#inappropriate crushes are the norm it happens every day

[originalaccountname]

I think the problem is kids aren't writing enough rpf of their self-insert's shitty mom selling them as a slave to their favourite music band and then they all fall in love with the self-insert and there's probably a murder attempt somewhere in there

[thrndlngs]

three times shinsou misses the opportunity to kiss you + the one time he seized the moment.

── pairing, shinsou x fem!prohero!reader ── request: x times shinsou wants to kiss fem reader??? pLZ I NEED IT ── author’s note: this was super dope & cute to write. tysm for sending this in. i hope i did this justice and it wasn’t to out of character.  also reader has a water quirk & the two of you are in your early twenties.  ♡ 

i.

     "'toshi,” you whispered, chest against his as the two of you currently hid from the group of villains. your two agencies had partnered up in attempt to take down a new gang of villains who were transporting drugs from the city to the waters, the two of you were partnered because of how the two of you excelled in your respective agencies, shinsou was sent to aid in your patrols of the waters  ──  which is why the two of you are currently hiding in a storage closet on a ship. 

  “shut up.” you don’t take it to heart, you’re sure he means it as nicely as possible - he just lacks a few pages in the ‘vocabulary’ department. 

  “we need to do something.” you tell him, trying your best to meet his gaze in the tight space (which was nearly impossible because he’s towering over you at the moment). he doesn’t reply, not at first at least, if you looked hard enough you would probably see the gears in his head turning. 

  “──stop talking, it’s distracting me.” 

  your mouth quickly shuts, fidgety hands are now at your side, you were starting to get antsy and there was practically little to no room to move around without being heard - or seen for that matter. 

  “they switch the guards every ten minutes, in the middle of the switch, we run.” the purple haired male explained, taking a peak at the time on his cellphone. the two of you had to endure this for three more minutes. just three more minutes and you would be free.

  “three minutes,” you repeated, more to confirm this for yourself. you’re sure you wouldn’t last that long, after all, this was shinsou, the male you’ve had a crush on for quite some time now. how were you expected to last that long?

  “──think of it like seven minutes of heaven.”

  “we haven’t played that since── “

  “yeah, yeah i know, but just think of it like that. don’t think about the closet, just the game.” 

  you nodded quickly, meeting his gaze as the two of you stood there in silence. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t thinking about kissing him. it seemed like the perfect moment - it was just the two of you. if it were the last day on earth, you at least wanted to go out with a bang. you know?

  “let me get comfortable, you can do the same after.” you watched as he places either hands besides your head, slouching a bit against the wall so his back could have some sort of support. he nods to you, signaling for you to do the same. 

  it takes you a moment, the position shinsou is currently in causes your heart to skip just a few beats. were you disappointed in yourself for letting your mind drift.. elsewhere during a mission? for sure. did you care right now? absolutely not.

  you cleared your throat, widening your stance and trying to balance the weight in between your legs to help ease some of the weight  ──  but there wasn’t really much you could do.

  “two minutes.” 

   this had to be the longest three minutes of your life.

   “i think i just tasted my own sweat.” he complained. it feels like he’s sweating in places he shouldn’t produce sweat in.

  “i feel like a fish out of water,” you added.

  “──gonna start passing out if i don’t throw you in the water soon?”

  “says the one whose sweating to death.” 

  “and you’re dehydrated. guess we’re both shit out of luck aren’t we?”

  “yeah, but, i think this isn’t the worst way to die.” 

  he takes another peak at his cellphone, noting that there’s a minute left before the two of you could finally get out of this damn storage closet. “you’ve got a minute to tell me anything worse than dying like this.” 

  in hindsight ── there’s a lot that could happen in a minute, that’s the only reason you said something to begin with. “alone, i could die in this closet, alone and then you know, it would be lonely.” 

 “are you serious?” 

  “oh come on! that’s pretty serious!”

  “it ── it really isn’t,” he’s trying to laugh as quietly as possible and you playfully slapped him in his shoulder. 

 “okay, well, i wouldn’t want to die alone.”

  “mhm, scaredy cat.” his smile is infectious and for a moment, he forgets that the two of you are stuck in a storage closet. maybe now would be the perfect time to kiss you, when it’s just the two of you, waiting to make your grand escape, when the two of your are just centimeters apart. 

  “now’s our chance,” he whispered, straightening himself to get out first just in case. he doesn’t want to act off of impulses. if he kisses you, he wants to make sure it’s because you want him too.

ii.

     “good to see you when you’re not acting like a goldfish who just hopped out of it’s bowl.” the familiar voice teased from behind you, hands folded behind his head. if it were anyone else, you might have tripped them.

  “──don’t you have to go buy hair dye now or something?”

  “no that was after i made sure a fisherman didn’t take you on the way home.”

  “is this what do you do on your spare time? think of jokes that revolve around my quirk?”  

  he rolls his shoulder lazily, leaning against the apartment railing across from your front door. “they come naturally, no extra thinking required.”

  “and here i thought all the hair dye went to your brain.”

   this wasn’t out of the norm for the two of you, he would make the first jab and then you would follow suit. sometimes, the bickering could go on for hours  ──  regardless of task at hand (like the time the two of you were trying to detain a villain and shinsou had told the woman you were a water sprite), it’s an old nickname of yours, he had given it to you back at the sports festival when you were kids. you had earned it when you had almost drown mineta because he wouldn’t stop making inappropriate jokes and you had brought the entire water fountain down on him. 

  as the two of you stood there in silence, you, had your back against your door, hands folded behind you while he stood parallel, arms against his chest he wonders: is this the time he kisses you goodnight? 

  “d’ya want to come inside? i have leftovers? we could pull an all nighter like we used to do back in the dorms?” there’s a hint of hopefulness in your eyes and he would feel like absolute shit if he declined the offer.

  “only because you have food.” 

  he doesn’t kiss you goodnight then. and he doesn’t kiss you goodnight when you fall asleep on his shoulder after the second horror movie either. if you were anyone else, he would’ve left without a care in the world, but it’s you and you are different. 

  so he stays and tells himself that tomorrow will be a new day and tomorrow, he can try again.

iii.

     “i don’t dance,” shinsou tells you as you so desperately tried to bring him onto the dance floor. it’s a hero’s gala, everyone from your respective classes at U.A. were here, pro heroes from all around the world and some of your old instructors as well  ──  these aren’t his thing, you know that. you remember his attitude during the first two hours of the third year’s ‘goodbye party’ - not much had changed. he’s taller, a bit more handsomer and smiles more often. 

  “you do tonight, come on.” while you had dragged him by one hand, the other desperately tried to loosen his tie because it feels like he’s suffocating. 

  “──you’ll be the death of me woman.” he’s mumbling under his breath, one hand resting in yours as the other found its place at your waist.

  “because i asked you to dance? might i say this is on your list of horrible ways to die?” you teased, offering him that infectious smile that makes him go weak in his knees. he hates to admit the pull you have on him  ──  he might even go as far as saying you might have him wrapped around that finger of yours and you don’t even know it yet.

  “if it’s by your hands i would say it’s a merciful death.”

  “a merciful death? i’ll keep that in mind.” 

  “don’t test your luck,” you know he’s only messing with you  ──  

  you’re to busy enjoying the moment to think of some witty comeback. it’s something about the way your hand seems to fit perfectly in his. or how the two of you are able to move in sync without any words spoken in between the two of you that’s driving you insane.

  if you would’ve told your past self that you would be slow dancing with the hitoshi shinsou at a hero’s gala while the world around you disappeared you would’ve laughed at the idea. it would’ve seem silly to you  ──  stupid even. shinsou and you weren’t rivals like you and bakugou were, but, you had always found yourself trying to one up him. 

  yet here you were, swaying to the slow tune as you managed to snake your arms around his midsection and rest a head against his chest. maybe this was his chance: with the little distance in between the two of you, dim lighting and dressed to the nines. surely, this would be a good memory to relive later down the road wouldn’t it? 

  but he wanted to savor the moment. so he decides it against it  ── despite the ache in his chest.

  iv.

     "we did it.” shinsou muses, an awkward hand offered in your direction for you to shake. it’s been six months but your agencies had finally shut down the smuggling operation and you could finally take the break you had so desperately needed. you weren’t sure what to do with the outstretched hand, but, you give in anyways, resting your hand in his as he gave it a firm shake.

  “pleasure doing business with you.” you tell him, lips curving into a bittersweet smile. teasing, bickering and ‘playful’ sparring aside, you were going to miss him. you were used to patrolling and doing missions on your own but this was different. 

  “try not to end up on the other side of fishing hook, yeah?” it’s his way of telling you to be careful in shinsou’s teasing nature.

  “make sure i’m the one to grant you the merciful death.” please be careful, is what you want to say. though you couldn’t bring yourself to say it aloud - if you did, it would only confirm that you care about the purple haired pro hero more than you should. 

  he shakes his head with a laugh, “you’re the only one who gets the satisfaction.” 

  “it better stay that way ‘toshi.” 

  he doesn’t know for certain if your agencies would cross paths again. your agency was closer to the waters and he was closer in the city, the chance that you would run into one another again would be slim to none. 

 he clears his throat for a moment, retreating his hand from yours and placing them at your waist instead. he’s pictured this a thousand times but now that he’s in the moment he couldn’t manage to find the right words. it’s frustrating, really.

  “──hi.” you’re holding your breath in anticipation, was this another one of his games? was he going to kiss you? tell you a secret? use his capture weapon and tell you that he’s not letting you go until you admit something embarrassing?

  he doesn’t care anymore. doesn’t care if it makes him look like a love sick idiot when he kisses you like it’s the last thing he’s about to do before he dies, he doesn’t care if anyone’s watching or for the wrinkles you’ll cause since you’ve got a fistful of his shirt in a desperate attempt to close whatever little distance the two of you had between you. 

  you pull away first causing him to pout (which was actually cute but you’d never give him the satisfaction of knowing that) but you do laugh.

  “you know,” he muses, a hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly, a habit you hadn’t seen in years. “──i didn’t want to let you walk away without something to remember, my little water sprite.” 

  you rolled your eyes at the choice of nickname but were flattered nonetheless, your own arms finding their way around his neck, “who said i was walking away?”

[donttouchmeimwriting]

Argo ch. 4

Friday the 13th - Friendship/Romance - Jason Voorhees/OC M/M ship

3326 words, 3rd person POV

Took a little bit of a breather so I don't burn out because this one is big! I'm going to have some mature content in future chapters btw so the rating will bump to 18+ for those. I will mark the chapters with that content appropriately so minors please do not interact with them!

Cross-posting on FFN under PyroTheWereCat

...

Some weeks passed and Jason and Lijah had gotten quite comfortable with their new routine. Jason had started to come by early every evening and leave before midnight every night, though Lijah still occasionally fell asleep while he was still there. Jason didn't mind these times. He took them as opportunities to watch Lijah without question or making him feel self conscious, as Jason rather liked the way Lijah looked and never grew tired of seeing his face. He still had sporadic thoughts of inappropriate things, but those showed up more now when he was alone and only thinking of Lijah.

The thoughts were troubling nonetheless, as Jason often found his mind wandering to daydreams of Lijah in the shower or how swallowed up by Jason's arms he would be if he held him. He even had thoughts of kissing Lijah, wondering just how soft those lips would feel. The images were innocent enough, but Jason still worried that he was sliding down a slippery slope by having them at all. He could hear Mother's voice in the back of his mind explaining how this was only the beginning. It would start with innocent curiosity and then, before he knew it, he would be consumed by lust and never be able to return home. The most troubling part about it all was that there was a frighteningly big part of him that didn't want the thoughts to stop.

In the silent moments that Lijah was asleep while Jason sat with him, Jason's strongest desires were to touch him. He didn't feel that these yearnings were particularly wrong in that he was only really interested in touching Lijah's hair and face, but he resisted out of concern for the progression of these urges as well as not wanting to wake Lijah. Still, the allure of his soft looking woody brown locks and even softer looking freckled skin called to him, inspiring a great many of his fantasies.

There was also the worry that Lijah would start to hate him like everyone else did. He was terrified that the instant he removed his mask, Lijah would never want to see him again. He could feasibly tolerate his presence now, but if their relationship progressed into something else, then what? Could Lijah stand to be with the monster who murdered so many people? The freak with a face so repugnant it instilled a murderous intent in others? Jason couldn't stand to think of betraying Lijah, but he also wished to find some kind of happiness for himself.

In the beginning, if Lijah fell asleep next to him, Jason would leave soon after to let him rest, but as their friendship went on, he would stay for at least an hour to enjoy the peacefulness of the arrangement. He would sometimes read one of Lijah's books, though usually he would sit and enjoy the calm atmosphere of existing in a safe location with a trusted friend. It was through these quiet nights that he learned Lijah was a sleep talker, and a relatively clear one at that. It had startled him the first time it happened; Jason thought that Lijah had woken up. He quickly understood that they were mumblings of a blissfully unaware Lijah, and soon came to enjoy listening to the odd phrases he would come up with while dreaming. A request to place a bag of fruit on a shoe rack, a denial of cream cheese spaghetti, occasional laughter...it was all somewhat funny to Jason until he heard his own name.

Lijah called out to Jason quite a few times in his sleep, increasing in frequency as time went on. The scenarios were often mundane - asking Jason to move from the hallway or how he was doing. Jason paid close attention any time these dreams occurred, curious about what Lijah was seeing. One instance, however, caught his attention like none of the others had before.

Lijah was sleeping curled up on his side, facing the wall. Jason was reading the final chapter of one of the adventure novels and the scene was coming to a thrilling climax. He heard Lijah murmur his name and turned to see if he was awake, as was the norm. Lijah's eyes were closed and he drooled slightly on the pillow, answering that question instantly. Jason returned to his book, but kept his ears focused on any further commentary.

"Don't go," Lijah whispered, his voice tinged with unmistakable sadness, "...want you...stay with me, Jase...please..."

His full attention now on Lijah, Jason's pulse quickened. He wasn't sure what to do to alleviate the distress Lijah was having in his dream. Eyes searching for a solution, Jason found himself fixed on a section of hair that had fallen across Lijah's face, hanging over his eyes and nose. Clenching his jaw muscles and praying he did not wake him, Jason reached out to push the hair off Lijah's face. He hesitated before touching him, beginning to panic, but then Lijah sighed his name again, his eyebrows furrowed with whatever upsetting images he was forced to see. Jason took a deep breath to steady his hand, then gently brushed the hair back.

Lijah's hair was even softer than Jason had previously imagined, like a young deer's fur. He couldn't resist running his fingers through to the ends, watching them slide effortlessly as if he were passing his hand through tall grass. Lijah's expression instantaneously relaxed as Jason combed his fingers through his hair, and he tentatively repeated the action. He stroked Lijah's hair several times like this, slowly, tenderly, fascinated by its soothing effect on him. Soon, Lijah had slipped back into a deep sleep, looking more comfortable than before.

Jason, on the other hand, could not be more energized. His touch was good for something other than bringing pain and death. He could be gentle and comforting. He had been uncertain before, but this proved it. He was capable of changing after all, not just in his mind.

He could not remain in the room for long after, his energy much too high to sit still or move quietly enough to not wake Lijah, so he left earlier than he wanted to. He spent this wild energy in the woods that night, hunting and trapping small animals to add to his own campsite's food stores. He felt deliciously alive in a way he was not used to.

-------------------------------------------------

Jason didn't tell Lijah about the nightmare. He worried that it might unnerve him that he stayed in the room while he slept, and Jason's top priority at the moment was keeping Lijah's favor. He had never really had crushes before, having no one around other than Mother, and could now somewhat understand that intense desire to be around the other person and ignore the world. Before now, he wasn't even sure that men could be attracted to each other. It was never in the stories Mother told him, and he had never seen it in his few ventures to the camp. He thought it must be extremely special, given that it was not as prevalent, and wondered why he hadn't heard of it before. Perhaps it was only heterosexual couples who were sinful and needed to be bound by marriage to erase that sin? He determined he would look into it later if it became an important question.

The desire to touch Lijah's hair again became much stronger after doing it once, however, and Jason resisted the urge each time he saw him. He could feel Lijah getting suspicious though, and didn't want to hide his feelings for much longer. What would Lijah think if he told him he liked him? He had told Jason he wasn't interested in dating anyone, and Jason was almost certain Lijah was only interested in a friendship with him. He wanted to at least tell him he wanted to explore a more sensual relationship, holding hands and hugging, perhaps, but he wasn't sure how to express that without seeming creepy. While he had no idea how romantic relationships worked, Jason had only the slightest inkling of how friendships worked, and didn't want to ruin this one by saying something weird.

One rainy evening, Lijah returned to the cabin with more energy than usual, claiming it was a slow day with the kids due to the weather, and he got to relax for most of it. This led to him excitedly showing Jason one of his favorite movies on VHS, setting up the living room with popcorn, extra blankets, and soda (though Jason politely declined the beverage and requested a water instead). Mother never showed Jason movies like this at home; he wasn't even sure they owned a VCR. When he was younger, they did have a TV and he would watch the occasional broadcasted movie, but once it broke, they never replaced it. As a result, he never cared much about catching up with popular media. There were chores to complete and plenty to do outside, so he'd never needed the extra entertainment. Still, it was nice to see Lijah get so worked up by watching the story on the screen, and Jason found it interesting as well.

The pair moved back to the bedroom once the movie was over, Jason having helped Lijah clean up the living room first, and Jason quietly read as Lijah did his bedtime routine. Jason had noticed he was growing rather smelly lately, more so than usual. He never cared much about hygiene - the smell didn't tend to bother him - and bathed infrequently with little water from creeks. Being around Lijah, who smelled so pleasant all the time, however, Jason was picking up on his own scent a little more, and found it potentially offensive. He remembered Lijah offering the shower to him, and contemplated using it at least a couple times a week so as not to offend his nice smelling friend who was surely not saying anything to avoid hurting his feelings. When Lijah returned from the bathroom, Jason wrote,

"can i use it to?"

"Use what?" Lijah asked, still toweling his hair dry, "The shower? Yeah, absolutely! There's plenty of soap in there and an extra towel. If you want, while you're in there, I can sneak over to laundry to wash your clothes for you too."

There it was. Jason grimaced. He was slightly embarrassed by offending Lijah, but grateful that he was being so casual about it. He nodded and awkwardly shuffled around Lijah to get to the bathroom. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it, sighing deeply. He began undressing, becoming more uncomfortable feeling that his shirt stuck to his skin. How had he gone this long without noticing? He found the spare towel Lijah mentioned and wrapped it around his waist to cover himself before opening the door to pass his dirty clothes out to Lijah. Lijah took the pile, cheerful as always, and promised to be back soon. Jason was trying to avoid making eye contact, but he saw that Lijah's cheeks flushed when he was met with the sight of Jason in the towel. What could that have been about?

Enclosed in the bathroom once more, Jason dropped the towel next to his boots and removed his mask, placing it on the sink. This room was even smaller and more cramped than the other rooms in the cabin, leaving barely any space for his large frame to navigate. It was a simple setup of only the essentials: a toilet, a sink with a mirror over it, and a narrow shower stall. Jason stepped inside the stall and pulled the curtain behind him. The air still smelled of clean steam from Lijah's shower: a calming scent. Jason had some trouble figuring out the knobs, but managed to get the water running. The spray felt glorious on his skin, and he took a moment to bask in the warmth of the water. Certainly, this was a feeling he could live with a couple times a week.

Once he was done washing and rising the soap from his body, Jason turned the water off and stepped out, feeling almost brand new. He dried himself with the towel, but had not heard Lijah come back in yet. He put his mask back on and tentatively opened the door, keeping the towel tight on his waist. He peered out, but there was no sign of Lijah yet. The laundry room was probably in a different area of the camp, he considered, and it would take a little time for him to get back. Jason retrieved a book from the bedroom to occupy the time while he waited.

Lijah did return shortly after, bringing with him Jason's now clean clothes. He handed them off, blushing still, and left Jason to get dressed. What was getting him so flustered? Jason rejoined Lijah in the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed next to him.

"How do you feel?" Lijah asked, fidgeting with the ends of his hair.

Jason nodded and gave a thumbs up gesture, admittedly feeling much better now that he was completely clean (and smelling almost as good as Lijah).

"Good! I've gotta say, though, that's some tough material. I wasn't sure the washer could handle it."

He touched Jason's arm as he spoke, feeling the fabric of his jacket. Jason stiffened, caught off guard by Lijah's touch. Lijah immediately retracted his hand, his eyes worried.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, "Was that wrong?"

Jason thought a moment, but then felt the strong yearning he'd had before to touch Lijah and run his fingers through that soft hair again. He shook his head, but felt a sudden, unexplainable distress that shortened his breaths. He reached for Lijah, who did not flinch or move away, and wrapped his fingers around his slim upper arm. Lijah's skin was so soft, so compliant to his touch...Jason released a shuddering sigh at how nice it felt. Lijah touched his arm again, running his hand up to Jason's shoulder.

"Wow, you're super touch starved, aren't you?" he said, giving Jason's shoulder a squeeze. Jason had never heard of the expression, but it made sense to him. Wanting to feel Lijah ached like a hunger, and being touched by him satisfied that hunger. He nodded, rubbing Lijah's arm as gently as he could, but still pushing him slightly from sheer size difference.

"Can I hug you?" Lijah asked, "I think that'll help the most."

Jason nodded, a little too exuberantly, and Lijah pulled away from him to hop off the bed. He faced Jason, his expression unreadable, then climbed up onto Jason's lap, straddling his thighs, and pulled him into his arms. Jason gave a small grunt of surprise, but melted into Lijah's embrace, clutching him tightly. The feeling was indescribably soothing and overwhelming at the same time, sending tingles throughout his body. How was it that Lijah always knew what he needed?

It was undeniable at this point that Jason loved Lijah. He loved everything about him. He loved the feeling of Lijah's breath against his neck. He loved that he was so small and delicate compared to Jason, and he loved holding him close. His scent was all Jason could perceive outside of the embrace and the sound of rain tapping on the roof of the cabin, that light, clean scent he could never get enough of. This moment was perfection to Jason. The only thing that could make it even better was...no, he shouldn't wish for such indecent things, especially not when this felt so wonderful. He also knew that there was a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. He wasn't sure how to tell the difference, but assumed he would know if it happened. So far, he knew he loved Lijah, but didn't think he was in love with him (yet).

Lijah pulled back slightly to be able to look at Jason. His face was placid and reflected the happiness Jason felt.

"You've got some big, strong arms," he said, rubbing Jason's upper arms as he spoke, "I bet you're a fantastic cuddler."

Jason shrugged. He would not know, but from the way Lijah said it, he would like to find out.

"Gosh, you're cute," Lijah mumbled, "You don't even know how worked up you get me, do you? I'll give you a hint...I can't get that image of you in that towel out of my head and I don't want to."

He ghosted his fingertips over Jason's mask, his eyes lowered to where Jason's mouth would be under it.

"Is it all right if I take this off?" he whispered, "I would really like to kiss you right now."

The thought of kissing Lijah made Jason's heart flutter, but he did not want to frighten him with the face that earned him so much hatred as a child. There was also the matter of what his mother would think, with Lijah's bottom so dangerously close to his most private area, tempting him with physical pleasures. Would she be upset? Or would she not mind as much, given it would only be a kiss? At this point, it was not a question of whether or not Jason wanted it, but rather should he give in to what he wanted and disrespect his mother's wishes?

Pulse racing as he began to run out of time for an answer, Jason forced himself to make a decision. It would just be a kiss, right? There was no need to overthink. Definitely no need to read too far into what he said about the towel...He lifted his hands and slowly pushed the mask up to just under his nose. He could no longer see Lijah like this, but he didn't need to.

Lijah did not hesitate to close the space between them. He didn't kiss the way Jason had seen others before. This wasn't sloppy or aggressive...it was soft and warm and sent tingles throughout Jason's entire body...it felt nice. He slid his hands up Lijah's back as he dissolved into the kiss, an intense blush creeping into his cheeks. Lijah in turn pressed his hands to the sides of Jason's neck, holding him just as close. The slight movement of their lips together felt so incredible....Jason almost forgot that this was supposed to be wrong. He curled his fingers into Lijah's t-shirt and sighed softly as their lips parted. He didn't want this to end.

Lijah pulled back, Jason leaning forward as he went, not yet ready to stop. Lijah laughed, that beautiful, musical laugh that made Jason feel wonderfully weak, and playfully pushed his face away.

"Give me some air, big guy!" Lijah giggled, "Believe me, I want more too."

Jason pulled his mask back down so he could see his breathless partner. Lijah's face was flushed and he smiled serenely at Jason, resting his forearms on Jason's broad shoulders. Jason couldn't help but to smile himself. Was this how normal people felt all the time? Was this what it felt like to be attractive and wanted? But then again...Lijah felt this way about him as he was. He was attractive to him.

Jason thrust Lijah to his chest, hugging him tightly.

"Whoa!" Lijah cried out, startled by the sudden movement, "Easy there! You okay, Jase?"

Jason nodded into Lijah's shoulder, giving his body a brief squeeze. Lijah grunted softly and gave another short laugh.

"Remember how small I am," he said, returning the hug, "I don't mind getting a little manhandled but don't break me."

Jason couldn't fathom breaking Lijah. He wanted to keep him and protect him from the everything. The little kisses Lijah planted along Jason's neck were more valuable than any luxury he could imagine and touching their foreheads together fulfilled him more than any prior achievement he'd made. He was in bliss, and that bliss was named Lijah.

[whythinktoomuch]

Supergirl Mean Girls AU

Not only has Lena Luthor been home-schooled for most of her life, she’s also spent the last 15 years or so in Japan, where her tech extraordinaire parents had been tinkering away on various prestigious projects. But when a joint teaching position opens up at National City University—very competitive salary, tenure fast track, near unlimited funds for research, free education for any & all children—it’s too good of an offer to refuse. 

But Lena doesn’t quite fit in. Partially because she’s unfamiliar with American social norms, mostly because she tried to bond with another student in Japanese, only to find that Jess Chin was not in fact Japanese at all. 

It isn’t until her second week at school that Lena actually makes friends. Sam Arias is sharp, slightly abrasive and Jack Spheer is admittedly almost too gay to function, but they’re funny and most of their jokes seem to be directed at people who aren’t Lena, which is a blessing in and of itself. 

Then Lena meets the Plastics. 

It happens because she gets lost on her way to the frat house—even Google Maps was no match for her unrelenting unfamiliarity with the area—and apparently, women who arrive to a party late and unaccompanied were at constant risk of unwanted frat boy attention. After her tenth consecutive refusal to come on and just take the shot, Lena is about ready to just leave the place, her latest attempt at enculturation be damned. 

But just in the nick of time comes an unexpected wave of vitriol—scathing remarks, far nastier than anything even Sam would have said—all neatly packaged in the most casual of tones, and Lena watches in awe as the boys all quickly disperse, with their heads drooped and tails tucked between their legs. 

Her knight in shining plastic armor introduces herself as Andrea Rojas. 

“Are you here alone?” Andrea asks. 

Lena looks past Andrea’s shoulder, sees her friends in far corner, waving enthusiastically at her. “Uh.” 

“Well, you should sit with us then,” Andrea says, all matter-of-fact as she makes a Lena-sized space for her on the couch. 

And for some reason, Lena does. 

//

The Plastics are the worst. 

Or at least that’s what Sam insists on saying whenever they’re brought up, and she’s downright appalled when Lena admits that she actually enjoys hanging out with them. 

“Are you going to make me choose?” Lena asks. “Them or you and Jack?” 

Sam snorts. “No? What is this, high school? You can hang out with whoever you want, I don’t care.” She then raises an eyebrow meaningfully. Slyly. “But if you were to infiltrate the Plastics so as to help me destroy them from the inside out, I wouldn’t be opposed.” 

“But why would I ever agree to something like that?” 

“Pfft, lame,” Sam says, rolling her eyes. “Come on, let’s go buy me a coffee.” 

// 

There’s a girl in Lena’s advanced calculus class. A soccer player with blonde hair, big hands, and a smile bright enough to light up her entire well-proportioned face. Lena sits behind her, close enough to count each and every pink freckle dusting the back of her neck, an activity that Lena engages in at least three times every class. 

Her name is Kara. 

//

"Oh, you can’t like her.” 

Lena is so miffed that she actually stops eating. Because not only did Eve ask her to divulge her crush, which took a healthy amount of cajoling, but now she’s trying to tell Lena whom she can and cannot like. 

“If it’s ‘cause we’re both girls,” Lena starts, already bristling. 

“What? No, no one cares about that.” Siobhan gives an eyeroll so heavy that it could rival that of Sam’s. “She’s Andrea’s ex.” 

Lena’s stomach churns something terrible and strange as she takes in this new piece of information. “Oh.” 

“Yeah, oh.” Eve shakes her head with a slight giggle. “You’re so lucky that Andrea’s out sick today because this would have been so awkward!” 

“Yeah,” Lena says. “Really awkward.” 

“But don’t worry. We’re not going to tell anyone. Right, Siobhan?” 

Siobhan just gives a noncommittal hum and shrug, and Lena goes back to poking at her salad. 

// 

“Regret falling in with the Plastics yet?” Sam asks, when Lena apprises her of her latest dilemma. Jack tosses popcorn in Sam’s face and tells her to stop being so mean. 

//

“So... Siobhan told me about your little crush,” Andrea says, practically cornering Lena in the dining hall. 

Lena has to clench her jaw to keep it from dropping. “I wasn’t gonna, like, you know, I literally had no plans or any—”

“It’s fine,” Andrea sighs dramatically. “I don’t even care. We broke up like months ago and it’s not like she’s my property, right? If you like her and she likes you, you guys have my blessing, or whatever.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, rea—oof!” 

It takes five whole minutes for Andrea to extricate herself from Lena’s sudden yet formidable embrace. 

//

Lena’s body is buzzing all over when she steps into the soccer house—her skin from the excitement, her head from the two hasty shots of tequila she took with Sam before leaving the dorms. 

Andrea had texted her not too long ago to invite her to the party, with promises of ample face time with one Kara Danvers, and Lena came all but running. 

"Is Kara here yet?” Lena asks eagerly, as soon as she finds the Plastics. 

“Oh, is she ever,” Siobhan muses, but doesn’t elaborate any further when Lena shoots her a confused frown. 

“Okay, so where is she?” 

“Around,” Andrea says with a casual shrug. “Oh, by the way, have you met my girlfriend?” 

And with that, she waves Kara over from the across the room before promptly tugging her down into a liplock that is as drawn out as it is inappropriate. Lena looks away after about two minutes. 

“They got back together a couple days ago,” Eve hastily explains to Lena under her breath. “Andrea wanted me to apologize to you for her... Sorry!” 

Lena just nods, eyes drifting father and farther away from the happy couple. Until Siobhan digs an elbow in her ribs. “Ow. What?” 

“I said,” Andrea starts, drawing Lena’s attention back to her, lips swollen but thankfully unattached to Kara’s, “don’t you agree with me, Lena?”

“About what?” 

Andrea rolls her eyes playfully. “Sorry, she can be such a space cadet sometimes,” she confides to Kara in a stage whisper. 

“What? No...” Kara says. “Lena’s in my calc class. She’s so super smart! Did you know tha—”

“Shh.” 

Andrea briefly touches her fingers to Kara’s lips, rendering her speechless, eyes fluttering slightly dazed and dopey. Lena feels her stomach protest, but doesn’t look away. 

“As I was saying...” Andrea says, turning back to Lena with a knowing triumphant grin. “So, my girlfriend was thinking about getting bangs, but I told her that it was a dumb idea. She looks better like this, with her hair pushed back.” She brushes Kara’s hair back with her hand as if to demonstrate. “Lena, please tell Kara that her hair looks sexy pushed back.” 

Lena watches as Andrea’s fingers continue their journey, running carelessly down the length of Kara’s long blonde hair, tugging possessively at the very end. 

“Your hair looks sexy pushed back,” Lena says flatly. 

“Oh.” For some reason, Kara blushes down to her neck. “Uh... Thanks!” 

“Yes. Thank you,” Andrea adds, eyebrow raised. 

Lena flashes a small smile. “Yup.” 

She looks away when Andrea and Kara start making out again. 

She finds a flimsy reason to leave soon after. 

// 

Lena spends the following day holed up in her dorm room, wallowing in her hangover and misery. 

At first, she doesn’t call Sam because she doesn’t need someone telling her something stupid like I told you so. But then, she does call Sam because maybe there was indeed a thing or two she might need from someone who’d say something mean like I told you so. 

“Yeah?” Sam barks into the phone in lieu of a proper greeting. 

“You know that thing you said about sabotaging the Plastics, destroying from the inside out?”

“Yeah?” 

“I’m in.”

[seyaryminamoto]

Do you have any Sokkla family head-canon? I'm craving some Mum Azula :)

Hmm, well, I have several, but I’d rather not be too spoilery so… under the cut!

In most my stories, Azula finds balance in her own life and peace in her role in the world. Said role varies depending on the story, but she generally grows, develops, becomes a better person without losing her edge, all those things we Azula fans adore about her character.

Naturally, Sokka has a great deal to do with all this, and it’s relevant because he helps her feel better about her vulnerabilities, helps her feel safe even when she’s defenseless in front of him. With this, Azula slowly but surely becomes more open and understandable of what love is, and she experiences it properly for the first time in her life through the man who shall be her husband and father of her children :D

This, then, translates to how she’ll relate to said children once they’re born. I’m not going to explain in full detail how certain things will unfold in the story I’m obviously talking about, but I’ve always planned for Azula to be very attached, to the point of paranoia, of her firstborn, a daughter. Azula takes care of her from the moment she finds out she’s pregnant and through every moment later because… well, I’m not going to explain the main reason why xD but in short, she doesn’t even think it through, she just has to protect her daughter no matter the cost. 

When the baby is born, her life changes. Motherly instincts she never knew she had in her pour through, and the eagerness to protect the child only increases. So she’s careful with the baby, constantly making sure she’s okay, only trusts a handful of people with her and never is far away from her for too long. This doesn’t really mean she’s suffocating the baby… I like to imagine her talking to Hotaru even about serious things, when the kid is very young still. She’d also like to listen to her daughter, to try to understand what she needs and wants, whether it’s something simple like needing a new diaper, or something else, like being afraid of bad dreams. I think Azula’s only lesson learned from Ozai will be to treat her daughter as an ally, but Azula does that without treating her as a tool. As in, they’re in the same boat together and have to support each other through and through. And as Hotaru is still a baby, Azula needs to take the best care she can of her, since babies are pretty hopeless xD so Azula establishes a bond with the little girl pretty quickly, looks after her with surprising devotion and indeed makes difficult decisions to protect her if need be. Needless to say, Hotaru is seldom happy when she’s away from her mom’s comforting presence.

… I hope none of that was spoilery xD but either way, another headcanon: Azula sings this song to her children!

Admittedly, I borrowed this headcanon from someone else… but the voice is even similar to Azula’s in a few points of the song, so I said “DAMN RIGHT SHE SINGS THIS!”

Also, if anyone’s curious and thinking the song rings a bell… this is what she sings with Xin Long back in Gladiator’s 67th chapter :’D the ridiculous scene where Xin Long looks through her childhood memories, finds this song and TRIES to sing it despite being a dragon… well, it’s this one xD I planted that seed THAT long ago :’D

“Well, I wasn’t judging your weird song on sunsets and stars and whatever it was you were singing about!” Sokka said, proudly,

Anyways xD there’s a headcanon I am adamant about too, and it’s that once Hotaru is older she starts playing with dolls, of course! Which, as we know, is NOT Azula’s forte.

… But I suspect Sokka is pretty good at it, thanks to the unaired pilot episode xD

So one day Azula walks into their room to find Sokka happily playing with their daughter, and she’s blown away xD Sokka is flustered but defends his right to play with dolls, and eventually Hotaru herself convinces Azula to join them. Azula is very awkward about it because she doesn’t really know how to do this… but after a while she understands the rhythm of the game, creates a personality for her chosen doll and things just go bonkers from there xD for the first time in her life, a fully-grown Azula discovers dolls maybe aren’t so boring if you have someone worth playing with.

As for the other kids, Shun is a firebending fanboy who adores his mom on principle because she’s awesome and amazing (and he’s right to think so xD). Sokka would say it’s only natural that she’d charm their son that way, seeing how she charmed him too xD but anyways, their bond is quite positive and Azula helps him with training sometimes (Hotaru too, but as Shun is more devoted to firebending he usually asks for her opinion more often). He’s also pretty nerdy, loves history and learning about past events that no one even remembers, so both Azula and Sokka tend to get him books on history that he can eat up and later tell them heaps of things about.

I think Azula’s second pregnancy (Shun) is much smoother than Hotaru’s, she’ll have less reasons to be on edge this time. She’ll forge a similar bond with Shun since he’s a kid, trying to foster genuine trust between them both, trying to be in tune with whatever he needs, and that way she establishes since he’s very young that he can count on her. Ergo, he does when he’s older, all the time xD

Yuuna is the last, and as she was an apparent non-bender who then turned out to be a waterbender, things are pretty different here. Azula does her best to establish the same bond as with the two previous kids, but she worries that she can’t help Yuuna with developing her bending skills the way she can with her two older children. Yuuna is also a little more unpredictable and takes after her dad A LOT… but that resemblance to her father just makes Azula love her lots xD any sign of Sokka traits in their children is always something Azula loves dearly.

Yuuna is also the scientist, and she’s unpredictable in regards of the way her brain works. She is curious about EVERYTHING, asks unexpected questions like “what’s inside an eyeball? Is it gooey? How do we SEE through it? Why doesn’t Toph see even if she has eyeballs like us?” and so on and so forth xD she’s inquisitive, persistent, lacks common sense in most regards and disregards most of societal norms (that artwork I did recently with them and the babies? Well, Yuuna’s hair probably only stayed like that for like… 5 minutes and then she took off the hair tie and ran around investigating things in the Palace xD).

Azula of course has some trouble figuring out what to do with Yuuna because, on one hand, she wants the girl to cause little trouble, but on the other, she realizes some things are important to her daughter the same way some things are important to her. And she doesn’t want to shut down her interests, unless they’re genuinely dangerous interests. So Azula struggles at times with how to take care of Yuuna, but never to a point where Yuuna feels unloved or unwanted by her mother, not over her waterbending or anything else. They’re more prone to having conflicts than Azula is with the other two, especially if Azula sets limits that Yuuna fails to understand, but ultimately Azula respects her daughter, all her children, and that teaches them how to respect her too.

Azula is convinced she’s not their children’s favorite parent xD that they prefer Sokka, and she’s happy for it if anything. She loves seeing him with the kids because he has a way with them, always makes them laugh, goofs about and they love him for it. For once, she doesn’t care to be the best, the #1 at something, and ironically, that she’s not competing with Sokka over who’s the favorite parent makes her even better as a mother than she knows xD in the end, I can’t really tell you who’d win in a popularity contest with the kids xD

Pretty much all her children admire her, and if anyone messes with their mom they’re ready to throw down because of it. I think Hotaru will eventually hear stuff about her parents’ past at school and be very confused about what she’s being told, her school friends all have inappropriate crushes on Sokka because he’s sooo heroic and to her it’s just weird because he’s her loveable dorky dad? xD Either way, Shun definitely would get into a fist fight with anyone who badmouths his mom or dad xD Yuuna would probably just start asking insidiously WHY the other person is saying all these things before dismounting their entire insult via nothing but empirical evidence xD arguing with Yuuna is a bad idea for anyone, really.

As for their parents’ past, yes, I don’t think Sokka and Azula would tell their story to the children so quickly, and I also doubt the kids would expect much from the story to begin with. As far as they can tell, these are their parents, that’s their role in life and that’s all there is to it, right? It would take time for them to realize that woah, a Fire Nation royal married a Water Tribesman, that’s not exactly common in their world… how did that happen?

Of course, the questions begin eventually and by then Azula and Sokka end up agreeing to tell their story to the kids. They will of course skip a lot of things that are not appropriate for children to hear xD but theirs is quite the love story, and they take pride in it… so the day comes when they share it with their little ones, and after the MANY storytelling sessions, because as we know this story can’t be told so quickly xD the kids only admire their parents more.

So yep, happy family indeed! I have other ideas, more story-oriented, one where Sokka gets caught by a gang of criminals who don’t realize who he is, his guard is down, Azula has to go save him and, in pure The Incredibles fashion, Shun and Yuuna sneak aboard her ship while Hotaru is left at home to panic over what’s going on xD obviously, Azula and her two stowaways save Sokka, who’s fine and has every finger and toe still in place, Azula will give him the scolding of a lifetime before kissing him and being grateful he’s okay. Shun of course is grossed out by the kissing and amused by the scolding xD Yuuna is just happy her dad is safe now.

And I guess that’s more or less what I can think of right now. Hope that was a nice doseage of Sokkla family headcanons and Mum!Azula :D

[anisotropy-kotetsu]

Profile Template created by Zweenii Toshiro Kotetsu owned by @anisotropy-kotetsu​ | NocturnalButterflies BnHA Universe created and owned by Kohei Hirokoshi

-- (小鉄敏朗) --

Currently: Kotetsu Toshiro 敏朗  - Toshiro (Agile, bright) 小鉄  - Kotetsu (Small iron)

~~ Basic Information ~~

Nickname: Toshi, Shi, Shiro, Ko

Age:  16

Gender: Male

Height: 172 cm (5'7")

Birthday: May 19

Alias: Anisotropy

Relationship: Single.

Living Condition: U.A. High School Heights Alliance, Class 1-A

Goal: Kotetsu would like to be hero, to help save and protect people. He wishes to be a rescue hero, extending his hand out to these in need and pulling them out of the danger they are in.

~~ Appearance ~~

X ~ X ~ X ~ X ~ X

Hair Style: "Fluffy", short

Hair Color: Silver/Grey

Eye Color: Neon Yellow

Clothing: - U.A. Uniform - Hero outfit (Kotetsu's hero outfit is a skin tight long sleeved top, gallium shoulder long "gloves", baggy long khaki pants, work metal bottom boots, and he slicks his hair back and puts yellow shades over his eyes so the brightness of his metal is toned down. Right now, in private and secret he is working on getting himself to float by using his metal manipulation on his shoes) - Casual is usually sport shorts paired with large tee-shirts, or slim fit tank tops, and he wears a pair of slip on flats (like VANS) - Formal he usually wears a nice shirt and dress pants, but that is mainly it - Sleepwear he prefers boxer shorts and either a tank top or no shirt

~~ Personality ~~

Toshiro is a very caring and kind boy, but he is often very withdrawn and shy (this will be explained why in his backstory) despite preferring to spend his time around others. To those he is close to, he seems to loosen up and show his true colors, he is playful, goofy, and can be quite the pain if you let him get to you. Due to his history, he would prefer becoming depressed and upset with situations rather than facing them with anger. He has a large amount of pent up anger in him, and when he lets himself get angry he finds he often loses control over himself and reason. He'll do everything in his power to help others and is very quick to place himself in danger for their sake. He has a viciously low opinion on himself, he often doesn't talk about himself or his qualities as he believes he had no good qualities. He is simply a complex boy with an array of emotions he isn't sure how to handle.

~~ Back Story ~~

Toshiro was born female, his dead name being Toshiko. As a young kid, he never felt quite right, he found himself upset with gender norms since he preferred most norms expected of young boys. His parents took note of how odd he seemed, even how he seemed to get along better with the boys than girls his age but still forced him to follow the expectations of young girls. When he was seven, his parents had their second child, his little sister, Hinako. Toshiro loved and will always love his little sister. He took very good care of her, to the point his parents almost pushed all their responsibilities on him to raise his younger sibling, using the excuse that they do everything around the house and he needs to participate. Other than the underlying feeling that he was out of place in even his own body, Toshiro's life was typical. By the age of 11, puberty began with his first period. As his hormones and body began to develop, Toshiro found the feeling of not being right in his own body grow more intense. He started to be unable to look at himself in the mirror, disgusted by what he saw. Finally, at 12 years old, he cut his hair, binded his chest and came out to his family as Transgender. The next year of his life would be quite the emotional struggle. Fighting everyday, his parents forcefully medicating him, there is plenty that has left him an emotional mess of conflicts and demons he refuses to face. His parents kicked him out after a year of fighting and he was sent to live with his Aunt, Hanea, in Musutafu. With many experiences and his own internal dilemma, Toshiro decided he would choose the path of a hero to fight back and prove no one could hold him down, he would stop those who thought they could scare society into living a terrible life. He wanted to save others, subconsciously hoping he would one day be able to save himself. His second to last year of middle school he began hormone therapy and transitioning with the aid and support of his aunt. He applied and passed exams to earn himself a spot in class 1-B of the Hero Course of U.A. High School. Toshiro happened to pass his midterm with flying colors, having shown the most growth since the beginning of first semester. When Mineta Minoru was expelled for disorderly conduct (inappropriate actions), Toshiro was offered the opportunity to transfer into class 1-A. His story begins with moving into class 1-A's dorm at the beginning of second semester. In class, due to his past experience of his loved ones abandoning him when ge told them he was transgender, Toshiro would sit quietly and avoid interaction due to a debilitating fear his classmates would find out he was transgender and begin to turn against him, too.

~~ Quirk ~~

Magnetism - Toshiro inherited both of his parents' quirk, the odd fusion making a combination that would be general magnetism. His father's quirk was Electromagnetism, the ability of producing electromagnetic waves from the central nervous system, thus creating a field around the individual. His mother's quirk was the ability to change the physical properties of metals (physical properties being: state of mater, magnetism, texture, and destiny). Toshiro uses his mother's quirk to make metals less or more magnetic in his electromagnetic field, attracting or repelling the metals away from him. The downfall to his quirk is if he forces too much voltage through his nervous system, he could end up frying his brain and lead to himself going brain dead from extensive damage. He will begin to bleed from many orifices on his head as a warning that he is pushing his body to far.

~~ Stats ~~

Attack: 6/10

Defense: 5/10

Speed: 7/10

Stamina: 6/10

Intelligence: 6/10 Overall: 30/50

~~ Strengths ~~

- Determination - Kindness - Caring - Martial arts - Acrobatics - Cooking - Impromptu ideas

~~ Weaknesses ~~

- Self destructive personality - Low self confidence - Anxiety - Depression - Defense - Half thought out plans of actions - Metals over a certain weight - Metals out of his magnetic field's reach

~~ Equipment ~~

- 20 gallons of Gallium in a liquid state (166 lbs) - Mask with eye protection and filter - Suit similar to design of Endeavor's, Toshiro's having small troughs for his gallium to coat his person

~~Extra Information~~

- His favorite drink is an Iced Matcha Latte - His favorite sweet is s'more brownies - His favorite dish is saba shioyaki (grilled mackerel) - He listens to Metal (unironically) - First semester he had a puppy love crush on Todoroki Shouto, and he still has one even as he is now in class 1-A with Shouto - He is afraid of snakes - He can interpret and sign JSL - The only feature he is confident about our his eyes - Due to growing up hating his own body, Toshiro finds men much more attractive than woman due to his self consciousness of the remaining womanly features he still has. And thus, he considers himself homosexual - He is allergic to lilies - Due to his quirk, Toshiro steadily developed chronic iron deficiency anemia. It's why his complexion is so sickly pale and you'll find his skin often chilly to touch. He is on iron supplements, but every now and then you'll witness a dizzy spell because he often forgets to take his supplements - Toshiro naturally loves to care for others, but the second there is puke, he is GONE - ENFP-T

[bountyofbeads]

The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions

How Trump is destroying the civil service and bending the government to his will (**BECAUSE OF LENGTH OF ARTICLE I'M POSTING IN 2 PARTS)

Story by George Packer, Photo rendering by Patrick White | APRIL 2020 Issue | The Atlantic Magazine | Posted March 07, 2020 |

(PART 1/2)

When Donald Trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.

The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history, but it didn’t really matter as long as “the adults” were there to wait out the president’s impulses and deflect his worst ideas and discreetly pocket destructive orders lying around on his desk.

After three years, the adults have all left the room—saying just about nothing on their way out to alert the country to the peril—while Trump is still there.

James Baker, the former general counsel of the FBI, and a target of Trump’s rage against the state, acknowledges that many government officials, not excluding himself, went into the administration convinced “that they are either smarter than the president, or that they can hold their own against the president, or that they can protect the institution against the president because they understand the rules and regulations and how it’s supposed to work, and that they will be able to defend the institution that they love or served in previously against what they perceive to be, I will say neutrally, the inappropriate actions of the president. And I think they are fooling themselves. They’re fooling themselves. He’s light-years ahead of them.”

The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement; transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was clear to the political class until Trump became president.

But the adults’ greatest miscalculation was to overestimate themselves—particularly in believing that other Americans saw them as selfless public servants, their stature derived from a high-minded commitment to the good of the nation.

Read: Anne Applebaum on polarization and the eternal appeal of authoritarianism

When Trump came to power, he believed that the regime was his, property he’d rightfully acquired, and that the 2 million civilians working under him, most of them in obscurity, owed him their total loyalty. He harbored a deep suspicion that some of them were plotting in secret to destroy him. He had to bring them to heel before he could be secure in his power. This wouldn’t be easy—the permanent government had defied other leaders and outlasted them. In his inexperience and rashness—the very qualities his supporters loved—he made early mistakes. He placed unreliable or inept commissars in charge of the bureaucracy, and it kept running on its own.

But a simple intuition had propelled Trump throughout his life: Human beings are weak. They have their illusions, appetites, vanities, fears. They can be cowed, corrupted, or crushed. A government is composed of human beings. This was the flaw in the brilliant design of the Framers, and Trump learned how to exploit it. The wreckage began to pile up. He needed only a few years to warp his administration into a tool for his own benefit. If he’s given a few more years, the damage to American democracy will be irreversible.

This is the story of how a great republic went soft in the middle, lost the integrity of its guts and fell in on itself—told through government officials whose names under any other president would have remained unknown, who wanted no fame, and who faced existential questions when Trump set out to break them.

1. “WE’RE NOT NAZIS ”

Erica Newland went to work at the Department of Justice in the last summer of the Obama administration. She was 29 and arrived with the highest blessings of the meritocracy—a degree from Yale Law School and a clerkship with Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Court of Appeals, whom President Obama had recently nominated to the Supreme Court (and who would never get a Senate hearing). Newland became an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel, the department’s brain trust, where legal questions about presidential actions go to be answered, usually in the president’s favor. The office had approved the most extreme wartime powers under George W. Bush, including torture, before rescinding some of them. Newland was a civil libertarian and a skeptic of broad presidential power. Her hiring showed that the Obama Justice Department welcomed heterodox views.

The election in November changed her, freed her, in a way that she understood only much later. If Hillary Clinton had won, Newland likely would have continued as an ambitious, risk-averse government lawyer on a fast track. She would have felt pressure not to antagonize her new bosses, because elite Washington lawyers keep revolving through one another’s lives—these people would be the custodians of her future, and she wanted to rise within the federal government. But after the election she realized that her new bosses were not likely to be patrons of her career. They might even see her as an enemy.

Among career officials, fear set in. They saw what was happening to colleagues in the FBI who had crossed the president.

She decided to serve under Trump. She liked her work and her colleagues, the 20 or so career lawyers in the office, who treated one another with kindness and respect. Like all federal employees, she had taken an oath to support the Constitution, not the president, and to discharge her office “well and faithfully.” Those patriotic duties implied certain values, and they were what kept her from leaving. In her mind, they didn’t make her a conspirator of the “deep state.” She wouldn’t try to block the president’s policies—only hold them to a high standard of fact and law. She doubted that any replacement would do the same.

Days after Trump’s inauguration, Newland’s new boss, Curtis Gannon, the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, gave a seal of approval to the president’s ban, bigoted if not illegal, on travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries. At least one lawyer in the office went out to Dulles Airport that weekend to protest it. Another spent a day crying behind a closed office door. Others reasoned that it wasn’t the role of government lawyers to judge the president’s motives.

Employees of the executive branch work for the president, and a central requirement of their jobs is to carry out the president’s policies. If they can’t do so in good conscience, then they should leave. At the same time, there’s good reason not to leave over the results of an election. A civil service that rotates with the party in power would be a reversion to the 19th-century spoils system, whose notorious corruption led to the 1883 Pendleton Act, which created the modern merit-based, politically insulated civil service.

In Trump’s first year an exodus from the Justice Department began, including some of Newland’s colleagues. Some left in the honest belief that they could no longer represent their client, whose impulsive tweets on matters such as banning transgender people from the military became the office’s business to justify, but they largely kept their reasons to themselves. Almost every consideration—future job prospects, relations with former colleagues, career officials’ long conditioning in anonymity—goes against a righteous exit.

Newland didn’t work on the travel ban. Perhaps this distance allowed her to hold on to the idea that she could still achieve some good if she stayed inside. Her obligation was to the country, the Constitution. She felt she was fighting to preserve the credibility of the Justice Department. That first year, she saw her memos and arguments change outcomes.

Things got worse in the second year. It seemed as if more than half of the Office of Legal Counsel’s work involved limiting the rights of noncitizens. The atmosphere of open discussion dissipated. The political appointees at the top, some of whom had voiced skepticism early on about the legality of certain policies, were readier to make excuses for Trump, to give his fabrications the benefit of the doubt. Among career officials, fear set in. They saw what was happening to colleagues in the FBI who had crossed the president during the investigation into Russian election interference—careers and reputations in ruins. For those with security clearances, speaking up, or even offering a snarky eye roll, felt particularly risky, because the bar for withdrawing a clearance was low. Steven Engel, appointed to lead the office, was a Trump loyalist who made decisions without much consultation. Newland’s colleagues found less and less reason to advance arguments that they knew would be rejected. People began to shut up.

One day in May 2018, Newland went into the lunchroom carrying a printout of a White House press release titled “What You Need to Know About the Violent Animals of MS-13.” At a meeting about Central American gangs a few days earlier, Trump had used the word animals to describe undocumented immigrants, and in the face of criticism the White House was digging in. Animals appeared 10 times in the short statement. Newland wanted to know what her colleagues thought about it.

Eight or so lawyers were sitting around a table. They were all career people—the politicals hadn’t come to lunch yet. Newland handed the printout to one of them, who handed it right back, as if he didn’t want to be seen with it. She put the paper faceup on the table, and another lawyer turned it over, as if to protect Newland: “That way, if Steve walks in …”

Newland turned it over again. “It’s a White House press release and I’m happy to explain why it bothers me.” The conversation quickly became awkward, and then muted. Colleagues who had shared Newland’s dismay in private now remained silent. It was the last time she joined them in the lunchroom.

No one risked getting fired. No one would become the target of a Trump tweet. The danger might be a mediocre performance review or a poor reference. “There was no sense that there was anything to be gained by standing up within the office,” Newland told me recently. “The people who might celebrate that were not there to see it. You wouldn’t be able to talk about it. And if you’re going to piss everyone off within the department, you’re not going to be able to get out” and find a good job.

She hated going to work. In the lobby of the Justice Department building, six blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, Newland had to pass under a large portrait of the president. Every morning as she entered the building, she avoided looking at Trump, or she used side doors, where she wouldn’t be confronted with his face. At night she slept poorly, plagued by regrets. Should she have pushed harder on a legal issue? Should she engage her colleagues in the lunchroom again? How could she live with the cruelty and bigotry of executive orders and other proposals, even legal ones, that crossed her desk? She was angry and miserable, and her friends told her to leave. She continued to find reasons to stay: worries about who would replace her, a determination not to abandon ship during an emergency, a sense of patriotism. Through most of 2018 she deluded herself that she could still achieve something by staying in the job.

In 1968, James C. Thomson, a former Asia expert in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, published an essay in this magazine called “How Could Vietnam Happen? An Autopsy.” Among the reasons Thomson gave for the war was “the ‘effectiveness’ trap”—the belief among officials that it’s usually wisest to accept the status quo. “The inclination to remain silent or to acquiesce in the presence of the great men—to live to fight another day, to give on this issue so that you can be ‘effective’ on later issues—is overwhelming,” he wrote. The trap is seductive, because it carries an impression of principled tough-mindedness, not cowardice. Remaining “effective” also becomes a reason never to quit.

As the executive orders and other requests for the office’s approval piled up, many of them of dubious legality, one of Newland’s supervisors took to saying, “We’re just following orders.” He said it without irony, as a way of reminding everyone, “We work for the president.” He said it once to Newland, and when she gave him a look he added, “I know that’s what the Nazis said, but we’re not Nazis.”

“The president has said that some of them are very fine people,” Newland reminded him.

“Attorney General Sessions never said that,” the supervisor replied. “Steve never said that, and I’ve never said that. We’re not Nazis.” That she could still have such an exchange with a supervisor seemed in itself like a reason not to leave.

But Newland, who is Jewish, sometimes asked herself: If she and her colleagues had been government lawyers in Germany in the 1930s, what kind of bureaucrat would each of them have been? There were the ideologues, the true believers, like one Clarence Thomas protégé. There were the opportunists who went along to get ahead. There were a handful of quiet dissenters. But many in the office just tried to survive by keeping their heads down. “I guess I know what kind I would have been,” Newland told me. “I would have stayed in the Nazi administration initially and then fled.” She thinks she would have been the kind of official who pushed for carve-outs in the Nuremberg Race Laws, preserving citizenship rights for Germans with only partial Jewish ancestry. She would have felt that this was better than nothing—that it justified having worked in the regime at the beginning.

Newland and her colleagues were saving Trump from his own lies. They were using their legal skills to launder his false statements and jury-rig arguments so that presidential orders would pass constitutional muster. When she read that producers of The Apprentice had had to edit episodes in order to make Trump’s decisions seem coherent, she realized that the attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel were doing something similar. Loyalty to the president was equated with legality. “There was hardly any respect for the other departments of government—not for the lower courts, not for Congress, and certainly not for the bureaucracy, for professionalism, for facts or the truth,” she told me. “Corruption is the right word for this. It doesn’t have to be pay-to-play to be corrupt. It’s a departure from the oath.”

In the fall of 2018, Newland learned that she and five colleagues would receive the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award for their work on executive orders in 2017. The news made her sick to her stomach; her office probably thought she would feel honored by the award. She marveled at how the administration’s conduct had been normalized. But she also suspected that department higher-ups were using the career people to justify policies such as the travel ban—at least, the award would be seen that way. Newland and another lawyer stayed away from the ceremony where the awards were presented, on October 24.

On October 27, an anti-Semitic extremist killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Before the shooting, he berated Jews online for enabling “invaders” to enter the United States from Mexico. That same week, the Office of Legal Counsel was working on an order that, in response to the “threat” posed by a large caravan of Central Americans making its way north through Mexico, temporarily refused all asylum claims at the southern border. Newland, who could imagine being shot in a synagogue, felt that her office’s work was sanctioning rhetoric that had inspired a mass killer.

She tendered her resignation three days later. By Thanksgiving she was gone. In the new year she began working at a nonprofit called Protect Democracy.

The asylum ban was the last public act of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump fired him immediately after the midterm elections. Newland felt that Sessions—who had recused himself from the Russia investigation because he had spoken with Russian officials as an adviser in the Trump campaign—cared about protecting some democratic rights, but only for white Americans. He was eventually replaced by William Barr, a former attorney general with a reputation for intellect and competence. But Barr quickly made Sessions seem like a paragon of integrity. After watching him run her former department for a year, Newland wondered why she had stayed inside at all.

2. CASHING IN

There’s always been corruption in Washington, and everywhere that power can be found, but it became institutionalized starting in the late 1970s and early ’80s, with the rise of the lobbying industry. The corruption that overtook the capital during that time was pecuniary and mostly legal, a matter of norm-breaking—of people’s willingness to do what wasn’t done. Robert Kaiser, a former Washington Post editor and the author of the 2010 book So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government, locates an early warning sign in Gerald Ford’s readiness to “sign up for every nasty piece of work that everybody offered him to cash in on being an ex-president.” Cashing in—once known as selling out—became a common path out of government, and then back in and out again. “There was a taboo structure,” Kaiser told me. “You don’t go from a senior Justice Department position to a senior partner in Lloyd Cutler’s law firm and then go back. It was a one-way trip. That taboo is no more.”

Former members of Congress and their aides cashed in as lobbyists. Retired military officers cashed in with defense contractors. Justice Department officials cashed in at high-paying law firms. Former diplomats cashed in by representing foreign interests as lobbyists or public-relations strategists. A few years high up in the Justice Department could translate into tens of millions of dollars in the private sector. Obscure aides on Capitol Hill became millionaires. Trent Lott abandoned his Senate seat early in order to get ahead of new restrictions on how soon he could start his career as a lobbyist. Ex-presidents gave six-figure speeches and signed eight-figure book deals.

Trump believed he had to crush the bureaucracy or else it would destroy him.

As partisanship turned rabid, making money remained the one thing that Democrats and Republicans could still do together. Washington became a city of expensive restaurants, where bright young people entered government to do some good and then get rich. Luke Albee, a former chief of staff for two Democratic senators, learned to avoid hiring aides he would lose too quickly. “I looked out for who’s going to come in and spin out after 18 months, to renew and refresh their contacts in order to increase their retainers,” he told me. The revolving door didn’t necessarily induce individual officeholders to betray their oath—they might be scrupulously faithful public servants between turns at the trough. But, on a deeper level, the money aligned government with plutocracy. It also made the public indiscriminately cynical. And as the public’s trust in institutions plunged, the status of bureaucrats fell with it.

The swamp had been pooling between the Potomac and the Anacostia for three or four decades when Trump arrived in Washington, vowing to drain it. The slogan became one of his most potent. Fred Wertheimer, the president of the nonprofit Democracy 21 and an activist for good government since the Nixon presidency, says of Trump: “He was ahead of a lot of national politicians when he saw that the country sees Washington as rigged against them, as corrupted by money, as a lobbyist’s game—which is a game he played his whole life, until he ran against it. People wanted someone to take this on.” By then the federal government’s immune system had been badly compromised. Trump, in the name of a radical cure, set out to spread a devastating infection.

To Trump and his supporters, the swamp was full of scheming conspirators in drab D.C. office wear, coup plotters hidden in plain sight at desks, in lunchrooms, and on jogging paths around the federal capital: the deep state. A former Republican congressional aide named Mike Lofgren had introduced the phrase into the political bloodstream with an essay in 2014 and a book two years later. Lofgren meant the nexus of corporations, banks, and defense contractors that had gained so much financial and political control—sources of Washington’s corruption. But conservatives at Breitbart News, Fox News, and elsewhere began applying the term to career officials in law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, whom they accused of being Democratic partisans in cahoots with the liberal media first to prevent and then to undo Trump’s election. Like fake news and corruption, Trump reverse-engineered deep state into a weapon against his enemies, real or perceived.

The moment Trump entered the White House, he embarked on a colossal struggle with his own bureaucracy. He had to crush it or else it would destroy him. His aggrieved and predatory cortex impelled him to look for an official to hang out in public as a warning for others who might think of crossing him. Trump found one who had been nameless and faceless throughout his career.

3. “HOW IS YOUR WIFE?”

Andrew McCabe joined the FBI in 1996, when he was 28, a year younger than Erica Newland was when she entered government service. He was the son of a corporate executive, a product of the suburbs, a Duke graduate, a lawyer at a small New Jersey firm. The bureau attracted him because of the human drama that investigations uncovered, the stories elicited from people who had crossed the line between the safe and predictable life of McCabe’s upbringing and the shadow world beyond the law. His wife, Jill, who was training in pediatric medicine, encouraged him to apply. He took a 50 percent salary cut to join the bureau. At Quantico, it was almost a pleasure for him to be subsumed into the uniform and discipline and selflessness of an agent’s training.

McCabe specialized in Russian organized crime and then terrorism. He rose swiftly through the ranks of the bureau and stayed out of the public eye. He had a reputation for intellect and unflappability, a natural manager. In early 2016—by then McCabe was in his late 40s, trim from triathlon competitions, his short hair going gray, the frames of his glasses black above and clear below—James Comey promoted him from head of the Washington field office to deputy director, the highest career position in the bureau, responsible for overseeing its day-to-day operations. In ordinary times the FBI’s No. 2 remains invisible to the public, but McCabe’s new job gave him a role in overseeing the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, just as the 2016 presidential race was entering its consequential phase. By summer the FBI would be digging into Trump’s campaign as well.

In July, Comey decided to announce the closing of the email case, calling Clinton’s conduct “extremely careless” but not criminal. McCabe supported this extraordinary departure from normal procedure (the FBI doesn’t comment on investigations, especially ones that don’t result in prosecution) because the Clinton email case, played out on the front pages in the middle of the campaign, was anything but normal. Comey was a master at conveying ethical rectitude—he would rise above the din to his commanding height and convince the American people that the investigation had been righteous.

But Comey’s statement created fury on both the left and the right and badly damaged the FBI’s credibility. McCabe came to regret Comey’s decision and his own role in it. “We believed that the American people believed in us,” McCabe later wrote. “The FBI is not political.” But he should have known. He had worked on the wildly overblown Benghazi case in the aftermath of the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in 2012, which “revealed the surreal extremes to which craven political posturing had gone,” and led to the equally overblown email case.

Having spent two decades as an upstanding G-man in a hierarchical institution, McCabe didn’t understand what the country had become. He was unarmed and unready for what was about to happen.

Jill McCabe, a pediatric emergency-room doctor, had run for a seat in the Virginia Senate as a Democrat in 2015 in order to work for Medicaid expansion for poor patients. She lost the race. On October 23, 2016, two weeks before the presidential election, The Wall Street Journal revealed that her campaign had received almost $700,000 from the Virginia Democratic Party and the political-action fund of Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton friend who had encouraged her to run. “Clinton Ally Aided Campaign of FBI Official’s Wife,” read the headline, with more innuendo than substance. McCabe had properly insulated himself from the campaign and knew nothing about the donations. FBI ethics people had cleared him to oversee the Clinton investigation, which he didn’t start doing until months after Jill’s race had ended. One had nothing to do with the other. But Trump tweeted about the Journal story, and on October 24 he enraged a crowd in St. Augustine, Florida, with the made-up news that Clinton had corrupted the bureau and bought her way out of jail through “the spouse—the wife—of the top FBI official who helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s illegal email server.” He snarled and narrowed his eyes, he tightened his lips and shook his head, he walked away from the microphone in disgust, and the crowd shrieked its hatred for Clinton and the rigged system.

This was the first time Trump referred to the McCabes. He didn’t use their names, but the scene was chilling.

Within a few days, The Wall Street Journal was preparing to run a second story with damaging information about the FBI and McCabe—this time, that he had told agents to “stand down” in a secret investigation of the Clinton Foundation. The sources appeared to be senior agents in the FBI’s New York field office, where anti-Clinton sentiment was expressed openly. But the story was wrong: McCabe had wanted to continue the investigation and had simply been following Justice Department policy to keep agents from taking any overt steps, such as issuing subpoenas, that might influence an upcoming election. For the second time in a week, his integrity—the lifeblood of an official in his position—was unjustly maligned in highly public fashion. He authorized his counsel, Lisa Page, and the chief FBI spokesperson, Michael Kortan, to correct the story by disclosing to the reporter a conversation between McCabe and a Justice Department official—an authorization he believed to be appropriate, because it was in the FBI’s interest as well as his own.

The leak inadvertently confirmed the existence of an investigation into the Clinton Foundation, and it upset Comey. The director was already unhappy with the revelations about Jill McCabe’s campaign. He prepared to order McCabe to recuse himself from the Clinton email investigation, which the FBI reopened on October 28, 11 days before the election. Comey later claimed that when he’d asked McCabe about the leak, McCabe had said something like “I don’t know how this shit gets in the media.” (McCabe later said that he’d told Comey he had authorized the leak.)

This incident, so slight amid the large dramas of those months, set in motion a series of fateful events for McCabe.

When Trump won, the McCabes thought that the new president might drop the conspiracy theory about Jill’s campaign and stop his attacks on them. “He got what he wanted,” she told me recently, “so maybe he’ll just leave us alone now. For, like, a moment I thought that.”

As Trump prepared to take power, the Russia investigation closed in on people around him, beginning with Michael Flynn, his choice for national security adviser, who lied to FBI agents about phone calls with the Russian ambassador. Trump made it clear that he expected the FBI to drop the Flynn case and shield the White House from the tightening circle of investigation. At a White House dinner for two, the new president told his FBI director that he wanted loyalty. Comey replied with a promise of honesty. Trump then asked if McCabe “has a problem with me. I was pretty rough on him and his wife during the campaign.” Comey called McCabe “a true professional,” adding: “FBI people, whatever their personal views, they strip them away when they step into their bureau roles.”

But Trump didn’t want true professionals. Either you were loyal or you were not, and draining the swamp turned out to mean getting rid of those who were not. His understanding of human motivation told him that, after his “pretty rough” treatment, McCabe couldn’t possibly be loyal—he would want revenge, and he would get it through an investigation. In subsequent conversations with Comey, Trump kept returning to “the McCabe thing,” as if fixated on the thought that he had created an enemy in his own FBI.

“We knew that we were doomed,” Jill McCabe told me. “Our days were numbered. It was gradual, but by May we knew it could end really terribly.”

On May 9, 2017, McCabe was summoned across the street to the office of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who informed him that Trump had just fired Comey. McCabe was now acting director of the FBI.

Trump wanted to see him that evening. Comey had told McCabe about Trump’s demands for loyalty, his attempts to interfere with the Russia investigation, and his suspicion of McCabe himself. McCabe fully expected to be fired any day. When he was ushered into the Oval Office, he found the president seated behind his imposing desk, with his top advisers—the vice president, the chief of staff, the White House counsel—perched submissively before him in a row of small wooden chairs, where McCabe joined them. Trump asked McCabe whether he disagreed with Comey’s decision to close the Clinton email case in July. No, McCabe said; he and Comey had worked together closely. Trump kept pushing: Was it true that people at the FBI were unhappy about the decision, unhappy with Comey’s leadership? McCabe said that some agents disagreed with Comey’s handling of the Clinton case, but that he had generally been popular.

“Your only problem is that one mistake you made,” McCabe later recalled Trump saying. “That thing with your wife. That one mistake.” McCabe said nothing, and Trump went on: “That was the only problem with you. I was very hard on you during my campaign. That money from the Clinton friend—I was very hard. I said a lot of tough things about your wife in the campaign.”

“I know,” McCabe replied. “We heard what you said.” He told Trump that Jill was a dedicated doctor, that running for office had been another way for her to try to help her patients. He and their two teenage children had completely supported her decision.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. She’s great. Everybody I know says she’s great. You were right to support her. Everybody tells me she’s a terrific person.”

The next morning, while McCabe was meeting with his senior staff about the Russia investigation, the White House called—Trump was on the line. This was disturbing in itself. Presidents are not supposed to call FBI directors, except about matters of national security. To prevent the kind of political abuses uncovered by Watergate, Justice Department guidelines dating back to the mid-’70s dictate a narrow line of communication between law enforcement and the White House. Trump had repeatedly shown that he either didn’t know or didn’t care.

[ Read: Andrew McCabe couldn’t believe the things Trump said about Putin]

The president was upset that McCabe had allowed Comey to fly back from Los Angeles on the FBI’s official plane after being fired. McCabe explained the decision, and Trump exploded: “That’s not right! I never approved that!” He didn’t want Comey allowed into headquarters—into any FBI building. Trump raged on. Then he said, “How is your wife?”

“She’s fine.”

“When she lost her election, that must have been very tough to lose. How did she handle losing? Is it tough to lose?”

McCabe said that losing had been difficult but that Jill was back to taking care of children in the emergency room.

“Yeah, that must have been really tough,” the president told his new FBI director. “To lose. To be a loser.”

As McCabe held the phone, his aides saw his face go tight. Trump was forcing him into the humiliating position of not being able to stand up for his wife. It was a kind of Mafia move: asserting dominance, emotional blackmail.

“It elevates the pressure of this idea of loyalty,” McCabe told me recently. “If I can actually insult your wife and you still agree with me or go along with whatever it is I want you to do, then I have you. I have split the husband and the wife. He first tried to separate me from Comey—‘You didn’t agree with him, right?’ He tried to separate me from the institution—‘Everyone’s happy at the FBI, right?’ He boxes you into a corner to try to get you to accept and embrace whatever bullshit he’s selling, and if he can do that, then he knows you’re with him.”

McCabe would return to the conversation again and again, asking himself if he should have told Trump where to get off. But he had an organization in crisis to run. “I didn’t really need to get into a personal pissing contest with the president of the United States.”

Far from being the political conspirator of Trump’s dark imaginings, McCabe was out of his depth in an intensely political atmosphere. When Trump demanded to know whom he’d voted for in 2016, McCabe was so shocked that he could only answer vaguely: “I played it right down the middle.” The lame remark embarrassed McCabe, and he later clarified things with Trump: He was a lifelong Republican, but he hadn’t voted in 2016, because of the FBI investigations into the two candidates. This straightforward answer only deepened Trump’s suspicions.

But the professionalism that left McCabe exposed to Trump’s bullying served him as he took charge of the FBI amid the momentous events of that week. “Once Jim got fired, Andy’s focus and resolve were quite amazing,” James Baker, then the FBI general counsel, told me. McCabe had two urgent tasks. The first was to reassure the 37,000 employees now working under him that the organization would be all right. On May 11, in a televised Senate hearing, he was asked whether White House assertions of Comey’s unpopularity in the bureau were true. McCabe had prepared his answer. “I can tell you that I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard,” he said. “I can tell you also that Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.” He was saying to the country and his own people what he couldn’t say to Trump’s face.

“The president is going to be out for blood and it’s going to be mine,” McCabe said.

The second task was to protect the Russia investigation. Comey’s firing, and the White House lies about the reason—that it was over the Clinton email case, when all the evidence pointed to the Russia investigation—raised the specter of obstruction of justice. On May 15, McCabe met with his top aides—Baker, Lisa Page, and two others—and concluded that they had to open an investigation into Trump himself. They had to find out whether the president had been working in concert with Russia and covering it up.

The case was under the direction of the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. McCabe doubted that Rosenstein, whose memo Trump had used to justify firing Comey, could be trusted to withstand White House pressure to shut down the investigation. He urged Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel to take over the case. Then it would be beyond the reach of the White House and the Justice Department. If Trump tried to kill it, the world would know. McCabe pressed Rosenstein several times, but Rosenstein kept putting him off.

On May 17, McCabe informed a small group of House and Senate leaders that the FBI was opening a counterintelligence investigation into Trump for possible conspiracy with Russia during the 2016 campaign, as well as a criminal investigation for obstruction of justice. Rosenstein then announced that he was appointing Robert Mueller to take over the case as special counsel.

That night McCabe was chauffeured in the unfamiliar silence of the director’s armored Suburban to his house in the Virginia exurbs beyond Dulles Airport. Jill was making dinner while their daughter did her homework at the kitchen island. McCabe took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and opened a beer. Ever since Comey’s firing he’d felt as though he were sprinting toward a goal—to make the Russia investigation secure and transparent. “We’ve done what we needed to do,” he said. “The president is going to be out for blood and it’s going to be mine.”

“You did your job,” Jill said. “That’s the important thing.”

In the coming months, when things grew dark for the McCabes, Jill would remind Andy of that evening together in the kitchen.

The tweets abruptly resumed on July 25: “Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!” By now Trump knew McCabe’s name, but Jill would always be the “wife.” The next day, more tweets: “Why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got … big dollars ($700,000) for his wife’s political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the Swamp!”

The tweets mortified McCabe. He had no way of answering the false charge without calling more attention to it. He went into headquarters and made a weak joke about the day’s news and tried to keep himself and his organization focused on work while knowing that everyone he met with was thinking about the tweets. Baker, who also became a target of Trump’s tweets, described their effect to me. “It’s just a very disorienting, strange experience for a person like me, who doesn’t have much of a public profile,” he said. “You can’t help having a physiological reaction, like getting nervous, sweating. It’s frightening, and you don’t know what it’s going to mean, and suddenly people start talking about you, and you feel very exposed—and not in a positive way.”

The purpose of Trump’s tweets was not just to punish McCabe for opening the investigation, but to taint the case. “He attacks people to make his misdeeds look like they were okay,” Jill said. “If Andrew was corrupt, then the investigation was corrupt and the investigation was wrong. So they needed to do everything they could to prove Andrew McCabe was corrupt and a liar.”

Three days after the tweets resumed, on July 28, McCabe was urgently summoned to the Justice Department. Lawyers from the Office of the Inspector General who were looking into the Clinton email investigation had found thousands of text messages between McCabe’s counsel, Lisa Page, and the bureau’s ace investigator, Peter Strzok. Both of them had been central to the Clinton and Russia cases; Strzok was now working for Mueller. During the campaign, Page and Strzok had exchanged scathing comments about Trump. They had also been having an extramarital affair. Page and Strzok were among McCabe’s closest colleagues; Page was his trusted friend. This was all news to him—terrible news.

The lawyers fired off questions about the texts. Because McCabe was a subject of the inspector general’s investigation of the Clinton case, he told the lawyers in advance that he wouldn’t answer questions about his involvement without his personal attorney present. In spite of this, their questions suddenly veered to the second Wall Street Journal article, with its suggestion that McCabe had been corrupted by Clinton. One of the lawyers wondered whether “CF” in a text from Page referred to the Clinton Foundation. “Do you happen to know?” he asked McCabe.

“I don’t know what she’s referring to.”

“Or perhaps a code name?”

“Not one that I recall,” McCabe said, “but this thing is, like, right in the middle of the allegations about me, and so I don’t really want to get into discussing this article with you. Because it just seems like we’re kind of crossing the strings a little bit there.”

“Was she ever authorized to speak to reporters in this time period?” a lawyer asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

This wasn’t true. McCabe himself had authorized Page to speak to the Journal reporter. But he had stopped paying attention to the lawyers’ questions, which weren’t supposed to have come up at all—he wanted to put an end to them. He had to think through how he was going to deal with this new emergency. The Page-Strzok texts were bound to leak, and they would be claimed by Trump and his partisans as proof that the FBI was a cesspool of bias and corruption. Page and Strzok would be personally destroyed. In New York City that day, Trump made his remark about Central American “animals,” and he urged law-enforcement officers to rough up suspected gang members. The bureau would have to formulate a response and reaffirm its code of integrity. And the McCabes were back in the president’s crosshairs.

McCabe had the sense that everything was falling apart. It’s not hard to imagine the state of mind that led him to say, “Not that I’m aware of.” He had done it before, on the other terrible day of that year, May 9, when a different internal investigation had blindsided him with the same question about the long-ago Journal leak, and McCabe had given the same inaccurate answer. A right-down-the-middle career official, his integrity under continued assault, might well make such a needless mistake.

That was a Friday. Over the weekend he realized that he had left the lawyers with a false impression. On Tuesday he called the inspector general’s office to correct it. That same week the Senate confirmed Christopher Wray as the new FBI director, and McCabe went back to being the deputy. After 21 years as an agent, he planned to retire as soon as he was eligible, in March 2018, when he turned 50, and go into the private sector. But it was already too late.

On December 19, testifying before a House committee, McCabe confirmed Comey’s account of Trump’s attempt to kill the Russia investigation. Two days later, before another House committee, he was asked how attacks on the FBI had affected him. “I’ll tell you, it has been enormously challenging,” McCabe said. He described how his wife—“a wonderful, brilliant, caring physician”—had run for office to help expand health insurance for poor people. “And having started with that noble intention, to have gone through what she and my children have experienced over the last year has been—it has been devastating.”

Two days before Christmas, Trump let fly a menacing tweet: “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!” No personnel issue was too small for the president’s attention if it concerned a bureaucrat he considered an enemy. Another tweet that same day and one on Christmas Eve repeated the old falsehoods about Jill’s campaign. She couldn’t stop blaming herself for all the trouble that had come to her family.

[ Read: Yoni Appelbaum on how America Ends]

Just after the holidays, McCabe learned that his part of the inspector general’s report on the Clinton email investigation would be released separately. Instead of later in the spring, the McCabe piece would be finished in just a couple of months. In January 2018, Wray, the new director, forced McCabe out of the deputy’s job. Rather than accept a lower position, he went on leave in anticipation of his retirement in mid-March. At the end of February, the inspector general completed his 35-page report with its devastating conclusion: McCabe had shown “lack of candor” on four occasions in his statements about the Wall Street Journal leak. The Office of Professional Responsibility recommended that he be fired. To some in the Justice Department, this represented accountability for a senior official.

McCabe received the case file on March 9. FBI guidelines generally grant the subject 30 days to respond, but the Justice Department seemed determined to satisfy the White House and get ahead of McCabe’s retirement. He was given a week. On Thursday, March 15, he met with a department official and argued his case: He’d been blindsided by questions about an episode that he’d forgotten in the nonstop turmoil of the following months, and when he realized that he’d made an inaccurate statement, he had come forward voluntarily to correct it. McCabe thought he made a solid argument, but he knew what was coming.

On Friday night, watching CNN, McCabe learned that he had been fired from the organization where he had worked for 21 years. He was 26 hours away from his 50th birthday.

An hour after the news broke, Trump broadcast his delight: “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI—A great day for Democracy.” It was his eighth tweet about McCabe; there have been 33 since then, and counting.

“To be fired from the FBI and called a liar—I can’t even describe to you how sick that makes me to this day,” McCabe told me, nearly two years later. “It’s so wildly offensive and humiliating and just horrible. It bothers me as much today as it did on March 16, when I got fired. I’ve thought about it for thousands of hours, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.”

The extraordinary rush to get rid of McCabe ahead of his retirement, with the president baying for his scalp, appalled many lawyers both in and out of government. “To engineer the process that way is an unforgivable politicization of the department,” the legal expert Benjamin Wittes told me. McCabe lost most of his pension. He became unemployable, and “radioactive” among his former colleagues—almost no one at headquarters would have contact with him. Worst of all, the Justice Department referred the inspector general’s report to the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. A criminal indictment in such cases is almost unheard of, but the sword of the law hung over McCabe’s head for two years, an abnormally long time, while prosecutors hardly uttered a word. Last September, McCabe learned from media reports that a grand jury had been convened to vote on an indictment. He and Jill told their children that their father might be handcuffed, the house might be searched, he might even be jailed. The grand jury met, and the grand jury went home, and nothing happened. The silence implied that the jurors had found no grounds to indict. One of the prosecutors dropped off the case, unusual at such a crucial stage, and another left for the private sector, reportedly unhappy about political pressure. Still, the U.S. Attorney’s Office kept the case open until mid-February, when it was abruptly dropped.

McCabe discusses his situation with the oddly calm manner of the straight man in a Hitchcock movie who can’t quite fathom the nightmare in which he’s trapped. Jill, who is more demonstrative, compares the ordeal to an abusive relationship: Every time she feels like she can finally breathe a little, another blow lands. On any given night, a Fox News host can still be heard denouncing her husband. Just recently, a reporter for a right-wing TV network, One America News, announced on the White House lawn that McCabe had had an affair with Lisa Page. It was a lie, and the network was forced to retract it, but not before McCabe had to call his daughter at school and warn her that she would see the story on the internet.

McCabe has written a book, and he appears regularly on CNN, and he volunteers his time with the Innocence Project, working on the cases of wrongly convicted prisoners. Jill is getting an M.B.A. while continuing to do the overnight shift at the emergency room. But they’ve come to accept that they will never be entirely free.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST ON TIMELINE

*********

[stcvic]

hello, my dudes ! i’m lauren, i’m twenty years old, i live in the est, i use she/her pronouns, and i make up 1/2 of the dynamic duo that brought newcastlehqs to a computer near you ! honestly, i would tell you about myself but i don’t want to bore you so i’ll keep it short and sweet: i spend all of my money on movies and concert tickets, i could live off of coffee ice cream and cool ranch doritos ( a fitness icon ), and i love you. now that that’s over, i’d now like to introduce you all to this little devil, STEVIE ADLER.

( zoey deutch, 22, she/her. ) – hey, jagger’s pub ? it’s me, stevie adler, y’know the town’s hoyden. listen, i’m not going to make it to work tonight because i’ve got a gig with my band, saturdaze. i’m the keyboardist / bassist and they really need me even though they keep denying my request to cover electric feel by MGMT.

background !

stevie adler was born in newcastle, vermont to marcus adler and andrea adler.

she has three brothers cooper (25), axel (20), and graham (16).

her interest in music came solely from her dad who used to be a sound technician for very famous groups like aerosmith, the stones, and fleetwood mac ( how she got her name ! ) but he decided to hang up the passport for a while and now he’s visiting sound tech professor at the university of vermont and occasionally works the soundboard for the red light lounge whenever there’s a show.

she doesn’t have a relationship with her mom at all seeing as she left marcus, stevie, and her siblings because she claims she was ‘fed up with the fact that her husband was always traveling and leaving her to raise the kids on her own.’ that wasn’t the case though, she was just being dramatic and needed an excuse to leave. the real reason, which was later disclosed, was that she was pissed marcus’ career could flourish while hers was on the back burner. so in short: stevie’s selfish mother left her family to pursue a career and spoil herself while stevie’s dad was pursuing his career to foot the bills and provide for his family.

her dad never remarried or fell back in love with anyone else so it was just him, cooper, stevie, axel, and graham.

because she grew up around all boys, it was only a given she’d pick up on some of their ‘tendencies’ for example: as opposed to picking up a barbie doll and playing dress up like some girls and boys, she picked up a baseball and a bat instead. there wasn’t a day that went by where she wasn’t outside playing getting bruised up or scabby knee’d. she was apart of several different sports teams as a kid and even through her teenage years, but ( this is kinda cheesy ) she always managed to keep her interest in music just as relevant. 

personality !

okay, so her label is the hoyden which is basically just a jazzy word for a tomboy and carefree, boisterous girl and that’s exactly what stevie is: a carefree tomboy.

i pretty much shaped her off of a few of my favorite characters –– nick miller ( new girl ), ilana wexler ( broad city ), gina linetti ( brooklyn nine nine ), blake henderson ( workaholics ) !

she might be off-putting to some people because they think she comes off as ‘mean’ and ‘intimidating’ but really they’re just mislabeling her sarcasm and her resting bitch face. but tbh, she is kind of intimidating at first glance, she can’t help it though.

did i mention she’s very sarcastic ? a true Smart Ass™

she isn’t a serious person whatsoever, i know this is bad but she’s the type of person to start laughing at the most inappropriate times. she has no idea how to handle serious situations either so if she sees someone crying she’s just like ... um ... yikes ? i gtg.

SHE IS LITERALLY THE EMBODIMENT OF THIS VINE, THIS IS LITERALLY STEVIE WHEN I SAY SHE ISN’T SERIOUS AND DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE SERIOUS SITUATIONS ! I AM YELLING ! 

she hates showing any form of emotional vulnerability and hardly ever cries in front of anyone or ever for that matter because her daddy didn’t raise no bitch ! that’s probably why she doesn’t know what to do when she sees people cry ? she might come off apathetic because of it ?

growing up around all boys, she developed a really thick skin and tough exterior that’s pretty hard to cut through. it takes a lot to set her off when it comes to something that’s targeted towards her. however, if someone crosses one of her friends or someone she cares about, she will not hesitate to throw hands.

certified queen of impetuous decisions and running away from her responsibilities !

in short: she’s just a very sarcastic, rather comical person who is careless almost 99%, but she tries and she’s a true ride or die homie !

CHECK OUT HER MUSINGS PAGE BECAUSE IT’S BASICALLY HER AND I’M JUST SHIT AT EXPLAINING THINGS !

possible connections !

wifey for life(y) ! lmao this title is kind of dumb but basically i want a connection where stevie and said muse are basically like abbi and ilana from broad city ! if you don’t watch the show then don’t worry, honestly, i’ll give you the run down: they’re basically two peas in a pod ( some people probs think they’re dating ) and there isn’t a day that goes by when they aren’t getting themselves into some sort of situation that you pretty much only see on a movie screen or just ... trouble. when they aren’t wreaking havoc, they kick back and smoke weed, drink, talk about life, etc. if someone tries to come for one of them, the other will be the first in line to throw hands and defend their ass.

the yin to her yang ! just another way of saying polar opposite and although they might not be carbon copies of each other and probably wouldn’t been seen together ever had it been in a societal norm situation, the two of them somehow click ? maybe it was their similar taste in music that brought them together or the fact they bonded over something similar. maybe they could’ve met back in the day at a party or a concert and they were the only two people who knew every word to every song/certain song ? we can definitely talk it out more if you’re interested !

friends with benefits ! think mila kunis and justin timberlake circa friends with benefits. no emotions, just sex. i would say maybe they’ll start catching feelings, but stevie is pretty emotionally shut down so it could be an unrequited love thing – who knows ? regardless, their dynamic is far from awkward. they aren’t afraid to blatantly text the other to come thru, bang a few out of their system, then end the night tossing back shots at the pub, catching a movie, clubbing at the red light lounge or grabbing a bite to eat.

are we hating, are we fucking ? ( shoutout childish gambino ) because i live for the drama and the thrill, i kind of want a dynamic where they literally cannot stand each other but the sexual tension is there. like they’re constantly at each other’s throats and throw shade at one another just to get a rise out of one another. they act like the can’t stand it, but they’re lowkey into it and enjoy the playful, cut-throat banter ! maybe it’s lead to a few hookups, maybe it hasn’t happened yet, who knows ?

trivia buddy / competitor ! okay this is so random, but i figured it was pretty different ? since stevie grew up playing a lot of sports with her brothers and being on different teams as a kid, she has a very competitive nature about her. if someone challenges her to do something, she’ll most likely drop everything to do it. she loves a little friendly competition. so, since astro’s has a trivia tuesdays night, i was thinking maybe her and said muse could either be on a team together or they go head to head every tuesday and they make a deal, whoever loses that night has to buy the other person a round of drinks or something ! i don’t know i thought this was cute !

good influencee / bad influencer ! someone who’s constantly worrying about stevie while she’s trying to get them to worry less, to let loose and actually experience life for a change rather than being so ... cautious and hesitant, rather than sticking to the same old shit different day sort of thing. while she’s trying to get them to worry less, they’re constantly trying to get stevie to think things through before making impetuous decisions. 

the crushee ! listen... someone who has a crush on stevie, someone who’s insistent that they’ll pierce through that exterior and show her that not all love is bad. someone who’s drawn to her but she can’t understand why ( or maybe she doesn’t even know that they are ).

ALSO HERE ARE MORE I JUST THOUGHT OF BUT I’M TOO EXCITED TO ELABORATE SOME ARE SELF EXPLANATORY THO

regular / favorite customer at the bar !

one of her brother’s best friends !

drinking buddy ! 

salt sibling ! 

confidant / cornerstone !

roommate !

[lichfucker]

I'm 23 and I'm only just beginning to wonder if I'm a lesbian.. how do you know?

first of all let me just say that it’s completely normal for you to only start questioning at 23. you’re not “too late,” you’re not “behind the curve,” nobody can get upset with you (least of all yourself!) for not having “figured it out” sooner. you might never really “figure it out.” and that’s okay, too! questioning can be a lifelong process, especially for lesbians; compulsory heterosexuality and conventional narratives about women’s experiences in heterosexual relationships tend to make it particularly difficult for lesbians to figure out whether or not they’re actually attracted to men in any capacity.

compulsory heterosexuality is basically the idea that straightness is assumed and enforced by patriarchal society. obviously a big part of this is straightness being considered the “default” and anything else a deviation from the norm (y’know the way straight people can look at a 2-year-old can call him a “ladykiller”), but particularly for lesbians compulsory heterosexuality includes the idea that we must like and want men (because under patriarchy, a woman’s worth is based on being sexually available to men) and if we find ourselves not liking or wanting men then we must not be trying hard enough. under patriarchy, we’re fed this notion that (straight) relationships are meant to be emotionally unfulfilling for us-- that we’re meant to be stressed and uncomfortable and unhappy, because to be a man’s wife is to be his mother but also have sex with him, to take care of him because he is a man who needs our help-- that we should expect to give and give and give and receive little in return. we’re told that being with men is supposed to be frustrating. so it can be especially difficult to find that line between “I’m unhappy in this relationship because that’s how this relationship is supposed to be” and “I’m unhappy in this relationship because I don’t want to be with men at all.”

(to illustrate this: a good friend of mine, when we were 13, had a “crush” on one of our other friends. when this friend started to like him back, they went on one “date,” and he didn’t feel right about it, and he asked himself “why don’t I like her? I should be liking her at this point” and that’s how he realized he was gay. when I kissed a boy for the first time at 15, my immediate thought was “kissing is weird and kind of gross, why do people do this?” and I was so uncomfortable being with him that I didn’t want to tell anybody we were together and in a panic I broke up with him in a text message when he asked me to come over to his house and meet his parents. later that year I realized I liked girls, but it took another 3 years before I realized I was a lesbian. when my friend found himself not liking the girl he was supposed to like, he could immediately identify it as a sign of his gayness. when I found myself not liking the boy I was supposed to like, I thought that he was just the wrong boy.)

because compulsory heterosexuality mandates that we must like men, that we must carve out space to let men romantically and sexually into our lives, a lot of lesbians have a lot of male celebrity crushes and crushes on male fictional characters-- or even just men in our real lives who are inappropriate or completely unavailable to us. this way we can say, “see, look! I definitely like boys! I have a crush on dav/eed d/ggs!” while also being safe in the assumption that nothing will ever happen between you and dav/eed d/ggs, because you will never be in a situation where being in a relationship with him is possible or appropriate. if you find yourself crushing on celebrities or fictional characters, or people you know who are otherwise taken or unavailable (I had a crush on one boy for, like, 2 years, and I chose him deliberately because I knew he had a crush on one of my friends and I knew he would never settle for me as long as she was still around), you may be a lesbian.

related: if you find yourself deliberately choosing men to have crushes on, rather than letting feelings for them develop naturally, you may be a lesbian. off the top of my head, I can think of three separate instances where I went “I don’t have a crush on anybody? oh no, I need to have a crush on somebody” and looked around the room and picked someone, and two separate instances where other people approached me and said “it’s really obvious you have a crush on x” and I said “oh I guess you’re right” and took it as fact. this is also compulsory heterosexuality at work.

I mention this because, for me, just starting to be cognizant of my attraction to women (the first crush on a girl I recognized as a crush was when I was 15) wasn’t enough to make me say “I’m a lesbian.” I looked back at my lifetime of comp het and went “ahh, I see what this is, I’m bisexual.” obviously there’s nothing wrong with being bi, and there are plenty of people who think they’re lesbians but later discover that they’re actually bi. but that wasn’t the case for me. I just took it at face value: “I’ve ‘liked’ boys before, so I can’t be a lesbian.” and that isn’t always true! many lesbians have liked and been with men because of comp het, and many lesbians have liked and been with men because they were at one point attracted to men but have since become lesbians, perhaps through trauma or just through identities and preferences changing over time.

if you find yourself in a position where most of your friends aren’t cis or straight, there’s a really good chance you may also not be cis or straight. like 9 out of the 10 friends I had in middle and high school turned out not to be straight, and so being in an environment where I was surrounded particularly by other lbpq women made it a lot easier to accept that I liked girls, because it made sense that I would have yet another thing in common with all of these people around me.

this was both a blessing and a curse in that in high school I never questioned that I was bi. I only ever talked about or emphasized  my attraction to women, because, among other things, “attraction to women” was a big unifying factor for my friend group, so I never examined the attraction to men I thought I’d had. it actually wasn’t until college, where I ended up spending a lot of time with one straight girl in particular, that I realized I don’t actually like men at all. she spent an entire school year gushing to me about boys she liked or had met on dating apps or whatever, and it took me months of saying “him? really? he’s so... average-looking and boring” about a wide variety of men (so it wasn’t just that my “type” was different from hers) before I realized, oh, no man in a very long time has made me actually feel anything, compared to the dozens of women I see walking across the quad every day who are so beautiful they give me heart palpitations.

so for me, personally, that’s how I knew I was a lesbian: my love for women was irrefutable, while my “attraction” to men couldn’t stand up to any sort of scrutiny. but that process took a long time, and it was difficult, and it felt like shit-- if you scroll back in my blog to april of last year (... don’t, though) I made a bunch of 4 am crisis posts crying, “deciding I was bi had been so easy, why is thinking of myself as a lesbian so hard? why does this change suck? why do I feel so bad about the idea that I don’t want to be with men?” (you can probably guess why, after a lifetime of directly and indirectly being told that I had to want to be with men, I felt bad about not wanting to be with men).

anyway, your journey will, inherently, look different from mine, because we have different lives and different experiences. there’s no one right way to be a lesbian. questioning might be hard, and it might take a while, and that’s okay! and if you come out of this experience and realize, no, you’re not a lesbian, that’s okay, too! and it’s okay if you decide you want to shelf this and come back to it later. there’s no rush. there’s no deadline you have to meet. nobody is gonna tell you you’re not allowed to be a lesbian if you didn’t figure it out before you turned 25. I promise.

please feel free to come back and talk to me again any time you like. I love you. you’re gonna be fantastic.

[mindior]

The Devil Wears Gucci (Preview)

A/N: Hello! I deleted the first post of this story because I didn’t like the cover and I wanted to edit some things a bit, but most of it is the same. Enjoy~

Description:  Jimin begins his summer working at a high end fashion magazine as a regular desk employee before he then earns the most feared position in the market: Kim Taehyung’s assistant.

Pairing: Jimin x Taehyung, Jimin x Jungkook

Warnings: Explicit wording

CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3

‘’Two what?’’

Hoseok heavily sighed on the other line.

‘’Four, soy caramel lattes, decaf, no fat.’’

Jimin furrowed his brows at the distant sound of Hoseok’s voice through the heavy crowd, working his way through two women dressed in black fur coats walking cocker spaniels before he made it to the door of Starbucks and nearly threw himself inside.

‘’U-uh, ok. Two coffe—‘’

‘’Four, Park Jimin, four! Soy caramel decaf nonfat lattes, and you need to be back in ten minutes. He’s almost done shooting.’’

A break of sweat started of Jimin’s forehead and his palms went cold, that familiar piercing cut of anxiety crushing through the pit of his stomach.

Two weeks ago, Jimin was laying down in his bed staring at the ceiling eating a bag of white cheddar puffs while season 1 of America’s Next Top Model played on his TV, the season he’s watched six times total and was working to get that lucky seven. Exactly a week later, he was rushing to wipe bread crumbs from the side of his mouth as he ran down the street from the subway directly into Dulcet Kalon, the high end fashion magazine company located on 59th and Ashwood, right in the East Village.

Never had Jimin thought that he’d be working this summer, let alone, in one of the most couture high fashion companies in the world.

Before his junior year of college ended, Jimin had signed himself up to be considered to work at local magazine and fashion corporations, as a part of a summer program offered by his school, the Fashion Institute of Technology. He had signed back in December, and by May, it was something he had completely forgotten about. Plus, it was never something he thought that he’d be able to do, as selected individuals were some of the top in the class, and Jimin never considered himself to be even close.

But like a sweet surprise, Jimin had gotten a call from his school counselor that he had gotten chosen, and he had gotten chosen for the company everyone had wanted.

Dulcet Kalon, or, Sweet Beauty, as it can be translated to literally meaning, is one of the biggest fashion and beauty blockbusters in the world, let alone the country. A fashion magazine and a modeling agency mixed together, DK has specialized for decades branding some of the most successful models society has ever seen, let alone having some of the prettiest magazine covers. Not only are they a couture fashion corporation, but they’re sister to Vogue, as they’re both under Conde Nast. A chance to intern here is a direct ticket to being able to work at any fashion journalism related company in the world, and here Jimin was, chosen to do it.

Of course, it was an amazing opportunity, and the people there were great. He got his own desk right across from Jung Hoseok, the senior two-year employee who was shadowing Jimin for the two month span he was going to be there. But, there was one person there who Jimin was scared of every time he saw them, and that was the most infamous model in the label.

Kim Taehyung, the ‘’Prince’’ of the company, the ‘’Diva,’’ or his most used label, the ‘’Devil.’’ Jimin didn’t know much about him, he rarely ever saw him and if he did, it was a few second passerby on their floor or walking out the building in an expensive fur coat on his way to his limo.

But, even though he was nearly a ghost to the floor, Jimin had found himself being scared of him, and it didn’t help that he was almost on every cover displayed in the building. Taehyung was one of their best models, if not unbiasedly the best, and he was endorsed and sponsored by several brands, including his personal favorites Gucci and Puma. Even though Taehyung is an independent model, he is still loyal to Dulcet, and comes back more often than any of the models who are free signed.

While as successful as he is, it isn’t hard to be aware of the presence that is created whenever Taehyung enters a room. Everyone looks away, walks the other direction, stops what they’re saying, hides their food, or goes to another room. In the least, Jimin knows he isn’t the only one who feels a weird air whenever he sees him; it’s almost like he can’t ever look directly at him.

According to Hoseok, people don’t treat Taehyung that way for no reason. His attitude matches his nicknames; he is a diva paired with a naturally sharp tongue and a gaze that could scare hundreds. He’s not scared to say what’s on his mind and be brutally honest, and he has the looks to back him up. The only real downside, is that because of this, Taehyung has never had a longterm assistant, which is the norm for every model to function properly, especially in DK. Every assistant has either quit because they can’t keep up with Taehyung’s requests, or are fired because they looked the wrong way (which actually happened). The longest one he’s had lasted for four months, and the story about that one is super hush hush, so Jimin’s never asked. But since several people want to work at the company, they always give them that job.

‘’It’s the ‘garbage’ job,’’ Hoseok once told Jimin at his desk rearranging a stack of papers.

‘’Anyone who wants to work here always starts with that job after something small like cleaning or front desk. They only last like two weeks, it’s a game of quit or be fired, and quit usually wins.’’

Thankfully, Jimin has missed that whole loophole and gets to work at the 22nd floor at his desk, minding his business and taking care of small tasks.

Which is exactly why when Jimin woke up and finally got to work on time did he almost faint when Hoseok told him he needed to get coffee for Kim Taehyung.

His assistant this time called in-sick (which is a direct way of getting fired), and there was no one to get his early daily fix of Starbuck’s coffee in the morning; not before Hoseok or Namjoon could come in to still in for a day until another assistant was assigned.

Jimin had tried avoiding communicating or doing any work for Taehyung as much as he could, but yet here he was, second week on the job, doing the exact thing he tried to avoid.

Barely managing the phone against his ear as he shifted through the crowd and stepped inside of the Starbucks, Jimin walked himself straight into the line and let out a deep breath.

‘’Yeah, sure, got it.’’

‘’Repeat it back.’’

Jimin pulled back to look at the time on his phone before putting it back to his ear.

‘’Four cappuccinos, I’ll be back as soon as possible.’’

‘’Four soy lat–!’’

Exact second, a bulk body bumped into Jimin from the back and his phone went sailing to the floor, making an annoyingly loud clatter, and to his worst fear, ending the call.

‘’Shit,’’

Feeling the color leave his face, Jimin leaned down and quickly picked the phone up, first checking for the call than looking for any possible scratches. Completely annoyed, Jimin turned to the culprit who had bumped into him angrily.

‘’Can you act like you have two fucki—‘’

There were two things Jimin could do at this second. He could close his mouth and turn around as if nothing happened, or he could continue to stare at the incredible piece of art that was staring directly back at him.

A sharp cut jawline was the first thing Jimin saw, next to a pair of dark round brown eyes that looked back at him curiously. He was tan, whomever he was, and was wearing a leather jacket with something that looked like sheep fur around the lining and hoodie, a dark black shirt underneath, next to some leather pants and some boots. Aside from his out of season attire, his hair was dark and parted to the side and shined beautifully even under the horrible fluorescent lights. He had not one imperfection on his skin, and before Jimin could stare any longer, his concentration broke when he smiled.

‘’Excuse me.’’ He said, and Jimin blinked his eyes twice and looked down at the floor.

‘’Oh, uh, s-sorry.’’

Jimin started to turn around but his voice stopped him.

‘’I wasn’t paying attention when I walked in. I’m sorry about your phone, I hope it didn’t get scratched or cracked or anything.’’

It was as if Jimin had completely forgotten about his phone in the seconds he had seen him, and he glanced down at it and looked up at the man.

‘’No its fine, the phone is ok.’’

The man’s smile reached his eyes, and Jimin admired his nicely fit and small buttoned nose. Jimin started to turn around again before he was stopped.

‘’I hope this isn’t inappropriate to ask, but do you work at Dulcet Kalon?’’

Jimin looked back at him and lifted an eyebrow. He wasn’t wearing the ID tag around his neck or had any obvious signs of identifications to the company, so how the unknown man knew he worked for DK was beyond Jimin, but he was pretty so he was going to let it slide.

‘’Uh, yeah, matter of fact I do.’’

The man nodded at this with a light smile.

‘’Cool.’’

Raising an eyebrow slightly, Jimin turned around and unlocked his phone, looking for any missed calls or text messages from Hoseok, but nothing. He could have single handedly accidently just gotten himself fired, and the mere thought of that happening was enough to make him sick. But he had to at least get this right, he couldn’t have the call end prematurely and show up with the wrong order of coffees. If only he could remember what Hoseok said the first time, it seemed like everyone at work talked so fast and Jimin couldn’t keep up at all.

‘’Thre—no four, four…lowfat? Nonfat. No, low fat.’’

Jimin stopped himself and placed a hand over his face in frustration, and his anxiety grew worse when the line moved up, and there was one more person in front. If only he could just hear it one more time, there was no way he was about to allow himself to stand in front of this cashier and stutter on his own words for what he needed to order.

‘’Four…lowfat, c-chai?’’

Just as Jimin had whispered that to himself, the line moved up again and now he was face to face with the cashier.

Nervously wringing his fingers together, Jimin cracked a half-smile at the female who smiled back at him.

‘’Hello, how may I help you?’’

Quickly, Jimin fumbled with his phone and unlocked it as if the answer was laid right there before him. Well, maybe it technically was, he could easily call Hoseok but he would need to go to the back of the line; he couldn’t just call someone while people waited behind him. On top of that, he needed to be back within 10 minutes, and Starbucks was a nice 4 minute walk alone from the building.

‘’I believe it’s four soy caramel nonfat decaf lattes.’’

The young man from behind Jimin nodded at the cashier with a star-stellar smile as she glanced between the two for confirmation.

‘’Is that your order sir?’’ she asked Jimin, and taken back by the mystery man’s sudden inquiry, he snapped his head to the cashier and flashed a grin.

‘’Yes, yes it is.’’

Just as he had turned to say thank you, the man was already out the door and back into the busy summer NYC street, gone into the crowd.

[norihisahyuga-archived]

Cemetery Nights

Numai Mitsuru & Kiriyama Kazuo Battle Royale 2000~ words. Sfw.

Kazuo asks the Kiriyama Family to come to a cemetery with him, during which he tells them the truth about his biological parents. Mitsuru can’t imagine a world without the Boss, and quite frankly, he doesn’t want to. And he definitely doesn’t want to think about how hard and hopelessly he’s fallen for Kazuo in the process. Modern AU, non-Program. Part of this.

“I think it’s kinda cute that you have a crush on him,” Hiroshi says later that night.

“Shut the fuck up, it’s not a crush.” Ryuhei leans across the backseat of the van and punches Hiroshi so hard on the arm the other boy jumps. “And if I did, it wouldn’t be on fucking Motobuchi.”

Mitsuru rolls his eyes as Ryuhei and Hiroshi commence arguing, Sho jumping into the middle of it because he happens to be sitting between the two of them. They physically fight too much to ever let them sit next to each other, and Sho has been happy to play peacemaker. Besides, it isn’t like Kazuo is ever going to let him drive the van, and it isn’t like Mitsuru is ever going to give up his permanent place in the passenger seat, so the others just have to deal with it.

Mitsuru still remembers when Kazuo first showed them the van, blandly forbidding any of them from trying to have it painted. My father bought it on my request was his placid answer when Mitsuru had asked about it, and he’d left it at that. Kazuo and his father don’t much get along.

“Where are we going, boss?” He drags his head up from where it’s been leaning against the window for the past half an hour. Kazuo had asked them if they were interested in going somewhere with him, and they’d all agreed without even asking where that was.

At fifteen years old, Kazuo should not have a license. Mitsuru knows he has one, though, has seen him hand it to the police on more than one occasion when they’ve been pulled over. Routine traffic stops, always, because Kazuo’s driving is, like everything else he does, perfect. He never speeds, never breaks traffic laws, never gives in to Ryuhei’s backseat, road rage-fueled suggestions. The fact he can do this at such a young age is yet another quality to dazzle Mitsuru.

“We are going to the cemetery,” Kazuo informs him, and the sudden silence that overtakes the vehicle is so thick that a knife might not be able to saw through it. “I have done this alone every year. I think I have known the four of you long enough to tell you the truth.”

The truth? About someone dying? Mitsuru presses his lips together at the thought, but he can’t possibly think of who that person must be. A family member? Probably a grandparent, because in all of the pictures of his family, Kazuo is the only one standing with his parents. Mitsuru has studied those pictures more often than he should have. Maybe a grandparent who resembled Kazuo, because countless hours of studying have failed to reveal a resemblance between Kazuo and his parents.

Ryuhei is the one who clears his throat and tries to break the stillness between the five of them. “Someone close to you die or something, Boss?”

“My parents when I was a child.” Kazuo says this with a perfectly straight face, his voice as banal as ever. “My adoptive father told me when I was quite young. He wanted me to be aware.”

“Holy shit.” Mitsuru speaks without thinking, moves without thinking, his hand stretching out to clasp Kazuo’s shoulder. “Boss, we didn’t… I didn’t have any idea. I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve no need to be concerned about me, Mitsuru. I assure you I’m no worse for the wear.” Kazuo, for the first time in memory, turns his eyes away from the road to meet Mitsuru’s, and he snatches his hand back immediately. “I’m going to take flowers to their grave tonight.”

“Anniversary?” Mitsuru asks. His imagination is running wild; his hand feels like it’s on fire.

“Of my mother’s death, yes. I always bring flowers for both of them on that day. I was told my father was never the same after her passing, so in a way, they both died that day.” Kazuo turns his eyes back to the road, his voice softer, musing. “I was still in my mother’s womb and I am told that I survived by a very slim margin. It was quite an experience to hear about.”

Mitsuru wishes there was something he could say because he feels like this is an experience that warrants a proper reaction. If they weren’t in the car, he might have offered Kazuo a hug just because it’s the thing to do. He has in the past; Kazuo has never been hesitant about accepting.

It jars him, not that Kazuo’s biological parents are dead. They could very well have lost Kazuo.

There is no comment from the backseat for a change and Mitsuru lets his head rest against the window, his mind racing. A world without Kazuo in it… He doesn’t want to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about how close they were to a reality just like that one.

After all, Kazuo had done more than save him from having his entire hand mutilated that day. Kazuo had changed his entire fucking life just by being a part of it.

The cemetery appears not long after, ringed by a wrought-iron fence. There is no need to ask how they’ll get in when it’s clearly after hours; they just find a place where they can climb over, Sho for once offering no complaint about messing up his clothes in the process. It’s normal for Mitsuru to keep his hands on Kazuo’s waist to guide him up and over, but this time, it feels… Different.

Halfway over the fence, Kazuo even looks back at him, looks down from where a few strands of black hair have tumbled over onto his forehead. Without a word, he smoothes them back into place, then slides the rest of the way over the fence; Mitsuru tosses him the flowers before following.

The walk to the graves is a long one, and for once, all five of them are entirely silent.

He wants to say something, offer Kazuo some sort of comfort— comfort he knows Kazuo doesn’t need— but he settles for carrying one of the bouquets of flowers when Kazuo asks him to. It occurs to him that every time Kazuo has done this alone, he’s carried them alone, and Mitsuru feels honored to be able to do this for him, even this small thing. It’s something.

There’s a lot he wishes he could say, and not just about this. Every time he’s close to Kazuo— in the car, walking next to him— he feels that urge to speak, to chase away the silence and tell Kazuo how he feels about him. It feels so certain and strong that it’s almost a tangible thing, something he should be able to reach out and touch, pluck out of the air and drop into Kazuo’s hands. But he can’t. The only way Kazuo will ever know the truth is if he tells him… And he feels awful for thinking about that now when they’re on the way to Kazuo’s parents’ graves.

The headstones are closer to the heart of the cemetery, nestled next to each other in the earth, and Kazuo kneels down before one of them to place one bouquet on the green grass. He doesn’t have to ask Mitsuru to pass him the other one; Mitsuru does it as soon as he holds a hand out.

Part of him wishes he could say something. Not to Kazuo, but to his parents’. Thank them for the wonder, the miracle that is their son, but that would be inappropriate. So he just bows his head.

When Kazuo stands, Mitsuru reaches out to touch his shoulder. “Yes, Mitsuru?”

“It’s… Really too bad that your parents passed away before you got to know them,” he says, feeling something tight in his chest twist. “But I’m glad you made it out of that.”

With only the moon to light this scene, the lights of the city far enough away to have no bearing on the darkness, Mitsuru is reminded of just how beautiful Kazuo is up close. It was something he had noticed the day they met— bleeding from his head, stinking of vomit, his fingers twisted and broken— and something he never fails to notice now. If anyone could be around someone as pretty as Kazuo Kiriyama and not notice it on a regular basis, well, Mitsuru counts them as lucky.

“We’re all glad,” Ryuhei adds after a moment, and Mitsuru is surprised to hear him of all people speak. Even if he can’t quite tear his eyes away from Kazuo’s face. “You’re the best thing to happen to us, Boss, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to you…”

Hiroshi even chimes in. “They’re right. You’re the best, Boss. It’s… It sucks your parents ain’t around anymore, but it’s good that you are. That we got to meet you and all.”

“It’s not very poetic, but they’re right, Kazuo-kun,” Sho adds after a moment. “We’re different people for having met you, and we are very grateful to have you with us.”

One delicate black brow arches, though Kazuo’s voice does not change in tone. “Thank you, I suppose. I had never considered it more than just a fact that I survived that day.”

Mitsuru squeezes his shoulder before letting go. “Y’know, you’re important to m— Us. All of us.”

If Kazuo had noticed his near slip-up, he makes no comment about it. The five of them start their trek back through the cemetery, sans flowers, while Mitsuru tries to mentally calculate how fast the car would have to be going for him to die on impact if he jumped out of it. Almost slipping up in front of Kazuo like that… He can’t believe himself, can’t believe how bad this has gotten.

As per the norm, he gives Kazuo an additional little boost over the fence, then follows behind him, rolling his eyes at Ryuhei bitching about how high the fence is. When Sho bumps his shoulder against Mitsuru, Mitsuru frowns at him, then catches the concern in Sho’s eyes as the taller boy gives him a friendly pat on the back before walking around him toward the van. Of course, Sho knows. Sho probably understands perfectly well where those words had come from. Mitsuru squeezes his eyes shut in horror at the thought, running a hand over his face.

“You seem to be upset about something,” Kazuo says suddenly.

Mitsuru glances behind them, satisfied Ryuhei and Hiroshi are far enough away— and bickering loudly enough— that they won’t pick up on this conversation. “It was a shock hearing you talk about that stuff, I guess. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, Boss.”

“As far as friends go, Mitsuru, you are a good one.” The fact Kazuo just complimented him is almost enough to stop him dead in his tracks, but he forges on just the same. “I suppose I did not think that someone might be concerned to hear about the accident.”

Mitsuru wishes he was good enough with words to explain how he feels, wishes he was half as poetic as Nakagawa was because then he might be able to properly explain to Kazuo just how he feels toward him. But all he has are the abilities he’s always had, and he doesn’t trust himself to not overdo it and give Kazuo reason to start analyzing his behavior to find out what’s actually wrong with him. So he fumbles for something to say, anything, but something that won’t make Kazuo wonder where all of this is coming from so suddenly.

“I’d be concerned if something like that happened, yeah,” he finally says lamely.

Kazuo hums, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, seemingly lost in thought. Mitsuru doesn’t really expect him to speak again, thinks the conversation might be over, when Kazuo looks him in the eye. “I believe that makes you the first person in my life to feel that way.”

“Bullshit,” Mitsuru says, and it’s not that he doesn’t believe Kazuo. It just shouldn’t be that way.

His house is the closest one, but Kazuo still drops him off last, and Mitsuru doesn’t question it, just like he doesn’t question any of the routines the two of them have made together.

As soon as Kazuo’s van is out of sight, Mitsuru screams into the crook of his arm just to let some of everything out, and then walks into his house like his entire life hadn’t changed tonight.

[angelwings246]

every homophobic excuse debunked

 “gays are disgusting and should die” ok this is not even trying to hide it 

“but i have gay friends” this works just as well as “i have poc friends” ie. it doesnt

“i dont believe in labels” this once again works as well as “colorblindness” ie. it doesnt. for further explanation, you dont believe in labels because you dont need them, because you are the majority and the norm and those society holds at the top. those who are marginalised use labels because how else would they find the people who are just like them?

“arent same-sex relationships just sex though?” are all heterosexual relationships just sex? no? that’s what you see in porn though, right? real talk, every relationship is different, regardless of gender identities. 

“you shouldnt be showing this kind of things to children.” this kind of relates to the previous one; the main reason is that people assume same-sex romances are “inappropriate” is because they think it has to mean sex. on that note ive seen so many television shows with heterosexual crushes and they’re always aimed towards like, 10 year olds so  representation for kids is also good because that helps them discover themselves and not feel alone and ashamed for having conflicting thoughts

“stop trying to make everybody gay” stop trying to make queer kids straight then lol. besides it doesnt even work like that. 

“<insert religious excuse here>” regardless of religion they always say the same thing first: be kind to people. if youre using this excuse then thats a convoluted way to say the same thing as the first one.

“they cant have kids so they shouldnt be allowed to get married” should infertile heterosexual couples allowed to marry? what about people who are too old to have kids? stop being hypocritical. also congrats on being homophobic AND transphobic in one sentence. 

“its unnatural” basically every social species alive shows homosexual behaviours [wikipedia] [not wikipedia] [also not wikipedia], including but not limited to: penguins, monkeys, lions, giraffes, birds, foxes, cows, fish, pandas, insects, and that one species of lizard that is all female

“i just dont like it when they, you know, shove it in my face.” how many times have you seen a heterosexual couple making out or cuddling in public eg. the park, the bus, the movie theatre. what about in media? compared to the number of homosexual couples, who is the one “shoving things” in your face?

“coming out as straight/there should be straight pride.” every single day is straight pride, especially in those countries where it is illegal to be lgbtq. as mentioned earlier, heterosexual couples are much more prevalent in media. let us have one day.

“its just a modern day fad” people all throughout history have been lgbt, including: people in ancient egypt, ancient greece and rome, leonardo da vinci, michelangelo, and countless more whose histories have been erased. [sources 1 2 3]

“but its just my opinion” i understand that, but youre also being, for lack of better words, an asshat. let people be happy, let them love who they want because it doesnt affect you at the end of the day. please dont shoot people, pleast dont discriminate against people for holding hands, and don’t send a five year old actress with death threats because a show she was on had a side plot where a classmate had lesbian parents because yes that happened 

also just going to throw this in here, alan turing the inventor of the computer and one of the greatest factors in decoding the enigma code, thereby helping the allies win the war, basically died for being gay.

apologies for the lack of capitalisation and apostrophes.my goal with this is partially to rant, but also to educate as well as i can in my current mental state.  im just sick of seeing so much negativity everywhere. (might do a transphobia one too idk we’ll see, i cant be as personal with that one though)