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purgatoryandme · 4 years

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Fade-touched. With no magic of her own, the Fade still dictates Hawke’s every move. It forces her to become a better escape artist near-daily - a runner from the moment her feet could first stay steady under her wobbling legs. Fade-touched. Fade-held. Fade-crushed. Her mother thinks the Fade is something they can run from. Maybe she’s right. Maybe if it were just the Fade, Hawke could tip it a crooked grin, do some fancy footwork, and then put it behind her like so many towns and Templars. From the moment she laid eyes on her twin siblings, though, and then again from her sixteenth year onward (a weight at her back briefly lifted, hefted into her arms like the twins so many years ago - begging to be spun, slashing through ozone and salt), Hawke knows there are some things that can never be escaped. Fade-touched. Fate-marked. She was always going to be a story. ____________________ Fade-touched and fate-marked. Sixteen years old with a long sword strapped to her back (freshly cleaned and swaddled in oilcloth), Hawke contemplates that which cannot be escaped. On the long walk home she laughs bitterly over the irony of it all. A life spent on the run, perfecting the skill until it was second nature, and she can’t escape this one thing. She doesn’t even want to. She doesn’t know what she would be without it. (A person, perhaps) (Certainly not a story) ____________________ Varric hears about her long before he sees her. Of course, that’s usually how his introductions go. His ears are open long before his eyes. None of his informants are terribly good with paints or charcoal, you see (useless bastards - he should get them to practice portraiture so he’s never caught so thoroughly off-guard again). The Amell siblings did not enter Kirkwall quietly. There was a lot of kicking and screaming and wailing. Business as usual, really. Most people didn’t enter Kirkwall willingly, and those that did were usually desperate enough for the usual theatrics to apply anyway. Still, the Amells made a splash. Disgraced (by an affair with an apostate no less) ex-nobles returning to an estate that’s been gambled away by a drunk?Juicy. Well, juicy to thieves. Until they proved to be dirt-poor Ferelden refugees barely worth whatever fee Arenthel was paid to get them into the city. Then, THEN, one of the siblings turned out to BE the fee Arenthel was paid. Just the one. Intriguing, but Varric can think of a lot of reasons Arenthel would pay for a pretty face - dark hair and blue eyes. Probably not the boy, too brawny and sour to be good at collecting information. The girl could be useful - her walking stick wasn’t fooling anyone, but those delicate features sure could. He’d overlooked the third Amell child entirely. A rookie mistake, really, her chosen last name notwithstanding. He let himself look (well, let his informants look) without really seeing. And when you were just looking...well. Hawke didn’t look like much. Or rather she didn’t look much like her siblings, who stood out in the way that you’d expect any purchase to in this city. In the way you’d expect a dirty secret to. It hadn’t occurred to anyone not in the know that Hawke was related to any of them. For all intents and purposes, coming from nobility as the Amells did, Hawke seemed to be a bodyguard (just like the red-haired guardswomen). She wasn’t the product of careful Kirkwall breeding. She didn’t even look Ferelden. Hawke’s nose seems certain to be her namesake. Prominent and high-bridged, hooked in a way that was unusual for people of her colouring (and, if Varric is being honest, the kind of thing that would prevent her from ever having a career at the Rose. Or, he’ll think later with ink and paper in hand, from ever being forgotten). Her skin is dark enough to look Rivaini, which, coupled with the russet-dark of her hair and her build (broad shoulders and hips, thick thighs, tall enough that his neck ached), is almost enough to make him forget the distinctly Ferelden nature of that nose. What makes him remember, what forces him to see the slightest family resemblance in the siblings he’s spying on, are her eyes frosty pale and narrow, or seemingly narrowed by thick heavy lashes, in the way only human eyes ever were (elves were always wide and guileless. Dwarves never seemed so...pointy. Qunari didn’t count - he didn’t look them in the eyes. Couldn’t at his height). Sharp, like ice chips, and made sharper against the warm tones of her skin. Wraith-like. Later, he’ll realize her eyes aren’t the same glowing Amell blue as the twins or her mother. Instead, they’re a shade of green so pale it’s nearly grey. He’ll only realize this when Carver makes it clear they consider her no sister of theirs, however, and he’ll wonder how he missed it over a week at her side. He’ll wonder that often about Hawke - how he missed things. How he missed her.

She’s a stunner, that’s for sure. Just not in an entirely good way. She cuts an intimidating figure, larger than life somehow, with features so bold that Varric can practically hear the nobles waxing poetic about her ugliness for years to come. Choppy dark hair and mismatched armour over dense muscle just make her seem more boyish and boorish, adding another layer to the tableau. Adding another layer to the distance between her and her picture-perfect siblings.

She’s certainly something - maybe something he hadn’t learned the words for yet (something that will send him, drunk and careening, to his library time and again. Paging cover to cover through poetic epics for a hero that had even a fraction of the something he wanted to describe). Not at all what he expected from the whisperings or from keeping tabs on the mage Amell in case the Templars ruined something interesting before it got to be INTERESTING. He’d expected a catlike rogue or some Feredelen beauty. Something for the history books, you know? Tawdry and bawdy and fitting to the tales he’d later spin in the Hanged Man for drunks and gentry alike. Varric’s forgotten that first impression a thousand times over and reread it on an old ledger just as many times. Hawke has a way of doing that to him. Making him forget the past, replacing it with their present (visceral like a knife to the gut. Which he’s experienced with her. More than once). Hawke also has a way of being underestimated at first glance. Maybe that’s why Bartrand refuses her and the little cutpurse thought he could get clever. Varric puts on a show with Bianca. Hawke is alone - no siblings in sight. She’d only volunteered herself for the expedition. It’s jarring to suddenly have the woman he’s been watching for hours watch him back. Even as she makes quips with the best of them, Varric can’t help but feel like she’s waiting for a blow. Hawke’s guarded in the way a kicked dog is. Unpredictable in the same sense. It makes Varric nervous, but also makes it impossible to walk away. He wants this one on the expedition. He thinks she’ll make it worth his while (just like Arenthel earned her money four times over with just one of a set of three. She passed up on an apostate beauty who knew healing magic. Hawke was definitely someone he’d take a bet on). She does. Creators, she does and then some, wrenching Varric and Anders, the Grey Warden she’d blackmailed and cajoled into accompanying them, through the Deep Roads with an animal glint in her eyes that increases with every day spent in the dark. She jokes with them often, but it isn’t until the near-endless battling with Darkspawn drains even her to the ends of her reserves that she begins to tell them stories to keep their long march going. “My father was an apostate.” She tells them, not meeting their eyes, likely anticipating and disliking their knowledge of this fact (Anders, through his willingness to come along at all. Varric because he was Varric - no stone unturned), “He was never contained in the Circle. To hear him tell it, he was never escaping anything. He moved because he felt like it. Because there was a great plan that he was following, and if it lead him away from the Templars? So be it.” Garrett Hawke was a man who did not exist, at least according to every record Varric had scoured (and he had, he believed, scoured them all). Varric had thought, up until this point, that the name was simply an alias. He still thought that, but now... Well, he had to wonder. Hawke’s sibling had never been caged. Perhaps her father flew free, too? Anders certainly seemed to think so (the animal glint in Hawke’s eyes was fever-bright in his own, near-glowing against the dirt and Darkspawn blood smeared on his skin). “Freedom isn’t free.” Hawke says, a sardonic little twist to her lips causing her teeth to flash in the torchlight as she glances at Anders, “He paid for it in destiny and a dragon was the shopkeep.” Varric would laugh at the frustrated befuddlement on the mage’s face if it wasn’t echoed on his own. “My father made this blade.” Another day, another story. The long sword on Hawke’s back stayed wrapped, no matter the fight to be had, twin daggers finding themselves home in her hands and her enemies throats. It was only exposed in moments like these - where she carefully oiled it as they made camp. “We forged it together, but the materials were things he had for years. It was mine to carry the moment it was finished. I’d never heard my mother so angry with him.” “Were you just a pipsqueak?” Varric asks, struggling to imagine her as something so small and soft as a child, “Not quite as tall as your sword was high?” Her eyes crinkle, or at least he thinks they do (torchlight stopped being an option in the morning, and Anders’ mage light was a dim and eerie substitute). “I was thirteen.” She tells him, lifting a hand to indicate how tall she’d stood then (about his height, he was chagrined to see), “Beth had just come into her magic. Father took me on a hunt the moment he realized, deep enough into the Wilds that nobody stood a chance of finding us. We came back with a blade, no meat to speak of, and to a little girl who had half-incinerated our cottage. My being a child bore no mind in her anger.” She snickered, despite the flicker of something Varric felt at the image she’d painted (a child standing apart from their siblings, pushed there by a parent declaring their favourite, widening the chasm with the gift of a weapon handmade and crafted in a moment no other family had witnessed - an intimacy impossible to intrude on and rendered in steel), “Carver also flew into a bitter tantrum about wanting a sword shortly afterwards. Both her angels were little hellions for years after that hunt.” Despite knowing they were being baited, Varric still asked the question that had taken root in his mind; “What made them stop? I’m certain it wasn’t from maturing - the very idea would probably bring your brother to tears.” Hawke’s calloused hands caressed the edge of the blade, skin just barely splitting (a cut so thin blood didn’t even bead. Or at least, that’s how the mage light made it appear). Her face was carefully blank no matter how Varric strained his eyes as she replied, “They realized what it was for.”

____________________ Varric tucked Hawke’s stories away for later contemplation. He embedded them into the skin of his arms with quill and ink, determined to remember their exact wording, on the night (or day or midmorning or whatever passed for time under the blasted Darkspawn damned ground) when Anders finally allows Justice out to play, emitting enough light and power that they can struggle their way to the surface, and Hawke mutters something about the Fade that has the spirit’s pupilless eyes settle on and see her. There’s something there. A story. He pieces it together in fits and starts. Junior, Carver Amell (who doesn’t deserve to go by that name, not with the sharp distaste he displays whenever Hawke calls him Carver like he’s asked), trails after them post-expedition and post-Bethany (sweeter than her brother, her bitterness reminiscent of dark chocolate instead of stale beer and regret) entering the Circle. Hawke doesn’t turn him away - Varric suspects she can’t after her sister turned her back on her protection and willingly joined the one thing their family had run from for years - and so Varric has a source of information. He’s somewhat loathe to use it, though. He doesn’t love the way Junior wields his words. They’re such clumsy weapons - he’s liable to hurt himself just as badly as he intends to hurt Hawke.

Still. Still - Varric is shameless in his pursuit of a story. He’s done more disgusting things (though sometimes...sometimes Hawke looks at him, ice-chip eyes warmed by firelight and wine and Wicked Grace, and her mouth twists a little. That same sardonic grin he’d seen underground when she told them freedom isn’t free. And he doesn’t like that look sitting on her face, not when it’s turned his way). And it’s worth it. It repulses him to think it, but all those little bits of information he’s hoarded are worth it. Because their party is chased down by Tevinter thugs in a set-up orchestrated by a magic-hating elf tattooed in lyrium who can physically reach into a person’s chest to crush their heart, and the most fascinating thing to happen was little brother’s subsequent freak out. “Chase him off!” He hissed into Varric’s ear, bent double to do so and no doubt rendering himself a comical image (red-faced under Fenris’ cool scrutiny and Hawke’s stiff-backed refusal to turn to him). “He can literally tear my heart from my chest. Forgive me if I’m not inclined to chase him off my lawn.” Varric hissed back, half-hysterical as Fenris’ gaze drifted between them. “You’ll have bigger things to worry about if he sticks around!” Junior fired back, shaking Varric by the shoulders and gesturing at Fenris’ bristling armour and weapons. “Hawke’s ‘I murder dragons and also really big spiders’ sized sword is almost the same size as his. While you’re all busy seeing which is the bigger thing to worry about, I’ll just run off to High Town in a set of heels where you lot will never think to look for me.” Varric mutters, much more careful than little brother (the littlest, with his petty attitude - a little dog barking at some junkyard Mabari) to keep his voice down, though Fenris’ lips twitched anyway. “Don’t talk about it like that.” Junior snarled viciously, “Her using it near him is exactly what I’m worried about. I don’t know what it will do.” Now Fenris’ shoulders were drawing up, impossibly spiky pauldrons growing dangerously close to his ears as his gaze flitted over to Hawke, who sighed unhappily. “I’m not going to stab you, Fenris. Not even in a fun way.” She said, sliding her daggers back into their sheaths and rolling out her neck with a crooked grin (one that didn’t reach her eyes and sent another stab of dislike rolling through Varric towards her bratty little brother that rose in sharp competition with his curiousity). “Is it enchanted?” Fenris asked, gravelly voice walking a knifes’ edge between interest and distaste that mirrored Varric’s own thoughts too well for comfort (he was pretty sure Fenris was crazier than a nug on lyrium - the comparison wasn’t flattering). “I’m pretty enchanted with it.” Hawke replied, sweeping the oilcloth bundle off her back and resting her weight on the pommel, driving the tip of the blade against the cobblestones below, “Most people find gifts enchanting, though.” A not at all smooth or subtle evasion, though Varric had to admire the way she’d managed to imply that if it was enchanted, it certainly wasn’t her who had done it. Fenris had cottoned on to the same idea, but Carver looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. “Your...brother certainly seems to think there is something I would find distasteful about it. I doubt he’s worried about my wellbeing.” The humour in Fenris’ voice didn’t quite cover his unease, but it did reflect a desire to please. Varric was certain the elf meant to stick around if he could now that he was certain Hawke was no mage. “Distasteful?” Hawke laughs, leaning more heavily on the blade and flicking her gaze to Carver on time to see his wince, “No, he only applies that word to our kinship. He thinks you’ll turn out to be a thief.” Fenris’ jaw set and Varric’s heart quickened in response. Carver’s fingers practically crushed his shoulder. “Of a blade?” Fenris asked, taking a menacing step forward. Hawke chuckled again, though her knuckles had gone white where they wrapped around an exposed silvery green pommel. “No,” She shook her head, sardonic twist of the lips in place as she tutted, “Of a life.” Offence coloured Fenris’ sharp retort of, “Yours?” Making it blunt and threatening as he drew even closer. “Not mine.” She shrugs, "One that can’t be stolen, bought and sold. It’s a pointless fear related to those.” She taps a single finger against Fenris’ exposed throat, directly over a silvery green line, before leaning back and hefting her blade back to its resting place between her shoulders. Carver abruptly lunged forward, fingers still buried in Varric’s tunic (dragging him a stumbling step towards Hawke despite his dwarven weight. Quite the feat for little brother). “Don’t let her touch you!” He snapped at the elf, “Or she’ll kill you, too!” Turning on her heel, Hawke's face disappeared from view. She began to stride away, heading off to the Hanged Man most likely, without a single glance back. Instead she called out over her shoulder: “Maybe my poison touch doesn’t affect dwarves, because Varric’s not dead yet, Carver. I think you might actually beat me to that particular punch.” Needless to say, the elf followed. Varric did, too, unable to walk away when his last sight of her was her back. Junior didn’t. ____________________ “She’ll kill you, too.” Words meant something to Varric. Even the ones spilled from an imbecile’s lips (one who had realized Varric was not his friend, unfortunately. He couldn’t mourn the loss much, though something in his chest felt slightly out of place when Hawke cast a look about the Hanged Man on Wicked Grace nights and sighed at the utter lack of her brother’s presence. He’d come crawling back eventually, as unable to ignore her and she was him). “Too.” Meant something. It meant something in the context of that damnable blade, that sardonic twist of Hawke’s lips that meant she was telling a story, the one that meant honesty and a certain resignation (an animal glint in her eyes in the dark, a cornered animal that always knew the tunnel had an end, that always knew it was going to fight to its bloody last). “What made them stop?” “They realized what it was for.” “She’ll kill you, too!” Not enchanted, but enchanting. Apostate-forged in the Wilds by a man who bought his freedom for the price of destiny from a dragon. The answer was obvious. Somehow, though, Varric couldn’t quite put pen to paper. Couldn’t write down a new observation in one of dozens of journals dedicated to Hawke, the only way to keep track of all that made her her before she talked her way into making him forget. Sighing, Varric pushed his unbound hair back from his face. Slipped his glasses from his nose. Pressed his forehead to the page as he closed his eyes. He was shameless for a good story. Ruthless in its pursuit. He wanted - no, needed - answers. And yet. He could wait for this one. For another sardonic twist of the lips. For more crumbs that Hawke would drop at his feet, knowing he would pick them up, finding their reassembly as inevitable as her brother’s dislike and her mother’s silence (living in a manor Hawke had purchased with children Hawke had been bought and sold for). Pressing his face ever further into the paper, Varric groaned in horror. He didn’t want to be another inevitability in Hawke’s life. He wanted to be a choice.

#hawke x varric #things that I'll never finish #garrett made a deal with flemeth when he was just a boy #struck the bargain with her most might strike with a demon when the fade grew to be too much #magic the likes of which none of his peers had #freedom to follow his heart's desires and to be secure in his head at night #with the knowledge that one day his head would no longer be secure #and he would either become a monstrosity and be wiped off the face of the planet #or he could die a different way #not quite dying not quite immortal #a true plaything for something that has maybe lived forever but maybe hasn't #he bargained a daughter and destiny #there's a reason maybe that hawke doesn't look anything like her mother despite being born from her ohohohoho #he groomed hawke to be what she is since she was young #a wild untameable thing that can run far and wide and free from all but destiny #with a mind that is never quite honest #because she dreams in the Fade like all people do #but she's awake there. really and truly.#no magic to speak of #but wrapped in it nonetheless - a conduit despite all odds #when beth comes into her magic hawke links her and her father #so he makes the blade that's been in his bargain for years #and he gives it to her to carry with the knowledge that #on the day he becomes a monstrosity she will cut him down before his soul is torn to shreds in the fade #and that she'll keep him and his blood magic with her #he's kinda a shitty dude? loves her but doesn't REALLY care for his family in the face of destiny #he never concealed from leandra that he wanted hawke to kill him and she's horrified by the idea #and then hawke does it because she's always done what garrett has asked of her #and leandra just CANT #and carver is bitter for years because he wanted to be trusted like that

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atomicstardust · 5 years

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oooh! Winteriron, 72: 'They're going to love you, don't worry!'

“They’re going to love you, don’t worry!” Tony said.

“They’re going to hate me and I’m going to lie in the floor and die.” Bucky said, not giving up his death grip on the car door. “My pie is going to taste horrible and I probably put in salt instead of sugar and I’m never going to be able to show my face in-”

“Rhodey made a bet with Sam that we’d be late.” Tony said and Bucky stopped and blinked at him.

“He what?” Bucky said indignantly and Tony hid a grin. Rhodey and Bucky were at each other’s throats from the moment DUM-E had wandered out once again at MIT and came back with a baffled Bucky who didn’t seem too bothered by a sentient robot that acted like a puppy or the word vomit that came out of Tony’s mouth when he didn’t sleep for over two days. Their ridiculous ‘bets’ had ended up with plenty of blackmail material on both of them so Tony was more amused than anything.

Bucky snatched up the pie and marched towards the door, muttering angrily under his breath. Tony threw a couple hundreds at the startled driver and started after his boyfriend, who realized again where he was and turned to send a panicked look at Tony.

“You going to stand there all day?” Rhodey said, throwing open the door.

“I’ve been here two minutes Rhodes, and I’ll have you know that-Ma’am!” Bucky squeaked the last word as Mama Rhodes hipchecked Rhodey out of the way and gave a full body hug to Bucky. He nearly dropped the pie, but it was rescued by Rhodey who vanished back into the house.

“You must be the Bucky that has our Tony all aflutter!” Mama Rhodes said, releasing Bucky to give Tony the same hug. He melted into her arms with a happy sigh. He was taller than her, pretty much everyone was, but no one gave hugs like Mama Rhodes.

“I’m not aflutter over anything.” Tony grumbled on principle.

“Yes yes, you say that.” Mama Rhodes said, ushering them inside. “Come in! James set the table and the lasagna has just finished, Tony’s favorite of course.”

“You spoil me Mama Rhodes,” Tony said, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Tony!” a blur cannonballed out of the nearby room and slammed into Tony. He staggered back, but gave the teenager a hug.

“Hey Nettie.” Tony said and the girl huffed.

“It’s Jeanette.” Jeanette informed Bucky before tilting her head at him. “Hey! You’re the boyfriend!”

“Yes, so please don’t break him.” Tony said, sliding his hand into Bucky’s and tugging him along.

“She calls you James?” Are the first words to come out of Bucky’s mouth as he stares at Rhodey and Tony can see how he wants to facepalm when he realizes what he said.

“Hey, only my Mama can call me that.” Rhodey said, stabbing a soup spoon in Bucky’s direction. “You don’t get first name privileges Barnes.”

“James, don’t tease him.” Mama Rhodes said, but there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Tony’s got everyone calling you Rhodey, Jeanette even called him that the other day. Half the students at MIT were calling him that after two months of meeting Tony.”

“He likes to joke he’s collecting all the James’,” Bucky said, relaxing a little bit as Rhodey started to serve dinner. “And none of them actually go by James.”

“It’s true,” Tony said, glad to see that Bucky had started to relax.

“Of course, there was that incident about three weeks back...” Every single happy thought about Bucky vanished. he was going to murder his boyfriend at the dinner table.

“Don’t you dare!”

“See, he was trying to come up with nicknames and -stop pinching me you menace!”

(Hours later, Bucky was trading hair care product tips with Jeanette and chattering away with Mama Rhodes about the newest wrestler on TV and even managing to get a decent conversation with Rhodey.

The pie, of course, was fantastic.)

#this was a mess from start to finish #but I was thinking #without anyone else #I think Tony's family would be the Rhodes' family #might expand later #stars writes #winteriron #minor rhodeysam #thank you for the ask Gee I really enjoyed this!#itsallavengers

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan Audiobook Thoughts

Marv Wolfman and Len Wein deliver a problematic that’s perhaps more interesting to talk about than actually experience for yourself.

Plot synopsis

As is standard for these types of post for me, I’m copying over a plot synopsis I found elsewhere to save myself time, and because they do a better job than I could. I edited it for a few reasons and the unedited synopsis, along with their review can be found here.

Allen Huddleston was the accountant for a small-time gangster. He worked his way to the top of the organization. His company merged with a legitimate oil company and his career and fortune soared. Then one day, a man made him an offer he had to refuse.

Because of his refusal, this individual – showing signs of superhuman powers, threw Huddleston from his 50-story apartment…

…Spidey finds Huddleston’s body and is…blamed for the murder.

Meanwhile, there is a meeting of the presidents of the 8 largest oil companies in the US. This same bad guy, hidden by a screen, told the eight that they must buy oil from him during the next year. Their oil has been irradiated and rendered useless. By the time the oil can be cleaned up, the year will have passed. This individual – known through the novel as the Master Planner until his real identity is revealed – is set to make millions.

While Spidey investigates the death of Huddleston he finds a taped telephone conversation with Huddleston and the Master Planner. Spider-Man finds that the murder is connected to a manipulation of the eight US oil companies. This leads to some of the Master Planner’s moles in the other oil companies. The Master Planner sets a trap for Spider-Man. There, the Master Planner reveals his real identity.

As the novel progresses, we meet regulars Mary Jane [Watson], Glory Grant, Joe Robertson and good old J Jonah Jameson. At first Triple-J is pleasant to others and happy that Spider-Man is accused of murder. As the facts become clearer, he is back to his usual…self – brusque, short-tempered and kvetching…He and Robbie investigate the mystery of the eight US oil company executives meeting in secret...At the end he confesses to Robertson why he REALLY dislikes Spidey – what about the REAL heroes who work to better mankind every day. “Who do you think is under that mask?” Robbie says. “A man, just like you.”

To add to this synopsis the climax transpires on a drilling platform where Doc Ock has the 8 oil men gathered up. Spidey uncovers a diary that has Ock’s whole plan committed to paper, and though it is destroyed, hearing the details is enough to clear his name as far as JJJ and Robbie are concerned (they are on the platform too). Doc Ock tries to escape with what amounts to a Scooby-Doo style latex mask which Spidey sees through fairly quickly and their battle resumes. When it’s over Doc Ock has seemingly perished in an inferno as the oil platform is set ablaze.

Out of concern for May’s health Peter throughout the novel seriously considers retirement but relents at the end. He plays a web-related prank on Jonah making everyone in the Bugle laugh. Close curtain.

Sorry it’s not as good as other synopses I’ve found but it’s the best I could find.

Context

This novel was released in March 1978 and, according to the information I found, was published when Len Wein’s run on ASM (ASM # 151–180) was nearing its end and not too long before Marv Wolfman would take the helm in ASM #182). Based upon Marvel.com’s publication dates, the novel would’ve been released between ASM #177-179. It’s unknown (and in my view highly unlikely) if Wein or Wolfman wrote this with the intention of being canonical. If read in conjunction with the then recent issues of Wein’s run it plays very much like most Spidey novels (especially the ones from the 1990s) wherein it takes place in a vaguely contemporary status quo within necesarilly marrying itself to any specific recent events. However how you perceive the novel in terms of being a Spider-Man story changes depending upon whether you look at it from the perspective of canon or as it’s own entity.

This was the first ever Spider-Man novel and also the only definitively canonical one (due to a direct reference in Wolfman’s ASM #186).

Obviously the standards for comics back then were not as realistic as they became later, and indeed the general craftsmanship quality wasn’t as high either. Perhaps more importantly we need to bear in mind Spider-Man’s place within collective pop culture osmosis at the time.

By this time Spider-Man’s exposure to the mass public merely extended to the (by then long since cancelled) 1966 Spidey cartoon, the (then recent but not particularly successful) 1977 live action TV show and a long running skit as part of the educational kids show the Electric Company (which had ended the year before).

What I’m trying to say is that whilst today most everyone on the planet could rattle off Spidey’s powers, his association with the Bugle and at least a few supporting characters and villains, back in 1978 the average person at best might be able to recognize the character, name his secret identity and list off most of his powers.

This is important to bear in mind when discussing the novel because, though it is canon, it doesn’t take audience familiarity for granted. If you are an old hand with Spidey a lot parts of the novel are going to feel like going through the motions as Spidey is framed once again, Spidey wants to quit once again, Spidey gushes about Aunt May, etc. There is even practically a whole chapter dedicated to recapping Peter’s origin.

But then again, this novel wasn’t written for the small number of people already familiar with the character but for a wider audience who weren’t. As such it’s fair game to retread this material and play stuff that’d be obvious to comic fans (like Doc Ock’s identity) as mysterious.

If I were to be kind I’d say it was because Wein and Wolfman wanted to give readers a broad idea of what Spider-Man’s deal is, and the typical ins and outs of your average Spider-Man adventure. Were I to be less kind I’d argue they retread old ground to make completing this job easier on themselves, although admittedly the central plot isn’t one I believe had ever been done in Spider-Man before.

That being said, even within the context of the novel certain elements get brought up repeatedly to the point of them becoming tedious, Aunt May being chief among them.

Finally, though I admit to have not researched them extensively, the novel touches upon then contemporary social/economic/political issues. The one of most note is the 1973 oil crisis. Long story short, there were fuel shortages due to events transpiring in the Middle East that obviously caused financial and maintenance troubles for America (and other regions of the world). There was another oil crisis in 1979 so it’s possible people (like Wein and Wolfman) were seeing the writing on the wall and including the topic in this novel. Obviously these events don’t directly impact the book nor are there direct allegories but the subject matter of the book makes it more likely than not that the oil crises were a source of inspiration.

There are no references I can recall to Middle Eastern people (and in fact exactly 3 people of colour in the whole book, Robbie, Randy and Glory) so Doc Ock and his scheme could be viewed as symbolic of the Middle East’s actions (deliberate or otherwise) in creating a fuel crisis. If this was intentional it doesn’t quite work as, to my understanding of the oil business, the oil companies he’s blackmailing were concerned with providing fuel for cars and other such vehicles, not for everything. As such the victims of Ock’s scheme would chiefly be vehicle owners (which most people in New York are not) and chiefly the oil company owners.

Now a fuel shortage even just for vehicles would have impact on a lot of good people, like everyone who ever needed an ambulance or fire truck to show up quickly. This makes Spider-Man’s lack of caring about the blackmail rather selfish, short sighted and out of character. But at the same time the story does frame it more as the oil companies being inevitably forced to take up Ock on his scheme and lose billions of dollars so Peter’s indifference to them makes more sense, especially when one considers he didn’t know Ock was involved at that time. However this is also the biggest reason for why the possibly/probably intentional connection drawn between this scheme and the oil crisis falls apart. Not only is it not truly analogous to the real life crisis but it also frames the primary victims as uber rich dickheads who will become slightly less uber rich for one year as a result of this.

Even by 1970s standards that’s a failure in reader investment because literally only other uber rich dickheads would have any sympathy.

Less significantly New York’s financial troubles coupled with a 25 hour black out in 1977 and high crime rates led to a feeling within and outside of New York of the city being a place beyond redemption.

Broadly this perception was the fuel for a lot of super hero stories in the 1970s and 1980s (like Frank Miller’s Daredevil run) and for this novel, whilst it isn’t strictly speaking the main concern, the idea of New York being stuck in a rut and a tough place to make it forms a backdrop for the story. There are references to how NYC is a place you need to survive and in doing so it becomes part of you. Though they emphasis the decay and the fact that the city is not in great shape, Wolfman and/or Wein display a certain amount of pride in the city through Peter Parker. This is fitting for the character, not just because he’s always resided in NYC, nor because the real NYC eventually adopted Spidey as one of their unofficial mascots, but because NYC as a city is tailored to Peter’s character. In truth it’s integral in defining his identity and the one place on Earth that offers an environment designed to optimize his super powers (how many other places have that many tall buildings in such a close proximity?).

From pictures to prose and the lack of personal stakes

According to the bibliographies I was able to find, this was Len Wein’s first ever prose novel and Wolfman’s second, so their degree of skill of experience with the format isn’t on the same level as say Jim Butcher’s Spidey novel.

That being said, the story wasn’t badly communicated through the prose. However, you can tell that these guys’ forte is in a visual medium as the scenes were primarily action orientated and all about trying to paint a clear picture in your mind about what’s happening. They usually succeeded though there were a few times my mind drifted off and on occasion instances where I was wondering why Spidey doesn’t just do this or that to get out of dodge; admittedly that might have more to them dropping the ball with Spider-Man’s skillset than anything else.

The novel in general shares the tone of your typical mid-late 1970s Spidey story, albeit with a greater emphasis placed upon investigation and a longer plot. In fact had this story been a comic book it could’ve passed for an original graphic novel (before Marvel was regularly doing those), albeit one with an only slightly more complex tone. Really the sinister opening chapter with Doc Ock along with the details the plot goes into as far as the investigation are concerned are just about the only things that would’ve have occurred in a then standard issue of ASM or Spec. Other than that it’s very similar to a Spidey yarn from the time, which unfortunately includes some unsophisticated and even dodgy writing.* Case in point Doc Ock’s incredibly convenient journal detailing his evil scheme and his Scooby-Doo style disguise that doesn’t really do much but pad out the story.

However those complaints pale in comparison to the most central problem at the heart of the story.

This is not a Spider-Man story truly about Peter Parker.

Even in the primordial days of Spider-Man in the early 1960s, Lee, Ditko and Romita knew that Peter Parker’s personal life was at least half as important as his hero activities. They had already mined the idea of the two sides of his life negatively impacting one another and in multiple instances colliding. Perhaps the most famous examples are The Master Planner Trilogy (wherein Aunt May’s life depends upon Spider-Man confronting Doc Ock’s gang) and ASM (wherein a party with the supporting cast is crashed by Kraven the Hunter).

The problem with this book as a central story is that it places the emphasis upon Spider-Man moreso than it does upon peter Parker. Even in 1978, merely referencing Aunt May, his origin and giving brief appearances by Mary Jane, wasn’t going to cut it. The subplot about Peter deciding to quit also feels rather unearned and would not be particularly impactful to most readers unfamiliar with the character.

For old hands at Spidey like me him wanting to quit is tedious and was something already in need of a fresh angle even in 1978 (which this novel absolutely doesn’t provide). But for newer fans or people introduced to Spider-Man through this novel it lacks punch as you’ve spent inadequate time depicting Peter’s everyday life and super hero career for his decision o give it all up to mean much. It’s a little like how Batman in BvS: Dawn of Justice having lost his way means little considering we knew so little of what he was like before that. It doesn’t help that Peter’s decision to not quit is flippant, I can’t even remember how or when it happens, just that it does. It might even have been off panel. Spider-Man No More it wasn’t.

The whole subplot was rather poorly handled and felt inserted for padding or out of obligation. But that is also one of the three meager things that offer any personal stakes for Peter in this story. One of the others is that Jonah and Robbie eventually become endangered by the scheme because they are investigating it, but even that is much more connected to Spider-Man than Peter Parker and Pete doesn’t even know about it for most of the story. The third attempt at personal stakes is Spider-Man’s false accusation of murder, which is about as well worn as ‘Spidey wants to quit’ as a trope and one that is even less laced with personal drama. In fact most of these personal stakes could be mitigated if Peter simply went ahead and DID retire and his personal life would improve as a result.

Yes we are TOLD his personal life suffers because he s Spider-Man but we are never really shown it beyond injuries to his body and there are no relatable normal life stakes in play for him. It’s just that if he dies, no one will take care of Aunt May. That’s it.

Okay fine, technically an argument with Jonah leads to him losing his job with the Bugle and in theory being blacklisted from other jobs but like…if he’s got the only Spidey photos in town are competing newspapers REALLY going to turn him down? And it’s not like photography was his long term career path at this point anyway. The novel doesn’t even ruminate all that much on the conflict, putting much more emphasis upon his concerns for May.

Compare all that say Spider-Man: Forever. There Peter being Spider-Man causes Peter’s peers to think him a coward, his friend is jailed, he believes Gwen and Flash are growing close because he isn’t around and because he is thought of as a coward, his stress causes him to lash out at Flash and in turn lash out at criminals in costume. Oh and he’s trying to rescue his friend/teacher Curt Connors and his family. I appreciate that novel was written decades after this one but everything I just described comes from it’s adaptation of a 1960s Stan Lee story.**

I’ve not revisted all of Wein and Wolfman’s stories carefully enough to deduce if this was par for the course back then, but to my recollections it wasn’t and common sense would dictate it’s not great writing in general. Even for a thriller or action orientated story, personal stakes ramps up the readers’ investment. Considering the comics had been doing this for years beforehand there really isn’t much of an excuse.

What’s even more baffling regarding the decision is that the switch in media you would think would make the need for personal stakes more relevant not less.

Let’s face it, action is almost always better when conveyed through visuals rather than prose and that is especially true for super heroes considering they were specifically designed for a visual medium. It’s a rare and very honed skill to make action really exciting in prose format, and Wein/Woflman are no Horowitz or Fleming. Whilst they can clearly convey what is happening well enough, I kept thinking how much better most of this would be as a comic book or film.

Given the nature of the character and limitations/strengths of the medium, it would be natural to emphasis the personal life stakes, introspection and soap opera elements innate to Spider-Man over the action adventurer aspect of who he is. This is precisely why Peter David’s ‘Five Minutes’ story from The Ultimate Spider-Man anthology is perhaps the strongest example of Spidey prose fiction. I’m not saying action and adventure should be at 0% here, but the ratio for this novel is at best 90% and that just doesn’t work very well.

I speculate this is perhaps partially due to Wein and Wolfman taking cues from Sherlock Holmes, James Bond and pulp novels; Holmes and Bond are even name checked in the novel. Such books have commonalities with the super hero genre and in some cases such novel characters contributed elements innate to the super hero genre. Batman for instance has Zorro and Holmes imbedded in his formative DNA.

Indeed, if you examine the physical ‘Mayhem In Manhattan’ book at face value it certainly reminds me of those types of action thriller novels and pulps. So in theory doing a super hero novel with inspiration from those books makes a lot of sense. But the problem is that, whilst the earliest 30s and 40s super heroes might’ve evolved from those types of characters, by the 60s-70s times had changed. Spider-Man and the early Marvel pantheon, whilst still super heroes, are a generation removed from the ones inspired by the likes of the Shadow, Holmes or Zorro, existing more as a reaction against their predecessors if anything. Because of this the emphasis upon action and adventure at best feels like it merely captures part of who Spider-Man is and simply dabbles in the other, perhaps more important, part (i.e. Peter Parker).

The Wein or the Wolfman

An interesting question to ask regarding this novel is to what extent it is the product of Len Wein and to what extent it is Wolfman’s. For all we know they actively collaborated throughout the writing process. But for all we know one might’ve provided the other with an outline the other actually fleshed out into a full novel.

Personally speaking I am inclined to believe that it was the former and that this book is more a product of Wolfman than Wein.

My reasons for this are circumstantial but hear me out.

Okay so, for starters when the book came out Wein was busy writing and editing ASM and was very likely doing work on ASM back when the book was being written. Secondly it was in Wolfman’s own ASM run that the novel became canonized. Thirdly the novel also features the great power/great responsibility mantra, which might seem insignificant, but in the comics to my recollection the Wolfman was the first guy to actually repeat the mantra since AF #15 (unless one counts the short lived Spec magazine). This makes this novel one of the earliest times that the mantra was ever repeated in a Spider-Man story.

Fourthly, the novel hammers Peter’s affection for Aunt May over and over and over again. Granted, Wolfman was neither the first nor the last person to do that. But he did do it to a bigger extent than Wein ever did in his run having Peter practically shed tears over how sweet Aunt May was. Wein might’ve used May and emphasized Peter’s affection for her, but nowhere near to the same extent. Wein, whilst giving May one of her more notorious health scares, didn’t make as big a deal of her health as Wolfman did in his run and her health is brought up more than once here as a rationale for Peter’s retirement.

Finally, I know Wolfman has an affection for hard boiled crime stories (his mid-late 80s Superman work conveys that) which this novel is definitely cut from and indeed the tone of this story is somewhat reminiscent of another Doc Ock story he did in ASM Annual #13 (released in 1979).

So I feel the lion’s share of the credit (for good or ill) for this novel should go to Wolfman. Although the fact that 2 people worked on this could explain certain inconsistencies and discrepancies in the novel. One such example (and frankly an unforgivable mistake for any Spidey writer to make) is Peter’s claim that he designed his costume to scare criminals only to later in the novel give his origin and (correctly) explain that he actually designed it to have show biz spectacle.

Another example arguably applies to the two main ladies of Peter’s life. Namely…

Aunt May and Mary Jane

At one point early in the novel Peter is listing off the price he pays for being Spider-Man. Among his complaints is that he has ‘no real love’. However this is in spite of referencing Aunt May in the same passage and MJ having appeared earlier in the novel.

In the former case one might argue that Peter was referring to romantic love and in the latter case the intent might’ve been that, whilst they were dating, he and MJ were not in love with one another.

More problematically is how both characters are handled in this story.

Now I’m not suggesting that a Spider-Man story is obliged to give Aunt May or MJ significant play, or more play than other supporting characters (Jonah and Robbie are definitely the most important secondary characters in this novel).

Heck, back in 1978 Mary Jane lacked the presence within the Spider-Man mythology that she has now, they’d only been dating for like 3-4 years by the time this novel was published; as far as anyone knew she was merely the latest Spidey lover not the endgame. That being said, her role as (at the time) the Spider-Man girlfriend did entitle her to a certain amount of importance at least on the level of Jameson. But okay, this was aiming to be a an action thriller/detective/pulp story, so giving focus to two newsmen over the girlfriend or elderly mother of the lead character makes a certain amount of sense if that’s what you are going for (even if a Spidey novel should probably be more than that).

The story doesn’t demand their inclusion but since this is the first ever Spidey novel, maybe Wein/Wolfman felt it a disservice to not include them as part of giving readers a taste of what makes Spider-Man tick.

With all that said though both characters would have probably been better off omitted from this novel completely given how they were used.

They both got the shaft but in noticeably different ways. Outside of an overwrought dream sequence May literally never appears and is merely referenced multiple times in annoying internal dives into Peter’s mind. It’s rote stuff. Peter has to quit cos Aunt May. She’s so kind. She’s so frail. She’ll die if she finds out the truth. Blah blah blah.

It’s not just that established fans would likely roll their eyes over this stuff, but even new fans in 1978 would likely get fed up with Peter’s hang up over May. And so much of this stuff fails to connect for the simple reason that, for as much as we hear Peter think or talk about her, she never appears to speak for herself.

As tedious and cliché as Aunt May on her sickbed had become by 1978 at least in most of those stories she was physically present. She’s still a prop to motivate Peter but here she’s been reduced to the idea of a prop. Although 1970s Aunt May wasn’t a great character she still deserved better. The kindest thing I can say is that the reference to her having recent heart attacks synchs up with Len Wein’s final storyline on ASM.

As for Mary Jane it’s just insulting.

On the positive end of things MJ’s flirtatious personality traits are present. On the less than positive side of things…her function in the story is a very clunky vehicle to get Peter to the Bugle, which is baffling considering Peter works there anyway and MJ doesn’t.

The long story short is that she bangs on Peter’s door early in the morning because she was told by Glory Grant (or whoever) that there was a sexy new reporter at the Bugle that all the men were drooling over and that she was now partnered up with Peter. She’s clearly upset, but claims not to but wants to get things clear because she thought she and Peter had ‘an understanding’.

WTF does that mean? That they are exclusively dating? That they aren’t exclusive but need to tell one another or get permission if they want to see other people? It’s not at all explained and if they were just straight up dating there would be no need to be vague about it.

Perhaps this is partially due to the iffy nature of their relationship under Wolfman’s run. Conway left readers in little doubt that Peter and MJ were both exclusive and more importantly in love with one another. Wein’s run muddied the waters somewhat as he didn’t go back on what Conway established save two significant moments. One of those is when Peter wonders to himself that he isn’t sure about his relationship with MJ when after Conway’s run he absolutely should be sure. The other is when MJ dates Flash to get back at peter for ditching her.

Whilst you can No. prize both instances, the fact is Wein didn’t explicitly go back on Conway’s work but also apparently didn’t take their romance as seriously, nor did Wolfman seeing as he broke them up ASAP into his run then made sure it was permanent later on.

What I’m trying to say is Wein, whilst he did give the couple some interesting ups and downs, didn’t exactly live up to the promise handed to him by Conway and Wolfman straight up disliked the Peter/MJ romance for bullshit reasons.

So whilst it is possible that Wein and/or Wolfman were covering their tracks by referring to Peter/MJ’s relationship as ‘an understanding’, I’m much more inclined to think it was one of them (probably Wolfman) misunderstanding or deliberately undermining the relationship cos they suck.

And let’s talk about MJ’s portrayal here. I honestly don’t understand the logic here. MJ hears there is an attractive woman who will be working with Peter and…she is angry?...because Peter…didn’t tell her/is working with her at all??????????

Huh?

It comes off as a ‘Jeez wimmn amirite fellas’ moment. Like MJ is threatened by this sexy woman she’s merely heard about. Okay, maybe there were 1970s standards for dating or just workplace etiquette that 40+ years removed I’m in the dark about. But even back then, if a woman didn’t like the idea of her male partner working with another woman, jumping to anger or a presumption of romantic shenanigans seems really petty and insecure.

And frankly, seriously OOC for MJ even as she was established back then. Let’s put aside how she vowed to be less clingy back in the issue where Betty and Ned got married (which likely happened before this story). MJ isn’t the type to be threatened by the mere presence of a sexy woman. Yeah she competed with Gwen, but that’s the key word. She competed. MJ knows she’s highly attractive and wants to be with Peter so she’ll go for it, but here she feels insecure about a woman she’s literally just heard about merely working with peter. Did Ann Nocenti write this or something?

It’s asinine and either really contrived in order to get us to the Bugle or a really desperate way to crowbar MJ in as part of a checklist of Spidey elements that should be in this story.

It feels like something Silver Age Betty Brant (Wolfman’s favourite Spidey love interest FYI) would’ve done but with MJ just being comparatively more chill and understanding when she realizes she’s made a mistake. Which is another bit of circumstantial evidence supporting my theory that this is more Wolfman’s work than Wein’s. Wolfman had a reductive view of who MJ was (although he technically established her issues with divorce/commitment) which was very much stuck in the Silver Age. He swiped plenty of his run from Ditko era Spidey stories and literally wrote out MJ in order to have Betty Brant become Peter’s lover again. So I suspect he was imposing the archetypical unreasonable Silver Age girlfriend template upon MJ in this story but tweaking it in accordance to her more hip and loose persona. Essentially a Silver Age girlfriend dialed down to the most mellow level…which is still NOT what MJ was at the time.

She proceeds to tag along to the Bugle, support a joke where peter forgets the name of the sexy Bugle reporter and then apologise, subtly offer sex and leaves. She is then unmentioned for the rest of the book until the very last chapter where she amounts to a pretty face, a cheerful personality and vaguely the supportive girlfriend. And frankly all that is really overselling it, she hugs Peter and congratulates him and little else.

She might as well not be in that chapter or in fact this entire novel. The subplot about the sexy reporter doesn’t even go anywhere. It’s just a clumsy means to facilitate the introduction of the Bugle cast, the incredibly minor subplot about Peter losing his job and get the ball rolling on Peter’s investigation.

Call me nuts but couldn’t the story have achieved all that by having Peter himself just go to the Bugle for work, been told directly by Jonah he was being partnered up with someone against his will, etc?

And you wanna know the worst part?

This sexy reporter is apparently a previously unmentioned niece of JJJ…who we never see. Not only would meeting Jonah’s extended family have been an interesting novelty if nothing else, but if you are going to have a whole contrived plot revolve around this niece have her put in an actual appearance maybe????? It doesn’t even go anywhere, I was expecting her to show up at some point and she absolutely didn’t.

So yeah, the female characters in this novel get fucked over quite a bit, even ones we merely hear about. Hell the opening chapter makes multiple mention of how the gangster’s wife is ugly and unlovable.

Jonah and Robbie

As I said, Jonah and Robbie get more play in this novel and they are actually handled well.

By this point in time neither character had been exactly given three dimensions and I can’t recall even a subtle implication that Robbie knew Peter’s secret. Nevertheless both characters are on point for how they’d been defined by 1978.

Jonah is the blowhard with a major anti-Spidey agenda, Robbie is steadfastly moral and voice of reason counterbalancing him. Jonah’s rants are a highlight as usual with a memorable argument with a cab driver and an even earlier one with Peter regarding his niece; to the novel’s credit Peter fights back.

We see both men display street smarts and investigative skills as they methodically pursue the trail of Ock’s scheme right to its climax. The most stand out example of this is when Robbie pays a drunk to spill information, the scene being ripped straight out of a crime noir story.

Furthermore, Robbie shines when he helps Spidey out during his duel with Ock, the aftermath of which involves him also calling Jonah out for his psychosis where Spidey is concerned. I can’t recall exactly if the comics had by this point pinned down that Jonah was in fact a very good newsman but had a Spider-Man shaped blind spot. If not then this would be the first time in canon that idea was established and furthermore kudos to Wein and Wolfman for lightly fleshing Jonah out some by doing so. They then followed up by doubling down on Lee/Ditko’s proposed rationale for Jonah’s vendetta, having him verbalize to Robbie his resentment and jealousy towards the wall-crawler. However they soften him up by having Jonah be more upset that the attention Spider-Man garners overshadows the normal everyday heroes like cops and firefighters.

This is an interesting angle to approach Jonah from, even if it doesn’t really jive with the status quo of the novel wherein Spider-Man is clearly regarded as a public menace. Howe can he be a public pariah yet also someone people glorify at the expense of fire fighters?

This then precipitates some more interesting

There are also two noteworthy exchanges towards the end of the novel.

The former has Robbie succinctly skewer Jameson for allowing his hate-boner to blind him and acting as JJJ’s conscience, insisting he print the truth about Spidey’s innocence. This is followed by an over the top old timey dialogue about how Jonah is going to spin this to his advantage; It just goes to show how back then Jonah was more of a yellow journalist than the dignified newsman.

The latter has Robbie sings Spider-Man’s praises. Whilst it’s heartwarming for us old established fans to see Robbie express such respect towards Peter, in the context of the novel the scene has it’s problems. To begin with it is arguably overwrought and rather unrealistic in the context of the scene. More significantly it’s rather too blunt a way for Wein/Wolfman to essentially spell out to the readers why Spider-Man (in their view) is a great character and you should love him. It falls flat since newer readers would’ve only experienced Spidey in the course of this rather short novel anyway so the moment feels rather unearned, albeit much more applicable when you look at this in canon.

Also since Robbie is essentially implied to not know Peter is Spidey in the novel it feels odd to new readers that Robbie would be speaking this way, as though he knows Spider-Man to a much more personal degree. The novel even states Robbie I mostly indifferent towards Spidey a chapter or two earlier than this speech so it’s another example of the novel being inconsistent. The actual sentiments of the speech as they truly apply to Spidey can be discussed later.

Don’t be fooled. I’m not trying to say JJJ or Robbie were not great in this novel because perhaps more than anything they absolutely work.

Doc Ock

I don’t have a whole Hell of a lot to say about Doc Ock in this novel. Doc ock hadn’t really been given the meaty layers he’d get later on and by this point was Spider-Man’s #1 bad guy kind of by default. He was the most visually dynamic of Peter’s foes, the one that thematically had the greatest connection to him (aside from Norman, but he was dead) and had been the most recurring of Spidey’s foes.

He also doubled up as a mad scientist and a fighter meaning he was a character with a shade more versatility than knuckleheads like Sandman or clever yet weak opponents like Mysterio.

Wein/Wolfman use him fairly well here and you could argue this novel is a better Doc Ock story than Spidey story.

I said above that this novel likely takes cues from (among other things) James Bond novels and here Ock certainly echoes a Bond villain in his scheme, he even has a secret lair with death traps and hilariously a finely furnished room on an oil rig.

He’s described using effectively intimidating language. Wein/Wolfman interestingly avoids describing him as overweight and instead claims he’s stocky and strong, conveying a sense of power quite apart from his tentacles. When he and Spidey begin dueling at the end of the novel the novel really sells him as formidable and dangerous figure.

Perhaps the highlight of Otto’s characterization stems from his rant about how he spent years unrecognized for his genius. Whilst Doc Ock has always had an undercurrent of being driven by a desire for recognition, to my recollection this was perhaps the first time ever it was stated outright. It’s not much but it allows Ock to be a tad more than a one dimensional villain.

The primary weakness of his portrayal mainly stems from the mystery surrounding his identity. To any old hand at Spidey it’s incredibly obvious it’s Doc Ock very early into the novel and it becomes even more obvious as soon as he is identified as the Master Planner. This even creates some continuity problems due to Wolfman canonizing the novel. Given how momentous an event the MP Trilogy was in Peter’s life why would he fail to remember the Master Planner was a moniker used by Doc Ock? And if Otto is attempting to maintain secrecy why would he use an alias that is public knowledge anyway?

Hell now I think about it, why even bother with secrecy at all? Remember this was before the days of the internet and when surveillance technology wasn’t what it is today, so if what benefit would Otto have in disguising his voice or using an alias when trying to blackmail the oil tycoons? If anything, being upfront with them would surely be more intimidating.

Other weaknesses include his committing his plans (including a confession of murder) to a diary for plot convenience, his Scooby-Doo level disguise and conveniently (and repeatedly) verbally confessing to murdering Huddelston.

These issues are partially connected to another problem with the novel, that of padding.

Not so fantastic filler

In spite of its length the novel is weirdly padded out. For sure a lot of stuff to people who’re already fans of comic Spidey there is a lot of unnecessary stuff. But even having said that there is plenty of stuff to cut here.

The filler takes two dominant forms.

The first is stuff you would expect. The brief subplot regarding Otto’s diary doesn’t really serve the plot much as Otto destroys it pretty soon afterwards. It mostly exists just to cheaply inform Spidey of Otto’s scheme but there were much more elegant and effective ways for him to have learned about that. There is basically a brief video game side mission wherein Peter has to save an old blind man from being run over by a carjacker, all to desperately (and unsubtly) remind the readers of Uncle Ben’s death. There is a brief fight involving Jonah and Robbie verses their kidnappers, which at best might serve to set up Robbie’s bravery for when he helps Spidey out later. And I already mentioned all the stuff with Mary Jane.

The second and probably more annoying for of filler is the needless elaboration on bit characters. A random cop, a random security guard, a random tourist and a random criminal are among the several pointless characters who do not need names, let alone potted backstories regarding their future’s with the police force or their street names. Each one feels like something ripped from a noir novel but the only instance where this is effective is in the case of Alan Huddelston. He is the POV character for the first chapter and integral t the plot, so his murder nicely sets the tone, puts some pieces in place for the story and establishes a bit about Doc Ock. Everyone else though is not only cuttable but their inclusion made me outright dislike them.

I suspect the writers were so used to the faster pace afforded by comic books that they found their initial efforts for the novel coming up short hence these insertions.

Peter Parker’s Portrayal

Obviously the single most important thing when it comes to a Spider-Man novel is how it handles Spider-Man himself.

It’s a mixed bag.

At face value Wein/Wolfman seemingly capture Spidey circa the late 1970s. Descriptions of his movement clearly evoke comic images in your head.

His banter sounds authentic to the time period too, although his quips aren’t the greatest. They feel oddly old fashioned eve by 1970s standards although maybe that’s just me because I find Stan’s Spidey dialogue still holds up.

However ultimately this portrayal of Peter Parker falls flat, largely because it doesn’t strike a balance between earning the moments of pathos or emotion from newer readers and for older Spidey fans it’s very rote. Actually it’s more like it’s rote but it also gets stuff outright wrong.

A small example of this Peter’s agonizing to quite. Putting aside how that had been done to death even by 1978, the novel has Peter come off as rather whiney and it’s almost like it’s yelling at you to appreciate the novelty of a superhero who doesn’t ENJOY being a superhero. When Peter sought to quit even in the early days of the comics, Lee and Ditko earned it much more through the art and through conveying Peter’s constant uphill struggle. For newer readers though the first thing they read about Spidey is him in costume and complaining, already framed for murder. Most adaptations opt to either first set up Peter then introduce Spidey or open with standard Spidey action and then after establishing his normal life have it go to shit. Wolfman/Wein are in essence writing for a new audience who they think already know enough about Peter to care, when in reality they don’t and the audience that does care wouldn’t be impressed by recycling so many tropes of Spidey for this novel.

Another example is Peter’s complaining that he has no real love. This is baffling if you contextualize it into the comics canon because, hello…Gwen Stacy (who is never mentioned once in this novel even though her Dad died due to Doc Ock)and Mary Jane? Maybe this ties into Wein and/or (more likely) Wolfman’s over all problems in handling MJ in their runs, but like Peter undeniably is in love with Mary Jane by this point and knows she reciprocates. This feels more appropriate to a generalized idea of Spider-Man as opposed to the specific nuances of the canon character.

Undeniably though the single biggest example of mischaracterization comes from when Spider-Man suspends a suspect in a web high above the ground to make him squeal and then literally leaves him there. As in the guy has to carefully disentangle himself from the webbing and gradually inch his way back inside to safety. The novel never states Peter’s webbing lasts just 1-2 hours, but even if it was permanent, WTF man? Unless there was some extenuating circumstances Spider-Man would’ve leave the guy there.

I am not familiar enough with Wein’s wider bibliography, but that feels much more like a Wolfman thing. Wolfman’s work routinely involves tough guys beating the shit out of gangsters and this scene is ripped out of crime noir story. It’s another example of how I suspect Wein/Wolfman looked to precursors of the superhero genre for influence but it doesn’t really jive here.

Then of course we have the second act climax in Doc Ock’s lair. Guys…this is 100% a Master Planner Trilogy rip off.

Now in defence of this story, the cliché of ‘Spider-Man needing to use his willpower to lift something really heavy’ hadn’t yet become a cliché by 1978. In fact this may well have been the very first time somebody returned to that well in all Spidey media.

But here is the thing. As eye rolling as it has become to see that cliché again and again…this is probably the single worst example of it I have ever seen.

This isn’t an homage, this is basically an outright rip off.

You could argue JMS outright ripped this off too back in his Doc Ock/L.A. arc in ASM vol 2. But that story didn’t involve also going through a veritable laundry list of Spider-Man clichés as well.

For real this is a story where Spidey is framed for murder, Jameson is an irrational lunatic who ironically needs Spidey to save him, Peter angsts about Aunt May’s heart, contemplates retirement and ALSO needs to lift something really heavy.

How much of a rip off is this?

Well stop me if any of this sounds familiar. Spidey goes to the Master Planner’s secret lair, there he learns the MP is really Doc Ock. At the lair he survives several obstacles, then is buried under tons of debris and is in danger of drowning. But using his will power he frees himself.

The only real difference is Spider-Man is in danger of drowning because the tide is coming in not because he is underwater. Combined with Aunt May’s lack of immediate peril, Uncle Ben’s memory and the build up to this moment and you basically have a shittier version of the scene that undermines Peter’s character.

It comes off as rote because he’s dwelling on May’s fate if he dies (and how she’s so sweet and kind) for the umpteenth time in the novel. And because we’ve spent so little time with Peter as Peter (as opposed to Spider-Man) that emotional investment is lacking. The dialogue if placed in a different story could work, but having Peter think to himself ‘I’m Spider-Man!’ doesn’t mean much. It’s like if in the first ever Sherlock Holmes novel, Holmes saves the day by clenching his teeth and affirming his own identity. It’d falls as flat as when Cumberbach revealed he was Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness.

More than this in the actual MP Trilogy Peter went through Hell BEFORE we got to this moment. He suffered a shitton before the single worst thing could happen to trip him up at the finish line. This comes out of nowhere and is dispensed with. He doesn’t evolve or change in response to the moment.

At best it’s just another injection of titillating peril to keep people interested, at worst it’s Wein/Wolfman indulging themselves by redoing the best Spider-Man story ever.

It’s not even the culmination or climax of the story either. Whilst the iconic scene in the original story was the start of the third part of the story, it was 100% the culmination of the saga over all. This? This is the second act climax, it’s the equivalent of when Spidey fucked up the ferry in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Except that at least had consequences, this was glorified filler.

Then we have Peter’s desire to quit. I’ve already talked about this a whole lot but one thing I didn’t touch on is something that happens after he recounts his origin.

Once Peter repeats his responsibility mantra he begins to follow up by claiming he’ll never forget his lesson.

Well putting aside the semantics of that because he obviously has quit multiple times in canon (ASM #50 comes to mind) isn’t he literally forgetting that lesson in this very novel by opting to retire?

The novel then continues to basically imply great responsibility naturally comes with great power. “Sure great responsibility comes with great power…” This is a small but significant thing to misinterpret. Spider-Man’s mantra isn’t about how great responsibility is part of the package when you get great power, it’s about how that power needs responsibility to temper it, to keep it in check.

That’s why the original quote (as Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz have pointed out several times) is “with great power THERE MUST ALSO COME great responsibility.”

What Wein/Wolfman describe is the equivalent of just saying: “with great power COMES great responsibility”.

But it doesn’t.

That’s the entire point of Spider-Man’s origin. He had power, he didn’t use it responsibly, something bad happened. It’s also literally what Doc Ock is doing in this novel. He has power and abuses it, he doesn’t have any sense of responsibility and it causes harm.

The difference is small yet profound and what is ironic is that the majority of portrayals of Spidey use misquote even though they grasp the original sentiment. And yet here Wein/Wolfman get the correct quote but then follow it up with a misinterpretation in line with the misquote.

The novel continues by claiming Peter’s first responsibility had to be to himself and those he cared for.

Again, this is a small but profound misinterpretation of Spider-Man.

As far as Spider-Man himself is concerned yes his loved ones are his first responsibility (in terms of their wellbeing, obviously he’ll miss an engagement with them for the greater good) but not himself. Peter does not view his own well being as above what he does for innocent people as Spider-Man.

If a situation endangered Aunt May, himself and a stranger, his priorities would be May, the stranger, himself, in that order.

Wein and Wolfman are subtly demonstrating a big misreading of the character in this part of the novel, even if it is refreshing to hear Peter acknowledge himself and his loved ones as ONE of his major responsibilities and not irrelevant next to being Spider-Man.

Now in fairness, older stories under Stan did demonstrate Peter was willing to go into retirement for the sake of Aunt May (and thus by extension his other loved ones too), for example ASM #50. That same story saw Peter only come out of retirement when May was on the mend. The first time he seriously considered retirement (as opposed to throwing a teenage hissy fit like in ASM #3) was in ASM #18 when May was again seriously unwell. So there is a certain truth to what the novel is saying, the problem is May is not unwell in the novel. Spider-Man is planning on retiring simply because may MIGHT have another heart attack or he MIGHT die and be unable to take care of her which is literally the regular status quo of Spider-Man. Like he was doing this in ASM #1-100 so why the Hell is he now bleeting on about his responsibility to her and to alienating people who try to befriend him (which we see no evidence of in the novel, again, he’s literally dating MJ).

It’s another example of the novel being at odds with itself. This characterization contradicts things for established fans, but for newer ones it’s incredibly unearned.

The novel continues by having Peter say that if great power demanded great responsibility (which again isn’t what his mantra is about) then he’d give up that great power. This further cements Wein/Wolfman’s misinterpretation of Spider-Man because, hello, the point of his origin is that he had power and didn’t use it! The only way that Spidey giving up his great power works is if he is literally depowered, not simply choosing to not use it for fuck’s sake.

The whole passage in the book doesn’t even add up because Peter conditions his retirement upon both clearing Spider-Man’s name and bringing the Master Planner to justice…but why?

At this point in the novel all he knows is the Master Planner is stealing money from billionaires who themselves steal from the common man and who’s losses will not (the novel makes clear) impact him or anyone lacking a car. So if Peter is of a mindset to retire and doesn’t get that having his powers means he’s obliged to use them to help others, then why is he choosing to use them to help these douchebags and clear the name of an identity he’s giving up anyway?????????????

There are, of course, other discrepancies in Peter’s characterization too, noticeably in his account of his origin story. For starters he uses Stan Lee’s ASM #50 revision that Peter went sought to cash in on his powers specifically to pay back May and Ben when in AF #15 he is way more selfish than that. Additionally the origin claims Peter turned down an invitation to join his peers at the movies, preferring to go to his fateful science exhibit. This is a tiny but significant change, as originally Peter invited his peers to the experiment and was rejected, rather he rejecting them. It’s an important distinction as it made Peter more sympathetic and less asocial whilst still being an outsider. Essentially it was Lee and Ditko balancing things out rather than Wein/Wolfman’s take wherein Peter was just naturally a loner. Even if Spidey in costume should lean towards being a solo act, Peter as a person is not asocial.

Finally lets talk about Robbie’s little speech. Robbie tries to counter argue Jameson, when the latter explains his dislike for Spidey. JJJ’s argument is that the glorification Spider-Man gets comes at the expense of everyday heroes, normal people. Robbie’s counter is that a normal person is who is under Spider-man’s mask, and he could claim fame and glory by revealing himself if he wanted. He elaborates that the reason Spidey doesn’t is because so long as he wears the mask Spider-man can be anybody, a symbol of any man who hates injustice and who fights for the good can become.

This speech is another example where Wein and Wolfman’s sentiments have grains of truth in them but do not come together.

An important part of the whole point of Spider-Man IS that he is (relatively) ordinary. And on a meta level his costume totally covering his body does indeed allow the audience member a certain amount of wish fulfillment.

But there are several problems with this passage.

To begin with Jonah’s objections contradict the novel because Spider-man is a public pariah, not a glorified hero. In fact a great bit of the novel is where Spider-Man encounters a group of secrtaries who’re initially frightened of him due to his reputation, only to be taken aback when they realize he’s a lot younger and gentler than they believed.

Secondly, it’s very clear that the novel isn’t trying to zero in on a particular aspect of Spider-Man and talk about it metatextually. It’s obviously tyring to deliver some grand summation of Spider-Man’s character as a whole and what his appeal is. And the fact that he is a symbol or has a full body outfit has nothing to do with that. Spider-Man’s appeal lies primarily outside of his costume and his specific and particular life struggles. He really isn’t a symbol. BATMAN is a symbol. Superman is a symbol. Wonder Woman is a symbol. Peter Parker is a man.

Finally, the speech is just not great in the context of the novel. The dialogue is clunky and because Robbie hasn’t been shown to know Spider-Man (or Peter) all that well and has even been stated to be actively indifferent to him, it just comes off as disingenuous. Robbie isn’t Wein/Wolfman’s in-story mouthpiece, he is randomly possessed by their spirits and forced to speak their words.

It’s a nice to see Robbie doing Spidey a solid, but the sentiments are problematic.

And problematic just about sums up Peter’s handling in this whole novel.

Hell the novel resolves Spider-Man’s retirement angst practically off page and well before the climax of the story. Even by the standards of the time, that’s just incompetent.

Audio Adventure

Finally we come to how this audiobook adaption holds up.

It is…serviceable.

The narrator, Tristan Wright, is at his best with Doc Ock but his voice doesn’t suit the old fashioned dialogue. It comes off as an impersonation of how people talked in old timey movies as opposed to genuine. Jameson is the worst offender, although the dialogue would make anyone struggle.

His female and black voices are….eh….I don’t like them.

And as for his Spider-Man. Well, he skates the line between falling flat and just about getting the job done. But it’s never good. I know this is weird to say, but given how dated the novel is Wright just sounds too modern. They should’ve gotten someone who either sounds more old fashioned or was just an older person. Dan Gilvezan, voice of the 1980s Spidey cartoons, might’ve been a good choice.

Beyond that there is just nothing to really write home about this audiobook. It doesn’t have multiple actors or a soundscape, the only music involved is for the title sequence.

It gets the job done but does little else.

Conclusion

Over all, I must confess to being rather disappointed in this novel and even would kind of prefer it to be non-canonical given the continuity errors it creates.

It’s more valuable as a historical curiosity than an actual story and has perhaps lowered my (already not great) opinion of Wein and Wolfman as Spider-Scribes.

I’d advise checking it out if you want to be a completist or if you want to appreciate how the standards for Spidey novels have improved.

*Hot take: Aside from Conway’s work, 1970s Spider-Man was in general not as good as 1960s Spidey stories, let alone those from the 1980s.

**See why Stan was the GOAT?

#Spider-Man #Marv Wolfman #Len Wein #Peter Parker #doc ock #doctor octopus #otto octavius #J. Jonah Jameson #Joe Robertson #Joe Robbie Robertson #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #MJ Watson #Aunt May #May Parker

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daysswithyou · 5 years

Text

Picture perfect

Characters: Jae x You

Genre: fluff, slice of life,

Word count: 2.3k

Description: photographer!jae AU

-----

[Jae POV]

She is beauty.

She is beauty, and grace and everything in between.

She is the soft caress of the morning sun on your skin, warm and bright.

She is the dim glow of the moon through the clouds, hidden at time, but still greatly felt.

She is the calm lapping of the waves against the shore, comforting and cool.

She is everything that is good in this world.

Someone that is too good for me.

I think of all these things as I look at the photo I just took of her during the school carnival event. The sun was shining radiantly on her, making her skin bask with a light glow. Her hair glittered in variations of gold and browns, eyes lightening from their usual shade of chocolate to caramel. In that moment, she was a sight that demanded to be looked at, a picture perfect moment that must be captured.

It was unfair you know, the universe always conspires to make her look so beautiful and lovely. Which makes her seem even more unattainable yet it makes me fall harder for her at the same time.

She catches me staring, and raises a single eyebrow in my direction before marching over.

Oh no she’s coming. Be still heart...be still…

The little pep talk doesn’t work because with each step that she takes towards me, I can hear the pounding of my heart getting louder in my ears, feel the warmness spreading over my cheeks.

“Jaehyung ah, got any good shots yet?”

“A couple!” I answer with a little too much enthusiasm, and I mentally slap myself in the face for losing my cool.

“Let’s see them.”

Hastily, I punch the little knobs on the body of the solid black DSLR camera, quickly showing her some shots I got of the students and teachers. She squints her eyes to take a closer look, and I quickly pull back once she’s done reviewing them.

“That’s all?”

“Yea…”

“That’s too little! We’re the only 2 on duty in this area so we need to work harder to take more shots each. Focus Jae.”

She taps me lightly on the head with the body of her camera, scrunching her nose and setting her lips into a thin line. Even though she’s annoyed at me, I still think she’s adorable.

“I’m sorry, I’ll pay more attention.”

“I’ll be watching you Park Jaehyung.”

She shoots 2 fingers at me, trying to act serious but the smile on her lips give her away. She’s not really angry at me, she hardly is at anyone.

“Gotcha.”

Courage surges over me in a sudden wave and I throw a wink in her direction. The corners of her lip lift up just a little bit more, and she’s off to the other side of the field, trying to get some good shots of the Ares House.

Y/N-ah, the more you look at me, the more I won’t be able to focus.

But the last thing I want to do is make her angry, so I put my focus back on the event, chasing after the beautiful shots that could possibly rival her beauty.

---

“Ya Jae, you know that staring at her photo won’t make her fall in love with you, right?”

“Shut up and stop snooping on what I’m doing!”

Jae slams the screen of his laptop down, throwing one of his used tissue papers at Younghyun. He doesn't care if it’s unhygienic and filled with his mucus; better for him if Younghyun gets sick too. Only when he’s lost his voice and immobilised in bed will he finally shut up about you and Jae.

“EWWW!!!”

Younghyun lets out a high pitched noise that sounds more like a screech than a scream and before gingerly pinching the waste tissue and letting it drop onto Jae’s bed on the lower bunk.

“That was disgusting yucks. Besides, I was hardly snooping. Your laptop screen was on with full brightness, anyone can see what you’re doing it.”

“Basic courtesy Younghyun. You don’t look at what others are doing on their laptop.”

“Couldn’t pass on an opportunity to tease you.”

“As if you don’t do that enough.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just ask her out already.”

“Why are you so concerned with my love life?”

“Because we live together and you’re my friend so your life automatically becomes my life. It’s part of Bro Code. Duh.”

Younghyun narrows his foxy eyes at Jae, raising both hands in a noncommittal gesture. Jae rolls his eyes at Younghyun, settling for that as a retort. He’s not going to what little that’s left of his energy on Kang Younghyun. Jae never wins, and he’s not about to give his roommate that satisfaction again. Younghyun was about to turn and lie down when Jae’s phone rang, immediately catching his attention.

Jae’s eyes widen ten times at the sight of the caller ID, snapping his head to shoot a warning glare at Younghyun.

“It’s Y/N isn’t it?”

“I swear, if you make any inappropriate comment when I’m-”

“Relax I won’t. Just pick up the call.”

Jae has his eyes trained on Younghyun the entire as he swipes the green button; still Younghyun does not give up, mouthing ideas of how to ask you out to Jae from his spot on the top bunk.

“Hi Y/N.”

“Hey Jae, where are you?”

“Am I supposed to be somewhere?”

“Yes. And that somewhere is the photography room, editing photos from the school carnival.”

Jae’s eyes blow to the size of dining plates when he realised that he’s forgotten the appointment he’s made with you today, guilt chewing away at his conscience when he realised he’s left you alone.

“Y/N, I am so sorry! I’m rushing over now.”

His saliva rises violently in his throat, triggering a violent round of coughs that nearly tears his throat apart.

Your eyes widen as you listen to him hecking away for 5 minutes over the phone, realising that he was sick.

“Jae, are you ok? You don’t sound well.”

“Yea I’m ok -”

Another round of coughs and aggressive blowing of his nose.

“No mister, you are not ok. Do not leave your room, I am coming over.”

You don’t give him time to protest before ending the call, slipping your phone into your jeans pocket as you dash out of the photography room towards his dorm.

---

You haven’t even knocked on the door when it was thrown open, a dishevelled looking Jae greeting you. Younghyun waves at you from his spot on the bed and you wave back before he flops onto his bed and proceeds to scroll through his phone. Jae notices, then decides it was better to shut the door to make sure Younghyun does not get more blackmail material. Stepping closer to you now, you can feel the heat radiating off Jae’s body even from an arm’s length away and you instinctively reach up to touch his forehead, moving your hand under his mop of fringe.

“You’re running a fever. Did you see a doctor?”

You move downwards to place the back of your hand lightly against his neck and Jae visibly stiffens, your touch sending shockwaves through his entire body. Jae’s cold body feels hotter now, and it’s not because of his fever.

“I’ll be fine after popping some pills, give me 1 minute ok? I’ll be out in a flash, then we can head to the photography room.”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything about going to the photography room.”

You cross your arms in front of your chest, tapping your fingers against your elbow as Jae gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in an distractingly attractive manner.

“Isn’t that what you’re...here...for…?”

“No Mr Park Jaehyung, I’m here for your camera so I can head back to the photography room to edit the photos, whereas you, are going to stay here and rest.”

“I can’t let you do all the work Y/N.”

“This isn’t open for discussion.”

Both of you engage in a stare down, and you know Jae has relented when he lets out a sigh.

“Alright give me a minute, I’ll bring the memory card out.”

He slips through the door and you catch Younghyun’s smirk from his spot on the top bunk. Younghyun always looks like he knows something you don’t when he catches you and Jae together; just what exactly is up with that guy?

Jae comes back out exactly a minute later, his grip on the memory card not loosening even when it’s in your hands.

“You sure about this Y/N? There’s a lot to go through.”

“Yes I’m sure Jae. Now hurry inside and rest!”

Gently, you give Jae a shove before he can get another word in, closing the door after yourself.

---

Alright, let’s get down to work.

Slotting Jae’s orange memory card into the reader, you expected to find a bunch of folders from the various school events. Yet there was no mistake; only a collection of photos was found. And the collection of photos all had the same subject:

You.

The very last photo you found dated back 2 years ago, when Jae had just joined the photography club and you were still with the school dance team. You were on the floor holding onto your ankle as your members crowded around you, yet you managed a smile through the grimace. You remember that particular dance - you had landed wrongly during the acrobatic move, causing you to sprain your ankle.

The caption below wrote: It pains me to see you hurt, but you’re so brave for putting on a smile.

The photo later got featured during a dance special for the school magazine, highlighting the strong spirit of the dance team. You always wondered who took the photo; half of you wanted to punch the person for taking such an ugly photo of you, another half was thankful that the person decided to send in the photo, giving the editorial team a good story to work with. Now that you know it’s Jae, you’re definitely going to tackle him first, but hug him later for the good shot.

Scrolling further up, there was another photo of you during orientation camp; speaker in your hand with green streaks on your face. You looked so happy in the photo, and it brings back fond memories of the adrenaline rush you felt when you saw your group working hard on their cheers.

Your smile is so infectious, I found myself smiling like an idiot looking back at this photo.

Upon viewing the other photos, you found the same concept being repeated: it was you in various moods and events, with a small caption at the bottom about how Jae felt about you. With each passing photo, your heart swelled with emotions, in absolute disbelief that you always had a guardian angel watching over you all these years.

The final photo; the one he took at the school carnival last week was the one that sealed the deal.

They say that one takes photos of those they’re afraid of losing, and for me, I hope I’ll never lose you.

---

You rap on his door thrice, wiggling your toes in anticipation as you heard the sound of foot thumping against the ground on the other end.

The door swings open with a whoosh, revealing Jae with an even messier bird’s nest resting atop of his head now.

Passing the memory card back to him, you confidently said, “All done.”

“A-A-Already? But it’s only been an hour!”

“Well truth is… there was nothing to edit in the first place.”

“Really? But I’m sure I hadn’t done anything yet.”

“See for yourself.”

You hand the card over to him and Jae slots it into his laptop to check, very sure that you had made a mistake. The moment the window pops up, he slams the laptop screen down for the second time in the day, groaning as he squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself to disappear in a poof immediately.

But no such luck.

He cracks an eye open to peek at his side and there you stood calmly, with your hands behind your back, your head tilted slightly to get a better look at his face.

“You saw.”

“Mmmhmm. But don’t you have anything else to say to me?”

What am I supposed to say! You know everything! I can’t confess properly now; the fact that you’re aware of my feelings just makes the bundles of nerves in my stomach grow tighter.

Jae’s conflicting feelings show on his face, and you decide to be nice and not put him in a tough spot.

“I thought someone was afraid of losing me.”

“I am! I just...never knew how to...you know...”

He can’t. He just can’t bring himself to ask you the question; afraid of hearing a different answer.

“Ask me to be your girlfriend?”

A nod.

“Well, you could start by asking me out.”

“How? You’re so...up there and I’m so down here and I just-”

You quickly place a finger on Jae’s lips, stopping him from criticizing himself further.

“Ok then let me demonstrate, alright? For example: Hey Jae, I’m going to the aquarium this coming weekend to get some shots for the marine biology club, care to join me?”

It’s silent between the 2 of you for a while, Jae unsure if you were being serious with your request.

“I mean it Jae, and I’m still waiting for an answer.” You then show off your biggest smile, a clear indication that you were being genuine with him.

“I would love to Y/N.”

His face then lights up with a smile that easily rivaled your own, one that is bright and warm and dazzling.

If you could take a photo of Jae, now would be the time - because this was a picture perfect moment that you want to remember forever.

#day6 #day6 imagines #day6 scenarios #day6 jae scenarios #day6 jae imagines #jae imagines #jae scenarios #day6 fluff #day6 romance #day6 slice of life #day6 jae fluff #day6 jae romance #day6 jae slice of life

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thatuncoolasianpotato · 6 years

Text

sunsets & stars ~ Plance

Hiya :))

Have this thing I wrote pre-season 7, but was too cowardly to share until now—

.☆.

Pidge inhaled the buttery scent of popcorn as she quickly took it out from the microwave, eager to get this movie/game night started.

She grabbed a handful of popcorn and quickly shoved it into her mouth. God, how she missed Earth food. Despite Hunk’s many attempts to make alien cuisine palatable, nothing beat old fashioned Earth junk food.

“Hey, Lance? The popcorn’s ready!” She called out after thoroughly enjoying her handful of popcorn. “Where are you?” She called out again as she reached the living room. She set down the popcorn on the table and quickly observed the set up she and Lance had prepared earlier that day.

The TV was surrounded by two tall stacks of CDs, one stack contained a myriad of video games while the other stack was composed of numerous movies. The couch called out to her invitingly, full of fluffy pillows and stuffed toys that Lance swore belonged to his niece and nephew.

She couldn’t wait to spend the entirety of the evening sitting there, munching on popcorn while watching a thrilling movie or beating Lance at one of the games they had.

“Lance?!” She called out a third time as she grew impatient from Lance’s lack of response. “Come on, Lance! We already lost Hunk to Shay after he promised to take her a tour around town; don’t tell me you’re bailing out on hang out night, too.”

She said in what she hoped was a joking tone.

Truthfully, it had only been a few days since they had been able to return to Earth and Pidge was really itching for some normalcy. Though she wasn’t nearly as homesick as Lance was, she couldn’t deny the appeal of being back on Earth again; away from all the stressful and rather life threatening missions. She did admit that being in space had its perks, especially in terms of all the advanced technology, but returning to Earth was a fresh breath of air she didn’t mind taking.

After having stopped over at her own home, having the complete family dinner she had dreamed of for years since her father and brother’s disappearance, and enduring a night long scolding from her motherabout their misadventures in space, Pidge had accepted the Galaxy Garrison Trio hang out night Lance had proposed. Although she did love the other paladins and Coran and Allura, she had to admit that just having the three of them together like the days before Voltron was a pleasing idea.

Unfortunately, the trio was reduced to just a duo after Hunk decided to spend more time with Shay. Pidge wasn’t necessarily complaining though, at the very least, it meant more popcorn for her, plus she knew how much Shay meant to Hunk. He wanted to spend every available moment with her and show her around his planet, and he wanted to show around as much as possible given their limited time on Earth.

Similarly, Pidge wanted to spend her limited time on Earth to the fullest as well. Although her definition of spending her time to the fullest was stuffing herself with popcorn and possibly damaging her eyes with too much exposure to a TV screen, not waiting around for Lance to show up.

“Lance, I swear, I’ll start without you! We only have about a week before we have to get back to space and I’m not waiting around anymore. I’m going to start playing your favorite movie!” She threatened, hoping this would finally get Lance attention.

“I’m up here, Pidge!” Lance’s muffled voice came from above.

Pidge looked up at the ceiling, confused. “Are you in the attic?”

“Nope, I’m on the roof.” He called back casually.

“On the roof?” She repeated as she walked outside in disbelief. She looked up and, sure enough, Lance McClain was sitting on top of his house; his hair whipping in the wind and his feet dangling off the edge. He saw her and gave a little wave and a dazzling smile as if this were the most natural thing in the world.

“Need a hand getting up here?” He asked as he slowly stood up.

Instead of responding, Pidge simply went back inside the house.

Why the heck is he on the roof instead of on the couch cuddling one of those stuffed bears that were most probably his? She wondered to herself as she found her way to the attic. It was dusty and full of old boxes that could have been rummaged through to find some kind of blackmail material on Lance, but Pidge didn’t have enough time for that right now. She marched towards the window, carefully avoiding all the McClain mementos in her path. She opened the window, climbed out of it, grabbed hold onto the roof’s ledge, and swiftly pulled herself onto the roof and in front of Lance.

His lazy smile widened as he clapped his hands.

“Impressive, Pidge.” He complimented. “Although, you could’ve ended with a bow or something to add some more razzle dazzle to the whole thing.”

Pidge wanted to hit Lance in the arm but restrained herself. “What are you doing up here, Lance?”

He looked away from her and she followed his gaze towards the sky. “I just wanted to see the sunset and the beach and, hopefully, the stars before we locked ourselves inside for hang out night.”

Pidge surveyed the view they had from their vantage point. Lance’s house was right above a beach and their roof provided quite a good view of it.

She looked out and saw the various blues of the sea, going from clear to aquamarine to a dark blue the deeper the water got. Her face was greeted by the sea breeze and the salty scent of the sea tingled her nose.

The sky was a beautifully blended painting full of red, orange, and yellow hues as the sun started to sink.

However, when Pidge’s eyes wandered over to Lance’s face, she knew no matter how pretty the world seemed to her, it looked it even more dazzling in Lance’s eyes.

She had never been as in touch with nature as he had been and he’d been talking about the sun and the beach by his house for ages ever since they left Earth.

That was probably the reason why she had stayed quiet and allowed herself to look at the sky with him. He had been dreaming about seeing these things again for the longest time. Just like she had been dreaming of their hang out night for quite a while after finding out they would be able to return to Earth for a limited time. It was only when the sky started to darken and the stars stared to shine did she attempt to break their serene silence.

She could hardly believe that Lance hadn’t filled the air with jokes or puns during all that time and that she was the one finally speaking up when she asked, “Okay, I get the beach and the sunset, but why the stars? Haven’t we seen them up close hundreds of times while we were in space?”

Lance turned his gaze from the sky towards Pidge.

“When we were younger, my siblings and I used to come up here and look at the stars all the time. I’d tell them how I’d become a pilot who could fly so close to the sky that I’d be able to reach out and touch them.” Lance let out a little laugh.

“In a way, those dreams came true when I became a paladin, but I never had enough time to really cherish how amazing they looked when an entire alien race was trying to blast me into bits, you know?”

A long silence ensued, and then “Pidge?” Lance inquired when the girl kept staring at him.

But Pidge was in an entirely different place and time; taken by a distant memory.

Matt and Katie Holt, up on a rooftop, where they were on top of the world. Where they could talk of dreams of discovering planets unknown and innovating technology to higher advancements without the judging voice of the rest of the world to pull them down. Whenever she was up there with her brother, all the stars up above them felt like they were close enough to collect and study. She loved looking at them with her brother, loved talking the night away.

“Pidge, are you okay?” Lance asked again. “Your brain didn’t get messed up from being away from Earth, right?”

“I get you.” She finally muttered.

“Wh—what?” Lance asked in surprise.

“Appreciating the stars with your siblings? Feeling as if you could conquer the world with them?” She said as she adjusted her glasses. “I get that.”

Lance’s once concerned expression morphed into one of excitement; his eyes shined so brightly that they seemed to contain the stars that they had just been looking at.

“Uh, did you and Matt used to do the same thing too?”

Any thoughts of suggesting that they come down to start their night instantly disappeared as the two started to talk about their childhoods with their siblings.

They stayed up there until they felt a light drizzle shower them. As they made their way down to start their hang out night, Pidge took one last look at the sky. She smiled. Lance did have a point; the sky, with its brightly shining stars, were beautiful and did deserve to be cherished.

.☆.

“Oh, come on!” Lance complained for the fifth time as he threw his controller in frustration. “You have got to be kidding me!”

Pidge let out a laugh. Lance smiled. With her laugh, the blanket she was bundled in, and the hot cocoa that sat right next to her, she just exuded warmth that seemed to combat that chilly wind that came with the rain.

“Well, that makes it five points for me and a whopping number of one point for you!” She exclaimed in victory. “Just face it, Lance, I’m better at video games than you.”

“Hey, the first game we played, you totally distracted me so that you could win!” Lance brought up defensively.

“Yeah, right. Just admit that I am the total best and stop being a sore loser, Lance.” She said as she threw a stuffed dolphin at him.

“Hey!” Lance let out as he quickly caught the dolphin. He gave her a confused look.

“Take your anger out on the dolphin instead of your controller, Lance, you don’t wanna risk breaking it.” She said in response.

“Of course you’d be more concerned about a damaged controller than you trying to damage my pride.” Lance grumbled.

Pidge let out another laugh. “Okay, obviously I’m never gonna hear the end of your excuses, so how about we switch over to movies?”

“Fine.” Lance replied. “As long I get to pick the movie.”

Pidge took a sip of her hot cocoa as she feinted thinking about it deeply. “Okay, but no cheesy rom-coms. I don’t want you picking up anymore lame pick up lines to try on Allura.”

Lance put in the effort of appearing overly offended. “All of my amazing pick up lines come from my equally amazing brain, for you information. But sure, no rom-coms.”

Pidge smiled widely as she quickly grabbed the popcorn she had made about an hour ago, not seeming to care that it had long since cooled.

Lance gave an equally wide smile as he stood up to select a movie. As he shuffled through the plethora of CDs his household had to offer, he silently thought of how thankful he was that Hunk was too busy to come to their hang out night.

.☆.

Author’s note:

Halloooo~

So uh, this is the first time I’m doing something like this so I’m very nervous ahahaha

Anyways,,, I occasionally write, but since my self esteem is almost always at least six feet underground, I’m never confident enough to share it

But I was looking at this old thing I wrote and thought I might post it ? I think this is the first Plance related thing I’ve ever written !! Pretty sure this was pre-season 7 when I was very optimistic and hoping for lots of rest and happy endings for the paladins—

And looking through all the Plance fanfic ideas I have, this is the fluffiest one I have and I think given how season 8 bummed out a big part of the fandom, the rest of my angsty ideas wouldn’t be the best right now

Okay so this is getting too long and rambly I need to stop alksjfhfjdksks

Hope you enjoyed it though :))

#plance #pidgance #flirtyrobot #vld #voltron #pidge vld #vld pidge #lance vld #vld lance #potato writes #uncool writing #i tried #i am actully so scared wth

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khalilhumam · 4 years

Text

‘The house search was the last straw': colleagues react to Russian journalist’s death

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/the-house-search-was-the-last-straw-colleagues-react-to-russian-journalists-death/

‘The house search was the last straw': colleagues react to Russian journalist’s death

Slavina's self-immolation has shocked Russia's journalistic community

Russian journalist Irina Slavina. Photo from Irina Slavina's Facebook account.

On October 2, Irina Slavina, editor of KozaPress, died in Nizhny Novgorod, after setting herself on fire outside an interior minister building in the city. In her last Facebook post, Slavina wrote: “I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death.” Slavina’s death has shocked many, with several groups calling for a criminal investigation into the actions of Russian law enforcement that may have contributed to her death. On 1 October, Slavina’s home was searched as part of an investigation into the Open Russia movement – local law enforcement broke down the door to her apartment and confiscated all her computer equipment. She is survived by her husband and daughter. Slavina’s website KozaPress covered a range of local issues — from public utilities and pensions to property development and the security services — and by 2019 was the second most-cited media in the Nizhny Novgorod region. In 2017 and 2018, Slavina wrote three articles for openDemocracy — about how people who migrate to Russia are targeted by the security services. This work included exposing a horrendous fabrication of an “Islamic State” plot in her home region. The Russian online publication Holod.Media asked people who knew her for their reactions, which was translated to English by oDR, openDemocracy's section on Russia and the post-Soviet space. RuNet Echo republishes this text with the permission of both publications. Alexey Sadomovsky, deputy head of regional Yabloko party in Nizhny Novgorod Irina was the founder, publisher and chief editor of the most popular independent media in Nizhny Novgorod — KozaPress. In recent years, she dedicated her entire life to working on this media. It’s clear that she was completely independent, because the security services pressured her constantly. They created several administrative cases against her — about insulting [a representative] of the authorities, the “undesirable organisation” law, for organising a march in memory of [Boris] Nemtsov, some other cases. She lived under constant pressure these past few years, in constant fear, anxiety. It seems she couldn’t take it anymore, the search of her apartment was the last straw. Before she entered journalism, Irina worked as a school teacher. She worked for different regional media in Nizhny Novgorod, then she decided to set up her own – she lacked space for self-realisation, she didn’t want to be limited by some kind of administrative barriers, she didn’t want to serve, she wanted to tell the truth. She built the outlet from the ground up. She collected money including via donations. I donated too, like other people here. When we first met, KozaPress had not been set up yet, but Irina was already a journalist. She loved Russia very much, her city, she wasn’t planning on emigrating, she wanted our society to become more civilised and for it to become a nicer place to live. She was always joking, and seemed happy. Now it’s clear that there was a lot of anxiety behind this, but she never talked about this publicly. As a journalist, she was marked out by the fact that she always tried to get to the truth, whatever it cost her. There’s no other journalist like her in Nizhny Novgorod. Public officials knew her well and were afraid of her. The last time I saw her was last week when deputies to the city council were receiving their mandates. There was nothing depressive, no strange remarks from her — we had a normal chat, then she asked me for some photographs to publish with an article. She never published any article that investigators could have had a go at. You have to understand that the case wasn’t started against her, but someone else who had a lot of administrative cases outstanding, enough to start a criminal case. We don’t have Open Russia in Nizhny Novgorod. She couldn’t have worked with them. I think that the pressure of the court, the house search led to her taking her own life, nothing else. As someone whose home was also searched yesterday, I can say that it’s a lot of pressure. Especially when it happens over a couple of years. This can totally lead someone to take their own life. It’s hard to live like that, it’s true. Stanislav Dmitrievsky, rights defender It’s very hard to speak. Ira Slavina is one of the best journalists I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. A person of extreme professionalism and at the same time very strong civic position. To many people, she gave the impression that she was like a stone wall, but actually she was a very sensitive person. People will say a lot of things now, that it was an act of weakness… What she did is awful, but it wasn’t weak. It seems it was a cry of desperation, to protest against the horror that is happening. I punish myself: today I was going to drop some money to help with the computer equipment… As soon as I saw her post, I wrote her, but she didn’t answer. And then news came. I spoke to her last yesterday, I asked what help she needed. She said that it was very hard for her to speak, that she hadn’t yet recovered from the house search. As far as I understand, it was her first experience of that. We’ve got used to it, you see – a house search, so what? They’ve taken your computer equipment… But Ira had not developed cynicism. Just like with Anna Politkovskaya — the more she encountered the horror of war, the more sensitive she became. There are people who cover themselves with an armour of cynicism, there are people who just take the stronger side, they sell themselves. Take a look at our propagandists on television — many of them used to be perfectly decent journalists and decent people. But then there’s regression. Ira was someone who was hurt, traumatised by what happened around here, she couldn’t make her peace with it. There are moments when you are filled with anger to the point where it’s hard to live. Some people develop their own armour against this, but she didn’t. For her, the ideal of a real journalist – independent, dispassionate, unbiased — was very important. Read her last reportage — it’s about the house searches. She doesn’t even mention herself hardly in the text. Just facts, just facts. For her, the idea of journalism as a part of civilised society was a very important value. After all, she hardly ever spoke righteously. Of course, sometimes she did get mad and was annoyed, but she never let herself express it. Sometimes it’s better to express it and say, you’re all rotten, but she kept it inside, and then it exploded. I knew she was an emotional person, and I was, of course, afraid – but not that she would take her own life, that didn’t occur to me. I was afraid that she would lose it, give it all up… She reacted very emotionally to injustice. Not towards her! She had an instinctive sense of following the truth as a fundamental part of the world. She wasn’t religious, we spoke about this a lot, but she had an incredible sense for truth — which comes from above, rather than a person. She was killed by that gap between the truth that should be, and what she had to constantly face. Everyone loves to say the right thing and look good, but not everyone’s ready to sacrifice something for the sake of the values that they live by. What happened is awful, but she remained true to herself to the end. I just punish myself that I didn’t see it coming. Perhaps, that’s a lesson for everyone. Perhaps if we were more sensitive in Nizhny Novgorod, then perhaps we would have been worried earlier. Unfortunately, I only became worried when I saw her Facebook post, and then a few minutes later found out she had died. Too late. We’re all guilty. Of course, the cops and the FSB will just wipe their hands. But we’re guilty. Arkady Galker, chairman of Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Memorial human rights organisation This news has knocked me off my feet. Irina and I were in touch yesterday about the case connected to the house searches. I sent her the case materials that we’d managed to get, she thanked me, wrote something on social media on the basis of those materials. We offered her legal aid via Memorial and OVD-Info. It should be noted that seven activists’ homes were searched yesterday and, as far as I know, only two faced nasty treatment – Irina Slavina and [Mikhail] Iosilevich both had large groups of security services, who used chainsaws to cut down their front doors. Iosilievich has a specific situation, he’s the main suspect in a criminal case. In Slavina’s case, I think this was most likely an attempt to scare her by the state. The goal was to demonstrate state terror, to show that she was vulnerable to the state. It’s clear that all these searches aren’t really connected to Iosilevich’s activities. It’s just the state has taken the opportunity to scare people and get as much blackmail material that they can take off people’s devices. They hit Irina Slavina as hard as they could. Obviously it was very difficult for her. Irina and I met at an event to commemorate Boris Nemtsov. She was a resilient and courageous woman. There was an episode with the fourth march in memory of Nemtsov, when she was brought up on administrative charges. She came to the gathering point and then went ahead of the column with a small portrait of Nemtsov. She was basically leading people. She had this capacity for leadership, courage. And of course, I didn’t completely understand how much she was traumatised by the state’s act of terror. We used to seeing her a certain way and didn’t understand how hard it was for her. I feel an enormous sense of guilt, we didn’t support her as we should have. Nikolay Rybakov, chairman of Yabloko Irina was a journalist who didn’t just cover events drily. She wanted to influence them. She was a very soulful, good-natured person. We even had to put out a fire once together: we came to a polling station where someone had set something on fire, and we put it out, called the fire brigade. She was someone who could not brush past some problem. Of course, the current government isn’t ready for these kind of people — they want people to keep themselves to themselves, to stay quiet. It’s completely awful and unexpected that she made the decision she did, because it’s not worth it. She just couldn’t withstand the pressure from the security services, the persecution that was going on in recent monhs. Of course, yesterday’s house searches were the last straw. Law enforcement thinks that everyone is made of steel around them. But not everyone is made of steel. And now it’s the responsibility of those who organised this, the people who created this atmosphere in the country. Svetlana Kuzevanova, legal counsel for Center for Defending Media Rights Ira was a fighter. She was never afraid to write and speak, she always refused to be more neutral and accurate in her texts. And she loved and believed in her KozaPress. On 17 September, we went together to a court hearing in Nizhny Novgorod — I represented the interests of her media. I didn’t know her well, but I didn’t see anything concerning. Yesterday I offered the help of our centre, to appeal against the house search. We had a normal chat, I’m in shock at what has happened. Askhat Kayumov, director of Dront ecological centre This is a gigantic loss for the city and a huge sadness for people. Irina, it goes without saying, was one of the few honest journalists in Nizhny Novgorod. We were in touch on ecological issues connected to protecting the environment in the city, citizens’ environmental rights. And she always wrote about them honestly. Dmitry Mitrokhin, blogger Irina was a journalist with a capital J — a clear example for all the city’s journalists of how to work. Over the course of several years, she made her own news agency, which successfully competed with larger media companies. A news agency based on one fragile woman. I was always in awe of her capacity, her speed, the amount of information she could process to then produce quality texts. Honestly, I never saw this in Russian journalism – that one person could set up a serious news agency. And she was principled — most likely, this is what caused the tragedy. She could never give up those principles that she believed in. Pavel Miloslavsky, cultural manager Irina was an incredibly honest person. Perhaps inside she was afraid of something, but she was always fearless in what she did. And if she was completely sure of something, she either got it, or made other people understand what her point of view was. Of course, she represented the kind of person that’s hard to find today — someone who has a concept of honour. The fact that she took her life, I think she thought this through. Judging by the Facebook post that she published yesterday, she was in her right mind. There’s our swamp — we make some movements, we express dissatisfaction with our country. But real acts, like those by Nemtsov or Navalny now… She probably decided that she had to do something to draw attention to what is happening in our country, in our city. But what kind of act? Examples of self-immolation are well known. I think she decided that this would be a serious event that could bring people together, people who are not happy with what’s happening in the country. And the country is a piece of shit, we can see that already. Dmitry Gudkov, politician I knew Irina very well. In 2013, in Nizhny Novgorod, we set up a nationwide office for returning direct mayoral elections. Irina was one of the few journalists who actually covered it. I gave her interviews often — there’d be situations where everyone was banned from covering a press conference, and she would come along with a few local journalists. She knew Nemtsov. She was an independent journalist with opposition views, she always helped all the protest groups, always covered their protests. I heard the following: they constantly humiliated her, the security services constantly pressured her, the counter-extremism officers tried to frighten her. She was very concerned about this. She brought these problems to me when I was an MP [2011-2016]. I’m shocked at what’s happened. They did this to her. They pushed her to take her own life. And that’s a crime. Interviews conducted by Mikhail Zelensky, Liza Miller, Sofya Volyanova, Maria Karpenko, Olesya Ostapchuk, Yulia Dudkina. Editor: Alexander Gorbachev

Written by Holod Media

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sveasauvageon · 4 years

Photo

Yours is not to wonder why, yours is to do or die! || GW

☾♔; March 21, 2018 ☾♔; sotd: idk ☾♔; comedian otd: JOHN FU.CKING OLIVER* ☾♔; GW NPC Audition II ☾♔; {G} https://goo.gl/XSTtMc ☾♔; mod(s): @themadmonarchist @maybones et moi

*oh yeah, he's gonna be comedian of the day all fu.cking week long. As of this moment, his book (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo) is number ONE on Amazon's bestseller's list, outselling not just the Pence's Marlon Bundo book, but James Comey's upcoming tell-all or whatever book about the crazy sh.it at the Trump white house and his firing, and the audiobook version of the Last Week Tonight book is number FOUR, the kindle edition is number FIVE, and all three are ahead on the list than the Pence's book (which is number 7). Guys, I don't have much faith in humanity, we as a species suck (case in point, Trump won the US presidency and so many other problems), but sometimes, like this moment, I love us!

Title: said by Blair Waldorf (my role model in life tbh)

Me: *petty af* Also Me: *passive aggressive af* Thus Me: *manifests pettiness in my oc's*

Preamble Ramble: FINALLY! I've finished one of my auditions! Next up, hopefully Svea, but probs Nika, I'm on a Russia kick, my Swedes will have to wait.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀Vladimir Vladimirovich Sokolov, (17)

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Изучаю тебя нежно-нежно ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Убиваю тебя ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Назови меня эгоистом! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀-⠀Эгоист by Дима Билан ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀(Dima Bilan, aka my one true love) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀https://goo.gl/VkQMN3

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ THE BASICS

Nickname: Volodya, Vova (but only people with special permission can call him either, call him "Vlad" and he'll end you) Gender: cis-male Date of Birth: May 7 Place of Birth: Moscow, Russia Nationality: Russian-British Ethnicity: eastern Slavic (he's also of anglo-saxon and Karachay descent) Accent: Russian Blood Status: muggle-born

Profession: Student

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Jon Kortajarena

Hair: dark brown, positively luscious and better than yours could ever hope to be.

Eyes: green

Height: 1.88m

Weight: idk

Body: tol, fit, and ridiculously handsome.

Any Scars/ Marks?: - a long horizontal scar near his right 4th rib. Looks to be from a knife wound or some other blade type weapon, but refuses to explain where it came from (was he stabbed? Sword fight? You don't know! I don't know. Mostly because my answer will be lame compared to the "cool" way he refuses to explain it)

Any Tattoos/ Piercings?: a crowned double-headed eagle on his left shoulder blade and an ouroboros, but as a dragon instead of a snake on the inside of his right arm, near the wrist, around half the length of his forearm (there's a picture of it in his moodboard).

Quirks/ Mannerisms: - uses terms of endearment sarcastically for everyone, such as "darling" or "dear" - identifies the nearest 6 exits every time he enters a room - makes weirdly, somewhat threat-like jokes like "don't move to England if you're a professional traitor, people tend be hanged, thrown out of windows or are poisoned" and "those who serve us with poison will eventually swallow it and poison themselves."

Style: expensive (of course). It's quite preppy, and classy, when not in uniform he prefers well-tailored suits, waistcoats, blazers, has a collection of designer watches. Kind of modern Victorian (well, my view of victorians is endless suits and prefect ettiquette, plus many moral values that contrast my liberal views, but their style was, eh meh. Like, their male style was pretty cool, but I'm not really into around 98% of their female style).

Additional Information: n/a

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ PERSONALITY:

Head cannon: Vova is a rather intimidating person, in the terrifying sort of way. He carries an air of malice and death everywhere he goes, when he does act "warm and fuzzy", it's always jarring and seen as completely out of character, and possibly the sign of an illness. He is generally seen as the restrained, the quiet kid in the back with a perpetual "plotting your murder" expression on his otherwise handsome face. However, he is also seen as a rather extravagant, and somewhat suspicious person, he always seems to have access to illegal things (in both wizarding and muggle worlds), and seen as impervious to consequence, as regardless of what he does (or is suspected to have done), never gets in trouble.

Personality (+ 5, - 5): Ruthless and shrewd, if you're not careful, he'll screw up your life. He's incredibly manipulative and self-centered, a true stereotypical Slytherin through and through (well, minus the pureblood thing. He's a muggleborn). Definitely overdramatic and decadent af. He is alluring, very much in the evil way, he's attractive, but he does nothing to hide how dark he (seemingly) is. Like, I guess you could say "bad boy attractive", but he's borderline murderous, and possibly a psychopath, so calling him a "bad boy" is not really all that accurate. He's a very proud and arrogant individual (especially about Russia), and quite malevolent, and vicious. He's patient and holds grudges for a long time, and never forgets a slight. He will legit back at you for something said years ago, he doesn't forget that stuff. He's both a great friend and not, he absolutely provides for his friends, buying them things, etc, but cross him in the slightest, he'll ruin you. And on that note, he also doesn't really have "friends", because if you're depending on him for his wealth, you're not really friends, and he's aware of that, he looks at such people more as "minions" than buddies. They're job is to agree with him and do as he commands, otherwise, what's their point. For people who hang out with him whom he doesn't support financially, it's more like tolerable existences, he's a difficult person to like anyway. However, he is capable of befriending people, usually under the guise of "I hate people, but you, you're cool", luring them into a false sense of security and making them feel special at the same time. However, having said that, he is not a pure psychopath, so he does have feelings. He genuinely cares about his family, animals in general, himself, and select few friends whom he does actually care about, but struggles with expressing that to them, since differentiating with people he pretends to befriend and actually considers friends is difficult since "I hate people, except you" is something he says to both types. It'd probably only come out in a life and death situation, since he'd put himself in harms way for people he genuinely gives a sh.it about, and wouldn't bother for the minions.

Any mental health issues: He's probably something between a sociopath and psychopath, like, he does have actual emotions, as limited as they are, so he's not a true socio/psychopath. The argument is made (and a theory that I personally prescribe to, as a shi.tty psychology/sociology student, so don't put any weight or authority behind my opinion) that a psychopath is simply a more extreme and refined sociopath, so under that logic, Vova is basically a less extreme sociopath. (also, also, I have a problem with socio/psychopaths, I make too many of them, and they turn out to be my favourites. This is really worrying guys.) Anyway, under DSM IV (or possibly DSM III, I forgot which one changed the classification), he'd have what was called "an AXIS II Personality disorder", they've gotten rid of that classification now, but it basically listed narcissism, anti-social, sociopathic, and psychopathic personality disorders.

Favorite Quotes/ Sayings that your character would use: - "the fact that you need that explained is just so fu.cking sad." (literally said to anyone who doesn't understand any concept, whether it's something as simple as 2+2=4 or complicated as "imaginary time" -- don't ask, it's one of Stephen Hawking's theories and I don't understand it, I know my son would make fun of me.) - "what a fool" - "don't be attempt to be a comedian fool, you'll only embarrass yourself." - "darling, you have no idea what's possible." - "want to see what true power really looks like?" - "urg, don't be such a pleb/plebeian." - "of course I love Beyoncé, I'm a human being who lives on this planet." - "when better to have truffles and tiramisu than at 3am in Milan on a Thursday?" - "that jacket looks fine." - "dear, when will you learn? I know everything." - "Mudblood? Is that supposed to hurt my feelings? I don't have any of those, so what else are you going to do?"

Additional Information: - never on time. He's always late. You will literally start crying before he shows up he takes so long. - Loves crushing people's dreams (basically his hobby) - has an uncanny ability to suck the joy out of anything (his ex has said "unfortunately, he is a vampire", but in a muggle jokey way and basically the dracula stereotypical view muggles have of dracula, as in dark and not fun, and not an actual vampire) - Chess (muggle and wizard -- a proper, "normal" person hobby) - Has a bit of a smoking habit - has an endless list of blackmail material on people (a lot of which is infuriatingly revealed by GW at various times), and also has a tendency of taping people doing various things which he uses as part of his blackmail library. Seems to have cameras' everywhere and claims to "know everything" about everyone.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ BIOGRAPHY

Relation to your OC: classmates, housemates (possibly more, formerly, I'm still developing him)

♣️ Family Background

Vova comes from a largely muggle family, however, he is not the first wizard born into their family in recent history, so it wasn't completely a left-field shock when he started displaying magic. The first wizard in their family in the last few centuries (approximately) was Vova's uncle; Ilya Dmitriyevich Shostokov, who attended Koldovstoretz. Vova was the second in recent history, and his younger sister made third. Whilst virtually unknown in the magical world (with the exception of Ilya Shostokov, who has a rather dark reputation in the wizarding world), the Sokolov's are very prominent in the muggle world, particularly in Russia. Vova's grandfather is an Oligarch, who in Russia are effectively businessmen who run the country, the only curtail on their power and influence being the Russian President, and even then, the Russian administration is extremely corrupt, in the last presidential election, the incumbent president was able to literally choose his opponents (not a joke, btw. Putin actually did that in the recent Russian election). Anyway, the Sokolov's have a monopoly over the media industry in Russia, most of which run state-friendly stories, and shut down anything that could potentially insult the presidency. Their family, specifically the current patriarch, is also often accused (mainly in rival papers, magazines, shows, etc) of not only being corrupt, but having involvement with the Zima Bratva. As whole, they maintain an unfavourable public image (as most oligarchs do in the eyes of the Russian public), but are close with the Kremlin, so they remain influential with the government.

Family Members: - Vladimir Yakovlevich Sokolov // Marc Lavoine // Father // 47 // Politician // alive - Catherine Elizabeth Sokolova née Olivier // Emilia Fox // Mother // 46 // Socialite/House-wife // alive - Yevgeniya "Zhenya" Vladimirovna Sokolova // Antonina Vasylchenko // younger sister // 16 // student at Hogwarts // alive - Yakov Lʲvovich Sokolov // Charles Dance // paternal grandfather // 71 // Oligarch/suspected Bratva leader // alive - Ilya Dmitriyevich Shostokov // Nikolaj Coster-Waldau // paternal uncle, once(ish) removed // 43 // dark wizard // alive

♣️ Family Affiliation: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Slytherin House, Russian Government (the muggle one, as a fam they support United Russia, because Vlad Sr is a member. Personally? Who knows whom Vova supports), other Kremlin-close Russian Oligarchs

♣️ Socio-economic status: rich as fu.ck. The exact number and position is actually quite shadowy though. They are amongst the wealthiest muggle families in Russia (Vova's grandfather is an Oligarch), but the retainment (definitely not a word) of their wealth also depends on how friendly they remain with the Kremlin, additionally, their family (mainly Vova's gramps) has been accused of having Bratva ties, and money from that alleged connection is definitely not counted on tax forms.

Quick facts: + Born May 7 in a Moscow Hospital, first son of Vladimir Sokolov, an emerging Russian politician (who eventually made it into the Federation Council). After his sister was born just about a year later, their mother, British-born Catherine Sokolova née Olivier, obtained dual British citizenship for them via "lex sanguinis" (which is a british citizenship law, giving to people who are born abroad is one of their parents is a British citizen by birth. I could've left this out, but I googled this sh.it and I like rambling).

+ Whilst close with his family, Vova was a solitary child, he liked to read and spend time on his own in a corner, or stay at their various Dacha's without anyone else. He never seemed to require any oversight as he never did anything bad (or least, he was never caught). However, he is closest to his grandfather, and would enjoy sitting in on board meetings, just silently observing from a corner. Some of his grandfather's employees (or Minions as Lev calls them, where Vova also got the habit from) found his silent starring creepy and unsettling.

+ Being a muggleborn, he is well-versed with the muggle world and has interacted with them from birth, his parents and grandfather all being muggles, and attended muggle private schools as a child before his letters came. Whilst they employ muggle servants (because they're muggles), his uncle (the first wizard he ever met) employs a house-elf (yes, he pays the house-elf, they might be part of an oppressive government and basically an organized crime family, but they don't do slaves).

+ Vova first discovered magically abilities on his own, when on a trip in Australia with his mother, he discovered a large snake in their hotel room one morning whilst she was still sleeping, being around 3 and not fully comprehending the danger, he just walked up to it and started talking with it. It later slythered (see what I did there) away of it's own accord when Catherine walked in and freaked out about a massive crazy Australian snake (because you guys have scary animals) coiled near her son. As he aged, he noticed he could do other things, such as making things float or disappear.

+ Vova first publically displayed magically abilities (as well as control over them) aged 7, when a board member of one his grandfather's companies was throwing a hissy fit about a child sitting in, and his tie suddenly tightened and started choking him. The man survived, at that instance, died suspiciously at a later date. Anyway, he survived that instance when Lev ordered the meeting to be over and broke Vova's angry glare at the dude. The two immediately then went home, and Lev called Ilya to arrive in "his" way (apparition) and had Ilya introduce Vova to magic and talk about whatever, Lev didn't know the specifics.

+ When his sister discovered powers (shattering all the windows in their Dacha in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky via screaming, she was told she couldn't keep a Siberian Tiger as a pet), he gave her the "magic talk", and they caused quite a bit of trouble for annoying students at their school, as well as a nearby "plebeian" school (who disliked the children of oligarchs, for very obvious reasons, Oligarchs rule Russia, and they kind of suck). Anyway, they would mess with their things, frame them for crimes that children their age literally could not commit. What 8 year old has cocaine their locker and why does another 8 year old know what it is?

+ He received a letter from both Koldovstoretz and Hogwarts aged 11 (because he's a dual-y), chose Hogwarts since no one in his family had ever gone there before (like, there's only one person in recent history whose ever been magical anyway, but still), also might have had something to do with the Zima bratva's recent (at that time) expansion into the British criminal landscape, who knows?

+ Although he denies any connection, Vova runs effectively a youth branch of his uncle's business, which itself is a branch of the Zima Bratva. Ilya is basically a magical fixer for the Zima Bratva, who, for a very hefty price, uses dark magic to assist/fix the problems of the muggles and magical alike. Vova does basically exactly the same, but for the students at Hogwarts, and for a different price. Instead of money, he collects information and favours to be repaid immediately at any time he demands. He also maintains an iron fisted rule over his "organization", whether they be customers or minions, snitches don't get stitches, snitches get buried 50 feet beneath the ground.

Additional Information: - he is a parselmouth, a trait inherited from a distant magical ancestor (like from back in the Kevian Rus days of his familial ancestry), his sister also inherited the trait, though their uncle did not.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ HOGWARTS INFORMATION

Is your character a student of Hogwarts?: yeppers If so, which house and year: Slytherin, Seventh Year If not, which house did they belong to while they were at Hogwarts?: n/a

Best Class(s) at Hogwarts: defense against the dark arts

Worst Class(s) at Hogwarts: none

Any Pets?: an ooc, cute af owl (tawny, spotted, he doesn't know. Okay, I don't know, but as a consequence, neither does Vova), it's smol and got big round eyes, it's name is Harold and yes, it is his best friend, and yes, he did get it at diagon alley at his sister's instance, and accidentally got attached to it. He does like animals though, the Solokov Dacha in the outskirts of Yakutsk has effectively become a cross between an animal hospital and habitat for, welp, animals. Vova spends most of his holidays there (often alone, not including servants, as it's cold AF. Yakutsk is the second coldest major city in the world, after Norilsk, but it's winter's are colder than Norilsk's), he's ability to visit has increased since he learned how to apparate. He's also really interested, invested, and active in wildlife conservation, and often goes tagging Siberian tigers and polar bears etc with various animal protection organizations in Russia (the muggle ones).

Reputation at Hogwarts: Volodya has a largely dark reputation, he's more infamous than famous. He's known for messing with people, and not in a fun way, and he's generally seen as some kind of criminal. His uncle is well known is the magical world as a "Jack of all trades of villainy", and Vova definitely fits that villain mold too. He probably wouldn't be too close to the elites, they're sort of glittering in their ivory towers, and his tower is dark and gloomy, and lacks joy because he finds it annoying. Although, he and E probs might've gotten along in her pureblood bully gang days, or actually would've been antagonistic, he's basically as evil as them, but he's a mudblood, so meh, maybe rival bullies? Idk, I'll leave that for plotting. Anyway, he's not got a "bad boy" rep so much as a "omg, he's literally the worst person alive, why are you trying to be his friend, does he have a incriminating evidence on you?" type rep.

Additional Information: n/a

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ INDIVIDUAL MAGIC

Wand: yew Wand Core: veela hair (acquired by his uncle through unknown means, there was a report of a veela going missing right around the time Uncle Ilya got that hair so...) Wand Length: 13½" Wand Flexibility: inflexible

Patronus: Eurasian brown bear

Boggart: appears as the corpses of his family, killed via poison/nerve agent. His fear being a government revolution and his family getting caught up in that or his family losing the Kremlin's favour. The result would be the same in both scenarios tbh.

Amortentia: citrus, gun powder, and mint

Affinity to any particular magic? - I dunno if you'd call it an affinity, but he is waaaay too into the unforgivable curses and it's waaaaaay too easy for him to perform them. - dark magic/dark arts (you guys know exactly why he has an affinity for it XP)

Additional Information: - whilst he loves magic, he also has a deep fascination with muggle weapons (particularly the ones developed by his country), and has been experimenting with magically evolving them, particularly poisons and nerve agents.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ USER INFORMATION

Username: @drownedinmoonlight Activity Level (Scale 1-10): 8

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ OPTIONAL Playlist: Moodboard: https://goo.gl/R7DVjp Social Media (instagram, facebook, snapchat, twitter, etc): Storyboard: https://goo.gl/h6DJfB Aesthetic Collection: Wardrobe/Style Collection: Plotting Set: Story:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

When you have completed the audition, please tag the mods: @drownedinmoonlight @themadmonarchist and @maybones and use the hashtag #GWnpc

#polyvore #audition #template #vova sokolov #mine #gw

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faucetbacon84-blog · 5 years

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Leicht & Havell's 1891 355-359 Greenwich Street

The neighborhood surrounding the corner of Harrison and Greenwich Streets in 1822 was one of refined brick homes. An advertisement that year offered No. 355 Greenwich Street for sale, describing it as a "three story modern built brick house complete with every convenience for a genteel family." But by the decade before the Civil War things had changed drastically. In 1855 Mrs. Caroline Ingersoll was arrested, charged with running "a house of assignation," or brothel in the house. The reputation of the district was restored as warehouses and stores took over. By 1890 Harrison and Greenwich Streets were in the path of the expanding produce district. Edwin M. Harrison was not only a butter and egg merchant, he saw the potential in real estate in the immediate area. Before the end of the century he would buy up several abutting properties and erect commercial structures. The most prominent of them would replace the vintage buildings at at Nos. 355 to 359 Greenwich Street and Nos. 28 and 30 Harrison Street. In 1890 Harrison (whose name, incidentally, had nothing to do with that of the street), commissioned the architectural firm of Leicht & Havell to design the structure. With elements of the Romanesque Revival, Renaissance Revival and Queen Anne styles, at least one architectural historian lumped it under the tag "Utilitarian." Above the cast iron storefront level, the brick-faced Greenwich and Harrison Street facades are identical. Verticality to the nearly square structure was achieved by slightly-projecting three-story piers. A fringe of brick corbelling hung below the frieze of the the substantial cast iron cornice adorned with neo-Classical swags. At both elevations, a prominent pediment announced the date 1891.

Harrison erected the building as an investment property, not for the use of his own business. The "workshops" were leased to firms like Louis F. Bernholtz's fruit and produce operation. Bernholtz had hardly settled in before he encountered problems with a corrupt police supervisor. Police Captain John Thomas Stephenson was described by The Evening World as "tall and handsome." But his good looks did not disguise his greed and strong-arm criminality. Louis Bernholtz erected an awning over his storefront in February 1891, shortly after moving in. Stephenson dropped by in May, called the awning illegal, and ordered him to remove it. Or, on the other hand, the captain could look the other way for a $25 payment--about $753 today. According to Bernholtz later, Stephenson remarked "It's really worth $100, or worth $150, but the price to you will be $25." Eventually the neighboring businessmen had had enough of the expensive bullying and went to the police commissioners. Stephenson was placed on trial on August 30, 1894, charged with blackmail and bribery. The Evening World said that evidence was provided by six "business men of the produce district, and is in effect that he extorted blood money from them." Among those testifying against Stephenson was Louis F. Bernholtz. Another tenant at the time was rather unusual for the district. The Salt Brick Feeder Company manufactured salt licks, the large blocks of salt used by livestock farmers. In 1894 it advertised for a traveling agent "to handle our goods among owners of horses." Robert McMullin and Robert L. Gillespie were also unexpected tenants in the produce district. In 1902 McMullin dealt in cast iron furnaces; and the following year Gillespie was listed in directories as marketing "ovens." On March 19, 1903 the Harrison estate sold the building to Elbridge T. Gerry for $159,000--a substantial $4.68 million today. The millionaire lawyer was, perhaps, best known for founding of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and his impassioned work with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A main tenant of Gerry was Reynolds & Company, dealers in butter, cheese and eggs. The landlord-tenant relationship seems to have gone beyond business. John Jay Reynolds, founder of the firm, was a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The well-to-do proprietor was a member of several exclusive clubs, as well, and the Society of Colonial Wars and the Sons of the Revolution. Reynolds & Company was listed in the building by 1905 and would remain at least through 1921. Its advertisement in the New York Produce Review and American Creamery in 1909 noted "Our specialty [is] Cheese of all kinds and Unsalted Butter." The esteem in which its president was held was evidenced in the 1919 edition of Herringshaw's American Blue-Book, which said John J. Reynolds "is prominently identified with the business and public affairs of New York City." Sharing the building with Reynolds & Company was the Zenith Butter & Egg Co. The firm made national news in the summer of 1909 after startled workers opened crates of eggs from the Midwest to discover some had hatched. On September 1 the New York Produce Review and American Creamery published a photograph of one crate, saying "This was one of a shipment of eggs that was full of partially hatched eggs." The article blamed the "long spells of very hot weather" for a rash of such incidents. "The chicks shown in the photograph were in the middle of the case when it was opened and were all dead, having doubtless been smothered."

The wooden crate of eggs, some of which had hatched, received by Zenith Butter & Eggs in August 1909. New York Product Review, September 1, 1909 (copyright expired)

The journal warned all butter and egg merchants that the problem was widespread. "The picture gives pretty good evidence of the wretched quality of a large part of the eggs lately arriving from western points."

Butter, Cheese & Egg Journal, April 30, 1912 (copyright expired)

Butter, cheese, eggs and poultry dealer R. H. Peck & Co. was leasing space by 1914. One tenant, possibly Zenith Butter & Egg Company, moved out in 1919, prompting an advertisement offering "To Let by June 1st, two floors at 357-359 Greenwich St., tiled floor, refrigerating facilities and elevator service. Suitable for butter packing or egg-breaking plant." In the meantime, John J. Reynolds had been supporting the troops fighting World War I by generously donating to The Sun's "Tobacco Fund." The newspaper used the funds provided by private citizens and businesses to send pouches of tobacco and cigarettes to the doughboys in Europe. On February 16, 1919 The Sun called Reynolds "a liberal fund donor," and said "he receives great satisfaction from the cards he gets back from the soldiers." The address continued to attract butter and eggs businesses. On May 4, 1921 the New York Produce Review and American Creamery reported that "Wm. G. Hollrock is locating at 359 Greenwich St., on the corner of Harrison St. He is planning to materially increase his facilities to accommodate a growing commission business in eggs and butter."

The firm had been established a block away at No. 9 Harrison Street in 1894 by William G. Hollrock's father, George. William had been in the banking business for two years when his father died in 1906. He abruptly changed careers, taking over the firm and continually increasing its business. Little changed to the building, either in its appearance or its use, through most of the 20th century. In 1961 Department of Buildings documents listed the first floor being used for "dairy products sale and warehouse," the second floor for "packaging of eggs and storage," and the upper floors "to remain vacant." That all changed, however, in 1982 when it was joined internally with No. 361 Greenwich Street and converted to ten sprawling loft apartments. The following year, in May, the two unsold units were both terraced penthouses, one 1,412 square feet and the other 1,305. By today's standpoint they were a bargain. The larger and more expensive was listed at $195,000--just over $490,000 today. But the Tribeca renaissance had just begun. Dylan Landis writing in The New York Times on May 15, 1983 commented "There is something desolate in the streets of Tribeca...Five years ago, cars were so rare that sea birds wheeled inland from the river, unafraid. The automobiles have come and the birds have gone, but a stroller can still pause on a fine spring Sunday and find himself utterly alone."

In 2000 the loading area had been transformed to a trendy restaurant. photograph by Edmund Vincent Gillon, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Those days, too, would pass. In 1993 How's Bayou Restaurant operated from the ground floor where crates of hatched chicks were once unloaded. It was followed by Spartina Restaurant in 1994, The Harrison restaurant in 2002, and Eric Kayser in 2018.

Other than a coat of paint and the ground floor renovations, Leicht & Havell's handsome 1891 design survives remarkably intact. photographs by the author

Source: http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2019/06/leicht-havells-1891-355-359-greenwich.html

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

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renka-aardvarknews-blog · 6 years

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America’s long-held lease on Diego Garcia may eventually come to an end

Legal storm clouds gather over Diego Garcia By Bertil Lintner, Chiang Mai on Asia Times. Recent skirmishes between India and Pakistan in Kashmir have brought the two nuclear-powered nations closer to conflict than any time in recent memory. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is losing its last patches of territory in Syria, which likely means its remaining fighters will spread out across the Middle East and beyond. Sino-Indian rivalries in the Maldives and other South Asian states is heating up as China projects power in the Indian Ocean region in unprecedented ways. Peace is elusive as ever in war-torn Afghanistan. All of these regional hotspots have one thing in common for the United States: Diego Garcia. The US coordinates most of its military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan from the sub-equatorial atoll. It also uses Diego Garcia to monitor strategically important sea lanes between Asia, Africa and Europe. But that remote and strategic outpost could face an unanticipated threat if a recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion eventually leads to a legally binding ruling. The ICJ said in late February that the UK’s expulsion of people on the then Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia, contravened international law and recommended that the UK “end its administration of the as rapidly as possible.”

The Chagos Archipelago, now known as British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), is the UK’s last possession east of Suez. It was separated from the British colony of Mauritius in 1965, three years before the island nation became independent. Between 1967 and 1973, the BIOT’s entire population of between 1,500 and 2,000 people, mostly a Creole-speaking mix of Indians and Africans who survived by growing coconuts and collecting guano, was deported to Mauritius or Seychelles, both situated more than 1,000 miles away. US military personnel arrived on the main atoll of Diego Garcia in March 1971, bringing with them earth-moving gear, building materials and workers, of whom many were Filipinos, to build a military base which is now among its most important worldwide. In 1966, the UK and US signed an agreement known as the “Availability of Certain Indian Ocean Islands for Defense Purposes” that did not specify the nature of activities that would be conducted on the islands. According to David Vine, an American academic, the agreement was signed “under the cover of darkness” without congressional or parliamentary oversight. It soon became clear, however, what the agreement was all about. Diego Garcia surrounds a lagoon that is 24 kilometres long, 6.4 kilometres wide and nearly ten meters deep. With some dredging and digging, a deep-water harbour was built.

US military planes parked at Diego Garcia military base, December 2017. Photo: Facebook Modern houses connected by paved roads were built next on the atoll, as was a runway long enough for huge military aircraft to land. Diego Garcia quickly began to resemble other foreign US military bases, though without a potentially restive local population nearby. The choice of Diego Garcia was in line with a US policy known at the time as the “Strategic Islands Concept”, which aimed to establish military bases away from populous mainland areas where they could be exposed to anti-Western local opposition. It was later revealed that the UK had agreed in 1966 to lease Diego Garcia to the US for 50 years. That agreement expired in 2016, but the UK opted to grant the US a further 20-year lease for Diego Garcia. There are between 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers and civilians based there at any given time. While Diego Garcia is smaller than America’s bases in South Korea, Japan and Germany, its strategic importance is likely greater due to its location to key regional hotspots and China’s rising forays into the Indian Ocean region. No outsiders are allowed to enter the base, which reports indicate resembles an American suburb, with well-stocked supermarkets, hamburger joints, beer bars, tennis courts, jogging tracks and satellite TV. Diego Garcia earned notoriety during President George W Bush’s so-called “war on terror” when it was revealed as one of the “black sites” where terror suspects, including from Afghanistan, were detained and interrogated. The Qatar-based news organization Al-Jazeera reported that Diego Garcia had in 2002 and 2003 been used for what was euphemistically called “extraordinary rendition”, or the transfer of detainees without legal process, with the full cooperation of British authorities. Reports of torture of detainees on Diego Garcia also later emerged.

Protesters calling for the return of the Chagos Archipelago back to Mauritius. Photo: Facebook But a problem unforeseen in the 1960s has cropped up from the people who were forcibly expelled from the islands and resettled in Mauritius and Seychelles. While they were given monetary compensation at the time, many are fighting for their right to return home. The Chagossians, now numbering about 6,000 including descendants of the original inhabitants, have won the sympathy and support of global human rights groups, with some now providing legal assistance to raise the issue in international courts and fora. The Chagossians’ cause has evolved into a major international issue involving British courts, the United Nations, the European Court of Human Rights and the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, among others. Mauritian politicians have also started to grandstand on how their predecessors were forced to give up the Chagos Archipelago, in what some now view as the UK using political blackmail to win control of the islands. Information revealed in the ICJ’s advisory opinion revealed that the British told local leaders that they would not be allowed independence if they did not agree to cede the Chagos Archipelago. In June 2017, the UN General Assembly voted 94 to 15 with 65 abstentions to ask the ICJ to issue an “advisory opinion” on whether the UK had lawfully adhered to the decolonization process when it separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius.

A British Indian Ocean Territory flag flies on the Foreign Office building in London, November 8, 2012. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Flickr The opinion announced on February 25, is non-binding but urges the UK to give up the BIOT, which, in effect, would mean returning the islands to Mauritius. It seems likely that the aggrieved Chagossians will press their case further, though the ICJ has not released a timetable for legal procedures. The British Foreign Office said it would “carefully” look at the ICJ’s advisory opinion while noting that it is “not legally binding. It noted that the defence facilities maintained their “help to protect people here in Britain and around the world from terrorist threats, organized crime and piracy.” The ICJ’s judges said as part of their advisory opinion that all UN member states, including the US, are obliged to “cooperate to complete the decolonization of Mauritius.” It’s not entirely clear how that may play out. Mauritius Defense Minister Anerood Jugnauth said at a hearing last year that his country “recognizes existence and has repeatedly made it clear to the United States and the administering power that it accepts the future of the base.” While such assurances may have been welcomed in Washington, the US would no doubt prefer to maintain its prevailing tried and trusted arrangement with the UK on its remote and isolated base. Read the full article

#Colonialism #DiegoGarcia #Mauritius

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fuckyeahmarxismleninism · 7 years

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Socialist Korea's report on U.S. assassination plot against DPRK leadership

DPRK Warns U.S., S. Korean Intelligence Agencies of Merciless Punishment: Ministry of State Security

Pyongyang, May 5 (KCNA) -- The Ministry of State Security of the DPRK released the following statement Friday:

The last-ditch effort of the hostile forces, taken aback by the strong spirit of the DPRK dashing toward the final victory of the cause of Juche revolution, has gone beyond the limits after reaching the extreme phase.

The recent hysteria about "beheading operation" and "preemptive attack", openly staged by the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet military warmongers at the doorstep of the DPRK, is just the tip of the ice berg of those moves.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the U.S. and the Intelligence Service (IS) of south Korea, hotbed of evils in the world, hatched a vicious plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK and those acts have been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation after crossing the threshold of the DPRK.

A hideous terrorists' group, which the CIA and the IS infiltrated into the DPRK on the basis of covert and meticulous preparations to commit state-sponsored terrorism against the supreme leadership of the DPRK by use of bio-chemical substance, has been recently detected.

The murderous demons of the IS who conspired with the CIA ideologically corrupted and bribed a DPRK citizen surnamed Kim, the then worker of the timber industrial branch in the Khabarovsk Territory of Russia in June 2014, and turned him into a terrorist full of repugnance and revenge against the supreme leadership of the DPRK.

They hatched a plot of letting human scum Kim commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership during events at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and at military parade and public procession after his return home.

They told him that assassination by use of biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance is the best method that does not require access to the target, their lethal results will appear after six or twelve months, bio-chemical substance can be added in cooperation with the CIA if one single correct information is obtained, the component of terrorism-purposed bio-chemical substance is the know-how of the CIA and it is only the CIA that can produce such substance, and that hardware, supplies and funds needed for committing terrorism against the supreme leadership will completely be borne by the IS. Then they handed him over 20 000 U.S. dollars on two occasions and a satellite transmitter-receiver and let him get versed in it.

In the end, they gave him assurances of IS that they would keep his duty concerning terrorism against the supreme leadership as secret, and infiltrated him after appeasing and blackmailing him that his families would not be scot-free in case he fails to carry out the duty.

In January, May, August and September of 2016 IS agents had satellite contacts with Kim who resided in Pyongyang. The IS agents gave instructions to choose and report the most effective and safe method with high probability of success while presenting him various terrorist methods using biochemical substances along with operational code of terrorism against the supreme leadership, the ways of bribing an object who would directly carry out the terrorist act and ways of entering the grounds of events.

On August 12, 2016 they gave him an instruction to collect and send as much information as possible concerning the surrounding environment of event ground where celebrations are held frequently, guard situation there and orders observed at times of events, saying that once concrete and detailed data are given, they would study the most reasonable way in cooperation with the CIA.

Urging him to set up an overseas liaison center for the safe introduction of equipment, materials and fund for the terrorist acts, they financed him 100 000 U.S. dollars on two occasions for setting up the center and bribing terrorist accomplices.

In March and April last an IS agent Jo Ki Chol and his secret agent Xu Guanghai, director general of the Qingdao NAZCA Trade Co. Ltd., met the terrorist accomplice in Dandong of China and handed him over new satellite transmitter-receiver and 50 000 U.S. dollars. They signed a "contract" on setting up the overseas liaison center and let the necessary equipment and materials be introduced as the first installment in early May.

On April 7 a guy surnamed Han, chief of the IS team, taught Kim the way of bribing terrorist accomplices, saying that "even the U.S. CIA uses gradual engagement with due consideration given to the greed and mentality of persons depending on which class and strata they belong" and told him to use it as a reference in engaging terrorist accomplices to be infiltrated to the event ground.

On Nov. 4, 2016 and on April 13, 17 and 20 this year they let Kim know that they officially confirmed the types of bio-chemical substance and hardware to be used for committing terrorist act against the supreme leadership and requested it to the CIA, and instructed him to restudy the "creed" of the terrorist executor and reconfirm the state of "brainwashing" of him and report about them. They also repeatedly instructed him to take the best measure for the examination and preparations for the terrorist operation, as there can be such catastrophic incident as a war once the fact about terrorist means and funds provided by the IS is known.

The chief of the south Korean puppet Intelligence Service Ri Pyong Ho praised the terrorist as a "very valuable existence for the nation and 'IS'" and directly organized the terrorist operation and let the chief of the IS team Han and agent Jo Ki Chol take the lead in executing it. The puppet forces gave the terrorist more than 80 instructions for the execution of the operation.

Recently the CIA and the IS actively spread the story about "emergency situation in the north" while trumpeting about advantages of terrorism by use of biochemical substances as such way can minimize the adverse effect on the executor and the back-stage manipulator and help evade retaliation against the assailant side and international denunciation. Lurking behind the story was the heinous plot that has been pushed forward in top secrecy.

The DPRK Ministry of State Security clarifies as follows upon authorization since the hysteria of the U.S. and the south Korean puppet intelligence institution aimed to hurt the dignity of the DPRK supreme leadership has reached the dangerous phase which can no longer be overlooked:

1. We will ferret out and mercilessly destroy to the last one the terrorists of the U.S. CIA and the puppet IS of south Korea targeting the dignity of the DPRK supreme leadership.

We do not view the recent hideous crime just as an act of encroachment on the security and sovereignty of the state that can be committed by dishonest hostile forces.

The recent case was the most vicious challenge and the declaration of a war aimed to hurt the mental mainstay that all the Korean people absolutely trust and repose and to eclipse the eternal sun of the DPRK. It is the fixed will of the army and people of the DPRK that they can never tolerate even dreaming about such a crime.

Criminals going hell-bent to realize such a pipe dream cannot survive on this land even a moment. This is a stern punishment made on behalf of the human conscience and in the name of all Koreans.

The Ministry of State Security whose mission is to safeguard the leader, the social system and the people will ferret out to the last one the organizer, conspirator and followers of the recent hideous state-sponsored terrorism even by ransacking the whole earth, in reflection of the will of the army and people of the DPRK burning their hearts with hatred and wrath against the hideous murderous devils, no matter at which corner of the planet they may be.

2. Korean-style anti-terrorist attack will be commenced from this moment to sweep away the intelligence and plot-breeding organizations of the U.S. imperialists and the puppet clique, the most mean and brutal hideous terrorist group in the world.

Even though we wipe out all those villains involved in the recent hideous state-sponsored terrorism, there is no vouch that the enemies would stop maneuvering as long as the chieftains and the plot-breeding bases remain.

It is not a secret that the U.S. imperialists and the puppet group of traitors are getting all the more reckless with each passing day and their moves are spearheaded against the supreme headquarters of the Korean revolution.

It is as clear as noonday that such heinous crime targeting the supreme headquarters of the Korean revolution would continue to be attempted, as long as the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet group of traitors remain unchanged in their hostile policy toward the DPRK and there are CIA and IS running amuck as a spearhead in executing the policy.

Therefore, it is our determination to root up all the dens of plot and trick like CIA and IS, the source of all evils in the world, and a series of more powerful our-style anti-terrorism striking actions will begin immediately.

3. All the countries and peoples of the world that value justice and peace should resolutely turn out in the sacred struggle to terminate the heinous terrorist act committed by the U.S., kingpin of terrorism and chieftain of plot, and the south Korean puppet group of traitors.

The present international situation proves that terrorism is a common enemy to humankind and the world would have no moment of peace unless terrorism is eradicated.

The bloody terrorist acts of CIA and IS backed by the U.S., the empire of evil, in different parts of the world surpass terrorism which is said to be perpetrated by "Islamic State" forces.

Nevertheless, the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet group of traitors have often brought charge of "terrorism" to anti-U.S. states and resorted to unprecedentedly hideous terrorism without hesitation under the pretexts of "anti-terrorism war", "opposition to biochemical weapons", "sponsor of terrorism", etc.

The heinous crime, which was recently uncovered and smashed in the DPRK, is a kind of terrorism against not only the DPRK but the justice and conscience of humankind and an act of mangling the future of humankind.

The world free from fear of terrorism is no more than a daydream, as long as there exist in it such groups of bloodthirsty felons as CIA and IS, common enemies hoodwinking and trifling the humankind and outrageous destroyers of the earth.

The honest peace-loving peoples of the world should wage a joint struggle to put an end to all sorts of inhumane plots, arbitrariness and evildoings that ruthlessly trample down their desire for peace and stability.

The U.S. and the south Korean puppet group of traitors should clearly see their dirty looks as bloodstained homicidal maniac and make an apology to the DPRK for their atrocious state-terrorism and inhumane crime and immediately put the criminals to a death penalty.

If they continue to make challenges in disregard of the DPRK's warning and common desire of humankind, they are bound to meet nothing but the most miserable end in history.

#dprk #imperialism #assassination #Kim Jong Un #CIA #Obama #Donald Trump #provocation #Korea #socialism

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holidaysat221b · 8 years

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List of Sherlolly Prompts as of 3/22/2017

Here is a link to the very informal Sherlolly Prompt Fest FAQ

Below is the list of prompts submitted to @holidaysat221b. Where possible, we have tagged the submitter so that credit can be given if a prompt inspires someone to write a fic or create a piece of art.

Some submissions were specifically labeled as Art prompts, and they have been separated into their own category. However, if you are a fic writer and one of the art prompts calls to you, go for it. Likewise, if one of the other prompts makes you want to draw, have fun with it! Prompts that have been filled at least once will be followed with an *, in case that influences your decision to work with one.

We only ask three things:

1) If you use one of the prompts on this list, please remember to credit the prompt and prompter somewhere in your fic summary/art description or in your notes. It’s the polite thing to do.

2) Please submit an ask or message @holidaysat221b with a link to your work, the prompt you used, the prompter, and how you want to be identified (in cases where your Tumblr and fic/artist name are different). This will allow us to share your work with our followers and tag the prompter (if possible).

3) We have set up a Sherlolly Prompt Fest Collection on Ao3. If you are planning to post your fic or art on Ao3 and would like to add it to the collection, please do. As of this moment, the collection is open and unmoderated. Please remember to credit the prompt and prompter in your fic/art notes.

On to the Prompts as of March 22, 2017

Art

Art prompt: (I’ve wanted this like burning for five years, I’ll never give up asking) Sherlock and Molly, the cake scene from Sixteen Candles". Only in the morgue and Molly’s wearing the lab coat. - @sunken-standard

Art prompt: Potter!lock. Don’t care if it’s student Sherlock and Molly in their house robes, teachers, wizarding professionals, a recreation of the Order of the Phoenix group photo with Sherlock characters instead. Whatever. Just as long as it’s Potter!lock. - @darnedchild

Art prompt: Molly and Sherlock’s first real date gets interrupted by a case. Are they dressed up for a fancy evening, or wearing something more suited to fish and chips and a walk around the park? - Anonymous

Crossovers/Works set in or inspired by another specific fictional universe (ie Potter!lock)

I’d really like to see a Daemon (from the His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman) version of Series 3/TAB/Series 4 (any or all of those), especially when it comes to the ILY scene. - Kay

iZombie!Sherlock – Think of this, if Sherlock gets infected we have: 1) Sherlock with white hair 2) Sherlock getting brains from Molly “for experiments” 3) Sherlock getting different attitudes (hippie brain = hippie!Sherlock) 4) Paler than normal pale Sherlock 5) Sherlock with red bloodshot eyes. Also: If Molly Hooper gets infected, it’s like she’s the Liv Moore of Barts. Lestrade as Clive (and relieved to be not only depending on Sherlock to solve crimes). Sherlock deduces Molly’s hair color and tan (because Molly can’t show up to work with white hair, even whiter skin color, and very slow pulse rate). Major asshole Boss being the one shipping tainted Utopium to Britain. - The Silent Fangirl

Superwholock!Sherlolly - The Silent Fangirl

Doctor Who!Sherlock - Molly Hooper as a companion - The Silent Fangirl

Me Before You!Sherlock - The Silent Fangirl

Molly Hooper as “Mary Reilly”. - @darnedchild

Dracula!lock, but maybe mix it up just a little. Sherlock as the object of Dracula’s affections (Mina) and/or Molly as the vampire expert (Van Helsing)? - @darnedchild

Sherlock and Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. Molly Hooper as Lady Molly from “Lady Molly of Scotland Yard” with her crime solving partner Mary (Mortstan). (Note from Mod - as of 3/8/2017, there are 21 days left to listen to the first three episodes of “Lady Molly of Scotland Yard” via BBC Radio 4 Extra on demand here) - @lullikiish

A Hades and Persephone AU with Molly as female Hades (the unrequited love at first, the proximity with death) and Sherlock as a male Persephone (the curiosity, the lack of eating). Irene would be a great Poseidon (the chaos provided by the ocean, the sailor knots). As for John, he would be a great Hermes! - Kay

Gimme “The Full Monty”, baby. Surely someone can find a reason to have Sherlock, John, and Greg get their kits off? Or Molly, Mary, and Sally? Mrs H could give professional pointers and tips to whomever you’re planning to get starkers. - Anonymous

A Sherlolly version of “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Sherlock gets to see what his loved ones’ lives would be like if he never existed, realizing the positive impact he had on them when he was alive. - @simplyshelbs16xoxo

NEW – Something similar to “The Ransom of Red Chief”, only in this version the kidnappers have figured out that Molly Hooper is a pressure point for Sherlock Holmes. They take her captive, intending to blackmail Sherlock or hold Molly for ransom; but Molly Hooper is having none of that nonsense. While Sherlock works to save her, Molly finds ways to torment, injure, and outwit her captors. Whether she escapes on her own, finds a way to let Sherlock and John know where she’s at, or ends up driving her kidnappers crazy to the point that they give up and send her back is up to the author. Could go humorous or dark very easily. - Anonymous

NEW – Clique/Sherlock Crossover - After the events of TFP, Molly Hooper (who is actually Jude McDermid) decides to go back to Edinburgh, broken-hearted & bound to continue the “family business” after years of running away from it. Gone is her long hair & colorful jumpers: she completely changed her look & have every information about Molly Hooper destroyed. Years passed, she forms the Solasta Women’s Initiative, much to her brother’s delight, until a horrific event brings Sherlock Holmes back into her world again. It’s more of a Sherlolly/Judelock mash-up where Sherlock wants to know why she left, who she really is, & how he’s still madly in love with her. Molly/Jude is more like she’s finally embracing the life she thought she never wanted, until she realizes that she can never forget the love she has for Sherlock. Can she be Jude & love him as well? Can Sherlock accept her true reality, or does he only love her as Molly & not Jude. Throw in a nice mystery/thriller plot too! Oh yeah Mycroft, who knew Molly is Jude from the beginning but decided to let Sherlock figure it out on his own, is determined to stop this union at all cost. Pls include all the girls & guys in Clique, especially Holly since she’s a badass off to take down Jude and her “girls” no matter what! It’s a crazy plot but if you’ve seen the 1st 2 episodes of Clique, it screams for a Sherlolly crossover fic! Thanks for reading this uber-long fic prompt! - @violetjersey

Song fic/Inspired by lyrics

Song Fic: Adele’s “Water Under the Bridge” - @darnedchild *

Song Fic: … I would love something based on “Samson” by Regina Spektor please. - @chelle812

Song Fic: Katy Perry’s “Unconditionally” - @darnedchild

Song Fic: Texas’ “I’ll See It Through” - @darnedchild

Song Fic: … I’ve got a quote from a song. “You only know you love her when you let her go.” (Note from Mod - The song appears to be Passenger’s “Let Her Go”) - @flowerstar5 *

OT3/Sherlock, Molly, and ?

A case involving wine and stolen spatulas leads to Mycroft Holmes being attracted to Molly Hooper. Too bad Molly’s had enough of the Holmeses, and Sherlock mooning over her really isn’t helping. (Molly Hooper/Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes) - The Silent Fangirl

Molly wants to meet The Woman. Irene and Sherlock are still friends, and Molly is curious. Much to everyone’s surprise, Molly and Irene hit it off fairly quickly. (Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper/Irene Adler) - Anonymous

When Sherlock is injured and stuck in a cast up to his thigh, Mary and Molly find out JUST how grumpy he can get. They end up putting him by a window with binoculars, his pain medication, snacks, juice and his mobile. What happens next? (Molly Hooper/Sherlock Holmes/Mary (Morstan)Watson) - @penaltywaltz

Everything Else

Sherlock is undercover. He’s renting a small place and he’s trying to fit in with the extremely old fashioned community that is probably hiding a deadly smuggling ring or something equally bad. He ends up calling on Molly to come help. Since he’s already established as an unmarried man, his ‘sister’ (or other family member) arrives for a visit. Cue living in the same house while hot for each other type shenanigans while pretending to be siblings under the watchful eye of some suspicious townspeople. - Anonymous

Molly’s school reunion – Sherlock assumes he’ll be needed to help Molly show everyone up. The catch: Molly’s been a beloved peer, so it’s him who gets the obligatory “you hurt her, we’ll end you". :) - @mychakk

Sherlock sees a woman on the street. Instantly intrigued (you can choose as to why) he follows her. - @mel-loves-all

Molly loves wearing Sherlock’s house robes. - @mel-loves-all

Molly has a piece of body piercing jewelry or a tattoo located somewhere that surprises and titillates Sherlock. - @mel-loves-all *

Whenever Molly is close, Sherlock unconsciously always seems to need to touch her in some way after they start dating. He doesn’t notice it, but Molly does. - @mel-loves-all

A midnight dance. - @mel-loves-all

John tries to set up Sherlock with a girl. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of contenders. And what does Molly have to say about that? - The Silent Fangirl

Through unexpected circumstances, Sherlock and Molly get engaged. It doesn’t end well. Crack!fic - The Silent Fangirl

Eurus Holmes ships the Sherlolly. So does John and Mycroft. Soon, everyone gets dragged into the Sherlolly craze. Crack!fic - The Silent Fangirl

Molly lives in the flat across from 221B. You know, the one that exploded? Yeah. But before that, there was a) looking at the hot naked guy in the window b) said hot naked guy crashing into her flat because he just wants to c) her traitorous cat crossing the street to hot naked guy’s flat. - The Silent Fangirl

Sherlock: A TV series featuring a hot guy with awesome deductive skills, his best friend the doctor, the exasperated detective inspector, the sweet landlady, and the pathologist. And no, the pathologist isn’t in love with the hot guy. - The Silent Fangirl

Molly stops being Sherlock’s pathologist, and starts being THE Pathologist. BAMF!Molly - The Silent Fangirl

This, Sherlock thinks through the haze of cocaine, truly is the worst form of torture. Mycroft and Molly’s wedding through Sherlock’s drug-addled POV. - The Silent Fangirl

Molly commits suicide, but only Sherlock thinks she didn’t. He may not be wrong. - The Silent Fangirl

When John Watson dies, Rosie is given into the care of her godparents. Problem is, they aren’t exactly on speaking terms. Bonus for Harry Watson appearance! - The Silent Fangirl

Molly nearly gets hit by a speeding car … until Sherlock pushes her out of the way and gets hit himself. H/C - The Silent Fangirl

Molly in labor. After watching Mary in labor in TST, I kinda wanna see a funny take on Molly giving birth to her and Sherlock’s child. Maybe something like Molly being in pain, she wishes out loud she’d never had sex with Sherlock, while Sherlock logically points out how well they emotionally and biologically fit together. - Anonymous

Fluff. Molly has been hospitalized for whatever reason. She decides that she is feeling better and just wants to go home. However, the hospital does not want to release her yet. So Molly decides to leave AMA (against medical advice). She feels she can recover at home just as well and also she is eager to get back to work. Besides, who is going to know? This is something someone might expect from Sherlock, but not Molly. How long before he finds out? What is his reaction? - @shadowyqueenbeard

Angst. Molly discovers she is pregnant and is not happy about it. Although she would love to have a baby at some point, right now is not the time. She and Sherlock do not have a commitment and her career is going well. She plans to terminate the pregnancy. Sherlock finds out and tries to stop her. He please with her to change her mind, marry him and be a family. Is this just a control tactic or does he really love her? - @shadowyqueenbeard *

Molly discovers there is Sherlock Holmes RPF (Real Person Fiction) on the internet. She’s shocked to find that someone called Sherlolly4vr74 has been writing fic about her and Sherlock, and they seem to have a dedicated fan base. Some of the stories are very sweet and romantic, some of them are hot enough to give her NSFW ideas. Who is Sherlolly4vr74 (Is it Anderson? Mrs Hudson? Mary? John? I bet it’s John.) and is Sherlock aware of the stories? - @darnedchild

Eurus has been known to put on a persona and disguise to get close to people for information – she was Faith for Sherlock, E and the psychiatrist for John. What if she had also spent some time around Molly prior to the events at Sherrinford? What information would she have gleaned about her brother and his pathologist? - @darnedchild

Can they be R rated. Because I feel Sherlock would not muck about, with telling Molly what he would like to do to her, he would not use cute little names for all her female parts and would go into great detail, like all his cases. She would be his very serious case. Yes he would most defiantly do a lot of research on pleasing her. Write it however you are most comfortable with. - @oliverfel4

Sherlock and Molly are getting married! It’s time to work on the guest list for the wedding, and suddenly they are faced with the question—Do they let Euros come, or not? - @celticmoonbeam

Shipwrecked Sherlolly—Sherlock saves Molly from drowning. - Anonymous

Euros leads Sherlock to believe that he failed, and Molly was killed after the ILY scene. Much angst ensues as he blames himself for her loss … but then we get to see the happy reunion scene when he learns she’s alive. - Anonymous

Moriarty trying to up Sherlock by sleeping with Molly, but the joke is on him, as Sherlock and Molly knew each other from secondary school/uni and were each other’s firsts. They can be regular (exclusive) lovers too. - @mychakk

Mary as matchmaker. At John and Mary’s wedding, Mary feels a little sad when they leave him alone to go dance (“What about you?”). She decides to make it her mission to help Sherlock find a girl so he’s not alone anymore. And this former agent has no trouble figuring out the potential between Sherlock and a certain Molly Hooper … (Up to you whether or not you want to throw in a Janine segue before she decides to set him up with Molly. And feel free to cover Sherlock being shot!) - @celticmoonbeam

Molly discovers she’s pregnant with Sherlock’s child at the worst possible time: while she’s with his parents, being hidden away, and the two are pretending to be just friends. Bonus if they figure it out before they’re told! - @penaltywaltz

After the events of TFP, Molly and Sherlock get closer. Suddenly, though, he pulls away and starts flirting with a coworker of hers, sometimes blatantly in front of her. It isn’t until an event at Barts that the truth comes out that it was all for a case. - @penaltywaltz

Molly finds out that as a child Sherlock liked the book “The Westing Game” and for one of his birthdays she arranges a vacation mimicking the plot of the book, even if none of them really fit the particular characters. - @penaltywaltz

Sherlock wants to make a gourmet meal for Molly for a special occasion, but he doesn’t seem to get it quite right. Fortunately, a friend/relative is willing to help. - @penaltywaltz

Sherlock moves in with Molly and begins perusing her book collection, picking up random books that have interesting looking covers, and the next thing Molly knows he’s turned into a fantasy buff. - @penaltywaltz *

Non-established Sherlolly. Sherlock gets a hold of Molly’s phone one afternoon and can’t resist snooping. He’s surprised to see a folder in her photo gallery marked “Special” and it’s all photos of him. - @penaltywaltz

Have you had sex? – After Euros asked that I somehow thought “Molly??” (as Sherlock says, Irene only texts him, he doesn’t reply). Later it seems that Euros is the only one who ever has noticed that Molly causes some emotions in him. So my theory is that something happened between Molly and Sherlock, it happened pretty recently, somehow (stressful night and they talked or they had some drinks and somehow one thing led to another) they ended up having sex; but Sherlock wasn’t good at dealing with it after or something urgent came along and he didn’t really consider Molly’s emotions, he ran off right after or in the morning, and that could be the reason why Molly didn’t pick up the phone first and was in a bad mood during the “ILY scene”. What happened between them recently is the reason why Molly is a bit rude to Sherlock when he calls, and the reason why she gets so emotional and raw so easily over the I Love You thing, and why she so easily tells him to say it first. Well, then when Sherlock says “I love you” he finally realizes fully that he really does love her too, and that he is capable of loving that way, and finally sees how easy it could be and what he could lose. Then after this whole thing he goes to talk to Molly and explain things to her. - @lullikiish

Complete me as a person. — Scene that popped into my mind. Irene has been texting Sherlock again, Sherlock in the end almost agrees to meet her for dinner, but as he’s walking out of his flat while Molly is there looking after Rosie he sees Molly in kind of slo-mo in the golden evening sun holding Rosie and being all sweet. Maybe already something a bit has happened before between them, some flirting, etc. The talk with John about a relationship completing him as a person is on the back of his mind. He walks out, but midway down the stairs while taking his phone out (symbolically in darkness compared to that evening sun) he realizes that he misses that warmth and Molly, and realizes that is what completes him. He takes out his phone and texts he’s not coming and then goes back upstairs. Sees Molly all adorable and confused/surprised in this beautiful light and maybe goes to kiss her, etc. - @lullikiish

A post TRF fic, where Sherlock takes Molly with him, but they return to London a couple years later than in canon because Molly got pregnant along the way (or even twice), so now they are three/four of them instead of two? - @mychakk

Victorian “Hooper”lock—Molly in disguise as “Hooper” the man, and they work together on a case and sparks fly. They flirt and all, and Sherlock can’t figure out right away that she’s a woman, and I think it might not even bother him that much. - @lullikiish

“We had chips. She liked me.” – Sherlock in TLD. What could have been had he and Molly gotten chips in TEH: A kick to Tom’s butt. Happy greeting (a hug at least!) at the end of TEH. Quite a lot of sex with Sherlock instead of Tom. Molly the best man’s date. A (sophisticated. Or not) Molly/Janine cat fight for Janine hitting on SH moments. Dancing, so much Sherlolly dancing (and no leaving early). Probably no Shezza (Shezzer?)—which, hmm, is a shame (But maybe they’ve their own not-being-on-a-sex-holiday-but-sexing-a-lot time). A real proposal to Molly. Molly at family Christmas, maybe even a Christmas wedding. Solving CAM without the threat of exile sharpens Sherlock’s deductive abilities. No Norbury as Molly’s already expecting their first offspring, so Sherlock doesn’t taunt needlessly. Mary as the Sherlolly baby godmother as she’s alive! Culverton Smith is taken down by the duo of Mary and Molly while the latter gives birth there (because the ladies are awesome, plus Mrs H tackles him down). John is so impressed he doesn’t look at any other women. Molly’s big heart brings Eurus from her metaphoric plane the moment she steps into 221B, plus baby Holmes wins her heart too. The Holmes family reconciliation and Eurus is in therapy instead of being a multi-killer. Baker Street Boys Team continues while Baker Street Girls Team gives them a run for their money. Mycroft asks Lady Smallwood out himself to her astonishment and internal squealing. Mummy Holmes gets more grandkids than she could’ve imagined. And basically, everyone walks happily into the sunset. The End. Please note, some things can obviously be modified. - @mychakk *

#sherlolly prompt list

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arlingtonpark · 7 years

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The Story of L’Affaire Russe Part 3

Part III. Election Day to the Firing of James Comey/I’ve Got a Bad Feeling about This…

January 2017 was when the Russia story starting receiving widespread attention again after being relatively dormant following the election.

On January 10th, the Steele Dossier leaked to the public. Compiled by an MI6 spy contracted by an opposition research firm hired by a Republican donor, the Steele Dossier is composed of a number of reports made by Christopher Steele, the MI6 spy, who worked his contacts in Russia to gather information on Trump.

Steele has a reputation for thoroughness and doing good work in the past and so his Dossier is given heed by the intelligence community. The Dossier alleges that Trump has been serving as the eyes and ears of the Russian government for some time now, mostly as a way for the Russians to keep tabs on the business dealings of Russian oligarchs in the United States. Note that one does not have to even know they are an agent of a foreign government in order to be an agent of a foreign government.

More importantly, if Steele’s contacts in Russia are reliable, then Putin currently has a file on Trump loaded with sexually risqué material, thus making the President of the United States eminently blackmail-able. Among the alleged material is footage of Trump renting the same hotel room in Moscow that fmr President Obama stayed in one time and, because Trump hates Obama, paying a group of Russian hookers to piss over him as he laid down on the hotel room bed.

It would not surprise me if this “pee tape” were real.

This is where we are as a country.

Steele delivered an encrypted form of the finalized Dossier to his benefactors, Fusion GPS, in December 2016 with instructions to deliver a hard copy to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John McCain. McCain in turn delivered a copy of the Dossier to FBI Director James Comey. Steele is also known to have delivered a copy of the Dossier to MI6 at around the same time.

The Dossier’s existence, and in a lot of cases the Dossier itself, was known to the DC political class (politicians, journalists, high ranking bureaucrats, and scholars) since Fall 2016. No one, however, talked of it in public because the Dossier’s contents could not be independently verified.

On January 6th, 2017, then President Obama and President to be Trump were briefed on the Dossier and its contents. The Dossier was leaked to the public by the press four days later.

On January 13th, the Senate Intelligence Committee announced its investigation into the L’Affaire Russe, including possible Trump campaign collaboration. The House Intelligence Committee announced its own investigation about two weeks after that. That makes three ongoing investigations in to L’Affaire Russe, counting the FBI investigation Comey confirmed a couple months later.

However, the day before, on January 12th, before the Trump presidency even began, the incoming Trump administration was embroiled in a serious scandal that would be a major through line for the next couple of months before dovetailing in to the larger Russia storyline.

On that day, it was reported in the WaPo that Michael Flynn, whom you’ll recall has shady connections to Russia and who had been designated by Trump to become the National Security Advisor, had five separate and undisclosed phone calls with the Ambassador of Russia to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, over the course of 36 hours beginning on December 29th, 2016.

This is important because of what was happening on and around that day. Here’s the timeline: on December 28th, the Trump team was informed by the Obama administration that they were going to impose sanctions on Russia for its election meddling. The next day, Obama goes public with his intentions and it is also on that day that Flynn starts speaking with Russia’s ambassador.

This next part is key: the next day, December 30th, Putin announces there will be no response to the newly imposed sanctions.

This is a complete break from what was expected and it led to speculation that Flynn had discussed the new sanctions with Kislyak.

The Trump team and later the Trump White House vehemently denied that sanctions were discussed during those calls.

However, one month later it came out that sanctions were, in fact, discussed. Flynn was removed from his position as NSA shortly thereafter.

But this was not the end of this story. Over the course of the next five months details would emerge that would further complicate the situation.

One noteworthy revelation was that the Trump White House knew of Flynn’s lying about discussing sanctions with Kislyak as early as January 26th, 2017, almost a full month before anyone else did, yet did nothing about it. That was the day that Sally Yates, then the Acting Attorney General, informed White House Counsel Don McGahn of Flynn’s lying and that his doing so made him susceptible to blackmail by the Russians.

Further testimony by Yates would reveal that on January 27th, she was called to the White House to discuss the Flynn matter with McGahn. Four topics were discussed. First, why Flynn lying was important. Second, the possibility of Flynn coming under criminal prosecution. Third, if such hypothetical prosecution would interfere with any concurrent investigations in to Flynn. Fourth, the evidence that Flynn had lied in the first place.

Three days later, on January 30th, Yates was removed from her position as Acting Attorney General, ostensibly due to her refusal to defend Trump’s Muslim travel ban in court. It is unknown if this was the actual reason for her dismissal.

Other revelations would reveal a pattern of dealings with Russians and other Trump associates.

It was revealed that Manafort had previously worked for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, purportedly in the name of furthering the interests of the Russian government. Manafort admits to working for Deripaska, but denies doing so to help the Russian government.

It was revealed that Carter Page had made a trip to Moscow in early July and that this trip was apparently approved by the Trump campaign. It was further revealed that in the Summer of 2016, the Justice Department had used the Steele Dossier to establish probable cause to believe that Page was an agent of a foreign government in order to obtain a warrant to surveille him.

It was revealed that Flynn and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had a previously undisclosed meeting in Trump Tower with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.

It was revealed that Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions also had multiple previously undisclosed meeting with Kislyak. Following these revelations, Sessions recused himself from the FBI’s Russia investigation, much to Trump’s apparent chagrin.

It was revealed that on at least one occasion during this time period, Trump, apparently hoping to shake the specter of the Russia investigation, approached the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, Devin Nunes and Richard Burr respectively, and asked that they publicly vouch for him that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Burr did not oblige, but Nunes went above and beyond this call and deserves elaboration.

Nunes had a very servile disposition towards Trump, which led to some rather embarrassing happenstance. For example, Nunes once stated that Flynn was being persecuted by the press and that there was “nothing there.” This was mere hours before Flynn announced his resignation, specifically for the reasons that Nunes had derided.

In February 2017, it was revealed that Nunes had been approached by Trump and asked to deny the claims that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Nunes did not deny the reports, but downplayed them, saying that he was already doing exactly what Trump wanted him to do and Trump’s request merely led to him simply doing more of it.

On March 4th, 2017, Trump publicly accused Barack Obama (via tweet) of unlawfully spying on him.

The President of the United States is a very impulsive man and so he is want to fire off sometimes nonsensical declarations without thinking. This left Trump in the embarrassing situation of claiming a serious crime was committed, yet having no proof to back it up. Trump is also a man who refuses to admit to ever being wrong (no matter how stupid he ends up looking in the process) thus leading to him standing by his absurd claims and even asking Congress to investigate and find proof to back up his claims!

During the final week of March, something incredibly, truly bizarre happened.

On March 22nd, Nunes delivered an impromptu press conference on the White House driveway revealing that he had obtained documents (which he refuses to share with anyone but Trump) from a “whistleblower-type person” showing that information about people associated with the Trump transition were incidentally collected by US intelligence for no apparent reason. Nunes then walks in to the White House to brief Trump on the newly uncovered documents.

Afterwards, Nunes takes reporter’s questions where in which he undercuts his own claims about the significance of his findings. He had said that it was “confirm[ed]” that information relating to the Trump transition was incidentally collected. Later, though, he said that it merely “looks like” information was collected. He also said that he was “alarmed” by what he had found. Yet later he says that the (apparent; see above) actions of the Obama administration were legal. He also states that he doesn’t know all the facts.

Trump goes on to say that he feels vindicated by Nunes’ findings, even though he claimed that (1) his wires were “tapped” (sic), (2) that he specifically was targeted, (3) that this was done illegally, (4) that this happened during the campaign, and (5) that Obama personally ordered it. None of this is vindicated by what Nunes uncovered.

It was also at that press conference that Nunes reveals that he intends to investigate the former Obama administration for this apparent misconduct, and he further specifies that Trump officials were “unmasked”.

One final thing before moving on: Nunes said during the press conference that the incidentally collected information appears to have been collected pursuant to a FISA warrant. The details of FISA warrants are classified, meaning Nunes just may have spilled classified material live on national TV!

Details of how exactly Nunes came to uncover these documents were revealed over the course of the following week and a half.

Nunes, it turns out, had first learned of these documents on the night of the day prior to the 22nd, mere hours before he went public with them.

On that night, Nunes was traveling with a colleague in an Uber when he received a message on his phone. He then ditched the Uber without saying what he was going to do and disappeared into the night. The message had apparently called for him to meet with the “whistleblower-type person” on the other end of the line somewhere because Nunes then made a beeline for what was clearly a pre-arranged meeting with the person, who then handed over the documents to him. Turns out, that meeting place was the White House! To be clear, Nunes did not meet with them on the street in front of the White House. He met them ON THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!

This is especially bewildering because Nunes claimed that his informant was an intelligence official. A Congressman and a government bureaucrat meeting on the White House lawn in the middle of the night is certainly bewildering.

Later though, it would be revealed that the “whistleblower-type person” was not an intelligence official and, in fact, was two people. Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a White House official and Flynn nutcase working on the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, an official with the White House Counsel’s Office.

What had happened was that Cohen-Watnick was snooping around presumably trying to find something to back up the President’s dumbass tweets. When Cohen-Watnick found the documents, he took them to the White House Counsel’s Office, but was told to cease what he was doing because it basically amounted to an unauthorized investigation into the Obama Administration. Finding himself blocked off, Cohen-Watnick decided to leak the documents to Nunes, who was stupid enough to take them without questioning the obviously shady circumstances.

All of this talk of inappropriate behavior by the Obama Administration turned out to just be hot air anyway because the documents show no illegal activity having been conducted. Meaning that this bizarre chain of events was completely meaningless.

This, however, did not stop Trump from claiming that “the real story” is that of the misconduct of the Obama Administration.

To this day.

The fact that Nunes had served as a member of Trump’s transition team, plus his generally servile attitude toward Trump, plus making a total ass of himself with this incidental collection escapade, led many people, including many Republicans, to call for him to recuse himself from the House’s investigation in to the Russia Connection.

Nunes did just that in early April 2017, but with the stated reason NOT being any of the ones listed above, but rather because the House Ethics Committee is currently investigating Nunes for potential ethics violations.

The House investigation is currently being headed by Republican Representative Mike Conaway of Texas.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

#politics #trump #russia #2016 #l'affaire russe

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ladystylestores · 4 years

Text

A Popular QAnon Twitter Account That Claims To Have Explosive DC Dirt Is Really Just A Random Italian Guy

BuzzFeed News / 2001: A Space Odyssey, courtesy of Everett Collection

Near the end of her May 26 briefing, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called on Chanel Rion, the chief White House correspondent for pro-Trump cable outlet One America News Network.

Rion began her question by making the explosive — and false — claim that “new information” had revealed that former president Barack Obama had used a foreign intelligence service to surveil two floors of Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. “So to what extent was [former CIA director] John Brennan behind that?” she asked.

People in the briefing room may have been scratching their heads, but a hyperactive Twitter user with a photo of one of the astronauts from 2001: A Space Odyssey as its avatar was elated. “Great job!” tweeted @GregRubini at Rion, claiming she had “asked a spicy question from my book.”

It was another coup for the pseudonymous account with more than 120,000 followers. He has injected himself into major news events, in part by claiming to have sources in the FBI, Trump Tower, and within government and intelligence circles. This week, as protests swept through the US, @GregRubini tweeted that antifa is “controlled by the CIA.” New York mayor “De Blasio is ANTIFA,” he also wrote, in a post that was retweeted thousands of times.

But the Rubini account’s claims of insider intel and “high placed” sources appear to be some of its author’s litany of fabrications — which include his online identity.

His viral Twitter threads helped his conspiracy-filled self-published book, The Spy Operations on Trump, climb Amazon bestseller lists after its May 22 release. He was among the first to tweet the name of the alleged Ukraine whistleblower. His tweets claiming that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease official, “made” the novel coronavirus went viral and helped launch that baseless rumor into the mainstream. And thanks to national reporters like Rion who follow his path of conspiratorial thinking, he even has a line to the White House itself.

But the Rubini account’s claims of insider intel and “high placed” sources appear to be some of its author’s litany of fabrications — which include his online identity. The man behind @GregRubini is Gregorio Palusa, a 61-year-old Italian sound engineer and marketer with no national security or intelligence credentials. His background includes a pattern of unverified claims about his business relationships and expertise, and a brief spell as a groupie for a Pink Floyd tribute band.

Palusa did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls.

The Rubini account first attracted national attention late last year when it tweeted the name of the alleged whistleblower more than 20 times, according to the Washington Post. Since then it’s become a mainstay of far-right conspiracy thinking.

May’s White House briefing was the second time Rion brought one of Rubini’s false claims to prominence. In mid-March, OAN aired an outlandish report from Rion that suggested a link between the novel coronavirus in Wuhan and a lab in North Carolina.

Rion, who has spread conspiracy theories and false information in the past, credited Rubini for the information, describing him as “a citizen investigator and monitored source amongst a certain set in the DC intelligence community.” Rion did not respond to a request for comment.

Rion’s story sparked a firestorm of criticism and caused the Daily Mail to dig into her background, exposing that she had changed her name, made misleading claims about her past, and had little journalism experience.

But her source escaped a similar level of scrutiny. Until now.

The bio of @GregRubini currently describes him as a “Strategy Advisor at /classified/.” It gives no account of who he really is, other than, presumably, that his name actually is Greg Rubini.

But that wasn’t always true. In 2018, the account’s Twitter biography contained a link to the site vertygoteam.com, a site that is registered to Palusa, who commonly goes by “Greg” in online profiles, including one he maintains on Blogger.

Palusa was born on Jan. 4, 1959, in Trieste, a seaport in the northeast of Italy, according to a consulting contract that Palusa signed with an Italian book publisher in 2012. Two former business partners said Palusa had spent years in the US and in London, and spoke English very well.

He was living in Trieste at the end of the 1990s and in the first decade of the 2000s, a former business who requested anonymity told BuzzFeed News. His mother still lives in Trieste, but in a phone call told BuzzFeed News he was no longer living with her. She said she didn’t know where her son currently was and wasn’t sure whether she could get in touch with him.

Around 2010, Palusa moved to Tuscany, listing an address in Pienza, a small town near Siena, and lived there until at least 2015, according to domain registration records. Several music and film festivals held in the Siena area between 2013 and 2018 included Palusa’s name in promotional materials.

An artist from Trieste told BuzzFeed News that he had ended a business partnership relating to several collaborative creative and design projects with Palusa more than a decade ago. The artist said he had not been in contact with Palusa for at least 10 years.

“I never wanted to deal with this person again.”

“He started to have delusions of greatness, claimed to ask millions of dollars from companies, boasted about having assignments with companies with which he had had no relationship,” said the artist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He also said Palusa became more difficult to deal with over time, eventually forcing him to hire a lawyer to end their partnership. “I never wanted to deal with this person again,” he said, “because of his growing megalomania that can seriously endanger those who work honestly.”

These days, Palusa claims to be employed in marketing. His LinkedIn profile lists him as the London-based director of international relations of marketing firm Vertygo Team, although on other sites he claimed his title was director of communications.

Palusa has also used “Greg Rubini” as an alias in the past, according to a Facebook post in March 2016 from an Italian book publisher that specializes in books about spirituality, ancient astronauts, and religious history. In the post, the publisher claimed a WordPress blog authored by “Gregorio Palusa aka Greg Rubini on social media” had defamed the publisher by pushing false and “delirious” information, that Palusa had stolen thousands of euros from the company, and had wasted a year of its time after pretending to represent a nonexistent marketing company.

Uno Editori CEO Prabhat Eusebio told BuzzFeed News that Palusa, who lived in Tuscany at the time, had contacted his company in 2012, promising to bring one of its authors to the US. “He claimed to have contacts with large American publishers,” said Eusebio.

“We realized the fraud after a loss of about 6,000 euros,” Eusebio alleged. “He seemed like an expert in publishing, but it all ended up in a soap bubble.”

The Uno Editori CEO claimed that Palusa became increasingly uncompromising as it seemed more clear he was unlikely to deliver on his promises. “After repeated requests to meet, and questions about how things were going in the search for publishers and agents, his position became more and more intransigent — and he blackmailed us when we stopped paying his fee.” Eusebio said Palusa threatened to not return revised texts, and to sue and go after the publisher in public if he wasn’t paid. “He also asked for an exorbitant amount — €137,000 — outside the scope of the contract as compensation for his time, arbitrarily counting hours worked without providing any evidence.”

Eusebio said the company paid some of those fees, but started legal proceedings, after which Palusa created a WordPress blog to attack the company. The publisher said he had to abandon proceedings because it had become too costly.

Palusa also appears to have worked as an audio engineer.

His Blogger profile includes the claim that he worked with Deutsche Grammophon engineer Klaus Hiemann, whom the Rubini account has tweeted about. (Deutsche Grammophon didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

Italian organist Marco Lo Muscio said Palusa was a sound engineer on his 2009 album, Dark and Light. Palusa’s YouTube account showcases musical performances that he claims to have filmed and edited, many of which have to do with the rock band Pink Floyd. At an Italian festival held in Tuscany in 2013, Palusa presented a multimedia exhibition called Pink Floyd: Odyssey in Space in conjunction with a performance by tribute band Pink Noise.

Carmelo J., a member of the band, said they fell out of touch after Palusa began offering the unsolicited feedback about its work.

“Greg Palusa liked us very much as a band, he followed us for a bit,” Carmelo J. told BuzzFeed News in a Facebook message. “Then he disappeared (I don’t remember why, probably some small squabble) and we have no more news of him.”

Asked if he could recall what the argument was about, Carmelo J. replied: “I just remember that at a certain point his stylistic ‘advice’ about us became ‘critical,’ expressed even in an inelegant way.”

Palusa also said he’s worked with several prominent companies, a claim which could not be independently verified.

Many of the companies that Palusa listed on his Blogger profile as having worked with told BuzzFeed News they had never heard of him. He claims to have worked with London marketing agency AKQA, Angels Costumes, Ferrari, Apple, and music label EMI.

The managing director of AKQA, who’s been there for 13 years, told BuzzFeed News that Palusa’s name did not appear in any records and he didn’t recognize him. Angels Costumes of London said the same. A spokesperson for Apple said the company has never employed Palusa and had no record of working with Vertygo Team. EMI did not respond to requests for comment.

Ferrari declined to comment, but Palusa’s claim that he had worked for the company made its way into a 2011 lawsuit filed by the Ford Motor Company against Ferrari. In the suit, filed in Michigan, Ford alleged that Ferrari had infringed on Ford’s F-150 trademark. Ford’s complaint described Palusa’s company, Vertygo Team, as “Ferrari’s outside marketing consultant” and quoted from an article he published on his website about Ferrari’s marketing strategy. The suit was dismissed less than a month later after the parties came to a settlement.

Palusa claims on his LinkedIn profile that his article about Apple’s marketing strategy was being studied by companies including Nokia, Microsoft, Sony, and Goldman Sachs. Backlink data from SEMrush showed the vast majority of links to the post came from spammy online coupon sites.

As @GregRubini, Palusa claims to have sources inside the US government with knowledge of intelligence, judicial, and White House matters. For example, in May of 2019, he said his “well placed source inside the FBI” had seen indictments for former CIA director John Brennan and former FBI director James Comey. Neither has been indicted.

He has also tweeted that people should stop asking him who these supposed insiders are: “my sources are confidential. I always honor my commitment to confidentiality, so: don’t even ask who my sources are.”

He threatened to block anyone who asked about his sources.

“My sources are confidential. I always honor my commitment to confidentiality, so: don’t even ask who my sources are.”

The @GregRubini account was created in 2014, but it took until January of 2019 for it to join the firmament of followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory and supporters of President Donald Trump.

That month, Palusa claimed the Twitter accounts of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, former CIA director John Brennan, and former national security adviser Susan Rice had been taken over by military intelligence as part of a supposedly secret prosecution. Core to the QAnon conspiracy is the unfounded idea that these so-called deep state operatives have been or will be arrested and tried for treason and other offenses in secret.

That same month, Palusa claimed Obama’s Twitter account had also been taken over, and that a recent photo shared in a tweet was a signal “to tell us – Patriots – that OUR GUYS have Hussein in custody in Gitmo.” He also said former FBI agents Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe, and former Department of Justice lawyer Sally Yates were “under prosecution at the Military Tribunals secret trials.”

“My sources told me that at least 80 (possibly up to 140) congressmen will be prosecuted and brought to jail,” Palusa said.

Amazon

The cover of Rubini’s self-published book.

None of these things happened, of course. But Palusa kept adding new followers. On May 22, he published a book in which he alleges a broad deep state conspiracy against Trump. In its appendix, he includes a screenshot showing that in February of this year his tweets generated 53.8 million views.

His book is filled with references to supposedly high-placed sources, including the false claim that Rion cited in the White House.

In the book, Palusa also offers a document he claims is a memo from the head of the British communications intelligence agency to then–foreign minister Boris Johnson outlining the Trump surveillance operation. Palusa’s attempts to verify the memo and its implications occupy close to half of the book. He writes that the most likely conclusion is the “document is 100% authentic.”

In fact, according to responses from the UK government as well as outlets who examined it, it is a sloppy forgery that doesn’t hold up to the slightest scrutiny.

Palusa also cites a March 2017 claim from Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano that the UK spied on the Trump campaign at Obama’s request, an allegation that has been widely discredited. When that surfaced, the usually tight-lipped GCHQ called it “nonsense” and “utterly ridiculous.” A spokesperson for then–British prime minister Teresa May said the claim was “ridiculous and should have been ignored.” The US government agreed to not repeat it. Even Donald Trump — the person who benefits most if the claim is true — has declined to repeat it.

But none of that is mentioned in the book. Instead, Palusa writes that three “high placed confidential sources have confirmed to the author of this book, Greg Rubini, that the GCHQ Top Secret document is authentic.” ●

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