#simply having basic decency and not being a cop about it is enough

[irradiatedpiratebooty]

I will never understand anybody who cares so deeply about what other people identify as

"But aren't therians weird??? I mean come ON"

Will hating on someone just doing what makes them happy pay my rent? Will it help me get a job? Will it bring me joy? No? Then who caressssss

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

The Perfect Bad Boy (Pt. 13 of 18)

Pairing: Billy Hargrove X Reader

Word count: 3 K

Summary: Working as a lifeguard in the Hawkins Community Pool, you try to fit in after moving from New York. Things were going pretty well when you notice you've been under someone's stare. Billy Hargrove, Hawkins' bad boy, has been staring at you since day one. You never intended to have anything to do with him, judging by the reputation he has. But Billy won't leave you alone, determined to show you his feelings are different this time...

As if your heart flooding you with confusing feelings wasn't enough, there are weird, strange animals lurking in the woods... But those have to be just part of the wild live of the woods surrounding Hawkins... Right?

<- Previous part (12)

Next part (14) ->

{Stranger Things Masterlist}

×

Demodogs

The funfair is everything you thought it would be, and even more. The colorful lights, the music, the games, the kids running around. It's inebriating, beautiful, mesmerizing... You only wish you could forget what you saw on the road... What you saw a while ago and what James told you he saw. Four beasts so far, if you assume those were all different animals. It probably means there are more, right? Nobody was attacked yet, or else you'd know. News travel fast through Hawkins. But even so, the cops need to know, and whatever it is, it has to be controlled. But what you really need is to know what that is. You think you'll feel better once you know the species, so you can do some research and have some peace of mind.

“(Y/N)? Are you there?” Monica shakes your shoulder lightly, dragging you out of your thoughts. “You look a little pale. Are you feeling alright?”

“Yup. I was just thinking.” You all give a few steps forward when the line for the ferris wheel move.

“I know who you were thinking about,” Christopher says, his arm around Monica's shoulders. “He's coming, by the way.” He tilts his head towards something behind you, and you immediately turn on your heels, and the familiar burning on your stomach hits.

You can't help but smile to see him, walking among the sea of people, eyes fixed on you. It's ok to look now, right? You're dating, you're living together. And Billy looks so... Gorgeous. Hot. Awesome. He's wearing his black leather jacket and a dark blue shirt underneath, which is unbuttoned.

“Hey, princess.” His smile makes your legs weak as he pulls you into a kiss.

“Hey, handsome,” you mutter when you pull away, a hand on the exposed part of his chest. “Haven't you ever heard of buttons, Hargrove?”

“Yeah, but I don't think they're necessary.” He winks and you bite your lip.

“I think I agree,” you whisper before finally turning back to your friends. And, of course, they're all staring with wide eyes. Monica is the only one who knows you're dating. “So, guys... Billy and I.” You mutter, blushing lightly and moving again. You're next in line.

“I knew it!” Jason exclaims, high-fiving Monica. “I knew it, from the beginning.”

“I didn't. I mean... Billy is... Or was...” Christopher struggles with the words, gesturing at Billy and you. “Well it doesn't matter, does it? Congratulations.”

“Careful, Chris. Remember what happened to David last time.” Monica warns him, a smirk on her face.

“Next.” The old man calls and you move.

“Couples first,” Monica says, pulling you and Billy ahead of the others. The car only fits two, so you and Billy go alone.

As you move up, you look down, taking in the amazing view the ferris wheel provides. Billy has an arm around your shoulders, and you lay your head on his shoulder.

“You're quiet. What happened? You sounded very excited about the fair.” Billy asks, placing a kiss on your hair.

You don't want to tell him why you're restless, not today. “I was. I am.” You stutter a little, clearing your throat.

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“No.” You breathe out, cursing yourself for worrying him. “I'm happy, I truly am and this is... This is beautiful and being here with you just makes everything better.” Looking up, you pull him into a kiss, taking in his amazing scent, from the cologne you love so much. “I'm alright, trust me,” you reassure him when we break the kiss.

“(Y/N), you were very, very loud earlier. You literally threw water on me. You can't possibly think I wouldn't notice you acting weird.” Billy keeps his index finger on your chin, forcing you to look into his eyes.

You really wish he could let it go because you don't want to ruin the night, but don't want to lie either. “I just saw something in the woods, but I'm sure it's nothing.” You try hard to keep the fear away from your voice, to keep it casual.

“Was it the same thing you saw the other time?” He asks, the expression on his face changing. It seems that you don't need to ask Billy to believe on what you saw. He does. You have no idea why or how, but it looks like he does. “The same thing James said he saw?”

“Yeah... Two of them. Running, keeping up with the car.” Your voice cracks by the end, as the image comes back to your mind. It's almost surreal that you're so scared of what's probably just some kind of animal. “It's stupid. I'm a big city girl, I'm not used to living this close to the woods.”

“It's not stupid.” He assures you, pecking your lips. “We'll check it out tomorrow, ok?”

“We should tell the police. What if it starts attacking people in the daylight?”

“It won't,” Billy states, not a single hint of doubt in his voice.

“What do you mean it won't? Do you know what it is? Is it nocturnal?” The words come out fast. If he knows what it is, why didn't he tell you on the first time? Billy looks away, taking a deep breath. “Billy?”

“I'll need you to trust me in this, (Y/N).” His voice is different, urgent, deep. Of course you trust him, how could you not?

“I do,” you say in a low voice. “You know I do. Is something going on that I don't know about?” As you speak, your time is over and you're back on the ground. Billy takes your hand and start walking away from the ferris wheel.

“I promise I'll tell you everything. But not here, and not today.” You both stop, and Billy cups your face. “For now, let's us just... Enjoy the moment. How does that sound?”

Taking a deep breath, you nod. It was the plan from the beginning, so you might as well stick to it. “Alright.”

“Come, I'll introduce you to my friends.”

Billy guides you through the fair, holding your hand. His friends are on the Northside, where parking is exclusive for the employees. But you don't think they care. You only know Tommy and Carol, the other two guys and the girl you only know from afar. When they recognize Billy, Tommy raises his hand and waves.

“You'll hate them.” Billy warns.

“Let me be the judge of that,” you whisper as you approach the guys.

“What's up, Billy,” Tommy says, smiling. “...And who's that?”

Of cours they're staring at you. Why would you even hope otherwise? You're not only the new girl, but now you're also the one who actually got Billy Hargrove. People won't just look. They'll stare. “This is (Y/N), my girlfriend,” Billy says and you wave at them. “(Y/N), these are Tommy, Carol, Ryan, Buck, and Emily.”

“Hi. It's nice to meet you, guys.” You simply say, involuntary moving closer to Billy when you notice Ryan's eyes lingering on you.

“Girlfriend? Are you kidding me?” Carol asks, giggling. “I knew you two were hanging out but dating? I must admit I didn't see that coming.”

“Why didn't you introduce her to us earlier, Billy?” Ryan mutters, taking a sip from his can. “Is she too... Pure to hang out with us?”

“Actually, yes,”

“And have you started corrupting her already?" Ryan flashes a smile, and it makes you feel uncomfortable. You can see when his eyes move through your body, up and down, his smile only widening. “Why don't you give me your number, sweetie? I can call when Billy boy here is done with you.”

“Don't you–”

“Do you happen to have Billy's number?” You ask, raising your voice and placing a hand on Billy's chest to stop him from moving. Ryan raises an eyebrow and nods, a big interrogation on his face. “Good. Then you already have my number.”

He bursts into a laugh, furrowing his eyebrows. “Nice one. You could just say no, though.”

“It's not a joke.” Smiling, you feel Billy's arms encircling your waist.

“Wait. Are you two living together or something?” Emily gestures at you and then at Billy, and you feel when he nods. “Shit, it's true then. You're pregnant.” She stands up straight, wide eyes.

“I knew it.” Tommy states.

“That again.” Rolling your eyes, you shake your head lightly. “I'm not pregnant. We're just–”

“Living together,” Billy states, his voice making it clear there will be no further explanation.

Everyone, basically at the same time, gasps, giggles, and Ryan spits out his drink. “Holy shit, Billy. Can't believe you're keeping this one. But this whole innocent act she has going on is very alluring, I must admit.”

“Want me to beat him up a little?” Billy whispers in your ear, and you can hear the anger building up. And you didn't like what Ryan said anyway.

“I did say I wouldn't stop you on the next time so be my guest,” you whisper back, shrugging your shoulders. Who are you to intervene if Billy wants to use his friend as a punching bag?

You give a step back when Billy moves, straight towards Ryan who has the decency of raising both his hands in defeat. “C'mon, Billy. You wouldn't hurt me because of one of your cows, would you? She's just–” Ryan is cut short by a hard punch on his stomach, which makes him bend over and forces the air out of his lungs.

“I would just–” Billy pulls him up again by the collar of his shirt, his fist then connecting to his jaw. “–warn you but–” A kick this time, on the ribs. “–you just can't keep your damn mouth shut, can you?” Billy pushes him violently, and Ryan stumbles down, blood all over his nose and mouth. “I believe my point is made.” He turns to look at the others and you do the same, just now noticing your eyes were fixed on the fight. If you can even call this a fight.

“No screwing with your girl,” Tommy states, exchanging a wide-eyed glance with Carol. “Got it.”

“Let's go, (Y/N).” Billy fixes his jacket and takes your hand. “Want some cotton candy?”

He is acting as if he didn't just leave a bleeding Ryan lying on the ground. “Yeah,” you mumble, raising an eyebrow at his smirk. Billy starts walking, not bothering to wave goodbye at his friends. “Just because I didn't like them it doesn't mean you can't hang out with them. I want to make this very clear.” You have to say it. In a relationship, a person shouldn't try to control who the other hangs out with.

“You're an angel, you know that? The other girls had me for one night and already wanted to control what I–” He stops talking suddenly, shaking his head slightly.

“What? You can say it, I made peace with whatever you did before.” As you speak, you start pulling him on a different direction. This parking lot is outside of the fair, so you're near the back of the attractions. A place gets your attention. It's a bit dark, but there's this blue and purple light, enough to illuminate it just a little bit.

“I know, but I shouldn't compare you to–. Where are you going?”

Not bothering to answer, you just start pulling him harder. “There.”

“I might like where this is going.”

“Jerk,” you mumble, smiling to find that whatever attraction this is, the back is shaped like an L, which gives you a perfect corner to hide. So you move to the very back of it. “Thank you again,” you say, turning around and walking backwards until your back hits the metal wall.

“For what?”

“For defending my honor. It's the second time and now I can thank you better than I did on the first time.” Of course, he already has that smirk on his face. The one you used to hate, that you used to be scared of because it made you feel... Weird. “I–”

The words get caught in your throat when Billy picks you up suddenly, both his hands grabbing your legs and placing them around his waist. You immediately wrap your arms around his neck to steady yourself, giggling. “For the height issue.”

“The height is not an issue,” you tell him, the blue and purple lights illuminating his face enough for you to take in his features. They're already memorized, burned in your brain, but you still like to look. “It's good to be on the same level though.”

“Mhm.” He mumbles and you close your eyes when you feel his lips brushing on yours.

You're used to the burning sensation, the sweet butterflies on your stomach as the anticipation kicks in.

On the moment his lips connect with yours, the amazing, breathtaking sensation is clouded by a groan. A... Growl. Billy pulls away immediately, letting you down. “What was that?” you ask, suddenly aware of the woods across the parking lot.

“Stay here, I–” Another snarl, low and guttural, and then you see it.

The thing comes from behind a large truck, some feet away. You're frozen at the sight. Now you can see it, clearly. And it's not an animal.

It has no fur, just blue, wet skin... And no face. You were right. James was right...

“(Y/N),” Billy calls, but you don't move. “(Y/N), c'mon.”

The thing moves slowly, and you have no idea how, but it knows you're here. It's looking straight at you and Billy, despite having no eyes. You're trying to make your body move, to send any signals to your legs, but it's useless.

Its face starts moving, all of it. You feel Billy grabbing your hand, a distant, numb feeling. Then, the animal's head opens up, and an unnatural growl emerges from its throat at the same moment you're pulled. You don't know how but your legs start working, and you're suddenly running, as fast as you can, back inside the fair. But you feel hunted, pursued. You're among the people again, but Billy keeps running, you don't know where. You can't think. Maybe you're going crazy, but you're pretty sure Billy saw it too. He wouldn't be running if he didn't, right?

“(Y/N),” Billy cups your face, and only then you notice you stopped. The sea of people move around you, but you can't really see it. “Listen. I need you to help me find Maxine. Or any of her friends. Ok?”

You simply nod, taking a deep breath and trying to get yourself back together. “Maxine,” you repeat, clenching your fists. “Or the boys. Alright. But n-no separating to look.” You burst out the last part, holding the collar of his jacket.

“No, we'll stay together. I just need you to–”

“Billy!” A low yell almost lost among the noises reaches you. You both turn your heads at the same time to find Max running, pushing people out of her way. She's with the boys, and someone older. “We gotta go. Now.” She says once she's close.

“We–”

“The Demodogs are back.” Dustin cuts Billy off, his voice getting all funny again. But you don't laugh this time. You're too scared to laugh.

“(Y/N)? Are you ok?” Max asks, and you don't know what to say.

You're feeling sick. There are too many people here, and that thing is out there... What if it starts attacking? There are kids here, toddlers... You feel your body failing, and a strong arm encircles your waist.

“My place. Everyone. Now.” Billy commands as you struggle to stand up, hiding your face on his chest.

Is there any possibility you're having a nightmare?

Because these... These things don't just happen. It doesn't exist, not in real life. It belongs only to sci-fi or horror movies.

Billy has a hand on your knee as you ride shotgun in his car, not listening to whatever Max, Lucas, and Dustin are talking about on the backseat. You're waiting to wake up, you think. Trying to shake the image of that thing's head opening up like it's been sliced apart. You feel how your hands are shaking when you touch your face, trying hard no cry out of desperation.

“Hey,” Billy says in a low voice. “Remember when I told you to trust me?”

Nodding, you dry off the stubborn tears before looking at him. “We'll fix this. I promise you.”

“How? How do we–”

“We'll tell you everything,” Lucas says, cutting in. “I mean, she saw it. She has to know, right?”

“Right. But your brain may explode, so be prepared.” Max touches your shoulder, but you can't understand why they seem so... Calm about this. They're worried, but not deadly, ultimately scared. How in the hell is that possible that you're the only one here on the verge of losing your damn mind?

“Let's get inside,” Billy says when we stop by his place. “And wait for the others.”

You can barely feel your body as you walk to the house. Billy remains by your side on the couch as the boys stay in the kitchen. The low chattering is unlistenable.

“How are you feeling, princess?”

“I don't know how to answer that. I just say a very weird dog cracking its head open.” Running a hand through your hair, you close your eyes shut. “It's about that lab, isn't it? This whole thing smells like some screwed up experiment that went wrong.”

“The truth is actually a lot worse than that.” As he speaks, the door opens and you jump back to your feet, breathing out relieved when you see it's just the rest of the guys. And three more people, about your age.

Everyone gathers around in the living room and you go back to your place beside Billy. It's creepy the way they all keep staring at you, exchanging glances.

“(Y/N), these are Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan. They're part of our party when it comes to... This.” Max starts, and the three of them nod and give you a little wave. “There are also Robin, Hopper, the chief of police and Joy, Will's mom, but they won't get here in time so... Let's just do this.”

Maxine takes the deepest breath, but when you think she'll start speaking, she doesn't.

“I swear to God I'll lose my freaking mind if one of you don't start explaining to me what the hell is going on here because I just saw some–some sick, zombie, dead dog with no face and the head just opened up like one of those carnivorous plants and I'm sure something is very, very wrong and–”

“Alright, I'll do it.” Eleven speaks up, stepping forward and gesturing for Billy to stand up. She takes his place, looking down at her hands before looking at you. “Ready for the strangest story you'll ever hear?”

×

@chloe-skywalker @dpaccione @dreamin-of-dacre @funeral-7 @uncookspaget @youhavemyfantasticbeasts @halloweenbitch2764 @redlovett @multific @shinydixon @nikkixostan @clockworkballerina

[pla-teau]

THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER: THE STAR-SPANGLED MAN

i’m late to this but watching episode two of the falcon and winter soldier was a ride. a necessary one in my view for the sake of understanding where sam and bucky are in this world.

from episode one to this episode, race is a lingering blanket throughout our time seeing the pair on screen (minus the action sequences and their banter). bucky constantly telling sam that he should’ve kept the shield annoyed me because i wanted sam to explode. i wanted him to unload and explicitly tell him his reasons for not keeping the shield. we saw in endgame that sam was uncomfortable holding the shield when steve passed it on to him. not that he felt unworthy but he knows the implications of the shield, the legacy it holds and the magnitude of that symbol in the usa. he knows that the history is associated with a white man for decades. at the beginning, steve is used as propaganda by the government for the war before he really grows into his own and even goes against the same government that propped him up to be this heroic symbol. sam, as an african american man, knows struggles that steve never had to face all due to the color of his skin. we don’t know specifics about his time in the military besides what we learned in winter soldier but i don’t doubt that sam had obstacles thrown at him in that environment. now, mixing in his struggles and knowing the implications of him carrying that shield, it’s understandable why sam gave back the shield. this isn’t wakanda, this is america and america doesn’t have a good track record with it’s non-white citizens - especially the african american community.

we learn in episode two that there’s a much darker history associated with captain america when we meet isaiah bradley. to me, the erased history and mistreatment of isaiah speaks to the fact that the government always wanted to keep captain america as a white man. captain america is supposed to be the all-american man who loves his country. as a hispanic woman, when i hear all-american man, my mind pictures a white man first because that’s what i’ve been conditioned to think through imagery and from simply growing up in this country. since the mcu mirrors our world, this is definitely the case when it comes to captain america because that’s the only iteration anyone’s seen or heard of. we learn that isaiah fought bucky and won that fight. to date, i don’t think anyone’s come close to defeating bucky when he was the winter soldier. the fact that isaiah did that and was jailed for 30 years in return for serving his government is explicit enough for us to know that the government doesn’t want a black captain america. and the fact that bucky never told steve about isaiah speaks volumes. if bucky told steve, i don’t doubt steve would’ve tried to do right by him. what that would’ve been, we’ll never know. bucky had this information and while his reasoning was that he was sparing isaiah, quite frankly - it’s not a good enough reason. he hurt both sam and isaiah when they visited his house. he used isaiah to physically show sam that he’s not the first black man the government has set up to fail. what angered me about that scene was that isaiah could’ve been spared by bucky just telling sam about him instead of taking him to his house. if he knows that isaiah doesn’t want that trudged up again, why do it to prove a point? i don’t doubt that had bucky just told sam about isaiah, he would’ve believed him. i think sam and isaiah’s first meeting would’ve been different and on sam’s terms, not bucky’s.

bucky, of course, doesn’t understand sam’s reasons for giving back the shield and that’s the fucking point. how could bucky understand as a white man? sam not explaining himself and keeping his composure whenever bucky lectures him on why he shouldn’t have given back the shield speaks volumes. sam’s reasons are his own and frankly, doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. because explaining it to bucky would be pointless. bucky doesn’t understand what sam’s gone through in life and yeah maybe he sees sam as the next captain america because steve said so along with the fact that he’s a good man which brings me to my next point.

a good man. that’s what made the serum work on steve. steve was a good man at the end of the day. we the audience, the avengers and steve’s friends/comrades know that captain america is not just a star spangled man fighting for the good ol’ us of a, it’s a good man that fights for what’s right. that’s why steve gave the shield to sam because he knows sam is a good man that’ll continue the legacy of fighting the good fight and not necessarily for the government or for those in charge. so sam’s comment in the therapy scene about steve and bucky never understanding is not wrong because while they see the legacy being carried by sam as the right choice, it’s wishful thinking that everything would be fine and that the whole world would be okay with it. i say wishful thinking because it’s easy to think that things wouldn’t change and everyone will accept sam as the new captain america when you don’t think about the struggles sam has faced in his life. when you’re in a place of privilege, you can afford to be a little idealistic because you don’t face or rarely see the injustices to poc/ minorities so you can afford to believe the world will be accepting of what you see as common sense or that the world will treat poc with basic human decency.

when bucky shares his fears of steve being wrong about him if he was wrong about sam and sam asks him if he’s finished also says a lot. that interaction just proves what i said earlier, bucky (and steve) is being idealistic in thinking there would be no questions asked and the world would be fine with sam carrying the shield. when sam says “are you finished?” it’s relatable because it’s representative of poc listening to white people throw a fit about something they’ve never experienced and can’t fully understand.

the scene with them and the cops also shows that bucky has a lot to learn about where sam is coming from and why he returned that shield. out of costume, apparently no one knows sam is the falcon. when i say no one, i mean those with authority (bank and cops so far) because what they see first is a black man and a superhero second. while for steve it seems that everyone saw him as captain america first and steve rogers second. seeing how before they apologize to sam for not recognizing him the officer had his hand on his gun vs. how they tell bucky that he’s under arrest gently and calmly should be a wake up call for buck. he’s one of the world’s most dangerous assassins and they’re just like “oh hey...there’s an arrest out for you because you missed therapy sorry.” is aggravating but the worst part is bucky telling sam to show him his ID, being idealistic in thinking that the situation would be resolved once sam formally identifies himself. that shows buck still has a long way to go because not realizing and thinking that being cooperative and doing what authorities say will resolve the situation is in fact hurtful to sam since he doesn’t know that even cooperating and doing as told will do nothing if that authority figure already has a bias going into that situation.

all in all, the main point for my essay-like post is that while bucky and steve see sam as their equal and the best choice to carry on the legacy, the rest of the world may not necessarily agree and they miss that due to their vastly different experiences in life than sam. i truly despised the way endgame did steve with his arc because it would’ve been great seeing him retired and adjusting to current life but also learning about the darker history and implications of the shield since now the show confirms steve knew nothing. i would imagine steve trying to do right with not only isaiah but sam as well by simply being an advocate and trying to understand how life is different for sam. i hope in future episodes we see bucky try to understand this and even fix his own biases and actions that are harmful rather than helpful to sam. i also just can’t wait to see more of sam’s story being fleshed out and seeing him take on the mantle.

[whitehotharlots]

Vicious impotence

A moment is inseparable from the ways in which it is discussed and understood. When people are aware of their inability to affect the material conditions of the moment itself, they become vicious in asserting the primacy of their interpretation of it. Well-compensated and facing neither encumbrance nor threat of censure, they screech before large crowds, bemoaning the fact that no one has listened to them. If only their interpretation had been accepted and agreed upon before the moment had happened, then it never would have happened, or it would have happened differently. They assure their audience that worse moments are still to come and that these, too, will be due to their perspective having received insufficient attention. The more they are listened to, the more they feel themselves ignored. Their inefficacy is proof of the urgency of their methods. 

Classification becomes the order of the day. Beneath that--never spoken too loudly, as enunciation leaves one’s beliefs open to clear examination--there lies a churning river of conspiratorial mysticism. This happened because the people who did it are this way, and no one should pay any mind to how being that way made them do those awful things--it just did. When those people are around, these things will happen. They always will. Presence is action and action is presence, which is why we face such a vital imperative to identify presence whenever an action has taken place. 

And so within hours of a few hundred psychotic dimwits breaking into the Capitol building, managing to kill a cop and several of their own in the process, our bleak commentariot had published hundreds of articles classifying the type of people who were involved. The raid was a coup, first and foremost, regardless of the fact that at no point was there any risk of the United States government being toppled. It was a coup because it was caused by whiteness, racism, masculinity, a lack of trans-positivity, gamergate, ableism, too few powerful women, too many bad ideas, too much free speech, too many jokes, not enough solemnity, not enough people listening to the things writers had said in the past and were saying now. Whatever you wanted to cause it had caused it, and it all came back to the presence of bad people who, by their nature, cause bad things. 

Of course, I am as hapless and internet-deranged as everyone else, and so I made my own classifications. Surveying the crowd, I see a fair representation of the Trump base: racist internet perverts; young libertarian men who read 3 books a year and consider themselves intellectuals; 40-something blonde women who have been ejected from multiple Styx concerts; senior citizens who demand the TV in the Pep Boys waiting area be switched from Family Feud to Fox News because it’s been 25 minutes since they last tuned in and they need to make sure Obama still wants to kill them. The gang was all there, reveling in the strange power of their impotence, moving for the sake of movement, existing for the sake of existence. They had been told, and they believed, that their mere presence affects outcomes. They figured that all they needed to do was break in to where they think power unfolds and just stand around and then, by osmosis, power would be what they wanted it to be. 

Like the liberals who despise and define them, the Trump people had confused moments with materiality. Those liberals share the same confusion, and they rushed to insert themselves and their perspectives into the moment. Yes, they said, these people actually did almost destroy Democracy. They had gotten into the building where elemental power is generated. Their particles brushed off into the magic power rays. Such an incursion cannot be allowed to happen again. These people must no longer be allowed to conceptually exist.

The moment trumps the materiality, as we can only influence the former. We are content to let these people wallow about in their homes until they OD or shoot themselves or their lungs melt--that’s their material demise, deserved and unimportant. But in the meantime we must erase their ability to influence the creation of moments. Their bodies can stay, for a while. Their mediated selves must be destroyed. 

What are the implications here? To ask an obvious question: how can the Democrats continue to blame the dispossessed working class for their own immiseration if they can no longer tell these people to learn to code, since learning to code necessarily entails enmeshing oneself into the massive electronic surveillance and control mechanism we're now declaring off-limits to anyone whose beliefs fall an inch to the left or the right of the Democrat narrative du jour? And what are the implications for everyone else? Ours is a flimsy society built upon layers and layers of obvious contradictions, sure, but what will things look like when those contradictions are enforced with the viciousness of our carceral state, even as they shift as rapidly as social media demands our perceptions to change?

When I said “Democrat narrative du jour,” I mean DU JOUR. As in, it changes by the day, and one day's narrative will very often directly contradict that of the previous day. This is how all cops are bastards and we should abolish all policing but also we need to give police more resources and leverage to brutalize the people who we don't like. This is how gender is both a meaningless social construct and an innate facet of one's being that is so inimical to their identity it should determine whether or not they receive access to basic social decency. This is why empowered women are every bit as tough and competent as their male counterparts and also they are delicate waifs who should never be exposed to scrutiny or criticism. This is how downplaying race amounts to a racist facade of "colorblindness" and also acknowledging race is a hateful act of dehumanization. This is how a cop can find himself getting beaten to death by a crowd bedecked in Blue Lives Matter regalia. 

You can't simply adhere to the rules, because there are no rules to follow. In order to avoid censure, one must stay connected. 

So what will become of the digitally dispossessed? If we achieve Democrat Utopia and nothing changes materially but the internet is restricted so only those who adhere to officially sanctioned narratives are allowed to attempt to make sense of anything, where does that leave the masses who were shunted away? Is this going to make them less disaffected? Less volatile? What are you idiots hoping to achieve, here? 

[let-it-raines]

Not Your (soul)Mate {8/15}

Killian Jones doesn’t like the idea of soulmates. He sees how happy his friends are with theirs, but he still doesn’t like the idea, not when he’s found love and lost it time and time again only to still not know his sign. He has no markings on his skin, no voices in his head, but then one day he meets Emma Swan and everything changes. Because, well, he may not have ink on his skin to tell him who to love, but the very first time that he hears Emma’s voice he knows that she’s the one for him. Then again, that could simply be his desire talking. After all, for every word she speaks, he becomes aroused.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to be incredibly attracted to a beautiful woman, but things aren’t that simple when she doesn’t have any interest in being his soulmate.

He’s screwed. And not in the good way.

Rating: Mature

A/N: This is in my top 3 favorite chapters for this story, so I’m more than excited to share it with you guys! I’m also sharing it a little (super) early for @thejollyroger-writer because she’s a sweetheart. And maybe because I think everyone deserves a little happiness, and I think this chapter will bring you guys some happiness❤️

And check out that new artwork from @captainsjedi! Isn’t it awesome? She’s also a sweetheart who deserves all of the love 💜

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Tag list: @initiala @snowbellewells @karenfrommisthaven @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @emmas-storybook @searchingwardrobes @spartanguard @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @xellewoods @thejollyroger-writer @galaxyzxstark@cssns

-/-

“Why are you sweating?”

“Because it’s hot.”

“Not that hot.”

“You’re pregnant, A. Your hormones are all messed up, so I don’t trust your temperature gauge.”

Ariel groans next to her and sinks down further on the swing they’re sitting on in Mary Margaret and David’s backyard. Their house is like some kind of weird farm paradise, and Emma loves being out here when she needs to relax. This fourth of July party has not turned out to be relaxing in the slightest.

That’s really not a shocker considering that crazy shit seems to happen on this day every year. Give people a few beers and the promise of lights exploding in the sky and all of the sudden they forget that today isn’t some bubble that doesn’t extend to tomorrow. There are always consequences to actions.

“Babe, doesn’t Emma look flushed to you?”

She hides her face behind her hands as Eric looks at her, seemingly peering into her soul while he tries to see if her face looks flushed. It does. It’s kind of hot and humid outside, and she’s honestly still a little hot and bothered by Killian from earlier. Damn him. Seriously damn him for purposefully riling her up in front of all of these people where she can’t sneak away and go hide in a corner somewhere while she calms herself down. One day the two of them are going to explode at each other, and she’s terrified to think about the consequences.

Because yet again, she seems to be the only one thinking about consequences.

It’s all fun and games until someone talks too much, and she fucks the absolute last person she wants to fuck.

No, wait, scratch that. Killian is not the last person. There are several people on that list way ahead of him, but for the emotional repercussions, she is not sleeping with him.

She is not sleeping with her soulmate.

(She is not sleeping with anyone.)

Even if she finds him funny and charming and very possibly nice. But that’s how every man is at the beginning, and she’s not falling for it again, predestined or not.

They can talk (kind of) and be in the same place, but she’s not dating him.

And she really needs him to stop messing with her, at least for today. It’s fine when they’re passing each other notes through food - even if his notes are obnoxious - or when they’re both riling each other up while they’re submerged in the water with a few people around, but when she’s got every single person she knows within a ten foot radius, Killian messing with her is not an ideal situation.

Two can play at the game and all that, but sometimes she’s simply not in the mood.

Today is one of those days.

“She does look a little red. You feeling okay?”

“Besides the fact that I’m on this swing with you guys while you treat me like I’m your child, I’m fine.”

“Fine is never fine.”

“You have got to stop saying that,” she sighs, leaning her head over on Ariel’s shoulder, fully embracing her role as their adult child, which kind of seems like it’s an oxymoron. It also kind of seems like it simply describes a hell of a lot of men she knows. “Sometimes fine is fine.”

“You sure? I know today isn’t a very fun day for you.”

Of course Ariel remembers. How could she not? She knows all even when Emma doesn’t tell her. Some kind of red-headed oracle.

“I’m just glad he’s not here. It would be a very Walsh move to show up at the Nolans’ party knowing that I’m here. He was such a dick.”

“The biggest dick.”

“Second biggest dick, but he definitely didn’t have the second biggest dick if you know what I mean.”

“I feel like I shouldn’t be here for this conversation,” Eric groans while she and Ariel laugh a bit. Maybe she is an adult child if she’s laughing at small dick jokes. Maybe some people deserve to have small dick jokes made about them.

“Don’t worry, hon,” Ariel placates, patting her husband’s thigh, “we won’t scar you by informing you that other men also have penises. I know that must be shocking for you.”

“I have got to stop spending time with the two of you together.”

“Please,” she scoffs, blindly reaching over Ariel’s shoulder until she finds Eric’s, “you married one of us and knocked her up, so I’d say that bodes pretty well for how much you love us.”

“Or how much I love my wife.”

“Well, we’re a packaged deal, Fisher. A two for one.”

“What about Belle?”

“Oh you’re right. We come in a pack of three.”

“That could be both terrifying and incredibly arousing.”

“Hey,” Ariel groans, sitting up so that Emma’s head falls a bit off of her shoulder and onto the wood of the swing.

“What? If you can point out that other men have dicks, I can point out that your friends are capable of sex. I’d punch Walsh if he showed up here, by the way,” he adds on, almost making her forget how much she never wants to think about Eric thinking about her having sex again. If she had a dad, that would almost be like her dad thinking about her having sex. Then again, Ariel has definitely shared her sex life with Emma, and this all gets more disturbing the longer she’s left alone with her thoughts. “He was an idiot to ever think he could do better than you.”

Technically he could with his soulmate, but she’s not going to think about that. It’s not like he cheated on her with his soulmate or anything, not that it would have made the situation any better. It’s kind of a shit move to date someone knowing that they’re not your soulmate and then cheating on them with your actual soulmate instead of simply telling your partner that you want to break up. It happens all the damn time, and it’s like people have forgotten basic decency.

Walsh definitely had. They’d been dating since last January, and on the fourth of July last year she’d found him sleeping with this red-headed woman in Mary Margaret’s guest bedroom in the middle of this party. Apparently, it had been going on for two or three months, which was nearly half of their relationship, and he had the gall to cheat on her at one of her best friend’s houses during a holiday party with everyone in town just a few feet away. She didn’t even want to come today, the memories of it leading her down a dark path that inevitably always leads to Neal, but Belle had dragged her out of her bedroom and told her that they were coming to this party no matter what.

And it’s been fine. No one has mentioned last year, not even Leroy. At least yet. His mouth tends to get a little looser when he’s had too much to drink, but she hopes that being at a party with every cop in town will keep him in line.

She’s just going to avoid the guest bedroom at all costs. She won’t even sleep in there when she stays over. She’ll sleep on the couch or the bottom bunk in Leo’s bedroom.

But anything to avoid the guest bedroom.

Even if she really needed to go release some tension earlier when Killian was messing with her. She’d nearly dropped the coleslaw her legs were so shaky when they were putting the side dishes out. She’s glad that Elsa came by with Luca trailing right behind her because if Luca, who is so obviously in awe of her uncle, hadn’t been there, she would have very gladly told him to fuck off.

On another day she’ll give him a snarky napkin note like they’ve been doing, but she doesn’t feel like it right now. She doesn’t have the sass or sarcasm in her.

“Thank you,” she finally tells Eric, not knowing what else to say. “Is the sun ever going to set or are we going to be out here in this hot misery forever?”

“I think we might be out here forever. I need to pee.”

Ariel gets up off of the swing and wipes her hands against her dress, the curve of her stomach more obvious today than it’s ever been, and excuses herself to head inside while Eric does the same, claiming that he needs another beer. She could go for some of the whiskey that David keeps in the kitchen on the top shelf that she can’t get to without using a chair to step up on. She knows it’s so their six-year-old doesn’t accidentally get into it, but a part of her thinks that it’s so that she doesn’t get into it either.

Jokes on him because she’s smart enough to be able to get to it all.

Not that she’s going to. Instead she gets up from the swing and follows Ariel and Eric to the main part of the backyard where everyone is milling around. She grabs another bottle of water from the cooler and makes her way around the yard, speaking to everyone she knows...which unfortunately is everyone. When she was a deputy, she spent nearly every day talking to the people in town, and even though she still does that, her promotion which is only really half of a promotion even with the title change and pay raise, it’s not as much as it used to be. There could be new people in their little circle of friends, and she could have no idea.

Or she could have an idea and simply not see the people.

Killian is a great example of that.

She hates that she’s so drawn to him. It’s like he’s a flame when it’s dark outside, and she’s a damn bug heading toward the brightness and warmth of the light. That’s the worst metaphor she’s ever made (even if her car is a bug), but there’s a reason she was never an English major and wouldn’t have been if she had gone to college. It’s not her thing. She’s drawn to him. She knows why. It’s pretty much inevitable that she would be, but she’s never been one for sure things.

The inevitable doesn’t always have to be that way. She’s never been a fan of following the rules even if her occupation says otherwise.

She glances up and sees Killian sitting with his feet in the pool, his legs hanging over the edge of the water, and tossing an inflated ball back and forth between Leo, Luis, and Luca.

(Ariel better name her kid with something with a name other than an “L” because that is far too much for her to have to keep up with.)

She can hear the murmurings of his voice over all of the people between them, but it’s muted, barely a whisper above the crowd. It’s not usually like that, and she wonders just how loud it is here for her to not be able to hear him clearly when they’re within twenty feet of each other. She’s never tested out the range, but she thinks that’s a pretty good estimate.

He seems relaxed, carefree, and she bets that no part of him cares that he’s getting water all over his button up as the kids splash him. How in the world did he even end up over there when there are so many better things to be doing? Then again, she’s the one sitting on top of a portable cooler staring at him and working on her second bottle of water this hour, so it’s not like she’s got a lot of room to say anything.

He looks really good in that light blue shirt, and his hair has gotten a little longer so that these few pieces more prominently hang over his forehead even though the sides are pretty tightly cut. She likes it more than she’s willing to admit, and she bets it’d be soft to run her hands through.

Not that she’ll ever know the answer to that query.

“Whatcha staring at, kid?”

“You’re five years older than me,” she sighs, scooting over so David can have some room on the cooler as well, the hair on his leg brushing up against her thigh.

“Ah,” David groans, reaching over and taking her water from her before he takes a sip, “but I feel a solid two decades older than you some days because you often act like Leo. I mean, you sure as hell eat like him.”

“You’re always complaining about my food, but you’re always eating it. I mean, you ate half of that bread basket before I took it home.”

“What can I say? Killian knows how to pick out some pastries.”

That saying about jaws dropping and hitting the floor feels pretty apt right now as her jaw opens a little, her lips parting, and she kind of feels like she’s just been hit in the face by the ball Killian and the kids are tossing around. How in the world would he know that? There was no name on the note, and she made a point not to tell him. There was a whole thing. She knows. She remembers.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You may be able to tell when others are lying, but you are the worst liar.”

“I am not.”

“You’re as bad as Leo,” David chuckles, knocking his shoulder into hers at the same time that she watches Killian throw his head back, laughter shaking his shoulders and his stomach moving. She can hear it a little more loudly this time, but she imagines that it’s because she’s trying to focus on anything other than David right now. “And Mr. French told me who sent the basket when I complimented him on the blueberry muffins. He went on and on about how Killian Jones bought out the entire bakery for that basket and how he must really like you.”

She’d like to go back to the swing with Ariel and Eric right now and die from the heat. That would be preferable to this.

Hell, maybe she’ll strip out of her clothes and streak through the yard so someone will have to arrest her and put her in jail for the night. That, too, would be preferable to this.

“It’s not what it looks like,” she sighs, wishing that she hadn’t left her phone inside to charge so she’d have something to fiddle with.

“What? You and Killian aren’t in some kind of secret relationship where he woos you with bread?”

“No, though I think all people should be wooed with bread or food. Forget jewelry. Food is the new romantic gift.”

“So you were wooed by the pastries?”

“I was not wooed,” she huffs, hitting her knuckles against his knee while she watches Mary Margaret walk around and offer everyone dessert. The woman really never stops. It’s insane. They should probably get up and help. “I’d like to make that very clear. Killian Jones is not wooing me or flirting with me or courting me. Killian Jones is doing nothing to me.”

Though she has dreamed otherwise.

Dammit.

“He’s staring at you right now.”

Her eyes find Killian’s across the yard. He could have stared at her this entire time, and she wouldn’t have cared as long as he wasn’t staring at her while David was paying attention. Their timing is just fantastic.

“I - I don’t…” she stutters, the heat on her cheeks rising again as her tongue seems to twist itself inside of her mouth, keeping her from forming coherent words. That probably stems from the fact that she can’t seem to form coherent thoughts, so maybe her brain is all twisted up too. That doesn’t seem quite right, but what does she know? “He’s like a friend.”

“So a friend?”

“No, like a friend. It’s different.”

“How the hell does that make any sense?”

“It’s,” she starts again, waving her hands around. “We are friendly to each other, but we are not actively friends. Like, we poke fun and tease at each other, but there are some mitigating issues that keep us from actually being friends.”

“Like the fact that you very obviously have feelings for the man.”

“Feelings of annoyance? Yes.”

“Feelings of appreciation, maybe. You know, Emma, it’s not a bad thing to have feelings for someone.”

“It hasn’t seemed to work that way in the past. You remember last year.”

“I had to burn my sheets. Of course I remember.”

She laughs a little and adjusts herself on the cooler, tapping her fingers against her own knee and wondering if she can wear jeans for the next week so that she doesn’t have to shave. It’s probably too hot for that, but this is summer in Maine. Tomorrow she could walk out of her apartment having to wear her jacket.

“I don’t...when I say it’s complicated with him, I really do mean it. It’s not like how you and Mary Margaret are. You guys have got some genuine love, even if it does make me want to vomit sometimes, and I think I’m biologically programmed not to have that.”

David’s arm wraps around her shoulder, and he pulls her into her side so that his lips can brush against her temple. Such a dad. “You have genuine love in your life. There are a lot of people who love you, and you have to know that. And maybe if there is someone out there who makes you smile or makes you laugh, soulmate or not, that could be some genuine love too. Not all love burns up and dies.”

“Can we talk about something else?” she deflects, her eyes trained on a few blades of grass that are not quite as green as the rest of the yard. Her heart is practically in her stomach at this point, and she would do anything not to think about relationships or her past or the man that’s sitting with his legs dangling in the pool.

“Sure,” David agrees. “I have just been itching to have someone to talk to about the propane tanks on the grill.”

“Oh my gosh.”

David does talk about his propane tanks for a little while, boring her to death, but he eventually moves on to the Yankees game last night and to some big philosophy talk on why baseball and sport in general is so important to the general population. It’s not at all what she was expecting, but it kind of cracks her up as David rambles on. He’s obviously had a few beers today, which is only a little worrisome since he’s in charge of lighting the fireworks tonight. Working with explosives seems like something only sober people should do.

It very rarely is.

As the sun starts to fully set, darkness finally beginning to cover the sky, she excuses herself from the party, grabbing a bottle of beer and climbing up the ladder to Leo’s treehouse. This has to be the best place to view the fireworks from, and she’s surprised that no one else ever comes up here to watch. It’s a bit of a loner habit of hers, not that she’s lacking in those, and as she stands against the open window with her elbows propped on the wood, she watches all of her friends move around the backyard, everyone that was inside relishing in the air conditioning coming outside, Wilby nipping at the heels probably looking for scraps.

Ariel and Eric have found their way back to the swing, the two of them chatting with each other, and she sees Belle and Will sitting at a table with Robin and Regina. Roland must have been with his mom for the first half of the party because he’s now here and running around with the rest of the kids, all of them still in their swimsuits. If only she could have that much energy. That would be worth piles of gold. Ruby is being predictably Ruby, standing at the center of a crowd making everyone laugh. She can practically see Elsa’s blush from here, and when she sees Liam standing with his arm over his wife’s shoulder, she realizes that someone is missing from the crowd.

“See anything interesting?” Killian asks from behind her, her skin breaking out into bumps at the sound of his voice.

Of course he’s up here.

She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t necessarily dislike it either, which pretty much sums up a lot of things about her life.

She simply grunts in response, not feeling like talking or causing the two of them any issues. No part of her will ever be over this part of her life, and she wonders if this will ever get better, if it’ll ever be possible to be in the same room as Killian without being driven crazy.

(Like, if this is what the universe wants for the two of them, does it expect for them to never have any kind of meaningful conversation? She still doesn’t understand that part.)

She wonders if she wants that.

Mostly she wonders why she wants that.

And when Killian comes to stand next to her, the scent of sweat and chlorine obvious on him, she laughs when he puts down a notepad between them, a pen resting on top of it. Twisting her head to side, she sees that his lips are curved into a smirk, the right side higher than the left, and the same goes for his eyebrows, one practically in his hairline. That’s definitely his signature move. He nods down at the notepad, and her gaze finds the words written there.

I’m sorry that I’m an asshole and was messing with you earlier.

She puts her beer down and picks up the pen, scribbling on the paper.

It’s okay.

You didn’t seem okay.

Bad day.

Want to talk about it?

Or, write about it.

Independence Day is also the day that my last boyfriend took independence from me and cheated on me. At this party.

She has no idea why she wrote that, and if she had an eraser, she’d get rid of the evidence. But she doesn’t.

I’m sorry. He sounds like a wanker.

He is. Your brother is a sloppy drinker.

She hears Killian’s chuckle, and twists her head to look up at him and his smile again.

A bloody lightweight. It’s fun to get him drunk. He talks out of his ass and is genuinely funny for once in his life.

Oh I don’t know. I think he’s the funniest Jones brother.

That’s because you haven’t really been truly humored by me yet.

Your face does make me laugh.

Because you can’t handle its beauty?

She should have known that joke was coming with him, and she should have the strength to resist laughing at it, but she can’t help herself. She snickers, the sound passing through her lips, and she realizes that she feels lighter than she has all day even with the air getting heavier around her, the humidity increasing as the night goes on with the threat of more thunderstorms the next day. The fact that today was sunny still surprises her.

Killian winks when he sees her smiling, and she leans back to put a little more space between them. That wink doesn’t make her stomach feel some type of way at all.

“What?” he speaks aloud as he leans back again, resting his shoulder against the treehouse wall.

“Nothing.”

“If you’re sure.”

She’s not sure. Really, no part of her is sure about anything. But she’s kind of feeling good right now, feeling like maybe today isn’t all bad despite all of those lingering feelings and everyone bringing up her relationship status today and making her think about her past. The first boy she ever kissed was named Blake, and he was about as average in his name as he was in kissing. She’s sure that he’s gotten better, that he’s improved since they were fourteen, but she’ll always have the memory of that sloppy mess.

The first boy she ever loved, though, was Neal Cassidy. She was seventeen, and he was a little older. Looking back she realizes that a twenty-three-year-old should not have been dating a seventeen-year-old, but for the first time in her life, she felt loved and secure and happy that someone wanted to be her. Who she was then is not who she is now, and whether she likes it or not, a lot of that is because of Neal. He was adventurous and charming, always talking her into doing just about anything, and they dated for a little under three years.

He was...she loved him, and he thought that she was perfect. That’s something that he was always calling her, and now, when she hears the word, it sends chills down her spine. He called her perfect and wonderful and he made her believe that she was this person who he treasured being with. And then she peed on a stick and the word “pregnant” popped up, and suddenly that one word made every other kind word that Neal called her be replaced with things like “irresponsible” and “loose” and a “slut.” He was the only person she’d ever slept with, and he was calling her a slut.

Not that sleeping around makes anyone a slut. She’d just...that’s how Neal made her feel.

She wasn’t pregnant, though.

That’s the real kicker of the whole thing. There she was almost twenty years old taking a pregnancy test and thinking she was going to have a baby with the guy she loved only for him to lose his mind and scare her to the point that she didn’t feel safe. That night he packed a bag and left, for Tallahassee where his father lived, he’d said. He was running away, he was leaving, and he was abandoning her.

She thought he was her family, that they were making a family together, and he abandoned her.

Just like everyone else.

She’d say that her baby abandoned her, but there was never any baby. It was a cheap test, a false positive, and to this day she still hates to admit that she’s upset that she wasn’t pregnant, that she didn’t get to have a family of her own for once in her life. She knows how naive she was about it all, especially because Neal convinced her that they were soulmates because they didn’t have obvious signs.

Especially since her probable, actual soulmate is currently standing in front of her with pretty blue eyes and a kind smile that seems to happen whenever he makes her laugh.

Even when he frustrates her, he makes her feel good in a way that she hasn’t felt in awhile, and maybe she deserves to do something reckless for once. It’s been a long time, since she lived in Boston and before the police academy really, and she wants to feel good.

“You know, Swan, most of the time when women look at me like you’re looking at me, I get to know if their undergarments match. But you did say that I’ll never know that about you, and I guess I’ll have to be okay with that. I do have a vivid imagination.”

Cheeky asshole.

Why in the world is she charmed by his flirting?

She hesitates, not entirely sure if she wants this, but he’s been driving her crazy since April and she wants to know. She wants to know just what it would be like to steal the words from Killian’s lips, to make him stop talking and actually act on his words, but mostly she wants to take advantage of the fact that she is so turned on right now that she can’t think of anything other than Killian’s lips on hers.

Stepping forward, the wood of Leo’s treehouse creaking underneath her footstep, she grabs onto the collar of his shirt and slams her lips into his. It takes a moment for him to kiss back, which makes sense for how out of nowhere this must seem, but before she can think about it too much, his right hand is threading into her hair, twisting her head so that his lips can wrap around her upper lip, and his left hand is falling down to rest at her waist, nearly palming her ass. He tugs her closer, their bodies completely pressed up against each other, and she groans at the same time Killian does, his hardening length pressing into her hip through his jeans. Everything about Killian’s kiss is desperate, hurried, and she can’t get enough. There’s never going to be enough of this, and even though his lips are only on hers, she wears she can feel them on every inch of her skin.

She swears that she is on fire right now, and she wouldn’t mind going down in the flames.

When Killian’s tongue teases at the seam of her lips, she doesn’t hesitate before opening her mouth to his, letting their tongues tangle together in a slick, wet slide that has tiny fireworks exploding over her flesh and making every thought except more  escape from her mind. She wants more of the warmth of his body, more of the softness or his lips, and more of the rough scratch of his beard against her skin.

She wants more of him.

There is nothing else, no one else, and as Killian’s hand firmly becomes planted on her ass and her fingers wander to his hair, finally feeling just how soft the strands are, all she can feel is him.

And all she can see behind her closed eyes are bright blue lights exploding into the sky and bringing her out of the darkness.

But then there’s a boom, a rather large one in fact, and she startles back when she realizes that it’s not one of the metaphorical fireworks that she can still feel flickering across her skin, especially on her chin where Killian’s scruff is rubbing into her. It’s a very real, very bright firework that she watches explode in the air through the window of the treehouse all the while her forehead still rests against Killian’s, their breaths intermingling.

He tasted kind of like rum, and she wonders where he found that.

It’s like everything comes back to her as blue and green sparks explode against the inky midnight blue of the sky, and she knows the light warm air in the sky will evaporate the moment her body is no longer pressed up against Killian’s, the heavy humidity enveloping her. But she moves back anyway, their hips no longer pressed together even as their foreheads stay the same.

“That was - “

“A one time thing,” she gasps, letting her hands fall from his hair and her feet step away, nearly tripping in the dip in the wood. She shouldn’t have done that. They shouldn’t have done that. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. She’s not supposed to fall for him, and she tells herself that she’s not, that it’s simply because the universe is tricking them into it. She doesn’t care.

She’s emotional today and he was talking and he knows how to charm her. It’s...she doesn’t care, and all of her earlier thoughts about caring for him were lies.

(She can’t get hurt again.)

But that can’t explain why she can’t look Killian in the eye and why she has to look toward the ladder, her focus completely on getting away. “Stay up here for awhile,” she whispers, ignoring the swell of her lips as she moves toward the ladder. “I’m going inside. Don’t...don’t follow me.”

She doesn’t listen to see if he answers or replies, to see if he calls out to her, because she can’t hear a damn thing over the loud thumping of her heart as it pounds between her ears, decidedly not where it’s supposed to be. But as she’s climbing down the ladder, her legs nearly falling out beneath her for how unsteady they are, she hears another “as you wish” followed by the loud boom of a firework.

Only this time, there’s no light exploding into the sky.

[youdidwelljonghyun]

I haven’t been using this app much since I joined stan twit but I need to speak on this bc it’s important:

NCT, Exo, Taemin and SM Entertainment on a whole are a fucking disappointment. BLM has been the number one topic on social media across the world for about a week now. I’ve seen countless Korean artistes speak up in support. I’ve seen artistes post their donations. I’ve seen BM go on insta live and discuss his experiences with cops and how black people have to live in fear despite being innocent. I’ve seen Crush talk about how Korean pop music is built on black culture & there would be no Kpop, kr&b or khiphop without black culture. Ive seen Got7’s mark donate $7000 to the cause. I’ve seen a 2 month old rookie group’s member get all her socials deleted because she had the balls and the decency to support BLM on her platform. I’ve seen KBS in America covering the riots. I’ve seen Korean civilans speak up about BLM, supporting and explaining the situation in both Korean and English, I’ve seen Yeri post in support on her Instagram.

AND YET. NCTzens had to BEG, and when I say B E G. We were flooding 127’s twitter mentions, lysn and Instagram BEGGiNG them to post in support of BLM, just so they could use their platform to influence followers to support. For DAYS. We had to beg these men who: 3 of them lived in the US for extended periods, one is FROM CHICAGO where much of the rioting is taking place. They are ALWAYS talking about how they’re a global group. 127 has toured across the US multiple times. They regularly interact with international fans. Their intl fanbase has likely made them more revenue than their Korean fanbase. In fact, I’d argue that 127’s current level of popularity is mostly due to their American fans, & I’m not even American. Just last week we rallied together for DAYS to defend Jaehyun from those disgusting Kfans. Yet they only responded after over 24 hours of begging them, and when they did, ONE member posted something without even including a donation link or saying anything truly substantial... the member that is literally American. His post was basically a “fine, here it is since you won’t stop bugging me about this!”. I saw many fans begging them to “open their purses” and show how much they donated, which I don’t think is necessary— but at LEAST POST A GODDAMN DONATION LINK. Do you know how many fans would mirror your actions? Even with the lame post Johnny made, countless fans were asking where they can donate. Do you SEE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO USE YOUR PLATFORM?? Then Ten posted that random black square. No caption, no nothing. Anyone who doesn’t know about BLM won’t know what the fuck it’s for. I saw comments asking what it was about and making jokes. I am so fucking disappointed in these men for doing the bare minimum when they have a massive platform, they have received support from thousands of black fans and they make a huge chunk of their money off of American tours, NOT TO MENTION black music is the blueprint for Kpop. They always talk about what black artiste’s music they love, but they are damn near fucking silent about the innocent black people being murdered worldwide.

Exo is a fucking joke. Kai, Chanyeol Baekhyun and Sehun regularly post on their socials— kai did a live a few days ago, Chanyeol has posted several NNG videos, Baek has been doing lives/menpas and yet neither of them can be assed to say oh, btw black lives matter and here’s a donation link so u can help support too. Lay has also been promoting constantly, he’s had a comeback and dropped an MV a few days ago, and yet???

They may have very well donated in private— I acknowledge that. But they could do SO MUCH for the black community by simply making a post in support with a donation link, that would cost them literally nothing. So why haven’t they done so?? They must not care enough to— because trust me, fans have been asking. Exo and NCT’s lysn board have been spammed with fans begging for support, giving them donation links to share and explaining the situation. I feel a little entitled, demanding anything from someone I don’t personally know, but then I realize that it would take almost no effort on their part, and that they would be giving back to the very community that allowed kpop’s very existence, not to mention supporting their millions of black fans around the world. I see many people saying that this is an “American issue” and “no one asks celebrities to donate when other people are suffering”. If you think that is an excuse then you are a part of the problem. 1. Black people exist all over the world, they are discriminated against and brutalized worldwide. 2. I have seen Americans lobbying and pushing for global causes countless times on social media. Just the other day American Kpop fans helped trend the Nth room case, translating articles and spreading awareness. I was one of those fans.

As for SM Entertainment, the company that likely employs more black producers than any other in Korea, they have 100% ignored the BLM movement on ALL platforms; they have done NOTHING. Monsta X, Ateez and BTS have all officially posted on their group accounts that they stand with BLM and they support the cause, yet SM cannot be assed to do a goddamn thing except exploit black culture and use Americans as ATM machines. I heard they were sending TEXTS to American fans about a COMEBACK (or something??) in the midst of all the rioting. The funny thing is, it’s a pattern— SM never gives a flying fuck about American fans. All they do is coddle kfans and indulge in their delusional fantasies, making Jaehyun write a fucking apology letter for eating some food because kfans threw a tantrum and placating kfans when they got salty about Superhuman promotions. WHERE EVEN IS SUPER M??? THE GROUP THAT LITERALLT DEBUTED IN THE US LMFAOOOOO. LITERAL SILENCE.

I just made this post to say that I, as a black fan, can’t continue to go out on a limb for, to stan, to defend and trend hashtags for, to leave encouraging lysn messages for, artistes who don’t give enough of a fuck that my people are dying to make a genuinely supportive post with a donation link. That is THE BARE MINIMUM. We aren’t asking them to go out on the streets and protest. I cannot do it anymore. As a black fan, there have always been things we have to speak out about more than any other fan group, there have always been things we’ve had to overlook. But I’m fucking done with this shit. I’m done streaming and voting and watching their videos. They don’t deserve my support one bit. I see their pictures on my timeline and I just feel empty— I mean, they really don’t give a fuck about us at all. Lots of times we’ve reconciled with the fact that Korea as a whole is pretty racist towards black people, but we think the best of our favs and assume that because they have so many black fans they must feel differently and have more of an open mind— HA. And I was never the fan who expected that idols love us as much as we love them, but for you to sit there and profit from our culture and our support, but be unable to open your mouths or make a single Instagram post when we’re being killed...

[shapeshifting-wildcard]

Jou did not like talking to the police.

The last time he had had to deal with them a lot was when he was arrested. They were not kind to him back then. Looking back, it was clear to Jou that they had decided he was a criminal, and treated him as such. To them, he was not a child deserving of care and basic decency. To say they treated him like an animal would be to claim that even an animal deserved the sort of treatment he got. They tried to force him to use his voice, and wouldn't even consider the idea of getting a sign language interpreter when his throat refused to cooperate. None of them yelled or raised their voices at him, but their cold demeanors got the point across well enough. They did not care about him, they did not care for his wellbeing, and they most certainly did not care that he was innocent.

So his discomfort sitting in a room, alone, with two police officers was quite understandable.

The officer across from him spoke in a calm tone. Almost kind. It was gentler than the voice of the officer stationed behind Jou's chair. Even as the man discussed Jou's previous record. Jou kept his hands in his lap, resisting the urge to fidget. He could fidget and pace as much as he wanted on the way back to class. If he did it now, though, the officers would simply take it as a sign of guilt. Something suspicious. So he had to sit still, even as the unease and panic built in his chest. Take deep breaths without being too obvious. Focus, focus, focus. Answer his questions without giving anything away.

"It says here you had a dispute with Mr. Kamoshida?"

Jou nodded. May as well be honest, if vague. Everyone knew about it, anyway, so it would be stupid to try and contradict them.

"You're more hotblooded than you look." The detective scribbled down some notes in the book in front of him. "You spend time with quite an interesting group. Yusuke Kitagawa and Haru Okumura?"

The detective stared at him for a heartbeat, obviously studying Jou's reaction. He stared back, briefly meeting the man's gaze in an attempt to avoid tensing up too obviously. He could feel the other detective's piercing gaze boring a hole into his skull behind him. Don't react. Don't make it obvious.

"The more friends the better, right?" The detective across from him finally looked away, scribbling down more notes. Jou's gaze drifted down towards the notebook. What was he writing? How much did they know about the Thieves? Should he be concerned...?

"I'm sorry to have taken your time. You're free to go now."

Jou glanced towards the detective, not moving a muscle yet. That's it? That's all he had to say to him? Jou almost felt annoyed.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Of course, here it was. "Do you think the Phantom Thieves are associated with this school?"

Ah, there it was. Jou lifted his head. They probably expected him to say something, didn't they? Simply nodding or shaking his head would be too suspicious. Too "decisive." Maybe he could channel his anxiety into something constructive; make himself sound genuinely scared about the possibility.

"I-I hope not." Jou watched the detective's reaction as he sat up straight. His expression softened ever so slightly. Had it worked? Had Jou convinced the guy, or was this part of his "good cop" act?

"Don't worry, we're here to keep all of you safe," the detective reassured him. "Okay?"

"Thank you for your time," the gruff detective finally chimed in.

"Your responses will serve as great reference material." Jou didn't like the sound of that. "Takamaki-san is next. Can you ask her to come in?"

Jou nodded and stood up, glad that this brief interview was over. It left him feeling more on edge than before, unfortunately. Once he got outside the room and motioned for Ann to enter, he dug out his phone and left a note in the group chat.

💔 Meet in the attic after school.

[simonlovelazy]

Saeran/Reader Halloween Fic

This is my very late contribution to the Halloween craze!!!

(Hey, it’s still Halloween here, ok?)

Title: The One Without a Costume

Fandom: Mystic Messenger

Pairing: Saeran/ Reader, Saeran/You

Tags: Teen and up audiences, mostly crack, attempt at writing something hot lol

Word count: 2452

Summary: You have a theory about people going to costume parties without costumes, but maybe Saeran will manage to change your mind?

takes place somewhere in the secret endings or whenever you want it to

   AO3 link

  The One Without a Costume

You would need way more fingers to count how many times you've heard the good old "don't judge a book by its cover" speech. But there is at least one situation when the rule does not apply. If you're at a costume party, a Halloween costume party to make the sin of dullness even more pronounced, and see a guy sporting his casual clothes, you know exactly what kind of story he is.

        You wait for Halloween the way kids wait for their Christmas gifts, and you’d happily buy yourself an Advent calendar counting down the days of October instead of December, but you don’t think anyone has ever come up with an idea to produce one. You always think what you’re going to dress up as in advance; it takes days to gather the supplies and fabrics, and then even more days (and nights) to sew and glue things together. While the process in itself is a joy, the costume party is the crowning moment, and this you enjoy the most.

          Some people can’t spend so much time or money on their costumes, or they simply don’t care as much as you, and it’s perfectly fine. A bandage mummy and a sheet ghost are not a repelling view – you enjoy the last-moment costumes and giggle at these conveying a pun.

        But the ones without a costume? They don’t attend these parties to have some fun, no, they’re here to announce how much they despise dressing-up, you, and the notion of having fun altogether. Excuse me, sir, but is this too much fun for you? Should we turn the music down? Or maybe, take our stupid costumes and get out?

        You shift from foot to foot. Who would have thought your mouth would turn into the Sahara after a song or two of dancing (and violent singing along)? And this guy! He isn't even pouring himself the damn punch!

        That's it. You readjust your protruding fang, grab a hold of your cloak, and march in the direction of the notorious punch-stirrer with a sense of dignity, head held up high.

        The tactic is to intimidate him with your sheer presence, so without a word, you stand next to him and wait. You have to give him that – even if nothing says “to hell with Halloween” more than a basic black and white raglan t-shirt, the atmosphere around him is saturated with gloom. You’re almost grateful he’s ignoring you and hasn't even looked up from the damn bowl. If his stiff posture and silent determination in stirring can be any determiners, his glare must kill on the spot.

        And so he looks up. "What?"

        You gasp.

        You were right about intensity of his stare. But boy, are his eyes a spooky surprise! One gold and one mint eye narrow at you. The only thing today you expected less than this was the guy who suddenly detached his hand and threw it across the room, scoring well-deserved three points and a little round of applause when it slapped the host across his beautiful face.

        Oh, and also:

        "You look just like this dude running around in a dress! The one with wings and a halo."

        He closes his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh.

        "Take what you need and go away."

        You do a once- over at the table. Melting ghost-cupcakes, cookies with yellow pumpkins made of watery icing, and... you actually don't know what cups of dirt are supposed to resemble, or if they're edible at all. Really makes you wonder how much Zen splurged on catering this year.

        "Yeah, but no, just wanted something to drink. Are you done with this?" you ask, pointing at the punch. He hasn't let go of the ladle for a single moment.

        "No," he answers with a scowl. "Still haven't found it."

        "Found what?"

        "My other lens."

        Suddenly you're not thirsty anymore. How do you lose a contact lens in a bowl of punch is a mystery you don't venture to solve.

        "Are you going to put it back in your eye when you find it?"

        He actually dumps the ladle and throws you the most incredulous look you've ever been gifted. He has quite a repertoire of glares, you must say.

        "No."

        "Then, why not forget about it and enjoy the party? But first, maybe flush the whole thing down the toilet, 'cause if someone chokes himself to death, I'll be the first one to point at you to the cops."

        "At least if someone chokes, we’ll have one convincing ghost in here," he says half-smiling, which suits him in a devilish kind of way. And he’s kinda right – the ghost girls in short skirts may be cute, but they have small chances to scare anyone present.

        You're about to make a brilliant remark when he grabs the massive vessel and walks off.

        "Come on, you'll open the door for me," he throws without turning his head, and you find yourself scurrying behind him before you have the time to question it.

The trip isn't long which isn't surprising considering the size of the apartment. The problem is that there are more people squeezed on one square metre than it should be physically possible, and still more and more guests pours in and, naturally, at least half of the gathering is partying in the line to the bathroom. There's Aladdin and his Carpet (she's not having a good time, you can tell), a promiscuous cat, three colourful feathery beings, and yes, you have found Wally, and guessing by the colour of his face, he really needs to go in asap.

        "Kitchen?"

        "Kitchen."

When the punch is finally gone in the kitchen sink, or more precisely, spluttered all over the mountains of the dirty dishes (still no signs of the lens to be seen), you start shifting uncomfortably. It must be a Halloween miracle (or rather a trick of fate) because there’s no one in the kitchen save for you and the guy without a costume.

        Only the muted echoes of music reach in here, so when you clear your throat, the sound is deafening. “I think I should go now.”

        “Why so fast? Is anyone waiting for you?” he asks. He's leaning on the counter, the tap behind his back letting out droplets like a metronome. One silence, two silences, three silences...

        In the pale light of the full moon, seeping through the window on the side, the shadows on his face become more pronounced and sinister. Even though he's not wearing a terrifying disguise, or any disguise at all, he gets a shiver out of you.

        “I came here with a friend.”

        “But?” he initiates, raising an eyebrow. Maybe he noticed how you were dancing alone on the makeshift dance floor.

        “But the last time I saw her, she was getting handsy with a werewolf in the parking lot.”

        He hums thoughtfully. “She shouldn't have left you alone.”

        It may be an attempt at consolation, but the way he says it earns another shiver from you. Was his voice low like this earlier?

        You step back to lean on the fridge and fold your arms, trying to mirror his casualness.“What are you doing here, anyway? You don't strike me as a costume-party animal.”

        “Wasn't really my choice. I had to come because I'm in the same organisation as our Zen.”

        The only organisation that comes to your mind is the RFA, but again, he doesn't look like a guy doing charity work. Not that you have time to mull it over with him lazily leaving his spot and coming in your direction.

        Suddenly you understand the infamous toil of breathing in a corset.

        “And you? A musical actor, perhaps?” he asks, jumping on a counter next to the fridge. You don't like how his new spot allows him to look down at you.

        For a terrible second you think the hand he's reaching out will be placed somewhere on you, and you freeze in both panic and anticipation. You only allow yourself to breath out when it lands above your head and starts playing with magnets.

        It’s hard to tell if he's playing with you or being clueless.

        What was the question again?

        “Haha, no. The werewolves-favouring girl is. I'm just the unnecessary plus one.”

        He takes his hand away from the fridge, visibly pleased with the rearranged magnetic letters. You twist your neck to see better, and surely enough, they spell some nasty words. How old is he?

        A warm breath tingles your exposed skin where the high collar has slid down a little, the stranger still hovering above your head. You will yourself to face him again, but then, oh Lord, his playful smirk can't mean anything good.

        This time his hand aims for you, you can tell by how his funny eyes never leave your face. He's not hurrying anywhere, and you can't stand the anticipation; it's hard to stand still as he closes the distance between you even more, ever so slowly.

        Against your better judgement, you pucker up your lips, but his hand doesn't cup your face like you hoped it would. Instead, he gets the hold of your chin with his thumb, and the next thing you know, the soft pad of his index finger traces the outline of your lips. He brushes your cupid's bow with a feathery-like delicacy, grazes your bottom lip, and pushes it slightly down. You open your mouth just a little, paying no heed to the gasp escaping it in the process, and only then you realise that the poking out fang has been painfully biting on your lip the whole time.

        “I wouldn't say–”

        “Saeran!” Someone turns all the lights on. “Stop hiding out like that, my costume is incomplete without you!”

        You jump away from said Saeran, adjust the collar of your cloak in the name of decency, and wholeheartedly hope that your pale make-up manages to cover the blush underneath.

        Saeran's clone creeps in the threshold, clutching a hem of his white gown with an unexpected skill and grace.

        “Oh! Am I interrupting something?” he asks innocently, but comes a couple steps closer to the two of you.

        “Yes, yes, you are!” Saeran growls, straightening. You can't help but share his annoyance. What it was exactly and where it was going – you don't know – and now, you may never get the chance to find out.

        “Sorry~” Saeran's clone wears a mischievous grin which doesn't quite match the halo on his head. “At least put on these,” he says, throwing something in your general direction. Only when Saeran catches it, you can take a better look. It's a head-band with devil's horns attached to it.

        So he has a costume, after all. Not the most elaborate, but still better than nothing. He doesn’t look too keen to wear it, though.

        "No horns, no party!” the one in a dress yells enthusiastically.

        "I’ll choose ‘no party,’ then."

        "Not an option! Sorry, I’m not the one making the rules. So, suit up and come – let's get this party started with some conga line, whaddya say?” he's about to leave when he turns around once more, “The vampire princess is also invited~”

        And with the last wiggle of his eyebrows, the dress-clad guy is gone.

        You snatch the horns from Saeran's hands – it's the cheap-plastic kind of deal you can get at any festival. And surely enough, you find the switch. The glowing red horns land on his head, sticking out almost seamlessly from his dishevelled red locks.

        “And now you too?” He tries to throw it off, but you stop him.

        “Oh, c’mon! Make my millennium.” You step back a little to give him an assessing look. “Suits you.”

        Saeran shakes his head in a feigned disbelief, “There’s a special spot in hell for sinners like you.”

        “I’d love to find out what you’d do to me if I got there, but I’m afraid I’m immortal.” You say in, what you hope is, a seductive whisper.

        From this angle, the red lights glimmer in his eyes like a warning.

        “We'll have to make do with the time we have tonight,” he says.

        It must have been flirting done right because he grabs you by your waist, bringing you closer to him.

        “Wanna get out of here, princess?” he murmurs to your ear, the timbre of his husky voice shattering your facade of composure.

        You only manage to hum in response, but it’s enough, and soon you find yourself lead out the kitchen and through the crowd of sweaty bodies, his hand never letting go of yours. Adrenaline rushes through your veins as you’re looking around afraid that Saeran’s brother will appear in front of you to ruin the fun.

        It’s been a while since you’ve done something spontaneous, and somehow Saeran seems to be a perfect person to be irresponsible with. God, you needed this. You run and giggle at how stupid it is that you’re dressed up as a vampire and yet feel so alive.

        When you finally reach the door, you still keep an eye on the surroundings, making sure you’re out of radar range while Saeran is skimming trough the overflowing hallstand. You came here wearing only your cloak, but something tells you, you won’t be cold tonight. He finally pulls out his leather jacket from underneath the tons of other clothes, but he’s not done there until he fishes out car keys from some other jacket’s pocket.

        “It’s not yours, is it?” you ask, but he only smiles in a truly devilish way and goes out.

        Yes, definitely, he’s not the bore you took him for. The party hasn’t even started yet.

        You only catch him up at the end of the staircase leading out of this weird underground apartment. He pushes the door open, ready to go into the night, knowing that you’ll follow, but you tag at his arm stalling him in place.

        “No, wait!”

        He turns to you with an adorably puzzled look, and you do the only logical thing. His jacket isn’t zipped up, it barely hangs on him, and it’s almost too easy to stand up on your toes and aim where every vampire would. The contact ends in a blink, but leaves you gasping for breath.

        Your dark lipstick leaves a mark on his pale neck. He looks pleased, but still very much puzzled, and the recognition lights up in his eyes only when you jingle the keys in his face.

        “I’m driving.”

~~

On that day, Yoosung promised himself that under no circumstances will he ever take care of party snacks again.

[rookisaknight]

Deputy

Might as well introduce her before I ramble about my good ending aus and self-indulgent shit

This is a questionnaire whipped up by @dutchisland

The Basics

1. Give their full name, and describe them or post a picture! (Height, build, hair, eye, and skin color, etc.)

Molly Sofia Kriz. A lanky brunette, around 5′8″. Skin is covered with freckles, acne scars, and is usually sunburned. Big black eyes. Her father was Czech and her mother was Latinx. Her hair was fairly long before the helicopter crash, after which she chopped it off to just under her chin to get rid of the burnt edges. She rarely has time for a haircut and usually just chops it off with whatever’s readily available. On the rare occasions that she has down time Kim will usually menace her into sitting still long enough to give it a proper trim. Big forehead. Small hands

2. How old are they?

26

3. Sexuality and gender?

Pansexual, she/her.

Pre-Game

1. How did they end up at the Hope County Sheriff’s Department? How long have they worked there?

She’s not a Hope County native but he knew when she graduated from Police Academy that she had no interest in being a big city cop, and angled for a small town assignment. She lucked out with Hope County. Or at least, so she thought. If we was hoping for things to be less complicated out here....In any case, she’d been working there for just under a year before the raid on Eden’s Gate

2. Relationship with Pratt, Hudson, and Whitehorse?

Pratt: Staci was delighted to no longer be the lowest rung on the totem pole and enjoyed giving her as much hell as Hudson gave him when he was the Rook. Based on what little we see of him before Jacob gets a hold of him I’ve always imagined Pratt as just a bit of a prankster. To this day Molly doesn’t drink coffee or sit in a chair at the station without thoroughly examingin both for traps. Still, they have a certain rapport and had each other’s backs. Some possible romantic tension that might have gone somewhere, in a better world.

Hudson: they weren’t exactly having sleepovers and braiding each other’s hair, but they wre close enough to grab coffee a few times when they weren’t at work. Hudson isn’t known for being friendly but she was a little relieved to have another woman in the department. Joey took a few hits for Molly when she thought Pratt or the Sheriff were making life too hard for her, and in return Molly did her best to learn the lessons Joey taught her. A bit of an older sister relationship. 

Whitehorse: He’s not a man to get chummy with his deputies but their relationship was amicable enough. Whitehorse has been in the game for a long time, and once she became aware of how bad things really were in Hope County she was a little in awe of him. He has a lot more respect for her than she thinks, but he rarely expresses it. Whitehorse thought she had potential, just no real call to action yet. 

3. Do they have an education?

An unremarkable academic career in high school, a couple of years at a community college, and Police Academy. Not much of a scholar, although she does like to read. Or did. At this point she doubts she could relax enough to sit down with a novel. 

4. Where are they from? Did they speak a different language there?

Eastern Washington. No, but she did pick up some Spanish from her mom.

5. Is there anyone outside the valley that might have come looking for them?

If she had kept her parents in the loop they might have come looking, but she’d never wanted them to worry.

6. Did they have a religious background of any kind?

Her parents wee Catholic enough to drag her to Mass every Sunday in childhood but not enough to kick up that much of a fuss when she slowly stopped going at 16. She knows enough to pass and would comfortably say that she believes in a God, but even before her time in Montana she was suspicious of organized religion. 

Inside Hope County

1. What was going through their head when the helicopter went down and during the subsequent chase?

She was running on raw adrenaline the whole time and there wasn’t much room for coherent thought beyond “please don’t let me die” . The guilt came later

2. Were they afraid of Joseph and Eden’s Gate? Angry?

She was terrified by Eden’s Gate pre-game, but lately that’s shifted into just a reisgned anger. She can’t hate most of them, they’re simply too sad. Instead she’s just generally frustrated. And tired. So soooo tired.

3. Did they trust Dutch?

Not at first, but once the words “mostly it means we’re all fucked” left his mouth she kinda figured this was either a really elaborate roleplay or a guy she could trust. She bet on the latter. 

4. How did they feel about their team being taken by the cult, did they count them as lost, did they want them back, did they not care?

Her team was the main reason she bothered to stick around instead of high-tailing out and hoping the National Guard could take care of it. Molly’s a good cop but she’s no hero. She didn’t have any high-minded ideas of resistance or revenge when she started out, she just wanted to find her team before it was too late. By the time she’d rescued all of them, though, she found she had other people to care for. 

5. How did they take to the idea of being part of, if not leading, the resistance?

Pre-game she thought of the resistance as four or five gun-crazed survivalists who though dumping more bullets into the situation would somehow make it better. After she found herself on the outside of police protection, though, she gained a newfound repect for what they do. She condiers herself a solo act (more for convenince than for ideology), but she has a lot of loyalty to many many members of the resistance, and yes Virgil, she’ll wear the stupid button. 

6. Which companions did they recruit, and who did they travel with the most?

Jess and Sharky are her usual partners in crime for general mayhem. When she’s inhHolland Valley and knows she won’t be pulling him far from his family she’ll call in Nick for air support (usually getting dinner at the Rye hous after). She adopted Boomer and loves him to death but is far too anxious to take him into battle, so he stays at the abndoned farmhouse she’s been camping out in. When Sharky’s laid up she calls Hurk, but that doesn’t usually go well. 

7. Did they have time to find romance amidst the chaos? How did they do it?

Romance is a strong word. She ends up with a truly hopeless crush on Nick Rye. Not that she’d ever act on it. She loves Kim to death and honestly thinks they make a great couple. But she’d be lying if she said there weren’t a couple late nights in the Rye household where she looked over at Nick and thought “what if?” Still, she keeps it to herself and is pretty sure he doesn’t have a clue. 

8. Feelings about Joseph?

Mostly fear. After that, probably anger. But.she understands the draw. The man has undeniable charisma. In her encounters with him it has honestly been a struggle not to find herself swallowed by those hypnotic voice and that voice. Sometimes, when no one’s around and she’s taking a day in her house...she turns the radio to the Project’s station and just listens to his sermons. Wondering how someone so monstrous and so unhinged could make it sound so wise. 

9. Feelings about the other Seeds?

John: Hates his guts, but honestly he makes a good arch-nemsis. She loves doing things just to stick it to him. Right up until he started taking it out on Hudson.

Faith: she’s felt odd moments of pity for her, but mostly she’s just unnerved by her. Something about that flower child appearance mixed with the cold-blooded calculation that makes her feel very off-balance.

Jacob: despite all he did to Pratt, she has a hard time hating him. Jacob is what he is. She can understand every step that was taken to make him end up like this and on weird level she respects him. Part of this is teh process of conditioning, which requred them to spend a long time in close quarters while he tried to get in her head and turn it inside out. She doesn’t pity him, but she feels sympathy. Which doesn’’t mean she would hesitate to put a bullet through his brain. The best they could do for each other is the decency of a quick death. As befitted a fellow soldier. 

10. How did they handle having to kill animals and other humans? Had they done it before?

Animals were fine, she used to hunt with her mom. People....well, eventually you get used to it.

11. Which canon ending did they choose in-game, and would you have changed the ending at all?

Resist. Absolutely not

Personal

1. Favorite weapon(s)?

She’s a simple gal with a sawed off shotgun and pistol. That’s all you need.

2. Stealth or firepower?

She’ll usually send in Sharky as the literal firepower while she and Jess pick off cultists drawn to his display. 

3. How did they spend their time, when not fighting peggies?

She spends a lot of time at the Spread Eagle or hanging out with Jess and Sharky in her house, blasting music and playing cards. She loves when she has time for dinner with the Ryes, and sometimes she’ll go fishing with Jerome. 

4. Where did they live during the events of the game?

A small, abandoned farmhouse nestled in a copse of woods between Holland Valley and the Whitetail Mountains. 

5. Any other facts you want to share about your Deputy!

She swears up and down she saw Bigfoot in her front yard, but no one belives her. 

[meme-spren]

@spadessilck sent in askmeme stuff off tumblr, since tumblr's being a dick to him. If anyone else tried sending asks... well, they probably got eaten. This is part 1: numbers 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 for Teyja. (it strays a bit from just being 'description' at times, whoops.

2- Parent (mother Yala). Teyja had changed since Yala had last seen her. She'd gotten scars (poor child), she stood straighter, there was confidence in her voice. But Yala was pretty sure she was still a scared little girl, really. She could still see all the litte tells that hadn't gone away, and Teyja was clearly on the verge of panic. She claimed she was happier, doing better now, but was she? She could be stubborn, Teyja could, and Yala suspected she would absolutely stay in a bad situation and refuse to admit the problem just to spite her mother. It had happened before. It was a pattern- Teyja would get herself involved in something she shouldn't, then she'd get hurt, then she'd refuse to admit that there was a problem, and that maybe, just maybe, it was a bad bloody idea. It was frightening, knowing that her daughter simply refused to be protected. Refused to learn. Joining the hunters hadn't been enough (she'd ended up losing a leg, for the Pantheon's sake, and still kept up the pretense, still told her she didn't regret a thing) whatever cultist nonsense had happened hadn't been enough (she wouldn't even come home after that, not to her own mother, the stubborn girl) and now she was trying to fight the Pantheon itself. Yala was terrified of how Teyja would get hurt this time. And she had the audacity to criticize Yala for trying to stop her! She'd proven time and again that she could NOT take care of herself. Someone had to do it.

4- Someone who loves her (this is an absolute cop-out but loving someone as a friend counts, fight me.) Hm. Teyja was... unusual, definitely, in that she had a strange energy to her. Infectious. Usually, people like her exhausted Bird, but he actually felt better around her. She had a way of talking that made people interested, even when they didn't understand half of what she said. Bird had already picked up a fair bit of basic magic theory from her, and he knew a few others had too. She was warm, friendly, clever. Sometimes she was a bit too clever, going faster than anyone could keep up with until she realised she'd confused them, but, well, that was alright. Not Bird's favorite thing, but he couldn't expect her to be perfect.

6- Antagonist (a non-human entity known as the Truth). The girl was an annoyance, of that the Truth was certain. She was stubborn. She did not listen. She hated the Truth, hated the entire pantheon, and this was to be expected, for humans were bitter and ungrateful as a rule, but at least most had the decency to hate quietly as they bowed before the Truth. Those that didn't had to be dealt with. This one was a loose end, touched by the Truth but still functional, mostly. Infuriating, as all such loose ends are. She had been taken in for her skill. Ha! Skill! The child fancied herself a mage, toyed with forces of nature that no human could understand, and what she made was so weak and unstable it mocked the potential of the power she tried to harness. Impressive to their minds, maybe, but objectively a joke. She was a fool. The Truth knew this, and the Truth was sure that the girl did too, but she persisted nonetheless. Human stubbornness. Despicable. She was broken and idiotic and pointless and human and the Truth hated her, as the Truth hated them all, for living anyway.

8- Psych evaluation. Teyja Honeyhall is, first of all, suffering from mild mental exposure to a higher entity, in this case manifesting as depressive episodes. She insists that this does not interfere with her work, and while this clearly isn't entirely true, it is not a major obstacle. Honeyhall also shows low self-esteem, and has clearly been affected by the cultural emphasis on combat, valuing those skills far over her knowledge of magic, which is, frankly, to be expected from someone who willingly gets involved in fighting higher entities. She gets very defensive when her skills or her value to the team are questioned, and she responds poorly to people worrying about her well-being, taking it as an insult, but the rest of the team seems to have adapted to this by now. I would have advised against her addition to the team, but she seems to be functioning well enough, and it actually seems to have a positive influence on her.

10-Young relative (sister). I don't really know Tey that well, 'cause she doesn't like to be home much. I think they think I can't tell, but Tey and Mom are all weird around each other, like they don't like to see each other but they do it anyway. I dunno why they make it a whole thing, Tey said she doesn't want to lose touch with me and Dad said it's important for sisters to be close but I'm pretty sure I could just visit her where she lives now. She says it's dangerous but that's what people say about here too! She's always been really nice to me but she's kinda... um... she says things that kinda worry me sometimes. Like I was telling her about my day one time when she was here, telling her about going on a trip with Mom, and the stuff we talked about, and she got really serious all of a sudden and she said I shouldn't let Mom tell me what to think, and if I do I might get hurt. Stuff like that. Mom says Tey is a bit weird in the head because she fights monsters but my friend Kee says that's not how it works at all. Kee's really smart and she knows EVERYTHING about fighting because her mom and dad are monster hunters. I don't know. I like Tey, she's smart and nice and she brings me cool stuff whenever she comes over, I just wish she'd get along with Mom more.

[progressiveparty]

The Democratic Office Boy Machine

A new Progressive party that can command decency on the part of their candidates will be coming, whether it is going to be a revamped Democratic party or something else remains to be seen. Of course the DNC will do it again. The fact that anyone considers that they will play fair is hopelessly out of touch with their history. They will try to thwart the will of their voters through continued reliance on second vote superdelegates and the use of slanted support that will be extended to corporate-friendly candidates. They did it the last time around, and less known…they did it back in 1944 (more about this later). The only way this will stop is through a fear of becoming completely irrelevant and going the way of the Whigs. A new Progressive party that can command decency on the part of their candidates will be coming, whether it is going to be a revamped Democratic party or something else remains to be seen. My guess is the Democrats will try to steal the primary again for their corporate candidate who will lose, and the DNC will become bankrupt (fiscally after the moral) and a new party will have to rise. If the fascism continues on the right from a blown opportunity by the Democrats, these predictions become more weighted with terrifying possibilities. A new Progressive party that can command decency on the part of their candidates will be coming, whether it is going to be a revamped Democratic party or something else remains to be seen. Henry Wallace (no relation that I know of) was a bit of an anomaly. He was a left- leaning Iowa boy who hated imperialism. He absolutely loathed the British Empire and its abuses. He was able to understand the needs of and advance the rights of workers. He even went against the United Fruit mode of intervention in Latin America and was able to find common ground with the people there, all without the use of right-wing juntas. This may be a bit of a simplification, but overall, Henry Wallace was a friend to the working men and women across the globe. He served as FDR’s vice president until a fateful convention in 1944. He had the backing of the voters—they appreciated that he had done more in that vice president’s office than others before him and they felt he had a kinship with them—that he would work in their favor. He was not popular with Southern conservative politicians or the corporate factions and they wanted nothing of him and his common man appeal. FDR made overtures and indicated that he was still behind Wallace being his vice president. Eleanor was a staunch supporter as well…but whether FDR was simply too ill by that time to exert his will or just plain feckless regarding Wallace, the Pendergast political machine of out Kansas City was able to insert their “office boy” as the vice president.

Henry Wallace Truman was a haberdasher from Kansas City (failed haberdasher, actually) and he came across the corrupt Pendergast group through that connection. Suits for brutes, I guess. Truman was encouraged to go into politics by the Pendergast political influencers and that he did, owing his start to this machine. It sounds like Truman struggled with the alliance having physical symptoms of stress from a bit of cognitive dissonance, but he never did anything that truly rocked their boat or made him a less of a favored candidate in their eyes. Truman was a natural to be handed the vice president slot in 1944 as he looked to be the office boy of choice for the disparate factions that were not representing the progressive appeal of voters. These things have consequences. We are now in an “anything but Trump” era. Older Democrats would probably vote for an Amazon delivery drone if it had the mark of the DNC on it in the general election because it feels right to vote against the melon-hued Mussolini. Trump is, of course, that calamitous of a human, but this “lesser evil” thing ends up with an effect. We need to not get to that point where your choice is not simply death by a malignant cancer like Trump versus a slow descent through dysentery, offered up by a centrist Democrat. But back to Wallace. By August of 1945, it was clear that Japan had lost the war. The common refrain is that atomic bombs were dropped on two civilian cities because the US “was going to have to send our boys to invade”. But is this true? A land that had already lost needed to be invaded and/or nuclear bombed right away? What happened to a little patience and isolation? Internal Japanese factions would get sick of the isolation and most likely force a surrender, wanting to join the world again. They weren’t a threat to the US by that time. But even discussing this around the “greatest generation” members is dangerous. I know by experience. I had a friend in high school who wrote an opinion paper stating the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes. My parents didn’t even want her to come over to visit after they heard that! Strong feelings aside, there is even stronger indication that the real purpose of dropping the bombs was to scare Uncle Joe Stalin shitless with the death that could be meted out by the US. What would have been the harm to wait a bit for a full surrender? At least try for that? America solves everything with violence, or in this case violent science. The choice is framed as this: atomic bombs or every young man in America will be killed by Japanese grannies on their shore with weapons. This jingoistic framing should be a red flag to anyone that the truth is probably going to be a bit more nuanced.  Illogical horror descriptions that are built to scare should be analyzed for veracity. (Babies being thrown out of incubators etc.). Not that the world doesn’t have ample evil for certain, but don’t get played is what I’m saying. They are masters at this and always have been. Manufactured consent and all. Another consideration: anyone who can think of the atomic bombing in sterile ways should be forced to read the accounts from survivors. But ”they” attacked Pearl Harbor…I didn’t sodomize anyone at Abu Ghraib, but that line of thought brings you to retribution in ways you might not want to consider when you begin to view all civilians as being directly responsible for the actions of their “leaders” or their military. This is why old school anarchy considerations feel like common sense truth to me. How can you be responsible for what a psychopathic “leader” did? I wasn’t asked for my feedback. Not to mention a war that was for all purposes over—well, that’s the time these bombs were dropped! My circuitous thought is this: Truman was the office boy to do it. If Wallace had been vice president, then he would have been our subsequent president when FDR died.  I don’t know what the end result would have been, but I have a hunch he wouldn’t have dropped bombs to scare someone. Patience and good judgment might have ruled the day. So the results would have been very different for the citizens of the US, multiple Japanese civilians, as well as perhaps not staining the US as the only nation to own that quote : “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” as  Oppenheimer famously repeated from the Bhagavad Gita . You can’t see yourself as the paragon of goodness when you knee-jerk use nuclear fission to solve your problems. So we are pretty far down the destroyer of worlds path. Regime change are US. A drastic realignment is necessary. Characters like Biden and Cop Harris won’t cut it, and those types are the DNC’s favored candidates. When Warren becomes favored, you know her sell-out with the Sith lords is complete. These things sound like petty squabbles over a group of similars until you think about Strummer’s pregnant mention of an unwritten future. What consequences will come from the continued use of corporate office boys/girls for the job? Can we write a future that is better, that is decent? There are a lot of individuals like me who find Bernie Sanders to be a compromise, not far enough to the left. But even his middle-of-the-road-in-Europe notions scare the crap out of the machinery. I was furious last time that he didn’t simply run as a third-party candidate. We won’t survive much more of this nonsense. The threats of being a spoiler…well I say spoil it all. It’s rancid. That milk you put back in the fridge that smells isn’t going to rehabilitate itself. Trump won anyway–even with Bernie hitting the road for Clinton last time. And don’t get me started about her. Are they even trying to win? She was needlessly caustic, much like Biden. He has a huge problem with younger voters, so he goes on the road and when he is asked about environmental concerns by a young voter, he says “Look at my record, CHILD!” to an adult woman! Is he even trying at all? Is he just campaigning so he can smell new shampoos around the country? I don’t have high hopes that Bernie will fight back this time when they screw him over again. I hope I’m wrong or at least I hope his campaign leaves the threat of it there to create a known moral hazard for the DNC if this is the path they take. The younger voters are showing that they are basically a bit more decent than the “pragmatic” Boomers and X’ers. There is evidence that they have…empathy. I am so relieved by this and feel this is an indication that a progressive party can win because they have some massive numbers they could draw from. And there are X’ers like me as well as Boomers who aren’t totally evil. We kind of want the world to survive.  We will be there for this change. The tepid centrist Democrats will not help with this imperative. Considering all this though, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to believe that to many corporate/centrist Dems, a loss to Trump is preferable to ceding to the progressive arm of the party. This is a moment like the situation with Wallace in 1944. If the party can’t get rid of things like superdelegates (the Republicans have even done that!) and they continue to use media connections to ignore the true state of support that candidates have (oh, oh, the excitement for Biden is palpable per CNN)…well, the party will vanish and sadly our descent into Republican-style fascism will probably accelerate without a needed safety valve. A true change in the Democratic party would be required, a change to reflect the views of all the adults out there who came of age after things quit being better than their parents had it. A tree does get stronger in the wind (if it survives) and perhaps things were just too easy to breed strength for some of those with comfortable health care and a guaranteed retirement. It will take some strength of character for those older Americans to care about those coming after them and call for change accordingly even if they personally feel they are safe. But ultimately their support will not be required, time will march forward with or without them.  The decent thing to do is be part of the change. The younger generations are especially suffering at the hands of unfettered capitalism. Our globe is even suffering. The middling better than Trump Obama types will not cut it. They will simply slow the descent and make it more comfortable for the well-heeled older centrists on the way down. They might be less overtly embarrassing than Trump, but that’s not enough, My elderly malignant narcissist mother who endorses aggressive nudity is less embarrassing than Trump. That’s a low bar. What we have now, well–this is not just, and this is not good. To only care about your 401 K but not care about someone else’s DKA is a sign of being a shitty person (explainer: DKA is Diabetic Ketoacidosis. It’s what you get when you can’t afford your fucking insulin and it is killing young Type 1 diabetics as we speak). But Sanders can’t just bow down to Biden or Warren if that is who the machinery wants for the office position when the time comes. A new party and movement needs to be built at that moment with no hesitation because you can’t fight fascism and climate destruction with polite adherence to rules set up to keep you down. This Piece Originally Appeared in LA Progressive Read the full article