#i like the idea of the u.s losing its mind and the rest of the world uncomfortably side-eying away and ignoring us

[konakoro]

I know the sequel definitively showed the zombie apocalypse was a worldwide affair, but I always liked to imagine Zombieland was a strictly USA incident and the rest of the world just left us to deal with it ourselves.

It's like how I always imagined the Hunger Games undisclosed apocalypse to be a USA only thing, with the rest of the world staying the hell away from us as we throw our children into a death arena

[busycryin]

REPOST - THE NIGHT WE MET

THE NIGHT WE MET

PART ONE - THE NIGHT WE MET

Pairing: Javier Peña/ Female Murphy!Reader

Words: 5.3k

Summary: You decide to travel to Colombia on a whim, there you meet a gorgeous stranger that just so happens to be your brothers partner. 

Content Warnings: 18+ Smut-ish (I wouldn’t wanna read it out to my mom), dry humping, dirty talk in Spanish which reader doesn’t understand so does it really count?, gratuitous love of the black shirt from the torture scene.

Anon was worried about losing my work when I switched blogs, so fear not. I’m reposting on here but I have no intention of deleting my other blog, it’s where I got my first 200 notes and I’m honestly blown away by it. I’m happy to announce I’m working on a fourth part. I’m not sure when I’ll post it as I’m still in the idea stage but it’s definitely a start, ay!

AO3

MASTERLIST

Author Note: So here is my return to writing! The word count got away from me but I loved every second of it. Always after prompts, so drop me a message on here if you’d like to see anything in particular. If it’s in my wheelhouse, you’ll definitely see it.  

Pedro in the black shirt is what inspired me to write this, I can’t lie.

If you were brutally honest with yourself, this spur of the moment decision may have been a mistake.

Other people could make these choices and not have that nagging feeling in their gut from the second they booked their fuckin’ airline ticket. You had attempted to grab your crappy life by its metaphorical horns and go and sort this shit show out by yourself, but after your momentary bravery was used up, all that was left was a crippling anxiety that threatened to send you into one of your full scale panic attacks if you thought too hard about the fact you were following your big brother to Colombia.

Yes, Colombia. You, a U.S. national with no particular interest in hunting Pablo Escobar, had decided to vacation in sunny, crime ridden Bogotá on a whim.

You were fuckin’ dumb.

Sarcasm aside, you weren’t actually here on vacation, you were going to check on Stevie. Your brother, one of the DEA agents assigned with taking down Escobar.

You’d been worried about him for a few months, it had sounded like he was dealing with heavy shit in South America, you knew that was the job, but he was still your brother.

His calls had gotten less and less frequent until he stopped returning them all together and the only reason you knew he was alive were your pep-talks with your sister-in-law, trying to help her keep her shit together, but hell, you weren’t a therapist or a miracle worker. So when Connie rang asking to stay at your place you had obliged and she had returned to Miami a mere shell of her former self.

After a mammoth amount of prodding over the course of two days you managed to wring the truth out of her, not the nuggets of information she had given you over the phone in hushed whispers during her time in Colombia but the whole messy story; the communist Elisa Alvarez, Steve’s kidnapping and the cold edges your brother was developing.

It was all you could do not to book the tickets there and then, but you held out and supported Connie in the ways Steve couldn’t have, taking care of Olivia when you could and just trying your hardest to be there for her. Your presence alone seemed to be enough to help her through the days that followed.  A week and a half after her return, you booked your flight to Colombia in secret.

You had to check on Steve.

He hadn’t answered a single one of your many many calls. You packed light and told Connie the morning of, and whilst she didn’t like it, she understood. You supposed that a part of her was relieved to know her husband would have someone in Colombia that wasn’t there to kill him.

So here you sat, two hours into your flight to the paradise destination; Bogotá. Your brother’s address scrawled on a scrap piece of paper in the one hand and a glass of cheap whiskey in the other.  The alcohol did little to to calm your nerves, this was a dangerous place for a cop, let alone a fuckin’ clueless civilian.

When the plane finally touched down, you stood from your seat emptying the last few drops of whiskey which had tried to evade you onto your tongue, you picked up your backpack and queued to leave the plane.

The second you left the aircraft the humidity hit you like a brick wall, it was like all of the fresh air had been sucked out of the atmosphere. On a normal evening you would appreciate such a warm climate, but now the heat meant frustration to your tired brain and it only added to your baseline levels of anxiety as your hairline and upper lip were drenched as you walked through the arrivals gate.

Cards on the table; you didn’t have much of a game plan, you spoke no Spanish and stuck out like a sore thumb. You had the address but no means to get there, you didn’t relish the idea of getting in a taxi as a woman alone in a foreign country, but with little to no other options you went to hail one of the cabs that sat outside the airport.

Your fears turned out to be for naught, well not quite naught as the man had raked his eyes across your body for a large percentage of the trip in his mirror, but he had the good grace not to kidnap or murder you, which for you meant it was a successful journey, how low you had set the bar was just occuring to you.

After paying the gentleman he dropped you outside what appeared to Steve’s apartment building. You take a moment on the pavement to recollect yourself ready for your reunion. Peeling your denim jacket off, you decide instead to wrap it around your waist, tying the sleeves securely. With a harumph, you grab the handle of your suitcase, and drag it behind you. Your success thus far gives you a second wind of determination.

Though apparently dumb luck can only get you so far, because after heaving your suitcase up a flight of stairs and rapping on the door of apartment 20 until your knuckles ached, it began to dawn on you, you had no clue if this was even the right building.

“Fuck.” you mutter to yourself, you should’ve rang Connie or tried Steve again when you landed, but you’d been so single minded in carrying out your plan all common sense had apparently abandoned you. So with a million different scenarios of things you could’ve done better playing out behind your eyes you dragged your suitcase to the small lobby of the building, where the front door stood.

You huffed and dropped onto the bottom step in surrender, not quite sure where to go from here.

Weeks of anxiety and worry finally took their toll on your body as reality set in, and as it did so you couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer stupidity of the situation you’d put yourself in. A light chuckle escaped your body as you held your face in your hands, you rubbed at your eyes as a way of refreshing yourself before sighing and leaning back.

You must have sat with your head in your hands for around three hours before anyone of note arrived, you had received strange looks from residents in their comings and goings as they stepped around you, your expectant looks turned to disappointment when you realised they weren’t Steve. In fairness, you, a gringa sitting on the stairs at 2am, most likely wasn’t a daily occurrence to these homeowners.

By the time he came through the door, your eyes were closed and your head was leant on the bannister, trying to get what little rest you could. Your eyes opened a crack to see a man and a woman enter the building and turn right, the man had his arm around her as he stared at you in confusion, the look was so quick you may have missed it if you blinked, but they were talking in low whispers of Spanish and from the looks of things he didn’t give you a second thought.

So you extended him the same courtesy and shut your eyes once again, you heard the metal jangling of keys going into the lock, the sound of smacking lips and then the door was closed. You figured that was the end of it, instead you heard hurried footsteps coming towards you, your eyes shot open as he rounded the corner.

“Estás bien?” The man questioned. It took you a moment to realise he was talking to you, as you took him in you were struck by your stupidity, how could you have dismissed this man so quickly even in the throes of a mental breakdown. His chocolate brown eyes bore into your own as you realised he was waiting for a response.

“Uh… no hablo… español?” you pretty much asked him, cringing internally at your butchering of the most basic sentence of this gorgeous strangers language, his lips quirked at your mumbles making his mustache raise on one side with his smirk. Now, you’d never been a fan of a mustache, Steve and your father had both taken to styling their facial hair in such a way, and as a rule of thumb they were a big no-no. But my god. This man made that mustache his bitch and that bitch worked for him.

“You’re American?” He questions, smirk dropping along with his eyebrows in confusion as his brain processes the information.

“Oh thank god and Jesus fuckin’ christ above. You’re American!” Your timid nature had given way to pure unadulterated relief. “Stevie, Steve Murphy, he lives in this building, yeah?”

“Yeah… Stevi…Steve lives here- I’m sorry, who the hell are you?” He asks with a puzzled look and a shake of his head, there’s an air of distrust about him for some strange reason.

“I’m Y/N Murphy, I’m his sister.”

“Sister? Mierda… does he know you’re here?”

“Nope,” You pop your P as you shrug at the man before you with false nonchalance. “He’d have to answer the phone to me or Connie to know that now, wouldn’t he?”

“Steve.” The stranger sighed, annoyed.

“Sorry, who are you?” You asked, yourself becoming more bemused by the man by the second.

“I’m Steve’s partner, Javier.” He held out his hand which you were more than happy to take in a shake, his tan hand was soft yet strong as it held your own captive within it. “C’mon in I’ll give him a call, God knows what time he’s planning on getting back.”

“Uh, I don’t want to interrupt…” You mumble, waving your free hand vaguely towards where you knew the woman was waiting for him, making him smirk once again.

You were beginning to think that the sarcastic raise of his mouth was just his default resting face.

“You’re not interrupting anything.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘cause I’d think it to. This is how people die in America, let alone fuckin’ Colombia, but if it’s a choice between dying at the hands of a gorgeous man who seems to know your brother or a stray that wonders in through the non-descript lobby door then you’d rather go out with a nice view, even if he did have a girlfriend.

If you had to gamble, you’d say you had a damn good chance of making it out of this apartment alive.

So you nodded and used the hand he hadn’t released yet to pull yourself up into a standing position. He wasn’t particularly tall but he still towered over you, your eyeline gave you a great view past his black shirt which was unbuttoned quite liberally, you assumed that was courtesy of the woman he’d entered with.

“Thank you,” you nodded at him with a genuine smile of relief. He didn’t reply, only grabbed the handle of your pull along suitcase before extending his arm towards his apartment and motioning to wordlessly say, after you.

Now you know how people say when you can feel a stare? You had the sensation before, but as you leaned over to pick up your backpack from the bottom step, you felt his eyes laser focus on your denim clad ass. You turned your head in disbelief and found his eyes still lingered there for a moment before meeting your own. Unbelievable. Part of you was flattered, the other part was bemused that he had a beautiful woman in there waiting and here he was ogling you.

You rolled your eyes, instilled with a new confidence as you turned and walked towards his apartment, you felt his eyes follow your form once more.

Steve’s hot partner was an ass man… Good to know.

…

As it turns out Javier’s girlfriend, or what you we’re starting to think was more of a one night stand, was not happy with the situation at all, you came to this discovery as Javier pointed you to the sofa before beginning arguing with her in hushed Spanish, the beautiful woman huffed and sent a dirty look your way before storming out and slamming the door behind her, with enough power to make it shake in its bearings. You raised your eyebrows at Javier from your seat. He shook his head with a sigh and began lighting up a cigarette, he turned and offered you one.

“No thanks, I quit.”

“Woman with an iron will?”

“Not quite,” You whisper, shaking your head.

He smiles before clearing his throat and moving over to pick up his landline. Javier presses a combination of buttons, before putting it to his ear and blowing the smoke from his lungs. His eyes met yours as the phone rang, he gave you reassuring wink.

“Murphy? … Yeah…  you need to get back to your place now… You’ve got a guest…. No … come find out why don’t you?” Sarcasm dripped from his lazy tone, his voice was so smooth. It was like chocolate on gravel, you could listen to him talk for hours, which led your mind down that deep dark hole of what he sounded like during more carnal acts, he’d be a talker, for definite, what with all that confidence and swagger. “‘Kay… I’ll see you soon.”

Shaking your head you centred yourself, it had been a dry patch for you. You needed to calm down and not throw yourself at your brother’s partner, even if he just so happened to be the first man you had any interest in to show you attention in months.

“He’s on his way,” He confirmed what you already knew but you liked hearing him speak so you nodded in thanks. An awkward silence filled the air for a few moments, as you two perfect strangers shared one another’s company.

“Drink?” He offered pointing at the bottle of whiskey on the counter.

“God, yes.” You all but moaned at the offer. Javier chuckled, and grabbed a second glass from his cupboard, before pouring you both a generous serving.  He walked around the back of the sofa, and passed you the glass of liquid gold and took a seat next to you. Close enough to initiate something, but not touching, quite a respectful distance.

Initiate something? God Y/N, get your mind out of the gutter. This poor man had only invited you in because you were his partner’s sister and he was doing the decent thing.

“Uh… The television work?” You ask, pointing at the empty screen.

“I didn’t realise you could speak Spanish…” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, mocking your earlier attempts at the language, though he reached across and switched the box on with the remote, he began flicking through the channels so quickly he almost gave you a headache.

“Oh yes, I’m very proficient, I just didn’t want to intimidate you earlier. Hola Señor Javier.”  You say continuing his ruse. He chuckles at your words, it’s a deep warm noise that shakes his entire frame. You were definitely thinking about adding Javier’s voice to your top ten list of favourite sounds.

He flicks through the channels, for a few seconds before sighing and dropping the remote in your lap. Taking your assignment seriously, you sit up, bringing yourself a few inches closer to the man next to you, purely accidentally of course and begin flicking through the channels as Javier had done moments before, though 3am TV scheduling left a lot to be desired.

News, News, Colombian QVC, News, News, Soap opera. Bingo!

“Ah, now we’re talking.” You mumble, eyes stuck on the screen of the Colombian Soap opera playing. The two of you sat in silence once again as you slowly sipped on your drinks watching drama play out.

You watched in silence for around ten minutes, not understanding a single word of what was being said. The scene was on two latino actors sitting in a bedroom. The woman was sat on the bed being confronted by the man in a serious tone.

“What is she saying?” You question narrowing your eyes at the beautiful woman’s tone. Javier, who had been watching your reactions the whole time as you got into the awful tv show scrambled as he tried to listen and translate the woman’s words.

“Uh… her dads an alcoholic and she’s trying to support her son… that guy didn’t know about the son… I think… she was happy living a double life without the worry and she wants him to forgive her and start over…”  Javier translated, giving you the general cliff notes.

“Oh shit,” You gasped at his words, but your attention diverted to the screen where the two had continued their heated argument and began kissing or rather where the man was devouring her neck, “I’m getting vibes that he might be open to forgiving her.”

You chuckled at your own joke, as did Javier. Though this time when his body shook his bare elbow touched your own.

How was he so goddamn warm?

All he was wearing was a black button down shirt. One that looked to be the wrong size it was so tightly fitted- not that you were complaining about the view. My God, were you horny today.

You took a gulp of your drink, trying to refocus for the third or fourth time this evening, trying so desperately to reign in your inner school girl and focus on the television, though that didn’t help as the actors were now eating one anothers faces on a bed. The silence was thick with tension, though that could’ve been entirely on you; one innocent touch of a man’s elbow and you’re a blushing mess.  

Get a grip Y/N.

The silence dragged on as you pretended to watch the soap opera you had absolutely no understanding of in a futile attempt to ignore the man next to you. You can only imagine what he thought of your levels of focus on the tv, as you stared at the box in the corner of the room like it was the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time and you were getting ready to write a full-scale analysis on the work of art.

Javier broke the tension in the room by finally asking the question that had been on his lips all evening.

“You came all the way to Colombia… Why?” Javier grabbed a cigarette off of the coffee table, placing his drink where the carton of smokes had been. He lit the stick and waited for your response, honestly, you were thrown. The question had come out of nowhere whilst you were still trying to analyse why exactly this man had such an effect on you when he was doing nothing but being a good host.  You hastened to think up a half coherent reply before you just answered truthfully.

“Steve stopped answering the phone, I mean he’s always been shitty at checking in, even when he was in Miami. When he got here we’d have a catch up every week or so, we all know how dangerous it is for you guys over here, so we joked about calling it ‘the alive check’. For the last couple of months, I was checking in with Connie more than Steve but he’d still pick up once every week, without fail. Then four weeks ago the fucker stopped answering my calls all together and Connie showed up on my doorstep with Olivia in tow last week.”

“Look, you coming down here probably makes more problems than it solves, Steve’s a big boy if he doesn’t call to check in, it’s probably ‘cause he’s busy…  He’s-” Something about Javier’s dismissive tone rubbed you the wrong way, call it sleep deprivation or blame the weeks of stress, but you were tired of being called paranoid. You were not an overbearing mother hen.

“My brother always answers my calls. Or at least he used to. I can’t begin to understand what you guys are going through, but I’m not losing my brother to some piece of shit Colombian drug dealer.”

Javier raised his hands in mock surrender, cigarette still in mouth. “He’s actually more of a drug lord slash narcoterrorist, but-”

“How is he?” You interrupt Javier’s attempt at diffusing the situation with humor, turning to him on the sofa. You rearranged yourself, bringing your leg up so your knee touched his thigh as you gave him your full attention,  you plucked the smoke from between his lips and held it between your two fingers as you spoke. “Tell me Steve’s fine. Tell me I’m worrying for nothing and I’ll get back on that plane and leave tomorrow morning.“

You take one drag and offer it back to him, he accepts it, deliberately looking you in the eyes as he places the cigarette in his mouth, attaching his lips to where your own had been seconds earlier.  He takes it from his mouth and stubs it on an ash tray that rests on the arm of the sofa, his focus is single minded on his task. The pressure in your lower stomach is mounting as you stare at the tanned man before you who is carrying out a menial task that has you more turned on than you’d ever admit.

When the red tip is extinguished thoroughly, taking much longer than you thought it needed to, Javi turns to you, his mahogany eyes have you pinned in your tracks. You found yourself admitting they were gorgeous for the second time this evening, they were the type of brown you could never quite describe, they had so much depth, not quite a chocolate, not quite coffee, they were rich and deep pools. They reminded you of the forest, not the green leaves but the earthy brown, the strong beams of wood that held everything up around it.

Javier’s hand emigrated forward slowly, your eyes followed the movement in your peripheral but you didn’t dare look away from the pools of molasses as he reached to grip one hand at your denim thigh, his eyes roamed your face for any sign of this being an unwelcome approach and when he found none his other hand began its climb to rest on your jaw, just below your ear.

You couldn’t say if you moved towards him or if he advanced on you, all you knew was he was on you now as the tips of your noses rubbed against one another.

“Quiero saborearte…” He whispered so lowly you barely even heard it before he leaned in that last inch and captured your lips in a single, chaste kiss. Your lips connected and you realised the heat you had felt from his arms had been nothing. Fire coursed through your veins upon contact, surging through your blood and going south to a pressure that built in your lower stomach.

Your hand shot up to land on his collarbone, before you could even really consider your own actions you pulled apart until your foreheads were the only thing touching.  He was intoxicating, you could lose yourself completely in this man, he somehow smelt like cinnamon, whiskey and sweat, a combination you’d never thought would send liquid fire through your central nervous system.  You’d give anything to taste him properly, but this was wrong. So so wrong. This was your brother’s partner, this was inviting complication to your door, when you were just here to check on Steve. You were here for Steve.

You were here for Steve…

“… This isn’t a good idea.” You all but whisper, closing your eyes. Regret pulses through your veins at your self imposed restraint.

“Never is.” He leaned forward and captured your lips. You didn’t have any fight left in you, exhausted and at wits end you embraced your spiral into stupidity instead and your hands glided across the clammy skin of his neck to grab at his short ink black hair. You wrapped your fingers around it to drag him closer to you, your lips clashed, all teeth at first but you didn’t care as his tongue began to fight against yours for dominance.

He tasted as good as you imagined, he was the right combination of sweet and bitter, with undertones of whiskey and tobacco on his tongue. Your response to his assault on your mouth told him it was go time, Javier pulled you into his lap and his hands lowered to your ass. Your body was flush with his own as your breasts pressed against his chest, you could feel every solid line of his lithe body against your own.

You licked at his honied tongue, before withdrawing and pulling his bottom lip into your mouth and sucking on the soft plush skin. His mustache tickled your upper lip, a sensation you weren’t used to but could so easily grow to love.  This made him tighten his grip on your backside in response and he let out a throaty groan at the meat he found there, Javier was definitely an ass man, you felt his bulge pressing against your core as you both began grinding against each other in earnest. You felt like a horny teenager as you grinded on a man you barely knew.

You felt him grip at the bottom of your tank top and begin to lift it, except he stopped, and began to rub patterns on the stomach he exposed. Javier’s mouth descended from your lips to begin to suck and lick at your throat. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head at his work as pleasure rippled throat your body. His hands slid the length of your body to grab at your chest, which conforming to every stereotype was heaving, he palmed your breast blindly as his face was still buried in your hair, sucking and kissing along to your ear, before he raised his mouth a mere inch and whispered  “Te follaré toda la noche niña.”

He said it with such surety that your body convulsed in on itself without even needing to know what the man above you was saying. You could only hope it was absolutely filthy and profanity ridden, because then at least, the sentiment would be shared. He bit at the lobe of your ear before his hands left your breasts and travelled to the hem of your tank top, getting ready to pull it over your head.

It was strange to say that you remembered your brother was on his way here as a man tried to take your t-shirt off, but that’s just the way it went. You knew if that top came off, dry humping would be the most PG action of the night and if Steve turned up and found you mounted on his partner, he probably wouldn’t be too thrilled.

You couldn’t stop yourself from stroking the man’s hair whose face was planted in between your tits as his hips rose against your own pushing his hardened length up against the seams of your jeans, you gasped as he hit that sweet spot. You let out a noise that sounded like a wail. You wanted nothing more than to lie back and let this man have his filthy way with your body. And you know, from the hour you’ve spent with this man it would be phenomenally filthy. The kind of sex that would ruin all men for you, but no. You had to be a good sister. Like a fuckin loser.

Sighing, you threw your body sideways before you could change your mind and ended up on your back. Javier followed you, caging you with his frame as he covered your body with his own.  Gripping your face like he was a starving man and you were the only sustenance he’d ever need. It would be so easy to get lost in him, to give in to that magic tongue but you couldn’t let this go any further so you placed a hand on his chest.

Taking your cue he paused his tongues assault on your mouth and stopped, resting his forehead against your own. You were both breathing heavily trying to come back down to reality, his eyes were no longer the chocolate brown you’d been comforted by when you met, but rings of obsidian staring into your soul. You wanted this man, my god you did. But this would make more problems for Steve.

The two of you stayed that way for a while, foreheads and bodies pressed against one another until both of your breathing evened out. The silence dragged, heavy in the air as you two strangers both waited for the other to break it.

“…Is Steve okay?”

“…No… He’s been fuckin’ mess ever since Connie left.” Javier sighed whilst closing his eyes and breathing deep. You raised your hands from his chest, which was difficult as he was crushing his body to yours and cupped his cheek, you joined your lips once more, much like the first kiss. This was sweet and there wasn’t a carnal appetite behind it but rather an understanding.

The loud knock on the front door startles you both as you’d been so wrapped up in one another you’d not heard the steps leading to it. The two of you split apart like a pair of guilty teens caught in the act. You both stared at each other for a second before he nods at you and walks to the front door whilst rearranging his bulge discreetly in his jeans, this was something you pretended not to see as you sat back up right on the sofa. You had only a moment to fix yourself, as you pulled your tank top from where it was hooked by your breasts and ran your fingers through your hair so you didn’t look like you’ve just had the ravaging of a lifetime.

Javier pulled open the door and you clutch your hands into your lap, not quite sure what kind of reception you were about to receive from your brother. You hear the two men greet one another in hushed whispers, you couldn’t make out Steve’s voice much until you hear his voice clear as day “…what the hell was so important it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

You stand from your spot on the sofa and quickly realise the button on your jeans is undone; if you’re honest you don’t even know how he managed to do that without you noticing, even though it’s not the time you take a solitary second to commend Javier on his artistry of disrobing a woman. Turning quickly you pull the rivet back through the hole and swing around as Steve crosses the threshold from the hallway.  

Steve looks from you, to Javier and then back to you once more in complete surprise. It takes his brain a hot second to process that you’re here in front of him and in Colombia before he rushes you. Clutching you tight and hugging you to his chest. You hear something that sounds suspiciously like a sob leave your brothers chest before he collapses into you. The front door and Javier’s bedroom both in rapid succession, giving you the privacy you knew your brother would need after breaking down like this.

You couldn’t support Steve’s weight with your considerably smaller frame and the two of you fell to the ground as you held your broken brother. His body shook with silent sobs as he buried his face in your shoulder.

You said nothing as you held him and stroked his hair. In that moment you thanked your every instinct that screamed at you to come to Colombia.

This had definitely not been a mistake.

[imaginesupply]

Homecoming - Chapter Three

(Gif's not my own.)

Summary: The day has arrived, Captain Syverson is going home. For good, this time. He is going home to a civilian life he can hardly remember and a wife he barely knows, with memories of the war still fresh on his mind. Love might not be able to heal everything on its own, but it’s a good start.

Genres: Romance, drama.

Story warnings: Smut (always fully consensual), mentions of PTSD and nightmares and mental health, angst, hurt and comfort, fluff, mentions of war (minor), mentions of cheating (minor), mentions of pregnancy (very minor), police appearance (very minor), violence (very minor).

Notes:

It’s my first time writing for one of Henry’s characters and I’m unsure I did Sy’s character any justice.

This is a Capt. Syverson x OFC (Ada) story, written in 3rd person POV but OFC’s physical description is very limited so it could also be read as Capt. Syverson x Reader, I think.

English is not my first language, so there might be some mistakes. Proofread, but not beta’ed. We die like men and all that.

Timeline is a little wacky: The movie takes place in 2003 and the U.S. forces were withdrawn from Iraq in 2011, but I never set a precise date because I don’t think it’s essential for this story. However, some elements might not be realistic because if we set this story in 2003: Phone cameras quality was not as good as it’s now, but for the purpose of the chapters, I will need you to imagine you could film great videos with your flip phone haha. Plus, it says Sy is coming back after being deployed for more than three years which makes no sense unless we set this in 2006 or later. I am asking you disregard any time inconsistencies.

Also: I am not American. I only lived in the US for six months and it was in the Midwest, not Texas so please bear with me if I write something stupid.

Finally: This will be a Christmas fic and I intend to post the last chapter (there will be seven in total) on or before Christmas. However, religion is never mentioned in this story and the Christmas-sy elements of this story are limited to family gathering, gift giving and tree decorating.

Chapter Three starts after the cut. (Chapter Two can be found here.) Let me know if you wish to be tagged in future chapters or if you wish to be removed from the tag list.

Chapter Three

Chapter warnings: Smut, alcohol consumption (moderate), mentions of contraception and of pregnancy.

I think that’s it, but this chapter killed my brain – it was very difficult to write and I feel like I botched it. There are various important moments in this chapter that I found very hard to translate from my brain into words. And the smut, oh my God, it’s so bad!

"You know, when you came to me all bossy and told me to lose my clothes, I had something a lot different in mind." Sy grumbled from the bed, where he was sat wearing nothing but boxer briefs.

Ada laughed and turned around, sticking out her tongue at him before going back to what she was doing, namely sorting through Sy's clothes in the walk-in closet. She slid a pair of jeans off its hangers and threw it at him without looking back. "I admit that I probably don't need as many clothes as I own, but you're definitely a minimalist."

Sy grunted noncommittally, he was not amused, but tried on the jeans all the same. They didn't fit, he couldn't pull them up past the thighs. "Hey darlin'," he called her, a hint of amusement audible in his voice.

She turned around at the pet name and then forced herself not to laugh at the sight in front of her. Sy had already been a burly man when they had met, but it seemed he had managed to gain even more muscle mass in the past few months, now looking like an absolute bear of a man. Ada grinned and tilted her head at the cardboard box at the end of the bed. "Put those in the donation pile."

"Yes, ma'am," Sy said, getting up and doing as asked.

Ada grabbed her small pencil and added another item to the list. "So, you need jeans, new boots, sweatshirts, t-shirts..." She went on, listing the items. What he needed was a whole new wardrobe and she was the woman for the mission.

Turning around, she found Sy rolling his eyes at her. "I ain't need no new t-shirts, woman. I got the black one, the red one and the khaki one."

Ada chuckled and approached him on the bed, coming to stand between his legs. It was unusual for her to be taller than him, and with him sitting on the bed and her standing up, she still didn't have that much of an advantage. With a grin, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead before pulling back to look into his eyes. Instinctively, almost an automatism, his hands found purchase on her hips.

"Last time you wore your red 'DILLIGAF' t-shirt, three separate kids stopped and asked you what the acronym stood for and you looked at me for help."

Sy held her gaze, not keen on losing the staring contest. Ada didn't want to relent but she didn't want to force him either, not after what had happened while grocery shopping. "It's okay if you really don't want to go, I won't for-"

Sy shook his head, silencing her before she could even finish. "Let's get this shopping over with. But I'm warning you: I'll be complaining the whole time."

For a moment, Ada pursed her lips, seemingly unconvinced but eventually her frown was replaced with a grin. "I would expect nothing else from you, grumpy bear," she teased before turning around, excited about the task at hand.

Sy left to get dressed but not before landing a playful smack on her ass.

°°°

It went just as Ada had imagined. Sy sat down on the sofa at the far end of the store, keeping everything in sight, and she would occasionally come up to him with suggestions. To an onlooker, they resembled a devout worshipper trying to make offerings to a very picky and very handsome god.

His replies to the items she presented to him went anywhere from 'no' to 'not a chance in hell', without forgetting the classic 'you lost your mind, darlin’'.

After visiting three stores and Ada trying to visually guess his size because Sy absolutely refused to try out any of the clothes, they had managed to get most of what he needed. It just turned out to be near recreations of the clothes he already owned, just bigger and newer. And with more child friendly texts.

They stopped for coffee by the center of the open-air mall. True to himself, Sy ordered just that - a coffee with 'none of the fancy shit'.

"You're sure you don't want to go to any of your stores?" Sy asked, watching her sip on her colorful drink.

Well, the idea was tempting but she already had more candles and blankets than necessary. And she knew he was uneasy even if he was hiding it well. "No, it's okay. I know you don't like shopping and I can just ask some friends if I really want to go." Sy hummed.

By the time Ada finished her season exclusive drink, she noticed Sy was staring at a shop window. She was almost excited that he was finally interested in buying clothes before noticing that it was some video game advertisement.

"You can buy the game, if you want. No need to stare," she teased.

He reverted his attention back to her. "It's only compatible with the new console that came out last month and that one's sold out." Ada started beaming as he spoke. "What?"

"Well... a few months ago, I came across the launch announcement on the Internet. And I had seen the old model in the study, so I knew you liked it and since you were coming home soon..."

Sy's eyes became even bluer for a moment, a huge grin threatening to illuminate his face. "Are you saying that...?"

Ada laughed, shaking her head. He looked like a kid on Christmas Day. "Yes. It's wrapped in gift paper in the basement under the utility sink."

"I love you, wife."

Again, she scoffed. "Yeah, yeah... Now let's go get you that damn game."

°°°

Later that day, or rather night, Sy wasn't even paying attention to the movie they, or rather, she was watching. He had gotten the gist of it - superheroes teaming up together to save the world - that sufficed him. His focus was entirely on his wife nested between his legs, her back resting against his chest.

When they got home from the mall and went to sort through his clothes and belongings, finally unpacking the rest of his duffel bag, Ada came across his dog tags. She asked if she could keep them. Sy frowned at the odd request but agreed nonetheless, shrugging dismissively.

Ada then proceeded to put the chain around her neck and slide the tags under her blouse. He had stared at her a little confused; she was smiling, looking all smug as if she had managed to trick him out of something valuable and not just two cheap metal tags hanging off an equally cheap chain.

"The fact that I get to have both your tags means I am very lucky to have gotten you back alive and in one piece. I don't want to ever forget that."

With his height advantage, even sitting behind her, Sy could see the chain disappearing under her pajamas and the tags resting in the valley of her breasts. Somehow, the sight made him feel even more possessive than the wedding band on her ring finger.

Things always had felt slightly uncertain with Ada, there had always been the shadow of a doubt in his mind when it came to her. They had gotten married on a whim and she knew he was a green beret, deployed most of the time. It's an entirely different thing to marry someone you get to see for a couple of weeks every once in a blue moon and to actually live, share a home with someone. When Sy had told her, he was coming home for good over the phone, he had half expected her to ask him for a divorce or to find himself alone at the airport. His face hadn't shown it, but when Ada put on the damn chain he had hated wearing in the goddamn desert where it would chafe his nape or get tangled in his chest hairs, Sy felt as happy as a sand boy.

She seemed honest when she said there was nothing going on with that Tom guy. Not that he could truly blame her if there was, even if it would have broken him. His parents had been married for over thirty-five years and his mom found a new boyfriend not even two years after his father's passing.

And yet, Ada was there, cuddling with him on the couch. She hadn't served him with divorce papers upon his arrival. Instead, they had spent the past few days pretty much glued together as they usually did when he was on leave.

Maybe it was time he started to believe that he had come home to his wife and she really wasn't going anywhere. Especially since she hadn't asked him to wear a condom ever since he got home and he hadn't seen her contraceptive pills on her nightstand either. Sy even checked the bathroom cabinet where he knew she kept some medication, but he didn't find anything there either. This morning, he had even considered asking her about it, but he figured that if she hadn't mentioned anything so far, it was because she wanted it to be a surprise and he didn't want to ruin it. Though he'd be lying if he said he wasn't going to be checking the same cabinet for pregnancy tests in the future.

"You good?" Ada asked as the film came to an end, tilting her head back but only getting a view of his beard. It made her smile, though. Sy really was her bear: big, strong and hairy.

"Yeah, I just," he stammered slightly as if waking up from his thoughts. "I was thinking we should probably change the stairs' railing into something safer before we have kids running up and down."

"Yep, that's not gonna happen," Ada chipped in, jumping off the couch before starting to fold the blanket.

"What?" Sy blurted out, turning all his attention to her. "The railing or the kids?"

"The kids," she replied nonchalantly, now laying the blanket in the basket by the sofa. "If you want to redo the stairs, that's fine. I think we could even paint them white."

In a second, Sy was up on his feet, his imposing stature crowding her. "What do you mean, that ain't happening? You don't want kids?"

Ada frowned, suddenly uncomfortable at his intense stare. "No.”

"Why did you never tell me?"

"Why did you assume kids were a given?" Ada retorted, taking a few steps back to put some distance between them. "I figured that if it was important to you, you'd have mentioned it sooner, at some point at least."

Sy had to fight the urge to yell at her, the feeling of betrayal and even anger overwhelming him. If he never spoke of it before, it was because he didn't want to have kids while he was deployed and miss their first years. Instead, he forced himself to calm down, taking a deep breath. "Is that a not now or a not ever?"

Ada looked away for a second, gathering her thoughts before moving her eyes back to him. "I got a new Mirena coil a couple of months ago, so I'm set for the next three years at least."

He had no idea what the fuck a 'Mirena coil' was supposed to be but it wasn't hard to figure out. Instinctively, his hand went to the back of head, raking through his short hair. "Just to be clear, Ada," Sy paused, his nostrils flaring, "you don't want children?"

It didn't even take her a second to start regretting her counter after it came out. "Do you?" She snapped back, the enunciation of the 'you' harsher than she had intended.

The effect was instant, her question giving him pause. Did he? Now reflecting on it, Sy realized he had never asked himself that question. It was just something that you did. First you got a house, then you found a wife and started a family. He had never thought about it as an option, just as the next step if he was lucky enough not to die in Iraq.

"I'm so sorry," Ada apologized, her tone alone expressing her regret. She took his hand, forcing him to look at her only to find her eyes glistening as she attempted not to cry. "I didn't mean it like that. I wasn't questioning your parenting skills. I know you'd make a fantastic father, Sy." Her eyes closed as she took a deep breath before opening them again, their corners wet with tears this time. "I just never saw myself having kids, but if it's something you really -"

"I ain't gonna force you to start a family with me," Sy rebuffed, offended at the very thought. The abruption of it even making Ada smile, if only briefly.

She shook her head quickly. "What I meant was that if you want to be a father, then I wish for you to become one. But... I won't be a part of that scenario."

"No." He said, dismissing the idea as soon as she voiced it, catching her hands in his and stilling them midair when she started gesticulating instead.

"No, this is important!" Ada protested. "I want you to be happy, Sy. And I won't stand in the way of your happiness. You deserve to live the life you want and if that includes a family -"

"No." Sy ordered, his tone final and resolute, silencing her instantly. He had never used this voice with her in the past, usually reserving it for the soldiers in his unit. "Stop with that ridiculous suggestion, woman." Ada blinked. It was obvious in her eyes that she wanted to argue but she didn't dare defy his hard stare.

Sy closed his eyes and swallowed, searching for the right words. "The choice between having kids with some other woman or getting to be with you, is a damn easy one. I'd rather we be a family of two than have children with some woman I could never love."

She was crying again, tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. Had he said something wrong? Ada didn't let him wonder for too long, her hand fisting in his t-shirt to pull him down to her lips for a ravenous kiss, their teeth clicking together.

"You know," Ada breathed out against his lips once they parted for air. "It doesn't have to be just the two of us. I am partial to pets."

Later in bed, with his sleeping wife snoring softly and her head resting on his chest, Sy tried to process their conversation only to realize there wasn't much to process at all. It didn't feel that much like giving up on a dream, as it felt like defining the contours his future with Ada. All that mattered to him was that it was a future with the woman whose contagious laugh he had manifested in his mind time and time again to drown out the sound of gunfire and make it through. Children might have been a bonus, he wouldn’t deny that, but their absence was something he could live with. He couldn’t same the thing about Ada.

°°°

"Got your," Sy paused, frowning as he read off the label, entering the kitchen, "Willamette Valley Pinot noir. How many do you need?"

Ada looked away from the oven to find him carrying four bottles of her favorite wine. Did he think they were drunkheads? "Do you want for Tom to have to spend the night here because we're all over the legal alcohol limit and unable to drive?" She laughed.

Sy grimaced. "One bottle it is," he announced, making her laugh all the harder as he set down a single bottle on the table that was already set before casting away the other bottles in the pantry - where they did not, in fact, belong.

Just as was his habit, Sy sneaked up on his wife as she leaned over the kitchen counter, putting away the remaining ingredients and hugged her back to him with one arm. He then dipped a finger in the jar she had filled with leftover caramel and brought it to mouth.

She gasped at his manners. "You can't just stick your fingers in everything that's sweet and lick it off, Sy," Ada chided. She heard it as soon as the words left her mouth, but it was too late.

A deep laugh rumbled in his chest behind her. "Can't I?" Sy goaded her mockingly.

Ada took a deep breath. She knew where this was headed and they didn't have time. It was primordial her pie didn't overcook, and Tom would be there soon. "You know what I meant," she groaned, attempting to sound annoyed but he could hear the smile in her voice.

"Do I?" He whispered against her ear, his beard tickling her skin and his warm breath making her shiver as he slid his hand under her skirt until he was cupping her damp sex over her panties. "Are you certain about that, darlin'?"

Her hands held on to the counter and her eyes closed as he started rubbing his hand along her folds over the fabric. He was also beginning to harden behind at an impressive rate. The temptation made her whimper. "We don't have time," Ada protested, even as her head fell back against him and she leaned into his touch, silently begging for more as she not-so innocently ground her ass on his crotch.

A swift glance at the clock on the wall told him all he needed to know. They had seven minutes. It would have to be enough, Sy decided. Time being of the essence, he was determined not to waste any.

“Open up your legs for your captain, darlin’,” he rasped, his nose nuzzling in the shallow of her neck, his hands already busy bunching up the soft fabric of her skirt around her waist.

“Sy,” Ada lightheartedly protested his eagerness. The idea was certainly enticing but they truly didn’t have time and she really needed to keep an eye on the pie. “We can’t-“

“I said, open your legs,” he repeated, gritting out the words as his foot snuck between her ankles, forcing her legs open himself. Sy barely had to apply any pressure, Ada complied instantly at his tone. There were very few situations in which she let him boss her around and this was one of them.

His hands brushed over her naked thighs, enjoying the way she shivered as he did so. Sliding his fingers higher up her inner legs, Sy expertly slid the scanty lace of her thong aside in order to access her clit. Ada keened under his touch, the rough skin of his finger pads slowly circling her already swollen nub. She couldn’t decide between pressing into his touch or attempting to pull away from it; it was both too little and too much all at once. “Already so wet and I’ve barely done anything to you,” he teased, hoping to sound less worked up than he was. Sy was set on keeping the upper hand. “Tell me, what is it that you want, darlin’?”

Ada whined as he removed his fingers from her core, his hands going to her hips instead and pulling her to him, letting her feel how hard he was for her. His wife reacted by rubbing her ass against him, determined to get what she wanted without having to voice it. “Sy,” she complained when he didn’t bite the bait, still grinding on him, surely getting his jeans wet with her slick.

“That’s not how it works, darlin’,” he chastised, going back to teasing her. His touch was ghostlike, too light to provide any real satisfaction and she groaned in frustration. “You have to ask for it like a good girl.”

He felt her body tense up against his as she tried chasing the friction of his fingers where she wanted them most, but Sy drew away before she could. “I swear to God I am going to make you regret-“

Smack. Ada gasped at the sharp spank on her ass, her body bending over the counter at the impact. Her ass was just too tempting in this position and Sy was running out of patience. “Ask like a good girl,” he ordered between gritted teeth, his hand descending to palm his crotch, hoping for some relief. Her little stunt was turning him on more than it should have.

“God, Sy, just fuck me already!” She sobbed, her legs rubbing together out of their own volition but her husband stayed put, rubbing his palm of his covered cock as he watched her. He wasn’t going to give up any time soon, she realized with a strangled sigh. “Please fuck me, captain,” she whispered, relenting.

Within a second, Sy was unbuckling his belt and pulling down his zipper. His cock was red, hard and throbbing impatiently. With time running out, Sy pushed himself into her without a warning. Ada whined at the stretch, gripping at the flour covered kitchen counter as one of his hands grabbed hold of her hips, the other moving to her breast. Then he started ploughing into her like there was no tomorrow.

Ada kept whimpering his name, but even she didn’t know what it was she was asking for. Her hips were digging into the cold stone and she knew there would be bruises come morning. He had barely started fucking her and she was already beginning to tense up with how worked up she was. “Are you gonna cum for me, darlin’?” Sy grunted, his jaw tense as her inner muscles clenched all around his cock. Ada nodded meekly, unable to speak. Just when he was starting to doubt he’d be able to hold off long enough for her to climax, Ada cried out, her tight walls milking him as she came. Sy exploded inside her with a strangled groan, slowly coming to a still inside her.

The doorbell rang. At seven o’clock on the dot.

"Fucking Brits and their punctuality!" Sy cursed, still panting before pulling away from her and tepidly leaving her warmth. Ada chuckled at his reaction, holding onto the counter for support for a few more seconds until she felt somewhat steady on her feet.

Sy tucked himself back into his pants and she adjusted her skirt over her thighs again before letting out a panicked squeak and turning around. Her front was covered in the flour she has spread on counter for the pie and the white handprint on her breast where he had held on to her was very visible on her black blouse. Sy couldn't keep himself from laughing. She looked great if you asked him, especially since Tom would be going to see just how well he took care of her. "I'll go get changed and you get the door!"

°°°

Sy’s eyes widened, positively surprised as he brought the first forkful of boeuf bourguignon to his mouth. The dish hadn’t appeared particularly appetizing on the plate, but it tasted so much better than it looked. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ada glancing at him with an ‘I told you so’ smirk.

“I received a new shipment of books at the store today,” Tom told Ada in between bites. He owned a bookstore downtown, Sy had learnt. “There’s a new murder mystery I’m sure you’ll love.”

Ada stilled, a look of excitement washing over her face. “Is there… poison?”

Tom laughed. He had expected that question from her. “Ah, yes. And it’s set in the 1920s!”

Sy glanced from the one to the other, forcing himself not to sigh. Ada’s excitement was adorable, but Tom was grating on his nerves. All the conversation so far had been about novels they’d read recently.

“Please tell me that you saved me a copy.” Ada shrieked enthusiastically, prompting Tom to laugh before he suddenly producer a hardcover out of seemingly thin air. As if she was scared that he was only taunting her with it, Ada leaned over the table and snatched the book out of his hand, a smug look on her face before she started reading the back cover. Sy looked at her and chuckled, shaking his head fondly at her almost childish elation.

"So, where did you two meet?" Tom asked, shifting his attention to Sy. "Ada always told me that it was a story for another time."

Sy's grip tightened on his cutlery. Admittedly, the strong animosity toward the man had faded, but he was still not keen on making conversation with the man. "Here in Austin," Sy replied before going back to his food. Ada had to stifle a laugh at the face Tom made at the curt answer.

"I'll tell you," she offered, capturing Tom's attention. "I had just graduated with my Masters and managed to land a PhD position here in Austin. I was freshly debarked out of France and I was only to start to start mid January but I flew over in December already - wanting to fly with my own wings and all that." Tom chuckled as she gestured derisively with the story.

"Anyway, I hadn't found a flat yet, all my stuff was in a storage unit and I had the brilliant idea of going to Vegas. On my own. In a 1979 black Camaro rental."

Sy finally looked up from his plate. "It was from 1980 and it was dark gray, not black, darling’."

Ada found herself staring curiously at her husband as he interrupted her story before laughing. That's what it took to get him to talk?

"So, it was a 1979, dark gray Camaro,” Ada correctly herself. “Anyway, obviously it did not have a navigation system and I stopped at one of the few open bars open at 5pm on Christmas Eve, ordered a beer and tried making sense of the maps I found in the glovebox, making a list of the different exits and turns I would have to make.

"Sy was there drinking with some friends – loud friends, might I add. Well, I am struggling with the maps and he must notice because he approaches me at the counter, takes of his cap and asks me if I need help, in his southern drawl. Actually, no wait, his exact words were” Ada paused, clearing her voice. “’Need some help reading that map, darling?'" Tom laughed at her ridiculous attempt to imitate Sy’s baritone voice. To Ada's surprise, Sy blushed. It was barely visible beneath his beard, but it was there and it was the cutest thing she had ever seen.

"I looked down at the map she was studying and asked her if she was headed somewhere on the east coast. She then slowly looked at me and confidently told me she was going to Nevada, until I pointed out that she was highlighting the road that went East and her face burned up, all self-conscious." Sy recounted, now laughing as well and even Tom scoffed. " I said: ‘At this point, even a navigation system can’t help you, darlin’. You’d need an escort.”

Ada bit her lip, remembering that moment clearly in her mind. She had flushed, staring at the muscular man that towered next to her. He was burly and rugged and yet still exhaled a little softness behind it all. 'Well then, will you be my escort to Vegas? I am leaving tonight,' she had blurted out before she could stop herself.

"I cannot believe you drove from Austin to Las Vegas with a stranger, Ada!" Tom said teasingly, clearly surprised by his friend’s spontaneity and recklessness.

"Yes, I made him miss Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his family, and the best part is that we got married the day we reached Vegas on New Year’s Eve.” They had stopped a few times along the way, visited some towns and she had only known Sy for seven days when we got hitched at the kitschiest chapel imaginable. “We had to hurry to get a marriage license before the courthouse closed and a half-naked dude officiated because everyone else was already booked.”

Sy chuckled, sitting back against his chair and wrapping his arm around Ada's shoulders possessively. "She made me wear my old uniform that lasted all of fifteen minutes and was presided by an officer dressed as a cherub." He gestured at the framed picture standing on the cupboard next to them.

They looked absolutely ridiculous. Sy's uniform made him look too serious next to a tipsy Ada who wore the only white dress she had been able to find on such short notice and that definitely hadn’t been meant for a wedding because it turned out to be partly see-through under the camera flashes.

Ada shared some more stories about Vegas before excusing herself to the bathroom, the conversation instantly dying out as she disappeared, leaving both men in an uncomfortable silence until Sy’s curiosity got to him.

"So, you and her...?" Sy left his question unfinished. He wasn't sure what exactly it was that he was asking, he just wanted to know all there was to know.

In front of him, Tom gracefully dabbed him mouth with the ivory napkin and shook his head, with a tight smile. "No, nothing of the sort," the Englishman replied dismissively before Sy's inquiring stare forced him to expound. "It's not that I didn't think of pursuing something more with her, but Ada made it very clear from the beginning that she was a married woman and a faithful wife."

Sy hummed noncommittally, though internally he was reassured and maybe even elated. Mike had really filled his head with shit. Deep down, he always knew his Ada wasn't like that, it just felt good to hear it.

"My wife, for whom I left England, passed away only two months before Ada and I met. I was going through a rough patch then - and that's a euphemism. Carla had been talking to me about watching a particular film ever since it had been announced, it was an adaptation of her favorite novel." Tom explained, a smile warming up his features. "When she died before it premiered, I wasn't even sure if I even wanted to watch it without her... But the tickets had already been purchased and part of me hoped that for two hours, it would feel like Carla was sitting right next to me."

Sy listened, feeling sympathetic, if not a little uncomfortable by the man’s openness. He still wanted to dislike Tom but at the same time he couldn't imagine the wreck he'd be if Ada were to die on him.

"The cinema was packed and to accommodate a large group, Ada asked whether I minded if she sat down next to me,” Tom paused briefly, smiling at the memory. “I think it was listening to her laugh, cry and eat popcorn next to me during the movie that gave me the strength to drive home instead of off a cliff that night."

Sy gulped down the rest of his wine, still not a fan of the taste as he faced the Englishman before him. Not that he would ever say it out loud, but if he had failed to make it alive out of that godforsaken desert, he had to concede Tom would not have been the worst for Ada.

Silence fell again and Sy became uncomfortable, deciding to pour Tom some more wine. “I am glad Ada and you were there for each other.” When I should’ve been there for her myself but wasn’t, Sy thought but left it unsaid.

Tom chuckled as he observed the burly man in front of him. For all his muscles and gruff exterior, he carried the slightest of insecurities when it came to his wife. "There's a thick silver notebook Ada has kept for a couple of years. Maybe you should have a look at it.”

Sy wanted to ask what he was talking about but was interrupted by the sound of Ada's high heels clicking on the wooden floor as she made her way back to them. "I hope you weren't talking ill of me behind my back," she teased, squeezing Sy's shoulder absentmindedly. "Now, who's ready for my slightly overcooked tarte tatin.” Ada eyed her husband pointedly.

[lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby]

I am power I am due process I will smite

We talked about Ironwood's personality, history, major theories, and his possible origins. Now we will discuss the prime and major aspect of his character that has impacted the story the most. His overall status, power, and abilities as the leader of Atlas Military, Headmaster of Atlas Academy and the major de facto Leader of the entirety of the Atlassian Government and how it has made him lose sight of what he was fighting for.

Status

As a general, Ironwood normally doesn't associate himself with the front lines of combat and usually orders his forces using his tactical know-how and military knowledge. However, when pressed, he is very adept in combat.

In "Remembrance", he has two seats on the Atlesian Council, assuming both seats symbolize as Headmaster of Atlas Academy and General of the Atlas Military, giving him a even greater amount of authority and influence over the Atlesian Council and the Kingdom of Atlas, allowing him to make unilateral decisions such as initiating a Dust Embargo, closing off the Borders of the Kingdom from the rest of the world and even initiate and enforce Martial Law should he deem it necessary.

Rank

This is probably the most difficult to point down and to make a solid argument since the writers haven’t really explored the command structure of the Atlas Military but since they’re claiming it to be the America of RWBY we will be using facts and details of the U.S. Army rank structure as a logical comparison as well as listing the potential base requirements for Ironwood’s current rank and overall status.

Takes 30 years average to achieve the rank of [a 4 star] General

Candidates for Flag officers (General ranks) must have over 22 years of service as an officer

3 years in grade as a colonel to qualify for flag promotion(Time In Service at best 25 years for earliest promotion)

Atlas equivalent of the US chairmen of the Joint chiefs of Staff (Must be a 4* Gen)

As well as the Secretary of the Department of Education

Most likely achieved the rank and status of General 1-4 years prior to his debut in V2 (Assuming his age is somewhere between 47-50)

With these facts for both his status and rank it's quite clear that potentially Ironwood hasn’t had much time or experience being a leader or General. As I stated before in the Chosen one section chances are that Ozpin or his predecessor have been manipulating Ironwood’s career in order to gain an inside man over what can be assumed to be the most unstable Kingdom on Remnant ready to wage war. Because of this It has led Ironwood to descend further down into his ego and narcissism as he would see his fast success as his own accomplishments that he achieved on his own with his power, instead of the truth that it was all handed to him by Oz. Because of that Ironwood has thought of himself better than Oz and believes in his own hype as his power increased.

The source of his power

With his rank and status aside let's now discuss the source of his power and how it solidifies Ironwood’s overall role in the plot.  The source of his power being his complete and total authority over his home Kingdom of Atlas. This is the only reason why he is even the plot in the first place. He is the de facto leader of the world’s strongest and advanced Military that is allied with the main heroes. The main heroes didn’t come to him for a plan nor did they come to him because he has some special power, they came to him just to get access to his army. That is the entirety of his role. He is supposed to be the guy that is supposed to lend his assets for the heroes, specifically the assets of Atlas entirely.

Now, Atlas is a country with very strong military and technology, isolated and far away from all the other countries. Despite the strong military, it is limited in number,  resources, and assets. Since Ironwood came to power he has hoarded almost all of them and gives the world the bare minimum. Not because it is limited or because he is preparing for war but because he  believes that he is the only one that can win. He wants to be the hero. Ironwood’s overall power stems from the consent of the people to his authority, and their willingness to die for him and his cause.

He needs people to make his plans happen.  He needs people to make his war machines. He needs them to supply his army with troops willing to die for him. But more importantly he needs people to validate him and his choices in order to fuel his ego and his “For the Greater Good '' mantra as well as to fuel his false sense of chosenness. He’s a barely competent General who genuinely wants to protect & win for the sake of others, but he is not a noble leader of his or any people who he will use to get the mission done.

Individual Powers & Abilities

His overall combat and abilities are pretty standard to $417 honestly. In comparison to other RWBY fighters I would have to say that Ironwood isn’t in the top 10 or top 100 of the World's best warriors. Decent skills maybe, but nothing new or special that would make him stand out from a regular joe combat wise.

Semblance

To start, let's discuss the key element of RWBY’s combat system that gives it its uniqueness; Semblances.  Now this is actually a key factor and component to the RWBY lore and Universe as a whole.

A Semblance is the manifestation of one's innate and personal power as an ability unique to each individual, with the effects varying greatly from user to user. With the sheer number of people unlocking their Semblances, it can lead to unrelated people gaining similar abilities. The nature of one's Semblance is noted as representing an aspect of their character.

Basically it's a physical representation of one's soul

(Note due to the vague description of his semblance I had to browse through around to get a solid idea for what his semblance is in a manner that everyone can agree and understand)

Ironwood's Semblance is revealed to be Mettle, which strengthens his resolve and allows him to carry through with his decisions, helping him hyper-focus. His semblance is possibly  “passive”meaning he has no control over it. It also gives him a surge in concentration and pain tolerance so that he can accomplish whatever goal he’s fixated on.

An example of its use on-screen was when he ripped his arm out of the hard-light construct Watts trapped him in during their fight in Volume 7.

It speculative if he does have any control over his semblance or if it works in the same manner as Qrow Branwen’s semblance(Always Active)

One argument saying that it is active is from the lyrics of Hero;

“Our enemies destroy, Mettle I’ll deploy, No chance that I won’t take, My oath to you I won’t forsake”

The words in bold help hint at the possibility that he has some control over his semblance but it does remain unclear whether or not if it's truly passive or not

To help summarize as to what his semblance does; Ironwood's Semblance, Mettle, allows for  temporarily increased brain processing power. This can be utilized to help James hyper-focus, blocking out everything else to help him achieve his goals.

His semblance is also a manifestation of his tenacious character trait and allows for mental health to affect his semblance like everyone else. The changes here are slight, but meaningful and could probably still be worked on to make it sound better.

Also to help better understand here is the definition of Mettle;

A person's ability to cope well with difficulties or to face a demanding situation in a spirited and resilient way.

His semblance is probably ideal on the battlefield but not much in terms of Administrative and/or Political issues

His semblance isn’t exactly ideal or overall useful in most fights since it's possible that he can’t control it

As well as it does seem to be a self indulgent power that only benefits him in regards to his psyche and nervous system

With that in mind I think Ironwood would have to find other ways to enforce his power without a semblance in a world where it seems to be a common phenomenon.

Physical

Due to his lack of unique abilities or useful semblance Ironwood would have to focus his efforts on other forms of combat to compensate for his handicap.

One of them being his physical prowess.

Due to his status as General his individual combat efficiency has diminished to an extent due to basically being a military politician.

With that in mind it's possible that Ironwood hasn’t seen active combat on a regular basis since he was a Captain(O-3) which is the most common officer rank in any military as well as the most common rank to be seen on the field of combat in comparison to ranks above that.

In other words his combat experience has probably diminished during the later half of his career as the headmaster of Atlas Academy and later when he became The most senior leader of the Army

Given this Ironwood’s personal combat style has been reduced to the basics that he learned during his Basic Military boot camp training.

This is best seen during his fight with Arthur Watts who was possibly also a member of Atlas Military given his surprising combat abilities to be on par with Ironwoods. But this is due to the both of them relying on a mixture of their combat training from boot camp, and the experience from their respective career fields. In this case it's an administrative politician vs a scientific inventor both of whom are in career fields that are non direct combat orientated relying on their shared knowledge and training of basic military combat.

To further add to this an allegory example for the Ironwood vs Watts fight would be a Army mechanic vs Army Sniper. These are both non direct combat careers in the military and are less likely to see any form of close quarters combat that an infantryman would as one works with heavy machinery and repair while the other does stealth and ranged operations.

But if we put these two into a free roam boxing match to the death chances are these two would have to rely on their basic training as their current career paths don’t focus much on CQC or any direct combat. As such the sniper would most likely adopt a fighting style similar to an out-boxer given his light build and frame needed for the stealth part of his career while the mechanic adopts a slugger style given his greater body build needed to lift and operate heavy tools and other manual labor.

The mechanic will also have a need to be direct and end this as quickly as possible as he may be use to a finish by the time quota mentality while the sniper knows that he is physically out matched but uses the speed granted to him by his smaller build to his advantage and tries to tire out the slugger and wait for an opening while the slugger tries to end it all in one hit.

In the case of their fight Ironwood was the slugger forfeiting strategy for brawn and strong one shot finishers, while Watts was the out-boxer who knew he physically stood no chance and focused on tactics and unconventional combat via the terrain settings of Amity Colosseum to tire and weaken Ironwood enough for an opportunity to incapacitate him

Another key aspect of Ironwood’s physical prowess are his Cybernetics.

Now we don’t know when or how he got them but it's quite clear that they were made to enhance his strength evidence from the shockwave that shattered the ground when he and an alpha beowulf parried each other in V3 Chpt.10

So yeah his cybernetics probably have doubled maybe even tripled the strength of his right side.

But sadly these are probably outdated and old as again we don’t know when he got them but they seemed to have been on him for awhile which would make sense as his status would grant him cybernetics that would be advanced for their time but with the down side that he can’t replace them for newer and better models

Evidence for this is when Ironwood had a new state of the art arm made for yang when he probably could have had a new arm made for himself and equipped it onto him, but he can’t cause his cybernetics are permanent and non changeable

As such he’s stuck with prosthetics that can only enhance his strength and nothing else. With unchangeable cybernetics aside let's look at the non cyber part of him and how it may be failing him.

The downside of his human half is that it still ages and with age comes physical deterioration and later mental deterioration. After looking up some medical research human beings start to deteriorate at the median age of 50 and as such start to weaken physically, losing the abilities of their prime

If my estimation of his age is accurate his body is nearing or is already deteriorating and with the added amounts of stress and PTSD may as well caused his mind to deteriorate prematurely as well.

Also his semblance apparently allows him to tolerate pain and damage allowing him to have some form of berserker mode like wolverine(Basically an adrenaline rush)

Also remember its passive and only happens at random so yeah it's not really that useful in long drawn out fights even if it's active.

With these facts in mind Ironwood at present may now be aware of his physical limitations and as such would have to rely on a another form of combat where he would have to rely on others to do his fighting for him

Leadership

Now this is his most defining trait at present that has been explored the most in the show and the center of controversy for his character

As stated before Ironwood lacks any special powers that could give him the edge as well as that his physical body is starting to fail him due to age, greatly weakening his usefulness in a fight.

As such he is left with the only viable option that he has to enforce his will without direct contact.

His command and Authority over others, and their consent to die for him and his needs

In order for him to have this kind of power may have been a result of his leadership style.

His leadership style appears to be a mixture of 3 different types of leadership styles.

These 3 being Autocratic, Authoritative, & Pacesetting with Autocratic being the dominant of the 3

Autocratic

The phrase most illustrative of an autocratic leadership style is "Do as I say." Generally, an autocratic leader believes that he or she is the smartest person at the table and knows more than others. They make all the decisions with little input from team members.(Sound familiar)

This command-and-control approach is typical of leadership styles of the past, but it doesn't hold much water with today's talent.(Times of war maybe?/Times of peace, nope!)

That's not to say that the style may not be appropriate in certain situations. For example, you can dip into an autocratic leadership style when crucial decisions need to be made on the spot, and you have the most knowledge about the situation, or when you're dealing with inexperienced and new team members and there's no time to wait for team members to gain familiarity with their role.(He would be more suited as a mission handler instead of a strategic tactician)

Authoritative

The phrase most indicative of this style of leadership (also known as "visionary") is "Follow me." The authoritative leadership style is the mark of confident leaders who map the way and set expectations, while engaging and energizing followers along the way.( Basically him in V 2 & 3 before things went to $417)

In a climate of uncertainty, these leaders lift the fog for people. They help them see where the company is going and what's going to happen when they get there.(He may be a man of vision poor vision but had a some sense of direction just poorly showed, & executed for others)

Unlike autocratic leaders, authoritative leaders take the time to explain their thinking: They don't just issue orders. Most of all, they allow people choice and latitude on how to achieve common goals.( It’s a 40/40/20 split with this being the least)

Pacesetting

While the pacesetter style of leadership is effective in getting things done and driving for results, it's a style that can hurt team members. For one thing, even the most driven employees may become stressed working under this style of leadership in the long run.(Mantle, Vale and the Heroes are prime examples of that)

Ironwood’s Leadership is quite the mix bag of results

In some situations specifically Combat oriented ones it works and is effective to a certain degree

But for most of the time in situations like politics, commerce, and peace in general it can lead to the worst outcomes imaginable hence all of the conflicts plaguing rwby present

With this in mind it probably won’t take long to realise that Ironwood is an ineffective leader of and for the people

Remember most of the power that he holds now is through the consent of the people

Whether they be soldiers, scientists or civilians they are the only things that keeps him in power as well as make his position of power legitimate in order for him to plan and execute his plans.

Also as evidence from extended sources and media most of the progress and advancements of Atlas have been done through Ironwoods efforts ergo Ironwood has more or less become the main benefactor of the kingdom through their eyes

This however more or less makes him the de facto king of Atlas if you think about it and as most troubles that befall a king it's usually their own pride that can get the better of them especially if they surround themselves with enablers that paint them in a almost god-like light

Also with the added reveal of his semblance It does have a very heavy affect on his mind in terms of decision making but sadly it tends to happen on impulse and isn’t much suited for a political or administrative environment

Sadly he has done a poor job trying to keep the people on his side and as such has justified the revolution to bring down his ineffective & immoral leadership

Effectiveness

Depending on the situation the effectiveness of Ironwood's overall power and command  is moderate to ineffective in all honesty

This mostly stems from the fact that Ironwood’s ego and overall favoritism of his kingdom tends to clash with the general idea of the common goal of peace that is shared with the heroes (Ozpin, Ruby, Oscar, etc) and the world as a whole

As such it has fueled his need to be validated to raging war, even though the results would be catastrophic in order to do so and completely unnecessary

The effectiveness of Ironwood's overall impact on the world is mostly done in self-indulgence as he believes his dreams and goals are what is best for everyone.

In a true totalitarian way unless something can further his power or goals it's good to him, while anything that threatens it is bad to him

This is first seen when he discredited Ozpin as he saw it his way of handling the situation was not ideal even though he is his ally. In doing so he became the head of the security force and further discredited Ozpin to the point that his position as headmaster was in jeopardy. Even though Oz is the leader of the group that is meant to keep the peace in secret as open conflict would result in heavy losses which is what the fall of beacon was. A preview on a small scale as to what could happen had Ironwood his way all the time and the results that it would yield.

By V7 Ironwood acknowledges his failure with the amount of power he had brought, except unlike most people he hasn’t learned anything from the ordeal and continues down a path of paranoia and warmongering. Instead he chooses to find ways that would benefit his power and goals.

Fear and rage aside Let talk about his overall planning and strategy

Most of his plans that have been shown and revealed so far have had a tendency to backfire

The first of his plans that took a turn for the worst was the P.E.N.N.Y. project during the Vytal tournament as well as his power grab at beacon which led to its fall

Okay this is speculative but I do believe Ironwood was field testing Penny for his upcoming war based on dialogue from her in V2 and used the Vytal tournament as a means to do so. Thus turning an event of peace that was meant to celebrate the end of war just to test new weapons for his upcoming war of change.

This accompanied by the army of robot soldiers that he insisted to have as security brought to question the practicality of Ironwood's methods. This is also brought into question as the people are unaware of salem' existence thus from the perspectives of the Vale citizens and the world in general, Ironwood's interference with Vale security would basically be needless foreign intervention, to them that would eventually lead to disaster. Which it did as both were used to portray him and atlas as the villainous force at the fall of beacon and has contributed to salem's plans.

The second of his plans to go off the deep end was the dust embargo and the closing of borders

Though granted with drawing from the rest of the world seemed like a good idea to ease tensions of war but overall it had lasted too long especially if you take into account that Atlas was Remnants source of Industry and main economic and technological center that the world desperately relies on to survive.

This would make it difficult to rally anyone to his side as from their perspective he and by extension his kingdom would only be seen as the ones who left them for dead and would think twice before trusting him with any plan especially one of war.

The third plan of his to go astray was his confrontation with Watts

This isn’t much of a plan but an overview of his strategy during that fight and it could have gone better honestly.

By the way that entire fight was essentially a capture mission for Watts. Which is self explanatory as to why Ironwood didn’t straight out kill watts when he can use him to his advantage so I’ll give credit for forethought of enemy interrogation but the means and execution as to obtain watts were very poor and half thought out

To start where it began to turn to s*** was how he essentially went in alone without backup. Remember he is a General during a time of peace, who at this point probably has very little combat experience to rely on for this fight. I really don't see the point of why he would fight the crazy mad scientist alone when he could have at least had winter with him or a squad of soldiers to assist .Hell even a sniper could have been beneficial. It's not like everyone, was needed to evacuate the city of  mantle.

Which brings me to my second point of the fight; why did it have to be Ironwood to capture watts? From a fan perspective the answer was probably to give a character a good fight scene but in universe why did it have to be the general of the entire army to capture one cyber terrorist. Especially when there are other more qualified fights that have seen more action in a week than Ironwood has in his entire military career. That may be an over exaggeration but as I stated before Ironwoods career shifted from the battlefield to the political and administrative.

Meaning his combat experience has diminished since his 30’s? as he became more focused on running a kingdom rather than micromanaging the battlefield as he used to. So with that in mind Ironwood should have at least thought of someone more capable of capturing Watts than him. He could have sent Winter or Qrow or even the ace opts who probably are more qualified to disarm and detain watts faster and more effectively than how Ironwood’s fight went without complications.

Now we come to the fight itself where Ironwood for no reason drew out the fight longer than it should have been. For example we know that his cybernetics are possibly capable of doubling the strength of his right side. So once Ironwood had gotten within grabbing range of watts after depleting his Aura Ironwood should have at least tried to crush the bones of either of Watts arms thus disarming him and making it easier to detain. He also could have taken a page from Nora and broken his legs thus immobilizing him and limiting Watt’s options of escape.

Maybe Humans are more durable in rwby, than humans of our world but if you need to capture someone alive they don’t have to be in perfect condition. They just need their head intact to give info  and the necessary vital origins needed  to live. They don’t exactly need their arms or legs unless you want to risk the chance of escape from them

Here comes the standoff which is another point that's problematic given Ironwood's intentions. If Ironwood knew Watts was out of ammo why did he just taunt watts instead of making a move to subdue him. Instead of pointing out his enemy was out of ammo he could have shifted his gun a bit and put a bullet in his shoulder and  making his arm useless and make the necessary preparations to capture watts alive without any further risk to himself and probably wouldn’t lead him to flay his only remaining arm to win

(Assuming he was out of ammo as well hence why he was taunting again he has cybernetics that can double his strength if need be which he could have used to break any part of watt’s limbs without further damage to himself.)

Now we come to the final issue of the fight that honestly could have been avoided or at least handled better. Ironwood didn’t necessarily have to sacrifice his remaining arm to get free. He could have tried destroying one or all of the rings that were keeping his arm trapped. I do believe he has the strength in his cybernetics needed to crush the rings no problem. If he couldn’t then he could have shimmed his arm out through the side instead of pulling it out and burning it.

Overall Ironwood had plenty of options to his plan to capture Watts but it was his narrow mindedness that led to the escalation of the fight and cost him greatly when it could have been avoided and ended quickly without much loss.

The only plan that seemed to have been ideal and would have benefited everyone was the Amity project, and restoration of global communications but it had its consequences the way he had led it.

Communication is a very crucial and essential tool needed for any society to help better coordinate and resolve the issues that happen during a crisis. Overall his plan for amity was probably the least Atlas centric that would have benefited the world but his intentions for it and means to obtain it were problematic.

His intentions for the amity project were not based on altruistic or selfless motives but were based on his desire to gain and gather resources for his war with salem. Ironwood wanted to restore global communications just to convince the people of the other kingdoms to rally to him and to fight for his cause.

The means of how he obtained it also lead to problems as he had to siffen off resources from the 2nd impoverished city in the world that needed those resources to help keep it safe just to gain a way to recruit soldiers and acquire more resources needed for his war

This is also furthered by the fact that he intended to reveal a world shattering truth that would cause a lot of negative emotions of disbelief grief and fear that will fill the remainder of the world. Meaning Ironwood knowingly and was willing to cause global panic and take advantage of the chaos that would follow just to further his needs  for war.

That may be speculation but based on the latter half of the plan from A New Approach it pretty much highlights the Values and lengths of Ironwoods Motives and intentions for war and what he may be willing to do to get his way;

Ironwood: Yes, panic is inevitable, and panic brings Grimm. But I believe we are ready. Once Atlas has come to grips with the fight ahead, I'll use Amity Tower to spread the message to all of Remnant.

Weiss: But everything will fall apart. Grimm will be everywhere!

Winter: You're right, but Atlas is willing and prepared to assist.

Ironwood: Trying to hide the truth from the world will eventually kill us all.

So the highlight of his plan will eventually cause more problems and the eventual fall of the other kingdoms especially given their current states

Vale; Beacon infested with Grimm and the Main city on the brink being overrun by them

Mistral has Almost no Huntmen left to help with the kingdoms defense and already struggles with the criminal underworld that plagues the kingdom

Vacuo has no official structure or system of government besides Shade academy which is currently struggles to maintain order with the flooding of students going to it in order to train very much needed huntsman

This in all honesty will just wipe the slate clean and undo almost a century's worth of progress that will only leave what remains, fair game that can be claimed by anyone or to be specific to be claimed by Ironwood and Atlas.

Now I know that's a theory and it would paint Ironwood as a villain but it's not far from the likely truth and motives considering that Everything Ironwood has done has and always been in the best interest of Atlas and since he and the kingdom are synonymous at this point, his best interest as well.

Which brings us to his final and current plan

Abandoning Mantle and Raising Atlas

Okay we all know that this is probably one of the most talked about things that has divided the fandom the most in recent times sparking the debate of the morality and choices of RWBY’s characters. The most of those debates revolved around Ironwood’s current last ditch plan of survival. As it has been debated and analyzed over the last few months everyone has already discussed the pros and cons of the of this plan but I’ll summarize and give my thoughts of this plan as well as point out how it reveals Ironwoods hypocrisy and personal agendas

Pros;

Had everyone gone with ironwood on this plan and left Mantle to die this would at least give the heroes and the military some time to prepare for the next engagement should it come

while at the same time keeping at least 2 of the four relics away from the villains.

And the Winter Maiden as well

Cons;

This however would only be a short term retreat as eventually the city will need resources to sustain themselves as well as to gather even more resources to meet Ironwoods war demands.

But when it comes to getting those supplies the other kingdoms would have heard at this point how atlas abandon its own citizens and thus deny them the supplies needed.

This would also play into salem's hands as its not unlikely that she would spread the news of Mantles demise to turn the other kingdoms against Atlas

With this in mind and Ironwoods decent into extremism and desperation this would lead to atlas having to forcibly extort the other kingdoms for resources further playing into salem's hands and starting Remnants 2nd great war and all salem has to do from here on out is watch the world burn and wait for an opportunity.

If that outcome seems unlikely then lets cover another possible outcome of this plan succeeding but with this question; What happens to Remnant in the absence of Atlas?

Assuming that Atlas is self-sustainable as Ironwood said this would eliminate the need to make contact with the surface and need of supply runs.

However this also highlights the possibility that once Atlas is far and high enough Ironwood most likely won't return to help aid the rest of the world

As invoked by Oscar, raising Atlas will mean Salem will have free reign to slaughter the millions of people left on Remnant.

The truth;

Oscar says this not only to convince Ironwood not to abandon Mantle but not to abandon the world as well. When he said this Oscar is trying to convince Ironwood that it's not a lost cause and run away as that would only lead to further lost and the world ever closer to Salem’s rule should Ironwood run now(Like Raven did)

This is also given more credibility as when Ironwood abandoned his original plan for amity which was intended to reunite the kingdoms

Taking this into account and his plan there doesn’t appear to be any hint or motivation to return to or go to the other kingdoms for help or anything once Ironwood runs away.

This is an unintended byproduct of Ironwoods Paranoia and distrust for others as well as the unveiling of his hypocrisy and self survival.

This is hinted at in the V7 finale as Oscar tries to talk Ironwood down in the Relic Vault, where the latter blames everyone, from Robyn, to the council, to the Kingdom and even to  Oscar, for not seeing the bigger picture and getting in the way of doing what he thinks is right, and not once does Ironwood stop to consider that he himself may have had a role in things escalating as badly as they did.

As I stated before Ironwood is probably the main catalyst for everything that has gone wrong in the current events of rwby as he was the one who ended up giving the villains more opportunities and ammo needed to get their way.

Results;

The volume also focuses on the heroes, Robyn and Ironwood all having different ideas about how to protect Atlas and Mantle.

When they finally come together to help evacuate Mantle, the truce quickly falls apart once Ironwood realizes Cinder is in town, Salem is on her way and Team RWBY leaked intel to Robyn. He orders the arrest of the heroes, the forcible extraction of the Winter Maiden powers, and the abandonment of Mantle to save Atlas.

As a consequence of his extremism and paranoia corrupting his judgement, he loses the Relic of Knowledge, the Winter Maiden, almost all of his allies, and stands alone when Salem arrives on his doorstep.

By the end of the volume everything that Ironwood has done has been for nothing. Every decision Ironwood has made in the last few chapters winds up being for naught. Ordering the heroes to be arrested gets his best agent Clover killed and allows Tyrian to escape custody. Neo takes advantage of his arrest order for the heroes to confront Oscar and get away with the Lamp of Knowledge. Sending Winter to claim the Maiden power led Cinder right to where Fria was being held and ultimately causes the power to go to Penny, who sides with the heroes due to Ironwood's extremist methods.

Also Salem was far closer than the general realized, so even if things had worked in his favor it still would have failed.

In earnest most of Ironwoods recent and current plans and ideas have had negative results. His individual powers and abilities aren’t as impressive or out of the ordinary as others in the series. As well as not as useful as they could have been.  His semblance is pretty lackluster if I'm being honest. His status has only fueled his ego and arrogance and has left him blind to his purpose as a guardian for all of remnant, not just one aspect of it.

But what exactly was going on in Ironwoods head to make him like this? To answer that we need to know the practices and beliefs of his homeland as the Kingdom of Atlas has had more influence on Ironwood than anyone or anything else in his life.

The Altasien Philosophical ideals

Now we don’t really know any of the political, religious, or philosophical ideas of Remnant, or Atlas especially but we can make a guess and see how it might have affected Ironwood. As best as I could see Atlas seems to have a philosophy equivalent to Nietzscheism. Below are the facts, concepts and ideals of Nietzsche's Philosophy.

Nietzsche’s Big Ideas

Favored perspectivism, which held that truth is not objective but is the consequence of various factors effecting individual perspective;

Articulated ethical dilemma as a tension between the master vs. slave morality; the former in which we make decisions based on the assessment of consequences, and the latter in which we make decisions based on our conception of good vs. evil

Belief in the individual’s creative capacity to resist social norms and cultural convention in order to live according to a greater set of virtues.

The Will to Power

the drive of the superman(ubermensch) in the philosophy of Nietzsche to perfect and transcend the self through the possession and exercise of creative power.

a conscious or unconscious desire to exercise authority over others.

Master Morality

Nietzsche defined master morality as the morality of the strong-willed. Nietzsche criticizes the view (which he identifies with contemporary British ideology) that good is everything that is helpful, and bad is everything that is harmful.

Slave Morality

Slave morality is the inverse of master morality. As such, it is characterized by pessimism and cynicism. Slave morality is created in opposition to what master morality values as "good". Slave morality does not aim at exerting one's will by strength, but by careful subversion.

The übermensch

the ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values, originally described by Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883–85).

After reading this you can probably agree that this is the default guiding philosophical mindset of the Atlasian people and Ironwood especially but in the extreme and toxic. Which suits Atlas given what we know of it. The Kingdom is filled with people who believe they are this superior race and that everyone else is below them. As well as the fact that they are willing to throw away morals to get their way and are willing to crush those that stand in their way. As for Ironwood he is sadly a part of this toxic mindset whether he likes it or not as it's the greatest flaw of his character that he is just simply an extension to enforce Atlas and their immoral ways.

Atlas as a whole, not just the military, perpetrates the whole no emotions thing. Colors, feelings, individuality are bad. Look at how Atlas is presented. It’s detached from the rest of the world, and is devoid of warm colors. It’s all the same color, that cold grayish blue. So while yes, the Atlesian military definitely does it’s best to crush all those things too, it’s not a foreign concept to Atlesians. I’m fairly certain that if you were born on Atlas, not Mantle, that you would already be conditioned to start thinking this way even before you decided to go to Atlas Academy.

The Atlesian Military is a huge part of the problem as well, but if Atlas is already crushing individuality and feelings, it makes sense that the military would just continue to do so. Considering the fact that the military is not separate from their government, it shows how Atlas just continues the cycle of crushing and indoctrinating their citizens.

Atlas is this poisonous mindset of destroying emotions and individuality. Which is why those who leave it become better people and change for the better. Weiss leaves Atlas and becomes a better person. She loses the Ice Queen persona and has fun. She makes friends because she likes them, not because their skills would be most effective in a battle.(V1 ep.4 with Pyrah) She embraces her quirks and they become her strengths. Penny learns about friendship and the joys of life outside of the mission. Robyn knows that there is more to life than to keep advancing ahead. She knows that there is good in protecting the past and that we cannot forget the old. Advancement and efficiency will only take you so far. If we leave the human part of ourselves behind, what we become is much worse than being less efficient.

It’s so heavily ingrained in Ironwood, to the point that when we first see him he is already this inhuman machine that will carry on the will of his home kingdom regardless of the truth that the world knows, and that truth is that it is evil and inhuman.

The Strain and Revelation of power and responsibility

“But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.”

If you are unsure of what that quote meant, basically this section will explain the truth of Ironwood's character through the revelation of what his power has turned him into.

Though granted there is nothing wrong with power. However it becomes a problem when one gains too much that they can no longer control it. In Ironwood's case he had amassed too much that had burdened him with too much responsibility that he wasn’t prepared for.

As people began to rely on him which is actually part of his job as a General/councilman/Headmaster of a toxic government, the stress and burden had increased.

One could argue that his job as a general, who is under a lot of pressure, especially after the fall of beacon and people not understanding the true dangers of the real enemy. Ironwood lacks the skills needed to do his job as a protector and guardian. Which has led to him being this toxic and immoral person that keeps making mistakes, and the situation worse.

The strain of his power is having him make choices that has slowly made him break away from his human soul. But if Ironwood’s power has turned him into an immoral person who’s choices escalate the situation for the worst, why has he not been removed from this role of power and given the proper time needed to adjust and contemplate the understanding of his power and responsibilities of his assigned role?

Why toxic senior leaders survive — and sometimes thrive — in the military

From what I’ve found that has been able to determine, it comes down to three major factors: individual competence of the toxic officer; lack of personal accountability up and down the chain of command; and senior leader fear of loss of confidence.

The first major factor that results in the retention, and sometimes promotion, of toxic senior officers is intellect and work ethic. Most of the senior leaders in the military are highly intelligent with tremendous drive and ambition. While some senior officers have proven themselves unfit to lead others, there is a desire by some senior leaders to retain that intellect, drive, knowledge and experience to the benefit of the service.

Atlas and Remnant in general needs to fix the way it selects and grooms officers and people for leadership roles

Atlas is not designed to produce good leaders

Being in a leadership position does not make you a leader. Unfortunately, the Atlas Military  officer system sees it differently. They talk a good game, but the system is seriously lacking.

The second factor contributing to the retention of toxic senior leaders is a lack of accountability and transparency by those who have sponsored the toxic leaders.

Leaders we can believe in

There has to be a demand to finding smart officers, but Atlas must do more to find good leaders and sideline the bad ones

Rationally speaking, this makes sense — if the offending people can still provide good service to the nation, why not retain them? After all, the service failed to properly prepare those individuals to lead and made the additional mistake of placing people unsuited to leadership in those positions. Before we judge toxic leaders in the military too harshly, we should remember that the institution failed them as much as they failed the institution. Unfortunately, the lack of explanation from their most senior leaders leaves the rank and file with the perception that there is a complete lack of accountability at higher ranks. They are not entirely wrong.

Atlas must do a better job of screening, educating and evaluating its officers, especially for grades O-6 and above(Col to General)

The truth of the role he didn’t understand

That being said. I do believe James has the best intentions. But as he accumulated more power, the tendencies to be in control - or be in control of every facet of a situation - as much as any commander of armed forces wishes to be,  has clouded his judgement.

As a military leader,  his word is law. That is how his men are trained. But as a politician ruling over the common citizenry,  the common citizen is not indoctrinated into that lifestyle, thus presents random uncontrollable elements in his plans.

Ironwoods lacks the experience to deal with that entirely. He is surrounded by other like minded individuals who follow his orders unquestioningly. What he really needed and could have used the most of his career was a consultant. As to help better understand how his choices will affect those around them and how they will have to live with his decisions

A descanting (preferably civilian) opinion to counter his directives and provide the means for a more balanced perspective. The problem is Ironwood doesn't have the social skill or experience to handle dissenting opinions. Which is why he and Qrow clashed so damn hard in V3.

And why he was so shocked when the rest of the Ozluminati placed the blame squarely at his feet for the unrest in Vale during the second and third volume. He was astonished to realize that his views weren't universal in the group. He didn't comprehend the civilian mindset,  let alone the foreign civilian mindset in a country that isn't militarized like Atlas is.

He was just simply not suited or ready to be in a position of power that deals with the responsibility of Safeguarding peoples’ lives and maintaining world peace. His ambitions and sense of entitlement have led him astray from his assigned purpose. Because of this he has become a man of War instead of Peace like the other heroes and Oz are for.

His Power had stripped him of his soul and made him more Machine than human that even if Salem drops dead tomorrow what's next for him?

(Note; The words in bold at the bottom are links to the next section)

I am Machine I never sleep I keep my eyes wide Open

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #252: DECIDING FACTOR!

February, 1985

Who on Earth is strong enough to smash Hercules? Hint: there’s two of them!

Well I have my guess but I happened to guess right so I won’t be sharing. Let’s sayyyyyyyy.... Más y Menos.

Its very rude of DCAU’s Más y Menos to be picking on Hercules. Maybe sí podemos but that doesn’t mean ustedes should.

Anyway.

Last times on Avengers, Vision walked through a null field created by Annihilus and promptly fell in a robot coma and had to be put in a tube. He regained consciousness and Starfox hooked him up to the Titan supercomptuer ISAAC after which Vision started behaving oddly. When half of the Avengers got back from Secret Wars, Vision convinced Wasp to step down as chairman and nominate him. He’s created a second branch of the team in California under Hawkeye’s leadership. He’s pushed the president into making the Avengers chair a member of the Cabinet. He hid Starfox’s secret sexy power from the rest of the team. And just last issue, it was revealed that Vision and ISAAC have built a take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device with Vision only lacking the will to pull the trigger on it.

So, uh, stuff is afoot.

Vision stuff. And, oddly enough, Doc Sampson stuff.

Vision is very impressed on seeing what seems to be Doc Sampson’s demo reel and offers him membership in the Avengers.

Doc Sampson turns him down because he doesn’t see himself as hero material and he already accepted an offer to join the faculty of Northwestern University.

Vision: “That needn’t rule you out, doctor! What would you say to heading a new, Midwestern branch of the Avengers? I should think you’re make an excellent group leader!”

Wow, Vision. You’re coming on a little strong there.

Midwest Avengers seems like the kind of thing that would be made up to spoof the expansion team idea, kinda like the Great Lakes Avengers of later. But if Vision seems desperate to get Doc Sampson to join the Avengers, well I think he is desperate.

Vision talked to ISAAC of his frustrations on trying to spread the power and influence of the Avengers. He has his take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device but he doesn’t seem to want to use it. So he’s trying to repeat the trick with the West Coast Avengers. Sign up more and more Avengers. If you told this era of Vision about the 50 State Initiative, he’d be all over it.

But Doc Sampson turns him down. For the best. God only knows who Vision would have finagled into being on the Midwest Avengers in Chicago.

Doc Sampson: I wonder if I made a mistake in turning down the Vision’s offer? Being part of such a team would have given me an opportunity to observe some highly unusual psyches up close. But, no... I could hardly maintain an impartial detachment in such a situation.

Yeah. A Doc Sampson led Chicago-branch would have been an implosion waiting to happen. And Sampson will get his chance to pick the brains of a superhero team later with X-Factor. He does not maintain an impartial detachment.

On his way out, Starfox very much wants to discuss this newspaper headline. As he’s from a more advanced space civilization that doesn’t have prejudice probably, this is very baffling to him.

He hasn’t been on Earth long enough to learn that “ANTI-MUTANT FEAR GRIPS U.S.” is Tuesday.

I wonder if it corresponds to anything going on in the X-books. I tried to look it up but the same month as this issue, X-Men was doing a Kulan Gath thing.

Anyway, Vision and Doc Sampson agree that anti-mutant fear gripping things is bad and could tear society apart.

So in case anyone was ever wondering: the Avengers officially think anti-mutant fear is whack.

Anyway, on the mansion’s back patio, Captain America and Scarlet Witch are just having some old friend hangout time.

It’s a nice moment, really.

Wanda is drinking tea and Cap is just sketching her because they’re comfortable enough friends to hang out in a tea sketch party.

Anyway, Cap is also familiar enough with Wanda to know that she’s well vexed.

And she admits that she’s well vexed by two things. Of course, by the new wave of anti-mutant phobia because it really seems like a cruel cycle where every time people seem like they’re chilling out or there’s a swell of tolerance, it just gets yanked back. A cruel yo-yo of intolerance.

Also, its happening when she’s having personal trouble with Vision. He’s keeping secrets and he has some really extreme moods.

Scarlet Witch: “One moment he’ll be friendly and open, and the next he’ll get so remote!”

I wonder if its possible for Hank Pym’s bipolar disorder to have skipped a generation and somehow been inherited by Vision. That’s entirely not how anything works but I dunno. That sounds like Hank.

Since Cap has been wondering about Vision’s behavior (he and Monica Marvel had a discussion about it in the previous issue, remember?), he agrees to go talk to Vision.

Vision is having solemn thoughts in the mansion’s library, having been upset by the Daily Bugle that Starfox was waving around.

Vision: The world is beset by so much strife. Humanity cries out for peace... Yearns for life and prosperity... but in the end it denies itself that which it most desires! Mankind might never put aside its prejudices. Too many have refused responsibility for their own actions. How can they be expected to save the world? And, yet, who am I -- a synthezoid, an artificial being -- to rail against men of flesh? My encephalatron command chair would give me the power to bring peace to the world... and yet I hesitate to use it! Can I find the courage... make the sacrifice necessary to use that power?

That’s when Cap wanders in to give Vision a talking to. A supportive, helpful talking to.

Since he assumes that what Vision has on his mind is the burdens of leadership, he confides that he knows how tough it can be to have to always make the right decision at a moment’s notice and that he’s here if Vision needs a sympathetic ear.

Vision admits that chairmanship isn’t what he expected. He’s not unaware of the strain that its putting on his marriage. Especially since he insisted that they rejoin the team when Wanda would have preferred to return to their civilian life in New Jersey.

Cap tells him just talk to her more, ya goof.

So this is a very nice conversation between friends and peers that Vision drops a bomb of a totally-a-hypothetical into.

Vision: “Cap, what would you do if you discovered that you could bring peace and prosperity to the entire world... but only at the cost of your personal well being, perhaps of your own existence?”

Cap: “What?!”

Vision: “We have all put our lives on the line many times to stop world-threatening menaces, but it occurs to me that we’ve seldom tried to do anything to cure the world of its ills.”

Cap: “We do what we can, Vision. There are no fast and simple ways to eliminate want or fear.”

Vision: “But what if there were a way to insure a lasting peace to the world, to bring about a new golden age? What if you could only bring it about by sacrificing yourself? What if you could make the world a paradise, but you could never enjoy it yourself? Could you do it?”

Cap: “It pains me to say this, Vision, but I honestly don’t know. I don’t believe I could know unless the situation actually presented itself. Life should never be given up lightly, but... if there were a way to truly save the world... I’d like to think that I’d make the sacrifice. But I’d have to be certain that it would work!”

Vision: “Yes... Yes, there could be no room for doubt.”

I do really like the slow unfolding of whatever Vision’s Supervillain Actually Its Well-Intentioned plan is. His doubts and how he poses a very specific hypothetical to Cap to see what The Iconic Avengers Leader thinks.

At this point my guess is that Vision is going to turn himself into a supercomputer like ISAAC to take over the world, for its own good. Since it was apparently inspired when he was plugged into a supercomputer and was running the mansion.

Anyway, Wanda runs in and interrupts the totally-a-hypothetical discussion with big, alarming news that their house from the Vision and Scarlet Witch series is on fire.

That’s rough.

By the time Wanda, Vision, and emotional support Captain America show up, the ire is unstoppable and the firefighters just let it burn down.

That’s rougher.

Later, Vision and Wanda pick through the smouldering rubble.

And worse of all, this wasn’t a random electrical or grease or magic fire. It was arson. And the arsonist even called the cops to make sure everyone knew it.

Scarlet Witch: “So! I should have known! The blind, unreasoning fools! Do I have to fight them for the rest of my life?!?” This is so maddening! Losing my temper won’t bring our house back... all I’ve done is frighten the neighbors. That’s always been the biggest problem in being a mutant... No one will let you act human.

=(

Some random bystanders basically gloat that the “weirdies are finally leaving” causing Captain America to go off.

Captain America: “For your information, mister, those ‘weirdies’ have saved your hide a dozen times over! They’ve fought and bled so you could have a home!”

Bystander: “N-now hold on, Cap! Me, I don’t have anything against ‘em... but why’d they have to move into my neighborhood? I mean, all our houses coulda caught fire from that blaze! This never woulda happened, if they hadn’t moved here!”

Captain America: “Mister, today somebody decided that he didn’t like mutants. Tomorrow, maybe someone will decide he doesn’t like blacks... or jews... or you! We’re all in this together. The American dream has to be there for everyone, or it can never truly work for anyone! It’s our duty to do everything we can to make sure it works!”

I doubt Bystander is very convinced. Maybe momentarily shamed. But in an hour he’ll be like “am I wrong about mutants? No, its the tolerant people who are wrong.”

But Vision... Vision has made up his mind.

Vision: ‘Do I have the right to take over the world for its own good?’

Vision: ‘Moral quandary resolved.’

The next morning, Vision has exciting new terrible news for the team. The US Army Corp of Engineers have dug up Thanos’ secret base in Arizona from his first appearance in Iron Man #55. And despite Vision protesting how dumb it is to poke unknown alien technology in hopes of finding a cool new weapon for America’s strategic arsenal, the Department of Defense is having the army poking unknown alien technology in hopes of finding a cool new weapon for America’s strategic arsenal.

Captain America: “Blazes! I believe in a strong defense as much as anyone, but the hardware Thanos used is way out of the army’s league!”

Starfox: “Perhaps more than even you can imagine, Cap! My brother Thanos was a ravager of worlds... he coveted power and worshiped death! His hidden base could well hold the means to rip this planet asunder!”

Cool, cool.

Man, I hate it when the US Army blew up the world in 1985 by poking alien gewgaws.

Anyway, Vision did manage to talk the government into allowing a small group of Avengers to act as advisers.

Instead of rounding up scientific geniuses slash superheroes like they did for Bruce Banner’s lab, Vision just selects everyone he has handy.

He says he’d like to assign the West Coast Avengers (who in fairness do have two scientific experets - Mockingbird and Wonder Man, kinda) but they’re busy with an off-panel mission in the Pacific. Just because they don’t have a book doesn’t mean they stop doing stuff.

So instead Vision selects Captain America, Hercules, Scarlet Witch, and Starfox (who in fairness is a great choice since he knows space science and Thanos) and sends them off.

Yeah. Vision is totally going to get up to stuff while they’re gone.

This foreboding is enhanced when Captain Marvel shows up and Vision tells her he has a special assignment for her.

Vision: “Our deep space monitor has picked up some disturbing signals -- that seems to be emanating from Sanctuary II, the starship which once belonged to the mad Thanos! After the arch-fiend’s final defeat, we left his ship to drift beyond the orbit of Pluto!”

Since she’s the fastest Avenger he asks her to leave at once, fly out to the ship to check it out, and then report back.

So. Light is the fastest thing, the speed limit of the universe. Give or take tachyons which are FTL and also hypothetical. And I don’t know if Captain Marvel can turn into tachyons. Point being, the speed of light is really friggin fast but the universe is really friggin big. Even something as ‘close’ as our solar backyard where Pluto is located is 4.9 billion miles away and takes light 4.6 hours to get there from Earth.

He is definitely getting Captain Marvel out of the way where even her nyoom will take a while to get back.

The Vision slowly stalks through the corridors of Avengers Mansion. On the second floor, he pauses before the door of the quarters he for so long shared with his wife... recalling past joys and sorrows. And then, he moves on -- solemnly descending the grand staircase, as if for the final time.

O_O

Uh...... plus side is that he gives Jarvis the day off to take his mother to Montauk Point!

I just like seeing Jarvis in Avengers.

He’s always around but only occasionally seen.

My god. His vacation clothes though.

Of course, Vision being nice to Jarvis who deserves good things is only partially because Jarvis is a cool guy who deserves nice things.

Vision has managed at this point to clear everyone out of the mansion and he locks the doors behind Jarvis so that NO ONE CAN INTERRUPT WHAT HE MUST DO.

Meanwhile, team ‘prevent the military from doing anything stupid’ arrives in Arizona and at the site of Thanos’ former base.

Huh. I was half and half on whether Vision was just making shit up to get the Avengers out of the house but I guess something really is going on.

Makes sense. If they went there and found nothing, they’d return too soon.

I wonder if there’s something really going on with Thanos’ ship Sanctuary II too.

If so, was it just a great coincidence that Vision had two different emergencies he could divert the team with the day after he decided to go through with his plan or is it just the Avengers’ lot that there’s constantly emergencies going on and he had his pick of them?

Anyway. Colonel Farnam of the US Army is convinced that they have everything under control at Operation: Prize Package and don’t need any Avengers supervision.

Colonel Farnam: “If we can figure out how just a fraction of this gear works, the United States will never again need fear an enemy power!”

Captain America: “I’m told that similar sentiment was expressed following the development of the crossbow, Colonel.”

Nice sass, Cap.

But, like, the instant that the Avengers are escorted inside the base, Starfox spots some technicians messing with a machine to see what it does and they tell him to screw off when he tells them not to mess with things they don’t understand.

Starfox: “GET AWAY FROM THERE!”

Scientist: “What are you, crazy?! We’ve spent twelve hours trying to goose this transmitter to life... we’re not going to stop now!”

He has to drag them away from a sudden energy surge as the machine activates by itself with a programmed homing signal that will bring Something to the base.

Colonel Farnam: “Now hold it right there, Avenger! Only my men are authorized to monkey with these machines!”

Starfox: “Colonel, I was raised among machiens such as these! If I can’t fix these settings, your men don’t stand a chance!”

Colonel Farnam: “I don’t care if you were raised in... GOOD LORD!”

Geez. It may have been partially a ruse to get the Avengers out of the house but its a good thing Vision sent the Avengers here. The US Army was clearly going to doom the world unsupervised.

GOOD JOB RANDOM SCIENTISTS

NOW HERCULES IS GETTING HIS ASS KICKED

IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED, YOU MONSTERS??

Anyway, the Blood Brothers are some Thanos minions from early days. Weird that they never showed up for the MCU. Like, look, they didn’t need to be part of the Black Order. They don’t have the theme naming.

But these two dinguses would have made great antagonists in one of the earlier movies.

Though Starfox and Hercules get wrecked for being the nearest to the Blood Brothers when they appear, Cap and Scarlet Witch do better for being slightly forewarned.

Captain America can do the backflips to keep from getting punched and Wanda’s do anything powers are as helpful as always.

Meanwhile, back at Avengers Mansion, Dane Whitman (sometimes the Black Knight, sometimes just exhausted), arrives and tries to use his old Avengers ID card to enter.

The security system does not like that.

Anyway, back in Arizona, Starfox rejoins the fight. That’s good.

Wanda tries to do her patented ‘all oxygen play keep away from this guy’ move on one of the Blood Brothers but his super strength lets him slam the ground to break Wanda’s concentration.

The other Blood Brother tries to strangle Captain America who got knocked into a pile of rubble but Hercules emerges from underneath the rubble to do that greatest of comic book tropes.

Ah, grievous harm with a body. How I love you.

But though the Blood Brothers heads are hard enough to knock each other out, the fight did do some lasting damage.

TO MY PERCEPTION OF HERCULES!

When the Blood Brothers beat the shit out of Hercules at the beginning of the fight, they apparently tore his Hercules skirt.

And Hercules isn’t wearing anything under his Hercules skirt.

So the other three Avengers get to see Hercules’ mighty adamantine mace, so to speak.

That’s all well and good.

Except its not!

Hercules? Being ashamed of public nudity??

That doesn’t sound like the Hercules I know!

Tsk tsk, how retroactively out of character! Annnnd possibly not retroactively? Didn’t he compete in the original Olympics which were no pants allowed?

You’ve corrupted him, modern society!

Anyway.

Captain America starts yelling at the colonel because if the Avengers hadn’t been here, it would have been a major disaster.

Captain America: “You were warned -- Washington was warned -- that something like this could happen! But those warnings were almost totally ignored!”

But back at Avengers Mansion, Dane Whitman wakes up and sees this argument being broadcast on a jumbo screen.

Vision: “People never listen to those who know better! I shall have to change all that!”

Vision: “Hello, Dane. I’m sorry you had to be incapacitated. But your arrival was most unexpected... and I really can’t afford any interruptions now! You see, I have to save humanity from itself!”

Something about you seems different, Vision.

Did you become one with the universe? It’s a pretty popular move.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because whoa what huh? Vision what? Also, like and reblog. Its necessary to save humanity from itself.

[dramaticviolincrescendo]

A Fitting Finale: Bringing Ian Full-Circle

Is everyone sick of my essays yet? Excellent. Here’s another anyway!

I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is about Ian’s story in s11 that I love so much. It’s clear that he’s struggling on a number of levels, and he’s certainly spent the first third of the season under so much stress that it’s impacted his moods and marriage. In 11x04, we began to see hints of the tension breaking, and it made me realize that there’s a common trend in Ian’s behavior throughout the series coming to a head in his final act. It’s part of what has him so passionately advocating for Mickey to get a legal job, communicating their need to hammer out the specifics of what their marriage means, and upset at his own employment status.

From start to finish, Ian has been driven by two important motivators: love and fear.

Ian’s deep sense of love and compassion for others is well documented. We know that he will do anything for his family. I’ve mentioned before that Ian is at his best when he’s with them and his worst when he’s not. They’re his support system, and he’s a key part of theirs. They look after each other and rely on one another when the chips are down. They’re all grown up now, Liam being the exception, but those bonds are strong. They’ve matured and branched out to include Mickey, Tami, Franny, and Freddie. Ian’s heart belongs to his family, and he’s given as much of himself as he can to the people he’s been with over the years in whatever capacity they’ve needed him to.

Ian has also always been a fearful character, though not in the manner we typically visualize. He’s strong and motivated, ambitious and sensible, clever and insightful. When he decides that he wants something, he goes for it, from a South Side thug hovering in his orbit to pursuing the highest military accolades despite his small beginnings. Over and over again, we’ve seen him leap into serious and often strange situations in order to achieve his ends or something for the people he cares about. This man stole a water heater from a dead person’s house with his brother and tried to help his best friend hide a body. Certainly, he doesn’t fit the traditional stereotype. He’s not a coward.

But Ian is terrified—of everything:

·        Not amounting to anything

·        Not being worthy of love

·        Being the center of attention

·        Fading into the background and being forgotten

·        Not being able to help other people or those he loves

·        Not having a path

·        Not being in control of himself

·        Not being enough

He’s never said it. He’s never discussed these issues, except perhaps not having control. That isn’t who he is. That’s never been his way. Maybe we should add fear of communicating too, or fear of being seen as weak.

In s1, Ian makes a lot of brave choices. He comes out to three people, two of them family members, knowing how that is viewed in their neighborhood. When Mickey is after him, Ian takes the battle to his doorstep. He turns his back on an arguably easier life in a nice, middle-class neighborhood and a home with a father who would provide for him to live in the constant struggle to which he has grown accustomed. On the surface, he’s one put together kid. But then there’s Kash. There’s this man who preys on him, a middle child so responsible (and so male) that no one thinks he’d fall into any sort of trap—and Ian is desperate to keep him. He fights Lip over it and so painfully tries to make him understand his perspective, that he’s spending money he should probably be using for things he needs to buy Kash music and baseball tickets, to make him like what Ian does so that they can build their so-called relationship. That Kash is married with kids is unimportant to him; that he’s exploiting Ian’s fear of loneliness and not finding love outside his siblings, unthinkable. We know it. Lip sees it, powerless as he feels to do anything about it. Ian can’t. To date, he never will. He’s blinded by a culture that doesn’t believe such things can happen to males, and until Mickey comes along as a viable outlet for his affections and source of the ones he needs, he’s too afraid to be cautious.

Throughout s2 and s3, Ian makes difficult decisions. They’re not always smart, but it takes great strength to commit to the choices he makes: allowing Monica into his life, voicing even an ounce of his feelings to Mickey, pursuing West Point, and running away. All of them, however, are driven by love and fear alike. He’s vulnerable and needs his mother, the one who slaps Frank for shoving him and listens when he feels alone. She assuages his fears by telling him what he needs to hear: that he can do and be anything. We know there’s a danger in that, especially when she takes him to enlist when he’s nowhere near old enough, but it’s still validating for him. It feeds that need for attention but not too much attention, for understanding but not coddling, for love that originates from someone who isn’t his siblings. We see similar trends emerge: fear of losing Mickey on multiple occasions, fear that he’ll forever be in Lip’s shadow when he receives a letter of recommendation instead of Ian, and fear of never having Mickey’s full affections spiraling into fear of facing his own emotions in the aftermath of the wedding. We’ve seen that Ian runs from what he can’t process. He runs from what he can’t handle. He runs when he’s scared, especially of himself.

It continues repeatedly throughout the series. In s4, Ian is afraid of going backwards and once again losing his position in Mickey’s life. In s5, he’s afraid of being a burden on everyone around him, changing them, and losing control of his own mind. In s6, he’s afraid that this is it: his path and his goals have come to nothing, and he’s doomed to fall into the shadows where no one will ever see or love him. In s7, that fear of himself re-emerges when a patient is hurt on his watch and he has to come to terms with the fact that being better doesn’t mean he’s “cured.” In s8, he’s afraid of the void where Monica and Mickey used to be, and it sends him spiraling into a deeper one he doesn’t fear until it’s too late. In s9, he fears a lack of guidance, an indecisiveness born of having been able to rely on his hallucinations to tell him what to do. His path is gone, and he has no options. And that’s terrifying. Then Mickey is there, and he can put some of his fears to rest until they resurge with the idea of marriage in s10. All of a sudden, he’s back where he was in s5, fearing himself but also what he’ll do to someone he loves.

In s11, we’re seeing an Ian far more like he was in earlier seasons: rigidly devoted to having a plan, knowing what’s coming next, and ticking off certain boxes on the list of things you’re “supposed to do” as a married adult male. He’s spent a lot of this season seeking value in his employment and position in their marriage, and the stress has been dragging him down—quickly.

And it’s no wonder: he has every reason to be scared right now.

The thing about prison is that it is what’s known as a total institution. It is removed from society and, as such, operates under its own social beliefs, values, and norms. Like the military, another total institution, prison involves an initial period of sloughing off roles and identities from the greater society and subsequently being resocialized into a new role set. Upon release, a person undergoes the same process in reverse, and there’s an adjustment period to reintegrate into normal society. We can see that process begin when Ian gets in the car with Lip and shudders a bit, unsettled at the prospect of being outside these walls for the first time in months—going home far earlier than anticipated. For many people, it’s a difficult transformation, especially once they realize the full extent of how your life changes as an ex-convict in the U.S.

Ian doesn’t really get to adjust. From s8 to the start of s11, he undergoes a whirlwind of emotion and change. He literally loses touch with reality, starts a cult, commits a felony, is on the run from law enforcement, allows himself to be captured with one final display, goes to jail, remains unmedicated until he’s bailed out, panics at what his movement became, feels alone in the house as everyone deals with their own business and leaves him to his own devices, seeks guidance from above only to realize it wasn’t what he thought it was, can’t find answers, has warring factions telling him how to plead in court, ostensibly takes a plea deal that requires some amount of time behind bars, goes to prison, finds the love of his life there waiting for him, has to let his sister go, is released without Mickey, gets repeatedly screwed over by a corrupt PO, gets engaged, breaks up (sort of), gets engaged again, sees his wedding venue burned down, gets married, and hurtles straight into a pandemic. That’s… That’s a lot. Being a newlywed in a pandemic is a lot without all the rest of it, but this is what Ian is dealing with going into s11, and he hasn’t had the benefit of a stable readjustment and reintegration period.

He’s drowning.

He’s scared.

He has every reason to be. Marriage is scary, especially if you are so young and so in love with the person you’re marrying. Employment is scary, especially for them, because it could mean the difference between paying the utilities and running out of water. Change in general is scary, especially when it hasn’t done you any favors before.

Add all that to what Ian’s behavior has indicated that he’s been afraid of since the start, and you have a recipe for disaster.

To a great extent, that’s what I think his arc is all about this season: learning how to live again. It’s about not being so afraid of himself that he desperately grasps for any stereotypical structure for married life that he can. It’s about regaining the confidence that has always left him clawing his way to the top instead of letting life beat him down. It’s about finding the happy medium where he and Mickey aren’t doing anything illegal but aren’t stuck in a valueless spiral, scrambling and struggling to pay the bills like when they were kids.

It’s about learning not to be so afraid anymore, and I think that’s a beautiful goodbye for a beautiful character.

[bau-rookie]

a close examination of Hotch and Foyet

in which Hotch’s greatest strength becomes his fatal flaw.

(a/n: super long essay, because i don’t know how else to consume media apparently lol. i’ve been sitting on this since “100″ because it is really sad and I just wanted to make sure I get all my thoughts in order. It is, to my discovery, Aaron Hotchner’s birthday today, so what better way to celebrate than by explaining all the ways the Foyet arc reads like a Greek tragedy and how Hotch is an amazingly well-written character. Sorry the only way I can think about paying tribute is by making myself sad. Oh there’s GIFs too! I made them and that’s neat :D)

I. Ingredients for a Greek tragedy.

Greek tragedies stem from classical plays, usually about the nobility, and is centered around their struggle against the Gods/Fate. The noble character has a hamartia, or a fatal flaw, usually their own arrogance, that brings upon their own downfall.

Technically, Criminal Minds would fall under the category of modern tragedy which focuses more on common people and everyday problems. (Though you could argue that being a BAU profiler isn’t your typical career, which makes our characters noble not by blood, but in spirit.)

In modern tragedy, there is less of an emphasis on the involvement of a higher power or Fate. Every bad thing that happens is of mankind’s own making, and this is something that CM discusses often, that evil isn’t necessarily brought upon by a higher power. It’s brought upon by ordinary people choosing to do terrible things. 

And Foyet is no different. He chose to kill all these people because he wanted to, but his fascination with Hotch and how his plans for him play out, entrap Hotch in a tragedy more Greek in nature.

What Foyet ultimately does is take Hotch’s greatest strength—his stoic resolve to serve justice—and uses it to hold him personally responsible for the death of his ex-wife, all while bending the hand of Fate to his will.

II. Hotch as a noble character.

In “Omnivore” we are introduced to the Reaper and the many ways he tries to exert control and power over his victims. After killing so many times loses its appeal, the Reaper decides to toy with detective Tom Shaunessey by offering him a deal—if you stop hunting me, I will stop hunting them. 

While we sympathize with Shaunessey simply trying to save lives, he does so with the knowledge that he is deliberately letting a serial killer go free. The fear and the guilt eats away at him until his death.

Hotch, on the other hand, quickly establishes himself to be a resolute pursuer of justice. We don’t get to make those decisions. We don’t let them get away with it. He holds onto the idea that they have no right to decide who lives or dies and that the victims that unsubs like the Reaper takes, are not something he, or anyone in his line of work, should feel responsible for. Their sole responsibility is to stop them. 

This isn’t to say that Hotch is unaffected by the increasing number of bodies. When he turns down the deal and the Reaper attacks the bus full of people, he is visibly shaken by this, so much so that we see Hotch cry for the first time. It takes Rossi delivering some tough love to remind him of what’s important.

Look, if you want to end up like Shaunessy, like Gideon, blaming yourself for everything, you go ahead. But that voice in your head—it’s not your conscience. It’s your ego. This isn’t about us, Aaron. It’s about the bad guys. That why we profile them. It’s their fault. We’re just guys doing a job. And when we stop doing it someone else will.

Hotch and the team in general, are faced with constant reminders that they are only human. They are fallible and cannot control every outcome. 

Not everyone can handle the stresses of being a profiler. Despite the horrors, the chance of failing, Hotch’s greatest strength is his stoic resolve. He’s become our beloved Unit Chief, the person on the team who takes on the most pressure, takes it upon himself to, at times, shield the rest of the team from the greater burdens. Personally, he’s arguably also the one who sacrificed the most to have this job, having lost his marriage.

Yet despite the horrors, despite the toll, Hotch shows up for the job anyway. Because he can’t imagine letting the bad guys get away with it.

III. Foyet as a representation of Fate

“The Eye of Providence. A symbol adopted by the U.S. Government with the words: Annuit Coeptis. Latin for “Providence or fate has favored our undertakings.” The Reaper seems to see himself as the personification of Fate.”  — Dr. Spencer Reid, “Omnivore”

From the beginning Foyet is shown to have a flair for theatrics. He leaves markings of the Eye of Providence, writes Fate in blood, calls himself the The Reaper. He has delusions of grandeur and posits himself as a higher power, one who gets to decide the course of other people’s lives. Everyone who has the misfortune of coming into contact with the Reaper, becomes another chess piece in his twisted game of Fate.

In another life, Hotch would never cross paths with Foyet. But because he did, Foyet acts as Fate, bringing down divine intervention in the form of driving Hotch into a tragedy of his own making.

Foyet acting as Fate is, paradoxically, also an argument against the actual existence of Fate. Everything that happens is a result of Foyet’s choices. It is him, a man, and not Fate who is choosing to kill, maim and be cruel.

When it came to Shaunessy, Foyet also emphasized pinning the blame of the death of innocent lives on the failure of law enforcement. It isn’t Fate when there’s something you could do to stop it. Shaunessy took the deal because he felt personally responsible for the possible loss of lives, an outcome that Foyet pretty much predicted, but one that doesn’t really affect him. Shaunessy agrees, he gets off on controlling the police. If he doesn’t, well, he can just keep on killing.

Foyet repeats the deal with Hotch. Offers him the deal, which Hotch refuses then immediately murders 7 people on the bus, setting a chain of cause and effect that makes it seems like Hotch’s actions led to this gruesome outcome. Again, placing the blame personally, on Hotch. And Hotch does blame himself, if momentarily.

Later, once Foyet escapes and corners Hotch in his own apartment, he makes it clear, you should have made a deal. Foyet acts as a vessel for Fate, a vehicle through which the consequences of Hotch’s actions are served. 

Foyet takes it a step further, when he puts Haley and Jack in witness protection. Left all the usual clues, to simply say your wife and child are in danger because you never took the deal. I hold all the cards here, your fate will come for you eventually.

Then Foyet disappears, and waits. Leaving Hotch filled with guilt over endangering his ex-wife and child, at the mercy of Foyet’s arbitration of Fate.

IV. Dominoes and fatal flaws

By the time “100″ rolls around, you’re so captivated by the action happening on screen that it’s easy to overlook how we got there. When I first watched this season, I had assumed that Foyet would be put on the back burner until the end of the season. His quicker-than-expected return seems to be happenstance, the writers behind-the-scenes doing some plot magic, but if you reexamine the events that lead up to “100″ we see Foyet’s greater machinations at play.

On the surface, the preceding episode “Outfoxed” seems to be a straight forward throwback to an earlier case. Faced with a family annihilator, Hotch and Emily visit the original Fox in prison, believing the current unsub might be a copycat. The episode seems to be about the mental toll being a profiler brings, with Emily contending with a sense of disgust at having to get intimate with a serial killer (post-”Lauren” this reads very differently, but I digress). Until right at the end, when they reveal the admirer letters were actually from Foyet, and the one being outfoxed is Hotch.

When the events of “100″ go down, we hear Foyet repeatedly blame Hotch for what happens with Haley, calls out what we see as a noble resolve to instead be Hotch’s fatal flaw. It was the same thing that led Haley to leave him, a failing borne from Hotch’s own ego, the part of him that insists that it be him who catches the bad guys, that it be him who risks it all. And Foyet uses that to his advantage, uses Hotch’s resolve to trick him into thinking that maybe he did cause all of this tragedy to happen.

One small detail that caught my attention, and set me on this Greek tragedy path, is when they try to track down Foyet in “100″, Garcia notes that he had set an internet search alert for the name “Peter Rhea.”

At this point, Foyet was ready to go after Haley and Jack. He already had pictures and surveillance of the U.S. Marshall in charge of them. He could’ve gone and killed them anytime, but that’s not how Foyet operates. He needs Hotch to feel personally responsible for things ending badly. He set the bait with the letters and simply had to wait for Hotch and the team to get close enough, to find Peter Rhea. This is, of course, incredibly risky. The team could catch him before Foyet gets anywhere close to Haley and Jack, but Foyet is sure of himself and is an extensive planner. He made sure he was always two steps ahead.

The irony is that Foyet would never have gone after Haley and Jack if Hotch and the team didn’t get close to tracking him down. There’s an added layer of Spencer figuring out Foyet’s alias using his genius anagram deciphering brain and Garcia’s expert tech analyst skills. Foyet managed to hurt Hotch because this specific BAU team are just too damn good at their jobs.

Foyet set up dominoes that only Aaron Hotchner could tip to fall. He does it so well it almost feels like Fate.

V. The inevitability of fate

“Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster called destiny.”  — John Hobbes, “Omnivore” closing quote.

A key aspect of Greek tragedy, is that Fate is often the result of divine intervention. They cause certain events to happen in certain ways so as to result in the most tragic outcome, usually death. It’s designed so that the audience is aware of what’s to come, and can see no other way for the story to end. The tragedy is supposed to feel inevitable.

One could argue, that there is no such thing as Fate. Life is simply a sequence of random happenstance, but our need to prescribe meaning to the chaos cobbles up stories of predetermined destinies. Especially when the idea of owning up to our mistakes and their consequences is too much.

All of this was the result of one sick man, George Foyet, choosing to be so cruel. And Hotch was simply a victim of circumstance because if Foyet wasn’t going after Hotch, he’d be going after someone else.

But what are the odds that Hotch’s first case as lead profiler happens to be The Boston Reaper? It was from that moment that Hotch’s fate was really sealed, he and Foyet would be forever intertwined. 

Hotch, being who he is, had inadvertently, made the Reaper personal. Even when his BAU team was sent away, his resolve wouldn’t let the Reaper simply disappear. It led him to build his profile, alone and over many years. Any other person might’ve just let the case go, but not Hotch.

So when Shaunessy died and the Reaper resurfaced, the only person in the world who knows enough about the Reaper to track him down, is Hotch. It’s what leads him to George Foyet, a victim at first glance, and Hotch comes to him unaware that he is promising The Reaper a new, worthy adversary, one a decade in the making. And everything, from his prison escape, to his attack on Hotch in his apartment, plays out exactly as Foyet expects it to, because as much as Hotch can read him, Foyet can read his behavior too.

At the end of 5x03, “Reckoner”, Rossi talks about what could have been when it comes to his childhood sweetheart to Hotch. About how he was too obsessed with his job, with the hunt that he gave up his chance of having a family. Rossi warns Hotch, don’t make my mistakes, kid.

You have a family. When all this is over, what are you gonna do to make sure you’re not a lonely guy wondering why you let the purest thing in your life get away?

My initial reaction was that they were setting up for Hotch to leave the BAU for good. The man who hung on to the job so much that it cost him his marriage, for the first time, actually considers leaving it all behind him. Because what Rossi says to him, driven by the circumstances that Foyet has created, is too profound for him to ignore. Foyet is too big of a thing to just move on from once its over.

Of course, my hopes of Hotch riding off into sunset to live a quieter life and watch his son grow up were optimistic at best. It’s a fantasy that purposely ignores the reality of who Hotch is, simply because I want the alternative to be possible. By the time Haley is buried, and Strauss offers Hotch retirement, we already know what his answer is going to be. Because everything we know about this man can only lead us to one conclusion.

Aaron Hotchner is the man who goes after the bad guys, the man who doesn’t let them get away with it. No matter how much I yell at my screen about how Hotch should just retire and spend all his time with Jack, deep down I knew that was never going to happen. Him losing Haley and still going back to work, seems like the only logical outcome. It’s almost feels inevitable.

VI. Catharsis

The point of tragedy is, according to Aristotle, to achieve catharsis. The purging of emotion through the telling of another person’s suffering. And that’s what “100″ does (unless your heart is made of stone and you somehow did not tear up even once).

Others would say that tragedy is meant to teach us a lesson. Meant to teach us the limits of our mortal abilities, to warn against hubris and arrogance; to remind us that they are higher powers and unseen forces beyond our understanding or control.

Criminal Minds doesn’t try to give us that lesson. Like in so many previous cases, the premise of a crime procedural is really a way of examining human nature. Why do people do bad things? More often than not, though our profilers can figure out how an unsub goes from doing thing A to thing B, they don’t have a satisfying answer for why. 

In Foyet’s case, he does all of this to Hotch because he can, because he enjoys making him suffer. It is evil, unnecessarily cruel. There is no sense to be found in what happened.

But “100″ does not deliver pure tragedy. It ended in the death of Haley but it also provided hope in the survival of Jack. Hotch finally rids the world of Foyet, though the way it went down, you can’t help but wonder about the price of justice, if the cost is too much for this one man to pay. But then the show reminds the audience, that this one man isn’t bearing that cost alone.

Aaron Hotchner has his team, his family, and with their support, a chance to recover from the tragedy that Foyet wrought.

I used to think that, despite being dead, George Foyet still won. He set out to hurt Hotch, and that’s exactly what he did. We’ve only seen Hotch openly cry twice at this point, and they both were directly caused by Foyet. And I suppose that’s still partly true. It’s hard to really tell with our stone-faced unit chief, but it’s hard to see how Foyet wouldn’t linger.

But that victory isn’t absolute. Foyet is gone, and he loses every time Jack gets to spend another day happy and alive. Foyet loses, every time Hotch shows up for the job and doesn’t let another unsub like him get away with it.

And maybe that’s the lesson. That though good doesn’t always triumph over evil, there is a way to move past tragedy. And that path lies not in solitude, in carrying the burden alone, but in the solace of our friends and family who can bear witness to all that we must face.

For all all my waxing poetic about how Hotch is a noble hero, this entire ordeal just shows how human he is. Yet despite his flaws and the tragedy, the core unassailable truth of who he is, the values he represents, remain unchanged.

He is Aaron Hotchner. The guy who hunts down guys like Foyet. The guy who doesn’t let the bad guys get away with it. The guy who, despite everything, managed to save his son. The guy who will keep his promise to the woman he was once married to, to teach their son that love is the most important thing. The guy who makes sure that his son knows that good people do exist.

Aaron Hotchner is the guy who, despite all the hurt, the pain and the loss, chooses to be the hero. And that’s the farthest thing from tragic.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 16, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Disgraced retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn is endorsing candidates for office.

Flynn advised former president Trump’s 2016 campaign and was Trump’s first national security adviser. He served for just 22 days before having to resign after news broke that he had lied to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

Flynn pleaded guilty to "willfully and knowingly" lying to the FBI but withdrew the plea two weeks before sentencing. Then–attorney general William Barr directed the Department of Justice to drop all charges against Flynn before former president Donald Trump pardoned him on November 25, 2020.

Just days later, Flynn retweeted a news release from a right-wing Ohio group called “We the People Convention.” That release contained a petition asking Trump to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, silence the media, and have the military “oversee a national re-vote” of the 2020 election. The petition ended by calling on Trump “to boldly act to save our nation…. We will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands, and defend our rights on our own, if you do not act within your powers to defend us.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley immediately opposed Flynn’s suggestion. He distanced the military from talk of a coup. “Our military is very very capable… we are determined to defend the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “No one should doubt that.” A defense official told Military Times that the idea of Trump declaring martial law and having the military redo the election is “insane in a year that we didn’t think could get anymore insane.”

But Trump did not back down. On December 2, he released a video he said was “maybe the most important speech I’ve ever made.” It was a 46-minute rant insisting that, despite all evidence to the contrary, he won the 2020 election. While he lost virtually every court challenge he mounted and his own attorney general, William Barr, said there was no evidence of fraud that would change the outcome of the election, Trump insisted that there was “massive” voter fraud and called on the Supreme Court to “do what’s right for our country,” including throwing out hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes so “I very easily win in all states.”

Flynn had been an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy, taking an oath to it on July 4, 2020. On January 8, 2021, Twitter permanently banned Flynn, along with others who were promoting the views of the QAnon conspiracy that Trump actually won the 2020 election.  

But, far from disappearing, Flynn has continued to speak to pro-Trump groups and to rebuild his brand, going so far in May as to call for a coup in the U.S. like that happening in Myanmar, where in February the military seized power from the democratically elected government.

Flynn appears to be regaining ground among Trump loyalists. Yesterday, in Michigan, he endorsed a Republican candidate for secretary of state, the official in charge of elections. The candidate, Kristina Karamo, tweeted that she was honored to receive the endorsement of Flynn, whom she called “a victim of political persecution” who “continues to fight fearlessly for [America]. His selflessness, wisdom, and kindness encourages us all.”

Today, Flynn endorsed Eric Greitens for a Missouri senate seat. Greitens resigned from the Missouri governorship in 2018, after accusations that he had threatened and assaulted an affair partner and suggestions that he had used an email list from a nonprofit for his political campaign. Greitens resigned in disgrace but is trying to relaunch his political career as a Trump supporter, running for the Senate seat of retiring Missouri Senator Roy Blunt. Greitens has picked up the endorsements of a number of Trump loyalists, although he has not yet received the endorsement of Trump, despite courting it quite eagerly.

In his announcement of support for Greitens, Flynn made a play for the leadership of the MAGA movement by attacking the Republicans who refused to get on board with Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

His announcement played off Tuesday’s news that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who had opposed his talk of a military coup to keep Trump in office, had reassured his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not attack without provocation and notice despite the former president’s erratic and dangerous behavior during the last weeks of his term. Trump Republicans are demanding Milley’s resignation, but their determination to undermine Milley by portraying him as a tool of what they are calling the “radical left” has been evident for a while. In the spring, Republican lawmakers complained that, as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “Dem politicians & woke media are trying to turn [the military] into pansies.” Milley defended the idea that it is important “for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read” and said, “I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it.” Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson called him “a pig” and “stupid.”

In his message endorsing Greitens, Flynn brought these themes together and seemed to be trying to advance his own future in the government in place of Trump: “America needs fighters,” he said. “Worse than the radical leftists, the corrupt Deep State, the mainstream media, and Big Tech are the feckless and spineless Republicans who have utterly surrendered…. [T]hose who betrayed President Trump the most were not the leftists but the cowardly Republicans in Name Only…. We don’t need any more insiders or career politicians in Washington, especially not those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” an apparent reference to Milley’s calls with his counterpart in China. Flynn applauded Greitens’ suggestion that the 2020 election was stolen, and then said he was proud to stand with Greitens “in our shared mission to revive our Republic.”

Flynn seems to be trying to pick up Trump's falling mantle as the former president himself appears to be losing relevance.

In Tuesday’s recall election in California, Democrats framed the choice as one between Governor Gavin Newsom and his Trump-like chief rival, and voters resoundingly rejected the Republican. Even among Trump’s usual base, his appeal seems to be fading. According to sportswriter Dan Rafael, who specializes in boxing, sources have told him that the September 11 fight between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort—the fight Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., commented on—garnered only about 150,000 pay-per-view buys, which means it grossed about $7.5 million. This is, Rafael says “a massive $ loser…not remotely close to covering even the purses, not to mention rest of expenses.”

Flynn’s attempt to reinsert himself into American politics is a story that I’m watching, but the bigger news today is coming out of China, where the country’s second-largest property developer, China Evergrande Group, is tottering. Evergrande has assets of $355 billion; it employs 200,000 staff members and hires about 3.8 million people a year for its different projects.

The slowing property markets in China and a government crackdown on reckless borrowing have weakened the huge entity. Its collapse would destabilize Chinese banks. People worried about the safety of their investments, and vendors worrying they will not be paid have begun to protest outside the company’s main headquarters; they have been removed by security. Observers expect the Chinese government will help to manage any forthcoming collapse, but the ripples from such a failure will likely be felt around the world.

—

Notes:

Dan Rafael @DanRafael1Per sources, #HolyfieldBelfort event totaled about 150k PPV buys between linear & digital platforms, which would make it a massive $ loser for Triller. At 150k it would gross about $7.5M from ppv, not remotely close to covering even the purses, not to mention rest of expenses.

228 Retweets1,492 Likes

September 16th 2021

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-bans-michael-flynn-sidney-powell-qanon-account-purge-n1253550

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-eric-greitens-endorsement/2021/07/22/9e9998a2-e8c0-11eb-97a0-a09d10181e36_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/23/eric-greitens-senate-governor-affair/

https://taskandpurpose.com/pentagon-run-down/tucker-carlson-military-mark-milley/

https://www.businessinsider.com/tucker-carlson-white-rage-clip-video-fox-news-general-milley-2021-6

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/21/conservative-critics-military-policies-490197

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/mark-milley-critical-race-theory/

https://themissouritimes.com/greitens-endorsed-by-michael-flynn/

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/556209-michael-flynn-says-myanmar-like-coup-should-happen-in-the-us

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/kinzinger-republican-political-points-milley

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-bans-michael-flynn-sidney-powell-qanon-account-purge-n1253550

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/07/to-celebrate-the-fourth-michael-flynn-posts-a-pledge-to-conspiracy-group-qanon/

https://www.reuters.com/business/how-china-evergrandes-debt-troubles-pose-systemic-risk-2021-09-16/?s=03

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/business/evergrande-debt-crisis.html?s=03

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/16/protestors-hauled-away-from-evergrande-hq-as-meltdown-fears-mount

https://www.reuters.com/article/china-evergrande-debt-contagion-idCNL4N2QG1T9

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mellow-em]

Bedlam (Sam Drake)

CHAPTER 1: LEFT BEHIND

The life she had built in only a year had disintegrated, and she was set on her stubborn mindset of finding her purpose away from Jackson.

I DO NOT OWN ANY TLOU OR UNCHARTED CHARACTERS! ALL RIGHTS GO TO NAUGHTY DOG!

(This is a tlou x uncharted crossover. It’s set in tlou universe, but its a fic between an oc of mine, and Sam! I’m not sure how this is gonna turn out so please bear with me)

Prologue

_________________________________

-ABOUT 3/4 YEARS LATER-

Nevada, U.S.

_________________________________

The green inferno of the forest surrounding me was almost suffocating at this point, not to mention my lungs burning from the treacherous run I had to commit to in the boiling temperatures of Nevada not even a few moments ago.  

This trip was supposed to be a simple one to retrieve food, scope out the area, and return to the base I developed overtime. Though, I guess it was my fault to even consider it a non-lengthy adventure, with the infected still coursing through the entirety of the world.

It almost felt like my backpack was weighing on my entire body as I lazily slid myself down against the base of a tree to sit myself onto the foliage. As my  momentary vitality wore away, my limbs weakened with every passing second.

Running aimlessly for your life was the only thing that annoyed the hell out of me, mainly because it happens so often now.

It was mainly caused by the wide ranges of infected that have been circulating this area for weeks, all while trapping me within their circulation as I ventured further into the forest.

Since then, there had been little to no escape from their confinement in the middle of the woods. I would need to break for it sooner or later.

While I knew it was a huge risk, I couldn’t also risk dying from famine or another natural circumstance. Joel had always told me it was ridiculous of me to perceive death as a triumphant experience that needed to be commemorated and memorable.

But to me, if I died from a natural cause, I would feel as though it could be added to the list of wasted opportunities for something all the more grand.

The mind fog slowly engulfing me was blown away by a branch cracking not too far from where I was sitting.

My ears, along with my attention, perked up by the sudden noise.

Shit.

My hand slowly glided across the side of my hip, reaching for what I pray could be a good defense. I felt the slightest bit of relief when I grazed the handle of my switchblade.

The wooden handle was carved smoothly to encase the sharpened metal end; it was something beautifully valuable to me, as it was one of the things that I had left that reminded me of Jackson, and of my surrogate family.

The family I left behind.

There was another small detonation of what now sounded to be leaves crunched on the dirt. Whomever or whatever it was, it wasn’t moving quickly.

My mind first created the image of a clicker, though its grotesque voice wasn’t echoing throughout the trees. My thoughts began to charge as I began contemplating my next move.

As the noises got closer towards the trunk I hid myself behind, my breathing became ragged and unsteady. Growing more frantic, I discarded the knife idea, and reached for my revolver that was wedged into its holster.

Slowly pulling the gun out, my hands gripped it with a force that turned my knuckles into flaming snow. The heartbeat I carried within me scorched in my throat, creating a lump I very much needed to swallow.

I gulped down the blockage harshly, reverberating a sound too loud considering the condition of my surroundings. I cursed myself out in my head for it, knowing I’d have to turn the safety of the gun off not too long after.

I hoped intelligence of what was traveling closer to me was slim to none, mainly because anyone with an average IQ could probably recognise the sounds and cause a scene.

I suck in a cavernous breath, only to release it with a shaken state packaged alongside.

I close my eyes, and prepare for the worst, before raising from my stance on the ground.

My gun was firmly held in front of me, as if it were a barrier from all evil. I only took the time to stare at the culprit of the echoing commotions for a second, before pressing my fingers down on the trigger. 

A low pitched grunt reverberated through my ears, along with the blare of a gunshot. The figure jerked slightly from it’s position while doing so, creating a brief stumble. 

As I lowered the gun from it’s stern position in my hands, an overwhelming wave of tension froze my body in place. 

My thin eyebrows retracted from being furrowed from anger to worry, as did the slight wrinkles present on my features from years of age and affliction. 

The menace responsible for my frightened, yet threatening state wasn’t any form of the fungal infested beings that surrounded this forest.

It was a man.

His back was slightly turned, though I was able to take in a few of his features. His hair was a lighter brown, with the sun brightening its shade by a ton. It was fairly short, though it looked as though it had been neglected.

He held a navy blue long sleeve on his back, with dirt particles, along with sweat coating it altogether. It was fairly warm where we were, so it was apparent that he either wasn’t from here, or he didn’t know how to properly succumb to the weather. 

My eyes then traveled down to his lower back. It was drenched in a hauntingly beautiful shade of crimson. I could clearly hear the rapid breaths fuming from his mouth, almost in the form of a wheeze too. God what have I done.

As soon as I finally had the strength to take a step towards him, his breath hitches. He whips around to face me, giving me an opportunity to take in his face.

I noticed his shrewd blue eyes that were almost a shade of sapphire. Though, I was able to pinpoint multiple blotches of green and lighter hues of turquoise.

Overall though, his eyes were glossed over with sheer pain along with an obvious smudge of exhaustion. 

He held a small amount of stubble along the lines of his sharp jawline and chin. But again, it looked to be just as unkempt as the rest of him. He was a mess of course. But, courtesy of me, he was an even bigger disaster. 

 His face continued to contort in pain, much to my guilt and dismay. The unknown state of his physical trauma unnerved me to no end; I needed to look at the damage I’ve caused for myself. 

“Lift your shirt,” I simply croaked, with me then earning a look of defiance with a hint of panic.

“Why should I-”

“Christ do you wanna die out here?,” I questioned rhetorically, which surprisingly shut him up swiftly.

I knelt down towards the covered wound, though a strong tear was visible on his shirt. 

“Fuck, it shot straight through.” I mumbled to myself, with a string of curse words following after. 

I inspected the shredded fabric for a little longer before remembering the constraint that potential death was forcing him to endure. The pads of my fingertips grazed the shirt gently.

His eyes travel to my hands, watching my fingers place themselves on the hem of his shirt to lift it. 

My eyes widened slightly as I notice his shirt was snug on the wound, most likely making it impossible to lift it without more pain than normal. 

And with that action, a wave of anxiety visibly washes over him, “what is it?”

“Your shirt is stuck to it-.. this is gonna hurt”

“It’s okay I've had wors- oh crap,” his voice crumbled as he hissed the words out, his speech faltering due the pain. 

“Sorry- shit” I stop for a moment to gently life the shirt from the bloodstained skin of his lower abdomen before continuing to raise it any further. Once the shirt was detached from clinging to him, my fingers hoist the shirt upwards delicately, as the man still continues to wince in distress.

The whole mess on his stomach was the scene of a bloodbath; revealing the reason for the floods of ichor that canceled out the tones of his tanned skin.

It was something that definitely can create a burden, or even a grim fate for the poor bastard. A gaping hole surged through his abdomen, with blood now circling the gash.

“Holy fuck,” I breathed out. I rushed to turn away from his injury, with my gag reflex threatening me with my inspections continuing.

He was losing a lot of blood, and at this rate his injury would become infectious if nothing is done quickly. Or he could die right in front of me, and I couldn’t let my carelessness with a gun jeopardize someones life. 

I’m such a fucking idiot.

I let my backpack fall off my shoulders and onto the ground behind me, giving off minimal sound.

A few strands of short hair fell from behind my ears, eventually sticking to my face that happened to be drenched in sweat.

I unzipped my bag, and with no hesitation, I dove my hands in to reach for what I hoped would be exactly what I was looking for.

I felt around the entirety of the pack’s interior, with that sliver of hope deteriorating each time I touched an item. After a few moments of searching through, I could hear the man stumble slightly behind me.

As if on cue, I felt a roll of soft fabric brush the surface of my fingers, and I released a sigh of pure relief. I pull the roll of firm gauze from its original place in my bag, and turn to face the now whimpering man.

I could see tears threatening to form in his eyes as I looked at him, and my lips flatlined; he was in so much pain but he still attempted to hide it. 

His skin was getting to be dangerously pale, with his warm complexion draining with his blood.

I stand from the ground, carefully placing my free hand onto his broad shoulder. He jumped suddenly as I did so, but visibly relaxed as much as he could after a few moments.

“I need you to try and sit on this.” I bob my head towards the direction of a larger rock protruding from the ground beneath. It was covered in mud along with various patches of carpet-like moss, but it would have to do.

He hesitates, pushing me away from him slightly, “I’m gonna be fine I don’t need you to-”

“Not to be rude but shut the fuck up and sit, please” I gave him a pleading stare, hoping he would stop being so damn stubborn.

After taking the deepest of inhales to secure his oxygen, he maneuvers himself to sit on the rock. He remained stiff, still choking on his own projectile yelps of anguish, but he managed to get himself down onto the rock. 

“I’m gonna wrap this around you, alright?” I lean back down onto the ground, closer to his wounded midriff, with the medical wrapping clenched within both of my palms.

The man exchanged a look between my hands that held the gauze, and the expression draped across my face. He looked even more unsure of me now than when he glanced at me the first time after me shooting him, but in all honesty I wasn’t going to judge.

I continued to let him contemplate whether to bail or remain in my care for now, as frustrating as it was getting. I wasn’t usually the type of person to let my impatience tower over my empathy unless necessary, even though I had snapped at him once already.

It wasn’t until I heard the gruesome sounds of the undead not too far from us, that I didn’t wait for a single ounce of approval. No matter what, I wasn’t going to let him die in my sights if I have this chance to save him in front of me.

As I begin to hastily wrap the bandage around his injury, he unintentionally cries out in pain, unknowingly triggering the numbers of infected surrounding the forest.

Their moans of displeasure and sickening thirst for the suffering such as us grew closer, and I began to panic for the crippled human before me.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

“What is it-,” his confusion snapped into worry as soon as a whale of a runner erupts towards the east, “Oh crap.”

“They must've heard the commotion,” I muttered under my breath.

Once I finally wrap the injury to my satisfaction, I bring the roll to my mouth and tear the wrapping away from the roll itself as quickly as I could. While holding the gauze protection in place, I turn around to face my backpack once more.

With another minute passing by, the intense roars of clickers catches my attention now. My rapid breathing began to shake my body, and wrestle with my stomach. I needed to move much faster.

I drop the gauze from my hands in, and replace it with a roll of duct tape. With my mouth, I rip off a large strand of the structured adhesive, placing it over the bandage to hold it in place.

I unravel his now crinkled shirt, covering the work I had just done with one swift motion.

“We have to go. NOW.” I gesture for him to get up with urgency, in which he does so with minimal grace; stumbling slightly with a pained expression drenched on his entire being.

I grab my backpack, and throw it over my shoulders before allowing his arm to swing over my shoulders for support.

I did my best to solely sustain my focus on him as he got situated, annihilating the thoughts of dying in the hands of the infected.

“Get ready to haul ass, come on!”

He grunted in response as I began to trudge through the woodland forest with him fitted at my side.

This ominous feeling of anxiousness while pleading to save another created a sense of deja vu. I’ve been in this situation before, but with someone I once knew. Joel.

History was beginning to replicate, leaving my mind clouded with the thought of each event running its course fully with new people.

I let out an exasperated sigh, annoyed with my unfortunate timing for such conceptions. I needed to focus, not reminisce.

Another groan from behind me resulted in a complete snap back into reality.

While carrying the man’s force, heaves of air continued enter and escape his lips as he began to stumble on his feet slightly. The feeling of his weight was growing heavier, as he became much weaker.

“Shit, stay with me. We got this.” my attempts at reassurance did not prevail however, with his hyperventilation slowly progressing into drawn out sighs.

My grip onto his shoulder tightened, producing a sharpened soreness within my arm. My hold on him was overwhelming my strength, testing my limits as I pulled for him to move more quickly.

Wavering uncertainty of whether or not either of us were going to make it to my base camp alive, sat in the lap of my head. 

There wasn’t anything I could do about it until this heart-racing moment in time subsided; which seemed to not be ending soon enough.

No matter how much effort I put in, getting him to travel at a faster pace was absolutely no use.

He continued to fall in and out of his rush. I knew the swarm was inches from us at this point.

My blood ran cold as I felt a tug on my flesh. I swatted my arm away from the offender, succeeding as I place my arm at my side again. The pain electrified my system.

I felt the frigid sense of my own blood as it drew lines of red down my arm.

I didn’t bother to show any signs of torment, however; my face remained expressionless to keep the man attached to me from dismay.

While looking into the distance, I could see base camp in all its glory; a small, wooden dwelling that looked to be abandoned for years upon years.

To the naked eye, it wasn’t visible. A barricade held its own, as it was tall enough to keep unwanted guests away from the premises. It did its job well.

I look over to the man that unintentionally put his life in my hands. His eyelids were practically shut at this point.

He looked lifeless as he tripped over his own feet, trying to pry himself awake every few seconds.

The words ‘he's gonna die’ circled my brain, shoving me into a further state of panic. 

I shook my head to pin those inquiries to the back of my mind, however, knowing that we just needed to keep pushing. 

“Not much further now.” I mumble.

My heart was racing. My energy was running out, and so was his. But I couldn’t let either of us collapse. My urge for constant heroics weren’t going to fail me now.

An image of Ellie came into my mind.

Her youthful being appeared in the form of a mental photograph.

It felt idiotic, and possibly regrettable, but I needed to save this man, knowing the promise I made to her, and myself.

Find answers. Save who I can.

We were only a few feet from the gates now. We had gained some form of speed to rush ahead of the army of the infected, but I have no idea how.

Pure luck was gonna be my answer to that.

I rearranged our position so that he was now leaning against the barricade walls, as I rushed to open the gates.

“Okay come on big guy.”

He moaned back, reassuring me that he wasn’t quite dead yet. He returned to his place with his arm wrapped around my shoulders, as my other arm was around his.

It wasn’t long before I closed the gates, leaving the both of us alone within the partitions of my own property.  

All while the diseased few left in defeat, scouring within the depths of the forest to ignite another hunt for prey.

[accahigan]

Stuck in the four corners of our home: From paradise to hell to the new reality

Its been a year, seven months and 17 days since the pandemic strike and shocked our country that deprived us the right and freedom to go outside and explore the world. Due to the danger the virus could brought upon us, we decided to stay at home, lock ourselves in and spend everyday inside and look for another distraction as we wait patiently until we could step our foot outside of the four corners of our home like how we used to be. 

Waking up to the sound of barking dogs, crowing roosters and lying in a soft mattress everyday was a piece of paradise for any working adults or students like me. The first three months of the quarantine was a great vacation and rest from all the heavy workloads college has brought upon. But, as time goes by, waiting and watching the clock's hand go from left to the right side, it started to become a hell of an isolation.

Even if we dont want to, our minds kept on diving into negative thoughts. News everyday, reporting numbers of deaths and current cases and how the government poorly handled the pandemic, just add up to all of our worries and fears. Little by little, the paradise I thought I was in, turned into a chaotic and fearsome space to stay.

I became so afraid to the idea of going out. I just shut myself from the outside world and let my self drown into my not so beautiful thoughts. I lost sense of time, responsibility and I became so lethargic in everything that I do and found sleeping the hardest thing to do in a day. Given the workloads the new mode of learning has bestowed upon me, I found no will and energy to even lift a finger and hold a piece of paper and pen.

But just like any other damsel in distress, a knight in shining fur has come and pull me out from that dark alley of my thoughts.

My dog, Dindin, has never failed to make me feel loved and would always remind me that I have to be stronger not only for myself but also for my loved ones. Medically speaking, having pets reduces stress levels according to U.S National Institue of Health. Also, taking care or adopting pets such as dogs or cats help us with our emotional and social skills. In this time of isolation and quarantine where people are vulnerable to solidarity and loneliness, we badly needed someone or something to always be there, and for me, the man's best friend is the most efficient way to survive this hell.

Away from what I grown accustomed to do, I needed to find another hobby or routine to survive the slow pace of this quarantine. After being saved by my dog, I decided to join my mom, in her household chores. Washing clothes was the most fun for me. I mean, I've never properly washed clothes before the pandemic happens. I would always just rinse the washed clothes but never properly hold a brush and a washing board.

Surely, the pandemic has caused millions of people to lose jobs. Caused lot of economies to go down and caused the worst contraction the world has ever experience. We keep distance from friends and family and forcefully adjusts ourselves to the 'new normal', and spend everyday inside our homes. But on the other hand, it also gave us the chance to bond with our families and to know them better. It gave us the chance to talk with the members of our family on a more personal and deeper level.

My family and I tend to clash because of our different principles and opinions. But to my surprise, the quarantine gave me the chance to close my mouth and lend my ears to hear their opinions and point of views. Quarantine taught me when to shut my mouth and starts to use my ears. Sure, I think we could never arrive to a same conclusions or opinions but surprisingly, we could listen to each other more often and more attentively than before. Quarantine gave us all the time we needed to fully understand each other. We now bond, we enjoy different discussions everyday, and we share and listen to each other's opinions more than I think we could.

Its been a year, seven months and 17 days. It goes from a paradise to hell and now to our new reality real quick. In a span of over a year, we experience great happines and relaxation. After that, we undergone a lot of mental and emotional distress, well aside from the chaotic world outside of our home, staying deep in negative thoughts never really help. As time goes by, we learn to accept that the life we have before the pandemic strike, would take a while to be recovered. Our economies has been damaged, big time. Millions of people lose their jobs and some lost their loved ones. Some has found another hobby or interest to invest and some are still trying to find one. Whatever our reality is now, the good thing is that we are healing, slowly, yes. But at least we are getting there step by step, getting ready to watch another sunrise hand in hand when the time comes.

[msclaritea]

"An insurrection of upper-middle class white people | Will Bunch Newsletter

They flew from their affluent suburbs to the U.S. Capitol, ready to die for the cause of white privilege

The stunning pro-President-Trump insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol less than a week ago must have been a carnival for one’s olfactory bulb, as the stinging aroma of tear gas blended with the pungent odors of the occasional joint, or maybe the piles of dung that some of the cruder mob members left in the hallways once graced by icons like Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and LBJ. The only thing that wasn’t in the air on Wednesday was the smell of what so many have falsely tied to Trump’s authoritarian movement — any whiff of “economic anxiety.”

When fascism finally came to America in the form of an attempted coup to halt our presidential election, it came from lush-green suburbs all across this land, flying business class on Delta or United and staying in four-star hotels with three-martini lobby bars — the better to keep warm after a long day of taking selfies with friendly cops or pummeling the unfriendly ones, chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and generally standing athwart democracy yelling “Halt!”

Long ridiculed as deplorables rising up from the muck of Rust Belt trailer parks, the Donald Trump counter-revolution has finally revealed itself as an upper-middle-class affair.

What else can one think after seeing the photo of Jenna Ryan, real-estate broker from the upscale Dallas exurb of Frisco (also a “conservative” radio talker) posing in front of the private jet that whisked her to the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally and subsequent storming of the Capitol, where she smiled in front of a window broken by other rioters and tweeted that “if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next”?

Maybe Ryan is an extreme example, but her compatriots in rushing Capitol Hill on Wednesday included a father of three from another upscale Dallas suburb named Larry Rendall Brock Jr., whose 1989 degree in international relations from the Air Force Academy apparently never taught him that it’s a bad idea to be photographed leaving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in a combat helmet, tactical gear, and holding zip-tie handcuffs.

One might also expect a criminal defense lawyer like McCall Calhoun of Americus, Ga., to know that it’s surely illegal to surge past a line of cops into the U.S. Capitol, even if, as you later told a newspaper, you believed your fellow rioters wer people who “don’t want to lose their democratic republic.” Or that it’s bad form to do this after tweeting about a looming civil war or the potential hanging of President-elect Joe Biden.

Political junkies like us remember 2000′s “Brooks Brothers riot” of well-heeled GOP activists and lobbyists that successfully halted Florida vote recounting in populous Dade County. Apparently what we witnessed Wednesday was the “Pottery Barn insurrection.” As key figures who invaded the Capitol have been steadily identified over the last five or six days, it’s remarkable how many alleged lawbreakers emerged from upscale zip codes.

The stay-at-home dad husband of a physician. The son of an elected judge in Brooklyn. The owners of numerous small businesses, as well as assorted state legislators. The New York Times spent four years looking for Trump voters in Ohio diners, but apparently that’s not where they would have found failed actor Jacob Chansley, a.k.a. Jake Angeli, the infamous shirtless rioter with the painted face and horns, who reportedly hasn’t eaten since his arrest because there’s no organic food in jail.

Yes, many of the 74 million citizens who voted for the guy who then incited an attempted coup do fit the stereotype of struggling or laid-off blue-collar worker in a rusted-out rural community. But those folks aren’t the ones who can take a Wednesday off and fly hundreds of miles, let alone plunk down hundreds of dollars, to get to the nation’s hub. While the Capitol mob was bulked up with other Trumpists — including an alarming number of off-duty police officers, as well as some neo-Nazi or KKK types who’ve been around forever — it was the 401(k) crowd that formed the front line of America’s first real putsch.

If that surprises you, then you weren’t really paying attention. For the last four years, political scientists have been trying to wrap their brains around Trump’s shocking 2016 victory in the Electoral College while trying to tell us that the 45th president’s true base is a lot of things — but it’s not poor. In fact, polling guru Nate Silver noted during 2016′s primaries that the average Trump voter had a median household income of $72,000, which was both higher than the national average and also higher than the numbers that year for supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Interestingly, Silver and other analysts have found that Trump performs particularly well with voters with high incomes yet often without college diplomas (although he also does better with degree holders than he gets credit for). A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, the political scientist Diana Mutz, found that Trump voters generally weren’t struggling economically yet did feel great anxiety about their status — whether the threat was the rise of a foreign power like China or the idea that America, and its government, was becoming increasingly nonwhite.

That explains a lot. It explains why the Republican Party, arguably in a long downward moral spiral, lost its mind when America elected its first Black president in Barack Obama. It explains why so many people with the luxuries of a laptop and free time (things that actual poor folks have in short supply) look for conspiracies like QAnon to explain a society that no longer makes sense for them, or why so much of the hatred on the right is expended not at the CEOs who outsourced American jobs but at the cap-and-gown-wearing eggheads like journalists or scientists they find intellectually arrogant.

The main reason that so many reasonably well-off folks tried to shut down American democracy wasn’t because they feared losing their paycheck, but because they feared losing their white privilege. Donald Trump had promised that “I alone can fix it” — that he’d protect them from a society where Black and brown essential workers could expect help from their government during a pandemic or ask the police to stop killing them, a world that where just being white no longer guaranteed the status they were promised as kids. They truly believed that Biden, Kamala Harris, and the 82 million were going to end their white power, and they saw Jan. 6 as their last chance to save it. The Capitol still stands, but the rest of us are going to be spending decades cleaning up their mess.

History lesson

Philadelphia Police carry a protester away from a July 4, 1966 anti-Vietnam War protest held at Independence Hall. A new study proves police are twice as likely to break up a left-wing demonstration than a right-wing one, like Wednesday's storming of the U.S. Capitol.

In the end, as the FBI and other agencies step up their investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, there will likely be hundreds of arrests. But the now-under-fire Capitol Police arrested only 13 rioters while the attack was underway, and only a few dozen more were busted by cops for violating the 6 p.m. curfew. No one must have been more shocked by this than the survivors of the May 1971 anti-Vietnam War protests in Washington, one of the largest demonstrations in American history. In marked contrast to last week’s light police presence, the heavy-handed tactics from the administration of Richard Nixon included secretly canceling a national-park permit for the protests and then sending in a whopping 12,000 military troops to augment an already sizable police and National Guard presence. Over three days, an astonishing 12,614 people — many who were protesting peacefully and not violating any laws — were rounded up in the largest mass arrest in U.S. history. Authorities detained thousands at RFK Stadium because there was nowhere else to put them.

The shameful 1971 incident proved a point that seemed clear last Wednesday and has now been established with research: Police who are aggressive with leftist social-justice protesters treat right-wing disturbances with kid gloves. Last year’s Black Lives Matter protests as well as anti-lockdown rallies on the far right inspired the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project to dig deeper. It found police were twice as likely to break up the left-wing protests, and when they did disperse a gathering, cops used force against leftists more often (51% of the time) than against right-wingers (34%.) This unequal treatment under the law is one more way that American policing is broken."

[unfolded73]

Husbands: Two Years In (3/5) - schitt’s creek ff

This fic is complete, posting every other weekday. While I'm including it as part of the "Labels" series, the preceding fics are not required reading. Previous fics in this series: Boyfriends; “I Love You”, Partners, Fiancés

Warning: This fic deals with depression as one of its major topics.

Rated Explicit, this chapter 5153 words. (ao3)

Thanks to @high-seas-swan for cheerleading and B13_MaybeThisTime for many valuable comments (and also cheerleading).

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

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

Chapter 3: Summer

Wherever Patrick Brewer might have expected his the trajectory of his life to lead, even after he’d broken it off with Rachel and left his hometown, even after he realized he was gay and fell in love with a man, he could never have imagined a future that included walking down a sunny sidewalk in SoHo on an August afternoon with a woman like Moira Rose on his arm.

This trip to New York City had been in the works for months, planned for the break between the filming of Crows IV and the date when Moira would need to return to set for season three of the Sunrise Bay reboot. The entire Rose family had converged to visit Alexis on this trip, and this afternoon the plan was shopping, which Patrick had gone along with good-naturedly. He didn’t care about the shopping, but it was still fun to be in a city like this, to people-watch as Moira, Alexis, and David orbited around him. Johnny Rose, meanwhile, was meeting with an old friend and hadn’t joined them for this particular outing.

Alexis and David were several feet behind him and Moira, standing outside the Burberry store and arguing about the merits of a coat. Patrick assumed that even had he lingered to listen, what they were saying would have gone in one ear and out the other. So since Moira had taken his arm a few minutes before, he continued their slow promenade, figuring her kids would catch up when they got bored with their debate and noticed that they’d been left behind. Moira moved gracefully in platform heels and a vintage silver dress that probably cost more than Patrick’s entire wardrobe, a hat and large sunglasses obscuring most of her face as she attempted to avoid being recognized.

At the very moment that Patrick was thinking this, a middle-aged woman stopped in front of them, her hands flying to her mouth. “Moira Rose? Oh my god, I’m a huge fan!”

So the attempt to hide her identity only went so far, Patrick realized, watching Moira’s reaction. She pulled off her sunglasses and smiled. “I’m out with my family at the moment, but I would be delighted to pose for a quick photograph.”

The fan gave Patrick a once-over, seeming to consider and immediately reject the idea that he might be anyone important. Moira let go of Patrick and leaned in, almost but not quite touching the woman, and smiled wide for the two seconds that it took for the selfie to be taken.

“They didn’t really kill you off at the end of the last episode, did they? I mean, no one saw your body,” the woman said.

“Now now, surely you don’t think you can dragoon me into revealing spoilers for Sunrise Bay out here on the street like a common newsboy.” Patrick stifled a laugh at the idea of a newsboy out on the sidewalk, selling papers full of TV show spoilers. “But I do appreciate your apprehensiveness about poor Vivian. It would be an inauspicious ending for her if after all this time, her life was snuffed out at the bottom of that cistern, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Do keep watching!” Moira said with a flourish of her sunglasses to indicate that the woman was dismissed.

“My mom texted me with that same question about your character,” Patrick admitted, holding his elbow out again for her.

“I was trending the night that episode aired,” Moira said, tucking her hand in the crook of his elbow as they began walking again.

“You’re very kind to your fans,” he said.

“I remember what it was like to feel like I didn’t have many fans left,” she said in a lower register, her accent less ostentatious, the way it got when she was admitting something real, something true. “I don’t take this revival of my career for granted. Not for a second.”

His heart squeezed in his chest for her, for everything she’d gone through and everything she’d managed to claw her way back to achieve.

“Ooh, that’s a lovely handbag,” she said, leading him over to the window of another store.

Patrick thought it was hideous, but what did he know? “Do you want to go in?” he asked, looking down the street to see David and Alexis had finally started to wander in their direction, albeit slowly.

Moira shook her head, resuming their walk. “After those years of deprivation, I find I’m still not used to buying things on impulse. Isn’t that curious?”

“I mean, it’s no surprise those years left a mark. And being frugal is… wise.”

She smiled at him, then glanced back in Alexis and David’s direction. “Do you know, I find I’ve almost forgotten what David was like before he was with you, Patrick. He’s so… secure. It used to surprise me, seeing him like that, but now it’s who he is.”

He winced at the idea of taking credit for David’s growth. At the same time, he knew that David still had deep wells of anxiety lurking under the surface. Marriage hadn’t turned either of them into different people, much as they might sometimes look idyllic as a couple from the outside.

Before he could respond, Moira’s phone chirped from inside her large bag. “I bet that’s John,” she said as she rooted around for the device.

“There you are,” Patrick said to David as he and Alexis joined them.

“Yeah, no thanks to you, just leaving us behind,” David complained while Moira stepped away and spoke into her phone.

Patrick laughed. “We were a half a block ahead of you, David.”

David reached out and put his hands on Patrick’s shoulders. “Yes, but you’re new to the city,” he said with a crooked smile. “You could get lost. Or abducted.”

“I’m sure your mother would have protected me if it came to that.”

Moira finished her call. “I’m going to meet John back at the Plaza and have a little repose before dinner. Shall we reconvene later?”

“We could go back to the hotel too,” Patrick said to David. The Roses were paying for David and Patrick to stay at the same Manhattan hotel, a generous gift that meant they didn’t have to cram themselves into Alexis’ tiny apartment or rent a room in Queens, which David had recoiled at when Patrick suggested it. Pointing out that David had absolutely no logical reason to be picky about hotel rooms, all of which were a step above the place he’d lived for a few years, didn’t sway him.

“I’m still trying to get ideas for your anniversary present,” David said.

“My goodness, have you been married a year already?” Moira asked. “How time does fly.”

David brought his hands up to his cheeks and shook his head in disbelief. “Oh my god, we’ve been married two years, Mother. At least, in a few weeks we will have.”

Alexis reached over and booped Patrick’s nose. “And Patrick hasn’t even mentioned divorce once yet, David, which is impressive.”

“Mm, eat glass,” David said. Patrick grinned — he’d missed their ridiculous banter.

“There’s a gelato place across the street,” Patrick suggested, pointing. He wouldn’t have minded going back to the hotel to rest, but stopping for ice cream would be a good compromise.

David’s eyes lit up. “My husband knows me so well,” he said.

~*~

Patrick let himself be pushed down into the soft mattress, David’s naked body covering his, his mouth working, wet and insistent, against his jaw. “God, good hotels make me so hot,” David whispered.

Chuckling, Patrick ran a palm over the stubble on David’s cheek and back into his hair. “Then it’s a good thing that your parents’ room is on another floor,” he said. He was still a little tipsy from the wine they’d had during dinner at a very nice restaurant, and the process of getting undressed with David once they got back to their room had been a frantic blur.

“A very good thing.” David reached down and cupped Patrick’s hardening cock. “What are you in the mood for?”

Patrick thrust against the inadequate friction David was giving him. “Can I fuck you?”

David squinted an eye closed. “Don’t think I can do that right now, not with the way I’ve been eating today.”

That was fair; Patrick didn’t think he’d be able to bottom at the moment either, now that he thought about it. “Or you could suck my cock?”

“Mm, yes, I can do that,” David said, already sliding down the bed and positioning himself between Patrick’s legs like he didn’t want to lose this momentum, this sloppy, slightly drunken desperation.

The first flutter of David’s tongue against him had Patrick throwing his head back and groaning. But then it quickly became clear that David was in the mood to tease, to savor him, licking him from base to tip with swipes of his tongue like his dick was some kind of obscene ice cream treat, and then only taking him inside his mouth with the gentlest of pressure, not giving him enough suction to get anywhere close to coming. Patrick’s fist clenching in David’s hair only made David chuckle in the back of his throat, like Patrick’s impatience was exactly the goal.

David pulled off, replacing his mouth with his slowly jacking fist. “If you’d let me pack the way I wanted to, I’d have you tied up by now so that I could really take my time with you.”

“I wasn’t going to haul an entire suitcase full of sex toys through customs for a one week vacation,” Patrick said, his hips rising in time with David’s hand. ���I wasn’t that interested in giving U.S. airport security a thrill.”

“Your loss,” David said, turning and sucking a bruise into the skin of Patrick’s inner thigh.

When his thighs were mottled with hickeys and David was still only giving him incomplete friction with his hand, Patrick surged up from the bed, flipping their positions. “Your turn to be tortured for a little while,” Patrick said, biting David’s lower lip hard enough to make him grunt.

He worked his way over David’s chest, nosing through his chest hair, pausing to suck hard on one of his nipples, scraping his teeth against the skin stretched over the side of his ribs, then further down to position himself between David’s thighs. He tried to hold out, tried to stretch out the time before he took David’s cock in his mouth, but he felt too hungry for it to wait long. The saltiness, the weight of it on his tongue, made Patrick moan. He still could remember the first time he did this, that night at Stevie’s, and how that final tiny doubt that maybe he wasn’t actually gay, maybe it was just some spell that David Rose had woven, evaporated in the face of how much he loved sucking cock. How he powered through that first blowjob fueled by determination and desire, a puzzle piece of his sexuality slotting into place.

Now he knew David’s responses so intimately, he could play him like an instrument. If Patrick wanted David to come in under two minutes, he could usually manage it. Or he could edge him over and over until David was clutching fistfuls of the sheets and begging, voice hoarse with desperation. Tonight he wanted to tease him, to pay him back for the bruises he could feel now on the inside of his own thighs, but his arousal was pushing him to suck harder, to take David deeper, the tip of his cock brushing along Patrick’s soft palate as he drew him in over and over, matching his rhythm to the shallow thrusts of David’s hips.

“Fuck, I love your mouth,” David gasped. “God, Patrick…” and then he was coming, Patrick letting it pool on the back of his tongue as he soothed David down, slowing and finally pulling off when David relaxed. Patrick swallowed as he wiped saliva from his chin.

“Come up here,” David whispered, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “Let me finish you off. Fuck my mouth.”

Even in the midst of his intense arousal, Patrick was tempted to joke that David was just offering that so that he didn’t have to move, but he elected to hold that comment in as he shuffled up the bed. David put an extra pillow under his head and then grabbed hold of Patrick’s hips, opening his mouth and letting Patrick push his cock inside.

Usually Patrick could grab hold of the strong metal bars of their bed when he did this, but in this hotel he only had the faux headboard that was affixed to the wall. He braced one arm against the wall and reached down to thread his fingers through David’s hair with the other, holding him gently in place as he fucked into his mouth.

“God, that’s hot, David. I love the way you take me,” he gritted out, trying to resist the urge to lose too much control, to thrust too deeply even though he knew David could tap out if he needed. Still, it was an overwhelming visual, the sight of his erection sliding into David’s mouth, and it didn’t take long for Patrick to tip over the edge, crying out as he came, fist clenching in his husband’s hair.

He collapsed at David’s side as David exhaled a long breath, ending on a giggle. “How is the sex between us even better now than it was three years ago?”

Patrick wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical, but he thought about the answer anyway. While he thought about a serious answer, he gave a non-serious one. “It’s the hotel turning you on so much.”

David smiled. “It’s not, though,” he said softly, signaling his desire to have a sincere conversation.

Patrick rolled toward David and settled a hand on his chest, feeling for the thump of his heart. “Because we know each others’ bodies so well,” he said.

“Mmm. By that logic, when we’re in our eighties, our orgasms will be visible from space.”

“Visible?” Patrick asked, laughing.

“You know what I mean.”

Leaving that aside, Patrick said, “Well, by then I imagine that our aging bodies will have something to say about the sex being all that amazing.”

“Impossible. We’re immortal.”

Patrick lifted his head and pressed a kiss to David’s cheek, and then to his lips. “We’re not.” He knew it wasn’t what David wanted to hear, that he was killing the post-coital mood by saying it, but for some reason he couldn’t stop himself. “If we stay together for our entire lives then there will be messy physical stuff. There’ll be… one or both of our dicks will stop working—“

“Okay, that’s not going to happen.”

“It might happen at some point.”

“You can just feel free to smother me with a pillow if that happens to me,” David said.

“But David, if I murder you, I can’t be the beneficiary of your life insurance,” Patrick replied with a smirk.

“Mmkay.”

“I’ll love you even then, you know,” Patrick said. “When we’re old and wrinkled and have unreliable dicks.”

“That’s very sweet, but can we get back to talking about how great the sex is now?” David whined.

Patrick kissed him again. “The sex is excellent.”

David gave him a warm smile, one of those smiles that filled up his whole face and radiated out of his eyes. “It’s nice seeing you so happy.”

Something about the way David said it gave Patrick pause. He pulled back, putting a little bit of space between them. “You say that like it’s a rare thing.”

He could see a spark of worry in David’s eyes. “No, not rare. You’ve been… exhausted a lot this year, and… and I think this vacation came at a good time, that’s all. I’m glad you’re enjoying the city.”

“I am enjoying it,” Patrick said, but his brain was focusing on the first part, the part about how he’d been exhausted. How David had noticed. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want his mental state to be a burden to his husband, or to make him feel like he was in any way lacking. “I’ve been fine.”

“Okay.” David leaned up and kissed him gently. “Let’s get some sleep.”

Patrick shifted over onto his own pillow, watching as David rolled to face the opposite wall, scrunching his pillow under his head. Sometimes Patrick took it as an invitation to be the big spoon, but tonight he turned onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

He just wasn’t getting as much enjoyment out of things these days, that was all. And that was to be expected, wasn’t it? They’d been running the store for close to four years, so of course the day-to-day tasks had gotten dull. At the same time, the stress of deciding whether it was the right time to open a second location was wearing on him, because no matter how much planning and calculating he did, ultimately it was a gamble. And Patrick wasn’t a gambler.

Meanwhile, the novelty of being a homeowner was wearing off a bit, and he’d found himself focusing on the downsides of it lately more than the upsides. Rather than spending his early mornings in their warm kitchen, looking out onto the back yard and feeling content, he was struggling to wake up when his alarm went off, brushing his teeth and noticing the water-stained vanity for the hundredth time, feeling inadequate because he hadn’t figured out how to fit replacing it into their budget when the Rose Apothecary expansion was looming.

But the truth was, even with all of that, sometimes he did feel happy. He’d been happy while he was planning for this trip to New York with the Roses, looking forward to seeing David with his family again and excited to see what the city was actually like with his own eyes. At times like that, it felt like depression was just in his imagination. It felt like maybe he hadn’t been depressed at all, or that he had been in the winter, but that he was over it now. But at the same time he could feel it lurking in the back of his mind, waiting for a weak moment. Telling him he was a bad son, or a bad husband, or a bad business partner. Telling him that he didn’t deserve David’s love, not when he couldn’t bring himself to get started on fixing up the bathroom.

Patrick lay awake for a long time, listening to David’s sleep-breathing, before finally falling into uneasy slumber himself for a few scant hours before waking with the early morning sun.

While David continued to sleep, Patrick pulled on some underwear and a t-shirt and shifted the curtains aside enough to look out. The view of Central Park from their room was breathtaking, and he paused to wonder how much the Roses had paid for rooms with that view. Unplugging his phone from the nightstand, he went back to the window and took a picture through the glass.

He looked from the window over to David, tousled black hair against acres of white bedding, bare shoulders on display. Patrick took a picture of that too.

After brushing his teeth and taking a shower, Patrick got back into bed to read until a more reasonable hour to wake David up. The rest of the morning passed with a leisurely breakfast and an Uber ride downtown to the Whitney Museum, which David had been talking about visiting for months. It had the added benefit of being close to Alexis’ apartment in Chelsea; they were planning to meet her later in the afternoon.

Patrick soon learned that he and David had different approaches to art museums. Patrick liked to read the placards about each painting, circling each room methodically as he went from painting to painting. David liked to take it all in for a while from the middle of the room before deciding which paintings to approach for a closer inspection, stepping forward and back as he looked for the best viewing distance. His failure to study the text about each painting didn’t mean he didn’t know things about them, Patrick quickly discovered.

“I love this one,” Patrick said as David approached from behind him.

“Mm, I knew you’d be a Hopper fan. What do you like about it?”

Patrick studied the sewing woman’s shoulders, the way her dress bunched, the prominent veins in her hand. “I don’t know, I just like it.”

David was waiting for him to say more, Patrick could tell.

“She looks delicate but also, look at her back and her arm. She’s strong.” Patrick glanced at his husband. “She reminds me of Alexis.”

David pinched his lips together, which could mean he disagreed, or it could mean he agreed but didn’t like that he agreed.

Patrick squinted at the painting again. “So what’s the meaning behind it?”

David waved his hand at that dismissively. “It’s something to do with the post-World War I isolation of the early 1920s, I seem to recall. But it means whatever you want it to mean.”

In the next room, Patrick gravitated toward a couple of strikingly colorful oil paintings of factories, criss-crossed with lines that carved out contrasting geometric shapes on the canvas. As he was reading the name of the artist, David joined him.

“Charles Demuth was gay, you know,” David said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm hmm. He started out doing watercolors of flowers and men in Turkish baths in the nineteen-teens and twenties. Then he switched to painting…” He gestured unhappily at the works Patrick had been admiring. “This.”

“You don’t like these,” Patrick said, although the answer was obvious.

“There’s a theory that he was attempting to shrug off the stigma of being an effeminate man with these Lancaster oil paintings. Also, the art world didn’t take his watercolors that seriously,” David said, twisting up his face like he smelled something bad, and… right. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why David wouldn’t like these paintings.

Patrick nodded, and stepped over to put his arm around David. “Do they have any of the Turkish bath paintings here?”

“Sadly, no,” David said with a smirk, still gazing at the oil paintings. “There’s also a theory that all those smoke stacks are just dicks.”

Patrick barked out a laugh.

Leaving the museum, they went to a nearby café to wait for Alexis. They sat at one of the outdoor tables, a wrought-iron railing topped with pots of white and purple flowers separated them from the foot traffic on the sidewalk. While they waited and David munched on a pastry, Patrick texted the picture he’d taken of Central Park from the hotel room to his parents, telling them that they were enjoying the trip. Then he texted a couple of the photos he’d taken of paintings in the Whitney to his cousin Justin. Justin usually didn’t respond to Patrick’s texts, but occasionally he did.

Justin 🌈: You should have gone to nyc in june for pride

Patrick realized that was a topic he’d never talked to David about. “Were you ever here for the Pride parade?” he asked.

David looked up from his book, eyebrows high on his forehead. “Sure, lots of times. I mean, I wasn’t down in the streets with the heaving mass of humanity, but I could usually get an invite to a party along the parade route, back in those days.”

Grinning, Patrick repeated, “Heaving mass of humanity?”

David scoffed. “You know how I feel about crowds.”

Patrick turned back to his phone. David doesn’t like crowds, he typed. I did learn today about a gay artist who painted a bunch of smoke stacks either to seem less gay or possibly to be super gay. Jury’s out on which.

Lol, Justin responded.

Patrick smiled at the fact that he’d achieved a successful interaction with his cousin.

“David Rose?” a voice called out, and Patrick looked up to see who was speaking. He got a quick impression of an attractive woman with a stylish haircut and clothes before he looked toward David to gauge his reaction to the approaching woman. As he watched, David put on a simpering smile, the one he used with difficult customers, and held out his hand.

“Eloise,” he said flatly. “What a surprise.”

“David, how dare you not tell me that you were going to be in town?” she said, ignoring the offered handshake and sitting down at their table without invitation. “Oh my god, how are you.” She phrased it as a statement, and Patrick doubted if she cared how David was.

“I’m very good — in town for a few days to visit Alexis.” Patrick felt David’s hand settle on his shoulder, scratching absently. “This is my husband, Patrick. Patrick, this is Eloise; she’s an old friend.”

Eloise’s eyes widened as she took Patrick in. “Hi, nice you meet you,” Patrick said.

“I feel like maybe I heard that you got married? And I didn’t believe it. David Rose wouldn’t get married, I said. No way.”

David’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I did. Two years ago.”

“But you’re not living in the city? Surely you’re not still in… where was it? Somewhere in Canada?”

Here it was, the thing that still nagged at Patrick every time David expressed displeasure with Schitt’s Creek. Every time he acted disgruntled about the lack of restaurant options, or grimaced at Jocelyn’s opinions at a social gathering. Because the reason they were ‘somewhere in Canada’ was that was what Patrick had wanted.

“Our store is in Canada, yes, so that’s where we are,” David said, and to his credit he didn’t look the least bit ashamed of that fact. His fingers continued to move over Patrick’s shoulder. “Patrick and I own a lovely cottage on quite a large plot of land out there for a fraction of the cost of a one bedroom apartment here. We love it.”

“But the culture, David. How do you live without the culture?” Eloise asked.

David smirked. “How much culture did we really take in back in the old days, Eloise? The VIP section at the hottest club of the season isn’t exactly the Guggenheim. Besides, we get back here to visit Alexis regularly.” Regularly meaning once in two years, Patrick thought, although they did intend to visit more often in the future, now that there was more money coming in from their online sales.

Eloise immediately started talking about herself, about parties she’d been to or people she’d seen. Patrick tuned her out — she hadn’t shown any interest in him and the feeling was mutual. He watched people passing by on the street, walking dogs or going quickly to jobs or moving slowly and hesitantly like tourists. Eloise quickly seemed to run out of steam, maybe because David wasn’t hanging as desperately on her every word as she wanted, and she stood from the table.

“I’ve gotta run, David, but how much longer are you in New York? We really have to catch up.”

“Absolutely,” David said, standing with her. “I’ll text you.”

They kissed in the vicinity of each other’s cheeks and Eloise loped away, her attention mostly on her phone.

David dropped back into his seat with a puff of air.

“Nice lady,” Patrick muttered.

“She’s a monster,” David said. “I’m not texting her.”

“Uh huh, I cracked that code.”

David laughed softly. “Wow, she was boring.”

“Probably not as boring as your husband, to be fair.”

That made David’s eyes flash. “You aren’t boring.”

Patrick chuckled, fiddling with a spoon on the table. “Yeah, I’m super interesting. Is it my knowledge of tax law or my books about baseball that do it for you?”

David looked a little bit hurt at that. “Everything about you does it for me,” he said seriously.

Alexis arrived at that point, interrupting them, and Patrick rose from his seat to accept her cheek kisses. David excused himself to the restroom.

Watching him go, Alexis said, “Is he okay?”

“Oh, some old acquaintance of his was just here.” He frowned; that wasn’t what had bothered David. “Actually, I think it’s me that’s been making him anxious.”

“Well, don’t do that, Patrick,” she said with a frustrated groan and a birdlike bob of her head. “Surely you know how to manage David’s anxiety by now.”

“No, I do, but…” What should he say? That he couldn’t exactly be the guardian of David’s emotions when he was struggling with his own? That he swore once, standing with David for the first time in front of their house, to make David happy, and that now he was doubting his ability to do so?

“Anyway, did you guys have fun today?” Alexis asked, unaware of his inner turmoil.

“Yeah,” he said, because he had. “David could have been an art museum tour guide in another life.”

Alexis nodded. “Because he talks too much and thinks too highly of his opinions?”

“I was going to say because he knows a lot about art, but sure, that too.”

“Well, I hope you didn’t wear yourselves out, because Mom and Dad have plans tonight and so we are going to go out and party like the young and vital people that we are.”

Patrick felt exhausted at the prospect of such an outing. “I mean, some of us are getting close to forty; I don’t know if young—”

Alexis flapped her hands. “Ugh, just David. You and I are young still.”

Laughing, Patrick consciously relaxed his shoulders. He could go with Alexis’s flow, surely. He was on vacation, after all.

Which was how he found himself a few hours later, a tiny bit drunk and grinding against David on the dance floor of a gay bar that Alexis had dragged them to. It was ridiculous and they were maybe too old for this and yet he loved it, loved getting to have this experience that he’d been robbed of by not figuring himself out sooner. Loved being sweaty and a little dizzy and watching a man with criminally nice arms dancing just over David’s left shoulder while David grinned at him.

“I love you,” Patrick shouted over the loud beat, euphoria swelling out from the bubble around him and David to encompass the other people on the dance floor and the DJ and Patrick’s sister-in-law, who appeared to be flirting with the woman tending bar.

David squeezed his ass in answer. “I’m glad you’re having fun,” he said against Patrick’s ear.

“I am,” Patrick said honestly. At a time like this, unhappiness seemed impossible.

(Chapter 4)

[elegantfilmphotographyfantasykid]

Just Lost is All

Warnings: ⚠MENTIONS OF KIDNAPPING, RAPE, STARVATION, AND ABUSE⚠I type how I like so their are bouta be lots of mistakes, maybe some smut, ABO, Alpha! Bucky x Omega!chubby! Reader

(Reader is female, I'm not great at writing for male readers just yet AND SHORT BECAUSE IT GOES WITH THE STORY I'M SORRY )

Y/h your height

Y/w your weight

Are you ready kids, I have never written anything like this to be honest.

The last few days had been hard for (y/n), her and the Avengers just came back from a long, rough mission. (Y/n) was undercover at one of the biggest human trafficking headquarters in the U.S. but it wasn't just any humans it was young Omega's. The group would snatch Omega's 15-18 years old, off the streets, out of their bedrooms, anywhere they could find them. Then the young defenseless boys and girls would be brought to the warehouse where they were shackled to walls, they were starved, raped, beaten, and abused at the hands of vicious Alphas. After the kidnappers had their fun they would take the broken teens out onto a stage and sell them to the highest bidder, at this point their souls had broken and they had no hope of rescue so they just went with it, hoping not to get beat as often if they behaved.

This is where (y/n) came in, she was 22 years old and (y/h), the young girl was a bit on the heavier side at (y/w) lbs, but the most important part; she was an omega. She looked young enough to be a target for the beast that called themselves men.... So Tony put a tracker on her and sent her out by the most frequent kidnapping point. Steve put up a helluva argument, (y/n) was the only Omega on the Avengers, that of course made everyone slightly over protective of her. But she was willing to do whatever it took if it meant saving other young Omega's from that hell. As she left to hit the streets she took a look at everyones faces, hoping to keep them in her mind in case she started losing hope, her eyes scanned across each and everyone of them sorrow filled everyone's faces until her eyes landed on the last person, the one she cared for most, Bucky. Her face fell as she realized he wasn't even looking towards her he was in a chair, reading a book that he had picked up on the way to the safe house, he looked indifferent to the fact that she was leaving so she took a deep breathe breathing in and relishing his scent, before turning on her heel and walking out.

She walked down a dark street pulling her arms into her hoodie as she went acting as care free as she could in this moment, her (y/h/c) flowing in the wind as she went, it was quite chilly and she was thankful she wore thick pants when a strong gust of wind hit her. After the wind died down she heard footsteps behind her, she had to make this seem believable so she quickened her step as if to get away from what she knew would be pain. The steps behind her sped up as well and when she looked up from the ground there was a tall figure in front of her. She stopped, looking behind her seeing a large man walking briskly towards her. (Y/n) felt trapped like an animal being stalked by a preditor and having nowhere to run. She looked at the other figure as he began to advance on her as well, her head was spinning and she turned a 360° looking for some kind of escape. Then she felt strong fingers wrap tightly around her arm, she tried to push them off tried to fight the grip but the man just tightened his hold on her. She looked around trying to locate the second attacker but before she could get a glimpse of him there was a cloth with a horrid smell pressed to her mouth and nose, soon her vision grew blurry and her body became weak, she let herself collapse and felt hands pick her up before she completely lost sight of reality and fell unconscious.

When she awoke she was sitting on the floor her arms suspended above her shackled to the wall, she yanked against the binds doing her best to stand trying her hardest to break free. She searched the dim room her eyes searching for anything, the only light came from what she assumed was the door. Her fear was taking over and she felt like a wild animal trapped in a cage trying to break free. A shrill scream left her lips as she fought against the chains. She finally wore herself out, her legs becoming weak and her head spinning. She slid down the wall slowly some of her hope draining. As her butt hit the floor she heard footsteps coming and she cringed as she realized she had brought attention to herself.

Not soon after her first noticing the footsteps did they stop outside of the door to her cell, her body shook with fear and her eyes darted needing an escape. She knew this is where she needed to be if she wanted to help the other Omegas, but she was seriously starting to regret this. The door Swung open making her jump a whimper of fear leaving her lips. She kept her eyes on the floor not willing to look her captor in the face though she could feel the way he walked and held himself he was an alpha. You sniffed the air indescretly making sure to remember his scent. A surprised look crossed your face when he finally spoke.

"Well doll, I never expected them to pick up someone of your size,” she looked up, she could tell that accent from anywhere it was one of her favorites, it was a Birmingham accent. When she looked to his face she seen a thick wiry mustache his hair was red and his jaw sharp. A shiver ran down her spine as his eyes looked at her as an object, not a person.   

"Well sir I never expected anyone to be able to pick me up but here we are, " She bit the words out through clenched teeth a false confidence coursing through her, though if she was wearing boots she would surely be shaking in them. She was actually quite confident at times but she wanted him to think she would be easy to break and from the look on his face, he was falling for it. He had a cocky smile and strutted towards her.

    “Id watch myself if I were you, see the fact of the matter is one of us is chained and helpless.” She growled under her breath his words making her feel all the more weak, she knew she had to do the best she could to stay safe so she allowed her head to bow as a sign of submission towards the tall Alpha. A shiver coursed through her as she could practically feel his filthy gaze undressing her. He moved closer resembling a predator stalking its prey and she could do nothing more than release a pitiful whimper. She let out a shaky breath as she felt his own fan across the top of her head, he was uncomfortably close at this point.

     She took a risky glance at him and immediately regret it, his eyes were all black, indicating that his wolf had taken control. Once she looked she couldn't look away, her eyes followed him as he reached into his pocket pulling out a key and unlocking her wrist. As soon as they were free she clutched them to her chest a dull ache ran the length of her arms. The man who towered over her smiled sadistically grabbing one of her ankles and yanking her towards him. He used so much force she fell onto her back her head banging against the hard cement. She tried to scramble back up into a sitting position, but before she could get anywhere he flipped her onto her stomach.

***** RAPE SCENE PLEASE DO NOT READ THESE FEW PARAGRAPHS IF THIS WILL TRIGGER YOU*********

    She shook uncontrollably as she heard him undo his jeans, her hands clawed at the floor under her trying to pull herself away to no use, one of his hands rested on her hip hindering her escape and the other began to rip her bottoms off, tears slid down her cheeks as she felt the cold air hit her bare skin. The only way to escape now was to retreat to the back of her mind until it was over. She mentally scolded herself for thinking this would in any way be a good idea, she knew she shouldn't be part of the avengers, she couldn't fight, she wasn't as smart as Tony or Bruce, the only reason they kept her around was because they pitied her. She was the only omega in the past fifteen training classes the Avengers have held for new agents and they seen how far behind she was so they took her under their wing. As she came to this conclusion she felt pressure against her entrance, then white hot pain coursed through her shooting up through her abdominal region and straight to her chest.

    The myths always said that for an omega to lose their virginity while in distress caused horrible pain, she never thought they were true, she always thought it was just some old story from way long ago. But now she believed more than ever as her hand clutched at her chest and she screamed, the man gave her no time to adjust as he continued to force himself into her with fast painful thrust. Sobs were wracking through her at this point and he seemed satisfied with the pain he had inflicted.

    “I love it when they scream,” his voice was in (y/n)’s ear and she jumped not realizing how close he really was. Not soon after they began his thrust became sloppy and he wrapped his hands around her neck pulling her up so her back was pressed to his chest, her face became red as he added pressure to her neck, his thrust finally slowing until he pulled out and removed a hand from her neck to rub himself off releasing on her back. He released his hold on her and she fell to the floor sobbing, he stood slowly adjusting his clothing and walking towards the door, when he got close to the door he spun on his heel.

********RAPE SCENE OVER*********

    “Whore,” he spit at her disgust lacing his tone. Before she could register what he had done he left slamming the metal door shut behind him not even bothering with shackling her back up. That's where he made his second mistake, (y/n) pulled her pants back on and stood shakily her privates ached and she just wanted to lay there in a ball and hide from the world. But she knew that the other omegas here needed her. Limping her way slowly towards the door she reached into her bra and pulled out a lock pick, good thing they didn't search for anything on her. Chubby fingers made quick work of what seemed to be a cheap lock and she pictured the blueprints of the building in her head, she had been over them for what seemed like a million times and she tiptoed the way to the back entrance praying to the Moon Goddess that her team was there like they had planned. She had a few moments where she thought she would be caught but she hid just in time.

    Finally making it to the door she cracked it slowly, but before she could even try to find her teams scent the door was nearly ripped off its hinges. She was quickly pulled into someone's arms and she instantly felt a wave of calmness wash over her. She looked up to see who it could be ………    

[newstfionline]

Friday, November 6, 2020

Biden sees path to 270; Trump attacks election integrity (AP) With his pathway to re-election appearing to shrink, President Trump on Thursday advanced unsupported accusations of voter fraud to falsely argue that his rival was trying to seize power. “This is a case when they are trying to steal an election, they are trying to rig an election,” Trump said from the podium of the White House briefing room. The president’s remarks deepened a sense of anxiety in the U.S. as Americans enter their third full day after the election without knowing who would serve as president for the next four years. Neither candidate has reached the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. But Biden eclipsed Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial Midwestern battleground states, and was inching closer to overtaking the president in Pennsylvania and Georgia, where votes were still be counted. It was unclear when a national winner would be determined after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy.

Win or Lose, Trump Will Remain a Powerful and Disruptive Force (NYT) If President Trump loses his bid for re-election, as looked increasingly likely on Wednesday, it would be the first defeat of an incumbent president in 28 years. But one thing seemed certain: Win or lose, he will not go quietly away. At the very least, he has 76 days left in office to use his power as he sees fit and to seek revenge on some of his perceived adversaries. Angry at a defeat, he may fire or sideline a variety of senior officials who failed to carry out his wishes as he saw it. And if he is forced to vacate the White House on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump is likely to prove more resilient than expected and almost surely will remain a powerful and disruptive force in American life. He received at least 68 million votes, or five million more than he did in 2016, and commanded about 48 percent of the popular vote, meaning he retained the support of nearly half of the public despite four years of scandal, setbacks, impeachment and the brutal coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 233,000 Americans. That gives him a power base to play a role that other defeated one-term presidents like Jimmy Carter and George Bush have not played. Even if his own days as a candidate are over, his 88-million-strong Twitter following gives him a bullhorn to be an influential voice on the right.

‘The whole world waits’ with unease as drawn-out, contested election batters America’s global image (Washington Post) As the world reckoned with another day of uncertainty over the result of the U.S. presidential election, Trump’s premature victory claim, unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and the threat of legal challenges continued to overshadow the drawn-out vote count, from which no clear winner has emerged. The indecision was met with deep unease around the globe over what lies ahead for the U.S. political process—and more than a little glee from America’s traditional adversaries. In Canada, lawmakers have been relatively silent on the aftermath of the vote, but election coverage continued to dominate the country’s largest newspapers, to the point that they nearly resembled U.S. dailies. The Toronto Star described a “nagging, palpable sense of dread” that no matter who prevails, Canada has never felt “so far apart” from its southern neighbor. “America has represented optimism, looking forward and ideas,” said Tatsuhiko Yoshizaki, chief economist at the Sojitz Research Institute in Tokyo. “And yet, over the past four years, we have come to see the dark side in the United States.” The same sentiment was echoed in Europe on Thursday, where Germany’s left-leaning Der Spiegel newsweekly compared Trump to a “late Roman emperor” who has “set a historic standard for voter contempt.” In Britain, some commentators responded with disgust—with the left-leaning Daily Mirror calling Trump “a liar and a cheat until the bitter end”—while other papers turned to humor, especially over the slow pace of the vote count. The front page of the Metro newspaper read: “Make America Wait Again.” In China, a number of publications used the election to highlight shortcomings of the American system. Still, China’s vice foreign minister, Le Yucheng, voiced hopes on Thursday about repairing bilateral relations after the election. “I hope the new U.S. administration will meet China halfway,” he said, according to CNBC.

US sets record for cases amid election battle (AP) New confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. have climbed to an all-time high of more than 86,000 per day on average, in a glimpse of the worsening crisis that lies ahead for the winner of the presidential election. Cases and hospitalizations are setting records all around the country just as the holidays and winter approach, demonstrating the challenge that either President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will face in the coming months. The total U.S. death toll is already more than 232,000, and total confirmed U.S. cases have surpassed 9 million. Those are the highest totals in the world, and new infections are increasing in nearly every state.

Riot declared in Portland as protesters smash windows (AP) A riot was declared in Portland, Oregon, and protesters took to the streets in Seattle on Wednesday as people demanded that every vote in Tuesday’s election be counted. Hundreds were protesting in both cities against President Donald Trump’s court challenges to stop the vote count in battleground states. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office at about 7 p.m. declared a riot after protesters were seen smashing windows at businesses. In the interest of public safety, Gov. Kate Brown activated the use of the state National Guard to help local law enforcement manage the unrest, according to the sheriff’s office. Portland has been roiled by five months of near-nightly racial injustice protests since the police killing of George Floyd.

Tired of blue state life, rural Oregon voters eye new border (AFP) As a hotly contested election highlights the United States’s deep divisions, rural voters in liberal blue-state Oregon have approved a radical solution—splitting off to join neighboring deep-red conservative Idaho. Two conservative counties voted in favor of a non-binding measure to “Move Oregon’s Borders” during Tuesday’s polls, which also saw their northwestern US state predictably vote for Joe Biden in the race for president. “In the United States, the differences between liberal and conservative... there’s hatred there,” said chief petitioner Mike McCarter, of the votes in Union and Jefferson counties. “Populated urban areas are controlling the mass of everybody,” the 73-year-old retired gun club manager told AFP. Oregon—whose politics are dominated by the liberal city of Portland—has not voted Republican in a presidential contest since 1984, while landlocked Idaho to the east last chose a Democrat in 1964. But the high desert and mountainous swathes of eastern Oregon—where resource-intensive industries such as timber, ranching and mining prevail—are far more conservative than the environment-minded coastal stretches of the state. McCarthy said his movement’s goals rings true for outnumbered rural conservatives across a nation in which most states apportion their electoral college votes—to choose the president—on an all-or-nothing basis. “It’s a definite clash between blue and red,” he said. “Indiana and Illinois have got the same issue because Chicago controls all Illinois. In New York (state), New York City controls all New York. There’s a constant rub going back-and forth on life values between urban and rural.”

Eta brings heavy rains, deadly mudslides to Honduras (AP) Eta moved into Honduras on Wednesday as a weakened tropical depression but still bringing the heavy rains that have drenched and caused deadly landslides in the country’s east and in northern Nicaragua. The storm no longer carried the winds of the Category 4 hurricane that battered Nicaragua’s coast Tuesday, but it was moving so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America was on high alert. Eta had sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 7 mph (11 kph) Wednesday night. It was 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southeast of La Ceiba. The long-term forecast shows Eta taking a turn over Central America and then reforming as a tropical storm in the Caribbean—possibly reaching Cuba on Sunday and southern Florida on Monday.

Arce’s opponents go on strike in Bolivia (Foreign Policy) Conservative opponents of Bolivian President-elect Luis Arce will begin a two-day strike today in the department of Santa Cruz, home to Bolivia’s largest city, in order to voice their opposition to the results of October’s presidential election. Governor Ruben Costas has asked Bolivia’s electoral tribunal to audit the result, but the tribunal rejected the request, citing the election’s certification by outside groups such as the Organization of American States (OAS). Arce is set to be inaugurated as president on Sunday.

Pix (Rest of World) Brazil’s Central Bank will launch a national instant payment system called Pix, which will be free to use by its citizens and mandatory for major banks to implement. It’s required for the 34 banks with 500,000 clients or more to roll out, and that group serves 90 percent of the 175.4 million Brazilians with bank accounts. As a result, this change could revolutionize digital payments in the country. Right now, fast money transfers cost 10 Brazilian reais in fees, or about $2. Pix will be effectively free for consumers: the Central Bank charges banks 1 Brazilian centavo, or $0.0018, for every 10 transactions. The five largest banks in Brazil make $440 million a year from same-day money transfer fees. The free price point of Pix will likely undercut their offerings.

In Spain, coronavirus puts the poor at the back of the line MADRID (AP)—Erika Oliva spends at least three hours a week standing in line at a soup kitchen. She spends a couple more at the social worker’s office with her 8-year-old son, who has autism. She waits on the phone to the health center or when she wants to check if her application for a basic income program will get her the promised 1,015 euros ($1,188). So far, it hasn’t. “They are always asking for more papers but we still haven’t seen a euro. Everything seems to be closed because of the pandemic. Or you are told to go online,” said Oliva. She managed to apply online, but others in her situation don’t know how to use a computer or simply don’t have one. “Poor people queue. It’s what we know how to do best,” Oliva said. Lower income families around the world have often suffered most from the pandemic for several reasons: their jobs might expose them more to the virus and their savings are typically lower. In Spain, their situation has been worse than in much of Europe due to the big role of hard-hit industries like tourism and weaker social welfare benefits. “The pandemic is extending and intensifying poverty in a country that already had serious inequality problems,” said Carlos Susías, president of the European Anti-Poverty Network, which encompasses dozens of non-profits. He says insufficient welfare spending, too much red tape, lack of access to technology and a resurgence of the pandemic are likely to widen what is already one of the developed world’s biggest gaps between rich and poor.

Pope Francis: A Day Without Prayer Is ‘Bothersome,’ ‘Tedious’ (Breitbart) Pope Francis insisted Wednesday on the centrality of prayer in a Christian’s life, declaring that prayer has a way of turning all things to good. Prayer “possesses primacy: it is the first desire of the day, something that is practised at dawn, before the world awakens,” the pope proposed in his weekly general audience in the Vatican. “It restores a soul to that which otherwise would be without breath.” “A day lived without prayer risks being transformed into a bothersome or tedious experience” where “all that happens to us could turn into a badly endured and blind fate.” Through prayer, the many occurrences of every day—both good and bad—take on new meaning, the pontiff suggested. “Prayer is primarily listening and encountering God,” he said. “The problems of everyday life, then, do not become obstacles, but appeals from God Himself to listen to and encounter those who are in front of us.” “Consistent prayer produces progressive transformation, makes us strong in times of tribulation, gives us the grace to be supported by Him who loves us and always protects us,” he said.

Greece orders nationwide lockdown to curb COVID surge (Reuters) Greece ordered a nationwide lockdown on Thursday for three weeks to help contain a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. Under the new countrywide restrictions to take effect from Saturday, retail businesses will be shut with the exception of supermarkets and pharmacies. Civilians will need a time-slot permit to venture outdoors. Primary schools will stay open, but high schools will shut.

Debt trap? (Nikkei Asian Review) China has lent large amounts of money to many developing countries, and critics contend—though China disputes—that this is in pursuit of “debt-trap diplomacy,” where a powerful country offers money to a less powerful one, and when the less powerful one defaults, the powerful country will take important resources like ports, natural resources, or infrastructure. China’s loans typically have interest rates of 3 percent or more, compared to International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans where the interest is about 1 percent. Critics point to the China-Sri Lanka relationship—where Sri Lanka signed a 99-year lease on the port of Hambantota in 2017—as a key example, and there are others. Regardless of the broader motivations, lots of African nations are in the hole to China, and the pandemic has exacerbated default risks. Zambia—home to voluminous copper reserves—is a particularly interesting case, as the country owes $12 billion in total, of which $3.4 billion, or 29 percent of its external debt, is to China, up 8 percentage points from four years ago.

China blocks travellers from virus-hit Britain, Belgium, Philippines (Reuters) Mainland China has barred entry to non-Chinese visitors from Britain, Belgium and the Philippines and demanded travellers from the United States, France and Germany present results of additional health tests, as coronavirus cases rise around the world. China has temporarily suspended entry of non-Chinese nationals travelling from the United Kingdom even if they hold valid visas and residence permits, the Chinese embassy in Britain said, in some of the most stringent border restrictions imposed by any country in response to the pandemic. Starting Nov. 6, all passengers from the United States, France, Germany and Thailand bound for mainland China must take both a nucleic acid test and a blood test for antibodies against the coronavirus. The tests must be done no more than 48 hours before boarding.

Japan’s expensive oranges (CNN) How many mandarin oranges can you buy with one million yen—or roughly $9,600? For one fruit-loving buyer at an auction this week in Japan, the answer is just 100. A single, 20-kilogram crate of 100 Japanese mandarins (also called mikan) hit the auction block on Thursday at Tokyo’s central wholesale Ota Market. It was the year’s first auction of satsuma mandarin oranges, a famous citrus species from Ehime prefecture, on the island of Shikoku in southern Japan. Nishiuwa is one of Ehime’s mikan-producing regions and its semi-seedless citrus species of oranges is known for its good balance of rich and sweet flavors, its easy-to-peel thin skin as well as its melt-in-the-mouth texture. It wasn’t the first time the sweet mandarins fetched such a staggering price in an auction—the highest bidding price last year was also in the million range.

West Bank village razed (Foreign Policy) Israeli forces have demolished a Palestinian village in the West Bank, leaving 73 people homeless, in what the United Nations reported as the largest demolition operation in years. The demolition brings to 689 the number of structures demolished across the West Bank, the highest number since 2016. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the mass demolition was likely an opportunistic move by the Israeli government while the eyes of the world were focused on the U.S. election.

[tonystarkstan]

In the wake of Iron Man’s death, New York’s grief is expressed in the form of statues.

No one knows whose idea it was originally, and it was built somewhere else and planted in the middle of the night, right where the Tower used to be. New York City woke up and crowded around it, a fresh wave of sadness overwhelming them as people lay flowers and tokens of remembrance at the statue’s feet.

Over the next week, even more statues are planted - in Queens and Brooklyn, making its way through the state of New York. Even other states start catching on, and suddenly there are stone Iron Man’s all over the U.S., from Atlanta to San Francisco. News reports show similar statues being built in China and Europe, and nowhere in the world is free from grief.

The first time Peter patrols in Queens after the statue is built, he tries to ignore it. He swings low through the buildings, because if he goes too high, he’ll find the stony eyes of Tony watching him, and he can’t take that. He can’t.

But the statue, it seems, has its own gravity, just like the living Tony Stark did, and Peter is inevitably drawn to it. His patrol starts with a wide berth around the statue and he subconsciously spirals inward until he’s at the foot of it.

There’s a crowd around the statue - there always is - and they all look up when Peter swings in, touching down to the ground. His vision tunnels to the statue’s face, only dimly aware that the crowd has parted respectfully for him.

Everyone knows that Spider-Man was close to Tony.

Peter pays them no mind, though, and the gravity of the statue reels him in and takes his breath away. He reaches the foot of the statue and falls to his knees.

There’s a feeling beyond grief that’s wrapped around him now, a vice that won’t even let him cry. Everything is internal, a cocktail of sadness and anger and pain that makes him shake apart.

In front of him, there’s a gold plank carved with words, and it takes a second for the numbness in Peter’s brain to process them. He reaches out with one hand and runs a trembling finger over the words. The message is simple.

In remembrance of Tony Stark, the Man of Iron.

Peter swallows thickly, eyes filling rapidly with tears before he pushes to his feet and forces himself to break free of Tony’s gravity. As he swings away, Thanos’ words to Tony echo in his head.

“I hope they remember you.”

It’s all they can do.

-

The next time Peter goes back is a few days later. Tony’s force is elastic - no matter how far away Peter pulls, he always gets pulled back. He never even makes the conscious decision to.

It’s three o’clock at night, and this time, Peter is alone in his mourning. He sits on the cold pavement and studies the statue in depth this time. It’s ridiculously tall, clad in stone armor but unmasked. Tony’s face is expressive, a mixture of tired and fiercely protective, a perfect picture of the hero. His mask rests in his hand, hung low at his side.

Peter doesn’t remember deciding to talk, but when he does, it feels natural, a little like Tony is still here.

“So I guess you’re not getting my voicemails anymore,” Peter jokes, and it comes out flat and cracks as it falls from his lips, but he imagines Tony would appreciate the attempt anyway.

“Today was good, though. For awhile there, everything froze. You know how when bad things happen or when people die, your world freezes but everyone else’s keeps going and you just feel lost in the dust? That didn’t happen this time. Because this time, everyone’s world froze, even if it was just a little bit.”

Peter swallows, voice thick with emotion as he stares up at Tony’s face.

“The thing is, I can’t help but still feel alone,” Peter confesses. His gaze shifts to the mask in Tony’s hand.

“You see, they’re all mourning over the loss of Iron Man. But me? I just miss Mr. Stark.”

-

It becomes a regular thing, but never at regular times.

Some days, Spider-Man can be seen standing before the statue at 2PM, and other times, here’s there at 2AM. He doesn’t try to fight against the gravity anymore - in fact, he welcomes it, starting patrol from his apartment and inevitably ending at the statue to debrief.

It’s not the same as a voicemail, but it’s close enough. Sometimes, he even shares his churro with Tony, leaving it at the foot of the statue. And Peter’s not stupid - he knows it’ll probably get thrown in the trash or scavenged by an animal, but it’s the only way he knows how to give back in all the ways Tony gave to him.

“Mr. Stark, you’re not going to believe this!” Peter tells him one night. “Some kid almost fell out of the ferris wheel at Coney Island. I thought that was only a thing that happens in movies!”

He takes a bite of his own churro, chewing thoughtfully. “I mean, to be fair, I guess most things that happen in my life seem to be taken straight from a movie.”

The statue never talks back, of course, but sometimes Peter could swear Tony is listening from somewhere. He hopes he is.

As the days go on, the gravity loses its pull as grief loosens its hold on him. It doesn’t go away, but then again, grief never really does. But it’s enough that Peter no longer spends hours at a time at the statue’s feet.

Sometimes, Peter starts patrol at the statue, doing nothing more than saluting it enthusiastically.

“I’m about to go kick some ass, Mr. Stark! You’d better be proud of me. Too bad I’m stealing all your glory,” Peter snarks, and he thinks that wherever Tony is, he’s laughing at him.

It’s not perfect or even okay, not yet. But it’s healing, and that’s something.

-

FRIDAY has been helping Pepper clear out Tony’s massive list of files. Most of them are being archived or sent around the world to contribute to research, especially in Wakanda. A few of them get deleted, and others, Pepper simply can’t let go of.

She’s a strong woman, but when she listens to Tony’s logs, she breaks a little.

One day, they come across Tony’s files for the Spider-Man suits. She finds page after page of schematics, and eventually, she ends up at the Baby Monitor file. Most of the logs are from before Tony’s death. However, she notes with curiosity, automatic feed has been submitted multiple times since then.

Logically, it makes sense. Pepper knows that Peter’s slowly gotten back to patrolling, and she’s even had lunch with him a couple of times to see how he’s holding up. She’s just had very little time to track his movements. That was always Tony’s job.

Pepper curiously opens the more recent logs, and the sight nearly brings her to her knees.

“So I guess you’re not getting my voicemails anymore,” she hears Peter say to the statue in front of him.

And yeah, Pepper’s a strong woman, but sometimes, she breaks a little.

As she listens to the audio play, she curls up on the ground and cries.

-

Creds to the anon who sent me the idea. I hope I did it justice. <3

[chenoehi]

My thoughts on Grammys, BTS, and the Academy's supposed 'diversity'.

Can't do 'Keep Reading' on mobile guys so if you don't care about it keep on scrolling.

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The only BTS music I thought might have a slim chance for a nomination was "Boy With Luv (ft. Halsey)" as a pop duo collaboration. That was it. Anything more than that was just wishful thinking.

The Academy (both Grammy and Oscar's) talk about diversity when controversy comes up, they give some Black artists and actors awards, they look like try-hards, and then the next year they repeat history. Each year more men continue to be nominated than women, even in years that women dominated the industry. Each year artists who push boundaries continue to be overlooked or less favored than more traditional artists. Each year recognition continues to be bulk awarded to the most basic artists with the most basic styles with the most basic music, often times the same (mostly white) artists each year. No one get me started on always having to award artists like Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran or Adele each year they make music, despite whether or not what they put out is actually good, original, or better than what they did the year before. I'm not singling them out, but I think they illustrate my point. I will make one exception for Adele because she is a phenomenal singer, although I did not personally believe 25 deserved to sweep; I've been told by fans that Ed Sheeran is a good performer, so I'll give him that but I'll keep my thoughts of his music and the rest of my opinions to myself. But I get tired of artists like these getting nominated every time or almost every time they put music out and then getting awards every time they're nominated, hence sweeping. It gets tiring when the music that frequently-awarded artists put out sucks and they keep raking noms because of who they are.

There is absolutely nothing BTS or any other Asian et al. artists can do to beat that system. None of the criticism in the world has changed it thus far and I don't know that anything ever will. It's a hard institution to tear down. They will use "diverse" artists for ratings by inviting them and having them hand out awards and, in BTS's case, making such a big deal as to even display their Grammy outfits in the museum, and then they will refuse to nominate them.

It's a back handed compliment to non-Western artists. The Academy is saying they're good enough to help win over a predominantly younger and more diverse generation of viewers but they're not good enough to be awarded for their achievements.

What's worse is, the only expectation I had was for the Academy to invite them as performers despite whatever minuscule nomination they might have garnered, because it's been clearly hinted they would attend another Grammys and the Academy would frankly be fools to not have them perform after the shitstorm going on the pop industry rn. If you know anything about the Taylor Swift situation (you may not be able to tell which one because there are always so many) who knows if she will be performing this Grammys, and her medley of her songs was supposedly going to be a highlight; something's always stirring things up so who knows if certain artists don't end up going at all or bow out of performing. Ariana Grande bailed on the 2019 Grammys because the Grammy producer wouldn't let her perform songs she wanted to, and these kinds of disputes happen and artists who are nominated become no-shows. So, the opportunity to invite a group with a huge following, who have already proved to increase ratings, seems like a sure move right?

But BTS can't exactly perform at the Grammys if they're not nominated for a Grammy; I don't see them doing a tribute any time soon either. And if the Academy even dares to invite them at this point for a performance it will be an insult and a transparent ratings grab. BTS may still go to avoid appearing as if their pride has been wounded or just because they want to go regardless. They know better than their fans how it feels to lose, to be discarded, to be overlooked. This is happening to them first and foremost, not us. And if they decide that they will deal with this the same way they dealt with all their other struggles, to push on, perform for their fans, and use the opportunity of exposure for what it's worth, then support them and their decision. I, for one, won't be watching it live regardless of whether they are there. If all the Academy wants is ratings from BTS fans when they are fine with treating them like garbage, they won't get ratings from me.

I fully believe that the Academy is not only discriminatory to non-Western, non-white artists but that failing to nominate BTS for any award at all is out of fear. Fear that their traditional, safe artists will be offended and boycott the awards if they lose out on a nomination, fear that their fanbases will retaliate, but more importantly, fear that BTS or any other gigantic force of a non-Western artist may be a shoe-in for whatever award they are nominated for and potentially sweep if allowed to compete with all other artists. This comes after BTS won Best Group at the Billboard Music Awards this year. Their first time being nominated for a major U.S. award category. It wasn't even a Best New Artist schtick. It was a main category and they were up against established, popular, Western groups like Imagine Dragons and Maroon 5. It comes on the heels of Super M earning number 1 debut album and beginning a successful tour they are on right now. It comes after Blackpink performed at Coachella and toured the country. It comes after NCT 127 and ATEEZ toured the country. Even TXT, a months old group, had successful showcases in major U.S. cities.

The Academy is too racist and xenophobic to acknowledge Asian artists--they always have been and they always will be. The most diversity we'll see is the nomination of Black artists, but still only 2 were nominated for SotY whereas 4 were nominated for RotY. I don't know the exact numbers, but any time I've ever kept up with the awards I don't see very many other diversity groups being represented in nominations either, such as artists with disabilities or LGBT artists who have different gender expressions and identities or sexual orientations that impact their music, performance, and artistry. Halsey's intimate performance at the BBMAs with that female dancer was huge because that's just not something that's really done. Still. And any time it does happen it's a Britney and Madonna moment all over again, it's a fetish to everyone. Progress has been made but it's very minuscule in comparison to the 'diversity' touting approach they've taken.

I'll just leave the words of this morning's Rolling Stone article here:

So, the Academy selectively extends its diversity goodwill just as they always have. No shade to the artist, but just using this example of Lil Nas X versus BTS, you have a young Black, gay artist who started his career in late 2018. He's nominated for some of top Grammys with a minimal discography--an 18-minute EP. This is groundbreaking, it's great. BTS, a 6-year-old established group of young Korean artists who break nearly every record there is and dominated Western charts this spring, and they continue to chart Billboard and Western streaming platforms. They earn no nominations.

The two artists ironically happen to have a collaboration in the form of Old Seoul Road.

Congrats to Lizzo and Lil Nas X (that's not shade at Billie btw) but this tweet from the New York Times is so unbelievably misguided because the Academy's conception of diversity is like seasoning with mostly salt, a little pepper and no cayenne (hate to use that analogy but am I wrong?):

I do appreciate that some artists who don't get nominated a lot got nominations, but looking at the list of top awards I just can't imagine how some of those got through. And I listen to a lot of different music and some BTS stans may have know idea who the fuck Bon Iver is and I'm not saying they don't deserve nominations period, but when you look at the list it's just mind boggling how a song like BWL that was listened to and appreciated like a summer anthem would be could not be included in that mess. (Vampire Weekend for Album of the Year, what, who the fuck, is that, they've been around since 2006, that's when I listened to nothing but metal and rock and I don't, know who the fuck this obscure band is? I may have heard of them once eons ago but they apparently made no impression? I'm sorry). I won't go as far as to say BWL was a Western summer anthem because much of the gp still doesn't know them, this is true. But apparently that's never stopped the Academy before. Bonus, anyone remember Bon Iver winning Best New Artist over Katy Perry all those years ago? No, just me? Good times. (Respect to Bon Iver, I'm just making a point that a lesser known artist won that award over a popular artist and the public went "waH?" Bon Iver being nominated for Record and Album of the Year this time honestly has the same effect as before because what is Hey, Ma even. I listen to Indie music so. What it is.)

Anyway. That's my thoughts. Expect nothing and you won't be disappointed is a myth. You will always have room to be disappointed in humanity.

Edit: while I'm at it, a big, massive fuck you to the Academy for never nominating Halsey for Without You.