#Hospitality Business Middle East

[storyhospitalitygroup]

STORY Hospitality is a leading hotel and resort management offering high-end lifestyle resorts and hotels in the UAE and around the world and the group is committed to providing authentic hospitality and making a difference in the lives of travelers to enhance their traveling experience.

[soon-palestine]

Israel, the world’s most innocent country, fell victim to a horrific attack from Iran with zero reported casualties on the same day Israel killed dozens of civilians in Gaza.

Israel had been minding its own business, quietly bombing hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, and an embassy, when the Iranian regime launched their outrageous attack for no apparent reason. Thankfully, the US and UK scrambled jets to defend Israeli airspace because it’s wrong to bomb countries in the Middle East, unless your name is Israel, in which case you can do all the bombing you want.

Every British and American ship in the region is now in grave danger and the risk of terror attacks on our soil has surely increased, but you will be relieved to know our countries have not benefitted in any way from our intervention. Personally, I can’t think of a better way for Israel to spend our tax money.

Our leaders have condemned Iran in the strongest possible terms, which is confusing because I thought we were supposed to remain ambiguous and say we’re investigating the matter when such an attack occurs. Perhaps this is one of those rules that only applies to Israel though.

When informed of the attack, a calm and rational Suella Braverman screamed: “WAR! I WANT WAR!” and when she’d stopped hyperventilating, she added: “This must be the end of western backsliding on Israel,” because she thinks we have not been sufficiently supportive of their genocide. Anyone who is not on the same side of the argument as Suella Braverman must ask serious questions about themselves.

Iran’s unprovoked attack involved giving Israel adequate warning and launching 30-year-old missiles, 99% of which were intercepted, and then saying the matter is closed unless Israel escalates further. The fact Iran would consider retaliating to further escalation from Israel shows just extreme these lunatics are.

Among Iran’s targets was the Israeli air base from which the missiles that struck its embassy were launched, killing 13 on April 1. As of yet, we have no indication as to why Iran carried out the attack, but we’re going to tell you it’s because they want to start World War III. Psychos.

Conspiracy theorists have suggested it’s actually Benjamin Netanyahu who wants escalation, but it’s unclear why the man who faces political oblivion, and possibly jail, would be incentivised to draw his allies into the fight and cause everyone to forget his many war crimes.

Israel, the country that definitely does not want war, has vowed an “unprecedented” response against Iran which will probably kill many more than zero people. If Iran expresses disapproval at Israel’s next mass murder, it’s because they’re trying to destabilise the region. At this point, we’ll have no choice but to help Israel do to Iran what we’ve spent six months helping them do to Gaza - launch precision strikes that destroy 70% of the buildings in the country and leave survivors living in tents.

Worryingly, we’ve just discovered at the most convenient moment that Iran has enough uranium to build 12 nuclear bombs. If it were true that Iran had so much weapon-grade uranium, it would be incredibly stupid to attack them, but we’re going to insist we must attack them because we’re weapon-grade idiots - and we think you are too.

Please just switch your brain off and accept what you’re being told, you simpletons! What matters is rich people can afford nuclear bunkers if this all goes horribly wrong. In the meantime, you can look forward to lots of exciting stories in the media about bringing back conscription and describing how you are likely to die in humanity's final war. Are you looking forward to radiation sickness and nuclear winter? Because they sound like brilliant fun! x

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this outstanding piece of journalism as much as I did, you can support my work here:

[foreverisntenough]

‘OURS’

Summary: You were his and he was yours but what would it be like adding one more? Thrust into a whirlwind romance you never could’ve imagined that became your forever love. You continue building a new life across the pond with a very beautiful Scouser. A sequel to the ‘You’re Mine’ fic.

INDEX

Warnings: This series will contain fluff, suggestion, SMUT (unprotected sex,) pregnancy, parenting, mental health struggles, eating disorder, self doubt, body image issues, daddy kink, angst, alcohol consumption - not sure what else really… if i miss anything please lmk!

Note: Thank you for reading! Please be sure to like, comment, or message me what you think of the series! Try not to nitpick with any real pregnant/ baby logistics it’s better if you just read along happily :)

Extra Extreme Warning! This chapter focus on mental health struggles and body image issues (depression and ed) It’s a little dark so if that is at all potentially triggering to you please be advised and do not interact.

Chapter 19 - Can't Do It Anymore | ‘Ours’

“I can’t do it anymore!” You screamed with tears running down your face. You were grown but you felt like a little girl. Your mum standing in front of you in your bedroom angry as she's ever been. 

“Stop! Stop it, We’re going.” She demanded. She was stern and not going to back down. It was the summer before you left for university. A fresh 18 year old eager to get away from the exact scene unfolding in front of you. Your mum was forcing you to attend a gala event she had every year. She was intimidatingly kind but often kept her feet firm in her way of tough love. You loved a good party, maybe a little too much but forcing a smile and talking about what your college courses would consist of next year to business men that stood too close and inappropriately inspected every inch of you. It was a secret to everyone but your mum and Winnie and even they pretended they didn’t know. The way the sheath dress hung off your body reflecting back at your mum in the mirror only amplified the skeletal arch of your spine.  

“Fine… you want me to go. I’ll fucking go.” You murmured brushing past her heading straight to the en-suite of your room. You chugged a liter of vodka you'd dashed under the sink and popped one too many of your prescribed xanax in an unprescribed way. You collapsed in the bathroom before you could make it out of the house, ruining your night, your mum's prized annual gala, and probably Winnie’s perception of you forever. She had gone to your bathroom initially to steal some of the new blush you had gotten. She was met with something entirely different; finding you laying on the floor. They rushed you to hospital in an ambulance.  

“She’s extremely malnourished.” The attending doctor spoke calmly to your parents outside the room in the corridor. Your dad’s gaze narrowing at you laying in the harshly lit room. Your mum’s face pulling into disgust and shock, offended the doctor could imply something like that.

“She’s just thin. Please.” She scoffed, taken aback that you could be anything but fabulously waift. She hated the way the doctor infered she had not taken care of you somehow. She had given you everything, look at you, you were gorgeous but the hospital gown wasn't exactly chic.

“Ann Marie… listen to them. She’s killing herself. Enough.” Your dad quipped. They loved you in their own ways; your dad thought of you like little girls, your mum as if you were her little dolls. Things slowed after the incident and there was a much closer eye on you. Your mum still pushed, your dad still pulled, and Winnie sat somewhere in the middle. You got relatively healthy, at least enough to pass on scales and keep the chaos at bay but things bubbled under the surface. Suppressing anything that may rock the boat of familial perfection. You and Lauren had just returned to Manhattan after a weekend out east at your parents when she found you in your own sick. Chase had come over the night you returned from the beach. You and Lauren lived together and she wasn’t keen opening the door to see him but he was handsome and a good fuck so she shrugged it off. It wasn’t really him exactly… it wasn’t him. Chase sucked no shadow of a doubt but you couldn’t blame him. It could’ve been any man.  It really could’ve been anyone but you just happened to fall into his terribly mean arms on one night you blacked out and found yourself waking up in his bed. The tectonic plates of the earth shifted, mentally handcuffing yourself to this awful person.

“Still the same for me?” He’d ask you ahead of coming over. He kept tabs on the size of your clothes, the condition of your skin, the way your hair fell. You didn’t eat all day and he fucked the daylights out of you that night after you confirmed you had kept the circumference of your waist just the same as he liked, anything to get him to like you. He shoved his cock down your throat until you were sobbing, he didn't like you, he liked the high of using you. “You want me to love you, Y/N? That’s all you want? Take my fucking cock and I’ll think about it.” He’d mock you, railing into you from behind. You hated that your body craved him. That’s all you thought about. How? How do you get someone like this to like you? Why did you want it so bad? You did it all for him with zero return except for the brutal fuck he'd deliver. Lauren called Winnie sobbing. She knocked on your door early the next day curious to see how the night went but you were there limp in your bed sick.

“Well she’s breathing right? Jesus Christ! What did you do last night?” Winnie screamed freaking out that Lauren had found you like this and yet simultaneously angry with you. This was the second time someone was finding you like this. 

“I don’t know I… I.. she was with fucking Chase last night… fuck!” Lauren cried. The problem wasn’t Chase, what you ate, or your mum, the problem was you. You did it on purpose but no one mentioned it to you. No one said it. Ignorance was bliss. You were discharged again and everything moved on. Texts from Chase still coming in oblivious to the state he walked out on you in despite Lauren’s barrage of messages to leave you alone. You just threw your phone off the bed feeling just the same as the days prior only now slightly  more weak. You curled on your bed just wanting it all to fade away until morning the broke, the annoyingly bright sun refusing to lend you the peace you so badly craved. Why did you want him to love you so badly? Did you really hate him or yourself for being with him. Either way, you just wanted to be loved, that was abundantly clear. You walked into your parent’s kitchen in an oversized t-shirt sleepily and groggy. They made you move back with them for a few months to rehabilitate. 

“Trent Alexander Arnold has pinned one in for Liverpool!” The echo from the TV in the connecting room blasting in the late morning as you reached up into a cupboard. 

“Get in! Come on” Your dad yelled cheering. His loud booming voice making you jump. He heard you fumble the glass of water you were trying to get yourself so he turned to you mid-celebration. “Y/N, you okay? Come watch with me. The kid I swear... He's amazing” He shook his head in disbelief at the goal just scored by the man who would eventually ask him to marry you. A glint flashed in your eyes. 

“He’s cute…” You mumbled to your dad coming over to sit with him analyzing the camera’s close zoom on Trent’s face. His lips curling into the same dimpled smile your daughter had now ricocheting around in your mind finding its permanent home to replay on a loop. 

“Talented.” Your dad corrected you as he looked on more impressed with the tactical skill than Trent’s looks.

“Sure” You rolled your eyes and pulled your legs up onto the couch. Wrapping your arms around your knees.

“About your age you know?” Your dad informed you. That was interesting. You wondered what Trent’s life was like? This stupidly attractive stranger on the TV. You were the same age crying over a pathetic Manhattan party boy last night. Your mind wandered and you began to wonder if Trent lived a life anything like Chase and all the other boys surrounding you; using looks and status to blow through girls and money on nights out. You cocked your head looking a bit closer at his eyes and you felt your heart involuntarily softening. Imagine if he was really really sweet. “How we feeling today?” Your dad intruded the delusions seeping into your brain. You hummed lost in your own thoughts. “Can’t even conjure up a lie for me today?” He laughed sympathetically and quietly turning to face you. 

“Nah.” You finally gave him half an answer. Your eyes fixated on the game now waiting for the camera to catch glimpses of the boy you might’ve just fallen in love with. What if he was nice?  What if he was nice to you? God, if he was nice to you you'd love him forever, and you did. He had a chock hold grip on your heart. 

“Want a beer?” Your dad cut your thoughts off once more. You furrowed your brow confused what he was asking you. 

“Dad?” You snapped out of your reverie about a person you didn’t know feeling stupid imagining a world you didn’t live in, you didn’t deserve that, and certainly the boy flashing across the tv wasn’t going to be the one to give it to you. 

“It’s 8 pm where I am right now.” Your dad laughed again dreaming he was back at Anfield’s stadium tonight instead of on your family’s couch. You hummed, finally wrapping your head around his sentiment. “Let’s go on your thanksgiving break.” He cooed. 

“To?” You turned your body towards him on the couch for the first time taking your eyes off the screen in minutes. You were interested in anything he was offering that might potentially whisk you out of your current place in the world. 

“To Anfield. You’ll love it” Your dad assured you. Loving anything right now felt like a cruel joke but of course you’d go.  8 pm under the floodlights of Anfield with the beer your dad wanted so desperately you watched admiring the boy who would end up being nicer to you than anyone ever had been. 

You changed for the match and you definitely didn’t look good. Winnie FaceTimed Teddy and Dianne for you as you rushed around your hotel room. You did the best you could to not burst right into tears looking back at the cutest face you’d ever seen in your life. The bright wide eyes gleaming mirroring Trent’s exactly seeing her mummy. It was wrong but you hadn’t even responded to any of Trent’s messages from last night yet this morning. You didn’t tell Winnie that. You couldn’t. You couldn’t answer all the questions he had and you didn’t want to answer any more of hers. Honestly, you didn’t know the answers to them. When you arrived at the stadium you prayed for some sort of invisibility shield. That wasn’t going to happen. You were radiating an energy that just reeked of misfortune, you felt eyes burning into you. Trent scanned the stadium for you before you had arrived. Seats left for you and Winnie empty while he warmed up. Marcel sitting there alone also awaiting your arrival. When the two teams lined up ahead of the anthem he finally clocked you. Trent looked fucking livid. You’d never seen him give that face to you. You started crying. You watched him shut his eyes in slow motion, his heart breaking in real time. Winnie squeezed your shoulder. You batted your eyes to try to clear the tears. Your view of Trent blurring then clearing then blurring again. Your heart aching painfully. Trent played incredible. It maybe was the best half of football you’d seen him play. It made you sick thinking maybe you had potentially been a cause for any dips in his form. That not having you around somehow made him better. The second half began. Only a few minutes passed before Trent rocketed home a shot from outside the box. The stadium erupted celebrating the goal and you never felt more silenced. He ran to the corner flag and swung at it with real fire. He screamed while his teammates engulfed him. Media and the crowd probably perceived the celebration as passion but you knew… Winnie and Marcel knew... Jadon who now walked himself into the middle of a horrible situation knew. You sat on your hands watching the game clock tick on. Jadon looked at Winnie and hinted for her to check her phone. No one was really talking between the four of you. It was so awkward. Winnie picked up her phone and nonchalantly tilted the screen away from you, leaning back in her seat reading Jadon's message.

‘Trent knows this is going on, right? He needs to help her, Win.’

Winnie sighed reading it trying to hold back the wave of emotion crashing over her. Of course, Trent knew. You were getting married. He knew everything, he just had never experienced such a low of yours in real time. It was easy to love someone when you only heard about their past. You can forgive them for something you weren’t even there for. Something you’d never had to have experienced. Trent loved you for all that you are but seeing you wither after the birth of your baby wasn’t on his bingo card. Liverpool won and Trent stood on the pitch hands on his hips staring up into the sky still while the team scattered around the pitch jumping in celebration. They won and yet he felt worse than ever.  Before the trophy presentation he ran down the tunnel. Marcel made you go with him down to meet him. God, there was nothing in the world you wanted to do less than face Trent right now. You made Winnie come with you for moral support. You saw him walk towards you. Full kit, sweaty, perfect, beautiful. You couldn’t believe he was at his very best when you weren’t with him, seeing him in all his glory at the very top and you at your very lowest. Producing a man of the match performance and you producing maybe the biggest fuck up or your life. You were in your own world of thought when his curt words cut you off.

“Where were you?” That was all he said. Cold, keeping his distance from you. 

“T…” you pleaded with your eyes falling into pools. Tears already gathering in your eyes. 

“No, where the fuck were you?” He snapped again. Winnie stood off to the side of the corridor. She didn’t know how to help. She felt horrible like somehow this was her fault. It wasn’t at all but she couldn’t help the guilt she felt having been at the club with you, having drank so much with you. She tried to help.  

“Trent, she was…” Winnie began to try to talk but that was not going to fly. Trent didn’t want to hear from anyone but you. This was for you and him to sort.

“Winnie, let her fucking answer. Where were you? Tell me.” You weren’t sure you’d ever heard this tone of voice. It scared you. You felt your bones shake. It was like you were being reprimanded in a principal's office except you weren’t. You were being reprimanded by your fiancé in front of your sister and friends, somehow making it all the worse. 

“The hotel, the hotel. I swear.” You started to hyperventilate. You were having a panic attack in the tunnels of Wembley. This was a fucking disaster. Trent believed you. He didn’t want to but he knew you. He’d know if you were lying. Your answer flooded out drenched in honesty and fear. You felt your chest start to contract and tighten. He couldn’t look at you anymore. It hurt too much.

“I have to go…” he sighed, running his hands over his head frustrated. He was almost annoyed  that nothing happened. He was wildly relieved you were safe and standing in front of him in one piece but annoyed he couldn’t pick one thing to harp on to decidedly be angry about. All this chaos for what? “I need to go be with my fucking team. Marce is taking you home.” He quipped pulling his jersey over his head revealing his stupidly hot body. You tried to distract yourself but it was hard, he looked really good. 

“What?” You asked utterly confused. What did he mean you were going home? Your mind couldn’t keep up with his. The visual stimulant of his naked torso, your blinding headache, and the noise from a rowdy stadium concocting into a right mess. 

“I don’t want you here.” He shut his eyes saying it. He hated saying it but he meant it. He had a hard time looking at you right now. He was so weak against you and right now he was pissed. He didn’t want to cave, he didn’t want to give himself any more time or opportunity to. The emotions rising in your chest swelled with the bile in your throat. It burned and it hurt. Your brain was completely scrambled. You couldn’t process that he just rejected you, turned you away. To be fair, everyone standing there was surprised.  Trent dapped up Marcel and Jadon and swiftly headed back out onto the pitch. Nothing more said, not even a goodbye. You were completely stunned and frozen in your place. Trent was determined to do anything to get you off his mind but everything reminded him of you. You were ubiquitous. Lifting the trophy was nothing but a burden. It was heavy, he was tired and disinterested. Proud of his team but disinterested. 

Marcel drove you home all the way back up towards Manchester and to say it was awkward was an understatement. You cried about 5 times. He’d just turn the music up a little more each time letting you fall apart. You didn’t want him to acknowledge it. He was doing it for both of you. No one really knew what happened, you included. It was one big blur but everyone knew in a way that you had gone awol last night so Marcel didn’t really have anything to say to you until you finally arrived to your house.

“Do you want me to stay? I don’t want to talk but I also don’t want you alone.” Marcel asked you as he pulled into your drive. It was quintessential Marce. He didn’t really want to deal with any of this but he was way too empathetic to just drop it all, no questions asked. He was still your friend, Trent aside. Although right now he felt more like Trent’s brother than your friend. 

“I’m fine. I promise. Thank you.” You lied blatantly getting out of the car and he knew it. You didn’t expect him to but he got out of his car to help you with your luggage. The bags you had filled with outfits you would no longer get to wear this weekend celebrating with Trent now. 

“It’ll be fine.” He gave you a hug and it was like his reassuring words broke the damn down. You began to sob heavily. He stepped back from you not surprised but he was upset that you were upset. He felt bad but he also was a little annoyed with you so he needed to let go. He dragged his hand over his face and pivoted without looking back at you. He turned around though when he opened the drivers side of his car. “I know whatever happened was a mistake, Y/N, but he does a fucking lot for you, ya know? I’m not saying you don’t but he really moves fucking mountains for you and sometimes… fuck.” He sighed looking at you defeated as you stood awkwardly at your garage door awaiting the dagger he was about to twist into you. “I don’t know, you just expect him to. Like you take it as a given, for granite.” You opened your mouth to respond. “I gotta go.” He shook his head and left before you could say anything. Cut to, Trent had finally returned home. It was tense and it was painfully uncomfortable for the fleeting moments before the highly anticipated fight erupted. The second he walked in the door you shuddered. You two stood a good 3 yards apart yelling in voices you never used in your kitchen. 

“You know what that would fucking look like if someone saw any of this?” Trent spat at you frustrated you didn’t understand the point he was trying to make. You had explained to him the extent of your night that you could remember. He was less than impressed but right now he sounded like your mum and it made you feel horrible. Thoughts of all of the times she scolded you telling you ‘what would people think.’ the image of her sat at the edge of a hospital bed appeared in your head. 

“Why do you care what it fucking would look like?” You snapped back at him more annoyed at the remembrance of your mum than him. The sting felt the same no matter whose mouth it was coming from.

“Because I care about you… Do you see yourself lately?  I know with the wedding and the baby it’s stressful but have you looked in the mirror lately? I know how often you’ve been weighing yourself.” The way he said his last sentence was almost threatening. Trent wasn’t dumb and you weren’t exactly trying to hide either. He saw the scale pulled out on your shared bathroom floor every morning. The measuring tape you kept tucked in your drawer just to make sure everything was ‘on track’ lingering after effects from Chase like scars. 

“I can’t fucking look in the mirror, Trent” You snapped and the flood gates opened. You started balling. It took everything in him not to just grab for you. Hold you. Fix this. Tell you it was fine except this time it wasn’t. Nothing was fine right now. 

“What the fuck honestly, I’m at a fucking boiling point. I can't do it anymore. You have a daughter, Y/N! Do you want her to grow up to be like you?” Trent shouted at you, really starting to lose his temper. 

“Do you? Do you want her to be like me?” You asked him incredibly, even more offended than his words echoing your mother’s. Your tears were blurring your vision entirely. You couldn’t make out the face you knew. The face you loved. The one that brought you so much comfort. Right now, your entire life looked to have a smudged haze over it all.

“Fucking hell, Y/N. Can you please not cry all the time?” He pleaded with you having a hard time keeping his distance from you. He was so angry with you but so conflicted with the affection he wanted to show you. You only stood on opposite sides of the kitchen island at the moment but you felt worlds apart.

“I can’t! I can’t do this anymore. It’s too much. This is all too much.” You were sobbing at this point clinging onto the lip of the marble slab countertop.

“No, I am not letting you do this.” He hated when you cried. Seeing you right now so upset made him sick to his stomach but pushed him past his normal point of concern into a state of rage. “Why do you fucking treat yourself like this!?! I don’t fucking understand it!” He continued to seethe with fury. He looked at you waiting for an answer. An incredibly deafening silence falling over the room. 

“Because I fucking hate everything about me. What don’t you fucking understand about that. You expect me to be this perfect version 24/7 but I’m not. I’m not!” You kept crying. “I’m sorry. Fuck! I’m sorry, I’m trying but I can’t be like you, okay?” You whimpered, feeling defeated and broken. It felt like you could never measure up to the golden boy that was in the room with you. No matter where you went or what you did he was always going to look sparkly and new, fantastical and interesting and you couldn’t feel more opposite. Having a baby completely ransacked you. You were far from new. You had been stripped of a sense of individualisation and identity. You were Teddy’s mum and Trent’s fiance. Y/N didn’t matter, anyone could fill in the blank of your name. The icing on the cake was the image you were trying to uphold all the while.

“Why do you always have to guilt me? I didn’t do anything here, Y/N, you did! You did this.” He snapped at you once more, moving to be a bit more accusatory. In a more mindful state you probably would’ve understood his reasoning but it just felt like a personal attack at the moment. 

“I step out of line once and it…” you tried to rebuttal but he wasn’t having it. He cut you off before you could even think of what your next word was going to be. 

“Out of line? Out of line? No, baby.” You heard him use the pet name out of habit and it sent a shiver running down your spine. That was not the way you liked to hear that word. After that, you had an even harder time keeping up with his words so transfixed on the snippy way he had said ‘baby.’ “You went missing and said fuck all untill I saw you in the stadium… you were in London alone. The mother of my fucking child, my baby.” Trent felt like he was about to start crying so he turned away from you dropping his head in his hands. ”My baby, my beautiful girl just fucking gone and you didn’t care! You didn’t care one bit” He whimpered a bit quieter than you’d heard him talk all day. You couldn’t get a word in fast enough before his anger rushed back. “God fuck… why do you not care!?! You not caring hurts me! It hurts our daughter! You can’t fucking do this!” He cried out. You were shaking. Your one hand pressed onto your sinuses attempting to relieve the pressure you thought was going to make your head explode. Your other hand’s nails were digging so painfully deep into your palm you were sure you were about to break the skin. 

“I’m not trying to hurt you! It’s me okay? I know it’s me. I’m shit. I get it. You’ve made that so fucking clear... that I’m not allowed to make mistakes. That I’m not allowed to falter from the caliber of excellence you live in everyday.” Your words fell into a slightly sassier sarcastic tone that made Trent twitch with anger but  then sadness crashed back over you dripping onto your next words. “I can’t handle the pressure T, I really can't. I know that you deserve more than this. You deserve to have someone so much better fit for you. and it's not me” You sniffled out. Your lip quivering, your mascara running. 

“I am done with this. If you fucking still think that I moved you to another country to be with me, I made a home for us here, had a child with you, that I want to fucking marry you is not enough. That's on you. Honestly, I’m fucking done. Have a good fucking time in New York tomorrow.  Don't stay out too late and maybe fucking try to take care of yourself because I’m done doing it for you.” He quipped storming out of the room.  You ran to the kitchen sink and threw up nausea hitting you instantly. Leaning over the deep farmhouse sink. He heard you and shut his eyes. He couldn’t turn back. If he did, he knew he’d cave.  You had originally planned to fly to New York again tomorrow but right now running the fuck away from all of this never felt like such a perfectly yet equally terrible idea. You already had your packed bags by the door the next day when Trent came down early, Teddy still asleep. You had slept in the guest room. Although ‘sleeping’ was probably a stretch. You just lied awake staring at the ceiling wavering in out of fits of tears. You couldn't say bye to Teddy, you didn’t want to say bye to him. You wanted to disappear and leave them so things would be better for them. It was for them you told yourself. Trent looked at you from a distance with a blank face. You bite your bottom lip trying so hard not to fall apart. He let out a deep sigh. He walked towards you and your whole body tensed. He wrapped one of his arms around your shoulder blades high on your back and pressed his lips to your forehead. The embrace felt so foreign. Tears began streaming down your face. “I hate how much I love you and I hate how much you don’t.” The way his lips felt on your skin almost stung. It was one of the most harrowing out of body experiences. It truly felt like that was going to be the last time he’d ever kiss you. That would be your last memory of his lips on you. He could feel how limp you were to his touch. He pulled away with his eyes shut and just let you walk out the door. His face fell. You couldn’t get any words to come out of your mouth. You couldn’t pick your eyes up to see him. He couldn’t understand but the pain you were in was palpable, thick in the room. It destroyed him to see you walking out of your house, your home. He tried so hard to hold it together. He tried absolutely everything he could but he fell to the ground. Crouching with his head in his hands. He began to cry. He felt weak and stupid but in the same way you felt that that may have been the last time together, he felt just the same. Suddenly it all scared him terribly that he had lost you, he had pushed you too far. You were his whole world but he had told you he didn’t want you around, he told you he didn’t want to take care of you. The feelings were still prevalent but it was like his heart was bleeding. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He told you he hated that he loved you. You couldn’t wrap your head around it. A part of you yearned pathetically for him to try to stop you from leaving for this pointless trip. You felt your heartbeat slow to a point where you weren’t sure it was beating anymore.  Your chest hurt so bad it felt like your body might have begun to shut down entirely and with this emotional feeling you thought that it might be the only way out of it. Everything had drained of its color watching the door close to your home, your family, your baby, the love of your life shutting you out as your uber pulled away. 

Trent didn’t tell anyone how bad things really had gotten between you two. He was always private but he couldn’t talk about this. He didn’t tell anyone that his Hollywood film romance was crumbling before you two had even got to the altar. He knew if he told George, Marcel, Tyler, or Jude they’d try to fix it and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He was so angry. He didn’t love you any less but he just felt helpless. When he went to bed that night he found himself staring at your Van Cleef necklace he’d given you all those years ago. The one. He got so angry seeing it, seeing you left it behind. It felt like a part of you was leaving him, like you had given up. He held it in his hands imagining your warm skin and delicate décolletage it was supposed to be laid over. He was so indignant. Emotionally charged he yanked the necklace apart, splitting it into two pieces. He felt sick. It hit him like a ton of bricks. He couldn't believe he just did that. That necklace was your relationship and he just destroyed it. He sat with the two pieces of chain, one in each hand. You two separated. 

You were terrified about leaving Teddy but you couldn’t do anything but leave. You couldn’t move. She would be better off with the loving stable Alexander-Arnold family not the disaster you felt you were at the moment. Dianne had her, well Trent did, but when he was at training she would make sure she was okay. You got to New York and didn’t tell a soul you were there. Not your parents, Winnie, or Lauren. You wanted to be alone. You laid in your new apartment on the king sized bed you’d never even had a chance to sleep in with Trent yet. It was the most chilling depressing way to be reminded he wasn’t with you and that he didn’t want you with him. Did he want it all to really end? You were replaying your last conversations over and over analyzing every word he said and inflection of his voice when a Daily Mail article notification dropped down from the top of your phone screen. 

‘Trent Alexander-Arnold seen out on a date in Manchester with a mystery women ahead of his previously planned summer wedding. Has the American dream come to an end?’

Your face fell. You were pretty sure all the air had left your lungs, your brain short circuited. You zoomed in on the photo only inflicting more pain on yourself. You’d never seen the women in the photo in your life. She had curves and a full figure but still slender in all the right places. She looked like if Instagram was a person. You looked… not like that. A confirmation published globally echoing every thought you’ve ever had. You were not what he really wanted. This was all too good to be true and you were never going to measure up. The thought of him with someone else made you sick. The thought of another woman making him smile was somehow worse than anything else you could’ve possibly seen. He was holding the door for her, dimples deepened in his cheeks, his glowing smile mocking you. He hadn’t smiled at you in days now but that face from the tv was burned into your memory. You were a mess. You couldn’t cope without him. You felt completely lost. You felt like you were a missing person when you weren’t with him. You thought you were going to be sick the longer you stared at the images. You ran to the bathroom. You slipped on a rug and smacked your face on the porcelain toilet. You leaned over the toilet and vomited but you simultaneously could make out the drops of blood dripping off your face onto the seat through your hazy vision. ‘Fuck’ you cursed under your breath. The tears falling from your face dropping down to join the rest of the releases.

You sank into the warm water filled to the brim of the bathtub in your apartment. For some reason that had become your place of habit during whatever chaotic episode you currently were inhabiting. You slipped down into the water, letting the full bath completely cover and engulf your body. You closed your eyes. You could feel yourself crying but you couldn’t tell submerged in the water. You couldn’t believe what just happened, what you had lost in days time. Bubbles rose to the surface of the bath as you opened your mouth and screamed repeatedly underwater. When you emerged from the bath you were gasping and coughing excessively, somehow getting air to your lungs even more difficult now than when you were under the bath water. The tears returned now racing down your cheeks as you sobbed. You wanted out. This is what was best. Just get out, that's what was on your mind. You slid back under the water once more. A rage filled scream muffled by the water filling your mouth. Words repeating in your brain ‘please just get me out of here’ ‘give my baby a better mum than this’ ‘let Trent find someone perfectly matched for him.’

“Hey, you good? What’s up?” Lauren answered a call from Marcel. It was a little odd for him to call her. Naturally her curiosity peaked. Was he in New York? She felt like you would’ve said something if he was. They were on good terms but he was also well aware that she was with Jude now so she didn’t think he’d try to push to hang out now. Her intrigue only growing. 

“Hey, you’re in Manhattan?” He asked hesitantly, also feeling fairly weird about this call but he needed someone to check on you. His anxiety had been piling up over the last day or so. Lauren didn’t even know you had come to New York. She was shocked to even hear that let alone the next things about to come out of his mouth. Again, you just wanted to get out of Liverpool. You’d told no one. It had been a little over a day since you had arrived. You didn’t reach out and you hadn’t heard from anyone back at home either. Well, maybe from Marcel and Dianne but you had selfishly and unfairly chosen not to respond to either. Really, you were fixated on the fact that most noticeably you hadn’t heard from Trent. You canceled any of the appointments you had planned to attend for wedding planning opting to rot in your bed in hopes of achieving escapism. 

“I need you to go and check on Y/N. Trent said she flew to go over some wedding stuff but she hasn’t responded to me. He hasn’t either to any messages. Something is going on with them. There was this big mess before the match this past weekend.” He rambled on frantically trying to explain best he could but really emphasize that he just needed Lauren to find you and make sure you were fine, why didn’t really matter. She was confused to say the least. Even when you and Trent had stupid bickering fights she’d still hear about it. Yet this? This.. she didn’t hear a peep and this was far different from bickering over who forgot to unload a dishwasher. Lauren agreed, remembering that she had a key to your new apartment in Manhattan in case someone needed to get in when you weren’t there. You might’ve been there physically at the moment, but you were far from being there mentally that’s for sure. Lauren hurried the fastest she possibly could up to your apartment, the urgency in Marcel’s voice making her incredibly nervous. Her worst fears fueling her speed. She unlocked the door and walked inside only adding more confusion and fear to her scrambling brain because your phone's location had said you were there but the apartment was empty. It was quiet until she heard water in the bathroom. You opened your eyes beneath the surface of the water in a moment of desperation trying to stop overthinking what you were doing only for you to find yourself gasping and in taking a ton of water when you saw Lauren’s figure blurred above the water beside the bathtub.You didn’t have a moment of time to even react before Lauren frenziedly reached into the full tub and yanked you out aggressively immediately wrapping you in her arms over the ledge. Your soaking wet naked body drenching her dry clothes. She dragged your very limp body out. 

“Y/N, what the fuck is going on!?!?!” Lauren screamed, starting to uncontrollably cry. It didn’t look good. You felt so young again saved by Lauren once more. You blinked your swollen eyes trying to clear them of the water blurring them. You slumped back onto the cold side of the tub on the bathroom floor. She shook your shoulders trying to get you to come to and answer her. She was absolutely terrified and rightfully so. “Okay, okay. Jesus!” She ran her hands over her head in panic and shock. “You’re gonna be fine. I’ll… erm… I’ll call T.” She rattled off trying to think what to do. She knew that’s what this was about.  

“You can’t!” You attempted to scream at her but you didn’t even have any strength left shaking from the shock and from the cold air hitting your wet skin. 

“Shit…” She cursed. Laurens chest started heaving. She was trying her very hardest not to fall into her own panic attack finding you like this. “Why, Y/N? Why?” She tried to be sensitive but she was angry for finding you like this.

“He ended it. He’s done…” You whimpered out devastated hearing each word fall out of your mouth. You felt like you were going to throw up imagining life without him.

“What do you mean he's done? You’re getting married so soon. Just try to relax here.” Lauren asked, perplexed because Marcel said things were off, not that you and Trent had split. 

“No… we’re not, okay? Just shut up, please!” You wailed. Heartbroken by the reality of what was all setting in now. Not only what was going on between you and Trent but the situation you had just put Lauren in, the way you left your daughter, the state you were currently in. Tears cascading down your face with no sign of stopping any time soon. 

“Hey! Enough. You’re not doing this.” Lauren scolded you demanding you cut this shit out immediately. She stood up stoic as ever just staring at you.

“You sound just fucking like him.” You screamed back at her dropping your head back behind you feeling incredibly dizzy. You wiped at your face, unable to stop the emotions flooding out of you.

“Y/N… no. We’ve done this. You’ve done this over really shitty things. This is and will not be one of them. You’re not doing it. Get up!” She continued to yell at you sternly commanding you with a scowl on her face. You looked at her confused that she was angry at you. Everyone was angry at you and the only thing that could possibly make it better was rewind time to go be back in your bed at home with your daughter and Trent but that was miles and miles away and probably not likely to happen again. Lauren made you stand up with her help on shaky legs, forcing you under freezing cold water for a moment in an effort to practice some sort of distress tolerance. She sat on the edge of the sink as you stood with tears falling at the same rate the water did from the shower head. She didn’t trust you right now to leave the room. You got out and wrapped yourself in a towel and sat yourself on your bed shaking. Yes, you were cold but also just riddled with so much anxiety. You couldn’t believe you had ruined everything. You had everything you could ever want. You sat there for a long while trying to explain the situation to Lauren through several breaks unable to calm your breath. Although your story probably was a little one sided as you really only relayed the more harsh things Trent had said. ‘I don’t want you here,’ ‘I’m done with this,’ ‘I’m done taking care of you.’ And then of course, you had to show her the Daily Mail article that only ignited another panic attack to crash over you. You were having heart palpitations. There was a laundry list of reasons you probably should’ve gone to the hospital but at the moment you couldn’t move your body and sadly, you didn’t want the help. “He’s not done with you…” Lauren whispered softly, helping you lay down in the big bed taking your phone from you, clicking the power button and watching the screen illuminated with the photo of Trent and the women go black. “He’s really upset, Y/N, He’s allowed to be. I’m sure a lot of it was said heat of the moment but you fucked up and he’s concerned but he’s not done. He loves you more than frankly I ever knew people could love each other. I know he isn't done.” She cooed with a sad sympathetic smile. She looked next to your bed on the bedside table and saw your engagement ring in a little jewelry dish. “Please put this back on, please.” She put the ring back on your finger where it belonged for you and kissed the back of your hand before wiping a falling tear. You took it off because it was making you nauseous that he had promised you a life and you accepted it only to destroy it all. “He’s not going anywhere, I am not going anywhere, and Y/N, you…you are not going anywhere. You are here and we want you here.” You could hear a tremor in her voice as she sat next to you rubbing your back. You weren’t sure when the last time you slept was so you passed out finally feeling her warm comforting touch on you. You were fast asleep when Lauren got up and called Jude from another room. She roughly explained the situation, she didn’t speak too much about you and Trent’s kick off because she didn’t think she had the full story yet. She began to cry when she relayed the terrifying situation she had just gone through arriving at your apartment. Jude was shocked, gobsmacked, massively concerned but more so helpless listening to Lauren sob over the phone. He didn’t know how to help from where he was. 

Back in Liverpool, Tyler had come over to your house to talk to Trent about some end of the season things they needed to get squared away. He sat with Teddy bouncing her on his knee as they had a unnecessarily tense conversation. 

“Yo, what’s with you?” Tyler quipped looking at Trent confused. He was being particularly snippy with him and all his brother was trying to do was his job. Trent didn’t need to be such an asshole to him. 

“Ty, I’m losing her.” Trent sighed scrolling on his phone zooming in on your location to make sure he knew you were at the apartment he had gotten for you at least. He didn’t have the courage to text or call you yet but he needed to know where you were. 

“What are you on about mate?” Tyler asked, incredibly confused. Marcel had mentioned a tiff at the game but like everyone else around you two there never were any really big squabbles so this was definitely a bit of a surprise. 

“I can feel it, bro. Since we had Teddy all this stuff she warned me about, things she had dealt with when she was younger all started flooding back. I always knew like from the day I met her, she wasn’t like the most confident person in the world but since she had the baby she’s just not the same. I hear her get up in the middle of the night, I see her not eating as much, she’s sleeping way more and I can’t do anything. There’s nothing to say even. She’s like a shell of herself, bro. I’m terrified.” Trent expatiated at length but vaguely touching on the slow decline you had been on postpartum. 

“I haven’t seen it to be honest.” Tyler responded hesitantly tilting his head slowly trying to rack his brain to think if he had noticed any shifts in your behavior. 

“That’s the fucking problem. She’s fooling everyone. It’s fucked. Like I get it she looks good. She always looks good, she’s perfect but it’s not right. Something's not right and I’m getting worried. I was absolutely fuming after the final and I just didn’t want to talk to her to be honest but then she left for New York… and…” Trent rambled half ass explaining the situation at hand but leaving out the part that you two hadn’t spoken since you walked out of the house. 

“Well you love her, you can’t just dip because it got hard.” Tyler was very quick with his response. He wanted to make sure Trent wasn’t trying to jump ship considering at the very moment he was holding the child you shared.

“I’m not dipping. I’m never fucking leaving her. It’s just such a mess. It felt like it went 0 to 60.” Trent dropped his head back onto the couch cushion in despair so confused and conflicted on what he was supposed to do next.

“Well, first off, good. If you’re gonna marry her, you’re buying into all of it, mate. It’s not your responsibility to heal her of something but it’s your responsibility if you really love her to get her to the people that can if she’s not willing to do it herself. You love her and she’s the mother of your child and if she can’t see that… you need to make sure you do everything you can to show her there’s no other possible feeling there but your support.” He looked at Trent with a lot of sympathy but Tyler really was starting to worry about you. His brain switching gears from the assistance to his younger brother to a growing anxiety about the girl he picked up from the airport and never left all those years ago. He started to remember little things here and there, comments made or small actions that felt like nothing at the time but maybe cumulatively he should’ve caught on. 

The next day after Trent had a big think, he remembered that one of George’s cousins ran a clinic in Liverpool so he figured he could start there. He asked George for her number and she agreed to meet him happily willing to help. He at least wanted to learn what options he even had. He wanted to know a simple answer of what he was supposed to do but he knew that wasn’t the reality.  The photos of their meeting hit you like a ton of bricks. You thought he was seeing someone else, taking your night out and spitting it back at you. Showing you he could disappear just the same and rub it your face simultaneously. That wasn’t the case at all though. He wasn’t thinking about her in that regard in the slightest; the only thing he could think about was you, you 24/7. Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware of what was happening in your apartment at the moment which probably wouldn’t have given him much peace of mind. Ignorance was currently a mild form of bliss until he got home seeing he had a missed call.

After Lauren spoke to Jude she texted Marcel updating him in a fuzzy but still transparent way. She didn’t think she could handle another call after the emotional one she had with Jude. Eventually, Lauren mustered up the courage to call the one person she knew she had to… Trent. Her legs bounced in anxious anticipation but he didn’t answer her call. She felt her stomach drop. Maybe things were that bad. Maybe he really was done. He couldn’t be, she’d kill him, so she told herself she’d call once more but after that if he didn’t pick up, if he didn’t want to talk then she would resort to getting Dianne’s number from Marcel. This couldn’t go on any longer. She didn’t want to press but this needed to be sorted. Trent picked up the second time she rang but didn’t say anything once he answered for a little while so Lauren didn’t say a thing either. The line was silent until Trent's desperation outweighed any anger he had been harboring.

•

Thank you for reading! Please like, comment, or message what you think of the chapter 🤍

Next part - Chapter 20 xx

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Villareal at LGBTQ Nation:

Anyone with eyes in their head can see that the American government and media both have a clear pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias. Neither one officially recognizes Palestine as a state, and any criticisms against the Israeli government or in favor of Palestinian civilians are automatically labeled (at best) as ignorant, misinformed, and over-idealistic or as hateful, antisemitic, and pro-terrorist. The goal of these denunciations seems to have only one aim: to silence any criticism of Israel. I’m sick of it… and I’m not alone.

In numerous conversations, when I have argued that perhaps the Israeli government is becoming increasingly right-wing, I have been told that Israel is a queer oasis in the bigoted Middle East and that all of Israel’s neighboring countries are rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ and will gladly kill their own queer citizens. When I mention that Israel’s military-enforced policies of forced displacement and segregation against Palestinian citizens could violate their dignity and human rights, I’m reminded of the Holocaust — as if I somehow forgot — and am told that Hamas wants to exterminate Israel and all Jews and that all of Israel’s neighboring countries have threatened to wipe Israel off the map as well. If I mention any recent news report about Israeli forces killing Palestinian journalists or civilians, I’m informed that I do not know my history and that Palestine’s government has repeatedly allowed terrorists from its region to infiltrate Israel and commit atrocities against innocent Israelis. [...]

When any politician or activist publicly criticizes Israel in the media, they’re denounced, and we’re told that we must defend Israel at all costs to protect stability and U.S. interests in the Middle East and to offer a shining beacon of Western democracy to the people living in the otherwise barbaric region. These talking points are reinforced by American media, which commonly depict Israel as a bustling modern nation and depict all other Middle Eastern countries as war-torn deserts consisting of mostly huts, murderers, and goats. These things have all been pretty uniform throughout my entire life: Israel can do no wrong. To imply otherwise is to show your own stupidity or align with Nazis and terrorists. End of conversation. As if numerous progressive Jews and international human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, haven’t asked the same questions or reached the conclusion that Israel is hardly above reproach. The other not-so-subtle implication is that anyone who wants to criticize Israel openly should either be Jewish themselves or at least have university degrees in Israeli history, Middle Eastern studies, and international political science.

[...] The October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians and recent reports that an estimated 35,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since Israel’s military destroyed Palestinian homes, schools, hospitals, and vital infrastructure. I’ve been thinking about it as more and more voters vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primaries, signaling to President Joe Biden that America’s mostly unconditional support of Israel could cost him the election. I’ve been thinking about it as bipartisan politicians urge mayors, police, and the National Guard to violently disband pro-Palestinian student encampments on university campuses rather than engage in good-faith discussions about the institutions’ investments in businesses that benefit from Israel’s conflict.

As a journalist, I would normally turn to trust U.S. news sources to learn more about what’s happening on the ground in Gaza. But journalists and aid workers are being killed there, media outlets that criticize Israel run the risk of driving advertisers away, and pro-Palestinian journalists sometimes get hate mail and death threats. As a result, I hear even less in the news about Palestine than I do about Africa. I want to be clear: I denounce all terrorist actions and the murder of civilians, regardless of nationality. I support Israel and Palestine’s right to exist and the right of all people to peacefully practice their religion without any threats of violent persecution. I acknowledge that antisemitism is real, that hateful attacks on Jewish people and neo-Nazi activity have increased over recent years, and that some of Israel’s critics are bigoted. I also know that some white Christian nationalists and Republicans who support Israel don’t actually approve of anyone who doesn’t embrace Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior. Rather, they support Israel because of Biblical prophecies that say its existence will bring about Jesus’s return and the end of the world.

Daniel Villarreal wrote in LGBTQ Nation on how America needs to speak up on the abuses the Israel Apartheid government have heaped on Palestinians and the effects of silencing criticism of Israel has had adverse effects on discourse.

[probablyasocialecologist]

According to research by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has licensed more than £472 million in arms exports to Israel since 2015. This includes tank components, armour-piercing ammunition and small arms, but, in keeping with the structure of the British weapons industry, aerospace components for fighters and drones predominate. It’s difficult to get clear numbers from the arms industry. The headline figure is taken from the value of standard licences, but the UK also operates a system of open licences that permit transfers of unlimited – and unspecified – quantities of particular military goods. Since 2015, 57 such licences have been granted for export to Israel, ten of those in 2022. They include British components for the American-designed F-35 aircraft, which campaigners estimate have been worth £336 million to the companies (primarily BAE Systems) producing them. Because the quantities of goods issued under open licences are not made public, groups such as CAAT have to back-engineer their value. In recent years the government has become increasingly hostile to Freedom of Information requests on arms, but there is enough publicly available data to be certain that the planes currently flattening apartment blocks and refugee camps in Gaza rely on components engineered and manufactured in Britain. There is little appetite in Westminster for reform of the domestic arms industry. For one thing, it is a rare economic success story. The UK is the second largest exporter of defence items in the world and, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Initiative, the sixth largest exporter of major conventional weapons (which means everything short of weapons of mass destruction), primarily aircraft. The total value of standard licences issued in 2021 was £10.7 billion, and the industry depends on its aerospace sector, which accounts for 72 per cent of export business. More than half of all British defence exports go to the Middle East – but to Saudi Arabia rather than Israel. Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, accuse BAE Systems of being party to Saudi war crimes in Yemen, where BAE-supplied (and serviced) fighters have bombed schools and hospitals.

James Butler, Up in Arms

[pitstoptaken]

Thinking about racer!Charles and wag!Carlos again

Type of photo captured when they got off the plane together and the caption will be “seems like Charles Leclerc is not alone—he landed with the team and his acquaintance, Carlos Sainz”. Acquaintance.

After not being in paddock for almost 2 months, the busy man, Carlos, is ready to fulfil his wag duty

Everyone was thinking maybe Carlos is really an acquaintance until the couple got off from the same plane

Basically rich men in Middle East

Carlos paddock walk captured by professional photographers that usually known by F1 fans too, holding Ferrari things for his famous acquaintance (boyfriend), Charles Leclerc

“You should be so rich to follow Charles everywhere”

Constantly be talked about on race weekend because Carlos is also caught driving Charles’ Ferrari and casually be there in hospitality with teamCL

Another fantaken photos

Charles thought he won’t be caught bringing Carlos everywhere when fans already recognise Carlos and took a photo with him

‘It’s a private event’ ‘of course it is for a private relationship’

Fans checking Carlos account but that man is too busy to even update his wag duty with Charles

Shady (gay) ass matching instagram photos

Posted by Antoine so the girls and gays will go crazy

[realtimefanduboutofcontext]

I suppose we should start with why this strike is happening in the first place.

Here's a rundown of the historical background behind the Global Strike for Palestine.

(note: this is long but very oversimplified, please research the details for yourself! feel free to correct me)

By the way, the details before 1947 aren't relevant to this thread, please read the writeup by Decolonize Palestine about it!

In 1947, the UN split "Mandatory" Palestine into two states along ethnic lines - one controlled by Arab people and one controlled by Jewish people. The choice was controversial, since the border was forced upon Arabs in Palestine.

It brought in a political idea called Zionism. It's the belief that the home of Jewish people is Palestine - not IN Palestine, it IS Palestine. Problem is that Jews and Arabs were already living there together. Zionists believed that they were entitled to it, and so kicked Arab people out. In 1948, Zionists kicked 750k people out of their homes and killed thousands in an event called the "Nakba". They weren't allowed to come back to Palestine.

This process created "Israel", which slowly controlled more of Palestine over several decades, with no plans of stopping. They controlled Palestinian people's food and water, information, travel, job opportunities, etc.

This ideology of Zionism was fed into the US too. Every President since the 40s has recognized Israel, and because of geopolitical interest, has supported it as a key player in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The US gave it weapons and money, and they became besties.

Palestinians tried to resist their homes being stolen again multiple times, with protests ranging from diplomatic to very violent. They tried it all. Military and political organizations (like Hamas) formed to govern Palestine and fight (or make peace, if possible) with Israel. They failed every time, due to the weapons and intel Israel gets from the US, and the trust that it bargained from the rest of the world. All while Palestine had to make do living in an "open-air prison" inside their own country, invaded by Israel.

A lot of unhappiness with Israel and ineffective attacks culminated on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked a temporarily defenseless border and killed 1139 Israelis and keeping over 200 Israelis and foreigners hostage. Israel was VERY quick to respond.

Two disclaimers:

Israel already knew about the attack months ahead and let it happen.

What follows is far worse.

Starting October 7, Israel launched a full invasion of Gaza (which Hamas governs) as "revenge" for the hostages and deaths. But in reality, this was just their excuse to invade what they left over of Palestine to build more colonies and finish what they started. In the following 3 months, Israel would bomb Gaza relentlessly. It would cut off power, fire at phone towers, turn off the Internet, prevent anyone from making or bringing in food, wound or kill innocent people, bomb schools and hospitals, and far far more.

Israel also pretended to care about the Israeli hostages - however, when asked at the UN if they'll stop bombing Gaza in exchange for the hostages, Israel and the US said no. (Yes, the US said that. The US is also funding this, with YOUR taxpayer money)

The Israeli Defense Forces (pejoratively "Israeli Offense Forces") originally raised a campaign to convince the world what it was doing was fair and just, in the name of revenge. Countless protests across the world have shown them that most of civilization doesn't buy it. They HAVE, however, realized that those in power don't really give a shit and will be happy to cover them in any way, and thus have been bragging about their attacks in very sick and twisted ways through viral videos and propaganda. The United States is mostly the one taking the blame, since it's Israel's bestie and biggest donor. Its biggest businesses are also Israel's biggest profits (I will talk about this another day). Meanwhile Palestinians have had to prove to the world through tragic footage and live accounts of the genocide, that doesn't get mainstream media coverage. Most of the accurate coverage is from Al Jazeera, whose reporters and their families are getting killed in action.

As I'm writing this, 25,000+ people have been killed by Israeli strikes. 64,000+ are wounded. Most of them children.

Most of the population has gotten sick from unhealthy conditions and white phosphorus gas (illegal, no one is supposed to own that).

There are no hospitals left in Gaza because Israel bombed all of them one-by-one, to ensure Palestinians in Gaza can't get medical help and die as soon as possible. All schools and universities were bombed to dust.

Israel has also expanded their war on Gaza to other places, like the other part of Palestine (West Bank), as well as Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt who had nothing to do with it aside from opposing Israel's attacks. They started fighting them too.

And that brings us to today, January 21st, 2024.

One of the most prominent figures in this tragedy, a filmmaker from Palestine named Bisan Owda, who has led us through her reporting of the genocide, called upon the world to strike. Not just for one day, but an entire week. The intent is to halt businesses from funding Israel, divert the conversation to Palestine, and grab the attention of those with the power to stop this; instill fear in them so that they see the negative consequences of funding a war.

That's why this strike matters. That is why it is happening, and why I changed the entire gimmick for it. Because while all of this is due to some geopolitical and racist bullshit, to care for Palestine here is to care for humans. So many humans who are suffering for no reason.

Now that you are armed with this knowledge (hopefully you read this far), I hope you do your best with it and understand the power. I will provide you with more resources and information in the coming days.

Thank you for your understanding.

[aconflagrationofmyown]

“Just a Mother”

a Sarge & lil Mama blurb || circa 1957

Summary: just adding some back story and motivations to Elaine’s side of the story presented in The Beginning.

Warnings: None really, except for talk of 1950’s gender roles, throw away line of masturbation and motherhood

“Is that all?” was the most common question asked Elaine after she first piped up in class and said she wanted to be a mother when she grew up.

A twelve years old girl, born with the luxury of living in the progressive halfway mark of the 20th century, belonging to a prosperous middle class and raised by lenient and liberal parents ought to have more ambition. Or so her impossibly cool, east coast imported, die hard beatnik geometry teacher chided her lovingly.

“A teacher then?” Little Elaine had fudged, meaning in her heart of hearts she wanted to raise little people, she wanted to make a difference with another generation, she wanted to be loved and depended on.

And why shouldn’t she? Her mother seemed happy enough being a mother. Her mother only seemed fretful when it came to father’s business. Juggling work and home life was the only cause of strife Elaine could perceive between the two, and it ingrained the notion in her little mind that keeping it separate was the key to domestic tranquility. Children, an only child like herself or a dozen taken in by the neighbor, never seemed to be the cause of any true regret between a couple.

“Oh darling, that takes money.” is what mother said when Elaine told her that she wanted a bunch of kids. “And a lot of effort and patience, which you may have but -it takes money, too.”

The white-picket-fence-American-dream could only afford two or three little ones and a new car every five years, it would seem. Elaine would rather forgo the new car and have another child, she told her mother.

Those squabbles over money and the business that Elaine witnessed between her parents ceased altogether when Elvis Presley’s infamous yawling stuck gold on the national charts. She watched then as her parents put their feet up and joked around the family dinner table that maybe they should have given Elaine that longed for sibling, a little bother or a sister. If they’d only known college tuitions would be paid for by a rockabilly record.

That’s when Elaine decided she’d need to marry a wealthy man. Or perhaps father would give her an inheritance early, a dowry of sorts. The first Rock n Roll heiress in America. Mother had warned her that their new wealth would attract no good boys who wanted her money without sticking around after to do right by her.

“Is that still all you want, darling?” Mother had asked when Elaine hit eighteen, right before God took her. “You’ve the opportunity to do so much more.”

“Miss Gladys says it’s the most important job of all.” Elaine had insisted, wounded that her own ambitions should be always so belittled.

“Well, I'd be careful of what you adopt from Miss Gladys.” her mother had warned, a funny look in her eyes, “I’ve a feeling she has ulterior motives for directing your interests that way. You should get out before you settle down, see the world, try other vocations out.”

That had worked for awhile. First Elaine had helped in the studio and then in the hospital and then she had studied hard to become a teacher, forever gravitating towards being useful, being needed, towards nurturing others. For her it was only ever that, that was all of it, that was enough.

Ambition and experience, that’s what everyone encouraged her to seek after mother’s death. The middle aged women, those who had chafed under their own domestic responsibilities and been too late to taste the freedom Elaine longed to squander were particularly insistent. Ambition and experience. Those were things that Elaine had plenty of time to indulge before marrying and being chained to highchairs and the marital bed.

Perhaps too much time, Elaine had begun to think. She was antsy, floating around in her dead mother’s circle, working herself to the bone to forget her loneliness and making little found families with any who’d let her dote on them.

No one to call her own beside her father who’s booming business needed her less and less. He needed her in his grief, but that didn’t mean he accepted her help.

Gone only a few months she had already begun to miss Elvis, and to resent his imposed law of abstinence while he was away. She wanted to marry, she wanted a man to give her children, she wanted to have a life to call her own at long last -she didn’t trust anyone to vet her prospective husbands save for Elvis. And the cycle would begin again. She cursed him in her head, and took to watching men as they swam in the public pools, distracted by muscled backs and furred legs as she taught Mrs. Davie’s children how to swim. She wanted a man, she didn’t know what for but she wanted one.

Elvis had woken her up to that sudden ambition, and she sought it with the single minded drive she put into logistics for the March of Dimes functions. She watched the way these men talked and walked and carried themselves, the ones who curled in on themselves and the ones who swaggered. The ones who whistled at her and the ones who opened doors.

What she had initially thought cruel and lewd teasing on Elvis’ part that night in the kitchen she grew to realize was him merely looking out for her welfare. He wanted her to taste the danger of attraction just enough that she’d know what to guard against. Though every passing day made that harder, charming waiters and slick doctors and grabby handed father’s of children she nannied all sparked an interest in her that had been dulled before.

There was curiosity in her as to what they wanted from her. She knew what she wanted -children, but what did they want? She would have to ask Elvis. She would have to wait for him to get back from a two year deployment and boot camp besides.

Alone in her room at nights, surrounded by text books and mother’s diaries, Elaine wasn’t sure she could hold out that long. She had heard that when God planted a child in a woman’s womb it came out from between her legs. More and more she found herself blindly and ignorantly touching that little baby house, finding it weepy and throbbing, as if as heartsick as the rest of her at the waste of her young and empty body.

Once she tried to put a finger up there as she’d heard doctors did in labor. It pinched and stung and she pulled it out hurriedly, her heart pounding and cheeks hot.

That was another warning all the women had -that children hurt. Making them and bringing them forth. Elaine knew nothing about what went into making them, though she could see that growing them stretched and tore women’s skin to accommodate the new life. Still, like an arduous adventure or a perilous quest it all seemed rather glorious to her, thrilling even, to be growing something that would outlast you.

“Just a mother? You don’t want to be anything else?” her Humanities teacher asked her, senior year of high school. An idiotic question, as if being a mother meant she couldn’t be anything else while at it. But that Humanities class did teach Elaine one thing: men must always strive to build and create a legacy, forever pressed to leave some creation behind with their likeness imprinted on it.

Women can make such a thing in nine months and from it can come millions of copies, millions of descendants. Her lack of ambition to conquer Wall Street seemed to suddenly click sitting there listening to a man drone on about the lasting impact of crumbling ruins.

They’ll never manage what we can, she realized, they can’t create a living thing like we can, they can only shape stone and clay and call it wondrous, while we can fashion blood and bone and cartilage and birth a soul.

It made sense that through the centuries men would define motherhood as “just” that. It was too threatening a thing otherwise, and a millennium of the scorn had infected the women, too, until the miracle of children was cut down to size, to something a little less holy, a little less impressive, little more than drudgery. Why, darling, don’t you know you can go out and work for another man who is not your husband these days? You can push that man’s papers about and endure his groping, come home and endure it from another, too. Who has energy to be a mother after that?

Yes, Elaine would settle for being just a mama. If Elvis would just come back already and help her choose a daddy.

Yes, Elaine would settle for being just a mama. If Elvis would just come back already and help her choose a daddy.

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

These Wakasa, Benkei and Takeomi were Shinichiro's closest circle, and as far as I understood, they were all people who frequently entered Sano's house. Wakasa even helped Shinichiro with the engine repair. Takeomi and his siblings were also spending time at their house very often. What I don't understand is why they didn't keep an eye on Mikey and Emma when Shinichiro died? Did they have no loyalty at all? Because if something were to happen to Takeomi, Shinichiro would take care of Haruchiyo and Senju. They don't necessarily have to be parents, but they could at least prevent Mikey from going astray and going crazy and killing everyone one by one. I'm sorry, but Takeomi is such a terrible man, He let his own brother still talk to Mikey even though his mouth was ripped out and he was in the hospital. I seriously hate Takeomi, he's so irresponsible and awful. Also, I don't believe that this team is unaware of Izana, because Shinichiro definitely told the people he trusted most about it. It never happened, what excuse did he make when he suddenly went to the Philippines and entrusted the shop to Wakasa? I think they definitely knew about Izana. I assume they did, and yet it was mean and dishonorable for them not to tell Mikey and Emma about such an important thing when Shinichiro died. How could they carry such a secret to the grave? This is what I really don't understand.

I am from the Middle East and maybe that is why I am so sensitive and emotional about this issue, because my culture is not individualistic like Japan's culture and I assume our own family culture. I don't know about this, but personally, it feels so wrong because if my best friend were to get hurt, I would do my best to take care of and support his/her little brother.

Well we can't be sure exactly since we don't get to see a lot of them from that time period but we have an explanation for Takeomi at least. We know he was too busy with his own problems to really deal with or do anything about Shinichiro's death. He doesn't even seem to be aware of what's going on with Senju during this time, with instead Wakasa and Benkei seemingly filling the big brother role for her. Takeomi was just so caught up in his own mess. As for Wakasa and Benkei, we have no idea. No idea how the grief effected them or if they potentially tried to be there. Grief is pretty powerful, there is a chance they physically and mentally wasn't able to face Mikey and Emma. As for later down the line, I'm not sure, maybe they thought they didn't need them? They did have Grandpa Sano still. Or they could've been offering support for a bit but it wasn't mentioned. It would've been great if they did though.

As for Izana, I'm assuming they knew about him too, I don't think Shinichiro was particularly trying to keep him a secret. I mean he walked into the shop when Inui was there and Shinichiro had no other reaction besides happiness. I'm assuming they didn't tell Mikey and Emma because it was Shinichiro's wishes. If Shinichiro wanted them to know then he would've told them himself but he didn't. I'm assuming that's the kind of logic they were going with.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

In the US it is illegal for a politician to accept gold bars or a Mercedes. Does the BRF have similar restrictions? I know they have received gems from the Middle East but at the same time Kate returns clothing freebies. Is merching legal bc they are not elected?

From the BRF’s policy on gifts:

The fundamental principle governing the acceptance of gifts by Members of The Royal Family is that no gifts, including hospitality or services, should be accepted which would, or might appear to, place the Member of The Royal Family under any obligation to the donor. In this regard, before accepting any gift, careful consideration should always be given, wherever practicable, to the donor, the reason for and occasion of the gift and the nature of the gift itself. Equally, before declining the offer of a gift, careful consideration should be given to any offence that might be caused by such action.

2.2 Gifts from businesses. Gifts offered by commercial enterprises in the UK should normally be declined, unless they are offered as a souvenir of an official visit to the enterprises' premises, to mark a Royal marriage or other special personal occasion. When gifts are accepted, the consent of the Member of The Royal Family should be contingent upon the enterprise undertaking not to exploit the gift for commercial purposes. Gifts, including samples, should always be returned unless it is not justifiable to do so on the grounds of cost. If such gifts are not returned, they should be treated as official gifts (see Section 3.2).

3.2 Definition of official gifts. Gifts are defined as official when received during an official engagement or duty or in connection with the official role or duties of a Member of The Royal Family. These include gifts: (a) presented to Members of The Royal Family by host organisers or official participants in connection with any official UK engagement or duty; (b) given by host authorities to a Member of The Royal Family on an official or working visit overseas. This covers those given by the government concerned, as well as any official body, public authority or host organisation/individual related to the Royal programme; (c) sent in by businesses and by individuals not personally known to the Member of The Royal Family; and (d) given by individuals not personally known to the Member of The Royal Family during "walkabouts" and other similar occasions.

And for the record, the US’s policies on gifts:

The Legislative Branch (Senators and Representatives):

The Judicial Branch, including Supreme Court Justices:

The Executive Branch:

For federal employees (the career civil service)

For the President’s Administration (political appointees and White House officials) - these rules are only in effect for the presidential term. New rules are issued by each President at the beginning of their term:

It’s more than gold bars and Mercedes that are unethical here in the US. Don’t bring your political snipes here, anon.

[theculturedmarxist]

Israel’s military strategy follows precisely the parameters its war planners proclaimed: total war. This would not be mowing the grass. This was a fight all the way to the end of the line. To eradicate Hamas, yes. But far beyond that.

US leaders have telegraphed their acceptance of this approach by floating the notion of “what comes after Hamas is defeated.”  In other words, after Hamas is totally dismantled and destroyed as a viable entity.  They may be thinking of how the west and its regional allies attacked and largely eliminated ISIS as a viable force.

But as this article points out–the proper insurgency analogy for Hamas is not ISIS, but the Vietcong.  A people’s army rooted in every home and village.  With disciplined political and military cadres operating covertly and overtly everywhere and anywhere.  Even when the Vietcong faced the most severe US-Vietnamese attacks, they never wavered.  It was their country after all. They could never be defeated in any real sense.  And events proved them right. They outlasted the invaders: a Vietcong version of summud.

Gaza, of course, is a much smaller area than Vietnam. So targeting Hamas would be an easier feat.  But among 2-million people, you cannot eradicate a movement the people embrace.  You would have to eliminate all the people to do that.  Which brings me to my next point.

It is very likely, I believe, Israel intends to expel all Gazans.  This isn’t just a war to destroy tunnels, or to eliminate Hamas fighters.  It wasn’t even exclusively a war to eliminate Hamas.  It was a war to make Gaza entirely unlivable.  It is total war in an urban setting.

By total war, I mean one that destroys everything. Everything and everyone.  Leaving the living to bury the dead…or die trying.  The goal is to make Gaza so uninhabitable, that the world will find this version of the Final Solution perhaps unpalatable, but in the end unavoidable.

I can’t think of any modern version of total war comparable to this one.  In every similar attack on a major city, the attacker did not intend to render the place permanently unlivable for survivors.  Even in the case of the atomic bomb attacks in Japan, the US formed an Occupation government which entirely rebuilt the country, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while also creating a new democratic political system. After murdering 500,000 during the infamous Dresden bombing, the city was rebuilt. Only the ruins of the bombed cathedral remained, as a testament to the cruelty and suffering of the War.

There are ancient versions of this, all revolving on conquerors sowing the earth of the vanquished state with salt, so it would be unable to produce anything that could sustain life. In fact, this ancient version of a scorched earth-total war strategy, may originate in the ancient Middle East.

This may Israel’s Total War 2.0: a military strategy “updated” for the modern age.  Preferably, it would be studied in military academies more for its horror than for the innovation of tactics or long-term success in achieving political goals.

The first stage of this process is the one we are in now–genocide by degrees. Eliminate neighborhoods, infrastructure, institutions. Render hospitals, schools, businesses either destroyed or inoperable.  The latest is they’re even bombing water tanks and solar panels.  Because I presume they’re major weapons of war.

People will then die not only from the bombs, but from their untended wounds, starvation, disease, etc.  Despite the savagery of Israeli tactics in this stage, eventually the world slowly becomes acclimatized to it.  What was once horrifying and downright uncivilized, is now the new normal.

That leads to what may be the next stage: Israel declaring, Gaza is now unlivable. It’s a sad tragic fact of war. We had to do it. They gave us no choice, etc. But guess what, the Israelis could say. Let’s start over. Let’s reconceive what Gaza is.

They might have a hybrid approach to how the post-war landscape will look: perhaps Israeli Jewish settlements, interlaced with Gazans carefully screened by the security apparatus, who are permitted to remain.  Or perhaps it would be Palestine-rein (though that might be a bridge too far for a finicky global audience).

Gaza: Nakba 2.0

Israel has already published two separate plans, one produced by a whack job analyst, Amir Weitmann, arguing it would only cost $5-8-billion to resettle Gaza Palestinians in existing or newly built housing stock on the outskirts of Cairo.

In the video below, he tries to tear an RT reporter a new asshole. Pulling an Israeli Rambo, he threatens to personally destroy Russia. Or something.

A mentally deranged genocidal Nazi threatens Russia… 🤷🏽‍♀️#GenocideinGaza #ShutElbitDown STOP THE #GENOCIDE NOW! pic.twitter.com/GrMWMmbc4A — 🗣️📢 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕖 𓂆 𝕡𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖 (@ronnie_barkan) October 20, 2023

The other proposal came from the intelligence ministry.  It was similar in some respects to the other plan.  But it did not offer the newly expelled refugees anything other than tents in the Sinai. As far as this proposal was concerned, Israel dumped them there. It was now someone else’s problem.

Which wasn’t much different than what Israel did after the 1948 War.  It expelled a million indigenous Palestinians and foisted them on neighboring Arab countries: your problem, Israel said.  These countries now have 5-million Palestinian “problems.”

Media reporting on these two documents noted they weren’t produced by the country’s highest level security think tanks and that the intelligence ministry is really an insignificant backwater as far as government ministries go.

But a different strategy may be involved.  These plans may be part of a broader plan.  After they are leaked, the government gives them time to be absorbed by Israelis and the world.  Then the genocide continues. The body count continues to rise.  Savagery even escalates. Pressure builds up.  Then Israel says: hey, we have a plan to end all this. No more killing. No more terrorism. No more Palestinian Gaza.  Are you interested, world?  It is quite possible that so many nations and world leaders will be so outraged by this Israel will pack it in and return to killing business as usual.

But…if Israel preps enough allies, if it gets Biden and Blinken on board. If they lobby the European allies, then Israel may be able to pursue a diabolical plan to its “logical” criminal conclusion. At least that’s what Israel hopes.

Gaza as colony. Israel, US, and European and Arab allies as colonial powers

The US and Israel have cooked up a real stew. They propose that after Hamas is eliminated (a dubious proposition to begin with–but more on that later), an occupation force consisting of American troops would administer Gaza:

The US and Israel are exploring options for the future of the Gaza Strip, including the possibility of a multinational force that may involve American troop…

Plan B involves an Arab multilateral force that would administer Gaza. It has even designated who that could be–none other than the next-up in the Abraham Accords sweepstakes, Saudi Arabia.  Yes, those Saudis did such a bang-up job in Yemen, where they not only murdered 80,000 Yemenis, they also slaughtered hundreds of Ethiopian refugees fleeing from Yemen. We want these humanitarians to work their magic in Gaza.

Secretary of State Blinken summed up the (stupid) thinking behind the plan:

“We can’t have a reversion to the status quo with Hamas running Gaza,” Blinken, who will travel to Israel on Friday, told the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We also can’t have — and the Israelis start with this proposition themselves — Israel running or controlling Gaza.” “Between those shoals are a variety of possible permutations that we’re looking at very closely now, as are other countries,” he said.

So you can’t have Hamas running the show. And Israel wants nothing to do with the job itself because, guess what? It tried it and didn’t work well for them: one of the reasons Sharon so unceremoniously withdrew in 2005. A decision which led–you guessed it–to Hamas’ takeover of Gaza. Israel, of course, wants to foist the unwelcome job on someone, anyone else.  Smart move for them. But not for the sucker left holding the bag.

But look at the language of Blinken’s statement. Who’s missing from consideration?  Gazans themselves. They are an after thought.  Or a non-thought.

The only thing colonial powers understand is who will run things. Not who lives there or what they want. But who’s on top. The problem with that approach is it ends up as all colonizing schemes do–the natives reject the guy running things because they want to run them for themselves.  This is precisely the disaster the US is heading for under any of these schemes.

For once in his professional life as a pro-Israel US diplomat, Aaron David Miller is right when he warns:

“The idea of bringing Arab states in to do counter insurgency in Gaza in the wake of the death and destruction that the Israelis have visited is going to be extremely problematic because it would involve Arabs killing Palestinians,” said Aaron David Miller…

You bet.  Not only that. It will involve Gazans killing Israel’s Arab stooge occupiers. That’s a message that would resonate with any Gazan.

Oh and here’s another Biden humdinger:

…One option would grant temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the US, UK, Germany and France. Ideally, it would also include representation from Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates,

Consider all the vague meaningless unquantifiable terms in this passage: “temporary,” “oversight,” “representation.”  These words mean nothing: tissue paper floating on the breeze. What European country in their right mind would want to station troops in a Gaza tinder keg?

It was bad enough for them when they joined multinational forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.  At least there was some international consensus behind the US invasion (as wrong as it was).  There is no such consensus how to deal with Gaza.  They would be walking into a building already on fire.

Which Arab nations would be foolish enough to join this shit show? Of course, those buddy-movie heroes, MBS and MBZ.  They’ll go anywhere, do anything: Starve Yemen? Check. Murder Shiite clerics? Check. Fund ISIS? Check. Fund anti-Iran terror? Check. Dissolve dissident journalists in vats of acid? Check.

Israel’s friends at the Washington Institute came up with their own plan. It has as much merit as my last Amazon packing slip:

[It] called for a Palestinian-run interim administration, with the UN Relief and Works Agency continuing to provide food, heath and education. “Public safety and law enforcement could be directed by a consortium of the five Arab states who have reached peace agreements with Israel—Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco,” Washington Institute scholars wrote in an Oct. 17 note. “Only those Arab states would have Israel’s confidence, which is essential for this effort to succeed.”

So in other words, some Palestinian stooges, presumably the PA since they’re perfect casting for such characters, and UNWRA, will respectively, feed Gazans and administer traffic tickets (if there any cars left); while Abraham Accord stooges do all the heavy-lifting on behalf of Israel. I couldn’t have come with anything better myself (and I didn’t!).

As if reading my mind, Blinken offered fond hopes for PA’s future stooge role. Just not quite yet:

…What would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza..

If those aren’t a few choice euphemisms concealing his admission that the PA is a bunch of corrupt aged incompetent grifters.

Media reporting on the various plans say Democratic senators were receptive. I wonder: do they have eyes in their head? Do they read the news? Do they remember when we imposed our own version of “democracy” on captive nations in Afghanistan and Iraq?  How well did that end?  If any of these harebrained schemes sees the light of day they should all have their heads examined.

But hey, it’s their own party. Let them make the rules. But remember the Pottery Barn rule, which Tom Friedman so infamously and erroneously attributed to Colin Powell: you break it, you buy it.  The beauty of the these plans, especially for Israel, is that after they break it, they don’t buy it or fix it. They pawn it off on the Saudis and they “fix” it, as only the Saudis do (cf. Yemen). If Biden thinks that a joint military occupation by European or Arab allies will absolve him of responsibility for the inevitable disaster, he should think again. It won’t.  Republicans will see to that.  And for once in their lives, they would be right.

Hamas will last

Whatever happens to Hamas during this war, no matter how decisively it has been defeated (which is by no means certain), it will not disappear. It will not be eliminated. You can kill 100,000 Gazans and you will not eradicate it. Like the Vietcong, it is so part of the people the two cannot be separated.

No matter how much propaganda Israel tries to peddle. For example: Whispered in Gaza, a dog and pony show “hosted” by pro-Israel front-man, Dennis Ross, with his Foundation for the Defense of Democracies sidekick, Jonathan Schanzer.  I tell you: there’s nothing that validates Israeli genocide more than offering Israelis and the west the delusion that they’re actually helping Gazans.  One question? How did they obtain these purported statements from Gazans?  Under what guise or pretense?  Because even if these statements are genuine (not necessarily established), I guarantee that interviewees were deceived as to the purpose for which their statements would eventually be used.  This is plain and simple information warfare. Ross has moved on from US diplomat to propaganda warrior.

That doesn’t mean all Gazans love Hamas. Not all Vietnamese loved the Vietcong.  Not all colonial Americans loved the patriots.  But Hamas fights. It resists.  There is no other force in Palestinian society that fights for its rights against occupiers and oppressors. So until something better comes along, Gazans say this will have to do.

In whatever bright new future the colonial powers have in mind for Gaza, Hamas will not just fade into the mist never to be seen again.  It will be there. It will assert itself and its presence. It will resist whoever calls himself a colonial Lord Jim. Doesn’t matter whether its a GI Joe, Saudi commander, or a Jedi knight.  They’re all foreign occupiers. All unwelcome. It will be the undying mission of Hamas to rid Gaza of them.  And eventually, if it takes a decade or five, it will.  My money is riding on it.  Colonial powers don’t have a very good, or long track record.

Something better could come along if these powers deciding Gaza’s fate recognized a Gazan voice, and compelled Israel to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, including free, full and fair elections.  Never happen. I know. But I wanted to put out the real and only solution that works. Not the one that these colonial douchebags are sticking together with rubber bands and wood glue.

Gaza: the Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser–and they always are–are the Gazans.  At least one can say that in the Saudi scenario, they aren’t expelled and turned into refugees twice in 75 years. But they would now be under the boot heel of a hated, corrupt, despotic monarchy.  If Hamas resonated with Palestinians before–it will even more in this scenario.

The Saudis failed to quell the Yemeni Houthis. In Gaza the conditions would be even less favorable.  Despite their Israel-induced deprivation, Gazans are worldly, technologically-adept, politically engaged, etc.  They are not tribal kinsman from the mountains.  Gazans have as much in common with Saudis as Gigi Hadid has with Tokyo Rose. The Saudis will be as unwelcome occupiers as Israelis.

[scarz-xo]

Now that I'm back from work, I wanna address this in a post rather than a short reply.

So for the first sentence "The Hamas is in war", I hope you excuse me grammatically correcting you whoever you are, no hard feelings towards you trust me.

So "Hamas is in war", maybe, I won't say yes, I won't say no, they're not my case.

My case is the Palestinians, they're not Hamas & they're the ones getting bombed in Gaza & in refugee camps, they keep on saying Hamas did this, Hamas did that, okay if that's your case but where's Hamas?

The ambulances bombed the past few days, where was Hamas in that bombing?

The Turkish hospital for children who have cancer, where was Hamas in that situation? It's very funny that when Turkey came out with "I'm with Palestine" the hospital got bombed.

So maybe Hamas is at war, but what does that have to do with the Palestinians who have nothing but rocks?

"A war against terrorism" forgive me for correcting your spelling this time but what can we do?

So let's define the word "Terrorism"

So let's give some examples:

These are small examples you can get from a simple Google search & just for you, I got you western news outlets cause if I got you middle eastern, you wouldn't believe me, anyways now I ask you, who's the terrorist?

This has been going on for decades, not one year, not 5 years, not 10 years but decades.

Imagine I become in need for a place to stay, I got kicked out from my home, my neighbours don't wanna help me in fact they wanna kick me too so you a generous person offer me a room, I take your generosity as naivety & start taking more rooms, eventually kicking you out, not only kicking you out!

But I also kick at you, starve you, imprison you, kill your loved ones, leave you an orphan, kill your pet, how would you feel? How would you feel as a generous person and me a person who was in need and decided to settle in your house?

That's how it is, Palestine already existed before "Israel" was even a word, I suggest you Google Belfort's Declaration from 1948, it's a history lesson we're taught at 6th grade but westerns lack.

We also call it in the middle east:

"وعد من لا يملك لمن لا يستحق"

"A promise from those who do not have to those who do not deserve".

"Hamas' goal is not only to destroy Israel. They want to kill every person who is different as gay people. I am gay!"

I wonder who taught you that, who even gave you these ideas, is it because you think Hamas is a Muslim organisation so of course they want everybody dead? After all mostly that's what you've been taught.

So if you want a lesson from Islam, we're taught not to engage in homosexual acts & not to support them, we're not ordered to kill, or harm or anything for that matter, just not to support or engage in them.

But for you I wonder how would you feel if you discover that homophobia is huge in Israel:

So in conclusion, the Israelis your picking are not your "ally" & before you come at me, you have the links to read from Israeli newspapers.

I think this should be enough for you.

[loneberry]

War + Geopolitics

The world is on the precipice. What is there to say? It’s surreal to live through a war in the age of social media, in the age of AI, when the business model of Twitter/X (monetized virality, pay-to-play blue checks + amplification) incentivizes the rapid spread of misinformation. We are also witnessing the algorithmic suppression (shadow banning) of perspectives that are critical of Israel, along with the proliferation of doctored videos, fake images, and imposter accounts. For this reason I’ve stopped checking social media. I’ve been both inspired by and disheartened by the responses I’ve seen online, but the informational chaos is overwhelming.

Where do things stand at the moment? I’ll try to synthesize some of the information I’ve gathered.

POSSIBILITY OF A REGIONAL WAR

With the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, the region is inching closer to a conflagration that has the potential to ignite a global war. At the moment, I do not think it’s possible to say with certainty who bombed the hospital that killed hundreds of Gazans. Palestinian officials say it was the IDF, that homemade Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) rockets are not deadly enough to kill hundreds. The IDF claims it was a PIJ rocket that misfired and published a video that had a timestamp that did not correspond to the time of the bombing. Biden claims it was not Israel, but has not produced the evidence to substantiate the claim. Regardless of who is behind the devastating attack, the effect is the same: fury across the Islamic and Arab world at both Israel and the US.

It is not in Israel, Iran, or the US’s interests to go to war, but structural factors could nonetheless push all parties in that direction. Iran has warned Israel against a ground invasion and occupation of Gaza. Israel is gearing up for such an invasion, but now appears somewhat hesitant. A ground invasion and protracted urban warfare will undoubtedly be bloody for both Israelis and Palestinians. If Israel does pull the trigger on a ground invasion of Gaza, the chances of Hezbollah attacking Israel and opening a front on the northern Israeli border (with Lebanon) greatly increases. Even pro-Israel US hawks don’t think that Israel can handle a two-front war, which is likely contributing to Israel’s hesitation about a ground invasion of Gaza. If Hezbollah jumps in, Iran will as well. If Iran goes to war with Israel, I think it’s almost guaranteed that the US will step in to back Israel, likely with American troops on the ground. Would China and Russia step in to back Iran? (Hard to say at this point.) This is the scenario in which the region would explode into a broader devastating conflict. 

The crisis has been a disaster of epic proportions for the Biden administration. His trip to the region has been a complete diplomatic failure. Landing in Israel soon after the hospital attack, the US has thrown its weight fully behind Israel. Arab leaders, including Palestinian Authority President Abbas, have canceled their diplomatic meetings with Biden. The Arab world will believe that the US has green-lit whatever Israel decides to do. The delicate alliances the US has been trying to build with the Gulf States to check Iranian regional influence are crumbling. This has already started a superpower scramble for influence in the Middle East.

GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS

With US’s regional credibility in tatters, China and Russia have stepped in to call out Western hypocrisy and position themselves as the new power brokers in the region. Of course they are opportunistically seizing on the chance to strengthen an anti-Western alliance, but their message will nonetheless resonate with countries in a region that have been destabilized for decades by US interventionism. China will position itself as a mediator but may not have enough of a rapport with countries in the region to serve as a credible mediator. Despite benefiting from an anti-western alliance, I doubt China will get involved militarily. Russia has clearly been drawn much closer to Iran after their invasion of Ukraine, but they have a complex relationship to Israel. While Ukraine has repeatedly sought military support from Israel, Israel has refused to provide such support and did not sanction Russia. Israel and Russia have coordinated with each other on military operations in Syria. Israeli neutrality toward Russia is partly driven by the huge Russian population in Israel—around 17.25% of Israelis are Russian speakers, many of whom were Jews who migrated from the Soviet Union, making them a vital bloc within Israeli society. At the same time, Russia stands to benefit greatly from a protracted conflict in the Middle East, as such a conflict will draw Western attention and material support away from Ukraine and toward Israel. My guess is that Russia will seek to pit Arab countries against the US while maintaining military neutrality. However, that might change if Iran gets into a hot war with Israel.

India and Israel have grown closer in recent years. I was surprised to learn that India has been a major source of anti-Palestinian misinformation. Modi has developed very friendly relations with Netanyahu, as Modi is a Hindu nationalist who has whipped up Islamophobic sentiments within India.

While the people of the Arab and Islamic world are broadly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, each country has their own national interests (previously, I discussed the Abraham Accords and the Saudi/Gulf pivot toward the US). Jordan and Egypt are reluctant to accept Palestinian refugees. Many Palestinians also fear that the creation of a humanitarian corridor into Egypt would be a second Nakba that would lead to their permanent displacement from Palestine. Jordan and Egypt have refused to accept Palestinian refugees because they fear that it would destabilize their security and could justify Israeli attacks on their countries. The people in Gaza have nowhere to go. No place in Gaza is safe, as the hospital attack painfully demonstrates.

ENERGY WAR

Iran has called for an oil embargo on Israel. Oil/gas/energy markets have already been disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent oil markets into chaos and contributed to inflation and high gas prices (which also eroded Biden’s approval rating). Oil producing Arab countries may use their leverage as energy suppliers to counter the west’s backing of Israel. What would happen, for instance, if Qatar reduced gas supplies to Europe just as Europe has dropped Russia as their main gas supplier? 

DOMESTIC US POLITICS

No doubt, the current crisis will hurt the Biden administration and the Democrat’s chances at winning the presidency in 2024. The party is basically split down the middle on the Israel-Palestine issue. Young people justifiably feel that Biden’s backing of Israel has contributed to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. (His approval rating was already in the toilet with young people.) At the same time, a second Trump presidency will be even more catastrophic. Trump already brought us to the brink of war with Iran by assassinating Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and further fanned the flames of the Israel-Palestine conflict by moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and facilitating a “peace process” that excluded the Palestinians. 

I do sincerely hope that there is a revitalization of the antiwar left. We failed to stop the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The US’s “war on terror” was a colossal failure that ensnared the US in a quagmire of pointless wars that lasted decades. I will never forget what it felt like atmospherically to live through the beating of the war drums and to be called a terrorist sympathizer by everyone around me (this was in Florida). Stopping the machine of war will be even more difficult this time around given how deep the US-Israeli alliance is, but we must try. 

*

There is a lot more to say, but I’ll end here. What next? I hope there is a ceasefire and that Hamas releases the hostages. I pray the siege on Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends, that Palestinians get their freedom and dignity. The world is a wound. We are grieving. Grief can easily be routed into bloodlust and tribalism. I am holding my breath. I pray the world steps back from the cliff edge and that the peace process begins in earnest.

[sl-newsie]

Query: Q x 00 Agent- Ch. 4: Weakness

It’s too quiet. 

Normally I allow the bustling sounds of London to lull me to sleep in my apartment. The unnatural silence makes my thoughts spring to life and I slowly open my eyes. I’m lying in a white room, in a white hospital bed, in white linens, while wearing a white surgical gown. So much white you’d think the place was sculpted from fresh snow.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

The sound of Q’s voice is both startling and assuring, somewhat contradictory. He’s seated in a lounge chair to my right holding a tea mug.

“Earl Gray, I presume?” I rasp in a groggy voice.

“Yes. Sounds like you could use some too.” He picks up an extra mug from the counter and gently hands it to me, which I take with what grateful smile I can muster from my drowsiness.

“Glad to have you back in one piece, though I must say you could’ve done without the theatrics.”

“Bond’s rule of thumb is that you do whatever it takes to make the enemy lower their guard. In my case it’s usually seduction.”

Q’s face twists in a look that’s a mix between confused and disturbed, raising both eyebrows at me. “You kissed him?”

I set my mug down and sit up straighter, flashing him a smirk. “Someone sounds jealous.”

“Not even remotely. You just happen to form a crush on everyone you interact with on missions?”

I let out a dramatic sigh and shake my head. “I will miss that scientist. He was cute.”

“Is he your type?” 

Is this conversation for professional or personal inquiry?

“I wouldn’t know my type.”

This leaves Q looking more puzzled, but he ignores it and pulls out a file from his bag.

“While your mission was a slim success, I must say that there is some bad news. I’m afraid Agent 003 from the Middle East has been eliminated.”

The name makes my thoughts snap. “Jason’s dead?”

Q offers a look of sympathy. “I’m afraid so. Did he mean anything to you?”

I look away and stare off into the annoying white abyss. “He’s not supposed to. No one is. But even I go soft once in a while.”

Now Q stands up, gathers his things, and begins to walk to the door. “I wouldn’t be so soft around M. She’s being held against a rock and a hard place right now because of all this espionage business going on.”

I feel my patience growing thin. “Hey!” Q turns around. “Just because I’m a 00 agent doesn’t mean my womanly instincts turn off. Yes, I care. Should I? Probably not. But I do anyway. So if being human is pathetic to you and any other MI6 member, then so be it!”

Q once again takes my outburst very calmly. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure. For now you should get some rest.”

This only makes me angrier. “Do not mistake my morals for weakness. Not everyone can be as cold and heartless as you.”

“Who says I’m heartless?” Q argues back.

“Um. Excuse me?” Eve knocks on the partly-opened door and gives us each a worried look. “M is asking for you, Q. She also wants to see 0011 once she’s recovered.”

I groan. “How long will that take? I’m not going to spend the next month in recovery, am I?”

“That’s precisely what you’re going to do,” Eve says as Q walks out, still looking cross. “What did you say to piss him off?”

I gawk. “Me? He’s the one saying I’m weak! Just because I have friends he thinks I’m pathetic!”

“You’ll have to excuse him, Levie. The only kind of social activity he’s used to is his job and his cats.”

Another thought pops up. “Oh! Speaking of which-?”

Eve laughs. “Yes, I did feed Cricket while you were out! He misses you.”

“At least someone does.”

“By the way, Bond might stop by for a visit.”

My spirits perk up. “He’s back?” 

“He was able to find the hidden workplace of Silva, one of M’s old agents, who’s being interrogated downstairs.”

“Bond caught the bloke? Good for him. What happens now?”

Eve seems to think something over, then walks over and starts pulling my bed toward the door.

“Wait- What on Earth are you doing?”

She smiles. “You may be in recovery, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be part of the boring stuff. Let’s get you some fresh clothes, and then it’s off to the computer lab!”

She wheels me down the hall to the locker room, where Eve retrieves my personal apparel. Thankfully I left behind some extra workout clothes. After what takes forever, Eve helps me into them and then pushes me into the boring computer lab. Inside we find Q and Bond looking over a large screen.

“Welcome back, Bond. What’s the damage so far?”

The older agent looks me up and down in my weakened state. “The damage we should be discussing is yours. What the Hell happened to you?”

“I had a run-in with a bullet during my mission. Don’t be demeaning, it’s bad enough I’m forced to be bedridden for a month. Just tell me what’s going on so I might help.”

Bond gets an amused smirk and he gives my hand a hearty shake. “Q tells me your mission was a success, despite your injury. Congratulations. Right now we’re decrypting Silva's laptop.”

The screen above keeps flashing new wavy and intricate patterns as Q searches. I feel useless considering that tech is not my strong suit.

“Excuse me for not understanding. I’m just the one who follows orders and does the punching.”

“There’s more to being an agent than punching,” Q mutters.

Then Bond seems to recognize something. “It’s London. A map of London.”

Finally! Something starts to make sense- What the-?

Now all the floor hatches are opening throughout the room, causing Q to get a confused look.

“Wait. Why are the doors opening?”

Bond goes sprinting out of the room, and then Eve leaves me by rushing off to find M. What could possibly- Oh God.

“Q, detach the laptop! Kill the laptop!”

But it’s too late. All around us screens fizzle and erupt with static. Every firewall and security measure put in place is shattered, with Q’s screen displaying the words: ‘Not such a clever boy.’

“Shit. Shit!”

“Language, Quartermaster,” I grunt from my bed, useless to do anything.

“Lecture me about it later, 0011. The whole system’s going through security protocol. He hacked us!”

“Then Silva's going to escape.” I reach over and grab a radio. “Bond, do you read me?”

“He’s gone!” he shouts.

I hand the radio to Q. “Work your magic, Quartermaster.”

He shakes himself out of a trance and nods. “Ok. Ok. Bond? Where are you?” After a second Q gets his answer. “He’s headed downward, towards the train tracks.”

Q sets his jaw straight and rushes over to start looking through the computer. While he’s giving Bond instructions, I grip the counter and start to pull myself across the room.

“Careful. There’s a train coming,” I hear Q say.

What is it with Bond and bloody trains? I’m almost to the end of the computer lab-

“Where do you think you’re going?” Q asks behind me.

“Going to help.”

“In your condition? You won’t make it to the elevator.”

“Rather try than just sit here and do nothing- Ugh.” I let go of the railing, starting to feel dizzy again.

I hear Q step behind me and then feel his lanky arms lay me back down in the bed.

“You haven’t made up for your blood loss. You need to rest. Bond can do it himself.”

“I’ll rest when we don’t have an act of espionage infiltrating our government…” I start to black out.

“Now’s not the time to be reckless,” Q argues.

“Can’t help it. You’re just too enticing not to.”

He lets out a laugh. “Ok, you’re clearly delusional. Here, breathe this. It will make you sleep."

I feel something being pressed to my nose. “I don’t want to sleep-”

“Breathe this now or I will straddle you, hold you down, and knock you out myself!”

Who knew? Q is actually dominating.

“Hm. That last option seems tempting. Fine, I’ll do it.”

It doesn’t take long for the sleeping drug to kick in, and soon my mind melts into black nothingness. It’s like I’m falling, falling in an eternal abyss with specs of light flying past me. I’m just disappointed I unable to help stop that creep…

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

The crown princess is now the first Australian-born Denmark Queen consort, from the Commonwealth with Scottish roots 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Australia’s Mary Donaldson went from commoner to Danish Queen 🇩🇰

An unconventional journey from Australia’s middle class to European royalty began in an unremarkable bar in Sydney in 2000. Twenty-three years later, in what has been called a “real-life fairytale”, Mary Donaldson, becomes the queen of Denmark 🇩🇰 Queen Mary, not only of Denmark, but of the Inuit in Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Mary Donaldson was born in Tasmania an island state of Australia in a Hobart’s Hospital in 1972 to Scottish parents. John Dalgleish Donaldson, and Henrietta Donaldson (Henrietta Clark Horne). The daughter of a mathematics professor and an executive assistant who had emigrated to Australia from Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Her father was born in the town of Cockenzie and Port Seton - (Scots: Cockennie [koˈkɪni]; Scottish Gaelic: Cùil Choinnich, meaning "cove of Kenneth") is a unified town in East Lothian, Scotland. It is on the coast of the Firth of Forth, four miles east of Musselburgh, and her mother was born in Edinburgh.

Mary grew up in a middle-class suburban home alongside her siblings, Jane, Patricia and John. After her graduating with a degree in law and commerce from the University of Tasmania, She moved to Melbourne and Sydney, Mary had a high-flying career in advertising and then worked in luxury real estate. She worked during three months in Edinburgh as an account manager at an advertising agency.

But it was a chance encounter in a busy pub that would ultimately turn her life upside down. The Crown Prince sat alongside his cousin, Prince Nikolaos of Greece, his brother, Prince Prince Joachim, and Princess Martha of Norway at the “Slip Inn” in Sussex Street in Sidney as Australia celebrated Ian Thorpe's first Olympic gold.

Princess Mary and her father John Dalgleish Donaldson at her wedding in Copenhagen Cathedral on 14th May 2004.

The wedding of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, and Mary Donaldson took place on 14 May 2004 in the Copenhagen Cathedral. Mary’s mother Henrietta ‘Etta’ Donaldson died from a heart condition two years before Mary married into royalty.

The Danish Folketing (parliament) passed a special law (Mary's Law) giving Donaldson Danish citizenship upon her marriage, a standard procedure for new foreign members of the royal family. She was previously a dual citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom. Ahead of the wedding, Mary had to give up her Australian citizenship and join Denmark's Lutheran Evangelical Church.

The new Danish queen consort is of Scottish descent. Scotland's and Scandinavia's histories have long been intertwined with smatterings of Old Norse in the language, Viking and Norse settlement in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Her father, John Dalgliesh Donaldson, stressed her Scottish roots in his speech at her wedding — and claimed his own clan had once helped eject the Norse from the Hebrides.

Check out the video below and listen her father's speech: “In the 12th century, after much savage fighting, the marauding Vikings were driven out of Scotland by a band of men led by the grandfather of the first Donald, the founder of the clan MacDonald. And for those of you who are not aware, I’m wearing tonight, the dress MacDonald tartan, which is the ancient MacDonald”.

“Donald’s great-grandfather would have wondered why he went to such trouble when, some eight centuries later, we take account of today’s union between the Viking Frederick and Mary of the MacDonald clan.”

Loving words from Mary's father.

Margrethe II reigned as Queen of Denmark from 1972 until her abdication in 2024. Having reigned for 52 years, she is the longest-serving female monarch in Danish history.

The Queen of Denmark made the announcement in her New Year's Eve speech. She formally hand over the throne in a Council of State today 14th January, 2024 at 2:00 p.m., when she signed the Declaration of Abdication. From that moment on, her son became King Frederick X.

The Crown Princess Mary was crowned Queen consort alongside her husband, the new King Frederik of Denmark. It was a historic moment, for which she wore a historic outfit by the Danish designer Soeren Le Schmidt.

🎥 credit #dnk.royalty.with.dominik

#MaryDonaldson #Australia #commoner #DanishQueenMary #Queen#Scottishroots #Scotland #Hobart #CockenzieandPortSeton #HenriettaDonaldson #John Dalgleish Donaldson #VikingandNorse #Denmark #Greenland #FaroeIslands #Frederik #KingFrederikX #Tasmania #islandstate

[ronoken]

Dr. Technus and the Children's Hospital

Three hours after your fight with Superior Force, you see a news blurb about your battle. It’d been a tough one. The marvel of might had kicked the ever-loving crap out of your new, and now completely trashed, super suit. You’d held your own, but then he took a particularly hard swing at your dome-covered head and put you clean through a building. The outer wall had buckled, and the resulting partial collapse had given you just enough time to crash through the other side and get the hell out of there.

Fortunately, the building had been occupied, so Superior Force opted to stick around and help rescue civilians instead of finding you and ripping you apart like you were made of tinfoil. Again. This was your fifth attempt at a super suit that could withstand his blows, and he still beat you like you were an ant fighting God, which honestly wasn’t that far off when you considered how freakishly strong the hero in question was. You realize (as you’re wont to do at moments like these) that you’re lucky to be alive.

Now that you’re back in your hidden and extremely evil lair, you get a little curious about the aftermath of the fight. What building had he put you through? You were kind of seeing stars when you hit that wall. There was some screaming. That’s… about all you remember. It’s been a rough day.

Fucking heroes.

You see a newscaster interviewing Superior Force in front of a pile of rubble. Behind him, firefighters are spraying it down. You realize you must have hit a gas line. That would explain the explosion that rocked you, the building that fell on you, and so on.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t stop her before she had a chance to hurt more innocent people,” Superior Force’s voice has a warble to it. It sounds like a mixture of sadness and rage. It’s extremely effective at making you feel nervous. “Picking a fight in the middle of the street is one thing, but Dr. Technus made a mistake when she decided to attack a children’s hospital.”

You freeze. You feel your blood pounding in your skull. Attacked? A children’s hospital?! You blew up a Dennys! It wasn’t even a particularly good Dennys! What is that idiot blathering about? You…

You went through a building. There was an explosion. There were screams.

Some of those screams were awfully childlike.

You scream. You throw your cracked dome helmet at a monitor where Superior Force is fishing a bloody child out of the rubble. You listen to the newscaster call you a terrorist and a monster. You stare at the cracked screen and the face of the man who put you through that building.

You remember. Your mind goes back to an image. A little girl with green eyes. Her still body in a hospital bed. Her mother sobbing beside her.

You grab your portal gun.

***

Getting in was easy. You’ve had a portal gun for years. You don’t often use it because admittedly, it takes a lot of the fun out of breaking into places. When you want to slip in and out, though? Portal gun. Most of your criminal empire was funded this way. You’d portal into a bank vault, clean it out, and portal home. No cops, no alarms, no interruptions.

But this isn’t a vault.

You adjust your lab coat around your waist and straighten your tie. Of course you have a tie. You may be a villain, but you’re not a bum. You can dress professionally when the mood suits you.

You step out of a storage closet and slip into the busy crowd of doctors and nurses weaving through the halls. The east wing took the blast, but the rest of the hospital was apparently unharmed. Superior Idiot managed to clear the rubble in the space of an hour, and most of the patients and staff that lived were now relocated to new rooms. Still, a lot of people were hurt. A lot of staff were taken out. They’re short-handed, and there’s a lot of wounded.

You pick a room. It doesn’t matter which one; they’re all full. You quietly open the door and step inside to see three curtains for three small beds. The staff had to pile the kids up to find a place for them. The beeping from the machines is annoyingly loud.

You slide the first curtain back. A little girl, no more than eight, is lying in bed. She’s wearing pajamas with a blue dog on them. Her skin, a pretty dark brown, is crisscrossed with bloody bandages. Her eyes are closed.

You read her chart. She was here for Lymphoma, but now she’s… You glance at the bed sheets and notice they’re flat where her legs should be. You grip the chart in your hand so hard the clipboard cracks.

You read the others. A little boy with muscular dystrophy, now down an eye. A little girl with a heart murmur and a missing arm.

You take notes. You leave and go to the next room. You go to all the rooms.

When you portal back to your evil lair, you resist the urge to throw a tantrum. Tantrums are fun, but they’re not productive. You need to be productive right now. You consider creating a gun to kill Superior Force. Not maim. Not torture. You want to blast a fucking hole through his head and call it a day. You’ve never gone that far before for fear of the other heroes coming down on you, but right now? It’s really tempting.

Instead you roll up your sleeves and get to work. Now, you’re evil. Ergo, you tend to design evil things. Little bio-plague work here, some exo suits there, a killer android or two, you know. The usual. It’s what you do. It’s what you’ve always done. It just comes easy to you.

You start with what you know. You pull up your schematics for your cyborg soldiers. That was a total bust of an evil scheme. The morons worked just fine, but they got too cocky and tried to go solo. Ended up getting flattened by the Collective Good. Still, you’d come up with some doozies while working with them. Carbon fiber bones. Nerve attachments for limbs. Cybernetics. The works.

You get to work. It’s easy work. You’ve done this before. You’ve done all of this before, but never this small. You force yourself not to think about how tiny the fingers on the cybernetic hand are. How small the eye you’re crafting has to be. You look over your notes and pay careful attention to the feedback you received when installing these parts the first time. What hurt. What didn’t. You have to stop when you find your vision blurring as you design a skull plate for an infant.

This isn’t what you do. You’re Dr. Technus. You’re a villain. You’re evil.

You resume crafting the skull plate.

You’re evil. This is true. But you tell yourself that you’re not a fucking monster. You’re not… you’re not that…

You finish the plate. It’s the last piece you need.

You look at your notes and frown. You know how bad some of their conditions are. You scanned them as you read their charts. You bring up their medical records, one by one. You review how severe each one is. You review the causes.

This can’t be serious, you tell yourself. You’ve made diseases a hundred times worse than this on the regular in your lab. You’ve worked with these cancers and viruses and bacteria a dozen times over, at the very least! You once infected congress with six of these diseases on a whim! You…

You’ve worked with all of these diseases before.

The thought rolls through your mind like a freight train. You stare at the readouts. The charts. The children. You remember their faces as they slept. You come to a decision.

Nanites are expensive to produce. They take time, they’re a bit finicky, and God do you hate programming them, but you’ve got the data you need already on file. You’ve got the nanite stock saved up for your attack on the financial district this Friday.

You fire up your laptop. The financial district can wait a week. You’ve got priorities.

***

You portal into the first room you visited the night before. The children are still there, but this time, they’re awake. You just popped into existence between them and the television on the wall behind you.

Two sets of eyes stare at you. The third child, the one missing an eye, is still asleep.

You stare back. You realize you have less than three seconds before someone screams.

“Well now!” You say in your best authority voice. Thank God you wore your medical coat. Thank God you dressed the part. “Sorry if I surprised you. We’re trying some new technology here. I guess it works.”

You grin and wink. The little girl with no legs giggles. The girl with one arm grins. That was stupidly easy.

You snap your fingers, and a blue portal opens behind you. Three drone droids float out, each carrying a small, metal suitcase. They set them down in a neat row as you click a button on your wrist. The cases let out a small hiss as they open. The medical drones float back a bit and patiently hover in place.

You lock eyes with the first girl. She’s nervous, but curious about what you’re up to. “I heard about your, um, your leg situation,” you say. Leg situation? You really are not good at this.

The little girl looks down at where her legs used to be. She rubs her thigh. “The doctors said they were crushed.” You notice the bandages need changing. God, this place must be short staffed, what with everyone dying the other day. Sue looks at you with tears on her cheeks. “Why couldn’t they fix them?”

You bite your lip before remembering that she’s a child and you’re here for a specific reason, and that reason isn’t to be an asshole. “Well,” you start, your mind racing. “So, um, yes. About that. Let’s say they were getting you ready.”

She cocks her head at that. “For what?”

You pick up the new, silver legs you crafted and hold them up for her to see.

“For these.”

Her eyes grow as wide as dinner plates. She covers her mouth with her hands.

You glance at the other little girl and nod. “Give me five minutes. You’re next.”

***

The first little girl (Cassie. She excitedly introduced herself as you attached her right leg) is now walking in circles to get used to her new legs. The second is busy flexing her fingers as you finish installing a cybernetic eye into the still sleeping boy.

“My fingers feel weird,” the second little girl (Amy) says. “Are they supposed to tingle?

You shrug. You don’t look up from your work as you reply. “I just reconnected all five nerve branches in your arm to alien technology. It’s going to take a bit to calibrate to you. Just give it time.”

Amy’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. “This is an alien arm?”

“Well, only kind of. I stole the tech from an alien race, but I’ve modified it quite a bit. I’d say it’s about 30% alien? Give or take?”

Amy flexes her hand again and grins. “This is so awesome. I can feel things! It’s like a while new arm!”

“That’s because it’s a whole new arm,” you answer. The eye appears to be in, but the boy is still asleep. You nod. Of course he is. He took a hit to the head. He’s in a coma.

Cassie jumps in place and laughs. “They feel just like my old legs, but stronger! I feel like I could jump to the moon!”

“I don’t know about the moon, but you’ll find those legs could outrun, um, you could do well in track.” You take out three syringes from your cases. “Now,” you say as the girl’s smiles fade. “Who feels like getting really better?”

You portal from room to room. Most of the time, the kids are asleep. Sometimes, you find them awake. By the fifth room, you can hear commotion in the halls. The doctors know someone just performed a miracle. You work fast. You’d prefer not to be noticed.

You have an image to maintain.

It takes two hours, but you manage to visit every single child. Even the ones that weren’t caught in the explosion were paid a visit. You were only spotted once, and that was towards the end. You were in the NICU, installing the skull plate. You’d just finished when you glanced up to see a nurse standing in the doorway watching you. You thought she was going to scream, or run for help, or, well, something, but then you remembered you weren’t in costume. Well, you were, but not your normal one?

“What are you doing?” She asked. She took a hesitant step forward when she realized the baby’s head wasn’t bandaged anymore, but covered her mouth in shock when she heard the infant let out a cry. Per the chart, the child had been in critical condition. Now, the poor thing just wanted a bottle.

The nurse cautiously picked up the baby, her fingers dancing over where the metal plate shined. She looked up at you as you opened a portal to slip away. You expected her to say something, but she just stared at you, then at the baby, and to your amazement, she turned her back on you to find a bottle in the little table next to the child’s incubator.

You know a cue when you see one, so you stepped back into your portal and blipped out of there.

***

It’s been six weeks since your little crisis of faith. You shook off the momentary bout of insanity and focused on getting right back to what you did best. Three banks, two credit unions, and a diamond exchange for good measure. Your little stunt at the hospital had been thorough, and thoroughly expensive. You needed to replenish.

You also had to set the record straight. Vulcan wouldn’t stop running his stupid mouth at the last Legion meeting. You let it slide the first few times, but the second he started loudly telling everyone about how you’d gone soft, you decided enough was enough and put a phaser blast through the back of his skull. You had to admit, the most satisfying part of all of that was watching what amounted to a rock covered pro wrestler collapse to the floor like, pardon the expression, a bag of bricks.

No one else gave you any crap that night. It was a most productive meeting.

And now here you are, doing what you do best. Armored cars are a little flashy, but you’re feeling the need to express yourself today, and you wanted to test out a new melting beam you’d been working on, so hey, why not? You grab a sack of cash and notice that the sunlight coming through the hole in the side of the truck is now blocked.

You turn. Floating outside the car is Infinity Lass. She’s got her arms crossed, and the look on her face is, well, you’re not sure.

You force yourself not to ogle her. The white leotard doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination, and you dig the boots. Still, you view her as a work problem. A hot work problem, but a work problem.

“Technus,” her voice is firm. How do heroes do that? The clear, projecting commands? Did they all do theater? You idily wonder if they have voice coaches.

“Dr. Technus, if you don’t mind?” You say with as much bravado as you can muster. This was stupid. You came here to test a melting gun, not deal with one of the strongest women on the planet. And no, you can’t melt Infinity Lass. One, it wouldn’t work. Two, it’d piss her off. Three… you wouldn’t get past two. You’d be a stain.

You ready your portal so you can slide the hell out of there when she clears her throat. “Dr. Technus,” she says. You pause. Since when do the heroes do manners with you? This is new. Kinda weird. “Would you mind putting down that sack of money and stepping outside?”

The absolute hell? What is this? Why isn’t she using laser eyes or something? Why the manners? This is legitimately creeping you out. You’re so put off that you actually do as she says. It’s only 10% because she’s hot. That’s what you tell yourself.

You stare her down. This could go any number of ways. Some heroes are easy-peasy, some are a hard time, and some can absolutely wreck your shit. Infinity Lass is solidly in the third camp. Even with a full battle suit, you’d be hard pressed to hold your own. And you’re not in your battle suit, you’re in your stupid skintight heist suit. This is not hero-fighting attire. This is get in-and-out attire. You’re… Dammit. You are not dressed for today. You’ve only got a phase plaster, your cool but useless against this problem melting gun, your portal trick, some sonic bees, a plasma grenade… Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You can improvise, but this is already listing itself as a Bad Time in your head.

You tense. You should start with the melting gun. While she’s busy breaking it, you can use the bees. She hates the bees. That’ll buy you ten seconds. Then…

She reaches into her belt and slips out a small envelope. Stunned, you watch as she slowly floats down to your level to hand it to you.

“I was there,” she says in a strained voice as you stare at the envelope. There’s no name on the outside. “I saw what happened that night. The press was wrong. Tom shouldn’t have…” Her eyes go wide as she catches herself. You shrug her off. You know most of their identities, and the moron only covers his with glasses. Seriously, who does that?

“What is this?” You ask. You open the envelope to find a folded crayon picture of a little girl with an oversized silver arm. Next to her is a doodle person in a lab coat. They’re both smiling. The text under it is a bit wobbly, but you can still read it.

“Thank you for the arm?” You realize you read it out loud. You look up at Infinity Lass, who looks like she’s holding back a lot of emotions.

“My daughter. Amy was, her heart, it…” She wipes her eyes and clears her throat. She’s doing her best not to lose her crap in front of you, and you honestly can’t blame her. You’d be about the same in her shoes. “She collapsed on the playground. The doctors said it was grade five, that she needed surgery, and then her, her arm was…”

And now she does lose it, and you try to be polite and look away. This is not what you came here for, but this is also kind of fascinating. You knew Infinity Lass had a daughter, but you never looked to much into it. Something about a messy divorce, a bad court case, the shitty usual. You knew the broad strokes.

Infinity Lass sniffed as she did her best to compose herself. “Amy says the arm stopped tingling, but it’s acting a little funny. Something about a twitch in her ring finger? Still, it’s, it’s a lot better than no arm. She, um, she asked if I ever saw you to, um, to give you that. And to thank you.”

You hold the paper like it’s made of porcelain. It’s… Oh God. It’s a thank you letter. It’s a thank you letter from a child you helped. This has never happened before. You’re genuinely not sure what you’re supposed to do, but a part of you is screaming that this little piece of paper is worth more than the money behind you.

You both turn when you hear sirens approaching. She glances at the gun on your hip.

“Do me a favor?” She asks. She points at the gun. “Is that a melting gun?”

You nod dumbly. “Um, yes. Yes, it is. Works fine on metal, but I doubt it’d do more than piss you off, so, um, not to worry.”

“Would you shut up and shoot me with it already?” Infinity Lass is staring down the road at the cops that are quickly approaching.

“What?” You ask. Today is all sorts of messed up.

“Do you want to escape or not?” Infinity Lass snaps. “Just fucking shoot me and get out of here.” She bites her lip and glances back at the cops, who are only a block away. “Before I change my mind.”

You gently slide the note into your belt. You unhook your melting gun and take aim at her stomach. She flies back unusually far when you hit her, whish is strange, since you’ve done this before and she barely flinched. She makes a point of collapsing on the pavement.

You take your cue. With a flash of blue light, you slip away as the cops pull up.

***

The next day, you’re taking some me-time. You’re sitting in a café that you go out of your way to preserve during your fights, as it serves the best danish in town. The coffee is pretty decent and the barista is doing her best to get through her undergrad, and you sympathize with her. She wants to go into premed. You repeatedly warn her off it, but she’s stubborn. She’s feisty. She reminds you of you.

You’re halfway through your coffee and stuck on a sudoku as a woman in a nice red sweater and gray dress pants slides into the booth across from you. She’s wearing glasses, but you know those eyes. That stare. Seriously. Glasses are the stupidest disguise ever.

You lower your own glasses and stare back. Yours aren’t… you’re near-sighted, okay? So, yes, you could fix it in a jiffy, but you’ve got a thing about eyes and, it’s not a costume. It’s not a costume.

“When I picked up Amy from school today,” the woman begins. “She told me the nice doctor lady came by during lunchtime and adjusted her arm. She says the twitch is gone, but when she threw a dodge ball, she broke a little boy’s nose.”

You snort. You can’t help it. It’s not a villainous snort, but your incognito right now, so it’s okay. “Tell her to be more careful,” you say through a smirk.

The woman stares at you for a moment before visibly relaxing. She sips her coffee, which is mostly cream and sugar. “Why did you save my daughter?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Beg pardon?”

“You heard me,” she bites back. “Why? It wasn’t for publicity. I’ve checked around. You’ve been quiet about everything that went down. And that armored car thing yesterday? You weren’t expecting company, were you?”

You don’t acknowledge anything she says. You just sip your coffee and count the exits.

“So, why?” She asks again. “You’ve never done anything like that before. You don’t help people. You’ve never helped people. So why now? Why her?”

You hear the underlying question. “Why my daughter?”

You sip your coffee as slowly as you can. You weren’t ready for this. You take a moment to compose your thoughts. You think about the different ways you can answer her.

You take out your phone and scroll through your photos. You slide it across the table to show the woman a photo of a little green-eyed girl.

“My niece, Oliva.” you say in what you hope is a casual tone. “She was six when her mother’s car was knocked off a bridge by Sunbeam.”

The woman tenses. You figured she would. Most folks on both sides of the line knew about Sunbeam.

“He managed to fish the car out, and my sis lived, but Olive… She’d been under too long. Died at the hospital right in front of her mama.”

The woman across from you sets the phone down on the table. She looks at you over the rim of her glasses. “You killed Sunbeam, didn’t you?”

You nod. “Yep. Transmogrified the air in his lungs into water and watched him drown in the middle of the street.” You take a sip. “It was the most satisfying day of my life.”

“Is that why you do this?” She asks. “The crime? The killing? Is it for revenge?”

You shrug. “I do it because I’m good at it. I do it because it makes me rich.” You take back your phone. “And because sometimes when I’m staring down a hero, I hear my sister’s cries. I remember how she drank herself to death. I remember my niece. And then, yeah. Sometimes, it’s for revenge.”

The woman stares at her coffee for a solid thirty seconds. You feel your anxiety rising. Talking about dead loved ones and being cornered in your safe space was not how the afternoon was supposed to go.

“So, you didn’t help Amy because she was my daughter?”

You shake your head. “Carol, I didn’t even know she was in there. I just… I didn’t want… I didn’t want to be another Sunbeam. I didn’t want another…” You’re not sure how to finish that sentence. You’ve been trying hard to forget how you acted that night.

Carol looks slightly alarmed that you used her name, but you shrug it off. Like you don’t know most of the Collective Good’s identities? Please. You’re a super genius and you got through medical school.

Carol fidgets with her coffee for a few moments before clearing her throat. “So, um, I don’t, um, I don’t know if you’d… This is harder than I thought it would be. I…”

“Spit it out, Carol. Don’t make me get my melting gun.” You smile as you say it. You’re not serious. You don’t have your melting gun.

You have your phase disruptor, and the safety is off and ready to go, but you don’t think you’ll need it.

Carol finally relaxes and flashes you a smile. “Please. That thing couldn’t even give me a tan.”

“Could have fooled me,” you say as you consider taking a bite of your danish. Should you eat in front of her? Would that be rude? You really want that danish.

“No, I couldn’t. But I fooled those cops, didn’t I?”

You grin. You were right; she was giving you an out. “Why are you really here?”

Carol slides a piece of paper across the table. It has an address scribbled on it. “There’s a kid in Amy’s class that was paralyzed last Fall in a car crash. His name’s Dawson. Drunk driver broadsided him and his mom. She was fine, but he lost the use of his legs.”

You glance at Carol. “And?”

Carol frowns. “I just, I thought that, um…”

“I’m not a charity,” you say in a low voice. You stand. “Look, don’t get the wrong idea. What happened at the hospital was a one-time thing. Those kids shouldn’t suffer just because one of your people can’t control his temper.”

“What about all the kids you cured?” Carol asks. “The doctors said all the patients had a clean bill of health. No cancer, no tumors, nothing. Amy’s heart is completely fixed up. What did Superior Force have to do with that?”

You don’t answer. You hate it when people point things out to you that you have trouble arguing. Hell, why did you do that? What’s gotten into you?

You walk away from Carol, your coffee, and your danish. This conversation is over. You’re pretty sure she’s not going to follow you, but you still keep an eye out. You’re right. You see her through the window as you power-walk away. She’s still at the booth.

You look down at your hands. You realize the address is still crumpled in your hands.

“Goddammit,” you mutter.

***

The next day, you’re scrolling through your newsfeed and see a feel-good story about a local boy named Dawson who miraculously regained the use of his legs after eating his school lunch. You scroll past. Taking the place of the cafeteria worker had been worse than your six-month stint in county when you were 19. You’d prefer not to think about it.

***

Three days later, your favorite barista hands you back your cash and gives you a slightly larger than normal drink.

“Already covered,” she says. “Also, can I ask you about my bio-chem midterm?”

“Thanks, and hell no. I blocked that course out of my mind. You’re on your own,” you say with a shudder.

The barista hands you an envelope.

“What this?” you ask.

“A pretty blonde lady dropped it off this morning. Said if I saw you to give this to you.”

Your mind races. You already know who she’s talking about, but the panic side of your mind is in overdrive. She knows this is your place. She can find you here. They can all find you here. It was stupid to come back. Fuck the danishes. This was a bad idea.

Still…

You nod your thanks and go to your booth. You open the envelope and take out a photo of Amy, her bionic arm loosely wrapped around the neck of a little boy you remember serving a special helping of spaghetti to a few days ago. They’re both standing in front of the school and grinning.

You smile. You don’t mean to and you’ll kill anyone who notices, but you smile.

You idly flip the photo over and freeze. On the back is a message.

Well, a number and a message. A short message. Two words.

Call me

You swallow you coffee in three gulps.

You might still be smiling.

Fucking heroes.