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ficforthought · 3 years

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On being SO DONE with M*sha, a rant a decade in the making!

After giving this some thought I'm going to go ahead and give my opinion on Misha and yesterday’s situation in public for the first time ever. I was going to just post on Twitter but since this has been 12 years in the making I have exceeded the number of tweets I can put in one thread! There’s A LOT in here, so my summary is also long. I'm aware that I will lose followers over this, I'm not looking to offend anyone but it will inevitably happen. I wish anyone leaving all the best as fellow human beings.

TL;DR - having kept quiet for so long I’ve finally reached my limit and it’s all come bubbling out. I’ve never been a fan of Misha, I’ve been ambivalent for the most part, but have never criticised him in any hateful way, that's not who I am, but after all these years of putting up with his bullshit, attention seeking and troublemaking I am DONE. Deleting his tweet containing the word Wincest and replacing it with an APOLOGY just to pander to his Minions and save face is the straw that broke the camel's back. He has consistently pushed his ship on not only fans but on other actors (despite Jensen's discomfort, and him having repeatedly made his feelings known on it), he has stood by while his Minions/Hellers have harassed, victimised, doxxed and sent death threats to people based on their FICTIONAL ships. He has pandered to their gatekeeping, constantly demanded attention in obvious and not so obvious ways, and to the best of my knowledge never criticised their actions even though he's aware of it in a very real way. Some of his Minions have now taken their shit into The Boys fandom and created negativity for Jensen before the guy has even got a foot through the set door, and how is that supporting one half of your ship?

Misha has claimed to be a victim of targeted harassment from Wincest/brother fans (not only shippers) yet his fans have said and done the most despicable things on his watch, all in the name of what he must think is entertainment, or even his idea of a ‘joke’.

Any respect I had for the man based on his humanitarian work has gone because I can only take so much hypocrisy. He and his pandering because of a desperate attempt to be woke and wholly inclusive (which is actually impossible, no matter how good intentions are) are beyond pathetic. Whilst I have never seen why people think he’s so great I have friends IRL and online who genuinely adore the man, yet they have been shocked and upset by his contempt for half of the fandom that made him somewhat famous. It's disgusting and I'm not scrolling by any more. Misha, I hope to never see you on anything J2 related in future because none of us need that kind of negativity, *especially* not J2. Be gone, foul fiend!

OK, so to the too long part. Please be aware that these are my opinions as a fan of the show, of Sam and Dean, and J2, not only as a shipper. I can separate canon and fanon, and can view canon from a gen or shippy PoV. Whether you agree or disagree with my opinion let me be clear that I do not condone constant bashing and hate of a person or character so this isn’t the start of a regular thing for me. It's possible to have an opinion and not show the same vitriol that has been following this man around for years, and that’s what I’m doing. I've not posted this to prompt more negativity, it's simply to get it off my chest and make it clear how I feel. I stand by my philosophy of ship who you want to ship, enjoy it, but don't force it on other people and don't be a dick about it…hmm, that kinda sounds like familiar behaviour, though, does it not?!

I have ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUE with other people liking Misha, Cas or Destiel when it’s for the love of the characters and the ship. What I *do* have an issue with is people who are the true definition of a Heller. I don’t see that as a generic term, don't be ignorant and think I do because I know the difference between actual ship fans and the crazies, both ships have ‘em and I want no part of either of their venom. If you are reading this and class yourself as a Heller then you are part of the problem so run along and as you are all so fond of saying, 'get help' and take your bestie king with you.

I’m stating my opinion in what I feel is the most mature way I can, because unlike many people on SM, I am an adult and can act accordingly, with forethought and without resorting to temper tantrums and bullying of other people to get my point across. I am able to tell the difference between reality and fiction, I don't tar everyone with the same shipper brush and I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinion, but as we know opinions are like arseholes, we all have them and sometimes they stink. Unlike some, for the most part in life (online and offline) I *do* stand by what I say and don’t backtrack or delete things to appease the masses. I have spent a lot of time writing this out to be as clear as possible without being intentionally hateful. Bear with me jumping between actor and character where relevant, at this point they're conjoined. I will say this before I go any further, it doesn’t end well for Misha, I don’t mince my words and if you don’t like seeing facts and opinions laid out, this isn't the post for you.

I’ll say right off the bat what most of you have surmised - I’ve never held Misha (or Cas) in high esteem but I have never *hated* on him. I have shared mild criticism of his actions and opinions on Cas over the years but never, I feel, in any way that has made me feel I have something to apologise for. I have said several times I've been unhappy about Misha crashing con panels, taking attention away from J2 when at those cons *most* people paid their hard earned money to see the STARS of the show they love, first and foremost, and anyone else is a very nice bonus. The odd appearance here and there crashing a panel is fine (and Misha isn’t the first or last person to do it), maybe take up a few minutes then leave, but when someone commandeers an entire panel, that's just not on. It's not only selfish, rude and attention seeking but also disrespectful to other actors, fans and to the organisers who work hard to make sure everything ties in to give us the best con experience we can have. Everyone gets their turn on stage, there's no need to try and hog any more of the limelight, Veruca Salt style. Oh, and if you’re reading this and not getting that reference, (a) you shouldn’t be on my blog because you’re far too young, (b) look it up, and if you still don’t get what I’m saying… well then please refer to point (a). Thank you, kindly!

There was a time in Kripke's era where Cas was - I feel - intentionally used as a pawn by the writers to divert *canon* from the ‘questionable’ relationship between Sam and Dean, i.e. Wincest focus. Prior to that people (other fans) lightened up and just accepted the fact that Wincest had been there since day one in terms of the writing of the show and the fandom. All the cast and crew knew - J2, Kripke and JDM in particular - and made light of it, never judging, never shaming and often encouraging it because they understand it’s a fun part of fandom. Wincest was present enough to be part of the not so subtle subtext, as I said people just accepted it. Kink tomato was alive and well, so was ‘don’t like, don’t read’ and we all just scrolled over things we didn’t like without turning everything into a personal vendetta and excuse for bullying others who didn’t share our views. When the angels came into the plot I think most of us Wincest fans gave the Dean/Cas innuendos the small laugh they deserved and then turned back to the focus of the show which was the brothers, as it had always been intended. Misha, however, milked those moments as much as possible which was amusing at the start but got old *very* quickly, not just for fans (shippers and non shippers alike), but for other actors, in particular Jensen who is on record MULTIPLE times showing his dislike for Destiel. He told people outright that's not how he was playing the relationship between the two characters and CATEGORICALLY said "Destiel doesn't exist" but did it end there? No, it did not because neither fans or Misha let it go, in fact Misha only pushed more, goaded fans into flogging the same dead horse as much as possible. He’s never stopped, not even when there was so much discord in the fandom, a huge wedge was driven into it because of ships, which IMO he heavily contributed to.

Fast forward to over a decade later (a decade, seriously man, let it fucking go!) he didn’t even stop when Destiel did partially go canon. I have never doubted that Cas loved Dean (Sam, too) because in SPN lore angels are made to love, even rebellious ones. I, along with many others, liked that about Cas because who doesn't love a rebel, especially one rebelling for very good reasons, and because of those two wonderful men? Sam and Dean allowed him to see beyond what he'd been brainwashed to believe his entire existence. The fact is that although the nature of that love changed for Cas, it never did for Dean and was CANONICALLY UNREQUITED because Dean was incapable of loving anyone else as much as he loved Sam. All that mattered to Dean, even when he saw other characters as "family" was still Sam…ALWAYS Sam, every step of the way. Again for those who have too much Misha shaped wax in their ears, that’s canon. Whether people choose to see that love platonically or romantically is up to them, soulmates don't always have to be romantic, either way, brotherly love won out above all else on the show. No amount of Misha screaming ‘hey look, Destiel!’ changed that, but it sure didn’t stop him trying, did it?

So now that the obvious has been stated, here's something else we all know - never once in all of the years on the show did Misha drop rallying of the troops to his precious, ego stroking ship. Never once (that I am aware of) has he called out his Minions and Hellers on their continued harassment of everyone involved in the show and other fans despite the fact that they have bullied, victimised and wished bodily harm, rape and death on people who don't see their ship and because didn't get the ending to the story that they wanted. Not once has Misha shown any remorse for the trauma his "fans" have caused, and I’m taking REAL trauma, here, not the kind Twitter stans see as ‘triggering’ - people have been driven to close SM accounts, attempted, and in some cases succeeded in taking their own lives. These Minions have openly mocked Jared’s struggles with depression and anxiety, and Misha - who claims to be friends with J2 and be supportive of them in every way - has stood by and let it all play out, knowing full well some of the goings on, if not the full extent of how toxic these people are. We know he sees things being said online, and I have absolutely no doubt he spends time online searching his name for things that are relevant in some way to him in an effort to insert himself into a current conversation, or even start one so that attention is on him. Gotta stay relevant, somehow, right, Mish?

He has actively encouraged bullying by his actions of enabling the behaviours above, both by the flogging of the aforementioned dead horse, AND by not objecting to unacceptable behaviours. Remember when Minions and Hellers were slating J2, particularly Jared, for not posting on SM about BLM and other topics? Yeah, he didn’t ask them to stop doing that, either, even when he was tagged in things along the lines of ‘If Misha can post why can’t J2?’ etc. There have been some token protests, con vids I've seen have show his 'objections' which IMO have been done in a very tongue in cheek way, meaning that those people who needed to be pulled aside and told to change their ways just carried on, because their evil overlord didn’t explicitly explain it in terms a three year old could understand that bullying and forcing your opinion on others is WRONG. Not all of his cult are young and impressionable, not by a long shot, but many of the more vocal and vitriolic ones are.

As a father himself I wonder what Misha would do if he found out that his kids were behaving in ways his Minions are? I’m aware they’re young, but kids are cruel and bullying doesn’t just happen online. Even at whatever age they are, would he laugh it off the way he appears to have done with all of this fandom toxicity? Not bloody likely! I wonder if he’s as desperate to gain the approval of his family, friends and colleagues as he appears to be for that of his Minions/Hellers? I would certainly hope so, but that question can only be answered by Misha, himself, and I can and will not presume to speak on someone else's behalf on things in their personal life. For the record I would never presume I know what J2's answers would be on anything, however I do feel that after 15 years I have an accurate gauge on what kind of people they are so would be confident that any opinion I had on a matter aligns with their morals and ethics. As much as J2 have shared of themselves with us - willingly and under no pressure to do so, I might add - we don't *know* them, but we know enough to have an informed opinion. I can’t say the same for Misha because based on the behaviour he’s repeatedly displayed, things I've heard about from other fans as well as people I know IRL who have had direct dealings with him through cons or GISH (including some very actively in the early days when it was GISHWHES) he just hasn’t seemed like a person I wanted to follow on SM. I’ve never watched any of his solo panels, though I have watched ones with both or one of the J's, mostly being left irritated because of his behaviour. Watching the J’s put up with that shit is painful, and it’s a testament to how good they are as actors that they managed to hide at least some of their disdain for as long as they did. Microexpressions give them away, particularly Jensen, and they certainly have faces I have spent many years watching closely. Beautiful faces to go with beautiful souls, both of them! <3

I have precisely ZERO interest in Destiel as a ship, very little interest in Cas as a character anymore (though I did like him in the early days,and his relationship with Jack in late seasons) so I have absolutely no reason or desire to follow anything Misha does. That said, I've obviously been peripherally aware of some things he's been involved in because of friends, from things I’ve seen on SM and general fandom stuff. Despite the things I've already mentioned about his behaviour, up until now I have been able to maintain a level of respect for him as a person because of the humanitarian and charity work he's done. He seems like someone who really does want to change the world for the better and I am in full support of that fact, so much so that I have supported TWO campaigns relating to him. I bought one of the Super Good t-shirts for the campaign he did with Michael Sheen (a true angel!), the SPN/Good Omens x-over to help homeless charities, and I chose the design with text only and not artwork of Michael and Misha on, basically because I didn’t want to be wearing something with Misha’s face on it and I make absolutely no apology for that, whatsoever. I also bought Alex's #TheEndHasNoEnd shirt, which some of the profits went to Random Acts who do great work, so again, despite not liking Misha I still willingly contributed for a cause bigger than me, and to support Alex, who I absolutely ADORE. I'm aware that Stands aren't popular with some of the fandom, however since most of the cast of SPN are happily affiliated with them then I don't feel it's my place to either judge, or to discuss topics I know next to nothing about. But I digress, as a decent human being I have shown support tangentially to a man who I don't care for out of respect for the work he does outside the fandom. Telling you this isn’t to paint myself in a good light - I don’t need your approval, I’m a big girl, unlike some I don’t need constant validation! - only to provide background on how I’ve actively *not* hated on Misha.

Now though, any respect I had for him has come to an abrupt end, the events of the past 24 hours has seen to that. Whilst I have been annoyed at his behaviour in regards to shipping, I don't feel it's ever gone this far, or at least not that I've seen first hand. This man has, IMO, contributed to so much toxicity in the fandom by way of things I've mentioned before, he's claimed - without actually saying the words - that Wincest fans weren't interested in him as a character when he came onto the show, and hasn’t felt included because of the fans’ love of the brothers. Um, hate to break it to you, love, but when you come onto an established show that is about two people, and you’re a *guest star* you can’t expect everyone to love you. Some characters we as individuals do fall in love with straight away (Bobby, Charlie, Crowley and Rowena are good examples for me), it takes time to establish a dynamic, so if that’s how he felt then it was incredibly naive of him as an actor to expect instant acceptance from anyone. Also, why wait until after the show finished to bring it up AGAIN … oh wait, yeah, that would be to step back into the limelight in a way intended to garner sympathy from Minions and INTENTIONALLY piss off bro fans and Wincest shippers alike? How fucking self centred, desperate and disrespectful do you have to be to shit all over the finale of a show that for the most part accepted you and kept you in paid work for 12 years? Well, Misha Collins levels of all of those things, obviously.

So, on the topics of self centred, desperate to stay relevant, attention seeking and being oh so needy, the tweet yesterday from Amazon mentioned Castiel. He wasn’t tagged in it, so I refer to my earlier comment about searching online, because how else would he have possibly seen that? It’s possible someone sent it to him, I appreciate that, but if we go off past behaviour it’s not any stretch at all to believe that didn’t happen. So, once again, having seen the tweet he took it upon himself to - oh so predictably - turn it into something relating to Destiel. When I saw it I immediately rolled my eyes and thought ‘here we go again’, but then also had a little smile because I really liked the fact that he explicitly mentioned Wincest, therefore seeming to accept that his poor old dead horse wasn’t the only one in the race. I actually mentally tipped my hat to him then because it appeared that he’s matured enough to acknowledge by name the ship that predates his inclusion on the show. Great, I thought, this is a positive thing in a sea of negativity surrounding the man and his sunken ship, because what followed was Wincest trending in the US (it may also have been other countries as well but I had to sleep!) … largely due to the fact that Hellers were responding to it, calling him out on mentioning the dreaded ‘W’ word. I’ll repeat that because it’s been a rare occurrence up to that point… the Minions were actually disappointed with their overlord for mentioning another ship. We all know what they think of it and I for one, don’t give a flying fuck about their opionion. Ship and let ship, it’s all fun (or meant to be) so we have different tastes, that’s life kiddiwinks, deal with it. I mean, you really don’t have much of an example set for you when your king has proven several times over to be one of the biggest obnoxious brats out there, but just give it a try for your own sakes, yeah? Awesome, good on you, besties!

An unexpected development - to my joy and that of other Wincest shippers - them doing that got the topic trending, only *kept* trending by the fact that were all coming online asking why it was trending. Wincest shippers barely lifted a finger, we just flooded each other’s timelines with lovely content and basked in the Hellers - and Misha - shooting themselves in the foot, which was awesome. But did the vitriol stop? No. Did he get the attention he so clearly craves? Yes. Was it in the way he wanted? Fuck no, so poor, emotionally wounded baby backtracked after seeing that his name was trending alongside Wincest because that’s *so* not what someone narcissistic to do it in the first place, wanted.

Now here’s where I could easily have just moved on with an unusually fond chuckle, giving him an ironic pat on the back and a ‘thanks, Misha’ for being the one to instigate hours of fun, but once again his despicable behaviour made that impossible. It’s been more than obvious for many years that he cares more about what his fans think than anything else to do with the show and the fandom in a larger sense, but to delete the tweet and APOLOGISE for daring to be so insensitive to the snowflakes’ delicate sensibilities for mentioning Wincest in the first place was absolutely disgusting. Stating , “I used a term that I had never really given any thought to other than, "that's a thing?! Yuck." is not only complete and utter bullshit, it’s pandering of the highest order.

We all know he has referred to Wincest on multiple occasions, so to say he hadn’t thought about is a flat out lie, which IMO is an insult to everyone, not just Wincest shippers. Does the man have no self respect at all, why would you contradict yourself in the face of such overwhelming evidence? Instead of either ignoring all the people calling him out, or addressing it with another tweet saying ‘yeah, that happened’ or something similar he chose, I repeat, CHOSE the route of claiming he didn’t realise he was being offensive to people who felt ‘triggered’ by him using the word Wincest. He basically shat all over an entire ship and large sector of the fandom in an attempt to appease his own fan base which consists of a lot of children (or those that act like children) who have no idea what RL is like.

Once again, he’s reinforced the idea that if you shout loud enough at someone just because you don’t like something they said, they will back down and apologise for something even when there’s nothing to apologise for. If he wants to be such a role model then he could easily have pointed out that a fictional ship doesn’t condone RL incest, any ACTUAL trauma people have suffered because of RL situations, and made an effort to make sure people understand that. He COULD have used it as an opportunity to do some good in the fandom by encouraging people to build bridges, to accept that people are entitled to their beliefs and that sometimes we see things differently but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t treat others with BASIC HUMAN DECENCY because of it. Instead he YET AGAIN chose to show that he cares more about what Minions think of him, keeping them onside to constantly stroke his unbelievably fragile ego in everything he does.

It is my understanding that Misha is big on (or claims to be big on) putting positive energy out into the world, treating people with respect, helping others and accepting people for who they are, not who you want them to be… all this after YEARS of consistently practising what he preaches only when it suits him. He sends out a message that it’s perfectly OK to bully, to spread hate, to draw attention to yourself at the cost of others, to throw colleagues and friends under the bus and at the same time use them to further your own agenda and get hits for your YouTube channel. Is this really the legacy he wants to leave? Is this an environment he wants his own kids to grow up in as well as future generations? Is this what he thinks is a valuable contribution as a human being? JFC, the arrogance, hypocrisy and the need for constant validation this man exhibits is nothing short of cringeworthy… actually it’s beyond that. It’s deplorable behaviour, it’s not new, and he will continue to act like this for as long as he’s being enabled and this harmful cycle needs to end.

I have friends IRL and online who are (now, possibly, were) big Misha fans, who have supported him from either the beginning of his run on the show, or since they started watching, and this is how he repays this behaviour? He’s willfully alienating decent people (including multishippers) all to make himself look good by being seen to do everything he can not to offend people. Spoiler alert, you DID offend people, you continue to do so time and again and we’ve had enough. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must be to be such a perpetual people pleaser, but let me say it’s not doing you any favours in any way, shape or form.

Misha, you are *not* a role model, you’re *not* someone to look up to when you can't live up to the ideals you preach. You’re spitting in the face of people who have supported you even after some questionable things in the past, who gave you the benefit of the doubt because we’re all human and we all make mistakes. The key to growing as a person is not to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over, understanding *why* what you said and/or did was a mistake and making a concerted effort to make changes. I don’t ever see you doing that, you will continue down this path of only caring about Minions under the guise of caring for people in general. You are transparent, you are sad and despite the fact I’ve never particularly liked you, I didn’t speak up because I didn’t want to get involved in the drama. Well now I have spoken up and I’m saying you’re a disgrace, you have no respect for other people and nobody is fooled anymore. If it hadn’t been this tweet it would have been something else, but I for one am glad it happened so soon after the show ended so we can finally be rid of the limpet-like behaviour. It’s over, let it go for the sake of what dignity you might have left, for the sake of your family and friends and for the sake of anyone who isn’t capable of seeing through your ‘it’s a joke’ mentality.

You have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Misha.

For anyone who made it to the end of my ramble, thank you. This has been a cathartic exercise and I’m drawing a line under it now, I don’t think I could possibly make my thoughts any clearer. I urge you not to get caught up in any petty squabbles with his Minions, let’s celebrate J2 and other cast and crew members who have shown us all respect and who I am proud to call part of the SPN family. There’s always one member of the family who needs to be frozen out for the good of everyone else.

#ficforthought speaks #sorry not sorry #i spent way too long on this #purging the poison

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disneylanddilettante · 3 years

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The Disney Renaissance Killed the Disneyland Star

This post has been brewing and stewing in my brain for some time.

We here in the Disney theme park fandom are prone to lament the modern attraction design philosophy that says everything must be based on a movie. Aside from spectacularly clueless comments about “a random mountain in India or whatever” and misuse of the term “barrier to entry,” the reason behind it seems to boil down to: That’s what guests want. On the one hand, this is very clearly an excuse to do what Marketing wants (because film IPs are proprietary in a way that broad concepts are not, and can be merchandised accordingly), but on the other hand…it seems to be…kind of…true? The vast majority of the public, in my experience, does think of Disneyland (which I am going to use as synecdoche for all Disney parks, because it’s the one I grew up with, it’s easy to say, and because I can) as a place where you see Disney characters walking around as if they were real, and go on rides based on Disney movies, and anything else there is just to, idk, fill space until they can think of a cool movie makeover for it.

I have spoken to people online who quite enjoy Disneyland, but also think the Enchanted Tiki Room should become a Moana attraction, Tom Sawyer Island should be something to do with The Princess and the Frog, and the Matterhorn should be turned into Frozen. When I challenged them as to why, they didn’t seem to understand the question—what did I mean, “why?” Isn’t it self-evident? A couple years ago, one of the Super Carlin Brothers (I don’t remember which one; anyway I couldn’t tell them apart if you put a gun to my head) made a video expressing bafflement over the use of Figment as a mascot in Epcot because “He’s not from anything.” As if a ride in that very parkwere nothing.

So there is something to the assertion that film IP tie-ins are what regular guests expect and want. But the question remains as to why they want that—after all, it didn’t used to be that way. Costumed characters and rides based on movies have always been part of Disneyland, of course, but in past decades, the most elaborate and promoted attractions were the ones based on unique concepts that had nothing to do with the movies. The reasons to love Disneyland were things like the Haunted Mansion and the Mark Twain and Space Mountain…not so much the chance to meet Mickey Mouse. So what gave the public the idea that it was all about movies and characters? I’m sure there are several reasons, but I’m going to focus on one that I don’t see brought up that often.

I’m going to blame the Disney Renaissance.

Let me give you some personal background. I’m a young Gen-Xer, born in 1977. I was a child of the 80s…and in the 80s, Disney wasn’t doing so hot. Feature Animation had dropped to a cinematic release about once every four years, the live-action division was even less productive, and the corporate raiders were pawing at the door. In those days, when I saw a Disney movie in theaters, probably four times out of five it was a re-release of an older classic. (Anyone else remember when that was a thing?) There wasn’t much new at Disneyland either. The biggest thing to happen in the first half of the decade was the remodel of Fantasyland, which added one new ride—based on Pinocchio, a 43-year-old film—and otherwise just rearranged and refined what had always been there. On the other hand, the big Imagineering projects of the 60s and 70s were mostly still going strong.

The upshot is that if you were a Disney fan in those days (there weren’t many of us, even in my age cohort), you were a fan of the older movies and/or the parks. And for all its genuine quality, that stuff was showing its age. It was made in decades past, and there was a corniness and a quaintness to much of it. Most of the kids my age considered Disney “baby stuff” and were eager to put it behind them. It seems to have been a widespread phenomenon, because I don’t remember the park being very crowded when I was a young kid. Queues for even the roller coasters tended to top out around 45 minutes and it was very rare that we didn’t have time to do everything we wanted on a given visit.

And then, the year I turned 12—the year my age bracket hit puberty and could definitively be said to have outgrown cartoons altogether (except for the weirdos like me)—The Little Mermaid hit theaters.

Two years later, we got Beauty and the Beast.

And the hits kept coming. Suddenly, Disney was the hottest thing in entertainment again. Not just kids—by this time the generation that would come to be known as Millennials—but their parents watched these movies and went wow, this is really good. Disney is better than I thought. Maybe we should rent some of those older movies that I remember from when I was a kid. Maybe we should go to Disneyland… Unlike in the past, when families went to Disneyland because it was advertised and known as a family destination, families went to Disneyland because the kids were going gaga over the new Disney movies and the parents wanted to make them happy.

So a whole new generation of fans flocked to the parks, most probably never having been before, or not recently. They didn’t know what to expect. They just knew they loved these new movies with their endearing lead characters (so much more full of personality than Snow White or Alice or Pinocchio) and their big bombastic Broadway-style musical numbers (so much more in line with current musical tastes than the Tin Pan Alley ditties from Cinderella or Peter Pan or The Jungle Book). That’s what they wanted from Disney, whether they were paying six bucks a head plus popcorn, or fifty bucks a head plus lodging.

And that would have been fine but for the fact that endearing characters and big bombastic musical numbers are really hard to build traditional dark rides around. What you can do, though, for people who want to meet their favorite characters, is build dedicated character meet-and-greet spots. What you can do for people who want to sing along with Academy Award-winning songs is create huge colorful parades and stage shows that feature those songs. Best of all, if you are certain people who shall go unnamed, these sorts of things are much cheaper to create and operate than rides. Corporate was more than happy to meet, rather than try to exceed, the expectations of this new wave of fans.

The newer guests got used to seeing more-or-less verbatim (condensed) film content in the form of these shows and parades. The classic dark rides began to look decidedly odd to them—why are the movie events out of order? Why doesn’t the main character show up more? Why don’t we get to hear all the songs? And no one was there to explain it to them, because the older generations of fans had largely drifted away and the internet wasn’t quite a household staple yet. Rides that weren’t even based on a movie seemed even odder—what does a Wild West roller coaster have to do with Disney? What does a submarine ride have to do with Disney? I thought this park was supposed to be for kids, but my kids don’t recognize this stuff! They should build a Lion King ride! They should build a Toy Story ride! That Snow White ride isn’t suitable for kids; they should do something about that! I didn’t pay all this money to stand in line for an hour and a half and go on a ride that my kids don’t get!

The pattern was set. IP tie-ins were what the people wanted, and they closer they hewed to their source material, the more guest approval they got, simply because people didn’t know any different. And it has snowballed from there. The Disney Renaissance was amazing for the art of animation, but I think it was a net negative for the art of theme parks.

Tl;dr The Disney Renaissance changed guest expectations for Disney entertainment products in ways that were incompatible with classic Imagineering principles.

#disneyland #disney theme parks #walt disney world #disney #disney renaissance #theme parks

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the-lady-writes-what · 3 years

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“Horikoshi is pathetic and an abuse apologist”

“Endeavor doesn’t deserve a redemption arc”

“Horikoshi’s just a bad writer”

“They shouldn’t fight Dabi’s who’s mentally ill”

That’s what I’ve hearing a lot lately. As someone who’s trying to become an author, I get defensive about creators getting slandered. If you find yourself in one of these camps, keep your opinions to yourself because I don’t want to hear it. You’re free to believe what you want, but just know that I think you need to either find a new manga to read or look a little closer because I don’t think we’re reading the same thing. I'm not asking you to unfollow and block me. Do with my opinion what you want to. I’m not going to address all these issues, but I will for most of them.

“Horikoshi is pathetic and an abuse apologist”

You say that with the same energy as Gen Z kids trying to cancel Eminem. You act like he abused someone in real life. If you don’t like his portrayal of the cycle of abuse, then find something else to read. And don’t pretend like you don’t read dark content for fun but don’t condone the things that go in there. Even if he was an abuse apologist, which he isn’t, his behavior in real life would reflect that. Unless you have a connection to Japanese newspapers declaring that he’s actually an awful person, think before you type.

What part of the manga makes you believe that Horikoshi is an abuse apologist? Is it because Endeavor’s not dead? That his family is pushing him to end the cycle of abuse he started and accept the responsibility of catching Dabi, the result of his actions? Hawks wasn’t getting an apology for Endeavor, he was getting an apology from Rei for what Dabi did to him. Hawks is likely never going to get closure for his own parental letdowns but at least he can see Shoto getting it. He even went so far as to ask if Shoto got the scar from Endeavor with a look on his face that would kill. I don’t think he would have let Endeavor get away with hurting Shoto if his expression was anything to go by. He’s accepted that he won’t get closure, but he probably thinks Shoto can.

Here’s a list of things from the manga that show Endeavor facing the consequences of his actions (abuse, neglect, and arrogance) that display the opposite of abuse apology

Throughly having his ass handed to him by that Nomu

Natsuo refusing to forgive him

Berated by his wife about how he’s suddenly assuming guilt for his actions

Distrust from the public about heroes in general

Dealing with the fact that his eldest son is a serial murderer and domestic terrorist because of the abuse he endured under Endeavor

Shoto hasn’t decided yet to forgive his father

Another near-death experience

Being unable to fight back when Shoto is attacked by Dabi and feeling guilty about it

Having his family push him to accept the fact that he has to stop Dabi, the result of his actions

Depression and the weight of guilt of so many years ignoring his affect on his family

Where 👏 Is 👏 My👏Reading👏Comprehension👏 People?

Ya’ll act and talk like you’re reading something entirely different and I won’t stand for smearing Horikoshi like this.

“Endeavor doesn’t deserve a redemption arc”

That’s your opinion. Some people would say otherwise. I’m not one of those, but I don’t share your opinion either. I’m in the camp that says this is a repentance arc, which is completely different. It’s not about Endeavor redeeming himself, it’s about him accepting the consequences of his actions and taking steps to make up for it. Whether or not the Todoroki family accepts his apology, that is up to them and their decisions are valid no matter what they choose.

The only reason why I’m not an Endeavor basher is because unlike most abusers he acknowledges his past sins and is taking steps to make up for them. I wish my own father would so much as acknowledge the damage he did to me and my sister, let alone apologize for it. At least Endeavor is trying to change. How many abusers do you know of in the real world who will ever admit to having done wrong and try to make up for their actions? Not many I bet.

“They shouldn’t fight Dabi. He’s mentally ill.”

So murdering 30+ people is mental self-care? Is that what we’re stooping to? Regardless of Dabi’s mental health, the decisions he made while on his own and away from his family were his own choices. Let’s not forget that Dabi blames his whole family for his neglect and abuse for either not doing anything to stop it or being too weak in his eyes. Dabi would burn his family alive and make Endeavor watch just for shits and giggles. Dabi is not some soft boy who needs some human affection and meds to make him feel better. Every decision he’s made on his own may be in spite to Endeavor, but they’re his decisions.

He killed 30 people plus gods know how many when he aided in a domestic terrorist attack that devastated cities. Dabi didn’t seem all that concerned for Twice (he was using the latter for his own goals and used Twice’s death as a means to end to ruin Hawks), Mr. Compress (when he had half his guts hanging out and Dabi didn’t lift a finger), Himiko Toga (whom he hasn’t even asked about), or even Shigaraki (whom he’s despised since the beginning and is also using for his own goals). Dabi does not care about anyone. Fanon Dabi is fun and probably more mentally stable, but canon Dabi wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone if they inconvenienced him in anyway. Sorry not sorry.

Do you know how many murderers and serial killers are out there have mental illness? Edward Gein, Edmund Kemper, Ted Bundy, Randy Kraft? Just because you have a mental illness, you don’t get to use that as an excuse. We don’t excuse Youtubers falling back on depression when they’re caught sexting teenagers and grooming children. Kill one person, maybe we can work something out. Kill 30 people and we need to put your ass in jail. I don’t care if Dabi is affected by mental illness, so has the rest of the Todoroki family and none of them decided to become serial murderers and terrorists. He’s helped throw the Japan of MHA into brutal chaos where civilians are getting hurt and killed and setting free 10,000 prisoners now causing havoc in the streets. Mental illness is no longer an excuse or even a good reason.

I’m just thankful that Dabi’s a fictional character because I don’t want to meet someone who uses mental illness as an excuse or reason why someone else killed 30+ people. We already have a big enough problem associating mental illness with serial killers and causing harm to the public, I don’t even want a fictional character being coddled because of his supposed mental illness after he gleefully admits to killing 30 people, participating a terrorist attack, and tried to kill his youngest brother, twice.

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thelittleredheadedmusician · 3 years

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I don't want to linger any longer

DCU Gen Rating: G Words: 7,523 AO3

In upstate New York there's a very lush, very expensive summer camp that caters to the children of the rich and famous. Bruce and Oliver happen to be those children. And they're less than thrilled to be at this camp.

Alfred was leery of the summer camp. Bruce went to public school partially because of Martha's pointed remarks regarding democracy and public education, partly because of her pointed remarks regarding Thomas's own time at boarding schools and prep schools surrounded by equally rich and entitled boys. Alfred never said anything at the time, it wasn't his place, and would never say anything now but, he whole heartedly believed both. Especially after his own childhood in private schools, even if the times and the British and American systems were very different. Regardless, Bruce was remaining in public school with all the trials it entailed. Including the socializing problem.

He'd always been a quiet, almost shy child but after Martha and Thomas died he retreated far beyond. Even friends from before like Miss Zatara took coaxing and occasionally trickery to get him to interact with. At thirteen and with the beginnings of acne and voice cracks the behavior was partially to be expected. The newfound interest in The Clash was too. Still, Alfred felt strongly that the boy should have the opportunity to at least try and make some friends. So when he overheard some of the women mentioning the summer camp during one of the Wayne Foundation luncheons Bruce insisted they attend "for appearances" (and Alfred was a little worried about the thought process behind that as well but well, one thing at a time) he had to break his normal rule and butt in.

"Pardon me, but what summer camp might this be?" He tried to be as nonobtrusive as possible, it still raised some eyebrows from the women with their pearls and perfect red lipsticks. Their clothes were so immaculate that while he knew they all had nannies, looking at them you never would've even known they had children. Alfred no longer owned a single shirt that wasn't stained somewhere by something, he just hid them well.

The blonde in the most putrid shade of chartreuse he's ever seen recovered first. "Oh! Camp Open Woods. It's in upper state New York, very exclusive but so worth it." Mimi flicked her wrist and half rolled her eyes as though to indicate sending the children she never saw there was the best parenting tip she'd ever taken. Mitzie shifted her hair before continuing, "They've got hiking and horses and like there's a lake." The other women all hum and coo their agreement at how pretty it is, Muffy silenced them with a brow, she was the one who started the story after all. "The kiddos just love it there. Go for a month a time. Would be there year round if they could!" They all nod enthusiastically in agreement.

"Sounds lovely." Which isn't strictly incorrect, but Alfred sincerely doubts these women would actually know whether their children enjoyed the camp or not. "I'll have to look into it, thank you," Alfred excuses himself. He will look into it.

The camp itself does seem the definition of picturesque, with acres of land and woods as well as the lake. The cabins looked to be clean and well maintained. The extensive list of activities alone made Alfred want to go. He reached out to the nannies he'd made friends with over the years, trying to gauge how any of the kids who attended regularly really felt. And the reviews were glowing.

Alfred made an executive decision, the fresh air would be good for Bruce, and called to secure a place for June. Just one month, to test it. Bruce might not be pleased at not having been consulted but Alfred was sure the end results would be well worth it. And if not, it's not like the boy could fire him in revenge. Legal guardianship made that rather tricky.

Oliver heard someone stop in the hall outside his room. From where he sat on the floor organizing the old jazz records his mother had given him he couldn't see who it was, the bed was in the way and he didn't really want to move everything just to get up. That seemed like a lot of work. Whoever it was could just come in. Or talk. Whatever. He wasn't moving.

"Are you in here, Oliver?" he finally heard his mother ask, apparently having grown impatient.

"Yes."

"I signed you up for camp. You leave for New York in the morning. It comes very highly recommended, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Chef is making your favorite chicken parmesan as a treat for dinner at six. I will see you then." The sound of her heels were nearly silent as she made her way back down the hall with its plush carpeting.

Taking a minute to process this, Oliver stared at the short shelves in front of him momentarily. Well there went his record organizing, now he was going to have to try and pack.

Bruce narrowed his eyes as Alfred slowed to turn the car onto a narrow lane that was barely a break in the trees. A large, wooden arch above it was carved to proclaim it as the entrance to "Camp Open Woods." Somehow, Bruce managed to narrow his eyes even more. Though he suspected it made him look like he was squinting. Especially by the way Alfred pressed his lips into a tight line, an obvious tell that he was trying not to smile.

The lane curved gently through the trees until they opened up to show a field, teenagers and college students in soft blue polo shirts and khaki shorts were scattered throughout it, directing cars in where to park and kids and parents in where to go next. A girl with brightly colored beads on the ends of her tight braids waved at Bruce through the window as they passed. Tentatively, he waved back at the counselor.

Once they were parked, the sleek black sedan settling a little into the grass as they both got out, Bruce immediately slung his backpack on and beat Alfred to the trunk to pull out his bulky footlocker. "Master Bruce," Alfred chided gently, reaching in to help lift the heavy thing, "I do wish you'd let me do that."

"It's fine, Alfred," Bruce protested. Even if the help was appreciated. "Isn't the whole point of this to teach me to be self-sufficient?" Bruce tried to level his steeliest gaze on the man. The unimpressed look he got in return told Bruce he might need to work on that.

Alfred sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in the process -- and really Bruce didn't think his actions warranted that level of dramatics -- before leveling a flat look at Bruce. "No, Master Bruce. The point of this endeavor is that you enjoy yourself with peers of your own age. Possibly make friends. Build lifelong bonds. Get a nasty sunburn on the first day and minor bear scare on the last."

Bruce frowned and lifted one end of the battered footlocker Alfred had dislodged from the attic the week before. Possibly, it had been Alfred's and come from some hidden corner of the man's room as Bruce had never seen it before even in all his exploring of the manor's nooks and crannies. "Exiting pursued by a bear is not a worthy goal, Alfred," he said dryly.

Lifting the other end of the footlocker the duo began to make their way towards the counselors with carts lined up at the front of the field. "Maybe not for yourself, but personally an exciting and Shakespearean end would be the greatest achievement of my mundane existence."

He snorted, and Alfred wondered where his own penchant for melodrama came from.

"Hiya folks!" The young man next to a cart already loaded with duffels and trunks waved brightly as they approached. "Welcome to camp! Where are you staying?"

Bruce glanced to Alfred and Alfred returned the look, both challenging the other to speak first. If Bruce admitted that he had read and memorized the pre-camp welcome packet then Alfred would see it as a win. If Alfred's patience crumbled before Bruce's then it would vastly undermine the veneer of authority Alfred had managed to paint over their strange relationship. The poor guy standing by the cart was starting to look uncomfortable.

Finally, Bruce broke. He was going to be here for a month, it's not like he'd have to see Alfred be smug during that time. "Pine Ridge," he said flatly.

The counselor visibly sagged in relief. "Ok, great! You're going to toss your gear on that cart up there where Gambit's standing then follow the road to the Health Center to turn in your paperwork and get your head and foot check."

Wrinkling his nose, Bruce nodded. He wasn't really a fan of being touched, even for medical examinations, and was a little glad he got a heads up. He'd briefly forgotten about the fact the packet had said there would be a lice and athlete's foot examination. Not that Bruce had either, which is probably why he'd let it slip his mind. They reached the next cart and a young woman with large sunglasses leant against it. Bruce squinted at the lanyard she had around her neck with an odd badge on the end as a nametag, all the counselors had variations of brightly colored and often glitter coated badges on lanyards. Each as unique as the names on them. Hers had popsicle sticks layered to make a large X and playing cards glued on top so that their back's made a place to write. "Gambit" had been scrawled in looping white paint. With red glitter. Bruce really hoped they weren't going to force him to make a glitter nametag.

"Are you living in Pine Ridge?" She asked, pushing off the cart to stand and raising her clipboard.

"Yes," Bruce said simply.

Gambit nodded. "You can toss your stuff on. What's your name?"

"Bruce. Bruce Wayne."

"Ok, double-o-seven," she smirked, checking off something on her clipboard. "I'm Gambit, head girls counselor for Pine Ridge. But just cause I'm not the one doing bed checks on you doesn't mean I'm not still in charge," she teased. Bruce was fairly certain he heard Alfred snicker. "Anyway, you'll be seeing a lot of me over the next month even though we don't share a latrine. You a first time camper?"

"Yes."

"Well then, welcome Bruce, Bruce Wayne!"

Alfred definitely snickered at that.

"Um, thanks."

She grinned and stuck her pen back behind her ear. "I'll watch your stuff until the grounds guys come and hook the cart up to the ATV to take it up to the cabins. Lucky us, we're on the hill. Nice site, one of my personal favorites actually, but you'll be getting your steps in while you're here. Whole summer or no?"

"Um, just the month." Bruce was starting to get a little overwhelmed in the face of her relentless positivity.

"Rad. Well, I hope you enjoy it! You're gonna want to follow the gravel road trail and head to the health center. I'll see you at dinner."

Bruce nodded and began to walk on, Alfred a step behind him. Once they were out of earshot, Bruce hung back slightly so that they walked next to each other and turned to Alfred. "Do you think everyone's going to be like that?"

"Well Master Bruce, I don't think that children's summer camp counselor is a position that attracts introverts," Alfred replied dryly.

Bruce glared.

"Which isn't to say, however, that every person here would be so enthusiastic."

"Hmm." Bruce didn't say anything else and they made their way to the two-story farmhouse that had a sign hanging from the porch proclaiming it the "Health Center" in silence.

A large group of people were spread out in the grass in front of the porch around a series of low, backless wooden benches. Bruce slowed as they approached, lingering on the gravel. Alfred gripped his shoulder once before gently pushing Bruce forward to step into the grass. Alfred was still a head taller than him, but Bruce was catching up and he couldn't wait for the day he could glare at the man without craning his neck. Alfred looked the picture of cool indifference and collected innocence.

"Excuse me," Alfred called, striding forward and fully expecting Bruce to follow. Which he did, but in silent protest. "Is there a queue?"

"Not really," the teenaged boy Alfred had asked shrugged. "Just give your paperwork to nurse Doc, then pick a spot on a bench and we play monkey."

"Monkey?" Bruce tried to raise an incredulous eyebrow. It was a work in progress.

The older boy's face split into a wide grin. "Yeah! You know," and here he began to howl and jump, scratching at his head in imitation of a monkey.

"Ohmystars, Apollo you're ridiculous!" Another teenager said, her silver painted crescent moon nametag read "Artemis" and the two did look like they could be siblings if not twins. "Theater kids." She rolled her eyes derisively.

Apollo stopped abruptly. "Arty, you're a theater kid."

"Tech kid. There's a difference," she snapped with practiced ease.

"She is correct," Alfred added sagely. Bruce's forehead met his palm as he hung his head.

"Thank you!" Artemis preened. "C'mon, I'll take ya in to Doc." She gestured at them to follow as she turned and headed onto the porch. Having no real other option, Bruce glanced at Alfred before following. Artemis had waited for them, holding open the screen door before shouldering open the second door and leading them into a large room with worn wooden floors and a table with a trio of adults sitting behind it. Some other children and parents stood in front of them and spoke with the adults at the table. Artemis winked and wiggled her fingers in a wave before turning to head back outside. But she stopped short and came to stand next to them again. "Actually, they don't need me out there right now and I'd much rather soak up the AC with you."

Bruce nodded. It was cold in here, especially compared to the muggy afternoon it was shaping up to be. And those polo shirts didn't exactly look comfortable. Neither did the crisp button up and khakis Alfred wore, but Bruce could count on one hands the number of times he'd seen Alfred in shorts or a t-shirt. The group in front of them shifted and Artemis lead them to the table. The burly woman on the end glanced up at them and smiled. Unlike the counselors, her nametag was a pin though she, and the other two adults at the table, still wore the light blue polo shirt. And her nametag also had sequins spelling out "Doc."

"Hey there, you have your paperwork?" she said by way of greeting.

Alfred produced a carefully paperclipped stack from somewhere. Bruce honestly had no clue where. Sometimes Alfred liked to do things like that just to puzzle him. Often times. Bruce was certain he did it routinely just for fun and Bruce's annoyance.

Doc took the stack and looked it over before leaning over to file it in a plastic tub and marking this off on a couple different clipboards. "Alright," she said finally, "you're officially checked in, Mr. Wayne. You still need to be checked over before we can let you run wild. But you're checked in. Welcome to Camp." She smiled broadly and held out a hand, Bruce shook it and managed a small smile in return.

Artemis led them back outside and instructed Bruce to sit, take off his shoes and socks, and wait for Apollo cause she didn't "do feet." Alfred chuckled as Bruce sat, his nose wrinkled, and Artemis took gloved hands and a comb through his hair. Apollo eventually reappeared as she declared him lice free and he poked at and spread Bruce's toes before proclaiming him "good to go!"

As Bruce pulled his socks and sneakers back on -- Alfred refused to buy him hiking boots because they wouldn't be broken in in time and apparently if Bruce was going to be miserable it was going to be his own conscious choice and not due to poor footwear decisions -- Alfred chatted with Apollo about a production of Midsummer that the counselor had done in fall. Finally, Bruce was standing up and slipping his backpack on again.

"Well, I'll let you say bye to your dad and then we'll go find your group," Apollo grinned.

"He's not-" Bruce started but the older boy had already walked away and started talking to one of the other counselors. "Hmph."

Alfred raised a single eyebrow -- Bruce wished he'd just teach him how to do that already -- and gave him a sly smile. "Well Master Bruce."

"Alfred."

They both stood there staring at each other. Finally, Bruce caved and stepped forward to wrap his arms around Alfred. "Bye Alfred," he muttered.

Returning the hug, Alfred replied. "I shall be back at the end of the month. I do sincerely hope that you enjoy yourself, Master Bruce. And I expect letters at least once a week. You should have more than enough stamps for that and if not you have credit at the camp store."

Bruce snorted at that before pulling away. "Thanks, Alfred."

Alfred smiled. "Of course, Master Bruce."

Apollo reappeared then and led Bruce to the edge of the trees and a path there. Bruce looked back once to see Alfred still standing by the benches, waving. Bruce waved back before turning to walk into the woods.

Oliver tapped his fingers restlessly on the formica topped table. The other kids all seemed to know each other and once the counselor escorting them to the dining hall left they immediately headed off to meet their friends. Not that he minded, Oliver was used to being alone and could function on his own just fine thanks. But all of these kids would be living with him for the next month at the least. They could at the very least come over and ask him who he was. But apparently, Pine Ridge was the largest unit at camp and so his age group was the biggest if they were staying there. And already there were at least twenty other kids who were all preoccupied and not noticing the blonde kid with a bad haircut.

Tugging at his recently shorn hair, Oliver frowned. He'd been trying to grow it out and it was almost to his shoulders when this morning his mother took him to the barber before putting him on the plane and shipping him off. Supposedly, she thought he'd be too hot with all that hair. Oliver just thought it was a convenient excuse. Oliver respected the trick even if he didn't like it. Especially because he didn't like the end result. His ears were still slightly too big and the cut just emphasized that. No girl would want to go out with a guy with satellite dishes attached to his head. Not that any girl seemed to even want to talk to him right now. Not that anyone at all wanted to talk to him. Maybe if he'd stop glaring at the table? But Oliver didn't really want to be here to begin with.

One of the dinning hall doors opened again and Oliver turned to look. The dorky guy who'd walked Oliver over, and only a dork would name themselves Apollo, and a new kid stood next to him. All dark hair and pale skin that Oliver bet was going to be looking like a lobster by the end of the week. He lingered in the doorway as Apollo said something and turned to leave, scanning the space in front of him. One of the other counselors walked over to meet him, he'd said his name was Sherlock and he was the head boys and Oliver secretly respected him for having the guts to name himself after the world's greatest detective. Sherlock was obviously introducing himself to the boy and Oliver was trying to figure out why the kid looked so dang familiar as his gaze landed on Oliver. And stuck.

That's when it hit him. That kid was Bruce Wayne. His parents talked about him all the time. Mostly, wondering what he would do with Wayne Enterprises once he turned eighteen and could take over and what that would mean for Queen Industries' contracts. Oliver had ever only met the kid once. Right after his parents had died and the whole Queen family had flown out to Gotham to "express their condolences" at the Wayne Foundation's Annual Holiday Party. It wasn't until a couple years later that Oliver realized how awkward the whole thing had been. But that was definitely the same kid, older now but his eyes no less haunted. Oliver blinked and turned away. Bruce Wayne was one kid he'd be happy to leave him alone.

Oliver never did have good luck.

"Oliver Queen?" The kid had come up behind him and without asking, walked around to sit on the bench across from him.

"Yeah?" Oliver winced as his voice cracked at the end. Stupid fraggin luck what the frickety heck stupid stupid puberty.

"I remember you." The kid still hadn't taken off his backpack. They were inside and it's not like someone was gonna steal it. Oliver's own sat on the bench next to him and he barely had anything in it anyway.

"Yeah?" This time his voice didn't crack. Small victory.

"I'm Bruce Wayne."

"Yeah."

The kid's brow crumbled in annoyance and he frowned. "Do you ever say anything else."

Oliver gave his cheekiest grin, oh this was too good. There had never been a more perfect set up. "No."

Impossibly, the kid's look got darker.

Oliver sat and smiled back. The seconds stretch out and Oliver just knew they were each waiting for the other to crack. Bruce continued to glare. Oliver continued to smile.

Finally, his cheeks started to hurt and Oliver took the loss. He was kinda starting to feel like an idiot anyway. "So, this your first summer?"

Bruce relaxed his glare but he still frowned. "I'm just here for a month."

"Didn't answer the question, Brucie."

The frown deepened. "Yes."

Oliver nodded. "Mine too," he admitted. Bruce finally seemed to relax.

"I'm... not sure what we're supposed to do," Bruce admitted, though it looked like struggled to.

Oliver let some of his bravado fall. "Yeah, neither do I. I think we're supposed to have fun, whatever that means."

Bruce's mouth twitched in the direction of a smirk. Oliver took it as a small victory.

"Hi!" A high voice warbled behind Oliver and he turned in surprise.

"Zee?" Bruce sounded just as shocked, though he apparently knew the girl that had just yelled in Oliver's ear. She settled heavily on the bench next to him and Oliver turned to look at her. Long black hair pulled up in a ponytail, bright pink shirt and darker pink shorts, light-up sneakers. She looked younger than him too. Which was confirmed when Bruce said "Aren't you too young to be in this unit?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "I turn eleven in July and I'm here for the summer so."

"That didn't answer the question," Bruce pointed out.

"And the unit is twelve to thirteen," Oliver added, finally recovering from his shock at her sudden appearance.

Pushing out her breath in annoyance, the girl flounced to her feet. "So, I may have heard that you were here and in the dinning hall and convinced my buddy to take a detour on the way to the latrine." She wiggled her arm in the direction of another girl shifting awkwardly by the side door. "We have to sit with our groups at dinner tonight but find me at breakfast tomorrow," she said it like an order and then ran off towards her friend and together they left.

"Alfred," Bruce muttered like a curse.

"Her name's Alfred?" Oliver felt like strange names were just a part of camp life but still.

"Her name's Zatanna." Oh, that was even weirder. "Alfred's my butler."

"Right," Oliver nodded like he understood. He absolutely did not. And Bruce did not seem like he would be explaining.

The counselors finally rounded them all up and made them stand in a wide circle, saying that they were going to count off and play get to know you games since one game of like forty people could be fun but maybe was a bit ambitious for first thing. Bruce told Oliver to stay where he stood before wiggling away further down the circle so that there was three people between them. Four groups of ten or so made logical sense and even if Bruce didn't know if he liked Oliver, he at least kind of knew Oliver and would prefer being in a group with at least one person he knew. So Oliver would have to be that person.

They both wound up being number three and Bruce leaned forward slightly to look at Oliver and smirk. The other boy just blinked back at him.

By the time dinner and the opening campfire rolled around, Bruce had come to the conclusion that Oliver wasn't his friend, but he was certainly one of the more tolerable of the other campers. As soon as he'd introduced himself as Bruce Wayne he'd been all anyone else could focus on. Even the kids not from Gotham looked at him with wide eyes. It made Bruce sympathize with the lions at the Gotham Zoo a whole lot more than usual. But Oliver acted like he didn't care. Oliver acted like he didn't care about anything. Just joking and smirking. He gained a gaggle of admirers over the course of the afternoon despite how downright obnoxious Bruce thought he was, but he still didn't seem to care that Bruce was Bruce and that's really all that mattered.

Besides, they apparently were in the same cabin. It just made sense that they hung out together. And if Oliver got sick of Bruce or Bruce got sick of Oliver well lots of kids wanted to ask Bruce all sorts of questions and everyone else seemed to love Oliver.

Even still, they sat next to each other at meals when Zatanna and an everchanging roster of her friends would flock to Bruce. Zee sitting herself down next to him and chattering on about what she'd done in the few hours they were apart. Oliver looked bewildered by the interaction every time. Bruce just nodded along at the appropriate points and asked questions as the fancy struck him. Sometimes he'd ask her stupid questions, like if she was sure the horse she rode that morning couldn't fly so that she would laugh and say she hasn't "learned levitation yet, you dingus!" Oliver's face when that would happen always made Bruce grin.

These meals were the bright spots in Bruce's day. He was... not having a good time. They'd had a swim test first thing Monday morning and Bruce had stupidly forgotten to put on sunscreen, so between swimming laps in the lake while the lifeguards made notes and sitting on the beach he'd very quickly burnt to a crisp. And would have to deal with that for the foreseeable future. Then on Thursday during their hike, Oliver had been behind him and tripped, stumbling into Bruce and pushing them both off the trail. Right into a patch of poison oak. So now Bruce had sunburn and poison oak. To say he was in constant pain was putting it mildly.

Bruce wasn't making friends. He wasn't enjoying the great outdoors. He was just slowly suffering in silence. Especially after Oliver left the screen door open one night and mosquitos had gotten in to use Bruce as their very own all you can eat buffet. So now Bruce was sunburnt, covered in mosquito bites, and still had poison oak.

Doc was really the only bright spot in this hellhole. Her air conditioned domain of the Health Center was quite and comforting. With individual exam rooms that meant Bruce could be completely alone for at least a little while. Which Bruce desperately needed. Being around people all the time was exhausting. And Doc herself had a wry, dry sense of humor that Bruce appreciated and a calm demeanor when Bruce sat and complained about the fact it was all Oliver's fault everything itched twice over. She would just snicker and have Bruce put some slightly odd smelling pink cream on his skin. Then she'd tell him that maybe he should write home about it. Bruce would frown and say "I will."

Alfred didn't seem to care though based on the letters back Bruce received. Or possibly the man was making fun of him. Most likely both. The end of the month really could not come soon enough.

Frankly, Oliver had no dang clue why Bruce flippin Wayne decided they were friends. Ok, "friends" was a stretch. But still, the kid spent more time with Oliver than anyone else at camp. Maybe he'd hang out with that Zee girl if she weren't in the younger group, and she did come have meals with them and wander over during all camps, but he didn't even really bother to even attempt to talk to anyone else. Oliver at least tried. If only because he was fairly certain he'd singlehandedly end the Wayne family line if he only talked to Bruce. Besides, the other boys in their cabin weren't terrible. Sure they were a little stuck up and that Brad guy had about the same amount of brain cells as Oliver's old hamster, but they weren't awful people. Which couldn't be said about all their fellow campers. Bruce had pushed one boy off the end of the dock the one morning after he said his third sexist remark in an hour. Oliver had gladly covered for him on that one. Another kid kept picking on two of the girls and Oliver might have possibly sort of filled his bag with rocks and as many spiders as he could find when he wasn't looking. He thinks Bruce saw him do it, but he never said anything once the kid got tired of carrying it and opened his backpack then immediately started screaming.

Neither incident had necessarily endeared Bruce to Oliver though. Especially since the kid had somehow managed to tip their canoe while they were in the middle of the lake. So they both floated there buoyed by their life vests spluttering water and trying to right the stupid canoe while screaming at each other and kicking madly. In the cold lake. They never did manage to flip the boat and the counselors had to come with the little motorboat to fish them out of the water. They were still glaring at each other after Sherlock had taken them to get showered and fresh clothes. He let Bruce mess around with his nametag as he ran their wet, smelly stuff into the Health Center and throw it in the washer that was supposedly there. Oliver was still pissed though so he ripped the plastic magnifying glass out of the other boy's hand. Sherlock's name was just a label stuck onto the handle so you could still use it. Which Oliver immediately did in an attempt to burn Bruce's shoelaces.

Which is about when Sherlock came back. "Hey! Oliver! Cut that out! Seriously dude, what're you doing? And Bruce, you were just gonna let him light your shoes on fire?"

Bruce shrugged. "I have other pairs. And I did dump him in the lake."

Oliver handed the nametag back and nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, he's the one who thought he saw a frog and tipped the thing."

"A fish, not a frog."

"Whatever."

"And you gave me poison oak."

Oliver frowned and scratched at some of his own poison oak. "That was not intentional and I have it too."

Sherlock looked between them. "Right. You two are supposed to see Doc soon anyway, wanna go in now?" They both nod and that was the end of that. For then at least. That night Oliver got up to go use the latrine and forgot to close the screen door again. All five boys in the cabin wound up eaten alive and never mind the fact Oliver was just as itchy, Bruce acted as though he'd planned it just to mess with him.

Still didn't excuse the fact that the jerk got them lost and banned from the stables on the following Monday. Oliver liked the stables. He thought the horses were cool and they seemed to like him. He'd tried to schedule as much riding time as they'd let him after the initial group session. Bruce just so happened to have scheduled some on Monday morning too it would seem. And they both were the same ability level. Great. But they were doing a trail ride, going single file through the woods at the edge of camp, didn't leave a whole lot of room for talking and Oliver was more than ok with that. He wound up behind Bruce at the very back of the group and took it at a leisurely pace which Pancake didn't seem to mind. So long as Oliver stayed behind Bruce he just zoned out. Taking in the forest with its sounds and smells, the warm horse that swayed gently as she walked making him sway too. Oliver should've been paying more attention. Because Bruce decided to take his horse on a bit of an adventure. The two were wandering through the woods for an hour before Oliver realized that Bruce had hijacked a horse and gotten them lost. Another two before anyone found them. They'd completely missed lunch. And they were banned from horseback riding.

Not that Bruce cared, he was only here another two weeks.

Oliver had two whole months.

It's not like his father recognized he ever existed half the time, but his mom sending him off to the other side of the country was a bit much. He'd thought they had an understanding. Apparently not. And now he wouldn't even get to ride the horses.

Which Oliver naturally thought was overkill for himself but it was totally punishment for Pancake too. They had bonded. Not that the riding staff seemed to care when he tried to plead his case. Knox looked a little sympathetic at least. And she called after him when he'd turned to walk back over to Brad and maybe go play volleyball or something. "Oliver!" Knox said again and he paused. "I'll talk to Bambi and see about a probationary period or something. Maybe clean some stables or just make it a two week ban since you're here all summer. Kay?"

Oliver grinned. "Thanks." She returned the smile before turning to go back to mucking stalls and cleaning the tack.

Archery, Bruce decided, was the worst. It slapped his reddened and itchy skin even with the arm guard on. The smaller bows they had were too easy for him to pull and sent the arrows almost skittering at the target when he released. The bigger ones and the compound bows were too heavy a draw though and Bruce's twiggy thirteen year old arms just didn't have the strength. Oliver didn't seem to like it either. He seemed like the type of guy who had everything handed to him and most of the sports came naturally to him. Archery didn't. It clearly frustrated him that while he managed to hit the target he couldn't hit the center. Or even the yellow rings just outside it. He managed to pepper the blue ones every time. He could at least use the larger recurve bows at least. Which Bruce wouldn't admit to but was supremely jealous of.

"You just gotta practice, you'll get there!" Legolas reassured him. Bruce and Oliver both raised skeptical brows at that. Legolas had gotten his name because he was a crack shot. Hitting the bullseye just about every time. His encouragement wasn't as meaningful as he meant it. Especially when there was a rumor going around that the other counselors had dared him to shoot an arrow off of someone's head while blindfolded. And that he had managed it. "Though not today," he laughed after checking his watch, "we need to clean up for lunch."

The boys and other campers all turned their bows in and Legolas set them in the shed before returning and sending them to collect their arrows. By the time they were all cleaned up a couple other counselors had wandered out of the woods where they must've gone for a hike on their breaks and decided to head with them to lunch. A week and a half of camp had all the kids falling into a buddy line without even being told and Oliver fell in next to Bruce out of habit. Beaker made them do a headcount, checking each camper off on her list, and let Legolas lead them off toward the dining hall. He also started to lead them in some insipid song about a worm getting stuck in a straw. Legolas would shout a line and around Bruce all the other kids would eagerly shout it back. Even Oliver. Bruce would rather actually swallow a worm.

Inside the dining hall was the usual premeal chaos as counselors took their assigned tables and yelled across the room to each other. Kids swarmed around trying to find seats next to friends or at tables with specific counselors. Bruce scanned the space when a small arm covered in bright string bracelets -- and there hadn't been that many at breakfast, Bruce was certain -- shot up and waved towards him enthusiastically. "BRUCE!" Zatanna bellowed. He was fairly certain she'd pushed her magic into it because he could clearly hear it over everything else. That, or Zatanna was just disturbingly loud.

Bruce began walking to the table she was at and the two seats she appeared to be guarding with her life. Oliver followed and Bruce couldn't explain why. Well at least not beyond the fact that it was just what they did anymore.

"Hey kid," Oliver said by way of greeting. Zatanna preened and smiled. She was a ten-year-old queen and this table was her court. Just no one beyond the three of them knew that just yet.

"Hi Ollie. Oh! I want you guys to meet Hartley! He lives in the cabin two over from mine. He really likes music," Zatanna told them breathlessly, pointing at the small redhead next to her. Bruce and Oliver both sat down across from the two as more kids took the spots further down the table. Oliver waved at the boy while Bruce just nodded. "That's Oliver and that's Bruce, he's my best friend," Zatanna told Hartley and pointed at the two older boys.

Bruce frowned at Zatanna and was glad to see the boy looked skeptical when he glanced between Bruce and Zee. "Isn't he a little old to be your best friend?" he asked a little too loudly.

"Yes." Bruce said. "And we're not best friends."

Zee pouted. "Well until Oliver I was your only friend."

"We're not friends," Bruce and Oliver corrected her at the same time.

"Sure," she said with an eyeroll.

The poor boy she'd dragged into this looked so confused. "So, how old are you?" he finally dredged up the courage to ask.

"Thirteen," Oliver sounded smug. Bruce just nodded.

"Oh." Hartley seemed to shrink in on himself.

"How old are you?" Zee asked, genuinely curious.

"Eight." He was still a little too loud when he spoke, even though he seemed like he was shy.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. He'd been practicing and he knew it wasn't as smooth as Alfred's but Oliver provided infinite possibilities to practice and it was still leaps and bounds better than a week ago. "Aren't you in the nine to eleven group?" he asked Zatanna.

"Yeah," she frowned. "Hartley, how'd you wind up in my group?"

He shrugged. "I skipped a grade and my mom kinda bullied them into putting me in by grade instead of age."

Oliver seemed to hum in understanding. Bruce just felt himself frown. Zatanna met his eye with a slight frown of her own. The moment passed though when one of the counselors started the quiet clap and everyone shut up and turned to pay attention.

Oliver was officially tired of camp by the last week of June. A racoon had gotten into their cabin the day before and went though literally all of their things. It didn't eat or destroy anything though, just wanted to make chaos by rubbing its tiny hands on everything apparently. Sherlock had to make another laundry run for them. Gambit had heard about it over the radio and claimed a golf cart just so she could come laugh at the mess before they managed to clean too much of it up, having been off on her break at the time. She left the cart for Sherlock before heading to her own cabin for the rest of her break, laughing the whole way. The other counselors in the unit made a fire for the boys while everyone else got ready for bed and they waited for their sheets and sleeping bags to be washed.

Unfortunately, Oliver had a whole two more months to go. He was officially less than pleased with his mother for this grand idea.

Luckily, Knox found him before the Final Campfire for those who were only there for the month. Taking long strides up the wide stone steps of the amphitheater to where he sat next to Bruce. Zatanna and her little friend Hartley on Bruce's other side. They all watched as the barn staffer made her way towards them, standing out in her jeans and tall muck boots while everyone else was wearing shorts. "Hey, Ollie!" she called as she approached, obviously not realizing that she already had everyone's full attention. "I just got back from the barn and I wanted to be the first to tell you that your ban has been lifted! You're allowed to come back starting Monday, since Bruce is leaving." Here she grimaced over at Bruce. "Sorry, but Bambi kind of decided you were the responsible party and Ollie just collateral damage. Very foolish collateral damage." She didn't bother to apologize for that one though as she turned to look back to him. "So Pancake will see you Monday? She's missed you."

Oliver nodded eagerly. "Yes. Absolutely. I'll talk to Sherlock about changing my schedule right after the campfire."

Knox nodded. "Sweet. Ok, I need to hit the showers. Bye all! I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow!"

They all said their goodbyes and Oliver couldn't stop smiling. Camp still sucked and the one person who made it interesting at least was leaving tomorrow, but at least Oliver's ban had been lifted. He could spend the rest of summer riding horses.

Bruce thought that he'd never been happier to see Alfred in his life. The man stood on the porch of the Health Center, talking with Doc when Artemis came to collect him from the dining hall where he'd been sitting on the steps, avoiding singing camp songs. The irony of Apollo taking him to the dining hall at the beginning of the month and Artemis leading him from it at the end was not lost on Bruce. Nor was it lost on Alfred by the sly grin he had when he saw who walked with Bruce. "Have a safe trip home!" Artemis said brightly before heading to Bugs, the camp director, and getting the name of the next camper she was to fetch.

"Well Bruce, I'm sorry that the circumstances weren't better but I'm glad I got to know you," she said and held out a hand that Bruce shook. "Maybe I'll see you next year? And if not, keep in touch. Mr. Pennyworth has my mailing address, maybe you can write me some of your famous letters."

Bruce smirked. "I will."

Doc laughed and the corners of Alfred's mouth twitched. "Shall we, Master Wayne?" he asked. "Your footlocker has already been loaded and you have officially been checked out."

Nodding, Bruce eagerly turned to go search the field for the car. He thought to look back once and wave to Doc, but then he was off and moving. He closed the door hard after he climbed in. Alfred started the car but didn't shift into gear. They just sat there in silence as the vents slowly began to push out cold air.

Finally, Alfred asked what he wanted to. "How was camp?"

"Never again, Alfred. Never. Again."

"That bad?"

"Didn't you get my letters?"

Alfred finally pulled out of the field and started down the long drive towards the road. "I did. I had just assumed that you were exaggerating as is your penchant."

Bruce glared at him. "You were talking to Doc."

"And I realized that you were not exaggerating."

"Never. Again."

"Yes, Master Bruce."

#dc comics #bruce wayne #oliver queen #alfred pennyworth #zatanna zatara #fanfiction #fanfic #my fic #own writing #writing #annataz #yes alfred

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fluidityandgiggles · 4 years

Text

Dalton Big Bang day 43 - Valentine

Writing Masterpost, AO3 Link

Notes: Also known as: Gigs tries to write jogan giving their son The Talk and failing miserably due to being a useless asexual.

One day. One fucking day. I'll write a full next gen fic, with all the kids, because y'all know by now I have headcanons for everything. And then y'all would get to see just how chaotic AJ Sotto and Parker Willis can be. But for now, this is about Johnny and his adorable Hanover boyfriend.

If there was a truth everyone in Dalton could agree on, it was that history teacher and Warblers coach, Mr. Wright, was a man you didn't want to cross. The unfortunate ones who were asked to meet with him privately refused to speak of what was told, and whether it was for good or bad reasons, nobody wanted to ask.

And then there were the students who visited his office without even being called. Johnny Larson-Wright, AJ Sotto, Parker Willis. Parker's older brothers graduated from Windsor and Stuart a few years ago, so that brand of crazy would make sense coming from them, but the others…

Well, Valentine Moore always thought people were crazy for assuming their teacher was such a bad man. He made Warblers practice enjoyable every time, gave people solos in a very fair manner, and yeah, maybe he was a bit strict. But he seemed nice enough.

But who was Valentine to say anything? He's never had a conversation alone with him. Maybe they were just exaggerating things!

Yeah, that had to be it!

...until the unfortunate day in late February when he was called in to Mr. Wright's office.

It was all everyone talked about the whole day. Johnny didn't make a fuss about it, unlike most of the others, which was reassuring and even more stressful in equal measures. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, straight-A student Valentine Moore must see the monster, maybe he fucked up real bad this time. Maybe they found out that he contributed to Johnny and AJ's bullshit—

No, wait, no. He does draw, it's his one coping mechanism, but no way they used his art for graffiti. Maybe… maybe it had to do with the homework he didn't turn in for history class? No, but he did it all, he just forgot his notebook by accident, Mr. Wright would probably understand! He must understand, it's not the first time, it's just—

"Stop pacing by my door, Moore," the teacher called, making Valentine freeze in place and start shaking. "You're not exactly invisible."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wright." He just lowered his eyes and walked into the office, closing the door behind him. "Won't do so again."

"It's all good, I get that you're nervous. But there's nothing to be nervous about."

"Is it about the homework I forgot to turn in last week…?"

"No. I care less about the homework than I do about this subject." The teacher started tapping on the desk with his fingers, making Valentine shiver a bit more. "I understand you're seeing my son."

His stomach fell as his shaking stopped.

"I don't… what? No, you got it wrong, I just—"

"Wrong? Unless Johnny is dating another Valentine Moore, who goes to this school and boards in Hanover, and is a member of the Warblers, I have no reason to believe I got it wrong."

"I… I'll break up with him, sir, it's okay. I know I'm not…"

As Valentine started feeling tears fall down his cheek, he also felt a large hand take his, as he started a silent prayer in his mind.

"I'm not mad at you," Mr. Wright — Logan — told him. "In fact, I'm relieved. It seems like he's very serious about you. His father and I are very proud of him. But I'll tell you this. If you hurt my boy—"

"It's the end of me, I know. I'm so sorry, sir."

"...yeah. That's… yeah." As Valentine raised his eyes, he saw his teacher start to fumble a bit. That was unusual… "I didn't actually think I'll get this far, if I'm honest… I'm not allowed to hurt you, as your teacher. But do expect to have a talk again. If either of you get hurt. It's not just about him in this relationship, it's about you too."

"O— okay! Okay, thank you!"

"Now, about that homework—"

"Dad!" Interrupted a call as the door flung open, and in ran Johnny, red in the face and wholly amused. "AJ broke Ramsey's window by accident, we're gonna get killed! Help! Oh, hi Val!"

"Hi!" If Valentine smiled at that, it wasn't his fault. This was the best thing that happened today.

"I swear, when we got you into Stuart we hoped you'd do better than this," Mr. Wright sighed, getting up from his chair. "Excuse me, Moore, it seems like something more... urgent came up."

"Oh no, it's… it's all fine. I'll leave! It's okay!"

"I apologize, Moore."

As Valentine rushed to get up and leave, Logan put a hand on his son's shoulder, trying to make him calm down. The redness still persisted, but his smile cracked, and the twinkle of joy in his eyes teeny off as a blanket of disappointment fell on him.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?"

"You're not. AJ, though, is in so much trouble. Now show me the damage. I'll talk to Ramsey."

————

"So how are you guys doing?" Julian asked through FaceTime, watching his family eat dinner while he had his lunch break on set. Jerry, their newest cat, was also on the table to eat his own dinner. Natalie was paying more attention to him than she was to her dinner.

Johnny kinda wanted to poke her to answer him.

"We're all fine," Logan told him, ignoring the kids to a degree. "Did you watch the regionals video?"

"I did. So did half the cast. Good job on that. Nice song choices too, Squid."

"Thanks," Logan snorted, then turned to nudge Johnny. "Did you hear your pops?"

"I did." He went bright red. "I… I chose the second one."

Julian chuckled at that. "Yeah? No shit, Johnny. Was it inspired by someone special?"

"Yeah… I mean—"

"It certainly looked like it. Reminded me of the Hummel-Sottos back when we were juniors ourselves. Ugh, I can't listen to Raise Your Glass anymore without wanting to gag."

Johnny tried to hide. His dads were great, he never thought otherwise! Pops was the more lenient one, the more open one. The one with less dignity somehow. Probably from growing up in the spotlight and being in the public eye for so long. Dad was stricter, less… open, about all the embarrassing stuff, but he was also home more. Less absent than Pops. So he… knew more, about the kids. Pops was the one to go to with love problems, Dad was the one for any other issues.

Johnny loved them both equally. But they were both equally embarrassing, and that was a lot of embarrassing, and he really didn't want to talk to them about his love life.

"So who's the special someone?" Julian kept on teasing. "Who were you singing You're My Best Friend to?"

"Just…"

"Val," Natalie answered for him, making him choke. "He totally likes Valentine."

"Nat, shush."

"Well, did you tell him yet?" Julian raised an eyebrow, laughing a bit. "He doesn't seem like the guy to get… subtle flirting."

"He's my boyfriend now, okay?" Johnny snapped. "I… I told him. After the performance ended. And then we were together for Valentine's day and now we're together. Is that what you wanna hear?"

"...actually yes, that is what I want to hear. Honey, that's great! Does he make you happy? Do you two talk through your problems or do you keep them inside until you'll burn out like what happened when you were in fifth grade? Do you two fuck yet?"

"Pops!"

"Daddy! Ew!"

As Johnny pretended to gag, and Natalie ran off from the table to wash her mouth, Logan rolled his eyes with a smile and turned the call to face him more.

"They're doing alright, J. They're actually doing better than we did when we started going out. At least with the whole… communication thing."

"You assume we communicated ever," Julian joked, making Logan smile more. "I'm kidding… I'm just happy they're doing well. He seems like a good kid."

"Who, Valentine?"

"Yeah."

"He's great… a bit shy. Reminds me of Reed back when."

"Sounds like a blast. God… I miss you guys. I wanna be there, I wanna meet that kid honest and proper… would it be too weird to give them the sex talk through face cam?"

"I think it would be… a terrible idea, Jules. Please wait until you're back home."

"You forget I can still hear you guys!" Came the groan from Johnny, followed by a call from someone to remind Julian he needs to get dressed for his next scene.

"I love you too!" Julian called to Johnny, receiving a loud groan in return. "Lo, I love you so much."

"I love you too, J."

"I'll see you guys in a month, okay? Not too much left to wait. I'll try to find some of those Japanese kitkats you like."

"Thank you. Have a good day, Jules."

"Good night, Lo. Good night, kids!"

Logan hung up as Johnny mumbled a "yeah, yeah" and Natalie came back to the table, still gagging.

"...okay, but did you?"

"Nat, I'm not answering that question!"

"Okay, sorry! Jeez!"

Yeah… this was his family now. Logan still struggled to believe this fact. But this was his family now.

————

"How about this argument stops now?" Johnny called right as Julian walked through the door that Saturday afternoon, to catch his husband and daughter standing on one couch and his son comforting a redhead stranger on the other. "It doesn't fucking matter who's a better partner for Mark, he's in a fucking coma. And besides, your screams are making him uncomfortable."

"Do I even want to know?" Julian asked as he dropped his bags, pulling Logan down from the couch so they could kiss. Much to the gagging noises coming from Natalie. "Hello, love."

"Hi, Jules."

"They're listening to The Bright Sessions again," Johnny tried to say, getting somewhat ignored. "It's just—"

"I'm going to my room!"

"Okay! Hello to you too, Natalie!"

That was all about an hour ago, and as things were now, Julian felt far more awake. He took a shower, unpacked his bags, made himself a cup of coffee and now got to cuddle with his husband and their three cats on the couch as their son tried his best to make his boyfriend feel comfortable. The boy didn't look the most reassured though, but at least he didn't seem like he's going to stress himself to death, so he figured it was okay.

"You met my pops before," Julian heard Johnny tell Valentine quietly. "Why are you so scared now?"

"Because I met him as your friend, and now I'm your boyfriend, it's not the same type of meeting!"

"He's right, it's not," Logan told the kids, laughing a bit. "It's scarier than meeting as a friend."

"Dad, you're not helping."

"It's also more relieving than you think, Moore. Trust me."

He sniffled and nodded, trying to calm down more. An uneasy feat, but one Logan and Johnny were sure he could accomplish.

"So… how are you?" Julian asked after a moment of silence, winking at Valentine. "I saw your regionals performance. You did good."

"Th— thank you!" He started blushing at that. "I… I'm good! I think, at least… How are you?"

"I'm very good, thank you for asking. So…" Julian chuckled, taking a bit of a shaky breath. "You're dating now, I heard."

Valentine could've died then and there.

"Dad had to tell him," Johnny tried to explain, but it didn't exactly work that well, as he watched his boyfriend try to hide as his pops kept on smiling.

"I'm not going to make fun of you, I just want to talk to you two. Make sure you know what you're doing, so you won't end up, you know…"

"Like your pops and I were when we started going out," Logan filled in for him.

"Exactly."

"If you want to tell us to use protection, it's okay, I think we know that by now," Valentine managed to say through his weak voice and high anxiety. "At least I know. My parents had our pastor give me that talk when I was thirteen."

"I use protection every time, it's nothing new."

"I'm sure you both know we're very proud of you for practicing that part of the relationship, but there are many more things I'm sure you don't even think of. For example, do you two communicate?" Julian received a very tired side-eye from Johnny and a nod from Valentine. "I'll ask a more specific question. Do you two talk about your feelings? About how certain things the other person does make you feel?"

"What do you mean…?"

"Before Logan and I started going out, I used to be really jealous about things. He used to have a crush on Kurt Hummel, good god, just remembering that hurts me…"

"Does it hurt because Shadow is literally on your rib cage?" Johnny suggests, watching the cat in question curl up defensively.

"No, she's good. It's another kind of pain, honey. But it… you remember when we told you about Adam? Back when Nat was being stalked?"

Johnny nodded, and Val just stared for a moment. "Stalked…?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Adam was my stalker when we were in high school," Julian explained, feeling Logan's grip on him getting tighter. "He forced me to tell Logan I love him. Neither of us were ready at the time, and I wish Adam no harm. I hope he managed to build a normal, semi sane life from those ashes. But he forced Logan and I to have a conversation neither of us were ready for."

"Okay… Pops, why is this important?"

"Because that's what happens when you don't communicate, honey. We didn't communicate until we were forced to. Please don't do that, okay? Can you promise me you'll talk about your feelings?"

"...Dad, what is he talking about? He's scaring Val."

"You're asking your dad and not me? John, I am deeply—"

"Communication is the key to any relationship," Logan said, cutting Julian in the middle and leaving him to play offended. "Consent is just a form of communication."

"One day, you two would decide that now is the right time to start having sex." Johnny started gagging at that. "When that day comes, we both want you to be ready. And it goes far beyond just knowing how to have safe sex. Having a healthy relationship is all about talking, because if you keep it inside, you heard what'll happen. Now, do you two communicate? Do you talk about your feelings, your fears? How far have you gone physically? This is a judgement-free zone, so don't feel ashamed."

"Just… just first base… Val is… uncomfortable with sex… Pops, why are you like this?"

"Because I love you and want to make sure you're safe. You know, some people might not want to have sex ever in their whole life, and that's okay too. A relationship isn't defined by how many times your dick has been in your partner's ass."

"Jules, that's… maybe overstepping a bit. You're scaring the children."

"So let's go back to the talking part. How many dates have you gone on yet? Where to?"

————

Johnny drove the two of them back to Dalton the following Sunday evening, and Natalie had a sleepover at her friend's place, so Logan figured he could make something nice happen for Julian's return. They didn't exactly get to do much yesterday, but it didn't mean they couldn't do anything now. So he ordered some Italian food, he got a bottle of wine, he picked a movie for the two of them to watch before regrettably falling asleep on the couch…

"Well, hello," Julian called as he came down the stairs, seeing Logan fretting over his phone. "What worries you so?"

"I'm waiting for takeout to get here… Michelle says hi."

"Well, when did you order takeout?" He got up to kiss Logan's cheek, hugging him under his arms.

"Seven twenty-three."

"And what time is it now?"

"Seven fifty."

"So they're not late, you're just anxious."

"I guess…" He put his phone down, instead hugging Julian. "I just… I don't know, I got excited. We get to be alone for the first time in…"

"Yeah… you said Michelle said hi? How's her and John's vacation in the Maldives going? Do they miss us too much yet?"

"I don't think they do. Michelle always misses us."

"True… oh, she'd love Valentine."

"She already does."

Logan nodded, then buried his face in Julian's shoulder. He was gone for too long this time. Or maybe they'd just gotten used to spending more time together without any projects getting in the way.

For Julian, three and a half months in New Zealand were also getting too much, and he always got jealous that he couldn't see Johnny compete or be there for Natalie while she auditioned for her own tv shows. He felt like he was missing too much. Sure, he took a break after the whole… stalking situation happened, but that was years ago. His return to mainstream just made him tired.

Both of them had their qualms about the direction their lives were going, and both of them were cut off by the doorbell, and Logan letting go for one moment so he could get the bags and tip the delivery guy. But soon enough it was both of them on the couch, eating their pasta and drinking wine and trying to decide if The Favorite was really the right movie to watch right now or if they felt like something less serious.

"The boys really remind me of us," Logan said in the middle of it all, making Julian choke a bit.

"Really? I can see how Johnny reminds you of you, but I don't think—"

"When we started going out," he finished his sentence. "We were awkward at best…"

"Your friends wouldn't let me off the hook."

"Hey, okay, that was mostly Dwight, and he's your friend too."

"He still wouldn't let me off the hook!"

"You know he only did it because he worries for us. Both of us. He did the same to me too."

"Okay, sure… do you think I just went full Dwight on them yesterday?"

"You… didn't. Not really. I think you did okay. Maybe a bit TMI on some details, but…" Julian made a scene of hiding his face in a pillow, trying to suppress his embarrassment. "Jules, I love you, but I don't think talking about my personal relationship history with our sixteen-year old son and his boyfriend is such a smart idea. Especially since it was mine. I'm not the average, I'm the exception."

"Was there any other way I should've gone at it?"

"I don't know, but I don't think two of my own students can look me in the face anymore."

"I think we should both be grateful we didn't talk about Derek's history at least."

They shared a look, their faces bright red and struggling to hold back a smile, before bursting into laughter.

"I worry for Valentine if you would have talked about Derek… Jules, that poor kid is terrified of everything, let's not traumatize him even more. I'm still his teacher."

"I worry more for what Johnמy would've said… or Nat. Oh, imagine if Nat would've heard that… you know she and Emma talk about everything, right? And I mean everything. She would've told her, and then Derek would've known, and then we'd both be dead."

"Let's… let's just be grateful that this talk is over with and that we don't need to advise them on more just yet…"

"More like what? Marriage, having children?"

"I know you're joking but yes, that is a very real possibility for us in the future."

"So let's just… fuck, I can't breathe…"

"Oh, shit! Your inhaler is here, come on…"

"...Logan?" Julian asked after a few moments, his breathing calming down now.

"Yeah?"

"Let's keep the marriage counseling to the future, okay?" He smiled as Logan nodded, leaning over to kiss his cheek again. "I love you."

"Jules, I love you."

"I know. Lucky me."

#kylo cant write #daltonfic #daltonficbigbang #day 43 - jogan #jogan giving their kids the sex talk was the premise #hope I did them justice #sadly tho I am a useless asexual #so hey

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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years

Text

Eyestealer 3 - ao3 link

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama (mostly gen, hints of other relationships later)

Summary: Hashirama really doesn’t approve of the thoughtful way his father looks at his younger brother’s bright red eyes. He’s sure it doesn’t mean anything good for anyone.

He’s right.

A/N: a quick (but sadly short) update for @blackberreh-art, who needs something to read on the flight

——————————————————————————————

The one ability of Tobirama that their father seems to actually respect is the strength of his sensor abilities.

"No Uchiha could have reached that far," Butsuma says begrudgingly when Tobirama reports comings and goings from the edge of his extremely impressive range.

It may be the nicest thing he's ever said to Tobirama, who is all but walking on air for the next week, even if no one who isn’t Hashirama or Kawarama or little Itama would be able to tell. He doubles down on training that ability thereafter, broadening his range even further and increasing his precision to focus on additional details.

He gets very, very good at it, too. Hashirama has found that when Tobirama puts his mind to something, really puts his mind to something, there's very little he can't do.

(This is, sometimes, a problem - Tobirama is extremely creative, smart and unorthodox, but unfortunately he, like their father, is a brilliant tactician. Fantastic for battle, absolutely fantastic; wonderful in the short term and, at least for Tobirama, sometimes in the medium term, but when it comes to thinking long term...ugh.

Seriously, sometimes Hashirama wishes he wasn't born as good a strategist as he is because he's pretty sure he's going to be driven up the wall by the fact that he can so clearly see future consequences that no one else ever seems to think about. At least Tobirama is learning, even if he still hasn't quite figured out that just because you can invent something doesn't always mean you should.)

Still, as much as Tobirama wants to make their father proud, as much as he loves him, he hasn’t lost his reason or his sense of caution. He tells his father anything that might be helpful, practical useful things, but Hashirama is the only one who knows the true extent of his sensing: how sensitive he is to the nuances of others' chakra, how he can all but replicate exact details even from a distance, how much it hurts sometimes -

How he's always sensing, always, whether he's asleep or drained of chakra.

Even though he's grown up well past the usual dangerous age, Tobirama's chakra still has a way of draining far too fast sometimes, no matter how little he's doing. Recently they discovered, through some impromptu games of hide and seek with little Itama, a happy soul, that it helped a little if he kept his eyes closed. Ever since then, Tobirama has spends increasingly more of his time in his private quarters wearing a blindfold, purportedly as a means of further training his situational awareness - not that he needs it, given that he learns to move around fluidly without his sight within the course of a few weeks.

Outside the home, where walking around with a blindfold would be more embarrassing and require more explanation, he takes to adding a happuri to his armor so that he can draw it down over his eyes whenever he has a moment to rest.

Things are going well.

Hashirama starts to feel happy: Tobirama's sensor abilities are a blessing, something he can be cheered for throughout the clan. Finally, he thinks, there was something that Tobirama could do that would bring him only joy.

(He should have known better than to tempt fate.)

It happens in public, at a formal clan dinner with all the elders and their father sitting there, and no one knows that Tobirama's senses are still working but Hashirama.

But because Hashirama is the only one who knows, he's the only one who has even the slightest idea what's happening when Tobirama suddenly drops his bowl, his expression twisting in horror, and throws himself out the window without a word a second later.

"Please excuse us," Hashirama says on his behalf to the outraged elders and their father, then follows him out before they have a chance to respond.

He doesn't know exactly what it was that Tobirama sensed that so overwhelmed him, but that expression means it's nothing good.

There are very few things Tobirama cares about that would make him willing to so breach the rules of etiquette so thoroughly beaten into him -

- and Kawarama is out of the compound on a courier mission.

Hashirama's already resigned by the time they're out in the forest, running faster than thought but still not fast enough, but Tobirama shrieks as though he was the one who was stabbed, his too-powerful senses showing him all the details he would never be able to excise from his too-perfect memory, staggering and beginning to fall even as he reaches the clearing that should have been safety, having exhausted himself in speed and left nothing for fighting.

Hashirama is just moments behind him, though, and he reaches out with the forest to try to strangle his brother's killers.

He gets two of the squad, mangling their bodies beyond recognition without the slightest ounce of pity, leaving them only identifiable as Uchiha by the scraps of fabic that flutter to the ground, but three others manage to evade him, disappearing in a flurry of leaves and shadow.

When he turns back, Tobirama is on his knees, sobbing and tugging futilely at the swords and kunai that pierce Kawarama's body. "I should've been faster," he says, voice broken. "I should have kept better watch - I should have been faster, I could've helped if I'd only been faster - Hashirama, help me! I don’t have the chakra reserves to heal him!"

Hashirama comes to stand by his shoulder. His heart hurts, seeing his brother's body like this, but not the way Tobirama's does. Tobirama was the one who raiased Kawarama, raised Itama, not Hashirama; Hashirama loves them dearly, but they're his brothers - to Tobirama, they might as well be his sons.

(And if some part of Hashirama bitterly remembers that Kawarama is their father's favorite, neither his disobedient eldest nor his despised second, and thinks of how despite Hashirama’s best efforts he had begun to absorb some of Butsuma’s more pernicious beliefs, repeating vile things about Tobirama when the other was absent even though it was Tobirama who loved him more than anything - well. That part of him doesn't need to see the surface.)

So it hurts and he grieves, but he also knows that it’s not as bad a blow as it could have been - not as bad a blow as it is to Tobirama.

"We'll take him back for a burial," Hashirama says, because there's nothing before them but a corpse.

Tobirama moans in despair, horrible grief making his voice grate terribly, like the sound of splintering wood, and then suddenly his hands fly up to his face, his chakra levels suddenly draining at an alarming rate.

"Tobirama!" Hashirama exclaims, moving forward at once. "What - a trap? Tell me what hurts!"

He continued his lessons as a healer long after the medic taught him those few techniques and insisted that Tobirama learn, too, counting on his brother's genius mind to start coming up with new combinations almost at once, which he had. They were both very good at it now.

"My eyes," Tobirama moans. "Something's wrong with my eyes."

Hashirama's scanning frantically, looking for the damage, but nothing's coming up as wrong. As far as Tobirama's body is concerned, it's working as designed.

Except Tobirama's chakra is still draining away like he somehow sprung a leak, which means there must be a wound - a trap - a seal - something - but where could it be? With enough expertise, a trap seal could be drawn on any surface, solid or liquid: on skin, hair, tongue, eyes –

Eyes.

"Hold still," he tells Tobirama, more or less futilely because Tobirama is barely even twitching anymore. "I'm going to pop out your lenses."

He hasn't seen Tobirama without his lenses in years, nothing but the brief glimpses when he helped him in the mornings, but he still remembers what they look like under there - what they should look like, that is.

And the second the lenses are off, there it is, whatever it is that's hurting his brother: the black flecks in Tobirama's eyes have changed, turning instead into a pinwheel made of little black waves.

(It's almost like the Uchiha symbols he's seen scribbled on old scrolls, but that makes sense, doesn't it, that the Uchiha would leave an Uchiha trap on a freshly-killed corpse, meant to catch the unwary.)

"Tobirama, I think I've figured it out where the trap is - Tobirama - no, don't pass out - Tobirama! Stay with me...!"

Hashirama doesn't want to leave Kawarama's body behind, but he would do it in a heartbeat if he thought the medics back home would be of any help. He would throw himself on the nonexistent mercy of the Uchiha themselves if that's what it took to save Tobirama’s life, but he knows that they won’t help either.

It’s up to him.

He sits there all night, between the corpse of one brother and the comatose body of another, ignoring everything he’s ever learned about healing in favor of brute-forcing as much of his chakra into Tobirama as either of them can tolerate and a little beyond, and he thinks he might go a little insane in the process.

(Sometimes Tobirama's eyes look as if they themselves have drained of all color, an almost pale lavender with rippling concentric rings around the pupil, but Hashirama manages to convince himself it's a trick of the light and with an concerted effort it goes back to the more familiar red.)

Morning comes.

Tobirama opens his eyes.

They’ve gone back to the normal red-and-black-flecks, Hashirama is relieved to see, and his chakra appears to have stabilized.

“Anija,” Tobirama croaks, his voice cracking. “Tell me –”

But he falls silent.

Hashirama knows what he wants to ask, knows why Tobirama didn’t ask it, and curses yet again his brother’s memory.

He wishes, more than anything, that he could tell him that it had only been a dream.

“Let’s go home,” he says instead. “Get on my back.”

Tobirama’s eyes flicker and change – pinwheels again, and his chakra swells as though he were using some sort of powerful jutsu – but then they return to normal as he forces himself to calm, willpower overcoming his emotions as it has had to do far too many times before.

Looks like whatever the Uchiha did to him, it's not going away anytime soon.

Fine, whatever. It doesn't matter. Hashirama will find a way to make sure Tobirama survives whatever this is - survives and thrives. He will.

He won't let him down again.

“I remember them,” Tobirama says quietly, interrupting Hashirama's thoughts.

“Them?”

“The three you missed. I know what they look like. The next time we go up against the Uchiha, I’ll kill them.”

Hashirama knows Tobirama means it, too; he’s killed before already. If anything, he’s killed more often than Hashirama has, for all that Hashirama’s power is the more deadly – Tobirama knows how much Hashirama hates to strike the finishing blow, so he does it for him when he can, Hashirama finding often enough the shinobi he’s grabbed in the roots of the Mokuton have their throats slit or their lungs filled up with water before he’s forced to crush them.

“Well,” he says, shrugging. “That should make Butsuma happy, at least.”

(It doesn’t save Tobirama from being punished when he gets home, though, and Hashirama’s fists clench so tightly that his palms begin to bleed.)

#senju tobirama #senju hashirama #senju butsuma #senju kawarama #my fic #eyestealer

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ohmytheon · 6 years

Text

Karma in Retrograde (7)

title: Karma in Retrograde

summary: When Dabi is hit by a de-aging quirk, he's turned back to a 16 year-old U.A. Gen Studies student with self-esteem and parent issues, a destructive quirk, and no memory of the last five years. To help the Dabi of the past, present, and future, he is placed with Class 1-A. There, they must all face the question of whether he can change or if his destiny is already set in stone.

– Chapter 7: Ryouta and Shouto talk things over as best as any Todoroki can.

Lanni notes: As someone who only has a step-brother, I write a lot about siblings, both fanfiction and original fiction-wise. It's high time that these two talk. It's not the most open or even completely honest one, but they're getting there. Give these boys some time. They need it. Todorokis gonna Todoroki. The song for this chapter is one of my absolute favorites, "Heirloom" by Sleeping at Last, which I feel sums up the Ryouta, Shouto, and Endeavor dynamic perfectly.

You remind me of who I could have been Had I been stronger and braver way back then A million choices, though little on their own Became the heirloom of the heaviness we’ve known

After around an hour of basically hiding in the trees on U.A.’s campus, Ryouta knew that he couldn’t avoid the dorms any longer. Hopefully, most of the other students would be busy with their homework or training. From what he knew of students in the hero course, they were often kept much busier than everyone else because of their extra course load. If he could just slip into his dorm room unnoticed…

No, he couldn’t do that. He had to talk to Shouto. It would be better to face his brother upfront.

Holding onto the empty carton, having scarfed down the food Aizawa had given him like he’d not eaten in days, Ryouta slunk his way back to the dorms. Even though he was on his own, he knew that he wasn’t totally alone. He’d seen Present Mic through the trees, sitting at a bench seemingly grading papers, one of those dumb things people did when it was a nice day and wanted an excuse to get out of the office. It would’ve been innocuous had he flipped the pages more than every ten minutes. He couldn’t be that slow of a reader.

By the time Ryouta made it to the dorms, Present Mic was gone. Ah, so that was how it was going to be. Well, he couldn’t say that he blamed them. He wouldn’t have trusted himself either had he been in their position.

As soon as he made it to the common area, his worst fears were confirmed. The room wasn’t filled to the brim with all of Class 1-A, but there were enough students lingering there to make it awkward when Ryouta walked inside. A few people, like the boy with the huge belt and the large kid with multiple arms, walked out of the room the second they caught sight of him, although he couldn’t tell if it was out of aggression or the mere desire to avoid him. Fine by him. Then there was Bakugou, who scowled from his spot at the couches, but didn’t move, along with a red-haired boy and a shockingly pink girl. The latter two gave him hesitant yet curious looks.

And then there were Iida, Midoriya, and Uraraka, all of whom rushed over to him like a tidal wave. Ryouta found their energy somewhat draining. However, it was only natural for them to be like that after the strange scene they’d witnessed with his father. Hopefully, they had better relationships with their parents.

“Are you alright?” Uraraka asked.

“Where did you go after you left Aizawa’s office?” Iida questioned. “Did you get something to eat?”

Midoriya opened his mouth and then closed it, as if reconsidering his question. Ryouta was grateful. He had a feeling that it was more personal than he wanted to talk about in public -- or ever.

“Uh, yeah, Aizawa gave me some food,” Ryouta said, holding up the empty box. “I just… I needed some alone time. A lot’s happened today.”

Iida nodded his head. “Understandable. You must feel overwhelmed.” Ryouta just barely managed to stop himself from letting out a caustic laugh. These were nice kids. They were earnest. He forgot that people were like that. Instead, he managed a stiff nod. “Maybe you should take an early night. We can get started on figuring out where you are course-wise tomorrow.”

Damn, Iida certainly didn’t waste any time. That must have been why he was the class rep.

As much as Ryouta craved the sanctuary his dorm would offer him and about twelve hours straight of being unconscious, he had other things on his mind that were more important. “I was actually wondering where Shouto was?” He shifted on his feet. “I wanted to talk with him.”

Midoriya glanced at Iida before turning back to Ryouta. “He’s in his dorm.”

“Right, okay.” Ryouta hesitated. “Do you think it’s a bad idea? Does he not want to speak with me?”

Panic started to seize his heart. This had been a very overwhelming day for Shouto too. Seeing their father on campus had probably been an additional shock. There had been plenty of instances where he had witnessed their father’s cold and angry behavior towards Ryouta, especially when he had stepped in between him and Shouto or their mother, but nothing like that. It was strange that, despite his father’s aggression and hatred, it was one of the first times that Ryouta hadn’t felt afraid of the man.

Hard to feel afraid of someone when your future self is so much more terrifying.

“No,” Midoriya answered carefully, “I think it’d be for the best.” He frowned. “He’s been there since…”

He didn’t have to finish. Ryouta knew what he couldn’t say out loud. As soon as Aizawa had taken Ryouta away and Endeavor had left, Shouto had gone straight to his dorm to avoid everyone. It was what Ryouta had wanted to do before Aizawa had given him an out. He wondered if Shouto felt humiliated or just angry. His big brother had become a villain, shaming the family and their number one hero father, but even worse, now there were people who knew about at least a little of what went on at home.

“What room is his?” Ryouta asked.

“Fifth floor, third room on the left,” Iida answered.

“Okay.” Ryouta awkwardly fiddled with the empty carton in his hands. “I’ll just…”

“Here, I’ll throw that away for you,” Uraraka said as if she knew what he was thinking. She took the carton from him without waiting for him to respond. “He likes to keep a very clean space.”

“Of course,” Ryouta responded. “He always did.”

It was kind of weird talking about Shouto with his friends, if only because they seemed to know him just as well, if not better, than Ryouta did these days. As if he didn’t feel like a bad big brother already. He nodded his head and then headed in the direction of Shouto’s room. It would’ve been easier to use the elevator, but he took the stairs. It gave him more time to think about what to say and also avoid the confrontation for a little longer. Too soon, he was on the fifth floor and he dragged himself to the door that Iida had mentioned.

This was it. This was Shouto’s room. Behind this door was his little brother, no longer so little. Ryouta’s mouth felt dry as he tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. He didn’t want to do this, but at the same time, he was almost desperate to speak to Shouto. He didn’t know anyone here yet, but he wanted to know his brother. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door and waited.

After a few moments, Shouto’s voice came from behind the door. “Who is it?” So neutral. He hadn’t always been like that.

Ryouta should’ve been polite or even submissive, considering his misdeeds, but this was his little brother, so he dryly responded, “Who do you think?” and then cringed. It was so easy to act like he always had with Shouto. It was the only way he knew how. Just last night in his head, he’d been on the phone with him, teasing him about how much of a dork he was because of the books he liked to read. The door opened slightly and Shouto peered out to look at him. Ryouta’s shoulder slumped. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Shouto replied. “I guess we should talk.”

No shit.

After opening the door further, Shouto stepped aside and he slunk in, hands buried in his pockets. When Shouto shut the door, panic burst inside of Ryouta’s chest. He felt suddenly trapped. It was stupid. He was in a room with his brother, not a villain. If anyone should be concerned, it should’ve been Shouto. He was the one alone in a room with a villain. However, there was nothing but a blank expression on his face, his eyes unreadable. Shit, it was like looking into a mirror.

Turning around, Ryouta swept his gaze around the room and whistled lowly. “Nice digs. Looks just like home.”

Shouto coughed, embarrassed again. “It’s too much, isn’t it?”

A chuckle worked its way out of Ryouta’s throat. “Yeah, a little.”

They were both avoiding the real reason why he had come up here, but he didn’t mind. Now that they were the same age, things felt more even between them, like they were on the same level. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as he had imagined it would be. They’d both gone through similar trials together. Since he could only remember his life as a U.A. student, he could almost pretend that they were on the same page as well.

“Did you not decorate your room...when you went here?” Shouto asked. “I wanted to visit, but I wasn’t allowed.”

Ryouta shook his head. “I didn’t have the money to do much with it and I avoided asking Dad for help as much as possible.” This looked a lot more comfortable than his dorm. Home life might have been more than chaotic and he had hated it as much as he had loved it, but their house had been nice. The number two hero could afford a lot of things. Just not a decent personality. “I asked if you could visit all the time, but he wouldn’t even let Fuyumi or Natsuo come.”

There was a brief lull in the conversation as both of them thought about their other siblings. They were both older than him now. Natsuo had been taller than him even when they were kids, despite Ryouta being the older brother. He’d finally caught up by fourteen and had been very pleased. Knowing his luck, he’d be shorter again. He wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

Turning back around, Ryouta looked up at his brother, only to be caught off guard by the fact that he was looking up at his brother. For the first time, he noticed he had to tilt his eyes slightly upward to meet his gaze. His younger brother’s gaze. Shouto was a few centimeters taller than him, which, while it wasn’t much, felt neither right nor fair. It was like dealing with Natsuo all over again. He didn’t like it. His eleven-year-old brother wasn’t supposed to be taller than him at all.

...Except Shouto wasn’t eleven years old anymore. The flash of impulsive indignity was fleeting and died down when reality promptly set in, bringing something bitter with it. He wasn’t eleven years old anymore and hadn’t been eleven years old for a long time. His brother had grown up and he had missed it. What should have been five years had become the blink of an eye - or the flash of a quirk. A quirk that had been used on him for what sounded like a very good reason.

The anger that had begun to build inside him died down under a wave of guilt. He couldn’t remember the past five years because of the quirk, but even if he could, he wouldn’t have been there for his brother anyway. He wouldn’t even be there with him now. Ryouta had missed years of his younger brother’s ever-fleeting childhood and he only had himself to blame for it. His throat stung and his tongue turned to lead at the thought. He already knew he had walked out on them - it was why he needed to talk to him in the first place - but every time he noticed something different, it felt like the discovery of a fresh sin he’d committed and made the harsh reality that much more real.

It only took a few seconds for the entire string of feelings and realizations to occur. Ryouta wasn’t able to maintain eye contact with Shouto for more than a fraction of that. (Weak.) He allowed his gaze to drop to his shoes and willed his lips to move. He had to say something. Something smooth, something genuine and eloquent, something that could hope to serve as even the beginning of an explanation, because gods knew there was no justifying all of it.

“Shouto,” he slowly said.

“Hm?”

Ryouta could feel the weight of the other boy’s gaze on him.

Eloquent. Genuine. He deserves an explanation. “You shouldn’t wear high tops.” Fuck.

He forced himself to look back up, if only to bear witness to the small disaster he’d just created. Shouto’s eyebrows were furrowed in bewilderment, the first hint of emotion on his face. “What?”

“Your shoes. You shouldn’t try to make yourself look taller,” Ryouta awkwardly explained. “It’s not working.”

The confusion began to dissipate from Shouto’s face, replaced by something that might be the shadow of amusement. There was a beat of silence in which Ryouta felt his gut twist before Shouto confirmed what he had begun to fear in that moment. “I’m not wearing high tops.” A quick glance down revealed that, indeed, he was wearing perfectly flat, fairly thinly soled shoes. When Ryouta looked back up, a smirk, faint enough that he wouldn’t have noticed if he didn’t know where to look, had begun to form. It was only highlighted by the blank tone in which he said, “I’m just taller than you.”

Apparently, at some point over the last five years, his younger brother had also become a little shit.

Ryouta scowled. In the life he remembered, Shouto probably would’ve laughed after that, but instead, he only shook his head. That definitely meant that Natsuo was taller than him too. At least he still had Fuyumi and their mom beat. It had been frustrating to be shorter than his sister for half his childhood, but his quirk had burned through him too hot, making him small for his age for years.

Huffing irritably, Ryouta sat down on the floor, crossing his legs and propping his hands on his thighs, and Shouto followed, threading his fingers together. He looked a lot calmer. Ryouta didn’t know how he was managing it when he felt like a bundle of nerves, his quirk prickling anxiously under his fingertips until he managed to push it down. Sometimes, he lit and smothered tiny blue fires on his fingers to make it look like the fire was dancing. It was a habit he’d started when he was six to make his quirk seem less frightening, but it had turned into a tic after a while.

“I wonder if Dad told them about…”

About what, Shouto? About how their failure of a brother became a villain?

He couldn’t say that though, so Ryouta instead said, “I doubt it. He probably doesn’t think it’s important. After I left...” Why had he done that? Why had he left them? Had he even visited their mother in the hospital? Oh gods, his mom. “He probably cut me off my like a dead limb.”

Shouto sighed. He didn’t have to confirm it for Ryouta to know that Endeavor had most likely either burned or trashed everything that had belonged to him. He wouldn’t have even put it past the man to destroy any pictures of him and have them pretend like he didn’t even exist. That was what Endeavor did with failures. He put them in the past and he moved on, refusing to let them hold him back. His three kids before Shouto had been just that, Ryouta even more so.

“How are they?” he finally asked.

“Natsuo and Fuyumi are doing really well,” Shouto told him. “Natsuo is in college. I heard he even has a girlfriend now. He left home two years ago and hasn’t been back since, but we keep in contact.” Ryouta fought the urge to sigh in relief. That was good. At least one of them had been able to escape and have a normal life. “Fuyumi is a preschool teacher. She feels guilty over not being able to protect me more.”

“That wasn’t her job,” Ryouta cut in, angry with himself all over again. It had been his job. He was supposed to protect them from their father. He was supposed to keep their mother safe.

Shouto looked resigned, but then all of this had already come to pass for him. He couldn’t regret it. “I know. She even stayed home to help take care of me.” He paused in thought. “I wonder if she’ll move out since I’m no longer living at home.”

Ryouta almost jumped to his feet. “She what? She’s still living there?”

“Dad couldn’t take care of us on his own,” Shouto pointed out, sounding almost like he was defending the man.

“He didn’t take care of us when Mom was there either,” Ryouta shot back. Shouto merely shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t trying to defend Endeavor. It was frustrating. He’d missed so much. Had he not thought about that when he had walked out on them? How his leaving would change their lives too? Couldn’t he have left and stayed in contact with them like Natsuo? Hating his future self was exhausting and confusing all at once. He rubbed his head. “Sorry, it’s just… It’s hard to wrap my head around. I don’t know what happened.”

Shouto was silent for a minute, stewing over something that had been on his mind, until he asked, “Did you feel like leaving before? Last night, after the phone call and argument with Dad -- did you want to leave?”

“I…” Ryouta propped his hands on the floor behind him and leaned back. “Of course I did. I won’t lie about that. I was so angry with Dad sometimes that I wanted to burn everything to the ground and leave it all behind. Either I’d dream about proving him wrong and making something incredible of myself or taking you and the others away from him and getting the hell out of dodge.” He tilted his head back and gazed at the ceiling. “I felt like a failure. I couldn’t be the hero that Dad demanded. It was humiliating. To be honest, I hated it here.”

From his peripheral vision, he caught the alarmed expression on Shouto’s face and the way he sat up straight. “You hated it? What do you mean? You wanted to go to U.A. so bad. I remember you fighting with Dad about it your last year in middle school. You even used Mom’s name to do it.” He blinked in confusion. “You used to tell me how much I would love it when I went here and always smiled when talking about school. It’s what made me okay with Dad pushing me to apply. I thought, if you liked it so much, then I would too.”

“You do like it here, don’t you?” Ryouta asked.

Shouto hesitated, but then admitted, “Yeah.” For the first time in his life, he had friends of his own and he was away from Endeavor. He could use his quirk as he wished. His quirk, not their father’s and mother’s. It was good for him. U.A. was exactly what Shouto had needed in his life. It had been a slap in the face for Ryouta.

“That’s good.” Ryouta closed his eyes. “It’s different for you than it was for me. You’re in the hero course. I’m - was - in General Studies, bottom of the barrel, the students who either couldn’t hack it in the entrance exam or applied to it knowing they couldn’t and hoping they could make a name for themselves at the Sports Festivals.”

“I don’t understand,” Shouta said. “With your quirk, you should’ve been in the hero course. I’ve seen you use it before you-” Before he had become Dabi. He tried not to react. “It’s strong.”

“I didn’t take the entrance exam like you did. I did enough to get into General Studies and that was it.”

“Why?”

Ryouta opened his eyes and looked back at his brother. “Because that was one of Dad’s rules. If I was going to go through with attending U.A., I had to earn my spot in the hero course a different way. He didn’t consider me worthy to apply for the same course that he went through. I had to prove that I was.”

There was something else bothering Shouto. He could tell from the way he wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I didn’t take the entrance exam. I got in on recommendation.”

A bitter laugh almost escaped Ryouta, but he clenched his jaw at the last second. “I should’ve figured that.”

At the end of the day, Shouto was stronger than him in every sense. Their quirks were similar, but Shouto excelled where Ryouta was flawed. The only way that Ryouta bested him was that his flames were much hotter and more powerful, but that was only because his fire quirk didn’t reside on half of his body and even then it didn’t do him much good.

“It’s different for you,” Ryouta continued in a flat tone. “In the hero course, you’re at the top of the food chain. You’re the focus. You’re important. Maybe you don’t do it, but a lot of the students in the hero courses in my time looked down on those in Gen Studies, considered them weak and beneath everyone else. There might not be any active bullying, but it wasn’t unusual to get overlooked or pushed around.”

For Ryouta, it hadn’t helped that he couldn’t control his quirk. He’d done everything he could on his own to learn how to master it, but there had been nothing he could do about the way it had turned on him repeatedly. He had been considering going to someone in the support course, but he hadn’t trusted any of the teachers enough to tell them about his quirk issues, much less another student. If he admitted that he needed help, then he would be even more of a failure than his father called him. Needing support meant that, on some level, his quirk was broken.

“You should’ve been able to get into the hero course,” Shouto insisted.

“I didn’t.” And he wouldn’t be able to hack it in the hero course now. In the five years that he’d lost due to being de-aged, he had somehow figured out how to control his quirk, but now he was back to sixteen and he was at a loss once more. Aizawa would figure it out soon enough. Maybe he’d pull him out of the course on his own. What if Ryouta accidentally hurt someone? The only thing he could do was hold off on using his quirk for as long as possible, but he knew that there would come a time when he didn’t have a choice. “I couldn’t meet Endeavor’s expectations. I couldn’t even meet my own. Being here reminded me of that every day.”

Shouto clenched his hands into fists. “Is that why you left?”

“I don’t know why I left,” Ryouta said honestly. “I know that, as of my last memories, I wasn’t planning on leaving. I had so many ideas still. I thought I could beat the system and prove our father wrong.” He let out a frustrated breath of air. He’d had so many dreams. Had he simply been too worn down? Had he been beaten down so many times by himself, by this place, by his father that he’d given up? “I went to bed last night even thinking that I’d be able to get Mom out of the hospital. I’d become a hero and I’d make enough money to get her out and--” He looked back at his brother. “Where is Mom? Is she...is she still there?”

The stiff nod from Shouto confirmed Ryouta’s worst fears and he deflated. The last time he had seen their mom had been when he was fifteen right after he’d been accepted into U.A. He’d had to use her last name to get in, after all, since Endeavor would only let Shouto attend U.A. under the Todoroki name. Her doctor had been hesitant about him visiting and he knew that it was because they were worried that his presence would trigger an episode or panic attack. He’d worn a beanie and loose dark clothes that hung on him awkwardly. He had thought about wearing glasses as well. Anything to make him look different from the man that had put her there.

“I’ve started visiting her again and writing her,” Shouto put in. “Fuyumi and Natsuo too. We… I waited too long.”

“Wonder if anyone will tell her about me or if her doctors might consider it too much,” Ryouta murmured, mostly to himself. He said it offhand, but a large part of him yearned to see her, even though he was terrified that she would push him away. Maybe his appearance would only disrupt her healing. He was too afraid to ask. “How is she?”

A small smile appeared on Shouto’s face. “She’s doing better. She’s come a long way. I don’t know if she’s forgiven herself for what happened, but she’s started talking about it.”

“That’s good. That’s…” Ryouta nodded, his mouth dry. “Good.”

Somehow he knew that she hadn’t mentioned him, even if Shouto didn’t want to admit it. He had a feeling that none of them did after a while. It sounded very much like he’d cut off all contact with them and their father had made sure to burn every shred of his existence. It would be easier to pretend as if he either never existed or was dead. That was the Todoroki way. Their mother had loved her children, but things had always been complicated. He had never doubted that she loved him. Only, sometimes, he wondered if she liked him or wanted him around.

Part of it was his fault, he knew. As his training had progressed and things had steadily gotten worse, he’d started to develop his father’s temper as his quirk got stronger, both of them uncontrollable. He’d never directed it towards her or his siblings, but she had to have seen him lashing out. She had to have worried that he might turn on Shouto or the others. Maybe she never outright thought it, but Ryouta could remember her looking at him like she looked at Shouto sometimes, like she wasn’t seeing him. With Shouto, she could take a few breaths and the look would go away. With Ryouta, she would leave the room entirely without saying a word to him.

(Why did it have to be Shouto that got hurt then?)

Ryouta fell back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “I feel like I’ve missed so much - like so much has changed and yet some things are the same and I don’t--” Another person might’ve cried at this point. He thought that he should, but he couldn’t muster the energy or desire. It took a fucking lot to get him to that point. If seeing his father today hadn’t done that to him, this wouldn’t. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” Shouto admitted.

“I’m sorry,” Ryouta told him, trying to inject as much genuineness in his voice as possible. It would’ve been better if he’d sat up to look at him, but he didn’t want to get up. It was easier to say the words to the ceiling. “I know it means jack shit since I don’t even know what all I’ve done as Dabi, but I know enough to know that I’m a complete bastard.” He snorted. “That’s probably an underestimate.”

“You don’t have to apol--”

“No, I do.” Ryouta pushed himself back up and faced his brother. “Because I don’t know if I will when I turn back. I tried to be a good big brother, but… I failed in the worst way and that’s something I can never forgive myself for. I was selfish.” That old familiar feeling of anger bubbled inside of him, only this time it was directed at himself. What he would do to not be consumed by that sort of rage. He shoved it down. Now was not the time. “I can’t promise you that I’ll be better. All I can is do is work at it.”

This time, Shouto didn’t respond immediately and Ryouta couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He was looking down again at his hands. One ice, one fire. He had so much power. Even as a kid, back before his training, Ryouta had seen it and been afraid for him. No one should have that much strength, least of all a kid in Endeavor’s care. His own had been terrifying enough. He’d nearly burned his bedroom down when he was six after having a nightmare. It had put him in the hospital for a week. His father had been so furious. The training had gotten much harder after that, like he was irritated with him for showing his weakness in public.

“Just don’t leave again,” Shouto finally said. “I know things will be different when you turn back, but for now…”

Ryouta let out a breath that he’d been holding. “Yeah, I can do that.”

And he would. He swore it with everything in him.

@mistystarshine notes: Have some sibling feels, featuring: tangles of emotions, unreliable narrators, Todorokis Todoroking, and mountains of guilt! Did they address everything they need to talk about? Absolutely not. Neither of these two are gifted when it comes to initiating an emotional dialogue about serious matters. (Why do that when you can just wait for explosions?) On the bright side, unaddressed issues being addressed when they are inevitably forced to be means we get even more scenes with them later!

This marks the first chapter that I wrote a section of prose for! (Discounting a few lines of dialogue) It’s not much, but it’s there and if you notice any shift in the writing style, that’s probably why. I’m hoping we did a decent job of mixing it in though! There’ll be more from me later on, although the majority of it is likely to be later on in the story.

I am over the moon and so happy that people have been enjoying our fic!

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Daily Dose of MEDIA BIAS -> Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a separate proposal of their own yesterday to protect Mueller

FAKE NEWS uncovered at HoakAndChange.com

Mullet Wrapper @ Hoax And Change

Barack Hussein Obama and the drive by news media @ HoaxAndChange.com

Listen to The Big Idea

Mueller impaneling a grand jury makes it more politically difficult for Trump to fire him

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), right, questions newly confirmed FBI Director Christopher Wray during his confirmation hearing last month. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

BY JAMES HOHMANN with Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve

THE BIG IDEA: Last night’s news that Robert S. Mueller III has begun using a grand jury in federal court in Washington, as part of his investigation into possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, further boxes in the president and makes it more politically difficult to justify firing the special counsel.

— If President Trump ever lost the support of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), he just might be doomed. A former state House speaker, Tillis is a reliable Republican apparatchik whose vote party leadership can count on. So it was a big deal yesterday when he introduced legislation with a Democratic colleague, Chris Coons (Del.), to prevent Trump from firing Mueller without cause.

Tillis, known as a savvy political strategist, is clearly thinking ahead to what he realizes will be a very difficult reelection campaign in 2020. “It is critical that special counsels have the independence and resources they need to lead investigations,” he said in a news release.

The first-term senator toppled Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan in one of the nastiest and most expensive races of the 2014 midterm cycle. Trump carried the Tar Heel State last November by 4 points, and everyone expects it will be one of the key battlegrounds next time. “Our polls and others have found that Tillis has never been able to strengthen his position after going into office unpopular on the heels of winning a ‘lesser of two evils’ election where he got by largely based on the political climate,” said Raleigh-based Democratic pollster Tom Jensen, who runs Public Policy Polling. “The landscape is likely to be a lot different in 2020 unless things really turn around for the Trump administration, so it’s wise for Tillis to take steps that might make him look like ‘not just another Republican’ to appeal to Democrats and independents. Democrats still have about a 10-point registration advantage in North Carolina. So some reasonable threshold of crossover support is necessary for Tillis to win, and he hasn’t done a lot since getting elected that crosses across party lines. This seems like a smart step in that direction for him.”

North Carolina’s other Republican senator, Richard Burr, has already been leading the intelligence committee’s inquest into Russian interference. And many in the state remain proud of the role that the late Sen. Sam Ervin famously played during the Watergate investigation.

Graham slams Trump on Sessions, Mueller

— Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a separate proposal of their own yesterday to protect Mueller. “The two proposals … each seek to check the executive branch’s ability to fire a special counsel, by putting the question to a three-judge panel from the federal courts. They differ in when that panel gets to weigh in on the decision,” Karoun Demirjian explains. “Tillis and Coons’ proposal would let the firing proceed according to current regulations … but the fired special counsel would have the right to contest the administration’s decision in court. In that scenario, the judges panel would have two weeks from the day the special counsel’s case is filed to complete their review and determine whether the termination was acceptable. … Both senators, as well as Graham, said they expect they may merge their efforts after lawmakers return to Washington in September. … The lawmakers are not expecting that the president will like or support either proposal … But they say they are convinced that there is enough support to pass such a law, even over Trump’s objections.”

Jeff Sessions speaks at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia. (Matt Rourke/AP)

— Just how little do Senate Republicans trust Trump at this point? Before adjourning for summer recess yesterday afternoon, the chamber agreed by unanimous consent to block the president from being able to make any recess appointments while they’re out of town.

This was done so that Trump cannot fire Jeff Sessions as attorney general and then appoint someone without Senate confirmation who would be willing to fire Mueller. Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe after not being forthcoming during his confirmation hearing about contacts he had during the campaign with the Russian government. That leaves the decision over whether to fire Mueller to the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who says he would not do it without cause. But if Trump replaced Sessions with a new AG who was not conflicted out, that person could ax Mueller.

To head that off, GOP leaders scheduled nine “pro-forma” sessions over the next month. In other words, the Senate will be gaveled in for roughly a minute or so every three days between now and when lawmakers return after Labor Day. Legally this means that they will not be adjourned, The Hill explains.

Republicans used this same tactic last year to prevent Barack Obama from trying to put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court with a recess appointment.

— Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a fried of Sessions, already said last week that he would not make time in the Senate schedule to consider a new attorney general nominee.

— There are other reasons that Sessions also appears safe for now. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly called the AG on Saturday to tell him that his job is secure, per the Associated Press. He reassured him that the president does not plan to go through with firing him, even though he just spent the better part of two weeks publicly pressuring him to resign almost every day. If Trump tried to oust Mueller, would Gen. Kelly really put his own integrity on the line and be a party to that? Or would he pack his bags?

Donald Trump speaks last night during a rally in Huntington, W.Va. (Darron Cummings/AP)

— Trump is Trump, though, so you can never say never.

During a rally in West Virginia last night, the defiant president dismissed allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia as “a total fabrication.” “It’s just an excuse for the greatest loss in the history of American politics,” he said. “Trump made no mention of Mueller in his remarks but seemed to reference his and congressional investigations into the matter, saying: ‘I just hope the final determination is truly an honest one,’” per John Wagner. “He said that instead of looking at his campaign, prosecutors should be looking into his Democratic opponent from last year … The crowd chanted ‘lock her up!’ in return.”

— Reacting to reports about the grand jury on Fox News last night, meanwhile, Trump personal attorney Jay Sekulow insisted that “the president is not thinking about firing Robert Mueller.” “So the speculation that’s out there is just incorrect,” he told Neil Cavuto.

Every time a Trump lawyer or White House official says something like that publicly, it’s harder to justify getting rid of Mueller down the road. A good case would be made that the president changed his mind because of some meaningful development in the investigation. That would look like Trump is trying to interfere with the justice system, which would further inflame public opinion against him. Again, that doesn’t mean the president would not take his chances and try such a gambit if he was really desperate. But there’s now a batch of clips like this one from Sekulow on Fox that would be difficult to explain away.

Mueller asks White House to preserve records of Trump Tower meeting

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GRAND JURY:

— The Wall Street Journal’s Del Quentin Wilber and Byron Tau scooped that Mueller impaneled the grand jury several weeks ago and described it as “a sign that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry is ramping up and that it will likely continue for months”: “Before Mr. Mueller was tapped in May to be special counsel, federal prosecutors had been using at least one other grand jury, located in Alexandria, Va., to assist in their criminal investigation of Michael Flynn … That probe, which has been taken over by Mr. Mueller’s team, focuses on Mr. Flynn’s work in the private sector on behalf of foreign interests. ‘This is yet a further sign that there is a long-term, large-scale series of prosecutions being contemplated and being pursued by the special counsel,’ said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck. ‘If there was already a grand jury in Alexandria looking at Flynn, there would be no need to reinvent the wheel for the same guy. This suggests that the investigation is bigger and wider than Flynn, perhaps substantially so.’”

— Reuters added that the grand jury has already agreed to issue subpoenas in connection with the June 2016 meeting that included Trump’s son, son-in-law and a Russian lawyer. Karen Freifeld and John Walcott did not specify who specifically got the subpoenas.

— The Post swiftly confirmed the Journal’s reporting. Carol D. Leonnig, Sari Horwitz and Matt Zapotosky elaborate: “A White House adviser said the president and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had not received subpoenas, nor had the White House.Members of the president’s legal team met with Mueller three weeks ago to express their desire to work with his investigators. Ty Cobb, whom Trump appointed as White House special counsel, said of the grand jury: ‘This is news to me, but it’s welcome news to the extent it suggests that it may accelerate the resolution of Mr. Mueller’s work. The White House has every interest in bringing this to a prompt and fair conclusion. As we’ve said in the past, we’re committed to cooperating fully with Mr. Mueller.’

“In federal cases, a grand jury is not necessarily an indication that an indictment is imminent or even likely. Instead, it is a powerful investigative tool that prosecutors use to compel witnesses to testify or force people or companies to turn over documents.”

Carol, Sari and Matt outline four reasons why Mueller might have chosen to use a grand jury in the District, instead of sticking with the one in Alexandria, Va.:

“The special counsel’s office is located in Southwest D.C. — much closer to the federal courthouse in the city…

“Mueller also had previously worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C., giving him some familiarity with the courthouse and the judges…

“Many of the potential crimes Mueller’s team is investigating would have occurred in the District, such as allegations that Trump aides or advisers made false statements in disclosure records or lied to federal agents. The Post has previously reported that Mueller is investigating whether the president tried to obstruct justice leading up to his firing of (James) Comey. …

“Others said the choice could reflect Mueller’s reputation for planning ahead and gaming out a possible trial. He could have better chances convicting aides to Trump in a city in which 90 percent of voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

— Federal investigators “have seized on Trump and his associates’ financial ties to Russia as one of the most fertile avenues for moving their probe forward,” CNN’s Evan Perez, Pamela Brown and Shimon Prokupecz also reported yesterday: “Sources described an investigation that has widened to focus on possible financial crimes,some unconnected to the 2016 elections, alongside the ongoing scrutiny of possible illegal coordination with Russian spy agencies. … Even investigative leads that have nothing to do with Russia but involve Trump associates are being referred to the special counsel … The web of financial ties could offer a more concrete path toward potential prosecution than the broader and murkier questions of collusion in the 2016 campaign, these sources said. … [The] FBI is reviewing financial records related to the Trump Organization, as well as Trump, his family members, including Donald Trump Jr., and campaign associates. They’ve combed through the list of shell companies and buyers of Trump-branded real estate properties and scrutinized the roster of tenants at Trump Tower reaching back more than a half-dozen years. They’ve looked at the backgrounds of Russian business associates connected to Trump surrounding the 2013 Miss Universe pageant. CNN could not determine whether the review has included his tax returns.”

— Meanwhile, acting FBI director Andrew McCabe told several top officials at the bureau to consider themselves “possible witnesses” in any investigation into whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice. Vox’s Murray Waas reports: “McCabe has told colleagues that he too is a potential witness in the probe of whether Trump broke the law by trying to thwart the FBI’s Russia investigation … Two senior federal law enforcement officials have told me that the new revelations illustrate why they believe the potential case against Trump is stronger than outsiders have thought. ‘What you are going to have is the potential for a powerful obstruction case,’ a senior law enforcement official said. ‘You are going to have the [former] FBI director testify, and then the acting director, the chief of staff to the FBI director, the FBI’s general counsel, and then others, one right after another. This has never been the word of Trump against what [Comey] has had to say. This is more like the Federal Bureau of Investigation versus Donald Trump.’”

Michael Flynn arrives for a news conference at the White House before his departure as national security adviser. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

— “Flynn filed an amended federal financial disclosure report late Thursday providing new details about his contracts with the Trump presidential transition, a company connected to an Iranian American businessman, and the parent company of a data science firm that worked for the Trump campaign,” Tom Hamburger and Matea Gold report. In a letter accompanying the revised disclosure, Flynn says his initial disclosure reports were filed under “rushed circumstances,” and were not afforded customary consultation and review by White House counsel and the Office of Government Ethics, since he was no longer a White House employee at the time.

“In a previous disclosure … Flynn reported receiving nearly $68,000 in fees and expenses from Russia-related entities in 2015. In addition to the Russia-related income, Thursday’s filing showed that Flynn received at least $5,000 as a consultant to a project to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East.”

“The updated disclosure also confirms that Flynn had agreed to work with the SCL Group, at the time the British parent company of Cambridge Analytica, a data science company [was] hired by [Trump’s] campaign. One of Cambridge’s main financiers is [Robert Mercer].”

“The largest source of income disclosed is $140,000 for Flynn’s work as an adviser and consultant to Minneapolis-based NJK Holding Corp. That firm is led by Nasser Kazeminy, an Iranian-born businessman now living in the United States.” (For context, Flynn received about $28,000 from the Trump presidential transition.) “NJK funds a technology firm called GreenZone Systems to which Flynn serves as vice chairman,” Tom and Matea report. “GreenZone is led by Bijan Kian, Flynn’s business partner in Flynn Intel, a company now under scrutiny for its role in lobbying work for a Dutch-based business linked to the government of Turkey.”

— Marc Kasowitz, the New York lawyer whose role has been downsized but continues to represent Trump in the Russia investigations, has also been retained by Sberbank — a Russian state bank being sued in federal district court in Manhattan. The New York Times’s Andrew E. Kramer reports: “The bank is being sued by a Russian businessman, Sergey P. Poymanov, who has sparred with it for years in Russian courts. … The potential for Russia’s meddling elsewhere — in American courts — has raised concerns among Mr. Poymanov’s lawyers, who are not convinced that Mr. Kasowitz’s ties to Mr. Trump played no role in Sberbank’s choosing him.”

Listen to James’s quick summary of today’s Big Idea and the headlines you need to know to start your day:

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HOW LAST NIGHT’S NEWS IS PLAYING ON SOCIAL MEDIA: From the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee:

The former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who got fired after being told by Trump that he’d be kept on, said impaneling a grand jury is to be expected:

From the chief ethics lawyer in George W. Bush’s White House from 2005 to 2007:

From a former spokesman in Obama’s Justice Department:

Many rank-and-file House Democrats had a field day. From a Texas congressman who has been calling for Trump’s impeachment:

From a California Democrat:

Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost’s morning briefing for decision-makers. Sign up to receive the newsletter.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:

Police are seen inside Trump Tower in Manhattan. (John Taggart for The Washington Post)

— The Secret Service has vacated its command post inside Trump Tower in New York following a lease dispute between the federal government and the Trump Organization, which the president still controls. Carol D. Leonnig, David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell scooped last night: “Previously, the Secret Service had stationed its command post — which houses supervisors and backup agents on standby in case of an emergency — in a Trump Tower unit one floor below the president’s apartment. But in early July, the post was relocated to a trailer on the sidewalk, more than 50 floors below, a distance that some security experts worry could hamper the agency that protects the president’s home and family. The details of the dispute … were not clear Thursday. Two people familiar with the discussions said the sticking points included the price and other conditions of the lease.” On Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said the government should seek space in another location.

GET SMART FAST:

Iran cast new U.S. sanctions on the country as a “violation” of the nuclear deal, promising to respond in kind to what it calls American aggression. (Erin Cunningham)

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan this week after their convoy was hit by an explosive-packed vehicle. The Pentagon identified the soldiers as paratroopers on their first deployment. They are the eighth and ninth Americans killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan this year. (Thomas Gibbons-Neff)

Fourteen Saudi Shiites accused of staging protests in the kingdom have been charged with terrorism and are now facing execution. But human rights activists have argued the minority Shiites confessed under torture, and they’ve launched a public appeal to Saudi Arabia’s new crown prince to dismiss the sentences. (Sudarsan Raghavan)

Michelle Carter, the 20-year-old whose texts and phone calls pushed her boyfriend to suicide, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter. Lawyers have said her case could have national implications as courts grapple with how to approach such interactions in the digital age. (Lindsey Bever and Kristine Phillips)

Authorities will start allowing tourists to cross the bridge into North Carolina’s Outer Banks again at noon today. The vacation spot has been vacant since a major power outage caused chaos and evacuations. (Sarah Kaplan)

Police are searching for a Northwestern University professor and a University of Oxford employee who are accused of killing a hairstylist in Chicago last weekbefore skipping town. The case has attracted international attention, although it is unclear what connection the employees of the elite universities have to one another or to the victim. (Andrew deGrandpre)

Sean Spicer has reportedly turned down an offer to join “Dancing with the Stars.” Sources close to him cited too many fall commitments, but one person noted, “He’s not a good dancer.” (TMZ)

Trump’s West Virginia rally, in three minutes

PARTY SWITCHER:

— During Trump’s rally last night in West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice announced that he was switching his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican. Abby Phillip reports: “‘The Democrats walked away from me,’ Justice told the crowd of thousands gathered[.] … ‘I can’t help you any more being a Democrat governor.’ ‘As a coach, I would tell you that it’s time to run another play,’ he added. Justice, who until 2015 was registered as a Republican, is one of the last remaining Democrats elected to statewide positions in the state. Trump won West Virginia by 42 points over Democrat Hillary Clinton. … After being brought to the stage in the middle of Trump’s rally, Justice praised Trump as a ‘great president.’ He also touted his relationships with Trump’s children, including Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., both of whom he said he has gotten to know personally.”

“Justice’s announcement was made under virtual secrecy, according to Democratic Party officials, who said that the governor did not inform the party nor did he inform his own staff before the news became public. Democrats blasted Justice’s announcement and suggested that the coal and hospitality executive was influenced by his personal financial interest — to say nothing of his political ones — when he made the switch. … The switch would be the first time that a Democratic governor has switched to the Republican Party since 1991. … With Justice’s defection, Republicans now control 34 governor’s mansions and Democrats, only 15.”

— With Justice’s move, the current number of Republican governors stands at a record high. (Amber Phillips)

— West Virginia’s senators had distinct reactions to the announcement:

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (up for reelection next year): “I have been and always will be a proud West Virginia Democrat. I am disappointed by Governor Justice’s decision to switch parties. While I do not agree with his decision, I have always said that I will work with anyone, no matter their political affiliation, to do what is best for the people of West Virginia.”

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito: “The Republican Party represents the future of West Virginia. … As the lead Republican in West Virginia, I stand ready to work with him …”

— Trump has long been popular in West Virginia, which is why the president chose to hold a rally there and what made the event so perfect for Justice’s surprise announcement. Jenna Johnson reports: “[West Virginia is] the first place where [Trump] hit No. 1 in a poll of possible presidential contenders in 2011, when he considered running but did not. When Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2016, he celebrated with a rally in West Virginia’s largest city, Charleston. … Hours before the doors opened for the rally Thursday, hundreds of Trump supporters from miles around gathered in downtown Huntington — and weathered a torrential rainstorm that hit late in the afternoon.”

— Trump last night pledged to “solve” the opioid epidemic, which has devastated Huntington. The town made headlines last year after 26 overdoses occurred in less than three hours. (STAT’s Andrew Joseph)

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly attends President Trump’s rally in West Virginia. (Saul Loeb/Getty Images)

THE GENERAL TAKES OVER:

— In his first week as chief of staff, John Kelly has quickly moved to impose military discipline on the White House – with a suddenness and force that has “upended” the West Wing status quo. The New York Times’s Glenn Thrush, Michael D. Shear and Eileen Sullivan report: “Mr. Kelly cuts off rambling advisers midsentence. He listens in on conversations between cabinet secretaries and the president. He has booted lingering staff members out of high-level meetings, and ordered the doors of the Oval Office closed to discourage strays. He … has demanded that even Mr. Trump’s family, including [Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner], check with him if they want face time with the president…

“Mr. Kelly, 67, has told his new employees that he was hired to manage the staff, not the president. He will not try to change Mr. Trump’s Twitter or TV-watching habits. But he has also said he wants to closely monitor the information the president consumes … and limit the posse of people urging Mr. Trump to tweet something they feel passionately about. He has privately acknowledged that he cannot control the president … Instead, he is intent on cosseting Mr. Trump with bureaucratic competence and forcing staff members to keep to their lanes.”

— “Several times I’ve been on phone conversations with the president over the last couple of days and General Kelly has been on those conversations as well,” OMB director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday.

— Kelly’s extensive military experience likely prepared him to work with civilian officials – but not necessarily Trump. Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey reports: “There’s a significant difference between learning to protect and respect US institutions and knowing how to, say, mobilize moderate Republicans to support the agenda of an increasingly unpopular president. General school, and serving at the summit of military command, doesn’t necessarily prepare a leader for the realities of legislative tactics and political combat. … Also good judgment — from a general’s perspective — doesn’t always synch with Trump’s favored mode of decision-making, or his decisions.”

— “Empowered by a new chief of staff and goosed by a president angry with a perceived lack of creativity, [H.R. McMaster] is sweeping out some of the White House’s most fervent ideologues,” the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay, Asawin Suebsaeng and Kimberly Dozier report: “But McMaster has to move fast … The hardline nationalists at the core of Trump’s political base have declared war on the president’s top national security aide, and his own role is by no means secure. ‘The president hasn’t liked the plans he’s been presented on Iran, Afghanistan, or ISIS,’ one of the officials [said]. ‘The process hasn’t worked like it should,’ to produce the innovative plans [Trump] tasked his team with crafting … So McMaster has been removing anyone on his team who either obstructed his own vision or had trouble rallying the other agencies around particular policy … The firings buy McMaster time to put his own people in place, but if he doesn’t come up with new plans quickly, his own role is at risk.”

— Kelly’s arrival has provided McMaster with some much-needed cover. Politico’s Bryan Bender, Josh Dawsey and Nahal Toosi report: “Kelly told McMaster this week that he wanted him to remain as national security adviser, said two senior White House aides, and has encouraged him to make any staffing changes he deems necessary. … [McMaster] has been an increasingly volatile presence in the West Wing[.] … McMaster has bristled at White House aides close to Trump whom he perceives as undercutting his authority. He seethes over every national security leak and lashes out over negative news stories he thinks are spread by his enemies. And McMaster, whose temper is legendary, frequently blows his top in high-level meetings. … The officials also said that McMaster fumes that he believes [Steve] Bannon is responsible for leaking negative information about him to the news media— including via Breitbart.com[.]”

— McMaster has concluded that Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice did nothing wrong in her “unmasking” requests of Trump officials, Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reported yesterday. And Circa, a conservative outlet that has earned a reputation as carrying water for certain factions in the White House, reports that McMaster sent Rice a letter during the last week of April, informing her that she could keep her security clearance, and waiving her “need-to-know” requirement on anything she viewed or received during her tenure. The leak was almost certainly orchestrated by someone who is anti-McMaster and wants to sideline him.

President Trump takes a call in the Oval Office. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

HOW TRUMP TALKS WHEN HE’S NOT AT RALLIES:

— The Post obtained two transcripts from Trump’s calls with Mexican President Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, which provide an unfiltered glimpse of Trump’s approach to the diplomatic aspect of his job. (It’s really worth taking the time to read the full transcripts here.)

In his first call with Mexico’s president, Trump described his vow to charge Mexico for his proposed border wall as a “political problem,” and pressured Peña Nieto to stop saying publicly that his country would “never pay.” Greg Miller scoops: “‘You cannot say that to the press,’ Trump said repeatedly, according to a transcript of the Jan. 27 call … Trump made clear that he realized the funding would have to come from other sources but threatened to cut off contact if [Peña Nieto] continued to make defiant statements. The funding ‘will work out in the formula somehow,’ Trump said, adding later that ‘it will come out in the wash, and that is okay.’ But ‘if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.’ He described the wall as ‘the least important thing we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important.’

“Trump seemed to acknowledge that his threats to make Mexico pay had left him cornered politically. ‘I have to have Mexico pay for the wall — I have to,’ he said. ‘I have been talking about it for a two-year period.’ When Peña Nieto resisted, Trump said, ‘But you cannot say that to the press. The press is going to go with that, and I cannot live with that.'”

He also lashed out at the Mexican leader over the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, complaining to Peña Nieto that America has a “massive drug problem” because “drugs are being sold for less money than candy.” He added: “I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den.” (Hillary won New Hampshire in the general election.)

— Trump’s call the following day with Australian Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull was even more contentious. What started out as a cordial exchange quickly devolved into a blistering one over a United States agreement enacted under Obama to accept refugees from Australian detention centers. “‘I hate taking these people,’ Trump told Turnbull. ‘I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people…’” At one point, Trump suggests the refugees could “become the Boston bomber in five years.” “I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made,” Trump said. “As far as I am concerned, that is enough, Malcolm. I have had it.”

— New Hampshire political leaders of both parties expressed outrage about Trump calling their state “a drug-infested den”: “The President is wrong,” Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement Thursday … “It’s disappointing his mischaracterization of this epidemic ignores the great things this state has to offer.” And all four members of the congressional delegation rejected the comments, with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen urging the president to “follow through on his promise” to help end the opioid crisis. “It’s absolutely unacceptable for the President to be talking about NH in this way — a gross misrepresentation of NH & the epidemic,” she tweeted.

— Trump’s statement also grossly misrepresents the crisis that New Hampshire is facing. Christopher Ingraham explains: “The state does indeed have a serious drug problem — in 2015, New Hampshire was second only to West Virginia in its rate of drug overdose deaths[.] … But the drugs driving that spike are primarily produced not in Mexico, but in China.”

— The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee called for a congressional investigation of how the transcripts got leaked. Sen. Mark Warner described the leaking as “absolutely” troubling. (The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein)

Cornyn unveils border security bill

TRUMP’S AGENDA:

— A group of Republican senators, led by Majority Whip John Cornyn (Texas), proposed a $15 billion project to bolster border security. “The legislation … comes asa rebuke to the president for his singular focus on getting a border wall built and getting Mexico to pay for it,” Karoun Demirojian reports. “It also comes as a rejection of the House GOP leaders, who recently pledged to fully fund Trump’s wall, approving the first $1.6 billion installment on it as part of the House’s recently passed defense authorization bill. … The legislation also gives Republican lawmakers an immigration platform to latch onto that has enjoyed widespread support in the past[.]”

— Trump has decided to postpone an announcement on trade with China that was scheduled for today. Politico’s Andrew Restuccia, Tara Palmeri and Doug Palmer report: “Sources previously [said] Trump was slated to hold an event at the White House on Friday in which he would direct U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to open an investigation … over what the administration views as Chinese violations of U.S. intellectual property rights and forced technology transfer. … Although Trump is still expected to instruct Lighthizer to carry out the investigation as early as next week, his administration has been marked by several delays on the trade front.”

— The EPA said it has reversed a decision to put off the Oct. 1 implementation of an Obama-era ozone rule, a move that comes one day after 16 states sued over the delay. Darryl Fears reports: “With no mention of the challenges from states such as California, New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington, [EPA head Scott Pruitt] … said in a statement that he would now work ‘with the states through the complex designation process.’ In the statement, Pruitt asserted that the Clean Air Act gave his agency ‘the flexibility to allow one additional year for sufficient information to support ozone designations,’ and said he might take ‘future action to use its delay authority.’”

Trump’s festering issues with Congress

BYE BYE CONGRESS:

— Despite its flurry of activity yesterday, the Senate begins summer recess today with no major legislation under its belt despite GOP control of all three branches of government. Sean Sullivan reports: “By their own accounts, Republicans have failed to enact the ambitious agenda they embarked upon when Trump and the GOP majorities swept into power in January. The president has fallen well short of the legislative pace his two predecessors set in their first six months on the job. The lack of a signature accomplishment Republican lawmakers can highlight at home this month has given rise to a new level of finger-pointing and soul-searching in a party that stood triumphant eight months ago after winning back full control of the federal government. … Now, there is a tension about the way forward.”

— “This is not how Mitch McConnell wanted to head into recess,” writes Paul Kane: “Soon after Memorial Day, [McConnell] drew up a game plan around approving a rewrite of the Affordable Care Act by the end of June. … Also, McConnell wanted to create separation between the conclusion of the health-care debate and the start of the annual August recess, providing the month of July to rack up victories on other legislative matters. … Instead, everything got consumed by the health-care storm, which culminated in the bill failing by a single vote last week. … When they return after Labor Day, Republicans have to tackle several must-pass bills to fund federal agencies and to increase the Treasury’s borrowing authority. … That leaves October, maybe, for the point to legislative offense, particularly on the bid to overhaul the tax code. … But by every possible measure, the Senate has been a shell of its former legislative self this year.”

— The Republicans are also leaving Washington with no consensus on a way forward on health care. Politico’s Jennifer Haberkorn and Paul Demko report: “Senate leaders want to just drop the issue altogether. Conservatives say they’re still fighting for repeal. Moderates want to launch a bipartisan effort to fix the shaky Obamacare system. … The August recess will mark the first time lawmakers have been home for an extended period since the repeal effort collapsed in the Senate. After seven years of campaigning against the law, this break marks the first time in nearly a decade that the GOP hasn’t aligned its talking points against the Affordable Care Act.”

— “Right-to-try” legislation unanimously sailed through the Senate yesterday. The measure is designed to make it easier for terminally ill patients to access experimental treatments without FDA oversight. The bill, which is now heading to the House for a vote, would bar the government from blocking patients from getting access to medications that have undergone only preliminary testing in humans. (Laurie McGinley)

— The Senate voted to confirm three of Trump’s ambassadors before leaving town. Politico’s Paul Dallison reports: “Former Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas will be the U.S. ambassador to NATO … Richard Wood Johnson IV — known as Woody … was confirmed as the ambassador to the U.K. Johnson, whose father was president of pharma giant Johnson & Johnson, was a supporter of Jeb Bush in the race for the White House but switched allegiance to Trump in May 2016 … George Edward Glass will be be ambassador to Portugal. Glass is owner of a firm in Oregon which purchases and operates apartment complexes and rental homes, and a Republican donor. According to the Portuguese American Journal, Glass ‘visited Portugal once.’” Meanwhile, financer Lewis Eisenberg was confirmed as envoy to Italy and San Marino.”

— The Senate voted to confirm two FCC nominees, approving Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Brendan Carr for seats on the commission. Lawmakers have not yet reconfirmed GOP Chairman Ajit Pai to another term. (Politico)

Matryoshka dolls depict President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a store in Moscow. (Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg News)

THE NEW WORLD ORDER:

— Trump blamed Congress for deteriorating relations with Russia, not Vladimir Putin. The president’s criticisms, which came one day after he begrudgingly signed legislation imposing new sanctions on Moscow, caused an uproar on Capitol Hill. John Wagner and Karoun Demirjian report: “Lawmakers from both parties pushed back against Trump’s tweet Thursday. Those included Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who pinned blame for the deteriorating U.S.-Russia relationship ‘solely’ on [Putin]. ‘I know there’s some frustration. I get it,’ Corker said, speaking of Trump’s reaction to the sanctions bill. ‘We acted in the country’s national interest in doing this. Putin, through his actions, is the one who has taken this relationship back to levels we haven’t seen since 1991.’ Those actions, Corker said, include ‘an affront to the American people’ by meddling in last year’s presidential election. Lawmakers’ solidarity in tying Trump’s hands on Russian sanctions reflects a deepening concern about the White House’s posture toward Moscow.”

— Meanwhile, Russia and its proxy, Bashar al-Assad, are attempting to poach U.S.-backed fighters in southern Syria — an apparent bid to oust the coalition from a strategic piece of land that is critical to the future of the region. CNN’s Ryan Browne reports: “So far, the coalition says there has only been ‘less than a handful’ of defections from the US-backed Maghawir al-Thawra group, one of the larger units based at At Tanf. … US Army Col. Ryan Dillon [said] one of the defectors was actively attempting to recruit his former comrades … but added that those efforts were having no measurable success to date. … (One official said) that the leader of the recruitment effort … has promised would-be recruits positions in the regime’s armed forces as they clear their homelands in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. This has has prompted the US military to be concerned about more defections in the future given that the regime has blocked the coalition and its allies from advancing on that same area.”

— The United States is trying to send antitank missiles to Ukraine, but the move may be too late to make a difference. Alex Horton reports: “Defense Department and State Department officials have pushed to arm Ukrainian troops with lethal aid to counter Russian-backed separatists fighting for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. But it remains unclear what, if anything, the delivery of an unknown number of [antitank missile] Javelins could do to alter a battle that has mostly been relegated to artillery bombardment and nighttime skirmishes in no man’s land. … The high cost and doubtful utility on the current battlefield suggest the Javelin procurement is about sending a message of strong deterrence from Washington.”

Democratic National Committee: ‘DNC Chair addresses Nissan union battle’ | Campaign

THE ROAD AHEAD FOR DEMOCRATS:

— Nancy Pelosi’s role as the leader of House Democrats may be in more trouble than the party establishment realizes. McClatchy’s Alex Roarty reports: “In a survey of 20 Democratic House candidates, only one – a former Senate staffer from Orange County, California – would state support for the congresswoman staying on as leader of the House Democratic Caucus. Of the rest, 18 declined to say if Pelosi should keep her job, while one, a political newcomer from a culturally conservative Ohio district, said he would vote for someone other than Pelosi. … But it’s not easy for Democratic candidates to oppose her. Pushing away Pelosi means pushing away the donors who are close to her[.]”

— DNC Chairman Tom Perez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered last-minute encouragement to workers at a Mississippi Nissan plant trying to organize, an effort that is expected to fail. David Weigel reports: “Sanders, U.S. Democrats and a cluster of progressive political organizations have spotlighted the … union drive all year: In March, Sanders was at the head of a march on the plant, linking the organizers’ cause to the fight for civil rights. Since then, Nissan has deployed tactics that have helped blunt or block union drives in other right-to-work states. The company has issued dark warnings of how unionization could cost jobs, and it has enlisted Republican politicians to attack the [United Auto Workers’] efforts.”

— Targeting Trump voters, progressives yesterday launched the “Not One Penny” campaign to oppose any tax overhaul slashing taxes for the wealthy. David Weigel reports: “Starting today, the Not One Penny campaign includes a seven-figure ad buy in eight Republican-held congressional districts[,] all with large numbers of white voters without college degrees, who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 but have not historically been passionate about tax cuts. It’s a fraction of what pro-tax reform groups like the American Action Network have pledged, but it mirrors what progressive groups and allies did during the effort to stop the Obamacare repeal in the Senate.”

Hundreds of protesters gather on the steps of the State Capitol Building in St. Paul, Minn., on Friday, June 16, after a police officer was acquitted in the fatal shooting of Philando Castile.

ALARMING:

— “FIRED/REHIRED: Police chiefs are often forced to put officers fired for misconduct back on the streets,” by Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich: “”Since 2006, the nation’s largest police departments have fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct that betrayed the public’s trust, from cheating on overtime to unjustified shootings. But [The Post] has found that departments have been forced to reinstate more than 450 officers after appeals required by union contracts. Most of the officers regained their jobs when police chiefs were overruled by arbitrators, typically lawyers hired to review the process. In many cases, the underlying misconduct was undisputed, but arbitrators often concluded that the firings were unjustified because departments had been too harsh, missed deadlines, lacked sufficient evidence or failed to interview witnesses … A San Antonio police officer caught on a dash cam challenging a handcuffed man to fight him for the chance to be released was reinstated in February. In the District, an officer convicted of sexually abusing a young woman in his patrol car was ordered returned to the force in 2015. And in Boston, an officer was returned to work in 2012 despite being accused of lying, drunkenness and driving a suspected gunman from the scene of a nightclub killing.”

SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED READ:

Trump tweeted early this morning about the strong economy and the love he felt from West Virginians:

Another presidential tweet caused a stir on Capitol Hill:

Congressional Republicans rebutted Trump’s argument:

Quotes from the transcript of Trump’s phone call with the Australian prime minister raised eyebrows:

CNBC’s Washington correspondent put in a request for another transcript:

Just hours before West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced that he was becoming a Republican, the state’s GOP posted this tweet:

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke tried to bury the hatchet with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) after he allegedly threatened her entire state’s agenda:

The Economist went there on the North Korea issue:

The new cover of Newsweek mocked Trump’s productivity level:

Breitbart went after H.R. McMaster:

From a Politico columnist:

Anthony Scaramucci tried to move on:

Organization for Action’s communications director weighed in on the Secret Service’s move from Trump Tower:

Members of the media joked about Mueller impaneling a grand jury. From a Time editor:

From a Mic writer:

From a HuffPost reporter:

A Rolling Stone opinion writer offered a throwback to one of Trump’s die-hard supporters:

And the New York Times’s television critic commented on Sean Spicer’s decision not to participate in Dancing with the Stars:

GOOD READS FROM ELSEWHERE:

— Bloomberg Businessweek, “Is Gary Cohn a Good Pick to Head the Fed?” by Jeanna Smialek, Max Abelson, and Dakin Campbell: “Cohn, 56, would be like a bulldog guiding an institution of eggheads, according to interviews with more than a dozen people who’ve either worked with him or worked at the Fed. His fierce personality, forged over years on Goldman’s trading floors, could clash with a culture built on slow, contemplative collaboration. ‘Gary is definitely an instinctual thinker,’ says Michael Dubno, who was the chief technology officer at Goldman before he left in 2005. He saw Cohn as aggressive and blunt, someone who would make threats and not veil them. ‘Whether he can go really deep on things or not,’ he says, ‘I don’t know.’”

— New York Times Magazine, “For the New Far Right, YouTube Has Become the New Talk Radio,” by John Herrman: “They are monologuists, essayists, performers and vloggers … inveighing vigorously against the political left and mocking the ‘mainstream media’ … They deplore ‘social justice warriors,’ whom they credit with ruining popular culture, conspiring against the populace and helping to undermine ‘the West.’ They are fixated on the subjects of immigration, Islam and political correctness. … [And] the zealous defense of ideas for which audiences believe they’re seen as stupid, cruel or racist is made possible with simple inversion: Actually, it’s everyone else who is stupid, cruel or racist, and their ‘consensus’ is a conspiracy intended to conceal the unspoken feelings of a silent majority. Trump has developed an intuition for this kind of audience cultivation; so have countless pundits, broadcasters, salespeople and politicians of different populist political stripes. But Exley, in his final analysis of B.P.S., points to an especially apt historical parallel: conservative talk radio.”

— Politico Magazine, “The Ugly History of Stephen Miller’s ‘Cosmopolitan’ Epithet,” by Jeff Greenfield: “So what is a ‘cosmopolitan’? It’s a cousin to ‘elitist,’ but with a more sinister undertone. It’s a way of branding people or movements that are unmoored to the traditions and beliefs of a nation, and identify more with like-minded people regardless of their nationality. … In the eyes of their foes, ‘cosmopolitans’ tend to cluster in the universities, the arts and in urban centers, where familiarity with diversity makes for a high comfort level with ‘untraditional’ ideas and lives.”

— Slate, “The Warrior Caste,” by Amy Schafer: “When the new White House chief of staff, then a Marine general, John Kelly received a knock on the door in November 2010, he became the highest-ranking military officer to lose a child in combat. … In the United States, perhaps the strongest predictor of military service is having a family member who served—allowing for extended family members, it averages to about 80 percent of new recruits across the services. … The military draws many recruits from the same communities and the same families, isolating those in uniform from society and vice versa. In essence, the self-selection dynamics have created a ‘warrior caste.’”

HOT ON THE LEFT

“A Game of Cat and Mouse With High Stakes: Deportation,” fromthe New York Times: “In New York City, judges, defense lawyers and clients have been on high alert for months, watching to see if immigration enforcement officers, many in plain clothes, are in a courthouse. … When officers for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, are thought to be in a courthouse, a sympathetic judge might reschedule a defendant’s appearance, or, in a seemingly perverse move, set bail that could send a defendant to Rikers Island — keeping the person out of ICE’s hands because the jail complex does not turn over undocumented immigrants to the agency.”

HOT ON THE RIGHT

“Wasserman Schultz talks about arrested aide Imran Awan,” fromSun-Sentinel: “Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz defiantly stands by her decision to keep an information technology aide on her payroll for six months after he was banned from the House network and fired by other members of Congress. ‘I believe that I did the right thing, and I would do it again,’ Wasserman Schultz said Thursday[.] … ‘It would have been easier for me to just fire him,’ she said. The Weston Democrat did fire Imran Awan last week after he was arrested on bank fraud charges at an airport while trying to leave the country.”

DAYBOOK:

Trump has a morning briefing from FEMA on hurricane season. He also has a lunch with Pence and an afternoon phone call with the French president. Trump will later travel from the White House to his New Jersey golf club.

Upcoming: Pence will keynote the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity’s signature annual event on Aug. 19. It’ll be Pence’s first speech at a Koch event since becoming vice president.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“We have the president’s Twitter feed.” — White House adviser Sebastian Gorka replying to a question on Fox News about the administration’s options for pressuring China to act on North Korea.

NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:

— Another storm may hit D.C. today, but it should be clear over the weekend. The Capital Weather Gang forecasts: “Above-average heat and near-tropical humidity. At least it’s stirred with a moderate southerly breeze around 5 to 15 mph. Thunderstorm chances are fairly low, with about 20 percent of locales in our region potentially seeing something pop during the day, mainly late; however, downpours are possible, as is plentiful lightning. … Upper 80s to perhaps a few mid-90s are possible, so dress as lightly as possible!”

— Mike Pence is slated to fundraise for Virginia gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie later this month, a spokesman for Gillespie confirmed. The announcement comes as Gillespie, a former RNC chairman and White House counsel under George W. Bush, has more openly embraced Trump after largely keeping his distance during the primary. (Fenit Nirappil)

VIDEOS OF THE DAY:

Stephen Colbert wants to serve on Robert Mueller’s grand jury:

Stephen Wants On Robert Mueller’s Grandy Jury

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) explained the significance of the grand jury on Seth Meyers’s show:

Congressman Adam Schiff on What a Grand Jury Means for the Trump Russia Investigation

In light of Gov. Jim Justice’s announcement, The Post looked at five other politicians who have switched parties:

5 politicians who switched parties

The Post’s Marc Fisher explains Trump’s affinity for golf, despite his distaste for exercise:

What Trump’s golfing habits say about him

Lara Trump’s “real news” program differed from the major headlines of the week:

Trump’s ‘real news’ show vs. mainstream news

The path of a Boeing test flight bore great resemblance to the aircraft itself:

Watch a Boeing Dreamliner draw a giant outline of itself

And a ten-month-old won Lithuania’s “fastest crawler” competition:

10-month-old wins ‘fastest crawler’ competition

Daily Dose of MEDIA BIAS -> Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a separate proposal of their own yesterday to protect Mueller Daily Dose of MEDIA BIAS -> Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a separate proposal of their own yesterday to protect Mueller…

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