#fuck those two senators

[senilthesynth]

Dead for now, and WHEN it comes back it'll Definitely be even worse but continue to hide its true face behind "think of the children". I need to check this *so do not believe me here*, but part of why it never got brought up in the House was that House republicans wanted something even more strict when it comes to shutting things down. Better "guidelines" of a sort at least, instead of "idk whatever a state decides could distress children" to give a clear "X, Y, Z things should be monitored the closest."

Regardless, it's been *temporarily* halted. It'll come back with a vengeance though, and as we saw the vast majority of Senate Democrats voted for it. Biden supported it. House Dems probably supported it to a point. It needs to become a big ticket issue as well. No to online censorship, especially when guided by vague principles that can and will be abused by bad actors *by design*.

Fuck Blumenthal. Fuck Blackburn. Fuck every Senate dem who voted for this shit, knowing the full impact and implications or not.

thank you everyone for addressing concerns to your representatives because it works and for now we have a free and open internet!!!

(they'll definitely bring this shit up and revive it yet again but for now we can celebrate)

[kabutone]

people are so shocked when they learn about the absolute depravity of the world thats right in front of them. not that its Good to be desensitized to horrific shit but like i am not surprised. every new bad news thing that comes out i am not surprised. yes, they will ignore death. they will let you die without a second thought. i'm sorry you are only just now learning this.

[pigeonsplease]

Hey Aussies, do you want your real name and ID slapped on your tumblr account? If the answer is fuck no, our gov’s got a upcoming legislation for banning 16 year olds and under from social media even WITH parental consent. And by “Social Media”…

The code defines social media as electronic services that meet the following conditions:

The sole or primary purpose of the service is to enable online social interaction between two or more end users

The service allows end users to link to, or interact with, some or all other end users

The service allows end users to post material on the service

Such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules.

So. You know. Just the entire fucking internet. They even named youtube as banned, god forbid kids out in the bush get access to LGBTQ+ communities online when they could be watching adds for sportsbet.

I am 100 per cent supportive of eliminating bullying and fake information from online platforms. The easiest way to do that is to be able to utilise existing laws, and the easiest way to do that is to ensure there are no fake accounts. Your digital, online life is your real life. If you want to make comments, that's fine, but it should be as you, as a verified account. This means everyone knows who it is that makes those comments, that you can be found and prosecuted under existing laws, just as you would if you express those opinions in a newspaper, for example, or you went on to a television station and said something similar.

Contact an Aussie senator about this shit. They’re trying to slide it under all the USpol news.

[multific]

8 Types of Touches with Emperor Geta

Warnings: Hint of Smut, this is pure fluff and so out of character but who cares?

Holding Hands

He loved to hold your hand at all times. 

Let that be while you were standing or sitting next to him. At all times, he must hold your hand.

It was one of the many ways he showed you and the world that you belonged to him.

His fingers often caressed the back of your hand or the rings on your fingers.

During Gladiator games, he would have his hand in your lap as you two watched the games.

Such a small thing, yet it meant so much.

Gripping Your Arm

In his anger, sometimes he forgot he had his hand on you.

If his grip hurts, he will regret it immediately with all of his heart.

But most of the time, he realises what he is doing and would stop.

Or he would grip your arm with love, asserting his dominance and care for you.

The last thing he would allow is for a senator to make any kind of negative comment about you. With a firm grip on your arm, Geta stood in silence. The calm before the storm as they say.

Resting Their Head On Your Shoulder

Only during private moments did he allow himself to rest his head on your shoulder. 

When all the worries got to his head, he would pull you close, hold you by your hips and rest his head against your shoulders.

Admittedly, you did this a lot more than him.

Every chance you got, when it felt appropriate, you would place your head on his shoulder. 

His hands always held you close during those times.

Forehead Against Forehead

Oh, he would never admit it, but he loves this one.

Doesn't matter when or where.

Open or closed eyes.

Geta loves having your forehead pressed against his.

It is such a sweet and intimate way of being close to someone.

Breathing the other one in as the world around you just moved.

Sometimes, you would even kiss him softly on the lips.

Oh yes, this was definitely his favourite. 

Rubbing Your Arm

The gesture to calm you or keep you calm in stressful situations.

You would also do this to him many times. Admittedly, with a lot less success than he does.

Sometimes, during the day, he would just suddenly stop in front of you, making you look up at him with a question in your eyes and you would just reach out, rubbing his arms, helping him calm down.

Stroking Your Back

He loved to run his fingers down your back. 

Especially in the mornings when you lay next to him, naked, his fingers would run along your skin, enjoying how soft it was as you were still asleep.

He would start with his fingers running from your shoulder blades, down to your ass and then right up your spine. 

He enjoyed those moments a lot, his lips would often follow his touch.

Touching Your Neck

It could either be the sweetest and kindest touch. 

A gesture to make sure you were okay. 

To make sure you are comfortable.

Or it could possibly be the power he had over you. Choking you while he fucked you was possibly the best. He always made sure to allow you to breathe.

But only on his terms.

Touching Your Inner Thigh

Strangely, these kinds of touches with Geta were always sweet.

It was usually after your nightly activities.

He always got so sweet and kind even if he was choking you moments before and making you beg to cum.

You would just simply lay next to him, enjoying the calm moment when his hands would begin to roam, from your knee to your hip and finally to your inner thigh.

A/N: This one might have a follow-up with types of kisses. I might also plan on writing one for Acacius and Caracalla, let me know if you are interested!

Gladiator II Collection

Taglist: 

@castellandiangelo @imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl @manduse @jacalineiscomingforyou 

@mandoloriancookie @deliciousfestsalad @lilliumrorum @asgards-princess-of-mischief 

@fallout-girl219 @dracaryxzs @snowtargaryen @mel-vaz

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

/YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO TRANSLATE, TO STEAL OR TO REUPLOAD ANY OF MY WORKS TO THIS OR OTHER PLATFORMS/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What the fuck is a PBM?

TOMORROW (Sept 24), I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Terminal-stage capitalism owes its long senescence to its many defensive mechanisms, and it's only by defeating these that we can put it out of its misery. "The Shield of Boringness" is one of the necrocapitalist's most effective defenses, so it behooves us to attack it head-on.

The Shield of Boringness is Dana Claire's extremely useful term for anything so dull that you simply can't hold any conception of it in your mind for any length of time. In the finance sector, they call this "MEGO," which stands for "My Eyes Glaze Over," a term of art for financial arrangements made so performatively complex that only the most exquisitely melted brain-geniuses can hope to unravel their spaghetti logic. The rest of us are meant to simply heft those thick, dense prospectuses in two hands, shrug, and assume, "a pile of shit this big must have a pony under it."

MEGO and its Shield of Boringness are key to all of terminal-stage capitalism's stupidest scams. Cloaking obvious swindles in a lot of complex language and Byzantine payment schemes can make them seem respectable just long enough for the scammers to relieve you of all your inconvenient cash and assets, though, eventually, you're bound to notice that something is missing.

If you spent the years leading up to the Great Financial Crisis baffled by "CDOs," "synthetic CDOs," "ARMs" and other swindler nonsense, you experienced the Shield of Boringness. If you bet your house and/or your retirement savings on these things, you experienced MEGO. If, after the bubble popped, you finally came to understand that these "exotic financial instruments" were just scams, you experienced Stein's Law ("anything that can't go forever eventually stops"). If today you no longer remember what a CDO is, you are once again experiencing the Shield of Boringness.

As bad as 2008 was, it wasn't even close to the end of terminal stage capitalism. The market has soldiered on, with complex swindles like carbon offset trading, metaverse, cryptocurrency, financialized solar installation, and (of course) AI. In addition to these new swindles, we're still playing the hits, finding new ways to make the worst scams of the 2000s even worse.

That brings me to the American health industry, and the absurdly complex, ridiculously corrupt Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), a pathology that has only metastasized since 2008.

On at least 20 separate occasions, I have taken it upon myself to figure out how the PBM swindle works, and nevertheless, every time they come up, I have to go back and figure it out again, because PBMs have the most powerful Shield of Boringness out of the whole Monster Manual of terminal-stage capitalism's trash mobs.

PBMs are back in the news because the FTC is now suing the largest of these for their role in ripping off diabetics with sky-high insulin prices. This has kicked off a fresh round of "what the fuck is a PBM, anyway?" explainers of extremely variable quality. Unsurprisingly, the best of these comes from Matt Stoller:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-lina-khan-pharma

Stoller starts by pointing out that Americans have a proud tradition of getting phucked by pharma companies. As far back as the 1950s, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver was holding hearings on the scams that pharma companies were using to ensure that Americans paid more for their pills than virtually anyone else in the world.

But since the 2010s, Americans have found themselves paying eye-popping, sky-high, ridiculous drug prices. Eli Lilly's Humolog insulin sold for $21 in 1999; by 2017, the price was $274 – a 1,200% increase! This isn't your grampa's price gouging!

Where do these absurd prices come from? The story starts in the 2000s, when the GW Bush administration encouraged health insurers to create "high deductible" plans, where patients were expected to pay out of pocket for receiving care, until they hit a multi-thousand-dollar threshold, and then their insurance would kick in. Along with "co-pays" and other junk fees, these deductibles were called "cost sharing," and they were sold as a way to prevent the "abuse" of the health care system.

The economists who crafted terminal-stage capitalism's intellectual rationalizations claimed the reason Americans paid so much more for health care than their socialized-medicine using cousins in the rest of the world had nothing to do with the fact that America treats health as a source of profits, while the rest of the world treats health as a human right.

No, the actual root of America's health industry's problems was the moral defects of Americans. Because insured Americans could just go see the doctor whenever they felt like it, they had no incentive to minimize their use of the system. Any time one of these unhinged hypochondriacs got a little sniffle, they could treat themselves to a doctor's visit, enjoying those waiting-room magazines and the pleasure of arranging a sick day with HR, without bearing any of the true costs:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/the-doctrine-of-moral-hazard/

"Cost sharing" was supposed to create "skin in the game" for every insured American, creating a little pain-point that stung you every time you thought about treating yourself to a luxurious doctor's visit. Now, these payments bit hardest on the poorest workers, because if you're making minimum wage, at $10 co-pay hurts a lot more than it does if you're making six figures. What's more, VPs and the C-suite were offered "gold-plated" plans with low/no deductibles or co-pays, because executives understand the value of a dollar in the way that mere working slobs can't ever hope to comprehend. They can be trusted to only use the doctor when it's truly warranted.

So now you have these high-deductible plans creeping into every workplace. Then along comes Obama and the Affordable Care Act, a compromise that maintains health care as a for-profit enterprise (still not a human right!) but seeks to create universal coverage by requiring every American to buy a plan, requiring insurers to offer plans to every American, and uses public money to subsidize the for-profit health industry to glue it together.

Predictably, the cheapest insurance offered on the Obamacare exchanges – and ultimately, by employers – had sky-high deductibles and co-pays. That way, insurers could pocket a fat public subsidy, offer an "insurance" plan that was cheap enough for even the most marginally employed people to afford, but still offer no coverage until their customers had spent thousands of dollars out-of-pocket in a given year.

That's the background: GWB created high-deductible plans, Obama supercharged them. Keep that in your mind as we go through the MEGO procedures of the PBM sector.

Your insurer has a list of drugs they'll cover, called the "formulary." The formulary also specifies how much the insurance company is willing to pay your pharmacist for these drugs. Creating the formulary and paying pharmacies for dispensing drugs is a lot of tedious work, and insurance outsources this to third parties, called – wait for it – Pharmacy Benefits Managers.

The prices in the formulary the PBM prepares for your insurance company are called the "list prices." These are meant to represent the "sticker price" of the drug, what a pharmacist would charge you if you wandered in off the street with no insurance, but somehow in possession of a valid prescription.

But, as Stoller writes, these "list prices" aren't actually ever charged to anyone. The list price is like the "full price" on the pricetags at a discount furniture place where everything is always "on sale" at 50% off – and whose semi-disposable sofas and balsa-wood dining room chairs are never actually sold at full price.

One theoretical advantage of a PBM is that it can get lower prices because it bargains for all the people in a given insurer's plan. If you're the pharma giant Sanofi and you want your Lantus insulin to be available to any of the people who must use OptumRX's formulary, you have to convince OptumRX to include you in that formulary.

OptumRX – like all PBMs – demands "rebates" from pharma companies if they want to be included in the formulary. On its face, this is similar to the practices of, say, NICE – the UK agency that bargains for medicine on behalf of the NHS, which also bargains with pharma companies for access to everyone in the UK and gets very good deals as a result.

But OptumRX doesn't bargain for a lower list price. They bargain for a bigger rebate. That means that the "price" is still very high, but OptumRX ends up paying a tiny fraction of it, thanks to that rebate. In the OptumRX formulary, Lantus insulin lists for $403. But Sanofi, who make Lantus, rebate $339 of that to OptumRX, leaving just $64 for Lantus.

Here's where the scam hits. Your insurer charges you a deductible based on the list price – $404 – not on the $64 that OptumRX actually pays for your insulin. If you're in a high-deductible plan and you haven't met your cap yet, you're going to pay $404 for your insulin, even though the actual price for it is $64.

Now, you'd think that your insurer would put a stop to this. They chose the PBM, the PBM is ripping off their customers, so it's their job to smack the PBM around and make it cut this shit out. So why would the insurers tolerate this nonsense?

Here's why: the PBMs are divisions of the big health insurance companies. Unitedhealth owns OptumRx; Aetna owns Caremark, and Cigna owns Expressscripts. So it's not the PBM that's ripping you off, it's your own insurance company. They're not just making you pay for drugs that you're supposedly covered for – they're pocketing the deductible you pay for those drugs.

Now, there's one more entity with power over the PBM that you'd hope would step in on your behalf: your boss. After all, your employer is the entity that actually chooses the insurer and negotiates with them on your behalf. Your boss is in the driver's seat; you're just along for the ride.

It would be pretty funny if the answer to this was that the health insurance company bought your employer, too, and so your boss, the PBM and the insurer were all the same guy, busily swapping hats, paying for a call center full of tormented drones who each have three phones on their desks: one labeled "insurer"; the second, "PBM" and the final one "HR."

But no, the insurers haven't bought out the company you work for (yet). Rather, they've bought off your boss – they're sharing kickbacks with your employer for all the deductibles and co-pays you're being suckered into paying. There's so much money (your money) sloshing around in the PBM scamoverse that anytime someone might get in the way of you being ripped off, they just get cut in for a share of the loot.

That is how the PBM scam works: they're fronts for health insurers who exploit the existence of high-deductible plans in order to get huge kickbacks from pharma makers, and massive fees from you. They split the loot with your boss, whose payout goes up when you get screwed harder.

But wait, there's more! After all, Big Pharma isn't some kind of easily pushed-around weakling. They're big. Why don't they push back against these massive rebates? Because they can afford to pay bribes and smaller companies making cheaper drugs can't. Whether it's a little biotech upstart with a cheaper molecule, or a generics maker who's producing drugs at a fraction of the list price, they just don't have the giant cash reserves it takes to buy their way into the PBMs' formularies. Doubtless, the Big Pharma companies would prefer to pay smaller kickbacks, but from Big Pharma's perspective, the optimum amount of bribes extracted by a PBM isn't zero – far from it. For Big Pharma, the optimal number is one cent higher than "the maximum amount of bribes that a smaller company can afford."

The purpose of a system is what it does. The PBM system makes sure that Americans only have access to the most expensive drugs, and that they pay the highest possible prices for them, and this enriches both insurance companies and employers, while protecting the Big Pharma cartel from upstarts.

Which is why the FTC is suing the PBMs for price-fixing. As Stoller points out, they're using their powers under Section 5 of the FTC Act here, which allows them to shut down "unfair methods of competition":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The case will be adjudicated by an administrative law judge, in a process that's much faster than a federal court case. Once the FTC proves that the PBM scam is illegal when applied to insulin, they'll have a much easier time attacking the scam when it comes to every other drug (the insulin scam has just about run its course, with federally mandated $35 insulin coming online, just as a generation of post-insulin diabetes treatments hit the market).

Obviously the PBMs aren't taking this lying down. Cigna/Expressscripts has actually sued the FTC for libel over the market study it conducted, in which the agency described in pitiless, factual detail how Cigna was ripping us all off. The case is being fought by a low-level Reagan-era monster named Rick Rule, whom Stoller characterizes as a guy who "hangs around in bars and picks up lonely multi-national corporations" (!!).

The libel claim is a nonstarter, but it's still wild. It's like one of those movies where they want to show you how bad the cockroaches are, so there's a bit where the exterminator shows up and the roaches form a chorus line and do a kind of Busby Berkeley number:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/news/2024-09-20-the-carlton-report

So here we are: the FTC has set out to euthanize some rentiers, ridding the world of a layer of useless economic middlemen whose sole reason for existing is to make pharmaceuticals as expensive as possible, by colluding with the pharma cartel, the insurance cartel and your boss. This conspiracy exists in plain sight, hidden by the Shield of Boringness. If I've done my job, you now understand how this MEGO scam works – and if you forget all that ten minutes later (as is likely, given the nature of MEGO), that's OK: just remember that this thing is a giant fucking scam, and if you ever need to refresh yourself on the details, you can always re-read this post.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[slaytheusurper]

⭑ Mine all mine ⭑

Masterlist

Pairing: (TGC) Gaius Julius Caesar x fem!reader

A/N: as requested by multiple people ;)

Warnings: +18 mdni, mutual pining, cheating reader, murdered/poisoned husband, affair, making out, grinding/humping, oraljob (both f and m receiving), handjob (both f and m receiving), vaginal sex and creampie.

Summary: You hated your husband and want to be rid of him, luckily you meet a certain man who will change your life.

Word count: 3.6k

Another boring fucking supper party hosted by your boring fucking husband. You were only married to him for about two months but you never wanted him. All you got married for was the money and power your husband could provide. You came from a great ancient family in Rome.

So does he, your husband was a well known and feared senator. Quite an important man, but also old. And not to mention gross and too horny. It was well known you were beautiful and from when you were young you had many suitors lined up, begging for your fathers approval, but your husband was the richest, so he won.

You rolled your eyes as he looked way too proud to have you at his side. You greeted your his guests and your husband got many envious stares from his male guests. You never needed to persuade him much, many men fell to their knees at the sight of you. And you knew that even though you were a ‘helpless’ woman, you at least had that power.

Many old, ugly and plain people passed you, while the women all gave you glares. You never understood why they had to be so envious while you were all in it together. Most women were actually girls, some even as young as 14 to 15. You were more lucky though, you were married the day you turned 18. Some consider that too late but those were your fathers terms. 

You were very grateful for him and you knew that he would have your back. You started to get more and more bored when the amount of people didn’t seem to end, luckily you had one of the biggest houses in Rome and it could fit thousands of people if it had to. But the guest list for tonight was only about two hundred. Two hundred of the most important people in Rome. 

But then it seemed time slowed when a certain brown haired man stopped to greet your ugly husband. The man then introduced himself to you. “Gaius Julius Caesar, thank you for having me, it’s a beautiful home. Almost as beautiful as you, it is true what they say... You are very lucky.” He said that last part while turning to your husband before joining the larger party in the main hall. Your husband thinned his lips and looked at you angrily.

You shrugged your shoulders and placed a hand on his, faking your empathy for the idiot. He of course fell for it, as always, and went back to greeting the last guests strolling in. Only a couple more stiff smiles before finally the whole party was here, and your husband went to check on some of his men. You strided towards some women you knew growing up and started a conversation with them. 

They provided you with some gossip and soon you were talking about the husbands all of you wanted instead of the ones you got. So you told them about Gaius and of course they knew who you were talking about. “Of course you want the most devious one of them, and I bet you could get him too, I saw how he looked at you, only moments ago.” One of them told you. And sure enough, when you looked over one of the women’s shoulders, his brown eyes were looking at you.

You smiled at him, the way you did when you ‘persuaded’ your husband, he grinned back. One of his men looked at him questioningly. “Too bad she’s already married.” Agrippa whispered to Gaius, which earned him an annoyed look. “So? Divorce exists.” He fired back. “You really think that that old man is going to let a woman like her go? And what if she’s pregnant? She’ll have to give up that child.” Agrippa argued. 

“Don’t think she is, a girl like her wouldn’t let an old fuck like him touch her.” He smiled, Agrippa rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t have a choice obviously, that’s why she very well could be.” Gaius got annoyed by his friend and needed a break from his constant nagging. He always got what he wanted and he would have you too.

He strolled over to Cicero’s wife, not nearly as pretty as you but he was hard from your smiles at him and he needed relief. He wasn’t too sure about getting away with fucking you at your own husband’s party. So the desperate one would do, he knew she would do anything he asked, he was one of the most young, handsome and richest ones here. 

So he whispered something in her ear, that of course didn’t go unnoticed by you and jealousy filled your chest. Your face fell, and he glanced at you while he discreetly followed the other woman up the stairs. You decided to ignore it and went back to talking with your ‘friends’ instead. You did learn that he wasn’t married and you envied him. He could do whatever he wanted but you couldn’t.

You tried to focus on anything else but the thought of him fucking that other woman right now but you couldn’t and before you knew it you had excused yourself and rapidly ascended the stairs. Glancing behind, you saw your husband and his guests busy talking and drinking. He didn’t have a fucking clue.

You searched around the quiet upper floor for a while, until you heard soft groans and moans. The sounds lead you closer and closer to your own bedchamber. When you pulled the soft fabric aside and your eyes met his, he was laid on your bed with the woman between his legs, sucking him off. He started to pant and moan faster at the sight of you.

The sounds and the sight of such an arousing scene made heat puddle in your own belly. And soon you were panting along with him, your eyes never left each other and the look on your face quickly made him cum in the woman’s mouth, waking you up and moving yourself behind the fabric again, being careful the woman didn’t see you when she left. 

Then he appeared from behind the curtain, giving you a wink as he walked off. “That’s Cicero’s wife.” Your words made him turn around as he walked back over to you. “Yes.” He replied curtly. “I thought he was your friend.” He stepped closer to you. “He is. He married her because her family’s rich. That’s why everyone gets married, money, power, family. They’re the only things that matter.”

You looked up at him and he glanced at your lips, licking his own. “To the son of a money lender I’m sure that’s true.” He smiled and inhaled. “Grandson.” He mumbled, before crashing his lips on yours. You whimpered at the sudden feeling and he only deepened the kiss, gripping your hips tightly. Your hand travelled up his leg and he leaned into your touch. Then you squeezed his bulge, he let go of your lips and groaned in response. 

“That’s my bed.” You said, he looked at you with heavy eyes. Then you let go of him, leaving him there with another erection. You went back to the party and your husband, much to your approval, was already drunk, good, no sex tonight. He had only fucked you once on your wedding night, but his seed didn’t take root so you were still free from the burden of a child, but you knew that one day he would succeed, so you had to take action.

The party was soon over and the guests started to leave, you were once again at your husband's side but now bidding them goodnight. And soon enough Gaius walked past, only giving you a grin. Your husband looked at you questioningly but you again pretended not to know Gaius’ intentions. Since he was still drunk he quickly forgot and the last of the guests had left for the night.

That night you were thankfully in your own bed, your husband passed out in his own and your hand slid down your stomach between your thighs, pleasuring yourself to the thought of him. And that night after you had one of the best orgasms of your life, you dreamt of him. Gaius Julius Caesar, showing up on a huge white stallion with a hundred knights, slaying your husband and claiming you as his. 

A few months went by and everytime you still managed to avoid being with child. Much to your husband’s dismay, who grew more impatient and annoyed. But you promised him that soon you would bear a son. This was not true, when he did have sex with you, you had your servant bring you water, and you washed his spend out of you. So far it worked, as you showed no signs. 

You were only a few moments back home from the market with some other wives when your husband barged in. Snapping you out of your thoughts as you admired some of your new jewellery. “I have good news!” He laughed. It made your stomach curl. “Gaius Julius Caesar himself has invited us to a supper party at his house. Some three hundred are invited and we are one of them!” Now that made your smile return. 

So only a few nights later you arrived at Gaius’ house, it was even bigger than yours and he greeted you with a big smile. Your idiot of a husband didn’t even notice, taking in the house. Soon you were joining the larger party and your husband was quickly lost in the crowd. Good. You didn’t need that fool tonight. No, your plans were different from his. Tonight you would get yourself a new husband. 

It didn’t take long for him to find you, you purposely had left to ‘catch some air’ and had walked to the balcony outside. He walked up behind you and joined your side. “You enjoying the party?” He asked. “Not really.” You responded, looking at him with heavy eyes. His tongue pressed the inside of his cheek. “Me neither. Follow me up soon, third door to the left.” With that he made his way back inside.

Moments later when you knew for sure he was in his room already, your feet guided you inside, and you as discreetly as possible made your way upstairs. You passed the doors, one, two, three. You knocked on the door and it opened fast, a hand pulling you inside. “No one followed you?” You shook your head. His lips then pressed against yours and he pulled you against him tightly. He broke the kiss for only a moment.

“I will make you mine.” He groaned against your lips. You smiled and his tongue soon invaded your mouth. You moaned at the feeling, heat cursed through you and you knew you had made the right decision. He moved both of your bodies towards the bed, climbing on top of you. Then he started to nip and suck at your neck, your moans echoing through his room. Never had you felt such pleasure from so little.

“Gonna show you how a husband is supposed to fuck his wife.” He growled against your skin. You gasped at his words and he harshly ripped off your robes, sucking and licking at your exposed skin. Your body responded beautifully to his touch and he had never been this hard in his life. Your own body was aching as well, begging him for relief.

He kissed down your bare body and didn’t neglect your breasts, he flicked his tongue over your nipples and you shivered at the sensation. Is this what sex is supposed to be? When he was pleased with your now sensitive nipples he kissed down until he reached your glistening folds. He licked his lips before dipping his head down, licking at your clit. Your back arched and a loud cry left your lips.

“Feels good doesn’t it? My little slut, you’re all mine now.” He groaned swiftly going back in. He moaned against your cunt when he grinded his hard cock against the bed. Only adding to your own pleasure. Your hand moved to his head, grabbing his brown locks for support. He saw this as a sign to move his tongue faster and so he rapidly flicked his tongue over your clit. 

You could barely breathe, the pleasure was suffocating you and you could only whimper at the warm tongue between your legs. He noticed your peak was near and moved his hand to enter a finger inside you, sliding it further in until he reached that sensitive spot inside you. He knew he found it when you jerked at his touch. He never slowed down his tongue as he now fingered you as well, bringing you to edge of release.

With only two more licks and a press against your sensitive spot inside, you contracted when your climax rushed through you, coming with a loud cry of his name. You didn’t give a single fuck about if anyone had heard you, since he made you cum so hard you saw spots. When the overwhelming feeling had calmed, you looked down at him, he was still between your legs, resting his face on your left thigh. Your juices over his face and his pupils blown wide.

He only allowed you a moment before he came back up, licking your lips and into your mouth when you opened it on instinct. He let go off you for a moment to take off his own robes, revealing abs and a dark happy trail leading to his thick hard cock. It had veins and a red leaking tip. You couldn’t wait to put it in your mouth, nevertheless inside you.

You sat up and moved on your knees, Gaius positioned himself on the bed, him now in your previous place against the pillows. You moved between his legs now and realised you had never sucked a cock before. Your husband always just immediately penetrated you and that was the end of it. “Do you ever do this for your husband?” He asked, his voice raspy as his eyes were glued to your tits. You shook your head. “Good.” 

He motioned you to come closer and he wrapped your hand around his cock, helping you pump it up and down. “Now just kiss it, and then wrap your lips and suck on it.” You did as told, you knew you’d do anything to him. You carefully kissed his tip, right at the slit where pre cum was dribbling out and he hissed at the feeling. Then you wrapped your lips around his uncut cock, he helped you pull the skin down a bit so his whole tip was exposed. You instinctively let your tongue swirl around his angry head, and he let out a cry of pleasure. 

You stopped for a moment, “Am I better than that whore from my husband’s party?” A grin played on his lips, “She doesn’t even slightly compare to you.” You smiled at his words and went back to swirling your tongue over his tip. “Fuck- go deeper- take it deeper- ah!” You took him deeper in your throat as he commanded and he grabbed your head. His other hand furiously holding on to the sheets.

He wasn’t too long but he was very thick and his was so much prettier and bigger than your husbands, it made you drool all over his cock. You wondered what his response would be to fondling his sack so you moved your free hand up his leg. He looked down at you with an open mouth, completely frozen when you started to massage his balls. He could only let out hitched breaths and grunts.

“K-keep going- almost there- please!” He moaned when you licked his slit, your other hand still giving his balls attention too. And soon his abdomen tensed, his breath stuck in his throat as his cock twitched in your mouth, then his seed spurted down your throat, a guttural moan leaving his. “Fuckkkk!” He came so much it dripped out of your mouth, on your chin as well as his shaft and balls. He gasped and moaned at the sight.

You let go of his cock and swallowed the salty liquid, he sat up and swiped his thumb over your chin, gathering the remainder of his seed and putting it in your mouth. You made sure to suck his thumb all clean before he pulled it out, chuckling at how dirty he had already made you. Gaius then pulled you towards him by your waist so you laid upon his chest. “I will have one of my men discreetly kill your idiot husband, so you might be mine.” You looked at him with uncertainty. “What?” He asked. 

“How though? My husband is a powerful man, we have a lot of guards.” He smiled sweetly at you before kissing your head. “Don’t worry about that, Agrippa and I will make a plan. Then we shall have the most beautiful wedding Rome has ever seen.” And so you got dressed after a while and looked for your husband. Gaius gave you a smile before blending in with the crowd. 

You were awoken by screams of members of the household, it had been a week since the party of Gaius and you anxiously awaited for your husband's death. You and Gaius knew he would never divorce you and so he had to die, in order for you to marry him. You threw the sheets off you and ran to where the screams were coming from. Your husband's room, finally. You were stopped by one of the servants who begged you to stay back but you pushed past him.

There he laid, in his bed, In a puddle of blood. Blood stain trails out of his nostrils, tear ducts and mouth, even out of his ears. What had Gaius done to him? Clearly some sort of poison. You pretended to be surprised and screamed, pretending to want to go to him and ‘struggling’ against the servant's grip holding you back, he then led you back to your room. Not long after the body was removed, the news was all over Rome. And a grim funeral followed. Gaius attended as well as his friend Agrippa and he ‘comforted’ you during the remembrance supper. 

Two days after the funeral, Gaius arrived at your house. You, by law, had inherited the estate and got approval to find a new husband, what the senate didn’t know, was that you had already picked one. And so the news of your wedding soon spread like wildfire across Rome, the women jealous and talking about how fast you had found a new husband. But you didn’t care.

The wedding itself was somehow better than your previous. A thousand had come, and you wore the finest jewellery and fabrics. Even Gaius had on a marvellous robe and his hair was for once neat. You couldn’t help but stare and smile at each other during the ceremony and it was soon officiated with a heated kiss. Gathering a loud applause from the guests. The rope that tied your gown was loosely fastened, ensuring Gaius would have easy access later that night.

You only had a quick supper party after the ceremony, wanting nothing more than to finally fuck your new husband. So you rushed up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the last guests to leave and immediately rushing to his bedchamber, slamming the door shut behind him he almost jumped you. Slamming his lips against yours in a frenzied kiss.

“Finally I have you.” He said between kisses, once again moving you to his bed. But this time it was you who climbed on top of him, grounding your hips against his, he easily pulled the rope out of its knot. Your gown almost fell off you with the rope discarded but Gaius helped pull it off anyway.

You could already feel how soaked you were. Your heated kiss resumed and Gaius’ hips bucked up into yours eagerly. “How about I just fuck you right now hm?” He groaned. He didn’t even pull off his own robe, rather he helped you lift up the skirts, revealing his aching cock. You held yourself steady with both hands on his chest, he lined his length up at your entrance and you carefully sank down on him.

Both of your moans filled the room, the sensation of his cock filling you up so well becoming overwhelming. “So fucking tight-” He gritted out, hips snapping up into you as his patience had run out. He had to have you, fill you with his child. The thought of you waddling around with a swollen belly made him dizzy. 

You rode him with urgence wanting nothing more than for him to fill you with his cum, the thought drove you crazy. His cock hit that sensitive spot inside you with every thrust and it made you a blabbering moaning mess, clenching down on his cock as you came with a cry. His grip on your hips tightened and he fucked into you mercilessly, soon his hips started to falter and cuss after cuss left his lips. With a couple more harsh pounds into you he filled you with his seed.

And just like last time, he came so much, it dripped out of you. He quickly turned you around and pulled out in the process. With two fingers he pushed his cum back inside ensuring a child would be on the way soon. And it worked, in no time you were walking around with a swollen belly, a proud look on Gaius’ face. But of course he still fucked you every night.

[ventique18]

Lilia: "This voice... Levan?! You, when did you return... No, but those horns are Meleanor's..."

Lilia for a while confuses Malleus for Levan... He only doubted himself because of the horns... Do y'all remember who has a similar build/hair color/skin tone/lip shade as Malleus...

"Those old fools of a senate... How dare they..."

"AND GRANDMOTHER AS WELL! Why have they kept the truth from me all this time?!"

OMG! He didn't know that Lilia hatched him... Lilia tries to calm him down and says that it was him who told them not to say tell. Because if he knew the truth, then he might feel guilty.

At this point Lilia begins to mix up reality and memory. He's questioning why he's calling this person Malleus when Malleus still isn't supposed to know how to walk on two legs. Malleus soothes him, saying that it's alright, Lilia doesn't have to think, and he doesn't have to suffer anymore.

Malleus: "What dream would you like to have? A dream where both father and mother are alive? Or would you prefer a dream where you and your son live peaceful lives?

"I will give you anything and everything you wish for. Now, Lilia, take my..."

Silver: "FATHER---!!!!!"

Lilia is still confused and mixes up things, and Malleus looks at Silver and Sebek exasperatedly, as if they're pests that keep on popping up. That they being awake is bad, and that they should go back to sleep. Silver objects and Sebek tells him that there's no way a man born from so much love should grow up to be villainous and hated by the entire world.

Silver: "And that's why we will definitely defeat you. Lord Malleus... YOUR "BLESSING"!"

Because of that keyword, Lilia finally remembers everything that happened.

Lilia: "Well said. That's my disciples for you."

Lilia: "I must have taken a very long nap. Now you've done it, Malleus!"

Malleus: "Tsk. You've truly woken up, Lilia! But you need not worry. I will tuck you back to bed very soon."

Lilia: "Ha! Did you just say you will tuck me to bed? You've grown cocky, haven't you? Then do your worst!"

Lilia: "Everyone, after me!"

LILIA: "IT'S TIME TO RUN--!!"

OMFG LOL LILIA???? Malleus laughs "Are we playing tag? It's been far too long since we've played like this."

"We have all the time in the world. Why don't we have a bit of fun, Lilia!" *CUE UNHINGED FUCKING LAUGHTER HOLY SHIT THAT WAS CREEPY AS HELL

[timmydraker]

CW: Implied SA, P3dophillia, (dubcon) sexual content

Jason hates galas the most out of his siblings.

Coming from his Crime Alley background and his death, it’s always uncomfortable with the subtle grimaces and obnoxious remarks.

The only reason he goes is because if he doesn’t Bruce won’t give him any allowance even though he’s twenty three, but it’s hard being a crime lord so he’ll take the money.

As usual, he sneaks off after a solid hour. He gives Dick a nod to let him know he’s leaving just so his older brother won’t freak out upon not being able to find him, and makes his way down the hall of the building he’s in to find the elevator.

Unfortunately it’s one of those stupid rich people ones where the elevator looks like a normal door so he has to look for the buttons, which leads him to get turned around a few times until he hears something interesting.

The sounds of obvious sex, cringy and almost fake sounding, makes the asexual in him gag but the crime lord curious.

A few times now he’s blackmailed rich folk with evidence of them cheating so if he can get someone else to give him some pocket money, he won’t need to come to the next gala…

As Jason carefully gets closer o the door, pulling out his phone, he can really tell that one voice is way too high and practiced. Fake, like those pornos his men watch too loud in their communal lounges for some bloody reason.

Apart of him is giddy at possibly finding some random richy guy being a shit fuck, if only because he finds the whole thing funny.

He opens the door slowly, making sure not a sound is heard from it, before peaking in to see what the situation is.

The first thing he sees is a guy who can’t be younger than fifty jerking his hips rapidly and huffing like a puffed Chihuahua, pathetic and kind of concerning. He’s on a couch angled so Jason can’t see his face, but the greying hair tells him everything.

It makes him have to hold back a snort but then his eyes trail over to the person underneath him.

Unlike the older man, the person is young and clearly not enjoying himself.

Jason only has a moment to realise this is probably a closeted gay man when his brain catches up and he realises who the other person is.

He only had a second to be disgusted because oh ew, gross gross gross, that’s his baby brother before shit that’s his baby brother.

Tim is the one making those performing noises.

Tim is the one being pressed down by a guy three times his age.

Tim is the one who’s making noises like he’s enjoying himself but is looking off to the side with a mostly blank face.

Tim, who’s only been eighteen for two months, is the one being used by some crusty old fuck and is seemingly pretending to enjoy it.

Jason wants to rush in and start attacking, to rip the guy off his brother and maybe punch his face into mush, but then he meets Tim’s eye and he feels his heart break.

Because Tim looks so ashamed, so disgusted with himself as he spots Jason and looks away with clear guilt in his eyes. He looks like he wants to crawl aaay and hide forever and Jason gets that because duh, his older brother just caught him having sex, but something about the situation just doesn’t feel right.

Jason thinks he should leave and give Tim some kind of talk later but then the older geezer on top of him speaks, “Fuck, Tim, you-god you’re so fucking tight, so perfect, such a good little bitch! Missed you little hole for months-“

The growl Jason lets out isn’t entirely human, something unholy that probably came from the pit, as he throws the door open and barges into the room.

Tim shakes his head as if to tell him to stop, but Jason is quicker.

He’s also quicker than the man who, ones his rips him off his little brother before he even process the door opening, he realises is a senator. He throws the man down, kicks his stomach in three times before driving a boot to his head.

Wordlessly he turns to his brother who is tearily pulling his dress pants and struggling to hold back sobs.

Jason holds out his hands in offer of a hug and is relieved when his brother accepts, because it means that physical touch hasn’t been ruined for him completely.

After just a few moments he mutters a warning to his brother that he’s going to pick him up and takes him out of the room with a last kick the man’s head.

He probably won’t die, but the brain trauma will be enough for Jason.

For now at least.

Jason holds his baby brother close to him as he takes him down to his car, finally finding the elevator with Tim’s silent help, and takes him back to his apartment.

On the way he sends a message to the demon brat, simply saying:

Don’t let anyone look for or bother me and Tim and I’ll buy you a snake.

[aphrmoosun]

MASTERLIST

Fandoms. POTA, KOTPOTA, HOTD, GOT, ETC.

[Kingdom of the] planet of the apes

NOMAE.

No words. [Two-shot]

Apes and humans lived in peace for more than half a century, the war only brought internal conflicts between the sides and although peace was the later consequence, they finally lived together and peacefully.

But it was still not well seen that humans and apes had relationships, each one lived in their area, both separated by borders and policies.

Noa son of the leader of the eagle clan. And Mae daughter of an important senator. Ape and human had set their eyes on each other, unable to ignore the other’s presence when they saw each other. The tension between the two ends in a nighttime escapade with consequences for the future.

Noa and the beast. [One-shot]

Noa is the new leader of the clan, his responsibility was to his own. But an Echo enters their lives and they decide to kill her due to the ancient writings that defined her as dangerous. But when Noa has her in front of him, his world changes completely…

You & Me. [Fanfic]

“Mae embarks on a mission to try to shed a ray of light on humanity in the face of the apes. Regardless of who stood in her way, she had to carry out this mission.

But although her mind constantly grappled with good and evil, her heart always leaned towards a certain ape who seemed not to be indifferent to her.

Attachment, sympathy, empathy, affection, or even love. These were not emotions she had learned to give to her enemy, but he always stood in her way and through his actions once again showed her that Noa was far from being classified as an enemy.

To a certain extent, she had to choose between her humanity and those feelings that interfered with her mission.”

House of the dragon

HELAEGON.

An heir. [One shot]

Aegon and Helaena have just lost their first son, the heir and after days of trying to breathe or eat to continue their lives, Helaena starts having those dreams again now seeing a new baby body in her arms. But how could they have another son if they haven't spoken for days.

HELAEMOND.

The Shadow of Passion. [Fanfic]

Helaena accidentally overhears a conversation between her two brothers right after her engagement to Aegon is announced and decides it's time to teach them a lesson. One that she would learn through a forbidden book called "The Shadow of Passion" and with which she would take practical classes with her younger brother.

His Queen and Goddess. [One-shot X Aegon]

Aemond takes everything that belongs to Aegon when he becomes King Regent, including Queen Helaena Targaryen. As revenge, Aemond fucks the queen in front of the king and in a position that Aegon had previously mocked him for in a brothel. However, the queen would always see the good side of the king, and he would eventually join them in the only way he could, with his mouth.

King Regent and the Queen [one shot]

Aemond had taken his brother's place, before the court as king regent, and he stood before his now throne, where he received the visit of the queen, the only one he needed to take as king now.

JACELAENA.

The Green Queen. [Fanfic]

Helaena returns to a point in her life where she can change everything she had lived, questioning whether to leave behind the bad but also the good she had experienced. Alongside her, she finds allies she didn't think she had, but most importantly, an old feeling is reborn between her and her nephew Jacaerys.

Puedes encontrar también los fanfics en español en mis perfiles.

AO3 | Wattpad 

[qqueenofhades]

I understand how important it is to be able to criticize the President, and am not at all of the belief he should be beyond critique, but the critiquing of Biden makes me so nervous. (That's not to say I agree with every decision he's made - I absolutely do not). But I feel like people see things he's done wrong and decide they won't vote for him because of it. I'm not sure if enough people have the ability to see that he's done things wrong but also is our only hope of staving off literal fascism.

So many people talk about how sick they are of it constantly being a lesser of two evils situation, constantly having to vote for a candidate they hate because the other side is worse (I heard it in 2020, 2022, etc), and I guess I just- I don't really get it? We're here because they didn't do that in 2016. All of this could've been avoided had the result been different then. I just feel like people don't comprehend how different of a place we'd be in if Hillary won and engage in all this cognitive dissonance to make themselves feel better about being part of the reason she didn't.

Like.... this has been a long-running topic of discussion on my blog, not least because it is so inexplicable and maddening. It also shows how terribly shallow most people's understanding of the American political process is, and how toxic the "I can only vote for a candidate if every single personal belief/position of theirs matches mine" belief is, as well as how much damage it has done to American democracy even (and indeed, especially) by people who technically don't identify as right-wing. Yell at Republicans all you like (God knows I do, because they're the worst people on earth) but they vote. Every time. Every election. Every candidate. Whereas the Democratic electorate still holds out for Mister Perfect, and it very definitely is Mister Perfect. The amount of "evil HRC!!!" Republican-poisoned Kool-Aid that so-called progressives drank in 2016, and then afterward when they insisted they could have voted for someone like Elizabeth Warren and then didn't do that in 2020, is... baffing.

Frankly, I don't care if Hillary Clinton's personal positions on XYZ issue were the most Neoliberal Corporate Centrist Shill to Ever Shill (and Online Leftists' intellectual skills being what they are, I seriously doubt that they were using any of those words correctly and/or accurately). American policy is not made by "personal dictate of the ruler," or at least it shouldn't be, because we are not an absolute monarchy. We rely on the operation of a system with input from many people. As such, if Hillary had been elected, we would have 2-3 new liberal justices on SCOTUS and have secured civil and environmental rights for the next generation. Roe would be intact, and all the other terrible rulings that SCOTUS has recently handed down wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't have had January 6th, the attempt to stage a coup, all the tawdry scandals, our national security being at risk because of Trump stealing classified documents and probably selling them to Russia and/or Saudi Arabia, etc etc. If you think that's in any way an equivalent amount of evil to what would have happened if Hillary was elected, or if she was "still evil!!!," then I honestly don't know what to tell you. She could fucking murder puppies in her spare time if she had preserved SCOTUS for us, WHICH SHE WOULD HAVE, BECAUSE SHE WARNED US EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

(Hoo. Sorry. Still steamed. 2016 war flashbacks, again.)

In short, Hillary would have been a solid continuity Democrat and she would have signed whatever legislation a Democratic House and Senate passed, not to mention been hugely inspiring as the first female president. But because it's so important to the Online Leftists' moral sense of themselves that BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME!!!, they can't possibly acknowledge that ever being a factor, and/or admit that they have any culpability in not voting for her in 2016. It's like when you read the British press about any of the UK's equally numerous problems, and they BEND OVER BACKWARD to avoid mentioning that Brexit might be a factor. They just can't mention it, because then that means they might have made the wrong choice in pulling for it as hard as they did, and blah blah Sovereignty.

Basically, if HRC had been elected president, everything would be so much less terrible and terrifying all the time, we would be talking about her successor in 2024 as someone else who could be the "first," we could explore handing the reins over to Kamala as a Black/Asian woman, we could promote Buttigieg as the first gay president, etc etc. But because 2016 was so catastrophically fucked up, we are in damage control mode for the immediate future and every election is just as pivotal. And yet, because people think that the only thing that matters is a presidential candidate's personal views, we're stuck having the same old arguments and desperately begging people over and over to please vote against fascism, since that somehow isn't self-evident enough on its own. Yikes on Bikes.

[david-talks-sw]

We're the jedi conscripted, or did they join the war by choice

Short answer:

They were conscripted, but they didn't resist the conscription by choice.

You can read more on the subject here (with quotes by George Lucas supporting this), here re: the Jedi's relationship with the clones and here (explaining that while the Jedi were flawed, they weren't at fault).

Longer answer:

The droid armies were attacking all planets in the Republic's territory, be they neutral or otherwise.

The clones were facing weapons that targeted biological matter, as well as Force-users and cyborgs.

The people of the Republic - for the most part - were too weak or fearful or defenseless to fight back.

The Jedi are super-powered beings who've been drafted into a war, against their express desires.

If they so wished, they could start a putch, take control of the Senate rotunda, make everyone back off the Order.

Or just go on strike, say "nope, we don't stand for this, we're not warriors, see ya, good luck" and leave Coruscant.

Or they could sabotage droid factories here and there.

Will any of these options stop the war? We - the audience - know the answer to that is "no."

Because the truth is, this war is designed to be fought by the Jedi, so as to thin their numbers and ultimately destroy them completely.

Hence why,

the enemy is so blatantly evil (corporations mustering an army of lifeless killing machines) and

the victims are so clearly denfeseless (see the Lurmen pacifists or the Twi'lek or the Shili) and

the Republic's army is so hapless (the clones are well-trained, but they're just human, they are out of their depth and considered to be nothing more than expendable cannon fodder by both their creators and their owners).

If you're a Jedi, and your duty is to preserve life and end conflict... there really is only one answer that does the least damage.

And that's joining the conflict to help the people of the Republic, and to lead the clones so as to end the war.

Thus, the Jedi were both legally and morally compromised... and misled. Because there never was any "ending" to this war.

The war was a sham.

It was engineered by two Sith Lords to cause chaos from which the Empire could rise from after the destruction of the Jedi Order. That chaos can take ANY form, as long as both those boxes are ticked.

Like, suppose the Jedi hadn't joined... Palpatine, master politician that he is, could just as easily spin this as "the callous dispassionate Jedi would rather let people die than forego their dogmatic values of peace above all," still turn the public on them, and then have both the clones and the Separatists kill them on sight.

Because again: there was no war. BOTH those armies belonged to the Sith, they were shooting at each other so that the Jedi would step in-between them and get shot.

The only way to win this game was to either

fight it on the appropriate battlefield (the political arena, which the Jedi have no experience with),

acknowledge what's happening is beyond their understanding and try to play catch-up until they can do more,

and/or, when the time comes, have the Chosen One fulfill the prophecy and destroy the Sith.

They undertook the middle option, even grazed victory with it...

... and then Anakin - in a masterclass of fucking up - renders that middle option viable by reversing the third one - tailor-made for him and only him - and siding with the Sith, thus leaving the Force in darkness and the galaxy in chaos.

[mythica-ithaca]

the fact that I see some of y'all posting more about how important it is to vote for Biden than you ever have about Palestine just shows that you fucking "vote blue no matter who" people genuinely don't give a fuck about anyone but yourselves.

you only choose to speak up when YOUR hypothetical rights are threatened. you love to fear monger about how much hypothetically worse it would be under trump than acknowledge the actual atrocities that Biden is committing and condoning every single day. how exactly is he the "lesser" of two evils for?

do any of you actually look at the images coming out of gaza, or are you too fucking ~triggered~ to fully acknowledge other peoples suffering rather than your own. have you seen the video that came out recently of the little boy whose brain is exposed, about to be laid next to his dead family members, only to twitch and seize in his fathers arms as he screams and runs in horror to find a doctor, because his son is alive. his brain is literally falling out of his skull but he is still alive. that is one brief example of the most horrific shit you've ever seen in your life coming out daily for almost a year. how on this earth can you watch that and possibly claim that Biden is in any way shape or form "less" evil.

instead of demanding that the dnc force a different candidate, you're trying to guilt trip people who have actually seen the mutilated bodies of children on their timelines every single day and watched the press briefings of bidens administration denying genocide and defending Israel at the expense of literally everything else for the last 8 months, into voting for a man who supports it 100% and has not and will not be convinced otherwise.

this is where allowing them to push widely unpopular and centrist candidates has gotten us. it didn't work with Hillary in 2016. it BARELY worked in 2020. and hate to break it to you, but its probably not going to work again. so congrats. your "vote blue no matter who" rhetoric has got them thinking that they can push the most right leaning liberals on us and think that we'll vote for them just because they're in a blue tie instead of a red one.

if you care about democracy like you say you do, then the Democrats should be fucking TERRIFIED that you won't vote for them if they don't deliver. not constantly reassured that they can commit literal fucking genocide and still get your votes if they dangle abortion rights over your heads. you realize they see those posts too right? the ones that say "Yes! protest vote in the primary but make sure to actually vote for the guy in the general!!" like. you are literally telling them how performative your activism is.

if every election at this point is the one where democracy is on the line then we are already fucked. if they don't get it through their heads now that we will not support this shit, then every election to come will be between a fascist and a fascist who cares slightly less about whether gay people get married or not. but that's all you care about right? as long as your domestic policy is in your favor then the rest of the world can suffer at your tax dollars.

this isn't about morality voting. this is about recognizing that there is not actually a "lesser" of two evils in this situation, just because you think that the causes that you personally care about will be less affected one way or the other. because what if it was abortion rights? what catholic Joe Biden was firmly against abortion and was threatening to ban it completely and throw anyone getting or giving one in prison for murder. what if it was videos of lgbt people being slaughtered coming out every single day for a year. genuinely fucking ask yourself if you'd still be saying "vote blue no matter who" and that he's the "lesser" of two evils.

vote for whoever the fuck you want. and I do genuinely urge you to vote for the most progressive candidate you can for the house and senate and your local elections. but for the love of god, stop trying to convince people that there is, in any sense of the word, a "Lesser" evil in this situation. stop trying to absolve yourselves of the fact that you are CHOOSING evil. it's genuinely sick.

[unforth]

I keep seeing posts comparing this to 2004 or other past election losses and how this feels the same or similar to those past times.

As another Old who voted in 2004 (and I missed voting in 2000 by a month and was furious about it) I really can't even put into words how vehemently I disagree.

In 2008, I remember very earnestly sitting down with some friends and saying that if somehow McCain beat Obama, I'd have to join the fucking revolution, because I couldn't believe that this country would elect a Republican AGAIN after the previous 8 years of bullshit. I look back now and think how incredibly naive I was, but I also look back now and think, damn, why aren't I 25 NOW? I can't join the revolution now, I'm 41 and I own a house and have two young children and one old parent depending on me.

Because honestly, truly, as someone who has been studying American history since I was 7, as a Civil War buff with expertise on the years before the Civil War, as someone who has at least some memories of every election since 1988... guys, this isn't the same as 2004. I was furious then. Swift Boat bullshit I swear to fucking dog. And I was and still am fairly convinced that the 2000 election was deliberately stolen. But also I still had every reason then to believe in the rule of law.

In 2004, I still believed term limits would be respected.

In 2004, I still believed a person who wasn't elected would demure gracefully to the winner.

In 2004, I still trusted the courts.

In 2004, I still believed that we'd made progress on bigotry.

I could go on, and to be clear, my point isn't "I thought these institutions were ~good~" in literally any objective sense. Y'all are cynical but my generation was raised by, surrounded by, Vietnam vets and trust me, there was no way to be a kid, seeing what the 70s did to this country, and not come out as cynical and furious as the best of um. (My grandfather was a World War 2 vet, as were his close friends. My father and both his brothers are Vietnam vets, tho my dad didn't go overseas.) But I did believe that even corrupt institutions, even broken racist systems, even fucking Republicans, would follow basic norms of democracy. They said they believed in the constitution and I believed them. I believed that, like Nixon, truly getting caught doing something insane would at least force a mea culpa and turn public opinion. I believed...

Well, I guess it doesn't matter.

Because I no longer believe any of that.

I have watched the guard rails disappear over my lifetime. I have watched the party who once spent 2 years pursuing a guy over a BJ in the oval office elect a convicted rapist. I have watched and at times I've participated and I've voted and I've organized and I've protested and I've read the news more days than not and I've lived and I've grown and I've learned.

I have been an adult, legally, for almost 24 years now.

Guys... there are no norms remaining on the far right. The guard rails are gone. The Fascists control the White House, the senate, the Supreme Court, and things aren't looking promising for the House.

The bus has no brakes anymore. They think they have a mandate - and I can't blame them, as horrifying as this mandate is, because if things had gone the other way and Harris had gotten these results I'd also think it was a mandate.

Please sit with what this means: Trump and the Republican party said, "hand us the reins and we'll make everyone you hate hurt," and more than half the people who bothered to vote said "sure buddy, here goes." We don't have a usurper this time. This is the country that the majority of Americans said they wanted. Whether they come to regret that or not, they saw open Fascism and went "oh yes, count me in." And it wasn't because of the electoral college this time. It was because this country is so bigoted and misogynistic that they'd rather have this than a woman of color in the office.

I'm sick of "well she didn't run a good campaign." (Lie.) I'm sick of, "well we didn't get a primary." (Who cares?) I'm *extremely* sick of "well, Palestine." (Yes! Democrats actions have made the suffering there so much worse! It fucking sucks! You know what's about to suck so much worse?)

15 million people who showed up for Joe Biden couldn't be fussed to place a vote for Kamala Harris. Whatever their reason for not voting, we all knew the outcome if she lost. And seeing open fascism didn't fire them up enough to make the effort, and that's fucking pathetic. The consequences of the worst happening mattered so little to them that they couldn't be fucking bothered to make the minimum effort to stop it, and now millions of people will suffer as a result.

Because here we are: the huge swathe of the country who wanted a strongman now have one.

Look, I don't know what happens next. But I do know, and remember keenly: after 2016, Trump did, or at least tried to do, most of the things he said he'd do. When he was stopped, it was often because of career government employees: judges, bureaucrats, etc. And this time, he's said he's going to purge those people. I don't know if he'll succeed, but I certainly believe he'll try.

This is not 2004 again.

This is 2024. The Republicans have ripped the mask to shreds, shredded apart the book of political norms, and empowered hate, and they've been handed a governmental mandate for stamped "have at with our blessing!" in exchange.

And now they'll use that mandate to make everyone they hate suffer: people of color, queer people, trans people, immigrants, non-Christians.

Don't assume the worst can't happen. I am a Jew, and I have a photo album full of black and white photos of dead people that constantly reminds me: the worst has happened and it can happen again.

Do not despair. Despair is enervating. Be furious. As we should be. These douche bags are repulsive. Be prepared to fight. Be prepared to flee. Be prepared to defend. Don't assume you simply can't do something. There's always something to do, and even the smallest act of defiance can help. There's never any knowing until after which acts of resistance will end up galvanizing the good and just out of their apathy. But that apathy is the enemy.

Because none of this is normal. None of this is "just like when..." Please stop saying it is.

And before anyone screams "privilege" at me, yes, I am in many ways. I'm white. I have access to some generational money even tho my own family lives paycheck to paycheck - we won't be rich but have enough of a support network to be comfortable. I live in a blue area of a blue state. But I'm also a woman (legally speaking, at least) married to another woman - since before Oberkfell, and yes I remember exactly what steps we had planned any time we wanted to leave our state. My wife has physical disabilities. We have two children. Both are biracial (half black). One is trans. We are caring for an elderly parent. I am Jewish and as my kids' birth parent, so are they. I own a publishing company that publishes the exact kinds of queer and kinky lit these people intend to ban. We tick so many boxes of what these people hate.

I know ya'll are scared. Trust me, I'm terrified. But fear is paralyzing. And that won't help. Whatever happens, don't lie down and take this shit.

When Gore lost I was one month shy of my 18th birthday and already in college. I have been fighting my entire adult life, and I'm exhausted. I'm much less able to fight now, much more tied down with responsibilities. But the fight isn't over. I'm checking our passports. I'm packing a go bag. I've convinced one vulnerable friend to move here and I have another who wants to and we're figuring out how to make that happen. I'm protecting who I can, starting with putting on my mask first. I don't know what will happen but if in the end all I can do is uproot my entire life to protect my children then I am preparing to do so. I can at least save them if no one else.

None of this is normal.

And I'm not sure, after Trump's in office, that anything will ever be normal again in the US. At least not the old normal. And there are ways that's a good thing, so many ways that the old normal sucked for so many people, and I'm optimistic that there's a bright future ahead, but man it looks far away right now. I don't want to go back to the old normal, and I want to be part of establishing a kinder, more just, more equal new normal, but we're a long way from there.

Whatever happens, we must endure. We must survive. We must support each other. We must find our allies and be prepared to compromise with them. Don't try to save everyone. You'll fail. Help even one person and you can change the world. Everyone things they can't do everything and so do nothing. That's insane. Do a single thing and it will be better than nothing. One phone call. One letter. One act of defiance. Very few people get the opportunity to grand gestures that matter, and the rest of us will die waiting for that moment. But the secret is that what makes those moments - the time when one person is in the right place at the right time for their action to matter - is built on millions of small moments by millions of people doing what little they can to make things slightly better. Think of every iconic photograph of a Sole Resistor you know of and think about every single tiny thing that had to happen for that moment to occur. Most of us will never me that one person, but that one person is a myth anyway. Countless tiny unseen moments create those myths. Doing literally anything is better than doing nothing.

And tooth and nail, quietly and loudly, in our homes and our towns and cities, during protests or when they come for our neighbors, we must fight.

[kookyburrowing]

Different Languages AU Part 1: Wait, Fuck, They Don't Speak Basic?

First things first motherfuckers, let’s get one thing straight: Basic as a language does exist in this AU!  It’s just less common outside of the Core/Mid Rim.  SO.  What does that give us?  Well, it gives us way more interesting conflict, for one thing, and for another, so many languages.  Let’s get crackalackin! 

In the Outer Rim, Huttese is largely The Language To Speak.  If you don’t speak Huttese, you might as well just hurl yourself into the nearest bottomless pit now and save yourself the time and trouble.  Even in the Core and Mid Rim, Huttese is a very common language just because of how useful it is if you ever find yourself in the Outer Rim.  Most bounty hunters (i.e. Jango Fett, just for one completely random example) speak Huttese fluently, alongside their native languages.  Naturally, then, this is a language Anakin is very familiar with.  In fact, when he became a Jedi, it was the language he knew the best, and most people thought his speech was stilted in Basic because of this.  He spoke Basic maybe once every month on Tatooine—can you blame him?  

In the Mid Rim, each planet has their own language and conversations between diplomats are typically done as they are on Earth—via interpreters, to avoid any misunderstandings.  Padmé, for instance, does speak Basic, but that is the language she would use in the Senate, not on Naboo.  The same goes for Palpatine, but we’ll get to him in a minute, because he sucks and I want to not talk about him for as long as I feasibly can.  

The Core means Basic, Basic, Basic, because of just the sheer number of people making it necessary.  Coruscant is a weird case because of how communities develop there.  Since it’s kind of like a gigantic version of a modern city (I’ll use NYC as an example because I know it the best), it’s broken up into enclaves.  Cultures clump—it’s a thing.  Some neighborhoods in NYC are predominantly Jewish, some are predominantly Italian, the list goes on.  The same goes for Coruscant, although on a supersized scale.  There’s some areas where non-Mandalorians need not apply, some where everyone is a Twi’lek or Togruta, some where everyone is a Mirialan, et cetera.  Also, Coruscant dialects of certain languages are very much a thing.

Anyway.  Let’s talk Kamino, because that’s why I started this to begin with!  

Jango Fett is a Mandalorian.  He’s also a bounty hunter.  He’s from Concord Dawn and was a True Mandalorian.  Therefore we can guess he probably at the bare minimum speaks two dialects of Mando’a (Concord Dawn, True Mandalorian) Huttese, and has at least passing Basic.  He probably speaks more than that given how well-traveled he is, but those are the ones I can name for sure.  So Jango Fett, who speaks Mando’a and Huttese and Basic, encounters Count Dooku.  Count Dooku is from Serenno, but he was also a Jedi, so he probably speaks Serennese, Basic, Huttese, and a few more.  He may even speak Mando’a, but his dialects wouldn’t be likely to overlap with Jango’s.  Count Dooku tells Jango to go to Kamino and let them clone him in exchange for an exorbitant amount of money.  Jango does, because Jango is a thinking human being and thinking human beings under capitalism do not turn down exorbitant amounts of money in exchange for what amounts to (at most) being a three or four-time sperm donor.  

And on Kamino, our intrepid Mandalorian encounters something a bit weird.  The Kaminoans, being that they are an extremely isolated species and thus have absolutely no reason to have developed humanoid vocal chords, have to rely on droid translators.  Cool!  This means Jango can speak to them exclusively in his native language (Concord Dawn Mando’a), and they can speka to him exclusively in theirs, and everyone’s largely happy.  Jango negotiates the finer points of the contract, acquires an infant who he names Boba, and calls up some old friends (and acquaintances) to teach the clones to kick ass.  He informs them they don’t have to worry about speaking Basic, so they don’t bother speaking Basic.  

Thus, we have our setup.  The Kaminoans have no reason to make the clones speak Basic because literally none of these outsiders are bothering to inform that oh yeah there’s this whole common language thing going on, and said outsiders have no reason whatsoever to tell them because it would ultimately just be an inconvenience.  They’ve got a good thing going, and Jedi are required to speak more than one language anyway.  The clones can definitely find at least one in common!

So the clones learn to speak Mando’a, understand Kaminoan, and speak and/or understand one extra elective language.  Most pick something weird because they can—everyone around them speaks either Mando’a or Kaminoan so why would they bother with languages they don’t care about, like Basic?  Unfortunately for the Kaminoans and the trainers in equal measure, they do also realize that in order to express themselves in private they need their own universal language, so they acquire one.  They just call it clonespeak to keep things simple, and for most of them, that’s their native language.  They feel most comfortable speaking in it because that’s the language they associate with safety and with their siblings/parents.  

Thus: the predicament.  

Obi-Wan arrives on Kamino.  Obi-Wan is a Jedi.  Obi-Wan speaks Basic. 

Uh-oh.  See, Jango is out of practice—the Kaminoans can’t make those noises.  Boba’s language skills begin and end with Mando’a and some random bits of clonespeak right now—he’s kind of conversational with Huttese but every once in a while he just throws in a Mando’a word or an idiom in clonespeak and Jango has to take a minute to breathe lest he slam his head straight through the wall in frustration because he doesn’t understand clonespeak.  And so much performing of charades, many awkward moments, and exactly one sentence in Basic later, Obi-Wan is heading back to Coruscant with several questions. 

First: why the fuck did Sifo-Dyas order an army who didn’t speak Basic?  No one knows.  No one can find any records of this order, for one thing.  No one knows who Tyrannus is, for another.  

And second: what languages do the clones speak?  Obviously, Mando’a is amongst them, but Jango’s extremely intensely staring son also spoke another, infinitely weird language and no one can find any record of it, and not even Jango seemed to understand him.  Do they understand the Kaminoans’ clicking noises?  Are they just mute?  Is it constantly Shut The Fuck Up Friday up in there?  What is going on?  

The Council loses their collective minds.  Shaak Ti is about ready to haul ass across the galaxy to collect these poor, lost young men—Plo Koon is right there with her.  Yoda is—well, Yoda is swearing loudly in several dead languages right now.  Mace Windu, ever the voice of reason, just has one thing to say: how about they meet the clones, first.  Before they panic.

In the face of this intense, all-consuming, glorious sensibility, the Council collectively shuts the fuck up.  They decide to let things run their course.  

And then Geonosis.  Quickly, Yoda collects several hundred clones, manages to communicate to one of them—who speaks a really weird, ancient, and fucked up dialect of Basic that could basically scan to Elizabethan English, and whose name is probably Kowalski—what he needs, and that one tells an older, larger and more intimidating one.  Then that one yells a lot in a language Yoda has never heard before, and several hundred clones are suddenly hauling ass into gunships.  

Enter one Anakin Skywalker and one Padmé Amidala, who are about to acquire some friends, none of whom understand a word they’re saying.  They fuck some things up, get strapped to some poles to be devoured by Space Beasts of some sort, and then escape.  

Battle of Geonosis happens.  Mace Windu quickly discovers that the answer to the question what do the clones speak is effectively every language except Basic, and the answer is also supremely inconsistent.  He is Suffering.  He is Experiencing The Horrors.  Obi-Wan is likewise fighting for his life because he speaks a fancy-ass dialect of Mando’a that the clones don’t understand.  This is because they, like normal people, don’t talk like dignitaries on diplomatic missions.  

Moving on!  Obi-Wan gets assigned Alpha-17.  Alpha-17 is a demon.  Actually.  He probably speaks Basic but refuses to out of spite.  This is the biggest asshole to ever stomp his way into a Venator and terrify Anakin Skywalker into cowering submission.  (He may even be why Anakin behaved like that as Vader.  We will never know!)  Like most clones, Alpha-17 speaks four languages.  Clonespeak, Mando’a, Kaminoan, and Huttese.  In that order.  So he has no real trouble communicating with either Anakin or Obi-Wan.  

What he does have, though, is a surplus of kids.  Like it or not (he insists he doesn’t) they are his kids, and he wants them to have a shot at having a moderately tolerable existence.  Enter everyone’s favorite group of six weirdos: Wolffe, Ponds, Fox, Bly, Cody, and Rex.  

Wolffe is easy.  He’s horrible with languages, and so gets sent to Plo Koon, who speaks through a translator anyway.  Add Mando’a to the translator, and bang!  Easy.  Done.  They understand each other perfectly.  

Ponds is also easy.  He, being sensible, learned Basic, so he goes to Mace Windu, who is equally sensible (and grateful for the easy transition).  

Fox, who is a scheming little shit and also just so happens to speak Naboo, get sent to Coruscant.  The Chancellor can’t get one over on him if Fox can understand every word he says, and most Senators have protocol droids with them for translation anyway.  

Bly speaks Ryll, so she gets Aayla Secura.  Again, easy.  

Cody, on the other hand?  Cody speaks the same languages as 17.  Cody has a favorite younger brother who needs guidance.  Cody, therefore, gets deposited with Obi-Wan, and Rex?  Rex gets Anakin.  

But the issue with Rex is he and Anakin have no language in common.  Rex’s elective language was Togruti, and like the rest of his batch he also speaks Tusken sign.  Because his batch are a bunch of assholes who wanted an extremely private way to talk.  

So.  Anakin and Rex start off the war with no way to communicate!  None!  Literally not one language in common!  

And they do try to communicate—via charades, via text, et cetera—but they don’t really have access to translation software on a regular basis and thus things become complicated.  

Things are made even more complicated by the fact that Rex, like Wolffe, is shit at language learning.  Anakin, who isn’t, could try to learn clonespeak, and does!  But when you can’t communicate with the person teaching you it is immensely slow going.  

And thus, our premise is complete.  How do you run a war with someone you can’t talk to?  

Well, it depends.  If you’re Anakin, you say, maybe I can figure a way around this.  

If you’re Pong Krell?  

I dunno man.  Yell?  Yeah, that sounds about right. 

[evilminji]

Hey Minji! A thought for your Star Wars things!

Who ever said the SI-OC was the only one to get dumped in SW? Just. A Creche that has several Reincarnations/Transmigrants.

Oh? My god? Just... the FIRST thing that popped into my head? Was the image of one of those "we are so Unbelievably Overworked We No Longer Fear You Nor Death" Sort of office workers/team of workers(nonspecific)?

Just... fuckin EVERYBODY knows Star Wars. Not everybody focused on the same PART of it, but the DO know it. So OBVIOUSLY? The Force decided it should bring in an A Team.

It Did Not ASK the A Team.

They are... like? 4. And sitting in a soft foam, brightly colored Creche, in their lil Jedi rompers, all sitting in a circle, looking at each other like... ( -_-) (-_- ) you too, huh?

Yeeeeeep. (God does Jerry want a cigarette. Jerry gave them up in his 20s. But he's KINDA GOING THROUGH IT, okay?!) (Sarah is hyperventilating in the corner. Her KIDS! Oh GOD. Her KIDS! She was on the way to pick them up from SOCCOR PRACTICE!!!)

Just? This whole ass team of "yeah, we know the LORE, but buddy, pal, we had LIVES! What the FUCK. Star Wars was a HOBBY!" Type adults? No one is happy and everyone wants to choke the metaphysical concept of The Force with their itty, bitty lil baby hands.

They may RIOT.

And like? Do to sheer NUMBERS? They make up ALMOST a full Creche?

Almost.

There is like... one? Maybe two? Actual Jedi Babies™ in their group? It's A Team... plus our collective children. Whom we parent. The MOST baby of babies. Also the spokesperson when they want to fool anyone into thinking they're "normal".

I want Jerry to have a fake cigarette. He's looked up death sticks and like FUCK is he putting that shit in his body, but dear LORD are the oral fixation and mental effects of a past addiction still both real, and a pain in the ASS.

If you try and TAKE his fake ass, hand made, bespoke not-a-cigarette from his itty bitty lil baby hands? He will take your KNEES. These FUCKERS won't even let him have COFFEE. Let him HAVE THIS. *hisses from the walls*

I want them to be ☆~Nightmare Children~☆

They have the power of The Force, various past life skills, an uninterrupted access to the galaxy's BIGGEST LIBRARY, close proximity to FAR too many senator AND their living spaces, and? An actual negative number of fucks to give. They can take shifts. Tag team. Be creepy, horrible, terrible, God awful nightmare creatures climbing out from your WALLS.

Somehow they keep escaping.

Down through the lower temple as they examine the hidden tunnels and escape routes. Through the vents. Forcing other jedi to become VERY familiar with where those pathways are. Sure hope THAT won't someday save your lives! Ya ungrateful, "you're grounded, stop sneaking out younglings" BASTARDS! So rude!!

The camp out in the Corrie Gaurd office. Bring the babies.

Here, you seem stressed, random gaurd. Hold a Jedi Baby. They radiate sunshine and good vibes. Are literally the Anti-Old-Man-Sith. We brought caffeine and food from the temple. Are willing to follow you around like "adorable ducklings" on patrol under the excuse that we're "training" for when we get our own soilders.

Sure is INCONVENIENT for all these asshole senators to has a witness, huh?

You gaurd my back, I'll gaurd yours. And if a certain long neck trips near the stairs? You didn't see SHIT. I'm BABY. How could I POSSIBLY have the control to do that? Now excuse me... we need to practice our "we Jedi Children can stare into your SOOOOOULS, we See All Your Sins." Wide Eyed Unblinking Predator Stare.

(O.O) (O.O) (O.O)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Maybe you’ve been asking yourself:

1. “How could Donald Trump have won 51 percent of the popular vote?”

2. “How hard is it to immigrate to New Zealand?”

3. “What the actual fuck?”

Fair questions. Let’s try a thought experiment. Could Tuesday’s election results have been any worse?

Well, what if, instead of 51 percent, the Republican nominee had won 59 percent? Or 61 percent? And what if he had won 49 states?

Those aren’t hypotheticals. Those were the results of the 1972 and 1984 landslides that reelected Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

With thumping victories like those, what could possibly go wrong for the winners?

If history’s any guide, some nasty surprises await Donald Trump.

In 1972, the Democratic presidential nominee, George McGovern, won just 37.5 percent of the vote, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia for a total of 17 Electoral College votes. He didn’t even win his home state, South Dakota.

In 1984, Democrat Walter Mondale did carry his native Minnesota, but that was as good as it got for him. In the Electoral College, he fared even worse than McGovern, with a whopping 13 votes.

In the aftermath of these thrashings, the Democratic Party lay in smoldering ruins, and Republicans looked like indestructible conquerors.

Now, some might argue that those GOP victories, though statistically more resounding than Trump’s, weren’t nearly as alarming, because he’s a criminal and wannabe autocrat.

But Trump’s heinousness shouldn’t make us nostalgic for Nixon and Reagan. They were also criminals—albeit unindicted ones. And they were up to all manner of autocratic shit—until they got caught.

The Watergate scandal was only one small part of the sprawling criminal enterprise that Nixon directed from the Oval Office in order to subvert democracy. For his part, Reagan’s contribution to the annals of presidential crime, Iran-Contra, broke myriad laws and violated Constitutional norms.

The hubris engendered by both men’s landslides propelled them to reckless behavior in their second terms—behavior that came back to haunt them. Nixon was forced to resign the presidency; Reagan was lucky to escape impeachment.After the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon from office, this bumper sticker helped Massachusetts voters brag that they handed him his only Electoral College loss in 1972.

Of course, Trump would be justified in believing that no matter how reckless he becomes, he’ll never pay a price. He’s already been impeached—twice—only to be acquitted by his Republican toadies in the Senate. And now that the right-wing supermajority of the Supreme Court has adorned him with an immunity idol, he’ll likely feel free to commit crimes that Nixon and Reagan could only dream of. Who’ll stop him from using his vast power to persecute his voluminous list of enemies?

Well, the enemy most likely to thwart Trump in his second term might be one who isn’t on his list: himself. The seeds of Trump’s downfall may reside in two promises he made to win this election: the mass deportation of immigrants and the elimination of inflation.

Trump’s concept of a plan to deport 20 million immigrants is as destined for success as were two of his other brainchildren, Trump University and Trump Steaks. The US doesn’t have anything approaching the law-enforcement capacity to realize this xenophobic fever dream.

And as for Trump’s war on inflation, the skyrocketing prices caused by his proposed tariffs will make Americans nostalgic for pandemic-era price-gouging on Charmin.

It's possible that Trump’s 24/7 disinformation machine, led by Batman villains Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk, will prevent his MAGA followers from ever discovering that 20 million immigrants didn’t go anywhere. And it’s possible that if inflation spikes, he’ll find a scapegoat for that. (Nancy Pelosi? Dr. Fauci? Taylor Swift?)

And, yes, it’s possible that Trump will somehow accomplish his goal of becoming America’s Kim Jong Un, and our democracy will go belly-up like the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.

But I wouldn’t bet on it. I tend to agree with the British politician Enoch Powell (1912-1998), who observed that all political careers end in failure. I doubt that Trump, with his signature blend of inattention, impulsiveness, and incompetence, will avoid that fate.

And when the ketchup hits the fan, the MAGA movement may suddenly appear far more fragmented and fractious than it does this week. You can already see the cracks. Two towering ignoramuses like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert should be BFFs, but they despise each other—the only policy of theirs I agree with.

If things really go south, expect MAGA Republicans to devour each other as hungrily as the worm who feasted on RFK Jr.’s brain—and that, my friends, will be worth binge-watching. I’m stocking up on popcorn now before Trumpflation makes it unaffordable.

One parting thought. Post-election, the mainstream media’s hyperbolic reassessment of Trump—apparently, he’s now a political genius in a league with Talleyrand and Metternich—has been nauseating. It’s also insanely short-sighted. Again, a look at the not-so-distant past is instructive.

In 1984, after Reagan romped to victory with 59 percent of the popular vote and 525 electoral votes, Reaganism was universally declared an unstoppable juggernaut. But only two years later, in the 1986 midterms, Democrats proved the pundits wrong: they regained control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1980. Those majorities enabled them to slam the brakes on Ronnie’s right-wing agenda, block the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork, and investigate Iran-Contra.

The lesson of the 1986 midterms is clear: the game’s far from over and there’s everything to play for. If we want to stem the tide of autocracy and kleptocracy, restore women’s rights and protect the most vulnerable, we don’t have the luxury of despair. The work starts now.

Andy Borowitz