#join the party campaign 2

[mushroom-madness]

🍄 Round 1: Match 25 🍄

🍄 Vote for your Favorite Fungi! 🍄

Descriptions Below ⬇️

Zommoth

“Zommoth is an optional/hidden boss in Bug Fables, fought at the end of the Leif's Request side story. It is also a cordyceps fungus inside a moth host and Leif (whom we also submitted) refers to it as their sibling. It was an experiment to see if bugs could be given magic by infecting them with the parasitic fungi, and the result was This Beast (affectionate). There are other cordyceps in the same laboratory it's found in, but Zommoth is the strongest and the most notable by a large margin. Very little is known about it as a person but it's stated to be a "guardian" figure and implied that it was protecting the lab and the other zombies in it. We are emotionally attached to it. Also, its color scheme is the nonbinary flag.” - Submission 47

“Oh boy, do we LOVE this fungus! Zommoth is a cordyceps beast and immortality experiment made in search of the power of the Everlasting Sapling, a thing said to bring eternal life. Unfortunately, as it often is with this sort of things, they the fungus and they the moth were both quite displeased with being involuntarily used for the sake of roaches chasing immortality. It killed everything in the lab and proceeded to take it over with their many, many fungal siblings.

Technically speaking, Zommoth is a blend of both the fungus and its moth host, now twisted beyond recognition and unable to separate even if they wanted to, but we do think it still counts. It's at least 50% fungus. Probably more, it doesn't seem to have had much use for most of those moth bits. It is loving sibling to many undead fungal hybrid abominations, and its hobbies include screaming, firing lasers at people who intrude into its lab, and crawling out of the water like a beast from a horror flick. We believe it deserves to compete, and also to win.” - Submission 52

“Oh yeah this thing is a fungus isn't it. Positively overflowing with cordyceps. Honestly kinda forgot about it for this but saw my mutual bring it up and I figured it would need the support. It sure is a Phucking Phungus” - Submission 68

“A zombie moth full of Cordyceps fungus, the result of a horrific experiment. “Sibling” to Leif, as in created through the same unethical project, if you read my last submission.” - Submission 105

Bug Fables Wiki

Room

“Room is a giant radiation-mutated mushroom and the partner of Lou (the smartest person in Laketown City) (a genius teenage girl) who often carries her on their shoulder and stuff and is the brawn to her brains. Also this is my way of saying listen to Join the Party campaign 2, it's D&D reskinned for a modern day superhero setting and hey. Mushrooms play a big part in the plot ;)” - Submission 58

No Wiki Available. Sorry Room, I’ve been trying to flesh out character descriptions so everyone has about the same amount included in the posts in an effort to create a fair vote and include links for everyone since I started including links for some. But I just. Couldn’t find anything other than the submitter’s description. Only image I could find too.

[silveraura]

Join the party campaign 2 ending spoilers

(I know it's been out for a while, but I'm also behind, so the spoiler warning is just in case)

Alright yesterday I finally finished listening to JTP campaign 2 and it made me tear up. So a little context to my day: I had just been hit with a rent increase and me and my housemate realised our basic rent is higher than we thought (and now even higher), so we won't be getting any rent allowence from the government after my birthday like we thought. Basically, it was a huge dissapointment and made me want to cry about capitalism.

So then I go do other stuff and start listening to the final bits of the finale episode. (Insert obligatory "what the fuck Eric?", but like, lovingly, because it was so good). Multitool makes the ultimate sacrifice, and asks for people to be able to do what they want without having to worry about earning enough to live. I feel a lump in my throat. That's a beautiful wish if I ever heard one, and my god do I want to not worry about rent rn.

Eric plays a scene between two people in a grocery store. It's so simple, yet it makes me wish to live in that world so much. The symbolism of the stretched out hand makes me tear up. I have so many things I want to do and a big source of worry and stress is money. I'm not even doing bad, I'm fine. If necessary I could even lean on my parents, that would just be complicated. It's just that every soul in my body wants to reject capitalism. I don't understand the economy (and barely want to) and investing. I have student debt and the safest way to get myself out of that after my studies is to keep working in this field, even if I am currently much more motivated about my dreams of writing books and doing art than my studies.

I know some people are gonna read this and think I'm acting like a child, and I should suck it up. It's not that bad, I don't have much to complain about. And they're right, in a way. I live in a world where I can escape to others, like the worlds of Join the Party, and honestly it helps me cope. But every now and then these fantasy worlds become so idealistically reachable but realistically fantastical that it hurts. It's not an insane farfetched idea to have universal basic income. But it feels terrifying to hope to transform the current systems of the world so much to allow for something so nice, because most things don't promise we're heading in that direction. As a gen z young adult I can barely dream of owning a house in the future, because our current housing market would have to annihilate itself will I ever get the chance to buy anything that permanent at all.

Anyway, long post, many thoughts, some tears. The conclusion is that I love Join the Party and they make me keep wishing for a better world. I'm not a pessimistic person, just some days the world hits me in the face and makes me cry a little. Those days I dream of hugging January, questioning doctor Morrow about physics, asking Val for advice about being queer and fashion and a bunch of things, nerding out with Milo, petting Tuna and Pizza, sharing oldest sibling struggle stories with Aggie, and much more. And maybe some people who read this feel the same.

[muzzlemouths]

I noticed you made a new DnD character.

If you tell me about your favorite character build I’ll tell you mine 😁

Oh man I love making builds I probably couldn't pick just one...

The build of my most recent character (Althos "Lucky Snout" Marfras) is a halfling dragonborn, and follows the Luckiest Man Alive trope because I just had to have a character that gets through life on charisma and coincidence alone.

His background/race/class all combine to give him just stupid amounts of luck. Which is great because he has -1 Strength and a tendency of running headfirst into danger.

I haven't gotten a chance to use him in a campaign yet but I'm really really excited to.

If I had to pick a build that's already been used in a campaign, it'd be my favorite d&d character, Nikaia! A paladin Aasimar with a knack for healing and a patience without end (but which is constantly tested by their party members lol)

Their art is done by the wonderful @71eh

Unfortunately they never ran over Lvl 2 because they're kiiiiinda a stick-in-the-mud and the party they were a part of leans more towards silly times and memery so they didn't really fit in. They're still my favorite though <3 I'll find another campaign to put them in one of these days.

ANYWAY. I love making d&d characters lol. What's YOUR favorite? :D

[thequeerteashop]

A little jtp fanart dump:

[aqua-ginger]

Wowza! A new fandom fic! I never thought I'd see the day!

New actual play podcast- this time it's join the party! I absolutely adore actual plays and superheroes, so season two has a special place in my heart! I told myself I'd write this once I caught up, and once I did, I wrote this in 24 hours.

Summary Below:

Milo gets really drunk at the Holiday party and decides to tell his best friend Lucas about being a superhero. Things Ensue.

or in the Words of Amanda McLoughlin:

Amanda: Every time you looked away, their mouths were like centimeters apart. And then one of them would, like, look to the side, they'd be like, "Oh, Taco Bell." And you'd be like, "No!"

[batshit-auspol]

So a bit of background first for our international followers: Clive Palmer is one of Australia's many mining billionaires who like to meddle in our country's politics, and as such he is utterly despised by all of Australia.

Picture for context:

He is most commonly known online by the title "Fatty McFuckhead", (problematic as it may be) because he tried to sue a youtuber for $500,000 for calling him that - and he lost. So the name stuck.

Up until his most recent foray into parliament, the legally certified Fuckhead was best known for his batshit business ventures, such as attempting to build "The Titanic 2" (failed) and trying to build a dinosaur theme park (also failed, but at least nobody got eaten by a T-Rex in this one).

For a very long time Clive played the role of sugar daddy to Australia's largest conservative party, the ironically named Liberal Party, until they had a falling out in 2012 after Clive claimed there was too much money influencing politics (lol), at which point he started his own party, days after saying he totally quit and wasn't fired and he only left because he didn't want to be a distraction.

His initial run at parliament was actually kinda successful, with Palmer's group winning 4 seats, plus a member from the "Motoring Enthusiasts Party" joined them too after accidentally getting elected and not knowing what the fuck to do.

Despite this initial success however, Palmer's party (which ran on basically no platform other than "I'm rich") hit an iceberg (titanic 2 achieved) and seven elected state and federal politicians quit within the first year.

By the time the next federal election rolled around, only one Palmer party candidate was still running for re-election. The most successful of this group - Jaquie Lambie - quit to sit as an independant and is still in parliament today.

Here she is with a painting of herself strangling Clive (she sells signed copies of this)

And here the senator is posting about liking sausage:

Anyway, we're getting to the point: which is the yellow posters. By the 2016 election, just two years after forming, the party was in complete freefall. It won just 0.01% of the vote at their second election, and it was announced shortly after that Clive was quitting politics and the party was being shut down. Australia breathed a sigh of relief.

It was, of course, short lived.

Clive, in desperate need of attention, restarted the party for the 2019 election, fielding candidates in every seat and spending $60 million in advertising in an attempt to win votes.

Every single candidate lost.

It was in this campaign however that Australia really started to fall out of love with Palmer, because most of that $60 million went towards putting up the world's least compelling marketing billboards on almost every single free space in the country.

For a good six months this was basically the only thing you would see in Australia if you went outside:

Clearly Graphic design is his passion. And yes, the genius did just straight up try and copy Trump's homework while changing a few words, hoping nobody would notice.

Very quickly these all got vandalised and it seemed the ad companies didn't care enough to replace them.

We could go on posting examples, there are thousands, but the best is definitely the one Ikea put up shortly after Clive lost the election:

In 2022, Clive's party contested the election AGAIN, this time also opting to send millions on spam text messages to every person in Australia begging for people to vote for him, as well as buying almost every youtube ad for a year, at the cost of $100 million.

He won a whopping one seat.

During this election Clive ran on an anti-lockdown, anti-vax platform with the slogan "freedom, freedom, freedom". That message, however, was slightly undermined when his goons, dressed in 'Freedom!' shirts, made national news for trying to beat up a protester who turned up at a rally dressed as an annoying text message, shouting "pay your workers" at Clive.

As if that wasn't bad enough, at another rally Clive knocked himself unconscious while trying to jump up on stage, and then a few weeks later was rushed to hospital with covid, while his anti-vax ads were still in regular rotation on TV, at which point it was also leaked to the press that Palmer had been alledgedly trying to buy Hitler's car.

Utterly humiliated, the party deregistered again shortly after the election.

Can't wait until he runs again in 2025.

Anyway, on the other "Clive tweeting Miss Kobayashi's Dragon" thing, we have no idea what that means but here's a screencap:

[rays-of-gold]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

General Strike 2028

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/11/rip-jane-mcalevey/#organize

Trump is a scab.

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/2/shawn_fain_2024_election

Trump is a scab and the Dems need unions. While working class votes were all over the place – lotsa turkeys voting for Christmas – union voters voted against Trump with near-unanimity.

Trump is a scab, the Dems need unions, and the Dems are not faithful friends to unions. Harris campaign advisor – her brother-in-law Tony West – is Uber's chief legal officer and the architect of Prop 22, California's scab law that formalized "gig work" labor violations. The fact that when the eminently guillotineable union-buster Howard Schultz tries to win a presidential nomination he does so in the Democratic party speaks volumes. If your political party has room for Michael Bloomberg, it doesn't have room for workers. Seriously, fuck that guy.

Trump is a scab, the Dems need unions, Dems are not faithful friends to unions, and unions keep the Dems honest. The #RedForEd teachers' strikes of 2018 kicked off a wave of public support for unions – and worker interest in unionization – that has only grown in the years since:

https://theweek.com/articles/764828/teacher-strikes-could-future-alt-labor

Trump is a scab, Dems need unions, Dems are not faithful to unions, unions make the Dems better, workers want unions, the public loves unions, and union membership is falling.

It's falling! This one is on the union leadership. Unions are sitting on gigantic warchests that they are resolutely not spending organizing the workers who are clamoring to join unions:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/ten-times-this

Unions have historic high cash reserves and are doing historically low organizing. This part is the unions' fault:

https://www.radishresearch.org/_files/ugd/2357dd_135794f88aa140f2962ee5c71ac31ff0.pdf

Or rather, it's the union bosses' fault. Union leadership in America, broadly speaking, sucks. Bosses love shitty unions, and the biggest unions obliged bosses for decades, with leaders who established suicidal practices like "two-tier contracts." That's a union where all the workers have to pay dues, but only the senior workers get protection from the union those dues fund:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/20/a-common-foe/#the-multinational-playbook

If you sat down and said, "Let's design a union contract that will ensure that every worker hired from this day forward hates unions," this is the contract you'd come up with.

Those shitty union bosses? They're on the way out. In 2023, the UAW held its first honest elections for generations, and radicals, led by Shawn Fain, swept the board. How did workers win their union back? They unionized more workers! Specifically, the UAW organized the brutally exploited Harvard grad students, and the Harvard kids memorized the union by-laws, and every time the corrupt old guard tried the steal the leadership election, one or another of them popped to their feet, reciting chapter-and-verse from the union's own rules and keeping the vote going:

https://theintercept.com/2023/04/07/deconstructed-union-dhl-teamsters-uaw/

Fain led the UAW to an historic strike: the UAW took on all three of the Big Three automakers, and cleaned their clocks. UAW workers walked away with three new contracts, all set to expire in 2028. Fain then called upon every union to bargain for contracts that run out in 2028, because if every union contract expires in 2028, we've got the makings of a general strike.

That means that when the next presidential election rolls around, it's going to be in the middle of the most militant moment in a century of US labor history. That is an opportunity.

Labor movements fight fascists. They always have. Trump and the GOP are not on the side of workers, notwithstanding all that bullshit about supporting workers by fighting immigration. Sure, when the number of workers goes up, wages can go down – if you're not in a union. Conservatives have never supported unions. They hate solidarity. Conservatives want workers to believe that they can get paid more if labor is scarcer, and there's some truth to that, but solidarity endures in good times and bad, and scarcity ends any time bosses figure out how to offshore, outsource, or automate your job. Scarcity is brittle.

"Law-and-order" candidates want to throw millions of our neighbors in jail. By the way, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, except for prisoners. American imprisons more people than any other country in the history of the world. We make Stalin's gulags and Chinese Cultural Revolution "re-education camps" look unambitious. American prisoners produce $9b worth of services and $2b worth of goods every year. The average US prison wage is $0.53/hour, but six states ban prison wages altogether and North Carolina caps them at $1/day:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

If you think immigrants are bad for American workers' wages, wait'll you see what legions of newly imprisoned slave laborers earning $0.53/hour do to those wages. Also: Californians just voted down a ballot measure to abolish prison slavery:

https://www.kqed.org/news/12013392/californians-voted-against-outlawing-slavery-why-is-prop-6-failing

The GOP are not on workers' side, and workers will not earn more under Trump's policies. Workers will earn more if they join a union, which they will only do if union leaders focus on organizing, which will only happen if we get rid of shitty union bosses. Start with this asshole, who belongs on the scrapheap of history:

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/16/nx-s1-5041345/teamsters-president-sean-obrien-addresses-the-republican-national-convention

With the GOP running the country for the next four years, it's tempting to look for hope in social movements. Maybe Trump will be so terrible that people will band together in informal solidarity networks and #Resist. History teaches us otherwise. The people who need the most help under Trump will be too embroiled in the fight for their own survival to put together the kind of movement that can make a difference.

As Astra Taylor reminded us on the Know Your Enemy podcast, Occupy and Black Lives Matter formed under Obama, when things were eleven kinds of fucked up, but at least ICE wasn't raiding our neighbors' homes:

https://know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/episodes/voting-what-is-it-good-for-w-astra-taylor-olufmi-taiwo-malcolm-harris-teaser

Occupy and BLM arose in a moment when people had just enough breathing room to think beyond their immediate survival. Even deeply flawed progressive administrations provide that breathing room.

By contrast, the #RedForEd teachers' strikes were a creature of the Trump years. Even if social movements struggle to find their power under authoritarian, far-right regimes, these are the conditions in which organized labor movements are renewed:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/to-unfuck-politics-create-more-union

Trump won the election because white men, especially young white men, voted for him, but he couldn't have done it without the votes of white women, and Black and Latino men. These voters may even conceive of themselves as being in favor of women's rights and of the rights of racial minorities, but they still voted for Trump, because some facet of their identity - their maleness, their whiteness - mattered more to them than everything else.

Bosses have always excelled at this game, bringing in Irish scabs to break strikes of German workers, or Polish scabs to break Irish workers' pickets. The Pinkertons relied on Black workers who were excluded from the lily white unions.

Our identities are complex and ever-shifting, and men who worry that women's power comes at their own expense, or whites who worry that this is true of Black and Latino power aren't entirely wrong. As the saying goes, "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

But there's one part of your identity that is inherently solidaristic: whether you are a worker or an owner. If you own the business, you make more money when your workers earn less. If you work at the business, every dollar you earn is a dollar your boss doesn't get. Workers' gains are bosses' losses.

That's why they want us to "vote with our wallets." It's not just that those votes are rigged for the people with the fattest wallets. By tricking you into thinking of yourself as a "consumer" who benefits from low prices, they get you to stop thinking of yourself as a worker who suffers from low wages.

This remains true even after decades of "market based pensions" that forced workers to flush their savings into the stock market casino, to be the perennial suckers at the table in a game where their bosses had an unbeatable house advantage:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

Even after generations of this, the share of the stock market owned by workers is a negligible crumb. This is how GDP can rise, the stock market can surge, and you stay poor. Workers' fortunes don't rise and fall with the stock market. They're not owners.

You're a worker even if you're well-paid. Tech workers are just figuring this out, after a generation-long con in which bosses convinced techies that they were temporarily embarrassed entrepreneurs who definitely didn't need a union:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#sell-job

Tech workers' power came from scarcity, and scarcity is brittle. Tech fired 260,000 workers in 2023, and another 100,000 in the first six months of 2024. Tech bosses have smashed their workers' power, and we know what comes next.

We know what comes next because we know how tech bosses treat workers they can replace. Amazon warehouse workers piss in bottles and get maimed on the job at a rate that outstrips any other warehouse worker in America. Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy didn't welcome coders with pink mohawks, facial piercings and black t-shirts with incomprehensible slogans because they liked tech workers and hated warehouse workers. Amazon coders owed the privilege to pee whenever they felt like it to their bosses' fear that they couldn't be replaced. Now that coders are replaceable, their kidneys are on the firing line.

"The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." If you want to see the future of a replaceable Amazon coder, look at the working conditions of a replaceable Amazon delivery driver, monitored by a fucking AI that punishes them if they open their mouths while driving:

https://jalopnik.com/amazon-bans-its-drivers-from-moving-their-own-lips-too-1851639312

Remember lovely Tim Cook, the guy who took over Apple from its sainted juice-cleansing cofounder Steve Jobs? Cook's accomplishment, the one that earned him the CEOship and a personal net worth in excess of $2 billion, was to figure out how to offshore Apple's production to Chinese factories where the working conditions were so terrible that they needed to install suicide nets to catch workers who couldn't face another minute on the job:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract

That's how Tim Cook treats workers he's not afraid of. Apple workers, no matter how well paid, no matter how pampered, need a union, because the instant Tim Cook can treat you like a Chinese iPhone assembly-line worker, he will.

Tim Cook had some choice words for Donald Trump this week:

Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity.

It wasn't just Cook. Every tech boss lined up to kiss Trump's ass: Bezos ("Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success"); Zuck ("Looking forward to working with you"); Pichai ("We are in a golden age of American innovation"); Nadella ("Congratulations President Trump"):

https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/i_wonder

You don't just deserve a tech union, you need one, now:

https://abookapart.com/products/you-deserve-a-tech-union.html

Organizing a 2028 general strike under Trump won't be easy. Workers won't be able to secure support from the courts or the NLRB, whose brilliant Biden-era leadership team is surely doomed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

But the NLRB only exists today because workers established unions when doing so was radioactively illegal and union organizers were beaten, jailed and murdered with impunity. The tactics those organizers used are not lost to the mists of time – they are a tradition that lives on to this day.

The standard-bearer for this older, militant, community-based union organizing was the great Jane McAlevey (rest in power). McAlevey ran organizing and strike drives as mass-movements; she wouldn't call for either without being sure of massive majorities, 70%-95%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey understood union organizing as a source of worker power, but also as a source of community power. When she helped organize the LA #RedForEd Teachers' strike, the teachers didn't just demand better working conditions for themselves, but also green space for their students, and protection from ICE raids for their students' parents. They did this under Trump, and built a turnout organization that flipped key seats and delivered a House majority to the Democrats in 2020.

In her work, McAlevey excoriated the kind of shittyass Dem power-brokers who just lost an election to a convicted felon and rapist, condemning their technocratic conceit that the path to electoral victory was in winning over precisely 50.1% of the vote in each tactically significant precinct. McAlevey said that's how you get the nightmarish Manchin-Synematic Universe where Dems can't deliver and workers don't vote for Dems. To transform America, we need the kinds of majorities that McAlevey and her fellow organizers won in those strike votes – majorities that produced durable, anti-fascist power that turned into electoral victories, too.

McAlevey died last summer. But she left behind a legion of people she taught and inspired, and a playbook we all can follow:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-strategy-organizing-obituary

We've got four years. Join a union. Take over its leadership. Create solidarity with your fellow workers and your community. Bargain for a contract. Make it expire in 2028. Get ready.

Because in 2028, we're having a general strike.

[imdoingsortagay]

Rio x reader x agatha smut where the reader is a brat do they punish reader by edging them over and over and they DP reader 🫣

Let's Get Screwed !

Pairing: Agatha Harkness X Rio Vidal x Reader

Word count: 3.0k words

Summary: They weren't paying you any attention and so you took it upon your hands to get it

Warnings: 18+ smut, Mommy and Mistress kink, Kate is here, Anal( R receiving), fingering ( R receiving), double penetration, sort of soft agatha, toys, soft moment.

This neighborhood party hosted by Dottie was getting boring. You didn’t want to go at all and wanted to spend the day at home but your neighbors had begged you to join along as they didn’t want to be stuck hearing about the other ladies. 

Rio and Agatha had taken a bit of a liking to you and you didn’t mind the company on nights where you didn’t have to go to work, which lead to a situationship between the three of you.

They were happily married to each other while you were their third, their perfect little pet who did no wrong.  The young adult just out of college focusing on your career.You assumed they just wanted you as a way to spice up their life not knowing that they had feelings for you. 

“ Are you gonna keep staring at them or actually listen to what I’m saying y/n?” Kate ask you. 

“ staring at who……” you play dumb while your best friend rolls her eyes. You were so bad at faking it. 

“ I’m guessing the three of you are still in the fucking stages them,” she says and you nod and burry your head in your hands dramatically. It had also been 2 weeks since they fucked you and all you wanted was their attention, no matter how you had to get it. 

“ Kate babe you have no idea, like works been up my ass about the new social media campaign and I haven’t had a good fuck in,” you pause to think,” 2 weeks Kate”. One of the moms in the neighborhood hears you cuss and gives you a side eye which you ignore and Kate just holds in her laugh. 

“ have you tried discussing your feelings with the woman? “ she offers up. 

“ nah,” and she rolls her eyes. 

“ texted them about talking ?” 

“ tried but schedules didn’t line up ?” 

“ Carrier pigeon ?” Kate asks sarcastically.

“ Does Yelena know a guy who does that because I’m actually considering it,” and Kate slaps your arm at your stubbornness. 

“ maybe you just need to make them jealous so they can fucking talk about their feelings,” she says sarcastically says, giving you a good idea. 

“ Would you help me Katherine ? Oh pretty please Katherine bishop ? Will you help your bestie friend to-“ and before you can say anything else she lightly slaps your arm to get you to shut up. God you annoyed her sometimes but she was up for the cause. 

“ you’re such a brat,” she chuckles and you smile at the compliment. 

“ hopefully it helps me with them fucking me til I can’t think,” you say, Kate not missing a second at she wraps her arm around your waist. 

The rest of the party , the both of you act like a lovesick couple, Kate holding your hand as the both of you sit together listening to Dottie talk about her plants. Mrs Davis calls you both adorable whenever Kate feeds you a chocolate covered strawberry , all while Rio and Agatha just try to keep their cool infront of everyone.

“ y/n is being a brat Aggie,” Rio says in a quiet tone to her wife as they watch you strut around with Bishop. Both ladies knew that Kate had eyes for Yelena so there was no reason to be throwing yourself at her in front of everyone in the neighborhood. 

“ give it another minute babe,” Agatha says watching you and Kate go off hand in hand,” then we’ll take them home and teach them a lesson”. 

“ you think they saw us?” Kate laughs nervously as she’s in no mood to piss off the milfs. 

“ definitely knowing them they’re on the way the way to come and ‘ talk’ or whatever “ you say. 

“ I’m actually down to go y/n,” and you nod as she leads you towards the backyard exit, not before a soft pair of hands takes you away from your friend.

“ Mrs Harness-Vidal !” Kate’s says while you try to hide your blush. Right on cue.

“ Quite the showing affection the two of you were showing huh superstars?” She curiously asks and before Kate can respond Rio appears with a plate of food to take home.

“ Really Rio ? right now ?” Agatha asks.

“ Mrs Davis offered and I wasn’t gonna say no darling,” she defends herself. 

“ Anyways,” Agatha begins again,” where are you and y/n going anyways Bishop?” 

“ probably gonna go back to my place and watch tv ya know ?” Kate attempts to act cool while you snort at her attempt. 

“ we can take y/n back with us babe,” Rio speaks up,” I know you probably still have to take your dog on a walk right ?” 

Kate gives you one more look before you give her a little nod, signaling to her that you’d be okay. 

“ bye y/n,” she gives you a quick kiss on your cheek before heading back to her place. Oh you were fucked after that.

Both ladies keep their composure as the three of you head over to the married couples place, the sound of Rio humming preventing you from freaking out as to what might happen.

“ on your knees pet,” Rio is the first one to speak and you don’t obey immediately, feeling confident to defy her. 

“ actually I think I’ll sit on the couch,” you say and make your way to the couch, Agatha’s face showing a bit of shock.

“ oh so someone wants to be a brat ? Not listening to your mistress when she’s giving you orders?” Agatha asks and you don’t budge.

“ maybe if you had payed attention to me more at the party mommy I would have behaved you think-“ and Agatha shoves you off the couch to your knees. You let out a huff as the older woman chuckles. 

“ listen here slut,” she has a grip on your chin,” your mistress and I are gonna punish you for being a bad pet for us and throwing yourself at Kate like that. You’re ours til the end of time you know that right ?” 

You nod as best as you can, mind feeling a bit fuzzy at her command. 

“ let mommy use your mouth with her fingers while Mistress undresses herself,” she tells you shoving two of her fingers in your mouth to suck, putting on a show for both ladies in front of you. Rio made a show of slowly taking off the dress in-front of you and her wife, taking her time to taunt you like the way she was an expert at.

“ fuck baby you’re drooling and you haven’t gotten my cock in your greedy mouth, she says with fake pity in her voice,” Rio baby, here or there bedroom”.

“ bedroom,” she answers and the three of you head to their main room, Agatha places you in the middle of the queen size bed while Rio places herself behind you. 

“ Now it’s time for mommy to undress herself for us,” Rio says and you feel her arms wrap around your waist. All you can do is watch as the older woman in front of you makes a show of taking off each of her clothes, mind going crazy whenever you see her naked body and acting like it’s the first time you’ve seen her in all her beauty. 

“ Is she wet for us honey? “ Agatha asks her wife and you feel one of Rio’s hands slowly go to your clothed center and pushing past your panties to feel your wetness. You lift yourself up a bit for the women behind you to take off your shorts and underwear in one swift motion, Rio helping you spread your legs so Agatha can see just how wet you got. 

“ Should Mommy pay attention to that pussy of your pet? Personally I don’t think you after you decided to be a whore at the party and throw yourself onto Kate,” Rio whispers in your ear and you whine as you try to get any sort of friction from her fingers. Agatha gives her wife a look before she removes her fingers and holds you in place again. You wondered what they had planned for you after deciding to act all lovey lovey with Kate and sassing them.

“ Mommy is just gonna run to the closet and grab some items for us okay doll? Stay here with Mistress and maybe if you behave we’ll be easier on you tonight,” and you nod. 

“ Mommy needs your words pet,” Rio holds your chin so you maintain eye contact with the other woman in the room.

“ Okay, Mommy,” and you see the woman smile before she goes to the closet while Rio moves her hand away from your needy pussy. The other hand that was holding you in place goes to your left tit while the other one goes to your mouth and she puts three fingers for you to suck. She might put up a tough exterior on the outside but when the three of you were in the bedroom, she was always the one to be more gentler that Agatha was which you always appreciated. 

“ Just let Mistress play with your body pet,” she orders and you whine around your fingers,” want you to be ready for what Mommy and I have planned for you”. 

It felt like an eternity as Rio took the fingers out of your mouth to go to your other nipple, giggling a bit as she messes with your bread, enjoying the little noises you make and before you try to protest Agatha comes back with two harnesses, a pair of cuffs, bottle of lube and two Dildos. What you don’t see is Rio smile at the idea her wife was proposing. 

“ Someone is feeling adventurous, “ Rio says as the both of them change places for a bit, Rio take a minute to put on one of the harnesses and you feel Agatha sit behind you. 

“ if you even think about using those hands we don’t hesitate to cuff you,” she spits out as her right hands goes to her cunt, two fingers going into your wet cunt with ease. Agatha goes slow and steady as she gets you ready for Rio’s cock. 

Both ladies give each other knowing looks, the woman under you positioning you so that you’re in a comfy position.

“ Mistress is gonna fuck your pussy a bit baby while I play with your other hole okay pet?” 

Oh , anal tonight ? 

“  Mommy needs your word honey,” Rio says as the cock slowly goes into your went cunt, letting you adjust to the size. 

“ Yes Mommy,” you mumble,” I’ll be good”. 

“ Good job pet, who knew I had to mention using your other hole and all of a sudden you decided to be good for Mistress and Mommy” and Rio giggles at your silence. Agatha wasn’t wrong at all, both ladies know you like the back of your hand. 

“ Honey, be a doll and start fucking that pussy while I get their other hole ready for my cock,” and Rio doesn’t have to be told twice as she takes it slow then you feel one one of Agatha’s long fingers tease your puckered hole, feeling the lubed fingers slowly go inside. 

“ Fuck Mistress,” you moan out as Rio fucks your pussy, expertly thrusting into you and teasing your sensitive nipples while her wife get’s to work on you asshole. Agatha groans under you, the feeling of her long fingers bringing you pleasure and without another thought, your right hand goes to your clits for more pleasure but not before Rio stops her movements. 

“ Oh honey, looks like our pet thinks they can touch their needy cunt whenever,” Rio says in a mocking tone, Agatha quickly grabs the cuffs from the right side of her and puts your arms in a comfy position. 

“ We might just be here all night if you can’t decide to be a good pet baby” Agatha says as she starts to thrust the two fingers in your butt, the woman basking in your glory with Rio goes at a slow pace, waiting for what her wife wants to do to you next. 

“ Is Y/N ready for your cock in their ass Aggie? I can tell from the way their legs are slowly wanting to close that our pet is close,” she laughs as she goes just a bit faster to make the point and rubs your clit as a tourating pace. Agatha does want to mess with you just a bit more but she’d rather want you in a more comfortable position first before anything else.

“ Lay down on the bed Rio and then be a good pet for us and sit on Mistress’ lap,” you nod, Rio slowly pulling out of you and going to sit on the bed, Agatha helping you to go back on her cock. No shame as she observes the way your face scrunches up at the feeling of the cock inside of your needy cunt. You lay your head on the other woman’s shoulder as you compose yourself, Rio rubbing small circles in your back while Agatha puts on her purple to use on you.

“ Now just stay still for us pet while I put my cock in your other hole for us,” she whispers in your ear, Rio whispering praises in your other ear to distract you at the toy went in your ass. It’s not like it’s your first time having something inside your ass, both of them training you with small plugs but it’s the first time having something bigger than just a small sized plug in you. 

“ Fuck honey, we should have done with sooner with y/n,” Agatha groans out as you take her cock so easily, Rio taking that as a sign to slowly start thrusting. You moan at the feeling of the woman under you fucking your pussy while Agatha starts to thrust in and out of you as well. You might just cum soon if they keep it up. 

“ Do you like mommy fucking your ass baby?” And you nod. 

“ Pet,” she pulls your hair,” don’t be rude to your mistress and answer the question”

“ Yes Mistress,” you moan out,” I like mommy fucking my ass, I’m so close”. 

“ Unfortunately because you decided to be a brat and whore yourself out, Mommy and I are gonna have fun using you like the little toy you are for us,” Rio chuckles at the fear in your face. The next hour both ladies is filled with begging, several ruined orgasms and so many noises coming from your pretty mouth as the ladies punish you for your actions from earlier, reminding you never to act out in front of them. 

“ Are you gonna be a good pet for us and never do that shit again” Agatha asks and you nod, brain feeling too dizzy and foggy to say any words. 

“ Use your big girl words pet,” Agatha orders,” unless you want to go another round”. 

“ M’sorry, mommy and mistress,” you whine out,” wanna cum, please, wanna cum on your cocks”. Both of them give each other looks, wondering if they should just cave in and let you cum. 

“ Promise not to act like that with Kate pet?” Rio asks and you nod. 

“ Promise to be ours and only ours baby?” You hear Agatha say in a sweet tone and you again nod, finding it hard to keep holding on until Agatha snakes your hand to your clit. 

“ Cum for us pet,” Rio whispers and you scream as your orgasm hits you hard, Rio helping you stay in place as the older woman slowly pulls out of your other hole first before Rio does. She whisper sweet praises in your ear while you bury your head in her chest. Agatha gets rid of her strap in the bathroom then comes back with a cup of water along with a rag to clean you. 

“ I know you wanna sleep honeybee but Aggie needs to clean you off,” and you nod as Rio helps you get off of her cock, your pussy feeling empty while Agatha can’t help to admire what both of them did to you. You whine at the feeling of the wet rag on your sensitive core but Agatha is the one to comfort you and lay with you after. 

“ Aggie? “ 

“ Yeah honeybee?” She asks you, admiring how adorable you look in her arms. Rio quietly makes her way to your right side so that both ladies are in between your tired body. 

“ Did you mean what you said earlier? Bout me being yours and Rio’s only? “ you asks with a bit of hope in your eyes, too tired to go home if they were to say no.

“ Of course,” she says,” Rio and I want you to be ours, we just hope you feel the same way”. 

“ I agree babe,” Rio adds,” We want to treat you like the princess you are, we didn’t like the way Kate was all over you earlier at the party ya know?”

“ I just wanted to see if you would get jealous,” you mumble as they cuddle with you, enjoying the feeling of Agatha petting your hair while Rio rubs your back. Both ladies chuckle at the revelation, a bit shocked they actually took your bait. 

“ I wonder where you got that from,” the sarcasm from Agatha’s mouth as she looks at her wife who acts innocent, making you giggle. For the rest of the night the three of you all take in the comfort of each other before drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms. 

[i-suc-at-art]

DpxDc prompt #2

Full prompt from this idea

Tim and Danny are apart of an online RPG which is basically DND but anonymous and online. (it’s mainly for secret nerds who don’t have anyone irl to play with)

Danny plays as a changeling rogue who will often swipe things from players they don’t like

Tim plays a Variant Human, monk who wields a pole staff (my guy is not subtle) and will often give back the things danny (who’s known as wraith) (Tim goes by Scarlet Redpoll (mainly just Scarlet though)) stole

Rules of the RPG:

Everyone remains under their game handle (so there’s no doxing) NO REAL NAMES

You can interact with other parties who are using the same campaign as you, however when interacting with main story plot your party will go into its own private server

You can have a party of any size however it’s recommended to have a party over 4.. However you can make it with two or three or solo (but that’s just kinda sad..)

There is a chat feature and call feature in the game, however no hate speech, or bigotry

You can’t join a call unless your apart of the party

ofc this doesn’t stop it from happening but that’s not really relevant to the story

There are Dms (dungeon masters) but your team can also just use the computer for your Dm

Your character can be completely customized, and you’ll move around on a map

Ok now to the fun stuff

Danny and Tim (Wraith and Scarlet) have been playing together for about 3 months, and have made a commitment to play every 2 weeks on sunday (ghosts tend to take a break every 2 weeks on sundays (and B forced Tim to take a break from everything including cases every 2 weeks on sunday) Although sometimes each will get pulled away from the game and they’ll have to end early.

Anyways their campaign doesn’t super matter, only that they are online friends. Ok so one day Tim texts Wraith (they use online name bc y'know tim’s like uber famous) that he can’t make it to their session today bc his dad is forcing him to “bond” Aka he’s going to a gala with Bruce and Dick to stop a heist team that has been rampant across socialite and high society events. Wraith tells him it’s alright, and that coincidentally he’s busy too and was just about to cancel.

As Tim surveils everyone he curses Bruce for making him come. Tim had gotten into the habit of getting a night off from everything. He’d also not gotten a chance to do ample research on the guests beforehand because he’d been working on researching the thieves. He’d heard some chatter about the group looking into a possible haunted vahz, that was on display for the night. Tim had been surveying the party staying near the vahz making sure everyone checked out. Dick had texted saying that he’d cornered a possible thieving candidate and that he needed Tim to run an face ID check, on the picture he’d taken. The photo was of a young woman, her red hair caused Tim to think of Babs, but the woman’s simple teal evening dress couldn’t be further from her style. He’d done a quick search of the woman, she seemed to be some sort of rich young socialite, definitely Dicks type.. Her name was Kelly Jankins, no criminal history, or past arrests, she had a couple of parking tickets that were waved from her late teens. But nothing out of the ordinary. Tim texted Dick the information (save for the part about her being Dicks type) before stuffing his phone back into his pocket and moving from his post to go and get a drink. About 20 feet from his post he bumped into a nicely dressed guy, his hair black and suit tailored.. He also wore a Vladco pin on his left breast pocket.

He’d apologized and Tim told him it was no big deal, his eyes were blue.. But he could have sworn they were green when he first looked up. And his voice.. It sounded so familiar. Why did it sound familiar..?

As Tim walked away it hit him like a truck.. Wraith.

—————

Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz had been stealing for some time now, after Danny had been outed as Phantom to the whole town by his parents. Him, Sam, and Tucker had decided to all leave Amity since all of their parents were unaccepting.. Sam’s parents had gone so far as to write her out of their will.. Danny had told her and Tuck to stay in Amity and fix their relationships with their family, but they’d both said ‘that if Danny wasn’t in Amity Park then they didn’t have their family.’ So they left. The three stayed with Jazz for a bit but she was a broke college student that barely had enough money for food and rent. So the three started stealing food.. It was out of necessity at first, and only from big companies, but when Sam got an online invitation to a big gala that was showing off some old artifacts from a rich guy’s private collection, Danny felt a pull toward a particular item from his core. The item belonged to someone in the ghost zone.. and he needed to have it. He needed to return it.

So they stole it. Danny was to be Sam’s plus one as he’s basically a haunted item metal detector. Sam would steal the item and Tuck would turn out the lights and secretly system. Then Danny would get him and Sam out of there. Most of their plans would be similar to this format. Sam would also grift from the other patrons, only stealing from the ones who seemed to have a shit ton of money. Eventually even teaching Danny how to do it too, she’d told him that ‘using his ghost powers were a cop out’ when he brought that up.. and that ‘anyone would be able to feel the chill of it.’ Which Danny was sure that that was untrue.. But he learned how to steal a wallet, or a phone Sam’s way.

Jazz had been against the thefts at first saying that all of these items belonged to the original owner. But soon she was persuaded when Danny told her that they were stealing stolen items. Stolen ghost items. Some of the items even had a ghost core attached to it. So Jazz became their planner, she’d make sure they’d have all the info they needed and that no one got caught.

Danny ends up in jail after being caught trying to lift someone’s wallet.. Jazz was there to legally get him out and pay the bail. Tucker got caught in a backroom of a place they were stealing from. ‘Oh yeah that’s her brother who would often get himself trapped in closets looking for the bathroom.. She apologizes profusely..’

So when Tucker had found their newest item, a haunted vase that had a shit ton of death and destruction attached to it, Jazz had thought up the plan. She’d heard whisperings that Vlad had gotten invited to the party but Danny was going to go in his place since Vlad would never go. Then they had a plan. A plan they were meant to stick to, until someone ran her face and Danny started being followed. So they abandoned the vase opting to get out of there instead of getting caught.

[rosewaterandivy]

18+ MDNI

who among us hasn’t found themselves in the ol’ needs to be dicked down to sleep quandary?that’s right no one! anyway, despite peacing out earlier in the evening, it’s now going on 2 am and you’ve been tossing and turning all the while.

scattered goodbyes and see you soon’s echo down the hall as the party leaves after yet another successful campaign. hearing eddie lock the door and gather a few plates and cups, you decide to give up the ghost and admit defeat.

it’s time to call in the big guns: eddie laying pipe, for as long as it takes you to pass the fuck out.

he turns from his spot at the sink, hearing your soft footfalls, his lips kicking up in a soft smile. “did we wake you, baby?”

slowly shaking your head, you grab his hand and drag him to bed. his arm snakes around your waist as he noses along the back of your neck.

“mmm, what’s wrong?”

his voice is a soft thing, a faint tsk falls from his lips when you eventually drop his hand in the bedroom.

turning to him, you cross your arms and huff. “can’t sleep,” you supply, rather sulkily. and yeah, you’re verging on bratty territory but you’re tired and have a to-do list a mile long for tomorrow, or today. whatever.

eddie rolls his eyes and steps closer, his hands cupping your face, thumbs grazing the full of your cheeks. “s’that all? need me to take you out of your misery?”

your nod in response is all he needs before you find yourself back in bed, sleep shirt rucked up past your tits, shorts dangling from one leg, as eddie settles against your cunt. with one hand, he brushes along your skin, goosebumps breaking out in his wake. while his opposite arm finds home along your hips, holding you down against the soft sheets.

pulse accelerating, you catch his eye once he has you arranged to his liking. “okay baby,” he says, breath skittering along your inner thighs. “jus’ gotta lay there and take it, hmm? have you fucked out in no time.”

he promises and then has the audacity to wink, the fucker, before his pretty pink mouth descends on you. the first brush of his tongue forced the breath from your lungs, thighs tightening involuntarily.

his laugh brings a flood of warmth to your chest, even though there’s no reason to be embarrassed. his free hand smooths along the curve of your waist and stomach, light touches that ignite like fireworks against your skin.

eddie’s always been a motormouth and that definitely extends to oral as well. he’s loud— low groans that vibrate up your spine, kissing and sucking, licking and fucking his tongue just how you like it.

eventually, his hand finds your clit rubbing in slow, lazy circles— nose bumping against it occasionally. wet, spit slick sounds join your low whines and mewls as you writhe against the sheets. and while that’s all well and good, it’s not the sign he’s looking for.

it’s only when your hips begin to buck that he knows it’s time to double down. increasing the pressure on your clit, he sucks harshly and sinks two fingers into your sopping cunt. curling them up in a thrust eliciting a sharp gasp from you.

“how many’ll it be this time?” he slurs out, the low timbre of his voice sending you into shudders. he slows to a lazy thrust, your bucking hips compensating for the reprieve.

“hhhnng,” is all you supply in response before he’s clambering up your torso.

you can hear the squelch of his fingers and your arousal. his palm pressing down against your clit with delicious pressure as he leans over you.

“was somethin’ like two or three last time.”

god. it’d be a miracle if you could simply fucking come, much less wager how many orgasms eddie could wring from you.

and you must make some sound of discontent to elicit his soft, “aw, doin’ so good for me baby,” before slotting his lips against yours.

your mouth falls open at the musky taste of arousal on his tongue. a low moan echoing in the warmly lit room. the kiss growing sloppy along with the noises from you clenching against his fingers.

though the pressure of your orgasm builds delightfully from his ministrations, it’s just not enough to push you over the edge. hearing your whine, eddie pulls back, your lips parting with a wet click.

“c’mon honey,” he soothes, damp fingers slipping from you to maneuver you onto your stomach. face down, ass up, he rucks down his sweats and spits into his palm before giving himself a few strokes.

the bratty part of you is pissed because you can’t see what he’s doing, but you can hear it— your walls clenching against nothing. face settling against the pillows, you turn your head to the side, cheek brushing the cool fabric.

he spies you from the corner of his eye, a soft smile overtaking his face. you’re getting impatient and tired, he can tell. a telltale sign that everything is going according to plan. you’ll be out like a light in no time, he’s sure of it.

his head falls back as he thrusts in, pausing briefly for you to adjust before he bottoms out. the air leaves your lungs accompanied by a breathy moan as eddie pulls out, running his dick along the seam of your cunt.

“eddie,” you pant, thrusting your hips back impatiently.

taking pity, he slowly works his way back in with a sigh. “be good baby,” he warns, hand curving around your hip to pull you flush against him.

exhausted, you allow yourself to be rocked back and forth against him, his hands anchored at your hips and dick seated from root to tip.

and that’s the ticket— being so full of him that you’re fit to burst. couldn’t escape even if you wanted to. his hips piston against the fat of your ass and thighs, the sound of skin on skin filling the air, occasionally accompanied by the mewls that would tumble from your mouth or low pitched groans and curses that would fall from his.

eventually, eddie would grow just as impatient as you and pull you up— back bowed in an impressive curve as he buried a hand in your hair, turning your head just so to capture your open, panting mouth. a hand falling from your hip to circle your neglected clit, applying the right amount of pressure to send you reeling.

with his sweat slick skin against yours, arousal coating your thighs, walls hugging his cock, you’d break open. the pleasure swooping low in your stomach and careening clear over the precipice of desire. it wrests a strangled moan from eddie as you clench down against him, his slick fingers working over your clit, as you come apart beneath him.

he follows not long after, a hand pressing your closer to his chest as his fingers cradle your throat, neck turned impossibly to latch your lips to his in a blistering kiss as he comes. a few more thrusts, more form momentum than anything, and eddie is easing himself out and laying you down on the bed.

the sheets are damp but neither of you can be fucked to care, not when you’ve finally gotten what you were after, the promise of sweet oblivion brought about by some good dick. your face hits the pillow and before he can kiss you goodnight, you are down for the count.

TLDR: eddie’s dick so good we should be calling him NyQuil.

pushin’ daffodils (steve’s version)

[anthenasikes]

illustrated depiction

my most natural state: standing and staring blankly into space in public (the target stationary aisle) intensely listening to podcast

[unforth]

I keep seeing posts comparing this to 2004 or other past election losses and how this feels the same or similar to those past times.

As another Old who voted in 2004 (and I missed voting in 2000 by a month and was furious about it) I really can't even put into words how vehemently I disagree.

In 2008, I remember very earnestly sitting down with some friends and saying that if somehow McCain beat Obama, I'd have to join the fucking revolution, because I couldn't believe that this country would elect a Republican AGAIN after the previous 8 years of bullshit. I look back now and think how incredibly naive I was, but I also look back now and think, damn, why aren't I 25 NOW? I can't join the revolution now, I'm 41 and I own a house and have two young children and one old parent depending on me.

Because honestly, truly, as someone who has been studying American history since I was 7, as a Civil War buff with expertise on the years before the Civil War, as someone who has at least some memories of every election since 1988... guys, this isn't the same as 2004. I was furious then. Swift Boat bullshit I swear to fucking dog. And I was and still am fairly convinced that the 2000 election was deliberately stolen. But also I still had every reason then to believe in the rule of law.

In 2004, I still believed term limits would be respected.

In 2004, I still believed a person who wasn't elected would demure gracefully to the winner.

In 2004, I still trusted the courts.

In 2004, I still believed that we'd made progress on bigotry.

I could go on, and to be clear, my point isn't "I thought these institutions were ~good~" in literally any objective sense. Y'all are cynical but my generation was raised by, surrounded by, Vietnam vets and trust me, there was no way to be a kid, seeing what the 70s did to this country, and not come out as cynical and furious as the best of um. (My grandfather was a World War 2 vet, as were his close friends. My father and both his brothers are Vietnam vets, tho my dad didn't go overseas.) But I did believe that even corrupt institutions, even broken racist systems, even fucking Republicans, would follow basic norms of democracy. They said they believed in the constitution and I believed them. I believed that, like Nixon, truly getting caught doing something insane would at least force a mea culpa and turn public opinion. I believed...

Well, I guess it doesn't matter.

Because I no longer believe any of that.

I have watched the guard rails disappear over my lifetime. I have watched the party who once spent 2 years pursuing a guy over a BJ in the oval office elect a convicted rapist. I have watched and at times I've participated and I've voted and I've organized and I've protested and I've read the news more days than not and I've lived and I've grown and I've learned.

I have been an adult, legally, for almost 24 years now.

Guys... there are no norms remaining on the far right. The guard rails are gone. The Fascists control the White House, the senate, the Supreme Court, and things aren't looking promising for the House.

The bus has no brakes anymore. They think they have a mandate - and I can't blame them, as horrifying as this mandate is, because if things had gone the other way and Harris had gotten these results I'd also think it was a mandate.

Please sit with what this means: Trump and the Republican party said, "hand us the reins and we'll make everyone you hate hurt," and more than half the people who bothered to vote said "sure buddy, here goes." We don't have a usurper this time. This is the country that the majority of Americans said they wanted. Whether they come to regret that or not, they saw open Fascism and went "oh yes, count me in." And it wasn't because of the electoral college this time. It was because this country is so bigoted and misogynistic that they'd rather have this than a woman of color in the office.

I'm sick of "well she didn't run a good campaign." (Lie.) I'm sick of, "well we didn't get a primary." (Who cares?) I'm *extremely* sick of "well, Palestine." (Yes! Democrats actions have made the suffering there so much worse! It fucking sucks! You know what's about to suck so much worse?)

15 million people who showed up for Joe Biden couldn't be fussed to place a vote for Kamala Harris. Whatever their reason for not voting, we all knew the outcome if she lost. And seeing open fascism didn't fire them up enough to make the effort, and that's fucking pathetic. The consequences of the worst happening mattered so little to them that they couldn't be fucking bothered to make the minimum effort to stop it, and now millions of people will suffer as a result.

Because here we are: the huge swathe of the country who wanted a strongman now have one.

Look, I don't know what happens next. But I do know, and remember keenly: after 2016, Trump did, or at least tried to do, most of the things he said he'd do. When he was stopped, it was often because of career government employees: judges, bureaucrats, etc. And this time, he's said he's going to purge those people. I don't know if he'll succeed, but I certainly believe he'll try.

This is not 2004 again.

This is 2024. The Republicans have ripped the mask to shreds, shredded apart the book of political norms, and empowered hate, and they've been handed a governmental mandate for stamped "have at with our blessing!" in exchange.

And now they'll use that mandate to make everyone they hate suffer: people of color, queer people, trans people, immigrants, non-Christians.

Don't assume the worst can't happen. I am a Jew, and I have a photo album full of black and white photos of dead people that constantly reminds me: the worst has happened and it can happen again.

Do not despair. Despair is enervating. Be furious. As we should be. These douche bags are repulsive. Be prepared to fight. Be prepared to flee. Be prepared to defend. Don't assume you simply can't do something. There's always something to do, and even the smallest act of defiance can help. There's never any knowing until after which acts of resistance will end up galvanizing the good and just out of their apathy. But that apathy is the enemy.

Because none of this is normal. None of this is "just like when..." Please stop saying it is.

And before anyone screams "privilege" at me, yes, I am in many ways. I'm white. I have access to some generational money even tho my own family lives paycheck to paycheck - we won't be rich but have enough of a support network to be comfortable. I live in a blue area of a blue state. But I'm also a woman (legally speaking, at least) married to another woman - since before Oberkfell, and yes I remember exactly what steps we had planned any time we wanted to leave our state. My wife has physical disabilities. We have two children. Both are biracial (half black). One is trans. We are caring for an elderly parent. I am Jewish and as my kids' birth parent, so are they. I own a publishing company that publishes the exact kinds of queer and kinky lit these people intend to ban. We tick so many boxes of what these people hate.

I know ya'll are scared. Trust me, I'm terrified. But fear is paralyzing. And that won't help. Whatever happens, don't lie down and take this shit.

When Gore lost I was one month shy of my 18th birthday and already in college. I have been fighting my entire adult life, and I'm exhausted. I'm much less able to fight now, much more tied down with responsibilities. But the fight isn't over. I'm checking our passports. I'm packing a go bag. I've convinced one vulnerable friend to move here and I have another who wants to and we're figuring out how to make that happen. I'm protecting who I can, starting with putting on my mask first. I don't know what will happen but if in the end all I can do is uproot my entire life to protect my children then I am preparing to do so. I can at least save them if no one else.

None of this is normal.

And I'm not sure, after Trump's in office, that anything will ever be normal again in the US. At least not the old normal. And there are ways that's a good thing, so many ways that the old normal sucked for so many people, and I'm optimistic that there's a bright future ahead, but man it looks far away right now. I don't want to go back to the old normal, and I want to be part of establishing a kinder, more just, more equal new normal, but we're a long way from there.

Whatever happens, we must endure. We must survive. We must support each other. We must find our allies and be prepared to compromise with them. Don't try to save everyone. You'll fail. Help even one person and you can change the world. Everyone things they can't do everything and so do nothing. That's insane. Do a single thing and it will be better than nothing. One phone call. One letter. One act of defiance. Very few people get the opportunity to grand gestures that matter, and the rest of us will die waiting for that moment. But the secret is that what makes those moments - the time when one person is in the right place at the right time for their action to matter - is built on millions of small moments by millions of people doing what little they can to make things slightly better. Think of every iconic photograph of a Sole Resistor you know of and think about every single tiny thing that had to happen for that moment to occur. Most of us will never me that one person, but that one person is a myth anyway. Countless tiny unseen moments create those myths. Doing literally anything is better than doing nothing.

And tooth and nail, quietly and loudly, in our homes and our towns and cities, during protests or when they come for our neighbors, we must fight.

[stickandthorn]

I was thinking about that post about redemption I just reblogged, and I think it’s worth pointing out just how difficult and time consuming it would to de-radicalize or “redeem” Lilliana. And I think Essek’s redemption in campaign 2 is actually a really good example of what I’m talking about.

First of all, what the Nein did to redeem Essek was not slowly and politely talk him through why what he did was wrong. They didn’t even know he did anything wrong. What they did was continually reach out to him and give him a support system of friends he did not have before. Notably, friends who he could be comfortable sharing his worldview around: he was an atheist* in a theocratic society who had to hide his worldview in order to have any social, academic, or governmental standing. The mighty nein were probably the first people he could be himself around, and creating a change in his personal life is what led to a change in his ideology. Notably, he did most of the actual deconstructing of his ideology on his own, some before the big betrayal reveal and a lot after. The Nein helped with that directly a little, but the main thing they did was offer him a personal connection he had stakes in, and a people in his life with different world views he hadn’t seen up close before.

This is pretty true to life, in the real world, most people who leave radical or bigoted groups leave at least partially because of a change in their personal life. Even if they do leave because of someone directly challenging their worldview, it’s usually someone they care about who challenges them in a non-aggressive way. It’s still personal.

Secondly, this took a lot of time. I can’t remember exactly how long they spent in the Dynasty, but they befriended Essek over a really long period of in game and out of game time. The cast spent actual real world hours talking pretty much one on one with Essek, and the party spent weeks, maybe even months slowly getting to know him and bringing this support structure into his life. Essek spent even longer actually thinking through and deconstructing on his own. The change in his worldview between the ship and the outpost really shows this, he did a lot of the thinking that led him to change by himself over a lot of time we weren’t there for. They could not have gotten him to actually change his mindset, fully realize what he did was wrong of his own free will, in anything approaching a short amount of time. This was a time consuming process.

All this to say: this is the kind of effort it would take to legitimately de-radicalize Lilliana. She has been in the Vanguard for ~25 years, she most likely joined when she was in her early to mid 20s, and she gave up all personal connections, even her daughter and her husband to join. Not only has her entire ideology been built around this being the right thing to do, her entire personal life is contained within the Vanguard. It’s most likely where she gets any housing or money or really anything from. It is her whole life, and she believes wholeheartedly in it. The level of time and effort it took to get Essek to organically change his mind is most likely the level it would take to get Lilliana to change hers, if not more.

And they don’t have that time. Lilliana is actively doing harm now, she is helping the Vanguard release Predathos right now, they simply do not have the time to redeem her. It sucks, but pragmatically speaking, it is simply not worth the time and effort. Essek gave away the beacons in the past, but also, the Nein did not know he did that for their early friendship. If the Nein had known, they probably would not have put in all the work it took to get him to change. They probably couldn’t have. Lilliana might be able to be redeemed in theory, but so can a lot of people who do very bad things. Focusing on that redemption process is prioritizing Imogen’s complicated feelings over the harsh reality that this is a war, and Lilliana is a key figure in that war doing a great deal of harm. It sucks, but I do think it’s time to move on, and I think Imogen is now leaning that way.

*atheist is a loose term here, it’s hard to be an atheist in a world where gods are proven to exist, but it gets the point across

[odinsblog]

Rule No. 1: Believe the autocrat. I argued against the expectation that Trump would change in the months following the election, becoming somehow “Presidential” and abandoning his more extreme positions. This belief, it seemed to me, stemmed from the inability to absorb the fact of a Trump Presidency, and not from any historical precedents of similar transformations. The best predictors of autocrats’ and aspiring autocrats’ behavior are their own public statements, because these statements brought them to power in the first place.

Rule No. 2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Most catastrophes unfold over time. Following the shock of a disastrous election—or a Presidential tweet—the sun rises again in the morning, and life appears to proceed as before. One adjusts, until the next shocking event.

Rule No. 3: Institutions will not save you. During the election campaign, one often heard the argument that institutions of American democracy are strong enough to withstand attack by Trump. A year ago, I pointed out that many of these institutions are not enshrined in law—rather, they exist as norms—and even those that are enshrined in law depend for their continued survival on the good faith of all actors. There is no law, for example, guaranteeing daily press briefings at the White House and media access to these briefings. I predicted that the investigative press would be weakened and that reality would grow murkier.

Rule No. 4: Be outraged. If you follow the first three rules, you ought to be outraged. But I know from experience how hard it is to be the hysteric in the room.

A year on, progress is mixed. Activist groups like New York City’s Rise and Resist, founded by alumni of the aids-activist organization act up, stage regular, vivid, act up–style actions. On the occasion of the first anniversary of the election, they vowed to begin weekly demonstrations demanding impeachment. The A.C.L.U. continues to file lawsuits; late-night comedians continue to amplify the painful absurdity of Trumpism. On the other hand, Washington has absorbed Trump, and so has the Republican Party. (It’s the other party whose national organization is imploding these days.) No single event or revelation has produced enough outrage to cause Trump to be removed from office, nor has one seemed to hurt his chances for reëlection. Not Charlottesville. Not the revelation of a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised to deliver dirt on Hillary Clinton. Not the regular revelations of past acts of corruption and of current lies. Not the continued spectacle of a government of haters and incompetents. The outrage dissipates, and Trumpism persists.

Rule No. 5: Don’t make compromises. I predicted that Republican Never Trumpers would fold and offer their loyalty to the new President. I also feared that a great many federal employees would face an impossible choice between staying in their jobs under a reprehensible Administration and leaving, forfeiting the chance to do good within a system that had started rotting from the top. Trump’s attacks on the institutions of government have been so fast and brutal, however, that many people made the choice without torment: they left. (Remember the President’s arts and humanities committee? Or the business advisory councils?) Still, a few people remain in what’s left of the State Department; some people have joined the Administration with the explicit goal of using their expertise to help minimize damage. But to watch General McMaster struggling to mislead journalists on Trump’s behalf is to see the built-in problem with the project of minimizing damage: one inevitably becomes an accomplice.

Rule No. 6: Remember the future. There will come a time after Trump. What will we bring to it? I wrote that the failure to imagine the future—to offer a vision in opposition to Trump’s appeal to an imaginary past—had cost the Democrats the election. A year later, the national Democratic Party does not seem closer to proposing a vision (or a candidate); instead, the last week has seen the Party plunged into a vicious re-litigation of the 2016 primaries.

(full article here)

[poppy-metal]

https://pin.it/3uN5FPAAM

https://pin.it/4AU0Gvdat

can’t even convey how badly i need to be this tashi’s personal assistant/friend/confidant/? that’s always with her but people just can’t figure out your relation to her besides the fact that she’s always smiling/keeled over laughing when the two of you are together. maybe your patrick’s new wife and it’s chalked up to just a proximity thing, it’s easier for her to like you than be annoyed at your presence because it’s not like you’re going anywhere, her being married to his best friend and all. there isn’t really an explanation for why people zoom in on your lockscreen and find that it’s a photo of her that hasn’t been posted publicly.

she’s never been a rude woman, but she was noticeably closed off, drawing firm lines in what she was willing to talk about that never included her personal life. now she’s asking about people’s weekends, recounting her own with you and the plans the two of you have coming up, double + one-on-one dates that seem a little too romantic. maybe you’re the youngest of the 4, a nepo baby it girl with no set plans, no goals besides being hot and being a little chaotic. you manage to wrangle tashi into jewelry campaigns and get her to be the face of some clothing brand, keep her name alive and revive her career in a way entirely separate from tennis. let everyone know that you think she’s the most beautiful and deserving woman alive. you even convince her to take an extended vacation, a month just the 2 of you. you get caught one night after drinks, a blurry make out sold to tabloids. she plans to go scorched earth until she catches you smiling at the photo…decides it can’t be that bad.

i like imaging being her low stress private gf BUT if you wanted to make it angsty u could play up the fact that because you were born into money you’ve never really had to work for anything and don’t get that you will always be second to work in tashi’s life. it’s nothing personal, she’s just not the kind of girl to throw it all away for love. especially one that would bring questions and speculation and explanations to her family. maybe that pushes your own little insecurity button because no one’s ever wanted to- or HAD to hide you. leaves you feeling unimportant. like it all meant nothing, just a stop on the way to her. leads to the two of you butting heads one too many times, having a massive relationship ending fight. she makes it sound like she thinks so little of you, little rich girl that doesn’t know what real work is. doesn’t realize what it takes to run a family. HER family. she can’t believe how immature you are, liking tweets about “how historians will say you were good friends” (rip public likes), and with that you turn your heel, hellbent on making her feel just as shitty as she made you feel. and thus starts the PR war, taking digs and snippy comments at each other any chance you get. you call her a career obsessed psycho, she calls you a fame whore. you date the people you used to talk shit about with her. she sabotages brand deals. there’s a blurry paparazzi shot of her crying in the street comforted by art and clearly both unaware that they’re being photographed. you start partying harder to avoid the regret that’s creeping in. one night you happen to look up and see art standing there, making a quick appearance at some event neither of you could care less about. you and him had a great repartee before it all went down, he was a great sport about you getting his wife in bed and joined in a few times. for whatever reason you thought maybe that would keep going on, grinning and making your way over to him until you register how cold his eyes are, jaw set. one shake of his head is all it takes for you to leave the party in tears.

why did u stop there omg im invested,,,,,

these pictures of her.... tashi.....

i imagine you're someone she met naturally - maybe while she was getting coffee one day and a man was bothering you and she stepped in, it would be love at first sight essentially - for you, anyway - fluttering after her to ask if you can take her out, all hopeful. something about you intrigues tashi immediately - even when she purposely brings her hand up with her wedding band to push some of her hair back - she still agrees to a coffee date. maybe it'd be be nice to just talk to someone who isn't an assistant, or her husband, or a work associate -

neither of you expect how close you become. you're bubbly - someone tashi thinks she would have hated in high-school, seen as fake or whatever, but you're just.... like that. and you make her have fun when she's with you. when she comes over you make her these wild cocktails "saw this one on tiktok! look, its pink!!" and you make her dance with you to poppy music and it feels like those sleepovers she was always hearing about growing up, but never had time for. her life has always been about climbing to the top, working herself to the bone, and sure, thats not something you can relate to - but she appreciates the levity you bring to her life, regardless.

art notices how much lighter tashi is too, and a part of him is jealous, at first. tashi talks about you like you're a crush she has, like you're something special and that makes him feel.... something. but he doesn't have to feel in knots about it for long because its not long before tashi is inviting you to stay and their place - introducing you to her husband and her daughter - and art cant possibly be angry at someone who makes tashi smile like that.

although he does ask, later that night, when he and tashi are getting ready for bed - tashi had finally returned from setting you up in your own room - if tashi was into you. as a joke, mostly, but also not. and tashi had paused from fluffing her pillow and appeared to really think about it. "would it be a problem if i was?" is that she settles on. and art thinks about it. theres definitely something that gives him comfort that its not another man in his home that tashi has feelings for, even if that's misogynistic to think.

"i dont know." he says honesty. "would you leave me for her?"

and tashi laughs. no, she wouldn't. and if it did turn anything with you, she wouldn't exclude art. "i saw you check out her ass," tashi says, "and i saw her check out your dickprint. sweats, dear. we can all see."

and that's that conversation settled.

its not long after that that sex is introduced into your friendship. and for some time, its perfect. its easy - you go on these little dates and mini vacations and you stay over at her house more and more - in her and arts marriage bed, more and more - because art is an extension of tashi - you come to love him too, want him too, need him too.

but you were raised to have what you want when you want it. you get greedy. you want more of her time, their time - you start rolling her eyes when she tells you she cant come to see you because she has a dinner with art with these tennis executives and you start to zone out because you've never really understood sports and its become a sore spot. a way tashi and her husband connect, such a fundamental part of who they are and what they're built upon and you just..... dont get it. in the early days you liked to listen to her talk about it, but now you kind of hate it. it feels like a rival. a glaring reminder you're lesser than something and that's a feeling you dont like.

born rich and having people always falling over themselves to give you attention - tashi was like a breath of fresh air. she had as much money as you currently, but she wasn't born with it. she worked for it, and that made her have a realness to her you couldn't find in your real life. fake love, fake friendships, even your family is fucking fake - but tashi and art - they brought something tangible into your life, something that wasn't easy.

tashi treated you like a brat during sex - and she the tamer - and it opened your eyes to a whole new world. you loved working for her approval, because it could never be earned by throwing your money at her, it came from giving a part of yourself up and eventually that became too scary to deal with when you weren't sure if you were even permanent in her life.

tashi was never good with words and you lived for them and this eventually lead to your downfall - the breakup of the century - and its the worst heartbreak you've ever known because the only real and genuine thing in your life is gone, because she'd rather fuck a tennis racket for the rest of her life than truly build a life with you in it (at least that's how you see it)

and it hurts even worse because you lose art and lily too. lily who felt like a little niece to you. who always cheered when she saw you like you were someone cool just for existing. who you could watch all the barbie movies with and you didn't have to pretend like they weren't your favorite movies to watch.

and art.... who'd become a strange kind of friend... and boyfriend? over the years along with tashi. where tashi was ironclad art was mellow and soft and you could talk to him for hours about things you both were oddly passionate about. and he was a wonderful kisser. sex with him felt amazing. it was even better when it was all three of you, you didn't feel like some rich spoiled airhead between them, you felt like you were just a person that was well taken care of.

you dont handle the breakup well at all. tashi and art had always been more closed off than you - more quiet with their deep seeded feelings... while you were loud and screamed how upset you were from the top of your lungs. you were downright nasty about it to publicity.

no shade, full names said. trash talking boldly. calling tashi a tyrannical workaholic robot and how it was a nightmare to be her friend, and how you didn't know she was capable of warm feelings. you poked fun at art for being a lapdog and being walked like a pooch by his wife. (nevermind the fact you'd been the one to wear a collar in the bedroom)

its mean and childish and resentful and you're a bleeding wound and you wait for tashi's rebuttal. but whenever you're brought up, or something you said is brought to her attention, its met with cool dispassion. on both her and arts side. they skate over it, give a short and precise response thats somehow crueler than anything you could ever say in its simplicity, "if talking about me and my family is how she needs to heal, then she's more than welcome to it... what im focused on is..." and then she'd go into her next business venture with her husband.

it made your blood boil. it made you hurt even worse. it made you feel like you were nothing.

what you dont see is the dark circles under tashi's eyes every morning she has to brush concealer over. how sometimes the things you say sting so deep she throws her phone across the room and has to buy a new one. how very rarely she'll break down and let art hold her and she'll ask if she really is a cold unloving robot and art will tell her that shes not, that her love is different but its still real and genuine and he'll try to be a strong pillar for her but inside he wants to seek you out and find you, shake you and throttle you and tell you you're so fucking selfish and stupid because how could you not see tashi loved you? that he did too? how could you not feel it? how could you say the things you say about her, about him, when they'd let you into their bed and into their home and opened themselves up to you.

they weren't the most open people - and maybe that was something they needed to work on - but they'd been the most vulnerable they'd ever been with you. and you took their love and spit on it and said it wasn't shiny enough a rock for you.

it fucking sucked. he hated you for it. if he ever saw you in person he thought he might lose his temper.

you were starting to hate yourself too. why couldn't you be enough? why did you always want more? it definitely had nothing to do with growing up with no genuine love in your life, barely there parents, friends who only talked to you for your money, partners who always cheated on you once your sparkly quality wore off or someone even more sparkly came along. definitely had nothing to do with constantly being told you're vapid and artificial and have no substance to you and having the first people in your life treat you like you have value beyond your net worth - feel distant from you in a way you cant reach - is it any wonder you panicked?

perhaps you should have communicated better. perhaps you should have sat down and talked to them and asked how to be more a part of their life, perhaps you should have asked them to teach you more about tennis instead of growing resentful of it.

but those were things a well rounded mentally stable adult would do. of which, you are not.

at least they have eachother to fall back on.

maybe its time you got married too.