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whumpsday · 1 year ago

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Kane & Jim #55: Feeding

Chronological masterlist / Writing order masterlist

content: recovery, vampire whumpee, whumper turned whumpee, whumpee turned caretaker

happy 2 year anniversary to kane & jim~! hard to believe it's been 2 whole years since i started writing...

wrote while listening to melodies of refresh by tenno gabni

Kane woke and looked to the door. Just like every morning the past week, it was a normal door. No silver. No lock.

He changed and washed his face, creeping upstairs with the hesitancy of someone who knew he wasn’t allowed, despite knowing full-well that he was: Jim had made that clear. He felt too quiet, his ankles free of chains.

It was early morning, early enough that the sun hadn’t risen yet–that terrifying tell-tale glow didn’t shine from behind the curtains. Jim wouldn’t be awake for hours, resting upstairs while Kane slunk around in the dark, in his own house.

Kane couldn’t fathom how much trust that must have required. He still couldn’t believe he’d earned that much.

The fact that Jim was still feeding him his own blood was a miracle in itself. He’d given a time limit of one month. One month for Kane to get used to freedom, to going out on his own, traversing society like a normal person after years as a prisoner. An adjustment period, Jim had called it, his mercies never-ending in the face of Kane’s fear of running to and from the border on his own.

There was no way Kane could ever repay it, not in a thousand years. But he at least had to try.

He turned the knob on the stove. It was something familiar, having owned a stove himself for heating up the contents of blood-packs in his time before he came to own Jim. Human stoves, like their food itself, were more complicated: four burners instead of one, all with dials offering various degrees besides just ‘on’ or ‘off’.

And it was something he hadn’t done since before.

The circle of flames flickered to life, blue and hot and threatening.

He quickly turned it back off, luckily managing to control his strength and not break the delicate knob.

Deep breaths, Jim had said, more times than Kane could count now. Look at me. You’re okay. No one’s gonna hurt you. You’re safe here, remember?

Kane took a deep breath in, playing Jim’s soothing affirmations through his head, exhaling slowly. That’s it, there you go, the memory of Jim’s voice encouraged. You’re alright. No hurting.

After a few more of those, he turned the burner on again. The flames flicked back to life, and Kane watched them silently.

Jim woke, shook off the nerves, and marked another day off his calendar. Seven days down, twenty-one more to go, and then no one will take his blood ever again.

He could stop it now, if he wanted to. He knew he could. Kane hung on his every word like he was some kind of divine prophet. But once he stops, Kane has to start getting blood from vampire territory, and he’d have to talk to his parents to get the money to buy it… and it was too obvious he wasn’t ready.

Jim knew that feeling, going from years of captivity and isolation to suddenly being a person again. He knew how hard it was, even with support. There was no reason for Kane to have to rush into it immediately. The guy could barely go outside at night on his own he was so afraid, and he was a vampire. No, a month’s time would do him well.

Still. He couldn’t help but count the days until it was over.

As he stepped into his slippers and headed downstairs, he stopped in his tracks, hearing someone futzing around in the kitchen.

It was going to take Jim a while to get used to that, Kane roaming freely in his house. At night, even. He knew he could ask Kane to leave once he finds his bearings, but… despite the deep-seated terror, he knew he was safer with Kane here than without. Kane brought Laken home, after all. If any vampire came for him, Kane would save him, too. At least, he hoped so.

He continued down. “Kane?”

“Good morning!” came the cheery reply. That set Jim’s nerves at ease, at least. Right. Kane was friendly, now.

“Morning. You sleep okay?” Jim asked. As he made his way through the living room toward the kitchen, he noticed a distinctly… delicious smell. That couldn’t be right.

“Better! And you?” Kane appeared in the doorway, a big, fanged grin lighting up his face. It was a sight Jim had already long gotten used to by now, one that brought him pride instead of fear.

He shrugged. “You win some, you lose some. Hey, are you, uh… cooking?”

Kane held out a hand. “I am! Please come sit?”

Now he was smiling, too. “Haha, okay.”

Jim took his hand and let Kane lead him to the kitchen table, where a plate full of blueberry pancakes sat. They looked a bit off–undercooked, a little torn up–but the fact that they were there at all was astounding.

He sat down. “How did you even do this? You don’t cook.”

“I watched you,” Kane admitted sheepishly. “In the mornings. I really wanted to make you something, and I didn’t want to waste food by just guessing and doing it wrong, so I started paying close attention, and this seemed like the easiest thing to copy… are they okay?”

“Well, let’s see!” Jim cut into one– definitely undercooked. It oozed out around his knife, but Liz’s failed attempts at cooking had given him ample practice in this field. He popped it in his mouth without a care. “It’s great, Kane. Especially for your first time ever cooking anything. Thank you.”

Kane brightened up even further at the praise, sitting in the chair adjacent. “I know it’s not the same at all, but I wanted to feed you too, somehow. Like you feed me. I was wondering… if you could teach me to cook?”

“You don’t have to–”

“I want to,” Kane insisted. “I really, really do. But I don’t want to impose! I can always ask Laken.”

Jim cut away the less-done bits of the pancake he was working on, scooping up another bite. “Alright, if you’re really sure. Yeah, I can teach you. Doesn’t human food smell, like, really bad to vampires, though? Like it’s rotten or whatever?”

“I’ll manage.” Kane bore no obvious worry of the issue. Clearly, a bad smell was not something that registered to him as a concern any longer. “Thank you.”

It wasn’t until Jim had finished his breakfast and was about to get up that Kane spoke again, the smile fading from his face. “There was something else, actually.”

“Oh?” Jim put his plate and utensils back down.

Kane got down from his seat to kneel on the floor.

“Kane, buddy,” Jim said softly, sliding into that placating tone he always used when trying to calm the vampire down from one of his panics, “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. It’s– it’s to show respect. Please.” As Kane looked up at him with those intense red eyes, Jim could see no fear at all.

“Well, okay then, I guess. What’s up?” he asked.

“I want to thank you. For everything,” Kane spoke carefully, as though each word was precious. Rehearsed. “For taking me away from the hunters. For not hurting me, even though you could have, even though you had every reason to. For helping me calm down when I panic. For feeding me, your own blood, even though it’s so hard for you, just so I wouldn’t starve. For giving me clothes and bedding and music and happiness again. You gave me my life back, but I owe you so much more than just my life. Because without you, I wasn’t dead, I was– I was there. And you saved me.”

Tears welled up in Kane’s eyes as he stared up reverent, overcome with emotion. “And I was thinking about all the times I’ve apologized to you, I was too afraid to do it right. I was just– I really was sorry, I’ve been sorry for a long, long time, but in those moments, I’ve always just been focused on not being hurt… but you would never hurt me. I see that now. Jim, I am so, truly sorry for hurting you. For every single time I hurt you, big and small, for those five years and since, I am so, so sorry. I was unimaginably cruel to you, and no one deserves that, but especially not you. I know that back then I told you the opposite, but I was wrong. You deserve to be happy! And I took that from you.”

Kane placed a hand over his heart. “And I swear to you, I will make it my life’s mission to give you back that happiness. I am loyal to you, Jim. Forever.”

He put his hand down. “That–that’s all. Thank you for listening.”

Jim sat in silence for a moment, absorbing it all. Wasn’t this why he’d originally taken Kane in? Wasn’t that the excuse he’d used– he wanted Kane fear-free enough to have an actual discussion about back then, without him devolving into a terrified, sobbing mess? He could do that, now. How long had he been waiting to hear Kane admit that he hadn’t deserved it after all? Fifteen years?

Oh, he was so unprepared for this conversation. He needed all kinds of psyching-up before they could have that talk.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Kane added quietly. “I just wanted you to know.”

“Right. Yeah,” Jim said, snapping out of it. Just because Kane was ready didn’t mean it had to be now. It could be any time, when he was ready, too. “That’s… wow. Hey, it’s okay,” he tried, far more comfortable comforting Kane than the other way around. He grabbed a tissue, handing it to him. “I mean, not the–not what you did. I mean it’s okay now. Um, thanks, is what I mean, I guess. For really apologizing.”

Kane wiped his eyes. “It’s the absolute least I could do. Everything I have is something you’ve given to me. Nothing hurts anymore.”

“Good.” His sincerity brought a smile to Jim’s face. “You know, maybe cooking isn’t the best idea if you’re afraid of burns? It’s not gonna happen every time, but even I get myself once in a while. Just thought I should warn you.”

“You give me blood,” Kane pointed out. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. “Plus, you’ll be there. Right?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there.” Jim patted him on the shoulder.

Kane smiled back up at him. “Then I’ll be okay.”

taglist in reblogs

#kane and jim #whump #my writing #vampire whumpee #recovery whump #whumper turned whumpee #whumpee turned caretaker

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 14 days ago

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Art by Barry Blitt. Title: The First 100.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 29, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 30, 2025

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt popularized the idea that the first 100 days of a presidency established an administration’s direction. As soon as he took office on March 4, 1933, he called Congress into special session to meet on March 9 to address the emergency of the Great Depression. Congress responded to the crisis by quickly passing 15 major bills and 77 other measures first to stabilize the economy and then to rebuild it. On July 24, 1933, FDR looked back at “the crowding events of the hundred days which had been devoted to the starting of the wheels of the New Deal.”

In a Fireside Chat broadcast over the radio, FDR explained that his administration had stabilized the nation’s banks and raised taxes to pay for millions in borrowing. That federal money was feeding starving people, as well as employing 300,000 young men to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps planting trees to prevent soil erosion, building levees and dams for flood control, and maintaining forest roads and trails. It was also funding a public works program for highways and inland navigation, as well as state-based municipal improvements. The government had also raised farm income and wages by regulating agriculture and abolishing child labor.

FDR was speaking on July 24 to urge Americans to get behind a program of shorter hours and higher wages to create purchasing power that would restart the economy. “It goes back to the basic idea of society and of the Nation itself that people acting in a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could even hope to bring about,” he said. “If I am asked whether the American people will pull themselves out of this depression, I answer, ‘They will if they want to.’”

Today is the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term in office. He marked it by delivering what amounted to a rally outside Detroit, Michigan, in which he claimed his had been “the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country, and that’s according to many, many people…. This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it. We’ve just gotten started. You haven’t even seen anything yet.”

In fact, Trump has signed just five measures into law: the Laken Riley Act, which Congress passed before he took office; a stopgap funding measure; and three resolutions overturning rules set by the Biden administration.

But Trump’s administration does parallel FDR’s in an odd way. Trump set out in his first hundred days to undo the government FDR established in his first hundred days. Trump has turned the nation away from 92 years of a government that sought to serve ordinary Americans by regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, protecting civil rights, and stabilizing global security and trade. Instead, he is trying to recreate the nation of more than 100 years ago, in which the role of government was to protect the wealthy and enable them to make money from the country’s resources and its people.

Trump set out to destroy the modern American state, gutting the civil service and illegally shuttering federal agencies, as well as slashing through government programs. His team has withdrawn the U.S. from its global leadership and rejected democratic allies in favor of autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin. At home he has imitated those autocrats, ignoring the rule of law and rendering migrants to prison in El Salvador without due process, and using the power of the state to threaten those he perceives as his enemies.

As is typical with autocratic governments, corruption appears to be running deep in this White House. The president and his family are openly profiting from his office. And it would be hard to find a better example of a government letting cronies profit off public resources than Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s relinquishing of control over the department to a DOGE operative, or of a government permitting businesses to profit from ordinary Americans than billionaire Elon Musk’s apparent creation of a master database of Americans’ information.

Trump’s dismantling of the modern American state has been a disaster. Trump spoke tonight in Michigan to tout his hope that his new tariffs will center auto manufacturing back in the U.S., but the economic chaos his tariff policies have unleashed has turned what was a booming economy 100 days ago sharply downward. That economic slump, along with Trump’s illegal renditions of men to El Salvador and the gutting of services Americans depend on, has given Trump the lowest job approval rating after 100 days of any president in 80 years.

And that suggests another way to look at the first 100 days of a presidential term. For all that the 100-days trope focuses on presidents, the first 100 days of Trump’s second term have shown Americans, sometimes encouraged by their allies abroad, pushing back against Trump to restore American democracy.

Democratic attorneys general began to plan for a possible Trump second term in February 2024, preparing for cases they might have to file if Trump followed through with his campaign promises or implemented Project 2025. California, with 5,600 staffers in its department of justice, and New York, with 2,400, carried much of the weight. They were able to file their first challenges to Trump’s January 20 executive orders on January 21. Their lawsuits, and those of others, have been so successful that they have sparked both Trump and MAGA Republicans to attack judges and even the judiciary.

Early observers of the movement to stop Trump’s destruction of the modern state argued that the opposition was too burned out to mount any meaningful pushback against a newly emboldened Trump. But, in fact, people were not in the streets because they were organizing over computer apps and at the local level, a reality that burst into the open at Republican town halls in late February as angry voters protested government cuts at the hands of Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”

On March 4, Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC), the head of the House Republicans’ campaign arm, told Republicans to stop holding town halls to stop the protests from gaining attention. So Democrats began holding their own packed town halls in the absent Republicans’ districts.

On March 20, 2025, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) launched their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour in Las Vegas. Unexpectedly huge crowds flocked to their rallies across the West, revealing a deep well of unhappiness at the current government even in areas that had voted for Trump.

At 7:00 on the evening of March 31, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) launched a marathon speech attacking the Trump administration and imploring Republicans to defend democracy because, he said, he had “been hearing from people from all over my state and indeed all over the nation calling upon folks in Congress to do more, to do things that recognize the urgency—the crisis—of the moment. And so we all have a responsibility, I believe to do something different to cause, as John Lewis said, good trouble, and that includes me.” Before he finished twenty-five hours later on April 1, his speech—the longest in congressional history—had been liked on TikTok 400 million times.

The quiet organizing of the early months of the administration showed when the first call for a public “Hands Off!” protest on April 5 produced more than 1,400 rallies in all 50 states and turned out millions of people. Organizers called for “an end to the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration; an end to slashing federal funds for Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on; and an end to the attacks on immigrants, trans people, and other communities.”

On April 11, Harvard University rejected the administration’s demand to regulate the “intellectual and civil rights conditions” at Harvard, including its governance, admissions, programs, and extracurricular activities, in exchange for the continuation of $2.2 billion in multiyear grants and a $60 million contract.

Harvard’s lawyers wrote: “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government. Accordingly, Harvard will not accept the government’s terms as an agreement in principle…. Harvard is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

Last Sunday, April 27, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker gave a barn-burning speech to Democrats in New Hampshire, telling them to “fight—EVERYWHERE AND ALL AT ONCE.” “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now,” he said.

“These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box, and then punish them at the ballot box. They must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history with our democracy intact— because we have no alternative but to do just that—that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors.”’

And so, even as Trump tries to erase the government FDR pioneered, Americans are demonstrating their support for a government that defends ordinary people, and proving the truth of FDR’s words from 1933, that when people act together they “can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could even hope to bring about.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #J.B.Pritzker #Everywhere and all at once #first 100 days #harvard #Mass Protests #corruption #corrupt government

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melien · 9 months ago

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CORNELIA ARCHER’S BC (attempt 2.0...)

I announced this BC almost three years ago but overestimated myself with the ambition and just wasn't in a good place mentally in the following months (to put it mildly), but now I feel like I've missed projects like this a lot and am still vibing with the idea of this BC. Also my ts3 is running so much better now, which was one of the initial reasons for cancellation, but now it's a lot easier for me, woo!

Before it got cancelled, I've got a few contestants. I think some of them were given for public download since, but it's really not a problem for me, I can still use them. Right now I'm thinking of still using the same contestants and maybe accepting a few more. I also asked a few people on discord who said it's fine to use the same sims.

In case someone would like to join and make a contestant, let me know under this post or in an ask! The catch of the BC is that the contestant should be based on a song/album (of any artist), as Cornelia herself is very Taylor Swift inspired and is a Lover girlie, actually made on the singer's 30th birthday in 2019 as a tribute sim (she and the winner may even appear in the Lover gen of my swiftacy if I get there hehe) (yes I'm an absolutely hopeless swiftie, all of my saves have some inspo from her) (and what about it).

I don't know how many sims I would accept (11 would be perfect... I'd dress her as one of the eras for every episode). But it would be fine for me if I got less than that, realistically the simblr climate isn't the same as back when BCs were more popular, I guess.

Contestants:

@vintageplumbobs - Lucy Starr

@poisonfireleafs - Laura Oak

@dragonplumbobs - Carson Lake

@cloudberry-sims - Aella Wonders

@tosimornottosim - Ivalace Goldchild

@arogaba - Sara Nix

@berriespunches - Lara Mooney

@blurrypxls - Kitty Lloyd

@bellakenobi - Lilian Pendragon

@kithlien - Laken Dahl

Rules:

Your sim must be YA vanilla or banilla.

All genders are welcome. Cornelia is pansexual.

Occults allowed (except ghosts)

No Irresistible trait, please.

CC is allowed, though don’t go overboard with it. I mostly use Chazy/Poisonfireleafs hair retextures, and I may change makeup and eyebrows to similar ones because I like keeping everything in my style, unless it’s something that makes the sim unique and is a part of them.

No custom sliders, please.

I have all the packs. You may set all outfits for your sim so they can match their color scheme, but it’s fine if you can’t.

Private download, but it's okay if you decide to make it public (to those who already made it public, don't stress).

Please write a bio for your sim. It doesn’t have to be long, just basics of their personality.

The most important aspect of this BC: it’s not a regular one, it’s a music-inspired BC. Therefore, your sim must be inspired by a certain song, music video, artist, or music album - it could be whatever you wish! (absolutely no pressure if you can't think of anything and would just want to make a regular sim, but I just thought it would be a fun prompt)

The deadline for making a sim is September 30 (flexible). The faster I get all the sims, the better, but no pressure!

#sims #ts3 #sims 3 #cornelia archer's BC

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writing-with-olive · 4 months ago

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Hey so the Laken Riley Act has gotten past the House and has been reintroduced to the Senate, and we really gotta take action about it, because the whole point of it is to force law enforcement to detain illegal immigrants for pretty much any alleged crime including things like suspected shoplifting, even if it's not been proven.

Please call your senators about it and tell them not to support the bill.

For a basic script, use this (feel free to add a bit about it being super racist if you have a senator who will be receptive to that)

Hi. I'm calling today from [state your person represents] as a constituent of [name of your person]. I heard about HR 29, or the Laken Riley Act, and was calling to express my deep concern for it, as it would seriously harm [name of your person]'s constituents in my community, by forcing law enforcement to go ahead with detentions they deem unnecessary, which would waste [name for people who live in your state]'s tax dollars. Because of this, I'm calling on [him/her] to vote NO when the bill comes to a floor vote. (They'll say that they'll pass it along) Thank you, I appreciate that. Have a good day. *hang up*

For templates to make more individualized scripts, go to this link (also pinned on my blog).

If you need help, feel free to send me an ask.

#activism #call your senators #call script #laken riley act #hr 29 #activism with olive #please boost

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gaiahypothesims · 1 month ago

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517

Perry- Oh wow... wow wow wowww. Look at you.

Jonah- <grimaces> Please don't.

Perry- Your Dad has really outdone himself. You'd think after all that time being so straight-laced that this <motions to Jonah's clothes> would be way outside his comfort zone. Good for him, for taking chances.

Jonah- Chances that I now have to take.

Perry- Oh please. This is exactly something you would have worn before... maybe a bit more yellow than purple, but its very you.

Jonah- Which me are we speaking of.

Perry- <smiles> I think it suits you very well. Just go with it. Be brave and un-compromising. You can't tell me that you haven't always wanted a bit of attention. I've seen you admiring yourself in a mirror a time or two.

Jonah- <grumbles> Everyone likes looking young and ... that's besides the point Perry.

Perry- That's the spirit! Now get out there and be your best self.

Jonah- Which one is that?

Perry- The one that gets the girl.

**Don't ask me where Laken is. He's around... but getting him anywhere is proving to be difficult.

#the sims 3 #precipice #jonah #perry #sims 3 #ts3 #simblr #sims story

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bitchyblue · 3 months ago

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Script for contacting your local reps

If you are able to make a phone call, this is usually best. If not, email them.

Here's how to find them.

"Hello [senator/congressperson]

I'm calling to urge you to please stand with Senate Democrats in opposing Trump's government spending freeze and the unlawful actions taken by an unelected billionaire. We elected you so that you'd stand up for us, and that involves ensuring that we have governmental protections like the EPA, FDA, and federal funding for Medicare & Medicaid. Everyone deserves clean water and safe food, so please work together to oppose these illegal and dangerous actions."

I was calling my senator, John Fetterman, so I included this information. Feel free to look at your own rep's voting record and either applaud or express disappointment similar to the following:

"I am disappointed at the Senator's voting record lately, such as co-sponsoring the Laken Riley act, and would ask that he side with Senate democrats and stop helping the MAGA fringe accomplish their agenda."

I promise it's fast, it's important, and you will feel better.

Here's a video of Senate Dems holding the floor to oppose one of Trump's crazy nominees. Don't let them make you think this insanity is going unopposed. It is very opposed. Let your reps know you've got their backs, they just need to get yours.

#resist #politics #us politics

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mariacallous · 2 months ago

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The Laken Riley Act, which requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain undocumented immigrants charged with even nonviolent crimes, was the first bill that President Donald Trump signed into law in his second term. Every Republican senator voted for the bill. A dozen Democrats, mostly from swing states, joined them, including the new Arizona senator, Ruben Gallego, who was a co-sponsor. Progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York; Alex Padilla, of California; and Chuy García, of Illinois, opposed the Laken Riley Act because it requires the detention of people who’ve only been accused of crimes. Additionally, as Ocasio-Cortez argued in Congress, the bill will bring profits to private-prison corporations. But, for Gallego, his support for the act was one of the reasons that Arizonans sent him to Washington. He made immigration and border security a centerpiece of his campaign, and he was simply doing the job his constituents expected him to do.

I first met Gallego late last year in Washington, D.C., not long after his election as Arizona’s first Latino senator. He was also one of only four Democrats to win Senate races in states carried by Trump. He told me then that his positions on the border came from “listening to the nonpolitical Latinos” around him. Many had opposed previous restrictions on immigration but were now saying, “No, I don’t like what’s going on at the border. That’s chaos.” When Gallego and I talked again, in late February, I asked him about the progressives who were mad at him for supporting the act. He said, “I mean, look, these people are good-natured. They’re not trying to be harmful or anything like that. But I think they are very much out of touch with people’s understanding of the border situation.” Gallego also believes they are wrong to assume that there will be widespread racial profiling or other abuses of the law, such as wanton arrests. “There’s a certain level of misinformation that’s going both ways on this issue,” he told me. Progressives are “spreading fear saying that kids are going to be arrested and detained for shoplifting candy bars.” In practice, he said, “that’s just not how the law works. And, instead of rationally talking about this, I think a lot of people just decided to do a knee-jerk ‘Let’s just stand up against Trump’s first thing.’ ”

Gallego is of the opinion that Democrats do not have much to gain from simply opposing Trump. He brought up the example of Trump and Elon Musk’s attack on U.S.A.I.D. In Arizona, he said, voters would care about mass layoffs of National Park Service employees because of the Grand Canyon, firefighters because of the threat of forest fires, and U.S.D.A. workers who are trying to stop the spread of avian flu. But “no one’s talking about the firings at U.S.A.I.D.,” he told me, because they “think we spend too much money on foreign aid.” Instead, they’re asking, “ ‘How does this actually relate to me?’ ” He added, “The best way you can save U.S.A.I.D. and programs like that is to make the Republican position and Donald Trump’s position unpopular by other means.”

Gallego noted that, after Trump’s first month in office, public-opinion surveys found that people were “happy with what the President was doing but wished he would focus more on the cost of living.” That’s where Gallego is concentrating his criticism. “For me,” he said, “resistance is making sure that people understand this Administration isn’t doing anything to bring down the cost of living. Instead, they’re doing basically everything to cut services to everyday Americans, gutting the poor so they can give tax cuts to the rich. That’s the resistance I’m doing right now. And the more I do that, the more messages I can get out there, the weaker I can make this Administration, and the easier it is for us to protect a lot of these core services.” Gallego has been arguing that the Administration’s economic plans will result in cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, and veterans’ benefits. His pragmatic approach to the Trump Administration is the one most Democrats seem to be taking, at least for now: collaborate when possible, and resist when necessary, if at all.

For most of his political career—three years in the Arizona state legislature, followed by a decade in the House of Representatives—Gallego was known as a progressive. The son of immigrants, his mother from Colombia, and his father from Mexico, Gallego graduated from Harvard, and then deployed to Iraq. He won his first election, in 2010, as part of a groundswell of opposition to Arizona’s S.B. 1070, which required police to verify the immigration status of anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally. (It was signed into law but was partially struck down by the Supreme Court, in 2012.) “Gallego was an important part of that movement. He got elected because of that movement,” Héctor Sánchez Barba, the president and C.E.O. of Mi Familia Vota, a national Latino advocacy organization with headquarters in Arizona, told me. But in recent years, as Gallego performed on bigger stages, he began to critique certain positions held by progressive Democrats.

The day after the 2020 Presidential election, when many were surprised by Trump’s relative strength among Latinos, Gallego railed on Twitter about the term “Latinx,” saying it should be abandoned. He caught heat from progressives but still repeated the argument in many different venues. On “Real Time with Bill Maher,” he explained that it offended him as a native Spanish speaker to be told that “my thinking about my language is wrong.” To great applause, he added, “I don’t need to hear that. I love my culture. My language is part of my culture, and I’m not gonna have someone change that.” For Gallego, this episode still contains an important lesson. “I hate to harp on this,” he told me, “but years ago when I tried to take down ‘Latinx,’ everyone was like, ‘What?’ I’m, like, ‘Why aren’t you guys listening to people?’ ”

In January, 2023, after Senator Kyrsten Sinema left the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent, Gallego announced that he would run against her. Then, earlier than many other Democrats, he began calling the situation at the border a “crisis.” In May, 2023, he supported President Joe Biden’s decision to deploy more troops to the border and criticized the Biden Administration for being unprepared to manage the surge of border crossings that was expected after the end of Title 42, which had restricted the flow of migrants. That October, following a sharp rise in the number of apprehensions, he chastised the Administration for not taking the needs of his constituents seriously enough. “Arizona’s border communities have been on the front line of this border crisis,” he told Fox News. “We’ve worked, again and again, to get the Administration to listen to their concerns.”

By the time Sinema dropped out of the race, in March, 2024, Gallego had left the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Publicly, he said that he let his membership lapse because dues had gone up significantly. But he also stopped calling himself progressive. When NBC News asked him if he still embraced the label, he said, “I consider myself an Arizona member of Congress who works across the aisle with everybody.” Last summer, he was the only Democrat who co-sponsored a bill intended to expedite the hiring of Customs and Border Protection officers.

In Gallego’s view, he defeated his Republican opponent, the right-wing former television anchor Kari Lake, by talking about immigration as Arizonans do, not as Fox News hosts do. In one of her campaign ads, she said, “We’re not safe because of our open borders. We must finish the wall and stop the invasion.” Gallego told me that, in reality, “Arizonans are, like, ‘We want border security, we want immigration reform, we want border trade.’ ” He spoke about the Arizonans who “go to Los Algodones to fix their teeth.” (The town, a short drive from Yuma, Arizona, is home to hundreds of dental clinics.) He also asked, “How many parents send their teen-age kids driving alone to Rocky Point?” That’s the small Sonoran beach city known in Mexico as Puerto Peñasco, about a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Yuma, Phoenix, and Tucson. Gallego mentioned how Arizona border cities benefit from the constant flow of Mexican shoppers buying food, clothing, and electronics. Thousands of Mexican nationals cross the San Luis port of entry near Yuma every day, to tend to Arizona’s winter vegetables, and many students cross from Sonora to Arizona to attend school.

The mayors of several border communities endorsed Gallego rather than Lake. What he’s hearing most from those mayors now, he said, is panic about the prospect of tariffs on goods from Mexico. “If the President continues to say, ‘I’m going to raise tariffs, I’m not going to raise tariffs,’ what’s going to happen is Mexican businesses are just going to cut up their contracts with American businesses,” he said. (Since I spoke with Gallego, Trump announced that the tariffs were on again, then, two days later, said they were off again—sort of. About half of all goods entering the United States from Mexico—those that comply with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement—will be exempt from tariffs until early April, when the issue will be revisited.)

For decades, Democrats have relied on moral arguments—the human right to mobility, the political turmoil that causes migrants to flee their home countries, and the many contributions that undocumented immigrants make to the United States—to defend the rights of immigrants. Gallego has also made them, and he still supports comprehensive immigration reform and permanent legal status for DACA recipients and noncitizen veterans. But Democrats have become more reluctant to articulate a positive case for immigrants, and quicker to call out progressives for what sounds like unconditional support for all immigrants, all the time. In January, Trump suspended the asylum system at the southern border. Long before that, Gallego had argued that the asylum system was “being abused”: that asylum seekers had learned how to exploit the system’s loopholes and knew what to say in order to meet its criteria for admission. He told me, “To deny that it’s being abused, first of all, you’re setting up the whole asylum system to fall, but also you’re losing trust with anybody who can think of you as an even arbiter.”

For Sánchez Barba, of Mi Familia Vota, the real problem isn’t blind support for immigrants by progressives but that “MAGA extremism kidnapped the issue of immigration.” He continued, “The reality is that this is a nation that is addicted to cheap, exploitable, and disposable labor. That’s it. Democrats keep falling into the trap that Republicans laid on immigration and need to take a stronger stand to be the party of a rational approach to immigration. It’s unacceptable that we haven’t had a real conversation about legalization, even for the Dreamers.” Gallego is “going to be in the Senate for the next six years,” Sánchez Barba told me, “and this is a great opportunity for him to be the kind of leader our nation needs, to oppose an anti-immigrant agenda that doesn’t make sense.”

Representative Delia Ramirez, from Illinois, also wants Democrats to be more assertive against Trump. “Our constituents have asked Democrats to stand up and do more—to stop being the minority party and become the opposition party. Right now, we have to use EVERY tool at our disposal—from withholding votes to supporting organizations litigating in courts,” she told me over e-mail. “Waiting for the Trump Administration to continue harming our communities before we act fails our constituents and erodes trust in their elected officials.”

When Gallego and I spoke last year about Trump’s mass-deportation plans, he told me that, in his view, “targeting criminals” will be “universally popular.” Yet, he added, “if the net gets cast very wide, I think that’s when you get problems. You start deporting Dreamers, you start separating kids from families—there’s not a humanitarian approach to this. I think there’s not going to be as much popular sentiment for that as they think.” When we talked recently, he predicted that the Trump Administration would soon exceed its mandate on deportations: “I think, at some point, the President is so obsessed with quotas and numbers and not actual effectiveness, they’re going to end up going after some real mass-deportation numbers.” In that case, he said, “I think you’re going to see the popularity of his immigration policies really slide.”

Gallego also believes that the popularity of Trump’s immigration policies will wane once Americans realize how much they cost. “ICE is running out of money,” he told me. “They just borrowed another five hundred million dollars from appropriations—so they’re actually literally doing catch and release now of people they have caught.” As of last month, the agency’s detention centers were nearly ten per cent over capacity, and it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to open enough facilities to meet the Administration's goals. And the military flights to Panama, or Guantánamo, or perhaps to El Salvador—President Nayib Bukele offered up his country’s biggest prison to house deportees from the United States—are much more expensive than the charter flights used during the Biden Administration. Trump has said that there will be “no price tag” on his deportation efforts; in practice, the endeavor could over time prove to be less popular than he believes.

Gallego said that he will resist Trump if his policies harm Arizona. He returned to the case of Yuma, which has a four-billion-dollar-per-year agricultural industry. So far, Trump has not impeded the flow of Mexican workers to the area, but, if he does, Gallego told me that he will blame the President and the Administration for costing Arizona jobs, hampering the state’s ability to recruit companies to import their goods through Arizona, and creating such a choke point at the border that growers “lose a lot of product in the summer, because it’s so damn hot.” He also argued that closing the border entirely would undermine Trump’s America First agenda, because “we as a government had said, ‘Stop doing shit in Asia. Come back to the United States, or come near shore.’ ” Tariffs could have a similar effect as border closings, if they decrease the flow of goods crossing the border in both directions.

Gallego’s vision for the Democratic Party is more pragmatic than progressive. He would hold Trump accountable when his policies do not improve the lives of working-class voters, but also stand back and watch him implement them, at which point, he predicts, there will be backlash and political consequences. “With birthright citizenship, he did it right away and has been quiet about it since,” Gallego told me. “He knows that it’s not a very popular position.” He sees similar consequences for foreign policy. “They absolutely have destroyed our relationship with our North Atlantic partners, our European allies,” he said. And, unlike Bill Clinton, who, Gallego said, reduced the size of the federal government in a “very orderly manner,” the Trump Administration is “taking a meat cleaver to the federal workforce without actually looking at programs. They wanted to move so fast, but they moved in a dumb, dumb way—and ended up hurting a lot of their base, by the way.” It could get to the point, Gallego argues, that it becomes “politically unsustainable, going into an election year next year, to be supportive of policies that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are doing.” The risk, of course, is that it doesn’t—and that Democrats’ passivity harms their credibility, too. Defining Democratic success as Republican failure isn’t the same thing as charting a positive path forward for the country.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 1 year ago

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Damn I guess Laken dropped the ball on showing Chris Stardew Valley

Laken probably saw him get REAL WEIRD once hearing someone talk about playing a game and wisely chose not to bring any up after that, although they didn't know why.

#laken asks

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usgovsummary · 3 months ago

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January 29, 2025

POTUS:

The Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, held a major press conference to summarize the first days of Trump's term. Many questions were asked regarding the immigration raids, the funding freeze, and tax cuts. Full transcript here

Signed an executive order said to better education and expand access. The basis is the government will provide more funding to families to allow students to go to K-12 schools of their choosing, including private, faith-based, or public charter schools. Read here

Posted an executive order to change what is taught in K-12 schools. Meant to ensure education will "instill a patriotic admiration." This includes prohibiting teaching and possibly discussing of gender identity, "discriminatory equity ideology," and any way the US has messed up in the past that may make the country look bad. Read the full order here

An executive order to begin preparations for America's 250th Birthday

A memo to expand the operating capacity of the Migrant Operations Center at Guantanamo Bay

Sign the Laken Riley Act into law. That requires any undocumented noncitizen charged with theft and possibly other crimes to be detained by the Department of Homeland Security. Full law here

Executive order to aggressively combat antisemitism. Full order here

More information here

SCOTUS:

The Supreme Court did not meet

More information here

Congress:

42 bills and resolutions were introduced in the Senate. The major bills are allotting $25,000,000,000 for a wall on the border between the US and Mexico (S.293), reducing the federal workforce (S.295), giving $10,000,000,000 to the Department of Defense to secure the borders (S.301), and many more. Full list here

Two resolutions were passed in the Senate. One honoring the 51st annual National Catholic Schools Week and the other designating January 2025 as "National Stalking Awareness Month." More information here

The Senate confirmed Lee Zeldin to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Four bills were introduced in the House of Representatives. All were in regard to indigenous tribes, their land, and healthcare. All bills here

More information here

#congress #politics #potus #president trump #scotus #supreme court #us politics #us president #us supreme court #house of representatives #senate #american politics

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im-just-a-mississippi-girl · 10 months ago

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Birthday Surprise

Pairing: Nick Jackson x female!reader

Category: Fluff

Word count: 815

Summary: Nick spends all week secretly planning and preparing for his love’s surprise birthday party.

Warnings: None

A/N: Hope you had the best birthday @katries 🎉 Love you bunches!! 🫶🏻🩵💜

Masterlist

Taglist

Moodboard is made by me specifically for @katries 🥰

All week long Nick was on a mission. His mission? To throw the best surprise birthday party for his talented and gorgeous girlfriend. Despite having been together for such a short period of time, Nick wanted to go all out, to show her he cared and how much he loves her. Nick casually asked about what her preference of cake was at the end of last week. He wanted to be prepared ahead of time so he could make sure everything was perfect. He called up all her friends and some of his as well.

He asked for a few of her friends to get her out of the house for the day so he could decorate. About an hour into it Nick realized he needed help if he wanted to get this done on time. So called up the one person he could always count on — his brother Matt.

The two brothers worked together in hanging a banner and streamers. “Something’s missing.” Nick stated as he took in their progress. He went through his mental check list. Banner? Check. Streamers? Check. Balloons? Nick’s eyes darted around the room. No balloons. “The balloons are missing. Did you get them on your way here like I asked?” Nick spun on his heel to face Matt.

“Yes, Nick. I got the cake too.” Matt rolled his eyes. Matt wasn’t really that annoyed, he just liked giving Nick a hard time and what better way than stressing him out?

Nick froze. The cake! The most important part of a birthday party! How could he have forgotten? Thank God for Matt’s thinking because Nick’s was everywhere all at once. “Thanks. I can’t believe I forgot.” Nick mentally kicked himself for almost ruining the party. The party he was dead set on making perfect because his girl deserved perfection. To him, she was perfection.

“Don’t mention it.” Matt shrugged. “I’ll grab the balloons from the car. The cake is the fridge.” Matt called as he exited the living room and went out the front door.

Let’s have a look at this cake. Nick opened the fridge and there sat the cake on the middle shelf in a pink box with a clear plastic window to view the top of the cake. Nick set the cake on the kitchen island across from the fridge. Perfect.

Matt helped Nick place clusters of balloons in various places around the living room and move a few pieces of furniture around to accommodate for the guests.

The boys took a step back, admiring their work. The room looked ready for a party and the timing couldn’t have been any better. The doorbell rang indicating the first guest had arrived. “Thanks for helping me, Matt. It means a lot.” Nick thanked his brother once again, his hand on the doorknob.

Matt waved off the compliment. “It’s what brothers are for. Plus she’s a cool girl and makes you happy, and as mushy as it sounds, that’s all I want for you.”

Nick smiled at that and opened the door. A small group of her friends had arrived, gifts in hand. “Hey girls, come on in. The gifts can go on the kitchen island next to the cake.” He stepped aside and let them enter.

Soon the whole living room and part of the kitchen was filled with people and gifts. A text from Nick’s phone caught his attention.

From: Laken

On our way back. She’s getting suspicious.

Nick quickly got everyone’s attention and gave them go ahead to hide. He flicked the lights off and minutes later a car pulled in the driveway. He was beyond glad he remembered to have the guest follow the driveway on around behind the house to park. He could hear her asking about why the lights were off and getting the response that maybe he forgot to pay the light bill. Laughter followed and he couldn’t help but quietly laugh too, shaking his head.

Keys jingled outside the door, then the keys turned and unlocked the door. It opened and suddenly the lights were flicked on. “SURPRISE!!!” The whole room erupted with cheers and confetti fell from confetti poppers.

All the running around and pretending to forget her birthday was worth it when Nick saw that reaction, shock mixed with disbelief and overwhelming happiness. “Did you really think I’d forget my girl’s birthday?” Nick teased, wrapping her up in a tight embrace followed by a tender kiss. “Let’s party birthday girl! There’s a cake over there just waiting for you to make a wish and blow out the candles.”

Nick was pleased with himself as he watched the love of his life eat cake, dance, and open gifts. The only thoughts crossing his mind was how in this world was he going top this party next year but most importantly, how they would celebrate later, just the two of them.

General Taglist: @legit9thlunaticwarrior @plentyoffandoms-deactivated2024 @1dluver13xx @sunshinevirus @wwenhlimagines @crowleysqueenofhell @jackson-nickthedate @omg-im-such-a-masochist @kmc1989

Nick Jackson Taglist: @mrsmatt @morgan-bucks @rubyred1980 @breezyvk @writtingrose @jennifuz @writtingelite @katries @siriuslyblackonback

#nick jackson #nick jackson imagine #nick jackson x reader #nick jackson fic #nick jackson fanfic #nick jackson fanfiction #aew #aew imagine #aew imagines #aew fanfiction #aew fic #aew fanfic

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lakenscorner · 3 months ago

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Day 23: Attraction

Time. Space. Reality. It's a prism of endless possibilities, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know. I am Laken. I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question... What if two souls found each other across the multiverse?

If the Watcher’s gonna be a stalker I’m gonna use his monologue

Steve and Bucky

“They made our old apartment into an exhibit” Steve hands Bucky a Starbucks cup “They got most of the details wrong. Neither of us would’ve chosen beige wallpaper”

Bucky laughs. He stares into the cup before glancing up at Steve. Why is he being handed a milkshake first thing in the morning? Steve enjoys his.

“Steve why the hell are we drinking milkshakes at seven in the morning?” Bucky grumbles. Steve laughs. Bucky glares at him then glares at the ‘milkshake’ on the table in front of him. That reaction just makes Steve laugh more.

“It’s coffee, Buck.” Steve chuckles.

“Coffee?” Bucky’s eyes widen slightly “There’s coffee in here?”

“Yeah, espresso” Steve explains “It’s stronger than normal coffee so you can have more of the sweet stuff.” Bucky glares at the drink again. He hesitantly brings the straw to his mouth and takes a sip.

“Why did he ever drink this stuff black” Bucky finishes the drink in under 5 minutes.

Sam and Castiel

“I don’t understand. What is a display name?” Cas’s brow furrows. He hands the phone to Sam “This is stupid.”

“Cas, this is where the cat videos are, don’t you want to see the kitties?” Sam hands the phone back to Cas “A display name is the name people see when you like or comment” Cas tries to type in ‘Castiel Angel Of The Lord’. He runs out of characters, gets frustrated, and hands the phone back. Sam changes it to ‘Castiel the Angel’.

“Now can I watch cats?” Castiel glares at Sam, making the taller man laugh.

“You know, the younger hunters would call you an ‘IPad kid’ with the amount of cat videos you watch” Sam can’t help but give his friend a little hug.

“I’m a fully grown angel and this is a phone” Cas leans back against Sam.

Racetrack and Crutchie

“Ayo Crutchie!” Racetrack shouts across the room “You seen my cigar?”

“No, ask Albert!” Crutchie shouts back. He turns his back to Racetrack and tries to light the cigar. He takes a puff. Crutchie, having never smoked before, breaks down into a coughing fit.

“Is that my cigar! You liar!” Racetrack tackles Crutchie. The two boys wrestle on the ground.

“No fair!” Crutchie tries to shove Racetrack off of him “I got a bum leg, this ain’t fair!”

“Fair went out the window when you stole my cigar!” Racetrack grabs at the cigar. Crutchie grabs a bedframe and tries to drag himself away.

“Well if fair’s out the window…” Crutchie bites down on the other boy’s arm.

“Fuck!” Racetrack sits up “You bit me!”

“Yeah, don’t tackle me!”

“Don’t bite me! And don’t steal my cigar!”

The two boys glare at each other. They both start to smile, then snicker, then break down laughing hysterically.

The Doctor and Donna

“Donna don’t touch that” the Doctor sits across the room. He doesn’t look up when he speaks. His eyes stay glued to the repair work in front of him.

“You don’t even know what I was touching!” Donna shouts “You’re not even looking!” The Doctor sighs. He looks over at Donna.

“Don’t touch that” He repeats. Donna removes her hand from the lever she was touching. She moves across the room and sits across from the Doctor. Donna hums softly. The Doctor looks up for a moment, finding comfort in his friend’s humming. He finishes his repair and leans on Donna’s shoulder.

“You know,” he muses “we should get you an iPad so you’ll stop messing around with everything.”

“What the bloody hell is an iPad?” Donna nudges the Doctor slightly.

“Spoilers”

Jane and Constance

Jane Doe and Constance Blackwood have one thing in common, nobody knows them. Jane scares Constance. But the way she sits there, apart from the rest of the choir reminds Constance of herself.

“Which name do you prefer?” Constance sits next to Jane “I know you have a few”

“Jane is fine” She doesn’t make eye contact. Constance shifts uncomfortably.

“Nobody knows us. They think they know me but they don’t”

“Indeed” Jane’s voice cracks.

“We could know each other?” Constance suggests.

“We could.” Jane looks up at Constance. Her new friend. Both girls can’t help but smile.

Laken and Savannah

The writer Laken procrastinates writing so hard. He’s supposed to spend an hour a day writing, but at least 15 minutes goes toward messaging gifs to Savannah. Even now, he switches between tabs to message her. Laken has no idea when he became so close with Savannah, but he’d be a very different person if he wasn’t.

Love you @celestinedream

@fluffbruary

#marvel #bucky barnes #steve rogers #supernatural #sam winchester #castiel #newsies #racetrack higgins #crutchie morris #ride the cyclone #jane doe #constance blackwood #doctor who #10th doctor #donna noble #fluffbruary 2025

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darkmaga-returns · 6 months ago

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10 shocking stories the media buried today.

The Vigilant Fox

Nov 20, 2024

10 - Joe Rogan ERUPTS on The New York Times for “fack-checking” RFK Jr. on toxic food ingredients while simultaneously proving him right.

“That made my brain hurt just reading it.”

The “fact-check” in question all started when The New York Times claimed RFK Jr. was “wrong” about differences in Froot Loops’ ingredients between Canada and the United States.

However, their own reporting admitted that the U.S. version contains harmful chemicals like Red Dye 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), while the Canadian version uses “natural colorings made from blueberries and carrots.”

“So they’re literally saying he was wrong, but he was right,” Rogan scoffed. “That is the f—king dangerous chemicals banned in Canada that we’re trying to get rid of in America!”

Rogan continued to question what possible motivation The New York Times could have to “fact-check” RFK Jr.’s efforts to remove toxic ingredients from the food supply.

“Like, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to remove all leftover credibility? Are you trying to k*ll it all?” Rogan asked. “Are you secretly working for the Chinese? Like, what are you doing?”

Rogan’s guest, Jimmy Corsetti, concluded, “It’s probably backed by Monsanto or something.”

(See 9 More Revealing Stories Below)

9 - Scott Presler tells corrupt Bucks County, PA commissioners who tried to steal the Senate election that he is gunning for their seats right to their faces.

"I have a message: peacefully, we are COMING for your seat in 2027 if you don't resign TODAY. I am coming for your seat."

She replies, "Have at it!"

Credit: https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1859276862272483645

8 - RFK Jr. exposes the disturbing truth about the Ukraine war in three minutes, revealing it as a money-laundering scheme for BlackRock.

In a shocking admission, Mitch McConnell revealed that the hundreds of billions of dollars American taxpayers are sending to Ukraine are actually going to “American defense manufacturers” instead.

“And who do you think owns every one of those companies?” Kennedy asked. The answer is BlackRock.

H/T: https://x.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/1859273813763997882

7 - Dr. Peter McCullough reveals that serious side effects from the COVID vaccine were anticipated by the FDA in October 2020.

“Before the products finished their trials, there was a slide saying, ‘These are the side effects that we anticipate: myocarditis, blood clots, paralysis with Guillain-Barre syndrome.’ And the list goes on and on and on.”

Video: https://x.com/P_McCulloughMD/status/1859213716115341605

6 - Laken Riley’s father reads a heartbreaking journal entry Laken wrote to her future husband and family.

Laken, who was brutally murdered by an illegal immigrant, wrote, “To my future husband. I want you to know that I'm thinking about you… I'm working every day to become the best wife I can be by working through my current relationships to best prepare me for ours and our kids.”

Video: https://x.com/_johnnymaga/status/1859294663263289501

While you’re here, don’t forget to subscribe to this page for more daily news roundups.Subscribe

#5 - Sunny Hostin Reluctantly Reads ‘Legal Note’ on Air After Smearing Matt Gaetz as a Sex Trafficker

#4 - MSNBC, CNBC on the Chopping Block as Comcast Drops Bombshell News

#3 - Major NATO Country is Advising Citizens to Prepare for NUCLEAR WAR

#2 - Meghan McCain Defends and Endorses Close Friend Tulsi Gabbard for Trump’s DNI

#1 - ‘Censorship Cartel’ on Its Heels as Trump Appointees, Litigation Crack Open Conspiracy

A federal judge approved further legal discovery in a lawsuit by Louisiana, Missouri and censored doctors against federal officials and agencies including GEC for pressuring Big Tech to censor, months after the Supreme Court ruled they didn't have standing for a preliminary injunction.

Alluding to Vice President Kamala Harris's much-mocked verbal crutch, President Trump nominee Judge Terry Doughty ruled he was "burdened by what has been," the SCOTUS ruling.

But he said the plaintiffs showed evidence that is not "impermissibly speculative": a congressional investigation of Facebook parent Meta that found internal admissions it censored the COVID-19 lab-leak theory because it was "under pressure from the [Biden] administration” to do so, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's similar admission to Congress this summer.

The feds are "uniquely in control of the facts, information, documents, and evidence regarding the extent and nature" of the censorship pressure, and the already disclosed emails show "the pains that certain persons and entities went through to hide their tracks," Doughty ruled while limiting further discovery to resolve factual questions for jurisdiction.

"We end with the unignorable reality that regime change is imminent" – Trump's second presidential term – and the "wild" possibility that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the "Disinformation Dozen" targeted by the White House, "may soon replace or control" the defendant Department of Health and Human Services as Trump's nominee for secretary.

But that by itself is too speculative to dismiss the case, the ruling concludes.

Read More: https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/censorship-cartel-its-heels-trump-appointees-litigation-crack-open-alleged

BONUS #1 - Vivek Says DOGE Will DELETE Entire Government Agencies

BONUS #2 - General Flynn Issues Grave Warning Ahead of Trump’s Presidential Return

BONUS #3 - Donald Trump’s COVID ‘Game-Changer’ Finds Surprising New Use

BONUS #4 - Bombshell COVID Vaccine Study Passes Peer-Review for the World to Read

BONUS #5 - The Shocking Truth About Skin Cancer: What You’re Not Being Told About the Sun

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gaiahypothesims · 9 days ago

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540

Evelyn- <studies his face> What was it like?

Jonah- What was what like?

Evelyn- What you remember, the place you lived, the people.

Jonah- Ah, but that is all a figment of my imagination. Elaborate delusions that my brain created during a coma.

Evelyn- Even so. It was a whole life wasn't it?

Jonah- <quietly> It was.

Evelyn- If I'm holding an orange, and you can see it, you can smell it, but you can't touch it... its still an orange.

Jonah- <smiles> Am I the orange?

Evelyn- Maybe. You don't have to talk about it, if its too much. I'm just curious I guess.

Jonah- Ask whatever you want.

Evelyn- How did you and.. Evelyn.. meet?

Jonah- She was hiding from some bad guys, ran into me, didn't realize I was the baddest guy <winks> lucky for her I took her under my wing and brought her home. Home happened to be in a factory, and I slept in a metal bunk bed.

Evelyn- <grins> So you were quite the prize.

Jonah- That I was. I also lived with Laken.

Evelyn- Oh ouch, and she still went for it?

Jonah- I'm pretty sure you know that, when I turn on the charm I can be irresistible. <chuckles> Also my Ev was no stranger to using her body to get what she wanted.

Evelyn- Well, she sounds like a charmer herself.

Jonah- <clears throat> That she was.

#the sims 3 #precipice #evelyn #jonah #sims 3 #ts3 #simblr #sims story

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not-a-space-alien · 1 year ago

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K&J x MMSS 4: Valen & Jim Part 9

Part nine of the fourth crossover with @whumpsday!

Sorry I've been slow getting these out--I've been suffering some writer's block due to some personal stuff I've got going on IRL. I'll admit that I'll probably be putting a liiiitle less effort into polishing the crossover fics from hereon out, but we got a lot of enthusiasm for them so I'm going to keep them coming even if they're a bit messy! There's still a lot of fun stuff in there imo :)

Also this ch is pretty long just because I couldn't find a good place for a chapter break!

K&J masterlist

MMSS masterlist

K&J x MMSS crossover masterlist

To be added to the taglist, contact @whumpsday

Warnings: Capture, dehumanization, nonconsentual bondage/restraint, gag/muzzle, mentions of rape and torture

In this chapter: Valen's fear of getting hatecrimed creeps towards plausibility, but even moving doesn't save Valen from an unexpected nightmare. Luckily this time, he has people looking for him.

***

It's unheard of for anyone to escape vampire territory after years of captivity, and a pretty big shock that another vampire helped him do it. Though it doesn't garner quite the response an inspirational solo escape story might, it's still an incredible tale of something really unusual and an unlikely alliance between humans and vampires, and the media eats it up. Jim does do several interviews about it, wearing the turtlenecks that have recently become his regular wear.

He's purposely vague about Valen, knowing that he doesn't want to be in the limelight. He doesn't even mention him by name. He doesn't mention Kane or any other vampire by name either, worried about Kane being able to find him somehow if he got access to human media. He's given a writer permission to write a book about his experience. She's not pushy like a lot of other journalists, and is intent on getting it right.

Life goes on. Jim helps Valen collect mushrooms. He goes vegetarian. Liz is back to patrolling. Liz makes Jim try therapy, but his preferred method of dealing with it is thinking about it as little as possible, so he drops it fairly early on. Talking with the writer is already pushing it.

Reporters will sometimes come to their house. Valen is thrown into anxious spirals every time, terrified there’s going to be an incident. But the visits die down over the first half a year. Jim doesn't reveal that Valen is living with him, but it's figured out anyway. People who know Liz and see her change from constant anger and depression to actually having some life back in her are grateful to Valen. But many people who don't know Jim and Liz are more hostile: this is an area where a lot of people have been affected by vampire attacks, to boot. They're getting left angry notes.

Valen goes out with Jim during the day, since Jim is still nervous about leaving the house at night. Valen is also nervous about leaving the house, so he doesn’t go to human stores or anything. He either asks Jim to get him things, or goes back to vampire territory and just nervously looks over his shoulder for anyone from the Kithrara estate.

He goes out to get mushrooms, though. He keeps working on his project. He avoids the media, unless someone contacts him directly and is really polite. If humans approach him, he's very polite and doesn't dodge them, but he does excuse himself before too long. He's not antisocial, but he is shy. He likes spending time with Laken, Liz, and Jim, and will socialize with people they deem safe.

One day, Jim and Valen are getting ready to go gather mushrooms while Liz is fast asleep. It's getting hotter out now in the summer. Jim tosses Valen the keys to his car, since Valen is already ready to go. "Hey, can you start the AC running so we don't cook in there while I finish getting dressed? If you're cool with that."

"Sure thing, Jim, dear." He secures his mask to his face, doublechecking that he's completely covered, and heads out, approaching the car in the driveway to unlock it and turn it on.

A man and woman are chatting idly while walking their dog on the other side of the street. When Valen comes out, the man hands the leash to the woman and encourages her to go home, crossing the street and approaching while she leaves.

"Hey!" he calls, looking pissed-off. "It's bad enough there's a vampire in our neighborhood being supervised, now you're out in broad daylight on your own?!"

Valen stops in his tracks and starts to back away. "I apologize, sir, I'm not doing anything nefarious. My-my associate is coming out shortly."

"Yeah, yeah, you saved the Lieberman kid. Well guess what, he's not the only one who lives here! You're scaring my wife, my kids won't play outside anymore!" He pushes Valen.

Valen stumbles back, scrambling back towards the house. "I-I assure you I pose no threat to your family, sir, I've done n-nothing to pose a threat to them."

"You're a fucking vampire! You being here is a threat! Thought the hunters were supposed to protect us!"

Jim comes downstairs shortly, pushing the door open. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Keep that thing on a leash." The man spits and walks off.

"F-fuck off!" Jim shouts, but it loses its impact since the man is already leaving and Jim's voice always wavers when saying anything defiant. He runs to Valen, hugging him. "Are you okay?"

Valen's face is downcast, eyes on the ground. "Um...Yes, I'm not, I wasn't in any physical danger..." He sounds extremely disheartened. "That man said his wife and children are afraid of me. I-I wanted to say he should let me speak to them, so they could see there's no danger, but I doubt that would have been very well received."

"That's not the kind of okay I mean." Jim sighs. "I've been kinda... thinking. That maybe we should move or something. Somewhere more secluded, where you wouldn't have to worry about shit like that. Not too far away from Liz obviously, but y'know. How would you feel about that?"

Valen rubs his arm. "That's probably for the best...but it feels bad they won't even give me a chance. Is there really nothing I can do to win them over?"

"Prolly some people, but not all. Some people are always gonna have their heads in the sand." Jim wonders if his parents would've approved of him and Valen. He's pretty sure they would- Valen brought him back, after all, and they were wonderful loving people, but he can't know for sure. They hated vampires. He doesn't even know for sure if they'd approve of him being gay. He never got a chance to ask.

"You don't need that asshole's approval. I was thinking we could wait 'til the book comes out, Mindy said it'll only be a few more months. And then we could use money from that to find a place. Or we could use some of the stuff you took from Priscus, if you wanted to do it sooner, but that's your call."

Valen still seems downcast. He wants to try and show everyone who he really is, but there is no way to do it without putting himself at risk and making everyone even more uncomfortable.

They end up buying the house and moving sooner rather than later, when Jim finds Valen crying over the latest hatemail he's received one too many times. When he starts being too afraid to leave the house even at night, that's how he knows it's time to go.

Moving is easy with Valen's superior strength and Liz's truck. The house isn't huge, but it's nice and cozy, and it has a basement with no windows. Valen doesn't expect Jim to want to be down there at all, but it's nice to know it's an option if Valen ever wants to rest somewhere where there's no chance the sun can get him.

***

Their life there is cozy, until one day Valen doesn't come home.

Jim freaks out fast. Valen doesn't ever just not come home. And when Jim didn't come home, it was the worst thing that ever happened to him- even though it led to meeting Valen, one of the best.

He calls Liz first, of course. She has connections with other hunters, and the first thing he wants to rule out is that Valen's been killed. The worst-case scenario, and unfortunately, what he thinks is the most likely one. He can't stop crying. He wants to go to Liz, but he doesn't. He has to be home if Valen comes back.

Liz calls around, asking if anyone in various branches have seen a vampire matching Valen's description in the last day. The last two days. The last three days. She ends up on the phone with the director of a branch a day-trip away, who finally confirms that Valen has been seen. And he's alive. He's been captured, and he's being... experimented on for weapons testing.

Liz informs the director who Valen is, and politely asks to please let them pick Valen up today.

"I'm sympathetic to your story, but are you quite sure this merits release?" the director asks her. "Live capture of vampires is quite a difficult feat."

Liz's heart pounds. There's no way she's leaving Valen there, but it would be a lot easier if he'd hand him over. "He's never hurt a human in his life. The opposite, he's actively saved a human from capture. He's accompanied me or my partner on hunts on a few occasions, when one of us was out of commission. He's working on synthesizing artificial blood vampires can live off of out of mushrooms. Hell, he's an innocent person. Those should all... merit release, right?" She's trying really hard not to blow up on him.

The director puts her on hold. Then, a few minutes later, he asks if he can call her back, because he needs to discuss it with some other people in the branch.

"Yeah, of course. I'll- I'll be here. Please call back."

Liz calls Jim immediately- she doesn't stay on the line long, giving a quick summary and a location, wanting to keep the line open for when the director calls. Jim is on his way the second Liz gives him the info, gathering two blood packs and a spare change of full-coverage clothes and a mask in case Valen's own have been compromised. He needs to get there right now. He needs to save Valen.

He doesn't know whether he'll get there to people willing to give Valen back, or hostile hunters refusing to. He can't stop crying, hasn't been able to stop crying for days, but now it's making driving harder. Despite it, he goes as fast as he can.

The director calls back a while later--an annoyingly, stupidly long time later--and he says that he's talked to some people from Liz's branch of the hunter's guild. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Valen is not dangerous--but there are also testimonies from neighbors who lived in concern for their safety for quite a long time, and the director says that he has an obligation to protect the innocent people whose safety he has been entrusted with and can find no strong basis on which to support the release of this vampire. He does say that Liz is free to appeal, which would start the process of gathering a committee to draft a resolution outlining under what circumstances a vampire can be released, since this is such a rare issue and there is no precedent for how to handle it.

Liz wants to pull her hair out. "Valen doesn't- he hasn't been neighbors with those people for years. He moved away when the concerns were initially raised. He keeps away from humans. But, yeah," Her voice breaks. This is the second time someone she loves has been kidnapped. "I wanna start an appeal. Can you at least just... not hurt him? He hasn't done anything. Please."

The director puts her on hold again. Then when he comes back: "I've phoned the hunter's base where he is and told them not to start any new experiments. Thank you for your patience through this irregular situation."

"Thank you." She doesn't want to thank the bastard who approved Valen's torture, but being cordial to this man is now the most important thing. "Um, one more thing. My brother, he and Valen are, obviously close. He's kind of already on his way. Can you at least let him see Valen?"

The director hems and haws. "I suppose that should be all right, as long as it's supervised."

"Thank you. Please keep me updated."

Jim arrives a few hours later. The things he brought are stuffed in his backpack, and he knocks hard and fast on the door until someone opens it. His eyes are red and puffy. When someone opens it, he cries, "Please don't hurt Valen! Please, he didn't do anything, please let him go!" before the other person can get a word in.

The person who answers is a gruff-looking woman with spiked hair. She opens the door, is yelled at for a few seconds, and then looks bewildered. "Wha- Who are you?"

"My name's Jim Lieberman. Please. He didn't do anything, please let him go." Jim begs. "I swear to god, Valen is the kindest, most harmless person on earth, human or vampire. Please."

She huffs. "Ah, shit. Okay. All right." She opens the door and lets Jim in. "Lex!" she calls into the building. Her leg is in a boot, and she drags it across the floor into the next room, where another woman with bandages over her nose is sitting on a couch. "Lex, I knew something was up with that fucking vampire. Listen to what this guy is saying."

"I'm Jim Lieberman, Valen, the, the vampire you- kidnapped-" He's on the verge of tears, again. "He saved me. And he's never hurt anyone, ever. Please, you can't just- this is supposed to be what hunters are against. Kidnapping random innocent people. Please, where is he?"

Lex's face falls. "Oh my god. Okay." She stands up and comes over. "I'm sorry, Jim, we--We thought something was strange, so we brought him back alive, but then Nick wormed his way into the situation. Has anyone talked to the director about this?"

"Fuck the director," Ari says. "I'm making an executive decision of fuck the director." She walks to the basement door with an unsteady gait and turns the knob, opening the door. "He's downstairs." Through the now-open door, Jim can hear Valen sobbing miserably and wordlessly calling out hysterically.

Jim runs down the stairs and straight to the horrible fucking cage with the love of his life inside. "Valen!" he sobs, tears spilling over again. "It's, it's gonna be okay, I'm here, I've gotcha."

Valen's tear-stained face breaks into an expression of relief at seeing Jim, and he sticks his hands through the bars as far as they'll go before the chains stop him. He is topless, wearing a muzzle, and already covered in burn marks.

There's a man at a desk catty-corner to the cage with the hysterical vampire inside of it. He looks up, irritated, as Jim enters. "And what do you think you're doing?"

Jim takes Valen's hands in his, holding them tight. "I'm taking him home. You- you need to let him go. Please." He takes a shuddering breath and repeats his story that worked on the hunters upstairs. "My name is Jim Lieberman. This is Valen, the vampire who saved me from spending my life as a bloodbag." He's so much more than that. "He's never hurt anyone. You're torturing an innocent person. Please fucking let him out of this thing."

"This creature is capable of killing me with a word. I think it will be staying right where it is."

Valen lets out a pitiful whine and tugs on Jim's hand.

There's a clomping sound on the stairs, and Ari appears coming down. "You're so full of shit, Nick. You're not even the one who got your ass beat bringing that thing here. We didn't take him here for you to play with, we wanted answers, and you're done dodging the issue."

Nick looks stormy.

Jim keeps holding Valen's hands. "He's not a thing or an it! Stop treating him like he's not a person! Of, of course he fought back, Valen wouldn't hurt a fly even if someone was screaming in his face, you were kidnapping him! Wouldn't you fight back? If you were him?" He looks up at the spiky-haired woman tearily. "Please help. Please let me take him home. Please, I love him."

Ari sighs and rubs her temples. "All right, I've spent the last two days sitting upstairs trying to decide how I feel about this situation, and this raving lunatic showing up here rabid about this vampire being innocent is enough to push me off the fence. Nick, give him the keys."

"I beg your pardon," Nick says, eyes narrowed.

"Give him the keys, let him take the vampire home."

"You have no authority to tell me to do that," Nick says hotly.

"Oh! You're right. Sorry." She unholsters her revolver and points it at him. "How about now?"

Nick narrows his eyes. "You wouldn't dare."

Lex makes a "cut it out" motion across her neck to Nick, but Ari has already pulled the trigger and put a slug in the floor inches away from Nick's foot with a huge BANG, causing him to jump.

Jim screams and flinches hard when the gun goes off, eyes wide. He's not as terrified as Valen, but he's still terrified.

"The keys," Ari says brusquely.

Jaw set with hatred, Nick comes over and hands a keyring to Jim. He takes the keys from Nick and shakily unlocks the cage, reaching in and pulling Valen out.

"I've got you. I've got you. It's okay, we're gonna go home." He goes to take the muzzle off.

"Do me a favor and take that off after you get outta here," Ari says. "I'm sure this guy is safe for you, but he's none too pleased with us." She reholsters her gun and moves between Jim and Nick, staring Nick down.

Lex comes over and helps Jim lift Valen out of the coffin. "I'm sorry," she says tearfully. "This was a huge mistake, I shouldn't have let this happen."

Valen shakily stands between them on wobbly legs, tears streaming down his face

"I at least need to take the cuffs off so he can get dressed, it's still light out." Jim protests, holding Valen close. "What- what did you do with his clothes? I brought an extra change, but..." But you're fucking monsters. Even Kane didn't strip me.

Jim sniffles. "Valen's the gentlest soul on the face of the planet." He doesn't know if even Valen might be pushed to his limit by this and fight, but he wouldn't blame him if he did.

"Absolutely not," Nick says. "Throw a blanket over him or something. That's a safety hazard."

"Shut up, Nick," Ari snarls. "The keys for the cuffs are on that keyring too. Unlock him if you want." She pointedly does not answer the question of where his clothes went.

"I'm sorry," Lex says. "I didn't realize how messed up this was. Here, let me help you get them off."

Jim takes the hint that they've destroyed his clothes. Even Valen's cute plague doctor mask. He similarly avoids responding with anything meaningful to Lex's apology- it's not okay. None of this is okay. A teary "Yeah." is all he says to her.

He takes the cuffs off with Lex, swings his backpack around, and takes out the change of clothes he brought. "Here, lemme help you get dressed. You're gonna be alright. Goin' home." Jim maneuvers Valen into the clothes until every inch of him is covered, putting the mask on over the muzzle. "Brought some blood packs, too. You can take that thing off and drink in the car. Won't even be- won't even be light for long."

Valen allows himself to be manhandled in Jim's hands, safely bundled up back up, covered, armored, eyes glazed over and distant, barely responding.

"I really don't know what the director will have to say about this," Nick says maliciously.

A growl rips from Valen's throat, and he suddenly comes to life, ripping the mask off, hands fumbling with the straps of the muzzle.

"Shit," Ari says, and Lex backs away nervously.

Valen repels all the hands on him and rips the muzzle off with an animalistic snarl. Then he does something Jim has never seen him do before: he uses persuasion.

"Tell them what you did to me last night," he barks at Nick, eyes aflame, face crunched with his fangs bared.

Nick's gaze goes soft and distant, hypnotized. "I raped you."

"See what the director has to say about that," Valen snarls, and he grabs Jim's wrist and drags him up the stairs.

Jim cries out in anguish at the confession, horrified. He wants to go right back down there and sock the guy, but getting Valen as far away from here as possible as fast as possible is more important. "You f-fucking piece of shit! I'll kill you!" he screams back downstairs Valen drags him out, sobbing.

He hands Valen the backpack. "I'm sorry, I'm s-so sorry it took me this long to find you. Fuck, I can't imagine- why would they do this?" It's not a real question. It feels like the universe is determined to have as much horrible bullshit as possible happen to him and the people he cares about. I don't know how Liz can believe in a loving god in this world.

Ari, it sounds like, is way ahead of Jim, because she also shouts "You fucking what?" And as they rush out and away from the scene, the sound of fists meeting face sounds out loud and clear from downstairs, accompanied by more enraged shouting.

Valen's enraged mask falls as soon as he's upstairs, and he lets go of Jim's hand, sagging against the wall and bursting into tears. He slides down to his knees, strapping his mask back on with fumbling hands.

Footsteps from behind them as the sound of Nick getting the shit beat out of him downstairs continues. Lex comes up, also in tears. "I didn't know he did that," she cries. "I'm so, so sorry. I had no idea he would do that."

Jim goes to stand protectively in front of Valen. Now that he has the damn muzzle off, they're safe. He doesn't need to hold back. "No, when you kidnapped him to torture him, you had no idea you were handing him directly over to a rapist! That makes it all fucking okay!" Jim yells at her. "What's wrong with you?!"

Lex shrinks back. "I didn't --it's compli--I'm sorry," she finally settles on. "I didn't--I thought he was, like, like--come on, you know what vampires are capable of, you know most of them are monsters!"

"Get- get away from us." Jim sobs. "You've done enough. Valen's not the monster here. You're the ones torturing people in an- in an evil lab."

Lex looks like she wants to defend herself, but before she can do so, Valen snaps,"Go back downstairs."

Lex's eyes go distant and she impassively turns and goes down the stairs.

Valen clings to Jim's knees. "Can we please go home now, Jim? Please?"

Jim's glad Valen can just use persuasion to make their exit smooth, even if the distant look he remembers from Kane's party still gives him the creeps. "Yeah, we're going home. Goin' home right now."

Jim helps Valen up and to the car, opening the passenger side door and ushering him in. "There's blood in the backpack, if you can get it under the mask. Here, actually." Jim takes off his flannel and hands that to Valen, too. "You can make a little tent if you don't wanna wait for sunset. We're going home. I'm taking you home. Not gonna let anyone hurt you ever again."

He gets in the driver's seat and pulls onto the road.

"Thank you, Jim. Th-thank you." Valen takes the flannel and curls up on the floor on the passenger's side, jamming himself underneath the glovebox and using the flannel as a blanket to cover himself. "I'm, I'm very grateful you thought to bring food, but I don't think I can eat anything right now."

"Yeah." Jim wipes his eyes as he drives, but more tears keep coming. "I thought, thought you were dead. That you might be dead. Liz's been calling all the hunter branches looking for you. I left as soon as we knew where you were. It's over now. He's not gonna get away with what he did t'you. I'm so sorry, Vale. W-what do you wanna do first, when we get home?" He hopes thinking about nice things like sleep in our own bed or take a bath might help him feel better. Grounded. Knowing he got out.

Valen sobs. "C-call Liz, I suppose. I was just walking, Jim, th-they didn't even give me a chance to talk, I know that's smartest for them so I didn't just use persuasion, but, but they didn't even give me a chance, Jim."

"They're awful." Jim agrees. "They're fucking awful. You're a damn teddy bear. You've never been a threat to anyone. I can't believe they just- they just took you."

He never wanted Valen to feel this way. What it feels like to get taken. And on top of that, the burns, and if that wasn't bad enough, the rape. As if Valen wasn't traumatized enough already, he can't be safe from it in vampire or human territory.

"We're gonna go home, and I'll treat your injuries, and you'll get all cleaned up and into some nice soft pajamas, and you'll be safe and sound." he promises.

Valen trembles on the floor of the car. He's never felt this threatened by humans before. Hunters, a little. The bad neighbors, the potential for an angry mob to form--yes. But he's never been so thoroughly terrorized by humans that any human feels like a threat. He's...a little scared of Jim, somehow, inconceivably. This must have been how Jim felt when Valen had saved him from Kane.

When they get home, Valen wordlessly goes down into the sunless basement, curling up underneath the stairs, still crying.

Jim calls Liz and lets her know what happened, and she immediately goes to come over. Jim puts the untouched blood packs back in the fridge, grabs a big fluffy blanket, and goes to the basement he seldom enters.

"Knock knock." he says softly. "Liz is coming over. She's gonna stay over a bit, make sure you're nice and protected." Since they weren't exactly supposed to take Valen. "Can I come down?"

Valen lets out a strangulated sob. "Can--can you just give me a few minutes? Can you maybe come back in twenty minutes? Can you--can you lock the door and come back later?"

Jim is fucking heartbroken by how scared and miserable Valen sounds. "Course, whatever you want. Blanket incoming." He tosses the blanket over the side of the stairs. "I'll knock in twenty minutes, and if you don't want me down then either, it's okay. Lemme know if you need anything." His lip wobbles. He wishes he could take all the pain away, but he can't. "I love you." he says before he goes.

Valen just sits there, thinking about Jim, replaying in his mind the few days when they first met. Valen saving Jim, comforting him. The fact that the door is locked makes him feel secure--no one can get him.

He gradually starts to come down, and then he starts to want Jim. He slowly gets to his feet and drags himself up the stairs the next time Jim knocks and opens the door.

He walks straight into Jim's arms, plonking his face in Jim's shoulder, sniffling. "Thank you, Jim," he says, voice muffled. "I love you too."

Jim holds Valen close, rubbing his back. "You will always be safe here." he promises. "I can't make the world less fucked up, but I can promise you'll always be safe in this house." Valen's made him feel safe for years. He's determined to do the same. "Liz'll be over in like, ten minutes. You want me to get some cream for your burns? Or you wanna just leave it to heal?"

Valen sniffles. "Yes, please. I would like it if you rubbed the burn cream on me. I would like to see Liz. Thank you." He accompanies Jim to the bathroom.

Jim goes to take Valen's clothes off so he can see the injuries, but hesitates. "Can I see?"

Valen whimpers. How had he not thought this far ahead? This is Jim. Jim is safe. Jim has never been anything but safe. But...it's going to take a while for this to wear off. "I-I changed my mind, I don't want the cream that bad, I want to keep my clothes on. Please don't take them off, I want to keep them on."

"Then they're staying on." Jim agrees. "Do you wanna put it on yourself?" But there are burns on his back, they'd be difficult to reach. "Or- if, if it makes you feel safer, you could hypnotize me and have me do it." It's Valen. He trusts Valen enough for that. "Or we can just forget about it and go wrap you up in a burrito on the couch."

Valen shakes his head. The thought of using persuasion on Jim for anything but the most dire circumstances repulses him. "Let's just leave them. I would. Would like to be a burrito."

"Then a burrito you'll be." Jim leads Valen back to the living room and bundles him up all nice and cozy, sitting right by his side.

Liz arrives shortly, bursting through the door and rushing over. "Valen!" she wails, hugging him. "I'm so glad you're okay!" She thought it was going to be another someone she loves is taken away forever situation.

Valen hugs her back. "I'm so glad you were able to f-find me, Liz, thank you so much." He hiccups between words. "I-I don't know what I would have done w-without you."

Without us you never would have been in human territory in the first place. "Well, you got us. You got us for as long as we live. I'm your own personal bodyguard for the next few days, 'til we're sure everything's settled down. I don't think anyone's gonna come after you, but if anyone does, the great thing about silver bullets is they work even better on humans."

Valen clings to Liz and Jim both a lot over the next few days. They get word that Nick has been fired, apparently at the pushing of the two women who had met them at the compound, who reported to the director what they'd found out when Valen had used persuasion on Nick. Those two hunters also try to contact Valen--they eventually get word to Jim that they want to talk to Valen to apologize, but Valen says he doesn't want to talk to them, and tells Jim not to give them their number.

Valen still doesn't eat for a few days, and only breaks his fast when Jim and Liz finally force him to sit down and eat something. It's a long, long time before Valen works up the courage to go outside again, and the only time he does it by himself is at night, when he has to make his weekly trip back to vampire territory to buy blood. He continues to work on his project--at one point, the formula is far enough along that he can cut down on his trips to load up on blood to once a month.

The work is slowed down by Valen's newfound fear of leaving the house that Jim had promised is safe. But it is safe, safe and secure and still more than he ever thought he could have.

***

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