#i’m in statistics now so you can trust that i know what i’m talking about

[theharrowing]

i take for granted feeling physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. i forget how heavy it can feel to simply exist. this day was such a test. im gonna eat dinner and go to bed 4-6 hours early.

i wanted to post the jimin pov tonight but i can barely stay awake long enough for my pizza to quit baking. 😭😭😭

[soobnny]

classmate au | sim jake

❝ i’m sorry we only got 26/30 on this worksheet ❞

heeseung | jay | JAKE | sunghoon | sunoo | jungwon | ni-ki

jake…

oh jake.

student athlete and math genius jake

you’re in the same class but he feels so far because he hangs out with his rly pretty friends

u can only look from afar

he’s always a tiny bit late to class

always drawing attention to his pretty boy face 😞

at 7:30, the bell rings and classes start

at 7:31, jake walks into class late

but the teachers always give him a pass bc how could they not when he smiles at them like that and apologizes like that

even ur teachers are down bad

he probably becomes your class representative for that one strict teacher’s class bc they always have a soft spot for jake

u want the deadline of the homework extended? ask jake to message them

he sits in the middle seats

not too prim and punctual to be at the front

but still likes school enough not to completely goof around at the back

sometimes your math teacher lets you do quizzes and worksheets by pair

(it’s the only way some of you can get a passing grade)

by statistics and some type of sampling, you end up getting partnered up with jake

“hi, good morning,” he’d greet with his infamous smile

now you get why all the teachers swoon for him

he’s so cute. this is going to be a problem

this is going to be a BIG problem

you were already bad at math, and now there’s a big pretty distraction sitting next to you

though, tbh, you were also relieved when you heard your name with his bc he’s ltrly known as a math genius

he’s one of the students that teachers excuse for their math contests

and wait 😭 did he just say something to u? did he ask about a formula bc u honestly have no clue

“(name)?” he’d shake your shoulder gently and it’s enough to bring you back on earth

“sorry, did you ask something?”

“oh, i’m done … if u wanted to compare answers? or if u trust me enough?”

you trust him enough

he’s ltrly THE carry

jake will speedrun differential calculus like he’s writing the alphabet

uh oh.

why does he look so HOT with his pencil and the way he writes numbers

you’re going insane

you should never be paired with jake ever again

but by some twist of fate, you always end up as jake’s partner in numerous activities

lab work and experiments and communication reports?

“jake and (name),” the teacher would announce

ofc… typical of friends, they HAVE to push you around as you walk to your seat beside jake’s

while you’re of great help with anything else, you’re starting to feel bad about his literal carry in math tho

“are you sure it’s ok? i’m just rly horrible i’m sorry,” you’d apologize

he would just laugh and dismiss your concerns

“nooo, it’s okay. i’m fine! i can tell you didn’t get enough sleep last night”

(you spent the night binging a new show that came out)

your stomach doesn’t feel so good after that one.

who gave him the right to NOTICE things now???

when your teacher returns your paired worksheets, he has the GALL to apologize

a big fat 29/30 will be written on top and he’d say “oh i’m sorry we had one mistake 😕” like BOY SHUT UP !!!!

after your partner shenanigans, you’d start talking more in the classroom

he’d give u a fist bump if u bumped into each other in the hallways while walking with ur respective friend groups

sometimes even shout your name to get your attention only to wave at you

“why are you smiling like that?,” sunghoon would ask accusingly

and you know what? jake has no shame

“(name). she’s pretty cute, no?”

BYE absolutely no shame

so now, when he speedruns an activity, you’ll find him hovering around you until he starts to make conversation

if the teacher leaves early ?? suddenly he’s transported to the seat next to yours and flirting

being friends with jake is chaotic…. bc that would automatically mean being friends with HIS loud ass friends

pretty friends have upgraded to pretty LOUD friends

they’re so annoying too

“jake and (name), can you buy us water?”, heeseung would ask

WHY R U BUYING WATER FOR HEESEUNG

but jake’s already taking your hand and dragging you away bc he will take every opportunity to hang out with you alone

BTW computer science god idk i just got the vibes

during valentines that year, he codes you a little website please end me

mind you, you aren’t even together yet

he just codes for you as a friend 😂😂😂 as if anyone’s believing that

oh and he also avails those anonymous services so you’ll just be receiving flowers from the student council throughout the day

“oooooh, who are those from,” he would be smiling like it’d be so painfully obvious it’s from him

“do you like them?” NOOOOOOO he just wants to know ok!!! tell him you love them please

OK back to normal no more valentines

when class dismisses, you’d find him lounging around the basketball court with heeseung

sweaty….. wet hair…. oh dear

jake is a sight to see when he’s playing basketball

u usually sit at the bleachers anyway bc ur friends enjoyed watching

he is SOOOOO annoying esp now that you’ve grown closer over the months

he’d make stupid plays and draw attention to you 100%

“if i get this shot in, will you go on a date with me?”

cue the screams and the teasing and the fake vomiting as you’re pushed around

OFC he makes the shot

he’s sim jake, math genius AND student athlete

“so, tomorrow after class?”

“huh?? i thought you were joking??”

“what? no! have i not been obvious? i ltrly flirt with you evry chance i get??”

“well… idk! maybe you do that with everyone!”

“only you”

OK WISH I WERE YOU THEN 😒😒😒😒😒

note. credits to user @.luvknow for the layout of this post! let me know what you think! please discuss these with me i’m crazy

[gghostwriter]

I feel terrible for asking when your requests are closed bur Holy shit this is my real life and I need some loving.

I have a court case soon about putting a p*do in jail that I dobbed in, I'd live to have the team with me in court. I don't have to talk on the stand since he's already pled guilty but if we don't have a hang judge he'll most likely get home detention and on the Registry. My friends and I are hoping for jail bur yeah, I'd love to have the team soothing my anxieties as he doesn't know it was me that dobbed him in (I met him once) I need some loving and reassurance. Like I'm glad I got him done in but still seeing it go down I'm just messed up

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader Trope: Established Relationship; Fluff and comfort Word Count: 0.9k A/N: Anon, I hope this brings you comfort! I also want to personally say that you did the right thing and I know it took a lot of courage to report that sick sick man to the authorities and I’m so proud of you. Do let me know the outcome of the trial and I’m hoping the case was assigned to a hang judge for harsh punishment. Main masterlist

Sentencing. // Spencer Reid

You dreaded to be here. Here being standing outside the judiciary building as the reason why burdened your chest like a twenty tonne weight making it hard to breathe. The anxiety was wafting out of you in waves—you wanted to vomit or pass out or both from the idea that there’s a fifty percent chance of justice not being serve. The numbers were wrong, you knew, but you were not your genius boyfriend who can chatter off the correct statistics based on government reports. You were just you—a regular civilian who took the courage to report a crime and do stand up for the victim. Spencer was proud of you and the grit it took to stand up for another specially for the young but here, right now, you felt anything but brave. 

A hand slid into yours, making you jump in fright.

“Spence?” You questioned your sanity then. It was a weekend and although that meant no work for him, his phone had rang and the both of you parted ways at the subway, him going to Quantico and you going to the court trial. So the idea that he was here, standing beside you seemed too ludicrous. A figment of your strained imagination possibly before his cedar wood perfume registered in your mind. “Are you real—I mean, what are you doing here?” 

He squeezed your hand. “I called back Hotch and he convinced Strauss to give the case to the other team. You’ve been nervous for the past few days, picking on your nails—” bringing up your hand to see the nail beds dry and pink “—biting on your lips—” touching them as he observed the faint teeth marks “—and not being able to focus—” pushing away a stray lock of hair that escaped your haphazardly tied bun. “—I want to be here for you and remind you that you did the right thing.”

“I know that. It’s just—what if the judge assigned to the case doesn’t give a harsh sentence? What if he just gets registered as a sex offender and walks?” 

“According to the statistics, 87% of convicted rapists are incarcerated while 13% receive a probation sentence. Pedophilia is also widely considered as one of the most egregious crimes by the system and the fact that he has already pled guilty gives a higher chance of imprisonment,” he rattled off as his own way of comfort. 

For some, the daunting two digit number minority seemed big, and it is, but you trusted his insight especially knowing his own experiences in the field of protecting the weak and capturing the sick.

The numbers had it’s desired effect, lifting a bit off the weight dragging you down. You pressed your lips together and took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.” 

He squeezed your hand three more times—a silent communication between you two that meant I love you as he pulled you in the assigned court room. 

You occupied the last few rows, noting the family members of the victim also in attendance and although Spencer had calmed a bit of your nerves, each tick of the clock mixed with the palpable tension in the confined space had you shaking your knee in agitation. All of this combined made you unaware of the multiple presences that slid behind your bench. It took Spencer letting go of your hand and turning his head to bring you back to the present.

You swiveled, curious as to what had caught his attention, and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was the rest of the team.

Hotch reached out to squeeze your shoulder while Dave did the same on the other. Derek and Emily gave you a nod of encouragement and sweet smiles from JJ and Penelope.  It made you want to tear up to feel such love, support, and reassurance from Spencer’s chosen family. 

Unsure on how to put your gratitude into words, you gave a brief smile before turning back to the front as the judge entered the bench.

Bang.

Bang. 

The gavel echoed, effectively silencing any chatter of the audience.

Court was officially in session. 

———

The twenty tonne weight that sat on your chest lifted as the judge sentenced the accused to fourteen years in prison with no chance of parole. The scene of each family members of the victim crying and hugging each other in elation and relief made the steps you took worth it. Children deserved to hold on to their innocence for as long as they could and they warrant the protection from any concerned adult and the system.

Stray tears escaped the confines of your eyes as Spencer placed a kiss on your forehead before leading you out of the building, all decorated agents in tow.

“Hey Rossi, we should have dinner at your house to celebrate,” Emily cheekily suggested once everyone was out on the steps. The same steps you were hyperventilating on a few hours ago.

Dave scoffed. “Fist of all, it’s a mansion and second of all, what is it with this team inviting themselves over?” 

Derek laughed. “Aw c’mon man, we know you’d love to host us. JJ can bring Will and the kids and Hotch can bring Jack. It’ll be fun plus Y/N—” nodding in your direction “—deserves a good Italian dinner after all of this, don’t you think?”

Dave took note off all the members nodding their heads in agreement before sighing. “Fine, I’ll whip us up some Bolognese pasta, our Bambina’s favorite over here. Come by at 7pm sharp or else I’m locking the gates.” 

Everyone cheered and soon parted ways, promising to see each other later on, leaving you and Spencer leisurely walking to the subway station.

He squeezed your hand again three times and smiled. “You make me so proud of you. So so proud.” 

“Thank you for being there with me Spencer,” you squeeze in return. “I really appreciate it.”

“Anything for you, love. Anything at all.”

Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

[bookished]

( a collection of jock x nerd dialogue prompts. adjust phrasing as necessary.) feel free to make edits to better suit your muse, but please don’t edit or add on to the original post <3 if you like, please consider supporting me through tips

"You think you're so smart, huh?" "Well, statistically speaking, my GPA says I am."

"Okay, so you're good at math. But can you explain why my heart races whenever you walk into the room?" "Biologically, I suppose adrenaline might— Wait, are you flirting?"

"This is ridiculous. You shouldn’t be lifting me like that!" "Hey, you’re light as a feather! Besides, I just wanted to show you what strength feels like."

"You know, you’d make a great quarterback with how fast you solve problems." "And you’d make a great nerd if you applied that logic to your studies."

"Let me guess, you failed another test?" "Nah, just looking for an excuse to talk to the smartest person in the room."

"You might be a brainiac, but I could definitely teach you a thing or two about confidence." "Confidence? Or arrogance?"

"I don’t understand why you keep sitting next to me in class. You don't even take notes!" "Maybe I’m here for the view… or maybe I trust your brain to get us both through."

"For someone who’s supposed to be so smart, you’re missing something really obvious." "And what’s that?" leans closer "How bad I want to kiss you right now."

"You’re like a puzzle I can’t solve." "That’s because you’re not thinking hard enough." "Maybe I’m just distracted by how cute the puzzle is."

"You’re too focused. Ever thought about focusing on something… or someone… else?" "And who would that be?" smirks "Maybe you should figure that out."

"Bet I can make you blush before you can solve that equation." "Highly unlikely—" blushes "Told you."

"You're not my type." "And yet, here I am, making you smile like I am."

"You look like you could use a break. How about we grab some coffee? My treat." "You sure you’re not just trying to steal my notes?" "Nah, just trying to steal your attention for a little while."

"If you keep looking this cute when you're annoyed, I might just have to irritate you more often." "You’re infuriating." "But I’m charming, too, right?"

"Do you ever take anything seriously?" "I’m serious about getting you to go out with me. That counts, right?"

"You’ve got those smarts, but I’ve got… other talents." "Like what, being a distraction?" "If that's what it takes to get your attention."

"Why are you always bothering me during study time?" "Because watching you concentrate is kinda… hot."

"You know, you’ve got a lot of facts in that head of yours. Think any of them could explain why I keep thinking about you?" "That’s probably an overproduction of dopamine and— wait, are you hitting on me?"

"You're in my space." "Maybe your space is where I want to be."

"I think I just figured out the formula for attraction." "Attraction isn't a formula." "It is when you're involved."

"You know, if I ever wanted to impress you, I’d have to learn some big words, huh?" "It’s not the words you use that impress me… it’s what you do with them."

[emmasbrain]

Miscommunication (the fun kind) Part 2

This is part 2, trust when I say it makes very little sense without part 1.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Synopsis: You meet him for your date, but it’s cut a little short.

Warnings: None I can think of other than cringe writing.

A/N: This took ages man, I don’t know what happened but I just felt a block so many apologies for taking so long.

As you click the little green button, you feel unnecessarily nervous. “Hello.”

“Hi.” He replies, and the smile that graces your lips can be heard from the other end of the phone.

“Doc. I’m glad you called.” You try to play it cool, but you know he can sense your excitement anyway.

“I’m glad you asked me to. Look, I’m on my way to a case right now, but I was thinking that when I get back we could do something? Go for dinner, maybe?” He sounds as nervous as you feel, and your heart spikes a little.

“Dinner sounds great. Have you thought of a place?” You do a little spin in the living room of your small apartment and you hear chatter in the background of the call.

“There’s this little restaurant that I normally get takeout from. I know them pretty well so they’ll keep me a table on short notice. They’ve got everything so statistically there’s bound to be something you like.” The way he speaks reaches a spot in your brain, fast and passionate, even about the most mundane things.

“I know I’m gonna like it because you do, and I trust your taste.” You bite your lip, wondering if that was too much.

“You should, I’m very particular.” His voice betrays the fact that he’s grinning, and you match his expression.

“I like particular. Particular is good.” Your voice has dropped a little subconsciously, and he’s about to reply when you hear the familiar voice of Agent Hotchner alerting Spencer that they need him.

“I’ve gotta go, but I’ll call you when I’m home?” You almost sigh in contentment at just the sound of him, but you snap out of it quickly to reply.

“I’ll be waiting patiently, Doc. I’ll see you.” You hang up, and stand in the middle of your living room for what seems like an hour but truly is only a few minutes. Why are you so attracted to this guy you only met a few nights ago?

But you feel as though you know him, from the way Penelope has talked about him, from the time you spent together. You feel as though you know them all.

—

You just sent in the final draft of your latest article. This one had been an absolute nightmare, being asked to write a piece on climate change. Your editors loved you for your fresh takes, but after so long there was no angle on climate change that hadn’t already been written. They seem fairly happy with it, but you can’t help the nagging feeling of wishing you could have done the proposed piece on how tourism is ruining the economy like you had wanted.

Through the annoyance of knowing you could have done better, you still feel slightly more at ease knowing the article is finished and out of your hands, and that you can relax and drink your fourth mug of coffee for the day. It’s eleven am.

But as you stand to stretch your achy muscles and make some fresh coffee, your phone rings. You know who it is before you even pick up, but make sure to check anyway just in case.

‘Spencer’ flashes on your screen, and you immediately sit down on your sofa, hitting the answer button and taking a readying breath.

“Hey Doc.” Your voice is unintentionally airy, but he doesn’t seem to notice - or he pretends not to - as he replies.

“Hey. I got back from work late last night, but I didn’t wanna call in case you were asleep. I was just wondering what you had planned for tonight?�� The grogginess in his voice is evident, and it raises a question before you can even think about answering his.

“Spencer, how long ago did you wake up?” The simple question makes him go quiet for a moment before he speaks.

“I woke up just before I called you.” He sounds nervous to admit it, like he’s embarrassed to be caught thinking of you so soon into his day.

“Must have been thinking about me in your sleep then. And to answer your question, I’m free tonight.” You can’t hide the tinge of satisfaction knowing he thought about you maybe as often as you thought about him.

The small breath he sucks in doesn’t pass by you. You may not be a behavioural analyst but you are a damn good journalist, and you know what that little breath means. It says “you caught me”. Was he really thinking of you in his slumber? You note it down in the back of your head to try and slip out of him later.

“Would you like to go for dinner to that restaurant tonight?” He seems to have composed himself as he asks his question, and you try not to sound too enthusiastic as you eagerly say yes. “Okay, great- that’s great! I’ll pick you up at six… I don’t drive.” The defeat in his voice makes you laugh.

“How about I pick you up?” You suggest, calming his nerves. “You can tell me where to go.” Truthfully, you had already planned to drive him. Penelope told you once how he doesn’t drive, and you called her two days ago to reconfirm. This information, however, is not something you feel the need to tell him, because it seems a little obsessive - but you were just thinking logically of course - and you don’t want to weird him out quite so early.

He seems to be okay with the idea, and you’re thankful that he doesn’t take it as a blow to his ego like most men would. The call ends after a few short pleasantries - that are actually pleasant - and you immediately get to work.

You throw open the doors of your wardrobe and go straight to the dresses, very slowly narrowing it down to two options. A flowy red dress that you almost go with, and a simple black silk dress that ends just below your knees.

This one is for special occasions, and you deemed this a pretty special occasion. As you rummage through your box of shoes and stack of earrings trying desperately to find earrings and heels in the same colour, you come across a pair of purple strapped heels that you know you have drop earrings in a similar shade to. You just can’t find them.

Suddenly you notice that it’s 12:30 and your brain short circuits. Your entire room is thrown upside down and inside out until you find the earrings you’re looking for, and then neatly arranged back to its original state, all within thirty minutes. Now you have your little purple dewdrops and your outfit is complete, but you have four and a half hours until you need to leave and you know you’ll need it, albeit mostly to panic.

Four hours passes and you’ve showered, shaved, styled your hair and put on some light makeup. Your nail polish is just dry and you have your dress on, so you buckle your heels and stand. Twenty five minutes before you can leave. That’s not bad. You just have to wait twenty five minutes… But what if traffic is bad? You should probably leave fifteen minutes early for that, right? And if you think about it, the time between leaving your house and getting to the car wasn’t considered in the time it would take you to get there, and if you drag it out that’s a good five minutes. So really you only need to leave in five minutes. But what’s the point of waiting five minutes really? You should just leave now. Good idea.

As you park at his apartment building you realise you may have been a little over eager. The drive was ten minutes shorter than expected, so you’re around thirty minutes early. Which is embarrassing, so to speak. But you decide to head up early, a gut feeling telling you that it’ll be beneficial.

As you knock, he immediately opens the door and then a sheepish look comes over his face. “I saw you get out of your car.” He nervously rubs his hand on the back of his neck and it makes you smile. Then you take in his attire. He looks similar to when you met him in the bar, although he’s wearing white converse to match a white shirt underneath his brown suit. He’s also sporting a watch, and - most importantly - glasses. Damn those fucking glasses.

You realise you haven’t responded and are now intensely looking at his eyes, and he looks a little uncomfortable.

“Shit- sorry. I was just looking at you- I mean you look good- Great! You look great. You look… pretty. I like your glasses, do you wear them often?” Although you can feel yourself rambling into oblivion, you somehow can’t stop the flood of words that come out of your mouth.

His mouth opens for a moment as though he might speak, and then it shuts again. He stands aside to let you come in. “I never let you in.” He comments, sounding apologetic.

You shake your head in reassurance. “That’s alright, I wasn’t sure if you would even be ready since I’m so early. I never meant to be, I just kind of over thought it and now I’m here.” You wring your fingers together. Spencer noticed that you do it as a nervous habit when you met in the bar.

“I was ready an hour ago, I’ve just been reading while I waited for you. You can sit.” He motions to his sofa, and you sit next to the armrest so that you can turn and lean your back against it to face him sitting a little away from you. “You look beautiful. You remind me of a painting called ‘Madame X’, you probably know it. You could almost be a modernised retelling. Did you know that the painting caused an extreme public discourse as people thought the artist, John Singer Sargent, made the woman look deathly pale and scandalously unclothed.” He says all this with a little grin, and you can’t help but grin along with him.

The decision to tease him comes before you can truly think about it. “You think I look deathly pale and scandalously unclothed, Doc?” As the words come out of your mouth, he pales slightly.

“No, of course not! You remind me more of the principle. The woman was so beautiful she was renowned for her looks. Painters had all but begged her to do a portrait before, but she declined until she found Sargent. But even then, the people of Paris thought the painting didn’t do her beauty justice. Despite this, the painting became famous and beloved for hundreds of years around the world, and to this day is still considered a work of true historical art. A timeless beauty. That’s how I think you look.” His passion for little things shines through again, and your mouth is left slightly agape from his words.

“That was…” You can’t even think.

“A lot, I know. I tend to ramble a lot. I don’t really notice that I’m bothering people until it’s too late.” He rubs the back of his neck again, and the thought of people being bothered by him sends multiple emotions running down your spine.

You reach over and grab his hand with one of yours, the other going to touch his face. “I was going to say, that was awfully considerate of you. Never assume that you’re bothering me. Talk quite literally as much as you please, I want to know what you want to say… If we weren’t on our first date I’d readily teach you exactly how much I enjoy when you talk, but that can be saved for another time, maybe.” Your voice drops nearer the end, and he picks up on it as he sucks in a breath and nods vigorously.

“Definitely- I mean yes, sure. I will keep that in mind.” He’s still nodding as you smile at him, a proper smile.

“You’re pretty when you get flustered. You get all red, from the tops of your cheeks all the way down your neck.” You silently wonder if it goes further. You wish you could check. The hand on his face trails down his neck as you speak, emphasising what you mean.

He gets redder. How can he get redder? “Pretty. You’ve used that word on me twice now.” The comment seems to be more of an observation than a question, but you answer it as though it is one.

“I think you’re pretty. Handsome is a word I dislike. It reminds me of Ken, like Barbie and Ken. You’re not a doll, you’re a man, who just so happens to be pretty. I could call you beautiful instead, I’d say that adjective very accurately describes you too. Gorgeous, if that’s something you prefer.” You relent as the redness gets impossibly worse, and it makes you feel a little guilty. “Sorry, Doc, I just like seeing you flustered. I’ll call you handsome or something more masculine if you’re more comfortable with that.” You give him a little smile and pull your hand from his face.

He wouldn’t say it out loud but he wishes you would keep it there. He grasps your other hand tightly in his, and he shakes his head. “I don’t mind. You can call me whatever you feel like… You’re wearing purple. Purple is my favourite colour.” He looks away for a moment, and it warms your heart.

“Purple suits you, as a favourite colour I mean. Mine is green.” Your voice holds a gentleness in it that comes with caring for someone. It’s baffling. You’ve known him days. A week at most. You shouldn’t feel so… warm around him.

“Green makes sense. I think purple looks best on you though, which is definitely coming from a place of bias.” This makes you laugh, small and breathy, but he smiles at the sound.

You don’t realise how much time has passed until you hear a buzzing noise, and you both realise it’s a phone ringing. It’s coming from the other room so you assume it’s Spencer’s and he quickly gets up to answer. You can’t hear much from the wall between you, but when he comes back through looking thoroughly disappointed, you can tell it’s a work call. “Serial killers don’t stop for first dates sadly.” You remark, and he looks a little surprised.

“How did you know?” He questions, coming closer to you and you stand up to face him.

“I may not be a behavioural analyst, but I can tell what that face means. It means ‘I’m so sorry but I have to go stop murders’.” You smile to try and reassure him, but you can see the cogs whirring in his brain.

He seems to be thinking too many thoughts to process, but suddenly he dips down and kisses you. It’s short, but it’s soft, and you have a look of surprise on your face as he pulls away. “I wish we had gotten to go on our date, but I really wish that this doesn’t stop us from going on another one.” He looks at you in anticipation, and you melt.

“I wouldn’t pass it up for the world, Doc. Why don’t you go get ready and I’ll drive you there. We can plan the next one in the car.” You kiss his cheek and go to sit back down, and he shuffles away to his bedroom with a stupid smile tugging at his lips.

A/N: So… thoughts on part 3 with newly established relationship reid x reader ? Equally, thoughts on me adding smut somewhere along the line?

[sunshine-theseus]

Put Your Head On My Shoulder | Jessie Fleming x Reader

Words: 4k Summary: you and jessie go through many ups and downs but things work out in the end Warnings: angst, fluff, mentions of depression and taking medication for it, covid didn’t happen, pretending the game vs real madrid was at Stamford bridge not in Spain

Jessie Fleming and I met at the 2015 world cup, both freshly 17 and competing in our first big tournament. Despite the fact we didn’t play each other, I found myself stumbling into her on the sidelines of Canada’s game against The Netherlands. Words were exchanged but we didn’t see each other again until the next year.

We knew we were both on athletic scholarships for the Bruins at UCLA and promised to try and meet outside of training to keep in contact without sport. It was surprising however, when my box was knocked out of my hands as I crashed into the young Canadian, both of us trying to enter the same room. She was clearly struggling to see over her own stuff, stumbling over words as her cheeks flush a very familiar red, trying to apologise.

“J, if you say sorry one more time I’m asking for a new roommate. Which I had no idea we were until now.” I crouch to pick up my books and writing equipment that was in my box as Jessie tries to manoeuvre to her decided side of the room.

I give up and rush to help her when she stumbles over her own foot and nearly goes flying.

“Jessie! You’re going to break something before the season even starts Jesus Christ be careful!” my hands gripped her waist tightly to stop her from tilting forward, then I grab the top box so she can actually see. The same red blush covers her cheeks.

“Sorry, my mum just insisted I try to take all my stuff in as little trips as possible, which is proving to be difficult. I’m sorry about your books.” With her stuff firmly on the ground she finally looks as me.

“They put the Australian and the Canadian in the same room knowing we just basically kicked you out of the Olympics?”

“You did not!” the joke was rare coming from her. She was funny and kind but still rather serious and shy, preferring studying statistics and players over team bonding or spending time with people after a game.

I understood that, I felt that, and that’s how we worked. Us against the world. We trusted our team and confided in them, but we’d really only want each other in times of need. Obviously there were people like Sam or Christine, who were like our big sisters for our respective national teams, but Jessie and I were just drawn to each other.

-

After UCLA came Chelsea. Both of us were about to start our last year of uni when her offer came through, far before mine.

By this point we’d been inseparable for four years, so I worried we’d be split; her making the move to England and me stuck in our dorm. Except it’d be much emptier and lonely, or filled with some stranger’s things.

And it was just like that. Time zones caused issues with keeping in contact. Eventually that became other things. Study, because she still had to finish her course. Team bonding, practice. What would be a call once a day became once a week until it filtered out, and her texts would be answered in seconds while mine sat in wait for whenever she decided she was free.

My offer came in the January transfer window. Emma had been in contact with me for a couple months, clearly trying to convince me, and 6 months ago I wouldn’t have even thought about it. But when I stare at the ‘merry Christmas’ and ‘I got the offer’ messages left unread and think about seeing the girl I thought would never leave me, I take the time offered.

And a week later I find myself sliding into Sam’s spare room groaning into the pillow as she fusses over the Australian snacks I did manage to get through customs.

“What’s got you in a mood chickadee?” I feel the bed dip beside me and her hand rubs my back.

“J.” the older Australian lets out a hum before taking a moment to reply.

“She talks about you all the time. About how much she misses you and everything you got up to at uni. All of which I already know because I hear it every camp.” I can feel the joking eye roll despite not seeing it.

“She talks about me but doesn’t talk to me. That means nothing. And I know she’s busy but so was I. Just because I was captaining a university team instead a stupid professional team doesn’t mean I wasn’t busy or doing something important! And I still kept in contact!” by now I’ve rolled over onto my back and started fiddling with Sam’s tattooed fingers, trying to distract myself from the pit of loneliness and despair that’s been slowly eating my stomach.

I dare not mention to anyone the decline in my mental health or the required psychology sessions Emma was going to provide for me once every few weeks. Everyone knew I was sad and that’s all they needed to know. But once upon a time, Jessie would have known everything, holding my hand tightly the whole way.

“You should sleep, big first day tomorrow. I’ll make you breakfast. Alarm-”

“8:30, I know. Every day, same time. Thank you Sam, really.” She smiles and pats my head before leaving.

-

To say my first day didn’t go well would be somewhat of an understatement. At exactly 8:30 my alarm went off. At 8:32, the pill bottle rattling at the bottom of my bag was fished out and 1 was being washed down by water. At 8:43, Sam was banging on my door calling for breakfast and I was rushing to make sure the pill bottle was hidden after changing. No one needs to know I’m taking anti-depressants, including Sam.

When we pulled into Cobham, I started to feel sick, and I told Sam just that.

“I’ll catch a train home.”

“It’s just nerves, you’ll be fine.”

“No-”

“You stay until at least lunch time, then we’ll see.” A pointed finger is shoved into my face, but I begin to stroll alongside her anyway.

I do almost book it for the nearest train station as soon as I enter the locker room. Sitting in the cubby next to mine, tying her shoelaces, is Jessie Fleming. During the chaos of the move and my first day, I manage to forget the way our numbers are right beside each other.

“You’ll be okay. You don’t even have to talk to her.” Sam whispers as she makes her way to her own cubby, greeting people on her way through.

So I try. Placing my bag in the nook and beginning to change into my training kit without the Canadian even looking up. It’s when I place down the same styled Tiempo Legend 8s I’ve been wearing since they released, that I can see her head turn from the corner of my eye. I don’t acknowledge it, continuing to slide the boots onto my feet and tie them up. But that doesn’t stop her.

“Oh my god! Hey!” there’s a lightness in her voice that I used to be so familiar with and it makes my heart clench.

I take a moment before deciding replying would be too rude for my liking.

“Hi.” Short and simple, and quite blunt.

“I didn’t know you signed, or that you even got the offe-” forget being nice.

“You would’ve known if you bothered to keep in contact with me.” With that I slide out of my seat beside her and make my way to Sam.

-

It gets worse when Emma splits us into pairs for dribbling drills, and she slides me toward Jessie.

“Of course.” I sigh but accept my fate as a ball rolls our way.

“What’s wrong?” a phrase that, coming from her mouth, used to have me spilling every small emotion I was feeling.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Come on Beans, tell me.” The nickname had been created in our first year of university. She learnt I loved green beans and I’m rather tall, so the name fit. But she didn’t feel like the same person who I let make the funny name.

“You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

“What? Because I moved?”

“No! You left for Chelsea and I was happy for you, we had a plan to stay in contact until I followed along to somewhere in England. But you stopped trying. You stopped answering. You left me alone when I needed you the most. I would’ve done anything for you to have the career you deserved but you got it, without me. I just thought I’d still have my best friend when it happened.”

To say that training was tense from then on wasn’t a stretch. Emma never paired us up and any time one of us entered the locker room, everyone else would wait in silence for a burst similar to the one on the pitch. It never came.

It was after my first session with the psychologist that things began to change.

Because the psych was only here for me, Emma was kind to lend her office to us for the 50 minutes while she did other work around the grounds. I assume the girls were grateful to escape the tension for the moment.

“Same time, 2 weeks from now! It’s good you’re making progress!” The rather lovely lady shouts just as I’m closing the door, waving and smiling in thanks.

But as I turn around, I nearly bump into a small figure. A rather familiar one at that. Jessie begins to fall backwards but I grip her waist, holding her in place. It’s a familiar scenario, the feeling of my hands on her waist and her burning red cheeks are something I struggled to ever forget.

“T-thanks” her cheeks burn that same red.

“No worries.” I mumble in reply as I remove my hands, taking a step back.

“Who were you talking to? That didn’t sound like Emma. And what are you making progress on?” the questions don’t come rapidly but I still struggle to process them. Jessie’s smart, she can put two and two together, so I should tell her. But what if she laughs? There was a time where the thought wouldn’t have even crossed my mind, she’s not that type of girl. But things change.

“I- I-” Jessie places a gentle hand on my arm and nods, confirming it’s okay to take my time, but please continue. I sigh.

“She’s a psychologist.”

“A sport psychologist?”

“Well yes and no. I… I’ve been diagnosed with depression, and Emma wants me to have someone professional to talk to.” Her grip tightens but I know it’s in concern.

“When- when did you…”

“A couple months ago. Don’t worry, it wasn’t just because of you, a lot of things happened.”

“But it was partially because of me. I wasn’t there for you when I should’ve been. You’ve always been there for me and I got here and treated you like shit. Discarded you like you were nothing. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” tears well up in her whisky brown eyes, but I smile.

“J, if you say sorry one more time, I’m asking for a new roommate for the away match against Man City. Which I did know we are… for once.”

“You can’t just forgive me.”

“I’m not, it’ll take time, but I want my best friend back. Sprout.” Jessie charges forward and wraps her arms around my waist.

“I’d do anything.” Her voice is muffled as her head presses into my chest, but I smile.

~~~~~

Things changed once again a few months after that. The 2020 Olympics had been delayed due to natural disasters, but we still found ourselves milling around the Olympic village together in our very little spare time. I also found myself admiring her for every little thing, every detail. Eventually I had to admit to myself that I’d developed a crush on the girl.

“What’s going on in that busy brain of yours?” Jessie had been by my side every step of the way with my mental health after she found out, and this question wasn’t uncommon, but the answer would be.

“I know this could ruin things, I’m very aware of that, but I have to tell you now otherwise I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to.” Gaging her reaction was difficult, Jessie was a very stoic person.

“I-, I’ve found myself growing feelings for you. Feelings that surpass best friends, or how I feel when you show up for me. I like you, a lot. And I need you to know that. Standing in the middle of a pathway surrounded by half naked athletes in Olympic Village, I like you.” I look her in the eyes. Those burnt umber eyes, so warm and comforting, that always draw me in.

“I really like you too. Everything about you. I want to care for you and be there when you need me. I want to wake up in your arms and be able to admire every feature as the sun beams down on you like the miracle you are. I would even go as far as saying I desperately want to be your girlfriend.” I barely let Jessie finish what she’s saying before I lean down, a significant way, and kiss her with everything in me.

~~~~~

2 and a half years later and Jessie hasn’t left my side since. Most of our quarrels are just that, silly fights that are solved by the end of the night. We moved in together after 3 months and were rarely been seen apart.

That included tough games.

Real Madrid was our first game of the Champion’s League season, and we knew it was going to be hard. They were physical most importantly, so we had to play to that. We knew that when we were up 2-1 in the 78th minute.

“Jessie Fleming challenges Athenea Del Castillo, barley missing the ball and clipping Athenea on the foot! Oh, and the ref is calling for a penalty. I’m certain first contact was outside the box.” Is what would be heard by anyone watching the match through a screen, but you didn’t need a commentator to know the ref made an unfair call.

The contact was clearly outside the box and yet we’re forced to line up and watch Olga Carmona take the wrongly rewarded shot, me grasping Jessie’s hand in my own as a way to reassure her.

It’s obvious the referees are against us when Niamh makes a shot on goal, the ball sliding in, but it’s claimed offside. Something to do with Sam supposedly messing with the defence, another false claim. There’s nothing we can do when the final whistle blows and we’re tied, all of us dropping to the ground in exhaustion and disappointment.

After shaking hands with the Madrid players and briefly talking with Hayley to catch up and talk about things that happened between our last camp and now, I travel toward Jessie.

My girlfriend stands solemnly with her head in her hands. I managed to pull them away momentarily to see the tears drifting down her cheeks, but she’s pulling her hands away and turning around before I can ask what’s wrong.

“Darl, it’s not you’re fault.” I don’t want to invade her space while she’s upset so I walk around her and simply stand, hoping she’ll reach for me.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Jess-”

“Leave me alone Y/n.” not another word is uttered as she turns toward Fran and Niamh and walks away from me.

I similarly turn to Sam and Erin, with a shocked look, jaw hanging and rejected tears looming on my water line.

“She probably just needs to be alone.” As Erin tries to comfort me, we all turn to look at the subject of the conversation, only to see her being comforted by Fran, Niamh and Ashley, despite her effort to insist she’s fine.

“Maybe I didn’t push hard enough?”

“No you should never push when they clearly need space.” Sam places a reassuring hand on my shoulder

“But why is it only me she needs space from? I’m supposed to be the one she seeks comfort in. That’s what girlfriends do.”

“I don’t know chickadee.”

-

I expect Jessie to already be back at our apartment by the time Erin drops me off. Our shared car had been taken from the parking lot at the stadium and Jessie had disappeared, so those dots connected themselves. But our designated parking space is empty as I stroll along the bitumen.

There are no familiar white shoes next to the door in the same exact spot she puts them every day, no kit bag hanging on a hook, waiting to be washed tomorrow. No Canadian waiting in our bed, curled up in one of my already oversized shirts or hoodies and shorts, begging me to hold her.

I try not to worry when I call her and she doesn’t pick up. Maybe she went the long way and there was traffic? So I call Niamh to ask her if she knows where Jessie went. She doesn’t have an answer. Then I try Fran, and Zecira, and even Emma.

I ask everyone to try and call her too, Sam offering to take Kristie and search every corner of London, Erin offering the same. It’s midnight by the time I give up trying to contact her, asking Aggie if I could borrow her car tomorrow to look around if she wasn’t back, her living down the road from us. The young forward is insistent on joining me if it comes to it.

When I wake up the next morning and find Jessie curled up against me, in one of my hoodies and shorts, relief washes over me. Her brown curls are messy, her soft pink lips cracked open to allow air into her lungs. The sun trickles in through the curtain and lights up her face, freckles looking like bursts of light against her skin. Her eyes are still puffy from last night and tears have dried upon her cheeks, and I can’t resist the urge to reach up and lightly wipe them away.

As my thumb drags across her tan skin, tracing her face, her eyes flutter open, and I remember how easy it is to get lost in them. So warm and inviting.

“Mornin’ honey.” I press a gentle kiss to her nose, her cheeks, her forehead and her eyelids.

“I’m sorry for last night. I just felt horrible, if only I didn’t make the tackle.”

“I know darl, but that’s what I’m here for. I love you, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you yeah? I was bloody worried though.” Jessie nestles her head into the crook of my neck and nods, pressing her own kisses on any skin she could reach.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her up until she’s laying on my chest instead. My cold hands sneak under her hoodie and she jumps from the shock, swatting at my hands beneath the fabric.

“I reckon I make us some tea and brekkie and then we can do whatever you want all day. How’s that sound?” I flip us over so Jessie can go back to sleep for a while, but she clings onto me, pulling me down aggressively by the front of my old Chelsea travel shirt. Her lips press against mine with energy and love and I get caught up in the feeling. A moan slips past someone’s lips, which of us I’m not quite sure, but I slowly pull away, trailing kisses down her neck until I reach her collar bone.

“Let’s save that energy for later yeah?” I swiftly wink as I finally roll off the bed.

-

I’m making scrambled eggs when I feel Jessie’s arms wrap around my waist. She presses soft kisses across my back as I sway us back and forth to the slow jazz song spewing from the record player.

The next song comes on and I abandon the meal completely, turning off the stove and twisting myself in Jessie’s hold so I can face her. I take one of her hands in mine and rest the other on her waist, her spare landing on my shoulder.

“Put your head on my shoulder; Hold me in your arms, baby” the lyrics continue as we follow along, her head resting against my chest, my chin balanced on top. We dance slowly through the kitchen, the music carrying throughout the house.

As the song finishes, I dip Jessie, leaning over her as her leg kicks out. My gaze flickers between her eyes and her lips and within seconds I’m kissing her again, still in the dip. When I pull her back up, she jumps into my arms and pulls my lips to meet hers for more, the force making me stumble back into the counter behind me.

“I want to slow dance with you around our house when we’re old and can barely kick a ball anymore. Our kids and grandkids playing around while it just feels like the two of us. Because it’s always been the two off us and I never want that to change.” Jessie whispers against my lips. My heart clenches with love as I take her in.

“Will you marry me?” The words escape both our lips almost in complete synchrony. I almost drop her, but my grip on her thighs upholds as I kiss her again, and again, until I can’t kiss her anymore.

-

“I stole this video from Y/n’s phone not long after Jessie and her broke the news of their engagement. Y/n had texted me that morning saying she wanted ideas for a ‘day in the life of a woman in love’ video she planned on making that very day, and I knew that she would have forgotten all about the phone while she and the love of her life shared a special memory together.” Sam takes a pause to look at Jessie and I, sitting side by side at the front of the room.

“What isn’t shown in the video, is the ring that was sitting in the pocket of Yn’s shorts, waiting to be place on the only hand it was made for. The ring went with her everywhere for at least a month before this cute dance proposal. Every day in training, Y/n would tell me a new plan she had come up with to ask Jessie to marry her, and I always told her ‘you should do it when the moment feels right. Don’t force it.’, as I clearly had experience with this sort of thing… And she told me that was a bunch of absolute bullshit.” Our friends and family laugh while my wife’s face drops in shock, her elbow lightly nudging my side. I let out a snicker and kiss her cheek, wiping off the lipstick residue that is left behind.

“Well it turns out I was right. As always. And I’m honoured to be standing here as a best woman in front of two of my best friends, the most amazing young players out there, two people who were made for each other; sculpted by the stars and the earth, to be in each other’s lives, celebrating that love. You’ve both overcome a lot, personally and as a couple, you deserve this love.” A tear escapes my eye as I stand to hug Sam.

“Now can the two nerds please make their way to the dance floor for their first dance?” I take Jessie’s hand in mine and pull her along.

Her suit coat is left on the back of my chair and her waistcoat is unbuttoned and she looks fucking good. Her hair rests on her shoulders and her slack pants fit perfectly around her thighs. Jessie holds part of my dress train, so we don’t trip as we hold each other in similar fashion to the day that led to this, the same song playing on the large speakers in each corner of the room.

“Put your head on my shoulder Whisper in my ear, baby Words I want to hear, tell me Tell me that you love me too”.

Jessie stands on her tippy toes, my heels not helping our height difference.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[slut4thebroken]

Exposure Therapy pt. 1

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Pairing | Jonathan Crane x reader

Summary | Your therapist tries a new method of treatment to help you with your fears.

Warnings | 18+, sexual content, smut, rape, non con, dub con, oral, p in v sex, fingering, fear play, crying, rape (again. I’m really emphasizing this lol), forced breeding, unprotected sex, threats of involuntary admission to asylum

Words | 3k

Notes | This is rape. Just straight up. Sure she’s attracted to him and trying not to think of it like that but it’s literally just rape. Final warning.

Ao3 link | <3

Fic Masterlist

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Prologue

You had been meeting with Dr. Crane for a few weeks now. You were mostly just talking, sometimes he’d have you try something to start to get you more comfortable living normally. But the progress was slow overall. 

“There is another form of treatment we could try.” He suggested, setting his pen down on the notebook and giving you his full attention. 

“If you think it’ll help.” You shrugged. 

“Do you know what exposure therapy is?” 

“Um… yeah. But isn’t that for phobias of bugs or heights?” 

“Usually, yes. But those aren’t the only types of fear this technique can help with.” 

“Oh… I’m not sure I understand, Dr. Crane.” 

“Do you trust me?” 

“Of course.” You nodded. 

“In our first session you told me it feels like you’re living everyday waiting to become part of the statistic.”

“Yeah?”

“If you’re already part of the statistic, do you think you’ll still feel that way?”

“Um… I guess not? I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” He set his notebook and pen down on the coffee table, then stood up, making his way to the empty side of the couch as you stared at him in confusion. 

“You’re lucky you came to me, you know. Most doctors don’t care enough to try everything possible to help their patients.” You gave a small smile in response, not able to talk before he continued. “In order for this to work you need to trust me completely, can you do that?”

“Yes, but I’m still not sure what it is you’re doing.” He stared at you for a moment before letting out a quiet sigh and taking off his glasses. He set them on the table, then met your gaze again. 

“Studies show that patients who relive traumatic experiences in controlled environments can actually better overcome that trauma. Now in your case it’s slightly different because your fears were not born out of trauma, but I still think it can help.” He paused as he debated what to say next. 

“With the kinks you’ve indulged in already, the environment might have been a little too controlled.” You furrowed your brows, trying to understand. “Putting you in a situation that is controlled, just not by you, should be effective.” He said, placing a hand on your thigh. 

“Dr. Crane, what-“ He shushed you, slowly rubbing his hand up and down your thigh, each time getting closer to your skirt. 

“You know, I thought about doing this at your house- maybe wear a mask so you didn’t know it was me. But that wouldn’t be controlled enough. So I knew it had to be here.” He said quietly, an unnerving smile on his lips. “With someone you trust.” When he slowly started leaning forward, you moved back until you were laying on the couch with him hovering above you. 

“There’s nothing to be frightened of- I’m no heathen. This isn’t about committing a violent act against a defenseless woman, it’s about helping you work through your fears. I have every intention of making sure you can take me comfortably.” He maneuvered himself between your legs, your skirt rising as they parted. Your eyes widened at his words, finally understanding. 

“I don’t- I don’t think I want to try this treatment.” You whimpered, shrinking back into the couch. 

“You don’t know what you want. That’s why you’re here. If you knew how to help yourself, you wouldn’t have come to me.” He pawed at your clothes, pushing your cropped sweater up, then pulling your bra down beneath your breasts. 

“If you behave, I can make this more comfortable for you. But if not, I’ll have to just get right to it, do you understand?” Your bottom lip quivered as you stared at him with wide, frightened, unable to move or speak. “Answer me.” He growled, making you flinch at the harsh tone. 

“Y-yes.” 

“Good.” He said simply, leaning down to take your nipple in his mouth. You laid there frozen, trembling beneath him, but despite your fear, you couldn’t deny the fact that what he was doing felt good. Maybe if this was someone else, someone you weren’t attracted to, then it’d be easier for your body to understand that this scenario was supposed to be bad. When his teeth lightly nipped at the sensitive bud, your breath hitched, making him pull back with a smirk. 

“That’s it, see? Just let it happen and it’ll feel good.” He moved on to your other nipple, working it over in his mouth until he was satisfied. He pulled back with a wet pop and looked up at you through his lashes. 

He moved down your body, but because of the small couch, decided to kneel on the floor. When he pulled you forward so your hips were on the edge, the movement caused your skirt to get stuck between the cushion and your ass, raising it even more, making your cheeks heat up. Your blush intensified as he pushed the fabric up until it rested around your waist. 

“Shorts.” He said quietly to himself, placing his hands on your hips and tracing his thumbs over the fabric. “Do you wear this because you think this will help?” He asked, looking back at your face. You nodded silently, making his lips turn up in a small smirk. “Because of your obsession with statistics, you should know that clothing choices do not deter rapists.” He said, raising his brows questioningly. 

“I know… it just makes me feel better.” 

“So desperate for some semblance of control over your fears.” He chuckled quietly, making you frown in response. When he started pulling your shorts down, you grabbed his wrists. The look he gave you made you tremble even more, but you quickly relaxed your grip, letting him continue. 

“Do something like that again and I'll skip this part, do you understand?” 

“Please,” You whispered, holding back tears as he removed your shorts. “Please don’t do this.” You said through a sob when he reached for your underwear. He ignored you, pulling the fabric off your body and discarding it to the growing pile on the floor. You jolted when he suddenly swiped two fingers through your folds. 

“See, you beg me not to, but you’re soaked. Is that why you’re so afraid? Because you know you’ll like it?” You clenched your eyes with a quiet sob and shook your head. When wet heat engulfed your clit, you choked on a gasp. He started out slow, licking and sucking delicately. You tried to control your hips and not let them buck toward the pleasure, but trying to do that as well as control your sounds proved to be a difficult feat. 

It felt good. Honestly you’re not sure you’ve ever been eaten out this good in your life. He was almost as passionate about it as he was with his work. When he plunged two fingers into your drooling hole, you couldn’t help the low whine you let out. He looked up at you through his lashes, smirking against your sex. 

Maybe if you just think of this as you finally getting to fuck the man who’s been plaguing your every thought for the past few weeks, then it won’t be as bad. After all, he did say he had no intention of making this painful for you. So it wouldn’t be too hard to think of this in a different light. 

“You don’t seem scared anymore. Have you finally accepted it or is there another reason?” He asked, still curling his fingers against your walls. 

“Maybe you’re dissociating to cope. Unfortunately if that’s the case… I am going to have to get you out of that state so you can experience the full extent of this treatment.” You stared at him almost blankly, trying desperately to not focus on his words. 

“If this behavior persists in future sessions though, I might have to put you on antipsychotics.” That got your attention. 

“Future sessions?” You all but scoffed, quickly closing your mouth after speaking to keep the sounds in. 

“Yes, I’ll need to monitor you closely after this treatment. I think three meetings a week should be sufficient.” You swallowed down a whimper when his thumb started circling your clit, then forced yourself to respond. 

“You seriously think I’m coming back here?” He swiftly removed his fingers, making you release a choked sound. 

“If that’s the case, I’m afraid I’ll have to admit you.” He said, casually wiping your arousal off his fingers on your skirt. 

“Admit me?” 

“To Arkham Asylum.” He said simply. 

“What the fuck is that?” 

“Honestly, did you do any research before moving here?” 

“N-no. I couldn’t afford to live anywhere else…” You muttered. He hummed in acknowledgement and stood up. 

“Arkham Asylum is a psychiatric hospital in Gotham City, primarily housing the criminally insane. I am the acting chief psychiatrist there.” He shrugged off his jacket, placing it over the coffee table. 

“I’m not criminally insane.” You said skeptically, rising to a sitting position just in case you’ll have an opportunity to run. 

“No? That’s not what my diagnosis tells me.” 

“What the hell are you talking about?” You spat, feeling your heart pound harder in your chest. 

“Maybe you weren’t criminally insane when we first started our sessions. But yesterday you went through something traumatic that triggered a psychotic break, causing you to try to harm me during our meeting today.” You stared at him in shock, too caught off guard to say anything. “Which is why I’ve deemed you a threat to yourself and others and recommend immediate hospitalization for psychiatric evaluation.” 

“You’re fucking insane.” You whispered, not sure what else to say. 

“I’m simply a doctor who’s dedicated to studying the effects of fear on the human mind. And I have to say, I am very excited to study yours.” 

“So- what, you’re just going to have me committed? As soon as I have the evaluation I’m going to tell them everything.” He let out a dark chuckle and gave you a knowing look. 

“Truly brilliant plan. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out when I evaluate you.” Any and all confidence or leverage you might’ve had was gone in an instant. 

“Then… I- I’ll say I want someone else.” You said quietly. 

“Were you not listening when I said I’m the chief psychiatrist there? I'm the one who decides who evaluates you.” 

“But- that’s a conflict of interest.” He smirked as you floundered for a suitable threat. 

“That’s the beauty of Gotham. Everyone and everything here is corrupt. No one cares if there’s a conflict of interest.” You let out a shaky breath, feeling trapped and out of options. “But don’t worry, I won’t start my research until you’re officially a patient. Today is just about your treatment.” 

He was on you before you could even blink, pinning you down by your neck with one hand, the other opening his pants just enough to take his cock out. As you clawed at his arm and his face, you realized the consequences of anxiously picking at your nails- they did nothing to harm him. 

“No-“ You cried, trying to push him away when the blunt head of his cock bushed your slit. “Stop- Help!” You yelled, making him tighten his grip on your neck and push down on your windpipe. 

“No one can hear you so shut up.” He hissed, pushing his hips forward. Your body tensed at the pressure against your hole. When his length finally pushed in, you tried to let out a pained scream, but the only noise you could make was a pathetic squeak. He let out a low groan, closing his eyes with furrowed brows and opening his mouth in a silent moan. 

“Fuck, that’s good.” He said through a moan. He continued pushing in until his hips were flush with your body. The pressure on your cervix was almost unbearable and you silently begged him to not stay here long. “You’re so wet. Why is that?” His voice was strained as he tried to control his arousal. His grip loosened on your neck and you took in a huge breath, then started coughing. 

“Fuck you.” You rasped, throat a little sore.

“I always love the mouthy ones. Makes it all the more satisfying when they break.” He sneered. You sighed in relief as the pressure on your cervix decreased while he slowly pulled out. But as he slammed back in, you weren’t sure what hurt more: the pressure on your cervix or the burning stretch of your walls. His pace picked up quickly until he was pounding your abused hole relentlessly, even with your cries and pleads for him to stop. He shushed you, gently brushing your hair behind your ear, making you flinch away from his touch. 

“Calm down. It’ll feel good once you relax.” He said, almost annoyed. You cried silently, arms laying limp by your sides after trying unsuccessfully to push him away for several minutes. You just wanted to get it over with. 

“Fuck- this pussy feels good. When you’re locked away, I’m going to make sure we have daily sessions to continue your treatment.” You let out a choked sob and shook your head. 

“No,” You cried, tears streaming down your cheeks, making him buck his hips even faster. “No- please.” You whimpered. 

“Yeah. It’s not effective as a one time thing. This kind of treatment needs to be done regularly, in fact, we might have to have more than one session a day.” You sobbed silently, trying to just dissociate again or something- anything. But the brutal pounding of his cock made it hard to focus on anything else. 

“I forgot to tell you- this treatment isn’t only for your fear of being raped.” You stared at him blankly as you processed his words, eyes widening once you understood.

“No-“ You said, much more assertive this time. But he was not deterred. 

“Yes.” He growled, rutting into you animalistically as he chased his pleasure. “I’m gonna come in this tight little cunt and you’re going to take every drop.” 

“No!” Your arms were active again, desperately working to push him away. 

“If you behave and be a good little inmate, then maybe I’ll let you keep taking birth control.” 

“Please,” You choked out, “Please don’t do this, Dr. Crane.” You cried, feeling the knot of arousal in your stomach, despite your words. 

“As hot as the begging is, if you keep running that little fuck hole, I will take away your contraceptive privileges.” You had no reason to not believe him, so you obeyed, only letting out violent sobs. “That’s better. Good girl.” He groaned, putting a hand back on your neck. His hips snapped into you ruthlessly, your hole aching out of discomfort and desperation and your breasts moving embarrassingly with each thrust, adding to your shame. When he reached a hand down to your clit, you muttered out a quiet, “No,” and shook your head. 

“I know you’re about to come. Just give in.” His fingers rubbed fast circles over it, making your hips twitch from the friction. And he was right. You were about to come, especially now that he was stimulating your clit. You tried to hold it, to not let yourself give him an obvious display of your unwanted pleasure, but it was useless. You came with a cry, this one more like a moan than a sob. His hips stuttered as your walls convulsed around him, but he never stopped thrusting. 

After you finished, he removed his fingers and focused on his own orgasm, not needing much more before burying himself inside you, uncomfortably deep. Your sobbing intensified as you felt hot come coating your walls.  

“Fuck- that’s it. Take it- take my come. Right in your fucking womb.” He growled, reaching a hand down to press on your lower stomach. “Can you feel how deep I am? Can you feel me right up against your cervix? You’re gonna have no choice but to get pregnant. Maybe not today… But I am going to knock you up eventually.” You let out a broken cry, laying completely still beneath him. 

After coming down from his orgasm, he slowly dragged his cock out of you, then forced your legs open to watch his come leak out of your abused hole. He pushed it back in with a small smirk. 

“We don’t want to waste any.” He explained. When he was satisfied, he rose from the couch, tucking himself back in his pants, then walked over to his desk. You watched through hazy eyes, blurry with unshed tears, as he searched for something. 

I should try to run now, you thought. He’s distracted, I can probably do it. But your body could barely obey. With much effort, you rose to a seated position, trying to ready your wobbly legs to hold you up. Before you could though, he was already walking back to you, one hand pushing you back on the couch, the other behind his back. He clumsily righted your clothes as you laid there, defeated. When he brought his other hand up from behind his back, you stiffened at the sight of a syringe. 

“What is that?” You muttered, trying to push yourself away from him, further into the couch. 

“A sedative. Someone is going to pick you up and take you to a holding room. I should be there to evaluate you by the time you wake up.” You shook your head as your heart started pounding in your chest again. 

“No- no, please. Please, I don't want to go.” You whimpered, flinching back when he grabbed your cheeks and turned your head to the side. Before you could react, the needle was already puncturing your skin. “Please don’t. I don’t wanna go.” You slurred, eyes growing heavy, and he shushed you gently. 

“I’ll see you soon.” 

Part 2

[cheeriecherrymain]

For request 🥺 viktor and a nervous reader’s first time

An attempt was made! Again, kind of ran away with the prompt in my mouth and chewed it a bit until I was chased down and made to spit it out. Sorry

---

Viktor x fem!Reader (18+)

Content tags: first time together | oral (f and m receiving) | simp Viktor p much

---

-You had…kind of expected sex to just happen naturally in your relationship. You had expected that you’d go through each new milestone as they came, from holding hands, to a first date, to a first kiss.

-And for the most part, it had happened like that. Viktor had asked you out to coffee one evening, when he was frazzled from work and already a little jittery from his rather impressive (and detrimental) caffeine intake throughout the day. 

-You’d softly denied his suggestion, and quickly replaced it with something a little less…unhealthy. You invited him over for dinner, instead, offering to make something hearty and spiced, but easy on the stomach. He’d accepted, of course, and that night had been one filled with a whole bunch of firsts.

-But now, four months into your (official) partnership, he still had yet to touch you. Well, he touched you, yes - all the time, in fact. He always liked to have a hand on some part of your body, in the most innocent sense. You’d learned quite early on that physical affection was one of the silent ways he told you he cared for you. And that he trusted you.

-What you mean is that you hadn’t…

-He hadn’t…

-You haven’t had sex. Ever.

-Not only with him, but…in general. None of your past relationships had ever gotten to a point where you’d felt safe enough to open up about that sort of thing, or made you feel comfortable enough to bare yourself so openly. But you want that, with him.

-You’ve heard as many horror stories as you have pleasantries about the whole ordeal, ranging from pain and discomfort, to not being able to come, to muscle cramps and weird noises and knocking foreheads when you tried to-

-You take a deep breath, in a vain attempt to calm yourself down. You know it’s not always like that. You know that Viktor would never hurt you, or make you feel weird or unusual for something so trivial.

-You’ve heard good things about sex, too. The emotional intimacy it could achieve, on top of the physical pleasure - little giggles and feelings of elation. One of your friends had said she’d never really experienced good sex until she’d met her partner, and they’d actually talked about what they wanted. Openly and without judgment.

-You’re a little bit cranky that you’re probably going to have to be the one who brings the subject up with your boyfriend. You wish that you could just…fall into it, and talk about it afterwards, but realistically? It’s a conversation that needs to be had.

-You want him to know what you want.

-You want to know what he wants.

-So on a weekend, as the two of you sit comfortably at your tiny dining table, eating some kind of cheesy pasta dish that you don’t know the name of, you broach the subject.

- “What do you think about sex?” you ask him, during the first lull in your mutual chatter. You want to hit yourself, with how the question comes out, but you suppose there’s no going back now.

-Viktor nearly chokes for a second on a bite of food, his gaze snapping up to yours as a light dusting of pink begins to appear on his cheeks. “Pardon me?” he coughs, clearing his throat.

-You sigh.

- “I just…I want to know where we’re at,” you explain, setting your fork down. “Most people usually…do it within the first month of being together. And we’re on month four, so I- I just want to…check in, I guess?”

-You can feel your face beginning to heat up, as the mortification sets in. “I’m not saying that we have to have had sex by now,” you ramble, “I’m just talking about the statistical average! I mean, I’ve never even done it before, so it’s not like I have any frame of reference - I just thought! It’s a thing a lot of couples do, so maybe it would be a - a good idea to - talk. About it. About if that’s something you want.”

-You set your face in your hands with a groan, feeling the tips of your ears burn from the awkwardness of it all. You knew it was going to be uncomfortable and kind of weird to bring it up, but of all the ways you could have messed it up and stuck your foot in your mouth-

- “Is it something you want?” he asks suddenly, surprising you well enough that you crack your fingers apart to peer at him with a single eye. He’s flushed, as you expected him to be, but he doesn’t look particularly embarrassed. Not like you thought he would.

-You sigh again.

- “I…think so,” you admit, finally pulling your hands away from your face. “It’s like I said - I’ve never done it. I know I’m late to the party, but-”

-He reaches across the table then, all but throwing his fork down in lieu of reaching for you. Wrapping his hand tenderly around your own, in an attempt to comfort you.

- “There is no time limit on something like this,” he tells you. “If the moment has never felt right, then that’s…that’s okay. If you’re unsure about making our relationship more physical, then we don’t need to rush. There is no rule saying we have to do certain things at a certain time.”

-You carefully knit your digits around his, staring down at the little details on his hands. The angular curve of his fingers, long and slender and dextrous, along with the little moles and freckles and scars that dot across his pale skin. You’re rendered breathless for a brief moment, upon the realization that every part of him is stupidly attractive.

- “I want you,” you mumble, shyly avoiding eye contact. “The number of times I’ve thought about you during one of my ridiculously long showers is…too many to count. I guess I just. I dunno. I’m nervous. I don’t want to be bad at it, and I don’t want to mess something up, and I’m worried I won’t….”

-You sigh for a third time.

-Thankfully, Viktor has known you for a significant amount of time by now: he knows your moods and feelings, knows your little secrets and tells. He knows what you’re thinking about, just by looking at you. You don’t need to say so much out loud.

- “Nothing you could do could put me off of you,” he promises, as he rises from his seat. Keeping your hands entwined, he maneuvers his way over to stand in front of you, bringing your knuckles up to his lips once your knees knock against him.

- “If I’m being honest, I’ve been…quite horrendous about controlling myself around you,” he admits, without an ounce of shame. “Most nights, when I’m alone in the lab, I’ve taken myself in hand to the thought of you. The way your hair smelled that morning in bed, the way your lips are so warm on mine.”

-You swallow hard, as your stomach flutters wildly.

- “And then, of course, there are the things I don’t know,” the corner of his mouth quirks up at the edge, mischievous and playful. “I like to think about the way you’d taste on my tongue, how I could make you squirm. The pretty little sounds you’d make as I gave you pleasure. How divine you’d feel, wrapped around my cock.”

-You nearly stop breathing, the softest of whines falling past your lips.

-Viktor looks down at you like he knows exactly what he’s doing, like some kind of devilish, scheming man. Bringing his lips to the back of your hand again.

- “If it’s something you want, would you let me have you?” he asks, his gaze meeting yours. “Would you allow me to make you feel good tonight? And every other night you so please?”

-If you weren’t already sitting, you know for a fact that your legs would have given out beneath you.

-The second you nod, he leans down to kiss you. Sets his cane in the crook of his elbow, and takes your jaw in hand, pressing little circles into your skin with the tips of his fingers. It’s sweet as can be, warm and comforting like you’re used to, but with a sharp bite to it.

-Sharp, like the way he nips at your bottom lip.

- “As much as I would love to have you right here,” he murmurs, barely pulling away from you, “I would at least have our first night together be somewhere more fitting. I want to take my time with you.”

-And so, the two of you find your way to the bedroom, significantly slower than you usually would, stopping every couple of steps to mesh your mouths together. Or for him to find any exposed piece of skin he can, latching onto you to suck and bite little bruises.

-By the time you actually make it to your destination, you’re mostly divest of your clothes. Save for a soft undershirt and a pair of pastel panties. Viktor fares no better, his usual vest and tie dropped somewhere along your path, his shirt hanging open and his trousers halfway unbuttoned.

-You stop at the foot of the bed, and he comes up behind you, wasting no time in getting to feel you - feel the warmth and the gentle squish of your flesh beneath his fingers. The soft hairs across your body, your skin rising into goosebumps along every trail he makes.

-His breath, hot against the back of your neck, as he slowly slides the bottom of your shirt upwards. So slowly. 

-You appreciate that he’s giving you time to back out, should you so desire: that his touches are meandering and lazy, enough that you could stop him with ease. But you don’t want him to.

-You squirm where you stand, trying, hoping that he’ll understand what you’re hinting at. But the devious bastard only smiles, laying a smattering of kisses across your shoulders.

- “You’ll have to use your words, milý,” he mutters, toying with the edge of your shirt. “How can I know what you want, if you don’t tell me?”

-Your face feels like it’s on fire, embarrassed even though you know you have no reason to be. You trust Viktor, more than you’ve ever trusted anyone: you know he’s just being a tease.

- “Take it off,” you whine, and thankfully he doesn’t push you on it further, demands no more explanation.

-The next couple minutes are a total blur, wrought with new sensations and little thrills of pleasure. He settles you comfortably on your back, once you’re fully bare to him, and for a moment he just…stares. You wouldn’t exactly call it humiliating, not with the way his eyes darken with lust, but you’re certainly shy.

-He kisses a scalding path down your body, more tongue than anything else. Stopping for a few dozen seconds to pay attention to your chest, wrapping his lips around one puffy bud, sucking hard for a couple seconds before soothing the ache with the lave of his tongue.

-Until both your nipples are drawn into stiff peaks, and the soft of your skin is littered with the dull imprint of his teeth. 

-And then he continues his path downwards.

-Kneading the insides of your squishy thighs, he slowly coaxes you to open your legs, murmuring praises all the while. He’d done the favour of removing the last of his own clothing for you, not wanting to stress you out by demanding some kind of reaction from you.

-You’re grateful for it, in a sense, but you’re also desperate to get a peek at him. Hard and dripping, watching as a pearlescent drop beads at the tip of his cock the moment you open your legs for him. You whine quietly, when you finally get to see how you’re affecting him.

-He lays kiss after kiss all over your spread thighs, foregoing his earlier cheekiness for obvious and genuine care. Treating you sweetly, with the most gentle and loving hand that he possibly can.

-He wants this to be good for you.

-He needs this to be good for you.

- “Tell me, milý,”  he says lowly, “How far have you gone on your own? Have you touched yourself here?” he lowers his thumb to your clit, already already swollen and thick with your arousal, and begins rubbing slow patterns onto it.

-You mewl at the new sensation, not overly pleasurable, but the fact that he’s the one doing it makes it infinitely better.

- “Yes,” you breathe, fisting your hands into the sheets beneath you. “I - I’ve done that. Several times, in fact. S-sometimes out here, spread open like this, on my own. Other times…”

-He quirks a brow at you.

- “Other times,” you continue, “I…use the showerhead. Once or twice when you were staying over.”

-He groans, then, letting his eyes fall shut for a few moments while he lets his cheek come to rest on your thigh. You think for a second that you’ve somehow offended him, but he’s very quick to mitigate that worry. Bright honey eyes snapping open to nearly glare up at you with palpable desire, so strong you’re made breathless again.

- “To think, I could have tasted you weeks ago,” he sighs, almost sounding genuinely saddened. But it’s quick to pass, as he descends upon you with the hunger of a man starved.

-Licking a solid stripe up your drenched slit, drawing his tongue into a point near the end to flick it against your clit. Again and again, he repeats the motion, watching with rapt attention as his spit mixes with your sticky fluids, dripping down onto the bedsheets below.

-It’s not long before he changes his technique on you, startling a moan out of you when he wraps his lips around your puffy bud and sucks. He leaves you trembling, positively quaking, with his ministrations. You never thought that you’d ever be able to have an orgasm approach so quickly, but now, as he continues his onslaught of pleasure, even going so far as to dip his finger into your drenched hole, you can’t even find it in your heart to be embarrassed about it.

-He doesn’t stop touching you, doesn’t stop pumping his slender digit into you, doesn’t stop the movement of his tongue on your desperate slit. You know he can feel you squeezing around him - he’s got to. 

-But he never stops.

-He tenderly works you over the edge, groaning and sighing along with you as you find your high, nearly grinding against his face in an attempt to seek out more, more. Anything to prolong the pleasure.

-Until you’re rendered boneless beneath him, breathing hard while you wait for all the little stars in your vision to fade away. You barely even notice him removing his finger from you, popping it into his mouth to suck your juices off, as if it’s some kind of rare delicacy.

- “Holy shit,” you squeak, followed by an almost disbelieving giggle. You can’t help yourself - you don’t think you’ve ever had an orgasm quite like that before. Your own fingers were well enough, you supposed, and the showerhead was certainly intense, but…

- “You’ve ruined me, Viktor,” you laugh, smiling down at him with a dopey grin. “I’m never going to be able to get myself off after this - I’m only going to want you.”

-His brows rise by a fraction, a moment of disbelief immediately followed by his own self-satisfied smirk.

-You’re hardly shy after that, despite being unsure of what to do and where to put your hands, or of what might feel good. Your boyfriend, to give him credit, is a good teacher - guiding you through the motions of what he likes best, what makes him squirm, what makes him come.

- “It’s you,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Your touch, and your hand wrapped tightly around his drooling cock, your mouth wrapping around the blunt, flushed head, and your tongue sliding along his shaft to slick him up.

-And it’s you who lets him rut up into your grip, staring up at him with naught but adoration shining in your beautiful eyes.

-Like you, he’s neither embarrassed nor ashamed about how quickly he reaches his end, far too pleased by the fact that you’re finally touching him. That he’s finally gotten to see the gorgeous face you make when you come, and that’s he’s gotten a taste of your perfect pussy.

-He tries to warn you before he comes, but like he had earlier, you don’t pay him any mind. Until his release hits your waiting tongue, you continue to work him.

-Until he starts whining and batting at your hand, you work him.

-It doesn’t go much further than that, for the time being. The two of you carefully and tenderly cleaning each other up in the aftermath, sharing kisses and blissful little bouts of laughter, your hands never really leaving each other’s bodies. You have as much time as you desire, to figure everything out, and to learn.

-To discover new things about one another, and forge this new part of your relationship.

-Though let’s be honest, he does get a little handsy the following morning.

[laineystein]

I know that the media would have you believing that war is constant and ruthless but sometimes it’s a lot of sitting around and waiting for orders. And a lot of talking. Really introspective talking. And the things that people say when there’s a very real chance that they might die, are probably the most poignant and well said. So here’s a conversation my unit had in a million different ways with a million different words:

We love beings Jews. We love being Israeli. We can’t imagine being anything else or belonging to any other group. But this statistic that we are 0.2% of the worlds population has been so much more than a statistic lately. We all feel it. We feel how so much of the world has turned their backs on us — how the same people that posted those stupid blue squares on instagram are now using language that calls for our genocide and the destruction of our homeland. We know that for so many people we are pawns in their political game. We know that so many people think we are sub-human and therefore deserving of less respect than any other person. We don’t need anyone to tell us what they think of us because so many people are showing us by what they’re doing or not doing. And that’s okay. We’re used to it. We’ve always been alone. We’ve always fought (and won) our own battles. We’ll win this one without any of you. It’s fine. But it makes me think about how the same people that alienate us are the ones that critique how we live in insular communities (like the neighborhood I grew up in Crown Heights) and how our religion is closed and how we don’t need a place (read: Israel) where we all live together (assumedly because no other group has such a place — which is just a total lie). And there’s this thought amongst many Jews that communities like the one I grew up in in Brooklyn exist as a result of the persecution we faced. Just like there’s this thought that Israel exists because of the Holocaust. The survivors of the worst thing that can happen to a group decided to live together and close out the outside world. Now I’d argue that we certainly haven’t closed anyone out in Israel - I’m currently serving with Israelis that are Arab and Druze. But is our country very Jew-centric? Absolutely. Just like Crown Heights is very Jew-centric. Goyim can/do live and visit Crown Heights but it is a place that caters to what is otherwise considered a counter-culture in America. Just like Israel caters to Jews in an area of the world where all of us were expelled. We are fine living in these places. We have created these communities and curated them to our Jewish way of life. But people wonder why we close ourselves off and why we need special spaces - and that same ignorance is the answer. Sure, our diets are different and we have laws about how we go to school and work and pray that make it very difficult to live in a non-Jewish world but there’s a very real truth that so many people are scared to say aloud so I will: We don’t trust goyim. Goyim have never stood up for us or protected us. Only we can keep ourselves safe. Only we truly care about our wellbeing. We do not feel safe around goyim. And I think we have every right to be distrustful. We have every right to think that our survival and security rests solely in our fellow Jew. So while this has all proven that the Jewish people are amazing and loving and stronger than even we knew, it’s also only cemented this idea that we absolutely need our own world. And it’s clear that we’ve essentially lived in our own world all this time anyway - our world view is not your world view. Our experiences are so incredibly different than the goy experience. If you’re not Jewish and especially if you’re not an Israeli Jew, you can’t possibly understand any of this. And that’s fine! But don’t get angry when, in the absence of your support, we’ve figured it out. And don’t be upset when your Jewish friends - Israeli or not - have pushed you away because you didn’t show up in the way they’d hoped. You’ve merely proven us right. We do not need you. Our communities are enough. Our country is enough. Together, we will outlive you.

[andthemoonsingswisely]

ok I never thought it would get to this, but I’m gonna say it: I’m not old enough to vote yet, but if I was, I’d vote blue. I’m a centrist at best and some would even consider me to be conservative economically speaking, I think, even though both of them suck, that Harris is a much better candidate. I know some of y’all are skeptical, but let me break it down for you.

The economy: the main reason why so many people think Trump will be better is that the economy was good under Trump and bad under Biden, but studies show that Trump didn’t “make America great again”; rather, he inherited an America that was already great. this study shows that during the last 33 months of the Obama administration, non-farm job growth averaged 224000 per month. During the first 33 months of the Trump administration, it was 34,000 jobs per month less. Moreover, it also shows that during the last two years of the Obama Administration, annual median household income increased by $4800, more than three times the amount under the first two years of Trump. I’m too tired to quote the entire statistic, but if you read the study, you can see that the stock market increased at a greater pace under Obama as well.

Patriotism: Trump has repeatedly made anti-American statements, from his mocking of veterans to his “joke” on 9/11 that now his building was the biggest (a time when the entire country was grieving and shocked). Moreover, Trump has made racist statements against Mexican, Chinese, and Black people; with his father, he has historically discriminated against Black people when renting out buildings. Moreover, I see the claim that he increased funding for historically black colleges get thrown around a lot, but the truth is that the funding actually stayed the same as what Obama gave . The same source also confirms that the record low unemployment for black people under the Trump administration didn’t come because of trump’s policies, and instead only decreased at the same rate at which it had been decreasing before. Lastly, I’d like to talk about Springfield, a town in Ohio which’s economy was weakened due to the decline in manufacturing jobs, but was revived thanks to the Haitian immigrants. With his running mate, JD Vance, Trump spread baseless rumors of Haitian immigrants eating locals’ pets. Trump disrespects all of America, whether it be veterans, minorities, or immigrants, which is why I argue that he’s not the patriot that he claims he is.

Lastly, I’d like to say that I understand why people turned to Trump in 2016 (not talking about the people who voted for him out of bigotry here, I’m talking about people who genuinely thought he was the best for America). Manufacturing and industrial jobs had been lost to other countries, and Trump, with his MAGA campaign, promised to bring back those jobs. I know that Biden, with his incompetency, has made life harder for a lot of you. But you need to ask yourself: does Trump genuinely care about the American people? Because based on the evidence I listed above, I can very confidently assert that no, in fact, he does not. Trump cares about himself, and he’s obsessed with the attention he gets. It’s why Harris was so easily able to goad him during the debate by insulting his rallies: that man is obsessed with gaining an audience, and needs to believe that he is admired and liked. He feeds off of being worshipped. Personally, I say that this is not the type of person I want to represent me or my country. This is not a man I ever would trust to make decisions to benefit everyone.

this was longer than I expected. I’m not claiming I know everything, I’m not even claiming that Harris will be a good president. I could write an entire essay dissecting the flaws in her policy ideas and her candidacy. However, I’d still choose her over the man who ruined America’s history of peaceful transfers of power. I’d still trust her over the man who posts “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” in all caps like a middle schooler. Then again, maybe that’s just me.

[demonicintegrity]

Literally just now I learned through Instagram that Netanyahu is visiting Congress this month. And has been visiting Congress over the years apparently.

So naturally, there’s gonna be a protest. For those going you can find a bus from your city to DC from answercoalition.org/arrest_netanyahu to see if there’s one. And for everyone else

MASK THE HELL UP. COVER YOUR HAIR/FACE. PROTECT YOURSELF. USE SUNSCREEN AS WELL.

DC and the capital are crawling with cameras and cops, especially considering the current political scene. Masking will also protect against the germs and trust me, it’s dirty up there. Personally when I go to protest I prefer a mask, tying back and completely covering my hair, and wearing very plain and loose/comfortable clothing. My friends don’t even recognize me. That’s good. Don’t be recognizable in photos.

Your top objectives when you’re going:

Don’t pass out from the heat. Drink plenty of water, find shade, sit down if you need to. There’s been heat warnings all month. I cannot stress enough that it will be hot. Carry water for you and extra for new friends if you can.

Do not fuck with the police. Do not antagonize. Do not throw shit. Don’t riot. The typical stuff. There’s a nonzero chance of a counter protest from people for the genocide, drown them out but do not engage them.

Shut down any antisemitism, especially from your own. Shut down anybody riling up police, shut it down any violence, shut down any racism and bigotry. Regulate your group.

Familiarize yourself with the area. Have a plan in and out. Make your meet up points and know when to bounce.

Note: I’m not the organizer setting this up, nor do I know them in any capacity. If you see organizers, talk to them and listen to them. They should have plans in place to manage the protest and move if need be. Watch the crowd, be aware. If the organizer has a media liaison, let them handle the press.

You may want to:

Turn off your phone. DC is crawling with tech. Use the knowledge of your devices and what you’re doing at your own discretion. When I’m solo, it’s on. As a group, maybe off.

Pack snacks!

Figure out rides ahead of time

Wear sunglasses

Be prepared for things to get ugly. Personally I prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Draw live, take pictures or videos, or otherwise capture the scene. If you’re doing so, remember to not capture identifying details of your fellow protesters, there will be people intending to be malicious by finding out who your peers are. Be mindful of faces and metadata.

Ultimately, stay safe and cool but make your presence and message clear. I highly recommend before you go down to DC you brush up on the news, be on the lookout for new information about this protest, brush up on antisemitic conspiracies and dogwhistles, and figure out how to manage the heat.

Tensions are high and you will be in the proximity of a lot of notable figures. Be smart and be safe. I think there’s a real chance to make this one really catch attention, so plan accordingly. The ICC has a warrant for Netanyahu, and that seems to be the primary focus of this protest. Making him acknowledge and answer for war crimes. Sounds like making signs highlighting the war crimes and statistics of what the IDF has been doing. Maybe highlighting the bombing of safe zones, targeting of those providing aid, and the starvation of Palestinians.

He’s likely trying to legitimize his war on Hamas and appeal to Congress. He’s not popular in Israel, im sure he’s gonna throw a pity party for himself. Do not let anyone forget that any crime Hamas has committed doesn’t warrant retaliating on innocent civilians. And Palestinians deserve to live as peacefully as Israelis do.

[marlsbys-dragons]

I’m so scared right now. 

I’m writing this not for any grand statement or call to action or anything, but because it’s safer for me to express my thoughts here than elsewhere right now.

If this goes like my other original posts, chances are no one will see this. That is ok. I might prefer it, actually. Though if you do happen to see this, please don’t take that to mean I don’t want interaction. This is a time to pull together, and that can most easily be done, in my opinion, by talking.

Like most of the people I figure are likely to see this, I am a queer American. If you are part of this group, chances are pretty good you know what I’m talking about. Earlier today, March 27th 2023 as of writing, there was a mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville Tennessee. Six were killed, three children, all age nine, and three adults, all aged between 60-61. The perpetrator was one Aiden Hale, 28, killed by police during a gunfight after their arrival on-scene approximately 14 minutes after 911 was called. 

If you are surprised by that name, so was I. Hale is being reported on mainly by the name Audrey Hale, his legal name, as according to a family member who asked to remain anonymous, he had only recently started identifying as transgender and using he/him pronouns. Despite this, almost all of the quotes featured in stories that I could find use she/her pronouns, and many stories refer to him as either a transgender woman or a female. The latter is inaccurate, the former strikes me as dangerously wrong.

Now, all of that is tragic backstory for the main point of this post. Some ungracious among you may attribute me lingering on the gender identity of the murder as opposed to his crimes as some sort of deflection, or worse, sign of respect. To any hypothetical people doing so, this is not for you. This person was clearly deeply mentally unwell, and if he had survived I would’ve been advocating life in prison.

However, while my heart goes out to the families of this senseless act, my mind turns to my own family. Not just my literal family who I live with, but my queer family, specifically my trans siblings across the US. We are already facing violence, oppression, and open criminalization to a degree not seen in my admittedly brief lifetime. Republicans and other right-wing actors are doing everything they can to instill baseless fear and hatred into our fellow Americans, forcing through bills that restrict our liberties and violate our human rights. 

The easiest targets for this hatred are trans women, aided by the overwhelmingly male statistics of sexual violence, and long-running and unfounded rumors seeded by transphobes and TERFs regarding alleged assaults and sexual motives for transition. After trans women come trans children, targeted for the same reasons children always are: dismissal by adults at large and a subsequent inability to speak to their own defense. And the bills are getting worse. To share a personal detail I don’t like to publicize, I am a parent of two, and there are bills in state legislatures across the country, Florida comes to mind, that could take my children away from me and throw me in jail for supporting them. A seemingly logical progression, which may have already been taken without my knowledge, is criminalizing trans people who live with children, something I have had nightmares about.

Why I am afraid is relatively simple, but to fully explain my reasons I want to share some further information: according to the Daily Mail, this shooting is is the 129th in the States this year. According to some very rough math I did on gunviolencearchive.org, a site whose list for 2023 has already reached 6 pages, this is in fact the 130th. Personally I would trust the Daily Mail’s number more. Also according to some quick finger counting on gunviolencearchive.org, we surpassed 100 mass shootings sometime on March 5th, a day with 4 separate incidents and a combined total of 3 dead, 13 injured. This is nearly two weeks earlier in the year than 2022 or 2021, and more than two months earlier than 2018-2020. I could not stomach looking farther. 

Some of you may have realized the awful truth about these numbers: in each of the last three years, we in the United States have had more than one mass shooting a day. Again per gunviolencearchive.org, that is a feat replicated by both 2020 and 2019, as well as 2016, the only other year to do so after their archival began in 2014.

As a trans person in America, who loves a trans person in America, who has trans friends across America, who has already had to start laying plans to flee the state I was raised in if it continues its present course, who sees nothing but fear in the future of so much of my family, I can only think that this will lead to bad things. 

The twisting and slanting has already begun. An article on Fox News refers to Hall as a transgender woman, despite his actual identity being a transgender man, and the usual bias of that company to call him a woman. Meanwhile, the New York post has an article focusing heavily on Covenant’s status as a Christian school.

Our enemies despise us with a visceral and blinding rage. They have proven time and time again that facts, logic, reason, human lives, mean nothing in their pursuit of a radicalized right-wing populist agenda and the power they think it promises. And now this? The all-too-real intersection of two of the biggest issues in US politics today: gun violence and transness. One which the right led to through inaction, and the other they manufactured out of hate.

I am no pundit, no scholar or insider. I cannot claim to forecast the future happenings of American politics with anything more than a layman’s weary eye. But I am a trans American, and despite everything I still want to be proud of this country, and I could see no resolution in sight to either gun violence or anti-trans legislating, only escalation, and now the two have merged. What will happen to us now? Sources:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nashville-covenant-school-shooting-suspect-identified-as-audrey-hale

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nashville-christian-school-shooter-appears-former-student-police-chief-rcna76876

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/what-we-know-about-the-covenant-school-shooter-in-nashville

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nashville-shooter-audrey-hale-transgender-woman-opened-fire-covenant-school

https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/nashville-school-shooter-audrey-hale-identified-as-transgender-and-had-detailed-manifesto-to-attack-christian-academy/

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/nashville-shooting-covenant-school-03-27-23/index.html

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/politics/america-mass-shootings-2023-gun-violence/index.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11907933/Nashville-school-shooting-Americas-129th-mass-shooting-2023.html

https://www.them.us/story/florida-bill-trans-kids-supportive-parents

Note: I wrote this in a hurry, with no real plan, and no proof-reading. If there is anything erroneous, please let me know. I apologize if it’s a bit disjointed. 

[crawlingbetweenearthandheaven]

guising; halloween, 2006

Kendall is starting to come back down to normality, and it's Halloween, and they are American tourists in Yorkshire. on the ao3 here or below

“Well,” Kendall says, fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket, “this feels pointed.” He breathes in and out deeply, like the doctor has told him to do. The house is dark and darkening as the clock creeps onwards. “I fucking hate when the clocks change.” He lights a cigarette and catches his finger on the flame.

Stewy looks at him from where he is doing makeup in the mirror. “Dude, it’s the most appropriate costume in the world. Even if the Brits don’t really do Halloween, and you’re chemically lobotomised –“

“It’s just the lithium,” Shiv tells Stewy, like he hasn’t read all the leaflets since the doctor left them all on the kitchen table and sat in the computer room until his head hurt reading miserable blogposts from poor people about their BIPOLAR HELL and reading about Byron and van Gogh and sobering-if-boring articles on suicide statistics and lithium toxicity and addiction issues and endless fucking misery. His eyes flicker to her, dressed in a red shirt and blue pinafore dress. She shows them what she has in her hands. “I could only find a cricket bat here, so – “

Roman snatches the cricket bat, gives her the axe he’s holding. “Let’s swap,” he says. “You’re way more likely to damage your kid or go insane and start seeing shit and –“

“I’m the one most likely to do that,” Kendall says, and it should be but he can’t bring himself to actually laugh. His siblings just look at each other as if he’s still manic, even if the lithium has brought him back to earth with a horrible lurching feeling and he’s so tired he feels rooted to the floor half the time. “Fuck, I must be crazy if Stewy’s talked me into this,” he tells his feet, shuffling them slightly.

“Vampires are the most appropriate costume for Stewy because he is the Vampire of Wall Street,” Roman says. He boggles his eyes. “Now I look the part,” he announces.

“I’m in private equity,” Stewy says.

Shiv snorts. “Same thing, isn’t it?”

Kendall looks in the mirror. He looks pale and bloated, like a corpse that has been in the water for three days. His eyes are bloodshot and his hands are shaking, but he’s wearing a black cape fashioned from a curtain.

“Where’s Connor?” he says, looking around. “He’s got my next dose, which I still think is fucking stupid and I can be trusted with all my meds and there’s no point in dressing up anyway because the Brits don’t do it and we’re not in college anymore and I don’t want to waste my time – “

“Kendall,” Stewy says, handing him a pair of plastic vampire teeth. “You’ve spent the past few weeks terrifying the life out of us. It’s our turn, don’t you think?”

Kendall shoves the teeth into his mouth too hard and his lip starts bleeding; he starts to worry at it with his tongue and his teeth until the blood runs down his chin. He watches it in the mirror, until Roman notices.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Roman says, and goes in search of a towel. They hear him muttering to himself about lunatics and idiot brothers and several homophobic slurs whispered too low to quite catch. Shiv starts to paint exaggerated eyelashes under her eyes. Stewy looks at Kendall in the mirror until he makes eye contact.

“You know I hate dressing up,” Connor says as he rounds the corner, tread heavy on the stairs. “You are all children –“ and he walks in and he is wearing his normal clothes. “I’m being Conor Roy,” he tells them, but he is trying not to smirk. "I am mentioned on Dad's Wikipedia page, you know. So I am notable - " Shiv rolls her eyes as if she has been practicing.

Roman walks back in with a teatowel, and scrubs too hard at Kendall’s chin. He licks his finger and rubs at the blood. “Is that weird?” he asks, pausing. “I saw it in a movie once,” and Kendall shrugs and shakes his head and tries to smile but feels hollow. He keeps thinking of all the empty shells that wash up at the seashore after a storm.

“What would Dad dress up as? He’d probably call it guising or something Scottish. Mum would say it’s a vulgar American import, right? Like watching television in bed or laughing at mealtimes,” Roman says, waving the cricket bat around his head.

“Dad would be the vampire,” Shiv says, and then laughs. “No, Dad would be fucking – that horrible painting with Saturn eating his son? Roman got obsessed with it last year when we got dragged round every gallery in Madrid.” She mimes a few times.

“As the art expert – “ Connor begins, but Kendall tries to laugh and makes a weird gasping sound instead until Connor shrugs and says something about Kendall’s “newfound admiration for the visual arts”.

As if Connor has not spoken, Shiv keeps talking. "He painted it on the wall of his house, remember? That's some Kendall shit right there. The crazy stuff. Spanish Inquisition - "

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Connor interrupts, looking delighted.

"Fucking dork," Roman mutters under his breath. "I can see Dad being that painting, but only accidentally. Like oh, he just happened to accidentally acquire everything that mattered to a business venture, steamroll in with his name and his money, wreck it all - "

"He did do that accidentally," Connor says. "He told me, he had no choice but to buy in, because of the markets -"

Stewy closes his eyes for a second. “Going back to paintings, specifically Kendall's new one. Did we decide what to do about that? Does your dad know?” He takes several long sips from the whisky in his hand, opening his eyes and turning his head to look at Kendall.

For the first time in a little while, Kendall feels slightly turned on. He sniffs, wishes he had some water or vodka or wine. “He said it was fine and his guys will sort it and he’s glad I’ve got my head, uh, straightened out.”

“Does he know about you and Stewy? I – I still think it’s great, you guys,” Connor adds hastily, watching Kendall watching Stewy’s throat move as he swallows.

“He knows everything in a sort of five-eyes Bill-Gates fucking… KGB type way,” Roman says. “But he’s not mentioned it. I guess he might be waiting until he needs to use it,” he muses. He has put down the cricket bat and is drinking neat vodka.

“If he knew, I think he’d get one of his guys to talk me into killing myself,” Kendall says quietly. The truth of the words soaks into him and he feels hot and cold all at once. Stewy reaches out and takes his hand.

[reasoningdaily]

The Atlantic: Are You Plagued by the Feeling That Everyone Used to Be Nicer?

I have a long-running argument with my brother. He insists that his children, who are growing up in New York City right now, are a lot less safe than we were as kids in the same neighborhood. I happen to know this is absurd, and I’ve tried for many years to convince him. I’ve shown him news reports, crime statistics. Once I even downloaded an FBI report showing without a doubt that New York was much more dangerous 30 years ago. But he is unmoved. He remembers our childhood as gentler, safer. And I have to admit—there are moments when I walk around my old neighborhood and see visions of the mailman tipping his hat to my 10-year-old self, and the neighbors smiling as I made my way home to dinner.

Why do so many of us have this feeling that when we were younger, people were nicer and more moral, and took care of one another better? An experimental psychologist named Adam Mastroianni had also been wondering about this persistent conviction and did a systematic study of the phenomenon recently published in Nature.

Mastroianni documents that this hazy memory is shared by many different demographics, and felt quite strongly. He explains how the illusion works and why it has such a hold on us. And most important, he explains how it can distort not just our personal relationships but our culture and politics. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, I talk with Mastroianni and staff writer Julie Beck about the illusion of moral decline, and why it persists so strongly.

Whenever politicians or aspiring politicians make the claim that, you know, “Things used to be better, put me in charge and I’ll make them better again”—that’s a very old thing that we’ve heard many times. And it resonates with us, perhaps because we are primed to believe it, even when it’s not true.

The following episode transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Hanna Rosin: So, Julie, you know—even though I get annoyed when other people say people used to be nicer, I kind of think I might feel that way too.

If I have a vision of my childhood and I’m walking down the street from the playground, I imagine all my neighbors saying, “Hi, little Hanna.” [Laughter.] And the mailman coming by, you know, and tipping his hat at me, and the old man walking his dog.

And, you know, I have no idea if this memory is accurate, but I definitely have that feeling that people were nicer.

Julie Beck: Did you grow up in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood? Or what was it?

Rosin: No; I actually grew up in Queens, New York. So it’s probably, certainly not true. [Laughter.]

This is Radio Atlantic. I’m Hanna Rosin. I invited my colleague Julie Beck on to talk about something that’s always really bothered me. It’s when people talk about how things are so much worse today than they were in the past.

And they say things like “Neighbors used to be nicer, and everyone used to smile at you and help you out.” And sometimes it’s just grandpa chatter and you can pretty much ignore it. And then other times it turns into this “back when men were men and women were women”–type thing, which is more annoying.

Beck: There’s a benign wish to, like, tip your hat to the mailman. And then there’s a “Oh, we need to bring back the social order of the 1950s.” And then you’re like, “Whoa, how did we end up here?”

Julie analyzes psychological research and social trends, and she’s also the host of another Atlantic podcast, How to Talk to People.

And she’s here to help me understand this very interesting research that just emerged about this strong conviction people have that everything has gotten worse.

Adam Mastroianni: So my whole life, I’ve heard people say things like, “You used to be able to keep your doors unlocked at night,” or “You can’t trust someone’s word anymore.”

And I always chafed at those kinds of statements. So part of it was wanting to prove everybody wrong. But part of it, too, was like, Well, if they’re right, this is a big problem. And that’s kind of where we got started.

Rosin: That is Adam Mastroianni. He recently published a paper in Nature called “The Illusion of Moral Decline.” Adam is a psychologist, and he’s the author of the science blog Experimental History. And he spent a decade systematically studying why we feel things were better in the past … and what it means.

Mastroianni: I think my first year of graduate school was when Trump got elected. And so obviously it was a moment of “Make America Great Again” being sort of the vibe of the day.

Seeing claims that “The past was good, the present is bad, put me in charge and I can bring the good past back” also just made me see how this is much more than, you know, uncles and brothers-in-law and people on the internet saying these things— that these claims resonate with people, and they help put people in the Oval Office.

Rosin: Yeah. I mean, I have to say, that’s my motivation for being interested in your research, because I have always had a kind of detached curiosity about why this line resonates so strongly.

Like, why is it that—and it’s not just American leaders, it’s leaders all over the world—they can just say, “Oh, things were better back then,” and it immediately clicks for people? Like, they don’t even have to explain it. You can just say, “You know, make America great again.” It’s like four words, and all the assumptions are immediately there for people.

Mastroianni: Yeah. When I give talks in an academic context about this paper, what I start with is the end of Trump’s inaugural speech, where he says, “You know, we’ll make America wealthy again and proud again and safe again and great again.” And I point out that the most important word in those sentences isn’t America or safe or proud or strong or great. It’s again.

Rosin: Yes!

Mastroianni: Just that word does a ton of work. Which is that: Well, if things used to be great but aren’t now, it means something changed. It implies that we can change it back. It evokes a sense of loss, but also a sense of possibility of restoring the loss.

Rosin: Yeah. And it is the word again. It’s like that one little word sort of resolves something emotionally for people. It’s hard to understand exactly how it works, but you say the word again, and everyone’s like, “Ah, you just filled a hole for me.” You know? What exactly do you mean when you say “moral decline,” and why, if it’s an illusion, does it feel so real?

Mastroianni: There are a few totally reasonable hypotheses about what people might think of when they talk about moral decline. It might be that everyone means, like, “I heard that the 1950s were a really good time. And so what I’m really telling you is things have declined since then.” Not that they got worse in the past 10 years; that they got worse, you know, 20 years ago or 50 years ago. And we’re just living in the bad times now.

In a later study, we asked people go back even further than that. “What about 20 years before that? What about 40 years before that?” And what they told us there is—“Before I arrived, nothing was happening. Things were good. Then I got born, and then things started to go downhill.”

And what’s especially interesting is: It doesn’t matter when you were born. So the people who were 30 told us it happened 30 years ago. The people who were 60 told us it happened 60 years ago.

Rosin: Wait, really? So literally, people think the decline began when they came on this earth?

Mastroianni: Yeah. So, I mean, we don’t ask, like, the day before or the day after. But the question that we asked was: “Rate how kind, honest, nice, and good people are today. What about the year in which you were 20?” And people told us it was better then.

“What about the year in which you were born?” And people told us it was even better then. And then we asked, “What about 20 years before that? And 40 years before that?”

And there’s no difference in people’s answers. That line is flat. It’s only when we asked about “20 years after your birth” that the line goes down.

Rosin: That is so interesting. I don’t think I fully grasped that. So people are projecting whatever personal difficulties or struggles of life—now maybe I’m extrapolating—onto the whole of humanity, like they’re protecting their own life span onto a historical, broader cultural, political life span.

Mastroianni: Yeah. And I mean, this is a bias of people’s memory, because you don’t have memories from before you were born. You do have memories from most of the time after you were born.

So it would make sense—if this is a memory bias—that it turns on sometime near the moment of your birth. Obviously not exactly then, but this would explain why we don’t see this for what people think about before they were born and after.

Rosin: Does it really not matter how young you are? The stereotype is obviously, you know, Grandpa Simpson. It’s like, older people are always talking about how things were better back then, but not necessarily younger people.

Mastroianni: Yeah; we totally expected to find that as well, and we didn’t really. So when you ask people about the decline that they have perceived over their lifetimes, there’s no difference in the decline that younger and older people perceive.

Rosin: Julie, I was surprised to hear that there wasn’t a difference between older people and younger people in terms of how they perceive this moral decline. I mean, you’re not an old person; you’re young. So do you remember ever having this feeling?

Beck: I distinctly remember I did not get a smartphone until I moved to D.C. in 2013. So in the years before that, when I lived in Chicago, I have a memory of having so many more interactions with strangers on the street.

And I definitely do not have those nearly as frequently anymore. And I think it’s just because we’re all looking at our phones, right? So part of me kind of romanticizes the, you know, chance encounters of the pre-smartphone era and all of that.

Rosin: Yeah. And when I hear you say that, I’m like, Oh, it’s fine for Julie to have that feeling, and it’s fine for me to have that feeling. But if I multiply it by a few million times, then I get this political movement of “Let’s go back to the era when things were better,” and that I don’t really like so much.

Beck: Yeah. One thing that this makes me think of, too, is a line of research that has found that social trust has actually been declining in the U.S. for decades. So people are essentially less and less likely to say that generally most other people can be trusted.

And so you’re totally right that there are really big political implications for thinking the past was better and people used to be more trustworthy.

For me, it feels like kind of a chicken-or-an-egg question. Like, do we trust people less because we believe they’ve gotten morally worse? Or do we believe people are worse because we’re more disconnected from our communities?

Mastroianni: We focused here on a pretty narrow question, which is, “Has the way that people treat one another in their everyday lives changed over time?” And do people think that it has?

This is a model of when things are bad, it’s easy for them to seem like they have gotten worse. And so I don’t think this is the only domain where we might find this illusion, because people say this about a lot of different parts of life.

You know: that art is worse than it used to be. That culture is worse than it used to be. That the education system is worse than it used to be. But it seems pretty clear to me that we are predisposed to believe that it’s true, even when it’s not.

Rosin: Your assumptions in this research are—people have this idea that a certain kind of morality has declined. But in your mind, it has not declined. So to you, this is like an illusion. I mean, you call it an illusion. Right?

Mastroianni: Yes.

Rosin: Okay. So working within that assumption, what’s your explanation? Like, why would a majority of us be operating under a delusion/illusion? Like something that you’re saying is clearly not true.

Mastroianni: We think that there are two cognitive biases that can combine to produce this illusion. So this explanation has two parts. The first is what we call biased exposure, which is that people tend to attend to predominantly negative information, especially about people that they don’t know.

So this is both a combination of the information that they receive about people that they don’t know, which is primarily negative, and the information that they pay attention to. So this is why when you look out at the world beyond your personal world, it looks like it’s full of people who are doing bad things. They’re lying and cheating and stealing and killing.

The second part of the explanation is what we call biased memory. Memory researchers have noticed that the badness of bad memories tends to fade faster than the goodness of good memories.

So if you got turned down for your high-school prom, it feels pretty bad at the time. Twenty years later, it’s maybe a funny story. If you have a great high-school prom, it feels pretty good at the time. And 20 years later, it’s still a pretty nice memory. It doesn’t feel as nice as it did to experience it, but it still feels pretty nice.

And that turns out to be, on average, what happens to people’s memories: that the bad ones inch toward neutral faster than the good ones do, And the bad ones are more likely to both be forgotten and to become good in retrospect.

Beck: So when I read the paper, Hanna, I wondered whether what might be going on is that people are, to some degree, picking up on a real change in the world.

There’s the decline of social trust—but also widespread loneliness and disconnection and the erosion of community life, in the sense of fewer people knowing their neighbors and declining membership in community organizations.

And all of those things definitely have an impact on people’s personal lives. But I think it manifests as a vague feeling like, Oh, it’s just harder to make friends or harder to feel like I’m a part of my community.

So I wonder if we’re feeling this sort of vague and troubling sense of disconnection and assigning it a false explanation: that things used to be better before, and people just suck more than they used to.

Rosin: Oh, that’s really interesting. So what you’re saying is the feeling is real. Like, the feeling that something has changed is real because something has changed. There is more disconnection and loneliness.

So instead we make up this very tidy story. Like, “When I was a kid, things were better and people were nicer and the mailman tipped his hat”—and we just kind of stopped there.

Beck: Yeah; there definitely are real things that are really happening that would make people feel disconnected from strangers around them. And I wonder if, yeah, we just have a hard time psychologically, knowing why that’s the case.

Rosin: So Adam, I want to run a couple of theories by you. One is the possibility that something has actually changed. And we’re just calling it by the wrong name. That, like, something has declined. And this is from a different body of psychological research about social trust.

That there is a change in our isolation, our sense of connectedness, our face-to-ace contact. Like there are some societal changes which are real and structural and have kind of left a hole in us that we are misnaming morality.

When we read it here, we thought there are some things that are changing and that do leave us a little despairing—and maybe we’re just calling them by the wrong name.

Mastroianni: Yeah.

Rosin: Like we have this incredibly powerful feeling that something is wrong, and that “something” is connectedness or community or something like that.

Mastroianni: Yeah. So it’s very easy to slip from “People are less kind than they used to be” to “Things are worse than they used to be.” And so it is true that trust in institutions has declined over time. A lot of people also say that interpersonal trust has declined over time. And I actually think that case is much more overstated than the decline in institutional trust.

There’s some work by a guy named Richard Eibach on how people think the world has gotten more dangerous. And he finds that people believe this. And the people who believe this, especially, are parents. And when you ask those parents “When did the world become more dangerous?,” you get a date that is curiously close to the date of the birth of their first child.

The obvious implication being that nothing about the world changed. It was your worldview that changed. And now you have to, you know, protect this fragile life—and so you are much more attuned to the dangers of the world. That’s why you think there’s more of them.

Rosin: You know, Julie, I have this conversation with my brother all the time, and he’s always telling me his kids aren’t safe. He lives in New York. He’s like, “My kids aren’t safe. They can’t go outside. They can’t go down the block.” Like, he really freaks out, you know? And: “It’s way less safe than it was when we were kids.” And I’m like, “Dude, we grew up in New York in the ’70s, right?” It was really not safe.

Beck: Like, statistically.

Rosin: Statistically. And I’ve shown him news articles, and I once pulled out an FBI report. I specially downloaded an FBI report that showed, you know, crime statistics in New York from when we were kids.

And his conviction is so strong about this. I can’t budge him. I can’t show him enough numbers or statistics to make him think, Oh, things aren’t worse now.

I mean, Adam Mastroianni actually has a term for this. This is a little mean to my brother, but his term is unearned conviction. And I think what he means by that is exactly this. It’s like: Your conviction is incredibly strong, even though you have really no basis to back up the story that you’re attaching to that very strong conviction.

Beck: Yeah. I mean it seems like, regardless of the FBI report, the story your brother is telling himself is super-emotionally resonant.

Rosin: Yes.

Beck: And the stories that we tell ourselves about our own lives really do sort of shape who we are. It’s really interesting, because when we tell these stories to ourselves about our personal lives, a lot of times those stories fall into one of two categories. One being redemptive and the other being contamination.

And so a redemptive story is like: “I have suffered through these trials and come out stronger for it, and things are looking up.” Whereas a contamination story is like: “These trials have conquered me, and I am now broken and fundamentally a worse person.”

And it probably won’t surprise you to hear that contamination sequences are not great for people’s mental health. That research was done with stories that we’re telling about our personal lives. But it feels like we’re kind of telling a contamination story about all of humanity.

Rosin: I guess what’s depressing to me is: Why are those the ones that stick? I mean, there are redemption stories that are popular in American society.

But I feel like in a lot of moments in history, and now is one of them, these contamination stories—like “America was great once” or “Russia was great once”—have a particular kind of emotional juice and can really rally people.

Beck: Yeah. I mean, maybe it’s kind of like your brother’s fear in New York, right? Where it’s just like—that is so viscerally emotional. It’s the safety of your kid. And so, of course, that’s going to have like a way stronger impact.

Rosin: Now Adam, did you find any appreciable differences between demographics? So if not between old and young people, what about gender differences, or people with different political ideologies?

Mastroianni: We didn’t find any gender differences. We didn’t find any differences by racial groups. We didn’t find any education differences. The only other demographic difference that we found was an ideological one, a political one. The people who self-identified as more conservative perceived more decline over time than the people who self-identified as liberal.

But even for the people who were the most liberal, they still said that people are less kind today than they were 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or whatever point in the past. So this is something that conservatives said louder, but liberals said as well.

Rosin: So someone who identifies as a liberal could believe that there’s less racism and sexism—but still believe that those other general universal markers of morality have declined.

Mastroianni: Yes. And in fact, it seems like they do. In our studies, the much smaller group of people who say that people are better now than they used to be—when we asked them “Why? What were you thinking of?,” one thing that does come up for them is there’s more tolerance. There’s less racism, sexism, ableism; all the isms.

So it seems like that’s not what people are spontaneously thinking of when they say that people are less kind than they used to be. Because if you ask them directly, “Do you think that, for instance, people treat African Americans with more respect and courtesy or less than in the past?,” a majority of people will say more today than in the past.

But if you ask them, “Are people more or less kind today?,” they’ll go less kind. So this is not what they’re thinking of when they answer the question.

Rosin: Yeah. So it’s a really, really specific feeling. I definitely think that people treat each other with more respect, largely because we have broadened the window of who is allowed to be respected, and sort of patriarchal notions of control over people’s bodies and who gets to make decisions. I mean, there’s so many ways in which we have opened the door to fairness and equity. I’d much rather be alive today than 50 years ago, for sure.

Mastroianni: Yeah, I agree. And so I think it was especially surprising that I’m sure there are many other people who agree. But even some of the people who do agree—they seem to think like, Yeah, but that actually doesn’t come from people’s heart of hearts. That they’re actually still worse to one another now than they used to be.

Yeah; they’ll say all the right things or they’ll have the right opinions. But you know, they won’t hold the door open for you, or they’ll cheat you when they can. Now people know the right things to say, but they still do more of the bad things.

Rosin: Do we feel the same way with people we know? Does it play out differently in our personal lives?

Mastroianni: You can actually also produce an illusion of improvement. You actually primarily hear good things and experience good things about people that you know. And so we thought that in your personal world, this illusion of decline might be turned down or turned off or even reversed.

And people told us: “People in general? Worse today than they were 15 years ago. People that I have known for the last 15 years? Better today than they were 15 years ago.”

Rosin: So Julie, one thing that Adam found that I thought was so interesting was that people we know—like our own people, people we’re close to or whatever—they’re somehow getting better over time, and yet the general public are getting worse. I don’t quite understand how those fit together.

Beck: So I guess we just think the moral decline is happening with strangers, with all those other people.

Rosin: Right.

Beck: And it seems like potentially the disconnection from community that many people are experiencing could just mean that we’re slotting more people into the “morally compromised, untrustworthy” category.

Rosin: Right. Like, if we met more people and we had more casual acquaintances and we went to our bowling leagues or whatever, then we might include more people in that circle of people we know. And those people are good people. So that could sort of spiral upward rather than what’s happening, which is a momentum downward.

Beck: Adam’s study kind of seems to say that if you get to know people, then you won’t think they’re on a downward slope of moral depravity anymore.

Rosin: For one thing, Adam, it sounds to me like the problem is that people are absolutely certain. Like they’re not questioning. Was the past a worse place? It’s a sort of lack of humility. Because if you try to understand, “Well, maybe what did get worse?,” then you would come up with more specific and useful policy solutions.

I mean, I assume one reason you did this research is to point out a mistake. Like, we’re all living under this delusion. And in your head—since you sound like a fairly optimistic person—is it “knowledge is power,” and people will know, and then they will stop? What’s the aim, or what’s your wish here?

Mastroianni: Yeah. I mean, as a psychologist I a little bit despair of changing people’s minds, because I know how difficult it is. It doesn’t work the way that we think that it works, like, “Oh, you have the wrong model of the world. How about I give you the correct facts, and now you have the correct model of the world?” When does that ever happen? When has that ever happened to me? Like, never.

And one effect that I certainly hope that this has is: Whenever politicians or aspiring politicians make the claim that, you know, “Things used to be better, and put me in charge and I’ll make them better again”—that’s a very old thing that we’ve heard many times. And it resonates with us, perhaps because we are primed to believe it, even when it’s not true.

Beck: So, Hanna, now that we know this is an illusion, right, that’s very interesting. But will it actually change how you feel?

Rosin: I don’t really know. I mean, I feel like as a journalist, it depresses me a little bit because I spent a lot of time researching and marshaling facts, like I did with my brother. And to think that emotions ultimately squash all of that—I don’t really know what to do with that.

Beck: Yeah.

Rosin: But in my own personal life, awareness is helpful. I don’t think any bad can come from understanding your own emotional levers better. It’s not that it immediately leads to a change, but I don’t think it can ever be bad to understand, Oh, I’m having this emotional attachment or strong belief, and that’s leading me to behave in this way. That in and of itself is a small daily miracle. So that’s good enough.

Rosin: Listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation with Adam Mastroianni and Julie Beck, and if you generally like learning about these psychological levers that are guiding our choices, Julie hosts a full season of conversations much like this one, on the Atlantic podcast How to Talk to People. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

[tutuandscoot]

I didn't watch Ellen show (it was never on TV in my country and I didn't have interest to watch), so I didn't have any opinion about her, but after the interview I started to dislike her so so much that I thought I was getting crazy because everyone loved her and loved the interview. She didn't respect them, not even for a minute, Tessa is better at hiding, but she didn't look comfortable and Scott was looking like he rather be dead than be there.

💯 agree with you. I watched it a bit as a kid (my mum had it on tv so I just saw it occasionally) and thought it was fine but yes later on I started to notice how BS it was. If an actor I liked was on it I’d watch (not the whole show just the interview) but everytime unless it was one of her besties (a middle age white woman) she was so disrespectful, roll her eyes, just ask the dumbest questions and then ruined it by pulling out some farce (like scaring the guest- thank fkn god she didn’t do that to Scott I would have killed her).

So yeh I watched the VM interview when it aired and you just knew she was gonna be so disrespectful. As I’ve said I’ve never subscribed to the shippy stuff so no amount of dumb arse Ellen asking over and over was gonna convince me it just made me mad 😡. No way she actually watched their performance or bothered to learn anything about them- she would’ve just been briefed on them being super sensual and their performances making people tweet that they were pregnant. She just perpetuated all the shippy stuff by only talking about that and not acknowledging their athletic achievements. And people get mad at vm for always answering with ‘we worked so hard and so much care and trust goes into it, we are so proud of how we have managed our careers and worked together we take such pride in that’ which for the record I love when they said that because ITS THE FUCKING TRUTH and damn straight they would be proud of it and each other and it’s so ignorant of people that they could t just accept that.

TS were obviously so uncomfortable. That she kept pushing the ‘they dated when they were 6+8’ bit is BS coz I don’t care what anyone tells me THAT IS NOT “DATING” in the respect it means anything- it’s cute but they themselves say they don’t know wtf was going on and didn’t even talk, their siblings ‘set them up’ and they just went along with it so a 60 year old woman continuing to push that when there is nothing there or nothing relevant to TS now being 28 and 30 is just feeding the insane people (sorry I’m ranting over and over I have a lot of grievances about this).

If TS were to have done any American interview I’d much rather they did Colbert or something. There would’ve maybe been a joke but then he would’ve moved on because he actually has class and respects his guests and knows how to interview people- I think Scott esp would’ve been much more comfortable coz he had mentioned watching the daily show (which Colbert was on). I mean Adam Rippon did Colbert after the olys so it was just coz VM had that “relationship” question going that they got pushed into doing Ellen because it was those people- mostly middle aged white woman in that audience coz sorry they are so gullible and tabloid media is literally made for that audience, they’ll believe anything no matter how fantastical it is (apologies I’m generalising here but you know what I mean- just look at the statistics for the middle aged WW who voted for T****).

And yes on a more personal note I can’t stand her. All the charity stuff and advocacy for gay rights was great but it just got out of hand I’m not surprised at all that all those things started to come out about her being a tyrant and a bully, honestly when you (sorry but she is a lesbian) have an audience full of screaming middle aged woman worshiping you… idk I don’t want to get nasty but yeah that can go to the head.

I feel so bad for VM and I don’t want to say that they had nothing to do with the decision to go on Ellen obs it was their choice but there’s a very good chance their manger/s were taking advantage of the buzz they got post olys. (I’ve complained before about just how much media they did esp morning shows where sorry but the hosts and producers tend to not be that intelligent (basing this off those kinds of shows in my own country). Obviously TS knew who Ellen was but I can’t imagine they knew it would be that bad with the way she treated them (they are used to the ‘relationship’ of it all but nothing this bad) you know, they trained all day every day (no time for day time tv) and not that I’m from there but I have a feeling there isn’t that hype for these kinds of ‘American celebrities’ in Canada- they seem to have more of their own identity in their pop culture despite the close proximity (idk that’s my take on it obs isn’t the same for every person)

So yes anon I was disgusted by it I hate that it happened.. I don’t blame VM for it they were only doing their job and to their credit they always pushed the truth of their partnership and shone a light on the strength of their team and the Canadian team and how proud they are to come from where they do and be really wonderful representatives of their country. Ellen is a troll I hate her I’m so glad that show is over she had no class or respect and I’m sorry I know I try to refrain from talking about people like this but the fact is she is true “celebrity” who is really just famous for being famous where as people like VM are real people who didn’t ask for any of this fame, why worked so hard at their very specific craft and are incredibly kind people who got all this crap for simply doing their job (skating) and chasing their goals. I only take comfort that in these difficult situations they have each other and take refuge in each other which unfortunately only made people go crazier. I wish people would just respect them for who they are.

*catches breath* 😰. rant over

[spicycoffeebean]

If you don't want to answer that's COMPLETELY fine and you can ignore this entirely, but if your comfort zone permits: I happened across your tag and am. curious how someone could use reddit to try and get someone to detransition. Like, do you mean she made a post about it to get people agreeing with her or??

Hi Anon! I'll be honest and say I'm glad somebody took notice enough to actually ask. Because I still refuse to believe it happened.

No! She did not make a Reddit post. She just sent me several posts from r/detrans to get me to detransition.

More below the cut! Idk how long this will be, but cw for transphobia and all around shitty/questionable behavior

For those who don't know (I can't track down the post, but I commented in tags) my own mother (60) has been very actively against my transition (ftm) since I began taking testosterone in November 2021(I have been openly trans and using he/him prns since 2018, so it's not like any of this was "new" information to her) On top of blatant misinformation, my mom tried to source REDDIT, the detransitioner's subreddit to prove that yes, people do detransition. Never once denied her that. My issue here is that no, she did not make a post, she was ~browsing~ the detransitioner subreddit r/detrans to push me to detransition. She was "sourcing" it (I wanna say she said in the same conversation that she doesn't trust sites that have LGBTQ+ flags despite the statistics being very real and very present. I'm an analytics/statistics student.)

I have a million issues with this, but very simply, she is using people's struggles and real trauma to fuel a transphobic agenda to get me to detransition (I was so much happier when I chose to be openly trans let alone when I actually started T last year.) If you actually read the subreddit, 99% of those stories are OP saying "Transitioning did not work for me" but not once do they denounce transitioning. They make it clear that their experiences with it did not work out.

“I talk to detransitioners all of the time” she said “Why don’t you talk to a real trans person?” I asked her “Because I know their story.” is what she said word for word Bitch I’m trans and I don’t know trans people’s stories. I just am trans?? I made it super easy for her. Talk to a doctor or a real trans person. She makes any excuse to NOT DO THIS. A cisgender doctor in California will tell you that you are out right wrong and doing more harm than any good you might see from it.

Less than 1% of people detransition, and the majority of those who detransition ARE STILL UNHAPPY. Even then a handful of people detransition because of society, family, or something simple as healthcare. People are denied healthcare because doctors don't want to provide basic care to a transgender person. (I live in the US where this practice would be illegal) My mother acts like I myself deny that people detransition while she literally won't acknowledge WHY people detransition at all. LGBT clinics are apparently shutting down in the UK, Norway, Sweden etc. Yeah cool cisgender people are losing healthcare too. But apparently that doesn't matter. My brother's(cis) bisexual and he could be denied care if he lived in such a place. I don't think she'd take kindly to that, knowing she was the most supportive when my brother came out well over 10 years ago.

I do not want my story or trauma to be used as fuel for a fire to hurt somebody else. I doubt any of these detransitioners would be happy knowing this either. Their stories are not for my mother to tell

anyway she sends me to college(to study analytics/statistics lol??) and insists I'm brainwashed and need an autism diagnosis(YES, SHE ASKED ME 3 TIMES TO GET ONE. NO I JUST HAVE ADHD. I ASKED DOCTORS FOR 5 YEARS ABT IT LOL)

She's just in denial she spent 1 million usd and 2 years of paperwork on a China doll because "[She] didn't want to try for another son" I was told this my entire childhood and it's haunting me almost every day now.

That's the super dumbed-down version of that Reddit comment. Let alone EVERYTHING ELSE she put me through the last 14 months.

TLDR; She did not make a post to get people to agree with her, she was just taking people's stories and struggles to fuel a hate agenda detransitioners themselves do not agree with (she cannot read.)