#and like I don’t know what kind of grift he was running

[tanadrin]

Fell down a rabbit hole reading about what various white supremacist and alt right shitheads have been up to since 2017 or so, and it’s darkly amusing to me how often they imagine their enemies to be the grand communist conspiracy and not. Like. Normie liberals who hate them just as much. Feels a bit like the thing where communists call all their enemies fascists, but even then communists seem considerably more self aware that often the people they are scrapping with probably don’t think of themselves as fascist.

Turns out weird anti-masturbation cults and angry dipshits who give off Most Divorced Man in the Universe energy are not the foundation for political success.

[queersatanic]

What John Oliver gets wrong about The Satanic Temple and abortion rights

In the most recent episode of HBO's "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver", he made a mention of a particular publicity stunt by a certain satanic for-profit business-cum-church.

In so doing, he demonstrated perfectly the way The Satanic Temple's grift works, and the limitations of "Last Week Tonight" as an actual news program rather than what it is: a popularizer and disseminator of the work done by others.

If the show had done a proper investigation, they would have immediately found huge red flags involving the Temple's clinic that call into question its legitimacy entirely. Since they did not, we'll show you what so many have missed despite being out in the open.

JOHN OLIVER: But also, note that we can still act here. Some have taken some small steps in the last year that are, if nothing else, immensely satisfying. Like this one that was covered by a Catholic news network. > TRACY SABOL: An international group named after Satan will soon open its first abortion business in the United States. > > The Satanic Temple, which claims to not believe in a literal Satan, will provide telehealth screenings and prescribe abortion pills for patients in New Mexico. The name of the soon-to-be facility? The Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic. (AUDIENCE CHEERS) JOHN OLIVER: Incredible. Very well played. Now, is that gonna fix everything? No, of course it isn't. But when it comes to responding to such wide spreading devastation, you could do a lot worse than the single best "your mom" joke of all time. Especially when you add in that one of the group's co-founders even said, "In 1950, Samuel Alito's mother did not have options, and look what happened."

That seems like pretty high praise, and the show moves on without further comment on it.

From this, you would not know that The Satanic Temple fundamentally jeopardized the legitimacy of this telehealth clinic by utilizing fake names on government documents for its New Mexico corporations registry.

"Malcolm Jarry" is the pseudonym of TST co-owner Cevin Soling; despite listing two different addresses and listing him twice, "Lucien Greaves" is the same person as Douglas Misicko.

Doing this is almost certainly literally perjury, as has come up in court for them before.

Actually, several times.

To repeat: You do not get to lie and use a fake name for yourself on government documents, particularly documents establishing legal ownership of your corporation.

In any proper legal challenge to The Satanic Temple's clinic, including anyone who treats TST's marketing as credible and wants to use it as a shield against abortion bans, this would be found out and it would absolutely put the entire endeavor in jeopardy.

Of course, it gets worse.

Here's what the Temple says on its website about this clinic, emphasis added:

Q: Abortion is illegal where I live. Can I still get an abortion with TST Health? A: Abortion is legal in New Mexico. Regardless of where you live, if you are in the state of New Mexico during your video consultation and when you perform your abortion ritual, you will have abided by the law. However, if you travel to a state where abortion is illegal and need follow-up care, there may be some risks. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough information to know how state laws will be enforced. We believe that the religious nature of our care neutralizes this risk, but state courts must affirm this, and we are working toward attaining that confirmation.

And here are the kinds of billboards TST has run around the country and in its Facebook ads in bids for attention and while soliciting money:

“Our religious Abortion Ritual Averts Many State Restrictions”.

Yet, when The Satanic Temple sued a billboard company that was unwilling to run that demonstrably false advertisement, TST owner Cevin Soling had to admit in his deposition that he was not aware of any examples where Satanism had been successfully used to avert a state restriction on abortion, including their own previous attempts:

As of November 2023, The Satanic Temple has lost six (6) abortion-ban challenges, lost them in state and in federal court, lost them at the district court, appellate court, and supreme courts.

TST has never helped someone avert a state law restricting abortion. But they have fundraised heavily off of the idea that they can.

How much? It's very tough to say because "The Satanic Temple, Inc." d/b/a "TST Health Inc." and "Sam Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic Inc." is not a regular nonprofit: it's a tax-exempt church. And as a tax-exempt church, it is under no legal requirement to report its finances.

John Oliver famously created "Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption" in 2015 to highlight the problems inherent with this, so you might argue that TST is just doing the same thing and attempting to bring awareness to a problem with the U.S. tax code.

Except that Oliver shut his corporation down after a month and reported its finances, meanwhile "The Satanic Temple Inc." chugs along year after year soliciting money and providing no financial transparency about how much money is coming in or where it's being spent. (Say, pursuing various SLAPP actions against ex-members; again, Oliver would know something about being on the receiving end of one of those.)

Of course it gets even more complicated.

The Satanic Temple's owners registered their tax-exempt church "The Satanic Temple Inc." in New Mexico as, among other things, "TST Health Inc." and have been promoting merchandise for it as well.

But the merch lacks the "tax-deductible" notification, which is the only way on TST's website to distinguish purchases benefitting the for-profit "United Federation of Churches LLC d/b/a 'The Satanic Temple' " from its nonprofit "The Satanic Temple (Inc.)".

How much money did The Satanic Temple bring in specifically for this telehealth clinic based on its fundraising campaigns? We don't know, and TST's owners won't tell you.

How many people did The Satanic Temple actually help with its telehealth clinic? We don't know — although we did get some idea from TST's failed Indiana abortion-ban lawsuit where TST indicated "over two dozen" people in a state with existing abortion clinics where abortion was legal had been able to be helped between February and June 2023.

Now, as part of the same proceedings, The Satanic Temple claims that it spent "over $75,000 to establish and maintain an abortion clinic" but that number is rather suspiciously the exact number TST needed to claim for damages in order to meet federal jurisdictional requirements, and it's exactly the sort of thing you'd want to see broken down in an audit because it claims it spent this in March 2023, prior to operating expenses actually kicking in.

So if that were true, and again, there's no reason to think it is, it would mean that The Satanic Temple is one of the most inefficient ways for anyone to get fund abortions. This is the sort of thing the group Indigenous Women Rising pointed out at the time in response to TST's announcement.

Even if The Satanic Temple were actually doing this with the best of intentions, and there's no reason to think they are, it would be a bad idea to try to come in from Massachusetts and re-invent the wheel rather than support any of the established organizations operating in New Mexico who have local connections and experience with the challenges of funding abortions for people.

None of this is especially hidden information, you know. Even the court proceedings are out for the public to examine, especially for lawsuits that have gotten so much attention when they were announced, thanks to a TST press release, and at their close, thanks to the Indiana Attorney General's press release.

But they do require doing work, asking follow up questions, and expecting more evidence in response to those questions than, "Just trust me, bro."

So how did the "Last Week Tonight" segment happen? Well, going back to the video, have two news outlets here: the first is EWTN, and the second is the Albuquerque Journal.

The EWTN "News Nightly" segment comes from Feb. 3, 2023, the Albuquerque Journal article from Feb. 6, 2023.

If you look at both, the way they're structured is taking a press release from The Satanic Temple and quoting from it and TST's website. EWTN is a straightforwardly Catholic news agency, so it just talks to Father Steve Grunow, CEO of Word on Fire Ministries for his take on the situation; the Albuquerque Journal is a mainstream, "objective" newspaper, so it quotes Elisa Martinez, founder and executive director of the New Mexico Alliance for Life; and it quotes Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, while adding in some more details about "The Satanic Temple Inc." being an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Note that no one has yet done actual journalism here. The Catholic news agency has a bogeyman to beat up on and connect to abortion rights more generally, such as Ruth Bader Ginsberg getting a statue. The "straight news" outlet quotes from a press release then plays stenographer for the views of "both sides"; the deepest anyone goes is confirming that TST has an entity that can accept tax-deductible donations.

Sympathetic outlets like Hemant Mehta of "The Friendly Atheist", meanwhile, offer no pushback and just look for more quotes from TST to dutifully transcribe with no pushback or further investigation.

The Satanic Temple's press release and additional quotations from "pro" and/or "anti" abortion rights figures who are basically unconcerned with any particular facts of the situation, just taking TST's framing and reacting to it. When "Last Week Tonight" does a short segment about it, it leans on the work of others who upon deeper examination are actually doing very little work.

Larger media outlets like Jezebel and smaller, local ones like the Riverfront Times, on the other hand, have done in-depth looks at the Temple more generally and discovered that underneath the marketing there is not much of anything.

Prior to this clinic's announcement, we did our own in-depth roundup of abortion access orgs, journalists, legal experts, and actual court outcomes. Again: when abortion rights folks are actually familiar with the specifics of The Satanic Temple and TST's activities, the opinion is skeptical to outright hostile.

It would be really nice if John Oliver and his team were willing to apply the same level of skepticism to glorified press releases about The Satanic Temple that they do to many other topics.

But that takes work, and if local and partisan sources aren't doing the yeoman's work for them, even with HBO's budget, "Last Week Tonight" is like to skip it and make mistakes.

We've been willing to do the work, to be deservedly skeptical, and to compare the claims The Satanic Temple has made in one place versus ones they've made other places. We have limited resources and time as well, and we're not professionals. Unfortunately, it often seems like we're the only ones doing this.

But you can, too. You can watch yourself when a piece of news comes in that tickles your fancy, like someone being rude to an odious Supreme Court justice, and ask yourself a few more questions about what claims are actually being made and whether you ought to have some follow-up questions about it.

For us the most important one remains, "Why doesn't The Satanic Temple have any financial transparency or accountability for what it does with its donations, and why is it not more clear what is a for-profit sale benefiting the owners and what is a nonprofit donation?"

[jacksgreysays]

35. things you said that made me feel real + Shikako/Gaara, royalty!AU

Anonymous asked: "welcome to the show," Kankurou and Shikako, chaotic political intrigue with a hefty dose of theater

First off, here are all eleven mentions/instances of the Shikaara royalty!AU that I could find because gods know I never came up with a title for that AU and thus have never tagged them for my own convenience: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. But if you don’t want to read those (most of them are three sentence fic, so it’s not too long, but I get it) then just know that Gaara, youngest prince of Wind, and Shikako, a daughter of a minor noble from Fire, literally bump into each other during Crown Princess Temari’s coronation and the tabloids turn their meeting into the fairy tale romance of the ages.

Okay now that that’s done: Anon(s) I’m also sorry for bundling your prompts together, but this time it’s because they were LITERALLY RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER in my inbox and also, the juxtaposition is SO FUNNY TO ME and also, also, adds additional nuance to both of them that I now cannot untangle them in my mind.

Well, I mean, I COULD. And you would theoretically get a very sweet, serene, straightforward Shikako and Gaara fall in love with each for real during the quiet moments behind what the rest of the world sees as their whirlwind romance via tabloids. Then a separate Kankurou and Shikako being bros and, essentially, grifting [insert number and which countries] daimyo(s) with some kind of stage performance as the cover/distraction while the actual mission is something else entirely. So not exactly The Producers, but a little bit? Also, a little bit like Ask Box Three Sentence Fic 8.2

BUT, what I think I like best about combining the two prompts is that the conflict of the narrative is built in with the softly budding, earnest Shikaara romance having to compete with the wilder, flashier PR scam that Kankurou and Shikako are running. Which does then get into the worldbuilding of: hey, actually, how much privacy do members of the nobility have and what is their duty to their countries and is publicity only good publicity when you control it?

HOWEVER, I’ll be honest, what REALLY got me into wanting to combine these two prompts is that, well…

In response to the first prompt (things you said that made me feel real) my brain immediately went to:

“Do you trust me?” she asks, hand outstretched. Gaara can hear the noise of the press, even muffled as they are by the door separating the green room from the stage. He doesn’t have a very good relationship with the press, his older siblings are more charming, more practiced, he mostly just wants to hide away from all the prying eyes. Though he supposes that’s what got him here in the first place. “Do you trust me?” Shikako repeats, hand still reaching out to him, and it’s now that he notices how it’s trembling, slightly. That she, too, doesn’t like the limelight. That she had also just been looking for a quiet place to hide, during their fateful meeting weeks ago. He puts his hand in hers, matching her grip in an attempt to ameliorate both of their nerves. “Yes,” he says, before they jump into fray together.

And then, because I will always, ALWAYS be in love with Chapter 95 (which even kicked off my whole recursive fic writing in the first place) my brain glommed onto the magic carpet-esque sand platform after the fight and what I’m saying is:

Shikako is Aladdin and Gaara is Jasmine, which ULTIMATELY makes Kankurou the Genie which I think is great :D

And so the second prompt comes in with Kankurou in the Genie role, just doing his best to make this PR machine work in their favor so that he can prove that being a royal doesn’t have to mean being miserable all the time (and also so that he can abdicate his place as first in line after Temari in relative peace)

Because if you really think about it—Gaara is second in line for an entire country (for now, though if Kankurou has his way, he’ll probably be bumped up to first). And, yes, his place will probably drop if/when Temari has kids. BUT, that’s a lot of responsibility. And I don’t exactly know HOW active/how much authority royalty actually has in this world. If it’s more figurehead-ish or if they actually do have executive power in the government. But either way, I don’t think he would have complete freedom over who he gets to be with, in the sense that he still has to do what is best for his country.

BUT, what if Kankurou can make it so that what is best for Wind IS to have the fairytale romance with Shikako and to make it real? (ie, good morale boost/PR for the country, kind of like what was going on with Princess Diana, RIP, and Charles’ relationship but actually good instead of being behind the scenes awful)

So then you have to bridge the gap between literal second (first?) in line for an entire country and the daughter of a minor peerage from Fire. I think I made Fire a five clan oligarchy made up of the canon four noble clans plus the Senju, which—finally my garbage taste in trash manhwa is paying off!—would probably make each of those five clans duchies. And if the Akimichi has the rank of Duke/Duchess, then the Yamanaka and the Nara are their subordinates which means that they are either Marquis/Marquess or Count/Countess.

Add on top of that, Shikako isn’t even her father’s heir. I mean, she could be if she wanted to fight Shikamaru for it, but she suuuuper doesn’t want it or to fight him for it. So… she might not even have a title at all, technically?

I mean, depending on how wild I want to get with the “prequel/backstory” of the royalty!AU (ie, Naruto’s Princess Diaries meets Anastasia fairy tale of realizing that he’s actually the long lost prince of Uzushio because of a grand adventure to meet the Duchess Tsunade) she may have been awarded a title for her “service.” But it still wouldn’t necessarily match Gaara’s second(/first) in line for the Wind monarchy.

Hence why Kankurou has to be the Genie and gas up Shikako’s reputation in Wind a la Prince Ali Ababwa. So you can see how that much chaotic energy and masks on masks and rumor manipulation would be the opposing force of Gaara and Shikako serenely, earnestly falling in love.

Then again, if we REALLY need like… an actual bad guy… I suppose there is the whole… just me scavenging from the Gaara Hiden novel again … Sand council arranging Gaara’s marriage with Hokuto of the Houki family (who would be a high ranking Wind noble in this world). Or maybe I do use the Akatsuki as international terrorist group and technically Shikako is a known associate of one of their members thing? But… I don’t particularly like that plot… so… probably not.

ANYWAYS, just imagine Kankurou having to somehow make the flashiest fairytale romance of the century with two quiet nerds who would much rather not be in the spotlight, please and thank you. He is a stage manager struggling to herd these two cats. Sure, he’s got Jinzo on the Wind side, but he’s also going to need so much of Ino’s help to wrangle Shikako. HE’S DOING HIS BEST WITH WHAT HE’S GOT, OKAY?

Thank you for the prompts, anon(s), I had fun!

[onceandfutureoshainspector]

- ok, so any of these people could technically sound like anyone else. maybe the murderer tried to frame JULIANNA by mimicking her voice to scream at the victim?

- OH REALLY????? A PERSON ROBBED OF THEIR BODY AND SUBJECTED TO CRUEL AND BIZARRE TREATMENTS DIRECTLY TO THE BRAIN MIGHT ATTEMPT TO PRESERVE THEIR SENSE OF SELF???????? WHO’DA THUNK?!?!??!??!?

- this pint-sized bastard offspring of a dalek and a cyberman is making my skin crawl more than fucking JACK CABOT. the fact that he’s peering up at me like a toddler makes it infinitely worse.

- that’s actually a great little tidbit. maybe this is also the reason the residents are still doing their sad little pantomimes of their former lives - reinforcing old habits to avoid becoming the equivalent of FERAL GHOULS. hell, that might even be the reason for the absurd micro-capitalisms around the place - the actors act, the painter paints, the evil scientist potters around his lab, and PARKER, whom i suspect to be an inordinate grifter, needed something to grift.

- and then there’s this lady, who seems to be maybe the worst for wear, sanityways (excluding the victim, whose brain is scrambled in a more literal sense). from what i’ve heard, she worked with financials in some capacity, which probably means she did business with those of PARKER’s ilk, funding their ventures, so aside from him she’d probably be the one least able to pack her raison d’etre into a suitcase.

    - PARKER wanted more money for repairs on the hotel?????? two possibilities here: first, he doesn’t know that the outside world has shifted to a bottlecap based economy and is planning to emerge from the ashes ready to repair the building above ground immediately; or second, he and JULIANNA have set up some kind of microcapitalist playground using the bots of the VAULT, paying them wages for the sole purpose of exploiting the money back from them.

        - other than PEARL and MAX, none of the robots around the place seem to respond with more than a beep, or a “PROTECT. AND. SERVE.” from the PROTECTRONS. we outright have an expert in “neural inhibitors and reconditioning” in the house - have all of these poor sods been lobotomised to prevent unionising, with the exception of two so that the ROBOBRAINS don’t have to actually run the ship?????

[astaroth1357]

Demigod MC Series: Demeter

Have I been using this series to vicariously punish Belphie for the events of Season 1? I cannot confirm nor deny that statement.

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter

Lucifer

Didn't think too much of the "human" when they popped out of the portal. Sure they had a straw hat and a huge basket full of produce but it wasn’t like they were… Wait… No… Were they…?

Oh no. Oh nonononono, this is not good…!!

Demeter is notoriously doting and protective of her children (see her freakout and breakdown after Hades abducted of Persephone as proof) and they've pretty much done the EXACT. SAME. THING. here!!

It was a mad scramble by him and Diavolo to contact and appease their godly Mother Bear before she came roaring down to Devildom herself to turn them all into barley. Thankfully, Zeus must have intervened at some point because though she was indeed PISSED, she didn't threaten to barge in… yet.

She made one thing very clear. Bend so much as a single hair on her precious child's head and there would be WAR…

The MC received a 24 hour security detail after that. Just Mammon wasn't going to cut it, he needed NO chances. It was a full rotation of Mammon, him and Beel for the entirety of their stay (Asmo and Levi both threw hissy fits at the prospect of babysitting, Satan couldn’t be trusted not to kill them just to irritate him, and Belphie was out for… obvious reasons).

In some ways, it wasn’t so bad. The MC was a very mild sort of person, rather even tempered. He’d dare say they were pleasant, mostly content to just tend to their gardens and be out in the moonlight…

But the problem was, he just could not convince them to stay OUT of nature. Including the forests, which were full of hellish beasts fully intent on gnawing their flesh from their bones… and their specialty was plants, not animals, sooo…

Their habit of sneaking out to wander the woods got so bad that he very nearly considered pulling a Belphie 2 and locking them in the basement for their own good. But Devil knows what damage their mother would do if she found out…

At least they make for pleasant company… And Diavolo seems to like them quite a bit himself so the mortal gets a pass from him. Now if they’d only consider their own safety for a change…

Mammon

They make him a KILLING.

Like, no seriously. Their produce is insane!! He’s never tasted food so good, especially stuff that’s come fresh from the ground! It only took a few berries for Mammon to throw on a straw hat himself and start harvesting! He’s a farmer now, baby!!

Weeellll not quite. He’s still absolutely only in it for the money, but anything he brings to a farmer’s market goes so fast that he can hardly care about the labor! He’s never made this much Grimm in his life!! And it’s totally legit for a change!

He bought himself another car, paid off half of his debt, and even got Levi back that 2 or 3 grand he leant him centuries ago. Really, Mammon’s living his best life and it’s all thanks to MC!

It’s a good thing his blatant grifting doesn’t hurt his relationship with them at all, in fact they seem to enjoy having his help regardless. They bring him drinks on hot days or invite him on picnics and stuff, it’s… it’s really sweet. They’re very nice to him and he appreciates it…

But… COULD YA JUST STAY PUT ALREADY???

It drives him INSANE that they won’t stay out of dangerous places!! After he started caring about them for more than just a meal ticket it only got even worse!!

He’s not usually one for monitoring someone’s every move (that kind of control freak behavior is more a Lucifer thing) but he eventually had to set up familiars around the House just to keep them from sneaking out at night...

What was so interesting out there anyway?? There wasn’t any kind of plant that he could bring them himself! They didn’t have any need to be out there!! 

They’d keep telling him they’d be fine but it’s not like he’s going to actually buy that. They were too… nice to be dangerous or anything so why would he believe them?

No more running off, MC! Please, he’s beggin’ ya!!

Leviathan 

Wait, gardening? Like, being outdoors and stuff? Ew. No thanks, he’ll pass.

That was more or less his first reaction when they showed up and it never really got much better than that…

He admits that they’re friendly and it’s not like he dislikes them or anything, but their thing so far from his thing that they just don’t have a lot in common… you know?

For starters, they get So. Antsy. when they’re inside for too long! He tried to invite them to a marathon once, but they could hardly keep still and kept looking around like they were searching for a window… He said, “to jump out of.” They insisted just for some fresh air, but he didn’t buy it...

They’re nice enough to listen to his rants, but they’re barely ever inside for him to do so and like HELL is he going to leave his room and stand around out there for that long. Ranting is at least a one to two hour engagement! What if he gets hot out there? And have you SEEN Devildom bees?? Hell no!!

He has, however, asked them on multiple occasions to reproduce flowers he’s seen in different anime, especially ones that have a very unique look and they’ve done some real wonders with that!

He can now claim to be the only person to ever own a Ruby-Jade Vine plant, straight from the pages of TSL when it was used to brew tea for the Lord of Lechery during his brief illness and-is anyone even still listening anymore?

The point is, it’s a flower so rare it was imaginary but now HE has it!... or had it for about a week until his utter incompetence of all things plant killed it…

He begged the MC for another but they were out of the plants they needed to make it and would have to go back to the human world to find more… He’s still mourning his loss… Poor Henry 4.0…

Satan

Well… He’s called this MC “salt of the Earth” and he does truly mean it. Take of that what you will.

He doesn’t get much in the way of intellectual conversation out of this mortal UNLESS he’s talking about plants, farming, or botany… Interesting topics and complex in their own right to be sure, but that’s pretty much their wheelhouse and they like it there.

That being said, the feats that they can perform are genuinely mind-blowing! They are the ONLY person he has ever met who can cultivate the Devildom’s own ultra-rare Phantom Orchid, a plant only blooms when it reaches a perfect state of undeath (i.e. both taken care of and neglected just enough so that it's only barely alive. The balance is so tricky to master that one hasn’t bloomed down there for centuries!)

There’s also something just genuinely relaxing about watching them work or helping them in the gardens… More so than he’d ever expected from such a simple activity.

He admits that he’s taken quite a few strolls through the flower-filled courtyard of the Demon Lord’s Castle just to admire its beauty... But anything that they can grow just blows all of that out of the water!

They even taught him several magic botanical techniques so now he can grow some pretty mad plants himself. Lucifer never expected to find that giant Venus Flytrap in his closet, but one was there regardless. 😏

Just… out of curiosity one day, he asked the MC if they could make him a new kind of catnip. Not for any nefarious reason! You know… just for research purposes…

The nip they made was so effective that the House grounds were FILLED with nipped-up cats for a whole month! He was in Heaven!! (and Lucifer practically wiped those plants from existence so he couldn’t get any more… asshole...)

That must have inspired them because they apparently made a demons-only version that they told him about WELL after the fact. Had he known, he probably would have burned the stuff on principle... Do you know how dangerous demon-nip could be to them? Experiment responsibly, MC!

Asmodeus 

Ehhhh, gardening SOUNDS like one of those things that should be super Devilgram-able, but then you realize how sweaty and dirty you get in the process and it’s a huge turn off… Sorry MC.

When they first came down to the Devildom, he thought two things: 1) Such a sweet little flower child, as adorable as they were, would never survive; and 2) even if they could, he would never ever see eye-to-eye with them on the “wonders” of getting all up in the dirt.

Well, he was right about 2, but certainly not 1. Personally, he thinks his brothers worry about them too much, they ARE still a demigod.

At one point he saw a pack of hellhounds almost trample one of their vegetable gardens and they lost it. Word to the wise, never try to take on a child of Demeter in their own garden. Those hounds were wrapped up in rose vines before they could even yelp...

Yeah, the MC would be fine.

That being said, while everybody else clamors over their produce, he thinks that their flowers are really where it’s at!

Taking just five minutes in one of their gardens is something else... He’s never seen blossoms as healthy and immaculate in all the Devildom before! Their beauty could (almost) rivals his own! What they do isn’t just a hobby, it’s an art.

He’s taken multiple pictures with their blossoms and they go viral every time. It’s so rare to actually see gorgeous, petal-filled flowers in the Devildom, most of the native plants are of the man-eating variety.

His only complaint about this MC is that they seem to feel much more at home in work clothes and dirt than they do in any sort of party-look he tries to give them… Cute as they are, they can afford to gussy up sometimes can’t they? Mud and grass stains don’t make for a good look, sorry.

Beelzebub 

Beel gardens and the MC gardens as well. Add on that they seem to be able to grow all manner of fruits and veggies and he likes this one. A lot.

They had just finished apple-picking when the portal nabbed them so they had a massive basket of apples at the time. Naturally, Beel more or less stole the thing on sight, but the apples inside were so juicy and good that he almost shook them down for more on the spot!

Imagine his surprise when they, half pleadingly, explained to him that if he got them some seeds they could just grow more… and it wouldn’t even take that long.

To be clear, the formula he saw was this: Get seeds > bring seeds to mortal > mortal grows seeds > mortal makes endless supply of food….

Congratulations MC, you’ve now earned the sixthborn’s eternal loyalty after a grand total of… two minutes. He didn’t even know their name, but he was willing to take a bullet for them (provided he got more of those apples).

The next several months were spent with Beel attached to them to the hip in some way, but honestly? It was just so wholesome anyway…

If he’s helping in the garden, he never complains. He does most of the heavy lifting and actually likes being out there with them (unlike others...)

Many afternoons were spent sitting under fruit trees and talking. Sometimes, they go to the trouble of preparing a picnic or something but it would always inevitably end with Beel plucking the whole tree clean of whatever ripe (or unripe) fruit he can get his hands on with a smile. 

The MC never minded though. That’s just another excuse to grow more, right?

His only problem was when the MC would sneak out to the forest… especially when they get too antsy and just go alone. 

He HATES it when they do that! How is he supposed to keep them safe if they just wander off?? He knows that they have a special connection to nature and all, but it isn’t safe…

He’s flown in and scooped them back up to the House on numerous occasions and his “talking tos” get sterner after every rescue... Please stay put, MC! He’d have so many reasons to be sad if you were eaten… 😔

Belphegor 

Okay, he was looking for a capable, if not gullible, human. Not a shoeless flower hippy!

He honestly wasn't expecting much out of this one... Damn their little heart because they did genuinely believed his lies, it’s just that they weren't… well… They were really good at gardening.

… And it grew kind of hard to keep hating them whenever they'd show up just to give him fresh berries or a bouquet to see him smile… He may claim that his heart is made of nightmares and orphan tears, but who doesn’t enjoy being given a batch of flowers? 

Damn their sweetness too… Right to here.

When it came time to kill them he had a heavier heart than he thought he would, but kind of saw it like putting down the sacrificial lamb. Gotta be done to reach better goals... Stiff upper lip and all that.

Unfortunately for him, they had taken to carrying packets of demon-nip with them as a self-defense measure…

He wasn’t exactly sure what he expected when they shouted “Get nipped!” at him mid-attack, but it wasn’t a face full of some smelly herb! Like, really smelly…! Actually, that smelt kind of good… Hold on.

Turns out murderous rage really doesn’t last long after you get what is effectively ultra-strong catnip thrown in your face. They ended up having to go and tell Lucifer what happened themselves because Belphie was way too blissed out on the floor to do anything... They were legitimately worried they might have fried his brain...

He’s told the effects of the demon-nip lasted three days. He doesn’t know, because he hardly remembers any of it... They described him as like he was high on “weed” and “ecstasy” at the same time but he doesn’t know what either of those are either so it wasn’t helpful…

Truthfully, they were so nice to him while he was recovering that he couldn’t even be mad afterwards so all's well that ends well? Either way, he’s sleeping under their orchard trees from now on. It’s peaceful out there...

They burnt all that nip though. It’s some strong stuff...

[hrwinter]

Lena placing a pair of glasses on a pillow and making out with it pretending it’s Kara

Lena’s not always this drunk. Well. Lena hasn’t historically imbibed this much after the age of 26, but her mother’s been arrested and her best friend is a liar, so what else is there to do other than look for an answer at the bottom of a very large bottle of scotch.

She’s been to three upscale bars and restaurants with Andrea, both of them reverting to their messy boarding school days almost instantaneously after the third glass, giggling in the corner and overtly hitting on men and women by sending them pretentious $24 cocktails.

But there’s still a dark streak in all the buffoonery. Lena can’t stop searching for blue eyes on the face of every blonde or broad shoulders under the lapels of every Armani jacket. She hates herself for it. And she hates Kara Danvers. Or Kara Zor-El, whatever the fuck.

Lena is pissed.

She takes another moody sip of scotch while some stock broker continues to shoot his shot (why do they all talk the same? why do they all feel the need to explain how money works to her, a billionaire?) and Andrea’s laughing and laughing at a woman far too loudly, her finger tips sloshing the edge of a martini she absolutely doesn’t need. While the man goes on about blue chip stocks, earnings per share, dividends (kill her), Lena’s eyeing the restroom.

No one would miss her if she ducked out. She could have a car here in minutes. Hell, Andrea would probably appreciate the attention of both parties at the same time. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d finagled a twosome into a threesome.

But that means going home. It means gazing at the dark sky from the cold enclave of her penthouse balcony. It means seeing the downturned photo frame, glass smashed, but still not thrown away.

God damn Kara. She stays.

She doesn’t go home with the man, and Andrea doesn’t go home with the woman. They don’t all go home together. But she and Andrea do go to another bar, and after that, an after hours bar. Then, by some misfortune of a higher power, they end up at a bratwurst stand at 4 AM with a horde of college kids. College children.

“Someone threw up just there,” Lena points at the pavement.

“Oh, don’t be such a snob!” Andrea shrieks into the night, grasping at Lena’s elbow and toying with a necklace Lena knows to cost more than a tricked out Vespa. Lena may be glassy-eyed, there may even be two of Andrea, but she can still spot irony.

“I’m starving. And I haven’t had one of these in yeaaarrrsss,” Andrea elongates as they move up a few paces in line. “Remember when we’d sneak into town and grift old men for drinks? That hot dog stand just outside of Hawthorne’s? I’ve been desperate for one.”

Lena wants to complain more, but it does smell good. And by the time they have bratwursts fisted in hand and are leaning against a nearby brick wall with the rest of the infants, Lena’s not feeling all that bad. It might be the best thing she’s ever tasted in her life. God, this might be the best she’s ever felt in her life. Numb, blitzed out of her mind, somewhere closer to nineteen sheets to the wind than three, she’s no longer a Luthor, no longer a simpering fool to a Super’s lies, not a CEO or a disappointment or even a person. She’s just a presence existing on this curb, eating a bratwurst.

“I’m having an out of body experience,” she tells Andrea with half her mouth full and still swallowing.

“That good, huh?” Andrea has mustard on her chin.

“I want another.”

Lena glances up, and her visions tunnels. Her existence is whittled down even further, to its basest instinct. She’s become the singular pursuit of a thousand more calories, of another bratwurst. Lena surges into the street, the stand a beacon of light in the darkness.

But several things happen at once. There’s a screech of tires, the smash of metal, what feels like getting hit with a brick wall and then being shot out of a circus canon.

Lena finds herself throwing up on the pavement on the other side of the road, and Kara fucking Danvers yelling at a motorist. The guy has gotten out of his car, hood dented and engine smoking.

“You smashed my car!”

“You almost hit a woman! You could’ve killed her!”

“She just bolted into the street, that’s not my fault!”

“PEDESTRIANS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY!” Kara shouts back.

“Hey!” Lena slurs, having regained her dignity by wiping her mouth clean of vomit. It’s called class.

Both the guy and Kara turn to look at her, but her eyes are trained on Kara.

“I don’t need your help,” she tells her with a point of her finger.

This feels very witty. The pinnacle of sass. So what if she’s lost a heel at some point and may have missed a bit of vomit in her hair. She’s the one in control.

The guy’s eyes narrow.

“Are you blind or something? Didn’t your mom teach you to look both ways before you walk into the street?”

At the mention of Lena’s mother, her eyes narrow, she sways dangerously.

“You’re fired.”

“What?” the guy rolls his eyes. “I don’t have time for this.” He whips out his cell phone. “You’ve got insurance right?”

“Um, yeah,” Kara hands him a card, but she’s quick to come to Lena’s side, to place a steadying hand on her shoulder. Lena tries to wiggle away from it like a petulant child.

“Stop it!”

Kara ignores her.

“Lena, I didn’t want to say it around him,” Kara cups a blocking hand over her mouth and points at the guy so he can’t see.

It’s so adorable and infuriating.

She stage whispers, “But you were jaywalking! And you could’ve been hit by a car. What’re you even doing out here?”

Lena rolls her eyes so hard, she might’ve just incurred permanent damage.

“I’m an adult, Supergirl, and I don’t need an escort--”

Lena’s very mature tirade is interrupted by Andrea crossing the street, mouth still wide open and staring. The look she’s giving Kara is distinctly not platonic, and the look she’s giving Lena is one of deepest intrigue. Her eyes scan the pair of them, their body language, the way Kara’s hand is still on Lena’s shoulder (hadn’t she shaken that off?), and smirks.

“Sorry, am I interrupting something?”

Lena could kill her.

“Be quiet, Drea!”

Andrea dissolves into snorts, and Kara glances between the two of them, a look of recognition passing over her face. Now Lena wants to hurl herself into traffic for real.

Kara opens her mouth to speak, but Lena waves a hand in front of her nose.

“Just--everyone shut up and take me home.”

And the route Lena wants to be taken home is clear when she swats at Kara’s (firm) bicep (to push her away, of course), and that swat accidentally turns into a posessive squeeze.

“Oh, can I come, too?” Andrea purrs, and Kara’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“No!” Lena barks at her.

“Fine, fine! Call me tomorrow!” Andrea waves, and like some sort of rich superpower, she’s already getting into the back of a sleek black car.

“Okay, Lena,” Kara hushes against her head. It’s too soft and caring, and Lena wants to push her away. But she doesn’t. (Mainly because standing is feeling like quite a complex task, and she doesn’t have the balance for it.)

“This’ll only take a second.” 

Then, Lena’s wrapped in a warm and solid embrace. It’s nice... before everything blurs, and she has the distinct desire to vomit again.

She never wants another bratwurst.

In the very next moment, she’s being gingerly placed on her balcony, and Lena’s surging out of Kara’s grasp and pressing her face against the cold glass of her balcony sliding door. It feels amazing, calming her stomach down by degrees.

“What’re you doing?”

“Oh,” Lena says. Maybe she’d been doing that for a bit too long.

She runs her hands over the glass in an attempt to open the door, heavily petting various keypads and biometric scanners. Nothing happens. She scratches at the glass like a raccoon desperate to be inside.

“Um, isn’t it over there?” Kara indicates a different keypad to the left.

“I don’t need your help!” Lena shouts before following her instructions exactly. The door opens. She grumbles inside.

Unaware and uncaring, Lena starts undressing in her living room the very moment she’s crossed the threshhold, discarding her shirt, her skirt this way and that. There’s a gasp behind her and another suspicious super speeding sound, but she ignores Kara. She paces into her bedroom to strip off her bra and grab an oversized shirt. After, she spread eagles on her bed.

“I, um, brought you a glass of water.”

Lena cracks an eye open, takes in the sight of Kara standing at her bedside, nervous and uncertain, glass of water extended between them like some sort of peace offering.

She groans loudly and sits up to snatch it from her, water sloshing onto her bare legs. She doesn’t register it, draining it dry, glaring at Kara over the edge of the glass the entire time.

The Super pulls at her fingers.

“What’re you doing here?” Lena rasps, rolling the empty glass onto her exquisite and overpriced comforter.

“You were in trouble, Lena.”

“You don’t care about me.”

“Yes, I do.”

Lena scoffs, completely undignified, a sound appropriate for an elementary school playground. She does it again because it feels good. Kara’s eyebrows pinch.

Lena swivels at the waist and plucks her reading glasses off her bedside table. She places them over one of her giant, California King-sized pillows.

“Oh, Kara, there you are!” she says, squeezing it’s sides together like she’s cupping its cheeks. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you in a pair of glasses!”

Kara’s brows furrow deeper, not amused.

“How did I not see that the kindness, the sincerity, the insistence that I was not just another Luthor was a total act!” she continues to talk to it.

“It wasn’t an act--”

Lena brings the pillow close in her arms.

“Stopping by to bring me lunch, complimentary puff pieces, spin class, game nights. You’re so sweeeeeet,” she elongates, squeezing the pillow tight. “And beautiful. You know what you deserve? A kiss.”

Surely, this bit has spiraled out of Lena’s control. This entire night has. And were she sober enough to realize it, she’d catch herself before this next part. But she’s not and she’s wasted. And this pillow is the Kara she used to know, the Kara Lena used to pine for unconditionally, fantasizing what it might be like to just, lean over and...

She loses her balance as she places a wet one just under the glasses of her pillowcase and falls over on top of it. Incidentally, it’s the perfect size for snuggling, just like Kara herself, and her eyes flutter closed, warm and content.

“I’ll--I’ll go,” she hears a voice say.

“Kara?” Lena mumbles, face down in her pillow and not long for this world.

“Yeah?”

“I lo--I mean, I hate you.”

Kara sighs.

“I love you too, Lena.”

[tennesseetrekkie]

Stargate/Leverage Crossover Ideas

I’m surprised I never see more fics/ficlets/prompts/just plain posts about these two universes. They’re canonically connected! (There are Stargate symbols on the wall in Lattimer’s vault in “The Last Dam Job”, the producers confirm it too). It’s actually the main reason I started watching Leverage and my need for a crossover has only grown since. Here’s a few thoughts I’ve had:

I 100% believe that Eliot was a member of an SG team. When Aimee said “it’s like you dropped off the face of the earth”, well, he did. They only take the best of the best and that’s Eliot. He’s fully aware of the existence of the Stargate program and aliens, etc.

While serving there he got involved with Maybourne’s team, he thought it was in the best interest of his country. He was one of the very few who didn’t get caught. I like to think he still has a few souvenirs from his time off-world, several highly classified things he really shouldn’t have. I don’t believe he left the base empty-handed. It’d make sense if he had a Goa’uld healing device, but that would mean at some point he ended up with naquadah in his blood, which given all the crazy things that have happened to him in his life wouldn’t be too surprising, but that’s a whole different story...

Eliot never mentions any of this to the rest of the team, not only would this put them in danger but earth being at war with ancient, parasitical aliens is pretty heavy knowledge. This is a lot of fun when SG-1 shows up...

In a crossover with SG-1 and the OG Leverage for me it would have to consist of Cameron Mitchell (the timeline puts it after O’Neill was promoted), Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, and Teal’c. I can’t figure out a scenario where Vala is included and doesn’t let it slip to the Leverage crew that aliens and spae travel are a thing.

There are two scenarios in which I can think of where these two would meet: First, the Leverage crew uncover something in a job that Eliot recognizes as alien (either an artifact, or maybe even a Goa’uld, that’d be fascinating if he did have naquadah and was able to spot the Goa’uld), he tries to deal with it without letting the team know but finally has to tell Nate they need to call the Air Force, it takes a lot of convincing especially since he can’t actually say why. Second, SG-1 shows up to a job the Leverage crew is already doing. Eliot recognizes them, they recognize him. Sam might even pull her gun. He gets them away from the Leverage crew to see what’s going on, meanwhile Hardison is running their faces through one of his ID programs and now everyone is wondering why Eliot is talking to “two USAF colonels, some loser who should be on Ancient Aliens, and some guy who... doesn’t exist?”. 

Whatever the case, it’s inevitable that these two have to work together. Only thing is, the Leverage crew can’t know SG-1 is here because aliens and SG-1 can't know that the Leverage crew is here because crime. The only one who can and does know everything is Eliot, who is the constant go-between for both of these teams, and also very tired. He definitely knows the Goa’uld language and uses it to talk to Daniel and Teal’c about the more... classified details of the job when the others are around. Yet again Hardison is confused when he tries to figure out what they’re speaking only to find out that it doesn’t exist.

Parker is strangely good at guessing things. She immediately 100% believes that Teal’c is an alien. Nate, Sophie, and Hardison assure her he can’t be, even though they’re not completely sure themselves, this whole thing is too weird. 

I can’t really figure out the rest of it, which is why I’m writing it this way instead of in an actual fic, but this is... something. Not sure what. This is really the most realistic version I’ve thought up. Headcannon where the Leverage crew actually do find out include (this is not any specific sequence or headcannon, just ideas):

The crew ends up on a small ship (maybe Eliot used rings to get them out of a dangerous situation or something) and Hardison and Sophie are visibly and audibly freaking out. Nate is trying to remain calm and failing, it’s not as intense as Hardison and Sophie, but he’s definitely freaked out. Eliot, of course, just rolls his eyes and yells at them to calm down as he goes to figure out the controls. Space ain’t nothing when you’ve been there hundreds of times. Then there’s Parker... Her reaction is basically to look out a window, smile, and call it “Cool!”. Everyone is a little taken aback by how she can just be okay with this?

Upon finding out about aliens and space travel Hardison is excited, terrified, and absolutely furious at Eliot for never telling him about it. There’s a headcannon I have of those two somehow getting transported to another planet and not knowing it at first and trying to figure out where they are. It takes Eliot a while to convince Hardison that they’re on another planet, because “yeah, it looks like Canada, that’s just what alien planets look like!”. 

Sophie trying to grift aliens... The game has changed and she is loving it! A whole new universe of challenges. Seeing that would be a thing of beauty.

All of it just causes Nate to drink more, unfortunately. It’s a lot to take in. But if Eliot had to tell just one member of the team about it (both to stop them from asking him to explain what’s going on and why can’t he tell them? and to convince them of the amount of danger they’re all in) it’d be Nate. He’d come away from that conversation very visibly shaken and tell the crew that Eliot’s right, they don’t need to know, at which point they accept it and back off.

Parker handles any strange situation well, so aliens are no big deal. I bet at one point someone (not Eliot) brings up Atlantis and she theorizes that “it’s probably actually a spaceship that flew off to another galaxy!”. Nate, Sophie, and Hardison just rolls their eyes or shoot her a weird look or something because what a stretch! But Eliot nearly chokes on his drink! He has to regain his cool really quickly because now everyone is looking at him, but how can she possibly know that?? He wonders if she ever stole classified material, but nope, Parker just made the most random guess possible and nailed it because Parker.

OH! And one more thing! One night in Nate’s apartment when they’re all getting ready for dinner Hardison has it on this weird cheesy scifi show and  is all like “look at this garbage!”, Eliot takes a look and is like “wait, what??” and sits down and starts watching. Dinner is now going to be late because this is hilarious! It gets canceled after one episode but he makes sure to catch the TV movie as soon as it airs. This is how Eliot Spencer became a “Wormhole X-Treme” fan and no one has a clue why.

If anyone else has a Stargate/Leverage headcannon, please, please, please share it!! Charater interactions, different senarios, ANYTHING! And let’s all hope that, even though Stargate hasn’t been around for a while, Leverage Redemption will throw us fathful fans a bone with some kind of reference!

[innytoes]

In light of the new Leverage Redemption trailer, my mind is of course buzzing with Future Headcanons for Let’s Go Steal A Protégé. 

-If I did my math right and Leverage Redemption is taking place in 2020/2021, that puts Jamie at around the same age as Hardison was in the original series.

-They have 12 Leverage International teams and Jamie is totally on one of them as the grifter/thief.

-They’re one of the teams based in Europe. Their home base is in the Netherlands, because I am Dutch and Let’s Go Steal a Protégé remains primarily self-indulgent. Give my child Jamie some stroopwafels.

-The team is probably based on a farm in the middle of nowhere, Friesland, with another safe house in between all the shabby student houses in like, Utrecht or Eindhoven. Nobody notices or cares who’s coming and going in either places as long as you don’t cause too much noise pollution.

-Jamie totes flies home for the holidays, sometimes dragging several Leverage International team members with them.

-Jamie finds Breanna UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL.

-Hardison goes to visit all the International teams to keep things running smoothly. Jamie’s team is the only one who gets a box of Eliot’s Special Cookies, though.

-Diversity wins! Everyone on Jamie’s team is some flavour of queer because I said so.

Jamie’s team consists of:

Jamie, the grifter/thief. Usually the ones who deals with ‘HQ’, aka: sasses the OT3 while getting the information on their next ‘Leverage International’ job. Parker once asked if they took over as mastermind and they were like: no, it’s just that the rest have incredible phone anxiety or are scared of Hardison. Jamie 100% does the Hardison-like powerpoints.

Noud, the hitter/hacker. He’s a tall ginger dude. Owns the farm they work out of, is a good few years older than the rest. Eliot once kicked his ass when Noud was a young whippersnapper going after the same job as him. He’s had a crush on him ever since. When Hardison asks how that works if he injures himself/his hands while being the hitter, he shrugs like: I’m very good at typing one-handed. Also like, a lot of weed.

Ibrahim (Bram), snack and alibi provider. Noud’s boyfriend. Not actually on the team, runs the farm while Noud is out vigilante-ing. Very good at saying ‘they were with me all weekend, officer’. Does not understand Noud’s crush on Eliot when ALEC HARDISON IS RIGHT THERE. (Jamie is like: stop talking about my crime parents that way, plz.) 

Bibi, grifter/fixer. British Indian transplant in the Netherlands. Speaks seven different languages fluently, a few more almost fluently. She grifts when they need someone to speak the local languages, because Jamie’s TRYING okay, but learning Dutch and German at the same time is a recipe for disaster, since one of them has grammar rules and the other has a shrug emoji when it comes to rules. She finds all their local clients and does a lot of the behind the scenes stuff to get the marks in the right place and the right time.

Pleun. Hitter/mastermind.  Usually runs the show, but is not above running in and punching someone out. Very tiny, very blonde. The grifters are so annoyed she can’t grift to save her life, yet people still let her into places because she just looks so damn innocent. She is one of those ‘shorter because closer to hell’ kind of people.

Farah, hacker/mastermind/voice-of-reason. She’s the one who holds the team’s collective brain cell most of the time and reigns in their stupidest, most reckless plans. (Noud, stop suggesting explosions. Jamie, put down that torch.) Has a collection of very fashionable hijabs, some of which have secret pockets/places to hide usbs. Knows way too much about social media manipulation. 

-Jamie has watched Pleun and Farah dance around their Feelings for each other for months now and has texted Sophie in the groupchat like: was this what working with the OT3 was like when you started? Hardison fires back: excuse me she and Nate were way worse.

-Jamie drags Hardison a little like: What’s our role? Oh no, we’re all multiclassers, because we’re just that good. [insert shit eating grin here].

-The angry stray barn cat that hangs around the farm was named Eliot. Jamie insists it was already named that before they showed up. Eliot still isn’t amused.

[faorism]

needing the au to drop wherein i can commit to writing a historical au,, because since i first watched the db cooper job my mind went straight to OT3! OT3! OT3! (unlike with the van gogh job, since i aint playing with that fucking lieutenant)

one day maybe one dayyyyy i will sit down and i will write the ot3 into that episode's story. so, it'll be the backgrounds for the characters in the flashback (so, stephanie ritter, steve reynolds, and reggie wilkins), but with the necessary personality adjustments (parker, eliot, and hardison respectively). basically, vintage ot3 with some hot as hell aesthetics and secrets and avoiding as much as possible producing copraganda.

so. my thoughts. what i see happening. and this got super long so im throwing this under a cut. and for ease i will call them by their modern day canon names except when making a point.

first, general thoughts about the characters.

and so: steve to eliot. nothing much here on the surface. eliot still volunteers, too much an indoctrinated white man to have been forcibly drafted. so its still one man gone to war. one man come back. eliot would had been noticed early in training for his ability to pick shit up, and they teased at maybe sending him to a special unit. maybe they do, or maybe they don't because they just need to funnel fuckers to the jungle. the vietnam invasion was a terrorist imperialist venture and there's no romanticizing from me about anything done being at all valorous or special or brother-in-arms'y. and eliot commits war crimes under the american stars and stripes instead of just to keep moreau's champaign running. but also maybe moreau is eliot's superior. he certainly would have been rewarded for this ruthlessness. (eliot of course strove to impress moreau because there aint an eliot spencer who wasn't that man's dog at some point, i!!!! dont make the rules). eliot's friend died and eliot's gone off to carry out his wishes and moreau lets him because he Knows eliot is gonna come back. whether its to come back to the same squad, or follow him into deeper spy shit for the military, or to fuck off and go private. then eliot meets parker.

now. stephanie to parker. beth plays normal so well im mad at her, but there's something edgy and strategic about stephanie that i think parker can grab onto. i feel that maybe she was kind of a thief still, but there's more realism to this world so archie wasnt a super secret spy with lasers to practice with, but just a guy with sticky fingers whos a little bored and wants a protege. parker is good really good at what she does, and not having to deal with lasers makes me easy. but she's into scams that are less grifts and more Catch Me If You Can slight of hands. she's always looking for easy money (she was into lifting cars at one point! literally she follows where the crime is). she's doing something in an airport and someone tries to recruit her as a flight attendant because she's got the Look. and yall, flight attendants? that shit was like being a model and an astronaut and a time traveler back then. and according to a teacher i had, who once worked as in the f.a. union, those ladies back in the day were rad and queer and free spirited and runnnnning shit. i think, yes, it's a Job which i think we might resist placing parker into. but! of the jobs, at the time, i really see her rocking it during the time period. (also come on, the opportunities to swindle distracted people of their shit would be endless. they would just think they dropped their stuff in the airport! not that it was stolen.)

finally, reggie to alec. i think hardison will be the hardest to translate. even tho i admittedly listen to a lot of true crime podcasts, i dont know much about fbi life and also definitely don't know about it historically. part of me desperately wants to put him somewhere else even if it does have to stay within the fbi. i might cheat and make him like a Q(uartermaster) to 007/00s like in james bond, and he's like UGH this is horrible god i hate working for the fbi but they will give me funding so...... anyway, here's this totally cool [radio term]. that said, if hardison is stuck in the fbi, why he ends up there is that he is a fucking savant when it comes to research and the man can put together a presentation like no one else. that white man gets all the credit for profiling but it was hardison who goddamn was the google of the microfilm days. reggie felt super square but that might be because he had to deal with mcsweeties db cooper shit day in and day out for years. hardison is more himself. and definitely still a nerd. alec would be into dime fantasy novels and comics and ham radios and oh god he also would be into star trek like the original star trek as it came out and he would be into the zines yes! yessss. omg. also he plays a mean arcade cabinet. but he's mostly well adjusted but lonely. his colleagues dont appreciate him because fbi esp during that time were fucking wilding out and racist as hell aaaaaand im sorry im srry im trying so hard to have fbi hardison make sense but also! acab. ANYWAY.

second, the relationship

i think it would be fun to play with what it means to have parker/eliot start off first and bring in hardison afterwards. (if white collar is your thing, it would be like this canon divergent ot3 fic wherein peter burke is the last to join in.) i feel they would be Super Intense esp since they are carrying this big ass secret. kind of broken and dysfunctional and there's the passion and the commitment, but i think there's also a tenderness that's super hard for them to achieve? and i think there's a way that hardison plays such an important part in who they are and how they are. like, sure i think parker/eliot would have joy but they won't have levity. they would have compassion but they won't have gentleness.

eliot meets hardison after being recruited by nate. i think they get close because while nate and eliot have an interesting and compelling mentorship/friendship, nate is still eliots superior; sometimes its nice to complain about your boss, as hardison will say to eliot to try to make friends. i think hardison and eliot would become legit friends and not just work buddies because they are just not cut out of the same cloth as the rest of their colleagues. they grab beers after work. after hard days, hardison cajoles eliot into going to the arcade. they are friends. real real truly deep best friends, in a way hardison didn't think he could have with a fed and eliot didnt think he would have after his friend died. but also? they are like "buds" who are buds who are desperately tryna to cross any lines because there's a.... tension? an UST between them they dont know what to do with.

parker meets eliot by way of a "lets have my friend for dinner, he's a blast." and immediately immediately hardison is like... wow this woman is beautiful but like, really attracted to her personality. and parker things hardison is kinda dorky but cute dorkie? anyway, they have a puppy love situation growing. and it keeps growing until bam. eliot and parker are like. are we into alec???? fuck we are aren't we.

i think stephanie and steve would never tell reggie (even if somehow they were to be a thing). but parker and eliot? hell yeah they tell hardison. eventually. after a while. sooner than maybe they should. the tension if they should say something is one of the things that build up as UST between them for so long; parker and eliot know they are carrying this huge thing. two huge things. eliot being db cooper and also their massive crush on him.

if i could control myself to stick to a pwp, it would be another christmas. maybe the christmas nine (more?) years down the road. the damn snow grounded hardison's flight back to his nana's, and parker and eliot hear this and invite him over. the egg nog gets flowing and parker eventually is like,, fuck this. and comes onto hardison. and hardison would be like wow wow what but... idk, free love and swinging were In The Thoughts And Minds Of The People. he still checks in with eliot who is like. her body, man; i aint gonna tell her what to do. and for a sec hardison is like, man is this a cuck situation? i guess i can be for it but also...... aint mad if i aint alone. and eliot is so grateful and idk. i just want them all to be happy and having fun and no one to be left out. and yeah i am kinda brushing over a lot of the racial politics which, in a more developed fic rather than a pwp, would definitely need to be brought in; but idk that needs to just be in the bedrock of whatever plot is going into this.

it takes a lot of maneuvering of their lives but they make it work and eventually hardison is a keeper of eliot's secret too.

(apart from the historical aspect, another reason i probably won't actually write this is because i know myself. i would want to do worldbuilding. i would follow eliot and alec to their jobs, but i wouldnt want to write outright copaganda. the grit/realism i would be comfortable with would take a level of research i dont think i can commit to. but if someone wants to take this up or if you figure out a way around this issue, pls do i wont be mad)

[arcticdementor]

I’ve been accused of being a class traitor, something that amuses me as much as being called a gender traitor or any other kind of traitor to something I never swore allegiance to. And something that, in one case, is a diseased chimera from the useless brain of Karl Marx. And in the other is not exact science “the contents match the can” the left thinks it is.

What I was accused of, particularly, was of not liking the Dinosaur-my-love idiocy because I “identified with the working class.” Which … not really. Not in the sense the idiot means by “working class.” Which is itself a deranged abstraction but in the case of the Dino-abomination seemed to mean “louts who hang out in bars and beat up people because it’s Wednesday and there’s nothing good on the telly.”

Actually that story is a good example of what I wish to talk to you about. There is a — for lack of a better term — class or if you prefer category of people who really have no clue how the other half lives. What that woman poured into “working class” was some kind of emulsified crap from reading regency romances (the gin!); the eructations of Marxist professors; and the fear of those who aren’t like them, and who must wish to murder them for being so open minded and smart. Or something.

I’ve seen this so many times it’s no longer a surprise, even if that one was particularly vile.

Revolting, yes. Surprising? no. People with a college degree try to depict people whom they consider beneath them socially, and it quickly devolves to white-trash stereotypes and insanity. (Of note, many people (if not most. I don’t think anyone has done a survey) in trailer parks have at least some college. But none of these people think they can even read or write.) And the things these people can do, often complex jobs (don’t ask me to install faucets or do anything with drains. You won’t like the results.) are dismissed as “things dumb people do.”

Which brings us to where we are.

…

But still, making workers a separate thing made sense. Oh, not in the “owning the means of production” because for some of us those are our minds, and I work very hard to own it, thankee ever so much.

You see, it’s like this: People who make things (even useless luxury things like yours truly) think differently from people who DIRECT things and tell you how things should be made.

This has shadings, because there is an entire preening gaggle that sort of makes things, but not really

For instance artists who live off the public dole, or the academic grift don’t make things. They serve their masters. The work is not tested. It doesn’t have to satisfy. It just has to repeat what you heard. And the flawed, broken parts will be taken as “very smart.”

While artists and writers who are public-oriented i.e. who write for money are a completely different kind of thing. They are people who work. This is why you could always tell Baen writers in the old days. They looked and acted in completely different ways from the other houses. Mostly because by and large we weren’t trying to impress professors.

…

Yesterday I was watching people install granite counters (I was supervising guy making our internet work…. He didn’t, btw) and when it all came together, the young woman in the crew said “I love it when it comes together” and it hit me it was the exact same feeling as when I navigate a difficult plot point, and bring the novel to a satisfying conclusion. I.e. I can’t just stop mideway and say I don’t know what it means but it’s commentary on something or other. I.e. I’m more kin to that young woman (I was highly impressed. Like me, at her age, she could do the physical work of a man. It’s rare, but it happens.) than to university professors explaining the symbolism in the use of punctuation in a novel.

The problem you see is that the people who never do anything, never build anything that has to be made to certain specifications, have no clue — none — of limitations.

Why not? Well, because they’ve never met them. In the realm of ideas, in which they build abstractions, the result is always right, and who are you to question their vision?

…

Unfortunately, the profitable path in our society for almost a century has been to be pharaoh’s supervisor, ordering the slaves to make brick without straw.

Which is how we get to the embassy in Kabul being very very concerned with pride month, but not so much with getting their people out safely.

All of which… leads to where we are. There’s a group of people who can’t find the real world with two hands and a seeing eye dog. And they hate, despise and fear those who can, because those people refuse to fall in with the beautiful abstractions of the shit-spinners.

And they keep trying to control everything. Partly because then reality can’t sucker punch them, I think.

If we let them go on with this, they’ll kill us and destroy civilization.

I think we’ve realized this, which is why we fight. And I’m right on the side I should be, even if the things I make are in the long run rather useless.

This is a war of the workers/those who make and build and create things, against the useless supervisory class, who just tells us how things SHOULD be made: completely divorced of real world materials/specifications/market.

They’ve been driving us to a point we can’t do anything but fight back.

Heaven knows we’ve been trying to do it with words/ideas, not with steel.

But one way or another, we’re almost at

Holla ye pampered jades of Asia! What, can ye draw but twenty miles a day?

[velkynkarma]

do you have any plotlines (like, single episode plotlines AKA "the beach episode/the bodyswap episode") that you really wanted to see happen in a specific series?

Oooh, what a fascinating question, anon.

I remember telling @bosstoaster​ once that I wished in Leverage, in order to get at the big bad of the week, the team had to infiltrate some kind of MMORPG championship. Trying to envision Hardison attempting to teach Elliot, Parker, Sophie and Nate how to properly run dungeons in a tank/healer/3dps composition so they can win the tournament so they can get at their target always sounded hilarious to me. Including but not limited to:

Nate takes point on the con, but Hardison takes point on the cover, which is complicated for everyone

Hardison spends all his time outfitting everyone’s characters with the Absolute Best Gear And Items Ever and nobody appreciates his hard work, the n00bs. They don’t even know what they have. They don’t know how awesome he is. What he’s DONE for them.

Hardison trying so hard to explain gamer terms like mob, aggro, dps, DOT, HOT, mana, MMORPG, experience points, skill trees, etc. The rest of the team is baffled. 

Hardison attempting to explain the rich lore of the game and nobody caring. (”Who’s the hot elf chick?” “Her name is Shalor’am’an and she’s the leader of the entire moon elf faction, show her some respect.” “UGH, this ugly old man has been talking for five minutes already--” “Look, his story is actually really tragic, if you just listened to his speech you’d--” “BORED ALREADY. Nobody talks like this in real life!” “Oh, so it’s okay in your theater plays for characters to ramble for ten minutes after getting stabbed in the back, but it’s not okay here????”)

All of them (but especially Parker) being upset they can’t just steal things off the background or make their characters do things they can do, despite Hardison repeatedly trying to explain that these games are programmed only for certain ways

Everyone (but especially Elliot) struggling with using a keyboard and mouse to do complex things like keybinding, abilities, efficient movement, etc.

Everyone (but especially Elliot) being mad about how long it takes as a team to take stuff down. Why can’t Elliot just punch it. Why can’t the rest of them just let Elliot punch it. Why.

(Elliot secretly slowly getting used to it and enjoying it but playing dumb on purpose to piss Hardison off)

Parker wanting to earn a ton of gold but being upset when it turns out there’s no actual gold to put in a pile and lay on. Money is for having, not for being a number!

Everyone wondering why Hardison doesn’t just hack the game to make them all ridiculously good so they win. Hardison explaining with an affronted look on his face that you don’t just do that, there’s HONOR to MMO’s, he has standards, what are you thinking. (But later admitting he actually did hack the game once and got his first account banned as a result and he just doesn’t wanna deal with that again, he’s invested a lot in his character here)

Everyone (but especially Nate) being mad about the standard MMO boss fighting strategies and tactics. He has better, cleverer ways to deal with this encounter. Why can’t they skip past this boss and pit the next one against the first one to save themselves time? (Hardison: It doesn’t WORK like that Nate they’re warlords/demons/evil wizards/weird cryptids not corrupt businessmen!!!)

Everyone (but especially Nate) being confused by video game logic in general. It’s the inverse of the one time when Hardison got to run a con and made it overly complicated like a video game. Nate can’t understand why everything is so needlessly complex and convoluted. People enjoy this?????

Sophie just hates every part of this. Every part of this. Why do people do this. There isn’t anything fun to do in it. Why. 

Hardison trying for the five hundredth time to explain you can’t PAUSE THE GAME, it’s an MMO, it doesn’t WORK THAT WAY. (They have to run mid-dungeon run to deal with actual work and Hardison is very upset at having to abandon the game partway through)

Hardison is super good at the game and ends up pulling the inverse Elliot where they’re gonna all die and it’ll be a group wipe and he single-handedly carries them. He and every gamer is amazed by what he did. The team has no appreciation for it.

For Elliot’s inevitable actual fight he almost certainly beats the shit out of somebody with specialized MMO equipment (modified keyboards, laptops, mice), a heavy-duty headset, and one prop decorative item from the game. 

Everyone else is really bored and tired while playing at one point trying to practice to get good enough to get into the tournament, at which point Hardison introduces the idea of gamer food/drinks. Most of them now understand why he lives on gummy snacks and orange soda. Parker takes to the idea of a gamer diet a little too enthusiastically and ends up hyper AF on something extremely sugary. 

Sophie attempts to grift as a gamer but knows absolutely nothing about gamer culture so it just ends up being gaming stereotypes and Hardison is offended. 

More could fore sure be added, there’s plenty of material here to go around

It’s tough to say for me, though. As a general rule, while I like those sorts of zany, oddball, or day-in-the-life plotlines most of the time when I experience them in media, I can’t say I particularly desire to see them before I come across them. They tend to be those ‘I didn’t know I needed this until they gave it to us’ types of plots, for me. 

[cakeandpi]

Parker!! spoilers abound

hm, so Harry (aka Lawyer) has been fired/let go and no one gave him the memo on it. Is his old job/boss going to be this episodes mark?

oof, Harry is bad at being subtle with his ‘okay look in [place]’ comm directions

ah okay so isn’t a legal firm that’s about representing their clients to the best of their ability. it’s a firm whose about smoothing bad things over for rich clients so that there’s little to no consequences.

“I remember when you wanted to change the world.”/“World did change. We just went along for the ride.” So the world changed the boss, the boss gave up on changing the world because he saw a way to profit from it and didn’t care that he hurt others along the way.

The way that car drove up onto the curve, I thought that was Sophie in a big hurry at first. (I would have thought Parker but there wasn’t enough time for her to crack the safe, get to the relevant files, get out, and then drive there.) But no, it’s Maxwell’s thugs because the man holds a grudge apparently. So I’m going to guess he’s going to be the season big bad? Or is he just a 2-episode bad guy and we’ll find out who the real big bad is later?

Hardison: listing various problems on various international efforts he’s helping with Eliot: let’s make this a restaurant metaphor Hardison: *very much regretting ever buying Eliot that brewpub*

Nuts and bolts about bad guy details

Also that bit about Hardison being distracted by problems is definitely a distraction, there’s no way he’d pause on making sure their safehouse was secure

Eliot is not so much pissed as insulted that the world is at the point of advertising the corruption rather than him needing to beat it out of someone.

drone!!

*snort* eliot's usually the grouchy one, and he’s carrying a trashcan right now. there’s no way hardison doesn’t make some oscar the grouch joke once he sees that.

“It’s like you never stopped.”/“Yeah. Quite the act.” Sophie slows down at Hardison’s comment, then sighs and sits. She’s finding this tiring now. Is it because she’s out of practice? Or because after so many years of retirement, her hearts not in it anymore? And Hardison notices. He doesn’t say anything concrete immediately, because Sophie hasn’t really elaborated on what’s going on with her. When she does - it’s her grief, and how its affecting her grift now - there’s this concern in Hardison’s face. There’s absolutely going to be a meeting between the OT3 about how to straddle not straining Sophie too much and not babying her should she stay on for another job after this.

“But I can’t work forever, can I?” There’s a defeated tone to this, and it’s true - Sophie’s just human, one day she too will pass on. Her grief for Nate (and how being back with the team keeps reopening that wound) is coloring her view on this for sure. (Did Nate work himself to death?) It’s also, very distantly, a remark on the OT3 - they too can’t work forever. They were Sophie’s and Nate’s proteges. And it’s not that the OT3 doesn’t have anything in place if they go down - they’ve got small teams running all over the world. But they don’t have their own personal proteges. Harry’s a decent start, but they’ll need to recruit and open up their circle to at least one, maybe two more before they’re ready to retire. Before they, too, burn too hot for too long.

“You hear that? That’s a very distinctive sound.” YES

Another Basil & Brick truck! This one has.... empanadas, ropa vieja, sancocho, and I think the last one is yuca frita. Mm, yuca fries.

BREANNA!!!

Parker! Taught Breanna to tail people! (Hardison in particular?) When she was 11! Wait does that mean Parker’s met Nana?! Also Parker is so smug and satisfied that Breanna paid attention to her lessons.

“I teach every kid I meet how to do crime.” <3 be gay do crime

This is a big ‘I’m telling mom!’ argument and I love it, especially the “I think she’s napping” LMAO

“How you saved Eliot’s life all those times” Oh man Hardison is sleeping on the metaphorical couch tonight. But also I need to come back to this later because honestly and really? Hardison has - as part of a group team effort - saved Eliot’s life from himself. By giving him a way to work through his anger issues, by caring for him, by showing Eliot he’s needed and that he’s more than just a hitter. The team saved Eliot’s life. (And there’s probably a bunch of erasing digital trails/etc where Hardison did more directly save Eliot’s life but that's besides the point.)

“But hacking’s kind of old school anyway.” And as she goes on, Eliot goes from aggrieved to ‘oh, a new best friend’ because now he has someone to help him annoy Hardison.

Parker pulls Hardison into a side room (by his ear, but he’s not protesting in pain so that’s got to be just for show). And then pushes him up against the wall and Hardison is like ‘okay whatever lecture is coming can it not be like this?’ If it weren’t for the glass walls that’d be some makeout stuff right here.

LOL at Parker’s standard for a ‘normal’ person being ‘uses Uber, pays taxes, and has a birth certificate’.

“Wait is this like that time in Paris?” I... don’t remember an episode set in Paris with a robot and explosions so this must be during the time skip. And - “... but you didn’t want to hurt Eliot’s feelings so you secretly wanted us to agree.” I’m going to scream if there’s no confirmed ot3 by the end of the season. And cry. And read a whole bunch of fic.

Look at these two being honest with each and communicating and respecting each others opinions, they’ve grown so much from pretzel metaphors.

“You’re not mad. You did the Picard tug.”/“I am mad.“/“Did the tug. You know I like that.” Parker might be mad (at Hardison? Breanna? Both?) but not so much that she’s completely shutting out Hardison, giving him a nonverbal signal that she’s not pissed, just needs some time to be upset before everything’s okay.

“One. Job.” Parker says. And we the viewers know it’ll be more than one. But really what that means by now is that this is an audition. Parker may have taught Breanna some things, but now Breanna has to show that they do better with her rather than without, that she’s an asset and not a liability or dead weight.

I laughed so hard that because this shit’s illegal, there’s no cutting corners on the paperwork.

“And you didn’t get tortured.”/“Not this time.” I can’t tell if Eliot wants Harry to get a little bit tortured or if he’s just reminding Harry that this time around people were in a good mood and showing off.

Breanna stops herself before suggesting something, and Hardison, for all that he isn’t delighted at her presence and protested her being here, encourages her to speak up. If she’s going to be part of the team, even for one job, she’s part of the team and that means speaking up and throwing ideas out there for others to bounce around, even if it winds up being a football that can’t be dribbled.

OT3 TEAM JUST GOT DUBBED ‘DRILL TEAM’. (why is that also somehow a dirty joke i’m dying here)

Oh one of the baddies is a Com4r4t fan... oh wait no this is the beginning of a plan backfiring.

Aww Breanna is so proud of what she’s done! It’s very much like season 1 Hardison. So Sophie and Hardison go to do their own thing, only that means the baddies are here to talk to Breanna and she doesn’t have backup.

THE 'LET ME GET MY BOSS’ THE SPIN AROUND AND THE ‘WHY ARE YOU BOTHERING MY STAFF’ I LOVE BREANNA.

“I’m your neighbor who runs a business built on discretion.” This is going to go very badly depending on how Breanna plays this. At least she gets the earbud in to call for help!

Another Brick&Basil truck! Etoufee and jambalaya, dammit eliot stop choosing delicious food to advertise. 

“I monkey-shamed the DJ” I. Love. Her. Also Sophie’s already read Breanna as having the skills to just need general guidelines for an impromptu grift rather than needing to be fed specific lines.

“Okay here’s the thing.” And there’s a pause, we’re thinking he’s about to come down real hard on Breanna, and then we get “I love Com4r4t.” he is a fanboy I guessed it right!! And then he does go through with the threat, but not as a ‘cancel it or die’ sort of threat, but a ‘if i’m disappointed you die’ way.

Breanna nails the impromptu grift though she’s understandably a bit shaken by the threat at the end. (What newcomer wouldn’t be?) But the threat is what pushes Parker into deciding Breanna should go home ASAP. This is Hardison’s family, from before the team, and Parker isn’t about to risk messing that up. If she pushes for Breanna to stay when Hardison doesn’t want Breanna to, and something goes wrong? Parker would never, ever forgive herself.

But as Sophie has pointed out, they’ve all been out of their depth at one point or another. That doesn’t mean that someone should be sent packing.

Lmao Eliot being possessive of the drill.

“Then you ain’t got no more problems ever again.” There’s a certain sense of morbid humor with the team, one that’s both necessary but also a reality. They deal with this level of danger on a semi-regular basis. Harry just hasn’t caught up to that fact yet.

I have a feeling this particular baddie is going to end up dead for managing to drive a 40% cut.

“I’m just saying dude.” I love that Eliot and Hardison don’t have to rehash their entire arguments anymore unless they’re really enjoying themselves, that they can just be all ‘you know I’ve said my piece’.

“Don’t get distracted by the side gig.”/“Is it a side gig?” For all that the team has been their main focus for so long, for all that they all have side projects and gigs, this has been eating up more and more of Hardison’s time. What I thought was him pretending to be distracted earlier may have been a real distraction. And Eliot’s noticed, and he’s noticed that Hardison hasn’t noticed, that Hardison needs to make a choice here.

“In our line of work, you’re one of the best. But in that line of work you’re the only one, man.” Eliot has a soft smile at the end of that, and it's a bit painful, even as I saw it coming, to hear Eliot suggest that Hardison begin to step away from the team’s day to day.

“It’s okay to grow up, to realize you’re not the person you used to be.” None of them are the person they used to be. Not Sophie, not Parker, not Hardison, and certainly not Eliot. They can see that in each other if not in themselves. (Eliot, being the most grounded of all of them, already knew he’d changed eight years ago.)

“You never grew up.”/“Yeah. I achieved perfection pretty early, huh?” Even as Eliot’s the most grounded, even though he’s the one saying that there’s no one else that could fill Hardison’s role in that other work, the idea that Hardison might actually choose to step away from the team is too raw to handle without turning to humor.

Harry’s a bit jumpy, but he’s learning to play it off. I like that he’s a very different character from Nate, that it’s not his anger or ego driving him so much as a desire to make restitution.

And a “Dammit Hardison”

Ooh, Eliot’s in the vents too, just in time to help Parker. (She doubtless has her beloved taser but that would take time away from getting into the vault.)

“I smell lasers” Ahahahahaha

“You’re going to compare me to Eliot right now?” (’over the comms, where others who aren’t Eliot can hear?’ Hardison did not say out loud.)

ouch, okay, Hardison hurting his back like that might be what actually makes him choose the other gig over the team, or at what makes him take a little vacation so he can heal from that. (back injuries are nothing to play around with!)

how did Maxwell get past Eliot? but it’s all good, Eliot’s right behind to disarm him. And Parker’s been doing her hitting lessons, she didn’t even need a taser or to stab anyone!

Oh Harry, the bomb will be used, it’s just not time yet.

New Orleans gumbo is its own food group.

Okay so Hardison’s done a lot of work getting this place in order... WAIT IS THAT A PUNCHING BAG? That’s a punching bag! It might not be the love-letter the brewpub was but it’s definitely a thing added specifically for Eliot.

Oh no, Eliot might realize what Hardison’s doing with this, but Parker hasn’t caught up yet that Hardison’s going to be taking a break from the team.

Parker’s blindsided by this, and she’s upset, but she’s not mad because why didn’t she see this coming she should have seen it, so she leaves to deal with her emotions alone. Hardison follows, naturally, she knew he would, but she can’t face him because then he’ll see her crying, and Parker doesn’t do emotions easily. She’s torn between wanting him to help people and wanting to be with him (and she can’t go with him, she needs to be helping people too).

And Parker doesn’t want Breanna there without Hardison. Again because it’d put Hardison’s family in danger and that’s a step too far for Parker if Hardison doesn’t okay it. And also because with Hardison leaving, Breanna’s just going to be reminders of what Parker’s missing. And Breanna doesn’t have Hardison’s skillset, can’t fill his shoes - not that she should but she can’t, and Parker, I think, is already mentally preparing herself to go it alone again. Because if this job needs Hardison so bad, then surely Eliot’s got some project that needs his specific attention, and it was just one job for Breanna, and Sophie’s been adamant that this is one last job for her, and Harry’s still new and will probably decide to do his own thing given time to think... I think that’s where her brain is at, at least for the next thirty seconds, before she catches up with herself and realizes that more like the time she busted her leg than the team dissolving around her. (This kind of went weird places but that’s stream of thought for me)

And as they come back in Parker’s already cheering up some, because that wave of despair has already blown over. Yeah, she’s not a parent, but she’s good at teaching when she tries.

“It could be a reunion tour.”/“No. I’m retired.” It’s very different from Nate’s old protestations. He was not a thief. Whereas with Sophie it’s not ready. And while they all point out that she’s been happier while doing cons, that they could use the help, it’s not forceful or overpowering. It’s still Sophie’s decision. They’re not going to make her house their new base and taunt her with it; they’re not the sort of people who’d do that anymore, and anyway that’d be cruel instead of a fun sort of goading.

And because they give Sophie space to make a decision, while she doesn’t want to make a long-term commitment, she’s willing to take on ‘just a few more’.

[uno-family]

Knd fnaf au

Warning dark and blood of you have played fnaf you know what I’m talking about. And this is easier to understand if you know the story line of the game.

Nigel didn’t make it in time for the party,he stood outside in the the rain watching everyone everyone play. It was raining, he’d arrived late after his parents dropped him off. He had long stopped banging on the windows for someone to let him in. He felt alone, he was alone. He was invited along with his team mates to a birthday party at some pizza place with some sing robots. He was stuck outside,someone locked the door. All he could see was some kids running around and a puppet robot in a huge grift box giving presents. “This sucks”, Nigel said as he was about to leave a purple car drove by and stop right behind him. A man in a security outfit came out. Maybe be he worked here ? “ Excuse me I got locked out. Do you work here? Can you let me in?” The man walked up to Nigel and in a blink of and eye something slashed him. It was a knife... he was bleeding. Never had an adult hurt him like this before, the look in the mans eye was evil beyond what he had experienced. He started to run into an all way before he could finish the job before he collapsed by some trash cans. No he though as he curled up in a ball. He didn’t notice the tears going down his checks before before he blacked out something came to him. It was the puppet from inside it collapsed next to him as his blood pooled around him. He didn’t want to go....

When he woke up again he had no idea how long he was out but it didn’t hurt anymore. Something didn’t feel right he open his eyes. He was inside of some kind of box...he looked down at is hands. Wait these aren’t my hands!!! Nigel though frantically. He looked at down at the fabric claws that where now his hands. He felt what was his face. It was a mask!!! He open the box and stepped out the box but then he floated above the ground. Was he dead ? Where was everyone ? He looked into the reflection of the prize station and saw that he was the puppet! He looked down....blood. He followed the trail into a room behind the stage with all these parts and masks. There lead his friends and the body’s of other children he didn’t know. Above there body’s was them crying over there deaths. They where just kids..... They looked at him but could move or say anything, they had nobody’s. They had no body. I wanted to help I went over to the prize table and took a gift of the counter. It was was a mask of the ones of the animatronics. “ Don’t cry” he said to them. “I have a gift for you” . A gift of life. Who ever that man was he took there life’s and he was going to PAY!!!!

( Was this too dark? Just let me know. Or if you want more of this. I just thought about doing something different. Enjoy the trauma)😁

[downwiththeficness]

In the Bond-Chapter 14

Summary: Lilah often wished she’d never said yes to working with the Gecko brothers—usually while dodging gunfire. At no time was she regretting that decision more than when she’s hanging upside down from the ceiling, staring down a group of hungry culebras and one (1) extremely powerful sun god.

Word Count: ~7,600

Warnings: Drugging, kidnapping, violence, gore, blood, heavy sexual themes

A/N: This is an AU of my Story In the Blood, which can be read here. Basically, this fic explores what would have happened if Lilah had met up with Geckos before she met Brasa.

Taglist: @symbiont13

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They were standing around the familiar slab of the conference room table, a lull having settled over the group as they finalized the last few details of their plan. Lilah fiddled with the hem of her dress, a deep blue off the shoulder body con that she was assured (by Kate) would fit the bill for what they needed. The heels were not too high that she couldn’t run, the ankle strap keeping them firmly in place. She’d borrowed the clutch that held a switchblade and a few other accouterments that she might need throughout the night.

Seth crossed his arms, his gaze on her, “Are we all on the same page?”

Lilah nodded, looking to Richie and Brasa, who were also nodding. The subterfuge that they’d decided on was a little more complicated than strictly necessary, but it gave the brothers Gecko the opportunity to do what they did best—steal. At least, that was what they hoped.

Brandon Lyle had been maneuvered into place as best as they could manage without actually getting into a room with him. Brasa had bought his debt. Lyle had been offered terms, now they waited to see how he would react.

Lilah had her own thoughts about it, thoughts that she’d voiced several times over. It surprised her how Brasa had sided with both Richie and Seth, the three of them forming a bizarre unit that assured her that the plan would go exactly how they wanted. She found herself outnumbered and out-reasoned over and over in a way that made her jaw clench.

Their mark was an idiot, and too dumb to know he was so stupid. He’d gotten in deep with some pretty big players and thought that his money, or his looks, or his brute force could get him out of it. There was only one way to effectively deal with this kind of person—a con.

It wasn’t even really a con, per se, though Lilah was certainly not one to indulge in semantics when it came to crime. It was just an elaborate distraction that would give both teams the time they needed to perform the real work. Seth and Richie would be on site, in case he brought the book with him. Brasa and Javier would be en route to his father’s house in case it was still in the hermit’s library.

Either way, they were getting that book tonight.

Lilah had been clear that Branden’s father wasn’t going to be harmed in this. He was an eccentric old book collector, an appreciator of the rare and the obscure. He wasn’t responsible for his son’s debt, nor was he responsible for the way in which it would need to be collected. She made no such advocacy for the younger Mr. Lyle.

Seth reached down and grabbed his jacket from where he’d draped it over the nearest chair, shrugging it on and shaking out the fabric, “Alright. Let’s go.”

“Don’t forget your comms,” Lilah said, pointing that them, “You guys need to be able to hear while we work.”

Holding up both hands defensively, Seth gave half a smile, “Alright, alright, we’ll put the comms in. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” she shot back, “Don’t fuck around. Get in, get the book, get out.”

“Yes, mother,” Richie intoned with humor.

She glared, but said nothing further.

Seth laughed and took a step back, “You coming?”

“Actually,” Brasa cut in, “I have a matter I’d like to discuss with Lilah. It will only take a moment.”

Richie was already moving towards the door, Seth hesitating as he watched Lilah for guidance.

She nodded, waving them off, “Go. I’ll head to the bar in a few minutes. I need to arrive separately, anyways. It’ll be good to have some delay.”

Watching as they both sauntered out, closing the door behind them, Lilah shifted on her heels and turned to look expectantly up at Brasa. He stood not too far away, looking at her with an inscrutable expression.

Lilah grew nervous under those eyes, her shoulders rising up towards her ears. He looked at her a few moments longer, his fingers curling into his palms. Though he wasn’t a man of very many words, his eyes could say a thousand things that left Lilah struggling to interpret. She shifted in her heels, eyes darting away from that penetrating gaze.

When he moved, it was a series of slow, even steps that brought him within a few inches of her. He took her hands, holding them lightly.

“I like this dress,” he murmured.

Lilah felt a warm rush rise beneath her skin at the compliment, “Thanks. I thought it might be a bit much to sell the grift, but I think I’d rather be overdressed.”

“No,” he replied, moving further into her space, “Its not too much.”

She smiled shyly, “Really?”

Brasa nodded, dropping a kiss onto her bare shoulder, following the line of muscle to her neck, beneath her chin, to her lips. He kissed her lightly, with a warm reverence that hinted at feelings she wasn’t quite ready to name.

More kisses followed, soft and sweet. He shifted his grip to pull her into his body by her hips. Lilah draped her arms over his shoulders, letting the slow press of his mouth lull her into comfort. She touched her tongue to his, traced along it, tasting. The hands on her hips squeezed into her flesh, a little moan sounding.

Breathing in, he deepened the kiss, teeth nipping. Lilah gasped when he nicked her skin, sucking on the tiny wound. He gripped her ass, hauling her upwards as he dove in for another searing kiss, a growl sounding from the back of his throat. Lilah held onto him, almost all of her weight held by the strength of his arms.

In a smooth, fluid motion, she was lifted and deposited on the conference table. Her body landed with a muffled thud, her legs dangling over the side. She braced a hand on the wood below as she caught her balance, her free hand digging into his button down to pull him closer.

Lilah was quickly becoming overwhelmed. He was everywhere—his taste, his smell, his body—he overpowered every sense that she had until all she could think was that she needed to get closer, needed to get more. Greedy hands traced hard muscle, her ankles wrapping around his calves as he stepped into the space she’d made for him between her thighs.

The tight hem of her dress, already straining, finally gave up and rolled upwards towards her hips. The fabric cut into her skin, every second of discomfort worth it to have Brasa pressed against her. Nose pressed into her neck, he licked at her skin, teeth scraping. His hands steadied her, kneading her curves,  holding inexorably to him.

“Lilah,” he murmured against her mouth, a kind of soft desperation in his tone.

She pulled back a little, catching his eyes and lifting her brows in question. His jaw was slack as he worked to find words, his gaze tracing over the curves of her face. Smiling a little, she cupped his cheeks, kissing him quickly.

When she leaned away, she asked, “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

It occurred to her that she could just reach out to him, as she’d done many times, but Lilah’s gut told her that whatever he needed to say needed to be said out loud. She waited.

“Lilah,” he started again, his hands reaching down and gripping beneath her knees. He unwrapped her legs and set them down on the table, fingers pushing on her inner thighs to spread them wide.

She let him keep pressing her open, biting her lip to quell the feeling of being so exposed. He let the weight of his palms rest on the tops of her thighs, his eyes focused on the strip of fabric covering her mound. Lilah squirmed a little, couldn’t keep still when he was looking at her like that.

He said her name again, then, “Let me serve you.”

Staring at him in confusion, Lilah was about to ask what the fuck he meant, but comprehension quickly dawned when he dropped slowly onto his knees. She sucked in a breath as her pushed her dress further up her hips, the leather of his gloves rubbing sensuously over the newly exposed skin.

Brasa looked up at her, his head cocked to the side. Lilah felt her mouth purse as she tried to figure out what he was waiting for when she it suddenly clicked for her that he was asking for her to tell him ‘yes’. Huffing out a soft laugh, she grasped his forearms and nodded.

He looked...fucking delighted. Smiling so wide that she caught sight of his dimples, he leaned over and kissed her knee. He moved to the other side, his lips rubbing over her inner thigh. Here, he slowed, eyes half closed as he nuzzled her. The scratch of his stubble tickling, Lilah stifled another laugh as she carded her fingers in his hair.

Brasa laid a little path of kisses upwards, his thumbs pushing into her hips to tilt them forward. Lilah leaned back onto one hand, relaxing into the direction of his hands—she’d go wherever he wanted to lead in that moment.

With a strong pull, he jerked her closer to the edge. Surprised, Lilah let out a yelp and grabbed at his shoulder, the following laugh cut off when he dove in and licked a hot stripe upwards, his teeth catching. He lifted first one leg, then the other, over his shoulders, moving from side to side with wet, passionate kisses.

Lilah felt like she couldn’t breathe, her body warm and vibrating with anticipation as he made his way up towards her center. His fingers worked beneath the waistband of her panties, tugging them down. As Lilah was lifting her hips to help him get them off her as soon as possible, a knock sounded at the door.

“Lord Brasa,” came the voice that followed.

Her eyes closed, knowing that Javier would wait outside as long as Brasa wanted him to, but more than a little self conscious of him hearing what they were doing. She let out a long breath, disappointed but not surprised at the interruption. Without even looking at her phone, she knew that they were already behind schedule.

Brasa, for his part, didn’t seem to notice. He tugged again on her, eyes turned upwards to cast her a look of frustration. She looked down at the inky black, her breath catching as his hands flexed on her body. They stayed in that moment, suspended, the air sparking in a way that gave her a whole body shiver. He felt it, one side of his mouth quirking up in a self satisfied smirk.

Another knock, another call for his lord.

She smiled, unable to do anything but laugh as Brasa rolled his eyes and stood. Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he dropped a lingering kiss on her mouth.

“This’ll be a quick job,” she said as he helped her down, her hands righting the fabric of her dress. “We do stuff like this all the time.”

Brasa took her hand, “You will be careful.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a directive. And, unlike most directives he gave her, Lilah was inclined to obey him. She nodded, smiling as she followed him out to where her car was waiting.

When she made it to the bar, Lilah took some time to get a feel for the room. The place was full of twenty-somethings, the music loud enough that any kind of conversation had to be yelled directly into one’s ear. She sighed, it was exactly as she expected.

Lilah pushed her hair behind her ear, using the motion to double check that her comm was secure. She took an extra moment to lift her toes in her heels, ensuring that they were as fitted to her feet as possible. The last thing she needed was to take a fall in her approach of the mark. He had to think of her as calm, confident—and, most of all, attractive. The set up wouldn’t work if he didn’t like her.

Deep breath.

Lifting her chin, Lilah began her approach. It constantly amazed her how people reacted to confidence, and a determined stride. If they weren’t too drunk to notice, most people got out of her way. The few that tried to catch her attention were quickly dismissed with the coldest look she could muster.

The VIP section wasn’t really so much as section as it was a few tables roped off with a bouncer nearby. Branden Lyle was sitting with several other men, a glass of dark liquor in his hand. He was dressed in a deep navy, a flash of gold around his neck. She managed to keep from rolling her eyes, but channeled her internal disgust into giving the bouncer a hard stare.

To his credit, the man didn’t seem bothered. He had about eight inches of height and a hundred and fifty pounds on her. Lilah had to crane her neck to look at him as she drew near.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Lyle, please,” she announced genially.

Lilah found that the polite approach was usually the easiest way to get what she wanted when dealing with security. Too often, these guys were threatened, spit on, and pushed around by hot shots trying to get their way. A little civility was almost always unexpected, and almost always welcomed.

“No guests tonight, just business partners,” was his answer.

She gave him a winning smile and opened her clutch, pulling out the business card Richie had drawn up to give her a little more credibility.

“I am a business partner,” she asserted lightly as she handed the card over, “Mr. Lyle owes my bosses a debt. I think he’ll want to discuss terms as soon as possible.”

The bouncer looked at the card and then back at her before motioning for her to wait a moment. Hands folded in front of her, Lilah kept her expression serene as she watched the bouncer interrupt Mr. Lyle’s conversation, showing him the card. When the mark looked at her, she smiled a little, and bounced in her heels.

He laughed.

The little shit laughed. Lilah felt her lips press together as she resisted the urge to glare. Despite his easy dismissal, Brandon Lyle stepped into the first of many traps her team had in store for him tonight. He waved her forward.

Lilah sidled past the other ‘business partners’ as they left the table, her attention as much on the mark as possible. She sat demurely, setting her clutch on the table in front of her and fixing Branden with a friendly look.

He took her in, saying, “Ms. Corbett, I don’t think we’ve met.”

She lifted a shoulder, “We haven’t, but I’ve been told quite a bit about you by Mr. Pickerelle.” Lilah let that sink in, watching as his expression soured, “The good news for you is that you no longer owe him sixty grand. The bad news is that you now owe that money to my employers. They intend to collect tonight.”

Branden reached out and picked up his glass. He brought it halfway to his lips and paused, “If you’re here to threaten me, I can at least offer you a drink to soften the blow.”

Shaking her head, Lilah said, “What I said isn’t news. You were informed of the transfer of your loan two days ago. You were also informed of what my employers want to clear the debt completely.”

“Ah,” Branden replied around a swallow, “The book.”

Lilah echoed the last two words, “Yes.: She leaned forward on a forearm and cast him a coy glance, “Have you brought it, as we asked.”

He ticked his head to the side, “I did.”

This was good. It meant that the night would end early—thank God.

“Excellent. Do you have it here, or…”

Waving a hand towards the back of the room, “I asked the manager to lend me the use of his safe. Its downstairs.”

Trap number two. He’d not only disclosed the location, but he’d put it in the worst possible place to keep it—at least, when someone like Richie was trying to get at it.

We’re on it, came through her ear.

She breathed deeply, making a show of leaning back in her chair, “I think I’ll take that drink, now that you’ve shown good faith.”

The mark had absolutely not done that, but Lilah needed to buy the boys time to get in and get out. She put it at five minutes.

“What’ll you have?”

“Bourbon, rocks,” she answered.

Branden flagged down the bouncer and put in the order.

“While we wait,” Branden said with a curious gaze, “How about you tell me how you got into this line of work.”

Lilah considered the question, considered lying outright. It wasn’t necessary to come up with an elaborate backstory for this grift to work. She just needed enough surface details to convince him that she represented people who now owned his loan (which, technically, she did). He would fill in the other details on his own. Still, she needed to stall, and he looked interested enough.

“Well,” she said, crossing her legs and pretending to recall a memory. “I started out as an assistant at one of those cash advance places—you’re familiar?” When he nodded, she continued, “I showed some...aptitude, and I was invited to join a more lucrative venture.”

Branden lifted his brows, eyes dancing with surprise, “Aptitude?”

She smiled, as if laughing at a shared joke, “Yes, aptitude.”

He smiled along with her, “Would you mind elaborating?”

Lilah’s attention was diverted momentarily by the wait staff arriving with her bourbon. Branden took it from them and handed it to Lilah. She thanked him with a small salute, then took a sip. Like Seth, Branden had terrible taste in liquor. Unlike Seth, he didn’t seem to know it. Fuck, but it tasted like old sweat.

She barely concealed her grimace around a cough, “I’m adaptable. Very helpful in this business.”

Branden acknowledged her assertion with a dip of his head. He lifted his glass, “To adaptability.”

Loathe as she was to take another drink, Lilah gave a toast and sipped lightly. Swallowing was difficult, but she managed it. Glancing down into the glass, she eyed what was left. They’d poured her a healthy shot, a single cube of ice clinking against the sides.

“So,” Branden said, “You have to admit that its not just adaptability that got you where you are.” He leaned forward once more, saying, “You’re also beautiful.”

Her initial reaction was to dry heave, but she held it back. Instead, she gave him a small smile at the compliment, hoping that she wouldn’t have to actually flirt with him in order to hold his attention long enough to get the job done.

Not in the safe. Initiating Plan B.

Lilah felt anger rise up. The man had completely wasted their time. She set her jaw, narrowing her eyes at him.

“You’re right. Adaptability is not my only skill. I’m also a keen detector of bullshit.”

She stood, and wavered. Blood rushed into her skull, her eyesight blurring. Stomach roiling, Lilah had to brace her weight on the table.

“Clearly not good enough. Mikey?”

Hands gabbed at her, hauling her bodily up and over a massive shoulder. Panicked, Lilah screamed, the sound noted and ignored by the other patrons. Her stomach lurched and her head spun. Lilah had just enough energy to send out a call to Brasa as she was carried out the back door and thrown into the back of a van. Body limp, she could only stare at the streetlights as they passed by at an ever increasing speed.

She came to with a voice yelling in her ear, “Answer me, goddammit!”

Seth. Angry.

Her head hurt, her mouth dry. She swallowed painfully, “I’m here,” she croaked.

“Thanks to whatever god we haven’t met yet,” he sighed. “What happened?”

Lilah’s brain moved like molasses, her thoughts sticking together, “Drugs, I think.”

Everything hurt, her body shaking as she tried to get her bearings, “I’m in a room. Its cold. Fuck, its cold. I’m...tied to a chair. There are no windows.”

She could hear Seth repeating the information, though she didn’t quite understand why. As the seconds passed, her mind began to clear. The headache stubbornly remained, but Lilah blinked away the pain as much as she could. There would be time to feel pain later.

Shoulders moving, she tested the bonds of the rope. Too tight for her to get out of it. At least her legs weren’t tied down. She rocked from side to side. The chair was, unfortunately, pretty sturdy.

“How do we track your comm?” Seth asked.

Lilah sighed, “You got your cell?”

“Yeah.”

This was good, “Open it, code is two, seven, two, seven, two. Tap the ‘find me’ app. Click on my name, it should have my location, on it.”

From the back of her mind, she felt him growl. He pushed and pushed, until she couldn’t ignore the weight of him.

Querida…

“I’m okay,” she said back to him, the words filtering soundlessly. “A little banged up, but okay.”

Can you focus enough to let me through?

Through?

Yes, he urged, If you concentrate on the bond, I can get through to you. Fully. I’ll kill them, bring you back here.

Lilah’s vision swam with the effort of keeping the connection, “No. I can’t concentrate.”

Then, I will be with you shortly.

Lilah had just enough time to feel grateful before the only door of the room swung open and Branden walked in, Mikey strutting in behind. Lilah steeled herself, not sure where this would go.

“I think,” Branden began as he stood in front of her, “That you might work for powerful people, but those people wouldn’t give a shit if I killed you right now.”

Breathe.

“I think,” Lilah replied in a voice that was as stern as she could make it, “That you don’t know how wrong you are.”

He laughed, a high pitched, genuinely amused thing that grated on her very sensitized nerves. Behind him, Mikey also laughed. She sighed and crossed her legs, attempting to project confidence.

“You don’t have much time,” she continued, “I think you had better let me go.”

Branden’s eyes narrowed, though he was still smiling, “I know a bluff when I see one.”

Clearly, he did not.

“No bluff,” she shot back, “You don’t know what’s coming for you.”

Even now she could feel him nearing, even now that heat at the back of her mind was growing hotter and stronger. He was enraged, livid that he had not been there to protect her. She quieted him as best she could, but she knew—she knew. Lilah could not save these men.

“What do you want with the book?”

She shrugged, “I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m just here to acquire it.”

Mr. Lyle cocked his head to the side, “You do. You’ve been asking about it. You’ve been threatening about it.”

She breathed deeply, feeling sweat bead at her temples, “I don’t.”

“Mikey, let’s refresh her memory.”

Grabbing her hair, Mikey pulled her head back so that she was staring at the ceiling, one big hand coming up to cover her mouth and nose. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, but she couldn’t get the leverage she needed to bite down.

“How much is it worth?” Mr. Lyle asked, his voice coming from near her left side.

Lilah shook her head, trying to free her face from Mikey’s grasp, her legs uncrossing. Her heels kicked outwards, hoping to gain purchase somewhere. Her chest burned. Lilah was going to pass out, and soon.

“Its expensive, isn’t it?”

She felt tears form at the corner of her eyes. Her body jerked, failing to loosen Mikey’s hold. The lights flickered above her as her vision began to narrow. Sweat ran from her temples down her face and neck. The air in the room compressed over her body, her muscles contracting, knees coming up to her chest protectively.

“Let up.”

Mikey released her and Lilah sucked in air, body crumpling in the seat as she dropped her head down between her legs. She took several large gulps of air, wheezing and coughing. Behind her, Mikey laughed. Lilah hated the sound of it.

Mr. Lyle grabbed her hair and forced her to look at him, “What. Is. It?”

“I don’t know,” she coughed out, blinking as she tried to focus her vision. Everything was showing in doubles.

He gave her a hard shake and she felt hair come loose from her scalp, “Liar. Tell me.”

Lilah shook her head, “I’m not lying. I don’t know what it is. I was just asked to get ahold of it.”

Mr. Lyle let go of her hair and Lilah sat back, her hands folded uncomfortably behind her. The collar his shirt was damp. She doubted that he was sadist, at heart. He didn’t really look like he was enjoying this. He did look determined. Determined was worse.

Mikey moved around to her right, standing near enough that he’d be able to swat her down if she moved. She gauged the room. Mr. Lyle was between her and the door. Mikey could very likely snap her neck before she got there. Lilah was well and truly fucked for the moment.

“How much are you being paid for this?”

Lilah hesitated, eyeing Mr. Lyle. Her brain was working at half speed, and she couldn’t get a plan together to distract him. Though she was successful in keeping the panic at a minimum, she couldn’t quite draw upon her mental faculties to keep herself alive.

His hands were cold, bony, rough when they grabbed and held her up to him. Lilah grit her teeth, wondering if she could get her heel off to use as a weapon.

“How much?!” He screamed, and Lilah reflexively shut her eyes, a small sound of fear escaping her tight control.

Branden dropped her, she landed off center on the chair, falling to the floor. Stuttering breaths filled her lungs, a tear dripping down her cheek.

Branden sneered, “Let’s let her think about that for a bit.”

And then they were gone, leaving her curled on the floor. Lilah took a moment to draw on her courage, her wrists working against the rope. She pulled and yanked, until she was able to get her hand through the tiny loop, her skin chafing.

She looked at the binding, unwinding it. It wasn’t quite a weapon, but she’d take it. Struggling to her feet, she made her way to the door and gingerly turned the knob. It wasn’t locked. Another breath and she was easing the door open and peeking out into the hallway.

Brick on both sides and dimly lit. Empty. Careful of the sound of her heels, Lilah eased down the hall. All the doors were locked, except for the one that was open at the end of the hall. From it, she could hear music playing, and voices.

Lilah peered around the corner, cursing to herself when she clocked at least six guys talking around a card table. She only recognized Branden and Mikey. The others might as well be Agent Smith—all vanilla white boy who thought he was tough shit.

Standing in that hallway, Lilah closed her eyes and felt for Brasa, comforted when he responded eagerly, the whole of her body lighting up with heat. He’d find her, as he promised. But, Lilah couldn’t wait around to be rescued. It just wasn’t her style.

Adjusting her grip on the rope, Lilah squared her shoulders and strode out with far more confidence than she felt.

“We got a lock on you,” sounded from her comm, “Brasa took off, might reach you first. You hang tight.”

Lilah was not going to hang tight. She was angry at being cheated out of her goal, and she was even more angry that she’d been duped by some trust fund dickbag in an off the rack suit.

They noticed her, one or two standing as she moved through the room. There was a pull down garage door behind them (closed) and what actually appeared to be an exit to her left (also closed). Lilah ignored Branden’s opening jab about her being ‘wily’ and headed for the door.

Her heels clicked on the cement floor, her stride hard and quick. She didn’t stop when someone yelled, didn’t stop when chair scratched as more stood. What did make her stop was the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.

Hands raised, the rope dangling, Lilah turned in a slow circle and faced them. Mikey had a handgun aimed at her, his finger on the trigger. Lilah glared at him, then turned her attention to their ringleader.

Branden was smiling as he approached, slowing about ten feet away, “Should have tied you up tighter.”

“Probably wouldn’t have worked,” she quipped.

He sucked his teeth, his smile morphing into something dark and angry. Lilah felt heat roll up her spine, a sharp burn that almost made her drop the rope.

“You have about ten seconds left to live,” she said. “Any last words?”

Branden laughed, “Funny, funny girl. How about I put a bullet in you and see if you have anything to say?”

It seemed he’d read the villain one-liner book, as well. Lilah rolled her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

The door behind her jerked off the hinges, air pushing hard enough at her back that she had to take a step forward to keep her balance.

“You’re not going to get that chance,” she rasped, her arms dropping.

A hand touched the small of her back, warm and familiar. Lilah leaned into it.

“Are you alright?” Brasa asked from over her shoulder.

She nodded, “I’m better, now that you’re here.”

Lilah could feel his gratification through the bond—that, and his anger. Fury, really. Hot, unrelenting fury.

Brandan was watching Brasa warily, his eyes looking to the door and back, “Boys? Let’s show ‘em what they’re up against.”

Lilah expected more weapons. She fully expected more posturing and some barbs back and forth. What she didn’t expect was a fucking semi-automatic rifle. Strike that, two semi-automatic rifles.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” she ground out even as she was moving backwards.

Gunfire is a weird thing. Its so loud. Disorienting. Your body moves without thought, jerking away from it, shielding your face. Lilah needn’t have bothered. Brasa moved, snakelike, turning her so that his broad body overtook her entire line of vision.

Bullets hit him. She could feel it. A staccato rhythm of impacts that had him grunting in her ear. He held her tightly, arms locked around her body so that he covered her completely. Face smashed into his chest, Lilah couldn’t do anything as the assault carried on—bullet after bullet.

Finally, when they stopped to reload, his arms fell away and he was turning to look at their assailants, “Out, Lilah.”

When she didn’t move, he turned his head and glanced at her over his shoulder, repeating the order. His eyes were blood red, looking angrily from under his brows. She’d never seen them like that before, and it opened up a dozen questions that this wasn’t the time to ask.

Knowing that she had no hope of actually helping the situation, Lilah ducked out of the room, sliding a little on the gravel as she went. More gunfire sounded, bullets breaking the windows. She covered her head and kept going until she rounded a lifted truck. Kneeling by one of the massive tires, she listened to the screams.

These weren’t screams of fear, not all of them. Lilah knew what a fearful scream sounded like. These were screams of pain. Lilah had seen that Brasa could tear a culebra in half with little to no effort. She didn’t really want to think about what he was doing to the human men who’d taken her captive.

While more guns went off, while the screams increased in volume and frequency, a familiar car came roaring up the drive. Relieved, Lilah stood up a little and waved to them.

Seth barely had the car in park before he was opening the door and heading for her, gun already in his hand. His face was a mask of worry, one arm outstretched to pull her into a hug.

“You’re not supposed to do this shit to us,” he exclaimed angrily.

Lilah rolled her eyes, pulling away enough to see Richie light a cigarette and salute her with it, “Its not like I planned to be drugged and kidnapped.”

The effects of the drug were wearing off—a product of either the low dose or the low quality. Lilah could still feel the fatigue beating at her, somewhat mitigated by the surge of adrenaline.

Seth held her by the arm and looked her over, “They hurt you?”

She shrugged, “Nothing I won’t survive.”

Mouth thin, his attention turned to the warehouse that had gone silent, “Brasa in there?”

She nodded, “Yeah. He, uh, looked pretty pissed off.”

Seth scoffed, “Not our fault that Lyle guy lied to us.”

Lilah gave another shrug and turned to see Brasa in the doorway, leaning heavily against it. He was hurt. Very hurt. She couldn’t even begin to count the number of bullets he’d taken for her, and Lilah knew that he had lost a significant amount of blood.

Feet moving, Lilah went to him, arms going around his waist as he struggled to support his weight. Even through his clothes, Lilah could feel the cold that confirmed what she already knew. He held himself stiffly for a few seconds, eyes squeezed closed, then let his arm fall to her shoulders as he took a step forward.

That step turned into a stumble, which turned into a fall. Lilah couldn’t hope to support him through it, landing hard on her knees, the gravel scraping.

She looked up at her friends, “I need help. He can’t walk.”

Richie flicked the cig away and stepped up to Brasa’s body. He lifted him with a choked off sound of effort and dragged him beneath the arms to the car. Seth reached down and helped Lilah to her feet. She followed Richie to the car, watching as he laid Brasa over the back seat.

“He needs a hospital,” was out of her mouth before her brain could catch up and tell her that the idea was so stupid that she should just shut up and never talk again.

Richie looked at her over his shoulder, “He needs blood. Lots of it, from the look of him.”

Lilah looked to Seth, “There’s blood at the bar. Javier will know what to do.”

Seth watched her face carefully, his eyes narrow, mouth turned down in a frown, then said, “Alright. Get in.”

Without hesitation, Lilah climbed in the back and knelt in the floorboard, reaching down to unclasp her heels. Her knees were bleeding, and her palms were scraped up pretty bad. She’d feel it tomorrow, no doubt.

The doors of the car slammed shut and the engine turned over, she rocked hard into the seat as Seth peeled out of the driveway. Rising up, Lilah touched Brasa’s face, tapping it a few times to rouse him. His shirt was completely soaked in blood, the material sticking to his chest. She unbuttoned it, hands hovering over his skin as wound after wound was revealed.

“I’m getting you a bulletproof vest for Christmas,” she grouched as she peeled up the fabric.

His chest contracted, flinched really, his voice coming out soft and scratchy, “I will heal.”

Lilah was half relieved that he was conscious and half angry that he seemed to have so little regard for his health, “You wouldn’t need to heal if you’d just, I don’t know, dodged the bullets.”

There was a definite sigh, and then, “Its only flesh.”

Incredulous, Lilah leaned over his body, grinding out, “I happen to like it when you’re not bleeding out in the backseat of a car, thank you very much.”

With a small smile, Brasa touched her cheek, “I am much harder to kill than this.”

“You don’t know that,” she said in a small voice, her fear coming through in the tone. “I don’t know that.”

Brasa dropped his hand and traced his fingers over hers where they lay on his still bleeding chest. His gaze was a little glassy, his breath slowing. She could see the remorse in his expression—she could also see that he was going to pass out.

“Hey, hey,” she called out, then to Seth, “How far away are we?”

Seth looked at her in the rearview, “Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”

Lilah turned her attention back to Brasa, who was barely conscious, “Can you hold out that long?”

When he didn’t answer, she did the only thing she could think of to rouse him. She dug two fingers in to the bullet hole nearest to her. Brasa hissed, his body bowing, an angry growl sounding.

“Sorry,” she whispered, “You need to stay awake.”

Brasa inhaled through his nose, visibly trying to steady himself, “I’m fine, querida.”

“You are not fucking fine,” she almost yelled. “You’re bleeding all over the leather seats, you idiot.”

He gave a strained chuckle, “It was worth it.”

His eyes grew unfocused again and when Lilah dug her fingers into another wound, he didn’t respond. Lilah panicked, pushing off the floor of the car and straddling his body on the seat, trying to shake him awake.

“He’s not responding,” she said to Richie as he turned around to look at what she was doing.

Richie leaned further over, looking down at the sun god beneath her, “I told you. He needs blood.”

Lilah looked at Brasa, “I don’t…”

At a loss for words, Lilah struggled with what she needed to do and keeping some semblance of control in the situation. If he bit her, the venom would render her comatose. She’d already proven that she couldn’t cut herself open. She didn’t know how to heal him without breaking all the rules she’d set up for herself to keep her two lives separate.

“Here,” Richie murmured lowly as he reached for her arm. In his other hand was the switchblade he favored. “I’ll give you a little cut and you just hold it over his mouth. He’ll do the rest.”

Seth lifted a finger, pointing it at Richie, “She doesn’t have to do it if she doesn’t want to.” Then, to Lilah, “You don’t have to. We’re almost there. He’ll make it.”

The frigid body beneath her told Lilah that what he’d said might not be the case. She looked down at Brasa, then to Richie, and back.

“A little one,” she said, offering him her arm.

“I’ll be careful,” Richie assured her, his eyes focused on the blade in his hand.

It hurt. The pain of the cut spearing through the adrenaline running through her body. When it was done, Lilah had to stop herself from pulling the wounded limb into her body protectively. One hand on Brasa’s jaw to open his mouth, she held her arm over it and watched carefully as the blood dropped down.

It took far too long for Lilah to see the fluttering behind his lashes, for his throat to begin to swallow down what she gave him. Letting out a breath, she watched as he blinked his eyes open blearily his chin lifting in supplication.

Quick hands had her arm pulled down and his mouth fastened to the wound sucking hard. Lilah let out a yelp as she regained her balance.

“You alright?” Seth asked, his head craned around to see what was happening.

Lilah nodded, “Yeah, just wasn’t prepared for it to work like that.”

Black eyes looked up at her, his hands wrapped securely around her arm. The leather was stretched over his wide palms, torn in a few places from the fight. Lilah held his gaze, too relieved to care that he might leave bruises.

He let out a low moan as the pull of his mouth slowed, his tongue tracing along the wound. Lilah swallowed, pushing down the bloom of arousal at the sound that she only heard when he was either drinking from her or kissing her. In any case, now was not the time.

His eyes closed in pleasure, Brasa continued to drink, though there was none of the initial urgency. He savored every drop, his body growing slowly warmer. Lilah let him do as he wanted, too glad that he was conscious and moving to care how it might sound.

When he looked at her again, there was something playful in his gaze. Confused, Lilah felt her brows draw together. She started to say something when she felt him press his teeth every so softly onto her skin. Eyes wide, she leaned back, fixing him with a stern look that said, ‘don’t’.

His chest shook with restrained laughter even as he let off a bit, returning to the slow pull. Lilah relaxed, checking on the others. Richie was texting. Seth’s attention was on the road.

With one hand, Brasa traced up the path from her knee where it was smushed into the seat to her thigh, his fingers pushing up the hem of her blood spattered dress to grasp her hip. Without letting go of her arm, he shifted up a bit, until she was sitting squarely on his hips.

He was more alert, and the wounds on his chest had stopped bleeding. Lilah guessed that all the blood left in his body was either soaked into the seat or filling the erection on which she now sat. It occurred to her that she would need to tell Kate that she was, indeed, right. Feeding and fucking was the base instinct of both culebras and Xibalbans, even when close to death.

Rolling her eyes at him, Lilah pulled her arm away, ignoring his sound of protest. He tried to sit up, and she pushed him back down. He gave no resistance, probably couldn’t even if he wanted.

“You just lay there until we can get you to Javier,” she ordered.

Brasa lifted a brow, but settled back into the seat, staring up at her sleepily. Her arm tingled a bit, a by product of the venom he may have inadvertently injected. She shook it out, eyeing the cut. It was still bleeding a little, but the trickle was slow, already clotting.

A gloved hand caught her around the wrist, bringing her arm to his mouth. Lilah’s jaw dropped as she watched his tongue snake out and run along the line of blood, circling to catch all of it. Beneath her, his erection pulsed and the hand on her hip flexed to pull her more firmly against it.

Lilah very much wanted to lean down and kiss him in that moment, but she could feel how Seth kept looking back at her. Instead, she reached out into the bond, sending Brasa all the feelings she could, all the want and the relief she felt. The bond broke open with his response, her body lighting up with the images he was sending her.

Brushed with red and oranges, she saw how he wanted to yank down the neckline of her dress so that he could suck on her nipples. How he wanted to reach under her dress and rip the gusset of her panties so that he could push two fingers inside to test her wetness. How he wanted to sink his cock into her and make her ride him hard until they were both spent.

Lilah gasped, her body shuddering as she bit her lip to keep what she was sure would be an obscene sound quiet.

Seth half turned, “You okay?”

She gathered herself quickly, “Yes, I’m fine.”

“We’re pulling in now,” he called back, the lights of the entrance filtering in through the windows.

Brasa let her rise up off him, but his eyes were filled with promises that Lilah was sure he was going to keep—soon. As the car pulled to a stop, she had the door open, waving Javier forward.

Brasa was barely standing, his shirt open and hanging loosely beneath his coat. Lilah watched as Javier spoke to him in what she was now recognizing as Xibalban. When they disappeared into the elevator, she turned to Richie and Seth.

“Let’s go. We’ve got a job to finish.”

Richie eyed her bloodstained dress and bare feet, “Don’t you think we’re done for the night.”

Lilah jabbed a finger at him, “I did not get drugged, kidnapped, and shot at all in one night to not claim the prize. You can do whatever you want, but I’m going.”

Seth was leaning against the hood of the car, hands in his pocket. He eyed her levelly, “You sure you’re good?”

Lilah nodded.

He pushed to stand, rolling his shoulders, “Alright. I’m in. Richie?”

Richie’s smile was nearly feral, “I love it when she’s angry. I’m in!”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

David Dayen's MONOPOLIZED

The world is beset by urgent, fantastically technical challenges - vaccine logistics, financial misconduct, geoengineering proposals and fights about what we should eat and how we should get from A to B.

These are thorny problems. Getting them right is urgent - and hard. Not just because these are complicated questions, but also because there are powerful, monied people who benefit when we get them wrong, and they pay handsomely for doubt.

Worse: many of these problems involve far-off, probabilistic consequences for actions we're taking today: "If we don't do something about climate change, your grandkids will experience some bad stuff. Probably. Maybe not yours. Someone's though."

Add it all up - complexity, bad-faith doubt-sowers, and probabilistic, far-off consequences - and it's really hard to get people to treat these issues with the warranted gravity and urgency.

Authors who write books on these subjects use two main tactics:

I. Explainers: demystify a complex subject, breaking it down until it becomes legible to a lay audience, and

II. Storytelling: find people whose lives dramatize the technical issue and tell their stories.

This is a pretty good strategy. Get the balance right and the explainers become eye-opening jolts of recognition ("Oh, *that's* why things are the way they are!") while the storytelling personalizes the new knowledge.

But both have their limits, especially when it comes to the monopolies of late-stage capitalism. The thing is, every grift in the monopoly playbook - evictions, CDOs, pharmacy benefit managers, ad-tech, patent trolling - is just bullshit.

These things aren't hard to understand because they're complicated. They're complicated so that they'll be hard to understand. The first time you unravel one, it's quite gratifying: "Oh, I'm not stupid, it's just all nonsense. Wow."

The fiftieth time, it's like, "God, not another one?"

It's like when I worked in a bookstore and hustlers would come in trying to cadge money from me by telling me long stories about buying bus tickets home to help an ailing relative.

The longer the story went on, the most obviously untrue it became. The experience goes from amusing to weird to tedious.

Listen long enough to the idiotic scams of Gwyneth Paltrow/Alex Jones or Reverse Factoring hustlers and your brains will start running out of your ears.

And there's a storytelling failure mode, too: focusing down on "characters" can make systemic problems seem like individual ones - like, if we just punish that racist bully, we're driving out racism itself.

Writing an effective activist book on these lines is an art, not a science: just enough explaining to make it clear how wicked and awful the bad guys are, just enough storytelling so we know what the consequences are.

Which brings me to David Dayen's MONOPOLIZED, a *superb* book about the rise and rise of monopolies.

https://thenewpress.com/books/monopolized

If telling this kind of complicated, technical story and making it personal and urgent is an art, then Dayen is an artist.

Chapter by chapter, Dayen weaves explainers and personal stories together, unpicking snarled knots of bullshit and laying them straight to reveal them for the turds they are; then showing how we're personally drowning in crap.

From pharma to aviation, airlines to newspapers, Big Tech to Big Funeral, Dayen's book connects together every one of the scams that picks our pockets, robs us of dignity and life chances, and laughs in our faces.

He shows how monopolists - and their court sorcerers from the Chicago School of economics - have spent 40 years telling us that we can't believe our own experience of the worsening, contracting world around us, that the models prove it's getting better.

He shows us how both reviled mega-CEOs like Jeff Bezos and cuddly "investors" like Warren Buffet are brutalizing workers, inventors, customers, travelers, prisoners, and everyone in between.

His technical breakdowns are flawlessly understandable and witty, too - and never lapse into the tedium of "not more of this bullshit, no," while the human stories are perfectly chosen to illustrate how these scams hurt real people.

Dayen doesn't just break down his subjects - he builds them back up again, illustrating, for example, how monopolies in pharma forced the hospitals to monopolize in self-defense, and *that* led to monopolies in insurance.

The point being that any monopolies lead to everything being monopolized - and that the only sector of the economy that doesn't get to band together under a single institution to push back is us, the public, the workers, the consumers.

In the year since this book was published, the problems have only gotten worse. I noted with irony as I finished the excellent audiobook that it was recorded by a company that became a division of a notorious private equity fund over that period.

Our new gilded age is coming apart at the seams. A transparently absurd doctrine that assured us that monopolies were "efficient" and would benefit us all has brought us to the brink of ruin.

MONOPOLIZED is the story of how we got here - who is to blame, what's really going on, and most importantly what we need to do to turn it all around.

[phroyd]

Joe Biden is going to be the next president of the United States. He will be inaugurated on January 20 and take power at noon that day. There is nothing, legally, that Trump can do to stop that.

What Trump and his feckless Republican Party might do illegally to try to overturn the results of the election and prevent Biden from taking power is a different matter. Trump has evidently intimidated the administrator of the General Services Administration into refusing to acknowledge Biden’s victory and thus prevent his team from starting the transition process. Only a smattering of Republicans have acknowledged that Biden won, and most of those who have, like George W. Bush, no longer hold any political power. Trump has already filed a raft of baseless lawsuits. His people are drumming up talk of some kind of Electoral College devilry to overthrow the popular will. And Trump fired the secretary of defense, Mike Esper, yesterday, which seems like the kind of thing one does before launching a coup d’état.

Years of watching Democrats snatch defeat from the jaws of victory gives many the sinking feeling that “it’s happening, again.” But rational thought tells us that these Trump gambits, all of them, are pointless. Biden won and his ascension to power is now inevitable, whether Trump accedes to that reality or not. As a wise man once sang: Gravity always wins.

Still, we’ve all seen Trump wriggle out of approximately a billion other defeats and scandals. He’s exposed the weakness of our democratic institutions, revealing just how useless they are in the face of his norm-breaking assaults. So it feels somehow naive to believe that his loss at the ballot box will translate into his loss of an actual job. It feels smart to consider that he might have a secret plan to retain that job, despite being voted out of it. Trump is the Michael Myers of our politics: He can’t be defeated, because the horror movie franchise makes too much money to ever end.

And yet, despite all this, I have gone to bed every night since Friday confident that President-elect Biden will become President Biden. I’ve come to this peace over the objection of my amygdala, which is the part of the brain that screams in fear and anxiety and tries to overpower rational thought. Here’s what I tell myself in order to help me sleep at night. Perhaps these are conversations others can have to achieve my level of forced serenity. (Amygdala in bold italics.)

Who won the election?

Joe Biden.

Who won the election if we only count legal votes?

Only legal votes are being counted. Joe Biden won those.

What about the possibility of a recount in swing states like Michigan or Pennsylvania?

Recounts traditionally do not change more than a thousand votes. Even if we’ve gone completely through the looking glass and this recount changes an unprecedented number of votes, like 5,000, which is completely unheard of, Biden’s margin of victory is too great to overcome. A recount would not change the result in states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. If Trump wants to lose twice, that’s up to him.

What about all the lawsuits, especially the ones they keep filing in Arizona and Pennsylvania?

Trump’s election lawsuits fall, broadly, into three categories: lawsuits alleging poll watchers were too far away, lawsuits complaining about the established rules for submitting mail-in ballots, and lawsuits alleging Trump voters were denied their vote because of some kind of ballot machine malfunction.

None of these lawsuits provide evidence of massive voter fraud. None of the lawsuits provide evidence of voter fraud at all. Some of the lawsuits allege some accidents, but the remedy for those accidents is counting more votes, not fewer. Trump’s claims that his poll watchers were not allowed to watch the counting of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania is flatly untrue, and his lawyers have had to admit in court that they were allowed in the room. They’ve been reduced to arguing that their poll watchers were not close enough, which, whatever. The remedy for that is to move them closer, not throw out tens of thousands of votes.

In fact, none of the Trump lawsuits allege anything that can be used to throw out tens of thousands of votes. Throwing out votes that have already been counted is not something that courts do. We can recount votes, this time with Trump watchers breathing down the necks of ballot counters and giving them Covid-19, but again, recounts don’t usually change the balance of votes by all that much.

The important thing to ask with each new Trump lawsuit is this: What is the remedy? If the remedy is “throw away tens of thousands of votes from people whose votes were clear in their choice and timely in their submission,” then that lawsuit is going nowhere. And if the remedy is not throwing out those entirely timely and legal votes, then the lawsuit will not change the results of the election.

Why would the Trump people be pushing these lawsuits if there was no chance for them to change the outcome?

Because Trump people are dumb? Hanlon’s Razor tells us: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Joking aside, there might be many malicious reasons for the Trump campaign to be pushing lawsuits they know are destined to fail. Stirring up doubt in Biden’s victory is a prelude to refusing to acknowledge his authority as president. Trump, or one of his kids, or somebody “Trump-approved” is surely going to run for president in 2024, and making Trump’s rabid, white-supremacist base feel like the election was “stolen” from them has a political upside as they fight for their new “Lost Cause.”

And, there’s also the grift. Trump’s campaign is broke. They’ve literally written checks they can’t cash. Trump doesn’t like spending his own money on these things (to the extent he actually has any). These lawsuits purportedly challenging the election are a huge money-making opportunity for the Trump campaign. If you read the fine print on the new fundraising e-mails Trump’s campaign is sending out to supporters, they say that “60 percent of contributions” will go toward retiring campaign debt.

Would the Trump campaign put America through 70 days of trauma to make a buck? You better believe it. The whole Trump presidency is a guerrilla marketing campaign for the Trump brand that went too far.

But the Republican Senate is going along. This is just like impeachment. Republicans wouldn’t remove Trump then and they won’t now.

Well, it’s not up to Republicans to remove Trump from office. The Constitution does all that work on January 20. Joe Biden is the president on that day whether Republicans acknowledge it or not.

But now Bill Barr has gotten in on the game, and he is the worst of Trump’s henchman.

Yes.

He’s given federal prosecutors the green light to open up investigations into possible voter fraud.

So?

SO?

There wasn’t election fraud. Trump’s legal team has no evidence of election fraud and has no money to investigate to find such evidence, so they’re using the taxpayers’ money to look for it. But Barr’s prosecutors won’t find anything because there’s nothing there. This is going to turn out the same way it did when Barr investigated but didn’t arrest Hunter or Joe Biden.

The head of the Election Crimes Branch, Richard Pilger, resigned. That should tell us how wrong this is. But Barr is not going to succeeded. It’s just another thing to remember in 70 days when Barr is out of a job. We should arrest him and charge him with abuse of power.

What if Trump refuses to leave the White House?

Biden can be president from Delaware until the White House runs out of cheeseburgers. He’ll come out of hiding eventually.

But what if Republicans never acknowledged that Biden is the president?

How’s that different from the way they treated Barack Obama?

Good point, but what about a re-vote? I’ve seen MAGA people online calling for a re-vote.

Re-voting is not a thing. There is no statutory or constitutional language that can compel a nationwide re-vote. States will certify the results of their elections in the coming weeks. And then the Electoral College will meet on December 14 in a pro-forma session to…

WHAT ABOUT THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE?

Damn it.

Can Republican state legislatures put forward a slate of electors who will vote for Trump even though Biden won those states?

Let’s be very clear: The states get to choose how they will determine their own electors, but that determination has to be made before the election. A state with a Republican legislature—let’s say, Pennsylvania—could have decided to choose electors based on a simple vote of the legislature. In fact, Republican legislators contemplated doing such a thing. But they didn’t. Instead they decided, like every other state, to let the popular will in their state determine the slate of electors.

They can’t change the method of picking electors after the election has taken place. Remember, when voters showed up to vote, they technically weren’t voting for “Joe Biden” or “Donald Trump” but for a slate of electors who would vote for Biden or Trump. If Pennsylvania wanted to change those rules, it would have had to tell its voters before they voted. It can’t run a bait-and-switch on an election. It can’t say that a vote for Biden’s electors was actually a vote for the Pennsylvania legislature to choose the electors. This is an election, not a Groupon.

The only legal recourse, which some Republicans are arguing for, is to determine that the voters “failed to make a choice” on which slate of electors to nominate, or that the results of that choice are somehow unclear. But the results will be clear once Pennsylvania certifies its election results (and, in this case, the governor and secretary of state, who certifies the results, are Democrats). It will be a close election, but voters made a choice and that choice will be clear upon certification.

States have until December 8 to certify the results of their elections.

But what if Pennsylvania’s Republican legislators insist that the results weren’t clear? Would the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority allow the state’s Republican legislature to choose a Republican slate of electors, even though it’s unconstitutional?

Maybe? Conservatives on the Supreme Court act in bad faith all the time. But consider that Biden has likely won this election with 306 electoral votes. For this gambit to work, legislatures in Pennsylvania and at least two of the other states Biden won would have to submit a slate of Trump electors. The Supreme Court would have to OK this upending of the popular will three times in total. That’s incredibly unlikely and would spark almost immediate civil unrest directed right at the Supreme Court, which has no army to enforce its rulings.

Well, what’s our plan for that?

My dude, I don’t have a plan for “nothing matters anymore.” The end of democratic self-government is not a thing one has a legal plan for. That’s like asking what my plan is for closing a demonic hell mouth that opens in my backyard. Die. My plan would be to die. I’m not Keanu Reeves.

What if Trump fires FBI Director Chris Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel and gets the “deep state” to keep him in power indefinitely?

I’m not Kiefer Sutherland either. I cannot find the mole.

What if Trump launches a full-scale coup d’état and uses the military to keep him in power?

Then we’re at war. Honestly, what do you want from me? Yes, there is a non-zero chance that Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the election leads to a civil war and, in such a conflict, Abigail Spanberger forms a Vichy government to “compromise” with Trump supporters, and I have to pilot a jet carrying Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez off of Naboo in hopes of finding friendly Jedis willing to fight for our cause.

But there is no legitimate way for Trump to stay in power now. There’s no peaceful way for Trump to stay in power. Either he’s gone on January 20 or he remains atop a military junta willing to use violence to enforce his will.

This makes you feel better?

I find it comforting that a full-scale military takeover is now the only way for Trump to stay in power. Because if there’s one thing I know about Trump, it’s that he is a coward. President Bone Spurs is not the guy to cross the Rubicon.

I look at it this way: Captain von Trapp hiked his enormous family over the Alps to get away; all I have to do is drive my people to the Thousand Islands Bridge while we all sing “Edelweiss.” Thinking much beyond that is pointless.

Well, you could get your lazy ass on the elliptical trainer in case you’re needed to fight.

Don’t start this with me again. Goodbye.

Phroyd