#Immigration Reset

[truth4ourfreedom]

World governments have been ordered to crack down on honey bees as the globalist elites escalate the war on farmers and prepare the groundwork for the devastating global famine that WEF insiders have warned us about.

https://rumble.com/v4xdq9h-wef-orders-govts-to-burn-millions-of-bees-to-usher-in-global-famine.html

[folkorae]

Me always getting tilted playing league but here i am playing it again lmao

[dreamsrunfaster]

hate hate hate trying to work after a panic attack. eaten breakfast been for a walk talked it through with a friend went for a run made and ate lunch showered. still shaking. still planning the inevitable discussion in my head.

[relatively-feline]

Immigrating into the USA from germany, i already had like no expectations given the state the US was in during the time.

But actually living here and experiencing the day to day life that the average American seems to be living just somehow even undermet those non existing expectations.

My husband is so unaware of the freedoms I've not just given up but inadvertently, unknowingly, lost by moving here, that i don't even know where to start in trying to explain it to him because its such a cultural difference at that point that the concept is too complicated for my english skills.

Life is so different in the USA. And from my humble german perspective it is not a life.

[lasseling]

Pope Francis says deliberately opposing migration ‘is a grave sin’

Pope Francis condemned efforts to regulate immigration, stating that those who “systemically” work to “repel migrants” are committing a “grave sin.”

[roboe1]

News and Headlines. Daily Brief. 9/25/2023.

US, World News. Politics, Commentary and Videos. Often covering what the mainstream media misses. US News. Texas Border Patrol Agent Brutalized in Violent Attack By Migrant Graphic images reveal the harrowing violence faced by Border Patrol agents at the US-Mexico border. Among them, a federal agent is seen severely bloodied after an altercation with an uncooperative migrant near McAllen,…

[decolonize-the-everything]

Hi :3

So someone said Kamala is the female Obama and I've been thinking about it....

And then did some internet sleuthing about it.

Hear me out

Didn't Dems use Obama to win Black voters after losing the previous election to Bush cuz Al Gore (like Clinton) lost?

And didn't they blame the 3rd party candidate Ralph Nader for Al Gore's loss?? Much like they blamed Bernie Bros?? Even tho the truth was that al Gore was hardly better and lacked the charisma Bush had? (Again, like Trump?)

So are we sure this is actually democrats conceding anything at all?? Are we not sure they put Kamala in the WH just to adjust voters to the idea of her being president anyway? That maybe they do realize the need for change but have chosen to err on the side of token progress that keeps them in power...again?

Article from Dec 2010:

At first glance, the president and Harris have much in common: Both are mixed-race children of immigrants raised by a single mother; both are eloquent, telegenic big-city lawyers with strong liberal credentials who catapulted from relative obscurity to the national stage. And like the first African-American president, Harris has broken a long-standing barrier — she’s California’s first African-American attorney general and the first woman to hold the office.

[...]“She’s a rare talent who will be a national figure shortly,” said Chris Lehane, a former Clinton aide who is now a consultant in California. “People call her the female Obama. It’s more apt to say she is the female Obama that progressives thought they were voting for.”

Are we absolutely positive that we have been learning lessons from history; like even recent history even? Because she isn't actually much different from Obama at all and this was Obama's legacy:

People were then reassured by Obama and rather than voting for 3rd parties in 2012 like they said, they elected Obama again. Just like y'all tried to do with Biden. And definitely like what will happen under Kamala.

He even got people to vote for him cuz of his promise to secure abortion rights and he did this right:

But tell me how that stopped the supreme court from stripping it???

Don't fall for this again

Cuz people were fucking pissed after Obama weren't they. Progressives wouldn't put up with a moderate like Clinton even compared to Trump. And that was unexpected wasn't it, progress that they couldn't come back from. So they lost to Trump, but what a convenient reset! Suddenly settling wasn't so bad for the American people, huh? And y'all elected Biden.

Who, outside the homoerotic Biden/Obama memes, people didn't like (and I'd argue those memes are what made him likeable to the younger generations to begin with).

But things have been tense, haven't they? The displeasure of voters didn't completely go away when Biden remained a centrist. It wasn't enough, especially when he supported genocide. And now they give us Kamala after we wanted Biden to step down for supporting Israel?

....But she still supports Israel?

Nobody knows how/if progressives will show up for Kamala because we can all feel how much Kamala isn't pleasing anyone. The tension is still palpable. Democrats have made an awful bet.

And I am DONE.

Dems have been manipulating voters away from 3rd parties every single election while making promises they never keep good on, while doing NOTHING to actually protect any of us or make anything better. While killing people, deporting them, and justifying war crimes! While liberals promise to push them left and never do and ALSO tell everyone not to vote 3rd party "right now"

All they do is perpetuate the systems that serve each other. I mean we're in 2000 & 2008 again, politically. Already.

They will never ever systematically support progress the way that 3rd parties do. And they don't care to listen or change cuz they know they can Force you to vote for less by making sure that a centrist Democrat is always on the ticket with ballot access in every state and nobody else is.

They make sure if it in fact

If progress is what you want it's time to Genuinely start listening to people who tell you a vote for democrats is worthless for your goals.

I'm just fed up mexi-ojibwe american adult who grew up with shitty presidents and grew up with full access of the internet to educate myself about what led to this mess.

So are a LOT of other adults who feel this way!!!

And what we know led to this situation is the two party system. And how the system has been enabled by scared liberals who listen to fear-mongerering Democrats every election.

Democrats want history to repeat because it keeps them in power. Because what they do and how they treat you keeps them in power.

Is that what you want? To be treated like this in perpetuity for almost nothing in return?

Me neither.

So unless you have a better idea or plan to start burning shit down yourself then your most realistic option to break out of this abusive cycle is to vote 3rd party.

"vote blue in the primary, it's our only realistic option!" -> "if you don't vote blue you deserve trump" -> "can't you just be happy republican/trump lost?" -> quietly not doing much between elections-> "vote blue in the-" etc

Cycles don't end on their own, that's the thing about cycles in fact.

So vote 3rd party. Yeah it's scary. Yeah it might not work. But again, do you have a better idea? Because what we're doing and have been doing for the last 30 years, this "lesser evil" & "vbnmw" thing was the liberals' idea and that isn't working for any of us At All. Its keeping us here in this cycle where nothing gets better but it can Always get worse.

If you can't vote 3rd party in your state ask yourself why that is then do something about it.

Quit expecting democrats to give a shit about the equality you need when you've been protesting genocide for nearly a year and they still welcomed the war criminal for a conversation in the white house.

Any right you've won under democrats is as superficial as Obama's executive order and that's been proven.

⭐ Tldr ⭐

According to all available history: FUCK DEMOCRATS; You NEED to be supporting 3rd parties if you support progress and you need to do the work of getting their names out. Democrats DO fight and suppress 3rd parties. So its more work to support a 3rd party than a democrat, yeah.

But if progress is worth anything at all it should be worth at least trying to do the work it takes to get a viable 3rd party on the ballot.

DO THAT PLEASE.

Thank you

[floatingcatacombs]

Go Nagai was insane for this one

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 8

I like to always have manga of dubious quality on tap for when I’m having trouble sleeping. Ideally, reading a few chapters will distract me, but I won’t want to stay up late shotgunning volumes. Devilman Lady was the ideal manga for this, and this is maybe the last time anyone will ever describe Devilman Lady as "ideal".

An extremely brief introduction is in order. If Osamu Tezuka is the godfather of manga, then Go Nagai is manga’s weird horny uncle. He’s arguably just as influential, the two of them just moved in different circles, each reifying entire genres. Nagai is more or less responsible for magical girls, super robot, and ecchi, and also spent a lot of time in the sphere of supernatural and post-apocalyptic manga. These are fundamentally genres of extremity and ridiculousness, and Nagai dials every one of his works up to 11 by the end, one way or another. Devilman is probably his most famous work over here, and it’s a stone-cold classic for a reason. Nagai has kept revisiting it over the years, with side stories, alternate universes, manga cameos, and even entirely new series that function as stealth sequels such as Violence Jack. But his most notable attempt is Devilman Lady, which is far more than a simple gender-swap of the original.

Devilman Lady is about swimming deep in filth. It’s easily the most disgust-provoking manga I’ve read, with pretty much every content warning under the sun applicable. This is a truly rotten and conspiratorial world that Nagai is depicting. Societal decay manifests in countless forms, including rape, child abuse, homophobia, militarism, and hatred towards immigrants. Anything that could be potentially understood as fanservice is placed right next to or directly within the atrocities at hand, and it's genuinely unclear how much Nagai intended that as commentary. His intentions throughout this whole manga are a bit of an enigma, but what's clear that he is firing on all cylinders.

This is an extremely zeitgeisty 90’s work, with intelligent design debates, the mapping of the human genome, new age paranoia, religious zealotry, and anxiety over pollution all playing out on the pages. Where it breaks from many of its contemporaries is a decisive rejection of the end of history. This is the kind of thing you write when you’re still reeling from the subway sarin gas attacks and your country's role in the Gulf War and subsequent militarization. It’s the perfect manga for capturing a time period when ten to twenty percent of Japan’s population were estimated to have belonged to a new religious movement.

The punchline to all of this is that he doesn’t know how to draw women.

By the back half of Devilman Lady, Nagai’s depictions of hellscapes and grotesque monsters reach near-Berserk levels of detail and technical competency. And yet his female protagonists are still drawn in a drastically simpler 70's style, only now with giant spheres grafted to their chests. Either humans and the infernal are two completely different skillsets, or this was a deliberate artistic decision, and both are difficult to swallow. Either way, we just have to accept the juxtapositions.

one of my favorite pages to show people devoid of context

The finale is just nuts. Go Nagai makes textual the homoeroticism and gender deviance of the original Devilman manga, as the world burns in both nuclear warfare and demonic hellfire. The story starts accelerating at an unfathomable pace, the most inscrutable double mobius reacharound yaoiyuri occurs, and the universe resets once or twice. It makes the endings of Jojo Part 6 and 7 look tame by comparison. There is no way to parse this like a normal manga with a plot and narrative. It is raw id.

This has been a year where I’ve tried to deliberately broaden my comfort zone by engaging with more potentially upsetting works if I think they'll have something interesting to say. This was like jumping into the deep end. Devilman Lady may very well be Go Nagai’s magnum opus. It’s not nearly as tight as the original manga, but it’s a glorious mess, just as radical to its own time as Devilman must have been in the 70s. It made for spectacular insomnia reading. And there’s no way in hell I can ever recommend it.

At age 19, Nagai went through a bout of diarrhea so bad that he convinced himself it was colon cancer, and that he was at death's door. He vowed to leave something behind for the world to remember him by, and began laboring away on manga. And for the last 60 years of his career, he’s written and drawn with the fervor of a man who’s about to shit himself to death. Maybe that’s the real secret.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

In 2014, the Guardian asked me to nominate my hero of the year. To some people’s surprise, I chose Russell Brand. I loved the way he energised young people who had been alienated from politics. I claimed, perhaps hyperbolically, he was “the best thing that has happened to the left in years” (in my defence, there wasn’t, at the time, much competition).

Today, I can scarcely believe it’s the same man. I’ve watched 50 of his recent videos, with growing incredulity. He appears to have switched from challenging injustice to conjuring phantoms. If, as I suspect it might, politics takes a very dark turn in the next few years, it will be partly as a result of people like Brand.

It’s hard to decide which is most dispiriting: the stupidity of some of the theories he recites, or the lack of originality. He repeatedly says he’s not a conspiracy theorist, but, to me, he certainly sounds like one.

In 2014, he was bursting with new ideas and creative ways of presenting them. Today, he wastes his talent on tired and discredited tales: endless iterations of the alleged evils of the World Economic Forum founder, Klaus Schwab, the Great Reset, Bill Gates, Nancy Pelosi, the former US chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, Covid vaccines, medical data, the World Health Organization, Pfizer, smart cities and “the globalist masterplan”.

His videos appear to promote “natural immunity” ahead of vaccines, and for a while pushed ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for Covid (they aren’t).

He championed the “Freedom Convoy” that occupied Ottawa, which apparently stood proudly against the “tyranny” of Justin Trudeau’s policies. He hawks Graham Hancock’s widely debunked claims about ancient monuments.

A wildly popular clip from one of his videos about the Dutch nitrate crisis offers a classic conspiracy theory mashup: a tangle of claims that may be true in other contexts, random accusations, scapegoating and resonances with some old and very ugly tropes. He claims that “this whole fertiliser situation is a scam”. The real objective is “to bankrupt the farmers so their land can be grabbed”. This “shows you how the Great Reset operates”, using “globalist” regulations to throw farmers off their land. He claims it’s “connected to the land grab of Bill Gates” and the “corruption of companies like Monsanto”.

In reality, the Dutch government was forced to act by a legal ruling, as levels of nitrate pollution, largely from livestock farms, break European law. Its attempts to curb this pollution have nothing to do with the World Economic Forum and its vacuous rhetoric about a “Great Reset”. Or with Bill Gates. Or with Monsanto, which hasn’t existed since 2018 when it was bought by Bayer. So why mention them? Perhaps because these terms have become potent click triggers.

Brand is repeating claims first made by far-right conspiracists, who have piled into this issue, claiming that the nitrate crisis is a pretext to seize land from farmers, in whom, they claim, true Dutch identity is vested, and hand it to asylum seekers and other immigrants. It’s a version of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, itself a reworking of the Nazis’ blood and soil tropes about protecting the “rooted” and “authentic” people – in whom “racial purity” and “true” German identity was vested – from “cosmopolitan” and “alien” forces (ie Jews). Brand may not realise this, as the language has changed a little – “cosmopolitans” have become “globalists”, “aliens” have become “immigrants” – but the themes have not.

On and drearily on he goes. He manages to confuse the World Health Organization’s call for better pandemic surveillance (by which it means the tracking of infectious diseases) with coercive surveillance of the population, creating “centralised systems of control where you are ultimately a serf”.

Some of his many rants about Bill Gates are illustrated with an image of the man wearing a multicoloured lapel badge, helpfully circled in red. This speaks to another widespread conspiracy theory: those who wear this badge are members of a secret organisation conspiring to control the world (so secret they stick it on their jackets). In reality, it shows support for the UN sustainable development goals.

Such claims are not just wrong. They are wearyingly, boringly wrong. But, to judge by the figures (he has more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube), the audience loves them.

Some of his theories, such as his recent obsession with UFOs, are innocuous enough. Others have potential to do great harm. There’s the risk to the people scapegoated, such as Fauci, Schwab and Pelosi: subjects of conspiracy theories often become targets of violence. There are the risks misleading claims present to public health. And bizarre stories about shadowy “elites” protect real elites from scrutiny and challenge.

While I’m not suggesting this is his purpose, it’s a tactic used deliberately by powerful people to disarm those who might otherwise hold them to account. Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, had a term for it: “flood the zone with shit”. As Naomi Klein has shown, the Great Reset conspiracy theory was conceived by a staffer at the Heartland Institute, a US lobby group that has promoted climate denial and other billionaire-friendly positions. It’s a bastardisation of her shock doctrine hypothesis, distracting people from the malfeasance of those with real power.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 07, 2024

Today Vice President Kamala Harris named her choice for her vice presidential running mate: Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz grew up in rural Nebraska. He enlisted in the Army National Guard when he was 17 and served for 24 years, retiring in 2005 as a command sergeant major, making him the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress, according to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  

He went to college with the educational benefits afforded him by the Army, and graduated from Chadron (Nebraska) State College. From 1989 to 1990, he taught at a high school in China, then became a social studies teacher in Alliance, Nebraska, where he met fellow teacher Gwen Whipple, who became his wife. They moved to Minnesota, where they both continued teaching and had two children, Hope and Gus, through IVF. 

Walz became the faculty advisor for the school’s gay-straight alliance organization at the same time that he coached the high-school football team from a 0–27 record to a state championship. The advisor “really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married," Walz said in 2018. 

Walz ran for Congress in 2005 after some of his students were asked to leave a rally for George W. Bush because one of them had a sticker for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Walz won and served in Congress for twelve years, sitting on the House Agriculture Committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Voters elected Walz to the Minnesota state house in 2018, and in his second term they gave him a slim majority in the state legislature. With that support, Walz signed into law protections for abortion rights, supported gender-affirming care, and legalized the recreational use of marijuana. He signed into law gun safety legislation and protections for voting rights, and pushed for action to combat climate change and to promote renewable energy. 

Strong tax revenues and spending cuts gave the state a $17.6 billion surplus, and the Democrats under Walz used the money not to cut taxes, as Republicans wanted, but to invest in education, fund free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren, make tuition free at the state’s public colleges for students whose families earned less than $80,000 a year, and invest in paid family and medical leave and health insurance coverage regardless of immigration status. 

While MAGA Republicans are already trying to define Walz as “far left,” his votes in Congress put him pretty squarely in the middle.  His work with Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan to expand technology production and infrastructure funding in the state was rewarded in 2023, when Minnesota knocked Texas out of the top five states for business. The CNBC rating looked at 86 indicators in 10 categories, including the workforce, infrastructure, health, and business friendliness. 

Walz checks a number of boxes for the 2024 election, most notably that he hails from near the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and comes across as a normal, nice guy. He favors unions, workers’ rights, and a $15 minimum wage. He is also the person who coined the phrase that took away the dangerous overtones of today’s MAGA Republicans by dubbing them “weird.” As a student of his said: “In politics he’s good at calling out B.S. without getting nasty or too down in the dirt…. It’s the kind of common sense he showed as a coach: practical and kinda goofy.”

Walz is also a symbol of an important resetting of the Democratic Party. He has been unapologetic about his popular programs. On Sunday, July 28, when CNN’s Jake Tapper listed some of Walz’s policies and asked if they made Walz vulnerable to Trump calling him a “big government liberal.” Walz joked that he was, indeed, a “monster.” 

“Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness…. The fact of the matter is,” where Democratic policies are implemented, “quality of life is higher, the economies are better…educational attainment is better. So yeah, my kids are going to eat here, and you’re going to have a chance to go to college, and you’re going to have an opportunity to live where we're working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you’re going to have personal incomes that are higher, and you’re going to have health insurance. So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.” 

Right-wing reactionary politicians have claimed to represent ordinary Americans since the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act—on August 6, 1965, exactly 59 years ago today—by insisting that a government that works for communities is a “socialist” plan to elevate undeserving women and racial, ethnic, and gender minorities at the expense of hardworking white men. 

Historically, though, rural America has quite often been the heart of the country’s progressive politics, and the Midwest has had a central place in that progressivism. Walz reintegrates that history with today’s Democratic Party. 

That reintegration has left the Republicans flatfooted. Trump and J.D. Vance expected to continue their posturing as champions of the common man, but on that front the credentials of a New York real estate developer who inherited millions of dollars and of a Yale-educated venture capitalist pale next to a Nebraska-born schoolteacher. Bryan Metzger, politics reporter at Business Insider, pointed out that J.D. Vance tried to hit Walz as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” but while Vance lived in San Francisco as a venture capitalist between 2013 and 2017, Walz went to San Francisco for the first time just last month. 

Head writer and producer of A Closer Look at Late Night with Seth Meyers Sal Gentile summed up Walz’s progressive politics and community vibe when he wrote on social media: “Tim Walz will expand free school lunches, raise the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, fix your [carburetor], replace the old wiring in your basement, spray that wasp’s nest under the deck, install a new spring for your garage door and put a new chain on your lawnmower.” 

Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.” 

Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”

Pennsylvania is a crucial state, and Shapiro issued a statement offering his “enthusiastic support” to the ticket. He pledged to work to unite Pennsylvanians behind my friends Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and defeat Donald Trump.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:

Hints that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are working their way toward an alliance have been increasing for months. Trump has wanted to tap Musk’s billions to solve some of his fiscal problems—like the hundreds of millions he owes after being found liable for fraud, sexual assault, and defamation.  As The Wall Street Journal reports, Musk might be offering something that Trump finds even more attractive than his bottomless wallet. Because Musk, along with fellow billionaire Nelson Peltz, is offering Trump a shiny new “data-driven” election system to stamp out voter fraud that doesn’t exist.  On top of that, Musk and Peltz are conducting regular soirees with other billionaires to convince them to turn against President Joe Biden. Musk isn’t satisfied with cutting a massive check for Trump; He’s trying to cut any support out from under Biden by putting pressure on other members of his billionaire boys club.  And he’s coordinating his efforts with regular phone conversations and meetings with Trump.

[...]

The budding alliance might seem surprising, considering Trump continually attacks electric vehicles, and Musk makes electric vehicles. Not so long ago, the two men were slinging insults at each other, but that was before Musk’s private jet started dropping in near Mar-a-Lago and Musk began insisting that the U.S. could only be saved by a “red wave” in the upcoming election.  Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, Musk is considering an “advisory role” in a second Trump White House. Trump and Musk have found common ground on immigration, where both are big fans of the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory that insists progressives are seeking to destroy Western culture by allowing a flood of immigrants into the U.S. Musk has repeatedly spread and amplified lies about non-citizen voting and promoted the Great Reset conspiracy theory, which insists that COVID-19 was part of a vast plot to somehow install a “world government.” That’s just a fraction of the long list of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation Musk has promoted.

Right-wing X owner Elon Musk wants to team up with Donald Trump with the intent to stop nonexistent “voter fraud.”

Before he became a far-right mouthpiece, Musk left the Trump Administration’s advisory boards in 2017 over 45 pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

[ppeonppeonhan]

Back when Unknown was airing I posted a cheeky thought about the possibility of "brother" not meaning the same thing in Taiwan, because BL characters kept using that term in reference to men they'd eventually fall for.

And just now I saw a reel where this Chinese American explains that "brother" in China doesn't carry the same meaning, because of their one-child policy that lasted almost 4 decades. So when they say "brother," it can sometimes have a romantic connotation, because a large amount of the population doesn’t have brothers/siblings.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ꮐ É Ꮐ E ♊︎ 金 格 格 (@gegethejing)

Now, my original comment was in reference to Taiwanese dramas (Anti Reset and Kiseki: Dear to Me), and Taiwan did not have that policy. But they do have a lot of Chinese immigrants....

So maybbeeeee I was on to something.

[octuscle]

Hello, Support I was trying to use your machine to reset my life after a horrible year but it's gotten stuck it'll only let me choose between Asian an Latin races, can you help me out? Also it says it will only let me wear tight leather clothing, am I doing something wrong?

Man, you have the free trial. There's not a whole lot of choices there. Problem is: you've already started configuring a transformation. Now you can only upgrade after you have completed the transformation. If you allow me, I'll put something together for you, and when we're done, you can upgrade to the full version.

Have you had a terrible year? You can't even remember what was so terrible… You came to Spain from Colombia a year ago as a guest worker. And after you got your EU residence permit, you moved to Amsterdam. Your English is barely good enough, you have a hard time with Dutch. But hey, you quickly made a name for yourself as a tattoo artist in Amsterdam's red light district.

Hehehe, you love summer in the city! Locals, immigrants, tourists… Endless studs to fuck. The De-Oeverlanden park is extremely busy just after sunset. If someone shines a flashlight on you like that, it must be a cop looking for a dealer. Or a tourist looking for a stallion. You're in luck. It's a cop looking for a stallion. And you love being ridden by cops.

You can find the best Latino hustlers @yeahthatsmypapi

[sinfulspencer]

Enchanting, enchanted

Prompt: Spencer didn’t think he’d meet Rossi’s niece on Mischief Night at his mansion. And he didn’t think she’d be into him anyway. (Spoiler: she is.)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Rating: mature (18+, minors DNI)

Warnings: dom/sub undertones (sub!Spencer, softdom!Reader), adults with age gap (25/36), dirty talking, light degradation, hair pulling, oral sex (female receiving, implied male receiving), breeding kink, unprotected sex

Words:

A.N.: When October started, I had an idea: two Halloween fics with Spencer Reid being a submissive bitch and a dominant whore. @softreidx knows all about this - thank you for editing this piece. Love you.

Hope you enjoy this. x

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It’s not a secret Spencer Reid loves Halloween.

The cool thing about Halloween is that it's a uniquely American holiday. Despite its obvious origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian “All Saints’ Day”, it really is a melting pot of various immigrants' traditions and beliefs.

It became a little more commercialized in the 1950 with “trick-or-treat”.

Today it rivals only Christmas in terms of popularity.

He said those notions so many times to the rest of his team-mates and made sure everyone knew how much he loved Halloween.

Spencer follows Emily inside Rossi’s house. “People would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. Isn’t that cool? How has fire always been a symbol of cleansing? Many people think of fire as an energetic reset button, a force that can burn through anything that no longer serves you or is there to help you!”

Emily takes off her long black coat, revealing a dark red dress she put on because apparently Rossi wanted to throw a masquerade party or something – Spencer was even more excited about that, because he put on his favourite costume.

An Edgar Allan Poe outfit that has been hidden in his closet since forever.

“Spencer, I appreciate your Halloween facts, but tonight I just want to have a drink and not think about ghosts.” – Emily tells him, patting him on the shoulder – “I promise you: tomorrow I’ll be all yours, you can tell me whatever you want.”

Spencer gives her a reassuring smile, nodding his head. “I’ll hold you to that.”

The rest of the team is already in Rossi’s backyard, no matter the low temperatures. Everyone is dressed up as monsters or book characters – Luke didn’t spend that much time thinking about his outfit, mainly because Roxy decided that his Frankenstein mask would be a delicious part of her dinner so he went with a simple vampire outfit.

Penelope, with her orange hair and pointy hat, is dressed up. Matt, with a lot of kids and a quite creative wife, ended up getting dressed as the Slender Man – long white sleeves with long white fingers, a tight black suit and that sparkly red tie around his neck.

Rossi didn’t dress up at all, no matter being the host who actually wanted this kind of party.. which bothered Spencer a little too much.

The young doctor, fixing the hat on top of his head, walks over to the owner of the house.

“Hey, why aren’t you dressed up? I thought we were going to have a Halloween party!”

Rossi looks at him up and down, crossing his arms to his chest. “Because I wouldn’t want to overshadow anyone, Spencer. You know my costume would be the best one here.”

Spencer can’t help, but chuckle at his colleague’s joke. “Ah, it’s a shame. I wanted to see your outfit!”

“Well, not today. I didn’t even come up with this dressed-up party anyway. My niece did.”

Spencer is puzzled. Did Rossi just admit he has a niece?

“Your niece?”

That’s the first time Rossi ever mentions the existence of a niece. At first Spencer thought he was talking about Joy’s children – maybe she had another baby! – but they’re not here, so it can’t be possible.

“Who mentioned me?”

Your voice echoes through the stairs as you climb down, making sure you don’t fall down on your own face. Your heels are high – they’re part of your outfit, which is why you’re not going to take them off unless it’s to go to bed.

However, you hate them right now. And you’re tempted to kick them away.

Spencer turns around and spots you, struggling to walk down while also holding the edge of your skirt so that you don’t trip on your own feet and the dress.

If he forgets how to breathe, it’s not a surprise.

You look absolutely breathtaking with your hair slightly pulled back, dark black makeup around your eyes and lips as red as blood.

Spencer doesn’t know what your outfit is about, but he doesn’t care; as long as he can admire you with it on, and hopefully without it on.

“Yes, niece. You.”

You hum, gripping David’s arm. “Oh, shut up. You told me that you were going to dress up but bailed on me last minute! And Krystall suggested throwing this party, I just sent the texts.”

Rossi rolls his eyes, patting your hand with a smile.

Spencer holds back a laugh, covering his mouth with his own hand. He doesn’t know who you are because he has never seen you before, but he’s definitely starting to like you or at least be slightly interested in you. You are so gorgeous, he’s not going to deny it, but you’re also incredibly bubbly.

And he has just seen you. What are you going to do to him in an hour? Or two?

“Young lady, you’re here because...”

“You missed me too much and you wanted me to come over to meet your team in hope I find myself a partner. I know!” – you exclaim, rolling your eyes before turning your head to look at the young man in front of you – “Ah, you must be Doctor Spencer Reid.”

David puts a hand on his forehead, shaking his head as he walks away. If he stays there, he’s going to witness Spencer melting into your bubbly personality – and he doesn’t really care about witnessing two people flirting with each other.

His plan is already working because he could see how Spencer kept staring at you. And you probably told Rossi that you might have looked up the cute Doctor in his team, which led him to make the decision to invite you over to his mansion to celebrate Halloween.

Maybe...

Maybe Dave’s plan was to actually get you and Spencer to like each other.

After all, he’s the only single in the team.

Luke is with Penelope, Matt is married just like JJ, Emily has a girlfriend and Tara is starting to reconcile with her ex girlfriend. They’re all taken but the young and pretty Doctor Reid – David thinks he’d be perfect for you.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Doctor Reid.” - you say with a huge smile on your face, holding out your hand before pulling it back - “Ah, wait. You don’t like shaking hands. My bad.”

Spencer can feel his cheeks heating up as soon as your eyes meet. David has probably talked to you about him many times - and he had, which made Spencer seem so incredibly attractive and interesting to you.

Usually Spencer is much more nervous around pretty girls like you, but he’s dressed up as Edgar Allan Poe and it’s Halloween night. He feels different, a little more blunt than usual.

Or maybe not, because he keeps fidgeting with his hands.

“I didn’t catch your name, sorry.”

“Y/N. I’m Y/N.”

Spencer bows his head down for a second, taking off his hat. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Y/N. I feel like I should bow to you because of your outfit.”

You giggle.

Spencer’s heart drops in his chest. He made you giggle and that sound was so heavenly, as if a God came down from the sky and caressed his cheeks.

“It’s just a little something I whipped out in a hurry. Unfortunately they lost my luggage at the airport. I had to borrow Krystall’s clothes.” - you mumble, straightening your dark skirt - “They’re comfortable, though! I should dress up like this on a daily basis.”

“They didn’t steal your makeup, though.”

You shake your head, stepping down the last stair. “Exactly! I was so relieved. I’ve spent much more money on makeup than all my clothes. It would’ve been a disaster to lose my beauty bag.”

Spencer stares at you in silence, taking in all of the details of your beauty.

Perfect lips, perfect hair, perfect eye shape, perfect voice, perfect in general.

There’s nothing he doesn’t like about you and it’s weird because he has just met you, but he can’t keep his eyes off you. You don’t mind at all, you like being admired, and you’re definitely hoping Spencer will admire you much closer than this - and not in front of anybody else.

“Wow, everyone is dressed up.” - you whisper, glancing at the rest of David’s team in his backyard - “I can’t believe I was so convincing with that text.”

“You used David’s phone for real?”

You shrug, running your fingers through your hair. “I may have done that. I’ve never celebrated Mischief Night before, so this was my chance to do so. And here we are! Look! You’re dressed as Edgar Allan Poe, I’m dressed as Lilith!”

Spencer doesn’t say anything, but his whole body is reacting positively to your answer. You know who Poe is, you know that Spencer has dressed up like this, you wanted to celebrate Mischief Night - which means you like that holiday, and probably Halloween as well.

Maybe Spencer has found his soulmate.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Spencer blinks, focusing on your face again. “Huh? Sorry, I was…”

You give him a smile, pointing to the backyard. “Let’s just go, I’m hungry and I want to show off my makeup. I didn’t spend two hours putting this makeup on just to stay locked inside of a room. I need to show it off!”

Each time you move around the living room, either to fill your glass with wine or have a smoke with David in his backyard, Spencer has his eyes on you. No one can blame him because you are absolutely adorable, with all of your interesting and fun anecdotes on your holidays in the Rossi’s mansion with Krystal, Joy and her son.

No one was expecting Rossi to have a “found niece” at all, if they had to be honest.

However you are a beautiful surprise and David is happy that he has finally introduced you to his whole team, because he could see how ecstatic and at ease you were for the whole dinner. You tried your best not to ask them what was the most wicked and naughty thing they saw while working on a case – you were hoping to have this discussion during another moment of the night, and not while you were eating, but you were too excited.

As JJ and Luke spoke about the last most gruesome case, Spencer couldn’t keep his eyes off you the whole time. You looked like you were having so much fun hearing about Emily or David being disgusted in front of remains or blood, because you never thought David was this sensitive over bodily fluids.

Either way, you listened to every single person in the team speaking about their most disgusting moment over the years and you laughed each time with all of them.

You felt like you were a part of this team, as if you knew them for your whole life.

It’s not easy to find people like these, people you can connect with in the blink of an eye. You feel proud of yourself for convincing David to throw this little party, because now you feel incredible.

Maybe it’s the wine...

Anyway, it doesn’t matter.

Penelope has already given you her number, which means you’ll get to hang out with her and gossip every single time about who-knows-what. Luke has found out that you are a dog lover, which means you’ll get to spend a few dinners at his place to play with Roxy and take her out for a walk whenever Luke will ask you to.

And since you love cats as well, Penelope will let you play with Sergio.

Spencer didn’t speak much throughout the dinner. You were expecting him to spit out more interesting facts about every single person’s costume at this table, but he kept his mouth shut and listened to the others talking.

At first you thought it was because of your presence right there at the table, but then Penelope kicked you with her shoes without the others seeing, and you noticed Spencer staring at you as if he was about to eat you.

You’d probably let him.

Before the whole party started, you were getting ready in the bathroom of the guest room when David came by to ask you how you were doing. You showed you all your makeup as he sat on the edge of the bed and you blabbed about how nervous you were to meet his colleagues, but also how excited you were to finally see Doctor Reid.

When David talked about him for the first time, you couldn’t believe a person like that could exist: a lover of nature and books, obsessed with coffee, graduated to a bunch of different things (you don’t know how he managed to study such a disgusting subject as physics!), a professor.

David talked about Spencer as if he was his son, with such a tenderness and kindness that he has shown to you over the years. You and Spencer were like his children, David loves both of you so dearly.

Which is exactly the reason why he thought it was a good idea for you to meet Spencer.

David didn’t tell you that he was planning on making you meet him because he wanted you to be with him, but he didn’t need to say that. He thought you’d be the perfect match for Spencer: no matter your hate for physics, you had a lot of things in common.

Both of you love books.

Both of you are professors.

Both of you are obsessed with Nature.

Both of you have a very dark apartment with books everywhere.

Both of you go stargazing whenever you can.

Both of you spend hours inside of a library just staring at books in order to pick one to take home.

Both of you love lavender scent candles or incense.

Both of you are quiet, but extremely endearing and adorable.

However, you’re an extrovert and Spencer is an introvert. You’re louder and you love going outside to meet new people no matter your quietness, while Spencer would rather stay at home and watch a Russian movie than meeting others.

It’s not like David wanted to change Spencer, absolutely not. He just thought you’d be his better half in a way to complete him, somehow. Everything he doesn’t have, you do. Everything you don’t have, he does.

It’s like the last two pieces of the same puzzle fitting together.

You didn’t know David’s plan at first, but you realised it as soon as you walked down the stairs to meet Spencer Reid’s chocolate eyes. You knew he was going to come over, which is why you made sure to be extra-perfect for the party, but you never thought you’d catch his eyes looking at you or your body the whole night.

Spencer doesn’t know that you were looking at him in the same exact way, with probably the same exact purpose: you want him more than anything and you’re determined to have him. It doesn’t matter where or when, you know you’ll have him however you want and wherever you want.

Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow but you will someday.

“Why did you convince Dave to throw a little party the day before Halloween?”

Spencer’s smooth voice captures your attention, forcing you to turn around. You’re met with a pair of chocolate eyes that leave you completely breathless: he looks so fucking hot like this, with the first three buttons of his white shirt completely opened and the hat long forgotten.

His unruly curls look so soft, you wonder how it would feel to run your fingers through them.

He’s lingering on the doorstep, watching the grey smoke from your cigarette vanishing into thin air. You shrug with a little smile over your lips, putting your free hand over your hip.

“It’s Mischief Night, Spencer!”

His eyes brighten up. “You know what it is?”

You widen your eyes, nodding. “Of course I do! I don’t really celebrate it, but I thought it’d be nice to switch things up for me.”

“Did you know that the term ‘Mischief Night’ was first used in Britain and not here in the US? It didn’t mean October 30, it was actually the day before May Day. – Spencer explains, taking a step further and closing the door behind his back – Young people played practical jokes, such as switching shop signs, overturning water tubs and trapping people inside their houses.”

You let out a low chuckle, inhaling through your cigarette before blowing the grey smoke out. “That’s very interesting, Spencer. I used to play pranks on people all the time when I was a child. It wasn’t really a tradition for me, I thought it was normal because all the kids in my neighbourhood would do it.”

His eyes are not leaving yours. “Pranks?”

“Hm, yes. I used to throw eggs at my neighbour’s car, even though that wasn’t really a prank. I hated that man with every fibre in my body because his kid stole my dolls. I had to get back at him somehow, but then his kid moved away while the neighbour stayed behind.”

“Ouch, that’s pretty sad.” – the young doctor mumbles, pointing to the chair underneath the gazebo – How about we sit there?”

You don’t answer him, simply walking through the plastic curtains before sitting down on one of the chairs that were previously occupied by you and David.

“I wasn’t really nice at the time, it’s long gone.”

“I bet you’re not nice either now.”

You raise your brow, smirking. “Oh, I’m definitely still a bad girl.”

Spencer chuckles, shaking his head. He got you exactly where he was hoping to get you, but he doesn’t know that you’re a much better player than him.

When you want someone, you get them. And you get them begging, whining, moaning, panting, withering underneath you until they’re a weak, pathetic little mess that you love to play with.

You’re excited to see how Spencer will be by the end of the night, if something happens.

“Can’t wait to see that, honestly.”

His words throw you off track because you were not expecting them, and when you turn your head to look at him, you realise that he wasn’t expecting them either. His eyes are widened and his mouth is slightly opened, while his right hand is ready to cover it. You don’t know if he said that and now he’s acting weird because he wants to see your reaction or because he’s really shocked by his own behaviour, but you’re definitely amused.

Ah, this cute little man will be the death of you. You can’t wait.

“So eager to have me in your bed, aren’t you?” you roll your eyes

As much as you’re amused and you’re curious to see what he’s going to do, you want to push him just a little bit. Teasing someone and then leaving them hanging is the best, especially if you get to see their shocked expression on their face as you walk away while they need to cover their little problem.

Tonight you feel nice, though, so maybe you will help this someone with his problem.

“I, uh... I’m sure your bed is much more comfortable than mine.”

You crush the butt of your cigarette inside the ashtray. “Should we try it so we can compare them?”

You can see Spencer gulping, his eyes scanning your face as if he’s trying to understand whether you’re joking or not. You were just teasing him – or maybe not. Definitely not, because you’re quite curious to see how he’d react with your legs spread open just for him and your fingers playing with yourself while waiting for him. After all, you’re a Goddess tonight – which means he will need to worship you, kiss every inch of you and savour the taste of your skin.

“Or we can stay here and look each other in the eyes until someone gives in.”

You put your right hand underneath your chin and lean forward, staring into those beautiful eyes that immediately look away from you. You don’t know if he pulled away because you made him uncomfortable by being so close to him or by your words; either way, you feel bad because this wasn’t your intention. You were just playing, but maybe you played too rough with him.

After all, he’s the “baby genius” of the group – as David always said.

You wonder if Spencer could give you a baby genius.

The thought makes you smile.

“The others will hear me.”

His answer comes as quickly as the quick movements of your eyes on his face. Spencer is thinking about your proposition, which makes you squeeze your legs together.

“They won’t if I keep that sweet little mouth of yours occupied, don’t you think?”

Spencer struggles to look you in the eyes, terrified that you might see the desire flashing behind his and going straight to his groin. He has been trying to hide that little problem for the past hour. He thought that coming out here and talking to you innocently would’ve helped him stop thinking about you riding him, but it didn’t. Nothing helped.

“Do I have a sweet little mouth?”

You hum, chuckling at his blushing cheeks. “Of course you do. You have the prettiest lips I’ve ever seen. I bet they’re soft, too.”

Spencer lowers his eyes, blushing even more at your compliments. How can he react like this just because of a few words? You haven’t even touched him or told him how you’re going to want him to touch you, and he’s like this?

Hard and needy?

You find him adorable, but pathetic as well.

You’re going to break this boy down piece by piece and you’ll love it.

“I’m not going to kiss you right now because I probably won’t be able to stop.” – you mumble, placing a hand over his knee – “I’ll tell David I’m not feeling too well. You know where the guest room is.”

You stand up before he could open his mouth to answer you and you leave him outside, gently approaching your uncle. Placing your hands on his shoulder, you wait until he finishes talking about the last time he went to Italy and ended up taking the wrong train, with no money, no clean clothes.

You’ve heard that story so many times and it’s still so funny, because you were right there with him. You were the other person that lost their luggage on holiday and ended up having to buy everything inside of a supermarket, along with Krystall.

It was weird, but so worth it.

When David is done talking, you tap him on the shoulder and you lean forward. You whisper in his ear that you feel a bit lightheaded because of all the alcohol you have drank the whole night. He touches your hand, looking at you worried.

“I’m sorry, pumpkin. Do you need me to do something? Do you have your medicine?”

You nod your head, smiling softly. “Yes, thank you. I’ll come back when I feel better.”

Kissing his forehead, you tap his shoulders again and then you apologise to the rest of the guests, excusing yourself out of the room.

You don’t like to interrupt a party to announce that you’re not feeling well, especially if it’s a lie, but you’re not going to turn the chance of having Spencer all over you down. It’s what you’ve been waiting for since you saw him at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at you as if you were the most precious creation on Earth.

David glances at Spencer stepping inside the living room with his cheeks totally flushed and his eyes down on the floor. He doesn’t know what happened outside and, honestly, he doesn’t want to know, but he could see how you affected Spencer.

You weren’t the only one who noticed his hungry eyes on you the whole time.

The rest of the team, especially Penelope and David, did.

“Hey kid, are you alright?” Luke calls out

Spencer clears his throat, facing the rest of his team. “Hm? Oh yeah, everything’s fine. I was just looking for some, uh, water. I’m thirsty.”

Penelope holds back a laugh when David glares at her.

There’s no need to embarrass Spencer any further because he’ll be done as soon as he not-so-subtly asks if he can use the bathroom upstairs.

“Are you sure you don’t want a glass of wine?” Emily asks

Spencer shakes his head, heading to the kitchen. “No, I’m good with water. Thank you.”

Luke takes a sip of his wine, leaning against the chair. “What’s going on?”

Spencer ignores his question, opening the fridge inside the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. He needs it because his mouth is so dry due to his nerves. He knows he’s acting weird and the rest of the team probably understood what’s actually going on, while you don’t have a clue.

Upstairs, you’re taking off your shoes.

You wonder what Spencer has told the team to cause this silence and you start to get nervous, because maybe you shouldn’t have been so eager to have Spencer with you. You don’t want anybody to know what’s going to happen in your bedroom if he shows up, so you hope Spencer doesn’t mess things up for you.

You don’t really want David to give you the “you can’t have sex with my colleagues in my house” talk, even though he’ll probably say something tomorrow morning – or in the next few days you’ll stay right there.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Startled by the sound coming from the door, you almost drop your phone on the floor, but you manage to put it on your nightstand. It’s incredible how fast he was, but you don’t blame him: you’re as eager as him.

Straightening the skirt of your black dress, you head to the door. You hoped you’d have enough time to undress.

You open the door.

“Hi.”

Spencer stands in front of you, his eyes not leaving yours. “Hey.”

You grab him by the red tie around his neck, pulling him inside of your bedroom. He closes the door behind his back and his mouth immediately covers yours, making you stumble as you try to get back over to your bed.

Okay, you were definitely not expecting Spencer to be like this.

You were not expecting him to kiss you as soon as you opened the door, but you don’t complain. You wanted to do this when you were outside on the patio, so you’re grateful he has made the first move.

His hands slide down over to your thighs, gripping them as you gasp against his lips.

“We have to be quick, I told them I was going to the bathroom.”

You nod without interrupting the kiss, biting his bottom lip. You will be as quick as you can, hopefully he’ll be as well – you’re not sure if you’re going to have enough time to actually have sex with him right now, but there’s no rush.

“Then, let’s get to it.”

Spencer gets on his knees almost immediately, not giving you the time to enjoy the last kiss he gave you. The sight in front of you is just as hot as you thought it would be.

“Don’t make a sound.”

You roll your eyes, sitting on the edge of the bed. “So bossy.”

His eyes widen at your words, biting his bottom lip. He didn’t mean to make you mad – he’s terrified of you not giving him what he craves the most.

“I’m not, I just... don’t want the others to know what I’m doing.”

You run your fingers through his hair, gripping his curls. “They won’t, but put that mouth to use so it’ll be occupied.”

Spencer looks up at you for a few seconds, his lips parting as you speak to him in a tone of voice that sends shivers down his spine. You can feel and see the flashes of desire behind those beautiful lustful eyes, it’s incredibly hot.

“Go ahead, gorgeous. I’m waiting.”

His fingers slip underneath the skirt of your dress, exploring the soft skin of your thighs. You bite your bottom lip, staring at him as he makes his way under your dress to leave a trace of kisses from your knee up to your thighs.

You raise your leg and put it over his shoulders, keeping your right hand through his soft curls as you tug on them. You knew the sight was going to be delicious as soon as you met him, but this was incredibly hot – even hotter than before, when he was staring at you as if you were a painting.

Spencer is trying his best to not make a single sound, his mouth busy to kiss and worship your thighs.

You can’t really see his face from where you’re sitting so you lift your skirt, just enough to spot those beautiful pairs of eyes staring back at you.

“Hi.”

Spencer leaves another kiss on your inner thigh. “Hello Y/N.”

“Looking good over there.”

He lets out a soft chuckle, his fingers hooking up your panties before sliding them down your legs. You kick them away as soon as they reach your calves and you spread your legs, biting your bottom lip.

“Beautiful. Just as I thought.”

Blushing because of his compliments, you raise an eyebrow. “You thought about me like this?”

“Through the whole dinner.”

Spencer kisses down your inner thighs again, the gentle brush of his stubble against your skin setting it on fire. You know that your thighs will be covered in little nicks by tomorrow morning, but if this is the price to pay... you’re more than willing to spread your legs for him.

“You must have an incredible imagination, Doctor Reid.”

He worships you with his tongue, tracing it up to your inner thigh before sliding it over your clit. The sound that leaves your mouth will be forever imprinted in his mind, replaying over and over each time he’ll think about you.

“Fuck. An incredible tongue, too.” – you struggle to whisper, running your fingers through his curls before tugging on them – “Don’t stop.”

Spencer doesn’t plan to, closing his eyes and allowing his tongue to caress every inch of you and taste the sweetness of your heat. With his head buried between your thighs and your hands pulling his hair, Spencer thinks he just landed in Heaven – or where things are so perfect, a place he doesn’t want to run away from.

Normally, he would keep eye-contact with the person he’s ravishing, but today he knows he can’t do that. You probably wouldn’t mind, but Spencer wouldn’t be able to last at all – your eyes are magnetic.

It’s not even about the colour or the shape, it’s about the desire flashing behind them.

It’s a combination between your attitude, your confidence, your words... a dangerous mix that makes Spencer high alert on everything you do and say.

If he looks at you, he will come untouched. That’s it.

He can’t have that, he doesn’t want to disappoint you and no matter how quick his refractory period is, he doesn’t want to wait. He needs to be inside of you, he needs to orgasm because you want him to, he desperately craves to obey each one of your orders and watch you come undone before doing it himself.

Spencer wraps his lips around your clit, sucking it gently before you grip his hair. He knows you’re holding back those moans – the first one betrayed you, slipping out of your mouth before you could stop it. He wishes he’d be in another bedroom, maybe his; in another house, maybe his.

So you could be loud. So loud his neighbours would knock at his door and beg him to keep it quiet, which would make you and him way louder than you should be.

“Keep your eyes on me, Doctor Reid.” – you whisper, desire oozing from your voice as you move your hips against his face – “I want you to look at me while you eat me out.”

Spencer suppresses a frustrated whine, struggling to open his eyes, but managing to do as you wished. He doesn’t want to look at you, he doesn’t need you to see him completely wrecked just because of your salty taste.

You push a second pillow underneath your head, propping it high just enough so you can admire the amazing work Spencer is doing between your legs. And when you meet those chocolate eyes, you notice something strange.

His left hand is not on the bed.

“What are you doing with that hand, Doctor?”

Spencer stops his movements, pressing a soft kiss right above your clit in hope to distract you from the question you asked.

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

You raise your brow. “Are you touching yourself?”

Spencer doesn’t answer your question, burying his face between your legs again. His tongue delves deeper inside of you, making you shudder at the sensation. Your hands immediately fly right behind his head, pushing him right there where you want him the most.

He knew he was going to distract you.

He hoped so.

“You dirty little slut.” – you manage to speak, your voice broken by the pleasure amplifying more and more through your body – “Does this turn you on, Spencer? Are you hard because you’re eating me out?”

Spencer tightens his grip at the base of his cock, moving his hips slightly forward with his eyes still settled on your face. The hum he gives you in response to your question tells you that yes, he’s indeed turned on by all of this.

You don’t blame him.

Oral sex is one of the best act you could ever give or receive.

“Don’t stop.”

Spencer closes his eyes and savours your taste, gripping your thigh with his left hand and pushing your lower body towards his. You can feel yourself ready to topple over the edge, the pleasure tightening in your stomach as soon as his tongue slides up and down your clit.

You gasp and whimper at his movements, enjoying the wet sounds of his mouth devouring you.

“Spencer..”

You feel the tension snapping within you as you come, gripping his curls and tugging them even harder. Your back is arched and you don’t know for how long you’re going to be able to stay quiet, because this feels too fucking good.

Spencer doesn’t budge at your movements, his tongue relentlessly touching you, stimulating you to the point you can barely breathe.

Every cell in your body is on fire.

Then everything stops.

Spencer pulls away with his mouth and gets up on his feet, using his wet hand to touch himself. You’re dizzy and your legs are shaking because of the pleasure that ran through you, but as soon as you see him moving, you move.

“Do you want to come inside of me, darling?”

Spencer’s eyes snap wide open, staring at you with his parted lips. “Y-Yes.”

“Then fuck me.” - you mumble, gripping his tie - “Fuck me, but be quick. You don’t want the others to know what you’re doing, do you?”

He shakes his head, stroking his cock. “I don’t care.”

You giggle, sitting back up with your legs wide open. “Oh, you don’t? Do you want them to know how naughty you are? How hard are you because you ate my pussy?”

Spencer whines at your words, struggling to keep his eyes on you. “I… Please.”

“Please what, darling?”

“I don’t..” - he bites his bottom lip, pushing the head of his cock against your clit - “I can’t fuck you, I don’t have condoms.”

“Are you clean?”

You’ve never seen such a greedy man in front of you, silently begging you to let him fuck you and just come inside of you. Spencer looks incredibly beautiful, bent over towards you with his lips slightly parted and his right hand stroking his cock.

You feel your mouth water at the sight.

You lean forward, placing a hand underneath his. Spencer gasps.

“Yes! Yes, I’m clean.”

He’s so embarrassingly desperate.

“I’m clean as well.” - you tell him, grabbing his left hand - “Come on, fuck me.”

Spencer obeys, immediately pushing his length inside of you. His eyes close and he throws his head back, a soft moan echoing through the room as he finally feels the warmth of your walls tightening around him.

He didn’t even wait for you to be ready, he just wanted to get inside of you as quickly as possible.

So eager, so desperate.

It turns you on more than it should.

Spencer is glad you let him fuck you, because he wouldn’t have been able to stop thinking about it for the rest of the night. Waiting wouldn’t have been that merciful, now that you think about it.

“You feel so fucking good.”

Spencer moves his hips, lifting yours just enough to allow his cock to slide even deeper inside of you. You take all of him, adjusting to his size as you grip the bed sheets all around you.

“Fuck me, Spencer.”

He blinks, putting his hands underneath your thighs. He pushes your body closer to his, forcing you to close your legs around his waist. He doesn’t lift your whole body off the bed, but he lifts your hips.

And when the angle changes, you swear you’re in Heaven.

Spencer starts thrusting inside of you, his eyes never leaving your face because he wants to see you break down all over again. He needs to see you in pure bliss, he wants to push you off that edge again because that was the hottest thing he has ever seen in his whole life.

He didn’t think you’d let him fuck you right now.

He’ll forever be grateful for that.

“C-Close.”

You feel delicious all around him, tight enough. Spencer will dream about this for days, for weeks, for months - or until the next time he’ll be able to have you like this again.

He hopes it will be very soon.

You run your fingers through his hair, grabbing him by the tie with your other hand in order to have him closer. Spencer whines against your lips, kissing them feverishly.

“Come for me, darling.” - you whisper, the pleasure building rapidly behind your belly button again - “I want you to come inside of me, please. I need it so badly.”

You don’t know if what you’re saying makes sense, you’re too lost in your own pleasure and in the beauty of the man on top of you. The whole world stops as soon as his hands hold you down against the mattress, pinning you to the bed and preventing you from wiggling away.

You can’t do anything besides take all of him inside of you.

You wouldn’t change a thing.

Spencer doesn’t need to be told twice, feeling his tension getting tighter and tighter until it snaps, quick and hard. And he comes, painting your walls with his cum just as you follow off the cliff of pleasure with him.

It was quick, it was rough, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Spencer nurses your orgasm with slow thrust, riding his peak as well. Enjoying the tightness of your body all around him, he forces himself to keep his mouth shut when all he wants to do is praise you for being so fucking perfect.

He wants to do this all over again, until you can’t do anything but moan his name.

You’re still shaking because of your orgasm as Spencer collapses on top of you, his mouth attaching to your neck to nibble on it. You can feel his cock twitch inside of you and you wonder what Spencer would do if he saw the mess he has made between your legs.

It would be fun to force him to clean it up.

However, you can’t. Not now, at least.

He got hard because he ate you out, he’d probably get hard again. As much as you’re dying to have him in your mouth, you have to wait until the party's over and you can sneak out of your room to head to Spencer’s place.

Or his car.

You don’t care where you can have him again.

“Good boy, you did so good.” - you mutter in his ear, caressing his curls - “You’re incredible, Spence.”

He doesn’t want to pull away and pull out, he wants to be between your legs for the rest of the night. You feel too good right there, underneath his body with your hands touching him and caressing him.

And you smell so good.

“Thank you. You were so perfect.” - he starts to say - “So, so perfect… Wish I could have you every single day. Fuck, you felt so good.”

He keeps whispering praises to you, how much he loved fucking you and eating you out. You can see how relaxed he is now and you wonder if he’s alright, because you’ve never had someone be so dependent on you after sex.

It’s… interesting.

And fascinating.

“Thank you, darling.” - you tell him, tapping his chin - “Pull out now.”

Spencer obeys your order, immediately taking a step back and pulling out of your body. His come, mixed with your own arousal, drips out of your body, pooling right underneath you.

The sight makes him lick his bottom lip.

“Later, okay?” - you tell him, placing a hand between your legs - “Now go downstairs, yeah?”

Spencer lingers right in front of you for a whole good minute, staring at the mess he has made right between your legs. It’s incredible how just the sight gets him immediately on his knees, but you’re quicker than him.

You snap your fingers and you grab his arm, pushing him back up. “No. Not now, later. Wait for me in your car when all the others will leave, okay? I will find a way to sneak out.”

The young doctor stares at you before grabbing you by the face, immediately attacking his lips to yours. You close your eyes as you wrap your arms around his neck, standing up from the bed and feeling his come dripping down your thighs.

You hope he’s going to make another mess later.

“Okay, okay.” - Spencer says, sliding his hand down to your thighs - “I’ll wait for you.”

You don’t want to pull away from him, but you have to.

Walking him to the door, with your skirt completely raised up to your hip, you give him another peck on the lips. Spencer lingers again with his mouth on yours before opening the door, forcing you to take a step back.

You don’t want the others to see you.

“Clean up your face, darling. You look like someone who just ate some good pussy.”

You wink at him, pushing him out of the door.

It’s true, he had the chance to taste you and now he won’t think about anything else.

He should, because as soon as he gets down to the living room, everyone is looking at him.

Spencer washed his face and fixed his tie, making sure that there’s no trace of you on him. He doesn’t want the others to know that he got on his knees for you, that he buried his face between your legs, that he has just fucked you hard and fast until he had the chance to fill you up.

The thought makes him smile.

You felt so good all around him.

He loved watching you crumble along with him, because you were so tight and...

“Are you alright, Reid? Is Y/N okay?” Penelope asks

David rolls his eyes, lifting his right hand. “I don’t want to hear anything. She’s my niece!”

Spencer keeps his mouth shut, sitting beside Luke. “She’s... She’s really good.”

The party goes on for at least one more hour, then one by one, the rest of the team heads home. Spencer is the last one to leave Rossi’s mansion, not really sure whether to get out of the house and wait for you somewhere on the road or just come clean with David.

He’s a profiler, he knows exactly what is happening between you and Spencer.

Spencer made sure not to mention throughout the night, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how and how hard you kissed him. Everything you did, everything you said was so intoxicating – and it wasn’t just because you are extremely beautiful.

No, it’s just...

Everything.

Spencer can’t pinpoint exactly what he loves the most about you.

“Are you waiting for Y/N?”

Spencer blinks, turning to look at David. “Me? No, I was just...”

“Y/N!”

David calls out your name and Spencer’s heart drops to his chest, shocked by his action. He wasn’t expecting his colleague to yell your name, mostly because he was hoping no one downstairs understood what was happening just a floor up.

Apparently, they all did.

You open the door of your room, your head poking out at the top of the stairs. “Yes?”

“Spencer’s waiting for you.”

You look at him for a split second and Spencer waves at you, clearly embarrassed by what’s happening right now. You don’t blame him, you want to bury yourself with your bed sheets right now because you weren’t exactly planning on going out in the open with Spencer.

You don’t complain.

Hiding would’ve taken you minutes or at least an hour.

And you were starting to miss Spencer.

Hopping down the stairs in nothing, but a sweater and a pair of black leggings, you nod your head. You grab Spencer’s hand and place a kiss on his cheek, turning your head to look at David.

He’s not surprised.

Instead, he smiles.

“Ah, my new favourite couple.” – Krystall chimes in from behind, placing a hand over her heart – “Are you guys going out to celebrate Mischief Night all alone?”

Spencer feels like a guy who just arrived to pick up his girlfriend from prom. It’s not embarrassing, it’s just a bit unsettling so he turns to look at you – and when he does, and your eyes meet, he feels relaxed.

This is not that bad.

“Yes, there’s a Drive-In cinema not too far from here. I think we’ll go there and get to know each other.” – Spencer says, staring at you with a sheepish smile on his face – “Y/N is really interesting.”

You blush at his complement, gripping his elbow. “So charming.”

Krystall coos, nodding her head. “Alright! Have fun, guys. And enjoy Mischief Night! Be careful, there are kids egging cars around this neighbourhood.”

You yank Spencer by the elbow, running outside David’s house in silence. There’s no need to say anything, because if you open your mouth you will probably start laughing until you can even breathe anymore.

You were trying to be so secret... And it didn’t work.

It obviously didn’t work, you’re not as sneaky as you think you are.

Spencer opens the car door for you, closing it before jumping on his own seat.

“Oh my...”

He giggles first, covering his mouth.

You try your best to keep your mouth shut, not wanting to give in. This is not funny, this is quite embarrassing and you know you will never hear the end of it the day after. David’s not going to let you go so easily, and he’ll probably give you the whole speech about safe sex and how young you are compared to Spencer.

Thirteen years are not that much!

“We got caught.”

“I’m not surprised.” – Spencer says, turning to look at you as he leans forward – “I know a place we can go to be alone. No one will bother us, not even kids with their eggs.”

You nod your head, placing a hand on top of his. “So you can be as loud as you want while you watch me suck your pretty cock.”

The young doctor bites his bottom lip at your words, your hand immediately sliding from his to the bulge already forming between his legs.

He’s so easy to work up.

“Take me there.” – you tell him, placing a soft kiss over his lips – “Now.”

Spencer has never driven so fast to a place before in his life, dying to feel your mouth all over him like you just promised. He’s not going to hold back now, enjoying everything you can give him and giving you even more than he could do at David’s house.

If tomorrow your jaw is sore and your thighs are covered in little bite marks, you don’t complain. Maybe heading to that dark place with no one around and having the young doctor have his way with you was the best idea you’ve ever heard.

You hope to celebrate Mischief Night like this every single year.

Please consider liking, reblogging, or commenting on the fic if you are on the taglist. Otherwise, you are essentially asking me to take an extra step to include you while offering me absolutely NOTHING in exchange, which is a pretty shitty feeling.

NSFW taglist: @softreidx @getyoutmoon​ @bookishspencer​ @calm-and-doctor @nazifa94​ @srhxpci @eevee0722 @reichelhache @aperrywilliams @escapingrealities @beepbooptoop​ @alfonsais @lil-stark @muffin-cup @allexthakatt @nomajdetective @gyllord @winterwhore @pauline5525mgg @hotchandspencearedilfs @matthewgraygublerwife @avocadopenguins @reidsmilf @bohemianrhapsody86 @joy-soul-gallery @matthew-gray-gubler-lover @sweetandsunny @starrylang @void-m-stilinski @alexxavicry @addievermore @safespacespence @enchantedengland @baby-reid @xsarcasticwriterx @teenwolfbitches28 @reidsbookclub @this-is-doctor-and-its-calm @lilibet261 @justreadingficsdontmindme @lolalee24 @trishmarieofficial @geekykeen @kbakery @thatsonezesty13 @thehuntresswolf

[mamawasatesttube]

I don't know that much about superboy so forgive me if this is a silly question but what's the deal with Magdalene Visaggio?

not a silly question, dw!! if you haven't read many kon comics it probably doesn't look particularly noteworthy but OOF. OOF.

the tl;dr of it: despite being paid to write him once, she also hasn't read kon comics and it really, really, really shows. i'm talking geoff johns levels of flagrant disregard for the existing character - maybe even worse than geoff? which i say only because i know geoff did read sb94 even if he didn't act like it. but that's off topic; this isn't a geoff hatepost. this is a magdalene hate post.

under a cut for length, lets goooo!

so we start out with her canonizing supermartian. already off on the wrong foot - that's a ship out of yja the tv show which is a completely separate continuity from main comics and a completely different kon than main continuity kon. despite supposedly knowing that, she still shoves them into a relationship in main continuity, despite them never having actually interacted on page in main continuity.

she then goes on to characterize kon as angry and entitled and uncaring, and also in high school again. not only does she directly contradict all of his preboot existing characterization (which is important because kon-el never got reset during flashpoint - he was in another universe and thus dodged that bullet. current kon-el is canonically the same kon-el as pre-flashpoint/postcrisis kon-el.), but also she directly contradicts both young justice (2019) and superboy: man of tomorrow, which are in current continuity, leading one to really wonder if she has read a single comic kon appeared in at all. it's also worth noting that the asshole with anger issues characterization is, once again, much truer to the young justice animated tv show than any comic kon.

also worth noting is that the infamous red hair dye streak? well, uh...

yeah..............

on her twitter, she once said something about kon-el not being a good name because it's "still a name someone else gave him", called him "the jason todd of the superfamily", and insisted that the meaning of a trans narrative is "burning down your life and reevaluating your place within it":

kon-el is a name gifted to him to signify his acceptance into his family (superboy (1994) #59) and he was so overjoyed to receive it that he cried. overall, the superfam are very supportive and loving, and introducing strife just to make him run off and live with jinny hex instead of them just because she thinks one can't transition and retain previous relationships is... not it, lol.

her pitch also contained some outrageously egregious christianity bullshit, like villains named "saint", "shepherd", and "savior", as well as direct comparisons between clark and jesus christ. this is... sorry i really just have to say this is Fucking Cringe. i guess the more polite way to put it would be "incredible gauche" (considering the jewish origins of the superfam) but i just can't call it anything else. This Fucking Sucks Dude. i won't even get into the weirdness about genetic bullshit she leans into by introducing kon's "brother" who's also part luthor, part superman, but "luthor-dominant" (lol?) (do you know how genes work even a little bit).

she has quoted the one panel from reign of the supermen where kon says "don't ever call me superboy" a few times, claiming it's the first thing he ever said and no one listened. to me this essentially reads as her going "i've read one of his appearances and i would like to throw out the like 200 issues of character development he had since then in favor of making him my own self-insert to explore MY transition and religious trauma".

basically she doesn't seem to know how to write a story that's not about herself. as a trans person with a positive relationship with my given name (because as a first-gen kid of two diasporic immigrants, it provides an important tie to my family's cultures, to me) and with trans friends who involved their parents in picking new names and so on and so forth, i honestly find it very reductive and white to insist there's only one trans narrative and only one good way for trans characters to be named. i also find her putting her own christian religious trauma into a superfam story off-putting and . well. fucking cringe. i understand and respect that that is her story, but it sure ain't universal and i won't be able to respect her as a writer until it becomes clear she gets that.

[mariacallous]

I am bad at small talk, so I went in big. “You are probably going to be the social democratic leader with the largest parliamentary majority anywhere on Earth. How does it feel?” I said to Keir Starmer during a private meeting with him and a few advisors in late 2022.

Starmer’s aides looked annoyed, while the likely next prime minister of the United Kingdom paused and tried to deflect: “We can’t take anything for granted,” which has become the unofficial motto for Labour’s general election campaign.

Yet despite Starmer’s hesitancy to bank success—he is genuinely a modest man—it is likely that on the morning of July 5, Starmer will wake up as the world’s social democratic superhero: the only center-left leader of a major economy with a parliamentary supermajority and the great hope for progressives all over the world.

The governing Conservative Party, which is historically arguably the most successful political party on Earth, now faces electoral oblivion. In 2019, Boris Johnson demolished Labour’s heartlands, the so-called red wall. Labour had become detached from its base and collapsed in its postindustrial heartlands after then-leader Jeremy Corbyn embraced the siren sounds of political extremism; he refused to sing the national anthem at a memorial for the Battle of Britain and drove the party toward a position of fiscal incontinence that scared anyone with financial assets.

Five years later, Labour is on track not only to regain the red wall but also to achieve a dream of progressives by taking solid Conservative seats in their blue wall of affluent commuter constituencies surrounding London and rural seats that have voted Conservative since time immemorial. (East Worthing and Shoreham, for example, is part of a constituency that first voted Tory in 1780 and has been reliably Tory since. Polls suggest Labour is on track to take the seat.)

What is happening in the U.K. is unusual for center-left parties, to put it mildly. Labour could gain as many as 70 percent of seats in the House of Commons—a victory that could surpass even the electoral landside of former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997, offering lessons for progressives everywhere. A politically dominant Starmer will attend the G-7 as a leader in total political control, in stark contrast to his counterparts in France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, who are facing high disapproval ratings and struggling to pursue their governing agendas.

Labour’s victory in the U.K. will be important in three key regards: It will recast how progressives can win national elections and set a high-water mark for what social democrats can achieve; it will reshape British politics in new and unexpected ways that could be more important than the victory itself; and it will flip external perceptions of the U.K., resetting international views of the country and its future.

Despite the pathological obsession Britain’s political class has with America’s, it is perhaps time for Democrats in the United States to look across the pond and glean some lessons from Labour’s success.

Part of Starmer’s success has been to take an oath of omertà on culture war issues, much as the Australian Labor Party did. These include transgender rights, Britain’s colonial past, and immigration—all issues that the British right has tried to capitalize on. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has committed to scrap the Tories’ controversial Rwanda deportation scheme but on the grounds of practicality rather than as a wider moral statement. More broadly on immigration, the party has been treading very carefully. This is certainly not brave, but it has worked. For all the attempts to fire up the culture wars in this election, Labour has remained focused on the prize.

While the Conservatives have attempted to stoke a culture war, what remains more salient for voters in the U.K. is the perceived corruption and rule-breaking of leading Conservatives, culminating in the current scandal involving elected officials using insider information to bet on the election date.

Scandals including preferential contracts for protective equipment for the National Health Service (NHS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, where an astonishing 4 billion pounds ($5 billion) worth of faulty equipment was procured (some allegedly from companies with links to the ruling party). Then came “Partygate,” in which Johnson and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were fined by police for breaking COVID-era laws. A lobbying scandal involving another former prime minister, David Cameron, also caused significant public anger. Elite rule-breaking has cut through with voters in a way that the endless culture wars simply haven’t.

In parallel, Labour has pivoted from a form of identity politics under Corbyn to a very proactive position on class. Starmer has put his humble upbringing center stage in the U.K. election campaign and has spoken authentically about the “class ceiling” in British society. This has particular resonance as Starmer is running against Sunak, whose net wealth of $822 million makes him the richest leader of any democracy.

A typical Starmer set-piece homily is as follows:

“My dad was a toolmaker, he worked in a factory, and my mum was a nurse. We didn’t have a lot when we were growing up. Like millions of working-class children now, I grew up in a cost-of-living crisis. I know what it feels like to be embarrassed to bring your mates home because the carpet is threadbare and the windows cracked. … I was actually responsible for that as I put the football through it.”

This focus on class is unusual in modern British politics. Indeed, recent Labour leaders—from Blair to Gordon Brown to Ed Miliband to Corbyn—were all in different ways outsiders to the British working class: Blair and Corbyn for their relatively affluent (and privately educated) upbringings, Brown and Miliband because of their middle-class backgrounds and partly because Miliband’s father was one of the country’s most notable Marxist academics. As for the Conservatives, the days of a prime minister who was a grocer’s daughter are long gone. Cameron and Johnson didn’t just attend the same elite private school (Eton) two years apart; they went to the same university (Oxford) and were members of the same private dining club (for the most privileged).

Starmer is leaning into class politics—and it is working. The promise to impose the same value-added tax on private school fees that is applied to most goods and services (20 percent) has led to an outpouring of anger from the often very wealthy 6 percent of U.K. parents who send their kids to private schools—usefully, those who are privately educated often tend to vote Conservative. Labour’s pledge to use the private school tax revenues to invest in education for the 94 percent of kids in state schools has, on the other hand, drawn support from ordinary voters.

This focus on class has won back a group of voters who in other countries have now been captured by the right and far right. Labour now leads among working-class voters with 38-42 percent of the vote share, in contrast to Conservatives’ 22-24 percent. For those with the fewest educational qualifications, Labour leads in every age category except the over-50s.

One of the architects of Labour’s reengagement with the British working class is Angela Rayner, who is on track to become deputy prime minister. Rayner is working-class, was a mother at 16, and a grandmother at 37. Opinionated and unfiltered, an unapologetic smoker who enjoys a strong drink, she worked in a care home before rising quickly through the trade union movement and becoming a Labour candidate. Rayner’s story is a masterclass in how to elevate remarkable people into parliamentary politics. Her success is her own, but the unions cultivated her, and the membership backed her as deputy leader. She has real star power—and there is virtually no one like her in the upper echelons of the Democratic establishment in the United States.

Remarkably, the class dimension has not, it seems, alienated middle England. Disillusioned surbubanites and centrist liberals have been turned off by a Conservative Party that seems increasingly radical and dysfunctional. Starmer’s former career as the country’s chief prosecutor, and his knighthood—he is formally referred to as “Sir Keir”—have given him broad appeal, just as the Conservatives’ unapologetic embrace of the populist right’s pet causes has cratered their support.

Part of Labour’s success is due to the systemic clusterfuck that has been the last few years of the Conservative government. The Tories have foisted five prime ministers on the public since 2010—four of them elected by the party’s mostly white, male membership of about 170,000 rather than the public at large. Economic growth is anemic; there are nearly 8 million people on the NHS waiting list in England alone (in a country where the use of private medical care is uncommon); and essential public services including the prison service and local government are on the edge of systemic failure.

Yet signs exist that there may be more fundamental shifts at play. Labour leads in every age group except the over-65s. If you work, you are more likely to vote Labour; 45 percent of voters under 45 are likely to vote Labour, compared with only 1 in 10 backing the Conservative Party. Millennials will become the largest voting bloc in the U.K. in this election. Their key issues include policies to prevent catastrophic climate change (which poll well across the U.K. political spectrum), the building of homes, better transport links (especially for non-car owners, many urban millennials among them), and pro-family policies. All of these have come into play in this election.

Older homeowners across the Western world have been successful in running what is, potentially, the world’s largest cartel—by opposing construction of new homes for millennials. Labour is committed to ending that in the U.K. with a significant loosening of planning regulations that currently thwart sustainable development.

While the party has ruled out taxes on working people, no such commitment has been made on unearned income, leading to widespread speculation that the tax system may be rebalanced with higher capital gains taxes and fewer loopholes for the megarich, including for the landed gentry whose farming estates pass between generations tax-free. Labour has no love for landlords either. After nearly two decades in which London’s property market has been inflated by speculative investments from the world’s kleptocrats, the public appetite for new restrictions on foreign property ownership or new taxes has grown.

Labour has also surrounded itself with a technocratic positivist elite. This group includes Labour Together, an ambitious intellectual think tank closely aligned with Starmer’s inner circle, and the Tony Blair Institute, which has embraced a techno-futurism aligned with the country’s comparative advantage in the life sciences and artificial intelligence. Public sector reform under a Starmer government could be significant if one imagines the potential, for example, of using the NHS’s treasure trove of data (on 70 million people) to drive innovation in health care.

In stark contrast to Labour’s focus on the future, an aging right-wing voter base is now split between the Conservative Party and Reform, a vehicle that is a mix between a private company, a political party, and a personal platform for Nigel Farage—the pro-Brexit politician Donald Trump has trotted out as a posh Anglo stage prop. Conservatives in Parliament are already moving rightward. Tory MPs give statements to the media condemning the European Convention on Human Rights, a document co-drafted by David Maxwell-Fyfe—a Conservative MP and prosecutor of Nazis at Nuremberg—that was inspired by Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s vision for postwar Europe.

Meanwhile, a wing of Conservative MPs are already attempting to cast the almost certain defeat as evidence that the party did not pivot enough to the populist right. The divided right is making the admission of the controversial Farage into the Conservative Party a real possibility, a prospect that fills Labour with glee. Needless to say, the next Conservative leader is unlikely to be a moderate. With the party tacking to the right, it could soon become a vessel for Faragism and a weak British version of the Trump movement.

Finally, there are the vibes. A progressive recasting of British politics will shift narratives around the U.K. National narratives can flip in an instant: Think of foreigners’ perceptions of the United States from Barack Obama to Trump or the assumption of Chinese economic primacy to a sense of retrenchment and decline under Xi Jinping. The U.K. in recent memory was seen as a fairly stable, politically dull island anchored somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Brexit, Johnson, and Liz Truss put an end to that. With the shift from perceived and actual chaos and an insurgent right to a progressive supermajority, attitudes will likely shift again.

Vibes are important, especially to the economy of the U.K., which may have ceased to be a traditional superpower but remains a cultural one punching significantly above its weight internationally. Six percent of U.K. GDP comes from the creative industries—from the success of British music to the Premier League, a booming film and TV industry, fashion, and the arts. That’s double the level of Germany and larger than the contribution of the German car industry to the country’s output (4.5 percent). For a country that trades on vibes and is reliant on the export of its creativity, Brexit and isolation have caused real damage.

It’s long forgotten now, but during the last Labour government from 1997 until the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K. was the fastest-growing economy in the G-7, faster than that of the Clinton- and Bush-era United States. Given the country’s currently stagnant economy, the next Parliament will be more challenging, but in a highly open society, the role of consumer confidence and investor confidence cannot be underestimated.

In a previous piece in these pages, after Labour’s historic loss in the 2019 general election, I wrote: “Radical leftism is not a drug you can take as a party and return to normal the next morning.” I was right about the election but wrong about the next morning.

No one expected Labour to turn a historic defeat into a historic victory in just five years. The circumstances the Conservative Party faced were extraordinary, but Starmer has shown that tight party management, a focus on voters and not ideology, and a sprinkling of class-based politics can reinvigorate social democratic politics.

What lessons does this hold for other center-left parties?

First, culture war issues aren’t a central motivation for most voters. On all the major culture war issues, Labour holds a less popular position than the Conservative Party. Yet when mortgage rates have risen from 2 to 5 percent, “it’s the economy, stupid.” Progressives don’t need to fear the charge of the populist right; they need smarter answers.

Second, rule-breaking or perceived corruption is a powerful motivator for voters, and global polling proves this. Progressives need a stronger line on conflicts of interest, corporate lobbying, the kleptocratic buy-up of the finest properties in the world’s global cities, and tackling emerging monopolies that exist due to political capture. Doing so counters the populist right head-on.

Third, the dominance of identity politics in left-wing online spaces is not matched by public understanding of or interest in this form of politics. Class is understood, whereas intersectionality isn’t. Class may, or may not, be the most relevant dividing line for progressives in different places—but for progressives to win, they need messengers who are from outside the upper middle class and have lived experience that resonates with people who feel disenchanted and left behind. In other words, Democrats in the United States need an Angela Rayner.

Most critically, once in power, social democrats do not have the luxury of time. Crumbling infrastructure, failing public services, falling living standards, and a lack of housing all point to direct state intervention on a scale not seen since the late 1960s Great Society programs in the United States and similar policies during that era in the U.K. Unless progressives can deliver, it will be challenged further by a populist right that is gaining momentum.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has been the talk of London and Brussels for progressives, and Biden deserves more credit for his boldness. With a supermajority, Starmer has the scope for even bolder programs. A progressive U.K. government will not only reset Europeans’ views of the country, but if successful, it can aid progressive arguments within Europe that austerity and fiscalization do not generate economic growth or social stability.

Starmer’s victory will give global social democrats a high-water mark for electoral success in a wealthy democracy. The challenge for Starmer is the incredible weight of hope in an era of polycrisis. If Labour succeeds in delivering growth, building homes, and raising wages, then it will provide a blueprint that can—and should—be copied elsewhere.