#love seeing guys I know from Iowa and also guys I haven’t seen since my college’s herbarium!!
Text
incredibly obvious statement but it MUST be said. ah to be a lichen or shrub on a mountaintop
#lichens#I’m just sayin. on a mountain rn and just sayin#not many mountains in the American Midwest so I gotta get my lichen time in when I can#love seeing guys I know from Iowa and also guys I haven’t seen since my college’s herbarium!!
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
Helen Arlet’s Favorite Cryptids
#7 The Fresno Nightcrawlers
This is a new one for me that I only just recently learned about. I don’t even know how I missed these guys before now... But I’m instantly fascinated with them. They are just so weird and cute. And we have multiple cases of them caught on video?! I love this already!
Do I believe in them?
Well I’m new to the whole Fresno Nightcrawler scene, but for now I’m going to have to say no... I’ve watched the videos of these guys and I’m trying to figure out what they actually are, but weird alien creatures isn’t at the top of my list. The first video could very easily just be a guy in a sheet. I could see how that could be done. The second video that was captured of them almost looks more like puppets to me, but I just can’t figure out how the puppeteering would have been done... Either way I’m fascinated by it. Who knows... Maybe I’ll change my mind as I delve deeper into it.
#6 Snallygaster
I honestly don’t don’t know a ton about Snallygaster. I know it’s the signature cryptid of Maryland and I lived in Maryland for a short time... so I guess I have some attachment to it that way... I know he’s a big tentacle dragon and he looks pretty cool... But that’s about the extent of what I know. I haven’t taken the time to do research on him yet. I think honestly, I just really like the name. Snallygaster... That’s just fun to say. Say it with me... Snallygaster...
Do I believe in him?
Not at the moment, but then I haven’t really looked into this guy yet so I haven’t seen what kind of evidence is out there to support the belief of such a creature. I just look at the pictures of him and I feel like if such a thing existed, we’d probably be hearing about it... a lot... like every time he swooped out of the sky and snatched someone off the street...
#5 The Wampus Cat
It’s a big cat with 6 legs. And it might possibly be a shape shifting woman. That’s pretty cool. Plus she’s also the signature cryptid of my home state of Tennessee. I may not exactly like certain things about Tennessee, but I’ve still got to show some loyalty to our state cryptid. Funny thing is, despite the fact that I moved to Florida when I was very little and grew up there, even then I knew about this thing and heard about it all the time. We actually believed there was a Wampus Cat living in the woods there in the town I grew up in. I even knew an old man who had claimed to have been attacked by it. So the Wampus Cat has always been a part of my childhood.
Do I believe in her?
Debatable... Do I believe in a shape shifting cat woman with six legs? Probably not... But Tennessee has a lot of panther sightings. People see panthers, especially black panthers, around here all the time. And the thing is... officially there are no black panthers (or any other kind of panthers) in Tennessee. Officially, Tennessee doesn’t have any kind of cat larger than a bobcat. Black panthers, which are just a variant of jaguars, are extinct in the United States. But people still see them here all the time. It’s just kind of a known fact they are here regardless of what anyone else says. So hey... Maybe that’s just the Wampus Cat? *Shrugs*
#4 The Van Meter Visitor
The Van Meter Visitor is super interesting because it’s one of the few cryptids that is really hard to disprove, and yet, hardly anyone ever talks about it. It’s one of the more obscure cryptids out there to the point where I’d bet nine out of ten people reading this list have never even heard of it before. And you may be thinking, it’s a big pterodactyl with a horn on its head that shoots light... How is that hard to disprove? But when you think about it, this isn’t just some random cryptid with a few isolated sightings by a couple random people who may or may not be trustworthy. An entire town saw this thing. In 1903 the Van Meter Visitor terrorized the entire town of Van Meter, Iowa for days before they tracked down its nesting place and then the whole town showed up to shoot it and it’s mate(?), which they in fact did. Yeah, the creatures vanished into the mines after being shot at and were never seen again... so there’s no body... But it doesn’t change the fact that an entire town saw these things multiple times, lived in fear of them, and then finally shot them. So regardless if you believe it was a pterodactyl that could shoot light from its horn, there was obviously some kind of creature terrorizing the town of Van Meter that October in 1903. And the fact that it was so widely sighted just makes it really interesting to me.
Do I believe in it?
Like I said. Something terrorized that town that week. I believe that much. Was it a spotlight pterodactyl? I’m open enough to consider the possibility... But I’m also open enough to consider the possibility that it was something more on the normal side and it being 1903 people just didn’t know what they were looking at. We can’t really rule out mass hysteria as a possibility.
#3 The Jackalope
I simply love Jackalopes. I’ve thought they were awesome ever since I was a kid. I even used to love those creepy Jackalope videos they used to run on America’s Funniest People (Remember that show? Don’t feel bad if you don’t...) There’s just something weirdly captivating about the idea of a vicious rabbit with antlers.
Do I believe it in?
Well, despite the fact that I have an “I believe in Jackalopes” patch on my jacket, no, I don’t actually believe they exist. I’m a reasonable enough person to understand the history of Jackalopes and know where it came from. I wish they were real, but I know they aren’t.
#2 The Flatwoods Monster
The Flatwoods Monster is equal parts cute and creepy, which is really cool. She’s nowhere near as popular as Mothman, despite the fact that they are both West Virginia cryptids, and that’s kind of a shame. She certainly has one of the coolest designs of any cryptid. And her story is pretty interesting too. It’s one of those cryptid stories I still sit and ponder over.
Do I believe in her?
Not exactly...? I’m highly skeptical of aliens. Now did something happen in Flatwoods, West Virginia on September 12, 1952? Yeah. Something clearly happened. And the reports are strange enough that I can’t quite figure out what exactly happened... But as for the monster herself, as cool as she is, it’s more likely that she was just an owl in a tree that a group of people panicking in the dark mistook for a giant alien.
#1 Nessie
Of course Nessie has to be my favorite. She’s my home girl. Okay... Nessie is Scottish and I’m Scots-Irish, with more Irish than Scottish, but it’s close enough. I’ve still got some Scottish in me. Plus she’s like, a big dinosaur, so we have that in common as well. And Nessie was the first cryptid I ever truly believed in so how could she not be number one on my list? I love this girl.
Do I believe in her?
I’m going to say yes. There is totally something down there. There’s enough evidence at this point that it would be harder to convince me there isn’t something down there. We’ve got scientists who are now saying she’s a big turtle, and I guess that’s possible... probably more possible than an actual plesiosauria... Although I haven’t seen a ton of evidence to support the turtle idea yet... But whatever you want to think she is, I certainly think there’s something down there.
34 notes
·
View notes
Text
On Love
So as you know I made this uquiz with an open-ended question at the end, tell me something about love, and I’ve gotten the most wonderful responses! They range from descriptions of wonderful partners:
Lauren: oh, how long I went without being myself until I met him and he showed me who I truly was and that my worth was higher than I ever thought was possible
Levi: I love who we are with each other. I love who I am with you. In your company I am me. In your company I am the best of me. The best with the best, I've told you. I wouldn't give you up for anything
Daniel: i fell in love for the first time when i was 17... at the time, i didn’t realize it was the first time, i thought i’d been in love before, a couple times actually, but falling in love at 17 was such a fulfilling experience, it felt so forceful yet so right. it’s when i first truly understood what love was. never before had i felt so understood and so cared for as i did when i was in love with her, and she was in love with me. it’s been nearly 4 years since then, and nearly 3 years since we broke up and stopped talking, and still, i think about her almost every day. i’ve never known anyone like her; to me, she was love itself.
El: oh i’m in love with everyone that i know op!!! especially my girlfriend, of course ,but also my friends and my family and random people on the street and uh
Grace: i’ve met my soulmate and we plan on getting an apartment and marrying after college
A: I’m going to ask the woman I love to marry me and I just wanted to tell someone because I am so excited
Jeremy: you ever have that feeling where basically after years of denying that someone couldnt understand you in a way or love you and then the next thing you know you happen to find that person and its just great from then on out? idk how to explain it anyways I love my boyfriend so much he means the world to me
Lucy: i am so happy i have found the one i love
to descriptions of best friends and favorite people:
Nightbyrd: Love is a hug from an alzheimer's patient who hasn't the foggiest idea who you are, but they know you're worth hugging.
H: I have been doing so much yoga with my roommate recently!! It's a great way to center my mind for an hour
Riv: [platonic] i’ve literally never met anyone who understands me in the way that my best friends do. they’re literally the best people in the whole world and i genuinely don’t know what i’d do without them. i love them with my whole heart
Cillian: when i talk about how much i love my best friend i get so teary eyed because i cant believe that such a genuinely wonderful person wants to speak to me every day - i care for her more than anyone else on this planet
O: my two besties are my sources of happiness and they’re so pretty i would die for them :D
to beautiful quotes:
Kai: "you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." DARCYYYY PLS MY HEART CANT HANDLW THIS PAIN
Dorian: When the plane went down in San Francisco, I thought of my friend M. He’s obsessed with plane crashes. He memorizes the wrecked metal details, ____the clear cool skies cut by black scars of smoke. Once, while driving, he told me about all the crashes: The one in blue Kentucky, in yellow Iowa. How people go on, and how people don’t. It was almost a year before I learned that his brother was a pilot. I can’t help it, I love the way men love. (accident report in the tall, tall weeds- ada limon, bright dead things)
Adam: every day I think about lemony snicket I will love you if I never see you again I will love you if I see you every Tuesday or however it goes. and it KILLS ME. love only fits in small things
Hero: “Your heart beats in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s… The divine magnet is in you, and my magnet responds.” - Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mary: "Love is watching someone die."
Alex: "meet me at blue diner, i'll take coffee and talk about nothing baby"
Sparrow: "How dare you love me like you've never known fear?" and "For you, the world," and "Darling, I was born to press my head between your shoulder blades," and "Will you start where I end?"
V: " You want to die for love. You always have. " and "someone will remember us, I say, even in another time" are living rent free in my mind 24/7 and I'm shaking. When will I finally be not the only one falling ?
Sahar K: To love another person is to see the face of god!!!
Miriam: all the love in the world is useless when there is total lack of understanding- kafka
Juls: Don’t you think they are maybe the same? Love and attention
to practices of love:
Leo; i love feeling happy bc somebody that i love is happy and comfortable....like its not about me i just love seeing you smile. we are safe together...idk i just feel it bro
A: I like to think love is leaning on each other during the light or dark days. Its a personal mission of mine to find out who I am and what I want. Yet I never seem to find my place in this world and as I look and look , I realise the only place I can be myself even with or without the efforts to find myself was done on that day or not, I am always tired so shall I lean on you? And you can lean on me as well. I shall be your fig tree and you shall be my favourite willow tree.
L: It's too late at night to be soul searching, but it's a journey we all seem to find ourselves on these days.
Anthi: feeling safe and at home, I guess (also I love frogs)
Julia: ive found that loving someone is like becoming your own thesaurus. you have to find or come up with infinite ways to say, you’re beautiful, or, i love you. it’s a gift
Galexies: ive been writing letters to the person i'd love one day since i was 14. i write them in a little journal usually, but i've been digitizing them into emails and sending them to one account that i'll give to them someday. i'd like to put pictures, but i haven't been outside much recently so theres that. i wonder if they'd like the sunsets i have on file, or if they'd find my cat cute in a bowtie.
Caeles: Love is sharing fruit slices and making someone tea at random
Dundy: Love is sending your friends cursed shit and watching them react in horror
to crushes and potential loves:
Jess: I have a crush on my roommate. It sucks, but it's also wonderful. I get to be around him all the time when we're at school. we share a life together; it's rather domestic. I think a lot about marrying him and being domestic with him forever. It won't happen, and I'll move on eventually, but I'll be happy with him for as long as I can. I hope you feel loved tonight, because you are. Sleep well.
Aki: I so desperately want to believe that love is fake because I’ve seen what happens when loved ones leave but whenever I start to convince myself that I’ll never love anyone my best friend messages me telling me she loves me. She’s the only person I’ve ever pictured having a future with but love scares me and I don’t really know what to do but I think as long as she’s with me in some way, I’ll be fine
Hi: her her i keep thinking abt her.... gonna see her in 8 days or so i really miss her. its ok if shes never gonna love me like i want her to really being her friend spending time with her makes me the happiest girl on earth.... outsold antidepressants
Kit: this guy i have a crush on has hypnotically dark brown eyes and he's wonderful and shows me kindness like no one else
Juno: my crush has all the stars in his eyes
Mads: When I have the courage to meet my eyes with hers, the world stands still
Be Nice To Me: Look bro I never do these but I am yearning to hold them SO badly right now and someone needs to know it besides me
to the trials of love:
Pppppp: I just wanna love like from the movies and what I read about.. but everyone tells me that that’s fictional and rare to find in the real world and it sucks bc it seems like all the guys I’ve met are terrible and the norms of society are all about not respecting women and uthdjdjdk
Manny: I have been in love before and I will be again but I’m not now and I miss it
Ok: I don't think I've ever been in love, though I love many people. I am waiting for the day I look at someone and can say, YES. IT'S YOU.
Chloe: idk rn i'm like okay with my love and i'm happy so we'll see i'm just a little cautious rn bc my last partner told me i didn't know how to love
L: love is so fucking complicated I don't even know where to start
Corrin: He’s not real and it worried me that I will never allow myself to live or be loved because I will always be waiting for him
Sean: Good luck it dont exist
Serena: i want 2 b in love :(( </3
13: I don’t know anymore
M: I just really don’t like dealing with it lol
to beloved characters:
Janaya: I’m madly in love with my comfort and kin character and I hope maybe in the afterlife I can relive a life with him in some sort of dimension
Jhgjdf: when i was a kid i had a crush on ash ketchum from pokemon and id always daydream about being a female pkmn trainer and meeting him and we fall in love
to advice and prose:
Mikolai: Love is earth, gentle and soft at first flight but upon being broken, drowns you in the dry choking wastes of its consequences...
Thex: Your hands will not go cold without someone to hold them. I am here. I will be here.
Kat: it is the nearest proof to god that i find myself surrounded by people who love in a way that complements so wonderfully the way i love
H: believe in love out of spite believe in love to prove everyone wrong believe in love because you were told not to and we will not do what we’re told anymore believe in love because it’s the strongest act of teenage rebellion we have left believe in love because it’s easier not to and when is easy worth doing? believe in love because everything says otherwise but you are untouchable, you are your own, you are not made by their design believe in love because, perhaps, you are love
Ali: I used to want a kind of love that feels like coming home and now I want nothing more than to be away from home on many different adventures
Em: you dont need to love yourself to accept it from others
to the small, the simple, and the sweet:
Ireal: Poems
O: Flowers
Fay: ah im sorry that i’m feeling unmotivated but you are very kind.
Ad: we love LOVE
A: <3
Isak: small things
H: intense
Hey: Listening to a clock ticking away
S: her
E: <3
Hania: Amorous, I adore that word ^^
Catboy: wholesome
J: i love love so much it hurts
Emmy: hi i love the song darkest of discos!! try and give it a listen!! <3
Nora: Love is painful, but most of the time love is great
Ariel: i like the comfort it can bring
M: i love love
to food!
Cool Whip: Matzoh ball soup!!
Woop: I love sausages.... I hope that's ok with you?
and animals too <3
Nee: hmm i have pet geckos and i love them very much!
96: raccoons ????
DJ Big Penis: cats
:3: I Love frogs,,, love is stored in the frog,,,
I hope that this serves as a sweet compilation of what love means! Love to all of you, it warms my heart so much to hear about your people and your geckos and your characters and soup and all the songs and quotes you love. <3 Strength to all of you who are figuring out to do about your feelings for your crush, and congratulations to you who are proposing or moving in with your person! Your words are a source of light to me, truly.
74 notes
·
View notes
Note
Bones isn't always Bones, sometimes Jim calls him by his rank, or Doctor, or even his actual name. Head cannons on when he uses what?
It would be exceedingly rare for Jim to refer to Leonard as Lieutenant Commander. Leonard doesn’t especially identify with his rank, or with the Starfleet hierarchy more generally. He and Jim both associate him more with his position of CMO, so Jim might say my CMO or the Enterprise’s Chief Medical Officer to identify Leonard to someone who doesn’t already know him.
Leonard is rare, too. If Jim’s calling him Leonard, it’s usually either in service to some sort of mission - e.g., selling a Kindred-friendly ~*~relationship~*~ on Hearth - or just to mess with him. (Notably, “messing with Bones” is also the motivation for the one time in all of pverse that Jim calls him by his rank. It’s a lucky thing for their marriage that annoyance is one of Leonard’s primary love languages.)
Dr. McCoy is Jim’s default when a situation requires a touch of formality, typically for the sake of an audience: recording his captain’s log, making an introduction, mentioning him to higher-ups, or simply talking with crew members outside their inner circle. (Or, less commonly, when Jim feels the need to put some emotional distance between them in the line of duty - like when Leonard nearly dies disarming the torpedo in ST:ID - but those occasions are increasingly few and far between as the years wear on.)
So in practice, Leonard is usually Dr. McCoy when Jim’s not speaking directly to him, and Bones when he is. Which isn’t to say that the nickname is some hidden private thing. Jim regularly calls him Bones in front of other people - just not to those people. It’s not a secret; it’s just not really for anyone else. It’s a sign of familiarity, a marker of their shared history, an endearment, a claim. It’s theirs. Jim calls Leonard Bones, exclusively; Jim, exclusively, calls Leonard Bones.
And so, when it’s just the two of them, Leonard is pretty much always Bones - to Jim and, if he’s being honest, to Leonard himself.
+
I’ve asserted before that Leonard is the one person on the ship who looks at James T. Kirk and sees Jim first and Captain Kirk a distant second. Unique among the senior crew, he basically never calls Jim Captain or sir. To Leonard, Jim is always Jim, no matter the circumstances. As I said then (lightly edited for formatting):
Yeah, sure, Jim is the captain. The great Captain Kirk, or whatever. But that’s secondary to Leonard. He’s Jim, who happens to be the captain. It’s not the Enterprise’s commanding officer that Leonard worries about when he’s hurt or in danger - it’s Jim, the only family he’s got. It’s not his superior giving him a disagreeable order - it’s his best friend being a real asshole again. This trait makes him hilariously insubordinate, but it also means their relationship is the truest and most genuine Jim has. And for someone who’s spent his whole life trying to be someone else, can you blame a guy for falling for the one person who’s only ever seen him as himself - and somehow still loves him anyway?
What I haven’t addressed in as many words is that this goes both ways. Jim has plenty of close relationships among the crew which go much deeper than Starfleet hierarchy, but when he’s acting as captain, he necessarily meets people on a professional level in their respective roles: his XO, his communications officer, his pilot, his navigator, his chief engineer.
Bones is different. Bones was Bones long before either of them ever stepped foot onto the Enterprise, and that will always outweigh any other role he takes on. It wasn’t Captain Kirk’s CMO who snuck him onto the Enterprise for the first time, who tried to get through to him when he was spiraling after Pike’s death, who threw him a surprise birthday party after so many years of helping him endure the date in private. That was all Bones, and that’s who Jim sees when he looks at him - not his CMO or a Lieutenant Commander, but his best friend, the only person in the universe he trusts unconditionally, and (eventually) the man he loves, his other half, his partner in all things. He may call him something else to other people for any number of reasons, but in his own heart, it’s always Bones he thinks of, turns to, reaches for.
It’s always been Bones.
+
There was a time when Leonard McCoy genuinely believed he wanted Jim to stop calling him Bones. It aggravated him that this pain-in-the-ass kid he barely knew refused to use any configuration of his given name and insisted instead on some nonsensical nickname of his own invention. Did they not have manners in Iowa, or did the cocky little bastard just get all of his knocked out of his head during a bar fight? Either way, it rankled. He liked the kid well enough, but this particular quirk of his was just plain disrespectful.
That time is distant history now, though, and while Jim never has mastered the art of common courtesy, Leonard has long since recognized that it’s pretty far down the list of things he craves from Jim Kirk. To hell with respect. Leonard wants warmth and affection, attachment and devotion, vulnerability and trust. Intimacy. He wants to be the man Jim confides in, the one he’s unabashedly himself with, the one who gets to see him at his most unguarded.
And he is. Bones is.
Leonard is still Leonard in his own mind; he does, after all, exist outside of his relationship with Jim. He may perhaps be unusually obsessed with devoted to his partner, but even so, even within the fishbowl that is life on the Enterprise, he has friendships and associations and rivalries and aspirations and interests, great big swaths of his life where Jim’s influence is minimal at best.
Dr. McCoy is a leader and a pioneer, a curious scientist, a superficially hardass boss with a heart of gold easily exploited by his staff, a long-suffering CMO surrounded by reckless maniacs, a starship officer who has far greater loyalty to his fellow crew than to the abstract concepts of Starfleet or the Federation.
Leonard is a forty-something Georgia boy, a staunch pacifist, an agnostic who sometimes wishes he still believed in his parent’s God, an introvert in a caring profession with an unrivaled compassion for living beings and a decidedly finite reserve of energy for their company.
And Bones? Well, Bones is Jim’s. That’s about all there is to it.
Or, to put it another way:
Dr. McCoy is the Chief Medical Officer who shoots Captain Kirk full of vaccine boosters and warns him against eating any alien fruits while he’s down on Planet Wherever-the-fuck VI.
Leonard is the man who goes about his days keenly feeling Jim’s absence while he’s away, who dislikes how cold and hard-edged the ship feels without her captain’s larger-than-life presence and who doesn’t sleep as well without his husband beside him.
Bones is the partner Jim demands a kiss from when he returns, who feels something settle inside him as Jim’s arms wind around his shoulders, who scolds Jim for his sunburn and rolls his eyes at the kid’s excuses and very carefully strokes his scaly red cheek for a moment under the thin guise of clinical assessment before pulling away to go for a medkit, bitching the whole way, already missing the shape of Jim’s body against his.
85 notes
·
View notes
Text
An Interview with Alexander Wolfe, the man behind Pedestrian Magazine
Pedestrian is a magazine about the humble art of walking. In this interview, I talked with the man with the plan, Alexander Wolfe, about his love for this much maligned form of transport, his recent expedition from New York to Philadelphia, and the art of conversation.
First off, you recently walked from New York City to Philadelphia over nine days. What made you want to do that?
The initial desire to walk to Philadelphia came out living in New York City during the pandemic. I was bound to my apartment for a few months with little to do but walk around my neighborhood. I've always had a habit of walking around the city, but the pandemic only made these walks longer and longer, which eventually led to a 23 mile journey from my apartment in Brooklyn, to the Bronx, and back.
Around that time I was reading The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth and started contemplating longer, multi-day walks. I needed a change of scenery and found the idea of traveling by foot and living out of a bag very appealing. I felt like I'd developed a process here in the city (go on a walk, take photos, write a newsletter about the walk, repeat) and needed to give myself a challenge. I wanted to lean further into this practice that I've been developing for the last three years.
I'd never considered my walks to be hikes, so it made sense that I'd keep it in an urban setting. Walking to Philadelphia seemed like a no-brainer. What most people don't initially realize is that most of my time was spent walking through New Jersey. I liked the idea of walking in a place that is commonly misrepresented as the "armpit of America" and typically deemed unwalkable. New Jersey is actually a very underrated state. It might be the densest state population-wise, but it's called the Garden State for a reason. Oh yeah, I'd never been to Philadelphia and just really wanted to visit.
How did the walk go? Quite often trips or excursions can be a fair bit different to how you first imagine them… how did the reality of the walk differ from how you thought it was going to be?
I was presented with a new challenge every day. Don't get me wrong, the walk turned out better than I could have ever imagined, but you can never anticipate everything in advance. This was the first time I'd ever walked with a 25 pound bag on my back, let alone the first time I'd walked 9 days in a row. Originally I set out to average 17.75 miles per day, but thanks to my own curiosity, ended up waking 20 miles a day on average. I mapped the entire route a month or two before leaving, but would always deviate from the path in favor of exploring some neighborhood, road, or park that looked appealing. The first day alone ballooned into 27 miles because I got cocky and thought I didn't need to use my map while walking in Manhattan. I learned my lesson and kept my eyes on the map for the rest of the trip.
Another thing I didn't expect was the sensitivity one develops after walking 6-8 hours for days in a row. The smell of exhaust and gasoline becomes more potent. You realize how violently we've shaped the land to build huge highways and abysmal business parks. So much of our infrastructure is built in favor of the car, which makes being a pedestrian incredibly difficult at times. If the built environment didn't present a challenge, it was always the weather, the gnarly blisters on my feet, or my gear malfunctioning. I quickly learned to accept these challenges. It was just another component of the walk.
A lot of times people go for ‘a walk’, they’re seeking out beauty spots or nice scenery—maybe in nature reserves or the countryside, but your walk was cutting through some fairly overlooked places… industrial estates and small towns. Do people miss out by not seeing the whole picture of somewhere? Is just driving through these places to get to the destination sort of cheating?
I wouldn't consider driving to be cheating – it's just another way we alienate ourselves from the world around us. When we drive, we experience the world at a speed that makes it nearly impossible to pay attention to the fine details. Our relationship to place is abstracted, especially thanks to the rise of GPS. We no longer have to have a physical relationship to these towns. We don't even have to remember how to get to them. Driving around in a car reduces these places to nothing more than a label on a map or a convenient place to stop for gas.
It's important to have relationships with the places surrounding you. The walk has given me an intimate experience with the space between New York City and Philadelphia. I know what it looks like, I know how it feels to be there. I can tell you where residents stop hanging New York Yankees flags in favor of Philadelphia Phillies flags. If I'm watching the Soprano's and Tony references Metuchen, NJ then I know exactly what he's talking about. I think to understand a place, such as New York City, it's just as important to understand the places around it. There are generations of people who once called the Big Apple home, but decided to plant their roots in Jersey for one reason or another.
I suppose you could have read about some of these places on Wikipedia, but being there is a completely different thing. Is experiencing stuff first hand important?
It's very important if you actually want to understand a place. It's too easy to create our own narratives without ever visiting a place. I still tried to do my share of research before heading out. I have friends from North Jersey or the Philadelphia Metro and tried to take their opinions with a grain of salt. I spent some time reading about certain towns along the way on Wikipedia or scanned Reddit to get a vibe. I even previewed chunks of the walk on Google Street View to mentally prepare and know if it was actually safe to walk near some of these roads. I could have spent months preparing, but it never would actually replace walking in these small towns and cities. It's so much different when you're on the ground.
I suppose the main reason we’re talking is that you make a magazine based around the idea of walking. How long have you been making Pedestrian? What started it off?
I released the first issue of Pedestrian back in March of 2018. I was living in Ridgewood, Queens at the time and made friends with a guy named Curtis Merkel (I actually met him while out on a walk). He ran a moving business for a few decades and retired. At 84 years old he opened up a tiny little bookshop to keep himself busy. I'd visit him every weekend to check out his books and eventually we'd just get to talking. He'd lived in Ridgewood his entire life and loved to talk about the neighborhood's history. Moving to NYC also introduced me to a thriving community of zine makers. I wanted to share these conversations I'd had with Curtis in print form, so I decided to start a magazine. I invited a few friends to contribute and the rest was history.
Since then, the identity of Pedestrian has become quite fluid. While it started as a magazine, I would now describe Pedestrian as my own practice. It's a platform that allows me to collaborate with others, produce magazines, write newsletters, go on these long multi-day walks, and produce t-shirts. I have found this configuration gives me the most creative freedom.
A lot of your magazine is about meeting people and striking up conversations. Is this a lost art these days?
I don't know if it's a lost art per se, but there's less incentive to reach out and talk with strangers these days. Thanks to the rise of social media it's just getting easier and easier to stay within our own "bubbles." Starting Pedestrian, in a way, was an excuse for me to speak with those I typically wouldn't reach. It's amazing how having a publication kind of takes the fear out of speaking with strangers. You can do anything when you have intention.
Although walking is something most people do, is it overlooked as an activity? It seems it’s mostly seen as an inconvenience, rather than a hobby in itself.
It depends where you live. In New York City, for example, walking is a part of the culture. The city is built in such a way that makes walking a viable means of transportation. And if you can't walk to your destination, you're likely walking to a subway or a bus. Where I'm from in Iowa, walking is very inconvenient. Everything is spaced out, which makes walking anywhere very difficult. It’s not that people don’t want to walk, it’s just the way we’ve built certain communities has made it very hard to enjoy. It makes people think walking is very inconvenient.
I’m here in Iowa until August and it’s been interesting to walk a place that is so reliant on cars. The other day I did a 13.5 walk around the city. There’s nothing here stopping you from walking (unless the heat gets you. Technically we’re in the middle of a drought. It’s been incredibly hot as of late), and there’s plenty of sidewalk. I think it’s mostly just a mindset people have to develop. It doesn’t matter how many miles you walk, it’s just about getting out there. Your mental health will thank you and you might even learn something new about your surroundings along the way.
Walking is maybe the antithesis to the internet, but Pedestrian also has a decent presence on the World Wide Web, and you regularly send newsletters and... er... partake in the digital world. How do you balance the real world with the matrix?
It’s a relationship I’m constantly reevaluating. I’m not a master of balancing the two yet, but I’m slowly building habits that will protect my time. I often daydream of abandoning social media altogether and picking up a flip phone. I obviously haven’t done that yet, so in the meantime, I’m investing a lot of time in my newsletter. Sending out a newsletter is a much more thoughtful, intimate, and slow experience...kind of like the way I approach my walks out in the world. I understand that the web is a tool and I’m not sure the Philly walk would have gotten the same amount of attention had I not had an Instagram account. It’s cliche, but everything in moderation, right? I try not to take it so seriously.
What next for Pedestrian?
The Philly walk was such a great success and I’d like to keep that momentum going. Later in September I have another big, big walk planned, but I have yet to announce the route. Look for an announcement sometime next month. This one will be a bit longer and involve 3 different cities. I can’t wait.
Once winter hits I’m going to buckle down and produce a proper book for the Philly walk that will include all my writing and photos I took along the journey. I’m already excited to share the finished product with the world. Stay tuned.
Final question, what are your walking shoes of choice? And what's your soundtrack? Are earphones advised for long walks, or do you prefer the ambient sounds of the streets?
I’m a big fan of Hoka Clifton’s. I wore them throughout the entire Philly walk and have two pairs in my closet. At this point, Hoka should probably pay me for how much business I send their way. I’m always recommending them.
I prefer not to wear headphones and just listen to the ambient sounds of the street. More often than not, I find wearing headphones to be a bit distracting and it takes me out of the present moment. Although, I’ll admit I have been trying to introduce music into my walking once again, but few tracks make the cut. Lately Andrew Wasylyk’s Last Sunbeams of Childhood has been on repeat. There’s something about that track...
Find out more about Pedestrian here. Pedestrian is available in the UK courtesy of Central Library.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
long story short (it was a bad time)
Prompt: 31. “I never would’ve thought that (he/she/they)’d get with someone else.” from this prompt list!
Pairing: no current ones, but there are serious mentions of former!hotchniss
Word Count: 4,410 (?????)
Warnings: it’s angsty, and there’s some mentions of alcohol. there’s also mentions of the mr. scratch events
A/n: no, we are not going to talk about how late this is. nope. (i’m so sorry. catching up now, hopefully!) wrote this, realized that it’s very akin to seattle by @hurricanejjareau, which if you haven’t read, do it!
Des Moines, Iowa- October, 2017
Shutting his phone with far more force than necessary, he stared down at the small object. He flipped it in his palm and scowled at it with dismay. It was a chance of a lifetime, and it was all he had thought about for the past three years. There wasn’t a world in which he would refuse the offer, yet, for just the slightest of moments, he hesitated. But just as quickly as it came, it left, and he made his decision.
Aaron Hotchner was returning to the BAU.
The death of a valued team member left a door open, and Hotch already had a foot in. Cruz called him and offered him a deal he knew the former agent wouldn’t refuse. All the pieces were falling into place, all the stars were aligning, all the signs were being shown. There was no way he’d be able to refute everything the world was telling him. And he definitely didn’t try very hard.
Cruz said that Mr. Scratch had been terrorising the team practically since he left. Someone that cunning was not able to let go of something they felt so interesting. He had placed Reid, an agent who had already seen far too much for his short life, in a maximum security prison, framing him and terrorising him with memories that were just out of his reach.
Hotch was told about what happened in the car, how they were ambushed, how Prentiss was abducted, and how SSA Walker was killed. He was told how traumatized the team was. But he was also told how much relief finally catching Lewis gave them. For the first time in a very long time, the team felt somewhat safe
And the spot left open by the death of Stephen Walker- Cruz knew that Hotch was itching to come back. Hotch may have only worked under him for two years, but they knew each other very well. Cruz knew how much being away from this job, this team, this life had been destroying Aaron, even if he wasn’t told so.
“Hey, buddy.” It was an old habit of his, crouching down to talk to his son and calling him ‘buddy.’ Jack had probably come to associate the pet name with bad news, because the only time his father ever called him that was when he had difficult facts to present. Jack wasn’t a little kid anymore; he was twelve, and he was far too smart to not see that his dad was undergoing some turmoil.
But the good thing with Jack was that he was also smart enough to act like nothing was wrong, to just go with the flow. He had gone through a lot of changes in his life, and would definitely be going through more in the future, but he was used to it by now and was okay to move with his dad at a moment’s notice.
“What’s up, Dad?” he asked, looking up from a math book with attentive eyes.
Hotch stood up and moved into the seat across the table from him. He spoke very slowly, “How would you feel about moving back to Virginia?”
“That’d be cool!” he enthused, nodding his head but his eyebrows were knit with confusion. “Why? Are you going back to the FBI?”
Hotch pursed his lips in thought. His fingers drummed subconsciously on the wood top. “I… think so, yeah. But-” he interrupted himself, holding his hand in the air, “only if you are okay with it. I don’t want to cause you anymore pain by moving you. Again.”
The younger Hotchner shook his now long hair clad head. “I miss Virginia! And we can visit Mom without having to fly!”
“Yeah,” came Hotch’s much quieter, less enthusiastic reply. “We can visit Mom.”
Jack turned back to his algebra with a smile on his face and a bouncing knee, his mouth moving rapidly to describe to his silent father how excited he was to go back and see his friends, and see Uncle Dave, and go back to that school, and have Dad catch the bad guys, and see Aunt Jess.
Hotch was just quiet, basking silently in his son’s excitement. He only hoped that the team, but one specific person, really, would be so excited for the return of Agent Hotchner.
Quantico, Virginia- the same day
Prentiss was silent, and it wasn’t lost on her coworkers. They had taken to routinely dropping by her door, asking her if she wanted anything, and always hearing a false cheery no. Additionally, it wasn’t lost on her that they were grouping in the bullpen, shooting furtive looks her way, talking in hushed voices, and jolting back to their files whenever she looked down at them.
The call from Cruz had just come in about a new team member.
To say that she and Hotch had a… complicated history would be a serious understatement. Years ago, Emily wanted to leave. She wanted to get out of this job and this life because she couldn’t see herself getting back into what used to be. The failure with her house really just cemented that for her.
Hotch changed that.
The “date” they had arranged had actually turned into a date. It was easy to think back with a fond smile at the memory of Hotch with a cream mustache, clueless and smiling for once in his life. She had sat in that chair at the coffee shop and thought, ‘why would I ever want to leave this?’
After that, it was easy for her buried feelings to surface in an explosion of . It was easy for her to sit on his sofa and fall in love with him as he cared for his child with a gentleness she had never seen anywhere else. And she’d like to think the same went for him.
The HR battles about their relationship were difficult, but in Aaron’s words as they sat outside of the office waiting for a final verdict, “it was nothing we can’t handle. I love you, and there’s no way that Strauss- or anyone for that matter- will be able to take that away from us.”
And it was easy to believe that, too. Three years they loved each other, days spent fighting the horrors of the world, nights spent comforting each other and falling deeper into the trance that was the other.
Emily being herself, she’d known it was too good to be true. There was always a tiny voice in the back of her head whispering, “You don’t deserve him. He’s just going to leave you. This isn’t real.”
She should have listened.
Mr. Scratch changed that. In the moments after Hotch was rescued from Lewis, she’d known it was over. The blank look he shot her, the way his hands shook, the flinch away from her when she laid a caring hand on his back. Just everything.
And she was right. Hotch, a spot of darkness on the otherwise pristine and bright hospital bed, was the last she’d seen him. He checked himself out, picked Jack up from Jess’ house, packed a bag, and left.
The only note he left wasn’t to her or even Rossi. No. It was to Garcia, a warning to not go looking for him- that he knew how to disappear from even her, but that would only make it harder on Jack. It was a plea to let him leave his life behind, the very thing he had convinced Prentiss to not do three years prior.
Emily dragged herself from her thoughts by staring at the framed photos she kept on her desk. Herself, Penelope, and JJ smiling at a bar after a solved case. Reid’s arms looped around her and a carefree smile on his face for once. Rossi kissing her cheek. Layton and her, locking lips under a sprig of mistletoe held out by Alvez.
And a photo of Hotch reaching his hand out towards her, an expression of love on his face.
It wasn’t good for her healing process, she’d been told that enough times in the bureau-mandated therapy sessions, to act like Hotch and their relationship never existed. So, she kept a singular photo up, a small reminder to the happiest she’d ever been.
Quantico, Virginia- November, 2017
Feelings of nostalgia rushed through him as he stepped out of the cold into the building, just as a tidal wave of hesitation crashed into him. Was this the right thing to do?
He could have stood in the doorway forever, but a call from a security member stirred him from his stupor. Too late to go back now. He could only hope that arriving a week before they expected him would catch them off-guard, enough to let him talk before completely shutting him down.
Cruz met him in the lobby with a welcoming smile. “Hey, Hotch.” He reached out for a hug, which he stiffly received. Mateo had always been a hugger, and three years away hadn’t changed that.
They pulled apart, and Hotch looked towards the elevator apprehensively. “They’re here?” he asked, turning back to Cruz, who nodded.
“Prentiss has only told some of them. We weren’t expecting you for another week, and she figured that it’d be best to wait until Monday to tell them.”
Hotch’s heart leapt into his throat at the mention of Emily, and his voice quivered a bit as he asked, “So, who knows?”
“Rossi. Garcia, who, as you know, will find anything out. JJ and Luke, I believe. Luke Alvez,” he clarified at Hotch’s cocked eyebrow. “He came in last year from the Fugitive Task Force after Agent Morgan resigned.”
Hotch almost choked on the coffee he had lifted to his mouth to drink. “When did Morgan leave?”
Cruz ushered him towards the elevators and pushed the button while explaining simply, “You’ve missed a lot, Aaron.”
It was salt in an already burning wound
“There’s also a new doctor in town, a Dr. Tara Lewis. She joined when Agent Callahan left. I think you’ll like her.” Cruz paused as they entered, thinking about the team. “Oh! And Matt Simmons.”
“From IRT?”
“Mhm. They disbanded, and he’s with us now. I think that’s it.”
Aaron was quiet, the news of how the team had changed settling on him. He fidgeted his feet and turned towards Cruz. “You aren’t a profiler, but give me your best thoughts. How does it look for my reception?”
The section chief was silent, turning away from him and towards the closed doors. He stared at the rising numbers and said, “Not good.”
A sharp “ding” sounded as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Hotch was very proud to say he only hesitated slightly in stepping out the silver doors and towards the glass walls of the bullpen.
He stopped at the door, where Cruz waved him goodbye, to stare at the team at their desks. JJ was perched on Reid’s desk, and a man he didn’t recognize was spinning in his chair while Spencer watched with a thinly veiled smile. A pretty black woman was pouring over a file splayed on the desk of Matt Simmons.
“Hotch?” a chirpy voice from behind him asked.
At the sound of his name, Aaron spun on his heel, suit jacket flying, and met the watering eyes of Penelope Garcia. She looked the same, but her smile lines were etched a little deeper. Her hand moved to cover them as she took in Hotch standing in front of her, shocked.
“I-I didn’t think you were going to be here for another week! You should have warned me!” she rushed towards him with outstretched arms, dropping the papers she had been carrying. “I wanted to make you a cake! And get Jack a present!”
She pulled away, placing her hands on both sides of his face and scanned his eyes. Bewildered, he looked back at her. A man slid past them into the office, balancing three cups of coffee in his hands.
“Just making sure you are real,” she said and stepped back onto the array of papers scattered across the glossy floor.
“Hi, Garcia,” he laughed, breathily, finally able to get a word in from her rambling.
“Hi!”
The time didn’t seem to diminish their relationship, but intuition told him that he wouldn’t be this well received by everyone else. You don’t just drop off the face of the planet and expect everything to be okay when you come back. It didn’t work for Prentiss, and Prentiss had a reason. What reason was he going to give?
“Come on, come on!” Penelope urged, pushing on his back, forgetting the papers she dropped. “The team is going to be so surprised! They don’t even know you’re the new team member!”
Weaving their fingers together, she tugged him through the glass doors, waving her other arm to get the attention of the others. Emily and Rossi had come down from their offices at this point, Prentiss taking a coffee from the man and planting a kiss on his cheek. Rossi made a show of doing the same, but still accepted his drink with a grateful smile.
Hotch would have frozen in his place, but the enigma that was Penelope continued to pull him towards the others. All the returning profiler could do was stare at the pair and their clasped hands.
Eight pairs of eyes turned to them as Garcia called, “Guys! Look who it is!”
Hotch didn’t have a lot of expectations for his reception, but a complete stillness somehow fell short of all of them. Penelope was similarly disappointed by the reaction and dragged him closer to the desks.
“Oh, come on,” she sighed as they made it to stand in front of them. She placed her hands on her hips and surveyed them with the air of a mother telling her children to hug an aunt they didn’t like. “It’s Hotch, people!”
With a wide grin and a teasing look to Garcia, the man Hotch didn’t recognize came over to them first, offering a hand out. Hotch tried to focus on him and not the open-mouthed faces of his former friends. Better to ignore it than confront it.
“Luke Alvez,” the man introduced brightly.
Hotch nodded in understanding. “You came from the Marshals?” At the nod he received, he forced a smile. “How’d we pin you down to the BAU?”
Luke gave a good-natured shrug. “Don’t ask me,” he laughed.
A slender hand was presented to him next. “Tara Lewis.”
“Doctor,” Hotch nodded and chuckled slightly at the shocked look she gave him. “Cruz told me.”
Matt was next to greet him, waving from his spot at his desk. “Hey, Aaron.”
“Matt. How are the kids?”
“More of a handful everyday,” Simmons smiled lightly. “How is yours?”
Hotch shrugged. “He’s old.”
“Right? Where did the years go?”
As the conversation fizzled out, a feeling of stiffness floated into the room. Hotch could have cut the tension with a knife, and he was forced to look at the faces of the people he had been purposely looking away from.
Reid was far less clean cut than he had been when Aaron left. His face was no longer clean shaven, and he had grown his hair out. Somehow, his eyes expressed even more pain and exhaustion than three years prior. All those years ago, Hotch would have been able to read his emotions to a tee but with the new appearance and experiences, Reid’s thoughts were completely lost on Hotch.
JJ and Rossi were sporting similar smiles. JJ’s was melancholic, reflecting the history they used to have, and Rossi’s was understanding, somehow expressing that he understood Hotch’s need to leave. But JJ’s arms were crossed and her expression was guarded- she didn’t trust him anymore.
None of them did.
Prentiss’ face was wiped of emotion. Her grip on the man next to her had tightened, knuckles whitened. A stark contrast to Garcia, Emily’s frown lines had been etched deeper into her face and smile lines faded. Her eyes held none of the love that Hotch used to mirror, none of the joy that used to spark happiness in himself.
The man she was clutching onto didn’t seem to notice the tension that had filled the air, and offered a cheery smile to Hotch as he held out his hand. “Layton Gregory, Counter-intelligence.”
“Hello.” It was a stiff greeting but it was all that Hotch could spit out as he stared at his and Emily’s intertwined hands.
Gregory didn’t seem to care. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“All good things?”
“Nothing too bad,” the other man shrugged, and looked towards Emily with a frown. He didn’t seem to know that there was history, which Hotch took a mental note of. “Bye, babe. I’ve got to go, I just figured you’d want your afternoon coffee. Glad I could meet you,” he nodded to Aaron.
Pressing his lips onto Emily’s forehead, Layton waved to the team and Hotch, who, bar the returning member, waved back.
Rossi raised his cup at the agent’s retreating back. “I owe you the next one!”
Layton waved it off over his shoulder, and the door shut behind him softly. The attention was directed back to Hotch. Curious eyes took in his appearance, but spiteful ones turned away and back to their work.
Alvez handed a stack of manila files to Hotch, but stepped closer to whisper, “Prentiss isn’t too happy. I don’t know if there’s history here, but I think it’d be best to just let her simmer right now.” He stepped away and at regular volume told him, “Just a bunch of consulting right now. With you here, it should take less time- hopefully, at least.”
Hotch nodded, smiling grimly at the advice, and took the folders. He turned towards his former flame, willing explanations to give her into existence. Unsurprisingly, none came.
Giving him a quick up-and-down glance, Emily turned away from him without a word. If Hotch was paying attention-- which he was-- he would have seen her turn back and swipe quickly at her cheeks before turning back around. The door that shut behind her wasn’t as quiet as her boyfriend’s.
JJ slowly drew her eyesight from Emily’s shut door back to Hotch. “It’s nice to have you back, Hotch.” Her voice didn’t exactly convey the same message, but she did reach out and rub his arm gently. “Emily’s had a tough time since you left. It wasn’t… easy for her, to say the least.”
“It wasn’t easy for me, either,” came Hotch’s weak explanation.
“Yeah, you don’t get that option!” she snapped, anger she had been harboring since he left rising to the surface. “You left, not us! If it was hard,” she did air quotes with her fingers, “you shouldn’t have done it! Why did you leave?”
He couldn’t answer her.
“Yeah.” JJ turned away and back to the paper she had crushed. She sounded vindictive, for what, Hotch was unaware. He assumed she was probably angry for the pain he had caused her and Emily and the team as a whole.
“Hey, Reid,” Hotch greeted softly as he crossed to the other side of the room, standing next to Rossi, who placed a kind hand across his shoulders.
The young man didn’t verbally acknowledge him, rather he just nodded. His eyes never shifted from the report in front of him. That was the best Hotch was going to get and he knew it.
Rossi moved him towards the stairs, mentioning something about a drink to catch up. His words were barely heard over the rush of blood in Hotch’s head. He could barely believe that these were the same people he had worked with for so many years. They just seemed like… shells of their former selves- placeholders put here to replace them.
As they passed the windows to the office of the Unit Chief, Hotch couldn’t help but glance in on his former safe haven. Emily was stooped over her desk, rapping a framed photo with one of her knuckles, words he couldn’t hear spilling from her mouth.
He’d forgotten how beautiful she was. Of course, he took pictures and vivid memories of her filled his head at all times, but nothing compared to her in person. Raven hair fell into her face and she pushed it behind her ear with a delicate finger, only for it to fall back. Hotch remembered countless times where he had done the same thing for her, brushing a gentle hand against her face to push her hair back.
But that was gone now, and there was no way that he would be given that opportunity again.
Rossi set a bottle of sloshing liquid on his desk between them and slid a glass to him. “Drink. You’ll need it.”
“It’s,” he glanced at his watch, “only three.”
He was answered with a cocked eyebrow. “Are you really trying to tell me that you don’t want some?”
His glass was filled, but it remained untouched on the desk.
“How are you?” Rossi asked, leaning back into his chair.
Hotch straightened his back. “I’m okay. I didn’t think I’d ever actually see this place again.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you.”
“Touché.”
The room hadn’t changed much in the years since Hotch had seen it. It still reeked of Rossi, but it was just a little more hectic than it used to be. Papers were crammed into the bookshelves, no clear organization. The tv and game console set were new, something Hotch recognized from an ad Jack had shown him in an attempt for a birthday present.
Rossi hesitated before asking his question, the bond of complete transparency diminished in the years. “Do you… can you talk about it?”
There wasn’t an immediate response. The drink was swirled in the glass, but Hotch still didn’t take a drink.
“I had to leave. Uh, after Scratch got me, he put me under those drugs. I guess he was trying to see what I would do, I don’t know. Everything I’ve ever loved was ripped away from me in these… visions, I guess they could be called. You guys, Jack, Emily.” He pursed his lips. “I had to leave. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Rossi rested his chin on his outstretched index fingers. “Emily.”
“Emily.”
They sat in companionable silence, although they could barely be considered that anymore. Rossi nursed his drink, and Hotch did not, electing to stare out the window into the bullpen and watch the team work.
“What happened?” he asked.
Rossi shook his head. “What didn’t happen is the better question. They’ve gone through a lot in the past few years, and so have you. It’s just going to be like walking on eggshells for a while. You’ll never know when any of them reach their breaking point.”
Prentiss had left the recluse of her office and returned to the bullpen. She and Tara were talking over a case file Tara had splayed in her hands. Aaron couldn’t tear his eyes off of her.
“Aaron?”
“I never would have thought she’d get with someone else,” he answered softly to a question that was never asked. He still didn’t look away.
“Okay.” The sharpness of Dave’s voice shocked Hotch enough to make him turn back. “Do you really think you are the end all, be all? What, did you think everything would stay the same for three years? You left, Aaron! She moved on! We all did! We didn’t know if you were ever going to return so we had to live as such!”
It was quiet enough in the office after Rossi’s outburst that Hotch could hear his own blinking. “I know.”
“Then act like it!” JJ clearly wasn’t the only one with pent up anger, but Rossi’s was a softer anger. There was no malice behind his words. “I understand why you left, we all have that moment where every fiber of our being is telling us to leave, to pack up and change our name and move to Buenos Aires.”
Hotch squinted at the ranting man. “The Buenos Aires part might just be you, Dave.”
“Maybe so. The thing is, Hotch, that Emily could barely stand when you disappeared. She was so weak with stress that her body literally shut down for a little bit. And we couldn’t help her. She was destroyed when you left.”
There weren’t enough words to describe the pain that Hotch felt at Rossi’s story. The thought of his Emily-- no, she wasn’t his anymore, he made sure of that-- suffering that much because of something he did was unbearable.
“But Emily is a fighter. She got better, she moved on. She took over as Unit Chief, she moved into that office, and she took charge, almost like she was made for it. Do you want to know how long it took Garcia to convince her to go out to a club?”
Hotch shook his head.
“I don’t know because it still hasn’t happened. That fun Emily we all knew died when you left. She doesn’t go out to party or club like she used to. All she does is work, eat, and maybe sleep.” Rossi shot a look out the window. “I mean, for God’s sake, she’s dating someone from work, she didn’t even go out and meet a normal person!”
“What can I do?” Hotch’s voice was rough.
A shrug was his reply. “I don’t know. We’re all a little like that. She just took it the hardest because she loved you the most. If you had popped the question, she would have married you back then. Can you imagine that? Emily Prentiss, married?”
A million tiny images of what life could have been flew through Hotch’s mind of Emily in a flowing white dress walking towards him. He could imagine that, very easily.
The class clanged as Rossi set it down. “I think you just have to remember that we aren’t the same people anymore. That’s,” he pointed out the window, “not the same Emily. And I don’t think you’ll be getting that one back. I never could.”
Hotch sunk deeper into his chair and followed Rossi’s finger to below them. Prentiss was smiling, but it wasn’t at him like it used to be. And he didn’t think it would be for a very long time.
#bet you weren't expecting me#i'm like that michael it's britney bitch scene except i just never come back#yes the title is a tswift song what about it?#also please don't let this flop cause i'm actually kinda proud of this one?#eva's 25 days of christmas#advent calendar of fics (ACoF)#hotchniss fic#emily prentiss#aaron hotchner#david rossi#angst#criminal minds#criminal minds fic#eva writes occasionally
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
Reviews: The Stand: Captain Trips
Halloween Havoc rambles on!
I decided to read a Stephen King Classic via it’s comic book adaptation from Marvel Knights 4 and Afterlife with Archie scribe and future Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sarcasa. A deadly plauge sweeps across the US that kills in it’s wake while the goverment tries to cover it up. Because that’s not at all terrifingly close to home.
But as this pandemic creeps around the US we meet 5 dispearte people with a part to play in what the world becomes after the end: Stu, a hard nosed man who finds himself imprisoned by the government since he was next to patient zero for the outbreak and lived. Frannie, a young woman who finds herself pregnant and dealing with her disaproving mother and the babie’s less than ideal dad. Larry, a would be one hit wonder whose come home to new york to dry out and to let Stephen King go on for several pages about how much he fucking hates new york, because that was important. Nick, a deaf and mute teen drifter who finds himself subbing for a kind sherieff who sadly got the disease. And Lloyd, a dumb criminal who finds himself in jail after a robbery gone bad. And waiting in their dreams and the shadows for his acendency, the walking dude, Randall Flagg, evil itself. Waiting paitently for the soon dawning time of his ascendency. Spoilers and the review itself under the cut.
So yeah i’m back to doing some comics reviews and I.. genuinely missed it. I did. I just needed to reajdust from doing one issue at a time to doing full arcs as well as get it in my head to do one. And while I didn’t INTEND to review these, I ended up liking this series, at least for this mini, so much I couldn’t resist diving into them critically.
As for why I decided to read these comics it’s simple: i’ve never read the Stand but always wanted to. No real complex motives: I’ve liked some adaptations of King’s works with It: Chapter One being the reason I finally started watching horror movies after a good decade or two of avoiding them like the plauge, finally breaking down my squeamish cowardly barrier and opening up a greater world. Granted the sequel was a giant balloon parade of disapointment, but I can get to that some other day. Point is I like Stephen King: he seems like a decent enough guy, has had some good adaptations of his works and even the bad ones have some fun. Like this trailer for maximum overdrive where it’ shard to tell if it’s his tragic drug addiction or just him that’s responsibile for that wonderful delivery.
youtube
So yeah, with little options to read the stand and the series out of print, I decided to dive into the comics because they seemed accurate enough from the way reviews had them and frankly before horror films, I really got into horror through comics, with my gateway there being Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s afterlife with archie. Many of you may know RAS, as i’m calling him so I don’t horribly mangle his namem, as the guy behind riverdale, sabrina, which is partialy based off his own sabrina comic and kathy keene, but before he became Archie’s golden boy, he was a writer at marvel, hence these mini series, and wrote the wonderful fantastic four series marvel knight’s 4, which I might cover at some point, which followed the four as they lost all their money and had to live like us normal folks. It’s really fucking good stuff and easily one of the best runs on the characters period. Afterlife with Archie is no slouch either so pairing both guys who brought me to the terrordance of horror seemed like a match made in heaven.
So that’s where we Stand, pun intended: I haven’t read the stand or watched the mini series, only know or remember some spoilers, and am walking into this blind but eager to see what happens. So if your willing to join me on the ride and on my fresh perspective, here’s Stephen King’s the stand by RAS and Mike Perkins.
Now since, at least at this early stage, The stand is divided up by the characters and what their going through as the virus hits, i’m going to cover this character by character, with an additional section on the progress of the pandemic itself and the government response.
Before I dig in I will say there is something I really love here: The Pacing. NOw I will grant it’s slow: By the end of this mini we only JUST meet big bad Randall Flag as the pademic and it’s goverment coverup both kick into high gear.
So why does it work? Simple: The characters. By opening up as the end of the world is happening instead of shortly before or after like most post apoclayptic stories, and focusing on each of our surivivors we get a real sense of who our heroes were before society collapsed as it collapses, and get to really care about them and WANT to see how they react to the end of the world and what they become. It justifies the series, and the book’s , massive length by using that giant stretch of time to get us invested in the cast and really want to see where this story goes. It’s really good storytelling and holds up really well. So with that out of the way, we can dive into the meat of the story itself. And before we can get to our protaganists, let’s get to the plauge itself
THE OUTBREAK
The story starts with a soldier breaking out of quarantine after getting hit with a miltary virus, infecting his wife and child while trying to go awol and dying.. thus starting the plauge known as Captain Tripps. It crashes into a small town gas station, where we met Stu, one of our heroes, more of him later and starts to slowly grip the nation as the book goes on.
The Goverment handles making a plauge that will end up dooming the human race.. by pretending it dosen’t exist, supressing the media, and cordening off whole cities and taking them over. An early attempt by the media to get the story out get the reporters shot horribly, and we get to see all the gore in this version. it’s not plesant but it’s a well done sequence. We get an even worse sequence where the general in charge of the facility captain tripps came from seeing tons of dead bodies in the cafeteria from their sceintests failed attempts at a cure, one of which is horribly bloated, and then shoots himself..... yeah I got nothing. Just.. wow. Good horrible stuff.
So yeah tha’ts basically how it goes: the goverment can’t figure out how to stop it and tries desperatley to cover it up or downplay it instead.. and why yes our own goverment’ sbungled handling of coronavirus, with our own PRESIDENT, in the hospital right now, does make this extra chilling to me thanks for asking!
It SOMEHOW gets worse with the final issue as various media outlets rebel against the goverment supression with tv, newspaper and radio all reporting on this despite the risk.. that comes true as the goverment STILL dosen’t learn their lesson and kills them all and we end as the virus only gets worse and the president urges everyone that it’s all fine despite teh mass bodies dumped into the sea and to just take some juice. Just.... just.....
Yes exactly thank you Jon. It’s good stark horrible stuff, I just have no more commentary other than please make it stop. I will say however it’s well done stuff that lets the creeping dread seep in until it really hits fever pitch at the end.
Stu Redman:
As I mentioned, we meet Stu very early on, as he’s on site when patient zero crashes his car into a gas station.
Unfortuntely for him this gets him and hsi town swept up to a goverment black site where as seen above, he has no time for the bullshit their feeding him and is in no mood to actually cooperate till they actually talk to them. Which.. yeah it’s entirely resonable: the Goverment is holding him here against his will, refusing to tell him anything and asking to get samples from him. How does he know their not just going to shoot him the second their done with him? He dosen’t and given what we’ve seen this version of the goverment, and hell the real goverment do, yeah. Maybe blind trust needs to be earned rather than demanded. Just saying.
Stu gets his answers, that everyone else they brought in and thus his whole town is dead, and they don’t know how to stop the virus.. and that they don’t know where it came from but as the above makes clear, that’s a load of garbage. So Stu relcutantly and grumpliy coperates. He’s basically if Ron Swanson got freaky friday’d into nick millers body.
Stu eventually gets taken to a diffrent facility after the jounalist thing and becomes even more coperative, as they start bringing in an armed guard every time someone visits him.. and Stu starts to get even more wary of this shit as it’s very obvious he’s become expendable, he uses those exact words, and by the end of this mini is plotting his escape. He also has dreams.. of iowa cornfields.. and a sinster man in black floating above them.
I like stu a lot: A hard nosed down to earth guy who dosen’t take shit, but is clever enough to know when to bite his tounge and bide his time, easily sussing out both why he’d been moved to a new facility and just how disposable he now is: He’s a man who will fight when needed but knows when to hold back and wait for it. He’s also a nice protaganist ot be our main viewpoint in the goverment sections and is easily my second faviorite. My faviorite is coming shortly.
Frannie Goldsmith:
Frannie is a college student who just ended up pregnant by her boyfriend Jesse. She dosen’t want to marry him despite him offering.. and given his reactions to her telling him this are to whine “but you were supposed to be on the pill”, which she was and gave plenty of reasons why that may not have worked, and then give a loud , what was probably groaning “Aw hell” before proposting.. yeah good call.
Frannie’s dad takes it well as he’s sad, but he understands and loves his daughter and wants to support her. Her mother.. is a selfish nightmare who bearates her for it, berates her husband, who usually backs down as Frannie is used to at this point, for standing up for her and then just for added terrible points physically abuses Frannie, who is PREGNANT, by slapping her hard. I know that can’t hurt the baby but fucking really.
Thankfully Frannie’s father decides even if he wont’ divorce the crone to stand up to her at least, and points out she really hasn’t been the same since Frannie’s brother died, igorning her up until the pregnancy and calling her out. She leaves in a huff defeated, and Frannie leaves to go stay at a hotel for a bit while tryign to find somewhere to stay, with her mom not wanting to talk to her and her dad insiting she come around.
Given her mother had signs of the virus earlier.. she dosen’t. She dies, Frannie, having come home to help her is devistated and we actually get a devistating if confusing bit as she hugs her dad and talks about eating the pie. Something lost in translation but the visuals cover well enough. And that’s where he story ends, though with a montage in the last issue, which is all we get of htem as the issue is focused on Flagg and the pandemic response instead. Not a bad move mind as it’s easily the best issue of the series, just a note.
Frannie is a likeable enough character, a strong woman who knows what she wants, wants to keep her baby and has decent enough family drama.. if well worn at this point but fraknly the book was written all the way back in the late 70′s so this is forgivable as it probably wasn’t AS common as it is now. Frannie has plenty of personality but her plot is one of the less intresting as it’s pretty easy to tell where it’s going in comparison to the other, more intresting plots going on around it. That said you still connect to frannie enough for it to not feel like a drag on the story and to feel important, so it’s not too bad a section.
Larry Underwood:
Larry Underwood is a musician whose also a bit o fa scumbag, using people and drugs like theres no tommorow and riding high, in both senses, off the sucess of his single.. a title that sums up the 70′s in a nutshell “Baby Can You Dig Your Man?”. Just.. it sounds like a parody song from SCTV... so in other words good job on making a goofy 70′s pop hit title stephen. Respect.
But yeah a friend of Larry’s seeing he’s hit bottom suggets he had back to new york. Larry bunks with his mom who worries it’s too late for him to change from the scumbag he is now and that only a great catstrophe could do that.
So yeah obviously it’s gonna, but we’ll likely see that as the series goes on. So mostly Larry’s segment is one incident of him having a one night stand that seems a bit overblown.. I mean it is scummy of him but her screaming “your not a good guy and what not as seen above just seems narmy as hell and utterly stephen king in terms of writing.. but the scene of him trying to convince himself she’s wrong after is really strong. Larry’s self doubt, self hate and wondering if he’s that bad is really strong stuff and really godo character stuff showing he is an asshole who uses people including his own mom.. but also genuinely DOSEN’T want to be that person but dosen’t know how. We also get a crushing bit where he calls for his friend who helped him only to find out not only is the guy in the hopstial but it’s getting bad. As the chapter ends larry looses his mom too.
The one real weakness of this bit is King goes on a bit of an author tract that’s kept via larry’s narration, which by the way I love how the books narration is kept REALLY damn well via the caption boxes, it’s really nicely done and a way to help keep some of the bits from the book while still taking bits out where necessary. It’s a nice touch. But back on point yeah.. Larry REALLY hates new york.. which to me translates as Stephen King REALLY hating new york, and wanting you to know how much he hates new york, how much the city was festering back then, how much of a crap hole it is, how it farts turds during thunder storms etc. IT’s likely trimme down from the text but boy does it feel unecessary> We get it, 70′s pre clean-up intiative new york was REALLY fucking awful. You didn’t like it there. But if you want to rant about new york for several paragraphs..
Like I get that he’s TRYING to make the point Larry dosen’t like new york and dosen’t fit in at home but instead of trying into his character arc entirely it just feels like an excuse for King to ramble about his hatred of new york. I’ts easily the weakest part of this mini series and I only think it was kept because RAS, as made clear in the question and answer sessions with marvel.com in the back of one of the issues, is a huge king fan and wanted to keep as much as possible. It’s the one time I feel the comic, and the story it’s retelling, really stumbled that bad. Thankfully with that rant over we can get onto my faviorite character
Nick Andros:
Nick is easily has both the most unique narriatve and is the most intresting character to me. A mute and deaf teenage drifter, he goes from town to town finding work.. and between towns get beatup by a bunch of local assholes the ringleader of which is your standard Stephen King bully because depending on the kindness of strangers in a stephen king story is just asking for a beating.
Though oddly enough that ends up working as Nick finds himself in a jail cell with the local Sheirff and after getting a pad and paper, not only verifies he was working with someone in town, and who he is , but also who beat him down. And oddly for a king story since while he DOES have a heroic sheirff i’ve heard of, most of his law enformcent seem to be corrupt hicks at best, this one.. is a nice guy who makes sure the assholes that assaulted nick are brought in despite the ringleader being his wife’s nephew and knowing he’ll get no sex for a while because of it.. the narrative points this out because we needed to knwo that apparently.
But said wife happily takes Nick in along with the Shierff while the sheirff takes 3/4 of the assholes in, with said nephew booking it out of town. But soon our kindly sheiff takes ill from the virus and Nick gladly fills in for him as his new deputy to make sure the idiots at the jail don’t starve. He continues this throught the book even as he looses his new family tragically due to the virus.. and soon his prisoners catch it too and clearly aren’t long for the world.
Nick is a THROUGHly likeable character. Just from body laungage it’s clear there’s a bit of an edge and a bit of harshness to him.. but he’s mostly just a good kid who goes out of his way to make sure three assholes who tried beating him to death get fed and watered, and wants to do the right thing despite the world crappign on him constnatly. He’s throughly intresting and his disablity is nicely portrayed, with him being portrayed as a normal guy who simplyg ot dealt a really crappy hand and does his best with it. Easily the best part of this mini, closely followed by the last issue but we’ll get to that in a second. We have one more character to get through.
Lloyd Henried
This bit will go fast since he’s only in two sections this mini but Lloyd is a dimwitted crminal who clearly gets a thrill from the crime sprees and murders he and his pal have done but also dosen’t murder inscreimatley. Unfortunatley his partner in crime does and Lloyd gets arrested after his first scene and hsi friend gets his face gunned off. Lloyd is last scene with his lawyer teaching him to lie. He’s basically just a dumb criminal at this point who likes thrills. Not a lot to dig into comapred to the other characters soooooo let’s move on to our final focus character and the focus of the final issue only, but hitned at before...
Randall Flagg
The breakout character of the piece, one of king’s most loved and most used villians. The Walking Dude. The Devil HImself. I had high expecations of this character with all that hype and he did NOT disapoint.
Flagg is a mysterious supernatural drifter who dosen’t even know how long he’s existed but is evil itself. He makes anyone he passes feel nervous, glass crack and everyone uneasy, yet when needed can slip in and out of any extremist or hate group easily and hands out pamphliets for whatever will get people riled up the most, good cause or bad. and easily worms his way in and out of heavily armed groups and into women’s beds. My words do not do kings words put onto the final issue justice. They jsut impart he is evil, he is here, and he is about to RISE. And you’d better be prepared to run. After a few issues of only appearing in one dream.. we meet our antagonist and he is a lot. Throughly engaging, throughly creepy and throughly unesettling we get a full sense of who flagg is a drifter who SEEMS resonable enough when talking but just.. gets under your skin, yhou just feel.. WRONG around him. This one sequence REALLY got me excited to see what this bastard does. Not a lot elsse to say throughly engaging creepy impressive villian who lived up to the hype and star of one of the best single issues i’ve read. No notes.
So yeah overall.. I really love this story so far. Obviously I have a LONNNG way to go and 5 more mini series to go so I hope you’ll join me but the art is good, the decisions fantastic and the writing adapted well, clearly compressed but in a way that works. A fantastic way to read the story for a newcomer such as myself and if you can find it somehwer,e read it. Ill continue with it as hte month, or months probably, go on. Until then check back on my blog for regular ducktales coverage and some more halloween fun, hit up my asks if you have some comics you’d like to see me cover, and until next time, happy halloween.
#halloween#halloween havoc#the stand#stephen king#randall flagg#horror#marvel comics#roberto aguirre-sacasa#mike perkins#stu redman#nick andros#frannie goldsmith#larry underwood#comic books
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
https://slate.com/transcripts/c2JZaHhQeC9QMGlhdUFpUGEycnl0UnRnNUdJRmo5R0tCdG02ck5pTTRhTT0=
On this week’s Hang Up and Listen podcast, we talked to two members of the group, both from UCLA: Elisha Guidry, a rising sophomore defensive back from Long Beach, California, and Otito Ogbonnia, a rising junior defensive tackle from Houston. The following transcript of that conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. The link to the full audio interview is at the bottom of this piece. —Joel Anderson
Joel Anderson: I guess the first question is: How did this group and the list of demands come together?
Otito Ogbonnia: It was something that we always knew, individually and teamwise, that this is a sentiment that most people felt. We were just waiting for an opportunity to get this whole thing going. And this started with some of the guys from Cal who used this as an opportunity to demand change and try to really get something done here. It was really Zoom that allowed us to do this whole thing, and being in a pandemic. It’d be very hard to coordinate a movement this big in normal times.
Elisha Guidry: Also, the social movement, or the civil rights movement really that’s going on in our country also inspired us. There’s a lot of inequalities that people are noticing. People are being awakened to seeing some of the things that go on in this world, and I feel like college football has many of them as well.
Josh Levin: Elisha, there are 17 demands on the list. What are the top line ones, as far as you’re concerned?
Guidry: For me personally, I feel like they’re all important. Definitely the players’ safety with the COVID, and ensuring that if a player decides to opt out, that his eligibility is honored, as well as getting insurance for players when they finish playing, because football takes a toll on the body and the mind. And I feel like once the player is done, they’re kind of just kicked out. They’re kind of just thrown in the world without a lot of guidance.
The image and likeness is very important because players deserve to be able to create wealth for themselves with this sport. I feel like a lot of players come from lower-income homes, a lot of players have struggles and football is kind of their way out. So just having an opportunity to be able to affect their families and affect their communities and people around them with their sport, even if they don’t make it to the NFL, is very important.
Stefan Fatsis: The demand that’s gotten a lot of attention is asking for 50 percent of revenue from the conference to be directed toward players. I mean, realistically, there’s no way that the Pac-12 leaders are going to agree to that immediately. So it does feel like by asking for it, you’re bringing this out into the open, the idea that athletes are aware of the inequities here and that we’ve got to move toward some system that helps compensate them in some way. Is that how you view it or are the ambitions higher among the group?
Ogbonnia: That’s exactly how we view it. I think when you exploit a group of people for this amount of time, it’s just kind of what you get. They had their opportunity to fix this, multiple opportunities. And one thing we, as a group, aren’t willing to accept is the idea that it’s not possible. This is a country which was brought up upon working hard and doing the impossible. And there are ways to get it done. Fifty percent of revenue is ambitious and it’s high and it’s asking a lot. But we live in this country, just like everybody else. And in regards to name, image, and likeness, why should we be the only citizens in this country who are denied making money off of who we are and our brand? And why is it that a kid at UCLA being a musician can go perform and make a couple hundred bucks off of their name, image, and likeness, but when it comes down to athletes, it’s a whole different story?
And I think that’s where that social justice kind of comes in, right? When you deny a group of people certain rights, you start to wonder why you’re doing it.
Anderson: A little more than a month ago, before even the We Are United movement, UCLA football players published their own list of demands related to coronavirus protections. So there was obviously an activist streak within the team already. And I just was curious to know, where is the team with that?
Ogbonnia: I forgot to mention about when you asked about the start of this movement, one thing those Cal guys told us is that they saw our letter to our university. They saw what we published and they kind of took that lead from us. So that was cool to see that.
And in regards to where we’re at now, for the most part, we’re doing well in terms of guaranteeing COVID protections. And we’re taking a very conservative approach to getting back to play in competition, if that’s even feasible.
[But] this is above UCLA. It’s above any one conference or any one school. It’s above any one person or any one culture or athletic department. It’s a conference thing. And the conference has the power to get some of these things done. As you’ve seen, the NCAA and the conference aren’t necessarily as conjoined as one may think. And a lot of times, they work separately in a lot of these matters.
Guidry: The Cal guys saw the things that we were asking for and they had to stop themselves—like, OK, we don’t have the same type of protection, and that’s something we want, because we feel like we’re taking this risk coming back to school and trying to participate in this game.
We all love football. We all spend so much time playing, since we were kids, and we want to do that as safely as possible, especially during this pandemic. Just asking around is what got everybody started and kind of got us all connected. And then we realized that there were more issues than just with the COVID-19 precautions.
Levin: I think it’s important for folks listening to this to understand how amazing and unusual it is what you guys are doing—even doing this interview. There was a story recently about the University of Iowa. They didn’t even let their players be on social media. The amount of control at these programs, about what they allow you guys to say, what they allow you guys to do in public, it’s so restrictive. And so the fact that you guys are talking to us about this, the fact that you put this message out, it’s an enormous deal. And we’ve already seen, there are varying reports about what’s going on at Washington State, in your conference, about potential repercussions for players there for joining this movement and for speaking out. [Editor’s note: According to a transcript published by the Dallas Morning News, Washington State coach Nick Rolovich told player Kassidy Woods that if Woods was a part of the Pac-12 unity movement, “that’s gonna be an issue.” Rolovich later said in a statement, “WSU football student-athletes who have expressed support for the #WeAreUnited group will continue to be welcome to all team-related activities.”] Are you guys at all concerned about potential repercussions from UCLA? And are you aware of the power imbalance? Your coach, Chip Kelly, was an NFL coach. He’s a multi-multimillionaire and you guys—you could have your scholarships taken away, potentially.
Ogbonnia: I think that’s something that a lot of people consider when they’re joining this movement. When you join something with this magnitude, you get the idea of what you’re getting yourself into and kind of make [peace] with that, with the consequences of what you’re doing. Of course, I would love to keep my scholarship and stay on the team. And our coach or our administration has never threatened us in that manner. And I don’t think they will. It’s been relatively positive and we haven’t seen any type of repercussion, retaliation from anybody from our school.
And it hurts to see that type of stuff being exemplified at Washington State, because you tell people to stand up for what they believe in in this world. When you want to support something, I think you should have the freedom to do it. And in regards to holding your tongue in a lot of these things, I think that’s where the conferences and the universities and college football as a whole gains their control over individuals. Because you start to feel a certain way after you’re done with football, when you’re in the system and you feel silenced, you feel like you can’t say anything, and that takes a toll on you. And it’s taken a toll on me until I kind of had a realization of who I am and who I want to be in this world. And that’s not somebody who’s silenced or who feels like they can’t be who they are because of what I’m doing.
I don’t think that’s what we sign up for. [It] doesn’t say that in our letter of intent. You shouldn’t bar anybody from freedom of speech. They should be able to say what they want without feeling like they may get cut or that they may get blackballed by their team or their coach. And that’s why that Washington State situation is very significant in our eyes in this movement. We’re well aware of what’s going on and we’re trying to do the best we can to help those guys out there.
Guidry: I feel like for real change to come, you’ve kind of got to put yourself out there. If I have to be sacrificed to have a greater movement come, then that’s something I’m OK with. If I got to sit out to help bring a change for my children or my friends’ children that are to come or the next generation, that’s something that, at the end of the day, it’s going to make things better. And if I have to be the one that has to be at expense for that, that’s something that I’m OK with.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Homecoming: Chapter 1
Fandom: MCU
Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader
Summary: The city boys are amazed by the life of a farmer.
Words: 1670
A/N: It’s spooktober and you know what that means-- yep, harvest! I’ve lived on a farm my whole life so that’s what this story is based on. I’ll be including some things from my actual life too! Not in this first part, but later ones, when the fun stuff happens. And apparently Clint lives in Missouri, but he was born in Iowa, so we’re just going to pretend that he lives there. (because I’m from Iowa and I say so.)
I usually write in first person, but this is gonna be in third, so bear with me and we’ll both get through it. I don’t write a lot, so I don’t have a posting schedule. I’m going to try to get a part out for this once a week. If not, it’ll be every other week. Again, just bear with me.
Oh, and this is for @dreamwritesimagines writer’s block writing challenge. It ends on the 31st but i’m sure you can do it anytime. :)) Awesome title board by @justkending
To Y/N, having a degree in Business Management was pretty broad. It was something that could get you a job pretty much anywhere if you wanted to. So imagine her shock when she managed to land a job at the Avengers Compound. She didn’t even know they were hiring, or even had jobs to offer for that matter. Tony had said that Pepper had been nagging at him to find someone to help her out because while she was able to do everything herself, she’d greatly appreciate the extra help. So he began looking.
When May rolled around, he got lists of the top students from the top colleges in every state and began sifting through them. When he got it down to 20, he gave the list to Pepper for her to choose. She looked at everyone’s credentials, what they did while in school, where they graduated, their gpa, the works. She landed on Y/N. Just finished her Master’s at Columbia, graduating Cum Laude, Magna Cum Lade in her undergrad. Clearly she was smart. Nothing though could prepare her for working for the Avengers.
A few months had passed and it was now November. The need for the world to be saved had been slowing down, which was probably a good thing. Maybe everyone could finally rest for a little bit. Some of the crew had just returned from a mission, as signaled by the whirring of a quinjet landing outside. They entered the building, battered and tired. Y/N had been walking through, looking over some papers that had to be signed before being sent out. She heard the chatter and looked up, a bright smile on her face.
“Tony! Just the man I needed to see!” she nods at the others, “Nat, gentlemen.”
“Aren’t I always?” he says with a smirk.
She just rolls her eyes, “I need these signed so they can get in the mail tomorrow. Then Pepper and I will be caught up.”
“That’s great! You truly have been a Godsend for her.”
A light blush appears on her cheeks. She waves him off, “Just doing my job.” she hands him the papers. “Pink tabs are signatures, yellow initials.”
“Godsend. I’ll get it to you within the hour.”
She nods and heads off, the click of her heels fading as she walks down a hallway.
Relaxing in her room, Y/N flips through a photo album that she’d gotten as a present while she was in college. It had pictures of her older brother’s family- wife and kids, two boys. Who, if she did the math right, were five and three now? Wow. She missed out on a lot. She missed them. And her parents. It had been six years and now a few months since she’d seen them last.
She didn’t even realize a tear had left her until she saw a droplet on the last page of the album. She wiped her face and put it back in her side table. Getting up, she walked to her door and opened it. Walking toward the kitchen, she overheard something interesting.
“-back to Iowa? You really want to do that?”
You see, being from a flyover state means that whenever you’re out of state and meet someone from home, you’re basically best friends. Especially if you’re from the midwest, where being nice is just a part of your DNA. “Iowa nice?” Yeah, it’s a real thing. So imagine Y/N’s excitement when she heard one of the Avengers mention her lovely home state.
She peeks around the corner and see Clint, Tony, and Steve chatting, cleaned up and having a cup of coffee. Tony was sitting at the island finishing up reading the contract and signing. Clint and Steve were standing across from him, leaning on the island. It was like they sensed her because it’s only but a couple minutes before they turn around and saw her.
“Need something, Y/N?” Steve asks.
She walks into the kitchen towards them. “Sorry. I just heard someone mention Iowa and it piqued my interest.”
“That was me,” Clint raised his had a little, “you from there”
She smiles and nods, “Born and raised.”
“Me too. Small world.”
“How did I not know this?”
“I asked Fury to keep it off my records, to keep my family safe.”
“Ah, makes sense.”
Tony jumps in, “We were just talking about having a boys weekend at Clint’s place-”
Clint interjects, “-you were talking.”
Tony smiles but ignores his words, “I suppose you could come too if you wanted to visit home.” Her eyes go wide and she can’t help from smiling. “How long will it take you to pack?”
“I can be ready in..” she looks up and thinks for a moment, “30 minutes?”
“Alright. Wheels up in 30.”
She runs excitedly back to her room and starts packing. She can’t wait to call her parents and hear the excitement in their voices when she tells them she’s finally coming home.
30 minutes later Clint, Tony, Steve, and a very eager Y/N are up in the air. Once at altitude, she unbuckles and starts pacing around the quinjet, trying to get rid of her excess energy.
“You okay there, Y/N?” Clint asks.
“Uh, yeah, mhmm,“ she replies, trying to keep a straight face. It quickly breaks into a smile, “I’m just so excited! I haven’t been home since I started college.“
“Really? Why?“ Steve asks. She can tell he’s kind of concerned, she’s not sure why though, but he leans forward in interest. She turns around and Tony is looking at her too, awaiting the answer.
“Well, out-of-state tuition is no joke. And it didn’t help that I went to an Ivy League school. We just couldn’t afford for me to fly home every school break. And then I decided to get my Master’s, so that was another two years. Then Tony somehow found me and offered me a job right after that. Working with Pepper, as you know,“ They all nod, waiting for her to continue, “and you guys saving the world and everything... you don’t really make it easy to take time off. Despite me being behind the scenes. I just did the math today actually. It’s been just about six and a half years since I’ve been home.”
The three men look at her, almost expressionless. “Y/N...” Tony began, “you should have said something. I would have let you go home for a week or so.”
She looks at him, raising a brow, “Right after you hired me? I will be honest, hiring me right out of college was inconvenient, but I wanted to at least get a little bit of money in my account so I could take a weekend or week off and surprise them.” she looks around the quinjet, “this’ll have to do though.”
He smiles at her, “Still. From now on, tell me if you want to go home, and I’ll pay for your flight.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She continues walking around the quinjet. She’d never actually been on one before. It was spacious. There was a loading dock where two cars could fit, they’d only brought one of Tony’s for this trip; the seats were along each side and there was a digital table of some sort in the middle, probably for planning out attacks on missions; there was a whole second floor, which was where the cockpit and beds were, for the unbearably long flights. It was quite the looker if she were being honest. Probably better than a private jet...which Tony probably also had. After exploring, she came back to where the three men were.
“Hey Tony, I can make calls from this thing right? It’s not like a normal plane where I have to turn off my phone and wait till I land?”
He nods, “Right. You’ve got cell service, wifi, the whole nine yards.”
“Perfect.” Y/N takes her phone out of her pocket and dials her mother’s phone number. It only rings once before there’s an answer. “Hi Ma! I know, it’s been a couple weeks, I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy. … Yes, I’m doing fine. … Yes, the pay is good too.” she doesn’t look up but she knows Tony has a smirk on his face, “I was going to keep this a surprise but I can’t hold it in any longer. Is dad home? … Oh, okay. I’ll just have to call him later. You ready? … I’M COMING HOME!” there’s a scream on the other side of the line, and she pulls it away from her ear, annoyed but smiling, “yeah, I’ll be home..well, I’m not sure when I’ll be home, but we’ll be landing in a couple hours. … How am I calling you? Oh. Just a second,” she puts her phone to her shoulder and looks over at Tony.
“Can I tell her I work for you? Or is that like against Avengers rules?”
He thinks about it for a moment before answering, “Yeah go ahead. As long as it doesn’t get outside of your family.”
She nods and brings her phone back to her ear, “I’m back. I guess this is surprise number two. This has to stay inside the walls of the house though, mom. It’s important. I work at the Avengers Compound! … Yes, for Tony Stark! Well actually, his wife Pepper, but it’s still a pretty cool job. Yeah, anyway, we’re on a quinjet, which is just a really fancy plane that has cell service and wifi and stuff. It’s really cool. I’ll take pictures to show you. … Oh okay, tell him I say hi! … Yes you can tell him that I’m on my way. … I’ll call you again once we’ve landed and I’m on the road. Bye!”
She hangs up and looks at the three men, slightly embarrassed, “As you can tell, she’s pretty excited. I just can’t wait to be home.”
#steve rodgers x reader#avengers x reader#homecoming#homecoming story#steve x reader#steve rogers series#steve rogers fanfiction#Steve Rogers#captain america#steve rogers imagine#captain america x reader#marvel#mcu#marvel fanfiction#marvel ff#mcu fanfiction#mcu ff
53 notes
·
View notes
Text
Safe by My Side
Paring: Dean Winchester x Reader
For the SPOOKTOBER 2018 Competition
Requested by @smallmarvel : For your Halloween fic celebration, could I request a little Dean Winchester x reader where they go to a haunted house and Dean is acting all cool but one of the jump-scares get him? And the reader ends up "protecting" him in the haunted house even though Dean said it'd be the other way around.
Words: 3167
Warnings: Playful teasing, uhhh??? Maybe pining? Maybe?
A/N: I wanted the reader to have this playful (almost flirtatious) banter between herself and Dean and I’m not sure if I succeeded but I loved making Cas pop out of nowhere and trying to make it a little more outrageous each time. I sorta changed up the jump scare bit, but it still kinda counts. I haven’t written anything Dean-centric in years so I may be rusty, this was written with the younger, less tortured Dean in mind.
The younger Winchester brother had dark circles under his eyes and was buried beneath a mound of papers and books. He looked exhausted.
"According to the news reports, several people were found dead after visiting a Haunted House attraction in Iowa. Eyewitnesses say they all just collapsed and turned pale. The current theory is that they all suffered from cardiac arrest," Sam informs you and Dean about the latest string of strange deaths that caught his attention. "Which is odd because all the victims seemed perfectly healthy."
Dean offered a cup of coffee to Sam -who accepted it graciously- before he took a sip from his own steaming cup, he looked far more rested than Sam, although you could tell he too was not at his best because he had let his scruff grow out more than usual. You had opted for tea that morning in fear of having a caffeine overdose -your hands were shaking plenty as it was.
"Young, healthy people suddenly dying of heart attacks… sound familiar to you?" Dean quirked a brow at his brother, undoubtedly a reference to a previous case they had worked. "We thinking Reapers again?"
Sam simply shook his head, "Official reports said heart attack, but have you ever seen a heart attack do this?"
Sam pointed at his computer screen and both you and Dean leaned in closer to get a better picture. An image of one of the victims was on display on an online forum run by fans of the occult. The image showed a young man, skin drained of almost all colour, his eyes red and hair a ghostly shade of white. A look of pure horror frozen onto his face as his lips were permanently set in a forever scream.
"Yikes," was all Dean said.
"Yikes indeed, which also means cause of death is not a heart attack or a Reaper."
"Wait, so what you're saying is that this demon or whatever it is, is literally scaring people to death?" You asked, slightly ruffled by the idea of being scared to death. Chills, unwelcomed, crawled up your spine and caused gooseflesh to spread over your skin.
Dean noticed you shiver slightly. His cheeky smile was obscured by his coffee mug.
"Don't worry Y/N, I'll keep you safe," he nudged you playfully with his elbow, and despite the teasing tone, you noticed a hint of seriousness in his eyes.
You rolled your eyes and let out a soft sigh, serving out your signature blend of exasperation and sarcasm. You tried really hard to hide the small smile that tugged at your face muscles but being around Dean always made you feel more vulnerable, exposed. It also made it so you'd have to constantly fight off the blush in your cheeks and the dazzled glint in your eyes every time you were close to him.
You had been an ally to the Winchester brothers for going on two years, and even though you and Dean had undeniable chemistry (like two magnets pushing and pulling against each other), neither of you dared explore it further.
They were hunters and, even though it wasn't by choice, so were you. Besides, Hunters rarely got their happily ever after. And in all honesty, you weren't sure you'd be able to survive it if anything ever happened to Dean while you guys were together.
"The mighty Dean Winchester, my hero..." you teased him back after you managed to compose yourself.
The two of you held eye contact for a while until Sam awkwardly cleared his throat, making you jump a little as you took a seat next to him to look over several newspaper articles on his laptop. An article headline revealed that the house attraction was located on carnival grounds.
"Oh, Sammy-boy, carnivals. Best keep you away from those clowns," you joked.
Sam smiled a little before putting on a serious face, "Please, stop calling me Sammy-boy."
"Not a chance!" you wiggled your brows playfully as you took another sip of your tea.
"The day Y/N stops calling you Sammy-boy, is the day Dean gives up pie," Cas chimed in nonchalantly from the upper floor of the bunker. You and the boys gasped from freight, not expecting Cas to pop out of nowhere like he always does.
"Jesus, Cas! We talked about this. If you keep on popping out of thin air unannounced I'm going to have to put a little bell on your neck so we know when you're around!" You lectured the adorable trench coat wearing angel. He gave you a confused and apologetic look.
"Where would you find a bell large enough? I apologise, Y/N, I simply came here for this book," he held up a book he previously didn't have in his hands and without a word of warning, he blinked back out of sight.
"Oh, and one more thing," Cas popped back in front of you. "Hold onto this for me." He handed you a small ancient looking pendant and then disappeared again.
"Sure," you replied to thin air. "Aaand he's gone."
"Well, that was a very insightful visit..." Sam deadpanned.
"So, everyone up for a road trip to Iowa?" Dean tossed the keys to the Impala gently in one hand.
Sam grumbled, obviously not too keen about the prospect of running into clowns, especially since it was the Halloween weekend. You, on the other hand, were slightly more optimistic. You got to solve a case and celebrate Halloween with two out of three of your favourite people, Cas was away handling 'angel duties' as he had put it. You hadn't seen him in one place for longer than 5 minutes in almost two weeks.
***
When you finally arrived in Iowa and got settled into a quaint but minimalistic motel, you and the boys decided to go to a diner to get something to eat.
"So what's the plan?" You asked as you watched Dean stuff his face with the most outrageously sized burger you had ever seen while Sam gulped down his first cup of coffee of the day.
"Well I was planning on doing some more research at the motel," Sam informed you.
You smiled into your coffee cup, stifling your laugh before it could surface. Sam rose an eyebrow at you while he moved his salad about with his fork.
"What?" He asked feeling a little self-conscious.
"Afraid of running into any clowns, Sammy-boy?"
Dean smiled like a smug squirrel with cheeks full of food at your jab.
"No, just afraid of being stuck with the two of you while you trade flirtatious banter."
Dean choked on his food and your eyes went wide as a blush spread across your face.
“Well that sure as hell shut you up,” Sam leered with delight at his quip.
Once Dean finished with his burger he added: "So I guess that means you and I are going monster hunting."
You turned to him with some alarm in your expression, "Wait… but we don't know anything about this monster. Or how to kill it. If we even can kill it!" You whisper shouted.
Dean rose one brow and tilted his head with a suggestive smirk, "Don't worry. I promised to keep you safe, didn't I?"
You leaned closer to him, "Dean Winchester, my knight in shining armour." You teased
Sam groaned into his coffee.
"Oh, brother..." He whispered before looking towards a waitress and saying: "Check please."
***
"So what's the plan?" You asked Dean as you made your way towards the haunted house.
"I was kinda just going for See monster: attack it."
You shook your head, "Not a plan for that. A plan for that." You pointed at the flashing lights blinding patrons from the windows, blaring otherworldly recordings of screams and cackles next to dozens of paying visitors dressed in costumes of all shapes and sizes.
Finding the real monster on an ordinary occasion would be difficult as is since you didn't know what it looked like, but with the added difficulty of everyone being disguised, that elevated things to near impossible. Not to mention the obvious jump scare attractions and disorienting lights and sounds blaring from the PA system.
Having a third pair of eyes would have been beneficial, but Sam doing research was equally important if you wanted to figure out how to kill this monster.
You unknowingly huffed with exasperation, not looking forward to the cat and mouse act that was undoubtedly going to play out.
Dean didn't seem as bothered by all the potential problems that could arise and simply gave you a nonchalant shrug. "Well in that case, how about: hear a scream, run in that general direction?"
You clapped sarcastically, "Bravo, good to know we're all in good hands."
"Oh, you wish you knew how good these hands were," Dean winked.
You gasped before playfully jabbing his side, making him clutch his side with a coughing laugh, "Ow, your elbow is so sharp… and bony."
“It’s sharpened by years of having to listen to your terrible excuse for wit, Winchester.”
“Wow, Y/N! You wound me?” He placed his hand on his heart dramatically.
“Come on Romeo,” you shook your head at his theatrics. Dean was always more playful around you. You loved that feeling, knowing you brought out a side of him people rarely saw.
As you made your way through the entrance a glum-looking attendant stopped you with a cardboard Stop sign.
"Fifteen dollar entrance fee beyond this point. Halloween special weekend requires patrons to be in costume for free entry." He delivered his lines in a very drowsy monotone, clearly unhappy at his current employment.
"Fifteen dollars?" Dean barked in disbelief, his mouth agape when he looked at you with shock.
"I've got this," you whispered to Dean as you sauntered over to the attending clerk and gave him a heart-melting smile. The clerk didn't look up from his desk so you cleared your throat. He finally looked up, his face caught off guard by the charming smile you had on.
"My friend and I didn't know we had to wear costumes, you think you could, maybe, let it slip... Just this once?" You flipped your hair. When he looked like he wasn't going to budge, you leaned closer and dragged your finger against his name tag. "Please Chad. It would mean the world to me!"
"I'm not supposed to… Company policy," he shrugged apologetically.
You leaned closer and whispered as though you were conspirators, "Aww, come on Chad. I'd be really grateful."
The clerk blushed and stammered a bit, "I- I wish I could but..." He averted his gaze, too shy to look you in the eye for too long.
Dean grumbled disapproving beside you, it sounded a little jealous to your ears. You would be lying if you said that didn't make you feel a little wily
You over exaggerated your pout. Then you saw a stack of name tags laying on his desk. "Hey, can I borrow those?" You pointed at the stack of name tags.
"S-sure..." he handed them to you.
"And a pen?" You batted your eyes innocently. Chad handed you his pen.
You jotted down two names and stuck them on your and Dean's jackets. Yours said 'God' and Dean's said 'Lucifer'.
Dean just gave you a very unimpressed look and you simply wiggled your eyebrows, "What? Too soon?" You joked.
You turned back to the attendant, "Now we're in costume."
The clerk looked between you and Dean and then back to the name tag stuck to your left breast pocket of your jacket, "I guess that counts."
"Thanks, Chad!" You winked gleefully as you made your way into the haunted house.
You heard the clerk whisper something to himself and then Dean cleared his throat and said, "Hey, Chad, eyes back on your magazine pal."
You beamed at his overprotective streak.
***
As you searched the house, slightly tense with anticipation of some sort of scream or attack, you and Dean made small talk as you walked from one overly dramatized room to the next.
"So, you and Chad were chummy. You gonna ask him out on a date? Maybe hunt a poltergeist." Dean huffed, pretending he wasn't jealous.
"No, definitely not." You said straight-faced. Dean's green eyes lit up as a smile danced across his lips. "Vampires are more appropriate for first dates!"
Dean's smile faltered and his ears turned red slightly. You snickered.
You twirled to stand in front of him, "Oh please, Dean Winchester. You know I only have eyes for you." You jabbed, imitating your flirtatious eyelash bat from before.
Dean sighed as he ran his hands through his well-maintained scruff, but then he saw something that made him grin. With curiosity, you turned around and yelped with sudden freight.
"Fuck!" You gasped as a giant animatronic scarecrow looked down upon you.
Dean laughed, holding his sides. "You should see your face."
You punched him playfully, "Jerk! You know I hate scarecrows!"
Dean parried your playful punches and ended up griping you cross-armed against his chest. He didn't notice how tightly your back was pressed to his chest until he felt your body move along with the resounding vibrato from his deep laughs.
He let you go and cleared his throat, his hands unsure of whether to stuff themselves in his jeans or his leather jacket. You wiped the awestruck look from your face and tried to let the smell of the smoke machine wash his musk away from your brain. It was futile. You tried to return to your playful demeanour from before.
"Come on, Mr Funny Guy. Let’s go before I beat you to death with this guy’s robotic arms," you pointed to the scarecrow, making sure your eyes didn't land on its face.
"I'm shaking in my boots."
You scowled at him in faux anger and he shrunk his neck and held up his hands.
"Ladies first," you urged him to open the door.
Dean complied and as soon as the door swung open, a creepy 6 foot Easter bunny with different sized red eyes and blood-stained teeth popped from its hidden trigger switch -a bloodied fake knife in one hand.
Dean laughed at the jump scare and turned to give you a triumphant look. As soon as he did he shouted, "Jesus, Cas!" as he stumbled onto the floor from surprise.
Cas was practically covered from head to toe in black ooze. His clothes partially singed and his torso home to two daggers.
"What the hell happened to you?" Dean asked from the floor.
"Hell happened," he said monotonously before turning to you and asking, "Do you still have that pendant?"
"Yeah," you fished it out from around your neck and handed it to him.
"Thank you. Oh and be careful, I'm pretty sure the only thing that can kill your monster is a ceremony dagger blessed by a witch doctor steeped in alligator blood."
"Alligator blood?" You asked. "Where would we get--"
Cas pulled out a 9-inch knife and handed it to you.
"Thank Sam," was all Cas offered in response before blinking out of existence.
You waltzed over and kneeled next to him, offering your hand. "Don't worry Dean, I'll keep you safe from the big, bad killer Easter bunny… Oh, and the harmless trench coat wearing angel too."
Dean tried to hide his smile when he picked up the irony of your words, but you saw it nonetheless. He accepted your hand, but before you could help him to his feet he pulled you down towards him and cupped your face close to his. And after a tantalisingly long pause, he kissed you passionately, knocking the air right out of your lungs. When your kiss broke your lips were partially kiss-swollen and your face had a blank expression. He had literally rendered you speechless.
"So that's what that’s like," He said hoarsely.
"What?" You asked in a splendorous daze, your whole body tingling.
Dean smirked, "A moment of quiet."
You were snapped out of your moment of elation by his retort and scowled at him again, slapping his chest as you untangled yourself from his strong arms.
"Oof!" He protested.
"Ha ha, Winchester," you helped him off the ground.
When you were standing close together again the both of you tried to hide your blush when it dawned on you both what just happened. You both stepped away from each other clumsily, averting your eyes from each other's faces.
"We've got some hunting to do." You said frantically as you practically shoved the knife at him, storming ahead as you tried to shake the memory of what just happened away.
After some uncomfortable silence, Dean tried to lighten the mood again, "Are you blushing under that scowl?"
You rolled your eyes, "Say's the guy who was jealous of Chad!"
"I wasn't jealous of Chad!" He denied your allegation childishly, waving the sharp knife around dangerously causing you to bob around the knife.
"You know, I don't know how I feel about someone as jumpy as you swinging that sword around."
"It's not a sword and I'm not jumpy!" He waved the dagger again causing you to duck this time.
"I dunno, at this point I feel like I'd be safer with Sam by side. Clown phobia and all!" You quipped.
"Yeah, unless our monsters happened to look like scarecrows or clowns, or both!" He retorted. “Clownish Scarecrows! Ooh, Scarecrow Clowns! Wouldn’t that be something?”
You sighed and turned to Dean. Leaning close to him so he let his guard down. He stalled for a moment, unsure of what you were about to do.
The energy between the two of you had shifted, become more electrified now that you both knew what kissing the other felt like. Your toes were still tingling, but now wasn't the place to address his rash actions and your equally rash acceptance of them. When your lips were merely a hairsbreadth away, you snatched the giant knife and used his weight to flip him onto his back.
"Nevertheless, I still think it'd be better if I took over the role of the knight in shining armour." You said sweetly while he grunted from the impact of the fall.
"You know, it may be nice to be the damsel in distress for once," Dean joked as he picked himself up.
"Shall we?" He asked.
"After you." You replied.
***
After that night, you and Dean had found it increasingly easier to share more quiet moments together, much to Sam’s chagrin since he usually had to deal with your blatant flirting and innuendos while he was around. Cas just found the whole situation confusing.
MasterList
#Dean Winchester#Dean Winchester x reader#Supernatural imagine#Spn fic#spn imagine#reader insert#spooktober#one shot#fic request#scribescribbles#supernatural#dean x reader#dean winchester imagine
59 notes
·
View notes
Text
THE DEGENERATE’S GUIDE TO COLLEGE FOOTBALL TV WATCH ‘EM UPS 2021: WEEK THREE: THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF THE END
We’re still really in the early middle of the year. Sure, Oregon looked powerful against Ohio State but it’s possible Ohio State just hasn’t found it’s footing yet and the Ducks just peaked. Shit happens like that every year, more or less. You can pretty much count on Bama to win 10 and not much else. That only applies to football. The continued stratification of social classes, the accelerating collapse of natural systems that support human life, the complete lack of representation the average American in our freedom loving democracy- you can count on those things. Football is different, though: wilder but more ordered while somehow being better and stupider than real life all at the same time. It’ll be fun to all more or less die together, I think. So let’s get to the games!
I forget the business reason for having more major OOC games that actually stay on the schedule but we’re reaping the rewards for now. You know the rules: eastern times, average vegas odds at the time of writing, prediction abilities are bad on a good day, there’s supposed to be a weekly RTARLsman post but I haven’t done a real one in about 21 months, formatting errors up to and including listing the teams incorrectly aren’t worth pointing out because nobody’s coming to fix them anyway. I don’t expect professionalism out of you so don’t ask it out of me.
Saturday, September 18
Matchup Time (ET) TV/Mobile
NIU at 25 Michigan 12:00pm BTN
It’s easy to say Michigan is due for a self-inflicted dick kick the trick is to predict ahead of time when exactly the embarrassing, season-unraveling loss will come. I don’t think it’s today but I also don’t have a lot of faith in Michigan to cover a 27-point spread.
UAlbany at Syracuse 12:00pm ACCN
I find it hard to believe Albany’s football program is in such disrepair that they don’t even warrant a line against Syracuse. I think we’ve had five 1AA-over 1A upsets so far this season. I couldn’t possibly watch this game but I’ll keep an eye out for it on the ticker. Syracuse is bad enough to lose anywhere to anybody.
Tennessee Tech at Tennessee 12:00pm ESPN+/SECN+
I should probably find a site that lists the good games at the top of each time slot instead of this free for all.
Western Michigan at Pitt 12:00pm RSN/ESPN3
Pitt has actually looked pretty good so far but they don’t have an AP ranking yet. I can’t say much for this matchup so I just assume the Panthers cover the -14.5 and get a little number next to their name next week.
15 Virginia Tech at West Virginia 12:00pm FS1
This is actually of some interest to me. Virginia Tech is ranked 15 on account of beating UNC but it’s not hard to imagine that neither the Hokies nor the Heels are actually worthy of a ranking. WFV is favored at home but still might trigger some couch burning and “upset” talk with a win. The Mountaineers are this week’s new collection from Homefield Apparel so expect some magic!
Boston College at Temple 12:00pm ESPNU
Old Big East rivalry game. Nobody can look away.
Chattanooga at Kentucky 12:00pm ESPN+/SECN+
I thought Chattanooga had moved up to 1A but there’s no line listed for this game so I guess not.
8 Cincinnati at Indiana 12:00pm ESPN
Indiana was good last year and maybe that was just a once-in-a-generation fluke but I’ve still got visions of the Hoosiers toppling Cincy and ruining their theoretically possible playoff run. I’m assuming the Bearcats won’t play anybody else better than IU this year but that’s just a guess backed by historical precedent which isn’t a thing you should really use to gamble on college football.
16 Coastal Carolina at Buffalo 12:00pm ESPN2
Chanticleers vs. Bulls, the eternal struggle writ in football. I don’t think the CSUNY school is particularly good this year but Coastal being favorited by 14 points in an early kickoff road games still feels like a trap to this sharp.
Michigan State at 24 Miami (FL) 12:00pm ABC
Surprisingly to me, this is the fifth all-time meeting of these two schools. Just as surprising to me, Miami has never before lost to Michigan State. Weird but makes sense if you think about it, this will be the fourth out of five matchups played in Miami. As near as I can tell, Sparty tried to use the Canes the same way Notre Dame used to as an in-season bowl game but bailed on the idea when they kept losing. To be fair, Sparty’s record in bowl games isn’t that much better than their 0-4 against Miami. The last time these two met was 1989 when Percy Snow was on his way to the Butkus Award and Miami was on their way to a third National Championship. The Hurricanes team was pretty well-stacked but is probably the least remembered of their title teams. It did feature future Hall of Famer Cortez Kennedy and a freshman OL that would go on to be September 2021′s hottest head coach in cfb, Mario Cristobal. This year’s Miami roster might look good in 30 years but right now they’re a little messy. D’Eriq King is only 8 months removed from ACL surgery (if you watch the game you will hear about this several hundred time) and has so far looked bad on his throws and a touch slower than he has in the past. Which makes sense given the timeframe but does not generally bode well for Miami’s prospects for this season.
Nebraska at 3 Oklahoma 12:00pm FOX
If Oklahoma is a real title contender they are gonna lay Nebraska the fuck out. I’m scared of the 22.5-point line just because I don’t think the Sooners defense could stop Bishop Sycamore but it’s not crazy to think Nebraska can saw their own dicks off to the tune of a four-score loss.
New Mexico at 7 Texas A&M 12:00pm SECN
Fuck. Jimbo must be stopped. I hate this Aggies team. UNM isn’t the team to do it but somebody along the way has to throttle aTm or this season is going to become a plague the likes of which we haven’t seen since... well, now, I guess.
UConn at Army 12:00pm CBSSN
Reading this matchup aloud five times in a mirror will kill college football.
Southeast Missouri at Missouri 12:00pm ESPN+/SECN+
The southeastern part of the state will travel to within the bounds of the state for a classic football game somewhere within the borders of the state.
Minnesota at Colorado 1:00pm P12N
I’m not completely disinterested. It’s weird and doesn’t have any national impact. Not much more you can ask for in a game you probably can’t find on your TV.
Nevada at Kansas State 2:05pm ESPN+
Hell yeah, this is trash. Nevada is a road favorite! Take KState all the way.
Purdue at 12 Notre Dame 2:30pm NBC
Notre Dame has looked a little bit of a mess so far but they’ve won both of their games. Not the worst position to be in. Purdue has also won both of their games. I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet but it seems like the Irish are riding the razor’s edge just asking to be pushed off. Keep an eye on this score, maybe the good people of the world will have something to celebrate in the late afternoon/early evening.
Kent State at 5 Iowa 3:30pm BTN
Iowa’s fifth? It’s too fucking early for this shit.
Florida State at Wake Forest 3:30pm ESPN
0-2 Florida State goes on the road as a 4-point underdog to face 2-0 Wake Forest. Mike Norvell is really out on a plank right now and I am not sure he can safely find his way back to the deck.
Georgia Tech at 6 Clemson 3:30pm ABC
Clemson’s got talent all over and Georgia Tech sucks but I’m still not sold on DJ Uigalelei as an NFL savior type of player. Or a national championship winner for that matter. He reminds me of EJ Manuel.
Baylor at Kansas 3:30pm ESPN+
Baylor is not good but the betting public is getting hip to the “bet against Kansas every chance you get” strategy so the line has jumped four points already this week and I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes it another couple before kickoff to get to 20+. Which is still probably too kind to the Jayhawks.
1 Alabama at 11 Florida 3:30pm CBS
Bama has only had a couple of practice games against lower division opponents but they look as complete as any team I can remember from a talent/scheme perspective. This is a pretty good test and the 15-point line seems a little over-confident on the road in the Swamp. If the Bammers really do overwhelm the Gators then you can pretty much start planning on their return to the CFB Playoffs.
Tulsa at 9 Ohio State 3:30pm FS1
Every week of every year I struggle to keep Tulsa and Toledo straight. Toledo is the one that almost beat Notre Dame last week. Tulsa is the one that lost to UC-Davis in week 1. Ohio State may be troubled on defense but that only matters against other top-tier teams. Having the line moving in Tulsa’s direction is absolute lunacy. If the Buckeyes can’t cover 25 points then they’re in real trouble. For now my guess is that Oregon is just better than we realized and OSU is going to be fine.
SMU at Louisiana Tech 3:30pm CBSSN
This is my kind of counter-programming if nothing else is close. Not sure if there are some ponies down to have points shifting towards the Karl Malones but I think SMU is up to a two-score win.
LIU at Miami (Ohio) 3:30pm ESPN+
Sure, whatever you say.
USC at Washington State 3:30pm FOX
At first I thought this was USC-UW and I was ready to emotionally invest in the drama but it’s just Wazzou. USC giving up on a playoff spot in week two to sit around and wait for Urban Meyer is going to be fucking hilarious when the Trojans end up getting jilted at the altar.
Idaho at Oregon State 3:30pm P12N Oregon
Pac-12 Network Oregon. This implies the existence of a P12N Washington. I’ve seen the main network on TV before. It was fine if a little bit too “featuring Matt Leinart” for my tastes but seeing the weird way they’ve splintered their content is giving me a deeper understanding of west coast football fans that absolutely hate the Pac-12 Network.
Bryant at Akron 3:30pm ESPN3
Tune in to see some guy named Bryant touring around Akron.
Elon at Appalachian State 3:30pm ESPN+
I hope App State runs this grifter out of their campus on a rail. The more bad stuff happens to Elon Musk the better off all of humanity will be.
Delaware at Rutgers 3:30pm BTN
Fuck me, this is just all the pain in the world masquerading as a sporting event.
Eastern Michigan at UMass 3:30pm FloFootball/NESN+
I don’t have much interest in this game but seeing that it’s available on the Nintendo Entertainment System Network is intriguing.
Colorado State at Toledo 4:00pm ESPNU
Toledo blew a huge opportunity last week so they’re ripe for a letdown but all signs point to Colorado State being incredibly bad at football this year.
Sacramento State at California 4:00pm P12N Bay Area
P12N Bay Area probably reaches cable subscribers in like Vallejo and nowhere else in the entire world. When I put it that way it seems like exactly where this game belongs but it’s still not a thing that should exist. I mean the network but it’s true for the game also.
Northwestern at Duke 4:00pm ACCN
Disgusting.
Mississippi State at Memphis 4:00pm ESPN2
I think Memphis can knock down the SEC’s middle tier but I haven’t gotten a clear idea of either of these teams yet.
Georgia Southern at 20 Arkansas 4:00pm SECN
Arkansas rose up last week because of the weird insistence by Lice Dad that playing a middling Texas team was the biggest game in school history. Arkansas has played in the SEC CG more than once. They’ve won a national championship. How does a guy that’s paid to be an SEC homer even make such a dumb statement and keep his job?
Ball State at Wyoming 4:00pm Stadium
I watched the CFB 150 episode about the Black 14 this week so now it’s all I can think about for Wyoming football.
Arkansas State at Washington 4:15pm P12N
What the hell happened to UDub to fall back to this lowly spot? Did Chris Peterson just fall on his ass in recruiting?
Murray State at Bowling Green 5:00pm ESPN3
This sounds like a sixties movie title for a spy agency thriller that could be mistaken for a comedy when not viewed through a then-contemporary lens.
East Carolina at Marshall 6:00pm Facebook
ECU is looking like a doormat and Marshall might be really good again but I would never in good conscience ever contribute to facebook’s good fortunes wittingly.
Fordham at Florida Atlantic 6:00pm ESPN3
I want to love this game but I actually hate it.
Old Dominion at Liberty 6:00pm ESPN3
There is going to be so much COVID passed around this stadium.
Middle Tennessee at UTSA 6:00pm ESPN+
Beautiful, horrible, unwatchable mess. This is where you go to feel like you are alone in the universe.
Troy at Southern Miss 7:00pm ESPN+
There’s also this.
Grambling State at Houston 7:00pm ESPN+
And this one.
Utah at San Diego State 7:00pm CBSSN
This is real entertainment. Twitter will be all over the next listing so I’ll be FOMO’d into watching that for a while but SDSU-Utah on CBS SN might be where I first dreamt up the concept of degenerate football. It was either that or a UFL game featuring a QB duel between Daunte Culpepper and Jeff Garcia.
South Carolina at 2 Georgia 7:00pm ESPN
I’m waiting for Georgia to bumble. I’m counting on it. Georgia-Clemson was a classic early season game that somehow helps both teams in the rankings all year but ends up actually being a showcase of how shitty their offense are rather than a referendum on great defense.
UIW at Texas State 7:00pm ESPN3
I think UIW is a union trade school or something. So I guess I’m rooting for them.
Charlotte at Georgia State 7:00pm ESPN+
Charlotte’s semester in Atlanta would shape her life in ways that nobody could have envisioned when she left her family’s home in the late summer following her failed attempt to run a bakeshop.
FIU at Texas Tech 7:00pm ESPN+
Maybe I actually hate college football.
Florida A&M at USF 7:00pm ESPN+
USF could lose this. Worth checking on if you see an upset alert.
Furman at NC State 7:30pm RSN/ESPN3
Body bag game.
Utah State at Air Force 7:30pm FS2
Kind of neat degenerate game but, depending on the uniform choices, could be a bit monotone and tough to follow.
Virginia at 21 North Carolina 7:30pm ACCN
The South’s Oldest Rivalry! Like most of the previous 125 meetings of these two school’s, this year’s game will mainly decide who sucks worse. Of course in the ACC Coastal being slightly less bad than your opponents is the winningest strategy of all. Go Hoos!
Stony Brook at 4 Oregon 7:30pm P12N
Great scheduling to follow up an emotional game with a body bag. I’m not being facetious, this is right where you need these games.
UAB at North Texas 7:30pm Stadium
Not gonna open an app or whatever to watch this but I bet it’s fun for off-brand college football.
Central Michigan at LSU 7:30pm SECN
LSU at home at night is supposed to be the best atmosphere in college football. Way better than a 19.5-point line against Central Michigan. What stage of LSU’s life cycle are we in right now?
22 Auburn at 10 Penn State 7:30pm ABC
War goddamn Eagle, baby. Penn State is doing that stupid white out thing which, correct if I’m wrong again, only goes for the people in the stands. So they’ll all be dressed up in pretty much Auburn’s road colors to watch Auburn. I hate Auburn but I really hate Penn State.
Alcorn State at South Alabama 8:00pm ESPN3
Things are looking rough for the rest of the docket.
Rice at Texas 8:00pm LHN
A battle of equals.
Stanford at Vanderbilt 8:00pm ESPNU
Look at this American aristocracy horse shit. Fuck these schools and the teams of horses that carried them in.
Tulane at 17 Mississippi 8:00pm ESPN2
The racist south may just have the nation’s best QB. It’s a good year for Matt Corral to show off his arm strength because 2022 is not looking like a bumper crop of QB draftees at this far off date. He’s small for the position but Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield and Russell Wilson are all smaller. If the arm talent is real he could go #1 overall.
Jackson State at ULM 8:00pm ESPN3
Nope.
SC State at New Mexico State 8:00pm FloFootball / CW El Paso
Sorry.
Oklahoma State at Boise State 9:00pm FS1
Whoa whoa whoa. This is uniform heaven. And on the blue turf? Your eyes will burn. Embrace that feeling.
Northern Arizona at Arizona 10:00pm P12N AZ
P12N AZ. Holy shit. What the hell were these people thinking? This has to be the smallest demo ever targeted by a network.
19 Arizona State at 23 BYU 10:15pm ESPN
Seeing these teams face off as ranked opponents is very weird. Real late 80s vibe here. It’s titillating in its way. Might not even be the most fun game in the late night region.
14 Iowa State at UNLV 10:30pm CBSSN
UNLV is an absolute wasteland of a program. It’s kind of stupid, really. They aren’t in an unsellable spot and they don’t play the most rugged schedule but year after year after year they lose 9 or more games. Makes more sense than not having a good baseball program but there should be some G5 magic in Vegas. Iowa State is going to roll.
Fresno State at 13 UCLA 10:45pm P12N
Chip Kelly having UCLA as the premier program in L.A. is something I couldn’t have seen coming just last week but we’re there now. And Fresno State plays some wild offense that could/should make this the late night hangout spot. If you can find it. If you have this channel. That shouldn’t be a question! Fuckin’ a, Pac-12, what are you doing?
San Jose State at Hawaii 12:30am FS1
Technically a Sunday game but I cut the header because if you’re watching this there is an implicit understanding that it’s still Saturday. Not sure what’s going on with the kick time, though. I was under the impression that Hawaii games had to kick off by 11:59pm Eastern to count with the rest of the week’s games. Very odd. That’s really all I have to say about this game.
0 notes
Text
New Beginnings Part 2 (Chris Evans x Reader)
Pairings: Chris Evans x Reader
Word Count: 5,341
Warnings: Swearing, Fluffy Goodness, Sweet Kissing
Ratings: PG-13
Summary: After your grandparents pass away, you find out they leave everything to you, including a large sum of money. Deciding to take the advice of your grandparents, you live your life to the fullest; which means moving to Boston and bumping into Chris Evans.
Part 1 Part 3
Chris rose his glass to the center of the table, “To new beginnings” he toasted.
Raising your glass to meet his, you clinked them together, “To new beginnings.”
You took a long sip of your champagne, the bubbles tickling your throat as the liquid made its way down. Champagne was always a nice little treat and this one tasted so good.
Chris’ phone rang, “Sorry, I have to take this. I’ll be right back” he said as he hoisted himself up and walked outside through the backdoor in your little dining room.
Most of the time, if someone answered their phone on a date it would have annoyed you to no end. The romantic in you would…wait…no, this isn’t a date. Snap out of it Y/N. This is just Chris being nice, being warm and inviting. Helping you celebrate by getting a new home here in his hometown. But there was something in the air between you two; a sort of energy feeling that felt as if you two were connected. It was a really strong feeling and you’d only ever felt it once, with your last boyfriend.
Your ex was a great man, a true gentleman, and a romantic like you. It was probably why you hit it off with him so much. Spending junior and senior year of high school attached at the hip. He took you on romantic dates, watching the sun rise early in the morning on the roof of his house, cuddled in blankets. That first year of college was rough, he went one way, you went another. Long distance relationships was difficult for anyone, but it put more pressure on the both of you. By the second year of college, the two of you decided to call it quits. It just hurt too much being away from each other. It was a very hard decision, but you ended it on good terms. He was still one of your greatest friends.
The door shut and you glanced up, noticing Chris was coming back into the room. “I’m so sorry about that, it was my mom. I knew if I didn’t answer she would have kept calling all night” he said, his face red from slight embarrassment.
“It’s really alright Chris, I didn’t mind” you replied with sincerity. His eyes found yours, that same look of searching deep into your soul. You nervously bit your lip again, his tender warm eyes actually turning you on! You had to cross your legs to put pressure where it ached. How could this man be turning you on with just looking at you a certain way??
“Remember how I asked you earlier today, on why you decided to move here?” he questioned; you nodding your head. “Well Y/N, if you would like, I’d love to hear the story.”
You tensed a little bit, not thinking he would actually remember you saying that. Was he just being nice, or did he really want to know more about you?
Blush crept to your face yet again, “Do you really want to hear that story? Or know anything about me really? I’m kind of boring” you chuckled out, trying to show you weren’t nervous about telling him deep things about your life. It was part of being a romantic, if you felt any type of connection with someone; you poured your heart out. You wore your heart on your sleeve, but it was worth it to you. If you felt that connection with someone, then why not try to see where it goes?
“Of course I want to know more about you Y/N! Damnit, I can’t put my finger on it, but I just feel connected to you somehow, like there is an energy force pulling us together. You fascinate me and I would love to get to know you more.”
The minute his words left his mouth, your heart started racing in your chest. Ok, was he a mind reader or something, because this just got kind of freaky? Freaky in a good way though. Did he honestly feel the same way? Did he feel that connection pulling you towards each other? Fuck, those are some strong feelings and connections!
“I’m warning you,” you pipped up, “it’s not the happiest of stories in the world.” He shrugged, his eyes proving that he understood where you were coming from.
Clearing your throat, you began. “Well, I grew up in a small little farm town in Iowa. My parents passed away when I was 11, so my grandparents took me in and cared for me” your breath hitched in your throat just talking about it. It had been awhile since you said those words out loud; a long time since anyone cared enough to listen. “From a young age, I knew I was different from the rest of the children. Instead of playing computer games, watching cartoons on Saturday morning, playing with dolls, I read books. I have always been a bookworm; stories always enthralled me and I love to put myself into their world. I think that’s how I ended up realizing I was a romantic. As I grew older, I started reading more classic literature from authors such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Their words captivated me, and I dreamed to live in a world like the ones they wrote about.”
Chris seemed enticed by your story. He maintained eye contact the whole time, his hands folded onto the table as he leaned towards you with interest.
“My grandparents were amazing to say the least. They were so caring and not judgmental at all. I’ve heard horror stories of people saying how critical their grandparents were towards them. But not my Grammy and Popop,” you said, shaking your head with a small chuckle. “They wanted what was best for me, and that was for me to be happy. After spending four years going to college and studying Literature, I came back home and worked in a small bookshop in town. Most parents or grandparents would have been critical, saying it was a waste of time doing what I was doing. But it was what I loved. That book shop was my home, it’s where I made more dreams, it made me happy and that was all that mattered in their eyes.”
Taking a minute to gather yourself, you grabbed a napkin off the table. You had a feeling you would need it for this next part; it always got you choked up. “My grandparents passed away, in January of this year. They died hours apart from each other, in their sleep, holding hands.” The tears started to make your vision blurry as your right hand dabbed underneath your eyes, stopping the tears from overflowing. You felt something touch your left hand and you looked down to see Chris’ hands cupping yours for support. It made your romantic heart burst; it truly felt like something out of a romance novel.
“You don’t have to keep going if this is too hard for you Y/N. I’m sorry I brought up rough memories” the sincerity in his voice giving you goosebumps.
Shaking your head, you let him know it was alright. “No, it’s fine Chris. It’s just, nobody has shown this much interest in my life recently so I haven’t really talked about my family too much. I’m ok, I promise” you said giving him a soft smile.
His hand never left yours as you began again. “I think I also got my romantic side from my grandparents. I had never seen a love so strong like theirs before. The way they even passed away, it was like something out of “The Notebook”. It seemed as if their hearts were connected, that one couldn’t live without the other” you breathed out. You always hoped to find a relationship like theirs one day. “Anyways, after the funeral and everything was finished, I ended up meeting with a lawyer who arranged their wills. They left everything to me, which was something I was prepared for. My grandparents had mentioned it to me some time ago. But apparently they were rich; very well off. I wouldn’t have known seeing as they raised me on the foundations of family, not money. They also left me a letter, telling me to live my life, to live out my dreams. So, here I am!”
Chris’ hands were still cupped around yours, making you feel warm both inside and out. This chemistry that was going on between you was messing with your nervous system, but you didn’t mind. It felt nice, it felt genuine. His eyes still connected with yours, he let go of your hand to raise his glass again. “To Grammy and Popop” he announced.
You took your lower lip between your teeth again, raising your own glass. “Grammy and Popop” you stated, clinking your glasses for the second time that night.
“I’m sorry about your family Y/N. You’ve been through so much in your life. But here you are, proving to be such a strong woman through everything” Chris said, sounding proud.
“I do feel like I’ve become a stronger person. It just gets lonely sometimes. Both my parents were only children as was I” you sadly said. Life was pretty lonely now. You were all that was left of your family and while you hated to admit it, you were alone and actually a little scared by that.
The two of you spent the rest of the night talking about anything and everything. You were sure your laughs could be heard clearly outside. The conversation flowed effortlessly as if you were two friends who had known each other for years. He told you all about growing up here, about his siblings and his mother. He was close to his family, as you were yours, and you found that so endearing in any kind of relationship.
“You aren’t the only romantic in this room ya know” he stated boldly. His words peeked your interest and you quirked an eyebrow at him. Most men wouldn’t admit that kind of that as they thought it would show weakness and vulnerability. But not Chris. Chris seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve, just like you. “I know, I’m supposed to be this macho guy, appearing in action movies. But to be honest, being raised by my mother and having two sisters around, I grew to love the romantic side of things” he finished with a shrug.
Fuck, could this man be any more perfect! It was as if he was gifted down from the heavens, perfectly made just for you! Your heart started to flutter at your thoughts. Maybe this wouldn’t be just a one-time thing! You were moving to his home state after all.
Glancing down at your watch, you noticed the time for the first time that night. It was well after 11pm. You know things were going good when you could get lost in time.
“Shit, I should probably be getting back to my hotel. I have to meet my agent Kelly tomorrow to finalize the papers.” You stood up and pulled out your wallet, intent on paying for your meal.
“Put that away silly” Chris chimed in as he laid two $100 bills on the table. A romantic man who also tips well? Yep, this was a dream. You slyly pinched yourself and it hurt. Ok, not a dream.
“Let me walk you out to your car” he said as you put your coat on. He placed his hand gently on your lower back. Even though it wasn’t skin on skin contact, it struck you deep to your core. Glancing up at him, you gave him a sweet smile.
“Well, this is me” you stated when you reached your car. Unlocking it, you opened the door and threw your purse onto the passenger side seat. Chris stood there and watched, his hands in his pockets.
“I had a really great time tonight Y/N. I kind of didn’t want it to end” he said sheepishly, his nervous hand coming out of his pocket to scratch the back of his neck. At least you weren’t the only nervous one you thought to yourself.
“Thank you Chris. For everything you’ve done today. I had a great time too” you replied, biting your lip in the end.
His eyes glanced from your eyes to your lips as he let out slight sigh. “You’ve got to stop doing that sweetheart” he said, his voice husky, sending lightning straight to your throbbing core.
Your face became hot as you let your lip go from between your teeth. Your heart stated to race as he moved closer to you and you could feel his breath on your face. He leaned down, his lips barely touching yours. You wanted this, his lips on yours. Desire pooled in your belly as you closed your eyes, waiting for him to make the move.
Before you knew it, his soft plump lips landed on yours with a sweet kiss. It wasn’t a hot and passionate kiss. No, this was soft and delicate; how a first kiss between two people should be. The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but it did its job. You craved more the second he pulled away.
“I hope that was alright. I didn’t want to seem too forward” he softly declared as his eyes searched yours.
You hummed out happily before shaking your head. “That was more than alright Chris. It was perfect” you replied shyly.
His arms opened and you embraced him, your cheek to his chest as he wrapped around you. This felt so nice, tightly secured in his arms.
“Where is your phone?” he asked as he pulled away. You reached behind you and grabbed your phone from your back pocket, handing it to him. He put his number into your phone and texted himself so he had yours. “Did you maybe want to meet up tomorrow?”
You nodded your head to him, “I’d love that.” His lips captured yours for another delicate kiss before you hopped into your car. Chris motioned for you to roll your windows down and you obliged.
“Will you text me and let me know you made it back to your hotel safely?” he asked.
Your heart fluttered at his words, knowing he was genuinely concerned for your safety. “Of course” you answered. He gave you a wink and went off to his car.
Once you made it back to your hotel, you shot Chris a text letting him know you made it. As you scrolled through your phone, you giggled at the name he put into it for you.
Y/N: Made it back, safe and sound.
You went to the bathroom and took a quick shower, the smile never fading from your face as you replayed the days’ events in your mind. You could already tell your romantic side was falling for him, but how could it not? He was the perfect person. Someone you dreamed up from a young age. He had all the qualities you could ever hope for in a man.
As you got out of the shower, you towel dried your hair and put on some comfy pajamas. Snuggling up, you noticed a light flashing on your phone and couldn’t help but giggle at his text.
That Romantic Dork: Glad you made it safely. Thank you again for a wonderful night. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow ;) Goodnight Y/N
It was late so you decided to forgo texting him back. You set your alarm on your phone and fell into a blissful night’s sleep.
~~~
The next afternoon you had been stuck in Kelly’s office for a few hours, your hand cramped from signing all the paperwork. You let out a content sigh as you signed your name for the last time that day.
Kelly set down two garage door openers and two house keys in front of you. “Congratulations Y/N. You are now a homeowner” she said with a smile.
Not being able to contain yourself, you jumped up and almost knocked her over. “Thank you Kelly so much” you squealed as he hugged you back.
Kelly congratulated you once again before you took your new keys and garage door opener and headed to your car.
You wanted to head straight to your new house and you thought maybe Chris would like to see it too.
Y/N: Would you like to meet me at my new house and take a look at it?
You didn’t have to wait long, just a few minutes before Chris text you back.
That Romantic Dork: I would love to!
You texted him the address and told him you’d be there in about thirty minutes. The drive felt longer than the first time you drove to Sudbury. It was probably because of the fact that you knew you would see Chris again. You felt like a giddy school girl, wiggling in your seat, a shit eating grin on your face the whole time you drove to your new home.
As you pulled into the long driveway, you noticed Chris was already there, admiring the outside of your house. He heard your car and turned around, giving you that dazzling million dollar smile.
Once you stopped and parked your car, Chris came over to open your door. Gathering your purse in your hands you climbed out only to have your lips crushed onto another set of lips. Chris kissed you with hunger this time, but still kept it classy. Your lips parted as his did, moving in synch together. He pulled away as you both breathed heavily, losing air from the kiss. Fuck, you could already feel yourself getting wet just from that kiss.
“Sorry,” Chris started to say, “I just really needed to kiss you.”
You giggled at his words, “Hey, I’m not complaining.”
You grabbed his hand into yours, “Come on, let me give you a tour of my new house.”
You showed him all around the house. The living room, kitchen, backyard, indoor hot tub and sauna, and your new favorite room, the small bedroom that would be your reading nook. He maintained body contact with you the whole time. His hand in yours, his arm around your shoulder or waist. It felt heavenly and divine. You felt light-headed just being close to him and inhaling his scent. It was as if you were a dog in heat and needed him to devour your body. But you had to decency to wait as you never rushed things intimately before and you wouldn’t start now.
The house was bare and each word you or Chris said echoed. As you finished giving him the tour, you made your way back to kitchen and hoisted yourself up on the counter. There was no furniture and you just wanted to sit down for a bit.
“So, what’s the next part of your plan?” Chris asked as he slid up to you and in between your legs, resting his hands on your thighs. Desire started to pool in your belly again at this cross proximity of him. Your legs on instinct wrapped around the back of his legs, pulling him a bit closer to you.
“Well, I rearranged my flight so I actually leave tomorrow morning to go back to Iowa. I honestly didn’t think finding a house and getting everything done would only take two days” you said, looking up at Chris and seeing disappointment flash in his eyes.
“When will you be back?” he asked his voice soft as his hands rubbed up and down your thighs. Fuck, what was he doing to you? All you wanted to do was to jump his bones right here in your kitchen. You had never been this instantly turned on by someone before, and it wasn’t because he was an actor. No, that didn’t come into play at all. To you, Chris was just a normal guy, with a different kind of job. It was this connection pulling you to him, his energy felt so raw and genuine.
“Hopefully soon. I talked to one of my best friends back in Iowa this morning. I asked her if she wanted to rent out my grandparents’ house and she happily agreed. She has a husband and two little kids and was looking for a bigger house. So all I really have to do is pack up, hire some moving guys to drive the UHAUL, and drive myself in my car back over here” you stated easily. It wouldn’t take you long to pack, now that you had a new home here. When it came down to it, you could have the house packed within a two, maybe three days tops. It was the drive back to Massachusetts that would be the worst part. You let out a frustrated sigh.
“Hey, what’s wrong” Chris asked as his finger came underneath your chin, tilting your head up to face him.
“It’s just the drive back here. I’m not particularly looking forward to it” you said giving him a shrug and a weak smile.
“Cm’ere” he said gathering you into his arms as your chin rested on his shoulder. “Everything will work out smoothly and hopefully in a week you’ll be back here, moving into your new house.”
His voice soothed you and you let out a light chuckle as you scratched his back. You still didn’t know where it left you and him. Were you two just friends even though the kiss felt like more than that? Would he still want you around him when you moved here permanently? You had to know the answers so you took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
“Can I uhh, ask you something” you asked hesitantly. Chris pulled away from you, cupping your face.
“Anything” he breathed out.
Your eyes glanced down shyly, nervous of how he would react. “This” you started to say, pointing between you and him, “Is this a one-time thing? Or are you going to want to see me when I move here permanently?”
His eyes widened at your words, his head moving forward to capture your lips to his. The kiss sent your body into overdrive, electricity spiking your bones. Your hands roamed over his tight stomach making their way up to caress the back of his head, pulling him closer to you. His tongue swiped over you bottom lip and you granted him access with ease. His tongue found yours easily and you moaned into his mouth at the feeling, wetness pooling in your panties. You found his lower lip and nibbled it gently, earning a deep growl from Chris.
He was the one who pulled away and you whimpered quietly. Both of your chests heaved at your ministrations as you tried to slow your breathing. “Does that answer your question?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “Like I said last night Y/N, there is something about you that I’m drawn to. No, this is definitely not a one-time thing. I want nothing more than for you to hurry back here, so I can take you on another date, shower you with flowers, be your romantic dork.”
A giggled escaped you as he spoke. You wanted nothing more than for him to be your romantic dork! “Alright” you said breathily as you nodded your head.
The two of you spent the rest of the day together, strolling around Sudbury in the crisp September air, hand in hand. He told you all about the best places to eat in town, his favorite little shops. He even told you that he talked to his mother about you already, which kind of surprised you. He must have really had strong feelings for you if he already mentioned you to his mother.
As the afternoon quickly turned into evening, your heart clenched knowing you had to say goodbye to Chris. It could be a week, or if things didn’t work out back in Iowa, it could take longer.
“Hurry back” Chris said as he pulled away from your lips, the heated kiss leaving you light-headed.
“I’ll try” you replied to him, a smirk covering your face.
He enveloped you into a hug, your feet leaving the ground as he spun you around, his face nestled into your hair. You didn’t want to let go, you wanted to stay in his arms forever; but you had to. You had an early flight in the morning and it was getting late.
Chris opened your car door for you as you settled into your seat. Driving away, you looked in your rearview mirror and saw him standing there, hands in his pocket, his shoulders hunched over in defeat. How could someone you’ve known for a little over 24 hours have such a deep impact on you? You didn’t think feelings like this really existed; it literally felt like something out of a dream, or a fiction novel.
~~~~
Five days later, you were packing up the last of the house; all the last minute things from the kitchen. Tomorrow morning, the movers would be here to load up the UHAUL. You found out that they could keep the truck at the UHAUL storage place, locked up for a few days so you could start making the trip out there first. You would probably be there for maybe a day before they showed up; that way they didn’t get there way ahead of time for you and be stranded there waiting for you.
You had a duffel bag packed for your trip out there, some clothing and necessities that were all ready to go. Walking around the house, it seemed eerily quiet, boxes littering the floor.
You and Chris spent the past five days texting, skyping, and talking on the phone. His charming ways wiggled deeper into your heart, and you loved every minute of it. The way he made you feel was nothing you ever experienced and you desired more.
The next morning, the moving guys showed up bright and early and started getting to work. You made sure to buy some plastic cups so you could offer something to drink for them. While you personally didn’t have a lot of things, you weren’t ready to part with your grandparents’ belongings yet. They would most likely keep stored away somewhere in your new house. But just having their belongings in your possession, it made it feel like they were still there with you.
You worked with the moving guys, bringing smaller boxes outside and onto the grass. You knew it wasn’t much, but you were raised to always help out.
As you brought out another small box from inside, you peered down the driveway, dust swirling around as a yellow taxi approached. “Wrong house” you muttered quietly. Houses were far away from each other and people always got lost around this area.
You set the box down on the grass as you walked towards the now parked taxi. You stopped dead in your tracks as the person emerged from the backseat, small suitcase in hand.
“Chris!” you shrieked as you ran towards him, jumping into his arms and nearly knocking him over. His low chuckle reverberated throughout your body causing you to shiver. “What are you doing here? How are you here? How did you know where I lived?” All the questions tumbled out of your mouth so fast. It was such a surprise to see him here, but you weren’t complaining at all.
He let go of you, but kept his arms on your hips. “I couldn’t let you make the drive back to Sudbury all by yourself. It’s like, 20 hours Y/N! I would be too damn worried the whole time and seeing as I didn’t have anything else going on this week, I came to surprise you” he finished, a smile on his face the whole time.
“You-you’re driving back home with me?” you squeaked out. Holy shit, this man really did have feelings for you. You had only known him for a week, and only been in his presence for a dozen hours total. He stole your heart and you knew you were done for.
“Yep” he said, popping the p. “What time did you plan on leaving?”
“Well, the moving guys are about half-way done loading up the truck. When they are done, the UHAUL will go back to the storage place and be locked up for two days. I plan on leaving whenever we get everything packed” you stated easily. On the outside, you remained as calm as you could, but on the inside, you were screaming and dancing like a lunatic. Being a romantic really paid off once you found someone to share that bond with.
Chris paid the taxi man, and you showed him inside, giving him a quick tour of the house that you grew up in. You told him he didn’t need to help load up the UHAUL, but he wasn’t having any of it. The movers were all pretty surprised to see Chris not only there, but also helping them out.
Chris took pictures with everyone, and even signed some autographs. Your heart grew two sizes just watching him interact with fans. You had to pinch yourself again to make sure you weren’t dreaming, and naturally, you weren’t. Chris kept stealing glances your way as he chit-chatted with the movers, giving you sly winks.
You thanked the movers when they were done, and tipped each of them $100. They thank you graciously and you told two of them (the two who would be driving the UHAUL) that you would see them back in Sudbury in a few days.
Walking back inside, you wanted to take one more trip around the now bare house. You heart felt full from being with Chris, but it ached as you ambled around the house. This was your childhood home, where you grew up, had your imagination adventures. But you knew it would do your friend and her new family some good. It was the perfect house to raise a family in.
Chris snuck up behind you, wrapping his arms around and his hands landing on your stomach. You leaned back and into him, reveling in his body heat. “You alright sweetheart?” he asked, his breath tickling your ear.
Sniffling, you shook your head before turning around and gripping onto Chris. He held you tight and close to his chest as you clutched to him; his hands rubbing soothingly onto your back. Tilting your head up to peer at him, you gave him a weak smile. “Thank you for being here Chris. It means a lot to me” you said quietly.
He returned your weak smile, his hands coming up to dry the tears from your face. Reaching up on your tip toes, you pulled his head down in a searing kiss. A kiss so passionate, it made your knees weak. Chris’ hands gripped at your hips, making sure you wouldn’t fall. Your hands scratched the back of his head as his tongue entered your mouth, both of you moaning at the feeling. One of his hands cupped your chin, tilting your head to make the kiss deeper as your nails continued to scratch his head.
As your heavy make-out session subsided, he gathered your duffel into his hands and you locked the door. Your friend and her family would officially move in tomorrow, and you smiled knowing you gave her a hell of a deal on the rent price. It would make it much easier for them to spend more time and go on vacations as a family and you knew you did a good deed.
You both piled into your car, Chris in the passenger seat and you behind the wheel. “Ready for a road trip?” you stated with excitement as you started the car.
Chris leaned over the console, giving you a quick kiss on the lips. “With you, I’m ready to take on the world sweetheart.”
A/N: What do you guys think? Should I leave it here, or make a part 3??
Tag List: @iamwarrenspeace @evansfanficweekly @valentinesbird @always-an-evans-addict @castellandiangelo @white-chocolate-mocha-fan @potterhead1265 @soymikael @zofty15 @createdbytinyaddiction @smoothdogsgirl @capcevans81 @domcaaa996 @nina-bok @vampgirl1997 @fandoms-writer @ssweet-empowerment
#Chris Evans x Reader#Chris Evans Fanfic#Chris Evans Fanfiction#Chris Evans Imagine#Chris Evans Imagines#Chris Evans One-Shot#Chris Evans#Marvel#Steve Rogers#Captain America
332 notes
·
View notes
Text
Waiting
Prompt: 43.“I feel like I can’t breathe.” and 2.“Hey, hey, calm down. They can’t hurt you anymore.” from this list. Requested by anon.
Pairing: Seth Rollins x unnamed OC.
Word Count: 1200+
Warnings: Mention of past violence, set in a hospital, minor swearing, a quick mention of blood. To avoid spoilers, I will put a more specific warning at the end of the fic. Scroll down if you’re worried.
Author’s Note: I’ve seen a lot of fics with those two prompts (often mixed with others and using different characters) so I really wanted to try to find a different angle. I hope this is just different enough that, while satisfying the prompt, it doesn’t feel exactly like the other fics.
Also I’m still pretty new at writing Seth, but thank nonny for taking the chance requesting him from me and giving me a shot to practice. I hope you enjoy it and I did him justice.
Tagging my girl @castielscamander
Seth ran down the hospital hallway, counting the room numbers until he reached room 342. He skidded to a halt, barely avoiding crashing into the doorframe. At the commotion, the only conscious person in the room looked up.
“You made it.” His mom sighed in relief, standing to walk towards him. “I was so worried about you driving by yourself.”
Seth couldn’t respond, his eyes locked on the other woman in the room. His fiancé was laying immobile on the hospital bed, her skin unusually pale under the harsh lighting. She had an IV in her hand and a cannula under her nose. It was a far cry from the last time he’d seen her. It had been less than a week since he had seen her in person, pouting as he left their house, and only hours since she had sent him a selfie, her tongue sticking out as she made a face.
He was snapped out of the haze as his mother hugged him.
“Her parents here yet?” He asked, trying to keep himself together. His mother shook her head as she pet his hair.
“No, they’re trying to get a flight. They’ll be here as soon as they can.”
He felt guilty. If she hadn’t moved to Iowa to live with him, so far away from her family, they would already be here for her. If she hadn’t moved, she might not be in a hospital bed. If he hadn’t been on the road, he could have protected her.
“Don’t start that.” His mom warned, seeing him retreat into his own mind. “This was an accident. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He had been leaving an arena a few states over, just having finished a house show, when his mother called. His fiancé has been out at a bar with some friends – this he knew, he’d spoken to her shortly before the show started. She had wished him luck on his match and he had told her to have fun with the girls – and had been stabbed.
It had been a stupid fight, the police said. It had nothing to do with her. Two guys had been arguing and that should have been the end of it, but alcohol and ego was involved. One guy pulled out a knife and started swinging. She really had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Has she woken up at all?” Seth asked.
“No, but the nurse said that’s to be expected. She lost a lot of blood.”
“God…” He breathed, feeling the familiar sensation of tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. He’d felt it countless times since that phone call, but this was the first time he allowed them to spill over. He wrapped his arms tightly around his mother, clinging to her in a way he hadn’t since he was a young boy as he let himself break.
“I know, Seth. Shh, it’ll be okay.” She tried to soothe as her son sobbed against her shoulder. She whispered words of support to him. There was nothing she could do at the moment to ease his pain except to be there for him. Her own heart ached for her son and the woman he loved.
“I feel like I can’t breathe.” He admitted, feeling helpless. He had always been one to take charge of his own fate. He trained hard and made it to WWE. He worked hard and had held multiple titles. This was out of his hand and nothing he could do would change that. “I haven’t been able to since you called.”
Once Seth had calmed, he took the chair next to the hospital bed. He thanked his mother for staying until he could get there and told her to go get some sleep. She fought him, not wanting to leave him alone, but finally relented.
Seth held his fiancé’s hand tightly in his own, careful not to disturb any of the wires or tubes that were helping her to heal. After he had injured his knee, she had told him how hard it had been waiting for him to wake up from his surgery. He never understood exactly how hard it had been for her until now.
He answered a few texts, telling Dean and Roman that he had made it in one piece and he was still waiting for her to wake up. He finally got news that her parents had gotten a flight and would be there in a few hours. He promised to keep them updated if anything changed with her condition. He spoke to the nurses who came through occasionally, checking her vitals. One of them brought him a coffee early on, but he didn’t touch it. It was the longest wait of his life, sitting in the chair and just hoping she’d wake soon.
A soft groan from his side startled him out of his thoughts around four in the morning.
“Babe? Can you hear me?” He asked
“Seth?” She croaked, eyelids fluttering.
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m right here.” He gave her hand a squeeze.
“Hurts.” She groaned, squirming under the scratchy hospital blanket.
“I know. I’m sorry. We’ll get you something soon.” He reached over with his free hand and pressed the call button next to the bed.
“What...” Her eyes finally opened and Seth let out a sigh of relief at seeing her beautiful eyes again. She looked around, taking in her surroundings.
“You’re in the hospital. Do you remember what happened?” Seth told her, seeing the confusion on her face as she tried to piece together what happened. She thought for a moment, bringing her hand down to touch the source of pain in her abdomen. She hissed at the contact.
“Shit… we were… yeah, I remember.” She nodded, trying to sit up.
“Careful sweetheart.” Seth jumped out of his chair to help her, not wanting her to injure herself any further. He propped her up on the extra pillow and inclined the bed slightly. She grabbed at his arms, gripping him tightly.
“Seth, I was so scared.” She whimpered. “It hurt so bad and there was blood everywhere.”
“It’s okay.” He assured her, cupping her cheek as he kissed her forehead. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“I didn’t know if I’d see you again.” She cried. Tears pooled in Seth’s eyes at the admission. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but that fear had been with him as well. He wanted nothing more than to climb into the bed and hold her tight, but he also didn’t want to disrupt any of the machines or accidentally hurt her.
“Hey, hey, calm down. They can’t hurt you anymore.” He promised, resting his forehead against hers. “And I’m right here. You’re gonna see me for forever and a day. You’ll be sick of me you’ll see so much of me. If I have to send you selfies and snaps every hour on the hour every time I’m on the road, I will.” He stroked her cheek as he rambled, trying to get a smile out of her.
“I love you.” She laughed through her tears, groaning softly as the laughter jostled her wound.
“I love you too.”
In depth trigger warning: Seth’s fiance (OC) was out at a bar where a knife got pulled out. She accidentally got stabbed - she was not the intended target. She is currently in the hospital and has not yet woken up. The violence itself is mentioned quite briefly and not in graphic detail. The blood is never described, only mentioned by OC when she wakes up that she remembers it.
#Seth Rollins imagine#Seth Rollins fic#Seth Rollins fan fic#Seth Rollins fan fiction#glowrious writings#Seth Rollins x OC
72 notes
·
View notes
Text
Will South Carolina Be Biden’s Firewall After All?
Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): With just one day before the South Carolina primary on Saturday, former Vice President Joe Biden has a 14 in 15 shot at winning the most votes in South Carolina, according to our forecast. He is a heavy favorite and is expected to win 39 percent of the vote, on average.
But a lot of Biden’s gains in South Carolina, both in our forecast and our polling average, have come in the last several days as polls following Nevada and Tuesday night’s debate have started to trickle in. Prior to this week, things had looked pretty close in South Carolina, and the model even had Sanders in the lead there prior to the Nevada caucuses.
So Galen, you’re actually on the ground in South Carolina. What are you seeing and hearing?
galen (Galen Druke, podcast producer and reporter): For now, it looks like Biden has managed to reverse the trends of the past couple weeks of Sen. Bernie Sanders and billionaire Tom Steyer gaining support — in particular black support — here in South Carolina. A Monmouth poll just came out today showing Biden up by 20 points and winning black voters by almost 30 points.
But to give you some on-the-ground color for what it’s like: I spent yesterday morning at the National Action Network’s Ministers’ Breakfast at Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, a large black church in North Charleston, and what I observed in both speaking with attendees and observing the crowd’s reaction was that Biden was far and away the favorite of the candidates that spoke.
In the afternoon, I went to a Sanders rally in North Charleston that — while more diverse than his New Hampshire rallies — was still very white for a state where 60 percent of the Democratic electorate is black.
geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Yeah, Galen, that lines up with some of what I found going through South Carolina polls after my visit to the state a week and a half ago. Sanders has often led Biden among white voters in the polls, but Biden leads among black voters, which is very important. The margins for each candidate could decide whether the race is close or not, though.
While I was there, it seemed like Biden might be in trouble, yet some recent polls show him with a more comfortable lead. That might come from Steyer fading after Nevada, though it’s unclear.
sarahf: Galen is right that that Monmouth poll is a really strong point in Biden’s favor, but I guess I’ve been kind of surprised by how much overall support Biden’s lost since Iowa. Granted, this is from an average of national polls, but the fact that the gap between Biden and Sanders’s support among black Americans has closed so dramatically in recent weeks makes me wonder how overwhelming the support will be for Biden on Saturday.
clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Voters love a winner! 2016 taught us that. His weaker showings have redounding effects.
sarahf: That’s true, but I have to imagine the storyline to watch on Saturday will be how Biden does with black voters. And I’m curious how this plays out across age, given Biden’s downturn since Iowa (although maybe last-minute surge now). Because one thing that has divided voter choice overall — including black voters — is age.
Do we think we’ll see that kind of age split in South Carolina? Or because it’s a more conservative southern state, maybe not as much as, say, a state like California?
galen: Yeah, Sarah, when it comes to the generational divide, you’re right. In 2016, Sanders pulled even with Clinton among black voters under the age of 30, even though she won almost 80 percent of the black vote overall.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that young people don’t vote at the same rates as older voters, especially in primaries, and that will probably be true here in South Carolina as well.
geoffrey.skelley: Right, Galen. A plus for Biden is that most voters will be older. In South Carolina’s 2016 Democratic primary, 65 percent of voters were 45 years or older, according to the exit poll. So even if Sanders can gin up younger voter turnout some — and it’s unclear whether he’s really been doing that so far — the electorate will likely lean toward older voters.
sarahf: On the point of Biden’s mediocre performances so far, how have folks been grappling with it, Galen? I know Geoffrey heard a lot from folks earlier this month who said what happened in the first two states didn’t matter to them.
galen: I haven’t heard a lot of people express doubt about Biden based on poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire. After all, a lot of the support Biden has is based on years of his presence in the state and his association with the country’s first black president. That can’t really be erased in a couple weeks.
Biden has also had a good — or not so bad — week in the news cycle. He came in second in Nevada, he performed fine in the debate, and he got the coveted endorsement of House Majority Whip James Clyburn on Wednesday. By the way, I spoke to Clyburn about why he decided to endorse Biden, and he expressed the same skepticism about Sanders’s candidacy that I’ve heard from other older black voters as well.
youtube
clare.malone: Yes, Galen. I wrote about that this fall when I followed Biden around for a couple months, including in South Carolina. There’s a lot of history and effort that black voters feel Biden has put in, and they’re quite attuned to candidates who might be just dropping in and pandering to them.
geoffrey.skelley: Like quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. in your first response to a debate question, Clare?
galen: Clare, I have talked to a number of voters who have complained about pandering. Voters here are VERY attuned to it and it is SO transparent.
youtube
sarahf: So I think both Clare and Galen are right — despite his national slump among black voters — Biden’s support in South Carolina is pretty sticky. But at the same time … how do you explain Steyer in third in our state average there?!?
Is it noise? Or has Steyer maybe made serious inroads there aside from all the ad buys?
galen: MONEY $$$$$
clare.malone: Steyer’s ads are interesting, since he frames himself not as much as the IMPEACH guy, but as a businessman. That’s more moderate imagery, and the black electorate in the Democratic Party tends to skew moderate. So he’s doing something smart!
But I’m not sure if that’s actually going to translate into like, a third place win. But never say die.
galen: I mean he looks like he’ll come in third, so I take those polls seriously. But I don’t think what happens here for Steyer in South Carolina says much about the rest of the race nationally.
geoffrey.skelley: It’s more than just ad spending, though. I saw Steyer’s organization first-hand, and it seemed pretty impressive. They’ve made huge investments in attracting African American support, not just with typical election pitches but also community engagement. The campaign has held a bunch of block parties, for example. And the campaign seemed to be everywhere. I even talked to one Sanders volunteer at Sanders’s headquarters in Columbia who said he’d knocked on some rural doors, and the only other literature he’d seen at those places was from Steyer’s campaign.
galen: Steyer’s performance in South Carolina, where former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t on the ballot, could be a little test run for Bloomberg’s approach, though. If Steyer’s support in polls is reflective of his support on Election Day, that could bode decently for Bloomberg. If he underperforms his polls, though that may suggest that support “purchased” through massive ad/campaign spending may not be that sticky.
sarahf: Right, and we saw how well that worked for Steyer in Nevada. He invested heavily and still finished in fifth place.
geoffrey.skelley: It’s worth noting that Steyer got 9 percent of the initial preference vote in Nevada, and he was at 10 percent in our polling average before the caucuses. So I’m not sure that he really underperformed there.
clare.malone: Though I will say, Bloomberg has perhaps purchased his support slightly differently. It’s ads, sure, but he’s also got a massive philanthropic network that local and state officials might have benefitted from and therefore will endorse or campaign for him. That’s probably a little more effective than Steyer’s ad blitz.
galen: Well, Steyer has gotten some notable endorsements in South Carolina, but he’s actually been accused of buying the backing of South Carolinians, which is similar to criticisms that have been lobbed at Bloomberg.
But the big question regarding Steyer in South Carolina, I think, is whether he can really clear the 15 percent threshold to get delegates, cutting into Biden or Sanders’s totals.
sarahf: Editor-in-chief Nate Silver had a piece on Thursday where he gamed out three scenarios for how the South Carolina primary could go: 1) Large Biden win (by 10 percentage points or more); 2) Modest Biden win (by less than 10 points); and then 3) a Sanders win (no margin specified). Essentially, what I took away from that piece is the margin on Saturday really matters for Biden going forward.
Is that fair?
geoffrey.skelley: A big win for Biden resets the media narrative just a few days before Super Tuesday — and that could be big. It might pull back some moderate voters who had been testing out Bloomberg into Biden’s camp.
galen: Yeah, I think the media is ready to tell the Biden comeback story so if it is born out in the actual election results, well, all the better from a narrative perspective.
Also, the Democratic Party apparatus is not super excited about Sanders, to say the least, so if Biden were to win big, they could start to rally around him in a more concrete way if he wins decisively.
clare.malone: And as the Biden people will tell you, they’ve always put a big focus on the trove of Southern states that the March contests will bring.
They think they have a lot of strength there and that they can mine a whole lot of votes.
galen: TEXAS BABY
geoffrey.skelley: Yes, basically if Biden is able to get a large enough win and then do fairly well on Super Tuesday, you might see a rallying effect for Biden as the Sanders alternative. I’ve been keeping track of the endorsement picture in 2020 vs. the 2016 GOP race, and what you saw then was a bunch of GOP Congress members and governors made endorsements after South Carolina and Nevada. That hasn’t happened in the Democratic race post-Nevada, so maybe they’re waiting for South Carolina and Super Tuesday.
clare.malone: That’s fair. I think we’re going to see the big reassessment post-Super Tuesday, to be honest.
South Carolina is the shot, Super Tuesday is the chaser. We’ll see what the Wednesday morning after scene is like.
sarahf: So … this is DEFINITELY a broken-record type question at this point, but where does this leave the other candidates in South Carolina? What’s a good scenario for Buttigieg, Warren or Klobuchar in South Carolina moving forward into Super Tuesday?
Is there one?
galen: A good scenario for those candidates coming out of South Carolina is a clear Biden win because if Sanders wins the race, it’s basically over.
But if Biden does well, that could also weaken Sanders in Minnesota and Massachusetts, states that Klobuchar and Warren hope to win, respectively.
Now, I don’t think that means they will win the majority of delegates or the nomination, but I think they’d be doing their part for the party establishment to block Sanders by winning those two states, because otherwise he would probably win them.
geoffrey.skelley: I mean, breaking the double digits might be a reasonable goal for Buttigieg or Klobuchar? They’re at 7 and 4 percent, respectively, in our South Carolina polling average.
Warren is at 8 percent, so her too, I guess.
galen: I just don’t see it happening for Buttigieg and Klobuchar, but hey I’ve been wrong before.
geoffrey.skelley: Buttigieg and Klobuchar might benefit if more white moderates vote in the Democratic primary. South Carolina uses an open primary, so keep an eye on that. There are Republican-leaning voters who are a little skeptical of Trump in places like suburban Charleston and who helped flip the South Carolina 1st to Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham in 2018 — that’s a district President Trump carried by 13 points in 2016.
Not to mention, we saw both Klobuchar and Buttigieg do well among white moderates in New Hampshire, for instance, so it wouldn’t be too crazy to think they might replicate that success here.
galen: To Geoff’s point, I went to a diner in North Charleston yesterday and spoke with a white voter who called himself an independent and told me he really likes Buttigieg. However, he told me he would be out of town and didn’t plan on voting. He said he didn’t realize until he heard on the radio the other day that he could vote in the Democratic primary.
geoffrey.skelley: Democracy!
clare.malone: What a recommendation for the radio!
galen: I also spoke to an elderly man wearing a MAGA hat at the diner. A reminder that President Trump is holding a rally in North Charleston in Friday even though there isn’t a Republican primary here.
You might call that … trolling?
sarahf: It would be interesting if Biden does well among black Democrats in South Carolina but not as well among white Democrats (and independents, etc.), and we see a kinda a repeat of what happened in New Hampshire.
Does that undermine Biden’s electability argument at all if he continues to not win over white moderate support?
galen: Well, if the Monmouth poll is any indicator, Biden will do fine with both black and white moderates here.
geoffrey.skelley: If South Carolina does work out that way, Super Tuesday will end up answering that question. Is there a notable increase in Biden’s support among white moderates? Or does he continue to split them with Buttigieg, Klobuchar and, of course, Bloomberg, who debuts that day?
galen: The big question to me is how likely it looks like this is all headed to a contested convention. If it looks that way after Super Tuesday, then the other moderates will have a reason to stay in. But if Biden looks like he can win a majority or strong plurality, I think the party will be like PLEASE GTFO of this race.
And considering that Buttigieg and Klobuchar want to be in good standing with the party, they will probably oblige.
I have no idea about Bloomberg, though.
geoffrey.skelley: It was so clear that Clinton was going to win easily in South Carolina in 2016 that I don’t recall people making much of the fact that there were only three days separating South Carolina from Super Tuesday last time around. She was the favorite for the nomination and was going to win the Palmetto State in a walk. This time, though, the favorite for the nomination — Sanders — is behind in South Carolina, and as Nate wrote, a big Biden win could alter the race’s trajectory to some extent. But once again, there are just three days between these events, so how South Carolina affects things is more uncertain.
sarahf: So how important, then, is South Carolina for the rest of the race? To me, it feels like the stakes are higher than in the first three states, because it really is a question now of whether Biden’s campaign remains viable, right?
galen: So, I think South Carolina will help shape the narrative of the race going forward, but like Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina is actually not very representative of the Democratic party demographically. There are only five states in the country where the Democratic electorate is majority black — South Carolina being one of them. (Nationally, black voters make up about 20 to 25 percent of the Democratic electorate.)
Also, South Carolina is an overwhelmingly Republican state — 17 points more Republican, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric. So, in some ways, if Biden does well there, that doesn’t necessarily mean he can do well across the rest of the country.
geoffrey.skelley: It seems like Biden will most likely win South Carolina, but if it’s a pretty narrow win, that could be a sign of weakness that doesn’t convince voters who are still considering Bloomberg or Buttigieg or Klobuchar to jump ship and come over to him on Super Tuesday.
If Biden does win by a big margin, though, that could make his campaign far more viable in the long run by winning over some of those voters looking at other moderate alternatives.
As Galen said, South Carolina may not be that representative of the Democratic Party, but it’s certainly pretty important for Biden’s long-term hope of being the leading Sanders alternative.
clare.malone: South Carolina will prime the tank for Super Tuesday, so it’s a really important set-up. If Warren, for instance, finishes low again, perhaps even lower than Klobuchar, and then performs spottily on Super Tuesday, I really wonder if her campaign is over. A sad political story of steady rise and precipitous fall.
Especially if he has a particularly strong showing, I think Biden could potentially set the table for a comeback of sorts (or maybe a campaign to tie or a “no one wins”). But as we’ve said and written before, this whole thing is Sanders’s race to lose.
from Clare Malone – FiveThirtyEight https://ift.tt/2TgPxBO
via https://ift.tt/1B8lJZR
0 notes
Link
via Politics – FiveThirtyEight
Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): With just one day before the South Carolina primary on Saturday, former Vice President Joe Biden has a 14 in 15 shot at winning the most votes in South Carolina, according to our forecast. He is a heavy favorite and is expected to win 39 percent of the vote, on average.
But a lot of Biden’s gains in South Carolina, both in our forecast and our polling average, have come in the last several days as polls following Nevada and Tuesday night’s debate have started to trickle in. Prior to this week, things had looked pretty close in South Carolina, and the model even had Sanders in the lead there prior to the Nevada caucuses.
So Galen, you’re actually on the ground in South Carolina. What are you seeing and hearing?
galen (Galen Druke, podcast producer and reporter): For now, it looks like Biden has managed to reverse the trends of the past couple weeks of Sen. Bernie Sanders and billionaire Tom Steyer gaining support — in particular black support — here in South Carolina. A Monmouth poll just came out today showing Biden up by 20 points and winning black voters by almost 30 points.
But to give you some on-the-ground color for what it’s like: I spent yesterday morning at the National Action Network’s Ministers’ Breakfast at Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church, a large black church in North Charleston, and what I observed in both speaking with attendees and observing the crowd’s reaction was that Biden was far and away the favorite of the candidates that spoke.
In the afternoon, I went to a Sanders rally in North Charleston that — while more diverse than his New Hampshire rallies — was still very white for a state where 60 percent of the Democratic electorate is black.
geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Yeah, Galen, that lines up with some of what I found going through South Carolina polls after my visit to the state a week and a half ago. Sanders has often led Biden among white voters in the polls, but Biden leads among black voters, which is very important. The margins for each candidate could decide whether the race is close or not, though.
While I was there, it seemed like Biden might be in trouble, yet some recent polls show him with a more comfortable lead. That might come from Steyer fading after Nevada, though it’s unclear.
sarahf: Galen is right that that Monmouth poll is a really strong point in Biden’s favor, but I guess I’ve been kind of surprised by how much overall support Biden’s lost since Iowa. Granted, this is from an average of national polls, but the fact that the gap between Biden and Sanders’s support among black Americans has closed so dramatically in recent weeks makes me wonder how overwhelming the support will be for Biden on Saturday.
clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Voters love a winner! 2016 taught us that. His weaker showings have redounding effects.
sarahf: That’s true, but I have to imagine the storyline to watch on Saturday will be how Biden does with black voters. And I’m curious how this plays out across age, given Biden’s downturn since Iowa (although maybe last-minute surge now). Because one thing that has divided voter choice overall — including black voters — is age.
Do we think we’ll see that kind of age split in South Carolina? Or because it’s a more conservative southern state, maybe not as much as, say, a state like California?
galen: Yeah, Sarah, when it comes to the generational divide, you’re right. In 2016, Sanders pulled even with Clinton among black voters under the age of 30, even though she won almost 80 percent of the black vote overall.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that young people don’t vote at the same rates as older voters, especially in primaries, and that will probably be true here in South Carolina as well.
geoffrey.skelley: Right, Galen. A plus for Biden is that most voters will be older. In South Carolina’s 2016 Democratic primary, 65 percent of voters were 45 years or older, according to the exit poll. So even if Sanders can gin up younger voter turnout some — and it’s unclear whether he’s really been doing that so far — the electorate will likely lean toward older voters.
sarahf: On the point of Biden’s mediocre performances so far, how have folks been grappling with it, Galen? I know Geoffrey heard a lot from folks earlier this month who said what happened in the first two states didn’t matter to them.
galen: I haven’t heard a lot of people express doubt about Biden based on poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire. After all, a lot of the support Biden has is based on years of his presence in the state and his association with the country’s first black president. That can’t really be erased in a couple weeks.
Biden has also had a good — or not so bad — week in the news cycle. He came in second in Nevada, he performed fine in the debate, and he got the coveted endorsement of House Majority Whip James Clyburn on Wednesday. By the way, I spoke to Clyburn about why he decided to endorse Biden, and he expressed the same skepticism about Sanders’s candidacy that I’ve heard from other older black voters as well.
clare.malone: Yes, Galen. I wrote about that this fall when I followed Biden around for a couple months, including in South Carolina. There’s a lot of history and effort that black voters feel Biden has put in, and they’re quite attuned to candidates who might be just dropping in and pandering to them.
geoffrey.skelley: Like quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. in your first response to a debate question, Clare?
galen: Clare, I have talked to a number of voters who have complained about pandering. Voters here are VERY attuned to it and it is SO transparent.
sarahf: So I think both Clare and Galen are right — despite his national slump among black voters — Biden’s support in South Carolina is pretty sticky. But at the same time … how do you explain Steyer in third in our state average there?!?
Is it noise? Or has Steyer maybe made serious inroads there aside from all the ad buys?
galen: MONEY $$$$$
clare.malone: Steyer’s ads are interesting, since he frames himself not as much as the IMPEACH guy, but as a businessman. That’s more moderate imagery, and the black electorate in the Democratic Party tends to skew moderate. So he’s doing something smart!
But I’m not sure if that’s actually going to translate into like, a third place win. But never say die.
galen: I mean he looks like he’ll come in third, so I take those polls seriously. But I don’t think what happens here for Steyer in South Carolina says much about the rest of the race nationally.
geoffrey.skelley: It’s more than just ad spending, though. I saw Steyer’s organization first-hand, and it seemed pretty impressive. They’ve made huge investments in attracting African American support, not just with typical election pitches but also community engagement. The campaign has held a bunch of block parties, for example. And the campaign seemed to be everywhere. I even talked to one Sanders volunteer at Sanders’s headquarters in Columbia who said he’d knocked on some rural doors, and the only other literature he’d seen at those places was from Steyer’s campaign.
galen: Steyer’s performance in South Carolina, where former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t on the ballot, could be a little test run for Bloomberg’s approach, though. If Steyer’s support in polls is reflective of his support on Election Day, that could bode decently for Bloomberg. If he underperforms his polls, though that may suggest that support “purchased” through massive ad/campaign spending may not be that sticky.
sarahf: Right, and we saw how well that worked for Steyer in Nevada. He invested heavily and still finished in fifth place.
geoffrey.skelley: It’s worth noting that Steyer got 9 percent of the initial preference vote in Nevada, and he was at 10 percent in our polling average before the caucuses. So I’m not sure that he really underperformed there.
clare.malone: Though I will say, Bloomberg has perhaps purchased his support slightly differently. It’s ads, sure, but he’s also got a massive philanthropic network that local and state officials might have benefitted from and therefore will endorse or campaign for him. That’s probably a little more effective than Steyer’s ad blitz.
galen: Well, Steyer has gotten some notable endorsements in South Carolina, but he’s actually been accused of buying the backing of South Carolinians, which is similar to criticisms that have been lobbed at Bloomberg.
But the big question regarding Steyer in South Carolina, I think, is whether he can really clear the 15 percent threshold to get delegates, cutting into Biden or Sanders’s totals.
sarahf: Editor-in-chief Nate Silver had a piece on Thursday where he gamed out three scenarios for how the South Carolina primary could go: 1) Large Biden win (by 10 percentage points or more); 2) Modest Biden win (by less than 10 points); and then 3) a Sanders win (no margin specified). Essentially, what I took away from that piece is the margin on Saturday really matters for Biden going forward.
Is that fair?
geoffrey.skelley: A big win for Biden resets the media narrative just a few days before Super Tuesday — and that could be big. It might pull back some moderate voters who had been testing out Bloomberg into Biden’s camp.
galen: Yeah, I think the media is ready to tell the Biden comeback story so if it is born out in the actual election results, well, all the better from a narrative perspective.
Also, the Democratic Party apparatus is not super excited about Sanders, to say the least, so if Biden were to win big, they could start to rally around him in a more concrete way if he wins decisively.
clare.malone: And as the Biden people will tell you, they’ve always put a big focus on the trove of Southern states that the March contests will bring.
They think they have a lot of strength there and that they can mine a whole lot of votes.
galen: TEXAS BABY
geoffrey.skelley: Yes, basically if Biden is able to get a large enough win and then do fairly well on Super Tuesday, you might see a rallying effect for Biden as the Sanders alternative. I’ve been keeping track of the endorsement picture in 2020 vs. the 2016 GOP race, and what you saw then was a bunch of GOP Congress members and governors made endorsements after South Carolina and Nevada. That hasn’t happened in the Democratic race post-Nevada, so maybe they’re waiting for South Carolina and Super Tuesday.
clare.malone: That’s fair. I think we’re going to see the big reassessment post-Super Tuesday, to be honest.
South Carolina is the shot, Super Tuesday is the chaser. We’ll see what the Wednesday morning after scene is like.
sarahf: So … this is DEFINITELY a broken-record type question at this point, but where does this leave the other candidates in South Carolina? What’s a good scenario for Buttigieg, Warren or Klobuchar in South Carolina moving forward into Super Tuesday?
Is there one?
galen: A good scenario for those candidates coming out of South Carolina is a clear Biden win because if Sanders wins the race, it’s basically over.
But if Biden does well, that could also weaken Sanders in Minnesota and Massachusetts, states that Klobuchar and Warren hope to win, respectively.
Now, I don’t think that means they will win the majority of delegates or the nomination, but I think they’d be doing their part for the party establishment to block Sanders by winning those two states, because otherwise he would probably win them.
geoffrey.skelley: I mean, breaking the double digits might be a reasonable goal for Buttigieg or Klobuchar? They’re at 7 and 4 percent, respectively, in our South Carolina polling average.
Warren is at 8 percent, so her too, I guess.
galen: I just don’t see it happening for Buttigieg and Klobuchar, but hey I’ve been wrong before.
geoffrey.skelley: Buttigieg and Klobuchar might benefit if more white moderates vote in the Democratic primary. South Carolina uses an open primary, so keep an eye on that. There are Republican-leaning voters who are a little skeptical of Trump in places like suburban Charleston and who helped flip the South Carolina 1st to Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham in 2018 — that’s a district President Trump carried by 13 points in 2016.
Not to mention, we saw both Klobuchar and Buttigieg do well among white moderates in New Hampshire, for instance, so it wouldn’t be too crazy to think they might replicate that success here.
galen: To Geoff’s point, I went to a diner in North Charleston yesterday and spoke with a white voter who called himself an independent and told me he really likes Buttigieg. However, he told me he would be out of town and didn’t plan on voting. He said he didn’t realize until he heard on the radio the other day that he could vote in the Democratic primary.
geoffrey.skelley: Democracy!
clare.malone: What a recommendation for the radio!
galen: I also spoke to an elderly man wearing a MAGA hat at the diner. A reminder that President Trump is holding a rally in North Charleston in Friday even though there isn’t a Republican primary here.
You might call that … trolling?
sarahf: It would be interesting if Biden does well among black Democrats in South Carolina but not as well among white Democrats (and independents, etc.), and we see a kinda a repeat of what happened in New Hampshire.
Does that undermine Biden’s electability argument at all if he continues to not win over white moderate support?
galen: Well, if the Monmouth poll is any indicator, Biden will do fine with both black and white moderates here.
geoffrey.skelley: If South Carolina does work out that way, Super Tuesday will end up answering that question. Is there a notable increase in Biden’s support among white moderates? Or does he continue to split them with Buttigieg, Klobuchar and, of course, Bloomberg, who debuts that day?
galen: The big question to me is how likely it looks like this is all headed to a contested convention. If it looks that way after Super Tuesday, then the other moderates will have a reason to stay in. But if Biden looks like he can win a majority or strong plurality, I think the party will be like PLEASE GTFO of this race.
And considering that Buttigieg and Klobuchar want to be in good standing with the party, they will probably oblige.
I have no idea about Bloomberg, though.
geoffrey.skelley: It was so clear that Clinton was going to win easily in South Carolina in 2016 that I don’t recall people making much of the fact that there were only three days separating South Carolina from Super Tuesday last time around. She was the favorite for the nomination and was going to win the Palmetto State in a walk. This time, though, the favorite for the nomination — Sanders — is behind in South Carolina, and as Nate wrote, a big Biden win could alter the race’s trajectory to some extent. But once again, there are just three days between these events, so how South Carolina affects things is more uncertain.
sarahf: So how important, then, is South Carolina for the rest of the race? To me, it feels like the stakes are higher than in the first three states, because it really is a question now of whether Biden’s campaign remains viable, right?
galen: So, I think South Carolina will help shape the narrative of the race going forward, but like Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina is actually not very representative of the Democratic party demographically. There are only five states in the country where the Democratic electorate is majority black — South Carolina being one of them. (Nationally, black voters make up about 20 to 25 percent of the Democratic electorate.)
Also, South Carolina is an overwhelmingly Republican state — 17 points more Republican, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric. So, in some ways, if Biden does well there, that doesn’t necessarily mean he can do well across the rest of the country.
geoffrey.skelley: It seems like Biden will most likely win South Carolina, but if it’s a pretty narrow win, that could be a sign of weakness that doesn’t convince voters who are still considering Bloomberg or Buttigieg or Klobuchar to jump ship and come over to him on Super Tuesday.
If Biden does win by a big margin, though, that could make his campaign far more viable in the long run by winning over some of those voters looking at other moderate alternatives.
As Galen said, South Carolina may not be that representative of the Democratic Party, but it’s certainly pretty important for Biden’s long-term hope of being the leading Sanders alternative.
clare.malone: South Carolina will prime the tank for Super Tuesday, so it’s a really important set-up. If Warren, for instance, finishes low again, perhaps even lower than Klobuchar, and then performs spottily on Super Tuesday, I really wonder if her campaign is over. A sad political story of steady rise and precipitous fall.
Especially if he has a particularly strong showing, I think Biden could potentially set the table for a comeback of sorts (or maybe a campaign to tie or a “no one wins”). But as we’ve said and written before, this whole thing is Sanders’s race to lose.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
ao3feed-tododeku
AO3 Feed Tododeku
a-huge-word-nerd
The Word Nerd
anken0820
anken0820のinstagram
pvygrade
❥