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centrally-unplanned · 4 months ago

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I know, I am really on a "mocking Tyler Cowen" kick, I will move on from this soon. I just think the ways he is failing these days is very symptomatic of the zeitgeist faux-intellectualism and the ways thinkers are struggling to slot into an openly anti-intellectual movement.

He starts with "USAID is probably good", but in a very compliment-sandwich way. You taught me what a Straussian read is my dear Cowen, so when your "it is good" section is two lines of link dumps, and the rest of the piece is criticism, I am getting the message. So let us set that part aside and dig into those criticisms:

To be clear, I consider this kind of thing to be scandalous. And I strongly suspect that some of the other outrage anecdotes are true, though they are hard to confirm, or not

The link is to the think tank The Urban Institute putting out a donation call because 1/3rd of its budget is from the Federal government. Which is scandalous...because...uh, why? It is the Urban Institute. They analyze government policy for hire. Their biggest customer is the government. What the fuck? Their latest research - just chosen randomly, top of the list - is an impact evaluation of a program to help at-risk youths graduate high school. Is that bad now?? Does Tyler Cowen no longer think impact evaluations of policy are good??

Imagine describing consulting firms this way: "Oil Well Advisors has hit significant headwinds now that Exxon Mobile is suspending all outside contractors", is that a scandal? Or just absolutely normal behavior for industries with large institutional clients? What is the alternative here? Does he want - in a post subtly praising the Trump Admin - the government to in-house all impact evaluations? I don't disagree that they should do more but, uh, read the room buddy?

I know I am harping on this point but I really wanna emphasize how much of a bad writing call this is - taking an actually insane position (orgs specializing in government contracts shouldn't exist lmao) and because it is so indefensible you instead just handwave it as obvious so the audience maybe doesn't notice. Very cringe.

Okay, moving on:

It does seem Nina Jankowicz and her work received funding, and that I find hard to justify. It seems to be evidence for something broken in the process.

The money went to her work with the Center for Information Resilience, which does investigative reporting on war crimes like in the Ukraine War. Maybe her project sucked, I don't even know, but come on. This is incredibly normal behavior for USAID.

Or how about funds to the BBC?

You mean the BBC Media Action charity, which trains journalists and helps build out mobile & communication networks in developing countries? Should the US build 100% of its own orgs and never fund effective, international partners from US allies? Is that a coherent foreign policy goal I can just wave my hands about and never explain because it is so obvious?

He then goes into the "reforming USAID" angle:

The Samo piece is excellent. For one thing he notes: “The agency primarily uses a funding model which pays by hours worked, thus incentivizing long-duration projects.” And the very smart Samantha Power, appointed by Biden to run AID, “…is in favor of disrupting the contractor ecosystem.” Samo also discusses all the restrictions that require American contractors to be involved. Here is a study on how to reform AID, I have not yet read it.

Which is totally fine, I agree if I ran USAID I could totally like boost efficiency by 50%. I bet a lot of spending is inefficient. But why are you pretending that the current admin is, in any way, aiming for technocratic reform?

Why bother bringing this thread up? That isn't what they are doing! It isn't relevant.

I love this classic trick:

According to the very smart, non-lunatic Charlie Robertson: "My data suggests US AID flows in 2024 were equivalent to: 93% of Somalia’s government revenues, 61% in Sudan, just over 50% in South Sudan and Yemen" While I do not take cutting off those flows lightly, that seems unsustainable and also wrong to me as a matter of USG policy. Those do not seem like viable enterprises to me.

You can think whatever you want is wrong, your call. But unsustainable? All of USAID is half a percent of the federal government. Payments to Somalia are a rounding error. This is the definition of sustainable! You could run this forever and never even notice.

But okay, maybe you mean like it is creating a culture of dependency or somesuch, not the same thing but I will humor you. Let's look at the latest USAID impact assessment of their work in Somalia:

Oh whoops, looks like our ability to even evaluate programs has been stripped away by the current admin's mass purging of databases like impact assessment reports! Fortunately I have the Wayback Machine, so I can get around this:

"Culture of dependency" this money went to food and clean water for starving people. You can say whatever you want about priorities and all that shit. That it is "unsustainable". But if someone doesn't do this then some of these people die. I notice "let them die" does not appear in your bloodless discussion of "aid dependency". Maybe we should cut aid because they will be forced to get their state together and be better off in the long run. I understand that logic, I really do, you can make that case.

But fucking say it. Say "let them die" to my face. Man the fuck up.

Alright, last one since this is going on too long:

There are various reports of AID spending billions to help overthrow Assad. I cannot easily assess this matter, either whether the outcomes was good or whether AID mattered, but perhaps (assuming it was effective) such actions should be taken by a different agency or institution?

I love this one because it is a peak "attack of opportunity" moment. At the beginning of this very post he says this:

Here is a Samo analysis...The Samo piece is excellent.

The linked piece, by the Samo Burja, is this:

The piece, to clarify, explains that USAID is not an aid agency, but fundamentally an extension of US foreign policy and conducts itself to achieve foreign policy goals. That this is its explicit, stated purpose. And Tyler Cowen says it is a great piece.

And then proceeds to say that pursuing those goals in Syria should maybe be at a different agency because that isn't "aid".

Bro you don't give a rat's ass about that! You just wanted to score points, you don't care about this at all. It was just on the list, you didn't even think about it, you just said something that sounded plausible. It is pathetic, you don't have to comment on every headline if you don't have a hot take. Just post a meme instead like a normal person.

But he does have to comment, because this post exists to ingratiate himself to the vibe shift. It as transparent as it is embarrassing - it is so limp-wristed, saying things like "the 'Elonsphere' on Twitter is very much exaggerating the horror anecdotes" when their most viral claims are just naked fabrications. Come on, man. You used to be better than this.

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jennelikejennay · 11 months ago

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One thing that bugs me about the way Vulcans are usually depicted (with some lovely exceptions) is that their philosophy—logic, or the teachings of Surak, for short I'm just going to call it Surakianism—is very often shown as a bad thing. Either that, or Vulcans aren't following it at all.

Writing about religion (and I do think Surakianism is best approached as a religion*) is always fraught. Because generally as a writer, you don't actually practice the faith in question, so naturally you'll have an outside view. That's doubly true of Surakianism, a way of life humans basically can't follow and it would probably be bad for us to try.

[*I know they don't call it a religion. But the way it deeply affects the interior life of Vulcans, their ethics, and so on feels very religious to me. It doesn't seem to have a position on theism; Vulcans get their beliefs about god(s) from elsewhere, such as traditional Vulcan polytheism and their own perceptions of the universe. But the way it exists as a social structure AND a guide to the inner self is absolutely religious to me.]

We are told that Vulcans developed this philosophy specifically because they needed it—they were destroying themselves without it! Their emotions were overpowering and violent, and they were clannish to the extreme. So despite what most of the human characters say, especially Bones, I think the path of logic is a good thing for Vulcans, even if humans don't get it at all.

Surak's teachings can be summed up into three basic points (a Vulcan somewhere just raised an eyebrow clear into their bangs at this oversimplification, but I'm doing my best here):

1. Logic, or the use of reason as a guide and the control of emotions

2. Nonviolence

3. IDIC—infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

Of course we only ever hear about the first one, because that's part humans notice. I'd say it was like reducing Catholics to fish Fridays and Mormons to underwear, but that's exactly what people do, so I guess it's understandable.

But I think the ordering goes the other way for Vulcans. First, acknowledge that others are of value, including and especially when they're different from you. Then, do them no harm. And finally, to achieve that goal, control your wild, violent emotions.

People imagine pre-reform Vulcans a lot of ways (and I never get tired of reading about them), but I think the best guide as to what they're like is by looking at Romulans. Romulans aren't wildly expressive with their emotions, we're certainly not talking about people who would otherwise be laughing and crying constantly. Instead, they're secretive and carry long, hateful grudges. They're loyal only to those closest to them, and they seem entirely without empathy otherwise.

Imagine the Vulcan emotions are like that. They have strong bonds to their clan, probably in part because of their telepathy. They're suspicious of outsiders, angry, prone to violence. Preferring the familiar is an instinct in humans too, but a mild one. Certainly humans have been and still are racist, but it's something we can generally overcome. I'm not sure the Vulcans could, not by relying on their emotions.

So they came up with the solution to control their emotions completely. Use reason instead as a guide to behavior, because logic will tell you that your own clan is not more important than another, and that reaching out in peace is beneficial to yourself and others. Don't give your emotions any credence and don't let them run wild.

Humans do some of this ourselves, and should arguably be doing more. We spend a huge chunk of our childhood learning to control antisocial impulses like screaming, hitting, and biting. We demonstrate self control in many tiny, unnecessary ways, in order to show to others that we are in control of ourselves: stuff like etiquette, social rules, even just leaving the last cookie on the tray for someone else. These are signals that say I am not governed by my appetites; I can be trusted to consider the needs of others.

And we could obviously be doing more. Too many political questions are being answered by people's emotional, knee-jerk responses like "I feel threatened by people who are different" or "I am angry about my enemies and want them punished" instead of "what produces the most benefit for everyone?" If we leaned more heavily on logic and reason to get us our answers, we'd make way better decisions than we do. Star Trek doesn't often acknowledge that in real life, making a snap gut decision doesn't actually have a very high success rate. Logic gives you better odds of saving the day.

But, you might say, Vulcans aren't doing very well at any of this. A heck of a lot of them that we've seen are racist. And while they repress their emotions just great, they don't actually make the most logical decisions most of the time.

But I don't think this actually discredits a religion at all. We all know Christians who are great at the easy parts of their religion—learning Bible verses or saying rosaries—but don't seem to be even trying to love their neighbor. That's in fact the way religions are usually practiced! External elements that people can easily see (like never smiling) are adhered to by social pressure, but more heart-level things are aspirational at best. That doesn't mean the message of a religion is bad; it doesn't really tell us anything.

This is especially true for a religion whose practice isn't optional. You have to follow Surak to stay on the planet. I can see this rule was necessary during the time when the Romulans were kicked out—pacifism doesn't work as a global solution unless everybody's doing it. Now, it seems a bit harsh. I think they get around it by not exiling anybody who's at least giving lip service to logic. That racist baseball guy in DS9 isn't a good Vulcan, but as long as he doesn't do anything violent or openly reject Surak, they're willing to say he counts.

Why are Vulcans so often the opposite of what their religion teaches? I think it's the other way around: their religion focuses specifically on their chief faults: clannishness, racism, ego. It just hasn't successfully transformed everyone. Makes perfect sense, really. We might as well ask why Christianity goes on and on about sex when humans are well known to be super obsessed with sex. Well that's WHY! It's one of our strongest impulses which in the past we felt the most desperate need to control.

The best argument against Surakianism is that total repression isn't the best way to handle emotion, that we need self-awareness of our emotions before we can account for them.

To which all I can say is, don't you think Vulcans know that?

I imagine there are lots and lots of viewpoints on this among Vulcans. Some favor repression and some favor understanding and acceptance; some think it's okay to have a little dry humor and some think we should be serious. We have the kolinahri who believe in the excision of all emotion (which I imagine is universally seen as extreme, like we might see cloistered nuns or monks who reject the world to achieve enlightenment). And surely there are ancient, wise Vulcans who deeply understand all their emotional impulses and are completely in control of them. Spock certainly seems this way by the movie era if not before: he knows that he has emotions, what they are, and how to respond to them. He has overcome the emotion of shame. So he seems not impassive on the outside, but a person at complete peace inside and out.

I just feel like we could stand to see more good Surakians, who are good not in spite of their belief in logic, but because of it. Kind of like how we see both good and bad followers of the Prophets on Bajor. I'm kind of anti religion myself, but I still want to see it given its due—especially a religion founded on such good principles. Sure, it's not a religion humans can really practice, nor need—a good half of our emotions are positive and pro-social, so it's no wonder a person like Bones would be convinced Vulcans are just punishing themselves unnecessarily. But it successfully turned Vulcan from a planet so violent it almost destroyed itself to a home of peace and learning. Of course Vulcans aren't going to mess with what works!

That has been my rant about logic for today. I highly recommend @dduane 's book Spock's World for a much deeper dive into logic and the path Vulcan took to get there.

#star trek #vulcans #vulcan culture

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wirewitchviolet · 7 months ago

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That thing about 'the arc of history bending towards justice...'

I'm pretty sure I've gone on about this before, and I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir, but I just had a well-intentioned acquaintance try to give an inspirational speech about American trans people's fears right now, and his heart was in the right place, but all his facts were wrong, in some really important ways. I feel like the perspective he has is the same one as... basically every decent person who isn't like, intimately familiar with WPATH, so please spread this around, and please if you only read one rambling history lesson from a trans person about the current state of things, make it this one.

So here's the big problem. Trans people get brought up in the mainstream media a LOT these days, but the framing is totally wrong. The impression people get is that there is presently a big push for new trans rights, where we want proper government recognition, and trans women in particular want to be able to use public women's restrooms, and play on girls-only sports teams, and a dozen other things. That is a lie you are being fed. These are all rights we ALREADY HAD, for decades. Possibly centuries depending what we're talking about specifically and where we're talking, even. The big issue right now is that a bunch of bigots just woke up one day about 10 years ago and decided that nothing else they were angling for was getting them anywhere with the general public, so hey let's make a boogieman out of this minority of a minority nobody knows the first thing about and act like all the horrors they're inflicting are just them enforcing some totally fictional status quo.

Speaking personally, I can say that The Trans Agenda in like 2014 was something like: 1- I'm gonna make a nice big pot of chili. 2- I'm gonna maybe replay some old video games from the '90s I haven't taken down off the shelf in a while. And OK maybe 3- It'd be cool if it weren't just the medical professionals who specifically specialize in trans stuff had enough of an education to know that when there's a difference in how a drug is going to effect men vs. women, it's for reasons directly tied to the levels of various hormones, or would at least trust their trans patients to know what we're talking about and not give us the wrong doses of things and maybe kill us as a result. And also like, treat us for regular things like broken arms (real example) without weirdly panicking about some prescription we're on they don't recognize.

There was absolutely not a point where some trans woman started petitioning the government or whatever to let her pee in a toilet with a little placard of a stick figure in a dress in front. We've just been doing that the whole time. Nobody's ever had a problem with that. You didn't know we were in there? OK. If I'm like at a restaurant and have to use the bathroom, I don't know how many of the other women in there have like, type O blood. I also don't care, and I think everyone would agree it was weird if I suddenly did care, and demand they post a guard out front asking to see driver's licenses. Just completely out of the blue some nutcases from the UK started foaming at the mouth and writing weird tabloid articles about their completely unfounded fears that... I don't even know. Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs might put on a wig and follow them into the bathroom, dose them with chloroform, and drag them to some basement dungeon through some series of secret passages or something.

This was based on literally nothing at all, to be clear. Like, people pushing for this went and did serious research for anything even anecdotal to back them up on this, and didn't actually find anything. Then they started walking into public restrooms with cameras throwing doors open on people and going "see? See? Some creep could totally do this if we don't ban trans people from using bathrooms!" And... somehow this got traction? I figure it's because coincidentally there was this whole other thing going where people were looking at how every building had equal numbers of men's and women's rooms and saying "you know, like, 90% of people who come in here are the same gender and we end up with really long lines, what if we just took the signs down and told everyone to just use whichever?" which... when it's happening at the same time Chicken Little is ranting and raving about the boogieman wearing a cheap wig, wires got crossed? And suddenly we've got waves of legislation passing all over about who's allowed to use what bathrooms with weird standards that'd involve like DNA tests to actually enforce properly. Absurd stuff.

Meanwhile, your average trans activist at the time was just like... sitting there eating a sandwich and going "huh, they're making a TV series based on Fargo? That's an odd thing to happen out of the blue. And yeah we started going "hey, what the hell?" when this stuff started passing because like... yeah that's what you do when you see an article in the local newspaper that says you can't go to the bathroom at work or whatever without swabbing your cheek and waiting for lab results for 3 weeks first or whatever.

Same deal with sports. Major sports organizations like the Olympics have been weirdly paranoid about men pretending to be women since 1950. And there have been, to the best of my ability to research... zero men who have actually done this. And while the weird standards used for this have been used to kick a good number of women out over the years, none of those women have been trans, for what that's worth. Really, the whole gender testing thing has only ever been used for horrifying stuff like forcing women to strip in front of random creeps, or let them do "invasive internal exams" and of course so many incidents where some woman who isn't white wins at something and people move the goalposts to in some way to get her specifically banned. You may be thinking, "wait didn't I just see a whole bunch of news coverage about someone getting banned after some gender testing thing? She was trans right?" No. You're thinking of Caster Semenya. She's a woman. A cis woman. F on her birth certificate, born with standard issue female genitals, has periods, all that. People are just being weird racists there and crossing the streams with random transphobia. That and just... half-reading stories and making stuff up.

To the best of my knowledge, the total count of trans athletes who have competed in the Olympics would actually be... three nonbinary people, who so far as I can tell all competed against people with the same gender they had on their birth certificates, nothing done medically, so, nobody should have any problem there. Caitlyn Jenner, who didn't come out as a woman until like... 40 years after competing, on the men's team, and Laurel Hubbard, the first and only trans woman to compete at the Olympics as a woman, who placed... dead last, flubbing all three of her lifts.

If we just look at sports in general, OK, there WAS one big famous where a trans woman wanted to compete in a major sporting event, was banned from it, took the organizers to court over it, and the eventual ruling was there was no reason at all she shouldn't be allowed to play against other women. Renée Richards. And this was all the way back in 1976. Nearly 50 years ago now.

And of course in more recent years, again, after a bunch of random bigots just completely out of the blue started losing their minds about trans people with no prompting and started lobbying for new laws banning us from all kinds of things nobody had had a problem with us doing forever, there was Mack Beggs, a trans guy, who was forced, by one of those aforementioned baffling reactionary new laws, to compete on his high school's girl's wrestling team. He didn't want to be there, they didn't want him to be there, but the law said hey, F on your birth certificate, we're classifying you as a girl despite how clearly wrong that is. And then there's been a bunch of other weird cases like that like one state banning trans girls from playing any sports with other girls which only affected one single girl in the entire state, who was playing lacrosse on a team that wouldn't have even existed if she hadn't personally organized it.

But the point here is, trans people aren't asking for anything here. We're just standing here, and people are flipping out and banning us from doing all these things without any prompting. And hell, I THINK this one got shot down in higher courts, but when Florida got the brain worms on this and started passing all the anti-trans legislation they could think of, they actually included a ban on us just standing there! The wording was something like (and I apologize that I can't find it, search engines are useless now), "if a child can potentially see someone who was assigned male at birth who is wearing women's clothes, it's considered sexual assault."

It's important to understand what's actually going on here, both because what's going on here is just plain terrifying, but also because there is this huge segment of the population who has this weird idea that people's rights only ever get better, there's just some weird arbitrary ratcheting where you have to take a number and get in line. Like, "hey, used to be only white men could vote, then eventually the Progress bar filled enough that we let white women start voting too. Then we had to wait for it to fill up again, hey, we're ending this whole segregation of black people thing. Gotta give it another 30 years or so to fill up, now hey, gay people can get married! Don't be impatient trans folks, you just need to stay in line and wait for it to fill again for your turn!"

That's not how anything has ever actually worked. It would frankly be absolutely insane if it actually did, but like, this is an idea people get in their heads because history textbooks really like to gloss over all the stuff that makes the country look pretty bad and promote this whole "stuff is just always getting better!" vibe. But no, sometimes, things just straight up get worse for people. Ten years ago I could go to the damn bathroom, I could have social media accounts, I could access all the medications I need to live, I could safely set foot in any given state in the country... at least if I kept some witnesses around at all times to verify I was not in fact hitting on my would-be murderer in any of the black states on this map.

The problem is NOT that with Trump in power, the pause button is getting hit on trans people climbing towards some state of finally getting to be regular people. We were (largely) already there, and there's been a huge push over the past decade to strip that away from us. And Trump plus the rest of the Republican party in general have made very specific promises to make that way worse real real soon, including several things that will straight up kill a ton of us.

Like, when I'm talking about losing access to necessary medical treatments, I'm not talking about "THE SURGERY" and magic pills that give you boobs or beards. A lot of trans people are trans because there's weird medical stuff that in addition to messing with what does and doesn't grow mess with things like whether your blood flows properly and whether various organs do what they should. Just one of those many things the average person doesn't know, because everything written about us is from deranged bigots making crap up.

#trans #transgender #politics #civil rights #education

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 9 days ago

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We (as a society) keep pathologizing normal human behavior and experiences, and it's a really big problem.

Everything unpleasant is automatically called "trauma". Do you have something that you're interested in? You're autistic and that's a hyperfixation. How about a favorite food, a daily routine, or any kind of social awkwardness? That is also autism. Are you a five-year-old boy who has trouble sitting still all day? Did you go stir-crazy when the government locked everyone inside their houses during covid? Here's your ADHD diagnosis, now shut up and take the pills. No one has "stage fright" anymore, it's always "social anxiety", because anyone who feels anxious has an anxiety disorder. Are you still sad about your grandma dying even though it happened over a month ago? You have depression, here's some more pills. Are you a boy who likes pink? Are you a girl who likes sports? Does it feel weird that your body is changing during puberty? Gender dysphoria, the hormones and/or puberty blockers start in a week and the surgeries will start next month. Was someone mean to you? They're obviously a narcissistic sociopath. You don't want to have sex with strangers, or before marriage? You're either on the asexuality spectrum or a brainwashed, prejudiced, unhealthily-repressed moron. Did your parents not let you do whatever you wanted when you were a kid? Did they disapprove of a life choice you made as an adult? They're controlling and abusive; you should cut them out of your life and never talk to them ever again.

(To be clear: I'm not saying that no one actually has depression/autism/etc. PTSD is a very real thing. But people making fun of your interests during middle school does not give you PTSD.)

It's encouraging people to see themselves as helpless victims. It's enabling the crybullies. It's turning what could have been brief episodes into lifelong struggles, because when you're told something is a disorder and it won't go away, you start to believe that it can't go away, and so it never does. It's spreading social contagions like crazy.

The real problem is our obsession with having problems.

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

You are absolutely 100% right.

This applies to poverty, too, I've noticed. And "oppression". Being oppressed, mentally ill, and poor is how modern left wing ideologies define virtue. And they define sin as trying to improve those states through any action other than violent revolution. So you end up with a whole bunch of miserable, angry young people being encouraged to commit violence instead of trying to improve their lives (which is very possible, usually with a minimal effort too).

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brf-rumortrackinganon · 15 days ago

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I have a hypothetical question what would happen if it was discovered meghan & harry

A- have no children

B- came from surrogacy

And then they say the Palace knew all along but said nothing?

Would this break the trust of the people towards the Monachy?

Because I've got this tinhaty feeling even Prince William (as a King one day) won't be able to stop their ongoing pr drama.

I know this is a hypothetical ask but let me be clear: I do not tolerate the inviskids theory here and I will not be addressing that part of the ask. If that's something anyone wants to tackle for the anon, you're welcome to do so someplace else.

Well the main thing is that this is unprecedented. As in no one knows what would happen because it's never happened in modern royal history before. There's what the BRF could do or should do, but it's only is speculation. We don't know what they would do because they've never had to do this.

There's a couple of different issues about children borne by surrogacy. I'll focus only on the issue about the line of succession since that's the most important one.

Quick sidebar: There are two kinds of surrogacy, gestational and traditional. Gestational surrogacy is when an embryo created from the genetic material of the mother and father is implanted in another woman to carry and give birth. Traditional surrogacy is when a woman uses her own egg and is artificially inseminated by the father through IVF. A couple who conceives their own embryos through IVF and which are later implanted in and carried to term by the wife are not using a surrogate. The controversy with the Sussexes is the alleged use of a gestational surrogate - Meghan's egg + Harry's sperm implanted in Woman B to carry to term and give birth to.

Where the line of succession is concerned, there are two legal questions: is the child of the royal's body (meaning is the child a natural legal descendant of the royal parent) and is the child born of the lawfully wedded wife (meaning did the royal wife give birth to the baby)?

According to the British legal interpretation of the line of succession, both questions must be answered 'yes' for the child to be entered into the line of succession. The latter (of the mother's body) It's why members of government (and the court before that) used to be present during the royal birth; to bear witness to the birth and to ensure that the child wasn't switched. (The practice of government officials being present at the royal births ended in 1948 when future-Queen Elizabeth gave birth to future-King Charles and in its place is the current modern practice of doctors present at the birth certifying and attesting to the birth.)

If the Sussexes used a gestational surrogate or if Harry is not the biological legal father of his children, then by law, the child should not be in the line of succession to the crown and if the child is, the BRF should remove them as soon as it has been legally and factually confirmed.

Then there's the follow-up issue: who knew what when? (And I think I've talked about that here before, but I'm too lazy to search for it.)

Did Elizabeth know? Charles? William? When did they know? How long have they known? Did any other family members know? Did any staffers/grey suits know? If they did, who did they tell? When did they tell? How much did they know? Did they know everything? Or did they only know rumors?

The longer people knew about the Sussexes' use of a gestational surrogate and the more information they knew about it, the worse it will be - this absolutely is a case of "the coverup is worse than the crime."

Will it shake public trust in the monarchy? Honestly, I have opposing thoughts.

On the one hand, yes, absolutely, because this is tampering with the LOS. Harry will bear the brunt of anger - by the press, the public and other members of the BRF - so kicking him out of the LOS too along with the children will be the first step to repairing the public trust, followed by taking all the titles. Charles will get pulled into it and how bad it gets for him will depend on how long he's known and what exactly he knows, and when he learned what he knows. Charles, however, is insulated by two factors: 1) all this happened while The Queen was still in charge, so he can deflect criticism onto her (but he'll still get flack for 'why didn't you do something when you became king') and 2) Harry's own statements that Charles no longer speaks to him and has never spent time with the grandchildren, which Charles can deflect by saying 'see, I knew it was wrong and thusly stayed away. William will also be affected, but I foresee it being more of a bumpy ride for William since he made very public steps as early as possible to separate his family/office/household from the Sussexes - from booting them from KP to kicking them out of the foundation - plus we have Meghan's complaint on record that the then-Cambridges didn't really do anything with them.

Is this an abdication crisis-level shaking of public trust? I don't think so. It'll be bad, but I think it's more 'reckoning with Diana's death'-levels bad than abdication crisis-bad, where if the BRF puts their heads down and does solid hard work for a few years with no scandals or little minor ones, they could probably come out of it relatively unscathed just in time for Prince George to take his place as the new Royal Heartthrob in his 20s (yes, I felt icky writing that).

Buuuuuuuut on the other hand...maybe not. There's already a lot of speculation about how the Sussex kids came to be. There's no public affinity for the kids. The BRF has never met the kids. William and Kate don't speak to the Sussexes and have never spent considerable time with them. George, Charlotte, and Louis probably don't even remember good/fun times with Harry and I doubt they spent any time around Meghan. Charles has it on record that he doesn't speak to Harry either and Harry has it on record that he doesn't speak to Camilla. The Sussexes aren't receiving or using taxpayer funding. So it's entirely possible that all the BRF needs to do is cut off the rotten branch at the right time and they come through with some minor scrapes and bruises (versus beaten to a bloody pulp).

But note that I said "at the right time" too. If there's no Charles-Sussex reconciliation and William takes the titles because they've been exploiting the monarchy for personal profit shortly after he becomes King and then it comes out later that a gestational surrogate was used and William then consequentially takes them out of the LOS, then I don't think it will be as shattering to public trust. Controversial, yes. Crisis, eh, maybe not.

But if it's revealed/confirmed there was a gestational surrogate tomorrow, Charles waffles on what to do, and public outcry grows louder and louder for a week (like what happened when Diana died), and then Charles finally takes the titles and/or kicks them out of the LOS, that's more of a crisis and not one that I think Charles's monarchy and Charles's image will ever overcome.

But that doesn't mean the drama is over - the unintended ripple effect means it'll be that much harder and that much more intrusive on the Waleses kids when they begin having their own families. There's going to be an enormous burden of proof on George, George's wife, and Charlotte to prove that their children are of the body in all the ways it legally matters. I don't think we're going back to the days of government ministers on the other side of the curtain/doorway, but possibly a lot more media scrutiny, maybe even more paparazzi photos.

There was a time when I thought that the BRF could excuse all of this and absolve Harry by deflecting it onto Meghan and having her bear all of the responsibility for this - as in Harry didn't know anything, Meghan kept him at arm's distance through the whole pregnancies, but the Netflix docuseries and then Spare squashed that because both 100% implicate Harry.

I do think now that the BRF's strategy - or at least Charles's strategy, if it came down to it - is to deflect all of it onto both Harry and Meghan by pointing to the Sussexes' very public complaints that they were abandoned, no one really talked to them, no one really visited, by creating plausible deniability that they were even around the Sussexes that much in her first pregnancy to think anything was amiss. (There's no plausible deniability for the second pregnancy - it's absolute denial because the Sussexes were in California and and they were all over there in England.)

But again, all this is what I think could happen and what the BRF should do based on what we know about their PR machine and legal precedent.

I have absolutely no idea what the BRF actually will do and how the public would respond. This is 100% uncharted territory, something we can only watch and see what happens.

#sussexes

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hungermakesmonsters · 4 months ago

Note

Just want to take a moment to congratulate you on 500 followers! You absolutely deserve it and more! I love your ideas and your writing. Can I request a blurb with a headstrong reader who is always used to fixing things herself but Billy just wants to take care of her? I like the idea of PA reader, kinda like Donna & Harvey in Suits! Maybe something like reader gets “stood up” by an Anvil client whose interest in you got Billy clear on how he feels and jealous on someone else seeing your worth?

I used to love Suits... but I never finished watching it so I don't know what happened with the whole Darvey situation but I LOVED their dynamic in the first few seasons of the show (and also just how weird and awkward it was when Max Beesley's character was going out for Donna for a while). So, yeah, this was definitely fun to write and I hope I've managed to catch enough of the awesome Donna energy in the reader character here! (Also now I'm going to have to start watching Suits again)

Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader

Story Rating : M

Warnings : [This is 18+ only, minors DNI] Smutty behaviour.

You placed his coffee and lunch down in front of him, immediately drawing his attention upwards.

"Is that —"

"A large flat white and a toasted BLT with extra sauce," you said, knowing full well how he liked to take his lunch on a Friday. By this point you were almost offended that he dared to ask.

"And have you got —"

"The research on the Collins account and the two government contracts Senator Williams wants to discuss," you interrupted as you pulled three files from beneath your arm and placed them down.

His eyes narrowed on you, mind obvious racing, trying to find something you hadn't thought of.

"What about —"

"Yes, I've had someone from maintenance fix the AC in the meeting room because I know you don't like having the Senator in your office around the good scotch."

Everything was sorted. Everything he could possibly ask of you, and he knew why — he was just waiting for you to say it. You didn't want to have to say it, because you knew exactly what his reaction would be.

But you knew Billy Russo. You knew how fucking stubborn he could be.

It'd probably amuse him to keep you standing there all day like a lemon.

After a few seconds you let out a huff.

"You do remember that I'm leaving early today, right?" You asked, drawing attention to the elephant in the room.

You weren't even sure why Billy was so annoyed that you'd gone and gotten yourself a date — he was stringing along half the women in New York, so why did it matter that you'd finally found someone who was interested in you?

"Right, how could I forget?" He said and you could hear the disdain in his voice. "I still can't believe you're going out with Thompson."

"Why not?" You asked, really not in the mood for his snarky behaviour. You both knew each other better than that.

"He just so —"

"Rich?" You offered. "Handsome? British?"

"Boring. He's not right for you, he doesn't deserve you."

You rolled your eyes. "And what would you know about what's right for me, Billy?"

The question was met with the expected silence. You'd long since given up on any fancy notion of him actually seeing you or admitting to the undeniable tension that had permeated your relationship since you first started working for him years ago.

What had once been a will they, would they, could they, had be stamped with a big red absolutely not by him and his inaction.

"Enjoy your date," he said, like he was driving the final nail into the coffin.

You couldn't remember exactly what you told him as you left his office, but it didn't matter. The pair of you argued, you always had. You'd made it clear from the start that, just because you were his PA, you weren't there to take any of his shit. You did your job and you were damned good at it — he was lucky to have you, lucky that you still wanted to work for him when there were so many other firms that would love to have you.

But you were loyal if you had one fault. Endlessly loyal when it came to Anvil and when it came to Billy Russo.

The one thing you weren't, however, was an idiot. Davis Thompson was funny, charming and rich, and sure, you might have met him through work, but you at least owed it to yourself to see where it would go.

And, where it went, as it turned out, was absolutely nowhere.

You'd been stood up before — you were a big girl, getting snubbed by a man who couldn't even bother to text was not going to end your world. (Though it might give you the urge to key his car the next time he had a meeting at Anvil.)

You got to the bar early, and you waited.

And waited.

You ordered yourself a drink, and you waited.

You gave up on him showing, but you decided to have another glass of wine because, why not? And, while you were making bad decisions, you decided to add another to the list and text Billy.

Don't go getting smug, but you were right.

It took less than a minute for his reply to come through.

He bored you that much already?

You found yourself smiling, even as you rolled your eyes.

Didn't even show up.

Despite feeling somewhat embarrassed, you knew that Billy wasn't on the other end of the phone laughing at you. He wasn't like that. Not when it came to you. (He was probably planning on keying Thompson's car too now.)

You put your phone down on the bar and ordered another drink, only half-surprised when it didn't buzz with another message from Billy. It was fine. It was Friday, he was probably busy on a date of his own. You had your wine, you were happy, you'd maybe have one more, then —

"Well, here I am. What are your other two wishes?"

In any other circumstances the bad pick-up line would have had you seriously considering throwing your drink, but you recognised the voice immediately and before you could even turn your head, Billy Russo was sitting at the bar beside you.

"Please tell me you've never used that line on a woman you actually wanted to sleep with," you said, barely biting back a laugh.

"I have," he answered, waving down the bar tender and ordering a glass of what you were drinking.

"And did it work?"

"I'll let you know at the end of the night."

"Oh, ha ha, very funny." You rolled your eyes. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Thought you might want some company since Thompson was a no-show."

For a few seconds you were willing to accept his answer, but it didn't exactly hold up under scrutiny.

"I text you literally five minutes ago; how did you get here so quick?" You asked, eyes narrowing.

"I was in the neighbourhood?"

He almost looked sheepish, embarrassed even, and you had no idea why. A dusting of pink spread across his cheeks and, for a second, he could barely even look at you.

"Okay, what the fuck is going on?" And, then when he looked at you, you felt an unsettling feeling in you gut. "What did you do?"

You'd always been good at reading him, at seeing right through him. And, right then, he had the look of a guilty man struggling to explain himself.

"Don't get angry —"

"Don't ask me not to get angry if you're going to say something that makes me angry, Billy," you warned.

He took a drink. "I might have cancelled your date —"

"You did what?"

Un-fucking-believable.

Actually, no. It was entirely fucking-believable. And that was what pissed you off the most. He'd ruined your date because of — what? Some selfish sense of jealousy and entitlement, because if he didn't want you, no one else should.

You start to move, standing only to find his fingers on your wrist.

"Wait —" he started, almost sounding panicked.

"I did wait, Billy," you said, admitting far more than you ever wanted to. "I waited for years. For you. And what were you doing? Fucking half of New York."

It was the first time you'd dared utter anything of the sort aloud, the first time either of you had openly admitted to the unspoken, unacted-upon feelings between you.

You tugged against his grip on you, but Billy held tight as you struggled against him.

"Let me go," you said.

"No," Billy answered, getting to his feet, standing in front of you. "I'm not letting you go again."

Before you could even think to question what the fuck he meant, his lips were on yours and your whole world seemed to come to a screeching halt. For a few sweet seconds, you were frozen, indulging in something you'd barely allowed yourself to dream about, but how could you trust it? How could you trust him when he was only kissing you because he'd been jealous, because he'd thought you were finally going to find happiness with someone else.

You pulled back from the kiss, enough to see the flicker of hurt in his eyes and the worry on his face.

"This better not be a game, Billy," you warned him. "I'm not one of your girls that you can pick up and drop whenever you —"

He cut you off with another kiss, his arm winding around you waist and pulling you against him. And you let him. You allowed yourself to melt into the warmth of his body, you fingers gripping his shirt at his waist, just beneath his jacket.

"No more games," he muttered against your lips. "I can't lose you. I won't. I'm sick of pretending that I don't want you — that I don't love you."

Your heart stuttered, knowing the weight that that word bore for Billy. He'd never used it when talking about any of the other women, and you knew it wasn't the sort of thing he'd say without meaning it.

Still, you couldn't bring yourself to say it back. Not yet, not when some part of you still ached over his treatment of you.

"Take me home," you said, daring to hope that this wasn't just some pipe dream that would vanish the moment he'd had you in his bed.

Not that you made it as far as his bed.

He'd taken you by the hand a pulled you out of the bar, into the cold New York air — his car was park a block over, it should have been a quick, short walk if it hadn't been for you pulling him back for another kiss. Then, before either of you could think, you found yourself in an alleyway, pressed back against a wall as Billy kissed you.

Years of tension quickly came to the fore, your fingers gripping his jacket, his shirt, his hair — anything you could get hold of, anything you could use to keep him close. And all the while, he kissed you. You couldn't get enough of him.

Things quickly reached boiling point, your fingers tugging at the fastenings of his pants while he lifted your dress. There was no slow build, no teasing foreplay, once you'd freed his cock, you found yourself lifted and —

"Fuck," you moaned against his lips, "fuck, fuck, fuck — Billy."

He buried himself inside you in a single fluid movement, stopping when every inch of him was hilted.

His forehead pressed against yours as you both stilled, already breathless, and both entirely overwhelmed.

"Billy," you said in a low whine, your fingers gripping his hair.

His eyes opened and he looked at you through the gloom of the alley.

"I love you," he said softly, like he'd finally realised the gravity of the situation.

He started to move with slow but deep thrusts, not quite making love to you, but doing all he could to show you that this meant something. He alternated between kissing your lips and your neck, and you found yourself leaning into his every touch as pleasure started to coil inside you.

Your legs tightened around his waist, keeping him close, never wanting to let him go. And when you came it was with four little words.

"I love you too."

#500 follower celebration yay #billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo x female reader #billy russo imagine

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scoonsalicious · 11 months ago

Text

Unsatisfied, Pt. 2

Pairing: Bucky x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: After game night, Bucky promised to ruin you come morning. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.

Warnings: Language, adult themes, Explicit Sexual Content: Minors: GTFO; I don’t serve your kind here (FaceTime sex, hand stuff), Pocket still not being over her trauma, mentions of past injury.

Word Count: 4.5k

A/N: Hi, besties!

It's me, ya gurl, with Part 2 of the post-Unwanted one-shot that's become a three-shot, lol! I fucking missed the absolute hell out of these two, and I'm so happy to be back with them for a little bit. Writing for Pocket and her Bucky is just like... I don't know. It's like I'm not even making stuff up, just channeling it, because it comes so easily, unlike literally everything else I try to write. I can't say when I'm going to resume WFLT. To be perfectly candid, I might put it on extended hiatus while I work on other things that seem to come easier right now. I don't know yet. I just want to be up front with everyone.

Here's where my attentions are currently focused: Finishing Unsatisfied, an untitled collab with @mrsbuckybarnes1917, writing Hunted, and plotting Unbroken. For some reason, there is just a giant Gandalf standing between me and WFLT, waving his staff and shouting "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" I'll let you know when I whip him into the abyss. And yes, that does make me the Balrog in this scenario, and I, too, fall to my death in the depths of Moria. It's an imperfect analogy, okay? At least I'm not Sean Bean, dying all over the place.

Anyway, enjoy more Pocket and Bucky! I know I do! xoxo

“I miss you,” you moaned into the screen of your phone. Your voice sounded pitiful, even to your own ears, but you were lonely and you didn’t have the shame to hide it. Especially not from the man you were talking to.

“I miss you, too, sweets,” Bucky said with a dejected sigh that let you know your feelings of misery were mutual. “It shouldn’t be longer than a few more days, then I’ll come back home to ya, and we can pick up where we left off, yeah?”

You smiled and nodded eagerly, his promise setting your skin awash in goosebumps. ‘Where you’d left off’ had been finally, finally, coming back together after nearly twelve months of self-imposed celibacy, spending the first night together, in your new apartment, wrapped in each other’s arms, with his co—

“At least we got our bubble bath before things went fully to shit,” Bucky added, a smile playing on his lips from across the distance, as though he knew exactly where your thoughts had taken you.

“Yeah,” you sighed, remembering the feel of him, so warm and solid, against your back in the tub. After he’d kicked out your friends from the impromptu game night they’d decided to throw at your new place, and you’d gotten over your freakout when Sam had inadvertently joked about Bucky ‘cheating’ at a card game, the two of you had spent a much needed evening just in each other’s company. Intimacy, but not sex, the way your therapist had recommended, with Bucky promising to ruin you come daybreak.

Instead, though, a call had come from Fury in the middle of the night. A group of terrorists, counting some several enhanced among them, had stolen a biological weapon and were threatening to decimate the population of Shanghai unless the Chinese government gave into their demands, and so, The Avengers, Bucky included, had been called away.

You’d offered to go, just so you could stay close to him. You’d never even leave the Quinjet, you’d promised, out of the action, but neither Bucky nor Tony was eager to see you back on the field, not after what had happened the last time. Even though you’d had your last reconstructive surgery months ago, and your doctors had given you the all clear, between your boyfriend and your pseudo-brother, you weren’t leaving New York anytime soon.

That had been over a week ago. Negotiations with the terrorists had not gone according to plan, and they were probably going to have to fight it out. And as for you? You were ready to climb the fucking walls.

“How’s wedding stuff going?” Bucky asked, referring to your role as Maid of Honor in Pepper and Tony’s upcoming nuptials. “Keeping you busy?”

“Don’t you dare try to change the subject, Barnes,” you practically growled at him. “I am so fucking desperate for your cock, I swear to god–”

From somewhere off camera, you could hear a cacophony of sound– a combination of Sam and Clint’s uproarious laughter and Tony shouting “JESUS CHRIST BARNES, USE YOUR FUCKING HEADPHONES!”

Bucky’s face had turned crimson in the video call, and you couldn’t suppress the laugh that came bubbling from you as he abruptly stood up and removed himself into a darker, quieter area.

“Shit,” he exhaled as he got himself re-situated in the new, hopefully more private, space. He ran a hand down his face in embarrassment. “Didn’t mean for them to hear all that, doll.”

You laughed as you twisted a strand of hair around your finger in the way you knew he liked. “What happened to your earbuds, baby?” you teased.

Bucky reached up and pulled an airpod from his ear, looking at the small device as though it had personally offended him. “I thought they were on!” he exclaimed. “If I’d known I’d been broadcasting you for the whole fucking team to hear, I woulda gone somewhere a lot more private to begin with.”

“The whole team?” you asked, cautiously. You didn’t want to say any names, but you needed to know if he was there, too. If he’d heard you.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed, catching your meaning and lowering his voice. “Rogers is here.”

You swallowed and nodded solemnly. You hadn’t spoken to Steve Rogers since he’d made his horrible confession to you in the hospital, of the ways he’d manipulated your life to keep you and Bucky apart. All culminating in Bucky’s betrayal, your temporary death, the loss of your unborn baby.

“Are you alright?” you asked, thinking only of Bucky in the moment. It was easy for you to stay away from Steve, to ignore him– your anger toward him had far surpassed any level of fondness you’d once had for Captain America, but you knew how much harder it was for Bucky to break a bond of nearly a century. Not that you would have ever forbidden him from reconnecting with Steve, if that was what he had wanted. No, Bucky had decided on his own that some things couldn’t be forgiven. No matter how many decades of friendship might lie behind them.

“Yeah,” he sighed, though you could tell from the look in his eyes that it was harder for him than he was letting on. “It’s awkward, but if we keep it strictly to business, it’s manageable. It’s just…” He rubbed the back of his neck, and you wished so badly that you could be there to smooth the lines from his distraught face. “It’s just… sometimes he makes it hard to remember what he did.”

You nodded, feeling guilty that you were the reason the two were no longer friends. That Steve had betrayed Bucky because of his desire for you.

“Don’t go blaming yourself, sweets,” Bucky chastised you knowingly. It was like he could read your mind. You opened your mouth to protest, but he cut you off with a look. “I know how that pretty head works, doll, and I know you’re blaming yourself. Stop it. He made his own bed, now he gets to lie in it.”

“I know,” you lamented. “I just hate that you have to pay the emotional cost of his bad decisions, that’s all.”

Bucky frowned at you. “Just like I hate how you had to pay the costs for mine, doll,” he said softly. “Our actions have consequences. We have to live with them, so we don’t make the same fuck ups again.”

You subconsciously let your hand drift to your abdomen, your fingers delicately tracing over the scar that was the only external reminder that you’d been shot. Had technically been killed. Had lost a lot more than your life. You were grateful Bucky could only see you from the chest up.

“Well, this conversation took a turn,” you said, trying to get off of subjects you’d rather not dwell on. “Can we go back to talking about how fucking horny I am for you?”

Bucky barked out a laugh and god, how it warmed your heart that you could still get that reaction out of him after everything you’d both gone through. His blue eyes seemed to darken as he adjusted himself in whatever seat he was in. “If it helps, I’m horny as hell for you, too, sweetheart.”

“Oh yeah?” you asked, tugging on your bottom lip with your teeth as he nodded his head. “Yeah, hearing that does help. Show me.”

Bucky’s eyes widened through the screen. “Show you?” he breathed, clearly not having anticipated where you were about to take the conversation. “What do you mean, ‘show you’, doll?”

“I mean,” you said, leaning back against the headboard to make yourself more comfortable, “show me that pretty cock of yours, Sergeant. Take it out. Stroke it for me. I wanna see what I’ve been missing.”

You watched as Bucky’s eyes went back and forth between the phone screen and the door that separated him from the rest of the team. You could tell from the way he was gnawing at his bottom lip that he was seriously debating it, but that he had some real reservations. “Doll,” he whispered, sounding scandalized, but excited, “they’re right outside. They’ll hear me.”

You smirked at the way he’d suddenly become shy. “I wanna hear you, Sarge,” you pleaded in a breathy whisper, and from the way he closed his eyes and moaned at your words, you knew he was so close to giving you what you wanted. “Come on, baby,” you cooed. “Can’t you show Pocket that pretty pink cock she’s been wanting so badly? Can’t I watch you choke it with your big hands while I imagine my mouth wrapped around it? Pozhaluysta, Soldat?”

“Fuck,” he muttered, and you knew you’d won when he hopped up from where he’d been sitting. Though you couldn’t see it from the way he was letting the phone dangle, you could hear him lock the door. “You know I can’t resist it when you speak Russian, doll,” he said as he sat back down, propping the phone and its camera up against something so that you could see his entire body stretched out before you.

“YA rasschityval na eto, detka,” you said with a grin. I was counting on it, baby. You could see now that he was in a bedroom of what looked like a standard SHIELD safehouse. It was small– only one twin-sized bed, so you weren’t worried about anyone else barging in to need the space.

“So, how do we do this?” he asked, and you could hear the nervousness mixed with excitement in his voice. It struck you that, throughout your relationship, and all the time you’d spent apart while one or the other was away on missions, the two of you had actually never done this before. Phone sex, yeah, but never on video, together. It was going to be new territory, and it thrilled you.

“We?” you asked playfully, pretending you had no idea what he was talking about.

Bucky looked at you sternly though the screen of your phone and you involuntarily shivered under his gaze. “Don’t think for a second I’m not going to see that sweet, dripping cunt of yours tonight, doll. I’ve been fantasizing about it for ages. Got just a taste of it the other day, and it wasn’t nearly enough.”

Fuck, you could feel yourself dampen and your nipples harden just from his words alone, not to mention the memory of the brief moment on your terrace, before the movers had arrived, when he’d had his deliciously thick fingers pressed inside of you.

“Baby,” you moaned, not even realizing you were trailing your fingertips over the pebbled flesh of your breasts under your shirt, imagining his rough, calloused hands on you.

“Take off your clothes, Pocket,” Bucky growled. He didn’t ask; it wasn’t a request. It was a command, and you were ready to obey.

“Sir, yes sir, Sergeant,” you said, and you were sure you looked anything but graceful as you sped to pull your top over your head and shimmy out of the pair of cheeky panties you wore. The cool breeze of the air conditioning danced along your flushed skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

“Fuck,” Bucky groaned, his eyes following the path your fingers traced along the contours of your body. You watched hungrily as he absentmindedly palmed himself through the Tac pants he still frustratingly donned. “God, you look even better‘n I remember, sweets,” he grunted. “Better than I’ve been imaginin’ all week. How the fuck’s that even possible?”

“Buck,” you warned, your cheeks flushing with embarrassment at his obviously false praise as you turned to hide your face from his gaze. “Stop. I know you don’t mean that.”

Frowning, Bucky leaned forward, picking up the phone so he could bring his face close to the camera, scrutinizing you. “Pocket,” he said, but you refused to look at him. “Pocket!” he tried again, his voice a little firmer, but still gentle. “Why the fuck would I not mean that, sweetheart? You’re gorgeous.”

Scoffing, you rolled your eyes. It was kind of him to lie to spare your feelings, really, but you didn’t think you could take it. Not from him. Not after everything. Without thought, your hand moved to cover your bullet wound from his gaze. “Come on, Buck,” you said, your tone implying that you weren’t buying his bullshit, no matter how sweetly he was selling it, “we both know you weren’t imagining me with all these new scars.”

“Baby.” Bucky made a noise somewhere between a choked laugh and an incredulous groan. “You can’t seriously think I, of all fucking people, give a shit about a couple of tiny scars?” He put the phone down, and your view of him was obstructed for a moment while you heard the rustle of cloth. When he lifted it up again, you saw he had taken off his vest and Tac shirt. He pointed to the ruined skin of his left shoulder.

“Look at these and tell me you think I’m gonna be turned off by a coupla’ scars, Pocket,” he said, and you could detect the hard edge to his voice.

“It’s different, Buck,” you told him, your voice cracking. “You already had those scars when we met; they were a part of the man I fell in love with. You…” you hastily wiped at the tear that was suddenly threatening to fall from your eye. “Mine… mine weren’t. You didn’t get a choice in them.”

You watched as the look on Bucky’s face morphed into one of pure confusion. Of course he didn’t fully understand– you weren’t just talking about scars, after all. He… just didn’t realize that yet.

“You didn’t have a choice in them, either, sweetheart,” he said softly, eying the way your hand protectively rested over your abdomen. “And if you’re talking about the scar from when you got shot… well, fuck, if that scar’s not my favorite thing.”

You looked at him in wide-eyed disbelief. “How could this… disgusting reminder…” you choked out, “of everything that happened last year… how could that be your favorite thing, Bucky?”

“That scar means you’re alive, doll,” he told her. “That you’re still breathing, still with me, in spite of all of it. So forgive me if I think that makes it the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

You closed your eyes and exhaled, his words momentarily taking away the sting of the inadequacy you’d felt ever since the doctors had told you about the extent of your condition. It wasn’t something you were purposefully keeping from Bucky… You had just been too terrified to say it out loud. You were going to tell him. Just not yet.

"Look at me Doll,” he said, getting your attention back onto his face, “I don't like that I have to tell you this at all, but I'm gonna do it, as many times as you need, as many times as it takes for you to believe me. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

You felt your face soften, the tension of insecurity drop from your shoulders as he looked at you through the phone screen, eyes blue pools of adoration. You wanted so badly to just get lost in him, to let him consume you until you were capable of thinking of nothing but him.

“Thank you,” you whispered.

“It’s something more than just the scar, isn’t it, sweets? You’ve never been ashamed of showing me your body before.” You weren’t vain as a rule, and Bucky knew this about you. You had other scars, worse ones. Uglier ones, but none had ever bothered you the way this one had. None had ever carried the same degree of psychological and emotional baggage.

You just nodded, afraid that if you spoke, you’d reveal what you’d been keeping from him, blurt it out before you could stop yourself, and it was not the kind of thing you wanted to do over video with thousands of miles of distance between you.

“You don’t have to tell me, doll,” he said, the understanding in his voice so pure that it made you ache. “I know so many of my actions have hurt you; I get that there’s still some trust–”

“Baby, no,” you interrupted. “I trust you, I do. I want to tell you. I’m just… not ready yet.”

“Tell me what I can do for you right now, then, sweetheart,” he offered. He’d brought the phone close to his face, his gaze on you intense and burning through the screen. “What do you need?”

You exhaled, the sight of him so focused and sincere making your knees feel weak. “Just you, Buck,” you whispered, the words coming out in a breathy sigh. “I just want you.”

“I’m right here, doll.” His voice turned low, darker. A soft purr that vibrated your insides. “And I’ll be home with you real soon, but you gotta tell me what I can do for you right. now.”

You sucked in a shuddering gasp of air, indulging in the way his words swept over your body like a languid kiss. Without even thinking, you felt your hand drift down your abdomen, your fingertips dancing along the top of your thigh.

“Buck,” you found yourself whining as you squirmed your ass across the mattress, searching for any inch of friction you could find.

“Yeah, baby,” he grunted, readjusting the camera so it was once again propped up and you could see the length of him pressing against the material of his tac-pants. “Tell Sergeant Barnes what you want so he can give it to you.”

A beat of silence passed between you before you both started laughing, your hand coming to cover your face as you suppressed a snort. “Oh my god, Barnes!” you wheezed.

“Yeah, that was awful,” he laughed, palming his face in embarrassment. “Did I kill it?”

You wiped away a stray tear that had leaked from your eye in your laughter. “You’re lucky I find your bad jokes to be such a fucking turn on,” you told him with a grin.

Bucky frowned. “Wasn’t supposed to be a joke, doll,” he grumbled, a pout forming on his beautiful pink lips. “‘S supposed to be sexy.”

“Oh, I found it very sexy,” you assured him. “You make me laugh, Barnes. That’s the hottest fucking thing I can imagine. Now take off your pants.”

The look in Bucky’s eyes turned from playfully annoyed to seductively heated in the space of a nanosecond. He reached for the zipper of his tac-pants and you licked your lips at the sound of it coming undone. “Get the camera all set up, doll,” he said as he shimmied the pants down his legs. “I want to see every inch of you.”

With a grin, you propped your camera up between your legs, giving Bucky a front row seat to your dripping core. “This work for you, Sarge?” you asked.

“Fuck, sweets,” he began, palming at himself through his boxer-briefs. “Yeah, that works for me.”

“Show me,” you commanded him, bringing your fingers down to lightly trace the outer edges of your lower lips. “Show me how well this view works for you, baby.”

Bucky scrambled to pull his boxer briefs down to his thick thighs, and you watched with bated breath as his cock sprung free, its beautiful, pink tip already glistening with precum. Your entire body erupted in tingles at the sight of him. He was so fucking gorgeous, and he was yours.

“Jesus,” you hissed, bringing a hand to your breast and gently squeezing the flesh. You could feel your mouth thicken with saliva at just the idea of having him down your throat.

“Just Bucky’s fine, baby,” he teased as he grabbed a hold of himself, and you rolled your eyes. “No need to bring God into it.” Slowly, he began stroking his length. You watched in awe as he seemed to grow harder with every downward pull, the veins in his thighs bulging as he thrust his hips up against his hand. If anyone was going to be compared to God during sex, it would and should be Bucky Barnes.

“Touch that pretty clit for me, doll,” he grunted. “Pretend it’s my fingers on you, getting you all warmed up to take my cock.”

“Fuck, Buck,” you whimpered, your fingers moving frantically over your bundle of nerves. You were already soaked; just the sight of him had sent another wave of arousal gushing through you. “Want your dick in my pussy so bad, baby. So fucking bad, it hurts.”

“Soon, sweetheart,” he grunted, watching your fingers strum your clit with wild eyes. “I’ll be home soon, and I’ll fill you up so good, you won’t be able to walk normal for weeks.”

You arched your back and moaned, the memory of the way he stretched you as he entered you, opening you wider than any other man you’d ever had, flooded your mind. “Nothing fills me like you do, baby,” you panted. “Nothing hits me so deep.”

“Yeah?” he grunted, and you could hear the delicious slick, slick sound of his hand moving through the precum that soaked his shaft. “Not even those fancy toys you bought?”

Bucky chuckled when he noticed your eyes pop open and stare at him in surprise. “Oh, I know all about those, doll.” Slick, slick, slick. “Found ‘em when I was helping you pack for the move. All of them.”

You felt a blush rising to your cheeks, and if you didn’t already have your hand on your pussy right in front of him, you might have been embarrassed. “All those toys, and none of them gets me off as good as you do, Buck,” you breathed. “None of them reach that spot the way you do.” It was true– it was the one thing you had desperately searched for during your time of Bad Decisions– someone to hit that place deep inside of you that set your every nerve ending on fire, that made you shiver and convulse with pleasure with each thrust. No one had ever brought on that full body climax that left you shaking and weak like Bucky had.

“Fuck, doll,” he grunted. “No one touches your A-spot but me.”

“No,” you gasped. You loved how he knew your body so well, knew what he did to you, how you longed for his touch. “No one touches me like you, baby.”

“Put your fingers in, sweets,” he commanded. “I wanna watch you fuck yourself on that pretty little hand while I pretend it’s my cock.”

You did as he asked, bringing two fingers to your weeping entrance and plunging them inside you. They would never feel as thick or go as deep as any part of Bucky, but for now, they were all you had, so you made the most of them, driving them in and out of your cunt with abandon.

“Fuck…” you grunted as you felt the coil in your belly begin to tighten, sweat glistening off your brow. “Baby!”

“I know, pretty girl,” Bucky said between grunts of his own. “Tell me how good you feel.”

“So good, Buck,” you moaned. “So fucking good. Want you so bad, Bucky! So fucking bad!”

“I’m right there with you, doll,” he panted. “I’m so close. Gonna blow all over and imagine it’s inside that pretty pussy of yours. Gonna come home and bury myself in your cunt, sweets! Not gonna come out for days!”

“Oh shit, Bucky,” you cried, your release a hare's breath away. “Wanna cum with you, baby.” You curled your fingers inside of you, stroking your G-spot again, and again, trying to imagine it was his thick, calloused fingers inside of you.

“Just a little longer, sweetheart.” Bucky was yanking at his member now, his pace quick and frantic.

You felt yourself rising, clawing to the very edge of the precipice, but before you could hurl yourself over the edge, you accidentally hit your phone with your foot, sending it falling to the floor.

You scrambled for the phone. It had landed face-down in the dark, making it harder for you to find, but you followed the sounds of Bucky’s grunts and moans until you made contact. Turning the phone back over, you watched as Bucky, eyes screwed closed, reached his peak, ropes of cum erupting from the tip of his cock and landing across his stomach and hand.

And, as surely as if someone had doused you with a bucket of water, the spell was broken. You were painfully reminded that he wasn’t there with you. He was half a world away, still out of your reach.

You sniffled, and Bucky opened his eyes at the sound. “Sweetheart,” he began, his voice laced with concern, “what’s wrong? Did you cum?”

You hitched a breath, holding back a sob, and shook your head. “You’re not here, Buck,” you cried. “It’s not… I thought… I just want to be with you. I miss you so fucking much!” You knew you sounded petulant, like a child, but you were at your limit, truly. You wanted nothing more than to be back to normal with him. A better normal, even, now without the shadow of Carthage looming over you both.

“Oh, doll.” Bucky picked up his phone and brought it close to his face, his now flaccid cock out of frame. “Baby, I’m so sorry. Do you wanna try again? We can focus just on you. Make sure you get off nice and good.”

You shook your head, feeling the tears of frustration and longing slide down your cheeks. “No,” you

whimpered. “I think… I think I just wanna go to sleep.”

Bucky frowned at you, the look in his eyes sorrowful. “I fucking hate that I’m too far away to help you, Pocket,” he said. “I can’t stand seeing you like this, knowing you’re hurting.”

“It’s just been so long, Buck,” you whispered to him as you buried yourself under the blankets of your bed. “I feel like every time we even try, something keeps getting in our way. What if it’s the universe, trying to tell us we shouldn’t be getting back together?”

Bucky sighed, thick and heavy. “I know you don’t believe that, sweetheart,” he said. “It’s just been some bad timing; we got out of our groove, is all. I promise, things will go back to the way they were. The way they’re supposed to be.”

Not long ago, you told him that his promises didn’t mean shit to you, but now… now, you wanted to believe him more than anything.

“It’s just a little longer,” he clarified. You nodded, swallowing down any remaining tears that threatened to fall. You wanted to believe him. You needed to believe him, but the part of you that had been irrevocably broken when he’d hurt you couldn’t help but whisper that, maybe, in some way, he’d always leave you unsatisfied.

<- Part 1 / Part 3 ->

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes #mcu bucky barnes #james barnes #bucky barnes smut

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huntingpeople-savingsam · 10 months ago

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Okay so, I don’t know why this is speaking to me now but rewatching this specific scene, where Jonathan says to Nancy at the end of season 4 after both of them going through their respective season’s ordeals,

“Sorry I wasn’t here.”

He says this not because Fred died (so similar to how Barb did), not because he wanted to be there with her during Spring Break, not because he wanted to follow her journalistic hunches straight into Vecna’s childhood home, not even because Vecna tried to come for Nancy and could’ve killed her the same as the others, but because he felt guilty he wasn’t there when the Upside Down, and the entities that had taken Will, came for the people of Hawkins, with Nancy included.

It’s not that Jonathan wouldn’t have cared if Vecna or anything from the Upside Down had hurt or killed Nancy, of course he would, but Nancy in mourning? Nope. Nancy with her detective brain leading her into danger? Not willingly. Nancy being forced to confront the feelings of guilt she’s never been able to address or overcome during her entire relationship with Jonathan? Hell no.

Jonathan, bless his soul, has sadly dedicated his whole life to one thing; protecting his family and by extension, himself from the hurt of being helpless to save them. Nancy he cared for, she had similar goals to him, but she’s not a priority to him now, and frankly, she never really was.

I think this scene jumped out to me so much because he says this semi unprompted while he and Nancy are in the middle of an awkward silence together, and the response he gets is not necessarily one I think he expects either:

“To be honest, I’m kind of glad you weren’t.”

And that begs the question, what did Nancy mean by that.

She has her quick cover, but it’s clear that she meant what she’s been saying for the last two (yes, two, because it didn’t just start in season 4) seasons, that when Nancy needs Jonathan, he isn’t there.

In season 3, we first see it when Jonathan and Nancy start having arguments about work, Jonathan not supporting or defending Nancy with their sexist bosses, Nancy’s hunches jeopardizing her and Jonathan’s jobs when Jonathan needs the opportunity more than she does, etc. etc. etc.

But we see it, the same as they both admit even then:

“I guess we just don’t understand each other anymore.”

“I guess not.”

And going into season 4, we see the same thing. At the start of the season, Nancy is complaining to Fred about Jonathan not coming to Hawkins for Spring Break and not committing to going to the same college as her in the Fall so they’d be together again, and she’s clearly annoyed and when she has a journalistic hunch, she only has her friend Fred to follow her (which she sadly later regrets).

Meanwhile Jonathan is complaining to Argyle that he doesn’t want the same thing as Nancy but he doesn’t know how to tell her. He doesn’t want to keep lying to her but he doesn’t want to tell her the truth and risk her giving everything up to be with him (which he wouldn’t do for her, can you imagine him leaving Will behind for Nancy?). And it’s absolutely fine that Jonathan is realizing that he doesn’t want the same thing anymore and that the relationship isn’t working anymore, but Argyle said it best:

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Not lie!”

So when Jonathan says in this episode that he’s sorry he wasn’t there with Nancy while her and the kids and Robin and Steve are dealing with Vecna, and Jonathan and Will and Argyle and Mike are tracking down Eleven and running for their lives from the shady government ops guys, is he really telling the truth?

Would he rather have been with Nancy, following her hunches, letting her lead them into danger to find the truth, and being there for her when her guilt overwhelmed her?

Would he have rather done any of those things which he has a history of not doing, than be where he was, protecting and being with his family and the one friend he’s had that he could have alongside his family while out of harm’s way up until this point?

I don’t know that he would.

#sorry I’m afraid this one is #anti jancy #so we’re clear I’m still very pro both Jon and Nance #but together? idk if they’re on the same page anymore #stancy

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thetwistedrope · 1 month ago

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Hi TTR. I saw your post about your depression issues and AuDHD, and it’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone describe struggling with depression like I have. I won’t go into the details, but absolutely no treatments have ever worked for me.

I’m 99% sure I have ADHD, but the problem is that no one I’ve ever talked to has thought it was hindering me enough to require treatment. Until I saw your post, I agreed. But now I’m willing to try literally anything to be able to feel happiness for the first time in my life. Do you have any advice for convincing professionals to let you try ADHD medication?

Also, were you afraid it wouldn’t work? How do you temper your expectations?

Thanks. Even if you don’t respond to this, I just wanted to make sure you knew that your post has given someone some hope and a new path to follow.

It makes me happy that my message reached someone, cuz ngl, more people need to know. You may not "need" stimulants to survive, but let's be real, being alive and constantly being depressed is awful.

Advice for convincing professionals? Well I always encourage people to go in with a list of symptoms you're experiencing. So that way when the doc tries to write you off, you can point to the physical list and be liek "but what about this."

The psych that eventually gave me meds, it took me about 4 months to get her to even consider my adhd claims, and I think what made the difference was 1. we got my anxiety under control, and 2. I specifically described my executive dysfunction without calling it that. If you're able to describe it without naming it, ime, it makes the doc feel like they've figured it out for you, and they seem more willing to listen when they have come to the decision (stupid, i know).

My doc constantly harps about not going "too high" on my meds, but there was one session where I told her how I legit ran out of groceries because I cba to get groceries and she upped my dosage without me having to say anything lmao

So one thing I'd warn is to moderate your expectations because some places you might be waiting a bit for the doctor to hear you out. But at the same time, if the doc tells you that you don't have it and that you're wrong, go find another psych. idk where in the world you are, but in the US, if you're able... go find someone else.

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that getting good doctors is all about finding the right person that works for you. Sitting around waiting for a shitty healthcare prof to change their mind is a fool's errand, and when in doubt, try someone else.

I wasn't afraid meds wouldn't work, ngl. But I didn't expect stims to change my depression as much as they did. Being on lower dosages is a little hit and miss, because I'll basically be functional-ish during the day, but crash whenever I'm not medicated (mornings/evenings).

It can take time to find the right dosage and the right brand. I was doing very well on methylphenidate made by Tri-Gen, and it was wonderful. But two months ago, my pharmacy quit carrying Tri-Genm and moved to Mallinckrodt, and I feel like I'm barely taking anything. So now I have to go back to my doctor to figure out wtf to do about it.

That is the shittiest part of being on stims: the government is actively hostile to us taking them and it can be challenging to get ahold of the specific brand that you need. I know someone who drove an hour away to make sure her kid could get Vynase because the other brand wasn't working for him.

Further, depending on your state, you will have to submit for urine testing periodically to prove you're taking your meds and not selling them (I fucking hate this country) and you will only get 30 pills exactly, so you'll have to stay on top of your prescription to make sure that it actually gets filled on time.

It's a lot of bullshit, but for me, it's worth it. Cuz otherwise, life is just this long, draw-out march to death. But to be clear, these hurdles shouldn't be here lmao. People with ADHD notoriously don't abuse their meds, though I'm probably preaching to the choir now.

TL;DR: The whole process requires some patience to navigate, but if you're certain about your condition, don't take no for an answer. Keep trying until you find a healthcare prof who will actually listen to you and take you seriously. Don't be afraid to try multiple stimulant types until you find the one that works best for you.

#asks #adhd #stimulants #ableism #disability

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aita-blorbos · 1 year ago

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AITA for kicking my cousin out of our city? Kicking out is a strong term. I didn’t exile her or anything, I just - well, here’s the story from the beginning. My cousin-once-removed G (3263F) and I (2188M) were co-founders and co-rulers of this city. I don’t want to give undue credit to either of us - there were and are many others involved in the founding and governance of the place - but it’s fair to say that we two were the ringleaders. And we made a good team! We’re both very opinionated people, so of course there was sometimes tension, but overall I think our disagreements only made our decision-making stronger. That was until A (ageless, M) showed up. A is one of the lesser primordial beings who helped create the world. Necessary context: not long ago there was a catastrophic war between the most powerful of these beings, who was monstrously evil, and his more benevolent brethren. This war was absolutely necessary, but it did wreak havoc on the natural world. Myself and my cousin G and many others had to flee as refugees. When we founded our city, we wanted it to be a place of recovery from all that loss, somewhere that everyone could come together and flourish. The rulers of A’s people sent him to aid us in that. And his help has been invaluable! He’s shared knowledge that has already bettered our city and its people, and now we’re working on a project together that will let us heal so many of the world’s ancient hurts… but I digress. When A showed up, G took an immediate dislike to him. She has some history with the rulers of his folk, and I suppose that colored her opinion of him, but I’ve never seen that level of hostility from her before. She picked at everything he said, implied that he wasn’t trustworthy, even tried to tell me that we should send him away! She argued that since our people’s king had declined A’s help, we should too - which was ridiculous, our city has always made its own decisions, and anyhow our king hadn’t commanded us to do any such thing! Ordinarily G is very clear-headed and has excellent judgment, but in this case I just couldn’t get across to her that she was being unfair. When I was firm in my support of A, G started trying to drum up public animosity against him. Of course I opposed her, and as A had already made many friends in the city and is an excellent rhetorician to boot, G only succeeded in turning public opinion against herself. At city council meetings she continued to oppose A and his projects, but I stood with A, and the majority of the council followed my lead. G was essentially frozen out of the city’s governance - and I do regret that, truly, but she put herself in that position by refusing to work with me and A! Eventually G took the small faction that agreed with her and left the city. She told me my “doom was on my own head,” which was needlessly hostile, I think. And look, I fully believe that she believes she’s in the right. She’s a very principled person; she wouldn’t do all this for petty reasons. She’s just so wrong about A! I truly can’t think of anything else I could have done, but G’s been a blessing to this city and I’m really unhappy to have been part of the reason it lost her. Was there another way I should have handled this conflict? AITA?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

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wathanism · 1 year ago

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Your ideals are going to kill people. The only thing refusing to vote is going to do is ensure that the republicans win and their project 2025 gets enacted. This is not a conspiracy theory. They want a theocracy. They want authoritarianism. They want fascism. You and everyone you convince to not vote is letting that happen.

I don't know who convinced you that its impossible to care about two things at once, but abandoning the vulnerable here in the states because you care so deeply about the vulnerable on the other side of the world doesn't make you more righteous.

Refusing to vote for him is a foolish act that will do nothing to stop what is happening. Even if he finally pulls back all aid for Israel at the eleventh hour, no one will vote for him now, which means the vulnerable right here at home are fucked. Thanks.

i was really close to not answering you at all because i have a hard rule about not talking with selfish cunts who are commited to misunderstanding everything a non-white person says to them. but since you had the good sense to realize that you were being an ass right then, i'm going to assume that you're worth engaging with, and i'm going to hope you'll talk with me in good faith and read everything i have to say rather than blow up at me again. if nothing else, i'm going to use this as an opportunity to say all the things i've been wanting to say since i made that post. that said, i'm real pissed and i'm not gonna be all nice and palatable in my answer.

first of all, no i'm not a US citizen. i live in west asia. y'know, where all the wars are? gaza is five hours away from my hometown of damascus, which is also being bombed with your tax dollars, by the way! in fact, i grew up living under a textbook authoritarian theocracy. so don't sit there and talk to me like i don't know what it's like to be afraid of your own government. we're in this shithole world together, and you and i are a hell of a lot more like each other than the politicians putting our lives on the line.

second of all, i should have been more clear about what i actually would like for US voters to do. contrary to small-minded liberals' assumptions, i'm not republican nor am i anti-voting. i'm saying people should vote third party. i even have a preferred candidate in mind, jasmine sherman. they even have strict and well-defined policies to protect trans rights and provide universal healthcare that includes gender affirming care and reproductive care.

this is usually the point when usamericans talk down to me like it's my first day on earth, so let me be clear. i know about the electoral college. i know about the flaws of the first-past-the-post voting system. i know about ranked-choice voting and why that's a better system in almost every way. i know that until there's drastic changes to the US voting system, there is no chance a third party candidate could even win. i'm not delusional about that. and i'm asking you to protest-vote anyway. which, yes, i realize is a big ask, but consider that this is a big fucking problem that requires pretty drastic actions.

several absolute dumbasses who i refuse to engage with said some very interesting stuff that made me realize why so many people are quick to dismiss the idea of refusing to vote for either major party. some examples:

they describe the push to vote third party as us lashing out at biden. in their eyes, we're not politically aware adults with a righteous passion for justice. no, we're petulant children causing problems for everyone whose rights actually matter. maybe a nicer person than me can give them the benefit of the doubt, but i find it extremely suspect that they truly seem to believe that non-white people are irrational, easily-angered, thoughtless creatures with no understanding of the complexities of the situation. there's a complete refusal to consider that there might be an actual coherent strategy behind the activism of indigenous and black people.

and again, because this is not my first day on earth, i know about the "but trump!!" argument. i honestly am BAFFLED that liberals seem to genuinely believe they're offering anything novel or valuable to the discussion at hand when they parrot talking points that we've been hearing since 2016 with quite literally nothing to show for it.

but i digress. the important thing is: yes, i fucking know. i know trump would have a near identical policy on gaza. he'd also have an identical policy on the police, on covid, on immigration, and on most other issues. you worry about project 2025, and you're right to! but the thing is, and you'll forgive me for quoting imani here but she is the most correct person ever always, "everything in project 2025 relies on biden doing exactly what he's fucking doing right now. the more successful this genocide is, the more likely project 2025 is to happen." because at the end of the day, it doesn't require a republican president. it requires a CONSERVATIVE president. and that's what biden is.

i don't know if you're missing it or if you don't care, but democrats benefit from you being terrified, and that's exactly why they'll never keep you safe. you will always be one election away from being killed by the system because that's what keeps you complicit. democrats won't shoot the gun, but they will ALWAYS make sure it's loaded and that you're trapped in a room with the person who'll shoot you. don't forget that roe v. wade was overturned on biden's watch. trans rights were rolled back on biden's watch. covid deaths skyrocketed and protections were dismantled on biden's watch. he'll find every loophole in the book to funnel weapons to israel's military but he'll never lift a finger to fix the problems ruining your life, because he needs you to be as scared as you are. that's exactly what's keeping you from showing an ounce of compassion or solidarity to palestinians right now. and no, your fucking lip service and crocodile tears don't count as solidarity.

liberals have managed to completely forget the most important lesson about social justice: none of us are free until all of us are free. you've been so busy yelling at arabs to even realize that this moment in time is one of the greatest pushes against the two-party system. do you not get how important that is? right now, when damn near everyone who's even mildly left leaning (and many who are right leaning) is so deeply unsatisfied with both major candidates, is the perfect time to be thinking of ways to break out of this system. to organize, to advocate for your mystical fucking ranked choice voting!

palestinians aren't asking you to lay down your life and throw away your human rights so they can mildly spite joe biden. they're asking you to grow a fucking spine and stand on principle and god damn DO SOMETHING to tear apart the two-party system. make people realize that a third party candidate IS a viable one, so that one day they can be.

you're framing this as a matter of pitting palestinians versus americans, which couldn't be further from the truth. maybe instead of directing your hate towards palestinians and their allies, show some gratitude. palestinians are uncovering the veil of all the atrocities and all the corruption in the world, and they're giving the people of the earth a banner to unite under. there have never been so many people (afaik, at least) pushing against the systems of corruption in america. that kind of thing ripples out. standing with palestine isn't easy, but all of our lives will be better for it, including and especially the lives of minorities living in the US.

there is so, SO much more i can say about palestine, and it will inevitably turn into a very spiritual rant about the uniting force of the holy land. but i'm instead just gonna leave you with this tweet that i think sums up everything about this.

#palestine #gaza #fuck biden #politics #activism #rambles #asks #anon #i have no idea if this was even worth writing tbh

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storkmuffin · 3 months ago

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First of all I need to stress that I'm positively OBSESSED with your meta analysis of both the intricacies of the Kpop industry as a whole and your Ateez essays in particular, it's such a delight to see someone be so passionate and insightful and I cannot stress what it joy it is to witness your thoughts!

Anyhow, I have had a hypothesis for a while now as for why Ateez in particular are so compelling to observe and why I couldn't help but latch onto them instantly and it's that no matter if it's their on-stage persona or their 'behind the camera' bits, they all posses an incredible amount of character.

Now obviously, archetypes and personas aren't anything new (we are taking about the Kpop industry after all) however, there's true artistry in being able to a) both present a range of different personas that compells fans to play around them as they seem fit b) do so in a way that's actively aided by and in direct service to your lore

Now I won't go too much into the lore aspect itself here since I don't know how caught up you are but to give a very in-your-face example: Bouncy Woosan (not that the other pairs are lacking they also synergize well but in my humble opinion they both absolutely steal the show here)

On paper their roles are very clearly defined but whenever I catch myself rewatching the mv in particular, there's just this oozing je-ne sais-quoi of it all that just screams *character* (Wooyoung in particular is guilty of it in that one and I want to bite him SO bad) and them being as expressive and into their roles obviously only helps but my point here is that it's one of my favorite examples of how well they both play off each other but at the same time also just instantly draw the viewer in. We've seen the pitfighter x manager (???) / wagerer before as it's an easy enough story archetype to recognize and it helps the viewer as it directly gives them an easy roadmap to latch onto which is further capitalized on by being given a mini story in a story with San getting to beat his opponent at the end. But that's not all because there's a clear implication in there, one that's made more obvious by the script (allegedly)

Like first of all. Wow. Jesus. Now that's a totally normal thing to define and totally not absolutely PRIME story material a lot of people could latch onto. Also god fucking damn how dare morally twisted Wooyoung be this hot

However, the reason it works is because this is one of the instances where we are directly confronted with one of the main components of characters being *flaws*. Let's be real: real humans are kind of boring to actually conceptualize. Flair and Drama are what's needed but there is only so much you can realistically show people before you are actually involving irl dilemmas. This Wooyoung in particular is kind of nasty in a hot way and has San wrapped around his finger but it's fine since it's fictional! There's no one being harmed technically.

There's however just one problem: Ateez Lore is deliberately crafted in a way that even at its best, it merely gives you crumbs. Delicious crumbs but crumbs nonetheless.

It is, for all intents and purposes, a companion piece.

And this is where the idol personas come in because if San and Wooyoung were complete opposites and would vocally distance themselves from their personas at all times this would fall apart. However not only does their idol persona perfectly play into the narrative (duh) so do the hints of their flaws as human beings—and this, in turn, helps the viewer get a more grounded, more intricate and even more seemingly personal understanding of who Woosan supposedly are. It is, for all intents and purposes, fluff but one of the grounded variety.

However, as is the nature of kpop, the Idol persona is an eternal mask of sorts. Even at their most real and removed from the lore and dystopian governments, Woosan are still playing into a mask, still on some level acting in the confines what is supposed to be recognizable as them. We as fans are given the illusion of perfect chemistry—and my sentimental heart very much likes to believe that absolutely some of it is the case, romantic that I am— HOWEVER in the cynical reality we call life they are first and foremost coworkers.

Which leads me back to the character aspect of it all which is to say that to me, having character means that you have set-in-stone yet complex recognizable charictaristics that feed the need to either experience a story being told or indulge in telling one yourself.

The true peak of character is the marriage of both the lore and the real where they blend seamlessly into each other to create a cohesive whole. Again, many kpop groups do this but Ateez goes the extra mile by being very much lore-heavy by design and refrencing said lore influences whereever they can (looking at their kingdom performances and Hongjoong even in his most recent MJ cover going the extra mile) and ALSO doing it in a way where they just fit into each other personality-wise like a puzzle piece with distinct archetypes that also offer an absolutely scrumptious amount of tension with-in the group itself! (one only needs to look at how many people theoretically threaten Hongjoongs position as a leader, the government pairings etc)

Anyyyyyyhow this was terribly long and messy and just essentially me crashing out at 4 am my time ahahah please excuse this being all over the place and the LENGTH this is why I've been diagnosed with yapper syndrome HSJDJDJSKSJS

Words cannot express the amount of glee I feel when my extremely lengthy essays lead to like minded people sending me THEIR lengthy essays. I don't have the vocabulaty to contain my delight but know that I am DELIGHTED. I hope you write more on your blog or wherever you keep your kpop content AND TAG ME when you do, please.

#also this gives me so much food for thought about lore and ateez lore in particular #also new vocab unlocked: government pairings #i find this so witty a phrase #i love kpop fandom even when i don't get into the music #so clever #writings of atiny

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