#the guy who said 'i love American imperialism' is British which makes this even more accurate 😭😭😭

[ameliafuckinjones]

What I imagine Arthur and Amelia's dynamic is like:

[shini--chan]

Ohh can I have a love triangle with Y!1P America and Y!1P England with reader who is a British spy in america (or an american spy in the UK)?

Ah, you guys sure do love your love triangles. I do as well – there is just so much tension between the characters. Also, this ask was tricky because I just couldn’t decide if I wanted to write the UK spy or the US spy – for those of you that have read my stories on Quotev, you know I’ve written spy stories for both characters. So, in the end I decided to write both scenarios.

Yandere Love Triangle – England vs America (Spy AU!)

US spy

As I’ve mentioned in the England HCs, Arthur would like to have a lover with a lot of smarts. So, you being a spy would automatically tick all the boxes in that category. Alfred would be well aware of his father’s preferences in a lover and this want to capitalize on them.

America would consider using you as a Romeo agent in a Honey Trap operations – he sure wants to blackmail dear old dad – but then would see you as too skilled to restrict your work to seduction and further your tasks.

You looked at the man guiding you through the crowded streets of London. It was rush hour, far too many people for your liking either languidly milling about or rush ahead as if the devil was chasing them. His hand was on the small of your back, arm having pulled you too close to just be friendly.

Arthur Kirkland was moonstruck, shooting you longing glances every now and then. You knew that it was decency and respect that prevented him from showing blatant affection for you in public. Both of you were in a relationship, no matter how unofficial it was.

While he calmly strolled with you, pointing to the sights of the world famous city and explaining the history behind some monuments, you couldn’t help but wonder what it was that made him so special. Kirkland had his own eccentrics, yet none of those would have warranted the USA sending one of it’s top agents after him.

Your amazement would largely be founded in the fact that even in a relationship, Arthur had be very slow to open up to you. He would like to keep his secrets. Additionally, in his post-imperial afterlife he would be the equivalent of a lion padding in the drawing room anymore. He’d seem rather harmless on first inspection, opting to hide the traits that would make him so dangerous. You finding out somewhere down the line that he is the personification of a nation would be very enlightening to you.

Of course, while Alfred would intellectually know that you’re just a spy pretending to be over the moon, his emotional part would seethe with envy upon seeing with Arthur. It would motivate him to make his own moves – interrupting you while you would be out for dinner, making lewd jokes about you in his father’s presence. This would cause Arthur to cling to you ever more tightly, in the fear that his son would steal you from him.

When you would point out to Alfred that he would be sabotaging your mission, he would counter that he would just be aiding you. Arthur would become too obsessed with to see what you were doing; his advances would distract his father further and you wouldn’t be suspected because which country would try to sabotage their own missions. If he would be right or wrong would be left to be seen.

You dug your nails in his shoulders, making him groan into the kiss. His lips remained firmly pressed to yours for a few more moments before you tilted your head back to get some air. Your head was spinning from how vigorously Alfred had been kissing you and you swore that your cheeks were flushed.

Glancing at him, the dim light of the broom cupboard you were in allowed you to see the red doting him cheeks and the hunger that glinted in his eyes. He leaned in for another bout of smooching, but you quickly pressed your index finger to his mouth, lightly pushing him away.

The man left out a low whine when you denied him: “C’mon sugar, don’t be such a jerk.”

You shook your head: “This is going too far now. I’m supposed to be in a relationship with Kirkland …”

“Screw him”, Alfred interrupted you and bended down to plant butterfly kisses on your neck. In-between he said: “He can go screw himself. I told him that during my fight for independence and I’ll gladly tell him that now. I want you.”

UK spy

While his glory days would be long gone and over, Arthur would still regard himself as a global player. And to ensure that he would remain in his precarious position, he’d become invested in being privy to the secrets of others. Knowledge is power after all, and there would be few that would know that better than he would. That is where you would come into play, as his means to an end.

He would have it organised for you to be sent to act as his wayward son, after having reviewed your file as well as having evaluated you personally. This would be where England would start to take an interest in you. Therefor, he would pull some strings to have himself implemented as your direct superior and intermediator.

Since you would be a spy, you would have a lot of skills in your arsenal ranging from social skills to escape tactics, linguistics to sciences. This in turn would fulfil many of America’s criteria when it comes to the ideal partner. And because such people are rare, he would seize the chance when you would start to show interest in him.

Alfred might or might not notice that you would have ulterior motives for getting in a relationship with him. He would cling to regardless and convince himself that he could “help” you overcome all your flaws.

Of course, the more time you would spend wrapping Alfred around your finger, the more jealous Arthur would become. It would be a stead build up, the feelings festering and growing more intense until he wouldn’t be able to control them. Ironically, like his son in the previous half of the answer here, Arthur would see romancing you as a way to taunt Alfred, to make the younger personification angry, causing him to make mistakes.

However, England would be more tasteful than his offspring and opt to be more discreet with his advances to you. That way, you also wouldn’t be so inclined to push him away.

The public library was full at this hour, something that you intended to use to your advantage. It was New York, possessing one of the biggest public libraries in the world. Which was why you were somewhat surprised when Arthur comfortably slid into the chair opposite you, not the slightest hint of irritation on his face.

You granted your wristwatch a quick glance.

“Right on time.”, you stated as a substitute for a greeting.

As per usual, the absence of manners didn’t sit well with Arthur. “Good afternoon to you too”, he dryly said.

“I thought you would get lost before finding me.”

He chuckled at that, relaxing as much as the thin, polyester cushioning allowed. “You underestimate my abilities, my dear.”

Again, you were amazed at how your direct superior came on par with your skills. Most of those above you in the workplace hierarchy were either pencil-pushers or tech-geeks. Yet Kirkland really knew what he was doing. Additionally, he made it look easy. Secretly, you believed that he was holding himself back and that his talents actually exceeded yours. Yet that was a matter you could contemplate another time.

Wordlessly, you shoved a book on rose gardening for old people to him and he deftly snatched up the book, evidently pretending to not notice the non-verbal jab you had made at him for one of his more serene hobbies. Lightly, he opened up on the page where you had hidden it and greedily eyes the slip of paper and the access codes written on it.

He gave you a smile, one of the rarer ones that made you shiver. Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder to endure that unfriendly ears that hear what he was about to say. Unwarranted – Alfred was somewhere upstairs, hounding some poor librarian for old journals on the Mayan and Aztec cultures; he wouldn’t be coming soon.

“Well done”, he commented, showing you that he did have the capacity to give praise. “The next time you have something, feel free to pop by at my flat.”

Somehow you knew that that wasn’t an offer, it was an order.      

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs Death Note

I’m watching this show specifically because of that text post that said, “Watch how quickly this one guy decides to be the worst person ever” and he has killed two people in the first ten minutes

Though 2 be fair he’s killing people to save people so it’s a trolley problem kind of thing for now

“In fact I’ve been waiting for you... Ryuk” ok weird flex Light but u do u

“You’re the first one to use to this extent in five days” WAIT DID HE MURDER ALL THOSE PEOPLE IN FIVE DAYS I THOUGHT HE WAS JUST LOOKING AT A LIST OH MY GOD??

“So there isn’t a price to using Death Note?” said Light, as if killing people is just a normal thing that we all do

Fhkjfhfkjb Ryuk really went ‘u used the book so we’re friends now’ 

I was wondering why the book was in English, and I guess that makes sense British and American imperialism really Did That

“I can write down the names of criminals, and slowly reduce the number of evil people” uhhhh doesn’t u being a Book Murderer also make you a criminal Light

“Human lives shouldn’t be taken so lightly” bah dum tss

Also I guess that revelation lasted about thirty seconds for you huh

Update from 15 seconds later: Even less than that

“I would create a world of earnest, kind humans” really because I don’t think places that allow the death penalty are generally nicer societies 

It’s interesting that they use English in the classes and the notebook but the conversation at Interpol takes place in Japanese (despite the implied internationality and Ryuk’s aforementioned claim about English being most common) 

Huh I won’t lie I do think it’s confusing that the main characters are L and Light, which also starts with L

“I am justice” I mean if anything this show just proves that no one should be allowed to use the death penalty on apprehended suspects in criminal justice cases ever 

OH SHIT PLOT TWIST HIS DAD’S A COP (IT WAS IN THE TEXT POST I THINK BUT I FORGOT)

Wow this show is full of mind games already I guess I can see why like, crime show fans would dig it

“But I’m going to say this as your roommate” OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES KJHRGKJHKJHG

Interesting that someone is following Light specifically already

I mean not to poke too many holes in your plan Light but wouldn’t it clash with your plan to become God if you die at like 35 or smth 

“You’re already much more of a shinigami than they are” Ryuk said my friends are BORING I want to hang out with this MURDER TEEN

“I may not look it, but I’m pretty popular” Light is exactly the kind of guy who ends up in a true crime special where a bunch of people say he seemed like a nice, charismatic young man

Man this poor girl that Light brought on this date is going to be straight traumatized after this

I mean isn’t it MORE suspicious if someone dies around someone with direct ties to the police even if it’s not a heart attack

“You were indeed a brilliant FBI agent once, but now you’re my fiancée” kjhfkjhg WHAT FBI AGENTS CAN’T BE MARRIED 

“Once we have a family, you’ll be so busy that you’ll forget that you were an agent” I’m not a fan of Raye Penber 

What’s the point in killing Raye at all???? He told you he was part of a special investigation so clearly he’s not that suspicious of you

Light sure is bold to announce his Killing People Experiments in the middle of a busy sidewalk 

Incredible that consistently no one notices Light’s increasingly threatening declarations????

Fjkfkfhk these five cops finding out their Hail Mary is this strange little goblin man,,,, wow

This woman has really pushed Light to the brink just by giving a fake name, I admire her tenacity

Cops wearing fake IDs really did not age well oh boy

SERIOUSLY HOW DOES NO ONE EVER HEAR LIGHT SAYING SUSPICIOUS THINGS IN PUBLIC THOROUGHFARES HE LITERALLY JUST SAID “I AM KIRA” AS A DETECTIVE WALKED BY, WHILE HE WAS TALKING TO SOMEONE HE KILLED IMMEDIATELY AFTER

Wow it really took only eight episodes for L to track Light as close as one of two families

“You have a wife and daughter, right?” “I know!” I mean..... not 2 be that guy but... cops

 “To me, apples are like... Well, like cigarettes and liquor to humans” Vcvhcjhj every once in a while Ryuk says something that really tickles me

I know the word sociopath is kind of outdated but man does Light have actual interests outside of school or does he just do stuff to fill the void of his lack of interests (outside of murder)

JKHGKJHGKJHKJHG I cannot believe that this has turned into a fake classmate situation first of all 1) are you going to become friends and 2) How old are you Ryuzaki/L?

“Where is that rich kid from? And he’s even at the top of his class? What a jerk” honestly a mood

I DESPERATELY want Light’s mother or sister to overhear his evil cackling will someone finally eavesdrop on this god complex

“If I sit normally, my reasoning skills drop by 40%” weird flex but same 

Sidenote: I can’t believe how many episodes of this show I already have watched

Ngl I was VERY shook that Mr. Yagami had a heart attack. Also does Light care if his family lives or dies or is he kind of neutral on the subject? 

“If Kira is an ordinary person who gained this power, then he is a very unlucky person” Dad and L said ‘if u ARE Kira could you please stop murdering thank you <3′ 

Light really underestimated how much cops hate anyone who has killed a cop oops

OH SO IT’S NOT LIGHT I WAS WONDERING WHY HE HAD NOT MADE AN APPEARANCE THIS WHOLE EPISODE U MEAN THERE ARE TWO GUYS WITH THIS EXACT SAME IDEOLOGY AND PLAN? INCREDIBLE

Update from ten seconds later: Two people, I guess

Well this explains the girl in the short dress which serves as the Netflix thumbnail of this show I was wondering when she would show up 

Also she sounds like she’s very young? Clearly Shinigami don’t have a minimum age of informed consent when it comes to their Murder Eyes Contract 

Hahah I bet Light didn’t imagine that his petty and fucked up apple joke would bite him so quickly in the ass

Dhkjdhdkjhd Misa is so bold dropping her Death God deets in a video for anyone to see 

“The way to kill a Shinigami, is to make them fall in love with a human” does this mean that Ryuk is going to fall in love with Light or Misa? Both would make me uncomfortable

Oh wild guess Misa became a Death Note Wielder through the Power of Unreciprocated Voyeuristic Love

“Yeah, I have a girlfriend now,” said Light, after a girl contacted him through a series of anonymous video tapes implicitly vowing to be his disciple 

“No one could tell who he’s attached to if I’m with this many people” [20 seconds pass] “Found him!” HAHAHA the funniest part of this show is consistently watch Light going “got ‘em” before it immediately is revealed that he doesn’t got ‘em 

Why is Light so incredibly searchable??? I think the only way people people could find my height online is if I happened to answer it for one of those Facebook note memes in 2007 lmaoooo

“There are many places that will go and sell your personal records” ah, data breaches; a problem that has not gotten any better in the last 15 years since this anime came out

HKJHFHKJFHF Light immediately jumping into fake-dating his weird disciple in front of his mom... what is this show

“Please make me your girlfriend” OH MY GOOOOOD

This is one of the weirdest romantic dynamics I’ve seen in recent memory but you know what? Whatever, at least it’s not Anxiety and Murder

“Does that mean I’ll have to deal with her until she dies?” Light is truly exuding some Ladybird Book of Dating Energy rn: 

The fact that to kill L all Light had to do was get an obsessive girlfriend... astounding

Beautiful that it took Misa less than a week of knowing Light to ruin his whole 15 episode game plan and also life

“I think I may be Kira” Well this show keeps taking one escalation after another this is exhausting why can’t Light just be a normal person who found it, tried it out of interest in the occult, discovered he’d committed a horrible atrocity and then went to therapy for the rest of his life only to confess to Magical Murder on his deathbed while his family goes, ‘Wow, Grandpa’s crazy’

Does L not think that keeping three different people imprisoned for days on end will lead to some psychological repercussions for him

FOR WEEKS ON END????? OH MY GOD???? The fuck L, I know two of these people are murderers but there are some minimum conditions of correctional facilities and this seems a little Stanford PE

THE DRAMA OF THIS EPISODE I KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE A BLANK BUT HOW FUCKED UP TO PUT EVERYONE THROUGH THIS L I THINK YOU NEED THERAPY!!!!!!! I MEAN LIGHT AND MISA ARE MURDERERS BUT FORCING A MAN TO HOLD HIS SON AT GUNPOINT AFTER IMPRISONING THEM FOR OVER A MONTH IS REALLY A REFLECTION OF A COMPLETE LACK OF EMPATHY (especially when you think that this version of Misa and Light don’t know anything!!! Oh my god!! The fuck)

“I will make arrangements so you and I are together 24 hours a day” call me crazy but I would not want to spend 24/7 with the man who imprisoned me for over a month while playing cruel psychological games all the while

“I’m one of those people who’ll accept Kira, I’d think of ways I could help him” Misa said Bimbo Rights

“I could never toy with a woman’s emotions like that” Light’s dating life and personality has gotten a LOT funnier since he forgot he was a murderer I kind of wish THIS could be the whole show 

Also: Nice to know Light USED to have standards of how to treat women

Honestly fair play to both L and Light they both deserved to be punched and it’s funny to see eighteen episodes of mind games culminate in punching and kicking each other in the face

“Matsuda’s being an idiot again” “Well, Matsuda is a natural at that” wghkjhgkj what has Matsuda done to any of you

"He’s punishing criminals as a front, and killing people for the benefit of this company” is Light unknowingly going to solve the murder chain he himself started... inspiring

“I was testing you” this is why Light is your only friend, L, Aizawa has kids and it’s a dick move to ask him to put his convictions before them

Poor Matsuda realizing he’s got the least to offer to their team... me in high school science labs 

I understand Aizawa’s moral crisis but why do NONE of these cops care about their wives or daughters they’re just kind of like, ‘I will provide for you but I have no interest in or fulfillment from being part of your life’ (ACAB)

Matsuda is truly about to die for being dumb and eager to help 😔 Rest in Pieces

“We must not allow Yotsuba to figure out that we are investigating them,” said L, just after it cut from Matsuda being obvious about investigating them. Oh Matsuda 😔 you’re so bad at your job 😔

MATSUDAAAAAAAA oh thank goodness; Bimbo Rights save the day

“I can’t go along with your idea, it’s wrong!” said Light, despite the fact it took him 15 seconds to get over murder the first couple of times he did it 

Staaaaaaaaay Good Light, I don’t want ur Deathnotesona I want this young man with moral convictions!!

The level of hubris it takes to answer a phone call during your secret Murder Meeting while people continue to talk about their Murder Plans is just out of this world

“If I die, you could probably become the successor to the ‘L‘ name,” said L, to the person he has been trying to catch for twenty episodes 

“I won’t say anything under any kind of torture” “Yes that’s true” Which he knows because he tortured her for six weeks!! You see that that’s fucked up, L, right? RIGHT??? RIIIIIIIIGHT? (LIIIIIIIGHT???)

Seriously not to beat a dead Shinigami but Light is so much better like this. He doesn’t want to throw people’s lives away for the investigation! He wants to protect Misa! He thinks Kira is wrong! Why does he have to be a murderer!!! Why can’t this show be about a nice young man!!!!

“Hey Ryuzaki, that’s messed up!” THANK YOU LIGHT AGAIN I KNOW YOU BOTH HAVE KILLED PEOPLE BUT YOU DON’T KNOW THAT RIGHT NOW SO FOR ALL MISA KNOWS HE’S JUST A GUY WHO TORTURES HER AND TELLS HER CRUSH WILL DIE IF SHE DOESN’T HELP

Wow Rem is so ride or die for Misa protecting Misa from creepy Higuchi, giving her info and telling her to trust Light, that’s love bitch

Props to Misa for getting a confession out of Higuchi after one (1) car ride 

Why do I feel like L is going to be responsible for reawakening Bad Light is it because he psychologically tortured him for six weeks? Had his dad hold him at gunpoint? Forced Misa to investigate on his behalf? Constantly and unerringly presses him on what Kira would be thinking as he’s handcuffed to him 24 hours a day? Maybe!! This is like Build-a-Bear but he’s customizing his Teen Murder Friend 

“Only Mr. Matsuda can do [the mission to lure out Higuchi!Kira]” Death Note really said the Himbos, Herbos and Thembos shall inherit the Earth 

They keep saying they don’t know how he kills but it seems pretty obvious that he writes down their names to kill, they literally saw him do it

I really don’t want any of the investigation team to die but things are not looking hot :(

“Ryuzaki, I never knew you could fly a helicopter” “It’s just intuition” what does that MEAN

“Those aren’t allowed in Japan,” said Light, about a gun, as if he had not killed probably thousands of people without one 

In spite of this fact I really do want Good Light to stay 😔 Why! Can’t! This! Show! Be! About! A! Nice! Young! Man!

Also they really are playing into this father-and-son duo I will be very sad when the dad inevitably dies as I’m sure he will 

Family side note: I’ve been wondering this since the prison ep but where do Light’s mom and sister think he IS now that he’s dropped out of first year uni to be a teen criminal investigator handcuffed to a maladjusted homebody private eye

AIZAWAAA and also the other two guys I guess there was a plot relevant reason for him to rejoin the police huh

Well what a clean ending to this Kira arc. No one died and the killer was caught! Yikes that the next ep is called ‘Revival’ tho 😔 Rest in pieces Good Light

Also a new and very threatening intro???? What happened to the Twilight Apple Hands 

BOOOO I knew Light would get his memory back but I was hoping it would at least fuck him up for a while he sorted out his two personas but I guess all roads eventually lead to Bad Light 

Full disclosure I stopped watching for a few days just after Light got his memory back and let me tell u coming back later hasn’t made it any more tolerable I am truly not built for this EUGH

“Do you really want to halve your life a second time” “Well, that can’t be helped” REALLY???? CAN’T IT BE HELPED MISA??? WHY ARE YOU AND LIGHT SO CRAZY

Oh I guess we’re back to Light saying incredibly suspicious things right near the investigators lmao what if those cameras secretly had audio or you know, L simply knew how to read lips 

“Misa, let’s make a new world together” Remember a bunch of episodes ago when Good Light was all ‘I could never toy with a woman’s emotions’?? What was the reason!!!

“Have you ever told the truth at any point in your entire life” L cutting straight to the core lmao (also the answer is obviously ‘no’)

This show has taken a jarring tonal shift why are they having a post-rain-confrontation massage and towelling each other off this is a level of intimacy I was not prepared for I NEED PEOPLE TOOK LOOK AT THIS:

OKAY OKAY OKAY I KNOW THAT IT WAS PROBABLY NOT THEIR INTENTION BUT THE ONLY WAY I CAN READ THIS SCENE IS AS “Don’t kill me Light~ 🥰 I’ll fuck you~ 🥰” 

I guess L knew he was forcing Rem’s hand to kill him if he disproved the rules written in the book?? But to what end omg how does this help anyone 

“In April 2012, Light Yagami, age 23, joins the National Police Agency” should’ve known we’d land here eventually (ACAB)

Ah, I see another person who doesn’t know how to sit, clearly they will inherit the L title next lmao

Update from the first few mins of the next ep: “Near should succeed L” told you

“There’s no way I’m letting Sayu marry a detective” ahjfkhkjf he’s a little old for her I think but it wouldn’t be the worst thing this show has done romantically lmao; maybe Sayu would get to investigate her brother

“I might’ve considered going out with you, if you were a little younger” HA GOOD FOR HER

“[...] the Japanese police are unreliable. In order to solve this case, we want you to hand over the notebook to our country.” Of all the Japanese-speaking Americans in this show, this is the most accurate jkhfkhf the US government really is Like That 

Ah, so that’s where Mello’s gone, oh how the turn tables 

Also way to sell your subordinates out immediately, NPA Director, will you give them the Kira task force’s home addresses too

The real question is if Light actually cares about his sister enough to prioritize her over the notebook

“Call me... N” Oh my good L... M(ello)... N(ear)... Oooooooooooooooo

It’s my saving grace that I only need to get through 9 more eps but as always I must wonder where this is going will Light just die and end up in Shinigami purgatory while the people who knew him after the fact go, ‘hey, that guy was fucked up’

“If things get bad, I’ll have to kill Sayu” well I guess that answers that question, my expectations of Light are so low and yet he continues to find new ways to be awful

Good for Mr. Yagami and Sayu for getting out of that alive I guess but hoo boy I think this is going to have some psychological repercussions for both of them 

Uh oh this episode is called ‘Father’ I’ve been dreading this one bc I think that means Mr. Yagami is about to die 😭😭😭

“It was an institution for brilliant children, to raise them to become L‘s successor” okay calm down Professor Xatari that’s not what children are for lmao 

Well I guess it’s a lot easier to track down info about these two guys than it was to figure out L lmao

HAHAHA Sidoh haunting Ryuk to ask for his stuff is a fun addition to this madness  

“He’s scary for a human” jkhhfjh how unhinged does Mello have to be to threaten a literal Shinigami 

I truly don’t understand the logistics of how they revealed Ryuk to the police force isn’t the second Kira notebook supposed to belong to Actual Kira, in the police force’s eyes????? I do not understand how Light can just turn up with another notebook and everyone’s like ‘sure cool’ did I miss something 

Mr. Yagami killed for being unable to take human life ugh this is the worst 

“You’re not Kira. I’m really glad.” WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS SO SAD MR. YAGAMI NOOOOOOOOOO THAT’S WHY HE RENOUNCED OWNERSHIP OF THE NOTEBOOK 

Neither Mello nor Near seem overly concerned with the lives of people around them does being a Super Genius Investigator also mean you have to be a dick (is this Benadryl Coddleswab Sherlock syndrome)

Lmaooo genuinely love how it’s constantly apparent that Light is the least smart of all of the smart people Light spent five years working on his reputation and it took Near one (1) phone call to destroy it 

Ghjkhgkhgkgjh Light outsmarted by Near yet again never think people will prioritize principles over money

Lol yeah Aizawa needn’t have given a name after he said the “Deputy Director Yagami would kill Kira and then himself” thing, you don’t do that just for anyone who was he fooling 

How does Light keep track of all the renunciations and notebooks bc I certainly can’t 

Ffhkfjhfj Mikami truly looks like the son of L and Light it’s like Light missed him and was like, “Miss u boo :( (even tho I kinda killed u) I’ll adopt An Evil 27-year-old in ur honour :)”

Is Mikami’s story really, ‘I got bullied in high school and have mommy issues so now I think people I don’t like should die’ ok Shonen Snape 

“I just want you to meet with me and hear me out” Light really proving to Aizawa that he can lie AND manipulate people’s feelings 

“The truth is, she’s not smart enough to be my partner” first of all Light I think this show has proven you’re not that smart, and Misa’s Herbo Energy is effervescent and will outlast you, and third of all go to jail

“He’ll look suspicious if he doesn’t say something soon” “Ide, have you ever been in love” Matsuda continues to be the only good part of this show

“You’re the only man I’ve ever respected and admired in my life” GET SOME THERAPY KIYOMI

“You’re going to be the goddess of the new world” so it’s not enough for Light to be a murderer he must also be a cheater

Lmao Near’s powers of perception do seem a little B/BC S/herlock because L tried for literally months to work out the possibilities and Near is just like ‘I KNOW IT NOW’

“The only thing I can deduce from this is that Light Yagami is popular with the ladies” HEAVEN KNOWS WHY (PUN NOT INTENDED)

Every moment Aizawa gets closer to proving Light is Kira is another step closer to death 😔

“This is definitely Mikami’s handwriting” Not to be a know-it-all, Near, but handwriting analysis has been proven faulty many times in multiple courts of law

This truly is a game of Cat and Cat. All these hidden plans give me a headache fkjhkfjh call me Misa-Misa and spin me sideways I don’t have the braincells to spare

Well this is definitely some kind of s*xual assault absolutely fucking hate it wow this show truly just drains the life out of you 

“Matt, I never thought you would be killed” why wouldn’t you think that at this point anyone who comes close to this investigation eventually dies (also wjkhkjhgk why is Matt special didn’t you kill all those thugs you had before -- Mello said ‘the lives of my allies are only important if they are drawn in handsome protag style’) 

As of yet I haven’t really talked about Near’s wild toymaking but hoo boy is that L finger puppet something to observe

“Everyone who knows about the existence of the notebook will die” I’m still pulling for their survival, particularly Matsuda (himbo rights!!!)

Imagine if they just shot Light Yagami on sight how ironic would that conclusion to all these mind games be 

“I’m waiting, for the one who will solve everything, to arrive” Lmao if it turns out L is alive I’ll pee laughing this show is so fucking stupid 

Take a shot every time there is a Humpty-Dumpty-in-Puss-in-Boots style explanation about how everything actually happened

“I’ve won, Near” I bet/hope what gets Light caught is his inability to hold in his hubris for one (1) minute

Although the last episode is called New World, in which case maybe he wins in a very weird ending to a very weird show

Sjkfhkjhfkhfkjhf well I guess what gets Light caught is that the person he invited to be his murderous disciple keeps calling him God

“A second ago, you said ‘I win.’ That’s as good a confession as any” HA hubris strikes again also bold of Aizawa to clap Light on the shoulder knowing he is a mass murderer

Ohhh Matsuda he’s so nice and believed the best of Light :((((((((((((

Watching Light become increasingly desperate and crazed is very uncomfortable give it up dude u’ve been beat (though I suppose there is time for everyone here to be murdered still lmao)

LMAO LIGHT SAID “IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, CONVERT ‘EM”

Yeah I figured if one of them was gonna shoot it would be Matsuda :( :( Good for him for not killing Light tho!!

Huh I guess that’s the end of the show I thought Light would die but I did think we’d at least get to see him in Shinigami Purgatory or smth... what a wild ride. This certainly was a show.

[imjustthemechanic]

Glockenspiel

Part 1/? - Transmission Part 2/? - The Sandhill Hotel Part 3/? - Piccadilly Part 4/? - The Future

“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Howard.

“No, it’s not obvious at all,” Peggy told him.  HYDRA having a time machine opened up enough cans of worms to fill a grocery store.  They might go back and murder Steve before he could become Captain America.  They might steal the secrets of the atom bombs and deliver them to Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.  Peggy could probably fill a book with the awful possibilities, and these escaped HYDRA operatives doubtless knew things she didn’t.

“Sure it is,” said Howard.  “All we have to do is go back, and we can stop this from ever happening in the first place.  It shouldn’t be hard.  We’ve got seventy years to do it.”

“Or!”  Toulouse held up a finger.  “You might create the very future you’re trying to avoid!  That happens in movies all the time!”

“I’ve got a headache already,” sighed Peggy.  This was too much to take, even for her – she needed to sit down.  The hotel room Toulouse had gotten them was spacious and nicely furnished, with a sofa and chair at one end, facing a black glass panel mounted on the wall that Peggy could only assume was an extremely pretentious piece of art.  At the other were a pair of enormous beds.  Peggy went and sat down on the sofa, and took a deep breath.

“The first thing to do,” she decided, “is to find whoever’s running the SSR these days.  Toulouse, do you happen to know?”  She probably didn’t.  It was an American organization and Toulouse was British, and anyway, the SSR liked to keep out of the spotlight.  Many people seemed to think it had disbanded after the war.

“There isn’t an SSR anymore,” Toulouse replied  “There was SHIELD, but they’re gone now.  It was run by a guy named Fury, but he’s dead.  Mysterious car accident,” she added.  “Everybody knows it was an assassination, though.”

Peggy frowned, thinking.  “Zola was in SSR custody.  The man we met in there must be from at least a little while in our own future, because he couldn't have gotten away from his escorts to use the machine again... he might even be from a few years ahead.  So we do have to return to our own time, and make sure he doesn't get the opportunity.”  That would be at least a start, although the full ramifications of this would take more time to deal with.  “Do you think you can build a time machine?” she asked Howard.

“Probably,” he said, coming to lean on the sofa from behind.  “But as in the case of the Rift Generator, it'd be much easier just to steal one.”

Peggy nodded grimly.  “So we have to sneak back into that hotel.”

“Why do we have to sneak?” asked Toulouse.  “Daddy owns the hotel.  If I can just get in touch with him and tell him they’re in there, he’ll send somebody to chase those men out and we can just walk right in and use the thing.”  She picked up the slab-phone again.  “Let me ring him.”

“Wait, Toulouse,” Peggy reached out to stop her.  “Are you absolutely sure your father’s not involved in this?  I know that must be a painful question for you…”

“Daddy?  Of course not,” said Toulouse.  “He was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister because he wasn’t involved in the whole HYDRA thing while the fellow he replaced was.  They put him in charge of the investigation committee and the Queen gave him a special honour for it.  If there’s Nazis in his basement he’ll want to do something about it, I promise you.”

That sounded very reassuring, but Peggy still didn’t want to absolutely trust this man she’d never seen.  Come to that, she wasn’t sure she trusted Toulouse, either.  “Maybe don’t mention the time machine part,” she decided.

“I’ll just tell him about the cows,” Toulouse decided.  She entered a number and waited impatiently while it rang.  “Harvinder?  Oh, thank goodness.  I need to talk to Daddy.  It’s an emergency.”  There was a brief pause as whoever she was talking to replied.  “I don’t care if he’s in Honk Kong, Cape Town, or Saskatoon!” said Toulouse.  “This is important.  There is some seriously weird shit going on in the new Piccadilly!”

“I’m going to wash up,” Peggy decided.  It had been a long day, first on dusty roads in the foothills and then sweating in the warm, close environment of the walk-in safe.  She needed a shower.

“Don’t take too long,” Howard said.  “I want to go next.”

Peggy automatically expected a hotel bathroom to be tiny, but this one was huge.  There was an enormous tub, two sinks, a giant mirror, and lots of fluffy white towels.  It looked like a lovely place to relax for a evening, but even if Howard hadn’t asked her to hurry she knew they didn’t have that kind of time.  She therefore limited herself to a shower, though she ran the water scalding hot and washed her hair twice.

She emerged in a thick white robe with another towel around her hair, to find Toulouse had taken out that silver thing she’d been keeping in the walk-in safe and had opened it like a book, propping it on the desk.  One side of it was a sort of flat typewriter, while the other displayed a moving image, and Toulouse was staring intently at it as her fingers flew over the keys.  Howard, meanwhile, was mesmerized by the black glass panel on the wall, which was also showing images.  It was some kind of miniature cinema screen, Peggy realized, showing colour newsreel footage.

“Okay, here we go!” Toulouse announced.  “Good news.  Looks like both of you make it back to the 1940s just fine!  Howard Stark died in a car accident along with his wife in 1991…”

“My wife?” Howard asked, looking over his shoulder in startlement.  “I got married?”

Peggy wasn’t quite shocked, since she’d always assumed he’d have to settle down sooner or later, but it was still a surprise to get confirmation of it.  “Good heavens,” she said.  “Next you’ll be telling me…” she paused, glancing sideways at Howard.  He’d hinted that his own father hadn’t been very good at it.  Would he… she decided not to ask just yet.  “What about me?”

“You’re still alive, but you’re retired,” said Toulouse.  The text on the device in front of her was scrolling past too quickly to follow.  “You were married twice and outlived both of them, had two kids and outlived one of them, too, and helped keep everybody from dying in the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

“Good to know I continue to do my job,” said Peggy.  There was a thought, she realized – if she could find out where her older self was living, she could visit her.  Would that cause a paradox and destroy the world?�� Her future self would not appreciate that after a lifetime spent saving it, so best not to go there.  She leaned to take a closer look, but then Toulouse’s little telephone, now lying on the table next to the typewriter device, started playing music.  Toulouse squeaked and grabbed it to put it to her ear, and Peggy had to straighten up in a hurry so as not to be smacked in the face.

“Daddy?” Toulouse asked.  “Oh, finally!  Listen, have I got a story to tell you!  Those men in the basement are not electricians, they’re some kind of weird conspiracy.  They’ve got a machine that’s making cows or something!”  She covered the bottom of the device and looked at Peggy.  “Should I tell him they were locking people in the safe?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Peggy decided.  “The fewer people know we’re here, the better.”  Even if Mr. Sandhill wasn’t a member of HYDRA himself, there was no telling who he might mention the incident to.  Somebody at his hotel company must have suggested to Zola that the men could get in under the pretense of electricians.

Toulouse nodded and put the phone back to her ear.  “No, Daddy, cows.  Yes, moo!  And there’s a car that came right through the lobby windows with no driver.”  There was a short pause.  “No, a car!  Cows don’t need drivers!”

Peggy suspected this phone call would take a while.  She went and sat down next to Howard on the couch.

“The washroom is free,” she noted.

Howard jumped a little – he’d been so wrapped up in what he was seeing on the cinema screen, he hadn’t even noticed her sit down.  “Peg, look at this!” he said, gesturing to the wall.  “It’s a personal theatre!  It can show you all kinds of things.  You can get films, you can get cartoons, newsreels, serials, all in your home!  Toulouse doesn’t know who invented it.  I hope I did.  If I didn’t, when we go back I will.”

The image on the screen showed aerial footage of a large ship, still blackened and smoking from a recent fire, being towed into a harbour not by a tugboat but by some tiny, unidentified object.  It switched, then, to a man who was recognizably a reporter with a microphone, standing on top of a building with the ship visible in the water behind him.  He turned to interview what was either an astonishingly advanced machine or else a man wearing some kind of red and gold armor.

“See that?” Howard pointed to the corner.  “It says live.  We’re watching this as it happens on the other side of the world!  This is in Canada!”

Sure enough, a caption at the bottom of the screen read LIVE: Iron Man tows burning tanker into Vancouver.  The being in the armor reached to remove its helmet.

“You tune it with this,” Howard went on, holding up an object about the size and shape of a candy bar.  He pressed a couple of buttons on it, and the image changed – from the news, to footage of sharks swimming, to South Asian people in fabulous costumes dancing, to a group of men and women sitting arguing in a restaurant.  “This is wild.  I always hoped I lived a long life, just so I could see what the future brings – now here I am, and I get to go back knowing what’s possible and maybe help it along a bit!”  He grinned.

“Here I thought you'd be disappointed in the lack of flying cars,” said Peggy.

“Only a little,” Howard assured her.  “The cars are beautiful, aren't they?  They look like they could fly, even if they don't.”

Peggy thought they were hideous, all streamlining and no elegance, but she didn't say so.  “The washroom is free,” she repeated.

“Oh, right,” he said.  “There’s another robe, right?”

“There is,” Peggy assured him.

He turned off the theatre with a look of honest regret, and went to wash up.  Peggy looked over her shoulder at Toulouse, but the young woman was still on the phone.

“Anyway,” she was saying, “I told the police there was a bomb in the hotel, because I figured they wouldn’t think cows were serious and after that thing in Sheffield they probably wouldn’t believe me if I said there was a conspiracy in the basement…”

Yes, this was going to take some time.  Peggy decided she needed a breath of fresh air.  She got up and went out on the balcony to take another look at the city.

The suite had a large terrace with a private pool, chairs and tables to sit at, and a few small garden beds.  Peggy passed them by and went to lean on the railing, the better to appreciate the view.  It was properly night now, with a half moon hanging low over the city and the whole place glittering with lights.  The last time Peggy had seen London in the dark, it had still been blacked out for fear of German bombers.  Seeing it all lit up like this was strange in itself, but still not nearly as strange as the city itself.  The giant ferris wheel and the towering glass buildings beyond didn’t even look like England, let alone London.  The skyscrapers would have been out of place even in New York.  One had a graceful spiral twist to it, looking rather like an enormous Christmas ornament.  Another resembled a pyramid stretched out to impossible proportions by a funhouse mirror.  They looked like something from the cover of one of those science fiction magazines Agent Penner liked to read.

But there was the outline of Big Ben, brightly lit against the dark sky.  There was the Waterloo Bridge, and if Peggy leaned very far forward she could just see the turrets on top of the Tower.  This was London, certainly, but it was London utterly transformed, the familiar bones wearing a new and alien skin.

This was the first real moment of quiet Peggy had been allowed since this all began in the bunker outside Los Angeles, twelve hours and seventy years ago, and now that she had the opportunity she did her best to try to digest the situation.  The future!  Seventy years was a lifetime – people who’d been small children when she’d left were now on their deathbed.  Most likely anybody she’d ever known was long dead, and from what Zola and Toulouse had said about the SSR and its successor organization SHIELD, there wasn’t even an institution they could go to for help.  A time traveler in the 1940s would have come to the SSR’s attention, to be met with either help or opposition depending on the individual’s agenda.  Who took care of such things in the 2010’s?

“Peggy!” called Toulouse’s voice.

She looked up.  Toulouse was standing in the French doors, waving at her.

“I’m coming!” Peggy said.  She took a couple of deep breaths to compose herself, and then headed back indoors.  She’d had her moment to digest, and now it was time to deal.

Back in the room, Howard was getting out of the shower, and Toulouse was back at her typewriter device, her fingers flying over the keys composing a letter to one of her professors, while at the same time her mouth chattered about their current situation.  “Somebody’s going to collect my things and bring them here,” she said, “so that’s taken care of, and I managed to wear Daddy down.  He’s gonna send Prince to investigate.”

“Prince?” asked Peggy.  Was that the name of a dog?

“Like the Artist,’ said Toulouse with a nod.  “He’s my big brother – my half-brother, to be exact.  His Mum was Daddy’s first wife  Mine was his third.”

“How many has he had?” asked Howard.  For once Peggy was glad he’d said something, because her first question would have been to ask what kind of person names their children Prince and Toulouse.

“Six,” said Toulouse, as if this were quite ordinary.  “Don’t worry, he didn’t behead any of them.  Now,” she went on, “it’s late, so he won’t bother being there until tomorrow.  That means we can get up early, go in, and send you guys back to the 1940s, done!  Then Prince and I can clean up, and Daddy can get another award from the Queen for thwarting a plot against the throne!”  She seemed to think it would be quite simple.

Peggy knew better.  “Once we’re back inside the hotel,” she said to Howard, “can you repeat whatever it is you did in California?”

“I’m not sure what I did in California,” Howard admitted.  “I think there must have been a residual charge in the coils and my touching the wire caused a short circuit.  Once I’ve had a chance to study it, I’ll be able to figure it out.”  He smiled, proud.  “You know me.  The only thing I’m better at than building stuff is figuring out how other people’s stuff works.”

“Then I just hope it’ll be that easy,” said Peggy.  Once they got back, the real work would begin – keeping tabs on Zola, and figuring out what this all had to do with die Glocke.

[paraclete0407]

‘Some of My Memories of Milwaukee+ or a Personal Odyssey’ or ‘And in the Years of Doing Other Things’

2012

Talking with kind of ex-girlfriend never actually my girlfriend called her ‘think of you as my wife’ in letter ater wrote Mark Helprin-esque ‘disclaim you forever with canned blessing’ letters about Aristophanes’ ‘Lysistrata’ in which Greek women refuse their beds to the menfolk to induce them to stop warring.  Max Beerbohm or someone said, ‘There is a God and h/His name is Aristophanes.’  I don’t believe that at all but he was a good-natured writer that I can tell and also wrote about clouds and birds apocalyptically or otherwise and made fun of Socrates which I approve of.  I don’t know anything about Socrates; my ex-friend used to say ‘I LOVE Socrates,’ that he could feel Socrates’ love.  Socrates would say things like ‘The law is the advantage of the powerful’ and stated that if he reached an after-life he would continue to ‘troll, hit up, impertinently or insidiously argue with’ people forever there.  He said the after-life could be like sleep without a dream.  My friend said something about New York City and a production of Lysistrata then I started making hyper-fanfictions already in which Girls Gen decided to stop performing until war stopped or something and threw a Christmas festival with vermillion-colored fruit compotes but I honestly don’t remember a lot & it refleted my ‘Love of the Last Tycoon’ etc.-esque delusion that Media and woman- and girl-training like Lee Sooman would enable me to influence humanity’s future in a really gainful way.  Later on I told Tizzard that Media Studies is an endless kind of college dorm-bull-session and NKS was the real deal, that reality exists, that ‘Visual Pedagogy’ is an excuse for inferior faculty and no real curriculum or purpose but it didn’t really matter b/c kids / the poor in spirit love media - I loved media too.  I rem. being so happy in college to skip Phonology one day to play Final Fantasy 10 and I still got an A b/c Phonology is a decently logical human suitable discipline for someone like me.  There is a Korean word that kind of means ‘suitable’ that starts with  ‘J’ in transliteration that used to mean a lot to me and also I conflate with a kind of ‘yes.’  

This person was also like ‘Why did you say you would go back to KR’ as opposed to apply to CTC or be a literary agent to casting-couch desperate alienated lady-authors for fun and bragging-rights and I sold myself short saying it was all about drunken proclamations - I actually didn’t know what I wanted to do and kept ‘short-selling David James Johnston’ talking about TV-writing when I already sort of decided that the power of TV was just a money-making-vehicle and that TV would not really change people’s minds for the better but just hypnotize or mesmerize them with more of what Jay McInerney(?) pace some French satanico-moral philosopher called ‘empty beauty.’  I rec’d people Friday Night Lights and they became Amfootball-fetishists with a fake God-evasion-religion-system; rec’d ‘Generation Kill’ and instead of understanding the sadness of the Iraq War or the fact that people just like us w/ videogames and pornography and Jerry Springer and all the sad beauty of irreverence and sort of boyish self-pity in the world was being thrown teeth- and brains-first in to the walls of Fallujah.  (Years later thinking stuff like what is fake news what is real news, was the ComGen of the 1st Marine Division right to dismiss the Col. who had been careful w/ fueling tanks and his men’s lives?  Today did the USMC really disband their tank corps or is it more of a ‘clue.’)  

I remember when this person was 24 and I did quasi-test-adultery-turned-in-to-actual-adultery in NYC; I kept thinking that my dream would come true if I were faithful.  It puts me in mind in retrospect of ‘Adagio Cantabile’ from the ‘Pathetique’ in which the young boyish Beethoven keeps re-crossing and re-tracing and repressing the same few things.  There was a kid in KR who was counting his pocket-change to buy snack noodles + he looked about as well-fed as Haitian kids today munching on clay-biscuits to ease their hunger-pains or North Koreans or Chinese eating corncobs and smoking meth to cope whilst his mom supposedly hoped be would become a basketball-player.  Other kid’s om was working in a bar, constantly forgetting to check HW, so but, Counseling was really boffo / spec and just reminded her again and again b/c in some places there are still reasonable compliant obedient square people who don’t deflect from doing the right thing, just get overwhelmed at times and want a break.  Ironically Ayn Rand once defined evil as ‘blanking out’ yet she herself was doing amphetamines, propounding complex justifications for adultery, smoking, bashing a revelatory tragic anti-Nazi but pro-Germany author called Thomas Wolfe in ‘The Romantic Manifesto’ - Wolfe also cared about Japanese, about humility in the publishing industry, about nurses.  

I went to Whole Foods to get pineapple but there the story sort of ends.  There was Boa Kwon or BoA whom I once saw on WLIW NJ public TV and thought it was someone else; in retrospect this person was too smooth for me to read at all and I have no faith or trust in such an one who would lash out egomaniacally at any one at any time, prob. beat their kid to death with a trowl then take a nap in the next room b/c ppl at a certain level are like careless military officers that decide one illegal or irresponsible order deserves another b/c it’s image-management, what Emerson calls ‘a foolish consistency,’ or Derek Chauvin-esque drive and desire and determination to magnify one’s little point. 

Later I started to reticulate or conceive of Lee Sooman in terms of a failed priest or one who had repeatedly and almost orthodoxly dodged his vocation.  ‘Black Collar.’  I guessed using my ‘amae-guess-magic-bullets’ that his wife’s name is Eunjin + thought then, I don’t even remember.  Told some ppl who didn’t really care that love-dreams are good and ‘Love and Peace’ was great b/c whilst America was being sarcastic and deflectionistic about everything SNSD were like, ‘We will compose in C-natural; we will be Tolstoyian; we will make direct statements about reality.’  I felt ‘Everyday Love’ was about ‘cybernetics’ or adapting the natural ‘Spenglerian peasant wisdom self’ to ‘the cold intellect of the city / civilization / dying-but-peaking epochal imperial organization.’  During this same time in my life or thereabouts I read a neo-hyper-Nazi book called ‘Imperium’ by a guy who admired the kamikaze and called for ‘wars of annihilation’ as well as castigating America for her cult of the average.  This person said Japan’s not weak at all, they accelerated or amplified Spengler’s admiration for the Roman soldier at Vesuvius who refused to abandon their post since no one gave them orders to leave.  In re the which I can only surmise pace Grace to You that somewhere there are still ‘thoroughbreds’ like that.  At other times in life I said stuff that got me trashed on RedditButBothSides for using terms like ‘social form’ and Paul Washer of HeartCry who summed up much of my own life in telling it that ‘the porn-addict and misogynist is unloving’ was praising the African father, I love the African-African (not American) minister at Christ Church Episcopalian but then I am like, ‘drmdrmdrm Zulu king marching all his warriors off a cliff to prove a point about authority.’  I’m really really a child of the 1990s, Gandhi, MLK, Tiananmen Square bag-man, flower-in-rifle-bore.  I never expected to levitate the Pentagon but I truly believed that if we’re nice to them they will be nice to us.

Later I over-compensate the other way and started making ‘psychopathic midrash’ like, ‘What do you make of the Good Samaritan if the thieves are still beating the man half or more to death when the Samaritan arrives and what if the Samaritan has a taser, handgun, rifle, bayonet, how good are they at martial arts, what’s their chest-circumference, what’s their reputation.’  But again people hate this because its super-worldly and technocratic. I had started to admire fmr. President George W. Bush b/c I felt that he was pushing back against the people who wanted bad to go from bad to worse, b/c I agreed with him about immigration, and b/c I felt I saw progress in his life frankly and even in Trump’s life where he nuked his earlier marriages but remained faithful and respectful to Melania.   Marie Lee has it out for Barron Trump I guess but he’s still neurophysiologically / neuroanatomically very much not a full adult and it’s also literally ‘Titus Andronicus’-esque revenge pornography to go after a leader’s kids like that + distracting from WW3, nuclear terrorism, DF-26 Black Death warheads, satellite-bombs, annihilating the entire Midwest’s population for the topsoil here; and because Jack London once said ‘The Chinese work too hard so we the freedom-loving peoples ought to kill them all with germ-weapons and take their land.’

I later started dreaming about KKOOM Orphanage, a cold morning, eating coffee-crystals, a basketball-court a bit like ‘Trabia Garden’ from FF8.  I felt people learn a lot from poverty, limits, prison, commitment, losing things.  Meanwhile ‘Shanghai-1′ is like you’re exotic male prostitute and she too is the typical Chinese-Singaporean-Japanese-wannabe-British anti-Korean racist who thinks Koreans are the n-----s of East Asia permanently deserving of subjugation and that we all ought to amuse ourselves by making sure they remain permanent hedonistic sensualists physicalists etc.  Keep them thinking about hip-bones till the end of time + make sure we have EYK, reaction-vids, self-niggerization- / ethical-evolution-inhibition-engines such as PSY or really all of YGE.  

When I used to blog about T-ARA, Eunjung, and my dumb adventures with a secret life several Black girls approached e and I remember them well; curiously turned out to be involved in incest and/or rape-trauma.  I told ‘lonelystrangergirl’ she stood a good chance of finding ‘manly KBF’ if she joined the military but I didn’t then know or take cognizance of all the problems in the US military with women.  The fmr. Vice President Mike Pence was on talk radio saying, ‘WOMEN in the MILITARY’ my relation is like, ‘Millennial guys were pozzed pussy flyboys and effeminate art-fags who couldn’t transcend their self-consciousness so it’s no wonder’ but those are also ppl’s daughters, moms, people whose simplicity and loveliness might actually inspire a few men to act like men, though that is a very old complaint at this point, hopeful Kim Minju’s of the soul and mind who want to do what they can when they can, the world’s telling them to be super-heroines and it appears to convect(?) towards ‘All Loves Excelling.’  I hate doing physiognomy but it’s like this generation of Valkyries like Else in the Thomas Wolfe novel who won’t say anything about Hitler.  

Again however, JMC on Grace to You as saying, Christ is the Rock, pulverization.  

2014.

There was a new Korean restaurant w/ a limited menu, a stringed instrument no one ever plays, Thai lampshades.  I talked about General Petraeus a bit, yesterday’s wars the Korean 3-star general from Vietnam who was buried in an infantryman’s grave and talked about the caste-system in the North Korean military, about hundreds of thousands taking to sea to g out of NV.  In retrospect IDK why I said anything!  The ferry-sinking, I’m trying to say, ‘This is society; this is the pozzery of systems that don’t work; this is people who don’t even look at people ad think they know and care when they just made the Homer Simpson drip-bird-care-machine auto-billing, meretriciousness.’  I still think PGH took the fall for a bunch of men who devised the ROK Coast Guard and manned it, lesbian mysticist, hairstyle.  

I wish I kept all my thoughts and feelings to myself b/c then I could’ve planned.  That was Applebee’s which later moved to another location, hen to another, then was razed to he ground in like one night.  I mentioned my old mentor or affectionate person ‘Lt. Col.’ who told me about saving people but it was more K-wave self-exploitation, song-and-dance, ultimately, schizoaffective self-sadism.

I liked ‘Library’ by TTS a lot but didn’t realize it is about emotional-epistemic hedonism or wallowing in how much you could do and how useful you knowledge is or could be.  Later they did ‘Adrenaline.’  I am ‘Mr. Seo.’  SJH’s dad.  I’ve seen this a trillions times and I want to open up my ‘answer-macihne-gun’ and be like, ‘don’t listen to Black people; they all all all have the same mentality tow you.  Snoop says he’s a sex-trafficker and that’s precisely what he is; that’s what he is increasingly is and wants to be and is.’  Why did they let him in the ROK at all, except to put him on trial for crimes abroad against Korean nationals?  As this New Yorker cartoon said, ‘I’ll think outside the box when there is no more money in the box.’  

My best friend was traumatized by people like this although there again I ended up even more the worse for wear b/c I started cursing and threatening ppl and stuff.  

TTS however got super-fantastic for at least a little while with SJH’s song ’Only U’ which in retrospect might or might not have been self-composed b/c it’s a Taylorian era and ‘only you can make me,’ in which we become our truest selves by being understood.  This song didn’t even say anything except for a few moments at the very end and as with many things in this era the fan-covers were more perfect than the commercial versions b/c it is again the desperate love of the poor in spirit for leaders and ‘pharons’ (beacons) that makes sth or s1 seem better, seem perfect.  

Celebrity-culture and much of politics are about money, power, image, and corporatistic lesson-teaching / mental Derek Chauvinism.  But these are starting to be empty words.

2008.

Writing a long letter to s1 who had other people.  Why do not I edit all day.  I still remember thinking how these athletes at RU had really great low BF% despite eating junk food so I tried to eat junk food but felt like a loser.  I didn’t realize then that everyone was tagging everyone all the time.

‘If only they had stayed in h/Hot p/Pursuit...’  I decided to nuke my undergraduate syntax and just start every sentence with ‘They.’  Setpiece in Denver.  I talked about ‘agape’ (Gr. word about Christ’s Charity or Christian concern for the soul which I don’t speak Greek), about hotels with doors between the rooms.  But then there was all this in retrospect very obvious trash about overachievers and Asians which was trying to share one world w/ people from another who didn’t really want it.  Like FF.net people saying ‘We really admired you; a lot of us are kind of stuck in the trailer-park and we know RapMonster is far distant from us but we like that your admiration of RM has been getting you somewhere.’  Wanting to take everyone along when in fact some of them want to let you go; my friend KateLorraine’s North Star column from FFnet long ago where it is like ‘Let us teach everyone in the universe to be self-sufficient writers and literary critics of life as well as perfect book-reviewers of ev1 they ever meet with the perfect savoir-faire action-response-system-protocol pace Colossians 4:6.’  

This could make everyone friends with everyone today but I later came to see that t/Trust is something ‘circumscribed.’  It’s like Mirabel says in this Cogreve play that would need to be heavily footnoted by Bethlehem Seminary, ‘Let us be very reserved.’  Why party?  Why celebrate being a couple?  There’s this tiny hint of something at the end of the Song of Songs, ‘My small-breasted little sister, who’s gonna marry her?’  I for years ‘kept my virtue to myself’ b/c it is like Russian suitcase-nukes, anti-family, anti-couples, anti-biblical(?), anti-God, to say couples shouldn’t trash others behind their backs.  I failed to appreciate the total ‘Shakespearea-irony-sized’ or idolatrous / cupiditinous implication in songs like ‘Red Is the Rose’ or a novel called ‘Angel and Hannah’ which I still hve no summative statement on b/c it as just the 1990s and what Stephen Crane might characterize as the defiant, prideful, Son of Morning-esque devouring of one’s own bitter heart.  I re. years ago someone said Japanese like falling flowers and Chi like fallen flowers.  Ppl rly love their fallen flowers and what they used to be.

There are people on 4chan or all over this world that keep little dreams, hope-chests.  I want to say it can happen, the girl eating noodles can really make something, but maybe I as being a huckster and cultistic love-bomber in pushing everyone to leave home or secretly plot to ditch their family and burn their family’s expectations and social forms.  Again, IDK why Reddit won’t let me say ‘social form’ when all the smart people are saying social form.  But I am unhappy too b/c some ppl do not even have a social form or expectation but just the mind-machine that they’ll never make up.  ‘Let us be humble and faithful and very reserved.’

2013.

‘Jericho.’  Guy with all these flashdrives always taking notes, but why.  Just accept failure and rejection and give your body and presence to the task at hand.  I also made something pre-Covid called ‘Rorate Caeli Desuper et Nubes Pluant Justum’ from an Eastern European composer’s setting about kind of an unauthored person who kept veering from father-figure to father-figure but that too say cynical and IDK why I was attacking women, failing to relate, writing endnotes to the living.  I see to this is what happens when you stand around regarding what others have and are trying to forget particular actions or subsume their significance in some broader supposed mission.  This too was fanfic-ified / plagiarized from a real person which is part of why I guess I didn’t go anywhere with it; hoping to do something IRL.’  A speculative phi.-of-teaching piece called ‘When To Care’ but there again it’s Milwaukee Judgment and cf. Levinas, ethical interruption, unethical interruption(?).  ‘Teach You.’  

‘Winter Presences’ from BoA’s ‘Always,’ failed couple rituals.  ‘Perhaps a pizza.’  There was a Philip Roth or somebody’s novel and it crystallized for a sec bu in retrospect again, no real intended audience or beneficiary.  Delta Covid, also Lam(b?)da Covid, sudden transposition / teleportation of 3rd world perils to ex 1st world.  Heavily censor ‘On the Road,’ when they go to Mexico, ‘a bomb had come... and we would in the same same way...’  I remember the moment I was shocked and arrested by a Korean poem called ‘Flower’ which repeats a word sth like ‘desire’ and uses a phrase that people called ‘And we’ but is more like ‘And we all of us’ or even stronger than that, beginning and end.  I wish I could sew or insert a syringe reliably.  Power of children and little people.

[lastsonlost]

Wonder Woman is a feminist. She’s certainly been considered an icon of feminism at different times throughout her 76-year career. In the early ’40s, when she first debuted in All-American Comics, she freed herself from chains, a symbol used by the suffragists to represent patriarchy. When Ms. launched in 1972, Wonder Woman graced its cover, solidifying her place as a feminist figure.

Now that the female superhero has finally made it to the big screen, critics and audiences are asking whether Wonder Woman is a feminist film. But the question itself is problematic. For one, it makes “feminist” a subjective adjective. Also, it suggests there’s a monolithic Feminism, when really feminist movement encompasses innumerous feminisms in motion. The more inciting questions are: How does this film represent Wonder Woman? What’s missing from this representation? And, what does it say about this particular moment in time?

There’s no doubt that the film has already broken records. In its first week, it surpassed its $149 million budget by bringing in over $200 million globally. It had the biggest opening weekend ever for a female director (Patty Jenkins) and is the highest-grossing comic book superhero movie with a female lead. Gal Gadot, who plays Wonder Woman, will likely arrive in the prestigious list of female leads in a top-100 domestic grossing film.

These statistics, however, are more about the poor state of affairs for women in the industry than the film itself. For example, this is only the third time that a woman has ever directed a comic book movie, and the only time they’ve had a budget over $30M. We could count on a hand or two the number of famous female comic book superheroes, let alone the blockbusters made about them. Since 1996, four out of the top 10 highest-grossing films with female leads were cartoons. Hollywood is still in the dark ages when it comes to gender equality. This movie and its record numbers may help change that.

In a nutshell, the movie starts with Diana’s early life, before she is Wonder Woman, on the island of Themyscira, where only female warriors live. By the time her love interest Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) arrives, Diana is a young woman ready for battle. Trevor is from the U.S. but works for the British as a spy in World War I and must get back to London to save the day. Wonder Woman goes with him and the story unfolds.

Although it doesn’t go far enough, the film tries some things around race and representation, as seen in Steve’s motley crew of sidekicks. A Native American sidekick called Chief (Eugene Brave Rock) tells Diana, “The last war took everything from my people.” When she asks who took everything, he responds, “His people,” pointing to Steve. Later, Chief ends up communicating via smoke signals, which seems a bit trite, but having a Native American in Europe in the early 1900’s doesn’t just happen: it was a conscious decision by the filmmakers. Samir (Said Taghmaoui), an Arab character who wears a fez, tells Diana about his lost dreams: “I wanted to be an actor, but I was the wrong color.” This seems out of place and more about the filmmakers calling out Hollywood than about character development.

Wonder Woman no longer fights on behalf of U.S. imperialism, which is a big shift from the early comics and a welcome change, even if it’s likely more about wanting to capture global audiences than politics. In December, the UN voted Wonder Woman an honorary ambassador, but members protested and she was subsequently dropped. They felt that a white woman in a bustier was not a good role model for girls around the globe.

Indeed, there are many ways this film does not challenge the status quo. Without the first 15 minutes on the island, it wouldn’t pass the Bechdel Test. And it does nothing to challenge modern-day racist beauty standards.

Why couldn’t Wonder Woman be a woman of color? When it was announced that Gadot would play Wonder Woman, audiences went wild body shaming her for not having large enough breasts. One can only imagine the white supremacy that would have emerged had the announcement said instead that she would be played by a Black woman. On Paradise Island, there are Black warriors in addition to white ones, which is a good start, but other women of color are missing. Also, while the female warriors are strong and ass-kicking, they all have tall, thin body types and they all could be models on a runway. In fact, in a pivotal battle scene, Wonder Woman struts across the battlefield as if on a catwalk. As a result, their physical strength plays second fiddle to their beauty, upholding the notion that in order to access power women must be beautiful in a traditional way.

Especially with the body positivity movement gaining steam, the film could have spotlighted female warriors with fat, thick and short body types. While people have said that warriors can’t be fat, some of our best paid male athletes are, particularly linebackers on the football field, and no one doubts their physical strength.

Another problem is that the story’s overt queerness gets sublimated by heteronormativity. Diana comes from a separatist commune of women who have intentionally chosen to live without men. In one of the first scenes between Diana and Steve, she explains that she read 12 volumes of a series on sex that concluded that while men are required for reproduction, when it comes to female pleasure, they’re unnecessary. While a love story develops between them, a requirement in superhero stories, Diana thankfully doesn’t compromise her integrity for him.

In the end, Wonder Woman concludes that “only love can save the world.” While this may be true, I’ve never heard any other superhero say so. Why couldn’t Wonder Woman fight for justice and eliminate bad guys without having to in the end make it about love? Perhaps a more interesting question is: Why don’t male superheroes do the same?

While people argue that women are “feminine” and naturally more inclined to love, this thinking quickly slides into dangerous assumptions like women are more cut out for caring for children and processing feelings. This gender essentialism not only keeps women in the home, it undercuts men’s emotional and creative capabilities. It also reflects the current double standard that women can have it all, but in order to do so we have to work harder than everyone else and carry it all on our shoulders.

Like Wonder Woman, we have to lead on the battlefield and be the ones responsible for the emotional well-being of the family, community and world.

[ultrabritishlitposts-blog]

Analysis Of The Text

Take it or Leave it 

By Zadie Smith

The first time I ordered takeout in New York, two things confounded me: the terrific speed with which the food arrived, and the fact that, after I’d paid for it, the man from the Chinese restaurant and I stood on either side of the threshold staring at each other, though only one of us understood why. After a minute of this, I closed the door. An American friend sat on the sofa, openmouthed:

“Wait—did you just close the door?”

In London, you don’t tip for delivery. A man on a motorbike arrives and hands over an oil-soaked bag, or a box. You give him the exact amount of money it costs or wait and look at your shoes while he hunts for change. Then you close the door. Sometimes all this is achieved without even the removal of his motorcycle helmet. The dream (an especially British dream) is that the whole awkward exchange pass wordlessly.

Every New Yorker has heard a newly arrived British person grumble about tipping. The high-minded Brits add a lecture: food-industry workers shouldn’t need to scrabble for the scraps thrown from high table—they should be paid a decent wage (although the idea that the delivery boys of Britain are paid a decent wage is generally an untested assumption). Now when I’m in London I find myself tipping all kinds of people, most of whom express a sort of unfeigned amazement, even if the tip is tiny. What they never, ever do, however, is tell me to have a nice day. “Have a good one”—intoned with a slightly melancholy air, as if warding off the far greater likelihood of an evil “one”—is the most you tend to hear.

But I’m not going to complain about Britain’s “lack of a service culture”—it’s one of the things I cherish about the place. I don’t think any nation should elevate service to the status of culture. At best, it’s a practicality, to be enacted politely and decently by both parties, but no one should be asked to pretend that the intimate satisfaction of her existence is servicing you, the “guest,” with a shrimp sandwich wrapped in plastic. If the choice is between the antic all-singing, all-dancing employees in New York’s Astor Place Pret-A-Manger and the stony-faced contempt of just about everybody behind a food counter in London (including all the Prets), I wholeheartedly opt for the latter. We are subject to enough delusions in this life without adding to them the belief that the girl with the name tag is secretly in love with us.

In London, I know where I stand. The corner shop at the end of my road is about as likely to “bag up” a few samosas, some milk, a packet of fags, and a melon and bring them to my home or office as pop round and write my novel for me. (Its slogan, printed on the awning, is “Whatever, whenever.” Not in the perky American sense.)

In New York, a restaurant makes some “takeout” food, which it fully intends to take out and deliver to someone. In England, the term is “takeaway,” a subtle difference that places the onus on the eater. And it is surprisingly common for London restaurants to request that you come and take away your own bloody food, thank you very much. Or to inform you imperiously that they will deliver only if you spend twenty quid or more. In New York, a boy will bring a single burrito to your door. That must be why so many writers live here—the only other place you get food delivery like that is at MacDowell.

Another treasurable thing about London’s delivery service is its frankly metaphysical attitude toward time (minicabs are equally creative on this front). They say, “He’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.” Thirty minutes pass. You call. They say, “He’s turning onto the corner of your road, one minute, one minute!” Five minutes pass. You call. “He’s outside your door! Open your door!” You open your door. He is not outside your door. You call. He is now five minutes away. He “went to the wrong house.” You sit on the doorstep. Ten minutes later, your food arrives. My most extreme encounter with this uniquely British form of torture was when, a few years back, I ordered from an Indian restaurant four minutes from my house as the crow flies. I was still being told he was on the corner of my road when I walked through the restaurant’s door, cell phone in hand, to find the delivery boy sitting on a bench, texting. As was his God-given right. It’s not as if anyone were going to tip him. 

 INTERPRETATION

Her article in general is mostly a comparison of take-out food in New York and in London or generally, the U.S. and England.

Clearly, some cultural differences were shown in the text. in Britain, delivery is still limited to Chinese takeaway and pizza, whereas in the U.S. you can press a few buttons on your computer and a boy will bring a single burrito to your door.

She tells of her experience when she first ordered Chinese food in New York. She wondered why the delivery guy just stood there after getting paid. She closed the door on him. Her companion was shocked. They just don’t tip delivery people in England. It was just a cultural difference, and as stated from a source “British people grumble when they come here (U.S.) and have to tip”. It’s because they just don’t do that and they are not used to such practices.  

Zadie Smith shows us a different perspective, a different take on the whole service-industry kerfuffle. Namely: “Life already blows, and paying people to pretend to be nice isn’t going to change that.” They say that people must be fairly compensated for their work and effort. Zadie Smith notes that no one actually says if delivery boys are fairly paid in England.

There was a distinction in the text: “In New York, a restaurant makes some ‘takeout’ food, which it intends to take out and deliver to someone. In England, the term is ‘takeaway,’ a subtle difference that places the onus on the eater.” And those few who do offer delivery, expect a minimum order.

Zadie Smith Ends the essay with a funny story about delivery guys in London and how they are never prompt. She says that if you call back and ask where your food is, they always justify and reason out for a bit. They would say “just fifteen minutes” or “he’s turning onto your street” or some other reason. One-time Zadie Smith walked to the location or pick up point of her food delivery while talking to the restaurant on the phone. They said he was turning onto her road as she walked in to find the delivery guy sitting on the bench and was on his phone, texting.

As we can assume, the guy wasn’t going to receive a tip, right?

[christopherappel-blog]

Flying High

On Flying High

This story was meant to be a framed story somewhat like the princess bride. It was about a person eighty years old or older retelling a story from their lives. I did my best to write my narrator Dusty as sort of a combination of my own grandfather, and the many vets I have met in my life. I love listening to their stories, their humor, and their attempts to teach a lesson and be relevant. That’s what I tried to pull from as I wrote Dusty. Dusty’s tale flying high is one of my favorite pieces because it is a historical fiction about something I love, WWI fighter pilots. I love the whole idea of people risking their lives just to fly these planes, let alone do battle in them. In my view they were kind of like modern knights, even if they never saw themselves this way. My inspiration came from a War movie called Flyboys. The actual movie is extremely fictional, but it does draw from some facts. Because I love the movie, I did some research into the people it was based on, and did my own fictional retelling. If I had to pick out the best part about Flying High, it would be the characters. When I created them, I did my best to create believable characters with true to life dialogue.

I hope you enjoy.

“Now gather round children, I’ve got a story fer ya. This isn’t one of your moving pictures, this is a real story.”

“Don’t you mean movies Grandpa Dusty?” the boy, Oakley said.

“Move what?” Dusty said.

“Movies, like on the television…” the girl, Annie began.

“Bah, televisions. Those aren’t real stories, this is a real story. It all starts with some prince getting shot. Your home country of France was involved in a war against a nasty German dictator.”

“Hitler?” Annie asked.

“Hitler who? This man was named Kaiser Wilhelm II. He was so off his rocker, that when the Germans attacked France, the United States wouldn’t help our relatives out.”

“But Grandpa, if the U.S. didn’t help the French, how come you fought in the war?” Oakley asked.

“I was a member of a squadron known as the Lafayette Escadrille. It was a unit led by the French, but filled with American Volunteers like myself. We wore French uniforms and everything. Hell I remember my first day of training. None of us knew how to put the leather straps of the flight suits on, and quite honestly we were in over our heads.”

-

Arrival

“Hey guys, I figured it out. It’s kind of like putting a harness on.” Victor Chapman said.

“You know it might be a little easier if the damn instructions weren’t  in French.” said Dusty.

“That’s what we get for deciding to fight for these damn Frenchies.” James McConnell muttered.

“Hey I may not speak it, but I’m French.” said Dusty.

“Maybe, but you’re also American, as are the rest of us. We don’t belong here, but the French need our help.” Chapman said as he helped the other two into their flight suits.

“Do you remember where we’re supposed to go?” McConnell asked.

“Yeah we’re to report to a base just outside of... uhhh Luxel.” Chapman said as he read a handwritten note from Dr. Gros.

“I think it’s pronounced Luxeuil.”

“Who cares Dusty.”

Once they finished getting changed the three of them made their way towards Luxeuil’s airfield. They navigated as best they could in a foreign country, but they still managed to be fashionably late.

“Sir, we are here to report for duty.” Dusty and the other two saluted who they assumed was their commanding officer. “You are Captain Thenault right? We were told to report to you.”

“That is correct.” the man replied with a thick French accent. “You boys are late.”

“Sorry, first time in France.” McConnell said.

“Fall in line with your fellow countrymen.” Thenault said.

The three of them joined the other Americans standing at parade rest in front of Captain Thenault, who then proceeded to address the line of men in front of him. “Bonjour et bonjour messieurs. Au nom de la France, je vous remercie pour votre service. Vous êtes parmi les premiers Américains à rejoindre notre noble conflit et …” he paused due to the general look of confusion he was met with. “Umm, do any of you actually speak French?”

A few muttered no’s and some head shaking confirmed Thenault’s suspicions.

“Well, I just wanted to thank you young men for choosing to fight on behalf of the French. Your benefactor, Dr. Edmund L. Gros, has seen to the costs of your training, housing arrangements, and anything else you’ll need. Do please try to at least pick up some French while you’re here, it’s a bit disingenuous to volunteer to fight on behalf of a country whose language you can not understand.”

After an initial tour of the airfield, the men were driven to the building in which they would reside while training and fighting for the French. Their quarters happened to be a Grand Hotel within Luxeuil.

“Hot damn if this isn’t the nicest place I’ve ever slept in.”

“Be respectful Dusty, Dr. Gros was kind enough to put us up in a suite befitting foreigners fighting for a country other than their own. I’m sure the Hessians slept better than the British Imperials.” stated Norman Prince.

Prince was a veteran pilot, and the one who had proposed the idea of American volunteer fighting in a squadron that they might actually make a difference. Dr. Gros relished in the idea and had give it his full support. Prince, Dusty, Chapman, and McConnell were also joined  by Elliot Cowdin, Laurence Rumsey, Kiffin Rockwell, and William Thaw.

“You mean to say we’re expected to die, so they’re treating us nice so that we won’t have any regrets.” Cowdin announced, as he did, there was a general look of uneasiness among the other men.

“Quiet now!” Prince responded in an attempt to regain control.

“He’s right.” Chapman yelled even louder. “These damn flying machines have only been around for fifteen years, and we’re supposed to what fly with them?”

“The French Nieuports we are going to be flying are a top of the line aircraft, we’ll be fine.” Thaw said as he pushed up his glasses. He was off to the side reading a book while propped up against the wall. “And if you were so uneasy about flying, why did you volunteer for this anyhow?”

“Like Dusty says, it was the right thing to do. It doesn’t matter if I’m scared, someone has to help the Frenchies fight the Krauts. Ever even heard of a French war victory?” Chapman said.

There was a slight pause, a calm of  sorts, and all the men began to laugh. They knew what was on the line, and while it bothered them, they had all come to do the right thing. Fight in a war the French couldn’t possibly win on their own. With a general sense of camaraderie in place, they all began to pack in for the night.

-

“Hold on a minute Grandpa, you got to stay in a hotel?” Annie asked.

“Of course I did. Times were different back then. Man oh man was it a nice place. We each got our own suite with three rooms. You had a sitting room, dining room, kitchen, and then your bedroom. They were furnished with some of the best European pieces you’ve ever seen.”

“That’s so not fair Grandpa, I want to stay in a nice French hotel.” Annie said.

“Maybe you’ll get to if we get involved in another World War.” Dusty said followed by a slight chuckle from both him and Annie.

“That’s not funny you guys.” said Oakley.

“You haven’t asked anything, are you sure you’re even paying attention Oaks?”

“I mean the stories alright so far, but why were you guys so afraid to fly? You know you’re more likely to die in a car crash than when you travel by plane.” Oakley said.

“Well you see, the planes we flew were a bit different. We were lucky to get those damn things moving over a hundred miles an hour, and they flew like rocks.”

“Even if they didn’t fly well, it must have been cool to fly some of the first planes.” Oakley said.

“To us they weren’t ‘the first planes.’ They were just planes, and we just flew them. That was that, nothing special. Where was I?”

“You had just gotten to the part where you guys got to the hotel.” Annie chimed in.

“Ah yes, once we got settled in, the work began.”

-

Training

Their training took several months. They began with a general knowledge of aerodynamics, Captain Thenault taught them how lift worked, and why these machines could even get up in the air. This seemed to ease everyone’s nerves about flying, at least somewhat.

They learned battle strategy, and how to work as a squadron in the air. They were taught things like angle of attack, and they were given a chance to fire the Vicker’s MGs that their Nieuports would be equipped with.

Once they’d learned the basics of flight, and had practiced the rudimentary combat skills and ideas they would need in air to air and air to ground combat, they were ready to fly. They flew in pairs, a trainer in back, and the trainee up front at the controls. The experience was exhilarating for them. Soaring over a mile in the air at unimaginable speeds, it was incredible. It wasn’t too long before they all began to fly solo.

The excitement of flying, and the pride they took in the idea of defending their allies against an evil Empire had erased any inhibitions the Americans had.

Once they had all become proficient pilots, their individual strengths and weaknesses had become evident. Chapman and Thaw were the best at aerial maneuvers, but Rockwell, Rumsey, and McConnell had better aim. Cowdin was the most cool headed and logical in the high pressure situations that their training had provided. Prince and Dusty were tied for all around best pilots.

One night near the end of their training, Cowdin brought up the question of their identity as a squadron.

“You guys…” he began. “What should they call us?” he asked. They all turned their attention to Cowdin. Some were playing cards, some having private conversation, and Thaw as usual was reading from a book.

“How about Blue Angels?” Dusty proposed.

“Why Blue Angels? It sounds kind of lame for a group of badass combat aviators like ourselves.” McConnell asked half joking.

“Well I figured because our uniforms are blue, and because we soar in the sky like angels.” Dusty said.

“I don’t know, I don’t think it’ll stick. Don’t we want a name that people will remember?” Chapman asked.

“How about Lafayette Escadrille?” Thaw offered looking up from his book.

“It’s got a nice ring to it, what does it mean?” Prince asked.

“Well  I was reading the other day and…” Thaw began.

“You were reading? Big surprise.” Cowdin said. They all proceeded to laugh.

“Hold on, give him a second, I want to hear this name out.”

“You know how the French have been our Allies as long as we’ve been a country, even before that?” he paused. “Well back during our revolution, there was a Frenchie named Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. He was a key figure in both our revolution, and their own. I think we should call ourselves Lafayette Escadrille in honor of him. Escadrille simply because it’s the French word for squadron, and we are a French squadron after all.”

“So you have been learning your French after all.” said a voice with a familiar French accent.

Everyone snapped to attention. “Sir.” they all said in military unison.

“At ease gentlemen.” Captain Thenault said. “So Lafayette Escadrille, this is to be your name no?”

“We hadn’t exactly decided, but it felt as thought there was a general consensus regarding the validity of that name.” Prince said in his usual take charge manner.

“It is decided then. You shall be known as the Lafayette Escadrille. Just in time too, your first mission is in a week, and your planes are currently on their way. Now that you are officially a squadron, what shall your mascot be?” Captain Thenault asked.

“Mascot?” Dusty responded.

“Oui, of course a mascot. You need a symbol of some sort to be painted on your planes so that in the air you can recognize each other and fight as a unit.”

“Well it should be symbolic, but maybe also a little intimidating. Something that strikes fear into the Krauts.” Chapman said.

“Well we’ve got a French name how about an American symbol?” McConnell added.

“I think I have an idea.” Dusty said.

“No we are not putting fucking angels on our planes, blue or otherwise.” Chapman said.

“It’s not that, I was thinking we have an Indian war chieftan as our mascot.” Dusty said

“That’s actually not a bad idea.” said Thaw. “The Indians do have a tendency to strike fear into their enemies using only their appearance, and they are the original Americans.

“Sounds like it’s settled then Captain.” Prince said. “We are the Lafayette Escadrille, the flying Indians.

-

“You were in the Lafayette Escadrille?” Oakley said in a voice of disbelief.

“So you’ve heard about us eh?”

“Heard about you? We’re studying WWI in history, I was assigned to study your squadron for my project. Grandpa you’re friends are in my history book.” Oakley fetched his textbook from his book bag and flipped to a page with an old black and white photograph and a caption that read ‘Lafayette Escadrille circa 1916.’

“Yep that’s us, I’m the one right in the middle.” Dusty pointed at a figure

“Grandpa, you’re practically a walking piece of history, that’s so cool.” Annie said

“I don’t know if I should take offense to that, or if i should take it as a compliment.”

“Maybe a bit of both.” Oakley said. The three of them laughed.

-

First Mission

The air was cold on the morning of their first mission. They briefing had been short, and the Escadrille was excited. This was to be the maiden voyage of their newly manufactured and newly painted Nieuports. Each man had been granted his own personal plane, owned of course by Dr. Gros, but they felt personal sentiment towards their crafts nonetheless. This was part in fact to the hand painted Indian chiefs on each of their planes. They would represent America with Pride and honor.

Their first aerial engagement was helping to support ground troops in the battle of Verdun. Five days into the fighting, the Escadrille took their first aerial victory. Rockwell had shot down a German Fokker. Dusty and Prince soon scored victories of their own.

In the battles that followed everyone managed to earn an aerial victory, and both Dusty and Prince had achieved the title of ace for having achieved five aerial victories each. The mood at the hotel had become that of a celebratory sports team after a major victory. They had all become quite confident with their abilities in the air, and life was good. They had the power of gods, flying thousands of feet above their French comrades on the ground. Nothing could touch them. Or so they thought.

Rockwell was killed on a routine scouting mission, and Prince perished while single handedly taking on a bomber. This rocked Dusty and the other men, two of their comrades had perished in such a short span. They were reminded of their mortality.

Their success on the other hand had a widespread effect on their fellow Americans. Over fifty recruits joined their ranks, and they became notorious as a unit. The Germans soon learned to fear the flying Indians. Some continued to perish, but others filled the space they left, but dusty never forgot Prince or Rockwell.

It wasn’t long before the United States entered the war, and when that happened the Lafayette was dissolved. Dusty joined the 103rd Aero Squadron with many of the other members of the Lafayette.

Chapman signed on to fight with an infantry unit citing that fighting in the trenches was safer then soaring through the air. He’d never been a fan of flying, and was happy that he was able to serve in a way he was comfortable with.  He perished when his rifle misfired and killed him.

As the war drew near to an end, the original members of the Lafayette had been spread into various units of Aero squadrons in order to share their flying experience with the greener American pilots. With the United States fighting against the Germans, it was only a matter of time before the war was won in favor of the French American allied forces. Dusty never saw another member of the Lafayette for the rest of his life.

-

“So they just split you guys up like that, that’s not fair.” Annie said.

“There was nothing we could do, even though we fought under the French for a time, once the U.S. joined the war we had to answer to them.”

“That kind of sucks Gramps.” Oakley said.

“That’s life.” Dusty sighed with a voice of resignation. “It’s not so bad though, I mean I did meet your grandmother after the war. She was such a fox.”

“Ewww.” The kids groaned in unison.

“Thanks for the story Grandpa.” Annie said.

“Did you learn anything from it?”

“Just that you and grandma were young and less gross once.” joked Oakley.

“Hey now, one day you’ll be old and gross too.” Dusty joked back. “But really did you guys learn anything.

“I learned that you’re a pretty cool guy gramps.” Annie said.

“Here here.” Oakley seconded the sentiment.

“Oh geez kids, I love you guys.” as he said that he began to blink rapidly, and the room began to swirl.

As everything began to settle, an old but familiar voice said. “We love you too Dusty.”

Dusty looked up, and to his surprise, Captain Thenault, and the rest of the Lafayette were standing in front of him. “Does this mean what I think it means.”

“It happens to all of us.” Prince said.

“At least I got to tell them one last story.” Dusty said.

[antinonymous]

Our Friends

“Maybe these folk can bring us some good news.”

Kenny looked up from the desk that he and his brother shared with a scowl. It was a scowl in bitter agreement.

There hadn’t been a lot of good news recently. No, there were a lot of tensions. International tensions from issues mankind has dealt with for God knows how long. France has had a series of tumultuous leaders ever since their civil war, and the American colonies were yet-again filled with righteous folk preaching the end of the Monarchy. Kenny’s kid said to him that morning that he hoped one day to see the colonies.

Kid, our queen hopes to just keep the colonies, he thought to himself.

He still hadn’t replied to his brother Kemmy. He was generally upset that the two of them were assigned to work this case together in the first place. They both knew that there weren’t any genuine questions they could ask because the four men in their custody were all innocent with solid alibis, only taken to them to be rid of from America.

“Look”, he finally said, “We won. We have the four main people involved with the neo-revolutionaries and the People’s Continental Congress. There will be another culling for Queen and Country. They will learn -”

He spoke with plastic confidence.

“No we don’t. We have four influential men, yeah, but they are nonetheless entirely innocent. They are prisoners of war- an unspoken war. A rather embarrassing war. You should really reconsider my offer to leave. Trends look slim for British America. You can never kill ideas-”

“Oh shut the fuck up, Kemmy. It’s the modern day! The American Civil Wars had their times, their chiefs, their gods and their powerful men back in the 70s and 80s. George Washington is rotting! So is Elias Steward!  I’ll believe in the revolution when I see it. From what I see, revolution is dead! America is Britannia, and Britannia rules Supreme forever, so help me God!”

“Kenny.”

“What?”

“I know some kids drew a Betsy Ross flag outside your flat.”

Some silence.

“If we’re gonna get anything from these four Americans, I think you have to calm down first. We’re both well aware that colonies’ days are numbered and that our recent mass bombing striking 26 colonial cities means we may as well see what this fire is like before it burns everything in our theatre.”

Kemmy knew his brother like that, and always woke up early enough that he could check in on his brother as he slept, since Kenny lived much closer to the station. Even if he knew who did it, Kenny didn’t need to know.

Kenny scowled more intensely, saying “You sound like a separatist.”

Kemmy laughed.

“I’m a realist. Honestly, let’s just go in now. I think this is the calmest that I can get you.”

Finally, agreement.

“So who’s this first bloke?” asked Kenny.

“One Levi Wingley.”

“Ah yes, one of Steward’s personal henchmen.”

“The only one to come here willingly”

They began walking down the hall to the interrogation room.

“He’s the one of two who actually knew Elias Steward in person”, began Kemmy, “We have his brother and another one who met him a few times, but this guy is one of the founders of the original People’s Continental Congress in the early 00s. He smells rancid.”

They finally entered the room. Before them sat an old man with thick and short white hair wearing all red. His eyes were closed, and he was mumbling to himself in a language that the brothers could not recognise.

Kenny began.

“We need you to answer some questions in English, por favor.”

The man opened his brown eyes with a look of disgust.

“I’m practicing my Spanish for when I travel down there after I’m released. Do you honestly believe I intend to stay in England?”

“What languages do you know?” asked Kemmy, hoping he could mend the interview as it was happening.

“French, Spanish, Dutch and English.”

“Ah”, retorted Kenny, “From your college education, yes?”

Levi laughed, “From stealing your universities’ linguistic manuscripts”

Some silence returned.

“I was a tax collector from the University of Pennsylvania. God bless Benjamin Franklin. My formal education was learning how to, like a proper gentleman, reap what I do not sew. I hope you two are happy for the personal good that I’ve done for your economy.”

“Oh you’ve done plenty.” Kemmy was well-aware of both Levi’s anti-capitalist actions and history working for many British aristocracies. He had to deal with as well his own brother’s reactionary self.

“You went to the University of Pennsylvania, yeah?”

Levi nodded, adding,

”Pennsylvania was always my favourite. They don’t just quake when they’re spiritual.”

“How did you meet Steward?”

Levi was now inclined to scowl at Kenny, but he had no motivation.

Levi responded

“I don’t remember. I’ll be honest, Elias and I spent a lot of our time together doing copious amounts of drugs. I’d seen him several times throughout Philadelphia beforehand, but I remember he was, in a chance encounter, parallel to me on the street as the cops were harassing a man one night. Elias set him free, and I was there to pay the bail. Does an eye for an eye create blindness or visual depth?”

“What year was this?”

Levi struggled.

“Oh, it’s 1848, I met him in my early twenties. I’ll guess around ‘98. After I began hanging out with him was when we all really began experimenting with lots of drugs.”

Kemmy asked “is this what attracts people to the movement?”

Levi replied “the movement attracts the people to the drugs. People need an escape from reality every now and then. There is no soul, so we make souls. We need a heart where there is no heart, and the people thus find Opium. Monarchy and Capital create the Spirit of The World which I denounce as a Christian as the work of antichrist.”

“You complain about capitalism and imperialism and yet you do you so high as a kite while reaping the benefits of it!” said Kenny, thinking he was clever.

Levi lit up.

“Capitalism is not creation. In fact it inhibits the creation of new things when they are not profitable or marketable. Besides, the fact that we have this technology and this ease of use and this ease of life - I believe it is good. But, it is to embrace the common and ban the luxurious. And I intend to send this good out to the world. That which does oppress has with it the tools to liberate. It is the limited access to resources, such as drugs, that I fight against. I go after the cause of ailment.”

“Is this the type of stuff you and Steward would discuss?”

Levi looked at both brothers before responding.

“He and I did have conversations like this. These conversations have played out many times throughout many histories using many names and many languages.”

“When does it stop being a conversation? When does it turn into one of the most infamous court cases of the last 50 years? When does it turn into organised violence and nihilism?”

“The trial of Elias Steward was itself a conversation just like this. And that conversation started with the love of money. It was Jeffrey that betrayed us in Alexandria-“

“Why do you always need violence?” Kenny cut off Levi, but he was still calm.

“Our Party sought to re-unite the thirteen colonies under the peace of man and that which can fill every hand and every mouth. Mark my words- liberal revolution is the only one which will ever seize the thirteen colonies. Those terrorists from several months back do not see the black man as a man, and they have no comment whatsoever on women and the Indians. It will be based on capitalism directly, whatever America turns into. You don’t live in America, so I don’t think you don’t appreciate how Kaiser usurps our queen. Self-defence is very violent, and I’ll always only call for lots of self-defence. I wanted to create a country without capitalism. I aimed for only working to one’s needs.”

“So you’re like Jesus without the Christianity.”

“We wanted a union of workers leading the people instead of some arbitrary hierarchy which long outlasts their usefulness in civilised nations. 2nd Thessalonians 6:10: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

“Jesus didn’t call for violence.”

“Elias didn’t call for violence! What he and Jesus and myself always called for was the awareness that violence is always present.”

“Who was this Jeffrey person?” Kemmy asked this is a desperate attempt to get what they came for.

“Jeffrey was also a tax collector, but he was a reactionary. He gave away our locations to the government in 08, forcing Elias to court and forcing me into indentured servitude.”

Levi sighed, continuing

“I won’t beat around the bush; you have both myself and three of my famous allies with me, no? They won’t do you any good. None of those bombs were planted by us nor were we ever involved in the planning of the attacks.”

Kenny and Kemmy looked at each other. They already knew.

Kemmy asked, “then why did you agree to come here?”

“To watch this mess unfold from a good, safe distance. The others are to die in the crossfire, I presume.”

Levi began laughing again.

“The best you’ll get from us is a mild understanding of what people are revolting for. Now, Kenneth, Kemuel, may I please leave?”

The brothers looked at each other in angst, but left Wingley to be escorted out by other officers. Kenny was transcendent and unusually quiet as he and his brother strolled about watching Levi Wingley walk to a carriage and leave. By the grace of god, he was to survive whatever war.

“We’re still interviewing the rest of them, right?” asked Kemmy in a timid manner as they walked.

“Yeah. This next guy’s a lot younger. Marcellus Jonson. He’s a journalist who covers the neo-revolutionaries in the press.”

“Another scholar it seems.”

At this point the brothers were right outside Jonson’s room. Kenny had no emotion in his eyes. He pat his brother on the the back.

“Let’s learn.”

Before them in the room sat a scrambling man. He was looking at the walls in a mess, with his one hand twirling his short, brown hair and and the other below the table. He was the first to speak.

“What day is it?!”

The brothers didn’t want to be with this man for very long.

“It is Thursday, the first of June.”

Now his hands were in his lower head and beard. Kenny’s response must have not been well for him to have heard.

Kenny inquired “Is this important?”

Jonson was livid, replying “you arrested four of us, right?”

“Right.”

“Where are the others?”

“Well aren’t you the curious type.”

“...says the interrogator. Where are they?”

“My brother, Kemmy, and I have been assigned to deal with you four to get your testimony. Your friend Levi Wingley is on his way to some fucking port and going to the continent or wherever.”

“I could tell the crowd was quieting down.”

Neither brother had mentioned, to themselves or to one another, certain roughhousing taking place near the station by informed townspeople.

“We’ll be free to walk the streets of London by nightfall.”

“Well, whilst we have you, I would like to ask a few questions. I am uninformed, I’m an ameteur historian, the furthest one can be from an expert. What’s a man like Elias Steward doing with a boy like you? You began your career when you were 12- what’s- what’s his reaction?”

Jonson looked at both of them, having tried to forget the plagues of his youth.

“He and I had the same enemies.”

Kemmy chimed in, “the same enemies? That sounds like a process of elimination of what you know you don’t like rather than what you know you like.”

“Friends come and go in a different way than enemies do. It’s a division of identity among all of us based on mood, preference, and trust, among other things.”

“You’re missing my point.”

“I don’t care about your point! In different contexts I would perhaps discuss the ways of shaping identity. Are those the questions you’re asking?”

“No” answered Kenny, “in these meetings you attended, you became Steward’s friend. Now I’m his friend. Who are our friends? Why are they our friends?”

“Our friends need something. They lust. Our friends need to eat but sometimes can’t. They need land but sometimes have none and must be either indentured servant or landlord’s pet. Honestly, our friends are disgusting. They’re vile, sinful, lustful, sadistic, perverse, and wholly unclean. But their energy is never spent on fucking on me over.”

“Us” interrupted Kemmy.

Jonson smiled at him gleamingly.

“Never spent on fucking us over. Our friends are the victims of State and Capital. Cops are the tools of State and Capital. People can be good, cops can’t be our friends.”

His tone changed.

“But rest assured, our friends don’t massacre themselves en masse for taxation-related reasons. The men who carried out those attacks fucking hate our friends.”

“These are men are not with Elias Steward-“

“Quit bringing up that name! It’s meaningless and irrelevant! And yes, they hate him. His father was a slave, and your terrorists in America, who are likely already warring with the Empire, would never see him as anything more.”

Silence briefly engulfed everyone.

Kenny asked “then why are they so conflated?”

“Because there’s a range of deviation, a lot of deviation, from Empire. I remember hearing these terrorists get called Stewardites or Stewardists or something like that and that cannot be further from the truth.”

The man cleared his throat and spat on the floor, continuing “I know a bit about the actual followers of Elias Steward from the People’s Continental Congress from 1795 to 1808. A bunch of criminals whose writings I collected and archived. Do you have any questions about them? Look, Elias Christopher Steward was a man of the people, and people tend to misinterpret. He and his party didn’t really want to “free America”. He wanted to overthrow the world’s elite and have the world be operated by the worker’s; the actual operators. It would have been in North America, but the goal was to inspire others against imperial reaction. These terrorsists will fight against reaction, presumably, through the French, the Dutch and the Germans. But it will be a cold monster of a bourgeois nation with some other autocrat Washington. Can I leave? I am so sick of answering to yinz. Luka knows his shit, I’m so- please get me out of here.”

Kemmy asked what the rush was about, and Jonson replied that he fell in love on holiday with a man in his youth whom he had seen outside the police station.

“Luka Oxford? Is that who we need to ask about the acts of Elias Steward’s followers?”

“I haven’t slept in four days.”

With that, the brothers walk to Oxford’s station to have Jonson get out.

“Oxford wrote extensively on what happened to America after Steward’s trial”, Kenny says.

“Who was the judge of that? Wasn’t he famous for being a separatist sympathiser who executed him out of fear?”

“Uh,” Kenny hastily recalls, “Balder Byron. As far as I know, he was loyal up to his death, though it must’ve been terribly inconvenient.”

“I think he killed himself when he retired.”

“He worked other cases after that?”

“He had to.”

“Doesn’t sound like he had many friends.”

And with that, they’re at Oxford’s room.

Kenny asks, “who’s the last after this? Elias’ brother?”

Kemmy nods.

“So” Kenny says “I wont need much from him.”

They see another man with dark hair and dark brown eyes, just like Marcellus.

Kenny states “You Americans look all the same.”

He laughs remarkably, responding in posh Received Pronunciation.

“And cops.”

“Your friend Marcellus Jonson told me a few things about friendship. He told me lots stuff about friends.”

“He does that. I actually base my writing style off of him sometimes. A lot of us do.”

“And we’ve come to learn that not all of you follow Steward.”

“I mean, we all try to read him. It’s good to know what he did but his image has been distorted with time. During his trial, false accusations had been made of him of conspiracy with Satan, Jews and the Indians.”

“What?”

“That’s what got popularised. He was just a degenerate who wanted to end civilisation, and the Indians and Jews have had awful relations in America since. Everyone just blew Steward’s execution way out of proportion, and in the trial, those two groups were singled out as being the people whom Byron could be manipulative. After the trial, he plead for mercy by his fellow working class people, saying that he had to kill Elias, and that if he didn’t, everything would’ve actually gotten way worse for everyone. He tried to push the blame away from himself to save face. In reality, he executed a political radical and traitor; the leader of a Socialist party, and wanted to be the good guy. Even after his cousin was killed less than a year prior. ”

He puts his palm to his face.

“Are you men Christian?”

They looked at each other. Anglican.

Learning this, Luka asked for paper, ink and quill.

“Go buck wild” says Kemmy.

He writes to them

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good: His love endures forever.

“Psalm 107:1”

They examine the calligraphy.

“Steward is dead. Who knows who’s next? And I’ll die. But actions speak louder than words. This forever lasts. I remember once Elias was told that he was an impersonator through Philadelphia and he said to leave him be. We never learnt what came of him.”

“Thanks. You’re free to go.”

Kemmy says as they walk to their last man “we didn’t need a lot from him, are you planning on reading later?”

Kenny didn’t like reading. But the written word had powers. Kenny needed power.

They walk silently to John’s room. Kemmy says that life is absurd. Kenny lights up and rolls his eyes.

“John Eagle? I see you have had a name change.” Kemmy says.

“Is that what we’re talking about?”

“No, I can understand the need for a new name. I can’t imagine the type of stress that puts a person under. To be honest, we’ve asked as much questions as we needed to the rest of you.”

“...so I’m free to go?”

“Woooah there. Slow down. You can tell us one thing they never could, as his brother.”

“And that’s?- ?”

“What’s to come?”

“Who’s to say? Prepare for everyone.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what’s to come. What I can advise to you is prepare for everyone.”

“Who’s everyone?” Kemmy asks.

“They’ll show you. You’ll find everyone. And Socialism will always have the voice of criticism.”

Kenny laughs. He’s had enough of this.

“So chaos?

“Chaos.”

He walks out silently, and his brother is forced to leave after him.

“What?” Kemmy asks.

“Wait out here.” Kenny goes back into the room for a minute.

“He’ll be leaving with us.”

“What?”

“I’m taking John back to America. And you’re coming with me. And my family.”

Kemmy was happy to resign.

“Tonight.”

They both smile and clear their offices before leaving the building.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Kieran Culkin&#039;s Shirt Is Off

https://fashion-trendin.com/kieran-culkins-shirt-is-off/

Kieran Culkin's Shirt Is Off

When Kieran Culkin first started reading the script for “Succession,” he wondered whether it had been sent to the wrong person. The HBO powers that be originally thought he’d be a good fit for the character of Greg, a bumbling nitwit who gets high in his first scene and spends the rest of the first season failing to sidle his way up the ladder of a massive media and entertainment conglomerate owned by his great-uncle, Logan Roy.

Almost from Greg’s first line, Culkin knew he was wrong for the part. “He’s already a lot younger than I am, and just the voice ― I was, like, this is not me. I am not right for this.”

When I met Culkin at a small restaurant in the Noho neighborhood of Manhattan last Monday, it was just as clear to me as it was to him that he’s too old to play a character like Greg. But something in the Roy family’s dark saga held Culkin’s attention anyway. He said he kept reading the script, which follows the foibles of the billionaire Roy clan as its individual members vie for power within. A few pages later, Logan’s overconfident third son, Roman, appears, led into a meeting by a man hired explicitly to burn sage.

“Hey, hey, motherfuckers!” Roman proclaims to a room full of his father’s business associates.

“And I was, like, ‘Oh, who’s this fucking guy?’” Culkin said.

Culkin eventually got the part of Roman, an incompetent and lazy man-child who believes he wholly deserves the title of chief operating officer, even though he has little interest in doing any of the work that comes with it. Among the many nefarious faces that make up Logan’s Waystar Royco empire, Roman stands out as perhaps its most cynical ― a ratings-obsessed media executive motivated solely by profit. At one point, in his interpretation of corporate disruption, he takes off his shirt in a meeting, flexing and joyfully screaming “Blood!” at the thought of layoffs. During another, he gleefully tells his sister about a new viral video that is “evidence of precisely the kind of disgusting, liberal, metro butt-love that makes our viewership angry enough to buy pharmaceuticals.” To Roman, nothing could be better.

Culkin can’t say exactly what drew him to the morally depraved heir, described by his father as a “moron” and his brother as a “walking fucking lawsuit.” But it’s not hard to imagine some small part of Culkin was intrigued by the idea of playing such a sneering member of a media empire.

After all, Culkin’s distaste for the tabloid industry is beyond well-established. (“No matter what’s written there, it’s a total lie, even the person’s name, lie, lie, lie, lie, everything’s a lie,” he once told New York Magazine.)

But let’s not lump Culkin into that hyperpartisan Level 10 “FAKE NEWS” category of 2018 American paranoia. Mostly because when he told me “Now it’s a thing, ‘fake news,’” and I said, jokingly, “Fake news. You’re a believer,” he got nervous and pushed out a quick “no,” immediately realizing the millions of different ways such a quote could be aggregated, recirculated, quoted out of context and otherwise misinterpreted. You can almost see it now, can’t you? “Kieran Culkin Joins the Chorus: Media Is ‘Fake News.’”

Culkin’s distrust is of a more justifiable form, born out of a lifetime of his surname showing up in headline-grabbing tabloid fodder. From the moment his parents, Kit “The father from hell” Culkin and Patricia Brentrup, entered into an ugly, obsessively covered custody battle to when the National Enquirer proclaimed his eternally famous brother, Macaulay, had “6 Months to Live” in 2012 (he’s still alive), Culkin’s last name has served as a way to move and make paper ― the most intimate moments of his life repackaged as factually questionable entertainment content to sell ads against. 

Ron Galella via Getty Images

Macaulay and Kieran Culkin at the fifth annual American Comedy Awards back in 1991, just months after the release of the blockbuster hit “Home Alone.”

“There are things that are out there in the world as fact because it was written in print that are just completely false. My brother did not divorce his parents. They did not fight over his money,” he said. “But that’s out in the world as fact.

“I learned at a very young age to be, like, ‘Oh, I get it: It’s bullshit,’ shit that’s written in print.”

In person, Culkin ticks most of the boxes of adulthood: In his 30s. Takes his coffee black. Enjoys talking about his favorite East Village dives. Married five years. Nice watch. Clothes that fit. Hair slicked around his head just so. Like Roman, Culkin drops a “fuck” or “shit” every ninth word or so, as when he said to me, “Hold on, I’m going to eat the fuck out of these pickles. You say something for a minute, ’cause I’ve got a mouth full of shit.”

But no matter how many fucks he lets out ― and by my count, he let out around 25 over 40 minutes ― Culkin remains stuck with a membership to the official Former Child Actors club. Macaulay, or Mac, if you’re in the know, was always the main draw ― history’s most famous kid actor without a drink named after him. But Kieran was there too, in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2.” He found himself on the stage of “Saturday Night Live” before the age of 10, and schmoozed with Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” before his voice dropped.  

Which is probably why ― and here I’m guessing ― Culkin might have been a bit annoyed when HBO suggested he audition for Greg.

But after 10 episodes of watching Culkin-as-Roman take part in his family’s imperious game of human chess, it’s hard to imagine the actor playing anyone else. If Jeremy Strong ― who plays Kendall, Logan’s cocaine-addicted second son ― is the show’s tragic star, Culkin is its nervous energy. There’s something in the way he pushes out a phrase like “What a pathetic beta cuck,” or belittles doctors and waiters alike.

What sealed Culkin’s interest in his character came in the first episode during a family softball game, when Roman points to a kid on the sidelines, the son of the site’s groundskeeper. Everyone grows quiet as Roman whips out his checkbook and starts writing a check for $1 million. Hit a home run in their game, Roman tells the boy, and the money is his. For the child and his family, it’s a potentially life-changing moment. For Roman, the child is nothing but a momentary subhuman toy to mess with and cast aside. After the child is tagged out at home, Roman can’t control his laughter. “I’m sorry, I can’t give it to you,” he says as he tears up the check. It is a degrading, truly awful moment of television.

“Oh, I get it,” Culkin remembered thinking, “he’s a fuck face.”

When Culkin filmed the scene, he embodied evil, letting out a cackle so cruel it sets the show’s moral compass for the remaining season. Culkin himself is not sure where his ability to play somebody like that came from.

“Being able to connect to some degree, not in a positive way, with these characters is odd to me because I don’t know the multimillionaires, I don’t know the super-rich, yet I know assholes like that,” he said. “I can’t even quite specifically pick out who I know that is exactly like that, but it’s weird that you can still, for me, relate.”

“Succession” suffered from a slow start, only truly hitting its stride around Episode 6, when Kendall leads the board in a tense vote of no confidence against Logan, who’s recently suffered a stroke, unleashing a sequence of events within the Roy family that are both comical and horrifying.

Culkin owns up to that. “The first three episodes to me, it’s not like they’re unwatchable,” he said, “but it’s not quite the show yet.”

Which, according to him, is fine. Some shows don’t grab you on first watch, and one in particular in his opinion: “I probably shouldn’t even say this on record. The example I have is actually [the British comedy] ‘Peep Show,’” which was coincidentally also developed by “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong.

But the first season of “Succession” gained enough momentum before concluding Sunday evening for HBO to pick it up for another season ― making this the first time Culkin has ever been part of a television show that made it to Season 2, according to his IMDB page, a small victory in his more than two decades on-screen.

Culkin’s most acclaimed role came in 2002, when he earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in “Igby Goes Down.” But that time the victory led to a full-blown existential crisis.

United Artists via Getty Images

Claire Danes and Kieran Culkin talk at a coffee shop for a scene from “Igby Goes Down.” Culkin entered an existential crisis after the film and took a breaking from acting. 

“[I] found myself at the age of 20 with a career I never chose, [and I] freaked out,” Culkin said. “I think everybody around that age has some sort of crisis. Usually, it’s like a straight-up ‘Oh, I don’t know what I want to do.’ Mine is, ‘I don’t know what I want to do with my life, yet here I am doing it.’”

Culkin took a break before eventually returning to acting, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “I was just sort of doing it in the meantime,” he says now. He took parts in movies like “Lymelife” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Did two episodes of “Fargo.” Performed multiple versions of a stage play he loved, Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth.” In 2014, he was still apprehensive. “I often think about getting out of this job, but I’m terrified that there’s nothing else,” he told The Daily Beast.

Since then, Culkin said, something clicked. He remembered coming home from work one day and thinking, “Oh, I think I’m actually enjoying this.”

“I think I know what I want to do now,” he said to himself. “I think I should do this.”

Now deep into his 30s, Culkin has established himself as a stronger and more serious actor than the “essentially retired” Macaulay ever did. And in Roman, Culkin has stumbled upon something as special as it is sinister. TV Guide described Roman as “the very definition of the hate-f―k,” but he’s probably more accurately categorized as sexual overcompensation personified. He tells his brother that his “face is drowning in pussy,” despite the fact that his various partners claim he rarely wants to have sex. He masturbates to his office view of New York City while a string of emails piles up behind him. (“It’s to gain some sort of control,” Culkin surmised.)

More interesting than his sex life, though, is Roman’s complex relationship with his manipulative and emotionally abusive father. While most people want to prove their competence to the people around them, “Roman, for the most part, doesn’t give a fuck about that,” Culkin said, adding, “If his girlfriend says, ‘No, but you did a great job,’ it’s like: ‘Fuck you. Don’t patronize me.’” What he wants, Culkin said, is his dad’s approval: “That’s the only person that can get him, the only person that can look at him and make him nervous.”

Logan does exactly that when Roman prepares to stand against the tycoon in the vote of no confidence. With his father staring down at him, Roman can only muster a meek “maybe” before he slouches into his chair like an admonished child and votes with his father. Thanks to Roman, Logan lives to fight another day atop his dynasty, while Kendall is forced, temporarily, to surrender.

Earlier, in Episode 2, Roman finds himself watching as the world repackages his family’s tragedy into viral content. He and his family are huddled together in a New York hospital, awaiting information about their famous father’s deteriorating health post-stroke, like characters in a Gothic novel, when Roman starts scrolling through Twitter. His sister, Shiv, asks what people are saying.

“Eh, rumors, you know,” Roman replies matter-of-factly. “Some of Twitter says he’s dead ― and also a good deal of rejoicing at our father’s potential demise.” He notices a short video of the “South Park” kids yelling, “Oh my God, we’ve killed Logan! We’re bastards!” and asks an employee to “find out who these fuckers are and report them or screen grab their shit.”

When Culkin’s own father was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in 2014, TMZ, The Daily Mail, Perez Hilton all repackaged the tragedy as well. The National Enquirer pounced, too, running a headline that read, “Macaulay Culkin Rejects Dying Dad: ‘Rot in Hell!’” But unlike Roman, Culkin wouldn’t have been sifting through Twitter. “That would never be something that I would do willingly,” he says of social media more generally. “Because already at a young age, there was a public perception of me.” 

Francis Apesteguy via Getty Images

Kit Culkin, Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin and Patricia Bretnup pose for a photo one month after the release of “Home Alone.” The father is now estranged from his children. 

Like Roman, however, Culkin and his siblings have a less than ideal relationship with his father. By all accounts, they have been mostly if not entirely estranged from Kit ever since their mother won custody of the children in the 1990s. Patricia, the mother, claimed during the custody battle that Kit had been abusive, and Culkin’s brother Macaulay has continued to do so throughout his life.

“He was a bad man,” Macaulay Culkin told comedian Marc Maron earlier this year.

When I asked Kieran Culkin if he has spoken with his father recently, he answered with two no’s so quickly that I couldn’t bring myself to ask a follow-up question, only saying, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, “Fuck ’em.”

“Fuck ’em,” Culkin agreed. “I’ll go on record: Yeah, fuck ’em.”

After a lifetime of his last name being splattered across the front pages of tabloids, Culkin seemed ready to move on from the controversies that have dogged him since he was a child actor with moppy hair and oversized clothes. That’s not him anymore.

What we’re looking at instead is Kieran Culkin, age 35 ― no longer a Greg and fully embracing life as Roman.

[chpatdoorsl3z0a1]

Remarks by the President on 250th Anniversary of the Birth of President Andrew Jackson

The Hermitage Nashville, Tennessee

4:44 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Wow, what a nice visit this was.  Inspirational visit, I have to tell you. I’m a fan.  I’m a big fan.

I want to thank Howard Kettell, Francis Spradley of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, and all of the foundation’s incredible employees and supporters for preserving this great landmark, which is what it is -- it’s a landmark of our national heritage. 

And a special thank you to Governor Bill Haslam and his incredible wife, who -- we just rode over together -- and Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, two great friends of mine, been a big, big help.  Both incredible guys. 

In my address to Congress, I looked forward nine years, to the 250th anniversary of American Independence.  Today, I call attention to another anniversary: the 250th birthday of the very great Andrew Jackson.  (Applause.)  And he loved Tennessee, and so do I -- to tell you that.  (Applause.) 

On this day in 1767, Andrew Jackson was born on the backwoods soil of the Carolinas.  From poverty and obscurity, Jackson rose to glory and greatness -- first as a military leader, and then as the seventh President of the United States.  He did it with courage, with grit, and with patriotic heart.  And by the way, he was one of our great Presidents.  (Applause.) 

Jackson was the son of the frontier.  His father died before he was born.  His brother died fighting the British in the American Revolution.  And his mother caught a fatal illness while tending to the wounded troops.  At the age of 14, Andrew Jackson was an orphan, and look what he was able to do.  Look what he was able to build.

It was during the Revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite.  Does that sound familiar to you?  (Laughter.)  I wonder why they keep talking about Trump and Jackson, Jackson and Trump.  Oh, I know the feeling, Andrew.  (Laughter.)

Captured by the Redcoats and ordered to shine the boots of a British officer, Jackson simply refused.  The officer took his saber and slashed at Jackson, leaving gashes in his head and hand that remained permanent scars for the rest of his life.  These were the first and far from the last blows that Andrew Jackson took for his country that he loved so much.

From that day on, Andrew Jackson rejected authority that looked down on the common people.  First as a boy, when he bravely served the Revolutionary cause.  Next, as the heroic victor at New Orleans where his ragtag -- and it was ragtag -- militia, but they were tough.  And they drove the British imperial forces from America in a triumphant end to the War of 1812.  He was a real general, that one.

And, finally, as President -- when he reclaimed the people’s government from an emerging aristocracy.  Jackson’s victory shook the establishment like an earthquake.  Henry Clay, Secretary of State for the defeated President John Quincy Adams, called Jackson’s victory “mortifying and sickening”.  Oh, boy, does this sound familiar.  (Laughter.)  Have we heard this?  (Laughter.)  This is terrible.  He said there had been “no greater calamity” in the nation’s history. 

The political class in Washington had good reason to fear Jackson’s great triumph.  “The rich and powerful,” Jackson said, “too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”  Jackson warned they had turned government into an “engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many.”

Andrew Jackson was the People’s President, and his election came at a time when the vote was finally being extended to those who did not own property.  To clean out the bureaucracy, Jackson removed 10 percent of the federal workforce.  He launched a campaign to sweep out government corruption.  Totally.  He didn't want government corruption.  He expanded benefits for veterans.  He battled the centralized financial power that brought influence at our citizens’ expense.  He imposed tariffs on foreign countries to protect American workers.  That sounds very familiar.  Wait till you see what’s going to be happening pretty soon, folks.  (Laughter.)  It’s time.  It’s time.  

Andrew Jackson was called many names, accused of many things, and by fighting for change, earned many, many enemies.  Today the portrait of this orphan son who rose to the presidency hangs proudly in the Oval Office, opposite the portrait of another great American, Thomas Jefferson.  I brought the Andrew Jackson portrait there.  (Applause.)  Right behind me, right -- boom, over my left shoulder.  

Now I’m honored to sit between those two portraits and to use this high office to serve, defend, and protect the citizens of the United States.  It is my great honor.  I will tell you that.

From that desk I can see out the wonderful, beautiful, large great window to an even greater magnolia tree, standing strong and tall across the White House lawn.  That tree was planted there many years ago, when it was just a sprout carried from these very grounds.  Came right from here.  (Applause.)  Beautiful tree.

That spout was nourished, it took root, and on this, his 250th birthday, Andrew Jackson’s magnolia is a sight to behold.  I looked at it actually this morning.  Really beautiful.  (Applause.)  

But the growth of that beautiful tree is nothing compared to growth of our beautiful nation.  That growth has been made possible because more and more of our people have been given their dignity as equals under law and equals in the eyes of God. 

Andrew Jackson as a military hero and genius and a beloved President.  But he was also a flawed and imperfect man, a product of his time.  It is the duty of each generation to carry on the fight for justice.  My administration will work night and day to ensure that the sacred rights which God has bestowed on His children are protected for each and every one of you, for each and every American.  (Applause.) 

We must all remember Jackson’s words:  that in “the planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer,” we will find muscle and bone of our country.  So true.  So true.  

Now, we must work in our time to expand -- and we have to do that because we have no choice.  We're going to make America great again, folks.  We're going to make America great again -- (applause) -- to expand the blessings of America to every citizen in our land.  And when we do, watch us grow.  Watch what’s happening.  You see it happening already.  You see it with our great military.  You see it with our great markets.  You see it with our incredible business people.  You see it with the level of enthusiasm that they haven’t seen in many years.  People are proud again of our country.  And you're going to get prouder and prouder and prouder, I can promise you that.  (Applause.) 

And watch us grow.  We will truly be one nation, with deep roots, a strong core, and a very new springtime of American greatness yet to come.

Andrew Jackson, we thank you for your service.  We honor you for your memory.  We build on your legacy.  And we thank God for the United States of America. 

Thank you very much, everybody.  (Applause.)  

END 4:54 P.M. CDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2mwnITX

[rtawngs20815]

Remarks by the President on 250th Anniversary of the Birth of President Andrew Jackson

The Hermitage Nashville, Tennessee

4:44 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Wow, what a nice visit this was.  Inspirational visit, I have to tell you. I’m a fan.  I’m a big fan.

I want to thank Howard Kettell, Francis Spradley of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, and all of the foundation’s incredible employees and supporters for preserving this great landmark, which is what it is -- it’s a landmark of our national heritage. 

And a special thank you to Governor Bill Haslam and his incredible wife, who -- we just rode over together -- and Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, two great friends of mine, been a big, big help.  Both incredible guys. 

In my address to Congress, I looked forward nine years, to the 250th anniversary of American Independence.  Today, I call attention to another anniversary: the 250th birthday of the very great Andrew Jackson.  (Applause.)  And he loved Tennessee, and so do I -- to tell you that.  (Applause.) 

On this day in 1767, Andrew Jackson was born on the backwoods soil of the Carolinas.  From poverty and obscurity, Jackson rose to glory and greatness -- first as a military leader, and then as the seventh President of the United States.  He did it with courage, with grit, and with patriotic heart.  And by the way, he was one of our great Presidents.  (Applause.) 

Jackson was the son of the frontier.  His father died before he was born.  His brother died fighting the British in the American Revolution.  And his mother caught a fatal illness while tending to the wounded troops.  At the age of 14, Andrew Jackson was an orphan, and look what he was able to do.  Look what he was able to build.

It was during the Revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite.  Does that sound familiar to you?  (Laughter.)  I wonder why they keep talking about Trump and Jackson, Jackson and Trump.  Oh, I know the feeling, Andrew.  (Laughter.)

Captured by the Redcoats and ordered to shine the boots of a British officer, Jackson simply refused.  The officer took his saber and slashed at Jackson, leaving gashes in his head and hand that remained permanent scars for the rest of his life.  These were the first and far from the last blows that Andrew Jackson took for his country that he loved so much.

From that day on, Andrew Jackson rejected authority that looked down on the common people.  First as a boy, when he bravely served the Revolutionary cause.  Next, as the heroic victor at New Orleans where his ragtag -- and it was ragtag -- militia, but they were tough.  And they drove the British imperial forces from America in a triumphant end to the War of 1812.  He was a real general, that one.

And, finally, as President -- when he reclaimed the people’s government from an emerging aristocracy.  Jackson’s victory shook the establishment like an earthquake.  Henry Clay, Secretary of State for the defeated President John Quincy Adams, called Jackson’s victory “mortifying and sickening”.  Oh, boy, does this sound familiar.  (Laughter.)  Have we heard this?  (Laughter.)  This is terrible.  He said there had been “no greater calamity” in the nation’s history. 

The political class in Washington had good reason to fear Jackson’s great triumph.  “The rich and powerful,” Jackson said, “too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”  Jackson warned they had turned government into an “engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many.”

Andrew Jackson was the People’s President, and his election came at a time when the vote was finally being extended to those who did not own property.  To clean out the bureaucracy, Jackson removed 10 percent of the federal workforce.  He launched a campaign to sweep out government corruption.  Totally.  He didn't want government corruption.  He expanded benefits for veterans.  He battled the centralized financial power that brought influence at our citizens’ expense.  He imposed tariffs on foreign countries to protect American workers.  That sounds very familiar.  Wait till you see what’s going to be happening pretty soon, folks.  (Laughter.)  It’s time.  It’s time.  

Andrew Jackson was called many names, accused of many things, and by fighting for change, earned many, many enemies.  Today the portrait of this orphan son who rose to the presidency hangs proudly in the Oval Office, opposite the portrait of another great American, Thomas Jefferson.  I brought the Andrew Jackson portrait there.  (Applause.)  Right behind me, right -- boom, over my left shoulder.  

Now I’m honored to sit between those two portraits and to use this high office to serve, defend, and protect the citizens of the United States.  It is my great honor.  I will tell you that.

From that desk I can see out the wonderful, beautiful, large great window to an even greater magnolia tree, standing strong and tall across the White House lawn.  That tree was planted there many years ago, when it was just a sprout carried from these very grounds.  Came right from here.  (Applause.)  Beautiful tree.

That spout was nourished, it took root, and on this, his 250th birthday, Andrew Jackson’s magnolia is a sight to behold.  I looked at it actually this morning.  Really beautiful.  (Applause.)  

But the growth of that beautiful tree is nothing compared to growth of our beautiful nation.  That growth has been made possible because more and more of our people have been given their dignity as equals under law and equals in the eyes of God. 

Andrew Jackson as a military hero and genius and a beloved President.  But he was also a flawed and imperfect man, a product of his time.  It is the duty of each generation to carry on the fight for justice.  My administration will work night and day to ensure that the sacred rights which God has bestowed on His children are protected for each and every one of you, for each and every American.  (Applause.) 

We must all remember Jackson’s words:  that in “the planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer,” we will find muscle and bone of our country.  So true.  So true.  

Now, we must work in our time to expand -- and we have to do that because we have no choice.  We're going to make America great again, folks.  We're going to make America great again -- (applause) -- to expand the blessings of America to every citizen in our land.  And when we do, watch us grow.  Watch what’s happening.  You see it happening already.  You see it with our great military.  You see it with our great markets.  You see it with our incredible business people.  You see it with the level of enthusiasm that they haven’t seen in many years.  People are proud again of our country.  And you're going to get prouder and prouder and prouder, I can promise you that.  (Applause.) 

And watch us grow.  We will truly be one nation, with deep roots, a strong core, and a very new springtime of American greatness yet to come.

Andrew Jackson, we thank you for your service.  We honor you for your memory.  We build on your legacy.  And we thank God for the United States of America. 

Thank you very much, everybody.  (Applause.)  

END 4:54 P.M. CDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2mwnITX

[repwincoml4a0a5]

Remarks by the President on 250th Anniversary of the Birth of President Andrew Jackson

The Hermitage Nashville, Tennessee

4:44 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Wow, what a nice visit this was.  Inspirational visit, I have to tell you. I’m a fan.  I’m a big fan.

I want to thank Howard Kettell, Francis Spradley of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, and all of the foundation’s incredible employees and supporters for preserving this great landmark, which is what it is -- it’s a landmark of our national heritage. 

And a special thank you to Governor Bill Haslam and his incredible wife, who -- we just rode over together -- and Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, two great friends of mine, been a big, big help.  Both incredible guys. 

In my address to Congress, I looked forward nine years, to the 250th anniversary of American Independence.  Today, I call attention to another anniversary: the 250th birthday of the very great Andrew Jackson.  (Applause.)  And he loved Tennessee, and so do I -- to tell you that.  (Applause.) 

On this day in 1767, Andrew Jackson was born on the backwoods soil of the Carolinas.  From poverty and obscurity, Jackson rose to glory and greatness -- first as a military leader, and then as the seventh President of the United States.  He did it with courage, with grit, and with patriotic heart.  And by the way, he was one of our great Presidents.  (Applause.) 

Jackson was the son of the frontier.  His father died before he was born.  His brother died fighting the British in the American Revolution.  And his mother caught a fatal illness while tending to the wounded troops.  At the age of 14, Andrew Jackson was an orphan, and look what he was able to do.  Look what he was able to build.

It was during the Revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite.  Does that sound familiar to you?  (Laughter.)  I wonder why they keep talking about Trump and Jackson, Jackson and Trump.  Oh, I know the feeling, Andrew.  (Laughter.)

Captured by the Redcoats and ordered to shine the boots of a British officer, Jackson simply refused.  The officer took his saber and slashed at Jackson, leaving gashes in his head and hand that remained permanent scars for the rest of his life.  These were the first and far from the last blows that Andrew Jackson took for his country that he loved so much.

From that day on, Andrew Jackson rejected authority that looked down on the common people.  First as a boy, when he bravely served the Revolutionary cause.  Next, as the heroic victor at New Orleans where his ragtag -- and it was ragtag -- militia, but they were tough.  And they drove the British imperial forces from America in a triumphant end to the War of 1812.  He was a real general, that one.

And, finally, as President -- when he reclaimed the people’s government from an emerging aristocracy.  Jackson’s victory shook the establishment like an earthquake.  Henry Clay, Secretary of State for the defeated President John Quincy Adams, called Jackson’s victory “mortifying and sickening”.  Oh, boy, does this sound familiar.  (Laughter.)  Have we heard this?  (Laughter.)  This is terrible.  He said there had been “no greater calamity” in the nation’s history. 

The political class in Washington had good reason to fear Jackson’s great triumph.  “The rich and powerful,” Jackson said, “too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.”  Jackson warned they had turned government into an “engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many.”

Andrew Jackson was the People’s President, and his election came at a time when the vote was finally being extended to those who did not own property.  To clean out the bureaucracy, Jackson removed 10 percent of the federal workforce.  He launched a campaign to sweep out government corruption.  Totally.  He didn't want government corruption.  He expanded benefits for veterans.  He battled the centralized financial power that brought influence at our citizens’ expense.  He imposed tariffs on foreign countries to protect American workers.  That sounds very familiar.  Wait till you see what’s going to be happening pretty soon, folks.  (Laughter.)  It’s time.  It’s time.  

Andrew Jackson was called many names, accused of many things, and by fighting for change, earned many, many enemies.  Today the portrait of this orphan son who rose to the presidency hangs proudly in the Oval Office, opposite the portrait of another great American, Thomas Jefferson.  I brought the Andrew Jackson portrait there.  (Applause.)  Right behind me, right -- boom, over my left shoulder.  

Now I’m honored to sit between those two portraits and to use this high office to serve, defend, and protect the citizens of the United States.  It is my great honor.  I will tell you that.

From that desk I can see out the wonderful, beautiful, large great window to an even greater magnolia tree, standing strong and tall across the White House lawn.  That tree was planted there many years ago, when it was just a sprout carried from these very grounds.  Came right from here.  (Applause.)  Beautiful tree.

That spout was nourished, it took root, and on this, his 250th birthday, Andrew Jackson’s magnolia is a sight to behold.  I looked at it actually this morning.  Really beautiful.  (Applause.)  

But the growth of that beautiful tree is nothing compared to growth of our beautiful nation.  That growth has been made possible because more and more of our people have been given their dignity as equals under law and equals in the eyes of God. 

Andrew Jackson as a military hero and genius and a beloved President.  But he was also a flawed and imperfect man, a product of his time.  It is the duty of each generation to carry on the fight for justice.  My administration will work night and day to ensure that the sacred rights which God has bestowed on His children are protected for each and every one of you, for each and every American.  (Applause.) 

We must all remember Jackson’s words:  that in “the planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer,” we will find muscle and bone of our country.  So true.  So true.  

Now, we must work in our time to expand -- and we have to do that because we have no choice.  We're going to make America great again, folks.  We're going to make America great again -- (applause) -- to expand the blessings of America to every citizen in our land.  And when we do, watch us grow.  Watch what’s happening.  You see it happening already.  You see it with our great military.  You see it with our great markets.  You see it with our incredible business people.  You see it with the level of enthusiasm that they haven’t seen in many years.  People are proud again of our country.  And you're going to get prouder and prouder and prouder, I can promise you that.  (Applause.) 

And watch us grow.  We will truly be one nation, with deep roots, a strong core, and a very new springtime of American greatness yet to come.

Andrew Jackson, we thank you for your service.  We honor you for your memory.  We build on your legacy.  And we thank God for the United States of America. 

Thank you very much, everybody.  (Applause.)  

END 4:54 P.M. CDT

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2mwnITX