#governor dodge

[bibliophilicwitch]

Stephen Falls in Governor Dodge State Park, Wisconsin

[all-hail-the-kazoo]

Governor Dodge State Park, Wisconsin, USA

[mdtsstuff]

[wisconsinphotoslol]

[wilwheaton]

There are Republicans, including the mayor of Springfield and the governor of Ohio, who have condemned Trump and Vance’s toxic lies. But they are isolated voices. The rest of the party’s elected officials are either boosting Trump and Vance in this campaign of hate, or retreating to the old dodge that they’d rather just focus on the issues. Nikki Haley — a daughter of immigrants who understands perfectly well who Trump is — said a week ago in response to criticism that she had abandoned her principles by supporting Trump, “We can either vote based on style or we can vote on substance. I’m voting based on substance.” But Trump’s racism and hatefulness is not just his “style.” It is the essence of the man and his movement, the substance of which they are made. So please, don’t tell us you’re working to get Trump elected because of his “policies.” Tax cuts, deregulation, the occasional attempt to take health coverage away from millions — these are incidental. They are not the core of what Trump is. If you stand with Trump, you own all that is worst about him. His moral stench is upon you, and always will be. If you say “I was only in it for the tax cuts!” well, you were still in it. You made a choice.

They Must Not Be Forgiven - by Paul Waldman

[tenshindon]

Yo when you were like Ryo Aoki is a spoiled 42 year old brat who’s the governor I was like.. that’s where trunks is heading. Or at least GT Trunks super hero trunks is a different story.

i hope from the bottom of my heart trunks is never anything like ryo aoki jesus fucking christ and im really happy to say they arent alike in the slightest

[karasexplores]

My Favorite Travels of 2022

Okay, man, is 2022 over already? I recall, and it’s a pretty distinct memory, as I was saying, one of my history teachers once told me that time moves quicker as we age. And, as I think more about it, that fact was hinted to me many times. Those hints came via cliche lines, ones relatives would say with broad smiles on their faces… “Wow, did you grow up fast.” “Jeesh, Chris, you’re twelve…

[sassenach77yle]

||COUNTDOWN || SEASON 4 EPISODE 03 || THE FALSE BRIDE ||

#83daysofoutlander☆

We climbed a granite ledge, thick with moss and lichen, wet with the omnipresent flow of water, then followed the path of a descending freshet, brushing aside long grass that pulled at our legs, dodging the drooping branches of mountain laurel and the thick-leaved rhododendrons. Wonders sprang up by my feet, small orchids and brilliant fungi, trembling and shiny as jellies, shimmering red and black on fallen tree trunks. Dragonflies hung over the water, jewels immobile in the air, vanishing in mist. I felt dazed with abundance, ravished by beauty. Jamie’s face bore the dream-stunned look of a man who knows himself sleeping, but does not wish to wake. Paradoxically, the better I felt, the worse I felt, too; desperately happy—and desperately afraid. This was his place, and surely he felt it as well as I. In early afternoon we stopped to rest and drink from a small spring at the edge of a natural clearing. The ground beneath the maple trees was covered with a thick carpet of dark green leaves, among which I caught a sudden telltale flash of red. “Wild strawberries!” I said with delight. The berries were dark red and tiny, about the size of my thumb joint. By the standards of modern horticulture, they would have been too tart, nearly bitter, but eaten with a meal consisting of half-cooked cold bear meat and rock-hard corn dodgers, they were delicious—fresh explosions of flavor in my mouth; pinpricks of sweetness on my tongue. I gathered handfuls in my cloak, not caring for stains—what was a little strawberry juice among the stains of pine pitch, soot, leaf smudges and simple dirt? By the time I had finished, my fingers were sticky and pungent with juice, my stomach was comfortably full, and the inside of my mouth felt as though it had been sandpapered, from the tartly acid taste of the berries. Still, I couldn’t resist reaching for just one more. Jamie leaned his back against a sycamore, eyelids half lowered against the dazzle of afternoon sun. The little clearing held light like a cup, still and limpid.

“What d’ye think of this place, Sassenach?” he asked. “I think it’s beautiful. Don’t you?”

He nodded, looking down between the trees, where a gentle slope full of wild hay and timothy fell away and rose again in a line of willows that fringed the distant river. “I am thinking,” Jamie said, a little awkwardly. “There is the spring here in the wood. That meadow below—” He waved a hand toward the scrim of alders that screened the ridge from the grassy slope. “It would do for a few beasts at first, and then the land nearer the river might be cleared and put in crops. The rise of the land here is good for drainage. And here, see …” Caught by visions, he rose to his feet, pointing. I looked carefully; to me, the place seemed little different from any of the steep wooded slopes and grassy coves through which we had wandered for the last couple of days. But to Jamie, with his farmer’s eye, houses and stock pens and fields sprang up like fairy mushrooms in the shadows of the trees. Happiness was sticking out all over him, like porcupine quills. My heart felt like lead in my chest. “You’re thinking we might settle here, then? Take the Governor’s offer?” He looked at me, stopping abruptly in his speculations. “We might,” he said. “If—” He broke off and looked sideways at me. Sun-reddened as he was, I couldn’t tell whether he was flushed with sun or shyness.

“D’ye believe in signs at all, Sassenach?”

“What sorts of signs?” I asked guardedly. In answer, he bent, plucked a sprig from the ground, and dropped it into my hand—the dark green leaves like small round Chinese fans, a pure white flower on a slender stem, and on another a half-ripe berry, its shoulders pale with shade, blushing crimson at the tip.

“This. It’s ours, d’ye see?” he said. “Ours?” “The Frasers’, I mean,” he explained. One large, blunt finger gently prodded the berry. “Strawberries ha’ always been the emblem of the clan—it’s what the name meant, to start with, when a Monsieur Fréselière came across from France wi’ King William that was—and took hold of land in the Scottish mountains for his trouble.”

King William that was. William the Conqueror, that was. Perhaps not the oldest of the Highland clans, the Frasers had still a distinguished heritage. “Warriors from the start, were you?” “And farmers, too.” The doubt in his eyes was fading into a smile. I didn’t say what I was thinking, but I knew well enough that the thought must lie in his mind as well. There was no more of clan Fraser save scattered fragments, those who had survived by flight, by stratagem or luck. The clans had been smashed at Culloden, their chieftains slaughtered in battle or murdered by law. Yet here he stood, tall and straight in his plaid, the dark steel of a Highland dirk by his side. Warrior and farmer both. And if the soil beneath his feet was not that of Scotland, it was free air that he breathed—and a mountain wind that stirred his hair, lifting copper strands to the summer sun. I smiled up at him, fighting back my growing dismay.

“Fréselière, eh? Mr. Strawberry?

He grew them, did he, or was he only fond of eating them?” “Either or both,” he said dryly, “or it was maybe only that he was redheided, aye?” I laughed, and he hunkered down beside me, unpinning his plaid.

“It’s a rare plant,” he said, touching the sprig in my open hand. “Flowers, fruit and leaves all together at the one time. The white flowers are for honor, and red fruit for courage—and the green leaves are for constancy.”

My throat felt tight as I looked at him. “They got that one right,” I said. He caught my hand in his own, squeezing my fingers around the tiny stem.

“And the fruit is the shape of a heart,” he said softly, and bent to kiss me.

The tears were near the surface; at least I had a good excuse for the one that oozed free. He dabbed it away, then stood up and pulled his belt loose, letting the plaid fall in folds around his feet. Then he stripped off shirt and breeks and smiled down at me, naked. “There’s no one here,” he said. “No one but us.” I would have said this seemed no reason, but I felt what it was he meant. We had been for days surrounded by vastness and threat, the wilderness no farther away than the pale circle of our fire. Yet here, we were alone together, part and parcel of the place, with no need in broad daylight to hold the wilderness at bay. “In the old days, men would do this, to give fertility to the fields,” he said, giving me a hand to rise. “I don’t see any fields.” And wasn’t sure whether to hope I never would. Nonetheless, I skimmed off my buckskin shirt, and pulled loose the knot of my makeshift brassiere. He eyed me with appreciation. “Well, no doubt I shall have to cut down a few trees first, but that can wait, aye?”

We made a bed of plaid and cloaks, and lay down upon it naked, skin to skin among the yellow grasses and the scent of balsam and wild strawberries. We touched each other for what might have been a very long time or no time at all, together in the garden of earthly delight. I forced away the thoughts that had plagued me up the mountain, determined only to share his joy for as long as it lasted. I grasped him tight and he breathed in deep and pressed himself hard into my hand. “And what would Eden be without a serpent?” I murmured, fingers stroking. His eyes creased into blue triangles, so close I could see the black of his pupils. “And will ye eat wi’ me, then, mo chridhe? Of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil?” I put out the tip of my tongue and drew it along his lower lip in answer. He shivered under my fingers, though the air was warm and sweet. “Je suis prest,” I said. “Monsieur Fréselière.” His head bent and his mouth fastened on my nipple, swollen as one of the tiny ripe berries. “Madame Fréselière,” he whispered back. “Je suis à votre service.” And then we shared the fruit and flowers, and the green leaves covering all.

16 THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

[qqueenofhades]

I completely understand if you don’t feel comfortable answering this, but my mind is spiraling out of control and you’re the only person I know with the level of knowledge to where I can feel comfortable asking this without getting some form of “bla bla we live in a safe state don’t worry.”

I’m sincerely wondering if I need to be making plans to leave the country in the event of November bringing the most horrible of outcomes despite our best efforts (and yes I’m planning to vote blue in everything I can); as a AFAB in CA?

I know about project 2025. I’m terrified. Forgive my pop culture reference, but I feel like a version of Princess Zelda staring down a barrel of possible doom while everyone around me is like “nah that future you literally had a nightmare about where they made it illegal for a woman to have a bank account without a guy co-signing it and took the money from everyone who didn’t comply by a certain date isn’t even a possibility!”

I’m just confused about my life and am trying to take it day by day, and exercising every right while I still have it to prevent this outcome, but it feels weird making plans and retirement accounts and just general Setting Up Adult Life And Future Things™️……while wondering if I even have a future in this place at all and I’m just making it harder to escape if need be.

I’m sorry I’m rambling, and I guess I don’t know what I’m asking since no one has a crystal ball.

But I guess, it’s stuff like how much can the feds effect state’s policies? Is it possible for them to immediately block international travel for all women practically upon inauguration? How much time would I even have to gtfo if the worst begins?

Bc honestly this whole thing feels like the lead in to a very nasty chapter of a history book, and even though I have hope we’ll have another blue tsunami, it can be hard to try and figure things out when it feels like there’s barely any historical precedent for any of it.

Welp. Okay. First of all, I am giving you a comforting hug, I am walking with you to your favorite coffee shop, I am paying for your favorite beverage and also a baked goodie of your choice, and we are sitting down in a corner where we can talk honestly. So that's where I want you to imagine us having this conversation.

To start with, yes, I completely understand this feeling of utter, paralyzing doom, where I am trying to go about my daily life and make plans for my career and carry out daily tasks and Be Responsible while there's still just this total void beyond the end of the year, the utter impossibility of knowing if we will have dodged an absolutely massive bullet and finally be safe (since if Trump loses again he is 100% going to jail in the next four years) or, well. You know. That is a very hard way to live, when you're wondering if anything is going to matter and you can't see beyond that black cloud of fear on the horizon. It sucks you down and tells you that nothing is worth doing now in case it just gets so much worse. I am not going to tell you not to feel that. We all do. We are all scared. That in and of itself is a perfectly normal way to feel.

However, there are things you can do both now and if (I repeat, if) God absolutely forbid, the worst was to happen (again). First of all, we have already lived through a Trump presidency once. It was terrible and scary and awful and demoralizing as fuck, but we can do it again if we absolutely Goddamn fucking have to (once, again, God forbid). Second, you are currently about as safe as you could be in California. Newsom has proven himself to be smart, tough, able to run rings around Republicans, and unwilling to comply with their stupid performative-cruelty directives. He's not a saint or a magician, but you don't need that; you need a shrewd politician able to fight back, and he has proven himself willing and capable of doing that. So as long as he is governor, you're going to be more safe than not, and I'd also like to ask all the shrieking Online Leftists if, should the shit go down, they would rather live in a state with a Democratic governor who will fight Trump 2.0 every step of the way, or a Republican governor who will just roll over and obey. (But that would destroy their BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME talking point, so you know.)

Next of all, even if the Republicans are doing their best impression, America in 2024 isn't Germany in 1934. There are different tools, different ways to fight back, and different awarenesses/social media/visibility factors. I also need everyone to remember that just as Biden can't just sign an executive order and fix everything everywhere, Trump can't just sign an executive order and fuck everything everywhere, just like that with no more discussion ever. He tried that last time, it generally didn't work, and trust me, at least this time nobody is sleeping on the danger he poses. His candidacy in 2016 was dismissed as a long-shot joke that nobody took seriously until it was too late, and for better or worse, people aren't doing that this time. He will be sued instantly, incredibly, and repeatedly with everything his band of wannabe fascists try, and since we have had four years of Biden fixing the courts from where Trump trashed them, that does mean something. There is no scenario where even if he does issue some outrageous order against women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, etc (which to be clear, I'm sure he would try) it would just be carried out completely, immediately, and with no feasible way to stop it. Evil is evil, but it is also stupid, clueless, determined to hurt people just for the hell of it without any regard for what is possible or which will be allowed, and there's a lot more grey area in there than just "Trump says something terrible and it's instantly done, the end."

Once again, I'm not going to say that the worst-case scenario is not possible, but I don't think it's likely, and even if that does happen, there are ways for us to survive and fight back (again). Nobody wants it and it should not have to be asked of us due to the utter collapse of the social, civic, political, and intellectual fabric of this country thanks to the TrumpCult, but once again... these people are so loud and dangerous and cruel and stupid because they are in the minority. Etc. etc. polls are garbage, but we did just have an interesting piece of empirical data from the Iowa caucuses. Trump -- in one of the whitest, most rural, most conservative, most religious, most Trump-loving states in the country -- struggled to break 50%. Almost half of a rabid Republican fully-Trumpized electorate, among the diehards sufficiently motivated to get out and caucus in extreme freezing weather, voted for someone else (Haley and DeSantis took about 20% apiece). Now, no, we don't know how that will translate to the general election, and if registered Republicans will flock back to the nominee even if it's Trump, but as almost half of Haley voters said they would vote for Biden if it was a Biden-Trump matchup in the general, there is some sense that Trump is an aberration to their otherwise ironclad party loyalty. Now, Republicans are the fucking worst and nobody should be relying on them to save us; we still need to get out and vote for Democrats with all our might. But Trump is no longer barn-burningly popular even in core Trump heartland, and it'll be interesting to see how things go in future primaries.

My point is: I know the feeling that evil is awful and unstoppable and all-powerful, and will crush our lives and our futures no matter what we do to resist it. I really, really do. But Trump is a terrible candidate, he's running literally only to keep himself out of a long, long prison sentence, and if he had crushed the Iowa caucuses regardless, we might be having a different conversation. However, we need to remember that it is possible, again (God forbid) in the worst scenario, to resist, to live, and to win. Everyone who is motivated to work for a better world will still be here. Everyone who can help you and all of us will still be here. And there are more of us than there are of them. Yes, I do understand the feeling that we need to have contingency plans in place, I do absolutely know that it could get very bad, and all that (as you say, nobody has a crystal ball). But for now, I want you to take a deep breath, try to take this day by day, and remember that this is not a crushing and inevitable future that will sweep over you and destroy you without you (or any other person of good will) having a say in the matter. You still have agency, you still have the ability to protect yourself, and you still have others who will protect you in turn. You're not alone. The bad guys want you to think that, because when you're isolated and terrorized, you're easier to pick off and/or recruit into their cult. But you're not.

In conclusion: "What are we holding onto, Sam?"

[melancholicstation]

god & monsters — bobby f. kennedy

taglist: @jackiesgirl @callmeaftersupper @astro-vibes-bro @lamperry4ever @darcyspirits @absurdlyvintage @h-l-v-kennedy-blog @h-l-vlovesvintage @fortheloveofjos @superzealouscollectordetective @remotewatch @bleatngheart @starsprangledgirl @hisamericanmuse @kimcrystal123

summary: On an October eventide, you are invited to an ordinary Halloween eve soirée. You contract a horrible affliction, a yearning of the heart to end all those before it. All because of your serendipitous meeting with a certain camel haired mortal named Robert “bobby” Kennedy in the grass. For the only the birds and the bees bore witness to what lecherous things you both did with each other on the mead….

tags: 18+ but warning will be given ahead, tiny bit of blasphème sorryyy, rough s*x, fucking in the grasslands, cheating, explicit language, bee sting as repentance, infidelity, you are married but bobby is not.

words: 4,142

my linking should not serve as how you have to imagine this story/world if you do not wish to, these are simply just where I draw personal inspiration.

October 30th 1966

The solitary confines of the seventeen-century estate, all its Provençal grace stood tall unbothered by the many people going in and out of the homestead. Like a glamour queen it seemed entirely unfazed by the many important people within its walls: senators, governors, princesses of niche European constitutional monarchies just to name a few. Now you may be thinking what do all these people have in common? well each got the most coveted invitation to a halloween party hosted by America's very own royal family, or at least that's what The Life Magazine said in their glossy spreads, more specifically the forgotten american prince: Robert F. Kennedy.

And that's exactly how you got here as well. A short week ago you received that same invitation and shared it with your husband: Charles. Charles your husband has been, for years now, vehemently set on a career in politics. Though the farthest had gotten in terms of that had been holding a temporary assistant position at a republican running for state senate. But, turns out grab-handing and meandering around your fair-share of important people eventually you see the benefits. This invite, in Charles head was looking like a decadent, chocolate-covered benefit.

You cringe inside at the thought of chocolate, you've seemed to have a direct affliction to chocolate after a particular 1964 family Christmas in which your husband had had the marvellous idea of bringing his mistress, Kamila, over for Christmas Eve desert. Not like a total unmannered slob, as you would've much preferred, Kamila brought a milk chocolate and toasted hazelnuts bar engraved with a sentence "wishing wealth and prosperity". How gouge. Since then the mere thought of chocolate, or toasted hazelnuts for that matter has utterly repulsed you.

To you this invite was another hellish routine of domestic purgatory. In which you'd smile while dodging questions on why you and Charles hadn't started a family yet with a persistent yearning gnawing, clawing, burrowing in your chest.

"in the land of gods and monsters...

Now parties like the one stamped on the worn card stock weren't all bad. Once you'd met a particularly enticing couple looking to shake up their sex lives with a third. Quite a modern idea you'd thought for the sixties but hey it was eleven pm and the champagne was flowing, and more importantly free.

For the past few days you've been passively doing once, twice-overs on your closet trying to drum up what costume you could make out of the items you already had. High society halloweens were strange in a way. On one hand you would be looked down upon for not dressing up: with people assuming you think yourself to good for such things, on the other if you dressed up in a way unbeffiting of the status you'd be quietly heckled from across the ballroom. You inspected the address on the card more closely, surely there's no ballroom in—you squint your eyes—Château d'Estoublon. Okay, maybe it did have a ballroom if anything was to be indicated from the name. Château d'Estoublon was the creme da le creme of prime-time property in Massachusetts so you were passively excited to gawk at the beautiful exterior.

You decided on recreating Empress Elisabeth of Austria's, or as she'd began to be commonly called 'Empress Sissi', court wedding gown when she married Emperor Franz Joseph. In your eyes it fit the bill, the costume was still playful in its callback to a glamorous Hungarian empress but not so out there that you would look out of place in a billowing cream gown. No doubt many would overshadow you with their elaborate gowns but you didn't mind going understated for the night, you never really felt comfortable 'peak-cocking' like the rest of high society woman did. Though sometimes you wish you did.

,i was an angel looking to get fucked hard...

As you placed the delicate undergarments over your body: a white chiffon one piece - with knickers, linked by satin ribbons and floating chiffon back panels, a gift from a quite eager French man in the fifties. You used to be so encumbered by sexual need and carnal desire, catching the eyes of many: you missed that feeling and you desperately wanted it back. Cutting through the bullshit and to be quite frank you hadn't been truly screwed in about 7 years. Initially the desires of you and Charles had been unendingly compatible, but that compatibility had wavered after marriage and deteriorated like a good piece of cashmere out in the hay bales. Now up until 1964 Christmas you were under the impression that Charles was going through a dry spell and that you would come together soon enough. What you didn't realise was that in fact your husband was not going through a dry spell, no, no quite the opposite. It seemed he was drowning in the orgasmic sap of any woman he could find on his office floor.

If someone had asked you questions on the topic of infidently 10 years ago you might've said some sanctimonious crap on its moral qualms. But now after being routinely cheated on, you finally started to play his game, not often, but play his game all the same when you did.

,like a groupie incognito, posing as a real singer...

Looking at yourself in the baroque gold mirror, an audacious housewarming gift from Charles older brother, you surveyed yourself from the top. Your skin was perfection: slightly unnervingly pore less like those haunted 18th century dolls, your under eyes amazingly betrayed no defining clue that you barely get fours hours of sleep a day. Moving to your décolletage: it was well nourished after a sebum upper body mask wrap last week, beautifully reflecting the breastplate Galliano necklace. Speaking of spa's, funnily enough as a last-ditch effort you had booked a couple spa appointment for you and Charles. Unsurprisingly he didn't show but as fate would have it, another young woman of the name Catherine had done the same with her husband and he hadn't shown either. Incidentally you both wanted to make the most of it and decided to step in for each others husband's. By the strange hand of luck, Kit and her husband had to been invited to the Kennedy Halloween party. Hey, at least you'd have an ally. Moving down your body you'd picked an ivory, red, and gold embellished haute Dior gown as the base of your dress, and billowed it out using a tiered satin padded chemise to mimic Sissi's grand wedding gown. Matched with simple white pumps passed down from your mother.

Despite your pitiful nagging for him to dress as Franz Joseph I so you'd match, Charles decided not to and instead dressed in the polite yet deeply boring combination of a: twill bow tie, vest, backstrap trousers and wool tipping jacket. With a swift look up to you, nothing but a polite smile and a hand on the small of your back, you were both out of the door and into the car.

The first hour of the party proved to be exactly how you expected... pretty boring, vainly you caught the sight of your reflection in the many mirror of the chateau just to keep yourself occupied. You applied a thin, balmy layer of pink blush via a colour stick and applied a hint of lilac hue across the span of your fluttering eyelids, combing your brows back into submission with a pencil. Counting the creeping in wrinkles and frown lines, despite you only being 31, maybe it was all in your head. You looked down at your costume, how sadly fitting. You'd chosen this costume based on a book you'd read on the empresses life during her marriage to Joseph, you'd read her undying battle with an obsession with beauty. And in that way you related to her, in a dying marriage you grapple with anything to have control over. As said as it was you looked forward to the beauty regimes you scheduled and the sacred-rituals you performed on your hair, because it was something entirely your own.

,Life imitates art...

Just as you were about to entire a self pitying comparison between you: an upper-class sixties socialite and the empress of Austria, you see a saving grace in the form of a face. Catherine, finally you thought, what was taking her so long?

Catherine, a woman of striking features and long black-hole like dark hair, "Hey Stranger" she says while brushing an unruly curl from the perimeter of my face with a motherlike tenderness. Speaking of mothers, Catherine brought her 9 month old baby along to the halloween festivities, whom I already known was coming as she'd been complaining to me about how hard it was to find a babysitter to stay after 6pm!

After fussing over Catherine's beautiful velvet tea-length gown and her impossibly adorable babe with wiggling feet and grabby, powdered limbs who had throughly enjoyed your 5 minute game of hide and seek with your manicured fingers in Chanel's shade phénix. Surely enough the guests, including you and Catherine, were all herded like a cattle of sheep into the expansive dining room, suffocated by eighteenth-century French tapestries covering each wall.

First, pisanelli served over friselle crisp bread. Then, a cabbage soup and chou farci. Canned fish and tomato for a side. For desert, pavlova with strawberries, créme anglais and fig-leaf whipped cream. As you took in the delicious aromas, checking in Catherine's baby only to see the bottom of her face beaming with a smile and absolutely covered in the fig-leaf whipped cream.

I don't really wanna know what's good for me...

What was odd however, was not the delicious food, but the absence of the host of the halloween party, Robert F. Kennedy. You had seen some of this family members around, seen Teddy and even the mysterious Jacqueline Kennedy.

Though maybe he was a recluse, hosting parties to keep up the Kennedy name. You didn't pay much mind to it and continued to eat your food.

Hours later, moonlight had descended over the chateau and you, Catherine and her babe had moved under an outside pergola. It was due for the babes feed and Catherine, justifiably, felt uncomfortable revealing herself to a bunch of snobby strangers so the outside it was. In camaraderie you had chosen to forgo the alcoholic beverages on offer and instead bode for a glass of non-alcoholic punch. But looking back down at the punch, after a long chat with your friend, the cup had been drained.

"I'm gonna go over and fill me up another one of these, do you too want anything while I'm up?" gesturing to the smiling mother and babe.

Catherine politely declines and fakes her babe waving to me as I depart the table by waving the sweetlings tiny arms back and fro, to which you childishly giggle in return.

As you traipse through the beautiful grasslands of the estate you come across a large set of oak tables, reminiscent of old-school desks. But instead of notebooks and pens, the tables were now used to display freshly baked breads with individual ribbons on them. A parting gift for the evening no doubt.

God's dead, I said, "Baby, that's alright with me"...

Rounding a stone arch you see a man shrowed in the most beautiful darkness. A kind of darkness that makes you swear of light and go nocturnal simply to marvel at his beauty. His beauty rivalled that of the Gods. His beauty shall live forevermore. His movements are strange until you realise the purpose behind his actions. His large hands peeling open a tuna can, and patiently beckoning a black cat his way. A cat that seemed to be very familiar with the figure as it immediately came and sat at the feet of the man: sapping up the canned tuna.

Though the man has his back to you, you faintly recognised the puffs of smoke coming from his delicate fingertips, could be a hand model this guy! you joke with yourself to starve off the reflex to call out to the mysterious figure. You stare for a creepy amount of time, fitting for the date you guess.

"Sissi right? Empress of Austria" the man calls out in the dark, now his body has turned to your direct attention. And to your surprise it's not just another Harvard graduate with a good back profile, it's the host of the evening: Robert fucking Kennedy.

You stammer out a "Yes-yes, well I've gotta make use of these dresses somehow." An awkward silence grows, as Bobby looks to the moon-cast sky as if he's pondering what to say next

"Sorry I'm very, very rude to not have introduced myself--I'm Robert Kennedy"

"Oh I know who you are"

"You do?"

"Yes sir, quite intimately if reading the New York Times is any metric of intimacy" you halfheartedly chuckle.

"Funny girl. Now funny girl can I get your name perhaps?"

"Y/n"

When you talk, it's like a movie...

"Ravishing" he says in a tone that you can only comprehend as a little teasing but yet kind.

Moments pass as you chit chat about the nights festivities, with him asking you how you felt about the 3-course meal provided, and ask about why Kennedy as a devout catholic decides to throw a halloween party. You politely compliment his choices--

"Oh I didn't choose them. It's all my secretary she's the real brains of this party anyway--she should be here somewhere" bobby states as he looks towards the periphery of the garden.

"Well she has lovely taste, speaking do you know where I could find a bottle of coke? Y'know I saw them about in one those iced buckets but it's location has completely passed me by."

And you're making me crazy...

"I know exactly what your talking about follow me Mon bébé"

The French term of endearment makes your heart flutter, but you simply assume that for these Kennedy men endearment is given out dime a dozen.

You follow him like an obedient cattle dog, catching the stare of bobby as he turns his head to look at you every few moments to make sure you're still there. Some would find that creepy, that you're sure of, but to you it seemed be an unconscious thing for Robert--seemingly not believing in himself to make someone stay.

On the walk you began to become curious on how Robert got your costume so lightening quick "You read up about Emperors and Empresses of Austria or what? How'd you get it so fast"

'Cause life imitates art...

Robert chuckles, looking down slightly "No--Nah, I-I did some reading on them during the Vienna summit. Y'know cause jack wouldn't let me into the meeting, he thought I'd embarrass him or something, so I just had to wait outside. And I don't really like waiting all that much so I went down to the local bookstore and rented a few, took them back in the morning."

You nod and feel slightly taken aback at the mention of his brother, he discussed his brother with nearly no one. No one in the press at least. The last time you could remember bobby talking about his brother directly was that Democratic National Convention in 1964, looking like a wounded deer.

You aren't able to sit in that stupor for too long because you've come to arrive at the coke's, all the bottles laid beautifully in a bucket of decadent, some would say over the top amounts of crushed ice.

While Robert grabs the drinks, you fumble inside the pockets of your dress to find your compact, opening it to inspect the state of affairs on your face.

Robert grabs two: one for you and one for him, you don't miss that he grabs yours before ever thinking of himself.

If I get a little prettier, can I be your baby?...

"Shoot!" you say under you're breath: you'd just realised in that moment that you would one hundred percent smudge your lipstick if you drank that coke, and then you'd have to continue the party looking like an absolute idiot because you'd forgotten to pack the lipstick in your clutch.

"What's the matter?" Robert says with a father figure-like concern, despite not having any children: at least to your knowledge.

"Oh it's nothing really I just realised I can't drink this 'cause of my lipstick"

"O-oh okay" Robert stumbles out as he looks up at the sky again, seemingly deep in thought. He does that a lot you think.

Bobby bumbles out "Well if it wouldn't make you to-to uncomfortable. I could Y'know feed you the drink so you don't mess up your lipstick--if you want of course"

You tell me, "Life isn't that hard"...

Taken aback slightly, due to the intimacy of the offer, you freeze for a few seconds but ultimately agree to his proposition. You trust him, a man you've just met today and formally only seen on the news stands, for some bovine reason.

Before you knew it he delicately placed curling, like a willow tree in the string, finger and cupped your chin: pouring the kola nut coloured drink down your oesophagus. Despite the strangeness of the position you two were in it felt right. It felt like what you'd imagined married life to be: the person you love more than anything filling you, and you filling them in return, both metaphorically and literally.

18+ AFTER THIS POINT

There was a certain erotic substance of being feed you'd learned in these past moments. I felt thirsty for him, for his hands, for this chest barely concealed by the Japanese cotton sweater he donned, for his musk that was like if tuberose had been carried on by the sea breeze, for anything and everything you'd be so lucky to receive from him.

I had someone who was hungry for me. I could see it in his eyes, robin's egg blue coloured eyes, as he feed me the coke.

And I was equally, if not more, much more hungry for him. Starved.

He paused the flow of the drink, in order to stop me from completely choking: at least one of us had kept our whits about us.

The hand on your chin never leaves, it lingers and lingers and lingers. My god you are such a fool for a man you've didn't know 12 hours ago.

He catches your eye, looking ever so pensive.

"Do you wanna go messin' around with me, cause I can take you back it's no pressure. I assure you there's no need to give the host any favours" he says in a timid tone expecting, almost wanting to be proven right: that'd you leave. That you'd desert.

"I think we should fuck. Do you think we should fuck?" you say in an incredulous tone, you'd never assumed this kind of attitude but his being had brought it out in you. This carnal, caged animal, woman scorned desire bubbling inside you like a pot of Turkish tea over the stove.

"Yes-yes well I think it's a great idea to fuck actually. It seems like a very good idea in my opinion. Y'know as a U.S senator." his slight arrogance, drunk with power disposition could've scared you. But it really didn't at all, in fact it enticed you to him even more.

All of a sudden, he grabs the skin of your neck and kisses you almost punishably: trying to communicate where have you been hiding for all these years? why didn't we find each other sooner? why have you left me alone?

Messy top lip kisses turn into feverish French and soon you're traipsing further into the countryside of the chateau. He seems to know his way around here: you don't even want to think of the rendezvous he probably has had here.

He leads you to a short alcove in the forrest with tree stumps and a billowing willow tree shielding it from the cruelness of the outside world. A cocoon of sorts.

"Is that a bee's nest"

"No, it used to be but it's been barren after they migrated in the summer. Relax, no one with be able to see not even the bee's. Promise."

You get situated on the ground when Robert drops a bombshell question out of complete left field

"You married?"

"No, are you?"

"No--well not in the real sense, not how marriage is supposed to" Hey maybe that was a bend of the truth but it wasn't a lie, I mean really was it?

From that assurance he immediately pounces on you like a Burmese tiger. His wandering, yearning hands scour your body looking for something you're not quite sure of yourself.

He seemed to like to assume a more dominant position so you let him have his way with you, for so long you had had to hard-shelled around men. But with Robert he had this aroma that just made you want to show your soft underbelly to him, wanted him to care for it like he cared for you.

He manoeuvred both himself and you to be on your sides, your back to his chest. And slowly dipped it in. At first it was only the start, almost knocking at your door: begging to be let in, to get at whatever was inside. And so you welcomed him in the only way you knew how. He wasn't aborally big but he fit like those perfect pair of white tennis shoes that have been worn out just the right amount. His being felt like a return.

"Fuck yeah, give it to me you braves mädchen (good girl in German)"

"I'm giving it. Want to give everything to you, take it from me. Robert, take it all from me now."

His hips moved at a pace that showed a man who aimed to please. A man who aimed to please you, beyond the confines your physical existence.

"This is heaven. This is what they meant" I finally got what made people so devout. They found something to believe in, and in that moment I had to. In that fallen angel taking the form of Robert Kennedy.

Just before his climax, Robert switched positions hoisting your body to now be facing him. A sweetness to the fact that he wanted to share this moment with you, to make sure you didn't feel alone. As he climaxed he reached pitifully at you, pawing but with the determination that he wasn't done until you had gone over that wonderful edge as well.

Soon came your time, and went it came it was the epitome of that beautiful fall from grace. In your bliss you hadn't noticed that Bobby did not share the look he donned just a minute ago. He looked quite concerned, gazing upon the valley of your breasts.

God he's such a man, you thought. But once you looked down you saw a pretty nasty wasp bite right between your two breasts. You weren't all too bothered as you'd experienced stings before: Bobby however looked abjectly terrified. Fumbling through the pockets of the little clothes he kept on to see if he could aid the pain of the sting.

"Bobby It's just a wasp sting. Don't mind it"

"Well I should mind it, You're hurt. Plus now i'm gonna have to explain to the John Jr's night nurse why in the hell I need bee sting supplies at 12pm"

"It's fine, it'll pass" your face betrays that it's not quite fine in the moment. As your post-orgasmic bliss fades and the pain pentrates you.

"No-no, that just won't do. Tell you what we're going to do: we're going to go hop in my car and drive to the clinic and see what they say. It looks pretty nasty honig." (honey in German)

"There's that German again when did you learn that?"

"About five or six, truth be told I stole the language books from Eunice room. She never used them anyway."

Bobbys moves to gather his things and looks at you expectantly.

"Y'know it's kind of funny. Those bee's haven't been seen for months around the likes of here."

"Maybe they wanted to punish me"

"Now what would a girl like you ever do that needs punishing, huh?"

"Nothing" you say innocently. Bending the truth be damned.

"Damn straight." Bobby says with a killer smirk, responding to your held up hands by hoist up and over his shoulder. Crassly patting the flesh of your bum.

"Hey shouldn't the host stay till the end of the party?"

"Nuh-uh. Not tonight they shouldn't." bobby says still carrying you upside down.

The blood rushes to your head. You've never felt so alive in your life.

It's innocence lost Innocence lost

the end.

[m00nymonster]

Aaaand we're back! I really like this one :)

Yellow

Prompt: survive

"Place your bets," the foreman said as he painted my armor yellow. I was given a large projectile weapon, as was the other SecUnit, who was currently being painted blue. Humans gathered around the foreman, betting credits or meal packets. (I never understood the human need to gamble, but I particularly never understood why they would bet meal packets. Credits were one thing, but humans needed food to survive. But hey, I was just going to do the shooting, not the eating.)

I'd won the previous two fights, so the odds were better on me. It wasn't because I was better at fighting than the other SecUnits. It was mostly because I could ignore my governor module when it said stupid things like saving ammo or not damaging company property. I had to be careful to not act too independent, but a little ability to actually defend myself for once (SecUnit fights are usually just shooting at each other until one of us is disabled) came in handy.

The foreman finished painting me. I stepped forward into the arena cleared out for us. It was a tunnel used for transport, but the humans had moved all the shuttles out of the way. On one side was a short barricade in front of a sheer drop. Great.

The other SecUnit stepped forward, as did I. We separated and walked to opposite sides of the arena as the humans cheered.

"Hey Yellow!" a particularly loud human yelled. "You'd better lose, I bet three meal packets on Blue!"

I rolled my eyes behind my opaqued helmet. It wasn't my problem if the human starved.

(Well, it would be if he became too weak to work and I was ordered to force him to work anyway, but that was a future problem.) (The current problem was the SecUnit in front of me.)

"And...go!" the foreman yelled. I jumped to the side and rolled as the other SecUnit fired at me. I managed to fire a few shots, aiming for its knee joint. If we were lucky I could just disable it and hopefully that would satisfy my audience.

The other SecUnit wasn't so scrupulous.

It fired directly at my head. (Rude.) I managed to dodge and ran across the arena, firing again and again, trying to avoid the sheer drop behind me. The SecUnit fired back and hit me in the knee. I fell, leaking fluid and blood, and the crowd cheered.

"Finish it!" the same human yelled. The SecUnit fired at me, but I rolled out of the way, my knee joint clicking loudly. The SecUnit ran forward, but I turned down my pain sensors and swiveled, blasting at the SecUnit as it darted behind me.

Unfortunately, behind me was the sheer drop. I shot it in the chest and it broke the barricade.

I had a few seconds before it fell. If I ran at top speed, I could catch it. And if I hadn't had a crowd of humans behind me, cheering and hooting and booing, I might have. But a governed SecUnit doesn't go out of its way to save another SecUnit.

I could have saved it.

I didn't.

It fell and a few pregnant seconds went by before we heard the crash. The crowd screamed in glee and despair. The foreman ran up and looked over the barrier.

"Yellow wins," he said "Someone get down there and collect the pieces. I think there's enough to throw back in a cubicle."

He looked at me. I stood still and leaked.

"Get this one to a cubicle too," he said. "We'll get it ready for tomorrow."

I limped away, my knee joint clicking, and played episode 206 of Sanctuary Moon.

[blablablabla-ur-mom]

Every day that we get closer to tgr being released, I become.e just a little more unhinged. So here is my theory for Jeremy's backstory and elodie maybe being alive.

(This has no real chance of being canon but hey we got tsc through being delusional. )

So we know Jeremy has an older brother (gonna call him Joe for convenience cuz I forgot his name) that he avoids like the plague, and Stuart said elodie was bought by an arms dealer.

Young teen Joe joined a gang in secret and quickly started working his way up the ranks. Now one of the gangsters had a friend on the other side of the world, that happened to sell guns. This friend is the arms dealer that bought elodie.

A little while before the banquet, the arms dealer visits his friend. Joe tracks him down and tries to buy a weapon

The dealer refuses because reasons and instead Joe waits for him to meet up with his friend and steals a gun.

Joe does who knows what with the gun, and soon realizes that he just fucked with an arms dealer. So he tries to pin it on his little brother Jeremy.

Jeremy, who is at the banquet, is completely oblivios to his older brother sneaking in and planting an unregistered firearm into his bag. He is completly unaware when event security walks up and tells him he has to leave. Then he's at the station, shaking his head because he doesn't know how a gun got into his bag he doesn't now how any of this happened! But the police don't believe him and in the end his parents have to do a lot of shit to cover this up. The dealer knows better than to go after him because he is a governors son. And Jeremy never again trusts cop because how the fuck did they not see the guilty look on his brothers face.

I made a previous post about elodie being alive and one of the responses said she may have been bought to be used as target practice. I hate this idea but I'm running with it.

Flash forward a few years and elodie is 14/15. She is malnourished, covered in scars from bullets she could not dodge, and is barely there. But she is a Moreau, and she will endure. She will endure until her captors either kill her, or she finds a way out and back to her family. Not her parents, but the brother that was taken from her, he is her only family, the only thing that has kept her going these long years.

one day, she hears gunshots, not unusual but the amount of shots is. And there men grabbing her and taking her somewhere, and she's kicking and screaming because she thinks this is the end. Then they put something over her mouth and everything goes dark.

She wakes up in a hospital room with two strange men sitting across from her. They're speaking a language she doesn't understand and have to bring in a translator. They ask for her name but takes a few moments for the translator to understand her because of how hoarse her voice is. "My name is Elodie Moreau"

She finds out her brother sold out their family, that the fbi have been investigating her family and the contact her mother sold her too. She finds out Jean is alive.

Jean and Jeremy are at home when they get a knock at the door. It's an agent and he saying Jean has to come with him. Instead of taking Jean to the building where they took his confesion, they take him to a hospital. He's confused for all of a second when he steps into the room. Then he sees her. The sister he thought he'd lost is sitting there. To anyone else she would have been unrecognizable, but he knows. He kniws because he's dreamt if seeing those very same gray eyes again for years. She may be covered in wretched scars that make him want to throttle his parents, but she's there.

[reasonsforhope]

"A trio of health care bills enshrining access in Colorado to abortion and gender-affirming procedures and medications became law Friday [April 14th] as the Democrat-led state tries to make itself a safe haven for its neighbors, whose Republican leaders are restricting care.

The main goal of the legislation signed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is to ensure people in surrounding states and beyond can go to Colorado to have an abortion, begin puberty blockers or receive gender-affirming surgery without fear of prosecution. Bordering states of Wyoming and Oklahoma have passed abortion bans, and Utah has severely restricted transgender care for minors...

The governor’s office was packed with lawmakers, advocates and health care providers, many of them women, for a ceremony with a celebratory feel that resembled a rally at times with loud applause and call-and-response chants.

“We see you and in Colorado, we’ve got your back,” Democratic state Sen. Julie Gonzales said during the ceremony.

With the new laws, Colorado joins Illinois as a progressive peninsula offering reproductive rights to residents of conservative states on three sides. Illinois abortion clinics now serve people living in a 1,800-mile (2,900-kilometer) stretch of 11 Southern states that have largely banned abortion...

Colorado’s southern neighbor, New Mexico, is also controlled by Democrats and signed a similar abortion protection bill earlier this year. It legally shields those who seek abortions or gender-affirming care, and those who provide the treatments, from interstate investigations...

Polis added the first layer of abortion protection a year ago, signing an executive order that bars state agencies from cooperating with out-of-state investigations regarding reproductive healthcare. One of the bills he signed Friday codifies that order into law. Like the New Mexico law, it blocks court summons, subpoenas and search warrants from states that decide to prosecute someone for having an abortion.

Colorado’s abortion law extends the protections to transgender patients dodging restrictions in their own states. Gender-affirming health care has been available for decades, but some states have recently barred minors from accessing it, even with parental consent. Hospitals in some of those states say gender-affirming surgeries are rarely recommended for minors anyway. Puberty blockers are more common.

Also on Friday, Polis signed a measure that outlaws “deceptive practices�� by anti-abortion centers, which are known to market themselves as abortion clinics but don’t actually offer the procedure. Instead, they attempt to convince patients to not terminate their pregnancies. The bill also prohibits sites from offering what’s called an abortion pill reversal — and unproven practice to reverse a medical abortion...

A third bill signed Friday requires large employers to offer coverage for the total cost of an abortion, with an exception for those who object on religious grounds. It exempts public employees because Colorado’s constitution forbids the use of public funds for abortions."

-via AP News, 4/14/23

[averagejoesolomon]

In light of, uh, recent news I'd like to present a slice of comfort. Please enjoy a couple thousand words of a man written by a woman. The book agent hunt is going well, so I may not be back until the later end of December, but here's a little treat to get you through the wait.

The Cameron-Morgan Wedding (1987)

“Shit.”

Matt’s bow tie droops during the first few notes of the Canon. With a glance down his front, he spots one end hanging lower than it should, slipped through the neat little knot at the crest of his collar and somehow fraying into messy, tattered strands.

This never would have happened if Rachel had done it, the way she always does up his bow ties. She’s good luck. But Abby had been insistent that he not see the bride before the ceremony and notably, Abby ain’t of any help now. Her eyes widen across the way, both of them knowing that Rachel has planned this moment down to second, down to the step, down to the snap of the photographer’s shutter. She has a comprehensive list of every last shot she expects to capture and none of them include a busted up bow tie.

Thankfully, the photographers ain’t looking at him. No one is. As the stringed quintet fills the grand atrium with the classic tune, all 342 attendees take their cue to stand and turn toward the bride. Matt can’t make out any details from his place at the end of a long aisle, but he doesn’t need to. She takes up all the air in the room. She fills it from wall-to-wall, balcony-to-balcony, stack-to-stack-to-stack. The George Peabody Library has 300,000 books and fifteen-hundred first editions, but it’s never felt as full as it does when Rachel Cameron walks through its doors, dressed all in white.

And Matt refuses to look like this, when she looks like that. “Joe.”

“Keep your cool, cowboy.”

Joe’s already at his front, pulling the bow tie from Matt’s neck with the same sort of precision he pulls a trigger. He tucks this into his jacket pocket, right next to the rings, then unloops the half-Windsor around his own neck. Matt’s collar is popped, in a way Rachel explicitly prohibited when he asked months before, but Joe makes quick work of wrapping the new tie into place, tying it into a neat knot, then tucking Matt’s collar back into place. It’s not a bow tie, but it’ll do.

Joe takes his place at Matt’s back once more, tie-less and without enough time to redo his top button before the room turns slowly toward the towering floral wedding arch. Rachel’s halfway down the aisle when Matt looks back up and, not for the first time in their lives, her beauty strikes him straight on.

She’s a fresh snowfall on Christmas Eve. She’s the crystalline frost on the window, catching rays of winter sunlight. She’s angelic. She’s godly. She’s divine.

On her arm, Henry locks eyes with Matt and mimes a subtle tuck into the front of his suit jacket. With a quick glance, Matt realizes the tail of his tie hangs free and quickly tucks it behind his buttons, just in time for the photographer to snap a picture.

_____

The George Peabody Library is the sort of place where a woman like Rachel Cameron deserves to get married, even if she is marrying a farm boy from Nebraska. 

It’s all black-and-white tile, gold-leafed columns, and old wood shelves brimming with books that smell like a stack of newspapers. It’s twinkling lights strung from five stories of intricate iron balconies. It’s low, golden sconces lighting up a crowd of elegant evening wear and it’s a private stringed quintet playing from the second balcony.

This is a prestigious enough event to be covered by the local papers—which is a tricky sort of affair given that half of their attendees are deep in the world of covert intelligence, but Rachel navigates this with ease, and everyone here knows how to dodge a reporter if need be. The invitations had been embossed with real gold, tucked into parchment envelopes sealed with golden wax and addressed to the most important names in Maryland High Society. The governor is in attendance. Both senators. Multiple members of the Secret Service, all of them off-duty, given that the Vice President and Second Lady regretfully declined. Sports stars, and business moguls, and socialites. Rachel Cameron’s wedding is the undisputed event of the season.

Matt forgets about all of this, the moment Rachel smiles up at him.

That’s all it takes. From her, it never takes much. Rachel is made from carefully restrained might, always looking for an avenue to escape. When it finally finds a place to land, it strikes in these dense, controlled bolts of intention, and Matt reckons he could spend a lifetime on the receiving end. One look from her, done up in white, is all it takes to steal him away. To notice her, and only her, even as he stands in a gorgeous venue among a gorgeous crowd.

She’s lace, hand-sewn into her bodice. Satin trailing at her back. There are pearls around her neck, hanging from her ears, wrapped around her wrists. Daisies, daisies, daisies done up in braids, reminding him of the first time he truly met the real and ruthless Rachel. The woman he’s come to love.

It’s them. Only them, right up until the moment Rachel passes her white rose bouquet to Abby and Joe passes a pair of golden rings to Matt. 

Do you, Rachel? “I do.”

Do you, Matthew? “I do.”

Her lips break into a wide smile when they kiss. The strings, and the lights, and the applause all come second to her. _____

As two of Langley’s best and brightest, Matt and Rachel know how to sneak away from a crowd, and they make quick work of it as their cocktail hour comes to a close. The day so far has been a blur of travel, timelines, dresses and ties, and more posed photos than he can count. Finally, finally they find an intimate moment in the chaos, slipping between the fifth-floor stacks appropriately labeled Romantics.

Matt’s only want in the world is to grab her, pull her in close, and steal a moment just for himself. Except his hands are otherwise occupied with two armfuls of satin and lace. “Love of my life,” he says, with some exasperation. “It’s time to change your dress.”

Rachel runs her fingers along the spines of leather-bound books, train trailing as she goes. “Says who?”

“Says you, four hours ago,” he reminds her. “And for the past week. And for the last three months, when you said under no circumstances were you to wear the same dress to dinner that you wore to the ceremony.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she says, scanning the shelves. “Three dresses is a little ridiculous, don’t you think?”

It’s a quick and efficient reminder that this is only her second dress of the night, and the two of them will do this all over again with a third, smaller dress moments before the dance floor opens to the room. Matt doesn’t mind. So far, this small sliver of a shared moment is the best part of the best day of his life.  “I do think,” he replies. “And said so, when you were first fitted for them, but I was told it was rude to decline designers when they offer you a free dress. And also, I was outvoted.”

“By Abby.”

“By you and Abby,” Matt says. “And by your dad who, in my book, counts as five votes.”

“You shouldn’t be worried about my father.”

“M’not worried about your father,” he insists. “I’m worried about you, six weeks from now, when we get our photos back and you’re not in the right dress.” “Because you’d never hear the end of it?”

“Because from here on out, it’s my job to make sure you’re never disappointed again.”

Her wandering finger freezes, casting a long shadow through dim library lighting. The golden glow of the stacks hugs her cheekbones, her jaw, her neck as she tosses a glance over her shoulder. “You really are very sweet, you know.”

He shrugs, and the movement brings fifteen pounds of fabric with it. Arms growing tired, he hangs Gown Number Two from one of the shelves, in a way that would almost certainly make a librarian cringe. “I’m a catch,” he agrees. “Now please let me put this dress on you.”

She studies him, in that harsh, glaring way only she can. He’s come to love that glare. He married her for that glare. He must have seen this exact look a hundred times over and he’ll probably see it a thousand times more—but never again from Rachel Cameron. No sir. Her severity belongs to Rachel Morgan now.

Maybe she feels the shift too, because she softens and nods, collecting her cascading curls to pull them over her shoulder. Her back is exposed, shoulder blades sitting just along a lace seam and casting a shadow like wings. 

Dress Number One is held in place by no less than twenty individual buttons, so he doesn’t waste a breath. He meets Rachel at her back, methodically unlooping one satin button after another, the fabric smooth and stiff along his thumbprint. Inch by inch, the corset falls away and he spots another layer of buttons as he goes—but these ones can’t come undone. These buttons are bright and red, pressed into her skin, following the lines along her back. A full wedding day, etched into her spine, promising to stay through the evening.

He lets his touch linger along the ridges, confirming their phantom existence, and Rachel’s shoulders melt.  She lets go of a breath that she’s been holding all night.

“The poets were wrong,” she says.

With the last button undone, her dress drops into a puffy puddle, wrung around her ankles and revealing the silk slip she wears below. He catches a preview of the garter he’ll remove later, holding up sheer white stockings that stretch to her thigh, then takes her hand to hold her steady. “About what?”

She steps out of the ivory pile, landing square at his front. Her gaze cranes upward when she says, “About love,” she says, surrounded by Keats, and Shelley, and Byron, and Blake. “About how it feels.”

Dress Number One is left abandoned on the tile, while Matt dutifully fetches Dress Number Two. This one trades buttons for ribbons and he helps her step into it before lacing her up. “Is that right?”

He threads and pulls at silk, relishing in the fact that he’ll get to undo these same knots later. Rachel glances over her shoulder once more and says, “I’ve never read a single sonnet that made me feel the way I feel with you.”

And it ain’t fair, the way she looks at him. Like she’s somehow known the whole time. Like she knows everything, and he’s got a lot of catching up to do. Fine, then. He’s more than happy to make up for lost time, and he starts with a kiss—not their first as husband and wife, but certainly their best so far, with plenty more to follow.

They’re late to dinner, but Rachel Morgan seems to glow when she finally enters the ballroom in her second gown of the night. The room cheers, Abby gives a speech, and Matt’s pops says a prayer before dinner.

_____

“Dance with me.”

“Not much of a dancer.”

“You’ll dance with me, though.”

When it comes to Abigail Cameron, there’s not much Matt won’t do. Unfortunately, no one knows this better than Abby herself. She’s smiling that monumental smile of hers, hands falling to either side of his lapel as she steps into time and pulls him right along with her. Together they fall into the sway of an Elton John song, not quite a ballad, not quite rock and roll.

Their practiced ballroom steps feel familiar after spending so much time dancing across the world. “This is the part,” she says, “where you tell me how pretty I look.”

“You do,” he says, and he means it. He’s always thought so, since she first strutted into his life. She’s a good looking girl in a good looking dress, every part of her carefully curated to draw the eye. “I like the dress.”

“It has pockets,” she points out.

“Very handy,” he says.

“Matt, we’re family now,” she says. “You’re going to have to get more excited about my dress pockets. It’s what family does.”

With nothing more than the shape of her step, Matt senses a twirl coming on and he sets her up with ease. He spins her not just once, but twice, because Abby always likes to go for a little extra flair. “We’ve been family for a while now, I think,” he says, pulling her back into their shared frame. “I think you knew, even back then.”

“Back when you were a true-blue farm boy who’d never seen a woman before?” she says with a doting look. “I’ll take credit for a lot, but I can’t take credit for that one. Truth be told, I expected to burn through you as quickly as I burned through all the others. I had no idea what you’d eventually mean to me. To her.”

Abby doesn’t say her name, but even so, Matt can’t help but glance toward Rachel, standing on the far side of the room and chatting with the Secretary of Transportation. The whole night has been like that—finding Rachel, wherever she may be. Landing on her. Lingering.

It must be the same for her because she turns, as though she feels his eyes on her. Catches his glance. Beams.

“When was it?” he asks, prying his eyes back toward Abby. “When did you know?”

Abby studies him, debating. Matt is trusted with Pentagon secrets and espionage of the highest international order, but still she searches his features as though she’s not quite sure he’s ready to hear the truth. “Long before either of you,” she says. “That’s for sure.”

“Abby—”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I have a sisterly duty to uphold a longstanding tradition between bridesmaids and groomsmen.”

“There’s only one groomsman,” Matt reminds her. “And it’s Joe.”

“Isn’t that interesting?”

“When did you know?” he tries again, grabbing hold of her arm before she can step away, and again, she holds her tongue. Tests the answer in her head.

Finally, she lets a softer smile slip. “The first time you called her, instead of calling me.”

There’s something bittersweet in her tone, which Matt only hears because it’s Abby. He’s known her longer than just about anyone here, enough to know that she wants to be wanted. That she stands with the sort of confidence that comes from other people, rather than someplace deep within herself. For Abby, Matt is the one who got away—not in the traditional sense, but rather, in the sense that Matt stopped needing Abby before she stopped needing him. 

Him, getting away from her. What a world.

So he says, with a smile all his own, “Thank you for trying to burn me, way back when.”

She tuts, a manicured hand reaching toward his cheek where she leaves two farewell pats. “Anytime, hot stuff.”

From the surrounding speakers, Elton John turns to Cindy Lauper. Matt is quickly left in the dust as Abby squeals, turns toward Rachel, and races across the room to pull her onto the dance floor next. The two of them find the center of a dance circle made entirely of women, screaming along to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” 

_____

Matt slides a glass of good scotch across a bar top. “Thanks again,” he says, “for flying my folks out.”

Henry Cameron catches the scotch at the bar’s end. He doesn’t spare a glance for it, too caught up in watching his girls dance. “A mother should get to see her only son’s wedding,” he says. “And your mother, in particular, is a delight—is it possible my guest room is somehow cleaner than it was the day she arrived?”

“Yessir, that’ll be my mama,” Matt says, ordering a glass of scotch for himself. “I appreciate the accommodations.”

“She may stay as long as she likes,” he says. “And your father was asking about some of the memorials. I thought I might take them downtown while they’re here, if that’s alright with you?”

His parents have a three-week stretch in DC and while he knew the Cameron Estate would take good care of them, he never expected the man of the house to personally show them the sights. “Yeah,” he says, a little too quickly. “Yes, absolutely—you should know, though, that my pops has a hard time walking long distances. He won’t say anything about it, but he’s had a limp since he first came home and he’s never managed to shake it. And my mama—”

Henry lifts a single hand, finally shifting his gaze to Matt. “Rest assured they’ll be well taken care of while you’re away,” he says. “I have a connection or two, when it comes to touring the Mall.”

Matt’s got no doubt. If there’s one thing he’s learned about Henry over the past few years, it’s that he has a connection for everything. “Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”

Henry’s attention falls back to his girls. The space between them seems to grow as Matt runs out of words, opting instead to take a sip from his drink as it arrives. Their relationship begins and ends with the Circle of Cavan, and this hardly seems like the time to talk strategy.

“I suppose it’s the least I can do,” Henry finally says. “You make my girls happy, and for that I owe you a great deal.”

Matt follows his look across the dance floor to find the sisters now dancing arm-in-arm to a ballad, talking and giggling through the slow waltzy rhythm. Rachel swipes dirt from Abby’s dress. Abby fixes one of Rachel’s wayward daisies. They both laugh at a joke Matt can’t hear from this far away. “They make me better,” he admits. “They’ve taken care of me. And I reckon it’s my turn to take care of them.”

Henry nods, in that sage way he passed along to his eldest. “I know that,” he says. “I know you’re going to try, anyway.”

This catches his ear. “Try, sir?”

Henry sips back the last of his drink, letting the glass land hallow on the bar. “Have you given any thought to how you’re going to keep your lives separate?” he asks. “Your life with her”—he casts a glance toward Rachel, then swiftly shifts towards Joe—”versus your life with him?”

Little does Henry know, Matt’s been asking this same question since stitching up Joe in an Italian bathroom, but he’s right. Matt feels it, too. There’s a disconnect between his dreams—between wanting to keep Joe out of his past, and diving straight into a future with Rachel. No matter how many times Matt turns the options over in his head, they end up overlapping. “Every night,” Matt tells him. “Right after I close my eyes, and just before I fall asleep.”

Familiarity creeps into Henry’s expression, and Matt can’t tell if that’s a good thing. “That feeling,” he says, “never, ever goes away.”

For years, Henry has served as Matt’s barometer for what this case can do to good men after chasing it for a very long time. By and large, all those extra years come with benefits—contacts, authority, expertise. But every so often, Matt spots a shadow below Henry’s eyes, signaling some bone-deep exhaustion that feels more and more inevitable every time Matt sees it.

“Promise me this,” says Henry. “Promise me that no matter how long this goes, no matter how close you get—you prioritize her. You make sure she’s safe, above all else.”

Matt considers this. Nods once, definitive. Seems like a fair enough request. Taking the final sip from his own glass, Matt promises, “‘Til death do us part.”

_____

“You know,” says Matt, voice raised over the roar of turbine engines. “My pops gave me all kinds of grief about taking a private jet.”

“What’s the matter?” Rachel calls back. “Haven’t the people of Lake Hayfield ever seen a private plane?”

“I dunno about Lake Hayfield,” says Matt, taking her roller bag to carry up the steps. “But I’ll tell you what, the people of Hay Springs sure haven’t.” 

In a career where jetsetting and globetrotting are commonplace, the only real vacation is spent at home among familiar sights, sounds, and textures. Rather than spend their honeymoon looking over their shoulders in a foreign country, Matt and Rachel decide to keep things domestic, where they can afford to be entirely single-minded about the next few weeks. Someplace safe. Someplace they don’t have to think about.

The apartment, they decided, was out of the question. While Joe may be a discrete and quiet roommate, Matt intends to do some downright indiscreet things to Rachel that will make her anything but quiet. And because he also has no desire to do so under Henry Cameron’s roof, her place was booted off the list just as quickly. 

“Your father’s flown private before, hasn’t he?” she asks.

Matt doesn’t know how to break it to her, that normal people don’t ever see the inside of a private jet. “Not unless you count an Army flier.”

This sends her lips into a puzzled frown, and Matt just wants to kiss them straight.

After some back-and-forth, Matt convinced his folks to spare the one and only home he’s got left. It’s a trade, of sorts. His parents finally make a long-awaited trip to DC, courtesy of the Cameron Estate, while he and Rachel take the ranch. All he had to do was promise to watch the wheat and let the animals out every morning.

Rachel was less enthusiastic about the animals, but Matt’s certain she’ll come around when she sees the first sunset across the plains.

“We should send him back on the jet,” Rachel offers.

“I love you,” he says, “but my pops would sooner die than show up back home in one of these things.”

Matt’s only proven right when he steps into the cabin, finished with fine woods and leathers. A bottle of Champagne waits for them on ice, the label written in French and the vintage starting with an eighteen. The smell of steak fills the air, which is a relief to his grumbling stomach because even though he paid for most of the wedding food, he somehow didn’t eat much of it. It’s the last taste of luxury they’ll have for the next few weeks, so he vows to enjoy every second of it.

He stows her bag, then his. Pops the Champagne, then pours both of them a glass. She holds out her flute toward his, crystal chiming as their glasses clink, and they sip. Take a breath. With the taste of grapes on his lips, he kisses her the same way he has all night, just so damn lucky to be here.

“You know,” he says, barely pulling away. “I’ve always wondered—”

“Matthew,” she scolds.

“I haven’t even said it yet.”

She falls into her seat, digging for the buckle to strap herself in. There’s a subtle edge to her foreboding glance. The one that begs him to challenge her. “You didn’t have to,” she says. “It’s an eight hour flight. We can wait.”

“I’m not saying we have to go for the home run,” he teases, dropping to his place just at her front, down on his knees for her, just as he always seems to be. “Just that if you let me warm up my throwing arm now, I might be able to pitch a perfect game later.”

She laughs, short and haughty and delighted. Her hand falls into his hair, scratching warm streaks into his scalp. “You hate pitchers,” she reminds him.

“I’ve got a third-base metaphor I could use instead.”

“Matthew.”

“Alright, alright,” he says. She’s still wearing her final dress, the shortest of the three. It was made for dancing, and the alternative benefits are a nice bonus. “I can scrounge up a golf metaphor instead.”

“You,” she says, taking another sip of Champagne, “are a smartmouth.”

“Agreed,” he says, just as his fingertips find the lace on her stockings. His lips follow close behind, landing along the hem as his wide eyes search for her answering smile. “So how about we see what else my mouth can do, hmm?”

Another laugh. A lifetime of her laugh. It sends his stomach twisting in all the best ways.

Two of her fingers find his chin, lifting his head up to look at her properly. “Buckle up, so we can take off,” she tells him. “And when we’re in the air, you can help me get this dress off. Fair?”

Now it’s his turn to smile, but he doesn’t hold it long before Rachel’s lips are on his, a smile of her own sneaking in.

[the-fiction-witch]

You... You can't just Kidnap a Girl FAGIN! P1

Media The Artful Dodger

Character Jack Dawkins

Couple Jack X Reader (Lady)

Rating Cute

Requested:

Hey, I absolutely love your writing and I have an idea so basically y/n is the governor's daughter and belle's sister and she knows of jack and he's kinda admired her for a while and fagin knows it, but jack is in debt still so fagin kidnaps her or something to get jack the money and yeah that's it and maybe some ~smut~ . anyways I absolutely adore this fic so far and you don't have to do it but I just thought it was a cool idea 

I finished up with the rounds cleaning off my hands as I headed through the ward, my bottom lip between my teeth as Fagin followed me around while I was trying to work. He was panicking and frankly so was I, we had three days to get the rest of Darius' money... and currently we had about four pounds of the twenty-six required. 

"I told you no." I snapped down his stupid idea, 

"I don't know why you keep ignoring me dodge I have the best ideas..."

"You have terrible ideas, Fagin," I warn, 

"Why don't we... sell fake prescriptions?"

"No. I am not letting you get me in trouble."

"Why not... sell the damn mangy hospital cat." He said, "Five bob for the meat two for the skin, and we'll be on our way."

"Hosptial-" I began as I looked around spotting the little black cat on the floor nibbling at some removed fingers, the usual black fur, blue eyes and purple collar, "That is not a mangy street cat." I told him as I carefully went over and picked the cat up she very happily nuzzled into my arms for a cuddle starting to purr, "This is Lady Nightingale, Lady Y/n Fox's cat. This cat outranks the both of us." I warned him as I took the cat to the front office to keep it out of trouble, 

"she won't miss it-"

"Fagin." I stopped him, "I cannot. Cannot. be more clear about this. You touch that cat. it is both of our arses. That is the governor's daughter's cat and if so much as a hair on its perfectly brushed head is hurt I will ship you back to London myself," I told him,

"...When did you ever gain such an affection for cats?"

"I don't have an affection for cats. However, this one is a prized possession of someone very powerful and influential so it is in the best interests of our remaining alive if we do not hurt the cat." I told him as I gave the cat a pet and a check over as she tended to get into mischief on her way here, 

"Powerful and influential... with... money?" he encouraged, 

"Fagin..."

"If we happen to let the governor know his sweet girl's cat has gone... missing then surely a reward could be in order." 

"Fagin. We are on no condition kidnapping the governor's daughter's cat and holding it for ransom,"

"But think of the green dodge?"

"No. It is not happening. Not at all. No way. Absolutely not. I want you to swear to me."

"...Fine... I Swear I will not Kidnap the cat and hold it for ransom."

"Or hurt the cat."

"...Or hurt the cat."

"Alright then," I nodded just as I saw the door open, to a familiar sight.

Lady Y/n Fox wandered in, wearing her sweet little black leather boots, stockings, her beautiful lilac purple dress with a lobster tail bustle below it, and her sweet hair pinned up with her little dragonfly hairpin. She rushed in with a look of fear across her face as she often did but she relaxed a little when she saw me and Lady Nightingale, 

"Afternoon Y/n," I smiled, doing my best not to blush as I continued to pet her cat, 

"Good Afternoon Jack," she smiled, "I'm so sorry..." she said as she came to pet Lady Nightingale,

"It's alright I know she likes to come and keep us company,"

"Umm she likes to come to find you," she laughs, "Every time I open the window nowadays she bolts out to come to find you," 

"Yeah I guess so, but still I'm happy she'd be here with me so you know where she is." 

"I suppose so, and I get to come down and see you," 

"Yeah, I do get to see you, both of you." I smiled, "Well it was lovely to see you, Lady Nightingale, of course you are welcome to surgery as always as our best hospital patron, but now it is time to end the honour of your visit and head home with Lady Y/n," I laughed, 

"Yes and It was delightful for a visit with you two doctor Dawkins,  I know Lady Nightingale enjoyed it. and I'm sure she'll be back." She laughed as she picked the cat up in her arms, "Thank you for taking care of her Jack,"

"It's no problem really,"

"Thank you, I'm sure I'll see you around Doctor Dawkins," she smiled,

"I look forward to it Milady," I smiled giving her hand a kiss before she headed out with cat in hand, 

"Interesting... how you're on first name terms with the goveners daughter." Fagin smirked, "A lady no less..."

"Fagin. Do not. Hurt. Cat."

"I swear on Milife Dodge I won't hurt that cat."

"Alright then..." I nodded, "I need to get back to work," I sighed heading back to the ward, 

[knoepfl]

A Heart Buried Beneath the Shovel

Characters

1. Roslyn Ratcliffe

Governor Ratcliffe’s clever and mischievous daughter, who hides her conflicted emotions behind teasing and charm.

2. Wiggins

Ratcliffe’s loyal but timid servant, who is both flustered by Roslyn’s antics and intrigued by her moments of vulnerability.

3. Governor Ratcliffe

The vain, greedy leader of the settlers, obsessed with finding gold and controlling everyone around him.

4. Percy

Ratcliffe’s pampered pug, often adding humor with his spoiled, snobbish behavior.

Trigger Warnings:

Power Imbalance: The story explores a hierarchical relationship between a servant (Wiggins) and his superior’s daughter (Roslyn), involving teasing and moments of discomfort.

Mild Emotional Manipulation: Roslyn masks her feelings for Wiggins with sarcasm and deliberately creates more work for him.

Storm Scene (Mild Peril): There’s a brief moment of danger during a shipboard storm, involving a character nearly falling but being caught.

Masterlist

Words: 962

--- Scene 1: The Voyage Across the Atlantic

The wind howled across the open sea, filling the sails of the Susan Constant as it cut through the waves. The ship creaked and groaned, its hull burdened by men and supplies destined for the New World. Above the din of the ocean, Governor Ratcliffe’s commanding voice rang out, barking orders to the crew as he paced the deck in his elaborate plum-colored attire. Beside him, Wiggins carried himself with characteristic nervous energy, balancing a teapot and tray while dodging the haphazard movements of the sailors.

Leaning against the railing was Roslyn Ratcliffe, watching the scene unfold. She wore a smirk, her violet cape flaring slightly in the salty wind. Her dark curls framed her face, and her hat was tilted just enough to give her an air of effortless elegance. Unlike her father, Roslyn observed more than she commanded, her sharp eyes taking in the crew’s faces and the restless Atlantic surrounding them.

"More tea, Governor?" Wiggins asked, stepping delicately to Ratcliffe’s side.

Ratcliffe waved him off without so much as a glance, muttering something about how incompetent the men were. As Wiggins turned to return to the galley, Roslyn stepped in his path, her boots clicking sharply on the wooden planks.

“Careful, Wiggins,” she said with an exaggerated tone of concern. “One wrong move, and my father might have you scrubbing barnacles off the hull.”

Wiggins straightened his wig, trying not to fumble the tray. “Yes, Lady Roslyn. I’ll do my best to remain... barnacle-free.”

Roslyn grinned, amused by his obvious discomfort. “Tell me, Wiggins,” she continued, leaning in slightly, “what do you do when you’re not doting on my father? Do you ever dream of grander things? Or is this your calling?”

“I… I prefer to focus on the tasks at hand, my lady,” Wiggins replied, his voice tight.

“Hmm,” Roslyn mused, stepping aside to let him pass. “A pity. I would have thought someone like you might dream of adventure. But I suppose you’re more useful carrying trays, aren’t you?”

Wiggins glanced back at her, unsure if she was teasing him or mocking him outright. “Adventure isn’t for everyone, my lady,” he said, trying to sound polite but firm.

Roslyn raised an eyebrow but said nothing more, returning to her place by the railing.

---

Later that evening, as the ship’s lanterns swayed with the motion of the waves, Wiggins found himself below decks, tending to Ratcliffe’s quarters. He meticulously folded his master’s opulent garments, aligning each ruffled collar and polished boot with care. The governor’s dog, Percy, lounged nearby on a cushion, watching Wiggins with disinterest.

As he worked, the door creaked open, and Roslyn stepped inside, carrying a small book and a look of feigned nonchalance.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” she said, though her presence immediately commanded the room.

Wiggins straightened, placing a folded sash neatly on the table. “Lady Roslyn, this is your father’s private quarters. Is there something you need?”

Roslyn ignored the question, instead running her fingers along the edge of the ornate table. “Do you enjoy it?” she asked suddenly.

Wiggins blinked. “Enjoy what, my lady?”

“This.” She gestured vaguely at the room. “Serving him. My father can be... demanding.”

Wiggins hesitated. He knew better than to speak ill of the governor, especially in front of his daughter. “The governor is a great man,” he said cautiously. “It’s an honor to assist him.”

Roslyn smirked, clearly unconvinced. “You’re very loyal, Wiggins. I’ll give you that. But loyalty and honor only get you so far.”

“I serve where I’m needed,” Wiggins replied, returning to his work.

Roslyn watched him for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she tossed the book she’d been holding onto the table. It landed with a thud, scattering some of Ratcliffe’s papers.

“Oops,” she said lightly. “It seems I’ve made a mess. I trust you’ll clean it up.”

Wiggins sighed inwardly but kept his face neutral. “Of course, my lady.”

As he began to gather the papers, Roslyn leaned against the doorframe, watching him with a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Goodnight, Wiggins,” she said at last, her tone almost playful. “Don’t work too hard.”

And with that, she was gone, leaving Wiggins to wonder why the governor’s daughter seemed to take such delight in making his life more complicated.

---

The next day brought dark clouds on the horizon, and the crew moved quickly to secure the ship. Ratcliffe shouted orders from the helm, his voice barely audible over the rising wind. Roslyn, however, stood calmly near the bow, her cloak billowing behind her as she watched the storm roll in.

Wiggins, carrying a bundle of ropes, paused when he saw her. “Lady Roslyn, it’s dangerous up here. Perhaps you should—”

“I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, Wiggins,” she interrupted, not looking at him.

“But the storm—”

“I said I’m fine,” she snapped, though her voice softened as she turned to face him. “I’m not some delicate flower that needs coddling, you know.”

Wiggins nodded, though he remained uneasy. “Even so, it might be best to stay below deck. Just until the worst has passed.”

Roslyn studied him for a moment, then sighed. “Very well, if it’ll put your mind at ease.”

As they made their way back, the ship lurched violently, throwing Roslyn off balance. Wiggins instinctively reached out, catching her before she fell.

For a brief moment, their eyes met. Roslyn’s usual mask of confidence slipped, revealing something vulnerable beneath.

“Thank you,” she said softly, her voice barely audible over the wind.

Wiggins released her quickly, stepping back. “Of course, my lady.”

They continued below deck, the moment hanging between them like the storm outside—a turbulent force neither of them could fully control.

---