#...lets be honest that was probably thanks to unification

[let-your-chaos-explode]

Hello! May I request Lady Lesso x fem!reader that’s a professor and kind of embarrassed because they’re sexually inexperienced and afraid they won’t be good in bed. However that actually makes Lesso uncharacteristically soft and she reassures the reader she still wants them (and maybe even more?) Thank youuuuu

This one's for you Anon! I hope this fulfills at least some of what you were looking for!

Hands-On Experience

You had been at the School for Good and Evil for nearly three years now. It was a decidedly odd experience, teaching the school as a collective rather than the separate courses you were used to before the Readers came. It certainly was a learning curve. 

What you could say for it was the unavoidable mingling between members of the Ever staff and Never staff. Where before, you had only ever had interactions with the teachers at the School for Good, now you enjoyed socializing with members of both schools. One in particular. 

You had not attended school the same time Lady Lesso had. She was just a few years older than you and had left just as you had arrived. Your first ever encounter with the Dean of Evil had been during your hiring interview. She had remained stoic throughout the process, only speaking up to ask a few procedural questions. Professor Dovey had taken the lead in lieu of the School Master, and now knowing what you know, that was probably for the best. After you were hired, you had practically no interactions with the red-haired woman. That was fine enough... To be honest, she intimidated you. 

Her booming voice in the halls as she addressed the students startled you every time. And the cold glare that often adorned her sharp features gave you chills. And that’s not even to mention the way she manhandled those in her path with her cane…

Evers and Nevers avoided each other like the plague. And then there was unification. 

Forced together for staff meetings, shared classes, social events…suddenly everywhere you went, she was there too. And you found, now, you didn’t mind.  The first time she spoke to you outside of a strictly professional manner, you thought you would drop dead from shock. Or embarrassment. Or both. She was curt but…pleasant? You were never the most eloquent Ever, but you were mortified to find yourself stumbling over your words. It was only made worse by the knowing glint in her eye.

After that, encounters with Lady Lesso became more frequent. She started sitting across from you in staff meetings and seemed to thoroughly enjoy making you blush with her very direct eye contact. She also became a casual patron of the library, and you often found her reading in your preferred alcove. She had even taken to joining you in your nightly walks around the garden. She claimed to have been doing it for years but you couldn’t recall ever seeing her on this side of the bridge prior to unification. Truth be told, you looked forward to those moments the most. And yet, you weren’t entirely certain of her motives. Not that you were complaining! Her presence was intoxicating, and now that you had grown accustomed to her invading your space, you found you didn’t want her to leave. You just weren’t sure how to ask if she was as interested in exploring something more as you were. You weren’t sure how to navigate any aspect of romance, actually. 

Let’s just say you were frighteningly close to becoming a wish fish during your tutelage. 

Friendship…romance…sex… none of it exactly came naturally to you. Oh, you were very interested. You just were hopeless when it came to reading subtle cues. Or making the first move. Put simply, you were inexperienced. And when comparing yourself to someone that absolutely oozed sex appeal and confidence, it left you feeling lacking. What could you possibly have to offer? It made you hesitate. Even when you were almost certain the former Dean of Evil was sending some rather obvious signals. 

It’s how you found yourself in your current predicament. 

It was the first annual unity ball. Students of heroism and villainy alike covered the entirety of the dance floor. A few odd ones here and there clung to the outskirts, much like you did. A bolder few kept eyeballing you as they, not-so-secretively, attempted to spike the punch. Chaperoning these events was the absolute bane of teaching here. The music was too loud, the clashing scent of all the perfume made your head spin, and there wasn’t enough room to move without feeling like you were stepping on somebody else’s toes. You had felt distinctly out of place until she settled next to you. 

“You look about as happy to be here as I am.” Lady Lesso snorted, reclining into the wall next to you, allowing your shoulders to brush. 

You inclined your head to acknowledge her while maintaining hard eye contact with the teenagers with the flask. Lady Lesso followed your line of sight and a broad grin split across her face. 

“Oh! How I absolutely adore the dumb ones!” She laughed with glee. “Hold my coat!” 

You did a double take as the former Dean of Evil shucked her woolen gray coat and tossed it in your face. Underneath, she wore a silken, white, button-down shirt accented by a black, pin-striped waistcoat. The cut of the vest came up under her breasts, rather than over, and accented beautifully the lovely shape of her figure. Even more so was the distinct lack of a tie. Her legs were clad in tight pin-striped pants that seemed to cling to her impossibly long legs. Tall, stiletto heels gave her added height and a sultry feminine flare to her sharp outfit. Your eyes couldn’t help but follow the sway of her hips as she sauntered over to the pair of students. 

You couldn’t hear what was said over the music, but you could make a few guesses based on the comically wide eyes and facial grimacing. Lady Lesso leaned in between the two to whisper something, probably violent, into their ears and their faces paled dramatically. With a harsh glare, she held out her palm and two flasks were deposited promptly into her waiting hand before the students practically sprinted away. 

Lesso resumed her place beside you and handed you one of the confiscated flasks. You watched incredulously as she popped open the cap of the other and downed a mouthful of the contraband. She gave a brief cringe and then shrugged, taking another swig. 

“What are you doing?” You hissed in disbelief, eyeing the flask in your own hand. 

Lesso smirked and rose a perfectly sculpted brow. “Listen, kitten…you’ll learn that sometimes the only way to make it through the torture they put us through is to be a little buzzed and roll with the punches.”

You could feel your cheeks burning under her stare and so naturally, you toss back a gulp of the repulsive liquor. The cheap booze burned your throat and you coughed and spluttered. Lesso clapped a slender hand against your back and threw you a salacious wink, doing nothing to curb the heat blazing in your chest, cheeks, and throat. 

Lesso reached over and snatched the flask out of your hands and stashed it in the back pocket of her pants. You didn’t think it was possible to be envious of a piece of metal. She tilted her head and studied you critically before coming to some sort of conclusion with a decisive nod of her head. 

“Let’s go, princess.” Lesso grasped your elbow and started leading you out of the hall. 

The contact at your arm was warm and left you tingling. You uncertainly followed her lead, curious, but incomprehensibly trusting. Where were you going?

“Somewhere quiet.” She answered.

You startled. You didn’t realize you had said that aloud. Lesso pivoted quickly and shoved open a door with her cane, steering you inside. With a glowing finger, the door slammed shut and bolted. Slowly, your eyes dragged up her lithe form before settling on her eyes. Her emerald gaze held a distinctly predatory gleam. The heat you’ve been feeling sank to your core. 

She leaned with both hands into the head of her cane and gave your body an appreciative look. You followed her gaze to your gown. The simplicity of the violet-colored dress suddenly felt inadequate. Embarrassment once again colored your cheeks. The cool tip of Lesso’s cane found purchase under your chin as she gently lifted your face to look at her. 

“None of that, kitten.” She purred. “You look absolutely ravishing. Good enough to eat.”

Lesso let the cane drop and she closed the space between you. 

“Uh…I uh…” You stammered nervously. 

“Now correct me if I’m wrong, which I never am…” She hushed, placing a long finger against your lips. “You’ve been having rather unprofessional thoughts about us.”

Panic hit you like a horse’s hoof to the chest. Was this really happening?

Her cool finger moved down the column of your throat and her palm flattened against your racing heart. 

“Was I right?” Lesso asked with a mischievous smile. 

Your tongue felt like lead in your mouth as any and all words failed you when all you wanted to do was shout, YES! 

Your hesitation gave her pause. Lesso’s brows furrowed into a concerned pinch between her eyes and she took a significant step back. And while you could now breathe a little easier, you missed the warmth. 

“I’m sorry if I misunderstood.” She said roughly, clearly caught off guard.  

Your hands shot out without your permission and found purchase against her forearms, halting her retreat. You stared at them dumbly for a moment before her softened voice cut through your thoughts. 

“Y/N?” 

You swallowed thickly against the sudden dryness of your mouth and your eyes pleaded with her to have some patience with you. 

“I uh…” you cleared your throat. “I’m not very good at…this.” 

A confused frown joined her worried expression as she struggled to follow your point. 

“This?” Lesso prompted. 

“Uh…” You gestured vaguely between you, hoping she would understand. 

Comprehensión started to dawn in her eyes and she raked her gaze over you once more. 

“Have you never had sex?” She asked you plainly. 

Shame washed over you in agonizing waves and you wanted nothing more than the floor to swallow you whole in that moment. 

The back of her hand caressed your cheek in an uncharacteristically soft gesture before tucking an errant strand of hair behind your ear. 

“Y/N, you have to know that I would never force you to do something you didn’t want to do. I might be evil, but I’m not a monster.” 

Your hands reached out once more of their own accord and fiddled with a button of her vest. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to!” You assured emphatically. “I just don’t know how.” 

Lesso’s hand stilled yours against her abdomen and the other lifted your chin as she ducked to meet your gaze. It was a sea of green you wanted to drown in.

“Just being with you has been a breath of fresh air, Y/N. I have rather…enjoyed getting to know you. And if you’d allow me to, I’d like to get to know you a little bit better.” 

“What if I’m not any good at it?” You asked worriedly. 

Lesso chuckled softly and shook her head. “You Evers and your inescapable need to be perfect.”

She grabbed you by the waist and pulled you firmly against her chest, her other hand coming to rest behind your neck. She brushed her nose tenderly against your own, giving you time to pull away if you wished. Feeling emboldened, you closed the distance and captured her painted lips with your own. She let you take control of the kiss, granting you access as your tongue slid along the seam of her lips. Your kiss was tentative…exploratory. Lesso’s fingers dug into your waist and pulled you impossibly closer as you moaned into her mouth. With a quick swipe of her tongue to your palate, she pulled back. 

“You see, the thing about sex is that it can be quite instinctual.” Lesso rasped into your ear. “But, oh… the things I could teach you.”

You felt the tip of her tongue swirl against the shell of your ear and sharp teeth nip at the lobe. Her breath against the sensitive skin sent shivers down your spine and wetness to pool in your center. 

“Will you let me show you just how much I want you?” She asked you softly, searching your eyes. 

Feeling your confidence soar, you let a salacious smile stretch across your face. 

“Lead the way, Professor Lesso. I would enjoy some hands-on experience.” 

[mskoreodyssey]

[TLOK] Book Four: Balance (Fix)

Part 1 // Part 2

Fix Book 4 by Tim Hickson

Rules

13 episodes // Fixing (not a full rewrite)

3 main issues on Book 4

Korrasami: Let's be honest, Korrasami wasn't really set up. Or at least it wasn't enough for me. I mean, Nickelodeon was afraid that the moment a child saw two women kiss on a screen, they would immediately combust into rainbow confetti. So we're going to fix that.

The giant robot was weird out of place and tonally bizarre.

Kuvira: She kind of bounces from sympathetic to cartoonish villain, and I think we can handle her better in just a few scenes.

(We've actually already fixed the previous three seasons, and you don't need to watch those videos if you don't want to.  All you really need to know is...)

Korra’s Bending: Korra has regained her water-bending and air-bending after Amon, but not her fire-bending and earth-bending quite yet.

She's semi-banned from Republic City because the Equalists.

Opal is an air-bender, but she's not a Beifong. Or she is a Beifong, but not an airbender. It doesn't really matter, it's whichever you prefer.

(But do go check out those other videos they're linked up in the corner.)

[Episode 1: After All These Years]

Just like in the series, we jump forward three years in time. Prince Wu is about to be crowned Earth King, Mako is his bodyguard. While Bolin and Varrick are working with Kuvira to unite the Earth Kingdom after the chaos, in the wake of Zaheer. We are introduced to Kuvira in that same iconic scene on the rail line, which is just fantastic, a brilliant way to introduce your main antagonist.

(But there is going to be one slight world-building change here. So in the show, supposedly every province of the Earth Kingdom fell into anarchy and chaos after Zaheer killed the Earth Queen in Ba Sing Se, now there's bandits everywhere. But the thing is, the Earth Kingdom is extremely decentralized politically, already. Ba Sing Se falling apart would not cause the rest of it to fall into chaos. Like, imagine if Florida collapsed, it wouldn't mean that California collapses as well. But Ba Sing Se was still the biggest boy on the block, and if any of these outlying provinces started fighting amongst each other, then the Earth King could probably step in to stop them. So we're actually going to make it so that the chaos that the show talks about, was the result of Earth Kingdom provinces picking up old grievances in a ton of little civil wars with nobody to stop them.)

This does three things:

It's more realistic.

It means that Kuvira isn't just extorting and blackmailing these states into giving up control so that they feel safe again. Yeah, she's still extorting them, but she's extorting lords who want to wage their own little petty wars for selfish gain, wars that affect the common people the most. In the Opening Episode, she'll confront the governor, but this time she'll say something like, “Your people are running out of food, your borders are collapsing, you can't wage this little war of yours any longer. The question is not if your people will starve, but when. You'll stop this little tantrum, put down your grievances against the Yai Province, and return to the fold of the Earth Kingdom- your people will thank you for it. You'll remain in charge, but under my supervision”.

I actually think it's more interesting to have Kuvira go from someone who puts down war-mongers in the name of unification and order and peace, to becoming a war-monger herself. It'll also make Bolin and Varrick's moral decision to leave her cause more complex.

(Because in the show, it's really just about them finding out the truth of how extortionate and black-maily Kuvira always was.)

In this version, they'll instead have to reconcile their own values with her actions as she begins pushing too far and taking states that aren't like this. In the show, they're just kind of lied to. We also see how decadent and disconnected Prince Wu is from his own people, even though he insists he's just like everyone else. And we're meant to see how antiquated the institution of the monarchy itself is. Immediately juxtaposed with Kuvira's efficiency and meritocracy and inclusiveness. Opal, as in the show doesn't like Kuvira, and this has caused a rift between her and Bolin. Elsewhere, Korra is wandering in the wilderness, having renounced her identity as the Avatar. She's managed to heal enough after Zaheer to walk again. But she's lost emotionally and spiritually, losing cage fire fight after cage fight. So Episode One is basically the same. These characters are in the same places, and we've really just softened Kuvira's starting position.

[Episode 2: Korra Alone]

This episode parallels Zuko Alone, centering on a single character's struggles when they feel most lost in themselves: physically, emotionally and spiritually. And it's literalized by them being lost out in the world.

(Some people have complained that it's dumb that Korra is struggling so much here because, I don't know, she went through harder things before and she was fine. But I think this really misunderstands trauma and Korra's arc. Trauma isn't a linear experience, and the path to recovery is rarely predictable. Especially when you've been physically debilitated the way that Korra has, it has lasting psychological implications. We often feel out of control of our own bodies, and I think the show captures that really, really well.)

We see flashbacks of the past few years as she tried to heal at the South Pole. Meditation and physical therapy and Katara's healing, and in this time, she did manage to improve. She even managed to get back some inkling of the earth-bending and fire-bending inside her again, the same way that she regained her water-bending in Season Two. She can feel it inside her just beyond the tips of her fingers, but she can't control the elements at all. And she certainly can't control the Avatar state, just like she feels barely in control of herself. “Of course I'm frustrated!”, she says, “A crazy man poisoned me, and now I can't dress myself, or cook for myself, o-or do anything for myself! And this whole time, my friends have been off helping the world while I'm stuck here with you, and you can't even heal me! I'm sorry, that came out wrong. I'm tired, Katara. I'm so tired”. People do come to visit her every so often and send her letters. But Korra feels so isolated that she stops replying to all of them, except Asami.

(We’re meant to get the impression that these two have bonded over the last few years. I remember watching this when the series first aired and thinking it was odd that she wrote back to Asami. But hopefully in our rewrites of Season Two and Three and One, we've given that a little bit more of a build up.)

Korra writes to Asami saying, “Don't tell the others I'm writing to you and not them. [she writes] I mean, Tenzin is all busy, and Mako just keeps talking about how excited he is for me to come back to being the Avatar. And Bolin just says, ‘All I need is a distraction’. I can't handle that... it's like I've hit a wall. Sometimes I worry if I'll ever fully recover. You're the only one that seems to listen”.

(Asami is her confident in this scene, and we're meant to see a level of empathy from Asami, that Korra doesn't get from others. There's a romantic subtext here too, but I didn't want it to be about sexual attraction. And when you look at the supposed evidence of them building up to this relationship in the series. A lot of it's just casual flirting between the two of them, which I think is a pretty shallow way to explore the relationship. It's got to be about this intense sense of isolation and shame after having lost so much in her place in the world, and Asami is the only one that seems to be able to break through.)

So Korra decides to leave, she's fed up, and she tells everyone that she's going to Republic City. But after being defeated by just a couple of bandits on the way, all her insecurities takeover, and she begins that wilderness wandering. She can't get better, she can't return. So what is she to do but disappear? Korra cutting off her hair here resonates symbolically with that moment that Zuko does the same. In both cases, it's a rejection of their identity, as much as it is them being unable to figure out who they should become. The only person Korra keeps in contact with throughout her wandering is Asami. Sending her letters from place to place, and Asami keeps her secret from the others. Korra travels to the North Pole, to the Spirit World, to the desert. She seeks out a dragon and badger-moles, the original benders. Hoping to reconnect with the Avatar State and the final two elements, and all the while she keeps seeing this dark-chained vision of herself following her. This is the image of herself in the moment of her trauma. Her journeys across the world, though, end her up in those same fighting pits we saw at the end of Episode One. And it's here that she stops sending Asami letters, wanting to truly fall into hiding. Finally, she's led into the swamp, just like she is in the series and to Toph. 

(Again, Episode Two is virtually identical, with just a few twicks to make Korra's journey align with rewrite. And how she's trying to get back to those elements, her identity or sense of self, and to further that relationship with Asami, which is so important.)

[Episode 3: The Coronation]

This episode plays out again, basically the same. Prince Wu is due to be crowned. But we continue to see how immature, ineffectual and inappropriate not only he is, but the institution of the monarchy.

(That's a crucial difference, right? So fantasy, including, like Avatar the first series has this: All you need is the right man on the throne approach. But Season Four explicitly says “No”, the monarchy itself is antiquated and bad as a system, and Kuvira's speech highlighting that technology and innovation should be the way forward. You can't help but kind of want her to take power, and that's a really cool trick.)

Again, though, we're gonna soften her rhetoric:

Be clearly less villainous

Actually make her more fascist, which is clearly the inspiration her character design is coming from. If you didn't get it from the whole, “I will bring order in uniforms, and everything”.  

(“And let me assure my fellow leaders of one thing: We will not interfere in your internal affairs, and we expect you not to interfere in the Earth Empires. As we bring our people back together and reclaim our historic lands”)

Kuvira will say something like, “And let me assure my fellow leaders of one thing: We will not interfere in your internal affairs, and we expect you not to interfere with ours. As we finally bring back the Earth Kingdom peoples back together and reclaim our historic lands”.

(See, Dictatorships often slip into fascism when they take on this nationalistic historical narrative, right. With representing the “P” People and “L” Land. Often as a populist way to frame their restoring order, or seeking justice for historical wrongs. This leans into Kuvira's populism and shows how she's slipping from it. Just being about bringing Order to bringing about Her Order, that's the difference. That there is now kind of a virtue to her herself being in charge, it's got to be her. Whereas in the show, she seemingly frames herself as the aggressor from the start.)

So Mako and Bolin fall out over whether Kuvira is doing the right thing. Bolin is fully drinking the Kool Aid here. Kuvira is uniting the Earth Kingdom and helping the common people. While Mako is defending Prince Wu, who sort of represents this antiquated world order. Meanwhile, Toph quote “Trains” Korra, by basically beating her up. And afterwards they sit down to talk. Korra explains how she's tried for so long to find what she's been missing, a new way to get back to who she was, but she can't find it. She asks, “What made you want to go off the grid?” And Toph says, “I'm more connected to the world than you've ever been! The roots and vines... here they run all over the world. I can see Su and Lin, and Zaofu, and Republic City. I see all those I've forgotten, all those I love. You're blind compared to me though”. Toph senses that there's still some metal inside Korra from when Zaheer here poisoned her. Which Korra leaps at because this is an answer, this is why she's still been so ill. This is why she can't get back to who she wants to be. But Toph can't bend it out of her because Korra can't relax. And Toph tells her, “Maybe you don't want to get rid of the poison because it means you have an excuse for not going back to being the Avatar, and you don't have to risk getting hurt again”. Korra shaken by that suggestion that on some level she doesn't want to go back, wanders off.

[Episode 4: The Calling]

Korra has managed to throw her friends off her trail. But with Kuvira taking power, they decide they need to find her. Asami is worried because Korra's letters have stopped. Though she only tells Tenzin this, not Mako and Bolin. Asami gives Korra's last known whereabouts, and Tenzin sends his kids to find her. After the air-bender kids leave, though, we see Asami packing a bag too. Korra explores this spiritual swamp, because Toph really isn't being all that helpful. She tries over and over again to connect with the Fire and Earth elements in spiritual ways. She even encounters a badger-mole and mimics them for a time. But just as she exercises some small control over the metal in her body, she suffers from a flashback. That dark version of herself, and then Zaheer, striking at her, collapsing in a spasm of pain and memory.

(We're only really adding in the badger-mole here. It might not be necessary, but she needed to encounter one at some point in this story I feel, same with the dragon.)

The air-bender kids follow Korra's trail, but when the trail runs dead, Jinora decides she's going to try contact Korra through spiritual means, and begins meditating. Ikki gets captured by Earth Empire soldiers, but Meelo manages to rescue her. Toph brings Korra to the Banyan Grove, this huge spiritual tree. Toph tells her, “Your problem is, you've been disconnected for too long. Disconnected from the people who love you, disconnected from yourself. I can sense everyone I need from here, and so can you��. Following Toph’s instructions, Korra touches and meditates with the Banyan Grove. She reaches out to the people she needs most, and at the same time, Jinora's eyes snap open with realization. So I'd like to frame this moment so that we think these two are connecting, Jinora and Korra. When it's actually revealed that Korra has connected with Asami. Who has followed the trail on her own and was drawn into the swamp. When Korra imagines the people she needs and loves, she sees Asami first.

(See, there is a real problem with Korrasami in Season Four, okay? We don't get a single real scene between the two of them until Episode Seven. Over half the series gone, and even then, it doesn't amount to much more than light flirting. It certainly doesn't communicate anything deep about their personal relationship. Asami just gets mad at Korra over her dad. So in this, we're working to make Asami this emotional touchstone again, and give them more screen time together.)

Asami will help Korra patch up, after a training as they talk. “I suppose you're here to tell me the whole world has gone to hell without me.” “Well, yeah... But that can wait till later, you stopped writing.” “Not exactly a post office and a swamp.” “Why are you out here all alone?” “I met an old friend, you could say.” “Has it helped?” “I thought, if I could find something out here that would help heal me. Nothing was working back in the South Pole, I thought.” “It's all right, you don't have to say.” “I just get so angry because I've tried so hard, and I'm still not better.” She puts her head in her hands. “Why did you come? Why'd you find me?” “Because every time you try to go at it alone, it doesn't work out, but I'm here now.” “I guess you are.”  And just like in the show, having reconnected with others and herself, Korra bends the poison metal out of herself, allowing her to re-enter the Avatar State, and regaining control of the earth and fire elements.

(I didn't want to make this story about Korra getting the four elements, we've already had that with Aang. So I wanted to bring it back in, but with more meaning in a different way.)

In the final scene of this episode, Jinora reveals that she has sensed Kuvira's army moving towards Zaofu, and a lot quicker than they ever first suspected.

[Episode 5: Enemy at the Gates]

This is the first episode that we really see the Spirit-Vine laser, that Varrick and Bolin are working on.

(I am not a fan of this plot beat or aesthetic, whatever you want to call it, for two reasons.)

It feels like bringing artillery into Middle Earth, it just doesn't fit.

And more importantly... This whole thing, right, is based on the idea that spiritual energy is a harness-able, quantifiable force of nature in the world that can be turned into a laser. No!

(Spiritual energy is a psychological, philosophical thing. Even as far back as Aang's conversation with Guru Patik. The power of spirituality or the like, was so much more subtle. Expressed through bending ability, and wisdom, and the ability to controls one body. Like Kyoshi used it to slowdown her aging, to 230 years. Turning it into raw power like this, feels almost antithetical to the role spirits and spirituality have played in the series. Just like I don't like the laser battle at the end of Season Two, I don't like this. It is also meant to be a rough parallel to nuclear weapons.)

Varrick even says, “This power is too dangerous for anyone to have”.

(But I don't know. I don't think the show explores that prospect particularly well, you know, especially with how flippantly the laser is used. So, no! We're going to change this. I don't mind the idea of Varrick building super-weapons and having second thoughts, but we're going to scale it back to something like the Schwerer Gustav. The largest piece of artillery ever built by the Nazis that moved along railways. And also, here's why. It's the very inspiration for the railway gun that we see in a later episode. This doesn't feel as unnatural to the world, and it doesn't undermine the spiritual themes.)

As in the show, Varrick will test this new weapon with greater range and destructive power than anything we've seen before. But Varrick is going to have second thoughts, that this can't fall into the wrong hands. Only for Kuvira to insist that she is the right hands, and threaten him.

(One funny side note about this, though. Is so every single time people tried to build these huge artillery guns to be terrifying, they always failed. They were useless, they never worked in battle. And they just always fell apart, and were super expensive failures, I love it. So they're not actually threatening, but this is fiction.)

Kuvira demands Zaofu join the Empire, and when Suyin refuses, Kuvira says, “All right, I'll just take it by force”. Bolin and Varrick are conflicted, they were on board with stabilizing the empire. But not conquering regions that weren't doing anything, that weren't waging war like Zaofu. The two decide to abandon the cause, but here Zhu’li betrays them, and they were captured. Suyin implores Korra to go stop Kuvira herself, just like in the show. But Korra is reluctant, and she'll say something like, “I don't know. Last time I got involved in politics because of my friends, it didn't turn out well. The other nations appointed Kuvira, they should be involved. But fine, I'll talk to her at least. See if I can make her turned back”. Here, She's thinking back to the Water Tribe's civil war. Korra parlays with Kuvira, but it doesn't work. Korra returns only to find Suyin and her two sons have already left to try and assassinate Kuvira.

[Episode 6: The Battle of Zaofu]

This is probably my favorite Korra episode, it is perfect from start to end. Suyin and her sons are captured after trying to assassinate Kuvira, who’s enraged that their peace was broken. Opal wants to attack Kuvira, damning her air-bender oath of non-aggression, but Jinora insists she should keep it. Kuvira challenges Korra to a duel for control of Zaofu, and Korra initially refuses. “The other nations have to be involved”. But when Kuvira says, “Well, all right. I'll just take it anyway”. Korra agrees reluctantly, partly because she has no choice, and also because she wants to prove herself as the Avatar again. And then, Korra gets absolutely nailed in a brilliant scene. This moment where Kuvira says like, “Fight me! Use whatever you want, even the Avatar state”.

(It is such a good tone setter, and moment for our villain, really establishing the threat she poses.)

The thing is, even without the poison, Korra is out of practice and still mentally unstable. She hallucinates a dark version of herself in the middle of the fight, and Zaofu falls. Asami watches in horror, “What's wrong with her? We got the poison out. I don't understand?” Asami rushes to pick Korra up in the last moments, dragging her away. While the air-bender kids whip up a whirlwind to help them escape, Zaofu surrenders. In the meantime, Bolin and Varrick make a daring escape together.

(There's not much else to it. I wish I could spend more time in this episode because it's so damn good, but there are no big changes.)

📖Hello👇Future👇Me✏️’s Legend of Korra

[marahuyos]

anon asked: If requests are still open, I'd like to request claude, edelgard, dimitri and maybe yuri (pre or post timeskip) from fe 3h having to deal with an impulsive s/o who is overprotective if you don't mind me asking

*:･ﾟ✧ i may have messed up the request so sorry sksks

gn!reader

tw: spoilers for all post timeskip routes

✧ Claude von Riegan

• He feels exhilarated and curious all at the same time. He’s never met anyone that piqued his interest as hard as Byleth and... they were Byleth. He hasn’t seen anyone who was as outspoken as you are even when he’s seen a lot of common folk. Hell, even when you two are together, he feels like he hasn’t cracked you down even though you bare your heart to him so easily. He hates the feeling but at the same time he would revel in the risk of leaving him vulnerable for someone that wasn’t himself.

• Speaking of laying bare, he’s not used to this-to have someone else care for him. All his life, he had only himself to depend on, not trusting the words from Almyra and Fodlan alike. He keeps everyone at a respectable distance from his heart and he was content with that.

• But when you came along, everything changed for him.

• He still remembers the day that he first saw you; he was assigned weeding duty from Byleth due to another prank caused by him. Alongside Claude, they picked you, a random student who wanted to be an armored knight at some point, so you always asked Byleth to assign you in weeding. Not the best type of training for your calves and spine but at least it's something productive for Garreg Mach.

• Of course, Claude wouldn't want to pick out weeds so his next scheme is to see how far he could annoy you. Not that he bared any resentment towards you but hey, a man has to kill boredom somehow. Before he could try and see if he could get a beetle to drop in your clothes, other students strolled by. Faceless ones that Claude won't probably remember but he knows that they were the types who mutter under their breath on anything that they find hilarious.

     • "Look at that," one of them says to their friend, "a rat and a loudmouth doing the church's work."      • "Honestly, what were they thinking of letting trash like them in Garreg Mach?"

• Claude could care less about petty words, he's grown past them. But he was taken aback when you raised your voice at the two. "Don't call me a loudmouth if I wring you both by the necks in the next mock battle!"

• And after disposing the beetle, disarming the possible fight that was happening in a weedy field, and convincing Seteth that no, it was not Claude who started the fight this time, he's found an interest in you. He hasn't had this impulsive person in his life other than Judith and it scares him. It scares him that he places his trust in you, knowing that you would say what ever is on your mind and that you might find him repulsive like a street rat.

• But you never do. Past your brazen personality and iron fists when it comes to defending Claude, you still treat him like a person ("Because you deserve it, dumbass. Don't go making a spiel on how mysterious you are.").

• Even when he became the King of Unification, people would remember how he stares at you in absolute reverence whenever you tell him that the new Leicester Alliance is making your head spin harder than Lorenz's pick-up lines.

✧ Edelgard von Hresvelg

• She's grown an interest in you. She's never met anyone who ever spoken their mind so freely compared to you. Sure there was Dorothea, but even the girl has secrets that she keeps to herself. To you, listening to your random spiels about everything that you've seen, Edelgard is not even annoyed. In fact, she looks forward to listening to your daily ramblings.

• Even when people began to talk behind your backs, she still invites you to tea time as you talk. She doesn't mind them but she knows when you hear them as she sighs through her nose when she hears your insults to them. It was another fight that she has to dismiss and another apology towards Seteth.

• Still, she wouldn't change it for the world. Not when you tell her that she was the stupidest person alive to issue a worldwide purge, when she could've headed towards a less bloody path, when she didn't have to waste what little is left of her precious life. She could only let a tired smile stretch across her face as she cradles your bloodied hands.

     • "Maybe so," she said, "but at least... I am somewhat sane when I have you to bring me back to reality."

• Despite this, you never detached from Edelgard's side. As dutifully as her personal guard and lover, you defended her from outlandish cries, from assassination attempts, from her own demons that plague her mind. Your brash words and physical strength is what kept the woman grounded and like hell is Edelgard going to let you go.

• Even when going down in history, historians depicted Edelgard as a ruthless ruler clad in red with her lover holding her like she was their world.

✧ Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd

• He's met his fare share of impulsive people such as Sylvain and Felix. But he hasn't met anyone such as yourself. He practically had heart eyes already when you started spewing how awesome he was a throwing his spear and how he was practically cool in general. He's never met anyone so honest as you that it scares him.

• It scares him how easily it must be to break your heart should he reject you (but thank Seiros he didn't, he'd be a damn fool to do so). But he sees that you were tough as nails. He sees that you don't break as easily compared to plates or the sewn items Mercedes had made. He can't help but be thankful for someone who's as solid as a rock, for someone he can rely on when he feels the winds of change course.

• ... Is what I've described but it's really just holding Dimitri's hand while he blushes so hard you fear he might pass out while you were staring at him with a dumb smile.

• It doesn't help that both of you are overprotective of each other. It wouldn't be long for either party to brandish their weapons at any foreseeable threat. It takes the likes of Dedue, Felix, Raphael when he's available, and Rhea herself to pry you two away from causing mass genocide.

• ... Yeah about that. See what happened in the Azure Moon route. But hey! You weren't the one committing genocide!

• Even if he pushes you away, threatens you, confesses that a monster like him doesn't deserve you, you've returned to becoming Dimitri's anchor. You were the one who slapped some sense (figuratively or literally is up to your interpretation) when the rest of the Blue Lions came back. You've become his anchor and now, his next spouse to lead the new Fodlan in a time of peace.

✧ Yuri Leclerc

• In this case, you were someone in the Abyss just like the Ashen Wolves are. Yuri isn’t the type to let anyone close to him; he only places his trust to those who aren’t savages like Dimitri or Edelgard. In fact, he seems to trust you more than anyone else because of how honest you are even with the rocky start.

• The rocky start being that you were way too honest for your own good. There was no way you survived in the Abyss letting your mouth run like that. He’s always at a complete stand-still when you’re picking fights against his men who questioned his leadership. He hasn’t met anyone who honestly cares for him, the last time he remembers was his own mother. He clenches his fist each time he remembers but it wasn’t anger. He felt... happy knowing that you got his back.

• With you being your honest self, Yuri feels like he can be at ease. He doesn’t have to make multiple personas to talk to you, he’s already seen your true persona. He can let the tension off his shoulders when you say that his current make-up looks like hell and that you wanted to try and fix it for him (and he’ll always let you with a small smirk on his face).

• He’s appreciative of you being overprotective, even when there was a war for Fodlan. Yuri knows that you have his back no matter what and that he’s glad that he has someone like you to lead the Abyss amidst this war. Even if he hasn’t revealed his true name to you, the amount of trust you put on him makes him exhilarating and sick at the same time.

• He hopes that he shouldn’t write your name on his notebook someday soon. But maybe one day, in a Goddess Tower maybe, he would confess to you his true name with your hand in marriage.

[espritdecorpo]

HOW  I  RUN  MY  BLOG.

copy and paste into a new post.

SPEED:

ultimately just depends! sometimes i can reply like within the same days sometimes it takes a little longer to come up with something that i think is a) fitting and b) actionable (so the other person has something to write about!). i'll never cold drop a thread tho so if its taking me a second to get something im probably working on it or got busy with irl! i work full-time for local government so my days can get hectic 😭

REPLIES:

im pretty flexible but i usually prefer mutli-para because i feel like i have more room to explain/describe things outside of dialogue (and i always write grumpy characters so sometimes they don't explain the fun stuff necessarily word for word)

STARTERS:

sometimes! like everything it just depends; i usually like plotting something out a little more before hand but yeah just depends

INBOX:

oh its always open, feel free to send me stuff!

SELECTIVITY:

usually i follow people that i can see our characters interacting. that's kind of the baseline i guess!

WISHLIST:

Crew / Employment ?: I really want Cross to get connected with a crew of confidants or a repeat employer! I love love the idea of Cross being like the Silvio Dante to someone's Tony Soprano or the Riker to someone's Picard LOL. Or Sevika to someone's Silco -- you get it. Especially since she's kind of hit the reset button after leaving Militech and there's a lot of directions she could go character wise!

Old Rivals/Friends: I know it's not everyone's favorite but I love this trope. I think it'd be super cool for Cross to bump into like idk an Arasaka agent they used to cross paths with or a NUSA vet who also was involved in the Unification War.

Longer-term Worldbuildy Plots: I guess this goes with no.1 but I think the idea of multiple characters being involved in some sort of in-universe 'group' forming ( like a gang, task force, ect ) is super cool. Especially when its heavy on the worldbuilding (history, organization, ect) of the group!

Let Cross Have Friends 2022: She's definitely super closed off (largely due to past events + chromed up) and a little egotistical but eventually i'd love to write her establishing some more casual friendships! (once she warms up to someone)

HONEST NOTE:

My messages/inbox/discord (jamie#3904) are always open to chat and plot! I love hearing about and brainstorming ideas of our character's interacting and what trajectory their relationship (friends, enemies, rivals, business partners, employer/employee) can take! and i love heraing about everyone's characters and their ideas they have for them :D

tagged by: @prvtocol, @korctyshka ( thank y'all! ) tagging: everyone, all of you

[yukiwrites]

Finally Together, Now and Forever

This was a commission for a dear friend that took a long time to finish due to personal life getting in the way, but I want to say that I really enjoyed writing this and that I don’t deserve you!! I love you and thank you so much for entrusting your beloved ship to me! Watch out for sin, ye who enters!

Summary: Claude had to leave Fódlan for the sake of both of their nations, but Byleth was determined to follow her beloved to Almyra as fast as possible. Once there, they would finally be able to live out their lives side by side.

Commission info HERE and HERE!

__________________________

After a gruesome war that lasted over 6 years, the unification of Fódlan had finally started.

In Claude’s words, Fódlan was now a newborn; frail and easily upset. For that reason, he had moved back to Almyra so he and Byleth could work hand in hand from either side of the border so as to bring both kingdoms together.

To be completely honest, Byleth was slightly upset that she had to be left alone in Fódlan while her promised one went back home to settle things. Of course, she understood that she had to wear the mantle of a ruler after being the so-called hero of the war, but her home was where Claude -- no, Khalid -- was. So, the moment he stepped out of Fódlan, so did the place where she belonged to.

With that in mind, Byleth worked tirelessly as not only the leader of the Church but as the ruler of the Unified Fódlan with only one goal in mind: pass down her duties to Seteth and move to Almyra to stay with Khalid.

Of course, Khalid was aware that that was their shared purpose, but he didn’t know how much Byleth had pushed up that goal in her own agenda. She worked as though possessed -- assigning new officials, moving the capital of Fódlan to Derdriu, creating a new Knight Order with her own connections to spread throughout the land, selecting noble Houses and commoners alike to govern pieces of land by hand so they would offer their allegiance to the seat of the Leader… To the passerby, it felt as if Byleth had more hours in the day, or at least five more pairs of arms to sign and create documents.

She made sure to instruct the officials that they should pledge their allegiance to the leader of the Unified Fódlan, not Byleth herself, to which some of them nodded in confusion at first. It was only when Byleth announced that she was passing down the mantle to Seteth mere 5 months after being instated that the people around her finally understood her intentions.

Or seemed to understand, at least. For them, Byleth was someone so unlikely that they referred to her as something more than human. She was charismatic, strong, wielded the Sword of the Creator, defeated the possessed King of Liberation, freed the nation of corruption and completely revamped its law system in less than half a year. It was something impossible for the mere common man to compare, so when Byleth stepped down, they felt as though they had been in the presence of a higher being and were eternally grateful for her service.

Scratching her cheek, Byleth felt bad that the people started to see her even more as something impossible when she was simply using whatever means she had at hand to just go be with her love. Yes, she manipulated hands of time once or twice but if she had the power to, why not use it for the benefit of the people (and her own in the meantime)?

Ahem, anyway, Byleth’s point was that she wanted to get back into Khalid’s arms right away and be a bit mischievous while she was at it, so she did not send word ahead of her arrival.

Of course, as the former Leader of the Unified Fódlan, she had sent a missive about her stepping down from power to all of their friendly neighbors (which included Almyra, obviously), but what she didn’t specify was that she left Derdriu on the very next day towards Khalid’s homeland.

She was all smiles as she galloped through the Throat towards the mountain range that would allow her view of Almyra’s western border. From there, she would ride to the neighboring town and fetch a carriage to the capital where she would finally see her beloved.

So they wouldn’t miss each other, she sent word ahead of her the moment she arrived at the neighboring town, wondering what Khalid’s face would be once he received the news that she was basically already at his doorstep.

This trip was strangely liberating.

Byleth was never one to accumulate wealth or belongings, so she only took what she usually did whenever she went on a mercenary mission. It would probably be weird for the onlooker to know that such a lightly packed woman was moving countries and getting married.

But she didn’t care how she looked -- she only wanted to see Khalid one second earlier, even one moment sooner.

By the time the capital was within view, Byleth started to fidget inside the carriage. Had he received her message? Would he be waiting for her once she got off? She could barely contain the smile blooming at the corners of her face.

To her surprise and pleasure, Byleth found a very disheveled Khalid waiting for her at the boarding station, as though he had hurried to meet her there.

“And here I thought nothing could surprise me anymore!” Khalid huffed as he gave his hand for Byleth to exit the carriage. “You got me, Teach-mmph!” He grinned as he called her nickname, but instead of taking his hand, Byleth took his lips by wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Were you surprised?” She asked after placing smaller kisses on his soft lips, taking all the wind of his sails. Khalid blushed for a moment, pressed his lips into a thin line to hide a childish grin from sprouting and dug his face into Byleth’s shoulder for a deeper hug.

He was glad that he left the palace without an attendant, otherwise he would be nagged at the entire way back for this public display of affection. The prince put more strength in his hug, as though he had only just noticed that his loved one was finally within his arms -- hopefully indefinitely this time.

“Honestly, I was so shocked I think I sprouted some grey hairs. Care to check?” He chuckled with a low voice, slowly lifting his face from her shoulder to press his forehead on hers. Byleth hummed as she ran her fingers through his hair, tickling the tip of his ears.

“Hmm, you’re safe for now.” She threaded her hands through his hair, face and beard, as though committing to memory that she had finally arrived… that she was finally with him, ready to walk along life with him by her side. 

“Good. Hopefully my bride won’t give me any more frights like this one in the future.” He teased, finally letting go of the hug to take her by the hand. “Let’s get you to the palace; you must be tired from the trip.”

Byleth huffed, puffing her chest. “Not at all. Actually, I got reenergized the moment I saw you.”

Khalid pressed his lips as his face once again flushed. And here he thought he was the smooth talker of the relationship! How could she throw such a cheesy line with that straight face?

But, well, it wasn’t as though he didn’t feel the same, so he squeezed her hand in his.

“Yeah? Then let’s walk around a bit. I wanna know what you think about Almyra.” He lifted their hand hold with a shy smile, which made Byleth’s chest tingle with emotion.

Even if she couldn’t feel her own heartbeat, the love sprouting from within it was no less true than if she did. Nodding, Byleth allowed herself to be led by Khalid throughout the busy streets of the capital.

Even the buildings themselves were different -- they were built in a specific way that allowed for better air circulation, so one wouldn’t feel hot even in the middle of summer. The streets he guided her through were narrow, to make up for the large corridors that were home to many peddlers, heralds and gardens scattered throughout the city.

There were people dancing, smoking, eating, selling, buying… all amidst a colorful combination of tapestries, cushions and harmonized lifestyles. There were large mosques, with their domes built on rectangular plans and crescent moons on their top built right beside minarets proportional to the size of the mosque… Some of them were decorated with gold mosaic and marble floors, along with colorful walls.

According to Khalid, the capital was the trading hub of the entire Almyra due to its central location -- it wasn’t that far from the border, it also bordered the sea by quite a bit and there was a canal that crossed the entire city towards the other side of the continent. 

True to his words, the port was immense -- to the point that ‘the city of water’, Derdriu, could barely compare. How wonderful it was that they finally managed to put both kingdom’s differences aside to start the trade! They would both profit immensely with this.

Everything was so new and pretty Byleth couldn’t help but stare everywhere in awe.

Khalid chuckled beside her, squeezing her hand to call her attention to him. “To think that before, I could never tell what went on inside your head… Now you’re basically wearing your emotions in your sleeve!”

Still befuddled with all the colors, smells and beauty all around her, Byleth’s eyes shone. “It was you who helped me get in touch with my feelings, so I’m all the more grateful for that.” She replied as though in passing, quickly looking away to marvel at the song of a beautiful bird.

“...” Khalid covered his mouth with his free hand to hide the happy grin that sprouted on his lips as his cheeks flushed again with his bride’s confession. So that was how it was going to be, huh? He had to up his game if he wanted to compete with these cheesy lines Byleth was throwing at him.

He took a more proactive stance in showing her around, pointing at historical places and asking her what she thought they served for so he could boast his own knowledge.

“That place there was where the civil servants had their meetings in my grandfather’s reign. By the time we start our rule, it’s gonna be a thing of the past.”

Byleth’s eyes twinkled with the line about ‘their rule’, as her chest tingled with emotion for being able to be right there with her loved one as they wrote history side by side. “Show me more.” She nodded, puffing her chest.

“Alright, it’s a bit of a trek, but there’s no way one can visit the capital without going to the Grand Bazaar!” He pulled her to walk a bit faster, almost bumping into people who were carrying goods on their heads. The place was absolutely stunning -- it looked so absurdly large, Byleth wondered if they would be able to leave there by the end of the week -- with small and big merchants haggling side by side, huddling themselves to attract the customers’ attention.

There were tapestries, cloths, books, scrolls, perfumes, body oils, incense, food seasoning, fresh produce, paintings, jewelry… it was all sparkling amidst the merchants’ loud voices and people’s laughter all around.

“But be careful, if you weren’t a compulsive shopper before, it would be for the best not to test your will here.” He pointed at her nose with a serious expression, then shifted his gaze to a bag he was suddenly carrying. “... the merchants WILL get the best of you.”

Byleth burst in laughter, slapping Khalid’s shoulder comically. “What is all this?”

“As you can see, I’m also a victim.” He confessed sheepishly, turning back to the cloth merchant he was talking to a moment ago. “That guy’s your partner, right?” he pointed to the jewelry merchant a few stores away, “tell him to bring those three ornaments and gundle here too.”

“Oh, thank you for your patronage! These will go wonderful with your bride’s fair skin!” The man rubbed his hands together in anticipation for the big sale, smiling eagerly to the happy couple.

Byleth cocked her head to the side. “What’re you buying?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on buying stuff for our wedding NOW, but there was this sale so it’s best to take the opportunity that’s handed to you, right?” He winked, making Byleth finally blush.

“Oh…” She shyly looked down before raising her gaze back up. “Let me help with the bags.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll send someone to get it later.” He waved his hand, then placed the bag he was carrying on top of the other purchases. He felt like doing a little mischief so he handed a seal to the merchant who eagerly awaited for the payment. “Someone will come with the gold to carry all the stuff, but don’t worry that I remember the price we agreed.”

Once the man took the seal his face went pale, finally recognizing the man he had just sold a bunch of high-quality items for a bargain: the prince! “W-what, Your Highne-”

“Haha, see you later!” Khalid laughed heartily, pulling Byleth so they could leave before the man suddenly remembered that the prices were different.

They had a spring in their step as the sun started to settle in the horizon, a signal that it was time to go back to the palace to finally introduce Byleth to her new family. The view of the sun’s last golden rays illuminating the colorful city made it for yet another breathtaking moment for Byleth, who took it all in with a deep, comfortable breath.

Watching her settle right into the city that raised him made Khalid feel all mushy inside. He scratched his nose as he guided her towards the palace.

“Since Mother is also a native from Fódlan, she really wanted to be able to play the part of the bride’s family. So you’ll have what she didn’t have, her words.” Khalid said with a proud smile on his lips.

“I have a lot to learn about your customs,” Byleth nodded. “I’ll do whatever is in my power to adapt well so we can live out our lives together, Khalid.” Her eyes shone with resolution as her mouth yet again spouted those kinds of lines with a straight face.

Khalid had to clear his throat to chuckle away the embarrassment, his chest tingling with emotion. “Don’t worry; you’re gonna do great.”

They walked the brightly lit corridors of the palace as Khalid explained where everything was located and how to get there, though he promised to give her a tour later.

“Before rushing out this morning, I managed to tell the people here that I was going to pick you up, so now there’s probably a room ready for you and I’ll take you there after dinner.” The prince opened the twin large doors leading to the royal dining room, revealing the large table full of foregin (ah, not anymore, Byleth was the foregin here) delicacies as the warm smell of food wafted around them.

At the top of the long table sat the Almyran king, Arash; and by his side there was the white skinned queen, Tiana. They welcomed Byleth in with twin smiles and open arms.

“What joy it is to finally meet the one my son spoke of in his letters.” Arash nodded so Byleth could sit, gesturing to his empty side. Khalid sat on his father’s left, taking Byleth to sit beside him.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you both, King Arash and Queen Tiana.” Byleth bowed at her seat, watching how Khalid’s familiar smile was reflected between both of his parents, warming the bride’s heart.

“Please, we’ll be family soon. Call me Mother.” Tiana bobbed her head to the sides, wearing a satisfied grin. “We’ll be peas of a pod, you and I.”

“Hey, hey, hey, remember she’s MY bride, Mother.” Khalid laughed as he took Byleth’s hand -- the one where she wore the ring he had given her before they had separated. He, too, wore the ring she gave him in turn.

Tiana laughed loudly as Arash chuckled quietly, in that kind of harmony that only a coupe that had been together for an entire lifetime could display. Byleth felt that she would be right at home amidst this warm and welcoming family.

Everything had been a new experience the moment she stepped out of Fódlan, which Byleth absorbed like a sponge; she took all that Khalid’s homeland had to offer and accepted it gladly, with all of her being. Arash and Tiana were all smiles as they taught Byleth the names of the dishes and how to eat them during the entire dinner, under Khalid’s warm gaze.

After they reluctantly parted from the royal couple, Khalid led Byleth towards the wing designated for distinguished guests -- she would be moved to the crown princess room after the wedding, though -- walking at slow steps seemingly not wanting to leave her for the day.

“How was your mother accepted by the people of Almyra?” Byleth asked as she smoothed her fingers through the engraved walls.

“Hmm,” Khalid looked up in thought. “I told you that people had -- well, still have -- a lot of prejudice against Fódlan, right? It was a rough childhood and from what I heard -- since Mother and Father wouldn’t tell me with their own mouths -- she went through a lot of stuff back then, too. But in Almyra, strength is deeply appreciated and, boy, you wouldn’t want to fight my Mother.” He barked a laugh, remembering the men Tiana piled up whenever she went out to train.

“But even if she earned her place, you were still mistreated, right?”

“Meh, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t bitter about it all, but it made me who I am today. It led me to Fódlan and, eventually, to you.” He kissed her hand amidst their hold, winking once they made eye contact.

Byleth smiled in turn, squeezing her hold in his as their steps were brought to a halt. They stood in front of Byleth’s room in silence, his fingers intertwined in hers unwilling to let go.

“Today was a long day, and the following days will be equally as long, but I’m glad that you’re here with me, Byleth.” He said in a whisper, as his warmth left hers. Once he was about to take a step back to allow her into her room, Byleth grabbed his sleeve.

“You’re leaving? I thought we would…” She glanced back to the door, biting her lower lip in anticipation.

Khalid’s face heated up with his bride’s suggestion, his body stiffening. “Well, uh, there are still some few weeks to the wedding, so I figured we’d…” He trailed off, awkwardly scratching his cheek.

Byleth tilted her head to the side in confusion. “But we did it before you left.” She said matter-of-factly, forcing the memories of their clumsy first time to resurface. They had been eager to have a taste of one another while also being pressed for time, so their touches were rough and awkward. After they parted, it only made them want each other more; to be able to fully take a hold of one’s beloved body and make it tremble with pleasure under but a touch.

They’ve been longing to be together again for so long their bodies ached.

Khalid gulped with difficulty, suddenly feeling the air very rare around them. “You know what,” he took off the button of his high-necked mantle, “I’m not waiting anymore.” He dove into her lips with a hunger of a starved man, digging his tongue into her mouth.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, Byleth pulled him closer as she leaned on the door. Khalid slid one hand behind her back, gluing their bodies in a way that they could feel all that they had to offer while the other hand shuffled behind her to open the door. Once they were inside, they stumbled between their legs towards the bed, shoving the door closed behind them as an afterthought.

The first thing in Byleth’s mind was how fluffy the bed was -- she bounced right back up once she fell under Khalid -- but soon that thought was replaced by how hot Khalid was when she looked at him from below.

Panting after their long kiss, the couple fumbled with one another’s clothes -- Khalid with the straps around Byleth’s chest and Byleth with the buttons holding his mantle together. She felt the pressure around her chest loosen and immediately took off her top, revealing her bare skin.

Khalid held his breath for a second to appreciate how beautiful his bride was -- down to the shade of pink around her nipples. He licked his lips as he, too, took off his top and set to work on her breasts -- he took one in his mouth as he nudged the other between his fingers.

Byleth’s body shook as she lay down under Khalid’s erotic tongue movements, closing her eyes in pleasure. She dug her nails into his hair, pulling it the better he made her feel.

To be honest, Khalid had researched a lot in the arts of sexual relations after he went back home. He didn’t want Byleth to have that image of the clumsy first timer in her head forever, so he wanted to show off to her as soon as possible -- yet, the moment he had her naked splendor in front of him, his mind drew a blank.

He just wanted to taste her, to have her to himself in all of its meanings.

Trailing his tongue downwards to her navel, Khalid pulled down her shorts with gusto, breathing down on her most intimate part with the intensity of an avid taste-tester. Byleth naturally opened her legs to him, squirming under his touch as he opened her folds to insert his tongue in its midst.

“Ah…” Byleth bemoaned, throwing her head back in pleasure. That served only to spur Khalid’s tongue more as he searched for the spot that made her tremble with only but a tap. Once he felt her twitch with newfound gusto for her beloved’s mouth, Khalid slurped her clit, eager to drink from her most intimate place. “Ahn..!” That made Byleth pull his hair vigorously as her body shook with the sudden jolt of pleasure.

“Your voice is so sweet, my bride.” Khalid murmured in between her folds, threading his fingers through her milky skin towards her sex. Panting heavily, Byleth felt that she was left out, that he had stopped right when it was feeling good.

“You’re, ah… You’re bullying me.” She pouted as he rose from his position to free his pulsating erection from his pants. “You shouldn’t bully your elders, you know.” Byleth tried to tease, but her completely submissive pose made it sound more like a cheeky challenge rather than preaching: completely nude, with her legs spread open and her vulva pulsating with desire.

Khalid licked his lips, feeling the leftover taste of Byleth’s in his tongue. “What if I get addicted to it, Teach?” he said in a low voice, prodding his erection on her entrance. He could feel her twitching around him, as though she wanted to suck him in before he could even penetrate her.

He felt her huffing breath in his neck as he lowered himself to place kisses on her ear, wanting to hear her voice once he put it in from the closest distance as possible. Byleth naturally wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist as she rocked her hips teasingly, inviting him in; tempting him into claiming her as her rightful husband.

To feel her hot breathing on his ear, her eager nails digging on his back in anticipation, the way she moved herself up and down in wait for his entrance… Khalid felt weak in the legs. He bit his beloved's neck as he slid his erection in, slowly being welcomed into her deepest warmth.

“Ahn…!” Byleth let out a loud moan as he slid it in so gradually she had to bite his shoulder so as to keep herself sane. It felt so inexplicably good; to finally conjoin with the one she’s loved for so long… to have his equally deep desire flood her from within; to share the heat with him and only, oh and only him.

“This feels… you feel so good, my bride.” He huffed, pressing his forehead on hers before succumbing to her lips as his lower body pulled out and pushed in rhythmically.

Their moans became one in their kiss, his movements slow and steady at first, but soon gaining momentum in their blind search for pleasure. He dove deep and pulled out entirely, pounding her insides in a way that Byleth never thought possible; in a way that she would grow addicted to in their shared future.

Unwilling to let his lips out of hers, Byleth dug her nails into his scalp once more, pulling him to her making him go deeper with each thrust, making him love her with each movement.

Khalid squeezed his eyes as he approached the epitome of pleasure, his movements accelerating in harmony with the building discharge of their joined satisfaction. Byleth squeezed his shaft within her, the heat within her womb spreading through her entire body after one last deep thrust.

They came at the same time, panting as though they had reached enlightenment. Khalid fell on top of Byleth, exhausted but also refreshed, content but also in need of more. Huffing, Byleth hugged beloved, her legs still weak from the intense orgasm.

“I love you, Khalid.” She confessed amidst their drunk kisses.

“Stole the words out of my mouth, my bride. I love you too.” He closed his eyes to enjoy her tongue one more time, the vigor of their youth spurring them into succumbing to pleasure again and again throughout the night.

True to Khalid’s words from before, the wedding preparations would take a few weeks to be done. In the meantime, Byleth was instructed in how the usual almyran bride behaved during the ceremony and what to watch out for as they prepared themselves to be bound together for eternity.

Tiana took to Byleth like she truly was her own daughter. The queen taught her everything she wished someone had taught her when it was her turn as a bride, and made sure to be the one to preside the henna night once the time came. She wanted Byleth’s pale skin to shine with the culture Tiana absorbed as her own, wanting her daughter to be as happy as she ever could within this land that would one day house their funerals.

The patterns on Byleth and Khalid’s hands were a mirror of each other -- or rather, they complemented each other once they joined hands, blooming a wonderful pattern that would grow even more beautiful on the day of the wedding.

Bridal preparations were on full swing whenever Byleth’s beauty was concerned: Tiana had her body anointed with oil, applied perfumes and washed her hair with jasmine extracts, not to mention the creams and special diets. Byleth’s make-up was done by the lady who knew best how to enhance one’s eyes with their traditional eyeliner which went in perfect harmony with the henna on her hands and feet.

While she got the final touches on herself, Khalid had left from the entrance of the city to preside over a zaffa, a wedding procession, towards the castle. There were many entertainers, loud music, firecrackers and colorful decorations all around, to showcase to anyone, high and low, that their prince was about to get married.

People flocked behind the zaffa merrily, entering the outer castle along with all entertainers. The prince went up the steps towards the place whence his bride waited for him, bowing to his mother (that acted as the bride’s mother) to allow him to take the bride’s hand towards the wedding hall.

Outside, people from all kinds of backgrounds were allowed to enter and enjoy the festivities -- and later they would distribute more food to those of lesser possessions to share their happiness with the entire land.

Once Byleth took Khalid’s hand to get inside, they were finally able to take a look at one another in their wedding attires, both being washed over with emotion as they wore twin smiles on their faces.

“Forever,” Byleth murmured as they walked in.

“And beyond.” Khalid replied in a low voice, squeezing her hand before they sat on their thrones to watch over the party side by side.

Their vows hadn’t changed ever since they were taken hastily back in Fódlan. But now, oh, now they were finally able to say proudly that they had just taken the first step of the rest of their lives.

[themarvellouswriter]

MOB! SEBASTIAN x TALL! READER

PART VI OF THE MASTERPIECE SERIES

Warnings: Even more family drama, swearing and not beta read.

Word Count: 1.6k

Genres: Family drama? Angst? Fluff? Everyone loves the reader.

Notes: This is extremely late cause of my own family drama but I hope you enjoy!! Do give feedback!

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

“Marriage?” said Sebastian incredulously. “Mother, we’re talking about two lives here! This is not a business deal!” You looked at your father, eyes wide. “You can’t be serious.” “Y/N,” began Sofia as Mrs. Stan sipped her water. Your mother rapped her palm on the table, silencing everyone. She was never one to raise her voice but when she spoke, everyone listened. “We have talked about this and decided that this is the best course of action. I’m sorry Sebastian, Y/N but you don’t have a choice.” You clench your jaw and stand up, hand slipping out of Sebastian’s. “Enough. I am done with all the secrets and the lies and now this stupid arranged marriage.”

You nearly run out of the room. Sebastian purses his lips, “Excuse me.” He follows you out to where you were hiding in your bedroom’s balcony. You stood with your arms crossed over your chest, shivering slightly. “Hey,” he whispered lightly touching the small of your back. You shift so that you’re facing him, your eyes glassy. “This is stupid. I don’t even know why I’m crying. I’m sorry. This isn’t me. I never cry and now,” you gesture to yourself. “God, I’m such a mess.” Your lip trembles and you burst into tears. Sebastian wordlessly wraps his arms around and you melt into him. He just holds you close as you finally start processing everything that you’ve learnt in the last two days.

You bury your head in the crook of his neck, taking deep breathes, finally calm. Sebastian smells nice, like petrichor and oranges. You sigh, inhaling more of his scent. “Are you sniffing me?” You let out a weak giggle at his tone. “You smell nice. I like it. It feels nice.” He pulls away slightly to take a look at your face. “Feel better?” “Kind of.” His eyes look so grey that you feel like you’re looking into a stormy sky. You think you see flicker of concern but it quickly disappears. “So, what do you think of being married.” “I’m not exactly happy about it. No offence.” He gives you a lopsided smile, “None taken. I agree with you. Knowing someone for two days is not enough to get married. No matter how attracted you are to them.” “So, now what?” “Honestly, I kind of understand why they want us to get married.” “You do?” “Yeah, unification. If both our gangs get together then the Halins won’t be able to contest for our ‘goods’. Well, knowing their bastardly nature they probably would just to fuck things up for everyone.” You were quiet for a moment. “Will it help keep you and my family safe?” “I should think so. At least safer than before.” “Then I’ll do it.” Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “You’re talking about throwing your life away for a political alliance.” “Yeah, I guess so. I love them too much to not do anything about it. If I keep them safe then it will be worth it.” “Are you sure? Completely sure? I don’t want you to do anything that you’re uncomfortable with.” “Yes, completely sure.” “So does that mean we’re going to get married?” “Only after I get a ring.” He laughs and presses a soft kiss to your cheek. “You will.”

Behind you, someone clears their throat. You look over Sebastian’s shoulder to find Jess looking at you with knowing smirk on her face. Sebastian pulls back as you roll your eyes. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” You sigh and shake your head. “Everyone is waiting for you both at the table.” As soon as Sebastian moves away you feel cold. You grit your teeth and follow Jess inside, Sebastian right behind you. As the others take their seats at the table, you raise your glass for a toast. “To the Winchesters and the Stans. And starting anew.” Your brothers look up at you in surprise. You take a small sip and sit down, ignoring them. Castiel looks at you levelly, “To starting anew.” Everyone repeats after him and clinks their glasses. “So, you’re getting married?” Sofia asks. “Yes, we are,” Sebastian answers. Georgeta smiles, “Lovely. We will have a party to celebrate and then start the wedding preparations. We have things to do. I want to show the Halins that they’ve messed with the Stans for the last time.” Your parents exchange a look and start up a hushed conversation with Georgeta. Noticing that everyone has finished eating, you start clearing up the table.

You’re in your kitchen when you feel a warm hand on your shoulder. “I’m fine Dean.” “I know. I also know that you’re still upset. Lets talk alone?” You sigh and walk toward your room. Sam is already there waiting for you. “Oh Y/N.” He’s pulled you into a tight hug and kisses the crown of your head. “I’m so sorry.” You roll your eyes at Dean who lets out a good natured laugh. “I can’t breathe, Sam.” “Right, right.” Sam steps back and gives you a sheepish smile. You settle down on your bed as they look at you expectantly. “What?” “How did you meet him? Stan?” “At Sofia’s bachelorette party. He came up to me in the pub and asked for my number.” You bat your eyes innocently. They look at each other for a moment before turning back to you. “Right. Now tell us the whole story,” Sam says crossing his arms. 

You make a face before recounting everything that you’d been through in the last couple of days. “So then I called Sam from his phone and you know the rest,” you said leaning back into the pillows. “So, he kidnapped you and you charmed him into un-kidnapping you.” “Basically, yeah.” Dean grins, “Nice. Done like a true Winchester.” You grin back as Sam sits down next to you. “If he ever bothers you, no one will ever find the body.” You laugh and playfully shove him. “I can handle him by myself. I think.” “Aw, baby. The thing is, you don’t have to,” Dean says. You smile up at him and wrap your arms around both of them. “I’m still mad that you didn’t tell me about this. Do you know how many things I could’ve gotten away with had I known? Millions!” “At least you grew up good, and safe.” You shrug, “It’ll take me a while to get used to this but I reckon that I’ll adjust pretty quickly.” You voice came out muffled against Dean’s chest and Sam’s hair. “Yoo hoo, how’s my little one doing?” Your mum pops her head in. “Pretty well all things considered. I kinda get why you didn’t tell me about it.” You all pull away as your mother enters the room. “Oh baby.” She presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’re so brave and strong. Just like me.” You all laugh, the atmosphere happy and warm.

“So, what were you talking with Sebastian’s mother?” “Wedding things. I don’t like the idea of you getting married like this, but,” she shrugs helplessly. “We’re going to announce it right after Sofia’s wedding where you both will make a very public appearance. Hopefully the Halins will get a hint and lay off.” “I would do anything to keep you all safe. Anything. And you know that,” you say seriously, looking at your mother in the eye. “We know, kiddo. We know. You’re a Winchester through and through. And we’re all proud to have you as a part of this family.” You hug your mother, slightly overcome with emotion. “I love you guys. So much.”

“Um… Hi?” You all look at the door where Sebastian is standing awkwardly. Your mother gives you a knowing smile as she pulls Sam and Dean behind her and closes the door. Sebastian looks at the door. “You doing okay?” “Everyone needs to stop asking me that. I’m fine. Honest.” “Just making sure. That and Jess and Sofia just gave me ‘the talk’. That was terrifying.” You laugh as he shudders. “At least it wasn’t my brothers.” “Thank god for that. You dad kept staring at me when they were talking to me and it was honestly the most stressful moment of my life.” “For now. Just wait till we actually get married.” He chuckles. “Maybe.” Sebastian is standing at the door and you gaze up at him from your place on the bed. You open your mouth to say something but suddenly the door swings open revealing your father and Sebastian's mother. The door hits Sebastian’s shoulder but he doesn’t even flinch as he pushes it away. Your dad sits facing you. “Y/N. I hope you’re taking all of this well.” You make a face in response. “Dad. Like I told Sebastian, Sam and Dean and mum, I’m fine. Not particularly happy about it, but fine. I can take care of myself.” “I know you can. This is why I’m allowing this to happen. I want you to promise me that you’ll always look after your brothers, even if they act like they don’t need you.” “Of course. Always. Where is this coming from?” “Just take care, won’t you?” You slowly nod your head. “Yeah. I will.” “On to more pressing matters. The wedding will be held according to traditional Romanian customs, in about three weeks time. Till then, the Stans and you will be living with us in the main house. For security reasons and so that everyone gets used to everyone else,” you father says taking your hands in his. “I’ll be helping you with the traditions and Sebastian will prepare in his own way with Christopher,” finishes Georgeta. You nod and grin at Sebastian. “Looks like we’re getting married!”

[dragon-moms]

Entry 144 - Gloria

Today we found the Whites.

After being woken up by Ivana and Baroness having some kind of fight, and Merry and Myrmidon being off doing who the fuck knows what, we finally got to work on finishing breaking down our camp. I already felt exhausted before we’d even began.

“Sure we have everything?” I asked as I hefted my load onto my back.

“I think so…” Merry said. “I can’t think of anything else we’re missing…”

“I think we’re fine, Mommy,” Flare said. “And we can always come back up if we forget something.”

I nodded. “Okay, let’s go, then.”

Our group headed to the entrance, where Caroline and Juliet were waiting.

“A bit late for you all to be awake,” I said as we landed.

“Merry and Myrmidon said you were leaving, so we wanted to say goodbye,” Caroline said.

“Something like that,” Juliet said.

“That’s so sweet of you!” Merry said, coming up beside me. “Thank you both!”

“Yes, we do very much appreciate it,” Myrmidon said.

“Just be careful down there, whatever you’re doing,” Juliet said.

“And come back sometime,” Caroline said.

“We will if it’d be safe,” Gloria said. “Promise.”

“I’m going to sing now, Mommy!” Flare called.

“Alright, we’re going,” Gloria said.

Merry and Myrmidon gave the farmers hugs. I wondered what had happened there. Baroness gave them a little nod. Ivana, thankfully, ignored them.

And then the entrance opened, and we went in.

“Wow, this passage is really long,” Merry said as we kept walking, obviously trying to cover being tired. She was carrying more than she probably had to, but she insisted.

“Do you need to take a break, Mom?” Philly asked from her shoulder.

“No, no, I’m fine… just… it’s really long, you know?” Merry said.

“Let’s take a break,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Merry said, looking sad.

“No, it’s fine,” I promised, sitting down.

“How about Nobody and I go ahead, Mommy? We can start clearing more structures!” Flare asked.

“Not a bad plan, I guess,” Ivana said.

“Sure,” I said. “Just be sure to listen to Miss Nobody while you’re down there, terror.”

“Okay!” Flare said, grinning. They went on ahead. Baroness sat far back. She was always perhaps a little too worried about our safety around her, but I guess that’s a good thing overall. Merry and Myrmidon sat closer to me, and Merry was clearly catching her breath.

“Just a long passage…” she said. “Sorry…”

“Seriously, my sweetest, it is alright,” Myrmidon said.

I nodded in agreement. “We’re carrying a lot of stuff. You should split some of the rest of that between me, Baroness, and Myrmidon.”

“I can transport additional weight,” Baroness said. “I can carry anything that does not break the structural integrity of my bones as enhanced by my aura, which should give me a maximum....”

“Nonsense, my lady, I can handle it,” Myrmidon said, cutting Baroness off with an apologetic smile. “It would be my pleasure.”

Merry just looked really embarrassed.

“It’s not worth arguing about, and it’s up to you, Merry,” I said.

“Okay…” Merry said.

I reached over and patted her on the head. “We’re all happy you’re wanting to do your part, but none of us want you to get hurt. Okay?”

“R-right…” Merry said.

Philly gave me a look I interpreted as “maybe we should talk about this later” from Merry’s shoulder, and there was a moment of awkward silence.

“Ah, perhaps we should go over the plan once we reach the White territory?” Myrmidon asked.

I nodded, glad they broke the silence. “Miss Nobody has been marking the structures near the entrance stairs she’s checked to make sure they’re safe by putting pins in the ground in front of them. Basically, you all should pick whatever ones you need and start setting up camp,” I said. “Pretty sure Miss Nobody said there was one structure she cleared that had cooking stuff in it, so maybe you should set up there, Merry.”

“Oh, yeah! That sounds good!” Merry said.

“We also found a structure that seemed to be used to sell potions, so maybe that would work for you, Baroness,” I said.

She nodded. “Perhaps…”

We chit-chatted for a while longer. Myrmidon unloaded some things from Merry’s bag while she argued with them once more before giving in, and then we were off, walking once more.

We eventually reached the door, and I admit to having a bit of thrill getting to throw it open and show everyone. But while they were gawking, I saw Flare flying quickly towards me, having risen from somewhere between all the structures.

“Mommy!” he called from a distance. “Come quick!”

“Is everyone okay?” I called back.

“Yes, but… just, come on!” Flare said, motioning towards him.

“Go on ahead, Gloria, we shall begin setting up below. The cleared buildings are by the stairs, yes?” Myrmidon said.

I nodded. “Thanks.” I took off and flew to Flare. “What is it, terror?”

“Bodies!” Flare said as he headed towards a structure below.

“Bodies?” I asked, following.

“Well, skeletons and stuff! The dragons who lived here!” he said.

I followed Flare to what looked like some kind of social space. There was an artificial pond in the center of a cluster of structures, with a statue in the middle of the pond that looked like a tree or some other kind of plant carved out of stone.

“Nobody wanted to sleep in a normal place, right, so she thought we’d clear some structures that looked more like that, but when we came in…” Flare said, landing and heading into a structure.

I poked my head into an uncomfortable sight.

What I saw looked like a normal living chamber. There was a bookshelf, a table, and various other obvious personal items. The walls were painted in little designs that made it look like underwater plants. But leaning on the table, over what looked like a book, was a skeleton.

“What the fuck,” I said, looking at it. “This isn’t right…” I’d seen people killed. This just looked like the dragon, a Blue, from the looks of the fin bones even I could recognize, had just slumped over while reading. There was a candlestick nearby, with the candle burnt all the way down.

“Yeah…” Flare said. “I said some prayers and things to Progress already, though maybe it’s a bit late for that.”

“I guess sometimes people do just die of old age like that. Body just gives out,” I said.

“Yeah, well…” Flare said, and pointed to a passage.

I followed his claw and entered a sleeping chamber. There, in the bedding, was another skeleton, looking like they were sleeping.

“Something bad happened,” Flare said as I took it in.

“Poison?” I guessed, unsure. “It would take a lot of poison.”

“The real important thing is up the stairs,” Flare said.

We headed up into another chamber.

It was filled with tables, and on those tables were small chambers themselves. Two sleeping chambers. A living chamber.

And in the sleeping chambers were three strange skeletons that Ivana was very carefully trying to inspect.

“Did you figure out what they are yet?” Flare asked.

“It’s weird. They’re not normal skeletons,” Ivana said. “They don’t make sense unless all this bone was on the outside… but it’s not like this is my area of study…”

I looked down on the single skeleton in the sleeping chamber Ivana wasn’t looking at. It was a strange shell of… something. There were holes. The inside was hollow. I could see where there should be eyes. They had what looked like six legs. “They’re human-sized…” I mumbled.

“Bigger than that, Mommy,” Flare said. “Like, still small, but they’d be a giant back in human lands. Wouldn’t be able to fit in a lot of the little structures they have in Forward.”

We stood there in silence for a while.

“Well, there you go,” Ivana finally said, standing from where she had been sitting next to the sleeping chamber.

“What?” I asked.

“You wanted me to find White dragons, and I found them,” Ivana said.

“These things can’t be…” I started to say, but stopped myself. I didn’t have any other explanation. “If they’re a dragon, why are they so small?”

“Fuck if I know,” Ivana said. “But that’s what we have to be dealing with, right?”

Flare nodded. “Let’s check some more of these, right?”

“...yeah,” I said.

We checked all the structures around the little pond. It was a similar scene in each. Dragons, and these strange new creatures, seemingly dead in their sleep or while doing normal things. Though they were mostly Blues, we found dragon skeletons of every lineage among the structures, too, which really upset Ivana.

“What have I missed that makes this possible?” Ivana asked as we sat outside, near the pond. “They should have disappeared during the second Queen’s reign, but even after unification there’s no fucking way the lineages spread that far this fast. They were still basically completely separate, and we’re so fucking far away from Cerulia…”

“I have no idea,” I said. “But it’s obviously the case.”

“Fuck,” Ivana said.

“Uh, hey, look,” Flare said. He was staring at the statue of the tree. “They’re there.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ivana asked.

But I could see it too.

In the trees, among the branches. Hard to spot unless you were looking for them. But creatures were carved into the statue, standing there. They had multiple, slim wings and huge eyes. They stood on their bottom set of legs like a human, and held onto things with the other two.

“White dragons,” Flare said, turning to me.

I nodded.

“Yeah…” I said.

Ivana flew in for a closer look, mumbling obscenities.

As we flew back to the entrance, where everyone else should be setting up, I said, “Let’s save this for tomorrow. Everyone is tired and this is going to be… a lot for everyone to process.” I was mostly thinking of Merry, but to be honest, I don’t even feel like I completely get it. The world had changed in some way and I had no way of really understanding what that meant.

I guess changed is the wrong word. I just never knew about this.

“You can’t just hide this shit,” Ivana said. “Those corpses are going to be everywhere, if they’re there. This place used to be lived in. They’re going to bump into one sooner or later.”

“I’m just saying having a meeting over breakfast,” I said. “That’s all.”

“It’ll be hard not to tell them,” Flare said. “It’s so super neato! A whole different kind of dragon, you know?”

“If that is what it is,” I said.

“Gloria, come on, what the fuck else could it be? Seriously,” Ivana said.

I just took a breath.

“But yeah, Mommy, you seem tired, so tomorrow,” Flare said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Fine,” Ivana said, annoyed.

Everyone could tell the three of us were nervous when we got back, but even Ivana kept her mouth shut. Merry and Myrmidon had set up a structure for me, the one that had all the ledgers Ivana had been reading. But they’d put me in a back chamber, and Ivana in front.

“Well,” I said, realizing what they’d done.

“If I have to protect your tail, this is the most sensible anyway,” Ivana said. She was clearly trying to swallow her anger about the situation.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m going to go ahead and try to get some rest.”

“Whatever,” Ivana said, turning back to another ledger.

I closed the door to the back chamber, a little office of some sort, and laid down on my bedding with a sigh.

Maybe tomorrow everything would make sense.

[universetwo]

#JusticeForSamMaekjong2k17

What the hell is going on?

Episode 14 didn’t really help in giving us more clues about the royal family background and about Sun Woo. I had 1,654 questions before this episode and now I have 13,786. 

Going back to my previous thoughts about Ah Ro, I still think they are destroying her character. Finally her wit and her funny story telling showed up again, but they ruined everything in 0.08 seconds. We can pretty much say the whole conflict that happened at the end of ep 14 is because of Ah Ro and I hate that because the only main female character is the one again who messes up the whole situation and watching this makes me feel ashamed that yet again this is how they portray women. The Princess and Ah Ro as the two main leads (+ the Queen) all they do is making bad decisions, cry, look weak, and end up being victims. I honestly dislike this so much but I often see this pattern in K-Dramas (especially where there are love triangles) and I think it truly pulls down women in general. But that’s another discussion...

At the beginning of Hwarang I was more on Sun Woo’s side. He was a humble young man who hated the Bone rank system, who had a difficult life, and who slowly fell in love with Ah Ro without being aggressive. This seemed attractive to me, however, in the last episodes I feel like he is losing that side of him more and more. Obviously he still stands strong beside the morals he had at the beginning, but his character is getting more and more annoying. It took an interesting turn because now I’m rather more interested about what is going to happen to Sam Maekjong. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in his side at all, but whenever I see Sun Woo’s grumpy face (no offense for handsome Park Seo Joon, I know it’s just what he has to act), it just makes me frown, because I’m getting disappointed by his actions and now I start to feel more sorry for the Faceless King. 

Sam Maekjong at the beginning was an arrogant, pushy, royal born guy who I didn’t necessarily like that much. I’m pretty sure if it wasn’t for Hyungsik portraying him, I would have even felt hate towards him, despite my interest in his story line. But recently he is changing as well to me, but more towards the positive side. And I feel so so so bad for him. Especially because he might not be the king.

Which leads up to, who is the real faceless (even nameless) king?

So we all know what Sun Woo did at the end of episode 14 and we all (probs) disagree with his action and we wanted Ji Dwi to stand up for his true title. However, this might not be too much of a mistake. I think from the beginning we noticed that there is just something mysterious about Sun Woo’s true background and about the relationships and conflicts in the royal family. And now we get more and more hints. Maybe it is a choice from the writer and the production team (though sometimes I doubt the writer would be that smart). The fact that even after 14 episodes Sam Maekjong is still not revealed as the king even when he had his god damn chance not once, that maybe tells us something. Also the fact that in the Hwarang house most of the guys think that Sun Woo is the king, the officials think he is the king, and now he announced himself as the king. Yes we don’t know it for a fact that he is the true king, but I feel like all these lead up to that he will turn out to be the one. I also read many theories how he is the son of a concubine (who the Queen made her to be gone(?)) and the late king of Silla, while Sam Maekjong is only the nephew of the king, therefore cousin of Sun Woo. This is an interesting theory, slightly confusing as well, but it might be true, though that follows up to some more problems... or one problem, Sam Maekjong. 

If Sun Woo turns out to be the king, I think Sam Maekjong’s life will be over pretty much. All his life he was preparing to be the king, that’s the only thing he knows and had as a goal. He is also going to lose Ah Ro because we know she doesn’t love him. He never had a real family. The only family figure for him was his bodyguard (who is honestly such a sweet human bean, like when he was crying in ep 13, I was crying with him and my heart was so warm), but he probably wanted his mother’s care instead. The only thing that might stay with him is friendship. Because I’m sure at the end Sun Woo and Sam Maekjong will make up for this whole revenge and Ah Ro love triangle, but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough for Sam Maekjong to not give up on life. I also have a feeling that he might die towards the end, and I’m not ready to see Hyungsik die on my screen. (guys if it’s really going to happen I’m going to cry a Han River 2.0, watch me). So this is why I think at this point I rather want to see justice happen for Sam Maekjong. And I want him to be the king. Even if he is not the legitimate one to the throne, he has to be the king. He knows how Silla works, he knows how to deal with the officials, he prepared for this all his life, and he wants to be the king (at least on the days when he doesn’t doubt himself). Even if Sun Woo could be a good king too, he never really prepared for it and it would just ruin his relationship with Ah Ro, which I think is the most important for him. So maybe if he turns out to be the king, he might end up giving the throne to Sam Maekjong (if they can do that). 

Now for the fate of King Jinheung, I doubt that they will focus a lot on how this king in real history was so great and how he expanded Silla’s territory and the unification of the three kingdoms. However, I do think that would be a good thing to focus on if time lets them, because (as I read it in some sources) Hwarang played a big role in the unification and this drama is about Hwarangs. So we get back to this argument again, that this drama focused WAY TOO MUCH on the love triangle and Ah Ro, whereas there are lot more important and main points in the history of Silla, King Jinheung, and especially the Hwarangs. I know this drama is not here for a Historical documentary, but they didn’t do as much for the potential of the Hwarang story line, as it was promised.

So I don’t know guys. I still like Hwarang obviously, but to be honest, if I wouldn’t have gotten attached to the cast and the cute bromance and Ban Ryu love story line, then I think I would have stopped watching this. It just really bothers me how there was so many potential with this, especially with the great actors and actresses that we have here, but they didn’t make great decisions plot wise and story unfolding wise. We still have six episodes left, and many interesting things can happen in basically six hours. But I feel like it’s going to be the same like with Moon Lovers. Towards the end it might get worse because they might rush the end and even kill some loved characters. (Also I’m going to be sad when it will be over because I’m going to miss this cast, and while many of them will have upcoming dramas, for our lovely Taehyung it’s not going to be soon to seen him in a role again as he is always so busy :(  ) 

This became extremely long, I’m so sorry. So if you read this I’m really thankful and I really appreciate it. ^^

[dylan-stableford-blog]

Trump gives 25-minute statement insisting administration is ‘running like a fine-tuned machine’ (VIDEO + TRANSCRIPT)

Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

President Trump called a press conference that was initially billed as an announcement of his new nominee for secretary of labor, Alexander Acosta, on Thursday at the East Room of the White House. But after announcing Acosta his pick, Trump launched into a 25-minute statement that at times resembled a “Festivus”-like airing of grievances, blasting the media’s coverage of his first month in office.

“I turn on the TV, open the newspapers and I see stories of chaos. Chaos!” Trump said. “Yet it is the exact opposite. My government is running like a fine-tuned machine.”

In his freewheeling statement, Trump addressed topics including but not limited to: Russia, ISIS, jobs, polls, the price of street drugs, the “never Trump” movement, his conversations with world leaders, female entrepreneurs, his daughter Ivanka, military budgets, his planned border wall, lying politicians and the dishonest media.

Below is a transcription of Trump’s opening remarks:

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

I just wanted to begin by mentioning that the nominee for secretary of the Department of Labor will be Mr. Alex Acosta. He has a law degree from Harvard Law School, was a great student; former clerk for Justice Samuel Alito. And he has had a tremendous career. He’s a member and has been a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and has been through Senate confirmation three times, confirmed; did very, very well.

And so Alex, I’ve wished him the best. We just spoke. And he’s going to be — I think he’ll be a tremendous secretary of labor.

And also as you probably heard just a little while ago, Mick Mulvaney, former congressman, has just been approved weeks late, I have to say that, weeks, weeks late, Office of Management and Budget. And he will be I think a fantastic addition.

Paul Singer just left. As you know, Paul was very much involved with the anti-Trump or as they say, “never Trump.” And Paul just left and he’s given us his total support. And it’s all about unification. We’re unifying the party and hopefully we’re going to be able to unify the country. It’s very important to me. I’ve been talking about that for a long time. It’s very, very important to me.

So I want to thank Paul Singer for being here and for coming up to the office. He was a very strong opponent, and now he’s a very strong ally. And I appreciate that.

I think I’ll say a few words, and then we’ll take some questions. And I had this time. We’ve been negotiating a lot of different transactions to save money on contracts that were terrible, including airplane contracts that were out of control and late and terrible; just absolutely catastrophic in terms of what was happening. And we’ve done some really good work. We’re very proud of that.

And then right after that, you prepare yourselves, we’ll do some questions, unless you have enough questions. That’s always a possibility.

I’m here today to update the American people on the incredible progress that has been made in the last four weeks since my inauguration. We have made incredible progress. I don’t think there’s ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what we’ve done.

A new Rasmussen poll, in fact — because the people get it — much of the media doesn’t get it. They actually get it, but they don’t write it. Let’s put it that way. But a new Rasmussen poll just came out just a very short while ago, and it has our approval rating at 55 percent and going up. The stock market has hit record numbers, as you know. And there has been a tremendous surge of optimism in the business world, which is — to me means something much different than it used to. It used to mean, “Oh, that’s good.” Now it means, “That’s good for jobs.” Very different.

Plants and factories are already starting to move back into the United States, and big league — Ford, General Motors, so many of them. I’m making this presentation directly to the American people, with the media present, which is an honor to have you. This morning, because many of our nation’s reporters and folks will not tell you the truth, and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve. And I hope going forward we can be a little bit — a little bit different, and maybe get along a little bit better, if that’s possible. Maybe it’s not, and that’s OK, too.

Unfortunately, much of the media in Washington, D.C., along with New York, Los Angeles in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously broken system. The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk to find out what’s going on, because the press honestly is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control.

I ran for president to present the citizens of our country. I am here to change the broken system so it serves their families and their communities well. I am talking — and really talking on this very entrenched power structure, and what we’re doing is we’re talking about the power structure; we’re talking about its entrenchment. As a result, the media is going through what they have to go through too often times distort — not all the time — and some of the media is fantastic, I have to say, they’re honest and fantastic.

But much of it is not a — the distortion — and we’ll talk about it, you’ll be able to ask me questions about it. But we’re not going to let it happen, because I’m here again, to take my message straight to the people. As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country; you see what’s going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places, low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The middle east is a disaster. North Korea — we’ll take care of it folks; we’re going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess.

Beginning on day one, our administration went to work to tackle these challenges. On foreign affairs, we’ve already begun enormously productive talks with many foreign leaders, much of it you’ve covered, to move forward towards stability, security and peace in the most troubled regions of the world, which there are many. We have had great conversations with the United Kingdom, and meetings. Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada, really, really productive conversations. I would say far more productive than you would understand.

We’ve even developed a new council with Canada to promote women’s business leaders and entrepreneurs. It’s very important to me, very important to my daughter Ivanka. I have directed our defense community headed by our great general, now Secretary Mattis. He’s over there now working very hard to submit a plan for the defeat of ISIS, a group that celebrates the murder and torture of innocent people in large sections of the world. It used to be a small group, now it’s in large sections of the world.

They’ve spread like cancer. ISIS has spread like cancer — another mess I inherited. And we have imposed new sanctions on the nation of Iran, whose totally taken advantage of our previous administration, and they’re the world’s top sponsor of terrorism, and we’re not going to stop until that problem is properly solved. And it’s not properly solved now, it’s one of the worst agreements I’ve ever seen drawn by anybody. I’ve ordered plan to begin building for the massive rebuilding of the United States military. Had great support from the Senate, I’ve had great from Congress, generally.

We’ve pursued this rebuilding in the hopes that we will never have to use this military, and I will tell you that is my – I would be so happy if we never had to use it. But our country will never have had a military like the military we’re about to build and rebuild. We have the greatest people on earth in our military, but they don’t have the right equipment and their equipment is old. I used it; I talked about it at every stop. Depleted, it’s depleted – it won’t be depleted for long. And I think one of the reason I’m standing here instead of other people is that frankly, I talked about we have to have a strong military.

We have to have a strong law enforcement also. So we do not go abroad in the search of war, we really are searching for peace, but its peace through strength. At home, we have begun the monumental task of returning the government back to the people on a scale not seen in many, many years. In each of these actions, I’m keeping my promises to the American people. These are campaign promises. Some people are so surprised that we’re having strong borders.

Well, that’s what I’ve been talking about for a year and a half, strong borders. They’re so surprised, oh, he having strong borders, well that’s what I’ve been talking about to the press and to everybody else. One promise after another after years of politicians lying to you to get elected. They lied to the American people in order to get elected. Some of the things I’m doing probably aren’t popular but they’re necessary for security and for other reasons.

And then coming to Washington and pursuing their own interests which is more important to many politicians. I’m here following through on what I pledged to do. That’s all I’m doing. I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes. I wasn’t supposed to get 222. They said there’s no way to get 222, 230’s impossible.

270 which you need, that was laughable. We got 306 because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before so that’s the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan. In other words, the media’s trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made and they’re not happy about it for whatever reason.

And – but a lot of people are happy about it. In fact, I’ll be in Melbourne, Florida five o’clock on Saturday and I heard – just heard that the crowds are massive that want to be there. I turn on the TV, open the newspapers and I see stories of chaos. Chaos. Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that I can’t get my Cabinet approved.

And they’re outstanding people like Senator Dan Coats who’s there, one of the most respected men of the Senate. He can’t get approved. How do you not approve him? He’s been a colleague — highly respected. Brilliant guy, great guy, everybody knows it. We’re waiting for approval. So we have a wonderful group of people that’s working very hard, that’s being very much misrepresented about and we can’t let that happen.

So, if the Democrats who have – all you have to do is look at where they are right now. The only thing they can do is delay because they screwed things up royally, believe me. Let me list to you some of the things that we’ve done in just a short period of time. I just got here. And I got here with no Cabinet. Again, each of these actions is a promise I made to the American people.

I’ll go over just some of them and we have a lot happening next week and in the weeks — in the weeks coming. We’ve withdrawn from the job-killing disaster known as Trans Pacific Partnership. We’re going to make trade deals but we’re going to have one on one deals, bilateral. We’re going to have one on one deals.

We’ve directed the elimination of regulations that undermine manufacturing and call for expedited approval of the permits needed for America and American infrastructure and that means plant, equipment, roads, bridges, factories. People take 10, 15, 20 years to get disapproved for a factory. They go in for a permit, it’s many, many years. And then at the end of the process — they spend 10s of millions of dollars on nonsense and at the end of the process, they get rejected.

Now, they may be rejected with me but it’s going to be a quick rejection. Not going to take years. But mostly it’s going to be an acceptance. We want plants built and we want factories built and we want the jobs. We don’t want the jobs going to other countries. We’ve imposed a hiring freeze on non-essential federal workers. We’ve imposed a temporary moratorium on new federal regulations.

We’ve issued a game-changing new rule that says for each one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. Makes sense. Nobody’s ever seen regulations like we have. You go to other countries and you look at indexes, they have and you say let me see your regulations and they’re fraction, just a tiny fraction of what we have. And I want regulations because I want safety, I want environmental — all environmental situations to be taken properly care of. It’s very important to me. But you don’t need four or five or six regulations to take care of the same thing.

We’ve stood up for the men and women of law enforcement, directing federal agencies to ensure they are protected from crimes of violence. We’ve directed the creation of a task force for reducing violent crime in America, including the horrendous situation — take a look at Chicago and others, taking place right now in our inner cities. Horrible.

We’ve ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Justice to coordinate on a plan to destroy criminal cartels coming into the United States with drugs. We’re becoming a drug infested nation. Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars. We are not going to let it happen any longer.

We’ve undertaken the most substantial border security measures in a generation to keep our nation and our tax dollars safe. And are now in the process of beginning to build a promised wall on the southern border, met with general — now Secretary Kelly yesterday and we’re starting that process. And the wall is going to be a great wall and it’s going to be a wall negotiated by me. The price is going to come down just like it has on everything else I’ve negotiated for the government. And we are going to have a wall that works, not gonna have a wall like they have now which is either non-existent or a joke.

We’ve ordered a crackdown on sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal law and that harbor criminal aliens, and we have ordered an end to the policy of catch and release on the border. No more release. No matter who you are, release. We have begun a nationwide effort to remove criminal aliens, gang members, drug dealers and others who pose a threat to public safety. We are saving American lives every single day.

The court system has not made it easy for us. And are even creating a new office in Homeland Security dedicated to the forgotten American victims of illegal immigrant violence, which there are many. We have taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. No parts are necessary and constitutional actions were blocked by judges, in my opinion, incorrect, and unsafe ruling. Our administration is working night and day to keep you safe, including reporters safe. And is vigorously defending this lawful order.

I will not back down from defending our country. I got elected on defense of our country. I keep my campaign promises, and our citizens will be very happy when they see the result. They already are, I can tell you that. Extreme vetting will be put in place and it already is in place in many places.

In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. I have heard 80 percent, I find that hard to believe, that is just a number I heard, that they are overturned 80 percent of the time. I think that circuit is — that circuit is in chaos and that circuit is frankly in turmoil. But we are appealing that, and we are going further.

We’re issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country. So we’ll be going along the one path and hopefully winning that, at the same time we will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people. That will be done sometime next week, toward the beginning or middle at the latest part. We have also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone Pipeline and Dakota Access Pipelines. Thousands and thousands of jobs, and put new buy American measures in place to require American steel for American pipelines. In other words, they build a pipeline in this country, and we use the powers of government to make that pipeline happen, we want them to use American steel. And they are willing to do that, but nobody ever asked before I came along. Even this order was drawn and they didn’t say that.

And I’m reading the order, I’m saying, why aren’t we using American steel? And they said, that’s a good idea, we put it in. To drain the swamp of corruption in Washington, D.C., I’ve started by imposing a five-year lobbying ban on White House officials and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government.

We’ve begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare. Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It is a disaster. I know you can say, oh, Obamacare. I mean, they fill up our alleys with people that you wonder how they get there, but they are not the Republican people our that representatives are representing.

So we’ve begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare, and are deep in the midst of negotiations on a very historic tax reform to bring our jobs back, to bring our jobs back to this country. Big league. It’s already happening. But big league.

I’ve also worked to install a Cabinet over the delays and obstruction of Senate Democrats. You’ve seen what they’ve done over the last long number of years. That will be one of the great Cabinets ever assembled in American history.

You look at Rex Tillerson. He’s out there negotiating right now. General Mattis I mentioned before, General Kelly. We have great, great people. Mick is with us now. We have great people.

Among their responsibilities will be ending the bleeding of jobs from our country and negotiating fair trade deals for our citizens.

Now look, fair trade. Not free, fair. If a country is taking advantage of us, not going to let that happen anymore. Every country takes advantage of us almost. I may be able to find a couple that don’t. But for the most part, that would be a very tough job for me to do.

Jobs have already started to surge. Since my election, Ford announced it will abandon its plans to build a new factory in Mexico, and will instead invest $700 million in Michigan, creating many, many jobs.

Fiat Chrysler announced it will invest $1 billion in Ohio and Michigan, creating 2,000 new American jobs. They were with me a week ago. You know you were here.

General Motors likewise committed to invest billions of dollars in its American manufacturing operation, keeping many jobs here that were going to leave. And if I didn’t get elected, believe me, they would have left. And these jobs and these things that I’m announcing would never have come here.

Intel just announced that it will move ahead with a new plant in Arizona that probably was never going to move ahead with. And that will result in at least 10,000 American jobs.

Walmart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this year because of our various plans and initiatives. There will be many, many more, many more, these are a few that we’re naming.

Other countries have been taking advantage of us for decades — decades, and decades, and decades, folks. And we’re not going to let that happen anymore. Not going to let it happen.

And one more thing, I have kept my promise to the American people by nominating a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, who is from my list of 20, and who will be a true defender of our laws and our Constitution, highly respected, should get the votes from the Democrats. You may not see that. But he’ll get there one way or the other. But he should get there the old-fashioned way, and he should get those votes.

This last month has represented an unprecedented degree of action on behalf of the great citizens of our country. Again, I say it. There has never been a presidency that’s done so much in such a short period of time. And we have not even started the big work yet. That starts early next week.

Some very big things are going to be announced next week. So we are just getting started. We will be giving a speech, as I said, in Melbourne, Florida, at 5:00 p.m. I hope to see you there.

And with that, I just say, God bless America, and let’s take some questions.

More from Yahoo News:

WikiLeaks promoter Donald Trump now makes ‘low-life leakers’ his enemy

Andy Puzder abruptly withdraws as labor secretary nominee

Trump slams ‘un-American’ intelligence leaks: ‘Just like Russia’

[mintypothos]

Sirens and Shipwrecks

@hubris-but-no-writing I was that anon about the mer fic a couple days ago

so this is what would have been the one shot, only I realized I wanted to do another part or two with it. But also I have this track record where when I tell any person at all that I’ll write something, it never gets finished. So in light of that, I decided to post what I do have in case the rest of this doesn’t pan out and gets stuck half finished. When/if I do finish my idea, I’ll clean it up and post properly on ao3. So this is, in every sense, a rough first draft. 

Please read this fic’s main inspiration, The Human World; It’s a Mess by @hubris-but-no-writing It is excellent and features Burr as the merperson and the squad as humans

Also this is my first time writing a polyam ship (in this case, burr/revset or /squad or /revsquad, whatever you want to call it), even if it’s barely present here. Honestly i need more practice writing conversations between more than 2 people in general

other notes- merfolk have a perfect understanding of the english language and use the same distance measurements/body language and yet don’t know certain specific words or gestures because shhhhh

Aaron woke up to sand in his mouth. It took a moment for him to realize it wasn't figurative, for all that he was also feeling bone dry. Aaron coughed weakly, pitifully. Every inch of him felt boneless and raw.

“Wh-” He coughed again, choking on sand granules. Aaron pulled his body up and over his legs in an approximate kneel, though he felt heavier than lead. The movement shifted Aaron into piping hot sand that scalded, and he yelped. Then he winced- his voice came out weak and strangled, and it tore his throat just to make it.

“Oh, he sat up!” A foreign voice, crystal clear and completely unbothered, rang from somewhere behind him, and Aaron froze in shock.

“Humans sleep far too much.” Chimed another voice, followed by a splash and the slap of skin against skin.

“It's because he was hurt, we went over that already.” This one was deeper, but still strangely melodic and refreshing-a ringing church bell carried on an ocean breeze. Slowly, Aaron blinked his eyes open, immediately tearing up from both the sand burrowing between eyelids and the harsh light of the sun. Rubbing his eyes only made the problem worse, but he worked at it anyways, the incoherent light slowly separating into colours and shapes, then in sand, rocks, and trees.

“Wait what, he's awake!? Holy shit guys, shut up!” A fourth person, loud like the echoes of a conch horn. Aaron blinked again, turning his body to get a look at whoever was behind him. He should be more afraid, jumping up and defending himself the moment he knew he wasn't alone. But Aaron was very tired, and considered it a victory that he was even able to face the strangers. His skin pulled painfully as he readjusted himself, in a way that only awful sunburns ever could. “He's turning around, what do we do!?” The conch-shell voice again, sounding slightly familiar somehow.

Aaron blinked. In front of him now was a very picturesque beach, the white-blue waves frothing onto golden pale sand. The ocean stretched as far as Aaron could see, enveloping his entire field of view, save for the four figures half extended from the surf. All of them inhumanly handsome men, and all of them with looks of excited awe. The closest, with dark yet bright eyes and long, similarly deep coloured hair loosely tied back, lurched forward as Aaron met eyes with him. Had they met-?

A laugh, beautiful brass notes. Lovely words, not honeyed, but bright and curious- “Burr, put your fucking plugs back in, they lure veterans to their death, and you aren't even a sailor!”.

An indignant chiming, then annoyance, “Thomas, he's not trying anything, calm down. I'm wearing that stupid harness besides,”

Aaron winced again, feeling for his head and finding a painful lump, covered by a mass of wet seaweed somehow tangled around his head. That would explain why his brain seemed so muddled. He remembered- wait, what was the last thing he remembered?

“Is the human okay?” the first voice, belonging to a face framed by a storm of freckles and bushy hair, crowded just behind the vaguely familiar man. Aaron wondered why they kept saying 'human', like they weren't. Then another one of them, bigger and heavyset, pulled himself forward on his hands and what should have been his knees, only as he moved forward his backside disappeared into the sleek, powerful tail of a sea creature. The sight was shocking, but not as much as the sudden images it brought back to Aaron's mind.

“I've been yelling at you to change course all day- you stupid humans! I've been trying to help, and you dare to think I'd do this!?”

“Just- just don't let your little boat flip over, okay? I don't want you to sink when I finally found a human who will talk to me.”

The ground heaving up and down, wood slicked by rain water. Roiling waves reaching up to meet him- human flesh blending into fish under his tight grip and the salt water burning his throat. Thomas and James screaming for him as a rope snapped, the flip of a giant tail before another wave crashed down on him. “Aaron!”

“Whe-” Aaron coughed as he tried speaking again, but this time he could feel the words working, even if it did rasp painfully. “Where am I? Did- something happened to the ship..?” He still didn't have the full picture, but it was coming together. He remembered now the sailboat trip with Thomas and James, mainly that he hadn't even wanted to go, but they had insisted- Aaron had spent too much of the holiday holed away in the resort. “The other two I was with, are they alright?”

“I think so,” The one Aaron had somehow and at some previous point spoken too assured, his hands raised in placation. “You were thrown off the boat and by the time I got you, I couldn't get you back to it again. It was a bad storm, but probably not bad enough to sink a ship of that size. If only you could have kept your feet on it, though.” The information made sense, fitting into what little Aaron could piece together. “By the way, do you remember me? We spent the day learning about each other's species. It looks like you kind of do, but also like you don't quite? But you aren't freaking out about the tail thing like you did when we first met..”

The chatter certainly rang a bell, Aaron realized, even as he sagged in relief at the possibility his friends were safe. Merfolk, a fantastical and extremely elusive race that very few humans ever saw, and of course one shows up on his very first voyage just to fire off a thousand questions when Aaron didn't immediately pop in his spelled earplugs.

“I remember pieces, but not a lot”, Aaron admitted. Mere fragments, especially considering his usually excellent memory.

“That's okay. We met yesterday. I brought you to the only piece of land nearby, and Herc helped patch you up, or at least your head.”

The bigger Mer nodded at that, and scooted forward again. “I set that wrap at least six hours ago, I could check it for you again?”

Aaron realized with sudden clarity that the seaweed was a wrapped bandage around his injury, not a random tangle, and immediately he brought both hands up to feel. It was pulled tight, professionally, and neatly knotted at one end. Instinctively, he tugged. “Hey- don't do that!” A tail slapped against the shallow water, startling Aaron. “You don't want to jostle that and lose the poultice John made, you need it to heal.”

Instinctively, that made Aaron peer at the remaining mer, for one of them should be this John. Sure enough, the freckled one dipped his head, almost shyly. “It was a rush job, but I used my best ingredients.” He gave as explanation as Aaron stared.

“Thank you.” Aaron said, to be polite but also out of genuine gratefulness. Consciously, he brought his hands back down so as not to disturb the dressing. He let them fall, fidgeting as his palms came into contact with more fresh sand, uncomfortably warm from contact with the sun that hadn't been shaded by his unconscious body. “Would any of you happen to know where I could get some freshwater? And, if it's no trouble, the nearest human settlement?” He needed to get out of the sun, too. Hell, maybe he could just pass out under those trees and find civilization later, Aaron wasn't even certain if he could stand, never mind walk however many miles away the nearest harbour was.

His question was met with four incredulous stares.

“What is freshwater?” John, the freckled one queried with an honest air of confusion, like Aaron had asked for the magic-force unification equation. Maybe it was a stupid question, Merfolk probably filtered the water they needed as all ocean species did. Simply looking human-like said little about their biology.

“Oh, new human friend, you would leave us so quickly?” The Mer that hadn't spoken directly to Aaron yet, tight curls bound even tighter behind his head, crawled closer to him as well, the last to leave the relative safety of deeper water. Audaciously, he pulled himself entirely out of the water, shimmying over the hot sand beside Aaron. This close up, Aaron realized the mer was very long. Longer than the one who had bandaged his head, but much slighter of frame such that he didn't appear so big at first. He slowly blinked, fluttering his long eyelashes and smiling almost flirtatiously. “We have only just met.”

“Lafayette oh my god.” One of the others muttered under their breath. Aaron ignored it, more concerned about the 'oh wow, mermaids' factor now that one erased the barrier of space between them.

“Uhhm,” Aaron forced out. He should probably push the mer away? Or something? But there was something so beautiful, so ethereal that he almost felt incapable of touching. A hand carefully reached up to Aaron, with long, perfectly elegant and almost delicate fingers offset by the very non-human webbing between each digit. Each finger was topped by a cheerfully coloured yet deadly sharp claw. “I do not mean to offend, only that-” He cut himself off as the hand gently touched at Aaron's cheek. It was cold and wet, and should have been clammy but was instead soothing.

“My apologies, little one. Your eyes are just captivating. I have been waiting for them to open.”

Aaron felt dizzy. Now was not the time to be blushing like a schoolgirl, but his heart pounded regardless. “Um,” he said again, uselessly. “My name is Aaron Burr”, he corrected, just so he wouldn't say 'little one' again.

The mer infront of him lit up at the words, but the three still in the surf shifted excitedly as well. “I am honoured you trust me with your name, little Burr!” Why were they so pleased by a simple name? And furthermore, if having his name was 'an honour', why did he call Aaron 'little' again? The mer took his hand away from Aaron's face to prop under his own chin as he leaned further into the sand beside him. Aaron tried not to miss the comforting coolness. “My name is Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, though you may call me Lafayette.”

This, inexplicably, sparked annoyance throughout the group. “Asshole, I was going to give him my name first. I found him, you know” The familiar Mer pouted.

“You had your chance, Alexander.” Lafayette's smirk was wide and smug. “How can you expect me to resist a name-bond?”

“Name bond?” Aaron croaked out, baffled again.

“Do humans not know about it? I thought they all had magic, too?” The freckled one frowned. “If humans don't even have magic compatibility, that poultice won't work at all.” His frown deepened, and he started worrying his lip.

“No, we are.” Aaron interrupted the thought process. “There's not a lot of witches- people who use magic- but we're all compatible. All sentient creatures are..?” Aaron trailed off, uncertain. There were some confirmed fantastical species, and they all certainly were, but the field of magic study had never been well developed.

The freckled one brightened, like the sun had come back up again. “Yes, that's what we were hoping!” And then, he shot a sly look at the familiar one. “My name is John Laurens, at your service.”

The familiar one sputtered. The one who had bandaged him laughed, joining in. “I am Hercules Mulligan. Don't mind Alex, he's just jealous.” Lafayette, still beside him, chuckled at that, and Aaron skipped a beat, faltering at how beautiful the sound was and how close it was to his ear.

The familiar one huffed, impossibly blushing, and surged forwards out of the water as well. “Alexander Hamilton.” He flopped at Aaron's other side, holding a hand out in front of Aaron's nose. “This is how humans greet, right? I've observed that much.”

Hesitantly, Aaron shook the proffered hand. Alexander's grip was awkward and too strong, but the handshake was surprisingly natural for someone who had only ever seen it from a distance. The Mer focused laser-sharp on their hands, smiling brightly at Aaron when they released, only a few moments longer than Aaron was used to.

Of course, this caused the final two- Hercules and John- to approach as well, curious at the exchange. “Can I try shaking your hand, Aaron?”John gave a smile that felt sugar sweet, even if it made sharp teeth poke out from between his lips.

The attention was overwhelming, and Aaron reached for something to say. “So, why is ah, Lafayette's name so much longer? I mean, does he hail from somewhere else, or do all Mer names vary like that?”

Lafayette perked up at the mention, and opened his mouth to answer, when suddenly Aaron realized. “Wait, no, hold up. I asked where the nearest human settlement was. You distracted me.” He tried to glare at Lafayette, who paused in confusion, before closing his mouth in a slight grimace and glancing away from Aaron for the first time.

Aaron looked around, and the expression was mirrored on all of the mer. His chest filled with dread. “Hey, come on.” Tails shifted, fingers twiddled.

Finally, Alexander let out a short, loud breath before meeting Aaron's eyes with his own sheepish gaze. “This is our island. It was the only dry land I could get you to, your ship was already far from the human populated islands, and I don't even know exactly how to get to them either, because obviously we can't get to close to human shores anyways. I was just so afraid that you would drown, I don't know how much it takes to kill humans, and I would have brought you around the other side to the coves we use, but I had to get you to shore first, and then you weren't awake, and-!” He caught his breath, looking more guilty now than sheepish. “I'm sorry. There's no humans on this island. Please don't be mad.”

And so the other shoe falls, Aaron thought, his mind in shock. Objectively, he should immediately worry that this was all a ruse and he'd been abducted by Merfolk. Myth always said that they could control the waves and currents, and used their beautiful melodic voices to lure sailors. But Aaron also pride himself as a good judge of bullshit, and the person in front of him didn't appear to have a dishonest bone in his body. The expressions of awkward guilt from the others seemed very real as well.

Of course, abducted or not, he was still the only human apparently stuck on an uninhabited island. The dryness in his throat and the pain of his body seemed all the more pressing now. He may not be alone, but his companions were of a species that didn't even know what freshwater was. Finally, Aaron found the strength to attempt standing, pushing his legs down and under his center of gravity. It was every bit as difficult as Aaron imagined, his feet so weak and unsteady that he nearly toppled over several times on the way to standing fully.

“Wait, where are you going, please don't leave!” Alexander reached out to him, but didn't grab or pull. Aaron was thankful, he suspected that it would only take a light tap to knock him over.

“Stay with us, little Burr, those legs do not look like they will hold you.” The words should have been teasing, but there was a noticeable edge of concern. Aaron felt himself further crowded, the merfolk edging closer, looking at him like Aaron was a frightened, injured animal that they were trying to nurse. Perhaps that wasn't so inaccurate.  

“I have to go further inland. My skin is burning up in the sun, and I need food and freshwater- not ocean water, it's too salty and only dehydrates humans more.”

“Oh, you meant landwater?”

“Well why didn't you say that earlier, we know what landwater is, there's a river just a few miles down that way.” John pointed helpfully to Aaron's right. “You'll have to go inland a bit to get to the landwater, but there is plenty of it. That's why we claimed this island in the first place, it's got enough waterways to explore all over.” He nodded, looking proud.

A few miles felt much too far in Aaron's mind, which was now starting to pound. But at least there was water to be had at all. Aaron supposed it was silly to assume they had no concept whatsoever of non-ocean water. He took a few steps, weak and short and painful. He attempted to go around Lafayette to the direction needed, but the Mer threw his hands out to block Aaron.

“No, please, let me carry you there, through the water. You look in pain.” Lafayette fluttered too-long eyelashes.

“I...” Aaron was again unsure of himself. “I don't need help. I can do it.” The pleading looks of his new companions spoke differently. Aaron should be firm about this, shouldn't he? He should be uncomfortable at the idea of letting a Mer drag him back into the water, especially when he was so weak.

“Aaron, please.” This time it was Hercules, reaching out to gently touch Aaron's shoulder. “Humans eat fish, right? How about I go catch some for you, while you let Lafayette take you up the river. He'll find some shade for you, and John can check that dressing.”

Aaron hesitated. Lafayette held a hand out, while John agreed loudly. “I'll go ahead and make a spot for you to rest!” Alexander said, clearly itching for something to do. “I've seen humans eat the insides of coconuts, I'll prepare some of those as well!” Four pairs of eyes stared beseechingly at him. He could only nod slightly, carefully clasping the hand held out to him.

This had to be the weirdest shipwrecking anyone had gone through.

[trace-error]

TraceError("Patriotism");

Ahhh Trump and his big fucking mouth. He seized an opportunity to cling on tightly to a demographic group that just might might be wavering on him. That group would be the ultra-patriotic, anti-Colin-Kaepernick, Blue-Lives- Matter, pile of people in this country when he spoke last week at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama. President Trump denounced any player that "disrespects the flag and our military", calling them "sons of bitches" that "should be pull off the field and fired".

There are groups of people in this country that just lapped up these words from the President like a feral dog. There are some in this country that absolutely despise Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee while he was a member of the San Francisco 49ers last year. His purpose was to draw attention to racial injustice, inequality, and police brutality in the wakes of multiple high-profile cases involving the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers.

The argument against Kaepernick and other players (many of whom stand-by him) are that he is disrespecting the flag, soldiers, past and present, and, ultimately, the country. How is one supposed to protest? Only when it's convenient for the opposition? Obviously, this isn't about patriotism, but the ability for so many to immediately counter a peaceful protest with unpatriotic sentiment is just flabbergasting. So what? What's wrong with being anti-America if you don't like where the country is? Are we not allowed to criticize? And what about the demographic that Trump collected last week, the supporters of the red-white-and-blue everything no matter what, the blind-allegiants?

The star-bangled banner reverence is a bit much. The national anthem ritual has become such a religious sacrament, it's downright amazing. It probably makes some fundi Muslim and Christians hard and jealous at the same time.

When we stand with our hand over our hearts, are we really celebrating the founding fathers battle against our former British overlords? Doubtful. Do we get all patriotic about overcoming our lack of representation in regards to the red-shirted tax. It certainly hasn't come up in any discussion about this issue that I’ve had. To be honest, I don't think you can find three people in your office or shooting range that could name the monarch of England at the time of the American Revolution. That would be King George III if you're keeping score. You see, we, Americans, lose sight of many important details, because we see things through our red-white-and-blue lenses. All that matters to people is that we roll out the flag, give praise to it, be thankful we won a war against the British to be our own country or something, and the rest is history (mostly written by rich white people).

Go to an American football game and the military has full representation, toting guns over their shoulder, in uniform, big huge flag rolled out on the field, while some service-member belts out the national anthem. Then we get a fly-over in every stadium with some billion dollar fighter-jets while numb-skulls look-up to ooh-and-ahh. Every NFL game engages in this absolute cock worship of the American military penis. We truly are an empire and no one really notices or cares about that part. Unless someone doesn't participate in it.

Every day in elementary school, I remember being told "to stand and give your pledge of allegiance". I remember it feeling quite strange. As an 8yr old subordinate you're made to stand up, put hand on heart, and perform this patriotic daily tradition. No questions asked. You just do it. Did I really pay attention to the words? Nope, I just memorized them because if I didn't, I was outcasted and marginalized.

Why do we engage in this sort of blind mindless "allegiance" and is it a bug in our societal software and what are the effects?

You don't get to choose where you're born. And with that, you certainly don't get to choose your parents. What patch of dirt, your mother happens to be laying her ass down on when you come raging out between her legs is the most involuntary thing in your life. Pride for that patch of dirt merely due to birth is not a solid justification whatsoever for the extreme pride and jingoistic tendencies we see in some people.

When people say "What are you, as in, are you Persian, Italian, Irish?", that sort of thing, you probably know exactly what to say. In your head you may think, "Well, my grandfather said he came to the States in 1928 from some small village in Italy, so that makes me Italian". I grew up with a number of friends who'd get tattoos of the Italian flag on their bodies because their family was from Italy. Pride in that sort of thing is so dumb considering that they actually LEFT that country for a reason. Besides , it's technology that's limiting us from going back even further. Ancestry.com seeks to help with that, but even then legible records are needed to climb up the family tree. Perhaps, my friend's family weren't always from Italy. What if they were from Austria at some point, or from Croatia (or that area as the country name is relatively young) both relative neighboring lands. Prior to the American and French revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries, people would refer to themselves by a particular region of the Italian peninsula (i.e. Milan/Milanese). Italy wasn't united until the 1860s.

You didn't really expect an Italian history lesson so I won't bore you with anything more. The important thing to note is that the lands our forefathers say they were from are just words, dirt surrounded my imaginary lines. Some people at somepoint in time signed a piece of paper, shook a few hands, and they decided to call it something. People decided to fight wars and unify their country for the greater good of all people in that region. How about we do that for the world? What's stopping us from all getting together and deciding it's better for us all to refer to us as Earthlings, inhabitants of this beautiful blue planet, and rid the globe of these lines in the sand.

Well that won't happen. It certainly won't happen in my lifetime. While I believe the obstacles are more economic in nature, the theme of this essay is more patriotism so I'll say that people right now are too xenophobic and too reliant on their tribalism to let a grand unification happen.

People's first impulse in such a climate is to be concerned with self-preservation and because of the way governments are instituted that extends to people seeking state-preservation. When we are divided into states like we are, it causes competition over resources (things like oil, fresh water, arable land). That competition more often than not has lead us to war in which faction vs. faction fight until too many have died for a rather meaningless cause that could have been avoided if people saw themselves as equals, neighbors, inhabitants of the same place.

The state while it seeks preservation and competes for standing among other states, floods its people with propaganda to gain support for its endeavors or missions or, often, makes it very difficult to criticize such endeavors in the first place. In the past, the United States, a so-called beacon of freedom since it's inception, has had forced patriotism and anti-state censorship. Things like the Alien and Sedition Acts in which people were jailed and tried for treason if they spoke ill of the red-white-and-blue. There's also the prohibition of displaying caskets of dead american soldiers in media so the true nature of war does not spoil American's appetite for patriotism. On top of that, consider this, how much of our written history that's been taught within our country is one-sided and pro-USA? Could it be anything else? Do we get the whole story? Are we always the good guy?

Patriotism makes it very difficult to have honest critical conversation. When Americans look at themselves in the mirror, we're taught that what we see staring back at us is a real fucking hero. A Rambo, Uncle Sam, Iron-man motherfucker who will come take your lunch if you talk shit on us or don't do as we say you should. If you worked next to a guy like that, would you be friends with him? Sounds like a douchebag. Every 4th of July, I bet he wears $4 old navy American flag tank-tops made by Bangladeshi women making $1 a day in crumbling factory buildings.

Your next-desk-over-cubicle-Rambo probably belongs in the  35 percent of Americans who couldn't name a single justice on the Supreme Court. How many rambos do you think can name the current Secretary of State? Or the capital of Illinois?

We have to step out of our boxes and see ourselves as part of a whole. Not a whole country, but a whole world. And when we are capable of traveling the stars, part of a universe. No matter where you're born and raised, you are no better than someone else across the globe. We share the world and all it's resources. So no more worshiping the flag. Instead, let's worship the Earth and all of us that live in it. If we'd like to see a safer more peaceful future, we have to acknowledge this and begin living like it.

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/donald-trumps-history-making-press-conference-transcript-part-1/

Donald Trump's history making press conference transcript Part 1

President Donald Trump made more history again on Wednesday with a press conference that easily made his diehard supporters very happy. He attacked the media, admitted that all the leaks within his administration are real, but then he quickly added that it's fake news. He didn't specify what was fake news, but he is the master of saying something and then contradicting it within the space of a minute. While Trump obviously feels that he can wrangle the press and change the direction of the conversation; he wound up raising even more questions than answers. He even showed the art of creating fake news when he began the conference by spouting he had the "biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan." But that was quickly dispelled when Peter Alexander at NBC News corrected him that Barack Obama had done better. Trump shifted and said he had the best win for Republicans, but then that was also dispelled because George W. Bush had done better. Then Trump said those were the facts he'd been given. This was the perfect show of how fake news can be spread directly from the source. Sadly, that's also called lying unless the source is just painfully unaware of true facts. Now if the media hadn't been doing their job and just ran with the numbers and facts he gave, Trump would be a happy camper, but then that would also be the breaking down of our democracy. By now, you've heard and seen pieces of the press conference, but below you can read it as it happened unedited. It's quite an interesting read, even for those not into politics. You may even think it's a transcript from one of the airplane political thriller pulp reads as it's rather out there. You can jump to Part 2 here if you've read this one already. Trust me, both parts are worth your time. TRUMP: Thank you very much. I just wanted to begin by mentioning that the nominee for secretary of the Department of Labor will be Mr. Alex Acosta. He has a law degree from Harvard Law School, great student, former clerk for Justice Samuel Alito, and he has had a tremendous career. He's a member and has been a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and he's been through Senate confirmation three times, confirmed, did very, very well. And so Alex, I wished him the best. We just spoke, and he's going to be a tremendous secretary of Labor. And, also, as you probably heard just a little while ago, Mick Mulvaney, former congressman, has just been approved, weeks late. I have to say that, weeks, weeks late, Office of Management and Budget, and he will be, I think, a fantastic addition. Paul Singer just left. As you know, he was very much involved with the anti-Trump or as they say, Never Trump, and Paul left and gave us total support. It's all about unification. We're unifying the party and hopefully we'll unify the country. It's very important to me. I've been talking about that for a long time, but it's very, very important to me. I thank Paul for being here, coming up to the office, he was very strong opponent, and now he's a very strong ally, and I appreciate that. I think I'll say a few words and take some questions. I had this time, we've been negotiating a lot of different transactions to save money on contracts that were terrible, including airplane contracts that were out of control and late and terrible. Just absolutely catastrophic in terms of what was happening. And we've done some really good work and we're proud of that. Right after that, you prepare yourselves for questions, unless you have no questions, that's always a responsibility. I'm here today to update the American people on the incredible progress that has been made in the last four weeks since my inauguration. We have made incredible progress. I don't think there's ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what we've done. A new Rasmussen poll, in fact, because the people get it, much of the media doesn't get it, they actually get it but they don't write it, let's put it that way, but a new Rasmussen poll came out a short while ago, and it has our approval rating at 55 percent and going up. The stock market has hit record numbers, as you know, and there's been a tremendous surge of optimism in the business world, which means something different than it used to. Now it means it's good for jobs. Very different. Plants and factories are already starting to move back into the United States, big league, Ford, General Motors. I'm making this presentation directly to the American people with the media present, which, it's an honor to have you this morning because many of our nation's reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve. And I hope going forward we can be a little bit different, and maybe get along a little bit better, if that's possible. Maybe it's not and that's OK too. Unfortunately, much of the media in Washington, DC, along with New York, Los Angeles, in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously broken system. The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out what's going on because the press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control. I ran for president to represent the citizens of our country. I am here to change the broken system so it serves their families and their communities well. I am talking, and really talking, on this very entrenched power structure and what we're doing is we're talking about the power structure. We're talking about its entrenchment. As a result, the media's going through what they have to go through to oftentimes distort — not all the time — and some of the media's fantastic, I have to say, honest and fantastic — but much of it is not. The distortion, and we'll talk about it, you'll be able to ask me questions about it. We're not going to let it happen because I'm here, again, to take my message straight to the people. As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. A mess. At home, and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. You see what's going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places. Low pay, low wages. Mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The Middle East, a disaster. North Korea, we'll take care of it, folks. We're going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know. I inherited a mess. Beginning on day one, our administration went to work to tackle these challenges. On foreign affairs, we've begun enormously productive talks with foreign leaders, much of which you've covered, to move forward to security, stability and peace in the most troubled regions of the world, which there are many. We've had great conversations with the United Kingdom and meetings, Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada. Really, really productive conversations. I would say far more productive than you would understand. We've even developed a new council with Canada to promote women's business leaders and entrepreneurs. Very important to me. Very important to my daughter, Ivanka. I have directed our defense community headed by our great general, now Secretary Mattis, he's over there now working very hard, to submit a plan for the defeat of ISIS, a group that celebrates murder and torture of innocent people in large sections of the world. Used to be a small group. Now it's in large sections of the world. They've spread like cancer. ISIS has spread like cancer. Another mess I inherited. We have imposed new sanctions on the nation of Iran, who has totally taken advantage of our previous administration. And they are the world's top sponsor of terrorism. And we're not going to stop until that problem is properly solved, and it's not now. It's one of the worst agreements I've ever seen drawn by anybody. I've ordered plans to begin for the massive rebuilding of the United States military. I've had great support from the Senate. I've had great support from Congress, generally. We've pursued this rebuilding in the hopes that we will never have to use this military. I will tell you, that is my — I would be so happy if we never had to use it, but our country will never have had a military like the military we're about to build and rebuild. We have the greatest people on earth in our military. They don't have the right equipment, and their equipment is old. I used it. I talked about it. At every stop. Depleted. It's depleted. It won't be depleted for long. One of the reasons I'm standing here instead of other people is, frankly, I talked about we have to have a strong military. We have to have strong law enforcement also. So we do not go abroad in the search of war. We really are searching for peace. It's peace through strength. At home, we have begun the monumental task of returning the government to the people to a scale not seen in many, many years. In each of these actions, I'm keeping my promises to the American people. These are campaign promises. Some people are so surprised that we are having strong borders. Well that's what I've been talking about for a year and a half, strong borders. They are so surprised. Oh, he is having strong borders. Well, that's what I've been talking about to the press and everybody else. One promise after another after years of politicians lying to you to get elected. They lied to the American people In order to get elected. Some of the things I'm doing probably aren't popular, but they're necessary for security and or other reasons. And then coming to Washington and pursuing their own interests, which is more important to many politicians. I'm here following through on what I pledged to do. That's all I'm doing. I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes. I wasn't supposed to get 222. They said there's no way to get 222. 230 is impossible. 270, which you need — that was laughable. We got 306. Because people came out and voted like they have never seen before. So that's how it goes. I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan. In other words, the media is trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made, and they are not happy about it for whatever reason. And, but a lot of people are happy about it. In fact, I'll be in Melbourne, Florida, at 5 on Saturday, and I heard, just heard the crowds are massive that want to be there. I turn on the TV, open the newspaper and I see stories of chaos. Chaos. Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine. Despite the fact that I can't get my Cabinet approved. They are outstanding people. Like Senator Dan Coats, who is there, one of the most respected men in the Senate. He can't get approved. How do you not approve him? He's been a colleague, highly respected, brilliant guy, great guy, everybody knows it, but were waiting for approval. So we have a wonderful group of people that's working very hard, that's being very much misrepresented about, and we can't let that happen. So if the Democrats. all you have to do is look where they are right now. The only thing they can do is delay because they screwed things up royally. Believe me. Let me list things we've done in just a short period of time. Just got here. I got here with no Cabinet. Again, each of the actions is a promise I made to the American people, going over just some of them. We have a lot in the next week and weeks coming. We have withdrawn from the job killing disaster known as Trans-Pacific Partnership. We're going to have trade deals but we're going to have one-on-one deals, bilateral. One-on-one deals. We directed the elimination of regulations that undermine manufacturing and called for expedited approval of the permits needed for America and American infrastructure, meaning plants, equipment, roads, bridges, factories. People take 10, 15, 20 years to get disapproved for a factory. They go in for a permit, it's many, many years, and at the end of the process, they spend tens of millions of dollars on nonsense, and at the end of the process, they are rejected. They may be rejected with me, but it's going to be a quick rejection. Not going to take years, but, mostly, it's acceptance. We want plants and factories built. We want the jobs. We don't want the jobs going to other countries. We've imposed a hiring freeze on nonessential federal workers. We've imposed a temporary moratorium and new federal regulations. We issued a game-changing new rule that says for each one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. Makes sense. Nobody's ever seen regulations like we have. You go to other countries, and you look at industries they have, and you say, let me see your regulations. They are a fraction, just a tiny fraction of what we have. I want regulations because I want safety. I want environmental, all environmental situations to be taken properly care of. It's very important to me. You don't need four or five or six regulations to take care of the same thing. We've stood up for the men and women of law enforcement, directing federal agencies to ensure they are protected from crimes of violence. We've directed the creation of a task force for reducing violent crime in America, including the horrendous situation — take a look at Chicago and others — taking place right now in our inner cities. Horrible. We've ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Justice to coordinate on a plan to destroy criminal cartels coming into the United States with drugs. We're becoming a drug-infested nation. Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars. We're not going to let it happen any longer. We've undertaken the most substantial border security measures in a generation to keep our nation and our tax dollars safe and are now in the process of beginning to build a promised wall on the southern border. [I] met with general, now Secretary Kelly, yesterday, and we're starting that process. And the wall is going to be a great wall, and it's going to be a wall negotiated by me. The price is going to come down, just like on everything else I've negotiated for the government. And we're going to have a wall that works. We're not going to have a wall like they have now that is either nonexistent or a joke. We ordered a crackdown on sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal law and that harbor criminal aliens, and we've ordered an end to the policy of catch and release on the border. No more release. No matter who you are. We've begun a nationwide effort to remove criminal aliens, gang members, drug dealers, and others who pose a threat to public safety. We are saving American lives every single day. Court system has not made it easy for us. And we've even created a new office in Homeland Security dedicated to the forgotten American victims of illegal immigrant violence, which there are many. We've taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. Though parts of our necessary and constitutional actions were blocked by judges, in my opinion, incorrect, an unsafe ruling. Our administration is working night and day to keep you safe — including reporters — and is vigorously defending this lawful order. I will not back down from defending our country. I got elected on defending our country. I keep my campaign promises, and our citizens will be very happy when they see the result, they already are. I can tell you that. Extreme vetting will be put in place, and it already is in place in many places. In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. I've heard 80 percent, I find that hard believe. That's just a number I heard, that they are overturned 80 percent of the time. I think that circuit is — that circuit in chaos and that circuit is frankly in turmoil. But we are appealing that and we are going further. We're issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country, so we'll be going along the one path and hopefully winning that. At the same time we will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people and that'll be done sometime next week in the beginning or middle at the latest part. We've also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone pipeline and Dakota Access pipelines, thousands and thousands of jobs, and put new buy American measures in place to require American steel for American pipelines. In other words, they build a pipeline in this country and we use the powers of the government to make that pipeline happen, we want them to use American steel. And they are willing to do that, but nobody ever asked before I came along. Even this order was drawn, and they didn't say that and I'm reading the order and I say why aren't we using American steel? They said, that's a good idea. We put it in. To drain the swamp of corruption in Washington D.C., I've started by imposing a five-year lobbying ban on White House officials, and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government. We've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare. Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It's a disaster. You can say, oh, Obamacare. They fill up our alleys with people that you wonder how they get there, but they're not the republican people that our representatives are representing. So, we've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare and are deep in the midst of negotiations on a very historic tax reform to bring our jobs back. Bring our jobs back to this country, big league. It's already happening. Big league. I've also worked to install a Cabinet over the delays and obstruction of Senate Democrats. You've seen what they've done over the last long number of years. That will be one of the great cabinets ever assembled in American history. You look at Rex Tillerson. He's out there negotiating right now. General Mattis I mentioned before. General Kelly. We have great, great people, makers with us now. We have great people. Among their responsibilities will be ending the bleeding of jobs from our country and negotiating fair trade deals for our citizens. Now look, fair trade. Not free. Fair. If a country is taking advantage of us, we're not going to let that happen anymore. You know, every country takes advantage of us, almost. I may be able to find a couple that don't, but for the most part, that would be a tough job for me to do. Jobs have already started to surge. Since my election, Ford announced it will abandon its plans to build a new factory in Mexico, and will instead invest $700 million in Michigan, creating many, many jobs. Fiat Chrysler announced it will invest $1 billion in Ohio and Michigan creating 2,000 new american jobs. They were with me a week ago. You know, you were here. General Motors likewise committed to invest billions of dollars in its American manufacturing operation, keeping many jobs here that were going to leave, and if I didn't get elected, believe me, they would have left, and these jobs, these things that I'm announcing would never have come here. Intel just announced that it will move ahead with a new plant in Arizona that probably was never going to move ahead with. And that will result in at least 10,000 American jobs. Wal-mart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this year because of our various plans and initiatives. They'll be many, many more, many more. These are a few that we're naming. Other countries have been taken advantage of us for decades, decades, and decades and decades, folks, and we're not going to let that happen anymore. Not going to let it happen. And one more thing, I have kept my promise to the American people by nominating a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, from my list of 20, and who will be a true defender of our laws and our constitution. Highly respected. Should get the vote from the Democrats. You may not see that, but he'll get there one way or another. He should get there the old fashioned way, and he should get those votes. This last month has represented an unprecedented degree of action on behalf of the great citizens of our country. Again, I say it, there's never been a presidency that's done so much in such a short period of time, and we haven't even started the big work that starts early next week. Some very big things are going to be announced next week. So we're just getting started. We will be giving a speech as I said in Melbourne, Florida, at 5 p.m., I hope to see you there. And with that, I just say God bless America, and let's take some questions. Mara? Mara, go ahead, you were cut off pretty violently at our last news conference. Reporter: [ inaudible ] Mike Flynn is a wonderful person, and I asked for resignation, he respectfully gave it. He is a man who there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Pence, who's with us today, and I was not happy with the way that information was given. He didn't have to do that because what he did wasn't wrong. What he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves, in this room, were given that information. Because that was classified information that was given illegally. That's the real problem. You know, you can talk all you want about Russia, which was all, you know, "fake news" fabricated deal to try to make up for the loss of the Democrats and the press plays right into it. In fact, I saw a couple of the people supposedly involved with all of this. They know nothing about it, never in Russia, never made a phone call, never received a phone call. It's all fake news. It's all fake news. The nice thing is I see it starting to turn where people are now looking at the illegal — I think it's very important — the illegal giving out classified information, and let me just tell you, it was given out so much. For example, I called, as you know, Mexico. It was a very confidential classified call, but I called Mexico, and in calling Mexico, I figured, oh, well that's nice, I spoke to the president of Mexico, had a good call, all the sudden it's out there for the world to see. It was supposed to be secret. Supposed to be either confidential or classified in that case, same thing with Australia. All of the sudden, people are finding out exactly what took place. The same thing happened with respect to General Flynn. Everybody saw this. And I'm saying, the first thing I thought of when I heard about it, is how does the press get this information that's classified? How do they do it? You know why? Because it's an illegal process, and the press should be ashamed of themselves, but more importantly, the people that gave out information to the press should be ashamed of themselves. Really a shame. Trump: Yes, go ahead. Reporter: Why did you keep your vice president in the dark for almost two weeks? Trump: Because when I looked at the information, I said, I don't think he did anything wrong. If anything, he did something right. He was coming into office, looked at the information, and he said, "huh, that's fine." That's what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to be — he just didn't call Russia, he called, and spoke to both ways, I think, there were 30-some odd countries, just doing his job. You know, he was just doing his job. The thing is he didn't tell our vice president properly, and then he said he didn't remember, so either way, it wasn't very satisfactory to me. And I have somebody that I think will be outstanding for the position, and that also helps, I think, in the making of my decision, but he didn't tell the vice president of the United States the facts, and then he didn't remember, and that just wasn't acceptable to me. Yes? Reporter: Since you brought up Russia, I'm looking for some clarification here. During the campaign, did anyone from your team communicate with members of the Russian government or Russian intelligence, and if so, what was the nature of the conversations? Trump: Well, the failing New York Times wrote a big long front page story yesterday, and it was very much discredited, as you know. It was— it's a joke. The people mentioned in the story, I noticed they were on television today saying they never even spoke to Russia. They weren't even a part, really, I mean, there was such a minor part. I had not spoken to them—I think the one person, I don't think I've ever spoken to him or ever met him, and he actually said he was a very low level member of, I think, committee for a short period of time. I don't think I ever met him. Now it's possible I walked into a room and he was sitting there, but I never met him, I never talked to him ever, and he thought it was a joke. The other person said he never spoke to Russia, never received a call, looked at his phone records, et cetera, et cetera, and the other person people knew that he represented various countries, but I don't think he represented Russia, but represented various countries. That's what he does. People know that. That's Mr. Manafort, by the way, a respected man, a respected man, but I think he represented the Ukraine or Ukraine government or somebody, but everybody knew that. Everybody knew that. So these people... and he said that he has absolutely nothing to do and never has with Russia. He said that very forcefully. I saw his statement. He said it forcefully. Most of the papers do not print it because it's not good for their stories. So the three people they talked about all totally deny it, and I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don't have any deals in Russia. President Putin called me up nicely to congratulate me on the win of the election. He called me up extremely nicely to congratulate me on the inauguration, which was terrific, but so did almost all other leaders from almost all other countries. That's the exception. Russia is fake news. Russia — this is fake news put out by the media. The real news is the fact that there are people probably from the Obama administration because they are there. We have new people going in place right now, as you know, Mike Pompeo is now taking control of the CIA, James Comey at the FBI, Dan Coates is waiting to be approved. I mean, he's a senator, a highly respected one, and he's still waiting to be approved. But our new people are going in. Just while you're at it, because you mentioned this, the Wall Street Journal did a story today that was almost as disgraceful as the failing New York Times story yesterday. And it talked about — you saw it, front page — so director of national intelligence just put out, acting, a statement, any suggestion that the United States intelligence community — this was just given to us — is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the president and his national security team is not true. So they took this front page story out of the Wall Street Journal top, and they just wrote the story, but it's not true. I'll tell you something. I'll be honest. I sort of enjoy this back and forth, and I guess I have all my life, but never seen more dishonest media than frankly the political media. I thought the financial media was much better and more honest, but I will say that I never get phone calls from the media. How do they write a story like that in the Wall Street Journal without asking me or how do they write a story in the New York Times put it on the front page. That was the story they wrote about the women and me, front page, big massive story. And It was nasty. And then they called, they said, we never said that. We like Mr. Trump. They called up my office. We like Mr. Trump. We never said that. And it was totally — they totally misrepresented those very wonderful women. I have to tell you. Totally misrepresented. I said, give us a retraction. They never gave us a retraction, and, frankly, I then went on to other things. Okay. Go ahead. Reporter: Mr. President, you said today that you have biggest electoral margins since Reagan with 350 electoral votes, and, in fact, president Obama got 365 -- [Trump mumbles in response] why should America — [ Trump tries to protest in response] why should America trust you when you accuse the — [ inaudible ] Trump: Actually, I've seen that information around. It was a substantial difference, do you agree with that? Reporter: You're the president. Trump: Okay. [laughing] Reporter: Can you tell us, can you determine that General Flynn never wronged you? What evidence — did you ask your transcripts [inaudible] you said you'd aggressively pursue [inaudible] Trump: We are. Reporter: [inaudible] review of the intelligence community — what can you tell us? Trump: First of all, about that. We now have Dan Coates, hopefully soon, Mike Pompeo, and James Comey, and they are in position, so I hope that we'll be able to straighten that out without using anybody else. The gentleman you mentioned is a very talented man, a very successful man, and he's offered his services, and you know, it's something we may take advantage of, but I don't think we'll need that at all because of the fact that, you know, I think that we're going to be able to straighten it out easily on its own. As far as the general is concerned, when I first heard about it, I said, huh, that doesn't sound wrong. My counsel came, Don McGahn, White House Counsel, and he told me, and I asked him, and he can speak very well for himself. He said he doesn't think anything is wrong. You know, really didn't think — really what happened after that — but he didn't think anything was done wrong. I didn't either, because I waited a period of time and thought about it. Well, I said I don't see, to me, he was doing the job. The information was provided by, who I don't know, Sally Yates, and I was a little surprised because I said, "Doesn't sound like he did anything wrong there," but he did something wrong with respect to the Vice President, and I thought it was not acceptable as far as, as far as, the actual making the call. In fact, I've watched various programs, and I've read various articles where he was just doing his job. That was very normal. You know, first everybody got excited because they thought he did something wrong. After they thought about it, it turned out he was just doing his job. So, and I do — and, by the way, with all of that being said, I do think he's a fine man. Yes, john? Reporter: What will you do on the leaks? You have said twice today [inaudible] Trump: I've actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. Those are criminal leaks. They're put out by people either in agencies you'll see it stopping because now we have our people in. You know, again, we don't have our people in because we can't them approved by the Senate. We just had Jeff Sessions approved and just as an example. So, we are looking into that very seriously. It's a criminal act. You know what I say, when I was called out on Mexico, I was shocked. Cause all this equipment, all this incredible phone equipment. When I was called out on Mexico, I was, honestly, I was really, really surprised. But I said, you know, it doesn't make sense. That won't happen. But that wasn't that important to call. It was fine. I could show it to the world, and he could show it to the world, the president, who is a very fine man, by the way, same thing with Australia. I said, that's terrible that it was leaked, but it was not that important. But then I said to myself, what happens when I'm dealing with the problem of North Korea? What happens when I'm dealing with the problems in the Middle East? Are you folks going to be reporting all of that very, very confidential information? Very important, very, you know, I mean, at the highest level, are you going to be reporting about that too? So I don't want classified information getting out to the public. In a way, that was almost a test, so I'm dealing with Mexico, I'm dealing with Argentina. We were dealing with this case on Mike Flynn, all the information gets put into the Washington Post and gets put into the New York Times, and I'm saying, what's going to happen when I deal on the Middle East? What's happening when I'm dealing with really, really important subjects like North Korea? We got to stop it. That's why it's a criminal penalty. Yes? John? Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to get you to clarify, because it's a very important point, can you say definitively that nobody on your campaign had any contacts with the Russians during the campaign, and on the leaks, is it fake news or are these real leaks? Trump: Well, the leaks are real. You're the one that wrote about them and reported them. I mean the leaks are real. You know what they said. You saw it and the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. So one thing that I felt it was very important to do, and I hope we can correct it, because there's nobody I have more respect for— well, maybe a little bit, but than reporters, than good reporters. It's very important to me. Especially in this position. It's very important. I don't mind bad stories. I can handle a bad story better than anybody as long as it's true and over the course of time, I'll make mistakes, and you'll write badly and I'm okay with it. But I'm not okay when it is fake. I mean I watch CNN, and it's so much anger, hatred, and just the hatred, I don't watch it anymore because it's very good — he's saying now, it's okay, Jim, you'll have a chance. But I watch others too. You're not the only one, don't feel badly. But I think it should be straight. I think it should be, I think it should be frankly more interesting. I know how good everybody's ratings are right now, but I think it'll actually be better. People, you have a lower approval rate than Congress — I think that's right, I don't know Peter is that one right? I think they have, I think I heard lower than Congress. But, honestly, the public would appreciate it. I would appreciate it. I don't mind bad stories when it's true, but we have an administration where the Democrats are making it very difficult. I think we're setting a record or close to a record in the time of approval in the cabinet. Numbers are crazy. Some of them had them approved immediately. I still have a lot of people that we're waiting for. And that's all they're doing is delaying. You look at Schumer the mess that he's got over there. And they have nothing going. The only thing they can do is delay. And you know, I think they would be better served by, you know, approving and making sure that they're happy and everybody's good. And sometimes, and I know President Obama lost three or four, and you lose them on the way, and that's okay. That's fine. I think it would be much better served, John, if they just went through the process quickly. This is pure delay tactics. And they say it. And everybody understands it. Yeah, go ahead, Jim. Reporter: The first part of my question is can you definitively say [inaudible] Trump: I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there. I have no anything. Now, when Wikileaks — which I have nothing to do with —comes out and happens to give, they are not giving classified information. They are giving stuff, what was said in an office about Hillary cheating on the debates, which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates. Can you imagine, seriously, can you imagine if I received the questions? It would be the electric chair, okay? He should be put in the electric chair and you'd even call for the reconstitution of the death penalty, okay? Maybe not you, John. Yes, you next. Reporter: Mr. President, I just want to clarify an important point, I think. Did you direct Mike Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador? Prior to your inauguration? Would you have fired him if that information hadn't leaked out? Trump: I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence. Very simple. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries, his counterparts, so it certainly would have been okay with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he was not doing it. I did not direct him, but I would have directed him because that's his job. It came out that way, and, in all fairness, I watched Dr. Charles Krauthammer the other night say, he was doing his job. And I agreed with him. Since then, I've watched many other people say that. You know, I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him if he did not do it, okay? Jim? Reporter: Just for the record, We don't hate you. Trump: Okay. Reporter: Pass that along. Trump: Well, ask Jeff Zucker how he got his job. Reporter: If I may follow-up on questions taking place here sir, well, not too many -- Trump: I don't know which microphones to hold. You have other people and your ratings are not as good as some of the others. Reporter: They are pretty good right now, actually, Mr. President. Trump: Go ahead. Reporter: If I may ask sir, you said earlier that WikiLeaks was revealing information about the Hillary Clinton campaign during the election cycle. You welcomed that at one campaign rally, you said you loved WikiLeaks, and in a press conference, you called on the Russians to find the missing 30,000 e-mails. I'm wondering, sir if you Trump: Well, she was missing 33, and that was extended with Reporter: Maybe my numbers are off Trump: I did say 30, but it was higher. Reporter: I'm asking, sir, it sounds you don't have much credibility here when it comes to leaking if that is something that you encouraged in the campaign. Trump: Fair question. Reporter: If I may ask you -- Trump: Do you mind me saying something? Reporter: Yes, sir. Trump: So in one case, you are talking about highly classified information. In the other case, you're talking about John Podesta saying bad things about the boss. If John Podesta said that about me and working for me, I would have fired him so fast your head would have spun. He said terrible things about her. But It was not classified information. In one case, you are talking about classified. Regardless, if you look at the RNC, we had a very strong, at my suggestion, and I give Reince great credit for this. At my suggestion, because I know something about this world, I said I want a very strong defensive mechanism. I don't want to be hacked. And we did that. And you have seen that they tried to hack us and failed. The DNC did not do that. If they did it, they could not have been hacked. They were hacked. Terrible things came in. You know, the only thing I think is unfair is some of the things were so — when I heard some of those things, I picked up the papers next morning, and said, "Oh, this will be front page," but it was not even in the papers. Again, if I had that happen to me, it would be the biggest story in the history of publishing or newspapers. I would have been the headline in every newspaper. I mean, think of it. They gave her the questions to the debate, and she should have reported herself. Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that, I'm sorry, I have been given the questions to a debate or a town hall, and I feel that it's inappropriate, and I want to turn in CNN for not doing a good job. Reporter: If I may follow up on that what was asked about. You said the leaks are real, but the news is fake. I don't understand. It seems there's a disconnect there. If the information coming from the leaks is real, then how can the stories be fake? Trump: The reporting is fake. Reporter: I have to ask — yes, sir? Trump: Here's the thing. The public is — you know, they read newspapers, they see television, they watch. They don't know if it's true or false. Because they are not involved. I'm involved. I've been involved with the stuff all my life. But I'm involved. I know when you are telling the truth or when you are not. I just see many, many untruthful things. And I'll tell you what else I see. Tone. I see tone. You know the word tone. The tone is such hatred. I'm really not a bad person, by the way. No, but You know, but the tone is such — I do the get good ratings, you have to admit that. But the tone is such hatred. I watched this morning a couple of the networks, and I have to say, Fox and Friends in the morning, they are very honorable people — not because they are good — because they hit me when I do something wrong, but they have the most honest morning show. That's all I can say. It's the most honest, but the tone, Jim, if you look, the hatred, the — I mean, sometimes — Reporter: We don't hate you, sir. Trump: Well, you look at your show that goes on at 10 in the evening. You just take a look at the show. It's a constant hit. The panel is almost always exclusive anti-Trump. The good news is he doesn't have good ratings, but the panel is almost exclusive anti-Trump, and the hatred and venom from his mouth. And hatred from other people on your network. I'll say this. I watch it. I see it. I'm amazed by it. And I just think you'd be a lot better off. I honestly do. The public gets it. You go to rallies, they're screaming at CNN, they want to throw their placards at CNN. You know, I think you would do much better by being different. But you just Take a look. Take a look at some of your shows in the mornings and evening. If a guest comes out and says something positive about me, it's brutal. Now, they'll take this news conference, I'm actually having a very good time, okay, but they'll take this news conference — don't forget, that's the way I won. I used to give you a news conference every day and made a speech, which was every day. That's how I won, with news conference and probably speeches. I certainly did not win by people listening to you people. That's for sure. But I'm having a good time. Tomorrow, they will say, Donald Trump rants and raves at the press. I'm not ranting and raving. I'm telling you you're dishonest people, but I'm not ranting and raving. I love this. I'm having a good time doing it, but tomorrow's headlines are going to be Donald Trump, rants and rants. I'm not ranting. Go ahead — Reporter: A follow-up — Trump: Should I let him more — sit down — well — Reporter: Just because of the attack of fake news and attacking our network, I just want to ask you, sir — Trump: Changing it from fake news, though. Reporter: I know — Trump: To very fake news — Reporter: I know but aren't you— Trump Go ahead. Go ahead. [ laughter ] Reporter: Real news, Mr. President — Trump: You're not related to our new — Reporter: I am not, sir. [ laughter ] I do like the sound of Secretary Acosta — Trump: I looked at the name, and said wait a minute, is there any relation — Reporter: I'm sure you checked it out. Trump: Yeah I checked it and they said, no, sir, I said, do me a favor, go back and check the family tree. Reporter: Aren't you concerned, sir, you are undermining the people's faith in the first amendment, freedom of the press, the press in the country when you call stories you don't like fake news? Why not just say it's a story I don't like — Trump: I do. Reporter: When you call it fake news, you're undermining the confidence in the news media. Trump: Here's the thing, I understand, you're right about that. Except I know when I should get good and when I should get bad. And sometimes I say, wow, that's going to be a great story, and I'll get killed. I know what's good and bad, I'd be a good reporter, but not as good as you. I know what's good. I know what's bad. And when they change it, and make it really bad, something that should be very positive, they'll make it okay. They'll even make it negative. I understand it. So because I'm there. I know what was said. I know who is saying it. I'm there. So it's very important to me. Look, I want to see an honest press. When I started out today by saying it's so important to the public to get an honest press. The public doesn't believe you people anymore. Maybe I had something to do with that, I don't know. But they don't believe you. If you were straight and really told it like it is as Howard used to say, right, of course, he had some questions also, but if you were straight, I would be your biggest booster. I would be your biggest fan in the world, incoming bad stories about me. But If you go, as an example, you're CNN, I mean, it's story after story after story is bad. I won. I won. The other thing, chaos. There's zero chaos. We are running — this is a fine-tuned machine. Reince happens to be doing a good job, but half his job is putting out lies by the press. You know, I said to him yesterday, you know, this Russia scam you are billing so that you don't talk about the real subject, which is illegal leaks. But I watched him yesterday working so hard to try to get the story proper. I'm saying, here's my chief of staff, a really good guy, did a phenomenal job at RNC, I may have won the election, right, won the presidency, but we got some senators, all over the country, take a look. He's done a great job. I said to myself, you know, I said to somebody there, look at Reince working so hard putting out fires that are fake fires. They are fake. They are not true. Isn't that a shame because he'd rather be working on health care. He'd rather be working on tax reform, Jim. I mean that. I would be your biggest fan in the world if you treated me right. I understand there's bias, maybe, by Jeff, whatever reason, but I understand that. But you've got to be at least a little bit fair. That's why the public sees it. They see it's not fair. You take a look at some of your shows and you see the bias and the hate, and the public is smart. They understand it. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. [ inaudible reporter question ] I think they don't believe it—I don't think the public — that's why the Rasmussen poll has me through the roof. I don't think they believe it. I guess one of the reasons I'm here today is to tell you the whole Russian thing, that's a ruse. That's a ruse. And by the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia, just so you understand that. That tomorrow you'll say: "Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia. This is terrible." It's not terrible. It's good. We had Hillary Clinton try and do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? A thing called nuclear weapons and other things like lots of things that are done with uranium including some bad things. Nobody talks about that. I didn't do anything for Russia. I've done nothing for Russia. Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of the uranium. Hillary Clinton did a reset, remember, with the stupid plastic button made us look like a bunch of jerks. Here take a look. He looked at her, like, what the hell is she doing, with that cheap plastic button? Hillary Clinton — that was a reset. Remember it said reset. Now, if I do that, oh, I'm a bad guy, but if we could get along with Russia, that's a positive thing. We have a very talented man, Rex Tillerson, who is going to be meeting with them shortly and I told them, I said, I know politically it's probably not good for me. Hey, the greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that's 30 miles offshore right out of the water. Everyone in this country is going to say, oh, it's so great. That's not great. That's not great. I would love to be able to get along with Russia. Now, you had a lot of presidents that have not taken that tack. Look where we are now. Look where we are now. So if I can — now, I love to negotiate things. I do it really well and all that stuff. But it's possible I won't be able to get along with Putin. Maybe it is. I just want to tell you, the false reporting by the media, by you people, the false, horrible fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia. And probably Putin said, you know, he's sitting behind his desk saying, you know, I see what's going on in the United States, they follow it closely. It's going to be impossible for President Trump to ever get along with Russia because of all the pressure he's got with this fake story. Okay? And that's a shame. Because if we could get along with Russia, and by the way, China and Japan and everyone, if we could get along, it would be a positive thing, not a negative thing. Tax reform's going to happen fairly quickly. We are doing Obamacare, we are in the final stages. We should be submitting the initial plan in March, early March. I would say. And we have to, as you know, statutorily and for reasons of budget. We have to go first. Frankly, the tax would be easier, in my opinion, but for statutory reasons and for budgetary reasons, we have to submit the health care sooner, so well submitting health care sometime in mid-March, and after that, we're going to come up, and we're doing very well on tax reform, yes. Donad Trump's History Making Press Conference Part 1 - Continue To Part 2

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