Summary: Hermione's Plan: Travel back in time and show Severus Snape that he does have a life worth fighting for. Not Hermione's Plan: Fall in love with him. (author)
You could go back to the primary days and read headlines I wrote about then-candidate Joe Biden...
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (AKA: Kos) is the founder of Daily Kos, a leading progressive blog founded at the dawn of political blogging.
An early Elizabeth Warren supporter (like me), he now thinks in retrospect that Joe Biden was the best possible candidate to defeat Donald Trump.
It hurts so much to admit it, because it says things about America that we all wish weren’t true (mainly, that we still have a long way to go on equality), but not only were they right to place all the chips on Biden, but he may very well be the only Democrat who could’ve beaten Trump last year. By virtue of his race, gender, and sexual orientation, Biden avoided the visceral, vitriolic hatred that conservatives muster up for anyone that doesn’t look or love like them. Given the historic progressive turnout and tight margins in key states, would anyone truly want to bet that Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, or my own political love, Elizabeth Warren, would’ve done just as good or better? It truly was Biden or bust, and South Carolina’s Black community pulled the right lever.
Yes, it was African-Americans in the South Carolina Democratic primary last year who saw this clearly and propelled Biden to victory in the primary. With that momentum, Biden went on to win most of a string of primaries over the next couple of weeks and became the inevitable nominee by the time the COVID lockdowns set in.
Biden’s image has made him a difficult political target for Republicans to hit.
Imagine anyone else with the exact same agenda. Imagine it was President Harris, or President Warren, or President Sanders, with the exact same $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, and the same exact multi-trillion dollar infrastructure and child care and healthcare plans. Imagine them mouthing the same words Biden has. Literally, just swap out the president and leave everything else the same. And tell me there wouldn’t be massive nationwide conservative tea party 2.0 protests against them. Yet with Biden, that old, relatively boring white guy? Crickets.
It may be difficult for some people to accept that personality plays a big role in politics. But historically, personality helped Ronald Reagan push through a lot of bad policies. And now the Anti-Reagan in the White House is doing his best to neutralize much of the Reagan agenda.
Meanwhile, progressives can’t believe what’s happening. “One thing that I will say is that I do think that the Biden administration and President Biden have exceeded expectations that progressives had,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. “I’ll be frank, I think a lot of us expected a lot more conservative administration.” Sanders said, “[Biden] was a moderate Democrat throughout his time in the Senate, who had the courage to look at the moment and say, you know what? The future of American democracy is at stake, tens of millions of people are struggling economically. They’re really in pain. Our kids are hurting. Seniors are hurting. I’ve got to act boldly. And Biden deserves credit for that.”
[ ... ]
And thus, at 100 days, we’re witnessing a transformative presidency, more consequential than anything since forever. (I’ll let historians pin an actual date on that.) And he’s done so despite a 50-50 Senate with zero Republican votes, freakin’ Joe Manchin gumming everything he possibly can, and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema utterly misreading her state. Imagine what we might be able to do if Democrats can get some breathing room in the Senate next year and hold the House.
Yes, imagine Democrats in 2022 picking up a couple more Senate seats while retaining control of the House despite GOP voter suppression efforts. It will take a united and robust party to keep Republicans at bay.
In the last cycle, Georgia gave a big thumbs down to Trump AND defeated two incumbent Republican US senators; so where there’s energy and a unified effort, what was once considered impossible may now be within reach.
The current situation isn’t perfect, but it’s better than anything I could have reasonably expected over a year ago.
So here’s a toast to being wrong, so utterly wrong, so wrong wrong wrong. So were you, even if you supported Biden. You didn’t see this coming. That’s okay! Neither did anyone else. Even if he never let on, it was progressive energy that delivered Biden’s victory, and he is paying that effort back.
I just think that the Hogwarts grading system is really funny, with 'Exceeds Expectations' being the second best grade you can get..Cause if there's a student that usually gets 'Troll' or 'Dreadful' and just about when all hope is lost, their performance in one test is 'Poor', wouldn't that mean that they have exceeded expectations?
I bet Fred and George used that against their teachers more than once.
You know, for such a tiny book, Two Boys Kissing has left me with such a book hangover. I wasn’t expecting this at all. I was expecting some mediocre plot and an easy read to take a break from the series I’m working through. I laughed, I cried, I lost sleep over it.
When was the last time a book caught you by surprise? What was it?
Fic meme questions 4, 5, and11 for Exceeds Expectations.
You ask the hard questions XD
4:What's your favorite line of dialogue? (Only one thing it could be ^^)
“‘Put up with?’” Mesothulas repeated with a laugh. “Oh, no no no! I don’t ‘put up with’ anything, Prowl! I know what it must seem like to you – a young and impressionable mech, half a step above disposable caste, no prospects, rescued by you and forced underground to perform in morally questionable experiments, but I promise you, Prowl, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me!
“You’ve given me the chance to live my dreams! You’re my inspiration! You are amazing – so smart, so good at seeing the big picture, even when no one else will. I know how much it hurts you sometimes. I know your allies refuse to see your genius. I can imagine the cruel names they call you, the wicked things they whisper when they think you’re not listening, which is silly, because you’re always listening! But they aren’t the ones who are going to win this war. That is all on you! And I’m going to help you do it!
“So don’t you dare fret, Prowl. And don’t feel guilty! You’ve given me everything – so much more than what I ever could have had otherwise. You are my savior, the light of my world. And it would not be a lie to say that I love you – I love everything you are, everything you stand for, everything that those ignorant fools who are afraid to get their hands dirty despise. You are the perfect mech, Prowl, and I will not allow anybody to convince you otherwise!”
5:What part was hardest to write?
It’s still ongoing, so this is a hard question to answer. So far, it’s actually been one of my easier fics all around, due to how short the outlines for each chapter are. I did, however, have a period where I had a lot of reservations about writing explicit content (probably from going so long without writing any), so the sex scene in chapter six would probably be the closest thing to difficult atm.
11:What do you like best about this fic?
I really like bouncing back and forth between Prowl’s increasing moral dilemmas and Mesothulas’s extreme hero worship/stockholm syndrome. Both characters are so incredibly unwell - this entire scenario is one trainwreck happening in slow-motion, and it is incredibly fun to explore.
Summary: In her sixth year at Hogwarts, Hermione begins to work with her Potions Professor to keep the Order stocked. She places her trust in him, but he cannot tell her what he will soon have to do. Will her trust be shattered? (author)
Summary: Seventh year, slow burn. When Voldemort orders Snape to retrieve a sample of Hermione Granger's brain tissue, the Head Girl must find a way to protect her body - but she may not be able to shield her heart. Partly based on a true story. (author)