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qqueenofhades · 9 months

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Just wondering your thoughts about the GOP 2024 nomination. Common wisdom seems to view Trump as the inevitable heir apparent for obvious reasons like poll numbers and De Santis tanking (as anyone outside the conservative bubble probably could have seen coming once a breathing human who was undecided actually met him on the campaign trail).

But I feel these assessments are missing the inherent chaos of real life. Trump could very well get indicted and struggle to run anything close to the 2016 campaign or run at all if in theory he’s in jail or otherwise disqualified. He’s in his late 70s, he could genuinely just die of any number of health issues before then. This “foregone conclusion” seems somewhat naive to me.

Really, the GOP was screwed when they didn’t turn on him on January 7th. The nation would have been with them as much as it would ever be, they could have harnessed that outrage to peel off all but the most fanatical cultists, and they could have started looking into building up new candidates. Trump was always going to tear down anyone who competed with his spotlight and he’s more vicious to former allies than to enemies. Now they risk losing any promising candidates to his vitriol AND something could happen where he ends up not even being able to run.

I mean don’t get me wrong, I’ll be overjoyed if they fall apart in 2024. And even if he is the nominee and squeaks out of all the court cases with his liberty and reputation intact, I think Trump is toast with independent and undecided voters (people forget how many votes he picked up in 2016 just being a new thing with no record to point to, he refused to get pinned down on any issue, so people figured they’d take a chance on the new thing over Hillary but now he’s got a record and can’t just say he would have done the opposite on anything that went wrong in the past). He couldn’t win while he was the incumbent. He’s a weak candidate.

Anyway, just curious about your thoughts. Am I the only one who thinks the GOP is naive or aware and screwed when it comes to their 2024 nominee?

Welp. There are a lot of things going on here. It goes without saying that they are all a flaming dumpster fire of absolute squalid seditionist anti-democratic bullshit, because that's literally all the Republican party is these days. So, you know. Cheerful!

First, barring him literally keeling over and dying before November 2024 (oh please oh please oh please), Trump WILL be the Republican nominee, even if he is actively in the process of being convicted/has been convicted and is trying to appeal to every court he can possibly think of (since as noted before, he will do his DAMNDEST to get them all to his pet SCOTUS under the flailing hope that they will exonerate him). I think there's still a certain amount of denial about this: the hope that because we are all so sick and tired of dealing with the orange psychopath and his Nazis, that he will just finally fucking DISAPPEAR and not force us to go through another election with him. Unfortunately, this isn't going to happen. The entire crumbling skeleton and gasping oxygen of the once-vaunted GOP is sucked up by Trump. The people theoretically running against him, aside from Chris Christie (who was a Trump sycophant until he wasn't) won't even mention THAT HE IS UNDER MULTIPLE STATE AND FEDERAL INDICTMENTS FOR TREASON-LEVEL CRIMES. You'd think that would be great for an opposition candidate! But since the only way they can win the primary is by getting enough of Trump's insane fans to vote for them, they're walking an impossible tightrope of not being Trump but still also trying to be Trump. Vote for them, please! They promise they can be just as heinous!

Now, the establishment GOP, or what's left of it, is perfectly well aware that Trump is a treasonous loser and a massive electoral liability, but they can't say so because of the same problem of Trump's rabid masses turning on them. See all these accounts of Republicans being plenty brave in private when it comes to criticizing him, but in public: crickets. They know that they've lost every election since 2016, when Trump became the leader of their party, but they also can't stop the insane GOP primary voters, still drunk on that Orange Trump Kool-Aid, from renominating him. As I said in a recent post, there is about 35% of this country that is just, as of now, totally beyond help. They love Trump and only Trump, he's the manifestation of the absolute worst of all their racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. impulses, and they love him more the more awful he is (and the more "Joe Biden's Mean Evil Government!!!" punishes him, in true martyr fashion). There's no helping them. They WILL vote for him no matter what, and there's no way, as it currently stands, that any other GOP candidate has a prayer of getting past him. DeSantis was once hyped as the Alternative to Trump, but the instant actual people get a single look at him, they're repulsed. He's fucked.

Basically, the Republican party, as in the career elected officials, are well aware that Trump is a deadweight loser, but there's no getting out of the trap they've created for themselves. They KNOW perfectly well that Trump is a weak candidate and a perennial loser, but they can't stop their self-created monster of the radicalized Republican electorate from putting him in there again. Their entire toxic self-sustaining right-wing media ecosystem has been churning out lies for decades, that has only kicked into overdrive in the Trump era, and there is nothing they can do about it, because they're craven miserable anti-democratic power-hungry shitstains who will say or do anything to cling out a scrap of influence and money for just a little longer, and their whole platform now consists of being outrageously cruel to other people. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of Nazis, etc. Witness them all vigorously condemning Trump in various interviews (looking at you, Bill Barr) and then either admitting they'll vote for him if he's the 2024 GOP nominee, or cowardly ducking the question. Because... they themselves will vote for him, so it's no wonder the primary voters will do the same. As long as he puts in more religious zealot judges and destroys everything the Democrats are trying to do, they're cool! Democracy? Don't know her. They're over it. See the Wisconsin GOP already running their mouths about trying to impeach state Supreme Court justice Janet Protasiewicz, elected in a landslide in spring, if she does anything to overrule their insane gerrymanders. They're all just as bad.

So in short, yes: they may very well screw themselves into a situation where Trump is totally unviable for 2024 AND there's nobody else they can have to replace him, because that is the devil's bargain they have made. They've all sold their souls. Trump will insist he's running until the very last moment, because it's his final gamble to keep himself out of a hefty prison sentence and the one thing he has escaped for his entire misbegotten existence: i.e., real consequences for his terrible actions (as like any good sociopath, he has no concept of those and they all seem outrageously unfair). If they were going to ever actually do anything about Trump, that was a long, long time ago. Now they're stuck with him, they're too cowardly to denounce him, they're left hoping that Jack Smith and the indictments will eventually take him off their hands, but in the meantime, to save their own necks, they fundraise and whip up public outrage and tell endless lies about how Trump is such a blameless martyr. So yeah. They're fucked, they've made themselves fucked, and they're awful and they deserve it. Etc. etc. never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Fuck 'em all.

#avelera #ask #politics for ts #the giant orange monster

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reikunrei · 11 months

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the more i think about it, the less i think i want Will to have any powers at all...

like, just thinking about it in relation to his character, and also to El's, and to Vecna/Henward and the story as a whole... i find it harder and harder to place Will having powers into it?

like... he is an extremely non-violent character, and while his powers don't necessarily have to be like that of El or Henry which involve violence sometimes, i just... have trouble imagining what else they could take the form of. (which is just on me more than anything, but still.) the only thing i can really think of that would make everything come full circle is "casting" a protection "spell" like he almost did in season 1 in their campaign. but imo that wouldn't even require him to have any real "powers."

i'm just a total sucker for "he uses his sense of love, kindness, and understanding to save the day." like he doesn't use any sort of magical/psychic powers, but his steadfast love protects him and his friends from harm; they create an "armor" that Vecna can't break through. (kind of like It, how the Losers weaken It by basically laughing in its face and not letting the fear take over. i'm in the middle of reading It rn so i don't remember exactly how it all works lmao sorry)

and again to go back to his non-violent nature, he's a smart kid. he doesn't need brawn to fight back. he can run, he can hide, he can outsmart the bad guy.

and that leads me into how this relates to El and Vecna: i feel like it would be fitting for both of them to learn they're not "superior" just because they have their abilities. like, for the sake of El, she doesn't need to have powers to be powerful, to be a "superhero" if she wants to be one from time to time, she can just be herself, and that alone makes her worthy of love and praise. and Vecna doesn't belong on his high horse just because he has these powers; they don't make him better than anyone else. and he needs to understand that he is just like everyone else, and someone simply holding out a helping hand is all he needs. and i feel like Will should be that person. Vecna's true opponent isn't someone who's on his level, like El, imo. his true opponent and the one who will really change him is someone who is simply kind to him.

and isn't that what the whole story is about? about being kind to each other and accepting each other, no matter the differences or the grievances? people do bad things sometimes, but it's always better to try and understand them rather than simply condemning them to death. life is messy, we're all human, we make mistakes, and we simply have to learn to grow from them.

now, I’ve seen plenty of "Will with powers" theories and the ideas of what they might be, and I’m not opposed to it at all, bc I trust they’ll be handled in a way that’s good both for him and for the story. earlier i even mentioned the "outsmarting the bad guy" discussion that he and Joyce have in season 1, and he says there that he needs the fireballs because sometimes the bad guys are smart, too. cool! maybe Will has some sort of power involving light and fire, which would work thematically with the interactions with the lights (maybe Will was the the one who made that happen and it isn't something default to the UD) and the constant connections between Will and sunlight.

but again... does that mean he has to have actual powers? or is Will, himself, the "light"? is Will and his kind nature all that they need to break through to Henry and Edward? we've already been shown that physical violence will not work against Vecna. he was turned into a flaming slice of swiss cheese and he still got up and walked away. we’ve even been shown that he can’t be defeated by psychic abilities, since the main timeline(s) we see don’t result in his actual death in HNL, so why would Will need psychic abilities to defeat him?

idk i just... think it's interesting and i'm curious to see where it goes. because while it could and would make sense for him to have powers of some kind, i feel like it would also be extremely satisfying if his "power" was simply being himself: a kind, sensitive, and simple boy who just wants to find love and happiness. like, if his arc is about learning he's allowed to want love, and he's deserving of love, then why not have him extend that to Vecna?

in short, i think a lot of my thoughts and questions about it boils down to: what does it bring to the story as a whole? what makes it necessary that he have powers like El and Henry? what kind of message does it send to the audience? what is the purpose?

#ramble ramble ramble idk if I’m making any sense!!!#ive just been thinking about this a lot lately and had to put my thoughts out into words #i say things #will byers #stranger things #watch me come back and edit this 5000 times throughout the day as i remember more things that change my opinion #bc that always fucking happens lmao #also thinking about hxh ‘gon. you are light. sometimes it’s so bright I have to look away’

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pesterloglog · 3 months

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Dave Strider, Karkat Vantas

Meat, page 38

DAVE: hey

DAVE: want to get drunk

KARKAT: HUH?

DAVE: i went and got all this fucking booze

KARKAT: YOU *GOT* BOOZE?

DAVE: yeah check it

KARKAT: YOU ACTUALLY WENT AND *GOT* IT.

KARKAT: LIKE, YOU LITERALLY LEFT THE HOUSE AND EXCHANGED CURRENCY WITH A REAL, LIVE PERSON TO OBTAIN ALCOHOL.

DAVE: yeah i walked into the boozery all pigeon toed and embarrassed

DAVE: like some fuckin hooch noob

DAVE: was all like yo whats the most pathetic thing you got to drink yourself to death with

KARKAT: THE BOOZERY???

DAVE: passed right by the box wine

DAVE: the bagged wine

DAVE: the shots they put in those little blister packs by the register

DAVE: the wine in the little sippy cups with the disposable plastic straws like juice for fucking babies

DAVE: i made that last one up i dont actually know anything about alcohol

DAVE: anyway two plastic soda bottles of vodka cooler seems to be about where were at right now

DAVE: i think thats what this is anyway

DAVE: i dont really care long as it gets the job done

DAVE: i decided that im an alcoholic now

KARKAT: HAVE YOU NOW.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: its never too late to develop a substance abuse problem

DAVE: ive been thinking about it for a while and it seems like its time for me to finally get on the wagon of not being on the wagon

KARKAT: THAT’S REALLY GREAT, DAVE.

DAVE: thanks

DAVE: anyway hows the inauguration

DAVE: you having a good time dwelling on every tiny little factor that cumulatively led to our electoral defeat

DAVE: and how if just one thing had been different it would have been us up there

KARKAT: UGH.

KARKAT: YOU AND I BOTH KNOW NOTHING MATTERED IN THAT CAMPAIGN BUT JAKE’S FUCKING SPEECH.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i mean, like

DAVE: i just keep imagining what wouldve happened if that absurd rube goldberg machine of life ruining humiliation had been stopped at any point

DAVE: maybe just being backstabbed by his endorsement alone was something we couldve recovered from with some rigorous counter campaigning

DAVE: but what if i had been fast enough to cut him off before hed even said anything

DAVE: what if i hadnt accidentally fallen on him on the stage when i was rushing over there to stop him

DAVE: what if he hadnt freaked out like i set off fireworks next to a nam vet and started trying to fucking scrum me

DAVE: what if id just backed away from his punch with my legs like a normal person instead of warping the flow of time to escape causing him to become so startled he shit his pants

DAVE: what if i hadnt gotten so visibly grossed out by the smell that even the people watching it on tv could tell what had happened

DAVE: what if he hadnt started sobbing when the audience in the front rows started throwing up

DAVE: what if wed had better security and stopped that lady from running onstage during the fracas and announcing that jake has been dodging paying child support for their 3 kids

DAVE: like what was the LINE

KARKAT: IT WASN’T... *THAT* BAD.

DAVE: you think

DAVE: yeah see thats why im an alcoholic now

DAVE: want a drink

KARKAT: IF I’M BEING PERFECTLY FUCKING HONEST

KARKAT: I’M GLAD I LOST. I NEVER WANTED TO FUCKING WIN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

DAVE: dude come on

KARKAT: NO, I’M BEING SERIOUS.

KARKAT: I’M NOT EVEN DOING SOME SOUR GRAPES “I NEVER WANTED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE I’M A SORE LOSER TRYING TO DELUDE MYSELF INTO THINKING I DON’T CARE” SORT OF THING.

KARKAT: OBVIOUSLY I FUCKING CARE SINCE NOW THE PLANET IS GOING TO BE COMPLETELY RUINED BY THIS JUMPED-UP FASCIST DICTATOR WHO HAS EVERY INTENTION OF GRADUALLY GENOCIDING MY SPECIES INTO NONEXISTENCE BEFORE MY VERY EYES.

KARKAT: BUT I CANNOT FUCKING THINK OF A SINGLE THING IN THE UNIVERSE I WANTED TO DO LESS THAN BE THE STUPID FUCKING PRESIDENT.

KARKAT: THANK HUMAN OBAMA.

DAVE: wait was there a troll obama

KARKAT: I’M THE FUCKING TROLL OBAMA, REMEMBER?

DAVE: karkat

DAVE: you wouldve been so much more than obama

KARKAT: HEY.

DAVE: yeah buddy whats up

KARKAT: I JUST...

DAVE: hey dont worry about it

DAVE: you dont have to explain yourself to me

DAVE: i get it

DAVE: it makes sense. id always felt the same way kind of

DAVE: like about all my shit with sburb and whatever. the reluctant heros journey

DAVE: that feeling where youre being dragged along to being a kind of guy everyone is saying you have to be but youve never felt like theres any way you can really BECOME

DAVE: where every second you feel so sick with your own self doubt and fear that you cant bear to even imagine the future

DAVE: and you think

DAVE: why me

DAVE: even though you know it cant be anyone but you

DAVE: and thats why you do it

KARKAT: YEAH.

DAVE: lol

KARKAT: I WASN’T TRYING TO EXPLAIN MYSELF, THOUGH.

KARKAT: I JUST WANTED TO THANK YOU.

DAVE: huh

DAVE: for what

KARKAT: FOR... EVERYTHING.

KARKAT: EVEN IF WE DIDN’T WIN, I’M GLAD WE TRIED.

KARKAT: I’M GLAD WE WENT THROUGH THIS TOGETHER.

DAVE: me too

KARKAT: MORE THAN ANYTHING, I... YOU...

KARKAT: YOU BELIEVE IN ME IN A WAY NOBODY EVER HAS BEFORE.

KARKAT: MORE THAN I’VE EVER BEEN ABLE TO BELIEVE IN MYSELF.

KARKAT: AND I’VE NEVER REALLY...

KARKAT: FELT LIKE THIS BEFORE.

DAVE: felt like what

KARKAT: I MEAN, LIKE

KARKAT: YOU KNOW.

KARKAT: IT’S NOT LIKE I’VE NEVER HAD FRIENDS BEFORE. PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT.

KARKAT: BUT WHEN PEOPLE TELL ME THEY CARE ABOUT ME, ON SOME LEVEL IT’S HARD FOR ME TO REALLY BUY IT.

KARKAT: THEY CAN LIST WHATEVER JUSTIFICATIONS THEY HAVE FOR LIKING ME AND IT ALL FEELS LIKE BULLSHIT.

KARKAT: IT’S LIKE, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? YOU CAN’T REALLY EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THIS ABOUT ME.

KARKAT: THERE’S NO WAY YOU ACTUALLY SEE ME THAT WAY.

KARKAT: YOU JUST FEEL BAD FOR ME. YOU’RE TALKING DOWN TO ME LIKE I’M SOME SORT OF PATHETIC WIGGLER WHO NEEDS TO BE CODDLED.

KARKAT: OR YOU’RE JUST IMAGINING I’M WHATEVER WAY YOU WISH I WOULD BE, SOME PERSON WHO’S BETTER AND SMARTER AND STRONGER AND KINDER AND MORE VALUABLE THAN THE PERSON I REALLY AM.

KARKAT: I CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND WHY ANYONE I CARE ABOUT WOULD EVER WASTE THEIR FUCKING TIME ON ME.

KARKAT: BUT WITH YOU...

KARKAT: BUT WITH YOU, IT MAKES SENSE. I GUESS.

KARKAT: WHEN YOU SAY SOMETHING NICE TO ME, I’M LIKE... YEAH? OK?

KARKAT: THAT’S COMPREHENSIBLE? I SEE HOW YOU GOT FROM POINT A TO POINT B.

KARKAT: I CAN KNOW YOU THE WAY I DO AND THINK ABOUT WHO YOU ARE AND I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY YOU’D WANT SOMEONE LIKE ME BESIDE YOU.

KARKAT: I DON’T HAVE TO WONDER WHAT’S MISSING.

KARKAT: YOU’RE ON MY LEVEL. AND I’M ON YOURS.

KARKAT: I BELIEVE THAT YOU SEE ME IN FRONT OF YOU THE WAY I ACTUALLY AM, FOR BETTER OR WORSE, AND STILL LIKE ME ANYWAY.

KARKAT: SO EVEN THOUGH IT’S STILL HARD FOR ME TO BELIEVE IN MYSELF A LOT OF THE TIME,

KARKAT: I BELIEVE IN YOU, SO I DON’T NEED TO.

DAVE: so what youre saying is you believe in me who believes in you

KARKAT: YEAH, KIND OF?

KARKAT: FUCK, MAN. THAT’S KIND OF DEEP.

DAVE: i know

KARKAT: SO, YEAH.

KARKAT: THAT’S WHAT I’VE NEVER REALLY FELT BEFORE.

KARKAT: AND I’M GLAD YOU’RE...

KARKAT: THAT WE’RE...

KARKAT: I’M GLAD YOU’RE MY FRIEND, DAVE.

DAVE: oh

DAVE: same

DAVE: so...

KARKAT: IS SOMETHING WRONG?

DAVE: huh

DAVE: no

DAVE: sorry i just had an absolutely insane train of thought that kind of sent me for a loop

KARKAT: UHH... WHAT?

DAVE: no its extremely better that i dont tell you

DAVE: i kind of forgot what we were talking about because it was so awful

KARKAT: ...

DAVE: oh right

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: all that shit you said about us being friends and on the same level or whatever

DAVE: yeah i feel the same way basically

DAVE: or like

DAVE: well

KARKAT: WHAT?

DAVE: im not sure that i like...

DAVE: hm.

DAVE: im kind of getting the feeling that... maybe...

DAVE: theres a level to what were thinking that isnt entirely coming across in words

DAVE: and since we dont have the right words we arent getting to the right actions either

KARKAT: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

DAVE: like maybe we feel the same way about certain things

DAVE: but what were saying and what were feeling

DAVE: maybe those arent exactly the same thing

DAVE: and maybe... we should...

KARKAT: WE SHOULD WHAT?

DAVE: maybe its time to

DAVE: talk

DAVE: about... that

KARKAT: THAT???

DAVE: yeah, like

DAVE: how... when you say were friends

DAVE: what... does that mean

KARKAT: THAT WE’RE FRIENDS?

DAVE: yeah but

DAVE: is that it?

DAVE: just friends

KARKAT: OF COURSE NOT.

KARKAT: YOU’RE MY...........

KARKAT: B......

KARKAT: ......EST FRIEND.

DAVE: oh

DAVE: i see

DAVE: well

DAVE: ok then

KARKAT: D... DAVE?

DAVE: karkat

DAVE: i

DAVE: i think i

DAVE: wait

DAVE: fuck

KARKAT: WHAT’S WRONG?

KARKAT: DID I DO SOMETH—

DAVE: no

DAVE: i just cant

DAVE: shit

DAVE: it just feels like

DAVE: what the fuck is going on

DAVE: this feels really off

KARKAT: ????

DAVE: idk

DAVE: i just keep having thoughts i know id never think

KARKAT: WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?

DAVE: i have no idea

DAVE: im sorry

DAVE: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD AND JUST LET ME DO THIS MYSELF!!!

KARKAT: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DAVE: dude

DAVE: come here...

#homestuck #homestuck epilogues #dave strider #karkat vantas #meat epilogue #page 38

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thedeadhandofseldon · 3 years

Text

The Anti-Mercer Effect

On the Accessibility of D&D, Why Unprepared Casters is so Fun, and Why Haley Whipjack is possibly the greatest DM of our generation.

(Apologies to my mutuals who aren’t in this fandom for the length of this, but as you all know I have never in my life shut up about anything so… we’ll call it even for the number of posts about Destiel I see every day.

To fellow UC fans - I haven’t listened to arc 4 yet, I started drafting this in early August, and I promise I will write a nice post about how great Gus the Bard is once I get the chance to listen to more of his DMing).

Structure - Or, “This is not the finale, there will be more podding cast”

So, first of all, let’s just talk about how Unprepared Casters works. Because it’s kind of unusual! Most of the other big-name D&D podcasts favor this long, grand arcs; UC has about 10 hours of podcast per each arc. And that’s a major strength in a lot of ways: it makes it really accessible to new listeners, because you can just start with the current arc and understand what’s going on!

And by starting new arcs every six or seven episodes, they can explore lots of ways to play D&D! Classic dungeon delve arc! Heist arc! Epic heroes save the world arc! Sportsball arc! They can touch on all sorts of things!

And while I’m talking about that: Dragons in Dungeons, the first arc, makes it incredibly accessible as a show - because it lets the unfamiliar listener get a sense of what D&D actually is. (It’s about telling stories and making your friends feel heroic and laugh and cry, for the record). If I had to pick a way to introduce someone to the game without actually playing it with them, that arc would definitely be it.

And I’d be remise not to note one very important thing: Haley Whipjack and Gus the Bard are just very funny, very charismatic people. Look. Episode 0s tend to be about 50%(?) those two just talking to each other about their own podcast. It shouldn’t work. And yet it DOES, its one of my favorite parts, because Haley and Gus are just cool.

And a side note that doesn’t fit anywhere else: I throw my soul at him! I throw a scone at him - that’s it, that’s the vibe. The whole podcast alternates between laughing with your friends and brooding alone in a dark tavern corner - but the laughs never forced and the dark corner is never too dark for too long.

Whipjack the Great - Or, the DM is Also a Player!

I think Haley Whipjack is one of the greatest Dungeon Masters alive. The plots and characters! The mechanical shenanigans! The descriptions!

Actually, let’s start there: with the descriptions. (Both Haley and Gus do this really fucking well). As we know, Episode 0 of each arc sees the DM reading a description - of a small town, or the Up North, or the recent history of a great party. And Haley always strikes this tricky balance - one I think a lot of us who DM struggle with - between giving too much description and worldbuilding, and not telling us anything at all. She describes people and events in just enough detail to imagine them, but never so much they seem static and unreal - just clear enough to envision, but with enough vagueness left to let your imagination begin to run wild.

While I’m thinking about arc 3’s party, let’s talk about a really bold move she made in that arc: letting the players have ongoing control of their history. Loser Lars! She didn’t try to spell out every detail of this high-level party’s history, or restrict their past to only what she decided to allow - she gave them the broad outlines, and let them embellish it. And that made for a much more alive story than any attempt to create it by herself would have - but I think it takes a lot of courage to let your players have that agency. Most Dungeon Masters (myself included) tend to struggle with being control freaks.

And the plots! Yeah, arc one is built of classic tropes - but she actually uses them, she doesn’t get caught up in subverting everything or laughing at the cliches. And it’s fun! In arc 3, there really isn’t a straight line for the players to follow, either - which makes the game much more interesting and much trickier to run. And her NPCs are fantastic and I will talk about them in the next section.

Above all, though, I think what is really impressive is how Haley balances mechanics, and rules as written, with the narrative and rule of cool - and puts both rules and story in the service of playing a fun game. And the secret to that? She’s the DM, but the DM is a player, and the DM is clearly having fun. Hope Lovejoy mechanically shouldn’t get that spellslot back, but she does, and it’s fun. The changeling merchant in Thymore doesn’t really make some Grand Artistic Narrative better, but wow is it fun. And she never tries to force it one way or the other - the story might be more dramatic if Annie didn’t manage to banish the demon from the vault, but it’s a lot cooler and a lot more fun for the players if Annie gets to be a badass instead - and the rules and the dice say that Annie managed it.

Settings feel like places, NPCs feel like people, and the narrative plot feels like a real villainous plot.

Anyway. I could go on about the various ways in which Whipjack is awesome for quite a while - she’s right, first place in D&D is when your friends laugh and super first place is when they cry - but I’m going to stop here and just. Make another post about it some other time. For now, for the record I hold her opinions about the game in higher esteem than I do several official sourcebooks; that is all.

Characters - Or, Bombyx Mori Is Not an Asshole, And That Matters

Okay, I said I would talk about characters! And I will!

Just a general place to start: the party! All of the first three parties are interesting to me, because they all care about each other. Not even necessarily in a Found Family Trope sort of way, though often that too. But they generally aren’t assholes to each other. The players create characters that actually work together, that are interesting; even when there’s internal divisions like SK-73 v. Sir Mr. Person, they aren’t just unpleasant and antagonistic all the time. Listening to the podcast, we’re “with” these people for a couple hours - and it isn’t unpleasant. That matters a lot. (To take a counter-example: I love Critical Role, but the episode when Vox Machina pranked Scanlan after he died and was resurrected wasn’t fun to listen to, it was just uncomfortable and angering and vaguely cruel).

All of the PCs are amazing, and the players in each arc did a great job. If you disagree with me about that, well, you have the right to be incorrect and I am sorry for your loss. Annie Wintersummer, for one example: tragic and sad and I want to give her a hug, but also Fuck Yeah Wintersummer, and also her familiar Charles the Owl is the cutest and funniest and I love him. And we understand what’s going on with Annie, she isn’t some infinite pool of hidden depths because this arc is 7 episodes and we don’t have time for that, but she also has enough complexity to be interesting. Same with Fey Moss: yeah, a lot of her is a silly pun about fame that carries into how she behaves, but a lot of how she behaves is also down to some good classic half-elven angst about parenthood and wanting to be known and seen and important. (Side note: if your half-elf character doesn’t have angst, well, that’s impressive and also I don’t think I believe you).

There are multiple lesbian cat-people in a 4-person party and they both have requited romantic interests who aren’t each other. This is the future liberals want and I am glad for it.

Sir Mister Person, the human fighter! Thavius, the edge lord! Even when a character is “simple,” they’re interesting, because of how they’re played as people and not action-figures. And that matters a lot.

In the same way: the NPCs. There really aren’t a lot of them! And some of them come from Patreon submissions, so uh good work gang, you’re part of the awesomeness and I’m proud of you! The point being, the NPCs work because enough of them are interesting to matter. It’s not just a servant who opens Count Michael’s door, it’s a character with a name (Oleandra!) and a personality and history. They’re interesting. Penny Lovejoy didn’t need to be interesting, the merchant outside the Laughing Mausoleum didn’t need to be interesting, but they ARE! And Haley and Gus EXCEL at making the NPCs matter, not just to the story but to us as viewers. I agree with Sir Mister Person, actually, I would die for the princesses of the kingdom. I actually care about Gem Lovejoy of all people - that wouldn’t happen in an ordinary campaign! That’s the thing that makes Unprepared Casters spectacular - and, frankly, it’s especially impressive because D&D does not tend to be good at making a lot of interesting compared to a lot of other sorts of stories.

And, just as an exemplar of all this: Bombyx Mori. Immortal, reincarnating(?), and described as the incarnation of the player’s ADHD. I expected to hate Bombyx, because as the mom friend both in and out of my friend-group’s campaigns, the chaos-causer is always exhausting to me. And yeah, Bombyx causes problems on purpose! But! She is not an asshole.

And that’s important. Bombyx goes and sits with the queen and comforts her. Bombyx gives Annie emotional support. Bombyx isn’t just a vehicle to jerk around the DM and other players; Bombyx really is a character we can care about. To compare with another case - in the first couple episodes of The Adventure Zone, the PCs are just dicks. Funny, but dicks. Bombyx holds out an arm “covered in larva” to shake with a count, and robs him of magical items, but she also cares about her friends and other people! She uses a powerful magical gem to save her fertilizer guy from death! Yeah, Bombyx is ridiculous, but she’s not just an asshole the party has to keep around for plot reasons; you can see why her party would keep her around. And one layer of meta up, she’s the perfect example of how to make a chaotic character like that while still being fun for everyone you’re playing with, which is often not the case. And I love her.

The Anti-Mercer Effect - Or, “I think we proved it can be fun, you can have a good time with your friends. And it doesn’t have to be scary, you can just work with what you know”

The Mercer Effect basically constitutes this: Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of Critical Role, is incredible (as are all of his players). They’re all professional story-tellers in a way, remember, and so Critical Role treats D&D like a narrative art-form, and it’s inspiring. Seeing that on Critical Role sets impossible standards - and people go into their own home games imagining that their campaigns will be like Critical Role, and the burden of that expectation tends to fall disproportionately on the DM. And the end result, I think, of the Mercer Effect is that we get discouraged or intimidated, because our game isn’t “as good as” theirs. (And I should note - Matt certainly doesn’t want that to be our reaction).

So the Anti-Mercer Effect is two things: it’s D&D treated like a game, and it’s inspiring but not intimidating. And Unprepared Casters manages both of those really freaking well. Because they play it like a game! A UC arc looks just like a good campaign in anyone’s home game. They have the vibes of 20-somethings and college students playing D&D for fun because that’s who they are (as a 20-something college student who plays a lot of D&D, watching it felt like watching my friends play an especially good campaign). They’re trying to tell a good story, sure, and they always do. But first and foremost, they’re trying to have fun, and it shows, and I love the UC cast for it.

And that’s the other half of it: it’s inspiring! It’s approachable; you can see that Haley and Gus put plenty of work into preparing the game but it also doesn’t make you feel like you need hundreds of pages of worldbuilding to run a game. Sometimes a cleric makes Haley cry and she gives them back a spell-slot from their deity! That’s fantastic! It’s just inspiring - listening to this over the summer, when my last campaign had fallen apart under the strain of graduation, is why I decided to plan and run my new one!

That quote from Haley Whipjack that I used as the title for this section? That’s the whole core of this idea, and really, I think, the core of the podcast.

The Mercer Effect is when you go “that’s really cool, I could never do that.” But Unprepared Casters makes you look at D&D and go “wow, that looks really fun. I bet I can do that!” And I love the show for it.

And I bet a lot of you do too.

#unprepared casters #bombyx mori #haley whipjack #long post #this is really rough but I don't have time to keep working on it and it's already a month later than intended

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yourfinalbow · 3 years

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"if Destiel wasn't on the cards, why is it Canon" u mean that unrequited love confession from Cas? Lmao. Jensen is literally homophobic yall trying to push him into Destiel ain't for the sake of representation its for the sake of you own little MLM fetish ship. Two straight actors ain't good gay rep. Even if Destiel was requited by Dean. Again, stop being a loser.

Hi! I'm actually glad you came to my ask box, it gives me an excuse to try and clear up some of these misconceptions.

So first of all, we don't technically know if it's unrequited. There is a lot of tinhatting involved in Destiel shipping, but there is also some solid evidence behind it. I personally believe that Dean returns Castiel’s confession, but didn’t have time to react to it. (I wouldn’t know what to do if my best friend of twelve years told me they made a deal with the Empty, was about to die, loved me, his love for me is the reason he’s about to die, and then continued to tell me that everything I believed about myself is wrong.) Some people also believe that Dean may have thought that if he didn’t say anything, the Empty wouldn’t come. Others believe that he did say something, but it was cut. (Which actually isn’t as far fetched as it sounds, considering scripts are sent to dubbing companies ahead of time and he reciprocated in almost every Latin American dub, as well as in French and Italian. And before you claim that there was a “rogue translator”, I must say that the script and dub has to go through very many heads before it is aired, so practically the entire company would have to be in on it. There are also a lot of strange jump cuts in the scene.) People have their personal headcanons, and you have yours! That’s perfectly fine, though anonymously telling me, and another awesome human being, that I’m a loser for having my headcanon is actually incredibly coward-like, presumptuous, and disrespectful.

So while Dean didn’t tell Cas he loved him in the English version, (Though I don’t know why that’s the only one that matters, considering only 13% of the world speaks it.) That doesn’t mean it’s not canon however, just unconfirmed on one side. (So your previous statement, “Destiel was never on the cards. Lol.”, is both grammatically incorrect and false.)

Your next statement, however, is the one that rubs me the wrong way. Jensen Ackles is not homophobic. I’ll link a few posts below that completely disprove this, but just because you don’t ship a queer ship, doesn’t make you homophobic. There’s also his infamous gay Aunt, and in my experience of homophobic-people-interacting-with-their-gay-family-members, (which is sadly a good enough amount to have a proper viewpoint), they don’t usual act as comfortable and open as Jensen and Aunt Darla, (and her wife!) are with eachother.

-Twitter thread of him being comfortable with queer peeps.

-CW’s “Dare to Defy” Campaign. (This movement is still very important, but the words don't hold as much weight to me personally after seeing what they did in the finale.)

-Tumblr post with Jensen being supportive of queer peeps. (He's even raised money for people in the LGBTQIA+ community anon. A homophobic person does not do that.)

You also have to take into consideration how comfortable he is with his male friends. I’m not saying he himself is apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, but there are countless videos and pictures of him being comfortable with both Jared and Misha, and that’s something homophobic people tend to stay away from. Once again, this doesn’t mean he himself is queer, and obviously people can love each other platonically! But people who are super religious and stead fast against gay people, usually go out of their way to not be seen as gay. And it’s clear it doesn’t bother J2M at all.

Jensen has also, in recent years, made jokes about Destiel. My favorite one is probably the, “Dean has no taste, clearly.” You can find that here because it genuinely makes my day. And if he was truely homophobic, I doubt he would be comfortable with things like this, as well as Jared constantly poking fun at him about both Misha and Destiel. (He would have at least pulled Jared aside privately and asked him nicely not to do that anymore. There are ways of doing this without seeming homophobic, and in reverse, just because he doesn’t want someone to make jokes like that doesn’t make him homophobic.) Third, I personally want Destiel to be canon because A, having two famous and main characters on a long-running Sci-Fi show, that was originally intended to be incredibly heterosexual, come out as queer would be good representation. People need to see that it’s okay to not be straight. Queer people have been oppressed for thousands of years, so being able to see themselves in their favorite show and characters is so powerful. Especially if these characters live long, happy lives together. And I argue that the actors don’t have to be gay themselves to play a gay character. People cross the borders on gender, sex, age, and nationality all the time. Why should sexual orientation be any different? And the B, because it's my otp. Simple as that.

And I don’t speak for the entire Destiel community, just as you don’t speak for the entire community of people who don’t ship them, but I personally don’t fetishize m|m. I actually get no enjoyment out of reading smut, and actively avoid it. I ship them because they have great chemistry, an interesting and often romantic storyline, and they obviously care about each other very much. Their gender has no impact on that. I ship w|w couples, (I actually wish there were more of them, because having my own representation is important to me), as well as heterosexual and nonbinary ones too.

So you can call me a loser anon, and honestly, I’ll embrace it. But I’m not the one coming into people’s ask boxes and hating on them, just because they want to ship two awesome people. I don’t judge you for what you ship, so I ask you return the favor. (But feel free to come talk to me again about anything else.) And since you seem to be having a bad day and taking it out on others, here's a gif for you!

And if anyone wants to respectfully add anything to this post, go ahead!

#Oops #Sorry for taking up the dashboard.#Supernatural #Spn #Destiel #Jensen Ackles #Lampswered #*Spongebob Imagination Rainbow

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yamithediaperdork · 3 years

Text

My little brothers revenge part 3

The next 2 weeks flew by after that, with the only strange thing being that Justin started to have A LOT of close call's with getting to the backroom on time and was leaving a ton of skid marks in his pants, and that Justin had also apparently seen the error in his ways and had asked to try and host a D&D session for Alex and his friends to make up for everything he'd done.

Naturally of course Alex wasn't sure about whether or not to trust Justin, but then the bully had gone out of his way to get permission from their parents for Alex to have all of his friends over while they were gone for the session to happen.

"I just think with how rough he's had it lately, he could use a treat, and it'll be a good bonding experience for us since he's kinda too small to play football with me and the guys." Justin had said, acting sheepish.

After that Alex had dialed back the amount of ex-lax he'd been sneaking into Justin's drink's since he felt just awful about trying to make Justin a diaper boy when he was being so nice.

Of course Ben warned him it could just be a trap and to keep up the treatment (and had asked for pictures of Alex next time he had a uh-oh accident as payment for his words of wisdom) But Alex choice to believe in Justin, a choice he would come to regret.

With their parents gone Saturday morning, most of the day was spent with Alex helping Justin go over the rules for the campaign in the morning, and then hanging out and playing with his friends in the afternoon while Justin went out to hang with Grizz and Rayne.

"Man, hard to believe that Justin is being such a cool guy." Lyle said and winced as they were walking back from the park, having played a game of touch football with some younger kids (and having gotten their butts kicked, which only confirmed Alex's belief he was NOT meant to play the damn game)

"areeee you sure he's on the up and up on this?" Kyle asked, rubbing at his arm where a 5 year old had punched him.

"What? Guys come on, it's the four of US vs. him if he tries anything. we can take him!" Alex said full of misplaced pride and swagger even as he had a slight limp.

"..you realize a group of five year olds just whooped us right?" Max asked, Pausing to spit out more dirt from when he'd been driven into the ground.

"Yeah but there was a equal number of them to us and they were all sneaky like ninjas." Alex said, waving a hand. "Sides, worse case go for the nuts. it's like the weak spot on the death star."

"You've been going to your mom's self defense class again haven't you?" Max asked and chuckled.

"...Maybe." Alex huffed.

"heh, just don't" Lyle started.

"Scream out 'he's got my purse!' this time." Kyle finished and the rest of the losers club laughed while Alex blushed and fumed.

"Guys it was ONE time, let it goooo!"

While the losers club was out and playing their little games, Justin and the boys were getting everything ready for the pampering.

as it turned out the old crib wasn't going to be big enough for even just one of the boys, while the old playpen might of fit two at most though it would be cramped.

Thankfully two solutions provided themselves in this, their darkest hour in the form of finding a old car seat of Justin's that looked big enough to MAYBE hold Alex, and a old high chair that would hold Max for sure.

"So..how are we going to hide ALL of this upstairs? I know Alex and his friends are dorks, but their not stupid." Grizz asked.

"Oh, what if we went and put like sheets over them, and tell them their ghosts!" Rayne suggested eagerly.

"...Rayne buddy why don't you go have a juice box." Justin said, patting the hulking boys back.

"Kay!"

as the muscle bound boy headed up to the fridge for some apple juice, Grizz and Justin exchanged looks.

"Man, he's our friend and everything, but Jesus.. does he eat paint chips or something?" Grizz asked.

"Go ahead and ask him, I'll go and get the bucket to mop you up after he creams you." Justin chuckled. "Ok ok..back to the problem at hand..We could Make get the high chair in the broom closet, and the playpen all folded up in the linen closet. Car seat, I dunno.."

"Yeahhh whole lotta time to waste between getting them pampered and getting them in they're seats." Grizz agreed then added with a blush.. "and I didn't go though all the humiliation of buying 4 packs of those discount diapers just for them to go to waste."

By now Rayne was coming back down the steps with his juice box and smiled and waved a hand.

"heh, Yes Rayne?" Justin asked, waiting for the stupid idea to come out.

"What if like, you have the playpen and stuff all set up down here but hidden behind some stuff and we just send up the gaming area down here. you can claim you wanna set a atmosphere for the game, capture the feeling of going though a dungeon." Rayne said and smiled big time.

"...H-U-H..Man Rayne, you need to drink apple juice more often!" Justin chuckled. "Good idea!"

"nah, then i get the poops." Rayne said but grinned big time.

"..Noted?" Grizz said/asked with a sweat drop.

It was after supper, and with bellies full of Pizza and root beet, the boys made they're way down the dusty (though not as dusty as before) basement, the twins semi hugging each other as the basement's lights only worked in two of the four areas, casting long scary shadows.

Max was mostly ok, though he could of sworn he'd seen something move out of the corner of his eye.

"Uh..Alex,Justin, you guys sure you don't have rats?" he asked, a twinge of worry in his voice.

"Oh yeah, we get checked regularly, Dad's TERRIFIED of them, it's why we can't go to Disney world." Alex said, laughing though he was getting a little bit creeped out being in the basement after dark.

still he wanted to try and support Justin who clearly was making a effort. plenty of large blankets had been rolled out onto the stone floor and a coffee table was set up in the middle, not on the blankets but they were bunched around it.

there were books and note pads and pencils and dice, all the great makings for a table top game and Alex turned to smile at his friends as they took in the site.

coming around the table and looking at the set up, the boys all whistled and Alex smirked at his friends under the pale light of the basement.

"See? I told you guys we could trust Justin!" he beamed.

"heh, Oh?" Justin asked.

"Yeah, the guys were kinda worried you were gonna pull something." Alex said, rubbing the back of his head. "Buttt I knew you were trying ..to.." Alex trailed off as he saw the look on his brothers face.

"Yeahhh about that, maybe listen to your friends next time." Justin advised.

"Whatever! It's four on one Justin, we CAN and WILL kick your butt!" Alex said, balling up his fists and looking over his shoulder to his friends.

The twins and Max nodded back and got ready to fight but Justin didn't look too concerned.

"oh no, Four little dorks who already got their butts kicked by five year olds and they're threatening me. what ever will I do. Oh woe is me." Justin said, putting the back of his hand to his forehead in a dramatic fashion then grinning and snapping his fingers. "Oh wait, I know..Grizz, Rayne, wanna help me get our soon to be slaves dressed and ready for they're new life's of cooking, cleaning and doing homework for us?" Justin said.

two shadows moved out from behind a pile of boxes and indeed there was Justin's buddy's.

"Oh, by the way, feel free to fight back, but anyone who does gets a spanking. if your GOOD little boys, we'll get you dressed with minimal fussing." Justin added.

Alex of course chose to fight, as did Max since he had to have his buddies back.

the two of them lunged at Justin going for a combo knee and groin attack but Justin caught Alex in the air and just hoisted him over his shoulder with Alex's head and arms over his back and yanked down Alex's pants with his free hand and started to slap the boys butt, getting howls of pain from him.

Max meanwhile had gotten his ankle grabbed by Rayne as he went to leap and was tugged back and put under Rayne's beefy arm and much like Alex, pants were yanked down and his butt was slapped, Max howling away as Rayne giggled and gave Justin a silly grin.

"it's like I'm playing the bongo's!" he giggled childishly.

Lyle and Kyle meanwhile had taken inventory of how sore they already were, how big and strong Justin and his friends were and had just stayed put, holding each other hands while Grizz looked down at them and smirked.

"heh, so your gonna be good boys?" Grizz asked.

Both twins nodded then jumped at the sounds coming from their friends.

"H-hey! stop that! They'll-" Lyle started, looking at Alex and Max who's buns where getting red even with their undies protecting them.

"-Be good boys like us! Come on, Please stop?" Kyle finished, wincing and fighting the urge to bury his face in his brothers shoulder.

"Hmm I dunno.. Alex, are you gonna be a good boy or make your widdle friends into liars?" Justin asked, pausing for a second.

Alex of course had been beating on Justin's back, for all the good it had done him and was now stood in front of Justin, tears running down his face and pants around his ankles.

Likewise, Max was set on his feet, though the tears weren't as free flowing and he gave a glare at the Twin's who suddenly found something VERY interesting to look at at the floor so they could avoid eye contract.

"Hey now, none of that Maxie, those two might of just gotten you out of the 5 minutes spanking we had planned." Justin said.

"F-Five Minutes?" Alex whimpered, and put a hand to his sore butt. it already hurt so much from just 30 seconds!!

"well give or take a bout 30 seconds." Justin said and smirked.

a hissing sound was heard and it didn't take a genius to figure out what it was, as Alex started to sob heavily as a puddle started to form under him where his accidents wasn't being soaked up by his pants.

"well, I'm gonna count that as a third vow to be a good boy..what do you say Max, wanna make it four for four?" Justin asked.

"Rot in hell! I'll never give in!" Max vowed.

Never as it turned out lasted all of anther 40 seconds then Max had a accident too. Following a quick clean up that would keep the boys from making puddles all the way up the stairs, Justin had Alex and Max take a quick bath together to both boys embarrassment, with Justin supervising to 'keep them out of trouble' while the Twin's mopped up the piddle accidents and got the wet clothes in the wash under the watchful eyes of Rayne and Grizz.

since the cat was out of the bag so to speak Rayne and Grizz had the twins help them bring the supplies for tonight's fun up into the living room, the urine smell in the basement being a big deciding factor.

The twins had a very good idea what was gonna happen as they carried the packs of diapers upstairs for the bullies, as well as a bag of dirty socks.

Well ok, the twins knew what the diapers and baby furniture was for, but the socks stumped them.

"Um..Mister Rayne?" Lyle asked, and held the bag up with one hand, the other being used to hold his nose.

"Hmm? me? Oh I'm just Rayne kiddo. what's up." Rayne said, confused at first but then smiling.

"I think I get most of what your planning, but why the stinky socks?" Lyle asked, looking over as Kyle was being a super good helper and getting the playpen set up, even though the look on his face made it clear he didn't wanna be helping at all.

"Oh the socks are for..are for.." And Rayne trailed off, and rubbed the back of his head, then turned to Grizz. "Hey Grizz, what are the socks for again?"

"We're gonna get the babies who aren't doing homework to wear them on both hands, one hand for the ones who are, and use about 3 socks per hand and tape for make shift baby mitts." Grizz called over.

"Ohhh yeahh..So that." Rayne said and smiled brightly.

"B-But why stinky socks? I don't wanna get athletes foot on my hands!" Lyle whined and whimpered.

"Oh! this part I do 'member! it's cuz you won't be tempted to try and tug'em off with your teeth after those socks have been on me and Justin's and Grizz's feet!" Rayne said, ever so proud of himself that he'd recalled that much.

"I..but..Ewwwww!" Lyle whined and started to cry.

"oh hey hey, look, it's just kinda fair if you think about it!" Rayne said, pulling the smaller boy into a hug.

"H-How so?" Lyle sniffled.

"well we're gonna hafa smell you guys when your blort your diapers. So see? it all works out!"

Somehow not only was this NOT a comfort for the twins, but started Kyle bawling too.

With Alex and Max washed nice and clean, they huffed and pouted as they were marched down stairs in just they're towels and were greeted to the site of of Lyle and Kyle (Aka mentally labeled the traitors in both boys minds) sitting side by side in Alex's old playpen wearing nothing but three pairs of dirty white socks on each hand that were taped up at the wrist with green masking tape and at least 4 pairs of white and pink diapers around their hips.

Finishing the look off as a bib around each twins hip, Lyle had Big bird on his while his brother was rocking cookie monster.

"Heh, nice touch with the bibs!" Justin commented. "I was gonna let them keep their shirts on."

"Well you know, I found a box of them in the basement and thought, why not?" Grizz said.

The twins had tear stains on their cheeks and Justin raised a eyebrow at that.

"Did they have to get spanked too?" He asked.

"Oh nah, just had a little sob feast. kinda shocked it didn't happen sooner. they ARE babies after all." Rayne giggled.

"So what do you have picked out for our two little naughty boys to wear?" Justin asked, chuckling and yanking the towels off of the younger boys who yelped and covered themselves despite the fact that A) they had both already seen everything B) so had Justin and C) they we gonna have to move their hands once they were diapered.

"Well I was thinking something retro, and classy at the same time." Grizz said, taking on a snobbish voice and making the other bullies smirk. "Something that screams 'I'm a big dumb baby slave, but at least I can do homework.' You know, a look for the ages."

"I see I see. Looks like you two little brainiac's get to do our homework while we supervise the good boys. And Don't even THINK of fucking it up. We'll be taking all SORTS of pictures of you dweebs in all your big baby glory and won't be shy about sharing it with your classmates." Justin chuckled and then pointed over to the changing mat's on the floor.

"J-Justin come on, do we HAVE to wear diapers?" Alex tried one last time.

"Alex I'm shocked, don't tell me you WANNA run around in the buff all night!" Justin said.

somehow the boy's blush got worse and along with Max he scrambled over to the changing mat's without further argument.

thickly diapered and one hand in the make shift baby mitts (Left hand for Alex and right hand for Max) and sporting Elmo themed for Max and Oscar the grouch for Alex, the last two of the loser's club was living up to it's name.

Max had been put in a old wooden high chair which even as small and shrimpy as he was was still a tight fit and had the bullies English and Social studies homework out in front of him.

Alex meanwhile had oddly easier been strapped into a old car seat and pulled up to the coffee table and handed the Math and science homework.

"Since when do you even get this much homework over one weekend?" Alex had asked, eyes going wide.

"Oh yeah, we asked for extra homework to make up for our falling grades. our teachers loved we were trying. So again. Don't make us look bad." Justin said and ruffled Alex's hair, making the huffy diapered shrimp squirm and try and get away.

"I can't believe I actually thought you were turning over a new leaf." Alex huffed and sulked.

"Honestly, neither could I, but you just wanted it to be true sooo bad~ Though I'm not without a degree of mercy." Justin chuckled and at that moment Grizz came in and set a baby bottle full of milk on Max's tray, then on in reach of Max.

Meanwhile the twins were being handed one each by Rayne and just took them with some difficulties in both hands and started to drink, they they wrinkled they're noses.

"heh, I guess the socks kinda keep you from fully enjoying the moo juice. Ah well, not my problem. I expect that ba-ba drained in a hour little man, I don't need you getting all dehydrated with all the crying and pissing you've been doing." Justin snickered and after handing Alex his ba-ba, walked away.

For a tiny split second Alex was tempted to grab the bottle and toss it at Justin, but then his common sense kicked in stead and he went to work, pausing every so often to drink the oddly sweet milk.

The twins tummies were starting to hurt as they chugged down they're milk but with the lack of room in the playpen and their stinky sock mitten's they weren't sure if they were gonna be able to pick the bottle back up if they put them down.

Since they had maybe already lost they're friends after betraying them before, they had silently agreed to just try and be the best big babies they could tonight since there was no point in getting a spanking now anyways.

"Sheesh, I guess that sob feast they had really dried them up. Careful little guys you're gonna give yourselves gas bubbles!" Rayne said, looking almost legitimately concerned.

"heh, don't tell me you're going soft on us man." Grizz teased, lightly elbowing Rayne side.

"Huh? no, I just don't wanna have to burp them and risk getting spit up on me."

"..You uh, Know their not REALLY babies right?" Justin asked after a second. "So I don't think that's gonna be a worry."

the mental image of being held in the bullies arms and being burped like a oversized baby wasn't exactly appealing to Kyle who slowed his chugging down but Lyle seemed to speed his up.

"..heh, I think one of them WANTS to be burped!" Grizz said.

Tugging his ba-ba out quick Lyle went to defend himself but in stead let out a massive belch that did kinda make his tummy feel better.

Kyle on the other hand took the other option when it came to gas relief as before anyone could say anything about the burp, a muffled long fart came out of Kyle's behind and the boys eyes went wide as saucers making it clear who had cut the cheese.

"Sheesh, couple of Gas holes over here." Justin laughed then wrinkled his nose, taking a step back. "Ugh, If his FARTS smell this bad.."

"yeahhh Maybe we shouldn't of put all that laxative powder in there." Rayne said, rubbing the back of his head.

With THAT announcement all four boys who had been taking a drink, Lyle having just put his bottle back up to his mouth dropped them and looked at the bullies.

"Rayne, they weren't suppose to know about that." Scolded Justin, then he grinned like a Cheshire cat.

"oh..uh sorry. How can I make it up to you?" Rayne said, while all four of the diapered losers club squirmed and whined in their baby prison's.

"Guess who gets to change all four stinkers himself?" Justin asked.

"Grizz? that's not fair he did- ...OH!...oh." Rayne started to argue, but then his face lit up as he got it, then fell as he got it.

Hearing about how the milk had been tainted, Alex grabbed his and was trying to pry the lid off to dump it out when Justin came over and shook his head.

"Ah ah ah, Bad baby brother! I guess you're gonna have to take a homework break so big brother can bottle feed you." Justin scolded, getting Alex out of the car seat and into his lap while Justin sat on the floor, pressing and rubbing the nipple on Alex's closed mouth.

"Open up little man, it's either you drink your special ba-ba and make 'present's for big brother or I get out the enema kit mom got for dad." Justin said.

Alex's eyes widen and he stared at his brothers face, wondering if Justin would really actually use that horrible looking thing on him..then recalling he was currently dressed like a big baby and opened his mouth.

"Good boy! Guess i could of just made you drink it on your own with that threat..eh, Your kinda cute like this. In a total loser big baby sorta way." Justin snickered.

Alex suckled down fast and hard, just wanting to get it over with and glared at Justin, willing himself to be able to make his asshole of a big brother end up crapping HIMSELF before Alex fudged his huggies.

As the cramps started to build in his tummy, Alex didn't think that was going to happen.

Seeing Alex being bottle fed by his brother and Grizz coming over Max gulped and gave a sheepish smile.

"I..Don't suppose you could just take the nipple off so i can chug this and get it over with huh?" He tried.

"heh, I suppose so. at least then I don't have to worry about burping the nerdy baby." Grizz said and started to unscrew the top. "But just so you know, if you try and just dump it out, I'll be tanning your ass for 5 minutes strait, then just giving you a enema."

Whether it was the threat itself, or the fact Max had loaded up on fluids on the way home he'd never be sure, but the poor boy gasped and whimpered as a hissing was heard and he soaked his diaper.

"Heh, We got our first wet diaper! Man, you must have a hair trigger bladder huh?" Grizz asked, and offered the opened ba-ba to Max. "Bottoms up soggy pants."

Whining softly but knowing he was stuck (in more ways then one with his diaper bloating out in the high chair) Max gave a week smile and drank as fast as he could.

The twins meanwhile had been given new instructions by Rayne who had decided if he was gonna have four sets of poopie diapers to change, he might as well get a cute site first.

The nicest of the three bullies (if only due to his lower IQ) he'd understood when Lyle and Kyle hadn't been abler to get they're ba-ba's picked up between the cramped space and the baby mitt and had picked up their bottle's and handed them to the other.

"Um..Rayne? I-I had more of my ba-ba gone." Kyle said meekly. "This is Lyle's."

"I Know, I want you to bottle feed each other, it'll look so cute!" he said and then with a big of shuffling around got them facing each other. "Your twin brothers so you're both close..So go on, help you brother drink up!" He encouraged them both.

Knowing better then to argue, the Twins shifted around and worked out how to get their arms out of the way of the other then both were drinking up, eyes closed and noses wrinkled from the smell of the socks, and the mini poots that were escaping almost constantly now as they were almost finished their ba-ba's.

As such with they're eyes closed they didn't see that Rayne had grabbed Justin's camera phone (After losing three cells of his own, Rayne wasn't trusted with one anymore.) and snapped a few pictures of the cuteness in front of him, and when they finished he fished them both out of the playpen and had them each put a head over one of his shoulders, apparently having gotten over his stance on burping them.

As they felt the big strong pats on their back and looked at each other over the simple giants shoulder, both twins wet their diapers at the same time but just like how they normally talked, one would burp then the other then the first one, back and forth till Rayne was sure he'd gotten all the gas bubbles out.

The twin's weren't sure how they felt about this, since Clearly Rayne was strong enough to support BOTH of them with just one hand making them feel even smaller then before, though it DID feel good to get all that gas out even if they're tummies were still cramping big time now.

"Feel better little guys?" Rayne asked, smirking.

Lyle started to nod while Kyle went to say something, but that was when the ba-ba's special ingredient kicked in. Both twins stiffened and little gasps came out of their mouths but that was nothing compared to the torrent of muck that poured out of their backside as the pink and white diapers rapidly expanded and even with the slits cut in them it was clear they were rapidly approaching a overflow point.

"Sheesh, that didn't take long." Grizz said, holding his nose.

"Oh man, their fucking toxic!" Justin complained.

between the sick sounding wet farts you could HEARD the diapers crackling as they fought to keep up but it wouldn't be till the diapers were fully loaded that they Twins would snap out of their shocked silence.

Rayne went to say something to comfort them but it was like a shrill alarm going off as both twin once again started wailing and crying, and Rayne winced, his own nose wrinkling.

"Uhh.. Can I just go and hose them off in the back yard?" He semi shouted, trying to be heard over the twins.

"Are you kidding? they'd alert the whole block as to whats going on!" Justin said, gagging a little. "Oh Man..I did NOT think this though..."

"Well what did you expect a dirty diaper was gonna smell like?" Alex huffed, though he was making grossed out faces too, plus knew that was his future."Sun shrine and rainbows?!"

"Also it's WAY too cold out to clean them up outside anyways Rayne, you'll make them sick."Max pointed out

"You two, shut up and get back to work. and Rayne..I know we were gonna make them sit in it but for the sake of everyone noses, change them now....and uh, take them to the basement to do it." Justin huffed.

Rayne nodded and off he went with the little stinkers and Grizz turned to Justin.

"Ahhh.. maybe we'll just use the pictures of them, but let them take dumps in the potty..I mean.. " he was saying, moving to go and open some windows.

"Ngggh, you might be onto something there." Justin said, then noticed Max and Alex exchanging looks and smirking. "..what's with the looks?"

"It seems to me, like the balance of power has shifted." Max said with a evil grin.

"Unless you WANT us unleashing hell in our diapers over and over again, you're gonna knock all of this off now, and hand over the pictures." Alex said smugly.

"Are you REALLY trying to threaten us with stinky diapers?" Grizz asked, half amused half in disbelief.

"If you thought the twin's were stinky they don't hold a candle up to Max, and Justin you know how bad I can be when I'm NOT loaded with ex-lax."

"..Mistakes have been made." Justin groaned, face palming.

"Are you kidding me?! I went though all that embarrassment and blew all that money on diapers and we're gonna cave in now?" Grizz huffed, looking pissed.

Max left out a poot and that fresh tears to the bullies eyes.

"Consider that a preview of whats to come." Max said and gave a evil laugh. "and tick tock guys.. us 'babies' can only hold it for sooo long~"

"Look Grizz, I'm sorry but unless you wanna be the one helping Rayne change diapers." Justin started to say, cut off by Rayne's cry of horror from the basement. "Then the plan failed."

"This is fucking bullshit!" Grizz huffed and then stormed out of the living room, grabbing his jacket.

"Grizz come on! wait!"

"No way man, screw you! I'm going home!" Grizz growled back and took off, slamming the door.

"...Well I hope your happy now!" Justin huffed at the big babies.

"Oh, we will be.. but first.. socks off and let us out of our baby prisons." Alex said, then smirked. "and don't worry, I have a feeling the diapers WON'T be going to waste."

For the first time since this little war had started, Justin felt a pang of worry.

In the aftermath, only the twins ended up messing their diapers and once Rayne found out the plan had fallen though he sulked and huffed and stormed off home too to do the extra class work that no one else was gonna do for him now.

The Pictures were turned over as promised and Justin figured Alex just deleted them, never suspecting that they were kept for blackmail power of a sort later on, and while no one else had a smelly diaper that night, all four boys kept wearing one just in case.

The twins were forgiven by Max and Alex after a bit, mostly due to how traumatized they seemed from having made such big stinkies and having to get cleaned up and had sucked on their thumbs when they weren't playing video games with Max and Alex, though they had conked out hard shortly after.

Justin, as the last bully standing, got the 'honor' of taking the shovel and going out to the trail to 'bury the treasure' and was less then happy when he came back and got told to go to bed and rest up, he was going to need it.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

Link

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 22, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

CNN’s bombshell revelation of Trump loyalist lawyer John Eastman’s six-point memo of instructions for overturning the 2020 election—discussed in the new book by veteran journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa—seems to be sparking a reckoning with how dangerous the Trump loyalists are to the survival of American democracy.

Eastman responded to the story by saying the released memo was only a draft and then giving CNN the final version, which was longer but no less damning—just how damning was indicated by two separate things.

First, J. Michael Luttig, the former United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit whom Pence had asked for advice about whether he could overturn the election results, quickly took to Twitter to distance himself from the story, saying: “I was honored to advise Vice President Pence that he had no choice on January 6, 2021, but to accept and count the Electoral College votes as they had been cast and properly certified by the states…. I believe(d) that Professor Eastman was incorrect at every turn of the analysis in his January 2 memorandum.” Eastman had been Luttig’s law clerk.

Second, former president Trump promptly sued his niece Dr. Mary L. Trump, the New York Times, and three New York Times reporters, claiming they were part of an “insidious plot” to obtain and publish his tax records “to gain fame, notoriety, acclaim and a financial windfall and were further intended to advance their political agenda.” Although the New York Times articles accused Trump of tax fraud, the former president did not claim libel or defamation in the suit. Legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Joyce Alene White Vance noted that to win on that point, he would have to prove that the reporting about his finances wasn’t true, and he was all but conceding he could not do that.

Trump used a lawyer that he has not used before to launch the suit, which Mary Trump, whose doctorate is in psychology, dismissed as the work of a desperate “loser” who was “going to throw anything against the wall he can.”

Eastman was no fly-by-night; he is a senior member of the Federalist Society and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (as well as for Judge Luttig). Eastman’s standing in the so-called conservative movement makes it all the more astonishing that, to my knowledge, no leading Republican lawmaker has commented on the revelations of just how close we came to the installation of Trump instead of the duly elected presidential candidate, Joe Biden, in January.

Instead, Republican lawmakers are making headlines by refusing even to negotiate over the debt ceiling, simply saying the Democrats are on their own. They appear to be trying to replace one crisis with another, trying to turn public attention away from Trump’s attempted coup to the idea that Democrats are wild spendthrifts (although the Trump administration added about $7.8 trillion of today’s $28 trillion debt, and during his term, Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling three times).

It is impossible to overstate just how momentous are both an attempted coup and an attempt to force the U.S. to default on its debts.

Other news about the Trump administration and the January 6 Capitol insurrection is surfacing, as well.

On Monday, a federal court in Washington, D.C. unsealed an indictment alleging that, with the help of conservative author Doug Wead, Jesse Benton, a political operative from Kentucky closely allied with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), illegally directed foreign money from a Russian businessman to the 2016 Trump campaign. That the Department of Justice sat on the case for close to five years, even while the question of connections between the Trump campaign and Russians was white hot, suggests political interference with that department.

On Tuesday, the New York Times broke the story that in November 2020, when leaders from the Trump campaign began insisting before television cameras that the election of two weeks before had been stolen by George Soros and Venezuelans using Dominion voting systems, they had already circulated an internal memo debunking that entire conspiracy theory.

It seems they knew what they were alleging was false. The document surfaced in a lawsuit: Dominion has sued Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani for defamation. This memo will not help their case.

Today, Hugo Lowell, congressional reporter for The Guardian, reported that the House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the U.S. Capitol is considering issuing non-negotiable subpoenas this week for Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and his deputy chief Dan Scavino, as well as Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale.

A far right Republican from North Carolina, Meadows helped to found the Freedom Caucus and was one of Trump’s closest supporters in Congress before taking the chief of staff job. Scavino ran Trump’s social media accounts—including Twitter—and was one of the former president’s closest confidants. Parscale was the Trump campaign’s digital manager after being replaced as campaign manager in July 2020. Subpoenas for the phone records or testimony of these three men would help the committee members figure out what was happening inside the Oval Office on January 6.

Tonight on MSNBC, committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA), a former federal prosecutor who is chair of the House Intelligence Committee and was lead manager for Trump’s first impeachment trial, told anchor Nicolle Wallace that the committee is investigating the activities surrounding January 6 as “a conspiracy to commit a coup.”

Schiff warned that while Trump loyalists tried to undermine democracy on January 6, mounting evidence suggests that through voter suppression and the replacement of nonpartisan election officials with boards of Trump loyalists, Republican lawmakers are continuing that effort today.

"We're going to follow the facts," said Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the committee’s vice chair. "What happened in the run-up to January 6, what happened on the 6th. What happened after the 6th."

—

Notes:

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039642768/trump-sues-niece-mary-new-york-times-over-tax-return-stories

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/nyregion/mary-trump-taxes-lawsuit.html

Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVanceThere is a good reason "Trump made no claims of libel or defamation against the paper or Mary Trump in the suit." He would have to prove that the NYT's reporting about his finances wasn't true in order to win. And, he all but concedes he can't with this. https://t.co/7qya7qXhuH

711 Retweets2,455 Likes

September 22nd 2021

https://electionlawblog.org/?p=124721

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/federalist-society-under-fire-after-leader-spoke-at-pro-trump-rally-before-riot.html

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/its-been-5-years-since-russian-cash-was-allegedly-funneled-into-the-trump-campaign-why-wasnt-it-charged-until-now

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/21/us/trump-campaign-memo.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/us/politics/trump-dominion-voting.html

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/16/trump-scavino-1327921

https://www.rawstory.com/adam-schiff-select-committee/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/22/politics/january-6-committee-investigation-latest/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/21/capitol-attack-panel-trump-white-house-aides

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #attempted coup #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #January 6 2021 #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #corruption #Civil War #US Congress #Debt Ceiling

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vividxp · 3 years

Text

Yet another ‘are we reaching the endpoint’ post

I know this topic has been opined on to death but I have thoughts

Here’s a list of things that I think don’t need to be resolved by the Campaign’s end

Tharizdun - He’s a fact of the universe, there is no ending him. There is always going to be somebody or some group of people or some cult trying to free him long after the M9 is dead and gone. My favorite Critical Role recap show has been theorizing that Matt is going to throw a Tarrasque at the players and this would be the opening and while that’s amusing, I don’t think it’s gonna happen

Uk’otoa - Fjord’s oath was not to kill Uk’otoa or anything like that. And he has already went through the arc of rejecting him. There are still plenty of backstory questions like wtf is Sabien doing, but I could see this resolved through a oneshot or two. The stakes are decidedly lessened especially since we have no idea where the third orb is. Maybe the Tomb Takers still have it, maybe they threw it in a ditch in a ruin somewhere on Eiselcross. Honestly, now that I mention it, Fjord should probably find a ditch in the astral plane and chuck the orb there if he gets his hand on it again.

Isharnai (The Hag) - Jester tricked her fair and square. Sure she can be a sore loser and make something out of it, but does she really? And heck, maybe game recognizes game, especially after the cupcake delivery. Also people forget the goal w/ the hag was to remove the curse from Veth. While honestly I would be here for further exploration of the curse (and the goblins who asked for Veth to get it), I don’t think there’s appetite for that. I think the perception is that it serves Beau’s father right for fucking with shit beyond him.

Zeenoth trial - I understand that Beau has gotten the short end of the stick in the sense that her development has always been squeezed in w/ other characters. But I’m skeptical about whether the players would be interested in RPing the full trial.

Ruidis/The Moon - This doesn’t have to be the M9′s fight. They’ve gotten a bunch of lore about it, but nothing has really been set in motion and it doesn’t need to happen in Campaign 2.

The Dolorov Tribe - I think other than visiting Zuala’s grave, Yasha doesn’t really think all that much about the tribe that killed her wife. She killed the leaders after all. (And she doesn’t particularly feel any sort of way about that). It’s something that doesn’t necessarily have to play out outside an epilogue mention, even though it would be super interesting for Yasha to be confronted with the recovering tribe

Molaesmyr - Cad found a way to fight back the corruption in the Savalier Wood, maybe he can inform Reani and/or Uthodurn the requirements for that so that more can be done to reclaim the lost city. It’s not Cad’s obligation to do this right now...especially the city has been corrupted for decades.

I think the only pressing issue that absolutely needs to be resolved post Eyes of Nein (assuming shit doesn’t go down there) is some movement towards abolishing the Cerberus Assembly. In Episode 131, the message from Astrid revealed that the King may not know the full scope of the Scourger program (even though he knows of their existence). If the M9 survive, there is very little stopping them from going public about this. Side note: I also still think the beacon experimentation on Felderwin citizen is a big fucking deal and should be mentioned as well but it’s been almost a hundred episodes since they got that evidence so....

But tangent aside, Trent and the Cerberus Assembly are at a disadvantage here. Thanks to the pendants against divination/scrying, it’s almost impossible to track the M9 down, and they’ve also made moves to protect their immediate families and associates from retaliation. The M9, Essek and Yeza should all be trying to testify against the Cerberus Assembly as soon as they’re able to.

And unless the Cerberus Assembly has a coup against the king ready to go (I wouldn’t be surprised if they did), they’d have few other options other than taking the scrutiny. Though I could see Trent or Ludinus deciding to make a run for it and the M9 making sure they face some sort of justice.

#critical role #endgame speculation

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oh-boy-me · 4 years

Note

:0 could I have a beel,asmo,belphie,lucifer,mammon, satan (not including levi) and diavolo playing videogames? I thought it would be kinda funny since they're all really old- except for levi of course haha

Ohhh this should be fun!

Decided to do individual HCs for this one instead of a group thing so they wouldn’t be limited to multiplayer games.

Most of them, save for a certain prince, have been exposed to games a fair amount by proximity to Levi.

---

Lucifer:

Lucifer has a Mononoke Land account so that he’ll get the email notifications for events and can therefore keep track of Levi’s whereabouts. He’s never played the game, though, nor downloaded the app, and he has no intention of doing so.

In general, he’s not much of a gamer. The most gaming he gets done is minesweeper on Windows XP. He doesn’t have the time, and it was never something he could get into.

That isn’t to say that he owns zero games, though. His favorite genre is turn-based strategy, because he can afford to look away from them, and they make him think and plan.

He doesn’t like the hyper-realistic ones, though. Things like Civilization and Here Be Dragons are up his alley, Hearts of Iron not so much.

He doesn’t care too much about the story, but a good soundtrack is mandatory.

Also he’s an old man so the controls also have to be intuitive or he just won’t be able to play. Why is he jumping when he presses A he thought that was the attack button.

The type of player who needs to get every achievement. A completionist.

When the group gets together for the rare multiplayer night, he has no idea what he’s doing and yet still manages to do well. It’s kind of infuriating.

He won’t make alliances with anyone, no, it’s every man for himself. He also actively targets Mammon no matter what game they’re playing.

The fact that he doesn’t really get it protects his pride when Levi inevitably wipes the floor with him.

Mammon:

Mammon actually does game a little bit in his spare time, mostly with Levi. He’s got a couple consoles and is more open to different genres than Lucifer is.

He thrives in any game where the main goal is to rack up as many points or as much profit as possible. He’s undefeated in tycoons and pinball. (Tetris is an exception; he’s terrible at Tetris. Stupid spacial recognition.)

The RNG elements boil down to his insane luck, but he’s actually very smart when it comes to investments and stuff, so it’s not like he’s only using his luck to get by.

If the games have multiplayer, even better! Nothing like kicking Levi, MC and Belphie’s asses in a game of Fortune Street!

He also tends to like the action-focused games that Levi plays. Not so much into turn-based RPGs, but he enjoys stuff where the enemies spawn, like in Zelda or Rune Factory. And he’s great at button mashing in fighting games, although Levi, who actually knows how to play them, always beats him.

Mammon uses items as soon as he gets them, and is too busy rushing a boss to care about learning its patterns and strategizing.

Skips cutscenes even on his first run. Levi and Satan hate him for it.

Like mentioned before, he gets an unfair disadvantage in game nights because everyone targets him. Especially in those games with RNG, because otherwise he WILL win.

He’s banned from PTW games because he will indeed PTW.

Satan:

Satan is another one who doesn’t play too many games, and that might be for the best because he’s a nightmare to play with.

The sorest loser, and a pretty nasty winner too. He insists on the hardest difficulty and then rage quits at the slightest inconvenience.

He will play when prompted, though; he’s not above hanging out with his brothers. His favorite sorts of games are ones with a good story and/or good puzzles. His planning is more on the tactics side, as opposed to Lucifer’s strategy, so he would love Fire Emblem.

He WILL drop a game if the story isn’t holding his attention, and he’s done so in the past.

Overly cautious and hoards resources. He takes the safe route every time.

Also another completionist.

Beel would often ask Satan to help him find out which art pieces were originals and safe to buy in Animal Crossing, and Satan got a little bit interested and ended up making a resident on Beel’s cartridge so the donations could be in his name. He went on a mini-campaign to drive out the residents he didn’t like, but one of them turned out to be Beel's favorite and he felt terrible about it for weeks.

During family game nights, everyone is always torn between appeasing Satan and telling him to deal with it when he loses.

He also gets angry if he catches on to the fact that they’re letting him win, though.

Probably a genwunner.

Asmodeus:

Asmo enjoys video games. They don’t fit into his aesthetic so he’s never really tried to understand them, but he doesn’t dislike them by any means.

Gaming is becoming more mainstream though, right? That’s a whole new audience that could appreciate him. Maybe, just maybe, he can let himself be a bit of a geek.

Unsurprisingly, he’s got a penchant for games with customization options. Surprisingly, he also really enjoys FPS games. If he and Levi ever played at the same time, it would be chaos in the House of Lamentation.

As opposed to his in-your-face attitude, he likes to play sniper units.

He said he wants to tap into the gaming community, but he’s not very good at most of the games he plays so he’s too embarrassed to actually do so. He does, however, play the Sims on livestream. He does his best to make the steamiest and most dramatic scenarios happen, and he’ll hold strawpolls to let his viewers make some choices.

Asmo also plays Animal Crossing like a few other brothers, but his island is so well groomed and with just the right residents, it feels like you’re touring an uncanny dystopia and Asmo is the dictator.

When the group gets together, he usually ends up doing the worst. He’s more interested in executing perfect combos than actually dealing damage, so he’s not aggressive enough to get anything done against players like Levi and Satan.

He’s also not very good at teamwork; he starts yelling at his partner very quickly.

Beelzebub:

Beel doesn’t have a lot of “gamer” in him, but some of his brothers seem to like it so he decided to give it a go. Turns out his hands are too big, but he makes do. Kind of.

You’d expect a sports game to be the best for him, since he’s so athletic. However, it’s BECAUSE he’s so athletic that this sort of game isn’t in his library. He gets too antsy and bored tapping buttons instead of actually playing the sport.

Beel’s also not an aggressive player in any sense of the word. He feels guilty even hurting the most basic of slimes.

No, no games are better for Beel than the stress-free, casual life simulators. Animal Crossing is no surprise his favorite one right now. Satan handles the museum for him while Beel gets to do whatever he feels like in a world where the biggest threat is a wasp.

He’ll also play other low stakes games where living your life is the main goal, like Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley. His big heart can never choose who to marry in those games.

Horror is also ok for him, because while aggression is hard for him, self-defense is not.

He got the Cooking Mama app on his D.D.D. and bit the device in half, so he’s not allowed to touch that franchise anymore.

When the gang meets up, his non-aggressive side sticks around. In fighting games, he’s more likely to dodge and steer clear of the others, and in other versus games he’s so open to compromise you’d think you were on the same team.

Satan did get him his favorite resident back.

Belphegor:

Belphie probably games the second most after Levi; it’s something that keeps him entertained but doesn’t require him to move very much at all.

I actually have no idea how to describe his preferred genres, but League of Legends and Dark Souls is basically all you need to know.

League lets him socialize a bit, and it’s the game that he and Levi play together most often. As for Dark Souls, he loves the sort of game where learning your opponent’s every move and outsmarting/outmaneuvering them is the only path to victory.

I guess that would be described as “really hard action-adventure” games? He’d also like Sekiro.

He also has his own copy of Animal Crossing to visit and play with Beel, but his island is so underdeveloped you’d think he started that same week.

Belphie is the true wild card of family game nights; sometimes he sleeps through the whole thing, while other times he can take down even Levi.

He has everyone’s habits down to a T--Mammon charges in, Asmo does too much setup, Levi’s overconfident--and he knows how to counter each and every one of them.

For someone who’s so much of a cunning player, though, he also misclicks a lot.

He’s the most likely out of his brothers to make alliances. He’s also the most likely to break alliances.

If he doesn’t think he can win, he’ll choose a player and start sabotaging the game in their favor.

Diavolo:

Lord Diavolo had read about like, Mario? The little blue hedgehog guy? But he’d never owned a gaming console before. He probably thought Neopets was peak gaming.

Levi swore to fix this grievous error, and this was also a mistake, because now Diavolo keeps trying to get Lucifer to play all these hack and slash games with him.

He has legitimately told Lucifer that “if you don’t play Devil May Cry with me THIS devil may cry!”

The games need to always have something happening in them or he’ll get bored, kind of like Satan’s need for a good story, except with action.

It’s also worth mentioning that “play a game with Diavolo” actually means “sit in the same room as Diavolo while he plays.”

And oh boy… is he terrible at these games.

He just button mashes until either he dies or all the enemies die.

Never uses any of the items he gets because he’s sure he’ll need them more later on. When, Diavolo? During the staff roll?

Will bomb a door before trying the knob.

Since he’s usually only around Lucifer, who doesn’t want to get sucked into this, and Barbatos, who honestly couldn’t care less about this, he’s been left alone and free to develop these terrible gaming habits.

It’s rare that he comes to family gaming night. Legend has it that Lucifer’s piercing glare is somehow connected to the fact that his brothers always let Diavolo win.

Masterlist

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jessiebanethedragon · 3 years

Text

One of the Brightest Stars

Word count: 3660 (is that alot?) idk

Warnings: major character death, sadness.

A/n: I’ve thought about this idea for a while and heres what we ended up with, broke my heart writing it and if the title is a James Blunt song that just seemed to fit.

It was raining on coruscant, the day you met. Throwing water down on the smog infested streets creating a wet smoke that weaved its way into your hair and clothes. You were tempted to leave, what kind of night out was this anyways? Underground, illegal fighting that you’d been talked into attending on this horrible night. It was awful, chants from the crowd you couldn’t make out wanted someone dead, that much you could tell. Every sound of a blow landed resonated in your soaked bones. Of course your friends, whose morals you were seriously contemplating, wanted you to stay. Teases flew haphazardly of your weak disposition, ‘barbaric’ was the term you returned as you passed through the crowd to escape. Scoffing as the mob goes wild with another declared victor, stopping in shock as the loser is dragged out of the ring. Bouncers parting the sea of infidels and dumping the man at the bottom of a street light. You regarded him with a look of haphazard disgust, turning your head away from the sight and hugging the wall of the alley in the hopes of not being noticed. He wasn’t your problem. You’re not a medic. He’s not your problem. You’re not a medic. No matter how many times you tell yourself this guilt still eats away at you. But this man could be dangerous, you saw how they went at one another in that ring, it was dark out, and you were alone. But then again, so was he.

“S-s-should I call someone?” You stammered out, so quiet that he didn’t hear you over his own groaning. You try again.

“Is - is there someone I should, I should call?” Under the glow of the blue hued street light his eyes almost seem yellow, and the way they meet yours has you taking a step back, retreating further away. Through the bloody nose, and split lip you look away. Eye contact made you feel exposed, like he was sizing you up for his next fight. As you look down you see clearly his attire. The symbol of the republic is hard to make out against the black material in the darkness. But the white plastoid that still covered his legs was unmistakable. And now, so was the earlier undeserenable chant. Kill the Clone.

He started to laugh at the realization that showed on your face, snickering through heaved breaths and the blood still coming out of his nose. “What? Never met a clone before?” He slurred agitated, looking you up and down, figuring out what kind of person runs from back alley fights. You winced as he pulled himself up with another groan and tried to start walking. “Maybe, maybe you should sit back down?” You asked, unsure of the situation, he had to be a clone, if the plastoid was anything to go by, so was his black curly hair. You saw him nod before falling into the wall and sliding down it, eyes closed in pain. You took a tentative step forward. Jumping as the blaster goes off to signal another fight starting, the crowd as wild as ever. When you look back to the clone propped up by the wall, he’d managed to pass out.

Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report: CT-27 5555 continues to display problematic empathetic traits.

When it rained now, your heart ached for him. For that clone trooper who you staggered into your apartment wondering when the Grand Army of the Republic would come to your door to charge you with theft of military property. The stubborn man who tried to limp out of your life claiming he was fine, Fives who had so quickly intertwined his way into your heart. Who jumped out of his skin every time you touched him, no matter how light and soft you were, but clung to you in the night so tightly the sheets would leave marks on your skin. Echo, the citadel, everything he confided in you, a civilian he didn’t know, nor trusted. He snickered when you tried to tend to the bruises, and was so tightly knit unraveling the trooper took you hours. You came to memorize names, Rex, Kix, Jesse, Skywalker, Ashoka. And when he could finally stand without all colour leaving his face Fives pressed a shaking kiss to your knuckles as the only thanks he could give. And almost twenty rotations later, there was a knock at the door and there he was. Covered in mud, hair to goatee to boots. You ushered him in without thinking, and your heart broke when you asked what happened, he just shook his head. His light brown eyes glassed over and he jerked when you tried to pull him into your arms. Shushing his protests and coming into contact with the mud that had gotten through his soaked Blacks as you ran your hand into his hair.

Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report: Retrial under Shaak Ti ends successfully, Domino Squad shipping out to Rishi moon.

“Cyare,” he gasped when you wrenched the door open. “Fives.” You threw yourself into him, he still had all his armour on, and you collided awkwardly with the plastoid. Hearing the sound of his helmet hitting the floor as he embraces you, burying his face within your hair. Only pulling back far enough for him to kiss you firmly. All your muscles that had been torn with anxiety finally let go as you relaxed in his arms. He was back, he was alive, he was safe now. It is a mystery to the entire 501st where the ARC Trooper goes when they finally land planetside. And you’re the only person in the galaxy that truly knows where he belongs.

Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report: ARC-1409 K.I.A ARC-5555 remains in service.

Fives sobs in your arms the night he returns from that campaign. From Hardcase’s death, to his arrest, the betrayal and subsequent deaths that resulted from Krell. He throws his armour off that night, jaw trembling as he looks at his Kama and Pauldrons.

“Lets run away.” You say, crying with him and holding his face in your hands. “Lets just go, no one has to know, we’ll go somewhere away from the war away from the republic away from it all.” He shakes his head.

“Away from the war? Mesh’la there’s nowhere far enough in all the galaxy.” When he wakes in the morning to leave again, back to the Grand Army of the Republic, he stops, and pulls your forehead to his. “I love you with all of my being.” He says, more serious than you’re used to, and presses something into your hand.

“Fives…” you stammer. It’s his graduation medal from Kamino, shining brightly in your palm.

“Keep it safe for me, yeah?” He smiles, “if i had time, i would’ve melted it down and made you a real ring…” You pull him forward into a burning kiss. You want him to stay longer, You want this war to be over, you want to be able to love him and for him to be able to love you, openly, freely, not as a weapon of the republic.

“I love you.” You call to him as he walks out the door again. He gives you his trademark smirk.

“I love you too.” He says

Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report: ARC-5555, stationed on Umbara was complicite in the execution of Jedi Master Krell.

You haven’t seen him in months. You come into your apartment dripping from the rain, only to collapse against the frigid durasteel door. He could be anywhere, even if he told you where the legion was dispatched that does not mean he wasn’t moved, transferred, or… Or dead. You weep. Taking gulps of stumbling breaths as reality hits you in an unforgiving wave as you realize, you may never know. Other militaries would contact those related to the deceased, but Fives, Fives would be another number in the kaminoan archives. Your grief manifests into a physical pain as your stomach intertwines and leaves you sobbing against the privy for the rest of the night.

“Listen, if anything ever happens to me…” “Fives don’t-” “If it does” “Don’t say it please, it can’t, i won’t…’ “Cyare-” “No! I won’t think of it, I won’t have you talking like that like, like…” “Okay Mesh’la, come’er. You know I always find my way back to you. But in case… in case I… get marooned, you find Rex, you find Captain Rex and give em hell for leaving me, okay?” “Okay. Okay, I love you, Fives.” “I love you too, cyare.”

You wait. One day after another, telling yourself that if he’s not back tomorrow you’ll go track the boys in blue down. If he’s not back tomorrow… Until finally, when Fives has been gone so long none of your sheets smell like him, even looking at his soap in the shower makes your crumble, and the elderly Twi down the hall starts asking where that man of yours got to because his rowdy laughter ‘aint keeping her up like she used to do with her sweetie back in the day.’

You tremble getting out of the speeder, forgetting to thank the driver as you hand them credits with the struggle of unpredictably jerky hands. The landing platform is busy, ships and speeders creating chaotic white noise along with the sounds of thousands of boots on durasteel. Picking one person out from the crowd is nearly impossible, how you’re supposed to find Captain Rex seems completely out of your depth. So you do the only thing that you seem capable of and wander slowly into a forgien world. Flashes of Kamas and pauldrons grip at your heart strings and solidify your determination. Colours of yellow, green and red painted armour make you wonder how they would have highlighted his eyes and hair differently had Fives been in another battalion. An engine backfire catches your attention as a trooper begins to yell at the other about fuel burns.

“There’s one thing Bacta can’t mend and that's burns! Get that through that shiny bucket of yours!” The stern voice breaks through the commotion and your eyes catch his helmet where it lies perched on his hip. Just above a blue strip of paint on his thigh plates. You make a mad dash towards the trooper, unsteady feet sending you into the sides of another clone who you push away in your haze.

“Wait!” You call to him, if your wits had been more present you would have recognised the hair style and medic insignia that catch your eye when he turns to face you.

“Can I help you mam?” He asks with a covertly raised eyebrow.

“Are you, 501st?” you pant.

“Yes mam.” He responds coldly.

“T-torrent company?” Maker, you’re out of shape.

“... yes.” He- Kix, you realise, responds hesitantly. You straighten yourself up. “I need to speak with Captain Rex.”

Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report: ARC-5555 operated on CT-5385 against orders. Charges for treason - Status: Pending.

Kix is far less sauve in person. You know him to be sharp as a whip and a noteworthy smooth talker. But the stories Fives had told you on the nights neither of you slept, one laying on top of the other, listening to him talk for hours about his brothers while carding his hands in your hair, those stories painted a different picture to the man you see in front of you. This Kix keeps looking over his shoulder like he’s got a thermal detonator strapped to his back. And every time your eyes meet his, he pales slightly and looks away. Then again, you might be the strangest thing he’s ever seen, you stick out like a sore thumb in a sea of faces that are all alike. “Wait here.” Kix tells you before disappearing into a barrack. You give him a nod and fish the medal out of your pocket, squeezing it tight. The doors open with another woosh, and you spy Kix inside looking out like you’re a crazed Loth Cat. But he is blocked from your sight by another set of armour and a clone with a Buzz cut whose colour gives away his identity.

“Rex...” You say from a memorized holo-still that you’ve got framed on your bedside table. His blonde buzz cut setting him apart from the other three men in the photo. Only one of whom you’ve got memorized down to every cell.

“Who. Are. You.” Oh, he’s so much colder than Fives, and so much more hidden away.

“I need you to tell me the location of one of your troopers.” You rush out, tunnel vision encasing your mind, heart so close to finding its other half. The Captain laughs at you.

“And you think I'm going to give that information away to some civilian? What makes you entitled to one of my men?” You shake with rage.

“He’s my fiance.” You seethe, and he laughs at you again. Anger becomes liquid in your tear ducts.

“Listen, I don’t know what must’a happen for that delusion to come to light and I don’t have the time for what I'm sure would be an entertaining explanation. So if you’ll excuse me.” He goes to push past you and your tears.

“CT 27-5555.” You deadpan, you’ve always hated those numbers just as much as he did. He never was, and will never be, a number to you. The captain stops in his tracks and looks feral when he turns back to you.

“What did you just say?” He grits out, and it makes you feel powerful. He may think he knows his men, he may think he knows the in and out of his company. But he doesn’t, you know Fives better than anyone in the galaxy, and right now that gives you power.

“CT 27-5555 of Domino Squad, made ARC status after the battle of Kamino, fought at the citadel, on Umbara and hasn’t been planetside in months.” You see the panic in Rexs’ eyes, you’re dangerous now, you have insider information, a spy? A sepratist? Republic traitor? Any of these identities would make you an atomb bomb.

“Who are you?” He says looking at you like a detonator. You’re crying in front of him, everyone looks tantalizingly similar to Fives, and yet they’re so different it's like a laser pointer and a Loth Cat, something that you just can't get under your hands.

“Please.” You beg, “just tell me where he is.” You uncurl your hand, leaving indents in it from the points and engraved words of the medal, and the captain's face softens tenfold. He opens his mouth to say something when the doors woosh open again.

“Captain, General Skywalker is- Maker!” Jesse exclaims upon seeing you. And you absentmindedly wipe away tears, Jesse is exactly as you pictured him. “How in the- you’re real! I knew it!” Rex looks more confused than before, but you, you can’t help but smile a sad smile at the memory.

“I had an idea” Fives had said one night, hiding in one of the shower stalls just to be able to talk to you. “Well there is a first time for everything.” You teased, sitting on your bed in one of his old decommissioned undershirts, the very same one he’d been wearing the night you met. “That's disrespecting a republic soldier.” He commented, maker, you were feeling the distance tonight, you wanted him here, tackling you onto the bed for your snide comments and feeling his goatee when he kissed you. But all that would have to wait. “Soon to be an ex-soldier.” You reminded him, the war was coming to a close, and the second Fives had confirmation of sepratist surrender the two of you planned on taking off. “Cayre that’s a dangerous line of thinking.” He said, looking over his shoulder. “I know, I know, oh!” You realised all of a sudden. “I also had an idea!” Fives smiled at you, he was feeling the distance as well, seeing you in his GAR shirt was making him antsy. “You go first then.” He said, rubbing his chin where stubble was growing in. “EJ” You smiled hopefully, it was a risky suggestion and a far away thought, stemmed from pillow talk about future dreams. “As in-” “Echo Junior” He finished for you, looking at the hologram version of yourself that was so close yet so far from the real thing. “I love it.” He said after a long silence, something that always accompanied bringing up Echo. “he would’a hated it though, always hated the name, even if he did repeat orders like a damn-” “Like a damn echo.” You said with him, shifting on the bed. “Okay tell me your idea now.” “WHO’S THAT?” Came a familiar voice as you watched Fives whirl around as one of his brothers briefly appeared on the holo before disappearing again. “JESSE YOU BANTHA SHIT.” You heard Fives shout, before the holo-call disconnected and the image turned off all together, you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Jesse.” You stated, coming face to face with the tattooed man for the first time. He was easy to recognize from the holograph and stories alone.

“Maker,” he said stunned and laughing “He always said you were just some holo-video.” Rex is looking between the two of you now.

“Jesse, you know this woman?” He inquired immediately, still on edge.

“Yes sir, no sir,” he stammered. “Well yes and no, Fives one night, he, well i…”

“He caught him on a comm with me.” You supplied, Jesse nodding enthusiastically at your response. You knew there was no hiding it now.

“I see.” Rex said thoughtfully. “Dismissed.”

“But sir, I, she…” Jesse started, before catching a glare and mumbling a yes sir as he retreated back into the barracks like a Loth wolf with its tail between its legs. Rex looked at you again, and took you in. Scrutinizing your existence with a sigh when his eyes land on the metal in your hand. Eyes glossing over in a thousand yard stare.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do, he said if he was missing to find you and I haven't heard from him in months…” You rambled, stopping when the captain raised his hand to rub his eyebrows.

“Who else have you told?” He asked.

“No one.” You breathed, “where is he.” You pushed, getting desperate now.

Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report: ARC-5555 removed his inhibitor chip against orders. Request for termination - Status: Granted.

Captain Rex brings you inside the torrent company barracks, and sits you down to tell you. Fives is dead, he tried to kill the chancellor, and was charged with treason. All of the warmth leaves you. Fives is dead, he tried to kill the chancellor, and was charged with treason. You cover your face with your hands as you cry, your headache splitting your skull in two as you try to contain tears and noise. Fives is dead, he tried to kill the chancellor, and was charged with treason. Fives will be buried stripped of his rank, medals, and labeled a traitor to the republic. Rex stands over you while you cry, unsure of what else to do. In all but a few moments he learns of your being, your devotion to his brother, and then, he widowed you.

“Can I see him?” You all but beg, and with a nod Rex walks out of the room, leaving you with no choice but to follow him. Rex... admires you. Yes, he does admire your will, to seek him out and risk your own life just to be able to love a clone. One of many million, who you had given your heart to. He admires your strength because when he leads you to the medbay morgue and you see the lifeless body, you do not cry. Rex stands guard at the door, and intrudes on this intimate moment that is a glimpse of the life that he never knew Fives had.

“Look at you, so this is what it takes for you to get a haircut eh?” You try the lame joke and run your hand over his cold face, stopping at the trademark goatee, tapping it lovingly. “And yet, you still have this.” silent tears begin. “I still set the table for two people, even when you’re gone.” You confess, “because I never know when you’re going to be back.” “Why didn’t we just leave?” You whisper to him, “you stubborn, stubborn man. Why didn’t we just go?” You lean in close and smooth his facial hair over, and over again. Crying, and cursing the republic. You hear clatter from outside, and turn to look, Rex is looking as well, he’s risking everything to let you say goodbye. His eyes meet yours and you know this has to be quick. “Say hi to him for me, say hi to Echo for me, and remember how much i love you? Please? Because I do, I love you so, so much Fives. More than I could ever say.” You place one last kiss to his forehead, knowing that this will be the last kiss you ever give him. And place the medal on his chest, the one that made him a soldier, that made you engaged and made your claim to his heart, real. “Keep it.” The voice from the doorway says, and it sounds so similar to his, you gasp. But when you turn the eyes won’t have a golden hue, the hair won’t feel the same, and the man will be a carbon copy on paper, but completely different in reality. Your lonely fingers curl around the medal once again, and lift it from his chest.

Kamino Archives - Batch # 34-7229 - Domino squad report: ARC-5555 Terminated. No members of Domino Squad remaining.

End of report.

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politicaltheatre · 3 years

Text

Depraved Indifference

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."

- Donald Trump, at a campaign stop at Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa, January 23, 2016

This quote didn’t find its way into the second impeachment trial of the now-former President, but it should have. In a better world it would have, but in that better world a man such Donald Trump would not ever have been elected to any office, let alone one as powerful as president. And yet, somehow he was.

Donald Trump is no longer president, something his defenders, standing before the Senate and sitting among the trial’s jury, have taken great pains to try to focus our attention on.

Note how they talk about the importance of “moving on” and getting over it, thereby distancing us and, far more importantly, themselves from what was done.

Note how they try to frame the charge against Trump - “inciting violence against the government of the United States” - as merely “partisan” and “political”, something devoid of any legal justification or standing, as if the crimes were not witnessed by billions around the world in real time.

Note how, when faced with having to face the morally depraved actions they either encouraged or enabled in Trump and those who followed him, and having to defend their own complicity in the indefensible result, they turn to not even a little bit thinly veiled threats against those daring to accuse. Any retribution, they do declare, any continuation of violence against Trump’s declared enemies, that will be on you.

This has all the subtlety and predictability of a trial in the Jim Crow South, and, given the number of Confederate flags waving inside the Capitol on January 6th, that really isn’t too strong a comparison.

Trump, as anyone anywhere in the world even casually paying attention should know, is entirely guilty of inciting that riot. He spent years cultivating doubt in the electoral system, months casting doubt on the 2020 mail-in voting results, and, finally, weeks spreading blatant lies about voting fraud, ones that he continues to tell to this day.

He did all of this while encouraging and enabling exactly the kind of violence done on his behalf that we all saw on the 6th and, as the House impeachment managers have helpfully shown at length, in the days, weeks, months, and years leading up to it.

“Stand back and stand by”, right? The Proud Boys stuck that on t-shirts.

If the videos the House managers have played have failed to persuade, we tell ourselves, perhaps the evidence of Trump’s Defense and Justice departments undermining the Capitol police and National Guard’s response will. How about a timeline of Trump’s fiddling while the Capitol burned and his own Vice President quite literally ran for his life? No? Really?

You don’t need a lot of time to prepare a case when the defendant has been caught, figuratively, thousands of times in the middle of Fifth Avenue with a smoking gun. Trump’s thumbs offered up hundreds of smoking guns to choose from. Videos of his post-election rallies do, too. The ones he posted that day, hours after the breach, calling the men and women hunting “traitors” of both parties and battering Capitol police with American flags “patriots”, well, that’s a prosecutor’s dream. Or should be.

So, yes, he is guilty. Very, very, very guilty.

Ah, but so are at least three of his jury members: Josh Hawley, James Lankford, and Ted Cruz. They all gave credence to Trump’s lies, they all gave weight to those lies by demanding that the Senate investigate them once more and yet again before confirming the election, and that day they all cynically and repeatedly called for the rejection of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Well, Hawley and Cruz did; Lankford was trying to when he was evacuated.

They were no less guilty of trying to profit from the misplaced and misguided rage of those storming the Senate chamber than Trump, and, if the rioters’ own social media accounts are to be believed, Hawley and Cruz at the very least were no less accountable for them being there. Lankford, it seems, needs to up his social media game.

Those three senators, of course, are not on trial. They are merely jurors charged with deciding the guilt or innocence of Donald Trump for doing what they did themselves. They will be joined in their guaranteed “No” votes by at least 41 other Republican senators who, like them, once again voted to claim that, despite over 200 years of clear legal precedent, this impeachment trial is “unconstitutional”.

It’s no shock that the House managers’ detailed legal history lesson fell on deaf ears, nor is it that those three and other Trump Republicans were caught “reading” during the presentation of evidence. Rand Paul, whose own ridiculous claims about the election and trial have been followed by threats of retaliation, was caught doodling like teen stuck in detention.

This, not anything said by Trump’s crack legal team, is the argument for the defense: they know what Trump did, they know it was wrong, they know what they’re doing, and they know that’s wrong, too. And they do not care. They do not care.

These aren’t stupid people, they’re just dishonest. More specifically, they’re corrupt. What they believe, what they take as a matter of faith, is that they’ll face no real consequences for anything they’re doing or anything they’ve done.

And who’s to tell them they’re wrong? What’s the worse Hawley or Cruz will face? Censure? You can’t shame the shameless. They’ll wear their censures the same way Trump would, as a badge of courage on which they can raise campaign money and, they hope, draw out votes from Trump’s millions of rabidly loyal supporters.

For Hawley, Cruz, and others already campaigning for 2024, that’s all that matters. For them, this is just an opportunity, a means to an end, as they pursue their highly profitable careers in politics. It’s just business. For them, Trump, and every other one in Congress, on TV, and on social media who chose to ignore what people might do if they lied to them and wound them up, and for all of those choosing to ignore the consequences of it now, that’s all this is: just business.

And that’s the problem.

Politics shouldn’t be a business. We know that without even having to be told. When we talk about it, we do so in terms of “service” and “doing one’s duty”, words and phrases that romanticize the selfless nature we want to see in our politics and our politicians. We don’t just do that because that’s how we’ve always heard it spoken of, we do that because we know that the ones who embody that ideal are rare. There’s just too much evidence to deny it.

Go back far as you want, there have been men and women seeking power for the purpose of defending themselves and their friends from accountability. Back in the day, they sought appointments through connections or simply joined the clergy. These days, they run for office.

The political party in this country that currently stands against accountability is the Republican Party. Sure, the Democratic Party has its own sizable share of complicity for allowing the country’s drift into right-wing aggressive selfishness, but, lucky for us, it hasn’t been able to rid itself of its accountable members the way the Republican Party has. Of course, that’s only natural, given the importance of accountability to the political Left.

The last two Republican presidents were elected in no small part because they had a background in business. Yes, they each ran their businesses into the ground, but they ran them.

George W. Bush came into office as a “corporate” president, one who would, we were assured, delegate to those more experienced and skilled in areas where he was…lacking. We waved away his inadequacies and were somehow shocked when he failed in exactly every one of those areas. Still, he and his friends made money hand over fist, so the corporate presidency was good for business, big business, in particular, which got a big bailout.

Donald Trump should have inspired even less confidence, but confidence man that he is, he played enough suckers to get him in the White House. As much pain, suffering, and death as he has caused in four excruciatingly long years, he and his cronies have made out like gangbusters, too. The government they were hired to manage, not so much.

From the start, he and his cabinet secretaries lived by the old rule, “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission”. Not that they asked for forgiveness. That’s for losers. They broke laws, fleeced taxpayers, and resigned knowing that whatever penalty they might face would pale compared to the profits they took with them.

This is the mentality that drives corporate decision making around the world. For them, the adage is a bit more like, “better to settle a lawsuit than risk profits”. They, too, avoid apologies whenever possible. That keeps the damages paid to to victims and their families lower.

Currently, there are companies selling cars, drugs, baby food, and other products that they know are defective and a threat to the people using them. They know this. They know there’s a high risk that people will die, and they do it anyway. Instead of recognizing the threat and stopping, they do cost-benefit analyses to determine the number of deaths from their products they can afford.

This, it’s worth stating, is not capitalism. We may tell ourselves that it is, but that’s just us looking for an easy answer, a scapegoat for our own failures. In fact, this pattern was just as common under communism, too; just ask anybody who used to live near Chernobyl. Mistakes are hidden, a given number of deaths are accepted, and the perception of success and prestige is maintained.

This is corruption, and deaths and suffering caused by a lack of accountability are what corruption does. A death is a symptom, a great, big red flag, something to tell you that something is very, very, very wrong, but how many of those red flags do we see and ignore before we finally stop to ask what it is we’ve been seeing?

How many smaller red flags, such as poverty, racism, anti-semitism, police brutality, injustice, and sexual abuse, do we pass because we’ve just become so used to seeing them? Do we tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do? Do we even ask if there is anything we can do? Or do we, as so many senators are now preparing to do, instead embrace corruption as a virtue.

This is the real threat, a system that accepts this and holds no one accountable, and a culture that pushes back against demands for accountability, embracing the very worst of who we are and what we can do to others just to prove that we can. The result is a flood of childish acting out and a loss of trust in products and services that we must be able to trust because they are supposed to keep us safe.

Is this as great a threat to our society as the January 6th attack on the Capitol? This is that attack. The product failures that led to the attack were political. We have watched as our political and government institutions have failed. We have watched as those entrusted to deliver a product that works and keeps us safe have, again and again, deliberately or not, betrayed that trust. As with any other product sold, each breach of trust carries over into the next, accumulating and compounding, eroding not just our ability to trust those products but all products like them.

Think of the doubts Americans have about the safety of vaccines? Sure, we can chalk that down to internet conspiracy theories and echo chambers if we like, but would they have gained the traction they have in a world in which we weren’t inundated with ads featuring paid-non-attorney-spokespersons asking us if we or a loved one took this drug or that and had experienced one or more life threatening side effects? How many of us heard about the Covid-19 vaccines and asked, How long before we see the ads for that?

For decades, we have allowed ourselves to become a nation of beta-testers, taking on the cost and burden of quality control that the companies releasing and profiting from these products, and these class action lawsuits have become big business as a result. Every new pharmaceutical product that hits the shelves, part of us is just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Time and the success of these vaccines should put an end to that, at least for this pandemic, but that we have to do so should tell us about the work we have to do to repair our society, or to build one that can exist without absolving us from being accountable to each other.

Until then, we have other kinds of corruption to face, including one that may be more destructive than anything we’re seeing in the Senate this week.

The Reddit-GameStop insurrection might have been fun to watch from the sidelines, a bit of schadenfreude for those of us on the outside of Wall Street, looking in, but the truth is the hedge fund villains still made their money, and the systemic fault lines this episode exposed should have us all scared and paying attention.

Our economy is overly concentrated in Wall Street’s product and therefore overly dependent on its success and stability. A loss of faith in its product has been underway for years. That’s how you get to day traders trying to take on hedge funds the way they did. This wasn’t David vs Goliath, this was guerrilla warfare over who gets to make the quick and easy profits.

The upside of that is that some of the “little guys” seem to win something; the downside of that is that it does nothing to fix the problems we have with Wall Street. Rather, it only makes them worse, by highlighting how easy it is to manipulate stocks and commodities and how few get to do it and get away with it.

What happens, then, when no one has any faith left in Wall Street? What happens when everyone believes it is nothing more than a casino designed to take money rather than make it?

Well, we’re almost there. We have a massive, growing online gambling industry, and with it an online gambling problem. Sports leagues, some with their own recent histories of cheaters (and worse) getting away with it, have turned their own fans onto gambling as part of the sport. How many of these people, blowing their money on bad beats, think of it as no different than investing on Wall Street stocks?

A better question: What happens to all of those stock prices when everyone, including the crooks on Wall Street, lose faith in that system, take their profits, and leave? An even better question: What happens if they do that all at once?

The answer is: Lost jobs, pensions, food and housing security, and hope.

In other words, 2020 on steroids. That’s what you get with corruption, an environment in which politicians like Donald Trump, companies willing to harm consumers, and right wing domestic terrorists thrive. As long as they aren’t held accountable, they will.

“Bad for the country”, indeed.

- Daniel Ward

#impeachment #corruption #politics #depraved indifference #aggressive selfishness #Donald Trump #josh hawley #ted cruz #james lankford #mitch mcconnell #lindsey graham #republicans #democrats #january 6th #insurrection #long reads #long read

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mangobilorian · 4 years

Text

Cooperation | (explicit)

Pairing: Captain Rex x Reader

Genre: Smut

Words: 5085

read first chapter

Summary: You fully intend to get a night alone with your captain.

Even if it means disguising yourself and outrunning rabid paparazzi.

Many people think that princesses live in indulgence. Opulent palaces, luxurious vacations, rare fashion. They’re not wrong; most of the time you find yourself living a more expensive life than the majority of the galaxy. But the galaxy is at war. A war that your planet, including many others, was dragged into. A war that blurs the edges between right and wrong, loser and victor. In wartime, there’s little to celebrate except for winning battles. However, despite the war sowing chaos and famine and death among your people, you can say, with confidence, that there's one good outcome to come of it: Rex.

Rex has been your one indulgence in the entire war, ever since the first attack on your diplomatic mission to now, nestled next to him in a dark alleyway. You would never be caught in such a scandalous position, your head nuzzled into his neck, arms wrapped tight around his armored body. The thought of getting caught, ruining your reputation, and potentially being cast off from your family occurs to you almost immediately, but— wrapped in the comfort of Rex’s arms— you can ignore the impending consequences for a bit longer.

“Are they gone?”

“Hopefully. Let’s wait for a bit longer,” Rex says, voice a filtered whisper above your head. He leans back, eyeing you through his visor. It’s not his usual helmet, no blue paint or jaig eyes or tally marks. No, he wears a simple white one to match his mostly-new, slightly scuffed armor. You remember him telling you that he swiped it off a shiny. The disguise worked of course; since the army is made up of identical men, civilians won’t bat an eye. As for your disguise… you should have worn better makeup and maybe a less transparent headdress. Or possibly a sturdier one? Honestly, you should have dressed up as anyone but a Pantoran. Oh well. You didn’t listen to Riyo when she said the plan wouldn’t work, but it’s not her place to talk when she has her own clone commander to sneak out with.

“You good? How’s the makeup holding up?” You frown. The blue paint already faded from your fingers long ago when you first held a cold glass of beer. It was an amateur move, and you’ll use better body paint next time. If there is a next time.

“I feel sticky. And hot.” Rex chuckles, causing you to rock in his arms.

“We did run around Coruscant.” He lifts a finger to your cheek and wipes. “Yeah, the yellow is completely gone.” Of course. The distinctive Pantoran markings were the first to go once you and Rex started fleeing. Rex peers over your shoulder and slowly detaches himself. You try not to whine at the loss of contact, but you do anyway, and Rex gives your shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Come on.” His hand warms your own and, despite being slightly overheated due to an unforeseen chase, you welcome it.

Together, you dart between buildings and people. As you near a more commercial area, the crowds begin to grow. Rex separates himself, opting to walk a few paces behind. Even with the headdress on, you make sure to duck your head. No one questions Rex since the armor is a big enough deterrent. When you see two Coruscant guards, you force yourself to keep moving. It would be more suspicious for you to wait for a random clone trooper talking to his brothers.

By the time they reach Rex, you’re far enough ahead that you can’t make out their conversation. As much as you want to hide and wait for him so you can maintain a reasonable distance, you have another task at hand. You hail down a speeder cab, making small talk with the droid driver. Just before you speed off, you turn to Rex, a few meters behind. He scratches his helmet, once, twice. To anyone else, it wouldn’t be anything of note. To you, it’s a sign that he understands. Feeling reassured, you speed off.

The entire ride through the busy Coruscant night traffic is in complete silence. While the droid tries to make some conversation, your mind is entirely focused on one clone captain. The last time you both had the chance to meet was around three standard months ago. His recent campaign had been a long one, and he didn’t want to talk about it. You understand. It’s hard to lose fellow soldiers. It’s even harder when they’re your own brothers.

Despite not having any siblings of your own (courtesy of the strict regulations on the ruling family), you know what it’s like to lose the ones you care about. The last three months have been hard on you too: traveling all over the galaxy, passing legislation at home, dealing with scheming politicians. But the majority of your worry centered around Rex and how he was doing. It's sad, you think, that the moment he got back, he had to immediately deal with the complexity of your relationship.

He never explicitly told his brothers about you, but they know him well enough to read between the lines. Especially Kix. The medic figured out Rex’s feelings before he even confessed. He never compromised his duties, but suspicious marks on his neck and sneaking out at random hours only added to the theories. You worried that the rumor mill would spread, and your relationship would reach your parents.

While you might be stripped of your title as princess or forced to marry someone else, Rex faces the very real threat of decommissioning. Or reconditioning. Thankfully, the clones only gossiped amongst themselves. So while an entire battalion could know certain, scandalous details, no one else (not even their commanding Jedi) would know.

When Rex got back, you planned a simple date night at a bar with him. With precautions and his brothers’ discreet help, of course. He had to dress up as a shiny since, as Anakin Skywalker’s second in command, he was among the most recognizable clones. For you, a princess who’s friends with multiple senators, the spotlight isn’t new. Everything was going well, and you were well on your way to being tipsy. But—as odds have it— you were spotted. The people who saw you hounded you with questions. What neither you nor Rex knew at the time, was that a female Pantoran celebrity landed on Coruscant the day before. The media hoped to catch a glimpse of her and, despite your yellow tattoos looking nothing like hers, they latched onto you. And the fact that a clone trooper was next to you. You sincerely hope the real Pantoran won’t suffer too much from the media’s onslaught.

The droid’s robotic voice jolts you out your thoughts. Fumbling a bit, you insert a credit chit (a temporary, untraceable one), and hop off. The apartment building itself isn’t that discrete. While the building doesn’t reek of poverty, it pales in comparison to your regular Coruscant residence. You think of the handmaidens and guards you tricked and hope they aren’t too mad you snuck out.

Sighing, you enter the unit and flick on some lights when something grabs you. It’s a testament to your upbringing that you don’t scream outright. Or attack back. The attacker in question begins laughing, a full-bellied, happy laugh. You’d smile if it weren’t at your expense.

There, grinning from ear to ear, Rex stands, one hand on your arm.

“How did you get here before me?” He shrugs, leading you further into the unit and tossing you a pack of wipes.

“Skipper and Boot dropped me off two buildings down.” Ah. The two Coruscant guards, you suspect. You begin wiping the blue paint off your face and neck first before moving onto your hands.

“They weren’t suspicious?” Rex gives you a little grin before sliding a hand to your backside and giving a little squeeze. You yelp, more out of how uncharacteristic it is than surprise. You try to levy a glare, but his smug face is too much of a deterrent. Bastard. Hot, sexy, romantic bastard.

“I’m not the first clone who snuck off to an apartment building. And since I look shiny, they were even more willing.” He takes the wipe from your hand, rubbing at the spots you miss, and you have to stop from swooning at how sweet he is.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, something about ‘little brothers growing up.’ I told them I had a hot Pantoran waiting for me, and they broke half a dozen laws to get me here.” You raise a brow, a smile tugging at your lips.

“That eager, huh?”

“Always,” Rex whispers. It occurs to you, just now, how close you are. Sometime during your conversation, Rex had maneuvered you to press against his armorless chest, one hand on your waist, the other on your lower back. He tugs you even closer, and you can feel the hardness of his muscles beneath his skin-tight blacks. You realize, with some disappointment, that you’re still fully clothed in a heavy outfit, cloak, and headdress. Rex seems to have the same realization, and he leans down to steal a kiss.

You let him, closing your eyes and reveling in the steady, comforting way his lips move against yours. A hand slides up your shoulders, and you hear the gentle thud of your cloak falling. The fresh air against your now bare arms makes you gasp, and Rex takes the opportunity to brush his tongue on the roof of your mouth. You shudder, head already swirling at the sensation.

Rex leads you with a steady grip on your waist. You don’t bother separating, and stumble a bit. He catches you, and you giggle, breath mixing with his own. The ground moves beneath you before something hard presses into the backs of your knees. You open your eyes just as you tumble backwards into the bed, headdress already discarded. Rex gives you a smile, trying to be seductive but looking much too adorable. You can’t help but laugh. He flushes, the beautiful red decorating his dark skin, and his cuteness increases tenfold. It gives you whiplash, honestly, how someone so hot and sturdy can be a total, bumbling sweetheart.

Hands grab at the closures on the side of your dress, and you shift downwards to allow the garment to slip off. Rex throws the dress to the side, and if it were anyone else, you’d complain. The dress, despite being a disguise, is still a collector’s item from Alderaan’s latest fashion season. But, since Rex was the one to haphazardly throw the dress equivalent of priceless art on the ground, you hold your tongue. Actually, you open your mouth, but only to let Rex slide his tongue into it.

Moaning around his lips, you feel the rest of your undergarments loosen and fall aside. In your haze, you grasp at Rex’s biceps, pleased at the strength under his muscles. You slide a hand down his chest, feeling every hard plane, every dip. Rex pulls off you for a moment, eyes wandering over your exposed body. He unzips his blacks hastily, almost desperately, and you mourn about the fact that you didn’t have enough time to admire Rex in his blacks. It’s a simple protective undergarment, but the way it hugs his body is much too tantalizing for you.

You sit up on the bed, bracing yourself on your elbows, and watch. The material clings to his skin, even as he wiggles out of it. It’s tempting to say that he strips sexily. With his darkened eyes and languid movements, Rex definitely looks like a seasoned man. But the concentration on his face alongside the uncooperative fabric makes him seem all too adorable. You want to laugh again but opt for sending him a smile instead. Just because Rex’s ego isn’t high doesn’t mean you should damage it right before sex.

You don’t bother hiding your appreciation as he reveals more skin. Finally, after what feels like hours of agony, Rex stands bare. Without another second to spare, he leans over you, nudging you to your back. Lips graze over yours for a moment before forcing your mouth open. Groaning, you wrap your arms around Rex’s broad shoulders.

He slides you up the bed, closer to the headboard, and his lips leave yours before attaching to your neck. The steady sucking and occasional bite make your head dizzy, and you close your eyes. Your cunt throbs already, anticipating, waiting. Rex shifts, tongue licking at the skin below your collarbone, and you feel something half-hard against your leg. It feels good, like always, to have Rex’s mouth on you, but a sudden thought pierces through your hazy mind.

“No. Visible… marks,” you manage to say. Rex’s head lifts from his assault on your neck.

“Oh. Forgot about that,” he says, sending you a sheepish smile. He’s cute, you think. Too cute. And, despite being so much bigger and stronger, you have the urge to wrap him up in a big hug and protect him forever. After you get your brains fucked out of course. It seems like he’s on the same wavelength, and his adorable face plunges into the valley between your breasts and- oh .

Rex goes straight for sucking and biting and licking everywhere but the one place you need him. By the time Rex finishes marking your entire chest, your nipples almost ache at being left untouched. You whine, going so far as pushing his head closer to you. He chuckles, and his warm breath feels so good against your already heated skin. Finally, after moments of pure torture, his tongue grazes over your right nipple.

You moan, momentarily satisfied. Laying here, with Rex’s mouth on you, feels better than expensive vacations or gaudy clothes or aged alcohol. Rex makes you descend into pure bliss, and he manages it with foreplay alone. You shift a bit, trying to open your legs to wrap around his waist. He lifts up, and your legs ease out from beneath him.

With Rex paying attention to your chest, you take the opportunity to grind up against him. Your clit grazes against his lower abdomen, just above the thing you desperately want inside you. But you have some patience and, since it took a lot of work to plan this night, you have hours to spare. The thought makes you giddy; hours alone with Rex sounds like the closest thing to heaven.

You rock gently against him, the grinding just enough to satisfy you. Rex, ever the vigilant lover, takes notice and separates from your chest. Before you can whine, he unhooks your legs from his waist and crawls down. A moment later, he wraps his arms around your thighs, encasing his head between your legs. You only have a second to breathe before a warm tongue touches you right there . Your right leg drops to the bed, no longer held, and a hand reaches up to wrap around your breast.

Rex’s tongue circles your clit, once, twice, three times in slow, delicate motions. It’s akin to torture and only makes your clit throb. You try to push up off the bed, but his grip on your left leg traps you down. The only thing you can do is throw your head back and close your eyes.

“F-fuck, Rex. Too… slow,” you groan. He chuckles in response, the uneven vibrations of his voice making you even hotter. Rex squeezes your breast for a brief moment then begins to suck on your clit in earnest. He alternates between sucking and using his tongue to swipe in multiple directions. Up and down, left and right, even a constant pulsing motion centered around your clit. To add to your yearning, he doesn’t even touch your center. You know, without a doubt, that you must be dripping.

All it takes a long swipe up your entire cunt for you to scream. Thankfully, you manage to throw a hand over your mouth despite your head being too fuzzy to think about anything else. His tongue continues to lick you, coaxing you through the high, until you whine about overstimulation. After a minute or two, your breathing slows, and the tingles all over your body seem to subside. When you open your eyes, you see Rex grinning over you. His mouth is shiny and wet—your doing, you think with pride— and you pull him in for a kiss, not minding the taste.

“Good?” he murmurs softly against your swollen lips.

“Yeah. Very good,” you say and pull away for a second to plant a messy kiss on his neck. Just as you open your mouth to suck a hickey there, Rex backs off. Suppressing a pout, your eyes trail from his neck, down his chest, and to the very hard cock Rex holds in his hand.

He spreads your legs with his knees, and lowers down. A hand hovers right above your mouth. You give Rex the sexiest look you can manage—to which he responds with an endearing smile— as you lick a wet stripe down his palm. You take two of his fingers in your mouth, sucking and swirling with your tongue. His smile transforms into something hungrier, more primal, and you clench around empty air. It’s messy and wet and much too hot, even for you. Against your protests, Rex retracts his hand. He pumps himself once, twice. Despite him already being hard, his cock seems to grow larger. He has a prominent vein on the underside of his cock, a glistening red tip. You want him in your mouth but… Force, you need him inside you first.

“ Please , Rex,” you plead. He presses himself against your core, and thrusts his hips up and down, coating his cock with your wetness. His motions cause the head to brush against your pulsing clit.

When he’s satisfied, Rex pushes in just a little bit. “Ready?” You nod desperately, too excited to think straight. Rex groans as he slides in the rest of the way. It’s a tight fit— Rex is a supersoldier, and you haven’t had sex in three months— but Rex manages to fill you up perfectly. The first time you had sex had been a tad painful. The both of you were inexperienced since he never bothered with sex, and you had a reputation to think about. Granted, you fucked in an empty closet aboard a Star Destroyer, which might have added to the somewhat painful encounter. But here, trapped by his arms in a secret apartment, you’re proud to say that Rex stretches you in the most delicious way without any hints of real pain.

He pulls back a little bit before thrusting a little harder, and he starts at a steady pace. It’s not fucking, but Rex definitely isn’t going as slow as he can. There’s a slight urgency in his movements, a hint of care and intimacy. He leans over you, bracing himself on his elbows, and you grip his biceps, his hips meeting yours with every thrust.

“Fuck...,” he groans. “You’re so. Kriffing. Tight,” he says, dipping his head into your neck. You feel the bare trace of teeth and tense, slightly worried about marks, but it’s his tongue that darts to the dip above your collarbone.

Rex alternates between an in-out-in-out-in-out motion and grinding as you reach down to rub your clit. “So good,” you mewl, baring your neck for Rex. It’s altogether a bit too much: your fingers combined with Rex’s cock send you spiraling. You can feel the tell-tale sign of an orgasm coming— the urge for release just barely out of reach.

“Close?”

“Hmm... yeah.” Rex detaches himself, and you pout. The absence of his chest on yours allows the room’s air to cool your sweaty, heated skin. His thrusts slow until they stop. Frowning, you try to grind back, but Rex places a hand on your lower stomach and presses down.

“Can we change positions? For a bit?” Rex asks, looking shy despite his cock seated deep inside you. You nod; the brief interruption already has your orgasm dancing even further out of reach.

Rex pulls out in one motion, and you groan at the sudden loss. You spare a glance at his cock, moaning all the while. Rex flushes. Cute.

Hands grip your hips and gently urge you to turn. You follow his instruction, pushing yourself up on your elbows to flip and lie on your stomach. The air feels good against your back, and you prop your knees up, face planted into the sheets. It’s a presentation of sorts, a tantalizing, submissive position. You shake your ass for a good measure and smile when you hear Rex’s breath hitch.

You yelp when a rough hand grips your ass for a second, squeezing tight , before leaving. Then a sharp slap rings throughout the room, and a distinctive, stinging pain registers. “Good?” Rex asks, voice throaty and raw and much too attractive.

“Yes, captain,” you say, smiling into the sheets. When you first addressed him by rank, you had been making out in an empty medbay. He came in his blacks—armor included— and apologized profusely to which you responded with another kiss.

Rex slaps you again, and you jolt in surprise. The force isn’t hard, but it surprises you nonetheless. You feel two hands on each of your cheeks, and they pull at the flesh there, exposing you. The air feels good on both your holes but not as good as Rex manhandling you. He pushes your cheeks together and apart again. Rex moves them up and down too, pinching at the junction of your ass and thighs, massaging your lower back. He’s playing, you realize, and you love it. “Your ass is so fucking good,” he groans, sending another slap down. One of his hands snake to your waist and grips the skin there.

“Please, captain. I need-” Rex shuffles on his knees a bit and, without warning, pushes into you all the way. At this angle, he fills you deeper than before, and you have no choice but to take it. Rex starts slowly, making sure you get used to the new position. A hand settles on the dip of your lower back.

He grinds down and little by little starts to pick up the pace. His speed pushes you up the bed, and you can hear the supports squeak against the floor. You manage to sneak a hand between your body and the bed, finding your clit with practiced ease. As you begin rubbing yourself in desperate figure-eights, Rex thrusts a little faster, a little harder. He presses down, rocking your whole body, forcing all coherent thoughts out your head.

“You like that, princess?” You can only groan in reply, the warmth in your stomach building. “So kriffing hot,” he grunts and licks a blistering stripe up your spine. He presses in as deep as he can and, instead of almost pulling out and ramming back in like before, he thrusts shallower but harder. The increased pressure makes your head loll, and you distinctly feel a wet pool by your chin where you drooled.

Your fingers on your clit pick up their pace, bordering on pure agony and pleasure. You forget following patterns and move messily to stimulate your clit. It’s harder to keep your hand there though because Rex leans over to press against your back, trapping you. His chest is sweaty but hard and sturdy and firm. “ Fuck , princess. You’re so good to me.” He sends a particularly hard thrust into you, and you yelp at the pressure.

“I- kriff- love you, Rex,” you breathe out, mind delirious but honest. Your confession seems to send him into a frenzy because he pulls away, grabs your biceps to haul you off the bed, and sets a bruising pace. He bends you so your back arcs, face upturned to the ceiling while the captain pounds into you from behind.

Lips attach to your right shoulder, and you keen as Rex bites down. With every thrust in and out, you hear the sinful way your ass smacks against his hips, the wet squelch of his cock rearranging your guts. Rex’s rough grunts when he grinds deeper into you, your choked moans at his roughness. He rocks against you, pushing up-up-up . It’s thrilling: being used like this. You’re like a rag doll in his arms. And it’s oh so delightful to let Rex wreck you. With his speed and aggression, your breasts bounce uncontrollably, almost painfully. In your haze, you manage to cup your chest with your hands, trying to ease the pain. Your fingers roll around your stiff nipples which sends a new wave of pleasure to your cunt. But you can barely hold on; the sheer speed makes your breasts bounce too fast. Rex’s thrusts send your hands tumbling away, unable to grip on.

The bruising pace makes your eyes roll, and you finally let go. Your entire body goes limp in Rex’s hold, content to let him have your heart and your body and your mind. He continues to use you, not relenting in his pace. Sensing your tiredness, Rex lowers you to the bed, unlatching his hands from your biceps but keeping one on your lower back, still pounding into you.

It takes three more deep thrusts before you come, gasping into the pillow. Colors burst behind your closed eyelids, clouds of pure pleasure and dizziness and affection. Rex grunts once, twice, and tenses, groaning. You feel a warm burst, and suddenly, you’re fuller than you thought possible.

He drapes his body over yours, and the both of you stay there, content to be together. It takes minutes before you return to your senses, and even then you’re still a little fuzzy. He stays inside you the whole time, and you feel his cock soften with a slight throb here and there. Even while limp, however, he still manages to fill you enough so nothing leaks out.

Something gentle brushes against the side of your face, tethering you to the physical world. “Love you too, princess,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “My cyare,” Rex adds with another kiss on your neck. You shiver despite feeling much too hot and grin into the bed.

A moment later, he pulls away, the both of you groaning. You feel empty and cold, and your cunt clenches as he leaves. A steady trickle of his release drips down your skin and onto the sheets below. Rex lets you go and, with an undignified grunt, you roll to your back, Rex joining you. The two of you lay there, basking in the aftermath. More cum drips out of you, and the thought makes your clit throb. Fuck, you just came twice and you’re already horny again.

“Come here,” Rex orders, tugging you into a hug. He grabs two pillows and places them under your heads, but you migrate over to his. “Pillow stealer,” he accuses. You smile back. After all, it’s much better to share one pillow. He drapes an arm over your torso, and you nuzzle into his neck.

“That was good,” you murmur.

“Yeah? You liked that?” There’s a small hint of vulnerability in his voice, something unsure and worried.

“Of course. You know what I like.”

“I guess... I didn’t go too hard, did I? You went limp all of a sudden, and I thought I hurt you.” You separate from his neck, looking up at his concerned face.

“You’d never hurt me. Never. It just felt so good that I let go. I’d… like that again,” you blink up at him. Already, the pull of sleep calls to you.

“Oh. Ok.” His eyes drift down to your neck. “Sorry.”

“Hmm?”

“There’s quite a few visible marks.” You smile tiredly at his guilty expression.

“I can cover it with makeup. I’ve gotten better at it, haven’t I?” The both of you laugh. Rex places a hand on the back of your head and tugs you closer. You entangle your legs and, with a shy smile, feel the wet trace of his cum spill down your thighs. He seems to feel it too because he tenses. Worried that he might be uncomfortable, you try to pull back but stop when something nudges against you.

“Already? How?”

Rex grins. “Enhanced human, remember? Besides, you’re sexy and naked and tight.”

“And wet,” you add on.

“And wet.”

“I’m a little tired though,” you say as a yawn escapes your lips. While the thought of getting fucked by Rex again is enough for even more of his cum to gush out, you’re still tired. The whole day has been exhausting: putting on a disguise, running from the press, and getting fucked by the man you love.

“If you want, you don’t have to move.”

“Oh?” He hums, tracing a nonsensical pattern on your skin.

“I’ll be on top and you can lay there. You can even sleep.” The idea is tempting; not having to do anything while Rex fucks you sounds like a dream. But you want to make sure he doesn’t get too tired or feel like he’s being used. He deserves to relax. You think of ways to show him how much he deserves it. Maybe later, after a round or two, you can wrap your mouth around him, bob your head, and taste him for the first time in three months. Swirl your tongue on the underside and-

Well. You’re tired but still very much horny.

“If you really want to.”

“Oh I definitely want to, princess.” You giggle at his enthusiasm and place a tiny kiss on his collarbone, eyes almost closing out of exhaustion.

“Well then, captain, go ahead.” He pulls away to lean down and peck your lips then turns you to lie flat on your back, already slicking his impossibly hard cock against your cum-filled, dripping cunt. Rex slots into you and the intrusion is tighter than before. You’re already a little sore, and you definitely won’t be walking straight tomorrow. He thrusts shallowly then slowly picks up the pace, grunting delicious sounds. Part of you wants to stay awake just to see and hear him. But a bigger part of you wants to rest, and his promise of fucking you to sleep is too novel and exciting to pass up.

The last thing you see before you sleep are his golden eyes looking equal parts hungry and adoring.

#captain rex x reader #captain rex #captain rex smut #clone wars #star wars fanfiction #diplomacy #a princess and her captain

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mlwritingprompts · 4 years

Text

Adrien is tired of the Ladyblog "slandering" Chat Noir. He's tired of being called out for his behavior, even if people don't realize they're calling him out to his face when they're complaining about Chat Noir to him. He’s tired of having to sit there and pretend like he doesn’t hate them and every word they’re saying.

He's sick and tired of hearing people moaning and complaining about how horrible he is.

He's tired of having to face consequences for his actions.

That is not why he signed up to become a superhero.

So he goes to Chloe. And persuades her that it's in her best interest if her father takes down the Ladyblog. He spins some story about how the blog is 'stealing' viewers from the 'real' news, and how the Mayor's office should be in charge of disseminating the facts anyways, not some random teenager with no training and a smartphone.

It helps that the Ladyblog has never been kind to Queen Bee. No one has forgotten or forgiven her purposefully crashing a train, no matter how many excuses and lies she comes up with to try and cover her ass.

It also doesn’t help that Alya constantly talks about how Chloé acts at school, and has several personal accounts written by classmates talking about Chloé’s cruelty. They want people to know who Queen Bee, the self-proclaimed hero, really is, to combat the propaganda coming out of the Mayor’s office.

Alya and the Ladyblog are committed to telling the truth, even when the truth isn’t pretty.

And the truth when it comes to Chat Noir and Queen Bee? Is never pretty.

Chloé probably would have come up with the idea herself given enough time. She agrees immediately.

It doesn't take much to convince her father.

He does anything she wants.

Anything she asks.

He doesn't care about things like justice or truth.

He’s determined to take down the Ladyblog, to protect his daughter’s precious reputation, and to restore Paris’ trust in its officials.

He begins this campaign by sending a squad of police to Alya's house to confiscate her phone and computer.

They practically bust the door down before she can even answer their knocking, demanding she delete the blog and hand over all her collected videos and photographs. They’ve shoved their way into the house before she can do anything.

Marinette happened to be on her way over, heard the commotion, and transformed into Ladybug to defend Alya.

It's not the first time Ladybug has fought the police, but it's the first time the confrontation is live-streaming directly to the Ladyblog.

Marinette successfully drives the police away, pushing them further and further back, shouting at them that they have to realize that what they’re doing is wrong, that they need to stop, that this is why people don’t trust them, and can’t they see that what they’re doing is wrong? How can they justify their behavior? How can they sleep at night?

But they won’t give up.

She finally has to knock them all unconcious, with the consolation that her Miraculous Ladybugs will heal the brain damage later. Although at that point she wouldn’t be too upset if they didn’t.

Maybe she won’t cast Miraculous Ladybug just this once.

Chat Noir shows up after she’s tied up all the cops, pretending to be confused, acting like he’s trying to figure out where the Akuma is, pretending to be shocked that she attacked the police, pretending to be horrified.

He tries his whole “be the better person” schtick, but Marinette and Alya are both near tears from fear and rage, and he’s shut down immediately.

He gives up the argument quickly, not wanting to make himself look worse in front of the whole reason this is happening to begin with.

He puts on a show of ‘making sure his lady and her friend are okay’, and takes his leave.

He detransforms when he gets home, and waits for Chloé’s call.

It doesn’t take long. She calls him to complain about how useless the police are, that they couldn’t even manage to shut down one measly blog run by a loser.

He listens sympathetically, and then offers a few pointers for her to pass along to her father…

The next time there’s an assault on Alya and the Ladyblog, it’s a city-wide ban on photographing or recording Ladybug, Chat Noir, or any of the Akuma victims. The justification? Protecting the privacy of the heroes and the victims of Hawkmoth.

It doesn’t matter that Ladybug immediately speaks out against it, citing the many interviews she’s willingly given, or the fact that the Ladyblog always blurs out the Akuma victims unless they specify otherwise. It doesn’t matter that the Ladyblog is one of the most reliable sources of information on Akuma or Hawkmoth’s tactics, or the fact that the live-streams are one of the only reasons people are able to get to safety during attacks. The Mayor’s stance is firm.

And the worst part? Chat Noir AGREES with the verdict. He EVEN APPEARS in an interview WITH THE MAYOR, supporting him! Saying things like how he feels like his privacy is being invaded, knowing that every word he says and everything he does is being recorded for everyone to see. It makes him nervous, he claims, makes him make more mistakes, makes him act out in ways he regrets.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s blaming everyone else for his own behavior. It really isn’t difficult to figure out that somehow, Chat Noir is the one behind this whole thing to begin with. No one knows how, but they why is sitting there right before their eyes, smug and condescending as he declares that keeping Ladybug and Chat Noir out of the public’s eye is what’s best for everyone.

And it only gets worse from there. The Mayor’s corruption gets worse, gets more and more blatant, and Adrien’s behavior follows suit. Every new restriction put upon witnesses to the battles increases his ability to be monstrous.

And with the public’s rage against their Mayor and so-called hero Chat Noir growing by the day, Hawkmoth has more and more opportunities to Akumatize victims. And with the Mayor’s forces doing everything they can to disrupt attempts to record Akuma battles in any way, more people are dying and being injured in each attack.

And even though the Miraculous Ladybugs can bring people back from the dead and heal their injuries, it doesn’t erase the memories. It doesn’t heal the trauma. And with more and more people dealing with trauma, more and more victims are available, and with more victims comes more trauma, and it keeps getting worse and worse.

Until the day the riots start.

And they don’t stop until the Mayor is dead and his office destroyed, and though Chat Noir is smart enough not to show his face, the moment he does, the mobs will be coming for him. No one is blind to the way he’s treated Ladybug, and they’re no longer willing to sit idly by while those with power abuse them and the people who stand up for them.

It started off as a ploy to stop the bad press against Chat Noir and Queen Bee, and it ends with a revolution.

Because there’s one thing that the rich hate, and there’s one thing that unites good people.

The truth.

#adrien bashing #adrien bashing prompts #Mayor Bourgeois salt #Chloe bashing #or is it?????#police brutality #Alya sugar #Alya defence squad #Alya defense squad #long post #Miraculous Ladybug #mlwritingprompts #Show!Miraculous #Show!Marinette #Show!Adrien

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spaceorphan18 · 3 years

Text

99 Perspectives on a Single Love Story #20

A/N: The Story of Kurt and Blaine told through the eyes of everyone else but them. Each chapter is a different perspective in the ongoing tale of their love story.

I started something like this a while back - and now I’m taking the idea and really running with it. Each chapter is a ficlet of a different character at a different point in Kurt and Blaine’s life - documenting their love story. This starts in Audition, and each chapter will be paired with a different episode until reaching Dreams Come True.

[Ao3]

***

Lauren Zizes (Prom Queen)

It’s not like Lauren’s devastated they lost. That hadn’t been the point of her campaign. Sure - it would have been nice to wear the crown, she would have rocked the crown. But she doesn’t need it. Truth be told, she’s gotten more entertainment out of the meltdowns of Santana Lopez and Quinn Fabray -- she should have brought up a bucket of popcorn to watch them self-destruct. It’s sad really - girls like that hold onto such stupid and meaningless popularity contests because they feel nothing else in their lives will ever matter as much. Meanwhile, Lauren still has her dignity, and the prospect of letting Puckerman have his way with her. Ha! As if she’d let Puckerman actually into her proverbial pants.

She’s glad, however, all the Prom Queen hoopla is past them now -- she can just enjoy the dance for what is, a place to bust her moves and show off how amazing she looks in her dress. Plus, she will definitely be pulling a Brittany and dance with everyone else’s dates.

She takes a break from all the dancing to grab some punch at the refreshments table. Rumor has it that Artie Abrams spiked it -- but no one has seen him in hours, and it doesn’t smell anything other than Strawberry Kool-Aide to her. Standing at the table near her is Blaine Anderson, watching morosely at Kurt Hummel, who has taken a moment to dance a slow one with Mercedes Jones.

“You look like someone kicked your kitten,” Lauren comments as she comes up to him. Normally, she wouldn’t get too involved, but the guy just looks miserable, and she can’t help but meddle.

“Someone did,” Blaine says, not taking his eyes away from Kurt.

She gets it -- she does. This school is pathetically dumb, and while she doesn’t beleive the whole school was in on the joke, she knows the losers running the voting this year, and they’re a particular brand of stupidity. Why anyone would take them, or this whole thing, seriously is beyond her. “Yeah, well then your kitten told everyone to fuck off, which mad respect, man.”

Blaine tries to hold back a proud smile. “Well, yeah, he is pretty amazing.”

Lauren looks over to where Kurt’s dancing -- he seems to be in good spirits, grinning with Mercedes. Whatever forlorn thing is going on with Blaine has definitely not brought Kurt Hummel down. “You know this makes you, like, de facto king of the prom, right?” Blaine shrugs it off -- as if she’s being silly, but she’s not trying to cheer him up. That’s not her style. She’s just telling it like it is. “Forget that shithead Karofsky. Standing up there with him after what happened? You got balls man. And you don’t even go here.”

“Thank you,” Blaine says, looking genuinely humbled, but no less happy. “I admire your confidence, I wish I had an ounce of it. I mean, I act like I have it, but some days…”

“Pfft,” Lauren takes a sip of her drink. God, why is everyone so dramatic lately? “You're proud of your man, right? Be proud of yourself in the same way.”

“I mean, I am,” Blaine says, he shuffles from side to side awkwardly. “I’m fine with who I am. It’s just -- I have this pit in the bottom of my stomach. Like, I can’t protect him if something bad happens.”

Lauren does all she can not to laugh directly in his face. “Seriously? Protect him? I said you were prom king, not some knight in a fairy tale or something? Let me give you a little advice -- that queen,” she points directly at Kurt, “needs no saving. There are plenty of people who will want to beat you up in this world - no need to do it to yourself.”

For the first time she gets a smile out of Blaine. Thank god, cause she’s not sure how long she could continue such a self-defeating attitude. She doesn’t even understand that.

The music ends, and it’s not a second later when Kurt is bouncing over to Blaine, grabbing at his hands for him to join in. “You are my date tonight, and now that I’m queen, I no longer give a shit what they think, you’re dancing the rest of these with me.” He stops a second when he sees Lauren. “Hey, Lauren, the dress looks gorgeous on you, honey.”

Lauren preens a little, giving a twirl. “Thank you -- and congrats on being the awesomest queen this school has ever known.”

Kurt gives a little shimmy before leading Blaine back to the dance floor.

Lauren finishes off her punch before heading to find Puck. There are still a couple of anti-prom crowns to be won.

#s.o. writes things #99 perspectives

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hetalia-nordic-trash · 3 years

Text

The Heart Gambit (Dennor): 3-One-Way Screen

Word count: 1,480

Summary: Mathias and Lukas look for Emil after he ditched them. Will Mathias be able to apologize to Lukas and get to know him better?

Author's Note: Yay next chapter! Sorry, it's a little late...again. I've had a lot of school work so I try to write these whenever I have time. I hope you like this chapter and do leave me some feedback so I can keep getting better!

Warning: Brief mention of Blood

Previous: 2-The Arbiter

---

Mathias followed Lukas out the door, who was still rubbing his elbow from the fall. It took Mathias a bit before he figured that he should go after him and took off out of the bar after paying his tab. Lukas was quickly walking past shops and heading towards a nearby park.

"Hey wait!' Mathias called out, jogging to catch up to him.

Lukas peaked over his shoulder picked up his pace when he spotted Mathias. Mathias easily caught up to him and started following at Luka's side. They walked silently through the park for what seemed to be the world's longest minute before Lukas broke the awkward silence.

"I can't talk right now I'm looking for my brother. Besides, why would I want to talk to you?" Lukas huffed.

Mathias looked away.

"I...yeah... I get that. But I'm looking for him too! Emil totally ditched me back there!"

"What the hell was he doing hanging out with you?" Lukas asked, stopping dead in tracks.

"We were grabbing drinks when he left right before you showed up!"

"Right before...Damn it!" Lukas pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned up against a nearby tree.

"He's always doing this! Trying to set me up with people because he thinks I need to 'socialize' or whatever. Honestly, he's either waiting nearby because he knew I'd figure it out, or he's back at the hotel waiting for me that dumb smug grin-" Lukas paused, and started patting his at his pockets.

"No....no... no no no! Shit!" Lukas cried. "I don't have my hotel key! Now I actually have to... ugh!".

"Look I'm sorry that Emil dragged you into this mess but I really don't feel like dealing with you right now so feel free to go about your business and pretend this never happened. Though, I also wouldn't be surprised if you used this in some kind of insane 'ad campaign' against me or whatever you do for extra cash nowadays."

Mathias took a breath to respond, but couldn't find the right words despite his best efforts. Lukas rolled his eyes and started walking away.

"Wait!" Mathias called, grabbing Lukas by the shoulder. But he must've grabbed Lukas a little too hard because he pulled him so close their chests almost touched.

"Oh sorry...sorry! I wanted to say I'm sorry!" Mathias managed to blurt out.

Lukas was in the middle of shoving Mathias's arm off of him but stopped at the sound of Mathias's admittedly awful apology.

Mathias pulled his hand away and felt a little heat rise to his cheeks.

"I...look I know I come off as an asshole and it's fair of you to think that...I'm an asshole....but I want you to know that a lot of it's because I'm trying to keep up a kinda image thing. I mean... I wasn't at first...but lately, I just don't feel like it's me anymore...ANYWAY! sorry that was loud but I'm sorry for the interview....what I said...I don't actually think you're a no-life nerd or anything like that...they just wanted me to-"

"Alright! Um...it's ok. Don't hurt yourself."

Mathias finally took a look at Lukas's face and saw that he was completely flustered. His face was bright red and he was desperately trying not to make eye contact with him. Mathias felt his heart skip a beat.

"Look, I forgive you...I guess. And if you want to come with me to help me find my dumb brother ... you can... just don't be weird." Lukas said, taking a step back.

Mathias beamed.

"Aw sweet! Let's go then!" Mathias yelled, dragging Norway by the arm further into the park.

"OK, YOU'RE BEING WEIRD!" Lukas cried out as he tried to keep up.

"Emil! Come out come out wherever you are! Lukas and I are the bestest of buddies now!"

"No, we're not!!!"

Mathias dragged Emil all over the park screaming Emil's name. It didn't take long for Lukas to pulls his hand away from Mathias so he could stop and catch his breath.

"We've been at this... forever!... He's clearly not here!..." Lukas said, between breaths.

Mathias raised an eyebrow.

"We've only been looking for 5 minutes."

"5 minutes!?" he cried, kneeling on the ground.

"Dude...I know I said I felt bad for calling you a 'no-life loser', but .... when's the last time you've run?"

"Shut up!"

Lukas stood up and dusted himself off, face flushed from running. If Mathias's heart wasn't going to jump out of his chest before, it certainly was now. Lukas just looked so ... uh... nice... when he was flustered. Not cute or anything! Certainly not that!

"Look if we're going to find him we're doing it at my way! So no more dragging me around! We'll just walk normally!" Lukas said in a bit of a huff.

"Aw! But it was so much fun!" he said with a playful pout.

"God, you're such a child. Just follow me." Lukas said, taking the lead.

"Ok then!"

The two walked silently for a while. Mathias took in the sights of the park. The sun was beginning to set and he watched as the sky was starting to turn pink and orange. The last light of day was showering the whole world in warm golden hues. He looked over at Lukas. The golden hour light made his eyes shine and his skin looked like it was glowing. Mathias felt sick to his stomach. It couldn't be the dreaded "L" word, could it? No...it couldn't. He was just some...guy. AND he just met him. There was no way! But there was just something about Lukas. His bright eyes, his messy blond hair, and... Mathias noticed that Lukas had a little bit of a scowl. His smile. Mathias desperately wanted to see Lukas smile. But even for all of that, he couldn't place why being around him made his heart beat a little more. He huffed. Lukas would never in a million years have any kind of feelings towards him besides "low-level-tolerance". So why couldn't he Lukas out of his head!

He felt his shoe hit a crack in the sidewalk. He stumbled forward and crashed onto the ground hard.

"Ow!"

"How the hell did you miss that crack!? It's huge! Did you lose your last two brain cells earlier or something?" Lukas asked, crossing his arms.

Mathias grinned. He rolled onto his back and placed his hand on his chest.

"Oh god! This is the end for me! I'm dying!" he cried, dramatically.

"God, can you be any louder? You're acting like a child," Lukas reached his hand out to Mathias. "Here. Just get up!"

Denmark stuck his hand out, purposely make it shakey, as if he were an old man. Mathias felt his face heat up again. He couldn't let Lukas see! He grabbed Lukas's hand and attempted to pull him to the ground next to him. This was a bad call, as all Mathais managed to do was pull Lukas right on top of him.

"Ah!"

Lukas's head crashed right into his own, and Mathias felt a sharp pain in his forehead by his hairline. Mathias felt Lukas's chest on his own, the warmth would've made him blush like mad, but the pain in his forehead was getting worse.

"Ow! My teeth! What the hell was that for!?" Lukas said with his hand over his mouth.

Lukas looked up at Mathias and jumped. Mathias pressed his hand to his hand where the pain was.

"What!?" Mathias pulled his hand away. It was covered in bright red blood.

"DUDE DID YOU JUST BITE MY HEAD???"

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO PULLED ME ONTO YOU LIKE A MANIAC!!!"

Lukas pushed himself off of Mathias and got up.

"You seriously need medical attention! We should get you to the hospital!" Lukas cried, helping Mathias to his feet.

"No way!" Mathias yelled. "If I go to the hospital the press will just eat it up! It'll be all over the news that you took a bite out of my head like a zombie!"

Mathias desperately tried to covered his cut with his hands.

"Well, you need some kind of medical help! Come on! I'm pretty sure I have bandages or something back at the hotel room."

"Good because I don't think I have anything like that at mine."

"God, how do you even function?"

"Wait...I....I can't go back to your room!" Mathias said, blushing and turning away. "What if someone sees me there! Then we're right back to square one! Plus that kinda embarrassing!"

"How is that embarrassing? We're both adults. We'll just use the back entrance or something. Look this is the last offer. Let me help you or I'll leave you here to bleed out!"

"Ok geez! Let's hurry tho! It's getting all over my clothes!"

---

Next Chapter: 4-Treat me like a Fool

a/n: I'm so excited to be writing this! Poor Denmark! He got hurt this time! I hope he gets better soon! I’m going to take this time to plug my non-hetalia work “ Intro to Love ” about a college student who struggles to keep her superpowers a secret and while making new friends. How much of her normal life will she give up to save her friends from a mysterious villain that drains students’ brains and turns them into zombies? The complete Chapter 1 is out NOW! And Chapter 2.1-'The last of the Good Days' will be out soon!

Thanks again for reading! Send some feedback my way! Can’t wait to continue this story!

Quotev link: here

#hetalia #hetalia nordics #hetalia denmark #hetalia norway #hetalia dennor #dennor #hws #hws nordics #hws denmark #hws norway #hws dennor #aph norway

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