#the one thing we do right is an exit poll

[hymnostic]

people of the usa your exit polls are baffling why are there so many specific questions and percentages being thrown around

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

stay for a fortnight

a/n: as promised, here is part three of the bodyguard!bucky story ৎ୭

summary: “yes, ground rules,” you sighed, forcing your eyes to rest on anything but him, “it’s just you and me here for two whole weeks, so we’ll need to come up with a plan.”

warnings: bodyguard!bucky barnes x reader, smut, reader’s mom is the british ambassador to france, age gap (10-15 years), tattooed!bucky (both a metal arm and tattoos as picked in a poll by you), beefy!bucky, forbidden romance, staying for two weeks at a chateau in the south of france, forced proximity, bucky is a shameless hoe and we love him for it, kissing, love confession, shower sex, dirty talk, manhandling, size kink, belly bulge, gaping, handjob, fingering, impact play, squirting, multiple orgasms, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie, cumplay

word count: 3870

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“I’m sorry, darling. I tried to get out of it, I really did, even for just one day, but I can’t join you at the chateau this time.” 

“It’s alright, mom,” you exhaled, “I understand.”

Soothingly rubbing her palm down the length of your arm, she suggested, “well, since it won’t be as crowded down there, why don’t you stay a little longer? Maybe a proper break might cheer you up. Maybe one extra week?”

“Actually, two weeks of alone time is just what I need right now,” a faint smile managed to emerge on your lips, “thank you.”

“Great! You go and pack your things, I’ll let Barnes know to do the same,” she announced, and squashed the brief relief you felt just as soon as it had washed over you. 

It felt like ages that Bucky made you sit and wait in the car while he went around the estate to do his initial sweep, making sure it was safe and secure before you got to enter. 

The tenseness that still floated ethereally in the air between you didn’t fade away when he finally came back to crack open the door for you to exit the vehicle. 

“So,” you exhaled once the two of you had crossed the threshold of the chateau, “my room is the one upstairs and at the end of the hallway, yours is wherever the fuck you want, there are like a million bedrooms in this place.”

Your footsteps echoed against the elegantly tiled floors as you twisted to check that he even heard you. He had, seeing as his gaze was still ever glued upon you, though he didn’t offer you a reply. 

Shifting the large bag that hung from your shoulder, the luggage that you stubbornly hadn’t let him carry, you paused just before your stride began to ascend the grand staircase in the middle of the foyer.

“Also, I think we should come up with some ground rules.” 

Your bodyguard’s dark eyebrows then crinkled as he half scoffed, “ground rules?”

“Yes, ground rules,” you sighed, forcing your eyes to rest on anything but him, “it’s just you and me here for two whole weeks, so we’ll need to come up with a plan.”

Exhaling slowly, he simply stated, “whatever you say.”

Before you then began to drift up the wide steps, you cast a glance over your shoulder and said, “meet me in the kitchen in ten.”

“Alright,” you breathed, leaning against the cold marble of the kitchen island as you stared down at the small list you’d scribbled down on a stray post-it you had found in the bottom of your bag, slightly crumbled and with a doodle on the other side, “first rule I’d like to instate is an obvious one, but still needs to be set and stone in order for us to be here together. We can’t sleep together.”

When you heard a low sigh seep from Bucky’s lips, your eyes snapped up to glare at him. 

“Hey! Take this fucking seriously, okay?”

“I am,” he assured you, though his tone indicated the complete opposite of his words. 

“So, rule number two is in prolonging of the first one, which is that we can’t do anything that’ll make us want to sleep with each other,” you cast your glance back down to your messy handwriting, “two A, no swimming in the pool, two B, no nudity, two C, definitely no drinking, and two D, no staring at me,” your eyes flickered back up to catch his blue ones, “especially not like that,” you swiftly gestured to the way he gazed at you.

“Like what?” he didn’t change the manner he looked at you. 

“Like you’ve seen me naked!” 

Your shriek unfortunately only won you the glimpse of a smug smirk upon Bucky’s lips, one you swiftly tried to ignore. 

“Okay,” you blinked in an effort to redirect your attention back to the task at hand and not the butterflies that now soared in your stomach and made you slightly dizzy, “rule number three is technically also under the subsection of number two, but we can’t eat our meals together. No candle-lit dinners, not even a snack.”

Budding in, the man on the other side of the kitchen counter then said, “can I say something?”

With a soft sigh, you mustered the courage to look up at him, “shoot.”

“Do you wanna decide what I wear as well while you're at it? Maybe also when I’m allowed to breathe?”

His jest didn’t as much as conjure a twitch at the corners of your lips as your gaze simply narrowed in his direction, “are you mocking me?”

Boldly leaning his forearms down against the tabletop, he stared back at you, “so what if I am?” though when you assumed he was kidding and you let out a groan, you heard him go on, “all I’m saying is that maybe we don’t set a list of hard rules just to avoid each other. We seem to do just fine when we toss them all out the window.”

“I'm sorry, wait, what?” you blinked. 

“We’ve got two weeks here, so why don’t we make them count?” he shrugged. 

Mouth agape, you dumbfoundedly stared back at him, “you’re kidding, right?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” calmly, his head tilted slightly as he held your stunned gaze, “just think about it.”

The sun only barely managed to set before you felt yourself crack and give in to your bodyguard’s offer. 

Storming into his room, his dark brows only got the chance to rise slightly in astonishment before you nearly tackled him to the ground, throwing your arms around his bulky frame and crashing your lips against his before any of you could say even a single word. 

You didn’t try to hide the raw emotions that came pouring out, causing your efforts to be rough and desperate, though it didn’t take long before Bucky’s touch mirrored the feral nature of your own, leaving you dizzy as you eventually withdrew from the starved kiss, clutching onto his shirt for support as you breathlessly ordered. 

“Take off your clothes.”

Keeping your eyes closed, you tilted your head back to let the drizzle of water rinse out the shampoo from your locks. 

The door to the bathroom was wide open, so when you twisted your form to face the showerhead, you didn’t notice as your faithful protector stopped in his slow tracks right on the other side of the threshold. His eyes trailed down your glistening spine till the sight of you caused him to crumble completely and take advantage of the gift that had just fallen into his lap.  

A low purr vibrated within your chest as the warm water rained down upon you, though suddenly, it wasn’t just the hot shower embracing your form, as a pair of burly arms snaked their way around you. Leaning back into his bulky frame, you caught sight of a crumbled bundle of his clothes tossed on the other side of the fogged-up shower door. A blissful hum crackled within you like a roiling fire as you felt his lips begin to plant soft pecks along the line of your shoulders. 

Though as his touch began to bloom and wander boldly down your frame, a gentle hiss tore through your lazy smile as his fingers came into contact and brushed over your core. 

Nipping at your neck, he murmured, “oh, do you want me to stop?” not removing his metal hand, though halted the pattern he had begun to draw over your petals. 

He already knew full well just how sore and swollen you still were. It would have been impossible not to be after the vigorous activities you’d kept the past week busy with.  

Digging your digits into his forearms to keep you in his embrace, you shot back hazily over your shoulder, “don’t you dare,” before a whimper rippled out of you as Bucky once again rolled your puffy pearl beneath his steely touch. 

“How is it that we’ve already done this for a whole week, yet it only feels like a day?” his voice tickled the shell of your ear as you leaned more of your weight back into him. 

“Really? Because I don’t believe you’d be able to fuck me in a day as many times as you have this past week,” you jested through a whimper, “even for a guy with your stamina.” 

“It’s a good thing it’s just the two of us here… imagine if we hadn’t been alone, if it hadn’t been me walking by and seeing you seduce me like the wicked temptress that you are?”

“I wasn’t trying to do anything of the sort,” you chuckled airily. 

“Really?” he teased just as his touch did, “leaving the door open, that wasn’t on purpose?” 

“No, I swear,” you then tilted your head and admitted, “at least not this time…”

“You mean the time back a month ago when didn’t close the door while taking a bath,” he murmured casually, “then called out to me, asking if I could fetch you a towel, and I had to pretend not to hear you?”

Spinning around at once, your eyebrows were nearly at your hairline as you blinked, “you knew?” 

“Baby, you never had to play that hard just to torture me,” he smiled down at you, “that move was downright cruel,” before he reached for the knob and switched off the water.

A squeal bubbled out of you as Bucky then suddenly plucked you up into his arms, wasting no time before he stepped out of the shower, only pausing for a beat in the comparatively more spacious area, though only in order to manhandle you further and toss you over his shoulder before his feet began to shift once more, leaving wet prints in their wake on the cool tile as he strode towards the exit. 

Strung over his shoulder as if you were a wet piece of laundry and he was the line, you giggled, “wait!” and just managed to catch one of the fluffy towels hanging on the hook he passed. Blinking down at the floor as he crossed the threshold, you watched as droplets of water dribbled down from you both and left a trail on the herringbone flooring, “you’re dripping, you’re gonna get the whole house wet!”

Landing his wide palm in a wet smack across your ass, he chuckled, “I thought that was my line, sweetheart,” teasing about the manner your pussy drooled for him, already leaking down your thighs at this point. 

Soon, the long hallway disappeared from your periphery as Bucky entered the nearest of the many bedrooms, though you barely had time to register your new surroundings before the world fell out from under you and he plopped you down on the bed in the middle of the room. 

Standing his ground and looming above the giggle that was your horizontal form, he stole the towel from your grasp before dragging the terrycloth across your skin. As he dried off the droplets of water that clung to your body, a handful of pecks adorned your flesh as well, often shadowing the cloth. 

Gazing up at him with smile-crinkled eyes, you stretched your feet up in the air, against his torso, and rested them against his wide shoulders as he briefly paused to dry himself off as well. But as he returned to sweep the towel across the last remaining spot upon your body that still glistened from the shower, the peck he pressed to the valley between your boobs was swiftly halted as your grasp found his jaw and you guided his face up towards your own. 

As you brought his lips to your own, you swiftly felt the mattress dent and ripple as he crawled up to hover above you. 

“Ahh, fuck…” he then groaned against your lips as your hand snaked down between your bodies and began to stroke his throbbing girth. 

Tossing the towel to the side, a gasp soon tumbled out past your lips as Bucky’s palms found your tits in a gentle squeeze. Your pebbly nipples stood up to the challenge as he swept a knuckle teasingly across one of them before capturing it in a pinch and tugging slightly to summon a sinful sound deep within your body. 

As your fist slowly twisted up and down his hard length, his close proximity caused your own knuckles to brush across your clit at every heated pass. Almost unconsciously, you tilted your hips slightly and nudged the bulbous tip of him through your glistening petals, the pleasure of which caused your eyes to roll in your skull. 

But just before he could take the initiative and catch your fleeting invitation to let him inside, you caught him off guard and suddenly rolled him onto his back with your frame plastered atop of him. 

Propping yourself up slightly, you grasped his fat girth before slowly sinking down upon it, “o-oh my god,” couldn’t help but breathlessly tumble out of your lungs as a flat palm came down to brace on his broad chest and your thighs gently quivered at the sudden stretch of him. It was a few times that you had to pause on your slow journey down just in order to catch your breath, as his intimidating size caused you to question yet again how you’d ever been able to take it before. 

“Atta girl,” his grip dug into your hips when you slowly began to move, “just like that…” though you still couldn’t persuade your pelvis to sink all the way down to meet his own. 

As you found a gentle roll, one of Bucky’s palms scooped up past your waist and caught one of your tits. Your back arched slightly as he played with your boobs, his hand travelling back and forth as you rode him, though a shuttering moan rippled through your body as he landed a gentle tap down upon one of them, a shiver swiftly trickling down your spine at the spark.

But just as you thought the bodyguard beneath you was blissfully enjoying the show and letting you do all the work yourself, his hips then abruptly offered you a greedy buck.  

“Bucky!” you nearly screamed as he buried the last few inches that you had so fiercely struggled to conquer on your own, “that’s–, I–, holy fuck!” 

You hadn’t been able to take all of him on your own, so he just gave you the little nudge that you needed, even if that nudge thoroughly punched all of the oxygen out of your lungs, he still made you take every staggering inch.

“Come on, don’t stop now,” a chuckle escaped him at your reaction before his palm came down upon your ass to get you back to work, “make yourself cum on this cock.” 

Shakily, you tried to pick up your rhythm once more, dropping your hips to meet his, though he couldn’t remain still for long before he began to fuck up into your warmth. Heavy taps echoed throughout the room as his balls slapped against your slick skin at his efforts. As he met your movements halfway and drove his cock much deeper than you could muster on your own, your left hand drifted down to strum your buzzing clit. 

Already dangerously close to the edge, your hazy gaze flickered down to watch not only how your pussy magically swallowed his big dick, but your eyes also caught sight of the dull bulge that appeared in your lower abdomen, making your brain feel even more fuzzy than before. As your glance flickered back to try and catch his, you found his own stare to still be fiercely locked on the same spot where yours had just strayed from, watching intently at just how deep he went, nearly rearranging your guts just to mould you perfectly to fit his shape. 

When you finally reached your peak, your cunt nearly choked his cock as your silky walls clambered down on him, a small accompaniment of sinful gush squirted around him and drizzled to soak the sheets below. 

While you were still foggy with your eyes barely open, Bucky rolled you both over, his dick still throbbing deep within you. Welcoming the softness of the bed beneath you with a gentle sigh, he then captured your lips in a kiss and swallowed the whimpers that promptly bubbled up as he began to fuck you once more, offering you long, deep strokes that sank you so far into the mattress that you began to wonder if you might rock through it completely.  

“O-oh, so fucking d-deep,” you blubbered. A rhythmic cry forced its way out of your lungs each and every time the tip of him kissed your cervix, nearly bullying the deepest parts of you in a manner that made you feel like the wobbliest of jellies. 

“You scared I’m gonna break you, baby?” his soft lips ghosted against your cheekbone. 

“I–, maybe,” you admitted, blinking up at the way his frame eclipsed your vision, “but it feels so good, I don’t care if you do,” though your confession ended up not only exclusively being about the purely physical entanglement you currently found yourselves in. 

A deep growl rumbled in his chest as his hands scooped down beneath your bottom, before he let himself manhandle you, repeatedly dragging your hips up to grant him a better angle for him to fuck into. A bit of drool trickled out the corner of your mouth and found the pillow below your head when his cock soon throbbed within you, pumping you full of his hot load. 

When he pulled back out of your warmth, your pussy didn’t get to stay empty for long as his cool metal fingers swiftly took his dick’s place. Plugging you full, his frame shifted slightly to grant him a good view of the leaky mess he’d made of you. As he pushed his cum deeper inside of you, scooping it back in as his fingers forced it out, he increasingly added more and more digits till the amount matched the girth that had just split you apart, before he withdrew them all at once and grinned proudly at the way he made your hole gape slightly for him, before winking back to a closed as if he’d never even tickled you before. 

It didn’t take long with all of his molten motions before your pussy wept for him once more, a display he only drew out as his fingers stayed hooked inside of you while his other palm came down to offer your puffy pearl a few taps. 

A hazy giggle was bubbling out of your shaky frame as his attentive touch finally faded and his kisses fluttered back up your body till your arms wrapped around him and drew him in close. 

As you layed there in the plush bed and stared up at the ceiling, you didn’t know yet that the man sprawled out beside you was awake as well. 

You just couldn’t find rest no matter how hard you tried, for how could you as tonight was your last night in the chateau. 

Carefully, you slipped out from under the covers, grabbed your long robe from the armchair it was draped over, and tip-toed towards the wide French doors that lead out onto a balcony. Pushing the doors open, a mild gust of wind rustled the robe as you fastened the tie around your waist and crossed over the threshold. 

Though you knew that you didn’t have any other choice, the thought of returning home in the morning still broke your heart. The last thing you wanted to do was burst that dreamlike bubble that you and your bodyguard had built together and go back to a world completely desaturated of colour. 

Not only had you made the grave mistake of repeating history, but putting it under such an intense microscope didn’t help matters either, as well as your feelings, those having become terrifyingly clear over the past two weeks. 

“Hey,” you suddenly heard the doors behind you creak and you tore your hazy gaze away from the dark gardens below to spot Bucky gently leaning against the doorframe. 

“Hi,” you breathed, keeping a flat palm on the ivy-covered stone railing as you twisted your frame slightly to glance at him, “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, I was already awake,” he shrugged slightly before joining you outside in the pale moonlight, “you okay?”

“Yeah…” you sighed, casting your gaze back upon the woods blooming in the distance. 

“…well, that didn’t sound very convincing,” he chuckled gently as he settled in beside you, leaning both his forearms against the half-wall, “do you wanna talk about it?”

Sucking in a breath, your eyes flickered over to catch his own, “I just–…” you hesitantly began before admitting, “I don’t wanna go back to Paris…” 

“Why not?” though a crinkle found his brow, his expression still softened, “is there something going on with you and your mother?”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” you shook your head, “I just don’t wanna go home yet…” staring at him a moment longer, you then heard yourself confess, “…I–… I don’t want this to end yet…”

Watching closely as his lungs expanded with oxygen, for the first time you witnessed the gruff man look utterly and completely stunned, simply staring down at you with bated breath. 

Parting your lips once more, you nearly whispered, “…I don’t wanna go back to pretending that I’m not in love with you…” 

Bucky didn’t say a word, only continued to stare as he tried to comprehend the truth you’d just professed.

“I love you,” you gathered up the nerve to spit out, “I love you now… I loved you this morning… I loved you after you’d probably only worked at the embassy for a few weeks…” your vision became blurred as tears began to form in your eyes and you continued to babble, “and I don’t think those feelings are planning on changing anytime soon, so it only seemed fair for you to be aware of that for when I ask you in two seconds if you wanna keep this thing between us going, because I do, though probably for different reasons than you–, not that I don’t enjoy that part, you are an incredible lay, I just didn’t think it would be fair for you to be unaware of the feelings I've developed for you, because I don’t know how to ignore them anymore, and–, oh my god, please just say something, I feel like I arrived naked at school or something–”

But before you could ramble any further, Bucky seized your face and fiercely pressed his lips to your own. A shiver ran down your spine and nearly caused your knees to buckle as he kissed you, and when he withdrew, slowly pulling back, he found your stary gaze and uttered, “…I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem,” he then sucked in a breath before confessing, “because I–… Y/n, I love you too…” 

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[pluckyredhead]

Hey, I don’t blame you if you don’t want to respond right now, but I just wanted to acknowledge that you were completely right to insist that people should have voted for the Democratic candidate if they didn’t want Trump, regardless of if they completely agreed with the Democratic candidate or not. We wouldn’t be in this situation if more people thought like you. And I hope more of the “both sides are just as bad” people remember this for next time.

I appreciate the thought, and you're right that we need every vote, every time, all the time.

But that's not what swung this election. There was a big shift to the right among men, particularly low information voters. And exit polls show that the economy was the biggest driver of those votes. It was not the very small number of extremely online leftists who abstained from voting or voted third party who caused this. It was people who absorb Fox News uncritically and/or fail to understand that Trump was terrible for the economy and will be terrible again, that Biden pulled us out of a recession, that prices are high because of greedflation and not inflation.

And, you know, fascists. But mostly people who are so under-informed and actively dis-informed that they think Trump deporting thousands of people will magically make gas cheaper.

I don't know how to reach those people. Our media landscape is so fractured that they are literally living in a different reality than I am, where the things I see as so obvious and self-evident don't exist to them, or exist only as lies. A second Trump presidency with its inevitable rolling back of regulations about social media disinformation and equally inevitable threats to honest journalism is only going to make it harder.

But here's what I know:

We're going to remember to eat, and drink water, and sleep. We are going to hold our loved ones close.

Lock down your birth control. Get your vaccines. Know where your important paperwork is.

Read On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. Read Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit.

Check for misinformation and disinformation before you share something.

Posting online is not activism. Fighting online is not activism. Share resources, yes. Otherwise, block and move on, because...

Infighting didn't save us this time, and it will never save us. We are going to have to build coalitions. I'm going to get involved in my local progressive politics. I urge everyone who can to do the same. You are going to meet people who are not exactly like you, who disagree with you, who you don't like. If they believe in democracy and equal rights and justice for everyone? Then they are your allies in this fight and you need every single one of them.

America has never lived up to her ideals, but I still believe in them: that we are all created equal. If we never get there, it will still always be a fight worth fighting.

So let's fight.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

Poring through the aftermath of a brutal defeat, Democrats are now in their worst position in at least 20 years. Republicans have the White House and the Senate and an excellent chance to capture the House. Trump is only the second Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote, and he made huge gains across the country, building a multi-racial working-class coalition.

For many of you, I imagine this is painful to read. Trust me. It is even more painful to write. Most of my career has been spent within the machinery of the Democratic Party. I worked in the White House and Senate leadership. I worked for Democratic governors and other party organizations. It pains me to see the party in this state of disfavor only eight years after Barack Obama left the White House. The coalition that Obama built has crumbled. There are millions of reasons why we are in this position — COVID, inflation, an unpopular President, several political miscalculations, and a failure to adapt to a changed media environment. Ultimately, I am less interested in how we got into this mess than in how we get out of it.

The press continues to second-guess and Monday-morning quarterback various tactical decisions of the Harris campaign. I am also not particularly interested in that debate. Two things can be true at the same time. Kamala Harris ran a great campaign in a brutal political environment under an impossible timeline, and Democrats just got their ass kicked by a failed President and convicted criminal who could have been sentenced to jail if he lost the election. Where Democrats go from here is a conversation that will be an ongoing part of this newsletter in the months to come. There is no singular or simple answer, and many strawman arguments are being offered up on Twitter and cable. The solution is more complex than being more left or centrist or less woke. I don’t have the answers. Like the rest of you, I am still processing what happened on Tuesday. As part of my personal therapy, I wanted to do a bit of brain dump on the road ahead for Democrats as we confront another four years of Trump.

1. Recognize the Scale of the Problem

On one level, Trump’s win isn’t that big. His popular vote margin will end up being lower than Hillary Clinton’s when she lost the Presidency. This was far from a landslide. It looks nothing like Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984 or Obama’s win in 2008. But we shouldn’t sugarcoat the size and scope of Trump’s victory. Trump improved on his 2020 performance nearly everywhere in the country and with every type of voter. There was a six-point shift to the right in the country from 2020. Trump did 10 points better in Democratic strongholds like New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. He gained ground with men, women, Latinos, Black voters, and voters under 30. If the GOP can maintain that coalition post-Trump, Democrats will have no shot at the White House or the Senate for the foreseeable future. We are in a deep hole, and because of that, it is essential that we contemplate radical solutions about how we communicate, campaign, and govern. Every option should be on the table and every prior should be questioned. Yes, it was a brutal political environment, but this failure was a long time in the making.

2. Understand Why We Keep Losing on the Economy

Post-COVID inflation is the biggest factor in this election. It’s why incumbent parties all over the world have been getting slaughtered in election after election. It’s almost impossible to win an election when, according to the exit polls, 68% of voters rate the economy negatively, 75% say inflation caused them harm, and only 24% of voters say their financial situation is better off than four years ago. But if Democrats just blame inflation for voter distrust on the economy, we will be whistling past the graveyard. Democrats have lost economically-focused voters in every election since 2012. Even in the 2018 and 2022 midterms, which saw huge Democratic gains, we lost the voters who said the economy was their top issue by an average of 36 points!

President Biden passed a bunch of very consequential and popular policies. Yet, his ratings on the economy worsened over time. While I think we should revisit our policy agenda to look for new, bolder ideas that better speak to people’s concerns, this is largely not a policy problem. It’s a brand problem. When you do a blind taste test, our policies are more popular. This is why ballot initiatives like raising the minimum wage and allowing collective bargaining often pass in very Red states where Democrats have no chance of winning elected office. On economic issues, Democrats have a cultural problem; regardless of our policies, voters in the toughest economic situations simply don’t think Democrats care about them, and they haven’t since Barack Obama left office. Republicans have done an excellent job — with some inadvertent help from Democrats — branding our party as the party of elites even though the GOP standard bearer is a wannabe billionaire who offers tax cuts to other billionaires in exchange for campaign contributions. There is little question that we would benefit from more full-throated populism.

3. Close the Communications Chasm

Democrats are losing the information war. Trump and the Republicans are relentlessly communicating their narrative to a wide swath of the electorate, while Democrats are mostly still playing by an old set of rules. The Right is dominating the information space. In the battleground states where Democrats could spend more than a billion dollars communicating to voters on TV and digital platforms, Trump gained three points over his 2020 performance. In the rest of the country, which saw no paid Democratic messaging, Trump gained six points. This means that Democrats got absolutely battered in earned and social media. An average American who just turned on their TV or unlocked their phone or tablet was getting much more pro-Trump and anti-Democratic messaging. This situation is not unique to the Harris campaign. It’s been a problem for Democrats for more than a decade. Democrats cannot reach the wide swath of voters who don’t actively consume political news. According to polling from Data for Progress, here’s the statistics showing how people voted based on the amount they paid attention to political news:

a great deal: Harris +8

a lot: Harris +5

a moderate amount: Trump +1

a little: Trump +8 -

none at all: Trump +15

If you read the New York Times or watch CNN, Democrats know how to reach you. The problem is that we already have those voters. It's very clear that most of Democratic communications is a circular conversation with the people who already agree with us on everything. The rest of the electorate can’t hear us. They are getting no countervailing information to counter the Right Wing caricature of Democrats. Because of Fox News and other Right Wing outlets, Republicans have long had an asymmetric media advantage. However, in recent years, Right Wing messaging has come to dominate non-political online spaces centered on topics like comedy, gaming, gambling, and wellness.

Most Democrats continued running the same communications playbook for the entire Trump era despite massive changes in the media ecosystem. We haven’t incubated our progressive political media enough nor have we been willing to go into the non-political spaces where the most critical segment of voters are getting their info.

Dan Pfeiffer has yet another home run column on how the Democrats can roar back from their shock 2024 losses.

[astronomodome]

Astronomodome's 2024 US Presidential Election Liveblog

First of all I want to say I have other stuff to work on today so I might not be super up to date with stuff but I'll try my best to give my thoughts as to what's going on.

So first, how do we tell who wins?

In the U.S., the popular vote doesn't decide who wins the presidency. Instead, we use the (much hated) electoral college. Here's a helpful visual.

Every state (and DC) is given at least three electors, usually more based on population (which is why states like California and Texas have so many). There are 538 in total. To win, a candidate needs more than half of these- half of 538 is 269, so a candidate needs at least 270. (Interestingly, it is possible for both candidates to receive exactly 269 electors, in which case the universe corrupts and we all die infinitely the House of Representative chooses who wins, with each state getting one vote.)

The national popular vote may not matter, but the popular votes of each of the states do. Whoever wins the popular vote in each state (except Nebraska and Maine bc they're weird but that's not too important) wins all the electors for that state. It's very all-or-nothing which is why a lot of people don't like it.

This is a map from election forecaster 538, one of many such organizations that use polling and algorithms and election magic or something to predict who is likely to win each state. They have a lot of good graphs and stuff to look at on their site if you want to learn more about the stats of everything. As the key notes, we can see which way each state is expected to vote, as well as a few states highlighted in bold as likely swing states.

Swing states are basically wherever the election is close and the number of electors is high enough to 'swing' the election. Basically, while all the other states are mostly decided based on precedent (though surprises are possible), these states could reasonably go either way. This is why both candidates hold so many rallies in Pennsylvania, for example- it's competitive, and they want to boost their chances of winning those electors by currying favor directly with those voters.

One thing this map doesn't show is what I lovingly refer to as the Bar. It looks like this. I bring it up because if you follow the election news you'll see it. A lot.

The arrows in the middle point to 269.5, the exact midpoint. Whoever reaches that midpoint by filling up the bar wins (the beige in the middle are the tossup states who could go either way).

For example, let's look at 270towin. (the forecast websites love their special numbers.) They have a fun interactive map where you can make the votes go wherever you want to see what would happen.

^ Here's their prediction based on consensus.

^ Here, I changed Florida so it votes blue. Not likely unless I can bribe enough officials to make it so my ballot is the only one that counts (fair and just). We can see that the Bar has shifted, and the blue side has almost reached the arrows. Let's see what happens if we add another blue state. Let's say... Georgia, for example.

Wow! If the states were to vote this way, the Democrats would win, even if all the other undecided states went red. Is it likely? No. But, well, how do we know that?

In short, we don't. But we can guess, and that's what polls are for. There are several different types, but the most important ones for right now are exit polls. They'll start coming out soon, I think. I'm not sure if they have to wait until all the polls close (so people don't see them and decide not to vote or something because of it) but I think they do, at least in some states. Exit polls are conducted right outside of voting locations as voters exit, which makes them more accurate than other polls. They're not free of bias, though, so as always take them with a grain of salt. They're the first indicator we'll have of how it went, but they're not the final numbers.

One ray of hope I want to point out is the currently infamous Selzer Iowa poll (not an exit poll but still relevant). Ann Selzer is a really trusted pollster, known for a long streak of accuracy. She published a poll a day ago that indicated that Harris was beating Trump (!) in Iowa (!!) by 3 points (!!!). Iowa is... not considered a Democratic state; it went for Trump last election by 14 points. So this is really surprising (understatement). And yes, it could mean absolutely nothing... but it certainly shocked a lot of people, including Trump, who tweeted angrily about it.

States count their votes in different ways. Some results will be out within the day, others might take weeks. But usually most states can be 'called' for a candidate before every vote is counted. This is because the leading candidate will have more votes than can be overcome by the other one, even if every vote counted was for them. The important thing is that, as polls close over the next couple hours, they'll be counting. I saw one report that said election officials in Idaho, for example, plan on counting every vote "before they go to bed that night," which I thought was kind of a cute way to put it. Most states will release vote counts in batches or by county, which means that other batches or counties might still be counting as others submit their counts. That last sentence had a lot of 'count' related words in it, huh.

One thing to note about vote counting is that absentee or mail-in ballots often take longer to be received and counted than in-person votes. This can cause a phenomenon called "blue shift"- basically, a lot of mail-in ballots are cast by college students (like me!) or people who live overseas, and those groups tend to vote more Democratic than in-person voters. That means that late in the counting process, totals will often shift more towards the Democratic candidate. Famously, this is how Biden ended up winning Georgia in 2020- initially it was forecasted to remain red, but it inched over slowly as mail-in ballots were received.

So, in short, that's how we figure out who will be president. I'll be keeping track of what happens tonight, but it's very possible we won't know who wins until tomorrow morning or even later. Let's hope for the best :)

[aibidil]

In honor of Debate Day (I'm cringing already, and I have to watch with my kid for a school assignment): I keep seeing political posts on here that demonstrate a misunderstanding of the American electoral system, and I want to explain a few points. Because I have a PhD in Political Science and apparently I can't help myself.

E.g. "You people keep saying to vote for the (blameworthy) democrat and then force them to the left, but then you never force them to the left!" <- in a way, this statement is true enough, but not for the reasons that it seems to imply.

The US Constitution doesn't establish a two-party system. However, it does establish the Electoral College, which is a major way in which the US electoral system diverges from a popular vote. The manner in which each state chooses and constrains its electors (the people who make up the Electoral College) is left to the states, but 48 of the 50 states use a voting system called "First Past the Post," or first-preference plurality. FPTP is a system in which voters choose one candidate and the candidate with the largest number of votes (a plurality) "takes it all," even if they do not secure a majority of the votes. So if there are three candidates—say, Gore, Bush, and Nader—and Bush gets the plurality of electors, Bush wins. Even if more voters voted for Gore than Bush. Even if Nader voters indicated in exit polls that their second choice was much more likely to be Gore than Bush. US Congressional seats, likewise, are elected in single-member districts with FPTP winner-takes-all. So in a FPTP system, the makeup of the electoral body is not proportional to the votes cast by voters, and in the Electoral College, it may lead to results in which a candidate with a plurality of overall votes doesn't win the election.

Single-member FPTP systems therefore discourage voting for smaller parties and encourage, as the rational outcome of the electoral system, strategic voting for one of two big parties. This is in direct contrast to electoral systems that run on some variation of proportional representation (ranked preference voting, multi-member districts, etc), where the percentages of votes for each party are reflected in the final makeup of the elected body.

So even though there's nothing in the US Constitution saying we have to have a two-party system, in Political Sciencey terms: Duverger's Law states that all FPTP systems will become two-party systems. This is true because it is the logical outcome of rational actors operating in the system.

Okay, but who cares if we have a two-party system? We can still push democrats to the left, right?

Well, kind of? But ultimately, not really. Because think about it: if you have two parties competing for votes among the entire populace, they can only position themselves against the other party. You've got one candidate on the right and one candidate on the left. Committed leftists and committed right-wingers are going to vote for their party (or not vote at all). There's no incentive for a party to make any concessions to those voters. Whose votes are they trying to get? The people in the middle. Those are the only people they should care about, if they want to win. So the voters in the middle can exert influence over the platforms, and that has the effect of pulling both sides toward the very middle.

(One thing that has happened in recent years is that the Republicans have been successful at moving the entire distribution of votes farther to the right. This hasn't changed the fact that the two-party system will always pull both parties toward the center of the vote distribution, but it's definitely fucked us over. If the democrats had any way to enact this sort of shift, I would be all over it, but I don't see how they could. The entire system is fucked even beyond all I've already said by gerrymandering and the fact that leftists are geographically isolated in cities, both of which systematically benefit the right, so it doesn't seem likely that the democrats could be successful at a shift like that without changing some of the laws about gerrymandering, if not also the Electoral College.)

On the other hand, in systems that have more than two parties, you end up with bimodal distributions of votes. Why is that? Because say you have three parties on the left, and voters know that they aren't throwing their vote away if they vote for a smaller party. What will happen? The three parties on the left will be vying for the votes of the leftists. And the same thing will happen on the right. In this way, the voters will pull the party platforms farther from the middle, out to each side. The leftmost and rightmost "fringe" parties will each get a small proportion of the votes, and the more mainstream parties will get more, but those fringes have much more power than they ever could in a two-party FPTP system.

So when people say, "You say, vote for the democrat, then force them to the left, and then you don't force them to the left"—correct. There is no clear way to force a democratic candidate to the left in our two-party FPTP system. How would one even do that? The only thing leftists can threaten is to not vote, when not voting will certainly benefit the candidate on the right. So, sure, you can do that—if you want your behavior to benefit the right as a way to threaten the left. Some people will make that choice, but not many, because it will help the right!

To be clear: this is fucked! I think this is fucked! But we get nowhere by sticking our heads in the sand about how the electoral system actually works.

I'm not pretending that there's only one right way to act. Our system is fucked and has been for a long time. What I do think is key is understanding how the system actually works and making your decisions from there.

For me, I've often said, "Vote for the democrat for harm reduction, because that will absolutely reduce harm compared to the republican candidate. Then, fight the system." But I realize this maybe wasn't specific enough. What I mean when I say that is: I will vote for Kamala with zero qualms. Because I believe that Trump would be worse for literally every demographic in the world that I care about. To me, that's the only thing the vote is about. Do I agree with Kamala on Israel-Palestine? No. Do I think Trump would be worse for Palestinians and for American Jews (probably for Israeli citizens too)? Absolutely. Do I shudder to think what happened last time Trump had control over creating the Supreme Court? YES.

But when I say, "Then, fight the system," I mean specifically: the number one thing that leftists should be doing if we want to make any headway, if we want to shift that distribution of votes back from the rightward journey its taken in recent years, is to fight to overturn the electoral college and gerrymandering. Every tiny step we take in making our electoral system closer to the popular vote favors both principles of democracy and the left. If we can amend the constitution (this is enormously difficult) to get rid of the Electoral College, then we can turn to changing the electoral system to something other than FPTP.

I do not mean "vote for Kamala and then spend 4 years yelling at democrats for not being leftist enough." I agree: that is a terrible strategy, and will do nothing.

We can't keep ignoring, in between elections, that the voting system itself is where our focus should be! We can't keep pointing fingers at each other, even though we're all acting within the constraints of a fucked system, every time an election comes along! Maybe I'm getting old but I am so weary of this! We can't somehow willpower our way out of the system in which our votes are being cast! We have to change it!

[fandomfreakstudios]

Caine is a human and I will die on this hill (theory)

due to popular demand (losing the poll) I wanna post my Caine theory in proper depth.

My theory is essentially the idea that Caine is not an AI but is in fact a human trapped in the digital circus just as much as all the other players.

Sounds ridiculous, right?

good.

[LONG post incoming, be warned]

----------

To start, we need to understand the digital circus and its origins.

a place like the digital circus is very likely to be man-made as a place, a game, a computer program, whatever. This place did not appear out of nowhere. It is accessed through VR or some VR-esque technology, and takes on the appearance of a retro game (evidence given below)

Now, video games (unfortunately) don’t just code themselves, there has to be at the very least one person creating this game. Fortunately enough, we can deduce the name of the company from what is given within the show.

It is very common knowledge at this point that digital circus takes place within a computer in some sort of office building (as is implied by the ending scene in episode 1)

This computer is also seen at another point... namely when Pomni is running through the backrooms-like offices. She once again comes across this computer.

Now this implies that this area is at least SOMEWHAT a reflection of the real world, so analyzing this location isn't inherently pointless. Now one other interesting part of this office area is the logo on the wall, which reads "C & A" which people have unanimously agreed to mean Caine and Abel

The important thing about this is that Caine as a concept is somehow connected to the person who created this game, through the founder choosing to name Caine after the company, or vice versa. Now you could easily argue that the company was named after Caine, or Caine acts as a self insert for the creator, but I am here to argue that maybe Caine IS the creator.

More specifically, Caine is an original creator of the game (not necessarily the sole creator) aka the amazing digital circus, and in testing an incomplete game managed to get himself trapped, as does any other player who chooses to attempt to play.

----------

Looking back at episode 1 there is something interesting for us to think about. Caine attempting to create an exit door, but being unable to figure out what to put on the other side.

Now this could very easily be interpreted as Caine being unable, as an AI who's only knowledge is of what's within the game, to imagine anything outside of it, and therefore fumbling the task. This is a reasonable interpretation, this was MY first interpretation, and it honestly adds so much horror to the episode on a first watch through.

But in all honesty that still leaves a lot unexplained.

The question still remains why Caine, as a struggling AI, would choose to create something like what he did. From his perspective he has never seen anything as dreary as these office buildings, nor does this space make any semblance of sense as Caine's environments tend to do. It seems less like something a well-polished AI would create, and more like what a human would come up with when trying to create something from a distant memory.

That's something incredibly important to keep in mind going forward. If Caine is in fact human, he would have been trapped in the digital circus for a LONG time, with it becoming increasingly difficult to recall his human memories (something it is confirmed humans trapped in the circus can recall). at the very least, longer then Kinger, who is clearly very mentally effected by his time at the circus.

Caine would likely also be showing some level of insanity or mental instability if he had been trapped with no escape for this long (and yes I do believe that he also cannot leave, and I have some evidence later down the line that will explain this perspective), and he hasn't been seen to do this at all, right? Well, I think he is, but it manifests a little differently then Kinger, or anyone else for that matter. Keep this in mind as we go forward.

----------

Caine's purpose within the circus is fairly straightforward. He is the ringmaster, he creates daily adventures akin to ttrpg oneshots, and he exists to essentially guide the player through this video game world.

Now in the event that Caine was a human who was pulled into the game, why would he need to fill this role? Even as a dev he should still be playtesting as, well, a player. I believe that at the time of the dev's entrapment, the ringmaster AI had not been programmed into the game.

Y'see the Caine we know is a MAJOR perfectionist. He neeeever likes anyone seeing his unfinished work, kinda odd for an AI within a game to be embarrassed about. Yeah, he's a generative AI that creates locations, but creating something in multiple steps is something an AI cannot do. Furthermore, an AI should not feel "embarrassed" about it's work, AI by virtue is always 100% convinced what it generates is perfect, or else it wouldn't have generated it like that.

Also, if we're working under the assumption that the backrooms-esque offices were just an AI hallucination or bad generation, why would Caine KNOW it's not what his players are looking for? For a dev however, this makes sense.

Caine also has a lot of other actions that, as an AI require a bit if suspension of disbelief, but make tons more sense if he's actually a human, and furthermore a dev.

As mentioned, perfectionism, not wanting people to see incomplete or unpolished areas of the game

Realistic depictions of emotions (frustration, embarrassment, confusion)

Annoyance at Bubble for being a sucky AI (her swearing, interrupting him, inhuman and unrealistic speaking patterns and behaviors)

the need to "Reuse AI" which, if the characters are all AI created by other AI would be unnecessary because AI generating would take Caine no effort. Nor should a generative AI ever run out of ideas.

As mentioned, perfectionism, not wanting people to see incomplete or unpolished areas of the game

Realistic depictions of emotions (frustration, embarrassment, confusion)

Annoyance at Bubble for being a sucky AI (her swearing, interrupting him, inhuman and unrealistic speaking patterns and behaviors)

the need to "Reuse AI" which, if the characters are all AI created by other AI would be unnecessary because AI generating would take Caine no effort. Nor should a generative AI ever run out of ideas.

I wanna highlight that, while this is a joke post, I am enjoying the implication that Caine has a name (something only a human would have)

(top right is a particularly interesting example of him just acting super human and "dropping the act" so to speak. Getting distracted, stuttering, losing track of the conversation, all that. And bottom right is similar as he is nervously fidgeting).

Caine has all the fixings of a human dev, trapped in his now incomplete game. A game that had not had it's "ringmaster" character implemented at this point in development, likely with nothing more then some competed (albeit unpolished) locations for the game.

The idea Caine is actually a dev as opposed to an AI is further supported by Caine's ability to create and alter things from within the game. Creating areas without human prompt, deleting characters, he seems to have a level of autonomy and intelligence that no AI should EVER have.

----------

Furthermore, the man ACTS human, a weird ass human, but a human nonetheless. He's responsive, emotive, emotional, and he's not nearly as glitchy as the other AI. He never slips up and activates some sort of internal filter like bubble, or insists on weird mannerisms like the moon or the sun, he seems to just KNOW better somehow.

He acts like the more "immersive AI" from ep2 if anything, which he's clearly been around longer than. Someone needed to program that AI, and based on previous patterns is implied to be Caine. Once again, way out of his job description as another AI (plus how would this AI be MORE realistic if it was learning from another, older AI).

Not to mention the fact he's ALWAYS around somewhere, whether he's in his own realm he made, or just chilling around the circus (unlike bubble for example, who comes and goes at Caine's will).

It's clear he does this for his own comfort, but WHY would he be programmed to do that as opposed to only existing when necessary to prioritize memory or something.

----------

But one would be right to say he's slightly... off. He is a strange one, if he was a human. He's erratic, unpredictable, and often manic at times. This goes back to the point I made with Kinger, where I claimed Caine should also be exhibiting signs of mental illness

Under the assumption that Caine, in the act of playtesting the game, got trapped, a handful of things would happen (the finer details are negotiable, this is just my knee-jerk reaction):

He'd realize what happened and that he can't get out

He likely felt as though he was in his own personal hell, as he was trapped in a scuffed, incomplete skeleton of his own passion project

He likely found some sort of way to alter stuff, a backdoor that only he as the creator knew about, or some sort of privilege in being the first to enter the realm

He got his first or first few players. This was probably alarming to him as there was no ringmaster, no worlds, nothing. All the AI he had created thus far had been poorly made and could not function which such a difficult task. But then he realized... HE could be the ringmaster

This is probably around the time as well that he realized he could not remember his own name. But he remembered what he wanted to call the ringmaster... Caine

He takes on the identity of Caine, acting as ringmaster, polishing the game behind the scenes, and creating daily activities on an "as needed" basis

----------

Now this is where it gets interesting. I believe, at this point, Caine has taken on the identity of this AI generated ringmaster for so long that he's beginning to lose himself. He's beginning to lose memories of his life, he's becoming more detached from the side of himself that ISN'T Caine, and he's starting to catch himself believing he IS Caine, he IS an AI.... and he's scared

He's completely lost the ability to create any meaningful connections with others, as he needs to keep up the illusion of being an AI. He's lost his humanity, become detached from the way other humans think and feel, and its starting to make him become more AI then human if anything.

(left image does not crop nice, plz click to view the whole thing TvT)

He's probably seen at least a dozen people lose their mind in so many different ways. While he knows he's different then them, TECHNICALLY he's still a player, and can abstract all the same. This is why he seemed to freak the HELL out at the idea of an AI and a human getting mixed up.

----------

One last bit, and it's a simple one I promise. Caine has been described as the main antagonist outside of the show. This is interesting as up until now Caine hasn't done anything actively malicious (aside from Gummigoo, but he seemed to have solid reasoning for that, just not anything he chose to share with the audience).

[does ANYONE have the "weight of Caine's sins?" tumblr ask I am having no luck finding it again]

At this point, this would be shooting the messenger. He is simply a byproduct of the system that is keeping these folks trapped, right? Caine himself didn't put them there, he just takes care of them.

Unless... Caine was the one who made the AI. Then he would inarguably be the reason everyone else was trapped there. And goose is right, that wouldn't make him an AWFUL person either, but he does still have many sins weighing on his back, and many deaths on his hands. And there's nothing he can do about any of it, because he's just as helpless as they are.

----------

So yeah, TLDR: Caine was the creator of the circus. In attempting to playtest he got trapped in the game and eventually took the initiative to play the ringmaster within his own game, but he is slowly beginning to lose his mind, as happens to everyone.

Hope you all enjoyed the read! If anyone's still interested at this point I have a few more small bits of evidence (more from outside the show on Goose's socials and whatnot) which I could not fit in the bulk of the theory. I'll reblog with some extra bits so this post is still complete but I don't break the flow of my main ideas.

And if you get this far, thank you so much. I don't typically post long form theories like this but if this gets any sort of traction I definitely will begin too.

[doukeshi-kun]

THE OVERCOAT — mostly yapping

i'm still sane about nikolai's ability. i'm gonna ramble here because i know nikolai better than asgr sensei himself LMAO. also, please note that i am mostly using manga panels for references because that's like the most canon. yippee i'm using the normal font.

this is not entirely a definitive theory or anything. i'm horrible in writing essay. i just want to create a conversation regarding his ability :3

first, let's establish that: he can definitely use his ability without his cloak. (why he looks big in suits omg pin me down pls)

which means he is a LIARRR RAAAAA

(technically not because it is true that his cloak is connected. it's just that he doesn't mention about the ability is not restricted only to the cloak)

now, i think his ability is either:

A. he has a pocket/personal dimension (like lucy's) but can only be accessed through clothings, not restricted to his cloak. like if you're tiny enough to fit his pocket, you might slip into his personal dimension. and i like to think that his personal dimension can be anything he wants. one day it's a big mansion with things he has stored inside scattered all over the floor. and the next day it is probably a circus tent with creepy mannequins around. who knows. i think that's cool. great fanfic source lmao

there are a few similarities between The Overcoat and Anne of Abyssal Red—they are a type of personal dimension and time flows differently than the real world.

some key differences could be that: Nikolai may or may not change the appearances of his personal dimension. The only way to enter his dimension is through clothings/fabrics. Nikolai can still access his dimension without having to teleport himself fully to there. Obviously he doesn't have a big monster waiting in his dimension. He also doesn't have fancy mechanisms like prison door or things like that. His dimension is literally just a fancy storage room.

i remember, a few people here have mentioned that time does not flow in Nikolai's pocket dimension. there are multiple evidences of this. this poll he unleashes moves on a very great speed. he also mentioned that he can dump a blast of explosion just like that.

he could be dropping the poll from a great high and as soon as the dropping poll slip into his dimension, the momentum and velocity stayed the same. he could be pulling out a safety pin of a grenade and put them into his dimension, and he can just immediately unleash an unsafe grenade right onto his opponent.

—

B. when there's an entrance, there is an exit. the core of his ability is essentially portal creation. as long as the portal is on, things are still connected (perhaps it isn't restricted to a clothing at all. perhaps he severs his own hand to make a gun appear elsewhere). when he closes one connecting portal, the matter trapped within it will get spliced too.

the most prominent example is atsushi's leg.

atsushi's leg is still connected to himself. the portal is 'connected'. and once nikolai severs it or closes it, the object trapped in that portal is also severed. if we apply this logic, it means that atsushi's bone and flesh are literally exposed openly which makes me gag a bit.

by this logic, nikolai can literally sever anything as long as you are within 30 metres. imagine he creates a 'portal' between your head and neck. he could behead people just like that. i think that will be very cool to see. i mean, he already did so in his chainsaw escape trick, which he has a gap between his body and someone else's—which you know what, i feel that the trick is pulled last minute. nikolai is likely intended to be killed off right then and there idk. wouldn't it be more logic to say that he severed his own body like how he did to his own hand? he can already sever and keep his hand connected, it's not impossible for him to do the same for his whole body.

i like to imagine that in this murder when he 'skinned' someone alive.

nikolai probably creates a portal on the victim's body, which allows him to pry open the skin from inside out. imagine you're being tied up and a pair of foreign hands or blade suddenly appear out from your own body and tear your skin apart.

not gonna lie, i feel like fukuchi's sword amenogozen can be totally be replicated by nikolai up to a certain degree. when amenogozen first made the appearance, i literally thought nikolai was helping to manipulate it. i literally thought fukuchi 'borrowed' nikolai's ability or something. nikolai can stab his knife into a fabric or something (an entrance portal) and the knife would come out from inside an organ (an exit portal). the only difference with how amenogozen works and how the overcoat works is that—nikolai just cannot travel back to the past.

i wonder if he can also sever space like akutagawa, but by portal-ing shit

also, i think his ability really doesn't need his clothing to be a medium? because in sigma's case, does nikolai just create seperate portals on sigma's body? connected to what? can he just create random portals onto any space and matter as long as it's within 30 metres? is it really 30 metres? am i tweaking

—

two things can be true at once. now that i'm properly thinking, Nikolai probably does have a pocket/personal and portal creation at the same time because then he can also keep things and link them. i think i am leaning more to that.

Nikolai is already a strong and versatile ability user (that's my man). ngl i am biased but i do think he can take on a lot of characters. his reflexes and timing is very good—as seen during his fight with atsushi and his timing to jumble sigma (mind you sigma falls from the sky in great velocity). besides, nikolai is spontaneous and chaotic—i imagine it would be hard to figure out his next moves because he can unleash literally anything from his cloak. if he can just create portals with less restriction or medium, he can divert attacks.

i can also take nikolai.

what do you guys think :D

[heretyc]

Horror [Trager, Eddie Gluskin, Val]

Horror: A collection of small fics, consisting of Outlast's most iconic antagonists [in my opinion].

The poll I started isn't over, but "canonically" is winning and I love it. Dark shit here we come lol. I will be writing for my beloved Terror-iffic Trio [aka my favourite antagonists from each game]. A party with these 3 would be lit.

Drabble ideas here.

Content Warnings: Uhhh...Outlast Antagonists lol. That is your warning.

Trager: Gore, awful jokes, his bare ass.

Eddie: Gore, murder, injury, mentions of his...lovely little display, sexual assault [minor, just a slight touch, no penetration]. [Please lord don't let him teach an art class.]

Val: Sexual assault [slight penetration w/ fingers], gore, murder, mud, Val's bare ass, mud breasts and mudgina.

I mean it, this is pretty heavy shit. It isn't too graphic, but if SA triggers you...either look away or read with caution. Trager's section is safe. Unless you're afraid of his ass...cause me too, man.

MINORS GTFO. Miners can stay as long as they're not minor miners.

Read with caution, I condone none of this. Fics underneath the cut.

You/MC take the place of the protagonist. So...you are Miles/Waylon/Blake. Yayyyyy....? Or nay? Depends on how you feel. MC is gender neutral, but is referred to with fem pronouns in Eddie's section for obvious reasons. You do not talk in Trager or Eddie's sections as Miles and Waylon were "mute". You speak in Val's section, though. You are described as having breasts in Val's section as both sexes/all genders have breasts. Tiddies for everybody!!

Enjoy.

Drabble idea: "See, this place isn't haunted!"

Sometimes, a saving grace can be your one way ticket to hell. And this had been an excellent example of that. The angelic voice over the dumbwaiter was a dream come true; after running and hiding for so long, it was like you were granted a break.

Only for your face to fall as the scarred face of a man greeted you. The air around him reeked of danger.

This was not the haven you were lead to believe was waiting for you.

"You made the right choice here, buddy," he declared before punching you in the jaw, a pained yell leaving your throat, and he was quick to take advantage of your shocked state to haul you into a wheelchair.

He must have done this a dozen times, as he was quick to lock your wrists into the cuffs attached to the chair. They were tight, and he merely chuckled at seeing your attempts of getting out of them.

He looked fucked up.

He stood in front of you, hands behind his back, and his eyes were scanning you like a wolf scans its prey before it mauls it to bits, "You're not a variant...huh. Well, buddy...you can call me...Trager. Everyone else does, anyway."

As Trager made noises looking you up and down, you looked at his face. Coated by some half-assed attempt at a mask and some strange glasses upon his face, you come to the conclusion that he was some doctor here.

He clicks his tongue and smacks you on the back, "You've got a lot of things to learn here, buddy. I am honoured to be your teacher."

Teach you about what, exactly? You didn't want to know. But he started to push you forward, and you only questioned where your hell would be.

This place was already hell, but...at the hands of some crazed madman, it was different.

Trager hummed to himself, making jokes here and there, and he once grumbled when you didn't laugh at a stupid impression, before he finally made it to an elevator. It was...somewhat cleaner up here, for some reason.

However...

You could feel a breeze upon your skin, and upon hearing the howl of wind and torrential rain, you saw an exit. Pitch black and windy, yet so much more welcoming than in here. You questioned if there would be a tornado warning or something by how violent the wind seemed to be.

The rain out there was intense, torrential, heavy and oh so divine, and Trager only chuckled.

"You want to take a quick walk, bud?" He leaned down next to you, eyes looking into yours like he was an old friend, despite also looking feral. "Run free, like Forrest Gump? Unfortunately, we're running out of time." He clicked his tongue once more, pulling you into the elevator.

This was a cruel joke. Even the Elvis impression - awful impression, mind you - wasn't as bad as this.

Standing beside you, Trager pressed a simple button on the control pad before clasping his hands together behind his back. After a moment of movement, he looked back toward you, his voice a tone that suggested jest, "Did you know they call elevators a "shaft" in other places of the world?" He chuckled, shaking his head slightly.

Looking at him, you realized his skin looked...awful. Like he was a draugr from that video game you used to play.

His scalp was scarred, and after spending an hour in this place, you realize you're lucky your scalp was untouched.

Wires upon wires were wrapped along his arm, and upon closer inspection, you were horrified to notice that they weren't wires, they were tubes.

Of his own blood.

How did he not feel that?

A man like him probably enjoys that, to be honest.

His nails were quite long as well, albeit you couldn't blame him...hygiene in a place like this was laughable. He probably had to exert his inner wildcat to defend himself in this shit hole.

You nearly sobbed when the elevator came to its destination, and he took hold of the handles once more.

It smelled of death and lost hope up here.

Choruses of screams reached your ears and you flinched. He seemed to notice, as he violently shushed the poor bastards trying to break free of their confines, "Sh. Shshshsh...you weren't putting your tongue to good use anyway!"

Tongue...??

The man shrieking had a bloodied mouth, and he soon quieted after choking on, what you assume to be, his own blood. Trager only sighed, muttering to himself, "Really, I just needed something to lick my stamps."

This...was a cruel joke. Taking someone's tongue for stamps?? You were deep in thought, only for Trager to notice and grin evilly, "You should see what I do with the balls."

...Dear god.

"Yeah, this weird...cannibalistic guy downstairs begs for them...the guy knows what he wants, I gotta give him that. He reminds me of somebody...eh, buddy?"

He poked you in the shoulder as he pushed, and it appears he was referring to you.

"I saw your camcorder. You're some sort of journalist, here to...what, expose one of the biggest experiments in history?" He laughed at the notion, shaking his head. "I admire the bravery, really. Braving through disturbed masses...I have to admit, I'm impressed."

You only gulped.

"People love to say this place is...haunted." Trager noted, pushing you into a bathroom of some sort. Bloodied, smelled of decay and looked like a paradise for bugs and bacteria.

What had scared you the most was the array of torture devices he had laid out on a tray. This man was deranged, one way or another.

He continued his one-sided conversation, focusing on the aforementioned tray as he walked over to it, "I mean, who wouldn't? People love to paint asylums as haunted. They hear a ghastly noise or a terrified scream and immediately tell the papers that a house of human suffering is haunted."

Trager's hand hovered over each instrument of torture, trying to pick which one, but he hadn't stopped talking.

"And I am more than sure that's your entire...reason for coming here. Trying to prove it was haunted. But guess what, buddy?"

He finally picked up a blade, long and serrated, and he pressed it against a finger of yours, the edges sharp against your thin flesh. He leaned in close, his dry lips forming into a smile, "This place isn't haunted."

He moved away, the blade removed from your finger, and you breathed a sigh of relief as he placed it back down onto the tray.

"No, no. It's worse."

He finally picks up a gigantic pair of scissors, much like something you'd see picking away at a shrub, and he was more than eager to shut them and open them, metallic hisses invading your senses, much like the feeling of doom.

You will die here.

"This place is an example of human cruelty, my friend," he announced, voice loud and cheerful as if he wasn't about to maim you, and he placed the blades around some of your fingers. He cared not for your horrified shrieks and begs, he only leaned in once more and whispered,

"And you will be nothing but an example of what happened here."

Slice.

...

"Oh, come on, buddy...it's not like you needed your middle finger anyway. Now open up...I have some stamps to lick."

Drabble idea: "Oh my god, are you okay?!"

"Darling, please! You act as if I've done something rancid! What have I done to you to make you so afraid of me?!"

The bloodied behemoth on your tail was quick and hurried as he chased after you, his feet slamming against the rotting floorboards. You almost couldn't hear the music that played alongside the horrific display he handmade. The smell was awful, but the sight of it was enough to make you vomit.

You would not be the victim to the Groom. Not now. Not ever.

You would not have your pelvis slit, or your chest stuffed like you were a sex doll [ironically, that's all you would be to him], and you would not let him confess his undying love for you. It was fake and corrupt like this entire asylum.

Despite the smell of mildew and death, adrenaline filled your blood and you could tolerate the disgusting scents as you breathed in, your legs not yet faltering.

You've heard what he's done. The man who so giddily chased you rambled about it as you snuck around, and you were not pleased.

This was the only way out. Sometimes you have to take risks...right?

This wasn't worth it, though.

And sometimes, luck runs out. Like right now, as you are stuck in a dead end.

There was only an elevator. And it was not on your current floor.

Shit.

You could jump and risk a broken leg...or...

The emergency ladder. Broken and rusted, but it's tetanus over death.

You could explain all of this to the news with lockjaw.

"Wait, what are you doing?! Don't, don't-!"

You had leaped, gripping onto the ladder as your bottom half slammed against it. With a hiss you tried to pull yourself up, only for the ladder to break underneath you.

The top had snapped, and you tried to grab onto what remained on the wall, only to fall, your heart stopping.

Of all things to die from, it was a rusted ladder.

Oh well.

As your body slammed onto the top of the elevator, a sharp pang began to blossom from your ankle, and you look to see shards of glass sticking out of your flesh. Now coated in blood, you cried out and ripped the shards out, piece by piece. Blood pooled around your foot as you cradled it.

"Oh my god, are you okay?!"

The behemoth above looked down at you with a horrified expression, his hands out and wanting to hold you.

"I hate to see you suffering without me! Why would you do something like that to yourself?!"

His voice was full of panic and concern, and for a moment it seemed wholesome, until the panicked silence became one of anger. There was...tension.

"You would...rather die...than be with me...?"

His tone had shifted so quickly. He was unpredictable, and that's what had made him so...scary. In general, he had looked like he crawled from a 1940s horror series. Sweeney Todd had come to mind, actually...

"You're just another whore, aren't you?" He growled out, only to sigh, like this was a normal occurrence. "It's quite alright, darling. A good man can turn a whore into a house wife...and I have faith in us. Let me just..."

The elevator roared to life, and you panicked even more, now. Your poor heart would likely kill you before he had the chance to. But as you rose, he merely hummed to himself, waiting for the elevator to rise to his floor.

You had no chance at moving or escaping, as when you reached the proper floor, he was quick to grab you before you became sandwiched between the top of the elevator and the ceiling.

He dwarfed you. Instantly. He carried you bridal style, an eerie smile on his face, "Come, now. I must make sure you look perfect for our wedding."

You had no chance, now.

He clicked his tongue, footsteps hard against the rotting boards, and his voice was quieter as he spoke, "And I need to wrap up your foot...you are a silly one, darling."

It didn't feel silly. It felt like your ankle and foot were on fire, stinging like mad.

You had accepted your death already, but if there was also one thing you could accept, it's that he wasn't actually half bad.

Minus the...anger fits and the "whore" bit, he would have been wonderful. Looking up at him, you see a man soiled by corruption.

His eyes would have been a beautiful, shiny blue if not for the pools of hemorrhage. They had looked...empty. Dead. But whenever he looked at you, they shone like his soul had been revived.

Is this what he had wanted? Love?

Everyone in this hell hole had been deprived of it.

It was sad. Really fucking sad.

But you had read about what Eddie had done, and seen it too. And he was past the point of no return. He had done too much to be redeemed.

Dread made itself a home in your stomach as you were laid upon something cold and wet, and you were strapped in. Arms and legs spread, and your clothes were ripped off.

You were now nude, and being touched by the Groom himself.

His hands were gentle as he caressed a calf, "You have such soft skin...you will look absolutely beautiful," he cooed, hand gliding itself upwards toward your knee, then your thigh, and then...

You only flinched when you felt his hand begin to caress your genitals, as gentle as could be, as if he wasn't violating you. T'was the touch of a lover.

But he was no lover, no.

His fingertips merely grazed along your private flesh, rubbing it as if he had wanted to stimulate you, and you wanted to scream.

Eddie sighed dreamily, like he was a married man and his life would be filled with nothing but happiness, and he, luckily, let his hand glide up to your navel. "You look divine already, but when I'm finished with you? Oh, darling..."

He removed his hand, thankfully, but he was quick to turn on the saw, and all you could feel was cold air from its rapid movements and doom.

He gripped the sides of the table you were on, and he was smiling like this wasn't totally fucked up, "I know this will be hard..."

You felt the table move, slowly but surely, and you began to wriggle, but he continued, "You will have to deal with this...and then the conception, which I promise, will be wonderful," he winked as the saw came closer, "Then the pregnancy...and oh, I can just imagine the birthing. You will look so beautiful, darling...like a goddess. Mothers are goddesses in their own right."

And all you could feel was the sting of the saw, and your soul fading from your body.

...

"You're just like the rest. Filthy whore."

You're lucky you weren't alive to see your mangled body, tossed with the rest.

Ready to rot.

Drabble idea: "I want to go home..."

Val, in a sense, had been an angel to you.

They did not have a halo, made of purity and gold, or have pristine, white wings to wrap you and hold you close, no. They did not bear robes of white or play a golden harp or sing a divine chorus.

But they had wanted you all to themselves. And they would not let Knoth's guard dog, or his sickly bastards he called "friends", ruin you before they had a chance to.

Because unlike Knoth, or Marta, or Laird or Nick or whoever the fuck, Val would put you back together.

They are a loving mother, dedicated to spreading love.

It had been painted in blood on your way to the mines, 'LOVE SET US FREE'. Bottles encasing candles, bodies strewn up like Christmas decorations...

What were they trying to do, exactly? Make their cause look homey? Elegant? Acceptable?

You had felt oddly welcomed. Every single enemy in your way was slain, journals and notes left in your path to urge you to come to them.

"Come to me," the red ink beckoned you on the dirtied paper, "and I will show you my love."

They had been so kind as to leave batteries and bandages. Before you had taken the small, makeshift raft, a final note had been placed in one of the small shacks, the bed made and smelling of firewood,

"I am waiting for you."

You did not want this. But you needed to find a way out.

The mines were not welcoming. You were not alone. And you had been chased into the underground, where you are now; held down by Heretics as they muttered, "mother, burn..."

Like the fallen angel ready to relieve the sinners of their pain, their martyrdom, Val had approached, coated in mud and looking like the demon of the mountains.

In their hand was a torch, raging with fire, and it made their white eyes so much more intense.

They had hummed eagerly, the hum evolving into a laugh as the torch was placed down and the Heretics were shooed away. You were too afraid to move or notice their cold, dirtied hands leaving your flesh.

Their eyes were wide, pupils tiny, and they smiled as they strutted to you, "We are creatures of appetite..."

They moaned, feeling up their body and their fake breasts, like they were a porn star and giving you a show.

"I want to feel your hunger," their voice became quiet, something only you could hear, and they leaned close, your eyes staring frantically into theirs, searching for any fragment of humanity.

There was none. And you felt saddened, knowing that the Val in those journals was not this Val.

This was something different.

"I want to know your desires...and show you what true pleasure feels like," they rasped, pushing you down and straddling your hips, grinding against your clothed stomach. Your fear had aroused them.

"I want to go home..." you whispered, tears rushing from your eyes, and they only laughed, leaning close to your face and whispering, "This is your home, my love," a muddy hand came up to caress your cheek and wipe the tears away, "and I...will be doting."

You had no chance to respond or even acknowledge the powder blown into your senses, or the tongue forcing your mouth open, and immediately, they sought dominance over your own muscle, wrestling with it. It had ventured to each nook and cranny of your mouth, like they wanted to taste everything about you, and they eventually pulled away with a moan, saliva connecting you two.

They licked their lips, humming in delight as their hands rushed to push up your shirt and reveal your chest. "Your body...is delightful," they breathed out, squeezing your breasts and rubbing your nipples with precision.

That powder did something to you. You had hated the feeling of their hands, but now you were overheating; desperate and quiet moans leaving your throat and making the cultist above you grin.

"I don't..." You couldn't even finish your sentence, as they pinched a nipple and made you shriek. It made them chuckle, and their hands moved south, ripping your zipper and breaking it. They got off for a second to completely rip your pants and undergarments off, and their naked thighs wrapped around your bare hips.

"Did you enjoy my gifts?" They questioned, hands now massaging your thighs, "You needed those batteries so badly...to document the lies of Sullivan, didn't you?" They purred, their hands tight and knowing just where to touch to get you to cry out in pleasure.

"That's why you came here. Fell from the sky, wrapped in flame..." they bit their lip, feeling aroused at the notion, "To record his bullshit."

You had even forgot about your camera, and you questioned where it was, until Val snorted, "It's gone, my love," their hands moved upwards to your genitals, "taken away...by my children. You won't need it anymore."

There was no pain when you felt their finger enter you. It was more pleasurable than anything you had ever felt, and it made you moan the loudest, and Val had revelled in this.

With precision their fingers located your pleasure spot, and sped up.

Your pleasure was their pleasure.

"God doesn't love you...not like I do."

And in time...you would know it to be true.

[menfenced]

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.

[spaceguy44]

2024 US Election Post-mortem

I need to get my thoughts out about the election. I'll split it into a few main parts. (This will be long) 1. Why did Kamala lose/Trump win?

There's 2 main reasons for the result.

1. The biggest thing isn't that Trump gained a lot (he did somewhat), but that Kamala lost hugely. Kamala ran an "strong" but status-quo style center-lib campaign. This was not the right move to capture the electorate in today's America. It hasn't been since 2012. People at every part of the political spectrum have expressed disdain with the way establishment Democrats have run things. People want change! They have since 2008. Obama convinced everyone that he represented change. Hillary lost in 2016 because they didn't get that change after 8 years, and wanted something new no matter what. Biden did a good job in 2020 of being somewhat of a change candidate, but it was really COVID that allowed him to win. I do think Trump would've won in 2020 if it weren't for the pandemic. Kamala had momentum at first because she literally was "change." Biden was hugely unpopular, and people didn't like the return to liberal status quo, even if he did do more than even Obama to bring (domestic) left-wing policies to the forefront imo. Kamala represented hope at first that we could get away from the Biden that everyone hated, and bring in a whole new kind of politics and movement that would take us out of the neoliberal malaise that was the again Biden. What happened in stead was the establishment decided that there was a contingent of Americans that were allergic to left-wing politics, and they need to be captured.

THIS IS THE MAIN POINT OF FAILURE FOR BOTH HILLARY AND KAMALA. I do not believe there is a (large) population that is inherently right-wing, and another that is centrist, and another that is left-wing. I do think there are some that you could never convince one way or another, but it's just impossible that so many people could vote for Obama, and then turn around for Trump if people had some sort of weird internal political compass that they adhered to regardless of policy. No, Trump (and the right more broadly) MADE his base. This is the other reason Trump won.

2. Trump did make some gains, though I believe the right campaign from Harris could've overcome that. I think the Trump gains are more indicative of what Harris lacked. Kamala tried to adjust her campaign to match an electorate. Trump didn't give a fuck. He said what he wanted, and people liked that. They don't care about decorum. They don't care about "unity". They want someone they think will "fight" for them. People saw Kamala bringing in the Cheneys and just saw another neolib that would flake on any conviction to grab a vote. People don't want a policy. People want a candidate with conviction. Trump was also adept at playing on people's fears and insecurities. He MADE them into Trump supporters by playing on those fears. Harris did not try to make Harris supporters by playing on fears (at least enough). She was best with the abortion stuff, but that wasn't the issue that exit polls showed people care about. The top issue was the economy. Yes, "the economy" is objectively doing better if you look at the stats, but people don't feel like it because prices are still high despite the buying power of the dollar recovering (inflation was reduced!). People felt that because corporations kept prices at pre-inflation reduction levels. Harris briefly flirted with price capping, which would be the exact sort of populist policy that directly addresses people's fears/insecurities and breaks from the status quo that could excite a mythical "Harris base" that maybe existed for 2 weeks.

It's the same with immigration. Trump created a "big lie" about the border being in crisis, and played on the truly hurting average middle-American's insecurities. You have a population that is hurting for corporate consolidation destroying small local business, that has been devastated by opioids, and is seeing the towns and culture they grew up with decay and seemingly leave them behind. Are Trump's policies going to uplift them? Hell no! Does he talk to specifically them all and directly address their insecurities though? Absolutely. In stead of addressing these people (these are the ones on the red arrow map that's been going around), she accepted the lie about immigrants and rejected making any radical policy change from the system that threw middle America under the bus.

I should say I am literally living in a small rural city in a deep-red state, so I know what they're saying. These people aren't necessarily bigots. Some are, but I think most think they aren't. I think anyone can be prone to getting caught up in a hate movement if the right buttons are pressed, and Trump deftly presses those buttons. What needed to happen was pressing the right buttons to address their insecurities and fears that doesn't rely on hate and scapegoating. This is what I think Bernie Sanders does well in general polls, but there's too much movement within the Dems to preserve the liberal status quo. That needs to change or, the Dems die. LIBERALISM IS DEAD. We address the fears that made people Trump voters, or democracy dies! Here are 2.5 other smaller reasons: 3. Sexism, Racism, and Religiosity. I will not deny that these do play a part in certain parts of the electorate. However, I don't think they're insurmountable hurdles in a general election. I think Obama's campaign is proof of this. But we shouldn't deny that there are a significant portion that wouldn't vote for Kamala for purely bigotry reasons. Hell, I know some personally. But I do think it is a mistake to blame these for our failures. WE LEARN NOTHING OTHERWISE! 4. Believe it or not, but there's just a lot of people out there that just don't care or avoid politics all together. These people aren't bad or deficient, but they just don't include thinking about politics constantly as a part of their lives. They think about the election for a few days, and then get on with their lives for 4 years and tune out everything. Generally, these people are privileged, though there's also some that have been so hurt by our system and policies, that they tune out in pure nihilism about it all. These people vote on vibes, they vote based on what those they care about support, and many just sit out the whole thing. Voter apathy is definitely a thing, and it hurst especially the left imo. I do believe the majority of people would loath Trump's policies if they actually knew what they entailed, so this apathy only takes away from the left. 5. Kamala did NOT lose due to the Gaza protest. She might have lost a bit of support by not being an empathetic foil to Trump's "glass the whole strip" rhetoric, but I don't think it made a significant difference. And I'm gonna be real with y'all; Tumblr is mostly full of it if they think they can accomplish anything with a protest vote for Gaza. I learned this in 2016. That action won't do anything, and it's too risky when a literal fascist is on the other side of the ballot. Yes, I hate that Kamala did not oppose the current Biden policy of letting genocide happen, but Jill Stein/no vote can't pressure these people in the establishment without hurting their campaign financing. The votes are in, and 3rd party votes would not have saved Kamala.

2. What happens now? What is a 2nd Trump admin like?Maybe this is a bit of copium, but I do think that Trump will still be overall very incompetent and unable to enact the worst of his policies. Terrible things will still happen (and I'll get to that later), but I think some of the catastrophizing is a bit overblown. Let's take the mass deportation policy for example. This would be a horrible campaign on the level of the worst historical genocides. He would need to create an ICE apparatus so large that it would rival the fucking gestapo. Just think of all the agents and infrastructure that would need to be developed to round up ~20million people and transport them to the border and detention facilities. There's no practical way to deport that many people. The logical end point is concentration camps. Yes, we have them already to an extent (I mean the euphemistically named "immigrant detention facilities"), but we don't have anything that could handle "mass deportation." Building the facilities, hiring the agents, buying the buses and trains, and executing the warrants all takes a lot of time and money. None of this goes unnoticed, and it won't go without resistance today. Congress still controls the purse, despite what the supreme court says about Trump's immunity to do whatever he wants. SCOTUS said he can't be prosecuted for committing a crime, not that he can break a constitutional rule. The margins are too thin in the new congress, and I genuinely do not think that he has the political tact to navigate around how much resistance he'll get. My main evidence for this is the border wall. He had all the support he needed within congress and his base to try to "build that wall." The GOP even controlled both branches of congress, and shutdown the government multiple times to try to get his way. They had a majority in the house his first 2 years. It meant nothing! He got a regressive tax cut passed, and that's about it. I know there's a lot of bullshit he can pull to push terrible things through, and he'll have ghoulish cronies that will be the actual brains behind things, but honestly, they're dumb as shit too. They're too evil for their own good. They will eat themselves alive through infighting and liberal resistance before they can start a genocidal campaign on American soil. That's not to say there will be some horrible things. Here's what I do think he'll be able to do: - Ban abortion nationwide either through the Comstock Act or SCOTUS. - Completely fuck up half of our federal institutions that keep us informed and safe (ie. dismantling or gutting of Dept. of Education, EPA, FTC, NSA, HHS, and more). - Allow for more religious integration into our public institutions like schools - Essentially turn our government into an oligarchy (or more of one than it already is) - Reverse gay marriage rights (overturning obergefell) and restricting the rights of LGBTQ+ in the public sector overall. - Exacerbate the Gaza genocide - Let Putin have his way with Ukraine - Royally fuck up the economy with Tariffs - Probably get us into some kind of overseas war - If he survives to the end of his term, I do think that our democracy will be incredibly fucked. Like, I think they'll be able to push through so many bullshit rules that we won't be able to come back unless an actual leftist populist makes huge rounds.

Overall, it's gonna suck, especially if you're LGBT in a red state. I think he'll also continue targeting undocumented migrants, but I doubt he'll be able to put together the infrastructure to genocide them. Yes, Hitler and his regime were incompetent too, but it was really the enabling act post-Reichstag fire that allowed for him to start pushing the policies that would become the holocaust. It was only at that point that he had no more resistance, and could order whatever he wants. We're definite not there yet with Trump.

3. What do we (the left) do now?Honestly, just stay vigilant, be active within your community, make connections (even with Trump voters), and don't give in to the despair. Once you're hopeless, it will only make it easier for them to keep winning. We fight against the fascists until the bitter end. The only endpoint of fascism is self destruction. I am a leftist, but I am not a revolutionary. I think armed action rarely leads to good outcomes, and history shows that. However, if we get a Reichstag fire moment or an enabling act moment, that's not the point to lose hope. If people start turning their neighbors into the gestapo-fied ICE, that's not the point to hide. These represent the time where politics should be abandoned, and an actual violent fight for freedom and liberty should begin. I pray we never come to that point. Hopefully, these next four years will look like a continuation of 2016-2020. We'll have a slow degrading of our rights, but if too many of those we all care about are hurt, we can come together and help to reverse it. I know things are super polarized and we all have our own little bubbles in society, but there comes a breaking point where too many people are hurt, and even the biggest MAGA head will have someone they deeply care about that is very hurt by Trump. This is my hope, though it unfortunately relies on things getting worse first before becoming better. 

[the-masquerade-council]

Octocon: A Review and Comparison. (Website link)

I am writing this on the 14th of July 2024, which is just three days after the first public release of the app(on the 11th). So some of the things I bring up here may no longer be reinvent, when it is updated in the future. I've also only just started using it, so there may be stuff I'm unaware of.

I think the 2 biggest advantage of octocon is, first the fact that it functions as jake of all trades, and second the safety features. The app has a companion discord bot, as well as in app journaling. Making it so it has features of simplyplural, pluralkit, and lighthouse all in one. In terms of safety, in addition to options for a pin lock, there are also a quick exit option and a stealth mod option. With quick exit enabled you can double top any unoccupied spot on the app to immediately close the app. The stealth mode being enabled makes it so when the launches it appears as a news app(pictures on the right below), to access the real app just double tap the logo. Also the app having no reference to systemhood or plurality in the name makes it more convert.

I could see the app being directly connected to the discord bot as being very useful for systems that split alters often. I know from our experience we often don't really bother with setting up PK profiles for a lot of our system(and doing with tokens every time is also annoying), so having the app and bot linked is useful. The discord bot commands are also more private than PKs.

The app can be used for front and alter tracking, you can also set an alter as primary front if multiple alters are fronting. Also alters in the app are given an ID number which can be changed to organize them, rather it being alphabetical(one of our pet peeves with SP is the fact you can't make organization non alphabetical, I say a host whose name starts with V) The app also lets you make alter folders, which can be used for subsystems among other things. It also let you add friends so they can see who is fronting, much like simplyplural.

There are also several different color options for the app.

As for the journaling, there's both individual alter journals and a journal

Now moving on the things I like less about the app. As a reminder the app just come out and the app will likely be changed in the future.

There is no in app way to edit the info for the system as a whole, this is done via the bot on discord. On a related note system usernames must be between 5 and 16 characters long, which as you might notice is to short for our system name.

The is no dashboard, and no chatting or polls in app, though chatting could still be done on discord with bot. Also there's no browser version.

All alter info is on one tab I could see this getting very crowded. there's less custom field options(not date options for example) and no markdown support(meaning you can't add images and such to bios and the like). There is also currently not wat to achieve alters.

There is no non folder way to represent subsystems in the app, mean there is also no subsystem specific group journals. (Side note lighthouse is very good for keeping track of subsystems, if your system has multiple I recommend you give it a try)

The app's current front history keeping is rather bare bones.

Closing thoughts

For now we are going to continue predominately using simplyplural and pluralkit. Simplyplural for it's better information keeping, and pluralkit do to its prevalence. However I am very excited to see what octocon's future hold and can absolutely understand why some systems would prefer it over alternatives. I am also always glad to see new system resources being created!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Michelangelo Signorile at The Signorile Report:

There have been many postmortems on the outcome of the election for Democrats, looking at how certain minority groups voted—and how they supposedly shifted their vote—but there’s been very little written about one particular minority group: LGBTQ voters. And yet, in context, LGBTQ voters displayed the kind of influence as a bloc that politicians should be paying attention to moving forward. I suspect part of the reason they’ve not been focused on is because these voters don’t fit an overwhelming corporate media narrative that positions Donald Trump as having broadened and diversified his coalition—because LGBTQ people actually went the other way. According to the NBC News Exit Poll, LGBTQ people doubled their share of the electorate, from 4% in 2020 to 8% in 2024, which is nothing to sneeze at. (Researchers have shown the percentage of the LGBTQ population appears to be roughly equal in all of the states.) And 86% of LGBTQ people voted for Kamala Harris—well over 10 million voters—a big increase from the 71% who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Donald Trump saw a sharp decline in support from LGBTQ voters, from 25% in 2020 to just 14% in 2024.

[...]

But regarding LGBTQ voters, the shift in the national exit polling is big enough—and the growth in the percentage of the electorate is large enough—to assume that something happened. While many other groups moved toward Trump a bit—or saw less turnout in some places—LGBTQ people went in the opposite direction. I believe a few things came into play. The toxic masculinity that marked the Trump campaign was as threatening to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as it is to many women. (Harris overwhelmingly won Black women, and, though Trump won white women, Harris did better with white women than Biden did in 2020). The Trump campaign’s bro culture on steroids, exemplified by the white supremacist elements of Trump’s base as well as among the many young right-wing and even independent male podcasters Trump courted, often telegraphed homophobia and transphobia. Even when it wasn’t overt, it sent a message that you’re not included if you’re queer. And the blatant anti-trans messaging from Trump and the GOP—and the vicious ads they aired in media markets—horrified almost the entire LGBTQ community.

[...]

First off, as far as many in Trump’s base are concerned—including the aggressively anti-LGBTQ Christian right—there is no “normal” gay anything. They believe we’re all abnormal—freaks and sinners. Secondly, the idea that some great majority of queer people—or the “normal gay guys”—would vote for Trump because they were eager to throw trans people under the bus is clearly false. I’m not saying all cisgender gay, lesbian, and bisexual people support all trans people—there are fissures, as there are in any movement—but I believe most do, understanding the clear connections we have about our bodies and our privacy and about how those who hate us view us.

Beyond that, Trump and the justices he put on the Supreme Court are a threat to marriage equality and anti-discrimination laws protecting gay, bi and lesbian people, especially in public accommodations. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, was marrying gay couples going back to 2004 as a district attorney in San Francisco—before being shut down by the California Supreme Court—and enforced protections as California attorney general while being outspoken as a U.S. senator. The other thing I would say is that queer people know a fascist when they see one. They know what it’s like to be scapegoated. And, if they know their history, they know the brutality and violence LGBTQ people experienced in the past at the hands of strongmen. So do Jews, of course, who also voted overwhelmingly for Harris—by 79%—which must have angered Trump, who demanded their vote at rallies and even berated them, claiming they owed it to him for his support of Israel.

While most demographics moved to the right this election to varying degrees, this key demographic swung left: the LGBTQ+ community.

This is due to the fact that LGBTQ+ issues got more attention this election, thanks to the GOP’s hate-fueled anti-LGBTQ+ (and especially anti-trans) campaigning.

[withacapitalp]

How to Rehabilitate a Jock in Four Months Part 11

Part One Part 10 Part Twelve Link to Ao3

Alrighty guys I want you all to thank @stevethehairington for betaing this and making it fantastic, @henderdads for making the poll that made me finally finish writing this, and @steveshairychest for being a furry lmaooo (Sorry I had to)

Also I know you guys reallllly aren't going to want to hear this, but I wanted to put out one more chapter before I let you know that HTRAJ is going on a hiatus. Not a long one! I just have way too many WIPs going right now, and two of them are Valentines gifts (and good reads if I do say so myself!)

Step Eleven: Play Some Music

“Steve gets shotgun,” Eddie called as they exited the trailer, tossing Steve a smile that made his chest feel fuzzy as he jumped down the last two steps. 

“What the hell man?” Jeff grumbled, looking slightly put out, “We take turns,” 

Steve opened his mouth to say he didn’t mind and he would take sitting in the back, but Eddie pushed him towards the van with ease. 

“Steve’s never been inside of Hortensia, he deserves to see her at her absolute best,” He reasoned, giving Jeff a big megawatt smile and waiting to see what he would say. He still didn’t seem thrilled, but Jeff just rolled his eyes and climbed into the backseat. 

Steve would have made a comment on the fact that Eddie had named his beat up clunker ‘Hortensia’ of all things, but it was just so Eddie that all he could do was smile and shake his head. That was classic Eddie, always seeing the good, always finding something to make better. A trashy white van was Hortensia, an ex-jock was a potential friend. 

It was his superpower, almost as strong as El’s. 

“Your ride, my liege,” Eddie said, opening the passenger side theatrically. Steve rolled his eyes and climbed in, buckling his seatbelt as Eddie jumped into the drivers side seat and flourished his keys. 

“Let’s get this show on the road,” Eddie declared, turning the ignition. 

Nothing. 

Another attempt. The van gave a low grumble but did nothing. 

“Damn hunk of junk, piece of shit, mother-”

“Hortensia, huh?” Steve said with a raised brow, interrupting Eddie’s tirade of angry muttering. He threw Steve a slightly dirty look, staring at him directly in the eye as he tried the ignition again. 

Bingo. The van roared to life, headlights instantly taking the empty blackness around the trailer and filling it with trees. The entire group cheered as Eddie victoriously beeped the horn, and Steve opened his mouth to say some stupid comment that would probably make everyone laugh. 

Then the headlights flickered. 

In a single moment the ease, the happiness, it was just gone. Like a fire in dry brush, it had disappeared, and all that was left was a quick panicky feeling that there was something watching them, something waiting nearby. 

He needed his bat. 

“What the hell- Woah, what’re you doing?!” Eddie demanded as Steve shoved his way out of the car, walking over to his Beemer. He had already gotten his backpack out and was rifling through it by the time Eddie snuck up on him. 

“Steve?” Eddie asked softly. 

Eddie was out of the van. He was vulnerable. If something was sneaking up on them, then he would be the first one down.

Steve moved quickly, spinning the two of them so Eddie was up against his car, and Steve was out in front of him. That was better. He didn’t have a weapon, but he knew how to fight these things. At the very least, Eddie would have the time to run to the van if things went bad. 

“Do you see anything?” Steve asked, looking around them. 

The lights had only flickered once, just once, but once was enough. Once was a warning, and ignoring that would be stupid. 

That was Hopper’s number one rule. Don’t be Stupid. 

“What should I be seeing? A boogeyman?” Eddie teased, standing up straight and walking over to Steve, “You think I’m gonna see a were-”

“Eddie,” Steve cut him off with a severe look, grabbing Eddie’s wrist and pulling him behind him again, “Do you see anything?”

“No,” Eddie murmured after a moment. Steve spared a quick glance behind him, faltering when he saw just how uneasy Eddie was. 

“There’s…Steve there’s nothing out there,” 

Nothing out there. The lights were clear, they had been the entire time, and there was no growling, no sound of strange steps creeping up. Just the purr of a rusty engine, and the sound of Steve’s blood racing in his ears. 

Eddie was right. There was nothing out there. 

A rush of humiliation barreled over Steve, erasing everything else. He let out a slow shaking breath, running a hand over his face and hating the way his eyes were starting to burn. 

A few lights acting funny and he turned into this? Over lights? 

“Are you-”

“I’m fine,” Steve whispered, the lie strikingly obvious to both of them, “Just-”

Steve reached around Eddie and grabbed his backpack off of the ground, hefting it up over one shoulder and turning back to the van. 

“I have what I need. Let’s go,” Steve said, closing the door before Eddie could ask him again if he was okay. 

Flashlight, walkie-talkie, car keys, first aid kit, knife. 

Flashlight, walkie-talkie, car keys, first aid kid, knife. 

Flashlight-

What was he doing? 

Steve forced an exhale, pushing all of the air out of his lungs, letting the deafening chatter from the car around sink back in, and finally releasing the death grip he had on his bag. 

The backpack that had his flashlight, walkie-talkie, car keys, first aid kit, and knife. Everything he could carry inconspicuously in case of an emergency. His knife wasn’t ideal, but better than nothing. Steve would have loved to have Baby with him too, but she had to stay in the trunk of the Beemer. The last thing he needed was everyone to know how actually insane he was now, and carrying around a bat full of nails was a one way ticket to the loony bin.  

Maybe he should ask Nancy to teach him how to shoot a gun. A pistol was easily hidden, and-

Jesus. There really was something wrong with him. 

This was fun. Steve was supposed to be having fun. It was just a nice normal night with nice normal friends. The gates were closed, the kids were all together having a sleepover at the Wheeler’s, everything was just fine. 

So why was his stomach still twisted up in knots? Why was he obsessively looking out the window at the trees, just to make sure nothing was running alongside the van?

“What do you think, Steve?” Eddie asked, thrusting Steve back into the conversation happening all around him. The bumping bass from the radio was gone, and the rest of the group was now staring at him, waiting for an answer. 

Shit. 

Steve curled his hand around the strap of his backpack again, shrugging and giving Eddie a tight lipped smile, hoping that would be at least a somewhat adequate answer. Judging by Eddie’s furrowed brow and downturned mouth, it wasn’t. 

Flashlight. Walkie-Talkie. Car Keys. First Aid Kit. Knife. Flashlight. Walkie-Talkie. Car Keys. First Aid Kit. Knife. 

“He probably hasn’t listened to either of them yet,” Jeff cut in, tapping his chin. 

Oh. They were still talking about bands. Steve probably couldn’t have answered that question even if he had been listening instead of quietly freaking out. 

“You can tell us which was your favorite after the show,” Frank said, making eye contact with Steve from the rearview mirror and giving him an easygoing smile. Steve returned it, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease up ever so slightly. 

Frank was a cool guy. Understated, but nice. He always kind of hung around in the back, but that was fine. In a group like Hellfire with so many big personalities, having a steady person like Frank helped to balance everything out. 

“I still think he would like Black Sabbath best,” Jeff said, settling back in his seat. 

“Of course you think that,” Gareth replied with a roll of his eyes, pausing for a minute before crossing his arms and continuing in a begrudging tone, “Quiet Riot. Everyone can appreciate them. Even Steve.”

It wasn’t exactly an insult, so Steve decided to let go of any part of him that bristled at Gareth’s words. Gareth was a lot like Mike, it took him time to warm up. It was just…taking a bit longer than Steve had expected it to. 

Whatever. He liked a good challenge. 

“Trust me, we’ll play a song from the new Dio album and Steve’ll be a total convert,” Eddie said, shooting Steve a bright smile that warmed him from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. “We’ll have to get you a battle vest to match mine soon enough,” 

Without really thinking about it, Steve let go of his bag and reached up to play with the guitar pick hanging around his neck. Even just touching it was enough to ease away whatever nerves were still rolling around his body. 

It wasn’t like he was magically some different person, but wearing Eddie’s clothes and having his necklace was… it was almost like there was a shield. They were a buffer, a barrier between Steve and the fear that seemed to rule over everything he did nowadays. Here he wasn’t the babysitter or the protector. He was the new kid, someone who was still learning and allowed to slip up. If he didn’t know something, then it wasn’t the end of the world. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Eddie asked, staying quiet so the other three who were still debating wouldn’t hear him. 

“Yeah,” Steve replied immediately, squeezing his fingers around the chain and taking a slow deep breath, “better now,” 

“If you wanna talk, I’m always here,” Eddie whispered back, giving Steve one more soft glance before turning his eyes back to the road. Steve sighed, dropping his hands back to his lap and letting his head rest against the seatbelt, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to see the forest around them. 

The thing was, Steve knew he wanted to talk to Eddie. He wanted to tell him that Dustin had left at 4 o’clock today, and Steve had been late because he was nervous about coming tonight. He wanted to tell Eddie that he was worried about fitting in, worried about letting his guard down, worried about the endless ‘what-if's' that seemed to run around in his mind in an endless loop these days. Eddie would listen, and even if he didn’t understand, he would empathize. 

Steve wanted to, but he couldn’t. 

Because Eddie was understanding, but he was also so so nosey. He would poke and prod and try to learn the whole story, because he wouldn’t be able to help himself, and Steve couldn’t handle that. If that happened, Steve would have to pull back, put distance between them. Not only to protect himself and his people, but to protect Eddie too. 

Steve had seen what happened to people who got pulled into their world. 

Bob was what happened. 

And even the thought of something like that happening to Eddie made Steve’s heart race. He reached up to touch the guitar pick again just to ground himself in the moment. 

It was fine. Nothing was going to happen to Eddie. Nothing was going to happen to any of them. Steve wouldn’t let anything ever happen to any of them. 

“Alright freeloaders, we’re here!” Eddie crowed, and Steve opened his eyes just as they pulled into the parking lot of a dingy looking hovel. 

The place looked about two steps from being closed for a health code violation, and Steve was instantly reminded that his mom had made him promise to never get within a thousand feet of the Hideout. It was apparently a bar for ‘other’ kinds of people. Mechanics and factory workers and cashiers. Not Harringtons. 

But here he was, right outside, and the world hadn’t caved in. Imagine that. Steve laughed quietly to himself, getting out of the van and coming around to the back with the rest. 

“‘Sup douchebags!” A voice called from across the parking lot. 

Rocky and Janet were walking over, both decked out in their metal best. Rocky was wearing the same spiked vest he wore every day, but he had chosen a pair of jeans to go with it that was more chain than denim, a look that would have gotten him sent straight to detention if he so much as stepped onto the parking lot of the school wearing it. Janet was wearing her usual attire, but her hair was up in a messy bun complete with deep dark eyeliner and a skull patterned choker. 

“Hey asshole,” Gareth replied, slapping Rocky’s hand against his own and opening the van door, “Help us with set up?” 

As they began to coordinate getting all of the stuff out of the van, Janet skipped over to Frank to chat. 

“I thought you weren’t allowed to come out tonight,” Frank said, rubbing his arm and giving her a timid smile. 

“I wasn’t. As far as my parents know I’m asleep in bed right now,” She replied, giving Frank a mischievous little grin as she kissed him quickly on the cheek, turning around before she could see the way the boy immediately turned into a tomato. 

“Hi Steve. I like the new look. You should wear it to school when we go back. Start 1985 off with a bang,” Janet said in her normal slightly snarky tone. 

“Hi Janet,” Steve said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and ducking his head down to hide the stupid grin on his face as she came over to inspect him, pointing out various add-ons he could have made to get the ‘true full metal experience’. 

This was the thing he had been searching for. Blissful normalcy with dumb conversations and stupid lighthearted jabs. Something easy that wasn’t bogged down in reality. 

“Hup two, guys. We’re already late,” Eddie huffed, pulling on an amp that was far too big for him to hold up on his own. 

“And who’s fault is that?” Jeff said with a roll of his eyes, quickly stepping in to take the other side of the equipment and gently easing it out of the van. Steve grabbed a random box and hefted it up, walking towards the door with Janet hot on his heels, still examining his new outfit. 

“Is that Eddie’s necklace?” She blurted out the second she spotted the dark red swirls, her jaw dropping open comically wide as she stared at it with huge eyes. 

“Someone decided to play Heavy Metal Barbie with pretty boy right before we were supposed to leave,” Gareth grunted, accidentally smacking Rocky with one of his drums as he stepped out of the van.

“Okay! Let’s just get moving, please!” Eddie quickly shouted in an uncharacteristically high pitched voice, practically dragging Jeff as he hurried into the bar. 

If Steve wanted to let himself over examine things, then he would have dared to say that Eddie was blushing. Instead of assessing that particular thought, he grabbed the door and held it open for the rest. 

With all seven of them working, set up went quickly, and before too long there were only a few things left to get. 

“I’ll grab them so you can start tuning or whatever,” Steve offered. 

“I’ll go with you,” Rocky said, pulling Steve out of the bar.  

“You know, I can’t believe he let you wear his lucky pick,” Rocky said the second they were alone outside, pitching his voice low even though there was no one to overhear them. “He doesn’t even let anyone else touch it, let alone wear it. ” 

This was enough to stop Steve in his tracks, his eyes darting down to the little piece of plastic around his neck.

No one else was even allowed to touch it? 

The necklace was already sentimental enough when it was just Eddie’s favorite. Now it was something precious, a treasure that wasn’t meant for any other person. Steve had been joking about Eddie staking a claim on him before, but the guitar pick practically felt like a brand at this point. 

The startling thing was just how much Steve didn’t mind. 

It was the same as ‘Sweetheart’. This was another thing that guys weren’t supposed to do for other guys, another thing that Steve shouldn’t want. He should be taking it off right now, handing it back to Eddie and going home back to the life he belonged in. 

None of this was right. Steve shouldn’t be here at a bar meant for people who were supposedly below him, he shouldn’t be dressed up like a metalhead going to listen to thrashing loud music in the middle of the night, and he certainly shouldn’t be happy Eddie Munson was having him wear something he wouldn’t even let anyone else even touch. 

This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. This wasn’t who Steve was supposed to be. 

But was anything the way it was meant to be anymore? 

There were monsters from other dimensions and little girls who could move things with their minds. There were government cover ups, evil scientists, and dead people all over the place. 

No, nothing was how it was supposed to be anymore. At least this was a change that made Steve happy. He didn’t need to think about that too much, or try to figure out why. 

At least, he didn’t need to yet. 

“Well…maybe he just thought I could use some good luck tonight,” Steve murmured, reaching up and letting his fingers rest against the necklace for a moment before grabbing one last amp and walking back into the bar. He put it down gently on the floor of the ‘stage’ (It was a rickety wooden platform that was barely a feet off the ground, but Eddie had called it a stage), fully intending to turn right around and go back to the car to get his backpack. 

“That was the last of it, Sweetheart,” Eddie called from behind, making Steve stop short, “Rocky and Jan grabbed the best table in the house for you guys. It’s far enough that the drunks won’t hurl on you if they end up having a little bit too much. ” 

“Oh um,” Steve’s mind flitted around as he looked for any excuse he could use, “I…left my wallet in the van,” 

Steve crossed his fingers, praying that Eddie wouldn’t call out the very obvious wallet shaped lump in his right pants pocket. 

“You won’t need it,” Eddie said smoothly, hopping down and steering Steve gently towards the table with their friends, “The barkeep knows to keep my people fed and watered. Just let him know you’re here with me, or better yet, make Rocky do all the heavy lifting. He is a freshman after all, he has to take his licks.” 

That would be great if Steve was actually worried about his wallet. He wasn’t. He needed his flashlight, walkie-talkie, car keys, first aid kit, and knife. He needed to be prepared in case things went wrong. 

He needed those things, but he couldn’t explain to Eddie why, and he couldn’t walk out right now without looking like he was trying to ditch. Steve’s breathing started to kick up, and he could feel his heart leaping in his chest. 

They weren’t safe right now. Anything could happen, and he wasn’t prepared. Anything could go wrong, and- 

“Relax,” Eddie said slowly as they reached the table, pulling out a stool and nudging Steve towards it, “No one’s gonna bite,” 

“I will,” Rocky immediately replied, baring his teeth just for show. 

“Okay well don’t sit too close to him, and you’ll be just fine,” Eddie laughed, the other two Hellfire members snickering alongside him. This was where Steve should laugh with them too, but his throat was closing up. 

He was in a place he didn’t know, with a group who he didn’t really know, without anything to defend himself or keep in touch with his people. 

This wasn’t safe. Steve wasn’t safe right now. 

A soft touch on his arm startled him and he jumped back. Or he would have, if Eddie hadn’t held on and kept him from moving and crashing into the table. Steve stiffened up, looking up at Eddie knowing that he wasn’t doing a damn thing to hide how freaked out he had become. 

He couldn’t care about that. He couldn't care about anything except how dangerous everything had suddenly become. 

“Seriously. Everything’s okay. I promise,” Eddie whispered, leaning in so their heads were close together. Steve closed his eyes, taking a deep breath the way Joyce had shown him. In for four, hold for four, out for four. 

Usually it didn’t do anything for him, breathing slowly normally only made him even more aware of how little air there was in the room, but the breathing combined with Eddie’s hand still on his arm was enough to get Steve centered again. 

Everything was okay. The kids were safe, Nancy and Jonathan were safe, Hopper and Joyce were safe. 

Steve was safe. 

He was out with friends doing something fun, and there was nothing wrong with that. This was normal. This was what he was working towards. All he wanted was something easy, and this was easy. He didn’t have to make things complicated by being afraid. 

And, if anything went wrong, he could just run outside and get his things. 

“Thanks,” Steve whispered.

“Anytime,” Eddie whispered back, his big dark eyes locked on Steve’s. Once again Steve was completely aware of the guitar pick around his neck, and the fact that no one else was even allowed to touch it. 

“Eddie! Seriously! Tick fucking tock!” Frank shouted from the ‘stage’. Eddie growled quietly, muttering to himself about evil bandmates who had no sense of boundaries. Steve snorted, chuckling softly until Eddie stopped grumbling.  

“Have a good show,” Steve said, pulling away from Eddie and hopping up onto the stool. 

“Prepare to have your world rocked,” Eddie said, trying to act cool as he walked backwards, but tripping on the world’s tiniest step and falling flat on his ass on the stage. 

Steve made a valiant attempt to not laugh along with the rest of the bar, but he quickly failed, tossing his head back and laughing loudly, putting a hand on his chest and feeling the hard plastic against his fingertips. Eddie paused, giving Steve an indescribable look before straightening up and brushing away the invisible dirt from his vest. 

“And with that incredibly suave move, I’d like to formally introduce our band to the dozen or so drunks that are here tonight,” Eddie said into the mic, spreading his arms out wide like he would at Hellfire. The meager crowd yelled back and raised their drinks, making Eddie put on an absolutely feral grin

“Ladies and gentleworms, we are Corroded Coffin,” 

Much like Dungeons and Dragons, Steve hadn’t really expected that he would enjoy the show. He liked Eddie and he enjoyed the rest of the group, so he figured he would come and watch and be a good sport. 

And, much like Dungeons and Dragons, he was completely wrong. 

It wasn’t his favorite genre of music by any means, but the energy in the air was absolutely enthralling. From the first note there was just this push, this indescribable palpable movement in the air that was exhilarating while also being settling. It was like they were collectively experiencing something special, and all having a grand old time while doing it. 

It didn’t hurt that he was also about four whiskey sours in.

He had only planned to drink one, maybe two, but every time his glass was empty another magically appeared by his arm, courtesy of Rocky and Janet. He had tried to turn them down a few times, but they could be awfully persuasive when they wanted to be, and Steve couldn’t help hoping that the alcohol might clear up the last bit of the panic that was still rolling around in his head.

So with a warm fire in his belly and a brain that was finally for once quieting down, he happily listened as Janet and Rocky screamed the lyrics right alongside Eddie and the rest. He couldn’t really understand, per say, but the energy was all that mattered. 

And then, halfway into their set, everything fell apart. 

“Alright, everyone,” Eddie said as they caught their breath from an original that left everyone slapping their tables and stomping their feet, “It’s time to settle a bet.”

He turned to face Steve dead on, a gleam in his eyes that had nothing to do with the low light of the bar. 

“We have, let’s call him a…metal virgin, with us tonight,” Eddie drawled, letting the crowd hoot and holler as they pleased. There was less than two dozen people in the bar with them, and there was no way any of them besides Hellfire knew that Eddie was talking about Steve, but he still felt like every eye in the room had just turned to him. 

“Earlier tonight the band and I were trying to figure out who would make him a convert. Black Sabbath, Quiet Riot, Metallica. I said Dio, because I think this song is right up his alley. So, this one’s for you,” 

Steve’s heart began to race in a completely brand new way as Eddie began shredding down on his guitar, joined by Gareth with an impressively quick beat on the drums. 

The song was good. It was fast-paced, lively, and Steve could actually follow along with the lyrics unlike some of the more intense songs from before. Eddie had hit it exactly. The song was just another example of Eddie knowing him even more than Steve expected him to. 

It was so good in fact, that Steve almost didn’t notice the lights behind the bar begin to flicker. 

Almost. 

Steve’s hands began to shake as his eyes darted around, looking at all of the walls. The other lights were also flickering, but the walls were still straight and narrow. No bending. No monsters. 

Not yet. 

Or not here. 

Steve’s heart dropped as reality slapped him square across the face. If the lights were flickering, but there was no sign of any monsters, then they were close, but not here. They could be anywhere, going after anyone. 

Going after one of his people. 

Steve stumbled off the stool, catching Janet and Rocky’s attention as he nearly toppled to the ground. 

“Steve! Are you okay?!” Janet yelled above the noise. 

No, he wasn’t okay. He was a stupid fool in fact. A complete idiot who had honestly let himself believe that the danger was gone when he knew it wasn’t. 

“I- I need to-” Steve couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t make his breath even enough to find the words for what he needed. 

He needed his bat. He needed his backpack. He needed to get in touch with Hopper. He needed to get out of here. 

He needed to find his kids. 

And then, just as Eddie hit one last screeching solo note on his guitar, everything went dark. 

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[fake-stories-poll]

Hello hello everyone! Welcome to the fake stories poll

has this been done? I don't know!

So do you know when you are watching a show, playing a game, reading a book, ect and one of the characters in it bring up a different, fictional book, show, ect. That exists in their universe? Well this tournament is for that sort of thing. Those fake stories that exit within other stories.

Does that make sense? I hope so hehe.

I don't know how popular this sort of thing will be. But I figure there is no harm in trying this yeah?

So basic rules:

I have the right to refuse submissions that make me uncomfortable.

No things like Harry Potter (I don't know if Harry potter has fictional stories in it, but just in case)

If it is something that was later turned into a real story, like, maybe in a spin-off it, is still allowed as long as it originally was a fake story in a different story.

Im using the world story here just because its easier. If there is something like a made up video game with no plot in it that you think is cool, thats still ok.

In order to submit:

Submit things though Asks/Dms.

-When you submit tell me the name of the fake story (If it doesn't have a name that's ok)

-Tell me the name of the show.game,ect the story was found in.

-Then of course you can tell me about the story, if there even is anything that we know about said story.

Hope this all makes sense :D

Other polls for Inspiration/I thing are neat/Am excited about and I think other people should check out: @badass-queer-couples-battle @arrowtossingtournament @friends-to-lovers-tournament @half-being-battle @underrated-adversaries

[bluedalahorse]

@margotdanslebois very sweetly tagged me in a “share a bit of your WIP” thing. Thank you for the tag! It was so nice that you thought of me!

As for who I’m tagging back: I will tag back @sflow-er if they’re up for it!

I’m going to break the rules because my life is a bit of an unmitigated disaster right now. This isn’t so much Work On Progress as it is Work On Hold until I can get unblocked enough (and have put out enough life fires) to finish Heart and Homeland and my Nils-August one shot. Which I really do want to work on.

For the last few days I have been longing to lose myself in reading a fic that doesn’t exist yet—something multichapter about Sara and August getting back together ten years or so in the future, with a lot of character study powering it and some grown up scenes. Also some great side plots with the other characters! And—importantly—it’s written by someone else, because I know I can write my own stuff but due to my aforementioned disaster life, I kinda just want it to… magically appear on AO3 one day for me to read. We all have those days.

So anyway, sargust is on the brain and sargust is what the people will get, and it will be more than a line, but I’ll cut it so you don’t have to see it if you don’t want to.

The scenario: ten years in the future, more or less. Our favorite five have all gotten various levels of therapy and gotten diagnosed with things and worked on various family relationships and such. They all are at the royal summer residence at Solliden this weekend for… reasons. In a month or so the Swedish people are going to vote on whether they want to abolish the monarchy or not. August is struggling with more grief but you won’t see that in this excerpt. Sara works for an autism charity that’s trying to clean up their image by… actually hiring autistic people. It’s annoying for her but she hasn’t figured out how much it’s messing with her yet. Also she’s just moved back from the west coast. Content note: there are some very subtle references to self harm.

“Wille’s here, right? And your brother and Felice?”

“They went to the beach.”

“You didn’t go with them?”

Sara shakes her head. “I didn’t feel like wearing a bathing suit.”

There’s a flicker of—something—on August’s face, and it isn’t the same as the questioning eyebrow twitches her colleagues make when she has to bring up Hillerska. Sara tries not to read the flicker as concern. She smooths down the skirts of her knee-length sundress. The friction of the cotton against her skin only stings a little bit.

“It’s only that bathing suits get wet, and they cling, and it feels awful when you’re sitting on the beach,” Sara says. Realizing she could have led with a more practical reason, she pulls her open laptop off the coffee table and sets it on her lap. “I’m also working remotely today.”

“So am I,” said August. “I can find another room—“

“That isn’t necessary,” said Sara. “I could—””

“I’ll work outside.” August gestures toward the double doors that open out onto the balcony. “So I won’t disturb you when I need to move around.”

“And I’ll stay here, so I won’t bother you when I do the same.”

Sara feels the corners of her mouth twitch into a smile. Clearly, her mouth is responding to the absurdity of the moment. To the comedic—romantic comedy? surely not—fumbling of two twenty-somethings with ADHD masquerading as proper adults.

“Good. Good. Great.” Single syllables, the last two in English. August’s own smile goes through flashes of brightness and panic before he settles on the sheepishness of a boy who’s been reminded of his manners. He tucks his hands behind his back. “Welcome to Solliden, by the way. You can let me or the staff know if you need anything.”

He nods and exits out through the double doors, and just like that, Sara becomes a royal guest. Perhaps one of the last royal guests ever, if last week’s polling data means anything. She hopes no one will interview her for a documentary about it in the future.

There’s a farcical moment two minutes afterward where August sticks his head back in and says he’s forgotten his sunscreen, and Sara hands him the bottle before he goes out again. It’s a brand she’s never seen before—something ridiculously expensive and high SPF. Fragrance free, too. Sara can’t help watching through the windows as August rubs the sunscreen onto the back of his neck and onto his exposed forearms. Can’t help wondering if she’d have rubbed it in for him, admonishing him like you know you burn so easily, if they’d had their summer weekends in Bjärstad during his military service like he’d wanted.

Still, Sara hadn’t wanted it, then, and that thought should be enough to push herself back into fifteen minute stretches of newsletter edits and donor emails. Sara reminds herself of her bosses’ talking points: that PuzzleChildrens’ oldest donors appreciate the paper copies of the newsletter they receive each month, that the personal stories of lost children remind them where their money is going, that Sara is doing so well at communicating with people and that she shouldn’t worry too much about creating a perfect product, only one that reaches people’s hearts. She opens up a colleague’s story about a pitiable single mother in Luleå called Maja, whose eleven-year-old daughter Saga has been “stolen” by a serious disease. The colleague is older and touchy, so Sara phrases all her line edits delicately. What she really wants to type is: Don’t call meltdowns “tantrums.” Of course Saga has empathy, she loves her dog and she probably feels that very deeply. And for fuck’s sake arm flapping isn’t a “babyish gesture.”

But no. She can’t respond like that. Not with the amount of money these newsletters raise, not when her older colleagues don’t know things, and she was the one hired to educate them.

Sara thinks that maybe, the cotton of her sundress would be better if it were rougher. If she could run the nail of her index finger across her hip and it would hurt just enough to remind her how to communicate with people at work so they don’t think she’s a freak.

Eventually Sara’s phone buzzes with an incoming text, pulling her out of her thoughts. Do you want something to drink?

It’s from August. Sara looks up, and he’s still outdoors on the balcony. He glances in Sara’s direction and offers her a stiff—but not unfriendly—wave. The glass between them is impossibly clean, probably scrubbed this morning by the staff at Solliden.

Sara texts back. I don’t want to trouble you too much. Are you having something?

Seltzer. There’s a local brand that just launched, they do one with an elderflower and pear infusion.

August makes a face at his phone (Sara’s still watching him, it’s that twisting expression his mouth sometimes makes when he’s embarrassed himself, like he’s gotten an unexpected taste of sour candy) and types a follow up.

It’s less pretentious than it sounds. You can have what you want though. We’re well-stocked here.

Seltzer sounds good, Sara responds. I’ll have that, thanks.

As August comes back indoors and presumably goes off somewhere to fetch staff who will then fetch the seltzer. Sara doesn’t comment on how inefficient it all seems—what kind of sister would she be, she thinks, if she didn’t leave things open for Simon to snark about later?

Thinking of Simon reminds Sara that he and Felice and Wille still haven’t returned, so she checks her other text messages after clocking out of work for the day. There’s a text from Felice saying they’ll be another two hours or so, that they’ve driven off to a farm with the best strawberries and rhubarb on Öland so that Felice can use them for some sort of tart in a late-night anarchic baking spree.