#professor zoom imagine

[gatorbites-imagines]

hope ur having a good day! i wanna ask for some Eobard Thawne x Male Reader where reader is just a normal dude. Like just some guy, i think itd be a funny concept :]

Eobard Thawne x male reader

Headcanons

I love Thawne sm, he’s my bbygirl. He’s a lil crazy, but that’s okay.

Now Thawne is literally just the biggest hater in all of existence, like God damn. He runs on hate and spite, and I appreciate that, because its relatable.

Youd most likely have met after he’s been in a fight with some hero or similar. Maybe he crashes into your yard or into your apartment. You don’t know much about heroes, you know the main ones sure, but you don’t keep track of all of them.

So, when you see someone who looks like a yellow flash in your yard bleeding out, you just kinda shrug and drag him inside, patching him up to the best of your ability. You get the head part of his suit off him and your pleasantly surprised at how red his hair is, you’ve always liked redheads.

You know nothing about speedsters’ preferences for food, and your used to cooking for just one person and have meal prepped for that. But you pull out some snacks you got laying around and a bottle of water, and put it on table beside Thawne, where you flopped him onto your couch.

When Thawne wakes, he’s immediately ready to fight, until he notices he’s just laying on someone’s couch, in a random living room who knows where. He’s honestly confused, because he’s a well-known villain and was in the middle of a fight.

He almost jumps up to throw hands when you walk into the room, eating whatever dinner you had prepped the day before. Imagine his surprise when you just go “hey, your awake. I found you in my yard, you good?”

Insert very confused Thawne, he tries to pull the whole, evil villain thing, but you are so chill and unamused that he just ends up giving up. One way or another you two just end up sitting on the couch and watching the newest episode of your current show.

It becomes a thing honestly. In the beginning he shows up after fights for you to patch up, even though you know very little first aid, but whatever. You put up with it, because if that’s the payment you have to pay for a hot redhead to sit shirtless on your couch, so be it.

Thawne won’t admit it for a long time, but he starts to enjoy your company quite a lot. Maybe it’s the fact that you couldn’t care less about him being a villain or what he does that has heroes after him. Or maybe it’s the fact that you don’t put up with his shit either.

The first time you scolded him and called him an idiot, his heart stuttered, and he won’t ever admit but his face got almost as red as his hair.

You tell him with a flat expression that he’s eating you out of house and home, because of speedster metabolism, so Thawne starts bringing groceries and helping around the house.

At some point you two realize he’s just kinda moved in, like a big street cat you’ve been feeding on your porch, that walked inside and just never left again.

You two never outright say you are dating, it just hits Thawne one day that you guys are cuddling on the couch and watching movies, and that you guys give each other kisses before you go to work, or Thawne runs off to be a villain like normal.

Its honestly quite domestic. I could imagine Thawne taking care of housework since you are the “breadwinner”, since you are the only one with a legal job. Sure, Thawne steals to get money, but he also starts stealing stuff you guys can use around the house.

Imagine Barry and the other speedster’s confusion when Thawne steals a brand-new dishwasher, or a whole porch set, chairs, tables, and all.

You never stop Thawne, since being a villain is kinda his whole thing, you just tell him not to do it with you around, so you have plausible deniability. You do appreciate the gifts he brings you too, but you never mention how most of the shirts he brings you are a little tight, you know he likes looking at you.

Thawne goes a lil crazy when you come home after work wearing your slacks, your button up and your tie. He always wants to be the one to undo your tie so he can pull you into a kiss.

He gets you expensive accessories you can wear to work, think watches that cost more than what you make in six months, tie clips, rings, etc. Everyone at your job honestly think you have some super rich sugar daddy.

You are both quite happy with your relationship, and theres nothing better than coming home to Thawne in an apron, cooking up in the kitchen. He always purrs when you come in through the door and swaggers over, drapes his arms over you, and asks about your day.

After some time, you two get engaged, it just kinda happened. You guys already act like a married couple, but one of you would have proposed. If it was you, you’d pull out a ring on a date or just during one of the evenings you are cuddling on the couch. You would use your family’s heirloom ring.

If its Thawne, he would go out of his way to make a huge deal out of it. hed rob the highest security jewelers in the world, or force the best jewelry maker to make a custom ring.

When the heroes show up its most likely Barry, maybe some of the others since Thawne has been MIA for a long time. They assumed he was planning something big, but he’s been busy playing househusband for you this entire time.

When they learn he’s trying to get a wedding ring they all thing “wait he’s got a lover???”. Thawne is gone before they can catch him though.

The heroes assume the worst, and assume his partner is as much of a villain as he is. Then Barry gets a wedding invite, written by you, since Barry’s been Thawnes nemesis for who knows how long.

Barry has always been a good guy, and since the invite specificlally says not to start anything at the wedding, he goes. Barry goes with the plan to scope out Thawne and his partner, but also to support him cuz its Barry.

Then he sees that Thawne is marrying you, the most normal guy he’s ever seen. When he talks to you, he realizes that you truly love Thawne, and though Thawne doesn’t say it with words, it’s clear the way he looks at you that he’s completely smitten.

The wedding goes great, and Barry is a big supporter, especially when he realizes Thawnes villainy has gone down a lot because he’s so happy with you, that he doesn’t wanna put you are risk.

It ends up becoming a peace thing, Thawne doesn’t do anything huge and Barry wont lock him away for life or have him thrown in the phantom zone. Thawne wont target Barry’s family and alike, and Thawne gets to stay with you.

[tacagen]

one of the things that fascinate me about thawne: yes, he CAN be normal with kids! surprisingly normal!

((not at all times, though. his mental illness still spills through and as usual he, in trying to manipulate or hurt others, spits out at them the exact stuff that would hurt him (or have in his childhood/barry's rejection interpretation) the most in the first place lmao))

but at the same time. his like second instinct when doing his bullshit is FUCK THEM (as) KIDS

(and, well. whatever this classifies as)

[idk-i-want-mcl-content]

🍯beeeeeee movie

[softgrungeprophet]

giving peter that sprinkle of AuDHD is kind of an ever-present facet of my characterization and fic writing in general (it's also present in fics such as "sinner has a future" where peter compulsively checks the locks on the door (which, to be fair, is also because spider-man)), though it's more blatant i think in this large AU as i sort of decided i wanted to be particularly firm in that regard, but i also approach it from the manner of like, peter as an adult is pretty good at handling the world, masking etc. including eye contact and stuff, particularly with people he is comfortable with and having the confidence of super strength etc.

and then the other facet that, idk if anyone has noticed but which is very much happening, is that when i write peter in more stressful scenes or with people who he is less comfortable around, i decrease the amount of eye contact he makes (plus increasing his other stuff like nail biting and fidgeting)

sometimes i feel like, self-conscious i think, though not as much as i feel self-conscious about making flash the specific flavor of queer i have chosen for much of my work, which for whatever reason is particularly embarrassing for me even though everyone is always very nice to me lol

anyway it's already been a factor in some adult stuff and obviously is the most obvious in the scenes where peter has had those rare but very specific sensory overload panic attacks/nervous breakdowns linked to specific traumas (his uncle's death and what happened to him as a 12 year old) and of course in the ways i describe select moments of sensation.

but also def a stronger factor in the flashback stuff as, for child peter, i kind of want to show that when he was younger it was in a way more obvious that he was "strange" and he had much less experience in his life ~ much less ability to essentially hide his quirks compared to as he gets older and can "pass" slightly better...

semi-related, just in terms of eye contact stuff:

kind of thinking about the fact that he is and probably always will remain un-diagnosed and was raised by old people who don't necessarily know about things like autism. even his adhd is not necessarily diagnosed, partly because of his withdrawn and moody behavior as a child and teen not fitting the hyperactive stuff that has been so favored for diagnosis and treatment (esp as a kid in the 90s and early 2000s)

so you have uncle ben for example not particularly trying to be unkind but maybe not entirely understanding and considering eye contact a sign of engaging with the situation etc.

he means well.

and aunt may who conceives of this sensitivity in him— which is like, not entirely wrong, but obviously she is very protective of peter and sometimes thinks of him as much more delicate than he really is, which i've already shown he has some complicated feelings about as he doesn't like being babied, but sometimes it's nice to have a little bit of gentleness even when you're big and tough.

bonus from when flash and peter first meet in high school and get in a fight lol

second bonus technically part of a smut scene but sfw screenshot

(peter's 20 here and nothing too intense is going on he's just a little stressed)

[idyllcy]

class cancelled. see you online - professor!simon riley x professor!reader

In the early years when he first started, Simon didn't cancel class. It was kind of well known at that point. He'd rather spend the class chattering about his wife than cancel class, so imagine everyone's surprise when he sent out the collective email detailing that he was canceling class because his wife was in labor.

What.

He sent them the slides for the day and a previous recording from a while back, letting them know that class on Thursday would be on zoom — a link that he will post onto the class canvas eventually.

He signs off the email with a photo of the baby locked by a password hidden in the slides, and he replies to everyone's congratulations once you're back in the home. He ends up staying back to teach the rest of the term from home because he was taking care of the baby

It was something briefly mentioned on his rate my professor, detailing how Professor Riley had "Moved the rest of our semester online because he wanted to stay home and take care of his wife. How did the school allow this?" and "I for one loved the online classes and congrats to him for finally being a father — 5/5 for my semester tbh" but truth was while the rate my professors ratted him out, his students didn't mention that class was moved online at the time.

So, when he lets his class know that he'll be out for a couple of weeks and moving class online, everyone sends in their congratulations early, earning a furrow of his brows and a laugh from your lips as he reads his emails to you.

"They really read their RMP reviews huh?"

"Sure did. I didn't even mention it this time. I barely talk about our daughter." He hums, hand on your bump as the second kicks at it.

"Well, I think I walked in once or twice." You hum. "Besides, they like it online."

"I do too." He mumbles, pinching at his daughter's cheeks as she giggles. "But most people don't pick up enough when you teach online."

"That's true." You take the berry from your daughter's hand as she hands one to you and presses another to Simon's lips.

"Thank you, sweetheart."

She nods, eyes glued back onto the screen as you glance at the recent check-up results.

"You bet Johnny's gonna cancel class too?"

"Heard he already told his students."

"Crazy."

[phantom-shell]

I haven't opened zoom since 2022, but I was invited to a meeting that was meant to introduce us to the professors. I forgot what my profile picture was. I didn't bother to check before the meeting.

Imagine joining an academic zoom meeting and this is the first thing you see.

Hatsune Miku in a frying pan. I am Hatsune Miku in a frying pan.

[mariacallous]

When most Americans think of fascism, they picture a Hitlerian hellscape of dramatic action: police raids, violent coups, mass executions. Indeed, such was the savagery of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and Vichy France. But what many people don’t appreciate about tyranny is its “banality,” Timothy Snyder tells me. “We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life.”

Snyder, a Yale history professor and leading scholar of Soviet Russia, was patching into Zoom from a hotel room in Kyiv, where the specter of authoritarianism looms large as Ukraine remains steeped in a yearslong military siege by Vladimir Putin. It was late at night and he was still winding down from, and gearing up for, a packed schedule—from launching an institution dedicated to the documentation of the war, to fundraising for robotic-demining development, to organizing a conference for a new Ukrainian history project. “I’ve had kind of a long day and a long week, and if this were going to be my sartorial first appearance in Vanity Fair, I would really want it to go otherwise,” he joked.

But the rest of our conversation was no laughing matter. It largely centered, to little surprise, on Donald Trump and how the former president has put America on a glide path to fascism. Too many commentators were late to realize this. Snyder, however, has been sounding the alarm since the dawn of Trumpism itself, invoking the cautionary tales of fascist history in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, and in The Road to Unfreedom the year after. It’s been six years since the latter, and Snyder is now out with a new book, On Freedom, a personal and philosophical attempt to flip the valence of America’s most lauded—and loaded—word. “We Americans tend to think that freedom is a matter of things being cleared away, and that capitalism does that work for us. It is a trap to believe in this,” he writes. “Freedom is not an absence but a presence, a life in which we choose multiple commitments and realize combinations of them in the world.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited for length and clarity, Snyder unpacks America’s “strongman fantasy,” encourages Democrats to reclaim the concept of freedom, and critiques journalists for pushing a “war fatigue” narrative about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “There’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired?” he asks. “We’re not doing a damn thing.”

Vanity Fair: The things we associate with freedom—free speech, religious liberty—have been co-opted by the Republican Party. Do you think you could walk me through how that happened historically and how Democrats could take that word back?

Timothy Snyder: Yeah. I think the way it happened historically is actually quite dark there. There’s an innocent way of talking about this, which is to say, “Oh, some people believe in negative freedom and some people believe in positive freedom—and negative freedom just means less government and positive freedom means more government.” And when you say it like that, it just sounds like a question of taste. And who knows who’s right?

Whereas historically speaking, to answer your question, the reason why people believe in negative freedom is that they’re enslaving other people, or they are oppressing women, or both. The reason why you say freedom is just keeping the government off my back is that the central government is the only force that’s ever going to enfranchise those slaves. It’s the only force which is ever going to give votes to those women. And so that’s where negative freedom comes from. I’m not saying that everybody who believes in negative freedom now owns slaves or oppresses women, but that’s the tradition. That’s the reason why you would think freedom is negative, which on its face is a totally implausible idea. I mean, the notion that you can just be free because there’s no government makes no sense, unless you’re a heavily drugged anarchist.

And so, as the Republican Party has also become the party of race in our country, it’s become the party of small government. Unfortunately, this idea of freedom then goes along for the ride, because freedom becomes freedom from government. And then the next step is freedom becomes freedom for the market. That seems like a small step, but it’s a huge step because if we believe in free markets, that means that we actually have duties to the market. And Americans have by and large accepted that, even pretty far into the center or into the left. If you say that term, “free market,” Americans pretty generally won’t stop you and say, “Oh, there’s something problematic about that.” But there really is: If the market is free, that means that you have a duty to the market, and the duty is to make sure the government doesn’t intervene in it. And once you make that step, you suddenly find yourself willing to accept that, well, everybody of course has a right to advertise, and I don’t have a right to be free of it. Or freedom of speech isn’t really for me; freedom of speech is for the internet.

And that’s, to a large measure, the world we live in.

You have a quote in the book about this that distills it well: “The countries where people tend to think of freedom as freedom to are doing better by our own measures, which tend to focus on freedom from.”

Yeah, thanks for pulling that out. Even I was a little bit struck by that one. Because if you’re American and you talk about freedom all the time and you also spend all your time judging other countries on freedom, and you decide what the measures are, then you should be close to the top of the list—but you’re not. And then you ask, “Why is that?” When you look at countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, or Ireland—that are way ahead of us—they’re having a different conversation about freedom. They don’t seem to talk about freedom as much as we do, but then when they do, they talk about it in terms of enabling people to do things.

And then you realize that an enabled population, a population that has health care and retirement and reliable schools, may be better at defending things like the right to vote and the right to freedom of religion and the right to freedom of speech—the things that we think are essential to freedom. And then you realize, Oh, wait, there can be a positive loop between freedom to and freedom from. And this is the big thing that Americans get a hundred percent wrong. We think there’s a tragic choice between freedom from and freedom to—that you’ve got to choose between negative freedom and positive freedom. And that’s entirely wrong.

What do you make of Kamala Harris’s attempt to redeem the word?

It makes me happy if it’s at the center of a political discussion. And by the way, going back to your first question, it’s interesting how the American right has actually retreated from freedom. It has been central for them for half a century, but they are now actually retreating from it, and they’ve left the ground open for the Democrats. So, politically, I’m glad they’re seizing it—not just because I want them to win, but also because I think on the center left or wherever she is, there’s more of a chance for the word to take on a fuller meaning. Because so long as the Republicans can control the word, it’s always going to mean negative freedom.

I can’t judge the politics that well, but I think it’s philosophically correct and I think we end up being truer to ourselves. Because my big underlying concern as an American is that we have this word which we’ve boxed into a corner and then beaten the pulp out of, and it really doesn’t mean anything anymore. And yet it’s the only imaginable central concept I can think of for American political theory or American political life.

Yeah, it’s conducive to the joy-and-optimism approach that the Democrats are taking to the campaign. Freedom to is about enfranchisement; it’s about empowerment; it’s about mobility.

Totally. Can I jump in there with another thought?

Of course.

I think JD Vance is the logical extension of where freedom as freedom from gets you. Because one of the things you say when freedom is negative—when it’s just freedom from—is that the government is bad, right? You say the government is bad because it’s suppressive. But then you also say government is bad because it can’t do anything. It’s incompetent and it’s dysfunctional. And it’s a small step from there to a JD Vance–type figure who is a doomer, right? He’s a doomer about everything. His politics is a politics of impotence. His whole idea is that government will fail at everything—that there’s no point using government, and in fact, life is just sort of terrible in general. And the only way to lead in life is to kind of be snarky about other people. That’s the whole JD Vance political philosophy. It’s like, “I’m impotent. You’re impotent. We’re all impotent. And therefore let’s be angry.”

Did you watch the debate?

No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I’m in the wrong time zone.

There was a moment that struck me, and I think it would strike you too: Donald Trump openly praised Viktor Orbán, as he has done repeatedly in the past. But he said, explicitly, Orbán is a good guy because he’s a “strongman,” which is a word that he clearly takes to be a compliment, not derogatory. You’ve written about the strongman fantasy in your Substack, so I’m curious: What do you think Trump is appealing to here?

Well, I’m going to answer it in a slightly different way, and then I’ll go back to the way you mean it. I think he’s tapping into one of his own inner fantasies. I think he looks around the world and he sees that there’s a person like Orbán, who’s taken a constitutional system and climbed out of it and has managed to go from being a normal prime minister to essentially being an extraconstitutional figure. And I think that’s what Trump wants for himself. And then, of course, the next step is a Putin-type figure, where he’s now an unquestioned dictator.

For the rest of us, I think he’s tapping—in a minor key—into inexperience, and that was my strongman piece that you kindly mentioned. Americans don’t really think through what it would mean to have a government without the rule of law and the possibility of throwing the bums out. I think we just haven’t thought that through in all of its banality: the neighbors denouncing you, your kids not having social mobility because you maybe did something wrong, having to be afraid all the damn time. African Americans and some immigrants have a sense of this, but in general, Americans don’t get that. They don’t get what that would be like.

So that’s a minor key. The major key, though, is the 20% or so of Americans who really, I think, authentically do want an authoritarian regime, because they would prefer to identify personally with a leader figure and feel good about it rather than enjoy freedom.

You mentioned the word banality, which makes me think of Hannah Arendt’s theory of the “banality of evil.” What would the banality of authoritarianism look like in America?

So let me first talk about the nonbanality of evil, because our version of evil is something like, and I don’t want to be too mean, but it’s something like this: A giant monster rises out of the ocean and then we get it with our F-16s or F-35s or whatever. That’s our version of evil. It’s corporeal, it’s obviously bad, and it can be defeated by dramatic acts of violence.

And we apply that to figures like Hitler or Stalin, and we think, Okay, what happened with Hitler was that he was suddenly defeated by a war. Of course he was defeated by a war, but he did some dramatic and violent things to come to power, but his coming to power also involved a million banalities. It involved a million assimilations, a million changes of what we think of as normal. And it’s our ability to make things normal and abnormal which is so terrifying. It’s like an animal instinct on our part: We can tell what the power wants us to do, and if we don’t think about it, we then do it. In authoritarian conditions, this means that we realize, Oh, the law doesn’t really apply anymore. That means my neighbor could have denounced me for anything, and so I better denounce my neighbor first. And before you know it, you’re in a completely different society, and the banality here is that instead of just walking down the street thinking about your own stuff, you’re thinking, Wait a minute, which of my neighbors is going to denounce me?

Americans think all the time about getting their kids into the right school. What happens in an authoritarian country is that all of that access to social mobility becomes determined by obedience. And as a parent, suddenly you realize you have to be publicly loyal all the time, because one little black mark against you ruins your child’s future. And that’s the banality right there. In Russia, everybody lives like that, because any little thing you do wrong, and your kid has no chance. They get thrown out of school; they can’t go to university.

We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life. It’s not going to be some external thing. It’s not like this strongman is just going to be some bad person in the White House, and then eventually the good guys will come and knock him out. When the regime changes, you change and you adapt, and you look around as everyone else is adapting and you realize, Well, everyone else adapting is a new reality for me, and I’m probably going to have to adapt too. Trump wants to be a strongman. He’s already tried a ​​ coup d’état. He makes it clear that he wants to be a different regime. And so if you vote him in, you’re basically saying, “Okay, strongman, tell me how to adapt.”

Yeah, we could talk about Project 2025 all day. This new effort to bureaucratize tyranny—which was not in place in 2020—could really make the banal aspect a reality because it’s enforced by the administrative state, which is going to be felt by Americans at a quotidian level.

I agree with what you say. If I were in business, I would be terrified of Project 2025 because what it’s going to lead to is favoritism. You’re never going to get approvals for your stuff unless you’re politically close to administration. It’s going to push us toward a more Hungary-like situation, where the president’s pals’ or Jared Kushner’s pals’ companies are going to do fine. But everybody else is going to have to pay bribes. Everyone else is going to have to make friends.

It’s anticompetitive.

Yeah, it’s going to generate a very, very uneven playing field where certain people are going to be favored and become oligarchs. And most of the rest of us are going to have a hard time. Also, the 40,000 [loyalists Trump wants to replace the administrative state with] are going to be completely incompetent. When people stop getting their Social Security checks, they’re going to realize that the federal government—which they’ve been told is so dysfunctional—actually did do some things. It’s going to be chaos. The only way to get anything done is to have a phone number where you can call somebody at someplace in the government and say, “Make my thing a priority.” The chaos of the administration state feeds into the strongman thing. And since that’s true, the strongman view starts to become natural for you because it’s the only way to get anything done.

You’ve studied Russian information warfare pretty extensively. A few weeks ago the Justice Department indicted two employees of the Russian state media outlet RT for their role in surreptitiously funding a right-wing US media outfit as part of a foreign-influence-peddling scheme, which saw them pull the wool over a bunch of right-wing media personalities. Do you think this type of thing is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Russian information warfare?

Of course. It’s the tip of the iceberg, and I want to refer back to 2016. It was much bigger in 2016 than we recognized at the time. The things that the Obama administration was concerned with—like the actual penetration of state voting systems and stuff—that was really just nothing compared to all of the internet stuff they had going. And we basically caught zilcho of that before the election itself. And I think the federal government is more aware of it this time, but also the Russians are doing different things this time, no doubt.

I’m afraid what I think is that there are probably an awful lot of people who are doing this—including people who are much more important in the media than those guys—and that there’s just no way we’re going to catch very many of them before November. That’s my gut feeling.

While we’re on Russia, I do want to talk about Ukraine, especially since you’re there right now. I think one of the most unfortunate aspects of [the media’s coverage of] foreign wars—the Ukraine war and also the Israel-Hamas war—is just the way they inevitably fade into the background of the American news cycle, especially if no American boots are on the ground. I’m curious if this dynamic frustrates you as a historian.

Oh, a couple points there. One is, I’m going to point out slightly mean-spiritedly that the stories about war fatigue in Ukraine began in March 2022. As a historian, I am a little bit upset at journalists. I don’t mean the good ones. I don’t mean the guys I just saw who just came back from the front. [I mean] the people who are sitting in DC or New York or wherever, who immediately ginned up this notion of war fatigue and kept asking everybody from the beginning, “When are you going to get tired of this war?” We turned war fatigue into a topos almost instantaneously. And I found that really irresponsible because you’re affecting the discourse. But also, I feel like there was a kind of inbuilt laziness into it. If war fatigue sets in right away, then you have an excuse never to go to the country, and you have an excuse never to figure out what’s going on, and you have an excuse never to figure out why it’s important.

So I was really upset by that, and also because there’s just something so odd about Americans being tired of this war. We can get bored of it or whatever, but how can we be tired? We’re not doing a damn thing. We’re doing nothing. I mean, there’s some great individual Americans who are volunteering and giving supplies and stuff, but as a country, we’re not doing a damn thing. I mean, a tiny percentage of our defense budget—which would be going to other stuff anyway—insead goes to Ukraine.

And by the way, Ukrainians understand that Americans have other things to think about. I was not very far from the front three days ago talking to soldiers, and their basic attitude about the election and us was, like, “Yeah, you got your own things to think about. We understand. It’s not your war.” But as a historian, the thing which troubles me is pace, because with time, all kinds of resources wear down. And the most painful is the Ukrainian human resource. That’s probably a terribly euphemistic word, but people die and people get wounded and people get traumatized. Your own side runs out of stuff.

We were played by the Russians, psychologically, about the way wars are fought. And that stretched out the war. That’s the thing which bothers me most. You win wars with pace and you win wars with surprise. You don’t win wars by allowing the other side to dictate what the rules are and stretching everything out, which is basically what’s happened. And with that has come a certain amount of American distraction and changing the subject and impatience. I think journalists have made a mistake by making it into a kind of consumer thing where they’re sort of instructing the public that it’s okay to be bored or fatigued. And then I think the Biden administration made a mistake by not doing things at pace and allowing every decision to take weeks and months and so on.

What do you think another Trump presidency would mean for the war and for America’s commitment to Ukraine?

I think Trump switches sides and puts American power on the Russian side, effectively. I think Trump cuts off. He’s a bad dealmaker—that’s the problem. I mean, he’s a good entertainer. He’s very talented; he’s very charismatic. In his way, he’s very intelligent, but he’s not a good dealmaker. And a) ending wars is not a deal the way that buying a building is a deal, and b) even if it were, he’s consistently made bad deals his whole career and lost out and gone bankrupt.

So you can’t really trust him with something like this, even if his intentions were good—and I don’t think his intentions are good. Going back to the strongman thing, I think he believes that it’s right and good that the strong defeat and dominate the weak. And I think in his instinctual view of the world, Putin is pretty much the paradigmatic strongman—the one that he admires the most. And because he thinks Putin is strong, Putin will win. The sad irony of all this is that we are so much stronger than Russia. And in my view, the only way Russia can really win is if we flip or if we do nothing. So, because Trump himself is so psychologically weak and wants to look up to another strongman, I think he’s going to flip. But even if I’m wrong about that, I think he’s incompetent to deal with a situation like this. Because he wants the quick affirmation of a deal. And if the other side knows you’re in a hurry, then you’ve already lost from the beginning.

[sheeple]

In the dark of the moon

Genre(s): Strangers to friends/crushes / 6th year / I tried to make it suspensfull Fandom(s): Harry Potter Pairing(s): Blaise Zabini x Reader Summary: While on a school assignment to an astronomy table, you and Blaise get attacked by something Warning(s): It's a bit scary? / Blaise being a dickhead at first A/n: Completing all those astronomy tables in Hogwarts Legacy was such a chore. Also!! it's so DAMN HARD TO FIND A NICE GIF OF BLAISE???? WTF [Masterlist]

When you picked astronomy as a subject, you expected to learn about stars, planets and constellations. Not trekking through the forest in the dark of the night, almost stumbling over tree roots that stick out of the ground. The worst thing of all is that Professor Sinistra paired the duo's.

Blaise walks in front of you, the tip of his wand lit as he treks up the hill where the blasted table is situated. He's quite speedy and you find it hard to keep up with his long legs.

Professor Sinistra had assigned a constellation to every astronomy table. The farther away from the castle, the more difficult they are. But higher the grade. And of course, Mister Blaise 'try-hard' Zabini signed you two up for the table the furthest away in Feltcroft. FELTCROFT.

It all wasn't that bad if Blaise wasn't such a stuck-up, holier-than-thou twat. The first thing he said to you when you got paired up was; "Don't slack off. I expect you to pull your weight in this project."

And it wouldn't be as bad if you didn't have the fattest, biggest crush on him. From the first time ever you've gotten paired with him to now, you constantly feel like you're making a fool of yourself.

The trip down there wasn't that bad. You could floo flame to the west of Hogwarts Valley until you had to walk the remainder of the way. It was around half past eleven when you finally reached the astronomy table, and you collapsed across it.

Luckily it's not cloudy otherwise the whole journey would be for nothing.

"Can you not?", asks Blaise irritated as he unpacks the supplies and puts his telescope into the holder on top of the stone table.

You give him a nervous side-eye but push yourself up to a seated position. "Who's idea was it again to walk such an abysmal distance?"

Blaise glares at you but remains silent, fine-tuning the telescope. You pull out your own gear and fiddle with it, checking the notes on where the constellation should be. After a while, you hop off the table and stand next to Blaise as he starts to look around the night sky.

By now you've realised that Blaise likes to work in silence and you're bored. It's supposed to be a group effort but the Slytherin boy does all the work without giving you a chance to contribute.

"What's your favourite colour?", you ask to break the silence.

The boy looks up from the telescope and slowly turns his head towards you. You cock your head to the side as he gives you a glare. "Why do you care?"

You can't help but roll your eyes. "I'm trying to strike up a conversation, seeing as we're stuck together until we both have found it." You motion towards the sky with your hand, making dramatic circles. "So... what's your colour?"

Raising your brows, you look at him expectantly. "Blue", he answers gruffly after a beat or two, his attention back towards the sky.

It's not much, but you're happy that he answered. Should you push your luck? Yeah, most definitely. "What shade?"

Blaise looks really done with you and the silence returns. You hear crickets and off in the distance a weird sound. You turn hastily around towards where the noise came from but see nothing. It's your imagination. Let's keep it on that. Just your imagination. Totally not something lurking in the distance.

After some more silence — and you slowly creeping closer to the Slytherin boy — it's your turn to find the constellation. But it's a lot harder than you expected. You search from left to right and zoom in and back, but you can't seem to catch a glimpse of the right stars.

The boy behind you sighs in exasperation. He lets you fumble around some more before he pushes you to the side and positions the telescope right. "There. Now look."

You feel the heat travel up to your cheeks as you lean back in. You can't help but make a small noise of frustration when you still can't find it. "I'm sorry, Blaise", you say with knitted brows, looking up at him with guilty eyes, "I'm afraid I'm no good partner after all..."

In the warm light of the torches, it almost seems like the harshness of his face relaxes a bit. "Here... If you just..." He motions for you to lean in towards the telescope and you do so.

Blaise moves close to you and with hesitant hands moves your head so you're positioned right and finally you see the constalation. "I see it! I see it! Is that Cassiopeia or-"

You excitedly turn your head to the side and your nose just barely mises Blaise's. Two pairs of wide eyes meet each other and you quickly look back through the peephole. From the corner of your eyes, you see him quickly take a step back and adjust the collar of his sweater.

"It's Lacerta", you whisper quietly, jotting it down on a piece of parchment with a quick sketch next to it.

Nothing more is said as the two of you pack up your things and slowly make your way downwards the slippery hill and onto the road back to school.

As you pass through a particular thick bit of forest, a shiver runs up your spine and you clutch the straps of your backpack tighter. "Blaise", you whisper, "I've got a weird feeling like we're being watched."

His eyes dart around and he slows in his steps so he's closer to you, his wand at the ready. He hums, a hand reaching out and pulling you behind him.

Suddenly, a howling way too close for your liking is heard behind you and a pair of glowing eyes reflect in the moonlight.

Taking slow steps back, Blaise grabs your hand and pulls you along with him as he breaks out in a sprint.

You can hardly keep up with his long legs. Stumbling over tree branches sticking out of the ground and whatnot, Blaise never lets go of your hand. Until you step into an unseen hole and a sickening crunch is heard followed by immense pain. You cry out and reach for your leg, seeing your shin bend at an odd angle.

You half expect Blaise to leave you behind. But instead, he whisks around and with an elegant flick of his wand, sends the wolf — who was closing onto you dangerously quick — crashing into a tree with a red flash and knocking it out cold.

A second one from behind you grows and starts to sprint towards the two of you. This was an ambush. Of course, wolves always hunt in packs.

In all your pain, you find a small amount of adrenaline to crawl away and kick the wolf in its face. Teeth manage to take hold of your ankle and it drags you away. It shakes you, making you wail in pain.

Blaise hears your cry and his heart drops. Frantic eyes meet his own and he doesn't hesitate for a moment. With full force, he runs towards the wolf and throws his weight against the animal.

The wolf lets go of you as its focus is entirely on Blaise. Teeth snarles, and it licks his lips. Blaise mirrors the wolf and bares his teeth, a low growl coming from deep within his chest.

Your arms buckle because of the pain just in time for Blaise to send an electrifying shock through the air, rendering the other one unconscious.

He rushes towards you, dropping to his knees and you can just see wild eyes scanning your entire body and his lips moving to yell something. Your head lulls to the side and through the thick of the trees, the last thing you see is the moon disappearing behind clouds.

When you come through, you are lying in a hospital cot. The sterile smell of the Hospital Wing itches your nose and you sneeze. A call of your name makes you turn your head towards the side where Blaise raises his head from his arms, a worried look on his face.

A groan escapes your lips as you try to sit up. A dull ache in your leg makes you turn back the covers and watch how your toes wiggle effortlessly and the almost perfectly healed shin — safe for a red line where the break was — makes you raise your eyebrows.

"Wha-what happened? How did we get back?" You turn towards Blaise, who looks, for lack of better words, almost guilty.

"I... I carried you towards Feldcrofd and asked someone to apparate us as close as possible to the school. How are you feeling?" He lays an instinctive hand upon yours and you swallow, the cold of him seeping into your burning skin.

"Fine... I think. And you?"

Blaise hums and the two of you sit in silence next to each other. Happy that you've survived it.

"Do you-"

"Thank you-"

The two of you speak at the same time and can't help but laugh. He motions for you to speak first.

"Thank you, Blaise. If it wasn't for you I wouldn't be alive right now."

"If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be here right now." His face hardens and he looks away.

You can't help yourself but reach out and grab his hand, watching how he stiffens before looking back at you. You want to pull away but he takes a firm hold of your hand, pulling it closer to himself. Surprising a smile, you look up at him and have to bite your lip as a red hue tints his cheeks.

He mumbles something which you don't get. You cock your head to the side and ask him to repeat himself.

"Gooutwithme", he blurts out, still not looking at you.

This time you can't help to giggle, which makes Blaise turn his head towards you. At first, there is a look of betrail on his face. But as soon as he catches your bashful look, he softens.

"I would love to", you smile, squeezing his hand.

A wide and radiant smile forms on his lips — a rare sight — before he coughs and tries to conceal it. "Great... Great."

The two of you keep sitting like that in silence, smiling and grinning at each other, before Madam Pomfrey ushers Blaise out of the Hospital Wing under the excuse of you needing your rest.

Before Blaise disappears through the exit, he looks one last time at you and gives you a wave. You return it and can't keep the smile on your face.

Gods. You can't wait for your date. As long as it's not in the forest.

[hopplessilse]

Fetish l. Hello Mr. Miller

Teacher! Joel x f!reader 18+ explicit minors dni

Serie masterlist

Summary: Back in college, you realize that your favorite teacher, Mr. Miller, will be teaching you, what is more exciting than that.

Word count: 5.4k

Warnings: teacher-student, age gab (reader in her early 20's, joel in his late 40's) pet names (darlin), sexual fantasies, reader zoom out, pov. Joel, Pov. reader, flirtation, slow burn (not so slow), they are both two consenting adults

A/N: This series will be as real as possible, it won't be so fanciful, Mr. Miller is an idiot sometimes, If it's not your type of reading, don't read it. My first language is not English, any misspellings I apologize.

Joel knew you since he taught you last semester.

You fell in love with the way he taught, the way he explained, how smart he was, the passion with which he spoke. The respect with which he spoke to everyone, especially women.

You've heard a lot of rumors around the school, from different teachers and students. But one of them stood out the most in your head, as it was about your favorite teacher.

it was rumored that he had "something" with a student, you heard nothing but pure obscenities, your head refused to believe it.

Even the girl everyone was talking about didn't say anything. But you knew it might have been true because you watched her every time you had classes with him. As she looked at him during these, as at the end of each class she almost always stayed with him in the classroom.

She was always smiling and radiant, but one day she wasn't. She looked different, everything they knew about her before was gone.

She even ended up dropping out of college, many said it was because they had been discrovered, others said it was an agreement, others said she had gone into depression because of the breakup, but the truth is that no one knows, they are just assumptions.

This semester you wanted it to be different, to have different routines than what you were used to.

You were a good student, present in all the classes, you didn't have bad grades, you always tried to do everything on time, so as not to fall behind with your work. You weren't trying to be the best, but at least you were trying to make it out of the semester alive. You weren't a brainiac, but you always or almost always tried to be ready for the next classes, although you have to admit that sometimes you didn't care much about knowing the subject before.

Your degree was about philosophy in letters. You love to write, it helps you in some way to get out of or distract yourself from reality. You can create the world you want just by imagining it and capturing it on paper, on a screen, even in drawings. This semester you weren't so excited about the subjects, some teachers were good, others made you sleep because of the way they explained, boring.

Joel Miller was going to teach you the subject of philosophical anthropology. You were excited because that was the subject that Joel Miller was most passionate about. You knew very little about him as a person, you didn't know anything personal about his life, in fact no one knew anything. You were sure he wasn't married since he didn't wear any rings, not even on his ring finger.

Almost everything about him was a mystery, a mystery that you wanted to know, you wanted to dig into.

The first week of classes was suspended, given that they were fumigating the school, so the classes during that week were online, you hated classes like that since covid, happy on the one hand since you could sleep or be in your pajamas, but horrible because you didn't pay attention, you didn't learn anything.

And worst of all, you weren't going to be able to see Professor Miller in person.

Your schedules this semester were varied, some classes were in the morning and others in the afternoon/evening. With professor Miller you had 2 different schedules, one in the morning on Wednesday and another in the evening on Friday.

But unfortunately you didn't have classes with him on Wednesday due to a personal situation. But today was Friday afternoon, and you'd have classes with him.

You were at your desk, dressed in a beautiful dark green long-sleeved T-shirt, the fabric was soft and thin, the collar was U-shaped, accentuating your collarbones and neck. Around your neck hung a heart-shaped locket with your initial engraved on it, your mom had given it to you before you left for college.

You had a close relationship with your mom, after all you were similar in some ways, certain actions reminded you of her, but at the same time you were very different from each other.

She always told you to take care of the boys, the older men, she always gave you advice to make your life different from hers, she always reminded you to meet your goals, not to listen to other people, to follow the right path, to get married after 29, but with the right person.

You loved your mom, she was your best friend, she knew everything about you… But at the same time you kept little memories just for yourself.

The class was about to start, so that you could see yourself well on camera you only had the light on your desk. You took your lipstick to moisturize your lips, while you saw yourself on the screen of your laptop, a sound was present through the speakers of your computer, it was a message from the group leader with the link to the class.

You took a deep breath and clicked on the link. Before entering, turn off your microphone and camera as no one would have their cameras on.

When you entered you could see some boxes appear, the total number of students taking the class was 25, and yes, no one had their camera on.

You grabbed your folder and pens as more students joined the class, when a voice that you recognized quite well, thick and hoarse came through the speakers.

"Hi, good evening, I hope you are all well"

The image of Him was present, in a rectangle that you hated because it wasn't enough to see how beautiful and attractive he was.

"I'm going to need everyone to turn on their camera please, I know it's a nuisance but I need to know that everyone is alive"

You were more than happy to do it, when you turned it on you could tell that you weren't the only one who was. You'd say you're crazy, but out of all the images that appeared, you could only see 5 men in the class. crazy.

"There they are" He showed a beautiful smile Everyone smiled at the comment.

"From what I see on the list, many of you have already give you classes before, a few others are new," he paused as he picked up a pen, "I'll go through the roll call so keep an eye out for your names please."

Then he put on a pair of square black glasses, could it be sexier?

He started naming by surnames, while your classmates said present you were dying of nerves, whenever he called your last name you got nervous, but when he told you by your name, you didn't know how it could sound so beautiful coming out of his lips, he made it sound perfect.

You knew it was your turn, because your friend's last name came before yours in every class. Until you heard him call you

"present" you said with a shy smile, and he looked up, you knew he would remember you, you knew it perfectly.

A smile crept across his face as he watched you.

"I didn't know you'd take this course"

"Yes. Well, it's my favorite"

"I'm glad to hear that," he paused and sighed to look away from his list, "I hope it meets your expectations." You just nodded and he kept naming the rest of the class.

"Okay, welcome to the introduction to the subject of philosophical anthropology. I hope you're ready to learn," he took off his glasses and then a presentation appeared on the screen

"Someone knows what philosophical anthropology is"

They were silent for a moment while Professor Miller took the list, you knew he was going to take it as participation, you weren't a fan of that, last semester he made you participate so he could raise your points in the subject.

"Someone…"

You decided to take sides and encourage yourself to do it, in the end you knew little about the subject, and it was the first time you took the class, it didn't matter that you didn't know much.

"Me" your voice was present on everyone's speakers. Miller raised his head at your voice, his face reflecting surprise, and a smile appeared on his lips.

"Go ahead"

"It is a science that focuses on the study of the human being, it is responsible for studying the problems that man presents throughout life, from conception to the end of his existence"

You explained calmly as you felt your hands trembling and sweating under his gaze, you felt that your words would get stuck in your throat at any moment.

Professor Miller was about to speak when a female voice interrupted him.

"In fact, the term can be understood in several ways, it does not only represent one thing, it represents several philosophical studies and not only of the human being"

That damn bitch

You weren't a fan of hers, you knew why she was in that class, and it wasn't because she liked the subject, but because she liked the teacher.

"That's right, they're both right" he moved his eyes looking at the image of both "it's a very big word that encompasses different meanings, in a few words philosophical anthropology studies the conditions of possibility of the human phenomenon"

"The object of study is very varied since it has several objects or topics of study, which may not have coherence but are united in a profound way. It studies topics related to the origin of life, the violence that occurs in individuals, the feeling of love, the existence or not of God, animals, the stars such as the moon and the sun, creation, among others. It studies man or the human being within the universe and how it can help the world develop. Civilized man and those who belong to mythical beliefs stand out among the objects of study because they make an analysis of humanity, giving importance to the theory of creation."

As he explained you were so enraptured with him, that you forgot for a moment that you were on his screen, he could see you on the other side. You shook your head trying to concentrate and watched as he let out a small laugh.

God is watching me

You tried to suppress a scream, honestly you could have been worse but you knew how to control the situation. You were still paying attention when your cell phone that was next to you on the desk vibrated, you picked it up and saw your friend's name on the screen, it was a message from her.

Shit, I'm crazy or he'll laugh at you

He did it, didn't he? I'm not crazy haha

Woman, I swear, he's been paying attention to you, he was even surprised that you participated

i know

"I hope it meets your expectations" for God's sake

You just laughed, covering your mouth with your hand.

The class continued with participations, talks, brainstorms, and Professor Miller being attentive as always. At the end of the day they took only half an hour and concluded with the class. Professor Miller said goodbye to everyone with that smile that made you fantasize every time you saw her.

Yes, he had improved during the holidays, it's not like a lot of time had passed but something in him looked better, every time you looked at him you couldn't help but think that it would go through his head every time he saw a cute girl at university… Did he consider you a pretty girl?

You couldn't help but think that.

Has that ever crossed his mind? Or I'm crazy to think he'd think that

There were a lot of unanswered questions floating around in your head, you knew you needed to stop a little bit, you didn't need to be obsessed with it like last semester, dying of nerves every time he talked to you or looked at you, every time he made you participate, when you exposed and he looked at you and listened attentively, it didn't have to be the same, you wanted to enjoy the class without feeling nervous every time you participated, you wanted to excel in this class, who knows, you might be their new favorite student.

You'd be lying if you didn't want a benefit… the only benefit you want is his attention on you, you would achieve it by being attentive to him, but he had to look for you first, you need to be a master of minds… In the most innocent way.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||

You were walking straight to your building, it was a cloudy day, a cold that had been felt since the day before. It was the new beginning of the week, you'd be lying if you said you didn't miss school, because it was almost the only place you went out during the week, if it wasn't here you went to a coffee shop or bookstore, and no, we won't put labels on you, you weren't a nerd, or anything like that, you didn't read school books at least just if it was for research, all the books you had were of other genres.

Besides, you had missed the architecture of your school, the dampness that settled on the bricks due to the rain and cold. There were many trees around, others taller than others, there were very nice plants, benches that decorated the grass to take a break, study or eat.

A warm hug surrounded your body as you walked through the door of your building, even though the brick was cold, the facility stayed warm.

You had your headphones on, you liked to block out the sound of the hallways, you mentally prepared yourself for the classes you would have during the day, some more interactive and others… not so exciting. Your classroom was on the second floor and the stairs were around the corner from the teachers' offices. The teachers were always mainstays, you weren't going to deny that, whenever you arrived the offices were open, the teachers' room… full of these.

Just as you were in the hallway about to get to the offices, you saw Professor Miller come out of his office, he had some papers in his hands, his clothes were uff words would not be enough to describe how handsome he looked in shirt and tie, he closed the door of his office and when he looked up he saw you and smiled at you.

You saw how his lips moved, and with a confused face you took off your headphones, and the first thing you heard was his laughter as he shook his head.

"Sorry Mr. Miller" you said sadly smiling

"it's okay, I just said good morning" he kept that beautiful smile on his face as he placed the papers under his armpit.

"I'm surprised I don't see you with your cup of coffee," you said, pointing to his hand.

"Ha yes" he look at them and smile at you "I was just going to the teacher's room for one" you nodded as you both looked at each other

Normally you would talk if you had any doubts in class, but it was very rare that you saw him in the hallways, he was always in his office busy.

"Well, I should go to my class before they let me out," you laughed a little as you approached the stairs.

"Sure, I'm not taking up any more of your time, have a nice day"

"See you on Wednesday, Mr. Miller," you said in a friendly tone as you turned around and walked up the stairs, putting your headphones back on your head. He just turned to look at you as you disappeared around the stairs and just smiled and walked into the teacher's room.

The classes weren't as boring as you expected, the topics were interesting and you really paid attention to every word the teachers said, your schedule on Mondays was rushed until 1pm, you just stepped out when the rain took over the streets. Due to the weather you would go straight to your house, since you didn't have an umbrella and you knew that the rain would get worse as the hours went by. The good thing is that your friend had a car, and she would take you home to go over some topics.

And from thinking about Professor Miller so much, I think you manifested it a little bit, because after seeing him at the entrance this morning, you saw him when you went to the bathroom down the hallway talking to a professor, then at lunch, you saw him leave the building with his beautiful brown jacket and with some professors who you imagine having lunch. And right now in the parking lot… recharged in his car while smoking a cigarette.

There could be a much hotter scene than this?

You elbowed your friend who was next to you talking about an argument she had with a girl in her 8 o'clock class. At the moment of feeling your blow she turn to look at you with furrowed eyebrows and you only pointed with your eyes to who was a few meters away from you. She just smiled wickedly as she looked at you raising her eyebrows and you threatened her with your gaze before you could protest she was already approaching him as she greeted him in the process.

"Hi, Mr. Miller," your friend said animatedly as she stood in front of him while keeping a decent distance.

"Hello girls" he shook the ashes from his cigarette and they fell to the floor "time to go?" he looked at both of you with a smile

"that's right, after a bad day" your friend wrinkled her lips

"Why?" he sucked on his cigarette as smoke slowly rose from his lips.

"Well, my choice of teachers wasn't the best this semester"

"Isn't it?" by his tone they knew he had been offended

"You don't haha, you are a good teacher"

"I hope so, since you didn't participate in Friday's class" he said and he looked at you smiling and you returned the gesture

"well.. The truth is that I haven't researched so much on the subject, but I have her to help me," she said as she hugged you by the shoulders so you would get closer to them.

"She's a good one"

You just rolled your eyes because of the comment

"I know she's good, I saw her last semester, she just needs to be more participative" he said looking straight into your eyes with a serious countenance waiting for you to answer

"I will be" You looked at him in both eyes and he just nodded

"I hope so, you know I expect a lot from you, I don't want to be disappointed and see that you don't give it your all"

"I'll help her get out of her comfort zone" your friend said as she looked at you with a smile

He nodded as he tossed his cigarette on the floor and extinguished it with the toe of his shoe.

"Work on the task I leave, you'll be the first ones I ask," he said as he straightened up and for the first time that day you saw how strong he had become.

"We won't let you down"

"I hope not" he said as he walked in the opposite direction of you, "drive carefully"

"Have a nice day, Mr. Miller" your friend said screaming while you smiled embarrassed by her action. He just nodded, smiling.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

It was already Wednesday, you were looking forward to that day.

The day before you hadn't seen Professor Miller all morning, you were eager to see him, it was the only time in the day when you could see him. You arrived first thing in the morning, bringing coffee for your friend and yourself. You liked to be early to your classes, you didn't like to be late, anywhere in fact. Normally you were the first to arrive, and sometimes with 5 minutes to go there was still no one in the room, some were very unpunctual as well as some teachers, but Professor Miller was the most punctual person you knew.

You arrived at the classroom 10 minutes early, and as you imagined no one had arrived, you left the coffees in your place and when you were going to leave your things on the seat, the door to the classroom opened and Professor Miller peeked out behind it with his suitcase hanging from his shoulder, gave you a smile and spoke.

"Good day"

"Good day teacher"

"I came to let you know that the class will be held in room 13" sighed

"Oh the 13th? Isn't it too big for our group?" You frowned, taking the coffees in hand and walking straight to the door where he was.

"Yes it is, but apparently it's the only void, the seniors won't be there today" he moved so you could get out, and you started walking side by side towards the end of the hallway.

The walk was silent, some teachers passed by you and greeted Joel. He was taller than you by a lot, in sneakers you reached his shoulder, you were ridiculously small next to him, and that's why you started wearing high-heeled boots, not so high but at least they made you reach a little above his jaw. You felt that you were perceived as more mature, more at your age, because when you wore sneakers very few looked at you, that included him.

You felt more confident in boots, you felt more attractive even to yourself. As the years went by, you changed your style, you took out clothes that were very old, that you didn't use, that were no longer your style, and you replaced them with wide pants, long but cute skirts, short schoolgirl skirts, plaid skirts, t-shirts with a little cleavage, showing back, warmer or darker colors, You didn't like the color so much, and you felt like you changed the way everyone saw you, you looked more mature to some people, but you only cared about impressing 1.

Joel opened the room where the class would be, let you in first to which you thanked him in a low voice, you went to the places in the front row, you arranged your things while you saw Joel arrange his on the desk. Being the only two presences inside the room felt weird in a way, or for you it was, you felt nervous, you tried not to feel that way but it was impossible to see him in profile, you were noticing new things, his beard was grayer in some areas.

You noticed that his chest was more muscular as well as his back, it was already wide, when he was serious his jaw looked strong, the muscles of his neck were marked, he was so sensual, you thought it impossible that at some point in your life you would like a teacher, you would never have thought that someone twice your age would have you like that.

His hands were very big, almost the size of a tablet, if he put them on your face it would cover the whole face, the veins were slightly marked along his arms, even if at that moment you couldn't see them, you knew they were there, under that tanned skin, you loved how those dress pants fit his thighs, as the belt marked the beginning of his hips, and when he was in profile you couldn't help but look at his crotch, as a bulge was present, effortlessly. And because of that, you knew he was well-endowed.

You were still watching him sitting from your seat, when his voice took you out of your thoughts

"Why do you always arrive so early?" He looked at you with a smile that made his eyes small

"Mmh because I don't like to be unpunctual" he smiled at you in the same way

"I see" while telling you that and maintaining eye contact he took a book from his portfolio, look at it and walk towards you with his eyes on it.

Standing in front of you, he look at you and hold out the book.

"What is this?" You took it in your hand, rubbing your fingers with his.

"It helped me a lot when I was in college, it helped me understand a lot of topics, some of which we will see in class," he said while watching you study the cover of the book.

"And why do you give this to me?" You looked him in the eyes confused

"because I know how much you like to read, and I know that you love to read about these topics, apart from that it will help you to study some topics before we see them in class, and you are a good student, I want you to understand the potential you have and you can be more confident when you participate" he looked you in the eyes with a look that you never seen before, his eyes looked so pure, his voice went down 2 tones making his voice sound hoarse but a the same time softer.

You stood silently looking at it, saw the book in your hands and looked back at him.

"how do you remember I like reading about this?"

"Oh, last semester you mentioned it, the first day" he said returning to the desk

"do you remember everything we tell you?" you sounded confused and with a bit of amusement in your voice

"only the important things" He squinted at you with a squinting smile as he sat in the chair behind the desk.

you just looked at the book to avoid his gaze, you could feel your cheeks burning from the comment and Joel…he turned his gaze away from his laptop screen to look at you and cover his smile with the palm of his hand as he saw you blushing as you looked at the book.

Did he want to tell you that what you said was important? Did he want to make you feel important? Were you important to him? That's why he gave you the book?

Lots of damn questions and no answers, but the nerves were impossible to hide, you felt his gaze leave the screen to see you, you only looked at your research notes, you felt that time passed slowly, and no one came, you crossed your legs with nerves as you moved them, your hands were cold.

God why you're a damn nervous girl, focus, can't know that he has that effect on you.

The classroom was completely silent, only the keys of his laptop were the only ones present, and you were sure that your breathing was heard, when you saw that the door opened and a couple of students entered waving at Joel. Among them was your friend, you released all the air you had holding in your lungs and smiled nervously at her as she walked up to you and sat down next to you.

"Why did it take you so long?" you scolded her quietly

"I'm sorry, I ran into Brat in the hallway," she said, blushing as she touched your hands "Why are your hands so cold?" His voice sounded a little louder in the room, drawing Joel's gaze to you

"It's cold," you removed your hand abruptly as you evaded his gaze. She looked at Joel, he looked away and turned it to his papers and then at you

"Were you two alone?"

you didn't say anything

"That's what happens to you for being too punctual" she said mockingly, you looked at her offended

The class passed quickly, you were grateful because every time he explained you could notice that his gaze returned to you every second, no matter how much you loved it and begged him to see you, the nerves consumed you, you didn't participate for the same reason, it was too much pressure that you were putting on yourself, your head was playing you wrong this time. At the end you wanted to run out of the room, you knew that in the next class he would reproach you but today you couldn't deal with it, no no.

But you still had to hand over the research that left off homework. You followed your friend from behind, got to the desk, left your work on top of the others, but your friend waited for him to finish talking to the girl who had "corrected" you last class.

Ugh radiates so much hypocrisy.

"I put a lot of effort into the work, in the end I added extra information that I read in a book, it was very stimulating what you left us Professor Miller" she said with a flirtatious smile as she leaned back at the desk

"I'm glad it has helped you, being a new student you should know that I leave a lot of research and essays but from your point of view, I like to know what you think about each topic we touch on in class" Joel replied while taking the essays in hand and putting them in his portfolio.

"Oh I know, you'll get a lot out of me professor Miller"

Wow, yes it sounded blatant

Joel only nodded half-smiling, the girl said goodbye and your friend spoke.

"Mr. Miller my essay itself doesn't have much information" Joel cocked his head crossing his arms "I know you said 3 to 4 pages but I didn't get that much information that was different from the others" she smiled falsely

"Uh uh and your own words? Because I guess not everything that comes is from Internet pages, is it?" he said with an interrogative look and a raised eyebrow

"Am no, it's not"

Lie, you remember perfectly 1 day before what she told you.

FLASHBACK

"He clearly said that you could only put little information from the internet and justify it with our words, you can't copy everything without giving credit to its authors" you told her while typing on your laptop

"Shut up, he won't notice, besides the AI will help me" she smiled while the artificial intelligence did its work

"you forget that he does read the works, He's going to notice"

"He's your boyfriend, if he notices you give him some kisses and that's it"

"Hey!" you threw a pillow at her

end of the flashback

"Okay, I'll read it and we'll see," he picked up the essay and put it in his briefcase.

"Thank you teacher"

you said goodbye to him and before leaving you turned to look at him and obviously, he was already looking at you, he just smiled at you and turned his gaze away from you.

Am I crazy or is he paying more attention to me?

The energy felt different being with him, it felt on both sides, but it was very easy for you to get excited and misimitate things, to see things in a different way than the other person does. He was your teacher and you didn't want to think that you had a chance, even if your friend made fun of you, she still noticed how his attention towards you had changed, but he had always been nice to you, he always encouraged you, but for some reason he was different this time.

Joel´s pov

When she left the classroom, he could feel his heart beating normally again.

What stupidity are you doing joel?!

The only thing he needed was to feel that way, he couldn't, he knew it was wrong to do it, she was a student, he genuinely wanted to help her excel, he knew that she had several interests within the area of philosophy, he wanted her to have all the possibilities for her to be motivated.

He wanted to teach her everything he knew, he wanted her to learn from him, she was so smart that it was hard for him to see how she didn't know that, how she racked her brain last semester by pushing her brain so hard into a way of learning that wasn't suitable for her.

He was willing to help her understand in every way possible to make it easy for her this time. But I'd be lying if he said he didn't want to know more about her… About who she really was, to know why she is so passionate about philosophy, to know if she was the pretty, polite girl that all the teachers talk about. But one thing he did know, she was the prettiest girl his eyes had seen in a while.

[legacygirlingreen]

My silly little HCs for Sebastian Sallow

Some of these are really random but I’ve just had an abundance of HC lately so I thought I’d share:

✨ I GENUINELY see a world in which Sebastian could be slightly messy in some areas and very orderly in others. I don’t think he’d be messy in EVERY aspect of his life. Sure his hair is messy (this i attribute to it’s natural texture and the fact he’s a teen boy and likely doesn’t care that much about it), that large stack of books near his bed and on his desk are messy and I’m sure his life can at times be pretty chaotic - but I get the vibe he still cares on occasion. He’s always dressed properly for class, no less than Ominis or his other classmates. I’m sure his papers and class notes are very immaculately organized and he’s got a system that on surface level looks chaotic but to him makes sense for his books and other possessions. I also don’t see it possible that he can be a complete slob either given how small the feldcroft house is and having to share it with Anne and Solomon (and Ominis).

✨ I think as a child he definitely had to learn how to self sooth, or find ways to entertain himself. We get hints that his parents were often locking themselves downstairs to research, leaving him and Anne to their devices and he seems very well liked by his professors - so this leads me to think that with the exception of the resitricted section and occasional mischief, he may not be as “high strung” as he’s often made out to be. With the amount of time he spends reading, snacking and just overall finding ways to keep from boredom, I can see a world where afternoons with Sebastian are much more laid back than one would imagine.

Which leads me into some loose ideas I think he’d conceive if he was dating you/MC:

* laying in the grass together on sunny days, reading silently, pointing out cloud shapes or looking for 4 leaf cloves together

* swimming in the sea in summer, sunbathing on the shores, skipping rocks

* baking the muggle way and enjoying homemade pie over candle light and engaging in thought provoking conversations

✨ I don’t think that Sebastian cares too much about his physical appearance as a teenager but I can definitely see it slowly becoming more and more a priority as he ages. Several people have pointed out that there’s a razor in their dorm and if you zoom in you can see he’s got the appearance of hair follicles on the high resolution zoom in screen grabs, so I think by seventh year he’s experimenting with facial hair. Probably sideburns or just a mustache as that would’ve been fashionable for the time, but I can see him letting his sideburns go in his least year at hogwarts. He’d claim it was “more convenient that way” since he “didn’t have to waste as much time shaving his whole face” but in reality he just feels more grown up and mature and he likes it - but likely wouldn’t want to be seen as vain.

✨ Sebastian grew up with a twin sister and is likely quite well versed in female anatomy and issues… he’s more than likely a SAINT when it comes to that time of the month, however I don’t think he’d see it as anything to mention. Likely just know it’s roughly that time again, casually offer more snacks, perhaps offer a simple back rub without saying anything, or other varieties of comfort without acknowledging WHY he’s doing so. If you ever bring it up he’d likely just shrug and say “just tying to be helpful since I know you likely don’t feel well” And leave it at that.

✨ I can see a variety of the love languages being important to him. I do agree he likely responds well to physical touch. You cannot convince me otherwise that he would not adore having someone play with his hair. He turns into a puppy immediately and it’s canon as far as I’m concerned. He also likely knows some mild form of braiding due to Anne so he probably equally enjoys returning the favor in that way. Sebastian gives me more strong touch in private but little to no PDA . Exceptions can be made for timely acceptable actions like a hand on the arm to escort but nothing crazy like necking in halls.

✨ however… private Sebastian could be a mixed bag. Initially I see him slightly nervous. Sebastian seems confident and headstrong in areas he’s familiar but we don’t see him ever feel unprepared. I get the sense he’d be anxious when he’s going in completely blind to new arenas like physical relations with a girl… So early on here May be apprehensive. I agree with the thought he would research all he could and go out of his way to make sure they were comfortable and he prevented pain. But once he’s got a good handle in it… he’s always looking to improve until he’s confident he’s making you feel incredible…

✨ Sebastian finds feminine hands to be so interesting. Despite not liking PDA I can see him constantly grabbing yours, examining them, admiring the softness, pressing kisses to the back of them, and just all around finding them so insanely beautiful despite being so simple.

✨ Sebastian sallow definitely is the type to practice his signature constantly. He gets bored in class I imagine, with as much reading as he does, he’s likely way ahead of his peers. It’s common to see him doodling out new ways of signing his name and he still hasn’t found the way that’s quite him yet but he will eventually…

✨ deep down I think he can be very self conscious. I imagine he’d find certain features less than perfection … such as his wide nose or bushy eyebrows. Dark eyes and dark features are quite common , I can see a world in which he so often feels quite plain. However the right partner coming along and kissing that button nose or playfully stroking his brow while he rests his head in their lap would slowly make him feel better about what he sees in the mirror. Being complimented on his appearance, something I’m sure gets lost in his many talents, would mean the world to him.

✨Sebastian has a sweet tooth and would 100% rock the dad bod when matured . He’s lean now with all the hogwarts cardio, but once he slows down he’s getting thicker. Just look at Solomon and tell me the sallow genes aren’t slightly husky (Also check out @rednite-dork bc she’s got some awesome art depicting a more aged up, dad bod seb and they are mouth watering 🤪)

I have soo many more but here’s some loose HCs , and I’m always down for a part 2💚

[rentsturner]

Obsessed - A.T. drabble

professor!Alex Turner x reader (but its so subtle, it could be any Alex x reader pairing)

warnings: cockwarming, oral sex (m receiving), pet names, praising, teensy bit of facefucking, fluff at the end, soft dom Alex, sub reader (ish)

a/n: @ohladymoon gave me motivation to finish this and helped when I was stuck so thank you <3. Its mostly smut - enjoy

Your books and notes are sprawled out across the table, laptop open on a lecture, your back aching as you hunched over the screen. Actually, it isn’t just your back that is aching. Your head feels like it's in a clamp, your hands are cramping from gripping your pen so tightly, and your eyes are throbbing. You don’t know how long you’ve been studying for, just that you’ve been sitting at Alex’s dining table since 11am, and it’s now dark outside. 

You're not alone at least. Alex is sitting at the other end of the table, reading glasses on as he slowly marks essays, occasionally bringing the end of his pen up to his lips to nibble on it while he’s thinking. His hair is soft and fluffy, not having bothered to put any gel in it when he knew he was just going to be spending the day working with you. 

You haven’t spoken for a few hours, just the odd ‘yes, please’ or ‘no, thank you’ when Alex offers to make you a cup of tea. 

‘Maybe you should take a break, darling.’ Alex breaks the silence. You look up from your notes to see him gazing across the table at yours, leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. He looks serious.

‘No, this will only take me another hour or so, it’s fine.’ You’re determined to finish your work, despite the ache behind your eyes.

‘You’ve rewatched the last ten minutes of that lecture about 4 times. It’s driving me crazy, and I imagine you’re not feeling great either.’ He chuckles. ‘Come on, tell me you really don’t want a break.’ 

You sigh. He’s right. The words on the notepad in front of you are merging into one scribbled blur and every word the lecturer says is just going in one ear and out the other. You aren’t getting any meaningful work done. Maybe you should take a break. To be honest, what you really want right now is to cuddle up with Alex on the sofa. 

‘Can we go lie down then? Please?’

‘Sorry, baby, got to finish marking these. Should be another half an hour.’ Alex goes back to looking at his papers, and your heart aches a little bit. You haven’t touched him for hours, and, for the two of you, that’s a long time to go without. You and Alex are usually very clingy, making up for having to hide your relationship in class by always being with each other behind closed doors. You’re practically attached at the hip. You had sat away from Alex today to try to minimise distractions while working, but now you’re desperate to hold him again.

‘But, Al, I wanna be with you.’ You pout, knowing that it’s Alex’s weakness. You just want his attention.

‘Aw, you feeling needy, baby?’ Alex raises a brow, teasing you.

You huff, not talking back because if you do, Alex will probably call you a brat and you’ll be much less likely to get what you want. But you won’t give up completely. It’s a fine line.

‘Just wanna be close to you.’ 

Alex puts his pen down, thinking for a few moments before turning his gaze back to you. He has a little glint in his eye, and you can tell he’s got an idea brewing.

‘Want to keep me warm then?’ 

You nod eagerly, knowing what Alex means straight away. You’ve done this before, when you were feeling especially needy but Alex was in a zoom meeting. 

‘Alright, baby, grab a cushion then, yeah?’ 

You smile and close your laptop, pushing your notes into a semblance of a pile, before going and getting your favourite cushion from the sofa. You shuffle back over to Alex, who’s pushed his chair back from the table to make room for you. You drop the cushion under the table and sink down, making yourself comfortable. 

Alex shuffles himself forward so he can still reach his essays easily, his legs now bracketing you on either side. It’s comfortably dark under the table, the dim light easing the pain in your eyes. You feel sleepy already.

‘Alright, behave now, ok? Don’t distract me.’ Alex looks down at you, his eyes stern, stroking your hair gently with one large hand. He reaches down to your chin, tilting your head up to look at him. ‘You ready?’

You nod eagerly, but Alex tuts and shakes his head.

‘Use your words, baby.’

‘Yes, Al. Please.’ 

He nods and smiles, stroking your hair once more before moving his hands to his belt, unbuckling it. He unzips his trousers, his hands moving far too slowly for your liking. 

Finally, he pulls his cock out, pumping it a few times. It’s still soft, but that doesn’t mean that your mouth isn’t watering at the sight of it. 

You look up at Alex, making eye contact with him to silently ask permission. He smiles, and you dip your head, suckling on his tip before slowly taking all of him into your mouth, or as much as you can fit anyway. Even soft, Alex’s cock is an impressive size. 

You hum around him as you feel him pressing hot and heavy on your tongue. His smell and taste is all encompassing and so familiar. You can’t help but bob your head and little, swirling your tongue teasingly around him. You can feel Alex’s cock beginning to stiffen, forcing your mouth to open a little wider around his girth. 

Alex pats your head gently. 

‘Alright, settle down. Let me finish these papers, you relax, baby.’ 

You do as you’re told, relaxing your jaw to take more of him into your mouth, then resting your head on Alex’s thigh, feeling his muscle tense a little under your cheek. He’s warm and solid, the fabric of his trousers silky on your skin.

Your eyes start to fall closed, the feeling of Alex slowly throbbing in your mouth making you feel warm and safe. You love the way this position makes you feel, kneeling quietly between Alex’s legs. You just love being so close to him, and really, you can’t get closer than this. Every few minutes, Alex’s hand dips down to card his fingers through your hair, massaging your scalp. You can feel your headache fading away, the tiredness you’ve been holding at bay for the past few hours finally catching up with you. You close your eyes.

- * - * -

You wake up to Alex tugging your hair, his breath coming hard and fast as he looks down at you with blown out eyes. 

“Fuck, baby.”

You slowly come back to reality, feeling the drool dripping down your chin and onto your knees as Alex’s now very hard cock stretches your mouth open. You taste the salty tang of his pre-cum at the back of your tongue, his length hot and throbbing in your mouth. You widen your eyes up at Alex, who’s breathing heavily as his hands card through your hair, essays obviously abandoned.

“Have a good nap, baby?” He manages to huff out, and you nod as much as the grip he has on your hair will allow.

“Yeah, well you really seemed to like teasing me in your sleep. Fuck.” his hips buck slightly, pushing his cock further into your throat and you try not to gag, swallowing tightly around his tip instead. He groans lowly, throwing his head back to look at the ceiling.

“Think you need to finish what you started, princess, hm?” Alex looks back down to you, his eyes black, pupils blown, a few wrinkles on his forehead as his eyebrows knit together in a slight frown. A few strands of his fluffy hair fall gracefully over his forehead, before he pushes them back quickly with one trembling hand. 

You nod again, before getting to work. The sounds echoing round the room are obscene, suckling and slobbering as you bob your head up and down Alex’s length, hollowing your lips as best you can around his girth. You feel him twitch in your mouth, an accompanying moan slipping out of Alex’s mouth. His grip tightens on your hair, pulling you down further on his cock while his hips begin to grind against your face. Your nose is pressed into his pubes, and you feel yourself growing lightheaded but the sensation of Alex’s wet, hot cock sliding in and out of your lips, hitting the back of your throat is practically heavenly. 

You pull yourself off his length and Alex’s hand on your hair loosened, recognising that you need some air. You wipe the drool dripping down your chin with your hand and then use it to pump his cock, your hand gliding softly over his velvety skin. You dip your head to take his balls in your mouth and Alex gasps as you flick your tongue over them, sucking each one in turn before pulling off with a pop.

Alex heaves in a breath, panting. “Gonna come, baby, need to come in your mouth.” 

You nod eagerly, kitten licking his tip, then relaxing your jaw to take him down your throat again. You barely even need to bob your head before a string of expletives work their way out of Alex’s mouth, a hand on either side of your head as his hips stutter. You feel his seed before you taste it, coating the back of your throat like a balm. You swallow it down eagerly, feeling his cock twitch and throb as he releases his load. 

You keep him in your mouth, licking and suckling softly as he softens slowly. His hands are still trembling, stroking your hair gently as he comes down from what must have been a rather good orgasm. 

“Fuck…” He sighs, his hand coming to grip your chin gently and push you off him. He tucks himself back into his trousers, motioning for you to sit on his lap. Your legs are stiff from kneeling for so long, but as soon as you're settled on his thighs, his fingers begin kneading your muscles, working out the tension and knots that have built up. You rest your head in the crook of his neck, feeling his pulse still hammering in his neck. 

“So good, baby,” Alex croons, burying his face in your hair. “So good for me, such a good girl.”

You smile at his praises, bringing your hand to his so your fingers can intertwine, breathing in his scent, the smell of sweat and sex mixing with his cologne. 

“Can we cuddle now, Al?” 

“Course, baby. Want me to carry you to bed?”

thanks for reading hope yous enjoyed :)

[tacagen]

did you know that negaduck from darkwing duck was based off reverse-flash? yeah, that doesnt even BEGIN to describe what's actually been going on between their character histories..

first, negaduck wasnt just inspired by or a reverse-flash parody. he's a literal copy-paste of silver age thawne with a very few changes of origin place from future to parallel universe and identity from some random future guy to main hero's evil twin, because originally eobard was fixated on being a Criminal and not particularly flash's nemesis. back in the day, thawne constantly mentions how much he loves his criminal life. half of his lines are negaduck-worthy purely because the rest is related to being a speedster scientist. my personal favorite as an example:

he passes the speed limit law in central city so that barry couldnt use superspeed without breaking it but thawne still could because he is 'a hardened criminal'. he invents rays that turn everything inflicted evil (something even negaduck has never done (ig solely because megavolt's already done it in the negaduck episode where he accidentally splits darkwing into good dw (posiduck) and bad dw(negaduck, with a black and gray color scheme), and while yellow negaduck is a different character this is basically how the idea of him was born and the writers just decided to keep him in a different form bc the gray one merged back into normal dw at the end which is super funny. imagine coming up with a duck villain and going 'oh this guy actually reminds me a lot of reverse-flash with all that opposite/negative thing. LET'S PAINT HIM IN THOSE COLORS AND GIVE HIM THE SAME PERSONALITY AND SIMILAR ORIGIN THIS TIME'), altho he DOES test the power gem on a cat in jail bird like thawne did with evil rays). he repeatedly tries to get poor former dr alchemy back to crime just because 'crime fun. why cant you see that. im doing it for your own good' and negaduck tried something like that with morgana in feb 14th episode my valentine ghoul (+that brief scene with gos from 2016 comics run where he believes she must be bad deep down inside out of comparsion to nega!gosalyn). negaduck also travels from a whole other world just to fuck around here for fun (there was this bronze age flash issue called flashback where thawne gets lost in the timestream because barry pushed the wrong buttons in his time capsule which is almost exact negaduck's fate in life, the negaverse and everything) and one of another few differences related is that negaduck is shown to be a dictator of his universe's St. Canard who is bored to live somewhere he already has all the power so he travels to another universe to cause problems on purpose.

second. dc's new52. eobard is rewritten again, now he and zoom are kind of one character. but guess what else is new in this version that never happend neither in zoom or professor zoom's lives? thawne is a fucking dictator in his own time. and people tried to fight his rule in flash's name just like friendly four needed darkwing as inspiration to finally fight back for their world.

he gets his own team, acolytes of zoom (i wish i could call them local fearsome 4 but there are 5 of them, making it more of a sinister 6 if you count thawne) which he trains for centuries to fight the flash and betrays later by trying to steal their powers just like negaduck stole f4's in jail bird to become mega-negaduck and if all that wasnt enough, without the mask he straight up looks like negaduck humanization. look at him. this mf is only missing a hat and a cape.

also these sudden black parts in his new speedster suit design? either it is some absolute fucking bonkers of a coincidence or someone on the flash writing team really went 'hey guys you know what would be real funny? lets base new thawne off negaduck. like he was originally based off thawne. i swear no one will notice' and everyone went with that. (i could also mention he has the same dumb motivation for being evil (having shitty childhood/being deep down sad about mistreatment and loneliness) as 2011 dwd comics run negaduck but imo that's too far of a stretch to actually be included)

third. yall know the deal of the first season of cw's the flash? yeah, what if i told you the whole thawne messes with the particle accelerator and causes barry to gain superspeed thing already fucking happend in darkwing duck, episode going nowhere fast?

(the way i lost my mind over this back in the day when i decided to watch dwd just because negaduck reminded me of thawne(i didnt even know he was a direct rip-off, i just went 'oh wait dt universe has this evil fuck that wears the same color scheme as reverse-flash? girl i AM checking the whole thing out just to see if he's anything like thawne'.) and first watched the episode... priceless, still haunts me to this very day. how the hell was that written in 1991. did cw writers just take the idea from dwd too. honestly i cant be sure about anything anymore).

and remember in the duck knight returns (2011 comics run arc) flashbacks there was a super funny thing with negaduck not knowing dw's secret identity and being so proud he cracked the case? remember cw!og!thawne looking for flash's time period and not knowing his identity in 2nd season cameo episode? what the hell was even up with that!!! like guys. guys one of you is the most devoted flash fan from the future and there is NO way none of that kind of information was left a CENTURY after (i mean come on dude couldntve you just asked gideon. she literally had that 2024 newspaper about vanishing and thats at the very least not mentioning she was created by barry) and another is straight up the same fucking person as the hero with the same fucking relatives and enemies. idk take a wild guess??? ((i really wonder if anybody on the wirting team of 2011 dwd run saw not just life, the negaverse and everything but any episode featuring negaduck at all. not only do they ignore the existence of nega!gos in the 'oh he mean bc alone :(' approach, they ignore the very definition of negaduck's character which is literally evil drake mallard. i mean sure hes dumb and may miss obvious clues because of being the same dw just evil but come on, such a comedic situation and never addressed by drake whos literally been in the negaverse and knows they are the same person or by anyone else he coluldve told that? oh well unless drake is also dumb af and thought there never was any drake mallard in the negaverse in the first place and that negaduck is some other guy. which is a real probability i suppose))

also. negaduck's death by being split on billions of evil particles in crisis on infinite darkwings and thawne, being 'exorcised' from nash's body in a form of a negative speed force stream with sparks in 6x15 of cw's the flash.

fourth! yall did watch ducktales 2017 reboot, right? specifically the duck knight returns episode? they introduce a whole new version of negaduck there! and guess what. jim starling, an old darkwing duck (in-universe 90s tv series) actor obsessed with his role, goes fucking nuts because there is a new darkwing duck actor in a new movie and he didnt even know. because he feels forgotten. because no one remembers neither him nor original series (objectievely not true bc obviously launchpad and drake but to jim they just dont count bc reasons. he seems to count only children but calls lp his fan when anthagonizes drake for taking even that from him in the end). because he was replaced and no one even bothered to tell him. he causes a fire on the set, almost kills drake but does have a change of heart at the end after launchpad's speech about what darkwing duck stands for and seemingly sacrifices himself to save drake and lp from the explosion. then they have the worst idea they could have in relation to jim's character ever: for drake to be a real life darkwing duck to honor jim's sacrifice. so naturally he hears that from the sewers or wherever he was hiding to see their reactions(look i am. 100% sure that this is what happened bc that makes so much more sense than jim getting brain damage or whatever from that explosion and waking up to choose violence again for no other reason). he gets hit with the being replacable and forgotten thing once again and renders back to negaduck tendencies, for all we know for good this time as his darkwing suit changes to the yellow-red one. yk who else went on a rampage because he felt forgotten and replaced? you guessed it! the return of barry allen, a 90s classic where thawne goes to 21st century for the first time, thinks he's barry (original-ish flash) because dissociation from trauma of seeing himself being killed by his hero and acts exactly like starling, having the same issues as motivation aka him/barry being forgotten and replaced by wally. he implies wally taking on the flash mantle is most disrespectful to barry. he rants about how he's the only flash and threatens to destroy not only the flash family but the whole central city for forgetting that. he and wally have a conflict of legacy similar to jim and drake's conflict in dt17. he is The starling blueprint only a lot more mentally ill. also we've heard something like the duck knight returns in running scared (this one is less reminiscent of jim but still features some things that werent in the return of barry allen). it's a rebirth arc that introduces another new origin of reverse-flash. now, he's been hyperfixated on barry allen his whole life (on a whole new level i mean) and there was the first meeting in 25th century where they Connected like thawne always believed they would. that day ended up in a fight and thawne's imprisonment because he set up casualties to get attention and praise for being the flash of 25th century but unlike all other versions this thawne has a change of heart after the fight, too. he promises to 'fix everything' including himself, he even goes to therapy afterwards. then he goes to the 21st century to tell barry how much he accomplished since they last met and then sees barry saying to wally one meaningful phrase he said to thawne that perfect day. like it wasnt something special only barry and eobard shared. like the day they met never happened. like he forgot thawne ever existed. like he was replaced as barry's speedster partner/friend/whatever he thought they were after that day by wally. and that shatters thawne so much he runs back to 25th and just decides to become the reverse-flash and make barry suffer until he gives him attention and recognition he deserved. frank angones, i am inside your walls. you CANT deny you based your versions of dw and nd off flash comics and thawne particularly. and more, you legit made reverse!eobarry au and put it in dt in duck forms. i have been losing my mind about it for 3 years now. i am exposing you and there is nothing you can do to escape that.

fifth(ish). yeah, and btw about friendly four from life, the negaverse and everything. did you think they actually escaped being mirrored in the flash? ha. i present to you reverse-rogues from the 25th century aka the renegades, carefully created by zoom and thawne himself, thinking it would somehow be funny.

cant believe hunter once saw it on tv put 2 and 2 together and went 'eobard my dude we need to go full negaverse with the 25th century. we need a friendly four to your negaduck. i swear it'll be Hilarious'. god the only thing they lack at this point is nega!gosalyn (i mean. hunter actually did try something like that with inertia, saving him from the museum and trying to teach him how to torture flashfam into improving them but thad was more of a nega!honker and reverted hunter to disabled powerless state just because. love that kid)

and that's all i have so far, if anyone here also into both yellow-red mfs with no life feel free to comment or even add more because there sure is or at least will be more and no one has the power to stop it.

[dendroaspis-viridis]

On the "Emmrich is undead/a spirit" theory

I’ve been having a lot of Thoughts™ about a certain professor and the interesting "I would say, 'not that skeleton,' but we're not saying, 'no skeletons.'" quote from Matt Rhodes during the Q&A.

I personally think the skeleton in question is Emmrich, though I think he’s still flesh and blood most of the time. I'll elaborate under the cut.

I’d like to first establish that I don’t think he’s a spirit like Audric. In Down Among the Dead Men, we learn that most spirits work under the guidance of a Mourn Watcher, specifically “under a modicum of magical control”, and I can’t imagine the Mortalitasi would send a lone spirit out from the Necropolis without an accompanying Watcher regardless of the spirit’s ‘wholeness’. Especially considering the apprehension people outside Nevarra seem to show the Mortalitasi.

There was also that quote from the IGN interview with Corinne Busche that paraphrased “no bear sex”, and I feel like a full on Beverly Crusher-esque ghost fucking would at least be bear sex adjacent. Not to mention, hinting at one of your companions being undead seems like a massive spoiler to drop before the game's even out.

Back to how I think Emmrich is the skeleton (but also not): the Mortalitasi have a lot of connections to the Veil/Fade due to their constant interactions with souls and spirits (and my personal headcanon that the Grand Necropolis as a whole exists in an odd liminal space between the material world and the Fade, but that’s a whole other can of worms). The concept art we’ve been shown thus far features a Mortalitasi harvesting material from a mummified dragon surrounded by their skeletal assistants:

And if we zoom in on the (presumably) human figure, we can see a bit more detail:

They look distinctly flesh and blood when compared to their skeletal assistants, wearing a protective smock and gloves that go up to the bicep, complete with (what looks like) chain covering their torso and upper arms.

The headpiece they’re wearing had me puzzled for a few days, to be honest. But from what I can tell, I don’t believe there’s enough space in there for the skull we see to merely be a decorative mask (especially considering the deep craters of the eye sockets and nose), leading me to believe the headgear shows the Mortalitasi’s actual skulls while they’re wearing them. There’s also a tiny gap between the mandible of the skull and bevor of the helmet, implying the skull is a separate item.

As for why (I think) we see the Mortalitasi’s actual skull, I can only hypothesize the headgear assist them in accessing the Fade while conscious more easily? Whether that allows them greater control over their summons, lets them more easily communicate with Fade spirits, or allows them to peer through the Veil to see some of the more metaphysical things they’re harvesting, I have no idea. Though it’d also fit in perfectly with the melodramatic Memento Mori vibes I get from Nevarran culture as a whole.

There’s also a dagger (“Walking Death”) from DA:I with an interesting description: “The well-worn hilt bears the marks of the Nevarran Mortalitasi. The order makes an art of mummification, and their tools are imbued with magicks that blur the moment between life and death, though death is no less certain.”

Both the Chantry and Nevarra seem to agree that death occurs in the moment a soul/spirit leaves someone’s body and passes through the Veil, so the implication that most of the Mortalitasi’s tools can manipulate the Veil supports the idea that they’d have to create some kind of headgear that would allow them to see what exactly they’re manipulating?

So with all of that said, I’m assuming there’s going to be a scene with Emmrich at some point if you pursue a romance with him where he’s discussing the Mourn Watch/something death-related, where he dons the headpiece to further emphasize both his and Rook’s mortality, and there will be an option to kiss him. Or something like that. Idk.

Also I wanna specify that all this is based entirely on concept art screenshots and my inability to stop thinking about Dragon Age, but I’m gonna continue to assume Emmrich is entirely alive unless shown otherwise.

No judgement to people who're pumped for a potential skeleton romance, by the way! These are just my thoughts on who exactly that smoochable skeleton is, though I will admit I’m hoping for a flesh and blood Emmrich.

[misfitwashere]

[Fox News] Kamala Harris is once-in-a-generation candidate and this is a once-in-a-generation moment for America

From the sidewalks of Oakland to the halls of the White House, Kamala Harris’ story is the stuff dreams are made of…the American Dream. Because where else could the daughter of immigrants rise to the highest office in the land, shattering glass ceilings all along the way? Only in America.

Of course, she had plenty of examples to show her what was possible. Coming to America from India at only 19-years-old, her mother became a celebrated biologist. Her father had come from Jamaica, studied at UC Berkeley and became a renowned economist and professor at Stanford. So, they raised her not only to see what is and what has been, but to imagine what is possible — not who we are, but who we can be.

It worked because she thrived on that possibility. It took her to Vanier College in Montreal, Howard University and the University of California College of Law, San Francisco. It drove her to organize for justice. It helped her prosecute murderers and rapists as the District Attorney’s chief of the Career Criminal Division and eventually become San Francisco’s district attorney herself, then attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president.

It gave her the moral clarity to fight the big banks who paid for their own misdeeds by foreclosing on working families. It gave her the strength to fight for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company and it gave her the tools to win bringing rent relief and badly needed resources to low-income communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, to deliver student debt relief to countless American, to help create millions of new jobs and more.

Now, because it’s her time and her turn, she is zooming through and into history and nobody deserves it more. Yes, we recognize that politics is a contact sport and we know that the attacks will come. In fact, some are coming already.

But we also recognize that a lot of the folks wearing different jerseys than we are keep running the same old plays of racism, bigotry, misogyny, ignorance and hate. From birtherism 2.0 and dismissing the vice president as a DEI hire, to claiming she “became Black” and purposefully mispronouncing her name, it’s clear that the closer we get to history, the louder and sicker they become.

That’s OK. She can take it because the contrast is easy to see.

It’s not just about the prosecutor vs. the felon or even the undeniable truth vs. rapid fire lies. It’s about progress vs extremism. It’s about who we can be.

Think about the landmark legislation Vice President Harris helped marshal through Congress and into law. Think about all the executive orders to raise wages, fight climate change, protect reproductive freedom and more that she helped make reality. Now compare that to the four years of deprivation and degradation we saw under Donald J. Trump. 

Of course, elections are about the future forecast. So, compare former President Donald Trump’s all but official endorsement of the plans laid out in Project 2025 to President Harris signing a real bipartisan border security bill into law, protecting a woman’s right to control her own body and make her own health care decisions, extending the child tax credit that cut child poverty in half, building on the more than 15 million jobs she already helped create. 

Compare Trump’s plan to declare martial law to President Harris strengthening the middle class, growing small businesses, expanding health care, keeping medical debt off your credit report and making sure no one raises taxes on Americans who make less than $400,000 per year.

While Harris knows that affordable internet is a must not a plus for all Americans, the MAGA Republicans refuse to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program. And while they’re screaming about imagined crises, we’re talking about raising wages, closing the wealth gap, lowering the cost of childcare and making sure getting sick doesn’t mean going broke.

That’s just a hint of the differences.

Simply put, Vice President Harris is a once-in-a-generation candidate who has generated more power and energy for this country than Duke Power. It’s been less than a month since she announced her campaign for president and she’s already unifying the Democratic base, expanding our coalition, stretching the map and forcing the Republicans to short circuit.

In less than two weeks, Vice President Harris has recruited nearly 200,000 volunteers, sparked nationwide grassroots organization, secured the Democratic nomination and raised $310 million, which is twice as much as Trump raised through all of July. 

From campaign calls to rallies to local volunteers knocking on doors on a Saturday morning, folks are getting tuned in all across this nation like we’ve never seen before. It’s unprecedented. It’s historic.

Vice President Kamala Harris is a once-in-a-generation candidate and this is a once-in-a-generation moment for America. The choice is clear. Will we choose truth or lies? Will we choose hope or hate? Will we choose the future or be doomed to repeat the past?

Well, like the vice president says, we are not going back.

Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC and a senior visiting fellow at Third Way. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @antjuansea.

[madhatterbri]

Jealous | T.N.

Summary: Theo and Izzy had an one night stand during the summer. They agreed it was just for fun and nothing more. Now she is at Hogsmaede with Draco and Theo can't hide his jealousy.

"You look rather exquisite," Draco purred in her ear while hugging her from behind. He ran his hands down her sides and kissed her neck. Isabel smiled and turned to look at him.

"You aren't bad yourself," she smiled and kissed him softly. Her eyes closing for a brief second. Always a fan of Hogsmaede, she loved to be free of Hogwarts rules. The professors may be chaperones, but they couldn't watch all the students at once.

"Looks like we got an audience," Draco chuckled. He moved his head towards the direction. A few feet away stood an angry Theodore Nott. His face was red while his brown eyes glared. Tightly balled fists hung around his sides.

"You may want to calm him down before Crabbe and Goyle have to get involved. I don't want to see him a bloody pulp like first year. He got blood on my uniform," she whined. After the beat down they some how became friends. Boys are wild.

"Patience, darling," he tapped her nose before kissing her once more. Draco looked at Crabbe and Goyle. "I have a little business to handle. I'll see you soon,"

They bid their goodbyes and he left leaving Isabel to deal with an angry Theo. She sighed and looked at his direction. He stood in the same manner she saw the first time. Better to get this over with now than later.

Lately, he was jealous. She still wasn't sure where he found the audacity. During the summer, they had an one night stand at a party at Blaise's house. They agreed it was for fun. While they had flirted in the past, she knew they would never work out.

"Theo, what is you-"

Her question cut short by him grabbing her wrist. He took her away from the pathway and towards the treeline. The entire time she demanded to let her go. They walked a few feet into the woods before he let her go. He turned to look at her.

"Cute stunt," he growled. His lips were pursed and his eyes looked watery. The tip of his ears so red they looked like they could start a fire.

"Stunt? What stunt?" She asked. Her eyebrows furrowed and her nose scrunched. "What is your problem lately?"

"You! And that idiot ferret," he answered and turned. He took a few steps away from her. His fingers ran through his hair. Isabel stared at his back.

"Why? Are you jealous?" She teased. Theo turned and stood in front of her. Isabel took a nervous step back. There were plenty of times she had seen him mad but this was by far the worst.

"I'm not jealous. I have no reason to be jealous of that daddy's boy," he spat as if he ate something disgusting.

"Then what's wrong? I know you are a fan of PDA. Just last week you had your tongue down some poor Hufflepuff's throat,"

"I-" he began but stopped. His nostrils flared. His thoughts were zooming in his mind. He could barely think let alone speak.

"Listen, you and I have the most fucked up friendship," she started. Theo seemed to calm down. "We fight constantly and then make out. I want our friendship the way it was before we had sex. Can we please go back to that?" She asked. Isabel missed the way they were together.

"I don't want that," he confessed. Isabel could feel her heart break. She couldn't imagine a world without Theo in it. "I want more. With you,"

[montydrawsstuff]

Chaotix going to the ARK together story?

…Yer? I suppose I can give that a go

btw, who even did hire the Chaotix to do all that stuff in shadow the hedgehog?//

”Who’da guessed that dusty old teleport in Eggman’s base still worked? Well… we’re all here now, no thanks to that.. shady hedgehog”

Vector joined the other two of his crew before the main bridge of the dusty -but still spectacular- Space Colony Ark. He took a commanding stance before the main computer and typed carefully.

“M A R I A. Huh, still the same password… guess they didn’t have the same view of cyber security that we got now, huh boys?”

The Chaotix stood by as their faces glowed with the light of the system booting up for the first time in quite a while.

“Nice! Ughhh! It’s all words! Where’s all the pictures? I’m borrrrred!”

“Shuddap, Charmy! We got serious business here! We aren’t looking for comics!”

“I’ll scan what information I can,” Espio offered “Go see if there are any more access points, this may just be a logging interface”

“Ya don’t have to ask me twice!” Vector said, turning quickly with Charmy buzzing behind him. “You go high, I go low- got it, kiddo?”

“Roger!” Charmy saluted and zoomed off.

“If ya got it in ya, give us a shout for any trouble, got it? This place is falling apart as it is, never mind those chaos monsters everywhere!” Vector headed off without a response, knowing Espio was already zoned into scanning through every last word as a speed he didn’t even want to think of.

Each room he entered, Vector struggled to imagine what once was, was this place really the cutting edge research and medical facility he was told? By the sight of ruined halls, trashed computers and cold sterile furniture that did remain- was this place ever inhabited?

“Woof, these people need some rugs, stat. It could really tie the room together…” Vector mused. He stumbled, looking down to see crumpled clothes and ash.

He grimly continued on. This wasn’t a time for jokes.

Espio let his eyes burn tirelessly, scanning every file he could access, unlocking more and more information as he worked. He wasn’t finding anything useful yet. It seemed many of the old Professor’s journals were less about the layout and use of the labs, and more centred on his own research and findings.

To come across files under “Project Shadow” kind of threw him for a bit of a loop. Entry after entry detailing the development of his “Ultimate Lifeform”.

Espio had only passing correspondence with Shadow. He was aware he had some significance and power by their previous interactions, but to imagine someone he had witnessed- had only known as another living breathing person- was once just a subject, even result of scientific research…

He found himself pouring over page after page logging development, experimenting, breakthroughs, discoveries- referring to Shadow the Hedgehog as almost a product, a concept. GUN funding the project to turn the project into some kind of super soldier weapon?

How disturbing, How dehumanising..

“Hey! I found something! Looking Lookie!!”

The Chaotix hustled into a room with a large window, overlooking the Earth. A smaller computer off to the side had been booted up, the monitor lit up with windows detailing the Black Arms.

“Good work Charmy! This is just what we needed! Now let’s do what we were paid to do!”