#and have no problems with russias demands

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

At this point, they're Russia's useful idiots

[wintersmitth]

The problem is we can't even say we hate russians because we'll get lectured on fucking xenophobia and racism and when you are pointing out hey I actually live in conditions where I could die any single day, in excitingly violent ways you can't imagine, maybe I get the right to be angry and a lil bit irrational (altho I do believe you have to be a masochistic to like russians now) while my friend is sitting in the safety of the hall while her city is being shelled, you point this out, and they go Well still you can't hate them all, they don't support russia and anyway it is #NotAllRussians. And then you show the numerous screenshots what the not all russians write on social media, how gleeful they are etc etc. And you still get told same bullshit?? It genuinely makes me want to tear my hair out. We have to be perfect fucking little victims, quiet, polite, not too demanding, not hateful, nothing. We just gotta take it.

While russians don't get anything. Just unfair cancelling I guess.

[soapybutt17]

Day One

Summary: Initial Scenes with Rookie and the rest of 141 during the earlier days of the new Taskforce. Character: John Price x F!Wife!Reader. Simon "Ghost" Riley. Kyle "Gaz" Garrick. John "Soap" MacTavish. Kate Laswell. Word Count: 3,115 Chapter Warnings: Mention of Blood and Injuries. Mentions of Nightmares. Canon Divergence AU.

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

In the broad daylight, Captain John Price was tucked away in a nondescript corner of a small café, the smell of coffee and pastries enveloping him as he made his way inside. Kate Laswell already waiting for him. A cup of tea already in his hold for what was to come out of their conversation.

“Tea?” Kate inquired, surprised by his choice of beverage.

“Yeah, well I’m a long way from a proper pint.” He grunted, giving her a passive aggressing smile, he was genuinely craving one after the events with Barkov.

“Russia disowned Barkov.” Kate immediately spoke, going straight to the point of their meeting.

“Well they didn’t have much choice did they? He’s dead.” John quipped right back.

“You took a big bite out of that problem, John.”

“For now, but left unchecked.” He knew there were still loose ends that needed to be dealt with.

“They won’t be.” Kate assured him, pulling out a dossiers of several candidates, potential members for his new Taskforce. “General Shepherd pulled the files you asked for. What is this about?” Kate slid the it towards him, but her own curiosity for his plan was shown in broad daylight.

“A Taskforce.” He answered simply.

“We already have loose ends.” Kate shook her head, doubt more than evident in her features for his plan.

“And I will tie them.” He reassured right back.

“I can fund assets, not outlaws.”

It took him a moment, but if she was not able to meet his demands, there was no point in pushing further with the mission.

“Enjoy the tea then.” He slowly slid his cup away from him before Kate slid the dossier further towards him on the table.

“Zakhaev wants Barkov’s throne.”

“I almost buried him in Pripyat, with Macmillan.” He remembered the man dead, confirmed. There would have been no way in hell the man was still alive.

“That was the father. This is the son, ‘Victor’.”

“Lovely family.” He deadpanned.

“They’re big fans of Hadir’s.”

“Well, that would explain why he’s still alive.”

“They’re going to get him out.” It was the problem that needed a solution, but John knew that he couldn’t give them solution if they were not willing to compromise with his own needs.

“Then give me what I need.”

Kate finally relents, letting go of the dossier and allowing John to finally take a hold of. In one measure movement, he had pulled the array of folders inside, skimming through the number of folders looking for four that would be a part of his Taskforce.

“Who’s your crew?”

First on the list was Sergeant Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, a younger member of the force with an impressive track record. John admired his loyalty and fierce determination he was a soldier, still a young blood, who would follow orders without question, a quality that was crucial for the success of the Taskforce. A man that Price knew would be crushed and broken if not trained by the rightful people.

“Sergeant Garrick,” John responds.

“Kyle?”

“They call him “Gaz”. He never said anything.” It was not his secret to share, but he knew the story behind.

He handed the folder to Kate, knowing she would do her own precautionary check on her own end to reassure herself and to reassure the General that his choices were the best that could be made as he created the team.

 The second candidate was Sergeant John "Soap" MacTavish, a skilled operator with a reputation for getting things done. Price knew Soap well, having fought alongside him in some of the most dangerous missions. He saw potential in Soap to be the backbone of the team, a reliable and skilled asset.

“John MacTavish, SAS. Sniper-demolitions. Goes by ‘Soap’.” John handed the folder to Kate.

“Why?”

“That’s classified.” He was quick to respond, it was not his question to answer.

Skimming further to the pile the chuckle escaped from his lips as he saw the familiar name.

“There he is…”

The third was that of the masked Lieutenant Simon “Ghost” Riley. John had known Ghost for years, and his mysterious nature and exceptional stealth abilities made him an invaluable asset in covert operations. Ghost's skills in reconnaissance and intelligence gathering were unparalleled.

“Simon Riley.”

He was amongst the only one out of the three that did not have a photo that came along with his file.

“There’s no picture.” Kate pointed out.

“Never.” John’s only response and it was the only answer he needed to give for the topic.

As he skimmed through the files, he couldn't help but think about his wife, Lieutenant Rookie. She was a highly capable officer, and unbeknownst to the rest of the team, she had already been part of some successful covert missions. Price knew that she was more than just a decorated Lieutenant. She possessed a profound understanding of strategy and possessed a level of intuition that couldn't be taught.

Price hesitated for a moment, his mind wrestling with conflicting thoughts. He wanted his wife closer to him, to protect her and have her by his side. It was a selfish desire, and he knew it, but he also recognized the immense value she would bring to the Taskforce.

“Lieutenant Y/N “Rookie” Y/L/N.” He showed your folder to Kate. In the years of knowing you, of being in a relationship, and eventually tying the knot, the both of you had decided it was best for both of your interest to keep your relationship a secret. But for this moment, for the loose ends that would possibly end in death for any of them, all he would want is to have you by his side should the time ever come to him, to you, or to the rest of the team.

“SAS. Sniper, the best marksman you can ever find and a trained medic.” He began, taking a little longer to look at your photo attached to the folder before finally handing it to Kate. “She’s not just here because of her abilities, she will be the heart of this Taskforce. Her insight, her instincts—they are invaluable. Trust me on this.”

With a nod of approval from Kate, John had sealed the team he has created to help him in ensure that all the loose ends that were in the present and those that would come in the future would be dealt with in the best way possible.

“Now the rest…” He trailed off, knowing that he had shown the best of the best that would be in his roster, but it was enough to give them the much needed confidence in his choice. “That’s need to know. Unless we got a deal.”

“What are you calling this Taskforce?”

“1-4-1.”

And so, Taskforce 141 was born, a group of highly skilled and dedicated operatives handpicked by Captain Price, each bringing their unique talents to the table. Little did the world know that behind this elite team was also a personal motive, a desire to protect and be closer to the ones he cared about. It was a risky move, but Price knew that with these individuals, including his wife, they had the potential to change the tide of any battle they faced.

~

Sergeant Gaz Garrick's heart pounded in his chest as he approached the entrance of the new base, now a member of the highly acclaimed Taskforce. He couldn't help but feel a mix of excitement and anxiety about being handpicked by the Captain himself to join this elite group of soldiers. However, the thought of standing alongside the prestigious individuals he had only heard legendary stories about filled him with hesitation and doubt. "Do I really belong here?" he wondered silently to himself.

Stepping inside the base, Gaz was immediately greeted by the brisk air-conditioned atmosphere, a stark contrast to the sweltering heat outside. The clacking of boots echoed through the corridors as soldiers went about their duties. With a slight gulp, Gaz navigated the unfamiliar layout until he found the office of one of his superiors. An infamous woman by the moniker Rookie.

As he approached the door, he took a deep breath, trying to quell the nervousness building up inside him. He knows gently and waited for the invitation to enter.

“Come in,” a warm and inviting voice called out from within the room.

Gaz entered the office to find Lieutenant Rookie, a seasoned officer with a kind face and a commanding but welcoming aura, sitting at your desk, engrossed in some paperwork. You looked up and smiled warmly when you saw Gaz standing there, a bundle of nerves and uncertainty.

“Sergeant Gaz, welcome to the team!” You greeted, rising from your seat and extending a hand in greeting.

Gaz shook your hand, feeling slightly relieved by your welcoming demeanor. “Thank you, Ma’am.” He replied with a hint of gratitude in his voice.

You studied him for a moment, as if trying to gauge his feelings. “I know it can be overwhelming to join a new team, especially one as new but slowly becoming prestigious as this,” you said, voice softening. “But rest assured, Sergeant, you’ve earned your place here. The Captain doesn’t choose just anyone. He saw something in you. We see something in you.”

Gaz managed a half-smile, appreciated your attempt to ease his doubts. “I’ll do my best, ma’am,” He replied earnestly.

“I have no doubt about that,” you beamed, her eyes glinting with confidence. “Now, let’s get you settled in. You’ll find your quarters just down the hall. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

As they days went by, Lieutenant Rookie proved to be more than just a commanding officer to Gaz. You took time to get to know him, understanding that he was far from home and his family was hundreds of miles away. You easily became a motherly figure to him, offering advice and support when needed. Your guidance and caring nature had helped Gaz feel more at ease in his new surroundings, and he began to open up to you, sharing his worries and aspirations.

During training exercise and missions, Gaz found himself admiring and appreciating your leadership skills and expertise—it also didn’t hurt that you had become the ear that would always listen to his worries without thinking he was weak. Your experience was evident, and you never hesitate to impart your knowledge to him and to the rest of the team. Slowly, Gaz started to find his place among the other members, gaining their respect through his own hard work and dedication.

As time passed, Gaz's doubts began to fade away, replaced by a sense of belonging and pride in being part of the Taskforce. He realized that he had been chosen for a reason and that his skills were valuable to the team.

And it was all thanks to you.

~

The night was cold and dark at the military base where Simon Riley had been station. He had been asleep in his bed, but his rare peaceful slumber was soon interrupted by the harrowing and haunting memories that had plagued him for years. In his nightmare, he found himself back in the midst of a tragic event that had forever scarred him.

As the nightmare unfolded, Simon was back home, witnessing the devastating attack to get back at him that had taken the lives of his beloved family. He saw himself frantically trying to save them, but was overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness. The confinements of a coffin was the next of his memories that was relived.

The guilt of feeling responsible for their deaths consumed him, the claustrophobia of being in such a confined space for days, and he thrashed wildly in his sleep.

His desperate cries and movement did not go unnoticed. In the adjacent room, Lieutenant Rookie, a growing mother-figure to Simon, heard the commotion and rushed to his side. You had always been there for him, providing support and guidance, and this time was no different—you had always been his exception for moments like this.

You sat down besides Simon’s thrashing form and gently shook him, calling out his name, “Simon! Wake up, it’s just a dream, you’re safe.” It was your comforting words that slowly eased him away from the nightmare.

Simon’s eyes flew open, his breath heavy and labored as he looked around, trying to comprehend where he was. Slowly, the images from his nightmare began to fade, but the pain his heart remained, more painful than ever.

You wrapped your arms around him, pulling him close in a comforting embrace—one of the few people he would even allow to touch him. You whispered soothingly in his ears, rubbing his shaking back in the process.

“It’s okay, I’m here. You’re not alone, Simon. You’re with me, you’re with us.”

Unable to hold back the overwhelming emotions any longer, Simon broke down in tears. The weight of the past, the loss of his mother, brother, nephew, and sister-in-law, and the burden of feeling responsible for their deaths came crashing down on him.

You held him tightly, allowing him to grieve as he needed to. His sobs echoed through the empty military base, a poignant reminder of the pain he had carried silently for so long, all on his own.

“Let it out, Simon.” It’s alright to feel the pain.” You said, your voice gentle and caring. “You don’t have to carry this weight alone. We’re here for you. You’re not alone anymore.”

As Simon clung to you, he felt a sense of relief in the moment of despair. A sense of relief he hadn’t experience in years. The walls he had built around his heart began to crumble, and he allowed himself to lean onto you for strength and the love he never thought he would ever deserve again, just as he had lost all those years ago when his mother passed away.

In that quiet moment, Simon Riley found solace in your arms, the mother-figure he had lost but had now regained in the most unexpected of places. As the night turned into a new day, Simon knew he had finally found a way to heal from the wounds of the past.

And it was all thanks to you.

~

As the sun set over the war-torn landscape of Los Vaqueros' Base of Operation, Sergeant Soap MacTavish and Lieutenant Rookie found themselves fleeing for their lives from the treacherous clutches of Shadow Company. The once trusted Private Military group had turned on them, leaving Soap with a painful wound on his shoulder and a relentless determination to survive.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Soap leaned on you for support as you made your way through the abandoned streets. The buildings around them were mere husks, remnants of a once-thriving town now reduced to a battleground. Gunfire echoed in the distance, a chilling reminder that danger was never far away.

“Keep moving, Soap. We’re gonna get out of here alive, you here me.” You urged, your voice filled with both fear and determination. You held your weapon close, scanning the shadows for any sign of your pursuers.

Ghost's voice crackled over their comms, trying to keep the mood light in the face of danger. "Hey, Soap, how do you make a tissue dance? You put a little boogie in it!" he joked, but his concern for his comrades was evident.

Soap managed a faint smile, grateful for the distraction. "Thanks, Ghost. I owe you one for that."

You shot a quick glance at Soap, admiration and concern in your eyes. You had always trusted and believed in him even when everyone doubted the man and his antics.

As you neared the edge of the town, the sound of gunfire grew louder, and the stench of burning buildings and bloodshed filled the air. Las Almas, once a bustling community, now lay in ruins, a ghost town in more ways than one.

Finally, you spotted the church steeple in the distance, its silhouette a beacon of lost hope. Ghost’s car was parked nearby, ready to whisk them both away to safety. But getting there would be no easy task with the Shadows still looking for you both.

“Soap, take point. We need to make sure the area is clear before we make a run for it.” You instructed, voice steady despite the pain of the bullet that had now also grazed your arm while on the run.

Soap nodded, his resolve was firm as he led the way, carefully navigating through the debris-strewn streets. The sound of bullets whizzing in the background only fueled your determination. Both of you relying on each other’s skills and instincts to stay one step ahead.

Finally, you reached the church, your escape vehicle in sight. Ghost was behind the wheel, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. "Hurry up, lovebirds! We've got a date with safety, and it's getting late!" he quipped, though the tension in his voice betrayed his worry.

You helped Soap into the backseat, taking a moment to catch her breath before climbing in beside him. Ghost revved the engine, and the car sped away from the desolate town, leaving the chaos of Las Almas behind.

As they drove towards the safe house, the adrenaline began to subside, and exhaustion set in. Soap leaned back, his injured shoulder throbbing, but relief washed over him knowing they had escaped the clutches of Shadow Company.

Soap, for the first time in a long while sighed in relief, his head somehow falling onto your shoulders, getting a momentary sense of peace even with the battle that would still come your way after this. It would be a long night, but they will get their retribution and they will make sure Alejandro’s base would be return back or they would all die trying.

“As much as I love Soap, he’s too young for me.” You had pointed out in the silence of the car ride, it had taken notice by both men.

“Aren’t we the same age?” Soap inquired, not really knowing much about you besides your accomplishment in the field.

“Barely.” You snort patting him on the head. “I’m about a half a decade older than you, you’re not my type, and I’m actually taken.”

Soap couldn’t help but blink at the tidbit of news about you.

“Who’s the fuckin’ bastard we need to beat up then?” Soap inquired.

“No one you need to know about,” You smirked pulling his head right back to your shoulder. “Now get some sleep, it’s gonna be a while before you get one once we start the plan of attack on Graves and his Shadows.”

[pamgkrthwrites]

Captive Consort Chapter 1 - Blood of War and Rings

Warning, the following content is for an 18+ audience. If you are under the age of 18 do not read the content below. Warning, the following content has disturbing/triggering themes such as; Yandere, Arrange(Political) Marriage, Religious/Cultural Differences, Imperial Harems, Self Harm for Religious Practices. I do not support or encourage these themes or actions, they are merely written fictional events for entertainment. The character(s) depicted within this post are over the age of 19. (This list may get updated with each new Chapter Update)

DNI IF YOU ARE AN AGELESS, MINOR OR BLANK BLOG

Support me on Ko-Fi | Sign Up to the Tag List | Masterlist | AO3 Listing

Taglist: @yazminetrahan @emmab3mma @dreamcastgirl99 @optimisticprime3

Fandom: BNHA

Pairing: Bakugou x Female Reader

Additional Pairings: Iida x Ochako, Kirishima x Mina, Mitsuki x Masaru, Mitsuki x Inko

Themes: Fantasy AU, Arrange Marriage, Political Marriage, Cultural/Religious Differences, Yandere, Greek Inspired Reader, Imperialism

Summary: Your country has been at war with the Barbarians for almost a year, and the Barbarian Prince, Katsuki Bakugou, has requested a peace treaty. Problem is, he is demanding either a large sum of money that your country can not provide, or you as his bride. You're from a culture inspired from Ancient Greece, while Bakugou is from a culture inspired by Imperial Japan, Imperial Russia, and Vikings, so there are are going to be a more than a few issues that arise from this and how people treat you differently.

A/N: I literally have an assignment due to tomorrow but no I spent MY ENTIRE WEEK writing this. I might be mentally unwell......... ANYWAY Hello hello. This is probably the LONGEST thing I have ever written for one chapter. Be prepared for Melissa Slander.

Word count: 10k+

"Father, you can’t seriously be considering marrying me off to that barbarian prince?!” You stood before your father in disbelief.

He couldn’t actually be considering this proposal, right?

Your father sat at his desk, the treaty paper in his hands. “He says he’ll stop the war if our nation gives him money that we do not have, or marry off one of The Nine Shachou Member’s daughters of marrying age. Unfortunately, you’re the only one who is of marrying age and has yet to be married.”

“But father-!”

Your father slammed his hand on the table as he stood up before shouting at you. “You will do as I say, child! We cannot afford to continue this war with the barbarians! Let alone with the rest of their savage continent! At least this way, we have a way of controlling them!”

You bit your lower lip, trying not to cry. You should’ve known this wouldn’t have worked.

You are merely an object to be traded for these monsters.

“You’ll be shipped over on one of our boats. I’ve been told it’ll take thirty days for you to reach their continent if everything goes smoothly.” Your father said as he sat back down. “You’re just going to have to deal with this, child.”

You gripped the side of your dress. “When do I leave?”

“We will be sending our response to those barbarians at first light tomorrow. It is already written up.”

That wasn’t an answer to your question. “Am I taking anyone with me?”

“That depends on the prince’s response. He may not allow you to go with any maids or guards.”

You were silent as you looked down at the floor. 

“I recommend you pray to the gods while you still can, child.” Your father told you. “Also bring miniature statues of them as well. That continent of savages worship different gods to us. I will pray to Soteria to protect you.”

You clutched the beads around your neck, each of them symbolising one of your many gods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a week had passed, you were instead shipped by carriage with your father to meet with the prince and his men at their camp.

Your mouth smeared up when you noticed the wet mud before your feet.

“Fourth Shachou,” You heard a gruff voice with a thick accent say. “We hope your journey was safe.”

You turned to see a green haired man with freckles on his cheeks. He stood at one hundred and eighty-three centimetres tall and had green eyes. He didn’t wear typical clothing you saw of the barbarians, but you could still see it was from their continent, but with the skin that was showing you saw a large amount of scars. All differing in lengths and widths.

Your father gruffed as he left the carriage and walked over to the young man. “I see you know our tongue.”

The green-haired man kept a smile on his face. “We speak the same language, Fourth Shachou.”

You got down from the carriage, holding the skirt of your dress up to avoid it being dirtied from the mud. The green-haired boy looked towards you and scanned your face. 

“This is my daughter.” Your father put his hand on your back as he said your name, pushing you forward.

“I am Midoriya Izuku.” The green-haired man introduced himself. “I am childhood friends of the Barbarian Dragon Tribe Prince, Bakugou Katsuki.”

“Dragon Tribe?” Your father repeated. “I thought there was only one group of those barbarians.”

“Be careful of your tone, Fourth Shachou.” Midoriya warned before answering your father’s question. “Back in times of old, there were many Barbarian tribes. With the rise of the Demon Lord a hundred years ago, the tribes were either wiped out or forced to merge together to be stronger in numbers. The Dragon Tribe is a result of Humans Barbarians and Dragon Shifters Barbarians merging into one Tribe. They are currently considered to be the largest Barbarian Tribe throughout all of known history of Nihon. They continue to use the name of The Barbarian Dragon Tribe to remember their fallen brothers and sisters.”

Yourself and your father watched as Midoriya went on a ramble of Barbarian history. Once Midoriya was done, he looked at you two and noticed how you had both reacted to him. He blushed lightly.

“Sorry- Didn’t mean to ramble.” He quickly pushed out of his mouth. 

“And what is your relationship with the Tribe, boy?” Your father asked. “To our understanding, they don’t let outsiders into their tribes easily.”

Midoriya seemed taken aback by your father’s statement. “They don’t typically like those from outside of Nihon to join the tribe. You might be mistaking the actions of the tribe to Kacchan. Kacchan is very standoffish to even meeting those outside of the tribe.”

“And who is this Kacchan?”

“Oh- Sorry, I mean Prince Bakugou.” Midoriya said offhandedly. “Kacchan was the nickname I gave him when we were children.”

Your father scoffed.

Midoriya looked at you. “If you are ready, I can take you to go meet him-”

“Women of Girisha are not permitted to speak to men without permission of their father or husbands, let alone walk off somewhere private with a man who is a stranger to her or her family.” Your father glared at Midoriya. 

Midoriya paused, looking up at your father with a look in his eye. His lips were in a line and his eyebrows were knitted.

A smile quickly painted his face, but it was no longer the smile from before. “Yes, my apologies. I had forgotten that was a custom for your people. I simply wanted to ask if she was ready to meet with the Prince.”

Your father replied. “I will be needing to discuss the travel arrangements with him.” As if that was an answer to the question.

You saw the strain on Midoriya’s face. “Of course. Follow me then.”

Midoriya turned and started to lead you two to a large tent, the tarp fabric being a red copper colour. On the ‘door’ to the tent had a symbol on it. The centre of it had a symbol of the first number. To the sides of the character were simplified wings, which met at a base before the numbered character. The symbol was painted on the tarp with a black ink.

Midoriya raised a hand as he got to the door. “Please wait here for a moment.” He said to the two of you before heading instead to the tent himself.

Leaving your father and you standing in the mud.

Your father sneered. “This place is a pigsty. It’s muddy, it smells, and none of the people here smell as if they have bathed.”

You looked down at your shoes, grimacing how they were dirty now. You wondered if your own nation’s army camps looked like this too. It’s not like you would ever know, women weren’t allowed near the army camps.

The tarp opened, seeing Midoriya’s smile. “You can come in now, Fourth Shachou.”

You followed in after your father. You bowed your head as you curtsied while your father merely bowed his head.

“Greetings, Prince Bakugou Katsuki. I am the Fourth of Nine Shachou Member,” Your father introduced himself, stating his name and family name. “As we agreed to in the peace treaty agreement, my daughter.”

You stood back up straight, introducing yourself by name to a man with wheat ash blonde hair and crimson red eyes. He was slouching in a chair, but if he stood up he would easily be one hundred and ninety-six centimetres tall. He had broad shoulders, with a tattoo that matched the symbol on the tent door. He wore a teal crop top that was laced up at the front, an orange sleeve with black patterning starting at his wrist to his mid upper arm, navy denim pants, a red coat with fur coating the neck line, high-low fur skirt that was held up by a dark brown belt, knee high grey boots, and leather armour on his knees and shoulders.

The man was staring at you, his eyes glued to your face and refusing to look away from your face. His finger tapped on his face, as if calculating something.

“I wanted to discuss-” 

“When did I allow you to speak?!” The blonde’s voice was loud, his attention now brought to your father. His glare would throw knives if they could. When your father wasn’t responsive, the prince let out a grunt, pushing his hand down his face. “Make it short.”

Your father hesitated before he spoke. “We have yet to discuss how my daughter will be transported and when the wedding will happen.”

“It’s happening tomorrow.”

“Excuse me?”

A cough came from a man who stood at one hundred and ninety centimetres tall with red hair and ruby red eyes. “His Majesty means the two will be flying there by dragon’s back today, which will allow the wedding to happen tomorrow evening. Traditionally, Barbarian weddings happen at sunset.”

Your father let out a nervous chuckle. “I see you are eager to end this war.”

“I’m eager for my old hag of a mother, the Empress, to stop sending me letters about her almost twenty-one year old son not coming back home.” The blonde corrected.

Your father suppressed a smile by gripping his own hand tightly that his nails dug into his palms. 

The beast of the East is easily controlled by the dominant woman in his life.

“Unless you want to transfer ownership of your daughter now and we get flying this second and have a late evening wedding?” The prince asked with a smug smirk.

Your father paused. “Ownership?”

“That’s how your people treat their women, right? They need permission to speak, which implies ownership over them.”

“I… Guess that is one way of interpreting our customs.” Your father grimenced. “I will permit her to travel to your continent for tomorrow's services. I expect that she will be housed within a separate room.”

“Of course.” The princes said with a smug expression. “I will get one of our axe-maidens to look after her.”

“I’m sorry, an axe-maiden?” Your father questioned. 

“Yes, a woman trained in wielding a battle axe.” The red head explained with a smile. “They start training when they are virgins sure, but they don’t have to stay forever to be an axe maiden.”

The prince looked over his shoulder, giving the red head a look. The red head looked away quickly.

Your father scoffed. “Of course. That will be permitted. Where should we place my daughter’s luggage?”

The prince paused for a moment before making a hand movement to Midoriya. “Tell them to put the luggage with Raccoon eyes’ luggage. We’ll fly separately.”

“Of course, Kacchan.” Midoriya smiled at the prince before walking out of the tent.

Once Midoriya had left the tent, the prince looked back at your father. “Better, Forth Shachou?”

“Will my daughter be permitted to send and receive letters?” Your father asked.

The prince’s lower eyelid twitches. “Yes, she will be able to send and receive. How long it will take will depend on the ocean.”

Silence grew between the two men as they glared at each other. You turned to look at your father’s face, seeing a frustrated expression.

You wanted to ask what it meant, but the expression on your father’s face gave you the answer already.

No.

“Kirishima,” The blonde looked at the red head. “Get your wife, and tell her she’ll be taking care of my betrothed.”

The red head nodded before walking past to leave the tent.

“We use the word intended.” Your father told the prince.

“Fortunately for me then that your daughter will be married to me. Therefore, she will be married in my culture and its beliefs.”

“Does that include your nation’s gods?”

The prince was silent. “I will not be forcing a belief system onto your daughter. She will be free to believe and practise her own beliefs as she wishes. At most, she will be asked to watch one of our rituals.”

“Very well.” Your father looked down at you then the prince. “Should I leave you two betrotheds alone?”

The prince lifted his head off his hand by about 2 inches. He stared at your father, searching to see for any ill intent before his eyes landed back on you. His eyes almost dug holes deep into your skin.

The prince breathed in through his nose. “...That is acceptable.”

Your father smirked to himself.

Weak men can easily be controlled by a woman’s influence.

Your father bowed his head before turning his back to the prince. He leaned close to you and spoke. “Behave.” Your father walked past you, leaning you alone with the prince.

The prince kept his eyes on you as he stood up. His steps towards you were slow, stopping when he was thirty centimetres between you two. His eyes were glued to you, soaking in your inner being. He took a breath in through his nose.

Was he smelling you?

“On Nihon, we address each other by our family names or titles unless we are close.” He told you. “Because we soon will be having the same last name, would it be alright if I called you by your given name?”

You slowly nodded your head, hesitating to speak. “That’s fine.”

“Would it also be alright if you called me Katsuki?”

“I can do that.”

He nodded, non-verbally communicating to you that he understood.

His eyes fell from your face and to the bead around your neck. He slowly pulled his hand to the beads and gently held onto them, tilted them to get a better look.

“What are these for?”

“Each bead represents one of our gods.” You told him as your hands went to one the beads. “This one is for our Goddess Soteria, a Spirit Goddess of Safety, Salvation, and Protection from harm.”

Katsuki was quiet as he let go of the beads. “Do you pray to her often?”

“Yes, she is my family's patron god.” You let go of the bead, your eyes landing on his necklaces around his neck. “Do yours also represent your gods?”

Katsuki looked down at his beads. “No, nothing religious. These are traditional cultural practices my family does. Each loop represents an event in our lives. The orange ones represent my birth, the red ones represent when I first used my magic, and the claw looking one represents my warrior spirit at the first religious hunt that we do.”

You gently held onto the necklace that was longer than the rest but had very little beads. “And what does this one represent?”

He watched you carefully, looking down at the three beads on that chain. 

“... An event that happened during the summer after my sixteenth birthday.”

He’s being vague for a reason. Best to drop the subject.

You dropped the beads and the subject.

“Bakugou I heard you wanted to-!” A feminine voice boomed into the tent.

Katsuki’s head lifted from looking at you, now glaring at whoever walked into the tent. You saw how his mouth went into a scroll and how his cheek twitched.

You turned your head, seeing a woman with light pink skin, messy pink hair, yellow horns, black sclera, yellow iris and stood at one hundred and seventy-five centimetres tall. Her mouth was shut and small as she sweat bullets upon seeing Katsuki’s face.

“Sorry, was this a bad time?” She asked.

Katsuki snarls his upper canines at the woman. He shuts his eyes and takes in a deep breath through his nose. Katsuki addresses you by your first name. “This is Kirishima Mina. She’ll be escorting and protecting you and who you will be travelling with to Nihon.”

Mina looked up at the prince, having a silent conversation before turning to you. She suddenly rushed towards you and held your hands in her own. “It’s nice to finally meet you! I’m Kirishima Mina! You can just call me Mina so you don’t get me confused with my husband.”

You were a bit startled by her forwardedness, trying to take a step back. Your back bumped into the prince’s chest, making you step forward towards Mina.

Mina leaned to the side and looked up at the Prince. “What’s first on the agenda today, boss?”

“You’re flying her to meet the Empress.” The prince replied. “The old hag will take care of everything until the wedding tomorrow.”

“Sorry- The wedding is tomorrow?!” Mina stared at the prince before looking at you. “Oh goodness! We don’t have the time!” She looked back at the Prince. “Wait until your mother hears about this!”

“Yeah yeah.” The prince gruffed. “Just make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.”

“Right on it!” Mina smiled as she held onto your arm and started to guide you out of the tent. You noticed a few of the barbarians’ eyes on you once you left the tent, noticing your father’s eyes were not one of them.

The girl that was all pink guided you to an area that had bags of luggage, some of yours was mixed into that. There you saw Midoriya and the red haired man who you were pretty sure was called Kirishima.

Kirishima saw Mina, a side smile quickly forming on his face. “Mina! You came back quickly!”

“You could’ve told me the wedding was tomorrow!” Mina whined to her husband. 

Midoriya chuckled. “I’ve never seen Kacchan this eager to hurry something up.”

“He often complains that a rushed job isn’t a good one.” Kirishima sighed. “Yet all he has wanted to do regarding this is get it rushed.”

Mina turned to you with a smile. “I’m going to shift and these two are going to load our luggage onto me. This might take some time so try to find a comfortable place to sit.”

You were a bit confused in what Mina meant by that until smoke started to emit from her skin. A sudden cloud of smoke was around her body up to four times of her normal height. Once the smoke cleared, a pink Wyvern Dragon that had a yellow shine to its scales stood at  four times her normal height. She now stood at over seven metres tall, and that's when you didn’t count her yellow horns.

Kirishima sniffled, having a large smile on his face. “My wife's dragon form is so pretty, doesn’t she?” He asked you.

Kirishima stared at you, his smile going slightly flat when he noticed you weren’t responding.

“Oh, right.” Midoriya tapped Kirishima’s shoulder. “The custom for Girisha Women are that they have to have permission from their father or husband to speak to other men.”

Kirishima seemed shocked by this news. “But, didn’t-?”

A whine came from the big dragon, making Kirishima bring his attention back to her. He chuckled and started to move. 

“Sorry my love.” He told her. “I’ll start loading stuff on.”

You watched as the Dragon form Mina laid on her stomach as Kirishima put on a harness on her. It allowed one to sit in the centre of a circle but also allowed luggage to be strapped to the sides.

Midoirya tapped your shoulder, giving you a smile. “I know you can’t respond, but I do need to warn you that the flight from here to the capital will be over seventeen hours long. Mina should be able to push herself to fly the enter time, but you should sleep when night falls. Kacchan will be a couple of hours behind you.”

You simply nodded your head before turning back to watch Mina and Kirishima communicate somehow as they loaded everything up. You could only understand Kirishima’s end of the conversation, and it just sounded like banter.

You heard your name being called, and when you turned you saw your father. “Come here child, I wish to speak with you.”

As you walked away from Mina, Midoriya and Kirishima, Midoriya watched as you obeyed your father. They exchanged a look between each other. Mina’s dragon form let out a found, and in response Kirishima rubbed his hand along her body.

Once you were close to your father, he spoke to you in a hushed voice. “What did the prince talk to you about?”

“He asked if we could call each other by our given names, and then about our necklaces.” You answered your father, your hand going to the beads around your neck and starting to fiddle with them.

Your father had a smug expression on his face. “Really? Seems like the barbarian prince is weak to the woman around him.”

You pressed your lips together, thinking about how Katsuki reacted to Mina rushing into the tent. Though it was always possible he was just angry that the conversation was interrupted. 

Best to remember to not accidentally cut him off or interrupt him in the future.

“What do they plan to do with you now?” Your father’s voice cut through your line of thought.

“The Prince wants to send me over to Nihon as soon as possible. I’ll be leaving as soon as they finish packing my belongings onto the dragon shifter.”

Your father raised an eyebrow at you before looking at the pink dragon behind you. “I can’t believe they refused to ship you via boat because of possible sea monsters, and yet will happily throw you into the sky.”

You really doubted they made that decision because of safety concerns. They probably made that call because the war would only be considered postponed until the wedding happened. 

Maybe they were worried you would withdraw your consent to get married to The Prince?

Maybe that explained why he seemed kind with you alone in the tent.

Once the wedding happens though, I doubt he’ll keep up that act for long.

“Try to become close with The Prince.” Your father told you with a hushed voice. “Make him loyal to you and only you.”

You hesitated before nodding your head to your father. “I’ll write to you once I’ve settled in.”

Your father nodded his head. “Do try to be safe, child. We don’t have much information on their way of life, so we have no idea of the world you're about to be thrusted into.”

“Fourth Shachou,” A voice spoke. “I do hope you aren’t being rude about the people who will be taking care of your daughter.”

You both turned to see Katsuki there, his eyebrows knitted as he glared at your father. You noticed how he was slightly slouching. His eyes only darted to you for a moment though quickly went back onto your father to glare at him.

“Of course not, Prince Bakugou Katsuki.” Your father told him. “I am merely telling my daughter to be safe is all.”

“Oh really?” Katsuki raised an eyebrow at your father. “And how would you recommend your daughter to stay safe in a foreign land, Fourth Shachou? By staying in her room all day?” Katsuki turned his head slightly to Midoriya. “Is that not what we saw happening in some of the estates? They had locked their daughters and wives in a room?”

As Midoriya stuttered out of agreement, you remembered a lesson you were taught while growing up.

If a city is under siege, it is best to lock women in a hidden room for their protection.

You bit the inside of your mouth, one of your hands gripping your arm. If you did end up having to be locked in a room, wouldn’t that just mean you weren’t safe? 

“I simply don’t want my daughter to be victimised while under your care.”

“She won’t be.” Katsuki glared at your father. “No one who has ever been under my care has gotten hurt, and considering your daughter is to become my wife, I’ll be putting extra effort into it.”

“We’ll have to see how successful that is.” Your father snarked back.

Your father and Katsuki glared at each other. Midoirya came from the side, soft smiling at you. “It’s time to leave now, miss. I’ll help you-”

“No you won’t, Deku.” Katsuki turned, glaring at Midoriya. 

Katsuki stomped over to where Mina was. You tried to follow closely. Whatever this atmosphere was, you did not want to find out.

Once Katsuki got close to Mina, he gently grabbed hold of your waist and lifted you up. He let you lean on him as you climbed up onto Mina’s back and into the saddle. You heard your father start to complain to Katsuki about how to handle you properly. You elected to ignore it for now, trying to sit comfortable on the cushions that seemed to be strapped down to the saddle.

“How about you say your goodbyes to your daughter instead of correcting me!” You heard Katsuki’s voice boom aggressively as he addressed your father. “Considering this may be the last time you see her, I suggest you make it a kind goodbye.”

Last time?

Was Katsuki planning to get rid of you as soon as he could?

You looked over the edge of the saddle, seeing your father carefully approach.

You also noticed the glaring looks Katsuki, Midoriya, and Kirishima were giving you.

Of course, it all makes sense now. They are waiting for you to be alone and kill you. Of course they don’t like you and your father. Why did you think they would like you?

Your father called your name. “Just try to stay safe. Write to me about your progress there.”

You nodded your head, waving down at your father.

Mina stretched out her wings and jumped into the air, her wings starting to flap to keep her in the air. She started to ascend higher into the air before starting to fly through the sky, away from the war camp. She moved much faster than any boat or carriage you had been on.

You secured yourself as you felt your legs shake and shut your eyes.

Breathe, everything is going to be alright.

Just breathe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were woken up by a sudden landing, jolting you awake..

You were no longer in the air.

You sat up and rubbed your head, hearing people yell around you. You looked off the side of the saddle, seeing a woman who looked just like Katsuki yet shorter and wearing a crown on her head yell at staff around her. To her side was a man with brown hair and glasses, speaking very softly.

The woman looked up at you before smiling. “Good morning, young one. Would you like assistance getting down?”

You weakly nodded your head, rubbing your eyes and yawning.

She gave a laugh before yelling at someone to help you. Suddenly, a woman who appeared to be a witch of some kind floated up.

She had brown auburn hair that stopped at her shoulders except two side tufts that were a bit longer, brown hazel eyes, and hair skin that made her cheeks a soft pink colour. She was wearing a dark pink witches hat that had fake beige dragon horns, a vertically striped dress that ended at her mid thighs, black stockings, pink boots, and a green cape that was warmly wrapped around her neck and flowed down past her knees.

She smiled softly at you as she extended a hand out to you. “Grabbed hold of my hand and I’ll help you down.”

You looked down at the floor, wondering how the hell did Katsuki helped you up in the first place. You gently took her hand, and soon you felt your body become lighter. She was tugged down by someone in silver metal armour with a green cape coming from their armour. Once your feet touched the floor, she said ‘release’, which was followed by that light feeling going away.

The blonde woman walked towards you. You guessed this was Katsuki mother - and therefore The Empress - you bowed your head and curtsied before introducing yourself.

“Oh no need to do that, young one.” She chuckled, helping you up. “We will be family by day’s end. I am The Barbarian Empress of The Dragon Tribe, Bakugou Mitsuki, and this is my husband. Consort of The Barbarian Empress of The Dragon Tribe, Bakugou Masaru.”

As you bowed your head to Masaru, you noticed the witch float up again and started to float down the luggage. “It is nice to meet you, Empress’ Consort Masaru.”

He smiled. “It’s nice to meet you too, young lady. If I may ask, how old are you?”

“Nineteen, sir.”

“Hmm… And when is your birthday?”

You answered his question.

“So you were eighteen when the war started I see. Regardless, it seems like we will have to change the wine out for some grape juice.”

You blinked out of confusion. “Sorry?”

The Empress spoke. “At Barbarian Weddings, we have a cup the couple drinks out of. The couple must cut their hands and spill some blood into the cup before they drink from it. We see this as a form of physically connecting the two bodies together. The wine we use simply covers up the taste of the blood.”

“Why does the wine need to be switched to grape juice though?” You asked.

“The drinking age is twenty.” The Empress answered.

“I understand. Back home, our drinking age is eighteen for women, sixteen for men..”

“... Really? That’s interesting.” The Empress had forced a smile when she replied to you.

Masaru quickly spoke to try and heal any offence his wife might’ve offered you. “What do your people traditionally do during their weddings?”

“We drink wine to connect with the gods before cutting our hands and spill blood on the Goddess of Marriage, Hera’s statue so she can tie our fates together.” You informed them. “If a divorce were to happen, the statue would be broken.”

The two were silent, their mouths closed as they looked at you.

“It’s alright,” You told them. “I won’t expect The Prince to participate in my religious’ practices. I am marrying into his culture, not the other way round.”

The two seemed shocked by either your wording or what you had said, but before they could say anything, the witch had said the words ‘release’ once more.

You turned and saw all the luggage had been neatly placed on the ground. The witch started to float up again and take off the saddle that was around Mina. 

The Empress turned her attention back to you before speaking. “We don’t believe in divorce. The only way to separate from one’s spouse for us is through death.”

The knight - that had been standing off to the side for a short while - took off his helmet as you saw a man with dark blue hair and rose red petal eyes.

“Sorry to interrupt,  Barbarian Empress of The Dragon Tribe Bakugou Mitsuki.” He bowed his head to The Empress. “Shall I start to transport the Barbarian Prince Bakugou Katsuki’s betrothed’s luggage to her room?”

Does that mean you and Katsuki won’t be sharing a room?

“That would be lovely, thank you, Iida.” She smiled at him. “If you run into Miss Yaoyorozu or Miss Jiro, could you ask them to come see me please?”

“Of course,  Barbarian Empress of The Dragon Tribe Bakugou Mitsuki!” He bowed his head before picking up a few bags of your luggage before running off so far there was a strong gust of wind and a dust trail behind him.”

You watched as the dust trail faded away.

Did he really just address her by her full title? Twice? Were you expected to do that?

You heard a thump sound, and upon turning your head you saw the saddle had come clean off of Mina’s back. Smoke appeared around the Dragon form of Mina, and soon the more human looking form of her appeared.

Mina stretched her back, followed by some popping or cracking sounds coming from her back. She let out a sigh as she relaxed her shoulders, yawning.

The witch softly laughed. “Long night, Mina?”

“I want to have a nap so bad, girl.” She whined.

The Empressed called you by your name before gesturing to the witch. “This is Iida’s wife, Ochaco. She’ll be looking after you while you get ready for today and while Mina is resting.”

“No it’s fine, I can deal with it.” Mina yawned.

“Mina, you should rest.” Ochaco rubbed Mina’s back. “Once Eijiro gets here, I’ll send him your way.”

Iida returned back, grabbing more bags then running off again.

He was gone for maybe twenty-five seconds and he came back for more bags already? How fast is he?

And why was no one else reacting to what was happening?

There were rumours of the Island of Nihon having a high percentage of magical powers, but you weren’t expecting to see two - three if you counted Mina - people using their magical powers so openly.

Mina yawned, nodding her head and bowing her head to the Empress. “I hope everything goes well before The Prince gets here, Your Majesty.”

The Empress smiled. “Thank you for your kind words, Mina. Now go rest. I’m sure Katsuki would be thrilled to see you at the wedding.”

Mina sighed before picking up her bags, putting two on her bag and carrying two under her arms. She smiled at you kindly, her gaze upon you being soft. “Try not to stress out before the wedding, okay?” She told you as she started to walk away.

“Now, let's get you inside.” The Empress smiled at you. She turned and started to walk towards the large palace. The columns on the building were a light grey, almost matching the mountains behind the palace. The outside wall itself was a soft green with painted gold on. “This is the Winter Palace, and those mountains behind it are what we call the Dragon Range. It’s believed to be the original birthplace of our Dragon God. The Dragon Range takes up roughly sixty percent of our land. There is a massive tunnel system within the mountains where our dragon shifter brothers and sisters keep their hoards.”

Iida returned, stopping before the Empress. He bowed his head. “Barbarian Empress of The Dragon Tribe Bakugou Mitsuki, I have put the Barbarian Prince Bakugou Katsuki’s betrothed belongings in their room. I have also found Miss Yaoyorozu and have informed her of your request to meet you. She said she will be meeting you along the way in escorting the Barbarian Prince Bakugou Katsuki’s betrothed.”

“Thank you, Iida.” She smiled at him. “Make sure the Todoroki Family is playing nice today, please?”

“Of course, Barbarian Empress of The Dragon Tribe Bakugou Mitsuki.” Iida bowed before running off again, this time in a different direction.

Once the dust settled, the Empress turned to you. “He may be the most responsible and reliable out of the original group that went to go fight the Demon lord a few years ago, but he is too formal at times I fear there is a stick up his arse.” She softly laughed before turning to Ochaco. “No offence, Mrs Iida.”

Ochaco smiled at the Empress. “It’s alright, your Majesty. Tenya has his own charm on how to do things.”

Once you four had climbed up the steps, the Empress and her consort looked out to the view. You turned, and saw a beautiful view of the land below the mountains being a wide open green land before meeting the ocean. You saw in the distance on both sides, land curving inward on itself, revealing the landmass continent of Nihon was an earthy atoll. In the distance, you saw the headlands of the atoll - which were often referred to as the Heaven’s Gates within the rare texts your nation had on Nihon.

“Those green pastures down there are the rest of our Empire.” The Empress told you. “It’s where all the human barbarians used to live before the rise of the Demon Lord. And the water mass from our coast to the headlands is known as the Ocean's Heart. We believe the landmass that houses the god’s came from that section of Nihon.”

“It’s rather beautiful.” You said softly. 

“Yes, it is.” The Empress hummed. She suddenly slapped her hands together, startling you. “We must start getting you ready. We have a big day ahead of us!”

The Empress started to walk inside, expecting the rest of you to follow.

“There are five sections of the palace. Front, Back, Courtyard, Left Wing and Right Wing. This is the Front of the Palace, the entryway. Everything staff related is located to the Left Wing and therefore, the corner connecting the Front and Left Wing is the ball room. Everything the Imperial Family does is on the Right Wing, therefore the corner connecting the Front and Right Wing is the Library. The Back is where all the apartments are. The Back Right Wing Corner is the Emperor or Empress’ apartment and the Back Left Wing Corner is the Heir’s apartment. The rest of the apartments are often used as Guest rooms if the Imperial Couple does only have one child.  The courtyard is at the centre of the enter Palace. Following?”

You nodded your head. You were a little lost but you understood enough to somewhat follow along.

The Empress’ Consort seemed to read what was on your face before gently patting your shoulder and smiling. “We’ll offer you a map so you don’t get lost.”

The Empress continued. “There is a guest garden which is accessible on the Left Wing and a private garden which is accessible on the Back. Overall, there are over one thousand and five hundred rooms.” The Empress continued as the group entered into the courtyard. “There are three levels. Ground level is the only level guests have access to, even if they are in a guest room it’s on the ground floor. Servants and Guards have access to all floors, but their main walkways are on the top floor. The middle floor is where the Imperial Family operates.”

… You were so lost.

“The Prince will help you if you need any help.” Ochaco smiled at you. 

“One can only pray.” The Empress groaned, rubbing between her eyebrows. She then switched to muttering in a language you were not familiar with. It was harsh on the throat.

Masaru responded in the same language, but how the pronunciation sounded was different. His words sounded softer, still rich consonants but his vowels were softer.

She groaned. She turned to you. “If my son gives you any trouble, please do let me know. I don’t want him to be a burden on his first wife.”

First wife?

Ochaco then spoke to you to answer your unspoken question. “Barbarian Law states those of the direct line of the imperial family are allowed to have up to nine spouses. First spouse is Consort, second to ninth spouses are concubines. This is to make sure the Imperial Line can continue via blood.”

“Though filling all eight concubines spots hasn’t been done in four generations, and even then that Emperor used his eight concubines as secret guards.” The Empress spoke. “And on top of that, the Imperial crown can be passed down by mentorship or by battle. I was passed the Crown via winning a battle to the death against the previous Emperor who got the crown via mentorship. We believe only the strongest can rule the Barbarians.”

So your safety isn’t secure, is it?

“I doubt the Prince would take in a second spouse.” Ochaco tried to reassure you. “I don’t think he’s the type to deal with the politics that come with having multiple spouses.”

You looked at the plant life you were walking past, getting closer to the other end of the palace. You hesitated before speaking. “If I may ask, Empress, how did you meet your consort?”

“He was my dress maker.” The Empress answered truthfully.

Oh.

“How many concubines do you have?” You asked carefully.

The Empress continued to smile. “Only one.”

The rest of the walk was rather silent, The Empress and Consort leading you to the apartment section of the Palace. Surprising to you though, they guided you into your apartment section through the ground floor.

Once inside the apartment, you noticed how there were stairs leading up to the middle floor. The ground floor seemed more of a hosting room more than anything. There was a study that looked dusty, a weapons room with many weapons missing, a dining room, and two more additional hosting rooms. One that looked like it was already claimed by the Prince, and a second that had nothing in it for now.

It looked rather dusty, uncared for.

“I’ll make sure Katsuki takes you to the storage room tomorrow so you can pick out some furniture you’d like to decorate this space with.” Masaru said to you. “If you don’t like anything there, we can get it custom made for you. You can make yourself feel right at home here.”

“Shall I guide you upstairs?” Ochaco asked you.

“That is where our influence of this day ends for now.” The Empress spoke. “I’ll let the Priestess know you have arrived. The wedding will be starting at six in the afternoon when the sun sets. After your bath I suggest you have a nap. It’s going to be a long day.”

You watched as the Empress and her husband left before being led up the stairs. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom, and two dressing rooms. All of your belongings were put into the empty dressing room.

“We can unpack your things after we serve you breakfast.” Ochaco told you. “The Prince should be arriving around the time breakfast starts to be served. I’ll quickly summon a maid to give you a bath, though I’m not sure if there would be hot water active right now. Most barbarian families have baths after dark.”

“It’s alright, I can bathe myself.” You told her. “How my people bathe is by having bath houses, or we simply were ourselves in a stream or a lake close by. I preferred bathing myself in the stream by my family home, so cold water isn’t an issue for me.”

Ochaco was taken back by what you said, looking at you with a concerned and shocked expression. “Weren’t you worried someone would see you bathing?”

“Our Goddess of the Wild Hunt wouldn’t allow such a thing.” You told her. “And even if a fool were too, the punishment would be death.”

She stared at you, a shocked smile was on her lips. She turned away for a moment and mumbled something under her breath. You raised an eyebrow at her before dropping it. You really shouldn’t be surprised if the people here looked or talked about you because of the customs you were used to compared to their own.

“I need to get my soaps from my belongings, so we may as well start to unpack.” You told her as you moved to the empty dressing room and knelt down to pull out your belongings.

One of your bags had no clothes in it whatsoever, mostly carrying all of your religious items such as your miniature statues of the gods. For now, you put those items on a shelf and put your bathroom supplies off to the side.

Pulling out your clothing from your other bags took some effort. Half of your clothing was for warmer weather, which meant the fabrics were thin and breathable, sometimes even see through. While your window clothing was a thick cotton and would cover up your entire body. Only when you pulled out what was planned to be your wedding dress did Ochaco make any sort of noise about your clothing.

“That’s so beautiful.” She smiled at it widely and brightly. The dress was a maxi dress, having ve neck, bishop sleeves, an empire waist, and a handkerchief hem. The fabric was an almost white cream colour, being a lightweight fabric. “Did you pick that out yourself?”

“No,” You told her truthfully. “One of the other Shachou’s daughters who is married gave it to me.”

“Shachou?” She tilted her head. “What's a Shachou?”

You thought for a moment, thinking about how to describe it. “Back home, we have nine elected politicians. Those nine are called The Shachous, and they are ranked with the length they have held their power for. They govern Girisha, debating and voting amongst themselves policies and laws. They are voted in by the voting base, which are men who own land and pay taxes, and men can only pay taxes once they earn a certain amount of wealth.”

“Oh, so similar to the Shiketsu Kingdom?”

You stared at her. “Sorry, I am not familiar with that.”

“They are one of the Kingdoms of Nihon, located on the western headlands. They have a Royal Family, but they vote in a President every ten years. The President works closely with the King and Queen while the Vice-President works closely with the heir to the throne. Though only people who own a home in their capital can pay taxes and are able to be voted into office.”

“... That's similar I guess.” You answered her. “Though, we don’t have a royal family. We overthrew them almost two hundred years ago.”

“So does that mean the people of your home nation disapprove of this marriage?” 

“... I think they would only be angry about it if The Prince imposed himself as our next ruler.”

“But do they disapprove?”

“... They approve on the principle that the war is over. That is all.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You didn’t see the Prince, even after you had finished unpacking, bathed, had breakfast, had a nap on his bed, and had lunch. The only evidence you saw that he had returned was that his belongings had been making their return to the apartment the entire day.

The maids had practically locked you up in your dressing room, and they had given you bowls of strawberries and watermelon to snack on. They did your hair and did your makeup all while looking at some notes on a piece of paper.

You were disassociating for most of it, only being brought back to reality with a soft knock at the door. A feminine voice spoke from the other side of the door, saying your name with care. “I’m Yaoyorozu Momo, the Empress asked me to see how things were going. May I enter?”

You looked at how the maids reacted before answering. They continued to work around you, not giving the voice any mind.

So far no biases showing.

“You may enter.” 

Then in came a half naked lady, making your cheeks warm up.

She stood at one hundred and ninety-three centimetres tall, had black hair and eyes, while was wearing a metal armoured bra of some kind and metal armour on her hips that held up what would be mistaken for underwear, a fabric flowed from the bra and wrapped from behind her, a armour neck brace which held up a green cape, thigh-high stockings, oranges elbow gloves, and armours boots that reached her knees.

You were shocked by her attire, though no one else in the room seemed to be.

She smiled warmly and sweetly at you that you felt guilty for questioning her attire.

“I hope everything is going well.” Her smile beamed. “I made sure the maids had all my notes on what your culture’s hair and makeup typically looks like for weddings. I was so honoured that the Empress even knew of my love for your culture’s aesthetics. 

You were silent for a moment before turning to a maid. “Could I see myself in a mirror please?”

“Yes ma’am.” Said one of them before giving you a mirror. You were surprised to see your hair was done perfectly in the style your people did during weddings and they did it in such a way it suited you. The make up as well made you feel beautiful.

“I’m glad you seem to enjoy it!” She beamed before blushing from nervousness. “I should reintroduce myself- I’m Yaoyorozu Momo, I’m a Mage Commander for the Barbarian troops. My magic allows me to create things from my body, though it uses the fat on my body. It’s why I dress in such a way.”

“I see.” You looked down at her cape. This is now the fourth person you’ve seen wearing a green cape. 

“Usually for Barbarian Weddings,” Yaoyorozu broke you from staring at her cape. “Both the bride and groom wear matching earrings. Prince Bakugou will be wearing his on his left ear for the wedding and we were just wondering if it would be alright if we asked you to wear some on your right ear?”

“I don’t have my ears pierced.” You told her, you were about to explain why but she began talking.

“I am aware your people only allow oracles to wear earrings, but these ones wouldn’t need you to piercing your ears.” She walked over to you and a section of her skin started to glow. She cupped the area that was glowing right before the light stopped, crocheting down before you. She presented to you what was in her hand, which were four gold earrings that had a clip maniche for the back of the earring. “These are clip-on earrings. They won’t require any form of piercing onto your ear. They might be a little painful considering the size of the earrings, but I think they could still work.”

You gently picked it up from her hand and took a closer look. The earring itself was two centimetres in length less than a centimetre in width. Where the gold would be connecting to your ear was a very tiny bulge on both sides.

“... This is acceptable.” You told her. Her face lit up and you heard a maid somewhere sigh in relief. 

“May I put them on you?” She asked. Once you gave a nod, she carefully reached to your right ear and started to put them on your ear. Surprisingly to you they were painful, though they were slightly heavier than what you expected. She pull away and gave you the mirror so you could look at them.

“They look very well on you, ma’am.” One of the maids told you.

“Do you like them?” Yaoyorozu  asked.

“... They will go well with my dress.” You told her, not wanting to admit you liked them there.

Yaoyorozu  stayed crouching before you. “I need to tell you something before the wedding begins.”

Your heart sank, fearing the worst. 

Were they going to sacrifice you or kill you right after the wedding?

“I know for your traditional weddings, the night after the wedding is usually the couple’s first time.” Yaoyorozu spoke gently. “For us, we wait until the woman’s first period after the wedding just so we know the first child is of the married couple. Though the Empress and the Prince have been informed of your culture and traditions regarding the first night, it is unclear what the Prince wants. Which is very unlike him.”

You tilted your head at her comment at the end. 

Unlike him? 

“So I just want to warn you that if you two don’t do it for the first time tonight, then please don’t take it personally. He probably doesn’t want to overwhelm you. Or on the other hand if he does ask if you two could do it tonight, don’t feel pressured to say yes. I know Prince Bakugou seems rough around the edges but he is sometimes surprisingly respectful.”

Why was she doing this? Why is she trying to warn you about this?

It didn’t matter what happened tonight. You were now property of the Prince because of the Peace Treaty. It didn’t matter if you were or weren’t in Girisha, you were still a man’s property. 

“Can I ask you something?”

She gently gripped your hands with hers. “Anything.”

“Why do you, the Iidas and Midoriya wear the same matching green cape?”

The maids froze, looking over their shoulders to watch the interaction. Yaoyorozu was taken aback by your question, not expecting the question to be about a cape.

“Well, the cape shows which Prince I am loyal to.”

“I thought there was only one Prince of the Barbarians.”

“... Officially. Honorary Prince Midoriya Izuku by the status of his mother being the second spouse and first concubine of the Empress. Midoriya was born three years before the two had met and was fourteen when the Empress killed his biological father. It’s the only way to legally transfer spouses for us barbarians, to beat them in a battle to the death.”

You remembered what the Empress told you earlier, that the imperial crown could be passed down via a fight to the death. 

Does that mean if someone challenged Katsuki to one of these battles while being emperor and he lost, you would be handed over to the next Emperor or Empress?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once the sun started to set, you were brought out of your dressing room wearing your wedding dress by a woman who had blonde hair, aqua eyes, and stood at one hundred and seventy-one centimetres tall. She wore oval framed glasses, a white with pink accents priestess dress, and a small green cape.

Seems like Midoriya has many who support him.

She smiled politely and bowed her head to you, calling you by your name. “It’s an honour to meet you. I am Priestess Shield Melissa. Since you have no father figure with you here today, I will be walking you down the aisle before you exchange vows.”

You bowed your head slightly. “Thank you, Priestess.”

She paused. “Why are you bowing your head?”

“Back in Girisha, we see Priestesses as higher status since they have a higher connection to our gods than most of us do.” You informed her.

She made a face. “Well we don’t do that here.”

“I understand, it’s simply my customs-”

“Then I recommend you keep your Girisha customs to yourself.” She butted in. “Our Prince has already decided to go against our traditions by marrying you before he is supposed to. He is supposed to only marry after his twenty-first birthday, which is in forty-one days anyway but he was adamant this ‘wedding’ should be done right away.”

You stared at her, though not surprised someone was rude to you, simply shocked it was a priestess and so openly.

You were expecting someone to be rude to eventshully.

“I recommend you start learning our ways sooner rather than later. Prince Bakugou is not known for being nice to outsiders.” She glared at you before turning her back to you. “Let’s get going now. I don’t want to be blamed for you being late to your own wedding.”

She turned on her heel and started to walk out, expecting you to follow. Gripping onto the beads around your neck, you put your hands together and brought them to your face as you started to pray to your gods.

“Goddess Soteria, please gift me with your protection and safety.” You mumbled under your breath. “Goddess Hera, please bless me with a good husband who will not hurt me.”

Melissa rolled her eyes as you continued to walk. You were so consumed with praying, you didn’t realise you had reached your destination until you bumped into the back of Melissa.

She looked over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

“Sorry-”

“Members of the Imperial Family do not apologise. Now, place your hand on my forearm so we walk down the aisle.”

You turned your head to look, seeing a long wedding aisle that was over one hundred metres in length. 

The longest aisle back in Girisha was barely forty metres long and you were expected to walk down one that was more than double?

“Are you ready?” Melissa asked with an annoyed tone.

You gently put your hand on top of her forearm then started to walk with her for almost two minutes. You tried to ignore the stares you knew you were receiving, keeping your eyes on the red carpet before you.

When Melissa moved her arm away, it was because you had reached the end of the aisle. You saw Katsuki’s grey boots before tilting your head up to look at him. It appeared that the left side of his hair was gelled back, showing his piercing on said ear to the crowd. 

His red crimson eyes were glued to you. He looked at you up and down, looking at the dress you were wearing.

He didn’t give anything that showed he approved or disapproved of the dress, though his eyes seemed to focus on where the beads around your neck were sitting.

Melissa forced a cough to force Katsuki to look at her. 

“Today we are gathered here at sunset to bare witness a man and woman be forever tied together in matrimony, taught to us via the gods.” Melissa started. You heard soft mumblings in the audience but decided to give it no mind for now. “Barbarian Prince of the Dragon Tribe, Bakugou Katsuki, do you take this woman as your wife, to live together, to hunt for her, to love her, to honour her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for long as you both live?”

Katsuki looked back down at you, his eyes unreadable. “I do.”

Melissa turned to you and said your name. “Do you take this man as your husband, to live together, to bear children for him, to love him, to honour him, to comfort him, and to keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both live?”

To hunt for her and bear children for him? 

You didn’t know where those lines came from or why it was in the wedding, maybe it was just a barbarian thing?

“I do.”

Two children walked up to you. A fourteen year old girl and a twelve year old boy. Both had hair that was either blonde or a very light brown, brown eyes, and freckles on their noses. Both held red pillows, the girl’s sat a short blade and a miniature statue of your Goddess Hera - how she had it you had no idea - on it and the boy’s having two rings.

Katsuki picked up a ring that housed a crimson ruby. He gently grabbed your hand and slid the ring on your ring finger as he spoke. “I, Prince of the Dragon Tribe, Bakugou Katsuki, take this woman as my wife from this day forward, for better or for worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

You picked up the golden ring and grabbed Katsuki's hand. Sliding on his ring on his ring finger, you stated your name. “-take this man as my husband from this day forward, for better and for worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, till death do us part.”

As you spoke, Katsuki picked up the blade and cut into his left hand. Once you had finished the ring exchange he picked up the statues, smearing his blood on it. You cut into your left hand, tracing the scar from previous religious rituals. He passed the statue to you so you could smear your blood on it.

Melissa passed Katsuki a chalice filled with grape juice. He squeezed his hand so his blood would pour into the cup before passing it to you and taking the statue from you. As you did the same to pour your blood into the chalice, you noticed how rough Katsuki passed the statue to Melissa.

Katsuki took the cup from you, keeping eye contact as you took a sip from it. He passed it back to you, putting his hand securely under the cup as you took a sip. Melissa took the cup, raising it into the air.

“By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Gods, I pronounced these two husband and wife!” Melissa announced to the audience. “You now may kiss the bride.”

Suddenly, Katsuki grabbed your face and pulled you close. His lips met yours with passion, leaving you confused. You closed your eyes as the crowds started to cheer and clapped.

As the crowd continued to cheer and clap, Katsuki pulled away with a smirk.“You're mine now, and you won’t be going anywhere.”

[highlights-of-the-lowlife]

so code pink is doing another media blitz in the run up to the US election. their demands are ceasing all aid to ukraine, refusing any new membership to nato and ending all sanctions on russia. but don't worry they aren't pro russia, a state that is stealing children and using sexual violence as torture,

because they politely asked russian soldiers to leave.

problem fucking solved.

just as a contrast i'm gonna give a huge shoutout to ukrainian women who have volunteered to fight in this brutal war. ukrainian women are some of the bravest medics rushing into bullets and artillery because russians deliberately target medics. ukrainian women are some of the most feared snipers, drone operators, artillery operators and armoured vehicle crews.

there have been so many women volunteers that a whole new uniform has been made to fit women better. so many misinformation peddlers are claiming that this is a draft but its the exact opposite. its ukrainian women knowing the hell that is the war ravaging their families and doing their damndest to stop it.

slava ukraini

[femoso-seben]

Humanoid Monster

Part 1, Part 3

Laswell sighed as the delegation dragged on. Of course, neither side sent their leadership only lackeys to demand impossibilities for the others to complete. They still tasted blood in their mouth for their fallen. The human delegation was a man called Vladimir Makarov, a young Russian who led his paramilitary group in deep Siberia.

“Why should we agree to these terms?” Makarov asks, how he knew, or let alone who taught him English was beyond Laswell. Most humans don’t know more than one language. Rarely do they speak the languages of countries far away from them. Humanity is landlocked. It was a way to ensure humanity never teamed up to defeat the monsters.

“Why should we agree to your request either?” Laswell sneers her wings twitching, from her anger. She read about this man, how he slaughtered many monsters and used their pelts as decoration. He was fighting for a greater Russia, with only humans in it, abolishing any monster or hybrid in sight. A human utopia!

They were talking in circles, Switzerland’s military standing at watch ready to shoot both delegations dead if given the chance. They weren’t achieving anything here.

“Since this is a peace treaty give us the names of your task force,” Makarov asks, Laswell knew it was personal for him. 141 and he was in a long constant struggle.

“Give us the files on the Pale Death, White Fang, Angel of Death, and Hunter.” Laswell strikes back. Each one of those women caused so many problems, that they must have been resistance rebels.

Makarov pursed his lips and glared at Laswell, “We’ll give you the files for White Fang and Hunters. As for the Angel of Death, she wasn’t one of us, but as for the pale death? No, we will not.”

“Then you will only get the files on, Roach,” Laswell spoke. It seems like Makarov is only giving information on the dead so she’ll do the same. Makarov frowns.

“Deal.” They both knew a single member of Task Force 141 was far better than any human, dead or alive, all except for the Pale Death.

By the end of the meeting, they had only agreed to share files of the dead and nothing more they merely moved a single inch to the finish post. As Laswell walks out Soap, Price, Graves, and Ghost we’re waiting for her.

“Where’s Gaz?”

“Helping the Hapries to fly,” Soap rolls his eyes, “the human woman can’t even raise a harpy! They should need the least amount of training!” Price touched his shoulder silencing the Sergeant.

“What happened?” Price asks.

“Not much, I was able to get information on White Fang and Hunter,” Laswell sighed.

“Those two are fucking dead, at least get the Pale Death—”

“Their delegate is Makarov,” everyone froze and a low growl imitated from all of them.

“He’s here? That terrorist?” Ghost steps closer to Laswell.

“C’mon let’s review the files maybe their connections, sure White Fang and Pale Death worked together,” Laswell spoke up.

Jezebel reappeared and began to lead them to a place outside of the meeting point, a spacious military camp where they were staying. It was more like Switzerland wanted to watch them, making sure they didn’t unpack them negatively.

Laswell hands over the packet to Price, Ghost, Graves, and Soap. They slowly scan through the files.

White Fang:

name: Belinda Wolf

Age: 23

Height: 5’9”

Weight: 140lb

History: grew up on a resistance compound deep in Akaska forest. Grew up hunting animals to survive. Favorite targets were werewolves said they were the apex of trotted a hunter could win.

statue: KIA

The photo was of a plan-looking woman, nothing remarkable, but for Soap he felt a sense of victory over this wretch. He hunted the White Fang down and butchered her like she butchered his troops. He hated her flesh making sure she was truly dead.

Hunter:

Name: Rawiya Abadi

Age: 31

Height: 5’4”

Weight: 120 lbs

History: The daughter of a wealthy (free) man she grew up owning and hunting exotic animals. She soon turned radicalized and began to hunt down every predator species of hybrids for their pelts and horns, wanting to collect every type of monster.

Status: KIA

“We’ll these aren’t helpful.” Price grumbles.

“A bunch of psychos.” Soap drops the file onto the table.

“We’ll theirs one thing for sure,” Graves spoke up, “White Fang didn’t work together, and White Fang came after Hunter.”

“What are you insinuating?”

“Maybe their master and apprentices? After all, they share the same M.O. two hunters, maybe they did meet up but it’s not stated here.” Graves continues.

“We never found Hunter’s body, maybe Hunter set up that compound and trained up an apprentice?”

“What about mother and daughter?” Ghost brought up.

“That could be plausible,” Soap said.

“Makarov said the Angel of Death isn’t connected to the resistance forces.”

“That human is lying.” Soap sneers his sharp claws poking out.

“It could be plausible,” Ghost spoke up. “The Angel of Death was in deep monster territory, to be a resistance force is unlikely as it was hard to pick that human out of a crowd. She acted like one of the enslaved.”

“That one is most likely inspired by the resistance.” Price grunts out.

“The fact Switzerland allowed a killer like the Pale Death to live here is insane,” Soap said.

“Mother Maia… how insulting.” Graves notes, “The Pale Death working with our children?”

“I bet Maia isn’t her real name,” Soap mutters.

“Agree,” Price grunts out smoke leaking from his maw.

“Why don’t we do some recon whilst we’re here” Graves stands up, “Price you stay with Laswell, Ghost asked the young Gargoyles about their life, and I will talk to Mother Maia.”

“What are you planning?” Laswell folds her arms, “Shepard wants a smooth deal where we get our concessions.”

“I know, but something feels fishy about this place.” Graves adds, “It feels… stage.”

“Let me—“

“I want you and Gaz to watch the children, and see if their body languages give anything away.” Sops clenched his fist but nodded and sat down.

—————————— /\ ——————————

Gaz looked at the little harpies their little down feather wings gathered around him like lost chicklings looking for their mommas. He felt himself smiling at the small yet wide-eyed little owls just staring at him.

Pricilla is seventeen, and the oldest person there. She had also spent the longest time at the orphanage.

“So you’ve been an orphan this long?” Gaz asks.

“No, Mother Maia is my adopted Mother,” Gaz eyes widen.

“When did she adopt you?”

“I was eight.”

“Does she have any other kids?”

“No,” Pricilla sighs. “She cannot adopt anymore, in Switzerland only monsters can adopt monsters, same with humans. We came to Switzerland mother and daughter,” Gaz nods and looks at all the little Hapries.

“There’s so many children here,” Gaz mutters there were at least fifteen harpies of flight age.

“Many monsters abandoned their injured kids here, many of them have actual parents who don’t want them, but a small few made it here on their own… the human orphanage is way more kids.”

“Human orphanage?” Gaz questions.

“A lot of humans give up their babies because they can’t care for them, some are given up because their parents died after arriving.”

“how do you know this?”

“We all go to school together.” Gaz’s mouth drops. Humans? Monsters! Together? In school! No way!

“We’re gonna narrow their football field for this flight practice.”

“… you know this land used to not be Switzerland,” Gaz said as they walked a mile to the place.

“I know it was a part of France, right?” Pricilla answer. Gaz nod.

“We monsters don’t use the old colonial name the humans created.” Pricilla nods, she soon arrives at a school and there a few humans are playing.

“Jakob,” Pricilla calls out, a blonde boy, around Pricilla’s age wave.

“We need to barrow your football field.”

“Why?” He asks walking over to the fence of the tennis court.

“Flying practice!” Pricilla cheers.

“I’ll go tell Gramps he can turn on the lights.”

“Thank you!”

“You seem friendly with that human,” Gaz said trying not to growl at her. How could she forsake her kind and be around humans? Doesn’t she know they are destructive and cruel?

“He’s my classmate.” She bashfully said. Cold realization dawned on Gaz this young harpy like that human. He was a decent-looking boy but it made his blood boil.

By the time they reach the football field, the lights turn on.

It was going to be a long night, the sun was setting and they had a few hours to teach them. The wind picked up, his wings flared out and the older harpies watched him, eyes wide and eager to learn.

Gaz couldn’t help but smile at these small harpies taking flight, their wings clumsily flapping in the air.

Taglist: @kkaaaagt, @kaoyamamegami, @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore

[neriumxoleander]

If you could explain, I'm only learning this now! What's going on with Gato? I've only seen vague posts but I know all social media is gone (because by god fucking twitter apparently) I've seen from the fake gatobob account post about recent events and I'm soo confused. Could you please shed some more light on this? If you are as clueless as I am, you don't need to respond. - @your-very-own-anon (mod speaking)

Sorry for the late response, I've been trying to retag some things while I'm focused on this account for once. I'll try to be brief? please don't take me as the authority on this, I just happened to get into the tags while it was unfolding earlier today. still going under a read more though. i suppose a tw for mentions of racism and xenophobia are warranted. And please do not interact if you are a minor or have no age listed on your blog, I will block you.

Gato deleted her social media accounts this morning (tumblr, twitter, pillowfort) and explained on patreon it was for her mental health and safety (which... safety? hm) and someone here immediately claimed the gatobob url. which happens, it's tumblr. but this person is using it basically as a callout center.

the callout seems to be about an incident that happened in the patreon exclusive discord server before it got shut down a couple months ago. tldr according to this person, someone (a mod?) made a racist comment towards someone, and gato apparently handled the situation poorly and neither her or the mods apology were really that great. I was in the server as a lurker more than anything, but I don't remember being there when this happened.

other people sending in asks to this new gatobob account have also been calling her out for xenophobia, but I have a feeling that's looking a little bit too much into statements she's made about her games being redistributed in Russia and Spain specifically if i recall correctly.

this new blog is demanding gato and the aforementioned mod properly apologize for their behaviour, but in my opinion, this is a really weird and bad way to go about it. Smart to use her url as a way to boost the problem, but... I haven't seen any solid evidence besides some very vague screenshots, none of them including the racist remarks (the screenshots they've posted so far definitely aren't good responses or apologies if they ARE linked to this incident, and it should have been taken seriously) And the victim from the racism incident is NOT the person running the new gatobob account, so it feels very weird to me that this person is taking it upon themselves to stir everyone up and demand things from gato and the mod.

as far as I can tell, gato hasn't said anything about this on patreon, although she's likely taking her separation from social media very seriously. If she is aware (and I'm sure she's getting plenty of DMs about this on patreon), she'll likely make a post there addressing it in the next couple days, but that's just speculation.

I'm keeping a mostly neutral stance in this whole thing, but I'm encouraging people to not interact with this new gatobob account. There's nothing we can really do; they aren't impersonating her, posting anything against ToS as far as Im aware, and people have been hoarding urls for years. Just... listen and learn, I think is all I can suggest. Form your own opinions, but don't go on a witch hunt about it, if that makes any sense.

I'll try to answer other questions, but I'm just one guy on the internet who doesn't usually get tangled with things like this. Please be patient.

[suratan-zir]

I've never been this close to leaving tumblr forever than I am now. Y'all are so humanistic, so righteous and merciful, when it's not your country that is being bombed into the stone age, not your people tortured, executed, shot and thrown into a mass grave with their hands tied simply for being citizens of a certain country, speaking a certain language. Not your babies being torn apart by missiles, buried under rubble. Not your relatives held in one of the many torture dungeons, being electrocuted through wires attached to their genitals. Not your houses leveled down, burned with everything inside, every little thing you loved or cared for.

Hell, we can even tone it down a notch. It's not you who is being left without electricity and water, without heating in winter, because it's not you who russia is trying to beat/freeze into submission. It's not you going to bed to the sound of an air raid siren and wondering if you'll wake up tomorrow. It's not you receiving insults, slurs and threats from russians. No, they probably don't have any problem with you, but even if they do, luckily for you, you don't speak russian. Because if you did, you could go to literally any place they hang out, any voice or text chat, any social media and ask them yourself. If only you'd spoke Russian, you could ask them what they think about the genocide carried out by their country, their people. And then you wouldn't have any more questions. Then you wouldn't dare to say it's "racist" to call russians what they are - murderers, thieves and their accomplices.

I never said that all russians support this war, this genocide. And I will never say it, it's just statistically impossible. But many of them do, and another large portion simply doesn't care, which in my opinion is even worse. I have less disgust and hatred for russians who say: "go-go pootin, all khokhols must die", then to those who mumble: "I'm not into politics". Because you can't afford to stay neutral and passive when your country is trying to obliterate an entire nation.

You know, those missiles that kill our people and destroy our infrastructure, they are launched from "peaceful" russian cities. Warplanes that fly to kill us fly - they fly over the heads of the "innocent" russians, who are filming it on their phones and cheering on. The only times they would be sad or pissed about it is when those planes suddenly crush on their homes. Or when something flies into their city in exchange for those missiles that flew out of there. This is when they get mad and demand to kill us more effectively.

Lately we are seeing many protests from the mothers and wives of those "poor" russian men who have been drafted into army. Do you know what they are protesting against? Of course you don't, because you don't speak russian, you don't care enough to find out. No, they aren't protesting against the war, genocide, bombings of cities of a neighboring country. They don't demand for the war to end. They demand that their sons and husbands not be sent to the very front line, they demand that they be placed on the 2-3 line of defense, where it is safe. Or they demand better equipment for their men, again, to kill the citizens of a neighboring country more effectively. Because they are not against the genocide, they just don't want their men to hurt during it. Those of us who understand russian language don't need to look at any polls and statistics. We can just ask them ourselves, and we hear their responds very clearly. Even from our own relatives who live in russia or from our former friends. And I wouldn't wish this horrible realization on anyone. Now there are more and more russians who don't support this war. Because they are losing it. They would have absolutely no problem with it if they could "take Kyiv in two days" as was planned. But now they have regrets.

I'm not asking you to blame and ostracize all russians. That's not the point I'm making here. But maybe - just maybe - you can't forgive people for things they didn't do to you? Maybe you can't be forgiving on behalf of others? If you live somewhere in the US, the russians can never harm you, your city will not be bombed, your relatives won't be kidnapped and tortured. Of course you don't hate them, of course you don't condemn them - it's not because you are morally superior - it's because you literally don't have to suffer from their aggression, either physical nor verbal. Your life isn't constantly endangered because of this particular country and people. Of course you can forgive and defend them all you want, and pat yourself on the head afterwards. Such a nice kind human being you are, not at all insensitive.

It's not like there are people who lost their homes, their loved ones. People living under constant shelling, without power and heat, people who survive day after day against all odds. But those people aren't as merciful as you. Only you are the beacon of humanism in this unfair world, good for you.

[nrdmssgs]

Is it just me

or are some episodes in the CoD franchise actually absolutely hilarious if you watch them with some in-depth knowledge of modern Russia?

Ok, this is not a critique, I'm not saying, the following scenes are bad/lazy. They make sense, ok? I'm just giggling every time I stumble upon them.

Nikolai looking at this place and commenting 'parking here sucks'.

If it was Price or Gaz - no further questions, because they assess the current situation.

But Nik saying that? Nik, darling, it's the good old Saint Petersburg, the very heart of it. You don't need to be local to know, that parking sucks not only here, but also 15 km around this area. This city was not built for cars, it changes, yes. But the historical part is anything but a parking lot. Imagine if an Italian told you that there are parking problems in the tourist part of Venice. No shit, darling?

This scene. Soap, Laswell and Ghost speedrunning Alexey Navalnys work.

So we have the ACF group in Russia. Long story short: they are investigating cases of illegal enrichment of Russian elites (oligarchs, politicians, terrorists, etc.). Each investigation involves dozens of people and takes months (sometimes years) to accomplish. Here is an example of such a case (there are English subtitles available).

The ACF is the biggest organization, specializing in such investigations in Russia now (i`m not counting the Belling Cat, because they investigate a wide variety of themes and cases, not only corruption in Ru).

One of the reasons, why each investigation takes so much energy and time is because the suspect does everything possible to ensure that his property and money are not associated with his name. All financial assets are divided, they are stored in banks and assigned not to the oligarch himself, but to dozens of companies and front people. This is done just so that one day a tall Scottish guy with his British friend does not show up to you and transfer all your personal savings with the click of one button.

And do I need to say, that a transfer of a significant sum of money is never done just online and the bank would always demand an offline confirmation of your will? Because at the end of the day, it wont be Milenas problem - it will be her banks headache, when she sues them for having a kindergarten level of security.

So when I see, as Soap and Laswell trace all Milenas fundings in mere days, as they clear her bank accounts in seconds - I just lose it. Because even the most stupid politician in real Ru looks smarter than poor Milena. But again, it's not bad, its artistic allowance necessary for the pacing of the narrative.

[yantalia545]

Yandere allies with a party girl s/o

*18+ warning

America:

As a party god himself, he understands the thrills of partying and is more than willing to join you at any out-of-this-world party. After all, going alone to parties can be so boring, why not have a trusted friend tag along?

The two of you will have more Instagram-worthy nights than anyone. He can’t help but fall more in love with you as the two of you giggle along at the excitement of the next party.

He absolutely loved going out to party with you, until that one terrible night.

Someone scumbag had managed to catch you when you were alone and try to put himself on you. It wasn’t until America heard your screaming crying pleads did he finally found you.

That night would be glued into America’s mind forever. Especially the image of you; terrified teary eyes, shaking, and the top of your dress ripped. Ruined by some dirty asshole.

Safe to say, that man had to be carried out on a stretcher and America had to make a plea for acting in defense. It doesn’t take much for the whole thing to get sweated away when he’s the America though.

Before that horrible night, he never once thought much about just how dangerous those places were they’d party out. Everyone was always drunk out of their minds and creepers lurked around amongst the mist of them. Just waiting for the chance to drab some helpless girl. It terrified America thinking of how easy it was for that dirty man to get you away from him. He needed to do better than that. He won’t let anything like that happen again.

He’d be clingier than before. Was he always so pushy about hanging out with you? If you say anything about it, America will argue that he just wants to make sure you’re safe. You would take his word for it, but something about the demanding glint in his eyes really puts you off.

When you finally get a breath of fresh air by somehow getting a party plan passed America. You were just trying to enjoy yourself with your girlfriends when a pissed off blonde figure comes out of nowhere and drags you out. Don’t bother screaming for help. It only took one look over to the bouncer did you know; he’s in on this too.

Russia:

It’s not a huge surprise that Russia would be one have an obsession over this kind of darling either. Russia is a man who often comes from a home of silence and suspicion. Someone who’s spicy and full of life would be the perfect kind of darling to fill Russia’s lonely heart. The only thing is he’s rather selfish and would rather have you shower him with all of your energy rather than sharing it with others.

Russia won’t be one to jump to kidnapping you surprisingly. Not right away at least. You just look like you’re having so much fun that he wants to join in too. The only problem is when you’re over six feet tall and are awkward as hell the whole club is tense. Not that Russia looming over you hells either.

You, bless your heart, may try to jock it up to Russia just having the nervous butterflies about going out to a club the first time and take him to a smaller club. When that doesn’t help, you try to argue to go without him since clubbing is really not his thing, but he insists on going with you.

Try to sneak out to a club without him and some during your stay you’ll feel a sudden presence and hot breath trickling down your neck. Turn around, and he right there with a childish smile plastered on his face saying about how silly you forgot about him. Hell do this as many times as it takes to show you that wherever you go, he goes.

Your fire for clubs may start to dwindle at this point. It’s just not as fun to go out when Russia is all over you. Not that just cutting off clubbing would get Russia to leave you alone. He’s just excited for the next adventurous thing you’d love to do.

It's also a good thing in Russia's mind that you grew out of partying... Those places were full of untrustworth people who were undeserving of your time. Why not just spend some more time together? Russia doesn't like to share, so independent acivities are much more Russia's speed anyways.

China:

Yeah, been there and done that already. Trust him on this one but partying is not really all that glamorous as movies make them seem. They're gross and people usually get hurt. Not to mention, the people who attend them are not always the cleanest. As a respected country, China knows that you need to be better than that.

China will see you as someone who reminds him of his past self. He's made lots of mistakes in his upbringing. Even if he hates to admit it. He needs to guide his wife to be a perfect, etiquite, darling and partying isn't marticulous of your time and energy. In fact, if anything, it only smudges your beauty. Don't fret though, China is going to fix you.

No more partying for you. He's made that mistake in the past and he will not let you repeat that awful lession. China is much older and more expericed than you and he will hold that over your head as being all knowing. Much to your annoyance. You can try to sneak up, but somehow, just as you're about to leave, it's like a que that China always shows up. If your try to rufuse China's company over parties he'll throw a fit and may even become a bit foreful.

In China's eyes, you're much like a child who needs constant supervison. If you keep trying to ditch him to sneak out to parties then he'll take matters into his own hands. He'll move you in to his place eventually seeing as you can't be trusted without his guidence.

China will become heavy on your lessions in order to shape you into his ideal wife. They'll be long and tiring, but most importanly, you can't say no. He's only trying to preserve your reputation as a nation. It's not a good image if his wife is a party animal going out and getting drunk every weekend.

Not to mention that China doesn't have the greatest history with drugs. The whole ordeal with England really damered his outlook on drugs and alcohol. If he's not allowing himself to partake than neither will you. China is well aware of the struggles of setting good habits but don't worry, he'll be here to help you every step of the way. If you've been good and doing well in your lessions, then China will paper you with all kinds of homemade goods and goodies. Desrespect his rules and China will be forced to keep you under lock and key with harshed lessions until you learn your place as his wife.

France:

Did you say party? France loves a good party. He'll be more than happy to come along with you rather he asked you or not. How did he even know you were going to a party tonight, you ask? That doesn't matter. You can't go to a party without someone. It would be so lonely without your darling companion to accompany you. Besides, what if you need a steady ride home or just need your hair tied back and he wasn't there to help you?

France can't stand the idea that some dirty person might try to take his place as your loyal companion. He worked too hard to jeopardize that. Not to mention that as someone who does a little partying himself, he'd know all the good spots for Instagram-worthy nights out in the city of France. Nothing like VIP treatment to better your partying experience.

Much like America, he didn't mind the partying at first. It was what made you your spunky self. However, darling, these places are starting to look too dirty for a fine diamond like yourself. Why don't the two of you just stay at his place and enjoy the Franch night on the terrace together over a few glasses of wine?

England:

How he could ever fall for a person like you is beyond anyone's best guess. You're his complete opposite. While he'd rather be relaxed at home with his favorite book and a cup of tea, you're right at home in the loudest of crowds.

Maybe his younger self loved your carefree and wild personality. He was quite the teenage dirtbag during his punk phase himself. However now that he's older that's all behind him. You're too old to be acting like this anymore. It's time you became more like a proper young lady and he sees it upon himself to guide you.

You'll be woken up one early morning with him at your front door. He doesn't care how early in the morning it is nor how much you protest. You're going to learn to be a proper lady whether you like it or not.

Before you know it, you're dragged out of your house and forced to live with him. All in the same day, you'll be forced into a marriage contract. Seems like your boos thought it would be a wonderful idea to go over your head and agree to the profound man.

No more sneaking out to parties for you. You'll be kept in a locked room until you learn your place. No amount of disrespect or refusal will stop England. Can't you see he just wants to focus on more important things and reach your full potential as his wife?

[workersolidarity]

Three, four years ago I could have told you, and did tell people, that inflation would start steadily going up, and I said even then that it would likely be stubborn, meaning it wasn't going to be an easy fix.

I knew this back then because it was obvious, even years ago, that the BRICS countries, along with many African and South Asian countries and elsewhere were looking for ways to get around using the US Dollar for trade.

They were making moves to expand trade relations outside US dollar transactions and were for many years planning and building the infrastructure for a future Multipolar world.

And that process began rapidly picking up pace three or four years ago.

I began to say then, what I'm still saying now, as that process goes on and trade outside the US Dollar system grows exponentially year-on-year, that's going to begin to have an effect on inflation.

Why? Well, Imperialism really. Because the US for decades has depended on the steady demand for US Dollars to hold down inflation, allowing the US to use debt spending to finance wars, military bases and imperialistic ventures like Syria.

Remember, it was the US in its massively dominant position after WWII that built the Bretton Woods System that made the US Dollar the world reserve currency pegged to gold, and it was the US that unilaterally abandoned Bretton Woods 1 and took the dollar off Gold, allowing for the US to finance wars through debt spending, and created the Petro-Dollar with Saudi Arabia in the 1970's.

This debt spending is essentially the surplus value from the Global South and other poorer countries that must buy US Dollars to fund infrastructure projects, energy consumption, food and medicine imports, etc since it's the world reserve currency and if you wish to use the US Financial System at all, such as the World Bank, or SWIFT messaging system, well you have to use US Dollars.

Basically, it's the sucking of the wealth out of poorer countries to finance their own economic oppression.

But as these countries catch on and with new rising global powers like Russia, China and Iran building the infrastructure for an alternative system, the US Dollar is being abandoned faster than ever.

In 2000, more than 70% of Foreign Exchange Reserves were held in US Dollars. By 2020, that figure had dropped considerably to 59%. And the rate at which it's dropping is only increasing.

Knowing this, I said back in 2019 and 2020 that inflation was likely to become a problem. And if it did become a problem, then we knew exactly what the Fed would do as a result: dramatically increase benchmark Interest rates.

This didn't take any particularly specialized or secretive sources to figure out. It's been obvious for years to anyone seriously interested in economics and geopolitics.

And what happens when interest rates go up? The value of the bonds bought under lower interest rates suddenly go way down, while debts become more expensive. It's like gravity in economics.

So with all that being said, why then did all these banks (Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank) continue buying troubled assets and Treasury bonds if they're so smart and educated and knew all this?

I mean, these guys are supposed to be the best of the best corporate bankers, right? On the cutting edge of investment banking, right? That's what everyone said even just months before Silicon Valley Bank failed. (CNBC host and moron of the year Jim Cramer literally praised Silicon Valley Bank less than a month before its failure)

So one of two things must be true here and neither one is good for YOU the average worker.

Either these bankers are idiots; complete morons who have little to no understanding of basic economics, geopolitics, and monetary policy, something that should be of concern to all of us.

I mean, I'm just a dude working for a small retailer in New Orleans and even I knew this inflation and higher interest rates were coming.

So why exactly are these people paid such exorbitant salaries? If I can understand the basics of their job better than they can, why am I a retailer, and he, a millionaire banker???

So that's one possibility, one I'm virtually certain is actually true, that our ruling Elite isn't particularly smart or well educated in reality, anymore than ordinary people I meet everyday, and any one of us could easily do their jobs just as well or better than they do given the opportunities afforded to them.

But even if in this case, that's not what happened. That these weren't idiots. Well then the alternative is something that should also be deeply disturbing to you: that these bankers knew they would be facing this situation, that they were well aware of the coming inflationary pressures and equally aware what the Feds response would be, interest rate hikes.

And instead of using the last couple of years to shed possibly dangerous assets and shore up the money the banks kept on hand, they continued to do what was personally making them so much profit, at the expense of tax payers, because they were absolutely certain that the government these bankers spend so much money on campaigns for, would swoop in regardless of the recklessness of their behavior, and bail them out no matter what.

These are not the signs of a healthy political, economic or banking system.

[xxavengingangelxx]

Somewhere Only We Know 1/?

This is part of a series: Long Way From Home. Graves gets ahold of 141's translator and demands she give up information she knows about 141.

Graves still has Val in this continuation. This continuation includes the events of MW3 so 141 will find out Graves is alive and they will learn where Val has been this whole time ;) MW3 SPOILERS Thanks to @unicorngirly1 for talking ideas with me!

Taglist!

@bellgraves, @unicorngirly1, @lily-lily131313, @shepgurl. If you'd like to be added and/or if I left anyone off, please let me know!

Triggers/Warnings: Mentions of torture, dubious consent, brainwashing, mentions of suicide. More will be added as the story develops.

-

“Un-fucking-believable,”

You were across the dark room, not visible to the camera, but Soap’s voice drew your attention and your head snapped in that general direction.

You’d been given orders by Shepherd and Graves: you can be in the room but you were not to move, not to make a sound and certainly not to approach the camera. 141 still thought you were dead, remember?

Consequences for approaching that camera? A return to a room similar to that cold, terrifying room where you’d spent your first week with Shadow Company being tortured for information that you eventually gave up. That was all you needed to hear. You in no way, under no circumstances, wanted to go back there so you’d do what you were told. Besides, you’d been more tired than usual, not feeling like yourself, like you were on the verge of getting sick, so it’s not like you even had the energy to put up with that. You wouldn’t be able to mentally handle it, either.

You’d make a third attempt on your life if you were returned to that room. Of that you were sure.

“Soap!” You heard Graves respond. “Ya miss me?” Graves laughed coldly. “Well technically you did, didn’t you?”

“Laswell, if you’re tracking this,” Ghost’s voice interrupted, “let’s call in an airstrike.”

“Ghost that is not nice,” Graves chided, almost as if he was speaking to a toddler. It made you wonder how he would be around kids.

“And Val?” Soap demanded.

“Now her ya did kill, Johnny,” Graves sneered. “Shame. I liked having her around.”

“Go fohck yerself. What’re you up to?” Soap’s voice snapped at Graves.

“I’m up to doing my fuckin’ job, kid. Maybe you should try it sometime,” Graves shot back.

“My fucking job is to kill the enemy. Guess what you are,” Soap spat back.

“Let’s keep this professional, boys,” Shepherd interjected. “Cap’n let me pain you the bigger picture. You need Makarov in a pine box. I’ve got the nails.”

The rest of the conversation was faded out because that name, Makarov…Makarov scared the shit out of you. Graves had told you that Vladimir Makarov liked petite, little, innocent-looking things and that like they’d done before with other male targets they might use you to help draw him in or distract him. You were Shadow Company’s femme fatale after all. You’d drawn in men before.

But the idea terrified you. Makarov was a different kind of monster. A psychopath. What was stopping Makarov from taking you like Graves took you? And Makarov you knew would not be nearly as ‘nice’ as Graves had been. Makarov would haul you to Russia and torture you himself. And he would get off on it. Unlike Graves Makarov wouldn’t hesitate to use rape as a weapon.

“Val,” Graves’s voice drew you back to the present.

“Graves,” you responded, shaking your head of the chilling thoughts that had occupied your mind only seconds before.

“We gotta meet 141,”

You sighed. Got teary eyed. What if they took you from him? So you said something. “They’re gonna take me from you,” you sniffled.

“We’re gonna have a fucking problem if they do,” Graves snapped. “We’re not moving forward until I get you back if that happens. They think you’re dead, Val. Remember that.”

You sighed again. “They better. I’ll raise hell ‘till they give me back.”

“I know it sucks,” Graves conceded. “But this is moving quick. We need Makarov. The quicker it’s done, they quicker we never see any of ‘em again.”

Makarov. That name. It gave you chills. You had the worst feeling about him.

Graves then gave a series of commands: wear both vests (we don’t know if they’ll try to kill you), wear your mask, wear your combat goggles, wear a helmet, wear a uniform. Do anything you can to hide your identity. Do not come within an arm’s length of them. You’re going to have a sidearm, your rifle, and a knife. And it all else fails? Run.

You followed orders and got dressed exactly how you were told to in the morning. You were exhausted. You hadn’t been sleeping well and your body ached.

-

It had been decided to meet in an abandoned warehouse. No electricity so it was easy to sweep for bugs. That meant no heat. It was raining and the dropping temperatures promised snow. It was miserable but at least all the layers you were wearing kept you warm.

You could feel 141’s eyes penetrating you.

You tried to tell yourself it was because out of a group of men you were by far the smallest one. The only female, obviously.

Price, Laswell, Shepherd, and Graves were in a room sealed off from the rest of you. Shadows were in that same room protecting Graves and Shepherd. Graves had wanted you in the same room as him but that risked Price recognizing you since the room was so small. The meeting would be quick, Graves promised. You only hoped it wouldn’t be drawn out.

That left you in a large room with Soap, Gaz, and Ghost. You stayed as far away from them as possible. You had your rifle hanging from your shoulder. You had your sidearm ready to go. The only problem was there was no damn way you could shoot any of them. You only prayed they’d stay across the room.

You didn’t like this. In fact you hated it. Why couldn’t another Shadow have stayed with you? Actually no. That Shadow might shoot at 141 and the last thing you wanted was to have them hurt.

Soap met your gaze. You had a soft spot for Soap. You two had been close. A little more than close but that was a story for another day.

“What’s your name, lass?” Soap called out. “Didn’ know he had female Shadows.”

You didn’t answer. You were scared your voice would give you away. You just pointed at your tag: P-80.

“I can’t read that,” Soap replied. “You can’t talk or sometin?”

You shook your head no. Duh. Of course you could talk. You just chose not to. Your voice was a lot softer than any of these men’s. It stood out. And they’d recognize it for sure.

“Your mannerisms remind me o’ someone I was close to,” Soap added. “Real pretty lass. Had a lotta fun wit her. But smart as ‘ell. Dangerous, too.”

“That you, Val?” Ghost asked.

“L.t.,” Soap whined. “I was gettin’ there.”

“I think it is,” Gaz added.

You shook you head no again. Tears pricked your eyes. This was getting to be too much. You didn’t care that you’d been told to stay out of that briefing room. You wanted to be in the same room as Graves.

“I know that’s you, Val,” That person, Ghost, calling your name was like someone lighting a fire under your ass. Graves had conditioned you to RUN from them if he wasn’t close by. You shook your head before taking off running, following Grave’s orders.

You were so frazzled that a flight of stairs presented too much of a challenge for you and you tripped, hitting the landing hard and slamming into the wall sideways, your head hitting the wall with force. You had a helmet on thank God but the hit still rattled you. Voices were scrambled and everything got blurry for a few seconds. You were about to get up and keep running when someone grabbed you by your vest and dragged you back up the flight of stairs you’d just tripped over. You fought not to scream to be let go.

Ghost had grabbed you. You knew because he was the roughest one out of the group. Only because he was incredibly protective of his men. After dragging you back up the flight of stairs he released you onto the concrete landing.

You tried to get back up. You were shoved down.

“On your knees,” Ghost demanded. Rifle raised.

“Ghost,” Soap started. “Don’t—”

“I’ve got this, Johnny,” Ghost retorted.

You sighed and dropped to your knees with hands held out.

“Helmet,” Ghost demanded.

You unclasped your helmet and took it off.

“The goggles and the mask,” came the next command.

“Fuck,” you mumbled to yourself.

You complied and took both off, dropping them to the ground next to you.

“Hoooly shit,”

You recognized it as Soap’s voice.

You shook the bangs from your eyes and glanced up.

Gaz was not far behind and approached. And you couldn’t do this. You couldn’t. You decided long ago you would never go back to them. They’d either kill you or send you to a military prison for the rest of your life.

Worst of all, Graves had said, you’d never see him again. You knew for a damn fact you couldn’t handle being separated from Graves.

So you pulled your sidearm and put it against your head.

The effect was instant.

141 backed off. Ghost dropped his rifle, leaving it to hang off his shoulder.

Immediately.

“Back off,” you stood up slowly.

They were speechless.

“What happened to you?” Gaz asked, eyeing you with stunned, wide eyes.

“Nothing,” You responded.

“Val, we’re not leaving,” Soap stated simply, his hands in front of him to show he was not reaching for a weapon. “Put the gun down, Jesus Christ.”

You didn’t respond. You lowered the gun from your head. Little did they know you’d rather die than be separated from Graves. In your panic you didn’t notice Soap was no longer in front of you. You raised the gun in their direction.

Yet not one of them reached for their weapon. You wondered if it was because despite how much you had changed they could see it in your eyes that you couldn’t shoot any of them.

“Let me go,” you warned, taking small steps backwards. “I’ll call him and they’ll come running.” Your mind flashed to that first night in Las Almas when Graves had ordered you to call out to 141. You being your stupid self had refused. Now you were actually threatening to scream to get Graves’s attention.

Then.

Your worst nightmare.

Someone grabbed you from behind. He placed a heavy, calloused hand over your mouth preventing you from screaming, from calling out to Graves. His other hand gripped your right wrist on such a way that you dropped your weapon. Your gun dropped to the ground. Soap expertly kicked it away from you. You were then flat on the floor on your stomach, the sudden movement aggravating the ribs that had been broken several times over now. Your rifle was taken. Your knife was taken. You were about to say, “Fuck you, let me go.” But duct tape replaced the hand that had been on your mouth.

They were treating you exactly like Graves warned you they would. You screamed into the tape because what else could you do? You were flipped onto your back and you immediately starting swinging fists, kicking, trying to scratch, anything to get them away.

Soap clearly was overwhelmed because he just stared in horror and how hard you were fighting. For what? To go back to Graves? To go back to the man who had inflicted that cut on your face that had scarred?

“Thas’ enough ‘o that,” Ghost said lowly. You’d forgotten how big he was because when he stood over you, he terrified you. He looked like the grim reaper. Zipties went around your wrists after your arms were pulled in front of you. But not before you put up a hell of a fight. You tried to scratch but only got Ghost’s Kevlar and uniform. Zipties brought back bad memories.

“You swing at anyone again,” Graves knelt in front of you while a Shadow ziptied your hands in front of you. You were lying on the floor, beat halfway to unconsciousness by said Shadow. “I’m leaving you in those with a broken arm,”

“Fuck you, sadist,” you mumbled as you lost consciousness.

-

Price, Graves, Shepherd, and Laswell were still in that small room. Talking about what you had no idea. You tried to use your hands ziptied in front of you to break the window of the SUV they were dragging you to.

You struggled, tried to be dead weight. Your worst fear was coming true. You were being taken from Graves. And you couldn’t scream because they’d taped your mouth shut.

But then you got an idea. You got into that SUV willingly because you had a plan. They’d removed the tape from your mouth provided you promised them you wouldn’t scream. The skin on your face was still red, though. Just wait until Graves finds out what they did to you.

-

I feel like this isn't as good as Long Way From Home. :( Idk why! But please let me know what you think! If you have ideas, message me! I'm thinking of opening an ask box :D I wanted to post a longer chapter but character limits got me!

[prolekult]

Yesterday marked the death of Sylvia Pankhurst - one of the finest revolutionary communists to have ever graced Britain's shores. We have rarely seen such fighters on this earth.

Sylvia was the most tortured suffragette, targetted for her insistence on including working class women within the demands of women's suffrage (much to the disdain of her mother and sister). She did not balk against repeated forced feeding, hunger striking and sleep striking.

She was one of a handful of communists in Britain who opposed the first world war. Her criticism of the war was ceaseless. Practically isolated, she organised relief for working class people in London with cost-price restaurants, free child care for mothers, and more.

She broke with the Labour Party over this, and never returned despite the enormous pressure put upon her by the British labour movement and, later, the Third Internationale. Her arguments with Lenin remain a key debate in communist and British politics.

Pankhurst stood resolutely with the Bolshevik revolution at its outbreak, and was pivotal in organising the "Hands Off Russia" campaign in Britain - which culminated in dock workers across the country refusing to load any munitions to ships.

Pankhurst was an outspoken opponent of racism. Her newspaper - then the Worker's Dreadnought - was the first newspaper in Britain to hire black journalists. When articles written by the Jamaican journalist, Claude McKay, were viewed as seditious, she went to jail for him.

Her support for Irish independence never wavered. She supported Larkin, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and United Builders' Labourers Union during the Dublin lock-outs. She stood by the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising.

She was one of the first in Britain to recognise the dangers of fascism, her warnings and agitation beginning as early as 1920. Through this struggle, she became deeply involved in Ethiopian national liberation, where she spent the last years of her life.

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg of the contributions Sylvia made in her life. She did all of this at great cost to herself, enduring her mother and sister denouncing her in the press repeatedly, endless slander, rejection by the mainstream communist movement and worse.

Sylvia also belongs to the great pantheon of disabled revolutionaries, being diagnosed with endometriosis whilst in prison. This, along with the damage done to her organs by forced feeding, left her with often crippling stomach problems.

"I am going to fight capitalism even if it kills me. It is wrong that people like you should be comfortable and well fed while all around you people are starving." She fought until she died, but capitalism didn't kill her. At aged 78, Sylvia passed on.

She was given a state funeral in Ethiopia, and remains the only foreigner buried in the front of Holy Trinity Cathedral. An Ethiopian migrant, cited anonymously in Rachel Holmes' biography of Pankhurst, summed up what she meant to him thus:

"After God, Sylvia Pankhurst".

To learn more about Sylvia, we highly recommend Rachel Holmes' biography, "Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel".

[anastasiamaru]

Elections at gunpoint

How the propaganda show "russian presidential elections" took place in the occupied territories

As reported by the National Resistance Center, for three days, russians stopped Ukrainians at checkpoints and demanded they "vote", all under the watchful eye of armed guards who indicated where to mark the ballot.

Occupiers also conducted raids on homes, trying to obtain information about local residents who ignored the "elections". russians attempted to enter houses multiple times if the doors were not opened to them.

The patrol groups consisted of two civilians and a military member. They primarily targeted those who had voted in the pseudo-referendum and "local elections".

Collaborators from the "election commissions" recorded who exactly voted and compiled a separate list of "disloyal residents" who avoided "voting".

This is an inaccurate translation; it cannot convey all the despair and anger in the words of a person who is under occupation. It's just an inaccurate conversation context:

Womаn:"Quietly, please...

Man:"What do you want ?"

Collaborators:"Hello"

Man:"Who even allowed you kurva to come here?What the fuckin voting?Who allowed you to come into the yard?"

Collaborators:"We saw in your car your"...

Man:"What? Your?Our?.Crimea is ours,damn it!Why did you come here?WHY DiD you come here?What?"

Collaborators:"Put a signature"(on the vote for the dictator putin)

Man:"What a fuckin signature?...You came to me with a fuckin ballot, damn it... If I don't want to vote, I won't go vote."

Collaborators:"Do you have a problem with it?(the dictator and the voting)

Man:"Im against that shit.I didn't invite you here. This is my yard, my home. And I absolutely don't need you here,you fuckin sluts.Do you understand?"

Collaborators:"The Signature"

Man:"Go fuck yourself.You with your fags"

"I must remind you that many people disappeared without a trace due to their resistance to the occupiers, many people were tortured. Many Ukrainians were shot."

Abroad,russians eagerly went to vote for the dictator putin.This is exactly how one can love russia - from far away abroad.

Caricature by Oleksij Kustovski

[luminalunii97]

Iran's protests revolution is not simply about hijab or bodily autonomy, rather those are parts of the issue: a meta post (part 1)

I don't think I can stress enough that today's conflicts between people and the governing system is not to correct the system, rather to make a fundamental change by getting rid of the current corrupted system altogether. Why? Because we came to this conclusion throughout this 4 decades that this system is impossible to work with. (You can't correct ideologies, theocracy, dictatorship, and worst of all a religious totalitarianism) So when you talk about IranProtests2022, don't limit it to mandatory hijab, it goes far far beyond that. As one favorite slogan on the streets states it:

این آخرین پیامه، هدف کل نظامه

(this is the last message, [our] target is the whole system (regime))

*I'm going to use historical facts, people's chants on the streets, and the constitution of Islamic Republic to make my point across*

What you hear today the most on the streets in Iran is the melodic slogan آزادی، آزادی، آزادی (freedom, freedom, freedom)

which is a generic demand that holds all forms of freedom including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom flow of information and freedom of choice in its belly. Seeking freedom is not a recent development in Iranian society. If you study Iran's history for the past century, one thing is very clear: today's protests-going-on-revolution has old roots. You could say the fight for democracy, what is thought by Iranians to be the only path that enables people to gain individual freedom and to establish social justice, has started more than a hundred years ago, by the constitutional revolution.

The incompetency and corruption of the kings and their royal dependents during the Qajar rule, the vast interference of foreign powers in the country's affairs, and the shift in western politics towards liberation were possible factors that pushed Iranian figures and people into rising up for freedom. But due to many obstacles, among them foreign interference especially by Russia and Britain and later on USA mostly because of the natural resources in iran like oil, and furthermore culture and religion, this fight for libration and democracy hasn't been won yet. There have been various attempts in this ongoing fight, two well known examples are Mohammed Mosadegh government and the notorious islamic revolution 1979.

But our main focus here is the issue at hand. Why Islamic Republic of Iran must go?

In every area you could think of, Islamic republic has f-ed up these last 4 decades. International affairs?! F-ed up. Financial prosperity? Safety and peace? Environment? Managing water resources? Saving endangered animals? Job making? Education? Women's rights? Queers rights? Ethnic groups right? Human rights? Even representing Islam? Freedom of speech? Freedom of religion? Freedom? All f-ed up.

I'm going to give you examples;

Women's rights:

This is important because women are the leads in this protests and their demands are at the center of it all. Women's rights are the heart of this revolution.

Women in iran cannot wear what they want. It's not just hijab that's mandatory, it's a specific dress code. I have a hijabi friend who loves wearing long sleeved blouses and long skirts. But she can't. Because hijab should fit into a specific style to be accepted and blouses are not acceptable clothings. There are should and shouldn'ts women must follow. Look at some examples:

No tight pants, no bright colors, no hair, no bare foot, no makeup, no short manto, no tight manto, no buttonless manto, no short pants, and check out, there's more.

So if you wear your hijab like below you're going to either get arrested or be thrown out of a governmental institute:

But the thing is forced hijab is not the only or even the most important problem for women. Here is a list of women's issues in Iran, this is what gender apartheid means here: (tw for misogyny and rape)

*Women can't drive a bicycle or motorbike in iran, the funny thing is they can sit behind a man on a motorcycle but they can't be the driver themselves!!!

*women can't go to stadiums to watch men's sports.

*women can't get a passport or travel without their husbands permission.

*women can't get married without their father or grandfather or court's permission

*women can't go to work or get a higher education without their husbands permission

*University students who are women in case of staying in a dormitory need their father or husband's written consent.

*Women can't even check into a hotel on their own

*women can't become judges because they're "emotional"

*women can't run for presidency because the first condition to become a candidate is to be a man

*Women can't decide to get a divorce, and their child custody goes automatically to the father so they should fight for both

*a woman's testimony in court has half the value of a man because they're not "trustworthy"

*a woman's blood money is half a man's

*a woman's share of inheritance is half her brother's

*a man can marry up to 4 wives but polyamory not only isn't recognized for women, there are serious punishments including death penalties for women who have sex with anyone who's not their husband

*The law considers sex within marriage consensual by definition and, therefore, does not address spousal rape, including in cases of forced marriage. It gets worse. Women are supposed, by law, to always say yes to their husband's sexual advances. A man can take a complaint to the court about his wife saying no to him for sex!

*fathers are considered the "owner" of their child therefore if a man kills his child he won't get appropriately punished and only spend a brief time in jail. This worsen honor killing in iran where some fathers kill their daughters for reasons like having a boyfriend.

*the legal age of marriage is very low, 13 for girls and 15 for boys, and even that's more of a formality. It's possible to get married at any age. That is by far one of the most alarming things about Iran's human rights violations, child-wives shouldn't exist.

...

The thing is, fighting for women's rights isn't something new in Iran, it has never been this widespread though. After the failure that was 1979 revolution, the government started to oppress women more and more as it went on. Women's protests against discrimination started early on and continued after islamic republic was stablished. Watch this report made by TIME around 2 years ago. Look how far we've come:

[ammg-old2]

In the last decade, cacti have exploded in popularity, becoming a mainstay of hipster decor around the world – from the homes of China’s growing middle class and the meticulous cactus gardens in Japan to the fashionable cafes of Europe.

In the US alone, sales of cacti and succulents surged 64% between 2012 and 2017; a market that is now estimated to be worth tens of millions. But rising demand has met a thorny problem: cacti are extremely slow-growing, with some species taking decades to grow from seed to full maturity. Hence, many opt for the shortcut: pulling them right out of the ground.

For land managers and scientists who work with cacti, the problem appears to be on the rise. While the precise scale is difficult to measure, and catching thieves red-handed in remote deserts is nearly impossible, major busts offer clues. In 2014, more than 2,600 stolen cacti were seized at US borders – up from 411 just a year before. But law enforcement officials and field scientists say that data represents only a tiny fraction of cactus actually being stolen.

“When I first started we rarely investigated cactus theft,” said one US Fish and Wildlife Service detective, who asked not to be named due to the undercover nature of his work. He has covered the south-west region for more than a decade and says the problem is increasing. “Now we are prosecuting cases involving thousands of plants at a time. The demand is so high that I fear we can’t stop the illegal trade going on.”

While many plants fall victim to underground cactus cartels, a seemingly more benign form of theft has become part of the problem, too. International visitors who come to the south-west specifically to view rare cactus in the wild sometimes take a souvenir home, and social media is exacerbating the problem.

“We’ve had Austrian, German and Italian collectors express strong interest on social media for these plants and they share GPS coordinates,” said Wendell “Woody” Minnich, the former president of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America. “Some of these people come to steal, especially when a new species is identified. They hide the plants in their suitcase and take them back to their greenhouse in Europe.”

Minnich, 71, has been a cactus grower and nursery operator in New Mexico for 50 years. He said the internet had significantly accelerated theft of rare, slow-growing cactus species over the last decade. A case in point: Sclerocactus havasupaiensis, which is native to one drainage at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, was being auctioned on eBay in early January by a seller in Ukraine. It was just one of more than 365 internationally protected plant species that are openly traded on Amazon and eBay.

“Do a Google search on Sclerocactus and you can find people in Russia selling them,” said Minnich. “I have been on public lands in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado where years ago Sclerocactus were everywhere, and recently I found just a bunch of little holes in the ground.”