#i get quite enthusiastic about my demonic disaster daughter

[dravenxivuk]

Can you please tell those of us who don't know much about Lily a little about her? I've always been curious from seeing her in your games!

Enthuse at length about my Witcher OC? sure xD 

Race: Demon Gender: Female Immediate family: None Sexuality: Bisexual disaster Occupation:  Witcheress, explorer 

Lily is thought to be around 400 years old, but she doesn’t actually know, and stopped paying attention at least three centuries ago. She shows no physical signs of aging.

Demeanour: Laid back and cheerful most of the time, but mess with those she cares about and she will hurt you. Maybe not now, but one day she will come back to you because she has all the time in the world. Less concerned about slights to herself, probably won’t even notice them. Will tease those she likes, but will tone it down if they’re getting uncomfortable. Does have a soft side but you have to earn her trust before she’ll show it.

Likes: Shiny things (especially if they’re sharp and pointy), learning, travelling & exploring, dancing, reading, red wine, having her head scratched at the base of her horns (very few people know this).

Languages: Can read and speak most languages of the Northern Realms fluently, has reasonable knowledge of other languages from her travels.

Preternaturally Strong: Lily’s strength is on par with a higher vampire.

Regeneration: Lily regenerates incredibly quickly – as fast, if not faster than, a higher vampire.

Always sober: Can’t get drunk due to how fast she heals, but keeps trying anyway!

Soul-free: Doesn’t have a soul.

Long Witcher 3 verse background under the cut (basically her about from the sideblog where I RP her @simplly-lilly ).  She has other verses - modern, Nioh 2 based, a couple of ‘old’ verses set 50-ish years after Witcher 3, but this is her main one.

Lily ended up in the Northern Realms because she investigated an interesting shiny disc she found in her own world. She appeared in an intricately drawn circle in a mage’s lab which was very pretty but she was far more interested in the shiny baubles he had hanging around so wandered over for a closer look. Master Bertrand, the mage, got quite upset that she just ambled out of his summoning circle, he wasn’t aiming for a horned woman but as she’d shown up she should at least have the decency to follow the rules.

Bertrand wrote a work, Master Bertrand’s Treatise on Summoning & Containing Demonic Entities, based on his summoning of Lily that made him infamous among goetia magic users, mostly because none were ever able to replicate his work and summon their own demon. Lily maintains this is because he only summoned her by accident because she went to look at the shiny disc.

Nonetheless it is possible to summon her, something that has so far been managed accidentally by one scholar in Oxenfurt and a group of witchers messing about in Kaer Morhen. Being summoned is disconcerting and makes her hungry, as such her standard advice for anyone trying to summon a demon is to dispense with the theatrics and make sure you have snacks on hand for when they get there because they’ll be grumpy. If she trusts someone enough she’ll give them her sigil so they can call her whenever they want.

Master Bertrand periodically subjected Lily to horrific experiments and she is heavily scarred as a result, but most people never notice as she heals so quickly her scars are barely visible. Those who do look closely might notice that a lot of them look medical, almost vivisection-like as the mage wanted to find out if demons were the same on the inside as people, among other things. Lily doesn’t like to talk about it and as those who do notice the scarring tend to put it down to fighting she generally doesn’t have to.

Lily ended up staying with Master Bertrand for about a century. He taught her various languages of the Northern Realms and how to read, which he regretted doing as soon as she found the library and started disappearing for weeks at a time. Lily stayed with the Bertrand as long as she did despite the hideous experiments he conducted on her, because it never occurred to her that she could leave.

There were protective wards around the house, and strong magical barriers controlling where she could go. The Mage experimented with magical implants for a while as a way to track and control her, but her accelerated healing powers just pushed them out almost immediately. When he needed to restrain her for an experiment he would have to use massive amounts of magic that would leave him drained for days. As she’s concerned dimeritium is just another shiny metal, it is no more or less effective at restraining her than anything else, and she’s very fond of silver.

Master Bertrand had an ongoing contract with a Cat witcher who brought him interesting bits of monsters for potions and occasional live specimens if requested. For one set of experiments Bertrand hired Cat to spar with Lily, he wanted to see how her speed and strength compared to a witcher having already established she was stronger than humans. Cat won easily and told Bertrand that if he wanted accurate measurements she would need to be trained otherwise the results would always be skewed, so Bertrand hired Cat to do just that.

Cat not only taught Lily hand-to-hand combat and sword play but how to use a whole range of blades, and how to hide them to pass the most thorough searches. Her witcher training would be obvious to any witcher who sparred or fought her, probably down to which school. She can fight very well, although she’s not quite as fast as most witchers, but she can also get reckless because it’s only pain and she heals. She’s very protective of her friends and while most of them are fast healing witchers, she regenerates faster so will put herself between them and peril if the need arises.

Cat also taught Lily how to make witcher potions and an exciting array of poisons, much to Master Bertrand’s annoyance as Cat (and later Lily) refused to share this knowledge with him. Cat tried to teach her to use witcher signs but abandoned it after she blew up half the lab trying to igni a candle.

Cat and Lily were a couple for almost 70 years. Cat made her promise that when he died she’d return his medallion to his school, however he didn’t set a time limit on doing it so she now wears it as her own. Cat also made her promise to look after his blades and put them to good use, most of the blades secreted around her person used to belong to Cat and they have all seen a lot of use. She’ll talk about Cat if pushed, but won’t bring him up voluntarily.

Cat died after being betrayed by Bertrand. Until Cat died she respected the magical barriers around the house, but the pain and fury over his death tapped into her demon nature more fully than any experiment and the barriers came apart as she forced through them. The ensuing fight with Bertrand was when they both discovered how distorted and warped magic can really get around her when she goes full demon. It was the last thing he ever discovered as shortly afterwards she ripped his heart out.

She also destroyed a lot of the darker corners of his lab, but she left the library and house intact. Much as she hates the place it’s always handy to have somewhere to go back to if absolutely necessary. She has an interesting collection of magical knickknacks courtesy of inheriting Bertrand’s collection, most she keeps because they’re shiny but a couple are actually useful.

She likes witchers and vastly prefers their company to humans, mostly because they’ve travelled a lot and seen a lot of shit so always have an interesting story to tell. They also know what it’s like to mostly pass as human until people get up close. When very bored she has been known to put up a contract on herself. Occasionally it works.

She will break her horns off herself if she’s travel through somewhere sensitive (looking at you Novigrad) but she doesn’t like doing it because they itch when they grow back, particularly when they’re going through the velvet shedding phase. Her horns usually grow a bit quicker than her hair, but if she takes a massive amount of damage they’ll grow back more quickly as her body kicks into healing mode.

Lily is a firm believer in hugs, and gets particular joy from hugging tetchy witchers as she’s sure they’d enjoy hugs too with a little practice. She just ignores it when they’re a bit awkward as it’s often been a while since whichever witcher she’s tackle hugged this time last had any friendly contact.

[deltaengineering]

Summer Anime 2019 Part 1: no more intros

Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo. / O Maidens in your Savage Season

❓ There’s an outbreak of puberty in a high school literature club and things get really awkward really fast.

✅✅ This doesn’t pull any punches with the horny content and it’s hilarious.

✅ I like the characters as well, they seem to have a bit more to them than normal but they’re still likeable.

✅ Nice looking and well directed.

♎ Mari Okada’s trademark blunt writing is still there, though it works better here than it usually does. She really has gotten a lot better since she started writing more personal stuff instead of just vague supernatural seishun feels.

 Dr. Stone

❓ A mysterious disaster turns everyone on earth into stone. Several millennia later some shounen characters are the first ones to awake and they do some caveman chemistry.

✅  The idea is pretty novel by Weekly Shounen Jump standards.

♎ I have to say that for a WSJ joint, the writing is fairly tolerable as well. It’s still dumb, but not insultingly so.

❌ But in the end, it’s still WSJ and you’re still just watching a bunch of terrible looking meatheads doing basic science on the level of a YouTube primer and shouting about how awesome that is using assorted catchphrases.

❌ And it’s on the same day as another shounen-ass shounen, to which it is inferior. More on that later.

Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru / How Heavy are the Dumbbells you Lift?

❓ Doga Kobo x bodybuilding

♎ This is possibly the least surprising anime of the season, because all you need to know is what the Japanese bodybuilding meme is and what Doga Kobo usually does. Well, there’s no loli this time at least.

✅ Not surprising + Doga Kobo = looks good

♎ It’s not exceedingly funny but it’s competent enough at comedic timing.But some one-note jokes (such as Akemi being thirsty for muscle) get old.

✅ Doesn’t rock my socks off but it’s alright for the time being. Pretty competent and with room for improvement with more characters.

Enen no Shouboutai / Fire Force

❓ A boy with a hero complex becomes a firefighter. Since this is a shounen universe by the author of Soul Eater, this is rather literal: Get ready to punch fire demons.

✅ You ready for some DUMB ANIME SHIT? Because this is a lot of that, in a good way. In particular is gets the tone right and is neither too clowny nor too grim. Mostly.

✅✅ Looks amazing. The production is top notch and the fire is especially impressive - it better be, because there’s a lot of it. The design is also good.

❌ Shounen writing rears its ugly head again. I don’t expect subtlety, but a dozen flashbacks to Shinra’s not-very-complicated backstory plus his incessant insistence on being A HERO are not a good sign at all. At least this time the blah is limited to the thematic core instead of everything.

✅ I was entertained for now, but I’ll have to see if the good production values can keep it up and make up for the simplistic core in the long run.

Granbelm

❓ Average girl becomes magical, summons a mecha and gets involved in a magical mecha fighting ring.

✅ This looks pretty neat, seeing as it is made by the Re:Zero team.

✅ Since it’s an original, there is much less LN jank in the writing though.

♎ Still feels mostly like a mashup of very generic anime tropes - reminiscent of Mai-Hime, of all things. It might go somewhere, but might just as easily not.

♎ In particular, it might start copying Re:Zero’s derpier aspects. It already has a fondness for the ragefaces.

✅ Since it’s not in fact isekai, it is allowed to throw shade on isekai.

Joshikousei no Mudazukai / Wasteful Days of Highschool Girls

❓ Some highschool girls chat about boys and whatnot.

♎ There really isn’t much to say about it, to be honest. The characters are okay but very archetypal, it looks average, and the humor is neither amusing nor particularly annoying. It seems to have a severe lack of personality - especially compared to Maidens, which is this show with the safety off.

❌ It is, however, just far too long. These kind of mild 4koma antics wear out their welcome at full length and without anything else it becomes tedious. All the segments feel disjointed and random anyway, so there’s really no upside to yawning through 24 minutes of it.

Kanata no Astra / Astra Lost in Space

❓ Several anime characters get lost during summer camp on a distant planet and have to find their way home in an FTL spaceship they stumble across.

♎ Speaking of archetypal characters - you couldn’t put together a more anime cast together if you were making a parody. You got your spiky-haired protagonist, dim genki girl, big boobed shy fujoshi, sparkling ikemen, brooding rival, androgynous twink, glasses wearing supergenius, a tsundere and a loli. They work very hard to establish this too.

✅ Apart from this ridiculous assortment of memes, Astra leaves a solid impression. The scifi universe isn’t completely nonsensical, and the concept has potential.

✅ It’s well put together too, with good direction and high production values.

❌ The only real negative is that Astra can’t shut up about its protagonist’s backstory. There were about as many repetitive flashbacks in this episode as in the first episode of Fire Force, and it’s only not as bad because Astra’s was double length. If this remains persistent, it may be more annoying than it’s worth.

Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e / to the Abandoned Sacred Beasts

❓ In a grimderp version of the American Civil War, nobody stops to think that turning people into murderous animal hybrids might not be a good idea and might leave some grudges after the war is over.

♎ Looks average at best. If it’s trying to be Fullmetal Alchemist, I have some bad news for everyone involved.

❌ This definitely can’t be taken seriously, because it’s so contrived and on top of it the tone is all over the place. It can turn from graphic massacres to funny hijinks to inhumane experiments on a dime. To work as intended, it would need a far more delicate hand on all levels.

♎ That said, by the end of it, when there’s a pileup of tragic betrayals and one CAIN MADHOUSE turns out to be a moustache-twirling villain with a cackle to match, it comes close to being the entertaining kind of schlock.

♎ Since this was only the setup, it might be worth it to find out what the actual plot is like going forward.

The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II: Rail Zeppelin ~grace note~

❓After getting punked in the fourth Heaven’s Feel, Waver decides he wants to try his luck in the viper’s nest that is the Clock Tower (if you did not understand any of that, this show is not for you)

✅ Fate has the moneybags and moneybags make shit look good

❌ I would like to watch a dark comedy about the backstabbing and incompetence at the Clock Tower - The Death of Kayneth, if you will. However, there are only the mildest traces of this in Case Files and it takes itself far too seriously.

❌ Since I bounced off this show the second time now (there was an episode 00 a few months ago) I don’t know if I want to give this show even more chances to prove to me it’s not heartachingly dull. It’s not really funny and there’s barely any action.

♎ That leaves character drama. I do like Waver but not enough to watch him mope about his bro Iskander being dead all day. The rest of the characters are a mixed bag and evidently not good enough to keep the show going on their own.

Maou-sama, Retry!

❓ 💩

💩💩 100% of all the isekai shit and nothing else. This is highly derivative and amateur even by the standards of highly derivative amateur isekai LNs.

💩💩 Looks like absolute garbage even at ep 1. I should be happy that no talent is going to waste here.

💩 The least offensive aspect is that our MMO-reborn haxlord picks up a tiny Ramrem for casual dadfeels. It still sucks and there’s another show this season that does this better.

Sounan desu ka / Are You Lost?

❓ Comedy short about girls stranded on a remote island learning basic survival skills.

❌ One girl is hypercompetent at survival, the others are not. Hope you think this is comedy gold cos it’s all we got.

❌ show bad

Tejina-senpai / Magical Sempai

❓ Girl with breasts is an enthusiastic amateur magician and is so bad at it that every attempt ends in some compromising position.

❌ We can only afford one joke per comedy short, okay? Do you think we’re made of money and/or talent?

❌ This one is quick on the draw with the segments at least, and crams in 6 instead of the usual 2-3. So it’s theoretically less tedious, but in practice it’s all a blur of unfunny either way.

❌ show bad

Uchi no Ko no Tame naraba, Ore wa Moshikashitara Maou mo Taoseru kamo Shirenai. / If It's For My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat A Demon Lord

❓ Handsome young adventurer finds an orphaned devil child in the forest. Dadfeels ensue.

✅ So this is the one that does Maou Retry’s core aspect better. And it does it quite well, in fact; it’s cute and wholesome.

✅ Basically it’s Sweetness and Lighting with JRPG questing instead of cooking. That show was alright.

❌ However, to make up for being good at something, know that it has absolutely nothing else. The setting is off-brand JRPG mush and not even attempting otherwise, the production values are pedestrian.

♎ Apparently this turns into a fantasy version of Usagi Drop down the line. I’m not one to mark it down for that now, but that doesn’t sound too great. However, it’s questionable if 1. the anime gets there 2. the anime goes there and 3. I watch the anime enough for the problem to even arise. It’s not that good.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Valtor and Griffin parents headcanon. I love your works. The way you write is sublime😍

Oh, wow, thank you so much for the kind words and this sweet request!

Let's set this in an AU in which Valtor ran away from the Ancestral Witches with Griffin and the two are left to live in peace after they helped end the war. Now my personal headcanon is that Darcy is their daughter so I'll go with that but most of these can probably be applied in general as well:

- Valtor is worried when Griffin doesn't feel well and when he uses his magic to check up on her, he finds out she's pregnant. Griffin suspected as much but didn't really want to entertain the possibility before she could be more certain what's happening to her because she didn't want to disappoint them both.

- What is more, Griffin is worried about what kind of parent she'll be. Her mom was a very warm person and even despite that, the way the world treated her brought out the worst in her and she turned more and more to darkness, evil and mayhem until she joined the Ancestral Coven and almost helped destroy the universe. She's scared she'll make a terrible mother and that was a part of the reason why she didn't really want to confirm that she was pregnant.

- Valtor has his own doubts about being a parent. His own upbringing was a total disaster and there was nothing healthy about it. He didn't know what love is before Griffin and he has a lot of demons to battle and a lot of ingrained habits that he needs to shake off. He has to be more open and in touch with his emotions and not push upon his child any unhealthy ideas that were forced on him. He and Griffin have a conversation in which they promise each other that they'll be there for one another and keep each other in check.

- Despite having a ton of doubts about himself, Valtor is very enthusiastic about being a father and helps Griffin with everything he can during the pregnancy and after she gives birth. He's changing diapers and dressing the baby (Griffin and he agreed to use as little magic when it comes to caring about the baby as possible because they want Darcy to feel that they're there for her). He even gets up in the middle of the night instead of Griffin to let her rest when he can get the job done although Griffin is the early bird and he is usually the one who has a hard time waking up in the morning. But he’s happy to be there for both of his girls.

- Darcy has her room decorated with Dragons Lights - little sparks of dragon fire that are enchanted to light up when she’s awake so that she’s never left scared in the dark and the room always looks warm and comforting to her. The Dragon Lights stay even after she’s outgrown her fear of the dark because without them it won’t feel like home.

- Darcy displays strong magical abilities from an early age and Griffin and Valtor make it a point to include magic in their activities to help her control her powers. That also hides its risks though. Griffin and Valtor are forced to put an inhibiting spell on Darcy that keeps her from teleporting so that she doesn’t end up in the middle of a busy street or squashed in a machine. They do manage to teach her responsibility and safety when using magic in time, though, and soon she’s not teleporting away from them but uses her powers to help around the household.

- Shapeshifting is mastered from early in her childhood for it was successfully incorporated in games of tag. They start with an animal of Darcy’s choice and every time someone else becomes it, they all shift into another animal. It helps her get used to the feeling of shifting, learn to stay in control, master many different forms, and improve her speed and duration of the shapeshifting process. It’s also a lot of fun running around in a wolf or bunny form or flying as a raven or an owl.

- Hide-and-seek becomes much more intense and challenging when everyone has the power of illusions. Darcy’s illusions can’t compare to those of her parents at first and they dampen their magic to allow her to participate on an equal level and find them after all. But she soon develops her powers and it is her who needs to hit the brakes on her magic for her parents to be able to catch up. She becomes so good at illusions that it’s a good thing that they taught her to be responsible with her magic and not use it for whatnot or to hurt others and make her parents’ job harder.

- For one of Griffin’s birthdays Darcy makes an illusion that has all the known stars that have existed incorporated in it for her mom to be able to enjoy them all because she knows how much Griffin loves astronomy and the cosmos. She spent months memorizing star maps in order to be able to create the illusion and both Griffin and Valtor are left speechless by the complexity of it.

- Darcy and Valtor train with the Dragon Fire powers which she inherited from him. Griffin is a bit worried that they might hurt each other since Darcy is inexperienced and Valtor’s ego sometimes makes him forget he needs to hold back (he’s hurt her a few times when they used to spar or argue in the past) but Darcy surprises with precise control from early on and Valtor shows amazing restraint (so much so that she can see his muscles tensing with memories of him being hurt by his mothers while he’s trying to never subject his daughter to the same). Darcy becomes super good with using her Dragon Fire powers to the point where Valtor doesn’t have anything to teach her anymore and any further knowledge she needs to acquire herself.

- Darcy knows about her father’s demon form but hasn’t seen it. She wonders if she has one since she shares his DNA but Valtor assures her she doesn’t which might have been more of a disappointment in the edgy phase of her teen years but seeing how closed off he is about it convinces her that it is not something to wish for. She asks him to show it to her, though, because she wants to know all parts of her father and that includes his demon form. After a long discussion with both of her parents, Valtor finally agrees. Darcy is a bit shocked by the difference that is in him but she says she loves him nonetheless because even when he appears to be a demon, he isn’t one in his heart. He will always be the caring and present father that raised her and helped her become who she is. The one thing she does like from the demon form are the big demon wings, though.

- Darcy had a fascination with wings from an early age and would study all insects with wings she could get her hands on. Unfortunately, she was literally getting her hands on them and not all that carefully, too, so that resulted in a lot of torn off wings and dead insects in her hands which always made her cry. It did provide a good opportunity for Griffin to teach her a lot of healing spells that can be applied even to insects if you have enough control of your magic to use it on such small scale. Darcy was determined to not cause more destruction and death to the creatures that fascinated her so she learned to exercise enough control over her magic to be able to fix the smallest of injuries in the tiniest of species. That allowed her to study them without killing them.

- She also loved to study birds (especially in flight) but they were harder to come by and catch for detailed explorations (but at least that kept her from killing any of them). When she grew up a bit and learned to fly and control her magic, she befriended a crow that would always come near her and flap its wings around as if inviting her to join it in flight. She did once and the two flew around the sky like old friends with the crow even showing her some bird maneuvers that Darcy could copy when she shapeshifted into a crow herself. That later became a regular occurrence.

- The wing fascination might have started from Faragonda’s fairy wings on one of her numerous visits. She was pretty much Darcy’s fairy godmother (even if Valtor did not allow for that to become an official term) and Darcy loved to grab at her sparkly wings while she was a baby and Faragonda held her. Luckily for the fairy, her wings were much stronger than those of the insects so Darcy couldn’t rip them off or damage them. They always drew the girl’s attention, though, and she made herself “witchy wings” with her powers of illusion when she was nine or ten. They were dark purple and shimmered like starts on the night sky. Later, when she became older, she switched to flying around with dragon wings sprouting from her back. They were just an illusion, of course, but she was proud to be the bearer of the Dark Dragon Fire and her father’s daughter.

- Darcy loved all the animals and constantly dragged some stray kitten or dog home. Sometimes a squirrel, a hedgehog on occurrence, once even a snake. Neither one of her parents were very happy about it. Especially when one of the cats got three times the size of a regular cat and destroyed half of the furniture. None of them tried to inhibit Darcy’s connection with nature, though. It was a thing to be expected since she had Dragon Fire burning inside her and it was the substance of all life so all life was drawn to her (and Darcy might have helped her father reconnect a bit with nature himself since he was never allowed to explore that part of his powers and who he is). The establishment of some ground rules was necessary, though, to keep any and all incidents with wild animals to a bare minimum.

- Griffin would bake cookies or other sweets quite often when Darcy was little but she only used natural sweeteners to make sure her dabbling in the kitchen wouldn’t have negative effects on Darcy’s health. Cooking soon turned into a family exercise since Darcy was curious to learn how to make her own cookies and Valtor didn’t mind spending more time with his wife and daughter no matter what activity occupied them during that time. Griffin deemed it a great opportunity to teach them both some cooking skills so that they wouldn’t have to starve to death without her.

- Griffin and Valtor used to read and tell Darcy legends about the magical dimension and fill in some gaps with their own personal stories when they were in pursuit of some of the most powerful artifacts. That taught Darcy a great love for words and adventures and she spent quite a lot of time with her nose in a book when she learned to read.

- That happened at an early age and later on she built on that knowledge by studying magical languages that would allow her greater resources for spells. She knew a lot of languages (some of which didn’t even exist anymore) before she even turned fifteen. And all of that of her own volition. Neither Griffin, nor Valtor forced her to do anything.

- When she became a teenager, Darcy inevitably started using some teen slang that Griffin just shook her head at while Valtor was the one to find it rather distasteful and express his dislike of it. Darcy told him he was being old-fashioned which resulted in Valtor starting to use slang as well, much to Darcy and Griffin’s annoyance. They had to beg him to stop and become the old old-fashioned Valtor again.

- Darcy has a very open relationship with both of her parents that includes a lot of communication and trust. She knows she can tell them everything without being judged. Her parents are flawed people as well and know what it is to make mistakes which is something Darcy takes comfort in because she knows they're not perfect and they understand that she isn't either. She knows they will listen to her and try to help her avoid making mistakes she will regret later just as she knows that they will let her make her own decisions and allow her to find herself and be her own person.

I have to go to a lecture so I’ll have to leave it off here. Besides, I wrote down all I can think of right now. Hope this makes you smile. I sure had a lot of fun with these.

[virmillion]

Ibytm - T minus 18 seconds

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - ao3

Words: 2,350

Logan knocks a rhythm into the legs of his chair with his heels, absently observing the cafe. Not terribly busy, given how close to society’s generally-agreed-upon dinnertime it is. Most people have the good sense to be out for a late meal, if not relaxing at home and sleeping off some comfort food. Logan is not included among those ‘most people,’ in case that wasn’t clear.

He glances out the finger-smudged window, watching a leaf skitter across the pavement. A couple of kids chase it along ahead of a slower kid, their backpacks abandoned at the base of a nearby oak tree. Probably a need for speed type deal. Something happens on the table in front of Logan, but he’s too intently focused on the kids outside to notice.

“Logan.”

He waves a vague hand in the direction of the voice, not really processing who it belongs to. At last, the lagging kid catches up and jumps forward, crushing the leaf under their dirt-streaked tennis shoe. The other kids clap them on the back in congratulations.

“Okay, what is it?” He glances across the table to Virgil, who’s sitting on the seat diagonal from him and sipping absently at a cup of coffee that’s probably in the process of melting a few oversized dollops of whipped cream. Virgil doesn’t seem to notice that Logan suddenly decided to start paying attention, which means the latter is free to ogle his husband to his heart’s content. How the faint purple of his fading hair dye hangs just so over his forehead, how that one stubborn spot of acne near his chin pushes his lips up into a half smile, how his eyes sparkle with the light of the early evening sun, how, just by looking at him, Logan can tell he’s savoring every ounce of this moment without even thinking about it.

“What are you doing?” Virgil finally asks, turning around and catching Logan mid-stare. If Logan knew anything about grade school crushes, he would know that this is the part where he’s supposed to quickly shift his gaze, embarrassed to high heck. But he didn’t, so he doesn’t.

“Admiring how good you look.”

“Ew, dork.”

“We’re married. I’m allowed to say things like that.” Logan holds up his ring finger and tilts his head toward it with a lopsided grin. “Sorry, pal, but you’re stuck with me.”

“Just be quiet and drink your drink,” Virgil mumbles into his cup, his face turning a lovely shade of pink. Logan smiles to himself and lifts his own cup to his lips, taking a long sip from the straw. “Where are they, anyway? Weren’t we supposed to meet here at, like, seven?”

“Please, you’ve met Roman. It’ll take him at least that long to get his hair done. Don’t pretend like you expected him to be punctual.”

“I guess it’s just a downright tragedy that we got here on time, then.”

“Indeed. Send in the clowns, as it were.”

“Don’t bother, they’re here.” Virgil jerks his chin toward the door, over which a bell proudly chimes to announce the arrival of Patton and Roman. True to form, Roman’s hair looks as painstakingly effortless as ever, and Logan can’t help but wonder just how early he has to get up to be at work on time (or five minutes late) while managing to look like that.

“Heya, lovebirds!” Patton calls, waving far more emphatically than necessary as he drags Roman into the queue. Roman barely remembers to toss them a passing glance, more focused on the exhaustively detailed menus.

“Remind me why we agreed to this?” Virgil mutters. He swirles the contents of his cup around, but there’s definitely a smile lurking under his feigned irritation.

“Because we’re nice people who talk to other nice people like the good little members of society we pretend to be.”

“Sounds overrated.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“Hey, what’re we talkin’ about?” Patton asks, plopping himself down beside Virgil. Logan nods his greeting as Virgil knocks elbows with Patton in a weird not-quite-but-still-kind-of handshake. An elbowshake, perhaps.

“Why society and its conventions are overrated.”

Logan cocks his head to the side, watching Patton’s brow wrinkle. “There’s a little more to it than that.”

“Not really.”

“And you say that on what grounds?”

“Well, for one, you started it, and for another—”

“I would hardly say I started it. You’re the one that brought up—”

“Only because you insisted we had to act per—”

“Patton!” Roman interrupts, sitting beside Logan and plunking his cup down on the table. “Tell them what Morgan did today!” Logan doesn’t have time to wonder why Roman got his drink before Patton, as the latter launches into an excited and (some would say excessively) detailed account of the make-believe game his daughter thought up in the backyard, right down to the surnames of her imaginary fallen teammates. Actually, Logan isn’t entirely convinced that Patton himself isn’t the one with the active imagination, even to the point of making up these stories about his daughter on the spot.

“Ariel still doing okay?” Virgil cuts in. Maybe trying to steer the conversation away from how many shades of grass Morgan decreed as being ‘queendom property,’ but who’s to say?

The question sets Patton off all over again, this time encouraging an enthusiastic catalogue of every last one of Morgan’s mother’s movements. How she brought over surprise balloons for Morgan and held her breath the whole time because of her latex allergy (which Patton isn’t entirely convinced she has) but she could be telling the truth since it could’ve been an allergy that developed after her childhood and it certainly wasn’t of top conversation priority on that one messy night nine months before Morgan was born but maybe they should’ve looked into it when she first tested positive on that little stick in case she passed it on to Morgan when they—

“Large coffee for Patton?” Patton jolts out of his seat and is at the pickup counter before Logan can blink. As Patton strikes up a cheerful conversation with the (mercifully unannoyed) barista, Roman twists to look at Logan.

“Ten bucks says he doesn’t need all the crap in that cup.”

Logan is almost afraid to ask, but curiosity begs satisfaction. “What’d he get?”

“Okay, so you know how a large is twenty ounces, yeah? And a single shot of espresso is one ounce?”

“Very much did not ask for the vocabulary lesson, but continue.”

“Right, yes, but it’s important to me that you know all that. Anyways, apply that knowledge when I tell you he got fifteen shots of espresso, one long shot, and two ristretto shots. Oh, and five packets of splenda.” More jarring to Logan than that disaster of a coffee order is the look on Virgil’s face—not surprised in the slightest, as if someone had told him Patton ordered a regular cup of black coffee or something.

“I’m sorry, but how did you figure out that you liked that combination abomination?” Logan asks as Patton returns with a smile over his shoulder to the barista.

“Oh, you know, little of this, little of that.” Patton grins at Logan, and something in his eyes makes Logan’s stomach turn. Logan watches in horror as he knocks back far more than what could be considered an advisable amount of coffee. In a voice like a demon banished from the depths of hell for bad behavior, Patton whispers, “Taste is meaningless. There is no flavor that could supplement the raw energy in this.” Logan isn’t entirely sure whether or not he’s making up this whole exchange to cope with Patton’s drink order, a fear which is not helped in the slightest by Virgil’s continued nonchalance.

“That’s actually one of his tamer drinks,” Virgil finally remarks, studying his nails.

Before the shock of this nonsense has even begun to wear off, Roman decides it’s been too long since he had a turn to speak. “So, mister promotion man, what do you think of the new location? You seen it yet? Been inside?”

“First off, stop calling me that. You got promoted, too. Second, no, I’ve avoided finding out any details aside from the address and how to get there from home.”

“Even finding that out took a solid two days of me pestering him to look it up,” Virgil chimes in, now messing around with his phone. “If it weren’t for me, he probably wouldn’t even know there was a relocation happening.”

“That’s entirely true, actually,” Logan admits. “We were talking wedding plans and he wanted to send me something, and I must’ve had my do not disturb mode on, because I completely missed the email about the move.”

“Not to mention all the texts and calls from me that you so callously ignored! You didn’t return a single one!” Roman sputters indignantly. “It’s like we aren’t even friends! I mean, how cruel can you be? Those texts could have been important!”

“Oh, are we friends? You should’ve told me sooner.” Logan swivels in his seat to face Roman, well aware that Patton and Virgil both have their full attention on the conversation’s direction change. “We see each other at work, and we’ve interned together since way back when, but that’s hardly solid grounds for declaring friendship.”

“We are literally on a double coffee date right now. Like, I am sitting in a coffee shop with you and your husband and everyone’s best friend Patton, and it has nothing to do with work.” Patton blinks at the mention of his name and smiles absently.

“Okay, but it’s not a date , because you aren’t dating Patton, not to mention that attending a coffee peddler at the same time doesn’t necessarily denote being anything more than work colleagues.”

Virgil covers his mouth as he leans over to whisper something to Patton, who giggles into his cup of caffeinated chaos incarnate.

“You tell them!” Patton whisper-shouts.

“I’m not saying it.” Virgil folds his arms and mimes zipping his lips, slouching back in his seat. Logan really ought to have a serious talk with him about proper ergonomic posture, but that’s a lecture for another day. He quirks an eyebrow at Patton’s muffled laughter, but Roman clearly isn’t about to let him dodge the conversation (which had no business existing in the first place) so easily.

“We are seriously hanging out right now. Like, casual hangout session in a coffee shop. You with your husband, your husband with his close work friend, that work friend with his best friend, and that best friend just so happens to be your work friend. This is a large and tangled web here, my good sir, and I will kindly ask that you respect it.”

“How am I supposed to respect such a convoluted string of coincidences, much less one that means so little with how it’s laid out?”

Patton bursts into a full-on belly laugh at whatever Virgil whispers this time. It genuinely looks like his face might straight-up explode from how red it turns, but he shakes his head profusely when Virgil juts his chin toward Logan. “I can’t say that!” Patton squeals. Virgil winks at an understandably bewildered Logan, who would very much like to move on to a new topic of discussion right about now. No such luck.

“So what are your requirements for friendship then, huh?” Roman gets up in Logan’s face,washing him in a wave of coffee breath. Logan grimaces. “Staring at some poor, unsuspecting tour guide in a museum until they take pity on you and accept your desperate pleas to go on a date with you?” Roman puts enough silliness into his tone that it’s clear he’s kidding, so Logan decides to play along. What’s the harm?

“Right, because I’m keeping Virgil in this relationship on my own terms. Virgil, blink twice if you proposing to me was an elaborate ruse for your own chance at single life again. Blink once if that’s not true.” Virgil blinks three times. “You are a monster.” Virgil bats his eyelashes. Logan might scream. Virgil winks.

“Friendship is a weird thing, anyway,” Patton pipes up, a hint of that laughter still tinting the edges of his voice. “I mean, I’m still super close friends with Ariel, and we had a stinkin’ kid together. Meanings can change, I think, since words are already so hard in the first place. Isn’t that a fair agreement?”

Logan and Roman grumble vague sounds of acknowledgement, though their matching unhappy tones make it clear—at least, they do to Logan—that neither of them actually wanted a real answer to their little debate. They were just arguing for the fun of it, kind of like—

“Hey, what about that Neptune expedition riddle from way back when?” Roman says suddenly. “Logan, y’member that? Never did manage to solve it, huh?”

“Oh, no, I definitely solved it. I simply refused to share with rhizocephalan barnacles such as yourself.” Roman—along with the rest of the table—blinks silently at Logan, who crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. “Just google it. I’m not a dictionary.”

“You’re my dictionary,” Virgil coos in a honey-sweet voice.

“Never say that again,” Logan mumbles halfheartedly. Let’s all agree to ignore the blood that rushes to color Logan’s cheeks as he considers the pros and cons of dreaming up something equally lovey-dovey. No, better not. Why ruin his stoic reputation with an attempt at romance that’s doomed to fail before it even launches? Might as well stay quiet, watching the topic jump again.

Well, more like Virgil shoves the current topic off a cliff, but you get the idea.

“How’s Ariel doing on that new degree?” he asks. This sets Patton off on yet another tangent about her career, her interests, her grades, her field studies, and who knows what else as Logan takes another sip of his drink and lets his eyes drift to the window. Some kids sprint across the sidewalk, arms spread like wings, chasing a leaf as it floats along with the gentle evening breeze.

[ryukogo]

spark

Summary: Damien and Estella bond over fireworks and Pip.

Prompt: Fireworks - If you’re in America, you know you can’t have the month of July without fireworks. Are your muses pyromaniacs, getting in trouble with their affinity to flame and sparkly things? Or are they afraid of the loud noises, and less enthusiastic about the bootleg fireworks their rowdier friends are setting off in the backyard? What kind of wacky adventures have they gotten into? Have they gone somewhere to view a notoriously fantastic show, or are they staying in to watch from the porch, a quiet evening with a rumbling light show? Either way, it’s sure to make a moment your favorites will appreciate.

Words: 1846

Link is in the title if you wish to read it on AO3!

He’s heard of Estella before.

No, really. His father had handled Estella’s mother before on her way down to one of the lower levels of hell, and she had mentioned her daughter possibly going to hell as well despite the Pip boy’s attempts of redemption. He hadn’t given two shits about the woman, really, until she had mentioned his boyfriend, and immediately he had zoomed up and into her face.

“What about Pip?” He had asked, all eyes on her.

The woman scoffed. “He was my daughter’s little playmate. One of many. It was his fault I died, after the machine that killed me malfunctioned. My daughter ran off with him and presumably had many disgusting little babies with him.”

“Impossible, because he’s my boyfriend.”

Miss Havesham blinked, and then shrugged. “Well, that explains quite a lot.”

-=-=-=-

Damien only really met Estella, however, when they were much, much older, when she had moved to South Park.

When Pip had gone to jovially embrace her, he had felt a flare of jealousy rise inside of him, but that had soon died down when he had spotted, out of the corner of his eye, local pretty boy Gary Harrison stare at her like she was the vision of all things perfect. That look in the Mormon’s eyes was familiar enough to Damien that he backed off, feeling a strange sort of relief pass through him before Estella’s eyes connected with his, and he froze on the spot.

“Oh! Estella, this is Damien. Damien, this is Estella. We were childhood sweethearts, me and her!” Pip graciously led Estella by the hand towards Damien and gestured for them to shake hands. Instead, however, Damien moved to kiss the back of her hand in greeting - she only looked on quietly.

“You reek of Hell’s fumes,” Estella informed him sharply as he brushed his lips against the back of her hand slightly.

Damien’s eyebrow quirked upwards as he looked up at her through half-lidded eyes. “You know what Hell smells like?”

“It doesn’t take a petty commoner to be able to tell when someone is clearly the spawn of a demon,” The girl’s cold grayish blue eyes only stared passively at Damien, who smirked and conjured a flame in his palm, as if to show off. “I knew it. My small testicled darling is dating a demon.”

“The son of Satan, to be precise,” Damien declared, and inwardly he preened when he managed to get the closest Estella would ever get to an impressed eyebrow raise in his direction.

“We must play more frequently these next few days, Pip,” Estella informed the other Brit, who nodded vigorously before looking at his boyfriend and grinning cheerfully, quite glad to see that they were seemingly getting along. “And bring your demonic boy toy with you. He seems more intelligent than the lot you surround yourself with every day.”

-=-=-=-

Much to Pip’s delight, Damien and Estella bonded over the next few days along with him - though it was moving at an incredibly slow pace, what with how both knew how to toss insults at each other with little need for words, leaving Pip to speculate what exactly they were saying to each other. They were probably good though, he assumed, because they were both always smiling while talking.

Or were they smirking? He couldn’t really tell.

It would come to pass, however, during the Fourth of July, when Damien had gone out of his way to swoop his boyfriend off to a romantic picnic on the grass, when the two would truly bond. He had set up a picnic blanket next to that of the others on Pip’s request and swept him off his feet - as he requested as well - towards it, settling him down and promising that this year’s Fourth of July would be much better.

“Oh, jolly good, then - I suppose this year you’re not setting me on fire and exploding me, then?” Pip tried to joke, but the guilty look on Damien’s face made him shut up about the years-old incident in the third grade, and instead lean against him, sighing. “Isn’t tonight nice, Damien?”

Damien grunted. “It’s pretty okay for a dumb night. I’m supposed to be helping with the fireworks this year.”

“Are you?” Pip stopped leaning against him to look up at him. “Then you should be going. It’s almost time to launch them.”

“You’ll be okay here alone?”

“You’ll be coming back for me, though. I’ll be fine - just light up those fireworks like I know you can, dear chap!”

Damien flashed him a fanged smirk before disappearing in a trail of fire, ending up a little far away from the fireworks before walking the rest of the way, so as not to launch them earlier than needed. By the unlit fireworks, he spotted Kyle, pacing around and double checking the setups, and with a mischievous grin, he spat a small fireball at his butt.

The results were as expected.

“OW!” Kyle yelped before turning to Damien, scandalized. “You ass, that hurt!”

Damien tossed a charming smile at the ushanka-wearing boy. “That was the point.”

“Well, at least you’re here now. Go help Estella over there with the crosette firework arrangements,” Kyle pointed to where the blonde was pondering an arrangement of fireworks, and Damien followed promptly - but not before flicking another tongue of fire at Kyle. This time, however, the boy only scowled before turning back to the other fireworks.

Once Damien reached Estella, he opened his mouth, ready to speak, when Estella held up a hand, stopping him. “Try anything on me and I’ll be sure to mail your internal organs to your father personally.”

“You know, disrespecting the Prince of Hell like this totally calls for eternal damnation,” Damien pointed out, sidling up beside her, but keeping a respectable distance.

Estella only scoffed. “As long as I’m not in the same circle of Hell as my mother then we’ll be fine.”

“Don’t like her?”

“Only family I had before moving here. It’s a questionable relationship, in truth,” Estella considered the fireworks again before rearranging a few near the front. “Tell me whether or not this works.”

Damien peered at her arrangements. “Move that green one next to the blue one.”

“Here?”

“No, the other blue one, the one next to the violet and yellow one.”

“This one?”

“Yeah.”

Estella considered it again. “... This arrangement looks more like a recipe for disaster. Are you sure?”

“It’ll cause a pretty great explosion, that’s for sure. Don’t you want sparks to fly, mademoiselle mean?” Damien winked. Estella’s only response was to take off a glove and backhand him with it, making him rub his cheek and grumble, “Yeesh, tough crowd.”

Estella planted the rest of the fireworks around the original arrangement before nodding to herself. “This seems adequate enough. Let’s hope the humanoid carrot agrees.”

“Humanoid carro- Kyle?”

“Is that his name? I never bothered to learn it,” Estella slid her glove back on before looking at her watch. “It’s almost time to light the fireworks. I assume you’re in charge of lighting them?”

Damien nodded. “When everyone else in the vicinity is at least a few feet away.” He turned in Kyle’s direction and hollered, “OY, BROFLOVSKI! IT’S ALMOST TIME FOR THE SHOW!”

“I KNOW, DAMMIT! DON’T SET ANYTHING ON FIRE YET!” Kyle’s voice yelled right back before the boy set off, presumably to join the picnic blanket his gang was on.

Damien turned to Estella. “You need to go too, you know.”

“Why should I listen to you?” Estella asked.

The boy raised an eyebrow. Feisty. “Fair point. However, here’s another point: why shouldn’t you listen to me?”

“You’re dating Pip and you’re the son of Satan.”

He flashed fangs at her. “Wow. You sure know how to hit others right in the kisser.”

“Just set the damned fireworks on fire already, you red-eyed monstrosity.”

Damien made a grand sweeping gesture, declaring, “As you wish, milady,” before lighting his hands on fire, the flames’ light dancing past his eyes and giving his gaze a slightly maniacal look.

“Showtime.”

In that moment, Estella wondered, for just a moment, whether or not she made the right decision in staying to watch the fireworks up close and personal with the firestarter.

And then he set them all ablaze.

-=-=-=-

“You are very lucky to be half demon, Damien, or you would’ve died!” Pip chastised, tossing a bucket of water over Damien’s sooty head and cleaning him up. Beside him, Estella was daintily dabbing at the soot on her person with a damp towelette, while the rest of the spectators went home.

Damien cracked a smile. “You can’t tell me you didn’t like the shitstorm I started though.”

“I’ll... admit to finding it amusing,” Pip admitted before tugging on his ear. “But that still doesn’t justify what you did, Damien! Estella’s mortal, she could’ve died!”

“Ah, but she didn’t,” Damien reminded. “See? Her little ass is planted right there. Gary Harrison will live another day knowing that she’s okay.”

Estella gave him a dry look at his words.

Pip sighed, and began furiously rubbing at Damien’s hair with another towel. “Still. I was really worried, Damien. I know you’re only half-mortal but... still. You could’ve been hurt!”

“I’ll only be hurt if you run off with someone else, little Pipperoni,” Damien tried batting him away, but the Brit only continued, so he let his boyfriend be. “I won’t do it again for the next five months, I swear.”

“A year.”

“A- no, Pip, you can’t be serious-”

“A year,” Pip reiterated stubbornly. “You won’t be pulling any dangerous things like this for a year unless you have at least two safety plans backing you up.”

Damien tried, “But-”

“Damien.”

The scary look on Pip’s face made Damien’s blood go cold and Estella pause in her cleaning up to look at her ex in what could only be described as a strange look of wonderment.

“... Fine. I promise I won’t do anything this dangerous without at least two safety plans backing me up for a year.”

Pip brightened up, and nuzzled Damien’s cheek. “That really eases my nerves, Damien. Thank you, dear chap. You’ve lightened the load on my poor shoulders.”

-=-=-=-

diamandisheartbreak messaged you at 1:30am

diamandisheartbreak: You are a bad influence.

damnien: what prompted this

diamandisheartbreak: My small-testicled darling was incapable of looks like those in our time together.

diamandisheartbreak: This has your bloodied claws written all over it.

damnien: hah

damnien: you gotta admit tho

damnien: my bois real hot when he angry

diamandisheartbreak: Is that what you’re into?

damnien: im not saying anything

damnien: but that is totally what im into

diamandisheartbreak: Oh my God.

damnien: you asked

damnien: and get his name out of this unholy chat

diamandisheartbreak: Good night, Damien Thorn.

diamandisheartbreak: I’m assuming Pip is with you tonight, so tell him good night as well.

diamandisheartbreak: Today was adequate.

damnien: from you adequate is the highest compliment

diamandisheartbreak sent a photo

damnien: nice middle finger

damnien: turning into a tucker are you

diamandisheartbreak: Good night.

[exfrenchdorsl4p0a1]

The Truth Isn't Trending Well With Democrats These Days: What Every Democrat Needs To Hear

I write this on the eve of the electoral college vote, which is tomorrow; I already know the results. I have known the results since November 9th at 2am. There will be no Hail Mary moment. Red states will not go blue. Your phone calls, letters, mass emails, and pleas have done nothing more than annoy the electors. All of that energy, the money spent on a recount, the false hope fed to us by our "progressive leadership", all it did was succeed in us taking our eye off of what really matters: fights that could actually still be won. The truth is: Donald Trump is our president. Please, my dear liberal friends: take a deep breath...and sit with that. Let it sink in. Cry your last tear, throw something, scream, and then save it for another day. We have four years of screaming and fights ahead...we need you to get back up and on your feet...now. I am officially turning the lights on and the music off at your pity party. Time to come home and organize. We as democrats have managed to point fingers at everyone but ourselves. The people closest to the campaign being the most arrogant. THIS is what scares me more than Trump. If we as a party, can not realistically understand that we lost, and look hard at where we lost this, then we are sure to just double down on the same failed strategy and lose again. Same old people, playing out of the same old dog eared playbook that Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, all used..and you know what that sounded like? The same words that the people have been hearing for the last fifty years. "apple pie" "freedom" "bald eagle" "hope" "a new tomorrow" same tired strategy, optics and words. Do you know how that registered in the minds of voters? They weren't quite sure where they had heard those same old phrases before, but they had, and they felt lied to, because we have been lied to so many times before by every politician. Everything Hillary did and said, felt "inauthentic" sounded like a "lie" even when it wasn't; because it was all out of the tired old playbook we had been manipulated with before. Trump threw the playbook out the window. He could have said "unicorns are crapping donuts out of the sky and it is the fault of Isis and the Muslims" and people would think, what the hell is this guy saying? I don't know, but he "sounds like a straight shooter to me". This guy "calls it like he sees it, whether I agree or not". AND THAT my friends, is how this election was won and lost. Messaging. We have pointed fingers everywhere: The FBI, the Russians, hackers, misogyny, racism, ignorance, the media, the electoral college, voter fraud, and today...we get a teeny bit closer to the truth: the scapegoat who is poor Huma Abadein, Hillary's closest advisor gets the blame du jour. Well, at least were getting warmer. The truth isn't trending well with Democrats these days, but here it is. We lost the election for two reasons: Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign.  People didn't vote. Period. Misogyny didn't win. The FBI didn't win. The Russians didn't lose us the election. Racism didn't win. Voter fraud didn't win.  Hubris lost.  We were so sure of ourselves, high fiving each other because Trump was such a "moron", meanwhile her communications team was a complete disaster. I had voiced my opinion to many people working on her campaign, and they were blindly out of touch. They simply did not care to hear anyone's opinion, any fresh ideas, and they did it their way, sticking to the old playbook that had been handed down for the last hundred years. Never daring stray from the script. I'll give you just a couple of examples of where we epically dropped the ball on a gold mine. Before I start, this is NOT an "I told you so"..it is simply a way to see, and learn from our mistakes, which we MUST do--once you read this, I think you'll get it. When Hillary fainted on 9/11 at the memorial because she had pneumonia. The Trump campaign ran with that. They immediately attacked her health, said she didn't have stamina, that she was not well enough to be president, and that she lied to the American people by not disclosing her "mystery illness". Clinton's camp sat quietly, and then they sent out the big guns. Bill Clinton came on tv and I thought, well thank goodness...Bill's got this. Do you remember what his response to her fainting was? "Hillary has been working like a demon...she gets dehydrated" I almost screamed at the tv. Why not tell the truth, and turn this moment into pure gold? A lovely alternative might have sounded something like this: "Hillary has pneumonia. I had pneumonia when I was 6. It's like an intense flu. Not cancer. She will get well soon. We didn't feel the need to announce every headache or cold she gets to the media. It is not life threatening. Mrs. Clinton would not have missed standing with those families on such an important day for anything in the world. So, with a hundred and three degree fever, she got up, and got dressed; to show up for the American people, to show up for those families, and to go to work. And while we're on the topic, how about we discuss how she, like millions of other Americans do the same thing Hillary did--everyday. They get up sick, they get dressed, and they go to work. Because we don't have paid family leave, or sick days; and you know, we probably should." The end. Now, was that hard? It wasn't. The mistresses? Again, Trump paraded them, blamed her, I saw women on social media saying that she was "so nasty" to the women her husband had cheated on her with. They spun it so it was somehow Hillary's fault that she was cheated on! Genius. Why on earth, did this woman not stand up, especially during the debates, and say "You know what? Thank you for bringing that up. I've been married to Bill for over forty years. Not all of them were easy. Many women in this audience, and men have experienced tough times in marriages and some have experienced infidelity. It is painful. It is usually private. I chose to forgive my husband to keep my marriage and family together. While I respect women who leave, I chose to stay. I chose to honor my vows said before God and family, and do what was the most difficult thing I had ever done, forgive and rebuild. I stayed when things got rough because I made that commitment. And as your president, I promise to do the same for you. I will stay and fight to make us stronger when things get rough. And you know what? I'm glad that I did, because now my marriage is stronger than ever and my daughter is doing great and I am happy." Good Lord, she would have sent it over the fences. Instead, when the mistresses were brought up, she would give a smug smile, and lean into the podium, half perched on her seat, and not address it. It was inauthentic. It was smug. It didn't read well. And whoever came up with that zippy slogan "Love Trumps Hate" clearly didn't understand optics. When I turned on the DNC Convention, and saw an ocean of people holding signs with the name Trump on them...I thought, this guy must be home laughing right now. Why on earth did we shake signs in the air with this man's name on them? He couldn't pray for better press...all hand delivered by...us. An auditorium of Democrats, enthusiastically shaking Trump's name. Sure, the word "hate" was on there, but so was "love". Bad messaging. Terrible optics. These are just a few very simple ways that she could have done better. From pant suit flash mob videos that looked like Gap ads, to completely uninspiring television spots (with the exception of the Gold Star Khan family, which was the only powerful piece of media I had seen the campaign run) to mosaic mashups of celebrities all montaging the same tired old message. It all just flopped. Add to that an ineffective speaker, whose speeches were canned, rehearsed and stiff, and she was an easy target. If you think that they don't "sell us our presidents the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars", you are mistaken. Hillary should have been as exciting as Obama in 2008. Our first female president, and even I, a devoted liberal had to rev up my own engine to muster any level of enthusiasm for her. I knocked on doors in Pennsylvania. I made a short video urging people to vote for her. I helped raise money. I wrote favorable pieces about her. The saddest part is that I have met her in person...she is not only graceful and kind, she is affable and lovely, brilliant, generous, and open. That is what upsets me most. She has it in her, and she would have been a terrific president. It just didn't read and she was surrounded by weak people advising her. I sincerely hope that they no longer work in politics. The polls were not "off" the people taking them were. Leaving out a percentage of folks who weren't racists or misogynists, they just didn't want to vote for Hillary, and kept their mouths shut, because they didn't want to be ostracized or called names. All of it, was a disaster, and I have lost more liberal friends than conservative, because the one thing liberals can't do right now, is hear that they failed. We failed. But ultimately the buck stops at Hillary. She didn't even come out on the night of the election to address the people who had worked so hard for her at the Javitz Center. They were given false hope and sent home crying, then given the news by Donald Trump who said that she had called him. Need I say more? We were still "With Her"...but she was no longer with us. My views have made me terribly unpopular. But I'm not going to lie to you. You have been lied to enough lately. Democrats right now want to hear what a jerk and scumbag Trump is, how we got robbed, and how there's still a chance. They don't want to hear the truth. But until we make peace with the truth and channel that anger towards fighting the real fights ahead, they are going to finish us off. Ohio and North Carolina are showing us that already. We were so busy talking about who really won and by how many and how we actually weren't to blame; while they have been hard at work stealing more from us. Please focus, everyone. We have lost so much, but we ain't seen nothing yet. So, I urge you, after the electoral vote count is in...pull yourselves off the ground, clean yourself up, and start fighting like hell. Fight the real fights we have in front of us. The victim look isn't a good look on any of us, and I, for one, am not going to be any part of that. I will be the one fighting rough, going as low as they go, and punching harder...because I am not going to die, and I won't let you or this country die either.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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[repwinpril9y0a1]

The Truth Isn't Trending Well With Democrats These Days: What Every Democrat Needs To Hear

I write this on the eve of the electoral college vote, which is tomorrow; I already know the results. I have known the results since November 9th at 2am. There will be no Hail Mary moment. Red states will not go blue. Your phone calls, letters, mass emails, and pleas have done nothing more than annoy the electors. All of that energy, the money spent on a recount, the false hope fed to us by our "progressive leadership", all it did was succeed in us taking our eye off of what really matters: fights that could actually still be won. The truth is: Donald Trump is our president. Please, my dear liberal friends: take a deep breath...and sit with that. Let it sink in. Cry your last tear, throw something, scream, and then save it for another day. We have four years of screaming and fights ahead...we need you to get back up and on your feet...now. I am officially turning the lights on and the music off at your pity party. Time to come home and organize. We as democrats have managed to point fingers at everyone but ourselves. The people closest to the campaign being the most arrogant. THIS is what scares me more than Trump. If we as a party, can not realistically understand that we lost, and look hard at where we lost this, then we are sure to just double down on the same failed strategy and lose again. Same old people, playing out of the same old dog eared playbook that Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, all used..and you know what that sounded like? The same words that the people have been hearing for the last fifty years. "apple pie" "freedom" "bald eagle" "hope" "a new tomorrow" same tired strategy, optics and words. Do you know how that registered in the minds of voters? They weren't quite sure where they had heard those same old phrases before, but they had, and they felt lied to, because we have been lied to so many times before by every politician. Everything Hillary did and said, felt "inauthentic" sounded like a "lie" even when it wasn't; because it was all out of the tired old playbook we had been manipulated with before. Trump threw the playbook out the window. He could have said "unicorns are crapping donuts out of the sky and it is the fault of Isis and the Muslims" and people would think, what the hell is this guy saying? I don't know, but he "sounds like a straight shooter to me". This guy "calls it like he sees it, whether I agree or not". AND THAT my friends, is how this election was won and lost. Messaging. We have pointed fingers everywhere: The FBI, the Russians, hackers, misogyny, racism, ignorance, the media, the electoral college, voter fraud, and today...we get a teeny bit closer to the truth: the scapegoat who is poor Huma Abadein, Hillary's closest advisor gets the blame du jour. Well, at least were getting warmer. The truth isn't trending well with Democrats these days, but here it is. We lost the election for two reasons: Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign.  People didn't vote. Period. Misogyny didn't win. The FBI didn't win. The Russians didn't lose us the election. Racism didn't win. Voter fraud didn't win.  Hubris lost.  We were so sure of ourselves, high fiving each other because Trump was such a "moron", meanwhile her communications team was a complete disaster. I had voiced my opinion to many people working on her campaign, and they were blindly out of touch. They simply did not care to hear anyone's opinion, any fresh ideas, and they did it their way, sticking to the old playbook that had been handed down for the last hundred years. Never daring stray from the script. I'll give you just a couple of examples of where we epically dropped the ball on a gold mine. Before I start, this is NOT an "I told you so"..it is simply a way to see, and learn from our mistakes, which we MUST do--once you read this, I think you'll get it. When Hillary fainted on 9/11 at the memorial because she had pneumonia. The Trump campaign ran with that. They immediately attacked her health, said she didn't have stamina, that she was not well enough to be president, and that she lied to the American people by not disclosing her "mystery illness". Clinton's camp sat quietly, and then they sent out the big guns. Bill Clinton came on tv and I thought, well thank goodness...Bill's got this. Do you remember what his response to her fainting was? "Hillary has been working like a demon...she gets dehydrated" I almost screamed at the tv. Why not tell the truth, and turn this moment into pure gold? A lovely alternative might have sounded something like this: "Hillary has pneumonia. I had pneumonia when I was 6. It's like an intense flu. Not cancer. She will get well soon. We didn't feel the need to announce every headache or cold she gets to the media. It is not life threatening. Mrs. Clinton would not have missed standing with those families on such an important day for anything in the world. So, with a hundred and three degree fever, she got up, and got dressed; to show up for the American people, to show up for those families, and to go to work. And while we're on the topic, how about we discuss how she, like millions of other Americans do the same thing Hillary did--everyday. They get up sick, they get dressed, and they go to work. Because we don't have paid family leave, or sick days; and you know, we probably should." The end. Now, was that hard? It wasn't. The mistresses? Again, Trump paraded them, blamed her, I saw women on social media saying that she was "so nasty" to the women her husband had cheated on her with. They spun it so it was somehow Hillary's fault that she was cheated on! Genius. Why on earth, did this woman not stand up, especially during the debates, and say "You know what? Thank you for bringing that up. I've been married to Bill for over forty years. Not all of them were easy. Many women in this audience, and men have experienced tough times in marriages and some have experienced infidelity. It is painful. It is usually private. I chose to forgive my husband to keep my marriage and family together. While I respect women who leave, I chose to stay. I chose to honor my vows said before God and family, and do what was the most difficult thing I had ever done, forgive and rebuild. I stayed when things got rough because I made that commitment. And as your president, I promise to do the same for you. I will stay and fight to make us stronger when things get rough. And you know what? I'm glad that I did, because now my marriage is stronger than ever and my daughter is doing great and I am happy." Good Lord, she would have sent it over the fences. Instead, when the mistresses were brought up, she would give a smug smile, and lean into the podium, half perched on her seat, and not address it. It was inauthentic. It was smug. It didn't read well. And whoever came up with that zippy slogan "Love Trumps Hate" clearly didn't understand optics. When I turned on the DNC Convention, and saw an ocean of people holding signs with the name Trump on them...I thought, this guy must be home laughing right now. Why on earth did we shake signs in the air with this man's name on them? He couldn't pray for better press...all hand delivered by...us. An auditorium of Democrats, enthusiastically shaking Trump's name. Sure, the word "hate" was on there, but so was "love". Bad messaging. Terrible optics. These are just a few very simple ways that she could have done better. From pant suit flash mob videos that looked like Gap ads, to completely uninspiring television spots (with the exception of the Gold Star Khan family, which was the only powerful piece of media I had seen the campaign run) to mosaic mashups of celebrities all montaging the same tired old message. It all just flopped. Add to that an ineffective speaker, whose speeches were canned, rehearsed and stiff, and she was an easy target. If you think that they don't "sell us our presidents the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars", you are mistaken. Hillary should have been as exciting as Obama in 2008. Our first female president, and even I, a devoted liberal had to rev up my own engine to muster any level of enthusiasm for her. I knocked on doors in Pennsylvania. I made a short video urging people to vote for her. I helped raise money. I wrote favorable pieces about her. The saddest part is that I have met her in person...she is not only graceful and kind, she is affable and lovely, brilliant, generous, and open. That is what upsets me most. She has it in her, and she would have been a terrific president. It just didn't read and she was surrounded by weak people advising her. I sincerely hope that they no longer work in politics. The polls were not "off" the people taking them were. Leaving out a percentage of folks who weren't racists or misogynists, they just didn't want to vote for Hillary, and kept their mouths shut, because they didn't want to be ostracized or called names. All of it, was a disaster, and I have lost more liberal friends than conservative, because the one thing liberals can't do right now, is hear that they failed. We failed. But ultimately the buck stops at Hillary. She didn't even come out on the night of the election to address the people who had worked so hard for her at the Javitz Center. They were given false hope and sent home crying, then given the news by Donald Trump who said that she had called him. Need I say more? We were still "With Her"...but she was no longer with us. My views have made me terribly unpopular. But I'm not going to lie to you. You have been lied to enough lately. Democrats right now want to hear what a jerk and scumbag Trump is, how we got robbed, and how there's still a chance. They don't want to hear the truth. But until we make peace with the truth and channel that anger towards fighting the real fights ahead, they are going to finish us off. Ohio and North Carolina are showing us that already. We were so busy talking about who really won and by how many and how we actually weren't to blame; while they have been hard at work stealing more from us. Please focus, everyone. We have lost so much, but we ain't seen nothing yet. So, I urge you, after the electoral vote count is in...pull yourselves off the ground, clean yourself up, and start fighting like hell. Fight the real fights we have in front of us. The victim look isn't a good look on any of us, and I, for one, am not going to be any part of that. I will be the one fighting rough, going as low as they go, and punching harder...because I am not going to die, and I won't let you or this country die either.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2jsGdYT