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saphronethaleph · 3 months

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Double Dialing

Anakin looked around, cautiously.

“Was that the last of them?” he asked.

“Last ones we know about,” one of the liaison wookiees reported. Chewbacca, Anakin thought his name was – the son of Attichitcuk.

“All right, good enough for me,” Anakin decided, deactivating his lightsaber. “Skywalker to Five-oh-first command, report in?”

“Their attack has stalled, sir,” Appo reported in. “We’re preparing a counteroffensive move, but it’s not urgent – I’d appreciate your input if you can give it, sir.”

“I’ll head back to the command post,” Anakin replied, rolling his shoulder a little.

He had a pleasant burn in his muscles, and he’d done some really cool things so far today. Sure, he wasn’t a Master, and that was still a bit annoying, but it was a lot harder for it to feel annoying when he was helping out to save an entire planet!

Again.

And saving a planet full of wookiees was particularly good at making you feel like you were completely kickass and amazing. If they needed help, and you could give them that help, it was well worth it. Especially as a sign that the Council was willing to let him pick his assignments.

Then his comlink crackled again.

“...guiding light to big handful,” Obi-Wan’s voice said. “Guiding Light to Big Handful, over?”

“Master, it’s me,” Anakin replied.

“You’re supposed to say, Big Handful copies,” Obi-Wan pointed out, reproachfully. “Really, Anakin.”

“Sorry,” Anakin said. “You know it’s me, though. And I still think whoever picked that codename was being cruel. I wouldn’t have picked it for me.”

“Nobody picks their own codenames,” Obi-Wan replied. “It’s like nicknames. Anyway, Anakin – I’ve got some good news.”

“Oh, that’s… good?” Anakin replied. “Hang on, I think I remember, weren’t you on Utapau?”

“Yes, but that was a while ago,” Obi-Wan told him. “You must have missed the last update for the Council.”

Anakin felt a bit guilty about that, except that he had been in the middle of a lot of fights on Kashyyyk over the last few days. So he’d probably just ignored his comlink when it was ringing, because he’d been trying to cut a tank droid in half or fend off STAPs or make sure his crashing hoverspeeder crashed into the enemy without anyone on board. Instead of crashing into their own command centre while there were still two liaison wookiees on board.

It really had been an eventful few days.

“I probably did, Master,” he admitted. “So what’s been happening on Utapau?”

“I beat Grievous,” Obi-Wan said, just tossing it off there. “He was quite good, but not quite good enough. But before our battle I overheard him telling the Confederacy council to run away, heading to Mustafar.”

“Mustafar…” Anakin repeated, thinking. “That’s not all that far from here. I could probably head over-”

“Alas, you’re too late,” Obi-Wan replied. “The Open Circle fleet chased them to Mustafar. That’s actually what I’ve been doing, I led the assault on the mining facility they were holed up in twenty minutes ago. The whole CIS leadership has been captured.”

“Great!” Anakin said. “Does that mean we can bring an end to the war?”

“Not just yet, Anakin,” Obi-Wan apologized. “I’ve been interrogating the Trade Federation leadership, and Nute Gunray is quite clear that he’s been working for Darth Sidious for the last thirteen years at least – since before we met. Which is why I called you.”

Anakin was silent for a long moment.

“...I don’t get it,” he admitted.

“I captured their computers, Anakin,” Obi-Wan explained. “Including current comcodes to contact Darth Sidious. I’m hoping to get R2’s help in tracing them.”

“Yeah, he could do that,” Anakin replied. “Though…”

“Though what?” Obi-Wan asked.

“I’m just thinking about something the Chancellor said, once,” Anakin explained. “He said that, if Darth Sidious walked through the door he’d try and negotiate with him.”

He shrugged, not that Obi-Wan could see him. “Just a thought.”

“That might actually work,” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin stared at his comlink, not that Obi-Wan could see that earlier.

“It might?” he asked.

“Well, it’s a plan you came up with, Anakin, and I’ve had plenty of experience in how well those go,” Obi-Wan replied. “Which is to say… distressingly well.”

“Thanks,” Anakin said.

“It’s better than the alternative,” Obi-Wan replied. “Unfortunately, the codes seem to be secured to this computer. We can’t just send them to you or to the Chancellor.”

“That’s okay,” Anakin decided. “I’ll get back to the command centre and hook up R2-D2…”

“Chancellor, you must appreciate your position,” Mon Mothma said, reasonably. “Your arguments that we are still in a crisis situation are becoming increasingly threadbare; this is not, necessarily, a problem that is impossible to solve, but it is a problem that needs solving.”

“I hardly see how it would qualify as a problem, Senator,” the Chancellor replied.

“The war is coming to a conclusion, Chancellor,” Bail pointed out. “It is going to be time to transition back to normal governance at some point soon… that transition is going to go more easily, for you and for the Republic as a whole, if you are willing to make it rather than dragging it out.”

“I’m not sure what you are insinuating, Senator Organa,” Palpatine began.

“It’s not an insinuation,” Bail replied.

He shrugged. “It’s a statement of fact. Speaking purely from the point of view of securing public support, it is a matter of fact that the public responds better to someone who is willing to face an electoral challenge than someone who fends it off as best they can. If you continue to run the Republic in a crisis situation until the end of the war, then – speaking purely in terms of fact – that makes it far more likely that you will lose the subsequent election.”

Palpatine glowered.

“Assuming I accept your assessment,” he began. “What is your suggestion, then?”

“Abandon your emergency powers, or make a clear statement with a short timeframe as to when those powers will be abandoned,” Mon advised. “There are also issues relating to the courts, to be clear.”

“I don’t consider such issues to be issues at all,” Palpatine said, then there was a beeping sound.

He picked up the comlink from his desk.

“Yes?” he asked, then smiled. “Anakin, my boy! It’s good to hear from you. How have you been doing on Kashyyyk?”

“Is this… a bit impolite?” Bail murmured to Mon.

“Skywalker did call him,” Mon replied. “You know how the two are friends.”

“...that sounds marvellous,” Palaptine said. “Oh? ...yes, I remember. I’d be happy to negotiate with the CIS leadership… I’m sorry, who are you talking to?”

“And… there we go,” Static declared. “It’s using a priority override key, the only one in the system. You’ll show up as being Nute Gunray, since we know he had contact.”

“Excellent,” Obi-Wan replied, nodding to the expert. “Anakin?”

“Ready, Master,” Anakin replied. “I’ve got the Chancellor on the other call, I’ll put the comlinks next to one another.”

“Very good,” Obi-Wan said. “I’ll do the same.”

He triggered the system, and for a long moment nothing happened.

Then the call connected.

“Explain yourself, Nute,” came a sinister voice, and Obi-Wan shuddered.

Who would ever think such a man had their best interests at heart?

“I assume you are referring to Nute Gunray?” the Chancellor said. “I believe he is not available. However-”

“Begone, then,” Sidious snapped.

“Please, allow me to finish,” the Chancellor requested. “This war has been going on for too long already, and I believe there are grounds for a peaceful settlement.”

“A peaceful settlement?” Sidious asked, chuckling darkly. “What kind of peaceful settlement could you possibly be talking about?”

“Surely the conflict between the Jedi and the Sith has some basis in the past, but that was hundreds of years ago,” the Chancellor pointed out.

“The conflict between the Jedi and the Sith is quite recent,” Sidious replied. “The Sith have developed techniques which some would consider… unnatural… and the Jedi were opposed to them from the start. They wished to keep the secret of healing the very ill out of the hands of the galaxy… many of them won’t even know it themselves.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling to ward off his intense dislike for the Sith.

That was an obvious tissue of lies, phrased to manipulate and with a built-in reason why the listener might not have heard of it.

“There must be a basis for peace,” the Chancellor protested.

Sidious made an amused noise. “Very well, then, here is your proposal. The Jedi Order must be dismantled.”

“I will not accept that,” Palpatine replied. “Some Jedi are my personal friends. Anakin Skywalker, for example, is a hero.”

Sidious chuckled. “You’re not expecting me to change my mind based on that, are you?” he asked, sounding amused. “What if I revealed to you that the Jedi do not have your own best interests at heart?”

“I would be very much inclined to not believe you,” Palpatine said, with a sigh. “Your Confederacy has caused enormous bloodshed!”

“The Confederacy was never a Sith creation,” Sidious replied. “It was a creation of my apprentice, Count Dooku. But Count Dooku is not the Sith. What the Sith want – what I want – is to be free from the tyranny of the Jedi.”

His voice became silky and insinuating. “Haven’t the Jedi resisted your own influence? Prevented that hero you spoke of from achieving the rank of Master? What other reason could they have – they must be hiding something.”

Obi-Wan felt sick for a moment.

The way this Sith was speaking was almost calculated to get under Anakin’s skin, as well as that of the Chancellor.

“I… don’t think the Jedi Order is quite so corrupt as you suggest,” Palpatine replied, after a moment, which was almost worse than an agreement.

Did the Chancellor really think he could give orders to the Jedi?

“You know what it would take for a peace,” Sidious said. “It’s the only way to stop the bloodshed. The only way that the Sith would feel… comfortable… sharing our superior knowledge of the Force.”

Then the call ended, unceremoniously.

“...well, that could have gone better,” Anakin muttered.

“It was worth a try,” Obi-Wan said, though he privately agreed with Anakin.

Static and Sparkle were checking if they’d managed to track down Sidious during the conversation, and once they delivered their verdict Obi-Wan would check with Anakin to see if R2 had achieved anything. Maybe he’d even managed to send a virus.

At least Sidious had stayed on the line for a while.

Palpatine heaved an enormous sigh of relief, setting down the comlink he’d been using to talk to Anakin.

He very much hoped to never have to do something like that again.

Then a tiny sound made him look up.

Bail Organa and Mon Mothma were staring at him. And, in a shimmering blue hologram, so were about half of the Jedi Council.

“...what. The kriff. Was that?” Mace Windu asked, eventually.

“Ah…” Palpatine began. “...performance art?”

Nobody seemed very impressed by that answer.

#star wars #anakin skywalker #palpatine #obi wan kenobi #another bad day for palps #darth sidious #Adam West Batman

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quotesfrommyreading · 1 year

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Much of the public discussion of Ukraine reveals a tendency to patronize that country and others that escaped Russian rule. As Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia, acidly observed, “When I was at university in the mid-1970s, no one referred to Germany as ‘the former Third Reich.’ And yet today, more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we keep on being referred to as ‘former Soviet bloc countries.’” Tropes about Ukrainian corruption abound, not without reason—but one may also legitimately ask why so many members of Congress enter the House or Senate with modest means and leave as multimillionaires, or why the children of U.S. presidents make fortunes off foreign countries, or, for that matter, why building in New York City is so infernally expensive.

The latest, richest example of Western condescension came in a report by German military intelligence that complains that although the Ukrainians are good students in their training courses, they are not following Western doctrine and, worse, are promoting officers on the basis of combat experience rather than theoretical knowledge. Similar, if less cutting, views have leaked out of the Pentagon.

Criticism by the German military of any country’s combat performance may be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the Bundeswehr has not seen serious combat in nearly eight decades. In Afghanistan, Germany was notorious for having considerably fewer than 10 percent of its thousands of in-country troops outside the wire of its forward operating bases at any time. One might further observe that when, long ago, the German army did fight wars, it, too, tended to promote experienced and successful combat leaders, as wartime armies usually do.

American complaints about the pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and its failure to achieve rapid breakthroughs are similarly misplaced. The Ukrainians indeed received a diverse array of tanks and armored vehicles, but they have far less mine-clearing equipment than they need. They tried doing it our way—attempting to pierce dense Russian defenses and break out into open territory—and paid a price. After 10 days they decided to take a different approach, more careful and incremental, and better suited to their own capabilities (particularly their precision long-range weapons) and the challenge they faced. That is, by historical standards, fast adaptation. By contrast, the United States Army took a good four years to develop an operational approach to counterinsurgency in Iraq that yielded success in defeating the remnants of the Baathist regime and al-Qaeda-oriented terrorists.

A besetting sin of big militaries, particularly America’s, is to think that their way is either the best way or the only way. As a result of this assumption, the United States builds inferior, mirror-image militaries in smaller allies facing insurgency or external threat. These forces tend to fail because they are unsuited to their environment or simply lack the resources that the U.S. military possesses in plenty. The Vietnamese and, later, the Afghan armies are good examples of this tendency—and Washington’s postwar bad-mouthing of its slaughtered clients, rather than critical self-examination of what it set them up for, is reprehensible.

The Ukrainians are now fighting a slow, patient war in which they are dismantling Russian artillery, ammunition depots, and command posts without weapons such as American ATACMS and German Taurus missiles that would make this sensible approach faster and more effective. They know far more about fighting Russians than anyone in any Western military knows, and they are experiencing a combat environment that no Western military has encountered since World War II. Modesty, never an American strong suit, is in order.

— Western Diplomats Need to Stop Whining About Ukraine

#eliot a. cohen #current events #politics #ukrainian politics #american politics #warfare #strategy #tactics #diplomacy #russo-ukrainian war #2022 russian invasion of ukraine #war in afghanistan #vietnam war #ukraine #usa #toomas hendrik ilves

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thepastisalreadywritten · 9 months

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By Brian Melley, AP News

13 January 2024

LONDON (AP) — An unlikely refugee from the war in Ukraine — a rare Asiatic black bear — arrived at his new home in Scotland on Friday and quickly took to a meal of cucumbers and watermelon.

The 12-year-old Yampil was named for a village in the Donetsk region where he was one of the few survivors found by Ukrainian troops in the remains of a bombed-out private zoo.

Yampil, who had previously been called Borya, was discovered by soldiers who recaptured the devastated city of Lyman during the Kharkiv counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, said Yegor Yakovlev of Save Wild, who was among the first of many people who led the bear to a new life.

The bear was found in a menagerie that had long been abandoned by its owners.

Almost all the other animals had died of hunger, thirst or were struck by bullets or shrapnel and some were eaten by Russian troops.

Yampil narrowly missed the same fate, suffering a concussion from a projectile that landed nearby.

“The bear miraculously survived,” said Yakovlev, also director of the White Rock Bear Shelter, where the bear recovered.

“Our fighters did not know what to do with him, so they started looking for rescue.”

What followed was an odyssey that your average bear rarely makes, as he was moved to Kyiv for veterinary care and rehab, then shipped to a zoo in Poland, then to an animal rescue in Belgium, where he spent the past seven months, before landing in the United Kingdom.

Brian Curran, owner of Five Sisters Zoo in West Calder, Scotland, said his heart broke when he learned of the plight of the threatened Asiatic black bear.

“He was in terrible condition; five more days and they wouldn’t have been able to save him,” Curran said. “We were just so amazed he was still alive and well.”

The bear was skinny but not malnourished when he was found, said Frederik Thoelen, a biologist at the Nature Help Center in Belgium.

He now is estimated to weigh a healthy 440 pounds (200 kilograms), Thoelen said.

The nature center in Belgium, which usually treats injured wildlife and returns them to their natural settings, has taken several animals rescued from the war in Ukraine, including a wolf, a caracal cat and four lions, though those animals had not experienced the ordeal Yampil endured.

It was remarkable how calm Yampil was when he arrived in Belgium, Thoelen said.

The bear was trained in the past two weeks to move from his enclosure to the crate that would transport him across Belgium to Calais, France, then across the English Channel on a ferry to Scotland.

Pastries from a local bakery were used for good measure to lure him Thursday into the cage, where he was sedated for the journey.

“We want to use the food that he likes most, and for most bears — and for people also — it’s sweet, unhealthy foods,” Thoelen said.

Thoelen had a sense of the bear’s weight as he drove the crate to the port.

“Every time when we had a red light or a traffic jam, when the bear moved a little bit, you could feel the van moving also,” he said.

“You could feel it was a heavy animal in the back of the car.”

Yampil arrived at the zoo about 15 miles (25 kilometers) west of Edinburgh and immediately made himself at home.

He feasted on cukes — said to be his favorite food — and melon, said Adam Welsh, who works at Five Sisters.

The Asiatic black bear is listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species as vulnerable to extinction in the wild, where it can be found in central and southern Asia, Russia, and Japan.

It’s known for the distinctive white crescent patch on its chest that gives it the nickname moon bear. It can live for up to 30 years in zoos.

It’s not clear if the bear will go into hibernation. The winter has been warmer than usual but colder days are on the horizon.

The zoo has other bears, but Yampil is the only Asian bear and unique in other ways.

“We’ve had circus bears, for example, that have been rescued,” Welsh said.

“We’ve had bears rescued from places like roadside restaurants where they’ve been used as kind of roadside attractions and been kept in subpar conditions. But this is the first time that we’ve worked with an animal that’s been rescued from a war zone.”

youtube

Scottish zoo welcomes black bear which survived war in Ukraine

13 January 2024

🖤🐻🤎

#Asiatic black bear #Ukraine #Scotland #Yampil #Borya #Save Wild #White Rock Bear Shelter #Five Sisters Zoo #Nature Help Center #Belgium #Poland #International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species #moon bear #save animals #protect wildlife #threatened species #refugee bear #private zoo #Youtube

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bestworstcase · 5 months

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option 1: tai’s guarding the crown of choice.

pros:

a legitimately important task that recontextualizes his ongoing decision to remain on patch as a personal sacrifice he makes for the greater good.

ozpin would pick the guy named for the god of light to be the gatekeeper of choice, huh.

if any parent in this story is meant to die, it’s him, and narratively this is the most intuitive way to do it.

cons:

realistically, what can tai do to prevent salem / cinder / summer from accessing the vault if they find it? if he’s the gatekeeper, staying on patch alone after everyone else evacuates achieves nothing except, ah, signaling to the enemy that the real vault is under signal academy. bad plan.

it means oz is breaking his promise to be honest and forthcoming, undermining his character growth for the sake of ‘surprising’ the audience with the most obvious answer.

means qrow has either been kept in the dark (see prev point) or he’s also deliberately hiding this information from his nieces after they asked him outright if he knew where tai is; this is so far afield for his character as to border on character assassination, and likewise undermines his positive growth since v7.

honestly makes both yang and ruby seem kind of stupid. they know the crown is hidden somewhere near beacon, that ozpin did something to protect it differently from the others, and that their father hasn’t left patch. ruby was sharp enough to guess that long memory might be a relic hidden in plain sight; yang is just as smart, and she knows tai had “some things” to look after on patch. are we expected to believe that “hey, is dad guarding the relic?” somehow hasn’t occurred to either of them?

tai harbors a whole lot of resentment toward ozpin, and based on qrow kicking him out of ruby’s bedroom to drip-feed her hints on where to go next, he seems to have been on the outer perimeter of the inner circle. why would oz entrust him with the relic’s safety?

glynda—ozpin’s scrupulously loyal second-in-command whose emblem is a crown and whose semblance puts her on par with a maiden—is a far more narratively plausible vault-guardian than tai, and the “sun dragon” makes a damn good red herring.

if he’s guarding the vault, he dies. sorry. but the point of putting the father of 2/4 protagonists in between the two main villains and the thing they want most (choice) is so they can kill him to get it, increasing tension and raising the emotional stakes of negotiating peace. to be clear, rwby is willing to Go There, but i think it’s an unsatisfactory way to close out the rose xiao long family arc.

option 2: survivors trapped under mountain glenn, and tai is taking point.

pros:

a genuinely important, worthwhile thing for him to be doing—even more so than guarding the crown. likely sets up a resolution for him in the vein of “you can be a good huntsman or a good father, and tai picked being a huntsman,” which is an elegant way to balance his contradictions.

gives him meaningful stuff to do in v10; for example, one stealthy huntsman with a bullhead could slip in and out of mountain glenn to get a few dozen people out at a time, and/or run supplies and messages between the kingdoms.

we get to see zwei back in action around mountain glenn :)

introduces a natural segue from playing defense in vacuo to mounting a counteroffensive against beacon as tai’s work clarifies the situation in vale.

easily the most 'heroic' direction for him without contorting the story to arbitrarily lionize tai: he’s a scout preparing the stage for the heroes to take the fight to salem, making him the good counterpart to watts.

cons:

makes no sense to keep it a secret. the emotional beats of B4 can still happen if the girls know this is what tai’s doing: instead of “do you… wonder why he’s not here? i know qrow said he’s on assignment, but what’s more important than here?” yang says “do you… wish he were here? with us? i know qrow said he’s looking for survivors, but how many of them can there really be by now? we need all the help we can get,” and ruby says “maybe we don’t have the full picture” as in maybe dad knows something we don’t and that’s why he hasn’t given up yet. the emotion is the same, and the big "they’re hiding in mountain glenn" reveal is hinted without spoiling.

leaves hanging the narrative thread of what tai has been doing since the fall of beacon, because the “some things” he was dealing with in v4 obviously wasn’t this.

option 3: tai is dead.

pros:

explains the apparent secrecy; qrow knows tai was away “on assignment” (i.e., had taken a huntsman contract that brought him out of the kingdom) at the time salem attacked vale, so he is missing but not yet presumed dead.

might reopen the mystery box of summer’s last mission through the real-deal “left on a mission and never came back” echo.

cons:

raven would know.

it’s a cheap, narratively unsatisfying twist that fails to deliver on the bread crumbs set up in v2-3 (tai starts going on missions again) and v4 (“some things”), and also undermines any serious emotional resolution with regard to yang and ruby’s complex relationships with tai.

option 4: summer’s working with salem, and tai is trying to convince her to come back.

pros:

“some things” being his presumed-dead wife who left him to join the enemy and with whom tai is now having an affair or otherwise hoping to coax back to the heroic side through the power of love whilst also keeping his mouth shut about her being a) still alive and b) a traitor is OBJECTIVELY the funniest answer.

brings forward and interrogates the way tai’s romantic grief informs the choices he makes as a parent: from hiding raven and then refusing to talk about her with yang, to shutting down when he lost summer and letting his five-year-old pick up the pieces, to discovering and then keeping summer’s secrets for the sake of some faint hope that she might finally come back to him.

cogent with the Dead (Absent) Mother / Neglectful Father / Evil Stepmother fairytale paradigm rwby deconstructs with raven, tai, and summer; the father chooses the stepmother over his children.

raises the emotional stakes of the war for summer through direct confrontation with the life she left behind, creating narrative opportunities to develop her character (is she still in love with tai? how does she feel about being his first priority, over their children? does she resent that he has her on this pedestal even now?) and apply pressure to her relationships with salem and cinder (do they know? is summer keeping her communication with him a secret, too? or is he an “asset” she’s using for salem’s benefit?).

consequently, raises the momentum of the narrative toward negotiation with salem; tai still has the coalition’s trust, however strained his personal relationships may be. summer is the obvious ambassador for salem’s side of the war, but she’s also the traitor who needs someone to vouch for her good intentions.

the secrecy needs no explanation: just as summer’s last mission was a summer secret, tai’s "assignment" is a taiyang secret and the girls know everything that oz and qrow do, because all of them have been left in the dark. raven might know, and she has the means to find if she doesn’t, but tai’s whereabouts are entangled with what raven knows about summer, so she can’t explain where tai is or why until she reveals her deep dark secrets about what happened between her and summer that night.

foreshadowing is solid: tai starts to go on "missions" again in v2, after the inner circle becomes aware that salem has infiltrated beacon and just before the breach downtown. when ruby visits summer’s grave in v3, she says "[dad] told me he’s going to be on some mission soon! i think he misses adventuring with you." he’s got to "look after some things" (but he isn’t talking about yang, because he stays home after she leaves). and then with B4 we have ruby echoing what the blacksmith taught her about summer in relation to tai, "maybe we don’t have the full picture?"

juicy

cons:

???

dependent on the unconfirmed theory that summer is working for salem as herself, not some unrecognizable enslaved monster, but i am as confident in that as i was about salem going to vale next and we all know how that turned out :)

taking their mom was not enough salem had to go for the full set APPARENTLY

option 5: secret fifth thing

pros:

???

cons:

???

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charlesoberonn · 11 months

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I've been feeling a little stressed and depressed. Could I ask for some good news and/or a funny joke?

Good news: Despite slow progress in the counteroffensive, Ukraine is still holding strong while Russia's attempts at a counter-counteroffensive are failing.

Joke:

3 spies, a Frenchman, an American, and an Italian, are captured by the enemy.

The enemy officers take the Frenchman. They tie him to a chair and torture him for 7 hours while the other two watch in horror until he finally tells them everything.

They then take the American. They tie him to the chair and torture him for 12 hours while the other two watch until he finally tells them everything.

Then they take the Italian. They tie him to the chair and torture him for 12 hours but he doesn't talk. They torture him for another 12 hours but not a word. A final 7 hours and they give up and untie him.

"How did you withstand the torture without talking?" the other two ask him.

"I wanted to talk" he answers. "But they tied up my hands."

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mariacallous · 3 months

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The bilateral security agreement signed by U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 13 marks a major step forward in Washington’s strategy toward Ukraine and Russia. For more than two years, U.S. support for Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression has been doled out in one-off emergency tranches, with question marks hanging over each new package. The lack of a long-term vision has encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to think that time is on his side and that he can outlast Ukraine and the United States. The new U.S.-Ukraine agreement, if properly resourced and implemented, should chip away at Putin’s confidence.

Along with a latticework of similar deals Kyiv has inked with more than a dozen other countries, the agreement commits the United States to a 10-year program of support to build and maintain Ukraine’s “credible defense and deterrence capability.” The Biden administration wants this organizing concept to underpin the West’s long-term military aid to Kyiv, guiding everything from training, exercises, and weapons transfers to intelligence sharing and defense-industrial cooperation. In that way, it is like the “qualitative military edge” principle that has been the cornerstone of U.S. security aid for Israel dating back to the Cold War.

To be clear, the U.S.-Ukraine agreement is not a security guarantee. It does not commit the United States to using its own armed forces in Ukraine’s defense. Nor does it outline a path for Ukraine to join NATO, which Kyiv believes is the only way to end Russia’s aggression for good. As long as the war is raging, no U.S. president is likely to extend Ukraine a security guarantee, because doing so would draw American troops into a direct fight with Russia.

The U.S.-Ukraine agreement implicitly acknowledges that there is no shortcut to end the war: neither through a premature Ukrainian offensive nor through hasty negotiations. Instead, the baseline assumption is that the United States will need to make long-term investments in Ukraine’s military regardless of how the conflict evolves. Doing so can set the conditions for war termination by putting Kyiv in a stronger position from which to either go on offense or enter talks. But Biden and Ukraine’s supporters in Congress should be realistic that this process could take years and will require patience, bipartisan political will, and unity with allies and partners. To support Kyiv over the long term, and to win over critics of Biden’s approach at home, the White House and Congress need to start talking.

Some Republicans in Congress have denounced Biden’s approach to Ukraine as lacking direction and “endlessly funding a stalemate.” Frustrated lawmakers have mandated that the president furnish a strategy to “hasten Ukrainian victory,” along with “specific and achievable objectives” for U.S. support, multiyear cost estimates, and metrics of progress. Congress is right to press the White House for policy clarity. Yet the theories of victory and war termination mooted by the administration’s critics are as divergent as they are unrealistic.

One camp argues that Biden is deliberately hamstringing Ukraine by throttling the supply of new weapons and imposing needless policy restrictions. There are valid critiques of these decisions, to be sure. But in many cases, the hesitation to supply more or higher-quality weapons has less to do with political timidity and more to do with lack of inventory or the sheer logistical challenge of training all of the personnel required to operate them in a safe and sustainable way.

Moreover, the failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year should make clear that overcoming Russia’s prepared defenses will require a lot more than a few hundred long-range missiles. After-action reports show that Ukraine was unable to conduct complex, synchronized offensive operations at the scale required to shift the front lines—let alone the fact that any modern army, no matter how well trained, would struggle to cross vast minefields and fortifications under the constant gaze of killer drones. Even as it begins to fix its manpower challenges, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will require years of training, equipping, and advising before it will have a realistic shot at dislodging entrenched Russian forces from occupied territory.

A second camp argues the opposite: that the United States should cease or significantly scale back support for Ukraine, instead pressuring the country into peace talks with Russia. These critics argue that the war is unwinnable, and that U.S. support for Kyiv is a distraction from more pressing security challenges in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. What they gloss over, however, are the words coming out of Putin’s mouth: The Russian leader made clear as recently as a few weeks ago that he is not interested in negotiating with Kyiv on terms short of capitulation.

What is clear is that neither a quick Ukrainian battlefield victory nor a stable negotiated settlement is in the offing. With this in mind, U.S. commitments center on building up Ukraine’s long-term military strength for the twin purposes of defense and deterrence, rather than on preparing Kyiv for a specific offensive at some future date. Biden’s emerging strategy is to turn Ukraine into an impenetrable fortress with a large, well-trained army and a substantial arsenal of long-range strike assets. Over time, through a combination of denial and retaliation, Ukraine’s ability to blunt Russian advances will only grow, and Russian forces will suffer ever-cascading equipment and personnel losses.

But this long-term approach requires greater coordination between arms of government in the United States—otherwise progress could be undone partially or even completely with a change in power.

First, the Biden administration owes lawmakers a clearer picture of what Ukraine’s future force will look like and how much it will cost to build and maintain it. The NATO summit in Washington is the perfect opportunity to launch a dedicated process that will bring together American, European, and Ukrainian military planners to elaborate a shared concept and cost estimate for what will constitute a “credible defense and deterrence capability.”

By the end of 2024, the White House should present a detailed blueprint to Congress. This plan should contain concrete force development benchmarks: research and development of new technologies, investment in defense production lines, acquisition of key weapons platforms, training of personnel, and sustainment. Some of this planning work has already begun in the multinational working groups known as “capability coalitions,” but the Biden administration has yet to explain how the coalitions will link up with the web of bilateral security agreements and with NATO’s role in enhancing Ukrainian capacity and interoperability.

This planning process should also produce consensus on how Ukraine’s force will be sustainably financed. For Congress to greenlight another large aid package for Ukraine, lawmakers will want to see commitments from European allies to fund a significant share of the costs. The converse is also true: European allies will want to make sure that U.S. military aid for Ukraine will not again be held hostage by domestic politics. Without American aid, Europe does not have the defense production capacity, training capabilities, or high-end technologies to support Ukraine on its own. Other mechanisms, such as the G-7’s $50 billion loan that will be funded through the profits from frozen Russian sovereign assets, will be part of this equation, too.

Second, Congress should consider using its legislative power to strengthen the U.S.-Ukraine agreement. Commentators have noted the document’s obvious weak point: Although parts of it constitute a binding executive agreement, it has not been ratified by Congress. As a result, it contains no additional financial pledges and no guarantee that lawmakers will approve new funding to implement the agreement. One option for Congress to consider would be to craft special procedures for bringing future Ukraine-related appropriations to a vote that would both ensure proper oversight and accountability and avoid needless political delays. Enshrining a more predictable and transparent process for future appropriations would not only give lawmakers a greater opportunity to weigh in on strategy and policy; it would also help Ukraine plan more effectively and would therefore reduce costs to the American taxpayer over the long haul.

Moreover, without Congress’s explicit endorsement, it will be easier for a future president to suspend implementation or withdraw from the agreement entirely. The current text gives the president the option to terminate the agreement after providing Ukraine a six-month notification. That decision, if it is made without proper cause, would no doubt trigger an intense period of public scrutiny—but it is a weak guardrail. Congress might consider adopting implementing legislation to codify elements of the agreement into law, which a future president cannot unilaterally undo. This may seem like a long shot, especially during an election year. But the overwhelming bipartisan vote in favor of the latest aid package shows how it can be done. The fact that some House Republicans have criticized the agreement for not being legislatively binding suggests they might be open to codifying it.

Finally, the White House and Congress should start discussing what the United States would do if, after major combat operations end, Russia attacks Ukraine again in the future. During a cessation of fighting, Russia must be convinced that it cannot rearm in order to prepare for another invasion, and Ukraine must be assured that it will have the enduring support of its partners in order to rebuild its military strength.

The U.S.-Ukraine agreement, as well as the other agreements signed by Kyiv’s partners, all contain vague commitments to consult and determine next steps in case of a future attack. It is not too early for Biden and Congress to start a dialogue on what those steps might look like. Creating weapons stockpiles in Europe or deploying U.S. trainers or monitors to Ukrainian territory, for example, could help deter Russia from relaunching the war once hostilities subside. If Washington can lead its allies in articulating a credible cease-fire enforcement mechanism now, Ukraine is far more likely to win the peace—whenever that day comes.

Putin’s theory of victory is to exhaust Ukraine’s will to resist and the West’s will to support it. That strategy will no longer be viable if the United States and its allies properly coordinate and fund the commitments they have made to support Ukraine’s defense and deterrence capabilities over the long term.

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edelorion · 21 days

Text

lag

a ramblomatic short story by edel. maybe graphic violence warning? under the cut

okay, maybe it's not actually lag. technically it's a frame drop or whatever. i just think lag is a better title. i like the word. feels thematic to what i'm about to describe.

standing in front of an adversary with a broken berdiche. don't exactly remember what did it, but it's about as useful as a shortsword now. which means not that useful. furthermore, you're damaged. one firm thwack of that hammer of theirs probably unseated something. some ram? maybe it messed with your cpu? difficult to say, but it messed with something, you know that at least. and it's getting difficult to see.

the lenses behind your screen have to constantly adjust. they're out of focus the one moment, in focus the next. then out of focus. like a slideshow. you seem to be unsteady. must've done something to your gyroscope too. should you've gone for biomimetic? both? maybe the redundancy would've prevented this? can't be helped now, anyway.

one thing you know for sure is that this has turned into a standoff. and as much as they're bleeding, as much as you've torn them open, severed muscles, vessels, nerves... they're standing firmly, resolute.

you are not.

...pff. humans. ever so resilient.

you weren't exactly made for combat anyway, compared to the others. you were ment to interface with them, not be them. you don't have their layers of impact mitigation, armour, their elbow blades and powerful servos. a strike on the right spot can take you out instantly. always bothered you, yes, but to be fair, that's the case with humans too, isn't it?

your microphones catch some sounds. taunting, mainly. and disrespect. the usual. their mouth's moving very choppily. omitting various movements.

about five frames per second. did a good number on you, huh?

think they said something about "ending this once and for all". you've honestly only seen them once or twice before. barely registered 'em... something's wrong with 'em, that's for sure.

they're approaching. you turn to look straight to them, but it takes a while to process. it's disorienting. you're not entirely sure what to do. but your servos move before your conscious mind does.

movement. counteroffensive. that hammer of theirs is a big thing to lug around. they will start their swing before they're anywhere near you. they know how to make their one swing count. it's drilled into them. (driven like a nail, more like.) you've already calculated the best approach. minor adjustments to be made in execution.

but you can't make those. three frames per second.

dread hangs over you like a sword.

they're getting closer. you're getting closer to them. they're smiling?

two frames. you don't know if what you're planning is even going to work. it's the best approach, sure, but

it's so scary, regardless.

you can feel the ground beneath you through your sensors, the air rushing past. the broken berdiche in your hand. its weight. its heft. but all you see is your adversary, muscles flexing.

two more steps. visual changes. about to swing. you duck. how were they going to swing? uncertain. maybe they knew you'd duck maybe they've planned this. you don't know, and furthermore, you can't know. you just have to trust yourself. your life depends on you, this very moment.

you can only see that they were about to swing. you've already taken a step and ducked. you feel the ground under you through your sensors. you swung your own weapon. there's a "whoosh" overhead. you can still only see that they were about to swing.

something finds purchase into something else.

you hear something slump to the ground. you're upright. if unsteady. visual changes.

ten frames.

a quick turn around, and... yup. a pretty grisly sight. don't think they're gonna get up from that one. or get up in general. ever.

you make a report to the mechanic to take a look at you asap, a report to security about the intruder, and you sent a smug message to the group chat.

you did just kill an intruder and adversary while running at 2 fps. you deserve to brag a bit.

...maybe ask the weaponsmith later about a new berdiche.

#edel writes #i somehow managed to get a kill in a game while i had like 0 frames and i thought about something like this #kinda shit writing but it's... something #hmmmm technically this is robot girl but i dunnooooo i don't think this truly fits for the tag #...maybe i could draw the robot girl from this sometime.

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the-jam-to-the-unicorn · 1 year

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Let's talk about statements like this.

TLTR: The coup is good for Ukraine and the counter-offensive but nevertheless bad news because its not "good guy vs bad guy" - Putin and Prighozin is "awful fucking bad guy" vs "awful fucking bad guy".

As long as they are tearing each other apart and fighting each other, it is good news for Ukraine. The situation in the combat zones will most likely be massively disrupted and makes it easier for Ukraine to launch a / continue their counteroffensive. (In the absolute ideal case, the Russian system collapses, because both fight each other until the end, the war is over and the Russians get the fuck out the occupied territories. In the absolute ideal case.)

But: No matter which of the two sides in Russia "wins - it's not good news for Ukraine. Putin is a fascist dictator. Prighozin is the leader of a Nazi army. Both want the war, support the war, are pro-war. Both are war criminals. And are "arguing" about how to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people more effectively.

All of this.

It's still a very clear sign that the system Russia and Putin are about to collapse. Maybe right now. Maybe in the few days. Maybe ... . But it's collapsing.

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pisupsala · 2 years

Text

One for The History Books [Chapter 19] [Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw]

[Summary] You are an archivist at the Pentagon, sent on assignment to TOPGUN to catalog and report on a top-secret mission. In the days under the Californian sun, a certain naval aviator puts your once orderly life in a tailspin that you might never recover from.

[Pairing] Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x fem!reader / Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x fem!oc

[Warnings] Mature content: swearing, (explicit) smut. 18+ only.

[Words] 3.6k

[Library]

Chapter 19 - Rock bottom

“I really fucked up.”

Pete is temporarily stunned into silence. For a second he was elated Bradley was calling him of his own accord, but now he is just worried. His relationship with Bradley has only slowly been healing—facing mortal danger together might have helped them reconnect, but a decade plus of anger, hurt, and grief are hard to set aside.

Bradley was a kid, hell, he still in his teens when they fell out. He’s a grown man now. That’s a lot of time passed.

Much has changed.

He has changed.

But maybe this is his chance to made amends with Bradley. He feels a little spark of hope in his chest that Bradley is choosing to reach out to him—trusts him enough to come to him when he’s in trouble.

“Whatever you do, don’t say anything without a lawyer present.” Pete springs into action immediately, rummaging through paper on his desk. “I know a good one. Where are you? Still in Virginia?”

The silence on the other end of the line is uncomfortably long.

“I’m not in trouble with the law, Mav.” Bradley sounds tired, voice flat.

“Oh.” Pete stops in his tracks. “No, of course.”

He sits back down. Stupid. Bradley was never a troublemaker—he takes after Goose in that sense. At least Pete thinks so. When they talk, they talk about shared memories—things they both remember from… before. Goose, Carole, baseball.

They talk about the Navy and flying, but Bradley omits pretty much anything that pertains to his personal life. Pete assumes he doesn’t rate that information—yet, he hopes—as Bradley probably still resents him on some level.

Healing is a slow process—something Pete is all too familiar with.

“So… what’s going on, Rooster?” Pete asks hesitantly, unsure how to navigate the situation. At first, a deep sigh on the other end of the line is his only answer.

“I just had a huge fight with Darcy,” Bradley pauses awkwardly, like he is trying to gather courage to finished his sentence. “I walked out on her.”

Pete blanches. This conversation is taking a direction he really didn’t expect. When Bradley had visited him, Pete had asked point-blank about whether he had someone waiting for him back home, and Bradley just shrugged. “My girl is back in D.C.”

That was pretty much the end of that conversation. Bradley hadn’t even mentioned a name. Pete realized at that moment how much Bradley is keeping him at arm’s length— and it hurt.

To make matters worse, relationship shit is really not Pete’s forte.

“What did you fight about?”

“Fuck - Mav, I don’t know.” Bradley sounds desperate.

He does know. He’s struggling to find an explanation for that entire shitshow of a day that doesn’t make him look like an absolute monster. You got hurt. Because of him. And when you called him out on it, he retaliated.

A venomous voice in his head tells him you were already spoiling for a fight. You backed him into a corner. Refused to let up even after he asked you to drop it. Then had the audacity to be shocked when he went on the counteroffensive after all the potshots you took.

Fuck. This really isn’t helping anything,

Whichever way he turns it, he took the first shot. Quite literally to your face. And Bradley also knows he’s not going to get out of this unless he confronts everything head on.

Leaning back, eyes screwed shut and heart beating in his throat, he decides it’s best to rip off the band-aid.

“I’ve been having nightmares.” He swallows thickly. “Regularly.”

Pete stays quiet, listening, his breathing the only indication he is still there.

“And today… I hurt Darcy today as I woke up from one. I swear it was a fucking accident, Mav!” Anger creeps back into his voice. Bradley pauses for a moment to steady himself. “She confronted me. I couldn’t handle it.”

It’s out in the open now. Bradley thought that maybe it would help to say it out loud. It doesn’t. If at all possible, he feels worse.

“How long?” Pete’s voice is steady, no nonsense. Bradley rubs his eyes. He needs to see this through. Then, more urgently: “How long, Bradley?”

“Since the mission.”

“The crash?” Pete pauses. “Just that?”

“Yeah, sorry, it was my first time being shot down by a SAM behind enemy lines.” Bradley spits out venomously. He doesn’t even know why he reacts so defensively—the question was far from accusatory.

“It could have been any number of things from that mission.” Pete feels like he’s flying blind. “Not everything… we carry with us has to stem from one incident. Sometimes it’s years of things that build up to a breaking point.”

Bradley is silent, waiting for Pete to continue.

“Does it affect your flying at all?”

“No.” Finally opening his eyes and blinking against the sun reflecting from the hood of his car, Bradley continues. “Just my sleep. Sometimes it’s weeks of nothing, and then suddenly I wake up every night.”

Sometimes it’s easier to just keep talking.

“I was afraid to fall asleep next to Darcy. I knew I would sometimes jerk awake violently, and I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want to hurt her.”

“But she knew.” Pete concludes, not unkindly. “How did she react?”

“She never pushed the issue. I thought it would go away eventually.” Bradley replies honestly.

“Until she did.”

Bradley lets out a heavy sigh and echos in a pained voice: “Yeah, until she did.”

“Mav - I don’t know what to do.”

Pete slumps in his seat, not knowing what to say. Bradley sounds so lost.

“Go home, Rooster, clear your head.” Pete hesitates. “And give Darcy some space for a bit. It’ll be easier to talk when you’ve both had some time to cool down.”

“What if she’s done talking?”

In moments like this, Penny would know what to say. She always does. Pete struggles to find comforting words—are there even any?

“Do you believe she might be?” He asks instead.

“I’m… I’m terrified that she is.”

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

“Darcy! Darce! Jesus Christ, what happened?”

You’re sobbing so hard you are nearly dry-heaving, body shaking, as you kneel hunched over on the floor. After what seems like ages, you finally catch your breath enough to speak.

“Bradley walked out on me.” You utter completely defeated, fresh tears rolling down your face. Speaking it out loud is like making it a reality.

“Oh sweetie…”

“He just fucking up and left, Beth.”

“Did you fight?” Beth asks kindly.

“Yeah…” You swallow thickly. You hear Emma whine in the background. “He’s been so evasive, like he just never could completely show himself to me. And I guess… it just all came to a head today…” You trail off into a soft sob.

“I’m sorry, Darce.”

“Just why!? It’s so fucking unfair!” Anger breaks through your grief like a lance. “I’ve been nothing but patient—I gave Bradley every opportunity. I waited, I gave him space. And what do I get? Fucking nothing. He throws his parents’ death at me to shut me up. Who the fuck does that?”

You fall silent for a moment.

“He said both his parents died before he was out of high school…” You trail off, voice breaking, as your anger melts away as quickly as it bubbled up.

“Jesus, that’s awful.” Beth agrees sympathetically. “What brought all this on?”

You still. No matter how much you want to vent to your sister, get all the poison from the fight out of your system, you hesitate to tell her about Bradley’s nightmares. It was the catalyst, but doesn’t feel like your place to share.

Strangely, despite your vicious anger, you still feel protective of Bradley.

“I might have pushed too hard…” It’s probably technically not even untrue. “I am just so tired of having to guess, feeling like I am never enough and always only being shown snapshots, not a whole person.”

“Darcy…” Beth’s weary tone raises your hackles. You’re not going to like where this is going, you can tell. “You always do this.”

“Do what?” You retort defensively.

“You have the patience of a saint, but when you’ve had enough, god knows you’re like a bat out of hell.” Beth’s voice is calm, but it’s like nails on a chalkboard to you. “You stay in your head until you can’t make sense of something, and then you dig in, tearing at wounds when you have no idea how to stop the bleeding.”

“I didn’t start this.” You grind out.

“But you’ve let it come to this.” Beth argues back gently.

“I called you to help me feel better, not to get a lecture about how you think I am a doormat.” You cut at Beth. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Never said you’re a doormat,” Beth counters easily, “And I am helping you.”

You don’t reply, just rolling your eyes instead. Your whole face feels puffy, skin strangely tight from the dried tears. The bruise under your eye still stings. That strange hollow feeling in your stomach is back—the exact feeling you had last summer when you thought Bradley ghosted you. But it never hurt like this, it’s like it’s tearing your insides apart.

“Look…” You hear Beth take a deep breath. “In the end, you can only control your own actions. And I get it, it sucks right now. How many times have our places been switched in this situation?” She ends with a slight chuckle.

Beth is right—despite your many differences, you shared pretty much every teenage heartbreak together, crying cuddled up in bed, sharing pints of ice cream and bingeing rom-coms. Unfortunately, you’re several thousand miles away from each other now.

It’s an ice-cold realization trickling down your spine.

You are alone.

“Do you think I should call Bradley and apologize?” Your heart feels heavy, like it’s being weighed down by a boulder. “I said some… truly awful things.”

“No.” The resoluteness in Beth answer takes you aback. “God, Darcy. Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?” You want to be angry and argue back, but your voice is thick with tears again.

“Bradley walked out on you. What kind of signal are you giving by calling him now to apologize?” You don’t have an answer, so you just sit, lip quivering. Beth continues: “Christ, I mean—I get it. I really do. And Darce, god, my heart aches for you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so devastated. But don’t do this to yourself.”

You are fully back to crying again. “Beth - wha- what are you saying?”

“Let him make the first move. Let Bradley apologize for leaving.” Beth leaves no room to argue. “If you call him now, you condemn yourself to doing all the emotional labor every time you fight and absolve him from taking responsibility for his actions.”

Beth hesitates for a moment as she listens to you crying silently.

“And Darcy… if you do that, you’ll never be happy.”

“But what if Bradley doesn’t come back?” You whisper brokenly. Could you ever be happy again if that happened? You can’t bear to think about it.

“Then…,” Beth swallows almost nervously. “Then he was always going to walk out on you. Sooner or later.”

The desperate sob that tears from your lips has Beth screwing her eyes shut in pain.

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

After what can only be described as the Monday from hell, Bradley collapses on his bed and he feels like the walls are about to cave in on him. Where the room had felt cold and barren before, compared to your small and cozy apartment, it feels like a complete black hole now. He stares into the darkness.

Since yesterday, he must have started a hundred different messages and erased every single one. What can he even say?

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to walk out like that”?

Except he did.

Bradley regrets it now, but at the moment it felt like the only course of action. Should he apologize? Somehow, it doesn’t feel adequate to do it over text, but it’s too late to call tonight. And he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have enough courage to that either way. What if you don’t pick up? What if you’re really done talking?

You haven’t texted him, either.

It gnaws at him.

Some things are irreversible. No matter how much he wants to wake up, wishes it away—reality is immutable. It’s a deep sense of dread, knowing he’s on a path that he can’t change. The doomed outcome is pre-determined.

He had that same feeling when his mother got sick, and it became clear she wasn’t going to get better anymore.

It’s the exact feeling when he ejected from his flaming aircraft.

And no matter how much he tries to push it away, that dread is creeping up on him now, clawing at his mind, tearing at his heart.

Can he still turn the tide?

How does he let someone in his life? The life that’s he forgotten how to talk about; every memory overshadowed by pain, death, and betrayal. How can he ever start to all untangle that after leaving it to fester deep inside him for so many years? Is there a way to explain that in his dreams, he sees everything he loves disappear in roaring flames?

Bradley knows all too well he’s been carrying this pain inside him—he just likes to pretend it’s not there, even though it very definitely influences his thinking and behavior. It always has. He went on every tour possible, volunteered to stay behind as the duty over the holidays, and made incredibly sure he would never find himself on a carrier with Mav. Hell, the fact that he’s even in the Navy…

The matter of the fact is, time is running out for him. He needs to do something. How can he convince you that he wants to give every part of him to you, but doesn’t know how?

Bradley feels like he’s almost paralyzed by the uncertainty he’s feeling and the questions that are running in circles through his head.

Almost automatically, he dials Pete’s number. It’s not that late on the Pacific coast yet, and Bradley doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep either way as the feeling of dread envelops him.

“Hey Rooster,” Pete greets him casually as he picks up on the first ring. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better.” Bradley sighs. “Do you have time to talk?”

“Yeah, of course.” Pete replies immediately.

Bradley sits up in his bed, leaning his back against the wall. “I feel like I’m stuck. Darcy hasn’t been in touch, and I don’t know what to say to her.” The frustration is evident in his voice, he’s been going in circles in his head for hours now. “It’s like there’s a doomsday clock hanging over my head—I’m leaving for a month-long training mission in a week and I need to do something.”

“It’s probably a good start to tell Darcy you want to talk and resolve this.” Pete supplies patiently. “There’s no use in forcing a resolution now, just because you are leaving. You can still talk when you are in Texas, too. Give each other time to heal and figure what you want from this.”

Bradley swallows. Leaving you to figure out what you want from your relationship is the single most terrifying prospect of the whole situation. Every minute that passes where he doesn’t hear from you, he becomes more convinced it’s because you are figuring out that his broken and emotionally damaged presence is not worth the hassle.

“I don’t think Darcy will be waiting for me anymore if I don’t do something now.” Bradley confesses, feeling like the dread that had been creeping up just pushed his head underwater.

“What do you think needs to be done?” Pete asks honestly.

“I don’t know!” Bradley half-shouts. “Sorry- I—I just don’t know” He groans. “I don’t know how to give her what she’s asking. I don’t know how to let her in—I’ve closed that part of myself off for so long, I don’t even know how to let myself in anymore.”

“Why not start with telling her that?”

“Wouldn’t that be admitting outright I can’t give her what she wants?” Bradley sounds exasperated. “Might as well just end the whole thing right away.”

“I don’t really know Darcy,” Pete pauses for a moment. “But maybe give her a bit more credit—she stuck by you so far.”

“It’s not enough.” Bradley’s voice is pained. Talking about his fears actually makes him feel like you’re actually slipping through his fingers. “Darcy deserves better. More.”

Running his hand through his hair, Bradley sits in his dark barracks room wishing he was anywhere else. With you preferably. Just so he could talk to you, at least try to explain. Mav is still talking to him, but Bradley barely hears him.

Back when Bradley was a teenager, Mav had some singularly horrible advice when it came to girls and relationships, proven by his own pretty disastrous love live. In the years they spent apart, Mav clearly went through some personal growth, as most of his advice is… balanced and level-headed. Mature even.

“Don’t think, just do.” Bradley mumbles.

“What?” Pete stops mid-sentence, surprised.

“I’m wasting time overthinking this.” Bradley starts with renewed energy—suddenly things start clicking into place. And while Pete feels like he should be happy Bradley is coming to some sort of break through, he can’t help but feel worried. From what he’s seen, Bradley veers dangerously between extremes of cautiousness and overthinking to what even Mav can only describe as recklessness.

“I need to get my mom’s ring.”

The words hang in the air while Pete tries to parse what Bradley just said. On the other hand, Bradley is pretty sure he just found the solution to the whole problem. You want to be in his life, and he wants you there—so what better way to do it than just show you he is committed to you for the long haul?

Even better, it will give him time to figure his shit out with you by his side.

“You want Carole’s ring… for Darcy?” Pete asks cautiously, trying to ensure he’s actually understanding Bradley’s sudden leap in logic.

“Yeah. Don’t you think it makes sense?”

“I - I don’t know, Rooster.” Pete pauses, unsure. “Getting your mom’s ring for Darcy is… a pretty big step.”

He considers his options. Pete doesn’t want to alienate Bradley by talking him out of this, and women like grand romantic gestures, right? “But if you think it’s the right thing to so, you have my support.” He concludes diplomatically.

Bradley can’t believe Mav is not more enthused by his plan. But before he can start arguing his point, he hears the metallic sound of a pan being slammed down with considerable force, followed by the noise of rapid footsteps coming closer.

“Pen- Penny-” Pete protests weakly through the rustling and crackling on the line as the phone is getting wrung out of his hand. “Pen - stop!”

“Give me the phone, Pete.” Penny’s voice is low.

“Hey Pen-” Bradley starts sheepishly. He had no idea Pete was with her. She mercilessly cuts him off.

“Bradley Bradshaw, if you propose to that poor girl after walking out on her, so help me god, I’m banning from the Hard Deck for life.”

“I - what?” Bradley is lost for words. First off, how does Penny know…? Ah. Mav probably talked to her. All that sudden levelheaded advice had to come from somewhere. Secondly—how is she not onboard with this? Penny had been telling him for years she should settle down.

“And I cannot believe you are going along with this, Pete!” Penny’s on a warpath now. Somewhere in the background, Mav is mumbling something that sounds like an apology. “Proposing with his mother’s ring, no less!”

“What do you suggest I do then?” Bradley fires back.

“Talk to her.”

God, back to square one.

“It’s not that easy, Penny.”

“Then tell her that.” The edge in Penny’s voice softens. “You have to start somewhere. But a proposal is not an apology or resolution.”

Bradley deflates as he pulls up his knees. For a hot second, he thought he finally had it figured out.

“So don’t put Darcy—or yourself for that matter—in that position. Whatever problems you are having will still be there, the only difference will be the ring on her finger.” She continues sympathetically.

“And that ring will suffocate you both if you don’t figure this out first.” Penny’s voice is suddenly laced with pain, the kind that comes from experience. Bradley silently contemplates his options.

“I -I’m scared...” He starts, hating how his voice shakes. “I’m scared of telling Darcy what I see at night. I don’t want her to see how broken I really am.”

He takes a shuddering breath. “What if she doesn’t want me anymore?”

That’s the knife stuck in his heart. What if you don’t want him anymore if he’s not the fun, confident and capable Rooster you fell in love with, but just the scared and hurt Bradley that is plagued by nightmares?

“There’s a reason they say “for better or for worse.” Penny’s voice is soft. “Give her—give yourself a chance. And be honest. You can come out of this together, and be stronger for it.”

“Thanks Pen.” Bradley suddenly feels exhausted, like he’s been on a metal rollercoaster. He says his goodbye’s to both Mav and Penny, sitting motionless in the darkness of his room, staring at the light emanating from his phone, feeling more and more lost.

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

[note] When it comes to relationship shit, Rooster and Mav have share one brain cell, but Penny is actually in charge of it.

#bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x female reader #rooster bradshaw #top gun maverick #rooster fanfic #rooster top gun #rooster x oc #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #rooster x reader #rooster x you #rooster x female reader #top gun fanfiction #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw x reader #rooster bradshaw x female reader #rooster bradshaw x reader

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generallemarc · 2 months

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Starting to wonder if Trump might not have a point on Ukraine

Or rather, if his goal to broker peace might not be a good idea. His reasoning for it is nonsense, but while it would inarguably be to America's benefit for this war to go on as long as possible, bleeding and degrading Russia as much as possible, is that really worth the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians? 25 Patriot batteries aren't going to stop all of Russia's strikes, especially not the suicide drones they can fling out by the dozens on a daily basis. And given how heavily things are favoring the defender, no matter which side is playing that role, I don't think its feasible anymore to expect Ukraine to just retake everything. Sure, they could probably launch another counteroffensive and retake a few dozen kilometers of territory, but at this point is any of that even going to be inhabited? To me, it's starting to look like a binary choice between the interests of America and the interests of the Ukrainian people, and while a weaker Russia is a good thing for the whole world, I'm just not sure it's justifiable to say that innocent Ukrainian civilians(and potentially innocent Russian ones should Ukraine's drones into Russian territory go off-target, although obviously there's far less threat there than with Russia throwing several times the amount of drones at Ukraine, not to mention all the guided bombs and cruise missiles) should have to die for that. And even if Trump wins, any potential negotiations will only start after another six/six-and-a-half months of continued war and thus continued degradation of Russia.

But to be clear, if his idea for peace involves any more concessions other than "Russia keeps what it currently controls except maybe for the bits of Kharkhiv", then it's 100% not worth it and the war should continue. Russia's current demands of all four oblasts it annexed are insane given that it only has partial control of three of them and it's in nowhere near a strong enough position to demand territory it doesn't already occupy. If Trump wants Ukraine to give them more land than they already have, and thus give them the people on said land, then he can go fuck himself.

#russia #ukraine #trump #donald trump #ukraine war #war in ukraine

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dailycharacteroption · 5 months

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Knight Reclaimant (Pathfinder Second Edition Archetype)

(art by ManthosLappas on DeviantArt)

When the Whispering Tyrant returned, he returned in blaze after blaze of corrupted and redirected holy and positive-energy-laced light. The weapon he created by twisting the connection between the fragment of the Shield of Aroden imbedded in his hand and it’s counterparts threatened to make his victory across Golarion all but assured, even with only a limited number of uses. Entire countries could be slain and reanimated, building his army to unstoppable levels on his way to take the Starstone test and become a true deity.

But then he was defeated by an unlikely group of heroes, his weapon turned back on himself. However, even without it, the damage was done. Entire regions were absolutely devastated and teeming with not just undead, but also corrupted and mutated life.

Lastwall, once a bastion against the remnants of his forces and his return, was one such location destroyed by his wrath, leaving the few survivors to pick through the rubble and scrabble just to survive.

If Tar-Baphon had his way, the knightly order that once stood against him would be scattered and directionless, having lost all hope of stopping him and will to fight… but that is now how mortals works.

Reorganizing and regrouping, the Knights of Lastwall found renewed determination and vowed to protect all mortals that found themselves in the lands blighted by the Tyrant’s assault, as well as striking out against his agents and minions. Even if they could not mount a true counteroffensive, they would chip away and be a thorn in his side to the last man, in the hope that one day an opportunity to destroy the lich king for good presents itself.

And today we’re looking at another one of those complementary archetypes, namely one that works with the Lastwall Sentry. While the sentry on it’s own represents those who have been inducted into this new version of the order and are dedicated to fighting off the horrors of their foe, the Knights Reclaimant specifically belong to the group known as the Crimson Reclaimers, who have sworn an oath to invoke a mysterious quasi-divine patron, granting them power to fight against the undead on the Reclaimer’s many missions deep into undead territory. Those bound by the oath are notable for their blazing eyes, predatory shift in stance, and a powerful supernatural thrum to their voice.

While none can deny their effectiveness, the fact that the identity of the source of this power is known only to the de facto leader of the group has raised criticism from the leadership of the Order, but while their philosophies differ, they remain loyal to the cause.

Of course, such an archetype as this can easily be rewritten for use in any part of a setting involving an oppressive undead force and the desire to fight back against it. For now, however, let’s take a look at what these knights have to offer.

Like other complementary archetypes, you can start this one alongside the Lastwall Sentry, and count it’s feats towards its own dedication.

Speaking of which, the dedication for the Reclaimants bolsters their training in moving undetected and surviving of the land, and also wards them against the abilities of undead, ensuring that effects they resist have the minimal to no effect on them.

With ash and tainted earth, many learn to use such a crude facepaint to help mask their presence to the undead, though of course this cover breaks once they begin to act hostile.

The oath lends many a fearsome quality to their voice, giving them the potential to not just unnerve others, but cause them to hesitate for a few seconds with unnamable dread, and it proves even more potent against the undead.

Many can also invoke the power of their oath with a mighty vertical strike that explodes into forward-directed shockwave of red light. Foes struck are blasted with the same force and properties of the weapon used, including potential effects of critical blows. What’s more, these knights can convert the divine smite into raw positive energy against affected undead, exploiting that vulnerability.

With their fearsome power, sometimes these warriors must pursue even undead foes who try to escape their grasp, and so many learn to begin pursuit the moment their foe starts to flee.

Conversely, however, many are also very wary of danger, and are quick to signal their allies the moment something seems amiss.

The wilds of devastated lands are often full of unnatural weather and other phenomena, and these warriors train to resist and avoid those effects.

Skeletal foes are difficult to damage with blades and points, so many also perfect the art of striking with the blunt ends of their weapons effectively to destroy such foes.

Some are able to use the oath to invoke healing power that rewards their accurate strikes with renewed vigor and healing for a short while.

With another invocation, others can empower their weapon with a mighty smite against undead foes.

In keeping with their stealthy nature, many learn the art of physically camouflaging themselves to blend in with the terrain.

Those that adventure with Clarethe Iomedar herself, leader of the Crimson Reclaimers, have a chance to learn how to turn their weapons into reverse lightning rods, planting them in the ground to discharge crimson lightning into nearby foes as long as they keep it there and maintain their focus on the magic.

Whether it be supernatural blessing or long-time familiarity with undead foes, these warriors can somewhat pierce the defenses of undead foes with most any attack.

By invoking the very being that grants the power of the oath directly, some learn to channel magical aid when needed, ranging from air walking to teleportation to freedom of movement, invisibility, curse removal, blasts of divine light, and, with further training, protection from deathly magic or calling down pillars of divine fire. However, since this power more directly comes from the source, it can be more fickle if the user does not treat said source with respect.

Some can extend their protections against hostile elements to others nearby as well, almost like the auras of some champions.

Many are skilled enough at sneaking to almost never fail to avoid detection.

More powerful members sometimes recite the oath so often that it becomes almost a part of their being, making their divine spells from the oath that much more potent and hard to resist, and allowing them to recover more power for such magics when they recover their focus.

The most powerful of these devotees are able to channel the full power of this divine oath, more power than their bodies can actually handle. For the cost of being drained a bit by the effort, these warriors can invoke various forms of divine intervention associated with this path at will, become more resistant to harm, and empower their weapons with an aura that adds to their reach and inflicts additional harm directly to their vitaility, all of which can make them devastating opponents for a short time.

If you’re looking for an anti-undead archetype, this is definitely a very good option. What’s more, while it doesn’t really have options that complement those that are already spellcasters (or at least, non-divine spellcasters), it does lend itself to pretty much any class, though obviously those that already have a knack for direct combat or of stealthy combat will have a lot to complement their arsenal here. Ranger, fighter, rogue, champion, all and more are good options here. What’s more, don’t forget that this archetype is meant to pair with the Lastwall Sentry, so be sure to look that up as well to help influence your final build.

This archetype has a lot of abilities, all of which make the Knight Reclaimants (or their equivalent in your own setting) excellent hunters of undead and survivalists in wastelands blighted by unnatural events, but let’s quickly remind ourselves of the other little thread that makes up the core lore here: The powers granted by this archetype come from a divine being that has not revealed it’s nature to anyone but the leader of the group in question. Mysterious benefactor figures can be quite intriguing, as one can never truly know if their benevolence is genuine with legitimate reasons for being clandestine about it, or if they are going for the long con with some other goal in mind.

The amount of skeletal remains that would be required to make a desert out of powdered bone is truly astronomical to the point of impossibility, and yet the White Desert grows every year, supplemented by bone dust pulled in from the Land of the Dead due to the necromantic nexus that was opened there a year ago. It is a place of death and monsters, but a rare few souls dare to brave it, wearing filtration masks and divine powers to bless their weapons in hopes of closing the rift once and for all.

Given how undead normally lack the metabolism to be affected by toxins, a vishkanya undead hunter seems like an odd choice of career, but this does not deter Shavati, who has more reason than most to want to rid the world of the restless dead, though she is loath to share these reasons with anyone, the pain still being too deep and too fresh in her heart.

The Blightwood has long been in the grips of a corrupting curse. So long has the corruption lasted that undead are far from the only threat there. In particular, a group of korred fey have become even more insular and xenophobic than before, their normally well-groomed hair becoming a tangled mess that is actually toxic to those caught in its animated loops.

#pathfinder second edition #archetype #knight reclaimant #vishkanya #lastwall sentry #korred #Character Guide

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dragoneyes618 · 4 months

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When Russia invaded Ukraine, Americans overwhelmingly supported Ukraine—as they did with Israel after October 7.

No wonder: Ukraine was surprise attacked by Russia, and Israel was by Hamas.

It seemed an easy binary of good versus evil: both the attacked Ukraine and Israel are pro-Western. Both their attackers, anti-Western Russia and Hamas, are not.

Now everything is bifurcating. And the politics of the wars in America reflect incoherence.

Both Ukraine and Israel are portrayed in the media as supposedly bogging down in their counteroffensives.

More pro-Israel Republicans are troubled by Ukraine’s strategy, or lack thereof, in an increasing Somme-like stalemate.

Yet more pro-Ukrainian Democrats are turning away from Israel as it dismantles Gaza in the messy, bloody slog against Hamas. The left claims either Israel cannot or should not defeat Hamas, or at least at the present cost.

So the left pushes Israel to a ceasefire with Hamas.

It blasts Israeli “disproportionate” responses.

It demands that Israel avoid collateral damage.

It pressures it to form a wartime bipartisan government.

It lobbies to cut it off from American resupply.

It is terrified that Israel will expand the war by responding to aggression from Hezbollah and Iran.

Yet on Ukraine, the left oddly pivots to the very opposite agenda.

It believes Ukraine should not be forced to make peace with Russian “fascists.” It must become disproportionate to “win” the war.

President Zelensky deserves a pass, despite cancelling elections while suspending political parties.

America must step up its resupply to Kyiv with more and far deadlier weapons.

Ukraine has a perfect right to hit targets inside Russia.

Russian threats to widen the war should be considered empty and thus ignored. America should hate Russia far more than Hamas.

By contrast, conservatives are less supportive of Ukraine’s offensives, if more than ever allied with Israel.

In their realist views, Ukraine is a smaller power, vastly outnumbered by a richer, better-armed Russia. Thus, it should negotiate while it can, rather than eventually losing everything.

Israel, however, is, in their view, defeating Hamas. If allowed to finish the job, it can soon win the war in Gaza and still handle Hezbollah and deter Iran.

Furthermore, the right is wary that Russia is a nuclear power. The Ukraine war is unfortunately creating a new, potent anti-American axis of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea and drawing in former U.S. allies like Turkey and Qatar.

Yet, in Israel’s case, the U.S. is far more powerful than Hamas’s patron, Iran, and can easily deter it should Tehran intervene.

As of now, none of Hamas’s allies have nuclear weapons. Israel, however, does, unlike Ukraine.

Many conservatives further point out that Israel is a long-time U.S. democratic ally.

Ukraine’s elections are currently suspended while the country remains under martial law.

In realist terms, the old idea of Russian triangulation still makes some sense. Russia should be no friendlier to China than to the U.S., and China is no more aligned with Russia than with America.

Hamas, by contrast, is a terrorist clique, as are Hezbollah and all of Iran’s terrorist appendages. Their hatred of the U.S. is long-standing, immutable, and transcends the Gaza war.

How about the public’s views in general?

With over $35 trillion in debt, still smarting over the humiliating withdrawal from Kabul, and the military short 40,000 recruits, the public does not wish to get heavily involved in either war, even as polls still show radically differing left/right attitudes toward both.

Americans once overwhelmingly supported vast aid for Ukraine. Now they decidedly believe the U.S. is providing too much to Kyiv.

They still poll strong support for Israel over Hamas, but less so for Israel’s ongoing destruction of Hamas given the collateral damage that follows.

Given there are few Russian-Americans, there are almost no demonstrations on behalf of Moscow’s war. But there are plenty of protests for Hamas since there are lots of Middle-Eastern Americans and visitors within the U.S.

What are we to conclude about these contradictory wars and American attitudes toward them?

The more democratic and defensive the power, the more Americans support it—but only up to a point.

Even more, they demand quick victory—and lose interest when the wars stagnate, costs increase, and protests grow.

When Ukraine and Israel began costly counteroffensives, the former losing thousands and the latter killing thousands, the American public began to be less invested in either war.

Final lessons?

Israel should do all it can to destroy Hamas as quickly as possible and end the war.

Ukraine does not have the wherewithal to defeat Russia. It should cease costly offensives against Russia’s fortified lines and seek to negotiate.

Or, put another way, fickle Americans sympathize with those who are attacked. But their continuing support seems contingent on whether the victim can remain sympathetic—and win decisively to end the war rapidly.

#victor davis hanson #israel #gaza #ukraine

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