#so they can actually show up on the ballot
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brf-rumortrackinganon · 3 days ago
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Tomorrow - and the rest of this week - is going to be a Very Big Day for a lot of us here.
First, I want to take a moment here to remind everyone of how lucky we are to live in a country where the citizenry’s responsibility to direct how the government is formed, and the freedom to choose what direction we give, is enshrined in our constitution. So please, if you’re able to, vote. And if you’re still in line to vote when your polls close, stay in line; all the closing time means is that’s what time your queue to vote closes. If you’re in line when the queue closes, you can and will be able to vote, no matter how long it takes.
Second, there is very real federal concern that the election results, whatever they end up being, could lead to violence. If who you support in the election makes you an outlier in your community - you’re a blue dot in a red sea or you’re a red dot in a blue sea - and you have signs showing that support, take them down now. Hide your bumper stickers, don’t wear your shirts, leave your hats at home. Chances are that this just being overly cautious, but all the national security risk assessment signs are pointing to “warning: the threat is here.” Hopefully nothing will actually happen, but after an election cycle with assassination attempts, ballot boxes being blown up, and an Election Day terrorist attack being uncovered…I know I’d rather be safe than sorry.
And finally, if you need a timeline cleanse from all things election: watch videos of the New York Marathon - there’s nothing cheerier and more wholesome than watching strangers come together to cheer on and support marathon runners.
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compassionatereminders · 1 day ago
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Content Warning: U.S. presidential election (an attempt to offer hope)
~
Saw a couple asks related to the U.S. election & want to chime in, in case this brings anyone else hope or at least a reprieve/moment to breathe.
It is (unfortunately) typical for in-person votes in most states to be primarily Republican. That said, most states are still counting mail-in ballots (or even accept them up to 4 days late). Also, some states may be forced to extend that window due to disaster-affected late mail-in votes*.
It is increasingly common for Democrats/leftists to vote by mail, NOT in person, & all the current statistics show is in-person (and maybe a couple early mail-ins, but definitely not all of them).
This election isn’t won yet, though those of us who are at risk (LGBT+, women, BIPOC, etc.) are holding our breath too.
(I’ve heard my college professors (all happen to be in at-risk categories unfortunately— 3 women, & one nonwhite Hispanic man) repeatedly say “please vote”. As a nonprofit school they’re not legally allowed to tell us who for, but my Human Development teacher mentioned having “a contingency plan” & the urgency/fear from all of them really says enough.)
(* a potential relief but for a terrible reason - some of our ballot boxes were lit on fire (literally), so many mail-in voters will be counted even later in the delay of voting twice, & some mail-in ballots were fraudulently rejected & may have to be redone, so to catch up on those...)
Essentially, it takes 4 to 10 days for an election to actually be won (no matter when/if Trump tries to claim he won, which may be preemptive as it was last time).
As a person who will have to flee the country if this goes to Trump, I’ve been keeping an anxious eye on the votes thus far. I hope this (my last thread of sanity) can offer some of you comfort as well—or at least a moment to breathe & make plans for either situation, because let’s be real...Trump’s supporters will likely pitch a fit again if he loses.
Neither win will be pretty, but one of them winning (y’all know who) puts millions to billions of people worldwide at risk. (/terrified, stressed)
I’m going to keep checking anxiously for the next 10 days. But hopefully it swings blue and we can all breathe 😭
~💜
Yes, as far as I am aware this is true. There is lots of things to criticize about how US elections work, but we should not make any final conclusions before the final result arrives.
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lovelylogans · 2 days ago
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debutante
previous chapter / chapter five
part of the wyliwf verse.
warnings: mentions of transphobia, food mentions, alcohol, kissing, mentions of child abuse, but nothing actually happens (virgil suspects something and dee mentions parenting attitudes that aren’t healthy) also a mention of harassing women, but it’s more of an abstract than any actual harassment. please let me know if i’ve missed anything else!
pairings: logince, moxiety
words: 21,961
notes: fifth verse, same as the first: i hope this can serve as a distraction for some of you today—please go out and vote if you are in the united states!! i'm actually posting this as i'm in line for my ballot so i can vote before work! there are so many important issues on your local ballot (several states have potentially life-saving but certainly life-altering provisions on ballot this year for a lot of folks!) in addition to national-level stuff! and, in regards to why this took so long to get here,
janus looks at the jar skeptically, his arms folded across his chest.
“this. this is your favorite food?”
logan tries not to take the slight too personally, but he offers the spoonful of loganberry jam to him again.
“yes, it is,” logan says. “i said nothing when you said your favorite food.”
“because my favorite food is normal,” janus grumbles, but he takes the spoonful anyways. “but seriously. just straight up jam?”
“crofter’s loganberry jam,” logan corrects. “followed by the rest of the jams that crofter’s offers.”
janus sighs, but ingests the jam, presumably in the name of getting to know each other better.
with the introduction of a name, logan had thought to propose getting to know each other better; so now logan knows janus’ favorite color (yellow) his favorite book (the art of war) and his favorite food (he’d said mille feuille, then admitted it was really pretzel m&m’s, which perhaps was a more conventional choice than a specific type of jam.)
logan watches him, hawk-eyed.
“so?” he says when janus swallows.
“i mean,” janus says. “it’s a good jam, i guess?”
logan sighs, but accepts that janus’ education when it comes to jam is a work in progress. that’s fine. in the meantime, logan will prepare a jam sandwich as a midnight snack. he dearly anticipates the day when he is no longer a teenager and therefore no longer so hungry all the time.
janus waits a long time to change into his pajamas.
logan gets up, presumably to go to the bathroom, and comes downstairs with an overly large hoodie without preamble, or even mentioning it at all, really.
janus refuses to smile, but he does change into the pajama set his parents bought him, with a big hoodie advertising a sideshire save-the-bridge fundraiser.
“why are you making me watch this,” logan groans.
“because it’s a cultural touchstone, hush,” janus says dismissively, staring at the screen but really staring at logan out of the corner of his eyes, trying his very hardest not to start cackling.
“this sex scene has been going on for three minutes!”
“cultural. touchstone.”
“you’re doing this to make me suffer,” logan accuses.
“obviously,” janus says. “that’s the whole point of making someone watch the room for the first time.”
“i should have just lied when you asked if i understood that reference,” logan mumbles under his breath, pointedly avoiding looking at the screen.
janus, in deciding to go full obnoxious, croons, “yooou are my rose, you are my rose, you are my rooo-ooooo-ooooose—”
logan pulls a pillow over his face and declares, muffled, “i hate you.”
“save it,” janus says dismissively. “we haven’t even gotten to the flower shop scene yet.”
“the what?” logan says, peeking tentatively from behind the pillow.
or the other terrible subplots, janus thinks gleefully. he’s not a huge fan of the room, himself, it’s not like he’s proudly in the cult following for it, but being able to show it to logan for the first time is something he absolutely cannot miss out on.
“but it makes no sense,” logan practically howls at the screen as the credits roll, janus laughing so hard he can barely breathe.
“christ, isn’t your boyfriend a dancer?” janus complains, shuffling his feet out of the way.
“my boyfriend is the dancer,” logan says, scowling. “my boyfriend.”
“either way, he needs to bring you in for extra waltzing lessons,” janus says. “poppy is going to kill you if you step on her toes even once.”
logan goes a little pale at that.
“why this,” janus groans, tempted to do what logan did and put a pillow over his face.
“you picked a movie, now i get to pick a movie,” logan says smugly, and janus considers throwing the pillow at the screen. the only reason he doesn’t is because he somewhat respects ken burns, even if logan picked his most boring documentary ever.
“this is ridiculous,” logan says.
“it’s meant to be a traditional sleepover activity,” janus says dismissively, counting each curl of the spiral, tapping the paper with his pen. “the internet says so.”
“yes, famously lauded for accuracy, the internet,” logan says. janus ignores him and starts crossing off options, counting under his breath as he goes.
“okay,” janus says, straightening the paper with a great deal of fanfare. “you’ll graduate from princeton—”
“surprising.”
“—i know, quite, i’d had you pinned as an east coast man—after majoring in chemistry, that’s a bit of a departure, isn’t it? but after you graduate, you’ll marry bowman—”
“bowman?!” logan says, aghast. “bowman wasn’t one of the options!”
“i editorialized,” janus says dismissively, “and you’ll have a hundred and two beautiful children—”
“where did you get that number?!”
janus ignores him. “—but you’ll settle in los angeles and live in a cozy little shack—”
“well, i’ve done that before,” logan says fairly, and janus tries his hardest to hide his wince as he continues.
“—and, funnily enough, you’ll be an astronomer. the end.”
“this game is ridiculous,” logan says, snatching back the notepad, before he hesitates and looks at janus.
“all right, fine,” he sighs, and readies the pen. “mansion, house, apartment, shack, those are listed. marriage options?”
“jeff bezos, bill gates, and elon musk,” janus says briskly.
“those are all terrible options,” logan says, disgusted. 
“those are all terribly rich options,” janus corrects. “if this is going to be my imaginary m.a.s.h. life, i will live lavishly due to the money my husband will provide. i don’t have morals, i’d gladly be a sugar baby.”
“you don’t get to pick all your spouses,” logan says. “you married me off to bowman.”
“i’d argue elon musk is worse than bowman,” janus points out. 
“narrowly,” logan says under his breath.
tristan, janus reflects, has to go, of course. 
if not for his being racist toward janus—which is, admittedly, a more self-preservational factor that has put janus into plotting more actively than he has in the aftermath of almost everything else tristan has done. this includes that tristan cheats poorly, lies without even being clever about it, peacocks about with absolutely no sense of swagger or charm, is generally obnoxious, and somehow manages to both virgin-shame and slut-shame girls at their school without imploding from the hypocrisy of it all—
wait. he’s getting distracted.
if not simply for everything else tristan has ever done, then certainly for the note that’s been smuggled into his pocket.
the question, of course, was which plot to pick: to go out with a bang, or to pick a piece of blackmail so heinous that he’d shipped off to military school, with absolutely no time to lose…
“—and that’s how you say where can i find a newspaper in french, creole, and portuguese,” janus says. “i mean, your next problem would be if you could read it or not, but.”
“i wish i knew another language,” logan says thoughtfully. “the closest i have is latin, and that’s not exactly something i can use to converse with people.”
they’re both lying on their backs, staring up at the artificial ceiling of the pillow fort. 
“i mean,” logan amends. “i know some conversational spanish, but. certainly not fluent.”
“spanish?” janus asks sleepily.
“roman,” logan explains, and janus makes an ah noise. then, “portuguese?”
“childhood nanny,” janus says. “she’s from the dominican republic, not haiti, but. she did teach me some things about haitian culture.”
“i met her, didn’t i?” logan says. “at your grandmother’s.”
“yes, you did,” janus says.
“creole from haiti,” logan guesses, and janus mm-hms.
“and you mentioned your grandmother was french,” logan completes.
“yeah,” janus says, and even logan can pick up the edge in his voice. logan props himself up on an elbow, furrowing his eyebrows.
janus looks at him, arching his own eyebrows, and repeats, “haitian.”
logan flushes, a little bit, remembering the (very little) amount of haitian history they’d covered in their mutual world history class, and the (slightly more, but still not exactly a wealth of information) studying he’d done in his free time.
“right,” logan says quietly. 
“i’ve got ideas,” janus says darkly, staring up at the blanket ceiling. “my adopted ancestors’ vast fortune? it’s going to go straight into a trans, black haitian’s pockets. they’re probably rolling in their graves.”
logan is quiet, for a couple moments, before he says, “good.”
janus’s grin unfurls as he stares up at the blanket, daydreaming about how best to squander that fortune.
they’re lying in the pillow fort, mostly quiet, logan on the edge of sleep. but then, tinny and muffled, as if from a phone speaker:
your touch, pullin' fire out of me your touch, like the wind crashing on the sea...
“i am going to kill you,” logan declares, even if he does start laughing when janus does.
patton staggers down the stairs, stifling a yawn with his hand, and he has to stifle a smile at the sight of a blanket fort in his living room, just big enough for two teenage boys.
he edges around it carefully, heading directly for his first stop every morning: the coffee maker.
by the time the coffee maker starts making those slightly alarming sputtering noises that always makes patton think he should probably get it looked at, the boys emerge from the fort, bleary-eyed and honed in on the scent of fresh coffee.
“mugs in there,” patton mumbles to dee, who grabs three at random and pushes them toward patton so patton can pour, the coffee steaming and diffusing its delectable scent all throughout patton’s tiny kitchen.
there’s a stretch of silence only broken by the sound of sugar shaken into coffee, the pouring of milk, the clattering of a spoon against ceramic, and sipping.
by the time patton’s three-quarters of the way through his mug, he feels much more like a human.
“hope you boys slept well,” patton says, his voice not quite at its usual level of perkiness—he’ll need another mug of coffee for that. “do you have any preferences for breakfast? dee, you’re the guest, you can pick—we could go to virgil’s, that’s got diner breakfast—”
a strange expression flashes over dee’s face. patton takes note of it but doesn’t mention it.
“—remy, he runs the café in town, he does some good breakfast sandwiches… or fran’s, she’s got danishes and little pies and things. she runs the bakery near town center, you might have seen it.”
“fran’s,” dee says decisively.
patton nods, drains his mug, and reaches for a travel thermos. “i’ll go ahead and get going for fran’s, then, it can get a bit busy on weekend mornings. logan, could you fish out a menu and show it to dee? either of you can text me with your orders.”
both boys make sounds of affirmation, mostly preoccupied with consuming as much coffee as possible.
patton can’t really talk; he’s busy trying starting to drink the coffee from his thermos while simultaneously hunting for his house keys.
is the taste of cinnamon rolls in these small-town bakeries the entire appeal of living in a small town with an entire store for christmas lights? janus can now slightly better understand the appeal of living in a small town, if so.
squidgy without being mushy, just enough cinnamon to keep it from being sickly sweet, just enough icing to keep the whole thing moist, paired with the unexpectedly spectacular coffee from remy’s café…
janus eats three in addition to the rest of the pastry selection patton had generously gotten for them, and is only slightly regretful when a food coma signals its impending arrival.
but, as all things do, his visit to bizzare-o-town comes to an end—he’s put on his clothes and returned the hoodie logan had lent him, he’s tucked patton’s phone number into a small, almost-hidden pocket in his duffel bag, and he stands on the sanders’ surprisingly roomy front porch with logan, patton waving them both out with his ever-cheerful air.
“where are you going again?”
“newsroom,” logan says, shouldering his own backpack. “at this point, i think rudy’s just coming up with new typos to make sure i come around at least once a week. it’s ridiculous. look at this.”
janus obligingly looks at a newspaper, grimacing at the blatant inconsistencies of the use or lack of an oxford comma scattered across the page.
“we use ap style,” logan says mournfully. “he knows about proper comma placement. i know he knows about proper comma placement.”
“well,” janus says, striving for something polite to say, only ending up with, “best of luck with that.”
logan sighs, tucking away the newspaper. “i will require it.”
he holds out his hand. janus shakes it. (he notices only during the drive home his absolute absence of any hesitation.)
“i’ll see you at school.”
“see you at school,” janus echoes.
it’s probably the absolute lack of tension that is serving to make janus feel strange. since the beginning of the school year, they’d been picking at each other over grades, and he’d been needling logan for so long, it feels odd to leave without some kind of academic repartee. 
and, well. who is he to break from tradition, after all.
the entire reason for this gathering being to forcibly break tradition aside.
so he adds, “i bet my score on our science exam is higher than yours.”
“it will not,” logan says, looking affronted. 
janus snorts, shaking his head and starting down the stairs, heading for his car. “whatever you say.”
“it won’t!”
“four point margin.”
“absolutely not! your score will be less than mine by two at most!”
“i’ll make it mine is six points above yours!” janus calls, sliding into the driver’s seat, and sees logan shaking his head and probably muttering to himself.
janus rolls his eyes, but his lip turns up at the corner a bit more than usual as he drives down a rinky-dink little residential street and is that an old couple walking a cat in a stroller?! who put drugs in this town’s water supply?!
“hey, over here!”
the jolly bell fixed to the top of the door of this (admittedly quite cool) coffeeshop has barely rung before poppy’s attention is called to a corner lit by a big, dramatic brass lamp, where two fat, squashy buttery leather armchairs are framed on either side by bookshelves containing a boggling number of books in seemingly every genre and cool little bits of artsy decor.
poppy waves to lauren, before she points to the bar in a wordless offer. lauren, in answer, holds up her own to-go cup, waving her on to order.
poppy loves coffee.
poppy isn’t allowed to drink coffee. 
well. decaf is fine. but the reason she isn’t allowed to drink caffeine “should be self-evident,” according to her mother. so this cuts down a bit on her café offerings.
the barista—who has the largest cup on offer in one hand, and his phone in the other—barely glances away from his phone to look at her over the frames of his sunglasses.
“what do you want?”
okay, blunt. poppy can appreciate blunt. 
“the honey lavender latte. decaf,” she tacks on.
“size?”
“large.”
“hot or iced?”
“iced.”
“anything else?”
poppy shakes her head, nods when he recites the order back to her, taps her card when asked, and shuffles off to the pickup area to get her coffee, taking a moment to look around.
all of the machinery is sleek, decorated in white and black, down to the framed wall art beneath the menu. the barista is talking on his phone, now, gesticulating grandly with his truly enormous cup of iced—tea, she’s pretty sure?—behind the espresso machine, even as he’s pulling a shot for her drink. it’s frankly an impressive display of multitasking. 
she looks around the room. there are other chilton people here, but not many, and most of them upperclassmen lingering in sideshire before they have to retreat back to the horrors of the workload of their junior and senior years. 
there are a few of sideshire townsfolk, too, most of them chattering in polite undertones, lounging on the couches are the same buttery brown leather of the armchairs. there are also a couple of modern black rocking chairs cushioned in white, also under a couple of those big, brass lamps, all so similar in style; it all looks right out of a period film’s library mashed together with a sleek, black-and-white modernist look. poppy’s burgeoning designer brain can appreciate the adherence to an aesthetic, and this place has it in spades.
the entire place is very… cool.
poppy isn’t very well-versed in how to handle cool. her peers have made this very clear to her.
she scoops up her order when called with a quick “thanks,” and scoots her way over to the other armchair.
“hey!” lauren says, immediately shifting her laptop so poppy can see. “i’m just getting the most likely stuff features onto a flashdrive—what d’you think on this one?”
poppy examines it. it’s a good shot, ana and janey talking, heads leaned in close, fan angled just so to shield what they’re saying from their seat neighbor, but not enough to obscure their faces. ana smirking in perfect profile, janey’s laugh covered in dramatic shadow. 
“that’s good,” poppy says, then, with much more honesty, “well, with a bit of color grading…”
lauren laughs ruefully. “yeah, i know. it’s juuuust cloudy enough to mess with my exposure settings with all the windows in there, let me tell you. i’ll chuck it into the folder of likely contenders and meet up with mel to whittle all the options down on monday. do you wanna help? if you don’t, i can just do it later. i’m procrastinating on an essay for mr. medina.”
mr. medina teaches sophomore and senior honors and ap english. poppy isn’t sure how she’ll handle it next year; he’s a fine enough teacher, sure, but he also doesn’t seem to be the sort to do things when poppy tells him to, like some other teachers at chilton. one compliment to mrs. caldicott, for example, and she’d probably eat out of the palm of poppy’s hand.
“sure, i can help sort photos,” poppy says, wondering if this is some kind of test. she doesn’t know lauren very well—should she just agree with everything she says? will lauren be the sort to get ruffled up if disagreed with, or would she think poppy a suck-up if she didn’t?
and photos, too! so prone to artistic disagreement. so prone to subjectivity! at least design tended to have some very classic rules. poppy knows less with photography; rule of thirds, and that was about it.
“cool, thanks—i don’t have many left, i don’t think, let me get it set up here…”
poppy takes a nervous sip of her beverage as lauren plugs her laptop in to charge, then angles the screen so they can both see it without too much glare. 
the drink is good. very good. just sweet enough with the honey, just floral enough with the lavender, but the drink isn’t too sweet nor too floral nor too bitter from the coffee; all the flavors work in perfect concert with each other. it’s the sort of good that makes poppy very happy she’s taken a risk and gotten a large, and she’s already mentally plotting an excuse to come see logan just so she can swing by this coffeeshop again. 
“okay!” lauren says brightly, enlarges the photo, and poppy can’t help but snort, then wince.
but—it’s, objectively, a bad photo. it’s an insanely blurry shot; it looks like lauren accidentally snapped a photo on its way into her camera bag, focused mostly on the ballet studio’s wooden floors.
“okay, yeah, immediate no,” lauren says, also laughing, which makes poppy’s shoulders relax, just a bit.
she also files the information away; lauren is, at least superficially, okay with laughing at herself. that’s useful intel.
there are very few other immediate nos in there; one where kai, lauren’s boyfriend (poppy thinks? she’s not up on the gossip. she has better ways to spend her time) has stolen lauren’s camera and attempted to take a selfie with it, missing most of his face and instead capturing a surprisingly steady photo of their own shoulder. there’s one where tristan dugray is obviously in the middle of sneezing. (her mother says that poppy ought to have a crush on a boy like tristan, who is objectively handsome, poppy can yield that, but he’s just… such a jackass.) 
a few others pass in that nature; people who turned at the last second, awkward blinking, action stills that aren’t very photogenic, but the one five photos after that are, that kind of thing.
but the rest of them are remarkably well-composed, featuring a mixture of chilton students, not just those who are popular. there’s a mix of dynamics, of expressions, of poses; even as poppy tries to peruse them with a critical eye, as she gathers that lauren does actually want to know her opinion, it’s obvious that lauren has a talent. 
she says as much as they wind down on the end of the photos, lauren detaching the memory card reader from her laptop and packing it away into a teeny tiny little case.
“aw, shucks,” lauren says, grinning, starting to dissemble her camera with swift, practiced motions, detaching the lens and reaching for a microfiber cloth. “i mean, i’ve been taking photos since i was a little kid, i’d hope some sort of talent would have rub off on me by now.”
“so you’ve always wanted to be a photographer?” poppy asks, immediately intrigued. 
lauren hesitates, pausing from polishing the lens.
“...um,” lauren says, and laughs a little bit, awkward, and poppy immediately know she’s overstepped. she doesn’t know how—this is a frequent occurrence—she just knows that she has.
“sorry,” poppy says hastily, knowing that this is typically the smoothest path to resolution.
“no, no, it’s fine,” lauren says, waving her hand. poppy watches the cloth flutter like a flag in the wind. “um—i dunno, it always just gets a bit… you know how chilton is.”
“they do tend to prioritize STEM careers,” poppy agrees hastily. this is a boon for her, considering she intends on going into medicinal research, but she can see how this might be a bit of a struggle for someone more artistically inclined.
“yeah,” lauren says. “um. it’s more… i don’t know what i want to do. actually.”
poppy freezes.
the idea is such anathema to her that it’s boggling her mind. poppy knows her life and who she’s going to grow up to be ever since she had a concept of herself. high school at chilton, college at harvard, then staying at harvard for med school, then making a career in cancer research. that’s it. path plotted.
“like,” lauren says, “at all. i mean, i like photography a lot! i really enjoy mel’s class. but do i like it enough to stake my entire college experience on it? to make a career in that? i really like to bake, too, but i don’t want to be a baker. same with chemistry. same with—everything. i don’t even know which colleges i’ll apply for yet.”
that’s insane. objectively, poppy thinks.
(it’s not.)
even if lauren wasn’t also a chilton student—who famously set their students rigorous exercises and standards for the collegiate application experience—she doesn’t even know where she wants to go?!
“like,” poppy echoes, lost for words. “...at all?”
“like at all,” lauren agrees miserably. “i’m seventeen, anyways! who the hell has their life figured out at seventeen?!”
she does not give poppy an opportunity to answer—probably good, because poppy would have said something like well, i’ve had it figured out since i was four—before she says “no one! no one does! why is society set up like this?!”
“...historical precedent,” poppy decides to say, because that feels safer than offering any emotional input.
“historical precedent is stupid,” lauren grumbles. “all i know i want to do is keep spending time with my boyfriend, take pictures, bake things to bring into class, and probably be editor in chief next year, because i really like the idea of spending more time with mel and molding the paper into the best it can be, not because i know for a fact that i want to be editor in chief someday and i want to put it on my resume.”
wow. poppy and lauren really are different.
“is that too much to ask?!”
“no,” poppy says because, objective wildness of not planning your future since you’ve had a concept of time aside, it isn’t  a lot to ask.
“thank you,” lauren sighs, flopping back into her armchair, then meets poppy’s eyes for the first time since she’s started this little tirade.
“oh, god, i’m sorry,” lauren says. “sorry. it’s just—my parents were getting on me about it right before we got here, they want me to buckle down, like, four years ago, and it’s… sorry. i shouldn’t have put all that on you.”
“no, it’s okay,” poppy says, once again relying on that old faithful of Societal Norms. 
“here i am, freaking out, and here you are, with—” lauren gestures vaguely. “a painstakingly organized agenda and a straightforward trajectory and a—a purpose. a future, a plan. i mean, cancer research, wow!”
it is pretty wow, but poppy thinks it’d be pretty insensitive to bring that up at the moment, as lauren is currently burying her face in her hands.
“i’m all—mess, and you��ve got everything figured out,” lauren finishes. 
“not everything,” flies out of poppy’s mouth before she can even consider a response.
lauren peeks through her fingers, arching an eyebrow.
“i know it sounds—silly,” poppy says, haltingly. “but—you’ve got things figured out that i definitely don’t. i mean—my mom would kill for me to have a boyfriend and do social things like you do.”
“your mom has her priorities a bit skewed.”
“i know that,” poppy tries not to snap, “but that’s—what it is. people like you, you get involved in things, and i can’t even figure out which stupid secret society to join because, even though i have all the family connections, neither of them really like me enough to invite me before now.”
welp. there it is.
poppy knows she’s an acquired taste; the trouble is, she’s never met anyone particularly patient enough to actually acquire it. dee has come close, she guesses, but he’s so hard to read that it’s genuinely difficult to tell, and even then, it’s because they’re “of a like mind,” according to him.
which—considering dee’s reputation within the chilton social stratosphere—is not particularly comforting.
“oh, poppy, that’s not—”
“i’m going to have to suck up to francie jarvis all year if i want to get into the puffs, she all but told me that outright,” poppy snaps. “help her with her homework, secure her a prime spot in the parking lot, organize her locker, scrunch up the plastic strands on her pom-poms to make them fluffy. i’d have to do everything except give her a manicure, if I had any talent with an orange stick.”
“but there’s the—”
“—clairs, i know, but no one’s even approached me about the clairs, even though i have cousins who graduated from both sororities! my family's name and reputation, not to mention my entire future, all depend on me getting into that group—”
“okay, first of all,” lauren says, “the entirety of your family’s name, reputation, and your incredibly bright future do not all depend on which clique you’re in in high school.”
“—my mother was a proud puff,” poppy continues as if she hasn’t spoken, because really, what a ridiculous notion that the world was not pinned on the minutiae of decisions you make in high school, “and my cousin maddie. the connections maddie made with the puffs got her an internship with the supreme court. but my father’s sister was a clair, and so was my cousin ruth. the connections ruth made with the clairs got her an incredible job managing celebrity pr, which sounds like hell to me but she’s thrilled as anything—”
“poppy—poppy!” lauren’s holding up her hands in supplication, and poppy promptly shuts her mouth.
did that guy behind the barista bar screw up and give her full caffeine?! she surreptitiously looks at the sharpie markings on her cup—no, marked off as decaf. hmph.
“okay,” lauren says, speaking in a soft, quiet tone, the way one might talk to an easily startled bunny or something of that nature. which is ridiculous, even if poppy’s shoulder’s relax a little at the sound of it. “first of all: i don’t know about the puffs, but clairs don’t recruit until the last month of your freshman year.”
poppy blinks.
“which wouldn’t be for a minute, for you,” she adds helpfully. “second, you could probably report francie for hazing—”
“it was mostly implied,” poppy mumbles.
“—still,” lauren says. “francie’s…”
poppy waits for lauren to finish that sentence, taking a sip of her drink.
“...francie,” lauren finishes delicately, as if unable to come up with any singular term that would do the work to encapsulate francie. “look. you’re smart, and driven, and you’d succeed in either sorority you wanted, or no sorority, even—”
poppy’s already shaking her head at that notion. 
“—but, hey, part of why i asked you to coffee is to tell you about the clairs,” lauren says, settling back in her armchair. 
“that would be great, thank you,” poppy says politely, trying to pack away their mutual spinouts into the distant past of thirty seconds ago, never to be thought of again. “maddie tells me all about the puffs, but ruth’s pretty quiet about the clairs. what are meetings like?”
“i mean, it’s kind of secret,” lauren says, warmly enough that it’s not entirely discounting the question, “but, i mean—you know how chilton tends to try to keep everything about the secret societies hush-hush and fails at it completely?”
poppy nods. there are ten secret societies worth cracking at chilton, and the puffs have been commonly regarded as number one for the last fifty years. a supreme court justice was once a puff. the ship to keeping secret societies hush-hush had sailed long ago for that reason alone.
“i can tell you the stuff i knew was in the public eye before i got initiated,” lauren says, “which—you probably know, but it’ll probably be good to clear up rumor-rumors from rumors based a little more in fact.”
also accurate. the jefferson has famously implied that the clairosophic society are the closest a modern girl could get to going into the woods and slaughtering chickens and drinking each other’s blood to enact witchcraft, like fabled salem witches of old.
the jefferson has also implied certain things about the puffs and their… well, poppy thinks its not too far of a stretch to mention the comparison to a cultish honeybee hive, complete absolute obeisance to their designated queen—highly likely to be francie for the next few years.
“this is different for every society—and for fraternities and sororities in college—but i can generally tell you that it’s not too different from a lot of club meetings. we have an agenda, we have questions and discussion, we do an occasional activity, we make a plan for what we’ll do between this meeting and the next one.”
vague, but poppy can appreciate mentions of agendas and plans. valuable intel. poppy is notoriously good with agendas and plans—she might be able to finagle this into a boon, regardless of which sorority she joins—
“usually, we talk about things going on at chilton, philanthropy events, any tweaks to the bylaws, social events that we’re all planning, voting for some of the more niche aspects of running a sorority… formal meetings are a lot of bureaucracy.”
poppy can do bureaucracy! poppy is great at bureaucracy!
wait.
“and… informal meetings?” poppy says.
“also a bit secret,” lauren says sheepishly. “more like… friend hangouts. don’t stress about it.”
hilarious. as if poppy has experience with informal hangouts. poppy will absolutely be stressing about it.
“you mentioned philanthropy?” poppy prompts, and lauren brightens.
“yes! we vote on a cause each year, and this year—for the past couple years, actually—we’re focusing our efforts on a children’s research hospital.”
poppy must visibly perk up at this, because lauren grins.
“i thought that might be up your alley.”
“what kind of things do you do?” poppy says, practically vibrating. depending on the puffs’ philanthropic efforts, this could absolutely tilt the scales—establishing connections at a hospital this early! poppy had previously planned on beginning to do volunteer work as soon as she was legally old enough to do some work of import at the hospital, but this was huge, this could advance her plans by years—
“a lot of fundraising—i need to pin down what i’m going to bake for a bake sale in two weeks, actually—helping out with their phone bank, some occasional office administration stuff, supporting their fundraising events. some girls—ana does it, i can give her your number if you have questions—help out in the playroom. ana’s there basically every weekend, she’s there probably the most of anyone. some of the girls on the cross-country and track teams are finagling the rest of them to join in the national 5k.”
poppy nods, absorbing this.
“we partner with a lot of their official events, mostly volunteering to do some of the grunt work. actually, wait, let me find a pamphlet for you from the hospital, i know i’ve got it here somewhere…”
lauren begins rummaging around in her backpack, and poppy takes a moment to drink her coffee and absorb this; a man in a cardigan opens a door that poppy had thought for staff only. the barista looks up, smiling for the first time that she’s seen, and passes the man a prepped to-go cup. the man in the cardigan beams, takes it, and uses his other hand to pull the barista in for a quick kiss.
poppy finds herself staring as the barista leans against the counter; they speak in quiet undertones, cautious not to let any of their words float to the rest of the café—poppy thinks she might be the only one watching, though. the locals don’t seem to care, as if this is a common enough occurrence, and the lingering chilton students are either deep in conversation with each other or scrolling on their phones or laptops with their airpods in.
what a town, where these people can kiss and no one even thinks to comment upon it.
poppy wonders if that’s what life is like outside of the mcmaster household. to be free of a world where every little thing is commented upon.
“here you go,” lauren says cheerfully, passing it over. “even if you don’t join the clairs, i hope you look into this. it’s a really great cause.”
“sure,” poppy says automatically, taking it and tucking it carefully into her bag, then, “do you really not care if i join the clairs or not?”
lauren blinks. “how do you mean?”
“like,” poppy says, gesturing vaguely. “this. this wasn’t some recruitment tactic?”
“oh!” lauren says. “i mean—not formally. i just invited you because…”
“because?” poppy prompts, eyes narrowing.
“because i really do think that we need to stick together,” lauren says. “both in terms of being journalism girls, sure, but also because i think women in general should stick together. i do want you in the clairs, but not because of the fact that you’re a mcmaster or i think you’re going to be really successful some day—which you will—but because i like you.”
poppy blinks. “you like me?”
“sure, i like you!” lauren says. “i think you’re really good at journalism and design. i like that you decided you wanted a feature and went after it. i like that you’re teaming up with logan and dee, even though dee’s kind of out there, because you recognize everyone’s talent, instead of only yours, which i think is way too common in a place like chilton. and i think you’re funny.”
poppy absorbs this for a moment. funny is not a word typically used to describe her. like is not a word typically used to describe her. she sets this aside—the words sure i like you! echoing in her mind nonetheless—and progresses.
“do you think i’d be a good clair?”
“i think you’d be a great member of any sorority,” lauren says. “but, yes—i think you’d be a great clair. you’re driven, you’re smart, you’re so focused on your own goals that i don’t think you’d care that any other clairs’ life path is a little unorthodox.”
“is that common?” poppy says, setting aside the errant thought that unorthodox might have been an invitation to pun. poppy does not pun, but enough people at her synagogue do that it feels near-instinctual to recognize the opportunity and let it float away. “unorthodox life paths, i mean.”
“very,” lauren says honestly. “i mean—my indecision aside. i know that a lot of us don’t fit the chilton mold. girls who are religious outside of christianity, girls who aren’t religious at all, girls who don’t want what society sets out for the path of a “good”—” here she uses air quotes, “chilton girl. like—liv is already setting up to be a professional bridesmaid starting in college, and that’s all she’s ever professed a desire to do, professionally speaking. bella’s thinking about going off the grid entirely and living off the land. soph leads ghost tours on the weekends with the intent of landing a rich eccentric to spouse up with. scarlet doesn’t want to go to college at all, she thinks chilton is scamming her parents.“
yes. those are certainly all off the path of approved post-chilton career paths, which mostly seem to split between “corporate,” “lawyer,” “doctor,” “professor,” or “otherwise professionally or academically outstanding so that we may brag upon our alumni.”
“yeah, you’d be a good clair.”
“oh,” poppy says. “that’s… good. but. i mean. do you think i’d… fit in, as a clair?”
“i think that’s the beauty of the clairs,” lauren says thoughtfully. “none of us fit in. but we manage to fit in with each other. if that makes any sense?”
it does, poppy thinks, stirring her drink with her straw, thinking of hattie, thinking of the barista, thinking of a future where she won’t have to bow to someone’s every whim, but one where she is instead offered mentorship and volunteer opportunities to further her future, without ulterior motive. 
“it really does.”
seline: ALERT.
francie: You know how much I hate it when you start a text message with a vague message instead of getting right to the point.
seline: right, sorry. 
francie: And learn punctuation.
seline: anyway i stuck around in the middle of nowhere right after the gathering to get some coffee, and i saw mcmaster coming into the café 
francie: Poppy McMaster? 
seline: she’s that really intense freshman right
francie: WAY too intense.
seline: and loud. and also i think she might be a robot, she never just. STOPS. ykwim
francie: She comes from a long line of us, though. 
seline: ugh. i hate nepotism.
francie: Rich of you to say. It makes the world go ‘round.
francie: Anway, I should care about this, beyond McMaster being insanely intense and coming from a long line of Puffs because…?
seline: right! so i stuck around in the middle of nowhere right after the gathering to get some coffee, and i saw mcmaster coming into the café 
francie: Get to a point, please.
seline: and she sat with lauren whatever her name is. seline: …and asking her a lot about the clairosophic society.
francie: What?! francie: But her family’s fully puffed!!!
seline: except her cousin.
francie: Who cares about her freaky cousin? A voluntary defector!!! There hasn’t been one in at least ten years, and even then, that was forgiven when she got suspended for troublemaking!!!
seline: maybe i heard her wrong, bc i was listening to that stupid video mr. gardiner keeps saying i should listen to to “improve my understanding of calculus,” but that’s what i think i heard her say.
francie: We absolutely cannot have this. 
“if katy fincher’s mom tries to butt in on coaching the cheer squad one more time, i’m going to scream,” sasha says, her face buried in her arms where they rest on the desk of their mutual english class. 
they currently have quiet time to work on their papers, which means everyone is talking in quiet voices and absolutely not working on their papers. most are instead online shopping on their laptops or texting other people on the sly.
“mood, retweet, same,” roman says, sticking a post-it in the latest poetry compendium he’s reading. he thinks logan will like this one, even if it is a bit more avant-garde that logan’s usual tastes.
“like, we get it, you were a cheerleader here fifty years ago or whatever, that doesn’t mean you get to just steamroller over our actual coach,” sasha continues, scowling. “it’s enough that she has somehow managed to nepotize katy into a flyer position, now she wants to choreograph routines to bring them back to how they were? no, thank you.”
“she wants to do what,” roman says, looking up from his poetry book. “since when?”
“i don’t even know, but joanna posner texted me that mrs. fincher has some suggestions for practice tomorrow, apparently.”
“the routines are great the way they are! we’re nearly done with the basketball season already, what’s the point of doing it now? is coach actually going to hear her out?”
sasha looks up just enough to shrug and give roman a look at her excellent cut-crease eyeshadow look today—all silvery sparkles and stark, dramatic gunmetal gray—before dropping her forehead back onto her arms. 
“this means she’s probably going to put herkies in it,” sasha whines. “i hate herkies.”
“i also hate herkies,” roman says. it’s true, it’s probably his least-favorite cheer-specific jump, which is something, because he usually loves leaps and jumps. it’s like someone ferociously messed up an attitude leap and decided to just rename it instead of facing up to the fact that they did it wrong.
“if any parent should come in to choreograph a new routine, it’s your mom,” sasha says, rolling so her cheek is resting on her arms now, not her forehead. “your mom rules at teaching routines.”
roman smiles. it’s true. his mom does rule at teaching and also at everything else.
“it was really cool to see her teach and stuff last weekend,” sasha continues. “it makes me wish i actually went to a studio to do ballet instead of trying to teach myself from barbie movies.”
“barbie’s nutcracker and twelve dancing princesses are an integral part of my ballet dancer lore,” roman says, “but yeah, she’s the best. and you did, in fact, miss out on the best dance teacher of all time.”
“not that you’re biased.”
“of course not,” roman agrees, amused. “i’m the least biased in the world.”
the bell rings; there’s a great scraping of chairs and desks as everyone gets up to go to lunch, their teacher calling out reminders on the deadline for the paper maybe two of them were actually working on.
roman tucks his book into his backpack, slings it over his shoulder, and asks, “sit with me?”
“sure,” sasha says, and so they set off for the cafeteria, briefly interrupted by a conversation with brick davis about if either of them know anything about arranging carpool arrangements—they don’t, but roman gives brick logan’s phone number because he probably will know—before they find a decent table away from the herd of people who probably sprinted here to get to the microwaves first.
elliott finds them all not long after that, sitting down beside sasha.
“hi,” they say, before peeking curiously at the contents of sasha’s lunchbox. “that looks really good.”
“thanks!” sasha says brightly, already drizzling tzatziki over the innards of her wrap. “i’d heat it up if the lines weren’t so bad today, but souvlaki’s okay cold. even if might be blasphemous to my ancestors, whatever, they never had to deal with microwave lines.”
elliott sighs a little, glumly removing a ziplock bag with what looks like a very sad sandwich inside. they examine it for a minute.
“erm,” roman says, briefly glancing up from his chicken caesar salad. “what is that?”
“i… am not really sure,” elliott says. they open it, sniff a little, and hastily reseal it, but not before the scent of heavy mayonnaise reaches roman. “and i am not entirely sure i trust that this is vegetarian, so. what’s on the hot lunch menu today?”
“umm, i think it’s spaghetti? but don’t quote me on that.” sasha adds hastily.
“sold,” elliott says immediately, scooping up their sad, mayo-infused sandwich to dump in the nearest trash can. “be right back.”
sasha, likely reveling in the fact that one of her dad’s favorite hobbies is remaking and gently tweaking family recipes until they match his elusive childhood memories of summers spent in katerini, looks on sympathetically as elliott shuffles their way in line.
“i’d bring them a spare lunch if they ever asked,” she says with a shake of her head. “i think this is the third time in two weeks that elliott’s had to buy a hot lunch because they weren’t sure if their mom remembered to pack something vegetarian.”
“ditto,” roman says, unsuccessfully attempting to spear a crouton. “my mom’s pretty good about meal prep, and even then, i live, like, right next door to virgil. he’d pack them a lunch without a doubt.”
“it’s like they don’t know they’ve got prime food access just by virtue of us,” sasha says.
“we should hint that to them. delicately.”
“for sure,” sasha agrees. “if it’s not mayo, it’s ham. if it’s not ham, it’s, like, really sad pb&js that are half-smushed inside a ziploc bag.”
“you’d think it would get better once chad graduated,” he says, then, “right, right, you’re new. chad is elliott’s older brother.”
“mm,” sasha says, nose wrinkling. “is he, like, a nice chad, or—”
“no. quintessential chad. whatever you’re picturing, you’ve probably got it.”
sasha’s nose wrinkles further, and she and roman distract themselves with eating as much of their lunches as they can until elliott comes back. 
lunch breaks aren’t exactly leisurely at sideshire high. ergo, the sprint to form lines at the microwave; the faster it’s warm, the faster you can eat, the faster you can get to talking to your friends, or visiting your favorite teacher, or stopping by your locker, or what have you.
roman’s pretty sure they aren’t leisurely at chilton, either, but roman bets the students there are a bit less social and a bit more studious with their spare time during lunch breaks.
after a few minutes, elliott drops down at their table and they, too, promptly begin inhaling their spaghetti with marinara sauce and garlic bread on the side.
“we ran into brick earlier, do you know anything about carpooling to the debutante ball?” sasha asks elliott.
they shake their head and make noise of denial. 
“that’s a good idea, though,” they mumble.
“yeah, someone should get on that,” sasha says, then, “wait, duh, i know a quick way to get an answer on this.”
she pulls out her phone and sends a text; roman sees his phone screen light up from where he has it stashed in a backpack pocket, in the sideshire debutantes group chat.
“oh, obviously,” roman says. “why didn’t i think of that?”
“just say your brain’s fried from whatever amount of planning happened this weekend, we’d forgive you,” sasha advises. “it was a really big production, does your mom do that kind of thing a lot?”
“well, she hosts a lot of town meetings,” roman muses. “and, i mean, we teach a lot of classes, but—nothing like that.”
“no, this is a pretty unique situation,” elliott says between bites. “your mom’s still really scary, by the way, it did not get better just because i took a class with her like you said it would.”
“i know, isn’t she the best?” roman beams.
elliott makes a nervous mmmmm sound as sasha says “yes absolutely she is.”
“like, hey, look,” roman says, displaying his salad. “i said i was craving caesar, and look! caesar. with plenty to spare, if anyone ever asked me to bring any spare food to anywhere for any reason, plus, like, really close access to the best restaurant in town.”
“subtle,” sasha mouths at him, and roman just shrugs. 
hey, he can be a lot of things—dramatic, ostentatious, confident—and none of those are exactly synonyms for subtle.
“yeah, speaking of virgil,” elliott says, digging out their phone. “look at my suit! dress? suit-dress?”
“swess,” sasha says, leaning over to peer at elliott’s phone screen.
“druit,” roman says, doing the same.
it looks, frankly, really cool; half perfect tux, half old-fashioned, regency-esque white dress. 
“elliott, that’s gonna look so good,” sasha gushes happily. 
roman says, delighted, “wow, elliott, it turned out great, i can’t wait to see it in person!”
“thanks,” elliott says, ducking their head. “i’m, um, i’m really happy with it, actually. i was really nervous.”
“what are you gonna do with shoes and stuff?” sasha says curiously. “oh, i could totally help you do a half-and-half look, just say the word!”
“would you really?” elliott says, looking surprised. “thanks, sasha, that would be really—really great, actually. i mostly just,” and gestures to their dark eyeshadow. “y’know. not exactly intricate stuff.”
sasha squeals happily, clapping her hands.
“i love having models to do makeup on!” she says. “my sisters are getting so tired of me bursting into their rooms when they’re trying to do homework, let me tell you. ooh, ellie, this is gonna be great! we should probably carpool then, right, if i’m your makeup artist?”
“sure!” elliott says. “we can text other people to see if there’s room in the car, or if you’ve got yours, or—” 
“totally,” sasha says. “sorry, can i just take a picture of your face, real quick? i want to make sure i have a reference for foundation matching.”
“um, sure?” elliott says, and they try their best to offer a neutral expression to the camera.
quickly afterward, not even leaning over to peek at the picture sasha got, elliott turns to roman. “how about you? i don’t think i’ve seen your dress.”
roman grins. “it’s a surprise, darlings.”
“aw, not even one hint?” sasha teases.
roman, faux-thoughtfully, taps his finger against his chin.
“well,” he says with a smile at elliott, “you won’t be the only one doing an avant-garde makeup look, how about that?”
“oh, nice,” elliott says. “i mean—not that you won’t do a great job, sasha, it’s just also nice to know i won’t be the only one.”
“i don’t think you were ever going to be the only one,” sasha says cheerfully. “it’s a ton of people smashing gender norms, interesting fashion and makeup kind of goes hand-in-hand with all of that.”
“interesting fashion seems like a theme with those chilton kids for sure,” elliott says. “i mean, wasn’t that friend of logan’s wearing a cape?”
roman scowls, more out of instinct than anything.
“uh-oh,” sasha says. “we don’t like logan’s friend? what’s their name?”
“dee,” roman grumbles, “and no, we do not like him. he’s competing with logan too hard for valedictorian, which should be logan’s in any sane world, he lied to me for the sake of his own amusement, he pokes his nose in everyone’s business, he—”
“okay, we don’t like him,” sasha says, cutting him off. “got it.”
elliott makes another mm noise.
“what?” roman says, lowering his fork.
elliott jerks their shoulders up and down in a shrug.
“no, really, what?” 
“wellll,” elliott says, drawing out the word, dragging their fork through the pasta. “does he… really suck?”
“yes, he sucks,” roman says fervently. “he, for sure, really, absolutely sucks.”
“do i detect jealousy?” sasha says, a hint of intrigue on her voice.
“you absolutely do not,” roman says fervently. “no. no way. i am not jealous of that—that jason vorhees wannabe!”
elliott’s head tilts, and their mouth pulls to one side.
“what was that face?” roman says. “i’m not!”
“weeeeellllll,” elliott says in a high-pitched voice.
“oh, go on, elliott, you know i’m new,” sasha urges. “you know all this history, i’m at a disadvantage.”
elliott shrugs, lifting a noodle on their fork, letting it drop back down into the tray. “i mean, you and logan have practically been together since kindergarten.”
“not true,” roman mutters petulantly. “if we had been together that long, i could have saved myself a lot of longing staring and yearning angst throughout the years.” 
“not necessarily romantically,” elliott adds to sasha, as if roman isn’t even there. “just, like. it was always roman-and-logan, logan-and-roman, you know?”
they say it very quickly, like they’re used to saying their names as all one word; romanandlogan, loganandroman. roman fights the urge to be sappy about that.
“if one was there, the other wasn’t far behind. they’ve always been,” elliott says, and twines their fingers together, using the gesture to finish their sentence. 
“ohhh,” sasha says, in a great gusting sigh of realization. “i see. logan moved, met this guy, and now this is a whole another person might be becoming important to the person who’s important to me thing.”
“it is not that thing, okay, first of all,” roman says, “he’s evil.”
“evil?!” sasha says, on the edge of a laugh. “he’s a prep wearing a cape, roman, i don’t know if it’s that serious.”
“it is that serious,” roman says vehemently, “he manipulated someone into punching logan, so—!”
“wait, what?” elliott says, and so roman has to catch them all up on the dastardy of dee slange.
this takes the rest of lunch break; they split off for their respective lockers and afternoon classes, roman slightly vindicated by the looks on their faces as they realize that dee slange is heinous.
“but if he did all that—” sasha begins, then breaks it off, her brow furrowing.
“what?” roman says, distracted by the sound of their class bell, putting his phone back into the perfectly sized pocket of his backpack.
elliott and sasha exchange another look.
“well,” sasha says. “i guess i don’t know him as well as either of you do, but… logan seems like a really smart guy. if dee really did all of that—then why is logan bothering to hang out with him?”
roman sets his jaw, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.
“that’s what i can’t figure out, either,” roman says, and he goes on his way to his next class before either of them can start brainstorming and come up answers that make dee even more abominable than he already is..
or, even worse—
answers that will make roman start to consider dee as logan’s misunderstood confidante.
“uh-huh. well, that’s good, at least.”
patton makes eye contact with virgil and nods as virgil speaks into the landline; virgil nods back with a little distracted smile on his face as he continues listening intently on the phone. patton contents himself with attempting to guess who’s on the phone based on the half of the conversation he’s walked into the middle of. 
“yeah, it’s all going pretty well, we had a big get-together with a lot of the kids so they all know how it’s gonna go down… probably, yeah, i’m up to my armpits in tulle, but i think i’ve gotten all the last of the last-minute folks in, so i can at least narrow it down…”
okay, someone who is interested in how the debutante ball is going, which means not someone with a strict business relationship based mostly on virgil ordering ingredients and supplies.
“...bit longer, but shouldn’t be much. you know how things get with the seasons, i’ve got a bit more downtime here and there…”
hm. virgil’s tone makes it almost like he’s talking to his mom, which would fit, except virgil’s probably talked to meredith recently enough that she’d know about the timeline, and someone else who knows about how restaurant levels vary. which leaves…
“okay. yeah, see you soon… i will, i will, he’d probably like that… thanks. bye.”
virgil hangs up the landline; if there’s one thing about landlines patton misses, it’s probably that sense of concrete finality that comes from hanging up a phone. smartphones just mean pressing a screen. no theatricality of clicking buttons, no twirling the line around a finger.
lot more convenient to carry, though. and little smartphone games! patton loves little smartphone games.
“bud or maisie?” patton asks, as virgil, smiling, leans forward, elbows on the counter. “i’m guessing maisie.”
“maisie.”
“ha! i got it!” patton crows, before leaning forward; virgil, who he is maybe in the midst of accidentally pavlov’ing, leans the rest of the way to give patton a little greeting kiss.
“maisie wants me to bring my handsome young man back over pretty soon,” virgil says. 
patton grins. he likes bud and maisie quite a bit; he’s pretty pleased that they like him back.
“she and bud say hello.”
“well, i say hello back,” patton declares, despite the fact that virgil would probably have to call them back to pass on this news. it’s in the spirit of the thing. 
“how was work?”
“oh, same old, same old,” patton says vaguely, “except i think one of the kid guests is trying to smuggle one of our squirrels into the hotel so they can smuggle it back home in their luggage.”
virgil considers this. “i don’t know what to do with that.”
“yeah, me either,” patton agrees. “logan never really got into the let’s adopt this animal phase beyond, like, frogs.” 
“ah, i remember reptile phase,” virgil says. “made it a lot easier that you lived by their natural habitat, though. i don’t think this girl can do that unless she convinces her parents to move here.”
“i don’t blame her, though. we’ve got a pretty good squirrel population. very fuzzy, very fat, very prone to posing for pictures.” 
“true,” virgil says. “we have very handsome squirrels here. good representatives to stick on a wildlife brochure. i don’t know how taylor is behind this, but i think taylor is behind this.”
“you and logan think taylor’s behind everything.”
“he is, but continue.”
“well—i don’t think tipping off the parents that their child is planning to abduct the local wildlife is really in my job description, considering she’s been pretty vocal about our squirrels, but i told the landscapers to keep an eye out for it.”
“probably for the best,” virgil agrees. 
“speaking of photogenic,” patton says, and he waggles his eyebrows. “do you have your fancy black tail outfit all sorted out?”
virgil groans—half joke, half real disdain for the stuffy uncomfortableness of it all—and rests his elbows on the counter, leaning forward. “do i have to?”
“probably not,” patton says, practical, “considering all the kids are flouting dress codes anyway.”
virgil freezes.
patton grins. “did i just now bring that to your attention?” this strikes patton as particularly ironic, considering virgil’s outfit today; a dark, silky purple button-down tucked into a breezy black maxi skirt, his eyes rimmed with black and his lips painted with burgundy to match.
virgil drops his forehead onto his arms, whining “i could have just not bought a fancy suit?!” into the counter.
“aw, poor virgil,” patton says, running his fingers through his impressively silky hair, then, “...how fancy?”
“very!” virgil grumbles, not moving. “i bought a tailored coat with and without tails because i couldn’t remember which i needed, patton! i have two fancy suit coats i don’t need now!”
“how many fancy suit coats did you have before?” patton says, curious; he thinks he’s only ever seen virgil in suits at weddings, exclusively. photographs of virgil’s siblings’ weddings—patton only ever attended one of the three, though wyatt’s triad is rapidly approaching common law marriage length of relationship had their home state allowed such—and weddings of the general townsfolk, who frequently invite him to fancy events like that since virgil’s the face and name of a town staple and all.
“one!” virgil wails. “i’ve tripled my fancy suit coat collection! how often am i going to be wearing fancy suits?!”
“well—”
“the dry cleaning is a nightmare, patton. i never remember to drop things off at dry cleaning, and then i never remember to pick them up.”
“that i know,” patton says, amused, carding his fingers this way and that through virgil’s hair. “i’m surprised you only had one suit.”
“you have to do business-y things more than me,” virgil says.
“that’s true,” patton says. in addition to weddings—the inn being a popular venue, and patton also being part of a town staple—patton also has much more frequent meetings, bank conferences, the occasional conference for inn owners that maria usually enthuses about, and general tasks that he has to do for his business degree (so close to finishing! patton really does not enjoy studying macro or microeconomics!)
virgil, on the other hand, usually only has bank meetings on the roster. suits in a diner kitchen kind of seemed like a nightmare waiting to happen.
“besides, you’ve got some fancy events coming up other than this, it’ll be nice to have spares,” patton points out—the boys’ graduation within the next couple of years, a fancy dinner or party that patton’s certain his parents will take them both to at one point or another, not to mention the Big Deal Life Events of virgil’s many nieces and nephews. 
just off the top of his head, patton’s pretty sure both wes and mikey are approaching graduation from middle school, and little baby red has had murmurs of a formal christening (primarily moira’s side of the family; silas has never struck patton as particularly religious).
patton mentions this, and virgil only sighs.
“are we done sulking?” patton says, a little amused. “can i see that handsome face, partner of mine?”
“dunno,” virgil mumbles into his arms. “the scratching feels really nice. i could stay here all day.”
patton laughs, scratches a little firmer for emphasis, and says, “we could at least take this to a couch so that you can nod off while i’m doing this, i know you’ve been staying up late with dress alterations lately.”
virgil lets out a sigh of longing, which makes patton giggle, but virgil stands upright.
“there he is,” patton coos, and virgil ducks his head—not quite blushing, but certainly smiling in that shy, bashful way patton loves.
“do you have a suit?”
“oh, my mom referred me to a tailor way back when we first got the dress,” patton says with a little laugh. “i just have to pick it up.”
“probably should have guessed that,” virgil says. “of course your mom would have a tailor on speed dial.”
a tailor. with the way that his mother has her exacting specifications for anything and everything, but especially shopping and appearances in general, coupled with her tendency to immediately fire anyone who displeases her? virgil’s adorable.
“at least i only had to get the cummerbund and coat,” patton reasons, and virgil lets out a great big gust of air.
“can we revisit that whole i lay down on the couch while you scratch through my hair idea?” virgil says. “i’ll bring dinner and the hair. you’ve got couch and the hands.”
“well, how could anyone refuse that offer? it’s a date.” patton beams, and virgil leans over, pressing an imprint of burgundy lipstick into patton’s lips.
patton refuses to wipe it off.
Subject: Design edits for debutante spread
I appreciate your very prompt response in getting your designs on the flashdrive and down to the journalism lab! I’ve have a few minor edits notated on the PDF attached—mostly to switch from HEX to RGB color codes and adjustments to the margin width to best fit printing standards. 
Very well done on the infographic design work—especially for a freshman! I think you may be able to progress to a more advanced course under my tutelage in your sophomore year, considering I anticipate you won’t need much help figuring out Adobe programs. I might need to ask you for pointers!
Best,
Mel Kramschissel, PhD.
Subject: Story edits for debutante spread
I’ve attached the story edits from myself and James for your convenience after our meeting earlier today. Very compelling throughline—I would like the transcripts of your interviews as soon as you can get them to me, so that we can work on ensuring it’s fact- and quality-checked before it goes to print. I appreciate your work—I’m unsure if your future goals involve journalism, but I think you have a very bright future in storycraft regardless, no matter which form it takes.
Best,
Mel Kramschissel, PhD.
Subject: Column edits for debutante spread
I’ve attached the column edits from myself and James for your convenience after our meeting earlier today. They’re mostly line edits, though I wonder if you can fit in a graph about your or Dee’s personal connections to this project, to give the story a personalized “human” element. I appreciate the citation section of the report—very thorough!—and, barring the transcript, can tell you that your work’s fact- and quality-checking is about finished. Is this how things are done at the Courant? I must commend whichever editor has instilled this habit within you, as it’s saved a great deal of time. 
Lauren’s told me some about the things she’s seen as she’s been photographer of the project, and her review of the way yourself and Dee work together has been glowing. I’ll admit I was a little hesitant about the prospect of the pair of you teaming up, given the debacle last semester, but I’m pleased to see such talented minds find common ground. 
I hope to see more works that you accomplish together, in whatever capacity (though I certainly would appreciate if they were for the Franklin!)
Best,
Mel Kramschissel, PhD.
Subject: Re: Debutante Spread
Hi all! 
Attached is a rough draft of Poppy’s design layout with the pictures Kram and I picked included. Comments and notes appreciated. I wanted to thank you three again for having me tag along—really fun photography opportunity AND a really interesting story for the paper! Definitely sign me up if you’ve got any more ideas.
—Lauren
Subject: Potential meeting for spread tweaks
I think all the individual aspects of what the spread is so far are very promising. Would the four of you be free to meet before or after school in the coming week so that we can coordinate on reviewing final edits and the plan to cover the event itself?
Please let me know what works best on timing. Color me impressed by what you all have put together so far! The Franklin has a very bright future ahead of it with all of you taking turns manning the helm.
Best,
Mel Kramschissel, PhD.
the day starts off simply enough: wake up, brush his teeth and comb his hair, get dressed, go to the diner with dad and virgil, get ahead on some of his daily readings on the bus, walk to his locker to swap out some of his heavy textbooks to the other, then swing by mel’s desk to see if there’s anything else needed for their spread.
at least, he intends to swing by mel’s desk.
instead, logan enters the lab hallway to chaos.
it does not seem to be an exaggeration to state such a thing. francie, of puff fame, nearly knocks him off the stairs at the speed at which she’s storming past him; as he’s rounding the corner on the landing, someone is hastily shoving a copy of the jefferson into his chest then continuing their run to the nearest person with an empty hand; as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, hattie has an arm around summer, also of puff fame, murmuring to her in soft, comforting tones as she cries loudly into hattie’s shoulder.
in the midst of the lab hallway that logan was originally intending to traverse to swing by mel’s desk. there is a crowd the likes of which logan only sees at pep rallies or mandatory assemblies, many of them clutching matching copies of the jefferson, many of them elbowing each other and craning their necks to try and get a look at what lies within the great crush of people.
logan, despite his better judgment, cannot resist his own curiosity; he does not keep walking and ignoring it all. instead, he lingers, because he’s fairly certain nothing will get done in the journalism lab; the crowd’s chatter is slightly subdued, but that is because, logan thinks, in the middle of it all, there is a great deal of yelling.
“—oh, now he’s a CAVEMAN! What were you planning to do, knock me on the back of a head with a club then drag me back to your porsche—?!”
“—BROKEN UP, do you hear me—?!”
“NEVER—in all my years as headmaster—!”
logan blinks, startled, then shuffles vaguely, integrating himself into the great cloud of his navy-plaid-and-gray clad peers, so he can get some impression of what’s going on, then—
“shame,” janus says in a casual, flat tone, appearing suddenly at logan’s side as though summoned by logan’s sheer confusion. logan refuses to jump or startle.
“what is—?”
but then, as the trio shuffles forward, a parting in the crowd, and—
there’s a car.
there’s a car. blue. a honda accord, if he isn’t mistaken. sensible. reliable.
one he’s usually accustomed to seeing in the parking lot, not in the middle of the lab hallway.
in the basement of the school. granted, logan doesn’t know much about cars, but he is 100% certain that the doorways are not wide enough to allow this, let alone the presence of stairs. 
logan turns to janus. “how—?”
“why do you assume i know?” janus scoffs, adjusting his cape. logan still isn’t certain how he isn’t getting daily uniform infringements; logan finds himself touching the knot of his own tie, just to ensure he’s in dress code.
“you’ve been here longer than i have, i just got here,” logan points out. “wait—doesn’t the jefferson usually publish on mondays…?”
“both true,” janus says, then, “shh, charleston might go full thermobaric. he’s been due to blow his top for ages.”
logan barely even has time to mentally recall the meaning of thermobaric—containing a charge of fuel designed to ignite and combine with oxygen present in the atmosphere to produce a prolonged explosion—before charleston resumes his rant.
“—that is IT, that’s IT! I’VE HAD IT! RIGHT TO MY OFFICE, YOU THREE, AND YOU’D BETTER PRAY THAT YOUR PARENTS ARRIVE WITH SUFFICIENT EXPLANATIONS TO KEEP YOU FROM BEING EXPELLED!”
a gasp doesn’t quite suffuse its way through the crowd, but certainly a few of the more excitable members of the student population do, and—
“OUT OF MY WAY!”
a column of students shuffles awkwardly to part the navy sea, lest they get bowled over by the headmaster (and likely given a detention for it, given the foul mood he’s in), and logan beholds
ah. unsurprising.
of course it’s tristan, duncan, and bowman at the scene of the crime.
“and that’s military school for dugray,” janus murmurs into his ear. not quietly enough; tristan’s eyes dart right to janus, glaring, clearly about to say something before charleston’s ��MOVE!” gets him into motion.
“military school?” logan repeats. 
“oh, sure,” janus says. “ever since the three of them got caught breaking into a locked safe of bowman senior’s, mr. dugray’s been dying for any excuse. i guess he wanted to go out with a bang.”
janus’ comment is caught by the crowd, but not by many. logan isn’t unique, it seems, for turning to the nearest familiar face to discuss the whole affair. logan hears words like cheater and plagiarism and the jefferson said flying around like a murmuration of starlings, the allegations shifting and shape-changing as easily as any flock.
logan is almost certain that, with the proliferation of gossip, the involvement of the jefferson, and the sheer number of witnesses that the number of new rumors that will crop up over the course of the school week will be dizzying in both number and any lack of logic.
mel clears her throat, loudly, from where she’s located at the end of the hallway.
“all right, everyone, show’s over!” she declares. “get to your first period, the bell’s going to ring in five minutes.”
the crowd, very slowly, begins to disperse, breaking off into duos and trios, all of them with their heads bent together, all of them talking very intently. 
well-timed, logan supposes, for this meltdown to happen on the same day that the national honors society meets before school; well-timed for charleston to catch word right as the flood of early birds (most of the chilton population) were sure to hear the fallout and come along to see the fuss themselves; well-timed that this all imploded the day that tristan and his posse decided to do something stupid.
yes, logan thinks, his eyes drifting to where janus is standing, staring, at the crying girl and the one comforting her. hattie glances up from where she’s smoothing back summer’s hair, as if feeling janus’ stare.
it’s all very well-timed indeed.
hattie and janus lock eyes. 
for a moment, just a moment, but logan can’t help but think—
perhaps, there’s something more than a last-minute debutante escort assignment there.
and then hattie is earnestly making a case to mel, asking for a late pass so she can escort summer to the nurse—”she can’t pay attention to class in this condition, doctor kramschissel, look at her—” and the moment almost fades.
almost.
even as he awkwardly tells mel that he’ll come back at study hall, rushes to his locker, stuffing his copy of the jefferson inside for later perusal, and makes it to his desk just in the nick of time, logan can’t quite shake the feeling that there was a bit more happening than an extremely ostentatious prank carried out with no thought to consequences.
(deep into the witching hour, janus drums his fingers idly against his desk, eyes roving over the password-protected folder hidden in the depths of his laptop, scrolling through a list of transgressions with a deeply bored expression on his face, drag-and-dropping attachments. he examines the note again, written in hattie’s elegant, sloping script.)
(“way past time i did this,” janus mutters, and resumes narrowing down his list of infractions to the most infuriating offenders, dropping each into folders labeled for summer, beth, jessica, kate, claire, kathy, mary, mr. dugray, mr. charleston, mrs. fischer, olivia who is “rumored” to be the current editor of the jefferson, and, just for the hell of it, tristan’s grandfather’s business email, scheduling them all to send should his plan a fail.)
(it does not fail. it’s embarrassingly easy to plant plots into bowman and duncan’s thick skulls.)
(janus sends a number of them from various burner accounts anyway, aided by a world-class vpn and a lack of presence in the hallways at school as he slips forgeries into their lockers, knowing that either bowman or duncan would be eager to claim credit for chaos.)
hattie: Splashy.
Dee: i’m sure i don’t know what you mean.
hattie: I guess I don’t either. hattie: It’s good that Summer found out in cold, hard proof. hattie: Even if she maybe hasn’t been iron-clad in monogamy either.
dee: scandal!
hattie: Maybe. hattie: Old news now, anyway. hattie: You might tell your new freshie friend that she’s about to have a redhead hot on her tail.
dee: oh?
hattie: Tradition. You know how it gets.
dee: that i do.
hattie: Do you have a ride to the ball? Mother’s insisting I get there early to stake out the best spot in the dressing room.
dee: yes, that’s handled. do they know?
hattie: My parents? They know some. I already had a formal debut last year, I think they’re just pleased I’m not pulling a Libby Dotie.
dee: debut number five this year, isn’t it?
hattie: Poor thing went right after Pukey last time. Shame that Eileen couldn’t hold her booze.
dee: a real shame indeed. midori sour is a real choice for her first blackout.
hattie: Her chances of living that down are absolutely nonexistent.
dee: you can say that again
hattie: Any chance you’ll send me some of that interesting info that didn’t make the cut for some fun reading right before the escorting…? Since we’re talking about nonexistent.
dee: i’m sure i don’t know what you’re implying about nonexistence dee: how IS dear “beau” anyway?
hattie: See you thereeee
“oh, wow!”
“i guess they paid a mechanic to do it,” logan says, “which makes a great deal of sense—none of them strike me as the sort to gain any sort of practical knowledge.”
“yeah, i’d bet,” patton says, then, shaking his head, “wow. never in all my days at chilton did someone pull a prank that elaborate. so—did it ever come out what the punishment is?!”
“tristan’s dad pulled him out of school and put him into military school, effective immediately.”
“wow.”
“—i think duncan and bowman got away with suspension, which makes sense. they’re not exactly mastermind sorts. if you passed by charleston’s office at any point that morning, though, you could definitely hear a lot of parental yelling, so i’m sure that it’ll be an extended punishment. maybe another entry for military school—apparently the three of them already broke into a safe of mr. bowman’s, so he was very loudly angry.”
“gosh, i couldn’t imagine,” patton tsks, shaking his head. he glances to make sure no one is waiting on them at this stop sign—they aren’t—and reaches over to squeeze logan’s arm. “have i told you how lucky i am to have you as a kid lately?”
“yes,” logan mutters. 
“well, i am,” patton says, pressing on the gas pedal and trundling along. “never has the thought of military school ever had to cross my mind. at least i know that whenever you get up to trouble, it’s good trouble that i can be proud of, like this deal with helping out dee—”
“dad,” logan complains, looking quietly, shyly pleased nonetheless.
“oh, wait!” patton realizes, half-turning to look at him. “all three of them were in the debutante deal, are they—?”
“all kicked out,” logan says firmly. “if not by the society, then probably by their parents, and definitely by dee and i. we’re hunting for last-minute debutantes for some of the escorts—we’re going to have to see how that goes, or maybe just scrap their involvement.”
“it’s a shame that three of the girls won’t be able to join in because their classmates were knuckleheads,” patton says, then, quickly, “don’t tell anyone i called them that.”
“knuckleheads?” logan says, arching an eyebrow. “i think we’re safe from any scandal there. there are several demonstrably worse things you could have said—they’d know, they probably got a lot of them screamed at them from a combination of parents, teachers, and girls tristan has apparently wronged.”
“still,” patton says, as he pulls into the driveway of the elder sanders’ manor. “gosh. poor mr. mccaffey.”
“he’s taken next week for vacation, dee says.”
“he deserves to—his car just got stolen, practically!—grandma might ask you about it, she’s bridge buddies with bitty charleston.”
“i’m sure it was the cause of a great deal of conversation,” logan agrees, unbuckling his seatbelt. “it certainly has been for the student body.”
“a car,” patton repeats. “how long did it take them to, y’know—?”
patton mimes unscrewing a bolt in the air.
“parts of it are still there.”
patton stifles his laughter as they approach the front door and knock. 
the first words out of his mother’s mouth are “you simply must tell me this business about the car, logan!”
“told you,” patton says in an undertone, then, “hi, mom, it’s great to see you too!”
“oh, hush,” emily says dismissively, stepping aside and waving them in. “you’ve had three days to hear all the sordid details secondhand.”
“firsthand,” logan says quietly.
“what was that?” emily says, already leading them to the drink cart.
“firsthand,” logan says, slightly louder. “i missed the beginning of it, but i was there.”
“oh, excellent,” emily says gleefully, then, “richard, put down the paper, logan’s here and he saw the car!”
“what car?” richard says mildly, folding down a corner of the paper, then, “ah, logan, patton! wonderful to see you, won’t you sit?”
“hi, dad,” patton says, settling onto his usual spot on the couch. “how was frankfurt? any sightseeing?”
“i stayed in a conference room a mile from the airport the whole time,” richard says ruefully. “i could have been in new york or shanghai, and i wouldn't have known the difference.”
“wine, soda,” emily says, pushing a glass into patton’s hands (“oh!”) and then logan’s with a sort of fervor typically reserved for new collections from her favorite fashion designers, rushing to sit at her typical place and eagerly smoothing her skirt over her knees. 
she leans forward, eyes bright with gossip she could use to lord over fellow chilton grandmothers. “now, logan, tell me everything, bitty was being quite coy with the details.”
“what details?” richard says, and emily scoffs.
“oh, richard, i told you this earlier! the situation with bertram’s boy—?”
“oh—a transfer to military school in north carolina, wasn’t it?” richard says with a general air of puzzlement.
“men,” emily tuts. “none of you remember the most pressing details. that trait’s certainly skipped a couple generations for our resident journalist—from the beginning now, logan, if you please.”
logan’s straightened up slightly at the mention of our resident journalist, and he clears his throat.
“i missed the beginning, of course,” he says, “though i’d imagine everyone except for bowman, duncan, tristan, and the mechanic they’d hired did too, considering they did most of it under the cover of night…”
even if patton didn’t have the general sense of this logan’s entire life since he’d learn to read and write, he reflects, it’s always wonderful to receive a reminder that logan was, first and foremost, a gifted storyteller, and two, that he was wholeheartedly chasing after a career that he loved—and three, that those things overlapped.
patton had gotten the general rundown over the past couple days, it was true, but it was one thing to hear the ebb and flow of various reports (procured primarily from dee, who had quite an ear for that kind of thing, it seemed) and another to hear it as one smooth, cohesive narrative with a rapt audience. 
though patton and his parents have, obviously, had some difficulties, he can never find fault with how much they adore and treasure logan. this is all the more apparent in how they handle listening to logan’s tale: they gasp in all the right places; they come in with “no!”s and “well, i never!” at all the points that call for it; richard even digs for a pen and paper so he can jot down questions he has as logan talks, ticking them off as logan continues the story.
it carries them all the way through the salad course, logan seeming to enjoy his enthralled audience, painstakingly accurate, citing sources where he can, and even dipping into what is, perhaps, a real-life journalistic no-no but something patton has seen in countless tv shows and movies: “now, this is off the record, of course, and unconfirmed at that, but dee heard…”
this also means that some of the details that logan had either glazed over or patton must have missed take place in a new sort of limelight; the car, the breakups, the expulsion, all of it painted in lurid, scandalous detail (much to the delight of his mother who will, patton knows, be gossiping about this with her bridge group next week.)
and—though patton’s pretty sure most chilton parents aren’t supposed to know about its existence unless they, like him, are alums—logan doesn’t mention the coincidental social explosion ignited by the special edition of the jefferson’s publication to his grandparents, but he had mentioned it to patton.
coincidentally, all of this on the same day.
“wow,” patton says, casual, as he stabs at the endives with a fork. “seems like a pretty big blowout to happen all on coincidence, huh?”
logan glances up at him. patton twists his mouth to one side: you don’t think it’s a coincidence, do you? he tries to impart. 
“no one knows for sure,” logan says, noncommittal in tone, but meeting patton’s eyes. 
“seems like those boys weren’t very careful with not getting caught,” patton says, a lift of the shoulder, an even more significant look: unless someone tipped the scales against them?
“it seems like it, but. no one knows for sure,” logan repeats, with a slight twitch of his eyebrow that reads, to patton, as but i sure have my suspicions.
“huh,” patton says lightly, arching his eyebrows at logan in a way that he hopes imparts i certainly have some guesses too.
“regardless,” logan says swiftly, “rest assured, grandma, that if the dar doesn’t have them taken out of the debutante ball for their behavior, the rest of us will.”
“as you should,” his grandmother says with a firm nod in logan’s direction. “no room for hooliganism in the dar.”
patton hides a laugh as a cough into his napkin. 
“the dar?” richard says mildly. “logan, what’s all this about the debutante ball? are you escorting a young lady?”
patton swivels to look at emily. 
“oh, goodness, i did forget to tell you in all the excitement,” emily says. “richard, logan and dee slange have taken it upon themselves to do a demonstration at the debutante ball this year.”
“a young lady is escorting me,” logan clarifies, then, glancing between his grandparents, “i don’t suppose you know the mcmasters? their daughter poppy is my escort.”
“poppy, poppy…” richard says, frowning.
“coppelia,” logan elaborates. 
“is it really?” emily says, blinking. “that’s… unique.”
“you see why she goes by poppy,” logan says. “she’s a freshman this year.”
“oh, yes,” emily says. “we certainly know the mcmasters. richard, you remember…”
“oh?” he says, then eyes widening, “oh. yes, i remember the mcmasters. their daughter is… ah…”
he looks to emily for help.
“poppy is very driven,” logan says diplomatically. “she’s already gunning for an editorial position at the paper. we’re all doing a feature spread in the franklin together for the event, as a matter of fact—myself, dee, and poppy, i mean, along with the help of a junior.”
“are you really!” emily says. 
“dr. kramschissel said the franklin has a very bright future ahead of it with the three of them manning the helm,” patton says proudly, then, leaning forward, “you know, she’s implied that logan’s first in line for editor in chief senior year.”
“dad,” logan complains, a little smile on the face nonetheless.
“well, of course he is!” emily declares. “a very fine show of initiative. she’d be a fool not to pick you, given your long history. you probably have the most experience in a newsroom of anyone your age who’s gone through the chilton journalism system.”
“you’ll make sure we get a copy or two of that edition,” richard says firmly.
“of course,” logan says, smiling. “we put in final edits just today—i’ll bring it next week.”
“a demonstration, you said?” richard says.
“oh, sure,” logan says, in a very casual tone. “grandma’s very generously given me what was to be dad’s debutante dress. a great deal of us boys are going to be debuted into society.”
richard puts his fork down. patton waits with bated breath.
“debuted?”
“yes,” logan says.
“how many of you?” richard says.
“current count—well, it was 46 before the car debacle, but it might be 43 now. or 40, depending.”
“40 young men in fluffy white dresses are to descend on the dar?”
“well,” logan says, frankly, “about twenty young men. there are some nonbinary people too. and roughly the other half of them are girls in suits.”
richard stares. and stares.
logan tilts up his chin.
and then richard breaks into chuckles.
“a hostile takeover of the debutante!” he hoots. “oh, i wondered if a crop of mischief would pop up in you, young man! some of my fondest memories of my time at yale are banding together with my friends to cause some trouble. well, that and performing with the whiffenpoofs, of course. these things make your high school and collegiate experience, you know.”
“they do?” logan says blankly.
“you’re young and full of energy!” richard exclaims. “this is your time—it certainly was for me. every day was at yale an adventure, no challenge was too great. we wanted to change the world. i have some experience with clothes-based protest too, you know.”
patton’s never heard about this. “you have?”
“certainly,” richard says. “i, and a group of like-minded young men decided to protest the new dress code—oh, it was my sophomore year at yale. we wore silk ties and nothing else.”
patton squeaks, trying not to cover his ears with his hands like a child.
“we were written up by the dean of admissions and threatened with expulsion. we were also suddenly very popular with the ladies.”
patton has the sudden and horrifying realization that one of those ladies might have been either his almost-mother, pennilyn lott, or had an equal chance of being his actual mother.
“ah, yes.” emily huffs. “this is exactly the kind of conversation I had hoped we would have with our son and grandson. what a pleasant family dinner conversation!”
“i was naked for an entire month,” richard says to logan. “a night full of men in dresses does not come near as close, of course, but i’d argue the amount of red tape you had to cut and the number of participants might push you over the top of that particular stunt!”
“wow,” logan says, blinking.
patton understands how he feels. his business-loving father, whose grand excitements seemed to be traveling for work, reading the newspaper, and undertaking new deals, a prankster. would wonders never cease.
(there is a small part of him that wonders if maybe—just maybe—if he had been born a boy, if richard would have been much more forgiving for patton’s own wild teenaged transgressions.)
“this roommate of mine in sophomore year at yale—we absolutely hated him,” richard says, leaning back in his chair, clearly lost in memory. “he was a complete nincompoop. so one night, we tied him between two mattresses and threw him out the window.”
“dad!” patton says, horrified.
“oh, he was fine,” richard says dismissively. “he went to sleep, woke up in the morning, and picked up right where he left off.”
patton puts his face in his hands.
“we wound up throwing him out the window every night for a month, and then he transferred.”
“well, do you think you guys tossing him out the window on a regular basis had something to do with that decision?” patton says, incredulous.
“well, it crossed our minds, yes.”
“so you guys have tickets for entry to the event, yes?” logan intercedes, looking to emily.
“it’s one way to see my descendants debut,” emily says.
patton shrugs, not rising to any bait. “it’ll be nice to escort him.”
“not christopher?” emily asks, but she’s cut off as richard says “ah! you’re in on it?” at the same time.
“a lot of the parents are,” patton says, “then, well, a lot of the sideshire parents are. i’m not quite as close with the chilton parents, of course.”
“we wouldn’t miss it for the world,” richard declares, then, with a big, goofy smile, “my grandson, the mastermind!”
“co-mastermind, really,” logan says. “dee slange was involved too.”
richard blinks, this time setting down his fork. “julian is in on this?”
“well,” logan hedges, higher-pitched. “define ‘in on this.’”
“he fully knows what’s going on, and he agreed?” richard says.
“oh,” logan says. “erm—no.”
“definitely not as much as me, at the very least,” patton says.
“gutsy,” richard comments.
“maybe you could help talk him over,” patton says delicately. “from what i remember of julian, he wasn’t exactly… jokey.”
“no.”
“certainly not,” emily says, almost overlapping her husband.
“maybe you could intercede?” patton says. “point out all the good a bit of trouble does for a boy their age. uh—after the event, of course. don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“yes,” richard says thoughtfully. “yes, perhaps i will. it’s about time julian cut loose.”
that’s one way to put it, patton thinks.
“i can’t wait to see the looks on everyone’s faces,” richard says, perhaps the most excited that patton’s ever seen him for an event put on by the daughters of the american revolution.
well, patton thinks. this is probably the best way that richard could have taken it.
even if it does mean that logan, patton, and emily spend the rest of dinner hearing richard monologue about The Good Old Days back at yale, and patton learns a bit more about his father’s particular brand of young-adult mischief that he, perhaps, shouldn’t have ever heard in the first place.
roman’s elbow-deep into rearranging his travel makeup bag. it is, generally speaking, where he keeps a lot of his makeup storage, so it’s kind of a mess after spending a lot of time simply dumping the products back in there because he’s running late, only sparing time to remove and wash his brushes and sponges.
it is very much a mess.
he hears a gentle tap against the door.
he glances up; though it’s barely past eight, his mother is already dressed for bed. her hair is damp, still drying from the post-lessons shower she’d taken, free from its typical bun. she’s in an old, too-big t-shirt advertising the ballets russes (from dimitri, probably) and a pair of sweatpants cut into shorts. she completes the ensemble with a pair of fuzzy socks and her feet in a pair of orthopedic-friendly slippers (his mother is, understandably, very conscious of foot health). 
his mother is deeply devoted to her rituals and routines; he knows what she’ll ask even before she says it.
“tea?”
“yes, please,” roman decides, setting aside two different bottles of foundation to be decided later, picking up a few press-on nails, his own pair of fuzzy socks, and a tub of aquaphor, and plods after his mother, heading for the kitchen.
his mother goes about filling up the kettle (an old-style bright red one, the kind you set on a stove, not like the sleek black electric one that virgil has) and turning the stove on as roman pulls out two mugs. he decides on a large, maroon stoneware mug for her, speckled with white, and an equally gigantic ceramic red mug for himself.
“which would you like?” his mother asks, accepting the mug that he hands to her. she’s already pulled out her favored loose leaf herbal chamomile, beginning to scoop it into a infuser; roman notes that it’s the one he got her for mother’s day a couple years ago. he scoots around her to peruse his options. 
his mother’s tea supply surpasses remy’s café in terms of selection and variety; roman thinks tea might be the only thing he’s ever seen his mother spontaneously shop for in the same way roman shops for clothes, or makeup, or jewelry, or little treats, or—
“this one,” he decides, pulling out a blend that promotes good sleep—spearmint, lemongrass, chamomile.
roman hops onto one of the barstools, opening up his tub of aquaphor and doing as his mother almost certainly has: absolutely slathering his feet in healing ointment. he’s aggressively earned these dancer’s calluses, but dang it, he can lessen some of the effects; therefore, absorbing aquaphor overnight, with the aid of fuzzy socks. 
“how are your hamstrings?” she asks. “less tight?”
“definitely,” roman says, shifting his barstool so he’s able to more easily multitask between keeping eye contact with his mother and caring for his feet. “typical cure—”
“stretch and hydrate,” they say simultaneously.
“very good,” his mother continues. “hot and cold therapy?” 
“i used the heated blanket a little bit,” roman says. roman and his mother love those things; roman simply plugs it in and becomes the warmest burrito of his dreams. bigger than a traditional heating pad and more flexible, which means he can just wrap it around whatever body part that needs heat. roman’s pretty sure they have six between them. he could probably just mummify himself on a day where he was really achy.
“be sure to rest this weekend after the ball,” his mother says. “i don’t want you straining anything.”
“i will,” roman promises, pulling on one sock and setting about massaging ointment into the other foot. he should probably start making a dent in that english essay anyway; even though he’d definitely prefer to spend the rest of his weekend reading something that he’s interested in, not something assigned to him.
his mother nods.
“a lot of your classmates are going too,” she notes.
roman smiles a bit, despite himself. on the whole, his gaggle of classmates at the prince family studio were what he imagined it to be like to have a flock of sisters: chatty, hogging the bathroom, annoying and endearing in equal measure, occasionally awkward, but fierce and funny and beautiful, all of them clever in their own ways, all of them deeply capable dancers.
not that he’d know what it was like to have a sister, of course. roman had contented himself with being an only child long ago.
“it’ll be fun,” roman says. “at the very least, we know who’ll be hogging the dance floor all night.”
they share a smile. his mother had chaperoned the sideshire homecoming in the fall, and she’d spent a 33% of the night fielding hi, ms. prince!s from her students, 33% watching in vague bemusement as they danced to trends she’d lost track of long ago, 33% feeling proud as all of them had monopolized the innermost circle of the dance floor with the confidence she strove to teach them, and 1% fighting the urge to go over and correct their form. 
roman gestures with his chin toward the three packs of press-on nails: a classic french manicure, white nails with a red floral design, and a bright blue chrome.
“help me pick? i’ve been driving myself nuts over it. all of them would work, but i just need to decide and go for it.”
his mother hums, examining them. “remind me of the makeup you settled on?”
“classic eighties, to match the dress,” he says. “bright blue eyeshadow, red lip, generally very sparkly and,” he makes a pow! i’m here! hand gesture.
“well, french manicures are very classic,” his mother says thoughtfully, “but—” the kettle begins to whistle. roman, hastily, pulls on his other sock and goes to wash the excess aquaphor off of his hands before he does anything else.
they are waylaid by the pouring of boiling, steaming water, the distribution of milk and/or honey, the procurement of snacks (his mother favors savory foods more often than not, so she puts together a plate of crackers, cheese, and deli meats; roman slices a couple apples with a ramekin of peanut butter for himself, with the intent to steal a bite or two from her plate) and relocating to the living room.
roman sits himself on the ground, setting his snacks on the coffee table; his mother does the same, folding her legs to butterfly position, pressing her hands down onto her knees to stretch.
he considers his options before he just decides to mimic his mother, feeling the familiar stretch through his hips. he settles his elbows on his knees, bending slightly forward and blowing on his tea.
his mother examines the nails again. “can you match these?” she asks, touching the blue chrome.
roman tilts his head, mentally calling up the exact shades of blue in his several eyeshadow palettes. “if not exactly, then close enough to look intentional.”
“i know red is your signature,” she says. roman looks at his fuzzy socks—cherry red—and hers—wine red. in the prince family, red is a neutral that goes with everything.
“but,” she continues, “they fit a certain level of garishness that matches your dress.”
roman nods, setting them aside; he’ll glue them on in the morning. honestly, he’s a bit pleased he can keep the floral red for another occasion. a fancy date with logan, maybe? 
“is that the last detail handled?” his mother says.
“it should be,” he says. “well—i was sorting through my makeup bag, but it’s more of an organization thing than anything else.”
“dress packed?” his mother checks. “shoes, accessories, wig and hair supplies?”
“yes, yes, yes,” roman says dutifully.
“then—that’s your last of prep for tomorrow?” 
“just about,” roman says. 
“good,” she says. “i suppose many of the last-minute details shall be left to logan and dee.”
roman’s lip curls reflexively. the thought of logan and dee, working together, agreeing on things, brainstorming together and coordinating any last minute hiccups. as if they were a team.
“what was that face,” his mother says. her voice is flat, with no edge of scolding or reproach. just genuine curiosity.
roman’s lips twist as he removes the infuser out of his tea, deeming it well-enough steeped. he stirs his cup absently.
“i just…” roman gesticulates vaguely. “what did you think of dee?”
if his mother thinks that’s an odd response, she doesn’t let on. she stacks her makeshift charcuterie—club cracker, slice of cheddar, sliced chicken from the deli—and sets it aside before she goes about formulating other sandwiches. club cracker, mozzarella, turkey breast.
“i didn’t have much opportunity to speak to him,” she says. cracker, cheddar, turkey.
“yeah, but you guys had a look,” roman says. “i saw it.”
“i suppose he seemed… a touch stand-offish,” his mother says. cracker, mozzarella, chicken.
“yes,” roman says, his and??? going unspoken.
“and, perhaps,” his mother says, then, frowning, “well, i didn’t know. that’s the troubling part.”
“dee’s very good at that,” roman mutters resentfully. “presenting himself one way, when he’s really actually the other. the thing is, logan has seen that he’s really actually the other, and yet—here they are!”
“that’s very unlike him,” his mother says, frowning. “logan has a very sound sense of judgment.”
“he does.”
“but if logan’s deemed him appropriate to plan alongside—”
roman drops his forehead to the floor, groaning.
“oh,” his mother says, awkward. roman hears crunching.
“i don’t know why!” bursts out of him. 
“why… what?”
“why logan’s teaming up with him!” roman says. he looks up in time to see his mother washing down her snack with a swallow of tea.
“...roman,” she begins. “it’s entirely understandable to… feel a certain way if your boyfriend is spending time with another—”
“oh my god, i’m not jealous!” roman snaps. “why does everyone think that?!”
his mother doesn’t lecture him about volume, which is nice. 
“well,” his mother says, “what is it, then?”
this is also nice—his mother, ever straightforward, ever blunt. 
roman rubs his hand wearily across his forehead. “did i tell you, last fall, about logan getting punched in the face?”
“yes,” his mother says, her expression darkening; some of that remnant of anger of someone laying hands on his boyfriend roars to life in his chest again.
“i know,” roman says.
“was it that boy?”
his mother isn’t a particularly expressive person, but even any given passerby would categorize that look on her face as thunderous. his mother is very fond of logan—she’d actually told logan so—and roman knows that, over the years, logan’s courtesy and good grades and general support of roman had endeared him to her time and time and time again.
which—obviously. roman’s of the opinion that his boyfriend is one of the best people in the world. of course everyone should recognize that—feel that same protective fire pop up in their chests at any sign of anything going wrong for him, because logan deserves the world.
roman scowls, looking away. “not—technically. but!” he says hastily, “but, he’s the one who started it all. he got a detention for it and everything! louise probably never would have hit logan if he hadn’t been there urging her on!”
“why on earth…?” his mother says, sounding baffled.
“i don’t know!” roman wails. “that’s what’s getting me—i don’t get it! one second, logan’s telling me all about this terrible boy at school, and then his grandmother invites him and his grandma to lunch and apparently that’s super awkward, and then there’s the punching, and then he’s at the stuffed up birthday party logan’s grandparents threw for him, and then logan’s confronting dee and making sure he doesn’t rain on our parade at the winter dance, the next, they’re teaming up together to say ‘screw you’ to the patriarchy! i don’t know why on earth!”
his mother considers this, then pushes the plate of apples toward him, then piles the empty space on the plate with three of the charcuterie sandwiches she’s concocted. roman, grumpily, dips an apple slice in peanut butter and crunches a bit more loudly than he would in any other circumstance.
mother—much like virgil—believed very heartily in proper nutrients fueling every activity. outbursts took energy, which meant that roman should eat carbs, fats, and proteins to replenish that energy, with bonus points for foods that were particularly vitamin- or fiber-rich. roman has been told this for most of his life, only with things like dance lessons or exams or being a pain, this does not mean you’re getting a second soda, pick something substantial swapped in for outbursts as applicable.
“that makes very little sense.”
“exactly!” roman says, gesticulating at her. “thank you!”
“chew your food with your mouth closed,” she says, some automatic motherly impulse, then, “well, what’s changed?”
before roman can answer, she says, “i know you don’t know. but something must have. logan’s a very intelligent young man, and he isn’t fickle—not him, not any of his parental figures that could have persuaded him.” 
patton, virgil, and probably her, roman figures. he doesn’t know much about christopher, but his reasoning definitely wouldn’t override those three.
“do you think it could be on a needs-must basis?”
roman’s mouth twists as he swallows. “maybe,” he hedges.
“but you don’t think so.”
“no,” roman says. “if it was just unavoidable, some sort of grudging alliance, he would have complained about it.” to me, he thinks.
and logan hasn’t.
“could there have been some kind of change?”
roman narrows his eyes, setting aside his honey-sweet tea. “i’m not following.”
“logan’s always struck me as very pragmatic,” she says. “ergo, there could have been some kind of event that would put more weight in dee’s favor.”
“it would have to be a pretty big change,” roman says, mind churning. as it is, that’s the likeliest of answers outside of forced partnership.
“you could ask him.”
roman sighs. “i think the fact that he hasn’t mentioned it to me already…”
“could mean nothing,” his mother says, with a shrug of a shoulder.
“big change,” he reminds her. “big.”
they both consider this, sipping their tea and eating, silent in rumination.
“have you ever dealt with something like this?” roman says, despairing. “like—some dancing partner of yours teaming up with a rival? or—?”
dad, he almost says, but he discards it as soon as the idea comes to mind. no. all he’s heard of his father is that he could be prone to his own flights of whimsy, true, but he’d always been achingly steadfast in partnership with his mother and, to a slightly lesser extent, with virgil.
she seems to see the thought flash across his face, though. her eyes flit—almost unconsciously—to an old photo of the pair of them on the wall behind him. 
roman knows the one without having to look: his mother, stunning and sharp in tutu and pointe-shoed glory, clearly in the middle of telling him off about something; his father, muddy for some reason and in ripped clothes, arm thrown around her shoulder, grinning and giving a thumbs up to the camera, a slight wince on his face the only sign of whatever lecture she’d given.
but, roman thinks. but. people hadn’t necessarily liked his father. even virgil had cautioned him at how strange his father had been, that he’d done things full of mischief and occasional rebellious wrong-doing, that he’d been acquired taste. a bit like…
no. roman shakes the thought without finishing it. no way.
his mother detects it anyway.
“how have you been sleeping?” she asks delicately.
“fine,” roman mutters. he knows what she’s about to ask without her asking it, too.
whatever mental illness his father had had, the only sign of odd or strange thoughts that has ever remotely recurred in roman have been odd, vivid dreams, veering into the occasional night terror.
he has been sleeping fine, though. fitful, sure, and maybe a bit less than his mother would like, but he’s been sleeping fine. no dreams at all to speak of. 
“all right,” she says placatingly. 
roman stirs his tea a bit more vigorously than necessary, the spoon clanking against his mug. his mother smiles a bit.
“you didn’t answer,” roman says. “have you had a situation like this?”
“you know i haven’t,” his mother says. 
“well—i know, not exactly like this,” roman says. he’s known his mother’s aromantic and asexual since he was old enough to learn the words and absorb that that’s what those little flag barrettes she wore during pride meant. no significant romantic partner of his mother’s has ever caused her strife, because she’s never had a significant romantic partner. “but—dimitri teaming up with someone and he didn’t tell you why. or something.”
his mother pauses to think. then:
“no.”
roman sighs, perhaps a bit more loudly than necessary, and dips another apple slice.
“virgil might’ve,” she says thoughtfully.
roman pauses from where he’s trying to scoop extra peanut butter onto his apple.
“yeah?”
“yes,” his mother says. “you remember silas.”
ugh.
“don’t make that face,” she scolds gently. “but—as it happens, i wouldn’t be surprised if either of them didn’t have a moment exactly like this. virgil with some friends of his, silas with your father.”
“how did that go?” roman asks.
his mother smiles. “i believe they talked about it.”
“traitor,” roman grumbles, half-joking. “i can’t believe either of you invented mind-reading technology for me to use in this specific moment.”
“you could just ask.”
“you’ve said that already.” roman says. “does no one in this apartment appreciate the fine-tuning of the delicate art that is teenaged angst and overthinking?”
“you live here,” his mother points out. “you have sufficient appreciation for the both of us.”
roman huffs. his mother tilts his head.
roman scratches his thumb against the mug.
“dee’s very charming,” he mumbles. “i mean—he managed to charm me at logan’s fancy birthday party before i knew who he was. if he’d just started off with that, instead of leading straight into villainy then pulling a 180, then i guess i’d get it a bit more. but as it is—why him? why that guy? logan likes rule-following. he likes that kind of thing. is it a ‘keep your enemies close’ thing? no,” he answers himself, “logan wouldn’t do that, he has no patience for duplicity. which makes it even more confusing, because dee seems to love duplicity, exhibit a, him being charming at emily and richard’s party—erm, mr. and mrs. sanders’ party, i mean.”
his mother hums.
“and—i don’t know. he’s off at chilton, doing great, and i’m happy he’s making friends, i seriously am, i’m not jealous, but it just. suddenly, both of us in different schools means we spend less time together, and that’s making me think about college, and, unless miracle of miracles happens and i find the perfect ivy league that has a combo of the perfect dance program and the perfect journalism program that will accept both of us that’s close to new york, we’re going to spend even less time together, and that sucks.”
his mother nods sagely, placing her right foot against her left knee, stretching to grasp her own socked foot.
“and it’s, like. why that guy? if you’re going to hang out with someone outside of school out of preference and not obligation, why the one i’ve heard the most negative things about? why the one who’s in direct competition with you? why the one that would probably have sabotaged him, given the chance? why?”
his mother remains quiet.
“say something,” roman requests desperately. “i’m asking questions here, they’re not hypotheticals.”
his mother blinks. “you were doing a good job of talking it out to yourself.”
“well, sure, but,” he gestures between them, “input. it’s mother-son time.”
there’s a pause.
“this isn’t like you,” she decides.
“what?”
“this,” she gestures at him. “indecision about what to do. it’s unlike you.”
“it’s unlike logan to consort with ne’er-do-wells,” roman sniffs.
his mother simply arches an eyebrow. roman sighs, picking up his mug, savoring the warmth it seeps against his palms.
“i don’t know,” roman says quietly. “it just—it is different for logan, to… consort with someone like this. there’s some big reason why, and i don’t know what it is, and it’s just… it’s driving me a little crazy.”
his mother politely does not say anything along the lines of i can see that or obviously.
instead, she says, “does the concept of talking to logan about this make you nervous or anxious?”
“what? no.” roman scoffs.
“it’s all right if it does,” his mother says. “i won’t think less of you or logan. it’s very normal to be a bit worried about having a big conversation in any relationship, much less one that’s been weighing heavily on your mind.”
“i’m not—”
his mother arches her eyebrows at him, and yeah, okay, roman can see how saying i’m not worried when he’s dominated the conversation obsessing over why that guy would probably come off… not great.
roman sighs, slumping his shoulders.
“fine,” he mutters. “yeah, i’m worried.”
“perfectly natural,” she says. she switches positions, placing her left foot against right knee, stretching.
“i know,” he grumbles. “i just—i don’t want to come off as that kind of boyfriend, you know what i mean?”
“no.”
fair.
“like,” roman says, drawing himself up. “why are you hanging out with that guy? hang out with this person instead, not that guy. you’re not allowed to see him. you know? like—jealous. possessive. whatever. i mean—logan was so understanding with jess. so understanding! they didn’t have a ton in common, but logan was still polite and everything.
“and i don’t want to turn right around and be like, hey, i don’t like that guy, what’s up with that? or insult his intelligence—’cause he’s way book-smarter than me—by being like, i think that guy might be manipulating his way into your life. thoughts?”
“do you think—?”
“what other explanation is there?!” roman whines, drawing there into, like, five syllables.
“and we’re back to square one,” his mother says. “all right. i see.”
roman goes about polishing off the last of the snacks.
“i still think you should talk to him,” she says. “i know you’re worried—that’s understandable. but logan isn’t going to go into this thinking the worst of you. he ought to know that you only have his best interests at heart.”
roman sighs after swallowing a mouthful of charcuterie. “i guess.”
his mother smiles slightly.
“you’re so very much our son,” she says, and roman ducks his head, trying not to flush.
“remus got any sense of propriety or caution surgically removed, to hear some tell it. and i probably wouldn’t have figured out such a careful way to put it: i probably wouldn’t have said anything at all until it got pressing. it’s difficult, i know, but i’m proud of the middle ground that you walk.”
“yeah, yeah,” roman mumbles, still pleased. our son. he felt so divided, sometimes: the face of his father, the skill of his mother, the rest of anything else him, from nowhere at all. 
“you don’t have to go into it unplanned, of course,” his mother says. “text him your thoughts if that’s easier. put a pen to paper to figure out what to say and how to say it.”
“true,” roman admits.
his mother drains the last of her tea and stands.
“well,” she says. “it’s probably best for you to talk to him tonight. or early tomorrow morning, if you care to sleep on it. may as well clear the air before the ball. i’ll leave you to your thoughts?”
“sure,” he says, slowly drinks the rest of his tea, thinking. then, quietly, “thanks, mom.”
he hears his mother placing the dishes in the dishwasher, shutting off the lights in the kitchen, ensuring everything is in its proper place, before she journeys back to the main room and shuts off all the lights except for the one closest to his room—he’ll turn that off when he goes to bed.
he watches her achieve the rest of the good night routine: she plugs her phone in to charge, she nudges her shoes so they’re in line with his at the door, and then…
she detours. she walks back to him, where he still sits on their rug.
she leans over to smooth her hand over his hair.
“goodnight, mijo. dulces sueños.”
“dulces sueños, mami,” he says.
and then she just… goes to her room.
she’s left the front door unlocked. she’d simply nodded to him, went to her room, and closed the door, almost like…
wait.
does she…?
no. there’s no way.
his curfew-issuing, sleep-adoring, routine-oriented-to-a-fault mother? roman would have gotten grounded, like, ten years ago for ten years if she actually knew how often he snuck out to the gazebo to talk to logan.
yeah. no way she knows that he sneaks out.
“hey.”
“hey! sorry if i responded late—we were squaring away escorts for the ladies. turns out some sideshire kids decided to join last-minute, so we should be all even. no idea what they’re doing for dresses, but it’s in their hands now, i suppose.”
“no, that’s all good—c’mere, it’s still a bit chilly out.”
“of course.”
“so, what did you want to talk about?”
“oh, right. um—may as well just come out and say it, i guess.”
“...sure?”
“what’s up with teaming up with dee?”
“...ah.”
“i mean—i guess i just don’t really get it? i’ve been trying to figure it out, and i can’t. like—one second, he’s getting someone to punch you in the face, the next, you guys are architecting this plot to go after the daughters of the american revolution.”
“no, i—i understand. it must seem jarring from the outside.”
“...so?”
“...”
“um. admittedly, i find your renewed and increased friendship with dee very confusing. the things i’ve heard about him have, generally, been pretty bad—for example, the punching incident, your birthday party at your grandparents’, and the winter formal. ”
“...are those notes…?”
“shh. you’ve never particularly struck me as the kind of person to simply be friends with someone for the sake of making life easier: my mom says you’ve always struck her as very pragmatic, and i agree. it makes me think that something in your relationship with dee has changed, because otherwise, i find myself… well, deeply confused and honestly a little worried that dee might be up to something again.”
“you talked about this with your mom?”
“well—i didn’t, like, set out to do that, but yeah. she suggested that i just talk to you about it, since you’d know that i have your best interests at heart, and that you have your reasons ‘cause you’re so smart, and also maybe write down what i wanted to say so i didn’t come off like a huge controlling jackass.”
“she said that?”
“not that last bit—i’m editorializing.”
“that’s—huh. okay… um. how do i phrase this.”
“…”
“i’m sorry, i’m walking an awkward line of secrecy here.”
“how secret? secret, like, jo posner’s first kiss, or secret, like, secret-secret.”
“secret-secret.”
“...oh.”
“but i still want to—communicate.”
“right. um… is there a little loophole you can thread here?”
“like what?”
“like… i dunno. i know they aren’t your strong suit, but a metaphor? or a comparison to something else that’s happened in our general lives?”
“like what?”
“well, i don’t know, logan. that’s kind of why we’re here.”
“right. yes. um… let me think.”
“sure. take your time. if it’s secret-secret, i promise i’ll keep it, but even then, i get not wanting to say anything. like—”
“oh! oh, i remember!”
“...remember…?”
“back in eighth grade, when you had elliott over to that sleepover, and elliott told you about how they were feeling regarding their identity, but to keep it secret double-pinky-promise even from me?”
“yeah, of course.”
“and they didn’t come out until the middle of last year?”
“right.”
“...i find a lot of parallels to then.”
“oh.”
“yeah.”
“oh—okay. i see.”
“it’s not one-to-one. as a matter of fact, there’s more to it. this is the part i feel most comfortable disclosing, since that part is generally a jo posner’s first kiss level of open secret at chilton.”
“sure.”
“but—”
“i get it. there’s more. okay. that… huh. okay.”
“right.”
“i guess i can see it. the cape should have tipped me off. have you told… anyone else? about the things outside the parallels?”
“no—no one. not even dad.”
“really?”
“really. well—he might know part of it, so maybe that doesn’t count, or dee might have told him more, but. really. not even dad.”
“...you said…. even more?”
“i’m very glad no one in our lives has parallelism to this that i can apply here.”
“...me too, i guess?”
“trust me—you are.”
“okay. i will. i do trust you. you know that, right?”
“of course i do. i trust you too.”
“okay. good. good. i didn’t want it to come off like i didn’t trust your judgment or something. you were so understanding with jess, i wanted to extend the same thing—”
“—we’re not—”
“—i know it’s not a one-to-one. trust me, we’d have a lot more to talk about if it was any kind of romantic scenario. there’d be yelling. i know it’s not. i’m just saying: you and jess didn’t have a lot in common, but you were still decent to him because you knew i wanted to… associate with him. i want to do the same for you.”
“right. of course. i—well, frankly, i hadn’t really considered your point of view. i can see how it would be strange from the outside perspective. i’m sorry i didn’t think of it.”
“you’ve had a lot going on.”
“sure, but still. i should have looped you in as much as i could.”
“well, i appreciate that. thank you.”
“and thank you for bringing it up.”
“this is very mature of us.”
“i know.”
“for teenagers, and all.”
“and for my first romantic relationship.”
“i’m more used to bickering. this is weird.”
“definitely.”
“...wanna make out?”
“say no more.”
find the next half of this chapter here!
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menfenced · 5 hours ago
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I've seen a lot of posts in the last 24 hours about why Kamala lost and I feel like most of them are failing to actually look at reasons voters are giving. Instead, they're putting forward what they personally didn't like about Kamala's campaign. But here's the thing to remember... You didn't like that thing about Kamala's campaign. You still voted for her. There's something else going on.
Because people didn't just vote against Kamala. They voted FOR Trump, and early polling results are showing they did it across the board in almost every demographic.
I've seen the calls for investigations into voter fraud and voter suppression because "this doesn't just happen!" and I agree with one thing. This doesn't "just" happen. There's a reason and democrats aren't listening. Because it's not just a handful of counties that got hacked or had crazy people trying to stop votes or didn't get all of their ballots counted. That's not to say that none of that stuff happened, of course. There may have been serious issues in some counties. But across the board, in nearly every state and every county, even if he didn't outright win, Trump made gains. The only two states where he didn't make gains: Washington State and Utah.
If that's due to voter fraud or hacked elections, it would have to be on a scale unlike anything we have ever seen before and honestly, we don't have any evidence of that right now.
So what happened? What do we know?
We know that since the pandemic and since the record inflation that caused, incumbent leaders all over the world have been losing elections at higher rates than usual. That crosses all political persuasions and again, has been seen across the globe.
Based on polling prior to the election, which remained fairly consistent throughout the election run, 3/4 US voters think the country is on the wrong track and 2/3 are unhappy with the economy.
Biden's approval rating when this election started was 40-41%
This is all a recipe for an incumbent losing, which to be frank, most people still saw Kamala as, even though she was running instead of Biden.
In addition to all of that, let's look at what the exit polls showed.
Kamala's approval rating in the exit polls was 48.5%
Donald Trump's approval ratings in the exit polls was 44.54%
And I know he wasn't running, but just for context Biden's approval ratings were 40%
When asked if Harris's views were too extreme, 46% said yes, 51% said no.
When asked if Trump's views were too extreme, 55% said yes, 43% said no.
So how did he win?
People like him less and think he's more extreme. Why did they vote for him?
Well, let's look at some other polling data.
45% of voters said that their family's personal financial situation was worse off than it was four years ago.
Only 25% said their financial situation was better than it was 4 years ago.
75% of people polled said that in the last year, inflation has caused them either severe or moderate hardship.
When asked who can bring needed change, 73% of voters said Trump and only 25% said Harris.
What that means is that a majority of American's don't like Trump. They don't think he's a good person. They think he's too extreme. And yet they still voted for him because the issue that was most important in this election was the economy.
Will Trump be better for the economy?
No.
But there's a perception that the current administration did not do everything they could have to fix it and people were willing to roll the dice on someone different.
Maybe we could have done more. Kamala only had 110 days to make her case and no matter what she said, the fact remained that she is the sitting VP. Maybe there was no way for her to escape the incumbent/status quo perception.
I hope we can learn something from the behavior of the American electorate this year, and I really hope Trump doesn't fuck things up too bad before we get another chance to step in, because the Republican Party is learning things too. They're learning that they can be as extreme as they want, but if they can make people believe the economy will work better under their leadership, even if it's not true, they'll still get votes.
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amazonclimber · 2 days ago
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First off, that take is so bad it doesn’t even qualify as a Tumblr take. It’s not that she personally didn’t show up, it’s that nobody showed up for her. Or - again - literally any race.
Second, I gave up on her because she isn’t on the ballot. Because the Greens couldn’t even manage to get a candidate for local office. Not even as an independent. Oh, and we can’t write in Green either. I’d literally be throwing my vote away, not just metaphorically doing it the way people opposed to the idea of third parties claim.
Look, there’s a difference between trying knowing all you can do is add a dissenting voice and not even bothering to speak up, and they didn’t speak up. So, until they prove they can actually do the bare minimum, which even the Libertarians can manage, why should I bother with them?
can i be real? if you're in a swing state vote harris. obviously. but if you're in a solid red or blue state that is totally not going to flip no matter what, don't fucking vote for her. vote third party. The only thing you're doing is giving a symbolic green light to everything the democrats do. you're just proving that people will turn out in droves and they can guarantee voter turnout forever no matter what horrifying things they do. voting green party actually puts you in part of a measurable number that the democrats can look to and see how many people they could recruit if they went more left, and how many people refuse to take whatever they're given. right now all they see is republicans who they can convert by going more right. They believe that every single person left of trump is already a guaranteed vote. they have a vested interest in making sure that everyone stays completely within the two party system. I don't think jill stein has any chance of winning (no one does), but it does a lot more good to help the green party grow than it does to throw another vote into the sea of harris approval
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sugaploom · 2 days ago
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its making me feel insane to see ppl say kamala is the safer option when shes like. showed to our faces shes not doing anything in her own parties interest and would rather pander to centrists to win by being intentionally vague and misleading
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secretmellowblog · 1 year ago
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People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.
The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.
But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.
The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.
This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.
Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.
So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-
And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—
And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!
If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.
The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.
It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)
I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.
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I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.
The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win
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cleolinda · 3 months ago
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So last night at the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris pulled off, in my opinion, the most glorious flex in all of American politics. It was petty as fuck and I am here for it:
Harris, in a Show of Force, Holds a Large Rally 80 Miles From Her Convention
Choosing Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee [the smaller venue used for the Republican National Convention] as the venue for Ms. Harris’s rally also served as an intentional rejoinder to Mr. Trump, who has fumed over the size of her crowds since she replaced Mr. Biden on the Democratic ticket. The campaign said about 15,000 people attended the rally in Milwaukee, and the 23,500-person convention hall in Chicago was packed.
Someone on Reddit then linked to the Kamala HQ video of her brief Coming To You Live From My Rival’s Venue acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination. And Redditors pointed out that you could actually see the juxtaposition, and the sold-out crowds could see each other, and it was beautiful.
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Posters on r/politics constantly say to any positive discussion, “None of this matters if you don’t vote.” While this is true, the constant doomer nihilism of “None of this matters” pisses me off. I know they’re afraid people will get complacent. They’re afraid people will see, for example, pictures of these massive crowds and think, I don’t have to leave the house. I don’t have to vote. Everyone else will get this. But that’s not what I think when I see news like this. It DOES matter. I was always going to drag my carcass out to my polling station in a blood-red state, whether I have to use a cane or not, whether the Electoral College even gives a shit about my vote or not, but this is exciting. Whenever I see Kamala’s packed, enthusiastic crowds, I think, This is a movement forward and I get to be part of it. We are gonna run up the popular vote as a statement that will make bad-faith actors think twice before meddling, and we are gonna flip some battleground states. We are gonna nail down the electoral votes, and I am going to sit there and watch on TV as they certify the electors in December, and then I am going to sit there and watch them officially count it out like they did on January 6, 2021, and I am going to know that I was part of that.
It’s not about getting complacent. It’s about feeling the agency and possibility that we can actually get this done. It’s about saying, I get to do this, even if it’s just one ballot, one I Voted sticker, one day. We’re gonna get our first female, first South Asian American, and second Black president into that office. The enthusiasm is our running rebuke to that fucking guy, and we’re gonna get the numbers as even Republican politicians turn on him and support Kamala Harris. And any time someone tells you that being hopeful is getting complacent, come back and look at those crowds. Or better yet, get hyped up by Michelle Obama:
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Hope is energy, not complacency. We can do this.
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mariacallous · 23 days ago
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This is a gift article
“In normal times, Americans don’t think much about democracy. Our Constitution, with its guarantees of free press, speech, and assembly, was written more than two centuries ago. Our electoral system has never failed, not during two world wars, not even during the Civil War. Citizenship requires very little of us, only that we show up to vote occasionally. Many of us are so complacent that we don’t bother. We treat democracy like clean water, something that just comes out of the tap, something we exert no effort to procure.
“But these are not normal times.”
I wrote those words in October 2020, at a time when some people feared voting, because they feared contagion. The feeling that “these are not normal times” also came from rumors about what Donald Trump’s campaign might do if he lost that year’s presidential election. Already, stories that Trump would challenge the validity of the results were in circulation. And so it came to pass.
This time, we are living in a much different world. The predictions of what might happen on November 5 and in the days that follow are not based on rumors. On the contrary, we can be absolutely certain that an attempt will be made to steal the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins. Trump himself has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election. He has waffled on and evaded questions about whether he will accept the outcome in 2024. He has hired lawyers to prepare to challenge the results.
Trump also has a lot more help this time around from his own party. Strange things are happening in state legislatures: a West Virginia proposal to “not recognize an illegitimate presidential election” (which could be read as meaning not recognize the results if a Democrat wins); a last-minute push, ultimately unsuccessful, to change the way Nebraska allocates its electoral votes. Equally weird things are happening in state election boards. Georgia’s has passed a rule requiring that all ballots be hand-counted, as well as machine-counted, which, if not overturned, will introduce errors—machines are more accurate—and make the process take much longer. A number of county election boards have in recent elections tried refusing to certify votes, not least because many are now populated with actual election deniers, who believe that frustrating the will of the people is their proper role. Multiple people and groups are also seeking mass purges of the electoral rolls.
Anyone who is closely following these shenanigans—or the proliferation of MAGA lawsuits deliberately designed to make people question the legitimacy of the vote even before it is held—already knows that the challenges will multiply if the presidential vote is as close as polls suggest it could be. The counting process will be drawn out, and we may not know the winner for many days. If the results come down to one or two states, they could experience protests or even riots, threats to election officials, and other attempts to change the results.
This prospect can feel overwhelming: Many people are not just upset about the possibility of a lost or stolen election, but oppressed by a sensation of helplessness. This feeling—I can’t do anything; my actions don’t matter—is precisely the feeling that autocratic movements seek to instill in citizens, as Peter Pomerantsev and I explain in our recent podcast, Autocracy in America. But you can always do something. If you need advice about what that might be, here is an updated citizen’s guide to defending democracy.
Help Out on Voting Day—In Person
First and foremost: Register to vote, and make sure everyone you know has done so too, especially students who have recently changed residence. The website Vote.gov has a list of the rules in all 50 states, in multiple languages, if you or anyone you know has doubts. Deadlines have passed in some states, but not all of them.
After that, vote—in person if you can. Because the MAGA lawyers are preparing to question mail-in and absentee ballots in particular, go to a polling station if at all possible. Vote early if you can, too: Here is a list of early-voting rules for each state.
Secondly, be prepared for intimidation or complications. As my colleague Stephanie McCrummen has written, radicalized evangelical groups are organizing around the election. One group is planning a series of “Kingdom to the Capitol” rallies in swing-state capitals, as well as in Washington, D.C.; participants may well show up near voting booths on Election Day. If you or anyone you know has trouble voting, for any reason, call 866-OUR-VOTE, a hotline set up by Election Protection, a nonpartisan national coalition led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
If you have time to do more, then join the effort. The coalition is looking for lawyers, law students, and paralegals to help out if multiple, simultaneous challenges to the election occur at the county level. Even people without legal training are needed to serve as poll monitors, and of course to staff the hotline. In the group’s words, it needs people to help voters with “confusing voting rules, outdated infrastructure, rampant misinformation, and needless obstacles to the ballot box.”
If you live in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, you can also volunteer to help All Voting Is Local, an organization that has been on the ground in those states since before 2020 and knows the rules, the officials, the potential threats. It, too, is recruiting legal professionals, as well as poll monitors. If you don’t live in one of those states, you can still make a financial contribution.
Wherever you live, consider working at a polling station. All Voting Is Local can advise you if you live in one of its eight states, but you can also call your local board of elections. More information is available at PowerThePolls.org, which will send you to the right place. The site explains that “our democracy depends on ordinary people who make sure every election runs smoothly and everyone's vote is counted—people like you.”
Wherever you live, it’s also possible to work for one of the many get-out-the-vote campaigns. Consider driving people to the voting booth. Find your local group by calling the offices of local politicians, members of Congress, state legislators, and city councillors. The League of Women Voters and the NAACP are just two of many organizations that will be active in the days before the election, and on the day itself. Call them to ask which local groups they recommend. Or, if you are specifically interested in transporting Democrats, you can volunteer for Rideshare2Vote.
If you know someone who needs a ride, then let them know that the ride-hailing company Lyft is once again working with a number of organizations, including the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the National Council on Aging, Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, and the Hispanic Federation. Contact any of them for advice about your location. Also try local religious congregations, many of whom organize rides to the polls.
Smaller gestures are needed too. If you see a long voting line, or if you find yourself standing in one, report it to Pizza to the Polls and the group will send over some free pizza to cheer everyone up.
Join Something Now
Many people have long been preparing for a challenge to the election and a battle in both the courts and the media. You can help them by subscribing to the newsletters of some of the organizations sponsoring this work, donating money, and sharing their information with others. Don’t wait until the day after the vote to find groups you trust: If a crisis happens, you will not want to be scouring the internet for information.
Among the organizations to watch is the nonpartisan Protect Democracy, which has already launched successful lawsuits to secure voting rights in several states. Another is the States United Democracy Center, which collaborates with police as well as election workers to make sure that elections are safe. Three out of four election officials say that threats to them have increased; in some states, the danger will be just as bad the day after the election as it was the day before, or maybe even worse.
The Brennan Center for Justice, based at NYU, researches and promotes concrete policy proposals to improve democracy, and puts on public events to discuss them. Its lawyers and experts are preparing not only for attempts to steal the election, but also, in the case of a Trump victory, for subsequent assaults on the Constitution or the rule of law.
For voters who lean Democratic, Democracy Docket also offers a wealth of advice, suggestions, and information. The group’s lawyers have been defending elections for many years. For Republicans, Republicans for the Rule of Law is a much smaller group, but one that can help keep people informed.
Talk With People
In case of a real disaster—an inconclusive election or an outbreak of violence—you will need to find a way to talk about it, including a way to speak with friends or relatives who are angry and have different views. In 2020, I published some suggestions from More in Common, a research group that specializes in the analysis of political polarization, for how to talk with people who disagree with you about politics, as well as those who are cynical and apathetic. I am repeating here the group’s three dos and three don’ts:
•Do talk about local issues: Americans are bitterly polarized over national issues, but have much higher levels of trust in their state and local officials. •Do talk about what your state and local leaders are doing to ensure a safe election. •Do emphasize our shared values—the large majority of Americans still feel that democracy is preferable to all other forms of government—and our historical ability to deliver safe and fair elections, even in times of warfare and social strife. •Don’t, by contrast, dismiss people’s concerns about election irregularities out of hand. Trump and his allies have repeatedly raised the specter of widespread voter fraud in favor of Democrats. Despite a lack of evidence for this notion, many people may sincerely believe that this kind of electoral cheating is real. •Don’t rely on statistics to make your case, because people aren’t convinced by them; talk, instead, about what actions are being taken to protect the integrity of the vote. •Finally, don’t inadvertently undermine democracy further: Emphasize the strength of the American people, our ability to stand up to those who assault democracy. Offer people a course of action, not despair.
As a Last Resort, Protest
As in 2020, protest remains a final option. A lot of institutions, including some of those listed above, are preparing to step in if the political system fails. But if they all fail as well, remember that it’s better to protest in a group, and in a coordinated, nonviolent manner. Many of the organizations I have listed will be issuing regular statements right after the election; follow their advice to find out what they are doing. Remember that the point of a protest is to gain supporters—to win others over to your cause—and not to make a bad situation worse. Large, peaceful gatherings will move and convince people more than small, angry ones. Violence makes you enemies, not friends.
Finally, don’t give up: There is always another day. Many of your fellow citizens also want to protect not just the electoral system but the Constitution itself. Start looking for them now, volunteer to help them, and make sure that they, and we, remain a democracy where power changes hands peacefully.
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mugiwara-lucy · 1 month ago
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In my next installment of “While we can celebrate Kamala’s daily gains, the fight is NOT over yet and DON’T get complacent”, I’d like to remind everyone that Trump is currently 78 years old. Not only that but he’s showing clear signs of mental decline and he’s obese with an unhealthy McDonalds’ diet to boot.
What’s the point of me saying this? There is a good chance he may not make it the next four years and GOD FORBID Trump wins the election but if that happens and he croaks, we could end up with JD VANCE as president.
I’m sure I don’t need to explain why that would be horrible ESPECIALLY for women BUT we all know his comments about “childless cat ladies”, him wanting to monitor women’s pregnancies and him wanting to end No-Fault Divorce but let’s go to more recently.
We’re all aware of the hell that befell Springfield started by lies from Vance, Trump and Laura Loomer. Well after all that destruction; THIS was what he had to say:
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So this sick piece of shit is basically toying with innocent lives just for an “agenda”?? And if you all think he has any kind of remorse, think again.
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He’s not only DOUBLING DOWN but ACTIVELY making the situation WORSE.
And again I’d like to bring attention to the damage his LIES caused NOT JUST a town but HIS HOMETOWN:
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If we don’t do our part and keep Trump and MAGA out of the White House what happened in Springfield will 100 % happen to cities and towns across America because Trump and his cronies are all racist psychopaths.
Again it’s great Kamala is doing well but let’s NOT get complacent!!
Here are the Voter Registration deadlines:
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Check frequently if you’re not registered since MAGA have been purging polls and are counting on you not to check and if you’re not registered; register at vote.gov and here are the dates for Early Voting which I recommend since MAGA will try to ACTUALLY suppress our votes:
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And I ALSO STRONGLY recommend Mail In Ballots which links are available at Vote.Gov as well!
In short, if you EVER need a reason to vote Kamala; it’s the image of JD Vance as president 😣
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intimidating-fettuccine · 4 months ago
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I know I don’t usually get political on here, but with recent events happening I wanted to make a post to reach as many people as I can, as a young woman in the US in this current political climate. Everyone needs to vote.
“But what if I don’t want to register because I don’t want jury duty?”
There is no guarantee you would ever be called for jury duty. I have met people in their 80s who have never been called. Even if you are called, if you tell the judges that you will be an awful juror, you won’t pay attention, you’re incredibly biased, etc. they will dismiss you. They do not want someone on the jury that would be an inconvenience to both sides. As someone who has been called but was not chosen, it is not as big of a deal as you might think it is in the grand scheme of things, and at least in my state you can only even be called once every two years. Plus, certain conditions can disqualify you from even having to show up as well.
“But what if I don’t like the democratic representative either?”
That literally does not matter in this actually life and death case, because the other choice is Donald Trump and Project 2025. If you do any research into project 2025, which no, is not just empty promises they’re trying to make, it is a plan built mostly around removing the rights of women, LGBT members, and deconstructing public education. It is a very scary document and it is one they will 100% go forward with if Trump is put into office. Whether Kamala ends up as the representative for the party or someone else does, you MUST vote blue.
“Well, why can’t we all just vote independent?”
Because they will not win. They won’t. Independents are not even always put on every bracket in every state, but even if they were there is no way that they would win the upcoming election because none of them have a big enough audience at present moment. They need time to build an audience, and they need a Blue country to be able to do so. Plus, we have the electoral college to worry about, and there’s no way in hell any of them are voting independent. In this election it is Blue or Red, and Blue is the much better choice.
“But I don’t think that Blue is going to win, so I don’t even want to bother with voting.”
That is the exact line of thinking Trump wants you to have. Trump is scared of losing! He wants you to think he’s the only winner possible, and that’s why we need to prove him wrong! Not voting at all is still a vote for Trump! We need to show up and vote, because otherwise you are just automatically saying you’re fine with letting Trump win, which is saying you’re fine with losing your own rights or your friends and your family losing their own rights. This election is not a joke this time, we cannot just let it slide this time and assume it’ll be different in four years.
“But politics stress me out and make me anxious so I don’t want to get involved in them.”/“I don’t live close enough to reach my polling station.”
That is the same as the previous one. I know this is an extremely stressful time for everyone, believe me, I’m extremely anxious about it too, but you just need to vote Blue, and show up on one specific day to vote. If you’re too anxious to physically go to polling station or you don’t live close enough, you can also do a mail in ballot, which I’ve done before! You can request one online, receive it in the mail, and send it out! No contact with any other people required. Mail in ballots are still an option and literally made for people who cannot physically show up to a polling station.
“I know all of that’s true, but again, I REALLY hate the Blue candidate.”
Well, consider this. We are not just voting for the president, we are voting for Supreme Court members. Presidents serve as of right now up to 8 years, but Supreme Court justices serve for life. Trump put on the last Supreme Court members, and I’m sure you’ve seen the horrible choices they’ve made in the sake of the Republican Party. The president is the one who chooses those members, so if you allow a Red President, you are allowing the possibility of an even more Red Supreme Court. Vote Blue not just because you are voting for the president, but because you are voting for the sake of your literal future with Supreme Court justices. Politicians have historically always sucked. When it comes to voting, it is the lesser of two evils, and when you’re picking between them, Blue is obviously the lesser of the two evils, especially when Red wants to remove as many rights as physically possible.
“What if Trump also gets removed from the running. Won’t we be okay then?”
No! Because it does not matter who the Red representative is, they are STILL going to move forward with Project 2025. Even if Trump somehow keels over and dies tomorrow or decides to drop out (which I doubt will happen), they would still make the next representative go through with Project 2025. They want this plan more than anything else in the world, and so long as there’s a possibility of a republican representative going into office there is a guarantee of them using that plan.
“But what if Project 2025 really IS just empty promises?”
It is not. I guarantee you it is not. Even if it was, do you REALLY want to take the risk? Do you REALLY want to try and play this game? When the rights of women, LGBT members, public education, and the environment are at risk, do you really want to just assume it’s not going to happen? Is it really worth it to you to play this game and assume so? I’m going to guess it is not, in fact, worth it to play this game. You NEED to fully believe that Project 2025 is actually going to happen, because it is going to happen if they win. This isn’t a fever dream we’re going to wake up from and laugh about if they win. It’s the reality of the current shithole country we live in, and this country could become far, far worse if they win.
Even if you do not live in the US, I am just asking of you to please consider reblogging this and spreading it, as there are probably Americans that will see if if you do so. If you’re even still too young to vote, people that are old enough are likely to see it. I know I’m not a huge blog, but reblogs are always important and I still want to try.
As a woman and LGBT member who does not want to lose her rights, I am asking for you to please read and spread this post. Even if I can just reach one person who will care, it can be a great help. They do not want us to unionize and vote against them, but that is exactly what we must do. Regardless of how you feel about the Blue party, you have to vote for them this year, it’s the only thing we can do.
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the-final-sif · 1 month ago
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Today is regional elections day here in Brazil and I want to brag about it, cause we'll get the results literally today. Not only that, we have an app that tells us where to vote, how to get there and if you have any questions, it helps you with that too. It baffles me how the US is still voting with paper
Well, so as someone with a good understanding of voting technology, I am actually in favor of all paper ballot voting. Or at least keeping a paper backup. Less because of any fear of hacking (although I actually do think that is a risk we need to consider) and more out of concern of software glitches risking losing people's votes or flipping them accidentally. To pull an xkcd (2030),
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Title text: There are lots of very smart people doing fascinating work on cryptographic voting protocols. We should be funding and encouraging them, and doing all our elections with paper ballots until everyone currently working in that field has retired.
Personally, I actually like all mail in voting, which is done by some US states (8 atm). You get mailed your ballot well before election day, you either mail it back or drop it off at a ballot box. It's simple, easy, no need to figure out transportation or anything like that (although you can still vote in person if you want or if you have an issue with your ballot). If the state also allows votes to be pre-counted, then you can also get the votes the same day or close to it. Since almost all votes are already counted, they just have to count votes that come in that day (and votes that were post marked that day but take a few days to get in).
This system also makes voter intimidation really hard (hard to show up to spook people from the polls when uh, there's nobody at the polls), massively reduces lines if you do need to vote in person, and gives you time with your ballot. I can sit down with my ballot at dinner and search each candidate if I don't know them/search each measure to make sure I understand the issues and am confident in my vote. That's my preferred system.
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olomaya · 1 year ago
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My Sims are getting political! After so many months, I'm going back to finish up my Politics/Community Activist mod. This is actually what my Student Council mod is based on (it's basically a baby version of the Poltiics mod.) My current Sim, Arie Wang (I forgot where I downloaded this sim from but she's lovely and perfect for this storyline I'm playing out!) is in the Community Organizer career which is an Active career (like Firefighter or Stylist) and right now is working hard to push a new law in that will increase University scholarships and grants for all students.
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Arie is a member of the New Earth party, one of the 4 political parties I created. New Earthers are all about the environment and focus on pushing forward environmental policies but as a mom, education is something that Arie cares about so she's been out there trying to encourage people to vote and hoping to sway voters before election day.
Different political parties have issues that they are either strong in favor of or against. If a party is against the policy, it's near impossible to sway them to vote for it so it's best to target people who are neutral and could vote either way.
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I'm happy with how this customized ITF layout is coming out though I still need to make more tweaks and edits and also figure out why the active Sim's photo isn't showing (as below). Maybe also changing the title (Local Political Scanner??)
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After probably doing about 40 fundraising cold calls she finally got someone to donate money. And boy did they! She's at the point in her career though when she doesn't need to be doing calls so I'm going to have her get some volunteers to do the grunt work so she can focus on making friends in City Hall to build further influence.
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Once a ballot measure is put up for vote, you have 5 days to campaign before voting day. Arie has been hitting the streets every day to canvas for votes, doing campaign calls and also raising money for the party to pay for advertising (TV, radio, online, print) which is the most effective way to sway voters.
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Yesterday, I added in a VFX to show when a Sim has been successfully influenced either for or against the ballot measure in question and in testing it out, I saw that Arie has actually been campaigning AGAINST the measure this whole time! Oops!
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I clearly messed up with a bool somewhere but at least the influence system is working as intended.
With 7 hours until the Election period begins, and all the time and money I've spent on campaign ads, it looks like I've just accidentally doomed my town to expensive education until I can repeal the law. The Free Llamas are not going to be happy.
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Also, shout out to Stable Diffusion which I used to create the Political Party Icons. I'm obsessed with this tool and loved how they turned out.
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possessionisamyth · 11 months ago
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Since the most popular posts are being extremely useless and defeatist when it comes to the presidential election, I'm reminding you of the democratic primary. If you absolutely do not want to vote for Biden, here are your other options, and you have to VOTE and SHOW UP for your state primary to push them forward.
Marianne Williamson is running for the Dem Primary. Here is her site leading to her stances on current issues.
https://marianne2024.com/issues/
Dean Phillips is also running for the Dem Primary. Below is his website. Click on the Priorities tab on the right to see his stances on the issues.
https://phillips.house.gov/
Robert F Kennedy Jr. is running as an Independent. Click on the Policies tab on the upper left to see his stance on the issues.
https://www.kennedy24.com/
Cornel West is running as an Independent. Click on the Platform tab on the upper right to get his stance on the issues.
https://www.cornelwest2024.com/
Here is the schedule for the primary by state for 2024 so you know when to hit the ballot box.
https://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2024-primary-schedule/
The US Government has always been a shit show. Due to Biden winning 1 election already, everyone who has already secured their democratic seat will be pushing for him to win a second term. That's what being incumbent means. The primaries will look like how they did when Bernie was running against him. The news will not be on any of these people's sides, and they will be showing as little of them as possible to ensure a Biden win.
If you are a USA citizen of voting age and all you've been doing is reblogging/making posts about how no one should vote for Joe, maybe take the next step and READ up on the other options. If you actually don't want Joe or Trump to win this next election, you need to pick a candidate from these links to hype up. You have to start being their voices in places where people don't watch the televised news. You can even volunteer your time to do phone calls for them to spread the information.
If your entire blog is only never vote, or never vote for Joe, then yes you are not helping the problem. You are making things worse when we literally have time to try for another option. Be angry. Be pissed, but do some footwork for people you want in office in addition! This is actually how you shift things and send a message.
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ceasarslegion · 1 year ago
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I know everyones talking about desantis and the 2024 american election coming up, and i dont blame anybody for not being perfectly in tune with the entire world so im not gonna guilt trip anybody about that, its fine. But i do wanna say that Alberta's general election is in a few days and with the ways the polls are swinging, there is hope for an NDP victory, but only if every single progressive Albertan actually shows up and casts their vote.
The UCP are inching closer and closer to fascism by the day, and people like me really can't afford for them to win just because folks are refusing to budge for anything less than perfection from the alternative. In a battle between center-left and reactionary alternative right, you are dooming your community by sticking your feet in the dirt and whining about how the most realistic option isn't progressive enough.
And I don't wanna see any shit about how the NDP and UCP are the same, because they aren't. One party will protect my human rights while the other compared the children in my community to excrement, just for starters.
We can kick the UCP out, but we need every single voter to show up. Because we know the tories will cast their ballots, so it's down to us
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thosemotivationalquotes · 3 days ago
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Understanding Election Results
I wanted to make this guide for people who are following the upcoming U.S. election, but are unsure of how votes are actually counted, since it’s not just a simple majority vote.
The U.S. uses something called the Electoral College, which is different than a majority vote.
There are 2 kinds of votes that matter when determining who the winner of the presidential election is. The popular vote, and the electoral vote. The popular vote is the simple majority - whoever gets the most votes win. However, the U.S. doesn’t actually use the popular vote to determine the winner.
This brings us to the electoral votes. Each state gets assigned electors, the amount of which is decided by the state’s population (for example, AZ has 11 electors). Each state takes whichever candidate received the most votes, and casts its electoral votes for that person.
For example, if Harris has 55% of the AZ votes, she gets 11 electoral votes. Whichever candidate reaches 270 votes (the majority) will be the next president.
This is why ‘swing states’ are so important. The popular vote for the state might be neck and neck, but whoever has the most votes gets all the electoral votes for the state. It’s also possible for someone to win the popular vote, but lose the election (Clinton in 2016).
So what does that mean for this election? Take a look at the below map from 270towin:
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As we can see, Harris is currently at a predicted 226 electoral votes, with 191 being considered safe. It will come down to the leans and toss up states to decide if she will get enough votes to win. Any state can flip with enough votes, so it’s important to vote no matter how “safe” your state appears to be.
It’s important to vote even if you live in the safely blue states, but it’s especially important to vote if you live in a lean or toss up state. I live in AZ and got to see our state go from red to blue in 2020, so it possible IF people show up and vote.
You’ll also see states being “called”. This means that there are enough votes to make the conclusion that one of the candidates has won the electoral votes for that state. States like CA usually get called fairly early since there are usually an overwhelming amount of blue votes. But a swing state like AZ might be “too close to call” until a few days after the election, while they count any last minute mail in ballots and provisional ballots. A state being “called” on election night does not mean they stop counting the votes, just that there is enough confidence to state who has won that state.
Also a final note, your mental health is super important. If you have already voted, or if you are unable to vote, watching the election results will not change the outcome. If you are stressed to the point you are having anxiety, not eating, missing work/school, etc., please don’t feel like you have watch the election results. We probably won’t know the winner until at least the next day, maybe even a few days after that. If Trump wins he won’t take office for a couple months. So if you need to, take a step back and just focus on getting through the day.
Some states have same day registration, so if you didn’t register check here to see if there is still a chance.
I have voting resources here for anyone voting today:
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