#implying that York himself isnt

[mediocreshake08]

Mmmmm BLU team headcanons/lore...

Scout: one of Scout's brothers, because somewhere, its said our Scout has 6 older siblings, as he could have the same mother as Scout which is implied in "Meet the Spy"

Solider: was actually quallified in the army and even finnished academy, but left a war ended, and could have an actual name that isnt "unidentified female corps" like our Solider

Pyro: after (or during the comics) when all the other mercs were fired, Pyro moved in with his teams Engineer who realized that only he had pyrovision because of his goggles. After several hours of reconsiliation, Pyro has demoted himself to a life without violence, and became an exterminator to help pay their rent.

Demoman: scored a job at a company deducated to keeping earth's energy uses as stable as possible, something like a company named GRN or something

Heavy: he joined the international boxing league and became a heavyweight champion. After several title fights, he decided to retire from his position as heavyweight champ and went to spend time with his family.

Engineer: after being fired, he realized he was running low on money. So he decided to get an apartment in New York and make a debut album. Eventually, Pyro found Engie, helped him pay the rent, made the album and released it to the Public. The album, "Pybros in Arms" made millions and the two were so happy with the results

Medic: moved back into Germany and actually finnished academy and did get a medical license to become a real surgeon. Using the Quick Fix to invent in a whole new method of healing. He even got interviews with several big reporters around the world.

Sniper: The Aussie went to an excavation site, where he locates a chunk of australium, the last piece on earth, for real this time. He learns that it can be used to power life extending devices. He knows that he can't hold on to it forever, so he locates the current location of the Engineer, he takes his huntsman and attaches the piece of australium on to and arrow with a note that says: "From BLU to RED". He shoots it, it reaches the balcony, and hence the last, small piece of australium in Engie's hand in issue 6.

Spy:

Yeah i had nothing for Spy lol

Uh...

Went to France and eats a grilled cheese?

[mackmp3]

BOB DYLAN LYRIcS AND CRAZY NOVEL LIKE RELATIONSHIP WITH JOAn bAEZ

okay i'm gonna answer this cos i was listening to joan earlier SO (and no i dont know why this is in greentext format just roll with it i'm so sorry) (this is uhh veeeeery very long too)

>1962/3

>some scruffy loser calling himself bob dylan shows up in new york with a guitar and pretty much cosplays as woody guthrie for a bit

>joan baez, who is the same age, made her debut self-titled album at nineteen years old and is well liked by everyone, her music is generally appreciated by everyone on the scene, she has a beautiful voice and strong vibrato and really good at guitar, involved in activism stuff, played with lost of older respected musicians, the whole folksinger package

>but she doesnt really write her own stuff

>bob dylan write copious volumes of material but his performance is uhhhh less than amazing and technical ability has uhm room for improvement

>his debut self titled album flops hard

>scene is pretty small so they inevitably meet

>joan is like lol look at this loser isnt he cute hehe--his songs are pretty good too huh

>she invites him to play with her, they do a bunch of shows together etc and eventually get romantically involved. joan introduces him to civil rights stuff & anti-war stuff & anti nuclear and all that stuff

>bobs stuff was already political but in a sort of abstract way, his work gets a lot more specifically activist-ey in a very powerful way

>they're still doing a lot of shows together-bob is pretty famous on the folk scene at this point, largely because of joan endorsing him pretty much lol, still romantically involved. music press starts paying attention to bob dylan and he releases quite a few albums with famous songs on them. people kinda shit on him for his voice its a whole thing but i really like his voice so whateverr

>but by 1965 music is starting to get Weird, beatles are happening etc, lots of new styles of music, new youth culture, drugs are also happening

>bob releases bringing it all back home - some of these songs have electric band backing, where previous All Bar One of his songs were solo acoustic guitar, vocals, maybe some harmonica. some people are vaguely put out by this but i think most people find it pretty cool

>20th july 1965 bob releases Like A Rolling Stone, arguably his most famous song. it is very electric and a banger and much Much more rock (it was pop then but yknow) than folk. young people go YAY YIPPEE

>newport folk festival 25th 1965 (five days later) bob plays with an electric band (later to be known as The Band) to Outrage from folk purists who thought he was their god etc. someone shouts 'judas' at the stage implying he was betraying folk music by going electric and that guy must absolutely shit himself every time he remember that he did that because goddamn. pretentious twenty-somethings who hadnt even liked folk music before bob dylan get mad at him, old folk singers are mad at him, popular myth says the famously pacifist pete seeger threatened to cut the power cable with an axe. everyone is Big Mad except like a rolling stone goes hard and people who care a bit less about Proper Folk Music think its a banger

>highway 61 revisted comes out and bob dylan is now a major sensation amongst music enjoyer everywhere, like his stuff is really really cool, new and exciting, also decidely Not Folk but like really very cool. bob also starts smoking weed and taking speed b/c ofc he does & if you look him up he looks like twelfth doctor with the sunglasses and the hair and i'm right on that

>joan is still doing traditional folk music mostly. she is less than amused at bob going electric but iirc mostly polite about it. later that year she released 'farewell, angelina' an album of covers of bob's songs. a lot of them are Very Good, all sung with much more skill than bob could ever hope for sorry bob. which is like. Damn Okay Joan Thats A Move but it was probably finished before newport.... idk..........

>england is suddenly like OMG BOB DYLAN????????? at around 1964/65 but it takes a long time for music to get over there b/c the british music industry had a thing about only selling uk artists so american records were special import it's a whole thing. so people are just getting his famous folk stuff riiiight as he changes his mind about that and starts doing rock music instead, though still with a very poetic bent

>on a related note uk albums were often released differenet in north america to 'appeal to american audiences'?? so the version of the beatles rubber soul that inspired bob dylan and like lou reed and Everyone is kinda of.... wrong...... its weird

>bob n joan's relationship is kinda strained at this point, due to musical differences and yknow relationship stuff, not helped by the fact that bob could be a bit of a prick and was also quickly accumulating A Legend around him. not helped by his insanely cryptic and often nonsensical interview responses.

>at some point in the middle of all this bob marries Sara Lownds in secret. no one knows. he doesnt tell joan. he's not With with joan anymore but she didnt know he was literally marrying someone else. apparently sara wasnt really a music person and didnt know exactly why he was so famous.

>1966 uk tour (this is filmed in d.a. pennebaker's DONT LOOK BACK (no apostrophe. cos dont & look & back all have four letters so it fits on a poster and the apostrophe would muck up teh symmetry also they were all really fuckin pretentious)). bob is playing mostly electric sets with The Band (known then as the Hawkes) which was A Choice To Be Sure

>some people love it but all the folk purists think he's awful and bad and terrible boo him offstage etc which is pretty terrible

>he starts taking a lot of drugs. music gets Weirder. he's kinda not doing too good

>joan shows up partway through the tour and its......awkward....... to say the least. he'd kind-of-not-really-ish broken up with her & then got married to someone else but she just inserted herself in there. idk why. the whole of dont look back he's kinda dismissive of/rude to her ngl

>meanwhile his Mythos has built to uncontrollable levels. he doesnt exactly help this b/c he's very clever with words so people would obvious find meaning in his lyrics, and when he spit nonsense in interviews people would often find a method in the madnes yknow?? like he's smart. he's also really weird. but people have started reading WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much into EVerything he says and does. like everything. like idek what a modern comparison would be. gaylors have nothing on this shit. understandably he gets pissed off at people asking stupid questions

>joan has a girlfriend at this point also. like yeah in a lesbian way. she says she's straight but she did have a girlfriend her name was kimmy

>blonde on blonde comes out in '66. its his most......... 60s album if you know what i mean. like its lots of drugs and lots of instruments and plays on words and its very good, big double album, he's looking super hip on the cover, songs rumoured to be about edie sedgwick, the whole shebang. the lyrics are inspiration for batshit insane theories for decades to come even though a lot of it likely is just in there cos it sounds cool and rhymes.

>includes the song 'sad eyed lady of the lowlands', which is about sara. joan thinks its about her and says so. bit awkward. its a beautiful song and bob never plays it live, it was recored at like three in the morning and the band didnt know how long it was gonna be etc etc lots of myth

>in november 1966 bob dylan has a motorcycle acciedent near his home in woodstock new york state and is in hospital. music enjoyers everywhere Very concerned. he's okay, and after this more or less disapears from public life for a bit. has a bunch of kids. just chilling in the countryside. does a bunch of jamming with The Band, lives of royalities etc. tries to avoid people mostly. this mysterious disapearance combined with blonde on blonde fuels a lot of theorising by fans which he thinks is stupid

>in just five years bob did more musical innovation than most muscians could ever hope to, and he Never WOuld Have been Famou s WIthout Joan.

>joan is getting even more involved in activist work as the vietman war drags on and on. still doing folk music. she has electric instruments in her stuff eventually but still in a definitively Folk Style. she plays at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, she got married too, doing lots of activism stuff, everyone still really likes her music. 1969 bob relases his country album which most people (bob included) think is kinda trash

>1972 joan releases 'to bobby' (she called him bobby a looooong time after everyone just called him bob). which is. Wow. its uhmmm. well. it's a song beseeching bob to come out of retirement and help out with the anti-war cause. lots of musicians though that is he wrote a good new anti-war song it would really help the cause like he used to in the early sixties. bob was pissed at this like relaly annoyed he though she was being far too presumptuous and i really gotta agree with him there like dude's been through enough.

>1975, bob's been back touring for a year -ish. he decide's he gonna put together the ROLLING THUNDER REVUE which is pretty much him & all his friends who are also folk.country.rock whatever you wanna call it musicians and they go arund a whole bunch of little venues and generally have a good time. lineup includes joni mitchell robbie robertson roger mcguinn emmylou harris, a very cool violin player called scarlett (i think) allen ginsberg the poet who had a gay crush on dylan in the sixties, the blonde guitarist from ziggy stardust AND JOAN BAEZ :D there are like ten people on the stage at once and loads of guitars and various string instruments etc and they redo all these dylan songs in new and exciting ways.

>they film some of it to make this move called Renaldo and Clara. i havent seen it (yet) but its like a semi-fiction semi-documentary film about the tour and also some sort of plotline they string together from somewhere idk. joan is in this film too. from what ive seen there are some uhh. some fairly OUGH scenes, on top of bob n joan singing together on stage all the time. there s clip of bob saying that he n joan could sing together in their sleep. she is still a wayyyy better singer than him but his voice is really good these years and they way they do the songs together is veeeeryyyyy cool. theres a scene in the film where bob says (and i quote) 'it really displeases me that you went off and got married' (OUT OF NOWHERE MIGHT I ADD) and joan says 'you went off and got married first and didnt tell me' and he doesnt really have an answer to that. like GODDAMNIT BOY

>there another scene where there was a bit of a script but joan went off and said something like 'do you know why we never couldve got married?' and bob was apparently bad at improv so he wasnt saying anything and so joan just kept talking going through all the reasons why they never got married and all the issues between them. On Camera. like damn.

>also in 1975 joan's album Diamonds & Rust comes out. the title track is one joan wrote herself and it is Very Clearly about bob and its uhhh a little bit scathing. also very very good. generally regarded as one of her best songs. awkward as you can imagine. 'my poetry was lousy you said' 'we both know what memories can bring / they bring diamonds and rust' 'you burst on the scene already a legend'

Now you're telling me You're not nostalgic Then give me another word for it You who are so good with words And at keeping things vague 'Cause I need some of that vagueness now It's all come back too clearly Yes, I loved you dearly And if you're offering me diamonds and rust I've already paid

LIKE GODDAMN JOAN OKAY

>bob gets divorced from sara in 1976? 77? idk that happens too. i think joan gets a divorce too but not sure.

>theres a bit gap in my knowledge here idk what happens to them specifically after that. like i know a bunch about bob but nothing relevant rn. hes christian for a bit. makes some albums that suck and some that are good. joan still does folk music & mostly covers.

>in 2003 bob releases a memoir called Chronicles Vol. I (supposedly of three but theres only one lol). he talks about joan a bit, how could he not, describes how he was so envious of her when he was 21 and saysing 'she looked like a religious icon, like somebody you'd sacrifice yourself for'. super normal thing to say about your ex ahaha.

>2022 the rolling thunder revue film comes out (its a netflix film but also. internet archive) and they're both interviewed for it. some iconic moments. i think most interviewers sort of stopped asking joan about bob out of politness after a while but obviously she talks about him there thats what the films about. yeagh.

>joan baez like hangs out with lana del ray n stuff now & has books out or her little drawings. she also paints. and bob still tours at 82 (almost 83) years old. and still relreases new stuff. yeagh

ANYWAYS the concise history of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. sources: dude trust me ahahah no but the source is the 2022 rolling thunder film, dylan's chronicles and around a year of being obsessed with bob dylan. he was my real life old guy blorbo fr.

[francis-york-morgan]

Also finding it intriguing with how harshly York is criticizing civilization overtaking nature when in the first game he kept on insulting Greenvale for being primitive and stuff

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph, got any good old (maybe new?) bedsharing fics for a fanfic obsessed lurker?

Thanks 😘

Hey Nonny!!

Hahha! I actually just did a list recently of my old ones, but I just double-checked my offline lists and I actually DO have some fics on my next Bed Sharing list, so GUESS WHAT? Your ask is the one to start the next Bed Sharing one, LOL.

As usual, if anyone has any they’d like to add, especially if they’re brand new fics, let us know! <3

BEDSHARING Pt. 5

See also:

The Speckled Blonde / BedSharing

BedSharing Pt. 2 and Insecure Sherlock

Bed Sharing Pt. 3

Bed Sharing Pt. 4

Bed Sharing “Just Happens”

Soft. Happy. Content. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 223 w., 1 Ch. || Sleepy Cuddles, Bed Sharing, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Spooning, Morning After, Sherlock POV) – Sherlock reflects on his state of mind.

And When The Night Is Over by Simply Isnt On (K, 329 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Platonic Bed Sharing / Not Slash) – Sherlock and John sleep together.

I Knew You Loved Me by inevitably_johnlocked (T, 743 w., 1 Ch. || Morning Cuddles, Fluff, Clingy Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slice of Life, Morning After, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Declarations of Love, Pet Name, Bed Sharing, Snuggles) – John and Sherlock share a lie-in the morning after their first time. So fluffy and gross your teeth will fall out. Part 4 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Sleep Tonight by Jenn1984 (T, 1,220 w, 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Bed Sharing, Worried Sherlock, Sick John, Hugs/Cuddles, Touch Neediness) – Fingers begin prying open his jacket looking for a wound and John would really like to swat at them. No, he's not hit anywhere, he's just damn sick.- John Watson has a fever.

Loved. by inevitably_johnlocked (G, 1,231 w., 1 Ch. || First Sherlock POV, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Nose Kisses, Morning After, Love Confessions, Morning Cuddles, Emotional Sherlock, Sentiment, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock reflects on his relationship with John. Part 5 of I-J's Tumblr Ficlet Collection

Here to Stay by MockJayPhoenix12 (K, 1,574 w., 1 Ch. || Post Reunion, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Headache, Bed Sharing, Care Taker Sherlock, Hand Holding, Fluff) – On Sherlock's first day home, John wakes with a migraine.

The Perfect Place by SilverSmile (K+, 1,955 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Romance, 5 and Ones, Fluff, Experiments, Bed Sharing) – Sherlock attempts to find the perfect place to sleep, but his little experiment proves to be far more difficult than expected.

Insomnia by TheSingingGirl (K+, 2,635 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Humour, Bed Sharing, Sleepy Sherlock) – Sleep is merely the next frontier in what has become the battle to keep Sherlock alive. It's because of this that John ends up in bed with a sociopath.

Human Body Pillow by Lunavere (K, 4,122 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Sleepy Johnlock, Bed Sharing) – A story about the five times John fell asleep on Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock fell asleep on him.

The Myth by AGirloftheSouth (M, 4,329 w., 1 Ch || Sex Toys / Anal Beads, PWP, Romance, Bottom John, Prostate Stimulation) – Sherlock believes something to be a myth. John proves him wrong.

When We Sleep by PrincessNala (K+, 6,660 w., 1 Ch || Post-TGG,  Alternating POV, Bed Sharing, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Hugs) – Sherlock needed to feel every beat of his heart, every rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. It was the only way to completely assure himself that John was alive and right there next to him, and not dead, no, never dead…

To be loved by Strange_johnlock (E, 12,436 w., 8 Ch. || Post S3, Established Relationship, First Person POV Sherlock, Pet Names, Soft Sherlock, Mild ADHD, Protective John, Captain Watson, Body Appreciation, Bottomlock, Rough Sex, Travelling for Holidays, Introspection, Sherlock Loves John So Much It Hurts) – John is so deeply integrated into the work, both as my conductor of light, and as a great shot with a vicious right hook who tackles men -and women- no matter their size all in my defense. He protects me with all he can without question, and this loyalty is surely more than I deserve. Or: Sherlock is counting his blessings.

There's So Much Labour Just in Breathing Lately by Susan (E, 12,708 w., 1 Ch. || Post-TRF / Mentions of S3 Events, Romance, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Grieving John, Mutual Pining, Meddling Mycroft, Therapy, Ambiguous Hopeful Ending, Infidelity) – The dreams he hated most – the ones that left him a sweating, shaking mess when he woke – were the ones in which Sherlock was just Sherlock. Laughing or drinking tea. Sitting across the table from him at Angelo’s eating pasta. Trailing his open hand behind him on the way to the bedroom. “C’mon, John. I’m about to have my way with you.”

Kintsugi by distantstarlight (E, 14,772 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Regret / Remorse, Loneliness, Separation, Drug Use, Healing, Protective John, Sad Sherlock, Dev. Rel., Complicated Relationships, Love, Angst With Happy Ending, Sherlock is Called Freak, John’s Penance, Voyeurism, Doctor/Caretaker John, Guilty John, Detox, Fingering, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Slight Non-Con Turns Enthusiastic Consent, Virgin Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes becomes estranged from the man he had once considered his best friend after John lets him down horribly in public. It seems that the world's only consulting detective will be on his own once again...or will he?

The Burning of the Leaves by blueink3 (M, 15,915 w., 3 Ch. || Post S4, Angst, Reichenbach, Parentlock, Past Jolto, Idiot John, Sherlock’s a Mess, Puppies, Fluff, Possessive / Jealous Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Sherlock POV, Matchmaker Sholto, Melancholic Feelings, Emotional Sherlock, Domesticity, Love Confessions in the Rain, Kissing in the Rain, Pet Names, Panic Attack) – After the events of series 4, Major Sholto invites John and Sherlock to lunch one day. It nearly proves to be too much for their tenuous relationship as the past haunts the present, putting the future that Sherlock so desperately wants at risk.

A Silver Sixpence by _doodle (NC-17, 16,400 w., 2 Ch. || LJ Fic || For a Case / Case Fic, Fake Relationship, Humour, Romance, Marriage Proposal, Awkward Idiots, Cuddling, Touching, Kissing, Love Confessions, Bed Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fake Until It’s Not, Schmoop and Fluff, Bottomlock) – “John, we need to get married. It’s for a case, not any romantic notions on my part pertaining to our partnership,” Sherlock said, with brutal honesty, and without even looking up.

Division by MrsNoggin (E, 19,542 w., 11 Ch. || Coffee Shop AU || First Kiss/Time, Fluff, Barista Sherlock, Clingy Sherlock, POV John, John’s Limp, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Sleepy Cuddles, Sensuality, Touching, Virgin Sherlock, Insecure John) – John likes mysteries. And every morning he dips into the local independent coffee bar with his newspaper and ponders another... one Sherlock Holmes.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

Insanity in the Middle by DotyTakeThisDown (E, 28,010 w., 8 Ch. || Equestrian Sports AU || Alternate First Meeting, POV John, Pining John, Bottomlock, Clueless Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Passionate Kisses, Hand Holding, Caught Making Out, Bed Sharing, Spooning, Blow Job) – John is a world-class eventing rider with a gold medal and several four-star wins to his credit, but he's never won at Rolex. Sherlock is an up-and-coming rider taking the sport by storm.

A Home for Us by sussexbound (M, 30,581 w., 12 Ch. || Scars, Bedsharing, Grief, Doctor John, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TRF, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation, Heavy Emotions, Clingy Sherlock, Hallucinations, Disassociation, Emotional Turmoil) – He has been on the road for two years, and he is exhausted. He’s almost accepted that he will never see London (John) again—almost. But then there are nights like tonight, where he is weak, and all he can think of is the warmth of the flat they once shared, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the teasing smile playing at the corner of John’s lips, the boxes of half-eaten Chinese takeaway balanced precariously in their laps. He aches at the memory of it, at the realisation that it is something he may never experience again.

Anchor Point by trickybonmot (E, 49,856 w., 80 Ch. || Truman Show AU || Psychological Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Dark Characters / Fic, Alternating First/Third Person, Protective John, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Tender Moments, Love Confessions, Hand/Blow Jobs, Cuddling, Jealous John, First Kiss/Time) – The world tunes in nightly for Sherlock, the ultimate in reality TV: Sherlock Holmes, a real person with a legendary name, unknowingly lives out his life in a staged setting contrived by his brother. Things get complicated when a retired army doctor joins the show to play the part of Sherlock's closest friend. This fic borrows its concept from the 1998 film, the Truman Show. However, you don't need to have any knowledge of the movie to enjoy this story.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by SilentAuror (E, 50,635 w., 1 Ch. || Post-S4/S4 Divergence, Case Fic, For a Case / Reverse Fake-Relationship, Conferences, Marriage Equality, Travelling / New York, Pride, Homophobia, Bottomlock, Marriage Proposal, John POV, Sexuality, Love Confessions, Emotional Love Making, Public Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Passionate Kissing, Needy/Clingy Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Touching / Hand Holding, Bed Sharing, Little Spoon Sherlock, Intense Orgasms) – John and Sherlock go to New York to attend a conference run by the National Defence of Traditional Marriage Coalition in order to investigate the potential bombing of the annual Manhattan Pride parade. As the conference unfolds, John finds himself repulsed by the toxic ideology being presented, which becomes relevent to his own unacknowledged issues and his friendship with Sherlock...

A Goose Quill Dipped in Venom by Polyphony (M, 52,748 w., 16 Ch. || Celebrity John AU || Alternate First Meeting, TV Host John, Supermodel Mary, Character Death, Mystery, Romance, Case Fic, First Kiss/Time, Meddling Mycroft, Drug Abuse, Doctor John, PDA, Deductions, POV Sherlock, Toplock, Sexual Tension, Angry/Rough Sex, Hopeful Ending, Asperger’s Sherlock) – Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is called in to a very ordinary although brutal murder. Something is badly out of tune with the whole scenario and Sherlock finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the crime - and also with the victim.

Isosceles by SilentAuror (E, 56,609 w., 7 Ch. || Post-S4, POV John, Original Male Character / Sherlock Dates Another Man, Love Triangle, Jealous John, Virgin Sherlock, Sexual Coaching, Angst, Romance, Domesticity, Unrequited Feelings, Miscommunication, First Kiss/Time, For a Case, Friends With Benefits, Bottomlock, Love Confessions, Spooning) – After solving a case for a major celebrity, Sherlock gets himself asked out. When John asks, he discovers that Sherlock has no intention of going, at least not until John agrees to coach him through whatever he might need to know for his date...

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love,  Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

Repairing the Broken Things by BakerTumblings (M, 75,252 w., 15 Ch. || S4 Compliant, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Hospitals, Big Brother Mycroft, Misunderstandings, Realizations, Severe Accident, John Whump, Pneumonia, Medical Procedures, Bed Sharing, First Time, Healing, Happy Ending) – "I'm calling today to notify you that there's been an accident."

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

Gold Rush by ShirleyCarlton (E, 71,783 w., 17 Ch. || Post S3 / No Mary, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Past Sexual Abuse, First Kiss, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Alternating POV, Switchlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Marriage Proposal, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abduction, Anxious/Insecure Sherlock, Miscommunication, Emotional Lovemaking) – John has divorced Mary and pops round to 221B one evening to find Sherlock in the middle of a case. As Sherlock tries to find the identity of a young woman’s stalker, John realises he can no longer deny his feelings for Sherlock – which then, to their befuddlement, turn out to be mutual. Shy kisses and tentative embraces ensue. But will Sherlock be able to cast off a shadow from his past that he thinks might prevent John from wanting to stay?

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater /  Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

Kintsukuroi by sussexbound (E, 91,823 w., 20 Ch. || S4 Compliant / Post-TLD, Grief / Mourning, PTSD, Internalized Homophobia, Therapy, Past Abuse, Alcohol Abuse, Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Anxiety, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, Cuddling, Suicidal Ideation, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Sexting, Frottage, Inexperienced Sherlock, Rimming / Anal / BJ’s, Emotional Turmoil, Finding Each Other) – “I love you.” Sherlock sees the words hit John with almost physical force. He reels back a little, jaw twitching and eyes filling. “I love you,” he repeats, a little softer, a little more gentle, as earnest as he possibly can. Because they’ve been teetering on the brink of this thing for years, and it had become painfully obvious over the last few months that they were at a tipping point. This had to happen. Now it has. Now they can see where they end up. The tears in John’s eyes spill over, and he wipes at them angrily. “Do you even know what that means?”  

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU ||  BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

The Bang and the Clatter by earlgreytea68 (M, 137,049 w., 37 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Baseball AU || Slow Burn / Dev. Rel., Possessive/Obsessive Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Mutual Pining, Body Appreciation, Depression, Closeted Sexuality, Family, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Ogling Each Other, Anxious Sherlock, Panic Attack, Drunkenness, Talk of Forever, Big Feelings™) – Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU. Part 1 of Baseball

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[deimosatellite]

ok slams my little hands on my desk. idk where the thought first came from but ive been thinking a LOT about ash and arthur’s like, interactions and i recently finally read private opinion and i was like damn. tiny ash lowkey looks like arthur? so lowkey i was like wait a goddamn minute... what if when ash was younger he used to look up to arthur as a kind of older brother figure and being victims of the same person and same type of abuse together if arthur ever like, acted as an older brother/somewhat took care of ash to a degree? of course this is assuming arthur is only like, what, 2 or 3 years older than ash lowkey i dont know HOW old he is but apparently thats the case maybe? also idk if it was actually explicitly stated that arthur went through the same stuff as ash but i feel like it was always at the very least heavily implied idk but like. 

so in private opinion when ash is what 14 BEFORE he meets blanca he already knows like. basic self defense and how to beat the shit out of adults so im wondering like who taught him to defend himself bc he was really young when he went to new york and i was like wait a minute, what if arthur is the one who taught ash basic self defense, it would make sense with how arthur is obviously a skilled fighter but at the same time ash later had the edge of having been taught by blanca at 14 and arthur didnt, making ash then have the upper hand there

ofc i think by 14 they hadnt been getting along already bc i think thats referenced in angel eyes iirc but like, it makes sense that they would grow apart what with this 14 year old receiving the respect and protection and support systems(to any degree, of course he didnt have Much) while arthur had like. nothing wouldve fucked him up i think which ofc isnt really a good reason for arthur to become like That but also it makes a lot of sense, with how he acts in his jealousy for ash’s success, seeing that they went through the same stuff but ash has like. so much going for him lol 

this is also just like. so tragic to think about too bc from ash’s point of view having someone going through the same thing and being someone to look up to turning into the same type of person as their abusers would be like. so goddamn horrific and in general i wish more wouldve been explored on ash’s feelings towards his own violent tendencies (of course not to anything near the same degree as arthur’s) but like. a. jesus christ anyways thats that lol maybe ill analyze more of this sometime but wow ! that shit hurts

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Pete Buttigieg’s decision to drop out of the race two days before Super Tuesday has hurt Sen. Bernie Sanders in our primary forecast. Sanders’s chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates fell from 28 percent to 23 percent. And the likelihood that no candidate gets a majority rose slightly from 59 to 64 percent. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s majority chances were unchanged.

Sanders is still the favorite to win a plurality of delegates, but those chances dropped slightly too, from 63 percent to 60 percent, while Biden’s plurality chances increased from 34 to 36 percent.

Buttigieg himself had almost no chance of getting a delegate plurality or majority, according to the model, so these changes purely reflect the effects that his dropping out has on the other candidates.

At first glance, this might seem counterintuitive. How does a candidate dropping out increase the likelihood of no majority? Shouldn’t it clear the field up and make it easier to achieve a majority?

The key is in how the Democrats’ delegate math works. The rules require candidates to receive at least 15 percent of the vote, typically, to win delegates statewide or at the district-level.

Buttigieg was projected to get under 15 percent in the vast majority of states and districts on Super Tuesday. Thus, his votes were essentially wasted. Redistributing his votes to other candidates will help them to meet the 15 percent threshold, however. In particular, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg were both close to the 15 percent line in many states or districts. So even an extra percentage point or two would help them get over that line in more places. For instance, both Bloomberg and Warren were projected to finish with an average of 14 percent of the vote in California before Buttigieg’s dropout. Now, they’re forecasted for 16 percent instead.

Biden was also projected to finish under 15 percent in some states and districts — so Buttigieg’s dropout helps him out also in a few places. Biden went from a projected 14 percent of the vote to 16 percent in Minnesota, for example.

Conversely, Sanders was already projected to get 15 percent almost everywhere. So although he will pick up a few Buttigieg voters, they don’t necessarily translate to more delegates.

How does our model decide where to assign Buttigieg’s voters? As described here, we use a series of priors based on the positioning of the candidates on ideological and other dimensions. These are not purely based on left-right ideology either. For instance, the model recognizes that both Buttigieg and Warren tend to appeal to college-educated voters, and thus they share some voters despite their ideological differences.

The model also considers the overall popularity of each candidate. So because Sanders is currently the most popular Democrat in the field, he’s likely to pick up some of Buttigeg’s support too.

Overall, the model has Buttigieg’s support being divided relatively evenly between Warren, Biden, Bloomberg, Sanders and — in the places where she’s strong — Sen. Amy Klobuchar. That seems broadly in line with polls, which are somewhat inconsistent about where Buttigeg’s support will go.

Of course, neither the model nor previous polling of the race consider the context in which Buttigieg dropped out, which comes amidst an increasing effort by moderate Demoratic voters and party leaders to get behind Biden. If his voters take Buttigeg’s dropout as a signal that they should switch to Biden, there’s more upside for BIden than our model implies.

And overall, Buttigieg’s dropout contributes to the uncertainty surrounding what will happen on Super Tuesday. There were already a lot of challenges in assessing the current state of the race following Biden’s dramatic surge in South Carolina — but this adds yet another complication. Although the model may point in broadly the right direction — this is not great news for Sanders — this is one of those times when we mostly just have to wait and see what happens.

[frostironficrecs]

Hi! i was wondering if you could rec frostiron fics where loki's lips are sewn shut? this has been eating at me for so long my pal you don't even KNOW

alright i have ttwo fics/series for you from my bookmarks, bc i didnt exactly know how to go looking for this? so i went through my bookmarks and found some, and then tried to do the same in the tag (i got three there), but idk how successful i was

basic warning for this list! theres probs some torture and violence. if youre not good w stuff that, i really do suggest you just. skip this list. cause its. probs gonna be bad.

Stepping Stones Between the Stars (series)- JasperMoore, T, No Warnings/Chose No Warnings (Warnings for: Implied/referenced rape and torture)Aliens have invaded planet Earth. New York has been nuked. And Tony Stark… Well, he’s not in Kansas anymore. i only recently discovered this series, But Fuck Am I In Love With It

A Chance Worth Taking (series)- SecurityBreach, Not Rated, Chose No WarningsWhen Thor, his friends, and his younger brother Loki visit Anton’s workshop on Asgard, the smith is shocked to see that the rumours about Loki’s recent torture are true. this series is actually very very sweet, i forgot abt that

Spiral Instances- Aris, T, Chose No Warnings/Rape/Non-Con/Underage/Domestic AbuseWhen Tony Stark meets Loki Laufeyson, he was still going by Loki Odinson. lots of angst. lots. and the lip sewing in this one is much more implied than anything. (btw nothin bad happens between loki and tony, would i really do that to you guys? no, i wouldnt)

Unpicking- Aris, T, Chose No WarningsWhen Loki can’t help himself, he comes to Tony. more the aftermath of the lip sewing than anything. and the relationship is very very implied here, like. imo its barely there lkshdf

Climb Atop My Walls- sunshineglow118, E, Chose No Warnings (Warnings for: Past Rape/Non-Con, Past Torture, Past Child Abuse (and just so everyone is prepared since it doesnt show up in the others) Mpreg)Tony Stark is the mother that everyone didn’t ask for, but got anyway. And it all started with the end of the New York incident. Tony knew that there was something wrong with Loki; from the broken body he walked on Earth with to the lip sewing incident that he was now in.Now, Tony finds himself facing off a god who is more broken than ever, pregnant and is confused on his relationship with a certain green-eyed god. But he promised that he would protect Loki from everything.Tony Stark rarely knows when he is doing something good, but this, helping each person find their way home and to happiness, he knows he’s good at that. i’ll admit this isnt one of my fave fics but its still good nonetheless

[lovebunnie]

nick carraway and jay gatsby are both gay and heres why

its 11:30 at night and i have class tomorrow but ive been itching to make this post for about a week so im gonna do it. this wont be centered as much around jay and nick being in LOVE, since id have to read and analyze it a bit more to make honest to god claims and opinions for that, but these r some of the reasons that point to both of these characters being completely gay. also, im going to be issuing some points from others sources, but ill include links to the original texts which i recommend reading!

1

so the great gatsby was written in 1925, a time full of alcohol, financial bliss, and parties like u would not believe. many of these themes are prevalent in the novel, making themselves known all throughout. even the term ‘gatsby-like’ is extremely well known. needless to say, this book is extremely well known in every front. one of the ones i saw the most was calling the great gatsby ‘the greatest love story ever written.’ and before i read the novel myself, i wouldnt have been able to tell u any different. but when u read it, and really, how u analyze it, really shapes how u see the characters. to some people, it really could be an amazing love story. but to me, this story is written about someone obsessed with a facade, denying himself who he is, and a man who watches his downfall and can do nothing to stop him.

one very important thing to acknowledge is how this novel is told: its told completely in nicks perspective. we only know how he feels, we only know these characters based on how nick sees them. it is immediately biased towards nick. and what he does is describe a hell of a lot of people. but it is very distinctive in the way he does it; men and women are very differently described.

nick describes daisy in her voice and the power it has over people. all of nicks flowery language goes into daisys speech, but not in great length about what daisy looked like. with jordan, nick does a bit more describing in the way she is ‘small-breasted’ and had the ‘shoulders of a young cadet.’ these traits are masculine, and we know from the novel that nick does enjoy jordans company and he does say he ‘enjoys looking at her.’ hell, even the name ‘jordan’ is traditionally masculine. nick sees jordan leaning more towards masculinity than femininity. but even still, the flowery language is not as grand as it could be, not as we know nick can get.

its when nick is describing men that things get bold and expressive. even while describing tom does nick go into great and intimate length with him;  ‘ He had changed since his Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding boots could hide the enormous power of that body he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage -- a cruel body’ the author of this paper literally said this passage ‘pulses with sexual energy,’ and this is for a character nick doesnt even like. it obviously means more in the way nick describes him, has more heart and passion put into it.

and now gatsby, who nick, in the final chapters, dwells on even more. we know gatsby is attractive, that much we can tell without nick even really having to describe him. but even in a single paragraph about his smile does it provoke more feeling than anything else about daisy or jordan;  ‘ He smiled understandingly-- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you might come across four or five times in your life. It faced --or seemed to face-- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.’

like. damn nick. this is only about gatsbys smile. this was no accident or cruel twist of fate; nick is enamored with jay and obviously finds him attractive and also enjoys looking at him, like jordan. nick sees men and women differently. this could be chocked up to ‘it was the olden days’ and ‘sexism,’ but nick isnt rude to these women, nick is simply not interested in them, at all.

but how do we know nick is gay? wheres the textual proof? its written out word for word, you just have to know where to look. and where to look is at the very end of chapter 2.

so chapter 2 does a lot for the plot; it basically introduces nick to the life these people live and makes him see how unappealing it is. we meet a large cast of characters and expand on others, like myrtle, her sister, and most importantly to the subject of nicks sexuality, mr. mckee.

mr. mckee is described as a ‘pale feminine man’ and nick offhandedly describes the smudge of shaving cream on his cheek. weird right? later in the night, nick describes himself as ‘ Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.’ nick has been LOOKING at this married man all night and cleaned him up when he was messy like come ON. plus, a ‘pale feminine man’ could very easily be a stereotype of a gay man, especially in the 1920s.

but then comes the most important part about nicks sexuality in the entire book: the ellipses.

the great gatsby is relatively short, only about 200 pages or so, give or take. fitzgerald would not include anything he wouldnt need, as he is also an expert in metaphors and making things seem as they are not. everything is masterfully placed and paced, making it seem to flow like water. 

the scene in question describes mr. mckee and nick on an elevator, leaving the party. mr. mckee walked out, leaving his wife, and nick decided to follow. heres the scene:

Come to lunch some day,” he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.

“Where?”

“Anywhere.”

“Keep your hands off the lever,” snapped the elevator boy.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. McKee with dignity, “I didn’t know I was touching it.”

“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”

. . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.

“Beauty and the Beast . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . . Brook’n Bridge. . . . ”

Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, and waiting for the four o’clock train.

LIKE. WHAT.

those ellipses separate the time between nick and mr. mckee on the elevator and nick and mckee at his home, with one in underwear and then nick leaving for the train at 4am. there is a large gap of time missing from this, and nick decided to leave it out while fitzgerald decided to keep it in. it means something, and the use of ellipses gives the audience enough to know what is happening without explicitly telling them. it is the authors ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ to the audience. think of the environment nick was in; tom was cheating with myrtle, the heavy metaphor of the eyes watching over the sins we think no one can see. this party was full of mischief and nick fucked a married man.

mckee does not seem intoxicated, he invites nick out to lunch while gripping the elevator handle, which are always objects shaped like dicks. plus in the novel, the scene does feel somewhat out of place; nick does not spend too much time discussing the interactions between mckee and himself, it seems thrown in. i get the impression that nick almost didnt want to include it it his writing, and put it in last minute. however, nick is fictional and i dont have much to go on off from an almost 100 year old book. its open to personal interpretation, but it seems like nick and mckee had sex and nick left on the 4am train, leaving mckee in his underwear at his own home looking through his pictures.

even at the beginning of the novel, nick is planning on living in a house with another man before the plan falls through and he goes to washington dc. could this be a failed boyfriend? we cant say. but it is a possibility.

nick carraway ends the novel mourning his friend jay gatsby, moving back to the midwest alone and away from the glitz and glam of new york. his ending does not involve getting married and having kids and riding off into the sunset, which seems bittersweet for our narrator. however, given the way things planned out for other characters, this is the best ending we could hope for for nick, one away from the destruction and one where he can at least begin to to to be happy again.

and now we move onto jay.

ill admit, this has little to do with textual evidence; i cant point out a place where jay fucks a dude or describe the way jay sees men and women; with nick being our narrator, again, he only know his perspective. but we do hear things about jay from other characters, how he acts and acted before nick and the type of man he is.

wolfshiem describes jay as ‘ very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.’ this means that jay knows women and knows when to back off, never advancing on someone he had no claim to. this is very important to me for several reasons.

1. it implies jay is not a cheater

2. it implies jay has been around enough women to know who is who

3. it shows jay is respectful

this also says to me that jay is not bi; he only has eyes for daisy, and not other woman. and those eyes for daisy are questionable.

we know daisy and jay had last seen each other 5 years prior to the events of the novel. in that time, jay had collected numerous things about daisy, built a house just so he could see her, and blew thousands of dollars every weekend for parties in hope that daisy would show up, even obtaining money illegally just to impress daisy.

jay gatsby is obsessed with daisy.

this is obvious from the text, the behaviors he puts forward are strange and creepy in pursuit of daisy. gatsby stares longingly out the window, cant hold a conversation with nick, and flat out bolts out of a restaurant to avoid embarrassment. he is an awkward guy, no doubt. and he lives his life as trying to be someone else, specifically, the man he thinks daisy wants from 5 years ago. when the car crashes with myrtle, all gatsby cares about is how daisy feels; when hes literally about to get ganked all he thinks about is daisy, daisy daisy daisy.

this isnt love, and i think deep down, jay knows it. this is the equivalent of dudebros who go above and beyond to prove they arent gay but end up the most gay of them all. gatsby is compensating for his feelings and trying to push the limit to deny himself more and hide back into the closet. he wants to seem the most manly he can get and basically say ‘wow i love women! i love women so much! look what i did for this woman! look at how much i love her!’

daisy is the first person jay felt he could be himself around, could begin to feel happy. and when he went to war, he no longer had something to push all his feelings onto. plus he was surrounded by other men, and for someone so in denial about their own sexuality, it probably drives them to pretty bad places. pretty obsessive places. he needs daisy, not because he loves her, but because he needs to security blanket. he needs to feel validated.

those glaces and stares out at nick feel like cracks of the real jay poking through, one who likes men but cannot admit it to himself. after all, as a man so attached and desperate for the ‘american dream,’ back in the 1920s, that did not include marrying a man. jay lives with internalized homophobia and tries to calm his nerves with his pretend love of daisy.

i could go on and on about this forever but its 12:30 and i have class.

if u take nothing from this, let me leave u with these main bullets:

TL;DR

nick fucked a dude

nick describes men erotically while he describes women very dully

nick almost lived with another man

jay is obsessed with daisy to repress his emotions

the separation and wartime made things worse for him

his internalized homophobia causes the plot

his longing stares out the window at nick are cracks in his facade

ty and goodnight

[niteskolar]

“RACISM IS EVIL,” declared Donald Trump on Monday, “and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” OK, “declared” may be too strong a word for what we heard from the president. “Stated” is perhaps a better descriptor. “Read out” might be the most accurate of all. Trump made these “additional remarks” with great reluctance and only after two days of intense criticism from both the media and senior Republicans over his original remarks blaming “many sides” for the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. The words were not his own: they were scripted by aides and delivered with the assistance of a teleprompter. The president reserved his personal, off-the-cuff ire on Monday for the black CEO of Merck, not for the white fascists of Virginia. Much of the frenzied media coverage of what CNN dubbed “48 hours of turmoil for the Trump White House” has overlooked one rather crucial point: Trump doesn’t like being forced to denounce racism for the very simple reason that he himself is, and always has been, a racist. Consider the first time the president’s name appeared on the front page of the New York Times, more than 40 years ago. “Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City,” read the headline of the A1 piece on Oct. 16, 1973, which pointed out how Richard Nixon’s Department of Justice had sued the Trump family’s real estate company in federal court over alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act. “The government contended that Trump Management had refused to rent or negotiate rentals ‘because of race and color,’” the Times revealed. “It also charged that the company had required different rental terms and conditions because of race and that it had misrepresented to blacks that apartments were not available.” (Trump later settled with the government without accepting responsibility.) Over the next four decades, Trump burnished his reputation as a bigot: he was accused of ordering “all the black [employees] off the floor” of his Atlantic City casinos during his visits; claimed “laziness is a trait in blacks” and “not anything they can control”; requested Jews “in yarmulkes” replace his black accountants; told Bryan Gumbel that “a well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market”; demanded the death penalty for a group of black and Latino teenagers accused of raping a jogger in Central Park (and, despite their later exoneration with the use of DNA evidence, has continued to insist they are guilty); suggested a Native American tribe “don’t look like Indians to me”; mocked Chinese and Japanese trade negotiators by doing an impression of them in broken English; described undocumented Mexican immigrants as “rapists”; compared Syrian refugees to “snakes”; defended two supporters who assaulted a homeless Latino man as “very passionate” people “who love this country”; pledged to ban a quarter of humanity from entering the United States; proposed a database to track American Muslims that he himself refused to distinguish from the Nazi registration of German Jews; implied Jewish donors “want to control” politicians and are all sly negotiators; heaped praise on the “amazing reputation” of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has blamed America’s problems on a “Jewish mafia”; referred to a black supporter at a campaign rally as “my African-American”; suggested the grieving Muslim mother of a slain U.S. army officer “maybe … wasn’t allowed” to speak in public about her son; accused an American-born Hispanic judge of being “a Mexican”; retweeted anti-Semitic and anti-black memes, white supremacists, and even a quote from Benito Mussolini; kept a book of Hitler’s collected speeches next to his bed; declined to condemn both David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan; and spent five years leading a “birther” movement that was bent on smearing and delegitimizing the first black president of the United States, who Trump also accused of being the founder of ISIS. Oh and remember: we knew all of this before he was elected president of the United States of America. He was elected in spite of all this (yet another reminder that “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn’t a deal-breaker”). Some had hoped that Trump would be moderated by office; there was much talk of a presidential pivot. It was all utter nonsense and wishful thinking from lazy commentators who have found it difficult to cover, and call out, a president who regularly traffics in racially charged rhetoric while surrounding himself with an array of race-baiting advisers. Since entering the Oval Office, Trump has appointed Steve Bannon — former executive chairman of Breitbart News, which has stories tagged ‘Black Crime’ — as his White House chief strategist, and Jeff Sessions — who was once accused of calling a black official in Alabama a “nigger” — as his attorney general; he has claimed, without a shred of evidence, that millions of immigrants “voted illegally” for Hillary Clinton; and, perhaps most shocking of all, he has publicly and repeatedly belittled Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has claimed Native American heritage, as “Pocahontas.” This is Racism 101 from a sitting U.S. president. And it is the stark and undeniable truth, and key context, that is missing from much of the coverage of the political fallout from Charlottesville. Journalists, opinion formers, members of Congress, and members of the public continue to treat Trump as they would any previous president — they expect their head of government to come out and condemn racism with passion, vigor, speed, and sincerity. But what do you do if the president is himself a long-standing purveyor of racism and xenophobia? What then? Do you still demand he condemn and castigate what is essentially his base? Do you continue to feign shock and outrage over his lack of shock and outrage? Yes, the U.S. has had plenty of presidents in recent decades who have dog-whistled to racists and bigots, and even incited hate against minorities — think Nixon’s Southern Strategy, Reagan and his “welfare queens,” George H.W. Bush and the Willie Horton ad, and the Clintons and their “super-predators” — but there has never been a modern president so personally steeped in racist prejudices, so unashamed to make bigoted remarks in public and with such a long and well-documented record of racial discrimination. So can we stop playing this game where journalists demand Trump condemns people he agrees with and Trump then pretends to condemn them in the mildest of terms? I hate to say this, but it is worth paying attention to the leader of the Virginia KKK, who told a reporter in August 2016: “The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes, we believe in.” So can we stop pretending that Trump isn’t Trump? That the presidency has changed him, or will change him? It hasn’t and it won’t. There will be no reset; no reboot; no pivot. This president may now be going through the motions of (belatedly) denouncing racism, with his scripted statements and vacuous tweets. But here’s the thing: why would you expect a lifelong racist to want to condemn or crack down on other racists? Why assume a person whose entire life and career has been defined by racially motivated prejudice and racial discrimination, by hostility toward immigrants, foreigners, and minorities, would suddenly be concerned by the rise of prejudice and discrimination on his watch? It is pure fantasy for politicians and pundits to suppose that Trump will ever think or behave as anything other than the bigot he has always been — and, in more recent years, as an apologist for other bigots, too. We would do well to heed the words of those who have spent decades studying this bizarre president. “Donald is a 70-year-old man,” Trump biographer David Cay Johnston reminded me in the run-up to his inauguration in January. “I’m 67. I’m not going to change and neither is Donald.”