#task sanders

[frosteee]

Remember when Shining Knight almost decapitated a guy for daring to lay a hand on his BFF?

I do. And I love it.

[justjanusthings]

[delimeful]

give me mercy no more (1)

G/t July Day 1: Enchanted

(Full Prompt List)

patron prompt: virgil hugging a crying janus!

warnings: arguing, tension, betrayal, mentions of assassinations, offscreen character thomas, it's a g/t fic but i didn't actually get to the g/t yet LOL, self sacrifice, crying, angst

-

“You can’t do this.”

Janus paused for the briefest moment at the sound of his closest friend’s voice, before continuing to pack away rations.

“Can’t I?” he asked airily, not turning around to face Virgil.

He’d known this confrontation was inevitable since they’d come up with the only possible solution to their kingdom’s problem. He hadn’t realized how unprepared he’d feel even now, with the hour of tribute rapidly approaching.

“It’s not right. Thomas needs you,” Virgil insisted, stepping closer.

Without even looking at him, Janus could picture the scowl he was wearing. Terrified and defiant in the face of impossible odds, as always.

Bringing up the heir apparent was a low blow, however.

“Yes, he does,” Janus snapped, a bite to the words. “Do you think anything else on this continent or any other could possibly move me to do something like this?”

A short, stagnant pause as Virgil struggled to find a retort.

“His Highness will be alright,” Janus added, softer. “Of course he will. You’ll be there at his side.”

A year ago, the idea of trusting any of the knights of this kingdom would have been laughable at best. The Sanders kingdom was a pit of vipers, and Janus had blended in with the best of them, climbing the ranks to the position of advisor through means that would make any moral man weep.

He’d still only barely been in time to prevent Thomas from perishing in a political assassination, one initiated by the same mage faction that had orphaned the young boy originally.

Janus didn’t have to do any investigation to learn that particular tidbit; it was an illuminating and concerning letter from the queen, an old friend of his, that had brought him back to the kingdom.

He’d been too late to save her. He’d made sure that the same couldn’t be said for her son.

Back then, he and Virgil had constantly been at each other’s throats, both expecting the other to betray the prince at any moment. Virgil saw right through Janus’ sly facades, and Janus knew that the rank and file of the kingdom’s army were only loyal to the highest bribe.

That was what they’d thought, anyhow.

When the next attempt rolled around, Virgil had been forcefully diverted from his usual patrol route, and was halfway across the grounds when the alarm was raised.

He’d torn through any opponent in his way in a desperate frenzy, and burst into the prince’s quarters expecting to see the worst.

Instead, he’d found Thomas whole and unharmed, positioned solidly behind Janus, who stood ready with two narrow, poisoned blades. The room already had a handful of would-be assassins collapsed on the ground, some in the same exact livery Virgil wore.

“Come and try,” Janus had hissed, keenly aware of the slash along his side and the way blood was already darkening his doublet.

Virgil, bigger and stronger and less winded even after a sprint across the kingdom, had taken two steps forward and knelt before him, head bowed.

The fool. Janus had almost stabbed him on reflex alone.

“Thank you,” he’d said, the back of his neck well and truly exposed, “for protecting him.”

Janus wasn’t used to being trusted. It had thrown him off for long enough that he’d stayed his blade, and before he knew it, Virgil had managed to worm his way under his defenses and become not only a trusted ally, but a snarky, paranoid, invaluable friend.

They grew to be called the Two Hands of the Future King, a title probably invented by some of the more pretentious court nobles. Virgil hated the attention, and Janus leaned into it just to annoy him.

They’d have to come up with something different, after Janus was gone. He wondered if his death would be referred to as something garishly insensitive, like The Amputation. Hopefully not; Virgil might actually come to blows if he heard that sort of thing.

He dragged his mind out of the past, sliding another ration he would likely never eat into his bag with the same smooth calculation he’d done everything else in his life.

“Besides, there’s no cause to be dramatic. I’ll be fine,” he said, voice full of a certainty he didn’t feel.

He held his breath as Virgil stood silently at his back for a long moment. His lies had never worked on the knight, but now he silently begged that for once, Virgil wouldn’t shatter the illusion. That he wouldn’t make this harder than it needed to be.

“Tell me how you plan to convince them,” Virgil finally said.

Janus let out a breath, his shoulders sagging in relief. “I already went over my strategy at the council meeting, didn’t I?”

“I was too pissed off to pay attention,” Virgil replied bluntly. “Tell me again. The way you’ll tell the beast.”

It was a rare occasion for Virgil to want to embrace a lie instead of the painful truth. Janus could grant him that, at least.

“With the damages from the invasion, we find ourselves unable to provide our usual tribute without starving to death ourselves,” Janus began, the speech long-memorized in the agonizing past week of waiting. “In order to preserve the existence of our kingdom, and by extension, the existence of your future tributes many years to come, we have provided an alternative offering that we hope will please you.”

He turned and spread his hands in an elegant flourish, his posture loose and pointedly unwary. “Along with precious heirloom riches, you are offered His Highness's own most trusted advisor, with vast wisdom and knowledge gathered from this continent and others.”

To do with as you please, he completed silently in his head. That would be no comfort to Virgil.

After all, everyone knew what most dragons pleased to do to humans that inconvenienced them.

Virgil stared at him with a deep wrinkle in his brow for a moment, and then snorted. “I should have guessed that you would flatter yourself even in a time like this.”

Janus smirked, repeating his favorite retort. “I speak only the truth, Honored Knight, and I’d thank you not to imply otherwise.”

Virgil smiled despite himself, but as the silence stretched it collapsed into an expression much more desolate.

“I’ll be perfectly fine,” Janus lied, and then, after a beat of hesitation, lifted his arms in a wordless offering.

Virgil crashed into the hug with enough force to nearly bowl Janus over, but he didn’t bother with a single complaint, only savored the warmth of his best friend safe in his arms.

He was doing this for both of them. His two most important people.

They stood like that for a long moment, and then with a low, pained sigh, Janus began to pull back.

Only to find that his limbs had gone strangely numb.

A jolt of surprise went through him, but all Virgil did was slowly shift them over to the nearby armchair, giving him somewhere to sit heavily as the prickling feeling spread further through his body.

“Something’s wrong,” he managed through lips he could barely feel.

Virgil, usually so quick to check him over at even the slightest sign of injury, spent a moment longer with his head tucked over his shoulder before withdrawing.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his eyes were eerily lit up from within by magecraft. “But we both know who Thomas needs more. And it’s not me.”

The enchantment didn’t hurt. It settled soft and heavy on him like a blanket with the weight of stone, keeping him stuck in place even as his mind began to shriek.

“How?” he managed.

“I was born into a bloodline with the gift. Got kicked out. I didn’t want anyone to know,” Virgil said, letting a few sparks flick off his fingers. “I probably could have told you, I was just… afraid, I guess. I know it’s not fair to ask, but don’t tell Thomas? I don’t want to bring back bad memories for the kid.”

Janus had moved rapidly from shock to anger, not at the secret of Virgil’s nature, but at what exactly he planned to do with it.

“Don’t,” he said, a desperate tilt to the word even as it came out slightly mangled.

“You were right, Jay,” Virgil said with a wry tilt of his lips. “You’ll be fine. So take care of him, okay?”

Janus managed the slightest shake of his head, and whatever expression he was making was enough to make Virgil’s own composure crack slightly.

“You hypocrite,” he said, voice choked, and pulled him into another hug.

Janus hadn’t wept when he’d realized that the only way to keep Thomas safe was to sacrifice himself.

Now, with Virgil’s arms wrapped around him, he felt his stinging eyes spill over.

His breath hitched, the only version of a sob that could make it through his body’s current stasis.

“I know,” Virgil murmured, clutching him tightly. “I know. I won’t change my mind, but I’m sorry. I don’t— I don’t want to leave. But I have to.”

He couldn’t do anything to stop this, Janus realized blankly. He could only clutch back at his best friend’s arms with the barest curling of his numb fingers. He could only see the slight tremors that shook through Virgil’s frame, the pallid cast to his skin.

He could only watch as Virgil released him, picked up his bag and walked to the door, stopped to look at him with fear and stubbornness in equal measure.

“I’ll see you around,” he said simply, giving him a simple salute and a small smile.

And then he was gone.

[riveatstoes]

assigning the sanders sides my liked songs

i’ve wanted to do something similar to this for a while. i did this (kind of) with just taylor a few weeks ago but this is DIFFERENT! so basically the rules were that i had to assign EVERY song in my liked songs on spotify to one of the characters, and then i shortened the lists for brevity. the criteria wasn’t very strict so it came out,, as well as you’d expect it to. there’s also a few at the end that are pairs/groups of characters rather than just one.

the criteria:

general vibes of the song/artist

lyrics (most of the time i cherrypicked the lyrics HARD though)

projecting my own hcs onto them using the songs as tools to do so

one of logan’s is only there because of an animation meme.

also some of these can be taken as prinxiety/logicality/intrulogical based because they’re rotting my brain.

Logan

- The Dark Of The Matinée, Franz Ferdinand

- Bang Bang, K’NAAN, Adam Levine

- Delicate, Taylor Swift

- Birds, Thomas Sanders

- Scott Street, Phoebe Bridgers

- Fortnight, Taylor Swift, Post Malone

- Antisocial, Anthrax

- Powers, boygenius

- Chinese Satellite, Phoebe Bridgers

- Here We Go Again, Paramore

Roman

- Souvenir, boygenius

- Applause, Lady Gaga

- Crazy In Love, Beyoncé, Jay-Z

- You Spin Me Round (Like A Record), Dead Or Alive

- Self Esteem, The Offspring

- Sad Beautiful Tragic, Taylor Swift

- love is embarrassing, Olivia Rodrigo

- The Night Begins To Shine, B.E.R.

- On My Own, Ross Lynch

- I Want You Back, *NSYNC

Patton

- Hard Times, Paramore

- Waiting Room, Phoebe Bridgers

- Get The Funk Out, Extreme

- Thick Skull, Paramore

- Pocketful Of Sunshine, Natasha Bedingfield

- Fire Flies, Gorillaz

- That’s When, Taylor Swift, Kieth Urban

- Graceland Too, Phoebe Bridgers

- Black Hole, boygenius

- Still Into You, Paramore

Virgil

- Green Eyes, Red Face, Lucy Dacus

- Dancing With Our Hands Tied, Taylor Swift

- Second Chance, Shinedown

- Moon Song, Phoebe Bridgers

- ballad of a homeschooled girl, Olivia Rodrigo

- Salt In The Wound, boygenius

- Thick Skull (Re: Julien Baker), Paramore

- All The Things She Said, t.A.T.u.

- I Know The End, Phoebe Bridgers

- Mean, Taylor Swift

Janus

- Ignorance, Paramore

- Rolling In The Deep, Adele

- Stick Season, Noah Kahan

- Build God, Then We’ll Talk, Panic! At The Disco

- Feather, Sabrina Carpenter

- Potential Breakup Song, Aly & AJ

- Ain’t It Fun, Paramore

- Angel Of Small Death And The Codeine Scene, Hozier

- Big Man, Little Dignity, Paramore

- COPYCAT, Billie Eilish

Remus

- Misery Business, Paramore

- Maneater, Nelly Furtado

- The Kids Aren’t Alright, The Offspring

- This Fire, Franz Ferdinand

- Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High, Arctic Monkeys

- Motion Sickness, Phoebe Bridgers

- I Ain’t Got Time!, Tyler, The Creator

- The Bitch Is Back, Elton John

- Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time, Panic! At The Disco

- EVIL, Melanie Martinez

Bonuses!

- Janus & Patton: Who Are You, Really?, Mikky Ekko

- Roman & Virgil: Electric Touch, Taylor Swift, Fall Out Boy

- Logan & Remus: I Can See You, Taylor Swift

- The Dark Sides: Not Strong Enough, boygenius

- Logan & Patton: Oh No!, MARINA

[a-side-character]

Never underestimate the healing properties and power of a comfort media

[danglovely]

Taskmaster Location Task Settings

Series 8: Buckinghamshire Railway Centre Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

[cloudberrylane]

Team Task. Catch all the red balls in things from the shed. Catch all the yellow balls in clothing. Don't let the green balls touch anything other than the grass. Catch the blue ball in something from the kitchen. Red balls are worth 1 point; yellows, 2; the blue is worth 5. You lose 2 points for every green ball that touches anything other than the grass. You may not touch the ball machines. Any non-green ball that touches the ground at any point will not count. Highest score wins. The balls will start firing in 2 minutes from now. (+Sian's cheating)

[jaratedeguadalupe]

The reason I make janus useless at everything Is because I like my wee men pathetic  

[mythrianalpha]

Shoutout to fever brain for giving me one of the funniest meet-cute-esque ideas. I think the context was Remus seeing a nervous Janus in Picani’s waiting room and trying to make him feel better, and Picani wondering why his next meeting hasn’t shown up despite being checked in. Totally works if ‘too incredulous to feel anxiety’ counts as a success, though I imagine most initial interactions with remus feel like getting hit with a frying pan.

“Everything alright out here?”

“We locked eyes and he saw the truth. He simply could not handle his own accursed swaglessness in the face of my fly vibes. That’s okay though; the true swag is all the branded shit we’re gonna steal from the mall at 5.”

“Did you just call me fucking swagless and invite me shoplifting?”

[soysaucevictim]

Some neurospicy Gymrat!Creativitwins shit - both of them are prone to time blindness and insomnia.

Both aren't a huge fan of analog clocks (though Remus would prefer the 24>12 hr ones.)

With Roman it's a double hitter of time blindness and moderate dyscalculia. Boy's gonna stare at the thing for a good few minutes to decipher the hours and minutes from each other and into a useful piece of information (like logging things at work).

With Remus, he don't have trouble with that information. Its always mixing AM with PM that trips him up. His sleep habits are so topsy turvy, he has to do double takes on what side of the day he's looking at. (In theory, boy knows the difference... in practice, it's a whole other problem.)

[istherewifiinhell]

give me a task that requires a power sander ANYDAY over the shit i had to do today. like sure the physical strain but i feel like the mental entertainment is... clearly apparent to anyone whose used one/can picture it and its the right kind of pervert with a real can do attitude.

[strang3lov3]

VS

Summary: Yours and Joel’s newest patrol task is exploring the old mall not far from Jackson. You learn what Victoria’s Secret really is. (She was NOT having an affair with former president of the United States Colonel Sanders) AKA grumpy cranky joel and you get down and dirty in an old Victoria’s Secret.

This is part 1 of my new series “Mall Rats”

Warnings: smut, fingering, unprotected piv, creampie, doin it in front of a mirror (thanks gracie!), reverse cowgirl, joel is a dick, joel is condescending, reader is charming just like me, Joel does all the work because reader is a lady and Joel is an asshole.

W/C: 4.7k

“Weird looking stairs,” you mumble as you take in the unique environment. Beneath your feet are metallic steps with deep lined grooves, in front of you is Joel, stepping down the staircase. In the enclosed building, the walls are lined with different shops, there’s a few different seating areas. Old posters, advertisements. Colorfully painted walls are overgrown with roots and vines. 

“S’cause they’re not regular stairs,” Joel says with a gruff voice. “S’called an escalator. Didn’t have to walk up and down the steps, you could stay stationary and it’d move ya up an’ down.”

“Sounds cool.”

“No,” Joel mutters. “Not cool.”

None of this is cool to Joel. In fact, it’s the opposite. 

Tommy and his crew had stumbled across this mall while on patrol. Of course they couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but they deemed it largely safe of infected. He wasn’t sure how picked over it was, but he figured it would be a good task for you and your curious mind. Comb it through for supplies, clothing, entertainment. Take notes and report back to him. 

So what was Joel there for?

To chaperone you, of course. Keep you out of trouble, keep you safe, answer your million and one questions. 

It was Tommy’s sick and twisted idea of a joke. Joel’s new patrol project involved two of the things he disdained the most: Malls, and you.

 Comedy gold.

“No,” you mock his tone with a silly face, “Not cool.”

Joel rolls his eyes and ignores you. When you reach the bottom of the steps, he looks at his surroundings as he reaches in his bag for his flashlight. Turning it on he says, “We’ll start down here and work our way up. Scope everything out, get familiar. Then you can start combing through the stores for supplies and what have you. You stick by me. No wanderin’.”

“Don’t you mean we?” you ask. “We comb through the stores.”

“No, sweetheart, I don’t. S’your job, not mine. I’m just here to keep ya from gettin’ killed.”

Whatever. Joel can bitch and moan about this all he wants, but you’re grateful for the opportunity to explore the infinite wonders of the mall. It’s not like you’ve got much else to do. You’re indoors, safe from the elements and infected. You’re not complaining. 

You reach into your own bag and pull out your flashlight. You turn it on, and the light flickers dimly. You smack it with your palm a couple times before the light finally goes out, then turn to Joel with a sweet smile on your face. “You wouldn’t happen to have a couple extra–”

“You’re lucky I do,” Joel glares at you as he digs through his belongings to find a couple of double A batteries in his pack. You hold out your hand and he begrudgingly drops the batteries in your palm. “Quit fuckin’ around. Be prepared next time.” He’s certainly jolly today. 

You replace the batteries and turn your flashlight on, and begin to make your way through the bottom level of the mall. Joel’s said nothing since giving you the batteries. 

“So what did you do here? Or, not here specifically. Just like, malls in general,” you ask as you make your way through tables and chairs. A big sign on a nearby wall informs you that this area is called the food court. 

“I did nothing. Malls were always packed with people, way too busy. Too many teenagers. Expensive too,” Joel scrunches his nose as he catches a whiff of something foul at an old hot dog stand. “But other people, they’d come here and shop for clothes, get somethin’ to eat. Could catch a movie f’ya wanted.”

“So where’d you get your clothes from?”

Joel shrugs. “Dunno. Just kinda always had them in my dresser, I guess.”

Sounds like Joel. 

There’s a Panda Express, something called Auntie Anne’s that you and Joel are looking through together. He’s eyeing the cooking equipment and you’re baffled as you stare at a five gallon drum of nacho cheese on the floor.

“That cheese is probably still good,” Joel comments. 

“You’re joking.”

“It ain’t the real cheese like we got back in Jackson. Auntie Anne’s was a pretzel shop, lotta people would dip ‘em in that cheese.”

Auntie Anne’s doesn’t have much to offer, so you and Joel move right along. Next stop is Kentucky Fried Chicken. You point to the man on the logo. “Who’s that?”

“Colonel Sanders. He was the president way back when.”

You know better. “No, he wasn’t.”

“Sure he was,” Joel says. “You weren’t there. You don’t know.”

He’s such a dick. You roll your eyes and leave him and Colonel Sanders to their own devices as you walk through the rest of the food court. 

Joel doesn’t realize you’d left. He tells you another Kentucky Fried Fun Fact and when he’s met with no answer, he looks up to find you at Cinnabon at the end of the food court. 

He makes his way to you then kicks you with his boot. “Didn’t I tell you to stay next to me?”

You ignore his question and ask him your own. “What’s Cinnabon?”

“M’serious,” he says. “No more wanderin’.”

“Yeah, yeah. No wanderin’.” you mock his Southern accent once more. But more importantly, you demand answers. “Tell me about Cinnabon.” 

“They’re just cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon. Bun. S’in the name, genius.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t like those much either, then.”

“Actually, they were pretty good. Big and gooey, covered in icing. You were supposed to split ‘em with someone but I never did.”

“Ah, right. You and your sweet tooth,” You smile. 

“I don’t have a sweet tooth,” Joel lies. “Keep movin’.”

So you do. There’s a lemonade stand here and there, but mostly shops now. A bookstore, jewelry stores. Something called “Wet Seal”. You ask Joel what it is, to which he replies “Fuck if I know.”

A shoe store has piqued Joel’s interest. He’s looking for a new pair of boots as you stare out the window of the shop, wondering who the hell Victoria is and what secret she’s hiding. Joel taps you on the arm to tell you to follow him as he leaves the shoe store.

“What’s Victoria’s Secret?”

“Oh,” Joel says. “Nothin’. We don’t need to go there.”

Oof. Bad move, Joel. Now you have to find out what the deal is with Victoria’s Secret. You take off for the store, ignoring Joel’s orders to stick by his side. “Did she have a secret affair with President Colonel Sanders?”

“No, god dammit. Get back here. We ain’t goin’.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t wanna.”

But you do. So you ignore his bitching and approach the store, stopping when you realize exactly what kind of store it is. “Oh.”

Joel catches up to you. “Mhm,” he mumbles. “S’just underwear. Now c’mon, I’m tired of chasin’ ya.”

“No way,” you argue. “I need new underwear. I’m actually going commando right now, so this is perfect.”

 Joel makes a face like he’s in pain and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ. Boundaries.”

You don’t believe in TMI. 

You enter the store, entranced by the women in the photos and the black sparkly floor. There’s a big table with panties laid on top, drawers underneath that indicate sizing. You open the drawers with your size and begin sifting through the underwear. All different styles, patterns, colors. Way cuter than the few you have back in Jackson. 

You pick out a few different pairs. Brown with pink polka dots, pink with red roses. Some bikini styles, some boyshorts. You hold up a white pair with lace and a little blue flower sewn on the center of the waistband. “Joel, look! Aren’t these cute?”

“Just adorable,” he mumbles without bothering to actually look. If his voice were any more full of sarcasm he’d choke. Joel keeps his eyes firm on the ground, like he’s being intimidated by the mannequins and their threatening panties. You giggle and he shoots you a warning look. 

You look for a few more pairs, then find a few pairs that look a little different. You hold one up, trying to figure out which side you put your legs through. When you look at the nearly bare-assed woman in the advertisement that reads 5 for $20 above you, you realize how it’s meant to be worn. Oh, you think. Neato. You stuff a few of the thongs in your bag. Could be fun. 

Joel’s still behind you, eyes still focused on the floor, off in his own, prudish little world. You wonder what he’s thinking. There’s a fire engine red thong in the drawer, with sparkles and lace. You know, the works. And you know it’ll be just perfect for a special someone. “Hey, Joel. Found some for you.”

“Not interested.”

You loop the thong over your index finger and pull back with your other hand, then shoot it at Joel like it’s a hair tie. It hits him square on his nose and he catches it in his hand, then throws it on the ground as he pouts. “Alright, enough. You’re done. We’re leavin’.”

You shake your head. “Tommy said I’m in charge.”

Joel groans. “Oh, for the love of god. In charge, my ass.”

You know better than to keep arguing. So you just walk towards the bras, ignoring Joel’s voice in the background telling you to get back here. He hates it when you walk away from him when he’s speaking, so he always follows you so that you hear every last word. It works out, though. You get to do what you want, and Joel gets to give you his stern talking-to. How’s that for a compromise?

The bras are set up similarly to the panties, with different drawers for different sizes. Joel’s still going off about how you never follow orders, how you probably don’t even need any of this, you’re just doing it to get under his skin. And it’s working. Something about how when we get back to Jackson, I’m telling Tommy to take me off of patrol with y–

You interrupt. “The fuck?”

“What?”

“What does any of this mean? 30A, 30B, 32A, 34C, 34DD?” You hold up different bras and show him the tags. 

“Those are sizes, sweetheart.” 

“Yeah, I gathered that, thanks. But what’s my size?”

“Why’re ya askin’ me? Just grab one so we can go. Christ almighty.” 

Men. No help at all. 

Surely a store that specializes in bras must have some sort of sizing chart or something. There’s end caps with different beauty products, you stuff a strawberry flavored lipgloss in your pocket as you search. The register might have something, you guess. And lucky you, you’re right. Under the counter are a few measuring tapes and charts. 

Predictable Joel follows you, of course. He says nothing as you read through the instructions. First wrap around your back, under your armpits and just above your bust. That’s your band size. Then do the same with your bust, and subtract the band size from the bust. There’s your A, B, C, D and so on.

You take off your hoodie and stand in just a tank top, no bra. When you said commando, you meant it. Joel watches you as you wrap the measuring tape around yourself. 

“Sweetheart,” Joel interrupts, and he sounds exhausted. “What are you doin’.”

“Making you a Cinnabon, what’s it look like?” you mumble with your chin smushed into your neck as you try to read the numbers on the tape. 

And Joel thought Ellie was annoying. 

You’ve got the measuring tape twisted and tangled behind you, and you don’t even realize it. The inner contractor in Joel can’t bear to watch any more of this fuckery. “Give me that,” he spits, yanking the measuring tape away from your body. “You’re useless.”

Joel looks over the directions for a moment before tapping your arms. You lift up, he wraps the measuring tape properly around your body. There’s a nearby pen and he scribbles the number down, then lowers the measuring tape, his thumbs skating over the clothed flesh of your breasts. Your nipples harden as his fingers brush them accidentally. 

And you thought the thong you shot at Joel was red. It doesn’t even begin to compare to the shade of crimson Joel’s face turns as he realizes what he’s done. Quickly, he drops the measuring tape and writes down the second number and your bra size. “Ther-” his voice cracks and he clears his throat. “There. Go find your bra. Then we’re leavin’, and I’m not arguin’ this time.”

You smirk at his vocal mishap. “Okay. But I have to try them on first.”

“You never make things easy for me, do you?”

Joel follows you as you look for a few different bras in your size. You pick out a few that match your panties, and a few others. There’s a silky black bra with so much memory foam padding that it rivals your pillow at home. Again, perfect for your special someone. 

Joel’s smelling different perfumes when you sidle up to him and lay the bra on his head, the large cups sitting on either side of his scalp. “Mickey Mouse,” you tell him.

Joel glares at you as he removes the bra and drops it on the floor. “You are giving me a fuckin’ aneurysm.” 

You look pleased with yourself, which only makes him more pissed off. But the table next to Joel catches your eye. There’s a pretty satin babydoll dress, with a matching pair of panties. It’s a nice light pink color, with pretty floral lace. “Hmm.” you mumble, thinking to yourself.

Joel watches your eyes leave his face as you become distracted. “What?” he turns his attention toward where your vision is focused. “Oh. Nope. You don’t need that.”

 “Why not?”

“You said you needed underwear. S’lingerie. All them frills and lace…” Joel trails off.

“I think it’d be nice for a date night.”

Joel’s jaw clenches slightly. “I do not envy the poor bastard who takes you home,” he says. He’s probably just annoyed, at his wit’s end with you. Probably not jealous. Definitely not jealous. “But guys don’t give a shit what you’re wearin’, honey. Just wanna get what’s underneath. S’a waste of time.”

You shrug and grab your size in the lingerie anyway. Then you take off towards the dressing rooms to try everything on. You enter the first room on the right, and Joel sits at a bench directly across, just a few feet away from you. 

You try on a couple of bras and feel pleased when they fit and support you. They make the girls sit pretty, too.

You take off the bra and eye the pretty babydoll and its matching bottom. So you try it on, and it’s gorgeous. It frames you nicely, sits right above your ass to show off the panties. You admire yourself in the mirror for a while before deciding you’ll save it for a date night. Fuck what Joel says. Maybe he doesn’t like lingerie, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. 

Things are going smoothly until you try to unhook the babydoll in the back. It’s stuck or something. You fidget with it for a second, accidentally smacking your elbow against one of the dressing room walls in the process. 

“Y’alright in there?” Joel calls out to you.

“Fine, just uh…” You step out of the dressing room. “Need your help with the hook in the back. It’s stuck.”

Joel looks like a deer in the headlights when you stand before him, clad in your pink satin babydoll and matching panties. You leave the changing room door open, Joel stares at your ass on the mirror attached to it. He’s all flustered, eyes wide and mouth agape. “Lord have mercy.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re not a lingerie guy.”

Joel swallows thickly. “I don’t know about that, exactly.”

“No?” You raise an eyebrow. Joel, suddenly a man of few words. How much nicer he is when he’s quiet, you think. “How about you unhook it so I can change?”

“Yeah I could uh…do that.” Joel stands up, then carefully holds the straps of your dress between his fingers. His featherlight touch leaves goosebumps on your shoulders. “Shouldn’t be wearin’ this. It’s very impractical.” 

“I know, Joel. You mentioned that.”

His hands trail lower down the straps, his fingers resting against your skin. “Uh huh. Cheap material…could get torn very easily f’ya aren’t careful.”

And then his fingers are moving up the straps again. He places two hands on your hips and turns you around, fingers skating across your ass cheeks. You feel his body step closer to yours, his hot breath on your neck as he whispers, “M’sure it's not stitched too good. Probably not easy to clean, either.” He catches you off guard when you look at yourself in the mirror. He’s staring intently at the reflection of your body, then his eyes flicker to yours.

“Right,” you agree. 

Joel’s scanning your body again, observing how the fabric falls around your curves just so. He looks hungry, like the moment you peel your eyes from him he’ll devour you.

“Are you gonna take it off of me?” He ignores your question as he pinches the bottom of your babydoll between his fingers, the soft satin tickling your skin as he moves the fabric. “Joel?”

“Yeah, hon. I’m gettin’ there. Be patient f’me, now.” Your stomach flutters at the low timbre of his voice, the way he purrs in your ear. Joel absolutely does not like lingerie. Not one bit, god dammit.

His eyes are darkened with lust as he sucks in a breath, admiring the way your breasts sit beneath the clothing, the way it drapes over your stomach and rests on your hips. One of the straps falls off your shoulder and he clicks his tongue. “See? S’no good.”

“Guess so,” you agree, and he places the strap back on your shoulder, his fingers lingering for a moment too long as he contemplates his next move.

“Closer,” he pulls your hand towards himself, and you step backward. He lets his hands slide down your body over the lingerie and you watch him frown in the mirror, his hands stopping when he reaches the bottom of your dress. “N’it covers up all these pretty curves…” Joel lifts up the fabric, inspecting the craftsmanship of your panties. He takes note of the way they’re darkened beneath your core, sticky with your arousal. “These panties…thin, huh?” He traces a finger delicately over the strap on your hip, pulling it back and snapping on your skin. 

Your breath hitches in your throat. “Joel,” you breathe shakily, “You’re teasing me.”

“M’sorry, darlin’. Just tryna show ya somethin’.” You watch as he trails a finger over your mound, dragging it across the damp cloth and finding your clit over the fabric. He rubs steady circles as he whispers, “See, now look at that. You’re stainin’ em. Makin’ a big fuckin’ mess of yourself.”

You bite back a moan. “Joel, what are you doing?”

“What’s it look like, I’m makin’ a Cinnabon.” Joel mocks you from earlier, but you don’t catch his snide teasing. You’re foggy headed and lost in this moment. “I just said I’m tryna show ya somethin’. Now hush while I’m speakin’.” He pushes your panties to the side, smirking when he feels how soaked your soft folds are as he drags his fingers up and down your slit. Your knees weaken and wobble, and Joel wraps an arm around your waist to guide you back some more. He sits on the bench with you on his lap, tapping a foot in between yours. You spread your legs and your stomach flutters feeling his hardness press against you. You watch him through the mirror as he speaks quietly into your ear, his breath tickling you as two of his thick fingers breach your entrance and push inside. “You said this lil’ number would be nice for a date, right?”

You nod while whimpering, turning your face into his neck. With his other strong hand, he holds your jaw and turns your attention back to the mirror in front of you. “S’matter? Don’t be gettin’ all bashful on me now,” he murmurs.  He’s curling his fingers, swirling them inside you and memorizing every inch of your walls. “Watch how I touch ya.”

You watch his fingers twitch and dance under your pretty pink panties. You peel your eyes away to look at his face, and he’s focused on his hand between your thighs. 

“S’pose it could be nice for a date,” Joel breathes. “You’d wear this, what, under a pretty dress or somethin’?”

You nod again.

“And then when that pretty dress comes off that evenin’, then what happens?”

“I-I dunno, Joel.”

“I know you don’t, sweetheart. I’ll tell you what happens. Your gentleman's gonna take one look at this little getup and rip it right off. Leave it in shreds on the floor and break your poor heart.”

You’re waiting for Joel to do just that. But he doesn’t, he just keeps fingering you under your panties. Two fingers deep inside you, thumb painting circles into your clit. There’s a heat building in your stomach, tickling you from the inside. Joel takes a moment to lift you up, undo his jeans and pull himself out before he begins to rock against you. His head nudges between your cheeks, warm and smooth and hard. How you wish you could see it, hold it in your hand, feel him with your tongue. You squirm against him and find his free arm, hugging it tight to steady yourself on him. Joel chuckles in a low tone.

“But I know you feel pretty,” Joel continues, “M’gonna work around it for ya, baby, but only if you’re good t’me. You know what that means?”

You’re irritated as you shake your head no. Joel’s using his fingers to taunt you, tease you. He knows just how he’s working you up, giving you just enough to keep you squirming but not enough to send you over the edge.

“It means–” Joel pulls his fingers away from your core and you groan. “Shush. Quit your whinin’.” He pushes you up by your hips so he can pull his pants down a little further, then sits you on his lap again, this time with his cock sitting between your folds and your panties pulled as far to the side as he could get them. With his hands still on your hips, he guides you up and down, up and down, coating himself in your arousal. You can just barely make out the shape as his tip rubs against your clit. He continues, “Means no more wanderin’,” he pulls the top of the babydoll down and watches your tits fall out, his both hands leaving your hips and sliding up to play with your breasts. “Y’come prepared for patrol,” he notches his stiff cock at your dripping entrance, “And I’m in charge. Not you. We clear?”

You nod. You’re not sure how he did it, but with Joel’s teasing, he’s seemingly melted away every bit of attitude in you.

“Good girl. Now don’t say I don’t do nothin’ for ya.”

With that, he thrusts up into you, parting your insides. You watch his cock disappear inside of you before throwing your head back on his shoulder with a moan. Joel smirks before using a firm yet gentle hand to guide your head back where he wants it. “Watch,” he coos, reminding you. “You’re pretty like this.”

Joel uses his hands on your hips to bounce you on his cock, then lets them glide up your body. He palms your breasts, squeezing and watching your flesh move and bulge under his fingers. He gropes you a couple of times while pinching and twisting your nipples, enjoying the way your moans change pitch with the action. 

While Joel plays with your nipples, you ride him. Your thighs ache and tremble, knees shaking. You bounce yourself on him a little longer before letting yourself go limp. 

Joel takes the hint, drops his hands to your hips and picks up where you left off. You lean back and let him do his thing. “Gonna make me do all the work for ya, huh?”

You say nothing, just let those sweet sounds fall from your lips as he fucks you. You reach between your thighs and touch what you can of him, unsatisfied with the way you didn’t get to before. Joel makes a noise, seemingly enjoying it.

He kneads your ass as he uses his strong arms to move you up and down, snapping his hips against yours. “Fuck,” he hisses. He lets out breathy sounds, grunts and growls tickling your ear and making the hair on your neck stand straight up. He’s sweating, soaking through his shirt and making your back feel damp. You’ll take what you can get of Joel right now, but you’re wishing you could see him better. Feel him more, his skin, watch his muscles twitch under you. Or above you. You don’t have a preference at the moment.

“Joel,” you moan. “Oh, Joel.”

He smirks, pleased with the noises you make. Pleased with your lack of words, your lack of attitude. How docile for him you are. He would have fucked you long ago if he knew you’d be like this. So well behaved. 

He turns his face into your neck and bites down. Hard. He soothes the marks over with his tongue, whispering nothings into your skin. You find your clit with your hand and begin circling it while Joel fucks into you. You think you have the right. Joel, however, disagrees.

“Hey,” he smacks your hand away. “What’d we talk about? Who’s in charge?” You move your hand between your thighs again, and Joel circles your wrist with his fingers and holds it away from you. “I asked you a question.”

“You are, Joel,” you breathe. 

“S’right. Means I take care of ya,” In the mirror, you watch Joel let go of your wrist and find your clit himself. “Thought you’d know better. Just sit pretty. S’all ya gotta do.”

“Joel,” you whisper, “Let me come,” 

“What’s the magic word, hon?”

“Please,” you beg. “Please. Make me come for you, I want–I wanna come on your cock, please. Please, Joel.”

“Wrong,”

You huff, exasperated and frustrated. 

 “It’s Cinnabon.”

Joel shifts himself on the bench, finding the perfect angle. He continues fucking you, effortlessly finding that sweet spot inside you. He pulls back the hood of your clit, fingers painting the sensitive nub as he begins his work. Your thighs tremble and shake, he keeps you pressed tight to his chest. 

He’s magic. You’re moaning with abandon, eyes darting between the picture between your thighs and his face, and he’s playing with you like he owns you. 

“Right there,” you tell him. “Right there, Joel.”

Soon enough, your moans become breathier and broken, spread out between a medley of curse words and Joel’s name. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Look at you, comin’ so nice on my cock.”

You squeeze Joel’s working arm as you come, nails digging into his hot skin, feeling his tendons and muscles twitch under your fingertips. Your walls pulse and contract with your orgasm, the pleasure built up deep inside you spilling over and coursing through your veins. 

You’re limp against Joel, letting him use you as he chases his own release. He sits you straight up, bounces you harshly for a moment before breathing through his gritted teeth. You pull your attention from the mirror in front of you and focus your vision on your lap, watching as he comes inside you. Watching yourself soak his cock. He keeps you moving, his spend spilling out of you and over your pink panties. 

Joel pulls your body off of him and sits you back down. His spend continues dripping out of you, spilling onto the bench. He gets your clothes out of the dressing room and places them next to you, then stands you up and unclips your babydoll dress in the back. You forgot about that. But he did say he was getting to it, after all. 

He pulls the garment off of you, then helps you out of your stained panties. He helps you into a new pair of panties, the white pair with the little blue flower on the waistband. “So you’re not goin’ commando anymore,” he says. Then he dresses you in one of your new bras, your shirt and your pants. The lingerie lays crumpled on the floor. 

“So you still don’t like lingerie?” you ask.

Joel shrugs. “Keep it. I don’t care,” He presses a kiss to your forehead. “You tried your shit on, we’re leavin’.”

That’s fine by you. Next stop is Bath and Body Works. You spotted it earlier, and you actually know what that store is. You’re low on body sprays and you’re gonna make Joel help you pick out some new ones, even if you have to drag him kicking and screaming. 

‘Cause Tommy said you’re in charge. 

Part two here

NO MORE TAGLIST!! Follow @strang3stories and turn on notifs!

[an-organized-confusion]

Recent adulting adventures had me thinking of Prudence again (one of my own “Sides“.)

And how functionally Prudence is kind of a Virgil/Logan/Janus fusion. And I was thinking it like a Garnet situation (from SU).

When shit gets bad in the mental health department - Prudence probably splits up. When Anxiety-Brain (clearly Virgil-adjacent) needs to be actively talked at by Rational-Brain (mostly Logan-esque, w/ dash of Janus) to temper my expectation/appraisal/response of/to Problem(s).

Usually, when I’m at my best Prudence is in control. :,D

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Pizzaburger Presidency

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The corporate wing of the Democrats has objectively terrible political instincts, because the corporate wing of the Dems wants things that are very unpopular with the electorate (this is a trait they share with the Republican establishment).

Remember Hillary Clinton's unimaginably terrible campaign slogan, "America is already great?" In other words, "Vote for me if you believe that nothing needs to change":

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/758501814945869824

Biden picked up the "This is fine" messaging where Clinton left off, promising that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he became president:

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/

Biden didn't so much win that election as Trump lost it, by doing extremely unpopular things, including badly bungling the American covid response and killing about a million people.

Biden's 2020 election victory was a squeaker, and it was absolutely dependent on compromising with the party's left wing, embodied by the Warren and Sanders campaigns. The Unity Task Force promised – and delivered – key appointments and policies that represented serious and powerful change for the better:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

Despite these excellent appointments and policies, the Biden administration has remained unpopular and is heading into the 2024 election with worryingly poor numbers. There is a lot of debate about why this might be. It's undeniable that every leader who has presided over a period of inflation, irrespective of political tendency, is facing extreme defenstration, from Rishi Sunak, the far-right prime minister of the UK, to the relentlessly centrist Justin Trudeau in Canada:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-three-barriers-biden-reelection/

It's also true that Biden has presided over a genocide, which he has been proudly and significantly complicit in. That Trump would have done the same or worse is beside the point. A political leader who does things that the voters deplore can't expect to become more popular, though perhaps they can pull off less unpopular:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-left-is-not-joe-bidens-problem

Biden may be attracting unfair blame for inflation, and totally fair blame for genocide, but in addition to those problems, there's this: Biden hasn't gotten credit for the actual good things he's done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoflHnGrCpM

Writing in his newsletter, Matt Stoller offers an explanation for this lack of credit: the Biden White House almost never talks about any of these triumphs, even the bold, generational ones that will significantly alter the political landscape no matter who wins the next election:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-does-the-biden-white-house-hate

Biden's antitrust enforcers have gone after price-fixing in oil, food and rent – the three largest sources of voter cost-of-living concern. They've done more on these three kinds of crime than all of their predecessors over the past forty years, combined. And yet, Stoller finds example after example of White House press secretaries being lobbed softballs by the press and refusing to even try to swing at them. When asked about any of this stuff, the White House demurs, refusing to comment.

The reasons they give for this is that they don't want to mess up an active case while it's before the courts. But that's not how this works. Yes, misstatements about active cases can do serious damage, but not talking about cases extinguishes the political will needed to carry them out. That's why a competent press secretary excellent briefings and training, because they must talk about these cases.

Think for a moment about the fact that the US government is – at this very moment – trying to break up Google, the largest tech company in the history of the world, and there has been virtually no press about it. This is a gigantic story. It's literally the biggest business story ever. It's practically a secret.

Why doesn't the Biden admin want to talk about this very small number of very good things it's doing? To understand that, you have to understand the hollowness of "centrist" politics as practiced in the Democratic Party.

The Democrats, like all political parties, are a coalition. Now, there are lots of ways to keep a coalition together. Parties who detest one another can stay in coalition provided that each partner is getting something they want out of it – even if one partner is bitterly unhappy about everything else happening in the coalition. That's the present-day Democratic approach: arrest students, bomb Gaza, but promise to do something about abortion and a few other issues while gesturing with real and justified alarm at Trump's open fascism, and hope that the party's left turns out at the polls this fall.

Leaders who play this game can't announce that they are deliberately making a vital coalition partner miserable and furious. Instead, they insist that they are "compromising" and point to the fact that "everyone is equally unhappy" with the way things are going.

This school of politics – "Everyone is angry at me, therefore I am doing something right" – has a name, courtesy of Anat Shenker-Osorio: "Pizzaburger politics." Say half your family wants burgers for dinner and the other half wants pizza: make a pizzaburger and disappoint all of them, and declare yourself to be a politics genius:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

But Biden's Pizzaburger Presidency doesn't disappoint everyone equally. Sure, Biden appointed some brilliant antitrust enforcers to begin the long project of smashing the corporate juggernauts built through forty years of Reaganomics (including the Reganomics of Bill Clinton and Obama). But his lifetime federal judicial appointments are drawn heavily from the corporate wing of the party's darlings, and those judges will spend the rest of their lives ruling against the kinds of enforcers Biden put in charge of the FTC and DoJ antitrust division:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

So that's one reason that Biden's comms team won't talk about his most successful and popular policies. But there's another reason: schismogenesis.

"Schismogenesis" is a anthropological concept describing how groups define themselves in opposition to their opponents (if they're for it, we're against it). Think of the liberals who became cheerleaders for the "intelligence community" (you know the CIA spies who organized murderous coups against a dozen Latin American democracies, and the FBI agents who tried to get MLK to kill himself) as soon as Trump and his allies began to rail against them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/schizmogenesis/

Part of Trump's takeover of conservativism is a revival of "the paranoid style" of the American right – the conspiratorial, unhinged apocalyptic rhetoric that the movement's leaders are no longer capable of keeping a lid on:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

This stuff – the lizard-people/Bilderberg/blood libel/antisemitic/Great Replacement/race realist/gender critical whackadoodlery – was always in conservative rhetoric, but it was reserved for internal communications, a way to talk to low-information voters in private forums. It wasn't supposed to make it into your campaign ads:

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/27/texas-republicans-adopts-conservative-wish-list-for-the-2024-platform/73858798007/

Today's conservative vibe is all about saying the quiet part aloud. Historian Rick Perlstein calls this the "authoritarian ratchet": conservativism promises a return to a "prelapsarian" state, before the country lost its way:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-05-29-my-political-depression-problem/

This is presented as imperative: unless we restore that mythical order, the country is doomed. We might just be the last generation of free Americans!

But that state never existed, and can never be recovered, but it doesn't matter. When conservatives lose a fight they declare to be existential (say, trans bathroom bans), they just pretend they never cared about it and move on to the next panic.

It's actually worse for them when they win. When the GOP repeals Roe, or takes the Presidency, the Senate and Congress, and still fails to restore that lost glory, then they have to find someone or something to blame. They turn on themselves, purging their ranks, promise ever-more-unhinged policies that will finally restore the state that never existed.

This is where schismogenesis comes in. If the GOP is making big, bold promises, then a shismogenesis-poisoned liberal will insist that the Dems must be "the party of normal." If the GOP's radical wing is taking the upper hand, then the Dems must be the party whose radical wing is marginalized (see also: UK Labour).

This is the trap of schismogenesis. It's possible for the things your opponents do to be wrong, but tactically sound (like promising the big changes that voters want). The difference you should seek to establish between yourself and your enemies isn't in promising to maintaining the status quo – it's in promising to make better, big muscular changes, and keeping those promises.

It's possible to acknowledge that an odious institution to do something good – like the CIA and FBI trying to wrongfoot Trump's most unhinged policies – without becoming a stan for that institution, and without abandoning your stance that the institution should either be root-and-branch reformed or abolished altogether.

The mere fact that your enemy uses a sound tactic to do something bad doesn't make that tactic invalid. As Naomi Klein writes in her magnificent Doppelganger, the right's genius is in co-opting progressive rhetoric and making it mean the opposite: think of their ownership of "fake news" or the equivalence of transphobia with feminism, of opposition to genocide with antisemitism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Promising bold policies and then talking about them in plain language at every opportunity is something demagogues do, but having bold policies and talking about them doesn't make you a demagogue.

The reason demagogues talk that way is that it works. It captures the interest of potential followers, and keeps existing followers excited about the project.

Choosing not to do these things is political suicide. Good politics aren't boring. They're exciting. The fact that Republicans use eschatological rhetoric to motivate crazed insurrectionists who think they're the last hope for a good future doesn't change the fact that we are at a critical juncture for a survivable future.

If the GOP wins this coming election – or when Pierre Poilievre's petro-tories win the next Canadian election – they will do everything they can to set the planet on fire and render it permanently uninhabitable by humans and other animals. We are running out of time.

We can't afford to cede this ground to the right. Remember the clickbait wars? Low-quality websites and Facebook accounts got really good at ginning up misleading, compelling headlines that attracted a lot of monetizable clicks.

For a certain kind of online scolding centrist, the lesson from this era was that headlines should a) be boring and b) not leave out any salient fact. This is very bad headline-writing advice. While it claims to be in service to thoughtfulness and nuance, it misses out on the most important nuance of all: there's a difference between a misleading headline and a headline that calls out the most salient element of the story and then fleshes that out with more detail in the body of the article. If a headline completely summarizes the article, it's not a headline, it's an abstract.

Biden's comms team isn't bragging about the administration's accomplishments, because the senior partners in this coalition oppose those accomplishments. They don't want to win an election based on the promise to prosecute and anti-corporate revolution, because they are counter-revolutionaries.

The Democratic coalition has some irredeemably terrible elements. It also has elements that I would march into the sun for. The party itself is a very weak institution that's bad at resolving the tension between both groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Pizzaburgers don't make anyone happy and they're not supposed to. They're a convenient cover for the winners of intraparty struggles to keep the losers from staying home on election day. I don't know how Biden can win this coming election, but I know how he can lose it: keep on reminding us that all the good things about his administration were undertaken reluctantly and could be jettisoned in a second Biden administration.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/29/sub-bushel-comms-strategy/#nothing-would-fundamentally-change

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Phillip Jackson at HuffPost:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced a bill Wednesday that would give federal and state officials more power to hold police departments accused of bad behavior to account. The Enhancing Oversight to End Discrimination in Policing Act, led by Warren and in the House by Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), would strengthen the power of state attorneys general to launch investigations into police departments involved in civil rights violations if the Justice Department fails to act on them. The bill would also task the Justice Department with looking beyond “traditional law enforcement mechanisms” when providing reforms to selective police departments such as mental health support, civilian oversight bodies, and community-based restorative justice programs, according to Warren’s office.

Warren had introduced a version of the bill in 2020. This newest version of the measure would also revitalize the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, granting an increase in funding to pursue civil rights investigations into police departments and other government offices accused of discriminatory practices. It would increase funding for the civil rights division to $445 million per year over a 10-year period. (For scale, the 2023 budget for the division was $189.9 million.)

Warren first introduced her bill following the death of George Floyd in 2020. That earlier draft also called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to rescind a 2017 memorandum from his predecessor, Trump-era Attorney General Jeff Sessions, that limited the DOJ’s ability to initiate consent decrees on police departments — a key way of stopping bad behavior. (Garland rescinded that memorandum in April of 2021.)

Nine senators co-sponsored the bill: Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). Several civil rights organizations are backing Warren’s new bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League and others.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and 9 other co-sponsors in the Senate are supporting the Enhancing Oversight to End Discrimination in Policing Act to strengthen police accountability. Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) is pushing this in the House.

[meatonfork]

may i request more wholesome task force 141 but like with a gen z reader that’s constantly cracking outta pocket jokes and super self deprecating humor ect. and if not then more grim au would really soothe the soul thank you!!

ps. i love your writing sm you’re doing an amazing job 🙏

Platonic 141 x Gender Neutral Gen Z Reader

————————————————————————————————————————

ask and you shall receive :)

pairings: platonic 141 x gn!reader

warnings: self deprecating jokes, suicide jokes, reader being out of pocket

summary: just hc's :) this can also be applied to grim, as they are also gen z and self deprecating. so anything you see here, they have probably done

————————————————————————————————————————

you know that meme of ghost staring at you through the rear view mirror? that's exactly how he would look at you when you say one of your suicide jokes.

one time you noticed that price cleaned up his beard and told him he looked slay before walking out of the room.

"gaz." "yes sir?" "what the fuck does 'slay' mean, and why am i slaying?"

whenever you think one of the guys says something cool, or you agree with them, you just say 'real' with a nod of your head.

they just go along with it

constantly calling soap 'bestie'.

"hey, bestie. come here, i have to show you this sick new knife i got." and he will come running over like a puppy being told there's treats.

one time, on a mission, you got punched pretty hard and said something about it hurting less than when your dad hit you.

"how you feelin', kid?" "ah, my dad hit me harder than that guy on the regular. i'll be fine." gaz did not find this funny.

one night, while sitting in the commons room, soap decided to ask you what the stupidest thing you believed as a child was.

"that i would grow up to be happy." "dude, what the fuck."

you had a uti once, and instead of taking care of yourself, you asked price to bring in the firing squad to put you down.

"i don't really think this warrants this reaction." "it absolutely does."

telling gaz you have a mask kink, as a joke.

it wasn't a joke. he didn't know that.

he told ghost.

when ghost faced revealed to the whole team, you let out the deepest sigh of relief

he asked what that was about and you told him you were glad he didn't look like buff colonel sanders because he scares you

letting everyone know that when soap drives you are NOT the passenger princess, but instead a survivor.

calling price "mommy"

he cried the first time you said it

————————————————————————————————————————

a/n: i hope you enjoyed this! again, this goes hand in hand with grim :)