#and his speech is only like 45 minutes.

[trevisos]

i know i said xarrai and astarion don’t have a proper wedding and i stand by that but i want them to have some sort of reception if only because i can clearly see the two of them quietly arguing over how to prevent gale from giving an hour long speech

[carriesthewind]

Ok. I am maybe kind of losing my mind just a little bit.

A few days ago, I mentioned in a post that the IA only cares about information being digitized, not about actual digital access. And I mentioned that access includes patrons being able to actually find what they are looking for, and suggested IA did not prioritize that critical aspect of access. But I didn't really go into any more detail.

So someone over on bluesky linked to this write-up of a talk Brewster Kahle gave about using so-called AI. And one of his reported statements made my mouth drop open in shock.

...and then I read further in the article and realized it was incorrectly reporting basic facts around Hachette, so I had to go and listen to the whole speech myself.* (And I want to say, briefly - he raises some legitimate potential uses for LLMs! He's kind of a dick about some of it ("it's up to us to go and keep [Balinese] culture alive"), but some of the things he's talking about actually seem useful.)

*Incidentally, while Kahle doesn't lie about the ALA brief in the speech, he absolutely misleads about the nature and facts of the case and deliberately omit the part of the story where the IA decided to suspend the one-to-one owned-to-loan ratio thing, despite repeatedly emphasizing that one-to-one was what the IA was doing with their lending program.

And oh my god. He really said what the article reports. (This portion starts around 20:10.)

He says that the IA has scanned over 18,000 periodicals. And that they used to have professional librarians manually create descriptions of the periodicals in order to catalog them. (Sidenote: there are existing directories, but he describes their licensing terms as "ridiculous." This is not a field I know much about, but I spoke to one person who agreed, though for different reasons. His reason is that you can only license, not purchase, the directory descriptions. The person I spoke to was instead focused on the prices demanded for the licenses. Regardless, the idea of creating an open, free directory seems both like an incredible amount of work and an amazing resource...if it was accurate.)

But according to Kahle, it took 45 minutes to an hour to create a description and catalog each periodical.

And so now, instead, they're using AI to make the descriptions and so it only takes 7-10 minutes!

"And yes it hallucinates, and it has some problems, and whatever — but it’s a lot faster than having to write it yourself!"

Oh. My god.

Just.

YOU ARE KNOWINGLY INTRODUCING AI HALLUCINATIONS INTO YOUR CATALOG?!

(And yes, he says that they are "confirmed by a librarian" but it can't really be, not if it's only taking 7-10 minutes! Maybe the librarian can do a quick check for super obvious errors, but actually checking a AI's summary work requires actually going back to the source and reviewing it yourself!)

I just....

I need to emphasize for those of you for who aren't familiar - if a book or article is miscataloged, it is effectively lost. Because it doesn't mater if a library or an archive owes it - if someone can't find it when they are looking for it, it is not only inaccessible, the only way to find it again is through chance. Imagine if you went into a library, but instead of organized shelves (where if even if you can't find what you're looking for, the librarians know where to look), every single book was just piled in a heap.

If a book is miscateloged, it still exists, but it is lost, not truly accessible. And they know that this is happening, "but whatever." Because Brewster Kahle doesn't actually care about real, practical, digital access. (Much less non-digital access.)

(And then to top it off, he goes on to criticize the Library of Congress for not being "access oriented.")

I just. 18,000 periodicals. And they've knowing, recklessly lost who knows how many of them. I feel like crying.

18,000 periodicals.

[nathaslosthershit]

Oh Brother(s)! (LS2) (Leclerc!Reader)

Logan Sargeant x Leclerc!Reader (Part 2 to Red, White, and Williams' Blue but can be read as a standalone) Summary: All Logan Sargeant wanted was a nice and productive conversation with the love of his life’s three annoyingly protective older brothers, was that too much to ask for? Request: Hi Natalia! Finished reading: Red, White, and Williams' Blue (LS2) (Note to self: my official comfort fic🥹), is it okay if I could request a part 2 to it? (If you do part 2’s)? Nothing specific just maybe seeing how they’re relationship is going? (You can add whatever you want to it, but that’s my idea as of now) Thank you!!! A/N: Its my fic and I get to do whatever I want with it so I say Logan Sargeant is happy and employed. I miss him so bad. This was also such a sweet request because I too really like that fic. 

“What are we going to do with him?” Charles asked his brothers, keeping his eyes on their victim sister’s boyfriend. The three Leclerc brothers were standing menacingly with their arms crossed in the living room.

Logan sat in a chair placed right in front of them. They said he wasn’t allowed to stand, and they weren’t going to sit. They didn’t want Logan thinking there was equal power between him and the brothers.

What family was he trying to marry into?

Right, that's why he was here, he came to ask Enzo, Arthur, and Charles for their sister’s hand in marriage. It felt so medieval but they were fiercely protective of her and he didn’t want to give them reason to object at the wedding. 

��Can we at least turn the lights on?” Logan begged.

“If the lights are on you won’t be scared.” Arthur replied.

“No, I think as long as it's the three of you I am talking to, I'll be frightened.” Logan didn’t actually think this, he had plenty of normal, stress free, calm conversations with them but he knew they would get an ego boost at hearing ‘how scared he was’. 

“So, you want to marry our baby sister?” Enzo asked. 

They keep asking that question as if they don’t know thats exactly why he is there.

“Considering I started this conversation off with ‘I want to ask your sister to marry me’ I think that is a safe assumption to make.”

“And you haven’t asked our maman? Why would we say yes when you don’t have the decency to go to the matriarch?” Questioned Arthur.

Logan had to come up with a good excuse for that.

“I had… I wanted to ask you all first, you are her brothers and she respects and cares what you all think. Plus I knew I’d have an easier time asking Pascale than you three.”

“Drop the attitude and maybe we will say yes.” Charles commented.

This was ridiculous, he had been there 45 minutes and still had not gotten an answer. 

“How can we trust someone who doesn’t understand why we are protective of our sister?” Enzo spoke up.

“Of course I understand but this is-”

“A perfectly reasonable response to the question you asked us.” Arthur stuck up his nose as he said this, pissing off Logan even more. All he wanted to do was marry this girl.

“But if you guys keep speaking over me than-”

“Now you are trying to silence us? We are only looking out for our baby sister and you are getting mad?” He could tell that the brothers were mostly teasing him, but he had officially run out of patience. 

“Okay! Thats enough. All three of you sit down on the couch so I can say my speech.” Logan commanded, getting up from his chair as he pointed to where he wanted the brothers to go.

Surprised, and a little intrigued at the outburst, the three sat down with nothing more than a few angry huffs.

“You all have known me as the man who is dating your sister for three years. In all of that time, was I ever rude or disrespectful to any of you?” 

The three monegasques shook their heads.

“Was I ever rude to your sister? Did I ever treat her with anything but the utmost love and care?” 

The brothers shook their heads again.

“So, I have always been nothing but kind and respectful. I have never given any of you a reason to not like nor trust me. I have been faithful and nothing but loving towards your sister. I have a career and a well paying job so you all have no reason to think she wouldn’t be taken care of. What can I do to just have you give me a simple answer?” Logan finally took a breath. He had a better speech prepared, one that had less yelling, but he didn’t have the patience anymore.

The three Leclercs stayed silent. Logan began to sweat. Maybe the yelling wasn’t the most helpful method of asking them for their permission.

He then let out a breath as the three in front of him began to smile.

It was a ‘we are totally fucking with you and are amused by your outburst’ smile.

Fucking hell, he knew it and still let them get in his head.

“Sorry Logan, we couldn’t resist. Had to see where your patience ran out for future reference now that you are a part of the family” Charles laughed while standing up to pat Logan on the back. 

It took a second to register what he said.

“So- so you all agree?” Logan asked, not sure if they were still fucking with him.

“Yes, mate, we knew you were here to ask our permission to marry her the moment you asked to meet up with us.” Enzo replied.

Behind the American, he heard feet approaching and based on the fact he saw all the color drain from the brothers’ face, he knew who it was.

All of the brothers felt their stomach drop as their sister walked into the room. She had heard everything! They had ruined their baby sister’s proposal.

The three boys began to freak out, their made up excuses overlapping with each other making it hard to hear a single word. 

Logan ran up to go hug her, spinning her around in excitement. This made everyone else go still. Why was he not upset? They had just ruined his big moment by being overprotective idiots.

At the confusion clearly displayed on their faces, their sister spoke up, “Logan may have already asked me a month ago, we just couldn’t see you in person until now so we waited to say anything.”

“I also just needed a little confirmation that you three wouldn’t kill me for proposing before I got permission from you guys. Although, to be fair, I did ask Pascale before I did anything.” Logan said

“So it was all a lie? You didn’t want to ask us first because we are the most important people?” Arthur asked.

“Are you guys serious? He has no reason to ask you three idiots first. Or at all! You are overprotective babies.” Their sister answered. 

As the Leclerc boys all spoke over each other for the second time, arguing with their sister's comment, Logan kissed his fiancé, the two blissfully unaware of what the brothers were screaming about.

And far too in love to care.

Part 3 (the wedding episode) coming soon!

[solarbird]

“Are we willing to fight for it?” Crowd: “YES!” “And when we fight?” Crowd: “WE WIN!” — Kamala Harris to campaign staff, 22 July 2024

That’s right, the “if we fight we win” isn’t from me this time. It’s from Kamala Harris, and I am kind of in shock.

One of the things I most feared about the “replace Biden” movement was the donor class yanking the party right again and hand-picking an all old white dudes ticket and absolutely tanking every chance we had of winning this election and stopping Trumpism for good.

Politically active Black people I know personally were expecting that to happen, because that kind of shit has happened so many times. And when political Black people talk about this shit in the Democratic party, you better listen, because their history on this stuff is solid.

I mean, that’s not the only reason I feared it, I have plenty of my own experience watching this same shit go down. But it’s a big one.

That – and all the many money and organisational problems I have described which would result – was about the biggest problem I had with replacing Biden. Particularly once it was clear the money people were moving on it so hard. I was so sure they’d do again what they’ve always done, slide the top of the ticket back to the “right,” repudiating so much economic and climate good the Biden administration has done, trying to haul us back to Clintinesque neoliberalism which would fail more spectacularly than ever before.

That’s also why I was an instant loud and dare I say it strident pivot to Harris when Biden actually did drop out – it was all to stop that money move from happening. That’s why I was out Sunday as loud and long as I could be, shouting, “WHITE PEOPLE, GET HER THE NOMINATION. FUCKING DO IT” while various usual clowns and dilettantes wibbled on demanding an ‘open convention’ and nattering about a ‘flash primary’ and going off about ‘not voting for a cop’ and the wretched spectre of Joe Manchin dipped a skeletal toe into the race.

None of that was an option. It’s still not an option. It had to be her; it has to be her.

And that speech I’m quoting shows why.

I’m still stunned. I never expected to hear a presidential candidate echoing my own words back at me.

I mean, Biden understands exactly what we’re dealing with – fash propaganda aside, he really is still all there, and his words show it. But he’s not able to frame it that way, it’s just not who he is. To see a candidate frame it like this… exactly like this… that’s something new. And I did not expect it.

I am so rarely truly surprised in politics. It has been a while since I have been surprised at all.

This has surprised me.

Another political writer I follow described her as the first Generation X candidate, and maybe that’s why. Technically she’s like two months too early for GenX, she’s in that transition zone, but y’know what? If she wants to grab that label I am fine with that, because those are some words from someone who fucking gets it. From someone who has figured it the fuck out.

Go watch her speech, particularly, oh… the “I know Donald Trump’s type” section starts around 19 minutes in, but the part after that, that’s where it really starts to matter, at 21:45. Here, I timestamped for you, hopefully it’ll work where you’re reading this and if not, just skip ahead:

I’ve been saying – this is the turning point year. The peak year of a fascist movement weakened but not destroyed by self-inflicted wounds of COVID, the last year of the backstop, the year after which we can start to win.

But still I expected that this year that we’d still have to fight under the old rules, playing the old games of the Baby Boom, even if I knew that one final year of holding would shatter it all, and let us make and play by new rules in ’26 and ’28.

Hence, one more year of the bulwark, one more year of the hold.

Until two days ago, on Sunday, July 21st, 2024, that was exactly how it was playing out.

Then a political miracle happened. Biden left the race and the donor class didn’t get their push to the right, and some of them apparently didn’t even want it because they dropped money again the moment Harris announced her campaign.

I guess maybe those rich bastards finally learned a thing or two about not throwing elections.

And that means…

…maybe we don’t have to wait ’til ’26 and ’28.

Maybe it’s not one last hold after all, before the spring.

Maybe the rules can change now.

Maybe Millennials and Zoomers are going to seize the moment this year.

If they do – if you do, if you go in, if you mean it, if you don’t waver and trip yourself up in details and personality and propaganda and purity tests and and and all of it…

…then…

…this year won’t just be a hold.

This year will be the fucking landslide we have needed for eight years now to wipe Trumpism and its like off the map for a century.

Wanna make that happen?

France and England have shown us the way, and christ, I want to make that happen.

How about you? You up for it? You ready to do the work?

Let’s go, then. Everybody.

All in.

104 days remain.

[miley1442111]

in sickness and in health- s.reid

a/n: the gender of the reader is not specified or mentioned, imagine what you like :)

summary: your fiancé spencer reid will surely leave you alone if germs are involved, right?

pairing: spencer reid x reader

warnings: description of vomit- don't read if you have emetophobia plz. general being sick, mention of a gun.

Spencer stalked into your shared home, raging. The last case had been such a mind-fuck, all he wanted was to lay in bed with you. 

“I’m home,” he called up the stairs when you didn’t rush to the door to see him. No answer. He unholstered his gun and moved through the house stealthily. It was only 7 pm at night. You’d be awake, eating dinner at this time. He had your schedule memorised. Leaving the house at 8:30 everyday, drive to work to get there 15 minutes early, get a coffee from the coffee shop down the road from your offices, at work from 9 to 6, driving straight home, texting him, preparing dinner, eating it at 7, watching a film or reading a book, working out at 8:45pm, showering at 9:45, in bed by 10pm, an hour of reading, then going to sleep at 11. 

Yet now, you were nowhere to be seen. He moved upstairs and was met with the sound of retching and vomiting. Oh. 

You were sick. 

He put his gun away in his bedside drawer, then walked into the bathroom, a sympathetic smile on his face. He was happy to see you, but not in these circumstances. 

“Hey angel,” he sighed, pulling your hair out of your face. Your face was buried in the toilet bowl, spilling your guts. You finished and looked back at him. 

“You should go, I don’t want you getting sick-”

“I’m staying,” he pushed and you shook your head. 

“The germs Spencer, I’m be fine on my own-”

“I am vowing to be there for you ‘in sickness and in health’ in 4 months angel, you’re not getting rid of me. Let me take care of you now. We have the rest of our lives for swapping germs, I promise it doesn’t bother me,” he explained as you got up and started brushing your teeth, desperate to get the vile taste out of your mouth. 

“Spencer, we both know you mind-” your speech was muffled by the toothbrush in your mouth but he understood you and cut you off.

“Not when it’s you.” 

You rolled your eyes. “It’s your funeral.”

He smiled as you brushed past him, getting back into bed. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

You lay beside him, his arms around you. “I love you,” he whispered. 

“I love you too.”

[novasolstarr]

BLEGH Man I was having an unreasonably hard time drawing this bastard what the hell

Uhh still not very happy with these sketches besides the horrible feral one but also my desire to ramble about this version of Arius is overwhelming my need to have better sketches

SO THIS FUNNY BASTARD ALRIGHT Based off of another version if him, therefore I'm gonna be kinda mismatching the two's lore

Gravekeep, Spectator, Undertaker; Z-32 has been assigned several names over the years.

However, most have familiarized themselves with Z-32 to be Arius.

Arius is an anomalous entity that previously was completely unrelated to Urbanshade as a whole. In fact, several attempts had been made to remove Z-32 as a whole. This included luring it out, locking down the facility, trapping it with other entities, and so on. These attempts, however, were stopped after Urbanshade attempted a more violent method and ended up with... a few casualties [sketch 5]. Surviving spectators described Z-32 as being "fearsomely animalistic," which was an unusual change from Z-32's normally docile [albeit, cryptid] nature.

Despite suffering several what should have been fatal wounds, Z-32 seemed to recover without assistance.

The injury exposing the right side of Z-32's jaw is completely irrelevant to Urbanshade. He had arrived at the Blacksite with this wound. Along with this, it would seem that Z-32 has shape-shifting qualities, as several personnel have noted his appearance is not the same as his first arrival. It's assumed these changes are an attempt to better blend in with the fellow entities.

Z-32 gathered its names the "Gravekeep" and "Undertaker" due to its habits of cleaning up gruesome scenes, regardless of whether it's an experiment or personnel. Though normally the task of janitorial staff, Urbanshade higher-ups were not about to complain about the free labor done at an exceptionally spotless degree. For several years, it was unknown how Z-32 so cleanly disposed of the bodies with little to no evidence. Up until personnel noticed Z-32 pull apart its very own chest cavity [sketch 4] and lower several corpses into this opening.

Much to the surprise of Urbanshade scientist Z-32 was not only cooperative but also willing to allow personnel to run a few tests on him. Here, it was noted that the opening Z-32 was superficial, housing normal organs just beneath the skin here. Along with this, the opening itself could stretch from the underside of his jaw all the way to its pelvis. Other additional notes thus far are inorganic objects can be kept within this "pocket dimension" indefinitely. Organics, however, appear to be affected by this strange occurrence, with it being noted that the longer organics remain the further they're degraded. Hours 1-2 had no effect. Hour 3 began to show signs of this breakdown. Every additional 30-45 minutes after this point would break these organics down further until the previous item was completely unrecognizable from a black sludge puddle. Even when contained within an inorganic item, such as a Tupperware box, these organics still decomposed. Unfortunately, it's unknown how it affects living organics, as Z-32 avidly denied allowing such tests to be run. Attempts to force Z-32 to comply were fruitless endeavors.

Information about Z-32's past is just as mysterious as his appearance. He refuses to speak upon himself and even appears cautious not to share such information. Its unknown what this reason could be.

Z-32 has been noted to be surprisingly social, commonly engaging in conversation with other personnel regardless of the individual. Though it has been noted that his body language and speech patterns change regarding the individuals in question. At first, it was assumed to be a morality related issue. Further studying found that he seemed more likely to engage with the more "unfortunate" personnel of Urbanshade. Those who had a lengthy criminal record publicly known or not, mentioned hardships or mental health concerns seemed to be his primary conversators. When questioned about this, he merely mentioned being "drawn to disaster." No further explanation was provided. Urbanshade employees were not the only individuals either. Fellow entities were regular companions for Z-32, seeming to have an easy time communicating with even some of the most unruly of experiments. Younger individuals he spent his time around the most and even appeared parental towards these particular few, noticeably being more easy to agitate when around them. This agitation would never be directed to the younger individuals.

This rambling is getting very lengthy and my brain is exploding again so uhhh.. if anyone's curious about him further, feel free to ask [He's my little mental illness. I love him]

[beyondthesefourwalls]

The Plus One

Summary: You couldn’t believe he was here. He had told you he would be, over and over again, but part of you had convinced yourself it was too good to be true. There was no way a man as perfect as Javy Machado would be so into you after you spent one night together, months ago, that he’d fly out to be your date to a wedding for people he’d never met before. Yet here he was, looking as good as a dream. By the end of the night you knew one thing for certain: a weekend with him would never be enough.

Pairing: Javy Machado x Reader (no use of y/n)

Word Count: 3K

Warnings: Fluff, language, smut-esque but not detailed. Suavy Javy, because he’s a warning. 

Notes: A not-so-subtle follow up to An Aviation Special, but can be read on its own! 

----

____

You had to make a conscious effort to keep your eyes on your sister and your new brother-in-law as they exchanged vows at the altar, as opposed to letting them stray to the man in the 8th row in the dark blue suit. 

You couldn’t believe he was here. He was actually here. 

He had told you he would be, over and over again, but even after three months of talking on the phone almost every single day, falling a little bit more with every conversation, part of you had convinced yourself it was too good to be true. There was no way a man as perfect as one Javy Machado would be so into you after you spent one night together, months ago, that he’d fly out to be your date to a wedding for people he’d never met before. Once his original flight had gotten canceled and then the next one delayed, you had convinced yourself it wouldn’t happen at all. 

Yet…here he was. Slipping in right before the ceremony started, looking just as dashing as you had remembered, and smiling at you like you were the only one in the room. 

Holy shit. 

You took in a deep, silent breath through your nose and forced yourself to center on the words being spoken by the happy couple. It was almost over, so it wouldn’t be long until you could speak to him. 

Only it really, really was. Your job as maid of honor didn’t end after the ceremony. Pictures lasted almost 45 minutes, and then you had to help your sister bustle her dress, and the tiny buttons were impossible to find amongst the miles and miles of fabric of her train. The cocktail hour was over by the time you were done, and dinner started immediately after that. You kept glancing at where he was sitting from your spot at the bridal party table, and each time you met his dark eyes, you could feel the flush heating your face.

You barely remember giving your speech, and the best man’s lasted so long, you almost requested the DJ play the Jeopardy theme song. The first dance was beautiful, but throughout the whole thing, you felt the anticipation bubbling inside of you, so hot you thought you were going to implode. Your fingers tapped an impatient rhythm against your thighs as you watched the couple twirl around the dance floor for the entire length of the song. Once it was over, the DJ invited everyone to gather on the dance floor as something more upbeat started playing through the speakers, and you were out of your seat and moving through the rising crowd. Your eyes never left his as you made your way toward him, and your smile grew the closer you got. The nerves faded away to make room for the excitement you felt at finally, finally seeing him again. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” he called out once you were close enough to hear him, a mischievous grin on his handsome face, and you giggled as you launched yourself at him.

His strong arms wrapped around you, your feet leaving the ground as you buried your face in his neck, inhaling the scent of him that you had really only experienced once, but that somehow seemed familiar in all the best ways.  

“I can’t believe you’re here,” you whispered into his ear, and you could feel the rumble in his chest as he laughed. He set you back down, but kept a hand on the small of your back, your body staying close to his.  His dark eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, and the look in his eye was one no man had ever given you before. 

“I told you I would be,” he said. He raised his other hand to your face and let the back of his finger run gently down your cheek. You couldn’t help the shiver that went down your spine at his touch. “You look beautiful, by the way. Even more beautiful in person. Just like in New Orleans.”

“Javy,” you breathed, unable to produce any other words now that you were this close to him - that he was really here, after so many months of just hearing his voice or seeing him through a screen. If it wasn’t for physically feeling his hands on you, you would think you were dreaming. You could feel the thrum of electricity starting in your veins, and by the way his gaze darkend when it flickered to your mouth, you knew he could, too. 

“My name sounds better in person, too.”

You groaned out loud, the combination of his words and that look in his dark eyes proving to be too much. Unable to resist, you pulled his face to yours. His lips were soft as they met your own, and he didn’t hesitate to press even closer, coaxing your mouth open for him. His kiss tasted even better than you remembered.

You let yourself get lost in the moment, the music fading into the background as all of your senses honed in on this man. He pulled you impossibly closer, your body now completely flush with his. Every touch sent a jolt of heat through you, igniting the fire that had been smoldering since that night in New Orleans. No amount of talking on the phone could have prepared you for how good it would feel to finally have his hands on you again. It took everything in you to pull away before you let it completely consume you. And you knew it would have been so easy to let that happen. You had discussed that very scenario in one of the calls that had gotten a little heavier than it probably should have, him describing how it could go in very nice detail. 

You had a fleeting thought that maybe you should be worried about how simple it was to lose yourself in him, all things considered. Just like that first night, though, and all the conversation in between then and now, it all felt so, so right. 

But you were surrounded by your family, and jumping his bones in the middle of the ballroom probably wouldn’t be the wisest decision, even if it was all you wanted at that moment. 

“I have to make it through this reception,” you told him, breathless and flushed. 

Javy swallowed deeply, but nodded in agreement. He kissed you again, quick and sweet and not nearly enough. He leaned his forehead against yours, and for a moment, you were both still, breathing the other in. Then he took a deep breath and stood up straight, sending you that charming smile you hadn’t been able to get out of your head. He held his arm out, and you linked yours through it. 

“Drink?” he asked, and you smiled as you nodded. While you waited in line at the open bar, he leant down to whisper in your ear. “Do you think they have aviations on the menu?” 

You threw your head back as you laughed, remembering the pretty purple cocktail he had bought you during Mardi Gras. “I can confirm that they do not. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try and convince her to add it.” 

“Damn,” he cursed jokingly, no real heat behind it. He shot you a wink before asking you about how the morning had gone for you, knowing how stressed you had been over it. You talked quietly to one another as you slowly moved forward to the bar, and it wasn’t too long before Javy was ordering both of your drinks for you. Your heart skipped a beat when you realized he remembered exactly what you had said your go to normally was. You turned your head to try and hide the wide grin threatening to take over your face and pressed a kiss into his shoulder through his suit jacket. You didn’t miss how he shivered slightly at the action. 

The next few hours passed by in a blur, yet felt like it moved at a snail's pace all at the same time. Javy was never far from your side, being surprisingly willing to meet all of your family and friends. He introduced himself as a friend, but you didn’t miss the twinkle in his eye when he shot you a look as he said it. It made you giddy, even as it fueled the feeling that this was too good to be true. How in the hell had you gotten this lucky? 

You swayed in his arms now, an old slow song playing through the room. He held you close, his fingers running softly over the skin of your back where your dress dipped low. 

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” you murmured, lifting your head off his chest to meet his gaze. “I’ve been dreaming about this for months.” 

“Dancing with me?” he joked. The confident, teasing glint in his dark eyes made you immediately feel more at ease, to where you didn’t worry about dishing it right back at him. 

“Among other things, I suppose.” 

He laughed lightly, and you couldn’t help the giggle that escaped to match. He pulled you closer, pressing his lips to your forehead. “Cheeky,” he whispered into your skin. You hummed in response, neither confirming nor denying, and let yourself sway with him for another moment in silence before he spoke up again, touching on the first thing you had said. “Didn’t think I’d show?”

His tone was the same playful one as before, but you could sense the thread of insecurity in it, too, and wanted to alleviate it. 

“It’s not that,” you assured him. You trailed your finger down the lapel of his jacket, smiling softly. “Most guys…I don’t think they’d go through the effort. They certainly never have before. So I guess I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that you’re real. Does that make sense?” 

Javy nodded slowly, a contemplative look crossing his face. You let him process your words, moving together with the music. You straightened his sage pocket square and let your hand rest there, feeling his heartbeat beneath your palm. Another moment passed before he was softly speaking your name. He hooked his finger beneath your chin to guide your eyes back to his. His stare was darker now, more intense than it had been all night. You barely had time to furrow your eyebrows in confusion, let alone question him, before he was swooping down to capture your lips with his. Your squeak of surprise turned into something closer to a moan as he kissed you harder than he had all night. You sunk into it without a second thought. 

When he finally pulled back, you were left breathless, your lips tingling from the intensity. His hand lingered on your cheek before he let it trail down the column of your throat, going as far as your collar bone before it dropped. You felt the warmth of his touch sear through you, making your heart race even faster.

“I’ve been counting down the days until I could do that,” Javy confessed quietly, and you had to bite your lip to keep the whimper from escaping. His voice was low, like it was just for you, like you were the only two people here. His eyes were filled with desire, but also with something deeper, more profound. It mirrored exactly what you were feeling inside, even if you didn’t quite understand it. 

“Javy…” you started, your voice coming out breathier than you anticipated, and you watched his eyes darken at the sound of his name like that. “I-” 

Before you could continue, you were being tapped on the shoulder. You turned quickly, startled by the touch. Another of your sister’s bridesmaids was there, a smirk on her face as she looked you up and down. You couldn’t help the heat that crept up on your face, embarrassed at how you and Javy must look on the dancefloor right now. 

“Your sister and the hubs are ready to do their exit. Can you go tell the DJ?” 

Part of you was annoyed that she had interrupted you when it would have been just as easy for her to fulfill the request. But the other part of you knew that this meant the night was almost over. 

“Yeah,” you told her, “I got it.” 

You turned back to Javy once she walked away. He was looking at you with a knowing, anticipatory look in his eyes. They seemed darker than they were before, like he also put two and two together on what the bride and groom’s exit would mean. Without missing a beat, you raised on your toes to kiss him again. 

“I’ll be right back.” 

You stood with your parents as your sister and new brother in law made their way through the crowd, hugging everyone goodbye. You were glad that your dress was long enough to hide your tapping foot as you urged her to move a little bit faster. When she finally got to you at the end of the line, she sent you an overdramatic wink as she pulled you into her arms. “He’s cute. Don’t worry about cleaning up. My wedding planner is on it.” 

You had never been more grateful for your older sister in your entire life. 

It was only a few minutes later that you had bid your own goodbyes to everyone and had Javy’s finger’s locked with yours as you tugged him out of the ballroom. You turned the corner to a long hallway before you stopped him, your hands cupping his face to pull his lips to yours. His big hands fell to your waist.

It was urgent, hungry, and the raw electricity between the two of you crackled. 

“I don’t want to assume anything,” he managed to say between kisses, his lips trailing to your jaw as you both breathed heavily. “But my room is right upstairs, and-” 

“Yes,” you said. 

He pulled away far enough to look into your eyes. “Yes?” 

You bit your lip, nodding quickly. “Yes.” 

As soon as you walked through the door of his room, he had you pressed against it, claiming your lips again. You moaned into his mouth as you wrapped your arms around his neck, holding him close. He lifted you into his arms, but your long dress made it impossible to wrap your legs around him like you so desperately wanted. He must have realized that too, as he deposited you onto the counter just to the right of the door, never breaking the kiss. You bumped into various travel size bottles, and you thought some of them might have toppled over, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care; you were far too invested in this man, instead. 

When you had to pull away for air, you rested your forehead against his, breathing hard. 

“Javy,” you whispered, your voice sounding wrecked even to your own ears. He was staring intently back at you, dark with need and something.

“You make me crazy,” he confessed before you had the opportunity to. His voice was husky and rough, and your eyes fluttered shut at the words. 

“I’ve never felt like this before,” you said in return. 

He whispered your name, so softly you almost didn’t hear it. Your eyes opened slowly, looking at him. He didn’t need to say anything - his eyes said it all. You pushed his jacket off of his shoulders as his fingers found the zipper at the back of your dress, and then he was helping you down from the counter, and the material pooled at your feet. 

“God, you’re beautiful,” he told you. Without another word, Javy scooped you up in his arms and carried you to the bed, laying you down gently before shedding the rest of his clothes. When he lowered himself onto the bed over you, his touch was reverent, his kisses slow and deep, and you knew you would never be the same again. Every moment with him felt like a dream, surreal and intoxicating.

He lit every single nerve ending on fire as he coaxed you to orgasm again and again, and by the time he came for a second time, you were nearly boneless, covered in sweat and completely satiated. You laid curled against his chest, your finger tracing the divots in his abs as his hand ran up and down your bare back. 

“This can’t just be this weekend,” Javy whispered into the quiet room. You picked your head up to meet his eyes, and he was already looking at you. “Tell me we can make it work.” 

You studied his face for a moment, searching for any hint of doubt or hesitation, but all you found was a raw honesty that nearly took your breath away all over again. 

Part of you had been worried that this weekend really would be all that it would be. You had a whirlwind night together that ended far too soon months ago, and talked nearly every day since in anticipation of finally having the time you wish you would have then. There was a fear that perhaps it was a weekend meant for finishing what you had started. But instead, it had just stoked whatever had already been brewing. 

“We can make it work,” you said with conviction.

Distance be damned, he knew, without a doubt, that one weekend with him would never be enough. Not even close. 

--------

Notes: This was supposed to be just straight smut....clearly, it didn't turn out that way lol. I hope you enjoyed it!

Thanks to @roosterforme @sylviebell and @mak-32 for reading it over and all the help along the way!

Main Masterlist

[storiesforallfandoms]

good girl ~ gerard way

word count: 2990

request?: yes!

“okayokayokay, hear me out, dads best friend! gerard x reader. you’re franks kid, going on tour with them, and yeah, that’s kinda all i have. current time, with a hint of thigh riding, smut with praise, kinda fluffy afterwards. you should look it up but gerard wore shorts on stage last night and holy shit, i’m dead. thank you so fuckin much!”

description: they said nothing was going to happen while she was on tour with them, that nothing could happen while she was on tour with them, but then he came out in those damn shorts

pairing: gerard way x female!iero!reader

warnings: swearing, smut (thigh riding, praise kink, unprotected sex), age gap (reader is in their 20s, gerard is 45), rpf (if you don’t like it, don’t read)

masterlist (one, two, three)

He knew what he was doing. There’s no way he didn’t. He knew I was joining them today, and he just so happened to come out in a pair of hot shorts showing off those thighs that I had gotten off on so many times before? After I told him we couldn’t do this while we were with my dad? Yeah, this was definitely on purpose.

“Are you listening to me, Squirt?” dad asked, nudging me out of my thoughts.

Shit, how long have I been staring? Has dad noticed?

“Yeah,” I lied.

“What did I say?”

“You called me Squirt.”

Dad chuckled and rolled his eyes. I smiled and tried not to look over at Gerard. He was talking to Mikey and their stage manager, turned side on from me. I glanced over for a split second, just in time to see he was already looking at me. He smirked and winked at me. My face grew hot and I quickly looked away.

We knew this was wrong. At least, I think we did. The first time it happened we said it was wrong. Gerard was dad’s friend, his bandmate. I was a little less than half his age. He had a kid, a kid I had babysat numerous times when I was a teenager. Everything about the situation was wrong. Dad would freak out if he knew, the public probably would, too. We swore the first time would be the only time.

But then he came over one night during the summer for dinner. I was wearing a sundress, he was in shorts and a tank top. Next thing I knew, he had me bent over the bathroom sink with my dress pushed up around my hips.

“One time” turned into “many times” and, eventually, we stopped saying that it was wrong out loud. But we did agree we wouldn’t be doing this while dad was around. No one could ever know, but especially not dad. Gerard didn’t want to put his friendship with dad or the band in jeopardy. when I agreed to go on tour with the band for a while, we had an agreement that there would be no funny business.

I guess that agreement wasn’t going to last long.

“Alright everyone, places in ten minutes,” the stage manager announced before leaving the room.

“Everyone, circle,” Mikey announced. The band moved together, putting their arms around each other and bowing their heads. Mikey looked over at me and nodded his head. “Come on, little Iero, you too.”

“This is a band ritual, though,” I said.

“You’re an honorary member for now,” dad said. “No arguing. Come on.”

He extended an arm to me. It felt like some cruel trick of fate that the one he had unconnected from, leaving a space for me to get between, was Gerard. I took a deep breath and moved in between them. Dad put his hand around my shoulder, but Gerard put his hand on my lower back. I prayed no one noticed my body stiffen as they started their usual pre-show speech.

When everyone pulled away to take their places, Gerard leaned into my ear to whisper, “Meet me at my room after the show.”

I felt a tingle run down my spine and between my legs.

I tried to focus only on the concert as I watched the band perform, but it was hard to keep my mind from wandering when Gerard was there, in those goddamn shorts, and now he was getting all hot and sweaty while performing. Near the end of the show, his long hair was was slick with sweat and sticking to his forehead. It felt like the show was dragging on for hours and it would never end. I wasn’t sure how I was going to stop myself from jumping his bones the second he walked off the stage.

The after show adrenaline backstage was just as hard to get through. The guys were all jittering withing adrenaline and excitement. I didn’t want to break up their fun, or to seem suspicious, but I was itching to get back to the hotel so I could go to Gerard’s room. I was standing with my thighs clenched together, feeling hot and sweaty as if I were the one who just performed. I was slightly embarrassed by how desperate I was feeling, but only slightly.

The drive back to the hotel was short. We all said goodnight to one another before heading to our respective hotel rooms. I listened to make sure I heard all three doors close, meaning dad, Mikey, and Ray wouldn’t see anything, before making a beeline for Gerard’s room. He was waiting for me at the door, immediately taking me into his arms and kissing me with a combination of passion and aggression. He fumbled with the room key while still kissing me, but finally managed to swipe it and open the door. He pulled me into the room and shoved me against the door once it shut again.

“I can’t believe you,” I muttered against his lips. “We said none of this while on tour.”

“I can’t help it,” he said. “I’m so addicted to you. I don’t think I can give you up.”

Gerard pressed his lips against mine again before I could say anything. His hands slipped under my shirt and pressed against my skin. I already felt hot, but his touch made me feel like I was on fire. I was gripping at his shirt, too, still damp from the sweat, when my fingers brushed over the waistband of his shorts.

“These fucking shorts,” I groaned between kisses.

Gerard smirked. “You like them, huh?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t do this on purpose. You knew how these shorts were going to make me feel.”

He pulled away, that damn smirk still on his face. He took my hand and pulled me further into the room. He sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding my hand in his. He was looking up at me with lust filled eyes, the look alone causing a new puddle to form in my panties.

“Take your pants off,” he told me. I did as he said, unbuttoning my jeans and letting them fall to the floor. I stepped out of them and kicked them aside. “Good girl.”

I almost whimpered. God, he knew what praise did to me.

“Now,” he patted on thigh, “climb on up here, princess.”

I got onto his lap, placing my legs on either side of his thigh so I was straddling it. He placed his hands on my hips and lowered me so my clothes core was directly on his thigh. I let out a whimper at the friction. I had been longing for any sort of contact for so long that just the faint brush of my panties against my clit sent tingles through my body and caused a louder moan to slip past my lips.

“Shh,” Gerard said. “We don’t want anyone to hear you, do we?”

I shook my head, biting my lip to hold in any other involuntary noises.

“Good girl,” he said again. He kissed me gently before saying, “Now, get off on my thigh like a good girl.”

I started moving my hips, letting the friction grow. Any noises I made came out muffled against my lips. If I was in a different state of mind, I’d probably feel a little pathetic in the situation - mewling on Gerard’s lap in desperation to get myself off. We weren’t even having sex yet and I was already a mess. But I only had one thing on my mind, one endgame to work towards.

I put my arms around his neck to ground myself as I continued to grind. His hands were still resting on my waist, but he wasn’t controlling my movements. He was letting me go at my own pace. He was watching me so intently, like I was the most beautiful art he had ever seen.

“You’re doing so good, babe,” he breathed. “You look so beautiful when you’re coming undone like that.”

I tried to say something in return, but it just came out as incoherent babbles. Gerard chuckled and pulled me in for another kiss. His tongue poked at my bottom lip, asking for permission to enter. I parted my lips and let his tongue explore my mouth. He swallowed my moans, which had become harder to control. I was nearing my climax quicker than I had anticipated. I wasn’t ready for it yet. I wanted this to go on for longer.

But Gerard knew I was close. His hands were now gripping my hips and moving me a little bit faster. Against my lips, he mumbled, “I want you to cum on my lap, pretty girl. Please cum on my lap.”

He forcefully kissed my lips as a scream of pleasure ripped through my throat without warning. My body trembled as my orgasm washed over me. How he made me feel so good with just his thigh, I would never know. He made me feel better than any man my age ever could.

I started to come down from my high as I realized I was being moved. Gerard was lifting me from his lap and gently placing me on the bed. He stood at the end and quickly removed his clothes. I did the same, ridding myself of my panties, shirt, and bra. We were both completely naked, just looking at one another. He always somehow made me feel both confident and insecure under his gaze. He looked at me with such hunger in his eyes that I wanted to let him have me however he wanted, but also I wanted to cover myself up. I always felt so many conflicting things when we were together.

He climbed onto the bed, hovering over me. He lowered himself so his body was flush against mine, engulfing me with his heat. He kissed me again, feverishly. I could feel his dick, hard and throbbing, against my inner thigh, mere inches from where I wanted him most. My hips bucked involuntarily. His tip grazed my entrance, causing the two of us to moan together.

“Is this what you want?” he asked, running his dick between my folds. “You want this inside of you, good girl?”

“P-Please,” I begged. “Please, I need you inside of me. Need it so bad, need you so bad.”

“You sound so pretty when you beg.” He reached between us and lined himself up with my entrance. “Ask me one more time.”

“Please, Gerard. Please fuck me.”

With one thrust, he filled me completely. I gasped at the sensation, which was followed by another moan. He covered my mouth with his hand, suppressing the moan before it fully erupted out of me. He slowly pulled out of me until it was just the tip inside of me, then pushed all the way back in. I could feel every inch of him slowly pulling out and filling me up, dragging along my walls and pushing against my g-spot with every thrust inwards. The sore feeling I had from my recent orgasm quickly melted away into pleasure again.

Gerard buried his head in the crook of my neck, leaving kisses along my neck and shoulder between attempts to muffle his own groans and moans. My moans and whimpers came out muffled against his hand. He started to pick up the pace with his thrusts. With his body against mine, his pelvic bone was rubbing against my clit with every thrust. The combined stimulation of him rubbing against my clit and his dick abusing my g-spot had my lower stomach tightening again in no time. I had no way of telling him this time around that I was getting close, so I just had to let my orgasm wash over me. My eyes rolled into the back of my head as my body began to tremble again, screams of pleasure muffled, but just barely, against his hand.

He was whispering praises into my ear but I felt so far off that I could barley hear them. The only thing keeping me grounded and present was the feeling of my nails digging into his skin and his desperate thrusts, now becoming a little sloppier. It wasn’t long until I could feel him spilling inside of me. He bit down on my shoulder to try and keep himself quiet, undoubtably also leaving marks there. I barley cared at the time, but at least he left them in a spot that would be easy to cover.

We both laid there, tangled up in one another for some time. I was still feeling lightheaded, chasing that wonderful post-climax feeling and slowly coming down from it. If I didn’t have to move at all for the rest of time, I would’ve been content. I could’ve laid there with him for so long if that were possible.

When he got up and pulled himself out of me, I felt empty. There’s always a feeling of slight disappointment after sex that it couldn’t go on for longer, or that you had to separate from one another at all. Gerard took a moment to catch his breath before standing from the bed.

“I have to shower,” he said. “Do you wanna come with?”

I happily agreed. I followed him into the bathroom and waited as he started up the shower. Within seconds the mirror was steamed over from the hot water. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle a hot shower, but the minute the hot water touched my skin I felt like I was in paradise. Taking a shower where the water was anything cooler than scolding hot was definitely not an option for me. I let Gerard use the hotel provided shampoo and body wash first, seeing as he was the one who had performed an entire show before we had sex. I stood back as he washed himself, taking in the sight of his body covered in suds and water.

“We’re really bad at this,” I blurted without thinking.

He turned to look at me. “What do you mean?”

“We keep saying we’re going to stop, and then we never do.”

He sighed and tilted his head back to rinse the shampoo from his hair. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“What we’re doing isn’t right.”

“It feels right.”

I felt a smile tugging at my lips. Yeah, it definitely felt right. But morally it wasn’t right. Was it?

“Do you think, if the circumstances were different, that we’d be a normal couple?” Gerard asked as he stepped back, allowing me to let the water run over me.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I definitely noticed his use of the word “couple”, but decided not to mention it just yet. I hadn’t ever thought of us in that way, in a “relationship” type of way. Not that I didn’t want to. I know Gerard would be a perfect boyfriend, probably the best one I could ever ask for, but I didn’t think he saw what we were doing in that way. It had just been sex. There were some moments that it felt like more than that, but for the most part I knew that’s all it was and all it likely would ever be.

“Like...if you weren’t my best friend’s kid, do you think we would ever actually...be able to explore what we have? To actually go out together on dates and be able to hold hands in public and be together. Not to sneak around behind closed doors and hope no one notices the brief glances we have when we’re in public?”

I was shocked. I didn’t think Gerard had thought of what we were doing in that way. It had never been brought up before, so I just assumed we were on the same page in terms of this being a “no strings attached” type of deal.

“I think...I think we would,” I admitted. “Granted, it might be a little controversial with the age difference.”

“It would be, but we’re both adults regardless of the age difference. It’s not like you just turned 18 and I’m a gross middle aged man waiting to be able to date you.”

I scrunched my nose in disgust at his comparison. “Yeah, the world sees enough of that as it is. I think a relationship between someone in their mid 20s and someone in their 40s is the least people have to worry about.”

Gerard took my face in his hands suddenly and leaned down to kiss me. It was sweet and gentle, just a normal kiss because he felt like kissing me. I leaned into him, returning it because I just felt like kissing him, too.

This, I thought to myself, is what it would feel like to be able to just be a normal couple. Just to kiss each other because we feel like it.

We turned off the water as it started to run cold. We both dried off and got ready for bed. I knew I should’ve gone back to my own room, that it would be suspicious if anyone came looking for me the next morning and I wasn’t there, but I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to spend the night with Gerard, and he wanted me there, too.

We climbed into bed together. Gerard turned off the lamp next to the bed and the room was plunged into darkness. He took me into his arms, holding me to him as the fatigue finally started to wash over us. I rested my head on his chest, listening to his heart beating, as I closed my eyes.

This is what it would be like if we could be a normal couple, was the last thought I had before I finally drifted off to sleep.

*I’m sorry there wasn’t more to the smut. I got sick in the middle of writing this and found myself struggling to finish the smutty bits. I hope it was okay otherwise!*

[time-is-restored]

What Happened At The Church On Ruby Road?

AKA: Why does RTD want us to watch Ruby's first episode with a ruler and protractor?

Alright, so since I read this article excerpt yesterday night I haven't been able to stop thinking about what trick could be hidden in the sequence between the cloaked woman, the doctor, and baby ruby. While I'm not at all claiming to know the answer, I have a few details to point out that might help with further analysis.

First of all: A Continuity Error (On Purpose?)

At the very beginning of TCORR, when the doctor's giving his 'once upon a time,' speech, we see the TARDIS materialise + the doctor appear, looking in the direction of the cloaked woman, looking distraught. Disney+ is evil so I can't get an accurate screenshot, so take this scuffed photo instead, taken from 1:03. You can see a tear rolling down his cheek (little white dot on the left of his face, in line w this nose).

Later in the episode, when the doctor materialises in the scene for the first time, there is no tear. It's a marginally different shot in several ways, but that's the most noticable to me - screenshot taken from 42:59.

By itself, this is totally negligible. But I think when taken with the opening monologue (which heavily implies that the doctor finds out the cloaked woman's identity - "As for the mother, she was never seen again. No one ever knew her name, until that night a time traveller came to call. A traveller known as the Doctor."), there is possible evidence here that the doctor came to this moment twice. Once in the sequence of events as we see them, rescuing Ruby from the goblins, and once where... something else happened.

Second: The Layout of The Church

We get a few aerial shots of the church when the camera is showing the ascent of the ship, and a lovely wide shot as the doctor decides to not follow the cloaked woman (taken from 46:28 and 44:07).

The most important thing I want to point out is the way the hedge path curves to the right in the direction the doctor and the cloaked lady are facing. You can only really see it in that one shot (so I hope it's not a lens effect!). The aerial shot helps clarify that nothing is obstructing either of the character's view of the church.

We can also see that in this iteration of their encounter, the cloaked woman is standing a little bit to the right of the doctor (thanks to the curved path).

Third: The Timing

The only real indication of how much real time is passing in each scene is the clock striking midnight. So, when does that happen?

In the opening sequence, the clock strikes midnight after the man from the church has found Ruby and picked her up. We then see the woman relatively far down the road that we can see in that above screenshot, and THEN we see the TARDIS apparate and the Doctor appear.

In the goblin sequence, the woman is already far down the road well before it hits midnight, as the doctor sees her walking away before he runs to save baby ruby. Obviously time moves slower than usual in TV actions scenes, but that's not all - we see the clock strike midnight before the man from the church picks Ruby up.

Furthermore, the woman has... barely moved at all in those few minutes. Screenshots from 43:00 and then 46:45.

Okay, that should be all the relevant information from TCORR. Now to get to that point!

Fourth: The Point

This is where things go off the fucking rails. Here's our orienting shots for the Point.

Just to compare the positions of the doctor's shot here, here's the last shot we have of him looking at the lady in TCORR:

While this could just be a fancy camera angle, I think the Doctor is standing more to (his) left of the TARDIS than in this above shot. AKA: he's standing more to the left than she is. That emphasises that, if the woman was to be pointing at him when she turns around, she should be pointing to her right.

But I don't think she is -- especially in that wide shot, her arm looks like it's going wide. It's going more to the left than it should be. If RTD hadn't explicitly said the 'who's pointing at who' was significant, I would be fine with accepting that she's pointing at the doctor -- especially since that's how the doctor reads it.

And if we go back to the layout of the church, the things she could be pointing at are, in order of exactly how far to the left she'd have to point:

something just behind the doctor (would explain how close the point is to him)

the path up to the church

the clock tower

ruby/the baby

Regardless of where she's pointing, I think the implication is that there's someone else at the scene, doing something that the doctor didn't notice (perhaps due to his own bias with mother figures).

Wild Speculation:

Now, what do I think this means? Honestly, no idea LOL. It's still all just vague enough it could go in fifty different directions. But we know for sure that the moment where Ruby Sunday was left at the church is a moment in flux, thanks to the the Doctor's memory changing + the song in the background being different in Devil's Chord.

Part of me wonders if there's something (someone?) hiding inside that memory/moment in time? Like how Thirteen hid her companions inside their own time stream to try and buy time away from the swarm guys? It would explain the Maestro's reaction -- 'he couldn't have been there[...] on the night of her birth' -- in the devil's chord, the young boy is a harbinger. Maybe ruby is the harbinger of something too? That could also explain why it started snowing in the TARDIS after 15 scanned her -- the same thing happened when Maestro started trying to pull out her song.

Then if you go with the changeling angle, it's entirely possible we're about to get a shell game with babies 2: electric boogaloo (thanks russel for saying we should rewatch a good man goes to war, i'll never sleep again 👍). Maybe while the doctor's too busy watching the cloaked woman, someone else is intervening, switching her baby for ruby? Or doing something To her baby that explains why ruby is so... wrong, for lack of a better word?

Also, looking between the opening sequence vs the goblin sequence timing, we have several minutes where the cloaked woman is totally unaccounted for in the latter, as well as an entire interaction between her and the doctor that... didn't happen? Or did happen, but was forgotten? Unwritten? Rewritten? Etc.?

If I had to make a bet (and let's be honest, what else are we doing while theorising LOL), I'd say that something about that night has been memory-holed out of existence. Possibly a doomed timeline that righted itself, ala 73 yards, but left just enough trace that the people involved know something happened (ruby knows she's been to wales three times before, the doctor knows he was pointed at).

I think it was triggered when the lady and the doctor got too close to each other (did she hear that the goblin ship was taking her baby? did she turn around and see something she otherwise would have missed?), and realised something about each other (or ruby?) that needed to stay dormant. the cold opening implies the doctor learns her name, and since there don't appear to be any time of the angels sneaky outfit change moments, i can only assume it happened here, somewhere in this memory.

And hell, in for a penny in for a pound, maybe it all got undone (retconned, in universe, in real time), because the Doctor shouldn't learn about the cloaked woman until the finale? Spoilers? In TV meta, did the director tell all the other actors (the church man + the cloaked lady) to hold in place until the doctor was back in position?

[Final note, regarding the continuity error I noted first up, in TV shows with ad breaks factored in -- brief fades to black at dramatic moments, then the last ten seconds play again to remind the audience what's happening -- sometimes directors would use different takes for before and after the ad break. Maybe that's the explanation for the tear -- in universe, that cold open stopped in its tracks the moment the opening was cued to play. It then started again with a doctor who had last cried several minutes ago, and the scene played out as intended.]

Anyway fellow 'the mistakes are in there on purpose' believers how are we FEELING!!!!!

[idontknowreallywhy]

A little bit extra teeny octopus Scooter written way way too early in the morning while in a tent listening to the birds go bonkers about dawn. Is a little sad, sorry, but it will get better.

(Follows on from this)

💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙

It felt like an age but could only have been 30 seconds or so before a whispered “‘m sorry” came from the limb-bundle.

“Whatever for?”

The next pause was at least 45 seconds. Felicity knew because she counted it this time (and if it had got to a minute she’d had tried another question). The answer was more sob than speech:

“Me.”

Well that was heartbreaking.

“Scott, honey, you don’t need to be sorry for you. ‘You’ is just great. Fab. The only thing that went a bit wrong today is you didn’t tell anyone where you were going and we got scared, can you understand that?”

He sniffed and, she thought, nodded although it was hard to tell when he was so scrunched up.

“Wass mab?”

“Mab? Oh! Fab! Eff Aay Bee - it’s short for fabulous which means wonderful or extraordinary. Which is what you are.”

The resulting snort was tiny but if her heart hadn’t already been in smithereens it would have crushed it beyond recognition. What on Earth?

Deep breath.

“Scott, do you… maybe want to come out of there, just a little bit?”

Literal as ever, he shuffled forwards a small amount such that his the toes of his shoes poked beyond the protection of the shelf. She patted them gently.

“Do you know what made you upset?”

“No. Yes. Everything. ‘M fine.”

“You don’t have to tell me but maybe I can help?”

“Can’t help. My fault.”

“What’s your fault, Scotty?”

The toes retreated again. There was a pause and a shaky breath before four clipped words emerged, quietly but with all the deadly force of bullets:

“I am too much.”

“Too… much? No you aren’t. Who said that?”

“D-D-Danny.”

“Well. Danny is not the boss of how much people are supposed to be, Scott. You are just the right amount.”

“Everyone says! Ms Anson said… ‘n’ Mr Stevens said... I hafta stop bein’ a a juggernaut and hu-hurtin’ ‘veryone’s learnin’ ‘n’ s-s-s-sit down ‘n’ s-s-s-s-stop int’ruptin’ b-but I I I can’t an’… an’… an’…”

The carelessness of certain supposed educational professionals had Felicity choking back a growl. She instead reached out a hand and tentatively patted what she could reach of the little head. His usually fluffy curls were spiky, rigid with sweat and he leaned into the palm of her hand like a cat before shrinking back again.

“Grown ups can be wrong about lots of things too. They were wrong about you.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman at NYT:

Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there. Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race. With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age. Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.) Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs. And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”

[...] The former president has not been hobbled politically by his age as much as Mr. Biden was, in part because the incumbent comes across as physically frail while Mr. Trump still exudes energy. But his campaign has refused to release medical records, instead simply pointing to a one-page letter released in July by his former White House doctor reporting that Mr. Trump was “doing well” after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt. How much his rambling discourse — what some experts call tangentiality — can be attributed to age is the subject of some debate. Mr. Trump has always had a distinctive speaking style that entertained and captivated supporters even as critics called him detached from reality. Indeed, questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s mental fitness for years. [...]

Mr. Trump’s complexity level has remained relatively steady and has not diminished in recent years, according to the analysis. But concerns about his age have heightened now that he is trying to return to office, concerns that were not alleviated by his unfounded debate claim about immigrants “eating the pets” in a small town. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe he is too old to be president, and his critics have been trying to focus attention on that. A group of mental health, national security and political experts held a conference at the National Press Club in Washington last month on Mr. Trump’s fitness. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of former Republicans, regularly taunts him with ads like one calling his debate with Ms. Harris “a cognitive test” that he failed.

Mr. Trump has appeared tired at times and has maintained a far less active campaign schedule this time around, holding only 61 rallies so far in 2024, compared with 283 through all of 2016, according to the Times analysis, although he has picked up the pace lately. He appeared to nod off during his hush-money trial in New York before being convicted of 34 felonies. Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition. “That can change with normal aging,” said Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School. “But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”

[...]

In 2011, as he was contemplating a run for the presidency, Mr. Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and sounded more partisan notes. While many of the themes would be familiar to today’s voters, he stuck closer to his script and finished his thoughts more often. His speeches in 2015 and 2016 were more aggressive, but still clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor. Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.” Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict “one really violent day” on criminals to deter crime. He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

This New York Times article today calling out Donald Trump’s cognitive decline that has impacted his speeches over the past year or so is a powerful must-read as to why Americans shouldn’t put this senile fascist back in office.

Read the full article at NYT.

[arealphrooblem]

Kidnapped by the Boss

synopsis: Civilian is a secretary to the Prime Minster. But when the political summit between the city states goes awry, she finds herself kidnapped by the very boss she tried to protect and nothing is what it seems.

Civilian woke up that morning before the sun rose, with a to-do list a mile long, and a nervous pit in her stomach that she tried desperately to ignore. Of course she was nervous --the Summit between the  city-state leaders was happening that evening. It only occurred once every five years and this was the first time for Civilian ever since she became the Prime Minister's secretary. 

Or maybe it was because of the hushed rumor spreading like wildfire that Hidden City would send agents sabotage the Summit. Ever since the Empire split off a hundred years ago, their borders stayed closed, they refused any trade agreements or offers of allyship, and they routinely executed anyone who dared to cross over the Wall that lined their city. 

That was just a rumor, she told herself,  and a ridiculous one at that. The Hidden City made it perfectly clear they were content to ignore the rest of the continent. Why would they start caring now?

But still the pit remained. The last time she felt like this, an earthquake shook the city and leveled part of the harbor. The time before that, she'd been in a serious car accident. The pit throbbed deep in her gut like an omen and it was never wrong. 

Civilian pulled her hair up in a sleek, professional pony tail, dressed in her professional best, grabbed her tablet and clipboard, and started the day anyway. 

"Sir, we have to do your final fitting with your stylist at nine, brunch with Senator at 10:30, a meeting with the chief of security at 11:45 and a million other things and you're still eating breakfast?"

She leveled an exasperated glare at the Prime Minister, who sat at the little dining table with a cup of tea and the morning paper, still in his house slippers and undershirt. 

He gave her a warm, sunny smile and raised his tea cup in salute. 

"Never rush life's simple pleasures, Civilian," he says. "You should join me. There's still some tea left."

"I had coffee, sir. Two hours ago."

He made a face, adorably disgusted, and Civilian tried hard to hang onto her resolve in the face of it. Here lately she'd been getting pinpricks of affection and fondness that went way beyond their standard professional relationship and it was all very distracting. And wildly inappropriate. 

Civilian waltzed over and plucked the paper out of his hand. "Can we save the savoring of life's simple pleasures on a day that isn't the Summit?"

"Would you relax?" He pouted as she folded the newspaper back up. "They've had this day planned out to the minute for the last six months. There's hardly anything left to do except wait around til five o'clock."

"Sir," she said, pained. "There is a lot to do before five o'clock."

He sighed, dramatically melancholic. "Alright, alright. I will finish getting dressed. If only to save you from the ulcer that is undoubtedly churning in your stomach. You should stop drinking so much coffee."

"Sir, with respect, you are the cause of it, more so than coffee ever could be."

His laugh followed him down the hallway. 

The chaos of the day, herding her boss around as he sighed and pouted and groaned about giving a speech on one of the most important days of his political careers, almost made her forget the pit growing in her stomach. 

Civilian ticked the boxes of her to-do list in a smooth, orderly fashion right up until the chief of security came to escort her and Prime Minister to the Summit. His creased brow stayed furrowed, looking for threats in every corner, but tonight his gaze was unusually sharp and stormy. He stepped into her hotel room and shut the door behind him. 

"Keep your eyes peeled and your guard up," he told her quietly, leaning close in her space. As if afraid of someone listening. "We've arrested two people trying to break into the Summit Hall already. They were armed."

"Are they from the Hidden City?" she asked, swallowing down the flare of panic. 

"They refuse to say but I have no doubt."

Her stomach twisted. "So the rumors are true. What do you think their goal is?"

"Nothing good," he said grimly. "But beyond that, it's impossible to tell. They've kept themselves so cut off, we have on idea what their goals are anymore. Just . . .be careful. I'll be around. If you see anything suspicious, let me know."

He handed her an earpiece and she slipped it in, allowing her freshly curled hair to cover it.

They met the Prime Minister in the hotel lobby.  

"See! I can get dressed on time without your nagging," he said, beaming 

She managed a wan smile in return. "That's because your stylist is  more terrifying than even I am."

He gave her a curious stare before the chief of security thankfully took his attention away. Though the hotel was within walking distance from the Summit, the chief of security insisted they drive. The entire ride she felt the weight of her boss's stare prickle the back of her neck. 

When they pulled into the valet parking, the prime minister stepped out first and graciously held his hand out for her. She tried not to dwell on how soft and firm his fingers felt in hers.

"You look like you're going to puke," he said, an eyebrow raised.

"What a coincidence -- I feel like I'm going to puke."

He looked down at her, gaze full of concern. "You really should relax. I don't know what you're expecting, but these events will usually bore you to tears."

Civilian opened her mouth to tell him, to come clean and explain, but something stopped her. Either he would become just as nervous as her and possibly ruin his speech or he would just laugh the rumors off regardless and tell her she worries too much. Nothing productive would come either way. 

"You're right. I'm just nervous over the . . .formality of it all. I'll get over it when you start to bore me with your speech."

He smiled, slow and warm. "That's my girl."

He chucked her under the chin and her gaze dipped down, trying to hide her sudden blush. When he turned away, her hand shot out and grabbed his. 

"Wait! You're bowtie's crooked," she said. 

Without thinking, she reached up and straightened it and then smoothed her hands down the satin lapels. 

"What would I do without you," he said with a soft solemnity that made her chest flutter. 

"Probably walking around, looking stupid," she retorted, trying to control the riot of butterflies that had erupted in her chest. 

Her boss was right -- the Summit was dreadfully boring but Civilian took a weird sort of comfort in the predictability of it. In fact, they had finally started to relax as their boss intended when he leaned over and whispered, "Darling, I think I left my cue cards at the hotel."

Civilian rolled her eyes. "This is why I scanned them into my tablet." 

She reached down under her seat -- and froze. The tablet was gone. Civilian felt around under the seat as inconspicuous as she could, but the space was empty. 

"It's not here," she whispered, horrified. 

He raised his eyebrows and said, mildly, "Well . . .that is unfortunate."

"I swear to god I brought it with me. I never go anywhere without it!"

"I didn't remember seeing it. Are you sure it's not back at the hotel?"

"How are you so calm about this?" she hissed. 

"Well, darling, it has to be somewhere. I suggested you start walking -- and preferably before I have to give my speech."

As discreetly as she could, Civilian slipped out of the assembly room before making a mad dash down the hallway the second she was out of view. Her mind raced, trying to remember what she did with her tablet. She had taken it with her -- she had. She'd stake her life on it! She had to have left it in the car. Pivoting away from the front doors, she made her way instead to the parking garage. 

Just before she reached the doors to the parking garage, the power shut off, plunging the hallway in total darkness. 

"Where are you?"

The Chief of security's voice crackled in her ear. 

"What's going on?" she asked, heart pounding. In the background of his transmission she could hear yelling. 

"Where are you?"

"By the parking garage!"

"Hidden City's Agents have flooded the assembly room. Get out now. I'll take care of Prime Minster."

A gunshot cut off the transmission. Civilian stood by the door for one paralyzing moment before survival kicked in. She took off her heels and sprinted out into the cavern of the parking garage. The late evening sun gave her enough light to see by. The screams and thundering sounds of footsteps started filtering from outside, followed by the echo of bullets. She kept to the wall, inching as fast as she could between it and the cars, hoping for cover. 

Turning the corner, she saw a familiar figure standing off to the side in an empty parking space. Her knees went weak in relief to see Prime Minster unharmed. A car screeched up the other side -- their car. Through the windshield, however, was an unfamiliar face --

The car jerked to a stop and the Prime Minster reached out for the back door --

"Sir!" she yelled, waving her arm. "Sir! Thank God I found you!"

He froze at the sound of her voice, a strange, twisted expression flickering across his face so fast she almost missed it. She dodged between cars and ran down the open space to him.  

"What are you doing here?" he said, looking bewildered. "I thought you left for the hotel!"

"You can't get into that car -- that's not our driver," she hissed, grabbing his hand. 

He yanked himself out of her grasp. "What?"

"That's not the same person who took us here!"

"How do you kn--"

The echo of gunshots interrupted him. 

"Get in the car," he said -- demanded. 

"But the driv--"

"Get. In. The. Car."

He flipped the door open and shoved her in, climbing in behind her.  They had barely shut the door before the car screeched forward, tires squealing.  Civilian was thrown painfully against the door. 

The pit in her stomach ached --danger danger danger.  

"What the fuck is she doing here?" shouted the driver. 

"Slight change of plan," said the prime minister through gritted teeth. 

The driver said something rapid-fire in another language and the prime minister responded, his tone sharp and angry and nothing like she's heard before. 

Civilian stared between them with growing horror. 

"What's happening?" she demanded.  "Do you know him?"

Prime Minister sighed, sounding like his old theatrical self, but it gave her no comfort. 

"What is happening, my darling secretary, is that due to your failure to follow basic instructions, you are getting kidnapped. Congratulations.

Part 2 Here

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The New York Times is finally acknowledging that Donald Trump is mentally incompetent.

+

NYT COMMITS ACT OF JOURNALISM

TCinLA

Oct 07, 2024

From yesterday’s New York Times:

TRUMP’S SPEECHES, INCREASINGLY ANGRY AND RAMBLING, REIGNITE THE QUESTION OF AGE

By: Peter Baker and Chevaz Clarke

Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there.

Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race.

With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.

Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)

Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs.

And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”

While elements of this are familiar, some who have known him for years say they notice a change. “He’s not competing at the level he was competing at eight years ago, no question about it,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump ally who has endorsed Ms. Harris. “He’s lost a step. He’s lost an ability to put powerful sentences together.”

“You can like Trump or hate Trump, but he’s been a very effective communicator,” Mr. Scaramucci continued. But now, he added, “the word salad buffet on the Trump campaign is being offered at a discount. You can eat all you can eat, but it’s at a discount.”

Sarah Matthews, who was Mr. Trump’s deputy press secretary until breaking with him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, said the former president had lost his fastball.

“I don’t think anyone would ever say that Trump is the most polished speaker, but his more recent speeches do seem to be more incoherent, and he’s rambling even more so and he’s had some pretty noticeable moments of confusion,” she said. “When he was running against Biden, maybe it didn’t stand out as much.”

Mr. Trump dismisses any concerns and insists that he has passed cognitive tests. “I go for two hours without teleprompters, and if I say one word slightly out, they say, ‘He’s cognitively impaired,’” he complained at a recent rally. He calls his meandering style “the weave” and asserts that it is an intentional and “brilliant” communication strategy.

Steven Cheung, the campaign communications director, called Mr. Trump “the strongest and most capable candidate” and dismissed suggestions that he has diminished with age. “President Trump has more energy and more stamina than anyone in politics, and is the smartest leader this country has ever seen,” he said in a statement.

The former president has not been hobbled politically by his age as much as Mr. Biden was, in part because the incumbent comes across as physically frail while Mr. Trump still exudes energy. But his campaign has refused to release medical records, instead simply pointing to a one-page letter released in July by his former White House doctor reporting that Mr. Trump was “doing well” after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt.

How much his rambling discourse — what some experts call tangentiality — can be attributed to age is the subject of some debate. Mr. Trump has always had a distinctive speaking style that entertained and captivated supporters even as critics called him detached from reality. Indeed, questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s mental fitness for years.

John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, was so convinced that Mr. Trump was psychologically unbalanced that he bought a book called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” written by 27 mental health professionals, to try to understand his boss better. As it was, Mr. Kelly came to refer to Mr. Trump’s White House as “Crazytown.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s cabinet secretaries had a running debate over whether the president was “crazy-crazy,” as one of them put it in an interview after leaving office, or merely someone who promoted “crazy ideas.” There were multiple conversations about whether the 25th Amendment disability clause should be invoked to remove him from office, although the idea never went far. His own estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist, wrote a book identifying disorders she believed he has. Mr. Trump bristled at such talk, insisting that he was “a very stable genius.”

“There were often discussions about whether he could comprehend or understand the policy and knowing that he didn’t really have a grasp on those kinds of things,” Ms. Matthews said of her time in the White House. “No one wanted to outright say it in that environment — is he mentally fit? — but I definitely had my moments where I personally questioned it.”

A 2022 study by a pair of University of Montana scholars found that Mr. Trump’s speech complexity was significantly lower than that of the average president over American history. (So was Mr. Biden’s.) The Times analysis found that Mr. Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level, lower than rivals like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who speaks at an eighth-grade level, which is roughly average for modern presidents.

Mr. Trump’s complexity level has remained relatively steady and has not diminished in recent years, according to the analysis. But concerns about his age have heightened now that he is trying to return to office, concerns that were not alleviated by his unfounded debate claim about immigrants “eating the pets” in a small town.

Polls show that a majority of Americans believe he is too old to be president, and his critics have been trying to focus attention on that. A group of mental health, national security and political experts held a conference at the National Press Club in Washington last month on Mr. Trump’s fitness. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of former Republicans, regularly taunts him with ads like one calling his debate with Ms. Harris “a cognitive test” that he failed.

Mr. Trump has appeared tired at times and has maintained a far less active campaign schedule this time around, holding only 61 rallies so far in 2024, compared with 283 through all of 2016, according to the Times analysis, although he has picked up the pace lately. He appeared to nod off during his hush-money trial in New York before being convicted of 34 felonies.

Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition. “That can change with normal aging,” said Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School. “But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”

One person who has detected a change is Ramin Setoodeh, author of a new book on Mr. Trump’s days hosting “The Apprentice.” Mr. Setoodeh, who has written about Hollywood for years and first met Mr. Trump during his television days, was surprised at how much the former president had changed when he arrived at Mar-a-Lago for the first of six interviews for the book, “Apprentice in Wonderland.”

“The Donald Trump I interviewed in the early seasons of ‘The Apprentice’ had a stronger sense of time and space, and his narratives were a lot clearer,” Mr. Setoodeh said. “And the Donald Trump I interviewed for my book, ironically, could remember things that happened in the ‘Apprentice’ years well, but he struggled with more recent events.” (TC note - this is common with Alzheimers; one pilot I interviewed for The Bridgebusters was deep in Alzheimer’s but had total recall of his wartme service.)

For instance, Mr. Trump could not remember the day in 2015 that NBC called to cut ties with him after he made derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants. “He was very clear in terms of his memory of the shows,” Mr. Setoodeh said, even though his versions were often exaggerated or fabricated. “But when we went to more recent years, things got foggier.”

So foggy, in fact, that he forgot Mr. Setoodeh himself. After interviewing Mr. Trump in May 2021, Mr. Setoodeh returned in August. “When I said, ‘Do you remember sitting down with me?’ he said, ‘No, that was a long time ago,’” Mr. Setoodeh said. “It was like we started from square one. He started telling me the exact same stories. He didn’t remember what we had talked about. He didn’t remember me.”

Others who have encountered him since he left the White House have likewise described moments of forgetfulness. Most notable, perhaps, was his deposition in the defamation lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused Mr. Trump of raping her in the 1990s. Shown a picture of Ms. Carroll, Mr. Trump confused her with his second wife, Marla Maples. (A jury later found that Mr. Trump sexually abused and defamed Ms. Carroll.)

Roberta Kaplan, who was Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, said Mr. Trump lost control at times during the proceedings, blowing up when he should have remained calm. “I assume that was always part of his personality,” she said in an interview. “But it may be getting worse.”

Others who have spent time with Mr. Trump in private, however, insist that they notice no difference.

“I never felt that cognitive ability or age was an issue,” said James Trusty, an attorney who represented Mr. Trump in his classified-documents criminal case until resigning last year after reported friction with another lawyer close to Mr. Trump.

“Like any high-powered executive, there were going to be times when he didn’t like hearing what I had to say or when we had spirited disagreements over strategy,” Mr. Trusty added. “But it was never something where I felt there was an intellectual disconnect.”

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump political adviser, said he still talked with people who see him almost daily, and had not heard of any concerns expressed about the former president’s age. “I don’t really see any major difference,” he said. “I just don’t see it.”

“He’s not linear,” he added. But “he was never linear.” At the debate with Ms. Harris, Mr. Nunberg said, Mr. Trump “seemed like he was tired” and “had an off night.” And, he added, “of course he doesn’t prepare.” But “that’s not like a Biden off night.”

Either way, watching recordings of Mr. Trump over the years yields a pretty clear evolution. The young media-obsessed developer and reality television star who spoke with a degree of sophistication and nuance eventually gave way to the bombastic presidential candidate with the shrunken vocabulary in 2016 and eventually to the aged former president seeking a comeback in 2024.

Consider the following: In 2002, Mr. Trump was interviewed for an Errol Morris documentary about “Citizen Kane,” the iconic Orson Welles film about a media tycoon. Mr. Trump gave a thoughtful analysis of the movie with a degree of introspection that would be hard to imagine today. “In real life, I believe that wealth does in fact isolate you from other people,” he said. “It’s a protective mechanism. You have your guard up much more so than you would if you didn’t have wealth.”

In 2011, as he was contemplating a run for the presidency, Mr. Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and sounded more partisan notes. While many of the themes would be familiar to today’s voters, he stuck closer to his script and finished his thoughts more often. His speeches in 2015 and 2016 were more aggressive, but still clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor.

Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.” Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict “one really violent day” on criminals to deter crime.

He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

Some of what he says is inexplicable except to those who listen to him regularly and understand the shorthand. And he throws out assertions without any apparent regard for whether they are true or not. Lately, he has claimed that crowds Ms. Harris has drawn were not real but the creation of artificial intelligence, never mind the reporters and cameras on hand to record them.

He mispronounces names and places with some regularity — “Charlottestown” instead of “Charlottesville,” “Minnianapolis” instead of “Minneapolis,” the website “Snoops” instead of “Snopes,” “Leon” Musk instead of “Elon.”

In Rome, Ga., he went on an extended riff about Mr. Biden in swim trunks on a beach. “Look, at 81 — do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have — I won’t say names because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was like, Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ Who? ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that anymore. But Cary Grant at 81 or 82 — going on 100, this guy, he’s 81 going on 100 — Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit either, and he was pretty good-looking, right?”

Talking on another occasion about how tough illegal immigrants are, he drifted off into a soliloquy about whether actors could portray them in a movie: “They can’t play the role. They’ll bring in a big actor and you look and you say, ‘Look, he’s got no muscle content. He’s got no muscle! We need a little muscle!’ Then they bring in another one. ‘But he’s got a weak face! He looks weak!’” Still, he has rather high regard for his own physique. “I could have been sunbathing on the beach,” he said at another point. “You have never seen a body so beautiful. Much better than Sleepy Joe.”

He considers himself the master of nearly every subject. He said Venezuelan gangs were armed “with MK-47s,” evidently meaning AK-47s, and then added, “I know that gun very well” because “I’ve become an expert on guns.” He claims to have been named “man of the year” in Michigan, although no such prize exists.

He is easily distracted. He halted in the middle of another extended monologue when he noticed a buzzing insect. “Oh, there’s a fly,” he said. “Oh. I wonder where the fly came from. See? Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. You’re changing rapidly. But we can’t take it any longer.”

But like some people approaching the end of their eighth decade, he is not open to correction. “Trump is never wrong,” he said recently in Wisconsin. “I am never, ever wrong.”

See? I knew you over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable low achievers of the upper middle class could do it if you just applied what’s left of your minds to it.

[angelwithnightmares]

19 minutes and 17 seconds of reasons why I love Byler so much.

Songs:

“Hearing” by Sleeping at Last

“Holland” by Novo Amor

“Wait” by M83

“Turning Page” by Sleeping at Last

“Complex” by Katie Gregson-MacLeod

The reasons:

1. Will can’t lie to Mike, not even small white lies

2. Their relationship is in focus right from the very start

3. Mike is always the one in focus when it’s about Will

4. Mike feels like he’s the only one who cares about Will

5. When Will’s fake body was found, Mike’s reaction was in focus

6. Mike never stopped believing that Will was alive

7. Mike recognizes Will’s voice instantly

8. When they first met El in the woods, Mike’s first thought was “That’s not Will”

9. ”And we kissed, as though nothing could fall. And the shame was on the other side.”

10. Mike stood up to the bullies when they made homophobic jokes about Will

11. Mike’s father can’t think of him being with a girl

12. Mike’s mother knows and accepts him

13. Mike saves all of Will’s drawings in a binder

14. He even caresses them

15. When Will came back, Mike laid his head on Will’s chest to hear his heart beating

16. Mike and Will is in their happiest state while playing DnD together

17. Mike is the only one who notices Will going away

18. He is also the one who snaps him out of his trance

19. More than once

20. Mike’s voice is softer towards Will than to any other person, aka “The Will voice”

21. Mike immediately notice changes in Will’s behavior

22. Will always screams for Mike when he’s in danger or lost

23. And when he’s hurt

24. Mike says he’s gonna take Will home

25. and he takes him to his basement

26. Will feels like Mike is the only one who understands him

27. When Will listed all the people who like to “baby” him, he doesn’t mention Mike

28. “Only love makes you that crazy”

29. They said they’d go crazy together

30. Mike wants to be a writer, and Will wants to be a comic-book artist (perfect match)

31. Mike worries about Will and insists to be there for him

32. Mike is always the first person next to Will when something happens to him

33. He also sees himself as Will’s personal protector

34. He never left Will’s side when he was possessed

35. Mike slept in an uncomfortable hospital chair to make sure Will was never alone, even though he was possessed

36. Will still rememberers Mike

37. Mike wants to protect Will and be his shield

38. Mike held Will’s hand to give him comfort

39. The hand that Mike held was the only part of Will’s body that wasn’t possessed that wasn’t possessed was the hand Mike held, and this way Will could communicate with them

40. The thumb touch

41. Mike remembered the first day he met Will in detail, even though they were only 5 years old

42. Mike never smiles in pictures, unless Will is there with him

43. Mike’s reaction to Will dancing with a girl on the Snow Ball

44. Will is the best thing that ever happened to Mike

45. They both blush when they’re at the movies together

46. They’re looking at each other’s lips

47. More than once. Mike even got distracted by it

48. Will says he’s not gonna fall in love

49. But he’s already fallen

50. Will smiles when El breaks up with Mike

51. Mike doesn’t seem heartbroken by the break up

52. When Will is upset with Mike he immediately tries to make everything okay again

53. The projection: ”It’s not my fault you don’t like girls”

54. Will admitted he wanted to spend the rest of his life playing games with Mike

55. Twice. He can’t see a future without Mike

56. Will destroys Castle Byers because of Mike’s hurtful words

57. Mike immediately bikes through Hawkins in the thunder storm to apologize and make things right again with Will

58. Mike walked through the dark forest in the rain calling for Will because he was scared something had happened to him again

59. Will donated his DnD game because the game meant nothing without Mike

60. Will promised he won’t join another party

61. Their shared smile

62. Their heartfelt goodbye

63. Hopper’s speech is heavily Mike-coded

64. When Will left, Mike got depressed and stayed in his basement for weeks

65. “Will is painting a lot for someone he likes, maybe it is a girl?” El writes in a letter to Mike

66. When they meet again it’s suddenly very awkward (from Mike’s side) he also immediately asks about the painting

67. Mike is suddenly acting jealous, “ignoring” Will and they share and avoid awkward eye contact

68. Mike asks El if their friends is gonna be where they’re going, and he reacts when Will says “Angela”, so he tries to make Will jealous by kissing El on the temple

69. And he succeeds

70. Will is angry at El for lying to Mike for months and he thinks Mike deserves better

71. Mike thinks Will has sabotaged the whole day because he barely talks to him, rolling his eyes and moping

72. They both feel hurt for not reaching out more, even though Mike actually tried to call Will a bunch of times according to Dustin

73. “We’re friends, we’re friends”, “We used to be BEST friends”

74. Mike thinks home isn’t the same without Will

75. He also admitted that he felt like he had lost Will

76. SCRIPT: “This intimate moment got shattered-“

77. They always gets interrupted when they’re having a moment

78. Mike gets nervous every time Will is close to him or accidentally touches him

79. The flirting, pining & staring

80. Will wants to confess but is afraid Mike won’t like the truth

81. Mike nods. He.. understand what he means?

82. Mike can’t say or write “I love you” to El

83. Mike feels like they can’t come back from that

84. Will’s painting was for Mike

85. Mike’s face drops when Will said the painting was from El

86. He was actually talking about his own feelings for Mike, and how he sees him, with El’s name as a shield because he wanted to reassure him

87. Mike is Will’s heart, he’s making him feel like he’s not a mistake and that he’s better for being different. He don’t want to lose him

88. Will cries in the van because he’s in love with his best friend and don’t know how to tell him, this was the first time he ever lied to Mike

89. The look on Mike’s face when he spots Will after his reunion with El

90. Will thinks Mike and El is happily and in love (from his PoV)

91. When in reality, they really aren’t

92. Will’s brother knows and accepts him

93. Will reminds Mike that he’s the heart, pushing him into confessing his love to save El

94. She doesn’t believe him, but Will does

95. Mike and El are barely talking after the monologue

96. Will tells Mike about Vecna and Mike reassures him (in the most beautiful light we’ve ever seen in the show)

97. Mike is always by Will’s side for the rest of the last episode, foreshadowing the arc of season 5

98. The last shot of season 4 is them paralleling the other canon couples of the show

99. Will is Mike’s light

100. Mike is Will’s light

101. They are perfect together.

[theprogrockbstheorist]

HAPPY 70th BIRTHDAY GEDDY!!!!

(meme credit to u/rtphokie on reddit)

OH, AND WHAT’S THAT?!?! IT’S ALSO THE 49th ANNIVERSARY OF NEIL PEART JOINING RUSH?!?!

In order to celebrate these wondrous occasions, I have compiled 70 reasons why I love Rush (especially Geddy):

70. They don't have any unlistenable albums. I can put on any Rush album and at the very least enjoy it, which is saying a lot!

69. ANDDDD they have 19 studio albums!!! 167 songs!!!

68. Alex's iconic Hall of Fame induction speech.

67. The movie I Love You, Man. The main plot of that is just two guys geeking out about Rush and then going to see them in concert.

66. The Bb5 in "Cygnus X-1 Book 1: The Voyage". For the record, the other famous Bb5 sung by a male singer in rock is the high note in "Bohemian Rhapsody", sung by Roger Taylor.

65. Geddy's range in general. Say what you will about his voice, but he had range.

64. Their pre-concert videos.

63. "Hey baby it's 7:45 and I need to go to bed soon, let's fuck"- In the Mood. The debut album was something else, man.

62. They wrote songs during soundcheck when they were on tour. This includes songs like "Tom Sawyer" and "Chemistry".

61. They went to a Yes concert while recording Caress of Steel, and almost quit making the album. I, for one, am very glad they didn't!

60. The "rap" in "Roll the Bones". Sit back, relax, get busy with the facts...

59. Gene Simmons thought they weren't into women because they didn't want to party with KISS. True story!

58. They listed their baseball positions in the liner notes for Signals.

57. Neil wrote lyrics to a song using only anagrams. The song is called "Anagram (For Mongo)", and is on the album Presto.

56. They thanked themselves in the liner notes for Hemispheres. Listed as Dirk, Lerxst, and Pratt, ofc!

55. They would challenge themselves to write last-minute songs. Results of this experiment include "Hand Over Fist" from Presto, and "Malignant Narcissism" from Snakes and Arrows.

54. The mere existence of "A Passage to Bangkok". I wonder what their thought process was to put a song about smoking weed around the world after a 20-minute long dystopian prog rock epic...

53. "La Villa Strangiato". Just... everything about it.

52. The kimonos. You know the ones!

51. Their nicknames for each other!! (see above)

50. They had the second-longest stable line up in rock music! The only ones with a longer stable line up was ZZ Top.

49. They had a 40-year career! Even longer if you include pre-Neil and their adventures since the R40 tour.

48. The synth era. I unapologetically love 80s Rush, especially Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows.

47. "The Necromancer" basically being self-insert Tolkien fanfic. I wonder who the "three travelers" are supposed to be... OH WAIT!

46. They're giant nerds. All prog bands are, but they are especially nerdy.

45. Hugh Syme's awesome album covers. He did every single one from Caress of Steel onwards, barring the front cover for Snakes and Arrows.

44. The 7/8 section in "Tom Sawyer". That was my first intermediate bass line! Thanks, Geddy!

43. They're Canadian icons. Unironically, they're the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions "Canada" to me.

42. The horribly cheesy, terrible, but also really funny music video for "Time Stand Still". That song, btw, might be my favorite 80s Rush song, and is probably in my Top 5.

41. The triple-entendre pun of Moving Pictures. They're filming a movie (moving picture) of people moving paintings (moving pictures), while someone is getting moved by the scene (moving...pictures...).

40. They quote the 1812 Overture in the overture for "2112".

39. Geddy taught Les Claypool how to properly play "YYZ".

38. The Permanent Waves era glasses!

37. The opening of "Xanadu".

36. The weird stuff Geddy would have on his side of stage after he stopped using amps. This includes rotisserie chickens, washing machines, dryers, and popcorn machines.

35. "Music by Lee and Lifeson, Lyrics by Peart" on almost every single Rush song.

34. The ending of "Spirit of Radio". OF SALESMEN!!!

33. Their inside jokes. Example: The Bag.

32. They took French classes together, and began announcing their songs in French in Quebec.

31. The progressiveness of Counterparts. What other 40-year old rockstars were talking about healthy relationship boundaries and openly supporting gay people in 1993?

30. Their vaults are practically empty because they scrapped songs that weren't up to their standards. This is why we have no sub-par Rush material!

29. Choosing to end their careers with grace.

28. Ending the last show of their career with "Working Man", the song that got everything started.

27. "Dreamline"--"Learning that we're only immortal / For a limited time".

26. Geddy and Alex inducting Yes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

25. Then, of course, Geddy playing "Roundabout" with Yes during their induction! (Unfortunately, he did not play his Rickenbacker :( )

24. No decisions were made regarding the band without it being unanimous.

23. "Closer to the Heart". To me, that song is like a musical representation of their friendship, and it always leaves me with a warm, fuzzy feeling after listening to it.

22. Neil's books. Ghost Rider, in particular helped me get through a rough time earlier this year.

21. Geddy's Big Beautiful Book of Bass. I love that thing, and I am looking forward to his memoir in November!!!

20. That incredible Rickenbacker. I know it hasn't been his main bass since the early 80s but...

19. All their other creative projects. Geddy and Alex have a solo album each, Alex is involved with Envy of None rn, and Neil had his blog.

18. All their other stage interactions.

17. "ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION! WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL!" -"2112". Just... all of "2112".

16. They got me into prog. I wouldn't have this blog right now if it weren't for Rush.

15. The Lifeson chord. The F#7add11 voicing that you can hear in so many of their songs (it's the opening to "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres").

14. Neil's drumming. They call him The Professor for a reason!

13. Geddy's bass playing. And his singing. And playing keys. And... yeah, we would be here all day!

12. The Dinner with Rush video. I make daily references to this that no one notices...

11. "The measure of a life / is a measure of love and respect"- "The Garden". The final song on their final album, and possibly the most amazing closer of all time.

10. Their charity work. IIRC, this includes giving away the aforementioned rotisserie chickens, as well as various fundraisers.

9. Their constant strive to improve themselves. Including Geddy working with a vocal coach, Neil working with Freddie Gruber, and of course, disavowing that Ayn Rand shit.

8. They give me something to strive towards, both as a musician and as a person. If I could make records half as good as Rush, and handle the fame with half the grace that they did, I would consider myself well-accomplished.

7. Neil's lyrics inspired me to get back into writing.

6. They inspired me to become a musician, and to pursue a career in music. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have stayed in choir or picked up bass, and I would've never considered a career in audio technology.

5. Their music helped me bond with my dad.

4. Geddy talking about his family's story of survival during the Holocaust. I think that's really important to talk about.

3. Other Rush fans. Well, okay, some of them like to brag about how many concerts they've been to, or tend to be a little gate-keep, but most of them are really chill people.

2. Their music helped me get through the toughest times in my life. Without getting too personal, I even credit them with saving my life on multiple occasions.

However, what I admire about Rush, above all else...

1. Their friendship with each other.

Once again, happy birthday Geddy! Your music has inspired me in so many ways, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without it.

[cricketnationrise]

For your 500 followers celebration! 12:45 pm the Haus porch. Shitty and Jack or another bestie pair

Lyrics "We can do this every night You can be my ride or die And we can live this way every day Go out like dynamite, I'm living life, ride or die Gonna live this way every day" the Knocks "Ride or Die"

I'm at this handle on AO3 also.

HELL YES JACKSHIT MY BELOVED BFFS

a genuine pleasure to write them, thank you for the prompt and all your lovely comments the past few years :D

want your own ficlet? followers can submit their own prompt using these guidelines through Jan 31, 2024

🏒🏒🏒🏒

12:45pm, haus porch

“Jackabelle!” Shitty calls up the stairs. “Get your perfect, gravity-defying ass down here!”

“I’m still unpacking!”

“Unacceptable reasoning—motion denied.”

“On what grounds?” Shitty can hear the amusement in his best friend’s voice.

“On the grounds that that’s stupid, and I’m down here, waiting for you so we can celebrate a new year.”

Shitty punches the air in triumph when he hears Jack’s feet crossing his room, refuses to look at all contrite in the face of Jack’s faux-disapproving glare as he comes down the stairs.

“I really should unpack—”

“Absolutely fuckin’ not. Time for that later. Or you can get the frogs to do it,” he says, shepherding Jack out onto the porch. “Right now is best friend time, no more arguments.”

“Fine, fine.” Jack sounds all put out, but Shitty catches the way his lips quirk up at the corner and knows he isn’t actually bothered. If he really didn’t want to come downstairs he wouldn’t have played along with Shitty’s jokes earlier.

“Sit down, Jack-o, it’s Best Friend Porch Swing O’Clock.” He hip checks Jack in the direction of the swing before grabbing two drinks out of the cooler he packed twenty minutes and one of his own suitcases ago.

“Cheers to the best year ever,” he says, pushing one of the bottles into Jack’s hand and flopping down, more onto his best friend than the swing.

“Shitty, I don’t—”

“It’s non-alcoholic, J.”

“Oh.” Jack picks at the label with his thumbnail. “Thanks.”

“Got your back, bro,” Shitty says, shrugging. The motion sets the swing swaying wildly and they both have to grab hold of the wood armrests for a bit before Jack gets a foot on the porch floor to steady them.

“My hero,” he says, fluttering his eyelashes, mentally cheering when Jack huffs out a laugh.

“Anytime, Shits.”

“Now, cheers! To a new school year, and a new hockey season with the best damn captain Samwell Men’s Hockey could ask for!”

Jack clinks his bottle against Shitty’s, but he’s not smiling now, just staring out at the street, brow furrowed, full Hockey Robot mode.

“You are the best captain we could ask for, you know.”

Jack exhales hard, takes a swig of his drink. “The other guys only voted for me because of my last name.”

“Yeah, probably,” Shitty says, blithely.

That startles Jack into actually looking at him.

“Your name’s your name, Jack—no getting around it. Well,” he says, “I guess you could change it, but that’s a lot of paperwork and everyone would still know who you are, so probably you should just leave it. But you’re gonna absolutely smash it as captain this year. Not because of your dad, who is admittedly, pretty great, or because of your fucking stellar stats.” Shitty makes sure to look directly into Jack’s eyes, willing him to hear Shitty this time. “You’re gonna be a great captain because you care. You care so much about what happens to this team, and you want us to be the best we can. And the others will see that and get in line.”

Shitty lets his speech sit in the still-humid air around them, lets Jack sit with those words while they drink in silence, watching the occasional car drift by.

“Thanks, Shits.”

Jack presses their shoulders together firmly, a non-verbal I appreciate you that Shitty learned last year.

“‘Course. Now can we fuckin’ celebrate? Because I’ll bet the tub juice fund for the year that you haven’t yet.”

“Yeah, go on then,” Jack says, his smile actually visible to the average human now, and not just Shitty, who has put in the ten thousand hours to become an expert in Jack Zimmermann’s expressions.

Shitty punches the air again, and yells, “FUCKING BEAUT OF A CAPTAIN RIGHT HERE!” loud enough to echo around the street.

The LAX-holes across from them immediately shout for him to shut the fuck up, brah, but Shitty ignores them in favor of savoring Jack cracking up next to him, worries wiped away for now.