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#remember to give the article hits!
universalsatan · 2 years
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sometimes i forget how distinctly american my mother is, and how we are generally a product of our surroundings
#personal#just found out she’s pro-military!!! and she was accusing me of being anti-military because of watching x files. like girl i am 10 episodes#into this show. i have had these views for a Long time (VERY specifically about the us military). and im just like. damn. like yeah of COURS#it’s not plastered everywhere. ‘give me some peer reviewed articles’ i would but i just cant bring myself to get the energy to get stuck in#this exhausting npd abuse loop again (sounds exaggerated but im basically falling for exacerbating the situation. which is why it’s always#hit me the hardest i guess. because she Will just straight up either not mention it ever again or just simply deny it. and i’m not exactly#educated enough on the subject to remember specific points. my memory has been destroyed BECAUSE of this kinda shit and i cant recall decent#argument points anymore. not that i even particularly want to!!! read up on all this shit!!!! oh and even realizing that she was Definitely#seeing me as an Extreme. like girl what. i forgot that npd does that#reminds me of how. she’s very liberal. she was the one who got me out of the closet in the first place (bc i wouldnt do so myself)#and yet the other day. i swear she said something that was almost terf rhetoric#FUCK i HATE that my memory has already scrambled it. fuuuuuck and here i thought my memory was coming back#but it was something along the lines of implying that men Would try to get into women’s shelters etc in a skirt or smth and i#i just stopped talking i was so shocked#god. sorry didnt mean to vent lmao but im. hhh im just Tired yknow?#mandont
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saerins · 11 months
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°୨୧ NO CONTEST
+ kaiser x f!reader | wc 2.8k | content: fluff, friends to lovers, slight hints of jealousy, mentions of alcohol, they go clubbing
notes: help me i think i made myself fall for this guy even more after writing this shit for him > ⤙ <
summary: being just friends doesn’t mean much when neither of you really want to keep it that way. problem is, will either of you make the first move?
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SPOTTED: KAISER-KAIA DUO HIT THE STREETS, NEW BUDDING ROMANCE?
“i like you though, y/n.”
it’s spring and the weather outside is the nicest it’s ever been in a while and you have every chance to enjoy it except for the fact that dear michael kaiser is lounging on your couch, rifling through the magazine he got in the mail.
“right, haha, very funny,” you mumble sarcastically, slumping down onto the other couch where kaiser isn’t sprawled all over.
sometimes, you think it’s funny how he’s portrayed as this hot, sexy, confident soccer player who can do no wrong when it comes to matters with his looks, but then in private he’s like… well, this. his bed head’s a mess, his room slippers are the fluffy-fuzzy kind, and much less high maintenance than everyone makes him out to be. (but you have to stop yourself from staring because kaiser doesn’t sleep in anything but his sweatpants during this season and well, where his abs are concerned, he’s definitely got no problems there.)
kaiser sighs in the overdramatic fashion that’s probably his trademark right about now. “y/n, y/n, what do i have to do to make you believe me?” he turns around, smirking at you as he raises a brow. maybe it’ll work on his countless fangirls, but after being friends with him for over six years, you’re probably immune to it.
“maybe you can just shut up and get ready for your event later.” you roll your eyes, sauntering to the kitchen to get yourself some breakfast, automatically making two of everything because kaiser loves to crash your apartment in the morning. (he really does need to learn about personal space.)
breakfast preparations go quietly. kaiser listens to you—he shuts up and starts getting ready for his event before coming back into your apartment, all fresh and ready to shamelessly eat the breakfast you made, staring at you from across the table whenever you’re not looking like he always does.
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“kaiser-kaia duo hit the streets, new budding romance?”
“miko, don’t tell me you’re reading that gossip rag too,” you whine, looking for any excuse not to dive into your pile of work for the day.
your colleague swivels her chair over to your cubicle, looking around to make sure your bosses aren’t around to witness the both of you slacking off. “hey, isn’t he your friend? give me the tea! are they really dating?”
leave it to miko to get all excited about dating rumours. you really don’t know what’s so special about them—kaiser’s gotten so many of them ever since, well, forever. even before he became a soccer superstar.
you remember what kaiser said in the morning. “i like you though, y/n.” always ready with that smooth tongue of his. that aside, if he really was dating someone, you bet that they’d be staying over with him more often than not, and there’s really no harm in rejecting a rumor as opposed to confirming one.
“nope, they just happened to be waiting for a cab at the same spot.” and paparazzis love to snap a shot from misleading angles. now that you’re really looking at the article, they managed to make it look like kaiser’s kissing her cheek. you find yourself rolling your eyes at it and looking away.
miko sighs, leaning back against her chair. “man, that sucks, they look cute,” she comments, scrolling away from the online article before she gives you a suspicious side eye. “hey, you sure you’re not dating him?”
you still a little at the sudden line of questioning before turning your attention back to your laptop equally quickly. “if i was, i wouldn’t be so free all the time now, would i?” a response to which miko shrugs off and decides to let go of as she retreats back to her desk.
as much as you love miko as your colleague, you haven’t been as honest with her as you could. she knows you’re friends with kaiser, yeah, but she doesn’t know he’s basically your neighbour. she doesn’t know that he comes over all the time whenever it’s off season. she doesn’t know that the both of you have fallen asleep next to each other on the couch.
she doesn’t know a lot of things—like how your heart’s beating erratically now at the notion of being someone special to kaiser. it’s always been sweet nothings that you thought would stay that way, and you’ve always been short at realising your own feelings, so much so you were, once upon a time, positive you had zero romantic feelings for your friend.
now? you’re not so sure anymore.
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seven days pass and kaiser’s been pestering you every single moment you’re free—like he always does—but today’s kind of a special day because it’s your birthday and it’s an hour away from your dinner party yet you’re not even close to ready.
your hair’s wet, you’re still in your loungewear, you have no idea what to wear and kaiser’s just flipping through the channels, half bored to death. for his part, at least, he’s already ready.
it’s not even fair how he takes just half an hour to get ready and yet he looks like he does. hair perfectly soft, and he’s wearing a nice black suit with a wine red dress shirt underneath, his tattoos peeking out here and there. if he wasn’t a soccer player, he’d definitely either be a model or a very charming businessman.
“too handsome for you?” kaiser smirks as he catches you looking, and you have to spin on your heels to avoid getting flustered (to his face).
“shut up, kaiser, i haven’t found anything to wear,” you groan, making a beeline for your bedroom. you really wished your friends hadn’t booked a high-end restaurant for little old you—then you could literally just throw on anything and be done with it.
kaiser, completely comfortable in your apartment, strolls into your bedroom with you and starts browsing through your closet, ignoring your protests. within seconds, he finds a dress and holds it out, a lopsided smile filling his face. “how about this?”
the wine red satin dress hovers in front of you, and you have to swallow the lump in your throat before you speak, feeling the line getting blurry. “trying to get me to coordinate outfits with you or something?”
you’re trying your best but your voice quivers just a little bit, and you bet that smug smile on his face that he can hear it. “why not? we look good together,” he shrugs, as though it’s no big deal but it’s hard to stop yourself from overthinking when lately the two of you have been flirting more often and serious than usual.
rolling your eyes and trying not to be too late, you grab the dress from him and change into it, spending some time to yourself to recollect, internally cursing him for being able to make you this flustered over nothing at all.
by the time you come back out into the living room, hair all done and accessories settled, this time, kaiser’s the one who’s caught staring, shameless in the way his eyes drag over you from head to toe. you’d tease him for it, but you’re not entirely sure you’re ready for his comeback so you refrain.
as you grab your go-to black heels and sit down to strap them on properly, kaiser’s quick to offer a hand, his lithe fingers taking your heel from you, slowly inserting your feet, his eyes lingering on your face and his thumb rubbing circles around your ankle. your eyes are glued to his own, and somehow it makes you even more nervous when he’s not joking around. when he looks at you like this—serious, like he’s trying to tell you something without saying anything at all.
the way he ties the straps are gentle and precise, tight but not too tight that it’ll hurt you. you’ve jokingly told him to help you tie your shoelaces before but he’s always refused. yet now he’s helping you put on your heels on both feet without saying a word and the way his hand lingers on your calf when he’s done is enough to make you melt.
on some other day, you’d joke with him and get him to let go. today, you’re silent.
kaiser chuckles, though, his hand casually brushing up your calf slightly before he pulls away, gently patting your head as he gets up.
“let’s go.”
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dinner is agonising, enjoyable, agonising.
it’s nice; being seated around a table, enjoying small talk and nonsense with the same group of friends, catching up with people like kaiser and ness who’s been away a lot because of their profession.
yeah, that part’s nice. what’s agonising about it all is how close kaiser is to you, how his right hand casually drapes around your shoulder from time to time, shifting down to your thigh sometimes, making you go crazy.
it’s not like the both of you haven’t been close before, but you feel like maybe this time, it’s different. it’s not just the close proximity, it’s the intimacy of it all that has you inwardly keeling over. what’s worse is that you think you want it, him. in a way you didn’t think to think of before.
“you sure you’re not dating him?”
miko’s words ring repeatedly in your head. somehow, your answer’s changed from nope to you sort of wish you did. you bite your lower lip, absentmindedly laughing along even if you didn’t hear the joke at all.
“you okay?” the voice in your ear nearly makes you jump up from your seat.
on your right, ness is grinning as he looks at you, like he knows something’s going on in that little head of yours. you shake your head anyway, but ness shoots you a knowing smile as his eyes briefly shift to kaiser’s arm around you before winking at you.
fuck, is that really enough to make the heat rush to your cheeks?
“y/n?” one of your other friends calls out, snapping you back to the foreground.
“what?”
“next stop: new club downtown! orange, or grape, or whatever the fuck name it is,” he drawls, excited, “you up for it?”
before you even get the chance to agree, one of the other guys speaks up. “hey kaiser, speaking of clubs, didn’t that dating rumour come up recently? the one with, uh, kaia?”
readjusting himself, kaiser pulls away from you, taking a swig of his beer. “don’t remind me,” he groans, sighing.
“why not? she’s hot!”
there’s a knot in your stomach that you can’t explain.
beside you, ness snickers. “tell ‘em what really happened, stupid.”
that manages to pique your interest.
kaiser sighs, resigning because he knows they’ll just keep hounding him if he refuses. “she tried her luck, that’s all,” he settles for something vague, trying to escape.
ness, however, ever the kind soul, expands on his words, making sure you hear every single bit—you’re not sure if he’s trying to egg you on or just see your reaction.
“please, she was trying to get you to send her home, no?” ness’ explanation gets a reaction out of the group, and you’re glad you all have a private room here so no one outside can hear you, servers included.
“shut up.”
“kaia and kaiser—has a nice ring to it.”
and even though kaiser doesn’t entertain that, you feel a little envy brewing inside you—one that you fail to drown out.
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orange is filled with people; combining the fact that it’s holiday season and it’s the club’s launch night, it’s safe to say that there’s barely any room to breathe. still, your friends are all drunk on the alcohol, pulling one another to the dance floor, leaving you and kaiser at the table.
he’s still close as ever, his bare hands brushing yours, one of his arms around your waist, keeping you close.
“dance with me,” he raises his voice over the music. the way he smiles so genuinely now managing to make your heart skip a beat.
suppressing your grin, you wordlessly agree, letting him lead you onto the dance floor. he meanders the crowd skilfully, as expected considering he and ness are frequent clubbers. it’s only now that you realise you’d never gone to such a place with him, which is surprising considering your many years of friendship.
as you join your friends on the floor, you can’t help but notice how kaiser sticks to you and you alone, his hands on your waist, trickling up and down your arm, dancing along behind you. even surrounded by people, he commands your attention alone.
unfair.
but to kaiser, it’s unfair too. it’s not fair how you’re so pretty, it’s not fair how you’ve always been. it’s not fair that he’d fallen slowly for you, and now so so deep. how is it fair that even when he tries to forget you, when he tries not to mess with the friendship, that he ends up falling even more?
his eyes stay glued on you, shamelessly making sure no other man gets their hands on you—it’s fucking insulting how they try to get you to dance with them even when he’s right there. lucky for him, you’re not budging. you’re there. with him. only him. even if your other friends are here.
it’s just him and you and he wonders what you’re thinking. are you as flustered as he is right now? kaiser hasn’t even let himself drink more than one mug of beer, all because he knows this is a night he’d rather remember than risk forgetting.
“hey, isn’t that kaia?” one of your friends excitedly points out and kaiser follows his line of sight.
it is her, and she’s heading this way—but that’s not really important because what’s important is how kaiser noticed you’ve stopped dancing, awkwardly trying to shuffle away. it’s kind of funny, he swears he can tell that you might feel the same way about him. maybe you’re just more stubborn than he is.
so he keeps his arms around you, pulling you close.
“stay with me,” he whispers into your ear, and he suppressed a grin from the goosebumps searing across your neck. he guesses it’s a good sign you’re listening to him.
“kaiser, what’s up?” kaia greets, evidently trying to move for a hug but kaiser’s not budging, squeezing you closer instead.
he nods at her in acknowledgement before letting the rest of his friends throng around her for a photo.
once she’s sufficiently busy, he hears you speak up. “were you dancing with her that time too?”
kaiser manages not to snicker at your obviously jealous tone, “yeah, we went with a few other people after our shoot was wrapped up.”
you nod, and all kaiser can think of somehow is that your shampoo smells so nice. “oh, sure you don’t wanna dance with her again tonight then?”
are you testing him? it’s cute.
he shakes his head. “nah, i danced with her a lot that time already,” he teases, though he’s not too sure whether you’d take it like a joke like it was meant to. when you don’t respond, he chuckles, gently turning you to face him. “there’s one thing i didn’t do with her though.”
kaiser’s face is just inches away from yours, the tip of his nose brushing against your cheek and he’s aware that everyone in the close vicinity is looking at the two of you but he doesn’t care.
honestly, he has to admit, he’s dreamed of doing this a thousand times over, always hovering between the decision to ruin this friendship or not. the thoughts were there whenever he’d wake up next to you on the couch. or whenever all of you met up and one of the other guys would throw their arms around you. or in the mornings when you made breakfast. there’s not a time he’s been sure whether this is what you wanted too.
hell, he’s not even sure now. but fuck, if he wastes another minute not trying he thinks he’ll kill himself for it. and he’s hoping to god this isn’t a dream because you’re not pulling away and you’re not treating this like a joke and it can only be because you want this too.
without another thought, his lips press against yours and it’s like the loud music drowns out into the background, getting lost and fading away. suddenly it’s like you’re the only thing in front of him and fuck, you taste even better than he can ever imagine.
“fuck,” he exhales, cheeks pressed against yours. “be mine?”
still breathless from that kiss, you chuckle weakly and nod, both of you earning whoos all around the room. (you make a mental reminder to tell miko before she winds up seeing this online before you get a chance to explain.)
and just like that, kaiser’s finally gotten the girl of his dreams.
“want you, baby, just you.”
the next morning, the two of you make the headlines.
LIPS LOCKED: KAISER & RUMORED GIRLFRIEND SHOW OFF THEIR LOVE
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Clownfall: Endgame
I am calling it that in the full knowledge that batshit things may yet happen, but listen. Listen. We have a year left before the general election. I am hedging my bets and assuming all that comes in that year will be Tory manoeuvring ahead of that. Let's all hope for a nice quiet year in which everything can fall neatly under that banner, that won't ruin this naming convention.
Previous Reading
Important Terminology - Required Reading
What is a Whip?
How do Whips work?
Shadow Cabinet
Front Benchers, Back Benchers and the Cabinet
What do we need to call an early General Election?
The Adventures of Big Dog the Clown - Suggested Reading
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Elanor’s Guide to Liz Truss - Suggested Reading
Character-based prequel
The Premiership of Liz Truss
The Next Steps - Suggested Reading
The post-Truss contenders
Bye Matt
BoJo Resigns as MP
Alright, that's probably everything. Just nice to have it all in one place, innit? If you would like a nice soothing soundtrack to your reading, here's my recommendation. On with the show!
Clownfall: Endgame
Wednesday
So, let's start with charismatic and charming Home Secretary Suella Braverman! You may remember her from such hits as "Quitting before she could be fired after breaking the law only to be rehired by Sunak almost immediately and without consequence to appease the right wing nutjobs in the party", and "Claiming Pakistani men have a culture that makes them work in abuse rings to target vulnerable white English girls" (I should add that, if you are unfamiliar with Suella Braverman, regardless of what that quote implies, she is not, in fact, white); recently she made the news because she announced that being homeless is a "lifestyle choice". So true, Suella! They could give it up any time they wanted. They could, for example, get together and break in and steal your fucking house.
But in particular, here we're focussing on her recent stance towards the multiple huge pro-Palestine marches that have been taking place in London. So far she has indicated that she wants people who wave Palestinian flags to be arrested, so that's very measured and rational of her; but, last Wednesday (Nov 8th), she decided to write a lil opinion piece in the Times all about how mean and biased and liberal the police are. This is an absolutely fascinating assertion to I suspect literally anyone who has ever been involved with the police. But no! Quoth Suella, aggressive right-wing protesters are "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" are "largely ignored".
And, she claims, the march on Saturday isn’t simply a cry for help for Gaza, but an "assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland".
Imagine how well all that went down.
Thursday
You are underestimating how that went down, because it emerges that Suella deVille did not, in fact, get any form of validated sign-off or permission from Number 10 before squirting her ill-informed liquid horseshit all over the front desk of the Times news room, and that, Tumblrs, you'll be surprised to learn, is actually quite an important and compulsory part of criticising the police when you are the Home Secretary. Like, there is a Ministerial Code about this. It is very clear. It is in Article 8.2, Tumblrs. Thou Shalt Have Permission From Number 10 Before Making Media Interventions.
“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters, referring to the prime minister’s Downing Street office. The ministerial code is clear that any ministerial media interventions need approval from No 10.
-AlJazeera
And the Tories are furious! The bloodbath forms quickly and loudly and the hounds start baying! Clown noses are flying everywhere! The factions are drawn! Because even now, there are Tories too stupid to understand that whether you agree with someone or not they still have to follow the rules! Also the other parties realise they can offer some actual opposition here, given that Suella has essentially dragged a barrel into the middle of the House of Commons dressed in a fish costume, handed around a set of loaded rifles, and then crawled inside to wait. The result is that the calls for her resignation are both deafening and pleasingly cross-party.
"(This is a) dangerous attempt to undermine respect for police", says Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. "(It's) irresponsible," says London mayor Sadiq Khan. "The PM's weakness when it comes to standing up to Suella is the most shocking thing in all this," claims a senior Labour source.
They're wrong, of course. The most shocking thing is Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey realising he can actually appear in the paper if he plays this right and so surfaces to attempt some politics. "(Sunak) must finally act with integrity by sacking his out-of-control home secretary!" he declares, frightening many MPs who had forgotten he was even in the room with them.
Meanwhile, several Tories approach the BBC anonymously.
"The home secretary's awfulness is now a reflection on the prime minister. Keeping her in post is damaging him," says one. Another straight-up describes her as "unhinged". Another claims the comparison with Northern Ireland is "wholly offensive and ignorant", and really, all of this is permanently triggering that "Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point" reaction image.
Saturday
Hey, speaking of reaction images, look, Labour has a go:
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Well. They tried.
BUT! Do you want to know the INTERESTING bit??!
Enter: Nadine Dorries! Mad shrieking pink harpy who spends her days maintaining a BoJo shrine in her bedroom! Always the most hinged of politicians, let's see what she has to say.
Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries claimed Ms Braverman was trying to get sacked to give her a platform of martyrdom in service of the right-wing. "The competition is on now for who is going to be the leader of the opposition," Ms Dorries told the BBC.
???!??!?
PERTINENT POLITICAL OBSERVATION FROM DORRIES?!?!?? The most shocking part of this whole affair. Remember that time she yelled at a journalist during an interview about Boris Johnson's latest scandal when he asked her how Johnson was feeling about the whole thing and inadvertently implied they were having an affair when No One Asked? God, wonders never cease. She's even acknowledging the Tories can't win the next GE, look. I'd say this is growth, except I am 100% positive she's just being catty about BlowJo being fired again.
Anyway, the real Saturday issue: it's Armistice Day, and there's a pro-Palestine march planned.
Now, to give context, Armistice Day has a creepy level of patriotic state-worship attached to it in the UK. Some time in October everyone on telly suddenly starts wearing a poppy, and if you don't you get hanged, drawn and quartered by (a) the British press, and then (b) a baying mob outside your living room. You most be performatively sad. You must perform reverence and hero worship and say things like "Never again" all while whole-heartedly supporting current wars. You must talk about "our brave boys", and share the works of dead poets from the trenches, and then completely fail to absorb any of their lessons. If anyone tries to wear the white poppy to distance themselves from the current political appropriation while still commemorating the millions of conscripted casualties, you accuse them of being "woke" and pissing on the worthy dead of WW1. It's a whole thing, and politicians love using it as an excuse to point fingers and mock each other for being insufficiently patriotic if they wear the wrong tie to the ceremonies, or choose to walk with actual veterans rather than a head of the current army, or any number of other things. And then on November the 12th they'll order a drone strike or something.
So, off the bat, you can see how a pro-Palestine rally on the same day was likely to be seen as provocative to some.
"Some" included Sunak! He didn’t (publicly at least) ask the police to ban the protest, but did call on organisers to call it off, claiming the choice of date was “provocative and disrespectful”, because as I say, a march calling for the ceasefire of a genocide is super disrespectful to every sad dead poet in a trench who dreamed of a ceasefire so they could live, or something.
But the inevitable therefore happens, which is that far-right activists agree that it's disrespectful, and so decide to violently target the march to show their respect for the idea of peace on Armistice Day, or something.
Here's the planned route by the organisers:
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Note, though, that the Armistice ceremony happens at the Cenotaph - visibly nowhere near the march. These two events actually wouldn't have overlapped, if it weren't for far-right protestors deliberately linking them to stop them being disrespectfully linked, or something.
And that's exactly what happened. From the Guardian:
Perhaps the most striking incident, though, was when far-right protesters charged past police who sought to hold them back from the Cenotaph. In this video, a man shouts “this is fucking our country” in celebration. Whereas the pro-Palestine march had been excluded from the area as a precaution, the far right was not; by overwhelming the police, they supposedly sought to defend the site from an enemy that simply wasn’t there.
(that's quite a good article of the whole thing, actually, I recommend giving it a read.)
Crucially to the clown show, though, several politicians and others accused Suella deVille of emboldening the far-right, which... well, several of the far-right protestors straight up said was the case on the day, so hard to disagree, really.
Rumours of a reshuffle in Whitehall circumnavigate the land so fast the truth gets sucked into a tornado and is declared MIA.  Here's the thing! I've covered a few Cabinet reshuffles by now, Tumblrs, you know the drill. Reshuffles are always deniable until they actually happen – so if, say, a reshuffle was going to happen on Monday 13 November 2023, there’d be no need to publicise it in advance. That way, if things change and politics happen, you don't need to retract anything :)
Because, remember: reshuffles are always controversial.  Yes, some people get demoted, and those people will often kick off, and some people who don't deserve it get promoted, and lots of people kick off.  But the big thing is that a lot more people get overlooked for promotion.
His most ardent supporters would say that Rishi Sunak is a cautious man (if you'll allow me a moment to express my own view on the matter, Tumblrs, if you'll forgive this crumb of personal opinion amongst my otherwise impeccable journalling of greatest integrity, I once did a teambuilding task with my students where they had to build the best possible bridge out of uncooked spaghetti and pieces of marshmallow, and I personally would liken the structural integrity of his spine to the losing team's entry), and reshuffles will spread a lot of disappointment to Tory MPs who lose – or fail to gain – a cabinet position.
So, all in all... regardless of Suella's idiocy...
There's no guarantee of a reshuffle. Rumours are just that - whether they prove to be true or not remains to be seen.
Week Commencing Monday 13th November, 2023
New week, new challenges! And it's going to be a big week this week. On Wednesday (tomorrow, at time of writing), three big things are going to be announced, and these announcements will colour everything else this week:
One.  The Supreme Court decide whether the government will be allowed to enact their plan to send some migrants claiming asylum in the UK to Rwanda, a signature Braverman plan that human rights campaigners (including many in Rwanda) have been trying to block for ages.
It’s a massive deal anyway – a flagship government idea that’s been bogged down in the court, and we’ll finally have an answer one way or another.  For what it’s worth, the Tories aren’t confident about winning it, either.  The optimists among them reckon it’s a 50/50 chance, the pessimists reckon it’s 70/30 against, so it's iffy at best.
But here's the thing!
Plenty of Tories have always disliked Suella.  Others could handle the odd outburst she has, but can’t stomach the sheer number of them lately - the Lib Dem non-entity man was absolutely right that she is rapidly growing out of control and just does not know when to shut the entire fuck up.
Which means! If the Supreme Court allows the Rwanda plan, Braverman could become emboldened, like a far-right protest injuring police officers to defend the cenotaph from people who are nowhere near it and have no interest in it.  Do we want an emboldened Braverman?? Well; no, obviously. I also don't want dysentery, or rotten meat, or a serial killer in my neighbourhood. But it's a question even Tories are asking themselves, which is notable.
Plus, even if the court allows it, there will still be months of planning, and lawyers might still prevent the plans in the long run...  But psychologically, the issue is this: the government wants this win, but probably doesn’t benefit from Braverman feeling victorious.
Two.  We’ll get inflation figures.  The government promised to halve inflation, and it seems likely they’ve managed this.  Expect them to massively celebrate this, to distract from the promises they haven’t kept e.g. waiting lists in England, competent governance, etc.
Three.  Voting on a ceasefire in Israel seems likely for Wednesday.  It’s the SNP’s idea, and it won’t affect government policy (they won’t support a ceasefire – they claim it’ll empower Hamas).
But it’s a big deal for Labour, even more so than the Tories.  A Shadow minister has already resigned over the war.  A bunch of frontbenchers want a ceasefire, but that isn’t Keir Starmer’s policy, a man who is calling for the colours of the Israel flag to be shown at sports matches to show that "we stand in solidarity with Israel", because you can really count on Starmer to fuck up everything he touches.  So what do they do?  Abstain?  Claim they had a prior commitment??  We might see more resignations, basically.  Big day for Starmer.
So! With all that in mind...
Monday
8.43am
Oh look. Timestamps are back. I wonder if that suggests anything?
Suella Braverman is sacked as Home Secretary.
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But! Sunak is accused of waiting too long! Which he demonstrably did!
He should have made the decision after the illegal article that she shouldn't have written and triggered a far-right rally on fucking Armistice Day.  Instead, remember that 'cautious' descriptor I talked about?? He waited until the tide had turned against her completely, and now looks like he (a) was too much of a useless wimp to fire her until he was sure people would still like him and pat his dick and tell him he's a Good PM, and (b) only fired her because he caved in to that appalling lefty liberal cabal that somehow these days includes the Metropolitan Police of all fucking people, and she'd have been able to stay otherwise.
Shout out to the best comment from Reddit:
u/nowonmai666: Doesn't she normally get sacked on a Friday so she can have the weekend off before being reappointed?
Anyway, that's the big risk now: Braverman’s supporters can claim she was only fired because Sunak caved in to the left.
8.56am
Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns claims Sunak only sacked Braverman because he caved in to the left.
9.00am
Neil O'Brian, Pharmacy Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being a back-bencher with less power.
*sus*
9.09am
Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being more diplomatic, or something.
*sus*
9.42am
The Lib Dems decide to build on the success of their leader getting to be on telly for his one comment on Thursday and call for a general election.  Says Ed Davey: “It was the Prime Minister’s sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. We are witnessing a broken party and a broken government, both of which are breaking this country.”
Good job! They're having such a good few days.
Anyway remember the Tories don’t have to have a general election until December 2024, though, thanks to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011), which was passed by the coalition government of Tories and, um, Lib Dems.  In which Ed Davey served for three years.
Hmm.
9.43am 
James Cleverly (remember him?) returns to the Cabinet and is appointed Home Secretary. The party attempts to appear trendy by experimenting with emojis:
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This appointment is probably because Tory strategists wanted him in a domestic role to help the party’s chances in the next election; as Surprising Political Pundit Nadine Dorries told us, of all fucking people, the race is now on to lead the opposition.
But hey, this is not likely to lead to any more changes -
10.03am
FORMER PRIME MINISTER, BREXIT-TRIGGERER AND PIG-FUCKER DAVID CAMERON BECOMES FOREIGN SECRETARY
!!!!!!!!!!!!
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And look! Another emoji! They're so hip!
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(Side note... the balls on this one are astounding, actually. The UK political system has been in chaos ever since Cameron, and he was the first domino. This is not a well-loved former hero that will be greeted warmly by the unwashed masses.)
Awkward though, since just last month Sunak claimed that we’d lived through “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.”  It would be a terrible shame if a journalist was to ask David Cameron whether he agreed with the Prime Minister on that, given that Cameron’s job is to support the Prime Minister now.
Especially since Cameron took to Twitter last month to explicitly criticise Sunak for breaking the Tory promise to deliver High Speed 2.
(Cameron tweeted this criticism last month.  Labour MP Angela Rayner however promptly retweets it now lol suck a dick Dave, but try a human one this time)
Also, fun fact, Cameron has just come out of a large-scale lobbying and corruption scandal. Given the state of Sunak, though, that's actually probably what got him the job.
BUT!!! Here's an even funner fact: the man is not an MP. He left politics after he accidentally triggered Brexit and then it came out he'd once face fucked a dead pig's head while it was held on the lap of another Tory; he's been living it up in the lucrative world of after-dinner speaking, as these people do.
So can you do that?? Can you hold a Cabinet position if no one at all has voted for you??
Yes, turns out.
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Don't be alarmed by that, though:
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But, convention holds that anyone who becomes a Cabinet member while not being an MP needs to be a Peer - that way, if they do bad and naughty things, they can't be held accountable by the House of Commons but they can be held accountable by the House of Lords. Only problem is, Hameron is not a lord...
10.13am
The reshuffle, bafflingly, continues. Jeremy Hunt will remain as chancellor.
For the first time since 2010, the top four positions in government – Prime Minister (Sunak), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Hunt), Home Secretary (Cleverly) and Foreign Secretary (Cameron) – are all held by men.
10.18am
Lots of people tweeting about the historic context of Cameron’s appointment.  Here’s my favourite:
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10.48am
David Cameron is given a life peerage, so his proper name now is Lord Piggledick.
10.52am
Health secretary Will Quince quits.  He wasn’t planning to stand for re-election anyway though, so this one is probably not a shock. But it's important that no one else resi-
11.04am
Decarbonisation minister Jesse Norman resigns.
...
...
...
Time for a
✨Conspiracy Theory✨
Between Quince and Norman – as well as Neil O’Brien and Nick Gibb – we’re seeing several mid-ranking ministers resign, despite being generally regarded as fairly competent.
It’s possible they were fired in private, and they’re publicly resigning to save face.  But here’s another theory.
MPs aren’t allowed to seek commercial employment for six months after resigning from the government.
So hypothetically, if you were going to lose your seat in a general election, you’d want to have resigned six months earlier so you can still get a job.
If that’s what these guys are doing, it suggests we’re on track for a May 2024 election...?
11.05am
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11.12am
Remember Cameron's financial scandal? Quick background here: David Cameron was specifically vice-chair of a £1bn China-UK investment fund.
So let’s see what throwback former leader Iain Duncan Smith thinks of Cameron’s return:
“I am astonished at this appointment. It seems to send a signal to China that we are pursuing business with them at all costs and any costs. Those who have been sanctioned now feel more abandoned than at any time. Those facing genocide and persecution will feel more abandoned than at any time.”
I cannot believe I am about to say this.
But.
I agree with Iain Duncan Smith *spits on floor*
11.50am
Former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine is asked to sum up the return of Cameron, and says it’s the “clearest signal that the sort of right wing lurch that we’ve seen and the anti-European movement that we’ve seen has been put to bed, and that will get a message across to people”.
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12.13pm
A Tory MP is worried that Cameron’s return will turn back the clock on Brexit and Johnson’s election.
“It is very alarming. I am predicting a softening on small boats, a softening on legal migration. I would not be surprised if the ban on conversion therapy returns.”
... Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Anyway, let’s see how the public actually sees Cameron compared with other PMs!
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Yeah, not sure people will mind if Cameron’s not Boris Johnson.
12.43pm
ITV political editor Robert Peston walks past a minister of state.  The minister’s on the phone, but takes a moment to heatedly shout at Peston, “The PM just sacked me!”
I guess some days are easier than others as a journalist
12.47pm
Therese Coffey resigns as environment secretary!!!!
*choirs of heavenly angels sing*
You'll remember her of course, Tumblrs - she was one of the thugs manhandling people into the 'right' voting lobbies to force their vote on the day of Liz Truss' fracking law. Rumour has it she still has the Whip handle in her ass.
A lot of people seem to be resigning today! But don't be fooled. In almost every case, it’ll be because they were told to resign.  They’ve been sacked, but they resign to save face. A last mercy from their benevolent leader.
My guess: Tessie here is terrible at media skills, so – get rid of her before she hurts general election chances. This, too, is a pattern.
12.52pm
Rachel Maclean sacked as Housing Minister! Fun fact, numbers fans: it took Doctor Who 33 years to make it to eight Doctors, but since the 2019 election, the Tories managed eight Housing Ministers in just under 4 years
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trololol
1.15pm
Jeremy Quin quits as Minister for the Cabinet Office.
1.37pm
Times Political Editor Steven Swinford reports that No 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister (owing to rumours the job is cursed). Several people have turned it down, including Jeremy Quin. It is incredible to me that they didn't line someone up before sacking the last guy.
Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove are apparently unhappy that Rachel Maclean was removed from the role. I for one do not care about the opinions of Kemi Badenoch or Michael Gove.
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2.04pm
Health Secretary Steve Barclay becomes Environment Secretary.  This is effectively a demotion for him. It is our 5th Environment Secretary in four years. Chasing that Housing Minister record! It took 19 years for Doctor Who to have five Doctors
2.15pm
Richard Holden appointed new Conservative Party chairman.
A 2019-intake Tory MP, he led the charge against Sir Keir Starmer over Beergate, which did damage Starmer a bit (albeit not much, given that it turned out Starmer had complied with lockdown regs, and the accusation was nakedly to try and distract from Partygate).  So this appointment looks like more strategy to win the next election - someone not known enough to be hated, with what passes in the modern Tory party for a proven track record.
This could be a sign that the Tories intend to at least try to shore up the Red Wall votes? As unlikely as the Tories are to keep those seats.
That said, Holden’s seat disappears in a boundary change next election, sooooo … we'll see what they do there.
2.24pm
Victoria Atkins appointed Health Secretary, replacing Steve Barclay who’s moved to Environment Secretary. She's a relative unknown but also considered actually competent. Massive middle finger to Steve Barclay
2.37pm
Laura Trott (formerly in pensions) promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
2.42pm
Science minister George Freeman resigns.
3.18pm
YouGov conducts a snap poll: is the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary a good decision or a bad decision?
Good decision: 24%
Bad decision: 38%
Don't know: 38%
So that's going well
3.24pm
Greg Hands is made a business minister after losing the Tory chairman role.
John Glen moves from chief secretary to the Treasury to become the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General.
3.39pm
With Cameron being a Lord now, he’ll be based in the House of Lords rather than the Commons.  The most recent Cabinet Minister to be based in the Lords was former Brexit minister Lord Frost, who did weigh in on the matter:
“[T]hough I was not running a whole Department too. I don’t think it works well to have a lead Cabinet Minister answering questions and defending their Department solely in the Lords. The Lords is not a fully party political environment - nor should it be - and voters are owed proper political scrutiny. In our system, that can only happen in the Commons.”
I cannot believe I am about to say this.
But.
I agree with Lord Frost *spits on floor*
The SNP had already called this out, with MP Stephen Flynn claiming, “The UK is not a serious country.”
4.21pm
Conservative MP Lee Rowley appointed the 16th housing minister in the past 13 years. Even counting David Tennant twice, that's more than all the Doctors Who we've ever had, and that took almost 60 years.
5.16pm
Sky News’s Tamara Cohen reports that Sunak sacked Braverman by phone this morning!  Downing Street says there won’t be any exchange of letters between them - this is almost unheard of. Politics runs on paper trails! Everything happens through formal letters! By phone!
It means we’re denied insight into their differences.  But Cohen reckons we’re likely to hear from Braverman on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court rules on the Rwanda scheme.
6.03pm
Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, former Education Minister, submits no-confidence letter in Rishi Sunak.
It's almost like, in the absence of Dorries, she's decided that someone needs to step up and have a tantrum and that someone might as well be her. It is, actually, an extremely funny letter, as these letters go. Normally they're written with a sort of furious earnestness wrapped in formal language. I presume that Andrea Jenkyns MP, former Education Minister, was aiming for something similar, and the first paragraph manages it. But by the end you sort of start to wonder if this was supposed to be a letter she wrote with her therapist to get her feelings out:
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My favourite line, when pulled in isolation, is "Yes Boris Johnson, the man who won the Conservative Party a massive majority, was unforgivable enough."
Yeah, Andrea babes. You're bang on there.
6.05pm
Esther McVey is appointed as Cabinet Office minister.  Not a full cabinet member, but she will attend cabinet meetings.
This is notable: unlike a lot of today’s appointments, she’s on the right of the party.  Her role will be to represent the government on TV and radio as much as possible, talking about gender/culture/British colonial history issues (i.e. she’s anti-woke and a screaming bigot).
In other words, with Braverman gone, McVey is an offering for the populist right of the party to try to appease them.
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6.15pm
Sunak tweets about the new cabinet, claiming they’ll make “the right decisions for our great country, not the easy ones.”  So it looks like that’s the new slogan, and we're pressing on with austerity
6.27pm
Tim Loughton, a Tory MP on the “One Nation” wing (i.e the David Cameron side) responds to Andrea Jenkyns’s letter of no-confidence by tweeting:
“Where can we submit a letter of no confidence in the Pantomime Dame?”
(It’s Andrea he’s publicly referring to as a pantomime dame there. A lil joke from the Tories for you)
6.31pm
Paul Scully sacked as minister for London. Didn't know that one was a position.
9.43pm
Sunak says that only a two-state solution will allow a new future for Israel/Palestine.  This is, um, not what the Prime Minister of Israel wants.  Who knows whether the Prime Minister of Israel will survive this crisis anyway – but these are big words from Sunak.  Cameron’s influence? Maybe? Interesting either way
10.03pm
And then - PLOT TWIST!!!
According to ITV political editor Robert Peston, a senior government source reveals that Cameron was approached on TUESDAY. 
Which means plans were underway to get rid of Braverman not only before the far-right violence on Saturday, but before her anti-police article on Wednesday.  It seems she lost her job not because of what she said about police after all; but because she claimed homelessness was a lifestyle choice.
Well well.
11.05pm
And the day finishes with Andrea Leadsom back in government (as Under Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) which nobody saw coming!  Pretty demeaning to the other 300 Tory MPs who could have been given this.
The final response from numerous Tories: they are feeling jilted and insulted because David Cameron being brought back when he's NOT EVEN AN MP, RISHI suggests that they themselves are not good enough to be in government.
No one tell them
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sirfrogsworth · 5 months
Text
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I tried to find more information about Albert here. There is an article in The Mirror, but some of the reporting seems dubious. Which I believe is standard operating procedure for that particular news outlet.
But according to the article, "Fat Albert" lives in the very specific area of "Alaska, USA" and is believed to be the fattest polar bear in the world. And they claim he got fat because the townspeople of "Alaska, USA" are following an ancient tradition that dates back "thousands of years."
"The locals throw out large amounts of whale blubber to the bears as a sign of 'respect'. They would cut a large portion of the whale and blubber, and drag it four miles out of town for the bears to find. This stops the bears from travelling into town to harvest and disrupting the process. In other words, it's a way to stop a group of hungry bears coming towards you in a hurry."
From supplemental research there is precedent for folks in Russia and Alaska to leave whale carcasses for polar bears, but I could not find any corroborating evidence about Albert specifically.
So, I rate this myth...
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In any case, when I saw this picture of Albert, it seemed like a good opportunity to practice my Photoshop skills. He has clearly been rolling around in some mud and his beautiful white coat has been obscured.
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It is very easy to change the color of something to red, blue, or green and every color in between. Just hit that hue/saturation and check colorize and you've got Pride Albert in a jiffy.
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However, it is much more challenging to change things to white or black. This is the bane of graphic designers who have to take the same picture of a t-shirt and digitally alter it to be every available color including black and white.
So I challenged myself to give Fat Albert a bath.
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And then I challenged myself again to make him a distant relative.
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I wish I could tell you the exact process for how to do this, but this is one of those things you have to trial and error your way through and I honestly don't remember everything I did.
One thing I can tell you is that I definitely, absolutely, positively named all my layers properly—as that is best practice and I am a good Photoshop boy.
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yesimwriting · 4 months
Note
you write art and patrick so well im literally foaming at the mouth for more
yes yes everyone pls ask me about my boyfriends that are also boyfriends to each other 🩷 (i have two extra drafts for them already)
----
breath in. the pad of your thumb presses into the side of the ball. you give yourself a beat to feel the weight of it, to embrace the familiar feeling of felt against your palm. breath out.
you bounce the ball once. breath in. you squeeze the ball, knuckles briefly straining beneath your skin before letting it hit the concrete again. breath out.
finally, you raise the arm holding your racket. every joint in your body is locked into place. there's a science to a sharp serve. the ball will land where you will it to.
you release the ball, arm stretching forward. a total follow through. the ball hits the center of your racket. the force of your hit propels the ball through the air until it hits the center of the other side of the court.
ugh. the night before your qualifying match and suddenly the precise serve you spent years perfecting loses its edge. what happened to the serve that media outlets have been calling 'the ultimate point guaranteer'? why is today the day that you can only manage a perfectly average serve?
you groan, letting the disappointment's weight settle against your chest. you suck. with a sigh, you start walking towards the extra tennis balls you left near the net. your dad is so never going to get over you not qualifying for the us open.
"there she is." the voice surprises you enough to force you to still. patrick...and a few steps behind him, his doubles partner, art. "the princess of modern tennis."
you turn your head enough to glare in patrick's direction. he's referencing a title some journalist used in one article that your dad decided would be perfect for marketing materials. "don't."
normally, you like seeing patrick and art more than you can justify. you don't know if you can consider yourself their friend, it's not like you guys see each other outside of coincidental run ins at tennis events. the three of you have been to more and more of the same tournaments these days. they're familiar in a way that settles you, like the feel of tennis ball in your hand.
you try to tap into that usual warmth, but you can't quite get there. it's not their fault you're frustrated.
art gives you a look that feels like an apology. he walks forward, opening the gate to the fence and stepping onto the court. "i told him not to."
you bend down to pick up a spare ball. "i appreciate the effort."
"what?" patrick follows art onto the court. "it's on billboards."
he's seen your billboard? you don't know why you feel the need to dwell on that. you weren't the biggest fan of having a picture of yourself blown up and pasted everywhere, especially with a caption that makes potential losses extra embarrassing, but you've never been truly self conscious about it. now, you're trying to picture it in your mind, trying to remember the details of your expression, the way your hair was styled, what you were wearing.
you let go of the ball in your hand, bouncing it against the ground so that you have something to look at. "it was a charity thing."
"i know." you let yourself glance up at patrick. he's closer than you thought he'd be. you catch the ball before releasing it again. "for the youth outreach program thing, right?" before you can answer, he extends an arm, catching the ball before you can reach it. "you looked cute in it."
art looks at you again, something a little more distinct than apology behind his eyes. he reaches for the tennis ball still in patrick's hand. "patrick."
he twists his arm away before his friend can steal the ball from him. art follows him, leaning forward and grabbing his arm. "what?" their play fight grows in physicality, with each of them pushing and pulling at the other. you'd worry about the game losing its lightheartedness if both of them weren't smiling. "you stared at it for more than five minutes before getting out of the car."
"really?"
art freezes, his hand squeezing the only part of the ball patrick's left exposed. "it was a good billboard, you look pretty--looked pretty." the implication of his correction hits him a second too late. "not that you don't look pretty now, you always look pretty, but you looked really--" he cuts himself off with a sharp breath, "but that wasn't the point, you also looked like a strong role model for underprivileged young women."
the compliments paired with his uncertainty make it difficult not to melt. you beam at him. "thank you, art." you adjust your hold on your racket, both hands resting on the grip. "i think you're pretty, too."
he smiles, head briefly angling itself downwards. art manages to steal the tennis ball from his friend. you can't tell if he pulled it out of patrick's grasp or if patrick chose to let go.
"you know what the best thing to do is the night before a big match?" patrick's question feel rhetorical until you look at him. he's watching you like he's waiting for something.
despite knowing what you should be doing, you also know that you're incapable of not playing along. "what?"
"doing anything that keeps you from getting in your head." you stand a little straighter, chin angling itself a fraction of an inch upwards. as nice as the local doubles duo is, advice offered from other tennis players comes with its own sort of tension. saying that you know best implies that you see yourself as the best. "that's what's wrong with your serve."
your eyebrows briefly pinch together. "you think i'm in my head?"
he takes a slight step forward, body angling itself to make the distance between you feel even smaller than it truly is. "i think your serve is technically perfect." patrick takes a moment to press his lips together. "but you're tense."
patrick's going about this the nice way. he's focusing on what you're doing right. you technique is objectively precise, your dad made sure of that. he's coached you since you were old enough to securely hold a racket for a reason. but tennis isn't just routine and muscle memory.
there's an art to the sport, and you know the difference it makes when you're playing. you can feel when your heart is in it, and right now, all you can think about is that your retired tennis champion dad watching you in the stands.
the feeling of something warm on your shoulder pulls you out of your train of thought. you blink. patrick's hand is on your shoulder. "you need to relax."
"i'm..." it's instinct to argue, to insist that you're fine and that you'll push through, but something tells you that that'd be pointless. he'd know. "i'll work it out."
his fingers briefly press into your shoulder, the squeeze assuring and gentle. "that's your problem--work." you look at him skeptically. "you're overworking yourself, and it's putting you in your head."
art angles himself a little closer. he extends an arm, placing his fingers on the edge of your racket. "that's why you're supposed to rest the night before a match."
the thought of not being in motion isn't appealing. if anything, you feel like you have too much energy in your system. but objectively, you know they're generally right.
art gently tugs on your racket. "you should come hang out with us."
"yeah," patrick agrees with a slight hum, "you're in the hotel down the street, right?"
okay--you know the right answer. your dad would be mad if he found out you snuck out the night before a match to practice, but if he found out you ended up in a hotel room with some guys--he'd die and then come back to life just to kill you.
"um..." your eyes briefly fall to your racket. "yeah, i am." okay, you need to think of an excuse that doesn't make you sound like a little kid with a curfew. you twist your wrist slightly, a halfhearted attempt to free your racket. "but it's kind of late...and i have to be up early tomorrow."
art pulls on your tennis racket again. there's nothing overly forceful about it, but it's enough to make you look at him. "yeah, but you were going to stay out here for a awhile, right?"
"and it's good to take your mind off of things." patrick tacks on his point. "i mean--we always do something fun before our matches."
patrick stretches out an arm, the back of his hand softly hitting art's shoulder. "yeah, yeah, we do."
you press the nail of your thumb against the side of your racket's handle. "really?" you're mumbling to yourself more than anything else, "something fun."
it's risky. if anything goes wrong, you'll never hear the end of it. and if you mess up tomorrow because you're tired or distracted, you're not sure you'll be able to forgive yourself. you've already taken some risks tonight. you should quit while you're ahead.
then again, you like being around them, and they're in the same hotel as you. it can't be that bad of an idea.
you let out a reluctant sigh before finally looking up. you glance between them, too aware that it's too late for you. "okay," you breathe out, "i guess going up for a little bit can't hurt."
patrick grins. "can't hurt at all."
art lets go of your racket before taking a few steps forward. he stops once he's at your side before throwing an arm around your shoulder. "you know us." art's hand settles over patrick's. "we'd never do anything to hurt you."
warmth crawls up your chest. you're comfortable with them--maybe too comfortable. "yeah," you hum in an attempt to dismiss the feelings bubbling in your chest, "let's just go."
——
im thinking of writing a part 2 to this so if you’d be interested in that and/or would want to be tagged pls lmk :)
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sayruq · 11 months
Text
There has been major developments in the region in the past few days that indicates regional war is imminent. Again the tweets and articles will be in chronological order.
American war ships are in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Russia responded to that by sending planes to the Black Sea and China by sending warships to Kuwait.
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We got our usual back and forth on the ground operation in Gaza
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The American media is not really reporting these recent attacks on their military bases. In fact, the military is downplaying the strength of the responses by Yemeni and Syrian groups to the Gaza genocide. This is either because they want to avoid regional war or because they want to be better prepared for regional war.
This statement below seems to indicate that Iran is coming to the conclusion that open warfare is the only thing that will deter America and Israel
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As for Yemen, they've declared Israeli ships will be targeted if the attack on Gaza continues (you'll see later that this is no empty threat)
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By the way, Israel bombed an Egyptian military site along the border and claimed it was an accident. The Egyptian people have been calling for their government to intervene militarily and I don't think this will ease the pressure.
On the 22nd, Israel sent a small team to infiltrate Gaza. They didn't get very far
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They're also struggling against Hezbollah
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This meeting by the Russian foreign minister is a big deal as you'll see later
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America responds to the escalating tension by deploying 'defensive systems' all over West Asia. It risks stretching itself too thin as multiple countries are already involved in the Palestian resistance with countries like Egypt and Jordan facing internal pressure to do something about the Gazan genocide
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Republican Mitch McConnell has recently called Iran, Russia and China 'the new axis of evil'. It seems this is the new angle that the West has chosen because Rishi Sunak has also been comparing Hamas to Russia. This can only lead to Russia getting close to Iran which would ultimately help Hamas.
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The situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate as America evacuates its embassy and warns its citizens not to use the Baghdad International Airport due to attacks by Iraqi military groups.
Here we have an Israeli commander admitting that Israel is largely on the defensive against Hezbollah and their soldiers are both traumatised and disheartened. Remember, Hezbollah has yet to officially enter the war
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Blinken said that the US 'will be prepared' if Iran escalates its attacks which gives weight to that idea that the US is only trying to deescalate because its not ready yet.
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A few hours ago, American bases in Syria were targeted. It's becoming clear that a major goal in the plan to defeat Israel is removing America from the picture in the region
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The White House then blames Iran for the attack
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More military bases targeted in Iraq
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Meanwhile IDF is trying to infiltrate Gaza again. Reminder that a ground operation means that Hezbollah will officially enter the war and begun using its vast numbers of missiles and rockets. They're also attacking the West Bank, the resistance fighters have ambushed them
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Yemen follows through on the threats it made by attacking a US warship with drones
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Ansarullah claims there was a direct hit but the US Navy says that all drones were intercepted (using days old pictures).
So what now? First, do not expect a ceasefire. Tbh the Palestinian resistance hasn't even called for ceasefire, just an exchange of hostages.
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Second of all, America itself does not believe that Israel can win this war so let's all stop acting like Palestine has already lost
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Thirdly, regional war is looking more and more like reality
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titaniasfairy · 7 months
Note
stepbro!sammy who manipulates you into sleeping with him to “help your cramps”!!! except he’s way too rough and it doesn’t help
thirza blessing us with a filthy ask today…
18+ MDNI
just a reminder that you are responsible for the media you consume! if you don’t like it, DON’T FUCKING READ IT! anyways bear🐻 presents..
cw: PERIOD SEX! STEPCEST! fem!reader, dom!sam, coercion kinda so slight dub-con, creampie, oral (fem receiving), cum-eating.
“cmon, lemme help! i read it in an article once.”
you roll your eyes as your step-brother continues to pester you about trying to help with your period cramps. sam sits next to you on your bed while you lie on your back, clearly struggling with your ailments.
“sam i’m not going to fuck you just because you think it’ll help with my cramps.”
you huff out in frustration at his naïve horniness, knowing he’s just trying to get inside you. despite this, he persists.
“i know it’ll help! you’ll enjoy it too..”
“will not! it’ll be all wet and messy- not to mention gross! we’d have to lay a towel down.”
sam groans out and throws his head back, obviously annoyed with your refusal to his lust-filled proposal.
“oh please, it’s not like the sex we usually have isn’t messy already.”
your jaw drops at his disgusting (but true) statement, trying to deny that the two of you have had sex before. he’s your step-brother after all!
“n-no! i don’t know what you’re talking about.”
sam chuckles at your half-witted attempt of a lie while you try and avert your gaze from the growing bulge in his jeans.
“i think you do, sweetie. i know you haven’t forgotten about the other night..”
his dirty whispers fill your head up with images of your mouth around sam’s cock, his hands in your hair as he face fucks you rough. the night ended with your mascara smeared and your swollen lips covered in your step-brother’s milky seed.
while you were lost in thought, sam slipped next to you, his warm breath hitting your ear and leaving you flushed.
“now you remember, don’t you? cmon baby, let your big brother make you feel better.”
only a few minutes later were you bent over on all fours, sam’s thick cock ramming into you from behind. the blood spilling from your entrance served as lube for him, making each thrust let out a wet squelching noise.
he pounded into you hard and rough, leaving no room for the ‘relief’ he promised. the tip of sam’s cock kissed your cervix and forced its way into you, causing you to let out squeals of pain and pleasure.
sam’s hand was placed where your ass met your lower back, pushing you back and forth on his cock to help him thrust inside you. his other hand was tangled in your hair, using it as a handle for him.
“sweet jesus. look at you taking your brother’s cock so well. my cock looks so good covered in your blood, baby.”
you let out whimpers of protest in response, seemingly begging him to slow down or be a little more gentle, but you’re only met with maniacal chuckles in response.
sam’s hand weaves out of your hair to hold the back of your head, pushing it down into the mattress and effectively silencing you so his groans and smacking skin are the sounds left in the bedroom.
with every thrust into you, your step-brother’s heavy balls smack your sensitive clit, sending shivers through your fucked-out body. looking down at the bloody mess only turned sam on more, leaving him staring down at his cock slamming in and out of your tight cunt. the sight makes his balls tighten and his cock throb, bringing him closer and closer to his peak.
“holy fuck i’m gonna cum in this tight pussy.”
sam moans out loud and slaps your ass, marking his territory. he gives you three or four hard thrusts and spills his load into you in thick ropes of cum, leaving you spent beneath him without an orgasm yet.
before your disappointment can fulling fester, sam is pulling out of your cunt and bending down to face your pussy. he places both hands on your ass cheeks and dives face first into your cunt, slurping and sucking out his own cum.
you’re left speechless, only able to let out wanton moans and squeals of absolute bliss as your step-brother eats you out like a man starved. with each flick and touch of his blood-covered tongue you’re pulled closer to the edge of your orgasm.
“sammy i’m gonna cum! oh my god-”
sam’s hands grip your ass harder and your toes curl as your orgasm comes over you in a large wave, leaving you shaking and spasming against his tongue. sam continues to slurp and lick his way through your climax till you’re completely slumped against the mattress below you.
while you’re trying to catch your breath, huffing and puffing on all fours, sam stands up and wipes his blood and cum covered mouth with the back of his hand.
“so are those cramps gone yet?”
ty for the ask <3
taglist <inbox me if you wanna be added!> : @zapernz @mortalheartache @geekforhorror @bunnylovesani
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roturo · 1 year
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Written All Over Your Face dick grayson x reader
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→ summary: “Well, you know what they say, Love and Hate are two sides of a very, very thin line. For what I can see, you have a pent up sexual frustration written all over your face Dick.”
→ warnings: SMUT. p in v, unprotected sex (don't be dumb and wrap it), enemies to lovers, heroe!reader, breeding kink, bulge kink ¿?, not proof-read, possessive behavior, begging...
words: 2k
TUMBLR IS BASED ON A REBLOG SYSTEM. PLEASE REBLOG MY WORK. THANK YOU. ENJOY. SMUT BELOW THE CUT.
Being a heroe wasn't easy. Neither being considered a competition for Nightwing. The Ex-Robin. The Dick Grayson.
Both being ¨super-heroes¨ with no powers brought many controversial articles between you two, not only at the Gotham-Batman times, but also now at the new Titans times.
You never thought seeing him again and his boyish smile and attitude. No wonder why he has many girls falling for him, not only as Nightwing, but also as his real identity. But this rough times between the heroes, made the destiny bringing you together again.
Both of you had mutual friends, and when Dawn invited you to meet the new Titans, and asked you for help to train them, you never thought of seeing him again, neither of both of you training teenage kids how to become high quality-trained super heroes.
¨Sorry.¨ Were the last words you heard from Dawn, when she left you with bird boy at the training room, giving you an apologetic smile.
God bless her natural charm and being the trusting friend she is because you couldn't hit her face right now with the rage you're feeling.
¨Hi!¨ A green-haired boy said to you, he had the same, maybe not as pretty, boyish smile like Grayson. ¨Hello...?¨
¨Gar.¨ He told you, not putting down the smile.
With just a nod and a not so happy smile, your eyes moved into a purple-haired girl, who just smiled at you and said her name. ¨Rachel.¨ She hit the boy next to her with her elbow, murmuring his name.
¨Jason.¨ He said, ¨Is this your girlfriend Dick? Because she's pretty good looking for a guy like you. But yeah, what she's doing here anyways?¨
Oh. Yeah. Bird boy. He's here.
¨Yeah Grayson, what’s going on?¨ Completely ignoring the fact Dick was about to answer Jason’s question with furrowed brows and you obviously knowing why you're here since Dawn explained you. ¨And no, i'm not his girlfriend.¨ You looked at Jason with a smile which changed into a fake smile when your eyes returned to Dick. ¨He wishes.¨ You said, your head turning to the side, obviously trying to make him angry. At which he only scoffed, knowing you well enough to know what you were trying. ¨Yeah number two, maybe we can just pass at me explaining you why you´re here.¨
Number two? He WISHES.
¨I know why am I here. I don´t know if your little brain remembers you made Dawn bring me here to help you train this kids.¨ You got closer to him, not breaking eye contact. ¨And number two? pfft, If you were number one, maybe you wouldn't have been replaced by new Robin here.¨
That got him exactly where you wanted him. He might seem like a strong and rough guy, but behind all that image of big boy, there’s nothing else but trauma.
You couldn’t help but notice how his jaw clenched at the small giggle Jason let when you mentioned Dick being replaced. Side-eyeing him, Jason stopped. Dick sighed trying to calm himself down.
“First. I didn’t know Dawn brought you here, she just told me about bringing the perfect person to help me train them, I was not expecting you.” You could tell he was still angry at the remark, so he wanted to correct you. “Second. I didn’t got replaced. I left Wayne by choice of mine.”
“And third. I’m not longer Robin.”
It got into a really tense vibe between you and Dick trying to kill each-other with just your eyes, everyone in silence, clearly uncomfortable at this new encounter.
“Can both of you stop eye-fucking eachother and can we finally start the training?” Jason said, trying to bring both of you back to earth.
That clearly caught both of your attention to what Jason said, clearly annoyed at the wrong remark of how both of you were looking at each-other. “We’re not “eye-fucking” each-other Jason, stop getting into other’s people conversations.” With that, Dick started grabbing everything for the training of today, moving on. Jason just raised his arms at the air, (like when they’re showing they’re not armed), with a small smirk on his face.
“Well, you know what they say, Love and Hate are two sides of a very, very thin line. For what I can see, you have a pent up sexual frustration written all over your face Dick.”
That brought a hard, and big laugh to your face, how could Jason say that? This kids don’t even respect their “leader” This was going to be a funny training.
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After what seemed like 1 hour of training, and getting to know the kids, you could get which were the flaws and weaknesses. Maybe you couldn’t understand quite well Rachel’s powers, but some time will do it.
You asked Gar where you could sleep the night, since it was already getting late and your most likely staying some days here, you'll also need some extra clothes at least for today.
Gar told you to stay in the spare room next's to Dick's, great, what a nice neighbor you have. He also gave you some clothes you could use tonight, tomorrow you could go back to your place and get some clothes, your skincare.... and I guess your super-hero suit.
When going out of the bathroom after a long shower (which you deserved), Dick was standing there, shirtless, all sweaty, and just with some grey sweatpants on... he looks.... nice, yeah. Obviously annoyed but when he saw you, his face turned into... panic?
He doesn't know what's happening to him right now, might be stress he needs to get relieved, yeah, sure, that's the reason he feels his pants getting tighter every-second he keeps looking at you right now.
¨Are you okay bird-boy why´re you just static over here, I know you have problems, but this a new one.¨ You looked up and down at Dick's figure, obviously checking him out, not like he needs to find out, noticing he´s quite handsome, not like you would tell him also, he's hot, and he knows it.
¨That´s... That´s my shirt¨ Was all that Dick could say, well, shit.
You knew the t-shirt had a distinct laundry soap scent which remind you of someone, and maybe a pint of perfume, but who could blame you?! Might be Gar's or Jason's!
¨And those... are my boxers.¨ double shit.
You could see he was obviously blushed and you're sure you are too, but what a coincide. It's like you could hear Rachel, Gar and Jason's laughing at the both of you.
¨Well... do want me to give them back at you?¨ You broke the tense silence, trying to take your, his, shirt-off, completely forgetting you're in front of him, you needed to find a way out of here.
¨No, no, no, stop! Leave it there, then you give it back to me.¨ He assured you, grabbing your hands and pulling them down with your, his? t-shirt. ¨And it looks better on you anyways.¨ That's all he said before speed entering to the bath-room.
¨Hey Dick!, Wait.¨ To say you couldn't feel the wetness of your pussy going out and asking for some relief, would be considered a crime. ¨What do you ne-¨ You cut him off by entering the bath-room closing the door in the process, both of your lips connecting in a perfect symphony like they were made for each-other. He left a sudden whine at the loss of the soft touch of your lips.
¨Oh.¨ Was all he could say, you don't understand what happened to you, it wasn't definitely a normal behavior between you two. ¨Oh my god. I'm so sorry Dick, I don't know what happened to me, i'm-¨ You couldn't finish the last sentence when you felt his lips in yous again. A little hesitant this time, he stops, unsure of his actions, but he lose it all. ¨Do it again.¨
That's all he needed to continue kissing you, hands caressing you neck, positioning them as a chocking posture, later going to trace your jaw as he continues kissing you.
He started giving you kisses trailing down your chin, making you moan at the specific spot that made your legs shake, he started leaving love bites between your chest, later going down on you, pulling your t-shirt upwards, getting between your breasts and marking them as his.
¨Please Dick... Please make me feel good.¨ It´s like something got into him when his hands started roaming your body like crazy, pulling your shirt off, your hand reaching his sweatpants, and later his cock, noticing he has no underwear under neat it. ¨It's like you were ready for this bird-boy, ah!-¨ Even when you try to tease him, he finds a way to tease you back even in a better way, his fingers playing with your nipple had you giddy and trembling. ¨Be a good girl if you want me to fuck you.¨
All you could do is nod and start stroking his hard cock, already leaking pre-cum which made the stroking easier, playing with the head had him as a moaning mess.
“Fuck, wait — shit. Mm— fuck. Wh-where did you learn to do that?” He left a whiny moan at the lose of your touch.
“Well, the noises you make are a pretty good indication of how you like it.” He man-handled you, turning you around, making you see yourself at the mirror.
“…God you sound so fucking cocky right now and it’s turning me on even more.”  He ripped apart the boxers you were wearing. ¨Don't worry, I have plenty more.¨ Fuck him and his fucking pretty smile.
With no more waiting, he positioned himself, and started thrusting into you. He fits just right, and could touch all the places you couldn't reach.
“Let me know if I’m doing anything wrong, okay? I want to make you feel as good as possible.” Even when he's fucking your brains out, he finds a way to be that kind and nice guy he is.
“O-Okay.”  Was all you could tell him, before & after some moans and whines from both of you, one specific thrust had you seeing stars.
His hand lingered down your tummy and he moaned at the bump he could feel, when he was going in and out with his thrusts. ¨Oh baby, I'm going to make you mine, fill you up.¨
He started playing with your clit, it had you crazy all the feelings of his body, his thrusts, him.
¨´You´re so good for me, all for me... 'm gonna' fill you up with my babies, 'm gonna make you a mommy, full of my cum every-day just to make sure.¨
That was all you needed to cum, with just some last thrusts he came inside you too, fulfilling his promise of keeping you full of his cum. He waited for you to calm down, before he inserted two of his fingers, recollecting the cum that was falling out your hole, inserting it inside you again, making you moan at the sudden intrusion.
He got the tub ready, and got you inside it, in front of him while he cleaned your sore body while kissing it.
¨I can't believe it took me all this years to realize how I feel about you.¨ Your heart was anxious at how your confession would be received.
¨Doesn't take an idiot to figure out. You couldn't tell I was and I am in love with you because you were too busy trying to beat all that rivalry. I was in love the moment you kicked my ass for the first time.¨
You chuckled at the confession, and laid your head on his shoulder where you could see his dumb smirk. ¨You have that stupid smirk on your face again, can't you have a serious conversation with me?, can we fight again?¨
He laughed at your comment ¨Not a possible thing for me when you look this cute all marked by me and confessing your feelings for me.¨ The small pecks he started leaving on your neck and back had you giggling.
¨I love you.¨
¨I love you too, bird-boy.¨
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souliebird · 1 year
Text
[[and then i met you || ch.1]]
Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit
Summary: A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s.
a/n: Reader is an extremely anxious person. That’s the note.
words: 5.6k
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You hope Matthew Michael Murdock is a good man. 
You tried to research him online, but you didn't find anything that could sway you one way or another.
The news articles say he's some sort of local hero - not only for being a lawyer who does a lot of pro-bono work but for saving a man from being hit by a truck when he was a kid. They all give his tragic backstory before praising him and his law partner for helping the underprivileged and going after some big shot corrupt businessman - twice. The comments are mostly from people he's helped, singing about how Nelson and Murdock saved them in their times of crisis. 
You want to trust them, but you can't.
The news also claimed Hitler was Person of the Year and deserved praise, too, and you know how that turned out. Not that you think a blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen can be compared to a genocidal leader, but your mental point to yourself still stands. 
You know nothing about Matthew Murdock except he's blind, he's a lawyer, and his dick changed your life. 
You doubt he even remembers you - a one-night stand from years ago, before his name even started appearing in the news again, and to be fair, you didn't remember him at first, either. Not until four months later when you went in to get your anxiety medication adjusted and the doctor made you take a routine pregnancy test. Then you remembered the handsome blind lawyer who flirted with you at a friend's holiday party you had gone to. You could remember the silly conversation you had about white elephant, that he had the most charming smile, and he could do things with his tongue that made you moan just thinking about, but you could not remember his name. 
You had tried to find him, you really did, but your energy and attention was quickly needed elsewhere and the search for your daughter's father lost steam.
Until you saw him on the television while at the local diner, giving an interview with his law partner. 
That was yesterday and now you are standing outside the door of his firm, trying to work up the courage to go in. 
There's too many scenarios in your head, all of them bad- he's not going to want anything to do with you and your daughter, which you can deal with, or maybe, just maybe, he'll try to take her away from you. He's a lawyer and you work in billing for a transportation company. There's no doubt who the courts would choose and it wouldn't be you. 
The thought makes you want to turn and run but you know your daughter deserves the chance to know her father - and he deserves to know she exists. It's his choice, once he knows, if he wants to be in her life or not, not yours. 
It scares you so much it's not your choice. 
You scrub at your face, trying to work up the courage to actually open the door in front of you when it does just that. 
A kind looking woman with strawberry blonde hair is standing in the doorway and you recognize her from the firm's website - Karen Page. She's the third partner in the firm and you didn't really look into her in your hunt for information. 
She offers you a smile before speaking, "You look like you're debating coming in." You shrug, unsure what to say because that is exactly what you were doing but don't want to admit it. She looks you over without it feeling judgmental before focusing on the manila envelope in your hand. She steps back slightly and gestures for you to come into the office. "You made it this far. Whatever it is, we'll do our best to help you."
The sentiment is so kind and you know she means well, thinking you are a potential client, but it just causes your throat to get even tighter. 
It has been you and your daughter for so long, is this really the right path to take? 
You hug your file to your chest and take a hesitant step forward. Then another and another until you are in the office. It's not big or fancy and you didn't expect it to be. There's a little waiting area in front of the reception desk, with another desk shoved against a wall, and on either side of the room, doors leading to what you suspect are the private offices. 
Karen goes around to the back of the reception desk and picks up a clipboard holding some paperwork and offers it out to you.
You take it and stare down at it, unsure if you would fill it out or not. When you look back up, Karen is still smiling at you and you don't want to come off as a problem, so you take a seat in the waiting area and start filling out the requested information. As you write out your address, it finally occurs to you that you have no idea how to have the conversation you need to have.
Do you ease into it or drop it on him like a bomb? You had only ever thought about finding him and never about what you would say when you did.
You should have taken more time to plan this out. You're such an idiot - you just jumped right into running towards him like you might lose track of him if you took so much as a second to think. You know his name now, who he is, you can take time to get things sorted out properly.
Would it be weird to leave in the middle of filling out paperwork you shouldn't even be bothering with?
Probably not, but you're already here. There is no point in running. 
This is for your daughter, not you. You have to keep telling yourself that.
You don't fill out the information asking about your 'case'. It honestly makes you panic a bit if you start thinking about it all in a legal sense - you know nothing about law and the man you're meeting with graduated at the top of his class from a top law school. Your hand is shaking as you add your signature to the bottom of the page and date it. Reviewing everything takes just a moment, since there's barely anything written to begin with, and your eyes drift up to the logo at the top of the page.
Nelson, Murdock, and Page.
You trace it with your finger.
Matthew Murdock has to be a good man. This firm helps people and he wouldn't be here if he didn't want to help people. He graduated top of his class; he could work anywhere he wanted to. The papers said he is good, too - they win most of their cases. 
Unless it's all a weird front to hide something like money laundering. 
But if they were money launders wouldn't they have enough money to afford an air conditioner? 
"All done?" 
Karen is in front of you, smiling politely. You are surprised by her appearance, but you don't feel pressured. It's like she's checking in so that she can break you out of your thoughts and you appreciate that. You nod and hand her the clipboard. She takes it, giving it a once over.
"Foggy will be out in just a minute."
Your head jerks up at that.
"No, I need to see Mr. Murdock."
You can tell Karen is surprised by that and her eyes narrow just a fraction. She searches your face, then she looks towards the door on the left. 
You turn your head to follow her gaze. 
"Matt!" Karen calls out.
A few moments pass before the door opens and you feel like you're going to throw up. 
The cameras don't do him justice. 
Matthew Murdock is gorgeous. He was handsome before and somehow, he just got hotter. He's a little taller than you, still as lean as you remember, and looking crisp in a gray suit - like some model walked off the catwalk and into a sweltering office. His hair is shorter than you remember it being. You have the distinct memory of being able to grab onto it, but it's too cropped to do that now.
But the thing that catches your attention the most is that in person and in the light, you can see Matthew's hair has an auburn tint to it.
Just like Minnie's. 
The realization shakes your entire world. 
This man is the father of your child. He's real. He's no longer a concept of a person, who you knew nothing about, who just existed somewhere in the world. 
You have to look away before you start to cry. You don't know where this surge of emotion is coming from - it feels like this wave of relief. This question you have always had finally has an answer. 
You tell yourself to take a breath, you know getting overly emotional isn't going to help anything. It might actually make things worse and spiraling into a meltdown is not a good first impression.
You can see Karen in your peripheral vision, and you look up to her, trying to regain your focus.
It's Matthew who speaks first, "Yes, Karen?"
"We have a walk-in who is hoping she can speak with you." 
You introduce yourself, standing up as you do. You know he is blind, so you don't offer your hand. Instead you clutch your folder to your chest. 
He doesn't seem to remember your name. He turns towards you and gives a polite smile. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Matthew Murdock, but you seem to know that. I have some time right now, please come in. Karen, can you grab us some water before you join us?"
"Yeah, sure," Karen says as she turns to do just that. 
Your throat gets tight again. 
You don't want to have this conversation with someone else there. It's already going to be hard enough. You'll definitely start crying if Karen is in the room. You cannot deal with two people's reactions. The mere thought of you having to do that is making you sweat. 
Matthew's voice breaks you out of your panic. "If that is okay?"
You rush out your response, "I would prefer to speak alone, please." You're too panicked to feel embarrassment. 
Karen doesn't seem phased by this. She is still grabbing a couple of bottles of water from the fridge and offering one out to you. You take it. 
"Not a problem, let me know if you need anything."
"Thanks, Kare. Please, come this way," Matthew motions for you to follow him into the office. 
This is it.
Once you go through that door, you aren't leaving that room without telling Matthew Murdock he is a father. 
You surprise yourself by not hesitating and just charging forward into the office. 
This isn't about you or your fears. 
This is for Minnie. 
You keep your gaze forward because you can't bring yourself to look at him. If you stop and look at him before you tell him why you are here, you will just start over analyzing everything once again. You silently beg to whatever gods will listen that everything will be okay, and this man won't destroy you. 
He doesn't look like he is going to break your heart. 
But you know that looks mean nothing when it comes to pain. 
He closes the door behind you with an audible click and the weight of the moment starts to come down on your shoulders.
You take the seat in front of the desk quickly, worried your nerves might catch up with you, placing the water on the ground beside you with your purse when you sit. Matthew doesn't rush, he walks to his desk with an air of quiet confidence and if you were a client, it would be comforting, but you aren't and all it does is remind you why you fell into bed with him. 
"What brings you in today, Miss..?" He trails off, prompting you to say your name again. As he reaches his desk you watch as he trails his fingers along the edge, using it as a guide, before moving his hand to brush over the back of his seat before sitting in it. 
You chew your bottom lip, wishing you had taken a second to actually plan what you would say instead of jumping in. As far as you know, there isn't a step-by-step guide on how to tell a one-night stand that he's the father of your child - not that you actually looked into that in your desperate research the night before. 
Matthew doesn't push as you gather your thoughts. He moves some paperwork away from the center of his desk, then folds his hands there, waiting. You keep your gaze on his hands, needing something to focus your eyes on while you force the truth out.
"I saw your interview last night," you say, deciding to start there, as it seems the most relatable.
Matthew's brows knit together and he tilts his head to the side and you are one again reminded of Minnie. It's a gesture she does often, tilting her little head left and right as she tries to understand something. It always reminded you of a dog and now you wonder if it's not a learned behavior, but genetic. 
His lips turn down into a frown and his head stays cocked as he asks, "Do you have information about the Lynch case?"
Heat rushes to your cheeks - of course that would be the question to ask after bringing up the interview. The whole piece was about a specific case they were working on and how it would affect Hell's Kitchen and you hadn't paid any attention to what was said - not after you realized who was on the screen. 
You shake your head, resisting the urge to look away and you curl your fingers tighter around the manila folder in your lap. "No, I'm sorry. I saw you and…recognized you."
He straightens up and his demeanor shifts to something less…friendly. It's minute but your messed-up brain screams at you about body language - his shoulders have squared up and you can see where he's clenching his back teeth. You quickly continue on, wanting to get through with your explanation before your anxiety makes you clam up.
"We met nearly five years ago," your voice is firm and factual and you're proud of yourself for that, "at a holiday party." 
The words leave your mouth and you know he knows. Every part of him seems to go still - even his breathing seems to stop. The crease between his brow smoothes out, like he's gone from squinting to wide eyes behind his dark glasses. Your heart is pounding in your ears and your throat is getting stiff, but your voice remains steady as you push the words out.
"I think you are the father of my child."
All the color seems to leave Matthew's face and he looks nearly as gray as his suit. The reaction makes your stomach turn. He looks like he is going to throw up. 
You bite into your lip, waiting for Matthew to do or say something. All you can do is mentally chant to yourself: he's a good man, he won't take her away.
You know it's probably just seconds, but it feels like hours pass before Matthew moves.
He leans slowly back in his chair, reaching up with one hand to rub at his mouth. 
"Are you sure?"
He doesn't sound upset, at least to your ears. His words are cautious - tentative - and it makes your heart go tight in your chest. You don't know if it's fear or hope or everything crashing into you at once now that he knows.
You force out a nod before you remember that the man in front of you is blind. You find your voice and words creep out.
"I'm pretty sure," you start. Your eyes drop away from his hands back down to your lap and you have to lick at your lips to wet them before continuing, "I didn't go out much after that party, I got so busy with work. I didn't…find out until the first trimester was over. By then, I couldn't remember your name. My friends who I went to the party with didn't know you either. I tried to Google you with what information I had, but 'blind lawyer' just got me a lot of disability lawyers." You take a shaky breath, "I understand if you want a paternity test."
You know Matthew is probably taking everything in, but now that you've started talking, it's like you've lifted the dam on your anxiety. You squeeze the file in your lap - just because you hadn't known how you were going to tell Matthew the truth did not mean you hadn't extensively thought about the consequences. Words start to spill out of you.
"I also understand if you don't want anything to do with us, I get it's a big shock. I'm not looking for anything from you." Matthew drops his hand to the desk and if you didn't know better, it would look like he was staring at you. "I just wanted you to know and I thought it would be good for her to know you, but if you don't want that, I get it. All I ask is you fill out some paperwork, medical history mostly so I know if there's anything I need to look out for. I printed it out for you, it's all in braille." 
You get up just enough so that you can place the manila envelope on the desk, then sit back down. Your throat is getting so tight and stiff you feel like you're struggling to breathe. 
Matthew runs his hand over his desk until he can feel the envelope. His fingers move along the edge and you stare at them, like they are going to be the one to reveal what Matthew is thinking instead of his mouth. He finds the lip but doesn't open, instead flattening his palm against it.
"...her?"
His voice is so quiet you barely hear it. You lift your head to finally look at him and your heart skips a beat.
Matthew looks so soft. The corners of his lips twitch a few times before a smile slowly spreads across his face. 
And you know.
You know without a doubt he is your daughter's father. They have the exact same smile. You can't help but to grin as well. 
This is good, isn't it? He looks Happy. 
"I have a daughter.."
"Winifred.. Winifred Love," you offer. Matthew lifts his head and tilts it towards you, brow wrinkling slightly.
"Love…?" He asks, no judgment in his voice, only curiosity. 
You close your eyes in a bit of embarrassment, as you always do during the story, "I meant to put Grace, but I was out of it. I even put a big heart next to it on the paperwork." You aren't ashamed of the story and you love your daughter's name, but it's always a 'oops I was high' moment, even if it was done with the purest intention. 
If possible, Matthew's smile gets even bigger. 
"Winifred Love," he says, his voice dropping back down to the barely there whisper. 
"She goes by Minnie. Like, um.. Like Minnie Mouse," you say. That gets an amused yet fond chuckle. You find yourself relaxing at the noise - like some of the pressure squeezing on your lungs has been lifted and you can finally breathe. 
He repeats her nickname and you feel your lips start to turn up. 
"How old..?" His voice cracks with emotion and Matthew has to clear his throat before continuing, "how old is she?"
"Three and a half," you answer quickly, "her birthday is a few months away." You bite your lip then hesitantly add, "She wants to go to the zoo. It's all she talks about."
"Yeah?" Matthew prompts. His smile is so so soft and it makes your stomach turn in this pleasant way. However, you were expecting him to act, this is not it. In your heart, you think the best you were going for was acceptance, but this seems much more than that. There is a stinging in the corner of your eyes and you have to take your own steadying breath continuing on.
"Yeah, um.. She…likes maps right now. I got her a map to the zoo and she's got the whole day planned." Which is very much true - your coffee table has been the home of a makeshift zoo diorama for a little over a week now and the itinerary has changed about twenty times. 
 Matthew ducks his head and nods a little, taking all the information in. You squeeze your fingers in your lap, needing a way to release the nerves still buzzing inside you. 
A few moments pass before Matthew clears his throat again, "What else does she like..?"
The question makes you chuckle just a little bit, only because gushing about your daughter is something you're very good at. Since you work at home, it is just the two of you ninety percent of the time, you don't get to coo over her very often.
"She loves arts and crafts - anything she can get her little hands on. Right now she loves pipe cleaners and paper, things she can bend and fold, you know? I set her next to me while working and she'll just fold paper into little shapes. Not origami or anything, just abstract things, she doesn't plan it. She always wants to help, too, whatever I'm doing. Cooking and cleaning. She is the best helper for grocery shopping." You pause, looking over Matthew's smile for a moment before continuing on, tears starting to gather in your eyes.
 "She looks just like you," you admit, fondness clear in your voice because it is so so true. Now that you are properly looking at him, Minnie looks just like Matthew, and telling him that makes him light up even more. "You've got the same smile. The same hair. Hers is a little more red, but it's definitely from you."
You watch Matthew lick at his lips and you want to know what is going on in his head. You think everything is going well, even if you are on the verge of crying. They are tears of relief - relief you weren't told to fuck off or to go get your own lawyer. You don't fully know if Matthew Murdock is a good man, but you're over the first hurdle and the prospects are looking good. 
Matthew leans back into his chair, inhaling deeply, as if centering himself, then asks, "Why now? Why find me now?"
"Like I said, I couldn't find you, I didn't know anything about you, really, except what you looked like and you were a lawyer. I did try, I really did, but…" you trail off with a shrug, "I had a newborn."
Matthew seems to accept that answer - it is the truth after all - and continues on, "But you saw the interview... Last night?"
You nod, "I was picking up some dinner and they were playing the news at the diner. I saw it and looked you up and now…now you know."
"Now I know…" Matthew repeats slowly, his smile dropping a little and you wonder if is hitting him in different waves, like it did you - the realization he is a father. You know it is an intense roller coaster and you are not going to try to guide his ride, especially after just kind of dropping it on him. 
He taps the manila folder in front of him, the crease returning to his brow, "What is this?"
Your cheeks get hot again and you turn your gaze away from him and back to your lap, "Requests for family medical history and information about how to establish paternity, if that's what you want."
"It is," Matthew rushes out. Your head jerks up and his expression looks serious, "I want that. I want to be in her life."
He sounds so sure of himself that it makes your head spin a little. You built up in your mind he either wouldn't want anything to do with you and Minnie or he was going to try to take her away - you hadn't really considered the obvious option that Matthew would just want to be involved. At least, that is what you are hoping he is implying. 
"I won't abandon my daughter," the conviction in his voice startles you, but it also makes your heart twist but in a good way because in that moment, you believe him. "And I won't abandon you. I used to question if I had the right to bring a child into my life, but this isn't a hypothetical anymore…. And I can't.." he trails off and leans back into his chair, rubbing at his mouth again. You don't press, you have no right to when you've come out of the blue and changed his entire world. He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I can't step away now that I know she is out there." 
You quickly shake your head at his words, "You don't need to rush into anything, I mean it, I don't want anything from you but for you to have the chance to know her. We can go slow, she's still little, you know? She can't handle a big change. Start small?"
You're more worried about how he is feeling versus what you are. You have at least prepared yourself to have a reaction - he thought he would be having a normal work day and you've given him a lot to process in the last five minutes. 
"We can go at your pace, Matthew."
He drops his hand from his face, a smile coming back to his face, "You can call me Matt."
You repeat your preferred name, then apologize, "I'm sorry for coming out of nowhere. I didn't want to lose track of you again, but I could have scheduled an appointment."
Matt shakes his head a little, "No, I get it." His hand goes back to the envelope, like touching it is grounding him like squeezing your fingers is grounding you. "I'm glad you came…I'm glad…thank you. Thank you for telling me." 
Part of you wants to reach across the desk and squeeze his hand, to give him comfort and let him know everything will be okay, but you don't dare. He's still a stranger, despite everything. You decide pushing past the emotional to the practical might be the best approach for now. You need to get your anxiety to settle now that you know your world isn't going to end and the best thing for that, in your mind, is getting an action plan. 
"I don't know what the steps are for doing this," you start, trying to think up ideas as you talk, "but I think maybe we could…get together again and plan things out? Give you time to adjust to the idea and let you think about how you want to move forward?"
Matt nods along with your words, "That sounds like a good idea." 
You bend down to grab your phone out of your purse, "I put my contact information in the packet, but could I get yours?" 
He waits until you are ready, then gives you his personal number then the office number. You do the quick song and dance of calling his phone, so that he has your number and you wait patiently as he adds you as a contact. Hearing the voice commands to navigate a phone is new to you and once he is done putting in your information, you let your curiosity get the better of you.
"Do you prefer texting or phone calls?"
"Phone calls would be preferable," Matt says as he sets his phone on his desk, having held it up to speak clearly into it, "I have text to speech but it's not always the easiest for texting." 
You nod in understanding, "Got it." You squirm in your seat, unsure of what comes next, so you say the very first thing that comes to mind. "You can call anytime. I work from home so you don't have to worry about interrupting anything…like I'm doing with you."
He hums, then asks, "What does Minnie do during the day?" 
"She stays with me, mostly. There's a daycare down the block she goes to if I need someone to watch her. That's where she is now."
That makes Matt frown just slightly and part of you panics that he disapproves. "Is it just the two of you…?"
"Yes." 
You say it with confidence. You've worked hard to get where you are alone and despite all you've been through, you are proud of that. "My parents passed when I was in college and I don't have any siblings. We've managed to do pretty well on our own. It's not the biggest, but we have a little place in Chelsea."
The little frown stays and you don't know what it means - you hope it's over you not having a big support system and not something else. Matt looks like he is going to respond but a knock at the door cuts him off. You jump at the noise, having totally forgotten there were other people in the office. 
Matt looks slightly annoyed when he calls out, "Yes?"
The door opens and the final partner for the law firm is there. "Pardon the intrusion," he says to you with a nod before addressing Matt, "They've got that guy from last week at the 15th. He's asking for us specifically."
Matt openly scowls before running a hand over his face, "Okay. Give me a few minutes."
Foggy nods before stepping back out and closing the door.
"I'm sorry," Matt says sheepishly.
You cut him off before he can say more, standing as you do, "Please don't be, I really did just barge in on you at work. I can call you later? Or you can call me?" 
Matt gets up as well, starting to come around the desk, "I can call you." He hesitates just a second, then ducks his chin, that little smile reappearing and your heart does that funny flip again. "Maybe we can get lunch?"
You smile back, "I would like that. We can start planning." You bite your bottom lip, then add, "I can bring Minnie…?"
Matt's entire face lights up and the awkwardness of trying to end your talk evaporates. "I would like that. A lot." He motions to his desk, "I'll work on getting that back to you. I want to…I want to do this right." 
"I do, too." 
It feels like a promise. You want to believe Matt - that he wants this and won't disappear at the first minor inconvenience. You've read so many horror stories about bad parents and you don't want any of that for Minnie. 
You grab your purse and the water Karen gave you, then finally give Matt a proper look over. 
You enjoyed your night together with him. Not only had he been a phenomenal lover, but he had made you smile and laugh. You weren't nearly as anxious then as you are now, but you had been rather nervous being flirted with by a handsome lawyer and he had made you feel at ease. Bringing him home with you had been an easy choice. 
He must sense you smiling somehow, maybe you giggled or something, but his smile, which had started to fall, brightens back up.
"Can I ask you something before you go?" 
You nod to his question, catch yourself and reply, "Of course."
"Can you tell me what she looks like?"
Guilt courses through you and biting your lip turns painful, "I'm so sorry, of course. Um, I included pictures in the packet with descriptions but, of course." His face drops into something a little nervous so you launch into the description of your daughter, emphasizing how they have the same smile because you can’t get over that. You can't help yourself and start describing some of the pictures you included.
"She has this big noise canceling headband so she can sleep comfortably - she doesn't like loud noises - but because she is three, she refuses to wear it unless it's cute. So we crochet little sleeves for it. One of the pictures is her asleep on our couch, face down, because that's how she sleeps, wearing her favorite sleeve. It's Spider-Man the-"
There's a quick series of taps on the door before it opens again.
"Buddy, we gotta go."
You start to apologize, but Matt speaks over you, his voice a little firm as his expression drops, "I'll be right there, Foggy."
A silent conversation seems to go through them, as Foggy raises his eyebrows at Matt and Matt does the same right back. Foggy steps out of the office, closing the door behind him. 
"Let me walk you out?" Matt asks, motioning to the door.
"Thank you." 
You let him open the door and you follow him into the reception office. Foggy is looking at his phone while waiting by Karen's desk as she finishes packing her laptop. You cross the room in silence as Matt leads you from the office. Once you are in the hallway, he speaks to you in a soft voice.
"Can I call you tonight?"
"Yes, please." 
"Does eight work?"
"That's perfect." 
"I'll talk to you then."
You force yourself to be the one to turn away and start walking towards the stairs. As you get to them, you pull your bottom lip between your teeth to try to suppress your smile.
Maybe the papers are right and Matthew Murdock is a good man. 
You really hope he's a good father too.
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wilwheaton · 2 months
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I’m not surprised the Trump campaign is going there. I mean, they’re vicious degenerates and professional liars. But even more generally, campaigns put out lots of tendentious attacks. “Fair” isn’t part of the political campaign framework. But we should expect a lot better from the country’s leading dailies, especially charges directly from a campaign that contain so many red flags. Once a major paper picks up a hit and gives it credulous coverage it stops being a campaign attack and becomes a “story.” It’s a very specific kind of editorial decision. As I’ve explained in other posts, there’s been a growing push, especially at the Times but more generally, that Harris’s campaign momentum has been going on too long and needs to come to an end. Little question that fever played heavily into this editorial decision. And it’s not the first time. Let’s remember that the Times spent the better part of a year in 2015 and 2016 writing articles based on the hit book “Clinton Cash” which was funded by Steve Bannon. It’s a pattern.
Times and WaPo Jump On Board Trump Camp Swift Boating of Walz
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muniimyg · 1 year
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1.5: ah, shit 》 series m.list
note: look at me go with the updates :o
taglist request: send a request with the title of this fic “c2u” // DO NOT comment here or on the masterlist . it gets confusing and i prefer answering and tagging through asks !!!
🏷️ permanent taglist: @joonsjuice @taetaecatboy @pb-n-juju @miss-rainy-days @firesighgirl @whoa-jo @vantxx95 @pamzn @kakixaku @casspirit0705 @tae165 @prdshobi @sopebubbles @leefics @ggukkieland @bebebutbetter @yoongimentita7 @boraength @era-genius @4ksj @vampcharxter @miss-jupiter @floweryjeons @taegijns @jeonqkooks-main
//
“Stop laughing. This isn’t funny!” 
Jungkook makes a face at you, unable to hold his laughter in. “This is too good. Golden even. I can’t believe my luck today—”
“You know what? Forget about it. My bad,” you mumble, beginning to feel embarrassed.
Jungkook had just entered your bedroom and found you opening a box of condoms. He isn’t too sure why the sight of you doing so was so hilarious, he just knows it is. 
“W-what? No!” Jungkook begins to plead, taking the box of condoms from your hands and putting them aside. “___, of course, I wanna fuck. What kind of fucking idiot do you think I am? And XL? You must’ve thought about me a lot, huh?”
“Fuck you.”
“Sure," he takes this moment in, “is now a good time?”
You cross your arms at him, giving him an annoyed look. “Why are you laughing then?” 
“Because… I didn’t think this would happen again.” Jungkook confesses, a little afraid of your reaction. When to comes to other peoples feelings, you’re not the soft type. Yet, when it comes to your own; you are almost always overly sensitive. He’s learned this about you simply over time. It’s endearing to him and annoying to others.
You shrug at him, taking an article of your clothing off. Tossing it at him, you gesture for him to do the same. He then pulls his sweater over his head and drops it on the ground along with your shirt. Jungkook keeps his eyes on you as you begin to strip more and more. His eyes follow each curve that gets exposed and he can’t help but wonder why his throat is suddenly dry. It’s weird because he swears he’s probably drooling right now. 
When you’re down to just your panties and bra, you take a step towards him. Wrapping your arms around his neck, he gulps as you inch closer to him. You’d be an idiot not to notice his sudden change of stance. 
It’s obvious.
Jungkook has folded. 
“Do you have feelings for me, Jungkook?”
You ask him this calmly.
Your words and the tone you used to ask don’t seem to match. The words itself carry so much possibility of change and chance… Yet, the way you said it was so distant and meaningless. It’s like it wasn’t a big deal. It’s like… It didn’t even matter if he said yes. 
He takes a moment too long to answer. 
“Spit it out, you little shit.”
“N-no,” he attempts to sound convincing. You had already made him a fool once this evening… He wasn’t going to let you have the victory of being a joke to you again. “It’s you. You like me.”
Tilting your head, you pout at him. “Don’t make assumptions. Your ego won’t be able to handle rejection.”
“I’m not assuming and you’re not exactly rejecting me,” he grumbles, feeling defensive. “Just admit it. You’ve wanted me the second we met.”
You wiggle your finger at him. “Stop projecting, pookie bear.”
Jungkook makes a sour face. “Ohh… Yeah, it does sound bad.”
“See?” you laugh, hitting his chest lightly. 
“How about… I stop calling you pookie bear—”
You gasp, “okay! Loving this…”
“When you stop denying—”
In a panic, you interrupt him; “hating it…”
“Come on,” he groans. “You have to admit it. You like me at least a little bit… That’s why you and I fucked a month ago. It was all the built-up tension.” He says it like he knows it in his heart. Like there’s no other answer than what he just stated. For a moment, you believe him. 
Instead, you remember that night and you recall what had led up to it. You had just gotten dumped for the nth time by your shithead of a boyfriend. Jungkook saw you walking home and cheered you up to your apartment. From there, it just happened.
It was so easy.
It felt so effortless and like it was meant to happen. That understanding… Felt weird. You did your best to forget about it and how it made you feel but it takes two to tango and your partner in crime felt differently. Ever since that day, he has not shut the fuck up.
That day, Jungkook found himself in between your legs and you found yourself self-loathing the next morning. It wasn’t in your intentions to use Jungkook the way you did.. But he didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Which brings you to this conclusion:
“What are you trying to get out of me, Jungkook? A confession?”
He shrugs, feeling indifferent. “I’m not demanding anything from you.”
You shake your head at him. “What the fuck? Jungkook, you can’t be my rebound.”
“Why not?” he whines childishly.
“It’s mean.”
Jungkook takes a moment to contemplate. Ultimately, he snaps out of it and brushes his thoughts off as if he didn’t even try to think things through. “It’s okay. I have a crush on you so I’m going into this completely delusional and shit.”
Rolling your eyes at him, you pinch his cheeks. “Can you stop goofing around? Be real. I might be more interested in you if you do.”
He glares at you. 
“Fine,” Jungkook gives in. “I’m just fucking with you. To be honest, I’m just trying to be here for you. As a friend and all… If fucking around is what you need, then so be it. Whatever you want from me, you can have. You just have to ask.”
You purse your lips at him, not buying a single word he offers you. Regardless, you inch closer. Bantering with him is actual agony… But, you can’t resist him. It’s a weird pull he has on you and you rather die than to admit it to him.
Instead, you let your actions speak for you. It’s the most you’ll do in terms of confessing or even processing how you feel about him. All you know and all you want to know is how he feels against, inside, and on top of your body. You your lips on his neck, near his collarbone. At first, you kiss it lightly. Then, as you pull away, you suck on it a bit. Repeating this motion, you work on giving him a hickey. 
“I…”
“You?”
“I wanna fuck.”
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Your room looks the same as it did a month ago. He feels so lucky to be here again.. But holy shit; you're a piece of work.
Is he a joke to you? Is that it? Because Jungkook has been in complete distress for a good five minutes now and he doesn’t know what to do.
“Fucking hold still,” Jungkook grunts, as he pins you down. His hands cover your wrist and all you can do is giggle. He does his best to compose himself. If he lets his emotions get in the way, you'll laugh even more.
“I can’t—it’s poking me!” 
He rolls his eyes at you. “It's my dick, ___. Of course, it's gonna feel like that."
"It feels weird,” you giggle. “Why is it so big?”
"Don't call my dick weird.”
You squint at him. “I also called it big.”
“Well, it’s gonna stop being big if you don’t stop fucking laughing at it.”
You tighten your lips. “Sorry, sorry.”
Jungkook takes a deep breath and tries again.
He guides himself between your folds and glances at you to see if you’re behaving any better. Holding in your laughter, you shut your eyes and try to concentrate on how it feels. 
How velvety the skin of his thick, veiny, and hard cock is. How wet the head is. How big it is as he pushes himself inside you. 
You open your eyes and boom. 
There he is.
So handsome and on top of you. His silver neckless dangles in the space between you and him. Your eyes flutter at the way it moves according to his thrusts. It feels like you could go dizzy.
Then, you blink and see him suddenly close his eyes and lean in towards you. Out of an odd relfex, you squirm and let out a loud burst of laughter. 
“What the fuck?” Jungkook cries, completely frustrated with you. “___, are you serious?”
In between laughs, you tell him; “I was trying! But you were leaning in to kiss me and the way you shut your eyes looked so stupid—you look so s-stupid—w-what the fuck?”
Jungkook grips your wrists and puts them above your head. He towers over you even more and the expression on his face is hard to read. He looks angry but not in a scary way. He looks desperate and needy but not in the loser way… He looks insanely hot right now. You feel yourself clench, getting tighter around him. 
“You love fucking with me, don’t you?” he hisses. “Do you want me to fuck you or not?”
You nod in response. 
“Then fucking behave.”
You nod again. 
He shakes his head, dissatisfied with your response. He lets go of your wrists and cups your cheeks together with his one hand. With your lips smushed together, he asks you; “answer me properly.”
“Y-yes,” you murmur, “I’ll behave.”
Cockily, he raises his brow at you. “Good. Now open your mouth.”
You do as he says. He loosens his hold on you, letting you open your mouth on your own. When you do so, you watch him accumulate spit. Quickly, he spits inside your mouth.
You spit it back out at him.
“Sike.”
His own saliva hits his face. Jungkook briefly turns away, biting his inner cheek in annoyance.
“You wanna play fucking games? Fine. Let’s fucking play games.” Jungkook practically growls.
You gulp, trying your best to keep a straight face. It wasn’t funny anymore. Instead, everything was beginning to feel hot and heavy. His cock stays inside you and you can feel him throbbing. You want him to move now. 
Maybe you made the wrong move. 
But it’s too late. 
Jungkook’s mind has been made up and his pride can’t take any more shit you’ve given him all night. Sometimes, you forget how much of a man he is. You’ve only pushed boundaries as friends as a joke… And you barely remember what it was like sleeping with him a month ago… Was he always like this?
You feel sick to your stomach when you realize; you like it. 
The rest of the night continues with Jungkook’s nasty mouth all over your body. It’s like every crevasse was for him to discover and claim as his. He took his time, pumping himself inside you. He took his time even more when he kissed you. 
It was so slow and wet, but with every thrust and kiss—oh, were you fucked out of your mind. 
His hands were all over you. It wasn’t exactly mind-blowing sex but it wasn’t too far from it either. Everything he did just felt so right and that surprised you. Contrary to popular belief; Jungkook was no fuckboy. He simply knew how to fuck.
God bless that fact.
He has always been that silly goofy friend in your circle of people. He has always been kind and a little flirty… But he was also really self-aware and brought a lot of meaning into every friendship. Perhaps, that’s why you ended up turning the other cheek and dating guys opposite of him. 
If you were to be with Jungkook, it would be too real. 
It would be too good and that’s what scared you… 
Ah, shit.
How could you ever get over something this good?
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popponn · 5 months
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a meet cute of sort.
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note: something that should have been a 5+1 fic for nagi, but i hit a road block somewhere and ended up with only this. warning: none. gn!reader, post canon, meet cute. nagi here is if "flirting" and "not flirting" have a son. @doobea thanks for checking this as usual bby and rosie @adoregojo look. a nagi.
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“You look like the moon.”
It is a spring day and the sun is up. You are someone from some magazine who just finished interviewing him for an article. Also, you are the first person to describe Seishiro like that—at least to his face.
“Huh?” Seishiro blinks. He doesn’t expect that sentence to be said. Usually, people like you will go for the standard ‘thank you for your hard work’ even though all Seishiro did was give them the answers Reo and the staff told him to.
“Uh. Kind of,” you quickly added, suddenly sheepish and apologetic, kind of jumpy. “Sorry. It just comes out—I mean it as a praise! I mean, you look good—yeah, that’s it! As good as the moon, I mean!”
You are panicking and refuse to meet Seishiro’s eyes. It’s kind of funny—cute? something in his mind unhelpfully supplies—in a way. Suddenly, the confident interviewer who enthusiastically digs through his answers and makes him think is gone, even if your jumpy-something energy seemingly remains.
“…I see. Thanks,” he says, eventually, after spending a few moments watching you fumble through your belongings. He wants to point out that you say ‘I mean’ a lot just now—it will probably make you act even funnier, but some people might cry if they get teased, so he didn’t. You might be one and he will get scolded if he makes you cry.
You nod at his answer, still nervously trying to gather your stuff back. This shouldn’t be surprising in any manner, considering your business is finished here—but, for some reason, it does bugs him a bit.
Probably, because you are kind of funny in some ways—he notes. Also probably because you chat with him during the interview and never feel annoying to him. There are other things that feels like they are barely under the surface of his mind—a bit messier and couldn’t be put to words yet. However, they feel nice enough that Seishiro knows that even the worst parts of them fall under ‘interesting’.
It makes Seishiro feel like he should do something before you go. What he doesn’t quite know, but he should probably do it.
“Hey,” Seishiro calls out, not knowing what to say or do yet despite already gaining your attention.
Then, he remembers what Shidou always does whenever someone piques the blonde’s interest.
So, he does it.
Casually, curiously, lightly, Seishiro asks, “Can I have your number?
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petpenname · 7 months
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❤️‍🔥Red Wine Supernova❤️‍🔥
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pairing: dealer!ellie williams x introverterd(f)reader c.w. smoking, drinking summary: modern college au, dealer!ellie x introverted!(f)reader, slow burn with some sad elements, inspired by Red Wine Supernova by Chapel Roan Parts: 1. I Just Want To Get To Know You 2. Mini Skirt and My Go-Go Boots 3. I Don't Care That You're a Stoner + Epilogue: Falling Into Me a/n: this ones long buckle up
Part Two
Mini Skirt and My Go-Go Boots
Music filled House 03 in each room as the girls got ready for that night's party. Olivia and Ivy share a room, blasting 2000’s pop throwbacks and club hits as they adorned themselves with low rise jeans and sparkles. Phoebe was playing 70s hits from the living room. Her and Daniel in matching bellbottoms, lounging on the couch pregaming already. Sage was in your room, as you struggled to form an outfit. Sitting pretty in her 90’s basement grunge attire, she questioned you about the night before.
Sage: “So she actually came over?! And you smoked with her! Look at you!”
“No, don't look at me! I don't know what to wear!” You say, holding up articles of clothing. “But yeah, she texted me while I was in the bath!”
“Oh, sensual,” Sage said with a wink. Seeing your distressed look she dropped the teasing and turned her attention to your wardrobe which was strewn across your room. 
“What about those white boots! You could go as a go-go dancer!” Sage pointed at a pair of knee high white platform boots. You had only worn them out once but they were practically perfect for a 60’s themed look. 
You picked them up, “okay yeah, but what do I wear them with?” “I dunno, a mini skirt?” Sage said laughing, she left the room to start pregaming and give you space to get ready.
You end up putting on a pink and orange plaid mini dress that fits your curves so perfectly. You opt to have your hair down and natural, pinning back one side behind your ear. A simple eye look to complete the look with a signature 60s line above your eye, in pink of course.  
You stand in front of your full-body mirror inspecting yourself. You are usually confident in your looks but tonight you feel an extra form of confidence. Something about the spontaneity of last night after a grueling finals week. 
“Hey y/n, you're almost ready?!” You hear Ivy shout from down the hall.
“Yeah! Coming!” You grab a cute white shoulder bag and put your go-go boots on. Grabbing your phone, extra lip gloss and taking one more look in the mirror before heading downstairs. 
Your roommates are pregaming in the kitchen when you come down too hoots and hollers about how great you look. You return the girls compliments taking in everyone's looks. Phoebe hands you a shot and a lime and you all take one for the road. The walk to House 09 takes less than 10 minutes. You and Sage take up the rear of the group adventure.
“So are you going to see Ellie tonight?” Sage nudges you in the side playfully 
“I don't know, probably, she said she would be here?” You are looking down to hide your obvious blushing. You had confided in Sage the most about your sexuality. Having come out as bisexual last year you've only had two girlfriends, which didn't end the best. You had a tendency to shut yourself away and you guess that didn't sit right with partners. But you also felt like they never respected your space. You decided to focus on yourself but sometimes, stoned, late at night Sage would get you to confess how lonely you were. You yearned for someone to love you, and for you to love them back.
“Wait, Sage, did you set this up or something like some blind date?” You remembered how Sage introduced Phoebe to Daniel and their relationship was solid. 
“No dude!” Sage chuckled. “I promise, Ellie asked for your number, practically begged for it! And plus she's been dropping off to the house for months now, don't you think I would have set you up sooner if i thought about it?”
Ellie begged for it? Intrusive thoughts of Ellie on her knees looking up at you with those emerald eyes flash through your mind, making your heart skip a beat. You sigh, pushing the perverted thought away. “okay yeah i guess not, I don't know she seems cool, i hardly know her though.” 
“Well get to know her!” Sage jumps ahead of you and turns down the path to H09, music already blaring into the street . You take a breath of air before following your roommates into the loud college party. 
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next few hours are a blur of colored lights, dance music, and drinking. You don’t drink alot but you are also more familiar with the taste of liquor than smoke. So in the company of your roommates you take another shot and accept a mixed drink from Daniel, the designated bartender for the house. 
“Do you guys want to go dance?” Ivy shouts over the music
You all exchange nods, leaving Phoebe with her boyfriend at the makeshift bar and head to the living room to dance.
Whatever was in your cup tonight let you let loose a little more than usual. You worked up a sweat dancing to hits from the 50s to the 2000’s. Before you know it the room was getting a little too hot and you were a little too out of breath. You gestured to Sage to get her attention,
“I'm going to step out back for some air!” you say fanning yourself, still stepping to the beat
“Okay girl! Do you want company?” Sage responds over the music
“No no keep dancing! I'll find you guys!”
“Dont Irish Goodbye on us again y/n!” Ivy points and dances in your direction. “I'll come find you if you're not back in twenty minutes!” she blows you a kiss.
You laugh, “I won't leave! Promise!” Dancing your way out of the mass of moving bodies you head through the house and out into the back yard. The cool air instantly gives you a sense of relief as the commotion from inside gets muffled by the closing door. You choose to sit on the porch steps, staring up at the sky and you start to look for stars.
 Due to the light pollution you are only able to see a handful of stars at the moment. While you are looking you hear the back door open and close. Glancing over your shoulder you see none other than Ellie step outside, face flushed and hair slightly damp clinging to her neck. She wore a white tank top, blue flannel and blue jeans, the same dirty converse from last night. 
“Oh hey whats up cutie! You made it!” Ellie says when she catches your eye. She fumbles over to you and sits down next to you, letting out a sigh. “Oh my god it's hot in there, yeah?” “Hey, yeah it is” you try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach. She called you that name again. You both avert your gaze from each other, a beat of awkward silence before Ellie says, “you want to smoke with me?” and pulls out another immaculately rolled joint. 
“Only if you tell me what decade you're supposed to be dressed up as?” you joke, looking her over. Most of the guests had gone all out with their fits. 
Ellie chuckles “Whichever decade that supplies this party with weed.” 
“Sooo 90s?” You say as you watch her face light up as she sparks the joint. 
“Sure let's go with that” she exhales, turning her body towards you, with one leg bent on the deck and the other stretched out down the steps. She leans towards you slightly as she hands you the joint.
“And you are…. No don't tell me…. 70’s?” Ellie guesses as you take a drag from the joint.
You let the smoke out as you giggle, “no! 60’s! I'm wearing go-go boots”  You stick a leg up and gesture to your boots
Before you could think Ellie reaches out and touches your boot, sliding her long fingertips, from the ankle up to the top. “Oh wow, yeah now i see them” flicking her eyes from your leg to make eye contact with you. 
Your ears become hot at the sudden contact and you put your leg back down, take another puff before handing it back. There are those flutterings, they are much lower tonight.
“Wow and you're smoking more tonight! You're like a totally different person than who I met yesterday.” Ellie jokes as she takes the joint and leans back on her other hand. “Miss never goes to parties”, she teases.
Still feeling her gaze on you, you can't bring yourself to look at her so you look back at the night sky, leaning back on your hands. “Don’t get used to it, this is my one outing of the semester.” 
“Yeah me too, honestly.” Ellies tone turns a little serious as she too looks up at the night sky, taking another drag of the joint and using it to point.
“The Big Dipper should be right there, you can see the start of it, but there's too much light to see the rest.”
“Mhmm” you hum, “I wish i could see them all, I could in my hometown.” 
“Yeah me too” Ellie says, “Do you want another hit off this?” 
You look back down and the simple motion of your head moving in space brings your awareness to just how fucked up you are. You know alcohol takes a bit to have an effect but you have also never drank and smoked together. 
“No, thanks, ugh I'm feeling a bit light headed.” you say.
“Oh shit” Ellie puts out the joint and flicks it away, “Do you need some water?” 
“Yeah that would be cool, I just need to catch my breath” You say as cooly as possible.
“Okay stay right here!” Ellie gets up and is gone in a flash,
Your head is spinning and you grab onto the railing for some stability, willing yourself not to throw up in this back yard. Deep breaths in and out help you regain a bit of your strength and feeling. You hear the backdoor open and shut as a few pairs of feet hit the deck. 
“Hey, hey girl you okay?” Sage is next to you with a glass of water, you take and sip it slowly.
“Hey dude yeah, i'm good, I don't know if i'll go back inside though.” 
“Yeah that's understandable, did you smoke too?”
You nod, and take another sip of water. Sage gives you a sympathetic look through her own blood shot eyes.
“I'll walk her home” you hear Ellie say, who you realize had been standing behind you the whole time.  
Sage looks up, “oh yeah, I mean if you don't mind? You cool with that y/n?  
You finish the water and hand your cup back to Sage, “Yeah, you stay Sage, tell Ivy I'm sorry for leaving again”
“Sure babes, and hey it's not an irish goodbye if you say goodbye!” She helps you up and says bye to Ellie and you before going inside. 
“Are you sure you're feeling okay?” Ellie turns to you, a look of worry on her face.
“Yeah I'm feeling better now, I just have never smoked and drank together before.” 
Ellie laughs, “damn what are you a virgin too?” 
Such a direct joke caught you off guard, “uh no, i'm not.” you say defensively, turning away feeling your cheeks flush.
“I'm kidding, I promise! Sorry, come on let's get you home hun”
You curse yourself for being so quick to defend yourself, you were actually quite experienced, at least with your own body. You just didn't know exactly how to express that to your partners. 
Ellie led you out the back garden gate holding it open for you, you felt her hand cup the small of your back as she guided you to the sidewalk. You let her hand rest on your waist as her warmth warms you up in the cool night air. 
“Are you going to go back to the party?” You ask, breaking the silence.
“Nah probably not, i dont really hang out with a lot of people. I just go to sell.” Ellie responds matter of factly. 
“What about your roommate?”
“Oh Dina? She’s with Jessie, I love hanging out with them but I have the dorm all to myself tonight!” She gives you that stupid sideways grin again
You smile back at her before looking forward, feeling a bit nervous realizing how close you two were walking. Her hand still on the small of your back, and her index finger tracing small circles, like she was nervous too. 
You walk the rest of the block in silence and she walks up to your front door, stepping away from you before saying, “You sure you're okay to be left alone? I feel like I need to see you drink another glass of water.” 
Maybe it was the joint, maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was the feeling deep inside of you wishing for someone to be close to you again. You missed her warmth. Either way you find yourself answering before thinking
“You could just come in? I'll drink a glass of water to prove I'm good!” You hold a hand to your chest like making a royal promise. 
Ellie chuckles, scratching the back of her neck and looking down, “Oh shit, yeah sure, I’ll come in” Did you just make her nervous?
“Cool” You say, fishing your keys out of your purse. You enter the house, flipping on a few lights and tossing your bag on the table. 
“I have to get out of my shoes first!” you exclaim, taking a seat, suddenly out of breath again.
“Here allow me!” Ellie says, skipping to your side and kneeling down, before you could protest she has your right leg in her hands, inspecting for a zipper. “It's on the inside” you laugh at her willingness for chivalry, pointing at the zipper on the inside of your ankle.
“Inside huh?” Ellie said in a tone that made your stomach flip. She finds the zipper, pulls down and slides the boot off your leg. Revealing fuzzy pink socks adorned with a Kirby embroidered at the top. Holy shit you forgot you had those socks on?!
“Oh my god Kirby!” Ellie laughs, “I didn't know what socks to expect but i dont think these were it.”
“What's wrong with kirby?” You counter teasingly, the alcohol giving you some courage post sock reveal.
“Nothing! I just feel like i'm finding out little crumbs of information about you”, Ellie laughs again, “You're like a puzzle, or a riddle? I just want to get to know you.” she looks you in the eyes when she says that. 
That last sentence felt so personal. You sat back in silence as Ellie removed your other shoe, revealing a second, pink kirby sock. She looks up at you and you realize she's on her knees, in front of you. Did you dream this into reality? How did such a pretty girl just fall into your life like this? You almost lose yourself in her eyes before she speaks again.
“You still gotta drink water for me, pretty girl.” 
You nod, as she rises from the floor and looks around for the kitchen. Rising too and guiding her in the dim lit kitchen you grab a glass of water and return to stand in front of her to drink it. Finishing strong with a sigh and a smile, you set the glass down on the counter and turn to her.
“All done” you say
“Good girl” Ellie says with a smirk, staring into your eyes. Your stomach does a flip again, she is way too comfortable calling you pet names. 
Like magnets the two of you slide closer until you are inches away from each other in the dim kitchen light. Both of your breaths hitch as you watch Ellie's eyes dart from your eyes, to your lips, and back up. You swear you could stare at her like this for hours, but you wanted nothing more than to closet the space between you two.
*DING DING*
The ring of Ellies phone sounds off in her pockets, startling both of you away from the tension boiling between you. 
“Ah fuck what now” Ellie says under her breath. She quickly checks her phone and lets out a frustrated sigh. “Fuckers need more weed at the party. I should probably let you get your beauty sleep huh?” She says, shoving her phone back in her pocket.
You involuntarily let out a yawn as she makes the suggestion and you hide your face from her gaze. Partially from the yawn, mostly to hide your disappointment “yeah, I should probably sleep this buzz off, I'll walk you out?” 
“Sure thing” she says.
You both head for the door, Ellie lingers a bit, swaying side to side before saying bye and dipping fast down the steps. You say bye and close the door behind her. Stealing yourself upstairs to take off your makeup and outfit. A quick self care routine later and you are passed out in bed.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ellie lights a joint in frustration as she walks out of H09. She really didn't want to go back there but ended up staying another hour because Jessie and Dina guilted her into drinking more. Thoughts of you swirl in the girl's head as she makes the walk to her dorm. Your eyes, your legs, your lips, your kirby socks. Ellie laughs to herself, and pulls out her phone. 
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You wake up the next morning with a headache. Checking the time on your phone you're shocked to see you slept in until 11!
You have a few unread messages:
Ellie: want to meet for coffee? Ivy: I made pancakes! Sage: how can you have so much energy all the time? Be right ther Olivia: shhh sleeping
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Meet for coffee??” Sage said, mouth full of pancake. You and your roommates are sitting around the kitchen eating room-temperature pancakes and discussing the night before. 
“That's what she said?!” you say, pouring some syrup over your breakfast.
“Well are you gonna go?” Ivy asks from the pantry
“I mean, yeah? I should, right?” “Only if you want to girl” Olivia say beside you
“Oh she wants to” Sage says with wink in your direction
“I do!” You say blushing, “I'm just nervous! The last times we interacted were so spontaneous. And this is like, she's asking me out!” 
“It's just coffee babes you'll be okay! Its casual” Olivia says with a reassuring rub on your back
You smile at your roomates as you pick your phone up, responding to Ellie
y/n: “Okay :) when?”
30 seconds later you receive a text;
Ellie: “Sweet :), 1pm at the cafe?”
y/n: “I'll see you there!” 
You smile at your phone for sec before your roomates all join in on a group “oooooooooo” 
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1pm comes fast. After breakfast you help clean then retire to your room to shower and get ready. It's a little chilly out this morning so you opt for a chunky sweater, comfortable wide leg pants, and sneakers. After checking yourself in your mirror and in Sage’s mirror, with her approval and luck, you head out the door. 
The walk to the cafe felt like it took forever. You become hyper aware of yourself, your outfit, anxieties bubbling up in your mind as you try to stay calm. You round a corner and can see the cafe now, and something in you stops you in your tracks. 
Memories of your past relationships flash in your mind. How hurt you were, how misunderstood you felt. Being lonely was familiar but it always stung when someone left your life. You will yourself to take a chance, your roommate’s comment in your mind for comfort. You’re just meeting for coffee, it's casual. With a deep breath, trying to gain some confidence you continue forward. You open the door to the cafe stepping in, warm cinnamon and coffee bean scents fill the air while a lofi beats track plays over the speakers. You look around and it takes you just a moment to find Ellie sitting at a table in the corner. She has a baseball cap on, looking down so she didn't see you come in. 
You take in her appearance while walking over. She's manspreading comfortably in dark green cargos, a gray t-shirt, a black zip up hoodie and black converse. You knock lightly on the table to get her attention, startling Ellie who shoots up, almost knocking her chair over behind her. 
“Hi there” you say sweetly
“Oh y/n! Morning! Er afternoon, hey” She composes her surprise and smiles at you to sit down. “I got you a coffee!” 
You realize there are two coffee cups in front of you on the table. Ellie slides one over and you see your order written on the side in black ink. Medium mocha, with half chocolate. She remembered? 
“Oh wow thank you! Do I owe you anything?” you ask, accepting the drink.
“Of course not,” Ellie says leaning back, “I just made it before I finished my shift.” 
You take a sip of your coffee, and set it down, taking in the girl sitting before you. You realize that Ellie looks exceptionally tired, she has bags under her eyes and her lips are slightly crusty. She seemed to have energy, although that must be from the caffeine she's been having throughout her shift. 
“Did you have a good night?” Ellie asks, breaking your fantasy
“Oh! Yeah, i just passed out after you left and slept so long” You laugh, trying to hold eye contact. 
“Good you got your sleep, I wish I did, i forgot I worked this morning and got woken up by my boss calling me” Ellie sighs and sips her coffee
“Oh shit, we don't have to hang out if you're tired?” You say, secretly wanting to invite her back to yours to cuddle up and watch movies. But your body does not allow the thought to come out.
“No! I want to hang out! I actually wanted to show you something, if you're down?” Ellie asks
So many thoughts fill your mind with what this thing could be. Your curiosity is endless and quickly leads to images of Ellie pulling toys out of her backpack. 
“Yeah sure, I'm not doing anything today” You say, leaning forward on your hand with your elbow on the table. Searching Ellies expression for any sign of what her intentions were. 
Ellie just gives you a big grin and leans forward too, flashing her eyes from yours, to your lips, and back up. Instantly you're reminded of last night, you hadn't even thought about your almost kiss in the shadows of your kitchen. You feel your ears going hot and instinctually pull back to drink your coffee, hoping your eyes didn't display any of your shock from the memory. 
“Sounds good, if you're ready we can head out” Ellie suggests, keeping her eyes on you.
You nod and swallow, “sure, ya” you say, your voice a little quieter. 
Ellie rises from her seat, grabbing her coffee, waits for you to rise and follows you out of the cafe. “Here follow me!” she says when you two are outside, pointing behind her. You skip up to her side and follow her through campus. Making small talk, asking each other about your coffees & the weather. You realize that Ellie is leading you into the College neighborhood, the street that you live on. 
“You want to show me the street I live on?” You ask, laughing because as far as you know, this street is a Dead End. And you have been to that dead end. Maybe she was bringing you to a house? 
“I mean yes? And no, we are going to the end, there's a spot over there.” Ellie says, taking another sip of her coffee
You were pretty sure the dead end was fenced off with a thick forest behind it. Not being very adventurous you had never thought to explore past it. You and Ellie walk the length of the block, passing other college students. You approach the end of the street, the sidewalk seemingly ends and you wait to see what Ellie will do. 
She turns around to face you, “Do you trust me?” 
“I have no reason not to you” you giggle, “you're not going to murder me are you?”
“No! Oh my god, come on, this way” Ellie smirks and nods her head to the side of the street. 
House 10 was the last house on the street, and there was a thick hedge that ran the length of the house and the fence. Ellie walks you over and the perspective change reveals about two feet between the hedge and the fence. Ellie slips into the gap and takes a few steps before making sure you are following. You're right behind her, and comment “there are no spiders right?”
Ellie laughs, “dont worry ill scare them off. It's not too far.”
You walk maybe 10 feet between the hedge and fence before Ellie stops and crouches down. Ducking through a large hole in the chainlink fence and popping up on the other side to face you. “Here hand me your coffee!” she says, sticking a hand through the hole. 
You hand her your coffee and crouch down to do the same, almost slipping on a few leaves on the ground. 
“You good? Here you go” Ellie hands your coffee back and says “i promise its not far now, just through there.'' She walks into the forest. There's a makeshift trail probably formed by other students exploring back here, and you follow her for a few minutes. Listening to the sounds of birds and wind through the trees, you start to hear the sound of running water. The trail winds around, sunlight flashing through the leaves onto Ellies auburn hair. You can't help but get lost in her figure. Your mind trailing off to things too embarrassing to say, you have no idea how long you've been walking. Ellie turns around flashing you a smile, breaking you away from your bedroom thoughts.
“Its just up here! Come on!” She picks up a bit of pace, excitement getting the best of her. 
You follow her around another corner and see a pretty amazing sight. Large concrete structures from half of a building, overgrown with vines and graffiti painting the crumbling walls. There are steps leading up to a large concrete platform with two walls in the back. You take a sec to take it all in, Ellie bounds up the steps, turns to you and puts her arms out framing the scene.
“Ta-daaaaa! What do you think?”
“This place is so cool!” You say, following her up the steps and looking more closely at the graffiti. You read “smoke em if you got em”, & “JC’11” probably from a Jackson College graduate. One catches your eye, it's smaller and closer to the ground. A black heart with red lettering that says “girls kissing girls”. 
“Ya, right.” Ellie looks around with you at “her” spot -atleast she likes to think she's claimed it. “I found it a few months ago, I come here pretty often but don't really bring anyone. I don't want everyone to know about it.”
“Yea i can understand, its peaceful out here” you respond, focusing your attention back on her
“And you haven't seen the best part!” Ellie walks across the platform to the other side, where the other wall is missing. You follow her and realize that the water you heard had gotten a bit louder since you tuned into it. As you approach the opening in the wall you are perplexed with the beauty you see. A small waterfall cascades over moss covered rocks, flowing into a stream only a few feet wide and away into the forest. All the stars aligned for the sun to shine the most on this spot in the forest. The foliage was lush, moss covered all surfaces, and tiny flowers and mushrooms dotted the scene. 
“Yeah, it's pretty great, my own secret hiding spot.” Ellie beams, stretching her arms behind her head, trying to be as casual as possible. 
You looked in awe at the scene and Ellie looks in awe at you. Taking in your features, your soft lips, your beautiful skin. She wished she could capture this image of you forever in her mind. Never had she taken someone here before, but as soon as she met you, she wanted you here, with her. And there wasn't anything she wanted to do more than to kiss you.
“This is so beautiful” you say, “want to sit down?” You say turning to her, blushing at the strong eye contact youre met with.
Instinctually Ellie takes off her hoodie, stepping back and setting it down on the ground for you and her to sit on. You are able to see a large tattoo on her forearm, looks like a fern? You both position yourselves on the makeshift blanket, with your legs hanging over the side of the ledge. 
“Do you want to smoke? I haven't since before my shift.” Ellie says after a moment of silence. 
“Oh yeah, sure! But if you keep smoking me out and buying me coffee i'm going to have to make it up to you!” You say with a smirk, playfully nudging her with your elbow.
“I'll take whatever you give me,” Ellie says as she takes out a joint box from her pocket. Butterflies flutter in your stomach at the possibilities of what your ‘repayment’ could be. 
You take the lit joint from Ellie and you two make small talk about the graffiti and nature surrounding you. Conversations turn more personal when you ask Ellie about her family. You learn of Joel, and the farm back home where Ellie spent most of her time shying away with her journal and guitar. Ellie spoke about coming out to Joel in highschool and how he was one of the only people who supported her through it. Her hometown wasn't the most accepting so she did not have many friends let alone relationships. You share your life too, realizing that you and Ellie have more things in common than you thought. Your family came around after a year or so of coming out but you only ‘came out’ to friends and the public when you moved to college. You had a boyfriend in highschool that ended badly and 1.5 relationships with girls since coming out. You say 1.5 because the first one was really a situationship that ended with the girl deciding she was straight. 
At this point the joint was dead and tossed in the brush. The sun was drifting behind the trees, casting a cool hue across the forest. 
Ellie and you listen to the stream in comfortable silence for a second. The joint is settling in nicely and bringing all your hidden thoughts to the surface. You wanted to kiss her, touch her. Your fingers are a mere centimeters from each other and you could feel the electricity through your whole body. 
Suddenly Ellie takes a breath, like she had been holding hers for a second. “CanIaskyousomething?” she says, in almost all one word. 
You turn your body to her, leaning forward slightly on your arm. “Anything” you say.
“I know… i know we just met, but, you’re really pretty and I was just wondering… canikissyou?
She rushes the last part but you hear clearly and your heart skips a beat. Ellie turns to look at you, searching your face for anything you're feeling. 
You're lost in her eyes again, your mind screaming yes but all you can do is nod at her, doe eyed and longing to feel her warmth.
Ellie breathes in looking at your lips before she leans forward, cradling your face in her hands and setting her lips on yours. The kiss is hot, passionate, slow but needy as your combined lust mixes together right there in the forest.  You feel like hours have gone by before you separate, looking into eachothers eyes, a line of spit connecting both your lips. Ellie looks like she's even higher than the joint made her and you can't help but giggle a little before going in for a second kiss. This time your hands go for her, brushing through her hair and grabbing at the nape of her neck. 
Separating for the second time ellie breathes, “wow, that was… wow”
You hum in approval, untangling your hand from her hair and resting it on your leg. You're both breathing a little heavy, lips tingling and palms sweaty. 
Ellie feels a buzz on her thigh and pulls out her phone to a string of texts, all from buyers hoping to make their Saturdays better.
“Ah fuck, im sorry, i wish we could stay here longer but, work calls…” She says with a sigh. She wishes she could stay here all day with you but Ellie was a business woman, plus she had been saving up for a few things and was so close to meeting her goal. 
You laugh, wanting to stay with her too, but you are getting hungry, probably from the joint. “That's okay, will you walk me back to the house?”
“Of course doll” Ellie says with a smile, making your already hot face burn with desire. You both stand and after grabbing her hoodie and coffee, without asking Ellie grabs your hand and begins to lead you back out of the forest. 
You walk hand in hand down the street in comfortable silence. The touch shared between you said more than you two could manage at the moment. You are submerged in your feelings and barely notice you getting to the walkway in front of your house. 
Ellie stops and turns to face you. Giving you a kiss on the back of the hand she says, “have a great day beautiful, i'll be thinking of you.”
You linger your hand in hers for a moment, blushing, mind blank but you know you need to respond. “Thanks for today Ellie, i'll talk to you soon.”
You start backing up the walkway, both of you not wanting to separate from each other's gaze. You both give one last little wave and you turn to walk into the house. 
Sage greets you from the couch, seeing the look on your face she jumps up and runs to hug you in excitement. Bringing you over to sit with her as you tell her about your time with Ellie. You feel this could be the beginning of something beautiful. Although hesitant to get close to someone again, you feel right with Ellie. You can’t help but imagine what life would be like with her. 
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a/n: AHHHHHHHHH thank u sm for the love :3 I'm actually so excited for part 3... might even open submissions for other fandoms? idk I'm just having fun! Tag List: @vqxen @bready101 @sourgummywormsss @a-little-bit-of-everybody
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drdemonprince · 5 months
Note
The article regarding about annoying queer people sparked a by now long forgotten memory.
When I went to my first pride I snuck out secretly and thus was there after the parade. Most people were already some form of drunk or high(didn't know that at the time, I was 15 and naive beyond hope)
That was also the first time I saw puppies ever. In retrospect I must have stared and seemed like one of those annoying "no kink at pride" puriteens. They probably just wanted to allow themselves a small joke but what happened in praxis was, that a grown, white man in only puppy mask and boxers crawled up to me, stood up, started sniffing my breasts and when I started panicking and running away he run after me and everyone else watched and laughed. I think I screamed for help or cryed to please leave me be and was ignored but I can't remember much past the fear.
To them it was probably a small joke but to me it set me back for years. I didn't go to pride in that city ever again and took years to move past "no kink at pride" opinions, an opinion I didn't even have before that.
I felt incredibly isolated and wearing a small rainbow bracelet and cutting my hair took so much bravery. And it earned a lot of backlash too?
So often I see coloured hair and pins as this cutesy cringe thing of no consequence, but for me it resulted in hours upon of arguments and insults. It was worth it, because it helped me built my own identity apart from my families bigotry, but it sure wasn't fun or cutesy. Ultimately it led me to becoming brave enough to actually discover who I am and start making connections with the wider queer community.
Thankfully I had no social media accounts or I would have had some truly stupid arguments.
What I'm saying is, yes young queers can be annoying and it can be tiring to deal with them but being an asshole and vilifying them isn't the solution.
Making fun of teenagers doesn't make yourself more valid and doesn't give you the status of being an old experienced queer.
I'm saying teenagers here but the fun thing about queer people is that we can discover ourselves at any point in time. So it's less teenagers and more people newly discovering themselves as queer.
I get how annoying they can be very well now, doing voluntary work at pride does that.
Do many of those we consider annoying queers hold some harmful opinions? Yeah sure. (The amount of white queers, teens or adults, not dealing with systemic oppression beyond their own is staggering and they more than deserve to be called out. Just to be very clear, when I talk about annoying behaviour I do NOT mean microagressions or discrimination in any way)
But annoying behaviour is not synonymous to that and maybe we should all just start being less mean in public spaces? I get how satisfying it can be to get a hit tweet via a bitchy twitter reply now, but quite honestly I am more ashamed of that now than when I was running around in hoodies and short hair being painfully naive.
Because then I wasn't being mean to anyone. I had some stupid takes sure but no outlet. On twitter I was making fun of people to validate my own queer-ness. (Personally I think I was covering up for the fact that I was afraid the queer people I worked so hard to be part of wouldn't consider me one of their own. So I worked hard to show how I'm not one of "those queers".)
Either way, thanks for reading all this and thank you for sharing the article because it is something I strongly agree with. Just let people be annoying without making fun of them for it. It doesn't need to be a big deal.
Thank you for this wonderful, vulnerable, honest message about your slow path to self-acceptance in the face of a lot of barriers, anon. I'm glad that despite everything you've found your way.
Yeah, I think queer people have many reasons to feel terrified at the rising "no kink at pride" discourse, but sometimes when we lash out at puriteens we sound a bit like the childfree people who say that they hate kids?? Like, we're blaming literal children for an ideology of protecting "The Family" that has been foisted upon us.
I'm guilty of it. I was HAUNTED by the social pressure to get married and pregnant and raise a bunch of kids. It caused me massive dysphoria and didn't jibe with my queer identity. But I rebelled against it for far too long by saying that I hated kids.
It was not the kids' fault! It was the ideological specter of The Family as an institution that isolates and attacks all nonconformity and 'deviant' sexuality! Me being an asshole to children was not gonna set me free, kids were even more disinfranchised than I was!! I don't think I was ever overtly cruel to children, just kind of aloof and freaked out by them, but I definitely *did* say some numbskulled shit to my friends with kids a few times. Completely missing how disempowered mothers (and it was usually mothers) are in society BECAUSE of these same forces .
And I think something similar is going on here. Queer people are tired of having "Family Friendliness" shoved down our throats by corporations and conservatives, and so then we lash out... at young queer people. it's fine to have 18+ areas and events; It's very, very important to me that spaces like Furfest have them. But that's not the same thing as claiming young people have no space in our community as a whole. And I do think we need to erode the barriers between the adult and child worlds in a whole lot of ways, and reorient our attitudes toward nudity, sexuality, roleplaying, etc in public life. but that also doesn't mean a pup should run you out of a pride parade actually fucking sexually harassing you.
It feels great to be able to talk about this stuff! Thanks for your message.
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can you do like a tom x reader fic where theyre arguing and reader drops the line "pull up your goddamn pants you loser!" from that one sound LMAOO EVERYTIME I HEAR THAT SOUND I THINK OF TOM😭😭😭
(Hello! I love this idea sm and I couldn't help it s here ya go! Enjoy!)
Pull Up Your Pants
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"Fuck you!"
"Oh, Fuck me?! Fuck you!"
"Woah!" Bill opened the door, freezing in the door frame with his hands in the air as he walked into what resembled a war zone.
"What's going on…?" Gustav asked, looking around the room to see thrown chairs, you and Tom screaming at each other and clothes thrown around.
"He's a fucking problem! A horn ass dog!" You yelled as an answer, not even looking at Gustav before you threw a shoe at Tom.
"I'm a horn ass dog?!" Tom yelled back, eyes wide in defense as he deflected the shoe, cursing as it hit his finger.
"Yeah! Eye-fucker!" You yelled back, almost laughing when you finally hit your target as Bill, Gustav and Georg walked through the door finally and stepped over thrown articles.
"At least I haven't fallen like an ass on stage!" Tom bickered back, getting a middle finger and throwing another back.
You and Tom didn't even remember how this started, you commented on his flirting with fans and it all spiraled.
Now, like the children you are, you refused to stop.
"What does that have to do with anything?" You yelled back, scoffing at Tom as he turned heel and went towards the door, still looking at you.
"I don't know!"
"Where are you even going?" Bill asked as Tom stormed past him.
"That I also don't know!"
"Don't come crying to me when your 'big dreams' fall apart!" You yelled at his retreating back, it was his usual habit to storm out then storm back into your hotel room.
"Don't fucking hold your breathe!" Tom spit over his shoulder at you, grabbing the door handle and swinging open the door.
It looked oddly weird with how Tom almost ran with his oversized pants, almost weighing him down as you took your chance before he left.
"Pull up your goddamn pants, you loser!" You yelled, completely stopping Tom in his tracks as he slowly turned to you, more offended than ever.
Tom then decided to pull up his pants by both hands, practically jumping, looking like he almost gave himself a wedgie as Gustav had to look away not to laugh and make the argument worse.
"At least I have a fatter ass than you, hoe!" Tom yelled his final insult, and even if it hurt to admit, he did.
The hoe comment was normal, as you guys were best friends before dating so comments were normal, but the ass comment got a beer can thrown at him from the table.
The beer can hit the wall, busting open just as he slammed the door closed with a loud thud, almost shaking the walls.
You all stared at the door for a moment, Gustav, Georg and Bill sharing looks as you plunked yourself onto the couch, breathing heavily.
"Wow…" Bill trailed off, getting a glare from you as he held his arm, slighting and bobbing his head.
"He really does have a fat ass." Georg let out his final thought into the room, getting a look from Bill as Gustav couldn't help but let out his laugh finally.
"Really?" You scoffed, Georg shrugged as you flipped him off.
"The pants hide it." Gustav finally agreed, Georg shot him a look, getting another one back by the Schäfer boy before they slowly turned to you.
All eyes then slowly turned to Bill, who started to collect the chairs and threw around articles.
He finally noticed the silence, turning around to see Gustav and Georg staring at him from where he could see.
Bill looked at them confused for a moment, looking down to see where their eyes were before it clicked.
"Are you guys- are you looking at my ass?!" Bill exclaimed, giving the two looks as they quickly turned away, rubbing their necks or whistling and looking at anything other than Bill.
"Oh my god?!" Bill continued on, giving the two weird looks before he turned to see you leaning back on the couch, a weird look on your face mimicking Georg's an Gustavs.
"(Name)!" Bill yelled, watching as you jumped and turned back right on the couch.
"Why?! What's is- what is wrong with you, assholes?!" Bill yelled, watching you and the two other boys exchange looks.
"I mean…you are identical twins…"
"...I hate you all.
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minmin-vs-physics · 7 days
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HUP, EPR, and Bell’s Theorem
Abstract
An educational document discussing the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the EPR (Einstein- Podolsky-Rosen) Paradox, and Bell’s Theorem, written for an audience without a background in physics, but with their head still screwed on right.
1 Introduction
Ah, quantum mechanics. A bizarre theory which unfortunately describes our physical world exceed- ingly well. Einstein didn’t get it. Bohr didn’t get it. I don’t get it. And soon, you won’t get it either. As the saying goes, the more you know about quantum mechanics, the less you understand it.
I will be skipping around in terms of topics covered in undergraduate quantum mechanics courses to prepare you for the actual beast, Entanglement.
Entanglement, the property of quantum systems to remain correlated even when separated, is a concept which has transformed from a worrisome byproduct of a thought experiment [1] into a cornerstone of quantum mechanics itself. What is a quantum mechanics? Google is your friend, my dear reader. My time with you is limited„ and I cannot teach you the alphabet to make you read Shakespeare. I can only explain what you directly need to understand this article. Anything else shall be your homework, and if I am feeling kind at the end, I will provide a list of accessible resources on learning quantum mechanics the RIGHT way.
As we dive into the frankly confusing world of entanglement, it is vital that you remember one thing– A quantum particle is described by a wave function, Ψ. This wave function is a solution to the Schrodinger equation.
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This is what they mean when they say something is both a particle and a wave; It’s behavior can be described by a special kind of wave equation, which we all know and love as the Schrodinger Wave Equation. But that’s not important right now. I’ll explain more if I need to. We need to get to HUP.
2 Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
Formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the Uncertainty Principle is an indomitable tenet in the field of quantum mechanics. Its premise is simple. The more precisely a particle’s momentum is determined, the less precisely is its position. In one dimension, this can be summarized with the following mathematical statement: ∆x∆p ≤ 2
Here, ∆x is the standard deviation or “spread” of the position x, while ∆p is the standard deviation of the momentum p. As the spread of one quantity decreases, the other must increase in order to maintain the inequality. I will not bother proving the Principle in full, but I have Heisenberg’s original proof in the references.
Is that it?
Ummmmm, no. An important thing to remember about HUP is that it is not exclusive to x and p. HUP applies to any two quantum mechanical operators, A, B, which do not commute with each other i.e. [A, B] = AB − BA = 0. But that’s all mathematical nonsense, Min! What does it really mean?
Fine! I’m only doing this because it will be useful when we get to measurements in the EPR paradox and Bell theorems. In order to understand what “not commuting” means in the physical sense, let’s use our favorites, position and momentum, as an example. In quantum mechanics, xˆ andpˆ are referred to as the position and momentum operators respectively. (Why the little hats? Firstly, they’re cute, and secondly, well, you’ll see.) The whole point of calling them operators is that they act on wave functions. And in the crudest sense possible (please don’t try this at home, folks), hitting an operator on a wave function and taking the expectation value, gives a measurement of the quantum mechanical system.
There is about three semesters of quantum mechanical education I’m waving off right now, but bear with me. When we act the momentum operator on the system, in some sense we extract the momentum. Same thing for position. However, the whole deal about x and p is that they do not commute. So, the order in which you conduct the measurements absolutely does matter. First measuring x and then p would give you a different answer than first measuring p and then x. This is because the very act of measuring a quantum state changes it. That’s right! It changes. This makes all the difference when you consider the standard deviation of a bunch of measurements. If my memory of introductory quantum mechanics serves me right, after about three pages of algebra you arrive at the familiar position-momentum uncertainty principle.
The moral of the story is that the non-commutativity of these operators manifests as a sort of granularity in the accuracy of measurements you can make on a physical system. This granularity is retained between any other kinds of non-commuting measurements you can make!
On second thought, do you really need this? Probably not. But, the algebra of uncertainty principles is a pet project to me. Especially the strangest of them all, the energy-time uncertainty principle. Enough on that! Here’s the main takeaway (other than the actual HUP statement) that you need from this section:
Making a measurement on a state changes its wave function. No exceptions. None. The detached observer is not a reality in the quantum mechanical world.
3 Spin
I realized that the following sections will not make any sense if you don’t at least know what spin is. So, let’s make a short pit-stop at Spin City to learn about this nonsensical physical quantity.
We’re all aware of angular momentum– its the rotational analog of linear momentum (which we talked about the previous section). We all agree that it is a property related to the motion of an object, right? WRONG! Sometime in the 1900s (Seriously, 20th Century Physicists should chill out), it was discovered this angular momentum from motion i.e. “orbital” angular momentum, as it was called in the atomic physics context it was first described, does not account for all the angular momentum of a particle. Long story short, the remaining angular momentum, which is intrinsic to a particle, is now called Spin. Every fundamental particle has a particular value of spin, which, in quantum mechanical jargon, is the eigenvalue of the spin operator.
For understanding the following sections, we really only need to care about spin-1/2 particles, which are lovingly called fermions, and are the building blocks of all ordinary matter. The shining feature of spin-1/2 particles is that their spin can either be +1 or −1 , which is often referred to as spin-up (↑) and spin-down (↓) respectively.
Physically, the up or down comes from whether the measured spin is along the axis it is measured, or opposite to it. Yes, spin is a vector, so it does have three independent components in the three spatial directions, but it is convention to consider the z-component of the spin for calculations and experiments. Any references to up and down in the next sections are along the z-direction.
Oh, and one more thing, spin-0 particles have no intrinsic spin. This will be important when we encounter the EPR Paradox.
4 EPR Paradox
After skipping a whole bunch of most-likely important concepts in the study of quantum mechanics we arrive at the EPR paradox.
The EPR paradox is a thought experiment first described in the groundbreaking paper [1] by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen in 1935. Einstein was quite vocally a hater, and the EPR paradox was proposed as evidence that the description of reality provided by quantum mechanics is incomplete. Reality doesn’t care, of course, and the EPR Paradox isn’t really a paradox. In fact, it is the foundation of entanglement– a magnificent, very real feature of reality which spans black holes, quantum computers and even my field of research: Entanglement in elementary particle physics.
In fact, I’m so self-centered that the example we will use to illustrate the EPR paradox is from particle physics. Just kidding, my explanation follows Chapter 12 in Griffiths’ Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, and is a simplified version credited to David Bohm
EPRB Paradox
Suppose a pion (funky particle with spin-0) at rest, decays to an electron and positron which fly off into opposite directions. Since the pion has spin-0, conservation of angular momentum dictates that the electron and positron occupy the following spin configuration.
√(1/2) (|↑↓⟩−|↓↑⟩)
BE NOT AFRAID of the mathematical jumpscare. The fancy bracket |·⟩ is what’s called a “ket”, and is used to denote the state of a quantum system. All the expression says is that either the electron is
spin-up (+1) and the positron is spin-down (−1) or vice-versa, because the total spin of the system 22
must add up to 0. (Since the initial state is spin zero, the system must stay spin-zero even after the decay occurs. That’s what angular momentum conservation is all about.) We don’t know which combination we will get, but it must be one of the above. Measuring the spin of one of the particles will automatically tell us what the spin of the other particle is. This means that the spins of the electron and positron are correlated. In modern terms, such a state is called entangled.
Now, let’s pretend that these particles fly off in opposite directions, until say, they are several light years apart. What would happen if we found the electron and measured its spin to be +1 ? We instantly know that the positron’s spin is −1 . This is obvious. Why are we mad about this?
Naturally, we may think that the electron really was spin-up from the moment it was created and it was only that quantum mechanics did not know until we made a measurement. But by the principles of quantum mechanics, neither particle had a definite spin, until we made a measurement, causing the wave function to “collapse” and instanteously produce the spin of the positron which is lights years away!
The EPR bros were NOT having it. Einstein famously called this phenomenon “spooky action at a distance”. They stated that the quantum mechanical standpoint must be wrong! The electron and positron must have had well-defined spins from their creation, even if quantum mechanics does not know it. Quantum mechanics is not a complete description of reality and there must be some hidden variables which describe a physical system that we do not yet know.
The fundamental assumption guiding the EPR argument is that no information can propagate faster than light. This the principle of locality. In order to appease this, we can say that the wave function collapsed at some finite velocity and is not instantaneous. However, this violates conservation– If we measured the positron spin as well before the information of collapse reached it, there is a 50–50 chance that both particles are spin-up, which means the system has total spin-1. Preposterous! You can mess with anything you want in this universe, but you don’t mess with conservation laws. What do we do now?
Okay, let’s calm down. The theorists may say whatever they want, but experiment doesn’t lie. Experiment tells us that in these cases, spin is perfectly correlated. The wave function collapse is instantaneous. That’s crazy. Call your mom and tell her you want to go home. The EPR Bros are frightening you— Quantum Mechanics is NOT local so it is NOT complete.
...Except. It is. Enter, Bell’s Theorem.
5 Bell’s Theorem
Now, what’s the situation? The EPR gang is not happy. I’m not happy. You’re not happy. Is quantum mechanics wrong? No, silly! EPR said it themselves: they think it’s merely incomplete. So, in order to completely describe a quantum mechanical state, you not only need the wave function Ψ, you also need some unknown, hidden variable λ. Lots of hidden variable theories were proposed after the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper, but none of them ever gained traction. It was still a respectable area of study until 1964, when J.S. Bell proved that any local (Remember locality from the last section?) hidden variable theory is incompatible with quantum mechanics.
I’ll spare you the details of Bell’s work, dear reader. One thought experiment in an essay is gruesome enough. (It is also getting quite late and I still didn’t code my calculations. I have spent far too much time on this already.)
Bell’s proof involves the wonderful use of probability, and the barest assumptions that can be made about local hidden variable theories. Basically, in any local hidden variable theory, the probabilities of various outcomes are related by what’s known as a Bell inequality. If EPR’s conjecture is right, and there really are hidden variables we don’t know about, then any physical system must obey its Bell inequality.
Except, there have been various experiments since the 1960s confirming that Bell’s inequality is indeed violated. This came as a rude shock to scientists as it is not fun to learn that reality is very much nonlocal. It was all fun and games when this was all merely a mathematical artifact, but nonlocality felt like a gateway drug to a much grimmer violation.
Causality
Bell inequality violations, no matter how surprising, are merely wonderful correlations between two sets of otherwise random data. Sure, the measurement of the spin of the electron affects the positron, but it does not cause it in any meaningful way. The person measuring the electron spin cannot use this collapse of the wave function to send a message to the person with the positron, since they don’t control the outcome of the experiment. They can decide whether to measure the electron at all, but the other person only has access to the positron’s spin and cannot tell whether the electron has been measured or not.
Phew! This sort of nonlocal influence does not transmit any energy or information, so it is exempt from the speed of light. Meanwhile, causal influences, those which do transmit information or energy, cannot travel faster than light. According to special relativity, if this was possible then, there are reference frames in which information can propagate backwards through time. And that, my dear reader, is what we call a big nono. Since the EPR paradox does not imply that causality is violated, we can lie uncomfortably on our bed of nonlocal but causal theory of quantum mechanics.
So rest easy, quantum mechanics is weird, but safe. Entanglement is not a fairytale, but also not the boogeyman. It’s probably more scared of you than you of it. Just give it some time. More answers will follow.
What Do I Do Now?
So, you want to know more? Or curl up in a ball and never think about this again? Either is fine. I won’t judge. If your answer is the former, here are some resources to guide you through the thickets of quantum mechanics.
PopSci Sources
1. IDTIMWYTIM: Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle 2. Why did Quantum Entanglement Win the Nobel Prize in Physics? 3. Bell’s Theorem: The Quantum Venn Diagram Paradox
Surely, you’ll get more out of these wonderful science Youtubers than you did from me yapping for four pages. There are a bunch more probably, but you’ll have to find them yourself.
Academic Sources
1. An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, D.J. Griffiths.
Of course, there are other quantum mechanics textbooks that I like much more than this one. But, this is the least daunting, so I’ll leave it here.
Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more silly academic style papers.
References
[1]  A. Einstein, B. Podolsky and N. Rosen, “Can quantum mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete”? Phys. Rev. 47, 777–780 (1935) doi:10.1103/PhysRev.47.777
[2]  Heisenberg, W. “Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik”. Z. Physik 43, 172–-198 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01397280
[3]  D.J. Griffiths, D.F. Schroeter, “Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Third Edition” Cambridge University Press (2018) 978–1–107–18963–8,
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