#he was in charge of rigging for three

[jazminetoad]

I stand by this! Ace 1000% rigged it for all 5 but kept rigging Yuu and Grim a secret because it is very self indulgent

In my aceyuu heart, Ace rigged the lottery for all 5 of them.

I've been wanting to draw a comic for this...wheeeee!! I

[marmotsomsierost]

Advocating for your family and their medical care is incredibly important.

Being upset that you didn't get an explanation of exactly why your family was discharged is understandable. Even if it is clearly written in the discharge paperwork. It can be legitimately difficult to decode the papers, especially if there is a language or cognitive concern.

Like i will even grant that raising your voice and using demanding language is not necessarily the incorrect choice. Something sucks, you shouldn't have to be sweet and deferential about it.

However.

Loudly berating every single person in scrubs that you see and stating how you are advocating for your family, that you just want them to get the care we would want for our own family, we all are terrible and not doing our jobs because we don't care about our patients, we don't care about someone being in pain and how are you going to discharge a patient without running (test not usually done in the ED in a nonemergent situation) or (test you have already had because your doctor ordered it and we have literally nothing to do with in the ED because we neither performed it nor interpreted it) AND you are 'documenting who i talk to and when and what they say and i need everyone's name who says anything to me' AND after spending six hours sitting in the lobby stewing because the doctor hasn't come talk to you yet while loudly calling everyone you know to talk shit about us and rehash all of the above you say - with absolutely no sense of shame -

that you have been taking photos and video of 'people sitting on their ass' not doing anything

And when i say "You cannot take pictures in here" you say "it doesn't say i can't" and when i say "it is very clearly posted several places that it is not allowed" you say "well i don't see them" and security chimes in pointing out exactly where they are you pause and then say - again, with absolutely no shame -

"Well as much as you all haven't been doing your jobs, i clearly didn't read it"

AND THEN

And THEN you say 'i don't care, i have been documenting all of this because my lawyer told me to because this is (reiteration of entire rant from beginning)'

...THIS IS NOT ADVOCATING FOR YOUR FAMILY MY DUDE

and you are fucking lucky that you got the charge nurse and doctors that you did get because if you had a problem with doc A's attitude holy shit would you have gone ballistic nylon batshit pants if you'd had doc B. And if you'd had a different charge or a different house sup you would have been physically removed the second you said word one about taking pictures. Patients have been removed for taking pictures or video, and you're not even the patient!

"I've been here for five hours and the doctor STILL hasn't come to talk to me. That's how much this hospital is worth. They don't treat the patients right."

We have one doctor. One. If the waiting room is standing fucking room only...maybe, JUST MAYBE, he hasn't come talk to you FOR THE SECOND TIME because HE CAN'T.

...

Anyway. Fuck this day, i'm going home and i'm gonna be just this side of blowing my speakers out on some marcus miller to try and regain an iota of patience.

[ryoflix]

sukuna as your personal tripod | f. reader, s/h prns., crack 'n fluff, estb. rl ؛ ଓ

you realized it one day mid-selfie—mid-struggle, really—when you were holding your phone at a weird angle and trying to balance a compact mirror between your knee and a drink cup just to get that one perfect, glowy shot for your story. the sun was being a bitch, the shadows weren’t flattering, and your lip gloss looked grey somehow.

and then, out of nowhere: sukuna loomed over you like a judgmental cryptid. no words. no complaints. just clicked a switch, and suddenly—ring light. perfect soft glow. flawless highlight. zero under-eye shadow.

you blinked. “where did that come from?”

“don’t ask,” he muttered, eyes flicking anywhere but your face.

(but you saw the faintest twitch of pride when you checked the photo and whispered, “oh shit that’s actually good lighting.”)

now, it’s normal. almost too normal. you pull out your phone, and he’s already there, standing beside you, raising the ring light at just the right angle. he doesn’t ask, doesn’t even sigh. doesn’t pretend to be annoyed anymore—he just lifts it up with one hand like he was born to be your personal lighting rig.

“chin down a little,” he grunts. “you’re catching a weird glare.”

“who taught you that?”

“youtube.”

“…what were you even searching?”

he refuses to answer.

he keeps a foldable tripod in the back seat of his car. you discovered it after opening the trunk one day, expecting—idk, murder weapons or a gym bag—and found the sleekest little bluetooth remote-controlled tripod, neatly packed with a microfiber cloth and extra charging cables. you held it up slowly. 

“…what is this?”

he didn’t even flinch. just looked you dead in the eye and said, “emergency dance content.”

you lost it.

“emergency what???”

“don’t make me say it again,” he growled, ears red. “you keep dragging me into those dumbass couple dances. somebody has to think ahead.”

and oh, those dances.

you point the camera, start the music, and he tries. he really tries. but the man moves like a brick with emotions. he’ll get through the first three beats and then his knee clicks or he forgets which way is left. you can see his soul leaving his body every time the choreography involves body rolls.

but he does it. he never says no.

and when the comments roll in calling him “husband material” and “a scary softie,” he scowls at the screen and mutters, “bunch of weirdos.” but you catch the way he watches your laughing face while scrolling. the way he holds you a little tighter that night. the way he kisses your forehead and doesn’t let you say thank you.

because in his mind, this isn’t doing you a favor. it’s just being prepared. it’s just love, in ring lights and tripods and horribly executed tiktok dances.

preparedness, he says.

affection, you know.

[ssentimentals]

seventeen members as love tropes: jeon wonwoo

best friends to lovers

'and i was so scared to destroy it that i forgot that destruction leaves the door for something new to be built'

'okay, let's go over the list again. phone chargers and headphones?'

wonwoo tries and fails to act annoyed; he's mostly endlessly endeared by your love for all kind of check lists and your diligence in going over them at least three times. he doesn't even try to point out that bags were packed under your supervision yesterday - he's not strong enough to withstand your pouty face and he also knows how restless you get if you don't check everything again. so, he bites inside of his cheek to prevent himself from smiling like a fool and declares: 'chargers and headphones are here. what's next?'

wonwoo indulges you for the next twenty minutes, checks every single item from your list and doesn't look even a tiny bit mad when you two finish. his patience towards you has no limits, just like his desire to soothe your worries and help you feel peaceful. he zips both bags, when you sigh in relief and plop right next to him on the ground, leaning on his shoulder casually. 'thanks, woo. i know it must've been annoying, but i was anxious.'

careful not to disturb you, wonwoo moves closer to the wall to lean on it. 'it's nothing. if to ease your anxiety i have to pack and repack these bags ten times, i'd do it, you know it.'

there's a beat of silence and then your hand wraps lightly around his. 'yeah, i know.'

and you do know. it's probably one the most amazing feelings in the world - to be this assured in another person. you cannot bet on yourself, but you can bet on wonwoo when it comes to being your best friend. he's your pillar of strength, your constant support, your closest person. you never thought it's possible to be this sure in someone and yet. you never question wonwoo because he never gave you reasons to; his loyalty to you is like a pledge he wears on his skin proudly, shows it off to everyone if they ask. earth is round, sky is blue and jeon wonwoo is always there for you. it could've been so, so good if only it didn't make you want to cry.

'hey, don't fall asleep on me. you know your neck will hurt and i didn't pack that gel which always helps ease up the stiffness,' he says gently.

wonwoo is always gentle. it's not really in his nature, but by default it's how he is with you. how can he not be? you're a flower in his eyes and only gentleness and care will help you flourish (which is the only thing he wants for you). his fingers itch with desire to hold you gently as well, to cradle you in his arms and keep you safe and loved but he ignores it. wonwoo is really good at ignoring a lot of his feelings towards you, because flowers can only take gentleness and there's nothing gentle in his feelings. no, his feelings for you are close to forces of the nature in their strengths: unstoppable, uncontrollable, all-consuming. wonwoo is so gentle with you, how can he let you know that his chest is doing a god's work every time, not letting his feelings slip? they can come out and envelop you whole, leave nothing to anyone else and he.. is not like that. can't be like that with you.

'you also started getting neck pains?' you ask, lifting your head from his shoulder. you look worried, searching for something on his face.

'no, i usually carry that gel for you.' wonwoo answers easily, shrugging it off. 'just like other bunch of stuff.'

silence settles again. lately, silence started to settle much more often between you two and while usually it's a good companion, this specific kind of silence hangs heavy. this silence is filled with unspoken words and hesitance, it's charged with tension which none of you dare to break. everything always comes to its' boiling point and you can't help but think that your friendship with wonwoo is hanging by a thread and you can't tell which way it should fall: to the left, where everything will be left exactly as it is right now or to the right, where you'll be in the new territory of confessed feelings? and wonwoo feels it too, can barely sleep this last month due to this heaviness in his heart, which refuses to carry the weight of unspoken love anymore. it's funny how he never really looked for love; when you came, he also didn't look for it. but then time passed and he realized that he's not looking for love anymore not because he's not interested, but because he found it long time ago.

'will we...' you start, taking a deep breath. god, if there's anyone for who you are ready to fall, it's wonwoo. '...talk about it? about this elephant in the room?'

wonwoo's breath hitches. seconds tick away and they last for eternity, making you think that time stopped at some moment. overthinking spiral starts to draw you in, when he voices out: 'which elephant in the room? the one about me being in love with you for longer than i can remember or the one where you never gave back any of my hoodies?'

wonwoo watches as your eyes widen and how your mouth opens and then closes in shock. he watches how you collect yourself, internally applauds himself for not freaking out and keeping that beast called love inside of his chest for now.

'i- the first one.' you mutter, shaking a little. 'definitely the first one and you can also add info on why you never said anything.'

will you understand? will you get that he was actually trying to shelter you from his selfish side? will you accept that his love is too big, too real, too much for someone as delicate as you? that he held himself back for your own sake? his hesitance spurs you to take his hand in his and squeeze it gently. 'tell me. i will understand. you are my best friend, woo. first and foremost - you are my best friend.'

'and then?' he grunts, barely forcing his tongue to move.

you smile and hope grows in his chest. 'and then my boyfriend. my one and only. do you like the sound of that?'

does he like it? god, do you even know what you do to him? beast inside doesn't roar to his surprise; no, it curls up in satisfaction instead, finally calming down. oh. oh. 'i like the sound of that very much,' he musters the courage to say.

maybe he was wrong about his beast all this time. maybe his feelings never meant harm, maybe they can not only destroy, but plant something else instead. you lean in and oh, wonwoo gets it. his feelings were meant to plant more flowers, pretty flowers. just like you.

a/n: if you think that this somewhere along the way turned into something else then you'd be right, but i couldn't stop and i'm posting this anyway. let me know what you think! - nini

my other works are here

[one-chicago-writer]

Stuck With Me

After a car accident leaves Y/N in critical condition, Casey anxiously waits by her side as she fights for her life, grappling with his own fears and the weight of everything they've both been through.

Y/N had been on her way to start her shift at Med when it happened. One second, she was slowing for the intersection; the next, the world exploded in shattering glass and screeching metal. The impact sent her car spinning, slamming into a streetlight. Then, nothingness.

Brett and Violet had just finished a call when the dispatch came through—major MVC, driver unconscious, possible entrapment. Their stomachs dropped when they heard the location. They instantly recognized the location, as it was on the route you typically took to get to your shifts at Med.

They arrived to find Y/N trapped, barely conscious, blood pooling from a head wound. She was breathing—but barely, and it was visibly laboured. Violet gets into the passenger seat and starts IV and gets a C-Collar on her.  Squad 3 pried the door open, and gently moved her to the gurney. Just as she was settled on the gurney, the monitors shrieked in warning as she flatlined. 

“No pulse!” Violet shouted. “Starting compressions!” She jumps on and straddles the gurney as Brett and Severide load it in. 

Casey arrived just in time to see them loading Y/N into the rig, Brett delivering a shock with the defibrillator, as Violet sat back on the bench and spoke into her radio. His stomach turned as he saw your body jolt. Matt tried to jump into the back of the ambulance, but Severide held him back before slamming the doors shut, as Cruz got into the cab and gunned it to Med. 

En route to Med, Violet is doing compressions, while Brett gets you intubated since you were no longer protecting your airway. 

Once they arrive to Med, it is a host of organized chaos

"Female, late 20s, T-boned at high speed—found unresponsive at the scene, GCS 3. Sustained significant chest trauma with suspected cardiac contusion or tension pneumo. Lost pulses as we left the scene—three rounds of epi given, three shocks delivered. Intubated en route, no spontaneous respirations. Six-minute downtime."

“Going to Baghdad” Maggie called out as they rushed past. 

As soon as they entered, the trauma room was chaos—beeping monitors, the hurried shuffle of feet, the thud of chest compressions. The team had been working for what felt like an eternity, but nothing was giving. Will, Ethan, and Connor moved in sync, pushing meds, shocking Y/N again and again, trying to pull her back from the brink.

“Pulse?” Connor asked, voice strained, eyes fixed on the monitor.

“Nothing,” Will answered, his voice low but firm.

Connor turns to the defibrillator and starts charging it again. 

"Charged to 360! Clear!" Connor shouted, his voice cutting through the noise of the trauma room.

The room fell silent for a moment as Y/N’s body jolted once more, the shock coursing through her.

Seconds ticked by. All three doctors were watching the monitors, when suddenly, the beeping of a faint pulse began to return. Connor’s heart hammered in his chest.

“She's back,” Ethan breathed, exhaling a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Connor quickly turned his attention back to Y/N, watching her intently. 

“We need to get her to the OR,” he said, taking charge, his voice steady and commanding. “I’m not wasting time. Let's move.”

He looked over to Will and Ethan. “You ready?”

Will nodded, already prepping the IV fluids. “Let’s go.”

Severide appeared in the doorway, his face tense with worry, but relief in his eyes. “Is she stable enough to move?”

“For now,” Connor replied, turning to the gurney, adjusting Y/N’s head gently, making sure your airway was secure. “But we’re pushing it. We can’t wait much longer.”

The team was quick to wheel Y/N out of the trauma room, and Connor took point, pushing the gurney with a sense of urgency. He never took his eyes off of her, watching the mechanical rise and fall of her chest from the ventilator and the pulse on the monitor.

“Stay with me, Y/N,” he whispered to himself, though he knew you couldn’t hear him. His breath caught as they reached the hallway, the tension thick in the air.

The OR doors loomed ahead, and the weight of the moment hit him like a ton of bricks. He had no idea what would happen when they got you inside—but he knew one thing for sure: He wasn’t letting you go without a fight.

The team rushed you into the OR, and Connor didn’t hesitate. He followed immediately, calling orders as they moved into the sterile environment.

“Let’s get everything prepped. I’m not losing her,” Connor said, his voice sharp and filled with determination. “She’s strong. We’ve got this.”

In the hall

Casey stood there, numb, watching the love of his life disappear behind the operating room doors.

And then, as they wheeled her past—his vision swam. The world tilted.

Someone called his name. Hands grabbed at him.

Then—nothing.

“Casey!” Severide barely caught him before he hit the floor. He was completely out—limp in Severide’s arms.

Brett rushed for help. Choi arrived within seconds, immediately checking Casey’s vitals. “Pulse is weak—thready. BP’s tanking.”

“Matt, come on,” Severide muttered, shaking him, but he didn’t stir.

Choi pressed his knuckles hard against Casey’s sternum, rubbing roughly.

Nothing.

Another rub.

Casey suddenly gasped, jerking violently. His eyes flew open, wild and unfocused.

Then he fought.

Casey came back swinging. Hands on his arms, voices all around him, his body on fire. He felt trapped—pinned.

“No—get off me!” He thrashed, panic clawing at his chest.

“Hold him down!” Choi barked. “If he doesn’t stop, he’s gonna crash again!”

“Casey, stop!” Severide’s voice cut through the chaos. “You’re safe. You passed out.”

But Casey wasn’t listening. His body was still in fight mode, reacting purely on adrenaline. Choi didn’t hesitate.

“Two milligrams IM Ativan—now.”

A sharp prick in his shoulder. Seconds later, warmth spread through his veins, dragging him under.

The next time he woke, he was in an ER bay, IV now in his arm, nasal cannula delivering oxygen. His head throbbed. His limbs felt like lead.

“Easy, man.” Severide was beside him.

Casey blinked, sluggish. “What…”

“You passed out. Went completely unresponsive. Scared the hell out of all of us.”

Flashes came back—Y/N, the OR, the panic, the blackout.

Casey swallowed hard, noticing the IV in his arm. He reached up to yank the nasal cannula off—

“Don’t even think about it,” Severide warned, standing to place a heavy hand on his best friend’s shoulder.

Casey scowled but relented. “Where’s Y/N?”

Severide hesitated. “Will should be out soon.”

Minutes stretched painfully before Will appeared.

“She made it,” Will said. “Surgery went well. She’s stable.”

Relief hit Casey so hard he nearly choked on it.

Severide wheeled Casey up to her room, IV still hooked up. When they entered, Y/N was just starting to stir. Her eyes fluttered open, hazy with sedation. Her gaze landed on Casey.

She blinked, confusion flickering across her face. “Matt?” Her voice was hoarse from the tube.

“Hey,” Casey rasped, moving closer. “Yeah, I’m here.”

Her eyes drifted to the wheelchair, to the IV still in his arm. Her brows furrowed. “What… what happened?”

Casey hesitated, but Severide filled in the blanks. “Idiot over here passed out in the waiting room when they took you back.”

Y/N’s lips parted in faint surprise. “You—what?”

Casey exhaled. “Guess I didn’t handle it well.”

She gave a soft, tired smile. “You’re stuck with me, Casey.”

His throat tightened as tears started rolling down his face. “Yeah,” he murmured, taking her hand gently. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

The first few days of your recovery were rough. The pain was unbearable at times, but the exhaustion was worse. Physical therapy was grueling. But Casey never left your side.

Some days, she made progress—sitting up, taking a few steps.

Other days, the setbacks hit hard—pain flaring, dizziness keeping you in bed. Frustration weighed on you, but Casey was always there, steady as ever.

“You got this,” he’d whisper, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

One night, you broke down, tears slipping free. “What if I don’t get back to how I was?”

Casey cupped your face. “You're not alone. We haven’t crossed that bridge yet, but if we do, then we figure it out together.”

Y/N exhaled shakily. Then, she leaned into him.

Because through it all—through the pain, the fear, the uncertainty—one thing remained true.

She wasn’t doing this alone.

And neither was he.

Taglist:

@zoeykaytesmom

@knbubbles

[sunshine-zenith]

Modern AU where Ekko is a live wedding painter

He’s still an engineer and budding scientist, still involved in his local company and local politics, but he’s also able to pursue art, and he specifically gets to capture moments of happiness in a unique way, creating memories on the spot for couples to revisit over and over

He obviously gives a hefty family discount when Vander and Silco have their second wedding (and nearly drops his entire paint pallet every time he overhears Benzo joke about not wanting to be dragged into their knife fight again if they get a second divorce). (He realizes as he paints them that even though he sees them nearly everyday, even though they’re practically his uncles, they have more gray hairs and lines around their eyes than he thought. He’s a guest as well so he doesn’t spend the entire time working in the piece, but when he does, he makes sure he captures the joy in the lines around their eyes and mouths when they look at each other)

He nearly overcharges Jayce when hired because Jayce had a flare up of his chronic Foot In Mouth Disease during their consultation, but is able to reel himself in after meeting the person Jayce is marrying (if it’s Mel, they’re able to bond over art and actually eventually have a surprisingly vulnerable and honest debate about politics; if it’s Viktor they end up talking about growing up in the Undercity, what being Zaunites mean to them, and how it ultimately ended up shaping their passions for the sciences, plus they share gardening tips during wedding planning; if it’s both then he and Mylo quietly place bets on Mel and Viktor both leaving Jayce at the alter and just marry each other instead at the reception. They don’t, obviously, and Ekko has to admit it’s a beautiful and surprisingly intimate reception — just close, trusted friends and family, Viktor and Mel dressed in golds that Ekko spent days trying to color match leading up to the wedding, and Jayce and Viktor decorating their mobility aids to match. They’re an odd group, but as he paints he finds they fit together surprisingly well. He makes sure to paint Jayce crying no matter the scenario and gets away with it because the man was sobbing like a baby basically the entire time)

When Vi and Cait get married, Ekko point blank refuses to charge them. He makes it clear that if Mylo or Claggor also get married he won’t charge them either. Sure, the Kirammans can more than afford it, but he will not make Vi pay a damn penny and would be offended if she tried. (They ultimately don’t have him paint during the ceremony or reception, too involved in the wedding party/as a guest, going with a photographer hired by the Kirammans instead, but when Vi and Caitlyn come back from their honeymoon, they find a nearly life sized portrait of them during the ceremony, Vi dressed in her suit, her hair slicked back by Silco, staring up at Caitlyn in her uniform and heels, both of them smiling crooked and quirked smiles. Caitlyn is holding a bouquet of violets, her favorite flower, and Ekko made sure to paint every petal)

At Powder’s wedding, he isn’t hired as a live painter, obviously. He’s a little too busy for that the entire night, given it’s his wedding as well, but both of them do still bust out the paints. Both of them wear white, not because of any tradition or symbolism, but because white makes for such a nice canvas. They get ready in the same room and walk down the aisle covered in spray paint, glitter, and even a few scorch marks, and when they dance together at the reception, Ekko already knows he’ll be painting a thousand pictures of the night from memory

(Their guests also walk away covered in paint and with singed outfits. Powder rigged a few paint bombs because it’s her wedding and she can do whatever she and Ekko want. Scar comes very close to sending them a glitter bomb in retaliation for having to pick glitter out of his daughter’s fur for the next three weeks)

[thewertsearch]

Oh, it's just Tinkerbull writing MEOW.

Unlike Rose's lavender cipher, Tavros isn't authoring this sequence in his signature color. Instead, his code is Doc Scratch white - a bad omen, if I ever saw one.

AA: an incomplete fragment consisting of four symbols AA: comprising the first word of a binary refrain

A binary refrain, implying the existence of a TOCK Player. Does each code constitute half of MEOW, or has Doc Scratch's genome been spliced with something else entirely?

AA: a pair of sounds emerging from the belly of a fabled tyrants menace

That would be the crocodile from Peter Pupa Pan.

Come to think of it, The story of Hook's crocodile draws some possibly-unintentional parallels to Homestuck's current arc. In the movie, it constantly circled Hook like a buzzard, the ominous ticking in its belly serving as a constant reminder that he was living on borrowed time.

AA: but you authored only one sound of the pair AA: i would write the other

Breath and Time, T1ck and T0ck.

What have you got cooking, Team Charge?

AA: completing the phrase of legend AA: the persisting sounds said to accompany the ultimate demise of the tyrant less an arm and an eye

These legendary injuries again. Just like in the original story, it seems that Pupa’s Hook also dies to the ticking of a clock.

In the context of the comic, this might actually be a prophecy about the death one of our Hook cosplayers – namely, Slick, Jack and Vriska. Perhaps the real reason these injuries are so common is to ensure we can't tell who this prophecy's actually about. Tyrant currently suits Jack best, but a lot can happen in four thousand pages.

AA: but even these eight characters AA: the scrawlings of charge AA: were still but half the code

Charge provides half the code, and Scourge undoubtedly provides the other. The nascent Doc Scratch is composed of four sequences, supplied by the progenitors of this group's bloodiest conflict.

It seems this code was implanted in three Prospit dreamers, and only one Derse dreamer. Sgurb's mechanics are almost universally balanced by moon, so I find this a little odd.

Immediately after the cueball incident, Vriska subconsciously authors break.

What does Terezi get, then? R3P41R?

‘BR8K H34DS.’

Team Scourge is the story of a rigged coin, and a broken 8-ball.

[ngdrb]

Former Trump official warns ex-president is gearing up to claim 'rigged' election again

Donald Trump and his allies are preparing to make claims of election and voter fraud if he loses in November - according to election experts and a number of old-school Republicans.

Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles, a Republican who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, said that if Trump loses, he and his associates “will throw everything at the wall and see what sticks,” according to The Guardian. 

“They’ll claim everything went wrong if they lose. I’d be surprised if Trump doesn’t try to incite insurrection if he loses the election,” the mayor said.

Both Trump and his allies are pushing the same lies as they did in 2020 about voting machines and drop boxes, but they’re now also attacking prosecutors on the state and federal levels who have charged the former president for trying to overturn the election. They have claimed that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” and “lawfare” in attempts to paint the former president’s legal woes as political prosecution.

David Becker at the Center for Election Innovation and Research told The Guardian that  “A lot of false claims are masquerading as efforts to change policy to improve election integrity when in actuality they’re just designed to sow distrust in our system if Trump loses.”

“This is all designed to manufacture claims that if Trump loses, the election was stolen and to sow discord, chaos, and potential violence,” he added.

The right-wing organization Turning Point USA claims to be spending tens of millions on getting out the vote for Trump in important battleground states, also hosting several large rallies where false allegations that the 2020 election was rigged are still being shared.

Both in 2016 and 2020, Trump was unclear if he would accept the election results. Similarly, at the presidential debate with President Joe Biden on June 27, he said that he would accept the results if the election is “fair and legal.” That response came after he was asked three times about accepting the results and shortly afterward he yet again claimed that American elections are fraudulent.

In April, Trump hosted House Speaker Mike Johnson at Mar-a-Lago for an event prompting the lower chamber to pass legislation making it illegal for noncitizens to vote – something that was already outlawed and in the past has happened on a very small scale. 

The group True the Vote sent out a fundraising request in March pointing to their attempts to put together “arguments for litigation” as well as other measures to take aim at what they claim will be “chaos” around the election because of “illegal voter registrations.”

Both election experts and Republican stalwarts have told The Guardian that Trump and his allies are preparing to claim that November’s election has been rigged if the former president loses the election.

Former Republican Michigan Representative Dave Trott told the paper that “Trump continues to encourage his supporters like Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA to question the integrity of our elections.”

“He has no evidence or basis for claiming fraud and is only perpetuating these lies so he has a plan B to disrupt democracy in the event he loses,” he added.

Former Republican Pennsylvania Representative Charlie Dent told The Guardian that he believes Trump will claim fraud again if he loses in November.

“I expect he will do the same thing in 2024,” he said. “If he loses he will raise Cain in state capitals and he will descend on state capitals with his allies to make the case for fraud.”

The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary, and analysis for the independently minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently-minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.

[shadow4-1]

Imagine being part of the 141, and the shitty safe house you're laying low in has only a twin sized bed and a pull out couch.

You're there for three weeks.

It's you, Ghost, Gaz, Soap, and Price.

It's such a small space that you have no choice but to throw all of your kits onto the rickety kitchen table. There's a medium-sized box TV in the living room that has three channels and static. The windows don't open, and it is so cold and wet you wouldn't even if you could.

The bathroom consists of a shower head, a singular spigot, and another hole in the tiled floor for everything else. And the kitchen barely has a working stove. The sink plinks with an annoying as hell leak, and there's a brown stain in the linoleum where there should be a refrigerator. No cups, just bowls. And no central heating either.

It's nothing but cold, miserable, and cramped quarters while waiting on permission to get the hell out of dodge.

A week in you joke that you want to kill yourself. But is it really a joke?

You're usually the one in charge of keeping up morale during times like these. And usually it's so easy.

You always keep a deck of cards handy (with a sheet of paper detailing several different types of games). You give Gaz the idea to jury-rig the TV to a burner phone you keep on hand. Unfortunately, your music playlist and phone games only keep interest for so long. The boredom eventually gets so grating you find yourself playing delirious pattycake with Soap.

The only escape is sleep.

Due to the shitty circumstances and lack of room, everyone (but you) takes shifts to sleep. Price says you should sleep whenever you need it since if shit hits the fan, you're the only medic they have. You suppose he's right. But you also suppose he knows that the thin shred of morale left is only being upkept because of your presence.

You find yourself sleeping a lot, and it's easy to. Nonstop rain and the quiet chatter of deep, rumbling voices soothe you. And it's nice that every few hours, you always have a different body willing to cuddle up to you. Lack of heating makes it downright necessary. Even if you aren't interested in being held tight, you don't have much of a choice.

You're all so far away from home and in such shitty circumstances. Familiarity is what you all need. And they find it in you, in your body, in your arms. Their appetites for you never dip into unprofessional territory, but sometimes you catch something swimming around underneath the surface of their eyes. It's at times like these you realize that as much as they belong to you...

You belong to them.

[yuurei20]

Hello hello. If I don't mind asking, what's this Crowley's fan theory rejecting Deuce's application for a Magical Wheel club about?

Hello hello!! Thank you for this question! (and apologies for the delay!)

Crowley's rejection of Deuce's application for a Magical Wheel club is one of many threads connecting back to a popular theory that Crowley is making the overblots happen on purpose!

It encompasses many things, such as the three light-magic users: Kalim's enrollment is particularly suspicious, as he received his letter of acceptance a month into what would become his first year at the school.

Jamil observes, "And just like that, my nice, free campus life went up in smoke."

Kalim was homeschooled prior to NRC and Jamil says, "Some days I just didn't want to go straight home after school" (where he would have to tutor Kalim, in addition to his other duties as Kalim's servant).

Did Crowley (or someone 👀) intentionally give Jamil those two months of freedom so that he would feel the loss of that freedom all the more acutely, contributing to his overblot?

The admissions process may have been more straightforward for Silver and I do not believe we have heard anything about Rook's, but both characters were, like Kalim, the catalyst to their respective housewardens overblotting:

It is Rook who convinces Vil to watch Neige's rehearsal (which is what finally compromises Vil's tentative mental stability, and it is Crowley who put Vil in charge of production for the VDC), and Malleus' overblot is immediately preceded by a conversation with Silver.

There is also Ruggie, who says (twice) that it is rare for people from his home to become mages and who had never attended a school prior to NRC. He is an odd choice for a prestigious magic academy.

He has also only become a "middling" student thanks to Leona's tutoring, and Leona's desire to help secure a future for students like Ruggie has a significant influence on Leona's overblot.

(A point that is emphasized in the novel: "I cannot let the pack starve.")

Crowley offers the choice of retiring Malleus from the tournament in Book 2 in a decision that the famously perceptive Vil says “reeks of unconscious bias.”

Crowley also goes out of his way to emphasize how many Savanaclaw students aspire to play in the Spelldrive Pro Leagues, how Savanaclaw has lost in the first round to Diasomnia two years in a row, and how it is affecting their future.

Leona points out that he seems to be telling them to quit while they are ahead because he expects them to make fools of themselves.

When Crowley denies this, saying, "That is not my intention," Leona asks, "Then what is?"

Is it possible that Crowley never intended to retire Malleus at all, but he knew that threatening to do so would be the final straw needed to push Leona into desperation? Making him desperate enough to contract with Azul, which connects directly to his destroying of Azul’s contracts to cover up the evidence, thus instigating Azul’s own overblot?

This also ties in to some interesting coincidences around certain school events:

Savanaclaw being paired against Diasomnia in the first round of the Spelldrive Tournament every year since Malleus enrolled?

The members randomly selected for the Starsending? For Glorious Masquerade?

(Idia: "How do three Housewardens just 'coincidentally' get drawn in a raffle? That box is rigged." - Trey: "The headmage claimed he used astrology to pick us...you don't think he was lying about that, do you?")

Have all these things been as coincidental as Crowley claims, or are the suspicions of students like Trey and Idia correct and there is more going on than it seems?

There is also the inconsistency of Crowley’s money-mongering.

Is he actually interested in perks like 10% of profits from Mostro Lounge and donations from Kalim’s and Idia’s parents, or is that just his cover-up to get Jack (and thus Leona) to interfere with Azul, and to get Kalim and Ortho to NRC?

Then there is Crowley's encouraging of Ace to battle Riddle, and it is not impossible for him to be the anonymous person who reported on the school's overblotters in Book 6.

Idia himself asks, "Could someone be inducing overblots on PURPOSE...?"

To return to the original question: Magical Wheels are a hobby that Deuce has in common with Epel, as both characters discover about each other in Book 5.

Epel and Vil bond (briefly) over a blastcycle in Epel's dorm vignette, and Deuce goes on a long monologue about the freedom of blastcycles to Ace:

"If you're ever feeling blue, you just get on a blaster and tune out the world...I haven't been able to since the first day of school."

This all ties back to an even wider theory about time loops: is Crowley reliving these scenarios over and over again, and granting Deuce and Epel the stress relief of a blastcycle club resulted in an undesirable ending?

If the freedom of their own club (and being able to confide in each other earlier on) resulted in them not going to the extremes that they did in Book 5 in order to escape Ace and Vil, it is possible that Deuce did not learn his unique magic in time to stop Vil.

And that fight on the beach that led to Deuce's UM? Was over a blastcycle!

To get Deuce and Epel down to that beach for that fight they had to be feeling stressed, trapped and desperate, to the point that they were willing to break campus rules (or were flustered to the point of forgetting the rules existed, in Deuce's case) to get there: and what better an opportunity than a long-awaited chance to finally ride one of the blastcycles they have both loved for years, but Crowley has been denying them?

No fight on the beach may have meant no UM for Deuce, which may have resulted in Vil winning the overblot fight and Crowley needing to reset the world in order to try again--and this time, without a Blastcycle club.

It is all theory and conjecture :> But very fun to think about!

[mariacallous]

Sharing this because of interest and not because of agreement

Chris Murphy, the junior senator from Connecticut, hardly exudes the energy on the stump of the leading populist progressives in his party, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He is preternaturally calm, and, when he says that his “hair is on fire” about the Trump Administration’s destruction of public norms and the rule of law, it is not initially convincing. And yet, in recent months, Murphy has tirelessly argued—on television, on TikTok, on The New Yorker Radio Hour—that unless the Democratic Party broadens its coalition with a primarily populist economic message and takes risks to oppose the destruction of democratic institutions, it will fail to mobilize popular support, continue to lose elections, and squander (as in Hungary, Turkey, and beyond) democracy itself.

Murphy, who is fifty-one, was a wunderkind, winning election to the House at thirty-three and to the Senate before his fortieth birthday. He argues not only that Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are threatening myriad institutions and making them bow to executive power but that the midterm elections of 2026 might be rendered undemocratic through the erosion of the infrastructure necessary for opposition to exist. And Trump, or a member of his family, may well be in position to take the White House two years later. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Senator, I wonder if we could try to define the crisis that we’re in. I’m of the opinion that the Trump Administration is intent on creating an American-style authoritarian situation. Do you agree with me?

I do. Long ago, the Republican Party decided that they cared more about power than they did democracy. That’s what January 6th was all about—regardless of who won the election, they wanted to make sure that their person was in charge. They believe, and have long believed, that the Democratic Party progressives are an existential threat to the country, and thus any means justifies the end—which is making sure that a Democrat never again wins a national election. So, this seems pretty purposeful and transparent—this decision to rig the rules of democracy so that you still hold elections, but the minority party, the opposition party, is rendered just weak enough, and the rules are tilted toward the majority party just enough, so that Donald Trump and Republicans and the Trump family rule forever. And, of course, this is not an unfamiliar system. This is Hungary, this is Turkey, this is Serbia. There are plenty of countries, all around the world, that hold elections—it’s just that one party continues to win. And that is, I think, the very concrete, very transparent plan that Trump and his White House are implementing right now.

Why do your Republican colleagues put up with this? Do they fess up to it when you talk to them in private?

They do not fess up to the plan behind closed doors. They are living in a self-created delusion. Most of them will tell you that it’s not as bad as you think. Yes, Donald Trump is acting in a way that previous Presidents have not, but we will still have a free and fair election; what he’s doing is not enough to topple essential democratic norms.

They are, of course, also deeply scared of him. They have worked very hard to become United States senators. You’ve sacrificed a lot to get to this point, and you don’t want to stop being a United States senator once you’ve gotten here. And for Republicans, the only thing that keeps you a United States senator is staying on Donald Trump’s good side.

I have to ask you why. Is the job so great—is being called “senator” by young staffers so great—if you have to give up and cede your principles?

Of course not. Of course not. And maybe this interacts with the third thing Republicans will tell you, which is, “Hey, listen, I’m trying to make this better.” Republicans in the mold of John Thune—and I’m not saying that he personally has said this to me, but people in his mold will say, “Well, if I cross Donald Trump, I’ll get replaced by somebody infinitely worse. And I can try to work behind the scenes to make this better.”

So, what’s the difference at this point?

Well, I’m telling you how they rationalize it. I’m not defending it. Of course, it is all treachery to lie down with Donald Trump, who is actively trying to destroy our democracy.

And then the majority of Republicans in Congress are fully on board with the idea that the rules should be rigged so that Democrats never rule again. There is just an exhaustion with democracy among a lot of Republicans.

This has only been going on for a couple of months—the Administration began January 20th, and it’s quite different from the first term. How bad is this, and where is it going, in your estimation?

I mean, it can be true that some of the orthodoxy of the left put us in the position of being unelectable. It is also true that the bureaucracy inside the federal government, the state governments, and local governments has become so big and cumbersome as to make it impossible to get things done in this country. But that is not mutually exclusive with the belief that we have months—not a year—before our democracy is rendered so damaged that it can’t be repaired.

I do think that over the last four years, those surrounding Donald Trump put together a pretty thoughtful plan to destroy democracy and the rule of law, and you are seeing it being implemented. Just in the last week—and you and others have covered this well—the assault has been trained on academia, institutions of higher education, and the legal community, the biggest law firms in this country. In democracy after democracy, those two institutions—higher education and the legal profession—are, in many ways, the foundation that undergirds the rule of law. Those are the places where people think about the rule of law, protect it, warn when it is being undermined. The legal profession is the place where people contest efforts to try to destroy the rule of law. And so it is not coincidental that Trump is trying to force both higher education and the legal profession to capitulate to him, and to commit, often through very explicit bilateral agreements—for the most important institutions—to essentially quelling protest.

And, of course, what the Administration is doing by taking on these very high-profile institutions is sending a warning to other law firms and to other colleges: if you take us on—if you file lawsuits against the Administration, if you support Democrats, if you allow for campus-wide protests against our priorities—you’ll be next. And so what will happen here—what inevitably happens in every democracy in which this tactic is tried—is that the Administration won’t have to go after every institution or every firm, because most of them will just decide in advance to stay out of the way. When students are filing a petition for a massive protest against a Trump Administration policy, they may just find it much harder to be able to exercise free speech on campus.

This is how democracy dies. Everybody just gets scared. You make a few examples, and everyone else just decides to comply.

That brings us to the real crux of our conversation today—the Democratic Party. What is the Democratic Party going to do about it? Every indicator that I see, in terms of public-opinion polls, shows widespread dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party. What are the Democrats going to do in a concerted way in the Senate and the House?

First, I do think there is a vast overestimation of the power that Democrats have. We are in the minority in the House and the Senate. We don’t have the Presidency. There are some people out there who think we should just be able to stop this. And the fact of the matter is that we don’t have an army, and thus we are relying on public mobilization and the courts.

Second, I do think that there’s an element out there that doesn’t actually want to have the really hard conversation about why we lost. I mean, people knew who this guy was. He said he was going to be a dictator on Day One. He told you he was going to pardon the January 6th protesters. He still won.

People thought he was fooling around.

Nah. I mean, that might be true, but I don’t know that that’s the whole story. I think we’re a pretty broken brand right now, and some of the people on the left don’t want to go through that hard rewrite of what the Democratic Party stands for.

What’s at the core of the brokenness, if we can be specific?

Well, we have become the status-quo party, and so we have reverted to defending democracy instead of explaining how we are going to break it down and reform it. We have not been a pugilistically populist party, where we name the people who have power and we build very easy-to-understand solutions about how to transfer power to people who don’t have it. And then we’re a pretty judgmental party, filled with a dozen litmus tests. We don’t let you in unless you agree with us on everything, kind of—from gender rights to reproductive rights to gun control to climate.

We’ve got to be a party that invites people in as long as they agree with us on the basic economic message, and build our party with a little bit more acceptance of people who have diverging views on social and cultural issues.

How would that conversation and that process come about, among the Democrats?

Well, I think first is making the decision that economics is the tentpole. And populist economics. That means that you are going to have a party that, frankly, sounds a little bit more like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. You are talking about billionaires and corporate power. You are proposing really easy-to-understand ideas on how to shift that power—whether it be a cap on rent increases, or a massive increase in the minimum wage, or the regulation of every single drug price, not just the ten highest-priced drugs. And then it is just making that decision to go out and ask people to come into the coalition who might not be with us on issues that I care about, like guns, and to nominate candidates that signal that the Party is a big tent—people who are populist economically, but may not line up with us on all the social and cultural stuff.

Can you explain the split we’re seeing between Democratic senior leadership and more junior members of the Party?

I don’t know that it really breaks down along generational lines, but I can explain what the basic argument is right now. Is this a normal moment, where you can just keep on punching Donald Trump, and pushing down his approval ratings, and eventually win the 2026 election, and set up a potential win in 2028? Or is there a pretty good chance that we’re not going to have a free election in 2026?

You believe that’s a possibility?

A hundred per cent. Every single day, I think the chances are growing that we will not have a free and fair election in 2026.

What does that look like?

It may not even be that the mechanics of the election are rigged. I’m not suggesting that there will be election officials out there stuffing ballots. What I’m talking about is that the opposition—the infrastructure necessary for an opposition to win—will have been destroyed. No lawyers will represent us. They will take down ActBlue, which is our primary means of raising small-dollar contributions. They will threaten activists with violence, so no one will show up to our rallies and to our door-knock events. This is what happens in lots of democracies around the world; the opposition is just kept so weak that they can’t win. That’s what I worry about being the landscape as we approach 2026. And, if you believe that, then everything you do right now has to be in service of stopping that kind of weakening or destruction of democracy.

So, to me, the essential difference in the Party right now is that some people think that that has a very low likelihood, and so we should just engage in normal politics—try to become more popular than Republicans. And people like me believe that it won’t matter if we’re more popular than them, because the rules won’t allow us to run a fair election; and so everything we are doing right now, both inside the Capitol and outside the Capitol, should be geared toward trying to make Republicans stop this assault on the rule of law and democratic norms.

Do you think it’s possible that Donald Trump wants to stay in office past 2028? How would he do it?

I think it’s absolutely possible. People very close to him are saying that it’s already a foregone conclusion. If he breaks the Supreme Court and breaks the Constitution and pays no consequence for it, we could ultimately be living in a situation in which the President just declares that he will stay in office. He could also hand power to a relative—maybe Donald Trump doesn’t run, but a Trump family member runs and the Trump family just stays in power. I think all of those things are possible.

The Democrats ran, in no small measure, on the preservation of democracy, and that failed. Why do you have any confidence that the public would mobilize for democracy in the future, if not now?

The public was not convinced by our argument, in 2024, because we were shilling for the existing version of democracy—which is deeply corrupt, which does not work. When I got into politics twenty-five years ago, something like campaign-finance reform, government reform, democracy reform, was a top-three issue for Democrats. It was something we talked about every single day. Somewhere along the line that stopped; somewhere along the line we stopped talking about reforming democracy. So it became easy for voters to just believe that we were all corrupt, and that neither Republicans nor Democrats were actually sincere in fixing what was wrong with democracy.

Trump is giving us this opportunity—because this is the most corrupt White House in the history of the country—to run on an anti-corruption message. But we will only win if we actually run an anti-corruption platform. And so, for me, the two things that matter most are populist economics and government reform. If Democrats run on cleaning up Washington with real, actual plans—to, for instance, get private money completely out of politics; to pass the STOCK Act, to make sure that not a single person inside government can use insider information to trade to benefit them financially—and we run on populist economics, I think that’s a winner, and it’s a way for people to stand up and support democracy, but only a reformed version of democracy.

You mentioned corruption, and we now have a situation where members of the Trump family earn tremendous fees from foreign governments. Seems to me that that’s a colossal form of corruption, and it’s not something we don’t know about. It’s published all the time, and then it falls into a black hole. Why?

Trump has been so public about his corruption that it ends up being normalized. If it were so corrupt, why would you do it in public? It must not be corrupt if you’re doing it in public. We’re used to corruption being done in secret. We’re used to there being a sort of shamefulness about it. And so it is interesting that his boasting of his corruption ends in people believing that he might not be corrupt.

I’m just shocked that the Trump meme coin isn’t, like, the only thing that we’re talking about. It’s probably the most massive corruption scandal in the history of the country. You literally have an—I guess—legal, open channel for private donations to the President and his family in exchange for favors. And we just think that it’s part of Trump’s right to do business in the White House. It’s gross. It’s disgusting. It’s deeply immoral. And the fact that we didn’t talk about that every hour of every day, once he released that coin, was kind of a signal to the country that we weren’t going to take the corruption seriously.

Senator Murphy, is Chuck Schumer the right leader for the Democratic Party in the Senate for this moment?

He can be. Listen, it’s not easy to be leader of this party. There are diverse views inside the caucus, and the whole caucus has to make up their mind that we are going to start fighting, that we are not just going to do business as usual. The State of the Union was an interesting moment. We could have engaged in an extraordinary act of protest: we could have chosen, as a party, to not go; to decide that we were not going to legitimize this President, this level of corruption, and the amount of lying in the State of the Union speech, by not showing up.

Did that conversation take place among the caucus?

I mean—it was judged, I think, too extraordinary and too risky a tactic.

Were you for it?

I chose not to go, and I certainly made the case that we should at least consider not going as an option.

Chuck Schumer’s argument about voting the way he did on the continuing resolution was that, if you shut down the government, it gives the Trump Administration carte blanche, for a potentially boundless period of time, to do whatever they like in terms of shutting down agencies—not that they’re not doing it to a great degree now, but that it would be open season. The opposing point of view—let them do it, let them own it—seemed to Schumer a gamble that one couldn’t take.

He has a compelling argument. It does feel odd for Democrats to protest Republicans shutting down the government by shutting down the government. And it is also true that the President would have extraordinary powers during a shutdown.

I came to a different conclusion. I thought that the public would actually blame Republicans for the shutdown of the government, because they saw them shutting down the government. But it is true that voting no on the continuing resolution would’ve been a big risk for Democrats. Not showing up for the State of the Union would’ve been a big risk for Democrats. Both could have backfired.

But we need to be engaged in risk-tolerant behavior right now. Because ultimately, the only way to save the democracy is for there to be a national public mobilization—of not thousands, not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of people—when the five-alarm fire happens. If the public doesn’t see us taking risks—tactical risks, daily risks—then they are not going to take what will be a risk on their part, standing up to a repressive regime where it’s clear that the government is willing to make you pay a personal price if you exercise your voice.

This is in line with what you said to Jon Stewart recently. You said, “I don’t think you can ask the people of this country to do these exceptional things that are going to be necessary to save our democracy if we are not willing to take risks”—meaning yourselves. What kind of risks should you and your colleagues be taking right now going forward?

In the Senate, the minority has power—you cannot proceed to any legislation without the consent of the minority. Now, we have regularly been providing the votes to the Republican majority to move forward legislation that they care about, including the continuing resolution. We could choose not to do that. We could say to Republicans: Unless you work with us on some targeted measures to prevent the destruction of our democracy, we are not going to continue to pretend like it’s business as usual. We could make that decision as a party. Now, that would mean that occasionally Democrats would need to vote no on legislation that, on the merits, they may support. But, if you think that democracy is the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 story, then you have to act like it, and you need to show that you’re willing to take a political risk, like voting against an otherwise popular bill in order to increase and create leverage to try to save the democracy.

You mentioned the possibility of public involvement, public demonstrations, people out on the street. What would bring them there?

Well, there aren’t daily political rallies happening in the country. But anytime you set one up now, you’re seeing not thousands of people, but tens of thousands of people attending. You saw what happened with Bernie and A.O.C. over the weekend.

I think they reached thirty thousand at one of the rallies.

And Senator [Richard] Blumenthal, my colleague in Connecticut, was telling me that he went to this tiny, last-minute Tesla protest at a dealership in Milford, Connecticut, and there were six hundred people who essentially shut down Route 1 in Connecticut. People are ready to mobilize. We just haven’t been organized enough to give them those opportunities. And this speaks to the actual need of the Democratic Party right now. We have to be better when it comes to our tactics inside Washington, but we actually have to build a political infrastructure that can plug people in. And that’s what we’ve been really terrible at doing over the years. The Republicans have a permanent political infrastructure—mobilizing, legal, messaging, intellectual. The Democrats have a very thin permanent infrastructure.

So how do you go about winning back voters who don’t agree with you on some of what you say are orthodoxies, without ceding ground on things that you believe in?

I think about a really transparent ask of people, which is to say: we want you to work with us because you believe the minimum wage should be ten dollars higher. You believe that corporate power has become so consolidated as to become an evil. And we’re willing to hear you out, we’re willing to listen to you about your concerns, about how far our party has moved on guns or climate or cultural and social issues. To just have a little bit less judgment when it comes to the non-economic issues. I think that that builds a bigger coalition.

I get that. But, if you read Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” or “Why We Can’t Wait,” he is addressing centrist, or center-left, clergy and activists who are always counselling him: You have to wait a little longer. It’s not time yet. And I think a lot of people, a lot of groups—and the most obvious one that Trump took advantage of in his ads were trans people—want their rights, want respect, and they want to be able to exist in the world as easily as you and me. Are we asking them to wait?

No. Listen, we’re trying to win power so we can protect those people. We just aren’t going to be able to protect them if—

If we mention them.

No. If we don’t build coalitions that allow us to win elections. Listen, one of my colleagues, [Georgia Senator] Jon Ossoff, gave a great speech over the weekend. He talked, in the meat of his speech, about the trans community, as I do, and said, “Listen, don’t let the right blame your problems on trans kids or on immigrants. Your problems are created by a fundamental corruption inside government. Your problems are created by a government that prioritizes the billionaires and rigs the rules against you.” That is a message that can win. So I don’t think you run away from your defense of those communities. You talk about those communities in the context of a message that is anchored in fighting concentrated economic power, and fighting the billionaire class that is taking over our government.

Senator, you’ve been on TV a lot lately. You’ve been out there quite a lot. Are you in the process of asserting yourself for national office?

No. And to the extent that my messaging has broken through a little bit more than others, I ascribe to the fact that there is not actually a personal motive attached to it. Sometimes, even if you’re not saying it out loud, people can kind of tell when you’re putting yourself out there for personal political gain. I actually believe that there is a good chance that we are not going to have an election in which people can make an actual choice in 2026. My hair is on fire about it. So to the extent that people are picking up what I’m putting down, I think it’s because they see that I am motivated—first, second, and third—by my fear that we are going to sleepwalk through the transition of our country from a democracy to an autocracy.

And you believe that’s what we’re doing right now?

I think we are at risk of sleepwalking through this transition. We desperately want to believe that we can play politics as normal because it’s uncomfortable—really uncomfortable—to play politics as not normal. It involves taking really big risks. And, of course, you just want to wake up and believe that you live in a country where people wouldn’t make a conscious choice to move away from democratic norms. But while some people are being hoodwinked into being along for that ride, others are making the conscious choice because our democracy has been so broken for so long.

So, yes, I believe that there is a chance that we miss this moment. We just wake up one day and we are no longer in a democracy, which is why I think we have to start acting more urgently right now.

And is it like the boiling of a frog? Or is there a more immediate flash point, when you know that you’ve passed the point of no return?

No, I think it’s like the boiling of a frog. We believe that there are these Reichstag moments, but there normally aren’t. Normally, you just lose an election, and then you lose another election, and then another one. And you start to look around and say, wait a second. I don’t think the minority party can ever win again.

[gothic-aesthetic-gal]

Old Scars (Part 18)

Ledger!joker x reader

Fem!reader is kidnapped by the joker and his henchmen while just trying to get a moment's reprieve from her boring, soul-destroying job ✨️

Tw: I mean, we all saw TDK, right? I'd say this is on the same level/rating. Kidnapping, threat of violence, weapons. ANGST Beyond this i'm not sure, i'll update these when I write more.

Part 18 -

I slept deeply for so many hours that it was pitch black by the time I came around. I found I was alone and disoriented as I struggled to work out where I was for a moment, peering into the darkness as I sat on the edge of the bed. Whilst I shook off the confused images of my fading dream, I thought I could hear voices. Men's voices, and more than one.

Quietly, I picked my way acros the floor and slipped out of the door into the hall. I tried to be silent with each step as I approached the kitchen, stopping just short of the doorway to listen in. There were more of them than I had expected, and even without seeing them, I felt a little afraid. When the only familiar voice met my ears, it was somewhat comforting to hear J.

"There are three locations for this, all of them are important," he said.

There were murmurs of agreement from the others.

"What about Maroni?" one of the men interjected.

"What about him? We'll deal with him later. Now listen closely," J replied, the hint of irritation in his voice was like a snake winding up for a strike.

The men fell silent again.

"I need you to put the drums, here, here and here. Then we'll rig up the charges. The detonator needs to be long-range."

"Alright, but what about that building there. There could be a lot of people in that one?" Asked another of the men.

"Your point being what exactly?" J countered.

"Well, what if one of them spots us?"

"They won't. We'll be covert."

"And, if the blast damages that block too?"

"Collateral. If you want to make an omelette, you gotta break a few eggs."

J's casual tone pierced me like a knife.

I knew what he was, but I had been distracted by whatever feelings had begun to take root in me; I had lost sight of this side of him. The revelation of the Joker as he was, as I had first met him, burned. He was dangerous, callous and cruel. I felt sick. I wanted so badly to pretend I hadn't heard any of this.

As I moved to head back to the relative safety of the bedroom, my shoulder caught the faded plastic receiver of the wall-mounted phone - a relic of the appartment's past. I managed to catch it before it hit the floor but the clatter of plastic as it came off the hook had already betrayed me.

I hurriedly replaced it into the cradle and darted as quietly as I could back down the hall. I closed the door as softly as I could and practically threw myself back into the bed, tossing the covers over me and turning to face away from the door. I felt my whole body tense in agonising anticipation as foosteps entered the hall.

I cursed my clumsiness and willed myself to stay as still as I could in the total darkness, barely able to draw a breath. A hand was on the door, unlatching it and a bar of light from the hall illuminated the space. Someone stepped through, and pushed it closed softly, leaving only the tiniest sliver of illumination. With each step towards the bed I felt as though my heart was being squeezed. They stopped at my back and I could hear my pulse, blood rushing, in my ears. There was only this and the silence in the room with us.

I could smell the faintest hint of familiar smoky cologne and realised it must be him. At first I felt a tiny bit relieved, but my heart soon dropped as I heard something which sent my hair prickling up my spine:

The clack of a knife springing open.

Silence again poured over me, drowning me as I was forced to remain frozen in place. He seemed to stand there for so long with the open knife in his hand that I began to wonder if he was trying to decide what to do. The entire time my brain was eating itself, desperately trying to think of some way out of this. Should I move as though I was stirring? Or was it better to stay stock still? Was he debating whether to kill me? Did that mean there was a chance I could persuade him not to?

Still silence. Each second was agonizing. My throat burned as I tried to hold my breathing steady.

It took everything in me not to flinch as he finally broke out of the stalemate and reached out a hand to touch me. He bent over me and stroked the hair which had fallen by my cheek with a delicate tenderness I didn't think he was capable of. I still didn't dare to move. Then he gave a kind of frustrated sigh and I heard him put away the knife before his footsteps retreated again. The door opened and closed softly and I gasped in relief as soon as I heard him go down the hall.

As I lay there in the darkness, I began to wonder what they were plotting. People were going to die, that much was certain. My mind was plagued by the harsh reality which had so suddenly been forced into it. How could I have let myself get so tangled up with him? Killing off mobsters was one thing, but this was different...

The words of the crooked cops wound their way into my troubled mind. They had accused me of whoring myself out to him, of pursuing him like the women who seek out relationships with serial killers behind bars. It wasn't true then; the idea had disgusted me. But what about now? I wasn't able to shake the images of what I'd let him to do me, or the feeling of shame at how much i'd enjoyed it.

I curled up into a ball and stayed that way until long after I heard the men leave. I felt so stupid for not taking my chance to escape several times over. Why had I agreed to stay? I had no cellphone, and no one to call if I did anyhow, and until he left I would not get another chance to walk out of the front door without him knowing. I chewed my nails anxiously, trying to workout what I could do.

The sound of him moving around the apartment only heightened my anxiety. Would he consider killing me again? Did he do this every night while I was sleeping? I thought about the weapons stockpile in the other room. What if I took something? Could I use it in defence, or even, could I kill him first? I desperately scrabbled around in my head trying to formulate some kind of plan.

The sound of the door latch made my breath stick in my throat as he entered the room. He flicked on the table lamp and sank down onto his side of the bed. Then he kicked off his shoes and laid down beside me with a rumbling sigh.

I felt his cold hands snake around my mid-section and pull me closer to him. What would have been so comforting just a few hours earlier now felt like a trap. I continued to pretend I was sleeping while he held me, occasionally stroking his thumb against my bare skin. His breath was tickling my shoulder blade as I kept my eyes tightly shut.

It took a long time but eventually the relaxation of his grip and his slower breathing confirmed he had fallen asleep. I was terrified of waking him but I had to get out. I figured until I was fully clothed and about to step out of the door, if he did wake i'd just have to act like I'd got up to shower or eat - just behave as normally as possible. I very, very tentatively slipped out of his arms.

He stirred and I froze, but saw that he quickly resettled without me being in his grasp. I rose up from the bed, slipping along the length of the wall. I wasn't even sure of the time, but it didn't matter. I had to go. It had to be now. I gathered my duffle bag and made it out of the bedroom door. I was too afraid to turn on the hallway light in case it woke him, but knew I had to be careful not to knock the phone down again. As soon as I made it into the blue room, I hurriedly threw on a pair of sweats and a jumper. My fingers were shaking as I laced up my boots and bundled the t-shirt and shorts I had been wearing back into the bag, on top of the clothes and makeup I had put in there back in one of the warehouses.

Here I paused, just for a moment. I felt too afraid to consider where I would go, but I knew if I wanted to have a chance of laying low, I'd need cash. I hurriedly searched the room and it wasn't long before I came across a couple of stacks of dog-eared bills. I stuffed them into my bag and then set to looking at the contents of the crates. Most of the weapons were far too big and specialist for me to consider using. I needed smaller things.

In the end, I pocketed a taser and a handgun. Sliding the magazine out of it, I was able to compare it to the ones it had been laid on top of in the crate. They looked identical, so I took them with me as well. Suddenly, I wondered if the taser also required cartridges and went back to where I'd picked it up. Sure enough, there they were. I stuffed three into my bag. For good measure I grabbed a baton and a set of brass knuckles.

Not wanting to risk being discovered raiding his supplies I hurriedly zipped up the bag and slung it over my shoulder. As I was about to pass back into the hall, something made me pause. On the chair to my right, within reach, was the porcelain face of my carnival mask. I wanted so badly to pick it up, but with the realisation that the bells might give me away, I stopped short. I hurriedly crossed over to another crate and took out a knife. It was stupid but I didn't want to leave it behind so I hurriedly yet meticulously cut each golden bell from the tips of the triangles framing the face, gripping each one to dull the sound. I placed them one by one in a line on the carpet and pocketed the blade.

With the taser in one hand, and the mask in the other, I tip toed my way to the front door. I felt so sure he would know, and be waiting there to laugh at my foolishness for thinking I could outsmart him, but he wasn't. I slowly turned the key in the lock and it clicked open. I could still hear his distant snoring over the buzzing of the refrigerator and figured I was in the clear. I stepped out into the crisp night air and gently closed the door after me.

As soon as I made it down the steps, I bolted like a hare knowing the hunter is at his heels. I ran, and ran, my breath coming out in big swirling clouds of vapour. I darted across the desolate industrial landscape of the docklands, until I finally crossed into the fringes of city blocks, the old tenaments towering over me. I couldn't run any further and had to drop into a fast walk instead, only stopping briefly to stuff the mask into the duffle.

I turned this way and that through the streets until I hit the nearest station. Panting for breath, I staggered up the steps and onto the idling train car just before the doors hissed closed behind me. There were only a handful of other passengers and I collapsed into one of the seats.

I didn't know where to go or what to do, so I decided to ride the trains until I could figure it out. It would help to randomly switch directions occasionally; I didn't want to be tracked down. The fear of discovery was still looming over me - I had just stolen from the Joker and run away into the night. He was not likely to take it well, even if he had promised I could walk away. What had I done? I was in an ungodly mess of a situation... I held my head in my hands defeatedly as the city lights flickered by and the train rattled over the elevated tracks.

Link to the masterlist for other chapters:

Tag list:

If I forgot anyone or you want to be removed from the tag list - please let me know! 💕

@dis0rderly-cl0wn-nerd

@dance-like-a-clown

@furisodespirit

@heath-ledger-jokers-wife

@sunfyrejoker

@lightsabergirl

@clowning--around

@ruby-da-archangel

@harleenqvinn

@helchronicles

@ostricx

@knoepfl

@jumpingjellyfishhaha

@nicklet94

@torossosebs

@all-bi-myselfs-blog

Dividers by @strangergraphics ✨️

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Biden wants to ban ripoff “financial advisors”

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Once, American workers had "defined benefits pensions," where their employers promised to pay them a certain amount every year from their retirement to their death. Jimmy Carter swapped that out for 401(k)s, "market" pensions where you have to guess which stocks will be valuable or starve in your old age:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

The initial 401(k) rollout had all kinds of pot-sweeteners that made them seem like a good deal, like heavy employer matching that doubled or even tripled the value of every dollar you put into the market for your retirement. But over the years, as Reaganomics took hold and workers' power ebbed away, all these goodies were clawed back. In the end, the market-based pension makes you the sucker at the poker table, flushing your savings into a rigged casino that is firmly tilted in favor of finance barons and other eminently guillotineable plutocrats.

Neoliberalism is many things, but most of all it is a cult of individualism. The fact that three generations of workers are nows facing down retirement without pensions that will provide them with secure housing and food – let alone money to see the odd movie, buy birthday gifts for their grandkids, or enjoy a meal out now and then – is framed as millions of individual failures, not a systemic one.

In other words, if you are facing food insecurity and homelessness after a lifetime of hard work, it's because you saved wrong. Perhaps you didn't save enough (through a 40-year run of wage stagnation and skyrocketing housing, health and education costs). Or perhaps you saved wrong, making the wrong bets on the stock market. If you can't afford to run your air conditioner during a heat dome, that's on you: you should have been better at stocks.

Apologists for this system will say that you don't have to be good at stocks – you just have to pay an Independent Financial Advisor to pick the stocks for you and you'll be fine. But IFAs don't work for free! What if you can't afford one?

Enter "predatory inclusion" – the practice of offering scammy, overpriced and substandard products to poor people and declaring it to be a good deed, because otherwise, those poor people would have to do without. The crypto bubble relied heavily on this: think of Spike Lee and others shilling for pump-and-dump scams as a way of "building Black wealth":

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/media/cryptocurrency-seeks-the-spotlight-with-spike-lees-help.html

More recently, Intuit and other scammy tax-prep services have argued against the IRS's plan to offer free tax preparation as bad for Black and brown people, because it will deny them the chance to be deceived and ripped off with TurboTax:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

Back in 2018, Trump won the predatory inclusion Olympics, when his Department of Labor let the Fifth Circuit abolish the "Fiduciary Rule" for Independent Financial Advisors:

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/

What was the Fiduciary Rule? It said that your IFN had to put your interests ahead of their own. Like, if there were two different funds you could bet on, and one would pay your IFN a big commission, while the other would be a better bet for you, the IFN couldn't put your retirement savings into the fund that offered them a bribe.

When Trump killed the Fiduciary Rule, he proclaimed it a victory for poor people, especially Black and brown people. After all, if IFNs weren't allowed to accept bribes for giving you bad financial advice, then they would have to make up the difference by charging you for good advice. If you couldn't afford that advice, well, you'd have to make bad retirement investments on your own, without the benefit of their sleazy self-dealing.

The Biden Administration wants to change that. Biden's Acting Labor Secretary is Julie Su, and she's very good at her job. Last spring, she forced west coast dockworkers' bosses to cough up the contract they'd stalled on for a year, with 8-10% raises for every worker, owed retroactively:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

Su has proposed a way to reinstate the Fiduciary Rule, as part of the Biden Administration's war on junk fees, estimating that this will increase retirees' net savings by 20%:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-11-07-julie-su-labor-retirement-savers/

The new rule will force advisors who cheat their clients to pay restitution, and will require them to deliver all their advice in writing so that this cheating can be detected and punished.

The industry is furious, of course. They claim that "The Market (TM)" will solve this: if you get bad retirement savings advice and end up homeless and starving, then you will choose a different advisor in your next life, after you are reincarnated (I guess?).

And of course, they're also claiming that forcing IFNs to stop cheating their clients will deny poor people access to expert (bad) advice. As the Financial Services Institute's Dale Brown says, this will have a "negative impact on Main Street Americans’ access to financial advice":

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/legal-challenge-predicted-for-new-dol-fiduciary-proposal-75257.html

Here's that rule – read it for yourself, then submit a comment expressing your views on it. The government wants to hear from you, and administrative law requires them to act on the comments they receive:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/03/2023-23782/proposed-amendment-to-prohibited-transaction-exemptions-75-1-77-4-80-83-83-1-and-86-128

Su is part of a wave of progressive, technically skilled regulators in the Biden administration that resulted from a horse-trading exercise called the Unity Task Force, which divvied up access to top appointments among the progressive wing and the finance wing of the Democratic Party. The progressive appointments are nothing short of incredible – the most competent and principled agency leaders America has seen in half a century:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

But then there's the finance wing's appointments, like Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, who ruled against Lina Khan's attempt to block the rotten Microsoft/Activision merger (don't worry, Khan's appealing):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

Perhaps the worst, though, is Biden's Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, a private equity ghoul who did a stint for the notorious wreckers Bain Capital before founding her own firm. Raimondo has stuffed her department full of Goldman Sachs alums, and has sidelined labor and civil society groups as she sets out to administer everything from the CHIPS Act to regulating ChatGPT.

As Henry Burke writes for the Revolving Door Project and The American Prospect, Raimondo's history as a corporate raider, her deference to the finance sector, and she and her husband's conflicts of interest from their massive stakes in companies she's regulating all serve to undermine Biden's agenda:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-11-08-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-undercutting-bidenomics/

When the administration inevitably complains that its popular economic programs aren’t breaking through the media coverage, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

The Unity Task Force gave us generationally important policymakers, but ultimately, it's a classic "pizzaburger." If half your family wants pizza, and the other half wants burgers, and you serve them something halfway in between that makes none of them happy, you haven't made a wise compromise – you've just made an inedible mess:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

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/2023/11/08/fiduciaries/#but-muh-freedumbs

[starsfic]

The Week After, Chapter 5: Day 5

Summary: Things snap. Notes: There is smut on the AO3 version of this. There are warnings for the smut.

The show was going to be rigged.

Now that Morgan knew more about it and had sat in the office, listening to Frankie and the board rambling about the next season plans as they thought they were tuned out, it was absolutely fucking rigged. Now that they were here, they would be involved in it, making sure either them or that monster version of Frankie won for however many seasons. Until the show shut down or the audience got bored of one of them.

Morgan didn't need to train. But they wanted to, otherwise they would doom themself without the aid of anyone.

No, scratch that.

There was an itch deep in Morgan's systems. They couldn't get the proper hit without Monster Frankie, but apparently, the backup body wouldn't be turned on until a week before the show. It was fine. There were other ways to make the adrenaline rush through their systems, even if the parkour palace's systems weren't running.

They stepped inside Frankie's Crash Course from the hidden elevator, pressing the big red button next to it. As the elevator doors slid close and the saw blades began to dull whir, they headed to the STAND HERE mark. The long-sleeved leotard they had dug out in replacement of a shirt felt a touch too revealing, but it was the best parkour clothes they had. They needed to stock up. At least they had good sneakers.

The timer began to count down, unlike during the show, as the blades grew louder. The minute it hit zero, the two minutes began.

It started slow at first. Morgan side-stepped and jumped easily without a real sweat. They fought back a snicker as cardboard cutouts of Frankie joined. As one with his hand up zipped past, they high-fived it. The ground was soft but solid underneath their feet, kinda like the material the daycare at that one pizza place was made of, so there was no fear of injury, except from the stronger and stronger saw blades and the faster and faster stuff trying to push them into the saw blades. Still, they continued on, gritting their teeth and forcing their body to move faster and faster, even as an ache began to thrum through their body.

I should have stretched before . That was a note.

Five…four…three…two…one-

The timer stopped, leaving things half frozen. Morgan came to a stop, breathing and out, their throat dry and aching. They needed to bring a water bottle next time. During the show, they had nearly died from the amount of coughing from lack of water.

They headed to the elevator.

They first headed to their apartment to get the waterbottle they got from a college tour, back when they were still with their family. Next, they headed to the trampoline park.

They worked their way through the parkour palace. They had to head back again when they remembered Deputy Duck’s section and grab him. He had kinda been dropped with the rest of the show outfit and ended up propped on a counter, where he had sat silent. But after some poking around in his jail cell, they found a charging port and resisted a smile at the broken quack. Morgan didn’t know if Depity Duck was sentient, like the others, but that quack had sounded like a thanks.

Frankie spoke up when they entered Henry Hotline’s section.

“What are you doing?”

Morgan nearly walked into a wall from their jump. They couldn’t find the light switches for this section. When they had been cleaning up the bodies, they had relied on the flashlight on their phone. At least this gave them practice. “Practicing.”

“You’re going to break something,” Frankie said. They couldn’t tell, but he either sounded concerned or mocking. “Did you even wrap up your chest after that fall at the frosted peak?”

The fall in question had been high. Really high. Morgan’s chest did ache, but it wasn’t anything to worry about. The ache in their ribs from their first fall, back during the show, didn’t even bother them anymore! At least, not until they started training.

“I’m fine, Frankie.” Morgan reached out and allowed their right hand to press against the wall and started to walk. They needed to run this, but that would come second. “I want to give the viewers a show. I want to earn the victory.”

“Well, you can’t do that if you break an arm or something.” Frankie said, and he did sound annoyed. “Come back and let me look at it.”

“No, I’m fine.” Morgan’s pace began to speed up.

There was an annoyed groan. “You’re being stubborn for no reason. Let me help you keep us both active and alive here.”

“No.” For some reason, probably the tone he took- like he was babysitting a kindergartener, they refused. “I don’t need your help.”

He groaned again, this one longer and more annoyed. “Come. Here.”

“No!”

The wall suddenly yanked out in front of them. Several questions joined the pile, including the fact that the walls could move. Their plan to map out the maze was suddenly unavailable. The intercom crackled. “Come. Here. You’re putting both of us at risk.”

Well, now, they had to. “Fuck you too,” they called, still turning and heading back where they came, eventually seeing the phone that started the game. “I can get hurt if I want to!”

The intercom was silent now.

Morgan grumbled as they headed to the elevator, slamming the button for the utilidors. As the elevator headed down, they found their foot tapping against the floor. The repeated gesture didn’t help the anger boiling in their gut. They had just been preparing. They had been working on it all day, why was he suddenly pitching a fit?

A strange smell hit their nose as they drew closer to the office. Bafflement washed over them as they turned the corner and saw that the smell came from the cigar that Frankie was smoking as he glared at the cameras.

“You can smoke?”

“It’s new. It’s a better method of hurting myself than whatever you were doing.” he snarked back, pulling the cigar out and stamping it out in the ashtray that had popped up. He turned and, yep, that was a glare, even if his face couldn’t make a glare. “If you get hurt, there’s no guarantee you’ll be fine before the show, which hurts your chances and mine.”

“So?” Morgan said with a huff, crossing their arms and ignoring the spike of pain. He had made them angry, there was no way they were admitting weakness. “I need to practice. You can’t stop me.” On a dare that popped up, they leaned forward and grinned. “I’m not yours.”

[bumblebeeswrite]

SUMMER CAMP CELEBRATION | SIMON KALIVODA | THE MISCHIEF COORDINATOR

summary: Simon’s camp counselor headcanons

Why he wants to work at summer camp:

For Simon, summer camp is basically a playground with fewer rules and more opportunities for fun (and maybe a little controlled chaos). He probably sees it as an extended vacation where he gets paid to hang out with kids, pull pranks (mostly harmless, he swears!), and be outdoors. Plus, he probably thinks it's a great way to meet new people and maybe even impress someone with his charm and wit. And another plus, three plus months away from Shadyside? Sign. Him. Up.

Camp Nickname and How He Got It:

"Sparky." It started during a particularly enthusiastic (and slightly reckless) attempt to build the biggest and best campfire ever. Let's just say there were a few unexpected sparks and a minor singeing of some marshmallows. The nickname stuck, and he wears it with a mix of pride and slight embarrassment.

How He Works with Children:

Simon is like a big kid himself. He's energetic, enthusiastic, and always up for a game or an adventure. He connects with the campers through his playful nature and his willingness to be silly. He's the counselor who will lead the charge in water balloon fights, organize impromptu talent shows, and tell the most outrageous (and slightly embellished) stories. He's not the most organized or the best at enforcing rules, but the kids adore his fun-loving spirit.

How your romance blooms:

It likely starts with shared laughter. Maybe you find yourself constantly rolling your eyes but secretly giggling at his antics. Perhaps you bond over trying to keep the more mischievous campers in line or while cleaning up the aftermath of one of his "brilliant" ideas. He's probably not subtle with his interest, showering you with playful teasing, maybe trying to impress you with his (questionable) skills in various camp activities, or always making sure you're included in the fun. His genuine enthusiasm and infectious energy might just wear down your initial reservations, and you find yourself drawn to his ability to make even the most mundane camp tasks feel like an adventure. The romance blossoms through shared smiles and the realization that life is a lot more fun with him around.

His Cabin:

He's in charge of the "Raccoons" cabin, which is known for being the most rambunctious and least organized. It's a constant state of playful disarray, with half-finished games, scattered art supplies, and a general air of controlled chaos. Simon's approach to cabin rules is more like friendly suggestions, but he does step in when things get too wild.

His Go-To Camp Activity:

Anything competitive and slightly messy. Capture the flag, water sports, and the annual camp Olympics are his jam. He's fiercely competitive but in a good-natured way, always encouraging participation and good sportsmanship (even if he secretly really wants to win).

Camp Pranks:

Simon is the king of harmless pranks. Think swapping sugar and salt in the mess hall, rigging up silly string traps, or hiding rubber ducks in unexpected places. His pranks are never mean-spirited, always intended to get a laugh. You might find yourself both exasperated and amused by his creativity.

Campfire Songs:

He knows all the silly camp songs by heart and sings them with gusto, often adding his own improvised (and usually off-key) harmonies. He's the one who gets everyone hyped up for "Boom Chicka Boom" and isn't afraid to make up ridiculous verses.

Dealing with Homesickness:

Simon's approach to homesickness is all about distraction and fun. He'll try to cheer up a sad camper with a joke, a silly game, or by involving them in a group activity. He believes the best way to forget about being homesick is to be too busy having fun.

His Uniform:

His uniform is usually slightly askew – a wrinkled t-shirt, untied sneakers, and maybe a rumpled bucket hat. He probably has a collection of funny or ironic patches that he's added to his camp hat or backpack. Comfort and personal expression are key for Simon.

His Hidden Talent:

He's surprisingly good at juggling. He can juggle just about anything he can get his hands on – tennis balls, pinecones, even the occasional marshmallow (before eating it, of course). He usually busts this out during downtime to entertain the campers (and maybe impress you).

[idiopath-fic-smile]

taskmaster au? could be gen fic or any pairing

amazing. your mind.

okay, i think this one is crying out for leverage. new leverage because i refuse to include nate:

eliot is the host.

the most chaotic challenge of the season is "cook a steak without entering the kitchen."

harry attempts to rig up arm extensions out of broomsticks. he can't even get the steak into a pan.

breanna tries to overheat a laptop enough to get some kind of sear on the outside of the steak but unfortunately, she'd already upgraded all the computers on set to run super-efficiently as a favor to the crew and she can't even get the laptops to warm. she winds up researching the history of steak tartare and the semantics of the word "cook," elaborately plating the meat raw on a soap dish.

sophie convinces one of the lighting technicians to cook her steak for her. she stands just outside the doorway, calling out instructions. however, her charisma makes him visibly nervous and he accidentally drops the steak in the trash.

parker steals a camera guy's lighter to rig up a blowtorch in the garage. she's halfway through a really nice crust when she gets bored and somehow manages to explode the steak.

hardison hacks the smart thermostat and uses it to order delivery from a nearby steakhouse. "you did not cook the steak," eliot growls. "i caused the steak to be cooked," hardison replies with a grin. he and sophie high five.

eliot is outraged to realize that technically, parker came the closest, in that she did successfully apply heat to the meat in such a way as to alter the protein structure. "this is," says eliot in a low voice, "the single worst way anybody's cooked a steak since the invention of fire." "that's my girl!" says hardison.

there was a grill outside

there was a grill outside

the next episode, the contestants are charged with bringing in "something surprising" as a prize. hardison's contribution is a coupon for a dinner for two with eliot at the nicest restaurant in town. "he'd be good company if he wasn't so hangry," hardison explains. it's got eliot's signature at the bottom. eliot did not sign it.

parker's contribution is a coupon for a dinner for three with eliot at the nicest restaurant in town.

yeah, she just stole hardison's and added another spot for a name.

"surprised?" says parker. "that's one goddamn word for it," says eliot.

now parker and hardison are playing to win.