#number 14: one of these things is not like the others

[flowerandblood]

The Price of Pride (14/?)

[ canon • Aemond x Royce • female ]

[ warnings: kind of fingering, targcest stuff, smut, the angst, sexual tension, imprisonment, abuse of power ]

[ description: Prince Aemond finds a solution to the disproportion in the number of dragons between Dragonstone and King's Landing: he decides to find dragon blood and, like his half-sister, train dragon riders. He takes as his target the daughter of Daemon Targaryen and Rhea Royce, whom he abducts and imprisons in the Red Keep. Slow burn, darkish, insolent, arrogant Aemond. I have combined several requests here: (dragon blood female & prisoner female). ]

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

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"Tell him the truth. Lying to my grandfather serves no purpose anyway. He's a skilled player. You have to win his trust." Said her betrothed, walking around her chamber with his hands folded behind his back as if it was simple, while she sat on her bed, looking at him in horror.

Lord Hightower had many reasons to doubt her loyalty, starting with her treacherous bloodline to the fact that, in all probability, Gwayne had convinced him that she had forced her way into his grandson's heart through his bed like a simple whore.

She lowered her gaze, fiddling with her fingers in nervous reflex – her lēkia approached her and knelt before her on one knee, taking her hands in his, slightly rough from holding the hilt of his sword.

"My grandfather is loyal to our family. I trust him. Do it, zaldrītsos."

Otto waited for her in the royal gardens in complete solitude, under one of the beautiful ancient arbours overlooking the sea. The day was sunny and hot, so she was dressed in one of the gowns of fine, thin fabric that she had ordered with her Prince's permission – she could have worn a garment belonging to his daughter, Queen Alicent, but she feared he would perceive it as an attempt of manipulation.

She was to be honest with him, as her betrothed demanded.

She sighed quietly, seeing his seated silhouette in the distance, silver trays full of lemon and apple cakes, caramelised dates, grapes and strawberries on a small white table in front of him. She blinked, coming closer with a rattle of stones under her feet, standing in front of him, feeling her heart stop in her throat.

Otto gave her a gentle, reassuring smile and held out his hand in front of him, pointing to the empty chair across from him, seeing how tense she was.

"My Lady. Thank you for agreeing to speak to the grumbling old man and listen to his concerns." He said lightly and she swallowed hard, sitting down, placing her hands on her thighs.

"Treat yourself. My daughter loves caramelised dates." He said and reached for one himself, taking a bite of it.

He chewed it and swallowed, nodding appreciatively, as if indeed their flavour appealed to him too.

"Do you know what my grandson's – and your betrothed's – favourite dish is?" He asked, looking at her curiously, as if he was challenging her.

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders, involuntarily grinning with amusement.

"I don't think such considerations occupy his head. He rarely delights in food, and if he does, it is more in the privacy of his own mind." She said calmly.

Otto hummed under his breath, as if her answer satisfied him, and nodded.

"Our Prince is a man of principle and loves simplicity. Deliberations on trivial things bore him and arouse his frustration, just like the romantic courting of women." He said, spreading out comfortably in his chair, placing his hands on the armrests, asking her the obvious question between his words.

How had she managed to seduce him?

She huffed under her breath and turned her gaze away, looking out at the sea stretching around them, the pleasant fresh breeze and shade cooling her sun-warmed skin.

"Like any man, he is not fond of empty words. He chooses his own deliberately and expects others to do the same. Unless he becomes enraged – then his fury erupts like a volcano." She said lightly, for some reason feeling no fear at the thought.

She had ceased to fear him long ago.

She knew that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to truly hurt her.

"The letter you found in your chamber was sent to you on my command." He said calmly.

She froze, staring blankly ahead, feeling her heart begin to pound like mad.

It was a trial, she suddenly realised.

He wanted to see if she was trustworthy.

For some reason, a wave of sadness and disappointment rippled through her heart.

She naively believed for a moment that her person could occupy her father's mind.

Otto continued, hearing her silence full of disbelief.

"I need to know what you want, child. I need you to put your desires into words so that I can understand what kind of person is sitting right in front of me to become my grandson's wife." He said slowly, as if carefully choosing every thought that left his lips – his voice was gentle and soothing, as if he was trying to reassure her that what she was going to say would remain their secret.

She lowered her gaze, feeling her heart pound like mad in terror – not because she was afraid of him, but because his question startled her.

She didn't know what to answer.

She had never thought about it.

Until now, she had only been the fulfilment of his desires, she thought with shame, playing with her fingers, feeling certain Otto would take her silence as a bad sign, proof that her intentions were not pure.

"I am what he wants me to be." She finally muttered, feeling tears of embarrassment under her eyelids burning as much as if they were living fire.

Lord Hightower looked at her in silence and twisted in his seat with a creak of wood, as if surprised by her answer.

"Do you wish to marry him?" He asked, and she nodded without thinking.

"I want to be by his side. His presence fills my soul and heart with a strange peace. When he is beside me, I am no longer afraid. Of my father, of war, or of what will happen to me. I am not afraid of death or dragon fire. Sometimes I think it would be better for me to die in battle than to live to see the moment when I realise I have lost his affection." She choked out in a trembling voice, feeling the heavy tears one by one run down her cheeks – she was wiping them off the warm skin of her face with her hands, but they flowed anyway.

Why had she said that?

Why was she letting him know her weakness?

Maybe because deep down she hoped that he would kill her one day, she thought.

That he would not let her live to see the day when her husband would love another woman.

"Our Prince holds you in a respect and esteem that he has never bestowed on any woman before. He allows himself to be vulnerable and weak in your presence. Men, dear child, experiencing physical fulfilment without a soul bond, feel an emptiness after the act. Their desire is like a cry of desperation for purely childlike attention and tenderness – then, in his chamber, seeing him in your embrace, I saw a boy who feels protected and comforted. I'm afraid that my grandson fell in love with you."

She swallowed with difficulty, choking on her own tears, looking at him in disbelief, her heart pounding in her chest like mad.

I'm afraid that my grandson fell in love with you.

She shook her head, feeling that she could not accept those words.

He desired her, he enjoyed her, he was fond of her, but he did not love her.

"I dearly loved my late wife. She was my closest confidante, my beloved friend, the most beautiful of women. She was strong, and my grandson is weak. Filled with complexes, he lives to prove his worth, power and strength, not seeing that he is crushing the efforts of many years, made by me and his father. He needs guides, trusted advisors who love him and who want him to prevail. I know that it was because of you that my grandson told his brother about his plans regarding Rook Rest's. I know that you advised him against plotting behind Aegon's back and sought to rally them. You advise our Prince wisely and I wish you to be his wife. As the daughter of the Lady of Runestone, you are the blood of the Kingdom of the Mountain and the Vale, which will be crucial to us when the siege of Harrenhal begins. Your task to the Kingdom will be to rally the Lords against Lady Arryn's will and to stop my grandson from acting recklessly and violently. Do you understand what I have in mind?" He asked calmly, and she nodded quickly, wiping her hot, swollen cheeks with her hands.

"Yes."

As she was fitting her wedding gown, letting the servants and seamstresses check the length of the sleeves, she thought about Otto Hightower's words and how much they surprised her.

He was a shrewd and enlightened man, of that she was convinced – he also let her know that he did not see her as an enemy or a threat, but as an opportunity for them and the Kingdom as a whole.

For some reason, something in his words and the way he said them comforted her – she felt that, at last, the burden of the war and the Crown would partly fall off the Prince's back, allowing someone more experienced to advise him on difficult and complicated matters that would have overwhelmed the wisest of men.

She shuddered as the door to her chamber opened and her betrothed stepped inside, searching for her with his eye.

"No!" She squealed, fleeing behind the light-coloured three-door screen standing nearby. "It brings misfortune. Leave."

He shouldn't see her in her wedding gown before their nuptials.

She heard his sigh of impatience and his lazy footsteps on the other side – when he stopped the servants bowed to him and left the chamber, leaving them alone.

"What did he say?" He asked calmly.

She sighed quietly, stepping closer to the wall of thin material behind which she could see the shadow of his tall figure.

"That he wishes me to win the support of the Lords of the Vale for you. That I would help him control your impulsive nature." She said, and he snorted, frustrated, turning his head to the side.

"Is that how he sees me? As an uncontrollable animal to be tamed?" He asked with a regret that made her swallow hard, her fingers touching the fabric as if she wanted to touch his chest.

His heart.

"No. But he and I know what your anger means and how dangerous it can be. That it is only when its first wave passes that your coolness and common sense returns to you. There is a fire running through your veins – that is your nature. We do not want you to burn in the heat of your own fury, regretting later the deeds done in a sudden burst of rage." She muttered and heard him draw in a breath, as if her words pained him.

"He is disappointed in me, then." He said coldly and she closed her eyes, feeling helpless against his low self-esteem.

"No, brother. He wants your victory, exactly as I do. If you craved sweet lies, you would allow Larys Strong to pour poison into your ears, surrounding yourself with lords who would praise you and your greatness. You, in your wisdom, sent for your grandfather, who is sincere, who cares for you and your family."

"Ours." He corrected her, and she smiled involuntarily with gratitude.

"Ours."

She heard him take a step towards the screen, his forehead pressed against the material – she did the same, on the other side, hearing his quiet breath.

"– I desire you –" He whispered, and she sighed, feeling his words in her nipples, her lips, the tips of her fingers and her throbbing, swollen cunt.

"– let's last until our wedding – let's make this the night we've waited and longed for –" She said in a breaking voice, feeling that she was losing the battle with herself, his scent, his presence, his closeness making her grow hot.

"– what are you suggesting? – that you won't spend upcoming nights in my bed? –" He exhaled, placing his hands on the screen wall, and she felt a wonderful shiver of pleasure run down her cheeks, along her breasts and down her spine.

"– lēkia –" She gasped and they both sighed as the door to her chamber opened and Lysa stepped inside, holding in her hand the jewellery casket she had ordered for the occasion.

"– leave us, brother –" She whispered in a trembling voice, feeling her womanhood pulsing greedily around nothing, a drop of her wetness running down the inside of her thigh.

"– visit me tonight –"

"– I can't – for at least a few days let me pretend I have dignity –" She mumbled and heard him swallow hard, as if her words caused him pain.

She knew he hesitated, that he wanted to say something more, but resigned – she saw him turn and move towards the door, Lysa bowed to him as he left the room without a word.

She exhaled loudly, stepping out from behind the screen, and Lysa gave her one warm, comforting smile.

She was her only friend.

"They have arrived, my Lady – hair adornments, a dagger and a necklace, matching your instructions in every detail." She said, tilting the lid open.

She smiled broadly as she came closer, seeing the objects lying on the cushion – a thin, delicate golden chain with sapphires framed so that they looked like three water drops – two small and one large that was lying between them – her hair pins in the shape of forget-me-nots, also made of sapphire stones, and a long, beautiful dagger, her gift for her future husband.

She had chosen her jewellery deliberately – her wedding gown was sewn from fabrics in light blue tones and browns – she wanted to show her future husband her devotion to him and her own allegiance to Runestone at the same time.

According to what she had heard, King Aegon began to slowly awaken, but he was dazed and was merely babbling, fed with the milk of the poppy by the Maester – they wanted to spare him the pain, which must have been immense anyway, looking at how much of his skin had been burned in the fire.

However, the fact that he was regaining consciousness worried her Prince, who pushed for the nuptials to take place as soon as possible – he was afraid that his brother, as soon as he found out about it, would forbid the Septon to marry them out of sheer spite.

They renounced grand ceremonies and processions – their subjects were starving, and they did not want them to think that during their great suffering they were drinking wine and dancing, mocking them.

"Thanks to my spies, we were able to prevent great misfortune – a dozen inconspicuous boats arrived under cover of darkness from Dragonstone to King's Landing, filled to the brim with food. They were to be passed on as gifts from Queen Rhaenyra to her subjects. Instead, the food will be distributed on the streets of the city just before your nuptials, so that the whole Kingdom can rejoice with you." Said Otto during the Small Council meeting – her future husband had dismissed his mother in revenge for her affair with Criston Cole, thus freeing up a seat at the table.

As she was a dragon rider and would be participating in the war, she needed to know what was happening, so she was specifically assigned a seat in the Small Council, right next to the Prince Regent's grandfather.

She threw her cousin a quick glance and saw that he was looking at her as well, his grin indicating that he was more than pleased.

"Excellent." He said.

Her betrothed, in keeping with her wishes, had allowed them to spend the nights before their nuptials apart, she knew, however, that he was frustrated and made that known whenever he could.

"No. You stay, hāedar." He said when he closed the meeting and she stood up as did everyone else gathered.

She swallowed hard when she heard the door close – she saw out of the corner of her eye that he stood from his seat and approached her with a lazy, unhurried step.

She gasped as she felt his large hand on her waist, wandering up and down, his other hand without any warning slipped under the fabric of her gown from above and squeezed softly her silky, plump breast.

She pressed her lips together, suppressing a quiet moan of pleasure when she felt his parted, moist lips run over her neck, leaving a wet, sticky trail on her skin, his hot breath making her cunt, swollen with desire and longing, clench greedily around nothing.

"– stop –" She muttered, grabbing his wrist as his hand from her waist and hip slid down between her thighs, closing on her womanhood.

"– are you touching yourself? – hm? –" He asked coldly and she shook her head, panting heavily as she felt his hard manhood pushing against her buttocks, a drop of cold sweat dripped down her back.

"– no – I suffer just as you do, lēkia – please –" She mumbled and cried out, tilting her head back as his fingertips began to gently tease what was under the material of her dress, a wonderful wave of heat surging through her loins.

"– mmm –" He hummed and let her go, leaving her alone, thirsty and quivering with desire, walking out of the room without even giving her a single glance.

Contrary to what her cousin thought, it wasn't just for him that the wait for their night together was agony – her betrothed demanded that since he couldn't touch her, she couldn't either.

She knew that he also did not satisfy his urges in any way, which made him more mischievous – he would lurk for an opportunity for them to be alone and put his hand between her thighs to caress and tease her, whispering in her ear.

"– beg, and maybe I'll fuck you –" He hissed, her hand clenched on his arm.

"– n-no – please, please, stop –"

He let her go then, his jaw clenched in annoyance and some kind of awe, as if he didn't think she could really stand it – her whole body screamed before his eyes that she wanted it, and yet she still refused him.

It was a sign of strong will for him, proof that her words were not empty and her decisions were final.

On the day the nuptials were to take place, the entire Red Keep was put on its feet – Otto feared an attack from all sides, including poisoning, so guards personally chosen by him went to the Sept, as well as to the kitchens, to keep an eye on the cooks and make sure they didn't add anything to the food.

She was surprised by this, but she felt relieved that her future husband's grandfather was watching over everything.

From the morning, Lysa and the other servants had been helping her put on her gown – it fitted her body perfectly, revealing her cleavage and shoulders – the sleeves of the bottom dress clung to her arms, while the sleeves of her top dress, the blue one, was slit at the elbows, falling all the way to the ground.

Some of her hair was pinned up in a bun at the back of her head, decorated with small sapphire flowers, while some fell in waves down her back.

A necklace completed the look – it adorned her long neck and accentuated the colour of the fabric of her gown, however, she actually hoped that this and her sapphire hair adornments would be the only things left on her body during their wedding night.

She shuddered as the door to her chamber opened and she saw Queen Alicent before her – she stepped down from the small dais and bowed to her as did her servants, whether she wanted to or not having to show her respect.

The Dowager Queen stopped before her and sighed, folding her hands in front of her.

"Do you know what kind of man you will marry? Who my son is?" She asked, and she swallowed hard, wondering how a mother could know so little about her own child.

She thought she was simply afraid of the answers to the questions she was asking herself and didn't want to know them, separating herself from who her son was in her mind.

"Yes, Your Grace." She said calmly, looking her straight in the eye. "Our Prince holds you in deep esteem and hopes to earn your praise."

She saw Alicent's lips twitch, her eyebrows arching in an expression of regret, as if her words had caused her pain, her large brown eyes filled with nothing but sadness.

She nodded, as if accepting her words in her heart, and gestured to her servant, who held a small chest in her hand.

"I wish to offer a blessing to you and my son. I ask that you accept this small gift from me, along with my desire for you to be protected by the gods themselves." Said the Queen and opened the lid – she saw a fine gold chain with a small pendant in the shape of a seven-pointed star.

She nodded, looking at it, wondering if, when she went to see her son, she would find at least a few warm words for him.

The journey in the carriage through King's Landing seemed to last for ages to her – the streets were full of happy people – Lord Hightower, according to his plan, began handing out food to the people, leading to a sudden outburst of joy.

The smallfolk, in keeping with his desire, saw this event as a sign, recognising that the gods had supported the marriage between the Prince and his relative by sending them revelry, putting an end to their hunger.

However, for how long will the supplies stolen from Princess Rhaenyra last?

When will their suffering begin anew?

She swallowed hard at the thought that the war had to end as soon as possible, but both her future husband and Dragonstone knew that neither of them had enough advantage to bring the other to its knees.

When she arrived before the Great Sept and the carriage doors opened in front of her, she froze, feeling panic – the people around her were shouting her name, throwing flowers, reaching out to her as if she were some kind of semi-divine being, a symbol of the life they would never know.

She felt overwhelmed and stunned, alone among the crowd, small without her dragon and bow, dressed in a long gown like a doll.

For some reason she wanted to cry.

"My Lady." She heard a voice in front of her, then saw Otto Hightower walking towards her between the guards. "My Lady, give me your hand."

She swallowed hard and did as he asked, placing her palm on his, rough and large. With his help, she walked down a few steps to a small wooden platform, and from it to the ground, feeling that her legs were trembling with fear.

"I am not your father, but I will be more than happy if you do me this honour. It is a difficult journey and no young woman should have to walk it alone." He said calmly, and she looked at him with big eyes, noticing something in his gaze that could have been sympathy or simple concern.

She had always dreamed of someone looking at her like that.

The way a father would look at his daughter.

She nodded, thinking in the back of her mind that if she let go of his hand she would just fall, her legs soft as cotton wool.

As she walked with Lord Hightower into the Great Sept, she heard the sound of trumpets, young girls, daughters of lords and knights throwing flowers at her feet.

It all seemed unreal to her – the temple around her was so gigantic that it took her breath away, the great, tall statues of the Seven Gods towering over those gathered to form a circle, enclosing the entire structure.

At the very centre, on a raised platform stood the altar at which stood the Grand Septon and her betrothed, a sweet emotion squeezed her throat as she looked at his face.

Though he stood erect, with his hands folded behind his back like a statue, she could see that his gaze was hot, vulnerable, his eye large, his lips parted in a heavy breath as if he longed to cry at the sight of her – the fact that she had chosen not the colour of his or her lineage, but his colour, the blue of his sapphire, something only he could understand, the expression of her devotion, her understanding, her affection.

When they stopped at the steps Otto let her go, but she, seeing her cousin's face felt more confident – she grabbed the front of her gown and lifted it, not wanting to step on it, climbing slowly upwards, her steps echoing loudly around her.

She sighed quietly as she stood in front of them, not daring to look at his face, feeling that if she did she would cry for some reason.

It was really happening.

She was to become a wife.

She looked at him and it was a mistake – she felt a squeeze in her throat when she saw him draw in the air loudly when his gaze met hers, as if he felt something deep inside himself that frightened him, his lips slightly parted in a shuddering breath.

"You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection."

Her cousin swallowed loudly, looked at the Septon and then behind him, nodding – Gwayne Hightower approached him with a long black cloak embroidered with green threads from which the figure of a three-headed dragon was formed at the very centre.

The crest of their family and the colours of the Hightowers.

She bowed humbly as he threw the cloak over her shoulders with a sweeping gesture, making sure the material did not slip, and she closed her eyes.

He took her under his protection.

"We stand here in the sight of gods and men to witness the union of man and wife: one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder." Said the Septon – her betrothed extended his hand to her, standing proud and upright, so she placed her palm on his – the priest entwined their joined hands with a wide, bright ribbon.

"In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity. Look upon one another and say the words." He said, and they looked at each other, her heart pounding in her chest once before they both opened their mouths and their lungs left the words spoken surprisingly confidently and calmly.

"Father,

Smith,

Warrior,

Mother,

Maiden,

Crone,

Stranger

I am hers | I am his

and she is mine | and he is mine

from this day, until the end of my days."

They fell silent, and though she thought he would not do it, that it would be beneath his dignity, he took her hot cheek in his hand and leaned down, looking at her as if he held the entire heritage of Old Valyria in his fingers.

"With this kiss, I pledge my love." He whispered, only a quiet sigh escaping her throat as his full, fleshy lips pressed against hers in a deep, warm, moist kiss, so tender and soft that she felt a single, lonely tear run down her cheek.

My love.

When he broke the kiss he didn't move away for a moment, just looking at her, and she smiled in a way that must have made him happy, because he smiled too, shyly and sweetly, like a little boy.

They were husband and wife.

[insomniactic-daydream]

Beside You...

Pro Hero Bakugo ♡ Pro Hero Reader

Friends to Lovers

Summary: Bakugo always held victory close to his heart, but he held you closer.

From being kids in the playground, to freshly new homeowners talking about marriage, and til you both took your last breaths with a smile... you were the thing he held closest.

(This is Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga's fault for cooking up Die With A Smile. Had me in my feels.🫠)

TW: ANGST !! and some suggestive writing but no smut. Read at own risk.

Age 6

Bakugo knew from a young age who he's supposed to be. Even as kids change their future occupation to astronauts to doctors, he never had doubt. He was meant to be a hero. He was meant to protect you.

"Hey! Stop pulling my hair it's not funny!"

The young blonde hears your cries from a mile away as two of the older kids from the playground tug your hair and take your toy away.

"Or what? you're just a pathetic weakling who can't even fight back." The two kids laugh as they continue to torment you.

Suddenly, a big explosion was directed at the two bullies sending them flying. Bakugo had never had such perfect precision with his quirk before. It was his first perfect and biggest shots he's had since his quirk manifestation.

"Die you extras! If you even think about bullying her again, I'll blow you to bits!" He barked like a high squeaking chihuahua standing in front of your body that was thrown down from the blast. Safe to say you never saw those bullies again.

"Get up. Your dress is going to get dirty." Bakugo huffs, sounding angry but still holding his hand out with a blush.

Your eyes widen as you take his hand to get up, and you give him a big hug, causing him to be taken aback.

"You're my hero!"

Bakugo never went to the park without you after that. Not if both of your parents wanted to deal with constant crying/yelling from the two of you...

Age 14

After the U.A. exams, you and Bakugo sit in his room as you hold your head in your hands in defeat.

"Stop sulking. You don't even know if you got rejected yet." He says in his usual huff but still holds your hair back.

You mailed your results to his house so you could open it together.

"Easy for you to say. You had the highest points. I swear it took me forever to get one robot when I was too busy saving others from getting mauled by theirs." Y/n sighs as she reflects on the exams.

"I don't know Kats, I think I did better in the Shiketsu exam than I did U.A. I'll probably only be getting the acceptance there." You groan as you wipe some tears from your face.

"Shut up. You don't know shit yet." He said earning a scoff.

"I know I did dog shit at the exam, and that's enough. Sorry to say, but I don't think we'll be in the same class, or even the same school."

"I'll go to Shiketsu then."

You let out an audible laugh before looking at his face, dropping you smile instantly.

"Holy shit. You're serious?" You say before shaking your head. "No, you can't. Your dream is UA. Don't be switching shit up just because of me." You say before turning your body towards him.

"I don't care where I get my license at. I'm still going to be number one. No matter what. Beside can't be training if your ass is getting into trouble the whole other side of town",He said, rolling his eyes as he looked away from your widened gaze.

"Katsuki-," you say before getting cut off.

"Don't make a big deal out of it, princess." He quips, signaling to you that's the end of the discussion. He's going where you go.

Silence falls between the two of you until the sound of a car is heard right after. You both rush to get the letters and begin to open them. Revealing two holograms of All Might congratulating them on their acceptances to Class 1-A.

You grab him and jump up and down from excitement.

"See you idiot. You were overreacting." He says with his usual smirk. You roll your eyes. Maybe you were being a bit dramatic.

"Yeah, but still.." You say before kissing his cheek, causing him to freeze up. You smile at him.

"Thank you for wanting to cheer me up and wanting to stay by me."

His stares at your beautiful smile before looking away.

"Tch. Always, you big baby." He says before pulling you into his arms as you laugh.

Your romantic relationship didn't wait long after that moment.

Age 22

"Last fucking box." Bakugo grunts putting down the box down in the empty living room filled with the rest of the labeled boxes. While your slumped body lays on the couch, you just assembled.

Something about wanting to make the house feel more homey for the time being or procrastination for unpacking Bakugo calls it. Still, he takes the opportunity to lay next to you.

"Why didn't we just keep our apartment." You groan as you look at him. He glares at you.

"You were the one that suggested buying the house in full, princess." He said. They both earned quite a bit the last year and had money to spare.

"Besides, that place was getting too cramped for all our shit. You know this already." He says before grabbing your face as you pout.

"Ugh, but now we have to unpack all of this." You say as he smushes your cheeks. You wrap your arm around him.

You both lean in for a kiss, embracing the comfort of the couch. You both pull away and sit up, looking at all the boxes.

"Cmon, get your ass up and help me unpack." He says, trying to reach for a box before you blurt out.

"Let's get married today."

Just as he thinks you can never surprise him, you say shit like that.

He was planning on marrying you, like hell he would buy a house just for a girlfriend. You were his first and only, no doubt. But he didn't expect how this would play out.

"What?" He says in a shell-shocked tone.

"The court house doesn't close til 9. We still have time to make it over there. So what do you say." Going up to him with a sheepish smile.

"Fuck no." He says to you while you pause, smile dimming while thinking you misinterpreted his goals with you.

"Oh. Okay. Yeah, it was stupid ide - "You say before getting interrupted.

"Fuck that's not what I meant, Babe." He says before grabbing your pulling away figure.

"I wanna marry your ass, but I'm not doing it at a courthouse just because you're trying to avoid moving into our damn house." He says before peppering you with kisses. His grip on you tightening.

"I just needed to make sure that meant moving into a home meant what I thought it meant." You mumble between kisses. Wrapping your arms around his neck.

"Of course it does, dumbass." He says, deepening the kiss as he walks and pulls you down to the couch. Falling into each other's embrace.

It's definitely a creative way of getting comfortable in the new home.

Age 45

"Fucking shit" Bakugo groans after the building collapsed on the two of you by the villian you both were trying to stop for months now.

"Katsuki." You weakly groan beneath him as the raging headache ensued from the collision of the building.

Bakugo look around them, sighing in relief as he realizes his wife is okay, and so is he. He tries to get but stops when he hears you yelp in pain.

"Stop, don't move, Katsuki!" You breathe tiredly. Only then does Bakugo look down and see the large metal bar piercing the two of you together. It's shocking the two of you are still alive.

Bakugo looks into your eyes as you whimper in pain. His adrenaline is beginning to stop as he winces in pain, too. But he puts on a brave face.

"Shh.. Fuck. It's okay, baby. We're going to get out of here okay, rescue shouldn't take long." He now says breathlessly holding you close.

You smile weakly at him, grabbing caressing his face.

"You're no liar, Katsuki. It's okay." You say while your voice cracks with emotion. He grits his teeth as tears spill out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry... I can't save us this time, baby " He says, choking on tears and blood. Your tears beging to spill, too.

"There was still so much I wanted to do with you." He sobs out as you listen, sobbing too.

"Fuck, we should've stopped ages ago, our stubborn asses. Should've retired early, go on a vacation, fuck maybe even had a child or two." He huffs out in a sad laughter as you both realize just how different your lives could've been if you had stopped being heroes year before.

Maybe your guy's death would have been more peaceful; one with old gray hair and wrinkles.

You give out a weak laugh. Your vision starts to get smaller, so you try to soak up every last detail of your husband's face.

"I don't regret this." You say choking on your blood. He stares lovingly into your eyes. His vision too slowly giving out.

"I loved that I got to spend every moment with you, Kats. I fucking love you're annoying ass so much. I couldn't imagine breathing without you next to me." You say with a weak smile, gasping for air with each pause.

Bakugo weakly smiles back at you as he brushes the debris off your face. Taking your beauty in for the final time.

"Good thing we don't have to" He says his final comeback as he pulls you in and puts his lips on yours.

Taking each other's final breath...

[If] our time on Earth was through, I'd wanna hold you just for a while, and die with a smile.

If the world was ending, I wanna be next to you~♡

Alternative Happy Ending

Shut up, I'm not crying you are 😭.

It's literally one of the most emotional pieces I've ever written in my life.

Blame Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga. 😭

[themyscirah]

Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.

Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now

Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.

Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!

Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.

[journeyman-tier-fibercraft]

Went to swatch for a Hanukkah present before realizing the needles I needed were held up in this Doily 14 (Yarn | Pattern). That's been this close to being finished for a good three weeks now.

It does give me more time to think about what exactly I want to do for this gift but ughhhh I have to Count to 9. Over and Over again. Crochet chain bind offs look so good and are really stretchy for lace but my brain hates them with a passion.

[designernishiki]

okay but. why does it seem like 24 year old majima’s ridden a horse before. why does he talk like he has Experience. what is this lost lore

[coulsonlives]

I just had to share this video because holy shit, it hits the nail right on the head! So well spoken. This stuff needs to be circulated more, esp with the growing number of people thinking they have this because of misinformation, or just outright faking it.

[steakout-05]

very long post about how i as an Australian think the American date structure is silly and confusing under the cut

as an Australian i already think America is pretty funny, like the imperial system is both confusing and incredibly funny to me, but what i really don't get is the way dates are written in America

like.... for context, in Australia, we write days like day/month/year. and i like this because the most important information is the thing you read first. you want to know what day it is, you just look at the first two digits you see and you're done!! in some other counties like Japan and South Korea, they write it like year/month/day, which i also think is ok because it's still in a cohesive and easy to read order. you just go to the end of the date to see what day it is and it's simple!! it's all good! it's easy to read! this is nice!

but for some reason, the dates in America are written like month/day/year and i'm just..... i'm so confused!?!??!? why would you jump to the MIDDLE of the date to see what day it is???? it's so cluttered and jumpy and trying to read it in order is just... kinda irritating. the most important and immediately needed information is shifted to the middle of the date ans then you gotta go back and then jump forward again if you wanna read the whole thing and i'm just. actually bamboozled at that. who did that. who is responsible for that blunder at the workplace. i will find them and i will break their kneecaps and i-

ALSO you have no idea how many times this date format has absolutely screwed up schedules and post dates for me. imagine that there's like an online event or something coming up and they have a schedule for what day they're holding it, but it's just written like 05/03/2024. my Australian ass is going to read that as the 5th of March 2024, but someone in America is gonna read that is the 3rd of May 2024. do you see how confusing this can become. there is zero distinction between the two dates because they're written in the exact same way but have a different structure. this is fine for dates that go over the number 12 or are the same number, but it's still confusing and frustrating, especially when the website doesn't say what timezone setting you're on or won't let you change it (which some of them don't). it's quite a specific issue but it's still an issue and i hate it i don't like it i want it fixed please patch

maybe i just have a more logical way of thinking and i like having things be in order, but goddamn just write your dates properly i can't take it anymore /nsrs

[eggmeralda]

okay but I am genuinely so unwell about numbers and dates and ages and time and years etc. so I'm blaming all my bad luck on the number 23

[littlecafe]

happy spotify wrapped day!! i didn’t get the “my audio day” slide and i’m sad because i feel like this is the first time i’ve missed out on a slide that isn’t podcasts :-(

i can’t believe i got top 0.5% of listeners with my numbers...everyone listen to lexie liu her new singles are really good

[gingintigtig]

To give International peeps an idea of what the fuck is happening to the Conservatives in the UK right now, leading up to the July 4th election

In a grand total of only 14 days, the conservatives have done the following on the campaign trail.

Announced the election outside of number 10 in the pouring rain with no plans to use an umbrella or take it inside.

Went to a brewery in Wales and asked if they were looking forward to the summer football, only for staff to respond that Wales didn't make the qualification for the cup.

Person who questioned the PM on Television was actually a plant

Went for an interview at the Titanic Quarter in Belfast and the reporter said "are you captaining a sinking ship into this election?"

This picture.

Promised a return of National Service which OBLITERATED the young vote.

A top Tory minister instead of campaigning went to fucking Greece.

A Tory minister gave up her own seat and told everyone to vote for the Reform candidate instead.

Three Tories defected to a different party.

Did a PR thing involving the PM dribbling a football and someone commented on camera "he's as good at football as he is as being Prime Minister" (he was terrible).

Former Tory minister suggested on Twitter that once he loses the election he would bugger off to California to be a speaker at GOP conferences like other former Tory ministers have done, and he had to furiously deny the allegations.

He said he'll get rid of poor value for money University Courses and when asked which ones, couldn't name a single one.

Announced the election but were nearly 200 candidates short to compete and are scrambling to find some.

Hung the flag upside down in their campaign video, which means we're in distress.

Gave a speech with factory workers, and one woman was so aghast at his bullshit on camera that they sent someone out to stand in-front of her to block her reactions; it has already been satirised.

A high profile conservative MP called a pollster who was live on air, the pollster answered, telling him that he was going to lose his seat by a massive majority. The MP didn't say anything and just hung up. Again, this was LIVE ON AIR.

They went campaigning in Hanley, and in the river behind them, the Liberal Democrat party very slowly sailed by on a little boat. The camera man panned the camera away from the prime minister to focus on the Liberals in the boat slowly sailing down the river.

A new poll shows that for the first time in decades, if not over a century, the Conservatives could be in third place, with Labour (Social Democrat) and the Liberal Democrats becoming the top two parties.

I hope you've been keeping count here, because it's been fourteen days and that is 18 pieces of terrible publicity.

[catgrandpa]

Gotham has always been weird, so when the groundskeeper at the cemetery noticed the Wayne kid’s plot was disturbed, he just chalked it up to more of the same ol’. Alright, so ‘disturbed’ may be a tad too light of a word, but what’s an empty grave in the grand scheme of Gotham? God knows in a city like this one, they could use all the burial room they could get. He figured he’d just jot it down on the website and hope nobody noticed for a while.

Too bad he didn’t account for the 13 year old boy in Bristol who periodically checks the cemetery’s website when he’s feeling particularly lonely.

Plot Removed.

Tim Drake stared at the two words under the heading for Jason Todd’s plot number. Removed? What do they mean ‘removed’? They can’t just remove a plot? That’s a person down there! That’s Robin down there! You can’t Remove Robin!

Calm down. Deep breaths. Assess the situation.

Robin has been dead for 5 months and 14 days. There is no reason for a grave to be removed that early, especially one of a member of such an affluential family. Chances are likely it’s a simple clerical issue. He can call first thing in the morning and make them aware of the mistake. He can have it all fixed in 5 hours.

Just a phone call.

In 5 hours.

…

Tim hates talking on the phone almost as much as he hates waiting.

Well it won’t be the first time he’s snuck out to head to Gotham proper at 1am. It can’t even really be considered sneaking out if there’s no one home to catch you.

Buses stop running at 2, so he layers a couple sweaters under his coat and grabs his best running sneakers so he can comfortably make the trek back.

Just a quick trip to settle his nerves. Maybe get a few shots in if he spots Batman, but really he just wants to see with his own two eyes that things are okay and Jason can rest.

It’s 1:37 by the time he gets to the headstone reading ‘Here Lies Jason Todd’ and the gaping, muddy pit in front of it.

This- This doesn’t make any sense. This is not removal. This is destruction. Desecration. Somebody did this. Somebody-

Assess the situation.

A hole in the ground, approximately 1.5 feet in diameter.

Mud and grass flung outward but with little force.

Large chunks of earth turned over and shoved away.

No signs of tool marks or clean lines of entry into the dirt.

Dragging claw marks.

Staggering, shuffled pairs of foot prints in the mud.

A trail of dirt.

Something… Something large clawed its way out of the ground here. Something large and bipedal and- and humanoid.

Tim refuses to jump to any conclusions he can see all the facts laid in front of him. He’s going to cautiously follow the trail and simply hope to any god listening that he isn’t the world’s first line of defense against the zombie apocalypse.

He’s been walking for 23 minutes and there’s good news and undecided news. Good news: he’s closing in on the target and the trail isn’t taking him out of the way so his trip home won’t be prolonged. Undecided news: The potential Zombie Robin is heading directly for Wayne Manor.

As zombie apocalypse news, this is very bad. From Tim’s collected observational evidence, his not-so-professional opinion is that Batman, faced with a horror movie level zombie of his dead son, would not respond well, and would likely not fight back.

In Batman and Robin news? Tim’s unsure. If Jason is simply back? What could that mean for them? Batman can have his Robin. He wouldn’t have to continue nearly killing others and himself every night in his grief. Jason could-

No. Stop. Do not jump to conclusions.

Hope only brings heartbreak.

What would Batman do? Get close and see if the target is a threat.

Target is male. Mid-teens. Dark hair. Pale skin. Leaning against surfaces as he walks. Appears injured and disoriented.

Minimal risk assessed. Approaching and attempting contact.

Target identity confirmed: Jason Todd.

“J-Jason?” It comes out as a croaked whisper. Jason shows no sign of acknowledgment.

Tim clears his throat, steps right in front of his path, and tries again.

“Jason. Jason, stop I want to help you.” Still nothing.

“Please, Jason. I can help, I promise I can help!”

Why isn’t this working?! Why can’t he just do something right for once?! He wants this to work, he wants to help Bruce, he wants to fix Batman, he wants to not be alone, he wants-

“Robin!”

Robin jerks to a stop.

Tim reached out his hand.

“Robin. Robin please, I’m sorry you’re going through this, it’s really scary, I’m really scared. But I just want to help you. Help you find Batman. Help you get home.”

Jason just stares at him. Of course he does. Of course it’s not going to work. Why did he even bother hoping he could help?

Hope only brings heartbreak.

His sight blurs as his eyes fill with tears and he starts to lower his outstretched hand.

His arm is slowed as a cold hand weakly grasps his own.

“Don’t… scared… Bat… help… Dad… help.”

A relieved sob tears out from Tim’s chest and he gathers himself together. He yanks his extra sweater off and gently pulls it over Jason’s cold shoulders. Jason lets Tim drag his arm over his shoulders to try and carry some of his weight.

“Okay, Robin. Yeah. Your dad will help us.”

Batman will solve everything once Tim gets Robin home.

[novy2sirius]

THE MOON DEGREES

based on numerology

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 1°/10°/19°/28° ₊˚⊹

People with their moon at these degrees are more likely to have impulsive emotional instincts. They may have been raised in a home where they weren’t listened to or heard and had to raise their voice or be aggressive to get their parents to listen to them which in turn has caused them to not be able to control their emotions well or handle arguments well. These people may come off as intimidating to others but deep down they’re just emotionally wounded from their childhood. The positive to these degrees is that you have strong manifestation abilities (especially 19°) and are capable of manifesting your desires into the physical reality. This is also considered a beauty indication as the moon can be associated with the face and 1 one of the numbers of beauty in numerology which all these numbers reduce to. These people are also ride or die for the people they care about and will never be afraid to stand up for their loved ones. If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in life they must work hard for the things they want and be ambitious

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 2° ₊˚⊹

People with their moon at this degree are typically very peaceful and kind souls. They’re well liked by a lot of people and don’t prefer to burn bridges with people or create drama. They avoid conflict at all costs as it causes them a lot of anxiety and they don’t like hurting others. These people may amazing writers/authors as well as actors. They also tend to have a very admirable feminine beauty. The only downside to this moon degree is sometimes people with it can be a bit gossipy. If people with this moon degree want to create stability in life they must not get into too much conflict or gossip a lot

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 3°/12°/21° ₊˚⊹

People with these moon degrees are not afraid to tell everyone how they’re feeling emotionally. They are great at communicating how they feel, however sometimes if they don’t learn to control it this can be a negative thing. Sometimes they share too much about their negative emotions towards other people and gossip a lot which can cause conflict in their life. These people tend to have very childlike energy which sometimes can manifest in a good way if they’re at a higher vibration and just make them fun to be around, but other times if they’re at a lower vibration in life, manifest as them being childish or immature. The positive thing about these moon degrees is they always know how to make people laugh and cheer them up. They’re also good at speaking up for things they have strong emotions towards. If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in life they must learn to maturely communicate their emotions rather than immaturely do so

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 4°/13°/22° ₊˚⊹

People with these moon degrees are very hard workers when it comes to things they care about and have emotional desire for. They may have had a challenging childhood and had to work really hard early in life. At times they can be aggressive or struggle with anger issues as well. The positive to people with these moon degrees is that they can become extremely wealthy through hard work. If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in life they must surround themselves with others who have their life put together but also make sure they’re mentally and physically well on their own without the help from others. They should also try not to intimidate others in a negative way

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 5°/14°/23° ₊˚⊹

People with these moon degrees tend to be very good looking as they all reduce to 5 and 5 is the number of societal beauty in numerology. They are quite sexual but not just with anyone. They must have an emotional connection with you to desire you sexually but when they do have that strong emotional connection and care toward you they are extremely sexual people. Be careful though if you do have these degrees because you can get pregnant more easily and unexpectedly than others. The challenging part of these degrees in your moon is that you may move on fast romantically and not be able to settle for one person easily. These people are also very entertaining people and could do really well in the entertainment industry. If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in their life they must travel when they’re down and never surround themselves with people who restrict them in life. They need lots of freedom to be happy/stable

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 6°/15°/24° ₊˚⊹ - tw: weight

People with these moon degrees are very family oriented even if they happened to have a rough upbringing they still have unconditional love for their family that’s hard to let go of. These people are amazing friends and really good parents. They have an extremely nurturing aura and caring nature that makes others very comfortable around them. The only challenges that may come with these degrees are emotional pain involving weight, stubbornness, or just laziness at times. These people tend to be homebody’s and usually just enjoy chillin at home with their pets (if they have any). If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in life they must be responsible and surround themselves with people who appreciate them. These degrees can also be a beauty indication since 6 in numerology is ruled by venus

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 7°/16°/25° ₊˚⊹

People with these moon degrees may have lots of struggles in their relationships with their family and unfortunately often take the bad habits they learn from their parents into their romantic relationships. They sometimes can struggle with living in the past as well. They usually don’t want to have their own children and probably shouldn’t even if they do (other than 16°). They naturally do well emotionally spending majority of their time alone and focusing on themselves. On a more positive note though they’re extremely intelligent and analyze others quickly. These people tend to be very spiritually connected as well and may even be psychic. They tend to be more on the introverted side. If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in life they should let go of the past, pay close attention to their intuition, and stop gambling with things they shouldn’t

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 8°/17°/26° ₊˚⊹

People with these moon degrees live a very karmic life. More karmic than most. Any time they hurt someone without reason of defense they will receive karma back very quickly emotionally. The same also happens when others hurt them. They will receive lots of emotional karma fast. These people can live a great life or horrible one depending on how they choose to treat people. They should kill people with kindness for the most part though. These people can be very materialistic and care a lot of materialistic things. They tend to have very good judgment and are easily able to tell if someone is a good person or not or if they’re in a challenging situation or not. They at worst can be vengeful, greedy, controlling, or abuse their power at times. On a more positive note though they make great business men/women/etc and are very powerful people. They tend to be poor when young but as an adult become wealthy. If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in life they should stop taking advantage of people and never be abusive or cruel toward others

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 0°/9°/18°/27° ₊˚⊹

People with these moon degrees adapt super quickly to their surroundings/who they surround themselves with. If they hang out with losers they will become a loser. If they hang out with successful people they will become successful. These people are either the best people you’ll ever meet or the worst. There’s never an in between. They hold the power to whether they’ll have a good life or not. At worst they could struggle with addiction, be too much of a follower (in a negative way), be violent, lie a lot, or be hurt others because of their ego. They also tend to be the black sheep of their family. On a more positive note though these people are very intelligent and extremely powerful manifestors. They are very good at art because they often can use their emotions toward it with success. They’re extremely good looking if they don’t have lots of negative karma. They also tend to be good at acting because they’re good at pretending to be someone they’re not. If people with these moon degrees want to create stability in life they must surround themselves with people that have what they want and never try to scam others

₊˚⊹ MOON AT 11°/20°/29° ₊˚⊹

People with these moon degrees are extremely spritual souls. They often have dreams that will tell them things about the future. They are the most likely to be psychic out of all the other degrees as well. At worst they can be overly sensitive or violent due to emotions. On a positive note though they tend to be very charming and kind people, old souls, and they often make good athletes. If these people want to create stability in their life they need to learn to control their emotions more

₊˚⊹ BONUS MOON DEGREE NOTES ₊˚⊹

— The moon at 25° or 29° can indicate being seen as extremely beautiful to a lot of people

— The moon at 27° can make someone extremely spirtual and intelligent. The downside is they could struggle with things like addiction or romance

— The moon at 5°/14°/15°/23°/25° can grant good physical health or mean you care a lot about your health

— The moon at 24° can also grant wealth

— The moon at 23° can sometimes indicate being unfaithful to your partners

— 18°/28° live a more karmic life than 8°/17°/26° people

as always please do not copy my work and remember that your entire chart matters. this is about isolated placements alone

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The true, tactical significance of Project 2025

TODAY (July 14), I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! NEXT SATURDAY (July 20), I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

Like you, I have heard a lot about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's roadmap for the actions that Trump should take if he wins the presidency. Given the Heritage Foundation's centrality to the American authoritarian project, it's about as awful and frightening as you might expect:

https://www.project2025.org/

But (nearly) all the reporting and commentary on Project 2025 badly misses the point. I've only read a single writer who immediately grasped the true significance of Project 2025: The American Prospect's Rick Perlstein, which is unsurprising, given Perlstein's stature as one of the left's most important historians of right wing movements:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

As Perlstein points out, Project 2025 isn't new. The Heritage Foundation and its allies have prepared documents like this, with many identical policy prescriptions, in the run-up to many presidential elections. Perlstein argues that Warren G Harding's 1921 inaugural address captures much of its spirit, as did the Nixon campaign's 1973 vow to "move the country so far to the right 'you won’t even recognize it.'"

The threats to democracy and its institutions aren't new. The right has been bent on their destruction for more than a century. As Perlstein says, the point of taking note of this isn't to minimize the danger, rather, it's to contextualize it. The American right has, since the founding of the Republic, been bent on creating a system of hereditary aristocrats, who govern without "interference" from democratic institutions, so that their power to extract wealth from First Nations, working people, and the land itself is checked only by rivalries with other aristocrats. The project of the right is grounded in a belief in Providence: that God's favor shines on His best creations and elevates them to wealth and power. Elite status is proof of merit, and merit is "that which leads to elite status."

When a wealthy person founds an intergenerational dynasty of wealth and power, this is merely a hereditary meritocracy: a bloodline infused with God's favor. Sometimes, this belief is dressed up in caliper-wielding pseudoscience, with the "good bloodline" reflecting superior genetics and not the favor of the Almighty. Of course, a true American aristocrat gussies up his "race realism" with mystical nonsense: "God favored me with superior genes." The corollary, of course, is that you are poor because God doesn't favor you, or because your genes are bad, or because God punished you with bad genes.

So we should be alarmed by the right's agenda. We should be alarmed at how much ground it has gained, and how the right has stolen elections and Supreme Court seats to enshrine antimajoritarianism as a seemingly permanent fact of life, giving extremist minorities the power to impose their will on the rest of us, dooming us to a roasting planet, forced births, racist immiseration, and most expensive, worst-performing health industry in the world.

But for all that the right has bombed so many of the roads to a prosperous, humane future, it's a huge mistake to think of the right as a stable, unified force, marching to victory after inevitable victory. The American right is a brittle coalition led by a handful of plutocrats who have convinced a large number of turkeys to vote for Christmas.

The right wing coalition needs to pander to forced-birth extremists, racist extremist, Christian Dominionist extremists (of several types), frothing anti-Communist cranks, vicious homophobes and transphobes, etc, etc. Pandering to all these groups isn't easy: for one thing, they often want opposite things – the post-Roe forced birth policies that followed the Dobbs decision are wildly unpopular among conservatives, with the exception of a clutch of totally unhinged maniacs that the party relies on as part of a much larger coalition. Even more unpopular are policies banning birth control, like the ones laid out in Project 2025. Less popular still: the proposed ban on no-fault divorce. Each of these policies have different constituencies to whom they are very popular, but when you put them together, you get Dan Savage's "Husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office":

https://twitter.com/fakedansavage/status/1805680183065854083

The constituency for "husbands you can't leave, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, politicians you can't vote out of office" is very small. Almost no one in the GOP coalition is voting for all of this, they're voting for one or two of these things and holding their noses when it comes to the rest.

Take the "libertarian" wing of the GOP: its members do favor personal liberty…it's just that they favor low taxes for them more than personal liberty for you. The kind of lunatic who'd vote for a dead gopher if it would knock a quarter off his tax bill will happily allow his coalition partners to rape pregnant women with unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds and force them to carry unwanted fetuses to term if that's the price he has to pay to save a nickel in taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#tolerable-racism

And, of course, the religious maniacs who profess a total commitment to Biblical virtue but worship Trump, Gaetz, Limbaugh, Gingrich, Reagan, and the whole panoply of cheating, lying, kid-fiddling, dope-addled refugees from a Jack Chick tract know that these men never gave a shit about Jesus, the Apostles or the Ten Commandments – but they'll vote for 'em because it will get them school prayer, total abortion bans, and unregulated "home schooling" so they can brainwash a generation of Biblical literalists who think the Earth is 5,000 years old and that Jesus was white and super into rich people.

Time and again, the leaders of the conservative movement prove themselves capable of acts of breathtaking cruelty, and undoubtedly many of them are depraved sadists who genuinely enjoy the suffering of their enemies (think of Trump lickspittle Steven Miller's undisguised glee at the thought of parents who would never be reunited with children after being separated at the border). But it's a mistake to think that "the cruelty is the point." The point of the cruelty is to assemble and maintain the coalition. Cruelty is the tactic. Power is the point:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/09/turkeys-voting-for-christmas/#culture-wars

The right has assembled a lot of power. They did so by maintaining unity among people who have irreconcilable ethics and goals. Think of the pro-genocide coalition that includes far-right Jewish ethno-nationalists, antisemitic apocalyptic Christians who believe they are hastening the end-times, and Islamophobes of every description, from War On Terror relics to Hindu nationalists.

This is quite an improbable coalition, and while I deplore its goals, I can't help but be impressed by its cohesion. Can you imagine the kind of behind-the-scenes work it takes to get antisemites who think Jews secretly control the world to lobby with Zionists? Or to get Zionists to work alongside of Holocaust-denying pencilneck Hitler wannabes whose biggest regret is not bringing their armbands to Charlottesville?

Which brings me back to Project 2025 and its true significance. As Perlstein writes, Project 2025 is a mess. Clocking in an 900 pages, large sections of Project 2025 flatly contradict each other, while other sections contain subtle contradictions that you wouldn't notice unless you were schooled in the specialized argot of the far right's jargon and history.

For example, Project 2025 calls for defunding government agencies and repurposing the same agencies to carry out various spectacular atrocities. Both actions are deplorable, but they're also mutually exclusive. Project 2025 demands four different, completely irreconcilable versions of US trade policy. But at least that's better than Project 2025's chapter on monetary policy, which simply lays out every right wing theory of money and then throws up its hands and recommends none of them.

Perlstein says that these conflicts, blank spots and contradictions are the most important parts of Project 2025. They are the fracture lines in the coalition: the conflicting ideas that have enough support that neither side can triumph over the other. These are the conflicts that are so central to the priorities of blocs that are so important to the coalition that they must be included, even though that inclusion constitutes a blinking "LOOK AT ME" sign telling us where the right is ready to split apart.

The right is really good at this. Perlstein points to Nixon's expansion of affirmative action, undertaken to sow division between Black and white workers. We need to get better at it.

So far, we've lavished attention on the clearest and most emphatic proposals in Project 2025 – for understandable reasons. These are the things they say they want to do. It would be reckless to ignore them. But they've been saying things like this for a century. These demands constitute a compelling argument for fighting them as a matter of urgency, with the intention of winning. And to win, we need to split apart their coalition.

Perlstein calls on us to dissect Project 2025, to cleave it at its joints. To do so, he says we need to understand its antecedents, like Nixon's "Malek Manual," a roadmap for destroying the lives of civil servants who failed to show sufficient loyalty to Nixon. For example, the Malek Manual lays out a "Traveling Salesman Technique" whereby a government employee would be given duties "criss-crossing him across the country to towns (hopefully with the worst accommodations possible) of a population of 20,000 or under. Until his wife threatens him with divorce unless he quits, you have him out of town and out of the way":

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Final_Report_on_Violations_and_Abuses_of/0dRLO9vzQF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22organization+of+a+political+personnel+office+and+program%22&pg=PA161&printsec=frontcover

It's no coincidence that leftist historians of the right are getting a lot of attention. Trumpism didn't come out of nowhere – Trump is way too stupid and undisciplined to be a cause – he's an effect. In his excellent, bestselling new history of the right in the early 1990s, When the Clock Broke, Josh Ganz shows us the swamp that bred Trump, with such main characters as the fascist eugenicist Sam Francis:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605445/whentheclockbroke

Ganz joins the likes of the Know Your Enemy podcast, an indispensable history of reactionary movements that does excellent work in tracing the fracture lines in the right coalition:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/when-clock-broke-106803105

Progressives are also an uneasy coalition that is easily splintered. As Naomi Klein argues in her essential Doppelganger, the liberal-left coalition is inherently unstable and contains the seeds of its own destruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Liberals have been the senior partner in that coalition, and their commitment to preserving institutions for their own sake (rather than because of what they can do to advance human thriving) has produced generations of weak and ineffectual responses to the crises of terminal-stage capitalism, like the idea that student-debt cancellation should be means-tested:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/03/utopia-of-rules/#in-triplicate

The last bid for an American aristocracy was repelled by rejecting institutions, not preserving them. When the Supreme Court thwarted the New Deal, FDR announced his intention to pack the court, and then began the process of doing so (which included no-holds-barred attacks on foot-draggers in his own party). Not for nothing, this is more-or-less what Lincoln did when SCOTUS blocked Reconstruction:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

But the liberals who lead the progressive movement dismiss packing the court as unserious and impractical – notwithstanding the fact that they have no plan for rescuing America from the bribe-taking extremists, the credibly accused rapist, and the three who stole their robes. Ultimately, liberals defend SCOTUS because it is the Supreme Court. I defended SCOTUS, too – while it was still a vestigial organ of the rights revolution, which improved the lives of millions of Americans. Human rights are worth defending, SCOTUS isn't. If SCOTUS gets in the way of human rights, then screw SCOTUS. Sideline it. Pack it. Make it a joke.

Fuck it.

This isn't to argue for left seccession from the progressive coalition. As we just saw in France, splitting at this moment is an invitation to literal fascist takeover:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/melenchon-macron-france-left-winner

But if there's one thing that the rise of Trumpism has proven, it's that parties are not immune to being wrestled away from their establishment leaderships by radical groups:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

What's more, there's a much stronger natural coalition that the left can mobilize: workers. Being a worker – that is, paying your bills from wages, instead of profits – isn't an ideology you can change, it's a fact. A Christian nationalist can change their beliefs and then they will no longer be a Christian nationalist. But no matter what a worker believes, they are still a worker – they still have a irreconcilable conflict with people whose money comes from profits, speculation, or rents. There is no objectively fair way to divide the profits a worker's labor generates – your boss will always pay you as little of that surplus as he can. The more wages you take home, the less profit there is for your boss, the fewer dividends there are for his shareholders, and the less there is to pay to rentiers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

Reviving the role of workers in their unions, and of unions in the Democratic party, is the key to building the in-party power we need to drag the party to real solutions – strong antimonopoly action, urgent climate action, protections for gender, racial and sexual minorities, and decent housing, education and health care.

The alternative to a worker-led Democratic Party is a Democratic Party run by its elites, whose dictates and policies are inescapably illegitimate. As Hamilton Nolan writes, the completely reasonable (and extremely urgent) discussion about Biden's capacity to defeat Trump has been derailed by the Democrats' undemocratic structure. Ultimately, the decision to have an open convention or to double down on a candidate whose campaign has been marred by significant deficits is down to a clutch of party officials who operate without any formal limits or authority:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-hole-at-the-heart-of-the-democratic

Jettisoning Biden because George Clooney (or Nancy Pelosi) told us to is never going to feel legitimate to his supporters in the party. But if the movement for an open convention came from grassroots-dominated unions who themselves dominated the party – as was the case, until the Reagan revolution – then there'd be a sense that the party had constituents, and it was acting on its behalf.

Reviving the labor movement after 40 years of Reaganomic war on workers may sound like a tall order, but we are living through a labor renaissance, and the long-banked embers of labor radicalism are reigniting. What's more, repelling fascism is what workers' movements do. The business community will always sell you out to the Nazis in exchange for low taxes, cheap labor and loose regulation.

But workers, organized around their class interests, stand strong. Last week, we lost one of labor's brightest flames. Jane McAlevey, a virtuoso labor organizer and trainer of labor organizers, died of cancer at 57:

https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-strategy-organizing-obituary

McAlevey fought to win. She was skeptical of platitudes like "speaking truth to power," always demanding an explanation for how the speech would become action. In her classic book A Collective Bargain, she describes how she built worker power:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

McAlevey helped organize a string of successful strikes, including the 2019 LA teachers' strike. Her method was straightforward: all you have to do to win a strike or a union drive is figure out how to convince every single worker in the shop to back the union. That's all.

Of course, it's harder than it sounds. All the problems that plague every coalition – especially the progressive liberal/left coalition – are present on the shop floor. Some workers don't like each other. Some don't see their interests aligned with others. Some are ornery. Some are convinced that victory is impossible.

McAlevey laid out a program for organizing that involved figuring out how to reach every single worker, to converse with them, listen to them, understand them, and win them over. I've never read or heard anyone speak more clearly, practically and inspirationally about coalition building.

Biden was never my candidate. I supported three other candidates ahead of him in 2020. When he got into office and started doing a small number of things I really liked, it didn't make me like him. I knew who he was: the Senator from MBNA, whose long political career was full of bills, votes and speeches that proved that while we might have some common goals, we didn't want the same America or the same world.

My interest in Biden over the past four years has had two areas of focus: how can I get him to do more of the things that will make us all better off, and do less of the things that make the world worse. When I think about the next four years, I'm thinking about the same things. A Trump presidency will contain far more bad things and far fewer good ones.

Many people I like and trust have pointed out that they don't like Biden and think he will be a bad president, but they think Trump will be much worse. To limit Biden's harms, leftists have to take over the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, so that he's hemmed in by his power base. To limit Trump's harms, leftists have to identify the fracture lines in the right coalition and drive deep wedges into them, shattering his power base.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

[5sospenguinqueen]

Growing Pains | Oscar Piastri x Reader

Summary: When fans begin commenting about your future plans, Oscar begins to worry that your long-term relationship is preventing you from truly experiencing life. 

Warnings: Swearing. Angst. Self-sacrificing Oscar haha. Childhood sweethearts

Female reader with various faceclaims. Pics found on Pinterest.

2023 season

Less baby-fever, more baby panic haha. I'm so sorry if these aren't as baby-centered as the others. I've been trying to make them a little different.

Main Masterlist

next.

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YourUserName just posted

liked by alexandrasaintmleux, danielricciardo and others

YourUserName i love weekends off with you <3

978 comments

oscarpiastri you didn’t post the one of me with my face in the water? that is the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for me

→ YourUserName only because your ass was in the air and i’m the only one allowed to see that 

→ oscarpiastri oh

→ landonorris @ oscarpiastri well, now you’ve told the internet that it exists, we need to see it

→ User1 lando is one of us 

danielricciardo i’m still your favourite australian though, right? 

→ YourUserName no. i’m my own favourite australian

→ oscarpiastri you tell ‘em, sweetheart 

→ User2 SWEETHEART!!!

User3 i know they’re only young but when can we expect a wedding

→ User4 they’ve been together for long enough. they’re practically already married at this point

→ User5 their wedding would be so cute. can you imagine all the f1 appearances we would get? 

→ User6 mark webber in a tux 🤤

mclaren our favourite young couple

→ landonorris hey! 

→ mclaren you and daniel don’t count anymore

→ danielricciardo hey! 

User7 papaya wedding when? 

oscarpiastri just posted

liked by mclaren, charles_leclerc and others

oscarpiastri my favourite girl 💕

2,664 comments

YourUserName don’t let suzie hear you say that. she’ll be distraught

→ oscarpaistri maybe you should drive her more and she’ll love me less

→ YourUserName whoa, i thought this was an appreciation post for me, why are you throwing shade

→ landonorris why would she drive her own car when she has you to do it for her?

→ YourUserName exactly! 

→ User9 wait, suzie is a car? i was hoping they had a pet or something we didn’t know about 

User10 the disrespect to have lando’s # on her back but be stood in front of oscar’s garage 

logansargeant yet i suggest she support driver #2 and i had holes poked in all my juice boxes 

→ oscarpiastri you can never prove that was me

→ YourUserName i have video footage

landonorris everyone can relax, she’s wearing the shirt because she lost a bet. oscar was a good sport about it 

→ YourUserName i got soooo many dirty looks that day. the fans did not like me

→ oscarpiastri i still think you’re beautiful. not as beautiful with MY number splashed only our back but

→ YourUserName you know 81 is my favourite number

→ YourUserName (and sometimes 16)

→ charles_leclerc forza ferrari

User11 the fact that they fell in love during the most awkward years of a person’s life and have continued to love each other when they got hot

→ User12 they saw the potential in each other 

User13 the fact that he’s loved you since you were 14 and continues to love you more each day 🥹

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YourUserName just posted

liked by racerbia, alex_albon and others 

YourUserName i’m so proud of you, osc. another podium in a long-line of many. thank you for sharing your joy and success with me. 🧡🧡

when i befriended the nerdy 12 year old who wouldn’t stop talking about engines, i never imagined that you would be dragging me around the world. don’t get me wrong, i always believed you would make it this far. i just thought i would’ve managed to break free from you before then 😂 however, i’m so glad i didn’t because you are my favouritest guy in the whole world, and seeing you on that podium made me cry more than watching the supernatural series finale 

1,220 comments

YourUserName oh, and well done to lando on P3, i guess

→ landonorris you guess???

User1 time for another round of: is he looking at lando or y/n in the 3rd pic?

→ landonorris it was y/n this time :( 

→ YourUserName you get loads of pics of him looking at you like this, let me have my moment

oscarpiastri thank you for coming with me around the world and supporting me no matter what. you’ve been one of my biggest supporters these past 8 years and i don’t think i could’ve done it without you by my side. i love you so much, even if i come second to dean winchester 🧡🤍

→ User2 P2 in your relationship as well

→ oscarpiastri only because y/n is p1

→ YourUserName stop making me love you more and more each day. i might explodeeeee

User3 my parents. i need them to adopt me because they’re just so cute 

User4 drenched in champagne is a good look for piastri 

thisisnotyn the pirelli cap needs to stay on during sex 

→ User5 is this y/n’s secret account 

landonorris this is so cute. excuse me whilst i puke

maxverstappen1 a delight to share the podium with your boyfriend for the 2nd time

→ User6 y/n’s boyfriend and y/n’s boyfriend’s boyfriend on the podium with max 2x in a row 

→ YourUserName omg max verstappen commented on my post! you’re like my favourite driver ever

→ oscarpiastri you agreed not to mention this in public

→ charles_leclerc @ YourUserName i thought it was me

→ landonorris i thought it was me

→ fernandoalo_official jokes on all of you, she told me it was me

→ aussiegrit you're all wrong. it's me

User7 if you guys are after a third, i’m free?

→ User8 how could you say this to the cutest couple on the grid

→ User9!because y/n has said worse and is more unhinged than we think but oscar’s pr manager has gotten to her recently 

User10 i’m gonna have to agree with @ OscarPastryyy just because they’ve been together forever doesn’t change the fact that they’re still young

User11 yeah they’ve been together for a while but that doesn’t mean that having children is their only option. they’re still technically children themselves 

NicolePiastri he doesn’t know how to do his own washing. trust me, he’s not ready for children. Y/N on the other hand, has been keeping that boy alive since they were 12

→ User12 nobody humbles an f1 racer more than mama piastri 

User13 @ CHICKEN!! is so real for that. max is only 4 years old than them and yet everyone talks about him, kelly and P being a family and when are him and kelly getting married, but y/n and oscar have been together for longer than kelly has been a mother so… 

User14 i think people only focus on their age and forget about their experience. i went to school with them and they still act just as infatuated with each other now as they did when they were 14.

→ User15 but they’ve also only been with each other. perhaps they should try dating other people before committing to the rest of their lives 

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YourUserName just posted

liked by aussiegrit, logansargeant and others

YourUserName quando a Roma 🇮🇹❤️ tagged: YourBFF, YourBFF2

1,009 comments

YourBFF i told you that pic of you by the fountain would look amazing

→ YourBFF2 i think if we pumped another cocktail in her, she’d have gone swimming in it

→ YourUserName stop making me sound like a sloppy drunk

→ YourBFF you were sloppy anyway 

→ YourUserName bitch

→ YourBFF2 it’s part of being in your 20s. welcome! 

→ YourUserName not funny. 

User1 guys, oscar hasn’t commented. he always comments on posts with her in, even if they’re posted by friends/family 

mclaren orange drinks to support your favourite f1 team this weekend?

→ YourUserName you know it. papaya pride! 

→ YourBFF2 she actually said that to herself when she took the pic. you’ve indoctrinated her

lilymhe cute post but you’re coming to sichuan with me next

→ YourUserName just name a date and time, and i’m yours

→ alex_albon what is it with you and stealing f1 drivers’ partners 

→ YourUserName i think that just means i have the most rizz 

User2 you mean to tell me that she’s in rome the weekend that oscar is all the way in america? so, she’s not going to be at the race 🤔

→ User3 she doesn’t have to go to every one

→ User4 i know but she’s said loads of times that she tries to make all of them

User5 all of you calling y/n a bad girlfriend but are we forgetting that they’ve already been together for 8 years, and have known each for 10. they’re at the point where they don’t have to be glued to the hip all the time

→ User6 literally. like they’ve been together longer than some of the married couples on the grid 

→ User7 yeah but it’s just unlike them. how do they go from being infatuated with each other to distancing within 2 weeks without there being some cause? it wasn’t a natural progression

logansargeant i can’t believe you didn’t bring me back a gift.. you said you would

→ YourUserName i also said i’d wear a williams t-shirt one race but we all know that ain’t happening

→ User8 is this logan shooting his shot? 

alexandrasaintmleux i knew that would dress would look good on you. you look radiant 

→ YourUserName my favourite shopping partner 

→ charles_leclerc my girl has good taste

→ YourUserName not if she’s dating you 

→ charles_leclerc you have hurted my feelings 

User9 y/n hasn’t been able to terrorise oscar on social media and it’s showing because sis has been dragging the grid in their comments haha

→ User10 she’s so funny. i bet they’re fearful anytime her name pops up in their notifs 

User11 i love how we all sound insane to other people but us oscy/n stans know we’re right because they’ve been a constant media presence since his f2 days 

User13 i hate to say it but what if we’re the reason they broke up? we couldn't stop talking about them getting married and having kids lately, and what if it freaked them out… 

User14 i can’t imagine oscar piastri without y/n y/l/n. i only really follow f1, not f2 but he’s always been oscar and y/n since he started. it would be akin to not seeing him in mclaren 

mclaren just posted

liked by YourUserName, ln4 and others 

mclaren get you a teammate who looks at you the way these two look at each other #unitedstatesgp

1,559 comments

oscarpiastri 🧡

racerbia team papaya! 🧡

User1 poor oscar, such a shame he had to retire after minimal contact

User2 not to be that person but it was defo because y/n wasn’t there. she’s his good luck charm 

YourUserName well done lando! 

User3 anyone else getting more and more confused by oscar and y/n’s relationship purely because of their media presence

→ User3 for info, she posts that she’s in rome the weekend he is in america, proving that she isn't attending the race. oscar likes the post but doesn’t comment despite y/n looking beautiful in that post (1/4)

→ User3 then she’s not spotted in the paddock, further proving that she’s defo not at the race. plus, whenever oscar was asked about her during interviews, lando quickly changed the topic for him (2/4)

→ User3 then oscar crashes and y/n doesn’t post ANYTHING about the race but when he dnf’d in bahrain and belgium, she put numerous posts on her story about how proud of him she was (3/4)

→ User3 and now she congratulates lando on the mclaren post but doesn’t even mention her long-term boyfriend?? (4/4)

→ User4 you have too much time on your hands and are reading too much into things. i’m sure she’s facetimed him to see how he’s doing and told him she’s proud of him 

User5 okay but if a man looked at me the way oscar and lando look at each other, i would marry him on the spot 

danielricciardo @ oscarpiastri first your girlfriend tries stealing my seat, and now you’re stealing my lando. you two are giving aussie's a bad name

→ landonorris you’re the only for me, boo

→ danielricciardo don’t lie. the pictures show everything 

User6 i miss when we couldn't tell if he was looking at lando or y/n like that. now we know it’s lando because y/n isn’t in the paddock 

Note: Their texts at the end kinda resolve things (and, yes, he crumbled after just one race without y/n) so let me know if you want a Part 2 showing their future? As he doesn't really need a redemption so no Part 2 planned as of yet.

As always, requests are welcome!

GUESS WHAT’S COMING NEXT WEEK!!

A Lando x Plus Size Reader

I’m kidding. (I’m not. I am actually releasing that) but also Danny Ric Baby Fever Part2!!!!

Baby Fever Angst

Daniel's Version | Max's Version | Lando's Version

Lance's Version | Charles' Version

Tag list

@bibissparkles @barcelonaloverf1life @rlalliehayes @dullypully @softtina @callsignwidow @lav3nder-haze @minkyungseokie @luvrrish @fall-bambi @evans-dejong @sadsierra2 @justdreamersdream @spookystitchery @dark-night-sky-99 @majusialikesfastcars @luckyladycreator2 @bborra @mrosales16 @reguluscrystals @tvdtw4ever @alwaysclassyeagle @gigicisneros @spanishcorndogs @thecubanator2 @goldenharrysworld @awritingtree @jxnellat @sbrn0905 @hc-dutch @buckybarnessweetheart @ironmaiden1313 @dreamercrowd @yourbane @reguluscrystals @peachiicherries

[robertreich]

10 Worst Things About The Trump Presidency

Donald Trump left office with the lowest approval rating of any president ever. But some people now seem to be suffering from amnesia.

Let me jog your memory. Here are 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency — in no particular order.

#1. Trump fueled division and sparked a record uptick in hate crimes.

#2. Murder went way up under Trump. He presided over the largest ever single-year increase in homicides in 2020. A number of factors might have contributed to that, but a big one is…

#3. Gun sales broke records under Trump, who has bragged about how he “did nothing” to restrict guns as president in spite of…

#4. Under Trump, America suffered more than 1,700 mass shootings.

#5. Trump said there were "very fine people" among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

I’m halfway to ten. If you think I’m missing something big, leave it in the comments.

#6. Trump allied himself with the Proud Boys, a violent hate group who helped orchestrate the Jan 6 Capitol attack.

#7. Trump’s not wrong when he says…

TRUMP: I got rid of Roe v. Wade.

It is entirely because of Trump’s judicial appointments that 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age now lives in states with abortion bans.

#8. One of Trump’s Supreme Court justices was Brett Kavanaugh, a man accused of sexual assault by multiple women.

#9. Trump’s White House interfered in the FBI’s investigation of Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults.

And now: #10. Trump has been convicted of committing 34 felonies while in office. The criminally false business filings he got convicted for in New York? All of them were committed while he was president.

I’m sorry, did I say the 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency? I meant 15.

#11. Trump’s failed pandemic response is estimated to have led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. By the time Trump left office, roughly 3,000 Americans were dying of covid every day. That’s a 9/11-scale mass casualty event every single day. How did Trump screw up so badly?

#12. Trump’s White House discarded the pandemic response playbook that had been assembled by the Obama administration.

#13. Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response team.

#14. Trump repeatedly lied about the danger of covid, saying it was no worse than the flu or that it would go away on its own.

But behind closed doors, Trump admitted he knew covid was deadly.

#15. Trump promoted fake covid cures like hydroxychloroquine and even injecting people with disinfectants.

After Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks, poison control centers received a spike in emergency calls.

That’s fifteen things. Should I keep going? Ok, I’ll keep going. The 20 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#16. Trump presided over a net loss of 2.9 million American jobs — the worst recorded jobs numbers of any U.S. president in history.

#17. Trump profited off the presidency, making an estimated $160 million from foreign countries while he was president.

#18. Trump also billed the Secret Service over $1 million for the privilege of staying at his golf clubs and other properties while they protected him. That’s your money!

#19. Trump caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history when he didn’t get funding for his border wall, which he said Mexico was going to pay for.  

#20. Under Trump, the national debt increased by about 40% — more than in any other four-year presidential term — largely because of his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.

You didn’t really think I was stopping at 20, did you? We’re going to 25 —

#21. Trump separated more than 5,000 children from their parents at the border, with no plan to ever reunite them, putting babies in cages.

#22. The Muslim Ban. Yes, Trump really did try to ban Muslims from entering the country.

#23. Trump sparked international outrage by moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem while closing the U.S. mission to Palestine.

#24. Trump tasked his son-in-law Jared Kushner with drafting a potential Middle East “peace plan” with zero Palestinian input.

#25. And finally, Trump recognized Israel’s occupation of the Goh-lahn Heights, which is considered illegal under international law.

So there you have it, folks: The 25 Worst — Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did I mention the impeachments? We’ve got to do the impeachments. Let’s go to 30.

#26. Trump broke the law by trying to withhold nearly $400 million of U.S. aid for Ukraine in an effort to extort a personal political favor from Ukraine’s Pres. Zelensky. Trump wanted Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election by announcing an investigation into the Bidens. Delaying this aid to Ukraine weakened Ukraine and strengthened Russia.

#27. Trump personally attacked and ruined the careers of everyone who stood in the way of his illegal Ukraine scheme, including Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.

#28. To cover up the scheme, Trump ordered the White House and State Department to defy congressional subpoenas.

#29. For these reasons, on December 18, 2019, Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached. He was charged with Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.

#30. Even while he was being investigated for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election, Trump publicly called for China to interfere in the election.

So those are the 30 Worst Things —

I’ll go to 35.

#31. Long before Election Day, Trump started making false claims that the election would be rigged.

#32. After losing, Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, even though his own inner circle, including his campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his own Justice Department and attorney general told him it was not.

#33. Trump kept telling his Big Lie even after more than 60 legal challenges to the election were struck down in court, many by Trump-appointed judges.

#34. Trump ordered the Department of Justice to falsely claim that the election “was corrupt.”

#35. Trump and his allies used threats to pressure state leaders in Arizona and Georgia to falsify the election results.

We may go to 40.

#36. When none of the previous schemes worked, Trump and his allies produced fake electoral votes cast by fake electors in multiple swing states. His former White House chief of staff and Rudy Giuliani are among the many members of his inner circle who have been criminally indicted for this scheme.

#37. Trump tried to bully Vice President Pence into obstructing the certification of the election.

#38. Trump invited a mob to the Capitol on Jan 6 with his “be there, will be wild” tweet.

#39. Sworn testimony alleges that when Trump was warned that members of the crowd were carrying deadly weapons, he ordered security metal detectors to be taken down.

#40. Knowing the crowd had deadly weapons, he ordered them to go to the Capitol and…

TRUMP: …fight like hell.

#41 — Yes, yes, I know, bear with me.

Trump betrayed his oath to defend the nation by doing nothing to stop the Jan 6 violence. Instead, according to witness testimony, he sat and watched TV for hours.

#42. On January 13, 2021, Trump became the only president ever to be impeached twice. This time he was charged with incitement of insurrection. It was a bipartisan vote.

#43. The majority of senators — 57 out of 100 — voted to convict Trump, including 7 Republican senators.

So that’s the two impeachments and the Big Lie, but wait, we haven’t dealt with Russia, right? So we’re going to 50.

#44. In a likely obstruction of justice, Trump pressured then FBI Director James Comey to stop the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn. This was documented in the Mueller report.

#45. When Comey didn’t bend to Trump’s will, Trump fired him.

#46. Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation by ordering White House Counsel Don McGann to fire Mueller. McGann refused because that would be criminal obstruction of justice.

#47. When news got out that Trump tried to fire Mueller, Trump repeatedly told McGann to lie — to Mueller, to press, to public — and even create a false document to conceal Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller.

#48. Trump ordered his staff not to turn over emails showing Don Jr. had set up a meeting at Trump Tower before the 2016 election with representatives of the Russian government.

#49. Trump convinced Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and Cohen served prison time for lying to Congress.

#50. Trump was not charged for criminal obstruction of justice because it’s the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a sitting president, but more than a thousand former federal prosecutors who served under both Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter declaring there was more than enough evidence to prosecute Trump.

So those are the 50 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency. Now I could go on…

And I will! The 75 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#51. Trump said he’d hire only the best people, but…

His campaign chair was convicted of multiple crimes.

So was one of his closest associates.

His deputy campaign chair pleaded guilty to crimes.

So did his personal lawyer

His National Security Adviser

The Chief Financial Officer of his business

A campaign foreign policy adviser

And one of his campaign fundraisers.

They all committed crimes, and Trump pardoned most of them.

#52. Trump said he’d drain the Washington swamp. But he appointed more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls to his administration than any administration in history

#53. Trump intervened to get his son-in-law, Jared Kushner top-secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.

#54. Trump hosted a Russian Foreign Minister to the Oval Office, where Trump revealed top-secret intelligence.

Oh, and Trump’s economic policies!

#55 Trump promised that the average American family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. How’d that work out? Did you get a $4,000 raise? Of course not! Nobody did!

#56. Trump vowed to protect American jobs, but offshoring increased and manufacturing fell.

#57. Trump said he would fix America’s infrastructure, but it never happened. He announced so many failed “infrastructure weeks” they became a running joke.

#58. Trump said he would be “the voice” of American workers, but he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union flacks who made it harder for workers to unionize.

#59. Trump’s Labor Department made it easier for bosses to get out of paying workers overtime, which cheated 8 million workers of extra pay.

#60. Trump repeatedly suggested he might serve more than two terms in violation of the Constitution — and continues to do so.

#61. Trump called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries.

#62. Trump tried to terminate DACA, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Luckily this was struck down by the courts.

#63. Trump called climate change a “hoax.”

#64. Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

#65. Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections.

#66. Every budget Trump proposed included cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

#67. Trump tried (and failed) to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have resulted in 20 million Americans losing insurance. And striking down the ACA’s protections for the roughly 130 million people with pre-existing conditions could have driven up their insurance premiums or led to a loss of coverage.

#68. Trump made it easier for employers to remove birth control coverage from insurance plans.

#69. By the end of Trump’s term, the number of people lacking health insurance had risen by 3 million.

#70. Trump lied. Constantly. He made 30,573 false or misleading claims while president — an average of 21 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.

#71. Trump allegedly took hundreds of classified documents on his way out of the White House, reportedly including nuclear secrets, which he then left unsecured in various parts of Mar-a-Lago, including a bathroom. He was even caught on tape showing them off to people.

#72. Trump seriously discussed the idea of nuking a hurricane.

#73. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Trump delayed $20 billion of aid and allowed Puerto Rico to be without power for 181 days.

#74. Trump suggested withholding federal aid for California wildfire recovery and said the solution was to “clean” the “floors” of the forest.

#75. Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, placing Iran on a path to developing nuclear weapons.

Honestly, there’s so much more, from exchanging “love letters” with North Korea’s brutal dictator to publicly denigrating a Gold Star military widow and making her cry, to the way he attacked journalists, to late night tweet binges.

Look, I can understand why a lot of people want to block all of this out of their memories. But we cannot afford to forget just how terrible Trump’s time in the White House was for this nation.

And we sure as hell can’t afford to put him back there.

[yutarot]

SHES THE MAN [l.hc smau]

genres: humour, friends to lovers, college au, gamer!haechan, gamer!yn, everyone’s a gamer actually, loosely based off the movie ‘she’s the man’, fem reader, slowburn, angst, plot heavy

synopsis: after you discover your love for gaming, you soon find out that your college won’t let you in any of their e-sports teams due to your gender. but what happens when your twin brother leaves town just before he’s about to start at a new college, where not even NCU’s e-sports captain, lee haechan knows anything about him? there’s only one problem, your brother’s crazy ex is trying to hunt you down. will they all find out your true identity? and will their views on you change if they discover who you really are?

++ will be using the same taglist as my other works for ease, dm if you would like to be removed.

WARNINGS: language, mention of alcohol/being drunk, jokes about death, the plot will divert from the original movie, themes of sexism (at the start), cliffhangers again sorry guys, typos literally everywhere, a littleee bit of violence, small injury detail, heavy on the miscommunication trope… obviously…, lots of angst, things get MESSY, a small (?) plot twist

STATUS: COMPLETE! 08.06.24 - 09.03.24

DISCLAIMER: all portrayals of people are fake and from my imagination, in no way am i claiming that they act like this irl

MASTERLIST

[profiles one] || [profiles two] || [ig profiles]

[1 - positive affirmations]

[2 - let me cook]

[3 - dream vacation destination]

[4 - why’s he kinda…]

[5 - therapy scheduled]

[6 - winky face and all]

[7 - sorry i can’t read]

[8 - trick or treat]

[9 - “can i get your number?”] written chapter

[10 - bro shes your friends sister]

[11- double date]

[12 - canada?]

[13 - do you do weddings?]

[14 - sick and twisted.]

[15 - all of the above]

[16 - who are you?]

[17 - i don’t wanna see you again]

[18 - it’s all over]

[19 - he doesn’t miss you] written chapter

[20 - the truth]

[21 - we’ve missed you]

[22 - you’re delusional sweetie]

[23 - i guess we both had our secrets] written chapter

[24 - second male lead]

[25 - i had no idea]

[26 - is she okay]

[27 - you know her]

[28 - the nile?]

[FINAL; 29 - you already do] written chapter

END!

replies, likes and reblogs are all appreciated! feel free to send requests in my asks; scenes, chapters, characters etc.

TAGLIST - CLOSED.