if the Senate’s Democratic supermajority showed up for its first day of work and immediately nuked the filibuster.

In such a world, the White House didn’t have to beg Republican senators for the votes it needed to enact President Barack Obama’s stimulus package. Though Democrats eventually achieved a 60-vote supermajority in the 111th Congress, it was only after Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties and after Minnesota Sen. Al Franken prevailed in a protracted electoral recount. The result was a watered-down bill short $110 billion in stimulus that three Republicans demanded as the price of their vote.

Indeed, in the world without a filibuster, the White House also could have ignored conservative Senate Democrats whose desire to fix the economy was tempered by their fear of deficits. The result would have been a stronger economy in 2010 that could have mitigated Democratic losses in that year’s elections.

In a world without the filibuster, conservative Senate Democrats also could have been sidelined during the Obamacare negotiations. The result likely would have been something more similar to the House health care bill, which included more generous subsidies, a larger Medicaid expansion, and a “public option” that would have allowed many Americans to opt into a publicly owned health insurer.

In the world without a filibuster, Obama could have filled the federal courts with lions of the civil rights, criminal defense, poverty, and consumer protection bars. If the economy continued to struggle into 2010, Congress could have enacted a second stimulus bill and potentially saved the Democratic House majority. Buoyed by additional stimulus, the economy would have been stronger in 2016 — potentially strong enough to give the incumbent party just enough of a bounce to keep President Donald Trump out of the White House.

But of course, the idea that Senate Democrats would have removed the biggest roadblock to democratic governance in 2009 is a fantasy. Less than four years before Obama took office, several Senate Democrats capitulated to the Bush White House’s demand to confirm three very conservative judges in order to prevent filibuster reform from happening in 2005. Around the same time, many liberal operatives launched misguided and, at times, ridiculous campaigns to save the filibuster — such as an ad campaign “in which an animated character, Phil A. Buster, asks viewers to help ‘save checks and balances.’”

There simply wasn’t a meaningful call for filibuster reform within the Democratic Party in 2009, and there wouldn’t be one until Democrats spent more than a year discovering just how effectively the Republican minority could wield the filibuster to sabotage their agenda.

Flash forward 10 years, and no one is creating animated mascots for Senate obstructionism.

To the contrary, as Politico reports, a coalition of 15 left-of-center organizations launched a campaign to push senators to abolish the filibuster. The groups include old guard unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and juggernauts of the newest class of progressive groups, such as Indivisible. As one of their first initiatives, the coalition will “spend six figures on digital and print ads pushing [Sen. Michael] Bennet to support a bill making D.C. a state — and to do so with just 51 Senate votes, bypassing the filibuster.”

This initial move appears to be a warning shot over the bow of other Democratic leaders tempted to oppose procedural reforms that would make the nation more democratic. Bennet, who supported the 2013 filibuster reforms allowing most presidential nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority, has since reversed his position on that vote.

He also argued, implausibly, that if Democrats didn’t attempt to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court — thus leading Senate Republicans to change the rules to allow Supreme Court justices to be confirmed by a simple majority — that Republicans would not have made this rules change during the fight to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The name of the coalition fighting for filibuster reform is “51 for 51,” a reference to the coalition’s twin goals. It seeks to admit the District of Columbia as the 51st state — and to allow the Senate to vote for D.C. statehood with a simple majority of 51 senators.

Senate malapportionment is, if anything, an even greater threat to democracy than the filibuster. The bloc of senators who confirmed both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh represent less than half of the nation. Similarly, the bloc that prevented Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, from receiving a confirmation vote also represented less than half the country.

And it’s going to get worse. By 2040, according to a University of Virginia analysis, about half of the country will live in just eight states — which means 16 senators for one half of America and 84 for the other half. Meanwhile, there is a strong correlation between population density and partisan voting, with less dense areas tending to favor Republicans. That means that Republicans may soon have a permanent supermajority in the Senate regardless of what the voters prefer.

Admitting D.C. as a state will not solve this problem. The Senate is so fundamentally rigged in favor of less populous states that re-balancing it would likely require chopping up large states like California into many smaller states. But permitting the overwhelmingly Democratic voters of the District of Columbia to elect two senators would at least mitigate the unfair advantage Republicans now enjoy in the Senate.

Ultimately, the most important lesson of Obama’s first two years in office is that good ideas, a popular president, and even a crushing electoral victory are not enough to ensure American self-governance. If the next Democratic president hopes to be more than a figurehead, they will need to think in terms of structural reforms that will restore some resemblance between the popular vote and the composition of the United States Senate.

And they will become a failed president if a majority of Senate Democrats are not also committed to these reforms.

Credit: Source link

The post If Democrats want to win, they need to learn this lesson from Obama’s presidency – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/if-democrats-want-to-win-they-need-to-learn-this-lesson-from-obamas-presidency-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-democrats-want-to-win-they-need-to-learn-this-lesson-from-obamas-presidency-thinkprogress from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186390842087

[weeklyreviewer]

If Democrats want to win, they need to learn this lesson from Obama’s presidency – ThinkProgress

Imagine, for a moment, what 2009 would have looked like if the Senate’s Democratic supermajority showed up for its first day of work and immediately nuked the filibuster.

In such a world, the White House didn’t have to beg Republican senators for the votes it needed to enact President Barack Obama’s stimulus package. Though Democrats eventually achieved a 60-vote supermajority in the 111th Congress, it was only after Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties and after Minnesota Sen. Al Franken prevailed in a protracted electoral recount. The result was a watered-down bill short $110 billion in stimulus that three Republicans demanded as the price of their vote.

Indeed, in the world without a filibuster, the White House also could have ignored conservative Senate Democrats whose desire to fix the economy was tempered by their fear of deficits. The result would have been a stronger economy in 2010 that could have mitigated Democratic losses in that year’s elections.

In a world without the filibuster, conservative Senate Democrats also could have been sidelined during the Obamacare negotiations. The result likely would have been something more similar to the House health care bill, which included more generous subsidies, a larger Medicaid expansion, and a “public option” that would have allowed many Americans to opt into a publicly owned health insurer.

In the world without a filibuster, Obama could have filled the federal courts with lions of the civil rights, criminal defense, poverty, and consumer protection bars. If the economy continued to struggle into 2010, Congress could have enacted a second stimulus bill and potentially saved the Democratic House majority. Buoyed by additional stimulus, the economy would have been stronger in 2016 — potentially strong enough to give the incumbent party just enough of a bounce to keep President Donald Trump out of the White House.

But of course, the idea that Senate Democrats would have removed the biggest roadblock to democratic governance in 2009 is a fantasy. Less than four years before Obama took office, several Senate Democrats capitulated to the Bush White House’s demand to confirm three very conservative judges in order to prevent filibuster reform from happening in 2005. Around the same time, many liberal operatives launched misguided and, at times, ridiculous campaigns to save the filibuster — such as an ad campaign “in which an animated character, Phil A. Buster, asks viewers to help ‘save checks and balances.’”

There simply wasn’t a meaningful call for filibuster reform within the Democratic Party in 2009, and there wouldn’t be one until Democrats spent more than a year discovering just how effectively the Republican minority could wield the filibuster to sabotage their agenda.

Flash forward 10 years, and no one is creating animated mascots for Senate obstructionism.

To the contrary, as Politico reports, a coalition of 15 left-of-center organizations launched a campaign to push senators to abolish the filibuster. The groups include old guard unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and juggernauts of the newest class of progressive groups, such as Indivisible. As one of their first initiatives, the coalition will “spend six figures on digital and print ads pushing [Sen. Michael] Bennet to support a bill making D.C. a state — and to do so with just 51 Senate votes, bypassing the filibuster.”

This initial move appears to be a warning shot over the bow of other Democratic leaders tempted to oppose procedural reforms that would make the nation more democratic. Bennet, who supported the 2013 filibuster reforms allowing most presidential nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority, has since reversed his position on that vote.

He also argued, implausibly, that if Democrats didn’t attempt to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court — thus leading Senate Republicans to change the rules to allow Supreme Court justices to be confirmed by a simple majority — that Republicans would not have made this rules change during the fight to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The name of the coalition fighting for filibuster reform is “51 for 51,” a reference to the coalition’s twin goals. It seeks to admit the District of Columbia as the 51st state — and to allow the Senate to vote for D.C. statehood with a simple majority of 51 senators.

Senate malapportionment is, if anything, an even greater threat to democracy than the filibuster. The bloc of senators who confirmed both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh represent less than half of the nation. Similarly, the bloc that prevented Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, from receiving a confirmation vote also represented less than half the country.

And it’s going to get worse. By 2040, according to a University of Virginia analysis, about half of the country will live in just eight states — which means 16 senators for one half of America and 84 for the other half. Meanwhile, there is a strong correlation between population density and partisan voting, with less dense areas tending to favor Republicans. That means that Republicans may soon have a permanent supermajority in the Senate regardless of what the voters prefer.

Admitting D.C. as a state will not solve this problem. The Senate is so fundamentally rigged in favor of less populous states that re-balancing it would likely require chopping up large states like California into many smaller states. But permitting the overwhelmingly Democratic voters of the District of Columbia to elect two senators would at least mitigate the unfair advantage Republicans now enjoy in the Senate.

Ultimately, the most important lesson of Obama’s first two years in office is that good ideas, a popular president, and even a crushing electoral victory are not enough to ensure American self-governance. If the next Democratic president hopes to be more than a figurehead, they will need to think in terms of structural reforms that will restore some resemblance between the popular vote and the composition of the United States Senate.

And they will become a failed president if a majority of Senate Democrats are not also committed to these reforms.

Credit: Source link

The post If Democrats want to win, they need to learn this lesson from Obama’s presidency – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/if-democrats-want-to-win-they-need-to-learn-this-lesson-from-obamas-presidency-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=if-democrats-want-to-win-they-need-to-learn-this-lesson-from-obamas-presidency-thinkprogress

[marcusssanderson]

50 Wise Sayings About Life To Expand Your Understanding

Our latest collection of wise sayings that will guide you toward greater happiness and fulfillment.

Wisdom is defined as, “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement.” 

If we’re lucky enough to have parents, mentors and advisors, then we have heard plenty of wise sayings about life.

We also know that you can’t just hear it once.

Life’s wisdom can often miss us because life moves so fast, that we have to practice standing still.

In many cultures and religions across the world, gaining wisdom is the ultimate goal.

Wisdom is seen as the highest form of understanding, leading towards enlightenment.

Something I’ve learned in life is that my favorite quotes and saying can often become principles to live by.

I hope these wise sayings about life can serve as guidelines for greater happiness, fulfillment, connection, and meaning.

Inspiring and Wise sayings about life

Wise Sayings

1.) “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ― Gautama Buddha

Before you pour your love into someone else, fill yourself up first.

2.) “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi

Start with you. Start where you are. Changing the world is an exciting idea. Changing yourself makes it possible.

3.) “Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Everything you do and have done has gotten you closer to who you really are and who you aspire to be. So in essence, even if you disagree with what you have done, it was never time wasted.

4.) “A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.” ― Gautama Buddha

Words only go so far, we must live our message. Our true wisdom is displayed through our actions.

5.) “Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.” ― Bob Dylan

Being wrong is just as powerful as being right. Sometimes, it’s even more powerful.

6.) “We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” ― Alan Wilson Watts

Let’s be mindful of what we identify with and hold on to. Many times we think, “That’s just who I am, that just what I think…” But the truth is, many things we think and desire are not our own. Since our childhood, we’ve been looking for attention and acceptance and most of the time that came from ‘following directions’. Take some time to think about how you think.

7.) “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” ― Gautama Buddha

Once you’re angry, the harm is already done.

8.) “If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don’t understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.” ― Miguel Ruiz

 The only thing worse than making assumptions is to believe them.

9.) “I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy. ”  ― Anthony Robbins

Don’t let your pain stay as pain. Get something from it. Let your pain push you towards growth.

10.) “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom doesn’t have to be bleak. Let your understanding help you recognize the unexplainable.

11.) “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.”  ― Gautama Buddha

Growing isn’t something that happens once. It happens again and again, and again!

12.) “This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”  ― Dalai Lama XIV

Life = Love

13.) “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

14.) “Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” – Denis Waitley

15.) “Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way.” – Al Franken

16.) “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

17.) “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Oprah Winfrey

18.) “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.” – Voltaire

19.) “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw

Wise sayings about life and living it to your best

20.)  “You can never plan the future by the past.” — Edmund Burke

21.) “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” — Robert Frost

22.) “Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam

23.) “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde

24.) “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard

25.) “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” – Mae West

26.) “Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.” – Rebecca West

27.) “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard

28.) “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.” – John C. Maxwell

29.) “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” – Soren Kierkegaard

30.)  “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz

Wise sayings about life lessons

31.) “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

32.) “Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.”―Paulo Coelho

33.) “I am not someone who is ashamed of my past. I’m actually really proud. I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they, in turn, were my life lessons.” – Drew Barrymore

34.) “You can’t live your life for other people. You’ve got to do what’s right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.” – The Notebook

35.) “Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.” ―Rumi

36.) “Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.” ―Irving Berlin

37.) “No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” ― Haruki Murakami

38.) “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” ― Plato

39.) “People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln

40.) “A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.” – Latin Proverb

Other Wise sayings to help us learn

41.) “On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows. In every rill a sweet instruction flows.” – Edward Young

42.) “It’s not the load that weighs you down, it’s how you carry it.” – C.S. Lewis

43.) “The seat of knowledge is in the head, of wisdom, in the heart.” – William Hazlitt

44.) “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” – Harper Lee

45.) “To be successful, you must act big, think big and talk big.” – 

46.) “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

47.) “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein

48.) “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

49.) “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson

50.) “Wise men make more opportunities than they find.” – Francis Bacon

Did you learn from these wise sayings?

Words of wisdom from people from all different kinds of backgrounds can help us learn important life lessons. Through the years, great men and women have left wisdom, which has contributed to making the world a better place to live in.

Hopefully, these wise sayings will guide you toward greater happiness, fulfillment, connection, and meaning.

Did you enjoy these wise sayings? What other wise sayings about life would you like to share with us? Tell us in the comment section below. We would love to hear all about it.

The post 50 Wise Sayings About Life To Expand Your Understanding appeared first on Everyday Power.

[eichy815]

Swarming Samantha Bee

In the past two weeks, political wasps from all across the spectrum have been buzzing about Samantha Bee.  During the May 30 broadcast of her TBS late night comedy/satire show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, she called out First Daughter Ivanka Trump for being insensitive to destroyed families who were separated from their children at the U.S./Mexican border.  After Ms. Trump had posted to Twitter a photo of herself affectionately holding her son, Bee used her TBS program as a platform to quip aloud:

Let me just say, one mother to another, do something about your dad’s immigration practices you feckless cunt!

Adding in a glib incest “joke,” she continued:

[Your father] listens to you!  Put on something tight and low-cut and tell your father to fucking stop it.

Unfortunately for Bee, she committed this faux pas one day after Roseanne Barr found her sitcom revival canceled in the aftermath of posting a racist tweet against Valerie Jarrett.  Conservatives were just looking for the opportunity to skewer a liberal pundit...and Samantha Bee gave them that gift on a silver platter.

The very next day, Bee officially apologized on Full Frontal:

...for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night.  It was inappropriate and inexcusable.  I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.

TBS followed suit, issuing a statement:

Samantha Bee has taken the right action in apologizing for the vile and inappropriate language she used about Ivanka Trump last night.  Those words should not have been aired.  It was our mistake too, and we regret it.

Of course, the predictable apologism (on Samantha Bee’s behalf) spilled in from certain segments of Hollywood.  Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart challenged the selective outrage at Bee from right-wingers, citing how the Far Right frequently tries to play the victim while simultaneously being the bully.  Oscar winner Sally Field said:

I like Samantha Bee a lot, but she is flat wrong to call Ivanka a cunt.  Cunts are powerful, beautiful, nurturing and honest.

With all due respect to Sally Field (who I usually adore) and Jon Stewart (whose comedic chops I admire) – they are wrong, here.

I also would like to point out how, back in September of 2017, when I wrote a piece excoriating the “performance art” of conservative pot-stirrers Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, one of the pundits whom I’d name-dropped as a potential future leftist counterpart to Jones and Yiannopoulos was none other than Samantha Bee (as well as Bill Maher, whose own ancillary vice I’ll address momentarily).  Unfortunately, less than a year later, Bee is now causing my words to become outright prophetic.

Here’s the biggest gripe I have with Samantha Bee’s apology:  I don’t think she actually meant it.  Upon what do I base this suspicion?  Well, as discussed by TownHall writer Guy Benson, a follow-up “apology” from Bee on her June 7 broadcast contained loads of contrite subtext.

First, Benson pointed out that Bee’s follow-up mea culpa for using the C-word contained no reiteration of a personal apology to Ivanka Trump herself (even though Bee apologized to women in general who may have felt offended).  This suggests that Bee’s (earlier) original scripted statement apologizing to Ivanka had been a mere coerced formality.  She also – during this two-minute monologue – made it a point to say:

Many men were also offended by my use of the word.  I do not care about that.

Then, Bee lamented how her use of an obscenity had distracted the conversation away from President Trump’s abhorrent immigration policy itself.  As Benson rebuts:  perhaps if Bee and TBS hadn’t made that calculated decision to air the uttering of that particular word (directed at Ivanka), they actually could have motivated the general viewing audience to more critically dissect Trump’s treatment of undocumented families.

Essentially, Bee’s “non-apology” was an intentional doubling-down of her original toxic sentiments...to which her live audience reacted with hearty applause and cheers, of course.  Which, eerily enough, was conceptually similar to Roseanne Barr’s own post-termination Twitter meltdown.

Yet, it isn’t just elite segments of the Hollywood community allowing Bee to get away with a double standard.  

Jen Chaney of Vulture objects that criticism of Bee is simply an attempt to silence voices on the Left via some faux-outrage over perceived misogyny.  After all, Chaney brings up, no one had any problem with it when Bee used the C-word to describe Woodrow Wilson during a comedy set back in April of 2017.  The other difference, according to Chaney, is that a figure such as Jemele Hill was calling out someone’s racism (in that case, President Trump’s) whereas Roseanne Barr had used Twitter to exhibit racism herself.

Jen Chaney is performing some pretty spry mental gymnastics.  She tries to write off Bee’s critics as applying a false equivalency argument:

Maybe Bee shouldn’t have used that specific word.  I’ll concede that she could have been less crass, even though she’s used the same language in the past and no one said boo until Barr got fired.  Bee’s larger point was to criticize Ivanka Trump’s insensitive and tone-deaf photograph.  The point of Barr’s tweet, in as much as it had a point, was that Barr thinks Jarrett is both an Islamist and an ape.  Saying that both women deserve to be fired suggests their offenses are identical.  They are not.

Then she goes on to state:

Now, Bee has been forced to go on the defensive, even though her transgression is not nearly as egregious, offensive, or cruel as what Barr did.  Even worse, the biggest offender of all still sits in the Oval Office, tweeting and saying whatever he wants.  For those who are genuinely concerned about nasty profanity being spouted into the cultural ether, I suggest you pick up the phone and check your caller ID.  The worst rhetoric of all?  It’s coming from inside the White House.

What Chaney is missing here would be the reality that critics have the ability to equally take Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee and Donald Trump to task for their individualized words and sentiments.  She’s right that many conservative critics are applying selective outrage to Bee while giving Barr and Trump a free pass.  But, conversely, many people who oppose Trump’s agenda are downplaying the vile invective wielded by Bee...presumably because they agree with Bee politically.

They just don’t want to admit it.  They want to bestow upon Samantha Bee the same “celebrity privilege” exemption that some liberals and progressives feel should have been likewise given to Al Franken.

Apparently, if an offender shares your ideology, then mental gymnastics are wholeheartedly encouraged and embraced.

The Times-Picayne’s Tim Morris makes an astute point about this hypocrisy.  He observes how, since TBS also chose to consciously apologize for allowing Bee’s obscene speech to air, the network is essentially admitting that it tried to get away with the offense...and got busted for it.  Full Frontal is pre-taped and vetted for content by network executives.  He summarizes:  

Is it simply that Barr was fired for a blatantly racist slur while Bee was just being vulgar, which appears to be the state of comedy these days even on network television?  Does it make any difference that Barr was ranting on Twitter while Bee's noxious words were planned, scripted and presumably reviewed and approved by others on her show and at the network?  Will our public discourse ever improve if we don't condemn incivility on all sides?

Besides that, as Bee and TBS were surely aware, Chelsea Clinton came to Ivanka’s defense, tweeting how “It’s grossly inappropriate and just flat-out wrong to describe or talk about @IvankaTrump or any woman that way.”  In his assessment, Morris further states:

Bee defenders will rightly point out that the White House has still not condemned Barr’s racist tweet and that Bee’s language is not that much different than what President Trump’s was in that Access Hollywood tape.  But that seems to be the [very same] ‘whataboutism’ that Trump defenders are often accused of.  If you think Barr was wrongly fired for what she said then it's inconsistent to argue that Bee should be punished in the same way for her comments.  But if you endorsed the ouster of Barr then it's difficult to avoid the hypocrisy of not demanding some repercussions for Bee.

What it really boils down to is that Samantha Bee and TBS “apologized” purely for optics.  Bee’s subtext was really, “I stand behind what I said, but I realize it made people uncomfortable and I’m sorry you feel that way.”  TBS’s subtext was basically, “We knew exactly what we were doing, but we’re sorry we got caught.”

Christine Flowers of The Times Record writes how she used to enjoy watching Samantha Bee because of Bee’ s “mean-girl humor,” “her delivery,” and “her sass” – and due to having an affinity for Canadian-born TV personalities. However, Flowers has resolved to no longer watch Full Frontal, for the following reason:

Samantha Bee is a darling of the evolved liberal set, the ones who talk about how much they care about human rights.  But that doesn’t give her, or any other progressive, carte blanche to slander Ivanka Trump.  I’ve been called a certain word online and in emails, and while I don’t really get upset anymore, it is always revelatory how little respect so-called [‘]progressives[’] have for the women who disagree with them.  And poor Ivanka didn’t even say anything disagreeable.  She just posted a lovely photo of her child, and the gates of hell opened up on social media.

After acknowledging that ABC was right to fire Barr for Barr’s racism, Flowers also admits that broadcast decency standards are different on late-night cable than they are during primetime.  But she continues:

You should not be able to say the things that Bee said and get a pass for being a [‘]feminist.[’]  No woman who attacks another mother the way that Bee did is a true feminist.  If you cannot show respect to people with whom you disagree, and if you can’t hold your fire when a young mother displays genuine affection for her child, you are the other c-word:  Classless.

Samantha Bee’s problem is that she already has a history of neofeminist and neoliberal sympathies (much like Roseanne Barr had a track record for making other racist, sexist, and bigoted statements).  Bee has proceeded to epitomize this reverence for “female exceptionalism” by declaring how she flat-out didn’t care what any males thought of her words.  She keeps trying to divert the discussion back to Donald Trump’s obvious deficiencies, even though Bee’s own support for the corrupt Democratic establishment is a big part of what ultimately enabled Trump’s own rise to power.

It’s like the journalists who currently whine about how Trump is abusing his presidential powers...even though they’re the same ones who gave him all of the copious airtime and free publicity (back in 2015 and 2016) in the first place.

More mental gymnastics: Glamour’s Angelica Florio tries to excuse Bee’s behavior by saying how the C-word wasn’t necessarily considered offensive or obscene back in the medieval times, as it was often used as an emotionless synonym for the female anatomy (the same way we would use the word “vulva,” today).  

She mangles the narrative by rationalizing:

The backlash against Bee’s use of the word “cunt” almost says more about the ways in which society views women’s genitals than it does about the invisible lines that Bee may or may not have crossed.  The New York Times, for example, couldn't even use the word when reporting about Bee’s misstep!  Instead, they alluded to Bee’s usage as a “crass insult” and a “vulgar epithet.”

Florio compares it to Donald Trump’s infamous menstruation comment about Megyn Kelly from 2015, and points out that some feminists have chosen to reclaim the C-word (much the same way some black people have chosen to reclaim the N-word).  She implies how, consequently, the pearl-clutching in reaction to Samantha Bee’s speech could be considered a form of body-shaming.

Which is it, Ms. Florio?  Is the C-word reclamatory or insulting? I reckon her answer would be:  “women can use it whenever they want; but men should never be able to use it under ANY circumstance.”

Ted Diadiun, writing for Cleveland.com, acknowledges that the circumstances surrounding Bee’s and Barr’s respective controversies are indeed different.  Nevertheless, he asks: why should either of them be lionized?  As Diadiun puts it:

The only thing these two have in common is that they are both loud, annoying, crass and profane people who said – far from the first time – something offensive...Why does anyone care what Roseanne Barr or Samantha Bee thinks?  Who watches these crude shows?  I don't know.  I've taken an informal survey, and thus far I'm happy to report that I haven't found any Bee or Barr fans among my friends (and if you are my friend and do enjoy them, please keep it to yourself).

So what should Samantha Bee have done (in the aftermath of her use of the C-word), instead?  I will quote a follow-up post from Guy Benson, who wrote up a hypothetical SINCERE apology that Bee could have alternately recited:

Hi, I'm Samantha Bee. 

Last week, I used an ugly word – a word that I’ve used before on this show, yes – but in this instance, I deployed it deliberately to insult Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and advisor.  I didn't say it spontaneously, out of anger.  I wrote it into my script because I was angry.  I was angry about her father’s immigration policies.  Doing so was wrong and exhibited poor judgment.  I want to be provocative and honest on this show, but as I told the New York Times in an interview last year, I want to make sure that I strive for decency in what I see as a troubling political era.  I told the Times that we need to seek out the humanity of people who disagree with us.  So last week, I failed to live up to my own standards, and I’m very sorry.  I shouldn't have said what I did.  I apologize without caveat, qualification, or asterisk to Ivanka Trump and the people who love her. 

Of course, I still feel strongly about her father’s policies and political decisions.  And I’ll keep articulating my views on this show every week.  I absolutely do not apologize for that.  But that’s not what this is about tonight – right here, right now.  It’s about saying sorry after crossing a line, which I did.  I’ve also heard from many women, in particular, who are offended by that word – that epithet – who want people with platforms like mine to lift fellow women up, not drag them down with terms specifically designed to demean women.  I hear you, and I'm sorry.  When we talk about civility – and we call out incivility – it's important to remember that ultimately, civility has to be about more than just using nicer words or sanitized speech.  It’s about how we act, and how we treat each other.  That applies to our president.  That applies to how we treat immigrant families.  And yes, that applies to me.  I should have done better, and I didn’t.  I hope you'll accept my apology.  Now, don't worry: I'll be back next week, rocking the boat and pushing the envelope, as always.  I’ll just do it through the lens of this clarifying and humbling mistake.  Thank you for watching, and good night.

But Samantha Bee didn’t say any of that.  Which tells me that she was blatantly PROUD of what she did and said...along with the way it all unfolded.

In addition, during a New York Times interview a couple of weeks prior to Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, Bee herself had advocated “a broad coalition of straight-up decency” to find common ground with others in spite of our political differences.  According to her, “some things will have to be off limits if we’re going to find the humanity on the other side of the aisle.”

Now, Bee’s words from a year-and-a-half ago ring hollow.

During a June 1 roundtable discussion of this controversy on ABC’s The View, cohosts Sara Haines and Paula Faris both agreed that Bee’s speech was disgusting...and there should be at least some consequences.

Sunny Hostin, a proven neoliberal and neofeminist voice on their panel (who, ironically enough, constantly complains about our nation’s “lack of civility” during the Trump Era), defended Bee by adopting the Jen Cheney position on how criticism of Samantha Bee is supposedly a deflective distraction from the sins of Roseanne Barr and Donald Trump.

Guest cohost Ana Navarro criticized Bee for playing right into the Far Right’s narrative, but she still believed that Bee’s apology was appropriate and genuine (wow, Samantha has really got you snookered, Ana!).

But Joy Behar took the most odious position of those on the panel that day.  Obviously a fellow graduate from the Angelica Florio School of Hypocrisy, Behar declared that losing State Farm and Autotrader as sponsors was a sufficient enough “punishment” for Bee and Full Frontal.  Acknowledging that the C-word has a misogynistic connotation, Behar opined that it’s much worse when a man uses the word than when a woman does.

Navarro agreed with that lattermost neofeminist sentiment of Behar’s.  Conversely, Haines and Faris both said that no one should ever use the C-word.

And then, Behar invoked cultural relativism by arguing how the C-word is much more acceptable in the U.K. (citing the frequent usage of it by comedian Ricky Gervais), and that – as a Canadian-born person – Samantha Bee shouldn’t be held hostage to such puritanical American norms.  Of course, Behar is also saying that those American norms should only apply if males try to use the C-word.

I wonder if Joy Behar would be as accommodating if Joni Ernst had used the C-word to describe Hillary Clinton?  Or if Ann Coulter had used it to describe Meryl Streep?

But then, would Behar turn around and suddenly think it was acceptable if Clinton used it against Ernst...or if Streep used it against Coulter?

This is a rhetorical question.  I suspect Behar – much like Samantha Bee – believes that “an exception” should be made if the accused party is someone with whom she politically identifies or admires.  Behar, not surprisingly, is also amongst the celebrity apologists who wanted to let Al Franken off the hook so easily.

I’ll also point out that I had defended Behar, back in March of this past spring, when Mike Pence (and his acolytes) came after her for purported “religious insensitivity.”  ABC forced Behar to apologize for comparing Pence’s beliefs to mental illness – and I found Bob Iger’s and ABC’s coercion of Behar to be absolutely ridiculous, since Vice-President Pence has clearly proven himself to be a religious extremist.

But, on the matter of Samantha Bee, I have to sharply dissent with Behar: she’s dead-wrong, here.  Behar is enabling Bee’s own agenda to integrate neofeminism as an accepted social norm.  And let me be clear:  by “neofeminism,” I’m referring to the doctrine that females are inherently “superior” to males in most areas of life.  This third-wave manifesto of “female exceptionalism” suggests that men (and boys) should be submissive and deferential to women (and girls), by default, a majority of the time in a majority of circumstances.

It’s sort of like how, during this past spring’s April 12 airing of The Talk on CBS, when moderator Julie Chen “joked” that pregnant women should be able to squeeze the testicles of their husbands (or their baby daddies) to relieve stress while in labor.  Or how, on the May 22 episode slightly more than a month later – when discussing the allegations of Patrick J. Adams “bullying” a woman on social media after that overweight woman had body-shamed Adams in person (at Heathrow Airport) by telling him he’d looked a bit “chunky” at the Royal Wedding – Chen stated that males shouldn’t be able to call out females publicly in that manner...but, in her view, it’s fine (or “not as bad”) if females do it to males.

Samantha Bee is proving that either she desires to be a “performance artist” (in the vein of one of her recent defenders, Bill Maher, who’d declared how a hypothetical economic crash would be worth the trade-off of bringing down Trump’s presidency)...or, alternately, she has a serious intent to use “comedy” to normalize misandry within our social discourse.

Or maybe a little bit of both?

I really don’t care if Samantha Bee views herself as being above moral standards just because she happens to be a comedienne.  If she continues to entrench herself within the Entertainment Industry as a misandrist voice of neofeminism, she *will* be held accountable for her hate speech.